War songs for our lord and his lady this chapter: Sansa is beating her drum to White Flag by Joseph, while Roose is contemplating flaying everything in sight to the tune of Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier. For your added amusement, I also listened to Shawn Mendes' Stitches for Roose, and though the lyrics seemed relevant, I just could not write his character with a straight face as it played! :) Meanwhile, at the end of this chapter, Grey Wind watched them with a boom box on his shoulders playing Lay Me Down by Sam Smith. :)
Sansa motioned for Dacey Mormont to join her off to the side outside of the council tent, and led her in the direction of her own camp and away from the Bolton men and the daggers her husband was shooting into her back. Once they were safely ensconced in Dacey's own tent, Sansa turned to face her questioning eyes with an anxious smile.
"I am honored to spend more time in your presence, Lady Bolton, but to what do I owe the pleasure?" Dacey asked with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.
"Please call me Sansa in private, if you would."
Dacey nodded firmly with a wide smile. "Sansa, it is. Please call me Dacey always, as I shudder when I hear Lady Mormont."
Sansa snorted with laughter and smiled wide, nodding in agreement. Now that the formalities were out of the way, Sansa new she needed to get out the reason for her visit before she let her anxieties overrule her good sense and lead her to walking right back out with her request unasked. Knowing Dacey had neither the time nor the inclination to mince words, she decided to be as blunt as possible. "I need to know how to defend myself, in the event I am unable rely on my husband or his men."
Dacey watched her shrewdly, eyes narrowing in thought as she pursed her lips and tilted her head. "You would also have your sworn shield," she said with a smile and a jerk of her head towards the direwolf currently sniffing his way through the tent.
Sansa chuckled and nodded before becoming serious once more. "Yes, but even he may not always be around to protect me when I need it. And there is something very… powerful, about knowing I'd be able to protect myself, should it come to it," Sansa finished breathlessly, eyes bright with excitement.
"Should it come to it," Dacey said drily, one brow flickering before she treated Sansa to another grin. "Alright, Sansa, it would be my honor. What did you have in mind?"
Several hours later, Sansa felt droplets of sweat roll down her back beneath her gown, and her hair was mussed and falling in loose curls that had slipped from her braid, but she was smiling wider than she thought she had in her entire life. Her last flick of her wrist had sent her dagger up to meet the unguarded flesh of Dacey's neck, resulting in a tiny nick that barely scratched the surface, and yet made the point all the same.
They'd tried various weapons initially as Dacey assessed Sansa's strength and competence, and quickly decided a thin dagger that she could strap to her thigh and reach through a slit in her skirts was the best and most effective option available. The dagger was small enough so the slits would be unnoticeable and identical to the one Roose had sliced in her gown at the high table, yet the blade was long and sharp enough to truly do some damage if necessary. Dacey had given her a leather strap that went around her thigh seemed complicated but was actually quite simple once she got the hang of it, and she was now able to slip her hand into her skirts and slip her dagger out and up to Dacey's neck in practically the blink of an eye.
Dacey was smiling widely, very much pleased as Sansa practically beamed up at her with pride. "Very good, Sansa!"
Flushing as she ungracefully wiped the sweat and stray strands of hair from her brow, Sansa took a few steps back and noted the darkness that now hung over the tent. "I suppose I should make my way back to my tent, I think I'll dine there tonight."
Dacey nodded, smiling ruefully as she reached around Sansa to hold open the flap of the tent as Sansa fixed her skirts before following her out, Grey Wind padding along softly behind. "I wish I had that luxury, but I fear I am expected this evening."
Sansa smiled as they reached where their path's split, and nearly gushed with gratitude as she impulsively gave Dacey a hug in thanks. "I cannot say how much this means to me. Thank you for today!"
Dacey awkwardly patted her back and flashed her a grin as they pulled apart. "It was my pleasure, my lady," she said with a wink. "I only hope you can spot the difference between who you need to protect yourself from, and who needs protection from you." With that bewildering comment and another wink as Sansa's brow creased in confusion, Dacey strode of towards the feast, while Sansa turned and picked her way back towards her tent, Grey Wind and two Bolton guards behind her.
As she approached she saw Ser Royce standing guard out front, and he greeted her with a raised eyebrow and a slight frown, stepping forward and into her path before she could pass him. "Ser Royce?" She called in question, perturbed by his intrusion.
He grimaced and shifted his stance, looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren't overheard, before turning back to her with a small smile. "Lady Sansa, I had hoped to have a word with you."
She'd been outright ignoring him since she burst from the tent this morning in a cold fury, and suddenly felt bad for how she'd treated him. "Of course," she said with an apologetic grin, a grin she noted he did not return.
He hedged a bit, shifting once more, before she gestured impatiently and raised her eyebrows in an attempt to push him to get on with it. Huffing out a breath, he shook his head and allowed the words to spill forth unfiltered. "I do not know what is going on with you and Roose, but please be careful, Lady Sansa." She raised a brow at his use of Roose's given name with no title, but nodded for him to continue. "Roose is… Ahem, how do I put this?" He paused once more, glancing again over his shoulder, before piercing her with a burning look in his dark gray eyes. "Roose does not do well with feelings, my lady, and I fear my words to him yesterday may have steered him off course last evening."
"You told him to- to-" she broke off with a blush, but soldiered on before she lost her nerve. "You told him to… take me, after informing me of the death of my brothers?" She finished, voice raising in alarm, as she watched him with reproachful and disbelieving eyes.
He'd blanched at that, and rolled his eyes skyward as he muttered Seven hells, that man is an idiot, before shaking his head firmly and starting again. "I- ahem… No, my lady. I… I most certainly did not," he blustered, before swallowing deeply and finding the nerve to finish what he'd started. "I warned him there were whispers that you may be in danger because if his apparent affection for you, and that you and he needed to be careful in public from now on."
She felt her face fall as her heart clenched almost painfully at his noting their apparent affection, and she blinked back tears as she tried and failed to school her features into a careful mask of indifference. "Well, you need not worry, Ser Royce," she said coldly, stepping around him and reaching for the flap of the tent. "Roose would have to have a heart to give affection."
Sweeping into the tent, she heard Ser Royce's final words to her retreating back echo in to swirl in her thoughts and haunt her breaking heart, as a fresh wave of tears began to roll down her pale cheeks. "Apologies, my lady. I had thought you were helping him find it."
With tears rolling down her cheeks and her lips quivering with emotion, Sansa lifted her eyes and slammed face to face with the blistering glare of her irate husband, seated proud and erect behind his broad desk. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart clenched tightly as she saw the alarm flit through his features before it was covered by a look of cool indifference.
He opened his mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it, because before he could get a word out it snapped shut with a resounding click, and he jerked his head towards the covered plate resting on a small table next to the chair by the fire. Flicking her eyes back towards his once more, she saw that he had bent his head back to his work, and was furiously scribbling on parchment. Her eyes swept to the chair beneath him, and she had to choke back a laugh as she saw it was not a chair at all, but rather the little stool the maids sometimes used when cleaning, that they had kept in the corner of the tent.
He had left the chair she always sat in, sometimes with him, sometimes alone, waiting patiently with folded furs next to the fire, and instead was sitting as dignified as a King on his throne on a three-legged stool that barely supported him.
I had thought you were helping him find it.
Gods damn this man, she thought as her heart beat fast in her breast as she sat daintily in the chair and began to pick at her meal. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as Grey Wind padded in and went straight up to his new lord, bumping his knee with his muzzle in a request for affection. Without even a blink, Roose dropped one hand down to run it through Grey Wind's fur, fingering the collar she'd made him before returning back up to hold the parchment still and finish his work.
I had thought you were helping him find it.
If so, what was he helping her find?
Roose had every intention of beating his wife to within an inch of her life for her brazen disregard for him in front of the council earlier that day. He had marched himself straight back to their tent, glaring furiously as he watched her peel of with Dacey Mormont in the direction of the Mormont faction, and had thought that only the hands of the gods could stay his hand in his vengeance.
That little minx had "innocently" asked her question of her brother, flipping his plot on its head, and he'd been forced to choke back his growing alarm when he saw King Robb reconsider before finally pressing on, although with an altogether less appealing messenger. It would be so much easier if he were able to treat with Lord Frey directly, but that was no matter. Roose had eyes and ears embedded in each of the Houses, and was prepared to pass his note with one travelling with Lady Stark accordingly, so that the plan moved forward.
He had spent weeks carefully steering the young wolf in this direction, planting little seeds that would in turn sprout into the realization that he needed the Frey's to finish the war, and finally, finally, his plan was coming to fruition. Despite the very sly interference of his wife, who was far too clever for her own good, in his estimation.
Finish the war, he would. Though certainly not in the manner the boy anticipated.
As he was finishing his note to Lord Frey and contemplating whether he would actually be able to stomach harming a hair on his pretty wife's little head, she'd burst into their tent with eyes wild, hair and clothing in disarray, and tears streaming down her beautiful face. He knew his eyes had widened in alarm as he swept his gaze over her, and he'd felt any fury vanish in an instant at the thought of something happening to her, wanting to murder whoever put that heartbroken look on his wife's face.
Until he had the uncomfortable sensation, as she continued to stare at him and weep silently, that it was him who was responsible. Shifting and attempting to hold onto his anger, and carefully ignoring the odd little voice inside him urging him to reach out to her, he'd nodded towards her tray of supper, and returned to his letter to Lord Frey.
Petting the head of the direwolf in his lap, and also ignoring the weary and weeping gaze of his wife, he finished his missive, sighing heavily as he rolled his shoulders where they'd started to ache from his uncomfortable hunch on the stool.
The stool, he thought with a scowl of disgust. Yet another indication that where Sansa was concerned, any threats were idle musings, as he would never be able to carry through with it. Like a lovelorn squire, he'd actually passed by his chair, his chair, because he couldn't bear the thought of sitting in it when it was most certainly no longer his chair at all, but hers. Or maybe theirs.
He growled at his own stupidity. Nothing was theirs. He was the lord. He was in charge, and he'd shown her that yesterday, with his news of her brothers, and with his taking her, when he wanted.
And then he sighed with disgust. Because as he'd had that thought, his eyes had swept to the woman daintily nibbling on her supper in their chair, and he found he wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his lap and have her nibble on something far more appealing.
Her eyes shot to his as she licked the bit of cheese off the tip of her fingers, and he swallowed as he found himself grow uncomfortably hard in his tightly laced breeches.
Sansa had felt his eyes on her, and as she finished with the slice of cheese she'd been enjoying she licked the crumbs of the tip of her finger, shooting another glance in his direction.
The lust warming up those steel gray eyes had her sucking in a sharp breath, and she felt herself dampening in response. No, she told herself sternly, unable to look away from the gray orbs glittering in the firelight. She would most certainly not forgive him for yesterday. She hated him, right?
He was mean, and cold, and all of the other terrible things she'd thought of over the past half hour as she'd tried not to speak to him or ask about his thoughts from the council meeting earlier. Or ask her punishment, which she most certainly knew was coming.
She would not become a wanton tavern wench just because her husband was aroused. It was no matter to her.
No matter… that snapped her back with a jolt, and any pangs of hunger, for food or otherwise, withered away at the thought of his words last night. He'd said the death of her brothers was no matter. And then he'd taken her, forced himself on her, forced her to enjoy it in spite of herself.
Before she could call it back, that one little word was tumbling out of her mouth in question. "Why?" She heard herself ask, so softly it forced him to lean forward in his chair to listen.
She watched his jaw flex as his eyes narrowed to slits, and she could tell he was struggling to control his desire, though she was not entirely certain what, exactly, he was desiring. "What, exactly, are you asking me, Sansa?" He said softly, voice tight with restraint.
She gaped like a fish, mouth opening and closing, as she tried to determine what she actually was asking him. Why is it no matter? No, she knew the answer to that. It was no matter because it benefited him, and he clearly was moving forward with his plan with Lord Frey, if today's council was any indication.
Why had he taken her against her will? That was certainly a painful incident, though by the look on his face now she thought she had an inkling of the answer. Because he wanted to. And if she were being entirely honest with herself, despite how unwelcome his advances were initially, she was not actually as unwilling of a partner as she wished to believe.
"Why don't you care?" She whispered, knowing the instant it left her lips that that was what had truly enraged her yesterday, and what had led her to foiling, or so she thought, his plan to meet with Lord Frey. Why did he deliver the death of her brothers the way he'd deliver the morning's weather? Why did he not stroke her palm or hold her hand or hold her close? Why did he just stand there, arms crossed, face unreadable, as she'd broken into a thousand little pieces right in front of him?
Whatever he thought she was going to ask him, that was most certainly not it, and she watched as his eyes widened like he'd been stabbed and the muscles of his jaw flexed and tensed. His fists were holding onto the edge of the desk in a grip so tight it turned them white, and his body was so tightly coiled she feared the thing may snap in his grasp.
As timidly as she had approached Grey Wind several nights before, Sansa rose from her seat, and stepped towards the beast that was her husband. Hand outstretched, arm extending, body leaning, she stepped right up to the side of the desk, and gently closed a palm around one shaking fist, taking the thing in her own.
Her touch seemed to snap something within him, and in a flash he had risen to stand and hover over her, the stool kicked behind him as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in for a searing kiss that had her heart pounding in her chest and her vision swimming, hazy with the desire that pooled in the apex between her thighs. She sank into him, thoughts floating out of her mind to dance on the breeze, and she moaned into his mouth as his tongue swept in to curl around her own, beckoning it forward.
As she curled hers back and reached up to grip the lapels of his doublet, she felt him withdraw, snapping up the parchment on his desk and stepping away, leaving cold air and miles of confusion in his wake, as his heat and his unsaid words stalked around the desk and out of the tent, out into the darkness of the night.
Sansa blinked hazily, spinning to watch his broad back as he retreated, her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions, while her lust was tempered with the chilly night air. Swallowing heavily, she slipped out of her gown and into a shift, before climbing to wrap herself up in furs on their bed. Tears threatened to spill when she thought of all that had happened in the past day between her and her lord, and the tide of emotions and conflicting feelings made her suddenly thankful he'd put distance between them, though she was furious he hadn't answered her question.
She was furious, and yet, with a sickening flip of her stomach, she suddenly realized with crystal clarity what he'd helped her find, with his cold manner, his reserve, his lack of heart that she doubted she'd ever help him find.
Anger. He'd found her anger. And he'd made her feel it. She was angry with him, angry with the gods for the circumstances they'd dealt, angry with Theon, angry with her mother, angry with Robb, angry with Cersei and Joffrey and Tywin Lannister. She was angry. He'd pushed her past her self-pity and grief and pushed her into an emotion that she could actually channel forward.
He'd made her angry. Her anger could make her powerful. Her anger could make her strong.
She'd come to him a broken bird; he'd forced her to learn to fly.