Two hours passed before Ramsay dared to sneak a peek through the door. He could see men laughing, drinking ale and wine. Some had already passed out from the drink while a few gathered suspiciously around tables, talking in low voices and looking frequently over their shoulders. Two drunk idiots were putting on a buffoonish show of imitating a buggering of one another to the bystander's great amusement. Fortunately, the vulgar show had drawn the attention of a majority of the soldiers and it was a perfect time for him to make a dash for it. Ramsay eased out of the door and into the shadows.
The night sky was cloudy so there were plenty of dark nooks and crannies to hide in on his way towards his destination: a door a few hundred paces from the crypt. Ramsay moved as stealthy as a cat and managed to reach the door, slipping through it undetected. A staircase led down to a small and narrow cellar with a few rows of wine barrels on either side. Reek had shown it to him once and confessed that there was a secret passage leading to the forest beyond Winterfell. It was the same exit the wildling woman had used to smuggle out Rickon Stark; now, it would serve as an escape route for the former Lord of Winterfell. Ramsay gritted his teeth at the thought of his lost honour as he removed one of the barrels from the rack. It was empty and served only as camouflage for the wooden plank hidden underneath. He pulled of the plank revealing a narrow hole in the ground strengthened by wood to keep it from caving in on itself.
This is it,he thought, there is no going back after this.The North was lost and so was his title for now at least. He had known this much since the grain deposit caught on fire. His life didn´t have to end here at Winterfell, and he could still make something out of the loyalty of the remaining Houses, Umber, Karstark, Glover and Manderlay. Maybe he would even remarry a Lady of one. Some northerners were after all still cautious about pleading their fealty to House Stark, a bastard or a woman their only choices for a ruler. If he could only make it to the Dreadfort there were still possibilities to explore and alliances to be made.
Ramsay dove headfirst into the rabbit hole, hoping that more fertile conditions than the ones he was leaving behind were waiting for him on the other side.
The tunnel was as uncomfortable as it was disgusting. Although Ramsay was a small, lean man he still got the feeling, he could very easily get stuck in the narrow passage. He crawled forward in the darkness on his hands and knees pushing the sack of belongings in front of him, dust and dirt creeping into his eyes, nose and mouth. The air was stuffy and humid. A rat screeched as he crushed it under the weight of his knee, making the other rodents scamper over his hands and between his legs.
After having crawled for two hours his body ached all over. His eyes burned from the dirt lodged in them, but he had to keep moving no matter the pain and discomfort he felt. Time was of the essence. His soldiers would know before long that he had eloped and they would in most likelihood capitulate soon after confirming their suspicion of his absence. The Starks would commence hunting him down the very second they had retaken the castle he was sure of it. His only advantage at the moment was that no one was looking for him outside the walls of Winterfell yet.
Hopefully, he would be able to pass for someone lowborn, a man of no importance or ties to the Boltons. In the crypt he had come up with a cover story that would fit his purpose. Robin, a miller's son from Barrowton, traveling the North to visit his family at Long Lake. He expected to come across at least a couple of travellers on his way to the Dreadfort so a credible background story could come in useful at some point. Better safe than sorry as they said. An hour and a half more had passed crawling through dirt and rat shit when the tunnel finally split into an eastwards and westwards branch. There was no indication as to where either tunnel was leading so Ramsay choose the western one, figuring it would lead him furthest away from the enemy camp.
Half an hour later the tunnel ended in a small cave with a piece of wood covering an exit above his head. Tired and sore from crawling on all fours, Ramsay sat for a few minutes flat on his ass pondering what might be lurking on the other side of the plank. What if he got up in the middle of Jon Snow's tent? Despite that his body and mind was completely exhausted, a small snicker escaped him. Dirt caked his face and he longed for fresh air to fill his lungs.
Standing up straight, he lifted the piece of wood carefully over his head and glanced around. It was still dark, but he could make out some bushes ahead. A bird shrieked in the night, then the forest fell quiet again. He tussled with the piece of grass-covered wood, trying his best to minimize the sounds of it being wrenched free from the dirt and grass by rocking it lightly back and forth. Finally, after more than a minutes struggle it came loose and he could stand up breathing in the fresh air.
The night sky had cleared and the moon lit up the forest. Ramsay had been heading north, then west so he had a pretty good notion of the area he was in. The woods surrounding Winterfell were not unfamiliar to him, although he was not as acquainted with this land as the hunting grounds further north. He figured if he continued north for at least half a day then turned to the east, he would be clear of the wolves. After that it should be easy to figure out the road to Long Lake and the Lonely Hills. When he reached the lake he would know the road home by heart. Home. Ramsay grimaced like he was biting into a sour apple. Winterfell was no longer his but it would be again. He just needed to be patient and it would all come to him in due time.
Roose had mastered the art of being patient. House Bolton had lived in the shadow of the Starks for a very long time, frowned upon and regarded as the uncomfortable necessity Eddard Stark had to endure to keep the north unified. Lord Stark never did care for his father that much Ramsay could tell even when he was a young boy. Patience had kept Roose waiting for the right moment to overthrow House Stark, and when he finally pounced on the opportunity at the Red Wedding it had payed off. Of course, Eddard himself had been a head shorter by then.
Ramsay had met the Warden of the North twice; once, when he was around ten (although he no longer recalled the particulars of that meeting, Ramsay did recall how regal Lord Eddard looked in contrast to his father and how much that fact angered him when he first laid eyes on the wolf), then again when he turned seventeen.
Lord Stark had come unannounced to the Dreadfort where Roose the night before his arrival had flayed some farmers late on their taxes, their bodies still hanging from the castle walls. The Warden was furious and openly disgusted by the way Roose handled his jurisdiction, and the rest of his short stay in their home had been dominated by awkward silence. After the incident Lord Stark strived to keep House Bolton at arms length at the decision table when the northern Lords got together to discuss matters of importance. Roose had not exactly broken the law (at least not that time) so there was nothing Lord Eddard could do to him.
In the North there was no fiddling with other noble families' traditions no matter what those traditions might be. Flaying men had been the Bolton way for a thousand years but Lord Stark outlawed the practice nevertheless. It did not sit well with some of the other allied Lords and it surely did not stop Roose from flaying his enemies still. In the end Stark's prohibition accomplished nothing except to dig the already abysmal trench between their two families even deeper.
Amused by the image, Ramsay stood for a second fantasizing about the face the old wolf would have pulled if he had learned what Roose Bolton's son had done to his eldest daughter times over. It had to have been a good one, perhaps even one that involved a vein throbbing in either his neck or his temple or both. Too bad he would never get to find out. After slinging the food sack over his shoulder and the bow over another, the now smiling Ramsay proceeded into the unknown woods ahead.