Argella
They traveled dawn to dusk, past woods and orchards and neatly tended fields, through small villages, crowded market towns, and stout holdfasts. Come dark, they would make camp and eat by the light of the stars and moon. She had a hundred men around her, charged to keep her unharmed and see her safely to Winterfell whilst her husband and father were fighting in the war. Andrew had wanted to leave two hundred; Argella had insisted that she needed only ten, saying that Brienne is more than enough for her and that he would need every other sword for the war. They made their peace at a hundred, neither happy with it. She was a queen now and a queen needed a fitting entourage even if Argella didn't need so big a protection.
They had left Riverrun a week later than they were supposed to leave. The day they were supposed to leave Riverrun hundreds of smallfolk had fled to the castle from the south, escaping the grasp of the Targaryen army. Seeing them like that she couldn't leave without doing something about it, at least for the children. Every night Argella would glimpse firelight flickering through the trees from the camps of other travelers. There seemed to be more camps around Riverrun with every night, and more traffic coming up to the castle by day. Argella had defied her mother once again and allowed them to erect crude shelters against the walls where the army had once set up camps. She even left a few wagons of her provisions to feed them along with the cows, sheep, and chickens the people had brought to them.
The people came in scores, old folks and little children, big men and small ones, barefoot girls and women with babes at their breasts running away from the south to the safety of the north, hoping that they could find it in Riverrun. And she would be damned if she should turn them away. Some of them drove farm wagons or bumped along in the back of ox carts. Others rode draft horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, anything that would walk or run or roll. All of them were found a place to stay at least until the war was over. Most came on foot, with their goods on their shoulders and weary, wary looks upon their faces.
She would have stayed there with them. She would have liked it. But the Queen in the North didn't belong in Riverrun, no more than she did in battlefield. So whilst her husband marched south with his army to war, Argella marched north to fight in her own battles. To rule the North in her husband's stead, her mother said, but Argella knew better. Traveling north they found the way mostly untouched by the war, green fields and the smell of earth still fresh from summer rain. There hadn't been any fighting fought here of late. The last of it had happened long before her marriage when Andrew had scattered the besieging Tyrell troops and freed Riverrun.
Even north of Riverrun there were travelers to be seen, old men and green boys her age holding pitchforks and flails leading their draft horses and oxen. Some of the other travelers were armed with other weapons of war; Argella saw daggers and dirks, scythes and axes, and here and there a sword. Some had made clubs from tree limbs, or carved knobby staffs. They fingered their weapons and gave curious looks at their party as they passed by, relief in the eyes when they saw the direwolf of Stark flying from the tip of the spears. She could not blame them for being wary. These men had seen the touch of the war before and most were not keen to see it again, simply wanting to protect their wives and daughters and crops.
Argella thought about her husband and wondered what he was doing, if he was thinking about her or he was just too occupied with the war to spare a thought about her. She could still remember the kiss she had given him for luck. Andrew was a good kisser and the thought made her blush much to her annoyance. It had taken all her strength to pull him in for a kiss and Andrew had held her close as he returned the kiss to her surprise. It was sweet still to think about it.
The column slowed down when the light shower turned into a heavy rain making the roads muddy and hard for the wagons to tread on. The road was little more than two ruts through the weeds.
The good part was, with so little traffic they'd the road all for themselves as small as it was. The human flood that had flowed down the kingsroad was only a trickle here.
The bad part was, the road wound back and forth like a snake, tangling with even smaller trails and sometimes seeming to vanish entirely only to reappear half a league farther on when they had all but given up hope. Argella hated it. The land was gentle enough, rolling hills and terraced fields interspersed with meadows and woodlands and little valleys where willows crowded close to slow shallow streams. Even so, the path was so narrow and crooked that their pace had dropped to a crawl.
It was the wagons that slowed them, lumbering along, axles creaking under the weight of their heavy loads. A dozen times a day they had to stop to free a wheel that had stuck in a rut, or double up the teams to climb a muddy slope. Once, in the middle of a dense stand of oak, they came face-to-face with three men pulling a load of firewood in an ox cart, with no way for either to get around. There had been nothing for it but to wait while the foresters led their ox through. The ox was even slower than the wagons, so that day they hardly got anywhere at all.
Argella often kept looking over her shoulder, wondering if some outlaws or brigands would be set upon them. These lands belonged to lords who were fighting under Andrew's banners but she was not a little girl to not know they were far from safe. With the war raging on there were outlaws and brigands creeping everywhere, taking what they can from the poor and feeble. And some bands might even be big and brave enough to fancy the pouch of gold Rhaegar Targaryen might give for Andrew Stark's wife. At night, she woke at every noise to grab for her bow and dagger.
There were sentries all around her while they made camp at. And Brienne was never far away from her. Argella always invited the lady knight to share the pavilion with her and every night Brienne would slip off to sleep only after she did. Some nights Argella liked to let her sleep in the tent before sneaking out to sit out in the cold night air and watch the stars until sleep took her.
They continued on with their march north, somedays under the sun shining down upon them from the sky and other days with grey clouds pouring down a cold shower. The roads led them through the lands of Lord Mallister of Seagard. As the gods would have it, their route took them through the same way Andrew had come to battle the dragons. They followed the course of the twisting road flanked by oaks and pines. A stream passed nearby the road, twisting and turning much like the road did.
They reached Oldstones after three more days of riding and Argella halted the column to rest for the night there. They made their camp upon the hill overlooking the Blue Fork, within a ruined stronghold of the ancient river kings. Its foundations remained amongst the weeds to show where the walls and keeps had once stood, but the local smallfolk had long ago made off with most of the stones to raise their barns and septs and holdfasts. Yet in the center of what once would have been the castle's yard, a great carved sepulcher still rested, half hidden in waist-high brown grass amongst a stand of ash.
The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done their work. The king had worn a beard, she could see, but otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king's feet almost to his chest.
She stood by the sepulcher, watching the King's face. "I wonder what this castle was called?" she told Brienne quietly, when she came up to her.
Brienne looked at the sepulcher from head to heel, searching to see something that might give an answer to her question. The maid of Tarth shook her head when she found nothing. "There is nothing here, your grace," she said. "No inscriptions, no carvings, nothing."
Argella found one of Lord Tully's men who was from the Riverlands and called him. "Do you know what this place is called?"
"Oldstones, your grace," the men said at once.
Oldstones, she remembered then. "There's a song. 'Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair.' " She knew the tale too well to not remember it.
Argella softly stroked the King's face and his stony beard. "Whose grave is this?"
"King Tristifer, my lady, the Fourth of His Name, King of the Rivers and the Hills. This was his seat long before it was called as Oldstones. He ruled from the Trident to the Neck, thousands of years before Jenny and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of the First Men were falling one after the other before the onslaught of the Andals. The Hammer of justice, they called him. He fought a hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety, or so the singers say, and when he raised this castle it was the strongest in Westeros. He died in his hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him. The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. With Tristifer the Fifth died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a thousand years before the Andals came."
Argella ran her hand over the rough weathered stone. Strangely the tale reminded her of her husband and King. The singers sang about their marriage as if it was a match made by the gods themselves but Argella knew that they had been married so very quickly only because of his need for heir. He had no siblings to rest the fate of his kingdom on should he fall in war. And unbeknownst to all Argella was still a maiden. She did not want to think about that right now. It was a ill thought to think of deaths.
Another time Argella might have lingered there in the remains of King Tristifer's castle, but she hardly had the time to take in those sights. The next evening they stopped in a village at an ivy-covered inn. Argella decided that they will stay in the inn. She had enough for a hot meal and a nice bath and a featherbed for everyone in her party. She felt the need of hot water and the comfort of a featherbed too much to pass over it.
Argella was given the best room the inn had to offer, a large, clean room made of stone with a big bed with neat, clean smelling sheets and even with its own brazier. She was given her own bath as well, with a small tub and scented soaps. The innkeep must have known who she was, Argella thought. And it ought to increase the reputation of his settlement to have housed a queen in it and maybe he hoped to find some favours from her Kingly husband for the hospitality shown to her. Argella invited Brienne along with her to stay in her room. She headed for the tub straight to take a bath and when she was done she bid Brienne to do the same. Some of her guards settled down in front of the bathhouse below waiting for their turns. The rest crowded into the common room. Tankards of ale and beer and wine flowed freely and smell of freshly baked bread and roasted and smoked meat even tempted Argella.
Washed and clothed in fresh clothes she made her way down along with Brienne. Some of the common folk had found refuge in the inn as well. There soldiers and commoners alike supped on hot pork pies and baked apples. The innkeeper declared to give them a round of beer on the house in her honour. Argella smiled at that, reminding herself to pay the man for that generosity.
"My lady," Brienne said when the benches were all occupied. "I can find some free space for you." She stepped forward to usher away a few of the villagers.
Argella stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "That wouldn't be necessary," she said. "There is plenty of room for me to sit here."
She sat down at the common benches amongst her guards and the villagers with Brienne at her side. The innkeeper brought her a loaf of bread and a rack of pork ribs smoked so well it glowed red. Argella sipped at her tankard, between spoonfuls of bread still warm from the oven and a bite of meat. She liked the beer offered in the inn. Argella had always liked the taste of beer well enough while most other ladies used to make a face at the taste and prefer wine.
The inn was full of people from the lands all around the Riverlands, and there was much to be learned from listening to them. They even talked of the war, careful of the words they said. "There's no going south. Half the fields are burnt, and what folks are left are walled up inside their holdfasts. One bunch rides off at dawn and another one shows up by dusk."
"That's not the worst of it," another one insisted. "Dragons and wolves rule the parts now and not those with two legs and limbs. Even here outlaws are roaming around free, preying around unsuspecting folk."
"It's more than just a simple war now," the first man agreed. "There's strange men from across the seas, lots and lots o' them. Men who live on horses and who wear horns in their hairs and others who have heads flashing in a dozen colours. These lot are worse than the others from King's Landing."
"I heard the Targaryen princes are here with the three dragons," said a straw-haired man with a tankard in his hand.
"Fool's talk." His companion spat.
"The man I heard it from, he saw it himself. Three dragons, as big as mountains, he swore."
"Swearing don't make it true, Hod," the innkeeper said. "You keep swearing you'll pay what you owe me, and I've yet to see a copper." The common room erupted in laughter, and the man with the yellow hair turned red.
"The dragons are dead," volunteered a sallow man in a travel-stained green cloak. "The Born King slew them. The singers call him Dragonslayer now."
"Hear, hear," the crowd said. "The Born King, Andrew Stark. Gods bless him now." The man lifted his tankard high, sloshing the beer that remained. "Here's to the Dragonslayer!" He gulped, slammed his empty tankard down, belched, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
The Born King. Argella has heard the legend once back in the Stormlands. But here in the north people seemed to hold onto it more so than people in the south did, most likely in fear that the dragon king or the spider might hear them talking about him.
When she finally finished with the food, the doors flew open. Argella reached for her bow as she turned to look at the visitor. Her guards were already on their feet swords in hand. It was only a woman carrying a little girl in his arms, tears on her eyes. The girl was no older than two and she cried all the time. Her mother clutched her tightly to her breast trying to calm the child now, but she had tears of her own. She talked, but her words were hard to hear.
Argella quickly went to her, Brienne at her side. The woman quickly clutched at her hand. "Please," she cried, over and over. "Please, help. They've taken everything... homes, food, those who can't escape are taken as slaves. Please, help."
The woman likely didn't know who she was, but Argella was the only girl in the common room apart from Brienne and so sought her out for comfort. Argella led her to sit at a bench. "Where did this happen?" The mother turned sideways, and pointed towards the east. "Springveld, by the river."
Argella stood up and turned to face her guards. "We have to help these people."
Her guards stared at her blankly.
"Your grace, we have to go," Trent said, who was the captain of her guard. She had known the man from her childhood in Storm's End, a fine warrior and a loyal knight.
"The nearest crossing is a day away, my lady," said Hoss. "If we miss the crossing we might have to go around the river."
Argella tightened her resolve. "Then we will go around it."
"My lady, it'd be better of we stay on our course."
"We will not leave without helping them," Argella said, stiff with fury. "These people are dying and I will not have it said that my family didn't do anything."
"But, my queen, his grace-"
"His grace is not here," Argella said. "This is what I am going to do."
She didn't look back as she left the inn. She knew that they would follow her and they did. When she glanced back, they were riding up behind her with Brienne in front.
Later that day Argella spied a red glow against the evening sky. Argella pointed it out to Brienne. "We must be going the right way."
"Fire, your grace," Trent announced.
As the world darkened, the fire seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until it looked as though the whole sky was ablaze. As they got closer, they could smell the smoke.
It was dusk when they arrived at the place where the village had been. The fields were a charred desolation for miles around, the houses blackened shells. The carcasses of burnt and butchered animals dotted the ground, under living blankets of carrion crows that rose, cawing furiously, when disturbed. Smoke still drifted from inside the holdfast. Its timber palisade looked strong from afar, but had not proved strong enough.
Riding out in front of the party on her horse, Argella saw burnt bodies impaled on sharpened stakes atop the walls, their hands drawn up tight in front of their faces as if to fight off the flames that had consumed them. She barely had the stomach to look at the brutality and where pity gave place in her heart rage took hold. When the wind blew, Argella thought she could hear the mother whispering, "Please. Please. Please." Only this time it was the corpses who stared at her with dead eyes weeping blood.
She called a halt when they were still some distance off. The outlaws were so occupied with enjoying their conquest that they had not left any sentries to keep watch. They had left their horses tied to a tree, five of them. She counted about twenty five, some dressed in mail and halfhelms and others in leather. There might be a few others as well, maybe thirty or forty but it wouldn't make a change. She could deal with them easily with a overwhelming force.
Argella sent her men around to surround the village. She herself went in on foot with Brienne to take the main gate. The first blood was hers. Two of the brigands were arguing about a pot of gold by the wooden palisade and Argella felled them quickly.
Calm as still water, she led Brienne around the oak they were hiding behind and drew her back behind a tall flowering hedge.
Her arrows took down two more of them before she gave the order and her men fell upon the unsuspecting brigands all at once, easily cutting them down as a farmer might mow down ripe wheat. The fires had died out by the time the fight did and almost all of the brigands had died and she had not lost any men.
The leader of the outlaws was brought before her by Trent. The captain knocked his legs out from under him and made him kneel in front of her. The outlaw looked up at her, darkened in fear. "My lady." His voice trembled. "I am no enemy to you. Mercy, I plead. Mercy. Please."
Strangely the word reminded her of the mother's pleading in the inn. Argella took a look around her and then turned back to the man kneeling in front of her. "You shall plead mercy to those people." She gave a nod at Trent. Quick as that, the captain's sword was pressed to the apple of the brigand's throat and the outlaw fell face down. She let him drown in his own blood, a fair fate than the one he had given the villagers.
Argella gazed upon the lifeless corpse. She slipped her bow on her shoulders, feeling a bit better. With a slight smile on her face, she left the village with Brienne and her guards following her.