Chapter III: Mid-Winter
"Is it me or is it gettin' colder?"
"What is colder, the utmost north or a scorned woman's heart?"
"Uh..."
"I am quite sure the utmost north is colder, but they're both so freezing that you can't feel the difference. It's same with thi wind and frost. It might be getting colder; but who cares? The frostbite will see my nose rot anyhow."
And at those words Tyrion ripped his eyes from Hosten's face and went back to glaring at the snow outside the walls.
"Ye know," Hosten ventured, "I am gettin' the feeling that our meetings are beginning to get a little monotone, little man. 'Tis us 'n the cold, again, and again, and again."
"That would seem to be the truth. Then again, you fur-men are a dull lot; more than that, you are dull at doing dull things. Say what you want about the south, at least its nobles can be boring in varying ways. You all just scream, drink and knock over tables."
"Not much else to do."
"And you all lack imagination. One can easily tell the kings of old to be of the south: it was the Andals who had the vision to cross oceans; you all were busy building snowmen and strangling wolves, while they introduced... culture. You cannot even manage to name your gods. Theology is our strong side."
Hosten shrugged. He did not get angry at the little man all that often anymore. Taunting was what Tyrion did, why take it personally?
"We were here first."
"No. The land was. We are just stomping about until we perish and return our flesh to the soil."
Hosten frowned.
"You're rather morbid today, sackface."
Tyrion shook his head.
"Morbid? Me? You must have mistaken me for another dwarf, my friend. I am still in a jolly mood; indeed, I will prove this to you!"
Hosten shot him a wolfish grin.
"Wit' some beer, I hope?"
"Indeed! Absolutely positive!"
They entered the main hall and got seated in a corner. Both had changed, in their own ways. Hosten no longer went picking fights like he'd used to: it seemed that the grey in his hair was seeping into his head and dulling his temper. Tyrion was no longer interested in big groups. He craved solitude, he'd told Hosten.
The mood was odd. The king was to be married soon; yet there were almost no guests. Winter had made it impossible. Most peasants fled for the south in these times, or to the coast. Nobles had stocked grain all summer and had locked themselves in their castles, sometimes shut off from the outside world for thirty years to a lifetime. It was not uncommon for even members of the lower nobility to starve or freeze to death in their castle during winter. Inbreeding was particularily nasty in such a closed off environment with so few people.
As such, no one was going to come to visit. Sons might become fathers and see their sons become fathers before they would even hear that their boy-king had had sex with one of the world's most hated bastards out of wedlock. If all vassals had heard about it at once, it might be cause for revolt. As it was, Robb would be able to deal with them one by one, discretely, as the snow slowly retreated and left more of the country accessible.
Did Hosten really feel he could blame the boy? Partially. Robb'd looked after the girl for years, they'd always been close to one another. He knew Robb felt lonely. His mother wouldn't stop mourning, his father was dead, his eldest sister was dead, his older brother was dead, his younger brothers missing... it was only logical that he'd sought company.
It was, however, not logical that he'd decided to marry said company. That was just stupid. And unnatural, of course, but that could be forgiven. He muttered: "Tyrion, I just realized something."
"Oh? And what nugget of wisdom would you throw at me?"
"The young run' where their dick tells 'em to go, the grown walk where their dick tells 'em to go, and the old hobble where their dick tells 'em to go."
Tyrion snarled: "You are truly a master of philosophy."
"Thank you. I try."
They entered the main hall. People were speaking more softly than usual, which is to say, they were yelling rather than shouting. The Northern version of gossipmongering. Tyrion and Hosten sat down in a corner after getting their hands on some beer.
"This is probably how we'll end our lives," Hosten muttered, "drinking beer and moaning, locked behind stone and snow."
"Yes, very true. I do plan to go out moaning."
Hosten narrowed his eyes.
"Ye little shit! For all I know, you've already impregnated half of Winterfell! Is that why your niece fell into our great Kings' arms? To avoid getting fucked by another Lannister?"
Tyrion did not smile.
"Not a good joke."
"Ugh, I'm sorry, sackface. I know you love 'er. Not in the unnatural way, I mean- the good way."
"Ah, I will forgive you. It shall be blamed on your rough northern temperament and all."
"Thank you."
Tyrion looked around the great hall. In a corner, a woman was singing. The floor was wet. It could very well be that he was going to die here. But how much did that really matter? He could very well die here, that was not a problem... if only everything would just stay this way. If only nothing went.... wrong....
*
Roderick huddled closer to the other people, shuddering in his furs. His skin was pale and his eyes were gaunt. Out in the cold there were no morals and there was no justice. There was the trudging walk, the biting snow.
In this winter, he was one step away from being a frozen corpse. But in summer, he had been a scholar, a maester, a learned man perusing mottled scrolls and stinking books yellowed with age.
His interests had led him north, helpless, like a starving dog lured by dripping meat. He knew winter was coming, but there had been a thesis, an idea that had captivated his absent mind.
The north, he had known, was not like other places. The nobility had less of a grip on its population, both in summer and winter. Roderick had wanted to find out why: and he did.
The peasants of the North were semi-nomadic. Their villages couldn't sustain them during the thirty years of Winter. The southernmost peasants migrated to warmer climes, the northern peasants drifted to the coast, hoping the sea might sustain them with fish. And so their villages were simple, easily demolished.
The lords just couldn't keep a grip on the movements of these people: to force them to settle more permanently would condemn them to death, and with them the lords that depended on their tribute.
In Winter, the North simply died. The lords locked themselves in their keeps, with their stores and hearths and ignored the snow outside. The population fled. The roads suffocated in the snow, there was no trade, no movement. In the past, it had been the habit of the king in the North to invite his vassals to Winterfell during winter. After all, winters could last a generation, and if an old, loyal lord died and the new lord grew up without knowing royal authority... there might be problems when the snow melted.
As such, the king spent the winter among his dukes and reinstalled them in their keeps thirty years after the first snowfall, sometimes forcibly. But knowing that the dukes knew that their lord had a very powerful, very vengeful king behing them when summer would arrive... there was no more need.
And so the cycle went on. When winter died down, the lords came out of their keeps and sent their guards to the coast, forcing the people there back to their previous domains, back into a shaky serfdom. When the snow fell, the peasants were free, yet starving. And when it melted down, they were chained once more, yet fed as well.
Roderick was free. But it wasn't doing him any favors.
They were walking on a beach glazed with frost. They often slipped, often fell. Uncaring waves of water, as grey as the sand and the sky, pounded at the ice. The cold ate at their flesh.
They had expected houses and people. They had found nothing. It was simply too cold. Too cold to set up shelters. And Roderick's group had no axes, no way to set up a fire. They could only keep shuffling along the beach, hoping to find some people who had had success. There were never any.
This had to be the coldest winter in a long time. It had to be. He just couldn't imagine that they were all like this, just a long line of frozen corpses on a beach. But the cold eroded everything. It eroded the feeling in his body, his wonder, his horror. When he finally fell to the ground he was barely anything but a husk of meat and blood. He just slammed into the ice, broke some, and was still. There was some shuffling besides him, and then there was just the howling wind.
It was not that he was ready to die. It was more that he was so worn out he didn't realize it was going to happen.
The jolt of frost that coursed through his blood was so unexpected, so fierce, that he gasped for breath and then screamed. He scrambled upwards but could not see. There was a fog, a gale, of thick snow and it blinded him. And as his skin cracked and his blood turned cold and the blue men appeared, something became clear to Maester Roderick.
In summer, he had been one thing. In winter, he would become something else entirely.
