The soup was dull – barely a pinch of black pepper and basil thrown in water.
Roose Bolton flung the spoon, lips pursed in ire behind his desk as it clambered into the floor. Locke inhaled the air of swelling anger drawn by sleeplessness… and near starvation. None in the castle, all thousands of soldiers and laborers, had eaten well in four full days. One night had taken the privilege of fill and bounty, one night when the barns had burned down. Stacks of grain, kegs of salted fish, pork, venison, spices, and animal fat turned into smoke and ash in the morn. For four days they fed on scraps and rejects, with 'they' pertaining to only less than a third of the population. Food equipped for beasts went into hollering human bellies. The pangs of empty stomachs begun festering as hallucinations, quick tempers and talks of abandonment.
"Have you found anything yet?" the Warden was pinching the bridge of his nose before closed eyes. Locke drew a sharp breath before shaking his head. Roose gave a grunt. "And the scouts?"
His ever grim hunter turned to another soldier whose color began to drain at the delivery of a message. "They've returned, my Lord." Roose looked up, inclining his head, "And?"
"I meant to say… only their heads returned, my Lord."
The Warden pounded on the table before a swift stride to the window behind him. Damn it. "They're here." It is a matter of hours before plunder arrives at the gates. Once he saw himself a manipulative, cunning tactician but now he gawks on a great possible loss. How could he not imagine Stannis returning the favor of burning down his food?
If only he was here. Oh but he is here, Roose thought. Lying on a stone platform within a small den, whipped in potions and shrouded in white. And what would regrets do him any good in this mighty dire hour? Honor demands he firm up his balls and face its consequence.
Roose Bolton clicked his tongue before leaving the instructions to Locke. "Gather the men. Barricade all possible entrances including the crypts."
"I'll find that difficult to do. Hunger makes man stubborn."
"I don't care how you do it. Just bloody do it. Find the guards the night the barns were burned and hang them. Feed them to anyone willing. By nightfall if the work is undone I'll have more of you on the skewer!" Roose Bolton flared off the room, itching to vent out wrath by any chance befallen.
But how many more deaths must she suffer? What had she done truly that made fate more than too cruel curse her with something far worse than disease – eternal grief. She had been a good and dutiful daughter of Ned Stark, a gentle dove without ambition for power but only for a dreamy wedding and a happy marriage. Her family had waged their wars and staked their claims and lost their lives for it. She meant to not make the same mistake and yet the fruits were as bitter. The last drop of tear left her sore and stinging eyes. No matter how she wished the sun would come bless her she had only become a foul caricature of herself.
Sansa could stand affront the shrouded corpse forever if it was what it took to bring him back to life on a random day and circumstance. She had not supped nor broke her fast but she knew it was a convenience. The castle could starve for all she cared.
She recalled that grey morning when the rapping came through the door and a face snuck inside to break the news her beloved had come home lifeless. She thought she could bear it. But when she descended the stairs to the courtyard and looked behind Roose Bolton it was as if her heart was ripped out from her.
The strong grip of Roose held her in place and she had not even remembered her knees weakening, her chest hyperventilating, and her soul plunging in an abyss. The images of her family came crashing down on her – one headless, one rotting in a river, two others maimed and burned.
When Roose finally covered her sight with a numb embrace and a well-played kiss on her forehead then the tears came pouring. And it had been pouring since. She felt she could have filled the wells had she gathered the wretched little drops.
"Come back…" she whispered, her throat hollowing. But the body remained still within a small dank, windowless room. A faint illumination came from the three-pronged candle holder by the corpse. "Don't leave me…" Sansa's shoulders heaved in pain. How wrong could it be to wish he were not dead, her husband. Theirs was an awful affair but there was no denying she ached for him.
Don't rid of me.
He promised he would return. And return he must, in whatever form and whatever shape or smell she would welcome him.
Haunt me, you bastard.
Ravage my dreams,
turn them into nightmares if you must.
But don't leave me.
Sansa closed her tired eyes, and opened them at the tapping of thick leather boots. She dared not look who it was. Only one other in this castle had the care to visit. At least.
By then Roose was beside her. She could smell the disquieted spirit that was him.
"I ought to burn him today."
Sansa flinched. She did not know what could be hers on the morn she finds Ramsay put to the torch. Next to nothing, she only had her husband to call her own.
"I loved him too," Roose went on. "Perhaps not rivaling the intensity of yours but know I loved him. We did not have the best father and son appearance, and so did you as husband and wife, but ambition was what kept us close."
Still unable to inspire response, the Warden sighed and took it upon himself to chance. "My offer still stands, lady Sansa."
He was successful. Sansa did turn to face him. Grief hadn't at least turn her dumb.
"I could protect you. Provide for you. You deserve the highest form of respect and in behalf of my son who failed to do it for you, I apologize. And know I am willing to compensate. If you want to keep the legacy of your house and security of the North, the time is nigh."
A pause was nothing he hoped for. He surely could sense the revolt Sansa was nursing against him but if she wanted to prove she wasn't at all stupid then she'd better embrace the offer but –
"I wish you could listen to yourself, my Lord," Sansa's breath trembled, "You propose to me in front of your son's dead body. So much talk of respect."
She felt him tense.
"I'll be leaving you more time, then, until after we defeat Stannis Baratheon you do well make up your mind or it's back to Cersei Lannister with you."
"You could defeat fire breathing dragons and still I won't consent," Sansa dared, "Not in this life, nor the next."
Roose gave a small laugh. "The bastard had you real good did he,"
"I'd rather have the bastard than the traitor who plunged a dagger in my brother's heart." Sansa felt herself shudder with angst, feeling small as a thirteen year old back in King's Landing receiving news of Robb's slaughter.
The manner Roose's eyes turned cold, though, made Sansa's chest dent. Finally she heard in him the sinister side of Bolton ancestry which Ramsay inherited.
"You leave me no choice." With it her skin jumped with the heavy thud of oaken door, befalling in her sheer terror and deepening her paleness.
A vent of adrenaline pushed Sansa towards that exit but in a second she felt the fervid crack of Roose's hand against a delicate cheek. She fell on the floor with a cry, hand on the jaw made torpid by a single blow. The pain came rushing after.
She saw the Warden pull off his thick gloves with eyes glaring at her, dull yet consumed with hostility. As her breaths rapidly increased, waves of disbelief overcame her – the boring, ascetic lord that was Roose Bolton unraveling the flayed man in him. He was just the greater shadow of his son.
Before Sansa could crawl away he was already hovering over her, grabbing her by the arm and flipping her face down the side of the platform where the body lay. As it shook on impact so did her world when he pressed against her, pressure greater on her hips. Sansa squirmed violently, horror burning in her eyes as Roose Bolton reached to lock both her hands in submission.
He closed a strong arm around her, tight as an iron belt, summoning terror from the pit of her stomach as the other gloved hand pressed mercilessly over her mouth. Her muffled shrieks made no effort to be heard despite her throat already hurting.
"Shh… shhhh…" Roose breathed behind her ear "First it was his mother… and now his wife. Before his birth and after death. What a wretched life indeed, this bastard's."
Hot tears began to drip from her eyes yet again. "The less you fight the quicker this will be." The Warden bent her down the cold surface of the platform and numbness prevailed. Might this be her fate? To be passed on from one man to another, princes and Lords and Wardens make no difference from the rabid mob back in the street towards the Red Keep of King's Landing. They were all monsters behind different masks, filled with scandals and malversation in every degree.
Sansa sniffled, suffocated, hearing Roose's fumbling between the folds of her dress and the clambering of his belt altogether. When all this is over she will be dubbed the widow who was claimed beside her husband's corpse before she slit her wrists.
When she shut her eyes at the mercy of time, she perceived no darkness. There was, instead, the figure of Ramsay alive behind her lids, affront an open space in a morning embraced with freshly fallen snow. He was gazing from the parapets as wisps of white powdered his raven hair and shoulders. Slowly he turned to her, offering his hand, smile spreading across his face so warm it can thaw thickened ice and chase away the morose clouds… haunt me…
And suddenly she felt alive again. Alive at the sudden gush of air that filled her lungs and a kneejerk force that made her nab the bronze candelabrum and swiped it across Roose's jaw.
The Warden crashed on the floor and Sansa heard him writhe angrily as blood oozed from a wounded scalp. Before the groaning turned to growls she scrambled to the door, fleeing into the open.
She remembered only one who could offer salvation and her mind was made up. Sansa went on running, striding over spiral staircases and lengths of hallways until she reached a door.
"JEYNE! Jeyne!"
Her tapping became bangs of panic, clawing on the wood until her fingernails almost bled.
"Sansa?"
She turned, meeting Jeyne Poole whose confusion turned into shock at the sight of her stance – messy hair stuck into the sweat and tears on her face, and a patch of red below her eye.
"Gods what hap – " "Help me! Take me away from here! Please!" Sansa shook at Jeyne's shoulders before falling into her knees. Jeyne became frantic, catching her breath and looking around to see none she pulled Sansa up to her feet and drove them both within the confines of her chamber.
Jeyne began plucking objects from the drawers and wardrobes, stuffing them into a small drawstring sack – a couple of gloves, cape, poor stale bread left over from breakfast…
"Where do we go?" Sansa's voice broke, darting her eyes around like a cornered prey. "I'll take care of that. Here," Jeyne handed her a thick black cloak and before she could take it from her, a blast of horn travelled in from the windows – the music of war.
Sansa glided slowly by the shutters. Craning her neck she suppressed a breath at the sight of black figures stretched like grass over the lonely hills, a couple of thousands strong, hundreds on horses, bearing the arms and banners of a stag. Another blast from the horn came forth, longer and louder, the impetus of a realigning cavalry. Soon their swords were drawn, marking the anxiety that begun to infiltrate the castle.
A cold hand tugged on her sleeve. Jeyne's voice was a mix of excitement and trepidation. "We have to go."