[The Dreadfort, 2nd week of the 7th moon, 294AC]
The chill of the North clung to Roose's cloak as he rode through the old iron gates of the Dreadfort. The weathered stone towers loomed above him, dark as crows against a waning gray sky, their sharp silhouettes jagged with broken crenellations and ancient scars from wars long faded into history. The Dreadfort, monstrous, brooding, eternal, stood as it had for millennia, a grim monument to the cruelty of the Red Kings.
Roose inhaled slowly, the air thick with the familiar scent of rot, iron, and wet stone. The warmth of the blood that had once flowed down these walls seemed almost tangible to him, if one knew how to smell for it.
At the gatehouse, a cluster of men-at-arms bowed low. Between them stood Bethany Bolton, née Ryswell, bundled in heavy furs far too large for her wasting frame. Her skin was pallid, her hands trembling slightly in the cold despite her wrappings. Her hair, once the color of ripe wheat, had dulled to a sallow straw. Her smile, forced and trembling, did not touch the sunken depths of her gray eyes.
"My lord husband," Bethany said in a thin, reedy voice, curtsying low enough that she nearly stumbled. One of the guards caught her elbow, but she shied from the touch like a beaten hound.
Roose regarded her without emotion, dismounting in a single, smooth movement. His pale blue eyes, the color of a frozen river, brushed over her with as much warmth as one might grant a piece of old furniture. She was useful still: an alliance to House Ryswell had its advantages. But her utility would not stop the wasting of her flesh.
"You may go inside," Roose said quietly, his voice cutting through the hush like a surgeon's blade.
Bethany bowed again, her eyes flickering toward him like a small animal expecting a blow. She said nothing further, only turned with hesitant steps toward the keep, where a servant opened the door for her without a word.
Roose followed at a distance, slow and deliberate, his gloved hands resting lightly on his belt. He heard the distant clatter of hooves, the bark of kennel dogs, and the hammering of smiths. The Dreadfort lived in its own bleak, sullen way.
Inside, the corridors were drafty and dimly lit with sputtering torches. Roose made his way to his solar without urgency. Servants scattered before him like dry leaves. In this house, he was the storm, silent but devastating.
[The Next Day]
The next morning broke gray and bleak. Thin frost coated the battlements. Roose sat in his solar, a high, narrow room hung with faded banners bearing the flayed man of House Bolton, pale pink on black. A fire sputtered in the hearth, giving off little heat.
The maester, a thin, bird-boned man named Willam, entered with a sheaf of ravens' messages clutched in his ink-stained hands.
"My lord," Willam said, bowing. "There are... more reports."
Roose said nothing. He simply extended one hand. Willam placed the scrolls in it with care, then waited, nervously shifting from foot to foot.
Roose broke the seals with the tip of his dagger and read in silence. Each report was worse than the last. A poacher flayed alive in the Forests of the Bolton Lands. A miller's wife claimed by force. A shepherd's flock slaughtered and strewn across the fields in mockery of sacrifice. Ramsay.
Always Ramsay.
"My lord," the maester ventured, voice trembling. "The smallfolk whisper of the Bastard. They say he rides through the villages like a lord, taking what he pleases. They say he names himself 'Ramsay Bolton' now, and not Snow."
Roose folded the letter neatly and set it aside.
"And Domeric?" he asked, his voice calm as still water.
"Your trueborn son has remained at Gulltown with Lord Redfort and in the company of the Gulltown Arrys, along with Rodrik Stark, son of Ser Torrhen, Lord Stark's sworn shield and kin to the lesser branch of Arryn's," Maester Willam said quickly. "Safe, and... well-tutored."
Roose steepled his fingers beneath his chin. Domeric, bright, charming, gifted at arms. A proper lordling, Everything an heir should be, at least, to most that is, for a Bolton, he was… lacking. And Ramsay... Ramsay was a creature of base instincts and uncurbed hungers, a predator wearing the skin of a man.
"My lord..." Willam hesitated. "If the boy continues unchecked, the peasants may turn fearful. Perhaps even... rebellious."
Roose's lips thinned.
Let them rebel, he thought coldly. Fear was a useful whip, better than loyalty. If a few villages burned, so much the better. The Starks sat high in their castle of warm gray stone, thinking themselves beloved. Let them feel the North tremble beneath them. Let them hear the howls in the night.
Still, there were appearances to maintain.
Before Roose could speak, the chamberlain entered, bowing low.
"A rider from House Hornwood, my lord. He begs audience."
Roose nodded once.
The man was brought in: mud-caked, wind-chapped, a common outrider bearing the Hornwood colors.
"My lord Bolton," the messenger began, bowing awkwardly. "I come with news... of your, ah, natural son."
Roose said nothing, merely motioned for him to continue.
"The Bastard, pardon, my lord, Ramsay Snow has crossed into Hornwood lands. They say he slew a reeve at High Morsel, took his daughter, and rides now with a company of rough men at his back."
Roose's expression did not change.
"He has claimed himself your heir, my lord," the rider said hastily. "He names himself Bolton now, openly."
For a moment, a shadow of something, amusement, perhaps, ghosted across Roose Bolton's pale features.
"See that the man is fed," he told the chamberlain. Then, to Willam, "Send ravens. Announce that the Bastard is accused of crimes against the peace of the North and the honor of House Bolton. That he will be taken and punished."
"And if he cannot be caught, my lord?" Willam asked hesitantly.
Roose allowed himself the faintest flicker of a smile, thin and sharp as a razor.
"Then it will be said that he fled justice. That he was cast out. We shall wash our hands of him."
He rose, the long fur-lined cloak flowing around him like a slow wave.
"And wherever he runs, whatever ruin he brings," Roose said softly, almost to himself, "let him gnaw at the roots of the Starks' precious tree. Let them feel the rot creeping upward."
[Later that evening]
That evening, Roose stood alone on the battlements, the wind flaying at his cloak, his pale eyes fixed on the dark horizon. Somewhere out there, Ramsay ran free like a feral dog, carrying the Bolton blood like a poisoned dart.
He knew what atrocities Ramsay would commit. He could picture them clearly: the burning fields, the crying women, the bloody flaying. He knew how each horror would drive wedges between the lords and their peasants, between bannermen and liege.
The North prided itself on its unity, its stubborn honor. But under strain, even ironwood splinters.
Roose closed his eyes, savoring the thought.
Ramsay was a knife he had loosed into the darkness. Where it would cut, how deep, it did not matter. All that mattered was that blood would be drawn.
A hand touched his sleeve lightly. Bethany, as silent as a shadow.
"My lord," she whispered. "You should come inside. The cold..."
Roose turned his head slightly, regarding her as one might regard a loyal dog whining at the door.
"The cold preserves," he said.
Bethany bowed her head and said no more. She knew better than to argue.
He watched her retreat back into the warmth, her steps dragging, her breath steaming like mist. The flames of the brazier caught in her hair, making it for a moment gleam almost gold again.
Once, he might have taken pleasure in such things. Once, he might have imagined a future of smiling sons and a soft-eyed wife.
But Roose Bolton was not a man of dreams.
He was a man of blood and cold, of knives in the night and slow, inevitable decay.
The North would rot, and from that rot, he would reap.
He turned back to the darkness, his phantom smile thin and sharp as the cruel winds that howled around the ancient stones of the Dreadfort.
Roose lingered on the battlements long after Bethany's frail form disappeared into the keep. The torches below guttered and flared in the evening gusts, sending the shadows of the guardsmen stretching long against the cracked courtyard stones. The Dreadfort was restless tonight, as if it too smelled blood on the wind.
Ramsay.
Domeric.
The Starks.
The pieces shifted in Roose's mind like carved weirwood on a cyvasse board, white bleeding into black. He needed to think ahead, not for days, not for moons, but for years.
Already, the North stirred with discontent. The banners of House Stark still flew proudly over Winterfell, but for how long? Robert Baratheon's wars had cost them much, and the strength of the Starks was never infinite. Wounds festered quickest beneath proud skin.
A thought, old and lingering, resurfaced, a thought he had weighed and set aside many times before.
Domeric.
The trueborn son. Fair of face, quick of wit, strong at arms. Raised too long under Redfort tutelage, and worse, he had taken a Stark as a friend, no matter how distant from the ruling branch, a Stark was a Stark. Too much love of Starks in him. Too much of the Redfort's own southern pride. If he returned, he would expect affection. He would expect mercy. Perhaps even dreams of uniting the North through some fond brotherhood with the lords of Barrowton and the Rills, maybe even the Vale. Foolish.
Ramsay, however... Ramsay understood fear.
Ramsay would not unite the North under a banner of love and loyalty. He would tear it asunder, force it to kneel in broken ruin. Just as the Red Kings of old had done, not through honor, but terror.
Roose placed his gloved hands flat upon the cold stone of the battlement, feeling the ancient damp seeping up from the deep heart of the Dreadfort. He imagined the North as it might be: villages in ruins, lesser houses sniping at one another like wolves over a carcass, and Winterfell itself isolated, ringed about by chaos.
In such a world, who would the fearful turn to?
Not to the proud Starks.
But perhaps... to a colder, surer hand.
To House Bolton.
[The Next Morning, The Dreadfort]
The next morning dawned colder still, the hoarfrost heavy enough to crackle underfoot. Ravens croaked in the rookery, restless, their wings snapping like old leather.
Roose summoned Maester Willam again, this time with precise orders.
"You will send a letter to Lord Halys Hornwood," Roose said, pacing before the fire with measured steps. "Express my deepest regret that the bastard known as Ramsay Snow has violated his lands."
He turned sharply, fixing the maester with an icy gaze.
"You will offer my aid in hunting the boy down. Promise a company of my best riders. Swear to see Ramsay hanged if he is caught."
Maester Willam, pale and blinking behind his spectacles, nodded furiously as he wrote.
"Yet..." Roose continued, voice dropping to a murmur, "You will advise caution. Suggest that, given Ramsay's savagery, Lord Hornwood's own men might be best suited to the task, lest the boy escape deeper into the woods."
He watched Willam's hand hesitate.
"Write it," Roose said, sharper.
The maester obeyed, quill scratching swiftly across the parchment.
It was a delicate dance Roose devised. Aid promised, responsibility shifted. If Hornwood failed, the fault would not be Roose's. And if Ramsay did as Roose suspected, if he raped, murdered, flayed his way through the Hornwood lands, then all the better.
The Hornwoods would be weakened. Their lords humiliated. Their heirs endangered. A minor house, proud but small... ripe for the plucking.
And if, somehow, Lord Hornwood died without firm succession, well, land and titles had a way of falling to those bold enough to claim them.
Roose turned back to the fire, watching it gutter and spit. In the flames, he saw not ruin, but opportunity.
By midday, word came that Ramsay had been seen raiding a crofter's village on the borderlands between Hornwood and Cerwyn territory. The peasants fled screaming; the mill burned to the ground.
Roose took the news with a measured nod.
"The wolf begins to bleed," he murmured.
The messenger, a wiry lad from one of the outlying villages, shifted nervously, hat twisting in his hands.
"My lord," he stammered. "There's more. They say the bastard's flying a banner now, a flayed man, pale pink on black, like yours. Says he's the true heir of the Dreadfort."
Roose's lips barely twitched.
"The peasants," he said softly, "will believe what they are told to believe."
He dismissed the boy with a flick of his hand.
Alone again, Roose settled into his high-backed chair, eyes half-lidded. Let Ramsay wave the banner. Let him sow fear and rage. Every house in the North would whisper of the Bastard of Bolton, the mad dog.
And when the time came to bring that dog to heel, it would be Roose Bolton, cold and merciful, who would offer the leash.
[Later]
That evening, Roose broke his fast almost alone in the great hall, the long tables empty save for a few household warriors and Bethany, silent as a ghost at the far end.
The food was plain: boiled venison, black bread, and a strong ale. Roose ate mechanically, his mind elsewhere.
At the edge of his vision, Bethany nibbled at a crust, her fingers trembling slightly.
Roose studied her with clinical detachment. She was not strong enough to bear him another son. Her last few pregnancies had nearly killed her.
A pity. He would have liked another trueborn child. One not raised among the southerners, not softened by their smugness.
Still, perhaps Domeric might yet be molded. His heart was too open now, too trusting. But hearts could be broken. A few well-placed tragedies, a lost foster brother, a poisoned love, could season him properly.
Roose chewed a piece of venison thoughtfully. Perhaps it was time for Domeric to return to the Dreadfort.
Time for him to see the North as it truly was.
Time for him to see what happened when honor failed.
Later, as the fires guttered low, Roose sat in the library, poring over old genealogies by lamplight.
He traced bloodlines with a finger: Hornwood, Ryswell, Cerwyn, Tallhart. Names, alliances, and marriages stretching back centuries. In the chaos to come, titles would shift. Borders would blur.
The Starks might hold Winterfell... for now.
But if Lady Hornwood lost her husband and her son, if no strong claimant arose, who would inherit? A Bolton bride, perhaps? A marriage claim? A military occupation disguised as protection?
Roose closed the book softly. The future was unwritten. But the blood of House Bolton had a long memory, and longer knives.
He rose, extinguishing the candle with a pinch of his fingers. In the darkness, he allowed himself a rare moment of almost-pleasure.
Ramsay's madness would tear at the edges of the Starks' careful order. Domeric's loyalty could be reforged, sharpened against the steel of cruelty.
And House Bolton, cold, patient, enduring, would rise higher than it had since the days when Red Kings wore crowns of flayed skin.
All it required was a little blood.
And Roose Bolton had never been afraid of blood.