munebox | Call me Out

She was stunned by his fealty. Men had knelt before, but they were paying obeisance to a title. They were saluting one potential future that was now impossible, for Sansa would not be queen. Not any longer. Certainly not so long as she wore a bastard's name, and only now was she beginning to feel guilty for her continued lie. But although she liked Gendry, she could not yet trust him.

"Rise," she commanded in a voice barely above a whisper. "I will have no vows from you." Vows are so easily broken. Only this was a little like receiving a taste of what life would be like with bannermen of her own. Bodies she could count on. Reliable support. No wonder her father had always walked so proudly, knowing the strength at his back. She'd learned only too late what it meant to support him fully.

"All I want are simple assurances that you will stay with us a while."

Arya would not have suffered him to now at all. He would only have done it as a jest. Even more it was hard to think if her as a lady, much less a married one. Alayne was different, but he felt a certain gratitude that she did not make him kneel. Perhaps she was only who she was because of birth. Maybe nobody choose her. But...

I've chosen her, haven't I?

He rose to his feet. "I've nowhere else to go, m'lady. I'll stay as long as you'll have me." He probably should have kept quiet, but he felt compelled to ask one more question. "Why? Why did you help me?"

Edited 2013-12-10 00:46 (UTC)

There were so many answers -- and so many of them were true. Because she owed Arya, or because he protected her, or because she was lonely. Or because she hated Joffrey. Sansa tilted her head back so she could watch his face. In the light, he looked even more like Renly. More of a Baratheon than Cersei's children, that's for certain.

She had to tell him something. But all the little truths revealed too much. What was safe to say? "You were a friend to the Stark girl." Her voice clattered upon the name with such passion. "And the North remembers."

The Eyrie was not North, per se. But it was more north than many a place. And the Fingers, where her fake-father was from, was more north still.

It was a strange thing, talking to her like this. The red woman had spoken evenly with him, treating him as though he were an equal. But throughout all of it, he always instinctively felt as though he was being lured. Tricked. At best, he was being made a mockery of. With Alayne, he didn't know what to think. But the more he watched her, the more he felt he could believe her.

She'd never lie to him. Not like everyone else had.

"I was. But... you really believe all that? If I had told anyone else, they'd think the whole thing was mad. Sometimes I think back on it and think myself mad." And Lords only believe what they want to believe.

"It wasn't a lie. It's just... I've met no highborn who's ever taken me at my word."

"Arya must have." But Sansa had so long disapproved of her sister's choice in associates. Could it be that the younger girl got it right with this one? "And aside from her, how many highborn lords and ladies have you met?"

"A few. Though... no ladies. Besides you and Arya. I suppose the only decent-- I mean, the kindest I've met were Starks. Until you, anyway."

He almost thought to say, You'd make a fine Stark. But they were traitors now. Enemies of the Crown. To say that would be an insult.

Edited 2013-12-10 02:01 (UTC)

She was grateful for her chair because his words again, like on the night he'd spoken Arya's name, made her dizzy. Her captivity in King's Landing had chipped away at her identity. Everywhere she turned, there were barrages of reminders: the Starks are traitors. The Hound had been right. She had stopped using her own words and she'd begun to trill and echo theirs. She would curse her own blood if it staved off a beating. It wasn't until the Vale, months free of that fear, that she was starting to feel proud again. Proud, but unable to show it.

But just to hear someone saying something decent about a Stark? Fantastical.

"I'm afraid a great number of us prove to be unkind." Nobility. She'd gone to court expecting that all lords behaved like chivalrous knights and that princes were paragons. Now she knew that in reality, the heroes rarely won. The victories went to monsters. It was how she knew this fledgling plan was doomed already. "But we have our exceptions." A wary beat. "Not that I dare to include myself amidst their shiniest ranks."

Sansa would not speak the word. Bastard. Nor would she even dare its gentler euphemisms. But she alluded to it, feeling a fissure in her heart for lying to him. If a little lie felt this bad, how would she cope with the bigger ones?

He understood what she meant well enough. He stepped forward and looked down at the table and at the books that were set out. Most just had words. One had a picture of a knight and he thought that interesting enough. He rarely had a chance to see art.

"I've wondered what it would be like, if I had been a Waters instead of a smith. My father... Robert Baratheon. I saw him once, in the streets. He near ran over me. I recognized him, but he didn't so much as look as me. He was drunk as could be at the time." A drunken fool is what he had thought. But he wouldn't dare say something so treasonous to her.

"But if I'd have been a Waters, maybe he would have kept me in the palace. I wouldn't have been a prince, I know that. But he might have taught me the sword. The sort of things I ought to know to be a man." He touched the picture of the knight. "And my letters, I suppose."

He looked back up at her. "You knew him, right? I'm wrong, aren't I? I know it wouldn't be that way. Your father is kind, to take you in. But mine..."

Don't speak treason.

"Probably better this way. Had I been in the palace, the Goldcloaks would have been able to put a sword in me a lot sooner."

Edited 2013-12-10 02:20 (UTC)

"Yours was Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. He slew Rhaegar at the Trident. And he grew up in this very stronghold."

She was not a child. Not any longer. She knew Gendry to possess more than enough wit to know exactly who his father was, titles and all. But she had scented the treason on the air and she saw fit to stem it with a stern reminder of all King Robert stood for in the eyes of those families who loved and supported him. She had no head for the gritty details of politics, but she knew her father adored King Robert. She knew the Mad King had murdered her grandfather and her uncle. She'd been taught to claim the rebellion as a just thing. Inevitable, really.

"And he would be proud of you, Gendry Waters." Would he? She did not know. The King had frightened her, usually, with his boisterous voice and sharp-tongued ennui. And once they'd reached King's Landing he had not lasted long. But he'd noticed her just enough to want to join the houses of Baratheon and Stark together via a marriage to her, and she did not think he expected it to go so cruelly as it had. "You look more like him than his true born children do."

As for her 'father'? Kind was a generous word, and she chose not to debate it.

He was cowed when she spoke of his father's full title and he ducked his head in shame. He had spoken too frankly. More than he had any right to. Arya wouldn't have cared.

But it surprised him to know his father had grown up in this keep.

"I've never seen them. Though... I suppose they'd be my siblings. Half siblings." But not according to his uncle. They're as much bastards as me. "But I'm no Waters. Not truly. I was never acknowledged. Not even by my uncle, Stannis."

"The difference is...it's like the day and the night."

She wanted to tell him she believed the treasonous rumours. She wanted to name Joffrey a bastard. The younger 'Baratheon' children were sweeter, but still the final result of a grotesque merger. They are in no part your siblings -- but that was a believe best held silent until felt herself capable of revealing her own parentage.

She nudged the conversation onto safer topics: "They do tend to bathe more, but I hope that is the result of the sky cell and not your own habits."

At that, Gendry stiffened and looked down at his own hands. That cell might not have been disgusting as when he stood in a pen with a dozens others at Harenhal. But he'd been there awhile with too little water to waste on cleanliness. Had anyone else seen him touch that book with his hands, he'd be punished for covering it in filth.

He shifted away.

"I was told to present myself to your right away, m'lady. I had no time to..." He trailed off. "If you tell me where a well or stream is, I'll clean myself up."

"A stream?" She stifled a girlish chuckle. Not because she was embarrassed by it, but because stifling her honest emotions was like second nature. "I haven't ventured beyond her towers, but the Eyrie has no streams nearby. Father tells me the castle taps into an old mountain spring and the water is diverted into some cistern or another -- I do not know where that is."

Sansa woke and water appeared. Occasionally, when the small household was to occupied with other things, she had to find someone to bring water to her. "I'll have someone prepare a bath."

She once thought the Eyrie would be a cold stone prison of its own, especially in Winter. That prospect was beginning to change.

It wouldn't be the first time a bath had been prepared for him. The same had been done before when he was taken by the sorceress. He had enjoyed that. And now, he wouldn't complain about it here. It would be good to be clean again. Perhaps to even have fresh clothes again, if she was to continue being generous.

"As m'lady commands," he answered.

"It wasn't a command."

Sansa stood. Her letter was forgotten, but she would return to it eventually. She could not wholly abandon the project to confirm the identity of Ramsay Bolton's bride, but it could be set aside for now in favour of tugging on a thick-carpet tassel attached to a bell in the castle's depths.

He shuffled and settled on watching.

"Right. Of course."

When the servant arrived, Gendry was taken away to another part of the keep. A basin was filled with hot water and he was given a brush to scrub himself with. He did his best to be quick about it, not wanting to impose any longer than he had. Besides that, he felt strange having servants tend to him. Who was he to get such treatment like that?

He felt as though they must have resented a lowborn being treated a someone of importance. They set out new clothes for him to wear. They were far from lordly, but they were clean. Plain dusty grey leggings and a blue tunic that might have once been a bright blue, but had faded with time. The boots were his own, but someone had cleaned the outside of them to make them presentable. Fortunately they'd been good boots already. He had procured them while with the Brotherhood, from a Frey who no longer had any use for them.

He felt a man again and though he was famished, he did not want to leave her waiting any longer. So after convincing a servant to take him to her, he set about his way through the Keep. Perhaps in time, he'd remember his way around. It wasn't nearly so big as Storm's End.

As strongholds went, the Eyrie was relatively small. Its narrow seven spires held little that was extraneous. At least, little that was extraneous to a lord. Perhaps the commonfolk might see it was lavish, but it was sparse when compared to the Red Keep. Even Winterfell had more to its girth and stonework, for it had the good fortune to stretch across otherwise empty land. The Eyrie's more impressive piece of architecture -- the Maiden's Tower -- was under the sole power of Alayne Stone. Her apartments there were large and lavish, including a dressing room and a private privy. But the real beauty was the stone balcony overlooking the entirety of the Vale.

Quite apart from such personal spaces, there was a small banqueting room for intimate dining. Or else for dining done in solitary should the lady of the castle ever choose not to sup in the High Hall. Considering it was only herself and Petyr who supped outside of the servants chambers, Sansa had been taking more of her meals in the Maiden's Tower. A token few were taken with Petyr, but on days where he was locked up with his own thoughts? She ate alone.

But not tonight. Tonight, she saw the room's fire lit to a furious heat. She ordered a runner taken out of storage and added to the narrow table. It had been a place of isolation before, but the demands of hosting a guess forced her to inject some life into the four walls. And she placed bread and salt on the table, fingertips lingering over the dish even as a servant cleared his throat at the door.

Sansa saw Gendry inside with little more than a tip of her hand. The servant did not leave them alone, but settled just beyond the small hall's door. "My Lord Father commands it," she explained even before a question was asked. Of course, they would require a chaperone. Their brief meeting in the library had been a rare and risky gift.

The scent of good food flooded his senses even as he was led up the tower. The servant had, when pressed, told him where they were heading and named it the Maiden's Tower. When he asked why it was named that, the servant only smiled.

He could guess what that meant. She'd best stay a maiden.

Gendry hadn't even needed to raise the question when he entered. His thoughts were on the food and realization they were alone. Mostly alone.

"Is this... is this for me?" He knew it was for her as well. But this was unlike anything he'd done before. Not he worried he was about to make a fool of himself. He had no idea how lords and ladies ate.

She may have been through her own kind of gauntlet, and she knew her own kind of hardship, but she had no inkling of how impressive even this modest spread was to a boy from Flea Bottom. Sansa had always understood that the common folk did not eat so lavishly, but even Winterfell did not eat as lavishly as the Red Keep. She never considered the difference might be even more disparate between her experience and his, still assuming he would have bread on his table and meat in his stew.

This table was graced with decidedly Northern tongue in mind: beef and bacon pie; honeyed chicken with roast leeks; baked apples; mulled wine. But the bread and salt held a place of prominence above these other dishes, and Sansa saw it as her duty to personally lift the plates and hold them out to Gendry in a solemn offering. She hoped he knew what he had to do; she hadn't considered how deep the tradition penetrated through the classes. The bread and salt were not necessary; he would eat regardless, and that would cover it. But it had been Petyr who had suggested she make the hospitality unmistakeable.

Approaching him with the guest right -- a few weeks too late, perhaps -- gave her the opportunity to see him scrubbed and de-grimed. What she assumed to be a Baratheon beneath all that dirt turned out to be a rather handsome Baratheon at that. A broad and reliable face, so wholesome when compared to sharp angles she'd once convinced herself she loved on Joffrey.

"I hope the water was to your liking. Not too cold."

Gendry, at first, do not realize what she was doing. Was she trying to serve him, personally? But after a moment, he gathered what this was. Bread... salt. By offering that, it meant she could do him no harm. In Fleabottom, it was much the same, though they could not always afford bread or salt. But once you offered a meal to a guest, it implied a certain level of honesty and trust.

Which is why it was so terrible what the Freys did to the Starts. What they did to Robb Stark. And to the Lady Stark...

Gendry felt a sudden chill and pushed that thought from his mind. He accepted the food and ate a bit, to signal that he was accepting her hospitality. It was a ritual he'd never explicitly taken a part of before. Even now, he was wary. After all, if the Freys could practice such treachery... and if his own uncle could be equally as treacherous with his sorceress...

He chewed and nodded with his satisfaction. "The water was very warm, m'lady. This food is good, too."

Edited 2013-12-10 04:17 (UTC)

Sansa smiled, albeit sadly. She had never presided over the offer of a guest right, before today. She had watched it happen time and time again, but she had never appreciated its promise and its function until the betrayal of that right robbed her of a brother and of a mother. And maybe more, besides. She had to quickly return the trays to the table, fearing that her fingers might tremble more.

"Sit. Eat. And more than just our salt, because the baked apples are a thousand times better than our salt." She wished they'd had lemon cakes, as well, but Petyr thought even that extravagence was too telling. She had to divorce Sansa entirely from her person, including her preferences.

She took her seat as though she was born to such easy actions. Gentle gestures.

After he sat, he was thinking more on the food than of who his company was and what was expected of him. He could never forget he was lowborn, but he could sometimes forget who he was around. And so, hungry, he began to collect food for his plate, using nothing but his own hands, as he had so often did in the past. It did not quite occur to him that anything would be wrong with this. He thought only of tastes he had never experienced before and a stomach that had nothing in it, save a bit of bread and salt and the gruel from yesterday.

Was his behaviour an example of her courtly ideal? Hardly. But then again, he wasn't entirely unlike certain noblemen at a grand feast. King Robert, certainly, could fill his plate just as lustily. And her brothers had never seen fit to skimp on their meals. Even so, Sansa wielded her knife and fork with grace.

A smarter woman would have had the foresight to warn Gendry not to overextend his appetite, for he'd been too long without regular meals and was likely to make himself sick. A smarter woman would have asked the kitchens to prepare something blander, and more easily digested. But hunger was a hell she'd never known.

After she had allowed him to eat in peace for a solid five or ten minutes, she spoke -- leaning forward to reach for her mulled wine. "Do you suppose it's terribly selfish of me to be glad you were captured?"

Each flavor was an incredible experience for him. Even the foods that he recognized were different, as they were peppered with spices his tongue had never experienced before. He would not be content until he had tasted all of it. And even though the wine was not as good as what the sorceress had served him, it was miles ahead of the mead he had drank in taverns along his long and hard road. It was good she spared him conversation, because he greedily ate the food as if he might never eat again.

The thought did cross his mind that such a thing might be true.

Her question caught him off guard entirely. "... I'm not sure. I don't know why you came to talk to me in the first place. Much less bring me all the way up here."

As he did not phrase his words into a question, she chose not to answer them. Not directly, at least.

"King Joffrey is dead." There was nothing special about it; everyone knew. It was common knowledge. "My Lord Father says the Seven Kingdoms will not gladly suffer a child on the Iron Throne during this...chaotic time."

Petyr had bred such delight into that very word: chaotic.

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