The maester passes his fingers gingerly over Sansa's throat but she cannot help flinching even at this light touch. He grimaces to see her suffer and turns to the Greatjon.
"I fear there will be considerable bruising, my lord, and I would advise that Lady Umber not speak for at least a sennight. It is too soon to say if the very forceful pressure will have done any permanent damage to my lady's voice."
Sansa is startled to hear that her voice could be irreparably damaged, and her heart plummets inside her.
Mayhaps I shall never sing again, she thinks desolately. My lord and my children love to hear me sing for them.
Her husband sees her dismay and pats her shoulder gently to reassure her.
"You will heal, Sansa. All will be well again."
Sansa looks down to where Mors still lies at the bottom of the steps and shakes her head sadly. His brother, Hother, who has returned with Lord Jon and the maester, is also shaking his head.
"I don't know what the fuck- oh, excuse me, my lady," he says with unaccustomed solicitousness. "I can't imagine what was going through is head."
"He said nothing of this to you," the Greatjon asks sharply.
"Fuck, no- Oh," catches himself again. "He complained about the wildlings but when has he not? Said something needed to be done but I thought he was just grumbling as he always has. Who would have thought he would have tried something this- this- this was madness! We all knew you'd kill for your lady, but I never thought he intended to put it to the test." He turns to the Greatjon again: "What's to be done with him, then?"
Lord Jon clears his throat and looks to his father. "Best everyone else in the castle thinks he fell," he advises in a low and steady voice. "He can't hurt anyone else now so why stir up talk and bad feelings? There may well be others with grudges against the wildlings: they were our enemy for longer than they have been our allies, after all. We don't want all this to have the outcome he intended," he warns them quietly.
The Greatjon ponders his words but when Sansa nods to him he makes up his mind. "Alright then: this stays between us alone…forever," he intones the last word firmly. He sighs resignedly now. "Bring some men to carry to the hall to be laid out; if it's to be an accident, he'll needs be shown every respect as an Umber."
His uncle Hother looks at him almost reproachfully now. "He wasn't always like this," he reminds his nephew.
The Greatjon stares regretfully down at the broken body at the bottom of the steps. "I know," he concedes quietly.
Sansa tugs lightly on his sleeve now and, when he turns to her, points into the storeroom.
"How's the wildling?" he asks the maester now.
"Oh, I cannot truly say until he wakes, my lord; I do not know how many drops he was given. He is breathing normally and his colour is healthy enough," he replies unconcernedly. "It may be some time before he wakes: sweetsleep can bring on a deep and prolonged sleep."
"Where would he have got it, then?"
"I keep my store of remedies well locked, my lord," the maester replies with a hint of defensiveness. "It is not possible that he obtained it from another source?"
He glances at Hother who simply shrugs. "It would seem we will never know. My thanks, maester. Take Lady Umber to our chambers, would you? I will needs stay here until they come for him and explain what…what happened." He offers his hand to Sansa now as she stands and takes both of hers in his great grip. "Sansa…forgive me but we will needs tell the castle that you have suffered a shock to have seen him fall…it is the only way to explain why you are not speaking," he explains to her. "You will needs cover your neck as well somehow: have your maid help you."
She shakes her head now and turns his palm over when he looks confused. She traces a letter B with her fingertip, and then again until he understands.
"Berena?" he asks, and she nods. "Aye," he agrees, "we can trust her. Maester, please send Berena to my lady and tell her what happened…what truly happened here; and let her tend my lady. Go with him now, Sansa. I will be along when I can."
…
Berena follows the maester's directions for once. She has Sansa lie down with warm compresses held to her throat, and she brings her honeyed tea and mulled wine and broth to drink until she feels able to chew and swallow without difficulty. The older woman helps her to dress in high-necked woolen gowns with embroidered scarves around her neck, and Sansa is grateful that she is to appear to be in mourning and that it is still Winter so that she is not too warm under all the cloth that covers her slender throat.
She joins her husband and children and other members of the family and castle to stand vigil for Mors in the Great Hall of the Last Hearth. The maester had done his best to re-align his head on his neck but Sansa can barely bring herself to look at him and, though she desperately needs the comfort of her husband's strength, she refrains from tucking her hand into the crook of his arm as they stand side-by-side at the head of the table and later in the crypts as he is buried in the vaults that line the stone walls, all with the name UMBER carved into the granite markers.
Both my lord and I will be buried in these crypts one day: side by side, she cannot help thinking, and her need to touch him is suddenly even stronger.
He has had little time to spare in her company in the days immediately after Mors' death. There are carpenters and stonemasons to deal with, and without her voice Sansa cannot help him. He comes to their bed late and crawls in naked beside her and sets to snoring almost immediately as Sansa lies awake with her terrible memories and worse dreams. The hour of the ghosts is precisely that for her as both Mors' face while alive and his body when dead appear whenever she closes her eyes. Sometimes she inches closer to the Greatjon and he huffs and snorts and draws her into his arms and resumes snoring, protecting her even though he is scarcely awake. She is comforted for a while and finally sleeps, but he is gone when she wakes again, having risen to join the garrison in the training yard.
Hother has been given full charge of the castle in his brother's place and has needed consult with her briefly, carefully limiting his questions or comments to those requiring only yes or no answers so that she can nod or shake her head in reply. On his next visit, he brings her a wax tablet to write on, and she smiles at his thoughtfulness which she had never expected of him: she has killed his brother and his constant companion and drinking partner. She bites her lip to write her first lines to him.
I am so very sorry for what happened.
The big old man blinks, embarrassed, and replies to her: "I'm sorry myself, my lady. I didn't know how bad his anger had gotten…to have tried to do the thing he tried. I wish…he was my brother…I wish he'd told me." He nods resolutely now. "He should have told me: I'd have straightened him out. Well, there's no fixing it now. Got to keep going is all," and he sniffs and nods again, and Sansa realizes just how much he misses his brother and wishes that he could have helped him beyond sharing tankards of ale and engaging in bawdy talk and jests. His pain might be as great as Mors 'ever was. And she wonders why so much that she touches seems to end in struggles and death.
She is brooding on this very thought when Berena comes to bring her another warm compress. She taps her wax tablet so that Berena will read it. She knows the woman only has a rudimentary grasp of her letters, and so she writes simply.
Why men hate me?
Berena reads and understands and says: "It weren't you old Mors hated, milady, t'were the wildlings," she reminds her. "If anything, he tried to…to hurt you because the lord loves you."
Sansa writes again: A letter J next to a drawing of a crown, and beneath it a kraken with a line through its neck to signify a head cut off.
"That'll be meaning King Joffrey and the Greyjoy man who tried to take you," she asks and Sansa nods. "Well, milady, what I know of men is that what they can't have, they hate; and what they hate, they wants to destroy. Those men wanted you, and couldna have you, and so they tried each in their way to destroy you."
Sansa is confused, and she points to the tablet again and to herself and then make the motions of donning a cloak and reluctantly pats the bed on which she is sitting.
"You're sayin' that they woulda wed and bed you, milady? No matter: you wouldna ever loved them, or looked to them as protectors…and they'da knowed it and hated you for it, no matter how much they'd a come to your bed for you. They'da had your body and made you have their children, but they'da never had your heart."
He wants you to love him…and fear him. The words spring to her mind unbidden, a distant memory brought forth by Berena's words, and she understands them both now: the old nurse and Joffrey's sword shield. But she does not understand why.
"You know how in wars, men don't just take a city, but they sack it? I've never seen it, gods be good, but I've heard the tales: folks put to the sword and cities put to the torch and naught left to remember that anything ever stood before then. They takes women as well, from what I've heard: tryin' to make them theirs too. It'd be like they canna stand that all that were someone else's once, and not theirs," the woman tried to explain. "They needs be the only ones ever; and so they needs destroy first, and then build the ways they wants it.
Sansa is remembering Cersei's sly warnings of what Sansa and the other ladies in Maegor's Holdfast could expect if King's Landing were sacked; and she thinks of how the Targaryen children were murdered so that none were left alive to challenge her father's friend Robert's claim to the throne of Westeros. She shuts her eyes and shudders to remember; and to think that men should see her that way: as a thing to be taken, destroyed and rebuilt as they want. When she opens them again, she sees Lord Jon standing in the doorway of her chambers. It is clear from the look on his face that he has heard Berena's words; and he is looking at Sansa now with a combination of contriteness and sympathy. He bows his head almost penitently to her.
"Forgive me, my lady: I was searching for you and the children…to say farewell," he intones with dignity.
Farewell? She furrows her brow and shakes her head, to show that she does not understand.
"I will accompany Prince Oberyn and Tormund Giantsbane back to the Wall early tomorrow…along with soldiers and sledges that will return with the children now at Castle Black. Father has also charged me with finding Mors' daughter and telling her of…of his passing. Tormund will help me to locate her there among his people."
Sansa nods now and picks up her tablet to write and then turns it towards him.
Please give her my sympathy; and pray tell her that she is welcome to return to Last Hearth at any time, and she has added beneath: with my lord's leave.
Lord Jon nods formally now. "Father has said the same, my lady…you are of one mind," he adds firmly, and Sansa does not know how to reply, even if she could. "I wish to speak to my little brother and sister, as I may be gone some time and will not be like to return with the orphans. I may go west from the New Gift to the mountains to visit the First Flints," he tells her. "I would also ask if you would receive Tormund Giantsbane before he must leave. He has been told of what happened in the North tower." He mentions the place to her without emotion: the place that once meant so very much to both of them as the refuge for their love. He continues speaking: "He has expressed a desire to thank you, and to pay his respects…such as they are for a wildling," he adds with a wry twist of his mouth.
Sansa nods and he bows again.
"You'll find Lady Serena in the nursery with milady's maid to watch her. Young Lord Eddard is like to be with your lord father," Berena tells him politely, and he bows his gratitude to her as well.
"I thank you, Berena," he says pointedly and nods thoughtfully to himself as he is leaving.
The wildling Tormund arrives some time later, as Berena is helping her to wrap up her throat in scarves again, and he sees the livid bruises left my Mors's attempt to kill her and sucks in his breath.
"Hard to see, that, most on a pretty lady; though I'd seen spearwives killed outright. Some cut clean in two…and wights that weren't but rags and bones," he says loudly. "Don't be showing me no letters: har!" He waves away the wax tablet as she picks it up to write. "I'm no maester with any learning: runes'd be all I can read and understand. The Old Tongue'd have little written down anyways," he explains as he comes to stand before her, and he shakes his head as she starts to rise.
"Don't you be standing for me neither," he orders as he looks down on her over his great belly. "You might be the first I ever thought to kneel to…but I won't, har! What you did…you saved me, and the rest o' us living on this side now. We won't forget that. I won't forget that. You'd be as brave as that crow brother o' yours; and much prettier too, har! It'd be like they say: the North remembers, and we're more North than even you Starks and Umbers."
He winds down, and seems unsure of what to say without a response. Sansa taps her tablet again to have Berena's attention, and the nurse walks over to see what she has written.
Children. "Children," Berena tells him and looks to Sansa. Sansa puts her hand over her heart, and then hugs herself closely.
"You'll care for them well, you're promising me," the wildling confirms. "That I know; I'll be owing you Starks everything before you're done with me…I hope I never chance to meet more o' you, har!" He laughs at his jests and she smiles for him. Then he bows his head to her as he has seen men in the castle do: this concession to their formality, and this gesture to her, is sincere, she knows.
Once he has left, and Berena after him, Sansa rises to walk back to her chair next to her sewing basket but is startled by a shadow in the doorway and instinctively her hand flies to her throat in fear.
"Forgive me, my lady," Prince Oberyn speaks smoothly now. "I would have knocked but the door was left opened. I assure you that I will not intrude into the chamber belonging to you and your lord." Though he speaks reassuringly, he nevertheless glances towards their great bed: large and long enough to fit the Greatjon and covered in soft furs and piled with richly embroidered bolsters, all of them in Sansa's own needlework. His smile is too satisfied for her comfort and so she keeps her hand at her throat since it helps to keep her arm drawn across her body. Her other arm hugs herself around her waist.
Prince Oberyn notices her stance and smiles both appraisingly and admiringly.
"I wished to express my gratitude for your hospitality, my lady, and my pleasure that we should have finally met after having heard so very much of you from my daughters, and through reports from others," he tells her enigmatically and then narrows his eyes. "I know this will not be our only meeting, and I very much look forward to meeting again…someday soon, I hope." He glances towards the bed again. "You will like silks instead," he grins wickedly before making her an elaborately formal bow and sweeping away from her presence.
Despite the fact that she is standing nearer to the hearth, Sansa feels cold all over now. The crackling sound of burning logs offers no comfort, nor do the familiar surroundings and possessions belonging to her and to her husbands in their shared rooms of nearly more than five years now.
He wants you to love him…and fear him, she remembers again.