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This was a subject steeped in taboo.
It was not that no one was allowed to speak of it. On the contrary, among the nobility, the favorite topic of conversation was often none other than the king himself, and every single decree the king issued, whether wise or foolish, whether just or misguided.
They delighted in sharing their own opinions about such matters, as though the authority of the crown sat upon their own brows and they could judge with the same weight.
Yet all of this had to remain behind closed doors, spoken in private corners, never to be brought openly to the table, never to be laid bare under the sun.
For Clay to ask the question so bluntly was, in the eyes of Lord Tytos Blackwood, a startling breach of the unspoken rules.
From Tytos's perspective, the two of them stood on very different ground when it came to this matter.
He himself was a trueborn and unshakably loyal lord of the Riverlands. That meant, regardless of his personal likes or dislikes, his fortune and future were tightly bound to this land. His voice, therefore, must always be raised in defense of the Riverlands.
The present king, and the kings who would come after him, were all Northerners through and through. And to a man of the Riverlands, how could such a ruler ever truly inspire affection?
After all, he was not one of their own.
As for House Manderly, to which Clay belonged, their situation was far more complicated. Owing to the arrogance and folly of the Freys, the Twins together with a vast swath of the surrounding territory had recently been granted to House Manderly. On the surface, this made them appear to bear the stamp of the Riverlands as well.
Yet who would truly call them a Riverlands house?
The name Manderly had been bound to the North for more than a thousand years, and even now that bond remained unbroken.
One needed only to look at Clay Manderly himself to see the truth. The man standing before him treated Edmure Tully, head of House Tully and the nominal overlord of the Riverlands, the present Lord of Riverrun, as though he were no more than a servant boy. Clay summoned him whenever he pleased, scolded him without restraint, and left him standing there with the dignity of a grandson being sternly lectured by his elder.
So Tytos Blackwood could not quite discern whether Clay had mentioned this question without thought, or whether he had deliberately asked to probe his true feelings.
But when his gaze met Clay's eyes, calm and fathomless as still water, watching him without a ripple of emotion, he knew at once that there was no escaping. This was not a question he could dodge. Sooner or later, he would have to give an answer.
With no other choice, he forced himself to respond.
"My lord Clay, we men of the Riverlands… we still hold His Grace Robb in great respect."
"Do you?"
Clay's lips curved in a faint smile as he threw the question back at him.
Lord Blackwood said no more. He knew well enough that Clay would never have asked such a question idly.
Clay did not press him further with tricks or mockery. He simply spoke the truth as he saw it.
"I will be plain with you, Lord Blackwood. You people of the Riverlands never intended to rescue Robb Stark. If not for the fact that I hold command over the army and keep the reins tight, you would never have fought the battle at Harrenhal at all, would you?"
The words struck like a warhammer. Tytos Blackwood froze in place, stunned that Clay would raise this matter here and now, laying bare what had long remained an unspoken truth between them. Both sides knew it well, yet neither had ever dared to speak it aloud.
For by this stage of the war, whispers had already begun to spread among the nobility of the Riverlands, and with each passing day they grew louder.
Again and again, the same question was asked: why must the Riverlands bind themselves to the North and follow it blindly into ruin?
The truth had been growing ever clearer since the day Eddard Stark stumbled in King's Landing, when the war first erupted, and from that moment through to the present struggle at Harrenhal. The lords of the Riverlands had come to see with painful clarity that their core interests had never truly been the same as those of the North.
The rift grew wider still after Clay's first battle at Riverrun, where the Northern host achieved a resounding victory. And what did the Northerners do with such a triumph? They withdrew. Every last man crossed back over the Neck, their wagons heavy with spoils, retreating to the safety of their cold homeland, content to live out quiet days beneath their own roofs.
And so the Riverlands were left behind. Lords and bannermen stared at one another with wide eyes, realizing only then that the North could not and would not shield them.
Consider the possibility… just imagine it.
If Robb Stark had never marched south to avenge his father's death, and if the Vale, whose appetite for war had long been whetted, had chosen that moment to strike, then the Riverlands' forces, unprepared and without defense, would have been torn apart by the Vale's powerful cavalry, butchered on their own soil.
And in such a moment, if Ser Jaime Lannister, the Lion cub of the West, had charged forth from Golden Tooth, then the Riverlands as a whole might have collapsed entirely, shattered by a blow from east and west together.
To place their hopes in Robb Stark of Winterfell, waiting as he slowly summoned his banners, only to march south across hundreds upon hundreds of leagues… that was folly. By the time he arrived, the Riverlands would already have been reduced to ash.
Even now, though Clay Manderly's brilliance and valor had turned the tide at Harrenhal, defeating the West and silencing every faction across Westeros that dared rise in opposition, could that truly mean the Riverlands were safe? Could it mean peace would return to this troubled land?
The answer was obvious: No!
It had been said before, and it remained true. Even joined together, Stark and Tully could not forge a crown to claim all the Seven Kingdoms.
And so long as the Vale's Bloody Gate stood unyielding in the east, Golden Tooth barred the west, and the flat, open plains stretched southward with no natural defense, the Riverlands would forever remain a land vulnerable to invasion. Any sign of weakness, and marauders could come pouring in from every direction to plunder and destroy.
If the Riverlands were to follow the North blindly to the very end, then every war from now on would unfold in the same pattern.
The Riverlands would be struck.
They would cry out for "Father North" to come save them!
The Riverlands would be struck again, harder than before.
"Father North" would at last begin his slow, ponderous march, raising his banners and mustering men.
And by the time the Riverlands lay on the verge of collapse, bleeding and gasping for breath, "Father North" would finally appear upon the field. There he would clash with the invaders, steel ringing against steel, fighting his battle on the broken body of the Riverlands itself.
And when the fighting ended, the ones left battered and scarred were still the Riverlands.
Even if, in the end, the North emerged victorious… what then?
Would the Riverlands see Northern soldiers garrisoning their keeps, holding their ground, and guarding their homes in the days that followed? Of course not. That was impossible.
The Northerners would scurry back to their own lands with cheerful haste, eager to return to their cold but familiar hearths beyond the Neck.
Do you see it now?
If this cycle continued, the Riverlands would be left with nothing but a helpless shrug, asking, "Why is it always us who ends up hurt?"
And this was no exaggeration.
The North and Dorne had long been the cradles of separatism in Westeros. But the Riverlands were nothing of the sort.
Lying in the very heart of conflict, weak in strength and pressed on all sides, the Riverlands were in truth the land most eager to be bound securely to the Iron Throne.
Their current place at the North's side was nothing more than the tangled outcome of marriage alliances struck in the chaos of years past.
Ask yourself: what king, seated upon the Iron Throne in the future, would ever tolerate the Riverlands refusing obedience? Without the Riverlands, what then? To march into the West, the crown's armies would have no choice but to swing south and take a long, weary detour.
And to reach the Vale, it would be even worse. The crown's hosts would need ships, for there would be no road open to them at all.
If access to both the Vale and the Westerlands became so strained, if the cost of travel and command grew so high, then one outcome would be inevitable: those regions, cut off and neglected, would soon grow restless. Independence would rise again, for isolation breeds rebellion.
No king would ever allow such a thing. Not one with even a shred of power. Each would devote himself tirelessly to tightening his grip on the Riverlands, to bring it firmly back under the Iron Throne's command.
The North and Dorne might be left for another day, postponed and tolerated for a time.
But once you set the logic back into place, the conclusion becomes inescapable: if the Riverlands were hoping for a stretch of peaceful days, that would truly be a ghost's dream.
While others put on their shows, whether men or monsters, it was always the Riverlands left taking the blows. How could anyone go on living like that? No, this was no way forward.
And the lords of the Riverlands were no fools. Not a one of them could fail to understand this truth.
Even the dimmer ones, after a bit of explaining from their peers, would quickly grasp what was at stake.
The only reason they had allowed matters to drag this far, the only reason they had brought Clay Manderly into the fold at all, was because the old lion and the Vale knights had beaten them too harshly, and their pride had choked them from surrendering outright. So they chose another path, and in the end, dragged themselves down along with him.
But looking ahead, the picture was clear to the naked eye. Driving out the men of the Vale was no problem at all. Supporting Clay Manderly in fighting this war, that much they were willing to do.
Yet once the Vale's threat was broken, it was inevitable that cracks would show again, just as they had before, like that whole business with the winter garments.
Some Riverlords were already reluctant to keep pouring their family wealth into the grinder of Harrenhal, unwilling to keep feeding their men into that meat machine for the sake of Robb Stark's crown.
And so it came to this: Brynden Tully had reached the battlefield, but instead of charging in, he sat himself down on a little stool at the edge, content to eat his melon seeds and watch. He looked on as Christen hurled himself into battle against the old lion's host, fighting tooth and nail while Brynden observed in silence.
Edmure Tully might be a fool, but Brynden Tully most certainly was not.
If he had truly wanted to fight, could he not have found an opening, forced a way in, and thrown his weight behind Christen in the struggle? Of course he could. It was never a matter of ability.
No, what it suggested was that Brynden Tully himself was weighing these same considerations in his heart.
Catelyn Tully was a Tully through and through. But Robb was a Stark, not a Tully, and Ser Brynden had never once mistaken the one for the other.
It was precisely because he had sensed this shift, this subtle yet dangerous line of thought taking root among the Riverlords, that Clay chose this moment to strike. It was like an arrow already drawn upon the string, a moment that could not be delayed. He put his question to Tytos Blackwood, one of the few Riverlords with whom he held some measure of familiarity.
From a certain perspective, Clay's position overlapped with that of these Riverlords. Their concerns, their calculations, even their interests, all began to intertwine.
For Clay Manderly had once been a man of the North. But that time was past, and his future could not, and would not, remain tied to the North.
The Riverlands could not be his enemy. They had to become his strongest, most loyal support.
That was why he chose to broach the matter with Lord Blackwood. It was only a test, a feeler cast into uncertain waters. Yet in his heart, Clay was certain: the day for laying the cards upon the table was not far off now.
Perhaps it would come as soon as tomorrow!
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[Chapter End's]
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