Royce Bolton

## **Biography**

The wind cut particularly cold the night Domeric Bolton welcomed his firstborn son into the world. A fork of red lightning lit up the night as the boy gave his first cries, and some saw this is a sign of things to come. Domeric Bolton was not a strong ruler. He was friendly, kind, and, at his heart, a sensitive man. That is to say, he’d have been better served as a Septon than a high Lord. He loved his children fiercely, and yet was reticent to make decisions if they would negatively impact anyone. He did not command respect, and so in a room of loud, self-serving men his voice was drowned out. As such, House Bolton fell from the mind’s of the North as a House to be feared and became not half a joke.

At six years old, Royce Bolton began accompanying his Father to the Stark’s Court. The other sons of great houses there were unnerved by his unflinching eye, his stoney silence. Some of the older men would remark that Royce had utterly none of Domeric in him. When they would openly mock his Father, Royce would simply stare, as if burning a hole through them. Committing them to memory. Glover was among those who were relentless in their mockery. They grew, too, to stay out of his path. They thought him odd. Cursed. It only served to make House Bolton more removed from the Court.

At the Dreadfort he began to learn his letters and his numbers, he started with the sword and the bow, the lance, to ride. Everything one of high birth should come to learn, he set about at with the same cold quiet he’d adopted. He truly came alive when he was alone with his Father, in Domeric’s solar. The walls were thick, the door almost a gated portcullis from the world beyond. Royce understood from a young age that the world was cold and cruel, and a man must steel himself against it, yet in the study he could allow himself a respite. They would laugh, and attempt silly accents, and mock ridiculous names from the tomes on the history of the Kingdoms. And then he would leave the solar, and his face would turn cold once again.

In 255AA, in the War of the Wood, Royce rode alongside his Father to oversee the Bolton forces during the disagreement between the Forresters and the Whitehills. Domeric argued caution, that the Forresters should be favoured over his own vassal Whitehill. Royce, just one-and-five but wisened beyond his years, saw this as a chance to make Glover pay for his disrespect. He argued with his Father at nights, in his private tents. Domeric, never one for an extended conflict, agreed to present Royce’s plans as his own, but forbade his son from being in and about battle himself. Royce would ignore this, and being a big lad for his age, went into battle with the Bolton cavalry, leading a wedge. He was responsible, by accident of his foot catching in the stirrup before he could abandon his mount in the face of overwhelming odds, for the rallying of the joint Bolton and Whitehill cavalry that broke the Glover’s right flank and allowed their infantry to get in behind them.

This would be his lot until age seventeen. Up until then, he’d proven himself an able student. Not exceptional, but able. He enjoyed the martial aspect of his life more-so than the academic, and would often experiment with different techniques. He developed an impressive connection with his animals, often seen taking care of his mount, and when new litters of hounds sprung forth Royce would help deliver them. At the Stark’s Court, after biding his time, there occured one jape too many at his Father’s expense, and, quite calmly, Royce Bolton challenged Benjen Glover, a distant relation to the main line, to a duel.

They were of age. Glover would come at him with the bravado of one so young. Royce would not allow himself to rise to it, to let his wilder side gain control, and so they entered into the dance of steel for a long while, a crowd forming around them. Glover would tire, come time, and when he did Royce pulled off the coup-de-grace, cutting deep into the meat of the lad’s leg, the hamstring. He’d cry out in agony, he’d weep on the floor. Royce would but stand over him; and though those around would plead mercy, Royce had none. The edge of his sword would come down swift and sharp, and Benjen Glover died there, that day.

He’d never make a remark again.

Protective of his younger sister, Donella, three years his junior; when Royce discovered the miller’s boy was harassing her, he beat him so bloody they feared he’d lose half his sight. When Donella confessed that she’d given herself to him, Domeric had proposed a marriage, at which Royce had grown wroth, and promptly dismissed. At eighteen, he was becoming more the Lord of the Dreadfort than his Father, and though Domeric gave brief protests, both of them understood that it was the best thing for the House. Domeric had never truly wanted to sit at the head of House Bolton, and Royce had the fire in him to do what Domeric could not.

Royce began to head more councils, and Domeric began to attend less. It would put a rift between them, in the end. At one point, aged twenty, Royce was informed a string of settlements owed large amounts of tax and refused to pay, having grown used to Domeric Bolton’s lax attitude. Royce sent demands of recompense, to which he received no reply. Bringing together a band of one-hundred mounted knights, Royce then led the party to meet with the leaders in these villages in an attempt to resolve the situation.

The first was easily cowed; led by an ageing farmer who’d spent a few years in service to the Bolton retinue in his youth. Recognising that he was no longer dealing with Domeric, the man opened up the village stores and the tax was collected. Royce did not demand any more than they’d need to pay for the trouble of riding out. He’d be fair, in that regard. The second, this one led by a tailor who’d made his fortune for his fine work, all but spat at Royce’s feet. The villager’s, emboldened by his defiance, began pelting the small host with fruit and rocks. Royce turned his men around and returned to the rest of his men, whereupon the Captain of the Guard asked what was to be done. As night fell, when they could hear the merry-making in the village’s tavern, Royce Bolton approached with his hundred knights and set torch to thatch. Some would known no escape, others would try to run, and those that ran were rounded up and made to watch their homes burn. The tailor was hung from the branch of a linden tree, a note pinned to his corpse that warned against paying tax.

Come morning, when the rains had put out the worst of the flame, Royce allowed the villagers to run on further north, to spread the tale to the next village of what would happen should they adopt the same stance. When Royce and his company arrived, the tax awaited them, and none said a thing.

He returned to the Dreadfort with a small fortune, having also liberated the life savings of the tailor. That year they sent a larger tithe than necessary to King Torrhen X Stark, seeking to put House Bolton back on track, to rebuild the reputation that Domeric Bolton had tarnished with his soft hand. Soon after, owing to this and his part in the War of the Wood, Royce received an invitation to treat with the King himself, along with a choice selection of Northern Lords. Some were well his senior, yet most kept their distance, and when they cracked a joke he could see the fear lurking in the edge’s of their eyes. Word had spread of his heavy hand. He was not a man like his Father.

Soon after, Domeric would abdicate. He would travel across the Narrow Sea, where he would live as an artist. It had always been the life better suited to him. Royce became the Lord of the Dreadfort in truth, though nothing much changed.

As the years went on, Royce Bolton and King Torrhen came to treat together more often, not least because Donella was married to the King. An unlikely friendship flourished, and it was really the only friendship Royce would ever know, despite the men being of two different dispositions. Mostly Royce would make the trip to Winterfell, yet oftimes King Torrhen would journey to the Dreadfort. Both children, Donella’s son and Royce’s own, Roose, would be born in 268AA. Bolton would watch over his nephew from afar, seeing in him perhaps the same resolute coldness that he himself had tempered through his life. When the boy was sent to Karhold in 280AA, Royce ensured his son followed, instructing the young Roose to befriend the Stark Boy, to be by his side.

In 282AA, aged four-and-two, King Torrhen called for Royce Bolton's help in putting down the stirrings of a revolt led by a man going by the name Perwyn Brightsmile. Perwyn claimed to be an impoverished noble, but would refuse to give his family name. He’d been preaching to smaller towns and villages, accusing the Stark’s of charging too much in tax. To further recruit people to his cause, Brightsmile would butcher caravans along the road and blame it on Bolton himself. His past actions, it appeared, had come full circle. Torrhen would not believe these rumours, and sent Bolton to put down this burgeoning unrest. At first, Royce, aided by his younger brother, Theon, attempted to ease the unrest without bloodshed; from what he could spare from their own stores he brought food and clothing, tools to replace those too rusted or broken, he brought men to repair houses, and for the most part this placated an unhappy, restless populace. Brightsmile, having retreated to make a camp deep in the darkness of the Wolfswood, grew desperate; he and his men, under the cover of darkness, raided a small village, taking not gold, not treasures, but children. He sent a missive out, stating that he’d release the young should he be granted a full pardon, so long as he didn’t return to the North.

Upon hearing of it, Royce took his band of a fifty knights and pushed through the Wood like a dog after a scent. He’d dispatched a rider to the King to inform him of this. Eventually they would come across the bandit’s camp, but they would not find any good. They had arrived too late. From what they gathered later, a schism had occurred, with some of Brightsmile’s men uneasy with the decision to involve children. The two groups had engaged one another, and the children had been caught in the skirmish. Of the seventeen taken, only three would be returned. Brightsmile himself was easily cowed, surrendering once he realised he had but eight men behind him. Royce grew wroth, and had the man tied by the ankles to the back of his mount, to be dragged back to Winterfell. The eight who had followed were brought also, though Royce had them nailed up on stakes by their hands and feet on the hills, and left them there to rot.

Perwyn Brightsmile was delivered, sans some of his skin, to King Torrhen.

Royce served as a close advisor to King Torrhen for several years, spending more time at the King’s Court than in the Dreadfort. He pushed for things such as an expanded road network, a closer look at how much they stored for winter, and presided as judge occasionally, when serious crimes had been committed on the far reaches of the North and the King was unable to make the journey. He would have two more children; Rogar and Anwyn.

In 289AA, dark rumours circled around Torrhen’s boy, Cregan, and though Royce pushed the King not to believe all he heard, to be more forgiving of his trueborn son’s transgressions, Torrhen exiled the lad anyway. Once it had been done, Royce and the King engaged in a blazing row, and Royce left Winterfell that night to return to the Dreadfort. They would not speak again until the War of the Trident, when Torrhen would call upon Lord Bolton to lead the rear guard.

During the war of the Trident, Royce would watch Prince Brandon fall, and though he fought with the fury of a heavy storm to reach the man, nothing he could have done would have changed the outcome. It was Lord Bolton and his mounted knights who braved the volleys of arrows alongside Rickard Stark to secure the Prince’s body

Since, with the return of his nephew, Royce Bolton has given shelter to the trueborn son of Torrhen X Stark. And there are those who’ve called for him to deliver whom they call the upstart to the court of the White Wolf, yet Royce Bolton refuses time and time again. His nephew is the trueborn heir of Torrhen Stark, and it’s within the bowels of the Dreadfort that the war for the North has been carefully planned, and it’s from the Dreadfort that they’ll launch their assault.

## **Timeline**

240AA - Royce is born

255AA - Travels with his Father to oversee the crisis between the Whitehills and the Forresters

257AC - Kills Benjen Glover in a duel

261AA - Deals with a tax crisis, is invited to treat with the King

282AA - Gives chase to Perwyn Brightsmile, a bandit plaguing the Wolfswood

289AA - Rows with King Torrhen over his banishment of Cregan Stark, leaves Winterfell and resigns from Torrhen's Council

Late 290's AA - During the war of the Trident, is called to lead the Rear Guard