There was a new man that they brought to see Mother. He was lifted into Mother's presence, as if he could not walk by strong men, and he was proud of it. She had never seen a more peculiar thing in her life before. She didn't like him at all. He looked at Mother as though she was something dumb and stupid, although he might not have said it in his words.
"Now comes the noble Razdal mo Eraz of that ancient and honorable house, master of men and speaker to savages, to offer terms of peace," Mother's little translator, Missandei said. She was a pretty thing with curled hair so wiry that they stood on end. Her entire head looked like a circle. Mother liked her because she was pleasant and could speak many languages. She and her siblings screeched at the strange man, and he retreated slightly in disgust. However, Missandei continued, "Noble lord, you are in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons."
The man did not seem to be impressed with Mother's titles and had his eyes fixed upon her. We didn't like him at all. However, Mother didn't seem to mind him at all. "You may approach," she told the man. "Sit."
Uneasily, the man sat on the chair he was given, and took a drink from the cup that Missandei had given him. "Ancient and glorious is Yunkai," he told Mother. "Our empire was old before dragons stirred in old Valyria. Many an army has broken against our walls, you shall find no easy conquest here, Khaleesi."
It was a threat and she and her siblings understood it. Together, they screeched at him for speaking thusly to their mother, threatening him in turn. He would regret it if he did anything that they didn't like.
However, Mother remained calm. "Good," she chirped, almost happily. "My Unsullied need practice. I was told to blood them early."
"If blood is your desire, blood shall flow," the man returned. "But why? 'Tis true, you have committed savagery in Astapor, but the Yunkai are a forgiving and generous people. The Wise Masters of Yunkai have sent a gift for the Silver Queen." As he spoke, small, shaking men moved a heavy chest into the tent and opened it. Whatever was inside the chest was yellow and shiny. It made Jorah and Barristan's eyes widen too. What was it? "There is far more than this awaiting you on the deck of your ship."
Mother looked curious. "My ship?" she asked him.
"Yes, Khaleesi. As I said, we are a generous people. You shall have as many ships as you require."
Mother knew that it was a trap. "And what do you ask in return?" she asked him.
"All we ask is that you make use of these ships," he told her frankly. "Sail them back to Westeros where you belong and leave us to conduct our affairs in peace." Oh, so that was his price. He wanted Mother to leave his lands.
Mother's sweet expression remained. "I have a gift for you as well," she said. "Your life."
The man was taken aback. He did not understand what Mother was talking about. "My life?" he asked her.
"And the lives of your Wise Masters," she said. "But I also want something in return: you will release every slave in Yunkai. Every man, woman and child shall be given as much food, clothing and property as they can carry as payment for their years of servitude. Reject this gift and I shall show you no mercy."
The man was enraged. "You are mad!" he scolded Mother. "We are not Astapor or Qarth. We are Yunkai and we have powerful friends, friends who would take great pleasure in destroying you. Those who survive, we shall enslave once more. Perhaps we'll make a slave of you as well!"
It was the last straw that she and her siblings would take. They screeched and hissed at the man, and would willingly set him on fire if Mother would let them.
"You swore me safe conduct!" he said, cowering before her and her siblings. He was pleading to Mother to keep him safe, but he had crossed too many lines. We won't let him go at all.
"I did," Mother replied. "But my dragons made no promises, and you threatened their mother."
In the very least, his temper seemed to have calmed down. "Take the gold," he said to his servants, referring to the chest. However, Drogon flew onto the chest and closed the lid shut with his weight. No one dared to approach the chest after that.
"My gold," Mother said, her voice now menacing, although it was still rather soft. "You gave it to me, remember? I shall put it to good use, but you'd be wise to do the same with my gift to you, now get out."
The man quickly scattered out of Mother's tent with his men. He didn't even need to be lifted at all.
Sansa had been Oberyn's arms when she woke in cold sweat, panting. The Sand Snakes were all over her, and Ellaria looked upon her with worry. Myrcella had been in tears and Brienne looked more confused than ever.
As she rose with Oberyn's help, she saw her husband nod to his brother. "Leave us," Doran said, looking directly towards Sansa. Marvel was in his eyes. Marvel and a renewed hope. "We live in a strange age, sister," he told her. "Twenty years ago, dragons were mere legends, and now, they appear in the world. We hear rumors of White Walkers north of the Wall and you, a daughter of the Stark line and a Warg. Magic lives in this world again, dear one."
"What did you see?" Oberyn asked her gently, his words almost a whisper. His lips had brushed her earlobe, his arms holding her back and the back of her knees, her arms around his neck.
Her silence did not mean that she was afraid of what she had seen. It had only meant that she was trying to collect her thoughts. "I was... one of the smaller Targaryen dragons," she said haltingly. That in itself was a thing that no one would have believed her. No one had ever warged into a dragon before. "I saw a Yunkai noble bartering with Daenerys, but she refused him. She would sack Yunkai and free the slaves as she did in Astapor."
Doran looked grim. "We need her to cross the Narrow Sea, not to free slaves," he said.
"She sees it her mission to free slaves," Sansa added. She could only tell them what she knew, and nothing more.
"Oberyn has told me that you have warged before," Doran then said, changing the topic. "How many times have you seen the Targaryen princess?"
"This would be the second time," Sansa answered. "I don't understand why, though..." Why the Targaryen princess?
"Time will reveal all secrets," Doran offered. "I will not lie to you sister. Your brother knows in this alliance, we will need the Targaryens. He has consented, and now you show that you have the ability to see what the dragons can see. You are not simply destined to be my sister-in-law."
She did not understand what Doran was telling her. She was Sansa, plain, stupid Sansa. She could not fight, nor could she outsmart anyone. What destiny did she have?
"What about the Lannisters?" Oberyn asked Doran. "The Mountain admitted that Tywin Lannister ordered the deaths of Elia and her children, and Cersei almost got Sansa killed. We have no reason to keep our appearances any more."
"You know what war brings," Doran said. "Only pain, suffering and orphans. I will not have war brought to Dorne." Even when Robert's Rebellion had not touched Dornish lands, Dornish souls had paid for their continued allegiance to the Targaryens. Tywin Lannister had every Dornishmen in King's Landing killed as the Mountain claimed the lives of Elia and the Mad King's grandchildren that she had brought into the world.
Oberyn nodded in understanding. The Mountain was dead and Sansa held no grudge against Cersei. There was no need for Dorne to be openly hostile against King's Landing yet.
"You can't attack the capital now," Sansa reasoned. "You'll lose the element of surprise when you do..." She stopped talking when she felt Doran's gaze upon her again.
"Oberyn had told me that you have keen senses, sister," Doran explained. "But he had not been able to describe how keen they actually were. You cannot fight, but you might have what it takes to lead an army or a nation if you so wished."
"I'm just a stupid little girl, brother," she replied, addressing Doran in the same way as he did her. "I can't do anything much to help anyone."
Her humility was a mask, Doran realized. A skill garnered through many years of surviving amongst her enemies. His sister-in-law was more of a prodigy than his own brother had anticipated. She would have been Queen of Westeros if she had the audacity and ambition to become one, and she had the bloodline and the marriage to garner it. Perhaps they were all lucky that she had no such wish, or rather, she has not yet been consumed by the poison of ambition.
"Then you shall receive the very best education to do so," Doran said. "You shall be a lady of a court, serving the court. Your place is not running a household, sister. It is running a nation. I will see to it that you are educated in the fine art of statecraft wholly, that is, if you are willing to do so."
Sansa looked at Oberyn, who nodded. They were in Dorne, and she could choose. Did she want to take a position that would one day could be of help to her family? Of course she did. She had been a prisoner, a hostage for too long. Now that she had already become the princess that she had dreamed of becoming, she would take on a different role, one that would free her from her old life.
"I am willing," she said. "I'll do everything I can to help you and Robb."
Doran smiled. "And so you shall, dear sister."
Copious amounts of books were placed before Sansa the next morning after breakfast. Where Ellaria's younger daughters were faced with sums, bookkeeping and High Valyrian literature by the maester, Sansa was given economics, histories and various wartime records.
"Prince Doran has told me that you are to be trained to be a diplomat, Princess Sansa," the maester told her. "Sadly, we don't have much time for you to explore the fine details of each subject before us, and there is so much to cover..."
"It's alright, Maester," Sansa said, and readily opened the book even as Elia, Obella, Dorea and Lorezza moaned and groaned. She had much too much to learn in too little time. There was a watchful peace now, and she had to learn as much as she could before the conflict would break out again.
Oberyn was looking at his wife from a window of the schoolroom. "You should have seen her, Doran," he said as he pushed Doran in his moving chair. "In King's Landing, she looked at everyone in King's Landing with eyes that screamed murder. Her face like ice on the Wall."
Doran chuckled. "Some people said that the best actors could perform every emotion with a blank mask," he replied. "But I think that the best actor is one that can turn his own face into a mask, like your wife."
"They tortured her, whipped her as if she was a dog," Oberyn recounted. "She has her talents because she needed to survive. She will outlast us all." Now that he thought of it, Sansa was the same age as Elia. Yet, because of the pain she had been through, she seemed to have lost all the freedoms of childhood. She was looked upon as an adult, and not a child.
"That is why we must mold her," Doran said. "We must shape her into an agent that we can use."
Oberyn sighed. Ever his brother would be the pragmatic one, the one that had everything perfectly calculated. He would use every single resource he had to accomplish his goals, even if said resource was his new sister-in-law. "What if she doesn't want to be molded into what you want her to be?" he asked his brother. "Maybe she only does it because she has fallen hopelessly in love with me?"
Doran chuckled. He was an excellent judge of character. He knew that Sansa was still a docile little kitten because she had not been pushed too far yet. She was lucky to have had Oberyn save her. "We shall see about that, Oberyn. When the Direwolf wishes to run with the wind, who are you to stop it?"
"What!" Robb exclaimed. "Roose Bolton has escaped? When?"
"Last evening, near sundown. He'd killed all his guards," Edmure Tully reported. "We know not where he's been."
"Did you send out riders to hunt him down, you fool?" the Blackfish scolded his nephew. Roose Bolton was supposed to be their prisoner, a live example to prevent any further betrayal from within his own ranks.
Edmure gulped. "I did, trust me, but we can't find him..."
"He may not have left Casterly Rock yet," Robb said. Casterly Rock was an impregnable fortress, and even in the fields, Roose Bolton could not have gotten far without alerting anyone. "Obara, Nym, I want a full sweep of the Rock, take whatever men you need," he told the Sand Snakes.
Just as the Sand Snakes were about to leave, they heard something break in the next room and then they heard Talisa scream.
Without wasting a second more, all of them rushed towards the next room where they found Catelyn unconscious while Talisa was struggling to wrestle the knife Bolton had in his hand away from her.
Nymeria swung her whip and cracked it. The end of the whip hit Bolton on the back and he cringed as a result, giving Talisa the chance to escape. Knowing that he had no choice, Bolton raised the sword that he had with him and charged towards Robb, who was luckily fast enough to parry with his own.
"You've made the wrong choice to keep me alive, boy," he said to Robb, struggling to break the stalemate between them. "You've made the wrong choice to have ended my line."
"You brought this upon yourself, Bolton," Robb replied with a growl. He no longer had any patience with his former bannerman. "If your bastard hadn't sacked Winterfell in your name, you would have still been my advisor, Lord of the Dreadfort."
Bolton spat. "Do you think it's all about power and position?" he asked coldly. "It is about bloodlines. When you unmanned Ramsay, my bloodline has died. What use would power be if I have no one to give it to?" Summoning all his strength, he pushed downwards, moving Robb's sword to his own shoulders, so that the cutting edge would cut him.
However, Robb was younger and faster. With a heavy grunt, he pushed Bolton back and kicked him square in the abdomen. "Ramsay is your bastard, you wouldn't have anyone to inherit anything from you even if he was still a whole man!" Robb bit back.
Ramsay's legitimization was one of the rewards promised by the Lannisters if they delivered Robb's head to them. It was not that he had loved his bastard son dearly. Like how Tywin Lannister did not have Tyrion Lannister killed when he was born, Bolton knew that Ramsay was his son. He had an older one, which died after a bout of sickness, which left Ramsay as his only son. He would have done anything to ensure that the Bolton line endured. Now, they were no more. Scattered to the wind. The Dreadfort was no longer his. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain if he could only kill Robb Stark then and there.
"That might have been, but before you decided to split the Seven Kingdoms with the Martells and not listen to me and head to the Twins, none of this would have happened," Bolton said, taking a few paces backwards. "Perhaps we should settle this once and for all. We all know that none of us will have peace if either of us survives."
Robb agreed with Bolton. The chamber they were in was only big enough for one single stroke with a sight running start. "Get the Queen and Mother out of here," he barked towards Obara, who immediately did as she was told. Edmure then picked Catelyn up and left the room with Obara as Nymeria watched their backs.
"Get ready to die, Your Grace," Bolton said. "I promise to give your body a proper burial, a courtesy that the Greyjoys certainly did not afford Ramsay." Oh, he had received word on how the Ironborn had treated Ramsay. His guards read the news to him themselves. They said that Balon Greyjoy had Ramsay torn into pieces by having what horses they had at Pyke tied to his neck, hands and feet. The horses where then made to run in five different directions, essentially pulling him apart in the most gruesome manner. Whatever remains that he had was promptly thrown into the sea to feed the fishes.
"I don't intend to," Robb returned.
Eyes locked onto one another, their attack started. Their swords clashed so hard that Robb had lost grip of his as a result of the reverberation between them. Looking at Bolton in disbelief, Robb knew that he would meet his end. "How easily you have lost," Bolton tutted, a manical glow starting to fill his usually empty eyes. He took the high guard, raising his sword above his head, ready for the kill. "Long live the King..."
Robb closed his eyes. He had lost, fair and square. His only regret was that he could not see Talisa giving birth to their child, and to see Sansa's if she would have any. However, the deathblow did not come. Only a sound akin to choking, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw Bolton standing in the same position, his eyes filled with disbelief. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"The King'll live long, especially when I'm here," a familiar voice said, and the sound of a blade leaving flesh and bone could be heard. When Roose Bolton fell face down on the floor, Robb saw that it was Theon that had saved him. Theon had stuck a long dagger down the back of Bolton's neck, so long that there was an exit puncture just above his collarbone. "Don't blame anyone. Your wife set me free. She begged for me to help you."
"Theon..." Robb said in disbelief. "Why did you, though?"
"I've thought about it for a long time," Theon sighed, cleaning his blade with Roose's own clothes. "I know I've done you and your family wrong. I should have chosen to follow the teachings of the foster father that gave me some semblance of a family than my real father who gave me up so willingly. Since I'm alive, I might as well stay alive to make things right again... if... if you'll have me." Robb broke into a smile. "If you would fight next to me again as a brother, I will have you," he said and embraced Theon. "You saved my life, I couldn't say no either."
"Then I'll fight for you, King Robb, from this day, until my last day."
HAN: I thought that it would be interesting to have a look at what Dany is up to. Perhaps one day Sansa would go see her?
I did not plan for Roose to escape, but I ran out of ideas, so yeah.
Find the references for The Banquet (2005 movie by Feng Xiaogang) and Hakuouki (2010 anime) here.
Enjoy!