Chapter 13 : THE FEAST AT WINTERFELL
Vayon Poole was a man who measured the world in portions.
Edric found Winterfell's steward in the courtyard outside the kitchens at mid-morning, overseeing a procession of serving staff carrying casks and crates and bundles of herbs the size of small children. The feast preparations had turned the castle's domestic wing into a theater of controlled chaos — fires roaring in eight separate hearths, bread ovens working through the night, a whole aurochs rotating on a spit large enough to bridge a creek.
"Ser Poole?" Edric kept his voice pitched between respectful and useful. "Edric Thorne, representing House Vance Trading Company of King's Landing. I carry letters of introduction and samples of Arbor Gold from our latest shipment — considerably finer than the standard Northern import, if I may say."
Poole turned. He was a thin man with the particular expression of someone who had been solving logistical problems since dawn and expected to continue until midnight. His eyes moved from Edric's face to his clothes to his boots in the practiced sweep of a steward assessing a visitor's station.
"Vance Trading. You supply the Hayford household."
"And Buckwell, Rosby, and several Crownlands houses. Ser Willem sends his regards and hopes to establish Northern clients. The royal visit seemed an opportune moment."
"Every merchant within three hundred miles has had the same thought." But Poole's expression shifted from dismissal to calculation. The royal visit had tripled Winterfell's food and wine requirements overnight, and the Northern supply chains weren't designed for Southern appetites. "You carry samples?"
"In my lodgings at the Frozen Pike. I can have them here within the hour."
Poole considered. Behind him, a serving girl nearly dropped a crate of turnips and received a glare that could have frozen the hot springs.
"Bring the wine. If it's genuinely better than what the White Harbor traders carry, I'll consider a purchase order. You may attend the feast tonight at the lower tables — trade delegations are customary. Present yourself at the servants' entrance by the fifth hour."
[ACCESS GRANTED: WINTERFELL GREAT HALL — LOWER TABLES] [METHOD: LEGITIMATE COMMERCIAL PRETEXT] [RISK: LOW — ONE OF DOZENS OF MERCHANTS. ANONYMOUS.] [+25 EXP]
Edric bowed — shallow, commercial, the precise depth a merchant used for a steward above his station but not so far above that groveling was required — and retreated.
The wine samples cost him a half-dragon from a Frozen Pike merchant who'd carried Southern vintages north. Repackaged in Vance Trading wrapping, they'd pass inspection. The Arbor Gold was genuine, at least — that particular grape couldn't be faked.
---
The Great Hall of Winterfell was simultaneously larger and more intimate than the show had suggested.
The ceiling vanished into shadow — timber beams crossing fifty feet overhead, darkened by centuries of hearthsmoke. Eight long tables ran the length of the hall, with the Stark high table on a raised platform at the far end. Direwolf banners hung alongside Baratheon stags, and the combined effect was of two ancient forces pressing against each other across a room full of food and firelight.
Edric entered through the servants' door — a modest arch in the hall's eastern wall that fed into the lower seating area where merchants, minor retainers, and visiting tradesmen occupied benches far enough from the high table to be politically invisible. He found a seat that offered sightlines to both the Stark family and the Lannister contingent, accepted a cup of Northern ale, and settled in to watch.
The Starks first.
Ned Stark sat at the center of the high table, beside Robert Baratheon. The Lord of Winterfell was everything Edric had expected and somehow more: tall, lean, with a long face that carried its gravity like a geological feature. His eyes moved slowly — the deliberate scanning of a man who trusted his instincts and used his vision to confirm what they'd already told him. He smiled rarely. When he did, it transformed his face into something warm and startlingly kind.
"That man is going to die for the truth. And the worst part is that he'll die knowing he was right, and it won't matter."
Catelyn sat on Ned's left — red-haired, sharp-eyed, her gaze touching each of her children in rotation with the compulsive precision of a mother counting heads. Robb Stark beside her, sixteen and already carrying himself with the particular confidence of a firstborn son who'd been trained for lordship since he could walk. Sansa next — beautiful even at thirteen, her posture perfect, her eyes fixed on the golden prince across the hall with the absolute certainty of a girl who believed in songs.
"Don't look at him like that. He's not what you think. None of them are."
Arya sat at the far end, closest to the lower tables, wearing an expression of boredom so profound it had achieved a kind of artistry. She was watching Jon Snow, who—
Jon Snow was not at the high table.
He sat below, among the household knights and minor retainers, alone at the end of a bench. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, with the handsome broodingness of a young man who'd been taught his entire life that he was less than his siblings. He drank steadily but not heavily, and his eyes followed the feast with the particular attention of someone looking for a place he'd been told didn't exist for him.
[JON SNOW: CONFIRMED — SEATED APART FROM FAMILY. CANON CONSISTENT.] [NOTE: THIS IS THE MAN WHO WILL UNITE THE NORTH, COMMAND THE NIGHT'S WATCH, DIE, RETURN FROM DEATH, AND ULTIMATELY SHAPE THE FATE OF THE CONTINENT. CURRENTLY, HE LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS TO GO TO BED.]
And Bran.
There — between Rickon and one of the serving women assigned to mind the younger children. Brandon Stark. Ten years old. Brown-haired, bright-eyed, vibrating with the particular energy of a boy who found sitting still to be a physical impossibility. He craned his neck to see the knights, tugged at his brother's sleeve, pointed at things, laughed at things no one else noticed.
Edric's appetite vanished.
"Tomorrow. Maybe tonight. He climbs the broken tower. He sees them. Jaime—"
He reached for his ale. Drank deeply. Set the cup down too hard.
The Lannister side of the hall gleamed. Cersei sat beside Robert — golden-haired, icily beautiful, her smile calibrated to project warmth while her eyes assessed the room with the attentive hostility of someone surrounded by enemies in a hostile castle. Jaime Kingslayer stood behind his king in white Kingsguard armor, managing to look simultaneously bored and dangerous. Young Joffrey sat near his mother, handsome and cruel-mouthed, already wearing the expression of a boy who'd learned that the world existed to please him.
[OBSERVATION: CERSEI'S POSTURE SHIFTS WHEN ROBERT SPEAKS. SHE LEANS FRACTIONALLY AWAY. HER SMILE TIGHTENS AT THE CORNERS. JAIME'S EYES TRACK HER — ALWAYS HER — WITH AN INTENSITY THAT A CAREFUL OBSERVER MIGHT FIND UNUSUAL FOR A SWORN BODYGUARD.]
[YOU ARE A CAREFUL OBSERVER.]
[DO NOT STARE.]
Edric looked away. Ate bread. Watched through peripheral vision.
---
Tyrion Lannister arrived at the lower tables the way a boulder arrives at the bottom of a hill — inevitably and with considerable impact on everything nearby.
The dwarf had separated from the Lannister contingent early — whether by choice or exclusion, Edric couldn't tell. He carried a wine cup the size of his head, moved through the crowd with the aggressive confidence of a small man in a world built for larger ones, and ended up at the bench across from Edric's position because every other seat was occupied and nobody volunteered to make room.
"Southern?" Tyrion asked, settling onto the bench with practiced grace. His eyes were mismatched — one green, one dark — and they assessed Edric with a speed that made the Perception boost feel inadequate.
"King's Landing. Trade business."
"Ah. A merchant. And what does a King's Landing merchant make of Northern wine?" He gestured at Edric's cup with the resigned expression of a connoisseur trapped in a brewery.
"It's... earnest."
Tyrion laughed. A genuine sound — surprised, delighted. "Earnest! Yes. That's precisely what it is. It tries very hard and achieves very little. Rather like the North itself, in certain respects." He drank deeply from his own cup. "Though I shouldn't say that aloud. The Northerners take their beverages as seriously as their oaths."
"I've noticed. I offered a Winterfell guard a sample of Arbor Gold this morning. He looked at it like I'd offered him poison."
"Southerners and their grape water." Tyrion adopted a Northern grumble that was impressively accurate. "My father drinks only Lannister vintages. My sister drinks whatever matches her dress. I drink anything that's wet." He extended a hand. "Tyrion Lannister. Third son — well, the additional son, shall we say. The family's proud tradition of disappointment."
"Edric Thorne. Third son as well. Our family's tradition is more modest, but the disappointment is comparable."
Those mismatched eyes sharpened. "Thorne. Crownlands house. Sworn to Baratheon through—"
"Through the most tenuous chain of loyalty imaginable, yes. We're minor in the way that puddles are minor compared to the sea."
Another laugh. "Self-deprecation is rare in a nobleman. Most men of minor houses inflate their significance until they pop. You deflate yours. Curious." Tyrion refilled his cup from a passing pitcher. "And you're here selling wine?"
"Evaluating Northern markets for my employer. Ser Willem Vance — a trading company in King's Landing."
"I know Vance Trading. Competent operation. Middling wines, good lace, excellent bookkeeping." His eyes held. "You're too interesting for a merchant's clerk, Edric Thorne."
The same words Littlefinger had used. Different tone — Littlefinger's had been a blade. Tyrion's was a hook, cast with the casual expertise of a man who fished for interesting people the way others fished for trout.
[CAUTION: TYRION LANNISTER IS AMONG THE MOST PERCEPTIVE INDIVIDUALS IN WESTEROS. HIS INTELLIGENCE IS ROUTINELY UNDERESTIMATED BECAUSE OF HIS APPEARANCE. DO NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE.]
"I'm flattered, my lord. But I assure you, my interests are entirely commercial."
"Everyone's interests are entirely commercial until they're not." Tyrion smiled — warm, intelligent, slightly dangerous. "I'm heading to the Wall after the festivities. Something about pissing off the edge of the world. When I return through King's Landing, perhaps we'll share better wine and you'll tell me what actually interests you."
"I'd enjoy that."
"Of course you would. I'm delightful company." He stood. Collected his cup. Paused. "Third sons understand things firstborn sons don't. We know what it's like to build from nothing, because nothing is what we're given. Remember that."
He ambled back into the crowd. Edric watched him go — three and a half feet of brilliance wrapped in a body the world had taught to compensate, adapt, and observe.
[TYRION LANNISTER: RELATIONSHIP INITIATED] [ASSESSMENT: HIGH VALUE, HIGH RISK. TYRION'S PERCEPTION MAKES HIM DANGEROUS TO ANYONE WITH SECRETS. HIS EVENTUAL POLITICAL TRAJECTORY MAKES HIM POTENTIALLY THE MOST VALUABLE ALLY IN WESTEROS.] [CURRENT STANCE: INTRIGUED (+15). HE WILL REMEMBER YOU.] [+50 EXP]
From across the hall, Sansa Stark laughed at something Joffrey said. The sound carried — bright, genuine, musical. A thirteen-year-old girl falling in love with a monster who'd kill her father and torment her for years.
Edric finished his ale. The taste had gone to ash.
He stayed another hour. Cataloged faces, voices, positions. The feast's energy shifted as the night deepened — louder, looser, the formal restraint dissolving into the honest chaos of three hundred people drinking in the same room. Robert bellowed. Cersei endured. Ned spoke quietly to his wife. The children were ushered to bed one by one.
Bran went last, practically carried by a serving woman, protesting with the righteous indignation of a ten-year-old convinced he was missing everything.
"Climb tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight he sleeps. Tonight he's safe."
Edric left through the servants' entrance, collected his cloak from the guardhouse where he'd left it, and walked into Winter Town's frozen darkness. The stars above Winterfell were sharper than any he'd seen in King's Landing — no torchlight haze, no city smoke, just the cold clean light of a universe that didn't care what happened to the people beneath it.
His breath plumed white. His boots crunched on frozen ground. Behind him, the feast's noise faded to a murmur, then to silence.
Tomorrow.
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
💵 Hustler [$7]: 15 Chapters ahead.
⚖️ Enforcer [$11]: 20 Chapters ahead.
👑 Kingpin [$16]: 25 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
👉 Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic