THEON
Icicles were forming on the ceiling of his cell, each as long and as pale as a corpse's finger. Theon sat far away from them, cringing in the corner among the folds of the cloak Euron had given him. The cloak was fine wool, with stitching in silver thread, and sable around the collar. A proper princely cloak for our Prince of Winterfell, Euron had said.
Theon refused to wear it. He was freezing, but whatever smidgen of honour he had left prevented him from putting on clothes that had once belonged to the Starks. And especially not this cloak. It had belonged to Ned Stark once, and that was reason enough not to wear it, but Euron said his thralls had found it beneath the heart tree when the siege was over. Where they found Bran.
Sometimes he tried to convince himself that he had done all he could. I told him he should have run. But he could have done more, if he hadn't been so afraid. I could have died for him. I should have died for him. I should have died for Robb, too. I should have died a long time ago.
But Euron refused to let him die. "I think you should suffer," his uncle said. "Don't you think so, too? Don't you think you should suffer for what you've done?"
Theon could not deny it, but he'd learned under Ramsay Bolton's tutelage that you did not have to mean something to say it. "Yes," he said. "I should suffer." But he didn't dare let himself believe it. If he did, he would become Euron's pawn. I have to remember who I am. I have to remember that I chose to go to Bran, to beg him to surrender, that I still have free will. I know my name.
"Theon Greyjoy," he would say to himself when he could not sleep. "Theon Greyjoy. My name is Theon Greyjoy." It wasn't that he feared forgetting it especially, but he feared that the other one might come back. The other, whose name rhymed with freak and weak and meek…
I was never him. I was me the whole time, I was just too scared to remember it. I am me now. He hugged that fact close to him. It served him better than any cloak could.
He was never entirely alone down here in his cell. Most of the time his company were rats. He could hear them scrabbling behind the walls. There was a whole other Winterfell back there, a warren of corridors and stairways and cubby-holes. Yet those secret ways in were not known to Theon. Those were for the Starks alone.
On the stairs above, he heard footsteps. Someone was coming. Maybe it was time for Euron's visit. He wasn't quite sure if the visits were regular, since he had no way of telling time, but Euron didn't leave him entirely alone, lest he go insane. His uncle didn't want that.
Which means he still needs me for something. Most of his time was spent wondering what that something was.
Pushing with his arms, Theon stumbled to a standing position as the footsteps passed through the door at the bottom of the stairs. And then there was light, and two of Euron's mutes emerged into his cell. Theon tried to meet their eyes, but they did not even spare him a glance. They grabbed him up by the arms, and dragged him along, driving him up the stairs as you might drive a herd of cattle. And then, simple as that, they were out in the courtyard.
When the Boltons had ruled in Winterfell, there had been a sense of something not being right, as though the stones knew that the castle's inhabitants were usurpers, and had turned cold in response. But now, the castle walls were not icy and hostile. They were just dead. Euron's assault had left the walls mostly untouched, but this was not the Winterfell that Theon Greyjoy had grown up in.
Likewise, the man sat at the high table in the great hall could claim to be many things, but never lord of this castle. Euron Crow's Eye sat in that stone seat where Ned Stark had once sat, and Robb after him; the seat where, only a couple of weeks ago, Bran had received the turncloak, looking so much like his father that night. Three boiled eggs were set before the king. He was busy knocking the top off one, with much pleasure, as the mutes led Theon up to the dais.
Euron wore his Valyrian steel armour, black and strangely supple-looking. He had a new crown now, too. It was, he claimed, forged of bones he had taken from the dead Starks in the crypts. In the middle was Ned Stark's skull, he said, though Theon did not think that was true; he vaguely remembered Lady Dustin saying she had intercepted Lord Eddard's bones in the south, and fed them to her dogs – or intended to. But there was part of a skull there nonetheless, and fingers, and a bit of jawbone. Euron's men had spent days opening up the old tombs and ransacking them.
"The prince of Winterfell!" Euron called. "Come, beloved nephew, and sit by my side." He motioned to the nearest chair. Theon sat. "It has been a few days since we last spoke, hasn't it?" said his uncle.
"I don't know," said Theon.
"I think it is. We must do this more often, truth be told. Though we will be seeing a lot more of each other anyway on our way north." He grinned at Theon's expense. "Yes, nephew. We are leaving, and so soon, and in a blizzard at that. It will be an arduous journey up to Castle Black, but I imagine you're more than used to a little discomfort."
"Yes," Theon said quaveringly. On the one hand, the road was a place away from his cell. It led to light, and hope. But on the other hand, he did not want a part in any plan of Euron's. "Why are we going to the Wall, Your Grace?"
"I said we were going to Castle Black." Euron smiled, at some joke only he knew. "Not to the Wall. But since you ask, we are going north to meet with some allies. Someone who understands our cause. Someone to whom I made a promise, a long time ago."
Theon shivered as he stared at his uncle's smiling eye. What are you? He knew that he was not looking at a mere man. Ramsay Bolton and his father had been merely cold, and disposed to cruelty. Euron was something far beyond that. He is not a man at all, thought Theon.
"Perchance you have heard the story," said Euron, breaking open an egg, "of how I lost my mind during a storm near Valyria. Of how I had my men lash me to the mast of the Silence, and afterwards, I had their tongues cut out so they would not tell of my misdoings."
"I have heard that tale, Your Grace." With Euron it was always best to tell the truth. Except when it wasn't.
"Oh, you have? And did you think it was true?"
"I… Your Grace, I…"
"I won't leave you to agonise over what to say, dear nephew. I'll put you out of your misery." He winked. "It isn't true. But there's a reason why that tale has spread… come now, Theon, if I truly had lost my mind during a storm, and I didn't want anyone to know, my crew would have had their throats cut, not their tongues. No. So what happened, hmm? What do you think?"
Theon shivered again, the spasm racking him to the bones. Euron gave him a piteous look, then called to one of his guardsmen, "Fetch my nephew some hot wine. He looks like he could do with it."
"I…" Theon's mouth was dry. "I'm not going back to my cell?"
"No. I am prepared to grant you the Stark boy's former chambers. As befits the prince of Winterfell." The cruel smirk again. "If you perform one task for me, you shall sleep in a warm bed tonight, with a hot fire and a hot meal in your belly. Even a girl, I think. That can be arranged. I imagine we can find a girl who will want a hot bed for the night, too."
"What task?" asked Theon.
"I'm getting to that. Have you thought of an answer yet?"
With Euron, you always had to consider the absurd first. So Theon said, "They cut out their own tongues, Your Grace."
Euron laughed. "Well done, nephew! See, we are finally beginning to understand one another! Yes, they cut out their own tongues, and willingly at that. It had to be like that. My men fear me, but if I went round cutting out tongues, even they would not be above mutiny. So: why do you think they cut their tongues out?"
The answer was obvious to Theon's mind. It was the same with me, when Ramsay flayed my fingers. "Because they were afraid. And in pain. And cutting out their tongues was the only way to make the pain stop."
"Very good," said Euron, smiling. "And what sort of fear and pain would have led them to that?"
The same thing that makes me afraid of you. "Something otherworldly. That… that horn of yours, Your Grace—"
"Yes!" Euron clapped his hands together. "I must confess myself impressed, Theon. I didn't think you had it in you. Thinking like that, I mean. Your sister certainly didn't." He must have seen Theon flinch at the mention of Asha, for he smiled. "Oh, the wonders of having no cock, Theon."
What did you do with Asha? he had asked, the first time Euron brought him up into the great hall. What did you do, not what have you done, because, in truth, he already knew. It made things easier when Euron told of how he had bound her hands and feet together, and tossed her overboard somewhere off Harlaw.
"Where were we?" said Euron. "Ah, yes. The Horn. Oh yes, it gives me command over the dead, and a few other things, as the Night's Watch will have discovered, but really it is little more than a trinket, like all of the metal and stones I discovered in Valyria. No, Theon. It was not what we found in that storm that haunted me and drove my crew to madness, Theon. It was what we did not.
"Alas, Valyria! A mighty civilization destroyed by the madness of a few warlocks, perhaps on purpose, depending on who you ask. Thousands of men, women and children, dead, thousands of thousands. So where were all the bones? Where were the fallen temples and the towers, preserved in ash for ever more?
"They were in the water, Theon. The years had changed them, turned them into dust, and then into nothing at all. They were in the sea, all the magic and sorcery of ages past, in the bones, in the stones. They were in the salt water that splashed onto our decks, into our eyes and mouths. And sorcery, like a fine wine, only ripens with age. By the time we left Valyria, my crew was mad, spouting prophecies at one another, screaming, burning. They cut their own tongues, ears, fingers, slit their own throats. I alone endured. Well, almost." He pointed to his eye, the one hidden under the patch. "Days and nights of prophecy and secrets and horrors. It was like… you know when a woman rides you hard and angry, and suddenly you can take no more, and there is that tremendous release, especially when you have gone so long without… it was like that, for days on end. I fell into the sweet embrace of Lady Prophecy, and she lay upon me and fucked me till I was on the brink of death. When I could finally endure it no more, I put out my own eye, and the pain drove the madness out."
Except it never truly left you, Theon thought.
"By then I had seen all I needed to know. I sailed to Braavos and hired a Faceless Man to throw your father from a bridge. I won the kingsmoot. The Damphair and his wet god put up a feeble defense, but I won all the same, and sacrificed both my brother and the Drowned God to the storm. I sailed into Oldtown and received the Horn the Faceless Men had procured for me. Victarion's vengeance came at exactly the right time; both his fleet and mine burned to ashes on the Honeywine. I had never really expected to take Oldtown, nor did I particularly want it, so that was no great disappointment. It might even be of help. The lords of Westeros think I am doomed and gone. When the Iron Fleet sails into Lannisport and Seagard and up Blazewater Bay, they will shit their breeches."
The doors of the great hall opened, down the far end. Euron tapped hard on his egg, breaking its bald skull. "I promised you hot mulled wine, but I fear it will have to wait. One of my whelps has returned."
The boy who approached them now was no more than thirteen years of age, but he carried himself with an arrogant confidence far beyond that. He had Euron's look, tendrils of greasy black hair falling from his brow, and ice blue eyes.
"The gods erred," Euron whispered to Theon, "when they chose the terms of sacrifice. They loved their sons and daughters, and they assumed that men would love theirs. But I have sired tens of sons and daughters, and the only love I feel for them is the love for what their sacrifices have brought me." He smiled through chillingly white teeth. "And I do love them for those sacrifices."
Theon shivered again. On the march from the coast to Winterfell, he had overheard the tale of how Euron had sacrificed thirteen of his sons and daughters in a ceremony on Pyke, in order to raise the dead to march alongside the living.
"Harlon," greeted Euron, in that mocking tone of his. "My beloved son. I was just talking with my nephew here. You needn't worry, I'm not seeking to replace you. Theon and I are quite done."
Theon managed a nod. "You… you said you had a task for me?"
"Ah. I almost forgot." Euron beckoned over one of the mutes who had brought Theon into the hall. "Wulfe will take you out to the kennels. There's something there I need you to take charge of. From there, you'll go out of the gate, and you'll put some distance between yourself and the castle. The wolfswood should do nicely. And then you will hide this object I am entrusting you with somewhere not even I could find it. Simple as that. You understand?"
"I understand."
"And when you come back, you can have a hot bath, and a bed, as I promised. I keep my promises, Theon. You'll soon find that out, to your benefit. Go now, with Wulfe."
Theon went, following the mute. He tried to make out what Euron was saying to the bastard boy, but his uncle was speaking in a soft, fervent voice, so it was impossible to know what he was saying.
The mute, Wulfe, led him out the way he had come. But instead of turning towards the First Keep and descending to the cells, they went along the walkway, up one short flight of steps and another, making their way through the warren of interlinked passages and bridges that tied the castle of Winterfell together. At one point Theon stumbled, his legs unused to the strain, and had to grab a stone banister for support. The surface was colder than any blizzard he had ever known, rejecting the warmth of his skin and his touch. Droplets of meltwater crawled like beetles over his hand.
And then the mute abruptly stopped, in a small yard. Theon faintly remembered he had once waited here for a plum-breasted washerwoman to finish her work so he could take her up for the night. But the washerwoman was long gone, and so were her plums, and so was Winterfell's beating heart. Instead, one thing waited for him in the courtyard. A hand-pulled cart, its contents covered by a sheet of tarpaulin.
The mute jerked his head towards the cart.
"What's underneath?" asked Theon, as he hobbled towards it. But of course the mute could not answer, and did not. And he didn't have to, not really, because Theon already knew. He could have lifted up the sheet to look, but what was the point, other than to remind him that he had failed?
Once he had picked up the cart, the mute ushered him out of the yard, and across the castle, bumping up and down stairs and through narrow passages until they made it back to the main gate. "Who goes there?" a voice called down from the towers. That's strange, Theon thought, as he always did whenever this happened. Euron's army still had living men with voices, reavers and sailors who might well have served on King Balon's warships in the past. Why did they stay with a man who fought alongside the dead?
"Who goes there?" the voice shouted again.
"Th-Theon," he called up, quavering. "Theon Greyjoy."
A gob of spittle flew down from overhead. "Theon Turncloak, you mean," said the man.
"Theon Turncoat," said a second voice, that of his companion. "Theon Turncunt." There was a bark of rough laughter.
Theon cleared his throat. "King Euron wants—"
"Aye, we know what he wants." The portcullis was already rolling upwards. Theon did not understand how they could now – unless Euron shared his plans with everyone nowadays – but he was not about to question them. He took the cart's handles and dragged it out of the gates behind him.
Outside the walls of Winterfell everything was silent. The winter town had been burned and ransacked. The brothels where he had spent many nights as a youth were now ashes and cinders, and all the whores were long fled. I was in there with Ros once, he recalled, looking up at the ruins of one tall house. And again, when I took Robb to see his first girl. Tears pricked at his eyes. After he passed the house he did not dare to look back. I made my choice. This is my penance. To always seem free, but to never truly be so. Sometimes he wondered whether his brief spell of freedom had been the gods' continued punishment. Had they given him Asha back just so they could tear her away from him again?
I deserve it, he thought. No amount of time can erase what I did. Nothing can erase the stain. It was ingrained in the way he walked, the way he spoke. Turncloak. He was broken, and could never be fixed.
It was a hard climb to the hill where the wolfswood started, but no harder than anything else. Theon dragged the cart, continuing in his shambling, proud step, till he reached the top. The mute, Wulfe, had abandoned him, and there was no one else out here. The sentries on the castle walls were fading into the fog. If he fled and hid, they probably would not catch him. But he did not dare. And even if he did run, where would he go? He was alone now.
Then the growling started, from the thicket to his left, and then the wolf came out. Its fur was grey, so it did not blend in entirely with its surroundings, but it was easy to see how it had hid here so long. The eyes were yellow, with a hint of blue at the very centre: like the blue spark that burned at the very heart of a flame.
Direwolf, not wolf. Theon licked his cracked lips. "Summer," he said, in the quietest whisper. "Summer, I—"
The wolf bared his teeth, but did not spring. Theon held his ground as Summer came closer. Partly because he was too afraid to move, but partly because he did not think he should run. When Summer was only a couple of feet away, he suddenly turned his head to look at the cart, sniffing faintly. He knows, too. And he doesn't have to look, either. A low growl rose in Summer's throat as he pawed at the frame of the cart. Then he directed it towards Theon, more loudly this time. The meaning was clear.
"I can't," Theon said. It might be mad to talk to a wolf, but he was certain Summer understood him, somehow. "I have to bury him. Euron said—"
The growl again. This time the meaning was plainer. He is mine. I am his. Leave him with me.
Euron would know, of course. He would know that Theon had not done his task properly… but had he done anything wrong, in truth? Hide him somewhere I will not find it, he had said. If Theon did not know where it was hidden, then Euron would not know either.
And the wolf was right. This is not my place, thought Theon. He stepped away from the cart.
Afterwards, he remembered watching as Summer pawed beneath the woollen sheet, and he remembered turning away and listening as the body was dragged off. But he remembered little else. And as he set off down the hill back towards Winterfell, he did not look back.
Euron was true to his word. He put Theon up in the Great Keep, in the bedchamber that had once belonged to Eddard Stark, a place he neither belonged nor deserved to be. But after supper and his first hot bath in years, as he settled down among the wolfskins and the hard black wood and the dusty grey tapestries, the door opened, and Euron entered.
"Nephew," he said, "come with me. I have something I would like to show you."
They went back out to the yard, Theon shadowing his uncle. As they descended the stairs of the Great Keep, he wondered whether Euron had tricked him again. Had he shown Theon this brief taste of luxury, just to have him thrown back into a cell?
But instead they went out into the godswood. The night was very cold, and very quiet; where ravens had once stirred in the bones of the heart tree, there was nothing at all. Only silence.
Half a dozen figures waited in front of the tree, all cloaked and hooded. Theon's heart thumped with terror when he saw them – an audience – but they were not waiting for him. Instead, it was Euron's mongrel son they dragged out into the courtyard, handled by two burly mutes. The boy had been beaten, there was a crust of blood on his lips, and his hands were bound. Harlon, remembered Theon, you have to know your name. His eyes, which had earlier been so defiant, were bright with tears. This time, he truly looked his age.
Euron greeted the boy with exuberance. "My beloved son!" he called. "We meet again! Twice in one day!"
"Father." Harlon was quivering on his knees, shaking. Fool, Theon thought, that is what he wants. "Father, these men, I'm sorry, I don't know what I did."
Euron knelt beside the boy, and placed a hand on his cheek. "You did nothing wrong, my boy. Nothing wrong. I was just a little unsure, that is all. Of your loyalty."
Harlon shivered. "My… my loyalty?"
"And of your love for me."
"I… but Father, I… I do love you."
"Of course you do." The Crow's Eye stretched out his arms, and the boy fell into them, still shuddering a little. Euron tousled his hair, and kissed his brow, and squeezed him tight, and Theon knew what was about to happen, and so did everyone except the sacrifice himself.
The first thing he heard was a wet gurgling noise, which seemed to come from far off. Then Harlon seemed to slump, and then he fell in his father's arms. When Euron stood up, the boy fell back onto the ground, still convulsing a little, spitting up foam. Euron did not even wait for him to die; instead, he turned and addressed the crowd. "Another blessing upon us. That should appease the god while we march to Castle Black, don't you think?"
"Aye," answered one of the figures. "That should suffice." She had a woman's voice, but it was lower than it should have been, and harsh as a knife scraping along bone, and deeper still. "For now."
Just then the moon stared out from behind the blindfold of clouds, and Theon caught a glimpse of her face. Instantly his legs went to water, and he fell down, as the air turned to ice around him, as he stared up into those blue blue eyes. He had heard the stories, of course. Once, when he was a boy newly arrived to Winterfell, he had asked as Old Nan why the Starks kept the crypts so securely locked and bolted all winter. "It's not them that's trying to get in that they're worried about," the old woman said, "it's them that's trying to get out."
She was an Other.
But that was not what frightened him.
He knew, now, why the Starks of Winterfell buried their ancestors with iron swords across their laps. He knew, too, why they only buried their men. He knew, too, that Ned Stark had broken that rule, without ever knowing the cost. And he knew that face. He had only ever seen her in stone, or heard of her in stories, but he knew that face.
Thank you all for the fantastic response to Chapter 1. Hopefully, we can keep this going as we continue through the story.
So...
...zombie Lyanna. Which lends some support to a certain theory, which I alluded to way back in the good old days of A COAT OF GOLD.
I have to say that Euron is a hell of a lot of fun to write for, even if he is completely horrifying. Hopefully, I can do justice to his character, and to Theon's, as I sort of failed for both of them in THE SUNSET KINGDOMS - in my defense, neither of them had much of a story to tell.
(On that note, much as I think Euron was a lot better in Season 7 than the travesty we got in Season 6, he's still not *the* Euron. So you should consider the Euron in this series to be book!Euron, who is one... uh... uh... strange guy.) Yeah.
Anyway, this should act as a taster for all the creepy stuff that's going to be back in this final part of the series, so you can expect quite a few chapters like this.
This chapter had a child sacrifice, and I think there are implications that a lot of rape and violence has happened in the scarred Winterfell. Which makes it, I think, appropriate for this (possibly patronising) disclaimer: KNIGHTS OF THE NIGHTINGALE is not going to be all sunshine and flowers. Parts of it get very, very dark. Major characters will die, some of them for no reason at all. There will be rape, torture, and heavily sexualised content, and graphic violence that may and probably will disturb some viewers - both implicit and explicit. While I have no intention to create controversial situations for shock value, I don't intend to tell this story through rose-tinted glasses, as it does not warrant this.
Next chapter: we go up to the Wall.
