The King of Winters

Chapter 65

They heard the Green Fork before they saw it, an endless susurrus, like the growl of some great beast. The river was a boiling torrent, half again as wide as it had been the last time he saw it, almost a decade before, when his father had been the King in the North and took his heir and queen South to meet his southern friends and family. King Eddard had needed Lord Walder and his bridge then, and Andrew needs them even more now. His heart was full of the past as he watched the fresh green waters swirl past. It reminded him the green eyes of Joy Hill, though hers had never been fierce like the river. Her eyes had been two green pools, still and calm. He had drowned and lost in them more often than not.

The green waters of the Green Fork was raging before him. There is no way we will ford this, nor swim across, and it could be a moon's turn before these waters fall again.

There has been talks of fighting in the Riverlands and the Stormlands lately and he could be very well losing allies as they were waiting for the rainfall to stop and the rivers to quiet.

Andrew rode at the front of the column, beneath the flapping white banner of Winterfell. His father had taught him enough to treat all of his men as equals. There was always a man with King Eddard at the high table of Winterfell while he still ruled the north. The people would differ everyday, going from high lords to guards walking the walls. Following his father, each day Andrew would ask one of his lords to join him, so they might confer as they marched; he honored every man in turn, showing no favorites, listening as his lord father had listened, weighing the words of one against the other. Today it was Lord Robett Glover's turn to ride with him.

Andrew had sent Lord Beric and his brotherhood with a hundred picked men and a hundred swift horses to race ahead of them and to screen their movements and scout the way. The reports Lord Beric's riders brought back did little to reassure him. The Tyrell host under Ser Garlan was still many days to the south . . . but Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing, had assembled a force of near four thousand men at his castles on the Green Fork.

He could not say if the old man had gathered his men to oppose him or to fend off the reachmen who were troubling his liege lord and the fellow river lords. Lord Hoster had already called his banners; by rights, Lord Frey should have gone to join the Tully host at Riverrun, yet here he sat.

"Four thousand men," Lord Robett repeated, perplexed at the thought. "Lord Frey cannot hope to fight the Targaryens by himself. Surely he means to join his power to ours."

Does he? Andrew wondered. Both his father and mother never placed any trust in Lord Walder. They trusted him as much as anyone would trust a sellsword. Andrew still remembered meeting Lord Walder for the first time. For the brief time they had spent in the halls of Lord Frey, he had been mostly interested in the gold and silver his father had brought with them. They hadn't even stayed in the comfort of his castle, opting to make camp away from the sight of the Twins. He should expect nothing of Walder Frey, then he might never be surprised.

The vanguard spread out behind him, a slow-moving forest of lances and banners and spears.

"He's Lord Hoster's bannerman," Andrew said. "Yet I see him sitting in his castle despite his overlord's call."

"Your lord father always treated the man with caution, my lord," Lord Glover said.

Andrew nodded. Somehow he remembered his mother's words then, "Some men take their oaths more seriously than others, Andrew. When Lord Arryn denied to hand over the heads of your father and Lord Robert to the Mad King and rose in rebellion there were still some lords of the Vale who were loyal to the king. Loyalty of the people is not bought in one day, love. It is earned. One day you might have to earn it for yourself. Then know well that love is always better than fear. Let your enemies fear you but not your people."