"My father sent me to inquire, who among you is serving as the envoy?"
"It's me! Don't you have eyes? I come bearing Lord Hoster's will!" Ser Marq said, enraged.
"If you are willing to dine with my father inside the castle and state your purpose, I believe he would be greatly honored."
The Old Knight looked at the young man before him, who was truly down on his luck.
His father had almost been killed by Lannister, and his family castle had been burned down.
This disheveled young man was acting as a guerrilla in the Riverlands.
The Old Knight's words greatly displeased the House Piper men and the knights who accompanied them, causing them to curse, argue, and shout loudly.
"Go where? I have so many men with me, and we haven't had a single full meal!
Lannister almost killed us!" Ser Marq roared furiously, declaring that he would absolutely not enter Two Cities.
"If he wants to talk to us, tell him to open the gates and let all of us in to dine with him."
"Or better yet, tell him to come out and host Marq right here, in front of everyone from both sides," suggested the Bluebeard Mercenaries.
"Then please wait a moment." Ser Stefflon Frey galloped back to the castle, reappearing a moment later.
"Please, everyone.
Fortunately, your numbers are not too many, so you can all enjoy a good meal together."
When Frey welcomed Ser Marq in the great hall of the West River castle, he was surrounded by twenty-one living sons, thirty-six grandsons, nineteen great-grandsons, and many daughters, granddaughters, bastards, bastard daughters, and bastard grandchildren.
Ser Marq finally understood the saying: throughout the Seven Kingdoms, Walder Frey was the only Lord who could sire an army himself.
Ser Marq could go up to the dais, but his dirty men could only sit on the long benches below.
Marquess Walder, ninety years old, looked like a shriveled pink weasel.
His head was long bald and covered in age spots, and due to gout, he couldn't stand without assistance.
His latest wife was a sixteen-year-old girl, pale and frail, who walked in beside his litter.
She was the eighth Lady Frey.
"Marquess Walder, long time no see, it is an honor to meet again today," Ser Marq said, steeling himself.
"Ser, I am old, so spare me these sweet words.
Why are you here?
Is Ser Edmure too noble to come see me himself?" Walder sneered.
"Oh, I know, poor Ser Edmure is still a captive."
Hot-tempered, sharp-tongued, and extremely rude—Ser Marq felt that Marquess Walder's temper was still the same.
"Marquess Walder, please forgive my impatience.
But Riverrun is truly in peril now, and I am compelled to come with Lord Hoster's plea."
"A plea?
How I remember him scolding me for being late back then," Marquess Walder sneered.
Walder's sons tried to persuade their father to be calm and polite, but they were met with curses.
"I'm not dead yet! I don't need your lecturing!" Marquess Walder gave no ground.
Walder gestured to two other sons.
"Danwell, Whalen, help me to my chair."
They helped Marquess Walder off his litter and assisted him to the high seat of the Frey Family.
It was a chair of black oak, its back carved in the style of Two Cities connected by a bridge.
His young wife timidly came over and covered his feet with a blanket.
Walder beckoned Marq forward and pressed a paper-dry kiss onto the knight's palm.
"Alright, we have observed the courtesies, and I know your purpose."
"Then let us depart for Riverrun at once; you are, after all, a vassal of House Tully," Ser Marq said anxiously.
"Of course I am.
You see all these soldiers on the walls?
Didn't I gather them all?
I intend to depart immediately once all the troops are assembled.
Of course, I mean to send my sons, Ser; these old bones of mine are past the age for leading armies." Marquess Walder sneered, his voice a mix of a sneer and a mumble.
"Indeed, Ser," said Ser Jared Frey.
"Ser Marq, your foolish master was defeated before we even arrived.
Is that our fault?
We all heard that the Kingslayer utterly routed Ser Edmure, like cutting melons and vegetables.
Those taxi soldiers who were recruited to Riverrun, aren't they all fleeing back now?"
"I know your temper," Ser Marq said.
"Lord Hoster apologizes to you for past events; Riverrun is about to fall."
Marq took out the handwritten letter and handed it to Marquess Walder.
"Still wailing?
Asking me to send troops?
If it's still like that, I won't even look.
Recruiting men here takes time; I must gather all my forces before I can move," Walder said impatiently.
"It's Lord Hoster's handwritten letter," Marq emphasized.
"The Old Knight's wail, that will certainly be interesting.
Hahahahaha," Walder laughed.
"It's been many years.
Where are his two daughters who married into ancient noble families?
Why don't they save him, begging me?
I don't care; I have so many wives, and I have many noble wives, and a Lannister daughter-in-law.
Hmph hmph hmph."
"So, shall we talk now?
I'd like to see how Hoster cries," Marquess Frey said.
His pink bald head, covered in age spots, suddenly turned.
"What are you looking at?" Walder roared at his surrounding family members, "Get out!"
"You all stand down as well," Ser Marq ordered his smelly subordinates.
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