When someone had knocked at their chamber door the next morning, both Sansa and Sandor had felt a strong foreboding and stood looking into each other's eyes with defeat and despair before looking away.

"I would come with you this time, Sandor, please," she had implored once they were told of another murder.

He had hesitated momentarily before conceding. "But I won't have you ride, little bird, especially in the snow: come in the sledge with the maester."

This time the soldiers sent to fetch him reined their horses before the inn. Sandor dismounted and patted Stranger, who was tossing his head and blowing air in great puffs of fogged breath.

"Easy, boy: you've known death before this," Sandor rasped to him. "The innkeeper?" he asked gruffly of the soldier, the younger Snow from the previous night.

The boy shook his head. "The serving wench, m'lord; they said to bring you out back." He pointed through the inn's ground floor of tables and benches back towards the kitchen.

Outside again, he saw the innkeeper's wife wrapped in a heavy shawl, her eyes and face red and puffy from her tears.

"It's not right, m'lord," she insisted when she saw him, "she may've been a bit of whore but she was a good girl asides that: she was always cheerful and worked hard when she weren't with th'soldiers or tradesmen."

Her body was covered with snow, clearly having lain there some time; only her face has been brushed clean. Her eyes were staring open and her face was blue, her lips purple.

"Has she been here all night?" Sandor demanded now, his eyes sweeping the face around him. The old innkeeper stepped forward looking piteous.

"Forgives me, m'lord, I nevers thought to check iffen she'd gone to bed." He grasped his hands together in helplessness and blinked many times. "I'da never thought a woman's be kill't, and her more a girl still, m'lord."

Sandor kneeled to take a closer look, noting there were no bloodstains on the snow. He brushed away more of the icy snow from her face and stopped suddenly and squinted hard.

"Strangled, it looks to be," he rasped, "though hard to tell with her all blue from cold. Dig her out," he ordered, "carefully, and look for anything while you're at it."

"M'lord?"

"Anything that may have been dropped, or footprints that are still apparent…that aren't yours," he jeered somewhat since there were now so many soldiers and villagers standing around that it would be impossible to distinguish one person's path from another's. Just as he was about to order them all away but the few needed, a hush fell over the group gathered behind the inn.

"M'lady," they all murmured, bobbing and bowing their heads respectfully.

Sandor turned to see Sansa walking towards him; her head was high but her face was drawn and her countenance somber. Even at this moment, his heart filled with pride to see how beautiful she was and how noble, even in grief.

"My lord," she addressed him respectfully, "I am told to my great sadness that a girl is dead."

"Aye, my lady: that is true," he rasped.

"Who was she?" she asked softy.

The innkeeper replied. "She' a been my servin'…girl. Jeynie Snow, she was, m'lady."

Sansa turned and put her hand gently on the man's arm. "I am very sorry," she told him.

"She weren't bad, m'lady: Happy Jeynie, they called her; she jus' wanted a bit more t'eat and warmer clothes…from the soldiers, they brung 'em t'her from th'castle as, well, as a sorta trade, m'lady," the innkeeper's wife explained.

"I know," Sansa told her, "I offered her work in the castle once and she told me she would prefer staying with you, that you treated her well. I am grateful that one of our many orphaned northerners found a home with you."

The innkeeper and his wife bowed their heads to her and she turned back to walk towards the body in the snow.

Sandor stepped to block her. 'You don't needs look, my lady," he rasped low.

She looked up at him with infinitely sad blue eyes. "I must," she insisted softly. Sansa kneeled and at first closed her eyes against the horrible sight but then forced herself to look upon her. She is of the North: a Snow like Jon was, dark-haired like Arya. She brushed snow off the girl's frozen hair, and heaved a great trembling sigh.

"We'll dig her out of there, m'lady" one soldier told her kindly.

"Thank you," Sansa replied, "please, treat her gently." When she rose, there were tears frozen to her lashes and the innkeeper approached her timidly.

"Will ye not come in to git warm, m'lady? My wife can make ye a cuppa nettle tea."

Sansa smiled wanly. "I would be most grateful to you, thank you." She turned to the people who had gathered before going inside.

"My Northern friends," she began shakily and then steadied herself. "I am so very sorry for these senseless deaths, and I assure you that we at Winterfell have and will continue to do our duty to try to solve-" she halted helplessly, "what is happening here. In the meantime, I beg you please not to go out alone, and to look out for one another, and we shall try to look out for you as well. I know that we have survived worse; but at least we knew then who and what we were fighting."

….

The girl was laid out on a trestle table near the fire for the maester to examine. The innkeeper's wife had fetched the rough sheet from her bed as a shroud and placed it neatly and reverently next to her head. When she sat back down again, Sansa took her hand to hold.

"Well?" Sandor asked gruffly.

The maester peered hard. "Definitely marks on her neck," he prodded her gently, "and her breathing passage is crushed." He shook his head now. "No blood on her clothing, my lord, nor sign that it was removed," he lowered his voice so that the women may not hear him.

"Then she wasn't…" Sandor asked leadingly.

The maester shook his head again. "Not violently, my lord; any act she may have engaged in was with consent. Her smallclothes are tied neatly," the man whispered, casting a furtive eye to his liege lady.

Sandor looked down at the body pensively.

Look upon the dead brother, they have much to tell us.

"Shall we shroud her now, my lord?" the maester asked.

"She saw him," Sandor rasped quietly.

"My lord?"

Sansa approached him. "What is it, my lord?"

"The young smith and the cooper were done for from behind: the rock to the back of the head, the knife to the throat," he explained. "But this," he showed him by putting his hands out as though to grasp Sansa's throat," he would have to face her, wouldn't he?"

"He likely would have, my lord, but…what matter?"

"She was not heard to scream, was she?" he questioned the innkeeper.

"Nay, m'lord; the tavern'd been fulla soldiers and commons; they'da heard'er."

Didn't scream, but might be she tried to fight, but a half-starved girl could not fight for her life.

Once you could easily tell the high-born from the commons, Elder Brother had remarked of the bodies that washed up from the ravaged Riverlands, but look at them: they're all starving now, brother.

"She must have known him then," he concluded. "He must be from the winter town."

Sansa knit her brow together in frustration. "But why?"

"She never harmed nobody here, m'lord," the innkeeper's wife protested.

"Not intentionally, but what about jealousy, or rivalry; is there someone she'd spurned, or mayhaps laughed at? Was she ever with the young smith or the cooper?"

The innkeeper looked uncomfortable. "Coop: might be; not young Flyn, I don't think, m'lord. But Jeynie…I don't think she's turned no ones down; she liked the attention well enough, well enough not t'be so particular, if you'll forgive me, m'lady," he inclined his head to Sansa.

"I understand," Sansa replied evenly, and she did. Had she not once been a bastard girl? Born of lust, it was said, and so were thought to be full of lust themselves. No one had expected her to be particular or even to object if they tried to grope her or even simply assume that they could have her. Jeynie Snow had probably never been given a choice at all and so decided instead to get what she could from men's attentions. Sansa decided then that all Northern girls should have a better choice; she would see to it somehow.

Meanwhile Sandor was brooding darkly on his theory, staring down at the dead girl and trying to unlock the mystery of the murders. Finally he told the maester to shroud the girl and take her away. Then he turned back to the innkeeper.

"If any man should stop coming in, and you think it may be because of her…you will let me know," he instructed him.

"A-aye, m'lord," he agreed though Sansa thought the man seemed unconvinced. His wife covered her face with her hands now, to see the girl enveloped in death.

….

The Blackfish tread quietly behind the homes in the winter town, stopping behind that of the baker's. He knew the man was at the forge with other villagers talking about the girl's murder since his voice carried louder and further than most. He reached out to open a back door, hoping to find it barred securely but instead it swung open easily to reveal the back of the baker's wife bent over a table, hard at work. It only took a moment for her to feel the rush of cold air and turn around with a gasp.

"Forgive me," he spoke low, "I wished to see if you were properly protected, and I am grieved to learn that you are not. You must be more careful, I implore you: a young woman at the inn was killed last night."

The woman wrapped herself in a patched shawl and came to the back door, immediately putting her hands out to close it. She paused long enough to speak to him though.

"Tha'd be Jeynie then, the lit'l whore?" She asked without raising her eyes to look at him. She had dark hair tied loosely at the back of her neck though the pieces falling in her face did little to obscure the faded bruises on her cheek and near her mouth.

He raised his grey eyebrows in surprise at her coarseness. "I know that she served there," he replied.

"Then ye' don' know much, do ye'? It's nuthin' t'me, is it?" she said quickly and began to shut the door.

"It is if you are not careful; your door should be barred-" he began earnestly. He saw that she was frightened, not cruel.

"Please, Ser," she implored in a lower voice, "there's nuthin' I can do 'bout it; he says no, so it's no. Now please begone 'afore he comes back-"

"He's at the forge," Blackfish reassured her, "and you're frightened of him, I understand; but I am concerned for you, as is my lady."

She looked at him sharply now. "Why'd your wife be thinkin' o'me then?"

He smiled slightly. "My great-niece, the Lady of Winterfell is concerned for you," he corrected himself. "She wishes to know if you would like to go away from here, to another village or castle, with your children of course."

"My husban'-"

"Without your husband," he told her quietly but firmly, "for your safety."

The woman's chin seemed to quiver though she pursed her lips together tightly.

"It won't work, I tells ye'; it never does. He's found me 'afore, and then it's only worse. Says I can go to th'Red Waste an' he'll find me," she told him in a quavering voice.

The Blackfish scoffed. "Then let us take you away and mayhaps that is where he will go to search for you…if we are lucky."

"Ser?"

"The Red Waste is a great barren stretch of hot, dry land in Essos, without food, water or shelter; few have entered it and lived," he explained patiently, "I would hope the same for him."

"That's not kind," she stammered uneasily.

"Nor is how he treats you," he retorted flatly. The woman dropped her eyes again and he saw she was ashamed. "Forgive me," he said as gently as he could, "I will not force you to act; you have enough such treatment already. But I implore you to bar your doors and protect yourself and your children. If you should ever change your mind, if we might help you, I pray you come to the castle if you can, or ask any soldier to send for me and I will come for you. You are not without friends," he finished.

The woman pursed her lips again and shook her head. "I thanks ye'" she told him hoarsely, "but it won't work."

She shut the door to the bakery, and left him standing in the cold.

….

Din'I tell ye there's be another killin' afore long? An' a woman too, gods pertect us all.

I still says it's them wildlin's, the tanner nodded knowingly, one or mores come ta steal our wimmens, an' Happy Jeynie, she wouldna go.

Coop had no woman, ye daft git, the baker sneered, can'ye no see it's th'Hound? Th'lady herself's got a bun in th'oven, th'innkeep's wife'd swear it. Gods help her iffen she births a son cuz then'er days'll be numbered fer sure, an 'then the young lord's. He glowered hatefully. Sumpin' needs be done 'bout that curs't dog….