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odswood

She had been born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south, on the Red Fork of the Trident The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows across tinkling strea from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers

The gods of Winterfell kept a different sort of wood It was a dark, primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousand years as the gloomy castle rose around it It srew here This was a wood of stubborn sentinel trees arhty oaks, of ironwoods as old as the realether while twisted branches wove a dense canopy overhead and misshappen roots wrestled beneath the soil This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names

But she knew she would find her husband here tonight Whenever he took a odswood

Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and naht that filled the sept of Riverrun She was of the Faith, like her father and grandfather and his father before hiods had names, and their faces were as familiar as the faces of her parents Worship was a septon with a censer, the sht, voices raised in song The Tullys kept a godswood, as all the great houses did, but it was only a place to walk or read or lie in the sun Worship was for the sept

For her sake, Ned had built a sod, but the blood of the First Men still flowed in the veins of the Starks, and his own gods were the old ones, the nareenwood they shared with the vanished children of the forest

At the center of the grove an ancient ood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold "The heart tree," Ned called it The ood’s bark hite as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and ely watchful They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the co of the First Men across the narrow sea

In the south the last oods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago, except on the Isle of Faces where the green men kept their silent watch Up here it was different Here every castle had its godswood, and every godswood had its heart tree, and every heart tree its face

Catelyn found her husband beneath the ood, seated on a reatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night A thousand years of hu the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the ood seemed to follow her as she came "Ned," she called softly

He lifted his head to look at her "Catelyn," he said His voice was distant and formal "Where are the children?"

He would always ask her that "In the kitchen, arguing about names for the wolf pups" She spread her cloak on the forest floor and sat beside the pool, her back to the ood She could feel the eyes watching her, but she did her best to ignore theracious, but Rickon is not quite sure"

"Is he afraid?" Ned asked

"A little," she admitted "He is only three"

Ned frowned "He must learn to face his fears He will not be three forever And winter is coave her a chill, as they always did The Stark words Every noble house had its words Family mottoes, touchstones, prayers of sorts, they boasted of honor and glory, proe All but the Starks Winter is co, said the Stark words Not for the first tie people these northerners were

"The ive him that," Ned said He had a swatch of oiled leather in one hand He ran it lightly up the greatsword as he spoke, polishing the lad for Bran’s sake You would have been proud of Bran"

"I a the sword as he stroked it She could see the rippling deep within the steel, where the metal had been folded back on itself a hundred ti Catelyn had no love for swords, but she could not deny that Ice had its own beauty It had been forged in Valyria, before the Doom had come to the old Freehold, when the ironsmiths had worked their metal with spells as well as hammers Four hundred years old it was, and as sharp as the day it was forged The nae of heroes, when the Starks were Kings in the North

"He was the fourth this year," Ned said gri had put a fear in hihed "Ben writes that the strength of the Night’s Watch is down below a thousand It’s not only desertions They are losing s?" she asked

"Who else?" Ned lifted Ice, looked down the cool steel length of it "And it will only groorse The day may come when I will have no choice but to call the banners and ride north to deal with this King-beyond-the-Wall for good and all"

"Beyond the Wall?" The thought made Catelyn shudder

Ned saw the dread on her face "Mance Rayder is nothing for us to fear"