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The main hall of Winterfell had not been this lively in centuries.
For hundreds of years, its grey stone walls had known nothing but northern winds and the Stark family’s silent suppers.
Today they were filled with the noise of the south.
Long tables stretched from one end of the hall to the other.
Snow-white tablecloths caught the candlelight and held it soft, set with silver plates and goblets, every rim engraved with the direwolf sigil.
These were Winterfell’s treasures, normally locked away in the cellars, brought out perhaps once a year if that.
The food came in waves.
Roast suckling lamb.
Honey-marinated ribs.
Chicken stuffed with mushrooms and onions.
Whole salmon.
Buttered mashed potatoes, black bread, steaming broth, and mountains of roasted onions and carrots piled high on every platter.
The kitchen women had been preparing for three days, turning out every scrap of stored grain from the cellars and slaughtering an extra six head of cattle, twelve sheep, and more chickens and ducks than anyone bothered counting.
Lady Catelyn had personally overseen the plating of every dish, making sure the flavor and portions were fit for a king’s table.
But what truly set the hall ablaze was not the food.
It was the drink.
Ale, wine, mead, spirits, barrel after barrel hauled up from the cellars and stacked in the corner of the hall like a mountain that kept growing and never quite collapsed.
Serving girls wove through the crowd with wine jugs in hand, their skirts turned warm gold by the candlelight, their hair flecked with grease and flour from the kitchens.
No one minded any of that.
The southern knights were already drinking with red eyes.
When they took their cups, they would casually catch a serving girl’s fingers and make a few half-jesting remarks.
Some girls laughed and pulled free.
Others pretended to be cross, slapped the back of a hand, and turned to pour the next cup.
King Robert was deep in it.
He stood near the middle of the long table, personally pouring wine into a young knight’s goblet.
The wine surged to the very rim before he stopped.
Knights crowded around him in a circle, pounding the table and egging them on.
The young knight, probably a minor lord’s second son, his face already flushed red, looked down at the cup.
Looked up at the king.
Then he threw his head back and gulped.
Wine spilled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin into his collar.
He turned the cup upside down.
Not a drop left.
The hall exploded.
Robert laughed and clapped the knight on the shoulder hard enough to send him staggering half a step.
The noise hit its peak in that moment, laughter and the clatter of cups tangled together, bouncing off the stone walls to the rafters and crashing back down, setting the candle flames shivering.
Still in high spirits, Robert reached out and pulled a passing serving girl close, bending down to kiss her before she had a chance to think.
She froze, her wine jug nearly slipping from her fingers.
The king’s arm was locked around her waist.
She couldn’t break free, or perhaps she never meant to try.
The crowd went still for a heartbeat, then erupted louder than before.
Robb stood beside Aven, watching.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Our king is truly…”
He didn’t finish.
“Bold and unrestrained, right?” He tilted his head toward Robb.
“That’s what you were going to say.”
Robb couldn’t help it.
He let out a laugh and covered his mouth with the back of his hand.
Eddard stood a little ahead of them, caught the exchange, and shook his head.
“Robert has always been like this,” he said.
Aven nodded.
In his memory, Robert Baratheon was exactly that kind of man, rough, passionate, carrying a raw magnetism that felt almost primal.
Like a fire burning too hot: get close enough and it would burn you, yet nobody could stop themselves from leaning in.
He looked away from Robert and swept his gaze across the hall.
Sansa sat in a corner wearing the expression of someone watching the most romantic thing she had ever witnessed in her life.
Her eyes were practically sparkling.
Arya had slipped off to the far end of the long table at some point and was quietly stuffing meat from her plate into the pockets of her dress.
Probably saving it for the wolf pups outside.
Theon was on the other side of the room, already three cups in with two southern knights, his face flushed crimson, laughing at a pitch a full octave higher than usual.
Jon was not there.
Aven pulled his gaze back and turned to Eddard.
“I’ll go find Jon.” He kept his voice low, meant only for Eddard and Robb.
“He must be feeling wretched right now.
I should go check on our brother.”
Eddard looked at him.
There was approval in that look.
The revelry in the hall had nothing to do with Jon.
Anyone standing where Jon stood tonight would feel the hurt of it, and Aven had thought of that.
“Go on, lad,” Eddard said.
Aven traded a glance with Robb, patted his arm, then turned sideways and slipped through the gaps in the crowd.
He moved through the narrow aisles between the long tables, skirted a cluster of southern knights wrapped around each other singing, and ducked out through a side door.
The moment the door closed behind him, the noise of the hall was cut by more than half.
Like someone pressing pause on a record blaring at full volume.
The corridor was quiet, only the muffled drift of voices from some distant room, and the crackle and spit of the torches.
The air was far colder than inside, and far cleaner, carrying the smell of stone and rust.
Aven pulled his cloak tighter and followed the corridor toward the eastern side of the castle.
He knew where Jon would be.
Back beside the queen, Prince Joffrey had noticed Aven’s departure.
Not for any particular reason.
Only because earlier that day, he had heard his father praise this boy from Karhold.
Robert Baratheon was not a man who praised people often, only true warriors earned that, and Robert liked warriors.
So when the name “Aven Karstark” had come out of Robert’s mouth, Joffrey had held onto it.
He watched the side door for a moment after Aven disappeared through it.
Then he rose, leaned down to Cersei’s ear, and said a few words.
His voice was barely a murmur, his lips nearly touching the queen’s earlobe.
The lady-in-waiting standing right beside them heard nothing.
Cersei turned her head slightly and glanced at him.
Her golden lashes caught the candlelight.
She said nothing.
She only nodded.
Joffrey straightened, adjusted his collar, and walked out through the side door of the hall.
Aven found Jon in a corridor on the eastern side of the castle.
Benjen Stark.
Eddard’s own younger brother.
First Ranger of the Night’s Watch.
His face carried the rough-hewn lines that wind and frost carved into Northmen over years of hard living, but when he smiled, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes were exactly the same as Eddard’s.
He had his arms wrapped around Jon in a full embrace.
The hug was firm, and it ran longer than an ordinary greeting.
Jon’s face was buried against Benjen’s shoulder, expression hidden, but his fingers were gripping the leather armor at Benjen’s back.
Gripping hard.
Benjen saw Aven first.
He released Jon and looked past his shoulder, gaze settling on the young man approaching from the far end of the corridor.
Jon turned to follow his line of sight.
When he saw Aven, the look on his face shifted from surprise to something closer to disbelief.
“Aven!” he said.
“Why aren’t you at the feast?”
Aven walked up and spread his hands out to either side.
“Came to see if our little punching bag had been crying.”
The corner of Jon’s mouth twitched.
Benjen stepped forward, grey eyes sizing Aven up.
“Aven?
Aven Karstark?” His tone said: so it’s you.
“I’ve heard about you —”
Aven let the grin drop and stood straight.
“Uncle Benjen.
Well met.”
Benjen didn’t speak right away.
He kept looking at Aven, his gaze moving from his face to his shoulders, from his shoulders to his hands.
Then he raised his hand and clapped him twice on the shoulder.
Not heavy.
But solid.
“Good lad,” he said, voice lower now, a little softer.
“I’ve heard the stories.
In every letter Eddard sends me, you’re the one getting praised — the just trial at Karhold, the shot that made the Wolfswood marvel.”
Aven rubbed his nose and smiled along with him.
Benjen glanced back at Jon, his gaze lingering for a moment.
Then he understood.
He understood why Aven was here.
Why Aven had slipped out of the hall at the height of the feast.
“Good lad,” he said again, this time to both of them.
“Brothers ought to talk.
I need to go find Eddard —”
He paused.
The corner of his mouth curved into something caught between resignation and self-mockery.
“As you both know, the Warden of the North has never had much talent for this sort of thing.”
➤ Next: Big Trouble — The Conversation
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