Chapter Text
He had hoped that he would get some rest.
Robb should really stop assuming the best outcome. He really should. The moment he’s back at Riverrun, his great-uncle tells him that his wife’s mother is currently residing in Jaime Lannister’s former cell and his hopes of laying low for a while are gone in the blink of an eye.
“Jeyne’s mother?”
“It was your lady wife coming to us. Apparently she had understood that something was amiss – or well, she said that she became with child only after she stopped drinking some of the tea her mother brought her. And – you heard about the pregnancy being difficult.”
“I did, but –”
“Well, she asked for a maester to have a look at what she had been brought and apparently her mother had been feeding her something similar to moon tea. Probably having taken it for long hasn’t helped, even if at least she hasn’t had any since she found out she was with child. I had someone look through her correspondence and she had been in contact with Tywin Lannister from before your uncle’s wedding. She was to make sure that her daughter wouldn’t give you an offspring, and she’d have gone to some other Lannister lord after your uncle’s wedding.”
“Oh, for – how is Jeyne?”
“A lot better than she was a couple of months ago. Now there’s hoping that all her mother’s scheming won’t pay off.”
Robb doesn’t ask why he hadn’t been told – he knows why. If they had told him, he’d have come back at once, and in the situation he was in, it’d have been a suicidal move.
“Is there something else I should know before I go see my wife?”
The Blackfish shakes his head, and Robb figures that no news is better than bad news. “Fine. Uncle, will you please tell all the bannermen that I’ll see them on the morrow? And I’ll need to send ravens to all the ones that aren’t here - if you’ll be so kind to have some paper delivered to my wife’s room, I’ll have them ready tomorrow.”
“Very well.”
Robb spares a second for feeling deeply thankful that he has at least one member of his family with him that he can still trust to act responsibly, and then he heads for his and Jeyne’s room. The closer he gets, the more he can’t help thinking that he really, really ruined her – now even her own mother… he can’t even go there. Three months ago, he’d have blamed Theon all over.
Right now, he just blames himself. And Ramsay Snow. And Tywin Lannister. And Balon Greyjoy and both his stupid rebellions (no, his traitorous mind thinks, it’s just the second that you resent). And fine, he still blames Theon too, but knowing the circumstances has done a lot to make him realize that he wasn’t the only responsible one in there.
Then he decides that it isn’t time to dwell on that, and knocks on the door before entering the room.
Jeyne is on the bed and she turns slowly towards him, and he stops dead in his tracks. She doesn’t look too good, her face too thin for a woman with child, and her cheeks are flushed, but it doesn’t look like a healthy flush. Still, her lips curl up into a lovely smile the moment she sees him, and he tries to forget all the rest.
He grabs a chair, sits next to her, takes her hand in between both of his.
“You did manage to come then,” she whispers, her voice strained.
“I did, but – gods, I’m sorry. I hadn’t imagined that…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence and he settles to move one of his hands over her forehead, brushing sweaty hair from her face.
“Don’t be. She had no right,” Jeyne says. “I don’t know why she would – but it’s no matter. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret this.” She moves her free hand over her belly, her thumb brushing over the cloth covering it.
“I’m still sorry. If I had known –”
“I was the one saying they shouldn’t tell you.”
For a moment Robb feels petrified. “Why? Jeyne, why would you even –”
“My lord, I might not be much experienced in matters of war, but after your uncle’s wedding, I knew your position would have been precarious. And don’t try to tell me that if you hadn’t married me, it still would have happened. You needed to be in the North. And I wasn’t going to keep you here for something you couldn’t have helped with.”
Robb doesn’t try to argue with that reasoning. She’s right, and she knows it. He shakes his head, sits next to her and as his lips meet hers, he hopes that at least what they have won’t turn sour. But when everything he has touched lately did, he can’t allow himself to hope too much.
--
The following morning, he writes all the messages needing to be sent, and then he goes back to bed. There’s still a couple of hours before he meets his bannermen, after all.
He doesn’t know why, as he gets back under the covers, he can’t help wondering what’s happening on that ship. Has Theon arrived in Pyke yet (doubtful, it’s a longer trip than few days), how he’s faring (probably bad), how it’s going to end (hopefully better than it did the first time, but it wouldn’t take much). He wishes he could just stop thinking about him, but apparently it’s making him twitchy and Jeyne realizes it.
“There’s something on your mind,” she says.
“Nothing that should concern you.”
“Shouldn’t your concerns be mine, as well?”
She has a point. And she deserves the truth. If only Robb knew what the truth was. He turns on his side, putting a hand on her hip, careful not to jostle her swollen belly.
“Do you – do you remember the reason why… you and me fell into the same bed in the first place?”
“That… friend of yours killed your brothers. Wasn’t it?”
“Well. It turned out that he hasn’t killed them after all and that he wasn’t even the one to torch the castle.”
“How – how did it go, then?”
“My brothers had escaped, and they killed two commoners so that it wouldn’t seem as if he couldn’t hold the place. Little good it did to him, since Roose Bolton’s bastard proceeded to betray him and burn Winterfell. We found him in the Dreadfort. Theon, I mean.”
Jeyne pales at that. “And what did you do?”
“Well, I should have killed him. Except that the moment I knew, and after I saw what happened to him, I just fucking couldn’t. And now he’s my hostage all over again, in theory. Except that right now he’s going to the Iron Islands because after allying with his sister I promised her that I’d let him see his mother before she dies. And the point is that I have no idea of what I’m even doing.”
“You’re being a decent man,” Jeyne answers.
“Most people would ask me why I even care.”
“Most people wouldn’t have married me,” she says, but she doesn’t sound bitter or sad about it. It’s a fact, and Robb can’t argue with it. She’s right – most people wouldn’t have given a damn about either a spoiled maiden from a once great house (but not now) or an old woman who’ll probably be dead before the year is over.
Maybe he should just make peace with it. He’s never going to be able not to care.
“I’m still not sure about any of this. I should hate the sight of him instead. And I shouldn’t be burdening you with this.”
She gives him a tired smile, turning on her back and then slightly on her other side, so that she’s facing him. She reaches down, her fingers covering his. And he feels even more guilty about what has happened between him and Theon until this point – not that they ever did anything more than touching, and it was entirely harmless touching, but still. She should be the only person sharing his bed.
“I asked you first, hadn’t I? And – some would say that this is just a woman’s talking, and a woman who probably isn’t in her best mind right now, but it doesn’t seem that easy to me.”
“My lady? What do you mean with that?”
“From what I remember, you weren’t only devastated about your brothers. You were devastated about who you thought had killed them. Something tells me he wasn’t just someone you trusted with an envoy.”
“No. We grew up together. Mostly. He was my friend.”
“Then it only seems natural to me that you should want to forgive him.”
“I didn’t say anything about –”
“You wouldn’t be so troubled if you weren’t at least considering it.”
“Tell that to my bannermen. It’d make me seem weak.”
“Your bannermen might say that forgiveness is for women, aye. But you still want to.”
He sighs, figuring that denying it won’t be worth much. And he knows he can trust her. “What I want doesn’t really matter in this case. But yes, I think I do. Want that, I mean.”
She gives him an understanding nod while he thinks about what he had been reported about his father’s death. Joffrey had said that both his mother and Sansa had wanted him to allow Ned Stark to take the black. The little blonde prick had said that accepting that request would have been weak. Robb wishes he could find more pleasure in thinking that at least he isn’t that kind of person, but it doesn’t really change much.
“Here’s one that will not think less of you for it,” Jeyne says after a while, and her lips are wet and soft when he kisses them, trying not to force her to move abruptly.
--
Before the meeting, he’s given a raven from Pyke. It’s from Asha Greyjoy. It says that they landed safely and that her brother is to sail for Harlaw on the next day, so that’s where he should address any ravens if wanting to communicate with Ser Davos. She adds that the kingsmoot will be held again in two, three weeks at most.
He sighs in relief for one moment, hoping that the trip to Harlaw goes smooth. He thinks about the way Theon would scream in his sleep back when he slept on the floor and he tries to silence the gnawing guilt he feels knotting his stomach, along with a voice in the back of his head that says you should have gone with him.
--
“There will be no further problems from the North,” he says in front of a war council that’s half as big as it should be. Everyone who’s missing died at the Red Wedding, and Theon – he needs not to think about it.
“What about the Iron Islands?” Lord Mallister asks from the left of the table.
“They won’t be a nuisance for now. Asha Greyjoy is going to stay true to the pacts. I had a raven from her this morning – she might be in charge in a month or so, and if that happens, then we have a fleet. I wouldn’t have many doubts about that, since she’s pretty much the only valid contender in the run. Now, will someone tell me how the situation has been here?”
The Blackfish stands up, clears his throat. “The Umbers have their hands tied – the Freys still have your uncle and the Greatjon. Not to mention that from what I hear, sweet Roslin Frey is with child and due soon.”
Robb nods, trying not to curse out loud. As if they needed one more complication. “That said, I’m sure you know about Tywin Lannister’s demise. That might make things a lot easier for us. I have a couple of men in King’s Landing and they tell me that at court things aren’t faring as well as they would like to make the rest of the world think.”
“What do you mean?” Stannis asks from Robb’s right. His eyes are focused and he seems to be thinking of a strategy already.
“I mean that the king is merely a token in his mother’s hands and Cersei Lannister is no idiot, but she’s not her father, either. And considering how did her eldest’s reign go, the smallfolk might get her themselves before we strike. Sure, she’s allied with the Tyrells, and Dorne isn’t against them either, but as things are, we could do worse. My suggestion is taking some time to regroup and work on freeing the Frey hostages before going for King’s Landing – let the woman ruin herself with her own hands first.”
Robb turns towards Stannis – it’s not as if he can ignore his opinion. “My lord, what would you say?”
“I say I wouldn’t attack King’s Landing directly without being sure of the outcome. Ser Brynden obviously knows what he’s talking about and I could use time to gather my own bannermen at Storm’s End while you deal with the Freys.”
When the both of them agree, no one has objections. Robb sighs, knowing that his next questions will not have answers.
“There are no news of my sisters either, are they?”
The Blackfish shakes his head. “Arya seems disappeared into thin air. Sansa was still in King’s Landing until Tyrion Lannister’s trial ended, but she was gone the same night he disappeared. People say they have escaped together after plotting the king’s death, but other than not believing your sister capable of that, there’s nothing telling us otherwise. And she’s still not to be found.”
Robb wants to punch the table in frustration, but doesn’t let himself. He needs to show restraint. “Very well,” he sighs. “We shall meet again soon to discuss strategies about the Freys. Before leaving, though… how many prisoners are there in the dungeons, right now?”
“About two hundred,” the Blackfish says after thinking about it.
“Do we strictly need any of them?”
“Not really. There’s no one who’s worthy of a ransom, but most of them had been captured during battles, not arrested for specific crimes.”
“Send them all to the Wall then. They need more men, urgently, and I doubt they’ll get help from King’s Landing. If they don’t want to take the black, just tell them that they’ll have to serve there until the emergency is over and then they’ll be pardoned, if they’re still alive.”
Which, if what Jon had written him about the Others is true, is definitely not a given, but he’ll worry about that when it’s time. No one objects to his decision either and the reunion is called off.
--
He spends the following day in Jeyne’s room. She’s not awake for most of the time – she’s obviously fatigued, and Robb feels horrible whenever he thinks that she doesn’t have that certain glow which Robb remembers on his own lady mother when she was pregnant with Arya, Bran and Rickon. Then again, his mother hadn’t been fed poison before and during her pregnancies, hadn’t she.
Some of the bannermen he had sent ravens to, asking about his missing brothers, send answer quickly enough, but without any news. When he isn’t pacing, he curls up against Jeyne’s back in the bed, his hands never straying farther than her hips.
“What should I do with your mother?” he asks when he can’t stop himself anymore. He doesn’t want to think that Jeyne might not survive labor, but if that happens, then he needs to know. And he won’t choose without having her opinion.
Jeyne gives him a small, sad laugh. “I don’t think that there’s another man in the seven kingdoms who’d have asked that.”
“I asked – I asked Theon for his opinion about letting him go to Pyke or not when according to every law I should have killed him, it stands to reason that I’d pay you the same courtesy.” Sometimes he thinks that he has learned nothing. There was a reason why he was the one out of all the self-proclaimed kings in Westeroswho was almost tricked into going to a wedding that would have ended in blood and where he’d have died as a guest. If he had gone. He knows that he’s been too trusting, he knows that honor brings you nothing in this world (look at how your father died), but he can’t do anything more than acknowledging it. He doesn’t want to be a ruthless conqueror, he never wanted to be a king. He can’t start to hate himself just because being honest doesn’t pay off. Not that being dishonorable pays off that much more – look at how it went with Theon. Then again, he’s being unfair. Theon hadn’t even technically turned his cloak, he still was a hostage, and he always lacked patience. Not to mention that he never was one to think about the consequences of his action. He remembers Theon bending the knee to him at the Dreadfort and he remembers tears staining his own cloak – no, that hadn’t paid off indeed.
(Why can’t he stop thinking about Theon in the first place?)
“Couldn’t you – send her away?” Jeyne asks, quietly.
“I can arrange to find someone that will lock her up in a tower for as long as needed, if that’s what you meant.”
“It was. I don’t want her dead, she’s my mother, but – I don’t want to see her again anytime soon if I can help it.”
Robb nods against her neck, feeling drowsy. Maybe he could close his eyes for a moment, but –
There’s a sharp knock on the door and he forces himself to stand up. There’s his uncle outside, a message in his hand.
“This arrived from White Arbor ten minutes ago. I think you want to read it at once.”
Robb takes it with shaking fingers and when he reads it, he has to go through it thrice before starting to process it.
Your Grace,
I received your message, and I suppose that it’s time you’re told. I haven’t said anything until now, but you will understand that I wanted to keep this hidden until I was sure that it was safe to say. Your youngest brother Rickon and the wildling woman that was traveling with him were found at White Arbor’s port maybe two weeks after Winterfell’s destruction. Along with the turncloak’s squire, who had been following them and somehow found a way to alert one of my men. The woman was searching for a passage to Skaagos, but after she was brought to the castle, she agreed that staying hidden here would have been a better option. She doesn’t know about your other brother, I’m afraid, though she confirmed that he went north along with Howland Reed’s children. You may come whenever you wish, and they’ll both be safe until you do. If you prefer to send someone for your brother, that can be arranged.
It has Lord Manderly’s signature, and for a single, blessed moment, Robb feels elated. The Manderlys always were his house’s allies and he has no reasons to doubt the letter. Knowing that at least one of his brothers is alive and well makes his heart swell with happiness, and he wonders if he couldn’t go to White Arbor himself – it wouldn’t take too long.
“Jeyne!” he exclaims, turning towards her. “Jeyne, this is – Jeyne?”
The words die in his throat when she moans in displeasure, and when he runs towards the bed and lifts her skirt and sees the sheets wet with water and a trickle of blood, he goes pale.
“Uncle, fetch a maester,” he almost shouts, and he holds her hand until one gets there and he’s dragged out of the room.
He spends the next six hours outside it, sitting on a chair, wanting to cry whenever he hears Jeyne scream in pain. Whenever a woman comes out of the room in order to change her bucket, he sees water stained with blood and it does nothing to make him feel better. And now he can’t to White Arbor himself, not when his wife’s mother had tried to poison her. No one guarantees that there isn’t some Lannister spy about the castle, and if they could orchestrate his uncle’s wedding, there’s no reason to think that they’d be above killing children.
He sighs, asks for quill and paper. He writes a heartfelt response to Lord Manderly, and closes it saying that he can’t come at once, but that he will the moment he can and to please keep the matter secret. No one else needs to know about it, just in case.
He’s about to fall asleep on his chair out of frustration when suddenly he hears another kind of crying. A child’s cry, and his heart starts beating faster. He waits for ten minutes and knocks on the door. A maid lets him in, nodding towards the bed. Jeyne is lying over it, a sheet covered in blood between her legs, but she’s breathing, even if she doesn’t look well. And then he sees the maester come towards him with something small clutched between his arms.
“Your Grace,” he says when he’s in front of him. “You have a daughter.”
For a split moment Robb feels both happy and sad at once – a son would have given him a proper heir, but maybe a girl will be less likely to be targeted – but the moment he sees his own eyes staring up at him he forgets about inheritances. She’s beautiful – she has Jeyne’s darker hair, he thinks, and she looks well and healthy.
“Is – is she well? And my lady wife?” He’s aware that his voice is trembling, but he can’t exactly force himself to sound like a king right now.
“The child is as healthy as a newborn can be. About your lady wife… it wasn’t an easy labor.” As if I don’t know that. I was right outside, I had gotten that far, Robb thinks. “She lost a lot of blood, but she could have died and she’s still among us. I will change the sheets and see to her after we find a wet nurse – I didn’t have the time to search for one right now.”
“Of course. Yes. You have my thanks.”
Before the maester (damn, Robb should ask someone to remind him his name) can hand the child over to one of the maids, Robb shakes his head. “I’ll take her.”
She’s so tiny and warm, Robb thinks, but he can’t help staring down at her. Gods, and to think that if Jeyne hadn’t realized it –
“Your Grace?” the maester asks. “How do you wish to call her? If you have a name, of course.”
Robb hadn’t even thought about names, and he hadn’t asked Jeyne if she wanted one in particular, but as he looks into his daughter’s eyes, he already knows the answer.
“Catelyn,” he answers.
--
The next day, he’s told that Jeyne is running a fever and that she’s in the hands of the gods.
Then he gets two letters from Harlaw. One is from Lord Rodrik. It confirms him that Theon and Ser Davos arrived safely at some point during the previous night, and it’s more courteous than Robb would have expected. Then there’s a line about Lord Rodrik’s sister that makes Robb realize that Theon might have to stay there longer than he had thought.
The second letter, written in not exactly steady penmanship, is from Ser Davos.
Your Grace.
The trip was as smooth as I could hope for; the place is as wretched as I remember from the Rebellion.
Your hostage is doing well enough, though he could fare better. If you have any specific request concerning him, let me know.
Nothing else except from a scribble that could pass for a signature, but from what Robb remembers, this comes from a man grown who learned to read and write less than two years ago – he isn’t expecting him to waste time with unnecessary words. He glances at his daughter sleeping in a small crib that must have been built when Sansa was her age and then he finds three pieces of paper. On the first he writes a short note to Lord Harlaw, on the second a longer one for Ser Davos and then he looks down at the third. He thinks about it for one second, then figures that playing it safe is the best course of action.
Your uncle sent me a raven explaining the situation. Stay there as long as you think you need. I’ll be in Riverrun for the foreseeable future – when you come back, come here unless I write with a change of location. Also, you might want to know that Lord Manderly was hiding my brother Rickon in White Arbor, along with your former squire.
No one would deduce a thing from it. It’s all facts and no emotion.
And then he realizes that maybe – maybe that was the problem. He curses himself for falling into that trap all over again, but he can’t help it. He thinks about how Theon must feel right now – he’s going back to the place where most of his problems began, he hasn’t seen his mother in twelve years or so and who knows if she’ll even recognize him, and when he left he was nowhere near fine. And not just mentally – that kind of trip has to be exhausting, for someone who can’t even walk without feeling pain at any given time. If he sends the letter like this, it’ll seem as if he doesn’t care. And Theon should know better, but he hadn’t known better when he was well.
I’m still waiting, he adds under the rest. Still nothing that would be deemed suspicious, but enough to show that he hasn’t forgotten. And then he puts his name in the small, free corner on the right. He hasn’t signed the one to Ser Davos and he had put his surname, too, in the one for Lord Harlaw.
He seals all the messages before he can think twice of it and hands them over to a servant to have them sent.
--
Two days later, he has barely slept. Jeyne is still sick, though she’s conscious for small periods of time now – she doesn’t make much sense when she is, but Robb will take what he can get and he moves permanently into her room. Their daughter is there when she isn’t with the wet nurse and during the nights (the maester was worried that constant screaming wouldn’t be good for Jeyne’s condition), but Robb had insisted for her to stay in the closest room. And while the screaming doesn’t change much for Jeyne either way, it doesn’t make him sleep. It’s muffled, sure, and not as strong as it would be, and it just makes him spend more time than he should thinking about how Theon used to try and drown his screaming against the blankets while he slept on the ground.
Between that and worrying over Jeyne, he can’t sleep at all.
And that’s when he gets the second letter. When he’s delivered a message from the Wall sometime before dawn, he’s so tired that he’s almost sure that he’s hallucinating while reading it. But then he re-reads it again twice, thrice, and he doesn’t know that he’s crying tears of relief until they fall on the small piece of paper.
Robb,
I have news about Bran. One of my sworn brothers met him a few months ago but never said anything until now because he had promised he wouldn’t. I’ll spare you the details, it’s too long a story, but they met at the Black Gate while Sam was coming back from beyond the Wall. He says he met Bran, Hodor and the Reed children, and they asked him to let them pass so they could go North. Then they made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone, but back then Ramsay Snow was still alive as far as we all knew, and he only felt safe telling the truth just when he was sure that you were back in your rightful place. If you’re wondering whether it might be a lie, I can guarantee that it’s not – he can be trusted. The moment he told me I sent out a search party – there are a few wildlings in between and they know the land beyond the Wall better than we do. Hopefully I’ll have better news for you soon, but I thought you would want to know. Do what you want with it, though maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell anyone else until we know more for sure.
Jon
--
Jeyne’s fever breaks on the fifth day, and clearly Robb finds out about it some four hours later – he had been going over strategies to free his uncle and the other hostages from the Twins without risking to have them killed for the entire afternoon and no one had interrupted the council. When he runs back to their room and finds Jeyne holding their daughter to her chest, he wishes he had been here before.
“How are you feeling, my lady?” he asks, his voice sounding too hoarse for his own tastes.
“Not as bad as I could.”
“I hope you didn’t have another name in mind,” he says as sits at her side.
“I have no problems with the one you chose. I hadn’t thought about names either, for that matter.”
Robb feels relieved for a moment, also because he can’t tell her that he’ll let her choose the one for their next child. From what he was told, it’d be highly unadvisable to try for more than the one they have.
Not as if he cares – gods, it’s not as if his main problem is the lack of male offspring. He wishes it was.
--
Three days later, he gets another raven from Ser Davos.
We’ll most probably be in Riverrun about a week from now. Maybe a week and three days.
Against his better judgment, after writing a note saying that he’ll be waiting for them, he caves.
How is he?, he writes on the bottom of the message.
The answer arrives in two days.
He looks the same as he had when we left.
The rest isn’t better, either.
--
He spends that night sleepless, cursing himself as he turns in his bed. Jeyne is shivering on the other side of it, and he doesn’t dare coming closer – she’s still a bit feverish and she doesn’t seem to like to be touched. Differently from –
Damn.
He needs to stop it. He needs to stop wondering why he’s feeling drained, relieved, angry and almost happy at the same time. The first probably needs no explanations – he hasn’t slept much at all since he came back. He’s relieved because he knows for sure that Theon is coming back this time. Not that it matters, not that it should, and not as if Robb thought it wouldn’t happen, but still. The anger is mostly towards himself because he should just not give a damn, but that part of him isn’t as loud as it used to be.
And the last one – seven hells, he doesn’t want to say that he wants Theon back here, but the more he thinks about it, the more he knows it’s true. Maybe it’s that he knows for sure that he never killed either Bran or Rickon and that at least one of them is alive and safe. Maybe it’s that the one thing he wants is just to go back to how things were, when Winterfell was whole, his sisters weren’t missing, Jon wasn’t wearing black and with all the faults, they had been fine. It seems like a dream right now, and he knows that if he ever puts back the picture together there will be missing pieces (his parents, for one). They aren’t even the same anymore – him and Jon have hardened, they had to. He doesn’t want to think about how Sansa must have felt, with all her dreams of marrying a noble knight shattered (and he never could ransom her, if only that mad idea of his mother’s had paid off in the end). About Arya, he’s starting to despair that he’ll ever find out where she is. Both Bran and Rickon have lost a childhood, and Theon - well. He paid some price for his actions. He still longs for it anyway, and he should hate himself for it, but he can’t. He has already accepted that he isn’t made of steel – he might as well accept the consequences.
He had said it out loud, I miss you, and it was the truth, but how is he supposed to act? He can’t behave the same way he had in the Dreadfort and in Winterfell or at Deepwood Motte, but what else should he do? Oh, he should keep his distance, he knows that, but it’s not what will make things better. If only he had a pretext to pardon Theon he probably would take it, at least to stop with this hostage farce, but he doesn’t have one and his men would have his head.
He’s sick of seeing people he loves in pain, he thinks. He’s sick of knowing that the ones that aren’t here with him aren’t much better off. And he’s sick of not being able to do anything about it.
--
The day Theon is supposed to arrive along with Ser Davos, he spends hours going through useless maps and pondering about how to treat with the Freys. He’s tempted to just storm into the Twins and kill everyone happening to be inside, he’d have the rights to fucking do it, but that doesn’t save the hostages or his uncle, and he’s not going to risk the life of his mother’s only living brother.
Or his heir’s, gods.
When he tells a couple of servants to prepare the room at the opposite end of the hallway where his and Jeyne’s is, he tries to drown his guilt. He has another one prepared for Ser Davos, too – Stannis should be back in a week at most and going back and to Storm’s End would be just a waste of time.
Not even the sight of Jeyne finally being well enough to nurse their daughter (she had insisted) is enough to make him forget what’s going to happen this evening.
“What troubles you so?” Jeyne asks when he sits at her side. His tongue feels dry – he doesn’t even know how to put it into words.
“It’s – he’s coming back today. Or tonight.” No need to say who he is.
Jeyne gives him a nod, her hand cradling the baby’s head.
“I don’t know what to do.” There. He said it.
“Is there something you want to do?”
“Not what would be proper.”
“If he’s your hostage, doing anything at all would hardly be proper, wouldn’t it?”
Which is also a perfectly good point. Whatever he does that isn’t ignoring Theon won’t be proper indeed, but ignoring him is out of the question. He isn’t that cruel.
And maybe she also deserves the whole truth.
“No, but hostages don’t usually share their bed with their keepers.” His voice is barely audible, and he’s almost pathetically thankful when her eyes don’t turn cold the moment he says it. “Not – not in the way men and women do,” he adds quickly. Not that they haven’t done that, too, sometimes and years ago, but it’s not the point now. “It’s just – it seemed the only thing I could do to help, I guess. But it’s not – I can’t. I already felt horrible about it, but I can’t now.”
“Because of me?” she asks, her voice still carefully neutral.
“It’s not you. It’s a question of duties. I shouldn’t have done that in the first place.”
“And we shouldn’t have slept with each other in the first place. Don’t get me wrong. I told you, I don’t regret any of it.” She glances down at Catelyn, and you couldn’t argue with that statement.
“Do you think that I do?”
“I know that you don’t. But I also can’t begrudge you. You wouldn’t be so concerned for someone you only hate or don’t care for. And I know you enough – I would be foolish if I assumed that you could force yourself to change your feelings just because you think you should. I said I wouldn’t think less of you if you forgave him, I won’t think less of you for sharing a bed with someone else. Isn’t that what you would do for a sibling?”
“Yes, but –”
“Well, I remember you asking all over how could he do that when he was like a brother to you.”
Robb finds that he has no counter answer for that. And his resolve to do the right thing won’t hold much longer, especially since he isn’t too sure of what would the right thing be in this case.
--
Catelyn is crying as Jeyne picks her up, and Robb is about to ask if she needs help when he hears another scream coming from down in the hall. For a moment both him and Jeyne freeze. Their daughter squirms in Jeyne’s arms, wanting attention. There’s no question of where it came from, and Robb feels sick. From Jeyne’s face, he can see that she had the same impression. He thinks about how Theon had looked when he came into the solar not two hours before now. Tired. So very tired. And looking as if he could barely stand up.
“Was – was that what you meant before?” she asks, her voice low.
Robb thinks about how pained that scream sounded. “Yes. I couldn’t exactly turn on my side and go back to sleep at that.”
He tries not to think about how that would never happen when they shared the bed.
“You want to go,” Jeyne says. It’s not a question.
“Jeyne, I’m not – I should be here.”
“Maybe, but I don’t need you here. I can take care of her. And if I need help, I can call servants, or the wet nurse, or the maester. Of course it’s better if you’re here, but… I have other people that can help me. Something tells me that he has only you.”
“And – are you sure that –”
“I don’t know him, but you do. If you think you should go, then go. I told you, I don’t expect you to do anything else. And I wouldn’t want you to be different.”
He nods, his throat closed. He doesn’t know if he can speak, so he kisses her forehead first and her mouth after.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” he manages to say. She gives him a small smile before turning her head down towards Catelyn, and Robb walks down the hall instead. He stops for a moment out of the door. He can hear Theon breathing, the same way someone would when trying not to lose their temper. The gods know that Robb doesn’t want to imagine what he has dreamed about, but something tells him it was related to whatever Theon couldn’t tell, the time Robb asked what happened to him. He breathes in and opens the door. He feels Theon going rigid in the bed rather than seeing him and for a moment he thinks that he should bolt and run.
But – he thinks of all the other nights, he thinks about what Jeyne said (he has only you). He thinks that it’s been almost a month and about what Ser Davos had written – he isn’t any better. And gods help him, she was right. If he just didn’t care either way, he wouldn’t be aching to raise the covers and join Theon there, he wouldn’t be aching to salvage what can be salvaged.
Tomorrow they’ll talk, and maybe they’ll come closer to sort it out. For now, he silences his guilt, takes off his clothes and steps forward.