Chapter 9: A Wedding
When Robb met up with her some time later, Sansa was more agitated than before and quick to show her brother why.
"See these wall hangings," she told him, pointing while looking around herself to see if they were alone. "Look behind them."
Quickly and stealthily, Robb took a look as being bid.
"Lances and swords hidden," he said, his face darkening.
Sansa nodded. "Yes, and this isn't the only place. There are several crossbows up on the minstrels' gallery, swords and lances everywhere behind tapestries and hidden in chests. Outside, behind the feasting tents, there are more weapons stashed away."
"How did you find all this?"
Sansa hesitated. Could she tell him that she had seen the same red-golden glow as surrounded Grey Wind on every chest she had opened, every tapestry she'd looked behind? That the crossbows on the minstrels' gallery had been like glowing beacons, visible even from below?
"I looked," she finally said, which was as close to not being a lie as she could manage.
Robb's shoulders slumped and he shook his head wearily.
"I am cold and I am tired," he said. "I have been humiliated today more than I ever have in my entire life and now I have a battle on my hands of which I do not know the rules."
Sansa took his hand and led him outside, where they stood in the inner courtyard, facing each other while getting drenched in the heavily falling rain. The noisy downpour provided a privacy to their conversation they would otherwise have had a hard time finding anywhere else.
"Lord Walder will want to have the marriage sealed, confirmed and binding, so anything he plans will only start after the bedding. He hopes that until then, your men will already be deep in their cups, putting up no resistance."
Wiping the rain out of his eyes, Robb nodded.
"Makes sense, but he will still be heavily outnumbered. Lord Bolton just arrived with even more troops, even if it is less than I expected. I am on my way to him right now."
Under her hand, Grey Wind became alert and growled, his fur shimmering again.
Sansa almost asked Robb if Grey Wind looked different to him, but she was rather sure it would be a futile question. If Robb would see even only a fraction of that glow that was so evident to Sansa, surely he would have remarked on it already.
"I'd like to come, too," she said instead.
…
Her brother's lords bannermen were all assembled in one room, wet and unusually somber and subdued, even Lord Umber.
In front of the fire, wettest of all, Lord Bolton stood warming his hands.
At hearing them enter, he turned and locked his eyes to her. For a split moment, just long enough to school his face back to polite blandness, she saw a sliver of fear.
"So it's true," he murmured, but then bowed to her. "The lost daughter has been magically returned to the bosom of her family."
"Magic had nothing to do with it," Lord Umber said. "I was there when she arrived at Riverrun, let me tell you, t'was nothing magical about it at all. If she was a witch like everyone and their uncle around here keeps saying, surely she wouldn't have arrived in rags."
Lord Bolton's eyes kept drilling into hers as if he meant to divine her secrets, but curiously enough, all he truly did was telling her all of his.
Secrets so horrible, Sansa could only stay upright by holding on to Grey Wind.
"Robb," she said, not even having to pretend being tired, "I feel a craving for the comforts Lord Walder so generously offered, might I have a minute of your time before I go?"
"A moment, my lords," Robb said to his men and they stepped outside again.
Once there, she wound her arms around her brother's neck and brought her lips to his ears.
"Lord Bolton is not on your side, Robb. He's left Lord Manderly to the Lannisters on purpose and only brought his own men and the Karstark forces. He's taken Winterfell back from Theon, but he means to keep it for himself."
"How do you know?" Robb whispered back. "How can you expect me to act on this information which might be all in your head?"
His question was justified and not unexpected, but she had nonetheless no idea how to answer it.
She thought of the wish she had made to the fairy, of how Robb and her mother would probably be safe regardless of what Robb decided. But would she be safe as well? Would Jeyne and her unborn child? For a moment, she chided herself for having been so vague about who she wanted to include in her wish when she said family. But it was too late now and all she was left with was the question how to convince Robb he had to trust her.
It occurred to her then, that this wasn't about the trust he placed in her, it was in equal measure about the trust she had in him. In his promise to keep her safe.
"It's up to you to decide whether or not you think this believable," she said and let go of him, "I trust you'll do the right thing."
Then she turned to go, Grey Wind trailing dutifully in her wake.
…
In the end, Robb once again proved why he had won every battle so far.
Not only had he managed to set up a plan with the help of his bannermen while deftly excluding Lord Bolton under some flimsy pretext; between them, they had managed to inform their men of what they were up against while keeping up the pretence of drinking and feasting and not having a care in the entire world.
In retrospect, Sansa thought, they had done a much better job of it than the assembled Freys who seemed more nervous and on edge than any man loyal to Robb.
She had had a quick respite from her nervous anticipation of things to come while witnessing the bedding ceremony, something she had never seen before on account of still being too young.
It seemed a rather bawdy and undignified spectacle to her and she shuddered at the thought of being at the centre of this particular custom.
Since she was part of the throng surrounding her uncle Edmure, she got to see rather more of him than she had ever expected, even though she studiously avoided looking down past his waistline.
Her uncle was an attractive man by all standards, at least that was what everyone said, but Sansa found his pale upper body not all that interesting to look at. He appeared much stronger and broader in armour or clothes and she wondered if any man would prove to be such a disappointment when disrobed. Did men feel the same way when looking at a naked woman?
Then again, she'd seen a glimpse of how uncle Edmure had raked his eyes over Roslin's exposed body before they were shoved into their bridal chamber and there seemed to be no disappointment at all.
For a moment, her thoughts strayed to Sandor Clegane as she remembered how he had felt when he held her, remembered iron hard-muscles under his tunic, strong thighs bunching beneath her as she lay curled against a chest that felt like a warm, breathing but solid wall. Would all of that strength look any less imposing to the eye than it had felt to the touch?
On the floor beneath her, shouts and screams could be heard and the fear that gripped her at the sound paralyzed her for a moment.
She had not been privy to Robb's plans, but he had assured her he was confident all would work out well, that he'd made sure that the element of surprise was on their side, not on Lord Walder's or Lord Bolton's.
When she came back down, the first thing she noticed was Grey Wind, looming over a terrified Lord Walder who still sat on his black chair. The wolf had his big paws on the armrests and golden eyes unblinkingly trained on Lord Walder, his fangs not two inches from the old man's face.
"What tune were your so-called musicians supposed to play next, Lord Walder?" Robb asked lightly. "The Rains of Castamere mayhap? Dreadfully boring song if you ask me."
"Is this how a king rewards hospitality and support, your Grace?" Lord Walder asked with a shrillness to his voice that spoke of sheer terror.
"I found the weapons and the crossbows, Lord Walder," Robb said in answer. "I took some of your sons and grandsons and asked them a few questions… with some insistence, I admit."
Sansa shuddered at the thought of what that meant.
"You meant to murder my son!" Sansa's mother cried from one corner of the room where she held a dagger to man's throat who wore the Frey's sigil on his tunic. "You meant to betray a sacred custom."
A change came over Lord Walder's face as he realized that his game was up, that there was no use in pretending anymore.
"One wrong turn is worth another, don't you think?" the old man spat but quieted instantly when Grey Wind growled and bared his teeth.
"I apologized," Robb said.
"I was promised a queen and I got an apology instead," Lord Walder said with a rattling, old-men's laugh. "How'd you feel in my shoes?"
"One wrong is never worth another," Sansa spoke up, stepping up to where Jeyne sat trembling and crying on a chair, overwhelmed by events that must have come as a shock to her. She gently put her hand on the young queen's shoulder. "Men might think that way, but all it ever gets us is more bloodshed."
Lord Walder snorted.
"Letting your little sister do your talking now, your Grace?"
"My little sister," Robb said, his lips pulling into a grin, "is the one who discovered your devious scheme."
A loud laugh came from behind her and she turned to where Lord Umber stood next to Lord Bolton who was trussed up like a harvest feast turkey, blood freely seeping into the man's pale pink cloak.
"So they're right in King's Landing," Bolton sneered. "She is a witch. No honest man could have seen this coming." He straightened as much as he could, visibly suppressing a groan as he did. "The North will henceforth be ruled by wargs, wolves and witches," he continued, exposing his white teeth which looked gruesome in his blood smeared face. His pale eyes were shooting blank hatred at her, undisguised now. "You'll bring ruin to the land, for no one will help you during the coming winter, no one will sell you corn or cloth or salt. The south will continue to rebel against your claim and all you have is a wolf and a little witch's magic. You might not have lost your crown today, Robb Stark, but you will lose it."
Robb turned very slowly and – refusing to even look at Bolton – gave a nod to Greatjon Umber.
"Get the traitor outside," he said in a low growl. "And if anyone has the stomach for it, turn him into his sigil."
Sansa heavily plopped down on the chair next to Jeyne, absurdly grateful that she had been too nervous to eat anything before, because surely it would all have come up again at was Robb's words meant.
If she wasn't afraid of incurring his wrath, she would ask Robb to withdraw his orders, to give a merciful death to his enemies to show that he was the better man, a just king.
"On second thought," Robb said when Lord Umber was almost through the door. "Don't. Just… make him stop breathing."
A heavy silence fell when Lord Bolton's curses and cries finally couldn't be heard anymore.
"What will you do with me?" Lord Frey asked.
"I do not know yet," Robb gave back. "It will cost me more time than I have to handle this mess, but handle it I will. There will be a new Lord of the Crossing as of this day and he will not be a Frey. I have not decided yet, but…"
Robb's sentence was cut short when a high-pitched shriek sounded through the hallways, followed by the clatter of steel boots and loud curses.
"Come back, I said!"
Another shriek could be heard and then something small and dirty and rag-clad barrelled through the door and launched itself at Sansa's mother.
"Mother!"
"Arya!"
Sansa shot upright from her chair and took a hasty step toward where the dirty boy clung to her mother, both of them weeping. She couldn't help but marvel at her mother's ability to divine that it was truly her lost sister under the filthy mop of shorn hair, under all that grime and mud.
Quite suddenly, Sansa could sympathize with how her brother must have felt when she had reappeared in much a similar fashion and could barely bite back the deluge of questions she had on her tongue.
But Arya recovered much more quickly than Sansa had.
"Oh Sansa, you're here, too!" she exclaimed and gave her a firm hug that left mud all over the front of Sansa's dress. "We heard you disappeared from King's Landing by magic, but Ryder said it was all hogwash and old women's tales."
"We?" Robb inquired carefully, before he, too, was treated to a heartfelt if decidedly dirty hug.
"The man who brought me here," Arya said, words almost falling over each other so rapidly did they come out of her mouth. "Big chap, bit rough in his manner, but a good sort. Ryder Hills, he called himself. Bastard from Lannister lands. I thought he had the look of a Clegane about him, poor guy. Teased him about it until he pretended to be cross with me, but he never really was."
"Ah, Sansa!" Arya exclaimed happily, before Sansa had properly digested what had been said. Arya came back over her in a way that was more a bounce than a walk and shoved something wet and muddy into her hand. "He seemed to like you from what I told him about you, gave me this to give to you when I see you again."
Sansa's hands were slightly shaking as she unwrapped the gift from the man who had saved her sister.
Her eyes widened when a comb fell into her hand. Whittled from whalebone, enamelled with mother-of-pearl. Delicate and feminine and hers. The one that should be still in King's Landing with everything else she'd left behind.
"Sandor," she breathed as her knees threatened to give way beneath her just before a piercing pain stabbed through her lower belly.
Not now, she begged, knowing what the pain meant. Not yet.
Then she turned towards the door.
"Sandor!" she cried. He had to be here still. He would not have sent a little girl into this castle alone, would he?
"SANDOR!"
It felt not wrong, to say his given name, to have it as a desperate shout on her lips as she tore through the hallways of the Freys' tower, flew down the staircases and ran out into the yard. They had not been this familiar back in King's Landing, but over the weeks after her arrival at Riverrun, she felt as if she had gotten to know him despite his absence, so much had he become part of her thoughts.
"SANDOR!"
She spun around in a circle on the yard, praying for a sign, a clue of where he might be, a shimmer of golden dust, maybe, to show her the way. But there was only darkness and rain, the noise of the fight that still raged on the other side of the river, although it appeared to be only Robb's men rounding up a few stragglers who tried to flee.
Blinding pain made her double over for a second, the pulling and cramping much worse than she remembered from last time.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she crossed the yard and ran toward the drawbridge, her voice growing hoarse from shouting. Her stockinged feet splashed through mud and ice-cold puddles, her shoes probably lying lost somewhere on the stairs of the tower.
Before she could clear the drawbridge, steel-clad fists grabbed her by her arms, hindering her progress.
"SANDOR!" she screamed again and struggled against her captor.
"Please, my lady," the man holding her almost begged. "You cannot run outside just now, it's too dangerous. Whomever you are looking for will have to be found tomorrow."
The next time she attempted to call his name, it came out a broken sob and she sagged against the man behind her, suddenly spent and powerless, shivering in the wet cold and the only things she could feel were the wrenching pain in her lower belly and the warmth of blood running down her thighs.
"He'll be gone by then," she whispered.
"Then he doesn't want to be found," the soldier said and picked her up, carrying her back across the drawbridge.
...
tbc