Did the maester at The Twins know what the Freys were planning?

[clair de lune]

I'm just past the Red Wedding in my ASOS reread, and I was wondering during Catelyn's chapter and later on whether that Maester knew what his lord was up to.

Catelyn half expected that the maester would be yet another son of Walder Frey's, but Brenett did not have the look. He was a great fat man, bald and double-chinned and none too clean, to judge from the raven droppings that stained the sleeves of his robes, yet he seemed amiable enough.

The maester chuckles at the concern over Roslin's fertility, and assures her Lady Bethany gave Walder Frey a child every year, with five who lived past infancy.

There's no more mention of conversation or description of the maester after that. But I was thinking about how maesters generally receive a lord's mail first, sometimes read it. We know Tywin wrote a letter to Wader, do you think the maester knew about it? If so, he obviously is loyal to Lord Frey as he was seemingly kind and reassured Catelyn, and didn't upset her or give her any warning signs.

Except for one warning sign: He mentions the children of Walder's sixth wife, Lady Bethany Rosby, all by name.

"Five." He ticked the mo ff on fingers plump as sausages. "Ser Perwyn. Ser Benfrey. Maester Willamen, who took his vows last year and now serves Lord Hunter in the Vale. Olyvar, who squired for your son. And Lady Roslin, the youngest. Four boys to on e girl. Lord Edmure will have more sons than he knows what to do with."

What interests me here is that Ser Perwyn is "away" during the Red Wedding. He was part of Catelyn's escort to Bitterbridge, and I believe is one of the Freys who was more loyal to Robb than Walder.

Olyvar, who wanted to stay as Robb's squire after he married Jeyne, is also absent from The Twins.

There is Willamen Frey, who is now a maester in the Vale.

Ser Benfrey, however, is present at the Red Wedding. The only mention of him participating in the slaughter is that he grabs Dacey Mormont by the arm only to have her smash a flagon of wine in his face. It's possible Benfrey, like Roslin, was peer pressured into participating. Since there is no other mention of him participating in slaughter, part of me wants to believe he's grabbing Dacey Mormont to get her out of harm's way.

Roslin seems to know what is being planned, based on her silence and timid behavior, and crying so much. So we can assume Ser Benfrey did know what was coming. Maybe he had second thoughts. Or maybe he was trying to stab a dirk into Dacey Mormont's stomach.

I recently read a theory that Black Walder had slept with some of Lord Walder's later wives, so I wonder if Olyvar and Perwyn have different fathers than Benfrey and Roslin? And does that bear a correlation between the siblings that are loyal to Robb and the siblings that participate in the Red Wedding?

While the maester may not have intentionally sounded an alarm, Olyvar is mentioned a few more times before the slaughter begins. Robb asks after him at the feast, and later on Catelyn randomly thinks how Robb has a skill for implying loyalty. That leads her to think of how Olyvar had wanted to squire for Robb after the marriage, and how he's absent from the Twins.

Of course it doesn't do much good. She figures it out too late to do anything.

So, do we think the maester knew?

[Ramsay's Penguins]

Probably. They are trusted advisors to lords.

Roslin knew. Most of them did.

[TallTyrion]

There was a lot of preparation put into the red wedding. The collapsable tents, crossbow men, and a bunch of other behind the scenes stuff that would have needed to take place.

Given the role we see Maesters play in other castles it would be hard to imagine him not knowing about it.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Of course he knew. Anybody smarter than Hodor and present in the Twins knew. There was no avoiding the preparations, the orders and everything.

[Lee-Sensei]

I'm just past the Red Wedding in my ASOS reread, and I was wondering during Catelyn's chapter and later on whether that Maester knew what his lord was up to.

The maester chuckles at the concern over Roslin's fertility, and assures her Lady Bethany gave Walder Frey a child every year, with five who lived past infancy.

There's no more mention of conversation or description of the maester after that. But I was thinking about how maesters generally receive a lord's mail first, sometimes read it. We know Tywin wrote a letter to Wader, do you think the maester knew about it? If so, he obviously is loyal to Lord Frey as he was seemingly kind and reassured Catelyn, and didn't upset her or give her any warning signs.

Except for one warning sign: He mentions the children of Walder's sixth wife, Lady Bethany Rosby, all by name.

What interests me here is that Ser Perwyn is "away" during the Red Wedding. He was part of Catelyn's escort to Bitterbridge, and I believe is one of the Freys who was more loyal to Robb than Walder.

Olyvar, who wanted to stay as Robb's squire after he married Jeyne, is also absent from The Twins.

There is Willamen Frey, who is now a maester in the Vale.

Ser Benfrey, however, is present at the Red Wedding. The only mention of him participating in the slaughter is that he grabs Dacey Mormont by the arm only to have her smash a flagon of wine in his face. It's possible Benfrey, like Roslin, was peer pressured into participating. Since there is no other mention of him participating in slaughter, part of me wants to believe he's grabbing Dacey Mormont to get her out of harm's way.

Roslin seems to know what is being planned, based on her silence and timid behavior, and crying so much. So we can assume Ser Benfrey did know what was coming. Maybe he had second thoughts. Or maybe he was trying to stab a dirk into Dacey Mormont's stomach.

I recently read a theory that Black Walder had slept with some of Lord Walder's later wives, so I wonder if Olyvar and Perwyn have different fathers than Benfrey and Roslin? And does that bear a correlation between the siblings that are loyal to Robb and the siblings that participate in the Red Wedding?

While the maester may not have intentionally sounded an alarm, Olyvar is mentioned a few more times before the slaughter begins. Robb asks after him at the feast, and later on Catelyn randomly thinks how Robb has a skill for implying loyalty. That leads her to think of how Olyvar had wanted to squire for Robb after the marriage, and how he's absent from the Twins.

Of course it doesn't do much good. She figures it out too late to do anything.

So, do we think the maester knew?

I'm pretty sure the maesters knew what was coming given their roles in a castles. They were probably involved in the planning.

Also, Perwyn wasn't more loyal to Robb than Walder. He's one of the Freys that were trampling Robbs banners as they went. He was sent away because he wouldn't have wanted to go through with the RW, but I don't think he was "okay" with what Robb did like Olyvar was.

[Slender Aimry Hill]

The maester definitely knew; good spot on looking at this exchange which is marvellously creepy in retrospect.

Ser Benfrey was wounded, ultimately fatally, later in the Wedding. This doesn't quite solve the ambiguity; he could, like the other Rosby Freys, be 'good', or, like Ser Tytos Frey, Jared's son, have been hurt while participating in the massacre (Tytos encountered Sandor Clegane's axe, and not, like Arya, its flat). I've always tended to assume he was the relatively rotten egg in the Rosby clutch, to add complexity. (I don't blame Roslin for what she did. She had very little choice and clearly feels regret)

Ser Perwyn's not a bad man by any lights; his political situation is just fiendishly confusing.

[not in the face]

I was just looking over Rogues. I got the impression that Lord Mooton read the letter from the Queen first, then shared with his maester and council. It could be that he did not know because the royal seals from Tywin on the letters. We also have Manderly who doesn't trust his maester at all so it could be he was kept in the dark but probably not.

[Lee-Sensei]

The maester definitely knew; good spot on looking at this exchange which is marvellously creepy in retrospect.

Ser Benfrey was wounded, ultimately fatally, later in the Wedding. This doesn't quite solve the ambiguity; he could, like the other Rosby Freys, be 'good', or, like Ser Tytos Frey, Jared's son, have been hurt while participating in the massacre (Tytos encountered Sandor Clegane's axe, and not, like Arya, its flat). I've always tended to assume he was the relatively rotten egg in the Rosby clutch, to add complexity. (I don't blame Roslin for what she did. She had very little choice and clearly feels regret)

Ser Perwyn's not a bad man by any lights; his political situation is just fiendishly confusing.

Perwyn seems decent. He was sent away because he wouldn't be okay with the RW. He was just understandably upset when Robb didn't marry a Frey.

[Slender Aimry Hill]

The Freys seem quite pro-maesters and septons and pragmatism and mercantilism and sharing and caring. I think they would present a contrast to Manderly in this instance and their grey rat was almost certainly in on, and avouching, the whole scheme. Note that the sorts of Northmen who disdain maesters (Barbrey, Ryswell, and covertly Manderly) also disdain Freys.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

This depends on whether or not Lord Walder trusts his maester with such delicate matters. He's got enough kids and grandkids that one of them could take care of incoming correspondence. And it wouldn't be difficult, with that many in the castle, to find a pretext for getting the maester out of his "office" and keeping him out until an expected raven from King's Landing arrived.

Oh, no! One of the babies has a fever! He's just cutting teeth? Oh, thank you, Maester.

Maester, come quick, Walder has fallen! So glad it's not broken.

Maester, I think I have a boil on my...well, if you would just come to my rooms.

and the like.

[EastTymor]

The Freys were exceptionally thorough in their preparations. If the maester was not fully supportive of their plans, none of the Stark loyalists would ever have seen him.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Question: is this maester a member of the Frey family? They do have some in the clan. If he's one of them, he'd totally be on board. If he's not, he'd have to be a pretty evil guy to be okay with this. If he'd been against it, he would have betrayed that somehow--nervousness or something when speaking to Cat.

[Federico]

I do not consider it a given that the maester was involved.

From Frey's view, I could see the task of persuading the maeester to contribute to the conspiracy as more challenging than the task of hiding the conspiracy from him.

Effective deception is difficult. It's often easier to deceive one actor such that that actor unknowingly deceive another actor.

[Slender Aimry Hill]

He's specifically not himself a Frey, as a quotation in the OP says - though there are at least two Frey maesters who come to mind elsewhere, Willamen at Longbow Hall and Melwys at Rosby. Cat's initial assumption seems odd to me; the Citadel decides who gets sent where, and they never seem to let relatives serve their own family (Aemon Targaryen being the only exception I can think of).

We have now have two questions: did he know and did he try to warn Cat subtly? I would still say yes to the first and no to the second. He wouldn't necessarily have to be 'evil', more pragmatic and in agreement with Lord Tywin's sentiment about murdering a dozen men at dinner - which seems pretty Citadel to me.

[Maid So Fair]

Of course he knew. Everyone in the castle knew - you can't exactly keep that kind of thing secret while going at full tilt with the preparations. Everyone who was suspected of raising an objections was expressly sent away so they couldn't give the gig up.