Chapter Four
Although Gendry had been seated next to the elder Stark sister at the feast that evening, he frequently watched the younger one, her radiant smile lighting up the dark hall, cup of sweet wine in hand.
She's naughty, he thought gleefully enjoying her cheekiness.
Arya Stark, who had come down dressed in the same stunning silver dress, her hair flowing in a cascade of curls down her back, showing her delectable neck and pale shoulders to perfection. A vision of stunning winter next to her sister's change of dress into a dark blue dress that did fit perfectly into her Tully heritage. Now she was sitting laughing with her brothers, not far from the place that Sansa and he were located. Her smile made her face look so joyous and utterly entrancing. She had sat, drank and ate, and thrown food at her younger brothers very cheekily despite her mother's pleading looks constantly thrown her way.
He was stopped in his musings over the younger Stark daughter soon by the elder and his constant drinking.
"So your highness, are you enjoying the North?" Sansa said, ever the proper little lady.
"Yes, my lady, I find the North ever so entrancing and beautiful," he said smiling back at her and glancing over her shoulder at Lady Arya.
Sansa smiled in a confused manner and glanced over her shoulder. Her forehead, most notably the gap between her light red eyebrows, wrinkled in confusion upon spotting the Prince's eyes on Arya.
Obviously not being the sole focus of powerful men was unusual for her, he mused in annoyance.
However just as she was about to say something in response, the King called out for all gracing the hall with their presence to listen.
"I would like to thank my ally and old friend, Lord Eddard Stark and his wife, Lady Catelyn, for welcoming us so warmly to the cold fortress that is Winterfell of the North," the King announced boisterously, his ruddy cheeks shining with drink.
"Hopefully this is the first of many such joinings between Houses Baratheon and Stark," he finished, his eyes shining with the implications of his words as he glanced measuredly toward Gendry and Sansa's seat.
Gendry's eyes immediately sought out his fathers.
Not for the first time in his life, he wondered why he had gotten a father who was as he was. So brash, so utterly unthinking. Uncaring of the free will that others were promised. The Starks had always been the family that Gendry would most likely marry into. He had known that for his entire life. However there was a distinct difference between his own knowledge of a marriage and the entire court knowing. Through that announcement, the marriage was all by signed by both fathers, it was ensured. Gendry rolled his eyes and looked directly to the Queen, his dear mother. She would have something to say about this unanticipated announcement.
She raised her glass to him, his smirk was mirrored in her own face. They both were often appalled by the King's dramatic tendencies. It was something that had drawn them closer over the years.
One thanking his host, the King tumbled back into his seat, leaning over to call a well endowed serving girl to him. So the hall went back to eating and Gendry went back to drinking.
Time seemed to move slowly around him the more he drank. He wanted to sleep, it had been a hard day riding through the snowy fields toward Winterfell. He glimpsed up at his parents. His father was no longer in his seat, probably off between the thighs of one women or another and his mother sat stiffly, with a wine glass in her hand and the Kingslayer at her elbow, whispering in her ear.
Upon recognised both his parent's preoccupation, Gendry deemed it a good time to escape the intense chatter of the hall and any person in general. He stood up and stumbled towards the great oak doors that led outside the hall, hoping for fresh air and a comfortable place to sleep deeply in his drunken stupor.
Once he had crossed the threshold of the hall, he paused to wonder where he should go from there. He was not aware of where his chambers were, or any servants that he could ask.
Then a thought that had been circling through his brain wormed its way to the forefront of his mind as he staggered toward the dark Godswood.
The Godswood looked even more uninviting in the dead of the night than it did during the day. He leaned against the ancient weirwood tree and sighed. It was the hauntingly beautiful peace that had been the most inviting aspect of the woods. It was a place he could escape the nonsense of court, and even worse, he could escape the courtiers. He rested.
His head was still spinning from his excessive drinking when he heard quiet, lithe footsteps making their way toward his current position at the bottom of the tree. But it was only when he spied the wave of a dark curtain of hair fly by his peripheral vision that he grasped who the footsteps belonged to.
"Ah, so we met once again below the Weirwood tree, my lady," he called out to the darkness surrounding him.
A twig snapped on his right side as Lady Arya emerged from the trees with a scowl marring her beautiful features.
"Don't call me that," she snapped angrily at him, coming closer with her grey direwolf seething behind her until it strode off into the dark woods.
He watched her as she moved forward, coming closer to him, with a lazy smile on his face.
"Then what may I call you, my lady?" he questioned sardonically.
"My name," she quipped back immediately, "you may call me Arya."
A pensive look covered his face as he considered why she should allow him of all people to call her by her first name. It was a sign of friendship, he supposed.
But soon he returned, "Well Arya, in that case, you may call me Gendry," he said as he delivered a drunken bow, almost falling toward her, on to his face.
She let out a breathy little laugh before a stoic frown descended once more on to her features with held all the icy cold of the North itself.
"Why did you not tell me who you were? Why were you in the Godswood? And above all, why do you keep staring now?" she hissed at him.
He looked up and smiled.
"Whatever do you mean, my lady Arya?" he whispered.
The smile that adorned his features was cheeky. Paired with his slightly glazed over eyes, Arya knew she would be hard-pressed to get any real answers from him. She had seen this mood, this drunk recklessness, in her brothers much to often.
"While sitting beside my sister, Sansa, during dinner you kept glancing at my brothers and I. So tell me what you want now," she demanded.
Their eyes met once again as she fixed him with a piercing grey stare. His light blue met hers and she felt herself go slightly weak, a strange fluttering occurring in the pits of her stomach. She immediately dismissed it as something bad she ate.
But despite Arya's inability to recognise attraction, she could acknowledge beauty. And Gendry Baratheon was handsome. Very handsome.
Sansa and him would make a fine couple, a striking couple, she thought vaguely. Sansa was the beautiful girl, the very image of their mother, who would marry a perfect Prince and have little princelings and in turn, Arya would be able to stay in Winterfell for a little bit longer before being shipped of into a marriage befitting of her station to be tamed by a husband. Though when that occurred, Arya would fight tooth and nail against it. Sansa would be a queen while Arya remained a lady, thank the Gods.
Lost in her own thoughts, Arya's eyes snapped back up to Gendry when he called her name which she immediately barked a 'yes' to.
"My lady, forgive me if I stared. I was just completely overwhelmed by your utter beauty," he slurred in an almost sincere tone, a smug look on his face.
Arya hand itched to slap his self-satisfied smile off his face. She hated being called beautiful. Though she could now say that she did not feel like ugly little Arya Horseface, Sansa was still the beauty of the family. She did not need Gendry Baratheon flattering her with useless sawder. It only reminded her of what she wasn't.
But nonetheless she answered distastefully rather than with any vulnerability.
"No," she growled, "Your dear future wife has the overwhelming beauty you are referring to. I am content to be better equipped in horse-riding and swordplay."
"Really, my lady, you like to play with swords. Is that all swords?" he asked cheekily.
Arya narrowed her eyes at him, perfectly understanding his meaning due to the incessant japing of Theon.
On noticing her knowing look, he quickly retracted his statement by shame facedly adding that he truly meant to inquire if she practiced with hammers and their like and other such weaponary.
Arya tolled her eyes, but answered immediately, a smile lighting up her face. Her smile made her less a stern Stark and more a sweet summer child, Gendry noted.
She hurriedly told him of her wish to be trained in the style of the Braavos water dance, explaining in tedious detail Winterfell's instructors insistence that had she been given a her dancing master she would have further excelled at swordplay and perhaps matched her brothers own training.
Gendry may have at one time grown bored of a girl talking in such great detail of anything really, but not with this particular girl. Not with Arya. So he questioned her, being drawn into the detailing of her life, of her training, of her.
"So you aim to be both a soldier and half horse, my lady," Gendry inferred as she explained her enjoyment of riding.
She grinned in contentment.
"Yes, I fear that I shall always be the bane of my mothers existence, the shame of my family. A lady who would rather not be a lady," she japed happily.
"I do not think that you could ever be a shame to any family, natural or married into," Gendry said, "I think that your adventurous spirit and rebellious nature gives you a distinction amongst other woman. I mean look at your aunt, she is said to have been as tempestuous as she was beautiful, and she forced war upon the seven kingdoms…" he drew off slowly noticing the pained look on Arya's face.
"Father never talks about her," she ventured to say quietly, "Only sometimes when he says that I am her likeness. But often I will notice him staring at me with the face of someone who is in deep reminiscence of a beloved person."
She glanced up at him, her face still curious, and smiled.
"I understand Arya," Gendry said wistfully, "I often stop a similar look on my father's face. But rather I think he is mourning his own youth."
"Well he certainly did not retain much of his youthful loveliness," Arya blurted out sarcastically.
Gendry laughed good humouredly at that, nodding his own agreement.
"But I think the Lady Lyanna is a sore topic of the entire Kingdom," Gendry said, "particularly for both our fathers, perhaps even my mother. But whatever the damage Lyanna Stark did to the kingdoms, there is no denying her beauty if you are her likeness."
Arya face bloomed with heat, covering her face in embarrassment and no doubt flattery. However she soon remembered her previous friendliness and resumed talking, ignoring his comment.
"I am sorry my lord, I am sure you would not want to talk of a woman who has most likely caused your family nothing but pain," she apologised.
"On the contrary, Lady Arya, any chance to talk to you is a welcome one," he flirted.
Arya let out a laugh, a pushed his shoulder a lot harder than one would expect of one so skinny and small, hissing out an exasperated 'stupid'. He let out a chuckle.
"But in all honestly, my lord, I will talk to you all the time if you tell me of your extensive travels. The entire seven kingdoms have heard tales of the travelling Prince. Have you been as high up to scale the Wall or merely as further down to the sandy slopes of the dornish beaches," Arya asked eagerly.
"Well, my lady, had I scaled the Wall, this would not be my first trip North. But yes, I have lay on the sandy shores of Dorne. Do you hold an interest in travelling?" he queried.
"Yes I do. My elder brother, Jon and I always promised each other when we were young that one day we would travel Westeros together. But soon he will depart for the Wall and I, well, I…" she stuttered.
"Will be sold off to the highest bidder for a Stark daughter," he finished for her.
She nodded miserably.
Gendry felt a flush of sympathy mixed with stark compassion fill him. He reached out and took one of her small hands in his, clasping it tightly with both hands, ignoring the small current that her touch excited in him. To him it seemed cruel to tame such a wild beauty.
"My L… Arya," he whispered intimately, "I am sorry for that. The life of a daughter, having to be a currency used for the furthering of a man, a fathers, wealth and prosperity is one that I abhor. My own precious sister will be sold off soon, most likely to Dorne. I dread that day. I would never impose it own my own daughters."
Arya listened to him finish, her eyes narrowed.
"Yes you will," she said suddenly after a momentary pause, "All men do. Do not make statements that one day may make a hypocrite of you."
Gendry was taken aback by the bold statement.
She was daring and bold, he decided. Outspoken and unflinching in her resolve. And, damn her, very enticing in her stern beauty.
A twig cracked from behind them.
Arya immediately jumped back, pulling her warm hand from his. Looking wildly at to where the sound came from.
Gendry turned, his eyes clashing with another set of grey eyes that were so similar to the ones he had previously been pierced by.
Ned Stark stared at the couple holding hands under the hearttree with a look of yearning, a look of fearful reminiscent framing his usually cold features.
It was like staring at Robert and Lyanna at the wedding that should have been had it not been for the tourney of Harrenhall and the Dragon Prince.
Ned looked into Arya's eyes as she stared at him sheepishly.
Should he even be surprised to find his youngest and most rebellious child holding hands with a man who was to be her sister's betrothed in the middle of the dark Godswood without a chaperon?
No, he thought dryly, he was not even slightly surprised. But then he knew that Arya would see nothing wrong in her actions. To her, she was still little Arya Underfoot who needed no propriety and could go where she pleased with who ever she desired to.
She did not recognise her own beauty, the beauty that other immediately saw. She did know realise that her resistance to all thing remotely romantic made her only more enticing to men. She was wild, intriguing and beautiful. A hearts desire. The only person who did not acknowledge this was her. Everyone else saw it.
Arya began walking toward him, pausing only to nod at the Prince. When she reached him, she stood on the points of her toes and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, a peace offering, an apology for her rash decision of disobeying his desire for her to stay inside, in the safety of the castle, under his watchful eye.
She walked past him back to the castle without uttering a word.
Ned turned his eye to the Prince then.
"My lord, I am sorry. Your daughter followed me out here merely to inquire some information. There was no harm or intent of harm on either side," Gendry said hurridly, obviously fearing an enraged father that would demand his righting his daughter of any dishonour he had caused.
"I swear I did nothing to take advantage of Arya," he said.
Ned let out a quiet chuckle at that.
"Your highness, I am aware that had you done something dishonourable to my daughter then Prince Joffery would be the newly crowned Prince and heir to the Iron throne. She is quite able to look after her own interests," he responded.
Ned paused, gathering his face to ensure he now be regarded as menacing.
"However, your highness, if you do anything to garner the slightest it of pain in either of my daughters, particularly my Arya, well, the seven kingdoms will not be big enough for you to find a place that is adequately hidden from me," Ned threatened.
Gendry's face reflected his fear at the threat, as Ned face showed no bluff in his words. He was no accustomed to threatening father. Most fathers, and mothers, in the South would push, no throw their daughters, both beautiful and ugly, young and older, at him, hoping that he would take one of them to bed, hopefully resulting in royal favour. Or even pregnancy. All which could lead to a crown. But the Starks were not like that.
Yet another thing I like about the North, thought Gendry.
"Of course, Lord Stark. Both myself and my brother, Joffery will treat your daughters with the upmost respect," he said timidly.
Lord Stark stared at him, no longer in a menacing way, but rather his face held a thoughtful expression exceeded only by the glint of curiosity in his eye.
He began to turn around slowly, only to halt, and look at Gendry again.
"Do not hurt my daughter, your royal highness," he said sternly, immediately turning around and slowing walking back towards Winterfell.
Gendry was perplexed, which daughter did he mean. What was he saying?
Gendry was as good as engaged to Sansa Stark. His father had wanted to join the houses of Stark and Baratheon for as long as Gendry had be born, for as long as he had been a young Robert reborn. And Arya Stark, well she was something to enjoy, someone to chase and get to know for the time being.
Gendry slowly struggled out of the Godswood back to the castle, and the Godswood was silent.