Sansa awoke naked, buried beneath the furs, and arched her back and stretched lazily like one of little Tommen's cats. Her body luxuriously sated, her mind still drousy as she worked out the soreness left by yet another romp beneath the furs with her lord husband the night before.
She should be furious that he was in all likelihood going to betray her family.
She should be furious that he refused to give her a direct answer on it.
She should be furious that he'd resorted to most inappropriate interrogation tactics to pull information from her, until she was moaning and writhing and screaming his name. And until she discovered that said tactics seem to be most effective on him as well.
Yet what really seemed to infuriate her most this instant was none of those or the thousand other things that should. No, Sansa was furious that he'd left her, naked and lazy and completely wanton, without one more romp this morning.
Blinking her eyes open sleepily, she rolled her eyes and smirked softly at her own stupid wanton behavior. She really was a silly little thing, just as they'd all said time and time again.
For now, she simply didn't care.
She glanced over her shoulder at her husband's pillow, and found one delicately folded piece of parchment resting there, marked with her name across it. With a giggle of delight, she reached out and greedily tore open the ribbon he'd used to bind it.
Sansa,
Let us put our accord to the test. After you've bathed and dressed, please have Ser Royce escort you to the war council.
Roose
Sansa's heart leapt in her throat. What on earth was he planning now?
After a brief bathe and several nibbles on a thick wedge of bread, Sansa had her maid dress her in another one of her newest creations, sewn with the remainder of the silks and trims gifted by her lord husband, as well as a few of her own. After quite a lot of bartering and begging on her part, she was finally able to convince a maid to trade some of her old materials for several additional fabrics to add to her armoire, and the combination she slipped on now had the maids all sighing in awe as they clucked and praised her beauty.
The main material was a heavy gray velvet, warm in the coming winter, a shade exactly matching the shade of her husband's eyes when they darkened in lust. The laces and trimmings perfectly matched the red of the Bolton sigil, and she'd sewn in the fine thread provided by her husband a series of direwolves racing around the borders of the neckline and the sleeves. However, as one looked closer, it became obvious that the furs of the wolves were actually microscopic flayed men, one after the other, carefully arranged to coat the wolf and make up the fur.
Sansa had begun the embroidery ever since her husband first returned from the raid, and with the help of a small army of maids, this morning it had finally been completed.
Sansa took several ribbons, one the same shade as the flayed man, the other as the direwolf, and delicately wove each in with a braid on either side of her hair, pulling them back until they met at the crown of her head, the braids twined until the hair flowed joined down the nape of her neck in the loose northern style.
Giving herself a nod for courage and a small smile of approval as she shifted her dress in front of the mirror, she finally turned to and made her way towards the flap of the tent. Head held high, she strode out to meet the appraising gaze of Ser Royce as he turned from his post to the right of the flap.
Sansa raised one brow and fidgeted a bit in question, and as he studied the tiny direwolves and noted the intricate pattern of flayed men, he smiled broadly and nodded in approval. Offering her his arm, he escorted her towards the war council. "Well done, my lady," he said softly under his breath, and Sansa had to fight back a smile.
"Thank you, Ser," she whispered in reply, fingers tightening on his arm in anxiety as she spotted the tent in the distance.
He cleared his throat, stopping them a few feet before the front, turning to glance at her sharply. "My lady, if I may…"
Sansa swallowed thickly and nodded, encouraging him to continue.
"My lady. Never doubt you do House Bolton proud, and none other would dare to, either," he said firmly, eyes softening the seriousness of the advice, and Sansa smiled gratefully as she raised her head higher than ever before and painted herself in courtly courtesies thicker than armor.
"Thank you, Ser Royce," she said quietly, before turning to walk through the flap of the tent and be announced to the King and his council.
Roose reclined in the corner of the table, hand covering his lips as he studied the King before him. Apparently, the boy still had not taken action against the Greyjoys or bothered to send forces to reclaim Winterfell. This morning, they'd been greeted with word that the youngest Stark boys were believed to still be held prisoner inside, though none could say for certain as the following ravens had all been killed by the iron born.
His cold eyes surveyed the scene unfolding before him, in which the boy blustered about his might in battle while his mother moaned for the fate of her children and cursed the Lannister's once more for all that had befallen them since Ned Stark agreed to ride south as the Hand.
Roose had to fight, strongly, against the urge to roll his eyes towards the heavens as his other hand tightened imperceptibly around the arm of his chair.
What did it matter what the Lannister's had done, were doing, or were going to do? If they couldn't even hold the bloody North, they couldn't well hold much of anything, at all.
The tent flap opened suddenly, cutting off the incessant nattering of the Lady Stark, and suddenly a vision in dark gray and blood red swept into the tent before them, head held high, expression carefully blank, bearing that of a Queen.
Roose felt his entire body still as he took in his wife, from the gray and red ribbons twined through the curls of her hair, across the dark gray dress delicately embroidered with wolves, down to the toes of her soft gray boots. As his eyes flicked over towards Lady Stark, he noted that the woman looked positively gleeful as she surveyed her daughter, until all of a sudden she tensed and her smile dropped into a look of unmitigated fury.
Raising a brow to wonder what offense his wife could have already offered not two seconds after entering the council, he surveyed her attire once more as she gracefully reclined in the chair offered her next to him by the Greatjon, who moved one seat over. And when he saw what had gone unnoticed by the boy and what had enraged the mother, Roose actually had to bite back a smile.
For the direwolves encircling his wife's lovely chest and lovely wrists were not really direwolves at all. They were a careful pattern of flayed men, laid with more intricacy and delicacy than he thought had ever been afforded such a gruesome sight, weaving together to make up the image of the wolf that was seen upon initial inspection.
His eyes darkened as he looked on while his lady coolly regarded the gentleman and Lady before her, before she arched a brow and nodded graciously for them to continue. She had yet to meet his gaze, but he thought that might be for the best at this moment, because he had the uncomfortable feeling that his desire to bend his wife over this table and fuck her until she screamed might just be written all over his usually hard face.
"Sansa, I didn't expect you to join us," King Robb said warmly, smiling at his sister where she reclined with more grace and poise than Roose had ever detected in his foreign whore of a wife.
She cleared her throat delicately, granting her brother a soft smile as she casually inclined her head, never once looking away from his gaze. "Yes, Your Grace. In fact, I had asked my lord husband if he minded if I attended, and he said if I received your blessing, Your Grace, I had his as well."
King Robb smiled fondly, nodding as her mother's eyes spat daggers at Roose's head. "Of course, Sansa. I had no idea you were interested in these affairs, but you are originally a Stark of Winterfell, after all. We would be happy to have your presence. Wouldn't we, mother?"
The question was innocent, and clearly showed he was unaware of the thickening tension between mother and daughter. Yet Lady Stark couldn't risk alerting other lords to it as well, so with a sickeningly sweet smile, she nodded patronizingly at his lady wife. "Yes, Sansa, if you wish to learn more of your brother's successes, we would be happy to have you join us."
Roose's eyes narrowed as he felt Lady Stark's sharp gaze cut into him once more, but his wife's cool response had his chest swelling with pride as he realized his decision in asking her to join him was the right one. "Certainly, mother. I most fervently wish to learn more of my brother's successes."
The emphasis was so subtle, if you had no notion of his wife's mannerisms, you would never have detected the slight scorn underneath, given she was well aware of his recent string of failures. So while Lady Stark glowered and plotted from the corner, Roose felt his thin lips tip up in a smile.
The council lasted straight until supper, and despite the hours upon hours of banter back and forth, Sansa had yet to detect any really progress made on the number of disconcerting concerns at hand, most pressing in her mind the taking of Winterfell. Now seated once more at the end of the high table between her husband and the Greatjon, Sansa could feel the undercurrent of discontent as palpable as a stream cutting through the camp.
Robb could not afford to wait much longer, and each wasted second was folly in her mind. He could not endlessly deliberate, nor prolong with whiffs and whims of battle.
No. Her brother had to learn how to actually rule.
Observing the council today, it became glaringly obvious that though her brother's skill in battle held immense promise, his skill in politics was barely above a child's. And it was inevitably going to damn the Northerners who followed him. Her lord husband included.
Dinner was a somber affair beyond the immediate circle surrounding her brother, and with a sigh Sansa turned to invite her husband to retire for the evening. Steel eyes and the softening of his lips greeted her soft smile, but the clang of a cup had them both glancing quickly towards the King and Queen. Robb was gesturing her over, so with a regretful smile Sansa squeezed her husband's arm as she rose and made her way to the center of the dais.
The Queen was laughing loudly as Sansa approached, her arm draped casually over her mother's, and Sansa watched with a sinking stomach as her mother smiled warmly, her weary expression for once unguarded. Robb bent his head at something the women said, and soon the three were tipping their heads back and laughing to the point of tears, while the bewildered Northmen looked on. Sansa felt her heart clench painfully as she came to stand next to her brother and watch her mother brush the hair back from Queen Talisa's face, and she wondered bitterly where that affection for her had gone since the time she left Winterfell all those months ago.
"Your Grace, Your Grace, mother," she greeted them, courtly mask ever in place to hide her pain, as she'd learned from Joffrey time and time again.
"Sansa," her brother began, smiling over his overflowing cup of wine. "I wanted to tell you that you are more than welcome to join us in the council anytime your husband allows it."
Sansa smiled tightly, inclining her head and ignoring the sharp eyes of the women before her as she chirped her thanks to her brother.
Talisa leaned over to whisper in her mother's ear, and Sansa flushed in anger as her mother began to giggle and laugh as if they were girls. Lady Stark's voice cut across the din of the camp as they rose from dinner while several bards struck up a dance. "Though I wish the circumstances of your beginning had differed, dear child," her mother said happily to the Queen, "I must say I find in you all I'd hoped for in a daughter." The words echoed until settling painfully inside Sansa's breast to squeeze her heart near to the point of breaking as she watched her mother and the Queen stroll away, arm in arm, to the group of dancers gathered.
A numbness stole through Sansa's veins to freeze her limbs, and all hint of tears receded as she watched her mother and her brother's Queen embrace like family. Her husband's hand slipped into the one clutching the edge of the table painfully, and as he gently pried her fingers apart and began to rub small circles over her palm, he leaned in close behind her to whisper in her ear. "Let us retire, my lady."
Sansa's jaw clenched as watched the last vestiges of her hope for her mother's love die before her. Turning, she nodded numbly and allowed him to lead her away from the din and laughter that was taunting her in her despair. As he followed her into their tent he gently held on to her hand, tugging her towards the chair by the fire.
She watched the flames flicker, and thought of the fickleness of the loyalties of men, marveling at the naïve little girl she had been to assume that blood ran thicker than water. She snorted at herself, ignoring the sharp eyes of the man at her side as she realized that in this world, it seemed that nothing ran thicker than greed and gold.
She felt him tug gently at her hand, his arm bumping her softly as he nodded towards the chair, silently encouraging her to sit. With a clenched jaw, Sansa turned her cold blue eyes to his, resignation weighing her heart as she realized what must be done.
She watched his handsome brow arch in question, and allowed her eyes to roam his face before uttering the words that would change their course forever.
"The Queen is with child, Roose."
