Early August, 299 AC
It was a fine day with nary a cloud in the sky. Breezes danced through the leaves, rustling and whispering, carrying a banquet of smells to Sansa's delicate nose, rich loamy soil, sweet flowers, tart berries, and the fresh water of the stream.
Women and girls surrounded Sansa, some perched on boulders, some sitting on the grass. Cutjack and Tarber had rolled a few boulders into the meadow beside the hollow hill so the women could work in the sunshine. Sansa's weirwood stump they had set beneath a tree, "so m'lady will have some shade," Tarber had babbled, ducking his head.
In the distance, on top of the hollow hill, Sansa could almost see the slender trunks of her weirwood saplings. Six she had planted, one beside each of the weirwood stumps. Only later did she realize she had planted one for each Stark. The old gods had given Jon Snow a direwolf; she must acknowledge him as her brother now, baseborn or not. She wondered if he was lonely up on the Wall. Sansa had Arya, Bran and Rickon had each other, and Robb had an army, but Jon had no one.
"There's no point," Arya grumbled in the distance. "No one needs embroidery."
Sansa kept her eyes fixed on her needlework, pretending her sharp ears could not hear. As the women around her spun and mended, Sansa's needle glided through the cloth, the thread weaving in and out like a snake through water.
"And what have you been doing, m'lady?"
As always, Celia was spinning. The old grandmother sat beside the stream, keeping an eye on the younger children as they played. Arya stood beside her, covered in sweat. Needle hung at her hip, the steel shining.
"Practicing," Arya said. "I have to do my drills every day, if I'm going to get better."
"Of course, m'lady." Celia's voice was suspiciously deferential.
Arya exhaled loudly, her face screwed up in a scowl. "
What
?"
"Do you enjoy practicing, m'lady?"
"Yes. So?"
The grandmother's cloudy eyes watched her thread, not even glancing at Arya. "Mebbe your sister takes comfort in her needle as you do in yours. We've enough women as can spin and mend. Sides, most o' them never had a bit of pretty like that before, let alone made by a great lady."
Arya's shoulders slumped. She stalked off toward the meadow, pausing briefly to half-heartedly kick a rotting log. Sansa's sworn shield was always practicing, running back and forth with the wolf pups, teaching the little children how to dodge a blow, doing drills with her sword. Arya was happy, though she missed their brothers and mother as much as Sansa did.
That was one of the reasons Sansa had chosen to stay at the hollow hill. As soon as they reached Riverrun, Robb would doubtless have marriages arranged for them both. Sometimes Sansa thought he might seek to win the Tyrells by wedding her to Ser Loras. Robb needed Tyrell swords, and Tyrell knights, and in the winter the Reach could send plenty of food to help the North survive. She was only a few years younger than Ser Loras, and he was all that Joffrey wasn't, brave and true.
She daydreamed of babes with brown curls and blue eyes, until she wondered- who would Robb make Arya marry? Would he send her far away, to some lord who wouldn't let her keep Nymeria? Surely Robb wouldn't do such a thing, but how would Arya survive returning to any castle? There would be septas and ladies who would take Needle away, and make Arya give up her water dancing for needlework.
Sansa looked down at her weirwood leaf, her tummy sinking. Five points of crimson glimmered against the dull grey wool. The thread was a gift from Alyn, taken during a raid on a Lannister supply train. It had been intended for cloaks of Lannister crimson, but Sansa had given it another purpose.
The smallfolk had begun returning to their homes as word came of the riverlords driving the westermen away. Almost all those who came from north of the Red Fork were gone, each with a weirwood leaf hidden somewhere on their clothes.
It was meant as a token, a promise, but Arya was right. Needlework could not rebuild their homes. A finely stitched weirwood leaf would not fill their cellars for winter. Lord Beric Dondarrion's raids were feeding entire villages, and what was Sansa doing? Embroidering, singing to babies, sending Arya and the wolves on raids to feed a few dozen mouths.
Sansa set the tunic aside, and one of the women handed her a child's gown. Bitterly Sansa began stitching, wishing she'd asked her mother more about her duties as Lady of Winterfell. She'd realized a few days past that she had no idea how many souls lived in the North, or even in Winterfell. Alyn was unable to answer her when she asked him, and Arya didn't know either.
It was Jeyne who had found her later, and shared what she remembered from listening to her father speak of his work as steward. Sansa knew the great and minor houses of the North, their sigils, their words, their lords, but it was Jeyne who knew which ones paid the most taxes, grew the most grain, and so on. The North had some four million people in all, mostly smallfolk, but plenty of land knew neither plowman nor shepherd.
"There were more, my father said, before Robert's Rebellion. Northmen bore many of the losses on the Trident, and during the Greyjoy rebellion," Jeyne had remembered.
Old Nan lost her sons during Robert's Rebellion, Sansa knew, and her grandson at Pyke. Old Nan had once said Winterfell was greater in her youth. She'd come to Winterfell some eighty years past as a wet nurse to a Brandon Stark, the son of Lord Willam Stark, Sansa's great-great-grandfather. The mother, a Glover, had died in childbirth.
"There were many folk in Winterfell then," Old Nan had said, needles clacking, "bursting at the seams, it was, and the Lord doted on my little Brandon." Then the lad died of a summer chill, and Winterfell mourned.
At last Lord Willam had wed again. "They were happy together, aye," Old Nan had said. Lady Melantha was a Blackwood, beautiful and merry, with hair as dark as her name and a laugh as loud and sweet as bells.
Their love quickly brought forth a son, Edwyle, and a few years later a daughter, Jocelyn. For a time Winterfell echoed with song and banquets and the laughter of children.
"Then Raymun Redbeard came over the wall, with wildlings and wargs and worse," Old Nan had whispered. Lord Willam rode forth to meet them, and his blade was bright as his wife's smile, but on the shores of the Long Lake the wildlings cut off his head. Yet the Stark won the victory in the end, for Willam's younger brother, Artos the Implacable, slew the wildling king in single combat.
"When word came of Lord Willam's death, that were the end of it," Old Nan had sighed. Lady Melantha thought of naught but Winterfell, keeping it strong and safe for her children. Many had died fighting the wildlings, and those who remained had no stomach for singers or jolly feasts. She ruled until Edwyle came of age, for she was wise, and Artos took up his sword against any who defied her.
Then war came again, this time to the west, reavers slaughtering along the coast. Lord Edwyle rode to battle, and the ironmen felt the bite of his sword. But victory came at a heavy price, for Edwyle returned in a litter, his body riddled with wounds, and half the men of Winterfell did not return at all. Edwyle lingered for a year before the gods ended his agony, and his wife soon followed, taken by some wasting sickness. Rickard became Lord of Winterfell at fifteen, having lost father and mother both, and Artos died within the year.
"He was a solemn one, was Rickard," Old Nan said, "losing so many turned him grim, grim as the Kings of Winter in their tombs. Lady Melantha was all he had, till he wed Lady Lyarra." Then there were children again, Brandon and Eddard, Lyanna and Benjen, the Stark line renewed- "until the Mad King took them," Old Nan had hissed, with an anger Sansa had never seen.
Sansa frowned as she pulled her needle through the cloth. The smallfolk had risen against Maegor the Cruel. Why had they not risen against the Mad King? Sansa glanced about her. Jeyne sat beside her, and there were a few girls near Sansa's age, but most of the women were older. Surely they remembered life before Robert's Rebellion.
"What was life like under King Aerys?"
Almost every needle paused as the women looked at Sansa, puzzled.
"M'lady?" Bethany asked, her needle hovering over the set of breeches she was patching.
"I am curious, that is all," Sansa said. A few of the women looked at each other hesitantly.
"Things was peaceful, mostly," Damina said. "The roads were safe, and the harvests was good. My brothers was able to buy a few hides o' land."
"He changed t' laws, though," Tansy muttered, looking down at her thread. "Our rents went up soon as Tywin became hand. Under old King Aegon t' lords couldn't raise rent during winters."
"Aye, and our lord took back the land granted to the poor," Bethany said. "Me grandad said it never would've happened under Aegon, said he was a friend to the smallfolk."
"Shouldn't have tried t' hatch dragon eggs then." Damina spat on the ground, then froze, remembering their lady was present. Sansa turned away, pretending she hadn't seen anything.
"Whatever happened at Summerhall, Aegon weren't no King Scab," piped up Shirei. She was the youngest of many sisters, and had a tale for every occasion. "There was queer stories of Aerys- there were a tourney at Harrenhal, when my oldest sister was a maid there under old Lord Whent," said Shirei. "She told us the king looked a fright, his hair all long and dirty and tangled like a bird's nest, and his nails like claws." The girl shuddered.
"Now Rhaegar, he were a proper prince," Tansy said. "He won the tourney at Harrenhal, he did, an' he were a clever one besides. If he hadn't got hisself killed, he might've been a good king."
"A good king doesn't kidnap ladies and rape them," Sansa said softly.
Tansy shrank back. Poor Lyanna. When Sansa was little she wondered if her father's little sister had gone willingly, if she'd wanted a gallant prince. Doubtless Rhaegar had been forced to wed a Dornish princess, only to have his heart captured by a northern beauty. When Sansa saw the fat old king, she'd been certain she was right. It was a tragic love story, not a tale of violence. Now she knew better. Perfect princes could be perfect monsters, Joffrey had taught her that.
"Shirei, did your sister say aught of Princess Elia?" Jeyne asked quietly. Sansa glanced at her friend, surprised.
The Dornish princess haunted Sansa's dreams, her face wan and her belly swollen as she lay confined to her chambers. It was agony, watching the gentle princess read books of dragonlore, unable to warn her of the terrible fate that awaited her and her babes. The agony only increased when Princess Elia was brought to childbed, the sheets drenched in blood, her body streaked with sweat and tears. The babe was fine, but the mother would not wake, she would not wake-
Jeyne had shaken Sansa from her sleep, concerned by her sounds of distress, and Sansa had wept as she told Jeyne of the princess lying still, unable to hold her crying babe. Why were the gods tormenting her so?
At least when she dreamed of Buttons, she might learn something of use. The cat wandered the entire Red Keep, picking up bits of gossip as he rubbed against ankles and purred on laps. Ser Addam Marbrand longed for battle, but was resigned to training Tommen. The Imp was keeping a mistress, and the Queen knew about it.
Shirei tilted her head, her stitches wandering crookedly as she thought.
"The Dornish princess was weak, she said. She walked with a golden cane and sometimes the Kingsguard had to help her. The princess gave the servants coin for every trifle." Shirei frowned. "Always in the godswood, she was; my sister fetched her blankets to keep off the chill."
None of the others had heard much of the Dornish princess, just that she was pretty and sickly. And brave , Sansa wanted to tell them. She calmed her ladies when they fretted over what the Mad King would do if she bore another girl; she never let her own fear show.
"What was life like under King Robert?" Sansa asked, desperately pushing away memories of the Mountain bursting into Princess Elia's chambers.
"About t' same as under Aerys," Bethany said. "But a lot o' rivermen died in the rebellion, and it wrecked our village. The old Falcon made sure we had money to rebuild, what with him being hand and his wife being a Tully."
"M'lady's aunt," one of the women said.
Sansa frowned as she tried to recall Aunt Lysa. She had only met her once, some years past. Lord Jon Arryn and Lady Lysa had come to Winterfell, bearing a baby as scrawny as his father and as red cheeked as his mother. Sansa had been all of six, and longing to see a lady who lived at court, who dressed in the latest fashions. Lady Lysa's gowns were as beautiful as Sansa had imagined, but the lady wearing them was sad and fretful, always worrying about her babe.
"Did m'lady know Lady Arryn was the lady of the court, before King Robert married?" Bethany asked. Sansa shook her head.
"Then we got the Lannister whore instead," Damina grumbled. Sansa froze, her blood pounding in her ears. Dimly she registered the scents of the women, their heartbeats fluttering as Sansa set her needlework aside and fixed her eyes on Damina.
"Whores kept Jeyne and Meri safe, defying orders to train them with beatings and rapes. Whores recognized Arya and said nothing, though they could have had a purse of golden dragons."
Sansa rose, anger thrumming in her veins.
"Whores helped me escape King's Landing, without any promise of reward. Do not dishonor them by saying Cersei Lannister is one of them."
