The next morning is dull and grey, with low hanging clouds that seem to almost touch the top of the weirwood tree. It has snowed heavily overnight, and the yard that had seen blood and death was now blanketed and peaceful. Sansa finds the stillness of the godswood almost eerie in contrast to the previous evening, and yet she also finds a tranquility here that had eluded her all through the night as she tossed and turned and woke in a panic from fitful bouts of sleep.
Why, she had asked herself countless times, why do the men who want me do such terrible things? Does love truly poison them; or do they poison love with their heartlessness?
She had though Joffrey purely evil: a monster; and Sandor Clegane was by his own admission a dog and a killer; they're all meat and I'm the butcher, he had told her one night. She understands now what he meant by having a song from her; she knows it means the same as the bawdy jests her husband and the other Umber men make about swords and swordplay. Even her once-lover, Lord Jon, had betrayed his own father to have her; and her own husband had once let a serving girl be flogged for an offence and a tragedy for which he had been equally responsible, without protest or intervention.
She knows well that her own behavior is not above reproach, in fact it is highly contemptible: she has betrayed her husband with his son. But, as Bran had pointed out, she at the very least feels bad about it, and her guilt and shame haunt her still. She knows that Lord Jon feels remorseful; and certainly her husband had suffered terribly over the abduction of his young cousin, and mayhaps even the fate of the girl's maid. She wondered if Sandor Clegane feels remorse, or if he has changed; as Berena said her lord husband had changed.
I will never know.
Still, as she prays for her husband and his sons and her brothers: Robb, the king, and Rickon and Jon, she adds Sandor Clegane to the names of those for whom she now asks the gods to protect. She does not know where he is or even if he still fights; but she had prayed for him years ago, the night Kings Landing had fell: she had asked the Mother to protect him, and to gentle the rage inside of him. She asks the same again this cold morning. But her thoughts keep returning to her husband, always.
May the old gods watch over him and protect him, and keep him safe from harm. He honors and keeps you always, and is a good man.
She wonders if he is somewhere safe, at a castle on the Wall with a warm bed and a fire and food and drink, devising strategy with her brothers Robb and Jon; or if he is beyond the Wall, hungry and fatigued, fighting in the cold and snow and ice against terrible creatures that cannot be killed.
Be safe, my lord; be safe and come back to me and to our children. We love you so very much.
She opens her eyes suddenly when she feels a cold wetness on her nose, and she sees that it has resumed snowing. Big fat white flakes descend lightly and as Sansa looks around, she sees that snow has settled on the hoods of all those praying alongside her in the godswood. She cannot help giggling at the tableau they make.
Young Eddard looks up from his prayers now; and she smiles at him and brushes the snow off his head.
"You have snow on you too, Mother," he tells her.
"Do I look funny?" she teases him.
"Yes!" he laughs, and she is happy to hear him laugh. But then he looks contrite and says: "I shouldn't laugh while we're praying."
"I'd say it's just what we needs hear, boy," the wilding woman Osha tells him. "The gods invented laughter, didn't they?"
Sansa smiles gratefully at her, though timidly. She was not surprised to hear that the woman had been a spearwife; for she had killed one of Theon's men who had tries to attack another woman in the kitchens. Sansa's maid had whispered that she'd struck him on the head with a heavy iron pot and cut his throat open with a ridged knife used to slice bread. Just the thought had made the girl shiver and Sansa's stomach had turned to remember crunch of bone and wet sucking sounds that the sword made when slicing through flesh when she took Theon's head. Arya had instead hacked at the head of the ugly man, the one thought to have been Lord Bolton's bastard, with his own blade.
"Where is Arya this morning? Did she sleep late; or is she training with her sword?"
"I saw milady's wolf go into the trees when we entered the godswood this morning, milady," Berena tells her now, "but I've not seen it since, nor seen your lady sister at all."
"Thank you, Berena. If you would take Eddard back inside, please; I will go look for her."
Sansa walks through the godswood, drinking in the snow-covered quiet of the sanctuary of the old gods. The snowfall reminds her of the time Bran and Arya had ambushed her with snowballs when she had walked out of the keep. It had been a lifetime ago, when Bran could still walk and climb and their father had been living and they had not gone South to Kings Landing and everything had changed. She sighed longingly. Sometimes, it was hard to stop herself from thinking what may have been: if Lord Arryn hadn't died and King Robert had not rode for Winterfell and her father had not accepted his offer to be Hand.
Father would still be alive, she dreams, and Bran could still walk. She would be married by now, doubtless; and she wonders briefly to whom her father would have betrothed her. She wonders if he would have allowed her to marry South, as she had then wished; or if she would have remained in the North. Lord Jon immediately comes to mind and she pushes that thought away: though likely, she feels it a betrayal even to ponder now. Mayhaps the eldest Karstark, who would still be living had it not been for the Kingslayer, or Daryn Hornwood or the heir to House Tallhart. So many young Northmen had been lost in the War of Five Kings, she thinks, and even more may be lost now. She does not want to think about these past prospective husbands any more.
Further back in the godswood, the snow shrikes can be heard above her head. The trees are so very old that many of their trunks are gnarled or stunted from growing in the perpetual shade of the sentinel and soldier pines. In the very back corner where the wall of the godswood met the wall of the glass garden, Sansa finds her sister. Her older brothers had discovered the small fort fashioned out of fallen branches when they were all very young; even Theon had been a boy then, she remembered. Her father had said that he had played there as a boy, and he had not known how old it was then. It was still there, propped between and oak and ash tree and built across the trunk of a fallen pine. The trees were likely as old as the castle, if not older, and the fallen branches and layers of fallen leaves and pine needles had created a heavy canopy that had shielded them from rain and snow when they hid and played. Beneath the newly-fallen snow of the make-shift roof, Arya is huddled inside with Nymeria curled up next to her.
"Go away, Sansa," she says without looking up.
"I played her once too, Arya," she reminds her.
"No you didn't," she scoffs dismissively. "You never wanted to play games and get dirty. Now go away or I'll put snow down the back of your gown…you wouldn't want to ruin one of Lord Umber's fancy gifts to you, would you?"
Sansa bends and crawls into the small space anyway and sits with her heavy cloak wrapped round her, and though Arya moves away, her direwolf turns her head to Sansa to be petted and scratched behind her ears.
"My greatest gifts are my children, Arya," she tells her quietly, "and I'm grateful that you helped keep them safe last night. Won't you please tell me what is wrong? I would like to help, or at least comfort you, if I can."
Arya turns her head away and rests it on her knees which she holds tightly to her chest. "You can't help me."
"Are you with child, Arya?" Sansa asks her now. She waits patiently for an answer and keeps stroking Nymeria's thick fur. Lady…
"I don't want it," she says suddenly, and Sansa hears the defensiveness in her voice. She turns her face back now. "I can go to the winter town and get moon tea or…or something," she challenges.
Sansa stills her heartbroken gut reaction and continues to pet Nymeria before answering. "If you want, Arya; but it would be better to ask Berena. That way there would not be any talk…we know well how much people love to talk about high-born girls from the castle."
Arya continues to stare her down. "And how do you know she can make proper moon tea?"
"Because she needed to give it to me when I fell and lost my babe. My womb was infected and I developed a fever; I might have died. As it is…I may never have another child," she tells her softly and simply, without looking at her sister.
Arya takes a moment before answering again. "I'm sorry, Sansa; but…our situations are not the same."
"No," Sansa agrees patiently, "they are not."
Arya tries to justify herself: "It's just…It's no good, Sansa: I'm not sweet and kind like you and Mother. I would be a terrible mother, just like I'm a terrible person-"
Sansa shakes her head now. "Don't say that, Arya: you are so good with Eddard and even Serena."
"I almost got young Eddard killed," she counters swiftly. "Isn't that what you all think? That bastard could have cut him down, just like the Hound cut down Mycah."
"Sandor Clegane was ordered to kill him-" Sansa begins to explain.
"I don't care!" Arya cries. "I want all those who hurt us to suffer and die, like we all suffered and father died! I want the world to be safe! I want justice!"
"Oh, Arya, if the gods make our enemies suffer and die and we call it justice…what does it mean when we suffer and die? Surely our enemies call it the justice of the gods too," she reasons. "Someday someone may try to kill Eddard, and call it justice."
"How can you say that, Sansa? Eddard was protecting you, and Father never did anything wrong!"
"Nor have most of the Northmen fighting at the Wall, Arya; and are they not protecting us? Yet many will die and many more will suffer. This is why some do not believe in the gods, or that there is any true justice or mercy in the world."
There are no true knights, no more that there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule the world, don't ever believe any different. Sansa though it queer that Arya should think so much like the man she claimed to hate.
Arya's words catch in her throat, and Sansa sees that she is on the verge of tears; try though she might to stop them.
"Why, Sansa? Why did it all have to happen? Are the gods just cruel?"
Sansa takes a deep breath and tries to explain. "Arya, you taught Eddard that every hurt is a lesson; and that every lesson makes you better: mayhaps…mayhaps that applies to life as well as to sword fighting or water dancing. Mayhaps the gods do not mean to punish us for what we may or may not have done, but instead send us trials because they want us to learn and to be better." As I have tried to learn to be better, and my lord had learned to be better, she thinks. I had once thought the gods were laughing at me; now I see I have had to learn some very hard lessons to be better.
Arya just looks at her a moment. "I don't understand how I am better, Sansa; I have only learned that I don't want others to hurt me, and that I can kill them if they do."
"You have learned to be strong, and to protect yourself and those you love: as any good mother would do for her children," Sansa reasons. "I know that you are good, and that you love your family: your children will be your family, Arya. I know that you will be a good mother," she assures her as she puts her arms around her and draws her near. Nymeria sits up on her haunches and leans over to lick her face.
Arya blubs a half-sob. "But I'm no good at sewing or picking out colors for dresses or fixing my hair pretty-"
Sansa laughs lightly. "You'll have a maid, and a nurse for the children; doubtless Harrion will insist for his lady. A child will make him so happy, Arya: an heir to Karhold." She rocks her slightly now to soothe her: her fearless sister who is afraid. "And please, do not think that you have to be like me or like Mother to be a good wife and mother: we have made our mistakes, and hopefully we have learned from them. Don't stop yourself from being happy because you are afraid that you are not perfect or everything is not right somehow…I did that, though I did not realize it for a long time. Make it right, Arya; as I have learned to do, and will keep doing for as long as I can."
"Promise me…" Arya ventures quietly.
"Anything, Arya."
"Promise me…if anything should happen to me, or to Harrion, promise me that you will take my children…and not Mother."
Sansa nods her understanding. 'I promise, Arya; and I promise they will be just like you."
Arya sputters a short laugh. "I was hoping you could do better than that!" She throws her arms around Sansa's waist and they laugh together now.