Brynden Tully, the deep weathering of a hard life carved plainly into his face, turned to glance at Robin Lege beside him, then looked across the long table at Solomon, who had settled quietly into his chair.
"What are your negotiating demands?"
Solomon sat back, his fingers tapping a slow, dull rhythm on the table.
A smile appeared on his face — open and unhurried. He answered without hesitation.
"I have no demands on his territory whatsoever."
"Return my lands to me, agree upon ransoms for the prisoners I hold, and fund the reconstruction of the Reekfort."
The answer stopped both the Blackfish and Robin cold.
It was, undeniably, a remarkably clean set of demands.
Solomon's gaze moved between the two of them. "As I have said, it was not I who refused to negotiate. It was House Lege."
"I do not love war, Ser."
He paused, then spread his hands wide on the table, his tone as easy as if he were discussing the weather.
"If Riverrun is willing to stand surety, or to issue me a formal order, I can withdraw my army immediately — before any negotiated settlement has even been drafted."
"If you doubt my sincerity, I am willing to go to Riverrun alone, unarmed, and argue this matter directly before Lord Hoster alongside Roger Lege."
"If it would help move the negotiations forward, I will order my army to withdraw from Willowbrook by tomorrow morning."
Brynden narrowed his eyes, studying the young man before him the way a seasoned hunting dog examines uncertain ground — and found nothing but candour and composure.
"A withdrawal of troops is not yet necessary."
"Tomorrow, however, I will need to enter the inner keep, speak with Roger Lege personally, hear whatever explanation he wishes to offer, and establish the conditions for negotiation. Do you have any objection?"
Solomon gave a small nod and rose from his chair, clapping his hands together once.
"Of course, Ser."
"I accept every arbitration Riverrun chooses to render."
He turned toward the guards behind him and raised his voice slightly.
"Our guests have come a great distance. They must be exhausted."
"See that they rest well tonight. I have already arranged the finest rooms and a proper evening banquet for them."
"Bring out the best wine from the cellars of Willowbrook. Make certain our guests are looked after."
The guards bowed and withdrew. Solomon looked back at the envoys, his smile unchanged.
"I hope you will be able to talk some sense into the stubborn Lord Roger Lege."
"I have a few matters to attend to myself. If you will excuse me."
The negotiations had reached an unexpectedly swift breakthrough, and the taut air of the room loosened at once. Aside from the Blackfish and Robin, the more than twenty Riverrun soldiers in attendance all let the tension leave their brows. They had braced themselves for a difficult and drawn-out confrontation; they had not expected such easy compliance.
As they watched Solomon disappear through the door, Brynden turned to Robin. "This young man. What do you make of him?"
Robin Lege rubbed his bald head, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He had no choice but to admit it. "Toward Riverrun, his manner is respectful — deferential, even. He surrendered a Valyrian steel sword rather than pocket it in secret."
Deep into the night.
Moonlight fell like a thin frost across the walls of Willowbrook's inner keep.
The night wind moved through the darkness, carrying a bone-deep chill. Solomon pulled his outer cloak tighter.
He spoke to the soldiers behind him without turning. His voice was low, but it cut clean through the wind.
"Bring it forward."
Several soldiers carried a stretcher into the torchlight. On it lay a body dressed in the full plate armour of House Lege, the family crest of a weeping willow etched into the breastplate.
Solomon looked at his men, and a smile crossed his face in the dark.
"Make him presentable."
The soldiers arranged Jero Lege's body on a clear stretch of ground at the base of the inner keep's outer wall. They straightened his armour, smoothed the creases from his surcoat, and placed the family longsword — his longsword — into his cold, closed hands.
More torches were lit. Dozens of them, until the strip of ground below the walls blazed like a stage set for a performance.
The soldiers moved in silence, driving each torch into the earth one by one until they had formed a perfect ring around the body.
The firelight danced and wavered, casting the young corpse into unsettling, living relief. The entire scene had the quality of a strange and sinister ceremony of the old gods.
Solomon turned to his men.
"Have the soldiers call out."
The nearest soldier looked to him and waited.
"Tell them: Jero Lege is dead."
"Tell them: the envoys of Riverrun have arrived. As a gesture of good faith for the coming negotiations, we are returning the body of their young lord."
Within moments, rough and carrying voices tore through the silence of the night, crashing against the stone walls of the inner keep one after another.
"The envoys from Riverrun have arrived! As a sign of good faith for negotiations, we return your young lord's body to you!"
"Jero Lege is dead!"
"The young heir of House Lege is dead!"
"Come and look upon your heir!"
"Roger Lege! Your son is dead! Come claim the body!"
"YOUR SON IS DEAD!!!"
A guard on the inner wall — half-starved, running on hollow sleep — forced himself upright and looked down.
The sudden blaze of torchlight outside the gate snapped him fully awake.
He squinted, straining to make out the shape at the centre of all that fire. When he finally recognized the human silhouette lying still on the white cloth, a cold so deep it had no name shot upward from the soles of his feet and did not stop until it reached the crown of his skull.
He opened his mouth.
No sound came out. An invisible hand seemed to have closed around his throat.
More and more soldiers were jolted awake. They crawled out from sleep, crowding behind the battlements, staring down in silent dread. Hushed voices bled into one another and became a low, shapeless noise of panic spreading quietly through the crowd like ink through water.
A night-watch officer went the colour of old ash. He half-ran, half-stumbled down from the wall-walk and sprinted toward the lord's chambers.
"My lord!! My lord!!!"
He did not stop to knock. He drove his shoulder into the heavy wooden door and it burst open.
Roger Lege had been pacing. He had been awake for hours.
He spun at the sound. The shouting from outside had woken him as well. He had made out the words.
He simply did not believe them. His eyes were a map of broken red vessels.
The officer dropped to both knees, forehead nearly touching the floor.
"Young Lord Jero's body…"
Roger Lege launched himself forward as if a scorpion had stung him. He seized the officer by the collar and wrenched him up.
"Lies!! Slander!! How could my son be dead?! This is that bastard's trick!!"
The officer shook from head to foot and did not look up. He only repeated, barely above a whisper: "The torches are lit… many men have seen it…"
Roger Lege shoved him aside. His chest heaved.
His mouth said one thing; his heart said another. A cold hand had closed around it and was squeezing, squeezing.
He threw a cloak over his shoulders, pulled the hood down low, and climbed the stairs like a thief — in darkness, making no sound, not wanting anyone to see him. He pressed his eye to a gap in the battlements and looked down.
The torches blazed. At the brightest point of that fire, a figure in armour lay perfectly still.
He knew that armour.
He had buckled it onto his son's body with his own hands.
He knew that sword.
He had given it to his son on the day the boy became a man.
In the firelight, Jero's face was the white of unbleached linen. His eyes were closed. He might have been sleeping.
He was not sleeping.
Roger Lege felt every drop of blood in his body stop moving at once. His legs gave way. The hands of the soldiers beside him — fast hands, fortunate hands — caught him before he toppled backward off the wall.
He knew. He had known the moment the cloak fell.
That is my son. My son.
A sound tore itself from somewhere deep inside his throat — a sound no human being should make, the kind of sound a living creature makes only at the bottom of ruin.
"My son!! My Jero!!"
He tore at his own hair, which had gone grey-white seemingly overnight. He drove his forehead against the cold stone of the wall again and again, a dull hollow sound in the darkness.
He beat his fists against his own chest with both hands, as if the impact could break the pain that was breaking him.
Tears and snot ran freely down his face. He wept the way a child weeps — without control, without pride, without any of the things a lord is supposed to hold onto.
"They killed my son!"
"They killed my son!"
"Solomon!! You demon!! You devil!!"
"I curse you!! I curse you to the Seven Hells!!"