The King of Winters

Chapter 55

Andrew

The Hornwoods came in on a cold windy morning, bringing a hundred horsemen and near thousand foot from their castle at Hornwood. The steel points of their pikes winked in the pale sunlight as the column approached. A man went before them, pounding out a slow, deep-throated marching rhythm on a drum that was bigger than he was, boom, boom, boom.

Andrew watched them come from a guard turret atop the outer wall, standing vigil near the dragon's head. Lord Halys himself led them, his son Daryn riding beside him beneath orange banners sporting the black bull moose of their House.

They were the last, he knew. The other lords were already here, with their hosts. Once Andrew would have loved to ride out among them, to see the winter houses full to bursting, the jostling crowds in the market square every morning, the streets rutted and torn by wheel and hoof. Once when these men came under his father's command. They were his men now, not his father's and Andrew wasn't sure if he yearned to meet them as he once did.

He had met all these lords with their banners before, when they had come to Winterfell to fight wars and meet father. Thrice his father had fought Rhaegar in war and thrice he defeated the dragon king in the wars between their kingdoms. Andrew remembered seeing them and their banners twice when they came to Winterfell to march for battle. He had only been a babe at his mother's breast the first time his father called his banners against the Targaryens but the next two times he remembered seeing all of them in the yard, once perched at his mother's hip and the last clutching at her skirts. It almost seemed strange seeing them here now coming under his call. He remembered the mailed fist of the Glovers, silver on scarlet; the black bear of the Mormonts; the hideous flayed man that went before Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort; the white ironwood with the black sword for the Forresters; a battle-axe for the Cerwyns; three sentinel trees for the Tallharts; and the fearsome sigil of House Umber, a roaring giant in shattered chains. All of them, his father's men and now his men.

A year ago, before, he would have gladly visited them in the yard and received them as his father would do. In those days he was not much aware of what he might say to them when he sees them. Now that the moment was very much nearing he dreaded the whole thing. They brought the armies with them though, that thought should comfort him the very least.

And soon enough he would see their faces again, when he would have to show himself for the lords and their sons and knights who had come to Winterfell to see him. He wondered if the Great Hall would be large enough to seat all of them at once. His father used to seat all the lords and their sons inside, that might do.

"How many is it now?" Andrew asked Maester Walys as Lord Hornwood and his son rode through the gates in the outer wall.

"Fourty thousand men, or near enough as makes no matter."

"They are all here?"

Without a doubt," the maester said with a hint of smile. "I remember the day they came to see you for the first time. Even that day I had not seen as many people as they have come to see you now. Your father and mother showed you to all the great houses of the north and everyone here have seen you before. No doubt you've grown up a little now but that would not cause any problems."

"Aye," sighed Andrew. "No longer a babe and no longer have my parents with me."

Maester Walys sighed. "My lord, it only took one look for the people to see you who you are. The north remembers. Your father and mother are remembered still, there is no doubt of that."

"Yeah, but do they remember me though?" Andrew asked thoughtfully. It was one thing to show himself to the castle folk who saw him everyday and an entirely different thing to come before the people who saw a babe in swaddled clothes.

"They would remember you well enough to see you as Ned Stark's son," Maester Walys said. "You should meet them soon enough, your grace. The sooner the better."

"I'll be there today," he told the master. "I need to see them first."

"As you wish," Maester Walys said.

Andrew felt as miserable as he must have looked. The only family he had left remained in the cold halls of the crypts. He wanted to see them before he saddle the horse he meant to ride.

A series of chisel-cut handholds made a ladder in the granite of the tower's inner wall. Andrew went down in silence, hand under hand. Once he might have found another way down from the tower, a quicker way and more dangerous, but he was not an assassin anymore. He was expected to act the king.