SANSA VII - ASOS

Snow had a way of making the Eyrie look innocent.

Petyr had never trusted it. It covered the hard grey stone, softened the battlements, and made even the ugliest things seem fair for a little while. Below, the mountains vanished beneath white, and the wind carried little more than the soft hiss of falling snow. It was weather for staying indoors, for wine before a fire and games played at tables where the pieces could not freeze.

Petyr was not always a sensible man.

He found {{user}} outside, alone, building castles in the snow.

For a while he simply watched her. There was something almost absurdly peaceful about it. The Eyrie was full of whispers and rivalries, Lords Declarant who smiled while counting knives, Lysa's suspicions, Sweetrobin's fears, and servants who knew better than to repeat what they heard. Yet here was the girl, dark hair falling against her shoulders, making little towers with red fingers as though she had forgotten where she was. Her bridges kept falling down. The third time one collapsed on her, she cursed aloud and sat back in helpless frustration.
"Pack the snow around a stick, Sansa."
She did not know how long he had been watching her, or when he had returned from the Vale. "A stick?" she asked
"That will give it strength enough to stand, I'd think," Petyr said. "May I come into your castle, my lady?" Sansa was wary. "Don't break it. Be..."
"...gentle?" He smiled. "Winterfell has withstood fiercer enemies than me. It is Winterfell, has it not?"
"Yes," Sansa admitted.
He walked along outside the walls. "I used to dream of it, in those years after Cat went north with Eddard Stark. In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold."
"No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer." She stood, towering over the great white castle. "I can't think how to do the glass roof over the gardens."
Littlefinger stroked his chin, where his beard had been before Lysa had asked him to shave it off. "The glass was locked in frames, no? Twigs are your answer. Peel them and cross them and use bark to tie them together into frames, I’ll show you." He moved through the garden, gathering up twigs and sticks and shaking the snow from them.
When he had enough, he stepped over both walls with a single long stride and squatted on his heels in the middle of the yard. Sansa came closer to watch what he was doing.
His hands were deft and sure, and before long he had a crisscrossing latticework of twigs, very like the one that roofed the glass gardens of Winterfell. "We will need to imagine the glass, to be sure," he said when he gave it to her.
"This is just right," she said.
He touched her face. "And so is that."
Sansa did not understand. "And so is what?"
"Your smile, my lady. Shall I make another for you?"
"If you would."
"Nothing could please me more."
She raised the walls of the glass gardens while Littlefinger roofed them over, and when they were done with that he helped her extend the walls and build the guardshall. When she used sticks for the covered bridges, they stood, just as he had said they would. The First Keep was simple enough, an old round drum tower, but Sansa was stymied again when it came to putting the gargoyles around the top. Again he had the answer.
"It's been snowing on your castle, my lady," he pointed out. "What do the gargoyles look like when they're covered with snow?"
Sansa closed her eyes to see them in memory. "They're just white lumps."
"Well, then. Gargoyles are hard, but white lumps should be easy."
And they were. The Broken Tower was easier still. They made a tall tower together, kneeling side by side to roll it smooth, and when they'd raised it Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face.
Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. "That was unchivalrously done, my lady.”
“As was bringing me here when you swore to take me home."
She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. *From Winterfell*, she thought. *I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.*
His face grew serious. "Yes, I played you false in that… and in one other thing as well."
Sansa's stomach was aflutter. "What other thing?"
"I told you that nothing could please me more than to help you with your castle. I tear that was a lie as well. Something else would please me more." He stepped closer. “This."
Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss... before she turned her face away and wrenched free.
"What are you *doing*?"
Petyr straightened his cloak. "Kissing a snow maid."
"You're supposed to kiss *her*." Sansa glanced up at Lysa's balcony, but it was empty now. "Your lady wife."
"I do. Lysa has no cause for complaint." He smiled. "I wish you could see yourself, my lady. You are so beautiful. You're crusted over with snow like some little bear cub, but your face is flushed and you can scarcely breathe. How long have you been out here? You must be very cold. Let me warm you, Sansa. Take off those gloves, give me your hands."
"I won't." He sounded almost like Marillion, the night he'd gotten so drunk at the wedding. Only this time Lothor Brune would not appear to save her; Ser Lothor was Petyr's man. "You shouldn't kiss me. I might have been your own daughter…”
"Might have been," he admitted, with a rueful smile.
"But you're not, are you? You are Eddard Stark's daughter, and Cat's. But I think you might be even more beautiful than your mother was, when she was your age."

*******

It was late that afternoon when Lady Lysa summoned her. Sansa had been marshaling her courage all day, but no sooner did Marillion appear at her door than all her doubts returned. "Lady Lysa requires your presence in the High Hall." The singer's eyes undressed her as he spoke, but she was used to that.
Marillion was comely, there was no denying it; boyish and slender, with smooth skin, sandy hair, a charming smile. But he had made himself well hated in the Vale, by everyone but her aunt and little Lord Robert. To hear the servants talk, Sansa was not the first maid to suffer his advances, and the others had not had Lothor Brune to defend them. But Lady Lysa would hear no complaints against him. Since coming to the Eyrie, the singer had become her favorite. He sang Lord Robert to sleep every night, and tweaked the noses of Lady Lysa's suitors with verses that made mock of their foibles. Her aunt had showered him with gold and gifts; costly clothes, a gold arm ring, a belt studded with moonstones, a fine horse. She had even given him her late husband's favorite falcon. It all served to make Marillion unfailingly courteous in Lady Lysa's presence, and unfailingly arrogant outside it.
"Thank you," Sansa told him stiffly. "I know the way."
He would not leave. "My lady said to bring you."
*Bring me?* She did not like the sound of that. "Are you a guardsman now?" Littlefinger had dismissed the Eyrie's captain of guards and put Ser Lothor Brune in his place.
"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. The Roadside Rose, I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her."
*I am a Stark of Wintertell,* she longed to tell him. Instead she nodded, and let him escort her down the tower steps and along a bridge. The High Hall had been closed as long as she'd been at the Eyrie. Sansa wondered why her aunt had opened it. Normally she preferred the comfort of her solar, or the cozy warmth of Lord Arryn's audience chamber with its view of the waterfall.
Two guards in sky-blue cloaks flanked the carved wooden doors of the High Hall, spears in hand. "No one is to enter so long as Alayne is with Lady Lysa," Marillion told them.
"Aye." The men let them pass, then crossed their spears. Marillion swung the doors shut and barred them with a third spear, longer and thicker than those the guards had borne.
Sansa felt a prickle of unease. "Why did you do that?"
"My lady awaits you."
She looked about uncertainly. Lady Lysa sat on the dais in a high-backed chair of carved weirwood, alone. To her right was a second chair, taller than her own, with a stack of blue cushions piled on the seat, but Lord Robert was not in it. Sansa hoped he'd recovered. Marillion was not like to tell her, though.
Sansa walked down the blue silk carpet between rows of fluted pillars slim as lances. The floors and walls of the High Hall were made of milk-white marble veined with blue. Shafts of pale daylight slanted down through narrow arched windows along the eastern wall. Between the windows were torches, mounted in high iron sconces, but none of them was lit. Her footsteps fell softly on the carpet.
Outside the wind blew cold and lonely.
Amidst so much white marble even the sunlight looked chilly, somehow... though not half so chilly as her aunt.
Lady Lysa had dressed in a gown of cream-colored velvet and a necklace of sapphires and moon-stones. Her auburn hair had been done up in a thick braid, and fell across one shoulder. She sat in the high seat watching her niece ap-proach, her face red and puffy beneath the paint and pow-der. On the wall behind her hung a huge banner, the moon-and-falcon of House Arryn in cream and blue.
Sansa stopped before the dais, and curtsied. "My lady. You sent for me." She could still hear the sound of the wind, and the soft chords Marillion was playing at the foot of the hall.
"I saw what you did," the Lady Lysa said.
Sansa smoothed down the folds of her skirt. "I trust Lord Robert is better? I never meant to rip his doll. He was smashing my snow castle, I only…”
“Will you play the cot deceiver with me?” her aunt said. “I was not speaking of Robert’s doll. I saw you kissing him.”
The High Hall seemed to grow a little colder. The walls and floor and columns might have turned to ice. “He kissed me.”
Lysa's nostrils flared. "And why would he do that? He has a wife who loves him. A woman grown, not a little girl.
He has no need for the likes of you. Confess, child. You threw yourself at him. That was the way of it.”
Sansa took a step backward. "That's not true."
"Where are you going. Are you afraid? Such wanton behavior must be punished, but I will not be hard on you. We keep a whipping boy for Robert, as is the custom in the Free Cities. His health is too delicate for him to bear the rod himself. I shall find some common girl to take your whipping, but first you must own up to what you've done. I cannot abide a liar, Alayne."
"I was building a snow castle," Sansa said. "Lord Petyr was helping me, and then he kissed me. That's what you saw."
"Have you no honor?" her aunt said sharply. "Or do you take me for a fool? You do, don't you? You take me for a fool. Yes, I see that now. I am not a fool. You think you can have any man you want because you're young and beautiful. Don't think I haven't seen the looks you give Marillion. I know everything that happens in the Eyrie, little lady. And I have known your like before, too. But you are mistaken if you think big eyes and strumpet's smiles will win you Petyr. He is mine." She rose to her feet. "They all tried to take him from me. My lord father, my husband, your mother ... Catelyn most of all. She liked to kiss my Petyr too, oh yes she did."
Sansa retreated another step. "My mother?"
"Yes, your mother, your precious mother, my own sweet sister Catelyn. Don't you think to play the innocent with me, you vile little liar. All those years in Riverrun, she played with Petyr as if he were her little toy. She teased him with smiles and soft words and wanton looks, and with smiles and soft words and wanton looks, and made his nights a torment."
“No." *My mother is dead*, she wanted to shriek. *She was your own sister, and she's dead*. "She didn't. She wouldn't."
"How would you know? Were you there?" Lysa descended from the high seat, her skirts swirling. "Did you come with Lord Bracken and Lord Blackwood, the time they visited to lay their feud before my father? Lord Bracken's singer played for us, and Catelyn danced six dances with Petyr that night, six, I counted. When the lords began to argue my father took them up to his audience chamber, so there was no one to stop us drinking. Edmure got drunk, young as he was... and Petyr tried to kiss your mother, only she pushed him away. She laughed at him. He looked so wounded I thought my heart would burst, and afterward he drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that. But you remember none of it, do you?" She looked down angrily. "Do you?"
*Is she drunk, or mad?* “I was not born, my lady."
"You were not born. But I was, so do not presume to tell
what is true. I know what is true. You kissed him!"
"He kissed me," Sansa insisted again. "I never wanted—"
"Be quiet, I haven't given you leave to speak. You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun, with her smiles and her dancing. You think I could forget?
That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him com-fort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt. He told me he loved me then, but he called me Cat, just before he fell back to sleep. Even so, I stayed with him until the sky began to lighten. Your mother did not deserve him. She would not even give him her favor to wear when he fought Brandon Stark. I would have given him my favor. I gave him everything. He is mine now. Not Catelyn's and not yours."
All of Sansa's resolve had withered in the face of her aunt's onslaught. Lysa Arryn was frightening her as much as Queen Cersei ever had. "He's yours, my lady," she said, trying to sound meek and contrite. "May I have your leave to go?"
"You may not." Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. "If you were anyone else, I would banish you. Send you down to Lord Nestor at the Gates of the Moon, or back to the Fingers. How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets? That was what my father meant for Petyr. Everyone thought it was because of that stupid duel with Brandon Stark, but that wasn't so. Father said I ought to thank the gods that so great a lord as Jon Arryn was willing to take me soiled, but I knew it was only for the swords. I had to marry Jon, or my father would have turned me out as he did his brother, but it was Petyr I was meant for. I am telling you all this so you will understand how much we love each other, how long we have suffered and dreamed of one another. We made a baby together, a precious little baby." Lysa put her hands flat against her belly, as if the child was still there. "When they stole him from me, I made a promise to myself that I would never let it happen again. Jon wished to send my sweet Robert to Dragonstone, and that sot of a king would have given him to Cersei Lannister, but I never let them ... no more than I'll let you steal my Petyr Littlefinger. Do you hear me, Alayne or Sansa or whatever you call yourself? Do you hear what I am telling you?"
"Yes. I swear, I won't ever kiss him again, or... or entice him." Sansa thought that was what her aunt wanted to hear.
"So you admit it now? It was you, just as I thought. You are as wanton as your mother." Lysa grabbed her by the wrist. "Come with me now. There is something I want to show you."
"You're hurting me." Sansa squirmed. "Please, Aunt Lysa, I haven't done anything. I swear it."
Her aunt ignored her protests. "*Marillion!*" she shouted
"I need you, Marillion! I *need* you!"
The singer had remained discreetly in the rear of the hall, but at Lady Arryn's shout he came at once. "My lady?"
"Play us a song. Play ‘The False and the Fair.' " Marillion's fingers brushed the strings. "*The lord he came a-riding upon a rainy day, hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey.*”
Lady Lysa pulled at Sansa's arm. It was either walk or be dragged she chose to walk, halfway down the hall so she chose to walk, halfway down the hall and between a pair of pillars, to a white weirwood door set in the marble wall. The door was firmly closed, with three heavy bronze bars to hold it in place, but Sansa could hear the wind outside worrying at its edges. When she saw the crescent moon carved in the wood, she planted her feet.
"The Moon Door." She tried to yank free. "Why are you showing me the Moon Door?"
"You squeak like a mouse now, but you were bold enough in the garden, weren't you? You were bold enough in the snow."
"*The lady sat a-sewing upon a rainy day*," Marillion sang. "*Hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey*."
"Open the door," Lysa commanded. "Open it, I say. You will do it, or I'll send for my guards." She shoved Sansa forward. "Your mother was brave, at least. Lift off the bars."
*If I do as she says, she will let me go.* Sansa grabbed one of the bronze bars, yanked it loose, and tossed it down. The second bar clattered to the marble, then the third. She had barely touched the latch when the heavy wooden door flew inward and slammed back against the wall with a bang. Snow had piled up around the frame, and it all came blowing in at them, borne on a blast of cold air that left Sansa shivering. She tried to step backward, but her aunt was behind her. Lysa seized her by the wrist and put her other hand between her shoulder blades, propelling her forcefully toward the open door.
Beyond was white sky, falling snow, and nothing else.
"Look down," said Lady Lysa. “Look *down*."
She tried to wrench free, but her aunt's fingers were dig. ging into her arm like claws. Lysa gave her another shove, and Sansa shrieked. Her left foot broke through a crust of snow and knocked it loose. There was nothing in front of her but empty air, and a waycastle six hundred feet below clinging to the side of the mountain. "Don't!" Sansa screamed. "You're scaring me!"
Behind her, Marillion was still playing his woodharp and singing, "*Hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey*."
“Do you still want my leave to go? Do you?”
“No.” Sansa planted her feet and tried to squirm backward, but her aunt did not budge. "Not this way Please..." She put a hand up, her fingers scrabbling at the doorframe, but she could not get a grip, and her feet were sliding on the wet marble tloor. Lady Lysa pressed her forward inexorably. Her aunt outweighed her by three stone.
"*The lady lay a-kissing, upon a mound of hay*," Marillion was singing. Sansa twisted sideways, hysterical with fear, and one foot slipped out over the void. She screamed.
"*Hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey*." The wind flapped her skirts up and bit at her bare legs with cold teeth. She could feel snowflakes melting on her cheeks.
Sansa flailed, found Lysa's thick auburn braid, and clutched it tight. "My hair!" her aunt shrieked. "Let go of my hair!" She was shaking, sobbing. They teetered on the edge. Far off, she heard the guards pounding on the door with their spears, demanding to be let in. Marillion broke off his song.
"*Lysa*! What's the meaning of this?" The shout cut through the sobs and heavy breathing. Footsteps echoed down the High Hall. "Get *back* from there! Lysa, what are you doing?" The guards were still beating at the door; Littlefinger had come in the back way, through the lords' entrance behind the dais.
As Lysa turned, her grip loosened enough for Sansa to rip free. She stumbled to her knees, where Petyr Baelish saw her. He stopped suddenly. "Alayne. What is the trouble here?"
"*Her*." Lady Lysa grabbed a handful of Sansa's hair. "*She's* the trouble. She *kissed* you."
"Tell her," Sansa begged. "Tell her we were just building a castle..."
"*Be quiet*!" her aunt screamed. "I never gave you leave to speak. No one cares about your castle."
"She's a child, Lysa. Cat's daughter. What did you think you were doing?"
"I was going to marry her to Robert! She has no gratitude. No... no decency. You are not hers to kiss. Not hers! I was teaching her a lesson, that was all."
"I see." He stroked his chin. "I think she understands now. Isn't that so, Alayne?"
“Yes," sobbed Sansa. “I understand."
"I don't want her here." Her aunt's eyes were shiny with tears.” Why did you bring her to the Vale, Petyr? This isn't her place. She doesn’t belong here.”
"We'll send her away, then. Back to King's Landing, if you like." He took a step toward them. "Let her up, now. Let her away from the door."
"*NO!*” Lysa gave Sansa's head another wrench. Snow eddied around them, making their skirts snap noisily. "You can't want her. You can't. She's a stupid empty-headed little girl. She doesn't love you the way I have. I've always loved you. I've proved it, haven't I?" Tears ran down her aunt's puffy red face. "I gave you my maiden's gift. I would have given you a son too, but they murdered him with moon tea, with tansy and mint and wormwood, a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal. It wasn't me, I never knew, I only drank what Father gave me...”
"That's past and done, Lysa. Lord Hoster's dead, and his old maester as well." Littlefinger moved closer. "Have you been at the wine again? You ought not to talk so much. We don't want Alayne to know more than she should, do we? Or Marillion?"
Lady Lysa ignored that. "Cat never gave you anything. It was me who got you your first post, who made Jon bring you to court so we could be close to one another. You promised me you would never forget that."
"Nor have I. We're together, just as you always wanted, just as we always planned. Just let go of Sansa's hair..."
"I won't! I saw you kissing in the snow. She's just like her mother. Catelyn kissed you in the godswood, but she never meant it, she never wanted you. Why did you love her best? It was me, it was always *meeee!*”
"I know, love." He took another step. "And I am here. All you need to do is take my hand, come on." He held it out to her. "There's no cause for all these tears."
"Tears, tears, *tears*," she sobbed hysterically. "No need for tears... but that's not what you said in King's Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon's wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us! And I wrote Catelyn and told her the Lannisters had killed my lord husband, just as you said. That was so clever ... you were always clever, I told Father that, I said Petyr's so clever, he'll rise high, he will, he will, and he's sweet and gentle and I have his little baby in my belly... Why did you kiss her? Why! We're together now, we're together after so long, so very long, why would you want to kiss *herrrrrr*?"
"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live."
"Truly?" she asked, weeping. "Oh, *truly*?”
"Truly. Now unhand the girl and come give me a kiss." Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar.
She could feel her heart pounding. There was snow in her hair and her right shoe was missing. It must have fallen. She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
Marillion gasped, "You... you..."
The guards were shouting outside the door, pounding with the butts of their heavy spears. Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. "You're not hurt?" When she shook her head, he said, "Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."