THE BLOODS OF BOLTON | GAME OF THRONES

CHAPTER 2

HAND IN HAND, Lady Bolton and her daughter walked down the riverbank while their horses stayed behind and grazed on the tall green grasses. The sky was cloudy and grey. The cold winds were blowing, but the furs kept Drucilla warm. Her mother was right; it felt nice to get out of the castle, even for a little while. 

When they had gone to fetch the horses, the stablemaster urged them to take a few guards with them. "It's not safe for two women to go out there alone," he had said. "You never know what kind of folk you might run into." But Lady Bolton refused him. She knew she would never be able to relax if she was being followed by her lord husband's men. They watched her enough already.

While Drucilla skipped rocks across the rippling water, her mother kept a close eye on her. "Don't get too close to the water," she warned. "The current is stronger than you think. It'll suck you right in."

But rarely do children ever listen to their mothers. Deanna was no exception.

She'd always loved the water, thought she might've been a fish in another life. Every day she would ask if she could go play in the river. "I'll stay in the shallow end," she always promised, and when she looked up at her mother with those big green eyes, it was impossible to refuse her.

One time, however, Lady Bolton did refuse her. "The current is too strong," she said, "and the waters are too cold."

But Deanna went to the river anyway, that stubborn child.

Only the gods knew how she'd managed to pass through the gates unseen, and they didn't protect her. A fisherman pulled her out of the water hours later. By then, her body was as cold and stiff as a block of ice.

Another soul for the Weeping Water, thought Lady Bolton as she gazed into the murky river. Lady Marilynn must have been lonely.

Marilynn Umber was the first wife of Lord Roose Bolton and sister of the Greatjon. She was a fair and soft-spoken maiden, barely fourteen on the day of her wedding, with a small and delicate frame. Most considered her an anomaly of an Umber, as most of her relatives were rather large and boisterous people. Giants among men, some said, and easily angered. Perhaps that was why Lord Bolton told the Greatjon that his dear sister had succumbed to a fever. It sounded much gentler than the truth, after all, and suicide was never welcome news.

Nobody knew why she'd done it, but everyone had their suspicions: farmers, fishermen, farriers, even stableboys. She'd never been very happy at the Dreadfort, Lady Marilynn. Small wonder why. No foreigner ever felt at home in the Dreadfort. But she seemed especially miserable, refusing to eat or drink, refusing to sleep. Some claimed she couldn't sleep, that the voices of the dead were keeping her awake at night, and they convinced Lady Marilynn to walk into the Weeping Water on that cold winter night.

And maybe they did. Most, however, believed it was the pressure to produce an heir that eventually drove Lady Marilynn to suicide, but they knew better than to speak about it in Lord Bolton's presence.