The Great Hall of Winterfell was warm, a welcome respite from the biting spring wind that prowled outside the thick stone walls, but it was a warmth that never seemed to reach Catelyn's bones. She sat at the high table, presiding over the midday meal, a tapestry of quiet order spread before her. Her son, Robb, sat at her right hand, his red hair a cheerful blaze in the gloom, listening intently as Maester Luwin pointed to something on a map. Her daughter, Sansa, a beautiful, fragile girl of three namedays, sat on her other side, carefully picking at a honeycake.
It was a peaceful scene. A correct scene. And it was a world of her own making.
She took a sip of chilled wine and let her gaze sweep across the hall. The guards at the door wore the leaping trout of House Tully embroidered on their doublets, a comforting splash of red and blue against the unrelenting grey of the North. The cook who brought the main platter from the kitchens was a broad, flour-dusted woman from Riverrun, her pies famously flaky. The steward who oversaw the serving was a man whose family had served her father for three generations. In the year and a half since her husband had ridden south to quell the Greyjoy Rebellion, Winterfell had slowly, subtly, become a little more like home. A little more hers.
And yet, her peace was a fragile, guarded thing. It was a high wall built around a single, gnawing fear. A fear that, even now, was absent from this hall. A fear that had a name. Jon.
Her mind, as it so often did in these quiet moments, drifted back to the catalyst, the single, terrifying moment that had turned her quiet dread into cold, hard resolve. It was the evening before Ned and his lords had ridden off to war. The courtyard had been a frantic hive of activity—armor being polished, horses being shod, men shouting their farewells. She had been watching Robb say goodbye to his father, her heart aching with a familiar mixture of pride and fear. And then she had seen it.
Across the yard, away from the main bustle, the bastard was sparring with Ser Arthur Dayne. It was not a lesson. It was a true, furious bout. The boy, not yet six namedays old, held a sword in each hand, a pair of blunted, custom-made shortswords that looked like a viper's fangs. Ser Arthur, the legendary Sword of the Morning, was not holding back as he did with Robb. He moved with a liquid grace that was terrifying to behold, his single longsword a blur of silver. But the boy… the boy was his equal. He did not have the man's strength, but his speed was a thing of witchcraft. He flowed around the knight's attacks, his two swords a whirlwind of parries and counters, a dance of deadly precision.
She had watched, her blood turning to ice in her veins. This was not the quiet, somber boy who always lost to Robb. This was something else entirely. A predator, hiding in the skin of a child.
Robb had seen it too. He had come to her side, his eyes wide with a child's pure, uncomprehending shock. "Mother," he had whispered, his voice small and awed. "Why doesn't Jon fight like that with me?"
The question was a dagger in her heart, confirming every fear she had ever had. The bastard was not just better; he was deceptive. He was hiding his strength, playing the part of the lesser, all while being secretly forged into a weapon by these southron traitors her husband insisted on keeping. That night, she had realized that she could not trust her husband's honor to protect her son. His honor was a shield for the bastard, not for the trueborn heir. When he rode south, she knew she had to act.
That very evening, as the last of her husband's party disappeared beyond the gates, she had sought out Septa Maris in the quiet solitude of the new sept. She relayed what she had seen, her voice a torrent of fear and fury. The Septa listened, her thin face a mask of pious sympathy, but her eyes held a shrewd, calculating light.
"My lady, your fears are a mother's sacred burden," the Septa had begun, her voice a soft, conspiratorial whisper. "And they are justified. Bastards are born of deceit. It is in their nature to be cunning, to hide their strength and wait for the perfect moment to strike for what is not theirs."
"Then how do I stop it?" Catelyn had demanded, her hands clenched in her lap.
"The Seven have blessed you with a golden opportunity, my lady. An open window." The Septa's voice grew firmer, a strategist laying out a campaign. "With Lord Stark and his influence gone, you have the time and the authority to break this threat before it can ever truly rise. But you must be brutal, and you must be patient."
Catelyn flinched. Brutal. The word landed like a stone in her gut, a violation of everything she had been taught. She was a Tully, a lady raised on honor and duty, not some back-alley cutthroat. The Septa's sharp eyes missed nothing. She saw the hesitation, the flicker of a noble lady's conscience.
"My lady," the Septa's voice softened, becoming a tool of insidious sympathy. "Do you think I suggest this path lightly? I suggest it because I have seen the alternative. Picture this: your Robb is a man grown, Lord of Winterfell. But the bastard is there beside him, faster with a sword, beloved by the common folk for his Stark face. A lord has a dispute with your son. A poor harvest sours the bannermen. To whom do their eyes turn? To the quiet, brooding wolf in the corner, the one who looks more like his father than the true heir does. A second Dance of the Dragons, fought with ice instead of fire. Brother against brother. That is the future your hesitation will buy."
The image—a Northern civil war, her red-haired son fighting a grey-eyed shadow for his own birthright—was a vision of hell. The Septa was right. Her hesitation was a luxury she could not afford. Her duty was not to be kind; it was to ensure her son had a future to inherit. The cold purpose settled in her heart then, not as a thrill, but as the grim, heavy weight of a necessary sin.
The Septa saw the grim acceptance in Catelyn's eyes and leaned in, her voice now a sharp, tactical whisper. "That future is not yet written, my lady. It is a weed that must be torn out by the root before it can grow. Your husband's absence is a gift from the Seven. But if you hesitate now, when he returns, the boy's shield will be restored. He will have seen your opposition and will have learned from it. He will come back stronger, and the seeds of that war will have been sown. You must begin by isolating him. Find all who support him, all who give him comfort, and remove them, one by one."
An image of Farlen, the old Stark cook with his soft spot for the bastard, flashed in Catelyn's mind. Yes. One by one.
"Replace them with those loyal to you," the Septa instructed. "Any insults, any true venom, must be delivered in absolute privacy. But public criticism? Loudly, and often. And you will increase his time with me, under the guise of prayer for his father's safe return. He will learn his place from the gods themselves."
For a month, she did nothing but watch. She saw Farlen slip the boy a honeycake. She saw Hullen, the master of stables, let him groom a pony. She saw Vayon Poole, the steward, ensure the boy had a warm cloak. That was her battlefield.
She began by bringing in more Tully guards, citing the need for increased security. Then she sent the three southron traitors on endless patrols. The cook was pensioned off for "aching joints," Hullen for a "bad back," Poole "reassigned to oversee supply lines." The boy's world began to shrink. The food that came to his now-distant table was blander, colder. His lessons with Maester Luwin were shortened, replaced by long, dreary hours in the sept.
Then she began her public campaign. A dropped fork earned a sharp rebuke. A smudge of dirt, a lecture on his lack of pride. The private attacks were worse. She remembered the day a servant reported the boy had stolen a meat pie. She summoned him to her solar.
"You were hungry?" she asked, her voice a silken thread. He nodded, eyes on the floor. She knelt before him, her voice a cold poison meant only for him. "That hunger is in your blood, Snow. A grasping, wanting thing. First it is a pie that belongs to my son. Then what? The horse he is meant to ride? The sword he is meant to wield? Do you lie awake at night and dream of the high seat that you can never have? Do not forget what you are. You are a shadow. And shadows do not steal the light."
A week later, she found him in the library. He was hunched over a heavy tome, a rare look of peace on his face. She felt a flash of irritation at the sight. "Stealing knowledge now, Snow?" she began, her voice loud enough for the few servants to hear. They immediately found reasons to be elsewhere. Catelyn waited until they had scurried away before she picked up the book. The Lineages of the Dragon Kings. Her lip curled. "How fitting," she said, her voice dropping to a confidential, gutting whisper. "Reading of a house of bastards, madness, and incest. Is that what you aspire to? Has it ever occurred to you that my honorable husband might not even be your father? Your mother, a camp follower... she serviced many men. She was likely with child before she ever lay with Lord Stark. Did she see his honor, his kindness, and name him the father to give her whelp a noble roof? It is a mercy, truly, that he does not see his own face in yours. Or perhaps he does, and that is why he cannot bear to look at you for too long."
After that day, something inside him broke. She had him moved to a small, cold chamber in a disused tower.
Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik eventually came to her. She listened patiently before giving her practiced reply. "The war weighs heavily on us all. The boy is merely sad for his father. He will be his old self when the Lord of Winterfell returns." They had bought it, for a time.
Four months after Ned had left, the boy fell ill. Catelyn felt a surge of cold, righteous joy. Her joy was cut short when the three Kingsguard, hearing the news, returned from their patrol and burst into her solar. It was Ser Arthur Dayne who spoke, his voice quiet, yet it filled the room with a chilling menace. "A winter fever is a fragile thing, my lady. It can claim the weak. But it can also be… broken by a lack of care. The boy will have the best Winterfell can offer. You will see to it."
She was shocked—why such rage for a bastard? But she saw her opportunity. She shrieked for her guards, accusing the knights of insubordination and threatening their lord's wife. As she was not the Lord of Winterfell, she could not pass a death sentence, but she could imprison them for their crime.
Later that day, Maester Luwin came to her, his usual deference gone, replaced by a cold, quiet anger. "My lady, the boy is dying in that frozen room. He will be moved to a warm chamber near my own, where I can attend him properly. This is a matter of his life, and my duty to Lord Stark, and I will not be gainsaid."
To maintain her facade, she had reluctantly agreed, seething at the maester's newfound spine. But a small, triumphant smile played on her lips as she watched from her solar window as the boy was moved. The maester had won a battle, yes. But he did not see the war. He did not see that his victory had cost the boy his last, most powerful protectors.
He recovered, of course. The boy was cursed with a wolf's resilience. But he was different after. The fire in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cowed, haunted look. He flinched when she spoke. He made himself small. He was broken.
She had lost the war with her husband, the one fought with shouting and rage. She remembered the night he had threatened to set her aside, his voice a terrifying whisper after she had put Jon in his place. "Never," he had said. "You will never speak to him of his mother again." The memory of her defeat still stung. But in the years since, in his absence, she had won a different, quieter war. The war of attrition. The war for her son's future.
Catelyn had him moved back to the cold tower. Luwin and Ser Rodrik had stormed into her solar, their faces thunderous. She had let them rant, let them rage, before calmly replying, "The boy is no longer ill. He is strong enough to return to his own chambers. Are you suggesting I coddle him like a babe?"
They had no answer to that. They still came to her, of course. For weeks, their complaints were a constant, weary drone. But her excuse was always the same, a placid stream against which their anger eventually broke. "He is sad for his father. He will be his old self when the Lord of Winterfell returns."
Eventually, they stopped coming. Their protests faded into a grim, defeated silence. She had won. Walking the halls of Winterfell, she no longer felt the oppressive weight of the past, of her husband's secrets. She had scoured the stain from her home. The castle was quiet. Her son was safe. Winterfell was finally, blessedly peaceful.
A soft knock at the door broke her from her reverie. "My lady?" It was one of her handmaidens. "A raven from Lord Stark. Maester Luwin requests your presence."
The news sent a jolt through her, a mixture of a wife's relief and a schemer's panic. He was coming home. Her time was running out. She found the maester in his rookery, his face grim. "He will be here by the morrow, my lady."
Tomorrow. So soon. She returned to her chambers, her mind racing. She had broken the boy's spirit, yes. But his presence, his Stark face, is still a threat. With Ned home, the boy would be protected again, coddled, allowed to grow strong in the shadow of her own son. She needed to do one last thing. One final, decisive act to sever the bond, to make the boy understand his very existence was a stain.
She sent a servant to fetch him. When he appeared at her door, he was a wraith, thin and pale, his grey eyes fixed on the floor. He did not dare to look at her.
"Your father returns tomorrow, Jon," she said, her voice devoid of all emotion. "A great hero, the victor of the war. My Robb has carved him a wooden wolf to give as a gift. Sansa has sewn him a banner with the direwolf sigil. Tell me, what gift will you give to Lord Stark?"
He looked up then, his eyes wide with a pathetic, hopeful panic. He was just a boy, she reminded herself. A dangerous, poisonous boy. "I... I do not know, my lady," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I have nothing."
"Oh, but you do," she said, taking a step closer, her shadow falling over him. "You have one gift left to give. The greatest gift of all." She leaned down, her voice a cold, pious whisper, the final pronouncement of a righteous queen. "You can end his shame."
The boy stared at her, his face a mask of confusion. "How, my lady?" he whispered, his voice barely audible. "How can I remove the stain?"
Catelyn looked down at the child, at the Stark grey eyes that had haunted her for five years, and she felt nothing. No pity, no remorse. Only the cold, clean certainty of a necessary act. She leaned in one last time, her voice a final, chilling whisper.
"By dying."
She turned her back on him then, walking away without another glance. The heavy oak door of her solar clicked shut behind her, leaving the shadow wolf alone in the cold, dark hall.
Author's Note:
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