Chapter 35: The Feast at Winterfell
No one knew what Robert and Eddard had said to each other in the crypt. The stone doors were thick enough that sound didn't carry, and neither man had offered an account when they came back up into the light. Robert's eyes had been red, which might have been grief or cold air or both. Eddard's expression was the same as it always was — a face that had learned not to give much away. Whatever had passed between them in the dark beneath Winterfell, it had stayed there.
The great hall was lit from end to end by the time the feast began. Winterfell's hall was not beautiful in the way that southern halls tried to be beautiful — no tapestries of silk thread, no gilded sconces, no painted ceilings.
It was stone and timber and firelight, built to last rather than to impress, and the banners hanging from the rafters were faded enough to suggest genuine age rather than recent display. The grey direwolf of House Stark. The black stag of House Baratheon. The golden lion of House Lannister. And in one corner, the red lion of House Reyne, which Henry noted without comment.
The smell was woodsmoke and roasted meat and the particular cold-stone scent of a northern castle that never quite left the air even in summer. Long tables ran the length of the hall, packed with northern lords and southern guests in an arrangement that someone had clearly spent considerable time working out, trying to seat people close enough to their allies and far enough from their enemies that the evening would not become complicated. Henry doubted the calculation had fully succeeded.
The procession into the hall observed the forms. Eddard escorted Cersei to the high table with the correct degree of courtesy, which Cersei received with the expression she used when she was accepting something she considered beneath her. Robert came in with Catelyn on his arm, working the room the way he always did — the wave, the broad grin, the voice that carried to the back of any space without effort. Catelyn managed to look dignified throughout, which Henry suspected required more work than it appeared.
The children followed in the informal order that children's processions tend to settle into regardless of adult planning. Little Rickon Stark was at the front, three years old and bearing the weight of the occasion with tremendous seriousness.
Robb walked with Myrcella, both of them making conversation with the careful politeness of young people who had been told to be on their best behavior and were genuinely trying. Arya and Tommen had apparently found each other tolerable, which Henry filed away as interesting.
Tommen was a gentle boy who responded well to people who treated him like a person rather than a prince; Arya was a girl who treated everyone the same way until given reason to do otherwise, which was probably why it was working.
Sansa came in last on Joffrey's arm, her cheeks slightly flushed, holding herself with a careful deliberateness that suggested she had rehearsed this in her head more than once.
Joffrey was conducting himself appropriately, which meant he had listened to at least some of what Henry had told him about the difference between how you behaved at home and how you behaved as a guest in someone else's castle.
The toasts came early and ran long, as they always did at northern feasts. Henry drank moderately and listened to the room.
Joffrey lasted approximately half an hour at the royal table before the combination of Sansa's attention and the general formality of his position became more than he wanted to manage. He made his way across the hall to the table where Henry sat with his Gold Cloak officers, pulled out a bench, and sat down with the slightly too-casual posture of a boy who had made a decision he didn't want examined too closely.
Henry made room without comment.
Dominic had drifted back to his father's side earlier in the evening. Henry had watched that reunion with the attentiveness he gave to anything involving Roose Bolton — the quiet voice, the pale eyes, the way he listened to his son with an expression that gave nothing away.
Roose Bolton had never given Henry a specific reason for unease beyond being exactly the kind of man who gave thoughtful people unease on general principle. Henry kept track of him the way you kept track of a sharp edge left on a table: not expecting it to move, but aware of where it was.
The man who sat down beside him was lean and dark, dressed in black wool with a simple direwolf at the collar, and carried himself with the particular ease of someone who had spent years in difficult country and had stopped worrying about comfort.
"Ser Henry." Benjen Stark raised his cup. He had the Stark look — grey eyes, dark hair — but the ranginess of a man who lived in the field rather than behind walls.
Henry raised his own cup in return. "First Ranger."
Benjen drained half his cup, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and set it down. Joffrey applauded this with more enthusiasm than the occasion required. The Gold Cloak officers at the table, catching the mood, added their agreement. Benjen looked faintly amused.
"I wanted to thank you," he said, when the noise settled. "The men you sent to the Wall — the sixty from the Watch rotation. They could handle themselves. More than that, they had discipline. They understood what orders were for." He turned his cup in his hands. "Several of them are leading ranger units now. They've made a real difference."
"They had the foundation," Henry said. "The Watch trained them. Just keep an eye on the payroll records — old habits."
Benjen laughed, genuine rather than polite. "The Night's Watch doesn't have enough of a payroll to make embezzlement worthwhile. And I've got them all assigned to ranging — men with that background belong in the field, not managing stores." He paused. "But I mean it seriously. Every capable man matters. We're under a thousand now."
Joffrey, who had been working his knife around the edge of his plate with the restlessness of someone not quite engaged, looked up at that. "Under a thousand? For the entire Wall?"
"For the entire Watch." Benjen's tone was even, but the weight in it was plain enough. "Three castles, a hundred leagues of Wall, and fewer than a thousand men to hold it. We can't recruit — lords won't give up their criminals voluntarily, and few free men choose black. The brothers we do have are going beyond the Wall with equipment that should have been replaced a decade ago." He set down his cup. "We're losing rangers. Not to battles — to cold, to kit that fails at the wrong moment, to patrols that go out undermanned because there's no one else to send."
Joffrey was quiet for a moment. Then he straightened — not performance, Henry thought, but the particular posture of someone who has connected a problem to something he could actually do.
"What do you need most?"
"Men. Weapons. Armor. Crossbows. Winter clothing." Benjen spread his hands. "In that order, more or less, though we need all of it badly enough that the order barely matters."
Joffrey turned to Henry.
Henry recognized the look. He had seen it before — Joffrey arriving at the edge of a commitment and checking to make sure the ground was solid before he stepped onto it. It was a habit worth encouraging.
"The Watch finished its equipment rotation before we left King's Landing," Henry said. "The old gear is warehoused — helmets, chainmail, breastplates, spears, shields, crossbows. Enough to outfit two thousand men if you pull the best of it. What's too damaged to use as-is can go to the Wall's smiths to be broken down and reforged."
Joffrey turned back to Benjen. "Then it's yours. In my name — the old equipment of the City Watch goes to the Night's Watch. I'll arrange transport from King's Landing to Eastwatch by sea. The costs come from my household accounts."
It was, Henry thought, a well-made offer. Specific, actionable, within Joffrey's actual authority to give. The boy had been paying attention.
Benjen looked at Joffrey for a moment with the expression of a man revising an estimate upward. Then he raised his cup.
"The Night's Watch won't forget this, Your Grace. Nor will the people north of the Wall give you cause to regret it." He drank, nodded to Henry over the rim, and set the cup down.
Joffrey caught Henry's eye.
Henry considered him for a moment. Then he picked up the pitcher and refilled the boy's cup.
"One more," he said. "You've earned it."
The satisfied look on Joffrey's face was, Henry decided, acceptable. Some satisfactions were correctly felt.
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