A damp chill hung in the hall of the Twins.
Dappled light streamed through the high windows, casting shifting shadows over Walder Frey's deeply wrinkled face.
They broke the marriage pact just like that... and now they offered a defeated commander as a replacement, along with a few Gold Dragons... what did they take the Freys for?
His gaunt fingers tapped lightly against the chair's armrest, carved with the twin towers.
A stray dog whose meat could be snatched away, then placated with any old bone?
The hall was silent, save for the occasional crackle of the fire.
Several members of House Frey stood expressionless in the shadows.
Walder was silent for a moment, a calculating gleam flickering in his clouded eyes.
He agreed.
Humiliating though it was, this was the most the Freys could wring out of the wretched affair.
If he truly backed the wolf pup into a corner and drove him to storm the Twins, things would end badly.
Not only would he agree, he would also "help"... help Robb Stark march south without a hitch, straight into the brick wall that was Aegon Targaryen.
That Targaryen had turned the natural order on its head. He actually meant to strip the nobles of their hereditary power? By what right?
Rather than break openly with the wolf pup, he would let him serve as the vanguard, a stone thrown ahead to test the path, a pawn to wear down Targaryen's strength.
He raised his eyes to Catelyn and the dejected Edmure standing in the hall, forcing a smile onto his face that mingled magnanimity with mockery.
"Lady Stark, Duke Tully," Walder began slowly, drawing out every word, "so you... haven't entirely forgotten what little dignity these old bones still possess."
"Since Duke Edmure is willing to seal the