LIONS AND WOLVES | Robb Stark

19 - To Riverrun

JOANNA SAT UPON HER HORSE, the same one which she had escaped from King's Landing on the day she fled from her home. That seemed like a lifetime ago now, as she had been with the Starks for nearly a year and a half and been married to Robb for almost as long. Time seemed to fly when you weren't thinking about it.

Robb had left Roose Bolton with a force at Harrenhal, but taken the majority of his troops with him on the journey to Riverrun. As Joanna's horse stood quietly beside Robb's, his direwolf, Grey Wind, stood to attention beside her. Ever since she fell pregnant, the wolf had seemingly become a lot more alert than before, always sticking close to Joanna whenever he could. It was almost as though he knew that she was carrying a child.

"We're at war," Lord Karstark said. "This march is just a distraction."

"My grandfather's funeral is not a distraction," Robb said.

"We ride into battle at Riverrun?" Lord Karstark asked.

"No."

"Then it's a distraction."

"My uncle Edmure has his forced garrisoned there," Robb explained. "We need his men."

"Unless he's been breeding them, he don't have enough to make a difference," Lord Karstark replied.

"Have you lost faith in our cause?" Joanna quipped.

"If it's revenge, I've still got faith in it," Lord Karstark replied.

"If you no longer believe-"

"I can believe 'til it snows in Dorne," Lord Karstark replied. "It won't change the fact that we've got half the men."

"You don't think we can win," Robb said.

"May I speak my mind, Your Grace?"

"Have you not been speaking your mind, Lord Karstark?" Robb asked.

Lord Karstark looked at Joanna as he spoke. "I think you lost this war the day you married her."

-

When the troops stopped to rest, Joanna sought out Catelyn Stark. She found her making a prayer wheel, sitting upon a rock on her own, and made her way towards her.

"May I help you, Lady Stark?" she asked.

"No," Catelyn replied sharply. "You can't help, because a mother makes one for her children to protect them. Only a mother can make them."

"Am I not a mother, carrying your son's child?" Joanna asked.

"Not until you hold that babe in your arms for the first time," Catelyn replied. "That is when you truly become a mother."

"Have you made them before?" Joanna asked, sitting down on a rock.

"Twice," Catelyn replied.

"Did they work?"

"After a fashion," Catelyn said. "I prayed for my son, Bran, to survive his fall. Many years before that, one of the boys came down with the pox. Maester Luwin said if he made it through the night, he'd live. But it would be a very long night. So I sat with him all through the darkness, listened to his ragged little breaths; his coughing, his whimpering."

"Which boy?" Joanna asked, thinking perhaps Robb or Rickon.

"Jon Snow," Catelyn replied, and her answer surprised Joanna. "When my husband brought that baby home from the war, I couldn't bear to look at him. I didn't want to see those brown, stranger's eyes staring up at me. So I prayed to the Gods; 'Take him away, make him die'. He got the pox... and I knew I was the worst woman who ever lived. Murderer. I condemned this poor, innocent child to a horrible death, all because I was jealous of his mother, a woman I didn't even know. So I prayed to all seven Gods; 'Let the boy live. Let him live and I'll love him. I'll be a mother to him. I'll beg my husband to give him a true name. To make him Stark and be done with it. To make him one of us'. And he lived, and I couldn't keep my promise. And everything that's happened since then, all this horror that's come to my family, it's all because I couldn't love a motherless child."

Joanna knew that Jon Snow had never had the same upbringing as his siblings; always treated as an outcast because of who he was, and she could not believe that Catelyn Stark had just told her what she had. Jon Snow had done nothing wrong besides being born, and Catelyn spent years hating this child for something he could not have helped.

If Alayna had been around to hear what Catelyn had said, Joanna had no doubt that an argument would ensue. Catelyn had never been particularly fond of Alayna either, what with her constantly drawing Arya onto the same path she followed, the two of them getting into mischief and forgoing their duties as ladies. Hearing Catelyn's story made Joanna's mind wander to Jon Snow, somewhere far north of where they were now, bracing himself against the freezing cold of the Wall, banishing himself from a life that he hated.

As Joanna left Catelyn to her prayer wheel, she said a silent prayer to the Gods, begging them to never let her feel that way about anybody; to never have her wishing for an innocent child's death because of something that the infant itself could not have helped. Joanna was not a cruel person, but as she ran a hand across her growing stomach, she wondered just what might happen if she crossed the line into such hatred.

The following day, as she remounted her horse, Joanna felt a presence beside her and turned to find Alayna stop her own horse beside her. "Hello?"

"Hello," Alayna greeted. "I saw you talking with the she-wolf. What was she saying?"

"She told me an interesting story," Joanna said. "About Jon Snow."

It wasn't hard to miss the way Alayna's expression twisted with pain at the mention of Jon Snow. Joanna hoped that they would one day see one another again, and prayed to the Gods for Jon Snow's safety until that point. The two had, after all, shared a bond unlike most.

"What about him?" Alayna asked.

"I don't know whether you remember the year Jon Snow got the pox?" Joanna asked.

"No, that was before I came to Winterfell," Alayna replied. "Why?"

"Well, Catelyn was just telling me how she wished that Jon would die so that she wouldn't have to look at him," Joanna said. "But then she told me that she regretted her error and wished for him to survive. I don't know how to make heads or tails of it."

Alayna scoffed. "The woman hated Jon since the day Ned Stark brought him home from the war. I mean, it is understandable, because no woman appreciates their husband's infidelity, but the poor boy was a motherless child. Her cruelty was unwarranted."

"I know that," Joanna said. "I remember how badly she treated him."

"I hope you would not treat Robb's bastard with such hatred," Alayna said, before she seemed to realise what she had said. "Not that Robb would ever father another child with anyone besides you, of course."

"I like to think I would not be so cruel," Joanna said. "After all, there are some things that are simply out of one's control."

"You make a fine queen," Alayna said. "You're so level-headed."

"I don't know about that," Joanna replied. "Last night I snapped at Robb because he was too close while we were sleeping. The poor man looked ready to hide under the sheets."

Alayna laughed. "See, that was my next point. You're level-headed, but you are terrifying, especially with that eye paint you used to wear."

Joanna rolled her eyes. She had accidentally upended a pot of ink one morning before a battle months ago, long before she fell pregnant, and in her frustration, she had wiped her hands across her face and smeared it all over her cheeks. Alayna had laughed when she had seen it, but as they rode into battle and Joanna commanded her forces as a true warrior should, nobody had thought to make fun of her again.

"That was an accident," Joanna said. "Although Robb found it hilarious."

"I think everybody did," Alayna replied. "Seeing you walking out of your tent looking like you'd lost a fight with a squid."

"Shut up."