Winterfell

[melon]

"I've lived so long as I'm the best sword in the Reach, I claimed my Lordship with the Sword. Now i like you girlie so tell me where are you from, Be you a Other bride as i say you've put a spell on Ser Idiot here." Patting Ser Humfrey on the Shoulder.

[Horas]

Symond begins playing The Bear and the Maiden Fair on his harp.

[sethgreyjoy]

Ser Humfrey, believing he knows the words, begins to sing incorrect lyrics to the song. Quite loudly.

"Oh she had hair! Hair like a bear! The bear was a fair....a fair bear so bare!"

[melon]

"Ser Idiot I am pleased that you can fight but do not sing, I have heard men who I had stabbed carry a better tune then you and know the words."

[sethgreyjoy]

Ser Humfrey carried on, heedless of the Warden's words, caught up in his own drunken tune.

"Her hair was bare and so was her mare! Bare bare bare!"

[lordbalorgreyjoy]

The next morning, at Callen's council, Balor lounged in a chair waiting for the King to arrive.
Benjen was sitting there, looking pale and dishevelled. Balor doubted he had slept a wink in the night and inwardly despised him for his weakness.

Though the rebellion was over, Balor knew that in order for Callen to secure his grip on the north he would need to rely on more than this broken man. Rebellion sprouts from neglect and having rebelled against Benjen once already he did not doubt they would do so again.

Lord Bolton had arrived during the night and was also sitting at the table, looking hard at Benjen, a cold look on his face. He appeared to have the strength to rule the north, Balor thought approvingly. In order to ensure loyalty, we needed to take hostages from those northern lords who had rebelled.

[Percy Rivers]

Callen had seen to the men the next morning. He personally oversaw the knighting of a hundred men, and awarded the medal of valour to at least a thousand, furthermore he had commisioned a campaign medal for those who had fought in the northern expedition, fashioned in the likeness of a Direwolf. That same day he had the surrounding villages searched until a boy was found bearing the likeness that Callen had seen in his vision.

Callen remembered hearing the first signs of the boy while he was recieving the oaths of fealty from former rebels. He heard shouts coming from the outside the hall, and young boy was brought in kicking and yelling his head off. By the looks of it he had bitten one the Bolton men-at-arms badly, and his mouth was dripping with blood. "Geroff me!" The child said. When they let him go at Callen's feet he tried to run, but was quickly stopped. With defiance he sat down on the ground, giving Callen a malicious look. "What the fuck do you want?" The boy asked. Callen stood, "master Roose I presume?" The boys wolfish look was replaced with suspicious curiosity, "Yes, that's my name. Roose Snow."

/////////////////////////////////

When Callen had finished explaining everything the boy shrugged and contented himself with wolfing down a chicken offered to him. "We found him trying to trap a rabbit near the edge of Snowbound Your Grace." One of the guards told Callen.

"Would have caught it to if you hadn't shown up." The boy muttered, the man ignored him. "The village folk said he had been brought there by some lord who had fathered a bastard and didn't want the burden. Some even said that he was the son of the late Syd Stark, if not him then his father. They say it was about ten or so years ago."

/////////////////////////////////////


Callen sat in judgement. This was the last day he planned to remain in the North, he had travelled around, pacifying stubborn lords, accepting oaths of fealty. He had even travelled as far as the Wall, to set things in order. He had given a substantial amount of his prisoners of war to the Watch, men Hodrick and Swann were happy to have, their order so depleted from the rebellion. He had all deserters executed, and personally slew a fair number of them.

"Lord Bolton I name you Lord Regent of the North, until our young Roose comes of age." Callen had legitimized the boy, all due evidence pointed to the boy being a Stark. "Raise him as your own, teach him the ways of the north...teach him loyalty." The lord of the Dreadfort nodded. "For your leal service you shall be given additional lands in the north and logging and hunting rights in the Wolfswood." Callen had executed the remaining Mormont males, who had been earnest in the support of their patriarch, and married off the few females to loyal northern lords or their sons. "Oversee the taking of hostages, but I want no more executions. With House Mormont's destruction I doubt we'll need to make any more examples." A number of northern lords nodded in satisfaction, even a few former rebels, they could be satisfied knowing that a king, even a southron one, would share their same values.

Callen left the next day for the south, when he was leaving he turned to Roose. "Learn the ways of the north young wolfling. I'll be back to visit in a few years and I want to see what you have learned."

[lordbalorgreyjoy]

Balor despite himself was impressed with the callous ruthlessness the King displayed in dealing with the traitors. The destruction of House Mormont would give the other northern lords pause for thought in the certain knowledge that they could suffer the same fate.

He came up to Callen and nodded in greeting "My men & I shall be returning to Pyke now. I shall come to the tourney upon your return to Kings Landing. Until then" he said briefly and to the point, before leaving Winterfell and heading back to Torrhen's Square and his ships.

[Horas]

Symond played a long, low funeral dirge as hundreds of traitors lost their heads. He was secretly curious about the young ragamuffin the King had turned into a Stark, and wondered why the king was acting as if Benjen was a dead man, but he did not ask.

[sethgreyjoy]

Ser Humfrey stood next to Symond during the whole ordeal. He did not like the idea of an execution, but his father had said long ago that if someone does a bad deed, they deserve the proper disposal.

Ser Humfrey reflected on this, and also reflected on the fact that his father had been hanged for sleeping with the daughter of a neighboring Lord. The world sometimes was strange.

"Oh, the heavy hearts." Ser Humfrey said, not knowing what he meant exactly.

[Horas]

Symond looks at Drox pensively, his fingers still playing a mournful song across his harp. "It's a sad thing, is it not, Ser Humfrey? The realm calls these men traitors, and so they must die. But they did little wrong, in truth. All they did is listen to what their commanders told them."

[sethgreyjoy]

"Not sad. They die defending their Lords, those who would recant their statements are the ones I mourn. For they die for no reason. They believed in nothing if they take back their words of fealty."

He smiled. "I have little sympathy for traitors, no matter their folly."

[Horas]

Symond shrugs and continues playing, not wishing to provoke an argument.

[sethgreyjoy]

Ser Humfrey moved away from the events, preferring to practice his lanceplay in the yard. However, since the yard was currently occupied, he moved out to the undisturbed Godswood.

[melon]

Tallahar was surprised by the King's swift and brutal justice but pleased as with this show the Northern Lords would never raise again. With the show of strength over Tallahar and the 40 men left over from his once strong 200 Guard with a few new replacement's, his wife and her Bodyguard and the three new joy's in his life set off for home.

They would travel down to Kingslanding to announce personal again the Tourney at Highgarden and Ser Nathan then it was back to Highgarden and Tallahar's two boys.