Chapter Nineteen

Time Moves On

With a groan, a dark-haired man rolled himself from his bed to the sound of someone's infernal cawing animal. He blearily glanced at the window of the room he occupied as he lifted himself from the warm sanctuary of the soft linen sheets, but the window was closed with a set of small doors whose glass was frosted with cold so severely he could not see through them.

This didn't bother him, though; his curiosity concerning whether the bothersome animal in question had been a rooster or not did not override his desire to keep the window shut against the fury of the winter that descended upon Winterfell in recent days. It had gotten colder in the last few weeks than he had ever known it to be.

Being as he had spent much of his life in the northern realm of the seven kingdoms, cold winters were in his blood, but this winter was colder than most, and he had spent a fair portion of his childhood a bit south of Winterfell. He winced at the feeling of the cold stone floor upon his bared feet, and quickly hopped over to the slightly less frigid rugs that lay before the dresser his clothes resided in.

There he let out a long sigh, allowing the heat from the fire in the nearby hearth to warm him, acclimating to the chill in the air gradually. He glanced at the reflection in the mirror behind and above the dresser that stared back at him, giving himself a familiar smirk. The man in that mirror had tousled longish hair and the barest wisp of a beard creeping in at the sides of his face.

"Ramsay Stark."

That smile froze, melting slowly as an expression of uneasiness and perhaps even momentary confusion settled over the features looking back at him. It was so odd to hear those words roll off of his tongue, and more odd yet to consider the implication of them. Quite honestly, Ramsay was not even entirely sure what all of those implications might be.

Sansa Stark had renamed him, in a way putting the final nail into the coffin of his father's legacy, which Ramsay had ironically started by murdering his own father, even before he had led the rest of his House to ruin in a war against Lord Commander Jon Snow, now King of the North upon ousting Ramsay as Warden of the North and thus leaving a void that needed filling.

The amusement had fully worn away from his expression now as a contemplative man stared out from the polished glass, Ramsay considering how everything he had done to bring Jon here had ultimately put the other bastard by birth upon the throne. And married Ramsay into his family. Did this mean that Jon was his brother?

His brow furrowed at the thought as he hurried to open the drawers of the cabinet beneath the mirror to fetch out his clothing. Deep thoughts aside, there was a chill in the air despite the heat from the hearth, and nakedness was going to need to be remedied. Still, his thoughts remained on his new inclusion; by law, he was indeed King Jon's brother.

As he pulled on the cotton breeches and linen shirt provided him by his wife, Sansa Stark, Ramsay marveled at the chain of events that had landed him a position as the king's brother. Now, in another circumstance he might have been extremely enthusiastic about such an arrangement: being a king's brother normally put a person within reach of the throne.

But this wasn't a normal circumstance; Sansa Stark had tacked the name of her House to him by keeping their marriage vows intact, for reasons that he was still having trouble pinning down, but she had also made it clear to him and more importantly to Jon's court that he was not going to be considered a noble in any capacity.

Essentially, he was a vassal lord, a prisoner not unlike Theon Greyjoy had been in when he was ward of Ned Stark. He would be decorated with all the dressings of nobility without any of the actual substance or power of the position. He might have been adopted into the family, but he wasn't fool enough to think he was in the line of succession.

Ramsay sighed at this, looking around for his furred great cloak and donning it so that he might brave the fierce cold that awaited him outside of his room. Sansa had risen some time before him as she was prone to do, so he wouldn't need to concern himself with her judgements about his 'laziness to rise from bed'.

Still, he was as always eager to flex his newly afforded freedoms, one of which was the ability to leave Sansa's quarters and wander about Winterfell as he pleased, as long as he did not stray past the walls of the courtyard. Sansa had gifted him this new right only a few nights past on his name day, and Ramsay had been both surprised and overjoyed by it.

Most people took their freedom for granted until they were bereft of it, and Ramsay had come to realize how smothering it was to be locked away in a single room indefinitely. So now, despite the deep chill that permeated the air of the hall outside of the room he stood in, he stepped out taking a deep breath of the freezing air and considering the musty smell to be that of freedom.

He glanced left and right down the dark passageways, which were lit intermittently by smoldering torches hanging on sconces set into the walls. The sun had yet to fully rise into the sky, so the keep was still blanketed in the last vestiges of night, but once the warm light of the sun managed to more thoroughly reach the openings and windows, things would become brighter.

Ramsay paused, not really certain what his plans for the morning were. It was often like this for him; he had already explored this place long ago. He had been living here for some time before the Battle of the Bastards had traded ownership back into the hands of the Starks after all. He let out another sigh, supposing another meandering morning walk would have to suffice.

He worked his way along the lonely corridor that passed by Sansa's Quarters, which had been Ramsay's quarters briefly after he had murdered his father to obtain them along with the tile of 'Warden of the North', and Sansa's parents before that. That felt a lifetime ago to Ramsay, but he was certain the murder of Sansa's parents was much fresher to her.

The passage was empty, and the halls beyond quiet as he made his way along; most of the servants didn't begin to make their rounds quite yet, so as to give the later risers time to remove themselves from their rooms before beginning the mid-morning cleaning and whatnot. The first thing he did hear as he rounded to one of the open areas of the hall was steel on steel.

In a steady cadence of metal striking metal, the ringing of a smith's hammer was easily the first thing that echoed its way to Ramsay's ears. As he stepped out into the courtyard proper more sights and sounds of life became visible and audible to him, stripping away the sense that he was wandering a derelict castle all alone.

The smallfolk busied themselves with many different tasks all around him, likely having been at it before the sun had even fully crested the horizon. Besides the aforementioned smith who pounded away on a lump of metal that might become a horseshoe given time, a woman worked busily plucking the feathers from a chicken that she held tightly to her middle as she sat upon a wooden stool.

Across from her several soldiers, likely some of the few of the Night's Watch that had survived the Battle of the Bastards, sat or leaned upon a low wooden rail that ran alongside the narrow dirt road that wound through the courtyard from the gated entrance. They spoke to each other quietly, their words too low for Ramsay to make out.

The horses in the nearby stable snorted and stamped appreciatively as a stable boy carefully doled out feed for their morning breakfast, mindful of the mares and stallion's eager heads, which dipped in effort to get food before it was readily served. The sound of chickens and a rooster in an open pen nearby hinted at where the noise that had wakened Ramsay might have come from.

He pulled his hood up and then low over his face as he made his way across the yard. Hiding himself was a reaction to what he knew they thought of him, really; everyone knew whom he was despite the weak attempt at obfuscation, and when he walked near conversations died and silence reigned. Ramsay wasn't sure why he didn't just stalk past them plain to see.

In his need to hide himself from them, or dampen his view of them with that thick hood, Ramsay couldn't help but see that the opinions of the others in the keep bothered him, even those of the lowly peasants. By avoiding them this way and making it clear that he sought no conversation with anyone, he was admitting that he felt ashamed.

That bit didn't sit well in Ramsay's mind, and he did his best to shrug it away as one might shoo away a bothersome fly, but the feeling and the thought remained despite his attempt to reassert his focus elsewhere. On that note, Ramsay's eyes flitted about the yard as his walk became hurried, trying to find something to occupy himself with looking at.

The ground was a bit muddy, and there were deep grooves where wagons had occasionally made their mark in passage over the moist soil, and another sort of metallic sound could be heard across the way that took a moment for Ramsay to recognize. After a moment though it dawned on him what the curious clashing sound was.

Just as he rounded a parked wagon full of grain bags, Ramsay could make out Lady Brienne of Tarth. Despite the earliness of the day she was already clad in her full arraignment of heavy armor and was using the massive double-handed sword she preferred to smash into a wooden dummy, which was holding up poorly to the punishment.

She was using the flat of her blade to strike it with each powerful blow, but regardless of this the bludgeoning action was sending bits of cloth and straw flying from the target apparatus with each strike she delivered. Ramsay mused that in a very short time she will have removed the item of all of its crude semblances of false humanity.

Brienne stopped her work to stand up to her full height, breathing a little heavily from the exertion as she glowered at Ramsay. At her tallest she towered over the small man, striking an intimidating figure as her eyes expressed how loathsome she found him to be. Ramsay had never spoken to her personally, but Sansa had been clear that Brienne was not fond of his presence.

As a knight protector vowed to protect the daughters of the late Catelyn Stark, Brienne did not have to openly voice her opinion for Sansa to know what she thought of keeping a man like Ramsay so close to herself, and he had at times when walking about the keep felt a prickle along his spine only to glance back and see the armor-clad woman watching him.

Under her glare he retreated, moving quickly to finish his round about the courtyard. He wasn't sure why he kept doing this; it was the same thing every time, in fact sometimes worse, and yet he continued to return to his walks throughout the courtyard and all of the other varied parts of the keep where people of all sorts could revile him.

Well, he thought, it wasn't as if he could go much of anywhere else or do much of anything else; he had been named a 'ward' of Sansa Stark, but no matter what sort of title he managed to claim in her eyes, every man and woman of the region branded him a prisoner at best, evidenced by how the guards always became tense when he passed near the gates.

Ramsay scowled, tying not to think on the matter; it always made him feel sore to mull over the issue of how others saw him these days. Instead, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other until he had finally left the courtyard behind him. From there he took the steps leading from the interior up onto the walls.

Thusly located where he could glance down upon the surrounding countryside from the height of the parapets, Ramsay took in the view of the northern reach in all of its icy glory. Rolling tundra spread as far as the eye could see in all directions, a seemingly endless expanse of land with no human presence felt.

Ramsay knew that there were hamlets and villages spread here and there along the scope of that view, but that they were far away enough to be hidden from the naked eye by the rolling hills of the landscape. He squinted, eyeing the one settlement that was close enough to just be made out from this distance.

It was a single farm he knew, from his explorations back when he had been the heir to the Bolton legacy and could actually leave the confines of the castle Winterfell. He snorted, turning his mind away from deliberation on the fact that he was disallowed from leaving this place. Instead he took a deep breath of the icy air and said for the one-thousandth time, "This place is a shithole."

As usual, stating his feelings on the matter changed nothing, so Ramsay meandered along the walkway atop the parapets, eyeing that vast expanse below from between the stone crenellations of the wall as he did so. There were a few watchmen stationed at various points along the battlement, but they paid little heed to Ramsay, more concerned with what lay outside of the fortification.

Not that they seemed particularly pleased with his presence; Ramsay caught sight of one glancing his way just before the armored figure spat profusely on the ground between them and turned to gaze back out at those boring rolling hills. Ramsay took in a deep breath and let it out, somewhat refreshed; he had always enjoyed being hated.

Well, perhaps not in a way that others might understand, but ever since he had been a boy Ramsay had enjoyed getting under someone else's skin. Perhaps it was just a matter of being able to wrest a little bit of power away from someone else, to make them lose their composure even just a little. It had always made Ramsay feel powerful and clever.

So with a somewhat lighter step Ramsay traipsed past the guard who clearly didn't appreciate his company, bidding the man a good morning, to which he received no answer; not an unexpected development. Then he hastened down a set of stairs on the next section of wall, suddenly possessed with a haste to get himself inside; the wind up top seemed even worse than below.

Hurriedly Ramsay made his way along the inner wall of the courtyard, where there was a stone roof over his head, but the cover did little to alleviate the bitter cold. In fact, the tunnel-like nature of that space seemed to only cause the wind to rush into him even more unfavorably, and he grimaced at the chill of it all.

It was only a short ways to get to the keep's main door from there, though, and Ramsay practically threw the door open in his haste to get inside where at least the wind would be unable to reach him. Once there he glanced around, noting the interior. The Starks had not adorned their keep with any large amount of decorations.

Other than utilitarian furniture and a few banners depicting a snarling dire wolf, there was little art or finery to be seen, as Ramsay's father had not added much of anything to what was present upon taking up residence when the Boltons had owned the place. Roose Bolton had, like the Starks apparently, had little interest in opulence.

Definitely nothing like the sort of keeps one would find to the south. The closer one got to the port of King's Landing, the more extravagant the interiors and even exteriors of each keep and castle became. As if each lord would state his wealth by placing it all over the things he owned. Not in the north, though; here wealth was a secondary concern for many.

This land was a harsh one; between the bitter cold which claimed the old and young at a regular pace, the scarcity of game in many of the more desolate reaches, and the powerful, dangerous animals that prowled about, just staying alive in the unforgiving north was success enough. To actually thrive here was worth more status than gold.

Ramsay moved along the hallway that ran adjacent to the council chambers and the entry room, coming to a fork in the road of sorts and pausing for a moment to decide where exactly his whim would take him today. After only a moments consideration he veered off to the left and began making his way down the stairwell that led to the crypts.

The first time he had ventured down this way, not so long ago during his ill-fated attempt to flee his captivity under the Starks, he had been terribly dismayed that this room was full of dead Starks rather than tack and mead. Now he still wished that there was mead, but at least everyone down here was a dead Stark…

Ramsay had of course come here many times recently; the company of the fallen enemy, he had viewed them all as such, savoring that they were dead while he still yet drew breath. But that aspect had brought him less satisfaction with each day that passed, even more so now that Sansa Stark had actually named him a member of the family.

How odd it did feel for him to walk those storied halls now, glancing upon the stony visages of memorial statues that had been erected for all of the Stark greats. Sansa had insisted on taking him here after his recapture, not at all long after he had gone so far as to desecrate the resting place of the Stark boy Rickon Stark, whom he himself had murdered in cold blood.

Here she had regaled him with stories of all of the people who had been interred in the crypt, educated him of the noblest and the strongest, and of those that had died defending their home in days before Winterfell had even graced this country. Ramsay of course had been generally uninterested, especially as he had been rather raw about his recapture at the time.

He was fairly certain, at least at the time, that the whole ordeal had been some sort of attempt on Sansa's part to make him feel guilt or remorse for the things that he had done against her family. He had worked to show her then that he didn't give a shit for her relatives any more so at that time than he had when he'd shot Rickon with the arrow that had killed him.

Of course, he had done so carefully, and perhaps in so subtle a fashion that it might have been missed entirely. After all, by that time Sansa had taken to public and humiliating displays of… Ramsay turned his mind away from it. He didn't like to dwell on what Sansa sometimes even now still did to keep him in check when he 'misbehaved', as she called it.

Ramsay shook his head, as if doing so might free him of the bothersome thought that buzzed around within it currently, as if by shaking himself he could be freed of such terrible memories and humiliations of the past as if they were annoying, biting flies of the physical kind. Sadly, this wasn't the case, and he had to work to turn his mind elsewhere.

So he instead focused his attention again on the grim statuary as he passed each. He noted today that while the other lords of the north or the south often had murals of their families painted to depict the leaders of their holds as solemn and commanding visages, he remembered none that looked as grim as those he saw upon that chiseled stone.

The face of each Stark seemed to bear upon it years of endurance and hardship; lives lived under the weight of heavy choices and the burdens of daily sacrifices made just to continue living. He wondered how much of that errant thought was himself and how much was Sansa. She had lectured him for a long while on the subject, after all.

He paused, noting that he had happened to do so in front of the elaborate grave of the most recently fallen Stark; Rickon. Not long ago he had crawled inside of the boy's coffin, desperate for a place to hide. He wondered if Rickon's ghost stood close by now, laughing at Ramsay who now revisited that tomb, just as trapped as before.

It had been an act of sacrilege, messing with the bodies of the dead as he had, and even Ramsay, whom never fancied himself as being in any remote way superstitious, had balked at it at least a little. He had to muse to himself now, wondering if the act of violation itself isn't what had set the gods so thoroughly against him.

Ramsay had never once given two shits what the gods might think, the old ones or the new ones, but with the way his life had ended up, all of the crushing defeats and humiliations he was made to suffer when he had been so very close to making a real name for himself; one had to consider that maybe one had earned divine malediction.

He let out a long sigh. It seemed that self-pity and anguish over what he had lost was inseparable from his thinking. Every time he came on these walks he told himself that he was going to enjoy some fresh air, no matter how damned cold, to the full extent of the 'freedoms' that Sansa allowed him, but every time he returned to agonizing reflections.

With a grunt Ramsay turned from the bust of Rickon and hustled back to the entrance of the crypt. He supposed that there was just no escaping his feelings on the things that caused him daily strife; he did live in a gilded cage after all. Sansa might claim him to be a member of the family publicly, but she had made it clear to Ramsay that he had no say in his fate.