Lord Glover folded his arms over his chest as he stood for the small council meeting. He knew it would be a day of changes. With their Hand gone, it was clear their Queen intended to move the pieces under her control. She and her brother had finished their plans for the North before the man departed. He wasn't expecting any surprises, but it would be curious to see the exact details. Given their Hand's love of ditches in warfare, he expected there was a lot of digging in their army's future. Besides, it was more timing still to be decided.
Greatjon Umber laid out the map Jon Stark had painstakingly made out. "Right, I think it's clear it's time to move the army." Sure enough, there were extensive lines where trenches and choke points could be made.
"Aye." Glover tapped the locations best prepared as bottlenecks to whittle away the Dead's number. They'd been cleverly chosen, he would admit. "These defenses are nearly to the New Gift. Best let the Umbers lead the push. It's nearest their lands."
Greatjon nodded in agreement. "Mors and I can split what men can be sent north. Get them busy digging these fucking ditches."
"We can afford two-thirds of the army to leave at this time." Sansa spoke, her voice clear, all authority and nobility. She looked so shockingly like her late father or even brother presiding over battle plans sometimes. "The rest will remain here until our Vale forces arrive. And Greatjon, I'll need you here for a while longer. Especially while our focus will be so near your lands. Your advice for future movement will be too important for you to leave personally."
He ignored the bit about Umber, it was the obvious thing. The rest of it though was wise enough. Best not leave their backs unguarded. A third of their army could hold Moat Cailin and Whiteharbor should they be attacked near indefinitely. Vicious Queen they had there. "You mean to dig in further then?"
"Naturally. We face war on three, almost certainly four sides with Ironborn pledged between our two southern neighbors." Sansa frowned. "We had best send what Mormont men we have, as well as another hundred men at arms, back to Bear Island. They're stretched too thin."
Lord Forrester spoke up. "With the Lords Umber and myself departing it'd be unwise to send Lord Glover to see to the western coast."
"Which is why he will remain here, rather some four hundred men will be sent from Barrowtown to serve under his son's command. Unless that seems unwise to you my Lords?" Sansa's eyes passed over them. It was a question more usually posed to her brother.
Greatjon puffed at the show of faith in their council. "Aye, that'd make those pirate scum think twice about raiding our shores."
"It'd no doubt help secure that border, but your Grace, surely we need every man prepared for the Dead?" Lord Royce cut in.
Glover scoffed, bloody southern fool. "And lose us the kingdom even as we fight? Bah, I've watched my home be burned while I fought in my King's wars before. I won't do it again."
"To not do your duty is treason." Lord Royce glared, all puffed up in fury.
Greatjon snorted. "We'll freeze with naught in our bellies but snow if we lose ground in this war you fool."
"Enough." Sansa's voice cut across the argument. The large white head of the direwolf by the fire perked up at her tone, its lips pulling upwards showing teeth. "I will not leave our backs unprotected. Nor, as I understand it, is it called for. We won't win this war by lining our army up and standing against the forces of the Dead. Even if we could kill them easily they'd swamp us. By the last count from our Wargs, the army approaching the Wall numbers near half a million. And that's what they can see of the front. Which does not take into consideration that they have far more than one giant. Nor the various beasts and monsters converted to their army. We can only win by being smarter. An open field of battle will get us all killed and added to the enemy's ranks."
There was dead silence at her words. Glover felt the lump of dread in his gut, as well as his bones. He cleared his throat. "Well said, your Grace." He dipped his head towards the woman. His lands and their needs had been ignored by Robb Stark in the face of war. And they had paid for that in blood. To have a Queen who did not forget the lands of those sworn to her when facing her war was…he had not had a single regret in bending the knee to her since the day they'd placed a crown on her head.
"To the matter at hand. Which troops would you advise are best suited to being sent to each region we need to begin to prepare?" Sansa looked to them, waiting for their advice. Which was another thing about this Queen worth admiring. She bloody well asked for their fucking opinions, and then listened to them.
Glover breathed in. "Best send our Wildlings mostly to the west; we've had less bloodshed with them there. Some need be sent with the Umbers, but in small numbers, easily integrated with the other men'll keep the fighting down."
"He's not wrong." Tormund, the great ginger wildling whose position in the small council was…well no one was entirely sure what it was. But their Queen had just stared at the last idiot to ask like he was dumber than a rock. No one had brought it up again. "We'll fuck the Dead up for ya."
Sansa didn't twitch at vulgarity, a useful skill in the North. "The giant, WunWun will be useful in preparing bottlenecks in the north. Who among your people speaks enough of the old tongue to communicate with him?"
Glover waited till the majority of the small council had left to speak with the Queen. He approached respectfully. "Your Grace." Dipping his head he settled, his feet shoulder-width apart. "For guarding our backs, I'm most grateful."
"We face a war on every side. Leaving any flank open will be the end of us." And she looked at him then with the composure made of ice. There was a feeling of sorrow there, a stone surface worn smooth by endless waves battering against it for years. "Was there something else you wished to speak of?"
"Aye, it's risky sending Lord Forrester with an army back to his own lands. The blood feud there has only just been tamped down, your Grace." He cautioned, Lord Forrester might be an even man, but he was still a man who'd lost far too much.
She just looked, resigned. "It needs to be done. I cannot send another to do it without insulting him. Let us hope he proves to be as reasonable as he behaves."
"I suppose that's fair enough." Glover couldn't exactly think of an alternative anyways. Long as the Queen knew it was a gamble.
Her ice blue eyes remained on him. "Was there something else?"
"About our need to secure our Houses before all hell breaks out. My son and daughter are unwed. And if it aids us in winning this war I'll marry them to any Kingdom you think best."
Sansa paused, the faintest flicker of surprise, her focus sharpened all the same. "Tell me Lord Glover, what are your thoughts on the Riverlands?"
/
Lady Barbrey Dustin was embroidering yet another shirt. The endless sewing was frankly exhausting, but an army to be equipped and kept warm through the snows and dark of winter was not a thing to be taken lightly. No matter how her fingers and mind might wish it. So to say she was grateful at the sound of a sharp rap of knuckles against her door was an understatement. Setting her sewing aside, she straightened her skirts before looking up. "Enter!"
The door was swung open. Brienne of Tarth stepped inside, behind her Sansa fucking Stark.
Barbrey rose to her feet. "Your Grace." As soon as she'd straightened she dropped into a formal curtsy.
"Rise." Sansa spoke, clearly no interest in flexing her authority in forcing her to remain lowered. "Brienne, leave us."
The great giant of a woman's glare scanned the room before she took a step back. "Your Grace." She shut the door firmly behind her.
Barbrey could feel her spine straightening at the implied importance of what was to be said. This could be good or very, very bad for her. "Is there something I can be of assistance with, your Grace?"
"I find that I require information and…advice that I would be greatly displeased if it left this room." Which gods be good the girl was terrifying. The threat wasn't subtle, but then it didn't need to be.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Standing on the knife's edge had not been an expectation she'd had for the day. "Of course, my discretion is at your disposal."
"It is a..delicate matter." Sansa hesitated then. A thing that she had not done in Barbrey's presence once. It was so out of character it was near to seeing snow catch on fire. "One I would require your honest answers on."
Barbrey realized in that moment whatever this was about, the Queen was not going to blurt it out. It would need be coaxed out of her. "Perhaps you'd better sit. It sounds like this is something you'll need to start at the beginning for."
"That would probably be best." Sansa was stiff as she took the offered seat, her spine so straight it surely could not be comfortable. She folded her hands in her lap as if to force them to avoid fidgeting by force.
Barbrey sat across from her slowly. Her eyes tracked across the woman. And…she was young. It was funny how easy it was to forget just how young the woman was. So she waited for her to explain.
Finally, Sansa began, her voice quiet. A softness to her, near waver, that Barbrey hadn't witnessed before. And if she had to guess, few people had. "I last saw my mother as the wheelhouse left Winterfell when I was three and ten. I had not bled yet, and she hadn't seen it as proper to educate me on some things." She looked away, towards the window. "Many important things were left out of my education looking back."
Oh. Oh gods…this was something she almost certainly did not wish to hear. But it was her duty to hear it all the same.
"I bled for the first time not long after the Battle of the Whispering Wood." Her face twisted a sort of disgust. "I actually tried to cut the section of the sheets and mattress I'd bled on out. It was stupid, I wasn't even permitted privacy long enough to accomplish it. Cersei spoke to me, it was…she was kind sometimes. I was their pet bird, her Little Dove." Sansa's voice was full of disgust. "My wings were clipped and I was their prisoner in their gilded cage, expected to sing when they wished. Theirs to torture or play with as they pleased."
Her face was drawn with sorrow, her gaze looking at something that wasn't there. She was haunted in a way that a girl her age had no right to be, yet so many of them were. "I don't believe Cersei was capable of loving anyone who wasn't herself or her children. But sometimes I think she pitied me. She told me to love my children, and my children only. That I could try to love my husband." Her face twitched. "The details of what would be expected of me besides to lay there accept whatever my husband wished to do to my body was not her concern. She was too deep in her wine to think of it besides."
"Then the Battle of the Blackwater happened and I was no longer to marry Joffrey, instead they married me off to Tyrion." Her voice was rough. "He was kind when he did not need to be." Her eyes were focused on Barbrey then. "I know what everyone says, but he truly never laid with me, drank himself to a stupor on our wedding night. Of course, being married to Tyrion, it was impossible to avoid innuendo. Half Margaery's conversations with me held implications I hardly understood at the time."
Barbrey watched the flickers of genuine emotions behind the woman's court mask. It was a condemnation of the North. No doubt why Sansa did not mention what she'd been through. Not that a reminder of her powerlessness as a girl wouldn't be dangerous. Her strength was holding their entire kingdom together.
"Then being under Lord Baelish's protection as his assumed bastard, well, while he may not have taken advantage as he could have, it certainly didn't shelter me from comments. And men are far less careful with what they say in front of a bastard than they are a high lady." Her fingers tightened. "And then Ramsey."
It was nauseating to know what came next.
Sansa seemed to shake herself from her own thoughts. "I stabbed him for a reason. I'm sure I don't need to explain what he was to you."
"No, I know what he was." Barbrey knew what was going to be asked of her. And she knew why her. She was Sansa's prisoner, even if she'd been allowed some level of both freedom and power. Both those things could be stripped in seconds. The woman knight outside the door could walk in and stab Barbrey through the heart and hardly a man, woman, or child would complain. Not now. Not with the Dead to the north, Lannisters, and Dragons to the south, and Ironborn to the west. Not with the two Houses she was bound to so humbled and diminished already.
Sansa's strikingly ice blue eyes caught Barbrey then. "I don't know what is expected of me with or perhaps as a paramour to another person."
"And so you've come to me." If the gods were just it would be Caitlyn Tully answering these questions. Barbrey would give every copper she had to see Caitlyn Tully's face at finding out her daughter was the lover of a female god. But that was impossible. Instead it was her, sitting across from a girl who was criminally uneducated on sex.
Sansa gave a stiff nod. "Yes."
"Gods be good girl." She stood, grabbing the pitcher of wine. "Wine?"
Sansa shook her head with a faint wince. "No thanks."
Barbrey raised a brow and then laughed. "Overindulged, did you?" Which there was no doubt a story there, but not one Barbrey would ask for. Overindulgence was not a flaw of the girl's. Likely had a great deal to do with her brother leaving. "Well, I certainly need some for this conversation."
There was no response to that. Typically would be faintly rude, but considering the topic, Barbrey wouldn't hold it against her. Instead, she looked at the pitcher…she carried the whole damned thing over as well as the cup. She settled back down and wondered where to stop. "You know I'd thought one of the benefits of never having a child was that I need never have this conversation. Yet here we are."
Sansa raised a brow. "I can leave."
"Don't you dare." Barbrey rolled her eyes. "I'm not leaving you to go bumble about with that god of yours." She sighed looking at the woman. "I suppose at this point you understand the base mechanics of it all?"
The girl's face tightened faintly. "It's rather hard not to."
"Well, I suppose that's something at least." Barbrey ran through what she actually knew about the relationship between the god and the girl. It was…frighteningly little. Oh, there was plenty the court did know. But it was plain to anyone with a brain that was less than nothing of what was there. "Did things go badly when you let that god bed you?"
"What? No." Sansa's pale cheeks flushed a bright red nearly matching her hair. "That is…well…I panicked and it was…but it was…" She was frankly so clearly mortified she just gave up on speaking.
Barbrey felt a rush of grateful amusement. Ah, well that was some good fucking news in the whole depressing mess. "I take it then you've experienced the peak we can achieve in bed then?"
The girl's face turned so red it was nearly painful. That was the answer in and of itself. The nod was just confirmation of it.
"Why the panicked questions to me then? I should think successfully being bedded by a god would rather answer most of them?" Barbrey was curious about where exactly this particular issue was coming from. She honestly would have expected this conversation to have been had before the girl went and let the god bed her. Well, if she'd ever imagined such a thing. Which she had not.
Sansa's composure was frankly inspiring as she reigned in her embarrassment. "I'm unsure what happens now. What is expected? I know Daisy would respect my wishes, but I do not even know what to wish within the expected course of things, as I'm partially unsure of what that course even is."
"Ah, well that's quite a pickle isn't it." Barbrey almost wished this actually was questions on sex itself as she'd first assumed. "Your situation is unprecedented since near the age of heroes. It's made worse by the fact her Holiness is a woman and one who intends to leave this world once she's free to do so."
The last of Sansa's embarrassment seemed to wash away. "Indeed, it's made things very difficult. "
"Good gods, you put off the god's suit for political expediency." Barbrey stared at the woman in horror filled awe. That was… it was one thing to play at the seduction game to inflame passions and keep the attention of another. The long pursuit was not uncommon as a method of securing real affection from idle curiosity. But to do so purely for potential political expediency… To risk insulting a god, not for greater favor, but rather to avoid political consequences was...the sheer fucking nerves of steel required for such a thing. No doubt the girl had meant to drag it out till the god left, it brought up the question of what had changed her mind. But Barbrey could guess at that, it wasn't like their god was hard on the eyes and damned being certainly knew how to make an impression.
Sansa didn't show a flicker of concern. "A thing no one would believe." Which was a threat.
Barbery downed her whole ass cup of wine and poured herself another. "Peace, I'm your prisoner, or is that not why you chose to ask my advice?"
"My apologies. That was uncalled for." Sansa visibly forced herself to relax.
She wondered at that, the lack of trust. Their Queen was a cold and deeply controlled woman around all save her siblings. "You're fine, now about your situation. I'll be blunt: how long do you believe you will hold the interest and attention of her Holiness?"
"I...I consider her a friend chiefly. And I know she regards me the same." Sansa's baring softened then, truly and honestly. A quiet sort of relief. Like air after too long without. "Daisy is...she is kind. Short of gross betrayal, her friendship and affection are difficult to lose."
Barbery nodded thoughtfully. That fit with the god's behavior with her companion Fitz. Oh, they acted perfectly amicable when near to each other. And Barbrey had no doubt any man who harmed Fitz would die a quick, and gruesome death. However, the god was almost never around the man. If Barbery had the right of it the god resented the man but held to him out of obligation and past affection. In manner, it was all but identical to the relations between a husband to a powerful wife who'd been unfaithful. Still beholden to, but unwilling to give absolution. Or perhaps a man to his younger brother who'd sought to steal his inheritance once.
"I...I do not know how to proceed. But she has given no indication that she does not assume it will." Sansa's face flushed, but oh there was the faintest pleased curve to her mouth. And a slight softness to her eyes. "I do not wish to do nothing and assume she will know what we should be doing."
Barbery was, to be certain, happy for the woman before her. It was certainly far more security than many of their sex were permitted outside of matrimony. "That's certainly something. Now if I may, some token of affection might not be out of place. But to be blunt the role of a paramour is what it is made by those inside of it. Lord Tytos Lannister was rather famous for treating his mistress as near to his wife as possible. Even placing his late wife's jewels and clothes upon her. In Dorne, such relations are often treated as a lesser marriage, though lacking the security of a marriage. On the other end of things, I'm sure you're aware of how badly dalliances like the one I partook in as a girl can go?"
Sansa gave a faint nod. "My uncle treated you appallingly."
"He did. In your case, the worst fears of a paramour do not apply. Your status is raised by holding her Holiness's attention, and few if any man would consider it a put off that you allowed a divine being to bed you. Rather I'd think it a point of pride to any man you may someday marry and enjoy something so valued by a god." She rolled her eyes. "Men and their pride."
Sansa huffed in agreement. "They are easily controlled."
"Ha! You have the right of that." Barbery laughed at that. "If we weren't surrounded by enemies and at war with...is there anyone we aren't actually at war or on the brink of war with?"
Sansa sighed. "The Riverlands...I suppose the Stormlands are unlikely to attempt war with us?"
Barbery snorted as she poured herself more wine. Gods, their situation was dire. "Well, never mind about all that. The point stands. Without formal court activities, there is little more than you already do to be expected. It will be what you and that god of yours make of it."
"That is likely for the best." Sansa swallowed, her face nervous then. And, oh, she was so terribly young.
She would have reached out to comfort the girl if the situation had been different. But not even a great deal more wine than what she'd already drunk would have induced her to do so with the Queen. Barbrey sighed. "In public, continued sign of affection is all that is required of you. The situation you find yourself in is unique enough that you and your god may make of it what you will. See to your paramour, love has a way of…the longer you are intimate with another the truer you will know them. Your path will be found there, in whatever bond you share with her."
Sansa seemed to let the words sink in. "I suppose I had hoped for something more clear."
"Don't we all?" Lady Dustin drank from her wine before simply saying what was on her mind. "Now, of course, I'll help how I can, but I'm afraid I'd be little use to you on matters of the bedchamber. You'd either end up learning far more about your uncle than I think you'd like to know, or else my ignorance of the particulars between two women would show."
The return of the flush across Sansa's cheeks was well worth the crassness of the statement.
Barbrey decided the girl needed to get used to hearing such things. The married women of the court would hold their tongues less now that she had a paramour. Best get the girl used to it now. "So, that god of yours is at least making the bedchamber duties you've given yourself pleasant then?" She rather wanted to cackle at the embarrassed horror on the girl's face.