"My Lord?"
The man's voice sounded distant. Ramsay lifted his eyes from the long table where he had spent the past hours staring sullenly into the wood grain and drinking wine in big gulps.
The victory had been as sure as teats on a bitch, and yet it had evaded him still in the last moment on the battlefield when the knights of the Vale appeared over the ridge in what seemed like never ending rows of heavily armed riders. With their ambush House Arryn had brought an end to his vision of annihilating the last true resistance against his claim in the North.
The falcon aligning with the wolf. It was not a plight he had even considered could come to pass.
Lord Baelish had turned out to be a treacherous but quite clever cunt, and Ramsay would have to think hard of something very special to award him with once he had put an end to the remaining opposition. The Stark alliance had taken most of his army, the men either captured or killed which meant the same to him; no longer adding to their strength in numbers the soldiers had surpassed their usefulness.
Although it was early evening the autumn sun had already begun to set. The cloudy sky seemed gloomy and more sinister than usual, emitting some obscure, dark prophecy that Ramsay could not interpret. Had everything gone as it was supposed to he would be flaying the bastard by now. Peeling of long slices of skin and exposing the tissue underneath, making him squeal and writhe on the cross until the brave and honourable Lord Commander Snow would finally give in and beg for the mercy of death.
With a few rare exceptions they all did sooner or later, but he never granted them any mercy anyhow. No matter the amount of entertainment they provided him the climax of his pleasure was not obtained until the victims started to loose their minds from desperation and anguish. When they were willing to bite off their own hands to get free from their restraints and away from the blade only then would he bring out saltwater or the cat o'nine. On special occasions there were rats involved.
Sansa would have been forced to watch - of course - and how he would drag it out even longer than usual just to see her suffer. He would savor the tormented look on her face like a fine wine filled with sweet revenge as he fed the skin of her last living brother to his starving bitches.
Ramsay emptied the goblet in one mouth full, his knuckles turning white as his fingers tightened around the stem. Sansa. Sansa, that fucking whore. She had out-manoeuvred him, played him for a fool. The realization of the extent of his humiliation was slowly dawning on him, poking its searing, hot skewers into his vanity and impaling it like a roasted piece of pork. He would be made a subject of ridicule now, the laughing stock of the North. Songs and tales would be written about the clash between Stark and Bolton, declaring him a beaten down coward forced to flee the battlefield, chased behind his own gates by a woman and the dirty halfbreed, Jon Snow.
My bastard. The voice of his father whispered in his ear, mocking him from beyond the grave. You should have stayed inside the walls and waited them out. Now everything is lost because of your foolishness. A muscle in the corner of Ramsay's eye started to twitch. And I...I should have drowned you when you were nothing more than a wailing mutt on your mother's tit. The cold wind that blew through the hall made every hair on his body stand up and caused a shiver down his spine. The North was watching and it remembers all…
"My Lord?"
It was that voice again.
"What is it?!", he snapped. "The head count, Sire...a thousand and fifty-two men are left within the walls and an estimated six-hundred or so captured by the enemy". The knight tried to hide his nervousness but Ramsay could still detect that slight, delicious tremor in his voice. Like a shark could sniff out blood in water so had Ramsay a nose for anxiety in the people surrounding him. He would always pick up on the scent no matter how discreet or in what form it was presented. Usually, he would have pounced on an opportunity like it to get inside the man's head and roam about until he could find something to shatter. At this moment, however, no game regardless of its level of ease appealed to him. It made him furious to realize that the Starks, along with stealing his victory, had sucked the joy out of his pastime as well.
"Was there anything else, Sire?" Anxious to take his leave the knight shifted on his feet. Ramsay signalled for him to get out, and the man all but ran from the dining hall leaving behind the last living member of House Bolton lingering on the day's past events.