CHAPTER 43

SANDOR

Time marched on peacefully at Winterfell. With things going on as they were it was impossible that Sansa would not become pregnant, and while the snow piled high in drifts for leagues around the castle, Sansa's belly swelled round with child.

She was devoted to becoming a mother and invited all the women who were expectant or nursing into a center for them and their children. She quizzed them on their needs and sought to provide all that she could—nutritious food, toys and games for the little ones, sewing supplies, and support for orphans and young mothers. Far from an ostentatious display, her research appeared functional as Sansa was open about her desire for the northerners to have babies. With the population depleted from war and famine, Sansa sought to foster a culture focused on love-making, child-rearing, and growth. She commissioned songs about romance, and Sandor marked that more than a few were about himself and his lady love.

In the final months, Sansa retreated to the upper rooms of the Great Keep in a modest attempt to hide her pregnancy. It was not the great secret they pretended it to be, since Jeyne and the other servant girls knew, the Maester treated her daily, and Val was due back from the Dreadfort to help with the delivery. But it would not do to become common knowledge, so they conspired to spread a rumor that Sansa had a light bout of winter sickness and, though bedridden, was expected to get well after a period of rest.

Sandor was impossibly agitated in those final months. Unlike animals, who usually whelped without issue, he knew that a quarter of human women died in childbirth. It was too many. Sandor guarded Sansa like a jealous dog and took out his frustrations on the smallfolk working in the castle, his fear so obvious and mean that no one dared gossip about the possibility of Sansa being pregnant. The smallfolk jovially repeated the rumor that Sansa had fallen ill, but no one suspected anything serious.

Finally, the night came when Sansa went into labor. Through the thick oak door he could hear Jeyne and Val coaching her, and Sansa heaving and crying in pain. While the women coddled and cared for Sansa, Sandor paced anxiously in the thin hallway. His mind raced with images of her body tearing apart. He could not stand it.

The door opened and one of the servant girls came out holding an empty water vessel and a pile of bloodied rags. Sandor's face fell at the sight, and the shy girl averted her gaze while she tried unsuccessfully to maneuver around his bulk. "Oh Gods," Sandor stopped her, "What's happened?" His question was punctuated by another agonized wail from the other side of the door.

The Maester came up the stairs behind him and tapped Sandor on the shoulder, rescuing the servant girl. "There's no trouble yet, Ser!" he assured. Sandor twisted to face him, giving the girl just enough space to push past and rush down the stairs. "Lyn is merely going to fetch more water and towels for our lady, and I have brought some tinctures to help with the pain."

"Is she . . . ?"

"She is doing fine now. It is early yet and I suspect it will be many hours before any development. Why don't you go down and get some rest? Val is an experienced midwife. Sansa is in good hands."

Sandor knew he was in the way more than anything, so he retreated downstairs through the second set of heavy oaken doors that separated the solar from the Great Keep. Normally many peasants and the men-at-arms slept here, but Sandor had chased them all away except for the Blackfish's entourage and a few close servants. They were all asleep. Sandor could not calm himself and went outside into the dead of night. How many more hours would Sansa suffer while he waited helplessly?

He went to the godswood. This was Sansa's religious place. They had spent so much time here, so many secret moments. Sandor looked hateful and angry at the serene heart tree, cursing the fickle nature of the Gods. He wondered if whatever power the Starks believed was held in these strange trees sought to take her from him. If after everything she had done to restore Winterfell, they would snatch her away to be with the rest of the Starks.

Winterfell had a small Sept as well and Sandor went there in the hour before dawn. He felt like begging the Gods not to take Sansa from him. It's just the sort of thing they would do, if they exist, he rued. What better punishment for all the sins that I have made in this life, than to take the one good thing that matters to me? He cursed himself—how loose and free he'd been with her, how naïve and lustful to put a bastard child in her and act as though the hands of fate couldn't reach them.

Well, maybe Sansa had done enough good that it over-counterbalanced him, and she would live. Sick with worry, he went back to the Great Keep just as the smallfolk were starting their chores in the yard. The industrious mood couldn't penetrate Sandor's bleary-eyed fog, but he saw the Maester talking to the Blackfish—who met Sandor's eye and nodded once. Sandor raced inside and up the solar's stairs.

Sansa was in her old bedroom, sitting up while Jeyne and Val worried over her. She was flushed and sweaty, but alive. On her breast was a tiny baby with a long body and shock of messy black hair. "It's a girl," Sansa told him. She passed the child to him, and Sandor held his daughter in his arms for the first time.

"We didn't think on what to name her," Sansa whispered. Sandor sat next to her on the edge of the bed and marveled that he and Sansa had created this tiny, delicate person. The baby was still pink and wrinkled from the womb, with a flat nose and dark blue almond eyes. He felt something swell up inside of him—he loved Sansa well, and knew that he could be gentle with the little child as he was with her mother.

"I thought—maybe Arya," Sansa said, "I miss hearing her name. But as far as we know, she is still alive, and it would be bad luck to name someone new after her when she could still show up among us."

"Aye," Sandor agreed. He hadn't given any thought to a name and it seemed a strangely trivial thing now that they were all in the world together. Some people waited weeks or months after their babies were born before they dared to name them—years, in the case of the Free Folk who came from the lands of always winter, but Sandor felt strongly that for his family the most difficult part had passed.

"Didn't you have a sister, growing up?"

"I did."

"What was her name?"

With one arm around Sansa and their baby in his arms, it seemed a whole lifetime ago that he had known that dark-haired, pure-spirited girl his father had buried while he was still a boy. "Boglarka. After the yellow wildflower, the buttercup."

"Boglarka," Sansa repeated. "It is a good omen for spring."

So that was what they called her. It was no trouble at all to find a wet nurse—the whole castle bustled with children. Officially, the baby was an orphan from the nursery, but neither he nor Sansa could keep up the ruse very well. Sandor counted many happy moments of his life over the next few years as he and Sansa played with the baby in the rooms upstairs. She most often slept between them, or with her wet nurse and Jeyne in Sansa's old room.

Val and the Blackfish left after three months, promising to come back with a child of their own next time. Life returned to its harried routine. Sansa sought economic and social prosperity for her people, more of whom came to Wintertown every day. She held court, traded through White Harbor, and started several projects ranging from building a system of lodges for the dogsledders to research on how to make glass and repair Winterfell's broken greenhouses. Sandor was able to breed the dogs into two distinct types after just a few generations—the light and swift huskies he and Sansa rode north with, and a thicker and heavier breed mixed in with the puppies Ramsay's bitches had whelped in Winterfell's kennels. Sandor grew particularly proud of a line of brown-black dogs with pointy ears and tightly curled tails that behaved like yodeling hounds but had almost cat-like hunting abilities. Being versatile and intelligent, good hunters, and medium-sized, so eating less than the larger breeds, made them the most popular and beloved among the smallfolk.

One day the rangers came to the castle to tell Sansa about an enormous ungulate herd crossing below the Gift. It was said to be thousands of animals strong, as though every caribou, elk, and deer herd throughout the North had migrated to converge in one location. Sansa wanted to see it herself, so the rangers guided them to investigate.

Sandor drove their sled through a mountain trail to a crest with a panoramic view of the vast tundra. They stepped to the edge of the ridge and looked down below. The picture would have been spectacular enough—a wide white plain framed against black-rocked mountains, marshy pools of water dotted with hairy plants covered in hoarfrost, and the expansive gray sky—but it was only more spectacular for being animated by tens of thousands of animals crossing over it. The hoofed herd animals followed one another in lines and added their strength to the mass center group, the heat from which melted snow around the river's fork and unburied much-needed food for the migrating animals.

"We could kill a hundred of them and not even dent their numbers," Sansa breathed. "Winterfell will not want for food this winter."

Sandor agreed. "But they won't stay here forever. And it will be difficult to hunt them the farther they go. We should get as many as we can, at once."

A Great Hunt was organized. The men prepared as for a battle. "Don't think that just because these are deer, they can't kill you," Sandor warned. "They'll fight for their lives and protect their own as much as any humans." They strategized how to cut a section of the herd and slaughter the whole group as quick and clean as possible. His men were eager, but green, and when the day came and his forty chosen faced off against the massive herd with nothing but spears and arrows as weapons they understood the uncertainty and fear that caused men to turn tail and abandon fighting. The herd seemed as one great, globular entity, the strong males on the perimeter eyeing them with temerity. The threat of stampede was a sudden reality, every man's position now important if the tactic to separate the herd was going to work. Any mistake or miscommunication and the animals would be free, the hunt a loss, and any number of a man's brethren in danger from the enraged beasts.

But no man wanted to be the one who broke in the face of caribou, so they steeled themselves. One group crept close and waited, another charged, the first rose at the opportune moment to confuse and redirect a small part of the herd. The men formed a circle and tightened their chokehold on the animals until, finally, the scale of hunter and hunted tipped. When the carnage was over, more than ten tons of meat lay across the field waiting to be dressed.

The mood at the hunting camp was akin to a festival. People were jubilant over the success and Sandor's men feasted and drank while Sansa directed the women to tan the hides of the butchered caribou. Everyone helped, even the feeble and the young, eager to claim a hand in the victory. Dogsleds piled high with meat and furs made their way back to Winterfell, while extra pelts headed to White Harbor. It was the first of many such victories.

Sandor never made the trade route; he did not have the stomach to be separated from Sansa and his daughter for so long. He taught young men sledding, who were eager to prove themselves, and sent them—and most returned. Their sleds loaded with goods, since Sansa got a good price from other kingdoms for furs, and their tongues with gossip picked up from the inns at White Harbor. Stories of Cersei's madness, the plundering Ironborn, slavery in lands far away, and even dragons. But Winterfell, deep in the interior, was safe from all of that.

The trade routes extended to Sansa's lords, who were eager to be included in this unexpected wintertime benefit. One day, a tribute arrived from Barrowton. Included among the goods was a spirited black yearling colt. Sandor knew the colt's origin from the moment he saw it—here was a younger, smaller, quicker version of Stranger.

The message from Lady Dustin confirmed it. After lodging his black horse, her Master of Horse had set out on the rumor that Sansa's white horse was in the Barrowlands. He found it, and in the dead of winter she gave birth to this black foal. She was the first of many mares to do so, as they put the black destrier to stud. Lady Dustin sent the foal along to Sansa as proof of her good will and with the promise to fulfill her duty and send more trained horses in the spring, if only Sansa would continue to be generous in sharing her prosperity and wisdom this winter.

"As well she should," Sansa said as she ran her hands over the horse's shiny black fur. "It is her duty to breed horses for us, yet she speaks it like a favor." It was not lost on her that Lady Dustin only acknowledged Sansa as her liege lord after the Bolton's hold on the North had been severed. Outwardly, Sandor shared her temperance in receiving the horse, but inside he was overjoyed—they did not have any horses at Winterfell beyond some shaggy garrons, and here was Stranger's son brought to him. It was like having his horse back. Sansa named it Warrior, and Sandor spent many days in the yard training the horse to be a strong and spirited courser with great endurance.

In this way another two years passed, and at the end of it Sansa grew pregnant again. This pregnancy went much like the first, except that having already delivered one child safely, the second birth was not feared as much. In the middle of winter Sansa gave birth to a son, whom they called Faolan.