Walder Frey

As a boy, Walder was present at Whitewalls for his sister's wedding to Lord Ambrose Butterwell. The ceremony was rushed forward after he himself caught her with a servant; the court remembered him for years afterward as the most insufferable child to ever set foot in the castle.

Decades later, when Robert's Rebellion broke out, Lord Walder took his time before marching his men to the Trident. By the time his troops arrived, the battle was already decided. His liege lord, Hoster Tully, gave him the name that would follow him for the rest of his life: the Late Lord Frey.

When war split the realm again, Walder made the same calculation: he waited before answering Edmure Tully's call on Robb Stark's behalf. This time the delay cost him nothing, because the crossing at the Twins was the only way to move an army over the Trident, and Robb needed it.

Lady Catelyn Tully rode to the Twins to negotiate in person. In exchange for passage, two of Walder's children were betrothed to Robb and to Arya Stark. Two of his grandsons went to Winterfell as wards, and one of his sons, Olyvar, entered Robb's service as a squire.

Stevron Frey, Walder's eldest son and heir, died fighting for Robb Stark's cause. It was a loss that would, years later, change how people spoke of the house's loyalty.

Around the same time, Lord Roose Bolton asked for the hand of one of Walder's granddaughters. Walder had promised to pay her weight in silver as a dowry, so Roose, with that arithmetic in mind, chose the heaviest of the lot.

Word that Robb had married Jeyne Westerling, breaking the betrothal promised to one of Walder's daughters, reached the Twins like an insult. Ryman Frey, now heir to the house after Stevron's death, angrily withdrew his support for the King in the North.

Walder did more than break the alliance: he struck a deal with Roose Bolton and Tywin Lannister to be rid of the Starks and the Tullys for good. Through his son Lothar, he sent word of peace — Robb and his men would be safe if they returned to the Twins to see Edmure Tully married to Roslin Frey.

The northern army accepted and came back. During the wedding feast, Walder's men fell on the guests despite the laws of hospitality meant to protect them. King Robb Stark died that night, along with Lady Catelyn Tully and much of their bannermen and troops.

Walder swore loyalty to the Lannisters soon after. His second son, Emmon, was given Riverrun as part of the payment.

His grandson Merrett would later say that Walder had little time left, and that once he died every Frey would look only after themselves. Walder, for all his ruthlessness, still cared for his own even when they disappointed him — something he could once afford with Stevron, the son he had raised to believe blood mattered more than anything else, a belief his current heirs no longer shared.

From the Quiet Isle, the Elder Brother would claim that Lord Frey sent riders out from the Twins to hunt outlaws along the nearby roads.

Walder also sent a raven to King's Landing claiming several lands for his house. The Small Council debated the request for days. Qyburn warned that much of the city — and the realm — saw the wedding massacre as a crime against the laws of gods and men, and that the Crown could ill afford to look complicit in it.

Grand Maester Pycelle argued that Walder would never kill his own blood. Cersei Lannister disagreed: whoever inherited the Twins after him would not be so gentle, and naming an inconvenient relative guilty and executing him was always a cheap way to be rid of them.

Walder later struck a marriage pact with Lord Wyman Manderly: two of his grandsons, Rhaegar and Walder the Little, would marry Manderly's granddaughters, Wynafryd and Wylla.

When Roose Bolton marched north, Walder sent more than fourteen hundred Frey soldiers with him, under the command of two of his sons, Ser Aenys and Ser Hosteen Frey.

Over the years, gout left Walder confined to a chair, bald, toothless, with skin sagging beneath his chin; even so, he still liked to boast that he could father more children. Many of his descendants inherited the same weasel-like look, in his long face and watery eyes.

He is sharp-tongued and blunt, cautious to the point of distrust, and only commits to whichever side is already winning — which has earned him a reputation as an unreliable ally. He keeps every slight he has ever suffered in memory, and he does not forget them.

He has had eight wives and twenty-two legitimate sons and seven daughters, besides an unknown number of bastards. Many of them name their own children Walder or Walda, hoping to stay in the patriarch's good graces.