White Harbour was still half a moon's turn away and more when the first scout from the Manderlys found them. He was a boy no older than Sansa, on a sturdy-legged horse of Northern breeding, and his nose was eaten away by frostbite, but he stood firm against their bedraggled, bewildered band of warriors nonetheless.
"Who rides abroad in Manderly lands?" he shouted in challenge, his well-made but unremarkable sword shining in the weak sunlight.
Humfrey drew his ancient, magnificent blade, and then lowered it. Supplication.
"Thank the gods," Arya murmured. "I thought he was going to stand against him."
Sansa had thought the same, for a moment. Humfrey had been spoiling for a fight from the moment they met with the Brotherhood, never going longer than it took to tie his laces or settle the horses with his hand off his hilt. It worried her to see his smiling face become so grim, if only because it so reminded her of Willas at the very depths of his pain. Humfrey's face was made for sorrow even less than Willas', and Sansa worried about the toll this journey would take on him. She worried about the man she would return to the Hightower, at the end of it all, and wondered if the Old Man would forgive her if he could no longer recognise his son.
"If your lords are to be trusted," Humfrey called, "then we are to be expected. We have come a long way, and would have bread and salt of your masters."
The boy's sword dropped just a little, and he nudged his weary horse a little closer.
"You come from Flowers' cousin, then?"
"Aye, we do," Humfrey promised. "You were sent out to find us?"
The boy came closer still, and lowered his sword fully.
"Lord Manderly is absent, and likely dead," he said. "But Ser Wylis bids you welcome, and offers you the protection of White Harbour. I'm to lead you the smuggler's road, if you will allow it."
Humfrey looked to Sansa, and she nodded. She'd heard rumour of smugglers' roads leading to and from White Harbour, she remembered. Robb and Jon had talked of them as something exciting in their peaceful, faraway before-world. There was nothing but the North in this boy's accent, and it would do no good for a liar to make them uncertain by claiming Lord Manderly dead.
They would follow. She only hoped they would not be led into Lannister hands.
The dragon had not been seen for six days when Garlan's scouts brought in one of the Crow's Eye's men.
Alive.
"Gods preserve us," Baelor murmured, his hand flying to the seven-pointed star he wore on a heavy chain around his neck. Brightsmile's smile had failed him already, but now he looked truly grim, and somehow more like Mother than Garlan had ever noticed before.
Their prisoner was tongueless, probably, but Garlan couldn't be certain. The thick black thread holding the man's lips closed in clumsy, artless stitches made sure of that.
"Bring a maester," Garlan said, "and water, and thin gruel. And blankets, too."
He would not be accused of torturing a prisoner, and Grandmother had always said they'd catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Not that she'd ever taken her own advice, of course, but it had served Garlan well all these years.
"You speak Common?" he asked, sitting down so he wouldn't be quite so high above the prisoner. The man shrugged and scowled, but did not fight his bonds. "We can better care for your wounds if you can tell us what they are - so I ask again. Do you speak Common?"
The man nodded slowly, as though afraid to answer at all, but then gestured to his desecrated mouth as best he could with bound hands.
"I understand," Garlan said. "Can you write? Common or Valyrian, we would be able to read either."
Garlan spoke little Valyrian and read less, but Baelor was more or less fluent, and they had a surplus of maesters on whom to call if it came to it. Whatever this man knew, they would find out, if kindness could coax a betrayal where cruelty had sought to create loyalty.
Maybe, if they tended this poor creature's ills, if they offered him some little comfort and respect, they might know some of the Crow's Eye's secrets. Maybe. He could hope, even if it seemed a foolish thing to do.
Sansa stirred when Arya pushed at her shoulder, rustling upright as best she could against the cold tiredness that seemed to have settled down into her joints, ready to tug her asleep the moment she stopped concentrating on being awake.
"Shelter," Arya said, her voice hoarse with the snowy winds. "Just ahead. Wake up."
"I am awake," Sansa groused, but she shook herself and rubbed at Whisper's neck, amazed for the hundredth time that all their beautiful Reacher horses were withstanding the North so well. "What shelter is it?"
"Caves, Lady Sansa," Lord Reed said. Sansa had not heard him or his odd little pony coming close, and did her best to hide her surprise. She knew that Lord Reed had been her father's dearest friend short of King Robert, knew that he had been with Father when he brought home their aunt's bones, but she could not bring herself to trust him anymore than she could Lady Mormont, who watched her so carefully. "We're closer to the coast than we realised, and the hills here are riddled with caves - we can shelter there tonight, and perhaps even hunt a little."
Hunting had been difficult since they'd crossed the Neck. Sansa had seen it, even if one of the few things Humfrey and Lady Brienne agreed on was hiding any difficulties from Sansa and Arya. It would be good if they could send out a hunting party, and better if all their men could sleep out of the wind and snow for once.
Sansa wondered, idly, how Willas was sleeping without her. She'd halfways gotten used to being without him, but she still found herself reaching for him when she woke from a nightmare, saying his name when she wasn't quite awake and having only Arya to answer. Marian was always gentler than usual the mornings after her nightmares, and usually slipped her a posset to help her sleep the night after.
Arya's sleep was restless too, but seemed less troubled by nightmares than it was by an ever-present fear. Arya was always awake first, and asleep last, and stirred more often than anyone else during the night. Sansa wished they could talk together about it, but there were too many others nearby all of the time, and while she trusted her Reachmen, and Arya trusted the Northmen, neither could trust the other's guards. Sansa knew how low Master Glover thought of her, and Arya trusted nothing of Highgarden or the Reach on principle.
And there was, of course, the Brotherhood. Sansa did her best not to think of them if she could avoid it.
"We've scouted ahead," Humfrey rasped over the wind. "Good shelter, I think - we'll be able to set you up in some sort of comfort tonight, niece."
Master Glover, riding close by Arya's side, scowled at how familiar Humfrey was with Sansa. Lady Mormont had made her displeasure at Sansa's continuing dependence on Humfrey and his men known at great length and volume, but Sansa was determined to be defiant in this. She was wife to the heir to Highgarden, second lady of the Reach, and it was only right that she cleave to her husband's kinsmen.
The sooner they reached White Harbour, for better or worse, the easier Sansa's life would become. At least there, she could arrange to have her men quartered away from Arya's, and cut out some of the bickering and posturing.
They reached the caves almost before Sansa had noticed the rise, and she and Arya were bundled in ahead of everyone else, out of the wind and snow. The Brotherhood had fires set and cooking pots ready before anyone else had dropped their packs, and something about the dancing shadows on their smiling faces made Sansa's skin prickle unpleasantly.
"We've boarded in caves before, my lady," Likely Luke said, the cleft of his chin catching shadows here and there. "And worse'n these, I dare say."
Humfrey was at Sansa's side in a heartbeat, ushering her away to sit by the fire her men had set, and soon she was bundled in furs and sipping at hot, honey-sweet tea while all around her, her men busied themselves with preparing camp.
Alla - gods be good, but Sansa kept forgetting Alla was with them, because of how neatly the girl tucked herself in among the servants and made herself useful. Sansa was coming to see why Arya liked Alla so much, now that she'd seen how sensible and practical her cousin-by-marriage could be - settled in against Sansa's side, shivering just a little, but she brightened up when Arya settled on her other side.
"Mother is coming," Arya said, and what little good humour Sansa had gathered up disappeared, just like that.