Robb x Gwen Master Archive [ 5 / 6 ]
And when its time to pray
We'll be dressed up all in grey
With metal on our tongues
And silver in our lungs
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Robb x Gwen Archive
Part ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX
a.k.a. No, really it's getting REALLY dramatic.
The voices are hushed, barely above whispers.
“We were lucky … still don’t know how …”
“… I prayed every day … times I thought I would never see …”
“What are those tears for? … Hush.”
“ … I’ve missed you, so much … ”
“ … did not my letters … give you solace? I thought you would …”
“ … of course I liked them, did I not tell you … I kept every one …”
“ … under your pillow, I bet.” A bit of snickering laughter, some of it high with the threat of tears. Catelyn frowns, pausing just outside the door. The past two years, ravens would come, and there would always be missives to her and Rickon and the girls.
And always one small note, folded with great care, for one of their servants - in her eldest son’s looping scrawl.
There had never been a reply, however, at least not one bound up with the rest of the family’s correspondence, and Cat had never thought much on it. In truth, she had thought the past two years of war would calm their affection for one another, which she had deemed mere, harmless child’s play. Gwen was a good girl, sensible and practical of mind, she would not do something foolish and unseemly, unlike many of those other girls that served this household. And Robb, she knew - she knew because she had raised him - would not be so unscrupulous, so careless, especially given his own father’s transgression, so long ago.
And so Cat had sat her stitching, and minded her children, but looked away all those years, and thought, with some odd, sick relief, that this war would temper youthful heads and hearts. Gwen would meet a young baker, or maybe see that the stable boy had been mooning after her for quite a while now. Robb would return - alive, safe, yes, whole - and the perils of battle would make him see what was most important.
But then, that incident in the yard … and now, confirmation that Gwen had replied to all those letters, however surreptitiously …
“Are you hurt very badly?” Gwen asks, after their giggles have died down.
At this, Robb pauses, before answering carefully, “Not very.”
“That means yes.” Gwen clucks her tongue in disapproval.
“Small pains, given what has happened to many.”
There’s a long silence after the gruffness of his statement, before Gwen murmurs, “I am so sorry. But I am glad it was them, and not you. That may be selfish, but it is the truth of the matter, even though it is a terrible thing to say.”
“You are too good to be terrible.”
Catelyn pushes the door open a crack, in time to see her son and the girl standing close together, her hand stroking his face and her own expression soft with the sweet tenderness and reverence a woman only reserves for those most dear to her - a look, she knows, that Catelyn herself had given to her lord husband, just a few moments ago.
“Robb,” Catelyn says, straightening to her full height as she folds her hands in front of her. Both of them quickly separate - Gwen flushes darkly, Robb looks slightly abashed but otherwise … calm. Ah. And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Had he been embarrassed or ashamed she could put a stop to this easily enough, be done with it in a heartbeat. “I wish to speak to you. Alone.”
“Lady Catelyn,” Gwen murmurs, dropping a deep curtsey, before shuffling away.
When the door closes, Catelyn eyes her son directly - he holds her gaze though, and she thinks, in the briefest of flashes, that this war did change him. “This is not Dorne,” she says, her tone level. “She may not be from Westeros but I know, even in her homeland that this is frowned upon.”
“I am aware of that.”
“And I will not stand for any other arrangement.”
Robb lifts his chin. “Nor I.”
“Then what do you propose?” Catelyn asks, spreading her hands, frustration reaching its peak.
“Before I left …” Here, he falters a bit, and suddenly he looks to her very much like the boy that left them, two years ago - young, innocent. Scared, and desperately fighting not to be, because he knows he cannot. “I did just that.”
“Robb,” Catelyn says, horrified.
“We’ve loved one another since we were children, Mother, I still - ”
“Robb.”
“Family, duty, honor. Tully words they may be, but we abide by them as well. And she is all of that, to me.” He chews his bottom lip, and says, quietly, “Mother - you have always said to us, that you never wanted us to be battered about, traded like chattel. You are right - Gwen is a good, sweet, girl. She’s been ever constant and true. I …” His voice trails off, and he shrugs, giving her a limp smile. He’s almost … blushing.
Cat pinches the bridge of her nose, hugging herself. Ah, what to do. What to do. It is easier when children are young, and cannot throw your own words back at you. The Seven help me. No, not youthful love anymore, is it?
“You have given me a lot to think on,” she mutters.
“But you will think on it?” Robb says, hopefully.
Cat rolls her eyes. “Just go and say hello to your sisters and brother,” she says, jerking her head towards the door. “They have missed you as much as I.”
Robb kisses her cheek, clearly grateful for this small offering. He’s limping from his leg wound, but he hurries away. The door shuts behind him and Catelyn sinks into the chair by the window, fretting. And I thought daughters would be trouble.[direct tumblr link | orig. posted Nov 2011 | fic added by amazing 3M, my captain, my king]
"Gods curse this winter," mumbles Lady Catelyn. "More than ten years, the Grand Maesters say. It's only the second and my bones ache as though they were Old Nan's." Gwen quietly takes her mantle when Catelyn shrugs it off and hangs it by the hearth to dry. After unpinning Lady Catelyn's hair, Gwen moves to prepare the bed warmers for the bed. She's thankful of the routine, which keeps Gwen's mind off of any worries about Lady Catelyn walking in on she and Robb a few days before. So far the lady hadn't brought it up with Gwen, something she was eternally grateful for. She wouldn't know what to do or say if she did.
"Are the girls abed?"
"Yes, milady. Abed, though perhaps not asleep."
Lady Catelyn nods at this. "Yes, and who's to blame them? It's been hard to sleep for two years. The girls have never seen a winter before now."
Gwen straightens herself after setting aside wood for the fire. "Might you need me for anything else, milady?" Lady Catelyn turns to her and with the flashes of firelight in her eyes, Gwen felt as though they were burning holes into her. After a long pause, something flickers in the lady's face and she shakes her head no.
The door opens and Lord Stark enters, and Gwen takes this moment to curtsey herself out. After grabbing the basket of clothes for the next day's wash, she closes the door behind her. Her grip on the handle slips and in that second, the basket slips off her hip and tumbles onto the floor. Sighing, she gathers everything up but stops at hearing her name.
"... Gwen? She's Tom's daughter. The Southron smithy, Tom. It's been years since he passed." To hear Lord Stark talking of her father makes her mind whir and her heart stop. It's true, Lord Eddard had always made an effor to invite those who served in the city to share his table from time to time: Farlen, Ser Rodrik, Hullen the Horse Master, and the Sept and Septa. Both Mikken and her father were both called to the table a few times, at least before Tom died of illness.
"But what do you think of her?" Lady Catelyn's voice sounded strained.
Lord Eddard responds with a chuckle.
"What's brought this on? Is she troubling you?" Gwen stills at this.
"No, no. She's the most capable maidservant this house has had in many years. As fond as I am of Gwen... I'm afraid your son is even more so."
"Rickon's known her all his life," says Lord Eddard, and Gwen hears the smirk in his tone. There's muffled laughter and a distinct sound of a smack on the arm. "I know it is Robb you speak of. But surely you've seen it before."
"I have, but I feel I've made a mistake in allowing it to go for so long," Catelyn says, and at this Gwen's throat closes. This was it - this was the end of it all. How did she think it would be any other way? A lord and a serving girl? Somewhere inside she always knew that it was near impossible - but whenever he would smile at her, tease her, just look at her - she felt like it could be. Gwen swallows her own crushing disappointment and takes the basket to leave - not caring to hear what she always knew.
-
Inside, Catelyn continues on. "Robb's a man now, and a man gone to war. It's time he did his duties, especially when King Robert has asked you to be Hand." Ned nods sullenly at the memory of Jon Arryn, cut down by an Other. The man was nearly thirty years his senior but fought as fiercely as a young buck. "The North will be his soon and what will others say to the idea of Robb and a serving girl."
"They'll say what they'll say," Ned says and Catelyn balks.
"You don't disapprove?"
"Of course I do, it would be easier to have Robb marry one of Lady Mormont's girls or Manderly's granddaughters down in White Harbor." Ned sighs, rubbing Cat's arms. "But winter is here and the Others beyond the wall - "
Catelyn watches him, noting all his hesitations - every flicker of his eyes back and forth as though he was living a memory. What brief letters he wrote to her had frightened her easily enough. The Others, hundreds of them awoken after thousands of years. "Ned?"
Ned swallows and looks down at her, seeing her. "It's a long, cold dark, Cat. If there is good to be found in what love Robb has for the girl, then let it be. I have taught him all that I can. Robb is a man grown, and more importantly he's of Stark and Tully."
Catelyn remembers the bright day of hers and her sister's wedding. There was no question that it was a union to further Robert's Rebellion. She was betrothed to Brandon Stark first after all, and although she sometimes wondered what it would have been like, she thanked the Maid that she was given Ned. Despite hard beginnings, her love for him blossomed even in the cold of the north. If all was proper, she would've been wife to Brandon Stark all those years ago. Oh, the strange games propriety and love played. And yet, she and Ned were only from two separate noble houses.
"And what of the bloodline?" She asks. "She can't even be traced back to any house. The girl's not even from Westeros."
Ned laughs, surprising her again. "Bloodlines, Cat? Bloodlines are a tool of the Targaryens. What those monsters did to keep their lines pure for years and years. The blood of the north is strong, Cat. The blood of the Starks runs deep. Look at Bran."
Her second son, Brandon who was named after her first betrothed, was being spoken of and whispered of all through Westeros. The Human Wolf, they said. The Knight of Wargs. His bond with his direwolf had awakened a deep spirit within him. The War of the Wights had only exacerbated it. He was a Warg of Old, a man that ran inside animals and felt their hunger and blood and being. The sigil of the Starks was the direwolf. Yes, Cat agrees. The blood is strong.
You wouldn't be able to tell with their children. Nearly all of them had the blue eyes and auburn hair of a Tully with the exception of Arya, who was an animal all her own. Arya, with her unnaturally tangled hair and dark stubborn eyes. Her beautiful Arya, who out of all the children, had only a match in Jon Snow.
Jon Snow. The mere thought made her blood boil, a name that stained Ned's honor so darkly. Ned's life was one of honor, the son of Lord Rickard Stark, fostered by Jon Arryn at the Eyrie whose house preached As High As Honor, brave Eddard Stark who rode with Robert Baratheon against the Mad King. And his one transgression, his only misdeed had to be at her cost. Jon Snow. What cuts deeper is his unbending resolution to tell her nothing. Nothing of the bastard's mother.
Never ask me about Jon. He is my blood and that is all you need to know.
In all her years with him, it was the one thing he denied her. And it was enough to plant the seed of hate for the bastard boy. Jon Snow, who's mother's honor was much more than hers.
Then she thinks of Robb and what children her eldest might sire on Gwen. Would they be bastards as well? Her son might marry her, title her Lady of Winterfell, but it is no hard thing to strip her of such should anything happen to Robb. The Starks were the strongest of the North, and even the smallest of houses would grapple to marry their own in alliance.
This is no small mountain to climb, Catelyn thinks. But perhaps that is the problem. She is thinking like a Southron, like the girl she grew to become in the riverlands. Even after twenty-five years in the North, she was still such a Tully. Cat looks at Ned, with his aged wrinkles and the scars all over his chest, a fresh one shining on his face. He looked more old and wounded than he did coming back from the rebellions, and yet he is younger somehow. Renewed.
These Old Gods are a wonder to be sure. The victory against the Others spread a great sigh of relief across the Seven Kingdoms. No one knew how they managed to overcome them, and for how long until the danger comes again - but this was a northern victory. Yes, the Seven Kingdoms won, but this was a northern victory. For two years, people have forsaken the Seven for the Old Gods, quickening even more when Robert's Host came riding back down the Kingsroad. It was a change of the tide.
And perhaps, it was not the only thing to change.
Is this what turned Ned so? What horrors has he seen that he would forsake duty? Did he even realize that Robb means to marry this girl? This is no young, fool's love, Ned.
"And should he want to wed her then?" Catelyn asks finally. Family. Duty. Honor. Will they forsake the last two completely? "Should he want to wed her, bed her, sire children on her?"
Ned wraps an arm around her waist and brushes his fingers through her hair. Even in the cold of winter, she warms.
"Ours is a gift, Cat," says Ned. "Others have not been so lucky. Your sister was a wretch even before Jon Arryn's death, Robert's whoring is done out of hate of the Lannister woman. My father, mother, brothers, sister - they're all dead, Cat. Long before their time. You are the only family I've left. Damn the Realm if I should forbid Robb what little happiness I can offer my firstborn."
Yes, it's always been family wasn't it, Ned? Catelyn smiles wryly, looking down at her fingers against his chest.
Yes, it really has been.[direct tumblr link | orig. posted Nov 2011]
[direct tumblr link | orig. posted Oct 2011]
"What more would you have me do?"
Only Maester Luwin and Robb have read the missive from King's Landing, and it's a miracle that she's the third to lay eyes on it. They're in the Wolfswood for their morning ride, a tradition Robb had established for them early in their marriage, when Robb pulls out the slip of a letter and unrolls it. Unsuspecting, though curious, Gwen takes in the words smoothly even as they make her stomach drop.
"Another war," she sighs, trying to bottle the rising anger in her. Anger that was wholly irrational but not necessarily uncalled for. "When you returned from beyond the wall, I thought -- silly as it was -- that I'd have you back for good."
Robb takes her hands -- shaking hands -- in his own, grievously. "Thankful it is only Lannisters to be rid of."
"Lannisters and Paynes, and Cleganes -- Swyfts and Marbrands, and if we're quite unfortunate, all of Dorne as well," she mutters past the lump in her throat. She recalls the lessons that Maester Luwin had taught her, in the weeks before the wedding, to prepare her in order to greet highborn guests and people too large and too small to notice her. And soon she sees flashes, images of faceless men with banners of red and gold running down northmen and she wonders who would be the one to cut down Robb. She thinks of the wickedness of men and resolves that they were all much safer against Others than Lannisters.
"I'm coming with you," she says and credits Robb for the little surprise he allowed on his face. "I'm ill-equipped for anything but fixing horseshoes and swords, but it's some good however small."
"No, you're needed here. Rickon needs you here," Robb shakes his head.
"Rickon is sixteen and well off on his own!" Gwen argues, the real idea of being left to sit idly behind stone walls wearing away her patience. Her lord husband seemed to have cottoned on to this, only drawing out the silence by bring their faces together enough for the points of their noses to dance around each other.
She hates his next words, because they're the wrong ones. They're not the words that will let her keep him close, to tend to his pains or soothe his miseries - to avoid more long months of wondering herself. They're words that will cut through all her stubborn will and useless hopes.
"I need you here. Mother intends to ride to Riverrun to bring Uncle Edmure to Father's cause, and that leaves you to tend to Winterfell's needs. Rickon may not be a child, but he is naive in what is required to keep the new lords in order. And the Wall is not to be forgotten. They need men and supplies to maintain the watch. The south is in a storm but it won't do to lose the north." Robb takes advantage of her slump of defeat and plants a kiss at her brow. "Rickon is my heir, yes, but you are a Stark now as well. And there must always be a Stark in Winterfell."
Gwen nods, still fighting the coil in her chest. It was never a matter of understanding. She always understood the need - the order of things, but she could never force herself to take it in stride. There will always be a rather large part of her that fiercely hated it. Gwen tucks the letter back into Robb's gloved hand and takes defeated steps away, her feet leading her off to some place where she'll calm her sensibilities and prepare for the duties to which she'd become accustomed.
[ direct tumblr link | orig. posted Jan 2012 ]
The air is rank with the odd scent of fresh snow and burning flesh. The chaotic fires around the walls show the dark stains upon the stone, and one could conclude a fierce battle. Though weapons were wielded, not one was used to slay. The only evidence was of charred corpses and collapsed cottages.
Pained, Gwen's patient moans as she cakes on a salve onto his burns. She grimaces and grits her teeth having to resolve to using a rather unclean bandage to wrap him up, but it would do for now. The doors of the Great Hall opens and in comes Robb swiftly, a trail of ashes and a smell of death in his wake.
[ direct tumblr link | orig. posted Jan 2012 ]
[direct tumblr link | orig. posted December 2011]
The wind howls against shut windows and even with the hearth lit and crackling, Gwen still shivers from the invisible cold. She tugs the thick needle through the heavy cloth, hoping the sacrifice of her freezing hands will give Robb new trousers. It was something she was pleased to discover from first working in the Stark household. The north was a vastly different creature than the south, and Septa Mordane gently taught her that every girl from poorhouse to court had to learn a seamstress's trade. Half of all of Sansa's clothes were sewn by her own hands and Gwen had a fair few lessons from the girl. In turn, Gwen found herself stitching up most of Arya's and the other Starks'.
Gwen is tucking away the spare thread when the door to their chambers open, and instead of Robb's immediate face, she sees Grey Wind bounding in. When once she would have tensed at being alone with the direwolf, she merely shakes her head now and smile. The beast had seen Robb through the war and she was thankful for it. Robb had told her countless stories of wights and Others, times he might have died if not for Grey Wind's ferocity and savagery.
"I suppose you expect some treats from now on, hmm?" she teases. The direwolf, sitting on his haunches beside the bed, pulls its mouth into a sickening smile - the furs around his mouth lined with blood from his meal. "Looks like someone else has taken care of that."
"He deserves no less," Robb's voice drifts into the room, and he shuts the door behind. Gwen can only nod her agreement and they fall into a comfortable silence. The last few days have been a trial. Tensions are high between the Starks and the Lannisters down south and Gwen knows Robb's concerned for his lord father. Some rumours are flying here and there about what's gone on. Some say Stannis plans a rebellion, others argue that Queen Cersei have only incestuous children with her twin brother, dead from the war. The Iron Throne is volatile.
Even so, that is the south and this is the north. What little comfort that brings.
Gwen rolls up the trousers and sets them aside, studying the way Robb's shoulders are stiff even unfastening his sword-belt and loosening his cloak. She slowly makes her way toward him, sliding her hand across his back then his shoulder, winding her away around to stand before him. "You're troubled," she says, not at all a mystery to either. "Your father?"
He nods, sighing, and lets her untie his jerkin and pull it off of him. "And the Karstarks." At this, Gwen swallows knowing the tension between the two kin houses were because of her. If it hadn't been for Robb's steadfast loyalty to her and Lord Stark's final commanding word, Rickard Karstark would easily see her gone or dead to make way for his own daughter to join their houses together. "But these are nothing for your worries."
"I've something for you," says Gwen, turning the subject elsewhere. She returns to the bedside and shows him the pants with particular pride. "Lord of Winterfell, now with hole-less trousers." He laughs, taking them from her with a kiss of thanks. Once he slides them on to see their fit, Gwen's smile drops a bit. The length of the legs fall far past his feet.
"You're getting very good at this," laughs Robb. Gwen doesn't react, only crosses her arms.
"Well, all those years away. I must've remembered you taller," Gwen smirks. "Is Bran not taller than you now?"
Robb scoffs his answer and Gwen comes up to him, giggling against his mouth. In moments, her hands are running inside his tunic, tracing the scars she only recently discovered. He's looking down at her with those heavy-lidded eyes and it makes her stomach churn. "I'll mend them tomorrow," she says, feeling suddenly shy.
"They've some use," Robb comforts, and at her confusion, he slides them off and tosses them over Grey Wind, blocking his face. Then he pulls Gwen, squealing and laughing, on top of him into bed.
[direct tumblr link | orig. posted April 2012]
To their horror, concerns about the stores start in the 6th year of the winter. Despite the yearly harvests, cities and towns alike were wary of newcomers and new beggars. Winterfell was no exception, but it's different in the north. Everyone had their parts to play and in turn, they earn their shares. That was why the Harvests were in place in the north. Every reaping brought food in plenty to Winterfell, but more yet they brought material needs: clothes, tools, specialty trades.
Gwen had learned that it was a remarkable system, even when she was on the periphery. Now, after been in the heart of things, and when the supplies are so strained - it was an ideal system for ideal times. When White Harbor can offer an excess amount of sea goods, they traded for wood and iron tools. Winterfell's harvests ensured that these pacts were honored and they were year after year. Winter was coming, after all.
"They say there's a heavy tax on entry into King's Landing now," Rickon says, bouncing his little niece on his knees. "And travelers are more likely to be robbed before they even get to the gates. If they're brave enough to travel at all." More people come to Winterfell everyday, most of them fleeing The Gift and Last Hearth.
Soon, even Robb has to concede. "We can't hold this many, and we can't feed them either. They would have been better suited if they stayed where they were. The Harvest was meant to see them through." But even he didn't mention that Winterfell held a larger share, being the capital of the North.
"So we leave them to starve?" she asks, incredulous. She didn't need to be persistent, he already knew what must be done. These were Northmen, and it didn't matter where north they had come.
"We'll be lucky if we last the next two years," Robb sighs. "But it would've been what my father wanted."
[direct tumblr link | orig. posted Nov 2011]
Robb and Maester Luwin are interrupted by the Angry Cook of Winterfell who pleads, "My lord, this had got to be stopped." At Robb's confusion, Gage throws his hands up - a dangerous utensil in each. "With respect, milord. It is a pleasure seeing one of us common folk as a lady, but I oughta have a say in me own cupboards." Curious, Robb finds his mother outside of a pantry, her face melting into relief when she sees him. "The girl's proved a steady head on her shoulders all these years, and this was long overdue."
"What's going on?"
Now his lady mother is surprised. "She hasn't told you?" At his confirming 'no', she shakes her head at him - an amused glint in her eye. "Better you speak with her alone then." Robb waits until the door to the kitchens is shut behind him and that no one means to enter before he steels himself. Taking a grip on the handle of the pantry, he peeks inside.
"Gwen?"
She ignores him, or doesn't hear him - he isn't sure - but his lady wife is bustling around the large pantry taking this and that off of shelves and piling them here and there. Gwen doesn't have on her usual coyote fur-lined cloak and being that they were in their 5th year of winter, Robb grows more worried. There's a brazier burning in the kitchen but the heat dips enough in the pantry that he could see his breath. "Gwen!"
Finally she turns and greets him beaming. "Hello!"
Oh, gods, he was terrified.
"First, stop," says Robb, when he sees her going for a sack of flour. "Gage's angry you've messed with his stores and you should know just how angry that is. Mother's concerned as well - though she's more convinced you've cracked. So please, do tell me before I send for Maester Luwin again." Gwen stills and swallows, hand over her mouth, and after a moment Robb sees her shiver involuntarily. He doesn't dare move yet, and doesn't dare break from her gaze. Finally, she slowly trails her hand from her face to her stomach and waits with baited breath for him to realize. "Oh."
Gwen shakes her head and breaks into a grin that mirrors his own. He takes her face between his hands and kisses her soundly on the mouth. "Gods, but how -- you were ill a few weeks past, how. Why haven't you told me?"
"It was silly, stupid -- I was happy at first but then I got to thinking. The Grand Maesters in Oldtown says this winter's to last for over a decade and who knows even then. And then one day, Old Nan starts on with her stories again and stop -- don't laugh. Stop it!"
He doesn't stop, "You thought we were going to smother our children?" Gwen watches his eyes crinkle as he makes light of her panic and feels embarrassed about it all now. Robb unclasps his cloak and throws it around her shoulders. "Come on, let's get you out before Gage comes in a rage - though you're doing a fine job at freezing yourself and the baby."
[direct tumblr link | orig. posted Feb 2012]
He had no recourse but to leave his lady wife so shortly after their argument. Greatjon Umber had called for him to help settle the warring small lords that had been recently raised to rule land from The Gift. And from Robb hears the small lords are volatile even without the addition of wildlings living on their land. Wildlings, grumbles Robb. Wildlings were the center of his and Gwen's argument. With Winterfell housing more people than it's used to when his lord father welcomed Mance Raydar's people to the north, they soon realized the conflict. There were too many additional people with too few places for them to stay. Some wildlings set to scour the land and the forest, other stayed within the walls of the city but either way, they had no real purpose here. They were wildlings, free and ungoverned, which means they gave and took and not by any lawful means - no system of living.
But because his father welcomed the wildlings on the condition that they do not violate the laws of the Old Gods, else they were to be banished beyond the wall again, that the tension has only stewed so far. Still, this meant whole wildling families had no work, earning no coin, and having no food than what was caught out in the Wolfswood. Gwen had come to him then, having just seen a group of wildlings living out of a tent just inside of the city gates - the wildling father with an ashen face and his children with too little meat to her tastes.
"Surely, we can offer them something? They can work in the castle, at least enough to earn them food." Gwen pleads behind their chamber doors.
"Whatever work we can spare for them won't make a difference, Gwen. They're wildlings, they're not likely to do work to earn something they already feel they've a right to."
Robb just sighs as Gwen chews on her lip, but otherwise says no more. They don't talk for a bit afterwards, and soon Ser Rodrik informs Robb of the petty warring up north. After three weeks away, and leaving Greatjon no more satisfied with the little lords than before, Robb finds himself home early one morning. Instead of riding into the city, raising the trumpets and worrying about duties, Robb falls back into the Wolfswood after ordering his men onward. There, he's pleased to see that he guessed right - that his lady wife had gone out to her morning ride even without him there. Riding aside her is Alyn of the houseguard, and Robb would be bothered by this if he didn't already know that Gwen wasn't pleased about the escort either.
Her face briefly lights up in surprise to see him, and Ser Rodrik excuses himself from Robb's side to take Alyn aside, leaving the lord and lady to their privacy. "Did it go well, with Tyrrk and Mill?" she asks with some awkwardness to her.
"Well enough, for now," Robb responds, eyeing his lady wife. "What is it you've done, Gwen?" And suddenly it's all very funny to him that he'd be surprised if she hadn't done anything.
After a big sigh, she confesses. "You took over two dozen men with you, I figure whatever food you would've eaten if the lot of you were still here could be given to the families. It wouldn't be missed and it made no real difference to our stores. There still wasn't enough for all of them, but it was something." At Robb's pensive look. "And Rohg, he accepted to work in the kitchens - he's clumsy, but he's willing and he's got children."
"... And what did Gage say too all this?"
"He might've been too red in the face to say anything at the time."
Robb chuckles, shaking his head. "Lady of Winterfell, Protector of Wildlings." Gwen beams.
On to part 6