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Chapter Nineteen: The Only Way is Down

All around Margaery the snowfalls swirled on the breeze, the flakes shimmering in the light of the beacons that lit the path to the heart tree. The flames swayed, causing the shadows of the redwoods to rise and fall. There was something primal and ethereal, almost majestic, about the setting. Something that couldn't be conjured or manufactured. The ritual felt ancient because it was ancient.

Before setting off, father and daughter turned to look at each other for one last time. The tear in his eye might have been the icy-wind but, somehow, she thought not as he smoothed down her maiden cloak and fasted it more securely beneath her chin. Gently, he brushed away the snowflakes that had landed on the golden rose sigil before linking his arm through her own. An understanding passed between them, that this was it. The time had come.

Arm in arm, they processed through the snow, up the path lined with silent spectators each holding a small, flickering candle. The strange, raw beauty of the scene hit her all over again. There was no incense here, only nature, wet earth and freezing waters. The only light came from the myriad candles and beacons, their warmth lost among winter's onslaught.

Where the redwoods thinned and opened onto a clearing dominated by the solemn-faced heart tree, Margaery and Mace came to a halt. The clearing was circled by their families, both Stark and Tyrell, nursing small candles and watching on in silence. Only Ser Brynden was beneath the tree itself. When she sought out Robb, she found him flanked by Jon and Sansa, with Arya close by with the Stark wedding cloak folded over her arms.

Barely perceptibly, she noticed Jon giving Robb a nudge into the clearing, grinning at his brother briefly before remembering the solemnity of the occasion and turning serious again. Meanwhile, Robb emerged into the circle of pale, flickering light and her heartbeat raced. Dressed in the colours of his house, his doublet was grey silk lined with white ermine. At his hip, a longsword was sheathed in a black scabbard embossed with the Stark direwolf.

"Who comes before the gods this night?" Ser Brynden's softly spoken challenge broke the silence of the godswood, snapping Margaery out of her thoughts.

She held her breath as her father answered. "Lady Margaery of House Tyrell, comes here to be wed. A noblewoman, trueborn and flowered, she comes to beg the blessing of the gods. Who claims her?"

Standing beneath the boughs of the heart tree, her betrothed staked his claim: "I do. Robb, of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and King in the North. Who gives her?"

"I, Mace of House Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South." Arm in arm, they made their way to the sacred tree where Robb was already waiting for her. "Margaery, do you take this man?"

"I do," she answered firmly, without hesitation.

"Robb, do you take this woman?"

"I do."

Mace let go of her, entrusting her to the protection of her new husband, who returned the gesture by unfastening the cloak's clasp beneath her chin. The garment fell away easily, a sudden draught of icy-air making her shiver until Arya stepped forward bearing the Stark cloak. Robb took it from her, before sweeping it around Margaery's shoulders. The golden rose had fallen away, replaced by the snarling direwolf and her pride surged. Her grandmother always complained about the Tyrell sigil being so pathetic. Not like the direwolf that covered her now. A memory they shared as Margaery met her grandmother's gaze over Robb's shoulder. The old matriarch smiled approvingly.

She and Robb joined hands and turned to face the heart tree, which looked back at them through sombre, sap-weeping eyes of red. They knelt, finding themselves even with the carved face and, not for the first time, she felt like she really was being watched by the tree. There was a peculiar form a life behind those eyes. The old gods didn't just see her, they saw through her.

After a minute's silent prayer, they rose and faced each other. For a long moment heavy with anticipation, they looked into each other's eyes before their lips met in a kiss that sealed their union. And it was done. They were husband and wife.

No matter how much he wished he could skip the feast and cut to the bedchamber, Robb knew it was only polite for him and his new bride to actually show their faces at the feast. So, with their arms entwined awkwardly around each other, they more stumbled than walked back to Riverrun. But they couldn't let each other go. They stopped to resume their kissing every few steps until Arya punched him in the leg by way of suggesting they should, perhaps, give it a rest for now. He couldn't let her pass without trying to muss up her neatly braided hair.

"Our children are all going to be like her, you know," he said, gently tugging a braid. "I would have told you sooner, only I needed this alliance too much."

While Margaery laughed aloud, Arya replied with a fistful of snowball that smashed against the side of his head. Before he could get her back, she darted into the crowds heading toward the castle. Besides, Jon had already moved to his side and blocked the path of his attack. They paused while Jon kissed the cheek of his new sister-by-law and congratulated them both.

"Only you could do this, brother," he said.

"What?" he asked.

"You know what," Jon laughed. "Go from having nothing at all, being surrounded by your enemies one minute, to wedded, almost bedded and rallying forces around you the next. I should have known!"

But Robb was serious when he replied: "I still need you here, though. No matter what."

"You're going to make me blush in a minute."

"I very much doubt that. Where's Sansa going?" Robb could just see her, speaking with their uncle before slipping through a side door and out of sight. It was a door leading to a turret, not the common hall where the late-night wedding supper was being held.

"I can't be certain, but I think she's having a word about a mutual friend of theirs," replied Jon, guardedly. "Don't worry about it, I'm sure she'll sort something out."

Robb hesitated before speaking what was on his mind. "She's still angry with me, isn't she? I understand if she is- "

"She really isn't. Seven hells, Robb. It's freezing out here, in case you hadn't noticed, and I'm starving. Let's just go inside and eat."

"I agree," Margaery concurred, stretching up to kiss Robb's cheek. "I spoke to Sansa before the wedding and she seemed fine."

Once back in the common hall, they took their places up on the dais overlooking the long trestle tables laid on for the guests. So late at night, heavy courses had been ruled out. Instead, pastries and light soups and bread was brought out. Something hot and hearty after a wedding ceremony conducted outside in sub-zero temperatures. To mark the occasion, the Tully trout had been temporarily taken down and replaced with alternating golden roses and snarling Direwolves.

With his wife on one side and his brother on the other, Robb allowed himself a triumphant smile as the soup was served. A fleeting feeling, in the knowledge that the worst of the wars were yet to come. Which reminded him…

"The last we heard from you, Jon, you said something about an army of dead men," he began. "I got the feeling that was more than just a pessimistic assessment of your newest recruits."

Jon's expression remained impassive as he made a start on his bread and soup. "You don't want to hear about that now."

"No, please," said Margaery, leaning to the side to hear better. "My father says he received a letter from Maester Aemon, some time ago. But he knew not what to make of it. Wait, while I summon my brother, Ser Garlan. He'll know what to do."

While she passed on a message via a servant, Jon turned to summon his friend, Sam, and his wildling lover. While Robb knew who and what she was, her presence had made some of the others uncomfortable. All the same, she clutched her baby to her chest and cautiously made her way to the dais, ignoring the suspicious looks she attracted from all sides. Once they were all together, they pushed away from the table and sat in a wide circle so they could all confer.

"I've seen the white walkers myself," Jon began. "Sam here fought one and defeated it using a dagger of dragonglass. Tell them, Sam."

Already being well acquainted with each other, Sam and Garlan were sat close by and it was he that Sam addressed more than anyone else.

"Lord Commander Stark speaks truly," he said. "The white walkers are many in number, but their armies of wights are beyond counting. Gilly can tell you, too. She's a wildling, but she's an honest woman and brave with it."

While Margaery just looked a little nonplussed, Robb was wrestling with his own uncertainty. Until this moment, white walkers existed in his life in the form of Old Nan's hearth tales that he had heard as a child. They were legends, if they ever existed at all. But he knew his brother and he knew his brother well enough to trust the people he called friends.

Now Gilly was telling her story. "I grew up in a small keep beyond the wall. My father married his daughters, me as well, and if we birthed a son, he gifted the boy to the gods. The gods were the Others, the Great Other. When I had my son, Sam saved me and brought me to Castle Black. On the way there, the Others came to claim my son. So Sam stabbed it with the dragonglass. It's true, I saw it. I saw them."

Robb looked at the child in her arms. He was older than a baby, and fast asleep against her breast. When she first appeared in the crowds during their journey to Riverrun, he just assumed Samwell was the father. The truth, it seemed, was something altogether even more sinister.

"Robb, I don't understand," Margaery whispered in his ear, jolting him out of his thoughts. "Others? White Walkers? Wights? Are they all the same… I'm not certain."

"No," he answered. "What we call white walkers, folk north of the wall call them Others. They're hard to explain. They're not exactly human, but they take the form of humans. They have two arms and two legs and all the rest of it. But their skin is like ice and their eyes burn blue, like stars. That's what old Nan said, anyway. Regardless, they have powers and they resurrect the dead as thralls to fight their wars – they're wights. The more dead there are, the bigger their army gets."

Jon took up the explanation. "The wights are just meat puppets, fighting at the behest of the Others. They retain no memories of their lives, nor recognise any kin."

"How do you kill something that's already dead?" she asked, her voice low.

"Fire," said Jon. "Fire and more fire. Burn the dead away and hope for the best."

"You can't kill the Others with fire alone, though," said Gilly. "They make the air so cold the fire just goes out. That's how we free folk know they're close. The cold burns, the darkness gets thicker and even the stars go out. That's when they come and none can stop them."

"The free folk are not our enemy, Robb," said Jon, but looking to Garlan as well. "They're just people, like you and I. Someone once said to me the only difference between us and them is, when that wall went up, our ancestors were living on the right side of it."

Ser Garlan drained his wine, clearly mulling over all he had heard. He wasn't like other lords. There was nothing superior about him, nor did he ever dismiss anything out of hand. And his words were always carefully measured. "Your friend had the right of it, Lord Commander. We knew all along the wildlings – forgive me, Gilly, the free-folk – were only human. While I'm certain their lives and customs are very different to our own, that comes from putting up a huge wall between us and them. But there must have been a reason why the wall was built. Brandon the Builder didn't do just because he could. And these Others, white walkers… we were told about them in stories and now this…" He paused, concentrating on the middle distance. "Now we have the Knights of the Vale fighting on our side, we have men to spare. Not many, but some. I want to propose an expedition beyond the wall. We can sail from Seagard, once the Freys are dealt with. From there, we go North and we see for ourselves- "

"Why, when the Lord Commander has already told us?" Margaery cut in. "For now, the wall stands. I propose we take back the North as planned, pray the wall holds back these armies and then send for proper help. You say fire kills wights? Then I suggest we find a lady who has three dragons growing large in Essos."

"Daenerys Targaryen?" Jon asked. "I heard about these dragons in Braavos. They say they're large and strong, that they already carry her weight."

"She's coming here anyway," said Robb. "But I'm also with Garlan. I want to see what's out there. I want to know what we're up against. But first, we need to take back the North."

Suddenly, that seemed like it might be the easy bit.

While Petyr settled in a window seat looking out over the grounds of Riverrun, Sansa poured the wine. They had come to the rooms he once occupied as a boy, where a fire had been lit and now blazed in the hearth. She hoped it reminded him of happier times. "I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you. I shouldn't have said those things. Not after everything you've done for me. Lysa would have put me through the moon door had it not been for your intervention. Here, a peace offering, if I may."

Petyr smiled as he took the glass from her. "It's nothing, sweet child. But you should have told me. You should have told me the minute you found out that your brother was alive and wed to the Tyrell girl."

"I honestly didn't know myself until a few hours ago," she protested, truthfully. "Well, I knew about Robb of course. But not the Tyrell marriage. I thought she would wed Tommen; I'm just as shocked as you."

"Your brother is the main point I was referring to," he stated. "However, it is done now."

"It ruined your plans, I suppose," she said, lowering her gaze coyly.

"Nothing ruins my plans, I thought you would have known that by now," Petyr replied, smiling that smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Sometimes, something comes up and I'm compelled to re-evaluate and re-shape those plans. But nothing is so great that they're scuppered altogether. You have to think fast, Sansa, be pragmatic and learn how to turn things to your advantage. I can still teach you that and you can still take what you want. All you need is to spot the weakness."

Sansa hesitated, turning her gaze out over the grounds where her mother and aunt once played when they were children. The sighing of the wind could almost be the ghost of their laughter, back when they were young, before the malignancy of Petyr Baelish seeped into their lives.

"Was Lord Arryn a weakness?" she asked, tightening her grip on the stem of her glass. "Is that you needed Lysa to kill him?"

Petyr didn't reply immediately, he spent a moment or two swirling the wine in his glass. "Your aunt really was a troubled woman, Sansa. Those things she said to you, before her death-"

"When you pushed her out of the moon door, Petyr," she cut in, playfully chiding him. She smiled, in case he felt she was scolding him.

"You are a direct young lady," he laughed uneasily. "You need to curtail that-"

"You scared me, Petyr," she pointed out, thinking fast. "I thought if I said the wrong thing you would do the same to me."

"Never," he stated, firmly. "Sansa, you know how I feel about you. You know I love you. I'd give you the world on a platter of gold, just to see you smile. Lysa … you heard her. She was running wild at the mouth and she would have got us all killed. Strike or be stricken – another lesson I thought you learned well."

"I have, Petyr, I've learned so much from you," she assured him. Her gaze fell on his wine glass, wondering whether he needed a top-up. "But Sandor told me about the day my father was arrested, when you told him he had the gold cloaks and it turned out to be a lie. I always blamed myself for father's death. But-"

"Renly," Petyr cut in again. "Renly stole the goldcloaks from under me and shafted your Lord father. But Sandor is right. I have my share of the guilt. You know how I've worked to put right that grave injustice."

There was a moment of silence in which they both sipped their wine. A fine red from the Arbour, not too sweet and not too dry. When Sansa held her glass up to the moonlight, the wine shone, incandescent like rubies.

"I still don't understand why you had Lysa write to my mother, telling her that the Lannisters poisoned Jon Arryn," she continued. "I mean, it's so risky. Very risky. Had the letter been intercepted, or had Lysa told just one person that it was at your instigation…"

He was smiling now, his grey-green eyes shining. It made her skin crawl as she realised he genuinely enjoyed what he did. "Ah, well, you see, your mother and your aunt Lysa had a secret language that only they knew. It was a game they played as girls. That was how the letter was coded. So, even if it had been intercepted, the letter wouldn't have been understood. Similarly, when Cat got the letter, she knew exactly what it meant and exactly where it had come from."

Sansa smiled. "You're so clever, Petyr." After caressing his pride, she paused and turned her gaze out of the window again. "Before you pushed Lysa out of the moon door, you said in her ear: 'Only Cat'. What did you mean by that?"

She watched as he drank more of his wine before setting the glass down. "I really did love your mother. Yes, you're more beautiful even than Catelyn. But I loved her. She was the only woman I'd ever loved, until I met you." Petyr sat up abruptly and beckoned her closer to the window, gesturing to a yard down below where the thick snow glittered in the moonlight. "See down there? That's were I duelled your Uncle Brandon. I would have died for your mother, Sansa."

He drew back and cleared his throat noisily. Frowning, he soon settled again.

"Would you die for me?" she asked, sipping her wine.

"I'd have died once for your mother," he answered. "I'd die a hundred times for you."

"That's sweet of you," she smiled. "I suppose, after Brandon almost killed you, that was when you decided you wanted everything we had."

"We?" he clarified, undoing the top button of his shirt.

"The Starks," she said. "I am as much a Stark as Brandon was, as my father was. I suppose, what I'm saying is, that was the day you decided to destroy my family."

Petyr flushed in the face. "I don't know what you mean. Your father was an honourable man-"

"That you helped destroy," she stated. "You played a long game and, I'll credit you, you almost succeeded."

He picked up his glass and drained the contents, an action Sansa mimicked with her own. She sat up, straight backed and watched impassively. Petyr sounded rather short of breath now. He really didn't like where their talk was going and picked nervously at his collar.

"I really don't know what you're talking about, Sansa."

"Chaos is a ladder, you once told me," she reminded him. "But you never did get around to teaching me about what to do when you reach the top of that ladder." She paused, thinking it over for a second. "It doesn't take a Grand Maester to realise that, once at the top, the only way is down."

She twirled her empty glass between her fingers, the silence broken by Petyr's smashing against the oak floor. Glass shards sprinkled over her silk slippers. He tried to rise, but his knees buckled and his words were choked back in his swelling throat. Sansa reached into her pocket, drawing out a silver hairnet. Amethysts glittered darkly in the firelight; two were missing now. A few strands of her auburn hair were still caught in the delicate silver threads. They burned like small strands of flame. Sansa held the hairnet over his face, where she hoped he could see it through the eyes now starting to bulge.

"The only way is down," she repeated, flatly. "It seems this is a lesson I have had to teach you, Petyr. Who'd have thought."

While Petyr choked and writhed on the floor, slow measured footsteps sounded behind her. Sansa knew who it was and the small hand landing on her shoulder did not alarm her. At her side, Jeyne watched the whoremonger die choking on his own vomit, clawing at his swollen throat. Just like Joffrey, his face turned from red to purple, a thick yellow froth foamed from his mouth as he tried to form words. Words smothered in his chest as the strangler did its work.

"Don't look away, Jeyne," she said, covering her old friends hand with her own. "Don't look away."

It was hard to tell where Petyr was looking. Those grey-green eyes that never smiled were quite beyond it now, as they bulged out of his head. Growing weaker by the second, Petyr collapsed limply against the floor, still staring wildly up at nothing in particular. The choking gargles grew thinner and weaker, before fading into silence and the light left his eyes.

Ser Brynden emerged from his own hiding place shaking and pale, tears glittering on his cheeks as he learned of how his niece really died and the terrible things she had done. He up-ended his own glass of wine, spilling the contents deliberately over the dead man's face, aiming for the unseeing eyes. Sansa pitied him, but he had to know the truth. They all had to know and retribution was needed. She pocketed the hairnet and rose to leave, finding Arya watching from the doorway. Her mouth was open in shock, her eyes wide as she watched Sansa drawing nearer.

"Come, sister," she said, casually. "And you, Jeyne. We're missing the wedding feast."

Brynden followed as well, silent with grief. There was nothing Sansa could say, so she didn't. She made her way to the common hall, where Robb and Margaery still dined among their friends. Still numb and dazed from what just happened, Sansa made her way to the dais where she ruffled Jon's hair as she passed and paused between Robb and Margaery. Both turned to look at her.

"A wedding gift, sister," she said, holding out the amethyst hairnet. "From Joffrey and I."

Margaery's brow creased for a moment, but recognition lit up her golden-brow eyes as they settled on the amethysts. She took the garment in her fingers, holding it up to the light and smiling at the empty clasps where the two missing gems should have been. Their gaze met and their smiles matched.

There was no need for bedding ceremonies where the old gods were concerned. As such, Robb found himself alone in his chambers while Margaery undressed in the antechamber. She could hear the rustle of fabrics being removed, laces being picked apart by her handmaiden, Jeyne Poole. Only Jon had accompanied him, leaving him at the door with a heart slap on the back and a suggestive wink to see him on his way.

While he waited for Margaery, he couldn't help but stand at the foot of his bed and regard the place where he'd spent months of sleepless nights. Nights filled with grief, and guilt and crippling isolation. It was a time when all hope had been lost and he'd been cut adrift. Although things were now as different as night and day, he knew he would hold on to the memory of that time. It was a reminder of all he had to lose, as well as all that he had already lost. For even with Margaery's arrival his mother, Talisa and the unborn baby all remained lost to him. None of them deserved it.

"How do I look?"

The sound of Margaery's voice drew him from his inner-musings, to where she stood in the archway between the two connected rooms. She wore a sheer silk nightrail that skimmed the length of her body, outlining the curve of her hips and accentuating the line of her thighs. Robb smiled wolfishly as he approached her.

"Forgive me," he said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "I have but one improvement to make."

"And what might that be?" she asked, moving closer so the moonlight shone on her face.

She shivered as his breath warmed the pale skin of her throat. He kissed her there softly, as he reached up behind her neck where he unlaced the nightrail and let it slip down her body.

"There," he said. "A vast improvement."

"Oh well, in that case…"

She whipped the shirt over his head in one rapid motion, leaving him equally naked as his name day. Wasting no more time on words, they met and kissed deeply, falling back on the bed as they grappled at each other in their first frantic efforts at love-making. The mattress dipped and sunk inwards, as if trying to swallow them both.

Poised over her, Robb took a moment to admire the sight of her naked beneath him. The way her hair fanned out against the pillow and need in her eyes as they met his own. Starting with her breasts, he kissed his way down her belly all the way to her groin where he worked at her with his tongue alone, until hit the spot and she stifled a groan of pleasure.

"Now!" she gasped, breathlessly, "Now, damn you."

"As my lady commands," he replied, smiling once more as they became husband and wife in body as well as in law.

Thanks again for reading. Reviews would be great, if you have a minute.

Next time, the military campaign gets underway. While that chapter will be posted next Thursday as per usual, I'll be taking a break for Christmas and New Year after that.