The Great Hall of the Twins was, for once, ablaze with candles and torches, as though light and noise could drive away the damp chill of the Green Fork.
The long tables were laden with food: smoked meat, bread baked golden brown, and barrels of ale and wine. Their aromas mingled with the voices rising through the stone hall.
The musicians sat in a corner of the upper gallery, drawing out the melodies of their fiddles and flutes into slow, lingering strains.
The notes wound through the air like a thick pall of shadow hanging over the din.
Several rounds of drinking passed.
Alcohol loosened tongues, and conversation slid from cautious pleasantries into recollections of past glories.
"Back then, we followed the Young Wolf all the way south from the North!" a red-faced Northern lord cried, waving his cup. "Those were the days! We beat those snarling lions until they howled!"
"That's right!" another man slammed his hand on the table. "I cut off three Lannister heads myself!"
After that brief uproar, however, the mood suddenly sank.
A voice rang out, heavy with grief and anger it could no longer contain. "But everything changed once we went up against that Targaryen! Why couldn't we win anymore?"
"Aye, why couldn't we win anymore..." murmured voices echoed from all sides.
Robb sat in the seat of honor, listening to their drunken words.
He raised his silver-inlaid cup and drained the dark red wine.
The fine wine slipped down his throat, leaving only bitterness in his mouth.
He murmured to himself, his gaze sweeping the hall.
The companions who had truly fought beside him-Greatjon Umber, Lady Maege Mormont, Earl Wyman Manderly-had vanished forever on the battlefields of the Riverlands or in the fall of Riverrun.
Most of those who remained were minor Riverlands