Sansa Stark hovered outside the enormous brass-bound door in an agony of indecision. She could hear the burbles and splutters of her infant nephew on the other side, but her knocks had gone unanswered. Now she wondered if a peek inside would be an invasion of privacy. The door seemed unlocked, but its size and solidity reminded her that she was in a castle built as a fortress. This was a home for people who valued defense in every aspect of their lives.
Her hand lowered to the latch. Slowly, her fingers closed around it. With an intake of breath, she pulled her hand sharply from the latch and left before temptation could overtake her again. For both personal and practical reasons, she would do herself no favors by unnecessarily ruffling feathers.
On the way down the stairs, Sansa met Roslin Tully ascending, arms filled with jumbled fabrics. Instead of flattening herself against the wall to make room in the narrow tunnel, she moved center stage. "I'm so glad I found you, Lady Tully. May I escort you to your chamber?"
That chamber proved to be smaller than expected, but dominated by a grand fireplace even bigger than the one in Edmure's chamber. It was substantially bigger than the one in Sansa's, and marked with two abstract swirling patterns that could have been meant to represent fish, laid out in mosaic fashion with more river tile. Oddly, only one swirl showed wear, as if there had never more than one chair before the fire. The room's brass fittings, which would have glowed amber when the castle had an army of maids to match its actual army, had turned black in the humid air. The morning sun streaming through east-facing windows did reveal the jumble in Roslin's arms to be dresses, which she dumped onto the bed.
Sansa said, "You don't have to do that, you know. You're the Lady of Riverrun now. Someone should be doing it for you."
"I don't mind. I'm used to doing things for myself." She nodded to the heap. "Edmure thought I should have something to wear. These are his sister's old gowns."
Sansa leaned forward. "Catelyn's?"
"No. Lysa's."
"Oh." She fell back onto her heels.
"They're not the only family heirlooms." Roslin gestured at the rocker-mounted bassinet. "Brynden is sleeping where his father did as a baby."
Her visitor dispensed with further small talk. "There's still time for you to change your mind."
The girl shook her head as she began to lay out the gowns. "It's not dangerous, I assure you."
"Isn't it? These are the people you begged me to take you away from."
"Stevron doesn't care what I do. He'll give me a meal and a bed because he's obligated, then he'll forget I'm there. Don't worry, I wouldn't have offered if there was true danger. I'm not brave like you."
"Like me?"
"I think you're the bravest woman I ever met. The way you just walked into the Twins and stood up to my father, to all those guards."
Sansa felt oddly winded. An incredulous laugh kept trying to well up, but never made it far enough up her throat to escape. Instead, she just said, "I wasn't exactly alone."
"Your friends are soldiers. I never knew there was such a thing as a woman soldier, but its still different for them. To be a lady and make those choices- that's real courage." Roslin held a pale lilac muslin confection up to her body. "They're quite lovely, aren't they? A bit out of fashion, but still lovely."
She swallowed the remnants of that laugh. "Your brother might care that you helped your husband escape."
"You forced me to do it. And once Edmure had his son and heir, he had no more use for me." The girl shrugged. "I'm part of the family that betrayed him. I'm lucky to still have my head."
Sansa grabbed the lone chair from the hearth and turned it to face her before sitting down. "Say that like you mean it."
Roslin shot her a puzzled look, suddenly slightly cowed again.
"Show me how you would tell Stevron about being used and abused by us."
"I had no choice. They threatened my child. I thought-"
"No. I don't believe it. I won't be responsible for sending you into a hornet's nest until I at least know you can tell a convincing lie." She thought it best not to mention that the future of Riverrun depended on her going unsuspected. There was no telling how this girl would react to pressure. "The words don't have to be genuine, but the feeling does. Think back to something awful that happened to you. I'm sure you have plenty to choose from. And when that horrible feeling comes back, don't push it down."
She put the aspirant through her paces, making occasional corrections. Too many tears. Do you normally look him in the eye that much? When she was satisfied, she reclined with a sense of accomplishment.
"I really was happy to see you getting along so well with my uncle. I've experienced my share of political marriages, first hand and second hand. You've no idea how lucky you were to have been matched to someone you like."
"It didn't start out that way. We reached an understanding."
"A cell seems like the last place understanding would flourish. Especially considering what he... well, what happened to you there, if you don't mind my saying so."
"It happened to him too."
She blinked. "I never thought of it that way."
"No one ever does." Roslin stretched the mid-section of a blue dress, trying to gauge the waist as she continued in a soft monotone. "Fear can make anyone do just about anything. Sooner or later, though, you have to trust someone. When my father wasn't watching, I even told Edmure I don't really like men."
Two competing trains of thought collided in Sansa's mind. First came the nauseating realization that Walder Frey had actually watched his own daughter's rape. Probably enjoyed it, even. Once she got past that, the meaning of the second half of Roslin's sentence could begin to take shape.
"Again, you must forgive me if I presume too much. When you say you don't like men, do you mean..."
Roslin looked directly at her. "I mean I prefer women to men."
Sansa had heard rumors of the existence of such things, even one revolving around her one-time fiancé, Loras Tyrell. It was still breathtaking to hear someone admit to it, as if a mythical creature had just flown in and landed on her lap. "And you feel comfortable telling me this?"
The girl averted her eyes and fiddled aimlessly with the bedsheet. "It's not important. I'm a married woman now. I just thought you should know, that's all."
"Your secret's safe with me, but I'd be careful about telling anyone else if I were you. Actually, I was right about your luck the first time. My uncle doesn't seem to mind."
"He may just like having a wife who won't complain about his mistresses. Either way, we agree. Both our duties are done. Now we can both be free."
An escalating squawk sounded from the bassinet and Sansa automatically reached out to rock it. The creases of Roslin's eyes softened as she watched.
"It really couldn't have worked out better, not in this world. I've always wanted a lot of children. And if his other women don't want their children to be raised as bastards, now they don't have to."
As she set about sorting the gowns into a pile to keep and a pile to go back into storage, Sansa stared at the two big, guileless eyes staring back at her. Her nephew was certainly a handsome little boy. How long had it been since she had tried to imagine what her own children might look like?
She snatched her hand away and fortified herself with a deep breath, leaning back imperiously in her seat. "There's something I need to make sure you're aware of. I can't guarantee your son's safety if your family makes it inside these walls. It's going to be your responsibility to see to it they don't."
Roslin looked neither shocked nor surprised by the veiled threat, from someone who should be her inferior, no less. Her only response was a vague smile and perfunctory head bob. Sansa stood and tried not to hurry across the room as she murmured her well-wishes. This wasn't the first time she'd had to voice a threat and it surely wouldn't be the last. It was the first time she had threatened an abused nineteen-year-old girl and a baby.
At the door, she paused and looked back. Finally, she said, "You didn't have to name your son after his father's uncle. I hope you know that. But I understand why you did."
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Several hours later, Sansa was back behind the parapet of the high tower, this time flanked by Brienne and Podrick. In their dark cloaks, the trio was invisible against the night sky. It was even darker tonight than it had been the night they arrived, which was a good thing, according to the Blackfish. From here, she could gain some idea of why.
The confusion that had resulted earlier in the day from the sight of a Stark flag being hoisted seemed to have completely abated. The operative word being "seemed". All she could really see was a smattering of occupied tents, illuminated from within like the paper lanterns the under-twelve set of Winterfell used to make and drop from the battlements on holidays. Between them, tiny dark shapes occasionally flitted across pinpricks that must be bonfires.
Sansa glanced at Brienne's face and smiled to see it still set into what her friend probably imagined was an emotionless mask. She had forbidden her two oldest and most trusted protectors to risk their lives in the battle to come, and the disappointment obviously still smarted.
Brienne caught her eye and frowned a question. She just turned back to the battlefield below. They had been waiting longer than expected and she was beginning to regret wearing the chainmail vest Pod had gifted her at the flag-raising. Sansa hadn't seen much of him over the past few days. That turned out to be because he was at the forge. Podrick had discovered a knack for tinkering under his "knight's" tutelage, and took advantage of his down time to alter the chainmail that now layered snugly between her gown and overcoat. She had grown to think of her stiff, heavy winter gowns as a form of armor in themselves, but real armor was twenty pounds she wasn't used to carrying around.
Before she could sink too deeply into self-recrimination, Sansa finally saw what she was looking for. One of the little paper lanterns now glowed green, the color of Roslin Tully's overskirt.
She bent, grunting under the restrictiveness of the chainmail, and lit a few real paper lanterns. When enough hot air had collected inside, she picked up one. She was much too old for this sort of thing now, but a bittersweet glee still welled up inside as she tossed it over the parapet and watched it float gently down, chased by Brienne's and Pod's.
A tense minute followed, then something bright and orange appeared in the distance. It tore through the Frey encampment in erratic zigzags, leaving trails of flame behind.
As its high-pitched scream reached them, Pod stammered, "Is that...?"
It was. The flaming horse collapsed, still burning.
The castle's drawbridge dropped with a clang and infantry charged across five abreast, as archers began to stream onto the Frey-facing battlements. Edmure was somewhere on those battlements, having refused to spend the entire assault in bed. A hundred bright pinpoints glinted off their helmets as they lit pitch-soaked arrows, then swooped down like a shower of falling stars.
In the light of burning tents and a thousand scurrying lanterns, the people in the tower could suddenly map the progress of both thin wedges, ironborn and riverborn, toward the point where they would meet. The din, clearly audible from their position, must have been ear-splitting on the ground.
Sansa leaned farther over the parapet than was probably wise, completely entranced by what she had expected to endure. Displayed in miniature, the scene reminded her of a clockwork army her father (he would always be her father, no matter what anyone said) had given her for her tenth birthday. She was a very lucky girl to have it, he had told her. It had come on a big ship all the way from Volantis.
Her eyes misted. The towers that marked the opposing sides had unfurled like the columns of smoke whorling in the crosswind off the twin rivers and the mechanical men had jerked to repetitive life, not unlike the anonymous figures now lurching around their flickering shadowbox.
Of course, it broke a few months later. She had no idea where it was now. There was no one in Winterfell who could fix it.
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Sansa covered her nose and mouth as she made her way across the still-smoking battlefield. The gates had been closed and barred to prevent Frey stragglers getting inside. When they were reopened, she had been the first one through.
The carnage was neither enchanting nor whimsical up close. The acrid smoke was laced with weeks-old sweat, the coppery odor of blood and something much too delicious-smelling for its implications to be given any thought. The path was a rutted track spattered with damp ochre patches. Podrick had tried to lay his cloak down for her when they encountered the first one, but she had brushed it aside. It was right that her boots should be muddied with the blood she had caused to be spilled.
She did draw the line at stepping over bodies. As she navigated delicately around an eviscerated corpse, a man in Riverlands mail appeared to drag it away to wherever the hell they were taking the dead. Sansa took her eyes off her goal long enough for an appreciative nod.
Yara Greyjoy was in deep conversation with the Blackfish at the center of the large clearing the Frey leaders had used as a command post. It got a sly grin from Sansa as his profile, half lit by a massive bonfire, tilted back in an unmistakable chuckle. Her companions quickened step to stay close to her as she dashed up to the pair, but did not comment or question. By now, they knew their duty well.
"I hope you got an eyeful up there, girl," the Blackfish said, pulling her in for a quick hug. "The sons of whores didn't know which way to turn!" He blushed as he realized what, in his exuberance, he had just said in front of her.
She patted his shoulder. "Don't worry. I've heard worse, believe me."
"Why am I not surprised?" He shot Yara a look that was met with wide-eyed innocence.
A dozen filth-streaked naked men ran past in the direction of the nearest river fork, whooping. The Blackfish buried his face in his hands. Yara simply called back to them.
At the expression on Sansa's face, she explained, "They're just taking a victory dip. Relax."
"The water is freezing."
"We're used to that." She gestured expansively around them. "This is the richest prize we've taken in my memory, and then some! We may not even have enough carts to haul it all away."
"I'm sure there are carts in Riverrun that you can use, if you need them."
They both turned to the Blackfish. "We certainly won't need them." His voice had returned to the note of guarded dourness it normally expressed when talking about the ironborn. "Plunder isn't something we do here."
A long moment of silence followed. He broke it by continuing, "I'd best go get them ready. The survivors will regroup eventually. We should be gone by dawn."
As he left the bonfire's circle of light, Sansa rubbed her hands briskly together. "Do you think we can be gone by dawn?"
"With the extra hands, yes. Leave it to me."
Sansa was running out of things to do with her hands, so she simply clasped them behind her back. "Yes. About our departure. There may be a slight change of plans."
"No. Uh-uh. Not again."
"You haven't even heard me out."
"I already told you. You only get one."
She turned and retreated toward her lieutenant. Sansa followed her. "Could you have a ship meet me at Seagard? And take me to the Arbor?"
That got her attention. "What in seven hells is in the Arbor?"
"Paxter Redwyne. I have reason to believe he might support us against House Bolton." She added, to reinforce the point, "And its allies."
"What reason?"
"I don't think he would want me to say." It was only a half-lie.
Yara just stood there, scrutinizing her suspiciously.
Petyr Baelish had turned to her just as she had been about to nod off to the rocking of the carriage. Maybe that timing had been intentional. His eyes had burned as he launched into one of the many tutorials that passed his lips between the Eyrie and Moat Cailin, and as always, she had thirstily absorbed every word.
Something about the way he spoke had told her he considered this a key moment.
"When you're in the weaker position, you can't punish those who impose on you. However, that doesn't mean you are defenseless. If you can learn what they want, and find a way to offer it to them, the carrot can work as well for you as the stick. Often better."
"Wasn't that supposed to be my role in this whole enterprise? Making friends for us? I'm trying to make a new friend. It's not my fault if I didn't know about him in time to talk it over."
"And what are the rest of us supposed to do while you're making friends in paradise?"
"You can raid in the Riverlands just as well as the North. It might even be easier here. The enemy will be in disarray after tonight." With a sweeping gesture, she reminded Yara of everything she had just gained.
The other woman raked upper teeth over lower lip. "It would be easier if we didn't have to split up to deliver the spoils."
"And it would be just as easy for two ships to meet us as one," she prompted.
Behind Yara, a column of people emerged within the penumbra of dimmer light beyond the clearing.
"You know that damned fort was built to fight my people? There's something very satisfying about the thought of using it as a port of plunder." She was growing increasingly excited.
The column was now identifiable as all women, all bound by the wrists. Sansa stiffened and looked away, focusing on her partner's beaming face.
Brienne chose a more forthright approach. "Who are those women?"
She glanced over her shoulder, where Shale was holding back the flap of a large tent for the soldiers prodding them inside. "Oh, those are just the Freys' whores. We need a place to put them until the men are ready."
Brienne's voice rose in pitch. "Ready for what?"
Sansa shifted uncomfortably.
"To take them, of course. You don't look like you approve, Lady Brienne."
Sansa refused to meet her urgent look. "It's not our business."
"No. It's not."
"We don't have time for them to waste," Brienne tried again. "We're set to leave in a few hours."
Yara looked to Shale again. He stared back, the corner of his mouth twisting. "This is their birthright. They paid the price and will now take what's rightfully theirs. Anyone who has a problem with that has a problem with us. Our traditions are who we are."
A young, white face passed through the rays of a torch. It took a moment to register who she was looking at, then Sansa squealed, "Wait!" and darted forward.
"That's not a prisoner," she told Shale. "That's Lady Tully."
Getting an affirming nod from Yara, who was only a few steps behind, he pulled Roslin from the line and shoved her into Sansa's arms. "She shouldn't have been here. This is no place for a lady."
As they moved away, they heard, "I'll send the ravens tonight." Then Yara was engaged in a hushed- and pointedly exclusive- conversation with her lieutenant.
"What were you thinking?" hissed Sansa, fumbling with the knots at Roslin's wrists. "You were supposed to be gone by the time the battle started!"
"I couldn't. I was caught trying to leave." An attempt at a brave smile trembled to life on her lips. "It wasn't so bad. I just kept my head down and they ignored me. The women weren't a threat."
"This one would like to be," Brienne muttered. Sansa threw her a scorching look. "But she won't."
"What could we have done? Forbid our only real ally to command her own people? Everyone has to do things they don't like, even the powerful." The ropes slid to the ground.
"At least you did what you came to do," she assured Roslin in a calmer voice. "And they didn't hurt you. I don't think my uncle would have forgiven me if anything had happened to you. I don't think anyone in Riverrun would have."
The girl collected her bindings and tossed them into the bonfire, the tension finally draining from her shoulders. One set of eyes didn't watch them burn: Brienne's. She was continually drawn back to the tent where the whores awaited their unpleasant fate.
"Milady, may I have leave to speak with the women? Nothing more than that, I promise."
"If they'll let you in, you may."
Sansa watched her vassal whisper something in the ear of an ironborn guard, something that caused him to grin knowingly and snicker. After he waved her inside, she turned back to the fire.
Brienne returned to her side a few minutes later. "That didn't take long," she observed. "What did you say to them?"
"It wasn't so much what I said to them as what I gave them. I paid them to entertain the little monsters for the night. They are whores, after all, and coin is coin. I was just lucky they all agreed. This time."
All Sansa could think of in reply was, "That was clever."
"I paid dearly for it. That was the last of the gold Jaime Lannister gave me to search for you. It's our own devices from here on. But you have your own gold now, don't you?"
"Silver, more likely."