"By order of her Grace, Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Roynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons~"
"Likes the sound of her own titles, don't she?" Uncle Hother observes sourly.
"The Lady Sansa Umber, Dowager Lady of the Last Hearth, will present herself at the royal court of the Red Keep in Kings Landing to attend the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms by the year's end-"
Lyanna gasps: "That is in but three moons!"
Sansa stops reading and simply looks at the scroll the maester had handed to her. Her hands shake now.
"There…there is no mention of my children….it only says that I may bring but one servant, and must pay for their keep," she tells them.
"And what does that girl know of children? She hasn't a one," Hother grumps again. "What kind of queen takes no husband and makes no heirs? It is said that she refuses all suitors."
"Aye, it is said that instead she marries them to other noble ladies," Lord Jon observes quietly.
Sansa looks at him but says nothing; instead Lyanna interjects.
"She cannot expect you to leave without your children, Sansa-"
"She should not expect you in Kings Landing at all!" Maege Mormont intones strongly. "Why you have not even mourned your late husband; and does the dragon queen know nothing of how you were treated in the Red Keep, or what they did to your lord father?"
"My father never returned from the South…nor did my Aunt Lyanna, my Uncle Brandon and my grandfather," Sansa recounts hollowly. "Nothing good ever comes of Starks going South…my-my lord said so himself."
Eddard comes to stand beside her. "I will protect you, Mother," he says determinately. "All of House Umber will fight and die for you…all of the North will fight!"
A silence follows, but Sansa already knows: she knows that houses and kingdoms fight for their liege lords, for their heirs, and sometimes for maidens. Houses do not fight for widows, unless she rules the castle; whole regions do not fight for dowager ladies. No one sings songs for the dowager ladies of vassal houses.
"Eddard," she begins sadly, "you are brave and strong...just like your father; but the queen has dragons, and an army of the Unsullied from Essos. I cannot defy the queen and her court; I will not bring down her wrath on House Umber or the North. We have lost so many from wars and fighting," she reaches to take his young face in her hands and shakes her head slowly at him. "I will not lose you as I have lost my father, and my brother, and your father's sons who were your own brothers, Eddard."
"Then I will go with you to court, Mother, and keep you safe," he insists, and Sansa sees his innocent face and pure heart and can only make one choice.
"No," Sansa insists passionately. "You will not, Eddard. You will not leave the North, and you will not go to court. My children will never suffer what I was forced to suffer, I swear it by the old gods." Her eyes fill as she speaks though, because she knows that this means that she will needs leave her children. My sweet babes, my lord's children who were to be my life entire.
Her son's face looks troubled now, and sad. "But…will you leave us, Mother?"
Sansa bites her lip in trepidation. "I- I fear that I have been given no choice, Eddard," she replies hoarsely. She looks around at the faces of her family and all she sees is pity and the reflection of her own helplessness. "I- Pray forgive me, please: I fear that I have no appetite." Then she stands and rushes from the solar. She passes Serena and Gretel who have washed their faces and braided their hair.
"Go to Lyanna please; I will sit with you after your supper," she advised them hastily and continues away from the solar.
"Go ahead now; I will speak with your mother," she hears Lord Jon tell them.
Sansa hurries towards her chamber and shuts the door before leaning against it.
"My lady? My lady?" he calls and knocks at the heavy door.
Sansa clasps her hand to her mouth and wishes that he would go away, as she wishes the whole world would go away and leave her in peace to live her life and raise her children and mourn her husband. Why?
"My lady…we needs speak; I will wait for you in your solar until you are ready," he tells her now and she hears his footfalls as he walks away.
She knows that he will do as he says; she drops her hand and turns to open the door. He is standing before the hearth fire when she enters and he looks so concerned for her that she feels contrite for not trusting him.
"Forgive me-" she begins.
"My lady, there is nothing to forgive: I have no doubt that your anguish is very great. I know well how you love your children. But…forgive me, my lady…but I believe I did warn you that this could happen," he reminds her.
Sansa shakes her head though. "I do not understand, Lord Jon."
"My father lived longer that I expected he would, and I am glad, my lady, that you had those years together," he placates her when he sees her nearly recoil from his words, the same words he spoke when she first returned to Last Hearth after the war against the Others has ended. "It was the strain on his heart, the maester told me after…after they took him to the crypt. His own father succumbed to it as well: he did not live to see fifty years, and I imagine that I may succumb to it in time as well. But this congenital weakness was hastened in my father by his time beyond the Wall, and by the illness that followed."
Sansa's eyes fill as she stares at him dully. What matter now how or why he died, she thinks: he is gone and I am left alone at the mercy of another queen.
"My lady…permit me to write to her grace on your behalf, and ask her for more time. I will explain that you needs mourn my father, and have time with your young children. It may give her reason to reconsider her command…or it may well be for naught….as I have said, this is like to be the wish of some man or other," he tells her with an almost-sneer. "Did I not tell you that some other man would want you; and that there would be no one to protect you? Prince Oberyn is at court. He is kin to the little queen, and sits on her council…as does Lord Tyrion, and other Southron lords. The young queen is known to marry off her more ardent suitors…but do not imagine that some have not asked for you, instead of her. You are a most desirable prize….my lady."
"But have no riches, no lands, and no claim. I am not a princess anymore….and I have no wish to marry again; why should she make me do so against my will?"
"Did you wish to marry my father?" he asks her bluntly, a painful reminder of her then reluctance to wed and her fear of his father, and of her role in this life as a pawn to be moved around at will…a will not her own. "You are a beautiful woman, and high-born and still young: you cannot but be expected to marry again. Your time in King's Landing may well have been a torment for you, my lady; but it would seem that you left them with a most favourable impression…for good or for ill."
…..
"You must understand, that this is a royal command…I cannot disobey the queen: that- that would be treason."
Sansa is trying to explain to her children that she must leave them. Eddard stands stoically, though his chin trembles; but Serena is angry. Sansa can see the hardness is her small face and the tension in her slender body and her closed fists.
"I- I explained to you at Winterfell, Eddard, that there would be things you would needs do in life that you would not like but that you would needs do anyway…because it is your duty. You are old enough to know this as well Serena-"
"No! No, you will leave us…like Da left us," her daughter shouts angrily, "that can't be duty: it can't!"
"Serena, your Da would never leave you. He did not want to die; he did not want to leave us: I know this because he told me. Serena, my sweet girl…my little bird…please understand that I am protecting you," Sansa pleads to her desperately. "If I do not go…then they may come for you, for all of us. I am doing what I must do to keep you safe."
Her daughter's eyes well up with tears. "You're going to leave, and you're not going to come back," she insists again. "Eddard says the queen will make you marry another man and he will take you to his castle and you will never come back to us," she sobs now.
Sansa is silent. She wishes that she could promise her children that she will return; but she know that it will not be able to decide her own fate. It will be in the hands of the queen, or whichever man to whom she is given: she will be someone's property, to do with as he wishes. Cersei was right: we are sold like horses to be ridden. This is how we are poisoned, by being treated as less than human.
"I- I am so sorry, my children. I would stay with you all the days of my life if I could, and I will come back to you if I can. I love you with all my heart." She looks at her son, her daughter and her little ward, Gretel and sinks ot her knees to gather them in her arms. They all cling to her, and they are all in tears now. "I am sorry," she whispers, "I am so very sorry."
….
"Please help me; I know that I have angered you greatly. ..but my children…my children have lost their father; must they lose their mother as well? Why must you punish me so? Have I not lost enough? Oh, when will you be satisfied that I am sorry? I am so very sorry for all that I have done-"
She stops and covers her face with her hands. The ancient weirwood stares emptily at her in the dusk of evening, vacant of any sympathy or help.
"Oh, why do I asks you?" she implores them in despair. "When have you ever heard or answered my prayers?" she dismisses the gods resentfully.
"What have I told you about bitterness, girl?" Hother demands to know now, and Sansa turns suddenly and rises from her knees from before the heart tree. "That only hurts you." He comes to stand before her now and looks the weirwood up and down before reverently placing his hand on the trunk of the tree. Then he turns back to her.
"You may be a Stark, you might've been a princess, and you were the Lady of Last Hearth…but do you really believe the gods watch what you do and reward and punish you for it? Gods don't do things to us; it's others who so things to us but it's the gods who guide us to do what's right, and give us the strength to do it. That's why they have roots that go deep: what's right is set deep into the lives of us Northern folks; and the leaves sprout and fall and sprout again, just as good and bad come and go in life," he finishes with a firm nod of certainty.
"Is it right to separate a mother from her children?" Sansa asks dully.
"'Course it's not," he affirms, "any more than it were right they took your father's head, or burned your grandfather alive; but that weren't the gods doing. Do you think that your family did some wrong that the gods punished them for it, or do you understand that it was others did wrong to them?"
"But how can the gods allow that?"
"I just told you, girl: the gods don't allow nor cause anything; they only give us the strength to bear what happens, and to go on."
Sansa hangs her head in defeat. "I do not think that I can be strong anymore."
"If you're done being strong then you're done living, girl: life needs you to be strong, and you have lived a lot already. Now you needs decide if you will go on living."
"But then I must leave my children, and go to court…to Kings Landing and- and the Red Keep; I feel that I would almost rather die than return there again."
"Well, then,,," he begins.
"It is a royal command," she tells him. "I cannot simply remain here, and defy the queen and her council. It would endanger all at Last Hearth."
'No, girl: you can't stay either."
"Then I must go," she reasons.
Hother twists up his hard, gaunt face and shakes his head at her. "Come with me, girl," he motions impatiently and stalks away from her.
Curious, Sansa follows him in the gathering dark despite his harsh talks and behaviour. She feels that he is the only person with whom she can speak without crying, because he will not indulge it. She stops with surprise to see that he is leading her to the crypt, and then she picks up her skirts and follows closely now. Hother takes a torch from the wall and walks along the rows of tombs until he reaches the Greatjon's and stops. Sansa's heart tightens and she feels even more lost.
"Why have you brought me here?" she asks desolately. "You said that I should not come and brood, that I should live my life…but now I shall have to live far from him and his memory as I will from my children."
"Do you know how your brother was made King in the North?' he interrupts her sharply.
She looks fondly on her husband's grave. "My lord declared him so," she replies.
"Aye, but do you know when and why?" He continues before she even has the chance to shake her head. "I weren't there; but the lord and Smalljon told us the story many times. It were after your father was put to death," he tells her bluntly, and Sansa winces to remember the horror of that day; but Hother goes on without noticing. "All those assembled felt there was only one course to follow: the lords of the North were telling your lord brother to declare the North for Renly, or to join with Stannis, to bend the knee to another and call him king; but the lord were having none of that. Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again, he asked them, and claimed his own king. He did what no one expected, made his own terms and changed the whole game right then and there," he finishes.
"You're telling me there is another way. Please, tell me what it is," Sansa implores.
"If I knew, I'd tell you, girl. I don't know; I'm just telling you that you got some other choice than the only two you see now…you just got to find it."
Sansa looks forlornly at him: she had thought for a moment that he had the answer to her dilemma, that he would tell her how to stay with her children at Last Hearth without defying the queen. She looks back to her husband's tomb. Would you could protect me now, my love; would I were as strong as you.
"I…I told him once….I told my lord that he was more clever than he let others realize, and he told me that it is advantageous to let others underestimate you."
"Well, there you go then: he had the right of it; now you just needs put that to use. They none of them know you, or do they?"
"Lord Tyrion may remember me; but I was a girl then. And Prince Oberyn," she squirms inwardly to remember how he looked at her, "he saw me as- as someone he would bed, by plying me with silks and jewels," she confesses.
Hother draws himself up in sneering indignation. "Then he don't know you; even I know that won't win you, girl. Would've thought it once," he admits and nods to her with grudging respect, "but that's not who you are. You're Northern, like your father was…like the lord was. Get your strength from that."
….
The weirwood tree is enormous and unfamiliar. Sansa needs look up to see the face: higher up, wider across and strange somehow; and all around is dark and vast, so that she does not know where she is.
You're of the North, Sansa; and you're the North to me, and you're strong though you're soft and gentle…
"My lord?' she asks hopefully as she turns around, but then she is no longer before the strange weirwood but in the North tower, where she once swore that she would never return, and Lord Jon is there with his back to her as he gazes out a window onto the North and she hears her own voice speaking to him from long ago:
We would have to run away, and leave Last Hearth…
And then she is in the North, in a field covered in snow with a single tall tree from which a dead man swings by a length of braided cloth, but it is not the dead huntsman that she remembers anymore but herself hanging from the branch and Sansa is so startled that she falls back onto the snow and gapes up at herself.
You could do it, she tells herself. You could do it right now.
"No, I can't: I love my children!" she cries out, horrified.
Cersei looks upon her as haughtily as a queen but her hair is silvery-blonde instead of golden and her eyes are not green but violet like amethysts.
Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.
Now her lord, her Greatjon is before her and smiling fondly at her and Sansa's heart fills with love and she feels safe again to be with him.
I never thought I would want to run away here with a lady…my own lady wife.
But then he is not before her, instead it is him tomb in the crypts before her and she shakes her head but a voice is telling her harshly:
You're Northern, like your father was…like the lord was. Get your strength from that.
You're of the North, Sansa…
We would have to run away…
You could do it…
Love is poison…
Poison...
… do it…
… the North, Sansa…
Get your strength from that.
Sansa wakes with a violent start and her heart hammers in her chest and her breath comes is laboured gasps. She is tangled in her bed linens and her brow is damp with sweat. She takes deep breaths to steady herself until she is calm. The moonlight streams in her un-shuttered window and she can see that the Greatjon's tunic has slipped from the bed onto the floor. She reaches for it now and holds it close to herself.
"I need your courage, and your cleverness… Give me your strength, my lord, for what I must do."
Sansa is calm now, and resolved. She must be strong. She knows what she must do.