The ironman who came for them was a squat thick-bodied man with a coal-black beard that covered half his chest. He bore the boy easily enough, though he looked none too happy with the task. Rickon's bedchamber was a half turn down the steps. The four-year-old was cranky at being woken. "I want Mother," he said. "I want her. And Shaggydog too."
"Your mother is far away, my prince." Maester Luwin pulled a bedrobe over the child's head. "But I'm here, and Bran and Lyanna." He took Rickon by the hand and led him out.
Below, they came on Meera and Jojen being herded from their room by a bald man whose spear was three feet taller than he was. When Jojen looked at Lyanna, his eyes were green pools full of sorrow. Other ironmen had rousted the Freys. "Your brother's lost his kingdom," Little Walder told Bran. "You're no prince now, just a hostage."
"So are you," Jojen said, "and me, and all of us."
"No one was talking to you, frogeater."
"Shut up, Little Walder" Lyanna blurted.
One of the ironmen went before them carrying a torch, but the rain had started again and soon drowned it out. As they hurried across the yard they could hear the direwolves howling in the godswood. I hope Visenya wasn't hurt falling from the tree.
She saw Old Nan, her toothless mouth opening and closing. Hayhead was carried in between two of the other guards, a bloodstained bandage wrapped about his bare chest. Poxy Tym wept inconsolably, and Beth Cassel cried with fear.
"What have we here?" Theon asked of the Reeds and Freys.
"These are Lady Catelyn's wards, both named Walder Frey," Maester Luwin explained. "And this is Jojen Reed and his sister Meera, son and daughter to Howland Reed of Greywater Watch, who came to renew their oaths of fealty to Winterfell."
"Some might call that ill-timed," said Theon, "though not for me. Here you are and here you'll stay." He vacated the high seat. "Lady Lyanna." He called, she walked up close to Theon.
People were still being driven outside of the Great Hall, prodded along with shouts and the butts of the spears. Gage and Osha arrived from the kitchens, spotted with flour from making the morning bread. Mikken they dragged in cursing. Farlen entered limping, struggling to support Palla. Her dress had been ripped in two; she held it up with a clenched fist and walked as if every step were agony. Septon Chayle rushed to lend a hand, but one of the ironmen knocked him to the ground.
The last man marched through the doors was the prisoner Reek, whose stench preceded him, ripe and pungent. Lyanna felt her stomach twist at the smell of him. "We found this one locked in a tower cell," announced his escort, a beardless youth with ginger-colored hair and sodden clothing, doubtless one of those who'd swum the moat. "He says they call him Reek."
"Can't think why," Theon said, smiling. "Do you always smell so bad, or did you just finish fucking a pig?"
"Haven't fucked no one since they took me, m'lord. Heke's me true name. I was in service to the Bastard o' the Dreadfort till the Starks give him an arrow in the back for a wedding gift."
Theon found that amusing. "Who did he marry?"
"The widow o' Hornwood, m'lord."
"That crone? Was he blind? She has teats like empty wineskins, dry and withered."
"It wasn't her teats he wed her for, m'lord."
Lyanna could see about twenty of them. She probably left some guards on the gates and the armory. Even so, there couldn't be more than thirty. Theon raised his hands for quiet. "You all know me—"
"Aye, we know you for a sack of steaming dung!" shouted Mikken, before the bald man drove the butt of his spear into his gut, then smashed him across the face with the shaft. The smith stumbled to his knees and spat out a tooth.
"Mikken, you be silent." Lyanna tried to sound stern, the way Robb did when he made a command, but her voice betrayed her and the words came out in a shrill squeak.
"Listen to your lady, Mikken," said Theon. "She has more sense than you do."
A good lady protects her people, she reminded herself. "I've yielded Winterfell to Theon."
"Louder, Lyanna. And call me prince."
She rolled her eyes, then raised her voice. "I have yielded Winterfell to Prince Theon. All of you should do as he commands you."
"Damned if I will!" bellowed Mikken.
Theon ignored the outburst. "My father has donned the ancient crown of salt and rock, and declared himself King of the Iron Islands. He claims the north as well, by right of conquest. You are all his subjects."
"Bugger that." Mikken wiped the blood from his mouth. "I serve the Starks, not some treasonous squid of—aah." The butt of the spear smashed him face first into the stone ground.
"Smiths have strong arms and weak heads," observed Theon. "But if the rest of you serve me as loyally as you served Ned Stark, you'll find me as generous a lord as you could want." on his hands and knees, Mikken spat blood. Please don't, Lyanna wished at him, but the blacksmith shouted, "If you think you can hold the north with this sorry lot o'—"
The bald man drove the point of his spear into the back of Mikken's neck. Steel slid through flesh and came out his throat in a welter of blood. A woman screamed, and Meera wrapped her arms around Rickon. Lyanna flinched as Bran grabbed her wrist, It's blood he drowned on, she thought numbly. His own blood.
"Who else has something to say?" asked Theon Greyjoy.
Lyanna yelled, "You promised no harm will be done!"
"Mikken disrespected!"
Two ironmen began to beat Hodor with the butts of their spears. The stableboy dropped to the floor, trying to shield himself with his hands.
"I will be as good a lord to you as Eddard Stark ever was." Theon raised his voice to be heard above the smack of wood on flesh. "Betray me, though, and you'll wish you hadn't. And don't think the men you see here are the whole of my power. Torrhen's Square and Deepwood Motte will soon be ours as well, and my uncle is sailing up the Saltspear to seize Moat Cailin. If Robb Stark can stave off the Lannisters, he may reign as King of the Trident hereafter, but House Greyjoy holds the north now."
"Stark's lords will fight you," the man Reek called out. "That bloated pig at White Harbor for one, and them Umbers and Karstarks too. You'll need men. Free me and I'm yours."
Theon weighed him a moment. "You're cleverer than you smell, but I could not suffer that stench."
"Well," said Reek, "I could wash some. If I was free."
"A man of rare good sense." Theon smiled. "Bend the knee." one of the ironmen handed Reek a sword, and he laid it at Theon's feet and swore obedience to House Greyjoy and King Balon. Lyanna could not look. The green dream was coming true.
"M'lord Greyjoy!" Osha stepped past Mikken's body. "I was brought here captive too. You were there the day I was taken."
I thought you were a friend, Lyanna thought, hurt.
"I need fighters," Theon declared, "not kitchen sluts."
"It was Robb Stark put me in the kitchens. For the best part of a year, I've been left to scour kettles, scrape grease, and warm the straw for this one." She threw a look at Gage. "I've had a bellyful of it. Put a spear in my hand again."
"I got a spear for you right here," said the bald man who'd killed Mikken. He grabbed his crotch, grinning.
Osha drove her bony knee up between his legs. "You keep that soft pink thing." She wrested the spear from him and used the butt to knock him off his feet. "I'll have me the wood and iron." The bald man writhed on the floor while the other reavers sent up gales of laughter.
"Greyjoy!" His men called as two of Greyjoy men brought in Ser Rodrik. Lyanna was glad to see him alive. "We caught this one at the square, he took out two of our men"
Prince Theon approached to Ser Rodrik "Ser Rodrik, it grieves me to meet like this as foes"
"It grieves me" Ser Rodrik said, "You were raised here in Winterfell, Starks had clothed you, they put a roof over your head! These people are your people!"
"They are not my people!" Theon snapped.
"King Robb thought of you as a brother!"
"My brothers are dead!" the Prince said, "They've died fighting Stark men. Men like you!"
"Aye, they died fighting in war that your father started! Lord Eddard Start raised you like his own son!"
"I was his hostage! Taken from home!"
"If he were alive to see this--"
"He will not, he's dead! The Seven Kingdoms is at war, and Winterfell is mine"
"I should've put a sword in your belly instead of your own hand!"
"You serve this house faithfully" Theon continued, "you shall--"
Suddenly, Ser Rodrik spat on Prince's face. They knocked Rodrik down.
"Take him down the cellar!" Theon angered, "Lock him down there until he rots--"
Theon's right hand man interrupted him and whispered something to him.
Prince blurted out "I'll lock him up until he rot--"
"No!" His right hand man interrupted again.
Lyanna did not like the way Theon was looking, he looked unsure. Ser Rodrik will be fine, she thought, Jojen never said anything about Rodrik drowning. Theon looked at her and Bran. Rickon gripped her coat, Maester Luwin stood beside the Stark children, while Jojen and Meera stood behind Lyanna.
"Ser Rodrik!" Theon called, "I sentence you to death!"
"No!" Bran cried out. "You said no harm can be done once we yielded!"
"You can't!" Lyanna blurted out, she pleaded Maester Luwin to stop Theon by shaking his arm. Maester approached to Theon, as Rickon shook Lyanna's coat. It was hopeless when Maester Luwin tried to spoke the Prince out of it.
"He disrespected me in front of the whole people!" Theon yelled, "you will addressed me as Prince Theon, or you'll be next" threatened the Maester.
They dragged Ser Rodrik in the middle of the courtyard, pushed him down on his knees and his head over the platform. The rain had poured over the castle and the thunder went louder.
Lyanna pleaded Theon to stop and begged, "Please! Don't do this!"
"Theon!" Bran cried out and while Rickon sobbed.
"Please! I'm begging you!" A sharp pain struck into Lyanna's throat when she knew it was hopeless to save Ser Rodrik. "Theon! Please!"
Theon pulled out his sword Bran sobbed "Stop! Stop! Please!"
"You don't give me commands, little lord!" Theon said to Bran.
Lyanna approached to save Rodrik, but Osha and Meera hold her back, "Theon, I'm begging you!" she sobbed, "Don't do this!"
"My lord!" Rodrik called, "my lady!"
Lyanna, and Bran looked over Rodrik, the knight who had trained Lyanna all her life, even he trained her brothers and fought beside their father. Ser Rodrik could've been a father figure to Lyanna, Bran and Rickon. "I'm off to see your father" He said.
Lyanna shook her head, she still cried, Ser Rodrik said his last words to Theon.
The Prince raised his sword as Lyanna screamed "NO!" she kept shaking off Osha and Meera's grip until Jojen stepped in front of her, he cupped her cheek with guilt in his eyes.
"Don't look, my lady" he told her, "Look at me"
Lyanna eyed at Jojen's green eyes as she heard Theon's sword meeting Rodrik's neck and she flinched. Tempted to looked at Rodrik while Bran and Rickon screamed as they were comforted by Maester Luwin. Women wailed, Lyanna kept her eyes on Jojen's until when she heard a thud, she closed her eyes and quietly cried.