The younger daughter of Rodrik Ryswell, Lord of the Rills, born around 262 AC into one of the great families of the north. As a maid she was infatuated with Brandon Stark, heir to Winterfell, who often rode the Rills, and she took him as her lover and lost her maidenhead to him. Her father hoped to wed her to a Stark, but Lord Rickard betrothed Brandon to Catelyn Tully and Eddard never came to her, so Barbrey instead married Willam Dustin, the young Lord of Barrowton.
Her marriage lasted less than half a year before Willam rode south to Robert's Rebellion over her objections, mounted on a fine red steed she had given him from her father's herd; he was slain at the tower of joy. Eddard Stark returned the horse to her but raised cairns over the fallen and never brought Willam's bones home to Barrowton — a grievance she nursed for decades, all the keener for his having carried his sister Lyanna's bones to the Winterfell crypts. Under the widow's law she ruled Barrowton in her own right as Lady of Barrowton. In A Dance with Dragons she sides with the Boltons — blaming Ramsay for the death of her beloved nephew Domeric, yet loathing the Starks more — hosts Ramsay's wedding party, leads Theon down into the Winterfell crypts to pour out her bitterness, and vows that should Eddard's bones ever come north she will feed them to her dogs.