Lord Bolton had received a bird from the capital and called them into the Hunter's Hall for a meeting. Sansa Stark was dead. It was devastating news.
The way she had died was simply awful. She'd been kept in the highest room of the tallest tower of Maegor's Holdfast of the Red Keep. She had been so lonely, so hated, so despondent after all hope of rescue or ransom or King Robb's victory had been lost, that soon after the Tyrells arrived in King's Landing, she'd flung herself out the window and impaled herself on the spikes of the dry moat below. Then the Lannisters tarred her naked body and put it up on the walls, leaving her red hair free to fly. The return of her bones was conditional on unconditional surrender.
How cruel the gods were. Sansa Stark, a princess once to be a queen, was now just another beautiful lady whose despair and loveliness and death would be the stuff of songs, like Ashara Dayne.
That was if the report was true. If the Crown was lying, then they had killed her and were covering it up.
Everybody had been affected. Ser Slower's bushy walrus mustache had quivered and he'd looked at the floor. He had two daughters not much older than Sansa Stark had been. Robert had looked right at him and known that Ser Slower was thinking of his girls. Wynafryd and Wylla. Women grown, flowered and ready to wed, but always his girls. Robert himself had a lump in his throat. Beth had as many namedays as Sansa Stark did. Four-and-ten, near on five-and-ten. Fuck. That had nearly made him cry, picturing Beth's broken body bleeding on a spike. Or Branna. Robert would have ripped apart the world to help Beth and Branna. Roose was imagining Beth and Branna too, and Ronnel his own little daughter Wilma. Robert didn't know Ser Kyle that well, but he was about the right age to have a little daughter, or at least a sister, and he'd had downcast eyes as well. Besides, he was a Cerwyn man, and the Cerwyn men were well known at Winterfell. Ser Kyle had probably known Sansa Stark.
Even Lord Bolton had looked mildly upset. His Grace and Ser Edmure should have listened to Dom. Or Lord Bolton should have just allowed Dom to play the hero and lead his mission. Then this fucking awful thing might not have happened, and Robb Stark wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that his last sister – his last sibling – was gone.
Robert hadn't known Robb Stark. He'd met him maybe twice at Moat Cailin. But Robert knew what it was like to have two sisters. All the times he'd japed at Robb Stark's expense – he would have to stop. Fuck. Robert wouldn't jape about a man who'd lost both his sisters. He didn't want to imagine the pain. He never wanted to feel what Father felt when Aunt Beth was lost to them forever. Dom hadn't agreed with His Grace's choices, but by Robert's lights it was more complicated. Highborn hostages were treated well, and a rescue mission could go wrong. His Grace might have been throwing away good men and his sister's life when the Lannisters tried to take her back. What if they had reached the Red Keep and gotten her out only to be slaughtered on the Kingsroad or in the woods? That would have been hard to live with, knowing you had given the all clear. After the Blackwater it had been all but fated that she would be sold like a horse to make a peace. She wouldn't have been happy, but she would have been safe.
That's what Robert would have thought. But he would've been wrong, just like Robb Stark had been wrong, and Dom had been right. And now when the Lannisters sent Dom back to meet up with them at the Twins in chains, someone would have to tell him the news that would break his heart. No, that wasn't right. Dom was a prisoner, and the Lannisters would have wanted to demoralize a Northern prisoner. They would have already told him, and when Dom met up with the Northerners at the Twins he'd be the shell of himself.
What would have happened if Lord Bolton had let Dom go? Perhaps Dom would have been a prisoner still, or perhaps he would have died. Or perhaps Dom would have reached King's Landing in time, would be back on his way here by now, with Sansa Stark in tow, and when they got to the Twins His Grace would have been so grateful that he'd grant Dom his heart's desire to marry his princess. There could have been a double wedding with Ser Edmure and his Frey. But that could never be now. It was no use wondering.
Would Dom want to write a song for Sansa Stark? Perhaps not. Maybe it would hurt too much. Dom didn't know how Robert knew about the torch he'd held for the princess, but Robert had known all the same. Dom had told him, and Dom hadn't remembered. They'd been out carousing with Don and Young Rod to celebrate Dom's knighthood and Young Rod's nameday. Young Rod had boasted he could drink the new ser under the table, and Dom had accepted the challenge. Robert had watched with bated breath, because everyone knew Lord Boltonneverlet Dom drink anything but hippocras and weak ale. Perhaps Lord Bolton had loosened up, or Redfort had taught him in the Vale? Robert had been surprised - Dom had matched Young Rod cup for cup, and he hadn't known just how soused Dom was until they'd gotten back to the family apartments at the Rillseat. Poor bugger had sat straight on his horse as if completely sober and had said nary a word the whole ride back.
Then they'd gotten back to Dom's chambers, and Robert had chided him for refusing all the girls who'd mooned over his singing, and then he'd started babbling on and on and on about Sansa Stark.
They were so beautiful, those things Dom said. He must have been quoting some of his own poems. They were better than that famous play from Volantis Robert had had to read as a boy, the one about the Tiger's son and the Elephant's daughter that he'd had to translate it from High Valyrian to Lyseni. Then to Tyroshi. Then to Braavosi. Then to Ghiscari. And then to the Common Tongue. And then he'd had to memorize it. He'd known every word of that sappy piece of mummery, and the things Dom had to say about Sansa Stark had touched his heart in a way that Vylio Shaesperys' words never had.
So the next morning, when Dom had woken up with a pounding headache and dry mouth and shuffled off to break his fast with no memory of the night prior, Robert had sought an audience in Grandfather's solar. A Stark marriage for his blood, that's what Grandfather had wanted all along. And it would have made Dom so happy too! Grandfather had been pleased with Robert that morning, and had penned a letter to Lord Bolton. But Robert had never heard what happened to that letter, and then Lady Sansa had been betrothed to Prince Joffrey.
They'd both been visiting Aunt Barbrey in Barrowton when King Robert Baratheon and the rest had come riding down the Kingsroad from Winterfell. Aunt Barbrey had given Branna leave from her duties to go ride out with them and try to spot the column. It had taken them a few days to catch them, but when they did, it had been unmistakable. They rode up to the top of a hill, the three of them, and Robert had switched horses with Branna so she could stand taller in the stirrups to see. Baratheon blacks and Lannister crimsons snapped in the wind, and there was so much gold, gold, gold.
"Do you think if we rode up to meet them, Lord Stark would take a meal with us?" Branna had said. "We could share our bread with Lady Arya and Lady Sansa and they could be our friends. And then one day I could go to the capital and serve as one of Lady Sansa's ladies. To think, Robbie, me, one of the Queen's ladies! Wouldn't that be grand?" Branna hadn't let him answer. She'd just turned to look at Dom instead. "Dommie, you've met her, aye? What's she like? The Lady Sansa?"
"Aye, Branna, I've met her," Dom had said, smiling sadly as he had stared at the long line of wagons and wheelhouses and mounted men. "She's the perfect lady. She'll be a true queen."
"I don't think Lord Stark would want to bother with us," Robert had cut in. "Let's just eat here and watch." Branna had been annoyed, but Dom had looked relieved.
Perhaps Robert shouldn't have said anything that day.
There was a hand on his shoulder. "Robert?" It was Ronnel.
"Aye?"
"The meeting's over."
"Aye."
"Are you all right, lad?" Ronnel's hand was squeezing.
"Aye, Ronnel. I will be."
"Would you like to chat a bit?" Did he? It might help.
"No, Ronnel, no thank you. Not now. Later." Robert knew what he wanted to do.
"Where're you off to now then, lad?"
Robert looked into Ronnel's face. Wrinkly smile lines were just beginning to show around his kinsman's mouth at nine-and-twenty, though he wasn't smiling now. Fuck, when did Ronnel get soold?Aye, it would be good to chat with Ronnel later.
"The godswood," Robert said. "To pray. Then to the library. To write." Robert exhaled. "I want to tell my sisters I love them."
"How's the inquest going?"
Robert was picking at his salted pork when Ronnel came down to sit next to him in the hall in the section of the castle the Rillmen and barrowknights were sharing. "It's going. Got through another hundred men today."
"And how do you question a hundred men in a day?"
"Groups of ten. All under the same command. Goes fast enough."
"Anything new?"
"No. The Glover and Tallhart men know nothing. One Karstark rider spoke with him. It's only the Cerwyn men who really witnessed anything. He was in the rearguard and became the van. Then the Fossoways came on them, and he engaged a green-apple Fossoway knight. The knight led him away, but it looked like he was winning."
"And Condon and the rest of the commanders let you keep questioning the men?"
"Oh, aye, they're 'letting' me. Condon's scared shitless of Lord Bolton. Thinks he'll be flayed for letting the Darling of the Dreadfort get captured. No matter what I say. The rest of them, the Karstarks and Tallharts and Glovers, they're following Condon's lead. And it's not as if any of them have their liege lord to stand up to Lord Bolton for them."
"They don't know it's not Lord Bolton who's asking for this? That it's Lady Barbrey and Lord Rodrik?"
"No. But if they did, would it truly matter? They're all suspicious of us for marrying into the Dreadfort. Not the lords. The men. And you know the barrowknights. Better than I do. Disciplined. Professional. And fresh, just like the Rillmen. The rest of the men here, they're scared of that. They all look so tired compared to us. And we've most all the horse, too. They don't want to cross us. You and me and Roose, I mean. They know we speak for Aunt Barbrey and Grandfather Rodrik. And they think, oh, one word to them, or to Lord Bolton, if they don't tell me what they know, it'll be the skin off their back."
Robert took a swig of ale. "I don't like it. Being lumped in with him. No reason to be scared of us. I mean, in a fight, aye, on the field, aye, I've no quarrel with a healthy dose of fear, but in a castle? While we're fighting the same war? For the same king? No. No. Ronnel, I don't like it. The way they look at me. I'm not… I'm not Dom, aye? I don't like it when men flinch when I look at their face. Like I'm about to call for a flogging or a beating. Or a flaying. Not that he does, but, he's… he's… used to it. Thinks it's normal. By the gods, he rides about looking like a bloody skeleton out of a night terror. Me, I wear the horse's head, I'm used to the Rillmen liking me, aye? The Barrowton men, too. I don't like this, Ronnel."
"You think Lady Barbrey and your grandfather would call it off? Now that you're all but wrung blood from stone?"
"You'd think, aye, but you know Aunt Barbrey. Thorough."
"Thorough, aye. And efficient. And a right terror if you don't get the job done right. No offense."
"None taken, aye, I've been on the end of it. Don't want to mess this up. Lord Bolton won't tell us much about the trade, so she wants us to know everything. Me and Roose. But of course, Roose is with the scouts, so I have to do it. So it's up to me to be," he drank again, "thorough."
"And efficient. You've done well on that front, lad. Sorry I couldn't help with it more."
"Not your job, Ronnel. You've enough to do."
"Aye." Ronnel finished his stew. "You taking it all right?"
"Dom or the girl?"
"Either. Both. Being here. Missing your family. The betrothal. The war. Anything."
"Aye, well. Lord Bolton said that Tywin Lannister will give him back. No reason to doubt that. And since the trade's already been agreed to, no reason to think he's being hurt. So that's good." Robert started stabbing his empty trencher with his fork. "I think Roose is angry that Lord Bolton won't tell him anything more. 'He's my goodbrother' and all that. I tell him, he sees you like me, but with more responsibilities. No use trying to get anything out of Lord Bolton. Best just say your piece and wait for him to tell you what's going on. Aye?"
"Aye, I take that approach with him." Ronnel washed down some ale.
"The Stark girl… I felt better after writing to Branna and Beth. Awful. I don't even want to wonder what the Lannisters must have been saying to her, doing to her. Dom was right about the trade. His Grace has no heirs now. A wife of no repute, and no heirs. Better have traded the Kingslayer, bent the knee, and begged for scraps than this. And Lady Catelyn let the Kingslayer loose anyway."
"Aye, His Grace and Ser Edmure are feeling that keenly, I'd wager." Ronnel paused. "Young Domeric. His plan. Did he…?" Robert raised his hand.
"Aye. He never liked talking about it. Very private, he is. Like Lord Bolton."
"The poetry? That he'd read to the Barrowton girls?"
"Aye."
"He'll take it hard."
"I'd wager so. But it's not my place to discuss. Like I said. Private."
"Too private. Lad doesn't talk enough. Unhealthy, that is."
"Aye. I tried, but goading only works so much. And drink. Roose didn't try at all. Said it wasn't his place."
"Has to be someone's place though. Gods only know Lord Bolton wouldn't talk to him."
"No." Robert started spinning the fork on his middle finger. "Let's not speak of this, aye? Dom wouldn't like it. What did Wilma and Aunt Lyra say in their last letter?"
Ronnel smiled. "Wilma's started barrel racing. Wynton signed his name." He took out a scrap of parchment. He must have been so proud to keep it in his pocket. W-Y-N-T-O-N S-T-O-U-T, Robert read, in big and blocky letters. The quill had shaken and the ink had blotted, betraying a little boy's lack of control, but he could read it all the same. "See?"
Robert laughed. "That's wonderful. A lad needs to know his letters." He thought of baby Wynton, just shy of three namedays, all pudgy knees and drooly smiles. But Ronnel's smile was sad. "Not wonderful you're missing it."
"No."
"Aye, but we'll be home soon, Lord Bolton said. Leave Harrenhal, take the Moat. And we'll all… we'll all go back. You and me, Roose and Dom. All of us who're still here."
"Aye." That was the wrong thing to say. Robert bit his 'll be home soon. We'll all come was what Lord Willam had said to Ronnel when he'd left for Dorne with Lord Stark and Ser Mark, as Ronnel had told 're just a squire,Lord Willam had said,Go home with Lord Glover's a squire too,Ronnel had countered, but Lord Willam had just left. And Lord Willam never came back. It was one of Ronnel's regrets. Not being there for Lord Willam as a squire should have been. "We'll be home more quickly than we were last time."
Fuck, he really had said the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, Ronnel."
"Not your fault, lad."
What else had Ronnel wanted to talk about? "Lady Sara wrote back to me. Said it wasn't any trouble that it took me so long. She's sorry about Dom. The Glenmores are well."
"See, lad, not so hard, is it? Writing to a lady, especially one who you've already spoken to."Aye. Spoken laughed.
"Not so hard, aye. She'd have known if Dom helped me anyway, most like. Too many pretty words. Wouldn't sound like me."
They both guffawed.
"Excited for your wedding?"
"Not too much. 'S too far away. Have to take the Moat first. And Ser Edmure's wedding comes before that. And the march up the Green Fork. And we don't even leave for a few more days. Once we're past Ser Edmure's wedding and've taken the Moat, then I'll be excited."
"Won't be as good as yours. Stuffy sept, stuffy septon, stuffy sermon. Beneath the leaves and the swirling sky, that's the place for a wedding."
"Aye. But Lord Bolton's wedding wasn't so bad."
Ronnel drained his cup. "Aye. Not so bad at all."
