Two months had gone by since the dreadful battle and the cold had begun to set in. Ramsay had rationed the firewood in order to preserve it for the coming winter. It was the only commodity they were in danger of exhausting other than women of which there were only five left. With the Starks lurking at the edge of the woods a new supply of timber was out of the question, so the only fires allowed to burn were in his private chambers and the two dining halls: Ramsay's own and where the men ate.
In their sleeping quarters where there was no warmth the men bundled up instead. Some made torches out of the leftover animal fat from the livestock which was all gone now. A dozen soldiers had succumbed to sickness in the past month, Maester Wolkan informed him. The old fart even asked permission to light a fire in the sickbay so that the wounded had a better chance of survival, but Ramsay declined the request. There was no reason to waste valuable wood - or provisions for that matter - on the sickly as long as the disease was not spreading. Besides, those who had died had contracted their wounds from the battle and not from a lack of heating. It wasn´t really a reasonable argument, Ramsay knew, but a few fatalities were a small price to pay for them not risking running out of precious wood. The Maester had not insisted either and he hurried out of the dining hall after dismissing himself.
The enemy seemed to be better equipped and faring than he had expected. Every once in a while, the wind would carry laughter and songs from the Stark camp through his window. The joyous sounds reminded Ramsay of all the pleasures he was missing out on himself being locked up in that retched castle, and made his stomach feel like it had been filled to the brim with rage and every new note or guffaw was threatening to burst it wide open. To clear his mind of the injustice being done to him, he would then call for the kitchen maid and abuse her instead; her screams sometimes loud enough to drown out the mocking laughters, even the ones that were only in his head.
There had been no communication between the two camps since the parley and it made Ramsay wonder if Jon Snow really was planning to stay during the winter months. It weighed heavily on his mind but mostly because there was nothing else to worry about in the confinement he was in. The boredom was becoming unbearable so he decided to send out scouts. Two small parties with five men each were lowered from the southern wall at night time; their Lord's ever watchful eyes following them as they disappeared into the darkness. Their orders were to creep up near the Stark camp and lay in wait until one of their men would wander off far enough for them to grab him. If they could get their hands on an enemy soldier or knight and torture him for information, maybe they would get something useful to bring back to Winterfell...or maybe not. Probably not. At least something was happening that could keep Ramsay's boredom a little at bay. But the scouts never returned, and so the monotony of everyday life within the walls of Winterfell continued on.
Most nights he spent sitting in the dining hall by his lonesome staring into the hearth. The flames mesmerized him and sent his mind off to a place where he could hunt with the girls again. In the midst of this awful tedium Ramsay longed for the hunts more than anything else. The girls were still there in the kennels, but seeing them in their cages did not bring back fond memories of running through the woods with them, stalking and killing prey. Their inadequate, unsanitary confinement just reminded Ramsay of how Winterfell every day seemed more like a gloomy dungeon and less like the ostentatious symbol of his victory it had been before the battle, and as a consequence he avoided going to the kennels at all.
Some days he would barely get out of bed except to eat dinner or to fuck the wench. The redheaded girl posed no challenge; every night she lay next to him shaking and timid, clutching her stomach or facing the wall. She never fought him which made fucking her unsatisfying - boring even, and Ramsay could feel his incentive to hurt her declining every day as a result. Without the resistance, the servant girl was just another broken toy hardly worth the effort of pulling down his breeches, and at this point he only kept her around because there was nothing better to do to pass the time.
Unlike the tedious wench, Theon Greyjoy had been a rare treat. His dignity was a delight to see diminished a little at a time and at the same pace Ramsay removed his noble fingers and toes. The creature Reek had been a masterpiece; from an arrogant Prince of the Ironborn to a submissive and loyal pet, betraying his own people at the mere word of his Master. Ramsay had thought Theon Greyjoy had been so deeply buried underneath the layers of fear and humiliation he would have never resurfaced, but as it turned out he was wrong. Reek had been useful, Theon had not. It was Reek who helped him take Moat Cailin, winning his father's favour at long last, but it was Theon who jumped the wall with Sansa Stark that day and killed Myranda in the process.
Now his Reek was gone for good and Ramsay truly missed him. The siege would have been slightly more bearable if his pet had been there to entertain him. He had heard the rumours about the Greyjoy siblings joining the ranks of the Dragon Queen in the East after escaping the Iron Islands within an inch of their lives, usurped by their own uncle, The Crow´s eye, who now held the title of King of Salt and Rock.
Although it vexed him that he would never get to enjoy the fruits of his creation again, Ramsay in a strange sense felt glad that his pet was still breathing, for sometimes being alive was worse than being dead, and Theon deserved nothing less than everlasting suffering for having betrayed his Master. His maimed body and mind would forever remind the Prince of their time spent together, no matter how many victories of the Targaryen bitch's he would take part in from here on forward. Ramsay had made sure that Theon would never feel whole again.
Removing Theon's manhood had been the most satisfying thing he had done to any of his victims in a long while. Ramsay had been envious of Greyjoy, not only of the size of his cock or of his true-born status, but most and foremost by Theon´s apparent attractiveness to women. It was not that Ramsay was ugly, but he was short of stature and there was something about his face, his large grey eyes with an ever-present devious glint in them that made most women keep their distance or even flat out divert him. Even though Ramsay was not overly interested in marrying a woman, except if she was good-looking and if he was free to do with her as he pleased (neither requirement was rarely met with the highborn ladies that visited the Dreadfort) he still found himself longing for the things that were off limits to him and that included pig-faced girls with noble heritages.
But what really vexed him was the way the women inspected him and deemed him unworthy, turning their backs on him like he was nothing more than a servant boy they could ignore. Their regard of his station reminded him that he was only a Snow and would most likely remain a such until his dying day, a lingering nobody without land, title or say; just another peasant to work to death or another pawn for Roose to make his move with. Every time one of the nobles waved him of or ignored his presence, it made his blood boil with rage and his accumulated hatred towards them, his father and the undeniable truth that he was left to rot outside the circle of power they were all born into. They didn´t deserve to be in such positions but he did. After years spent restrained in the shadows, Ramsay wanted more than anything else to be in the centre of it all, but not only as a part of the inner circle. No, he wanted it all to himself.
Greyjoy had everything Ramsay had not so he found it fitting to strip away the parts of him that he was envious of. Even after such a long time the memory still made him smile. Theon Turncloak returning home to his cursed Islands as a neutered dog. Ramsay tried to visualize the look that must have been on the Kraken King´s face as he opened the chest containing his last living son´s manhood, a tentacle the only male heir surely could not regrow. He remembered the time Theon's sister, Yara, had crept into the Dreadfort in the dead of night to steel away his Reek, and how close he had been to trapping her in the kennels; the disappointment he had felt as she got away. Oh, how he would have made the most wonderful spectacle out of her for Reek to see. Making him watch as he took his sister by force like he had taken Sansa Stark on their wedding night and the many nights that followed it. Then, after he was done with her, he would have made Reek kill her. It truly would have been spectacular.
His thoughts were interrupted by the dragging of feet across the floorboards. Shifting his gaze, he saw the servant girl standing naked in the window frame. She had gotten up without him noticing and seemed to be in a kind of hypnotic state, staring straight ahead without seeing. He did not get a chance to utter a word before she leaned forward and was gone. Ramsay strolled over to the window and glanced over the sill. The girl's broken body lay splayed out on the frozen ground below the tower, blood forming a little pool of red surrounding her head like a halo. Ramsay rolled his eyes and went back to bed.
There were none other within the walls worth fucking; the remaining women were all too old for his taste or too ugly, and he missed someone to violate and to find some release from the insufferable sense of humiliation still gnawing away at him months after the defeat. With each passing day, Ramsay grew increasingly frustrated so he started drinking heavily to keep the boredom and embarrassment he suffered a little at bay, waking each morning with a skull shattering headache as a result.
Fortunately, the gods decided to smile upon him. When a handful of Karstark men began complaining openly about the lack of heating and quality of provisions they were given, it gave Ramsay an excuse to flay a few of them as a warning to the other men. He knew the human body as well as any Maester and understood how to inflict the most pain without actually killing a man before intending to do so. Not only was torture amusing to him, it was interesting as well, as Ramsay was always curious about the amount of pain a human being could endure before their hearts simply gave in and surrendered to death. To his great satisfaction, with the insubordinate Karstark men, that amount turned out to be a lot.