They had road from Winterfell to the edge of a small holdfast. There had been twenty in all who had come from Winterfell to see the deserter beheaded. They stood in just behold the holdfast walls next to a great Iron Wood stump where the execution was going to take place. Bri was nervous to say the least. She was finally of the age at which she could accompany them to see the Queen's justice done. Bri sat tall on her pony between Becca and Joanna on their horses as the prisoner was dragged before her lady mother. He was a scrawny young man not much past twenty with one ear missing from frostbite. His clothes were all black every last stich, the sign of one who has taken the black. Her lady mother asked the prisoner question to which he answered dutifully. Bri watched her mother closely the entire time. Her steel grey eyes looked grim about her stern face. Her jaw held loosely to show neither joy nor sorrow just a cold desperation to be done with the task ahead. She looked so different from the woman who would sit with her children in the evenings by the fire and softly tell them stories of the age of hero's and the children of the forest. She's taken off mothers face, Bri thought, and put on Lady Stark's face. Bri felt her nerves grow dull as Lady Elaine Stark called for "Ice", Thyra Greyjoy brought forth the great Valaryian steel blade of House Stark. When the blade was pulled from its wolf skin sheath the dark spell forged steel glistened in the light and rippled with a thousand folds, every movement of the swords shown in the pale of the sky's light .The sword was as broad as a man's hand and stood taller than Becca. The deserter was forced to his knees in front of a great iron wood stump. Lady Elaine placed her hands on the cross guard of Ice and spoke,
"In the name of Rebecca of the House Bratheon, First of her Name, Queen of the Andals the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and protector of the realm. I, Elaine Stark Lady of Winterfell and Warndeness of the North sentence you to die." Bri felt her heart pounding in her chest as her mother moved into position beside the prisoner.
"Don't look away." Joanna whispered softly down to her, "Mother will know if you do." Bri did not look away as Lady Elaine lifted the sword above her head and brought it down in one clean stroke. The man's head rolled away from his body as blood rushed from his neck staining the snow red as summer wine. Bri couldn't seem to look away from the blood stained snow as the head bounced off the ground towards Greyjoy's feet. Thyra was a lean dark girl of twenty and found everything amusing. She laughed and kicked the head away.
"Ass." Joanna hissed low enough that Thyra would not hear her. She placed a hand on Bri's shoulder, Bri looked up at her bastard sister. "You did well." Joanna said solemnly, she was eighteen and had seen the act of justice be done a multitude of times throughout her years. Bri couldn't seem to take her eyes away from the blood till Becca ruffled her hair playfully.
"Come one Bri let's go home." The ride back to Winterfell seemed longer and colder than the ride to the execution. Bri pulled her fur trimmed cloak about her a bit tighter as her pony trotted along struggling to keep up with her sisters horses. They rode well ahead of the main column, Joanna and Becca chatted idly for a time till Becca challenged Joanna to race to the bridge.
"Done." Joanna said as she put her heels into her horse and bolted away. Becca cursed and gave chase. They bolted down the trail with their horses kicking up the last summer snows, Becca laughing and hooting while Joanna was silent and intent. Bri did not bother to give chase there was no way her little pony would match their horses. She did allow her pony to slow to a walk. Soon Becca's laughter died away and the woods returned to their silence. Bri was so deep in thought she didn't even hear the rest of the party catch up to her till her mother rode alongside her.
"Are you well, Bri?" She asked in a kind voice.
"Yes, Mother," Bri told her. She looked up to her mother. Wrapped in furs and leathers astride her great war horse, her lady mother looked like a goddess of old looming above her.
"Do you understand why I did it?" She asked in a gentle voice.
"He was a desert." Bri responded in a sure voice. Joanna had told her why the execution was going to take place when they left Winterfell.
"Yes that is true, no man is a dangerous as an oath breaker. A deserter knows his life is forfeit if his is captured, so he will not flinch from the crime no matter how horrible. But you misunderstand. I did not ask why the man had to die but why I was the one to do it." Bri puzzled over this for a moment but had no answer.
"Queen Rebecca has a headsman." She answered softly uncertain of what her mother would say.
"Aye she does." she admitted, "As the Targaryen Queens did before her but our way is older still. The blood of the First Men flows through our veins and we hold to the belief that the woman who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you take someone's life you owe it to them to look into their eyes and hear their final words. And if you cannot do that then perhaps they do not deserve to die.
"One day Bri you will be Lady of a holdfast and bannerman to Becca. And when those days come my girl justice of the queen will come to you. But always remember you must take no pleasure in this task but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind a paid executioner soon forgets what death is."
Just then Joanna reappeared from a bend in the road and shouted. "Mother, Bri, come quick! See what Becca and I have found!" and the disappeared back around the bend.
Ser Rodrik rode up then, "Trouble my lady?"
"Without a doubt," her lady mother said. "Come let's see what mischief my daughters have turned up now." With that she urged her horse into a trot with Bri, Ser Rodrik and the rest coming along behind her.
The girls stood on the north side of the bridge. The summer snows had been thick in the last moon turn and Becca was knee deep in white snow with something cradled gently in her arms. Her hood was pushed back and her long auburn hair was shining in the sun, while Joanna stayed mounted on her horse. The girls spoke in hushed excited voices as the rest of the party drew up.
The riders moved carefully threw the snows, searching for solid footing that lay hidden beneath the snows. Ser Rodrick and Thyra Greyjoy were the first to reach the girls. Greyjoy had been laughing and joking when Bri heard the breath go out of her.
"Gods" Thyra exclaimed as she struggled to keep her horse under control as she reached for her sword.
Ser Rodrik already had his sword out, "Becca get away from it!" He called as his horse reared under him.
Becca smiled looking up from the bundle in her arms. "Don't fret Ser Rodrik she can't hurt you," she said. "She's dead." At this point Bri was twitching in the saddle with curiosity. She would have spurred her pony on but her mother made them dismount and continue on foot. Bri leapt from her pony and ran ahead or ran as well as she could being nearly waist deep in snow.
By then Joanna, Thyra, and Ser Rodrik had all dismounted. "Gods what is seven hells is that?" Greyjoy was saying.
"A wolf." Becca told him.
"A freak you mean. Look at the size of it." Greyjoy said. Bri's heart felt like it was going to burst from her chest as she drug herself to her sister through the waist deep drifts. There she saw it. Half buried in blood stained snow a massive black and gray beast slumped in death. The smell of corruption clung to the beast as faint as a woman's perfume. Ice had matted the thick gray fur. Bri could see maggots crawling across blind eyes and long yellowed teeth but it was the size that made her gasp. It was bigger than her pony and twice as large as the largest hound in her mother's kennel.
"It's no freak." Joanna said calmly. "It's a direwolf, they grow larger than the other kind."
"There hasn't been a direwolf seen south of the wall in two hundred years." Thyra protested.
"I see one now." Joanna replied. That was when Bri tore her eyes away from the monstrous beast to look at the bundle in Becca's arms. She let out a squeal of delight and moved forward. The pup was a ball of black and gray fur, its eyes still closed. It nuzzled blindly at Becca's bosom as she cradled it, looking for milk amongst her leathers and furs, making a soft sad whimpering sound as it did. Bri reached out a hand hesitantly. "Go on." Becca encouraged. "You can touch him."
She gave the pup one nervous stroke. Then turned to Joanna as she said, "Here you go." Her half-sister placed a second pup in her arms. "There are five of them." Bri sat down in the snow holding the pup to her face. Its fur was soft and warm and the pup licked her cheek as it searched for milk. This made Bri giggle and hug the pup close to her chest.
"Direwolves loose in the realm after so many years," muttered Harriet, master of horses, "I like it not."
"It's a sign." Said Jory the master of the Starks house hold guard.
Lady Stark frowned. "It's just a dead animal Jory." But still she seemed troubled. She walked over to the beast snow crunching under her boots. She walked about the body inspecting it. "Do we know what killed her?"
"There's something in her throat." Becca said proud to have found the answer before her mother even asked for it. "Just under the jaw."
Her mother kneeled down in the snow and groped under the beast. She gave a yank and pulled out what appeared to be part of a shattered antler. There was nearly a foot of it with the tines broken off and wet with blood. Silence fell suddenly over the party as the men and women looked at the antler uneasily, and no one dared speak. Even Bri picked up on their fear yet she did not understand why it was there.
Her mother tossed the antler aside and cleaned her hands in the fresh snow. "I'm surprised she lived long enough to whelp." She said. He voice broke the spell that had settled over the party.
"Maybe she didn't." Jory said. "I've heard tales…Maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came."
"Born with the dead," Another woman put in, "worse luck."
"No matter," Harriet said, "they'll be dead soon enough anyway." Bri let out a worldless shout of dismay.
"The sooner the better." Thyra Greyjoy agreed. She drew her dagger from her belt. "Give the beast here Bri." The pup squirmed against her chest as if it had heard and understood what was to come.
"No!" Bri cried out fiercely. "It's mine!"
"Put away your dagger Greyjoy." Becca said. For a moment she sounded just as commanding as their mother. As the lady she would someday be. "We will keep these pups."
"It would be a mercy to kill them." Said Hannah, Harriet's daughter.
Bri looked desperately to her mother for rescue but all she got in return was a frown and furrowed brow. "Hannah speaks the truth. Better a quick death by a blade than a slow one of starvation and cold."
"No!" She could feel the tears stinging in her eyes. She looked away not wanting to cry in front of her mother.
Becca resisted stubbornly. "Ser Rodrik's red bitch just a whelped again last week." She said. "A small litter only two pups survived. She would have enough milk for all the pups."
"She'll rip them apart if they try to nurse."
"Lady Stark," Joanna said. It was strange to hear her address their mother like that, so formal. Bri looked to her with desperate hope. "There are five pups." She told her "Three female, two male."
"What of it, Joanna?"
"You have five trueborn children," Joanna continued. "Three daughters and two sons. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my Lady."
Bri saw her mother's expression change and the party exchanged glances. Bri loved Joanna more in that moment than ever before she could have kissed her half-sister for what she had done. Even at ten Bri understood what Joanna had done. For the count to be right Joanna had omitted herself form the list. For, she was a bastard born with the name Snow, the name given to those who have no true name of their own.
Their mother understood as well. "You want no pup for yourself, Joanna?" She asked softly.
"The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark," she pointed out, "and I am no Stark, my lady."
Their lady mother regarded her for a moment thoughtfully. Becca rushed to fill the silence she left, "I'll nurse them myself, Mother." She promised. "I'll soak a towel with warm milk, and give her that to suckle from."
"Me too!" Bri echoed.
The lady weighed her daughters carefully with her eyes for a long moment. "Easy to say, harder to do. I will not have you wasting the servants' time with this. You will feed them yourselves. Is that understood?" Bri nodded eagerly as the pup wriggled in her arms licking her face with its' warm wet tongue.
"You will also train them yourselves as well." Their mother said. "You must train them. The kennelmaster will have nothing to do with these beasts, I promise you that. And god's help you if you neglect them, or brutalize them, or train them badly. These are not dogs to beg for treats or slink away at a kick. A direwolf can rip a man's arm from his shoulder just as easily as a dog can kill a rat. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes, Mother," Bri said.
"Yes," Becca agreed.
"The pups may die anyway in spite of all you do."
"They won't die," Becca said, "we won't let them die."
"Keep them then. Jory, Desmond gather up the other pups. It's time we were back to Winterfell." It wasn't until they were mounted and headed back towards Winterfell when Bri allowed herself to taste the sweet air of victory. By then the pup was snuggled tight beneath her leathers safe and warm for the long trip home. Half way across the bridge Joanna pulled up on the reins of her horse.
"What is it, Joanna?" Their mother asked.
"Can't you hear it?"
Bri could hear the sound of the wind whisper through the trees, the sound of hooves on iron wood planks, and the whimpering of her own hungry pup. But, Joanna was listening to something else.
"There." Joanna said and she swung her horse back around and galloped back across the bridge. She rode back to where the direwolf lay dead swung from the saddle and knelt down in the snow. After a moment she was riding back towards them, smiling. It was a rare thing to see a smile grace Joanna's lips.
"She must have crawled away from the others," Joanna said.
"Or, been driven away," their mother said, looking at the sixth pup. Her fur was as white as fresh fallen snow, where the rest of the litter had been grey and black. Her eyes were as red as the blood of the man who had died that morning. Bri thought it was odd that this pup alone had opened her eyes while the other were still blind.
"An albino," Thyra Greyjoy said with wry amusement. "This one will die even faster than the others."
Joanna Snow gave their mothers ward a long chilling look that even sent a shiver down Bri's spine. "I think not, Greyjoy," she said, "this one belongs to me."