Those words of praise seemed to flip a switch.
Brynden's face closed. Every trace of casual interest left it, and when he spoke again his tone was measured and grave.
"You have won the war against House Lege. A victory that borders on the miraculous."
"But you remain, at the end of it, a vassal of House Deddings."
"Riverrun must deliver a resolution that both parties can accept."
He paused and looked Solomon directly in the eyes.
Solomon nodded, offering a polite smile. He said nothing.
The Blackfish seemed genuinely surprised by the lack of resistance. He continued.
"A word of advice, young man."
"For the negotiations with House Lege that follow — it would be wiser to conduct them under the name of House Deddings and House Tully."
"Let your liege lord, Lord Balon Deddings, be the one who steps forward. He will be quite glad to share in the glory of this victory and its rewards, and to stand beside you in presenting your demands to House Lege."
As he spoke, the Blackfish's hands began to move.
With great care, with an air of absolute naturalness, he began rolling the enormous map from one end.
The movement was so unhurried, so entirely matter-of-fact, that it did not look like a man taking something that belonged to another person. It looked precisely like a man tidying away something he had brought himself.
Solomon: "..."
He held the polite smile on his face and watched, helplessly, as Brynden rolled the map up, tucked it firmly under his arm, and hugged it against his chest.
The Blackfish turned to leave, map secured. At the doorway he paused, looked back at Solomon one final time — whatever he was thinking remained entirely his own — and the night wind stirred the grey-white strands of his hair.
Then he turned and walked out of the hall. The sound of his footsteps faded.
The hall fell quiet.
Solomon let the smile drop from his face. His gaze settled on the empty stretch of table where the map had been.
Why does this old man have absolutely no concept of personal boundaries.
The night was ink-black. It swallowed Willowbrook whole.
No moon. No stars. Only the cold wind circling above the walls.
Solomon's army gathered like a silent tide at the base of the inner keep's walls. Every torch had been extinguished. Not a single man made a sound.
Brin and Lushen stood at Solomon's side. Brin drew a quiet finger across his own throat in question — should Roger Lege be killed?
Solomon shook his head. No need. Doing so in front of Riverrun's envoys would be unwise, and Roger was already a beaten dog. When this war ended, his ability to control his own remaining vassals would be broken, and his family lands would take a hundred years to recover from what had been taken.
A few torches flared to life in the darkness — the agreed signal — and were waved in slow arcs.
Everyone held their breath.
Then the iron portcullis of the inner keep was hauled upward from the inside, opening a gap just wide enough for one man to pass.
In the darkness, Lushen was through it first. His movements were those of a hunting leopard. Behind him, a hundred soldiers in chainmail filed silently in.
No alarm. No shouts. No resistance. The ease with which the gate was taken was unsettling in its completeness.
When Lushen and his men appeared inside the inner keep, the guards already stationed there simply looked at them. Then, one after another, they set down their weapons and pressed their backs against the walls.
The gates were thrown fully open. Solomon walked in at the front. Behind him came Brynden Tully and Robin Lege, both wearing expressions that resisted easy reading.
Brynden stopped several soldiers and ordered them to collect and bury the remains scattered throughout the keep — to make it a matter of secrecy. Cannibalism was a grave crime throughout the Seven Kingdoms; for nobles it would be a catastrophic scandal.
The soldiers did not move at his command. They turned and looked at Solomon instead.
Solomon nodded. Only then did they begin their work.
The surrender inside was more complete than anyone had expected. Most of the garrison had taken part in the silent mutiny, even those who had not been in on the original plot. They no longer had any will to resist. One after another, spears and swords clattered to the ground. Men dropped to their knees in a slow, silent river of surrender.
Only a handful of knights still loyal to Roger made any show of resistance. One old knight shouted and wrenched his sword free — but he did not swing it. He simply held it and waited while three or four soldiers stripped it from his hands and pressed him firmly to the floor.
No mass bloodshed. Everything unfolded like a pantomime.
The inner keep of Willowbrook had fallen.
The last resistance was in the room where Roger Lege had barricaded himself.
Roger and four or five of his most devoted men had wedged themselves inside that filthy, disordered chamber. They had dragged a heavy oak table and chairs and every piece of furniture they could move against the door, making their final stand — the most desperate stand there was left to make.
Solomon's soldiers worked a battering ram against the door in steady rhythm. Each impact rolled down the empty corridor in a low, hollow boom.
Robin Lege could no longer watch. He pushed through the soldiers and positioned himself before the battered door. His voice, when he spoke, had been worn rough by too many things at once.
"Open the door. It is over."
At Solomon's gesture, the soldiers lowered the ram and stepped back.
A dead silence.
Then Roger Lege's voice tore through the door — a beast's sound, nothing remotely human left in it.
"Traitor!!"
"You Tully lapdog!! Have you gone over to that bastard too?!"
Robin's face cycled through white and grey and something darker. He drew a long breath, started to say something further — and found the words would not come.
Solomon's gaze moved from the battering ram in the soldiers' hands, slowly back to the sealed door.
His expression was perfectly still. Not a ripple. As though everything unfolding before him had already been accounted for long ago.
He raised one hand, gently.
"Continue."
Under the repeated blows, the oak planks burst inward. Splinters and a cloud of dust billowed through the gap.
Solomon's soldiers poured in, armour rasping, swords raised in a forest of steel, filling the last refuge Roger Lege had left in a single breath.
Robin Lege, terrified the soldiers would harm his kinsman, tried to force his way through them. Not a single man stepped aside for him.
Solomon walked forward. The soldiers parted automatically to open a path. He turned to the Blackfish, spread both hands wide, palms up, in a gesture of mild helplessness — an invitation: Ser Brynden, Lord Robin may enter.
Robin Lege shoved through first, his voice cracking as he shouted.
"It is finished!! Roger!!"
"Your soldiers have laid down their arms!! Your castle has fallen entirely!!"
He took another step. He was only a few paces from Roger now.
"Put down your sword!! Let us talk!!!"
Roger Lege suddenly erupted in laughter.
It was a wretched sound. It bounced off the narrow walls of the small room and filled it completely — saturated with grief and a kind of lunacy that had moved beyond grief into something with no name.
"Put down my sword?" He repeated it as if Robin had told him the most hilarious joke ever spoken in the history of the world. "I will not put down my sword!!!"
The laughter cut off as sharply as it had begun.
He raised his longsword.
"I invoke my right!! I demand trial by combat!!!"
The air in the room went solid.
The soldiers looked at one another. Is this man an idiot? Robin Lege's face turned the colour of iron in an instant.
But Roger's voice climbed higher, breaking into a roar.
"Trial by combat between myself and Solomon!! Him and me alone!!"
"UNTIL DEATH PARTS US!!!!"
Brynden Tully had reached the limit of his patience. He stepped forward in two long strides, pushing two soldiers aside.
"Absolutely not!! I—"
"I accept."
Three quiet words. They appeared from nowhere and severed the Blackfish's sentence cleanly in two.
The voice was not loud. But it fell into the room the way a boulder falls into a still lake — and the silence that followed was total.
Every eye turned.
Solomon stood with his sword planted point-down in the floor in front of him, both hands resting on the crossguard, an unhurried and perfectly composed smile on his face.
One word at a time, he said it again.
"I."
"Accept."