WELL FLAYED [Game Of Thrones: The Boltons]

16. Love, Honor, Power

MERRIMENT IN THE GREAT HALLS of Dreadfort was brewing as sounds of music and laughter bustled the place. Musicians were busy playing a cheerful song while the lords and ladies were engaging in raucous chatters - some of them were singing along, some were either in a drunken argument or in a drunken prank - all the while eating in the feast set to rejoice the newly weds.

The main course of the feast was a delight, filling every banquet table with roasted pigs with cut carrots and cabbages, lamb shanks, turkey drumsticks, beef stew, smoked tunas, mixed vegetable pottage, almond loaves, and venison pies. For dessert, they had cheese, warm apple and raspberry pies, caramel tarts, and towering marzipan cakes, as well as various freshly picked fruits.

Finally, to drink, the lords had elderflower ale, mead, and mulled wine. Meanwhile, the ladies had their taste on hyppocras, appricot nectar, pear cider and red cordial.

Lord Wyman Manderly was at the head of the lower table across the main table where the Boltons and the Umbers sat. He was drunkenly yammering how he killed a bear once with his bare hands and was taunted as a liar by Lord Richard Karstark. Lord Wyman did not took it so well that he angrily lunged at Lord Richard; both crashed on the ground with a loud thud and then wrestled for all the people to see. People laughed and cheered witnessing their funny sloppy drunken movements. However, their dispute was brief as they easily became tired and then soon fell asleep. Their sons had to drag them away from each other on the floor.

Lord Ondrew Locke was at the table next to the house Karstark and the house Manderly; he couldn't stop laughing at what unfolded between them that he nearly choked with that turkey drumstick he's shoving in his mouth. His eldest son was beside him, Ser Joven Locke, all looking so charming with his light brown hair and obsidian eyes that the unmarried ladies in the hall kept on gushing over him. However, it wasn't only Ser Joven who caught their attention. After all, there was also the presence of the Young Wolf of Winterfell, Robb Stark, sitting proudly at the third table with his men.

Lord Eddard Stark couldn't come since he was occupied to welcome his incoming royal guests in his abode, so he sent his eldest son instead to give his regard.

Robb appeared amongst his peers with a strong sense of sovereign and beauty. He was like a youthful god of the wild with all the wolves' fur he wore on his back and his beguiling countenance. They all knew that he was the future of the North, the soon-to-be preeminent warden, which was a closest position from being king. At some point of their lives, almost all of the young ladies dreamed of being betrothed to him; they see it as a way of becoming nearly like a queen of the Northern houses, like queen Cersei with the Seven Kingdoms. But alas, Robb Stark wasn't someone who was easily paired with. His father and mother were extremely meticulous in choosing a bride for their precious eldest son, and Robb Stark always followed their judgment as long as it was deemed right. And so, many dreams of young ladies remained just dreams.

As he sat there, entertained by the drunken merriment of other guests in the great hall of Dreadfort, Robb coincidentally made eye contact with the Snow Bride - as what he had heard others call her secretly - who was at the main high table in front of them. He had thought her to be a pale and gloomy woman who also had a matching queerness with the bastard heir of Dreadfort. There were even conflicting accounts about her. Some said she's a lady of witchcraft in the Vale. Some said she used to be a warrior Sept in Sunspear. Some said she's a former red priestess with Skagosi blood.

Robb didn't know which one to believe, it all sounded so absurd. But one thing was certain as their gazes met, Lady Nisha was no glum woman with ghastly visage. She was a lady whose sun-kissed cheeks would glow everytime she smiled- and gods, she loved to smile, Robb heard himself think.