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Whenever asked who had fathered young Brandon, the Lady of Winterfell always gave the same answer. Word-for-word it had not changed, from the day her sister noticed the soft swell of her belly to the day some years later when King Jon offered to make the boy a Stark.
Whether asked by king, maester, friend, courtier or even defiant subject, Sansa would serenely reply, “All shall become clear in time, if the gods will it.”
It hadn’t, though - at least not to anyone save the lady herself. Whoever had dishonoured Sansa Stark, he was blamed all throughout the North for the lady’s refusal to wed. Some guessed that he’d been some wandering gallant whom Sansa still, foolishly, expected to return. Others whispered that he was already married, and Sansa was waiting to be made his second wife; a number of candidates were proposed, primarily from Dorne. Another theory pointed out that the lady had disappeared during the first part of the war - perhaps kidnapped, raped, and unwilling to let any man touch her again. Or maybe her paramour had died in the wars and she mourned him still. If so, then by all accounts she kept complete faith with his shade.
Even despite the stain of a bastard child, Sansa’s unmarried status was not for want of suitors. She made for a desirable match: not only Lord Rickon’s regent, but his heir. The boy was being fostered at the royal court in King’s Landing, and as Lady of Winterfell Sansa had swiftly developed a reputation for intelligence, poise and sound judgement. Her beauty was undiminished through war and childbearing alike. Taken altogether, she was still the perfect trophy and castellan for a high lord - except for the fact that she would have none of them.
Motherhood allowed Sansa to look at each man with new eyes. She sized them up, not only as potential lovers but as step-fathers to Brandon. None seemed to suit both roles. Sansa remembered well enough how her mother had treated Jon when they were children, and she would not see her son mistreated by a jealous husband.
Jon had been the first bastard in Sansa’s life. Though Sansa now knew him to be her cousin, not her half-brother, none could say for certain whether Jon's true parents had ever taken the trouble to wed. Even now, years into his reign as king, disdain for Jon's (likely) bastardy was never far from the lips of his detractors. Jon made it clear from the beginning that he meant to legitimise Brandon and neither of them ever directly addressed the reason for Jon’s insistence; for Sansa, it was a deeply uncomfortable topic. Sansa no longer believed any of the nonsense about bastards being inherently different from their trueborn siblings. She was all too aware, however, of the difference in the way bastards were treated. At least in having the Stark name, Brandon might be shielded from some of it.
With his long face, dark hair and grey eyes, Brandon certainly looked a Stark. As Brandon grew older Sansa increasingly heard him compared to the uncle she had never met, who had shared her son’s hot temper and brawny build. Though she’d named him for her lost brother, it seemed that the elder Brandon Stark might be an even more fitting namesake than curious little Bran. In her heart, she wished she could have named him for his father, but it was not to be.
Like Bran her brother, Brandon loved tales of knights and heroism. His eyes - exactly like her own, save for their colour - gleamed with delight as his nurse told him the legends of the Age of Heroes. It brought Sansa back to her own childhood, even if Dacey wasn’t half the storyteller Old Nan had been.
Sansa had not imagined that she would raise her children in Winterfell. Every day, she appreciated the chance to do so. She had always expected to make her home in some faraway estate, blooming with flowers and draped in the colourful banner of some other house. If only one or two events had transpired differently, her first son might have been fathered by Joffrey rather than the man she had chosen.
Joffrey, the second bastard to feature prominently in her life; the first boy to whom she was betrothed and the first to cause her fear, shame and pain. In combining his mother’s cruelty with King Robert’s ignorance, he was proof of the terrible power a parent could have - even when not related by blood. She would not bind herself to any man that might set Brandon a poor example. If that meant staying in Winterfell until Rickon’s majority, then so be it. She would have to be strong enough to give Brandon all the guidance Joffrey had so sorely lacked.
Or sought in the wrong places, she remembered, stomach twisting. Littlefinger, even the Hound at his most awful.
Sansa knew exactly how strong she could be. Alayne had been the third bastard in her life: the disguise she inhabited in that strange calm before the storm, hiding in Vale between Joffrey’s death and Aegon’s invasion. Prince Aegon had landed with a band of mercenaries and liberated King’s Landing from Cersei’s tyranny. Littlefinger had mentioned something about a betrothal between Aegon and Myrcella, and something else about a pregnant Dornish princess, before Sansa was rescued by a man whose interest in her was far more welcome than Petyr’s.
Sansa didn’t know whether Aegon had truly been a pretender, bastard, traitor or any of the other accusations Dany levelled at him. Only that Aegon had died, Queen Daenerys married Jon, and by the time the Others were defeated she was herself with child and grieving. Four bastards, from her childhood to her motherhood. A brother, then a betrothed. Then she’d been a bastard, then she’d borne one.
The wheel of the seasons spun on and on. Two winters came and went before Lord Rickon came north to claim Winterfell and his Manderly bride, and a third was beckoning when his first child was born. Sansa had misgivings about calling a tourney in honour of any Stark maid given past associations, and especially when that maid was named Lyanna. Rickon had laughed his boyish laugh and asked where Sansa's superstition had been when she named her son Brandon, given that name's unhappy recent history, and she had to concede on that point. In any case, Sansa reflected that any child of Rickon and Wylla’s wouldn’t have a touch of the wolf blood so much as a hard slap of it, and so ill omens were probably the least thing for an aunt to be worried about.
As usual, Brandon was competing in this tourney and as usual, his mother had barely slept for worry. Sansa’s eyes followed Ser Brandon of Winterfell through the press of warriors, his soot-grey armour emblazoned with a shining white direwolf. Though every moment she feared what she might see unfolding a hundred feet away, the only thing Sansa hated more than seeing Brandon in the mêlée was losing sight of Brandon in the mêlée.
“You’re not the heir to Winterfell any more,” Arya observed as they stood in the viewing gallery. It was typical of Arya to chatter when Sansa was distracted.
“It wasn’t like to come to me anyway, thank the gods,” said Sansa absently.
Brandon knocked a man unconscious and spun with the neat agility that always shocked those who didn't know him. Sansa knew for a fact that the blunted tourney sword he brandished was almost as tall as his aunt Arya, but it might as well have been made of wood for how much it weighed him down.
“Does it feel different?”
Sansa winced, watching the babe she had nursed at her own breast oh-so long ago breaking a man’s collarbone with a savage downcut.
“It does, somehow,” she sighed. “As though a burden has been lifted. I always expected the family line to be safe, given enough time, and now it is.”
“Unless you decide to use your fabled experience as a poisoner after all,” Arya smirked. It was an old reference now, from the time when Rickon was fostered with Jon. Some at court theorised that Jon thought Sansa was a bit too comfortable ruling the North and brought Rickon south for his own safety - hadn’t Sansa murdered Joffrey, after all?
“Don’t be so crass, Arya,” snapped Sansa.
“Sorry, Mother,” she grinned. Sansa could feel her lips squeezed into the thin line their mother wore when she was displeased.
“I doubt there’s a soul in Winterfell who knows the first thing about poisoning, least of all me.”
Sansa gasped as Brandon took a blow to his head that stove in his helmet above the visor. It took a tall man to overreach her son, and sure enough it was one of the largest fighters on the field that Brandon was tackling into the dirt. Not a man, though: the only member of the Kingsguard fighting today was Lady Brienne, now well into middle age but still strong as an ox. Two white-gauntleted hands came up in surrender.
“There are other weapons,” said Arya mildly. Though Sansa had yet to peel her gaze from the tourney, her sister’s voice had taken on that cryptic note again. Sansa had never got to the bottom of it, but she guessed Arya had been through some truly terrible things during the war. In the time it had taken for Brandon to grow from a babe-in-arms to a fine and charming knight, Arya had never opened up about it. Sansa knew better than to press her.
“When Lady Wylla is with child again, I’ll ask if a towerhouse can be found for Brandon. He’s a man grown. He can’t keep naming his mother Queen of Love and Beauty.”
“We aren’t Targaryens,” Arya quipped, entirely to annoy Sansa. When it failed to get a rise, she added, "It's not his fault he got some your charm, if not exactly your look. The poor boy was besieged with dance partners last night, and if he crowned any of them it would be tantamount to a betrothal."
It was true. He had enough sense not to lead any maid on, but it was about time he thought about making a match. The other part about his looks was true, too - though the only obvious feature Sansa shared with Brandon was the eyes, she knew that the son's face was somehow well-made in a way that the father's had never been. And now he had gained extra glamour by winning another contest. Mêlée champions didn’t give out crowns like the winners of the joust, but if past performance was any guide then there was a good chance Brandon would take tomorrow’s honours as well. She would need to have a talk with him before the morrow.
Pride bloomed in her chest and Sansa nodded to herself. He was a handsome, strapping lad from a great house; a good match for any noble lady even before they got to learn how kind and clever he was. “He is old enough to start his own house. Take the Stark name and banner but choose his own colours, like the Daynes or the Fossoways.”
Her boy carefully pulled off his dented helmet. He was beaming, apparently unconcerned by the blood running down one cheek, and Sansa felt an indulgent smile creep across her face. It seemed Lady Brienne’s blow had opened a shallow gash over his eye that drenched half his face in blood. As Sansa relaxed and reached for her needlework, Brandon’s eyes found Arya and Sansa in the gallery and he directed a happy nod at them before making his way off the field. Sansa felt her sister start violently, but a quick scan of the field revealed nothing amiss. She looked at Arya quizzically, but Arya was still staring towards the gate of the tourney field. Arya didn't move for a long time.
“His own colours,” Arya agreed some minutes later. “Black on yellow might suit.”