Ashara stood next to Ned in the outer bailey, her best day gown fluttering around her ankles, her fur mantle tickling her cheek. They could hear the first guards riding through the winter town—their chorus of clopping hooves and jingling of armour—and the chattering of the smallfolk who lived there in summer floated in with the wind.
"The next weeks might be the biggest spectacle most people here have ever seen," she murmured under her breath.
"Or will ever see," he replied, looking down at her from the side of his eye.
"At least some of the coin will be well-spent then, no?" The bailey yards had been swept clean and covered with freshly-laundered banners, and in the Great Hall, tapestries had been revived, chandeliers and candelabras polished until they gleamed, and trestle tables waxed and polished anew. There should be feasting and entertainment aplenty to tide over the smallfolk for the coming winter, and the hunt would produce more meat.
"I defer to your judgement." His face remained solemn before his men, but his eyes were soft and dancing. "We would not have nearly so much coin to spend if not for you."
She gave him the hint of a smirk. Oh, there had been a time when he had disapproved of her methods in obtaining the money from Hoster Tully, but it was coin that Tully owed the Starks to begin with. Ashara had not snuck into Riverrun and absconded with the gold. There was no dishonour in a little…soft persuasion, surely.
Ned looked over at the children, but suddenly he frowned.
Frowning herself, Ashara peered around Ned's cloaks and furs to their line of children. Robb stood, brawny and sure, the sword he called Frost hanging by his side. Beside him, Sansa was tall and ethereal, and beside her, Arya, more than a head shorter, was gnawing impatiently at her lip, her white teeth flashing. Last in the line was Arthur, staring back at her, his big eyes innocent. The spot next to him was empty.
"Where's Elia?"
Arthur shrugged with a bewildered purse of his mouth.
"She was in front of me as we were leaving the maester's turret," said Robb, craning his neck to look around. "I thought she'd gone to change with Arya and Sansa."
"Oh, she came up to her chambers with us," Arya piped in. "But she'd already left when Sansa was done fussing over my hair."
"Stop shaking your head like that. You'll make the braids fall out again."
"Oh, for the love of the Seven," muttered Ashara as the first burst of golden banners appeared beneath the front gate. Elia gave her more headaches than the rest put together, and Ashara was certain the few grey strands she had found in her hair of late were courtesy of her youngest. Once, when she had complained in passing, Ned, in a fit of rare acerbic wit, had looked at her with a raised eyebrow and said,
"I did say we should stop after Arya. You were the one who wanted more babes."
She had since kept her growing list of grievances to herself.
"Robert won't mind," said Ned now, but just as he spoke, she saw in the corner of her eye a slight blue-clad figure dart past. Ashara snapped her head around just in time to see Elia slip behind her, her hair wild.
"Elia Stark!" she hissed, and her daughter shot her a smile so cherubic she nearly forgot her vexation completely.
Ashara sighed and closed her eyes to pray for strength, not bothering to glare up at her husband, who was chuckling under his breath. Again she leaned around Ned to catch Elia's eye.
"Fix your hair," she mouthed at her, gesturing to her head and giving Sansa a look. Sansa ducked behind the line and appeared to do something with Elia's hair, and Ashara hoped it did not too closely resemble a bird's nest.
Knights and bannermen poured into the yard now, stopping their horses and dismounting, their heads emerging from their shining helms. There was Aron Santagar, Robert's master-at-arms, still brimming with that restless youth from their childhood in Sunspear. There was the brother of Gregor Clegane, half his face covered in an angry patch of scorched red, and Ashara felt her stomach turn, though it had naught to do with the injuries.
And there was fair-haired Jaime Lannister, who had so famously stood before the entire court and tried to refuse when Robert dismissed him from the King's Guard. But in the end, Tywin Lannister had gotten his way. Now Ser Jaime lived in a manse in King's Landing with his wife and sat in Lord Tywin's seat on the king's small council, though by all accounts he attended meetings less frequently than Robert himself, preferring instead to spend his days training or in the castle with his sister and her children.
Behind him, a stable boy helped his dwarf brother from his saddle. Another Lannister who all but lived in the Red Keep, though it seemed Cersei did not keep her younger brother's council nearly so often. Tyrion Lannister dusted himself off, looking around with an eager glint in his eye that Ashara had seen in herself all too often. So, perhaps this Lannister would not be so objectionable.
Next to ride in was a tall boy with golden hair—the crown prince, no doubt—and immediately Ashara felt her chest clench. The prince had caught sight of Sansa at once, it seemed, and there was a hunter's look about his face that made bile rise in her throat. She had heard talk from the few informants she kept in King's Landing—that the prince was no kind boy, though she had never asked for anything more specific. It had never concerned her too greatly until now, when he rode through her gates.
A roar filled the yard then, and Ashara looked up as a giant of a man—in height and in girth—rode to the middle of the yard. Before she could let her shock settle, they had all sunk to their knees, but Robert soon approached, his footsteps heavy in the crunching snow.
"Ned!" The giant crushed her husband in an embrace, and Ashara could hear the impact of leather on leather as she rose.
"Winterfell is yours, Your Grace," said Ned, and Robert waved his hand.
"Yes, yes, all of that. Gods, you haven't changed much, Ned. Still walking around with that tombstone for a face. How's that even possible with your delightful wife around?"
Ashara curtseyed, but Robert just laughed and enveloped her in a hug so strong that he lifted her half off her feet, and she felt her ribs shift.
"Ah, Lady Ash, lovely as ever. This your eldest, Ned? Robb, eh?"
"Yes." Robert laughed again, clapping Robb heartily on the shoulder. "Good man. And you—gods, you look like your mother."
Sansa curtseyed, and Robert walked on. His boots stopped dead in the snow. Ashara felt Ned tense.
"Seven hells," he muttered under his breath. "What's your name?"
"Arya. Your Grace." Her daughter looked the king straight in the eye, and Ashara did not know if she should be proud of her or wish to press her head down.
The king made a hoarse grunt, and for a moment all was frozen. Finally, Robert walked on once more, telling Elia that she was a pretty one too, and Arthur that he looked as if he would be a warrior someday. The tension had melted, and Ashara found herself choking back a laugh.
The queen and her other children had walked into the bailey now, their oak and gold wheelhouse too wide for even the gates of Winterfell, and Ned knelt in the snow to kiss her ring.
"Come, Ned, take me to your crypts."
The queen, hair like harvest wheat in the sun, stood before Ashara and frowned.
"We have ridden for a month, my love," she said. "Surely the dead—"
Robert waved her words away.
"Ned?"
Ned shot her a quick glance, then nodded, called for a lantern, and led the way to the First Keep. Ashara made her curtsey, though the queen barely looked at her. Poor woman. She had seen the naked antagonism between the king and queen ten years ago, and it was no great secret in King's Landing that it had only festered since. How must it be, to know your husband frequented every whorehouse in the city? To see a woman dead near twenty years still occupy a place above you in your husband's heart? Her brother Jaime had come to take her arm.
Ashara pursed her lips, then stepped forward.
"Your Grace, shall I show you to your chambers? You must be weary and cold from the road."
The queen's gaze returned to her and looked Ashara over, her lips thinning. Behind her, her children had gathered, heads as golden as hers, followed closely by the equally blonde Lynesse Hightower, bird-like and exquisite as the day she had married Jaime Lannister during the tourney in Lannisport. Lady Lynesse caught her eye for a moment and grinned at her. Curious, Ashara nodded back.
Cersei Lannister smiled tightly.
"Of course. Where are my manners? Children, come meet Lady Stark."
Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen were introduced, and this time Robb, too, stiffened at the way Joffrey stared at Sansa. To her dismay, she saw Sansa peer up at the prince through her lashes and blush most prettily. Her daughter was no fool, surely, but slow to see the truth before her eyes.
"Sansa, you will show the princes and princess to their rooms? And Arya, the queen's ladies?"
"Yes, Mother." Though Ashara could swear Arya took one look at Lynesse Hightower and wrinkled her nose.
"Lead the way, then, Lady Stark."
000
When the royal party had all been settled into chambers above the Great Hall, and preparations for the feast were well under way, Ashara climbed to Sansa's chambers to find her daughter sitting before her mirror getting her hair dressed, her wolf pup Lemons on her lap. In the chair beside her, Jeyne Poole was looking through the little box of rouges and powders. Sansa turned and Jeyne scrambled to her feet when Ashara entered.
"I'll take over," Ashara told the handmaiden who was working Sansa's hair, reaching for the hairbrush in her hand. "Go see if you can help Netty or Palla."
The girl nodded, and Ashara noted with a wry smile that she rushed without hesitation to Elia's rooms. No matter that Elia's hair was impossible to tame, anyone save Sansa and Palla would wither under Arya's murderous glare as she was subjected to having her hair dressed.
"Jeyne, dear," she continued. "Would you find Corynne for me and tell her I've changed my mind? I would wear the deep green gown instead of the dove blue. And that she needn't bother with the elaborate braids or the jewels."
"Oh. Yes, my lady."
Ashara smiled at her as she left the room. Lem looked up, yellow eyes bright, and Ashara let the wolfling lick her hand. Sansa was looking at her curiously, but Ashara stood behind her, turned her head to face the mirror, and began brushing through her dark curls.
King Robert had been right. Sansa did look very much as Ashara had at six and ten, though at her age, Ashara had long lost the naïve wonder that still softened her daughter's lavender eyes.
"Amma? Why have you decided not to wear the blue? You always look divine in it."
Ashara smiled, though it was not without the taint of regret. Her daughter's compliments always pleased her more than was reasonable. How she would miss her sweet child when she left for Dorne once more.
"I know," she said, for there was no reason to skirt around such things. "Sometimes it does not serve to draw excess attention to myself. Do you understand?"
Sansa's eyes narrowed in thought.
"The queen this afternoon. She looked at you rather strangely."
"Good girl. Yes, I believe she did."
"She is beautiful, but…I think, not as beautiful as you, and she knows it."
Ashara laughed.
"Careful, love, you mustn't inflate my head so. And 'tis not a matter of who is more beautiful, but of what the queen herself sees and believes."
Sansa smiled back, her cheeks dimpling, and the sight was so lovely it made Ashara's heart ache.
She reached over Sansa's shoulder for the pins and hair strings.
"I saw you take the princes and princess to see the Great Hall on the way to the chambers," she began, studying her daughter's face. "Did you find them agreeable?"
A flash of white, and Sansa bite her lower lip. Their eyes met in the mirror.
"Yes. Princess Myrcella was very sweet and clever and well-mannered, and Prince Tommen was quiet, but I think he is kind."
"Hmm. And Prince Joffrey?"
The lip-gnawing continued, and the disappointment was so stark on Sansa's face that Ashara almost lost the heart to press.
"He did not seem all too pleased with our hall or his rooms," she finally answered, her voice low.
"I see." Ashara focused on her hands now as they made little braids over Sansa's crown. "It is hard to be impressed by anywhere else once one is used to the ornate halls of the Red Keep. No doubt Winterfell appears rough and plain to him."
"Yes, I can understand that. Still, this is our home, and he is our guest. Why must he look as if he were walking into a cave?"
Ashara could not quite keep the smile from her face. Sansa frowned up at her.
"Surely you did not look at Winterfell this way when you first arrived."
"Naturally not, but your father loves this castle, and so I loved it too, even before I saw it."
"Even had you been a stranger you would not have sneered at the hall as the prince did." She seemed to deflate.
"Oh, Amma, it seems so unfair. I thought him so handsome and so radiant, and he's a prince. I know it isn't possible for me…oh, but the way he had smiled at me—"
Her cheeks darkened, and she took to studying Lem's pointy little ears.
"I'm being ridiculous as always."
"No, love, not at all. We all have our fantasies of the world."
Sansa sighed.
"He thought I did not see his face, and smiles at me still. Now all his charm seems a front, and seeing it only makes my teeth ache."
Ashara felt her heart settle back into place. She had been right. Her daughter was no fool. She was the fool for worrying at all. Still, the disappointment in Sansa's face rankled, and Ashara did not know if she wished Sansa would lose the soft silks that shaded her eyes altogether or keep them for the rest of her life. She did not understand whence it came. None of her other children ever wished for so much good in the world, or let the truth disappoint them so.
"He must really miss home," Sansa said as Ashara pinned another braid into the shape of a flower.
"What?"
"The prince. Perhaps it helps him to look down his nose at Winterfell. He needs to remind himself that his home is better. He must really miss it."
Ashara closed her eyes and prayed for patience.
"Love, he has only been away a month, and his family are all with him. Not every horrid person has a reason to be."
Sansa looked unconvinced.
"If you say so," she said obediently, but then reconsidered. "The prince is not horrid, surely. Just…a little rude. But mayhaps he will improve upon better acquaintance."
"Mayhaps, love." She felt her own eyebrows creep towards her hair, but did not contradict Sansa, instead winding a silver wire through her hair to match her dress. "You are right. We must not judge too quickly. Observe him carefully, then, and tell me if you change your mind about him."
Sansa had yet to see the way Joffrey had stared at her in the bailey yard—as if she were a piece of meat he would like very much to cut into. With what she had seen of the prince thus far, though, her daughter would change her mind soon enough.
000
Ashara could not tear her eyes away from the grotesque display that was the king groping serving maids on the floor open for dancing. It was several hours into the welcome banquet, and she was alone at the high table with the queen, sitting in a strained, icy silence, for the queen made no effort to speak with her. Robert had pulled Ned from his chair on the pretence of making toasts with some of the minor lords who had arrived for the celebration, though it was clear that had not been his intention.
Ned had disappeared from view—no doubt to find some quiet corner to sober from the wine Robert had poured down his throat—and Ashara could almost feel badly enough for him not to resent that he had left her alone here to freeze.
For all the reports she'd had over the years of how the king was no longer the strapping young man he had been, the sight of Robert had still utterly shocked her. He had puffy bags beneath his eyes, his jowls were sagging, his neck was nearly as thick as it was long and his belly protruded well past his feet. She knew that Ned had spent the afternoon with abject horror bubbling at the back of his mind at the sight of his friend.
For a mad moment, her mind returned to that night of Gregor Clegane's escape, when she had found Robert in the royal sept. Gods help her, had she told him to keep drinking if kingship did not suit him? Had she been mad? It seemed the king had taken her words to heart and more besides.
In the middle of the hall, Robert leaned down and kissed one of the serving girls flush on the mouth, sloshing his wine, and Ashara flinched. From the corner of her eye, Cersei Lannister's face seemed to sharpen.
Finally, she averted her gaze, searching the hall for something that did not turn her stomach. A movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Ser Aron Santagar raise his wine glass to her. She beamed back. How strange it was, to see that familiar face from her childhood pasted into her life at present.
Aron was two years younger. They had played together in the Water Gardens, studied together at Sunspear, and she had bested him at throwing darts and daggers, though looking dashing had always taken priority above actual martial performance for Aron. When all the dust of the Rebellion had settled, he had become Robert's master-at-arms and, to everyone's great surprise, married her friend Dyanna Dalt. Dyanna had stayed in King's Landing, however, and Ashara could only sigh at her friend's poor health. It would have been wonderful to see Dy's sweet face.
She had danced with Aron perhaps an hour past, and Ashara allowed herself a private laugh at the way Ned's face had darkened. Ned did not dance anymore—a shame, really—but he grew almost adorably jealous when she did with others, and so she kept her dancing to a minimum and delighted in teasing him the few times she indulged.
"Oh, come now, husband, I have not seen him in a decade," she had whispered to Ned as she left the table. "And you needn't worry. I didn't share his bed in my wayward youth."
Something wild and almost dangerous flashed in his staid eyes, and Ashara had felt a thrill down her back. Another benefit of teasing him would come much later in the evening.
Now Aron seemed to disappear once more into the throng. At the far end of the room, her eyes stopped on Jon's dark form, nearly a whole head taller than the rest, bent in conversation with—was that Ben? So he had made it to the feast after all. Both looked up at her then, and she smiled again, hoping they could see her. Jon seemed to have overindulged in the wine this evening, but she could not blame him. It had been a cruel thing, to separate him so, but perhaps Ned was right in a way. It was best not to seat him so close to Arya and under the king's nose, especially after that afternoon.
Benjen, too, raised a goblet to her, and she raised hers in return. She could still remember Benjen Stark, barely sixteen, staring at the box carrying Lyanna's bones and struggling not to cry. She had tried every argument she could think of to convince him from joining the Wall—it had been clear as day that the brothers would have weathered the grief best in one another's company—but he had been adamant that all the misfortune to befall his sister had been his fault, and neither she nor Ned could convince him otherwise.
He had only remained in Winterfell this long because there must always be a Stark in the castle, he had said. If only he had convinced her against her folly at Harrenhal. If only he had spoken up sooner about her unhappiness. Not two months after she and Ned had arrived, Benjen had rode through the north gates and stayed away for nearly five years.
Wounds had thawed and healed since then—or scarred, at the very least—but Ashara knew Ned still mourned the loss of this last brother, no matter that he visited now with some regularity.
She felt the queen's eyes on her.
"That is your goodbrother in the back?"
Ashara turned to face her, her eyes cool like the trees in winter.
"Yes, Your Grace. Benjen is First Ranger at the Wall."
"Ah, a sworn brother of the Night's Watch. How lovely for you."
Her tone niggled, but the queen continued.
"And next to him? That is your husband's bastard? They both have the Stark look."
Gods, this woman was either much cannier o more of a malicious cretin than Ashara had given her credit for.
"Yes," she said carefully.
"You are very generous, Lady Stark. I've heard you raised him alongside your own children. What a kindness."
Ah, most certainly the malicious cretin then.
Ashara gave her a very proper smile.
"They are all my children, and 'twas no kindness. When I married my husband, he had two sons without mothers. I simply took on the role. Many would have."
The queen narrowed her eyes, considering.
"I see. What...peculiar notions, Lady Stark. You do not fear the bastard's influence?"
Ashara dug her fingernails into her palm. Oh, it would be unfair to blame Tywin Lannister's children for the father's crimes, but Cersei Lannister was already proving herself a most unwelcome guest, all on her own.
"I am Dornish, Your Grace. We are not fearful of bastardy in Dorne. Children are children." She looked over at Jon once more. Theon had joined their little party, laughing as Ghost tentatively licked his face. "Their nature is determined by those who raise them, not a toss of the coin at birth."
"So, it is all Dornishmen who are generous," said Cersei, draining her wine and looking over the hall. Ashara followed her gaze to where Elia sat with Sansa and the princess. Elia was no doubt telling some elaborate story, her face alight with animation and her arms flung wide. Arya was nowhere to be seen.
"My children have told me how charming they found your daughters."
Inwardly, Ashara sighed, but smiled and thanked the queen before catching Sansa's eye and tilting her chin. Sansa caught Elia's arm and whispered something, then they took their leave of the princess and made their way to the high table. They curtseyed before the queen, Elia looking very much a young lady for likely the first time in her life. A jarring sight.
"Where's your sister?" Ashara asked.
"Here, Amma." Arya seemed to materialise from thin air, and bobbed a curtsey not nearly deep enough for the queen. Ashara narrowed her eyes. She had not noticed before just how low Arya's gown was cut.
"Your Grace."
"Hmm, lovely," the queen said airily. Her goblet had been refilled, and she took another sip, peering at her daughters over the rim.
"And how old are you?"
"I am six and ten, Arya is five and ten, and Elia is two and ten, Your Grace," Sansa answered.
"Sixteen...fifteen…Even your eldest is not promised, Lady Stark?"
"No, Your Grace."
"How unusual."
"More of my peculiar Dornish ways, I'm afraid." For a moment, the queen looked at her with eyes like cut sea glass. "We do not like our children to marry before twenty."
"Twenty! My, that is late."
"Perhaps. But I married at one and twenty, and found my age no hindrance."
The queen made a humming sound.
"My Joffrey was born when I was but eight and ten. Arya, was it? You seem to have more your of father's look than your mother's, though your eyes are still…hm…What lovely patterns on your gown. Did you do them yourself?"
Surely the queen was not…
"No. Sansa did them. I don't embroider."
"Oh?" Her eyebrow twitched. "What do you do with your days then?"
My mother teaches me to run a household, Arya could have said. Or, I attend lessons with the maester. Even I ride would have been better, but Arya was Arya.
"I spend most mornings with my brothers in the training yard."
The queen's eyebrows shot up, and sure enough, her shock lit the mischief in Arya's eyes. Not so bad a thing, if Ashara understood the queen's interest correctly.
"I like throwing blades, and archery, and can wield a lance, but I am best at sword-fighting. I can wield a greatsword if pressed, but I much prefer the rapier. I have heard that Prince Joffrey is an accomplished swordsman. I look forward to sparring with him these next days. Your Grace."
Ashara bit down hard on her tongue to keep the laughter in, and from the look on Sansa's she was doing the same. Elia made a choking sound, quickly covering it with a cough. Cersei Lannister's face froze for a heartbeat, and then she looked down at her goblet, blinking as if there was sand in her eyes.
"My," she finally said, a mocking laugh in her voice. "Lady Stark, how are you to get your daughters married?"
"I thank you for your concern, Your Grace," said Ashara, not at all bothered. "No doubt they will find husbands who appreciate each for their talents. Not all lords have liked their wives to sew and recite poetry and embody the feminine graces."
The slight took a moment to settle, but when it did Cersei Lannister's eyes were sharp as cut glass once more. Ashara gave her a most courteous smile and sipped her wine. She turned to Sansa.
"Love, did you not prepare a harp piece specifically for the queen's visit? Girls, help your sister bring her harp and her music. Your Grace, I do hope my eldest daughter is not nearly so much a shock to you."