Being a woman is a great step,
To drive someone mad is heroism.
(c) Pasternak
The wolves were most delighted by the journey that had begun. They disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness as soon as the three horsemen left the walls of King's Landing, and judging by the sound, they immediately broke into someone's garden, knocking down the fence. Dogs began to bark, and Lionel thought that the she-wolves would give everyone life — the neighbourhood and the three of them.
"Listen, what do you do if they take someone's ram?" asked the honest and just young king of his sisters.
"We don't feed them anymore," Arya replied reasonably.
The she-wolves caught up with the horsemen quickly, and Lionel learned from Sansa that the huge she-wolf, the size of a small horse, with a bloodstained muzzle, was called "my darling." He learned a lot about Sansa in the first few days of the campaign: as soon as they entered the royal forests surrounding the city, Sansa not only went hunting with him, but also shot game well with a crossbow, and what surprised Lionel most was how quickly she skinned the cute hares and fawns, rolling up her sleeves and sometimes shaking the warm blood dripping from her hands. "Beneath her beauty was steel," Lionel recalled his father's words, who often remembered the late Lyanna Stark, and half an hour later he was surprised again — Sansa was bustling about the fire in leather gloves.
"You weren't afraid of blood, but you're afraid of soot?" Lionel said cheerfully, sitting down next to her, and for some reason looked back, as if he didn't want to kiss Sansa in front of Arya, but luckily for him, Arya liked the forest more than the fire and cooking.
"It's for you, silly," Sansa smiled. She was good with open fire and knew its capricious nature. "You wouldn't like it if my hands were all stained and scarred like hunters and foresters."
"Even if that happens, I'll still love you," Lionel promised, catching Sansa's hand and, pulling her glove back slightly, kissing her wrist, the place where her pulse beat, immediately feeling Sansa flinch.
"Leo, stop," Sansa asked, but Lionel had no intention of stopping, pressing his tongue against the sensitive spot he had found. "I'll burn the hares."
Lionel loved hares, both fluffy and roasted, but he did not leave Sansa, sitting next to her and constantly distracting her until finally the hares migrated to a piece of tanned leather that served as a tablecloth on the trip, and Sansa fell on top of Leo, kissing him frantically.
"Is this what you lured me out of the city for, you rascal?" Sansa said and sat down a little rashly on top of Leo, squeezing his ribs with her knees.
"Yes," Leo admitted honestly. "Of course."
That evening, as they fell asleep by the fire, Lionel noticed that Arya had settled down to sleep, clutching the hilt of the sword lying next to her, and the next night it happened again, so Lionel became curious, and stories about a knight and a maiden placing a sword between them in bed came to mind, along with numerous sequels about how it didn't help a damn bit.
"Listen," whispered Lionel, amused, to Arya as she was falling asleep, kneeling behind her and leaning towards her ear, "First of all, I can lie down on the other side, it's the ground, not a bed. And secondly, that's going too far, I promise to be good for another four years.
Lionel didn't bother adding that in four years she wouldn't be able to get rid of him, it was obvious from his tone, and his cheerful recklessness angered Arya.
"I'm not your bride!" Arya whispered directly into Lionel's ear, pulling him closer by his neck so as not to wake Sansa. "Don't even think about it, 'in four years' time'!"
"All right, fine," Lionel relented, deciding that the joke about "don't think about white bears" would only make Arya angrier. "I promise you have nothing to fear. Really, you don't even have a sheath, you'll just stab yourself in your sleep."
"I..." Arya suddenly faltered, her voice unexpectedly becoming soft and almost childlike. "Leo, you won't tell anyone, will you?"
Lionel tried to nod as best he could, because Arya still had her hands around his neck, and either she felt his movement or simply believed him without needing a promise.
"I'm afraid of the dark, especially when there are no walls around," Arya whispered in his ear, "as if I'm afraid of being stabbed in the back... And I can't sleep on my back... Nymeria needs to hunt in the evening, I'm letting her go... Sansa is falling asleep next to Lady, she's always so lucky, Lady doesn't want to leave her, she cuddles up to her every night... and I find it hard to fall asleep, especially if I wake up in the night and the fire has gone out... if Nymeria hasn't come back, I lie on my back, count the stars, and still feel uneasy...
"Sleep," said Leo, tucking Arya in and pressing her back against him. "I'll hold you, and you'll fall asleep. I know you're not my bride, I just want you to sleep peacefully."
The last thing Leo thought as he drifted off to sleep after Arya was that he must have somehow guessed Arya's fear himself, for Arya, who had surrendered to his love, always appeared to him with her eyes closed, as if that were the highest form of trust for her.
Lionel, still sleeping with Arya in his arms, was awakened in the middle of the night by Nimeria, who nudged him with her large head, as if to tell him that she was ready to take his place, and Lionel quietly left Arya, making sure that the she-wolf had taken his place. He felt very strange: on the one hand, he was sure that he would never forget this night, no matter how many restless, passionate or lonely nights he would have in the future. On the other hand, he hadn't even kissed Arya's sleeping hair goodbye, as if all he needed was to feel the warmth of her body and hear her breathing. There was no temptation in this — if he had hugged Sansa like that, they would not have fallen asleep for a long time, and with anyone else, the temptation would have been so obvious that no matter how hot Lionel tried to restrain himself, even an unkissed virgin would have felt his desire. But today, Arya was like a little sister to him — yet hadn't he wanted to kiss her a few days ago in the alleys of King's Landing? Hadn't he wanted to see her loving eyes and feel her lips on his body someday? Lionel thought about it, got confused, and fell asleep.
When he woke up in the morning, Lionel was most afraid that Arya would start to be shy around him, but she just tried a little harder than usual not to look at him, and when Sansa left to fetch water and Lionel deliberately lingered by the fire, Arya came up behind him and whispered softly:
"Thank you.
"I'll come back to you today," Lionel promised, and neither Arya nor he himself understood how much of this was kindness and how much was hunting instinct. Perhaps it was impossible to separate the two in him — he was a good king, born to protect those he ruled and to rule those he protected.
"No!" Arya cried softly, as if afraid she would get used to falling asleep in Leo's arms. Of course she was afraid, even if Leo had just hugged her yesterday and hadn't even tried to kiss her. But that wasn't the point — if Sansa ever caught them like that, it would be worse than any kiss. Even at ten years old, Arya understood that people didn't sleep like that, not even with their brother. If they did, it meant they were so close that there was no point in asking what had happened — you could assume that everything had happened.
But, of course, Arya couldn't sleep again when Sansa had already fallen asleep in Lady's arms, and Leo found Arya again in the light of the dying fire, and she tried to chase him away, waving him off and whispering something to him, but he hugged her, pressed her to him and fell asleep, breathing into her hair. After all, they weren't face to face, and Lionel's arm was modestly wrapped around Arya's waist, not sliding up or down, and she remembered almost nothing, immediately falling into a long-awaited sleep. But why did it occur to her in the morning that she was now his, as if the same blood ran through their veins, and she was now bound to her Leo so tightly that this connection could only leave her with her life?
The next day it rained, they pitched their tent for the first time, Arya pressed her back against the hard, taut wall of the tent at night, and it wasn't really scary, just a little melancholy.
Lionel hadn't abandoned his mischievous thoughts about the comfort of women's trousers, which had first occurred to him in King's Landing, and early in the morning in the tent, he lay down next to Sansa, waking her with kisses and choosing the right moment to attack. Sansa clearly enjoyed this way of waking up and responded to Lionel very passionately, almost immediately rolling him onto his back, so that his initial plan of not letting Sansa stop him by pressing her to the ground had to be changed on the fly. Lionel was lucky that Sansa had recently taken a liking to straddling him, sitting on his stomach and bending towards his face as if she had grown a lot and they were already married, so it was very easy to position his hand correctly, luring Sansa slightly towards him.
Sansa arched her back slightly and sighed, showing against her will how easy it was to seduce her, but then she leaned towards Lionel's ear and whispered:
"We can't..."
"Why?" Lionel asked in the same whisper, not stopping and not intending to listen yet.
"Arya will wake up," Sansa explained, and Lionel almost laughed with the happy laughter of a man who knows how much he is loved.
"Well, let's go then," suggested Lionel, and easily pulled Sansa out of the tent. She didn't resist, only blushing slightly when they moved behind the trees and Lionel looked into her face, starting to caress her again.
"Let me do it," Sansa suggested quietly. She had almost gotten used to kissing Leo during this, or looking into his eyes, but it was still a little embarrassing, but if he liked it...
"No way," Lionel disagreed and helped Sansa relax and prepare a little, leaning towards her neck, and when his hand found the right position, he took hold of her trembling neck seriously, Now he could bite her earlobe and run his tongue down to her collarbone, especially since it worked so well that Sansa didn't even notice when his hand slipped under the waistband of her hunting trousers. She couldn't think about anything at all at that moment, and only a few minutes later, when Leo, shaken, supported her limp body, preventing her from falling, did her blue eyes open to meet his, her pupils dilated as if in a trance.
"What happened to me?" Sansa asked, still trembling and trying to catch her breath.
"I don't know," Leo said honestly, wondering if he had pressed Sansa's carotid artery and, if so, whether it might be worth doing sometimes. "It's something special."
"Does this happen to you?" Sansa muttered, clearly still confused and easily persuaded to do anything, so it was good that she was in the hands of the noble and loving Lionel, who cherished her as much as himself, if not more.
"You try it," Leo suggested cheerfully, deciding that it was better to get wet but lie down in the grass, as it would be more comfortable for both of them. Leo fell onto his back, and Sansa sat down next to him, and then Leo thought that she must be crazy, because a girl who hadn't even unbuttoned his shirt yet couldn't just kiss him like that.
"Don't move," Sansa whispered. "I'm a little scared."
If Sansa was even slightly afraid that Leo would flare up and think something terrible about her, he immediately reassured her by reaching down and quietly stroking her hair. And then he said nothing, so as not to embarrass her, as if it were not an act unmentionable among decent women, but forest magic, only kissing Sansa's eyelids, catching her face between his palms as it returned to him, and Sansa smiled happily, closing her eyes: after all, he wasn't the only one who could drive her crazy, she had something too.
Three horsemen and two she-wolves rode to the side of the road to remain unrecognised, and therefore moved forward slowly, but not slowly enough to catch up with a group of boys and two dozen strange-looking people, either workers or convicts, led by a man in black.
"Yoren," Sansa and Arya guessed half a mile away, remembering the Night's Watch recruiter who passed through Winterfell a couple of times a year, begging for money and provisions on his way south and accompanying the same crowd of ragged people on his way north.
"Stark," Yoren guessed, turning around and seeing the young girls on horseback. "I'll definitely set up camp near them, maybe I'll beg for something for the poor. Eh, well, our young king has been led, shall we say, to the North. I'll definitely ask him for money too, a man's generosity awakens when he's near a girl, and when he's near two, it's double."
Yoren believed that feeding and giving gifts to the Night's Watch was a godly deed, and so he did not hesitate to sit down by the king's fire in the evening.
"You've recruited some excellent soldiers," Lionel praised Yoren, who had learned how to interact with the people from his father. He didn't want to send the guard away, but he didn't want to let him go unanswered either. "Things must be bad for the Watch, and they're going to get worse.
"The door of the noble Lord Eddard is always open to the Night's Watch," replied Joren, who was not at a loss for words and had already spoken to so many lords that even the young king's presence did not embarrass him. "But you can't carry much through that door." He needs many of the people in the dungeons himself, and he took the best recruit from me too. Allow me to offer you some wine for a good story.
"You'll get drunk on the road," the king cut off the brash soldier, but Yorin still managed to get his drink with a clever remark.
"I'm not just walking away from the road for no reason," explained Joren, his eyes twinkling slyly. "For the last two years, when I passed south of here, I called myself Jovin, not Joren. And to the north, I called myself Jomer — I think they're still looking for me there, trying to collect my debts.
"You are a dishonourable man, Yorren," Arya said with a slight reproach. She knew Yorren, who had always hung around Winterfell, and had seen his companions when she was a child.
"If I were honest, my lady, how would I live?" Yoren replied. "Give me a pint of red, you'll like my story."
After begging for his drink, Joren kept his word and told a good story about how he met Lord Eddard on his way back from the royal prison and how he lost his best recruit.
"I took three men in prison, two of them are sitting in chains," Yoren began, "I told them, 'I am your misfortune, I will live with you,'" he chained them and led them away. These two were healthy, but flabby. But the third was thin, quick, his face motionless, as if drugged, with a strand of grey hair. You could see he was a fighter. But as soon as I stepped into the prison courtyard, Lord Eddard came towards me with two maesters. I was scared stiff of the maesters, maybe it was the air, or maybe there was a disease in the prison, but I went up to them. Lord Eddard stopped and looked at me, which meant that I was doomed. He had an eye for a good fighter and a good horse, he knew the value of everything. He said something to the maester, and the maester, who was a talker, approached the one with the grey streak and asked, "What would you give me for your horse?" "I find your offer insulting," replied my recruit, seeing how the lord looked at him, trying to raise his price. "Well, go and throw yourself headfirst into the manure!" the master exclaims indignantly. "I'm not asking you what you find insulting, I'm asking you whether you'll sit in a cell or answer me, what will it take for me to slaughter a horse!" My recruit, of course, haggled over the price, they shook hands on twenty coins, then the maester led him to Lord Eddard, and the lord whispered something to him, and you could see that it was something serious because the guy's face changed. "And you will place the horse's head in his bed at night," Lord Eddard ordered him. "That's worth a thousand times more, my lord," the boy replied, and I could see that he was no longer my recruit if he was talking about such money. But he never saw the money; both maesters pounced on him so fiercely that they nearly beat him to death with their maester's chains. "Have some conscience, young man!" the second maester shouted at him. "Do you think your father Mendel cheated you, you golden heart? Did you ask where the horse was? You shook hands, and now you're twisting our brains! If you want to take the bread out of my mouth, I'll put you on the road, two deer a day!" And so I lost such a wonderful recruit.
"Yoren, at least pay your debts ahead of time," advised Sansa with a laugh. "You've ruined your chances of getting a recruit."
Curious Arya stood up and leaned towards Lionel's ear to ask where the horse was.
"Far away, I think," Lionel replied quietly, and thanks to Arya, he was not overcome by gloomy thoughts about the feud that was tearing his family apart, his future father-in-law and his grandfather. "I think it's at the very edge of the Westerlands."
For some reason, Arya remained standing next to him, even leaning on Lionel's shoulder, perhaps just listening as Joren began to ramble about how he had been given recruits in Greywater last year, and how they had turned into tritons after the Kaelin moat. and Lionel, as if hearing Arya's thoughts, thought about how he missed her too: the sound of her breathing, the way her hair tickled his neck. He didn't even want to think about how he and Arya looked right now — and hell, who the hell knows what they looked like?
Lionel, being a noble man, could not imagine what was being said at the other campfire, further away, where the common people had gathered.
"I'm telling you, it's Prince Martell," insisted a skinny, curly-haired boy of about twelve, whom everyone for some reason called Greenhands, pointing to the black-haired king whom no one recognised.
"Come on, Martell is old," replied his fat young companion, nicknamed Pirozhok. "You can't count to ten, you blockhead, and Martell is four times that age. I didn't have as many pies in my tray as he has years.
"Well, that's young Martell," Green Hands wouldn't give up. "Look at that awesome red-haired girl with him, and the other one looks like a boy, but Martell doesn't care about him. He'll drag them both into his tent in a minute."
"Stop talking nonsense," one of the older comrades advised them from the campfire. "It's none of your business. You know how Martell will punish you and where he'll send you."
***
patreon.com/posts/baratheons-son-137236569