A Game of Thrones

Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. "Know the men who follow you," she heard him tell Robb once," and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger." At Winterfell, he always had an extra seat set at his own table, and every day a different man would be asked to join him. One night it would be Vayon Poole, and the talk would be coppers and bread stores and servants. The next time it would be Mikken, and her father would listen to him go on about armor and swords and how hot a forge should be and the best way to temper steel. Another day it might be Hullen with his endless horse talk, or Septon Chayle from the library, or Jory, or Ser Rodrik, or even Old Nan with her stories.

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"Both plans have virtues, but... look, if we try to swing around Lord Tywin's host, we take the risk of being caught between him and the Kingslayer, and if we attack him... by all reports, he has more men tan I do, and a lot more armored horse. The Greatjon says that won't matter if we catch him with his breeches down, but it seems to me that a man who has fought as many battles as Tywin Lannister won't be so easily surprised."

"Good," she said. She could hear echoes of Ned in his voice, as he sat there, puzzling over the map. "Tell me more."

"I'd leave a small force here to Moat Cailin, archers mostly, and march the rest down the cause way," he said, "but oncewe're below the Neck, I'd split our host in two. The foot can continue down the kingsroad, while our horsemen cross the Green Fork at the Twins." He pointed. "When Lord Tywin gets word that we've come south, he'll march north to engage our main host, leaving our riders free to hurry down the west bank to Riverrun." Robb sat back, not quite daring to smile, but pleased with himself and hungry for her praise.

Catelyn frowned down at the map. "You'd put a river between the two parts of your army."

"And between Jaime and Lord Tywin," he said eagerly. The smile came at last. "There's no crossing on the Green Fork above the ruby ford, where Robert won his crown. Not until the twins, all the way up here, and Lord Frey controls that bridge. He's your father's bannerman, isn't that so?"

I won't," Robb promised. "What do you think?"

She was impressed despite herself. He looks like a Tully, she thought, yet he's still his father's son, and Ned taught him well.

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I must ride down the line, Mother," he told her. "Father says you should let the men see you before a battle."

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Nodding, Robb had studied the map her uncle had drawn him. Ned had taught him to read maps. "Raid him here," he said, pointing. "A few hundred men, no more. Tully banners. When he comes after you, we will be waiting"- his fingers moved an inch to the left-"here."

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A Clash of Kings

"I cannot sit at Riverrun waiting for peace. It makes me look as if I were afraid to take the field again. When there are no battles to fight, men start to think of hearth and harvest, Father told me that. Even my northmen grow restless."

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A Storm of Swords

He has a lord's voice, Jon thought. His father had always said that in battle a captain's lungs were as important as his sword arm. "It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard." Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and he used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. Donal Noye could have drowned out both of them.

Bonus: Eddard learned that from Jon Arryn

Jon Arryn had told them that a commander needs a good battlefield voice, and Robert had proved the truth of that on the Trident.

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But there were only three and soon enough the wildling tide washed over them, and their blood dripped down the steps. "A man is never so vulnerable in battle as when he flees," Lord Eddard had told Jon once. "A running man is like a wounded animal to a soldier. It gets his bloodlust up."

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A Dance with Dragons

A lord may love the men that he commanded, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them, or send them forth to die.

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"Those mountains?" Stannis grew suspicious. "I see no castles marked there. No roads, no towns, no villages."

"The map is not the land, my father often said. Men have lived in the high valleys and mountains meadows for thousands of years, ruled by their clan chiefs."

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"My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his ennemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn."

Bonus: Eddard know well Tywin Lannister

And that may be precisely what Lord Tywin wants, Ned thought to himself, to bleed off strength from Riverrun, goad the boy into scattering his swords. His wife's brother was young, and more gallant than wise. He would try to hold every inch of his soil, to defend every man, woman, and child who named him lord, and Tywin Lannister was shrewd enough to know that [...] Tywin Lannister was as much fox as lion. If indeed he'd sent Ser Gregor to burn and pillage-and Ned did not doubt that he had- he'd taken care to see that he rode under cover of night, without banners, in the guise of a common brigand. Should Riverrun strike back, Cersei and her father would insist that it had been the Tullys who broke the king's peace, not the Lannisters.