CATELYN

The clatter of metal, angry shouts and curses from afar filled Catelyn's ears. Faint music of birds and bleating of sheep rang like thunderclaps. Aside from them, the courtyard of Riverrun was silent.

Two stout armed men in ringmail dragged in a struggling figure, with four others around them. He was bruised and slim and dirty and shaggy-bearded. If not that she had already known since her son's arrival at Riverrun yesterday, Catelyn could not have named him. When the hands held behind his back reached once again for a weapon, one of the guards hit him with a gauntleted hand. The captive cried out and blood dripped down his face.

"Leave him," Robb said.

They stepped away—though not far—and at once the captive flung an arm before his face to ward off the glare of sunlight. When he put it down, she recognised the yellow hair and catlike eyes of Ser Jaime Lannister.

The sight of Bran pale and motionless on his sickbed flashed through Catelyn's mind, and she could not help but feel a rush of hate.

Squinting in the golden light of noon that bathed the men sworn to House Stark, the Kingslayer beheld the arrayed northern lords, standing with their guards and squires and kinsmen, all dressed in exquisite finery. The Greatjon scowled down at him in a handsome doublet that could have fit three of Catelyn. The Smalljon beside him was scarcely less vast. Galbart Glover, short and brown-haired and bushy-bearded, was garbed in red silk with the white mailed fist of his House. Grey-haired Lady Maege wore an elegant surcoat with the bear of Mormont embroidered on a field of green, without her usual ringmail. And the tall, thin Lord of Karhold, Rickard Karstark, was mantled in black, with the white sunburst of his House less resplendent than his smile.

She saw the Kingslayer's blinking eyes move to the fore of the column, where she stood, and then, between herself and her uncle Brynden, to the crown of bronze and iron that rested on the red-maned head of her son.

"Stark," he said slowly, in a hoarse voice cracked like old dry mud.

"Ser Jaime Lannister," Robb said, his voice clear and cold. "You are brought here in my presence for the crimes you've committed, against the laws of gods and men."

"Oh?" Lannister lifted a golden eyebrow. Battered and beaten as he was, there was still a certain beauty about him. "And what supposed crimes would be those?"

He sounded detachedly curious. If he feared his peril, there was not a flicker of it on his tongue.

"Many," said Robb. "Usurpation, incest, murder, and breaking the oaths you are sworn to uphold."

"A hefty list, to be sure," Jaime Lannister said dryly. He spoke not a word of insult, but every man in the courtyard could hear the mockery. "Do you have any witnesses for that? Any cause to believe it? Or are we all merely to take it from your word?"

"Some men's words are more trustworthy than yours," Robb said, rising slightly to the bait, "but we are not here to listen to your glib tongue." He gave a short sharp gesture. "Mother."

Catelyn said, "When this man was my guest in Winterfell, there came a day when King Robert went hunting, along with my lord husband and the other menfolk. Save for the Kingslayer, who stayed behind, with the queen. My son Bran has climbed a certain abandoned tower many times, and never suffered harm. It is a place he is—was fond of."

Her voice choked, when she said that.

She went on. She had to. "Yet on that day, on that abandoned tower in Winterfell that he knew so well, he fell from a great height and almost died. Ill luck, I would have thought, and did think—till the day a hired killer crept into Bran's bedchamber with a knife. I know this because I was there. I saw him. I confronted him. He gave me this."

She held up her hands, showing the scars upon her fingers, viciously deep. A low murmur rumbled through the assembled lords and ladies and folk of the north.

"Three mighty men died in King's Landing, less than a year from one another," Catelyn continued. "Lord Arryn, our honourable Hand of the King. The king himself. My Ned. That is too much to be coincidence."

"Lord Arryn was old as sin, it's no wonder—" Jaime said, until he was punched in the stomach.

"All of them stood between House Lannister and utter control over the Iron Throne, yes," Catelyn said, "but there is more to it than that. The Lannisters meant to murder my Bran too, there can be no doubt of that, and he posed no threat to them. How could he? He was a boy of seven namedays. Seven."

The murmur grew louder, rising in outrage. "Shame!" cried a young lordling sworn to Hornwood, and Lord Karstark growled, "Child-murderer," with venom in his voice.

"Why try to kill him?" Catelyn asked them all. "They sought to kill him, not Robb, and Bran was too young to lead an army. Why—if not for something he had seen?"

"So we have it," said Robb. "Kingslayer, you are accused of cuckolding your king by committing adultery with your own sister, siring abominations against the laws of gods and men. And of deceiving all true men about your treason, so that they would fight for an abomination against their king. And of fighting and killing good men to perpetrate a usurpation. What have you to say in your defence?"

When her son finished speaking, the northmen jeered and spat at the captive. Ser Jaime tried to speak, but he could not be heard over the insults.

"Enough!" Robb called. "Enough! We will hear what he has to say."

"So that is your reason to believe it," Lannister said. "An old man sickens and dies. That happens every hour of every day; many men take sick and go to the Stranger at that age. A drunkard who loves hunting—tell me that is not what Robert was, I dare you; name me a liar when every man of you knows it is true—"

"Liar," Lord Karstark said at once.

"Warrior defend me, you're tiresome," Lannister said, rolling his eyes. "An old man sickens. A drunkard and hunter gets drunk and hunts, and goes the wrong way of a boar. And your Ned tries to overthrow a king and fails, and suffers the usual consequence." He made a show of looking around, wide-eyed. "I don't quite see the conspiracy."

"All in quick succession, shortly after each other," said Robb, unamused. "If they happened years apart, that would be another matter. And there is my brother Bran."

"Oh yes," Lannister said. "Never mind that it is far more suspiciously convenient that this tale of incest should emerge now, with King Robert helpfully dead, to put Lord Stannis and Lord Renly closer to the Iron Throne. Some vicious cutthroat comes after your brother—they exist, unfortunately; that's why castles should have guards—and you say I bought him, because of… what?"

"The dagger your man tried to kill my son with," Catelyn said. She had expected this question; her answer was prepared. "Your brother's dagger. Valyrian steel, an uncommon make. He won it at the joust on Joffrey's nameday, wagering on the Knight of Flowers, when nigh every other man wagered on you."

"A lie," said Jaime.

Her son's thin clean-shaven face became a mask of fury. "No man calls my lady mother a liar in my presence."

"I didn't say it was her lie," Jaime said, "I said it was a lie." He turned to Catelyn. "You weren't there at Joffrey's nameday, so it's plain that someone told you this. Whoever he was, he lied. Any man who attended tourneys in King's Landing or Casterly Rock could have told you that; if you'd asked them, you would have known my brother always bets on me." He gave an artful shrug. "Tyrion is like that. He is loyal to his family."

Stranger take him, could he be telling the truth? Catelyn wondered. She recalled that Tyrion Lannister had told her the same, when they were travelling together in the Mountains of the Moon. Lannisters lie, she knew. I should not listen to their silver tongues. No other had any cause to kill Bran. Yet Tyrion and Jaime had not spoken to each other since the former left Winterfell, and they were telling the same lie…

She sought to remain impassive, but the Kingslayer read her face. "Even Lady Stark doubts it now," he said. "I know not who told you about that dagger, Lady Stark. But mayhaps he—or the man he heard it from—isn't as honest as you hope he is."

A different-sounding murmur ran through the courtyard, the delicate touch of uncertainty. Even the Greatjon looked thoughtful. The Kingslayer's honeyed words had slithered into their ears. Rickard Karstark's thin face twisted with anger. Catelyn struggled with thoughts fluttering in the wind, fragile as the wings of a butterfly. My son cannot be seen as unjust, but we must convict him. We mustn't let him off now. "Nobody but House Lannister had any reason to want to hurt my son."

"Why do you think so?" said Jaime. "Because an old man died, and a drunk hunter hunts poorly?"

"Enough," Robb cut in. He turned to Catelyn. It still gave her a start whenever she noticed once again that his head was higher than hers now. Her son addressed her formally: "My lady of Stark, do you have reason to believe the word of the man who told you is less trustworthy than Ser Jaime's?"

It took all her composure not to let out a sigh of relief. Clever, she thought, admiring her son's way out of the trap. "Your Grace, it is the word of Lord Petyr, a ward of your lord grandfather's, against the word of the oathbreaker who killed the king he was sworn to protect."

Those words fell like hammer-blows. She felt the thoughts of the men in the courtyard turn with them.

"Very well," said Robb. He turned back to the Kingslayer. "Ser Jaime Lannister, of the noble order of the Kingsguard, I judge you guilty of usurpation, breach of guest right, attempted murder, incest, adultery—"

"You wretch, how dare you?" Jaime Lannister spat, rising to his full height. The guards sprang at once to his sides and wrestled him down. "You judge me guilty because of Aerys? You? A Stark?"

"I do," Robb said.

"By what right? You have less right than anyone to condemn me for that. Did Ned Stark never tell you how your grandfather died?"

"That is not pertinent," said Robb. The guards holding down the Kingslayer had armour. He had none. Despite that, he fought them every step of the way, as shaggy and golden and fierce as if he were a true lion in chains. It took effort not to step back, daunted.

"Oh it is. When he heard the claims about his sister, your uncle Brandon rode to the Red Keep demanding to fight Prince Rhaegar. 'Come out and die', those were his words. He found no prince, though, only the king, and the king had him arrested for threatening murder on the blood royal. King Aerys summoned Brandon's lord father to court, your grandfather, Rickard Stark. He came, and Aerys had him arrested too."

"Yes, and he killed them," Robb said impatiently. "This is known."

"This isn't," Jaime Lannister said, shouting over the jeers of the northern lords. (The Greatjon roared, "Just kill him, sire!") "Your lord grandfather demanded a trial by combat. He thought to face one of the Kingsguard. Instead, when he came into the throne room in full plate armour, Aerys hung him from the roof and told his pyromancers to set a fire. The Targaryens have always loved fire. Fire was the champion of House Targaryen, Aerys said. Lord Rickard would win the trial, would be proven innocent, if he didn't burn. The pyromancers cooked him carefully, fanning the flames. King Aerys liked it slow; he liked to watch, you see, and if it was over too quickly he complained about the lack of spectacle. They brought your uncle Brandon in while his father was still burning, and chained his hands, and put a cord of leather round his neck, with his sword only just out of his reach. Lord Rickard could be saved, Aerys said, if only Brandon could reach him. Brandon tried, oh yes he tried. He strangled himself trying."

Sometime, somehow, the courtyard had gone quiet. Even the wind was still. The only noise was bleating and birdsong from afar. The king's squire, little Rollam Westerling with his chestnut curls, turned around and was violently sick.

"I killed him, yes," the Kingslayer said. "I won't deny it. For that you judge me." He spat on the ground. "Know that is the man you are mourning."

There was a long silence.

Rickard Karstark recovered himself first. "And that makes you any less a murderer?" he asked derisively. "You truly think we'll believe you murdered your king for the sake of our Lord Stark?"

"I didn't say that," said Lannister.

They ignored him. "Sire, don't heed the Kingslayer. He spits on mercy and honour and oaths," Galbart Glover appealed to Robb. "He has never lifted a finger in his life, and never will, for any man who's not a Lannister."

"Aye," said Catelyn's uncle Brynden, disgust written plainly on his face. "He didn't do it for the victims of the Mad King, he did it for his father, since Lord Tywin found it convenient to have someone inside the walls to help him sack the city and butcher women and babes."

Jaime's face was flushed with wrath. "No, you brute," he snapped in swift, unthinking retort, "I killed him because of the wildfire."

There was a pause. For a moment she thought even the Kingslayer seemed taken aback at what he had said, but soon his face turned back to the usual rage and contempt. It seemed he enjoyed seeing shock and dismay on their faces.

Catelyn recalled the letter from Edmure's man in the crownlands, describing the Battle of the Blackwater. Lord Renly's rebels attempted to cross the Blackwater… In the battle the king's men unveiled a monstrous new weapon, wildfire in quantities that no man believed possible, thousands of jars. Nobody yet knows how… the rebel host was panicked and driven to rout…

She said, "What wildfire?"

"Aerys's wildfire. All over King's Landing," Jaime Lannister said tersely. "The pyromancers put it there for him before I killed them. He kept it hidden from everyone except me, the last of his Kingsguard that he had near him, and only me because he kept me around him always, he was so afraid. The Mad King feared everything and everyone else. By the end he even feared Varys; he didn't trust him as much as he once had; that was why he listened to Pycelle instead. It was the Mad King's best-kept secret. Not even Varys knew. But I knew."

Nobody could be so mad. The thought of the capital in flames… It was terrible even to contemplate. The northmen exchanged glances, troubled. Whispers floated on the wind across the column of watching northern lords.

"Why?"

"It was after the Battle of the Trident. Robert Baratheon was coming for the crown. Aerys would do anything to deny it to him. 'The traitors want my city, but I'll give them naught but ashes,' he said in my hearing. 'Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat.'"

When he spoke as Aerys, his voice changed, crackling and echoing with remembered malice. Mother be merciful, Catelyn thought, shuddering to think of it.

"They would have had me do naught about it," Lannister added. "You know the men I mean. Barristan the Bold, Jon Darry, Oswell Whent, old Hightower the White Bull. Him most of all. Your father, too, who only had to look at me to judge me guilty and hold me in contempt. Just be silent and serve, Gerold Hightower told me, whenever I saw Aerys burn a man alive, or heard him bite Queen Rhaella and make her scream, or when I spoke any word to Prince Rhaegar that wasn't 'Yes, my prince'. Be silent and serve. Obey. Do not question. Do whatever they would have of you; that is lawful. Mayhaps I should have; doubtless memory would be kinder to me, that way."

The Kingslayer gazed around, clasped hard in the gauntleted fists of Riverrun guards. His green eyes caught Robb's blue, flashing with resentment.

"I see much of them in you," he hissed, staring up at the young king. "Lawful. Dutiful. Doing what is expected of you. Doubtless, if it were you, you would have done what they wanted, and King's Landing would have blazed to let you avoid the name of oathbreaker. And you would be much-mourned, the good honourable knight, remembered in song as Ser Robb the True."

Robb flinched at that as if it were a barb. Hearing Jaime's tone, Catelyn was not sure it was meant to be.

Her uncle Brynden stepped in between Ser Jaime and the king. "We are not here to hear you insult His Grace," the Blackfish said. "This is a trial."

"Yes," said Lannister. "It is that."

"Thank you, Uncle," her son said, gathering his wits. He looked down at Ser Jaime. "That is a very moving story, Kingslayer. Beautifully told. There is one matter: do you expect any of us to believe it is true?"

More whispers ran lightfoot across the column.

"You are a murderer, an adulterer, an oathbreaker," said Robb. "Any man can say pretty words that would excuse his sins if they were true. Do you truly think the men of the north as such fools as to believe a word from your lips? Your brother helped show us, when he tried and failed to break you free by sending cutthroats dressed as envoys under a truce banner. Your sister helped show us, when she falsely claimed to have my sister Arya as a hostage to trade for you, as we learnt when Renly Baratheon took King's Landing." Robb had placed that comment there deliberately, Catelyn was sure; she watched the Kingslayer jerk as if he had been struck. "Lannisters lie. We would be as mad as Aerys, making Aerys's mistake, if we were to place our trust in you."

Further whispers, slithering over the silence. The northern lords' faces, once troubled, were now again self-assured, again convinced. Rickard Karstark was smiling. Catelyn felt foolish for paying Ser Jaime's words as much thought as she had. Lannisters were liars. It had sounded sincere, to be sure, but how could she know that Jaime had not just invented it all out of nothing? Jaime Lannister was a known oathbreaker, and now he had supreme motivation to tell whatever lies he thought might save himself.

Robb said, "Rollam, my sword."

The curly-haired little squire hefted a longsword much too big for him and presented its oaken hilt to the king. It is much too big for Robb too, Catelyn thought, fearing that her son would look small, like a boy wearing his father's clothes; but Robb took it up easily in his hands, and she perceived that it fit him. Over the red hair that tumbled loosely to his shoulders, the crown rested easily now.

The guards closed in. Jaime Lannister lashed out and tried to make a break for freedom, but they were six and he was one, and the kicks he flung at their shins hurt himself more, for they were armoured, and resulted in them holding both his hands and feet. They dragged him to the block that had been set up this morning and forced him to bend down.

"You fucking scum!" Lannister bellowed. Not for a moment did he give in; not for a moment did he stop struggling. "You'll pay for this, my father will come for you, my brother—"

"They will try," said Robb. "Your son slew my father and likely my sister, and you meant to slay my brother too. Did you think your House can do that with impunity? It is not only Lannisters who pay their debts." He lifted the sword. "Would you speak a final word?"

"You have no right to judge me," Jaime Lannister said.

The sword fell.

The first cut slew. It took four more to hack all the way through the bone and send the Kingslayer's golden-haired head rolling. At the end of it, Robb stepped away, his clothes drenched red. He had to clear blood from his eyes.

Rickard Karstark strode forward and spat upon the bloody corpse. "Good riddance."