Young Eddard sighs and very nearly rolls his eyes as he slumps in his chair in the solar.
"No more poetry, Mother…please," he adds.
Sansa gives him a steady, measuring look and then closes the tome she is holding in her lap. "Very well, Eddard. I believe that is enough for one sitting," she agrees. "Why don't you find your father?"
"He's already here!" the Greatjon exults as he walks into the solar. "What do you need, Eddard?"
His son squirms and looks sheepishly at his mother. "I don't think I like poems, Father," he confesses uneasily.
"Well…I don't know that I like them either, boy; but ladies like them and the day will come when you want to say pretty words to them, so let your mother teach you some fine manners," he winks playfully at Sansa.
"Da!" Serena calls abruptly and pouts.
"Yes, Serena, I see you there. Come give your Da a big kiss," he holds out his arms and she runs giggling to him. "Oof," he exclaims as she squeezes him tightly, "my girl is getting bigger."
"Yes, she is," Sansa smiles, "I think that mayhaps it is time that you both learn some dancing."
Young Eddard groans.
"That is enough, boy," his father chides him, "you will respect your mother."
"But dancing is for girls," he complains.
"Well, who do think the girls dance with, boy? Besides, your great-uncle Mors is quite the spirited dancer when they strike up a spinning skirl: sweeps the girls right off their feet, he does."
"…whether they like it or not," the Smalljon adds wryly as he walks in behind his father. "Hello, little sister: have you a kiss for me?"
Serena swings her arms and tilts her head at her big brother: "May-be."
Sansa rises gracefully from her chair. "Speaking of your uncle, my lord, I needs meet with him regarding the stores," she remembers now. "Oh, I fear that I may have kept him waiting. Forgive me, please."
Her husband smiles as she passes him, and she flushes to know that he will watch her walk away but she still slows her walk for his enjoyment before hurrying towards the North tower once she reaches the hallway. She is humming as she arrives, and she carefully lifts her skirts with one hand and places her opposite hand into the handholds as she climbs the steps to the storeroom.
"'Bout time," the big man grumbles, "I thought you weren't coming." He appears to be sweating despite the cold air in the tower room.
"Forgive me, I- oh!" Sansa suddenly sees the wilding man Tormund slumped to the floor near a barrel and runs to him.
"What's happened? Is he hurt?" she asks, but the wildling does not respond to her shakes as Mors only stands by looking down on him with the fierce hatred he holds for all wildlings. "What have you done to him?" she accuses now.
"Just sweetsleep in his ale; he'll wake," he tells her dismissively and then steps towards her, "but you won't."
"What…what do you mean?" Sansa feels suddenly threatened by his looming presence and his determined expression.
"They won't listen to me. The wildlings are dangerous…and they're letting them in everywhere…even here at Last Hearth. It has to stop." He pauses and takes another step towards her. "I'm the only one who sees it…so I have to be the one to do it."
"I don't understand," she quails and begins to back away from him. "What is it you mean to do?"
He bends now and takes a large dagger from the belt of the drugged wildling, and Sansa catches her breath to see the glint of the wide sharp blade.
"He'd kill for you," he explains calmly and firmly, and she knows he is referring to her husband. "I expect your lord brothers will too: the Warden and the Lord Commander. If you die and they believe he did it," he points to Tormund with the point of the dagger," they'll kill him. They'll kill them all…and we'll be rid of them."
He's gone mad, she realizes, mad from loss and grief and anger; and yet he seems perfectly normal and rational, almost too much so. But the hardness of his one dark eye is chilling to her. It looks as dark as the chunk of dragonglass in the other socket. She swallows hard as he moves towards her slowly, and creeps toward the door behind her.
"But…but my lord…my children," she cannot help saying feebly, hoping that it will stir his conscience, or his sanity.
"They'll be looked after," he tells her calmly, "and the lord can marry again. This is the only way-"
"No." She begins to turn away and flee but he is on her, swiftly for such a big man, and has he her by her hair and is pulling her back towards him.
"Keep still, girl, and it will be over quickly," he commands tightly. "It'll hurt more if you fight-"
She screams with all the breath in her body, and kicks her feet as he lifts her with his free arm and tries to drag her back further into the room. Her foot hits his shin hard and he drops her, but before she can right herself he pushes her hard against up against a wall and presses his forearm mercilessly against her throat. Sansa gasps and fights for air.
"I'll cut you after if that's easier," he says close to her face. "He needs have your blood on him-"
He means to cut me, to kill me. Gods help me, help me, please!
She struggles to pull his arm away from her neck, and kicks at him again put his feet are planted wide apart on either side of her.
He grunts from his efforts. "They say you Starks are hard to kill," he mutters in frustration and he finally draws back the dagger to plunge into her.
Just then, her knee connects sharply with what is between his legs and he doubles over in agony and drops the blade to the rough wooden floor with a dull clank.
"Ow! Aaarrrgh! You. Wolf. Bitch."
He holds his hands together over his breeches and moans as Sansa scrambles on her hands and knees gasping for air and reaches for the dagger and throws it out the door of the storeroom. She tries to crawl after it before Mors can recover and pick it up again. She tries to scream or call for help but she has no voice; she can only gasp desperately for air and hope that her vision does not blur from the tears of pain stinging her eyes.
My lord, my love: help me!
There is no one to help her, she realizes as she crawls to the landing of the stairs just outside the door, and the long view down to the floorboards at the bottom suddenly fills her with dread; but she sits back on her heels and makes to rise and run when he is behind her and grabs her by the back of the collar of her dress. A vision of the staring eyes and laughing faces of the court at Kings Landing when she was stripped and beaten flashes before her and a flood of hot anger at her own helpless humiliation fills her with a desperate determination.
NO! The shout is only in her mind but it is great and strong and deafening to her senses.
She hears her collar rip as she turns her body and she is face with the madman's knees in his patched breeches, but she grabs a tight hold of his leg with both arms and lifts his foot out from under him and he totters and flails his arms and opens his mouth but no sound comes out. Then he loses his balance and tips headlong into the stairwell, falling against the stone steps with all his weight behind him and there is a solid thud and a sickening crunch followed by another thud and another and finally a dull thump and a dead silence.
At first she can only hear the drumming of blood coursing in her ears and then suddenly the harsh rasp of her own strangled breathing and finally a great sob of despair.
"Gods," she whimpers, and crawls to the edge of the steps to look down where he is lying a tangled heap, perfectly still. The angle of his head on his neck is horrible to see, and though Sansa knows that he is dead, she is still terrified that he will rouse himself and stand and try again to kill her. She clings so hard to the stone landing that her nails scratch and break and she sniffles shakily. She does not know how long she is there when she hears the Greatjon call her name.
"Sansa? Sansa!"
She hears his pounding footsteps and then he appears at the bottom of the steps next to the body of his uncle, and he looks at it and up to her in alarmed confusion.
"Sansa…what's happened? Are you hurt?"
Though he is speaking to her, he leans over the body of the dead man and furrows his brow in concern. When she does not answer him, he climbs the steps towards her slowly and carefully. She is still wheezing for breath and shaking and crying quietly. When he reaches her, he hears her laborious breaths and leans over closer.
"Sansa, can you speak to me?"
"Ugn, mph," are all the sounds she can make as she shakes her head quickly, and the painful movement of her neck makes her choke and cough.
Now there are sounds of footsteps coming from above and the Greatjon turns his head and stands.
"Smalljon, fetch the master. Hurry, there's been an accident."
"Lady Umber?" his son asks and runs down until he sees her.
"Yes, and your great-uncle. Hurry now and tell no one."
"H-ha," Sansa breathes and motions towards the storeroom.
"What is it, Sansa? Is there someone there? Did they do this?" her husband asks threateningly now.
She shakes her head vigorously again, and Lord Jon steps into the room to look.
"It's Tormund," he calls, "and he is passed out cold."
"Sansa, did he do this?" the Greatjon asks her. "What's happened to him?"
She takes several deep breaths and whispers weakly: "S-sweets-slee-eep."
"Sweetsleep? Where did he get sweetsleep?" he asks his son as he emerges from the room.
Sans points down the steps and gasps: "A-ale."
The Greatjon kneels next to her and puts a soothing hand on her head as his son heads down the steps and kneels to peer at Mors before glancing back up at them. "He put sweetsleep in Tormund's ale?"
"Get the maester: now," his father orders, and his son turns and runs.
Sansa is still looking down at the dead body and suddenly it hits her: I killed him. I killed a man. She wonders how she is to live with that, and how his family can ever forgiver her. Her husband is putting his hands on her shoulders now.
"Sansa," he speaks gently, "can you sit up? Let me see if you are hurt, Sansa: let me help you."
She sits up slowly and looks at him. Her hair is loose and falling in her face and she can feel the snot dripping from her nose and feels herself quiver and hears herself sniffle and gasp.
"S-s-ore-ee." Her voice is a thin whisper, a feeble whistle of breath; and her husband is looking at her darkly.
"Your neck is all red, and your gown is torn: who did this?"
She nods down the steps feebly.
"Mors? Why?"
Tears fill her eyes again and she raises her hands to her face but he takes her hands in his and holds them tightly.
She struggles to get the words out: "K-kill…t-tried k-k-kill…"
"Mors? Tried to kill who: Tormund? Gods be good, why am I surprised… Did you try to stop him, Sansa? That was very dangerous-"
She shakes her heads again, and she fleetingly wonders if it is better that he not know the truth. But she knows that she has lied enough to him already, and she does not want him to think the man Tormund in any way responsible for what has happened.
"N-no," she manages in a choked hush, "k-kill…me."
His eyes widen in shock then his brow furrows deeper. "Kill you, Sansa? But why should Mors try to kill you: it's the wildlings he hates…hated-"
Tears well up in Sansa's eyes again. "Kill me…s-say T-t-tormun'." She slips her hand out of his and touches her fingertips to his chest. "You…kill him…wil…wildlin's…" When he only stares at her, Sansa fumbles behind her clumsily until her hand closes on the wildling's dagger. "Kill me wit'," and she nods to the storeroom.
He is staring glassily at her now, and his eyes stray to the big, sharp dagger in her hand and suddenly he exhales hugely and throws his hands up over his face.
"Oh gods be fucked from here to the Wall!" he exclaims loudly as he rocks his body. "Sansa! Sansa! He almost killed you! I never thought this could happen," he throws his arms around her and pulls her close, heedless of her injuries, and cradles her protectively as he continues rocking them together. "Gods, my Sansa! Forgive me, I- I never could have thought he would-" He exhales in a rush again and shakes his head helplessly.
Sansa wriggles to lessen his grip on her and looks up at him.
"'Push 'm o'er. S-sorry," she whispers again, "sorry."
"Gods, Sansa, it's not your fault. I'm supposed to protect you and…and I've failed again! Blast me…and him! Gods, what was he thinking?"
"Hate…h-hate w-wildlin's…S-sorry…I…k-kill 'im," she tells him shakily, "d-didn' mean…did'n' wan' die…leave you…chil'ren…"
The Greatjon swallows his grief visibly. He takes her face in his hands tenderly, and leans his forehead into hers.
"I don't want you to die either, Sansa; or leave me…or the children," he tells her in a voice choked with emotion. "You did right to save yourself, and the wildling. We have years together, Sansa…Remember? Don't you leave me; and I promise I won't leave you."
She sobs once now, faintly. "Love you," she whispers shakily.
"I love you too, my Sansa," he murmurs and takes her in his arms again.
She closes her eyes to savour the warmth and strength and the protection of his love; and when she opens them again, she sees his son, Lord Jon, at the bottom of the steps staring up at them with stony eyes.