Fic: The Maiden in the Tower (3/?)
Title: The Maiden in the Tower
Chapter Two: The Light in the Tower
Rating: M
Warnings: Allusions to canon sexual abuse, suicide/suicide ideation
Word Count: 3,663
Characters and Pairings: SanSan, Jaime/Brienne, Petyr Baelish, the Elder Brother, Bran Stark, Arya Stark, Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Lady Stonehart and co.
Summary: There's a story that the smallfolk tell about Sansa Stark and the night she threw herself from the Eyrie. Westeros is six years into winter, and two unlikely people find their way to the Vale where they find out an unlikely truth about the night that Sansa Stark was supposed to have died and the light that can be still be seen shining from the Eyrie. WIP.
---
"Seven hells!" he sputters, stumbling backwards. "What?"
"I know that you… cared for the girl, in your way." The Elder Brother calmly runs his fingers along the polished wood window frame. "We both know that your treatment of her while you were both in Kings Landing is one of your biggest regrets, from your past life."
"You were the one who told me to not go after her, when you found out she was here." He does not seethe, but the anger boils. "In the Vale. You were the one who told me she was here. You said she'd be safe. And we all know now how great that turned out."
"I misunderstood Lord Baelish's intentions for the girl, and for that I am truly sorry." His voice is deliberately calm. "And now I have cause to believe that the lady did not kill herself, which makes it our recompense to save her. My recompense. And so I ask, Sandor-do you want the task of rescuing the lady from the Eyrie?"
Sandor freezes, and then rubs his palm over the mass of twisted muscle covering his thigh. "What makes you believe she is alive?"
"All songs are rooted in some sort of truth."
"Yes," Sandor cuts in. "And the truth of it is that she flung herself from the Eyrie, and now she's dead when I could have saved her."
"No, the truth of it is that Lord Baelish stopped the Lady Sansa, locked her away in the Eyrie's tallest tower, and then encouraged this ridiculous story of the ruined maiden killing herself over her lost virtue." The Elder Brother's voice is frustratingly calm. Sandor's eyes narrow, watching him circle the room to his desk, where he sits and sifts through sheaves of parchment. "She is still much more important to him alive, much like the little Lord Arryn, bless his sorry soul. The Lady is still the heir to Winterfell… and Lord Baelish has gone mad with his twisted punishment of her… for whatever slight he feels she has committed against him. The poor maid never left the tower, by way of killing herself or otherwise."
"She… wasn't a maid," he answers dumbly.
The Elder Brother gives a short, cynical laugh. "We do not know the truth of that either, Sandor. The decision of the lady's virginity was a matter for sale to the Septa who performed the examination, and she was still masquerading as Alayne Stone when the exam was completed."
Sandor gives a rough, agreeing sort of snort, before ambling over to the roughly-hewn chair before the Elder Brother's desk. "Aye."
"Lady Anya Waynwood was, if I have my judgments correct, not fond of being backed into a corner in regards to her nephew's marriage prospects."
"She wouldn't have turned her nose up at Sansa Stark."
"No," the Elder Brother replies, opening a pot of ink in order to reply to an unnamed missive. "But Alayne Stone was of no worth to marry the next Lord of the Vale."
"But the boy wasn't so sick, back then."
The Brother smiles wryly. "Lord Baelish brought me here to correct the misjudgments of his maester, who thought the boy could survive much more of the toxin than his fragile body could."
"So now he's been backed into his own bleeding corner," Sandor growls. "But he's not like to fight proper. Just a sorry Mockingbird."
"That is correct."
"So he's going to pull out his fucking-his fucking back-up plan. The girl." His face twists into mean curves, the shadows of cruelty and anger appearing on his face for the first time in years. The urge-for violence, for bloodshed-awakens, and he has the sword at his hip to deliver the feeling to fruition, should he choose. He has no master now, and while he is free from the machinations of others, he is also the only master of his own faults, his own consequences. He will have to govern his urges wisely. "So we save the girl before he gets to her."
"Give the Lady Sansa the opportunity to make her own choices in this matter, yes."
"So what do you think his-his buggering plan is for her now?" He stands again, pacing, his footsteps sounding out angry rounds on the stone floor.
The Elder Brother hesitates, quill scratching lightly over the paper. "I believe… he intends to marry her and make a run North."
Sandor barks a laugh. "Now that's suicide!"
The Brother huffs. "Lord Baelish is not a well man."
"I'd say!" His fingers travel over the length of his sword. "So how has 'e been keeping her alive? Ain't nobody up at the Eyrie but her and the rats-and maybe even they were smart enough to move down to the Gates for the winter."
Stranger is stabled with the other horses being kept at the Gates-while still a stubborn son of a bitch he wouldn't be too missed if he slipped out. If Baelish knows that he's here, one of his spies would notice the destrier was missing. The Elder Brother would have to come up with some cover story; some reason he's left the Gates of the Moon that won't draw suspicion.
"Anyone's guess, Sandor."
He doesn't know how much by way of provisions he'll need, but it'll be bleeding cold on the road up to the Eyrie, but there also shouldn't be anyone to draw attention with if he lights a fire to keep warm. He tries to figure how long it would take for one man to make the journey unaided.
He realizes the Elder Brother has answered.
"Your guess, then."
The Elder Brother purses his lips contemplatively. "He probably pays a maid to stay up there-or two. They're probably subsisting on dried cheese and salted meats, aged wines, melted snow. From what I've been able to discern, Lord Baelish sends a company of men up to the Eyrie every few months to ensure that it hasn't been occupied by… undesirables. They probably take up all the other stores and rations."
"How d'you know that I won't be runnin' into one of his companies of paid men?" Sandor asks.
He snorts. "The latest party to go up came back last week-I do not think Lord Baelish will hazard another journey for a while yet. I was able to speak to a few of his men."
"And what? Did one of them speak?"
"No, they're all bought and paid for. I was fed whatever they're supposed to tell outsiders." He finishes his letter, standing to bring it closer to the fire to dry. "Besides, I doubt they've seen her. There's a reason smallfolk only ever see a light in the tallest tower."
The Elder Brother leaves the letter on his desk, rounding the room again to return to the window. "She's there, Sandor." His voice is softer, tone kinder. "I am sure of it. Here is your chance. You promised her you would keep her safe, and then you held a knife to her throat and left her to the lions. You want to keep her safe? Here is your real chance."
Fear creeps up, blanketing the anger, the bloodlust. What if he cannot? His leg has unmanned him-its strength is no longer something he can rely on, and a trip to the Eyrie in winter is a trial for a party of twenty men-it is an obstacle near insurmountable for one. Sandor Clegane is no longer young, or healthy. Clearer-headed, perhaps, but he has also not wielded a sword in an actual fight in nigh on six years. He has the anger and the drive to fuel him, but he is aware that his body may very well fail him where his mind will not.
And even if…
Even if he finds her, will she go with him?
He knows, now, that she had good reason to avert her eyes in King's Landing, to shirk away, to avoid his face. He knows that he cannot expect her to forgive him.
But even if…
If he does not try to save her at all, knowing her situation as it is now, he will not deserve her forgiveness at all.
He joins the Elder Brother at the window. It is not nearly dark enough to see the light that the smallfolk claim to see on the clearest of these somber winter nights.
"When can I be leaving?"
---
Mollye slips back into Littlefinger's chambers after he leaves for another meeting. She'll go through the Elder Brother's things later, in between the evening feast and when she'll be required to go back to the scullery.
No one ever suspects the maid.
Or women in general, really.
Weak, we're called.
She used to think women were weak, too, truth be told. Thought that strength was found in picking up a sword. Thought that strength could only be found in picking up a sword. But now… now she has spent too much time as maids and peasant girls to know otherwise. She used to wonder how a woman could allow herself to be in such positions, allow herself to be with a husband who hits and rapes or a landlord who steals and takes… and now she knows.
Men. She hates them all.
(She loved her father, and she loved Jon, and she loved Robb. She had loved Bran and Rickon. But now all of them are dead. And so is Mother, and so is Sansa. And so is Arya, and whatever love Arya once held in her heart.)
She hates Littlefinger most of all.
His papers and ledgers are meticulously well-kept, stacked neatly atop his desk. Mollye runs her slim, knobby fingers along the leather spines. She is not certain of what she is looking for.
Proof, she guesses.
Evidence of guilt, beyond hearsay.
Some, like the stupid fucking farmer, say that the Lady Sansa jumped. That the Fallen Woman Jumped.
But Mollye knows that sometimes, Fallen Women are Pushed. And even if they are fallen at all, it is not the business of men to judge. (Mollye is eighteen, perhaps, and perhaps takes to the laps of more powerful men for a bit of coin. But the girl who wears her face is younger still, and still experienced in the ways of lust and men.) And like all tales… Sansa's is sometimes told differently, by those who don't like Lord Baelish as much as the refugees, the happy innkeepers. The paid-off knights.
Some say that the Lady Sansa was pushed.
(Either way, she wonders. Does it matter? Littlefinger is still guilty of much more, if Cersei's dying words were true.)
Ilyn. Meryn. Queen Cersei. Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling.
She's killed three-Ilyn, Meryn, and now Cersei are gone. Whatever happened to Dunsen and Raff she does not know-but she brought those three to their ends. She adds Petyr Baelish to her list.
Quickly, she pulls a bundle of letters from their place. She has spied on many great men. Predictable, all of them, unlike the women they have forced into darkness. It is those women who have learned to walk without noise or casting a shadow who are the ones to be feared.
Like Cersei. Who went down fighting like a lioness. No one would believe the tale of how, no matter who told it, Mollye thinks.
She hesitates.
Like many things, it's a tale best left untold. Let the smallfolk think what they want.
Littlefinger, she thinks. How will she kill him? Poison is always an option. And there are ways to kill a man's insides without it showing on the outside. Or she could kill him in one of the bloodier ways, one of the more painful ways. He would deserve it, she thinks. But she would need to set it up so someone else would take the fall. Or Mollye could… the real Mollye is dead. The girl underneath the mask knows it's only a matter of time before someone uncovers the body (the ground is too hard to bury, and Mollye too big to drag to the river, and she won't taint the drinking water she'll be consuming by throwing the body in the well) and an alarm is raised.
It would work.
Mollye tucks the letters into her heavy underskirts, to be examined in one of the unoccupied rooms. It's not safe to stay, if she wishes to remain undiscovered.
Lifting Littlefinger's dirty clothing into her arms, she lowers her head and slinks back out into the hall.
---
Mollye sequesters herself into one of the unused bedrooms much later in the evening, squinting in the dim candlelight to read the fine, looped script. Correspondence from Alayne, the bastard daughter Sansa had played, to her father during one of Littlefinger's trips to Harrenhal before all had gone to shit with the Others and the Vale sealed itself up tight.
Dated the months before Sansa was to be wed to Harry the Heir, they detail the day-to-day ongoings of the Eyrie in a more mature version of the handwriting the girl once knew. The words are familiar, the turns of phrase, and soon the high, girlish voice returns to her head as well, reading the letters to the girl who is more than Mollye, more than No One.
Dearest Father,
Sweetrobin's health has improved in your absence, and we all rejoice and thank the Gods for their mercy. The other day the maester recommended the fresh air may improve his health, so we bundled him into his warmest clothes and I personally took him for a turn about the garden. He enjoyed playing in the snow, and watching him be so happy gave me joy.
Lady Waynwood's men have come again, and plan on staying the week before their mistress joins them. They say they wish to learn the lay of the castle for the safety of their mistress and her charge, my betrothed, but I know that they are interrogating the maids and our knights, both those you have secured and those you have not. I have ordered the ones we know are ours to sequester the ones of who we are less sure.
Bronze Yohn's injury grows worse, and we fear he may be unable to return Runestone for many more weeks. Lord Andar has written to say that he will join his father here in case he takes a turn for the worse. Lady Ysilla may join him, and I hope for Mya's sake that her husband does not come along as well.
Mollye frowns.
What?
It is so strange for Sansa to be so cordial to this man. Conversational, and conspiratorial, with the man who would kill her for losing her maidenhead. Plotting with him against others. For what? For a marriage to a whoremonger?
Gods, she thinks, feeling her anger rise and Mollye slipping away. Gods, Sansa, what did he tell you? What had he led you to believe?
Arya forces herself to calm, bringing the aged parchment closer to her lone source of light.
---
He'll need to do his planning outside of his own room. Sandor knows that Littlefucker has maids searching them, and building up stores and supplies will only tip him off that he's planning something.
If the little piece of shit is paranoid enough to keep Sansa Stark locked away in some tower high, he'll be paranoid enough to suspect that he's going after his precious and pretty prize. He'd bugger himself with a hot poker before he ruined this before he even left.
He creeps (and then laughs at himself for thinking he can creep) into one of the empty rooms on the far side of the keep, closing the door behind him as quickly as possible.
---
I fear that Lady Waynwood does not want this wedding to happen. Father, I fear that she does not want Harry to marry a bastard. Our position is not secure, Father. Have you spoken with the Septa who will ascertain my maidenhood for her? Perhaps it should be a Septa from outside the Vale. We do not know the extent of Lady Waynwood's reach. I wish to go home.
Arya feels the rage swirl and grow, inhabiting her muscles where the Faceless Men had once massaged it away with their teachings. Sansa was scared. Arya knows it. This was not some calm, rationed letter. She was scared, and running out of options. She angrily smoothes out the corners of the letter, removing the creases caused by her tensed fingers.
Gods, what she would give to have been in Sansa's head as she wrote this letter.
Overcome by growing temper, Arya roughly pushes her chair back from her self-claimed table, and stands.
"Fucking Littlefinger," she mutters. "Petyr Baelish. Petyr Baelish I have killed small men and great men, and I will kill you. Your life is the price. It is not the price you deserve, but it is the one I can exact."
All men must die.
And she will be the one to swing the sword.
---
There is already a candle lit, the room already occupied, and if the face was not-Sandor knows the face. The long, hollow features, the grey eyes, the dark hair, the anger, the murderous rage.
"Bloody hells!" The exclamation escapes him before he can control it.
The girl, a sodding teenager now, looks up and pales, backing herself up against the window ledge like she is ready and willing to escape up and over it. Her eyes rake over him; Sandor realizes she is not surprised, just taking advantage of her flight instinct.
"You…" he says. Arya Stark, is supposedly up North, married to the Bastard of Bolton. And yet she stands before him, looking much like he last saw her. "You're…"
"And you," she answers hotly. "You're not dead."
"You knew that, I can see. Can't see how you'd know that, though." He backs up, wary.
She snorts. "Been following you, yeah."
"Oh, that's proper," he scoffs. "Followin' a grown man around."
Arya screws up her face, disgusted. "Not like that, you moron. Seven hells! Besides," she draws a small dagger from her skirts-Sandor has to look again. Arya Stark, in skirts. He figures she's been passing herself off as a maid, then. "What are you doing here, Brother Sandor?"
"I'm with the Elder Brother," he snorts. "And here I thought you had gone and grown up a bit and maybe turned out smart."
"I know you're with the bloody Elder Brother," she responds, fighting to keep her voice down. It's then that Sandor's attentions are drawn to the letters open on the table, but Arya keeps his focus by waving her dagger closer to his face. "How the fuck are you alive?"
"Could say the same to you, if you're not up North like you're supposed to be, holed up in the Bolton compound."
Arya laughs, the shadows dancing on her face. "They're dead. You didn't know? They're all dead."
Sandor knits his eyebrows together. "That's not what the Elder-"
"Oh sod the Elder Brother." She hastily binds the letters together again. "The news has reached King's Landing. Did a few weeks ago."
"A few…" He tilts his head, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "Girl, you were in King's Landing when Cersei was killed."
She shrugs.
"What are you in the Vale for?"
"It's the safest place in the Seven Kingdoms."
He snorts. "Bullshit."
"Well, it is!"
"Aye, it is, but that's not the reason you're here, little girl."
Arya scoffs, crossing her arms under her small bust and turning away from him, facing the paned windows. "To kill Littlefinger, not that it's any of your business."
Sandor lets out a deep, rumbling laugh, bending at the waist. He can hear her rankle with disgust, making guttural noises of discontent, before finally mumbling, "Go fuck yourself. I'm going to do it. He killed my sister. I'm gonna fucking kill him for it."
He stops laughing.
"You know that he-"
She cuts him off immediately, leaning on the window ledge on her elbows. "He as good as." She spits the words out between her teeth. "No matter what the rest of them have judged."
"What if-"
It's supposed to be his job alone… but perhaps its not. Not if Arya Stark is here and alive and capable. And willing.
"What if what?" she asks.
"What if I told you your pretty sister was still alive."
He watches the line of her back tense, face shuttering. "The fuck are you going on about." Not a question; it's a harsh, defensive statement.
He moves closer to her, dagger or not. They're on the side of the castle that faces up to the Eyrie, and there's not a cloud in the sky tonight. I'll be damned.
The smallfolk are right.
In the black of the night, a single light can be seen from the Eyrie.
"Look," he says, pointing towards the tower.
The wretch follows his finger. Her face is still stony, but he thinks he may see a flicker of hope there. After all, he has the rest of the night to convince her of it, and can ask the Elder Brother for help in the morning.
---
Miles above the rest of humanity's heads, a raven pecks at the glass of a barred window. A maiden with impossibly long red hair sweeps gracefully to the ledge, one stockinged foot climbing deftly on top of it. She reaches for the top corner, where the glass has been carefully chipped away over time by circumspect hands.
She hangs her lantern in the window, reaching her fingers vigilantly through the ragged glass, and takes the small coil of parchment from the bird's beak.
She leaves the lantern to hang until it burns out. It's a small, foolish, almost childish notion, but it gives her hope.
---
( chapter one | masterpost | chapter three
Chapter Two: The Light in the Tower
Rating: M
Warnings: Allusions to canon sexual abuse, suicide/suicide ideation
Word Count: 3,663
Characters and Pairings: SanSan, Jaime/Brienne, Petyr Baelish, the Elder Brother, Bran Stark, Arya Stark, Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Lady Stonehart and co.
Summary: There's a story that the smallfolk tell about Sansa Stark and the night she threw herself from the Eyrie. Westeros is six years into winter, and two unlikely people find their way to the Vale where they find out an unlikely truth about the night that Sansa Stark was supposed to have died and the light that can be still be seen shining from the Eyrie. WIP.
---
"Seven hells!" he sputters, stumbling backwards. "What?"
"I know that you… cared for the girl, in your way." The Elder Brother calmly runs his fingers along the polished wood window frame. "We both know that your treatment of her while you were both in Kings Landing is one of your biggest regrets, from your past life."
"You were the one who told me to not go after her, when you found out she was here." He does not seethe, but the anger boils. "In the Vale. You were the one who told me she was here. You said she'd be safe. And we all know now how great that turned out."
"I misunderstood Lord Baelish's intentions for the girl, and for that I am truly sorry." His voice is deliberately calm. "And now I have cause to believe that the lady did not kill herself, which makes it our recompense to save her. My recompense. And so I ask, Sandor-do you want the task of rescuing the lady from the Eyrie?"
Sandor freezes, and then rubs his palm over the mass of twisted muscle covering his thigh. "What makes you believe she is alive?"
"All songs are rooted in some sort of truth."
"Yes," Sandor cuts in. "And the truth of it is that she flung herself from the Eyrie, and now she's dead when I could have saved her."
"No, the truth of it is that Lord Baelish stopped the Lady Sansa, locked her away in the Eyrie's tallest tower, and then encouraged this ridiculous story of the ruined maiden killing herself over her lost virtue." The Elder Brother's voice is frustratingly calm. Sandor's eyes narrow, watching him circle the room to his desk, where he sits and sifts through sheaves of parchment. "She is still much more important to him alive, much like the little Lord Arryn, bless his sorry soul. The Lady is still the heir to Winterfell… and Lord Baelish has gone mad with his twisted punishment of her… for whatever slight he feels she has committed against him. The poor maid never left the tower, by way of killing herself or otherwise."
"She… wasn't a maid," he answers dumbly.
The Elder Brother gives a short, cynical laugh. "We do not know the truth of that either, Sandor. The decision of the lady's virginity was a matter for sale to the Septa who performed the examination, and she was still masquerading as Alayne Stone when the exam was completed."
Sandor gives a rough, agreeing sort of snort, before ambling over to the roughly-hewn chair before the Elder Brother's desk. "Aye."
"Lady Anya Waynwood was, if I have my judgments correct, not fond of being backed into a corner in regards to her nephew's marriage prospects."
"She wouldn't have turned her nose up at Sansa Stark."
"No," the Elder Brother replies, opening a pot of ink in order to reply to an unnamed missive. "But Alayne Stone was of no worth to marry the next Lord of the Vale."
"But the boy wasn't so sick, back then."
The Brother smiles wryly. "Lord Baelish brought me here to correct the misjudgments of his maester, who thought the boy could survive much more of the toxin than his fragile body could."
"So now he's been backed into his own bleeding corner," Sandor growls. "But he's not like to fight proper. Just a sorry Mockingbird."
"That is correct."
"So he's going to pull out his fucking-his fucking back-up plan. The girl." His face twists into mean curves, the shadows of cruelty and anger appearing on his face for the first time in years. The urge-for violence, for bloodshed-awakens, and he has the sword at his hip to deliver the feeling to fruition, should he choose. He has no master now, and while he is free from the machinations of others, he is also the only master of his own faults, his own consequences. He will have to govern his urges wisely. "So we save the girl before he gets to her."
"Give the Lady Sansa the opportunity to make her own choices in this matter, yes."
"So what do you think his-his buggering plan is for her now?" He stands again, pacing, his footsteps sounding out angry rounds on the stone floor.
The Elder Brother hesitates, quill scratching lightly over the paper. "I believe… he intends to marry her and make a run North."
Sandor barks a laugh. "Now that's suicide!"
The Brother huffs. "Lord Baelish is not a well man."
"I'd say!" His fingers travel over the length of his sword. "So how has 'e been keeping her alive? Ain't nobody up at the Eyrie but her and the rats-and maybe even they were smart enough to move down to the Gates for the winter."
Stranger is stabled with the other horses being kept at the Gates-while still a stubborn son of a bitch he wouldn't be too missed if he slipped out. If Baelish knows that he's here, one of his spies would notice the destrier was missing. The Elder Brother would have to come up with some cover story; some reason he's left the Gates of the Moon that won't draw suspicion.
"Anyone's guess, Sandor."
He doesn't know how much by way of provisions he'll need, but it'll be bleeding cold on the road up to the Eyrie, but there also shouldn't be anyone to draw attention with if he lights a fire to keep warm. He tries to figure how long it would take for one man to make the journey unaided.
He realizes the Elder Brother has answered.
"Your guess, then."
The Elder Brother purses his lips contemplatively. "He probably pays a maid to stay up there-or two. They're probably subsisting on dried cheese and salted meats, aged wines, melted snow. From what I've been able to discern, Lord Baelish sends a company of men up to the Eyrie every few months to ensure that it hasn't been occupied by… undesirables. They probably take up all the other stores and rations."
"How d'you know that I won't be runnin' into one of his companies of paid men?" Sandor asks.
He snorts. "The latest party to go up came back last week-I do not think Lord Baelish will hazard another journey for a while yet. I was able to speak to a few of his men."
"And what? Did one of them speak?"
"No, they're all bought and paid for. I was fed whatever they're supposed to tell outsiders." He finishes his letter, standing to bring it closer to the fire to dry. "Besides, I doubt they've seen her. There's a reason smallfolk only ever see a light in the tallest tower."
The Elder Brother leaves the letter on his desk, rounding the room again to return to the window. "She's there, Sandor." His voice is softer, tone kinder. "I am sure of it. Here is your chance. You promised her you would keep her safe, and then you held a knife to her throat and left her to the lions. You want to keep her safe? Here is your real chance."
Fear creeps up, blanketing the anger, the bloodlust. What if he cannot? His leg has unmanned him-its strength is no longer something he can rely on, and a trip to the Eyrie in winter is a trial for a party of twenty men-it is an obstacle near insurmountable for one. Sandor Clegane is no longer young, or healthy. Clearer-headed, perhaps, but he has also not wielded a sword in an actual fight in nigh on six years. He has the anger and the drive to fuel him, but he is aware that his body may very well fail him where his mind will not.
And even if…
Even if he finds her, will she go with him?
He knows, now, that she had good reason to avert her eyes in King's Landing, to shirk away, to avoid his face. He knows that he cannot expect her to forgive him.
But even if…
If he does not try to save her at all, knowing her situation as it is now, he will not deserve her forgiveness at all.
He joins the Elder Brother at the window. It is not nearly dark enough to see the light that the smallfolk claim to see on the clearest of these somber winter nights.
"When can I be leaving?"
---
Mollye slips back into Littlefinger's chambers after he leaves for another meeting. She'll go through the Elder Brother's things later, in between the evening feast and when she'll be required to go back to the scullery.
No one ever suspects the maid.
Or women in general, really.
Weak, we're called.
She used to think women were weak, too, truth be told. Thought that strength was found in picking up a sword. Thought that strength could only be found in picking up a sword. But now… now she has spent too much time as maids and peasant girls to know otherwise. She used to wonder how a woman could allow herself to be in such positions, allow herself to be with a husband who hits and rapes or a landlord who steals and takes… and now she knows.
Men. She hates them all.
(She loved her father, and she loved Jon, and she loved Robb. She had loved Bran and Rickon. But now all of them are dead. And so is Mother, and so is Sansa. And so is Arya, and whatever love Arya once held in her heart.)
She hates Littlefinger most of all.
His papers and ledgers are meticulously well-kept, stacked neatly atop his desk. Mollye runs her slim, knobby fingers along the leather spines. She is not certain of what she is looking for.
Proof, she guesses.
Evidence of guilt, beyond hearsay.
Some, like the stupid fucking farmer, say that the Lady Sansa jumped. That the Fallen Woman Jumped.
But Mollye knows that sometimes, Fallen Women are Pushed. And even if they are fallen at all, it is not the business of men to judge. (Mollye is eighteen, perhaps, and perhaps takes to the laps of more powerful men for a bit of coin. But the girl who wears her face is younger still, and still experienced in the ways of lust and men.) And like all tales… Sansa's is sometimes told differently, by those who don't like Lord Baelish as much as the refugees, the happy innkeepers. The paid-off knights.
Some say that the Lady Sansa was pushed.
(Either way, she wonders. Does it matter? Littlefinger is still guilty of much more, if Cersei's dying words were true.)
Ilyn. Meryn. Queen Cersei. Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling.
She's killed three-Ilyn, Meryn, and now Cersei are gone. Whatever happened to Dunsen and Raff she does not know-but she brought those three to their ends. She adds Petyr Baelish to her list.
Quickly, she pulls a bundle of letters from their place. She has spied on many great men. Predictable, all of them, unlike the women they have forced into darkness. It is those women who have learned to walk without noise or casting a shadow who are the ones to be feared.
Like Cersei. Who went down fighting like a lioness. No one would believe the tale of how, no matter who told it, Mollye thinks.
She hesitates.
Like many things, it's a tale best left untold. Let the smallfolk think what they want.
Littlefinger, she thinks. How will she kill him? Poison is always an option. And there are ways to kill a man's insides without it showing on the outside. Or she could kill him in one of the bloodier ways, one of the more painful ways. He would deserve it, she thinks. But she would need to set it up so someone else would take the fall. Or Mollye could… the real Mollye is dead. The girl underneath the mask knows it's only a matter of time before someone uncovers the body (the ground is too hard to bury, and Mollye too big to drag to the river, and she won't taint the drinking water she'll be consuming by throwing the body in the well) and an alarm is raised.
It would work.
Mollye tucks the letters into her heavy underskirts, to be examined in one of the unoccupied rooms. It's not safe to stay, if she wishes to remain undiscovered.
Lifting Littlefinger's dirty clothing into her arms, she lowers her head and slinks back out into the hall.
---
Mollye sequesters herself into one of the unused bedrooms much later in the evening, squinting in the dim candlelight to read the fine, looped script. Correspondence from Alayne, the bastard daughter Sansa had played, to her father during one of Littlefinger's trips to Harrenhal before all had gone to shit with the Others and the Vale sealed itself up tight.
Dated the months before Sansa was to be wed to Harry the Heir, they detail the day-to-day ongoings of the Eyrie in a more mature version of the handwriting the girl once knew. The words are familiar, the turns of phrase, and soon the high, girlish voice returns to her head as well, reading the letters to the girl who is more than Mollye, more than No One.
Dearest Father,
Sweetrobin's health has improved in your absence, and we all rejoice and thank the Gods for their mercy. The other day the maester recommended the fresh air may improve his health, so we bundled him into his warmest clothes and I personally took him for a turn about the garden. He enjoyed playing in the snow, and watching him be so happy gave me joy.
Lady Waynwood's men have come again, and plan on staying the week before their mistress joins them. They say they wish to learn the lay of the castle for the safety of their mistress and her charge, my betrothed, but I know that they are interrogating the maids and our knights, both those you have secured and those you have not. I have ordered the ones we know are ours to sequester the ones of who we are less sure.
Bronze Yohn's injury grows worse, and we fear he may be unable to return Runestone for many more weeks. Lord Andar has written to say that he will join his father here in case he takes a turn for the worse. Lady Ysilla may join him, and I hope for Mya's sake that her husband does not come along as well.
Mollye frowns.
What?
It is so strange for Sansa to be so cordial to this man. Conversational, and conspiratorial, with the man who would kill her for losing her maidenhead. Plotting with him against others. For what? For a marriage to a whoremonger?
Gods, she thinks, feeling her anger rise and Mollye slipping away. Gods, Sansa, what did he tell you? What had he led you to believe?
Arya forces herself to calm, bringing the aged parchment closer to her lone source of light.
---
He'll need to do his planning outside of his own room. Sandor knows that Littlefucker has maids searching them, and building up stores and supplies will only tip him off that he's planning something.
If the little piece of shit is paranoid enough to keep Sansa Stark locked away in some tower high, he'll be paranoid enough to suspect that he's going after his precious and pretty prize. He'd bugger himself with a hot poker before he ruined this before he even left.
He creeps (and then laughs at himself for thinking he can creep) into one of the empty rooms on the far side of the keep, closing the door behind him as quickly as possible.
---
I fear that Lady Waynwood does not want this wedding to happen. Father, I fear that she does not want Harry to marry a bastard. Our position is not secure, Father. Have you spoken with the Septa who will ascertain my maidenhood for her? Perhaps it should be a Septa from outside the Vale. We do not know the extent of Lady Waynwood's reach. I wish to go home.
Arya feels the rage swirl and grow, inhabiting her muscles where the Faceless Men had once massaged it away with their teachings. Sansa was scared. Arya knows it. This was not some calm, rationed letter. She was scared, and running out of options. She angrily smoothes out the corners of the letter, removing the creases caused by her tensed fingers.
Gods, what she would give to have been in Sansa's head as she wrote this letter.
Overcome by growing temper, Arya roughly pushes her chair back from her self-claimed table, and stands.
"Fucking Littlefinger," she mutters. "Petyr Baelish. Petyr Baelish I have killed small men and great men, and I will kill you. Your life is the price. It is not the price you deserve, but it is the one I can exact."
All men must die.
And she will be the one to swing the sword.
---
There is already a candle lit, the room already occupied, and if the face was not-Sandor knows the face. The long, hollow features, the grey eyes, the dark hair, the anger, the murderous rage.
"Bloody hells!" The exclamation escapes him before he can control it.
The girl, a sodding teenager now, looks up and pales, backing herself up against the window ledge like she is ready and willing to escape up and over it. Her eyes rake over him; Sandor realizes she is not surprised, just taking advantage of her flight instinct.
"You…" he says. Arya Stark, is supposedly up North, married to the Bastard of Bolton. And yet she stands before him, looking much like he last saw her. "You're…"
"And you," she answers hotly. "You're not dead."
"You knew that, I can see. Can't see how you'd know that, though." He backs up, wary.
She snorts. "Been following you, yeah."
"Oh, that's proper," he scoffs. "Followin' a grown man around."
Arya screws up her face, disgusted. "Not like that, you moron. Seven hells! Besides," she draws a small dagger from her skirts-Sandor has to look again. Arya Stark, in skirts. He figures she's been passing herself off as a maid, then. "What are you doing here, Brother Sandor?"
"I'm with the Elder Brother," he snorts. "And here I thought you had gone and grown up a bit and maybe turned out smart."
"I know you're with the bloody Elder Brother," she responds, fighting to keep her voice down. It's then that Sandor's attentions are drawn to the letters open on the table, but Arya keeps his focus by waving her dagger closer to his face. "How the fuck are you alive?"
"Could say the same to you, if you're not up North like you're supposed to be, holed up in the Bolton compound."
Arya laughs, the shadows dancing on her face. "They're dead. You didn't know? They're all dead."
Sandor knits his eyebrows together. "That's not what the Elder-"
"Oh sod the Elder Brother." She hastily binds the letters together again. "The news has reached King's Landing. Did a few weeks ago."
"A few…" He tilts his head, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "Girl, you were in King's Landing when Cersei was killed."
She shrugs.
"What are you in the Vale for?"
"It's the safest place in the Seven Kingdoms."
He snorts. "Bullshit."
"Well, it is!"
"Aye, it is, but that's not the reason you're here, little girl."
Arya scoffs, crossing her arms under her small bust and turning away from him, facing the paned windows. "To kill Littlefinger, not that it's any of your business."
Sandor lets out a deep, rumbling laugh, bending at the waist. He can hear her rankle with disgust, making guttural noises of discontent, before finally mumbling, "Go fuck yourself. I'm going to do it. He killed my sister. I'm gonna fucking kill him for it."
He stops laughing.
"You know that he-"
She cuts him off immediately, leaning on the window ledge on her elbows. "He as good as." She spits the words out between her teeth. "No matter what the rest of them have judged."
"What if-"
It's supposed to be his job alone… but perhaps its not. Not if Arya Stark is here and alive and capable. And willing.
"What if what?" she asks.
"What if I told you your pretty sister was still alive."
He watches the line of her back tense, face shuttering. "The fuck are you going on about." Not a question; it's a harsh, defensive statement.
He moves closer to her, dagger or not. They're on the side of the castle that faces up to the Eyrie, and there's not a cloud in the sky tonight. I'll be damned.
The smallfolk are right.
In the black of the night, a single light can be seen from the Eyrie.
"Look," he says, pointing towards the tower.
The wretch follows his finger. Her face is still stony, but he thinks he may see a flicker of hope there. After all, he has the rest of the night to convince her of it, and can ask the Elder Brother for help in the morning.
---
Miles above the rest of humanity's heads, a raven pecks at the glass of a barred window. A maiden with impossibly long red hair sweeps gracefully to the ledge, one stockinged foot climbing deftly on top of it. She reaches for the top corner, where the glass has been carefully chipped away over time by circumspect hands.
She hangs her lantern in the window, reaching her fingers vigilantly through the ragged glass, and takes the small coil of parchment from the bird's beak.
She leaves the lantern to hang until it burns out. It's a small, foolish, almost childish notion, but it gives her hope.
---
( chapter one | masterpost | chapter three