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Winterfell had never been this clean.
That was no exaggeration.
Lady Catelyn Stark personally inspected every corner, directing the servants to scrub every stone slab back to its original color.
One month.
From the day the messenger’s news spread through Winterfell, Catelyn had been like a wound-up machine that never stopped.
She rearranged every guest chamber in the castle, reserving the finest for the King and Queen, the second-best for the Lannister retinue, and the next best for the Kingsguard and squires.
She went down to the cellars herself to inventory the grain stores and wine barrels, calculating exactly how many head of cattle, how many sheep, how many barrels of ale still needed to be levied from the villages across their domain.
She held 3 meetings with the cooks and settled the menu for every day of the King’s stay in Winterfell.
King Robert liked roast meat, liked thick stews, liked the kind of Northern fare that warmed a man from the throat all the way down to the stomach.
She remembered these things because Eddard had mentioned them.
She also took on something far more troublesome: arranging court etiquette lessons for every child in Winterfell, including Aven.
Maester Luwin was brought out and spent 3 full afternoons drilling the rules into their heads, one by one.
How to bow before a king.
How to stand in his presence.
How to address the Queen and the Prince.
When to lower your head, when to speak, and when to keep your mouth shut.
Sansa learned the fastest.
She didn’t even need to learn, these things seemed to live in her bones already.
When to curtsy, how to arrange her skirts, the precise angle to lift her chin.
Every detail as measured as if she’d used a ruler.
Arya learned the slowest.
She sat in her chair like it was a bed of nails.
When Luwin said “lower your body when you curtsy,” she dropped into a horse stance.
Sansa’s face went red with fury.
Robb learned passably well.
Bran learned earnestly but kept forgetting.
Rickon was too young, and Catelyn excused him outright.
Aven didn’t find it particularly difficult.
The welcoming roster was Catelyn’s decision.
Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran.
Aven was on it.
He was a Karstark, a cadet branch of pure Stark blood.
If — hypothetically, every Stark child were to die, he would have inheritance rights to Winterfell itself.
So he had to appear in the welcoming party, and in the front row.
Then came Theon.
He was a hostage, but he was also a Greyjoy, the future lord of the Iron Islands.
But Jon was not on the list.
When Robb saw it, his first thought was to go find Eddard.
He made it to the study door and stopped.
Voices inside.
“Eddard.
In the King’s presence, his name is Snow.”
“He is my child too.”
“I did not say he wasn’t.
But the King’s retinue includes Lannisters.
You know what kind of man Tywin Lannister is.
If he mentions in front of Robert that Lord Stark placed his bastard before the King — have you thought about what follows?”
Silence.
“It is not that I forbid it.
It is that the world forbids it.
Eddard, I can treat him as family within the walls of Winterfell.
But before the King, I cannot.
And neither can you.”
Robb stood at the door.
He didn’t knock.
He turned and walked away.
The list was not changed.
Jon’s name stayed off it.
Robb told Aven everything.
When Aven found Jon, he was on the battlements, cleaning his sword.
Ghost lay at his feet, white fur tossed into tangles by the wind, eyes shut, deep asleep.
“You know,” Jon said, without looking up.
“Yeah.”
“You’re standing in the front row.” Not a question.
“Yeah.”
“That’s where you should stand.” Jon’s voice was flat, the way someone talks about wind.
“You’re a Karstark.
You have a name.
You—”
“Jon.”
Jon went quiet.
He raised his head, grey eyes finding Aven’s.
What lived inside them was complicated, the particular numbness that comes from being pushed down for too long.
Wanted to say it’s not fair.
Wanted to say you deserve to stand there more than any of them.
Wanted to say your name isn’t Snow, your name is Targaryen.
But he said nothing.
He just walked over, sat down beside Jon, put his back against the battlements, and let the wind pass between them.
“Once the King leaves,” Aven said, “we’ll go hunt another stag.
You’ve seen how good my aim is.”
Jon looked at him.
The corner of his mouth shifted.
Something appeared that wasn’t quite a smile but was close enough.
“I think my aim is better.”
“Want to test that?”
Jon didn’t answer.
But his sword-polishing slowed, and the tension in his hands loosened.
That night, Aven fed Ember goat’s milk in his room.
Ember had grown considerably.
No longer that crumpled grey scrap of fur, his coat had filled in, his ears stood up, and his eyes had opened, amber-colored, deep and bright, like 2 polished stones.
He drank in a frantic rush, burying his whole nose in the bowl, then sneezing, spraying milk in every direction.
Aven wiped his hands and thought about Jon.
What came to mind was something else.
In the story as he knew it, Jon made his decision to go to the Wall after Robert arrived in Winterfell.
If Aven had smoothed things over, if Jon didn’t go to the Wall, didn’t die and live again there, what would happen?
Jon had already been dealt too hard a hand.
Catelyn had no warmth for Eddard’s bastard, nominal or otherwise.
Eddard couldn’t afford to show Jon too much attention.
Every hurt he collected, he swallowed alone.
Aven let the thought go.
Ember had finished sneezing and pressed his wet nose into Aven’s palm, making a low, satisfied sound.
Aven picked him up and held him against his chest, feeling that small warm heartbeat against his own.
Some secrets weren’t his to carry.
Some secrets he couldn’t tell anyone, no matter what.
All he could do was sit beside Jon when Jon needed someone there.
➤ Next: The Welcoming Party
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