Roose Bolton stopped tapping his fingers on the table and quietly watched his hot-tempered bastard son across it with pale blue eyes. No matter how he looked at him, he found nothing to like.
Only when Ramsay stopped his cursing did he slowly speak, his voice flat. "Ramsay, when will you learn to assess the situation among the various powers in Westeros, instead of spending all day thinking about 'hunting' women and hanging their flayed skins in your collection room and your chambers?"
He paused, his fingertips brushing the sigil of House Bolton carved into the tabletop-a flayed man hanging upside down. Lowering his voice further, he continued, "We have only just come through a war, and now the entire North is following Robb. If we are the first to defy the call to arms, the army gathering at Winterfell may level our walls before continuing on to the Wall."
"Then what do you mean, Father?" Ramsay could not help straightening up. He was quite good at gathering ordinary intelligence. The traitors in the Dreadfort, for instance, had all been tracked down by him and his Bastard's Boys.
But he truly had little talent for assessing the broader situation, and there was something wrong with certain aspects of his mind. He was also highly confident, prone to arrogance and complacency.
"Whether or not they truly intend to fight the Others, this is no bad thing for House Bolton. If we follow them to the Wall, we can earn the respect and goodwill of the other northern houses while sitting back and watching the Starks and the Others tear each other apart."
"Once the Starks and those other houses have bled themselves dry, we Boltons will have lost two thousand men at most. Then, naturally, it will be our turn to