AN: I feel like it's been forever since I last updated! In truth, I felt like I needed to get away from this story for a little bit to try and kind of recollect myself and really think about what I wanted. I was surprised when I looked at the doc for this story this morning and the words started to flow.
Chapter Seventeen: The Keeper of the Vale
The Vale of Arryn was exactly how many described it and yet still surprising in an odd, almost morbid way. The guards were silent and watchful, friendly in an almost wooden way that a doll would be. Robb had grown quiet and stiff beside me, his gaze sharp and unforgiving as it constantly ticked around the room. His jaw was tight and his hands clenched as he seemed to shield me as we walked through the cold halls - which was rather impressive considering that he was walking slightly behind me.
I had woken from my meeting with Order, gasping, flailing as I rushed back into the mortal realm. Robb had held me to him until I eventually subsided, shivering in his arms. A small sting in my back was the only remnants of my struggle with the goddess. When I peeled off my clothes tonight, I was sure I would find red welts running along my back. I had told Robb that it was simply a nightmare but he seemed to hover, his eyes watchful even long after the ordeal.
"They come to my home," a flighty, chirping voice tittered, the voice bouncing off the walls and carrying to the haggard party that made up our company. Catelyn's eyes flitted around the open walls of the keep, the sky milky and dense beyond. She had grown more frayed the farther we had gone into the Vale. "I can smell them from here! Goodness, Petr!"
I resisted my initial shock, pushing down on an outward expression. Robb had a harder time of this. A low growl vibrated from him echoed louder by the direwolf that stalked beside him.
"Darling," a deep voice soothed and there was a slight accent there that I couldn't completely pin. Just behind Robb and I, I felt Catelyn draw up in attention. "They're here for help. It is your nephew and your sister."
"Catelyn," that voice chortled and beside me, Catelyn flinched at the malice that that high voice was able to put into that one name.
My lips thinned. I had severely misinterpreted this situation. As I neared the circular room that made up the greeting area of the keeper of the Vale, I started to truly understand the situation that I had been brought into. When we had passed through the Bloody Gates, the guards there attentive and weathered from weeks at that one post, I had started to get an impression of Catelyn's sister. When Robb had whispered to me the history of the Vale, the strategic positioning of all the guards and gates, as we made our way towards the main palace that impression had grown.
A strong woman had to keep these mountains. The running of it must be old in tradition and just as organized. Like a machine that needed to be oiled on a regular basis. Only a powerful woman could handle such a task.
I was terribly wrong.
"Oh, what an ugly mutt." Lysa Arryn was a bird-like woman with a gaunt, haggard expression that misled her actual age. Her hair was plaited and whisps of the familiar dark, auburn hair escaped the loose confines. Her gowns were thick and expensive, made in a fashion that suited the summer courts more than her winter home. The only thing that seemed to keep her from becoming a thin, little icicle was the thick cloak that hung heavily on her frail shoulders and the sweeping pile of furs that lined her throne and feet. Cuddled up in those furs, I saw the downy, brown hair of a little boy peeking out, curled into Lysa's side.
A swirling staircase that hugged the wall of the circular room led up to the twisted wood of Lysa's throne, an open balcony shielded by fluttering blue curtains just behind her. Benches circled a raised circular hatch just before the throne. I glanced at it curiously, the construction reminding me of a well. But we were too high up in the mountains for such things.
Standing just beside her like a servant waiting for the order of a master was a shrewd, little man with a goatee. His clothes were fine, much more lavish than any other servant that I had seen. By the way that Lysa was leaning towards him, it wasn't a far jump for me to assume that they were lovers.
And just beyond that, standing quietly behind the throne of Arryn was…
"Sansa," Robb breathed, his voice quivering with such emotion that I had to turn and check that it was really my husband. His eyes were cloudy, dazed as if something had just smacked him and he wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or lucid.
The girl that he was speaking to was beautiful. Her eyes were a striking greenish-blue that contrasted with her fiery, red hair. Her face was somehow soft and hard at the same time, her lips full and pouty. At Robb's voice, her head raised slightly, a look of shock flashing across her face before she was stepping forward.
"Robb?" There was such hope and surprise in that name.
"My little girl," Catelyn choked out, a sob breaking through the room before she was rushing towards her daughter, both of them meeting in a swirl of skirts and tears at the bottom of the staircase. Robb was quickly behind her, rushing over to engulf them both in a tight embrace.
"Your daughter is quite a handful, sister!" that twittering voice chimed in as Catelyn smoothed the hair away from Sansa's brow with a soft smile. "I tried my best to impart some wisdom upon her but she is quite... stubborn."
Stubborn didn't seem to be the word Lysa wanted to use. From the way that Sansa's eyes flashed across the room at the woman, she probably wouldn't have used such mild-mannered words either.
Robb was the first to pull away, his gaze a mixture of pain and joy as he walked slowly back to me. His eyes met mine for a moment as he slid into his spot just beside me and the softness there nearly took my breath away. Catelyn was still murmuring to Sansa at the foot of the steps, her hands shaking as they constantly ran along her daughter's face or the whisps of hair that tickled her forehead.
"We appreciate all the help that you've offered us, Lady Arryn," Robb finally said, sounding like the words physically hurt him. "We are in your debt."
A loud titter was the only reply that was given to Robb's words along with a long, self-satisfied stare between Lysa's assistant and herself. My eyes drifted to Sansa and Catelyn once more, watching their tight embrace, how they clung to each other like two sheets of paper of the same book. A strange sort of deja vu made me dizzy for a moment and I missed my family once more with an ache that took my breath away.
"Is this lovely creature beside you your new wife?" I blinked away the pain as Lysa turned her wide, beady eyes towards me. Robb's eyes flicked to me briefly as all of the halls attention centered on me.
The rules of politics were very strict to those who didn't know them. It often reminded me of the game of whispers that my brother and siblings had once played when we were very small. One truth and two lies - the person that got it correct would become the keeper of all truths in the next game, keeping us all honest. Lies and truths, all mixed up into the same pot, put into one room with a variety of people and it was our job to pick through it all.
Luckily, I had been very good at the game of whispers.
"May I introduce you to Willa Frey of Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing and Riverrun, Lord Paramount of the Trident," Robb said it all in one breath, almost absently although the title was bulky and ridiculously long. My cheeks burned as a few of the guards around gave barely hidden chuckles. At least, I would know their opinion of me from the beginning.
"A long title for such a small river," the shrewd man beside Lysa chuckled and I bit down on my instinctive retort. I wasn't a fool. My fathers boasting was something of legends and his titles surely came from those same embellishments. However, I knew an insult when I heard one and this wasn't a friendly jab.
My eyes flicked around, catching the derisive sneers that were being directed at us and the tension in Robb's body as his eyes flashed with barely reigned anger. Lysa's lips were pulled back in a leer that surely had everything to do with her sense of power. Which the shouldn't have at the moment. Our introduction into her house was not fitting our status and the way that she was sitting above us in that ridiculous throne said everything that she hadn't. And that was really starting to irritate me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Theon's hand move slowly to the pommel of his sword. Standing above us all around Lysa, I saw the guards do the same. We were in a very delicate situation. There would be no winning this battle for us with our seriously depleted company and how tired we were from our travels. Quickly, I reached out for my plants but we were very high in the mountains and I was weak from my battle with Order.
And the man beside Lysa made me uneasy.
I let out a loud giggle, the sound breaking through the room with a force that made everyone jump. There were more than a few who were looking at me like I had lost my mind. I forced myself to laugh more, clutching my stomach.
"Oh dear me! And here I thought that our rivers ran so far along the Riverlands that not a soul could cross without bidding our toll!" I wiped away the tears with a daring grin up Lysa and her little assistant. When she was startled she looked surprisingly like a preening bird, her face pulled back in a way that made her neck and shoulder seem like one unit. It was the expression on her assistant's face, that slick, calculating gaze that reminded me of some great, slimy beast blindly feeling out its surroundings that made me push my act. "Silly me! I always did think that out governess was telling us lies when I was growing up. Nasty lot - governesses. They feed the children such lies and the parents are none the wiser."
It was a stab in the dark but one that I needed to take. My eyes stayed trained on Lysa as her posture straightened before loosening. No mother who wasn't overprotective and paranoid would let her child sleep beside her on the throne. Most would have sent their infants away with a Sept to bed while she completed the daily duties of a ruler. But Lysa was that paranoid and overprotective and she gave me exactly what I wanted.
"Yes, darling," she chirped, smiling down at me. "I completely agree with you! That's why I would never let my Robin be taught by one of them. They tell such horrendous lies!" Her gaze moved to Robb and she gave him a small smile. "You've picked a smart one, Your Grace."
Robb's eyes were on me when he answered, his words nearly too soft to hear. "Yes. I believe I have."
We were led to a large room with no windows. There was a private bathroom with a tub sunk into the stone ground, freshwater pumped from the boiler room below. The Vale was so large that the footman who was attending us informed us that the late lord had installed a pumping system. Say what you would about the current keeper of the Vale but she knew how to furnish the Vale.
Everything was done in a variety of blues from a deep periwinkle that the bathroom towels were made of to the darkest of blueberry tones for the bed. A honey throw was laid across the thick blankets of the bed to a add a splash of color. An ornate sitting area was placed just in front of the fireplace made of the same blues
Robb stood by silently through the attendant's detailed account of the history of the Vale and our future schedules. I played along, giving vague, bubbly comments that he would surely report back to Lysa. It was best to seem as empty minded as possible, I had quickly found.
Some women liked to find intelligence in other women. But women like Lysa wanted only the surface to show. There was nothing deeper than the basic emotions and feminine logic of embroidering and motherhood. I could use that to my advantage. I could make her like me and completely block anything that that little man who was by her side, might whisper to her.
She was absolutely besotted with him, I had quickly realized and when I had found out that he was, in fact, the infamous Petry Baelish, my instincts had spiked. We were in very dangerous territories.
"Lady Arryn offers her apologies," the attendant finally said, bowing slightly. "Your arrival was unexpected and Lord Baelish and herself have already planned another course of events for the evening."
My eyes narrowed, the ditzy smile that I had plastered on my face stiffening. My eyes moved to Robb who had turned just as angry. Grey Wind's hackles raised.
It was an obvious slight.
"Interesting," Robb said and his low words made the attendant flinch from his bent position.
I gave a giggle, trying to diffuse the situation. "If we weren't family, we would take that as a slight!" Robb's stormy gaze moved to me, his jaw hard as our gaze met. I let out another giggle, moving closer so that I could wrap around his arm. "As it is, Lady Catelyn has talked a great deal about her lovely sister and nephew so we'll take it more as consideration for our long journey and exhaustion."
"Ye-yes, milady," the attendant stuttered, his head still bent low. The guards that had followed us to our room, shifted nervously at the door to our bedroom.
"I'm sure that she has a feast planned for tomorrow, my love," I cooed up at Robb, my arms tightening on his as I watched the ice in his gaze thaw a bit. "You are the King of the North, after all!"
A low, quivering breath escaped the man who still remained bent in front of us as we waited for Robbs' answer. Silently, our eyes did battle. He was such a direct man, I was sure that he would much prefer to storm to Lysa's chambers and demand a proper welcome.
Finally, his voice low, he spoke. "My wife knows how to persuade me. Usually, I would have replied to these insults with a bit more anger."
"I apologize for any slight," the attendant whimpered, his eyes flicking to where Grey Wind snarled from just behind us. "Is there any other services that I can attend to while I am here? A warm meal will be served shortly after my departure to your chambers."
I grinned. "Just one more question - Oh, do rise. I like to see a man's eyes when I speak to him." Slowly, the twitchy man straightened, sweat glistening on his brows. Poor man. I wondered briefly if he had to apologize for his lady's impolitness often. "My husband and I have just been married and are hoping for an heir very soon…" I let that sink in for a moment, noting the deep ruddy color of the attendants cheeks and the way that Robb was staing down at me - like I had cracked my lid. "Will there be many guards roaming the halls? I'm rather… vocal."
I feigned embarrassment, giving a nervous giggle. In all honesty, I was only partially acting. It was degrading to have to seem like I regularly opened my legs for Robb.
"There-there," the attendant stuttered blinking rapidly as the guards behind him shared a knowing glance. "There will only be two guards stationed at your doors and the end of the halls."
My eyes met Robbs. Only four guards for the whole hall which included Catelyn as well as most of the rest of our party. That was a smaller amount than I had thought there would be. Although the Vale was so well positioned that I guess the guards were rather spread out. They had a wide distance to monitor.
Robb's eyes caught mine once more in a startling moment of understanding, the blue depths of them sparkling in the firelight. Briefly, his lips tipped up, making my heart give an irrational flutter.
Coughing, I whirled back to the nervous man who had begun to inch towards the door. "Well, you have been an utter delight! We truly appreciate your help-"
"And history lesson," Robb muttered blandly, earning him a quick glance from the attendant. Giving him an elbow to the side, I stepped forward with my birghtest smile.
"Do tell Lady Lysa that her decor is fantastic," I chirped, ushering him to the door with a gentle hand to his back.
When he reached the door, I stepped back, staring expectantly at the young attendant as he straightened his clothes and gave a light cough. The guards had moved to the side, taking up places on either side of the door even though they were eyeing me with skepticism.
"I will pass along your praise and your…" His eyes flicked to just over my shoulder where I could feel my husband looming. "Concerns?"
"Lovely," I hummed, nodding. "A cup of tea as well would be amazing."
I turned away with a wave, hearing the murmur of acknowledgment from the attendent before the doors were closing quietly behind me.
A single brow quirked as Robb stared down at me, his arms crossing.
"Yes?" I quipped, skirting around him to riffle aimlessly through our trunks that had been hauled up to the room. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Robb had let me take control today with nothing more than a sardonic, heavy lidded stare. He had been… wonderful.
"Have I told you that you're absolutely stunning?" His deep, gravelly whisper made me still, my hands clutching at one of the many ornate dresses that had been packed away. I blinked. I had pictured… something else when we were finally left alone. Maybe a bit more along the lines of: who did I marry? Followed by horror and disgust.
Blinking, I turned to stare up at his imposing figure, his gaze dark and serious, a few errant auburn curls slipping to whisper along his heavy brow.
"You're not mad?" I blurted out, my heart jumping at the sound of my own voice.
A corner of his lips tipped up, flashing a bit of straight, white teeth. "Perhaps a bit unhappy that those guards will be listening at our door tonight to try and catch a bit of your moans."
I blushed. "I was trying to-"
"See how many guards would be posted along our hall without raising suspicion," he finished, his eyes twinkling. "Yes. I know."
My cheeks grew warmer under his penetrating gaze. "And the meeting with Lysa…"
"Would have ended in a bloodbath if you had not played the fool," he whispered, crouching down so that we were eye level. Briefly, his eyes flicked to my lips before meeting my gaze again. "You're quite disarming when you fawn all over me."
I grimaced, wrinkling my nose. "In the next few days, I'm sure you will enjoy yourself immensely then, my lord."
The smile faded slowly from his face, leaving storm clouds. "I'm afraid that I've taken you to a very dangerous place, wife. Baelish's grip on my aunt is a lot stronger than I had assumed."
My brows furrowed as I thought about the thin man that had stood beside Lysa. Yes. Women like Lysa enjoyed being led by men. She liked to feel cherished and coddled - much the same as the way that I was sure she treated her own child. There was something a little off about the woman. Something that could be very dangerous to us in the long run.
I shook my head, forcing a strained smile. "Your sister was here as well. We would have had to face this sooner or later if we had wanted to visit her."
Those clear, blue eyes clouded for a moment, his brow knitting in worry as he considered. "I don't think that we'll be able to leave here easily, Willa," he said softly, his eyes open and honest. "Littlefinger has an unnatural attraction to the women of my family - like a gnat around the carcasses of an animal. He's just always...there."
His eyes were distant, turning towards the flickering flames of the fireplace. There was trouble in that gaze. And also weariness. He was tired of these battles, I realized. He wanted home, peace and warmth. My heart ached for him.
Those blue eyes snapped to me once more, a spark lighting. "Would you like to meet my sister?"
I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please drop me a review and follow/favorite.