RAMSAY
The anticipation was always the best part. He could see it in their eyes, smell it too, watch them thrash and flail and shit themselves, as the knife came closer and closer and all they knew was its inevitability. They usually came up with some excellent excuses, right about now. Most times they offered him gold, or a full pardon, or that they'd leave House Bolton in peace for perpetuity. The more desperate they were, the more creative they got. If words were anything more than wind, he would in fact be the master of the world right now, and it was mildly aggravating that he wasn't, but no matter. Half the fun lay in getting there.
This particular prisoner, however, wasn't squealing as much as Ramsay liked. Which was odd, given how greatly he resembled a pig. Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse himself, stripped naked and marked with whip-weals that showed livid on the blubber, courtesy of Damon Dance-for-Me. Mayhaps that was the problem, Ramsay speculated, sizing up the scene with a professional's discriminating air. All that padding, he couldn't yet feel what they were doing.
"We need to cut him open and drain him, m'lord," Damon urged. "Winter's here, all that whale oil burns right nice in the cold and dark. And we always knew there was a skinny man inside him somewhere, screaming to get out."
"Did we?" Ramsay remarked, casting an eye at the doubly reinforced rack they'd been obliged to strap Manderly to, for fear he'd break a lesser one. "The only way to shut him up must have been with food. Let's assist our fat friend in his noble struggle to lose weight, Damon. Take another tooth."
"Just so, m'lord." Grinning, Damon thrust his knife into the brazier, while Ramsay paced up to Manderly and began to circle him consideringly, trying to judge where the fat man's confounded courage came from. Like as not it was no courage at all; he must be dead inside already. But though his mouth was torn and bleeding from where they'd already assisted him a half-dozen times previously, and the little finger on his right hand was a weeping red stump, Manderly still refused to plead or beg or snivel. That was a very serious affront to Ramsay's talents, and Lord Piggy would regret his defiance long before the end, but at the moment, while Damon heated the knife and Manderly got a good look at it and what it meant, it was time to try honey.
"It doesn't have to be this way, you know," Ramsay said softly, in his best imitation of his father's sibilant tones. "Tell me what you did to those three Freys. Tell me where Mance Rayder went. You're no longer fooling anyone by pretending to be on our side."
Of all the baffling things, Manderly smiled.
"Gone stark mad, this one," said Skinner, another of Ramsay's lads. He started to chortle. "Get it? Stark mad? Us here in the dungeons of Winterfell, and I'm saying that he's gone stark – "
His explication of the properties of humor was cut joltingly short as Ramsay, without even looking around, casually backhanded him into the wall. Truth be told, he was quite irritated that this had been necessary in the first place. After they'd smashed the jest of an Umber host and taken King Stannis captive, the war looked to be all but done. Stannis had been hung, drawn, flayed, and finally quartered, and Ramsay had had the skin lined with wolf fur and sewn into a blanket for his bed, but the skirmishes with northern clansmen and Baratheons continued. And most sinisterly of all, some of his scouts reported catching glimpses of another Stannis out in the woods, still very much alive and un-flayed. Since to the best of Ramsay's knowledge both Stannis' brothers were dead, and he had never had a twin to start with, this opened the possibility of some dark trickery. And Ramsay Bolton did not like being tricked. He did not like it at all.
He'd thought to draw this Stannis duplicate out of hiding by making a calculated exit from Winterfell, in search of his stolen bride. But the girl had already vanished into the snows, peeving Ramsay exceedingly, and he'd quickly thought of a better trap instead: leaving Mance Rayder's crow cage in plain sight. The wildling king had outlasted the stag one, but then again, he did have his cozy cloak of spearwives. And since Ramsay had tortured it out of him that he'd been sent on the behest of Stannis' red bitch, it was logical to expect that the Baratheons might have themselves a stab at rescuing him.
Only they hadn't. It was a bunch of wildlings who turned up instead. Ramsay had never expected the free folk to display such loyalty, but he'd either underestimated them or overestimated the Baratheons. The trap had worked quite well to start, but one of their number had actually managed to scale the outer curtain wall, open Rayder's cage, and abscond with him. Ramsay had latterly learned that they might have crashed into Manderly's room en route, and he was certain that the fat lord was covering for them. The castle had already been searched top to bottom, and the heads of at least a dozen wildlings mounted on pikes, but Rayder and his rescuer were still eluding them.
The knife was hot. Now it was time to see if Manderly's resolve would withstand another round. Ramsay held out his hand, and Damon put the knife into it, the hilt well swaddled against the cherry-red glow of the blade. Then he lowered it above Manderly's maimed hand, just close enough to hear the lard sizzle.
"Did they ever tell you what happened to my first wife?" Ramsay asked conversationally, watching sweat break out on Manderly's forehead. "Lady Hornwood? Honest mistake on my part, I swear. Coincidentally, I've always wondered how one would actually go about eating one's fingers. You'd have to get your mouth around them without gagging, to start. Really dig your teeth in. Gnaw the skin away in shreds, bit by bit. The tendons would be harder. And you know there's so many nerves in the hand, the pain would be excruciating. The only thing keeping you going is the madness of your hunger. Damon, show him."
Damon gleefully bit down on Manderly's middle finger, at the same time Ramsay pressed the searing blade to his wrist. The fat lord gasped in agony, twisting his head back, flab jiggling as he fought to get away. As Damon really set to work, Manderly uttered a choked gasp, his other hand fluttering ineffectually where it had been strapped to the rack. He was gurgling on the beginnings of a scream by the time Damon snapped the bone in two with a crunch. He held up the severed digit triumphantly.
"Roast it," Ramsay told him. "Mayhaps some apples and cloves, don't you think? Fear not, my lord of Manderly. You won't starve, so long as your fingers hold out. They're practically legs of lamb."
"You. . ." Manderly's eyes were rolling back in his head, he looked to be on the verge of a faint, but the voice that emerged from the thickness of agony was furious, not broken. "You want. . . me tell you something? Very well. . . I will. The Starks. . . are alive, bastard. And I intend. . . living long enough. . . see their wolves tear you. . . just as many pieces."
"Behold," Ramsay announced, turning dramatically to his audience. "The traitor confesses. You did give it a good run, my lord Lamprey. I daresay we nearly believed you. Now tell us what you know, and we'll merely cut off the next finger. When you beg us to."
"Burn in hell." An ooze of blood and vomit dripped down Manderly's chins.
Ramsay laughed, to disguise his growing rage. As impossible as it sounded, even he was starting to run out of ideas. They could always ram Manderly up the arse with a hot poker, but they did need him in enough shape to talk. I will not have it whispered that even Lord Too-Fat could withstand my tender attentions. I will not!
The finger was almost ready, crackling nicely on the brazier, and Ramsay pulled it off the spit and took a bite of it himself, to demonstrate. Not bad, if a little rubbery. "There," he said, and swallowed. "Damon, give the rest to Manderly. We've put him through so much, we can't deprive him of a spot of – "
"Lord Ramsay!"
Ramsay and his boys all turned in unison, annoyed. What they beheld was clearly an iron-constituted serving man of his father's, who took in the ghoulish scene with palpable distaste. Eyes fixed straight ahead, he addressed his target alone. "Your lord father wishes to see you in the Great Hall. Immediately."
"Immediately?" Ramsay did not appreciate that Lord Roose had presumed to use that word."You'll have to tell him that I'm busy. Gathering important intelligence for our future strategy."
"He said you might say that," the servant replied. "He said also that I was to ignore it out of hand. Immediately, if you please."
I will flay you in your sleep, little man. Seething, Ramsay shoved through his minions and made a viciously obsequious bow. "I am at my lord father's service."
It was a considerable climb from the dungeons to the Great Hall, and it was snowing again. There was not a nook or cranny of Winterfell that was not smothered in white; icicles bearded every eave and barrel, and the wildling heads had been reduced to featureless lumps. Ramsay's breath huffed silver, and drips of blood fell from his clothes and hands, leaving a vivid trail across the bailey. This interruption had damned well better be worth it.
Lord Roose was waiting alone in the dim, grey Great Hall when they entered. He nodded the servant out with his customary frozen courtesy, then turned to his son, sized him up, and without a word, struck him across the cheek.
Ramsay raised a hand to his face, too surprised to be upset. "The seven devils was that for?"
"Have you gone mad?" The fury in Lord Roose's whisper was withering. "As Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, you torture the Lord of White Harbor and then boast about it for any man to hear? You already botched your marriage, you botched retrieving your wife, you botched capturing Stannis, you botched Mance Rayder, and now you do this? Hellfire and brimstone, are you mad?"
Ramsay regarded him mutinously, a lock of long dry hair falling in his eyes. "I suppose now you prate a peaceful land, a quiet people at me, is that it? It's bloody rich of you to tell me not to gain intelligence from a treasonous vassal, when you bloody killed the King in the North! Or did that escape your – "
This time, he didn't even see the blow coming. He went to one knee and almost tumbled headlong down the dais steps, tasting blood in his mouth. Above him his lord father stood with a face like a mask, one fist still upraised.
"That," said Roose Bolton, "answers my question beyond a doubt. You have gone mad. As you and every soul in the country is aware, the Freys treacherously murdered His Grace King Robb, in breach of the sacred laws of hospitality – and as it happens, there has just today been a bird from the Twins. The gods have taken their revenge. Lord Walder has suffered an apoplexy."
"Dead?" Ramsay growled. He will be soon. Just like you, old man.
"Not yet," Lord Roose said indifferently, "but he is quite lost to speech and sense. Edwyn Frey is now the de facto Lord of the Twins, though I daresay Lord Walder's corpse will not yet be cold when Edwyn joins him, thanks to Black Walder. It will be best for Lady Roslin to leave such a place beyond a doubt."
"Lady Roslin?" Ramsay could give a damn about her. The little cunt they'd foisted off on limp-dick Tully at the wedding that started it all, so what.
"Indeed." Lord Roose's pale eyes transfixed his bastard son. "A company of Lannister guardsmen arrived to escort her to her husband at Casterly Rock. Edwyn did not feel it wise to refuse."
No wonder Black Walder sharpens his knife even now. It seemed to Ramsay that he might just feel a kinship with the man who would soon be head of House Frey. We both have relations blocking us from our rightful inheritances, relations who have lived too long. If Lord Roose ever chastened him like this again, it was the end. As for his pregnant little stepmother, also a Frey, Ramsay intended to use her for the hunt, as soon as this snow cleared out some. It would be so amusing to see Fat Walda bouncing through the woods, but the chase was not apt to be a long one. His bitches would rip that tender bit out of her belly quick enough; they'd like that. Mayhaps I'll put her corpse down with Manderly for company.
"Now," Lord Roose said. "About this latest folly of yours. You will desist from it immediately and return Wyman Manderly to his rooms. I shall have to think of some explanation for his injuries, no thanks to you. Then you will make yourself useful in some fashion, whether it is leading a party down into the crypts to sniff out Rayder, or – "
"The crypts?" Ramsay was still more annoyed. "What makes you think he'll bloody be there?"
"Because," Lord Roose said, "when he was here, he masqueraded under the alias of 'Abel,' which if I assume correctly, was an anagram for 'Bael.' There is a story of Bael the Bard, which I do not expect you to know, but the long and the short is that Bael and the daughter of Winterfell that he kidnapped hid in the crypts for years. It's just the sort of low cunning that would appeal to the wildling mind. And besides, no search of the castle can be considered complete until it has included the crypts."
"Search them yourself, if you're so fucking sure he's down there."
"I do not recall volunteering. I recall informing you to do it. If that is not to your liking, you will alternately lead the war bands out to capture any wildling stragglers who escaped. As well, I expect you to provide a conclusive answer as to whether you have bungled the Baratheons as badly as it looks like."
"It was Stannis! It was bloody Stannis! That's who it looked like!"
"Appearances can be deceiving. So, then. Which will it be?"
"I'll show you what it bloody will be." This wasn't quite how Ramsay had envisioned it, but he wasn't about to let the opportunity pass him by. Without another word he lunged, and had just gotten his hands in a very satisfying grip around his father's neck, when he was brought up short by the kiss of steel.
"That," said Roose Bolton, sounding aggrieved, "was foolish of you, Ramsay. Extremely foolish. You've recently become more of a liability than even I anticipated, and I do have quite enough pride to resent the shame you have brought upon House Bolton. The day I raped your mother was the day I – "
"Too late!" Ramsay snarled. "You already legitimized me! There's no way to turn me bastard again, old man!"
"Yes," Lord Roose said chillingly, "and how acutely I regret it. You've become a mad dog, Ramsay, and mad dogs are destroyed for the benefit of themselves and everyone around them. Alas for the taboo of kinslaying that holds my hand in check, otherwise I'd have done so long ago. But there will come a day when I will most ardently desire to make peace, and you shall be the perfect scapegoat to hand over as proof of my sincerity."
Ramsay spat at him. "You'll be dead long before that day ever dawns. I'll kill you."
"Yes," Lord Roose said again, a queer little smile flickering up his lips. "You'll try, at least. As you just did. Now get yourself out. I sicken from looking at you."
Massively tempted to give his neck a wrench instead, Ramsay nonetheless let go and stormed out. Regret me, do you? As if there had been any doubt before, but Lord Roose had just sealed his own fate with those words. You won't always be so quick with that knife. And battle is dangerous. Not to mention that other little plot he had in reserve, just in case.
Ramsay's preoccupation saw him almost all the way back to the dungeons, and later he would wonder what he might have discovered, if he had been less distracted. As it was, he became aware of something out of place, and slowed, still scowling. The quiet was unusual; Manderly should be moaning and groaning at least a bit, and if not, he was going to be eminently displeased with Damon, Skinner, and Sour Alyn for failing to do their jobs properly in his absence. To bugger with everything and anything his father said; Manderly was going to scream until he pissed himself, and then until he –
Ramsay rounded the corner – and stopped short.
There was blood, all right, but not the way he'd expected. His three men-at-arms were sprawled out, slashed throats gaping, a look of affronted surprise still frozen in Damon's eyes. Only Sour Alyn had any sort of steel in hand: the pliers with which they'd been prying out Manderly's teeth. Skinner was facedown as if he'd fallen there, and the rack formerly containing the Lamprey Lord was empty. The bonds were also cut through, clearly by a knife, and a trail of blood and fluid spattered the ground. Ramsay immediately ran along it, but it dead-ended in a stone wall.
He stood there staring at it, then exploded. "Fuck you!" he roared, and kicked it, achieving nothing of measurable use. He whirled around and raged back down to the three corpses, threw himself to his knees beside Damon, and began to stab him, over and over. The dead meat absorbed the blade with inoffensive slurps, which provoked Ramsay still further. He ripped Damon up from the floor, snatched Skinner's knife from his belt, and took his face off. Then he crumpled the bloody flesh into a ball and flung it at the wall, as hard as he could. "Fucking hell! Fucking damning bleeding hell!"
For the first time in his life, Ramsay felt an unformed, nascent fear. The ghost in Winterfell, he thought, then immediately pushed it away, furious with himself for ever entertaining such claptrap. There were no ghosts; whoever was responsible for this was very much alive. But not for much longer.
Nonetheless, with this and the recent threat to his life made by his bloody father, it seemed wise not to linger down here by himself, with only the dead for company. Ramsay got to his feet and stalked back to the stairs, and emerged aboveground still as furious as ever. I wish it would stop the damned snowing. But if not, there was no way he intended to oblige Lord Roose's order to hunt down the escaped wildlings. What do I care about them? Sheep-fuckers, the lot. And he'd be just as pleased if I never came back.
No. He had a better plan.
Ramsay changed course and made for the armory. Before returning to Winterfell for his wedding, he had done a certain amount of thinking about how he had failed to properly bring down the castle, the last time he'd sacked it. He'd burned as much of it as he could, but it was stone, and too strongly built. His first trap had worked with moderate success; he was sure that the perpetrators were still in the castle somewhere. And once he set this little spark, all the rats in the rushes would be emphatically flushed out. Then the only one of us going down to the crypts will be my own beloved father.
Ramsay opened the armory door and brushed past the empty shelves; every scrap of even barely usable steel had long since been claimed. The forge was long since disused, cobwebs crawling over the anvil and the windows broken with rocks. Drifts of snow had swirled in to pile on the floor, but behind the heavy sandbags, his cache of niter was still intact.
Ramsay stood just looking it at all, delighting in its sheer destructive power. It had been no small bother to get it up from the Barrowlands; Saltspear and Flint's Finger had the best available deposits in the north. Supposedly there was an even finer quality to be found in the Dornish Marches, but Dorne was too fucking far away and this would serve his purposes just as well. But Lady Barbrey Dustin, for all her suspicions and sourness and evil looks at him – why yes, he had killed her precious nephew, his own half-brother Domeric, and he'd do the same to her ladyship if it pleased him – had repaid him more than she could ever imagine, by mentioning this. She might never have done so if she knew that I was listening. What with her tiresome grudge against the Starks, she ought to be glad of it.
Ramsay ran a loving finger down one of the barrels, then turned and went out, shouting for his remaining men-at-arms. These were merely loyal to House Bolton in general, none of his special boys, but they would serve for the purpose at hand. He had to tell the numskulls not to jostle it too much; at least with all this snow, there was not much worry of it going up accidentally, but it was best to be sure.
On his instruction, the men-at-arms planted the barrels all along the outer and inner curtain walls, in the bailey, outside the Great Hall, and several lengths down into the crypts. Ramsay was briefly tempted to order them to put one in his father's bedchamber as well, but seeing it there would certainly tip Lord Roose off beforehand. And I have a longer end in mind for him. He touched Skinner's knife.
When the placement was finished, the barrels were all carefully concealed, and lengths of twisted, oiled hemp were laid from one to the next. They would need almost hourly checking, so long as the snow kept up, but while they were waiting for the Baratheon army to attack them, there wouldn't be much else to do. Time to see how much you really like fire, my lord.
Twilight was falling by the time all was prepared. They must have had at least an inkling of what was in those barrels, but they had been well-trained; nobody said a word. Supper was an understated affair, Ramsay moodily throwing bones to the bitches and the rest of the men trying to pretend they had naught on their minds. At least his father wasn't there, having apparently decided to take his meal privately. Good. I might be sick myself if I had to listen to Fat Walda squeak about names for the babe one more time. It won't live to be named, I'll see to it myself.
When he stepped outdoors afterwards, the snow had almost stopped, and a ghostly moon peered from between layers of frosty clouds. Ramsay turned his face up and grinned. The gods must love me after all. Come now, Stannis, whether you are truth or lie. You know you want to. Come. Order your attack. You'll be amazed how easy it is to get inside the castle. There will be no mistakes this time.
The warhorns woke him in the night.