By then the others were dismounting as well, and grooms were coming forward for their mounts. Robert’s queen, Cersei Lannister, entered on foot with her younger children. The wheelhouse in which they had ridden, a huge double-decked carriage of oiled oak and gilded metal pulled by forty heavy draft horses, was too wide to pass through the castle gate. Ned knelt in the snow to kiss the queen’s ring, while Robert embraced Catelyn like a long-lost sister. Then the children had been brought forward, introduced, and approved of by both sides.
No sooner had those formalities of greeting been completed than the king had said to his host, “Take me down to your crypt, Eddard. I would pay my respects.”
Ned loved him for that, for remembering her still after all these years. He called for a lantern. No other words were needed. The queen had begun to protest. They had been riding since dawn, everyone was tired and cold, surely they should refresh themselves first. The dead would wait. She had said no more than that; Robert had looked at her, and her twin brother Jaime had taken her quietly by the arm, and she had said no more.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
The visitors poured through the castle gates in a river of gold and silver and polished steel, three hundred strong, a pride of bannermen and knights, of sworn swords and freeriders. Over their heads a dozen golden banners whipped back and forth in the northern wind, emblazoned with the crowned stag of Baratheon.
All of this screams "Lannister Lions" until the last three words. The sigil is afloat, rushed onward by a river of molten Lannister gold.
Given that they will visit the crypts later in the chapter and see all the "frozen" kings of Winter and lords of WF, it is nice to show that Ned is already one of them.
I miss Ned, even if he wasn't the sharpest sword.
But what is neverborn may neverdie, and those frozen kings of Winter in the crypts were only playing at being frozen kings of Winter... only playing at wielding "Ice."
The true magnars of winter are coming. And the Ice they wield is not a pretender.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
But what is neverborn may neverdie, and those frozen kings of Winter in the crypts were only playing at being frozen kings of Winter... only playing at wielding "Ice."
the undying?
who know what happened to them in the Hotu, a large dose of truth and wisdom from the fire side.
"Arya did not dare take a bath, even though she smelled as bad as Yoren by now, all sour and stinky. Some of the creatures living in her clothes had come all the way from Flea Bottom with her; it didn’t seem right to drown them."
who know what happened to them in the Hotu, a large dose of truth and wisdom from the fire side.
The HotU was very similar, but I'm thinking Winterfell's crypts themselves are another such sanctum of knowledge, and that they lead to the roots of Winterfell's heart tree.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."