Chapter 3
Her chesnut mare is impatient now. It must feel her own trepidation. Winterfell. She never went so far north before, never needed to. North is cold, harsh, her own clothing isn't made for it but her skin relish the snow that ease the heat she feels constantly in her flesh now. She never thought she would be here, watching the massive castle with her party waiting for her command.
She never thought Sansa would write her back. Never the less that she would get the invitation to come join her. After three tries letter burned in the hearth, the fourth had made it to Sansa with not much said in it, Margaery's diplomatie with a hint of personal longing barely there anyone would have to look for it to find it, in case her missive was intercepted on its way north. Apparently Sansa did receive the letter and found the personal aspect hidden in the words. Here, sitted on her horse, Margaery remembers the only two sentences she pured her heart into : I remember our walks, i remember you. Do you remember me ?
Loras is waiting next to her on his stallion, his posture one of Lord Loras Tyrell of House Highgarden. He finally came back to his title and the knight he is, but he certainly lost this haughty way of his. He's grown. Not bitter, thanksfully, but calmer. He knows to relie on his sister, and together they stand as a team.
They are here on official visit.
Joined to the somewhat personnal letter from Sansa to Margaery had came an other one, an official missive from the King in the North to the Lords of The Reach. Winter has come, as the letter from Jon Snow said in his curt efficiency, and with it is brewing war, a new one coming from the Wall. A war between the dead and the living. Of course, at first, Olenna dismissed the letter, only focused on avenging their family and the death of her son, assembling their armies to strike the Lannister bitch once and for all. Olenna does not care for the throne, she cares for her family, she intends to retaliate, to annihilate. The lion queen made herself a great enemy. Margaery shares this goal wholeheartedly, but she couldn't refuse Sansa, not after reaching out to her in the first place. She convinced her grandmother of the necessity to answer and go North. She wants to go there herself, and with Loras too, both because her brother is reluctant to leave her side since the Sept, and because the Lord and Lady of the Great House Tyrell need to see this pretended threat with their own eyes to believe it so.
Olenna dims it a waste of time but they ride fast and hard. They are fifty strong going on the North, enough of an escort, enough to bring attention too. No doubt the Queen Mother at the capital will know about their meeting. Even so, Margaery couldn't bare the thought of coming in desguise, open and vulnerable on the road. Not again, not so soon after fleeing King's Landing.
If Margaery is absolutly honest with herself, she'd admit she's here on personnal business, not on a political agenda.
With a glance to her brother to give her strength, she nudges her mount and descends the hill. Winterfell awaits.
/
It isn't easy, looking at those piercing blue eyes and the blank face they bare. The castle grates their guests with a line of three, a tall man with a scar around his eye, Jon Snow, a cripple man sitted on a chair in the yard, Bran Stark coming back from the dead, and Lady Sansa.
Margaery has an easy word and a practiced smile for them when they come down from they horses, she is so used to be Lady Tyrell, the Rose of Highgarden that she doesn't realise her mistake before her florish comes crashing down in front of her audience. This is not King's Landing. Far from it. The Starks are strong and taciturn here, and the whole square meets Margaery's voice with silence. Jon Snow, apparently proclaimed King in the North, offers few awkwards words of welcome then some servants show them the way to their rooms. The arriving is quick and over within minutes, and as Margaery fallows the domestic without trying to make conversation, she observes the activity in the court yard, men tending to the castle, to the weapons, to the horses. Training. Winterfell does feel like a battle ground.
For a moment she wonders if she can even speak the language of the North, because everywhere she looks is foreign to her, from the landscape to the very stones of the stairs.
« Your chamber, Lady Tyrell »
The servant opens a door and an other one rushes inside, puts her saddle bags on the chair next to a table before turning back and leaving. An other domestic shows Loras an other door in the same corridor, and Margaery is glad for it. Her brother will be close. She is silently gratefull to Sansa, the once young girl knows too well the need to keep family at arm's reach, and she extended the courtesy of this arrangement to her guests. A nice gesture that speaks a lot for Margaery, for it seems that somewhere behind the blank face and cold eyes Lady Sansa grated them with, her friend might still live.
The Tyrell sibblings don't stop in their rooms. With one look at Loras, Margaery turns to the old woman who showed her the chamber. She is about to ask for a meeting when the domestic speaks with a low rasping tone « They are waiting for you. Please fallow me. » At this point, Margaery isn't offended by the direct formulation, she only nods her consent. The woman turns around and leads them along cold hallways, then out by an opened passageway, then in again to an other part of the castle. Margaery hasn't change from her traveling cloths, the dust of the road still on her skin, making her feel ugglier than she is, but she wills herself not to care for it. Not here, when she sees the ethiquette isn't so much about being clean than it is about being ready.
Also, she is a lot less vain than she used to be.
When they come to the large room with tables on both sides and a large one on upper ground, she understands that this is to be the major place of events, ruling and such. The three Starks and Snow are already here, sitted at the higher table, the bearded one in the middle, the younger man at his left, Lady Sansa at his right. Margaery stops three steps down in front of them, neither too far neither too close, showing respect among House of the same rank and priviledges. Her brother standing at her right, she folds her hands in front of her while he nods slightly. Her head high, she curtsies, surprising them all. She is facing a King, yet she is still a Queen herself, by title and full right. The Iron Throne is hers. She curtsies slowly and not low, she does it not as a queen to a king. She shows reverence and respect while looking into Sansa's eyes directly. She hopes her message is clear when she straightens once again.
It isn't something she planed, it isn't a manipulation of politics, but somehow, watching Sansa's unyielding face and hardening stare, Margaery realises that the Lady Stark maybe only sees her as a puppet master, using people for her own gain. She cannot fault Sansa for it, not after everything that happened in King's Landing. She'll have to earn her trust.
So she waits. She doesn't want to be the first to talk, to use her words like she did so many times in the past. She knows Loras is unconfortable and intrigued by her lack of conversation, but her brother only waits with her. She is looking into blue piercing eyes and waiting for a Stark to say his mind, inviting Sansa with her gaze and a barely turn of her lips. She doesn't smile because her smile here isn't welcomed and she honestly doesn't know when was the last time she genuinely smiled to anyone outside of her own family. She doesn't want to give the Starks a fake grin, certainely not to Sansa. She can't. And then, she can't find it in her to smile truely, because there is nothing to smile about in this situation. They are standing in the ruins of a once happy family where the ghosts are haunting the grounds and screaming for revenge.
« Lord Tyrell, Lady Margaery, i know why you are here, i know what you lived and you are safe here. »
The cripple's words barely left his mouth that a snort comes from the left, from Sansa.
« Forgive my young brother, but i can not offer you safety, no-one can truely be safe in this world as i am sure we all know by now. »
« My sister is right » Jon Snow continues when Sansa doesn't seem enclined to go on. Margaery stays quiet. « What we can offer you is a hot meal and a room, and the protection of what is left of the North. We are growing strong again. »
« What i meant to say, brother, sister, is that no harm will come from us. We all have our tragedies to bear, me as any of you. I have seen what they lived and i can assure you » the young Stark stares hard at the Tyrell guests « No harm will come to you, Margaery, or you, Loras, from the Starks in this room. Our intentions are pure, we invited you here for a reason. »
Bran Stark's words meet silence while Margaery muses their meaning. There is something different, deep and wise about this young man, as if he is looking at them and truely seeing them. There is no condescension in his tone, he states facts like he would read a book. Like he is watching into their souls. They cannot hide from his eyes.
« Three-eye-raven » The words are whispers on her lips she didn't mean to say. They heard it in the quiet of the place.
« I am. Now. »
« Legends speak of you. Old legends... »
« They are all true. You know that i see. You know that i see you. »
« Sister ? »
« Loras » Margaery adresses her brother without averting her eyes from the table, from Bran Stark. « Do you remember the tales our nursemaid used to tell us about ? She was from the North. »
« She was ? Ulkia ? »
She doesn't say more, now is not the time. Loras seems to understand as well and doesn't ask any more.
« You see me. » The Stark cripple nods slowly in answer, eyes piercing her own. « Ulkia said the Three-eye-raven travels in the thread of time and sees anyone's past, present and futurs. Do you know what i did the night King Joffrey died and i was finaly alone in my chambers, away from preying eyes and ears ? »
She hears the intake of breath on her left, but never breaks eye contact with Bran Stark. For a moment he looks at her, then his eyes become white and Margaery feels him looking searching her soul. Loras gasps audibly and almost reaches out to her but a single finger lifted stops him and she lets the young man read her. No-one but herself knows what she did that night.
A few heartbeats later, the young Stark comes back from his travel and gives her a small grin. « You smiled. You looked out your window into the sea and you smiled at the waves that carried your friend Sansa out of the capital. You were happy, not angry for missing out on the throne and becoming queen, not even relieved at being free of Joffrey Baratheon. On that instant, alone in the darkness of your room, you dared to smile and murmur my sister's name softly to the wind to cary her home. In your heart, you knew she used the chaos to escape. You said 'Go home, Sansa', one hand pressed on your chest and the other one helping you stand with the balcony's rail. You stayed there, in the silence of your room, then you closed the window and went to bed, both happy and worried for Sansa, but also achingly sad to lose her. » He pauses a moment, weighting his next words with the care of the wise looking at her soul. « I believe it was the first time you really were lost » The way he looks at her, she knows he knows what was in her heart then. For the first time when Sansa was truly gone, she realised the depth of her attachement to her. When it was too late. « But you didn't let it stand. When morning came you had an other plan. »
Their eyes stay connected a little longer in the silence of the cold room. Margaery doesn't say anything to confirm his vision and he doesn't say anymore about what came next, they both know he sees and knows the truth. He will not say what he read into her heart, and knows what lays asleep that she never dared to awaken, not in the vicious capital and not even here now. She chooses to ignore that part of the memory. This was just a test, after all, not a moment meant for nostalgia and unecessary what ifs.
« It is true then. The legends are no more, they are reality. » She finaly speaks in the room. The Three-eye-raven doesn't respond, there is no need to, he is the living proof of it. « Did you see those you call the Night Walkers, beyond the Wall ? »
« I did, Lady Tyrell. » Jon Snow answers from his sit. « I fought at the Battle of Harhome. I saw the dead coming for us all. They are marching to the Wall, and soon they will pass through. »
Lord Commander Jon Snow of the Night's Watch looks at the Tyrell with eyes speaking of horrors and death.
« They are weakening the Wall's magic as we speak. Soon they will breach it and the dead will bring an end to the living in the Seven Kingdoms. » Bran Stark finishes with the voice of the seer he is. The Three-eye-raven, reader of the past, can he see the futur as well ? Are they doomed to this fate ?
« Lord Tyrell and i came here on behalf of our House to gauge the veracity of your letter. Our grandmother Olenna Tyrell thought your message was none-sense but i urged her to wait until my brother Loras and i could see with our own eyes the threat you wrote us about. I can not come back to my House without absolute certainty of the dead walking among us. We will have to see. They will believe us only then. »
« You can not be serious, Margaery ! Do you seriously believe this ? » Apparently Loras's will to let her lead this meeting is forgotten. Her brother isn't fallowing Margaery's reasoning, but his late thinking isn't new to her and doesn't surprise her. However now isn't the time to dispute and delay any longer. If the threat is real, and she is very enclin to think so, time is running out. She didn't survived King's Landing's multiple plots, three mariages, the cells of the High Sparrow and Cercei's wildfire to died now.
She turns to face Loras fully, breaking eye contact from the Stark family for the first time since coming here. She wants to keep talking with her hosts, to find her place with them, to warm herself into their coldness. There is something about this House, this family, that makes her want to be a part of it, for them to share they words and dreams with her. It is with effort that she turns to her brother, the southern knight of Highgarden, so much different from the northeners. The contrast is unsettling.
« Brother, you agreed to come here for this very reason. » Seeing the doubt in his eyes, she understands why. To him like to Olenna, those stories are just that, stories. He came north with her only to stay at her side. He always lets her lead and rule, he trusts her judgment. That is why they are here instead of leading the charge south, but he is not convinced. « If you don't believe Bran Stark for his words, ask him a question about your past only you know the answer about. Do it now or trust me when i say he is what he says he is, and if he is then other legends might as well be true. » She sees Loras hesitates, his scared face contracts with a frown he can't really form anymore. His lips pinch and he stares at her, reading her. They have been best friends since birth, he knows to read her, her false masks and her real identity behind it. It takes a moment for him to finaly nods to her, slowly, his eyes saying that once again he trusts her judgement and he will stand by her side. She answers him with a little smile that diseappears as she turns to the King in the North.
« When can we go ? »