THE HOST AND THE GROOM

There is little in my intuition of human nature that helps me understand Ramsay and Roose Bolton.

A mere superficial examination reveals that their relationship seems to obey contradictory dynamics.

Roose has done much for his bastard. He let him live. He accepted, apparently, that Ramsay murdered his trueborn heir. He made him his heir and arranged that he would become lord of Winterfell. Moreover he seems to anticipate that Ramsay would murder any son born of the marriage with Walda Frey.

On the other hand, Roose disparages Ramsay. He is not confident in his hability to rule the north. He professes contempt for his bastard, even doubts that Ramsay is truly his son. Roose's political analysis of the situation in the north seems to leave little hope for Ramsay to prevail. In Winterfell, Roose and Ramsay don't seem to talk to each other.

We are going to have a precise look at several aspects of those two contradictory tendencies. The first of those is political. Who will inherit the Dreadfort? That question has haunted Ramsay all his life. And Roose has never given a clear answer.

As we will see, interesting and subtle as it may be, the political dimension might just be squabbling for spoils, and both Boltons might be more than mere arrivists.

In the end, Roose remains a mystery to me, a man who seems to have gone into dangerous territories, I suspect. However, the story tells us to be careful about any moral judgment of the man until we know the truth about the Starks and the curse of Harrenhal. He seems a mystery even to his closest ally, Barbrey Dustin.

Roose has no feelings, you see. Those leeches that he loves so well sucked all the passions out of him years ago. He does not love, he does not hate, he does not grieve. This is a game to him, mildly diverting. Some men hunt, some hawk, some tumble dice. Roose plays with men. You and me, these Freys, Lord Manderly, his plump new wife, even his bastard, we are but his playthings.

But I would hesitate to call Ramsay a man. Since the word "evil" is, in general, of little use and best avoided, let's say that Ramsay is not devoid of passions but he seems so full of anger that he seems hardly human.

“The Boltons have always been as cruel as they were cunning, but this one seems a beast in human skin,” said Glover.

Ramsay's cruelty differs from Roose's. And it would be a mistake to consider the son as the natural continuation of the father.

Ramsay's existence and actions point to a definite direction. From Theon's perspective, and from his bride's perspective, Ramsay is infinitely powerful and infinitely cruel, the Devil in person. If the outcome of the Winterfell Huis Clos is what we believe in the end, what will he make of his realm?


Contents

1. The Dreadfort and the Boltons of old
2. Roose's early Life
3. The Ice Eyes
4. The Red Wedding
5. The Dreadfort Inheritance Problem
   
6. Roose's political Quandary
7. The Freys in Winterfell
8. Father and Son from Moat Cailin to Winterfell
9. Dogs and Horses
   
10. Roose in Harrenhal
11. The Kingslayer
12. The Washerwoman of the Weepwater Mill
13. The Stark Direwolves
14. The Death of Domeric
15. Monster and Maidens
16. Ramsay's Brilliance and Red Helm's Prescience
17. Half-human Children
    

1. The Dreadfort and the Boltons of old

Neither history, nor folklore tell us much about the origin of House Bolton.

The oldest story we have about the Boltons seems to define them in relation to the Starks.

“Every great lord has unruly bannermen who envy him his place,” he told her afterward. “My father had the Reynes and Tarbecks, the Tyrells have the Florents, Hoster Tully had Walder Frey. Only strength keeps such men in their place. The moment they smell weakness... during the Age of Heroes, the Boltons used to flay the Starks and wear their skins as cloaks.”

The Age of Heroes started after the Children of Forest made peace with the First Men. It isn't plausible, a priori, that House Stark and House Bolton have remained enemies during thousand of years, without one or the other being eliminated at some point.

Let's look first at story of the Dreadfort to try to get a glimpse of ancient history. Dreadfort rhymes with Nightfort (at the Wall), Redfort (in the Vale) and Banefort (in the Westerlands). The Nightfort is obviously very old since it is the oldest castle at the Wall, and might predate the Wall itself. So if one presumes that those castles are from the same era, that would make the Dreadfort as ancient as Winterfell (which was built by Brandon the Builder, at about the same time than the Wall).

Of course, castles can not endure the millennia and remain intact. Their walls, keeps, roofs crumble and need to be rebuilt. New towers, new battlements are added, expanded etc (see the various stage of the building of Winterfell). Nevertheless, the Dreadfort has a curious element in its design.

Its pale light cast the shadows of the tall triangular merlons across the frozen ground, a line of sharp black teeth.

Just like the golden merlons of Queenscrown are an allusion to Queen Alysanne's crown, it might be that the tall triangular merlons refer to a crown. Such a crown would resemble the "spiked crown" (also described as black) which is on the Dustin banner. In turn, house Dustin is seated in the Barrowlands, and Barrow Hall is next to the fabled Great Barrow, which, according to one legend is the grave of the first king of the First Men. (See the discussion of the Ryswells and Dustins)

The flaying tradition of the Boltons sealed their reputation for cruelty. However, there are other barbaric practices in the north. The skagoson warriors are reputed for eating the hearts and livers of their enemies. The slaves freed at the Wolf's Den hang the entrails of their captors on the trees. But mostly the north has shed away these traditions.

In the north, people depend on getting animal furs to survive winter. So it is not surprising that northmen have developed skills in skinning animals, which would have given rise to the Bolton custom.

But the Dreadfort has retained a fearsome reputation, expressed by Robb to Bran.

Lord Roose never says a word, he only looks at me, and all I can think of is that room they have in the Dreadfort, where the Boltons hang the skins of their enemies.

We never saw that room, but Robb does not seem to put its existence in doubt.

It seems that the Boltons have long been enemies of the Starks.

The flayed man was the sigil of House Bolton, Theon knew; ages past, certain of their lords had gone so far as to cloak themselves in the skins of dead enemies. A number of Starks had ended thus. Supposedly all that had stopped a thousand years ago, when the Boltons had bent their knees to Winterfell. Or so they say, but old ways die hard, as well I know.

Note that the notion that the Bolton have put their practice of flaying when they bent the knee to the Stark is very much in doubt. It could very well be that House Karstark has been founded in this occasion.

The Karstarks traced their descent to Karlon Stark, a younger son of Winterfell who had put down a rebel lord a thousand years ago, and been granted lands for his valor. The castle he built had been named Karl’s Hold, but that soon became Karhold, and over the centuries the Karhold Starks had become Karstarks.

When one looks at the map, it makes sense that the Starks could take possession of their land only after the Bolton became vassals, since Karhold is East of the Dreadfort, and, I would presume, was not accessible to the Starks when house Bolton was still hostile. The possibility of installing a cadet branch so far east therefore came with the defeat of the Boltons. It is even reasonable that the Karstarks received lands that used to belong to the Boltons.

But some offshoot of House Stark did ally with the Boltons, as Ser Bartimus told Davos.

Some passed the castle to their own sons and grandsons, and offshoot branches of House Stark had arisen; the Greystarks had lasted the longest, holding the Wolf’s Den for five centuries, until they presumed to join the Dreadfort in rebellion against the Starks of Winterfell.

After the Greystarks, the houses Locke, Flint, Slate, Ashwwod, have held the Wolf's Den, before it was given to House Manderly nine centuries ago.

I count two other recent rebellions of the Boltons. One happened before the Conquest.

Centuries ago, House Bolton rose up against the King in the North, and Harlon Stark laid siege to the Dreadfort. It took him two years to starve them out.

The other one followed the Conquest, if we accept that the lord that rebelled against the Starks in the story of Bael was a Bolton. Here is the end of the story of Bael told by Ygritte.

“Aye,” she said, “but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael’s head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o’ his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak.”

We have four, or perhaps only three, recorded rebellions: the most recent in the time of Bael, preceded by one in the time of Harlon Stark (which happened centuries ago, that is less than one thousand years ago), preceded by the one with the Greystarks, and the one that led to the foundation of House Karstark (the last two might be the same).

The tradition of flaying is well in line with various barbaric practices used to induce fear in one's enemies. But wearing a human skin for a cloak is queer. It might be a reference to skinchanging. In the story, Ramsay threatened several times to make clothes out of the skin of his enemies: boots out of Lady Dustin, a cloak out of Little Walder's murderer, a cloak from the washerwomen.

But we do not have a single name of an ancestor of Roose. We just hear him say.

My forebears were many things, but never fools.

What does Roose mean by many things ? One is tempted to see another reference to skinchanging. In any case, we shall watch out for the skins of the enemies of the Bolton under the Dreadfort, including the skin of the son of Bael the Bard, and perhaps other Starks. There is a resemblance of this room with the room of faces under the temple of Black and White in Braavos.

Like most castles of the Seven Kingdoms, especially those in the north, the Dreadfort has almost certainly a godswood. Roose does refer to the old gods in Winterfell, and there is no doubt that the Dreadfort men worships the old gods. But we are never told about the heart tree. Both Winterfell and the Wolf's Den have an impressive weirwood as heart tree. There is none mentioned by Theon at the Dreadfort. It seems Roose doesn't subscribe to he northern credo of truthfulness in presence of the heart tree.

Jon said, “My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying.”
“My father believed the same,” said the Old Bear.

Indeed, the imposture of  "Arya" declared by Theon in front of the heart tree is a major lie. But only Theon is guilty of the sin, since he is the one who declares the identity of "Arya".

2. Roose's early Life

Let's turn now to Roose's early life, during which he was no cause for trouble, at least from the point of view of the Starks.

Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew, but even so he had never trusted him, with his whispery voice and his pale, pale eyes.

But Roose's personal life was troubled. First he mentions his wives to Ramsay.

Barbrey Dustin is my second wife’s younger sister, Rodrik Ryswell’s daughter, sister to Roger, Rickard, and mine own namesake, Roose, cousin to the other Ryswells.

Roose says of Domeric.

Now his bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay.

The first wife's identity is unknown. The second wife was Bethany Ryswell (AFfC, Appendix). Nobody, neither Roose, nor her sister Barbrey, nor her brothers Roger and Rickard, not her father Rodrik ever mention her name. She died of a fever (AFfC, Appendix).

Here is briefly Domeric's story, told by Roose to Theon.

For the moment. I had another, once. Domeric. A quiet boy, but most accomplished. He served four years as Lady Dustin’s page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. He played the high harp, read histories, and rode like the wind. Horses ... the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. Redfort said he showed great promise in the lists. A great jouster must be a great horseman first.

Note the fine education, which Domeric couldn't have received a the Dreadfort, it seems. Domeric was sent as a squire, and trained in jousting, a sign that he was prepared for the southern knightly culture, rather than for the old-fashioned northern life. Here is the rest of the story.

In the Vale, Domeric had enjoyed the company of Redfort’s sons. He wanted a brother by his side, so he rode up the Weeping Water to seek my bastard out. I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father.

Domeric's death is dated when Ser Rodrik tells what he knows about Ramsay.

He lived with his mother until two years past, when young Domeric died and left Bolton without an heir.

One has the impression that Domeric died at the Dreadfort as soon as he came back from the Vale. It that is correct, he was probably around sixteen years old, and would be around twenty at the time of the conversation between Roose and Theon. But that seems contradicted by the fact he rode concurrently with Lord Rickard's daughter, presumably Lyanna Stark, who would be over thirty, and it wouldn't make much sense comparing them. To reconcile Lyanna's and Domeric's chronologies, it is necessary to push back Domeric's birth by a few years, so that he was Barbrey Dustin's page at the time Lyanna was alive.  However, Lady Dustin has hoped to marry Brandon Stark and then Ned Stark, after Brandon's death much after the Harrenhal tourney, and married Lord Dustin during the war of the five kings. So Domeric was Lady Barbrey's page, when she was still a Ryswell, in the Rills. That would be curious, since Roose says Lady Dustin's page. Moreover a maiden does not have a page, I believe. So I find more and more unlikely that Domeric rode concurrently with Lyanna Stark. Perhaps Lady Dustin made a comparison between Lyanna and Domeric on what she saw at different time periods.

I tend to think that Domeric died as soon as he became a man grown and came back to the Dreadfort. Note Domeric's passion for horses, the mark of a true Ryswell.

In any case, there has been an alarming number of early deaths in Roose's close family: his first wife, his first sons, his second wife, Domeric. His first two families have been eradicated. And he has no close kin, no parents, no siblings, no cousins.

The wives who die in succession are cause for suspicions. Consider Alys Karstark speaking of her cousin Cregan, who is now Roose's ally.

Once Cregan gets a child by me they won’t need me anymore. He’s buried two wives already.

3. The Ice Eyes

This will just be a little interlude.  Ramsay and Roose have remarkable pale eyes.

Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort, had a small voice, yet when he spoke larger men quieted to listen. His eyes were curiously pale, almost without color, and his look disturbing.

“Ramsay.” There was a smile on his plump lips, but none in those pale pale eyes.

Human beings are not determined by the color of their eyes. And there are many characters with pale eyes: Viserys, Bran's assassin, Ilyn Payne, Jon Connington, Mandon Moore, Sam Tarly, Barristan Selmy, Lysa Tully, some wights, Cleos Frey, Leobald Tallhart, Dagmer Cleftjaw, Tywin Lannister, Khorane Sathmantes (pale blue eyes are common in Lys), Mero, the stern face at the house of black and white, Thistle after her death, Wyman Manderly.

The color of the eyes of Roose, and therefore Ramsay, are particularly striking, even disturbing for many onlookers. Only Ilyn Payne's eyes make a similar impression.

One of the rare times Roose's eyes express a form of passion is when he burns the book in Harrenhal.

He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light.

Jaime Lannister is disturbed in Harrenhal.

Bolton’s silence was a hundred times more threatening than Vargo Hoat’s slobbering malevolence. Pale as morning mist, his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes. They reminded him of the day at King’s Landing when Ned Stark had found him seated on the Iron Throne.

And later.

Roose Bolton’s eyes were paler than stone, darker than milk, and his voice was spider soft.

Here is Roose on his return to the north, at Moat Cailin.

All he and Ramsay had in common were their eyes. His eyes are ice. Reek wondered if Roose Bolton ever cried. If so, do the tears feel cold upon his cheeks?

Roose in Barrowton with Theon.

His lordship glanced at the new Reek with eyes as pale and strange as two white moons.

And a moment later.

Bolton’s pale eyes looked empty in the moonlight, as if there were no one behind them at all.

Here is Roose at the wedding, in front of the heart tree.

Roose Bolton’s own face was a pale grey mask, with two chips of dirty ice where his eyes should be.

In Ned Stark's solar, Roose inquires about the murders.

Roose Bolton’s pale eyes were fixed on Theon, as sharp as Skinner’s flaying knife.

When Roose is forcing his voice, and, as I understand, feigning anger, the eyes betray no emotion.

His father rose more slowly, pale-eyed, still-faced, solemn. “This was foul work.” For once Roose Bolton’s voice was loud enough to carry.

The last time we see the eyes seems a sinister omen for Abel.

He turned his head, his pale cold eyes searching the hall until they found the bard Abel beside Theon.

Even when Roose mentions the birth of Ramsay, he feels compelled to mention his eyes for expressing his desire for the washerwoman.

The moment that I set eyes on her I wanted her.

Ramsay's eyes are described are alike his father's. But they seem less striking.

Instead he flushed red, turned his pale eyes from his father’s paler ones, and went to find the keys.

When Freys and Manderlys are about to fight in the Great Hall, Roose's eyes show again his emotions.

Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before—an uneasiness, even a hint of fear.

Moreover, Roose's eyes are part of his self-image. Indeed, here is his stated reason for sparing Ramsay's life.

I should’ve had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well ... but the babe did have my eyes. She told me that when her dead husband’s brother saw those eyes, he beat her bloody and drove her from the mill.

There are a few indications that eye color reveals a particular nature. Indeed the violet/lilac/purple eyes of the Targaryens are exceptional in Westeros (while being common in Lys), and Targaryens see themselves as "blood of the dragon". Lord Brynden tells us a few things about the Children of the Forest.

Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift.

It seems that the crannogmen are closer to the Children of the Forest than ordinary humans are. Jojen Reed is at the same time blessed with green dreams and with particular eyes.

Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else.

Bloodraven, as part of his albino condition, has red eyes. Melisandre has red eyes as well. The particular nature of each of the direwolves (and each of the dragons) might be reflected in their distinct eye colors. The grey eyes of the Starks are characteristic as well. Among all Starks, there seem to have been a particularly vengeful king who had eyes as remarkable as Roose's.

Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard’s great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes.

Signaling supernatural powers, or a not-quite-human nature, by strange eye color is a cliché of fantasy. Is it embraced? Merely alluded to? Subverted? Used as a red herring?

4. The Red Wedding

Certainly Roose has kept his options open all along the campaign of the Young Wolf, sparing his forces in calculated defeats, like the Battle of the Green Fork, taking Harrenhal by a ploy, hiring the Brave Companions in his service. A prudent man.

But it seems that the decisive moment of his betrayal of the Stark can be pinpointed. We have first Roose, naked and covered with leeches listening to the Frey delegation.

“Someone must have the courage to say it,” Ser Hosteen said. “The war is lost. King Robb must be made to see that.” Roose Bolton studied him with pale eyes. “His Grace has defeated the Lannisters every time he has faced them in battle.” “He has lost the north,” insisted Hosteen Frey. “He has lost Winterfell! His brothers are dead . . .”

This is after the fall of Winterfell to the Ironmen, and after the battle of the Blackwater. But before news of Westerling marriage reached Harrenhal, and before Ramsay sacked Winterfell.

Then Roose began to make his moves. First send the Tallharts, Karstarks and Robett Glover to Duskendale. The mark of the betrayal comes at this moment, in a conversation with Qyburn.

“I will hunt today,” Roose Bolton announced as Qyburn helped him into a quilted jerkin.
“Is it safe, my lord?” Qyburn asked. “Only three days past, Septon Utt’s men were attacked by wolves. They came right into his camp, not five yards from the fire, and killed two horses.”
“It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling.” Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. “It’s said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold.”
“Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.”
Bolton showed his teeth in something that might have been a smile. “Are these times so terrible, Maester?”
“Summer is gone and there are four kings in the realm.”
“One king may be terrible, but four?”

It would seem that Roose thinks that the age of the direwolf has passed. Roose does not appear to reason in immediate political terms. I don't think he wants short-term political gains. His world view is informed by knowledge of the past, and Roose might have sensed that a new era could be beginning. His discourse to Qyburn reminds me of what Leaf would say to Bran later.

That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.

Here he seems to believe the Stark era has passed for deeper reasons than the political mistakes made by Robb Stark. It would seem that it conceivable now that someone else than a Stark would rule the north.

Later the same day, a letter would reach Harrenhal announcing that Robb Stark has wedded Jeyne Westerling.

The political calculations made by Roose in preparation for the wedding are interesting.

First it's not said clearly whether Roose permitted Ramsay to sack Winterfell. Ramsay is bold, and Roose is cautious. And communications were probably difficult and unreliable between the two sides of the Neck. But note that Ramsay was uncertain of how many men he would bring to help Theon.

“Well, might be I could help you,” said Reek. “Give me a horse and bag o’ coin, and I could find you some good fellows.” Theon narrowed his eyes. “How many?”
“A hundred, might be. Two hundred. Maybe more.”  He smiled, his pale eyes glinting. “I was born up north here. I know many a man, and many a man knows Reek.”

It's not even clear "Reek" would bring the Dreadford men-at-arms. But when "Reek" came back:

“And now, my sweet prince, there was a woman promised me, if I brought two hundred men. Well, I brought three times as many, and no green boys nor fieldhands neither, but my father’s own garrison.”

One is left to think that a letter from Roose gave Ramsay full support for his operation in Winterfell.

Another detail would support that Roose had instructed Ramsay.

“Save me the Freys,” the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, “and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all.”

The political thinking behind the preservation of the Freys would seem to come from Roose. But, I am sure Ramsay understands the value of hostages. So the line about the Freys might not indicate necessarily that Roose commanded Ramsay to sack Winterfell. Moreover, Ramsay burned Winterfell, a move that he would regret since he would be named lord of the castle later.

We wouldn't hear about the alliance with Lady Dustin until much later. However, some houses seem to have been spared the Red Wedding, either by betrayal of as a favor. The Tallharts, Glovers and Karstarks have been sent to Duskendale, before Roose left Harrenhal.

On the way to the Twins, at the crossing of the Trident.

Catelyn turned back to Roose Bolton. “Ser Wendel said something of Lannisters on the Trident?”
“He did, my lady. I blame myself. I delayed too long before leaving Harrenhal. Aenys Frey departed several days before me and crossed the Trident at the ruby ford, though not without difficulty. But by the time we came up the river was a torrent. I had no choice but to ferry my men across in small boats, of which we had too few. Two-thirds of my strength was on the north side when the Lannisters attacked those still waiting to cross. Norrey, Locke, and Burley men chiefly, with Ser Wylis Manderly and his White Harbor knights as rear guard. I was on the wrong side of the Trident, powerless to help them. Ser Wylis rallied our men as best he could, but Gregor Clegane attacked with heavy horse and drove them into the river. As many drowned as were cut down. More fled, and the rest were taken captive.”
Gregor Clegane was always ill news, Catelyn reflected. Would Robb need to march south again to deal with him? Or was the Mountain coming here? “is Clegane across the river, then?”
“No.” Bolton’s voice was soft, but certain. “I left six hundred men at the ford. Spearmen from the rills, the mountains, and the White Knife, a hundred Hornwood longbows, some freeriders and hedge knights, and a strong force of Stout and Cerwyn men to stiffen them. Ronnel Stout and Ser Kyle Condon have the command. Ser Kyle was the late Lord Cerwyn’s right hand, as I’m sure you know, my lady. Lions swim no better than wolves. So long as the river runs high, Ser Gregor will not cross.”

So the mountain clans (Burley, Norrey) and the Lockes were betrayed, it seems. But the Ryswells (spearmen from the rills), other clans, the Hornwood men, the Barrowton men (House Stout is sworn to Lady Dustin), and the Cerwyns have escaped the massacre by Roose's decision. I wonder who were the mountain clans spared by Roose. Wull? I wonder to whom the White Knife spearmen answered to.

Not coincidentally, those houses (Ryswell, Dustin, Hornwood, Cerwyn) are those who are allied with Lady Dustin, even before Roose has returned to the north. Indeed, Melisandre saw in her flames.

The red priestess slid closer to the king. “I saw a town with wooden walls and wooden streets, filled with men. Banners flew above its walls: a moose, a battle-axe, three pine trees, longaxes crossed beneath a crown, a horse’s head with fiery eyes.”

So there seems to have been an alliance in place, and a precise political calculation for the Red Wedding. Roose would have the support of the Dustins, Ryswells, Hornwoods, Cerwyns, Tallharts upon his return in the north.

There are difficulties with that plan, chiefly that these houses are mortal enemies of Ramsay. Ramsay is lord of the Hornwood, which is disputed by Manderly, but we can suppose that all Hornwood people have been horrified by the treatment of Donella Hornwood. The Tallharts have been betrayed by Roose at Duskendale, but that remains to be proved since Roose told them to go by the King's command. The King is no more to establish the truth. Finally, the Hornwoods, Cerwyns, and Tallharts are not led properly at the moment. Indeed, Ramsay is a controversial lord of the Hornwood, and might have never set foot there, Torrhen's Square is held by the Ironmen with Lady Tallhart prisoner, and Lady Cerwyn is weak and probably still in search of a husband.

However, since Umbers, Mormonts, Manderlys, Flints, have lost kin at the Red Wedding, they might be considered lost to his cause by Roose. Unless Roose can remove the current heads of these houses and install cadet branches in their stead, like Roose is apparently trying to do with the Karstarks, those houses are to remain enemies of the Boltons.

If my understanding of Roose's political situation is correct, that leaves a contradiction: the political strategy of Roose does not include Ramsay.

When Roose discusses with Jaime Lannister the rescue of "Arya" in King's Landing and her return to the north, he knows that Sansa is married to Tyrion Lannister.

The Lord of the Dreadfort gave her an uninterested glance. “The girls need not concern you any further, my lady. The Lady Sansa is the dwarf’s wife, only the gods can part them now.”

Hence Roose promised "Arya" to Ramsay while he knew there would be a succession conflict with Sansa and the Lannisters. The disappearance of Sansa would make the conflict vanish.

Finally, we know who was Roose's main interlocutor for the preparation of the wedding.

Lord Walder had ordered the slaughter of the Starks at Roslin’s wedding, but it had been Lame Lothar who had plotted it out with Roose Bolton, all the way down to which songs would be played.

The pivotal place of Lothar in the Frey family and his connection to Big Walder are discussed elsewhere. It might be important to keep in mind the successful association of Roose and Lothar.

5. The Dreadfort Inheritance Problem

We turn to the most blatant contradiction in Roose's strategy: Roose has legitimized Ramsay while marrying Fat Walda.

More precisely, here is what happened. Domeric was Roose's heir until his death, two years before the Harvest Feast in Winterfell. Then, Ramsay has been accepted at the Dreadfort, presumably with the idea of legitimation. Roose married Walda before taking Harrenhal, probably with the intent of having other sons. Then, Ramsay married forcibly Lady Hornwood, possibly after having realized that the Frey marriage might make him lose the inheritance. The false news of Ramsay's death seemed to clarify things for a time. But Ramsay's resurgence and the Sack of Winterfell led to the legitimation of the Bastard. But it is unclear what has been decided for the inheritance. If Roose were to die, it would come to the Iron Throne to decide who will inherit the north.

The marriage to Walda seems to have been motivated by greed, and the marriage is generally considered a surprise.

“Fortunately for you, I have no need of a wife. I wed the Lady Walda Frey whilst I was at the Twins.”
“Fair Walda?” Awkwardly, Jaime tried to hold the bread with his stump while tearing it with his left hand.
“Fat Walda. My lord of Frey offered me my bride’s weight in silver for a dowry, so I chose accordingly. Elmar, break off some bread for Ser Jaime.”

It was before the conquest of Harrenhal. What did Roose do with the silver? My guess is that he used the coin to buy the service of the Brave Companions. If not, he might have had a special need that has not been revealed.

Let's return to the alliance with House Frey. The Freys' intentions are clear, as expressed in Walda's letters to Roose in Harrenhal.

The Lady Walda wrote from the Twins almost every day, but all the letters were the same. “I pray for you morn, noon, and night, my sweet lord,” she wrote, “and count the days until you share my bed again. Return to me soon, and I will give you many trueborn sons to take the place of your dear Domeric and rule the Dreadfort after you.”

Note that Ramsay is believed dead at this point. The news of Ramsay's victory at Winterfell would come later.

Ramsay has no grudge against the Freys. But his interests conflict with theirs. The situation is not very different from the classical rivalry between a brother and a son for inheritance (see Theon and Euron, the Karstarks). It is not clear which rule applies to determine the heir. But when Roose married Walda, Ramsay was still a bastard, and the news of his death would follow shortly. We do not know what was Roose's calculation for the legitimation. Perhaps it is simply Ramsay's reward for having defeated the Starks in the north.

So the Freys expect Roose to name his eldest son by Walda heir of the Dreadfort. Otherwise they would feel betrayed, and Roose would lose the support of House Frey. Even the Lannisters are aware that marriage pacts with the Freys are to be respected.

“The Freys are prickly where marriage contracts are concerned. I would hate to disappoint them again.”
Ser Daven snorted. “I’ll wed and bed my stoat, never fear. I know what happened to Robb Stark."

So Roose knows he has to be careful if he wants to leave the Dreadfort to Ramsay.

But, Ramsay wants to remain heir to the Dreadfort, as we will see. 

During the last scene in the Great Hall of Winterfell, it is revealed that.

Roose Bolton entered, pale-eyed and yawning, accompanied by his plump and pregnant wife, Fat Walda.

Walda pregnancy was not apparent at the time of the wedding, a month or two before. This news makes more urgent even for Ramsay the need to secure the inheritance. Here is what we know of Roose's thinking.

“And won’t my bastard love that? Lady Walda is a Frey, and she has a fertile feel to her. I have become oddly fond of my fat little wife. The two before her never made a sound in bed, but this one squeals and shudders. I find that quite endearing. If she pops out sons the way she pops in tarts, the Dreadfort will soon be overrun with Boltons. Ramsay will kill them all, of course. That’s for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House. Walda will grieve to see them die, though.”

It's not immediately clear what to make of this. Whatever the reality of Roose's acceptance of the death of Walda's future children, Roose would lose the Freys if he left the inheritance to Ramsay.

However, Roose had once told Arya.

“My squire could take a lesson from you, it would seem. Frequent leechings are the secret of a long life. A man must purge himself of bad blood.”

Then Roose hoped for a long life. Why say otherwise to Theon?

Roose breaks a universal rule of politics that I believe he understands very well: For the ruler, it is unwise to mention the approach of death. That makes your friends lose interest in you, weakens your authority and intensifies the competition for succession. This is why the health of ailing people in power is generally a well guarded secret, and why it is difficult for a politician to accomplish much as the mandate comes close to its end. So Roose's words are well calculated for an effect, and I don't believe them to be true.

I understand that he knows Theon would repeat to Ramsay everything he has heard. As Ramsay expects.

But as he knelt to unlock the fetters around Reek’s wrists and ankles, he leaned close and whispered, “Tell him nothing and remember every word he says. I’ll have you back, no matter what that Dustin bitch may tell you. Who are you?”

But Roose is one move ahead of Ramsay.

“Breathe deep. I know what he said. You’re to spy on me and keep his secrets.” Bolton chuckled. “As if he had secrets. Sour Alyn, Luton, Skinner, and the rest, where does he think they came from? Can he truly believe they are his men?”

There is all reason to believe Theon has repeated the conversation to Ramsay. So Roose is telling Ramsay that he does not want her children with Walda to inherit, that Ramsay will be the heir, if he has the belly to get rid of the Freys himself.

By saying to Theon that he will not live for long, Roose makes the inheritance problem more pressing, and increases the tension between the Freys and Ramsay. But he lets Ramsay know that he will have the Dreadfort.

For Roose, one peaceful way out of this conflict would be to leave Winterfell to Ramsay and the Dreadfort to Walda's son.  Apparently, this is what the Freys expect, as Rhaegar Frey tells Wylla Manderly at the Merman's Court.

“Lady Wylla,” he said to the girl with the green braid, “loyalty is a virtue. I hope you will be as loyal to Little Walder when you are joined in wedlock. As to the Starks, that House is extinguished only in the male line. Lord Eddard’s sons are dead, but his daughters live, and the younger girl is coming north to wed brave Ramsay Bolton.”
“Ramsay Snow,” Wylla Manderly threw back. “Have it as you will. By any name, he shall soon be wed to Arya Stark. If you would keep faith with your promise, give him your allegiance, for he shall be your Lord of Winterfell.”
“He won’t ever be my lord! He made Lady Hornwood marry him, then shut her in a dungeon and made her eat her fingers.”
A murmur of assent swept the Merman’s Court. “The maid tells it true,” declared a stocky man in white and purple, whose cloak was fastened with a pair of crossed bronze keys. “Roose Bolton’s cold and cunning, aye, but a man can deal with Roose. We’ve all known worse. But this bastard son of his ... they say he’s mad and cruel, a monster.”
“They say?” Rhaegar Frey sported a silky beard and a sardonic smile. “His enemies say, aye ...

...for he shall be your Lord of Winterfell. The rest of Rhaegar's speech is about the Young Wolf. The words do not come to him when he has to defend Ramsay.

But it's unlikey that Ramsay would accept such an arrangement. This is of course not what Ramsay had in mind when he put Winterfell and its Winter Town to the torch. Indeed, Ramsay seems very much attached to his position as heir to the Dreadfort, and makes a point of mentioning it as he spoke his marriage vows.

“Me,” said Ramsay. “Ramsay of House Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, heir to the Dreadfort. I claim her. Who gives her?”

...heir to the Dreadfort. And, generally, Ramsay loves being a Bolton: the flaying tradition, the pink clothes, the ring his father gave him, etc. Here he is at the Dreadfort feast.

At the high table the Bastard of Bolton sat in his lord father’s seat, drinking from his father’s cup.

And inheriting the Dreadfort would erase the stigma of bastardy for good. If he were to let the inheritance to Walda's son, Ramsay would probably owe fealty to the lord of the Dreadfort. Finally, Ramsay does not seem pleased with Winterfell. First he put the castle to the torch. It is further demonstrated by his reaction to the suggestion of holding the wedding there.

“Aye, so he did, but still ... a wedding in that ruin?”

In fact it seems that Ramsay intends to inherit fully from Roose, since Roose asks.

Does he truly think that he can ever rule the north?

The rivalry between the Freys and Ramsay is rarely expressed openly. Ramsay uses disparaging language about Walda.

Is this why you left Lady Dustin and your fat pig wife?

And he has no regret for not having found the three missing Freys.

“Does it matter? The world won’t miss a few Freys. There’s plenty more down at the Twins should we ever have need of one.”

This is likely to be Ramsay's normal way of speaking, and might not reflect that much animosity. But it shows how little attachment Ramsay has for the Freys.

Conversely, the Freys know very well that Ramsay is a danger for Walda's sons since Roose has written in a letter read at Robb's court.

The trueborn sons my young wife has promised me would never have been safe while he lived.

The scenery arranged by Ramsay at Moat Cailin could be understood as a warning for the Freys.

The next morning Lord Ramsay dispatched three riders down the causeway to take word to his lord father that the way was clear. The flayed man of House Bolton was hoisted above the Gatehouse Tower, where Reek had hauled down the golden kraken of Pyke. Along the rotting-plank road, wooden stakes were driven deep into the boggy ground; there the corpses festered, red and dripping. Sixty-three, he knew, there are sixty-three of them. One was short half an arm. Another had a parchment shoved between its teeth, its wax seal still unbroken.
Three days later, the vanguard of Roose Bolton’s host threaded its way through the ruins and past the row of grisly sentinels—four hundred mounted Freys clad in blue and grey, their spearpoints glittering whenever the sun broke through the clouds. Two of old Lord Walder’s sons led the van.

The Freys have asked Roose assurances about Ramsay. If Roose couldn't be reassuring enough, they probably have a plan to get rid of the Bastard of the Dreadfort. Apparently, they hope Ramsay will be content with the lordship of Winterfell.

One weapon they might have is Robb's will. That they might have the will is discussed elsewhere. Let's look at the consequences for the Boltons.

Roose would certainly have destroyed the will if he had put his hands on it. But it seems more likely that the Freys found it, and kept it to themselves as a trump card. Indeed, we don't know if Jon is named crown prince of the north, or simply heir of Winterfell, or if there are certain provisions concerning the survival of Arya, Bran and Rickon. But, whatever the wording, the Freys would be in position to blackmail the Boltons, since the publication of the will would undermine the legitimacy of Roose as overlord of the north, and could deprive "Arya" of Winterfell. Even if the will states that the crown of the north should go to Jon, it doesn't deprive Walda of the Dreadfort. It would just make the Boltons bannermen of the Stark again, certainly a lower status for Walda than being Queen in the north. And Ramsay would lose Winterfell.

Of course the will wouldn't mean much unless it is backed by significant forces. It could be interpreted in various ways depending on the political circumstances, including that Jon would only inherit the lordship and not the crown.

Even if the will appears and is not accepted, it will pose the problem of the place of legitimized bastards in the order for inheritance. If Jon Snow is discarded for the lordship of Winterfell, so must Ramsay for the lordship of the Dreadfort.

I presume that the Freys would demand from Roose that Walda's son would inherit the Dreadfort in exchange for their silence on Robb's will.

In any case, the Freys are in need of political weapons in the north. They depend too much on Roose's goodwill. Their army, and the support of the Lannister is one mean of pressure. The Greatjon, hostage at the Twins, is another. There might be Robb's will. And finally, the knowledge that Ramsay was "Reek" in Winterfell and collaborated with Theon. Both Walders know this secret, and it is likely that Little Walder reported it to his sister Walda and his uncle Hosteen.

6. Roose's political Quandary

Roose is prudent man, and acute political player, but he faces a problem that he has largely made himself. We saw the mounting tension between Ramsay and the Freys. But the main ally of Roose, Barbrey Dustin (with the Ryswells, and the Hornwood, Tallhart and Cerwyn men), hates Ramsay and does not wish to see him inherit the north. Barbrey dislikes the Freys as well.

Why did Roose exacerbate the conflict between Ramsay and the Freys?

Perhaps it is useful at this point to summarize the situation in the north. The main political players in Winterfell are: Roose Bolton, Ramsay Bolton, the Freys, Lady Dustin, Wyman Manderly.

The Karstarks and Umbers are weakened at the moment, as are the Hornwoods, Cerwyns and Tallharts. The Reeds and the mountain clans are marginal. The Mormonts and Glovers are, at least momentarily, with Stannis.

The Freys and Ramsay are natural rivals to each other since they both plan to inherit the Dreadfort.

Barbrey Dustin, née Ryswell, and her allies, the men of houses Hornwood, Cerwyn and Tallhart can't suffer Ramsay, and would never accept him as their liege lord. Since these people were hardly touched during the Red Wedding they might accept that Roose has allied with Walda. Lady Dustin is silent on the culpability of Roose. Roose trusts Lady Dustin.

Lady Dustin has no fondness for the Freys and tell them they are not welcome in the north. So it is likely that she does not envisage either that Ramsay inherits the north, or that Walda's son becomes Roose's heir.

If Roose intends to follow the alliance with Lady Dustin, it's unclear what the plan of the widow of Barrowton is. Who should inherit the north after Roose from her point of view?

Wyman Manderly, richest man in the north, has lost a son in the Red Wedding, has lost his cousin Donella Hornwood, née Manderly, to Ramsay, and has lost men during the Sack of Winterfell. He knows that Roose is guilty for the Red Wedding. So Manderly can not be reconciled with Roose, Ramsay or the Freys. Roose has no other choice than eliminating him. But it is in Roose's interest not to do the deed himself, and the Freys were perfectly suited for the task. This is probably why Roose sent the Freys and the Manderlys together to battle Stannis' forces.

Ramsay will become lord of Winterfell. Will he inherit the Dreadfort and the north as well? It seems to me that he has too many enemies to hope to have the Dreadfort. The Freys will fight bitterly to stop him. Lady Dustin, the Ryswells, Hornwood, Cerwyn, Tallhart will not accept him as their liege lord. Ramsay could remain as lord of Winterfell with the support of Roose and the Freys. But he does not seem willing to. It appears that the position of Ramsay is weak. Everybody despises him, and he has no sworn swords. He relies entirely on his father's support, which is ambiguous.

The Freys need Walda as a foothold in the north. And they need Ramsay to be disinherited from the Dreadfort. They want marriages and lands in the north. The more dead northmen the better.

What is Roose going to do with all this? In my opinion, the best course is to use the Freys to get rid of Manderly, then to sacrifice Ramsay, to let him bear the blame for the Sack of Winterfell, and for the death of Lady Hornwood. Roose might use the Freys to get rid of Ramsay.

Here is what Roose longs for:

“You are mistaken. It is not good. No tales were ever told of me. Do you think I would be sitting here if it were otherwise? Your amusements are your own, I will not chide you on that count, but you must be more discreet. A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours.”

A peaceful land, a quiet people. It's possible that Roose would need to sacrifice the Freys as well, and blame them for the Red Wedding, and for their greed, but to let them get rid of Manderly first. It seems to me that Roose needs the alliance with Lady Dustin, and that he likes her personally. Indeed, Roose speaks of Barbrey always in respectful, almost affectionate at times, terms.

“Unlikely. And those boots would come dear. They would cost us Barrowton, House Dustin, and the Ryswells.” Roose Bolton seated himself across the table from his son. “Barbrey Dustin is my second wife’s younger sister, Rodrik Ryswell’s daughter, sister to Roger, Rickard, and mine own namesake, Roose, cousin to the other Ryswells. She was fond of my late son and suspects you of having some part in his demise. Lady Barbrey is a woman who knows how to nurse a grievance. Be grateful for that. Barrow-ton is staunch for Bolton largely because she still holds Ned Stark to blame for her husband’s death.”

Roose's body language (moving so the table is between his son and himself) would seem to indicate that he would take the side of Barbrey in the dispute.

But Roose's respect for Barbrey is not reciprocated. Indeed, before we saw Lady Dustin for the first time, Roose gave a lesson in manners to Theon.

“Reek,” he said, “if it please my lord.”
“M’lord.” Bolton’s lips parted just enough to show a quarter inch of teeth. It might have been a smile.
“—my lord, when you should have said m’lord. Your tongue betrays your birth with every word you say. If you want to sound a proper peasant, say it as if you had mud in your mouth, or were too stupid to realize it was two words, not just one.”

But here is how Roose was greeted by Lady Dustin a few minutes later as he enters Barrow Hall.

“Who is this?” she said. “Where is the boy? Did your bastard refuse to give him up? Is this old man his ... oh, gods be good, what is that smell? Has this creature soiled himself?”

“He has been with Ramsay. Lady Barbrey, allow me to present the rightful Lord of the Iron Islands, Theon of House Greyjoy.”

No "my lord", no formal greeting. Just rudeness. Roose is the Warden of the North and therefore has authority over Lady Dustin. Her manners should be unacceptable, especially for Roose, who seems so attached to correct etiquette. This exchange shows that Lady Dustin has no fear of Roose, and her strange familiarity with Roose indicates more than simply an alliance of circumstances. Either Lady Dustin and Roose are very close or Lady Dustin is the dominant partner in the association.

But the political analysis might not be all that matter about Roose Bolton. And I can't help reflecting on his remark to Theon.

“The north. The Starks were done and doomed the night that you took Winterfell.” He waved a pale hand, dismissive. “All this is only squabbling over spoils.”

7. The Freys in Winterfell

We turn now to an examination of the treatment of the Freys by the Boltons in Winterfell.

The first slight against the Freys is the absence of their banner in Winterfell at the wedding.

Along the walls the banners hung: the horseheads of the Ryswells in gold, brown, grey, and black; the roaring giant of House Umber; the stone hand of House Flint of Flint’s Finger; the moose of Hornwood and the merman of Manderly; Cerwyn’s black battle-axe and the Tallhart pines.

The marriage vows of Ramsay is another threat:

“Me,” said Ramsay. “Ramsay of House Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, heir to the Dreadfort. I claim her. Who gives her?”

It's almost a casus belli, since the Freys want Walda's sons to inherit the Dreadfort.

Next we have the discourse of Roose for the wedding.

She sat with eyes downcast as Roose Bolton bid them drink to Lady Arya. “In her children our two ancient houses will become as one,” he said, “and the long enmity between Stark and Bolton will be ended.” His voice was so soft that the hall grew hushed as men strained to hear. “I am sorry that our good friend Stannis has not seen fit to join us yet,” he went on, to a ripple of laughter, “as I know Ramsay had hoped to present his head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift.” The laughs grew louder. “We shall give him a splendid welcome when he arrives, a welcome worthy of true northmen. Until that day, let us eat and drink and make merry ... for winter is almost upon us, my friends, and many of us here shall not live to see the spring.”

The mention of true northmen is there again to make the Frey uncomfortable. Of course, the Freys are not politically acceptable, and it wouldn't be reasonable for Roose to give them a prominent position at the wedding.

Indeed, Lady Dustin tells Theon what every northman thinks.

“He will. He must.” Lady Dustin chuckled. “And when he does, the fat man will piss himself. His son died at the Red Wedding, yet he’s shared his bread and salt with Freys, welcomed them beneath his roof, promised one his granddaughter. He even serves them pie.”

She adds about Roose.

“Truth be told,” she said, “Lord Bolton aspires to more than mere lordship. Why not King of the North? Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks. Old Walder Frey will not object to his fat little Walda becoming a queen.”

It can be understood in a number of ways, including that it is known that Theon is Ramsay's creature. So Lady Dustin might be provoking Ramsay here, by making a queen of Walda Frey. She might inadvertently putting in Ramsay's mind the notion of crowning himself, or of inheriting the crown. When Roose announced Stannis' approach.

Ser Hosteen Frey pushed to his feet. “We should ride forth to meet them. Why allow them to combine their strength?”

But Roose barely listens to Hosteen.

“The hall is not the place for such discussions, my lords. Let us adjourn to the solar whilst my son consummates his marriage. The rest of you, remain and enjoy the food and drink.”

Later, when the snow began to fall the old gods hostile to the foreigners are mentioned again.

“The gods of the north have unleashed their wroth on Lord Stannis,” Roose Bolton announced come morning as men gathered in Winterfell’s Great Hall to break their fast. “He is a stranger here, and the old gods will not suffer him to live.”

Theon Greyjoy did not join the uproar. Neither did the men of House Frey, he did not fail to note. They are strangers here as well, he thought, watching Ser Aenys Frey and his half-brother Ser Hosteen. Born and bred in the riverlands, the Freys had never seen a snow like this. The north has already claimed three of their blood, Theon thought, recalling the men that Ramsay had searched for fruitlessly, lost between White Harbor and Barrowton.

Hosteen Frey's insistence at going out for battle might be a sign of uncomfort in the castle.

The deaths set Roose Bolton’s lords to quarreling openly in the Great Hall. Some were running short of patience. “How long must we sit here waiting for this king who never comes?” Ser Hosteen Frey demanded. “We should take the fight to Stannis and make an end to him.”

But the Freys have only Manderly as a visible opponent. Later, Lady Dustin spelled out explicitly how the Freys are unwelcome when when she answers Aenys Frey.

“I do not claim Lord Wyman does the deeds himself. He brought three hundred men with him. A hundred knights. Any of them might have—”
“Night work is not knight’s work,” Lady Dustin said. “And Lord Wyman is not the only man who lost kin at your Red Wedding, Frey. Do you imagine Whoresbane loves you any better? If you did not hold the Greatjon, he would pull out your entrails and make you eat them, as Lady Hornwood ate her fingers. Flints, Cerwyns, Tallharts, Slates ... they all had men with the Young Wolf.”
“House Ryswell too,” said Roger Ryswell. “Even Dustins out of Barrowton.” Lady Dustin parted her lips in a thin, feral smile. “The north remembers, Frey.”
Aenys Frey’s mouth quivered with outrage. “Stark dishonored us. That is what you northmen had best remember.”
Roose Bolton rubbed at his chapped lips. “This squabbling will not serve.”

So Roose has done much to make the Frey uncomfortable among the northmen, and therefore make them depend on him.

8. Father and Son from Moat Cailin to Winterfell

The relations between Roose and Ramsay are always tense. In Moat Cailin, Roose did not dare to expose himself to any attack, and used a subterfuge.

When the rider in the dark armor removed his helm, however, the face beneath was not one that Reek knew. Ramsay’s smile curdled at the sight, and anger flashed across his face. “What is this, some mockery?”
“Just caution,” whispered Roose Bolton, as he emerged from behind the curtains of the enclosed wagon.

In Barrowton, Roose appeared to barely suffer Ramsay. First Ramsay was sent to find the lost Freys between White Harbor and Barrowton, while all northern lords were in Barrow Hall, as if everybody were happy to have the Bastard away. Here is Roose's arrival in Lord Stout's hall.

A sudden silence seized the feasters ... all but Lord Ramsay, who tossed aside the bone he had been gnawing, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, smiled a greasy, wet-lipped smile, and said, “Father.”
The Lord of the Dreadfort glanced idly at the remnants of the feast, at the dead dog, at the hangings on the walls, at Reek in his chains and fetters. “Out,” he told the feasters, in a voice as soft as a murmur. “Now. The lot of you.”

No greetings from Roose, while Ramsay seems happy to see his father. As the conversation goes on, Ramsay resents the lack of paternal attention, and the fact that nobody of note is in Barrowton to welcome him back. In fact, Ramsay is a pariah among the northern nobility.

“It should have been you who threw the feast, to welcome me back,” Ramsay complained, “and it should have been in Barrow Hall, not this pisspot of a castle.”
“Barrow Hall and its kitchens are not mine to dispose of,” his father said mildly. “I am only a guest there. The castle and the town belong to Lady Dustin, and she cannot abide you.”
Ramsay’s face darkened. “If I cut off her teats and feed them to my girls, will she abide me then? Will she abide me if I strip off her skin to make myself a pair of boots?”
“Unlikely. And those boots would come dear. They would cost us Barrowton, House Dustin, and the Ryswells.” Roose Bolton seated himself across the table from his son.

By putting a table between Ramsay and himself, Roose uses a body language that seems say that he is to side with Lady Dustin. Then Ramsay complains about Barbrey Dustin.

Roose made a face, as if the ale he was sipping had suddenly gone sour. “There are times you make me wonder if you truly are my seed. My forebears were many things, but never fools. No, be quiet now, I have heard enough.”

Ramsay gets more and more irritated.

“Is this why you left Lady Dustin and your fat pig wife? So you could come down here and tell me to be quiet?”

When Roose asked for Theon the conversation reaches a boiling point.

“Taking him? Where? He’s mine. You cannot have him.”
Roose seemed amused by that. “All you have I gave you. You would do well to remember that, bastard. As for this ... Reek ... if you have not ruined him beyond redemption, he may yet be of some use to us. Get the keys and remove those chains from him, before you make me rue the day I raped your mother.”
Reek saw the way Ramsay’s mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. He feared he might leap the table with his dagger in his hand. Instead he flushed red, turned his pale eyes from his father’s paler ones, and went to find the keys.

Fortunately, the conversation ended here. During the wedding feast, Roose mentioned his son politely, but never warmly.

Roose organizes his war council when Ramsay enjoys his wedding night.

“The hall is not the place for such discussions, my lords. Let us adjourn to the solar whilst my son consummates his marriage. The rest of you, remain and enjoy the food and drink.”

Roose and Ramsay do not speak to each other in Winterfell. Lady Dustin tells Theon.

“Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that.”

When Yellow Dick is found dead.

“Burn the body,” Roose Bolton ordered, “and see that you do not speak of this. I’ll not have this tale spread.”
The tale spread nonetheless. By midday most of Winterfell had heard, many from the lips of Ramsay Bolton, whose “boy” Yellow Dick had been.

So Ramsay disobeys his father, which is surely intolerable for Roose. As we will see, Domeric died after disobeying his father.

When Roose enquires about the murders in Winterfell, Ramsay is not part of the committee.

Lord Bolton was not alone. Lady Dustin sat with him, pale-faced and severe; an iron horsehead brooch clasped Roger Ryswell’s cloak; Aenys Frey stood near the fire, pinched cheeks flushed with cold.

Roose lets Barbrey Dustin forget the legitimation of Ramsay in front of other lords.

“The Bastard did this to you,” Lady Dustin said.

Finally, here are Roose and Ramsay the morning of the escape.

Up on the dais, Ramsay was arguing with his father. They were too far away for Theon to make out any of the words, but the fear on Fat Walda’s round pink face spoke volumes.

We'll try to understand this last scene elsewhere. But Roose is losing control of the situation in Winterfell.

Indeed, here is Roose after first altercation between the Freys and Manderly.

Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before—an uneasiness, even a hint of fear.

During the second altercation, Roose tries to intervene as Hosteen Frey has hit Manderly with his sword.

“Stop,” Roose Bolton shouted. “Stop this madness.”

Roose is unable to stop the fight with words. Compare with Robert Baratheon and the Clegane brothers at the tourney of the Hand.

Jon Arryn had told them that a commander needs a good battlefield voice, and Robert had proved the truth of that on the Trident. He used that voice now. “STOP THIS MADNESS, “ he boomed, “IN THE NAME OF YOUR KING!”
The Hound went to one knee. Ser Gregor’s blow cut air, and at last he came to his senses.

Dreadfort soldiers put a halt to the fight. Ramsay had to step in.

“Enough,” roared Lord Ramsay, brandishing his bloody spear. “Another threat, and I’ll gut you all myself. My lord father has spoken! Save your wroth for the pretender Stannis.”
Roose Bolton gave an approving nod. “As he says. There will be time enough to fight each other once we are done with Stannis.”

Roose had difficulties calming the animosities between the Dustins/Ryswells and the Freys.

Lady Dustin parted her lips in a thin, feral smile. “The north remembers, Frey.”
Aenys Frey’s mouth quivered with outrage. “Stark dishonored us. That is what you northmen had best remember.”
Roose Bolton rubbed at his chapped lips. “This squabbling will not serve.”

Theon's analysis is accurate, I think.

Roose Bolton would welcome such a fight, he sensed. He needs an end to this. The castle was too crowded to withstand a long siege, and too many of the lords here were of uncertain loyalty. Fat Wyman Manderly, Whoresbane Umber, the men of House Hornwood and House Tallhart, the Lockes and Flints and Ryswells, all of them were northmen, sworn to House Stark for generations beyond count. It was the girl who held them here, Lord Eddard’s blood, but the girl was just a mummer’s ploy, a lamb in a direwolf’s skin. So why not send the north-men forth to battle Stannis before the farce unraveled? Slaughter in the snow. And every man who falls is one less foe for the Dreadfort.

So Roose finds increasingly difficult to maintain his control over his three main allies: the Freys, Ramsay and Lady Dustin. Hence he had to send the Freys out to fight Stannis.

A few more details about Roose and Ramsay in Winterfell caught my attention.

Here are Winterfell's preparation for the wedding.

All about the yard, dead men hung half-frozen at the end of hempen ropes, swollen faces white with hoarfrost. Winterfell had been crawling with squatters when Bolton’s van had reached the castle. More than two dozen had been driven at spearpoint from the nests they had made amongst the castle’s half-ruined keeps and towers. The boldest and most truculent had been hanged, the rest put to work. Serve well, Lord Bolton told them, and he would be merciful. Stone and timber were plentiful with the wolfswood so close at hand. Stout new gates had gone up first, to replace those that had been burned. Then the collapsed roof of the Great Hall had been cleared away and a new one raised hurriedly in its stead. When the work was done, Lord Bolton hanged the workers. True to his word, he showed them mercy and did not flay a one.

This is what Theon has been told after having arrived in Winterfell. It seems worthy of consideration that Roose hanged the squatters to silence them. Those workers have built the stables which crumbled under the snow. Is there a risk that the same thing happens to the roof of the Great Hall? Did Roose arrange precisely for that?

Of course having hanged men on display is part of Roose's way of ruling, which is based on fear. Roose proceeded in the same way when he arrived in Harrenhal.

When Yellow Dick is found dead, Roose says:

“Burn the body,” Roose Bolton ordered, “and see that you do not speak of this. I’ll not have this tale spread.”

I wouldn't have guessed that the Boltons burned their dead (indeed, Yellow Dick is a man of the Dreadfort). In fact we know from Roose that the opposite is true.

I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father. Now his bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay.

It seemed to me that only Targaryens and wildlings had this funerary custom, and that all northmen bury their dead under their heart tree. Does Roose want to avoid having Yellow Dick buried in the lichyard? Does he want to avoid that Yellow Dick feed the Stark godswood and avoid that his memories join the whole Stark dynasty in the tree?

While we are discussing religious practices, something made me tick during the wedding ceremony in Winterfell.

Ramsay Bolton stood beneath them, clad in high boots of soft grey leather and a black velvet doublet slashed with pink silk and glittering with garnet teardrops. A smile danced across his face. “Who comes?” His lips were moist, his neck red above his collar. “Who comes before the god?”

God? Singular? It's the first time I ever see a northman avoid the plural in reference to the divinity. Perhaps a typo.

When Yellow Dick is found dead, Ramsay is furious.

“When we find the man who did this,” Lord Ramsay promised, “I will flay the skin off him, cook it crisp as crackling, and make him eat it, every bite.” Word went out that the killer’s name would be worth a golden dragon.

The golden dragon is a dissonant note.

Gold is not used as currency in the north, as far as I can tell. Coinage issued in White Harbor is made of silver. Here is Manderly about the proposal to mint the coinage of King Robb.

As windy as he was vast, he began by asking Winterfell to confirm the new customs officers he had appointed for White Harbor. The old ones had been holding back silver for King’s Landing rather than paying it over to the new King in the North. “King Robb needs his own coinage as well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is the very place to mint it.”

When Ramsay left Winterfell to seek men at the Dreadfort, he brought a bag of silver taken in the Stark treasure – or perhaps all the Stark treasure. Mance leaves the Wall to visit Winterfell with a bag of silver. Of course, it is entirely possible that Ramsay has gold coinage. Of course, gold is valuable in the north as well, and is the subject of men's greed (see Walton Steelshank accepting from Jaime Lannister the gold promised in Harrenhal). The only other time when gold was promised as a payment is reported by the Liddle.

“The Bastard’s boys, aye. He was dead, but now he’s not. And paying good silver for wolfskins, a man hears, and maybe gold for word of certain other walking dead.”

It's again Ramsay who offers gold. But Roose was paid in silver for the marriage with Walda. So the ruler of the north should not offer southron gold as payment in my opinion. It's a little political mistake (like, in our world, offering a prize in a foreign currency) which contributes to the notion that Ramsay is unfit to rule the north. And I wonder where does the coin come from (there are many possibilities of course).

While I am at it, the notion of making people eat part of themselves as punishment is brought up from time to time. Vargo Hoat has suffered such a torment. That happened to Yellow Dick as well. The night that follows Yellow Dick's death, Lady Dustin threatens the Freys with a torment conceived as a combination of Ramsay's punishment of Lady Hornwood and Whoresbane's episode of disembowlment.

Do you imagine Whoresbane loves you any better? If you did not hold the Greatjon, he would pull out your entrails and make you eat them, as Lady Hornwood ate her fingers.

Another interesting detail, here is Ramsay in Barrowton.

Ramsay Bolton was attired as befit the lord of the Hornwood and heir to the Dreadfort. His mantle was stitched together from wolfskins and clasped against the autumn chill by the yellowed teeth of the wolf’s head on his right shoulder. On one hip he wore a falchion, its blade as thick and heavy as a cleaver; on the other a long dagger and a small curved flaying knife with a hooked point and a razor-sharp edge. All three blades had matched hilts of yellow bone.

The custom throughout Westeros is to have one's cloak clasped by a brooch (often in silver) that represents one's house, so I would say that Ramsay was not attired according to his titles, unless the wolfskin refers the ancient Bolton practice to wear the skin of the Starks. This little anomaly might fit well with the title Ramsay attributes himself (Lord of Winterfell) when he signed Roose's letter to Deepwood Motte, assuming the signature is not a mistake.

Ramsay seems to have a fixation on hunting wolves. He wants his bitches to fight wolves.

“He’s trained ’em to kill wolves as well,” Ben Bones had confided. 

More curious even are the blades, or rather the hilts at Ramsay's belt. First, he wears a falchion. It's the first time such a weapon is mentioned in Westeros. It is rather baroque, certainly not knightly. It would fit well a sellsword, and might be close to a Dothraki arakh. It is certainly understandable that Ramsay has chosen such a weapon given his training at arms, according to Roose.

I have seen my bastard fight. He is not entirely to blame. Reek was his tutor, the first Reek, and Reek was never trained at arms. Ramsay is ferocious, I will grant you, but he swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat.

The assorted hilts make us think of a present made to Ramsay. Most curious is the choice of material for the hilts: bone. I am not sure bone is a very robust material for a hilt. In any case, there are many swords in the story adorned with jewels (ruby, sapphire chiefly), and we can suspect them to be vectors for magical influence. Bone is not decorative. It's rather sinister and dirty. I wonder how Ramsay got his hands on the blades, and what that means to him.

We see him use the falchion at one point.

[…] lastly on three great wedding pies, as wide across as wagon wheels, their flaky crusts stuffed to bursting with carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, mushrooms, and chunks of seasoned pork swimming in a savory brown gravy. Ramsay hacked off slices with his falchion […]

The foreshadowing inherent in this scene will be examined elsewhere.

9. Dogs and horses

As far as animals are concerned, Roose and Ramsay have different preferences. Ramsay has a passion for his dogs, and Roose has alway been fond of horses.

Here are Ramsay bitches' names, as far as we can know: Red Jeyne, Grey Jeyne, Maud, Helicent, Jez, Sara, Willow, Alison. Later in Winterfell there would be new pup Kyra, obviously named after Theon's poor bedwarmer. Note that there is no Palla, a sign that she might be alive.

There are two Jeynes, which should sound terrifying to Jeyne Poole.

The views we have on the bitches seem to vary. Theon likes them. But they are merciless with Lord Stout's old dog.

The dogs enjoyed the run of the hall, however, and provided the night’s best entertainment, when Maude and Grey Jeyne tore into one of Lord Stout’s hounds over an especially meaty bone that Will Short had tossed them. Reek was the only man in the hall who did not watch the three dogs fight. He kept his eyes on Ramsay Bolton.
The fight did not end until their host’s dog was dead. Stout’s old hound never stood a mummer’s chance. He had been one against two, and Ramsay’s bitches were young, strong, and savage.

We learned that Ramsay has trained the bitches to fight wolves, in a sign of hostility toward the Starks, we presume. It's probably in anticipation of the return of Bran and Rickon.

The first sign of Roose's passion for horses is to be found in Arya's escape:

She had the faster horse, she knew that, she had stolen one of Roose Bolton’s best from the stables at Harrenhal, but his speed was wasted here.

Then we have Domeric's education.

Horses ... the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. Redfort said he showed great promise in the lists. A great jouster must be a great horseman first.

When Roose wants to depreciate the mountain clans who have joined Stannis, he uses the horse angle.

“Stannis and his knights have left Deepwood Motte, flying the banner of his new red god. The clans of the northern hills come with him on their shaggy runtish horses.“

Roose likes to hunt on horses his activity precisely when he met Ramsay's mother. Here is all he finds to deplore after the day is done:

The fox escaped as well, and on our way back to the Dreadfort my favorite courser came up lame, so all in all it was a dismal day.

Ramsay reserves a place of honor for his kennelmaster Ben Bones, but not for his horse master. Nevertheless, he rides a fine horse.

His lordship himself rode Blood, a red stallion with a temper to match his own.

Red stallions are the mark of something special throughout the books (Tyrion rides one when he enters King's Landing, Khal Drogo has one, it is the sigil of House Bracken, Lady Dustin gave one to her husband when he rode with Eddard Stark). I wonder if it was a present by either Lady Dustin or the Ryswells. A guest gift? Just before the mention of Blood, we read.

Behind came Skinner, Sour Alyn, and Damon Dance-for-Me with his long greased whip, then the Walders riding the grey colts Lady Dustin had given them.

Since Ramsay is not welcome in Barrow Hall, it would be curious that Lady Dustin had given Ramsay a gift. One has to remember the context though, Ramsay has left with his hunting party to find the Freys. He was supposed to marry "Arya" on his return. But Roose told him that the wedding had to take place in Winterfell.

After he was her guest in Barrowton, and we never heard about Blood before. But Ramsay does not seem overly fond of his steed, as he told Little Walder.

“Oh, leave him be,” said Ramsay. “Just see to Blood. I rode the bastard hard.”

Of course the word bastard is infamous for Ramsay. Ramsay treated horses with particular cruelty during the Sack of Winterfell as many horses were later found dead by Bran and Rickon (and a few dogs as well). The sack has even an emblematic image:

The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming, rearing...

And the image could foreshadow the enmity between Ramsay and the Ryswells. More generally, the contrast between Roose and Ramsay about horses mirrors their closeness to Barbrey Dustin and her Ryswell relatives.

10. Roose in Harrenhal

We come to know Roose through Arya's eyes when she serves as his page as he rules Harrenhal.

What happened in Harrenhal is in many ways similar to the situation in Winterfell. In both cases, Roose holds an ancient, formidable castle.

Here is the first thing Roose did when he conquered the cursed castle of Harrenhal.

Tothmure had been sent to the axe for dispatching birds to Casterly Rock and King’s Landing the night Harrenhal had fallen, Lucan the armorer for making weapons for the Lannisters, Goodwife Harra for telling Lady Whent’s household to serve them, the steward for giving Lord Tywin the keys to the treasure vault. The cook was spared (some said because he’d made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who’d shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.

Note that Roose hanged people when he arrived in Winterfell as well.

It's tempting to think that these people have been put to death to be silenced. The mention of the treasure vault is particularly suspicious. Why not take the treasure, kill all witnesses and blame the Lannisters? We know that the Boltons have looted in the south.

Farther back came the baggage train—lumbering wayns laden with provisions and loot taken in the war, and carts crowded with wounded men and cripples.

But it would remain to explain why Roose could find what Tywin couldn't. It's perhaps because Roose was considered an ally and a liberator by the people of Harrenhal, and he was shown the things hidden to Tywin.

Here is the mysterious passage.

Roose Bolton was seated by the hearth reading from a thick leatherbound book when she entered. “Light some candles,” he commanded her as he turned a page. “It grows gloomy in here.”
She placed the food at his elbow and did as he bid her, filling the room with flickering light and the scent of cloves. Bolton turned a few more pages with his finger, then closed the book and placed it carefully in the fire. He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light. The old dry leather went up with a whoosh, and the yellow pages stirred as they burned, as if some ghost were reading them.

I get from this passage that:
1) Roose has been reading for some time (he notices it gets dark, as if he had been absorbed by the book).
2) The comment It grows gloomy here might reflect what he is reading.
3) Roose does not read the book completely.
4) He burns the book calmly and deliberately.

I have a few little things to add. The same day, in the same hearth, Arya had burned Walda's letter.

Arya took the letter and carried it to the hearth, stirring the logs with a poker to wake the flames anew. She watched the parchment twist, blacken, and flare up. [..]Curls of ash floated up the chimney. Arya squatted beside the fire, watching them rise through a veil of hot tears. 

I am no specialist in burning parchments. It seems to me that  there is a contrast between the burning of the book and the more mundane burning of the letter. It can't be a coincidence that the two events are placed in the same chapter. The book seems to consume itself as if it were much more combustible. What sense shall we make of it?

In the pre-printing era a book is a treasure, so burning one is significant. The light in Roose's eyes (usually so inexpressive), the scent of cloves (an essential ingredient of incense, candles with cloves are used in certain pseudo-magical rituals in the real world) and the evocation of the ghost make me think of a kind of ceremony, perhaps a mystical sacrifice of the book, if such a thing makes sense.

The burning of the book has the marks of something special. The word whoosh appears a few times in the stories.

We have Jon Snow rescuing Jorah Mormont from the wights.

Metal crunched, glass shattered, oil spewed, and the hangings went up in a great whoosh of flame.

Cersei burning the Tower of the Hand with the help of wildfire.

The tower went up with a whoosh.

The "Horn of Joramun" burned by Melisandre at the Wall.

The Horn of Joramun burst into flame.
It went up with a whoosh as swirling tongues of green and yellow fire leapt up crackling all along its length. Jon’s garron shied nervously, and up and down the ranks others fought to still their mounts as well. A moan came from the stockade as the free folk saw their hope afire. A few began to shout and curse, but most lapsed into silence. For half a heartbeat the runes graven on the gold bands seemed to shimmer in the air. The queen’s men gave a heave and sent the horn tumbling down into the fire pit.

Finally, Benerro at the Temple of the Red God, in Volantis.

Benerro jabbed a finger at the moon, made a fist, spread his hands wide. When his voice rose in a crescendo, flames leapt from his fingers with a sudden whoosh and made the crowd gasp. The priest could trace fiery letters in the air as well. Valyrian glyphs. Tyrion recognized perhaps two in ten; one was Doom, the other Darkness.

In all cases we have a non ordinary fire, either because there is something magical or a very flammable material. In the last two instances, something has been freed into the air by the burning.

I wonder what kind of writing there was in the book. Were there runes of Valyrian glyphs? Are runes and Valyrian glyphs very different? (Were the runes on the horn of Joramun really runes, rather than glyphs?) In any case, one feels a parallel between the destruction of the horn and the destruction of the book.

Leather is not very flammable. So the leather of the book, which went in smoke before the pages did, was made of some extraordinary material.

But what book could it possibly be?

Here is an earlier scene (still the same day).

She spent the next few hours tending to the lord’s chambers. She swept out the old rushes and scattered fresh sweet-smelling ones, laid a fresh fire in the hearth, changed the linens and fluffed the featherbed, emptied the chamber pots down the privy shaft and scrubbed them out, carried an armload of soiled clothing to the washerwomen, and brought up a bowl of crisp autumn pears from the kitchen. When she was done with the bedchamber, she went down half a flight of stairs to do the same in the great solar, a spare drafty room as large as the halls of many a smaller castle. The candles were down to stubs, so Arya changed them out. Under the windows was a huge oaken table where the lord wrote his letters. She stacked the books, changed the candles, put the quills and inks and sealing wax in order.

Note that the candles (of the solar) have burned completely. Roose stays awake late apparently busy with writing and reading. Curious activity for a warlord. Note also the armload of soiled clothing. What did Roose study in Harrenhal? Who did he write to? It might be his correspondence with Tywin Lannister. But it seems that Roose decided to turn his coat later the same day.

The scene happened on the day Roose decided to betray the Starks. Here is a scene from still earlier the same day.

The lord’s bedchamber was crowded when she entered. Qyburn was in attendance, and dour Walton in his mail shirt and greaves, plus a dozen Freys, all brothers, half brothers, and cousins. Roose Bolton lay abed, naked. Leeches clung to the inside of his arms and legs and dotted his pallid chest, long translucent things that turned a glistening pink as they fed.

At that moment, the Freys attempt to convince Roose that the war is lost. But the news that Robb had married a Westerling would came only later that day, just after has Roose decided to go for a wolf hunt, signifying to us the betrayal of the Starks.

Let's turn to the false maester Qyburn. The necromancer is clearly part of Roose's inner circle since he attends the conversation with the Freys. He is in charge of the leeching and of tending the ravens – even if Roose's leeching habit predates the encounter with Qyburn. It might be that Roose has switched from the black leeches to the larger transparent ones after his encounter with Qyburn. It's never explained how Qyburn could have gained Roose's trust so quickly.

Here is a guess, among many possible others, to explain what happened: Qyburn had visited Harrenhal's library as soon as he got in with the Bloody Mummers. He made some findings of great interest (the book) that he passed to the new lord, Roose. Thus he gained Lord Bolton's trust and became Roose's closest advisor (do we know of any other advisor of Roose, besides, and even that is improbable, Walton Steelshanks?).

Roose rewarded Qyburn handsomely, by sending him to King's Landing as Jaime's savior, paving the way for Qyburn's rise in King's Landing, while the other Brave Companions were abandoned to a doomed occupation of Harrenhal. Qyburn did not start his career in necromancy in King's Landing. What did he do in Harrenhal? Did he join the Brave Companions to have access to Harrenhal?

There are good reasons to believe that Harrenhal holds secrets of interest for the North. Consider Old Nan's stories.

She remembered Old Nan’s stories of the castle built on fear. Harren the Black had mixed human blood in the mortar, Nan used to say,

And Harren had some familiarity with the Wall since his brother was Lord Commander of the Watch at the time. It's not clear whether the magic of the Wall had any influence on the building of Harrenhal. If it has (as suggested by the fact that it appears in old Nan's stories), the principle of its construction might be the same than for the oldest castles in the North: the Nightfort and its likely contemporary, the Dreadfort (speculation based purely on the similarity of names). In any case, Harrenhal seems linked to blood magic.

Among the former owners of Harrenhal.

[Jaime] found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls.

In the Sworn Sword, Egg describes Shiera Seastar practicing the same thing to retain her youth and beauty.

"...Did they dance with demons and practice the black arts?”
“Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven’s paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty.

Once thing has consistently struck observers of Lord Bolton: his extraordinarily ageless appearance.

Though Roose had been in battles, he bore no scars. Though well past forty, he was as yet unwrinkled, with scarce a line to tell of the passage of time. His lips were so thin that when he pressed them together they seemed to vanish altogether. There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton’s face, rage and joy looked much the same.

This is due to the leeching, at least this is what Roose tells Arya.

Frequent leechings are the secret of a long life. A man must purge himself of bad blood.

Of course leeches are primarily bloodsuckers. If any sorcery is involved in all this, including Roose's perpetual youthfulness, it's bloodmagic. Was the book read by Roose found in Harrenhal? and known to Lady Lothston as well? Was Lady Lothston imitating Shiera Shiestar? There are several hints that Qyburn knows about bloodmagic (his use of a leech on Jaime, his understanding of Maggy the Frog).

There is no subsequent indication that Roose has any knowledge in sorcery or learnt something in Harrenhal.

The castle of Harrenhal is reputed to carry a curse that will afflict whoever holds it. Indeed, the houses Strong, Lothston, Whent are extinct, it seems. Vargo Hoat, Tywin Lannister, Amory Lorch whoe have held the castle have all met horrible deaths. We have yet to see Roose suffer from Harrenhal's curse.

In many ways Harrenhal reminds me of the Nightfort.

Aside from the sinister reputation of Harrenhal, there is an amusing parallel between Arya's escape from Harrenhal and "Arya"'s escape from Winterfell. In both cases, Roose was the master of the castle. This is perhaps what the real Arya would have done in Winterfell if she had been forced to wed Ramsay.

They would be, she knew. She had stolen three horses from the stables and a map and a dagger from Roose Bolton’s own solar, and killed a guard on the postern gate, slitting his throat when he knelt to pick up the worn iron coin that Jaqen H’ghar had given her. Someone would find him lying dead in his own blood, and then the hue and cry would go up. They would wake Lord Bolton and search Harrenhal from crenel to cellar, and when they did they would find the map and the dagger missing, along with some swords from the armory, bread and cheese from the kitchens, a baker boy, a ‘prentice smith, and a cupbearer called Nan... or Weasel, or Arry, depending on who you asked.
The Lord of the Dreadfort would not come after them himself. Roose Bolton would stay abed, his pasty flesh dotted with leeches, giving commands in his whispery soft voice. His man Walton might lead the hunt, the one they called Steelshanks for the greaves he always wore on his long legs. Or perhaps it would be slobbery Vargo Hoat and his sellswords, who named themselves the Brave Companions. Others called them Bloody Mummers (though never to their faces), and sometimes the Footmen, for Lord Vargo’s habit of cutting off the hands and feet of men who displeased him.
If they catch us, he’ll cut off our hands and feet, Arya thought, and then Roose Bolton will peel the skin off us. She was still dressed in her page’s garb, and on the breast over her heart was sewn Lord Bolton’s sigil, the flayed man of the Dreadfort.

The questions Arya asks herself are certainly mirrored in Theon and "Arya"'s mind after they escape. Should we take it as foreshadowing: Roose does not lead the hunt in Winterfell. Note that Ramsay would threaten to cut "Arya"'s foot as well to prevent her to run away.

Harrenhal has been the theatre of several unlikely associations (Arya and Jaqen, Arya and Roose, Vargo and Roose, Brienne and Jaime, Jaime and Roose). Let's look more closely at Qyburn.

Since Roose put Maester Tothmure to death upon his arrival in the castle, it's likely that he had a plan for getting another maester. The conquest of Harrenhal is a ploy played with the Brave Companions. So Roose knew that Qyburn was inside the castle before he conquered it, and he planned all along to take the false maester in his service. However, Qyburn soon became a close counsellor of Roose – perhaps the only one in truth.

The lord’s bedchamber was crowded when she entered. Qyburn was in attendance, and dour Walton in his mail shirt and greaves, plus a dozen Freys, all brothers, half brothers, and cousins. Roose Bolton lay abed, naked. Leeches clung to the inside of his arms and legs and dotted his pallid chest, long translucent things that turned a glistening pink as they fed. Bolton paid them no more mind than he did Arya.

Qyburn is in charge of the ravens, as well as of the leeches. A moment later:

“There is a letter from your lady wife.” Qyburn pulled a roll of parchment from his sleeve. Though he wore maester’s robes, there was no chain about his neck; it was whispered that he had lost it for dabbling in necromancy.
“You may read it,” Bolton said.

So Roose trusts Qyburn enough to let him read his mail (after all even Walda Frey's mail can be sensitive).

Note Qyburn reputation for dealing in the dark arts, reported by Gendry.

“Septon Utt likes little boys, Qyburn does black magic, and your friend Biter eats people.”

Qyburn knows a thing or two about bloodmagic. Indeed, he is on good terms with Marwyn the Mage. Moreover, here are a couple of conversations with Cersei.

“It may be as Your Grace suggests, though in most cases adulterating a poison only lessens its potency. It may be that the cause is . . . less natural, let us say. A spell, I think.”
Is this one as big a fool as Pycelle? “So are you telling me that the Mountain is dying of some black sorcery?”

And when Cersei mentions Maggy the frog.

“The smallfolk used to call her Maggy.”
“Maegi?”
“Is that how you say it? The woman would suck a drop of blood from your finger, and tell you what your morrows held.” “Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.”

In Harrenhal, Qyburn collects some blood from Jaime with a leech.

“I’ll grind some herbs you can mix with wine to bring down your fever. Come back on the
morrow and I’ll put a leech on your eye to drain the bad blood.” “A leech. Lovely.”
“Lord Bolton is very fond of leeches,” Qyburn said primly. “Yes,” said Jaime. “He would be.”

This particular wound seems benign, and would not heal particularly well. So I suspect that collecting Jaime's blood was the real goal of the intervention. Note also that Qyburn has given a beverage to Jaime the night before his fever dream. We can suppose that Qyburn could have practiced his sorcery on Roose through the leeches, or that he has kept the leeches after the bleeding.

Finally, Roose treated Qyburn handsomely, by sending him to King's Landing with Jaime, all the while Vargo Hoat and the Brave Companions were left to die in Harrenhal.

We don't know what is Qyburn endgame. Evidently, he is manipulative of Cersei, but to what end? We have no sign that Qyburn has manipulated Roose, or played any active role in the betrayal of the Starks. Nothing seems to show that Roose and Qyburn were more than simply allies of circumstances. I can't help wondering whether Qyburn is still communicating with Roose. Indeed there is this little line from Lady Dustin during the Winterfell wedding feast.

Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks.

It seems clear that Lady Dustin and Roose are close allies and that her information might come from Roose. In turn, Qyburn would be perfectly placed to estimate that The Lannisters are a spent force.

Qyburn offers an opinion in Cersei's small council on the appropriate course to follow in the north.

“A little spittle on Lord Walder’s tomb is not like to disturb the grave worms,” Qyburn agreed, “but it would also be useful if someone were to be punished for the Red Wedding. A few Frey heads would do much to mollify the north.”

It is not known whether Roose and Qyburn have kept in touch. If they have it is tempting to ask what is Roose's contribution to this opinion? In any case, it is likely to be a good insight into Roose's thinking as well.

It's a common superstition to believe that Harrenhal is cursed: anyone who holds the castle is bound to meet a terrible fate. The story started with Harren the Black, burned in his tower shortly after the completion of the fortress. Then, no house seemed to have held the castle for long: House Strong, House Lothston, House Whent. Then Tywin Lannister, murdered by his son. Then Amory Lorch, devoured by a bear in a strange Qohorik ritual which recalls the dancing bears of the neighoring city, Norvos. Then Roose Bolton. Then Vargo Hoat, made to eat himself. Then Gregor Clegane poisoned and agonizing over monthes in the depth of the Red Keep. There is no sign of the curse yet on Roose, unless that is what caused him to tell Theon.

 I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House.

Harrenhal seems to make women barren, which might be why so t All Whent women, except Catelyn Stark's mother, seem to have been barren. And pretty Pia, despite numerous rapes, never got pregant.

Let's recapitulate Roose's strange practices:

• all his trueborn sons are dead,
• he gets leeched for long life,
• he appears ageless,
• he got acquainted easily with a noted practionner of black magic,
• he reads and burns arcane books,
• he commited deliberately the act of kingslaying.

Does this explain Roose's strange indifference to political matters expressed to Theon?

“The north. The Starks were done and doomed the night that you took Winterfell.” He waved a pale hand, dismissive. “All this is only squabbling over spoils.”

I am left to wonder whether Roose has not played with fire (or rather ice), and blood magic. The laws of retribution are unclear with magic, but it seems that practitionners have to pay a price.

11. The Kingslayer

Roose, usually so prudent, seems to have come in person to the wedding to kill the king in the north with his own hand in the middle of the fighting.

A man in dark armor and a pale pink cloak spotted with blood stepped up to Robb. “Jaime Lannister sends his regards.” He thrust his longsword through her son’s heart, and twisted.

That makes of Roose a Kingslayer – hence the mention of Jaime Lannister, I suppose. The gravity of the Kingslayer appellation is unclear in the books. It's possible that kings were once sacrificed in Westeros, perhaps given to the heart trees and the Kingslayer was perhaps the priest in charge of such sacrifices. Or perhaps, a new king could claim the throne after slaying the previous king from his own hand. This is all hypothetical, and I find little support in the text, except perhaps the importance of kingsblood for certain spells of blood magic. (And perhaps the way Mance earned the title of king-beyond-the-Wall, after defeating all the other pretenders. We are left to think a new king could rise by defeating Mance.)

Why did Roose want to endorse the responsability of kingslaying? It seems an act of pride. Before the Red Wedding, we heard the justifications of another kingslayer over many chapters.

Jaime Lannisters thinks himself misunderstood, as an oathbreaker.

“You’ve harmed others. Those you were sworn to protect. The weak, the innocent...”
“... the king?” It always came back to Aerys. “Don’t presume to judge what you do not understand, wench.”
“My name is -”
“ - Brienne, yes. Has anyone ever told you that you’re as tedious as you are ugly?”
“You will not provoke me to anger, Kingslayer.”
“Oh, I might, if I cared enough to try.”
“Why did you take the oath?” she demanded. “Why don the white cloak if you meant to betray
all it stood for?”
Why? What could he say that she might possibly understand? “I was a boy. Fifteen. It was a great honor for one so young.”

Don’t presume to judge what you do not understand, wench. That might be self-serving. Since Brienne is unjustly accused of kingslaying, an interesting dialogue ensues.

Brienne was still awaiting his answer. Jaime said, “You are not old enough to have known Aerys Targaryen...”
She would not hear it. “Aerys was mad and cruel, no one has ever denied that. He was still king, crowned and anointed. And you had sworn to protect him.”
“I know what I swore.”
“And what you did.” She loomed above him, six feet of freckled, frowning, horse-toothed disappr oval.
“Yes, and what you did as well. We’re both kingslayers here, if what I’ve heard is true.”
“I never harmed Renly. I’ll kill the man who says I did.”
“Best start with Cleos, then. And you’ll have a deal of killing to do after that, the way he tells the tale.”
“Lies. Lady Catelyn was there when His Grace was murdered, she saw. There was a shadow.
The candles guttered and the air grew cold, and there was blood -”
“Oh, very good.” Jaime laughed. “Your wits are quicker than mine, I confess it. When they found me standing over my dead king, I never thought to say, ‘No, no, it wasn’t me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow. “‘ He laughed again. “Tell me true, one kingslayer to another did the Starks pay you to slit his throat, or was it Stannis? Had Renly spurned you, was that the way of it? Or perhaps your moon’s blood was on you. Never give a wench a sword when she’s bleeding.”

Jaime has taken care to wear a golden armor, perhaps like a true Lannister, just like Roose took the care to wear the arms of his own house.

But when he closed his eyes, it was Aerys Targaryen he saw, pacing alone in his throne room, picking at his scabbed and bleeding hands. The fool was always cutting himself on the blades and barbs of the Iron Throne. Jaime had slipped in through the king’s door, clad in his golden armor, sword in hand. The golden armor, not the white, but no one ever remembers that. Would that I had taken off that damned cloak as well.

Next we have the ironic mention of the Stark judgment after the kingslaying.

Then he climbed the Iron Throne and seated himself with his sword across his knees, to see who would come to claim the kingdom. As it happened, it had been Eddard Stark.
You had no right to judge me either, Stark.

Jaime insists that he is misunderstood.

“The Kingslayer, yes. The oathbreaker who murdered poor sad Aerys Targaryen.” Jaime snorted. “It’s not Aerys I rue, it’s Robert. ‘I hear they’ve named you Kingslayer’ he said to me at his coronation feast. ‘Just don’t think to make it a habit.’ And he laughed. Why is it that no one names Robert oathbreaker? He tore the realm apart, yet I am the one with shit for honor.”
“Robert did all he did for love.” Water ran down Brienne’s legs and pooled beneath her feet.
“Robert did all he did for pride, a cunt, and a pretty face.” He made a fist... or would have, if he’d had a hand. Pain lanced up his arm, cruel as laughter.

Finally, Jaime explains that the kingslaying prevented a mass murder.

“My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father’s son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could watch me, day and night. So I heard it all.” He remembered how Rossart’s eyes would shine when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed. Garigus and Belis were the same. “Rhaegar met Robert on the Trident, and you know what happened there. When the word reached court, Aerys packed the queen off to Dragonstone with Prince Viserys. Princess Elia would have gone as well, but he forbade it. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that Prince Lewyn must have betrayed Rhaegar on the Trident, but he thought he could keep Dorne loyal so long as he kept Elia and Aegon by his side. The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I’ll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him... that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.
“Ned Stark was racing south with Robert’s van, but my father’s forces reached the city first. Pycelle convinced the king that his Warden of the West had come to defend him, so he opened the gates. The one time he should have heeded Varys, and he ignored him. My father had held back from the war, brooding on all the wrongs Aerys had done him and determined that House Lannister should be on the winning side. The Trident decided him.
“It fell to me to hold the Red Keep, but I knew we were lost. I sent to Aerys asking his leave to make terms. My man came back with a royal command. ‘Bring me your father’s head, if you are no traitor.’ Aerys would have no yielding. Lord Rossart was with him, my messenger said. I knew what that meant.
“When I came on Rossart, he was dressed as a common man-at-arms, hurrying to a postern gate. I slew him first. Then I slew Aerys, before he could find someone else to carry his message to the pyromancers. Days later, I hunted down the others and slew them as well. Belis offered me gold, and Garigus wept for mercy. Well, a sword’s more merciful than fire, but I don’t think Garigus much appreciated the kindness I showed him.”
The water had grown cool. When Jaime opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the stump of his sword hand. The hand that made me Kingslayer. The goat had robbed him of his glory and his shame, both at once. Leaving what? Who am I now?
The wench looked ridiculous, clutching her towel to her meager teats with her thick white legs sticking out beneath. “Has my tale turned you speechless? Come, curse me or kiss me or call me a liar. Something.”
“If this is true, how is it no one knows?”
“The knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to keep the king’s secrets. Would you have me break my oath?” Jaime laughed. “Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man. He only had to look at me to judge me guilty.” Jaime lurched to his feet, the water running cold down his chest. “By what right does the wolf judge the lion? By what right?” A violent shiver took him, and he smashed his stump against the rim of the tub as he tried to climb out.

Each of us can form an opinion on the real motivations of Jaime Lannister. Certainly, a range of interpretation remains. Jaime and Roose Bolton are put in parallel in the chapters that led to the Red Wedding. Without any claim of moral equivalence between the two characters, the organisation of the story is an invitation to have a second look at Roose Bolton. Didn't we hear that Jaime felt misunderstood? It is worth thinking that Roose felt that the kingslaying was justified by the greater good.

Here are Roose and Qyburn on the day, perhaps on the moment, Roose decided to betray the Starks.

“It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling.” Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. “It’s said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold.”
“Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.”
Bolton showed his teeth in something that might have been a smile. “Are these times so terrible, Maester?”
“Summer is gone and there are four kings in the realm.”
“One king may be terrible, but four?”

It's an enigmatic piece of dialogue, that follows the Freys' attempt to persuade Roose to stop the war. But it precedes the news of the Westerling marriage. It could be understood in one way: Roose Bolton's treason is not to be understood in terms of the inevitable defeat in the war, but in terms of the danger of the rule of the Young Wolf and his direwolf. It’s said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold. The packs of direwolves appear to be curses on the land, from which the realm should be preserved. So Roose felt the need to put a halt to Robb Stark's reign. Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord. (I shall add that I might perceive why Roose realizes the danger in Harrenhal, but that would take us to far too explain.)

Roose Bolton has no friend, no confident like Brienne was to Jaime. How will we ever know about the workings of his mind and conscience?

12. The Washerwoman of the Weepwater Mill

The story of Ramsay's birth can be of no significance or be one the most profound story in the whole saga.

Here is Roose's account to Theon.

“Has my bastard ever told you how I got him?”
That he did know, to his relief. “Yes, my ... m’lord. You met his mother whilst out riding and were smitten by her beauty.”
“Smitten?” Bolton laughed. “Did he use that word? Why, the boy has a singer’s soul ... though if you believe that song, you may well be dimmer than the first Reek. Even the riding part is wrong. I was hunting a fox along the Weeping Water when I chanced upon a mill and saw a young woman washing clothes in the stream. The old miller had gotten himself a new young wife, a girl not half his age. She was a tall, willowy creature, very healthy-looking. Long legs and small firm breasts, like two ripe plums. Pretty, in a common sort of way. The moment that I set eyes on her I wanted her. Such was my due. The maesters will tell you that King Jaehaerys abolished the lord’s right to the first night to appease his shrewish queen, but where the old gods rule, old customs linger. The Umbers keep the first night too, deny it as they may. Certain of the mountain clans as well, and on Skagos ... well, only heart trees ever see half of what they do on Skagos.
“This miller’s marriage had been performed without my leave or knowledge. The man had cheated me. So I had him hanged, and claimed my rights beneath the tree where he was swaying. If truth be told, the wench was hardly worth the rope. The fox escaped as well, and on our way back to the Dreadfort my favorite courser came up lame, so all in all it was a dismal day.
“A year later this same wench had the impudence to turn up at the Dreadfort with a squalling, red-faced monster that she claimed was my own get. I should’ve had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well ... but the babe did have my eyes. She told me that when her dead husband’s brother saw those eyes, he beat her bloody and drove her from the mill. That annoyed me, so I gave her the mill and had the brother’s tongue cut out, to make certain he did not go running to Winterfell with tales that might disturb Lord Rickard. Each year I sent the woman some piglets and chickens and a bag of stars, on the understanding that she was never to tell the boy who had fathered him. A peaceful land, a quiet people, that has always been my rule.”
“A fine rule, m’lord.”
“The woman disobeyed me, though. You see what Ramsay is. She made him, her and Reek, always whispering in his ear about his rights. He should have been content to grind corn. Does he truly think that he can ever rule the north?”

Roose has said a moment before about the first Reek.

No one could stand to be near him, so he slept with the pigs ... until the day that Ramsay’s mother appeared at my gates to demand that I provide a servant for my bastard, who was growing up wild and unruly. I gave her Reek. It was meant to be amusing, but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do wonder, though ... was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?”

and later, Roose answers Theon.

“He fights for you,” Reek blurted out. “He’s strong.”
“Bulls are strong. Bears. I have seen my bastard fight. He is not entirely to blame. Reek was his tutor, the first Reek, and Reek was never trained at arms. Ramsay is ferocious, I will grant you, but he swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat.”

So the story if full of contradictions and confusions.

First, it would seem that Ramsay would tell the story differently (according to his mother, I would guess). Ramsay has the riding part right, since Roose is on horse. It seems to me that he is right to say Roose was smitten: The moment that I set eyes on her I wanted her, and see the description of the woman. We will see below how Roose's emotions are expressed by his eyes. That is all the more surprising that when Roose had to make his choice between Fat Walda and Fair Walda for a spouse, he was completely impervious to the charms and attractiveness of Fair Walda.

Roose seems in denial about his own feelings towards the woman. Indeed, when she shows up a year later with the baby, he yields to her, and offers her support, despite what seems to be his personal policy of throwing bastards at the bottom of wells. He expects silence from her, but does not punish her when she reveals Ramsay as his bastard. He reinstalls her at the mill, after she has been thrown out and hit by her brother-in-law, whose tongue is cut to keep him quiet. Roose gives Ramsay a servant, when she makes the demand (neither Ramsay, nor the woman seems unhappy with Reek). More extraordinary even, let's return to Domeric's story.

He wanted a brother by his side, so he rode up the Weeping Water to seek my bastard out. I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father.

We know that Ramsay was still living with his mother at the time, and

Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison.

We will return to the death of Domeric. But, it defies belief that Roose accepted to have his trueborn son killed by Ramsay. After this, Ramsay was admitted at the Dreadfort.

That Domeric rode up the Weepwater seems to have been a transgression, as if the miller's wife territory were forbidden to him. In any case, Roose can not account rationally for all that happened. It appears that the woman has power over Roose. The people of the Seven Kingdoms form a class-conscious society. Roose is particularly aware of class differences. He always uses proper etiquette, even when he speaks of his enemies. So being wildly attracted to a lowborn woman must have been distasteful for him, hence the denial of his feelings and the internal contradiction in his treatment of Ramsay.

Note that Roose did little, if anything to educate Ramsay. Compare with Domeric, who was trained as a knight, played the harp, read histories. So Ramsay was always treated like a bastard. But Roose always sustained him and gave him power.

There might be more than denied feelings in Roose's behaviour. The miller's wife is aware of the power she has over Roose, otherwise she wouldn't have come to the Dreadfort with he baby at the risk of losing her son's life.

A few things caught my attention:

The miller's wife appeared first to Roose as a washerwoman. I am fond of legends of washerwoman who are spirits in disguise come to this world to make sinners pay for their faults. In some tales, meeting a washerwomen at night in the countryside is an omen of death.

Roose met her as he was hunting a fox. One might read the story like a fairy tale and say the fox led Roose to the mill.

The washerwoman appeared unknown to Roose. Where did she come from? Her physical appearance (tall, lean, healthy looking) makes me think of Osha and Rowan.

To conclude about the washerwoman of the Weepwater, it seems Ramsay was fond of his mother. He seems keen on saying his father was smitten by his mother's beauty. And when Roose says.

Roose seemed amused by that. “All you have I gave you. You would do well to remember that, bastard. As for this ... Reek ... if you have not ruined him beyond redemption, he may yet be of some use to us. Get the keys and remove those chains from him, before you make me rue the day I raped your mother.”
Reek saw the way Ramsay’s mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. He feared he might leap the table with his dagger in his hand.

Ramsay barely contains his anger. Ramsay usually speaks of his father with respect if not adoration. For instance, he says of Reek.

Reek has been with me since I was a boy. My lord father gave him to me as a token of his love.

As a proof of fatherly love, giving Reek as a servant left to be desired.

After Ramsay got admitted at the Dreadfort, we have no sign of the washerwoman. There is no hint that she was behind the request for legitimation formulated by Roose to the Lannisters.

Here is Ramsay's description:

Ramsay was clad in black and pink—black boots, black belt and scabbard, black leather jerkin over a pink velvet doublet slashed with dark red satin. In his right ear gleamed a garnet cut in the shape of a drop of blood. Yet for all the splendor of his garb, he remained an ugly man, big-boned and slope-shouldered, with a fleshiness to him that suggested that in later life he would run to fat. His skin was pink and blotchy, his nose broad, his mouth small, his hair long and dark and dry. His lips were wide and meaty, but the thing men noticed first about him were his eyes. He had his lord father’s eyes—small, close-set, queerly pale.

And now Roose:

The Lord of the Dreadfort did not have a strong likeness to his bastard son. His face was clean-shaved, smooth-skinned, ordinary, not handsome but not quite plain. Though Roose had been in battles, he bore no scars. Though well past forty, he was as yet unwrinkled, with scarce a line to tell of the passage of time. His lips were so thin that when he pressed them together they seemed to vanish altogether. There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton’s face, rage and joy looked much the same. All he and Ramsay had in common were their eyes.

No resemblance except for the eyes, finally Ramsay's mother.

She was a tall, willowy creature, very healthy-looking. Long legs and small firm breasts, like two ripe plums. Pretty, in a common sort of way.

No resemblance either.

It's tempting to see Ramsay as a changeling or, more prosaically, a switched baby. A baby who happened to have the rare pale blue eyes was put in Ramsay's place. Depending on the woman true nature (a wood witch, a spirit, etc) there could be something not quite natural going on.

I find instructive to compare the washerwoman to Gilly. Like the washerwoman, Gilly depended entirely on the power she had over Sam to escape Craster's keep and save the life of her baby, and later survive at the Wall. It's striking that Sam felt compelled to help Gilly as soon as he set his eyes on her. Indeed, Sam helped Gilly and arranged for her to meet Jon Snow as soon as the first night at Craster's keep, all in defiance of Mormont's order.

Gilly's strategy of seeking Sam's help proved to be an extraordinary success. Sam did escape with her, he saved her son, he intended to find a place for her in his family, and even to present his son as his bastard – leaving the son some small chance to inherit Horn Hill eventually. I do not claim that Gilly was deliberately manipulative, but, at some level, she was. No need to invoke anything non-natural, of course. But, we are led to suspect that Gilly's son will play a certain role in the future.  Since he has taken the place of the "little prince" son of the King-beyond-the-Wall, he is, in effect, a changeling.

Since we see Sam and Gilly as victims and sympathetic characters, it is easy to overlook how unnatural is their relationship, however touching we may find it. It's true that many rangers take wildling women as mistresses. But the process might follow the same pattern over and over. I will stop here about Gilly, but we will return to the resemblance between Ramsay and Craster's son. But there seems to be something about wildling women: they are the one who transmit culture (Osha, Ygritte, the wisewoman who helped Mance all learned from their mothers, and their mothers before them).

One little story might have followed the same model. Among the infamous commanders of the Night's Watch, Benjen Stark mentions:

Lord Commander Runcel Hightower tried to bequeathe the Watch to his bastard son.

Whether the bastard was fathered in the Seven Kingdoms or (more likely) with a wildling woman beyond the Wall is not said.

Domeric's education is a indication that the Boltons were going away from the Old Ways of the north. Roose seems to have been torn all along between the old customs of the north and the new, modern Westeros that Rickard Stark seemed to be embracing with his southron ambitions.

13. The Stark Direwolves

We are going to look at the following theme.

The logic of the story of Roose accepting, more or less grudgingly, Ramsay at the Dreadfort recalls in many ways Eddard Stark accepting the direwolves as domestic animals in Winterfell.

Indeed here is Eddard's reaction to the idea of adopting the direwolves.

Father frowned. “This is only a dead animal, Jory,” he said. Yet he seemed troubled.

Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation.”
“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.
Robb resisted stubbornly. “Ser Rodrik’s red bitch whelped again last week,” he said. “It was a small litter, only two live pups. She’ll have milk enough.”
“She’ll rip them apart when they try to nurse.”
“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.” “What of it, Jon?”
“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

And finally.

“You must train them as well,” their father said. “You must train them. The kennelmaster will have nothing to do with these monsters, I promise you that. And the gods help you if you neglect them, or brutalize them, or train them badly. These are not dogs to beg for treats and slink off at a kick. A direwolf will rip a man’s arm off his shoulder as easily as a dog will kill a rat. Are you sure you want this?”

Note the use of the word monster, used for Ramsay by Roose, and by Val about Craster's son.

In both cases, we have mothers bringing babies to a high lord. In both cases the lords' first impulse is to get rid of the babies, before feeling compelled, somewhat irrationally, to accept and foster the newborns. In both cases physical peculiarities have played an important role in the acceptance: the eyes for the Bolton, the exact correspondence in terms of gender, number and color, between the pups and the children for the Starks. It might be that both Ramsay and the wolves are "gifts" from beyond the Wall, as we will see. Didn't Robett Glover say that Ramsay is a beast in human form? Isn't the bond between the Stark children and their wolves similar to the bond between Reek, the companion demanded by Ramsay's mother, and Ramsay? Consider again the passage:

...until the day that Ramsay’s mother appeared at my gates to demand that I provide a servant for my bastard, who was growing up wild and unruly. I gave her Reek. It was meant to be amusing, but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do wonder, though ... was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?


It recalls that a warg has part of his wolf in him – and conversely. I am not considering warging between Ramsay and Reek at this point, just a bond. Whether Ramsay is a warg remains to be seen. His habit of naming his female pups after his victims recall the second life of wargs, though. Reek and Ramsay would hunt together, just like a warg and his wolf would, I suppose. I wonder if the companion expected for Ramsay wasn't Domeric, and Roose tried to deflect the "gift" by offering Reek.

14. The Death of Domeric

The way Roose describes the death of Domeric, and his subsequent reaction concentrates very well Roose's contradictions in his relation to Ramsay.

Domeric appears to be remembered with fondness by Roose. Here are the circumstances of his death. Roose says:

Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison.

A few things can be noted:

1) It appears that Roose is the one that accuses Ramsay.
2) Poison is not a likely assassination method for Ramsay.
3) Maester are trained in using poison, and Maester Uthor did not detect it. Therefore the poison would have to be elaborate. There is an elaborate poison that seems to fit.

This is a crueler poison, but tasteless and odorless, hence easier to hide. The tears of Lys, men call it. Dissolved in wine or water, it eats at a man’s bowels and belly, and kills as a sickness of those parts.

It seems unlikely that Ramsay could have put his hands on such a poison while he was still at the mill. The existing poisons have been listed carefully in the books, and they are known to maesters. So if he poisoned Domeric, it would seem that Ramsay had a better knowledge than maester Uthor about poisons.

Whatever the reality behind Domeric's death, if Rooses wanted to absolve his bastard, he would just have to nod at the maester's pronouncement.

Let's look more precisely at Roose's accusations.

Roose did advertise that Ramsay killed Domeric in a few other occasions, never directly in public, since there is the taboo of kinslaying. Here is what Roose wrote at the news of Ramsay's death.

Ned had always been fiercely protective of Jon, and Ser Cortnay Penrose had given up his life for this Edric Storm, yet Roose Bolton’s bastard had meant less to him than one of his dogs, to judge from the tone of the queer cold letter Edmure had gotten from him not three days past.
He had crossed the Trident and was marching on Harrenhal as commanded, he wrote. “A strong castle, and well garrisoned, but His Grace shall have it, if I must kill every living soul within to make it so.” He hoped His Grace would weigh that against the crimes of his bastard son, whom Ser Rodrik Cassel had put to death. “A fate he no doubt earned,” Bolton had written. “Tainted blood is ever treacherous, and Ramsay’s nature was sly, greedy, and cruel. I count myself well rid of him. The trueborn sons my young wife has promised me would never have been safe while he lived.”

The last sentence would appear to accuse Ramsay of Domeric's death. Roose's reaction to Ramsay's death betrays no grief. Recently deceased people are usually talked about in the best possible terms, sincerely or not. Here Roose feels the need to insist on the kinslaying potential of Ramsay, as if he wanted to accuse Ramsay. Walda Frey writes to Roose:

I pray for you morn, noon, and night, my sweet lord,” she wrote, “and count the days until you share my bed again. Return to me soon, and I will give you many trueborn sons to take the place of your dear Domeric and rule the Dreadfort after you.

And later, there is a conversation between Catelyn and the whole northern nobility:

“Your bastard was accused of grievous crimes,” Catelyn reminded him sharply. “Of murder, rape, and worse.”

“Yes,” Roose Bolton said. “His blood is tainted, that cannot be denied. Yet he is a good fighter, as cunning as he is fearless. When the ironmen cut down Ser Rodrik, and Leobald Tallhart soon after, it fell to Ramsay to lead the battle, and he did. He swears that he shall not sheathe his sword so long as a single Greyjoy remains in the north. Perhaps such service might atone in some small measure for whatever crimes his bastard blood has led him to commit.” He shrugged. “Or not. When the war is done, His Grace must weigh and judge. By then I hope to have a trueborn son by Lady Walda.”

Catelyn appears to allude to Domeric's death. What is worse than murder and rape, if not kinslaying? Certainly it was known from Maester Luwin's letters that Ramsay had wed and killed Lady Hornwood, but that doesn't appear to constitute kinslaying, or anything worse than murder. I suppose that Roose would at least appear to dispute that Ramsay had killed Lady Hornwood, since it all happened far away, in the confusion of war etc. Since Roose acquiesces, Catelyn has to refer to Domeric's death.

So Roose has accused Ramsay of Domeric's murder, while it was completely in his power to absolve his bastard.

That raises the question of whether Roose himself killed Domeric. There is no apparent mobile for that. I can see two possibilities:

Roose has several sons who died in the grave, presumably from his second wife, Bethany Ryswell. Were they killed deliberately for a dark reason? Note that the bones of the sons, as well as the bones of Domeric are below the Dreadfort.

We saw that Ramsay's mother has power over Roose. Domeric was in Ramsay's path to power. Did she command Roose to have Domeric put to death? By having Roose kill Domeric, Ramsay is innocent of the kinslaying sin.

In any case, there is a political benefit for Roose to paint his son as a monster (no crime is worse than kinslaying in Westeros). Indeed, Roose has the option of sacrificing Ramsay to retain his power in the north. He can put on him the blame for many crimes: Lady Hornwood's murder, and the betrayal of the Cerwyns and Tallharts before the Sack of Winterfell. Thus he could retain the loyalty of those houses by getting rid of Ramsay, and let Ramsay bear all the blame for the Sack of Winterfell.

It would remain to explain Roose's fatalism.

“My lord has a new wife to give him sons.”
“And won’t my bastard love that? Lady Walda is a Frey, and she has a fertile feel to her. I have become oddly fond of my fat little wife. The two before her never made a sound in bed, but this one squeals and shudders. I find that quite endearing. If she pops out sons the way she pops in tarts, the Dreadfort will soon be overrun with Boltons. Ramsay will kill them all, of course. That’s for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House. Walda will grieve to see them die, though.”

Of course, Roose could prevent his future sons to be killed by Ramsay. What is the meaning of this? Is Roose still under the power of Ramsay's mother, and therefore resigned to see Ramsay receive the inheritance? Is Roose addressing a message to Ramsay through Theon?

Roose advertises Ramsay's cruelty and paint him deliberately as a kinslayer. Roose surely realizes the consequences of this. That accuses Ramsay of having murdered Barbrey Ryswell's beloved nephew. Moreover, the Freys, especially Fat Walda, must be awfully worried. I wonder whether this is not the principal reason of the large Frey army present at Winterfell: defend Fat Walda, intended by old Walder Frey to be the lady wife of the Warden of the north, or perhaps the queen of the north.

In the logic of the power the woman of the Weepwater Mill has over Roose, here is my guess on the reason of Domeric's death. Domeric's visit to the mill is presented by Roose as a transgression, the violation of a taboo. Moreover, Domeric stood in Ramsay's path to inheritance. Finally, the southern education of Domeric made him unacceptable as Lord of the Dreadfort.

So Domeric had to pay with his life. Ramsay's mother demanded it, and, once again, Roose had to acquiesce. That explains his fatalism with respect to his future sons with Walda, especially since Walda is not a northwoman.

15. Monster and Maidens

Just before the escape from Winterfell, Theon reflects:

In songs, the hero always saved the maiden from the monster’s castle, but life was not a song, no more than Jeyne was Arya Stark.

There is a children game called "Monsters and Maiden" played throughout ACoK and ASoS. Bran, Rickon and the Freys, play it:

After that, oddly, Rickon decided he liked the Walders. They never played lord of the crossing again, but they played other games— monsters and maidens, rats and cats, come-into-my-castle, all sorts of things.

Edric Storm, Shireen and Patchface play it as well.

When the fool saw Davos, he jerked to a sudden halt, the bells on his antlered tin helmet going ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling. Hopping from one foot to the other, he sang, “ Fool’s blood, king’s blood, blood on the maiden’s thigh, but chains for the guests and chains for the bridegroom, aye aye aye.” Shireen almost caught him then, but at the last instant he hopped over a patch of bracken and vanished among the trees. The princess was right behind him. The sight of them made Davos smile.
He had turned to cough into his gloved hand when another small shape crashed out of the hedge and bowled right into him, knocking him off his feet.
The boy went down as well, but he was up again almost at once. “What are you doing here?” he demanded as he brushed himself off. Jet- black hair fell to his collar, and his eyes were a startling blue. “You shouldn’t get in my way when I’m running.”
“No,” Davos agreed. “I shouldn’t.” Another fit of coughing seized him as he struggled to his knees.
“Are you unwell?” The boy took him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Should I summon the maester?”
Davos shook his head. “A cough. It will pass.”
The boy took him at his word. “We were playing monsters and maidens,” he explained. “I was the monster. It’s a childish game but my cousin likes it.

Arya played it as well, foreshadowing perhaps the pursuits of her impersonator by Ramsay.

She used to hide in the crypts of Winterfell when she was little, and play games of come-into-my-castle and monsters and maidens amongst the stone kings on their thrones.

Even Shae and Tyrion mentioned the game.

“You have to catch me.” Her voice came from his left. “M’lord must have played monsters and maidens when he was little.” 

It appears that the game is about a maiden trying to escape the lair of a monster. It seems that in Dragonstone, it was a three players game, with perhaps the third player as the hero who saves the maiden.

I think Ramsay is playing a version of the game for real. The clearest description of Ramsay's "amusements" comes from Wyman Manderly.

“He is a great hunter,” said Wyman Manderly, “and women are his favorite prey. He strips them naked and sets them loose in the woods. They have a half day’s start before he sets out after them with hounds and horns. From time to time some wench escapes and lives to tell the tale. Most are less fortunate. When Ramsay catches them he rapes them, flays them, feeds their corpses to his dogs, and brings their skins back to the Dreadfort as trophies. If they have given him good sport, he slits their throats before he skins them. Elsewise, t’other way around.”

It appears that the hunt follows a regular pattern. Here is Ramsay, disguised as Reek, in Winterfell.

The man laughed. “The wretch is dead.” He stepped closer. “The girl’s fault. If she had not run so far, his horse would not have lamed, and we might have been able to flee. I gave him mine when I saw the riders from the ridge. I was done with her by then, and he liked to take his turn while they were still warm. I had to pull him off her and shove my clothes into his hands—calfskin boots and velvet doublet, silver- chased swordbelt, even my sable cloak. Ride for the Dreadfort, I told him, bring all the help you can. Take my horse, he’s swifter, and here, wear the ring my father gave me, so they’ll know you came from me. He’d learned better than to question me. By the time they put that arrow through his back, I’d smeared myself with the girl’s filth and dressed in his rags. They might have hanged me anyway, but it was the only chance I saw.”

So Ramsay wears possibly his best clothes for a chase in the woods. I wonder about the significance of the ring given by Roose. Here is Theon about his escape with Kyra.

He had run before. Years ago, it seemed, when he still had some strength in him, when he had still been defiant. That time it had been Kyra with the keys. She told him she had stolen them, that she knew a postern gate that was never guarded. “Take me back to Winterfell, m’lord,” she begged, pale-faced and trembling. “I don’t know the way. I can’t escape alone. Come with me, please.” And so he had. The gaoler was dead drunk in a puddle of wine, with his breeches down around his ankles. The dungeon door was open and the postern gate had been unguarded, just as she had said. They waited for the moon to go behind a cloud, then slipped from the castle and splashed across the Weeping Water, stumbling over stones, half-frozen by the icy stream. On the far side, he had kissed her. “You’ve saved us,” he said. Fool. Fool.

It had all been a trap, a game, a jape. Lord Ramsay loved the chase and preferred to hunt two-legged prey. All night they ran through the darkling wood, but as the sun came up the sound of a distant horn came faintly through the trees, and they heard the baying of a pack of hounds. “We should split up,” he told Kyra as the dogs drew closer. “They cannot track us both.” The girl was crazed with fear, though, and refused to leave his side, even when he swore that he would raise a host of ironborn and come back for her if she should be the one they followed.

Within the hour, they were taken. One dog knocked him to the ground, and a second bit Kyra on the leg as she scrambled up a hillside. The rest surrounded them, baying and snarling, snapping at them every time they moved, holding them there until Ramsay Snow rode up with his hunts-men. He was still a bastard then, not yet a Bolton. “There you are,” he said, smiling down at them from the saddle. “You wound me, wandering off like this. Have you grown tired of my hospitality so soon?” That was when Kyra seized a stone and threw it at his head. It missed by a good foot, and Ramsay smiled. “You must be punished.”

So the hunt begins at sunrise and horns are blown (what for?).

I conclude from all this that Ramsay is not purely satisfying his sadistic urges. He follows a ritual. Since that ritual has made its way into children games, it might refer to a myth, or to legendary history.  The most obvious model I could find is in Old Nan's stories:

Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Something doesn't quite fit with the notion that Ramsay is imitating the Others. The Others hunted maids during the Long Night, but Ramsay's hunts take place at sunrise, as if Ramsay was an ally or an incarnation of the sun. (It's not said clearly that the escape happened under full moon, so I refrain from saying that Ramsay's hunt is about the sun chasing the moon.) Moreover the use of horns recall the warning practices of the Night's Watch. So I reserve my judgement concerning the real significance of the hunt.

There is an element which recall the Others. Ramsay gives the name of his dead victims to his new bitches, those bitches in turn will help making new victims. That recalls the pattern of the Others who kill by sending their wights and would turn their victims into wights. So we are left with an analogy, schematically represented by: Ramsay=Other, bitches=wights, women=humans. Even Theon, in the lowest form of Reek, is supposed to live and eat with the dogs. His identity has been destroyed and he is no more than Ramsay's creature. Ramsay even insists that all desire of autonomy is to be erased. Isn't it precisely the fate of humans turned into wights?

16. Ramsay's brilliance… and Red Helm's prescience

Ramsay's ascension to power is astounding. He started as a bastard in a mill, without any friend or support, and the crown of the north is now within his reach.

We see a few characters of low birth rise high in Westeros: Littlefinger through his exceptional intelligence and his business sense, Mance because of the respect he earns among wildlings, Davos because of his exploits as a smuggler and the trust he inspires in Stannis, Qyburn because of his arcane knowledge, Taena Merryweather via her beauty and her opportunism. But Ramsay has no exceptional disposition, and no friends.

In a world where ambition is largely bounded by birth, Ramsay's audacity has been rewarded beyond all reason.

Consider some of the key events of his ascendancy.

• The first of those is the boldness of the washerwoman coming to the Dreadfort and demanding that Roose provided support for her son. It was in spite of the knowledge that Roose's standard behavior would have been to denounce his paternity and to get rid of the baby at once.
• Later, Domeric's death led Roose to accept Ramsay at the Dreadfort, despite his professed belief that Ramsay was Domeric's murderer. If Roose really thinks that Ramsay killed Domeric, it defies belief that Ramsay has been admitted as his heir. In any case, Domeric's death has been providential for Ramsay.
• The forced wedding to Lady Hornwood and the subsequent murder should have marked Ramsay as a criminal, deserving death or the Wall. Eventually, Ramsay has been confirmed in the lordship of the Hornwood.
• The identity switch with Reek is another bold move. It was forced perhaps. But it led Ramsay providentially to Theon. 
• The alliance of "Reek" with Theon was another risky initiative. Instead of betraying Theon, liberating Winterfell, and seeking thus rehabilitation, Ramsay took the very uncertain road of siding with the ironmen.
• At Winterfell's gate, his attack on the northmen host was a military triumph despite being outnumbered three-to-one. But it should have damned Ramsay for all time to come in the eyes of the northmen.
  
• The Red Wedding and the annihilation of the Starks saved Ramsay from the return of the Young Wolf. Instead, Ramsay got legitimized by the Iron Throne. As a reward, he received the hand of "Arya" Stark and the seat of Winterfell.

It would seem Ramsay has been blessed by the old gods, or, I would suggest, by the crueler gods that some wildlings like Craster worship.

In any case, whether Providence or some invisible hand is on his side, it is tempting to compare Ramsay to the boy who poses as Aegon Targaryen sixth of the name. Their destinies are parallel in many ways. Aegon might not be the son of Rhaegar, and he might have been put into Connington's care by other powers. Those other powers seem to have arranged that "Aegon" would receive help for the conquest of the Iron Throne.

Ramsay proved prescient in one occasion. When Theon is desperate in Winterfell, Ramsay, disguised as Reek, promises help.

“Do as you say and you’ll not find me ungrateful. You can name your own reward.”
“Well, m’lord, I haven’t had no woman since I was with Lord Ramsay,” Reek said. “I’ve had my eye on that Palla, and I hear she’s already been had, so...”
He had gone too far with Reek to turn back now. “Two hundred men and she’s yours. But a man less and you can go back to fucking pigs.”

After the conquest of Winterfell, Ramsay asks for his prize.

“And now, my sweet prince, there was a woman promised me, if I brought two hundred men. Well, I brought three times as many, and no green boys nor fieldhands neither, but my father’s own garrison.”
Theon had given his word. This was not the time to flinch. Pay him his pound of flesh and deal with him later. “Harrag,” he said, “go to the kennels and bring Palla out for... ?”
“Ramsay.” There was a smile on his plump lips, but none in those pale pale eyes. “Snow, my wife called me before she ate her fingers, but I say Bolton.” His smile curdled. “So you’d offer me a kennel girl for my good service, is that the way of it?”
There was a tone in his voice Theon did not like, no more than he liked the insolent way the Dreadfort men were looking at him. “She was what was promised.”
“She smells of dogshit. I’ve had enough of bad smells, as it happens. I think I’ll have your bedwarmer instead. What do you call her? Kyra?”
“Are you mad?” Theon said angrily. “I’ll have you-”

But Ramsay would have somebody else entirely from Theon.

“Who comes?” His lips were moist, his neck red above his collar. “Who comes before the god?”
Theon answered. “Arya of House Stark comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”
“Me,” said Ramsay. “Ramsay of House Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, heir to the Dreadfort. I claim her. Who gives her?”
“Theon of House Greyjoy, who was her father’s ward.” He turned to the bride. “Lady Arya, will you take this man?”

It was probably literary foreshadowing, especially since Ramsay asks for Kyra, and nobody else. In effect a Greenseer could have foreseen the wedding in front of the Winterfell heart tree and communicated the corresponding vision through dreams. But I can't help wonder if Ramsay's mother did not tell him once : "In a dream, I saw that a Prince gave you a Stark heiress to marry in front of the heart tree in Winterfell", or something to that effect.

17. Half-human Children

If indeed there is a mythic origin in Ramsay's hunts, the wildlings seem aware of the significance. It might be that the original Reek has wildling roots. When Ramsay impersonates Reek in Winterfell he says.

“I was born up north here. I know many a man, and many a man knows Reek.”

Moreover, Reek's particular way of speaking (here it's an imitation by Ramsay) reminds me of Craster's.

“Haven’t fucked no one since they took me, m’lord. Heke’s me true name. I was in service to the Bastard o’ the Dreadfort till the Starks give him an arrow in the back for a wedding gift.”

Reek was a man-at-arm at the Dreadfort. Hence it's interesting to note how different he is from the Bastard's boys.

Damon Dance-for-Me sat greasing up his whip. “Reek,” he called. He tapped the whip against his calf as a man might do to summon his dog. “You are starting to stink again, Reek.”
Theon had no reply for that beyond a soft “Yes.”
“Lord Ramsay means to cut your lips off when all this is done,” said Damon, stroking his whip with a greasy rag.
My lips have been between his lady’s legs. That insolence cannot go un-punished. “As you say.” Luton guffawed. “I think he wants it.”
“Go away, Reek,” Skinner said. “The smell of you turns my stomach.”

Here is Craster.

“Had no good southron wine up here for a bear’s night. I could use me some wine, and a new axe. Mine’s lost its bite, can’t have that, I got me women to protect.”

Craster's mother was from the village of Whitetree. It's probably the place where Craster learnt to speak. Craster's speaking manners might be typical of that village. And they are not those of Craster's wives.

There seem to be some physical resemblance between Ramsay and Craster. Here is Craster's description by Jon:

He looked to be a powerful man, though well into the winter of his days now, his mane of hair grey going to white. A flat nose and a drooping mouth gave him a cruel look, and one of his ears was missing.

In Sam's eyes, Craster appears as follows:

Craster was a thick man made thicker by the ragged smelly sheepskins he wore day and night. He had a broad flat nose, a mouth that drooped to one side, and a missing ear. And though his matted hair and tangled beard might be grey going white, his hard knuckly hands still looked strong enough to hurt.

The broad flat nose and the thickness seem to correspond to Ramsay described as follows above: Yet for all the splendor of his garb, he remained an ugly man, big-boned and slope-shouldered, with a fleshiness to him that suggested that in later life he would run to fat. His skin was pink and blotchy, his nose broad, his mouth small, his hair long and dark and dry. His lips were wide and meaty, but the thing men noticed first about him were his eyes. He had his lord father’s eyes—small, close-set, queerly pale.

The story of Craster's birth is vaguely similar to Ramsay's.

“Craster’s more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t’ his Wall. She went t’ Castle Black once t’ show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster’s blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse.”

That reminds me of Robett Glover's characterization of Ramsay.

“The evil is in his blood,” said Robett Glover. “He is a bastard born of rape. A Snow, no matter what the boy king says.”
“Was ever snow so black?” asked Lord Wyman.

That echoes what Roose says of Ramsay:

“His blood is bad. He needs to be leeched. The leeches suck away the bad blood, all the rage and pain. No man can think so full of anger. Ramsay, though ... his tainted blood would poison even leeches, I fear.”

So Ramsay and Craster would seem to suffer from the same curse. There are disturbing corresponding details between them, like the fondness for pinning tongues on the wall. Craster recalls when Mance sent an envoy.

He sends a rider, tells me I must leave my own keep to come grovel at his feet. I sent the man back, but kept his tongue. It’s nailed to that wall there.”

Ramsay tells Theon during his wedding night.

Lord Ramsay said. “And be quick about it. If she’s not wet by the time I’m done disrobing, I will cut off that tongue of yours and nail it to the wall.”

They both lack empathy and even patience for wounded, dying people. Here is Craster.

“That one’s dead.” Craster eyed the man with indifference as he worried at a sausage. “Be kinder to stick a knife in his chest than that spoon down his throat, you ask me.”

And now Ramsay in Winterfell.

A dozen more were wounded and one of the Bastard’s Boys, Luton, was dying noisily, crying for his mother as he tried to shove a fistful of slimy entrails back through a gaping belly wound. Lord Ramsay silenced him, yanking a spear from one of Steelshanks’s men and driving it down through Luton’s chest.

We have seen already the analogy between Ramsay's mother and Gilly. Both Ramsay, as a baby, and Gilly's son are compared to monsters. Roose recalls Ramsay as squalling red monster. Val calls Gilly's son, a particularly noisy baby, Monster. The term monster is not a cute nickname in the north, especially for the wildlings. Recall what Ygritte said of children born of incest.

Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters.

It's not a playful modern word. It has a sinister meaning. Gilly's son is extraordinarily noisy. Indeed Selyse says of Dalla, as she is unaware of the baby exchange:

“—mother to that squalling babe who keeps us awake at night.

So there is a sort of analogy between Ramsay and Craster. Both can't accept to be called bastard. In fact the name-calling precipitated the bloodbath at Craster's Keep.

“Bloody bastard!” Sam heard one of the Garths curse. He never saw which one.
“Who calls me bastard?” Craster roared, sweeping platter and meat and wine cups from the table with his left hand while lifting the axe with his right.
“It’s no more than all men know,” Karl answered.

So far, we have just analogies between Ramsay and Craster – no proof.

However, one wonders what do Craster's sons become after having been given to the Others. We have seen that Ramsay doesn't look like Roose. There is the suspicion that Roose's hand has been forced somehow to accept Ramsay as his son. Does the legend reported by Old Nan at the very first page of the first chapter of the book find an echo in Ramsay?

And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.

Half-human creatures do exist: the Targaryens have the blood of the dragons, the Umbers and Hodor seem partly giant, the Ghost of High Heart seems partly Child of the Forest, the Reeds are suspect as well, Lord Godric has the mark of the Borells... To return to the Others, Jon Snow recalls the story at Craster's Keep.

“At Winterfell one of the serving women told us stories,” Jon went on. “She used to say that there were wildlings who would lay with the Others to birth half-human children.”
“Hearth tales. Does Craster seem less than human to you?” In half a hundred ways. “He gives his sons to the wood.”
A long silence. Then: “Yes.” And “Yes,” the raven muttered, strutting. “Yes, yes, yes.” “You knew?”
“Smallwood told me. Long ago. All the rangers know, though few will talk of it.”
“Did my uncle know?”
“All the rangers,” Mormont repeated. “You think I ought to stop him. Kill him if need be.” The Old Bear sighed. “Were it only that he wished to rid himself of some mouths, I’d gladly send Yoren or Conwys to collect the boys. We could raise them to the black and the Watch would be that much the stronger. But the wildlings serve crueler gods than you or I. These boys are Craster’s offerings. His prayers, if you will.”

Since the Others are ice creatures, with a strange material existence (they do not leave traces on the snow, they liquify when hit by dragonglass) it might not be reasonable that they beget children in natural biological way. Are the half-human creatures the product of some sorcery, or some manipulation? Is the impregnation purely at a spiritual level?

We have been waiting for the Others to arrive since the beginning of the story. We have been led to think that they will come as a sort of alien army in the cold night commanding dead servants. I am tempted to think that the story of their arrival might be different. If the Others are so important to the story, I suspect they will come through a human channel.

Are the snowmen built over the walls of Winterfell an omen of their unseen influence?

Sentries crowded into the guard turrets to warm half-frozen hands over glowing braziers, leaving the wallwalks to the snowy sentinels the squires had thrown up, who grew larger and stranger every night as wind and weather worked their will upon them.

The chief architect of the army of snowmen is Ramsay's squire.

He might have taken the guards for a pair of Little Walder’s snowmen if he had not seen the white plumes of their breath.

Seen from the moral point of view, Ramsay is hardly human. He seems pathologically devoid of empathy. Contrast with the remorse felt by Theon after his crimes in Winterfell. Ramsay murdered children in cold blood, he inflicts suffering whenever he can, he has no grief over the death of his best friend Reek. We see him having feelings only for his mother.

His sense of smell is wrong: he enjoyed the company of the foul smelling Reek, as Roose explains to Theon.

“I knew the first Reek. He stank, though not for want of washing. I have never known a cleaner creature, truth be told. He bathed thrice a day and wore flowers in his hair as if he were a maiden. Once, when my second wife was still alive, he was caught stealing scent from her bedchamber. I had him whipped for that, a dozen lashes. Even his blood smelled wrong. The next year he tried it again. This time he drank the perfume and almost died of it. It made no matter. The smell was something he was born with. A curse, the smallfolk said. The gods had made him stink so that men would know his soul was rotting. My old maester insisted it was a sign of sickness, yet the boy was otherwise as strong as a young bull. No one could stand to be near him, so he slept with the pigs ... until the day that Ramsay’s mother appeared at my gates to demand that I provide a servant for my bastard, who was growing up wild and unruly. I gave her Reek. It was meant to be amusing, but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do wonder, though ... was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?”

Before we return to the Ramsay's sense of smell: there is a corrupting influence of Ramsay. We see it on Little Walder, on the Bastard's boys. Arnolf Karstark has allied himself with Ramsay, and his son Cregan seems now to emulate Ramsay.

Cregan Karstark had turned up a day behind his niece. With him came four mounted men-at-arms, a huntsman, and a pack of dogs, sniffing after Lady Alys as if she were a deer.

Especially we saw Ramsay's influence on Theon, since Ramsay inspired the worst crime in Winterfell. Ramsay was both the inspirator and the punisher of Theon – a double role traditionally ascribed to the Devil himself.

He never wanted to do any harm to Bran or Rickon.  Reek made him kill those boys, not him Reek but the other one.

There is one other sign of the Others' corrupting moral influence that I can see: it is the depravity of Craster's Keep.

His bride's natural smell is repulsive to Ramsay to the point that he needs to have her bath before he touches her. The only other women he seems to be willing to put his hands on are those he has hunted and raped. And the sense of smell is very much related to the moral sense (as psychologists among others have noted, the word disgust has a moral meaning), as we can see in the story of Reek with his rotting soul.

The hunts, the symbolic transformation of his victims into pets, the real and total enslavement of Theon, the various little details that recall Craster, the inhuman cruelty, the tainted blood, the manifest destiny, all leave me feeling that Ramsay bears the mark of the Others.