When their party reached the bridge, the carcass of the direwolf wasn't there, which partly confirmed his suspicions and made him feel a little uneasy, but the little monsters were exactly where they were supposed to be and that's what really mattered. On the other hand it could be a good omen for Lord Stark's longterm survival, if you were into that sort of thing. At least on paper Joffrey was still a Baratheon and that made him a stag, so when he ordered execution of the old wolf superstitious folk in Winterfell didn't fail to remember that fateful trip when the Starks found their direwolves and their dead mother. Theon didn't count himself as one of those men so realization made him feel only marginally better.
The only reason he considered that trip fateful was because they had found Grey Wind and the monster had had good grace to save his skin in the battle of Whispering Wood a year later. So he felt as he owed the animal something. It was a strange feeling, Theon thought. As things were he didn't feel it for any other human being in the whole world, not even Robb. He liked Robb, they grew up together, he was a brother he chose and that was the only reason Theon bothered with all of this. But he didn't feel like he owed him something, rather he willed good things for him. If things were different and he didn't spend ten years in Winterfell they would have probably ended up as enemies. But that wasn't the case and he did spend all those years in Winterfell, with only Robb for true company and there was nothing he could do about the past.
The future however was entirely different matter. When he told Aribeth that the goal was to keep Starks north of Moat Cailin, it was Robb he had in mind. He couldn't care less about old wolf unless the manner of his demise forced Robb to call his banners and head south. Aribeth didn't want to be responsible for a bloodbath and neither was he. But bloodbath or no bloodbath as long as Robb stayed in the North he would consider his mission accomplished. With old wolf dead his own father might still get some funny ideas concerning North and wouldn't that be fun? He might be only sixteen year old, but Robb had the capacity to become an exceptional military commander. And in Theon's critical opinion Young Wolf would eat them all alive. His uncles, his sister and all the rest of them would have to learn the hard way just as Kingslayer and Tywin Lannister did. That is, if they were careless enough to leave the safety of their ships for more than a fortnight. Deep inside Theon almost wished for that to happen, threat to his own survival notwithstanding. What is dead may never die after all. And the looks on their faces would be more than worth it. He would get branded as Turncloak all over again naturally. This time by his own people, but he had more than enough practice this time around, or at least so he thought.
Then Theon realized he got carried away. Something was missing. They were already mounted and part of their party was ready to leave for Winterfell with the pups, but one was missing. He sighed, when he realized which one.
"Wait" - he stopped and pretended to hear something. - "Did you hear that?"
"No." - Robb replied and so Theon looked to Aribeth for support. She played along:
"Yes."
He dismounted to their collective surprise and shortly Aribeth did the same.
"There is one more" - he said as a matter of explanation and went to look for Ghost. He wasn't sure exactly why he did, what he did, for all he knew the albino outcast could be already dead, starved to death. So he rationalized it as trying to patch things up with the bastard: if Jon had his own direwolf to care for, maybe he would spend less time suspecting them. And it made sense in his head, but then again fiction usually did. Theon was an accomplished liar and knew better than most that it is the truth, that had a habit of being confusing.
"What of it?" - Jory Cassel asked slightly annoyed, when his uncle and his men started to dismount as well. Their party, including Jon was to keep looking for direwolf, while the Starks and the rest of them made their way to Winterfell.
"It is bad enough we have one direwolf on the prowl, we don't need another to haunt us." - Rodrik Cassel explained.
It took them another five minutes, when one of the men eventually found it. It was barely alive and mute and then he remembered.
'Fuck' - Theon cursed in his head. How was he supposed to remember that the wretched thing was mute? Jon might not notice it now, but he was far from stupid and it was just a matter of time. And then the bastard is going to suspect him even more. But then Theon noticed something and had an idea. The man who found it, seemed to be unsure what to do with it and Theon made the decision for him.
"I suppose this one is yours, Snow." - he said and that was it. Jon carefully took Ghost into his hands and appeared to be genuinely suprised and almost grateful, that he didn't have to press his bastard claims and make an ass of himself in front of his father's men, but would it last? 'Time will tell'- Theon decided and went back to his horse. He didn't notice the strange look Aribeth gave his retreating form, but Jon did. When she caught Jon staring at her she simply gave him a small smile, which reached her eyes and made him blush in return.
She didn't waste anymore time however and quickly followed Theon as if she was his shadow. It wasn't long before she was at his side again. Without her armor she had acquired an almost catlike tread, which hinted at the great deal of agility and made Theon's blood boil, which was a welcome distraction from his dark thoughts. She also knew how and when to keep quiet, which was a quality he learned to appreciate. Bran however was too excited to shut up and spent the rest of their way to Winterfell trying to come up with a name for Summer, occasionally asking Robb and Jon and Aribeth for advice, even him, Theon, which he never did before, outside of archery that is. Theon could only roll his eyes at some of the names and had to fight a strong urge to supply the blasted name, but he knew better. He was too curious to see if Starks will come up with the same names for their wolves. Aribeth must have guessed his thoughts and covertly asked:
"Which is it?"
"Summer" - he whispered as quietly as possible.
A hint of smile quickly crossed her face and disappeared just as quickly - "Are you going to tell him?"
"Hells, no" - he replied a little too loud, which attracted Robb's attention and he awarded them with a knowing look before turning away. Theon knew that look all too well. It meant - 'Look who's got a new girlfriend.' He was confused and couldn't help but wonder if she really gave that impression, since he knew for a fact it wasn't the case. He had a way and reputation with women so he knew why it might appear so to others, but Robb had to know better. Theon's sister, Asha, supposedly appointed Aribeth as his bodyguard and she played her part well. Unless... unless it meant something different this time...
'Crap' - he cursed to himself, when he finally placed it. Normally infatuation wasn't his thing, but he wasn't immune to it and he knew it. If Robb has noticed, then she had to notice it too. Lust was one thing, lust was something he knew all too well and was more than comfortable with displaying it. Robb only used to shake his head at it or glare, yes glare like that one time when Theon realized that Sansa is going to turn into quite an attractive woman. Infatuation however was something reserved for pansies. He would have to fix it. And then he spent an hour agonizing on how exactly he was going to achieve that, until he decided he was being ridiculous and had more important things to worry about. This deviation was a little bit too convinient for his liking, but it also happened to be true.
Now that he couldn't just simply expose the Queen and Kingslayer, while the King visited North, he would have to come up with a quite another story than he originally intended and hope it would prove to be enough to keep Lord Stark in Winterfell. He would have to claim ignorance in certain matters, which concerned the death of Jon Arryn and the Queen's indiscretions in marital bed, and to reveal considerably more insight than Asha could have been realistically expected to know about their father's plans to invade North. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.
By the time they returned to Winterfell he already made up his mind and didn't waste any time. He decided to clue in Robb first and they spoke privately for some time. It was meant to be a simple courtesy, but turned out into a rather useful exercise. Robb got a chance to feel important and Theon got a chance to polish his story and see what questions he could reasonably expect. When it was turn for Eddard Stark to ask his own questions Theon was well prepared to answer most of them. By the end of the day Theon was rather satisfied with himself, even if Starks, both father and son, were anything, but happy. It wasn't surprising, since they had to swallow some hard truths and there was no denial that it contributed a lot to this sense of twisted satisfaction he was feeling now. Being as they are, they didn't expect that kind of hate from Balon Greyjoy and were rather shocked. Theon would have been amused by their reaction if he never found himself in a very similiar situation when he returned to Pyke only to find out that his offer to support Starks was an extremely bad joke, hilarious even. To add insult to injury it seemed as if everyone was on it, except for him. It was beyond humiliating.
'I was a naive, young fool, who hardly knew his father. What is your excuse, old man?' - he could have asked Ned, but he didn't. Instead he opted to feel satisfied, as if some ancient debt only he knew existed was finally settled.
When they have finally finished and retired to sleep it was already very late, way past the hour of the wolf. He was dead tired and slept for the rest of the night as a baby. When he woke up it was already noon, but he was in good spirits and ravenous. Before long he found his way to the kitchen only to bump into Aribeth on her way out, carrying an apple.
"Can't wait for dinner as well?" - he asked her conversationally.
"Well" - she drawled the word. - "Not exactly."
She was acting all mysterious so he followed her instead until he found himself in her chamber, where they were alone.
"I think I am going to skip it" - she finally said and sit down inviting him to do the same in the opposite chair, which he did and patiently waited for her to elaborate. But she just took a small bite from her apple as if to emphasize what she just said and regarded him with her cool slightly narrowed eyes, betraying nothing. Something was wrong, he could tell. So he decided to play along.
"Would you mind sharing that apple? I have skipped breakfast myself."
"Yes, breakfast..." - she gave him a sour smile and kept the apple - "was a rather awkward event, if you ask me."
"Really? How so?" - he inquired.
"The raven arrived this morning" - she stated. - "They told me nothing, but if I had to guess, whatever we told them must have contradicted the news from King's Landing in a major way."
"Where is Robb?" - he refused to speculate.
"I don't know." - she shrugged - "They have been avoiding me as a plague, even servants. They seem to take after their masters."
"Wait here" - he said and went for the door without another word. She didn't object and simply took another bite as if enjoying her last apple. It made him feel sick.
He suspected something like this could happen, since the moment he realized that deserter from Night's Watch never showed up. In other words - when it was already too late, when they have already commited. If Jon Arryn was still somehow alive... things could get complicated. He went ahead and assumed he was dead and why? Because the raven carrying the news was supposed to be heading for Winterfell already? He had no way of knowing what news exactly and that could prove to be a costly mistake.
Meanwhile Robb proved to be an elusive bastard and he couldn't find him anywhere, but while he was at it, he encountered Sansa instead and the girl gave him such an odd look, which made him instantly realize that she knew something.
It definitely wasn't a good sign, in his opinion, that he had to resort to milking Sansa for information, but he was desperate and he was hungry and so he shamelessly cornered the poor lass. She put up a good fight, but he knew what he was doing and after much begging and coercing in equal measures on his part, she had no choice, but to capitulate and spill the beans. Turns out nobody knew how she named her wolf, yet. After they together established that fact, all he had to do was to look her in the eyes and convince her, not to threaten, but convince her, that if she refused to talk something horrible would happen to Lady and that did her in.
But once he got her talking she wouldn't shut up and gods, she was full of surprises. Apparently she overheard something. That by itself wasn't surprising. However if his inevitable marriage to the Queen didn't qualify as surprise, he didn't know what did. After he asked her how that was even possible, she claimed that mother asked father the same thing and father said something about the Imp stealing the gold from the King. So the King had no choice but to marry the Queen to Theon, if he wanted his gold back or something along those lines... After he accused that she was full of crap and simply mocking him she went ahead and sweared on Old Gods and the New that she was telling the truth, so he had no choice, but to argue that it still didn't make any sense! If the Imp stole the gold from the King, why would the King marry his Queen to Theon of all people, if it was the Imp, who had his gold in the first place. That gave her a pause and she had to concede it didn't make any sense to her either.
Well at least she was able to confirm that Jon Arryn was indeed dead, and the King was coming to Winterfell so it wasn't complete waste of his time. But then she delivered another surprise and this time it hit home. Apparently the King ordered her father not to trust Theon Turncloak...
