The bowels of the Manderly war galley were pitch-black, suffocatingly damp, and reeked of rotting fish and uncollected bilge water.
This wretched, freezing darkness was where Petyr Baelish, the Master of Coin, had spent the last several weeks.
Ever since Roman Rivers had violently choked him unconscious in his opulent King's Landing solar, Littlefinger had been locked in this horrific hold, personally experiencing the exact same agonizing ordeal he had condemned Eddard Stark to endure.
During the grueling voyage, the only light Petyr ever saw was a brief, blinding sliver of sunlight when a heavily armored guard opened the hatch to throw down a bucket of stale water and hardtack. The rest of the time, he was left to blindly grope around the freezing, rat-infested darkness.
Baelish had desperately attempted to use his silver tongue to bribe his jailers, promising them titles, castles, and endless gold. In response, he was brutally beaten with the pommel of a sword and tightly bound in heavy iron manacles.
After an unfathomable amount of time trapped in agonizing, restless anxiety, Baelish was finally dragged out of the bilge.
As Baelish was hauled onto the deck, he squinted against the blinding, freezing sunlight. When his eyes finally adjusted, he found himself staring up at a massive, incredibly fat man.
The lord was so immensely corpulent that his limbs appeared almost comically short. The excess fat on his face stretched his chins downward, and he was draped in an absurdly expensive, light green fur-lined cloak embroidered with the white merman of the sea.
Baelish's heart instantly plummeted into his stomach. He recognized Lord Wyman Manderly immediately. I am in White Harbor. I have been dragged all the way to the North!
When Lord Manderly looked down at Baelish, his jovial, fat face instantly darkened into a mask of pure, unadulterated loathing.
"Keep an incredibly close eye on this treacherous worm," Lord Wyman commanded his guards, his voice booming across the docks. "Ensure he is delivered to Winterfell with all his limbs intact. If he even attempts to escape, break his legs!"
Upon hearing the brutal order, the massive Northern guards grabbed Littlefinger by his soiled silk tunic, violently shoved him forward, and threw him headfirst into an iron prisoner's cage mounted on a heavy wagon.
"Wait! Lord Manderly, I beg of you, we must talk!" Baelish pleaded, gripping the iron bars. "There has been a catastrophic misunderstanding!"
Before he could spin another web of lies, a heavily armored Northern guard violently punched Baelish directly in the jaw, shattering his teeth and forcing him to shut his mouth.
Lord Wyman watched the Mockingbird being hauled away with deep satisfaction. He immediately turned to the Vanguard operatives who had escorted the ship, his expression instantly changing into a warm, deeply respectful smile.
"Oh, praise be to the Old Gods and the New! And praise be to Lord Roman Rivers!" Wyman laughed, gesturing to his servants. "I cannot thank Harrenhal enough for dragging this scoundrel from the capital. Please, take these chests of silver as a personal gift for Lord Roman. The North will never forget his heroic assistance."
The Vanguard captain respectfully accepted the massive financial tribute on Roman's behalf, but firmly declined Lord Manderly's invitation to feast. The Harrenhal operatives urgently needed to secure passage back to the Riverlands to participate in the impending war.
Littlefinger's situation was absolutely catastrophic. Roman's vast intelligence network had flawlessly compiled and distributed an overwhelming mountain of irrefutable evidence. Every single lord in the North now knew that Baelish had maliciously betrayed Eddard Stark. Furthermore, Roman had exposed Littlefinger's massive financial crimes: falsifying the crown's ledgers, orchestrating predatory loans to plunge the realm into debt, aggressively embezzling Iron Throne funds, and running an illegal shadow-trade syndicate with the Free Cities of Essos.
Consequently, the most difficult task for the Northern soldiers escorting Baelish up the White Knife was not preventing him from escaping, but actively preventing enraged Northern villagers from violently lynching him in his cage.
Following a grueling march up the Kingsroad, the Manderly escort finally delivered Baelish through the massive granite gates of Winterfell.
At this time, Winterfell's sprawling courtyard was overflowing with the banners of the Northern lords. Robb Stark had successfully called the banners, officially preparing to march south to attack King Joffrey and rescue his father.
However, before the Northern host could even finalize their logistical supply lines, Roman had miraculously extracted Ned from the black cells, leaving the furious Northern lords looking at one another in highly aggressive bewilderment, entirely unsure of what to do with their mobilized armies.
Fortunately, since Tywin Lannister had aggressively invaded the Riverlands, the Northern mobilization was not wasted. They now had a perfectly viable excuse to march south and slaughter the Lannister armies in defense of Catelyn Stark's homeland.
When Baelish was violently dragged into the Great Hall of Winterfell, he was forced to his knees. Looking up, he saw Lord Eddard Stark sitting in the ancient, high seat of the Wardens of the North. Ned was thin, gaunt, and leaning heavily on a cane, but his grey eyes were burning with cold, absolute authority.
Ned was flanked by Catelyn, Robb, and a surprisingly comfortable dwarf.
Every single Northern lord present glared at Baelish with sheer, unadulterated murderous intent. Catelyn stared down at the man she had once considered a brother, her eyes swirling with a complex mixture of agonizing betrayal and profound disgust.
Tyrion Lannister had remained confined to Winterfell since his original arrest. However, he spent his days drinking expensive ale, reading ancient tomes, and generally showing absolutely no signs of being a mistreated prisoner.
"Ah, Lord Baelish," Tyrion smirked, taking a long sip from his goblet. "It appears the treacherous little mockingbird has finally had his wings clipped. Lord Eddard, what exactly do you intend to do with him?"
Ned entirely ignored the dwarf's commentary. He unrolled a massive sheaf of heavily stamped parchment provided by Harrenhal.
"This document explicitly details every single one of Lord Petyr Baelish's treasonous crimes," Ned's voice boomed across the silent hall. "Each charge is backed by irrefutable, undeniable evidence, leaving absolutely no room for ambiguity. I shall deliver a fair and absolute judgment in accordance with the laws of Westeros!"
Tyrion watched the proceedings and smirked to himself. Exactly as I thought. The Warden of the North is relentlessly, stubbornly honorable. If he possessed a fraction of Baelish's ruthlessness, he could have easily seized the Red Keep from Robert and never ended up rotting in the black cells to begin with.
Tyrion's thoughts briefly drifted to Roman Rivers. Perhaps it was precisely because of Ned's uncompromising, rigid honor that Roman was willing to actively risk his life to save him.
Sigh. When will I ever find a monstrously powerful friend like that? Tyrion thought bitterly.
Wildfire rumors had recently flooded the North, claiming that Roman was personally leading an army of magical giants to aggressively annex the Crownlands. As a member of House Lannister, even though Tyrion had previously shared a highly cordial relationship with Roman, they were now locked on opposite sides of a brutal, continental war. They were destined to be enemies.
Damn it all to the seven hells! Tyrion cursed internally. Why did that paranoid idiot Cersei have to officially accuse Roman of high treason? Does she possess absolutely no comprehension of the apocalyptic military power Harrenhal currently wields?
That arrogant bitch constantly claims to be Tywin with teats, yet by the Gods, even the cheapest whores in King's Landing possess better political survival instincts than she does!
Tyrion pulled his gaze back to the center of the hall. The sentencing of Petyr Baelish had reached its inevitable conclusion.
The evidence against Littlefinger was utterly conclusive. Given the sheer multitude of his capital crimes, the immediate, undeniable penalty was death.
Baelish was denied the opportunity to demand a trial by combat, and even if he had been granted one, absolutely no knight in the North would have ever accepted his gold to champion him.
This was Winterfell. The ancient, beating heart of the North. The Mockingbird was trapped in a room surrounded by a hundred heavily armed, fiercely loyal wolves. Even if Ned Stark had magically pardoned him, Baelish would not have made it out of the courtyard before the Northern lords brutally hacked him to pieces.
Realizing his brilliant intellect and manipulation were utterly useless against the sheer, united force of Northern justice, Littlefinger desperately turned his weeping gaze toward the only person he believed still harbored a shred of affection for him.
"Cat! Catelyn, please!" Baelish begged, tears streaming down his bruised face. "I swear to you, I never meant to do this! The Lannisters forced my hand! Cersei explicitly threatened to have me beheaded if I did not betray Ned! Please, Cat, for the sake of our childhood in Riverrun... for the love we once shared, I beg you, spare me!"
"I possess a vast network of spies! I control incredibly lucrative trade routes!" Baelish babbled frantically. "I can effectively double the military strength of the North! Just let me live!"
But Catelyn Stark did not possess a single ounce of mercy for him. She looked down from the high table, her face twisted in absolute, freezing disgust.
"Petyr," Catelyn said, her voice dripping with venom. "I spent my entire life treating you as if you were my own blood. I genuinely loved you like a brother. I never, in my darkest nightmares, imagined you were capable of orchestrating the murder of my husband and my household guard."
Catelyn stood up, her blue eyes piercing directly through his soul. "Gods forgive me. Years ago, when you foolishly challenged Brandon Stark for my hand, I begged him to spare your life. If I had known what a vile, treacherous monster you would become... I would have stood in the mud and watched Brandon cut your throat."
Baelish was left completely, utterly speechless. The woman he had obsessively loved for his entire life had just driven a dagger through his heart, stating the absolute last thing he ever wanted to hear. The brilliant Master of Coin was utterly humiliated and broken.
"You completely disgust me, Petyr," Catelyn finished coldly.
Upon hearing her final, devastating rejection, it was as if Baelish's remaining life force was entirely drained away. He collapsed into a pathetic, weeping heap on the stone floor.
The death sentence was formally pronounced, to be carried out immediately. Because Lord Eddard was still physically crippled by his leg injury, his heir, Robb Stark, stepped forward to carry out the sentence in his stead. It was the perfect, grim test of the young wolf's courage.
Outside in the freezing courtyard, Baelish was dragged to the ancient executioner's block. His face was a mask of ashen, hollow despair. Catelyn could not bear to look at him again and remained inside the Great Hall.
Robb Stark drew the massive Valyrian steel greatsword, Ice. The rippling, dark blade gleamed in the Northern sun.
After reciting the ancient, solemn words of House Stark, Robb swung the ancestral sword, cleanly decapitating Petyr Baelish with a single, devastating strike.
The legendary, brilliant schemer who had successfully manipulated the entirety of Westeros, plunging the realm into an apocalyptic civil war through sheer intellect, was finally exposed and violently eliminated by the unbreakable force of absolute justice.
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