Cold bit through the layers of fur and wool Sansa wore, paying no heed to the roaring blaze in her solar. It was not just the winter chill that prickled; her own mood had frosted over that afternoon, subjected to one too many of Petyr’s quiet noises of disagreement in the high hall. The council’s voices had rung off the freshly scrubbed walls, fighting for purchase in her ears, but as always her husband’s scoffs slipped past them all.
None of the other men heard them, too wrapped up in their own side of a squabble to listen, leaving her to seethe in silence, unable to counter arguments no one else knew had been made. I rule the North now. My home, no more than strange lands to you. I will not have it taken from me again. Back in their rooms she watched the flames leap and parry at each other while Petyr scratched away at some work at their desk. Her desk.
Reaching his own would require a stroll down a wintry corridor. Gods forbid such an ordeal be suffered.
Thinking back on the day’s meetings only served to ignite a tiny spark, licking at the icy stoicism of her demeanor. Forcing her eyes shut, Sansa took a cleansing breath, coated in wood smoke and melted snow. He had taught her control so well; ironic, then, how it only threatened to slip in front of the master.
Infuriating.
Looking back at the flames, the stillness of the room struck her. Petyr’s quill had fallen silent. Sansa turned her chin a fraction, catching grey-green eyes holding her in place. They always looked hungry now the war was over, though with an ever-changing range of appetites.
She would not address him. Only the conflagration warming her front. “You seemed displeased today, Lord Baelish.” Titles were always a comfortable buffer, a plain courtesy to cling to in times of anger or fear. “If the council proceeds in a manner not to your liking, perhaps you should attempt to contribute more than muffled harrumphs into the queen’s ear.” Sansa’s voice was low, all girlish qualities lost, but not accusatory. Not yet.
What had once been one of Petyr’s delightful, unabashed fortes, had, since instating Sansa as Queen of the North, quickly descended into an abhorrent activity which left everyone involved in a poorer mood.
As Sansa broke the tenuous silence, Petyr’s mouth cocked halfway to one side in something wry, letting his eyes fall back to the parchments spread out over her desk. Her desk. Never their desk, everything still carefully segregated in her ill-begotten attempt to appear without bias, or in her furious attempt to retain her own, special Stark identity, always careful to conceal anything Baelish. The tiny quill began to dance again in liquid movements.
“Displeased?” Petyr chuckled, bitterly. “That would insinuate I had something to be pleased about in the first place.” His eyes never left the papers. “If I thought for a moment my words would be heeded I would indeed elect to open my mouth; yet it has been shown time and again my input only serves to inspire dour arguments on how Sansa Stark ought have married a slack-jawed Northerner for the benefit of the realm in order to help piece together its war-torn lands, how my very presence is an insult against the North.”
It was no secret the men of Sansa’s council hated Lord Baelish; they hated debtors and they hated men who hailed from the Fingers and they hated Littlefinger’s unctuous smiles; they hated the way he plied their red-headed Queen with whispers and they hated how he hated them in turn. Any Hornwood, Umber, Flint or Manderly who sat upon Sansa’s council would hear no turning of Lord Baelish’s tongue, of that they had been clear; Sansa had abided it because she needed their loyalty, needed to appease their fury at not marrying one of their own. Petyr abided it for the same reasons, though his patience wore ever-thinner.
“My efforts are best saved for less futile endeavors,” he said. “Like breathing.” The venom, while carefully concealed, would be as glaringly evident to her as if he had fangs dripping with it. So many years, so many long, painful years spent memorizing each other’s mannerisms; there was little point to hiding anything anymore.
“If my muffled harrumphs are not to her liking, perhaps my Queen ought bar me from chambers.” Still his fingers scrawled, deftly, though there was a distinct heat building inside his chest, and he could feel his fingertips pressing so tightly against the shaft of the quill that it threatened to splinter and snap.
“Now, I am busy finding money so that we might continue to restore your beautiful Winterfell…” Ruinous Winterfell, cold, wicked, ungrateful Winterfell; it was no secret Petyr loathed the North, and not only for its poor company. Petyr intended as quickly as they were reasonably able to make their move to the true capital – one does not rule unless it is from King’s Landing, he’d said to her more than once.
“So, my Queen, if you have nothing else to say…?” There, Petyr’s eyes finally cut back to her. Mercurial green whose corners were pinched with vague enmity.
Sansa’s gaze shifted, a sliver of sapphire in the corner of her eyes, to take in the picture of her husband criticizing his papers. Perhaps I learned petulance from him as well, slipped between the lessons of deceit. “They complain, but it took more than a slack-jawed Northerner to make Sansa Stark eligible for marriage. Be grateful you are not a Lannister; the reception would be far colder.” Tyrion may have been clever, but his brother crippled her own, and Northerners have long memories.
Petyr was no fool, or so she had thought. Now he drug all his past slights, that absurd duel over her mother, in through the gates of Winterfell like slaughtered deer. So much dead weight. She had forgotten her own trials easily enough as Alayne, or at least did not allow them to hinder her survival.
“Perhaps you ought to remember who serves whom, my lord,” she snapped. A ruler spoken to as a student. “I cannot take council from noises made in imitation of woodland creatures.” Besides, it would be seen as weak, the Queen succumbing to the glances and pressing fingers of her right hand. Gestures were a fluent language between them, but words were needed to translate for all her liege lords. Sansa had fought so hard with him to return home; each sparring match threatened to rip it out of her hands.
The fire was falling a little lower, consuming the logs too rapidly; or perhaps it was merely assimilating into her, feeding off something deep between her ribs instead. My Winterfell. Never ours. Nothing is truly ours here. “I have as much to say as you, Petyr.” Sansa could feel him watching her, contemplated refusing his stare. “But I know how wedded you are to your ledgers.”
Finally, contact. Two visages fully facing each other, masked even in solitude. Except their eyes. Masks that cover the eyes only blind the wearer.
“Pray, continue.” River blue splashed down to the pages and back up, a commanding twitch. That was a power she had always held, no man could have taught her those motions; Sansa only had to realize their value. “With your scribbles or your breathing, whichever you find more productive.”
Suddenly hot with the anger she tried to tamp away, she shed the furred cloak on a broad chair and made to walk towards a window, taking care to enunciate over her shoulder. “Though when you are done in my seat, I have papers of my own to attend to.”
Petyr had gone his entire life being looked down upon, scowled at, hated for what he was and also for what he wasn’t. He was scorned, chided, underestimated, and yet, look at him now; consort to a Queen. Still they could not stomach him. Still they loathed him. Loathed him because they were not him. It grated him. It wore at him. Respect could only come at great costs; neither Sansa nor their carefully crafted plans could afford them. And so the Lord Baelish bided his time, waiting, not always with grace.
”Woodland cre…!?“ Petyr’s eyes flashed, and his mouth went momentarily agape. The quill dropped to the table, and he smoothed a hand down the front of his doublet as if to calm himself. But at her next batch of words, the man could bite his tongue no further.
“No. Perhaps you ought remember who created whom, my Lady,” and his hands both slammed palm-down to the desk as he rose abruptly to a stand.
“You were mine, to do with as I wished,” he pointed one long finger towards her. Horrid words, wrathful words, words he did not mean but still spoke, setting the veins in his neck to cord and throb. “You would have been the Imp’s wife, birthing monstrously deformed babies, locked away in a tower in Casterly Rock until you expired, were it not for my gracious intervention. Lest you forget, my sweet.”
Petyr’s hand fell back to the desk, and he tilted his head down, breaking their gaze. His breath came through his nostrils, audibly, until he forced a calm over himself, a wash of mist, of balmy wind. After a moment, he began collecting his papers, stacking them, sliding the quill and its inkwell aside, clearing the desk for her.
“By all means, let me not disturb you.” He spoke and it was as if the burst of venom and fire had not occurred at all; a lucid apathy tinged his voice.
"Alayne Stone was a lie.” Her voice was far clearer than Sansa thought herself capable, barely wavering in anger, with no flinch at the percussive gesture. “Catelyn Tully and Eddard Stark created me. Or were you so preoccupied with that farce in the Vale to forget who my true parents are?” Blows rarely fell so low as to mention her mother- or worse, her father- in conversation, but she had never taken kindly to being made to feel owned.
Her lips pressed into a thin line as she was caught in the cold wasteland between hearth and window, watching him regain control and wishing fervently to deny it to him. “Tyrion never would have touched me,” she hissed. “A cold marriage bed bears no children, and the lack of consummation was one rare truth you told the septon.” Sansa’s eyes swept deliberately over the bed they now shared; not the precise one she bled for him on, but Petyr would understand. He always did. “You can vouch for as much yourself, my lord.”
There were no papers of her own to attend to, it had been a spiteful thrust to prod him into joining her anger. Now she would have to follow through. With an elegant inclination of her head, Sansa moved back across the room towards her husband. Passing the fire, her body begged her to stop and remain where it was warm, but that opportunity had long passed.
She pulled up short of the heavy piece of furniture, Baelish in his customary position behind the desk while she stood in front of it. Even in his false calm- and it was false, that much was plain to Sansa- every movement was smooth, restrained, purposeful. For a blindingly short moment, she contemplated his hands, lean and powerful. They had always fascinated her. Then the anger returned, simmering now, even if she could not say it was for the same reasons it had been birthed. Or if there were reasons anymore, save pride and ill-defined frustration.
One idle finger traced the edge of the wood; her eyes followed the motion, not him. “Why do you even work here to begin with?” The words had an edge, though blunted compared to their predecessors. “Your own space is ample enough.”
“A lie she was, and yet it protected you all the same; I protected you all the same. I created the Sansa Stark who rules Winterfell; I prevented Sansa Stark from withering away into a worthless nothing.” Petyr’s eyes were sparking with fury, his nostrils flaring.
“Tyrion? Tyrion Lannister!? Tyrion would not have touched you!? Foolish girl! How could he have denied himself? The Imp bed every whore in the Seven Kingdoms but you somehow believe he would have left you untouched and pure? Oh, Sansa, still you amaze me with your naive innocence.” Petyr laughed, briefly, a scathing spate of sound. “He would have fucked you every way, with his gnarled Imp cock. And if he hadn’t, they would have sold your blood to someone else who would have.”
Their shouting was loud enough that anyone passing by their chambers would have been able to hear it. It was a callous slip of both their characters to be so ardent, so vocal, so resonant with their anger.
“You need not describe to me a cold marriage bed,” Petyr hissed, a paper crunching into a crumpled ball in his fist. “You willingly choke yourself with poison so that you might deny me an heir and yet you speak of cold beds?” For a moment, Petyr nearly looked wounded. That she had refused to allow his seed to quicken in her belly had not come without a reason – one that Petyr grudgingly accepted and obliged; it did not mean he enjoyed it, or agreed. He merely suffered it.
Petyr watched as she stalked across the room, halting herself before the thick weirwood desk. For a moment, they stared at each other, in aching indecision. Two stags, locked horn-in-horn could die of exhaustion, in a heap of tangled limbs and bone, neither one willing to capitulate. Would they, too, simply expire, a heap of wearied flesh and regret, rather than risk the other gaining an edge? When Sansa averted her gaze, looking down to her finger as it drew invisible circles, Petyr’s own eyes softened. Further still, at her question.
“Is it such a terrible imposition for a Lord husband to wish to spend precious moments alone with his Lady wife?” Petyr’s words mirrored her own; a disarming calm and gentleness on the outside, to coat and conceal the barb within. They spent so little time together, these days. What time it was, often was pretense to encounters such as this. Too long without an epoch of happiness; too long spent marinating in resentment.
The ruined parchment was unfolded with a soft crinkling sound, and he smoothed it to the desk. Ink that had not yet properly dried was smeared all across it. Petyr’s mouth tightened in irritation.
She was no creation. She was a Stark of the North, meant for the duties she now performed. “And now you abandon me,” she accused. “Offering nothing but spiteful looks when I need you.” There were days she wished that was not the truth, hardly exclusive to Petyr; reliance on others created so many variables, so many opportunities for disappointment. Sometimes Sansa hated herself for viewing allegiances, friendships so callously, but the fact remained. Affection was a weakness, yet one she could never forgo with Petyr.
“He never even tried.” After months, or years, of denial would he have at least made an attempt? Certainly. But Tyrion had shown her a respect rarely encountered in the capitol, and for that she was fiercely grateful. “How lucky for you then, to avoid having to bed some Lannister plaything!” It was the first time Sansa allowed her voice to rise past a husky insistence, incensed that Petyr dared speak of things he would never know. “How disgraceful for the noble Lord Baelish that would have been!”
A final retort made her falter. “You agreed. It is not safe,” she whispered. Sansa would sooner fall on a sword than bring a child into the world as it was now, cold and brutal and uncertain. The faint burn of tears crept along her eyelids, though she would never grant him the satisfaction of making her cry. “Better some foul drink than refusing to bed you,” she choked out, infinitely disappointed their apparent accord had rankled him these long months. Futile, perhaps, the hope that they understood one another. The idle tracings ceased, abandoned to a harsh grip on the smooth wood.
She could not restrain the bitter smile that pulled at her mouth. “Judging by how you spend those moments, one would assume your lady wife is Winterfell’s coffers.” Sansa despised any distance between them, though to admit as much was more vulnerability than she felt capable of stomaching. They were, it appeared, reduced to sniping over the self-imposed torture with no relief in sight should they both refuse to concede fault.
All the fury flushed out of her at the sight of his consternation over the parchment. How quaint. “You forgot to dust that one, Lord Baelish,” Sansa intoned quietly, the faintest of smirks pulling at her mouth. “I do hope it was nothing important.” She plucked it from the desk, a quick glance revealing no more than some simple figures, easily replicated. Crumpling it again, she took two short steps toward the fire and tossed the missive aside before returning to her previous position.
“You are never an imposition.” A staged look of contemplation overtook her features. “An irritation, perhaps, at times…But no impostion…”
“I abandon you?” Petyr balked at the suggestion. It was madness she spoke. “Every move I make, it is for you. That I languish here in Winterfell, is for you. I have no influence here. My presence would be infinitely more valuable to us in any other location, but I stay, for you.”
When Sansa became overwrought with emotion, tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Petyr silenced himself. It was a delicate issue, that of her pregnancy, of her lack of pregnancy. Petyr understood why she did not want to birth a child; the man attempted to support her decision, though it was hers alone. Petyr wanted a son, a daughter, an heir. Through the years, he had managed to protect Sansa; why did she doubt he would be able to protect any child of theirs?
For a long moment, there was silence. When Sansa pinched the sullied parchment from his desk and relegated it to ash and dust in the fire, Petyr’s jaw tensed.
“At least if Winterfell’s coffers were my Lady wife, she would listen to me.” However begrudgingly. His words were caustic remnants of whatever it was so perturbed them from the start.
“Pray tell, how would you suggest I otherwise spend those moments, my Lady? With each repair you insist upon this pile of rubble the money runs dry. Do you think I enjoy being your Master of Coin? Do you think I toil and dreg in numerical figures and tax levies because I enjoy it? Surely I have spent enough years whiling away in the mire of stags and dragons?”
Petyr looked down at the desk, at the neat pile of papers. Without warning he swept an arm swiftly across the the surface of polished weirwood. The papers flew wildly, each sheet whisking and spiraling in the pale golden glow of the fire, fluttering like a white raven’s wings before settling to the stone floor.
He stepped around the desk, soft boots crunching over wayward and discarded parchment, quite satisfied with his tantrum. He came to a rest in front of her.
“Do you think I would not rather be doing something else with my time? With my Lady wife?” And there his gaze grew hungry. Petyr grabbed Sansa forcefully by the hips, pushing her until the backs of her thighs pressed against the irregular weirwood edges of the desk. With a muffled grunt, Petyr crushed his lips to hers, claiming her mouth – roughly, violently, desperately.
“You say nothing in council meetings. As if I could justify calls of judgement because of the way you touched me.” How was he so blind, thinking their private language was intelligible to casual observers? And his talk of relocation- Petyr may still thirst for the ultimate prize, but what of her desires? Winterfell was safe, the North secure; she required no more than that to be happy.
Sansa tried to summon the remnants of her fury and failed. Now she was simply tired, of everything. Armor disgusted her, but battles were common enough. It was arguments with Petyr that drained her, rendered her unable to address any further complaints. “I always listen to you. How dare you say otherwise.” Every word was weighed and considered, even on days the other lords had her dozing against a palm. She wondered if he was merely starting battles, or genuinely affronted. The fool, to think any council could surpass his.
“Spend them with me, not near me!” The fire flared again, threatening to consume her. Winterfell had to be restored, he was not daft enough to suppose otherwise; Petyr had such a talent for calculations, she spared hardly a thought that he might not enjoy such an occupation. “Would you rather spend your time managing brothels? I utilize what talents are available to me, and I will not have my husband directing the activities of whores. Find me someone better than you and consider your duty fulfilled.” Did he hate her that much? Resent the needs of her home that deeply?
The flurry of papers pushed her a step backwards, shocked at his rare outburst. Were she a weaker woman, Sansa would have been afraid, but he had taught her better than that. “Petyr,” she reprimanded, before he began to speak and she fell quiet, always ready to listen. To him alone.
Their desk would leave bruises. Thankfully ones that would lie hidden beneath her gowns.
With more grace than she intended, her arms wrapped tightly around his torso. Sansa wanted to leave marks of her own. Her lips parted under the fierce kiss, nails sinking into the fine fabric of her husband’s clothing in fruitless retaliation for his manhandling. Teeth seized his bottom lip and she pulled at it authoritatively. Mine. Gasping, she forced their mouths apart. “And how is that, my lord?” Fingers dug into Petyr’s back, begging. “You will accomplish nothing before clearing the mess you have created.”
As if she gave a single care for the devastation fluttering to a stop at their feet. Sansa pulled him closer, the fire remaining. Converted.
…
…
…
Sansa’s reaction came as overstated and predictably as Petyr might have anticipated. Wriggling free of his seemingly-repugnant touch, Petyr made no effort to stop her. He lay prone against the bed only for long enough to tuck himself back away and retie his laces. Then he turned and postured himself at the edge of the bed, watching her run afoul collecting her moon-tea mixture.
Fleeting, everything fleeting, save for what is left.
At times, her incidental cruelty marveled him.
“Not a moment to lose.” He noted, evenly, nearly plaintively, a sudden sour taste flooding his mouth. His cock was still wet with her and she was already boiling the water to soak and bleed her virulent herbs Had she intentionally moved so quickly in order to sully the pleasure she hadn’t received? He would have given her hers, had she not been so quick to buck him. Spiteful, she was. Petyr could halfway appreciate it – were she not so intently engaged in the thought of flushing her womb. What more could be done? No matter the ire, Sansa always had the upper hand; a move to trump all the rest.
Did it so disgust her? Did he so disgust her? A harsh world be damned. Petyr’s eyes followed her in her quest for vindication. How many children had such tansy killed? How many more? How many more did the man even have left inside him? Sansa expected him to happily abide it? Petyr propped his hands upon his knees, one long finger tapping a silent steadying rhythm – subtle nuances only she would recognize for what they were. The man was tired of arguing; he was finished arguing. Were she to bait him into further brawl it would satisfy nothing. Rising to a stand he moved to the wash-basin, dipping his hands before drying them with a cloth. Wordlessly, with only a cursory nod to his wife, he left their chambers, leaving her to her poisonous concoction – her poisonous whims.
Come nightfall, Petyr did not seek their bed.
The next morning, as they broke their fast in silence, the Lord Baelish piped up, as casual and breezy as if it never was.
“I will be leaving for King’s Landing by week end.” He informed her, amiably, ripping a small bit of bread from its hunk and chewing it cordially before speaking. “A short excursion. I shan’t be long. Six months at best. I’ll make headway at the capital, whilst you continue to hold matters down here.”
Before she could even voice a reply, he immediately continued:
“Also a raven came this morning. From your…brother.” The word like well-chewed cud. “It seems the Lord Commander is requesting aid in the form of able-bodied men to send to the Wall, in order to assist the Night’s Watch in the perils against…” There, Petyr trailed off, waving his hand in an unimpressed gesture. “—fiends, and other such nonsense. Which I would not recommend. Winterfell is still a prime target for retaliation. The North, as a whole, is quite thin.”
Petyr tore another bite of bread, holding it between two fingers. “Of course, it is your directive, my Queen.” The man smiled, popping the morsel into his mouth.
She could barely choke down the brew. It was bitterly thick and whether it had been steeped too long in her anger or the foul aftertaste of Petyr’s theatrics still lingered, Sansa was unsure. Perhaps both. He was allowed to leave, not chasing him often a point of quiet pride on her part. Waiting, by contrast…
Sleep came slow and fitful for her that evening and when Sansa awoke it was on her husband’s side of the bed.
Breakfast was an exercise in culinary presentation as she shifted, rearranged, and grudgingly added morsels to her plate in a pantomime that would not fool the companion opposite. Then Baelish spoke and the soft scraping of cutlery came to an end with a deafening silence.
“Might you enlighten me as to your business so far south?” The Queen in the North made every effort to limit her relations with King’s Landing, exceeding what was asked of her- but only just. This had to be retaliation for her own vindictiveness the day before yet even for Petyr, it was excessive. Indulgent. Just like my gesture with the tea.
There was no headway to be made in the Keep and the sheer volume of work at Winterfell could not afford to be abandoned; her husband made one mistake in making himself invaluable- should he wish to leave, there was no replacement to be found. And the kingdom came before any petty spat between its rulers.
If I asked, I wonder if he would even know what we argued over. Or if I would?
The second piece of news gave her pause. A letter from Jon was no invention or ruse; rather it demanded attention, careful consideration. Something Sansa was not quite sure she could manage when it was butted up against her husband’s frivolous revenge.
Petyr’s advice rang true, he was not the only man Winterfell could not stand to lose. However, the Starks were always a friend to the Watch and it was her sibling. Jon remembered his home fondly, as far as Sansa could be aware, and surely knew of the tribulations it faced. Such a request, then, would not come lightly.
“I will have to think on it,” she replied judiciously. The lord felt slighted enough over his apparently unappreciated opinion and ample tension remained between them without adding another perceived slight to the load. Titles. Again. Most of her goodwill clung on, but not all. “Our troops are needed, yes, but Lord Commander Snow would not make a blithe inquiry. And as you say, Lord Baelish, it is my directive.”
“Some matters are better tended to in person. This business of ravens; in such times they are just as likely to end up in someone’s stew as they are at the intended rookery. And you well-know not everything can be said with ink.” Petyr didn’t seem bitter. Rather, were it hazardable, Petyr’s mood seemed as pleasant as it had in weeks, perhaps months.
“We can speak more on it later, if you wish.” It was as dismissive as Petyr permitted himself to be. Vague statements of ‘later’ would almost certainly be reminiscent of their time spent holed up in the Eyrie. Whenever Alayne questioned certain matters against her Father, the response of ‘later’ had rarely yielded results. ‘Later’ tended to be a cover-all for the things which Petyr had no mind to truly discuss.
Once it had became public knowledge that he’d been openly harboring and aiding a person considered a traitor to the crown, Petyr’s holdings in King’s Landing had all been seized and redistributed. Now, however, in the lingering unrest of the capital, Petyr was confident he could reverse the unfavorable edicts and reclaim what was his. Namely: his houses of ill-repute and other locational holdings. Were he able to resecure them, their monetary woes would grow considerably less.
But he wasn’t going to tell Sansa any of this. The Queen of the North did not approve, she felt the very notion of her husband touching such establishments to be an impropriety. Petyr would be careful to install someone else as a working proprietor, lest she were to get wind of any of it.
The attention of his gaze shifted from smearing honey over his remaining bread to his wife, when she commented on the missive from the Wall. Petyr tilted his head in an affectation of a nod. “Your decisions are always well-weighted, Sansa. You will no doubt forge the best course of action.” Though his words so easily could have sounded venomous, there was nothing contemptuous or censured to his tone.
"I do and we shall.” A conversational tone, but that of a queen. Sansa had much practice with it, addressing petulant lords in front of their peers with the promise of a private, plain-spoken audience when the others had departed. “It would take five men to take over the duties you perform and, as you say, the North is spread so thin.”
His bright mood nearly made her teeth grind in an uncouth imitation of her sister, but she exercised her customary restraint. Petyr would be so disappointed otherwise; her quiet grace had weathered far worse than this with nary a quiver.
Regardless of his obligations to the North and her council, she did not want her husband to leave. How weak, came the bitter thought. He would likely laugh at such an admission. King’s Landing was little more than a viper pit and nothing good could come of Baelish paying a visit. It occurred to Sansa that perhaps his plans had advanced beyond Winterfell, beyond her. But no, that was too melodramatic- wasn’t it?
The songs of intrigue were such a double-edged sword when played as duets.
Her food remained untouched on the gilded plate, for the best. At the sound of her given name, unspoken for such a long time, a jaw or fork surely would have dropped. Its use was intentional, of course, and if it had meant to disarm her then bravo- any barbs had scattered to the winds of her mind. “Would you send him little more than criminals, Petyr? They are free for the taking, but..” What good are they for fighting? “The Wall is as much our defense as the broken down battlements around our hall.”
Petyr’s brows furrowed for only a moment, as his mouth carefully chewed his last bit of bread, and he considered her comment. Wiping his hands together, he rid them of their last remaining crumbs, sending them to fall against the plate with tiny ‘tinking’ sounds.
“It would take a dozen men to do it correctly,” he amended, a hint of arrogant amusement glittering in his eyes. “But Winterfell will survive the absence of Petyr Baelish. As I said, my dear, it will be a mere jaunt. You’ll scarcely notice my absence.” Again, what easily could have been embittered words were nothing more than casual repartee. Everything as carefully detached as Sansa’s own words were. No chips, no cracks.
Sansa well knew that Petyr’s end-goal had not ever been Winterfell. Though his plans certainly extended beyond the Northern castle, it would be a foolishness to think he ever intended to endure the journey without Sansa. And yet…time had a cruel tendency of shifting one’s priorities.
Petyr’s brows lifted at her inquiry in something like a shrug. “I wouldn’t send him anything.” Hadn’t he precluded that already? “Criminals are certainly better than nothing.” Petyr tipped back his drink – wine, so early in the morning, had become quite the regular staple. “The Wall is an archaic trap of nonsense. Now that they’ve made some semblance of peace with the wildlings, what is it they are so determined to keep out? Will you waste good men so that they can chase off ghouls and goblins?” There was a brief pause, as Petyr redirected. “To think nothing of whether or not any men would want to go, which they almost certainly wouldn’t – who would? You’re forcing out good men, to a foolish cause, and creating disarray in the process. These Northerners are disgruntled enough without you sending their sons to a haven for rapists and murderers who were lucky enough to escape the gallows.”
Sansa pushed her own meal away with delicate fingers, meeting his gaze with bright, calculating eyes. “And we certainly do not have a dozen men to spare.” He would not be forbidden to go, not yet, but she started to feel Winterfell sliding away from her like wet silk. A slithering movement, then nothing. Gone. Carrying the Stark name was not enough in uncertain days- all it had earned her father was a clean death; Petyr should know that, did know that. He had to stay.
And then the question of them. An ever-present one, indeed, their marriage never rising to the level of definition, of declaration. Alone by the fire, abed, even the previous evening, she and Petyr would constantly interrogate each other with quick glances and demanding caresses, answering with little more than sighs or groans. Now the chomping beast reared again, with all its attendant subtlety.
Not for the first time, Sansa Stark felt a spectator to her own life, clinging to an illusion of control. Or perhaps it was not power she lacked, but the will to exercise it against the only one she wished to be weak with.
Tamping down her grey misgivings, she scoffed lightly. “He asked, we must send something.” Little surprise, Baelish advocated clutching at any resource within reach. Her husband was no Tully or Stark, what did he truly know of duty and Winter? “Bid him make the journey south, voice his request in person.” Tales of Snow’s charisma had reached Sansa’s ears, his devotion to the black cloak so often disparaged apparently never waning once he departed his father’s home. Surely, then, he could convince a handful or more of young boys, second and third sons not yet lost to war, to return with him to the Wall. If not, there were always degenerates to shuffle off. “No one is conscripted or torn from their hearth. Jon cannot have been the last northern boy to see taking the black as a noble choice.” Able bodies would still depart, but if Petyr could trot away at a moment’s notice, why not them as well?
“I’ll mind what duties I can from afar, the rest can wait until my return, or be entrusted to another. Rest assured, I will not leave my lady and her home in dire straights.” Her home. A cup-bearer stepped forward to refill Petyr’s glass, but he set his hand gently atop it, warding the girl off. With an awkward smile, she moved back into the kitchens. “One or two will come with me. Brune, Corbray.” Individuals from Petyr’s throng that neither Sansa, nor the North, would miss. “Precautionary measures, you understand.“ Petyr couldn’t very well travel the Kingsroad by himself. But a convoy too large would draw undo attention. A group of two or three would move along nicely without hindrance.
Were she to ask him not to go, would Petyr abide her wishes? He had oft taken trips from the Eyrie to travel the Vale as need and necessity arose; was it so different, now? Could she stomach what it would mean to assert herself over him, not as a lover, not as a partner, not as a wife, but as a Queen? The dynamics were precarious; one small adjustment and the way they existed could be forever tainted. The line they walked was already so thin.
Petyr’s eyes were upon her, more gray than green. He watched her nudge her plate aside, brows tilting downward in disapproving vexation. Petyr toiled so that she, they, could continue to eat well. The sudden lack of appetite perhaps spoke volumes to her state of mind, but Petyr found himself unimpressed at her callous disregard. At her instruction, however, the man nodded.
“As you wish. I’ll pen a reply requesting the Lord Commander’s presence in the hopes that he might be able to personally persuade foolhardy boys of the North to join the Night’s Watch and don their death shrouds.” Petyr smiled, leaning back into the chair. “No?” For a moment, his mouth went wry. “Something kinder, then.”
Indeed, Petyr Baelish was the farthest thing from a Tully or Stark – honor and duty to him held different definitions. Reasonable definitions. It was honor and duty which had taken Eddard Stark’s head, despite Petyr’s own efforts to steer him down a better path. Surely Sansa was not so swift to forget her years under the Mockingbird’s tutelage – without which, she would never have stepped any nearer to Winterfell than the Eyrie’s icy perch.
“Though, admittedly, the notion of such a post being considered noble to anyone is, at best, a Northerner’s folly. There is a reason they must round up criminals with their carts and mules. There is nothing noble about freezing to death whilst moaning about the threats beyond the wall. Your brother undoubtedly only found the choice noble with the knowledge that he was a bastard in a family of many sons and would otherwise have had nothing.” Pure speculation; Petyr knew little of the situation that was Jon Snow, and normally knew better than to pose conjecture over Sansa’s family. The indignation she fostered over any mention of her Stark roots was second to none.
"And how do you propose to do that, my lord? By raven?” Sansa made a small noise of disbelief, throwing his earlier words back across the table. “A bird just as likely to perch on a stew pot as Winterfell’s walls.” She would rest easier with a Stark man accompanying him, for the additional safety as well as her own peace of mind. There was no shortage of northerners who would gladly take careful note of Petyr’s activity in the capitol, though with such a paltry entourage, how to insinuate her own agent?
Then again, the journey could still be forbidden. A final decree, should delicacy lose out.
Her husband’s disapproval did not go unnoticed, even if the act that solicited it was for her own comfort and not a spiteful gesture. A lone Tully brow quirked upwards, challenging his displeasure. Should Petyr wish her to eat he could say as much or, gods forbid, not inspire such an apathetic mood at the start. She did not dine well in the Eyrie either, under such stresses. Gaining a throne and a marriage offered no comfort; they were only two more cherished possessions to be stolen.
Or tossed aside, as the immovable pair often seemed wont to do.
“I will write him myself, you will be so busy with your preparations.” Words spoken so lightly they threatened flippancy. I doubt he wishes to view your missive. “We shared a father, it would be a small courtesy that might carry itself far.” Sansa reclined slightly in her own seat, arms perched upon their proper rests, treating the plain wooden chair as if it were no different from the fine seat in the great hall. Every inch a queen.
Her fingers curled around the arms’ ends in the beginnings of a fist. Northerner’s folly. And what follies had the northern girl before him so recently committed? What mistakes in judgement would he assign to her, given the chance? “Jon’s reasons are his own. The Watch no doubt escaped your notice so far south, but our uncle was a respected ranger, greatly esteemed by my half-brother. It was no criminal that inspired him to take his vows.” Careful, her riverine eyes warned. Sansa had been close to neither Benjen nor Snow, yet they were family. Though black cloaks and ghost tales held little interest to her as a child, she still remembered the reverence paid to the men at the Wall, the duty they took on. Be they second sons or fiends, Winterfell’s queen had no intention of being the first Stark to spurn the Night’s Watch thanks to a southron husband.
