Read Online A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin - Free Book Online Page A

Rickon, struggling with the words, but mostly she wrote of their father.
His thoughts are all of the wrong he did you, now that his time grows short. Maester Vyman says he dare not make the milk of the poppy any stronger. It is time for Father to lay down his sword and shield. It is time for him to rest. Yet he fights on grimly, will not yield. It is for your sake, I think. He needs your forgiveness. The war has made the road from the Eyrie to Riverrun dangerous to travel, I know, but surely a strong force of knights could see you safely through the Mountains of the Moon? A hundred men, or a thousand? And if you cannot come, will you not write him at least? A few words of love, so he might die in peace? Write what you will, and I shall read it to him, and ease his way
.
    Even as she set the quill aside and asked for sealing wax, Catelyn sensed that the letter was like to be too little and too late. Maester Vyman did not believe Lord Hoster would linger long enough for a raven to reach the Eyrie and return.
Though he has said much the same before
. . . Tully men did not surrender easily, no matter the odds. After she entrusted the parchment to the maester’s care, Catelyn went to the sept and lit a candle to the Father Above for her own father’s sake, a second to the Crone, who had let the first raven into the world when she peered through the door of death, and a third to the Mother, for Lysa and all the children they had both lost.
    Later that day, as she sat at Lord Hoster’s bedside with a book, reading the same passage over and over, she heard the sound of loud voices and a trumpet’s blare.
Ser Robin
, she thought at once, flinching. She went to the balcony, but there was nothing to be seen out on the rivers, but she could hear the voices more clearly from outside, the sound of many horses, the clink of armor, and here and there a cheer. Catelyn made her way up the winding stairs to the roof of the keep.
Ser Desmond did not forbid me the roof
, she told herself as she climbed.
    The sounds were coming from the far side of the castle, by the main gate. A knot of men stood before the portcullis as it rose in jerks and starts, and in the fields beyond, outside the castle, were several hundred riders. When the wind blew, it lifted their banners, and she trembled in relief at the sight of the leaping trout of Riverrun.
Edmure
.
    It was two hours before he saw fit to come to her. By then the castle rang to the sound of noisy reunions as men embraced the women and children they had left behind. Three ravens had risen from the rookery, black wings beating at the air as they took flight. Catelyn watched them from her father’s balcony. She had washed her hair, changed her clothing, and prepared herself for her brother’s reproaches . . . but even so, the waiting was hard.
    When at last she heard sounds outside her door, she sat and folded her hands in her lap. Dried red mud spattered Edmure’s boots, greaves, and surcoat. To look at him, you would never know he had won his battle. He was thin and drawn, with pale cheeks, unkempt beard, and too-bright eyes.
    â€œEdmure,” Catelyn said, worried, “you look unwell. Has something happened? Have the Lannisters crossed the river?”
    â€œI threw them back. Lord Tywin, Gregor Clegane, Addam Marbrand, I turned them away. Stannis, though . . .” He grimaced.
    â€œStannis? What of Stannis?”
    â€œHe lost the battle at King’s Landing,” Edmure said unhappily. “His fleet was burned, his army routed.”
    A Lannister victory was ill tidings, but Catelyn could not share her brother’s obvious dismay. She still had nightmares about the shadow she had seen slide across Renly’s tent and the way the blood had come flowing out through the steel of his gorget. “Stannis was no more a friend than Lord Tywin.”
    â€œYou do not understand. Highgarden has declared for Joffrey. Dorne as well. All the south.” His