The snow has been falling for days and the servants in Winterfell have needed to shovel paths through the yards and between all the buildings. Guardsmen walking the walls push off the show that has gathered between the crenulations to see even though they all report there is little to see but more snow. Even the winter town is quiet and few venture forth except to get their bread from the baker and their ale from the brew-master.
Sansa spends her days in the nursery with her daughter or attending her son's lessons and in the queen's chambers sewing with Roslin and her mother. Her evenings after their meal are now spent in the maester's turret studying books on childbirth and other tracts on women's illnesses. Maester Luwin has brought them for her from the Library Tower, rightfully believing that Septon Chayle would refuse her their use. The maester had gently resisted her interest as well until she had appealed to his practical nature.
"Surely if this war should continue into another Long Night, we cannot know who and what knowledge will survive, Maester Luwin."
He had acquiesced on the condition that she only read the books and scrolls in his tower, to which she complied with her own condition that Berena be permitted to consult with her. After a hesitant pause, he had agreed.
This night, however, she is reading alone as the maester checks on the many in sick bed with colds and chills and fevers. Because the fevers are infectious, Arya had needed to tell the maester and her mother about her pregnancy. The maester had summarily confined her to her own chambers until such time as there was less sickness in the castle, and Arya has been loudly complaining behind her closed door ever since.
Sansa moves a lamp closer to the drawing that she is examining, and she is so engrossed in her study that she does not hear the maester enter.
"Do you have any questions about what you are reading, my lady?" he asks.
Sansa raises her head now. "More than I can put into words, Maester Luwin, though none seem to be addressed in these books," she tells him.
"Alas, my lady, there is still a great deal we do not understand: we know what we observe and what we have learned from others and from the works of the maesters of the Citadel," he nods to the book open before her, "but there are still as many unanswered questions as you have discovered for yourself, most especially about the beginnings of life."
Sansa glances back at the drawing before her. "Did you cut people open at the Citadel, Maester Luwin?"
"Corpses, my lady: it is how we learn the inner workings of the human body to better serve the living." He also glances at the detailed drawing of a woman's abdomen and organs cut open and identified and he furrows his brow. "I wonder if I have not done you a disservice to permit such study; it is most indelicate a matter for a high-born lady," he tells her.
"Does not every woman, high-born and commons, have the same insides? And so how can a woman's insides be too delicate for a woman?" she questions him archly.
Maester Luwin's eyes seem to twinkle and he suppresses a smile. 'It would appear you have bested me, my lady: I have no answer to that." He pats her hand now fondly. "You forget that I have known you most of my life as a girl; and I forget that you are not a girl any longer, but a wife and a mother and a women grown; and quite a level-headed and competent woman at that. Mayhaps that should not surprise me since I oversaw your education with your mother and Septa Mordane; but you always seemed a bit too much with your head in the clouds to have turned out so practical, Sansa."
She looks down at her hands now. "My education took a very different turn when I lost Septa Mordane. Practicality seemed more…necessary after that,' she relates sadly.
"If I could have spared you all that…if we could have your father back, my lady-" he begins.
"We cannot," she replies quietly, "but I thank you for your kindness…and for helping me now."
He sighs ponderously. "As I have said, I only hope I am not mistaken. As I have also said, I would spare you any harm if I could; and harm can come to those with knowledge beyond their expectations…and the expectations of others," he warns her. "Whether it be the gods or men who decreed different stations and spheres for men and women, I will not presume to say; but it has been so for thousands of years and to discover what is outside of those…limitations can lead to dissatisfaction, unhappiness and even misery. It is oft times pointless and painful to throw one's self at the bars of our prison, even if they exist in our minds."
"Was Shiera Seastar a miserable and unhappy woman?"
He raises his eyebrows at her question. "Was she a woman to admire and emulate, do you think, Sansa? She never married, and took many lovers, including her own bastard half-brother."
"They say that she kept a great library, was vastly well-read and spoke many languages," Sansa reminds him.
"And so was reputed to practice the dark arts, my lady. Women of learning are often suspected of evil intent, and even midwives have been denounced as witches in parts of Essos and even Westeros when children are born misshapen or die for no apparent reason. Some are hanged and even burned."
Sansa thinks back now. "A man once said to me that sorcery was the sauce that men spooned over their own failures, to make it more palatable," she recounts. Tyrion Lannister had told her that when Joffrey had her beaten and stripped because of Robb's victory; but he had also warned her that his father would defeat Robb, and he hadn't. She wondered if he had called it sorcery then, before he fled into exile from Kings Landing.
The maester chuckles at that. "That may well be so, my lady; but it is still men who have the right to condemn who they please for sorcery, and midwives are sometimes seen as maegi: woods witches skilled in herb lore. Even the herbs they use to promote fertility or to impede it, or to treat other illnesses, are sometimes denounced as poisons."
"And moon tea," she questions, "is it not administered at times by maesters?"
"Moon tea has been proven efficacious, my lady; it is its uses and misuses that are questioned. Some women use it to hide their infidelities, or to lie about their innocence: this use is considered duplicitous, in the case of high-born women even treasonous," he intones.
"Treason," Sansa repeats softly. Her father had been beheaded for treason for questioning Joffrey's legitimacy.
"Rightfully so, my lady, if the woman is married to a king or a prince, or betrothed by a king's command. To willfully give up her maidenhead to another, or to couple with and carry the child of another is treason."
Sansa looks down again. "As…as Queen Cersei did," she observes. And as I did: I had been commanded to wed by King Robb.
"Exactly like Cersei Lannister," he dismisses her quickly. "Now in cases of women who are forcibly despoiled, or too young or too sick to carry a child: moon tea is considered a proper course of treatment. Though it always has its dangers: the later in the course of childbearing it is administered, the more dangerous it is: the bleeding it causes may be excessive and difficult if not impossible to staunch."
"And yet still safer than other, more desperate means, Maester," Berena says as she enters the turret. "Begging your pardons for having overheard," she adds respectfully.
"Of course, please be seated," the maester demurs graciously, and he nods again towards the books Sansa is reading now. "There is mention of dangerous means of attempting to miscarry: blows to the abdomen and …falls. Forgive me, Sansa," the maester murmurs, and Sansa nods silently. "And poisons."
"There's worse things than that, maester, practiced because none will help the poor girls and they end up dying all the same. Though some will say they deserve it; I say leave them to the gods. No woman risks her life lightly, to my mind; and it is not the place of a healer to ask what is in their hearts."
"I am a counsellor as well as a healer," Maester Luwin tells her now, "I do not take that trust lightly."
"Nor do I," Berena counters evenly. "But I know what it is to carry a child in circumstances both good and bad. I know what it is to watch them die for lack of things some take for granted. I have seen mothers and their babes die after hours and even days of laboring through blood and sweat and toil and pain. And I have seen girls and women so badly used that the sight of them would sicken the most battle-hardened man," she stares at him steadily to now.
The man bows his head graciously. "I am bested again; I have only heard of such things but thankfully been spared the sight. I cannot say if they would change my counsel, but-"
"Knowing that you don't know, maester," she tells him, "is more than some know."
He smiles his suppressed smile again and almost chuckles. "I leave you in good hands, Sansa," he says as he rises to leave. "But consider what I have told you: you have a happy life, and children; and the responsibilities of the lady of Last Hearth. You do not need to take on more than that." He nods to Berena and bows to Sansa before retiring.
Sansa smiles weakly at Berena and then looks back to her book.
"Is something troubling you, milady?"
"What – what you said about girls badly used…I wonder if I could stomach such a sight. Perhaps the maester is right: I am not meant for such work."
"You've seen some horrible sights, have you not, milady? And what you've said about this King Joffrey mistreating you: it takes strength, milady, to suffer and stand up again and even to stay as gentle as you are. I reckon you've no cause to doubt yourself; and may even have the strength to help others."
"I thank the gods that I was spared sharing his bed," she says plainly. "He would not have treated me gently; and he once threatened to have my head off if I gave him a stupid child. He always said I was stupid," she tells the older woman, who simply looks expectantly at her. She suddenly remembers her husband telling her how well she comforted the families of dead soldiers from Last Hearth; and even his Uncle Mors nodding approvingly as she counseled with him about winter rationing.
"I'm not stupid," she concludes, and pulls the open book back closer to the light again. Berena comes to sit beside her and, as she begins to explain the drawing in more detail, they hear the maester's footsteps coming down the stairs from the rookery. When they look up, Sansa immediately sees that he is holding a scroll and that he looks somber.
"My lady," he says gravely, "please come with me: we needs find the queen."
….
Roslin sits rigidly still in her armchair, with her hands clasped tightly together. She has abandoned her needlework, as has lady Catelyn. Sansa has come to the solar with Maester Luwin who still holds his scroll.
"F-from the Wall?" Queen Roslin asks him, the tremor in her voice belying her regal composure .
"A raven from the Lord Commander, my queen. Would you read it first, or shall I tell you all what it says?" he asks her quietly.
"If you would," Roslin prompts him.
"King Robb has not returned from beyond the Wall. He has been missing long enough that they have sent out rangings after his party. The Lord Commander has gone himself, and Lord Harrion Karstark and Prince Oberyn of Dorne each lead parties of Night's Watch men and wildlings to search for them," he tells the ladies.
Catelyn turns to her good-daughter and takes her hand. "Not returned leaves open many possibilities, does it not? Could they have simply returned to another castle on the Wall?"
"They have send ravens, milady; and as of their leaving for beyond the Wall, the king had not yet returned."
Sansa feels uneasy. "Surely my lord would also have also gone out to search for the king, Maester Luwin," she asks now.
He turns his head sadly to face her. "My lady…Lord Umber was one of the King Robb's party. He went with him beyond the Wall. He has also not returned."
Sansa sits staring while her heart clenches and turns cold inside her and all her breath slowly leaves her body.
No.
"Lord Jon Umber, the younger, is at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The Lord Commander writes that he has sent for him and for Ser Brynden Tully to come to Castle Black. I fear that is all the information I have, my lady." He turns to Roslin now. "My queen."
"Harrion will find them," Arya say suddenly from the doorway, and she looks around at them when they all turn to her. "He will not let me down, or my family." She looks straight at Roslin. "Harry will find Robb."
"My lady, you should be in your chambers," the maester reminds her.
"Nor will my uncle the Blackfish return without them: I have every confidence. They will be found. They will come back. Roslin. Sansa. You must believe that," Catelyn insists.
As your husband came back? Sansa wants to scream at her, or laugh hysterically at her, or fall to the floor and cry. But she cannot seem to do anything but sit. The hearth fire casts deep shadows into the corners and against the walls and Sansa feels surrounded by darkness. Then she feels a pair of hands take hers and looks at her sister on her knees before her, holding her gaze steadily with her serious grey eyes.
"He'll come back, Sansa. He's a great warrior. He killed the Mountain. The gods are not so cruel, remember?"
Sansa snatches her hands away. The gods are just…and they are punishing me, still.
"Valar morghulis…remember?" she says tightly to Arya.
Before Arya can reply, she stands so suddenly that her chair falls over behind her and she runs from the solar, ignoring the calls from her family to come back. Sansa runs through the hallways of the keep, turning corners and rushing headlong down stairwells and passing servants so swiftly that some lose their balance and drop trays and baskets. Still she races towards the doors leading outside of the Great Keep. She needs push with all her strength to open the door against the wind and the snowdrift as she struggles outside into the pathway through the yard. The wind is howling and it sends snow pelting into her face and her hair and onto her wool dress, making her shiver. The cold bites at her exposed skin, and her face and hands soon feel numb but still she presses on across the yard to the nearest gate into the godswood: a smaller wooden gate that she must push with all her might to open. She struggles now through the deep snow towards the weirwood: the ancient Heart Tree of Winterfell. She stops in front of the carved face, trembling and exhausted; and now she finds that she is crying.
"Why? Why must you hurt him to punish me?" she means to shout but she is whimpering softly, she realizes. "Take me instead, I beg you: I'll lie down here and die before you if you would only please…"
But she is sobbing too hard to finish, and so she lets herself fall over but as she does she is caught and lifted easily and held tightly against a fur-clad chest.
"HODOR! HODOR!"
Helpless, Sansa curls into him and lets herself be carried back into the keep.