half blade, half silk
Chapter 2: Sansa I
The day that the King and his contingent rode into Winterfell was a day that Sansa wouldn't soon forget. Winterfell itself had been up since dawn, the servants working doubly hard to ensure that all was ready for the royal party's arrival. Sansa's mother had come into her chambers and helped her get dressed in a pale-blue gown (it brings out your eyes, Sansa, her mother had said) with a matching cloak, her red hair parted in the centre, and a few tresses pinned back in braids, leaving the rest to curl subtly around her soft face.
She fiddled with the clasp of her cloak now, waiting with baited breath as the King's party, some three hundred strong, rode through the gates. She twisted her head, slightly, turning behind her to see Jon standing just off to the side in the second row, his face impassive and harsh as the winter in their words, until he caught sight of her looking at him, to which he winked. Her eyelashes fluttered downwards and she hid her answering smile by looking away, before her mother could see and admonish her.
She would ask him to meet her in the Godswood later.
When she looked back at the King, she found herself wondering how this fat man who needed help to get down from his horse could have ever been the tall, strong warhammer-wielding Storm Lord who killed the Dragon Prince, all for the love of her Aunt Lyanna. She saw Jaime Lannister, the Queen's twin brother, (Kingslayer, she had heard in hushed voices from the maids as they spoke of the knight) just as Arya whispered the name to her, nudging her in the side, peering around for the Imp. The man was handsome, golden hair and green eyes and a sharp smile. It was a lazy, disinterested, almost scornful look he gave his surroundings – it made Sansa bristle inside.
Winterfell may not be the glory of the South, but it was her home, nonetheless.
There was a large man with half of his face terribly burned, and a tall boy with the Kingslayer's golden hair and eyes, whom she assumed to be Joffrey, King Robert's eldest son and the crown prince. As if he had heard her thoughts, he turned in her direction, his somewhat indolent smile turning appreciative, making her blush (not in admiration, as Robb must have thought, since she could see his frown from out of the corner of her eye, but in discomfort, as the only one who had ever looked at her like that had been Jon, and he had never looked at her so covetously, as if he'd like to cut her open and eat all her insides). She looked away, awkwardly, looking at the stunted little man behind them, who must have been the Queen's younger brother, Tyrion Lannister.
The King crushed her father in a hug, roaring out his name, and Sansa blanched at the show of boorishness. Even her poor father seemed stunned by the King's rough affection.
But her father simply blinked. "Your Grace. Winterfell is yours."
The doors to a gilded wheelhouse that had rolled in along with the riders opened and the Queen sidled out with her young children, Joffrey's younger siblings, Princess Myrcella, the pale, blonde, pretty girl, and Prince Tommen, blonde as his siblings and mother and of an age with Bran. Her father knelt in the snow and kissed the Queen's ring, while the king embraced her stoic mother as if she were his own sister.
King Robert moved down the line of Stark children, shaking Robb's hand, who looked much older than the fourteen years he shared with her, and he kissed her hand, calling her a "pretty one" (she deliberately ignored the feeling of his wet lips on her skin). Arya looked at him, disinterestedly, and he muttered something about her looking like her Aunt Lyanna before moving forward to Bran and baby Rickon.
The King then turned to her father. "Take me down to your crypt, Eddard. I would pay my respects."
Sansa frowned at that, wondering why the King was so adamant to see Winterfell's crypts, and then only just remembered that her Aunt Lyanna had been buried there, after the war had ended. That made her soft inside – to know that the King still loved her Aunt Lyanna so greatly that he wished to see her statue in the crypts – this was the Robert Baratheon from the songs. But, Sansa turned to Queen Cersei, curious to see her reaction, won't the Queen be angry that he wishes to visit Aunt Lyanna in the crypts?
The Lannisters must have been mind-readers, as the Queen's mouth thinned at that moment and she began to protest, citing that they had been riding for over a month and surely the dead could wait. Sansa balked at that, as if her aunt had been some blacksmith's daughter who'd died of a fever, instead of the only daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, who had been carried off from her bed by Rhaegar Targaryen, raped and left to die in some tower in Dorne.
But the look that the King gave Queen Cersei chilled Sansa right to the bone, and she looked away, just as Ser Jaime took her by the arm and led her back to her children. Her mother, the consummate lady as always, swept forwards and offered to take the Queen and her children to the chambers where they would be staying, and the party dispersed. Sansa was left with her siblings, who immediately began to prattle as soon as the King, Queen, the royal children, and the Kingsguard had left their midst.
"Did you see the Imp? He-"
"The King doesn't look at all like what I thought he'd-"
"Do you think that's the sword Ser Jaime used to kill-"
Sansa looked at Jon then, curious to know what he'd thought of the royal party, only to find him staring at her as well.
Oh, I cannot wait any longer.
She gave him a deliberate look and she held out her hand, imperiously.
"Jon, I would like to go to the Godswood now," She told him.
Jon nodded and offered his arm for her hand to lay upon.
"Sansa, why do you need to pray now?" Arya rolled her eyes.
Sansa scowled down at her little sister. "There is no such thing as an established time to pray. I'd simply like to go to the Godswood, unless it would displease you?" The derisive edge her voice took towards the end told Arya that even if she objected, Sansa wouldn't be changing her mind.
Arya huffed and turned to Bran. "Do you think the Kingslayer-?"
Robb, however, didn't let them leave immediately. "Why did the Prince look at you like that?"
Under her hand, she felt Jon tense.
Sansa tipped her head up, defiantly. "How should I know?"
"You blushed," Robb accused.
Sansa rolled her eyes. "Yes, because he smiled at me."
"So you do like him?" Robb pushed.
If it were possible, Jon turned to stone beside her.
"Of course not," Sansa scoffed, and she hoped Jon listened well. "Blushing isn't something that you can just control. And it isn't as if boys smile at me, often, now is it?" She challenged.
Robb grimaced, but kept silent.
"Now," She levelled her twin with a withering look. "If we are finished with all the accusations, I'd like to go to the Godswood now." She turned to Jon, expectantly.
Jon nodded and he led her away to the Godswood, leaving the other Stark children standing in the courtyard. She hoped that her siblings didn't think much of it, her asking Jon to take her to the Godswood instead of Robb, or waiting until after the royal party had settled in their rooms.
The two didn't stop walking until they reached the heart tree, with its solemn face carved into the dark weirwood, looming over them as if judging them for the reason behind their retreat to the Godswood.
The Old Gods frown upon incest, Sansa remembered.
But did she have any other choice but to bring Jon here with her?
The Great Keep would be bustling with servants, of Winterfell and King's Landing, and she didn't trust anyone to not be peeking around the corners, curious as to what those strange Northmen actually did up in their frozen wasteland. And if the King and Queen were to find out, the eldest daughter of the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North bedding down with her own half-brother, a bastard half-brother at that, the consequences would be too great – for Jon more than her (her mother would have him killed, her husband's blood or not, and Sansa would die then of grief).
No, the Godswood is our only sanctuary.
She looked up at the stern face of the weirwood and closed her eyes, praying for forgiveness. It would not do well to be arrogant here. The Old Gods' wrath was slow, but brutal.
"You blushed when the Prince smiled at you?"
Sansa's eyes snapped to Jon, whose solemn features (her father's features, but she didn't care to contemplate long on that) remained inscrutable to her.
"Not you too," Sansa sighed.
His face broke out in a smile and he touched her on the arm. "I was merely japing."
Sansa huffed. "I wasn't blushing, not really. He… took me by surprise." She explained, gently.
Jon took her hands in his and raised them up to his mouth, warming them from the cold. The touch of his lips then sent such a hurtling surge of warmth through her that she almost rocked on her feet, wishing that she could fall into his arms then and there.
"I know," He murmured.
She had never thought of another boy in the same breath as she had him, and Jon knew that, she knew he knew that; he had nothing to be jealous about – but she also knew that the royal party's arrival had him on edge. It was difficult enough to find time to be alone together when it was just Winterfell around them, but he would isolate himself from even more now that the King and Queen were they, lest they be offended by a bastard in their midst (she hated when he thought of himself as less than anyone; how could Jon be less than anyone?).
"What did you think of the King?" Sansa asked him, curiously.
"The demon of the Trident," Jon began, scornfully. "A man as wide as he is tall, and already half in his cups."
Sansa's lips twitched. It was clear to her that Jon had the same thoughts as she had.
"And the Queen?"
"She is beautiful," Jon reasoned.
Sansa raised an eyebrow. "More beautiful than I am?" She teased.
Jon gave her such a withering look that it had her flushing down her neck. "Hardly."
He didn't compare her look to the sun or the moon or the stars or any other pretty, arcane things, as the songs were wont to do, but the way he said it, as if it were some incontrovertible truth that made her a lackwit for not understanding, that was more of worth to her than the words of Seasons of My Love.
"Her smile is false," Jon said, suddenly.
Sansa frowned. "What do you mean?"
"She never looked at any of you, not Father, or your Lady Mother, simply through you, as if you didn't exist at all, or perhaps were not worth existing."
Sansa had seen it too, in the Queen's sharp, green gaze, but she hadn't put too much thought into it until now, until Jon himself was speaking what she was thinking.
Cersei Lannister did not want to be here.
"The Prince?"
Now, this was a question she was eager for an answer.
"He doesn't like it here either."
"I saw it too," Sansa said, softly. Her brow furrowed. "But if the Queen doesn't want to be here, why are they here?"
"Mayhaps she does not have much choice in it," Jon pointed out. "You saw the way he looked at her when she objected to him going down to the crypts."
Sansa nodded. Kings did not look at their Queens, Queens they loved, the way Robert Baratheon had looked at Cersei Lannister earlier.
She couldn't imagine her father looking at her lady mother like that, ever.
"This will not end well, will it?" Sansa said, suddenly.
Jon's face softened and he took his hands in hers. "No."
Sansa's shoulders slumped and she glared at him, viciously. "You're meant to reassure me." She snapped.
Jon chuckled. "Sansa, Father may not even agree to be King Robert's Hand."
"Kings don't take 'no' for an answer," Sansa replied, stubbornly.
He looked around first before taking her face in his hands and kissing her (there were too many people in Winterfell now for them to be as reckless as they would be). Sansa melted into the kiss, as she was accustomed to doing, clutching onto his forearms through the black wool of his cloak. When he pulled away, her eyes were still closed, as if to capture this moment in her mind.
She shook her head. "If Father goes to King's Landing, Mother will want Arya and I to join him." She said, carefully.
Jon nodded. "Yes, that is likely."
Sansa bit her lip. She didn't want to ask her question, but she needed to know.
"And you? Will you come with us?"
She saw the indecision on his face and her heart dropped into her stomach.
To his credit, Jon hesitated before answering.
"Your Mother will not allow it."
"I'll convince her," Sansa said, adamantly. "You could be our sworn shield."
She could see in Jon's eyes that he did not have the same faith as she did, and wondered if this was the beginning of their idyll being unstitched at the seams (no, it can't be, I won't let it, Sansa reassured herself).
"Sansa-"
She imagined he began his words so slowly and so tenderly, as to break the news of his doubt kindly, without offending her.
"I don't want to hear it," Sansa snapped.
"Sansa-" His voice was now sharp and frustrated.
Why did he sound so angry if it were her heart that he was breaking with his wavering?
Sansa was suddenly cross.
"No," She said, firmly. "We mustn't speak of this right now. Mother will be looking for me. I must return."
With that, she left him standing there in the Godswood, alone, every step she took away from him almost like a league away.
Her mother had come to her rooms early that night, before the feast to welcome their guests, in order to help her get ready again. Her gown would be different; one she had stitched herself with ruffles at the collar much like her mother was wearing. Her hair was twisted into a myriad of braids, some of which falling over her shoulder. As she looked into the mirror, she wondered if Jon would like her in this dress; would he want her out of it as eagerly as he had the dove-grey silk she had worn to the last harvest feast? In truth, she had worn it for him, knowing that it was the same colour as his eyes, with just enough of a neckline to bare her collarbone.
Tonight, however, she felt more of a girl than she did a woman. Especially when her mother knelt in front of her, took Sansa's hands in hers, and explained how the offer for her father to become the Hand of the King came with another one as well.
Sansa felt something die inside of her when her mother calmly explained that the King wished to bind the Houses of Stark, Lannister and Baratheon together, in marriage. She would marry Ser Jaime and Prince Joffrey would marry Arya.
Her mother had just finished speaking the princess' name, when Sansa spoke up.
"But, Mother, Ser Jaime… I thought knights of the Kingsguard were forbidden to take a wife?"
Sansa was surprised when her voice did not waver as she thought it would.
Her mother hesitated. "The King has agreed to release Ser Jaime from his vows and allow him to marry you, so that there may be peace between our houses. As you well know, your father and the Lannisters have an unfortunate history."
Yes, Sansa had heard the story of how her father had strode into the throne room of the Red Keep once King's Landing had been sacked by the Lannister army, only to find Ser Jaime sitting on the throne, with the Mad King's body lying at his feet, his golden sword and white cloak drenched with blood. She had also heard the story of how her father had objected when Tywin Lannister had presented the newly-crowned Robert Baratheon with the bodies of Elia Martell, Rhaenys Targaryen and her baby brother, Aegon, their corpses wrapped in Lannister cloaks as red as the blood that still congealed on their skin.
She looked up then.
"Father," She said, hopefully. "Surely he does not mean to-"
Father hates Jaime Lannister; everyone knows that. He's a knight without honour, an oathbreaker. Father would never expect me to marry such a man. Sansa reassured herself.
Catelyn flinched, as if she so badly wanted to agree with her. "Your father has… accepted the King's offer."
Whatever was left inside Sansa died as well.
"Why?" Sansa demanded, forgetting her courtesies for a moment.
"Sansa," Catelyn sighed. "Your father is in a precarious position. He cannot refuse the King."
"So he'll just sell me off to whomever the King wants?" Sansa asked, sharply.
"Sansa!" Catelyn admonished. "Your father would never sell you. Ser Jaime is… a good match. Once he has been released of his vows, he will be the heir to Casterly Rock and the future Warden of the West."
"He's too old!" Sansa protested.
"He is younger than both your father and I," Catelyn pointed out. "He and the Queen are only thirty-two years old."
"I'm fourteen!" Sansa paused. "What of the prince? He must only be a year or two younger than me. Can I not marry him and Arya can marry Prince Tommen?" She asked, desperately.
Catelyn pursed her lips. "It appears that the Queen is of the opinion that it would not do if the Crown Prince married someone who was older than him." She explained.
"But it would do if I married someone eighteen years older than I am?" Sansa shot back, incredulous, her voice growing louder.
"Sansa!" Catelyn rebuked now.
Sansa flinched away from her mother, making Catelyn soften.
"Sansa, my love," Catelyn took her hands in hers again. "What are our words, the Tully words?"
"Family, Duty, Honour," Sansa replied, swallowing hard.
"I was only twelve when my father betrothed me to your Uncle Brandon, but I did my duty," Catelyn said, gently. "And you will do yours."
Sansa didn't want to point out the obvious to her mother – that her Uncle Brandon had only been three-four years older than her and she and her uncle would not have even been married until she was seventeen or eighteen.
But what could she say more? Her mother and father had apparently already agreed for her and were merely telling her as a courtesy, rather than asking her for her opinion. And as her mother had said: family, duty, honour. She had been raised in those words just as she had been raised in winter is coming.
"Sansa, I know this isn't what you dreamed of, but your sons will rule the West one day, and be kin twice over to future Kings," Catelyn insisted.
I don't care about that, Sansa wanted to shout. Jon will leave now, don't you see? He'll leave me all alone and I'll be forced to bed the Kingslayer.
But she could never say that to her mother – even the mere mention of Jon Snow was enough to make her mother walk out of the room, her face as pale as white-hot fury.
"Our House will be safer for it, if you marry Jaime Lannister, Sansa," Catelyn urged, quietly.
Yes, our House. But what about me, mother? Do you not feel any pity for me?
But there was nothing more to do. Short of running away with Jon (and Jon, her sweet Jon, would never do something so dishonourable; no, he'd bite his tongue and step away before he'd ever shame her like that), she could not stop what was to come. All she could do is hold onto Jon as fiercely as she could before everything fell apart around them – sometimes, she feared she was as stupid as Arya said she was; had she really thought that Jon and her could be together forever, just like Florian and Jonquil or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his Queen Naerys?
"When will we be married?" Sansa asked, dully. "Now, or…"
She couldn't bear to finish the sentence.
"Once he hears of your father's agreement to the betrothal, the King will publicly release Ser Jaime from his vows and you will be wed in the Sept, here in Winterfell."
"In a few days, then?" Sansa murmured.
"That is what the King intends." Catelyn hesitated then. "I need to go and make sure that your brothers and your sister are ready for the feast. Will you be alright on your own?"
"Yes." Sansa replied, blankly.
"Very well," Catelyn kissed Sansa on the crown of her head and left her sitting there in her chambers.
Sansa stared off into nothing, the heat from the fire easing none of the cold that had spread once her mother had told her of her future (the future that she apparently had no say in).
Jon.
She needed to speak with Jon.