Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.
Book 2
Chapter One-Hundred and Ten
It was cold; it was always cold in the North. Lysa had never gotten used to it, and she was sure that she never would, but that did not matter in the end as she knew that all she has suffered never mattered to anyone, not to her Lord Father whose only letters to her had been to remind her of her duty and what was expected of her and not to let him down.
Not her sister, who enjoyed seeing her suffer. Lysa knew that she did, that spiteful bitch who could not be happy with just the fact that her son with Brandon was ahead of all of her children in the line of inheritance to Winterfell, but no, she had to rub it into her face by breeding like a rabbit with her old husband and having a dozen other sons.
Lysa had not even had one yet, oh, she had many children. She was a Tully after all and she had a duty to perform and so she had welcomed her husband to her bed as many times as was needed until she fell pregnant with her first babe. Catelyn had sent a letter to congratulate her once she had heard after their Father had told her, Lysa had burned it without even reading it.
But every single child was a girl, which meant that Winterfell and all the lands of House Stark slipped more and more out of her grasp after each time she had failed in her duty and it just wasn't fair, none of it. She had done her bit, had always obeyed and done all she was told to do and played by all the rules and what did she have to show for it in the end?
An unhappy marriage to a man who barely showed any interest in her at the best of times, the lady of a land that did not respect her, did not trust her even after all she had done to them to try and make this grim land something like the warm and lovely home that she had left, trying to bring them some sort of civilization and did any of them even try and thank her for it, even once? No, of course not.
And she might have been able to cope with all of that except that every time she tried to find some peace in her life her sister always managed to take it from here in some way or another, Winterfell would have been her eldest daughter's in any just world, her dear Minisa, her precious little Minnie who had grown to be even more beautiful then Cat had been when she was her age.
But no, because of that foul deal that had been made between her Father and Lord Jon meant that even the slight comfort of her daughter having a castle and lands in her own name had been stolen from her. It would go to Cat's bastard boy instead. The boy had kept the name that had been his when he had been born and Cat was still on her first husband, that he had no right to claim that name in Lysa's view after all that had happened but who was she to argue with the King? After all, she was but a woman.
Lysa Tully was a Mother, and she would defend her daughter's rights to her last breath when it came to it, even if her daughter would not love her for doing so. She was still just a child, living in a world of songs where a marriage could be the sweetest thing, she didn't even see the insult, the blatant act of theft for what it actually was.
The worst thing about it was that they expected Lysa to be pleased about it, a fine compromise Elia Martell had called it with that sweet smile that so well hide a viper's venom from the unwary. Jon Stark was to be wed to her eldest daughter, making her the Lady of Winterfell by marriage alone when in any just world she should have been, in any just world she would have had a son to ensure that even the scant comforts she had in Winterfell would not be taken away.
But it was not a just world, she had learned that well enough. And her husband had not visited her bed in months and months so the chance of having a son to steal back what was threatened to be taken from her seemed more and more unlikely.
She had never loved Benjen, and he had never loved her. She had tried, right at the very start. But he was little more than a boy when they had wed they were too different, they didn't understand one another when it came to it and while she would give him the due that he was a better father to their daughters than she ever had as a girl that wasn't very hard to accomplish. As for a husband, well, he was the only one she had so she had nothing to compare him to but he was hardly what she would have wanted as a girl and she wanted him less now.
Lysa was pulled out of his misery, at least for a moment, by the sound of a knock coming from her chamber door and when she gave permission to come in one of her maids, Bette, came in. Bette had apparently been the wet nurse for House Stark before Lysa had arrived but when she had the woman's milk had dried up and so she had become a maid instead.
The older woman was her favourite of her maids but that wasn't saying much, sometimes Lysa got the feeling like the other woman pitied her more than anything else but Lysa would take being pitied over what she knew some of her other maids thought of her. They looked down at her, disliked her, for not being northern like they all were and she didn't understand why. Elia Martell was as far to the south as south could be and yet she had no problem winning their love.
"Lord Stark and the children are breaking their fast in the great hall, my Lady, would you like to be dressed so you can join them?" Bette's voice always reminded her of honey in too thick porridge, too sweet and hard to swallow but better than nothing in the end and Lysa wished to tell her to go and soak her head so she could be left alone but she didn't have the strength.
"Fine." As Bette turned to lay out her clothes for the day Lysa turned to look back into her looking glass, wondering where the roundness of her face and the lines under her eyes had come from. There were only a few threads of silver among her long and beautiful red hair but she hated each and everyone with more fire than anything, did she not have a right to be happy? What had she done that was so terrible that she deserved to be stranded in this cold wasteland, with every comfort and every possible bit of joy about to be stolen away?
She did not know, but one comfort that she did have was that she was not utterly friendless. She reached out and picked up the letter in front of her looking glass and smiled as her fingers traced over the broken seal of pink wax.
End of Chapter One-Hundred and Ten