Most of the information below on Erenford is second-hand, mostly from the most esteemed Lord Keith. As such, I have no doubt that the accuracy is...mostly accurate.
Apparently, the Freys used Keith's little adventure with dumping ironborns on shore as an excuse to take a direct hand in running Erenford. At least, that is the official explanation. And who other but our dear friend black Walder is now in charge? Not a popular move among the commoners, as BW's infamy is probably known even in Quarth. He is at the very pinnacle of sadism and cruelty, possibly accompanied by the Mountain and that insane manling bastard of Lord Bolton's.
Among my contacts, scouts and Keith + a small entourage moving into Erenford, we discover the following:
- There are troop movements into the forest in the north-west corner of Erenford
- The troops consist of roughly 800 Erenford soldiers. There are at least 2 archer units as well as one infantry and one personal guard unit [?]
After Willard dodges black Walder's entourage in Erenford, the crew heads into the forest. They're discovered by a guard, whom they subdue and drag south towards Ryger. After some friendly questioning, he reveals that they're probably building siege engines in the forest. The scout unit he's a part of was mustered roughly two months ago. After he reveals this, Keith engages in some not-so friendly murder. To add to the day's excitement, the black bastard himself appears with two units in tow...but does not cross the border into Ryger. Too late Keith remembered to antagonize the Frey arsehole by shaking Willard in front of his nose. I doubt it would have worked given that black Walder actually (and unfortunately) is pretty smart, but it couldn't have hurt to try.
Some days later, Lord Mallister joins them in Erenford. It is decided that Keith will be responsible for getting more information on the goals of the Freys. There aren't really a lot of uses for siege engines besides attacking and well, there aren't a lot of other enemies within reach. Still, I'm generally all for more information before deciding upon a course of action.
Rha and Willard manage to sneak unseen into the forest. They come upon siege engines being built under the careful instruction of Frey engineers. There's a variety of units there: infantry, cavalry and archers. It's hard to get an accurate count due to the dense forest though.
Meanwhile, Lord Keith travels to Erenford proper under a peace banner to seek out black Walder. After some banter, black Walder claims, and sticks to the story, that the siege weapons are meant for the ironborn. ....[noterte ikke noe mer, solly]
Meanwhile, me, Bass, Joy and a small entourage head out for Riverrun along with two [?] units. We find it reasonable to pop by Lord Edmure before heading towards Blackwater to inform him of our plans. Additionally, we might gather some much needed information on how to proceed in how to play the game going forwards.
After an uneventful journey, we arrive in Riverrun. Lord Edmure himself greets us at the gate, as is proper for a Lady of Joy's stature. As they make small talk walking into the great hall, I catch something about Edmure "having a plan for how to deal with Blackwater and Bracken" followed a cackle that makes me ill at ease. My stomach is practically churning when he reveals that he's got a new political advisor, who is, of course, none other than Lady Keira. It is clear he's already quite drunk.
As we enter the hall, it's apparent he's not the only one. Frankly, the state of the place is worse than the Rogue's Delight. Various lords lounge about the hall in various states of inebriation. Among them is Lord Mark Piper, who apparently is a decent enough fellow, if a little empty-brained.
Lord Edmure and Joy move into a private chamber to have a word. Not much time passes before we hear loud voices and the sound of a scuffle. Naturally we run towards the side room, where a couple of guards are handling Joy quite roughly. I try to remain clam and ask what is going on. Edmure states that Joy is being disrespectful towards her liege lord and orders the guards to take her into a cell. Stranger take me, has he gone completely mad?
Luckily. a quite drunk (though perhaps not quite as drunk as he appears to be) Lord Piper appears, and manages to defuse the situation with some drunken ramblings. Joy is unhanded and we quickly retreat to our chambers. She is fuming with barely contained anger as she recounts what happens. Apparently Edmure accused the Mallisters of having plans to go against him (disturbingly accurate information...) and demanded a rather large tax [3 Wealth] from the Mallisters to show that we are deferent enough towards House Tully. Furthermore, he was still very angry that Lord Jason took command in his own hall last time we were here. I'm not surprised, as it was quite emasculating for him. On the other hand, I don't think Lord Jason had much of a choice, or there could have been a blood bath in the hall.
Well. The situation seems to be much more grave than we suspected. Edmure is even weaker than we thought, and Lady Kiera seems to have her claws in him even deeper than we imagined. Meanwhile, Bass circulates among the guests and picks up some rumors:
- The Great Hall is filled with revelers almost every day, and the alcohol flows freely
- Lady Kiera is, in practice, the acting regent of Riverrun - Edmure leaves all the "boring stuff" (i.e. almost everything) in her hands
- Apparently, Edmure's "plan" on how to handle Blackwater and Bracken is to execute both of the lords! Mother save us, is he being poisoned, or is he really that block-headed?
- Lady Kiera isn't too well-liked. A party guest/servant [husker ikke] hints that he wouldn't be too unhappy if someone took care of her, permanently.
Later that night, lady Joy gets a visitor - Lord Mark. To no one's surprise he tries to seduce her, and to no one else's surprise she rebuffs him (quite directly). He gets slightly miffed, but departs without further incident. We decide to send a raven to Lord Jason to warn him that the small council might be under surveillance, since we can't really figure out how else Edmure knows of our plans (though not all of the details).
Next day, after eating breakfast (lord Edmure pointedly ignoring the lot of us when he appears much later in the day), me, Joy and Bass head out into the gardens where we notice Lady Kiera lounging with two of her ladies-in-waiting. After mere seconds of small talk, we are attacked - right in the godsdamned castle of our liege lord! - by five masked men. Note that they attacked us, not Kiera. With me and Joy being close to useless in a fight, we seem fairly doomed, but luckily Bass' keen eyes noticed a barely visible path that leads back into the castle. We run like mad, me receiving a pretty ugly stab wound in the belly, and manage to get back to Marrok and the rest of our men.
Things get pretty chaotic. We form a tight formation and head out to the training area where Edmure and his cronies are up and about doing manly things. He is shocked when we tell him we where attacked on his own grounds (and he's not a good enough actor to hide his feelings from the three of us), and goes white when we tell him Lady Kiera was also present. We all move to the gardens, guards running ahead of us. The ladies-in-waiting are dead, but Kiera is alive - but only barely. Bass, being an extremely astute observer of his surroundings, later tells us he noticed Kiera quickly taking in the scene even though she was supposed to be unconscious...that's pretty much all the damning evidence I need at this point. The wench needs to die, or at the very least be removed from Edmure's circle. Might be kind of hard though. Just maybe.
Edmure is very rattled, and it's clear that any ill feelings he felt towards Joy have, if not dissipated, then at least lessened. If Joy is to have a talk with him to try to steer him in the right direction, I don't think we'll get a better chance. Regardless, my mind is at least decided. Edmure needs to go. For the good of the Riverlands. And for House Mallister of course.
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