The King of Winters

Chapter-127

Andrew

The ground was covered in fresh grass wet with morning dew and blown leaves, a carpet of green and brown still damp from the recent rains. It squished beneath their feet. Huge bare alders, tall redwoods, and hosts of birch stood all around them. They had made their camp on a hill overlooking the Rosby road, as his army encamped on either side of the empty road, making sure that none passed without their permission.

The sun had broken late that day, after two days of heavy rainfall and dark skies and grey clouds. Atop the hill Andrew Stark stood looking down upon the road which would lead him to King's Landing. A north wind swirled through the plains below, sending a thin ripple of green plumes of grass flying from the ground, like waves of a green sea. The banners of half a hundred houses rippled from tall staffs and pikes the Stark and Arryn most prominent amongst them. Around him the camp was rousing already everywhere as the nightfires were being put off or replaced with cookfires.

The sun was out once again. The rain hadn't stopped however. Though the downpour had slowed a lot. The previous day the rainfall had lashed into his face as he led his men and he had been forced to use a hooded cloak to keep the raindrops off his face. Today it was barely a drizzle as the cold dawn broke in the east. Autumn rainfall, Andrew thought. They would be much harsher in the North. His mother had always been concerned about them, afraid that he might get a chill. But his father had allowed him to play in the rain as he wished. Eddard Stark of Winterfell was hardly bothered by the cold or the snow and Andrew had only ever wanted to follow in his footsteps. He wondered when he would be back in Winterfell and get the chance to feel the cold kiss of the northern rain once again or if he would ever get one. It may be a moon’s turn before I have a chance as good. Or it may be a season.

“Have the vanguard assemble for march,” Andrew told Asher as his friend was finishing a greased capon leg. “The day looks good and we might be able to make some good speed. I want them ready to leave within the hour.”

“Aye, my lord. And are we leaving with them?”

“We would be,” Andrew said. “Lord Arryn will lead the main column.”

Asher’s mouth turned down a little bit as he gulped down the last of wine. “Some might think it better if the King stayed safe and at the head of the main column, your grace. Now that we are very close to the city. Not that I’d say such myself, but some might.”

Andrew smiled. “Some had best not say so in my presence.”

A sudden gust of wind set Asher’s cloak to flapping noisily. “Well, then, I best go down, your grace. I would need some time to gather them all up for marching.”

Andrew saw him climb down the hill back to the ground. The wind was gusting early in the morning, cold with the smell of rain in it. His coat was swaying behind the knee. From time to time it scraped against his boots, giving a bold rhythm of leather on leather.

Leather, Andrew mused, his wife liked them more than she did her silks. He still remembered the way her leathered jerkin had pressed against him, as she kissed him. He wondered what she was doing in the North and if she liked it there. Another lady from the south might look at the North as som frozen wasteland, with nothing much to do other than to take shelter from the late summer snows. But not Argella. Somehow he thought that she would like it there, the streams where she can take a dip in and the snow with which she will hit make balls to hit someone on the head with. His mother had warmed up to the lands very well. And so could Argella.

At the entrance of his pavilion he found Ghost rolling around with a large bone in his mouth. The big white direwolf seemed to love hunting, preferring to hunt with his pack at night instead of coming to the dinner table. When he saw Andrew he bounded back onto his feet and threw the bone off.