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It's dark. The candles in the the Hand's solar sputter, His Grace the King is yawning and pouting and stomping his foot like a babe ready for his cradle, yet his lord grandfather detains him. Joffrey is the only one seated; to the side, Cersei weaves her fingers together, a habit of hers that reveals her mind is twisting and turning with thought. Before the newly invested Lord Hand, Littlefinger is giving his ingratiating smile. The old lion's aristocratic fingers are steepled on the smooth table that stands between them, piled as it is with maps and charts and scroll upon scroll upon scroll.
Tywin is scowling, but coming from him, that's a good sign. “Harrenhal, it seems to me, is a generous gift for services rendered.” He does not add “to the crown,” it would be silly and needless.
“More than generous, my lord.” He smiles a touch wider, and Joffrey's legs stretch out before him as his whines continue to go ignored among the true adults of the room. “I have, however, only the interests of the Kingdoms at heart – I think a better match can be made.”
“For you,” Cersei interjects dryly. “Or for Harrenhal?”
Lord Baelish grants a low chuckle that doesn't leave his throat; the Queen Mother has been wise enough to remain mostly silent for these proceedings, but her occasional, barbed witticisms always produce a laugh from her target. It's good for a man to remember who is above and who serves below, after all.
“The Riverlands haven't suffered devastation at the level the North has,” he begins straightening his cuffs to immaculate perfection. “And the Winter will, naturally, be hardest there than in other parts of the country. When you have ground Robb Stark to a fine powder, there will still be the matter of the Ironborn to deal with.”
“This is all perfectly obvious.” Cersei's eyes are half-lidded with contempt and she reaches for her goblet on the table.
Her father moves it out of her reach. “I trust, Lord Baelish, that this discussion has a point .”
“Many, my lord.” He smiles more brightly in the darkness of the room. “Frankly, unless I have Riverrun, the charms of the Riverlands are half-gone for me. The North, however, could prove an interesting point of investment. ” Talk of finances seems to have peaked Lord Tywin's interest – for he is silent, which is the only invitation to continue the Mockingbird shall receive. “Northmen are, as you know, quite particular in the strangest of ways; the best way to mollify them will be to give them a Stark to rule in their King's name.” Joffrey groans about this but is ignored by present company. “But Winterfell is a husk, I understand. It will take great sums to restore her to glory. The problem to me, it seems, is that the crown would spend heavily in arms to quell the rebelliousness north of the Neck – who, then, would be asked to pay to restore the seat of the North, to bring the Northerners into line with that, to control this puppet liege so such an unfortunate occurrence shan't happen again in the lifetime of His Grace.” He lifts his own cup of wine in Joffrey's direction and smiles. Cersei glares at him, her father still palming her glass. “Long may he reign.”
“It would,” Lord Tywin concedes after a long moment, his fingers still not leaving the cup, “needs be a man with deep pockets, tis true.”
“One of whose loyalty you are sure.”
Joffrey has begun to laugh, taking a great swig of his own spice-rich wine. “Do you suggest yourself, then, Littlefinger? That is a sight I would love to see, freezing your littlest finger off with those barbarians and their wolves and giants. Ha !”
“I think your meaning is rather plain,” Lord Tywin speaks, though his eyes glance coolly down to his royal grandson. “But so there can be no mistake – you mean to substitute Robb Stark with Sansa.”
“It seems the only other option available, my Lord.”
“And you nominate yourself as liege lord of the North?”
“I really think this spectacle has gone on long enough,” Cersei speaks up, repressing an almost indelicate snort. “Really, Lord Petyr, you jest. One of the most powerful parts of the Seven Kingdoms – and you expect us to hand it over to an up-jumped coin counter of Gulltown?”
“You were willing to make me Lord Paramount of the Trident.” His smile never falters. “If anything, this plan makes better sense. Has my work ever been of question?”
Lord Tywin is still silent, green eyes narrowed in deep reflection. Joffrey seems to have noticed, for he grows a touch nervous. “You can't be serious!” He sits up, hands angry fists upon the arm of his chair. “Sansa Stark is still mine!”
“The Tyrell match is much better, you've already agreed to it.”
“That changes nothing! She is still mine . If I wanted her paraded naked to the Sept of Baelor, it would be my right to do so, I am the King!”
Lord Tywin is colder than any Winter wind upon this pronouncement, and even His Grace shrinks down in his seat. “A King, it seems, in dire need of proper administration .” It is extremely possible that this outburst helped the Lord Baelish's case more than any further argument could have done. “The matter shall be discussed.”
QQQ
It's still warm when they are wed. Leaves scuttle on the dry stones of the garden (the Sept is still being cleaned and restored from its use as a shelter during the fighting, and was deemed unsuitable for the ceremony), and a few flowers are still in bloom. Linen tents are set up for a pavilion where tables are laid for a rather modest feast. Music, however, is in abundance, as is alcohol of the finest sort, so the mood is rather convivial. Lady Sansa drinks – more so than is customary for her. Lord Petyr, for his part, shares every toast, and yet for however warm and welcoming his manner is, there is no flush upon his cheek that could not be credited to the heat.
Praise is generous, if insincere; no one, at least, can fault the tailoring . More Myrish lace than is easily conceivable has gone into the Lady's gown, her maidencloak having been smooth, grey satin accentuated with creamy pearls. Pearls, too, are thick about her throat, hang off her ears, and some small ones have been woven into her hair. Someone has called her the most beautiful bride in Westeros – at least out of earshot of Cersei and Margaery – and it seems not to be much of a stretch. And Lord Petyr? Does he match his matchless bride? He is not one to ever be out done . His doublet is dark, but the pattern is geometric, circles in perfect harmony, and all threaded in sparkling gold. His boots have been well-polished, so no one can imply there is the grime of the city upon him, or any dirt besmirches his style. His facial hair has been expertly trimmed, his cheek smooth and free of stubble, and he is the very picture of the elegance he so strives for.
Lady Margaery's acquaintance with the blushing bride is brief, but her smiles are freely given. “Lord Petyr was a great help to us in these trying days before we came to King's Landing,” she assures the newly minted Lady Baelish as she presents her wedding gift – a small, thin girdle of grey velvet, the clasp accentuated with an alexandrite stone. Lady Sansa scarce knows what to say for thanks. “You seem to me a charming couple.” This produces far less gratitude than the belt had.
This newly made pair spend little time beside one another: oh, there are moments, during the feasting; when some drunk officious fool feels compelled to give an over-sentimental toast, one that would not have a scrap of sincerity to the man when sober. But they speak but little to one another. Lord Baelish can be seen leaning towards the girl, inquiring after some small matter or another. The lady always smiles demurely, though a close observer may notice some discomforted awkwardness upon her part. Otherwise, he spends his time among his guests, playing the grand host, and she is swept upon the cleared dance floor by younger knights, more handsome and better-suited than her husband by far.
The couple shares but one dance together – a stately pavane where his eyes and fingers never leave hers. Lady Sansa is less bold, her gaze often drops, as though only to assure herself her steps are correct. Lord Baelish, it must be said, is a more than adequate dancer; his moves are measured, elegant, even graceful, and this success seems to enliven the celebrations all the more, even if they do nothing to create a spark of fire between the newlyweds.
Too soon entirely, the sun is sinking in the sky, and while paper lanterns have been hung from the poles of the tents so the revelers may continue well into the night, there are calls for the bedding to begin, growing in volume from the well-inebriated guests. If one looks to Lady Sansa and expects to see the natural nervousness of a girl on her wedding night, they will be sorely disappointed; the girl's eyes are as heavy with drink as any of her guests, and she wears about her shoulders a mantle of resignation , that this moment is inevitable and she will bear it with stoic dignity and absolute silence. The King, certainly, has several days before gotten into the “spirit” of the occasion, and has taken every opportunity to remind his former betrothed that such a lowly match is all a traitor's get can possible expect. When he demanded his turn at dance, he could be seen speaking to the bride, his fingers a cruel dig into her own, musing on how soon she will be on her back before Littlefinger, and when she pushes out her squalling infants for him in the months ahead, will they come replete with her husband's beard? The girls as well?
And yet – as the wine continues to flow, as the songs grow bawdier and the laughter more raucous, there are no recognizable faces among the men that lift up the lady to take her to her bridal bed. They are plenty loud and gregarious, yet not a one lays a hand upon her in a manner that could remotely be misconstrued as inappropriate. Every vestige of her clothing remains upon her as she is borne out of sight of the merriment behind her, into the belly of the Keep, to the Master of Coin's chambers. Indeed, as soon as the party is in a discreet and empty hall, Sansa is set down most carefully, every pearl still perfectly set in her hair, every stitch in place. The girl is baffled by the stoicism of her honor guard, who see her safely to the door that is now her own in near silence. Baffled, that is, until she is greeted by her husband there, his arms open to her.
“My lady.” His smile reaches his eyes, which seems odd to her, and they are all green even in the low light of the sconces. “How glad I am to see no harm has come to you.” It's well he takes her hand, for on her own, Sansa sways upon her feet from nervousness and drink. “My friends have played their part well, it seems?”
“Friends?” She might normally feel stupid repeating it, but she understands as soon as she sees coins exchanging hands, knowing glances and quiet murmurs of thanks. A hired band to get to her before His Grace and his uncouth relations could notice and join the festivities...It's a subterfuge she might normally appreciate – but now she is too overwhelmed and too lost in intoxication to do much more but stumble into the solar and feel resentment welling up within her.
The door behind her shuts, her new husband's lithe hand upon it, rings glinting in the low light. “Dear Sansa,” he opens the conversation. “Alone at last, it seems.”
The girl scowls, her fingers playing with the sash about her stomach, as though debating whether now is the time to remove it. Her chin is firmly in the air. “Lord Baelish.” It's her only reply, and it is cold.
“I can imagine how you're feeling.” His voice is a purr as he saunters through his familiar room, a room that is as unknown to her as the bars of a cell.
In her intoxication, Sansa cannot repress her scoff. “ You can imagine how I feel?”
Her scorn only amuses him, and he's crossed to a buffet table, where a fine, cool bottle of Arbor Gold waits. Blue eyes gleam with interest as he pours two glasses full; drink begets drink begets drink, after all, and Sansa's current plan of action is to obliterate all sense of what is happening to her.
His smile widens and he offers her the cup. The girl snatches it with excitement and drinks smoothly and slowly. “We do not, after all, know each other very well.” The maiden does not respond, but looks at him over the rim of her silver goblet, sipping still. “Perhaps a game, my dear?”
It catches her interest. “A game?”
“A game of secrets.” He winds closer to her, and his fingers catch on her sash, the one she'd loosened with her fussing, and he runs the scrap of silk between his fingertips. He leans so closely now she can feel his breath upon her ear, tinged more with mint than with wine. It makes Sansa shiver from sensation, and she squirms a touch farther from him. “Tell me one of yours.”
“I have no secrets, my lord.”
“Every girl has secrets.” She is pulled back to him again, her sash like a leash between them, and she stumbles, still holding the glass firmly in her hands. “The sort of man she wishes to marry,” he provides an example, the backs of his fingers now moving to stroke against her hair where it falls behind her ears, the pearls smooth against the skin. “Her fantasies of her wedding night....Names for her children. Little things. It would bring me great pleasure to know of them.”
Like a true Northerner, Sansa is cautious and cold. “Why should it please you so?”
He laughs and pulls away from her, sinking to the end of the bed where he rests against one elbow, his eyes a hard, grey examination of her form. “How can I fulfill them if I do not know what they are?”
Sansa drains her cup and sets it back upon the table. After a moment's hesitation, she pours another for herself and Petyr's eyebrow twitches up; one lesson from the Queen that shall have to be unlearned . “Forgive me, my lord, but what if you cannot?”
The drink is making her bold. Her husband's smile becomes a smirk. “Oh?”
“Yes.” Another drink and she sets the cup down hard against the table, so that some of the wine sloshes out, covers her fingers, and she gives half a curse under her breath. “What if...what if they are beyond you.”
“I may yet surprise you, my lady wife.”
Her chin is back in the air again, and she has adopted the manner of a highborn lady, a martyr too pure for this world; Sansa is feeling sorry for herself. “I was promised a crown, my lord. I did nothing to earn this betrayal.”
“Hmm...” His laugh is low in his throat, his hand smoothing down the coverlet. “It's true, that is beyond me – at least for the moment.”
“A secret...” Laughter bubbles up from her stomach, but it is drunk and nonsensical. “My secret is that I deserved a better prince than His Grace....but surely I merited more than this .”
The Mockingbird's mouth purses just slightly. “My lady has, I think, indulged enough for one evening.” He rises and moves to take the cup from her, but Sansa jerks away.
“I am not a child to be spoken down to or commanded! I am a woman grown, and a Stark of Winterfell!”
His fingers grip the top of the cup hard, and the struggle occasionally makes the drink slosh against his palm, leaving it sticky. With his free hand he holds her chin – firmly, but not enough to leave a bruise. “You may be a woman flowered, but grown you are certainly not. And now you are a Baelish.”
Blue eyes narrow. “I'd sooner drink poison.”
“You're making a magnificent start on that track, I assure you.”
“Well, my lord?” She releases the cup to him, and more wine spills over the rim to drip onto his polished boots. Sansa licks the remnants of the liquid from her fingertips but has her head tilted up as defiantly as ever. “How do you plan to make me a true Baelish bride? Shall you throw me to the bed now and have your way, as the King threatened?”
He laughs, stark, nearly cold in the empty quiet of their solar. “Is that your secret fantasy, then, hm?” He seems half irritated, half delighted by her contrary fit of temper.
She meets him eye to eye, still glaring, liquid courage heavy in her veins and stomach. “If it is my tears you hope for, you will not get them.”
“Exactly who has been telling you I would wish them?”
“I dare you to take me, and despoil me, and should I die of the abuse, then I will be remembered in song as the most betrayed woman of the Seven Kingdoms, and you as the man who aided my enemies.”
The lord laughs again – but his temper is lost, apparently, for his hands grip her wrist more firmly than he might otherwise intend. A little of Sansa's mettle disappears and she gasps in pain as tendon is pressed to bone. “Oh, you poor, poor dear.” The Mockingbird wears a mocking sneer. “Let us compose the ballads now, we must leave no tragic detail out. Your hair should take an entire stanza at least.”
“Let go of me.” She tugs against him, still stubborn.
“Or shall we rehearse in different roles? Will you be Lyanna and I shall play Rhaegar? I should so like to see that pantomime.”
“You are no true lord of any kind!”
“I am, sadly for you, your true lord.” He entwines his fingers with hers for a moment – before releasing her and stepping back, his looks mocking and full of scorn. “More sadly still, I will deny you this tableau.”
The girl seems confused, her brows draw together as he removes a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his doublet and wipes the wine from his hands. “What do you mean.”
“Call me a whoremonger, if it please you.” He refolds the kerchief carefully, and not a hair or thread of him is out of place. “Say I have no honor, if you like. You may call me a coin counter, a debaucher, you may even say I am a craven – but I won't be accused of brutalities I don't commit, and I won't give you the satisfaction of getting to play the victim.”
There is a long silence between them. Sansa returns to fiddling with her sash. “...what does that mean, my lord.”
Ah, so the little wolf's manners have returned. Petyr moves his hand in a mocking gesture. “Why, my lady, that I shall not touch you until I am explicitly asked.” Her jaw drops. He grins at her, coldly, and Sansa seems to be sobering up in unpleasant ways. “And now, my sweet, untouched bride – I think it is time for your wedding present.”
“My-” The girl's cheeks flush to match her hair. She looks absolutely ashamed of herself as the parcel is handed to her. This has all backfired most terribly, what had she been thinking? Within the box is a silver pendant that matches his pin, a mockingbird with a flawless sapphire for the eye, one that matches her own in color. The craftsmanship is without equal, and Sansa palms it awkwardly as the silver rests coolly in her palm.
She has, of course, prepared a gift for him as well, a grand follower of tradition even when it is for a man she so dislikes. As if she can retract her peevish outbursts, she actually kneels at the foot of the bed when she hands him his own tribute, wrapped in white paper. It's a housecoat in dark green damask, and it does seem to improve her new husband's now-churlish mood. “Did you make this? - With your own two little hands?” Sansa nods, not quite looking him in the face. “Well. I shall treasure this most highly, then.” Petyr has the decency not to meet her foul temper with ungracious behavior of his own, for he dons the coat and seems quite pleased with its fit and color. “Shall we to bed, then, my sweet?” He removes his boots and snuffs one or two candles, but otherwise does not remove a stitch of clothing – not even the new coat. “You'll have a most dreadful headache in the morning, with all you've consumed, should you not get proper rest .”
QQQ
He is as true to his word – to his threat – as any man of better honor could be.
This could seem a bonus. Had Sansa wept with fear, had she felt herself unready for the duties of matrimony, a husband with restraint would have been a blessing. This , however, is a blight upon her honor – and she can little blame anyone but herself. The Lord Baelish, her husband, does not deign to touch her, and as such is proclaiming her unworthy of him. She, the daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully, with a pedigree to rival any in the Seven Kingdoms – unworthy of a man whose great-grandfather was a mere hedge knight!
And oh , how polite is the Master of Coin! He inquires most sweetly after her health each time they sup together. He asks about the activities of her day, seems most interested in hearing of every small matter and every working of her mind. His kindness is a cruelty, and Sansa hates him for it. He's mocking her, as she's sure he's mocking everyone else with those smiles of his, the ones that lack any feeling behind his grey-green eyes.
This is not to say he abstains from touching her entirely; he does, but in the smallest of ways. He brings her hand to his lips when he bids her goodbye, and kisses her upon the cheek or temple when he returns to the solar after a long day in service to the nation. Each time, his fingers, his lips, they linger longer than they ought, were this business truly chaste, and it's just enough to tease her – of what she can have, if she is willing to bend to him.
Which she does not.
“You must do something , Lady Sansa,” her maid whispers to her as the girl stabs her needle violently into her sewing, glaring at her husband across the room as he entertains some courtier without her notice. The foreign woman is wiser than she is, and puts that wisdom to good use. “If your marriage goes unconsummated, the High Septon could annul it.”
“Would that be so bad?” Sansa gives her stubborn reply, angrily embroidering flowers onto a silk handkerchief. “I could be awarded a much better husband.”
“Or a much worse one. More men than just Lord Baelish would like to use your claim. You need someone who can protect you here.”
Sansa pauses, her fingers smoothing out the thread, her teeth worrying at her lower lip nervously. Across the room, her husband catches her eye and lightly lifts his cup to her. She looks away with an angry blush upon her cheeks. “What options are there?”
“Men are easy,” Shae smirks with knowing. “He is no exception. You make him want you, it isn't hard.”
“Well, how?”
“By making him think you want him.”
“I won't give him the satisfaction!” Her voice was too loud, it catches the attention of the gentlemen across the room.
Lord Petyr raises his voice to carry to the girl as the officiate stares with curiosity. “How now, my love?” He is aglow with all the smiles she hates most. “Is anything the matter?”
“I-I meant...” Her head bows forward and she stares at the sewing in her lap, willing a lie to her lips. “Ser Garlan says I ought to back him if he crosses swords with Ser Loras on the training ground. I told him I could do no such thing, having seen Ser Loras ride in the Tourney.”
He smirks at her and dips his head. “You can see, my lord,” he gestures to their guest – his guest, he isn't mine, he doesn't include me in anything, I am no wife, he does not even give me that - “that my lady has a mind of the quickest sort. She understands wagers as well as the most depraved gambler in Flea Bottom.” Oooh, she's going to murder him in his sleep, wrap her slender hands about his throat and squeeze -
“Indeed, my lord,” the grasping little man smiles. What on earth is he even here for, what promise does he hope to pull from the Master of Coin? Sansa would tell him he shan't get it, but she does not. “If one can handle a sharp wife, I think it a blessing.”
“Oh, I handle her sharpness quite well. Is it not so, my love?” She graces him with her most brilliant smile and hopes he sees the hatred behind it.
This back-and-forth has its advantages. Frequently, they both drink too much at table. If Sansa is angered when drunk, Petyr is amiable, and somehow these two opposites work well together. Occasionally, she raises her voice to him, says he must find satisfaction in only the lowest of women if he still will not do her the courtesy of bedding her.
“Oooh, my wolf pup.” He grins , sloppy, hands flat on the table as he leans toward her. A dish of almonds is knocked over, but neither of them care much, and Sansa leans forward to show how unafraid she is. “Your outrage delights me! Come, another lash, I want to see what you're made of.”
“You are horrible .”
“The very worst. Why so far away?” He sits back and pushes the chair from the table, one hand out to her while the other pats his thigh. “You'll sting me more if you're closer. Come, come, sit upon my lap.”
Does he think she's too afraid to, too much the blushing maiden, nothing but a child? She will prove him wrong. Sansa boldly takes the offered seat, but cannot help but squeak when his hands land upon her hips to pull her closer, reposition her, so that if she presses her thigh, she could feel his manhood. That is enough to bring color to her cheeks.
“Well, dear?” He's staring at her bosom, plucking at the laces of her gown, and Sansa's hands rest upon his shoulders to steady her balance. “Surely you've not lost your fangs so quickly? Have I tamed you, my fiery darling?”
Her fingers squeeze. “Direwolves are not tamed, nor are they broken.”
“ Good ...” His mouth presses to her collarbone in an almost sloppy kiss, and suddenly a whimper is rising in her throat. Oh dear, oh no – and yet, oh yes, he is breaking, she'll win the day yet. “I would hate that. Your spirit is half your charm.”
Sansa's fingers thread through the hairs at the base of his skull – only because she wants to make him break as any man breaks, as Shae assured her. “Do I charm you, my lord?”
“Most assuredly.” His mouth meets hers with hunger – and oh , why are kisses so pleasant? The alcohol has made her body thrum with desire for pleasure, so that his warm palms feel like delicious fire as they run down her arms or up her spine. His tongue is wet and firm as it twines with her own, and why is that so nice ? Why this ache between her legs, this sense of needing fulfillment ? Why, why, why ? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that this does not stop; the lady writhes slightly upon her husband's lap, grinds against him so that she can feel the swell of his growing interest through his breeches. The hot press of it is far more sweet, far more interesting than she would have expected. True to her word, Sansa isn't afraid, and her mouth opens greedily for his own for some time.
His palms had been squeezing her breasts through the fabric of her bodice when he finally pulls away, a cloudy grey look to his eyes. Sansa might have enjoyed it did she not feel similarly dizzy. “I seem to be forgetting myself,” he murmurs, more drunk on the sensation of her than on the wine. “How monstrous of me; you did not give me any kind of permission to touch you, my sweet.” As suddenly as he had invited her, Petyr has shoved her off his lap and Sansa gives an angry, surprised squawk in protest, nearly landing on her bottom on the floor. “I could never shame you so. I had better away to bed, before my more devilish inclinations take me.”
And – as though it were not in the slightest bit difficult for him – the awful man does!
QQQ
More weeks go by. Petyr takes a particularly bad chill and is confined to their chambers for seven days together, and it is very strange for Sansa to be with him during the day as well. He keeps to bed in the housecoat she had sewed him and makes of himself an absolute nuisance . Her intention is to ignore him, to continue her sewing, her socializing, her whiling away of her time in bored resentment as though he were not there at all, but this he does not allow. Sansa is not given time with her handmaid; instead, her lord husband demands her presence by the bedside. When he is feeling sufficiently clear of head and strong of body, he continues his work with a small lap desk. He adds his figures and makes his marks and Sansa can do as she pleases, work her embroidery and otherwise neglect him. When he is feverish, however, and apt to complain (in the most childish of fashions, so she tells him), he makes her read to him, long chapters at a time.
The books...Sansa is confused by what he intends with the books. A few are on the nature of economics, yes, that she expected – yet they are nothing like the stories Old Nan would tell to her when she was ill. She thought that is what people wanted when they were feeling poorly, fantastic distraction. Petyr is not normal in any respect, nor is he in this. He makes her read him history, the entire Targaryen dynasty, and then when they are finished with that, he makes he read about before the conquest. Her lips go numb from reading. The next day, it is philosophy. The day after, poetry.
This wouldn't be so significant in and of itself; so Petyr's tastes run toward the academic? He's an awful man, but Sansa does not deny his intelligence . No, what makes the whole exchange so queer is his ceaseless questions. Without fail, whenever opportunity presents itself, Petyr asks her probing questions on the topics they read with his broken, sore voice. They start simply, as though he were merely not paying attention and needed her to reiterate a point – which is irritating, but alright, he's ill. But then they go deeper. “And you, my pet? If you were Rhaenyra, what would you have done?” and then “If the crown borrows ten thousand gold dragons from the Iron Bank, what do you suppose the interest would be next year? In five? In ten?” and then “Supposing your courtly enemy wished to take a position from you – what would you do to stop it?” On and on it goes, until her mind hurts as much as her tongue.
One thing must be said of the truly bizarre man to whom she is tied. Illness increases his desire for comforts. She has to bring someone in to fan him, to keep cool water available to soothe his fever (even Sansa is brought to some concern when it spikes one day, but it lowers the next morning, and really, she knew it would). Sheer mountains of pillows are scattered all about him, and at night, he rolls to his side so his arms can wrap about her form and drag her close. It isn't very pleasant; his habitual mint keeps his breath fresh, but she can still smell the sickness upon it. A forelock of his hair curls with sweat and he murmurs most pathetically into her hair, until she wriggles and says, “Surely you are too warm already to be so close to me.”
“Cool me, my icy Northern bride...” is his lazy response as he nuzzles into her neck. Who could account for a grown man – one his age! – acting as such a child? Sansa rolls her eyes, but if only to make him sleep and give her peace, she often ends the night with her fingers curled into him as well.
The seven-day goes by, and Petyr is well enough to leave. Maester Pycelle assures that the air in their chambers is too stuffy, that it is promoting poor health, and they ought to circulate it more. Sansa has plants brought in in large pots, including one lemon tree with the most divinely scented blossoms, and she is relieved to have her husband's presence no longer constant, she knows.
...On very boring afternoons, she will take one of his books from off his self again – mostly the poetry – and study. He always seems to know when she has touched one, for invariable the dinner conversation will be directed toward probing questions on these subjects once more, a pleased, mischievous glint in his again-healthy eyes.
QQQ
Still, they do not break. As if he means to tease her, Lord Petyr compliments her excessively each time he dons that housecoat, as he frequently does in the evening, when he relaxes with wine or mint-rich water, cooled with ice. “I find domesticity simply glorious ,” he purrs, and Sansa could strangle him. She does not, she does not deign him with a response as she sews anew, a new set of curtains with a stitching of feathers in silver. “Do you think, my love, you might make me slippers to match, for my nameday?”
The girl bites her cheek until she's sure she'll bleed ; no one ever sings songs of women stuck in intolerable marriages, she's quite certain she would have heard one by now if there were any. Someone really ought to, though. “If home life agrees with you so well, my lord,” she sets the sewing aside and gives him the sweetest of her smiles ( may he choke upon it, may it shame him to treat me like this, like a child, like a simpleton- ), “I wonder that you are not anxious for heirs?”
“Oh no , sweetling,” he clucks his tongue. “How could I ask that of you until you are ready for such a thing? Besides, it's a poor omen, to conceive a child in violence .”
This man! This infuriating man! “It seems to me...” she barely holds onto her dignity, her patience. “That ready or otherwise, it must someday come to pass.”
“And so it shall, Sansa, sweet – but only when you ask me to perform this for you.”
She really will kill him, she knows she will. One day he'll push her too far and she'll beat him to a bleeding pulp with her bare fists. Until then, though, she's abandoned her customary shifts in the evening for one from Lys, acquired at great expense – for at the very least, he grants her a marvelous allowance, greater than she ever had from her father in Winterfell. The thing is made of a sheer, silver fabric that moves over the body like water, perfectly smooth and cool to the touch. The peaks of her breasts can be seen through it, and there are occasions when she stands before the fire and stretches her arms above her head, so that the light silhouettes her body through the almost-not-present nightgown. She can feel Petyr's staring, it's all she can do not to grin in triumph; she's even certain she's caught sight of a noticeable bulge beneath the housecoat, but he merely turns over, grumbling all the while, and still does not touch her.
Lady Margaery's own nuptials are approaching, and many an afternoon is wiled away in the shade of the gardens. She has made of Lady Sansa her particular companion, and hours are spent enjoying tea and cakes, while Margaery admires Sansa's gowns (she has many of the finest caliber, thanks to Petyr's generosity in this regard), and Sansa admires her jewels, and so on and so on. One afternoon, the Rose of the Reach lays a palm upon her friend's stomach and giggles as she asks, “Well, Sansa? Are you going to have to let out your gowns soon? Surely you must have something by now. It's been months at least.”
Sansa's face matches her hair, done in the simple twists that Margaery wears, following the older girl's lead in virtually all things. “I...” What will she say? That she cannot entice her own husband to bed her, that as far as he is concerned, she can be considered cold and barren and to the seven hells with her? It would be absolutely too shameful to allow. “I do not think the gods have blessed us just yet.”
“Oh!” Lady Margaery sounds absolutely disappointed, flopping back against silk pillows with her lower lip in a pout. “How can that be!” She gives a mischievous smile and offers her companion another cake. “Does Lord Petyr's experience benefit you, Sansa?”
The girl is gaping. “D-does his-?”
The Tyrell girl is all giggles, delighted by her friend's blushes. “I was married once, if only in name, and one becomes aware of these matters with three older brothers, you know! It cannot be for nothing that he owns the grandest pleasure house in the capitol. Don't be selfish, share the details with me!” She drops her brown head of curls into the girl's lap and laughs fit to die. Sansa tries not to be too noticeably stiff. “I am so longing to know! I would not fail to share were our positions reversed , you know.”
“W-we...” Petyr lies all the time, to everybody, and without a trace of hesitation. What should she say? What might he say? “Well, the truth is...” Sansa sighs, and brushes a bit of stray hair from her companion's brow. “We are....abstaining – until my moonblood passes, you know.”
“You are?” Margaery sits up, her brow drawn in. Was that such a funny thing to say, Sansa wonders? Are customs different in the Reach than what she has come to expect? “My, you are pure, Sansa. I admire your restraint. When I am in such pain, I always yearn to feel the comforts a man might bring.” Another softer giggle, this time into her cup as she sips the tea, and adds, “I had a handmaid, a few years older, and she told me a flourish from her lover relieved nearly all her pains in that regard for ages and ages. You might consider it; you certainly have nothing to lose.”
The conversation haunts Sansa the rest of the afternoon. She works up the gumption to ask Shae if she has ever heard of such a thing – bedding when a woman bleeds, if it really helps with the pain – and yes, she confirms it to be so, which is just incredible . She has half a mind to ask Petyr (really, she'd be willing to do most anything when she experiences that most dire pain), but she knows what kind of smirk he'd wear, the cutting witticisms he'd give her – and it really just is not worth the wasted breath.
Instead, she goads him one evening as he reads by lantern light on a chaise, more figures, more numbers, “My lord, if a man ignores his wife this thoroughly, she is apt to be driven into the arms of another!”
In a moment, Baelish blinks, sets down his pages, and the grin he gives her is wicked ; for a second, Sansa is actually frightened. “Oh, is that so?”
Her cheeks are flushed, but she is a Stark, and she will not stand down. She shows nothing of her nervousness. “It seems the start of many love stories, my lord.”
“So it does.” He leans forward, that grin as awful as ever. It seems to show most of his teeth, and the girl does shrink back, just a touch. “I should like to see you take a lover.”
“You-!” Sansa can hardly formulate a thought around such a mad statement.
“Indeed I would. For if he was lucky, I'd see him sent to the Wall. And if he was not , I'd have him split belly to sternum and staked out on the sands of Dorne to be left for the scorpions and ants.” Without another look at her, he picks his pages back up again, scowling and grumbling, “I shall see no man take my offices, any of them – whatever you may think on it, lady wife .”
Sansa is so furious with him she jabs her elbow into his side regularly throughout the night, feigning sleep each time she does so, as though she merely tossed and turned from a nightmare ( not that that would be so surprising, the villain, telling me things like that -). It means neither of them get much rest, but so long as Petyr suffers, Sansa is willing to suffer as well.
Another day, and Margaery coos over yet more plans for the future. Sansa is beginning to run out of convincing excuses why she should not yet be quickened. She had briefly entertained the notion of blaming it all on Petyr – and why should she not, when it was all his fault – and saying it was he who could not perform for her ; but no, that would never do. The cruel remarks from Joffrey and his mother, that she should be wed to a man old enough to be her father, would only increase. And in any case, she is still tied to Baelish. Where his honor suffers, so does her own, and she is not so spiteful that she will stab her own palm just to see him bleed.
“Sansa, it really is getting to be too much.” Margaery is scolding her as Shae looks on, unimpressed by the girl of the Reach, unlike her lady, who places such importance on every word that passes her lips. “You simply must be with child by now, don't tease me so!”
“I don't see how I am teasing you , my lady,” she tries to demure, blue eyes intent upon some spot on the ground, but Margaery only tugs gently on a free lock of her hair.
“I was the youngest of my family, I haven't had younger siblings to coo over like you had. Your baby will be the first I'll have to enjoy – without needing to worry over as I will have to my own.” She sighs, briefly placing the back of her hand against her forehead in a feigned moment of dramatics. “Let's make a pact right now, my sweetling – I'll even trade blood with you, if you insist. If you have a son, and I a daughter, we'll betroth them so we can see them wed! Think how wonderful that would be! Or the opposite as well, should you have a daughter and I the son.” She giggles. “Come, let's pick names, it will while away a little time before tea, hm?”
Sansa has little stomach for the game; indeed, as Shae watches, her lady looks absolutely miserable . How stupid this whole affair is – that of trying to encourage a man and woman to go after one another, rather than attempting to keep them apart. It is positively unnatural.
That night, Lady Sansa abandons her night shift all together and slips bare beneath the gauzy sheets of their bed. Lord Baelish's hands brush her skin and he can be seen swallowing hard suddenly. He finds reason to leave the bed shortly into the night, and finds more excuses each night that follows, but it must be noted that after this, the frequency of heated, near-angry exchanges of kisses after the evening meal increases ten-fold, even if nothing else does.
QQQ
It has been nearly half a year since Sansa took the name Baelish, and finally, the taught line between them snaps.
It happens because Margaery employs a handsome young singer, who comes with new songs heard for no other audience before, and the future queen and all her ladies – Sansa included – sigh over him and over them. They are long ballads, epic in the scope of love, full of an intensity of passion in both the words and they way he performs them that the young women are left swooning when they are at last concluded. The fever pitch has been reached. Sansa is a girl raised on such sweetnesses, one who dreams of kisses and caresses, though how little she understands them. When she drinks to dull her misery, it only makes her body hum with the newly made wish of being sated in ways she never has before. When she slides naked against her husband in their bed and his fingers brush her skin, she bites her lip close to bleeding for how the sensation jolts through her, sensitive and untouched as she is. And when the bard sings of love beyond compare, of a physical necessity to touch his beloved, of the misery he is put through in being away from her, it is more than Sansa can stand. She must have something or she really might die, and somehow the thought that such young men might sing of her has lost some of its appeal. When the afternoon concludes, she pays for the young man to sing for the entertainment of herself and her spouse over the evening meal.
It seems an odd exchange to Petyr. He watches Sansa sigh over her food as though she were ill, and only two things rouse her from her lovely melancholy – a plate of artichokes and one of lemon cakes.
She bites her lip, then soothes the spot with the tip of her tongue, and Petyr stares and stares after it. “I-I have never been permitted an artichoke before,” she admits, pulling at the leaves daintily. “My lord father did not often have them sent for.”
“Yes, they are expensive,” her husband admits, watching as she chews the thing and makes a face of displeasure. He chuckles, and while normally that might raise his little wolfling's ire, tonight luck is on his side. “Might I educate you, my lady?” A servant moves the dish to a side table so man and wife might recline on the couch as the singer goes on, fiery stanzas about the doe-like eyes of his beloved. Petyr holds Sansa's hand most decorously, by the fingers, as he patiently escorts her from chair to settee, even pausing to ensure a pillow is there to support the small of her back. His wife looks at him with her eyes like the ocean, and the music continues to swell, the partner of the balladeer plucking the strings of his dulcimer with practiced ease. “Like so,” Petyr says, and his voice is low and just a little rough as he pulls a leaf from the stem, thick with the flesh of the flower, and dips it into a dish of warm, rendered butter. He lays it against his tongue, pulls it against his teeth, and drops the discarded petal into a waiting bowl of alabaster – and smiles at her. “You try.” He pulls another leaf and does the same ministrations – but this time he lays it against his wife's lovely, pink tongue.
Sansa smiles now, too; this is much better, rich and savory, rather than chewy and bitter. “I...I like that,” she admits, still smiling, and gods , how beautiful she is when she smiles. Baelish wills his palms not to sweat. He clears his throat and offers her another, but rather than plucking the petal for herself, Sansa parts her lips and offers him her tongue once more. Torture, this is torture. His breathing grows fraught as he serves his wife, this time his fingertips brush the softness of her cheek. Perhaps the lady is wrong and a direwolf can be tamed. In any case, he should very much like to try, for his chest is burning powerfully when Sansa is so sweet as this, when her fingers near his leg on the sofa, when she shakes her hair off her shoulders and leans back with pleasure, exposing the pale column of her throat for him.
The music stops. Sansa blinks as though awakened from a spell, and displeasure wrinkles her brow. “Young man.”
Petyr is just as irritated as the boy steps forward, seeming ready to depart. “My lady?”
“I want to hear it again.”
He seems startled. “You would not prefer another tune, my lady?”
“I want to hear that song.” She's not about to change her mind.
The piece is twenty minutes at least. To Petyr, it's extraordinarily sentimental, but what Lady Baelish desires, so shall she have. “ Play it again .” His voice is hard as he demands it, his eyes steely grey, and the bard nods with a touch of nervousness.
“Of course, my lord, my lady.” The dulcimer fretter seems a touch irritated at this, his fingers no doubt beginning to burn with callouses, but once more, he begins to play, and his partner croons in a smooth, tenor pitch. “ By the banks of the Mander my love I did find ...”
Sansa is all coquettish giggles now, resettling herself on the pillows and tilting her head toward her husband, batting Tully blue eyes. “I still hunger , Petyr...surely you won't stop, will you?”
The artichoke is dispatched with before the singer has even reached the bar detailing how his beloved is promised to another man. The lemon cakes come after, and these he wisely does not touch, for they are all for Sansa . These she takes with a bit less lady-like grace, but her husband happily picks crumbs from the collar of her gown – at least at first. After one or two, he abandons the use of his fingers and leans forward to run his tongue where the bits of cake have fallen, being sure to sweep it over his lady's collarbone as well. Sansa moans , there is no other word for it; such a simple touch, and yet for one so longing for it, it burns like a brand. The velvet of his mouth leaves a wet smear along her skin, and it makes her prickle with gooseflesh as it dries cool in the warm evening air. Their eyes bore into one another with unblinking intensity, and the music plays on and on and on...When the lady has finished her delights, Lord Baelish takes her thumb into his mouth and laves the sugar from it, and the girl whimpers and wriggles a bit closer to him. His grey-green eyes meet her blue ones when he changes for the index finger, and in another moment, the lady finds herself on his lap.
Petyr's fingers weave into her hair when their mouths join, tongues exploratory, voices quiet and husky in the low light of the candles. Soft, she's so soft, she fits the planes of his body so perfectly. Does she know how fortunate they are? That in all the world, that in the corruption of King's Landing, they have managed to find each other, the match beyond all other matches? No, probably she does not; Sansa may still be dreaming of blond knights with youthful faces, but Petyr can give her all that she craves in so many ways they cannot. She certainly seems to know that tonight, encouraging his hands to roam her lithe form, giving voice to her pleasure whenever he touches her just so . Before long, her skirts are rucked up and the pads of his fingers roam over the soft skin of her thighs, the downy hairs that barely cover them. She's so hot between her legs, he can feel her even through all the layers of fabric that separate them, and she whines most hauntingly as she leans forward and grinds slowly against him.
“ How I wish ...” Her voice is a sigh against his ear and his hips buck involuntarily against her, so that she gasps again. Petyr's fingers are brutally tangled in her silks; wish, yes? Wish what! Anything she wants, tonight, it's going to be hers. “I feel silly, to have such an audience ...” She is flushed with want and with heat, but also with a touch of modesty, and gods how it makes him throb for her. “But I wish the music could continue.”
His wife is still wrapped around him, but Petyr stands, and she yelps but then giggles to feel the wiry strength of his lithe arms. Five steps and he's deposited her on their bed for the first time in their union. Obediently, Sansa doesn't move, and “Wait here,” he tells her. Another few paces and he's motioned the musicians to behind the lady's dressing screen (a screen she's lately abandoned in an effort to goad him into action, and gods does he hope she'll retain the habit). The dulcimer plays on while the singer catches his breath during an instrumental moment, sipping slowly at a cup of wine. Baelish deposits a bag heavy with coin into his palm and eyes go wide. “ Keep playing .” He stresses this slowly and with clear emphasis. “Until you don't think the music can be heard any longer, and then you may leave and conveniently forget who hired you this evening.” The musician nods fit to lose his head as he draws a breath for the next lyric of the ballad.
But Petyr's away to Sansa, practically flying back across the room, lest she suddenly change her mind . Her little hands knead at her aching breast, and it's a duty her husband is all too happy to perform, quickly joining their mouths once more.
It is passionately done. They share breath and heat and long, lusty looks, as Lord Baelish is careful to kiss every inch of his bride from neck to knee. Beautiful, she's beautiful. He tells her so when his fingers dip between her legs to find her soaked and ready, and how good, and how perfect. The girl is whimpering, pressing against him, eager to begin rather than nervous. And why should she be nervous, his little firebrand? She's so brave, braver than any have ever given her credit for, to have lasted this long. She mews about how long his fingers are – she likes it, it seems – and for a while that is how he takes her, mind white with the sensation of the girl, of making sure she'll be ready when the time comes. Quickly, Sansa is pulling his mouth back to her own, holding him by the wings of grey at his temple; and oh, the songs she's singing, his new Mockingbird. Songs of “ Please, please, please ...” as his thumb brushes that sensitive place she may hardly even know, and less eloquent songs that are just his name, or prayers to the gods, or just noises of pleasure met at long, long last.
The moment comes when he has her – finally has her! – and his mind absolutely leaves him. Lord Petyr Baelish, who holds himself back so well, who is all cleverness, he is undone by the red haired beauty that lies beneath him, with her legs wrapped around his hips and her fingers pulling him ever closer. This marriage, he realizes, was a mistake; that after tonight, he will never be able to deny her anything again, that he will be completely ruined by Sansa. It's not a thought he can linger on when her hips buck greedily against his, frustrated with need, and the oldest performance in the world goes on.
When it's all over, the music has stopped, so the musicians must be long gone, but Sansa does not seem to notice. She has never looked sweeter to his eyes, with her hair a tangled mess and sweat beaded at her brow. Not even when he swept his cloak about her shoulders and exchanged the vows. Well, he can't really blame her; it's cruelty to deny a young woman this most basic need for so long. If this is what it takes to please his Northern little bride, he can hardly complain about that.
Sansa is sighing and sated and sweet. In a moment, she rolls closer to him and nestles her head beneath his chin, fingers making long strokes down his arms and torso. She doesn't ask about the scar that bisects his torso, and he's glad about that, though he's seen her run a sleepy eye over it. Well, that can always be handled later. After a time she murmurs, “I'm a better wife than you deserve,” and he can't help but to burst out laughing.
QQQ
Not every problem is solved just because Lord Baelish's pride has been satisfied, that whatever he is, a violent monster is not among those titles; nor that Lady Baelish is indeed a woman of the highest caliber, and that she'll be allowed her rights as a wife. A few problems have been solved, however. Sansa has shed much of Cersei's influence and drinks significantly less at table, often shying away from it altogether. There are still arguments, plentiful ones. It is simply that now they can end with the lord on his back on their bed, the lady straddling him and digging her nails into his chest for the most divine pleasure pain. Or otherwise there was one occasion (perhaps she made another empty threat to take a lover, it hardly matters) when he bent her over his desk to lay his palm across her bottom, and while she was outraged, it also led to intense enjoyment, so at least the matter ended well. Sansa still does not take responsibility for her pleasure, though – she must be enticed to bed, as though it were a chore and she still the pure maiden. She is, in these moments, her husband's little fool, but he will break her of this stubbornness yet. Every time she is crying out in pleasure, begging and whimpering his name, it is one step closer to making the girl admit how much she enjoys their conjugal relations – and how very good that is.
Littlefinger noticeably increases his gifts to his lady wife, be they coin or trinkets or lemon cakes. For her part, Sansa stops wearing most of the pastel shades she is most accustomed to and seems to have taken up her husband's far flashier style. One gown was royal violet with an underskirt of cloth of gold that could only be seen when she walked. If it seemed out of place, Margaery still apparently like it, complimenting the contrast of the dark purple with her red hair, and how bold the palette choice seemed. “Really,” the future Queen giggled again, back to planning her fast-approaching wedding. “You really ought to replace that mockingbird sigil with a peacock. It will suit you both.”
But the girl isn't contented yet. She had plans to be a Queen, which became plans to return to her family. It's still among her highest goals, but now she has a husband to consider. She's not a girl to be satisfied as the wife of the Master of Coin, and frankly, her husband could hardly agree more.
“You'll only have the North,” she tests him one evening with her sewing on her lap, “if the Lannisters are victorious, and Robb has won every battle.”
“So he has.” Sansa watches Petyr's quill dip into the ink pot, watches as he sweeps the pen elegantly across the page. It's always impressive that he can carry on the lengthiest, the deepest of conversations without hesitating in his work; he only hesitates when Sansa tempts him away from the desk...
“I know you won't tell me the truth, but I have to ask – do you really back the Lannisters? Or do you just want them to think that?”
“How you wound me, my beloved,” he snorts, laying the pen to the side and folding his hands smoothly upon the ironwood desk. “Why do you suppose I would not tell you the truth?”
The girl's brow wrinkles. “You have never told anyone the truth since I have made your acquaintance.”
“Very much not so.” He crooks his finger, a come-hither gesture. There's no reason she has to do as he says – yet for whatever reason, Sansa sets her work on a chair and quickly makes her way to perch upon his lap. It's always an interesting vantage point, and he never stops her rifling through his papers on the desk, so she enjoys it. Baelish strokes his palm along the length of her clothed thigh and purrs, “Have I not told you that you are, by far, the most beautiful woman in King's Landing?”
“My point exactly,” Sansa murmurs, picking through his letters and examining all of the wax seals intently.
Petyr laughs. “I know you like to hear it, and I happen to know you believe me when I say it.” He sucks at the spot behind her ear and Sansa jolts on his knee. “Leastwise because it is an indisputable fact...”
But she rolls her eyes and is able to pull away from his questing mouth, very much interested in one letter with a seal she recognizes as a House of the Reach. “So whom do you back?”
“Hmm...” Petyr's fingers are questing higher up her thigh, but Sansa is determined to hold her focus. “Who do you think it is that I back, sweetling?”
The Master of Coin finds his mark; Sansa squeaks, jumps slightly on his lap, but only so that she is all the closer to him, and his other hand now lifts her skirts so he can get at her more easily. Still, she won't break – yet. “Y-yourself...”
“Clever girl...”
“Then if Robb wins-” she doesn't say when because she is aware of how no one is really alone in King's Landing, and also because she's saying, “Stop it, Petyr-”
“Tell me to stop again, and I will,” he baits her, but his little wife is already rocking against his hand and his mouth is leaving red marks on her neck and shoulder. “Yes, if Robb carries the day, I won't have the North, that is true – but I will be wedded to his younger sister, the last of his family, and I will have brought her home at last...What might the honorable Young Wolf's gratitude be, I wonder?”
Sansa does not tell him to stop, because instead she has turned to straddle his lap and entangle their mouths in a passionate kiss. Petyr is all to eager to finish speaking for that particular distraction. When they part, her arms are wrapped around his neck and she shares his breath, eyes glowing with hope. “Do you mean that, Petyr? Do you promise? We'll go home?”
He isn't as joyous as she is, the serious, scheming lord. “No,” he tells her. “I won't promise.” He doesn't say the rest; that he won't promise because what if he cannot keep that vow? What if, in his intricate plans, one of a thousand million things goes awry, then what is he to tell her?
Sansa isn't smiling anymore, staring at him, quiet, solemn. Her forehead leans against his own and she sighs. “So if Robb wins, you hope to gain a better seat through the alliance to his House...and if the Lannisters are victorious, you're no worse off. I imagine you must wish them to succeed, so that you can claim the North.”
Lord Baelish is stroking his wife's back in a way that occasionally tickles so that she has to lean toward him. “Don't be too sure I am so near-sighted, that I would truly believe myself safe just because the Lannisters gave me Winterfell and you.”
Sansa is a smart girl. She seems to understand his meaning and her fingers curl into his doublet. “Robb might give you any seat you wished for,” she adds, hopefully, smiling just a little bit as she leans back to look at his face once more. “I would so like to return home, to see him again, and my mother.”
Her mother. There is a look that crosses her husband's face – pain and longing and bitterness and an indescribably ache at the mention of Catelyn. “Yes,” is all he says, his mouth dry, and he could be agreeing with her, or simply saying he understands, or any one of a hundred different things.
Sansa's fingers comb through his hair on the right side, air nervous, but not unkind. “Please – don't make this any harder for me.”
He meets her eye at last. “That is a promise.” Sealed by a kiss.
QQQ
In a few weeks, the news of the slaughter at the Twins comes. Petyr leaves Sansa alone that first day, to let her weep. He hopes – fervently – that she does not take this as a lack of care on his behalf. He merely has no idea what he could possibly do to comfort her, and believes she may wish to have her privacy at such a time. For his part, he drinks in the offices of the Master of Coin and tries to forget that he was ever Petyr Baelish before he was Littlefinger.
Another day, however, and Sansa acts as if nothing is wrong. She doesn't wear black because she cannot wear black, and instead finds the gayest, most beautiful gown of Summer she poses, and wears a mask of perfect courtesy, and no one at court sees anything at all amiss in her behavior. Petyr is so proud of her he buys her a pin like his own – but hers is a wolf encrusted with diamonds. She doesn't know what to say at first when he presents it to her at the conclusion of the evening meal, but after a moment, Sansa takes it and buries it beneath a mountain of silks in her trunk. Petyr watches her.
“There will come a time when you can wear that with pride, as Cersei does that gaudy lion pendant of hers.”
He wonders, briefly, if Sansa believes him, her fingers twisting in her skirts, her head bowed – silent. She must, though, because soon after she is in his arms again, and they aren't alone, not really. Whatever else they are, whatever words they fail to say, whatever duties they fail to act upon, they have this. They have a partner in the Game of Thrones, and that can make all the difference.
He tells her so (though not in so many words), afterwords, as she lies in his arms in their bed, beneath the sheets, her hair an auburn fan across the pillow. His arm is propped beneath her shoulders, her head resting on his own, and he whispers to her in the dark.
“But what will we do?” she asks him, curling in closer to his body as she does so; we, we, a unit, a partnership, a dynasty. “Maybe the Boltons won't protest – maybe – and yes the Ironborn are scattered, but everything is still a mess. Wildlings coming from beyond the Wall, how do you fight all that ?”
He kisses her temple with a lingering of his lips and Sansa sighs. “The Reach hasn't been so badly touched by the War like so much of the Kingdom has...They have many men left, eager to prove their mettle; unlanded third sons who would rather warm the beds of Northern widows than take the black as their only chance for power. Moreover, the Ironborn are their ancient enemies. It is not hard to convince them to press your claim, to rally beneath a Stark banner when most of the danger has already passed. Then it's merely a matter of re-securing the roads, restoring order, and keeping supplies open going northward.”
Sansa sighs and cuddles closer, burying her face at the juncture of his shoulder, as though she hates the very thought; and she might, but she understands it. His beautiful girl, his Tully bride, she knows . She's as ambitious as he is. “I want Winterfell back,” she tells him, one leg wrapping over his own so that they are indelibly entwined. “It belongs to me, it's my right.”
“And so it is.” He breaths into her hair and feels himself stiffening beneath the bedclothes. Has Sansa noticed? “And it will be yours. But it's not the same as it was when you left it.”
She nods. “I know. But we could fix it.”
“We could.”
“We could even make it stronger than before.” There's a little bitterness when she tilts her chin up to smile at him, but there's also a glint in those blue eyes that makes him kiss her again, like he can't help it, like he could die in her arms like this and feel nearly fulfilled.
“And so we shall, my sweet...” That one is a promise. There's nothing else to say about it, because each already knows all the answers. One thing Sansa doesn't know, however, is what he means after he takes her again, after he leans over her in the dark, cooling down and sharing her breath. He tells her, “I will have a present for you, soon,” but he says no more, no matter how she asks or begs, and that is the end of it.
QQQ
“It's absolutely cruel, taking you away like this!” Margaery pouts, holding her friend's hand, as wagon upon wagon is loaded with goods; salted meats, fish, dried fruits, flour, armaments of every kind. There are building supplies and casks of wine, furs, cords of firewood. An army and then some is gearing up to travel North, and Sansa gives her most demure, unassuming smile. “You should at least stay until after the wedding.”
“Lord Baelish says we cannot delay. The weather worsens every day, so each moment we wait, the travel becomes that much more strenuous – and expensive.”
Margaery just sighs, brow drawn together in irritation. “Winter is Coming, I suppose. Well, Sansa, I expect you to return as soon as I have a child, and that is an order from your future Queen, understand?” She smiles and kisses her friend's cheek. Sansa blushes. “If you have a daughter, I want her named for me. I won't take no for an answer.”
“A-Alright.” Sansa's smile is real. She'd almost be sorry to leave Margaery, but she and Petyr have far too many plans to languish away in King's Landing where everyone thinks them perfectly genial and harmless. How very little they know.
Their plan, then, is to amass their forces at Harrenhal, where strategies can then by drawn up and the best way forward decided upon. Petyr is no kind of general, so everyone says, given his delightful defeat at the hands of Brandon Stark those fifteen years ago, but Sansa thinks that's a very foolish summary. It's true that her husband's strength is not with sword in hand, but give him a map and numbers and he is the greatest tactician alive, she has not a doubt.
Harrenhal, of course, may even be worse than Winterfell, and it would be a lie to say Sansa isn't just the slightest bit nervous about the purported ghosts. But there's shan't be a lengthy stay. Before long, the carriages are ready (not as ostentatious as the Queen's wheelhouse when the Baratheons came North, Sansa remembers, but far more practical and easy to move), and Sansa is bundled up on an impressive pile of cushions with her husband beside her, and it will be interesting being stuck in such confined quarters for such long hours – but to be honest, she's rather interested in the challenge of it all.
And she's leaving the capitol. She never expected it to all go like this, to be this bad. She thought to never leave King's Landing when she first arrived. Yet now she is going home.
With Petyr.
“You forgot, you know,” she mutters to him, drawing aside a curtain and watching the countryside scroll past the carriage window.
“What is it I forgot,” he replies, turning a page in his book. She wonders that he can read and not be sickened with the bumping and rolling of the carriage. There are times he reads to her and his voice is so soothing she even fell asleep once.
“My present.”
“Wait a little while, dear,” he assured her. “It's not yet time.”
“You say that because you forgot .”
“Sansa.” He smirks at her over the book, and something within her kicks at her stomach. “I shall never forget anything about you.”
Sansa is disinclined to believe him as the days drag on, but they are lodged at Harrenhal just shy of a fortnight when news of the King's ghastly murder reaches them.
No, Petyr did not forget.
QQQ
She is going to give him heirs. Not yet, but soon. He can almost see them at Winterfell now, one of the greatest seats that ever existed. Petyr asks her questions about its construction, marvels over the wonders of Brandon the Builder.
“I can't say I'm looking forward to the cold,” he grumbles, as a skilled tailor fits him for yet another fur-lined cloak, this one lined all with white ermine. What he doesn't say is that he won't mind the ways Northerners must keep each other warm in bed at night, but only because Sansa would take the tailor's shears to him.
Sansa smiles as she watches, doing a little sewing of her own (slippers. For no reason at all). “It isn't cold inside. The water of the hot springs warms the walls.”
“Impossible.” His eyes are alight with interest, bright, near-spring-like green, and were so many pins not all facing towards him, he might step down from the pedestal the tailor has him on to sit beside her and pepper her with questions. From this position, he is tall and thin, and the cut of the cloak adds to his regal bearing. Sansa likes him like this, just a little. He adds, after a moment, “Truly?”
She smiles again. “Truly and completely.”
“This needs to be studied. If it could be fixed, replicated...” He mutters to himself until the tailor demands he still so the cut will be right, and Sansa waits eagerly for them to continue north. North and north and north – to the home she will claim.
Petyr's son will sit the throne of Winterfell. He can scarcely stand to think on it, so potent is his excitement, at night, as he strokes his sleeping bride, curled beside him with her hair of fire. He may never live to see them crowned Kings in the North, but it's enough for a start. He's already brought House Baelish so high up the ladder, he can hardly be called a shirker. There are so many futures yet unknown: if Stannis takes back his family's throne, the North would never be allowed independence. So, too, with the Lannisters. If rumors are true, if Dragon lords are indeed rising in the east, that may be another matter entirely. But what does that all matter? Some would say he is tainting pure, Stark blood, but what idiots . That was the true fault of Robert's Rebellion, it never went far enough. Ned and Robert and their ilk, they never understood that it wasn't enough to oust the Targaryens, so many more old, decrepit Houses had to go, like burning dead trees to make way for new seedlings. That is what his House is, the start of the grandest trunk of Westeros.
Sansa is a part of that.
She knows it, too, as she twines with him at night, eager for his caress, his kisses, his lightest touch. He could be terribly in love with her. So stupid, so dangerous, and yet he will give it to her. Sansa deserves nothing less, for being the one woman in the Seven Kingdoms who will understand his ambition – and share it.
The candles burn out on their bedside table, and they wait for the pieces to be all in place before they make their next move in the game.