The Chamber Below the Dreadfort
Chapter Four: The Draw
Thank the old gods and the new, the door remains unlocked. The Dreadfort stays quiet but she can feel and hear people below, Ramsay's gallery of boon companions. Sansa ducks through the mahogany doors, into the room venerating steel and blood.
"Take anything," she says. Swords never held the same regard from her as Arya, but she decides broken teeth are better than none.
Theon limps, never fully on-kilter. His withering silence when she mentioned northmen who lost half their toes to frostbite and still move fine made her realize his injuries went far beyond fingers and toes. She does not ask more, not when she is possibly sending him to his death.
"I used to be good at throwing these." Theon eyes the pretty red-etched dagger still embedded in the doorframe.
"Are you still?" She does not ask how many fingers it takes to throw a dagger.
"Possibly." He wrenches it out and inspects the rest of the room.
Knowing little of knives except that she does not want a skinning one and cannot use a throwing one, she settles on a dagger a little longer than her hand, its hilt banded in blue and red inlay. There are no sheathes but she still has a free hand.
Theon now glances at the table, puzzled. Realizing what he must see, her cheeks flush as red as the maidenblood still smeared across the wood. His eyes flick to hers and he guesses the rest. At least they are unlikely to be seen by a servant.
Sometimes he leans on things, usually walls. As they leave the jeweled armory, he leans against her, arm over her shoulders, just for a moment. Sansa wonders if it is his way of an embrace that would not end in her shoving him. She should hate him, but now is not the time.
The first floor has more noise, some from men, most from the murmuring river. Theon had warned her sound carries differently on the ground floor, rattled and bounced by the high stone ceilings. At last she sees the front doors, blazing with the sundown and open to the world. Her foster-brother trails behind so he can watch her. So far they have seen no one, not even a chambermaid. Guards rarely interfere with his sport. If Ramsay indeed waits outside.
Sansa looks at her hands and sees them shaking. She tries to calm herself; Theon warned her if she panics she is done for. When she asked if he was afraid, he shrugged. Liar, she thinks. When she referred to her husband as the Bastard, his eyes screwed shut, his neck tensed, and he whispered "Don't call him—" before he could bite his tongue. But she does not think him craven. She reminded him of the time he stopped a charging boar, an arrow through its neck and its dying squeal ending two paces from his feet. That seemed to make him sadder than anything. Six months in the Dreadfort and he barely lives. What would a year do to him?
The sudden footsteps turn her spine to water. A soft, unhurried tread. Theon was wrong—the Bastard of Bolton tricked them and he's behind her. Looking to the open door, freedom, her legs tremble like a horse before it bolts.
"Sansa," Theon whispers as loud as he dares. He sees her shifting, looking to the light. "That's not him; it's farther than it sounds—"
She hears a clatter—a gauntleted hand curling, rattling, about to—Sansa does not care who it is, she launches herself through the door. Someone shuffles behind her, grabbing for her arm, but she is faster. Low and bloody, the sun rushes to embrace her.
The hand clamps down on the back of her neck and she screeches in pain. Her voice cuts off when he smashes his mouth against hers. Ramsay bites, catches her lip in his teeth. She stabs at his neck while he is distracted, aim awkward but too close to miss.
Catching her hand, he slams her into the stone wall, the heel of his palm crushing her wrist until the dagger falls from half-numb fingers. His hands move to her collarbone. She finally sees that Ramsay stands just past the doorway, pinning her to the angled stone that slopes away from the door. I am a fool to the last…
He smiles, but she knows his only mirth comes from her pain. "You kept me waiting, and now I'm hungry." When she stays mute he digs his thumbs into some groove and she's crying and thrashing as her shoulders blaze in agony. "You lose—"
His hunter's sense preserves him. Sansa sees the metal flash a half-moment after he has already wrenched around, just as the dagger tears into his shoulder instead of his chest. It glances off, but blood wells from the cut as he realizes who threw it. Ramsay grabs her by the throat and drags her with him, into the courtyard, a shield against Theon. Her head swims; he squeezes something that chokes more than just breath. But somewhere, she swears she hears galloping horses. That is the plan, pitiful as it is. Distract him, kill him, give the riders time to arrive without an order to close the gates. He cannot kill her if he wants an heir.
She can barely see the shadowed form of Theon in the doorway, and she has been outside for less time than Ramsay. From the way he keeps her in front of him, eyes fighting the sunlight, he cannot find his prisoner. Blinking, sinking, she elbows uselessly against his ribs, her arms leaden. The hand leaves her throat and air rushes back in strangled coughs—along with pain as a blade slides against her cheek and his other arm snakes around her waist.
"Throw something again, Lord Theon!" he snarls. "She won't need her eyes for whelping."
How many knives did Theon take? One, two? He would not last a moment if he drew a sword.
The blade bites her skin and Ramsay's arm keeps her pinned to his chest. But she sees a chance, if she is brave or stupid enough. He needs her alive. Butchered, broken, but intact enough to bear children. They are close enough in height he has shoved her down to see clearly, bending her knees, just a little. Taking a breath for courage, Sansa tries not to think.
She pulls on his arm and straightens. Ramsay is staring at Theon, eyes blazing in wary malice. Wondering if a broken dog has remembered it still can bite. A jerk of her chin and the blade burns, but it finally slides under her jaw and kisses her throat.
"You stupid slut!" He realizes too late.
The steel is a gasp away from slicing open her jugular. By his own admission he cannot end her, not if he wants to stare out over Winterfell's battlements, warm in his murder-won mantle. The Dreadfort lacks a maester and Ramsay is made for killing, not healing. If he does not want her bleeding to death in his arms, he must remove the blade, and carefully, for her chin hooks above his knuckles. Every moment he spares the riders gain.
Like a coming tide, the hoofbeats crash in her ears, closer every moment. The gate is still open; he expects his men, toting the heads of the bandits foolish enough to cross Bolton lands. But still too far. Nevertheless, he hears them.
Ramsay eases back the dagger, just far enough he can hiss into her ear. "Their blood is up, and I've run low on serving-girls."
He yanks the blade away, at the same time he swings around, his other hand unfastening. The blow hammers into her back and she falls, cuts her hands and knees on stone. Her cheek burns as tears fill the cut, as fingers dig into her hair. He has stepped to the side of the courtyard to lure Theon into the open. Staggering to find her feet, she yelps as his knee cracks against her hip bone.
"Stay down," he growls. Then he hisses and jerks back, sputtering in furious laughter, yanking out the slender knife embedded in his arm. She knows Ramsay smiles, and knows Theon fears that smile about all else. "When I cut out her eyes, I'll starve you until you eat them!"
He wrenches her head back until she is blinking and tearing from the reddened sun. Only his wariness of more blades keeps him from blinding her that instant. But if his father has deigned to teach him anything, it is the zealous necessity of carrying out a threat. Pain has quelled most of Sansa's scrabbling thoughts, but as she sees that blade sink closer to her eyes, she chokes on the dread of her final sundown. Hooves and blood drum in her ears.
They erupt through the open gate. Twenty horses, banners low, bows and swords bared. Sansa sees them from one eye, blinking through the blood crusting her eyelashes. Ramsay stiffens beside her—he realizes they are Starks the same moment she realizes their leader is her mother.
Lady Catelyn looks part wildling, part warmaiden, her fiery hair whipping in the wind as she glares at the bastard who has defiled family, duty, and honor. And she does not stop. She snaps a horsewhip and the palfrey bounds across the courtyard. Ramsay flinches first and ducks right, just as Catelyn saws her reins left.
Hooves and horseflesh collide with Bolton's bastard, whose snarling curse cuts off when he slams into the stone. Catelyn wheels the horse between Ramsay and her daughter. He still holds his knife but it looks tiny against her mother's slate-colored horse. Bleeding from a torn cheek, Ramsay lurches upright, stunned for the first time Sansa has ever seen. As if he dreamed about his brother returning from the dead, then one day saw him riding through the gates, smiling and asking if he wanted to hunt foxes. Then he recognizes Lady Catelyn.
"Wretched cunt, my father will—" The whip cracks across his face and he spits blood.
Catelyn's voice is colder than the Weeping Water. "Your father will beget a true son to replace the one you murdered, kinslayer."
She makes a gesture with the whip and Sansa hears the twang of bowstrings. Two arrows catch him in the chest, drag him to his knees, and bleed him dry and gurgling on the cold stones of the Dreadfort. Ramsay would want to curse them with his final breath, but he has none left.
Her mother's men encircle her and Sansa finally hears the unsheathing of Bolton blades. Her heart freezes. Even with some gone bandit hunting, they outnumber twenty men.
Catelyn swings from the saddle and pulls her daughter to her feet. Sansa collapses against her, aghast her bloody face stains her mother's gown, just as Catelyn tilts her face and kisses her cheeks, blood-spattered or not. They are of equal height, but Sansa still buries her face in her mother's neck.
Her mother whispers softly in her ear. "You're safe, Sansa. I promise."
Throat too tight to speak, Sansa chokes out the word soldiers. Stroking her hair, Catelyn is too proud to cry, but Sansa feels her heart hammering in her chest.
"They are distracted by Lady Brienne."
She steps back and turns to the men now guarding the Dreadfort, who have finally realized their master is not playing a game. "Leal servants of House Bolton, I am Lady Catelyn Stark, mother of the king. We have no quarrel. Sheathe your swords and we will leave."
Some look like they want to cut her to pieces—cruelty attracts cruelty, and some men could find every lust satisfied serving under Ramsay Bolton. But at least half do not want to risk an arrow to the throat. The smartest have also noticed no one is coming from the barracks.
Catelyn takes Sansa's face, more firmly this time. "I found one of Lady Hornwood's servants. Among the builders I found several who survived the sacking. They claim Ramsay burned Winterfell and captured Theon. Does the turncloak live?"
Sansa sees no one but wary guards in the Dreadfort's doorway. Please Theon, don't come out. She cannot forgive his sins, but neither can she watch his execution, and while her mother's love is boundless, her mercy is not. She shakes her head. "Ramsay cut him to pieces."
"He deserved death. I pity him for the one who granted it."
But Sansa does not think her pity runs deep. She needs to tell her mother that her sons live without it seeming like a jape of the Bastard's. If they indeed still live. It gives her a shudder. Theon might have killed them when he drove them into the wild, even if not by his hand. She should hate him.
She will not stay long enough to take her horse, lest the one man who would die for Ramsay Bolton be waiting in the stables. As she rides behind her mother, face sticky with blood, Catelyn tells of how she came here with the small force at Winterfell. Half diverted to distract the bulk of Bolton's men, approaching from the other side of the Weeping Water. They had already set out at a mad pace before she and her husband arrived at the Dreadfort. Lady Catelyn does not ask if her maidenhead remains intact; likely she assumes he ripped it away the night they left Winterfell. Sansa does not say she should have listened to her mother, but only out of pride and self-evidence.
In her short time away, Winterfell looks brighter. Yet as she passes under the new gate, she thinks it is only because she knows a crueler North.
"Are you certain you wish to stay? Lady Brienne will remain here with you." Her mother's eyes are kind, though always concerned. She sets down her mug of spicy-sweet tea.
Sansa picks at an hardboiled egg, nodding. "I am so tired of travelling. If I stay here, I can oversee the builders, and be here when they find Bran and Rickon."
Slowly her daughter has revealed the truth of King's Landing, and her marriage to the monster who made her a widow at fourteen. Catelyn prayed to the Seven when Sansa revealed her sons' survival, relating it as a slip of the Bastard's tongue when he mocked her. As she listens to her tale of the Dreadfort only to diminish her daughter's nightmares, she does not press for more than Sansa offers. Her ravens should have reached White Harbor and the Wall by now.
Lord Bolton has said nothing about his deranged son. Yet Sansa worries. She knows her mother did the wrong thing, but also the only thing she could do. By law, Ramsay should have been arrested and tried. And yet if he were alive, his men would have fight for him. Lady Catelyn always regarded him as a bastard, not a legitimized heir, and Sansa thinks this colored her choice. She hopes it does not color what her mother foresees as a consequence. Ramsay was Lord Bolton's son, his legacy, whatever his sins.
"Give Uncle Edmure my warmest congratulations. And Robb and Talisa." Her uncle no longer dreads his wedding to Roslin Frey, having found someone who spoke of her tiny waist and doe eyes. Her brother's queen is also now with child.
Robb will understand why she stays in the North. The Ironborn cling to Moat Cailin and Deepwood Motte, but neither can take Winterfell, not with the small contingent her brother sent with Catelyn. Their numbers have grown as well. Roose Bolton would not spare the soldiers who let his son's murderers walk away. The more honest among them soon accompanied the Starks to Winterfell. The crueler ones grabbed what they could from the Dreadfort and disappeared into the hills. There were disagreements, raped servants, and bloodshed, but Sansa knows naught more than rumor.
They say their goodbyes on a cold, damp morning two days later. Lady Catelyn has little desire to see Edmure's long-delayed wedding to the long-peevish Freys, but it would look poor otherwise. Sansa is sad when she leaves, her mother's slate-gray horse disappearing like a ghost into the morning mist. Somehow, it feels like a true goodbye.
It stays with her for days after, a melancholy she supposes she should be grateful for, given her horrors at the Dreadfort. The cut on her cheek will heal without scarring; Ramsay's knife was sharp and honed, an artist's tool for vicious work. The key's dull gash will not. It remains a small, embarrassing red line, like a weal of blood that will never fall.
"My lady, a rider approaches from the east, alone." Brienne stands in her doorway, dignified in her quiet way.
Sansa lies on her bed, her hair down, reading a book of wistful stories. She does not need to stand on the battlements. Instead she pulls back her draperies and looks through her window. It is not so much by sight but by feel that she knows who it must be. A single figure on a familiar red roan palfrey—her palfrey—rides toward the gate, covered head to foot in a fine cloak with fox fur on the shoulders.
She should hate him, but she chooses not to. Others can attribute it to another of her poor choices, but they are hers. Lady Catelyn will not be back for some time, and Brienne will heed Sansa's wishes.
"I know him. I will be down in a moment."
Brienne, who guards Sansa like a mother bear, stays by the door to escort her.
Sansa looks out, past her window and battlements. The late-afternoon sun reddens the world around the approaching rider, red like blood and betrayal. But not hers.