Weeks later, they started making preparations, thinking about everything, including the possibility of a second midwife in case something happened to the first. The queen went into labour and by now her water had broken. Lord Edmure was shaking the old midwife by both shoulders, but he soon realised that neither he nor anyone else could help, and he had frightened to death the one they needed most for the birth. He ran headlong down the empty corridor, beating up almost everyone. The palotics were immediately dispatched around the city, to turn the whole of Winterfell upside down if need be, but find a midwife immediately. He only noticed he was still wearing his nightcap when he reached Roslin's dormitory and the guards looked at him quizzically. So he snatched off the canvas headgear and stuck it into his belt. From inside came the sound of a pained whimper, followed by a much louder howl.
- "What's going on in there?" Edmure chewed his nails, but the guards just shook their heads.
They were strictly forbidden to enter, and were only allowed to let in the maids and the head septon.
- The God of the Seven is with you and your son, my queen," came the voice of the septon, who tried to ease the queen's pain by the power of prayer, but, judging by the vigorous, shrieking groans that drowned out the prayer, he could not have been very successful.
- "When will they bring that midwife?" stammered Edmure. "There must be more of them, this is still Robb Stark's realm!
This time he got no reply to his words, but it was clear from the guards' faces that they wouldn't mind if someone did something and they didn't have to listen to these unpleasant voices any longer. The next moment the door opened, and a haggard-looking young maid came out of the queen's room. In her trembling hands she clutched a bloody rag.
- 'Something is wrong,' she cried in desperation; 'she must endure for hours after the first pains have come. Some go into labour for a day. But my lady is already suffering terribly, and blood is oozing from her loins.
Edmure's face was pale before she had spoken, and by the time the timid little creature had finished, he had decided to wait no longer.
- "I'm going in," he said determinedly. - If the knights can't find another midwife, I'll deliver the Stark heir myself.
No sooner had he said the words and entered than Roslin's nurse was in his way.
- 'Men have no business at a woman's bedside,' the corpulent woman strode to the threshold, looking at him from under her knitted, thick brows as if to impale him with her gaze.
Edmure would otherwise have recoiled from the nanny's firm action, politely acknowledging that he was too carried away by his temper and should have acted with a cool head, but not that night. The thought that not only was the unborn child in danger, but that Roslin herself might die with her unborn child, filled Edmure with a strength and determination he had never known.
- "Out of my way, you foolish old woman!" he shouted at the nurse with such elemental force that she was unable to resist his words; "as the King's plenipotentiary, I have the right to enter and do all I can to see that the child is born safe!
- 'I beseech you, my lord, in the name of the God of the Seven,' said the septon, 'not to defile the holy miracle of birth! Unless you are a midwife yourself, and you don't look like one, you have no business here.
- "But they cut your tongue, you miserable sparrow!" Edmure pointed his middle finger at him. I'll see to it that the King hears of this. But I'm not here to argue. If you must know, among the scrolls I have studied, there are several scholarly descriptions of childbirth. So now you will do as I command, or you will both regret it bitterly!
The septon was not used to being spoken to in that tone of voice, so he just swallowed while Edmure bounced the duties of the nurse and the young maid who had just returned.
- 'Give me a bucket of boiling water, and a dozen clean linen towels, and do it at once! And you, you meddlesome old woman, bring scissors and knives, and make sure they're both sharp, or I'll have you flogged in the fairground! Do you understand?
The nanny, however offended by his words, was forced to obey. While she and the maid went out, Edmure crouched down beside Roslin's pillow and held out his right hand to the Queen.
- 'Squeeze this, my lady, for what follows will be very painful,' he said gently to the sweating, tearful woman, who gripped the proffered hand convulsively. The gods see you, and I will not let you be harmed, my queen. Tonight you will bring a royal offspring into this world, and when the sun rises you will both wait Robb Stark home safe and sound. Nod if you understand.
Roslin, her face contorted, nodded rapidly as Edmure took a deep breath, only then realising what he had undertaken.
- "What are you waiting for, the wolf of Winterfell?" he roared at the stunned septon. "Pray to your god, call upon the First Ones and the Winter Kings, or I will not stand for myself!
The next moment the prayer was said, and Edmure wondered how many thousands of prayers he would have to say to gain absolution for his cruelty to a chief septon. Soon the girl arrived with the bucket and a large pile of carefully folded cloths, and then, panting, snorting, flushed-faced, the nurse arrived, clutching scissors in one hand and a knife in the other. She laid them both on a table and rubbed her hands together, waiting to see what would happen next. The queen whimpered, and then an inarticulate scream burst from her throat, and Edmure remembered that he had forgotten to bring one thing.
- "Here, my lady," he unloosed his dagger from his belt, and held the leathered hilt to Roslin's mouth. Bite on this!
The septon, the nurse and the maid all looked at him questioningly, and he realised he could waste no more time.
- "Good God!" he sighed, his face white as a sheet. - Let's see what... You, girl, stretch out your hand, and... I should know if the child's head will fit, for...
- What?" stared the maid, her eyes wide open. "What shall I do with my hand, Lord Edmure?
"If I could say it," he thought in his infernal confusion.
He cleared his throat and was about to say something when the sound of loud footsteps came from the corridor. The knights were returning, finding it terribly amusing that not only had they managed to find another midwife, but that she hadn't even died from being woken in the middle of the night. The strong-shouldered, rough-handed, angelically kind-faced old woman entered the queen's bedchamber, and wasting no time in getting down to business, she set to work at once. Edmure felt a boulder the size of a mountain roll off his chest, and gradually the colour returned to his cheeks. He was about to leave in a fitting manner, but Roslin squeezed his right hand tightly.
- "Don't leave me, Lord Edmure!" she moaned bitterly. "You promised you wouldn't let anything happen to me. Keep your word!
In agonizing pain, Queen Roslin gave birth to a son, named Rodrik Stark, who made his royal parents happy as a strong, healthy child.
Robb Stark was happy. He stood in his upstairs room, next to the cradle of his half-day-old son, holding the newborn he had just welcomed.
- "What are you crying for, you little iron man?" he asked, but by then the child had stopped crying.
In a moment he was at rest in his father's arms, and he was watching, studying with his huge blue eyes the brown-bearded, smooth-fronted gaze, whose features he had fully inherited, only not yet so clearly visible. The fire in the fireplace crackled, filling the room with a pleasant warmth. Catlyn had gone to the market, Roslin was asleep in her bedroom, and Prince Rodrik's nurse was elsewhere when the newborn cried out from his afternoon nap. And so it was that Robb himself took his crying son in his arms, and as they looked at each other, he realised that for the first time they were together, just the two of them. The King was a little startled at first at this realisation, for he had no idea how to treat such a little royal highness. In the meantime, someone else was always looking after the baby, and he was looking forward to the time when his son would be old enough to teach him to ride, to sword and arrow. Until Rodrik reached that age, it was a woman's job to educate, not his.
- "We've been well left alone, haven't we?" he said softly.
The infant moaned unintelligible words in its thin voice, then reached forward and caught its father's thumb with its tiny fingers. Robb instinctively jerked his finger away from the child's hand, and the child gave a loud shriek. The king was first surprised, then deliberately let Rodrik catch his thumb once more. Then when he pulled it out of his tiny fist again, deliberately grimacing, and the newborn shook it again, he laughed.
- "Look at him, he's on his feet!" he giggled in a softened voice. But yet you are small for the throne of Winterfell...
He looked at the little life, the little head almost lost in his shovel-sized, iron palm, and then, there, apart from everyone else, he felt something he perhaps didn't fully understand. It was a warm, tingling sensation that started in his chest, tickled his stomach and made his heart pound.
- "My son," he said the word as he had never said it before.
It had a different weight than before. It was almost a magical report, and the King took his son in his arms, got him some fresh, warm breast milk, and walked with him proudly around the courtyard of Winterfell Castle.