Lyanna twitched the curtains closed in the carriage which led out of the Gate of the Gods. Ned and other northmen rode flanking and the bells still tolled for the wedding of Robert and Cersei, at which her presence could only be an insult.
"Ask it of Robert a favour - if not by your victories on his behalf - that a carriage take me home. I refuse to sit astride a horse. You would know - if it pained you as it did me."
The carriage rocked to and fro. Lyanna winced and held her stomach and her ladies maid passed her a kerchief.
"My thanks. You must expect my mood not to adjust for many moons still and even then."
"My lady - "
"Were you disappointed I was not queen?"
"You cannot ask me, my lady. I serve you."
Lyanna glanced irritably outside the windows of which she could see little through the curtains. Divots of mud kicked up as the horses rode over hardier ground, the streams rushing that made her think of rubies scattered and of returning home with so less a family she had grown to love.
"I wonder," said Lyanna, "Should Lady Catelyn have a boy, or a girl, do you wonder?"
"It is a son who will inherit Winterfell, and girls to take husbands, my lady."
Lyanna's mouth became tight. "That was not my question."
The many days of traveling brought them to Riverrun, where Lyanna witnessed the answer to her question, and then to Winterfell. Lady Catelyn kept her distance.
"It is not you, my lady," the ladies maid was quick to assure. "She must know personally the pain of your condition. It is rumoured her sister lost a babe, too."
Lyanna itched to scream at the ladies maid, for comparing the two situations, for robbing her of putting totally her grief above everything else. To relieve herself, that another might have gone through it, was to slightly reduce her own pain and move on.
Winterfell came at last. A peace upon her mind, Lyanna disembarked, saw familiar faces, relieved faces, and grief for her and Ned's father and brother. And of course, the whispers.
Ned came to her that night. Lyanna sat up in bed with many pillows.
"They think me more than captured. They think me disgraced."
"Lyanna - "
"They do. I birthed and lost Rhaegar's heir. What would Robert do then?"
"You know his thoughts on Targaryens - and Lord Tywin would not allow it."
"I wonder, would he let me live? Would he truly have passed me over could I have birthed his heir?"
"Do not speak of this, Lyanna - even here. The Spider is said to have ears and eyes everywhere."
"I can only speak of this. I cannot have another child."
"Catelyn - "
"Do not be so fickle and so - so - oh, I cannot say it. Look at my hands, Ned. I may as well be forced milk of the poppy to soothe - oh, Ned. You cannot expect me to hurt your wife by sharing in her motherhood. He is hers and yours. She will not just see me as a mother who has lost a babe. It will grow into pity for the only babe I birthed was that of a mad king's son who took me without my will. That will sour the time she spends with - who is it?"
"My son."
"You can give him a name. I am not so weak that you cannot say your son's name. I am not so overwhelmed with grief. You cannot think it impossible that I might - oh, Ned - please go to your rooms and leave me be. Let me be wretched."