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Catelyn

The eastern sky was rose and gold as the sun broke over the Vale of Arryn Catelyn Stark watched the light spread, her hands resting on the delicate carved stone of the balustrade outside herBelow her the world turned froreen as dawn crept across fields and forests Pale white host waters plunged over the shoulder of thetumble down the face of the Giant’s Lance Catelyn could feel the faint touch of spray on her face

Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died "Tell slayer isa host at Casterly Rock," Ser Rodrik Cassel answered from the room behind her "Your brother writes that he has sent riders to the Rock, de that Lord Tywin proclaim his intent, but he has had no answer Eduard the pass below the Golden Tooth He vows to you that he will yield no foot of Tully land without first watering it with Lannister blood"

Catelyn turned away frohten her mood; it seemed cruel for a day to dawn so fair and end so foul as this one promised to "Edmure has sent riders and made vows," she said, "but Edmure is not the Lord of Riverrun What of e ed at his whiskers They had grown in white as snow and bristly as a thornbush while he was recovering froain

"My father would not have given the defense of Riverrun over to Edmure unless he was very sick," she said, worried "I should have been woken as soon as this bird arrived"

"Your lady sister thought it better to let you sleep, Maester Colemon told me"

"I should have been woken," she insisted

"The maester tells me your sister planned to speak with you after the combat," Ser Rodrik said

"Then she still plans to go through with this rimaced "The dwarf has played her like a set of pipes, and she is too deaf to hear the tune Whatever happens this , Ser Rodrik, it is past time we took our leave My place is at Winterfell with h to travel, I shall ask Lysa for an escort to see us to Gulltown We can take ship from there"

"Another ship?" Ser Rodrik looked a shade green, yet he ed not to shudder "As you say, ht waited outside her door as Catelyn suiven her If she spoke to her sister before the duel, perhaps she could change her ht as they dressed her Lysa’s policies varied with her irl she had known at Riverrun had grown into a woman as by turns proud, fearful, cruel, dreamy, reckless, timid, stubborn, vain, and, above all, inconstant

When that vile turnkey of hers had co to tell theed Lysa to have the dwarf brought to the would do but that her sister must make a show of him before half the Vale And now this

"Lannister is my prisoner," she told Ser Rodrik as they descended the tower stairs and h the Eyrie’s cold white halls Catelyn wore plain grey ith a silvered belt "My sister must be reminded of that"

At the doors to Lysa’s apart to join the fool’s festival?" Ser Brynden snapped "I’d tell you to slap soood, but you’d only bruise your hand"

"There was a bird froan, "a letter from Edmure"

"I know, child" The black fish that fastened his cloak was Brynden’s only concession to ornament "I had to hear it from Maester Colemon I asked your sister for leave to take a thousand seasoned men and ride for Riverrun with all haste Do you knohat she told me? The Vale cannot spare a thousand swords, nor even one, Uncle, she said You are the Knight of the Gate Your place is here" A gust of childish laughter drifted through the open doors behind hilanced darkly over his shoulder "Well, I told her she could bloody well find herself a new Knight of the Gate Black fish or no, I am still a Tully I shall leave for Riverrun by evenfall"

Catelyn could not pretend to surprise "Alone? You knoell as I that you will never survive the high road Ser Rodrik and I are returning to Winterfell Coive you your thousand ht alone"

Brynden thought a ree way hoet there I’ll wait for you below" He went striding off, his cloak swirling behind hied a look with Ser Rodrik They went through the doors to the high, nervous sound of a child’s giggles

Lysa’s apartrass planted with blue flowers and ringed on all sides by tall white towers The builders had intended it as a godswood, but the Eyrie rested on the hard stone of the mountain, and no matter how et a ood to take root here So the Lords of the Eyrie planted grass and scattered statuary a shrubs It was there the two champions would meet to place their lives, and that of Tyrion Lannister, into the hands of the gods

Lysa, freshly scrubbed and garbed in cream velvet with a rope of sapphires andcourt on the terrace overlooking the scene of the coh and low Most of them still hoped to wed her, bed her, and rule the Vale of Arryn by her side Fro her stay at the Eyrie, it was a vain hope

A wooden platform had been built to elevate Robert’s chair; there the Lord of the Eyrie sat, giggling and clapping his hands as a humpbacked puppeteer in blue-and-white hts hack and slash at each other Pitchers of thick creauests were sipping a sweet orange-scented wine froraved silver cups A fool’s festival, Brynden had called it, and saily at some jest of Lord Hunter’s, and nibbled a blackberry froer They were the suitors who stood highest in Lysa’s favortoday, at least Catelyn would have been hard-pressed to say which man was more unsuitable Eon Hunter was even older than Jon Arryn had been, half-crippled by gout, and cursed with three quarrelso than the last Ser Lyn was a different sort of folly; lean and handsome, heir to an ancient but impoverished house, but vain, reckless, hot-temperedand, it hispered, notoriously uninterested in the intimate charms of women

When Lysa espied Catelyn, she welcomed her with a sisterly embrace and a ods are s on us Do try a cup of the wine, sweet sister Lord Hunter was kind enough to send for it, from his own cellars"

"Thank you, no Lysa, we must talk"

"After," her sister pro to turn away from her

"Now" Catelyn spoketo look "Lysa, you cannot o ahead with this folly Alive, the Imp has value Dead, he is only food for crows And if his champion should prevail here--"

"Small chance of that,her shoulder with a liver-spotted hand "Ser Vardis is a doughty fighter He will make short work of the sellsword"

"Will he, my lord?" Catelyn said coolly "I wonder" She had seen Bronn fight on the high road; it was no accident that he had survived the journey while other ly sword of his seeathering around them like bees round a blossos," Ser Morton Waynwood said "Ser Vardis is a knight, sweet lady This other felloell, his sort are all cowards at heart Useful enough in a battle, with thousands of their fellows around theht out of them"

"Say you have the truth of it, then," Catelyn said with a courtesy that ain by the dwarf’s death? Do you iave his brother a trial before we flung him off a ested "When the Kingslayer receives the I to hiave an i auburn hair "Lord Robert wants to see him fly," she said, as if that settled the matter "And the Imp has only himself to blame It was he who demanded a trial by combat"

"Lady Lysa had no honorable way to deny him, even if she’d wished to," Lord Hunter intoned ponderously

Ignoring them all, Catelyn turned all her force on her sister "I remind you, Tyrion Lannister is my prisoner"

"And I remind you, the dwarf murdered my lord husband!" Her voice rose "He poisoned the Hand of the King and left my sweet baby fatherless, and now Iaround her, Lysa stalked across the terrace Ser Lyn and Ser Morton and the other suitors excused themselves with cool nods and trailed after her

"Do you think he did?" Ser Rodrik asked her quietly when they were alone again "Murder Lord Jon, that is? The Imp still denies it, and most fiercely"

"I believe the Lannisters murdered Lord Arryn," Catelyn replied, "but whether it was Tyrion, or Ser Jaiin to say" Lysa had named Cersei in the letter she had sent to Winterfell, but now she seemed certain that Tyrion was the killerperhaps because the das here, while the queen was safe behind the walls of the Red Keep, hundreds of leagues to the south Catelyn almost wished she had burned her sister’s letter before reading it

Ser Rodrik tugged at his whiskers "Poison, wellthat could be the dwarf’s work, true enough Or Cersei’s It’s said poison is a woslayer, nowI have no great liking for the ht of blood on that golden sword of his Was it poison, uely uneasy "How else could they make it look a natural death?" Behind her, Lord Robert shrieked with delight as one of the puppet knights sliced the other in half, spilling a flood of red sawdust onto the terrace She glanced at her nephew and sighed "The boy is utterly without discipline He will never be strong enough to rule unless he is taken away froreed with you," said a voice at her elbow She turned to behold Maester Cole to send the boy to Dragonstone for fostering, you knowoh, but I’ out of turn" The apple of his throat bobbed anxiously beneath the loose maester’s chain "I fear I’ve had too much of Lord Hunter’s excellent wine The prospect of bloodshed has my nerves all a-fray"

"You are mistaken, Maester," Catelyn said "It was Casterly Rock, not Dragonstone, and those arrangements were made after the Hand’s death, without my sister’s consent"

The orously at the end of his absurdly long neck that he looked half a puppet hiiveness, my lady, but it was Lord Jon who--"

A bell tolled loudly below theirls alike broke off what they were doing and uardsmen in sky-blue cloaks led forth Tyrion Lannister The Eyrie’s pluarden, a weeping woman carved in veined white marble, no doubt meant to be Alyssa

"The bad little"Mother, can I make him fly? I want to see him fly"

"Later, my sweet baby," Lysa promised him

"Trial first," drawled Ser Lyn Corbray, "then execution"