"Ah, she is clever after all," said Cersei, smirking.
"Wit is such a rare accomplice to beauty yet we
stand, alone, in a room crowded with only that."
Cersei lifted a thick strand of Eleonora's hair, ran it
through her fingers, and dropped it back o...
Torrhen and the dozen or so northern soldiers exchanged uneasy expressions but he finally nodded and agreed, "yes, my lady."
"Wait," she hesitated, her mind racing. "I will speak with her and then you may take her away."
—
Catelyn went out to the balcony and stood with one hand on the rough stone balustrade. Beyond the point of the castle the swift Tumblestone joined the placid Red Fork, and she could see a long way downriver. If a striped sail comes from the east, it will be Ser Robin returning. For the moment the surface of the waters was empty. She thanked the gods for that, and went back inside to sit with her father.
Catelyn could not say if Lord Holster knew that she was there, or if her presence brought him any comfort, but it gave her solace to be with him. There was a smell of death about that room; a heavy smell, sweet and foul, clinging.
The sounds outside the castle were busy but had died significantly since the alarm had sounded of the Kingslayer's escape. Catelyn had expected no less. She could hear the voices more clearly from outside, the sound of many horses, the clink of armor. She prayed Brienne of Tarth would bring Arya home and that Jaime Lannister kept his world. She had done all she could; nothing remained but to hope.
She had her things moved into her father's bedchamber, dominated by the great canopied bed she had been born in, its pillars carved in the shapes of leaping trout. Her father himself had been moved half a turn down the stair, his sickbed placed to face the triangular balcony that opened off his solar, from whence he could see the rivers that he had always loved so well. Edmure sat silently beside their father, as if he were a ghost. He had no words, just silence. He could barely stand to look at her. Catelyn sat, finally, and stared into the fire.
The woman that entered Lord Holster's bed chamber was not Lady Catelyn's daughter. Her bright blue, Tully eyes that she had given her were hollow and dim. Eleonora quickly eyed the large, eloquently decorated room that her mother had grown into a woman within. Catelyn sat in an old wooden rocking chair before her large fireplace, the same chair she had soothed her daughter in nearly two decades prior. She looked upon her visitor, expressionless, too broken to cry any longer. When Eleonora walked towards her, she turned her attention back to the fire.
Edmure reluctantly stood from his father's bedside and knelt beside his sister, much more collected than his niece. Catelyn could see defending his sister was not something he wished to do, though he felt bound by blood.
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"Jaime Lannister has been returned to the dungeon," said Eleonora, looking from her mother to her uncle.
Catelyn looked up at her daughter, shocked, "what do you mean?"
