King Robb watched a hawk fly. He was on horseback, and from his saddle height he could see over the godforest shrouded in mist above the Longfellow, and the snow-capped peaks of the mountains beyond the Wall. Above, on these peaks, once dwelt the ancestors of the Starks, the Kings of Winter, who used their bows to knock the wildlings from their high thrones and force them into their service. Now the wildlings own those mountains, the fallen Starks all of the past, in the groves of Winterfell they raised statues to their ancestors. Roose, the head of the allied House of Bolton, and his son Ramsay now stood silent on their broad-backed, iron-bodied horses, trained for the hunt. They had already let loose their disciplined hounds, but solo hunting was not their trade. Only the free sons of the desert of Winterfell were worthy of this noble art.
- 'Look, father,' said young Ramsay, 'the King of the North is the old gods' minion. He has shot a pheasant, and now a deer driven by dogs. Look, there's the other bloodhound beating the hare!
- King Robb never misses the mark, said Roose, trying to smile, - I brought you here, my boy, precisely to learn from him.
- I want to learn everything from him, father. Thank you!
The twenty-five-year-old man, without asking his father, began to gallop, the powerful horse snorting and galloping until it reached the top of a hill. Robb's eyes followed the youth's form, his dark brown hair, his hands with the ring of the skinned man that marked the man who had vanquished his foes. From here Ramsay could see clearly down the valley, his keen eyes following Robb's hawks. His father's retinue, an army of leather-clad knights leaning on broad-bladed swords, would have marched to the south lawn as a bodyguard, but Robb ordered them back with a single wave of his hand. The tagged Boltons stiffened into statues, like thunderbolts of the old gods striking the sky.
- Leave it, Lord Bolton! You brought your son here to help us win. To make a man of him. Ramsay learn how the Starks hunt with eagle, hawk, dog. Let him see everything, if that's what he wants to see.
The grey-eyed man nodded in acknowledgement.
- My King! As I promised, I give my son into your hands. Make him a good warrior, worthy of Bolton House.
Robb smiled proudly and stroked his freshly washed, carefully combed hair.
- Three more days, my dear lord - the address was a little patronising to a man a good twenty years older than himself, but Roose let it pass his ear - and your son will fight with your knights on the borders of Dorne! Perhaps I will give him the Boltons' present lands, or Dreadful Castle.
Robb thought of the wooded, fertile land to the north that he and his bastard brother Jon Snow had conquered during their father Eddard's reign.
- Would that not be too great a gift for my son, sire King? What would the Lord of King's Landing say?
Robb laughed.
- King's Landing will be all mine by then, Roose. He'll pay rent with the Lord of Casterly Rock, or I'll have their hides saddled on my horses!
- "The North is given to you, my king," he muttered, "and we serve you so that we may live in glory in this world.
Robb smiled. The sun glowed yellowish on the horizon. Its warm light spread over Winterfell like a blanket of wool. The hawk soared in the sky as proudly as one who salutes the God of Seven. Robb took in the sight. His immersion seemed to be felt by his falcon. The sun, the falcon and he were one in this blessed moment. Robb was soaked in the moment, awakening the childhood in his heart that twenty-six winters had not banished from his body or his soul. If his newest, growing number of allies - the Karstarks, Boltons, Umbers, Glovers, Dustins, and Tallharts - will follow, and must follow, his plan to defeat Tywin Lannister will be fulfilled. Stannis will be one rein in Robb's hand and Tywin the other. And Eddard's bastards, Casta and Jon Snow? He'll get them from Robert too, it's just a matter of time working for him. He'll need every Stark-born man to keep Cregan's inheritance, the throne of Winterfell. His birth father planned to hold the North all the way to the Sun West Sea. Which Tywin thwarted. But he will be wiser than Eddard, and more cunning than Tywin. The means of exercising dominance is the alliance. It is the alliance in which the blood of the Starks seeps through the veins of their descendants, and shapes the souls and swords of the men who now live in different lands across the realm into the beats of a single heart with unyielding power. One day, there will be no Lannisters, no Baratheons, no overseas, only the Sons of Stark House of the North to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Tywin has wrested power from Eddard's hands, and has proclaimed himself heir to Winterfell. The King's Landing will soon be over. No empire that usurps the kingdom of the wolves can long survive. The Baratheons will pay for their treachery with death, and the Lannister descendants will sooner or later face the vengeance of the Winter Kings. This is the law of Eternal Winter! He must create a unity that cannot be destroyed by treachery or the unexpected death of a Helper. He will not be foolish to use nefarious means to further the inevitable doom of the Northern Empire and others. He reached out his leather-gloved hand and his hunting hawk landed upon it with a bloody slab of flesh in his beak. Robb gazed at it with rapture. With the beauty of the falcon's plumage, the curve of its beak, the majestic movement of its wing, its eyes of fierceness, the power that created and shaped the world looked back at the King of the Starks. Only at sunset did Robb and his allies return to camp after a successful hunt. He paid no attention to the tributes of the assembled warlords or the throngs of suitors gathered outside the tent. He could not concern himself with such trifles now. The Lord of Casterly Rock will never agree to his demands unless he shows sufficient strength. Robert will fight for Tywin at the eastern extremities, but he cannot be counted on to raise new troops along the Narrow Sea, nor when Tywin, left without troops after the disgraceful campaign against Stannis Baratheon, is finally dead and the time to take over is at hand. Let Robert fight for Tywin, and bleed and fall, if he is so foolish: the subject houses are already rebelling against the usurpers, and he has made more alliances than ever. Would the defeated "Great King Baratheon" dare to send him orders after all this? He had much more confidence in Renly Baratheon, but he now leads the Lannister battalions in his brother's mercenary service against the Dothraki and the wildlings. He needs new men, new and fresh knights, warriors he can "make into Starks." He needs the people, the leaders, the warlords gathered at his command to see who he is. The scion of the Ancient One of the North, first-born son of the heroic Ned Stark, the only true heir to the throne of Winterfell! Varys's silken voice was as if cold, jelly fingers had unexpectedly touched his face. He involuntarily snapped his head up as he heard the eunuch's unmanly speech. Robb invited him to Winterfell because he needed a master of whisperers who was not only a member of King Robert's small council, but also a knower of the secrets between the South and their allies in the realm, secrets that all eyes and ears could not fathom. With Robb's permission, the guards outside the king's tent let Varys through without prior notice. Robb knew that the eunuch had long lived as a hostage in the Free Cities, the seat of Myr, where he had been stripped of his manhood by the slavers' masters. Naively and to their ruin, his torturers believed that this would break him completely, eradicating desire and will from him and turning him into a grinning slave. They paid a heavy price for their mistake, for he was waiting for the opportunity. One night, he killed his captors, and Varys escaped across the city's sewers to offer his services to the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. And Robb is in great need of brave and resourceful men.
- What do you want, Varys? The applicants can all wait. I want to rest now!
The eunuch bowed.
- My lord, King Robb. A petitioner has come to you today with whom it is imperative that you speak.
- Imperative? - Robb raised his eyebrows. - Speak then!
The eunuch leaned in close and Robb could smell the sickening odour of wine mixed with cloves on his breath. The large, dark eyes seemed to search where the slit was in the corduroy worn under his fur coat.
- My lord, I did not know if I found you alone.
- Speak!
- I had better bring her before you, great king.
Robb nodded curtly. He sat down on the throne, an iron chair set on a raised wooden platform, a special piece of furniture that his ancestors had looted during the campaigns of Aegon the Conqueror.
- Who is the applicant?
- A wildling girl. She says she knows the enemy's plan.
- Wildling girl?
- From Beyond the Wall. Her name is Wild Osha, and she claims to know the magic of Melisandre, the Red Woman.
Robb didn't know what to think.
- What are these magics, Varys?
- Evil things, the eunuch said, his face darkening.
- I thought such things were extinct in the land of Westeros. But apparently not yet.
Robb could see that the eunuch was hiding something.
- What magic or vision is there that my men would not be able to defeat if I commanded them?
- My lord," the eunuch bowed again, "I believe there are things under the sky that your warriors, whom you call iron wolves, are not capable of. I have seen how such an alchemist, condemned to death for quackery and blasphemy by the heretical Warrior Faith sect, was burned to death in the city's main square. Long have people whispered that the next day more than one saw him walking alive through the streets of King's Landing. If I hadn't seen the man at the docks myself, if I hadn't heard his laughter, I wouldn't believe that the devil was helping them all.
Robb folded his arms with interest.
- What does a wildling girl want with me?
- She wants to serve you.
- Come in. We'll see what she has to offer. And if the Lord of Dragonstone tries another assassination attempt on me, you know what to do!
The eunuch nodded, the hairs growing out of his bald head reminding Robb of the shedding skin of a dragon he had seen in a dark, terrifying dream one night. He shivered, a chill running down his spine. Many call themselves blood mages, scholars of divine secrets, but most are trashy tricksters. All he could sense was a darkness surrounding the camp. The guards moved aside with a low clatter of weapons as the eunuch hurriedly folded up the ever-tightly closed horse-skin covers of the tent. A stooped, slightly limp woman entered in the usual brown bear-coat of the northern wanderers. There was apparently nothing strange about her appearance, and she knelt down immediately on seeing King Robb seated on his throne. When Robb snapped his fingers, she raised her head and looked deep into his eyes. The woman, who called herself a witch, was good-looking, brown-haired and fierce-eyed, perhaps a few years older than Robb at a glance.
- Speak now, stranger!
The woman spoke well in Valyrian, a language Robb had long known and could distinguish from the Northern.
- Melisandre from Asshai came to Dragonstone because she knew the desires of Stannis Baratheon's heart. Her order, which serves the God of Flame and Shadow, Stannis lifted at the suggestion of the outer darkness. He forced his own priests to renounce their faith in the old gods, under the burden of rank and bounty. Having sacrificed several of his loyal servants to the Lord of Light, Stannis wants King Robb to follow his practice by serving him and erecting a shrine to the god R'hllor in the land of Winterfell. In return for the Starks' loyalty, he will give something King Robb wants.
- How does Stannis know what I want?
- The red woman knows your desires too.
- How does she know?
- Everyone in the land of Westeros has heard of the great King Robb. She knows because R'hllor has hidden nothing from his faithful priestess.
- Why should I believe you?
The eunuch looked at the woman who had asked him a question. Varys smiled and bowed his head.
- She asks you for a chance to show what she can do.