Alysanne Blackwood

Alysanne was born in 113 AC, daughter of the lord of Raventree Hall and younger sister of Samwell. As a girl she chased deer and broke colts more often than she sewed, and grew into an archer whose aim few in the house could match.

She was no delicate girl, but rough and fearless; by her own account she lost her virginity at thirteen while riding a horse. She grew tall and slender, long-legged and strong-armed, with thick black curls that fell well past her waist, and she spoke her mind bluntly. They called her Aly the Black.

She was sixteen when the Dance of the Dragons broke out, and from the start she rode with her brother and her nephew in the river lords' host. On the march she was often seen alongside Lady Sabitha Vypren, sharing a tent with her.

In 129 AC, at the Battle of the Burning Mill, Ser Amos Bracken killed Lord Samwell Blackwood in single combat. Soon after, an arrow of weirwood wood found the slit in Ser Amos's helm and drove deep into his skull.

It is said Alysanne loosed that arrow, though the tale itself admits no one knows whether it is truth or a story the family has told itself.

Alysanne fought beside her nephew, Lord Benjicot Blackwood, at the Battle of the Kingsroad on the side of Aegon III Targaryen. Her archers cut down Lord Borros Baratheon's knights while Benjicot broke the stormlander flank.

Once the war ended, Alysanne went with Benjicot to King's Landing, to the young king's court and council. There she met Lord Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, who had come to the capital to judge Aegon II's remaining supporters in what became known as the Hour of the Wolf. Cregan had been a widower for three years, and something in Alysanne's blunt courage and sharp tongue caught his attention.

Among the twenty-two prisoners Cregan took during those judgments was Lord Corlys Velaryon. His granddaughters, Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, got Aegon III to sign a pardon for him, but Cregan hesitated to honor it. Alysanne asked him to keep the pardon and promised to give him whatever he wanted in return; Cregan asked her to marry him, and she said yes. According to Mushroom, marrying Cregan had been Alysanne's plan from the moment she arrived at court.

After Aegon III married Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, more than a thousand northmen escorted Alysanne and Benjicot back to the Riverlands. Rather than let them return north as an added burden, Alysanne proposed marrying them off to the widows the war had left behind.

That was how the Widows' Fairs began, held at Raventree Hall, Riverrun, Stone Sept, the Twins, and Fairmarket. Hundreds of weddings strengthened the riverlands with northern swords and carried the worship of the Old Gods further south than it had ever reached.

Cregan and Alysanne married in 132 AC. Benjicot's party escorting her to Winterfell was delayed by foul weather and outlaws along the road, arriving having lost horses, nearly all their provisions, and every single wedding gift.

The ceremony took place before the weirwood in Winterfell's godswood. At the feast, Rickon, Cregan's four-year-old son from his first marriage, sang a song for his new stepmother. In time Alysanne gave Cregan four daughters: Sarra, Alys, Raya, and Mariah Stark.

One line survives from Cregan to Lord Cerwyn about her: 'She smells of woodsmoke, not flowers.'