Chapter Text
The cold bit at her fingers sharper than the needle. Though as frigid as it was, she had stopped feeling its sting an hour past.
Their ship rolled with the waves; the coastline naught but a misty line off their portside bow. They’d hugged land the whole way North and soon, she knew, would be entering the Bite. And it felt as such—teeth closing so viciously about her neck. Every league travelled was a league closer to her fate. Farther from her kin in Maidenpool who’d she’d stayed naught three nights with. Farther from the red walls of Riverrun—its soaring battlements, and the sweet dogs in the kennels who always licked her hands for treats.
On and on she travelled. Farther from the rivers of the Trident, blue and gold in the morning sun. Farther from her brother’s teary eyes, her father’s shaking arms, her mother peering pale and gaunt as Sansa left the gates.
The only thing that drew closer was that Winter King. Would his arms be firm, his face be fair? Would his hands be gentle in the dark of the night?
These were not questions she yet had answer to. So in their stead she sat on deck wrapped in furs, with maids bookending her to share their warmth. They took turns offering their hands to the bitter air to work her wedding gown. It was something she had labored over this endless winter in hopes her grandfather would surprise her with a spring betrothal.
How little had she known.
Nella was chattering brightly, sharing all sort of fanciful tales as they clasped hands to keep ready for their turn. Poppy was humming as she worked the thread. The right sleeve was the swirling trout for Sansa’s mother. The left was the salmon of House Mooton for her father. They’d both be with her as much as she could have them, each red in stitch and scale and eye.
A guard came to deck. “My lady, the sailor.”
She dipped her head. “Thank you, Elston.”
The guard sketched a sharp bow. At their side her newest sworn shield—Marq Piper and heir to Pinkmaiden—shook himself upright and made a valiant attempt to pretend he’d been on watch and not staring at the sea in stupor. Poor man. For such a firebrand, the waves seemed to lull him witless.
The guard flanked to their other side as the sailor came before them. Ser Marq’s hand fell to the hilt of his blade. For as much as she wanted to know the nature of her future husband—what he would be in the quiet hours they spent alone, if he even wished such a thing—those were the wonderings of a girl.
It was time that the woman spoke. And she did not ask the spirit of the man, but the nature of a king.
“Milady.” The sailor had a brogue to him, and his bow was clumsy as he eyed her. His clothing was neither fine nor poor. He was no lordling nor merchant’s son, but one must work with what they had.
And perhaps this would be to the better. “Pleasant day, Goodman. If you have a moment to spare for us?”
“A’course, whatever her ladyship likes.” And his eyes darted again. When she smiled encouragingly, there came a surprising bit of cheek. “What would a fine lady want with a poor sailor like meself? Ol’ Ryls can sing like a nymph and dance like a—”
Ser Marq grunted at their side. Sansa pretended not to hear him.
Poppy clucked. “Watch that tongue a’fore the lady!”
The sailor just winked.
A wily one, this Northman. Sansa raised her voice. “I asked if any man in our flotilla was of the North, and my guard were kind enough to find you. I fear I have never been to your homeland in my years, and would appreciate most greatly if a man of northern birth could tell me of his kingdom’s winsome nature.”
The sailor blinked as if she’d struck him. “Winsome…? It’s a harsh place, milady. The winters are long and bitter as the witch’s brew. A man cannot even enter spring before he’s thinking of the next chill that’ll a’cross his nape. Men stand together in the North, or they do not stand at all.”
It sent a foreboding shiver through her. But needs must, and she let her voice dip piteously. “Is it all so cruel?”
The man looked harried now. “The hills are—the hills are green and lovely, milady. The sheep graze most finely in the summer, and men and their kin dig their crops unmolested. And the cliffs…the cliffs at White Harbor are beautiful when you sail past them in the dawn. Ask a northern lass to sing to you of Brave Danny Flint or The Winter Maid, and never will a tear come quicker to your eye. Folk are folk as anywhere, but I’d like to see your ladyship find finer hospitality when there is a squalling wind at your back than the North.”
An interesting set of notions, and ones to ponder over. But now to the grit of things: “Is there a particular way of greeting in the North? Anything I must know?”
“Bread and salt.” The man volleyed instantly. “They bring it to you, milday, before you pass any lintel. If they do not give it, that is a scoundrel’s house where no man nor maid sleep safe.”
“And that is all?”
“Aye.” He said. “Though if a fellow does not bring you his best ale to the table, spit on his floor, for a man who does not pour finely among his guests is no man at all. To treat such a splendid lady as yourself to some piss brew—”
Ser Marq grunted even louder. Nella made a rather strangled gasp while Poppy ruffled up.
A smile fought against Sansa’s mouth most valiantly. There would be no spitting of any kind, but— “I shall take your words to heart.”
“Good.” The sailor nodded fiercely.
Bread and salt were a detail known to her, given by secondhand story in Maidenpool, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Not a single of her kin had ever journeyed North. It was maddening how little they knew of one of their own neighbors, considering her aunt had once been betrothed to one.
This oversight left her adrift; blind to the intricacies of her role to come.
Of her homeland, she knew House Frey chafed at being petty lords. That Brackens and Blackwoods hated each other most venomously, and not a generation passed without some murder betwixt them rocking the court. She knew her grandfather was deeply jealous of the popularity of Jason Mallister, and that the man’s house held favor with the current Darry King. That a generation before, the Second House had held that honor with a bride added to the royal bloodline besides.
She knew these things, but what did she know of the North? What houses held favor? Which did not? Who of them schemed while others held fast? What subtle grudges were unspoken? What favors owed?
Her stomach lurched. How was she to be anything but broodmare to her husband, if she could not maneuver in his court? It was only through him she would be afforded any power. If he decided to keep her shut up in a tower each day, never to sit beside him nor work her own charities, this marriage her grandfather had plotted would be for naught.
Her heart would be for naught.
She was a woman blind. House Bolton had betrayed the crown, supposedly, but House Bolton was dead. Houses Dustin and Ryswell held favor, but what did she know of them? Their lords, their sons, their ladies’ marriages?
But the sailor before her would have no answer to those questions. No gentle word nor bit of wisdom to guide her.
Only harsh truths, and so she asked him: “Can you tell us of Winterfell? Of Queen Lyarra?”
At this, the sailor spat ugly on the deck. Womanly gasps abounded. Ser Marq rattled so loudly she feared he’d leap, armor and all, to strike the man bloody. Sansa raised a hand.
All stilled.
The sailor eyed Ser Marq for the first time, his armor, then seemingly dismissed the knight with contempt. He grumbled: “Not a pleasant tale for a lady’s ears.”
“The winter has blocked many roads.” She answered. “We hear so little that I must inquire. I fear saying the wrong thing out of ignorance. Please, I ask this as a boon.”
A rough, windburned hand scrubbed at a jaw. It covered over a mouth pinched slim. He stared on and on at that horizon that wasn’t. “The Fairewind here—she’d docked at White Harbor, see, and we were ashore. Men ran from tavern to tavern to share the news. Women wept in the streets. The Starks protect the North and all its people, always have. King Rickard and King Ned were good men, but the Queen Lyarra—never was a woman more just, more faithful, more fierce. Bolton scum tried to take Winterfell from her. They killed her grandchildren both; the Little Prince and Princess Arya. But that black work—t’wasn’t easy. The smallfolk sing of the Princess’s bloody blade; how she gelded the bastard on their wedding night. He killed her, aye, that rotten curr—but the Starks had their vengeance. They say the Bolton Bastard hung her Queenship’s body from the walls, and Winterfell frothed to madness. Maids threw themselves on swords so their men could get another blow. Cooks bludgeoned men with rocks and stable hands doused them in oil to burn alive. They drove the Boltons out tooth and claw, and when the White Wolf rode for vengeance, the North answered. Aye, we answered him.”
And Ser Marq spoke. “Did you fight in the wars?”
The sailor cast a glance. “Aye, I fought. To the very Neck.”
“Is it true what they say?” Marq pressed. “That you lot killed the Boltons and hung them from your holy trees?”
And the sailors face went black—empty of earthly light. “No.”
Marq scoffed. “I suppose not, some fool’s tale—”
“There weren’t enough weirwoods.”
Nella’s hands clutched painfully to hers. Sansa felt it like a dagger; like a cold wind rattling through her chest.
“Not enough,” The sailor said. “To string up all their guts. Bolton and Blackbourne and Ansley and Morrowind. Too many banners to hang them—King Jon ordered the rest be fed to the dogs.”
She wetted her mouth; wobbled inside but for a flutter. Ser Marq’s mouth flapped open and closed, bereft of anything.
“Milady.” Poppy whispered, but Sansa ignored the entreaty.
She folded her hands. “Thank you for answering us. What boon do you ask of me?”
Before this day, she’d thought of winter as white, but in this man’s eyes—it stained black. “Men are whisperin’ there’s food in these holds behind the guards. They say it’s dowry; that a high lady sails to be the White Wolf’s wife.”
The waves rocked sharp. The winds beat bitter. “Do you ask me if this is true?”
“I ask if my people will eat, milady.” Damp gathered in his eyes. “Please.”
His words passed through her like a tremble; a shaking that went to her very bones. “These boats will wait in the bay while the Fairewind docks. I will sit in White Harbor until the King comes to me. He will look upon my face and make his choice. Perhaps he will find me repulsive. If such a thing comes to pass, your ship will gather us, and all the vessels my grandfather sent will depart. If the King is willing, then every ship will dock and only more will follow.”
And the sailor’s laugh was a rattling thing. “Milady, pardon Ryls greatly, but if the King takes a’look at you and does not take you to wife, then he’s a fool.”
Her lips twitched, but she could find no smile in them. “A kindness, Goodman Ryls. Thank you.”
“Tis truth.” He muttered, then took a step back. He was looking for dismissal, though she knew he would not ask it.
She granted him. “Thank you for your time, I know you must return to your duties.”
He gave another clumsy bow. Retreated. Called: “Milady?”
Her head tilted. “Yes?”
“The King’s no fool.” And with that parting arrow, the sailor went.
Her fingers came to her mouth. Her lips were numb; kissed cold by the winds. Was it fear at last, this thing inside her?
Too many doubts yet. Too many unknowns.
There was a shifting of armor on either side, light as her men wore it onboard. Sansa felt so far from home; cast into a chartless water. “Elston, thank you. That will be all.”
The guard sketched a smart nod and left. She did not look to see his face. Ser Marq would not be so kind: “They’re animals.”
“Speak not where anyone can hear you.” She hissed.
A sigh heaved loudly. Marq came before her and dropped to his haunches. “There is yet time to turn the ships.”
“My grandfather would boil you alive.”
He shrugged uneasily but did not offer any defense to that fate. Resignation, more like.
“Kings must be cruel.” She spoke. “It is the way of things.”
“Pardon me, Sansa.” He answered, for Marq had known her since childhood, and long was their familiarity. “But that cruelty will be in your bed. They expect you to control it, and men like that—”
“We will see.” She said, brooking no further retort.
Golden and fair and so very sad, Marq Piper rose and returned to her side. Hand to the hilt. Eyes alert.
She shared a long glance with Poppy but spoke no words. Those would wait for their cabin. She would call for her great uncle first, her maids, then the man among her guard who was not a guard at all.
But that gathering was yet come.
She shushed Nella’s warblings and returned them to their task. While her maids worked on the sleeves, on all those tiny, embroidered scales—Sansa saw to the void she’d left below the breast. It’d been meant for her husband’s sigil; an emptiness she’d agonized over in the early of the winter. Who would he be? What would be his nature? Would he sing with her, dance away their feasts, give sweet words and sweeter kisses in their chambers?
It was space she’d had little time for as the years dragged on. When a granary had burned for foolishness, when bitter storms had wracked every moon, when winter fevers had swept village after village right to their very hearth.
But this was one question she finally had answer to. So on a field of blue, with thread of white, inside that aching void—
Sansa made the wolf.
/~/~/~/
There were only so many days left aboard, and Sansa made the most of them. She dispatched her guards among the sailors to gather rumors, set her maids on her trousseau, and mostly kept her uncle from beating her noble shields half to death.
Ser Marq seemed to enjoy the exertion. But Alyn Smallwood, son to Acorn Hall, hardly seemed so encouraged. The youth appeared rather more bruised every time she saw him. But it was Ser Wyck—and only named Wyck, for he had been born of the smallfolk—that held his own against the Blackfish.
Her father had picked Wyck personally from his men to be her shield. Because, her father had claimed, while nobles worried about chivalry between opponents—Ser Wyck only worried about making them dead.
Her shields took turns sitting with her when she called upon Ryls time and again. She asked for Northern tales, and the sailor granted them. Brandon the Builder and Brandon the Breaker. Brandon the Shipwright and Brandon the Burner. She rather wondered if her husband would expect one of their sons to take the name. It was hard to say. It seemed rather traditional, but the King may not wish to bring attention to his personal connection—no matter how tenuous—to the last Brandon Stark who had been murdered over the King’s own noble mother.
But still…Brandon. It reminded her of her brother Branston, which had the name sitting sweeter on her tongue.
Ryls hardly noticed her preoccupation, telling her of Winter Kings and Red Kings, then of Barrow crowns and Marsh royalty. When she’d ask for a legend not involving a Stark, he’d told her of the Rat Cook. At that point, Uncle Brynden had seized her by the arm. “Enough legends tonight.”
“Uncle—”
But he’d frog-marched her away like some naughty child. “Goodnight, Ryls!”
“G’night, milord!”
“Not a lord!” Uncle had shouted back, then wrestled her right into her cabin. “You’re not going to be able sleep tonight, and your mother will have my hide if she hears.”
“You cannot know a people without knowing their stories. The Rat Cook makes it clear how greatly the North values guest right—”
“Who doesn’t?” He snapped. “Get ready for bed.”
“I will not have you treat me as a child!”
“I’ll not treat you as a child, I’ll treat you as an impertinent one. Because you’re not going to sleep, and I’ll never hear the end of it! I should have brought one of those blasted kennel mutts to occupy you.”
She complained most vociferously. Viciously. Railed against his tyranny.
She did not sleep that night.
“Milady?” Poppy had asked of her frazzled hair upon the morn.
Sansa had smiled feebly as her maid brushed the night’s troubles away. “A poor rest, no matter.” Though perhaps tonight if she could slip her uncle’s grip, she’d ask for a more fanciful tale. Surely the North had at least one story that did not end in tragedy or breathtaking violence.
But that was not to be. By the time she came on deck, and caught that cold wind in her lungs—
The watch had spied White Harbor glittering like frost beyond their prow.
/~/~/~/
Banners whipped by the hundreds. Bales of wool, a ram’s head. Crossed swords and sentinel pines. A blue ship, a white ship. Men arrayed out beneath them all. Under dozens of pennants emblazoned with the Seven-Pointed Star, stood septons in the sturdiest holy robes she’d ever seen. They looked men ready to go on hard pilgrimage.
There were mounted knights in a slew of colors, all marked for their holy vows sworn not to lords, but to the Seven Faces.
“Well.” Her uncle grumbled. “At least they’re putting out a welcome.”
And so they were. Higher yet a merman fluttered, green and pale against the morning sun. But above all those banners flew a single one: a wolf red in tooth and crown.
Her breath juddered. “Is the King in residence?”
The Tully guard who was not a guard—yet wore their raiments as if he were one—came to her elbow. “No, my lady. That is the royal standard placing White Harbor under the King’s protection. If the King was in residence, the Manderlys would sit level with the other houses, and a banner with a white wolf would join the crowned.”
“Ah.” She murmured weakly. “Thank you, Edmund.”
The man did not answer her, merely faded back into the crowd of her retinue.
Her Uncle offered her an elbow, and she placed her palm inside it most delicately. Grace could be a veil and courtesies the fiercest armor. With Ser Marq and Alyn Smallwood behind her, and a dozen guards led by Ser Wyck at her back—she descended.
Lord Manderly waited below. The man was corpulent, and yet there was a sharpness to his face that spoke of hunger. A deep disquiet began unfurling. But the haggard lord smiled joyfully. “Lady Sansa, welcome, welcome! We’ve been anticipating your arrival most fervently.”
“My Lord Manderly.” She demurred, then offered him a hand. His house followed the light of the Seven, so surely—
He bent to kiss it graciously. She did not breathe a sigh of relief. In this, at least, she had not yet blundered. “It is a pleasure to finally see White Harbor’s fair shores. It has been a journey.”
“I have no doubts; the winter seas are no place for such a delicate flower as our Lady Sansa.”
A muscle fluttered in her jaw. She kept smiling. “You are most kind. We will be blessed to sit at your table, my lord. We have been told much of Northern hospitality, and quite look forward to seeing it for ourselves.”
But at that, Lord Manderly’s expression squeezed. It was like seeing an entire hog being shoved down a chute. “It would give me no higher honor, nor greater joy, than to have our Lady Sansa stay within our halls. Your grandfather wrote so eloquently to us of your graciousness and piety. You would be a shining jewel among us, but I fear that is not to be.”
Her heart plummeted. Had it been for naught? Had a better offer been tendered, or had the King already rejected her whole? The thought that she would have to return to her grandfather so shamed and empty-handed—
Uncle Brynden stiffened. “If you mean to be rid of us without a scrap of hospitality, Lord Manderly, be out with it.”
“Hardly, Ser Brynden!” And the lord feigned some great wound. “It is a higher power the drives us now. I cannot keep the lady here, though in my heart I wish it so! The King has requested the Lady Sansa be brought to his side—immediately.”
Relief and dread poured into the same cup. “My lord?”
“The Order of the Green Hand and the Knights of the Silversmith are prepared to ride. They will guarantee our lady’s every virtue and safety upon the road. And of course, what comforts that can be given to her during travel will certainly be—”
“Pardon me?” Her uncle thundered, begging not the faintest pardon. “We just got off the ship, and you’re shoveling us out the gate? White Harbor was the agreed meeting!”
“There was a negotiation.” Manderly answered dryly. “And the King has spoken.”
For a moment, even her uncle was at a loss. Sansa herself fared no better. What were these Northmen playing at? What possible purpose could this serve, a powerplay? To keep them on the back foot during the marriage negotiation?
Her uncle recovered quickly, and she felt him rising up—but Sansa tucked a hand across his arm. The force at which his jaw clicked shut was audible.
Sansa batted her lashes; hoped she looked dewy though a touch bedraggled. Perhaps she should not have let Poppy brush her hair upon the morn. “My lord, we all serve at the King’s pleasure. Though I would beg your hospitality for my men and maids. The seas have been particularly choppy our entire journey, and as I’m sure you know, travel by ship is not the bodily ideal. I would not wish to delay us overmuch, but as it is still early in the day—perhaps we could have a few hours of rest? Some baths and sustenance before we meet the journey again?”
And if they could plant themselves in New Castle for a time to put their ears to the ground…
There was a flicker tension in Wyman Manderly’s cheek. She could see it in him; that tug between cossetting some poor delicate daughter of the Faith, and whatever end he was driving them towards.
This smile of his was not so effusive. “Of course, my lady. I would not dream to force on you any discomfort.” He did not have to dream—he had already managed it. “There is a splendid inn along the Castle Stair. I’ll send my men to clear the way for us. Though before that time, there are others who wish to meet our shining lady, if you would be so kind.”
It seemed even Manderly’s castle would be denied to them. Had he seen through her ruse?
It bore no more wasted thought. She could see lords, their sons, even a few wives shadowed by a sea of retainers. All were waiting beneath those banners. Hundreds and hundreds of eyes casting out—
And all of them were on her.
Exhausted, smelling of brine, and still swaying with that tide that was no longer with her—Sansa smiled sweetly. “It would be my pleasure.”
/~/~/~/
Her head was ringing with names, seats; faces she was trying to stitch to the sigils in her mind’s eye. She didn’t know yet which of them were truly powerful, who among them would have uses or genuine loyalty to spare.
But it was a start.
There had been so many sights as they ascended the city. Marble mermaids at each juncture; bowls of burning oil cradled in their arms. They had been able to see the harbor and then the bay unfurled out behind them, pale and pearlescent as a samite gown. Her grandfather’s ships had waited like strange flowers blooming upon that water.
Every man, woman, and child they came across had their eyes fixed upon those masts. Manderly’s men had cleared the way, pushed smallfolk and merchants to the side, but that hadn’t hidden the starvation on those faces. The sharpness. The desperation.
Even the guards looked half-hungry and faded. It was a beautiful city from harbor to parapet—and it was seething around her like a picked-over wound.
Manderly meant to keep her retinue bottled up; steered and fixed on whatever course he’d set them. He was certainly welcome to try. Sansa had loosed her maids on the inn as soon as they reached it. Edmund himself had vanished from them somewhere in the harbor.
When Nella was washing her hair in the first hot bath Sansa had luxuriated in a fortnight, Poppy came to kneel beside her. “The King has no lover.”
Sansa did not let herself hope. “And how did you reach this conclusion?”
Poppy snorted. “Nothing smallfolk like more then talkin’ of the King’s mistresses. Her ladyship remembers our King Darry and his Moon Maid, eh?”
“That was before my time.” Though little Sansa of nine had wept bitterly for that royal love story having been proven so false. “Not a word?
“Not a word, though I can’t be sayin’ this wolf’s not discreet. The girls here said he had a Wildling lover some years past, and that’s why he let ‘em this side of the Wall. But none’s been seen at that castle of his. Only woman ‘round is the King’s mother.”
She startled so hard Nella’s hands nearly scalped her. “What—the Lady Lyanna?”
“No, the other mother.” Poppy dismissed. “That Lady Durin.”
“Dustin.” She corrected as her pulse slowly receded. “So no rumors? Are you sure?”
“Yea, not a one.”
Maybe. Maybe…?
It would be easier to win him without another woman fighting for his affections, or having already won them before she’d even arrived. And her septas…they’d said all men had hungers. If she could slake the King’s and be his only respite, that would be her first foothold in grasping for his heart.
Never mind that she only had the faintest idea of what it meant to quench a man’s pleasures.
It was a delicate hope, a girl’s hope, one clutched so swiftly to her breast. She breathed past it carefully: “That’s so wonderful to hear, Poppy.”
Her maid’s gaze turned so terribly soft. “Yes, milady. I know that you…I know that we all have hopes of this thing. And I have better news than that.”
Sansa had already been given the best news she’d had in days. “Tell me true.”
“The White Wolf doesn’t take prima nocta. Not ever.”
She would not let herself hope. She wouldn’t. “How sure are you?”
“They say the Starks haven’t taken right in living memory, and some of these wenches here are old. I asked ‘em about other lords, and they could tell me all sorts of things. Said some clans up in the mountains take right all the time. And them Boltons—they said the bastard that killed the Princess? His mother was smallfolk raped under first night. She didn’t ask her Lord permission before a’marrying, and Lord Bolton executed her husband and then took her like an animal.”
Sansa wasn’t surprised; unholy acts made unholy men. Prima nocta and all it entailed—it was abhorrent. She had been born in the light of the Seven, and every teaching she’d received told it how wrong it was for a woman to lay with a man not her husband. To steal the rights of marriage and make mockery of its holiness, was an abomination in the eyes of the Gods. Kings were cruel and hard, but she’d truly feared her family would ask her to make a marriage sinful in the eyes of her Faith.
Force her to marry a monster who violated sacred vows.
But he hadn’t. Wouldn’t—and it was as if some knobby weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
Poppy took her silence as a cue. “I know this is true, milady. The girls say the septons always start preachin’ when a lord takes first night. Right heathen, it is. They even heard when some petty lord forced himself on a shepherd’s daughter. We’d be knowin’ plenty if it was the King.”
Sansa reached out of the bath and took Poppy’s hands into her own. Squeezed them. “You have done me a great service. You’ve eased my heart.”
“My family’s always taken care of yours.” The woman answered fiercely. “So do not thank me, milady.”
Sansa still laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Once Nella is done with me, call for more hot water. I want you and the other maids to take baths. Long ones.”
Nella squeaked in delight.
Poppy just grinned slyly. “I never be sayin’ no to her ladyship.”
/~/~/~/
Poppy’s revelations carried her in joy but for an hour. The fire in her room was blazing, but she’d already pulled a blanket over her shift when she’d begun to shiver. Poppy and her other maids were still too busy bathing to dress her, and though she’d thought to try on her own—the window had caught her, and its spell hadn’t broken since.
Their wagons by the inn’s stable were under Manderly guard. It was food inside mostly, along with clothing and tents and some other supplies, along with all her earthly possessions. The King had requested that if they came, they feed themselves, and so the baggage train followed.
Each wagon by itself had four men surrounding it: eyes on the crowds of smallfolk and hands on their pommels. All faces were too distant to make out any expressions, but…
Theirs was the alertness of the guard dog. The crowd the circling hunger of the fox.
Her disquiet born in the harbor became alarm.
Three sharp raps sounded off her door. “Niece.”
“Come in.”
And so they came, her uncle and Edmund, the younger man barely recognizable as the one who’d come with them off the ship. His face was dirty now, his clothes more ragged, not a stich of armor or Tully-red to be seen. He eyed her basin of water. “My lady?”
“If it so pleases you.”
It pleased him, so Edmund went to wash his face. Her uncle just glared about the room. “How well can you fake a swoon?”
“With the best of them.” She answered dryly. “Though I’d first ask why, before you try throwing me into Lord Manderly’s arms.”
His jaw worked. “I don’t like any of this. It could be a trap to get us out of the city’s defenses.”
“To what end?” She asked. “Manderly still sends the Holy Knights, and what use would hurting or killing us serve the King?”
“Perhaps he does not want a wife but a hostage. If he thinks he can get more food that way, while keeping himself open for alliance elsewhere…”
Edmund snorted into the basin.
“Shut up.” Uncle snapped.
Edmund meticulously took a clean linen and patted his face dry. “Our Lord Tully doesn’t pay me to shut up. Quite the opposite, in fact.” The looking glass in this room was a warped one, but Edmund eyed himself in it like a tailor checking the line of a seam. “Seizing our Lady Sansa would be breaking guest right, and the North prizes that most highly. They believe King Eddard and Prince Robb were murdered by turncloaks. They also believe guest right was broken in Winterfell when Bolton forces butchered the royal family. The King’s men seemed to have pushed these stories quite hard. Betrayals on all sides, and that King Jon was the only return to true honor. This is a very important veneer for them. Remember, the Lady Lyanna has not one child, but three. The Dustins were only able to crown their chosen bastard because they’d named Lord Karstark—father of the King’s siblings—as one of the traitors. The White Wolf executed his mother’s husband himself. That was the reasoning they used to crown him over his trueborn kin; that treachery of the father stains. If he breaks guest right now, well, that all goes down the gutter, doesn’t it?”
But Brynden Tully was not the river now; he was the stone that cleaved it. “I’m placing my niece’s safety on your word. The North these past years has been full of treachery at every turn. Just because the King wouldn’t hurt her—that doesn’t mean some other force isn’t trying to draw Sansa out. Strike her down and blame the King for it. Or open the way for another bride, mayhaps.”
Edmund merely pulled at one of his eyelids to study the eye beneath. “I applaud your ingenuity, Ser Brynden. Most nobleborn don’t think that many layers down.”
Her uncle went horribly rigid, and Sansa quickly interceded. “These Northern Houses under the Seven, they seem quite keen for the match.”
“Very.” Edmund agreed. “For another lady of their Faith to let the Holy Light finally break upon the North. Transform it—Queen Corenna was not what they hoped.”
“They expect me to convert them?”
“Not immediately, not in so many words, but yes. Did you know King Eddard built a sept for his wife in Winterfell? It was the only Seven Sacred to be built in North for the whole of her reign—as short as that was. They are rather hoping you’ll be a patron more devout and generous.”
Her faith was strong, her faith was true—
But the North had kept its gods for millennia. “That is a future problem. A difficult one.”
“Indeed.” And Edmund stopped prodding at his face. “What did your maids say, my lady?”
And Sansa, rather embarrassingly, hurriedly launched into explanation of all she’d been told of King Jon’s nature. She knew her haste made plain her hopes. Her childish urges.
Those girlish dreams.
“I have no reason to disagree with you.” Edmund answered to her rambling. He’d seen her truly, but he had no use in selling her confidences. Before departing North, her grandfather had finally revealed to her what tied Edmund to them so firmly. It was not fealty nor bonds of blood or loyalty. House Tully held the man’s secrets like a blade. Had given the man a boon. And what secrets Edmund no doubt kept of them—it was promised mutual ruin, and so they stayed united.
Besides, her grandfather would never so easily cast aside a man as useful as Edmund the Unnamed.
Her cheeks were ablaze at all these thoughts. She would not hide their color, but she would change the tune. “Did you discover anything else while you were about?”
“Beyond the Manderlys posting a very poor perimeter?”
She rolled her eyes. “Besides that.”
Edmund rubbed his jaw. “That most northern men wear a beard, and I need to grow one. Your future king will likely not be bare of jaw.”
“Scintillating.” Her uncle muttered. “Anything actually useful to add?”
The other man just smiled faintly. “My lady needs her readying, Ser. When have I ever led my sweet Tullys astray?”
“There is a distinct incident with a caravan of goats that comes to mind.”
“You wound me.”
It seemed she’d receive no more from this quarter, and so she turned to her uncle. “And what did Lord Manderly say of my request? What route we can take to hand out food as we leave the city?” It was something she’d done often enough in the villages and towns surrounding Riverrun. Her grandfather liked to keep them visible while keeping their people fed.
And it was such a sweet thing; the joy on so many faces at fresh castle bread and honey preserved fruit. She wanted the North to love her, to trust her, and this was only the first step.
“He said no.”
She froze solid. “What?”
Her uncle’s jaw went stiff. “The Manderlys say they have their own ways of distribution. You can pass out alms as you wish, but no food. They were very clear on this.”
The guards outside, the gaunt faces watching them, the look in Edmund’s eye. All of it. Each and every hollow carved and gnawed by hunger. “They’re desperate.”
“We know that.” Uncle huffed.
“No.” She said slowly. “You don’t understand, they’re desperate.”
And he finally read that ugly shift in her for what it was. “We knew they needed food…but it’s worse than that.”
She nodded once and flicked a glance to Edmund.
The man answered it. “The granaries are guarded like they hold gold—and most must be behind the castle walls. There aren’t enough to feed the people from the circle I made this side of the city.”
In her mind now she saw not the crowds, their faces, nor the mermaids holding their holy fire. She saw the empty spots between them. “Tell me…have either of you ever seen a port without dogs?”
And it was her uncle’s turn to ask: “What?”
“There aren’t any dogs.” She said, and she saw the dawning in Edmund. She’d see it in her uncle, too. “I think they’ve eaten them all.”
“By the Mother.” He hissed.
And Edmund murmured: “They’re desperate.”
“Very much.” Sansa agreed, and it curled so hideously inside of her, this thing that poured next from her mouth. “The King calls us outside the walls not to vex us, but because the number of days spent arranging this marriage will matter. We have more leverage than we believed.”
It was the first thing her uncle seemed to like hearing. “Hoster was a damn fool not to ask for military alliance. We need to pin them down.”
Edmund looked interested at this, though vaguely scandalized.
Sansa was horrified. “No. I will not have the seed of my marriage be planted in resentment. I want his heart, not an enemy! That is too much to demand at this juncture.”
“It is hardly—”
“No.” She spat. “I will not be moved in this. I will not be bargained in this. Trust that I will raise steadfast sons and build an alliance that will see us through. Do you have so little trust in me?”
“I have every trust.” Uncle answered heatedly. “But a vow in ink is much more powerful than a someday-be. We ask a difficult thing of you; it would not be your failing if you cannot achieve it.”
“The lady is right.” Edmund interrupted. “Are you asking for some faction to do her violence? A military alliance will only hold so long as she lives and gives him a son. Any moment she is snuffed before that—everything is gone. You give the North all incentive to see some accident befall her. The War of Folly and all the Stormlands demanded of them is loathed here. Lady Sansa was only received so warmly in the Harbor for her faith—not her southron blood. Once we move to Winterfell, she will no longer have that benefit. Grasp so openly for power, and so will our rivals.”
“Godsfuck.” Uncle breathed.
“And gods damn us.” Edmund concurred.
She hadn’t thought of that at all, and a tremble rattled her so finely that she felt like glass—to the point of breaking.
Her tongue darted out. Once, twice. Her hands clutched so tightly together that her knuckles strained. “I…I think it best we ask for indulgences of a softer nature. Fosterings both ways; northern boys to my grandfather’s bannerman, and sons of the Riverlands to the North. That is how fine ladies are met, and yearnings lead unto marriages flowered. We request that I get say in my children’s marriages too—make the King agree that I can reject any betrothal for them that I mislike. Certain trade concessions can be done, but nothing onerous. Offers that will sweeten the Trident King to our House, and eventually bear the North fruit. This must be a careful thing we do, or…or else…”
A sword-callused hand gripped her shoulder. “Sansa, my sweetling, I will not let a hair on your head be touched. Let these barbarians try, and I’ll run them to the quick.”
It was not butchery she feared, though maybe she should—it was a burr beneath a saddle, a swift push at the stair, a drop of poison left in a chalice. Quiet things. Deniable things.
And if the King himself was not ardent for a southron alliance, nor his southron wife…his bannermen might think they were doing their liege a favor. Perhaps his Grace would even agree with them.
What did honor mean in the North, when they forced rapine on maidens and hung men’s guts from the trees? Had there ever been safety here at all?
“Edmund.” She asked. “Do you believe the King was in league with the Boltons? That he let his kin be murdered to earn his crown?”
“I cannot answer that yet.” And his irises were as dark as the pit. “I know the Northmen deny any slander to him. That they rail and rave if they hear a word spoken against their King. I also know that despite this, they keep whispering that rumor among themselves. The story lingers here in White Harbor and gods know where beyond. It has been more than four years since those terrible wars, with a winter to distract them besides…and yet.”
And yet.
Was a King what he claimed, what his bannermen trumpeted?
Or was he what his people whispered in the dark?
