Most of the rest of the large houses, and many of the minor ones or clans, of the North had a local iron supply just ones insufficient for export, unless the greedy, selfish bastards were lying to his face. He didn’t have any in his army to ask, though sources from House Manderly and House Dustin swore to its abundance. He wondered how much bog iron the cranogmen really could harvest. Pins already marked the Reeds’ for bog iron, the ore the Harclays and the Knotts took out of the foothills at the north edge of the Wolfswood, the grey iron the Tallharts extracted from quartz crystal formations near Torrhen’s Square, and Winterfell’s own mine in the Ochre Bluffs overlooking the White Knife. He stuck the next red pin into the map: the Ryswells ironstone quarry in the western Rills. There was time to get a bit of planning in before the expected noble ‘guests’ arrived to jam up his schedule with petty, but necessary, politicking. Instead of looking back, he would spend the morning looking forward. The mess left behind could stay undisturbed in its box. “The Old Gods,” he’d muttered and purposefully rolled away to the other side of the bed to escape further questions. George, George, George, fucking, fucking, fucking George. In the morning he woke to find a concerned Cat staring down at him. And his dreams had rewarded his turn to the melancholy with dark and twisted imagery. As he drifted off to sleep he caught himself humming a few bars of “ On Ilkla Moor Baht‘at,” not a good sign. He accepted the offered comfort, though it made him feel less a proper Yorkshireman. With her first trimester almost over, the beginning of a bulge was just noticeable as he rested an arm over her belly.
Cat, sensing his mood, hadn’t played the MILF of the North in bed, snuggling instead. Drinking to the end of the Hound’s long GRRM induced torment, to the guilt he felt in not securing a royal pardon for his daughter’s savior, and to the memory of that other Sandor – his lost mate Rory. That night he’d knocked back most of a bottle. He held her gently, getting her to drink most of a glass of wine before Cat and young Jeyne arrived to share in the grieving and take her off his inexperienced male hand.
To her, once they were alone, he’d simply said, “ Sandor died.” The beautiful, damaged face crumpled and she threw herself into Sean as a crying wreck.
Sean had then immediately gone to inform Sansa, Olyvar promptly withdrew to give the father and daughter privacy the men shared a knowing look in passing. Robb had upon returning to the Maidenvault relayed to him the ‘cold’ facts of the Hound’s gruesome demise, his youngest daughter standing oddly quiet and thoughtful by her brother’s side the whole time. Sean found his thoughts wandering back and forth and way, way back. Accounts were going to be reviewed with the Steward. Conversation in general at the table, desultory as it was, tended towards the mundane. At least this meant Arya and Sansa weren’t sniping at each other, both spending more time lethargically dragging food around their plates than doing or saying anything else. Breakfast, like dinner the night before, was a drab, quiet affair the still noticeable scent of smoke putting a damper on everyone’s mood.
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