Emmon Frey

Walder Frey saw through Lord Tytos Lannister's need for approval and rode to Casterly Rock ready to make the most of it. There he talked Tytos into betrothing his only daughter, Genna, to his own second son, Emmon. Tytos agreed and announced the match at a feast, to the outrage of much of the western nobility.

Lord Roger Reyne stormed out of the hall, and Lady Ellyn Reyne laughed openly at the whole affair. Tytos's son Tywin, only ten years old at the time, protested more fiercely than anyone before half the western lords, but it changed nothing: the betrothal stood. Emmon has feared Tywin ever since, long after Tywin became Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West.

Once married, Emmon settled with Genna at Casterly Rock, where the couple had four children: Cleos, Lyonel, Tion and Walder. At feasts he tended to pick at his food without much appetite while his wife jested with the household knights seated beside her.

Genna maintains that all four boys are Emmon's, and no one dares suggest otherwise — least of all Emmon himself.

Ser Emmon travelled to King's Landing to attend the Tourney of the Hand, together with five of his Frey brothers.

When war came, House Frey allied itself with the Tullys and the Starks, but Emmon sided with the Lannisters, and his elder sons fought under the command of his cousin Ser Jaime Lannister.

Two of Emmon's sons died in the fighting: Tion at the hands of Rickard Karstark and his men, and Cleos, killed by outlaws. As part of the bargain struck between Tywin Lannister and Lord Walder Frey, King Tommen granted Ser Emmon and Genna the lands and incomes of Riverrun, to pass to them once Ser Brynden Tully surrendered the castle.

As soon as they learned of the grant, Emmon and Genna set out at once for Riverrun. During the siege Emmon camped south of the Red Fork and tried to advise Ser Daven Lannister on how to conduct it, hoping to spare his new seat any damage.

He pressed constantly for Ser Ryman Frey to hang the captive Lord Edmure Tully, without success. When Ser Brynden Tully refused to yield the castle, Jaime Lannister rode from King's Landing with reinforcements to settle the siege.

Before dealing with the defenders, Jaime consulted Emmon and his aunt Genna and gave them a flattering account of how Cleos had died, claiming he had bravely scattered the outlaws who killed him; the lie pleased them both. Jaime eventually got Edmure to persuade his uncle Brynden to talk, and the siege ended without further bloodshed, though Emmon raged when Brynden slipped away with Edmure's help.

Emmon demanded Edmure's execution, but Jaime chose instead to send the disgraced Tully to Casterly Rock as a hostage. Convinced he was now Lord Paramount of the Trident, Emmon was greatly displeased to learn from Jaime that the honor actually belonged to Petyr Baelish.

Genna, who thought little of her husband as a lord, was no happier with Riverrun itself: the Tullys still throve in the male line, and she would rather have had Darry, a house extinct in its legitimate line and once held by Cleos's late wife, Jeyne Darry.

Emmon held the castle with a garrison of two hundred men, fearful that Brynden Tully would return to retake it, and produced his royal charter often, to the annoyance of Jaime, the river lords and his own Frey kin. Settled in as lord, he once lectured the castle's servants for nearly three hours, and it was around then that the singer Tom of Sevenstreams entered his service.

Emmon is a small, very thin man with a pointed head. He lost half his hair before he turned thirty, and by sixty only a few white wisps remained. Catelyn Stark believed his son Ser Cleos had inherited his father's coarse brown hair, weak chin and thin face; a pronounced Adam's apple only makes that chin look weaker still.

Jaime Lannister considers him a lout. Emmon fears his wife Genna and his brother-in-law Tywin, and generally wears the worried look of a man living with that fear. He is fond of chewing sourleaf, which leaves a pink froth on his lips.