Chapter Eleven

Comeuppance

The first sensation that greeted Ramsay in the morning sent him howling from his bed. A sharp, lashing sting across his naked posterior that both blossomed immediately and was just as quickly identified for what it was as he sprung from the bed that he shared with Sansa. He didn't jump far though, since the second thing his waking mind realized was that he was being held down.

Sansa sat astride him over his back, as he had either rolled onto his stomach during his sleep the evening before, or she had moved him thus before he had chance to awaken. From there she pinned his hands neatly over his head with one hand, ducking her head to the side as he jumped on wakening, so that his skull did not collide with hers.

As her left hand held his hands firmly so, her thighs pinched together over his lower thighs and legs to pin him down, so that it did not become a part of his instinctual response and bound him from the bed in his surprised pain. Her other hand wielded a strap of leather with a woven handle; a new piece that she must have had commissioned for this exact use…

That thought in itself was a contemplation of humiliation; knowing that she must have sought out a skilled artisan just to craft yet another device specifically designed to bring him low, but his mind could not linger long on these things, since the act she performed with said strap pulled all of his attention. Her right hand came down again.

Another intense, sharp pain made itself known in him as he was struck again on flesh that had already been made somewhat tender by Eroc's attack on him the night before, and Ramsay howled in agony, nowhere near ready to receive such recourse so early in his day. On thinking of Eroc, his eyes scanned the room.

Memory surfaced dully through the haze of pain of what the wildling had said the night before, and Ramsay groaned to see that Eroc had in fact returned simply to see Sansa punish him. He bit his lip and his muscles tensed reflexively at the shame of the other man watching him be punished like this. Suddenly he cried out, "W-wait! I'm not ready!"

He had his head ducked down, instinctively hiding his expression from those present, as he knew that his shame must be clear there for all to see, but he could just barely catch Sansa's faint head shake as her response came, "We aren't going to wait all day, Ramsay; you have already slept half of the morning away and this isn't about your comfort."

Ramsay glanced back at her over one shoulder; Sansa was fully clothed and her hair was put up in a neat fashion, the way many ladies did when they had long hair and wanted it to remain out of their way as they performed tasks of exertion. He flushed at the thought that what she was doing to him now might be thought of as such a task.

He was still reeling from the shock of being so rudely awoken to such a thing, and his mind was still fighting to take in basic facts about his surroundings as he twisted and cried out shamefully in her grip, all the while her hand peppering his ass with more red stripes from the lash she wielded. Gradually though he acclimated, to his surroundings, at least.

The light that shone through the window was bright, indicating that the sun had managed already to get quite high in the sky, and the roosters of the keep were silent, likely having long since cried out with rallying voice about the coming of dawn. The air was cold as it ever was in the north, but Ramsay knew with practiced ease that it felt warm enough to suggest a time of day close to noon.

He hadn't realized how tired he had been the night before he had supposed, but even with the nap he had after everything that he had been through plus his injuries it was no wonder that he had so desperately needed the rest. Concerning those injuries, Ramsay noted belatedly that what Sansa did to his backside was his only real source of pain.

The other wounds had quieted down to a bit of numbness here and there, and he also noticed that Sansa seemed to be taking great care not to lean or place pressure on the leg and shoulder that he had hurt during his failed attempts to flee the keep. Right; his attempts to flee… that was the major reason she was hitting him right?

Well, that and the fact that he had insulted Eroc on occasion, though he still felt slighted that she was worsening his punishment over what had happened while she was away even though the brute had already taken it upon himself to punish Ramsay in his own time; why did he have to be punished twice? He thought.

The pain was moving past barely tolerable as she continued and then past the marker of excruciating. As he approached and then passed the limits of his tolerance for physical duress, which was to Ramsay's great humiliation actually quite low, he tried to latch on to something that might end the source of his grief.

"Sansa, please… I-I'm sorry..." he choked out, despite the fact that Eroc was there, leaning in to hear his pleas for mercy, only shaming him yet further in doing so.

Sansa did not reply immediately, letting the sting of the biting leather be her only words to him for moments that stretched out into eternities for Ramsay.

Finally though she deigned to reply to Ramsay, in a voice that echoed of stern conviction and reproach, "I am not convinced. You can start on the path of proving what you say isn't yet more of your lies by telling me that you remember why we are doing this. Tell me what you have done wrong so I know you remember."

Ramsay choked on his words for several minutes; a very long time indeed to do so when under the steady beat of the strap that Sansa brought upon him again and again. He had at some point past begun to wriggle pathetically under the repeated pains, but Sansa held him very tightly, adding a feeling of trapped helplessness to the mix.

But despite the pain that she prompted him with so incessantly, Ramsay could not bring him to conjure the words she demanded of him, at least not readily. It wasn't that he didn't know what she wanted him to say; he had already many times, almost a countless number of times really, considered why he was being punished.

No, it was because telling her was somehow harder with the leering grin of Eroc so nearby. The big wildling was smiling ear to ear, and Ramsay just knew that he was drinking every moment of the degrading punishment Ramsay endured like it was a fine wine, and Ramsay was loathe to volunteer to add more to slake the man's sadistic thirst…

He couldn't hold out forever, though, and after only a few minutes of one last attempt to resist doing the only sensible thing that might give Sansa reason to stop, becoming red in the face for the effort as he glared at Eroc, he finally turned his face tearfully away as his will broke to the simple punishment, shouting out his great shame.

"I... I-I'm sorry… I should have thought better of trying to flee; I should have come to you!" he panted.

Sansa frowned, clearly not satisfied with this answer alone, "This isn't a punishment over simply making a hasty choice; apologize and confess as you should or it will be nightfall before we finish this task."

Ramsay's eyes bulged as she brought the strap down to accentuate her words, "Y-yes! You're right, I wanted to escape this place, I'm sorry!"

When Sansa didn't immediately reply Ramsay continued along that vein, "I knew what I was doing, and I wanted to flee you as much as my would-be assassins, if not more! Please, I chose poorly and I regret, please let this be done!"

He squirmed to and fro as her hand came down, and Sansa continued a moment longer before pausing.

She glanced over at Eroc, who only stood there with a smile upon his lips, an odd countenance on a face that was clearly more accustomed to frowning, "What do you think Eroc; is this man starting to seem properly repentant to you?"

Eroc scoffed, "Maybe, but with a snake like this one it would be best to go with your plan of staying on until the sun has set."

Ramsay drew breath sharply at the big man's words, but he didn't dare say anything one way or the other, holding that breath as he waited anxiously for Sansa's reply, sweat beading upon his brow. If he had any doubts about Eroc feeling personal animosity towards him, it was well and gone between this last statement and his presence at Sansa's punishment in the first place.

It seemed to Ramsay as if she took an awful long while to speak her mind, too, but finally she opened her mouth to speak, "I'm not quite done with him…" Ramsay's breath hitched again, "…but I see no need to overstate this when he is at least wise enough to repent his bad behavior." Ramsay let out his breath, unsure if he was relieved or not.

Sansa continued, "I do intend to give you something to remember this by though, Ramsay, since it quite often seems that such lessons so easily slip your mind. If you had remembered my previous treatment of you clearly you would not have dared to do something so boldly against what I desire for you. So I shall tan your hide full sore so that every time you sit you shall remember."

Ramsay's hands tightened into the bed, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets there as Sansa resumed her strapping of him with gusto, causing him to cry out with the intense explosion of blossoming pain that he felt upon his backside. The short pause in her work had actually made her resuming more painful rather than less so.

She started in at a steady, slow tempo, but her rhythm gradually increased in speed until the strap was a blur in the air, swatting his extremely reddened cheeks in a tempest of stinging bites that left Ramsay whimpering and screaming like a child, to his great shame. He heard himself beg in his own ears, marveling at how he did so reactively.

This scenario reminded him of Reek… no, Theon, and a host of others. These were the impulses that he had coaxed out of them with his tortures, when he had broken them down to the quick, when he had reduced them until they were as children of fear before him. Was that what he was to Sansa already; had she already so thoroughly trained him?

The thought was maddening, and Ramsay felt once again as if he was losing a part of himself, or worse, as if he was only now a piece of his old self that had fallen away from the rest of the identity that had once been Ramsay Bolton, and that this was all that was left. This quivering, squirming, sad man who trembled and cried as he received a spanking of all things…

His own voice continued to resound loudly in his ears, echoing off of the walls of the room as he poured out apologies and begged forgiveness. Most of all, that voice pleaded for her to stop; anything at all to stop, he would do whatever she said, demean himself in any way she wanted, if only it would mean that he would be free from the sting of her strap.

Pathetic. This was the thought that burned in his mind like a fiercely glowing ember, the sort that is ready to ignite all around it in a blaze. He was pathetic; he sounded pathetic with his yelps and wails brought on by her punishment, and his words were the weak mutterings of the defeated. How had he ever slipped so far?

Some older, deeply ingrained part of his self raged at the fact that he was acting this way, that he couldn't seem to control himself, that he couldn't seem to stop being so easily swayed into frailty, but that voice was buried now beneath the pain that repeated across his ass, pushing it further away with each stinging swat.

Ramsay had learned early how his relationship with Sansa was going to be, but with a man like Eroc watching, a man who might be in some ways similar to his old self in his sadistic nature, Ramsay could feel the tearing more acutely than when she punished him alone, when it was only just the two of them, he and her.

He could feel himself tearing away from what he once was, feel the way that he was becoming more removed from the man he had been most of his life, see that man dying a little with each breath he used to beg forgiveness. Having Eroc watch the death of his former self made him more aware of what it was that Eroc was seeing.

He had to wonder if Eroc knew what it was that he witnessed, or if he was as unintelligent as Ramsay had always assumed, and merely enjoyed watching another man in pain. Ramsay told himself not to look, but as usual he ignored his own sense and glanced at Eroc. The big man was smirking at him, and Ramsay could see knowing in the wildling's eyes.

He knew. He knew what sort of man Ramsay had been, perhaps more so than most due to the kinship they shared in inflicting pain. He knew and he was here because this was what he wanted to see; not just a man being hurt, but a former lord brought down and made weak, stripped of everything he had thought made him strong.

Ramsay ripped his eyes away from Eroc, telling himself that he was allowing himself an excess of emotional thinking, just as unable to control his own thoughts as he was unable to control his body as it jumped to Sansa's tune, or his voice as it sang her song for even the smallest chance that she might stop soon.

All of these things rolled down upon him to create a deep sense of self-pity in Ramsay, and the tears of shame and pain that flowed unbidden to his cheeks were joined now by those of the unique sadness that one feels when one is pitying oneself for one's lot in life. Ramsay had never been prone to such thoughts in the past.

But he no longer lived in that world; now he was this… this broken man who was so hated and reviled that despite being possibly one of the most pathetic creatures alive in the world, the only person who felt pity for him was his own person. His bottom lip trembled as these thoughts came, and he sobbed openly, giving way to his grief.

Sansa watched him cry so transparently for only a short while before she elected to cease swatting the underside of his arse. Ramsay stopped calling out in pain belatedly, catching himself rearing back to scream for another terrible stinging slap that never came. He gulped back the involuntary action self-consciously.

With trembling hands Ramsay wiped at his eyes, also pointedly aware of the fact that he was being observed. When he glanced over at his audience, Eroc, he saw that the large man bore a frown; apparently Eroc was unhappy that Sansa had stopped now. He had already stated that he wanted the event to carry into the night.

Obviously, Sansa stopping at that juncture was far too early by the wildling's reckoning, but Ramsay for his part was exceedingly glad for it. He wondered with a bolt-like feeling of shame if Sansa had stopped so quickly because he had been in such a pathetic state that even she had been moved to pity him; Ramsay certainly did not want pity.

Such an emotion directed his way could only further exemplify how very far he had fallen, how shamed he had become. Ramsay covered his face with his hands once he had rubbed away the tears that had streaked his cheeks, as if hiding his face now could somehow hide from all present including himself what had just transpired.

He found that he could not stop himself from sniffling for some time after she had stopped even though Sansa gave him no further direct reason to mourn or fear. He supposed that once his body had gotten into the powerful rhythm of extreme grief, ceasing the state was possible but not without some lasting echoes of its passing.

With time he managed to regain mastery over that as well, taking deep breaths so as to steady himself, taking strength in reminding himself that he was still being watched. He might have suffered terrible humiliation today before these two, even the hated Eroc, but why make that misery prolonged by showing how much he suffered?

All this time Sansa remained quiet, thankfully allowing Ramsay the much needed quiet and time he required to compose himself again. When his body at last stopped the majority of its reactive shaking, she finally spoke, "I hope that this particular lesson holds faster than the ones that proceeded it, so that it may be the last."

Ramsay found himself nodding his agreement with her into his hands both because he definitely didn't want to experience this situation over again and because he knew that Sansa would take offense if he didn't immediately offer her some form of the answer she was looking for. Eroc grunted dismissively.

The wildling seemed unconvinced, letting the other two know as much, "I doubt it; you will as like spend the rest of your days beating this lowlife for all that he has done and will do and still not repay him enough to straighten his idiot ways."

The bearded man's words cut Ramsay when he was already reeling from so many cuts, and he looked back at Sansa, hoping she would defend him.

But Sansa had no words for Ramsay's defense, except in turning aside some of the insult, "Let's not chastise him for things he may or may not do, but I understand that you feel he may never suffer enough for all the wicked acts he has committed and I would be hard pressed to argue such a practical point."

She continued, pulling one of Ramsay's hands aside as she did so and looking him in the eye, as if to make sure that he knew her words were more for his sake than Eroc's, "I would rather focus instead on letting Ramsay know that this was a swift justice that will meet its equal or greater with every of his misdeeds."

Her eyes bored into his with the fierceness of her determination, which Ramsay found to be in equal parts fascinating due to his relatively recent revelations concerning her nature, and terrifying, as that look promised nothing but pain for a man that dared to cross the will of the one who forged it, "Every time, for every sin."

Ramsay looked away, unable to continue meeting her look when she was so pointedly threatening him, and with him still sprawled under her in such an awkward and humiliating pose. He wished very much that she would let him rise, and the urge to simply do so was definitely there, but it was dampened by his fear of reprisal.

Sansa gave pause for Ramsay to reply, but when the other only allowed silence to fill the void between them she continued, her tone still crisply authoritarian, "You will not live in comfort here with me, Ramsay. You will not enjoy the freedoms of other men and you will at times be forced to perform services that you do not wish to."

Ramsay thought of how she sodomized him when she said that, a flush of heated shame coloring his face as he pointedly stared at the bedding, not even wanting to look at Eroc to see if the wildling might be thinking of the same degrading acts she had committed upon him and would likely continue to thrust upon his person.

If Sansa noticed him squirming with embarrassment under her knees she didn't give any indication that she did, instead going on with her speech to him, "But no matter what happens to you here and what you are made to do you must remember that through your crimes previous to your incarceration here you waived all rights; you have none."

"You do not deserve freedoms or choice, and quite a few persons residing in this very keep openly decry that you do not even deserve to continue drawing breath." Her face softened somewhat as she took in how these words caused Ramsay's face to twist in helpless sorrow, "I only want you to dwell on these things to help you gain perspective on where you stand."

"The time you spend with me or in fact anyone in this place can be terrible for you, but disobedience and malice will only prove to you how much worse your situation can become. I am using this moment we share together now to remind you that you can still live in comfort of a sort, at least relative to what you will experience if you resist."

What she was saying sounded familiar; not in exact words so much as in theme. She was telling him what he had told Theon in so many ways, in his attempts to recreate that blighted man Reek. Ramsay had offered him kindness at times, both because he enjoyed the confusion it created in Theon's poor, shattered mind, and because…

…Because it subjugated Theon, he realized. How much more quickly a broken man will jump to comply when doing so will mean reward instead of the all too familiar lash of punishment. Ramsay was frowning as he wondered if this was another indicator of how like Theon Greyjoy he had become. Was Sansa already giving him the final pushes into becoming a slave to her?

This started a sense of revulsion over the man who had replaced the Ramsay that had been, but the cowering creature he had become pushed away the feelings before they could get anywhere near becoming something he might act on; Sansa had stopped her administration of punishments, and he did not wish to resume.

No matter how much shame and self-hate that he might feel, Ramsay refused to allow himself to return to what had just been happening, and he had no doubts that Sansa would continue to enforce her position over him as his superior, especially after what she had just said, so he watched yet another shred of forgotten pride slip away.

In its place remained the man who only nodded agreement to her dictates, a warlord perhaps at some juncture, but now just a man humbled. Eroc seemed to bore of his passive state, since it would mean no more punishments, and rose from where he had rested to leave, "Let me know if you have anything further you need…"

Sansa smiled, apparently satisfied that the generally unagreeable wildling now spoke of lending assistance, and she raised a hand as he turned, "Actually, I do have a request of you…"

Eroc turned to regard her, raising a curious eyebrow, and she elaborated, "…Jon made it clear that he wants Ramsay guarded at all times given the recent attempts on his life, especially when near me…"

Eroc nodded, "And you would ask that I fill that role." He stood silently for a moment, considering, and then nodded tersely, "Fine. It's not like I'm eager to return to the camp outside just to sit and wait there anyways."

Sansa bowed her head ever so slightly in recognition of his choice, "Thank you; I think you'll be a good fit."

The big man only grunted at this, obscuring his feelings on the matter with the ambiguous response. He moved to a somewhat darkened corner of the room to stand patiently instead of his previous path to the door leading out. Ramsay was stricken how such a large man could look so naturally comfortable standing; he supposed Eroc spent a lot of time on his feet.

To Ramsay's resounding joy Sansa finally moved to lift herself off of him, allowing him to remove himself from the thoroughly degrading position of laying nakedly there. He stood awkwardly nearby until Sansa nodded at him, "You may blanket yourself; I know it is cold and that there is a draft in here."

Ramsay eagerly went with this option before she had even finished uttering the words, quickly hiding his reddened posterior from view, as if doing so might in some way invalidate what had just happened to him and his shattered ego. He knew it did not, though, and looked away from both Eroc and Sansa, staring at the far wall miserably.

Sansa regarded both men, "I have much to do in the coming days, so I cannot stay in this room as much as I might like to sort things out with Ramsay. I assume he will be on best behavior with you as he knows thoroughly now I'm sure that you won't tolerate any foolishness."

Ramsay caught her staring at him and nodded serenely, noting with annoyance that Eroc was smiling at him.

As Sansa left and a quiet settled in, due to Ramsay's lack of desire for conversation being matched by that of his silent guard, he couldn't help but reflect on all that happened recently. He had been dreading Sansa's retaliation for his decision to escape for so long, longer even than he had realized until it had happened really.

There was a sort of relief that came with the fact that it was finally over, though, and Ramsay had to settle himself with the thought that perhaps this time he could manage to go for a while without such a humiliating display. He glanced with a seething look over at Eroc, but he knew a look was where it would have to end.

Despite how much he detested the wildling, Ramsay now knew better than any not to cross the warrior, knowing full well that the reward for such would be swift and probably more harsh than necessary. He grimaced at the thought that he would be forced to bow and scrape to such an uncouth bully, but life had been unfair in this.

Ramsay knew that life was often unfair, though it had been a lot easier to come to terms with this simple fact when things had only been going poorly for his enemies and those he elected to make miserable for his amusement. Now that it was he who suffered at the fickle whim of life he found himself far more ruffled.

He let out a long sigh, with it releasing as much of his animosity as he could, which wasn't much as he tended to be a man of brooding anger, but he managed to calm himself at least somewhat. This was his lot and as terrible as the overall meaning of what Sansa had said was, he was still alive, and the quality of that life could be better if he just reigned himself in.

That of course left him with quite a few questions on the matter of himself and what kind of person he was going to be in the future that had been thrust onto him when Sansa had refused him the escape of death. If Ramsay had just allowed himself to be killed he would have been free of this; his fight to survive had said something of his willingness to endure, didn't it?

Ramsay climbed back onto the mattress once more rolling over onto his side in the bed, wincing at how pained he was by even this simple action. What was Sansa's long range plan for him? What would she do with him once she thought him thoroughly broken? He might have thought she would either have him killed or simply retain him as a servant for the rest of his days, but…

There was something in her face when she looked at him that he recognized, something almost familiar. She wasn't as revolted by him as she had once been, and when she had entered the room after the attempted assassination to interrogate him he had thought he might have seen something like relief on her face.

Was she relieved that he had survived? Was she actually worried that he might have died in his mad dash to escape because she wanted to continue to see him suffer or because she for some reason actually cared what happened to him? His face twisted in puzzlement at the thought; why should he care anyways?

Ramsay could still lie convincingly to others, but he couldn't lie to himself; he recognized the feeling that tightened his chest at the thought; for some reason, it did matter whether Sansa cared for him. Perhaps because that would mean his death if she didn't, he told himself. She had been merciful, too… what did that mean for his future if she kept showing him mercy?