House Tallhart

Torrhen's Square takes its name, by every account this chronicle trusts, from King Torrhen Stark, the last King in the North to hold that title before Aegon's conquest ended the northern kingdom's independence rather than its identity. Whether the Tallharts held the land already at the time of Torrhen's kneeling or received it in some connection to that surrender, the record does not settle with any confidence this chronicle is willing to print as fact — only that the name has stuck, through eight thousand years or eight hundred, longer than most northern houses can claim for anything.

Lord Helman Tallhart marched south with Robb Stark's host and later led a raiding column into the westerlands alongside Robett Glover, striking at Lannister holdings while the main northern army campaigned elsewhere. The raid ended badly: Helman and a substantial part of the northern infantry under his command were caught and destroyed near Duskendale, ambushed by Lord Randyll Tarly's forces in fighting this chronicle records as a rout rather than a battle. Helman did not survive it.

Helman's son Benfred, left to hold Torrhen's Square in his father's absence, rode out against the ironborn raiding the Stony Shore against the advice of cooler heads in his own household — a sally that ended in his capture and, by the account this chronicle has been able to confirm, his drowning at sea under Aeron Greyjoy's direction. Torrhen's Square itself fell shortly after to Dagmer Cleftjaw's men, and Helman's daughter Eddara, left as the family's last direct claimant by two deaths in quick succession, was taken captive in the castle her own name should by rights have inherited outright. Helman's brother Leobald, castellan in the family's absence, is left to this chronicle's record holding what remains of House Tallhart's authority together as best a castellan can.