She does not see him again until the next evening. He enters the solar and helps himself to a horn of ale, though Sansa cannot help thinking that he does not need any more. He is not drunk, for which she is thankful; but he is tired and worn-looking, his usual robust health seems diminished and she is saddened to think that she is the cause.
"Smalljon," his father greets him. "Where have you been keeping yourself? Gods but you look wretched, boy: is it a broken heart that's ailing you? Go out and kill some wildlings, you'll feel your old self again. It may help to stick your sword into someone," he jests, and Sansa understands that there is a bawdy meaning to sticking his sword into someone.
The Smalljon mutters something but his father does not hear him because he is holding their daughter, his and Sansa's babe, and she is fussing and he is holding her aloft by her chubby middle and making faces at her.
"Woooo!" He exclaims as he lifts her up and down between his knees. "Wooooo!"
"You're acting a fool," his son observes sullenly, "and making her cry."
"She cries because she is cutting her teeth and it hurts her; and I will wear patched motley and dance like a baited bear if it soothes her. Have you forgotten your brothers and sisters as babes?"
"Mother made a posset for them; she knew how to soothe them." He glances quickly at Sansa and away.
"Your nurse made the posset, as she is doing now; and her mother will soothe her," he tells his son angrily as he stands to his full height. "Take her, Sansa," he hands their daughter over to her. "Now, I don't know what rabid rodent has crawled up your ass and is eating at your vitals, boy; and if you will not tell me that is your choice but you do not disrespect Lady Umber, not unless you want to cross swords here in the solar. Do you hear me, boy?"
The Greatjon shouts and the baby wails louder and longer and Sansa looks to them, stricken. She is fearful of what may be said if they argue heatedly.
"Please," she pleads to them, "not here and not now. My lords, I beg you-"
The Greatjon is locked in a staring stance with his eldest son and does not turn to her.
"Take her to the nursery, Sansa," he commands, not harshly.
"But young Eddard is sleeping, and she will wake him-" she tries to reason.
"It is I who should leave," the Smalljon relents now and he looks humbled and even ashamed. "Forgive me father; and you, my lady: I meant no disrespect." He clumsily pats his half-sister's head and takes his leave, leaving his ale on a table and passing the nurse in the doorway on his way out.
"Needs a good fuck," the Crowfoot pronounces clearly and crudely after he has gone.
"Lad's never gone wanting before," Whoresbane observes. "They must've deprived him of wenches at Karhold, thinking it'd make him want Lady Alys, and now he's forgotten how."
"Mind your tongues," the Greatjon snaps when he sees that Sansa is turning pink and pursing her lips. The Whoresbane guffaws but Crowfoot nudges him and shakes his head, blinking his single eye. The two old men rise and leave but not before topping their outsized tankards with more ale.
"Forgive him, Sansa," the Greatjon asks of her now, and she knows he means his son. "I cannot imagine what is bothering him since he returned from Karhold." He looks troubled and still somewhat angry.
"Mayhaps he misses his brothers," Sansa offers as explanation. The Greatjon's younger sons by his first wife had by now been warded out to other houses: the youngest was a page to King Robb at Winterfell, and the Smalljon had taken another to serve as a squire at Karhold. She knew how it felt to be without sibling; but she also knew the true cause of his despondency.
Her husband makes a sound of impatience. "He knew they would needs leave one day; and he has friends in the garrison and the village. It is not the company of men he lacks."
"Will you…will you command him to marry the Lady Alys, my lord?" Sansa is not certain if she wants to hear his answer.
"No," he replies, though with resignation. "I do not much care what maiden he marries so long as she is worthy to be Lady of Last Hearth." He nods to her appreciatively and then grows somber again. "And I have other sons if he will not have heirs."
"But certainly he means to be your heir," she observes, "he has taken on so many of a lord's responsibilities since your lands are so vast and your people so dispersed. Surely he will do his duty by you and your house," she assures him because she knows that Lord Jon loves Last Hearth and would not be like to risk losing his rights to a younger brother, no matter how much he may love them as well.
"Mayhaps I should have you speak with him," he half-jests, "for you have never failed in your duty to your house or mine, and so he may listen to you."
Sansa is uncertain how to reply, for she knows she is the least worthy person to speak of duty, and to her secret lover no less; but she is relieved of needing to answer when the weathered old nurse has finished filling a small a sheep's bladder with the warm posset and worms the opening into the baby's mouth as Sansa holds her. The child begins to suck and drink, and so Sansa takes the bladder and nods her thanks to the nurse.
"She'll sleep the night with only a dram of that posset, milady, so don't let have too much. Shall I stay or-"
"I will bring her to you so that you may watch over young Eddard," Sansa whispers, "I thank you for all your help."
The woman smiles to her and nods to the Greatjon and leaves the solar.
"She likes you, Sansa: she knows you're a good mother," the Greatjon reassures her as he stands over her now and looks down as his daughter getting sleepy-eyed already.
Sansa smiles gently. "She is from the mountains beyond the Wolfswood, the lands of the First Flints, my lord; and my father's grandmother was a Flint. My sister was named for her. But I know that she came to Last Hearth to serve your first lady wife," she pauses to gauge his reaction but he says nothing. "Did…did you love her very much, my lord?"
He is silent for a moment and Sansa fears she has offended him but finally he replies. "She was a good wife and mother," he says somewhat haltingly, "as are you, Sansa. She's had enough, wouldn't you say?"
Carefully Sansa pulls the tip of the sheep's bladder from her baby's mouth and smiles to see that she sleeps. She glances over her shoulder and notices that her husband has a pained line between his eyes.
"Forgive me, my lord, if I have offended you; but please know that I am not offended that you loved your first wife, and so you needs not keep it from me. She made you happy, and gave you fine strong children. I do not remember her though; did she ever visit Winterfell?"
"She did," he replies shortly. "We did," he amends, "though you would have been no more than a babe yourself. She was ill for some years before she…some matter with her lungs, the maester said but she was strong and so lived longer than expected though she worsened all the while. I wonder…" he stopped talking.
Sansa had been rocking her daughter as he spoke and now she looked up at him. "My lord?'
He shook his head but continued. "Smalljon was eldest, and so he knew his mother best and then he watched her fall sick and slowly die… I wonder it's not the reason he is reluctant to marry now. It must have been hard for him." He says nothing of how hard it must have been for himself.
"I am so very sorry, my lord," Sansa whispers softly.
He looks at her absently; and then he smiles fondly but fleetingly and lightly brushes her cheek with the back of his large hand.
"You're a sweet girl, Sansa," he tells her. "Will you take her to the nursery now?"
"I think I would sit with her a while longer. Will you to bed, my lord?"
He yawns hugely and then nods sheepishly. "It would seem best," he chuckles self-deprecatingly.
"Sleep well, my lord."
Alone in the solar, Sansa rocks her child and thinks on what the Greatjon has told her. His words were the most he has ever said about the late Lady Umber, though she knows that she has been gone over ten-and-five years and that she was a strong woman and more than a match for her outspoken husband. She'd been hale and hearty afore the sickness, with a wicked tongue and a bawdy laugh, the old mountain woman had once told her, eyeing Sansa up and down, ye never knows what woman will survive and what won't. After having attended Sansa the night of her bedding, the old woman had been kind to her but did not seem to expect much of a teary young girl. Sansa imagined that after living with the Umbers for so many years she must have appeared reticent and even timid to her; but she had learned to be guarded around the servants in the Red Keep and so had needed time to trust again. Now, after twice seeing her through childbirth and watching her rise to her role as the new Lady Umber, the old woman showed her a warm respect that Sansa returned in kind.
All of this made it seem to Sansa that both of the men she knew had suffered at the loss of her predecessor: one mourned his wife, the other his mother. She wondered now at her appeal to either of them, especially given that she was so different: a soft-spoken young girl with gentle manners and the Tully look rather than the look and spirit of a true Northerner, as Arya had. She considers that the Greatjon may have married her so as to have a young wife that would not die before him. But women of all ages were lost to the bloody bed or simply died of exhaustion from birthing too many children in too few years; as she seemed like to do if she continued at her present rate, she thought irreverently. And Lord Jon…mayhaps it was easier for him to love her since she could never completely be his, and so her loss would be somehow less. She is a safe choice for him in some ways; a more dangerous one in others.
It comes as a soft shock to her to realize that she should know them so little. Oh, she knew their characters mostly and certainly their habits and even their bodies but nothing of what was in their hearts other than what little they deigned to tell her. She felt that neither ever truly opened their hearts to her; and how strange it should be to share a life and a bed and such intimacy with a near-stranger. Yet her parents had done so, as had Robb and Roslin; but a man was never a woman's property, even if she should have his heart.
Sansa thinks on marriage and the marriage bed and what has become of her and, in time, what will become of her daughter. She looks down on her: full of love and dreams for her happiness as a child and as a woman grown, without being truly able to know that she would find any happiness in life. Her babe fusses again momentarily, straining and wiggling in her sleep, and waves her little arms about before settling again.
Sansa leans down and whispers to her: "Would you spread your wings and take flight, then? Yes, you should. Fly away, little bird."
AN: a posset in medieval terms was a drink made of hot milk and ale or wine: outrageous to think of giving a babe alcohol these days but it was not uncommon up until the twentieth century when even baby "gripe water", a treatment for colic, contained alcohol.
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