Edmure Tully
Edmure had always believed that family was the most important thing in the world. If you had a strong family, then everything else—duty and honor—would follow. And that, he thought, was enough for a good and proper life. Especially when behind you stood the great castle of Riverrun and all the lands sworn to it.
Edmure grew up an obedient and devoted child. His two sisters, Catelyn and Lysa, always enjoyed his attention and affection. Though he loved Catelyn more… especially after Lysa had begun, of late, to allow herself far too much familiarity with various squires and guests of the castle.
It was because of this that he quarreled with Petyr Baelish, whom he himself had nicknamed Littlefinger. Baelish never forgave him for the fact that, when he learned of Catelyn's betrothal to Brandon Stark and challenged the latter to a duel, Edmure became Brandon's squire for the duration of the fight, not his.
He grew up in a glorious castle and was the heir to the Lord of the Riverlands. Yet for some reason, everyone he encountered seemed determined to tell him what to do and how to do it.
Such was his father, Hoster Tully — whose behavior he endured and accepted. And his uncle, Brynden Blackfish, whom he greatly respected and even somewhat feared. And his sisters, who, almost openly, twisted and turned him as they pleased. And the Starks of the North were never shy about pointing out his mistakes.
Even the cursed Littlefinger, a man of no great name and little standing, had tried to boss him about at first!
His sisters married. Catelyn wed Ned Stark after Brandon's death, and Lysa became the wife of old Jon Arryn. Several years passed in peace. Edmure took on more and more of his father's responsibilities in Riverrun, and if not for the constant, irritating presence of the Blackfish, he might already have been a full-fledged lord. When his uncle departed for the Vale for several years, Edmure breathed a long sigh of relief.
Life was wonderful—and the life of a lord even more so. Busy days gave way to enchanted nights filled with hunting, feasting with friends, knightly tournaments across all Westeros, and women—he had always had a fondness for them.
Then the war began. And the Trident boiled!
The Lannisters began ravaging the borderlands of the Riverlands. People died—peasants, craftsmen, fishermen—all those who looked to him as their lord and protector. He could not stand aside and rushed to their aid.
He wanted to protect everyone and everything, spreading his forces too thin, winning a handful of minor skirmishes but losing several major ones.
At the Golden Tooth, Jaime the Kingslayer shattered the armies of his allies, Marq Piper and Karyl Vance, and then marched swiftly on Riverrun.
The first battle for Riverrun was fought beneath the walls of his ancestral home. The castle itself held, but Edmure was taken prisoner. His captivity did not last long, however. Robb Stark's northerners broke through the Whispering Wood, and in the second battle for the river fortress, they managed to drive off the Lannisters.
Edmure was freed. He stood witness at Robb Stark's coronation as King in the North, held within his own castle.
It was then that the first doubt took root in his mind. All the guests behaved as though he were not an equal ally, not the lord of a great house, but some wretched lesser vassal!
They enjoyed his hospitality, ate his bread, yet acted as if he had no right to speak—excluding him from discussions of strategy and issuing orders as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Even Umber—that foul-mouthed, thick-skulled Jon Umber, who knew only how to drink without restraint, bellow at the top of his lungs, and endlessly swing his enormous sword—presumed himself to command him!
Most of the combined host then marched west to crush the Lannisters. Without so much as even asking his opinion, they left him to hold Riverrun, defend the Riverlands, and guard the prisoner Jaime Lannister.
Lord Tywin, leading the full might of the western host, attempted several times to force a crossing of the Red Fork in order to come to the aid of his lands, and each time Edmure stopped him. One battle, in particular, was especially bloody—the clash at Stone Mill.
After that, Tywin concluded that he could not break through the river defenses and withdrew.
It was an undeniable victory. Yet from that point on, everything went wrong.
Catelyn, remaining in Riverrun, released the Kingslayer without asking Edmure's leave or even seeking his counsel, extracting from him some laughable oaths and promises. Any fool could see that such vows might bind a Tully—but not a Lannister, who had already proven how lightly he regarded oaths by murdering his own king!
Then the army returned to Riverrun. In public, Robb Stark and Brynden Blackfish praised him. In private, within his own chambers, they dressed him down so thoroughly that the insult cut deep.
His kin suddenly declared that he had committed a grave error by defeating Tywin and denying him passage across the river. They had, it turned out, devised some grand plan—to lure Tywin into a trap—and thanks to Edmure's "heroics," it had all fallen apart. Tywin failed to cross, retreated, and somehow that, too, worked in his favor.
What in the seven hells?
For more than an hour, uncle and nephew yelled at him about something he knew nothing about, and then they made him the scapegoat. And for what? Because no one had deemed it necessary to inform him of their overarching strategy, and he, ignorant of their schemes, had done his duty well and bravely. Why such mistrust? Did they think him a traitor? Or feared he might let secrets slip to the enemy?
Edmure took that conversation like a slap across the face. That brat Robb had no right to speak to him in such a manner. Let him be King in the North three times over—or even of all Westeros to boot. And the Blackfish had gone too far as well.
That evening, for the first time in his life, Edmure Tully felt true resentment toward both his nephew and his uncle.
(End of Chapter)
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