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Catelyn knows there will be songs sung of what is already being called ‘Robert’s Rebellion,’ just as certainly as she knows that she shall not be in them.
They will sing of the dragon defeated, the stag and wolf triumphant, the dawning of a new age and a new regime. There is a bold, young king on the throne with a lion queen of unsurpassed beauty beside him, and it is sure to be a better tomorrow.
That is the song that the people want to hear. No one will tell of the mess and broken pieces left in the dust of war, and no one will speak of what comes after as they try to pick up what remains.
They will tell tale of Robert Baratheon looking strong and well with the glittering crown upon his brow, but not of how he drank himself into a stupor the night of his wedding. For Lyanna, the beauty at the center of it all, there shall be verse after verse praising her virtues, but only a passing mention of her death in a tower, sick and afraid. They will not say, as Ned told her one night, that she died crying out for her murdered father and brother. And for that father and brother who were dealt monstrous deaths at the hands of a cruel king, there shall be no songs, either. It is not pretty or neat, not a romance or victory, and therefore, in the minds of the masses, it is better forgotten.
Catelyn will not be in the songs, but she is the least important of what will be left out. And at Robert’s coronation the stories shall all end, as though life did not go on.
And yet here in Winterfell it does, and she watches as her husband, the one she never thought to have, carries the weight of the North upon his shoulders. It is not a thing he is made for; it is what Brandon had been raised to inherit, what he had spent his life preparing for. In the quiet evenings, after meeting with vassals come to swear fealty while also laying grievances at their lord’s feet, Catelyn can see the strain on Ned’s face from dispensing justice that never seems to please, from trying to make up the distances between what he is – soldier, brother, son – and what he must be – lord, husband, father.
She tries as best she can to help bear the burden, and tries to bite back the hurt when instead he seeks the solace of the godswood, with prayers to gods that are strangers to her. Still, he gratefully passes off the daily running of the castle to her, those things that she had learned long ago. She throws herself into her duties, into acclimating to this strange land, into mothering her child, into keeping the frigid cold from freezing her veins and stopping her in her tracks. Her days pass in a blur and it is only at night, when she sees the weariness Ned carries in his shoulders, that the truth sits heavy between them: that she is part of the parcel of responsibilities he never asked for.
He is not unkind. With the exception of the terrible night in which she asked after his bastard’s origins, he has no sharp words for her, and the touch of his large, war-worn hands is always gentle and cautious, tinged with uncertainty. But he treats her with the politesse due an honored guest, not as a wife, a lover, a confidante. He makes sure that her rooms are warm, that she has furs to pile at the foot of her bed, that her orders are followed in the household and the maids assigned to her treat her with proper respect. He even orders the start of the construction of a small sept, so that she and her ladies from Riverrun may worship their gods in the manner to which they are accustomed, and such a gesture would touch her deeply if she did not know that he would do so for any girl made to come from the south. His efforts to ease any perceived discomfort in her new home are the actions of a good man, an honorable man, and she knows they have little, if anything, to do with his feelings for Catelyn herself.
His indifference wounded her greatly at first, and bitterly she had wondered if the bastard child he had brought home, and the woman who had borne him, were the cause. She wondered what it was about her that he found disagreeable, that he did not like, that made him hold her at arm’s length. It is only after observing him over the course of several moons that she realizes he holds everyone at arm’s length. She wonders if his grief at the loss of his family has clamped around him like iron, leaving little room in his heart for anyone or anything, including a girl who was to be his brother’s bride. She wonders if there ever will be.
Her sole relief is that in what little room remains, Robb has found a place. She can bear the indifference, the distant courtesies, but her heart would have shattered if it had extended to their child, a child carried and born while his father fought a war. But the few times she sees Ned truly happy and at ease, he is with the children, and to her even greater relief, he shows no preference for the bastard child with his Stark looks over her son with all his Tully features.
A husband who is kind to her, who loves their child and is a good father to him, is more than most high-born ladies have, and Catelyn tells herself that she is lucky. She tries not to think of Brandon Stark - of his handsome features, his boisterous laugh, his easy charm - or to wonder how her life would have been different – Catelyn is not romantically minded like her sister, and there is no use dwelling in the impossible past.
Instead she focuses on what is, which is winter, brief as they predict (or hope, she thinks grimly) this one to be. She has spent her youth preparing for a northern winter, but it leaves her breathless and frozen, relieved for the hot water pumping through the walls of Winterfell like the thrum of a heartbeat, keeping them all alive. Ned tries his best to ease her discomfort, with hot wine and warm clothing, and in turn she tries her best to prepare the town as its people push in close to the castle, keeping count of provisions, sewing furs with her ladies to send down to the common folk to ward against the cold. The gestures seem to endear her to the townspeople, and as the first year fades into the second, she hears almost none of the grumbling of a southron girl’s unfitness to be the lady of Winterfell.
She is vindicated by their acceptance, however grudging it may have come. I have done my duty, she thinks, and if duty is what their marriage is built on, if responsibility and honor is the foundation of their home, it could be built on worse things.
Dutifully, Ned comes to her bed with fair regularity, and she finds she enjoys the caress of his hands, the solid, strong weight of his body over hers. It is a business between a lord and lady, but there is a pleasure to it. Despite what her septa told her in her youth, she enjoys the act of coupling for its sake alone, as well as for the promise of more children that it brings. Afterwards, he presses a kiss to her cheek and leaves for the cool comfort of his own bedchambers, and Catelyn reminds herself to be content with what her marriage is, and not long for what she wishes it to be.
Robb is just starting to walk with confidence, his hand fisted tightly over her fingertips for balance, when she first notices the telltale signs – the queasiness of her stomach, the tenderness in her breasts, the constant exhaustion. It brings a rush of triumph, of joy, and when she has twice missed her bleeding, she tells Ned that she is with child again and watches his face split into one of his too rare smiles.
She will be in not a single song, she knows, because no one sings songs about waiting, about rebuilding and healing, and that is all that she has to offer.
--
It is different, this time, carrying a child in Winterfell in a time of peace.
When she carried Robb, still safely ensconced in Riverrun, each new movement or twinge of pain had her hurrying to consult the maester. For the first time, her father had left Edmure as the acting lord before he rode off to war, asking his first-born daughter to merely advise and guide him. She continued to run the household, but when she was weary, as she so often was, she rested. She took time to stroll by the river, to read by her window, and was encouraged to do so by servants and maids alike. She had been carrying the heir of Winterfell in a time of open rebellion, a time in which there may not be another opportunity to make another child, should anything befall her lord husband. It was imperative, she was told, that she not exert herself, and she had allowed herself to indulge in the comforts of home, knowing that she would soon depart it forever.
Here, she is determined to keep her daily routine of meeting with the household stewards, making appointments when necessary, and managing the accounts and ledgers. She will prove, she decides from the beginning, that she may be a girl from the south, but she does not need special provisions or coddling, that she is as strong and fierce as any of them, as faithful in her duties as ever. And this time, of course, she has an excitable small child demanding her attention, and she finds herself bent over for hours helping him walk from one side of the room to the other and back again.
She is surprised to see how soon her belly swells this time, how quickly it remembers the curve of pregnancy. She lets out the laces of her gown and finds that though her welcome to Winterfell had been cordial when she had first arrived, the bows she receives are lower now, the ‘yes, my lady’s are more respectful. In their eyes, I am most a Stark when I am carrying a Stark, she thinks wryly, but she does not turn her nose up at the opportunity to gain more ground with these northerners that she does not yet quite understand.
Ned does not come to her bed after she tells him that she is with child, and shamefully, she finds herself missing him, missing the physical intimacy and connection. It may be a thing of duty still, but in those moments when they move together, the world with its sorrows and broken promises seems far away, and pleasure is easily found for them both. There are moments she can scarcely think of anything else, her mind wandering to the dark of her bedchamber as she sits and sews with her ladies, and when she tactfully tells Maester Luwin that she is feeling restless, he assures her that it is a common symptom of pregnancy.
To distract herself from the way her husband holds himself apart, she pushes harder to fulfill all that is expected of her – all that she expects of herself. She spends her mornings going over the ledgers, answering ravens from the minor houses, familiarizing herself with their names and histories. The raw bite of winter is in the air, so she takes Robb to walk in the enclosed glass gardens to protect them both from the chill. She watches as he grasps the blooms with overeager, pudgy hands, the petals scattering to the ground, the colors and scents reminding her of the Riverlands in a way that makes her heart ache. She kneels beside Robb until her knees bruise and gentles his touch, naming the flowers for him, though he pays her little attention and instead sets to ripping them from the earth.
Sometimes, she allows herself to pretend there are no glass walls enclosing them, that outside their oasis the world is not barren and grey. She pictures herself home in Riverrun, and warm, with Robb’s laughter echoing in her ears, the way it was before the end of the war. She had worried then, for her father and yes, for her son’s father, too, but secretly, there had been times when she had never been more content, as well.
She startles when a pair of boots comes into her view line one afternoon – she is left largely alone in these hours with her son – and from her seat on the ground she looks up just as Ned bends down to scoop Robb up in his arms. Robb screams in delighted laughter at the unexpected lift, and unbidden, a smile comes to Catelyn’s lips at the ease with which Ned holds him.
Her husband’s eyes dart over the broken flowers currently scattered in her lap, the streaks of dirt on her skirts, before returning to the boy in his arms. “It seems you have been busy,” Ned tells Robb, inspecting his small muddy hands, and Robb claps them in delight.
“Conquering is much more to his taste than learning. He is lucky he was born a boy,” Catelyn says, rising from the ground. The swell of her belly makes the movement awkward, and Ned shifts their son in order to cup a hand under her elbow, to help her stand. At the touch of his fingers she feels a sudden rush of heat that leaves her flustered, and she drops her gaze to the ground, hoping that he will not notice the pink in her face.
She brushes her dress clean and only glances up when she becomes aware of Ned’s gaze upon her. It is different than how he usually looks at her, his expression normally either carefully schooled and polite, or somewhat bewildered, as though he is not quite sure how she got there and what he is to do with her. For the first time, she feels truly seen, as though he is just now realizing that she is merely a girl as surely as he is barely more than a lad, and she knows no better than he the way the next verse of their lives is supposed to go.
“You look tired,” Ned tells her, and his voice is gentle, soothing like a caress. “You know, Robb would be fine with Old Nan some afternoons, so that you may rest.”
Stubbornly, thinking of the renewed respect she is shown now that her pregnancy is evident, thinking of the progress she has made, of how hard she tries, she shakes her head. “I do not need to rest.”
“Catelyn,” he says, touching her again, a hand on her upper arm this time. She stops herself from leaning into the gesture (she is not quite sure of how such a thing would be received). “Whatever you are trying to prove – to me, or to anyone else – you do not have to do so. You are the lady here – do as you please.”
She thinks of the long hours Ned keeps, of the work that he hoards to himself rather than pass off to a maester or steward, of the weary determination in his eyes to prove himself as capable a ruler as his brother Brandon would have been, as ready to fill shoes he never thought to wear.
“Are we not both trying to prove something?” she asks, and he looks surprised for only a brief moment, before his eyes fill with understanding.
--
To her initial surprise, Ned continues to join them some afternoons, and Catelyn studiously keeps her mind from the afternoons he spends away, that she assumes he must spend with his bastard son. They do not speak of it, nor her knowledge that Old Nan watches the two boys together whilst she conducts household business in the mornings. Instead, she rests without meaning to, sitting on a small wooden bench, watching Robb excitedly lead his father up one path and down another on feet that grow steadier and faster each day. They speak little, but this silence is not uncomfortable, instead calming enough that it nearly lulls her to sleep some days. If her husband notices her with her head tilted back and her eyes half-closed, respectfully he does not challenge her assertion that she does not need to rest.
Equally as respectful, she does not mention that she notices as he passes by the flowers with Robb, ones that she still recites from memory, that he never nears the blue winter roses that are unique to the North. Ned Stark, she thinks, has had more than enough of blue roses.
There is a sweet peace to it, and sometimes, when she half dozes and thinks of Riverrun, Ned is also there with her and Robb. It is a mere daydream – her husband is not well suited to the south and the warmth of the air there – but as her world begins to expand to fit him in it, she hopes that one day, perhaps someday, his own will do the same.
But after they have dined in the evenings, Ned bids her goodnight and goes to his chambers still, whilst she retires to her own and reads before the fire, or sews, and pretends that his continued absence does not vex her.
She does not think that he leaves her in preference of another lady’s company – despite the child he had brought home with him, she is learning that he is not prone to flirtations as Brandon was. If there is another woman, he is exceptionally good at hiding the fact, and from what little Catelyn knows of her husband, she knows that he is not particularly suited to deception. Yet she still passes the nights alone, and if it is not for another woman, she does not know why it is so.
A dutiful wife would accept such a thing, she thinks. Hadn’t she been taught from her youth that it was proper for a wife to submit to her husband, but not to seek him herself? But the hours they newly spend together lend her courage, and after weeks pass, she finds herself laying a hand on his arm to stop him when he kisses her cheek to bid her goodnight.
“Have I displeased you, my lord?” she asks, and he frowns in confusion.
“Of course not, my lady,” he answers kindly. “Why would you think so?”
“You no longer come to me at night,” she points out, thinking briefly that her septa would be horrified for her to come so close to a reprimand, to a plea for attention. She wonders if she will regret her question, for certainly his avoidance of her bed was no accident, and whatever his reasons, they are unlikely to please or soothe her. Perhaps he is repulsed by me this way, she thinks briefly, and she lays a protective hand on the swell of her belly, as though to protect the babe within from such sentiments. In any case, she resolves, it is also her duty as a wife to please her husband, and if such questions must be asked to uncover the reason he avoids her, she will bear the indignity.
But Ned, for his part, looks abashed. “I thought that I should not, for the good of our child,” he explains, and Catelyn feels some of the tension unknowingly held in her back and shoulders dissipate as he squeezes her arm reassuringly.
“The maester says it is safe,” she answers, and hesitates. The proper thing now, as improper as she has already been, would be to leave it at that, but her siblings had always called her the brave one, and so she presses on when she sees him furrow his brow. “I have missed you. I would have you with me.” She reaches up, cupping his cheek in her hand to accentuate her point, his beard bristling against her fingers as she draws him down into a tentative kiss.
He is still uncertain, when he steps back into her bedchamber and closes the door behind him, but the touch of his lips spurs her, and she draws him back towards her bed, slipping her other hand behind his neck. She turns her back so that he can unlace her dress, and she suddenly hesitates as she steps from it and he reaches for the hem of her shift, too. Even the first time after Robb’s birth, months after and the war over, she had known that she would never again look as she did when she was a young bride newly married, a girl who had never carried a child. But this is a new thing all together, her belly and breasts swollen, the skin marred with angry red marks, and she bites her lip as he pulls the material over her head, his large hands skimming over her hips.
She sighs at the press of his lips against the back of her neck, at the knob of her spine. His hand trails up her side to cup her breast, fuller than the last time they lay together, and her head tilts back against his shoulder, resistless. Her body is quick to respond to his touch, wetness pooling between her legs, and she wonders if it is merely the anticipation and longing caused by her pregnancy that make her so eager, or if they are learning to map each other’s bodies, the places to touch and taste – if she is learning to desire him, and not just the intimacy of the moment.
The truth, she suspects, lies somewhere in the middle.
He helps her climb atop the bed, and she unlaces his breeches before kneeling on either side of his thighs. Her face flushes as she moves atop of him; suddenly she feels heavy and ungainly, far from the slender maid he had bedded on their wedding night. But if the changes wrought in her bother him, he does not say so, and his mouth is warm and eager when he kisses her mouth, her jaw, her neck and shoulder. His tongue darts across her collarbone and she moans at the contact, and feels him stir between her thighs at the sound.
To her surprise, he seems to sense her discomfort as she hovers over him, thighs spread as she straddles his lap. In his steady, quiet way, he does not address it, does not lavish compliments and praise. Instead he merely laces his fingers through her own, drawing her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss against her knuckles. “My lady,” he says, his voice a low rumble, and such a simple sentiment soothes her, reminds her that she is not merely some unwieldy serving wench. I am carrying our child, she reminds herself, bracing against his chest as she sinks down upon him, eyes fluttering closed at the sensation and the rough moan that escapes Ned’s mouth. There is no shame to that.
He helps guide her with strong hands on her hips, and when she comes, it is the sweetest relief she has had since learning of her pregnancy. It does not take long for Ned to follow her, his grip on her tightening briefly, and the blissful calm on his face when he spills his seed makes her wonder why they waited so long in silent torment.
How much easier things might be, she marvels, if they learned to truly speak to one another.
She rolls onto her back afterwards, sleepy and sated, an ache finally soothed. She smiles when she feels Ned’s fingers brush against her hair, pushing damp strands behind her ear. Affection between them is, for the most part, still tentative, but even on their wedding night he had enjoyed touching her hair. It is a soothing gesture, and she leans slightly into his hand, closing her eyes.
Inside her, the babe turns and flips, and Catelyn winces, arching her back to stretch it. At her movement she feels Ned’s hand still on her hair, and his voice is laden with anxiety, his concerns now remembered as he asks, “Are you well?”
“Yes,” she reassures him. “It is only the baby moving.” Before she can think more upon it, she reaches up and lifts his hand from her hair, pulling it down to rest on the curve of her belly. The skin of his fingers is rough and dry against the tender skin of her stomach, but his touch is feather light, so barely there that she presses it harder to her so that he may feel their child move inside her.
She hears him inhale sharply when a sudden kick thuds against his palm, and she tilts her head on the pillow to look over at him. He looks surprised, his brow furrowed as it is when he is puzzling over something, but there is an unmistakable pleased gleam in his eyes. Briefly, she wonders if he ever felt his child move inside his other woman, or if she, much as Catelyn with Robb, had merely presented him with a babe when the whole ordeal was finished.
He had been fighting a war, she reminds herself, and it is unlikely that he had the time to lie about with whomever that lady was, Lady Ashara or a camp follower. By the look upon his face, Catelyn thinks that this is something that is uniquely hers, and greedily she holds it close.
They are quiet as they lie together, her palm resting on top of his, and it is so still that Catelyn swears she can hear the fluttering of the babe’s heart within her, quicker than her own, like the beat of a tiny bird’s wings. When she glances over at Ned next, she is stunned to see that he has fallen asleep, his face relaxed and his breathing even, his palm still splayed heavily on her belly.
She watches him for a long moment, the way that the cast of a winter moon filters through her window and sends scattered light across his face. He looks younger in his sleep, his brow smoothed, mouth relaxed rather than pressed into a grim line, and with a light finger, she traces where the worry lines can normally be found along his forehead, gone as though they never were. In her bed, he does not look like the brave lord who defeated the Sword in the Morning, who carried his sword to a beautiful lady in a tower, like the warrior who fought a war to save his sister. Here, he is merely her husband, Ned Stark, and it is perhaps the first time that Catelyn truly feels that he could belong to her – that in some ways, he already does.
It is the first night since their wedding that her husband sleeps at her side, but watching him, Catelyn knows with a sudden certainty that it will not be the last.
--
The midwife brought in from the town predicts a girl, from the way that she is carrying, but Catelyn hopes otherwise. Later she would like daughters, but she wants another son first. Who would know better than her lord husband that one boy is not enough to secure a house? If she has another son, a brother for Robb with the grey eyes and black hair of the Starks, then perhaps Jon Snow would not matter as much.
But she does think she looks different, and this pregnancy feels different than her first, and so she tries to bring herself to terms with the idea. She does not tell Ned, and she forgets that he would not know that she carried differently with a son, because he was not around to see her big with their first child.
“Would you be disappointed with a girl?” she blurts out one evening, as she sits by the open window. Normally she would keep such questions to herself, but she is tired and aching and biting her tongue is more difficult than usual. She is determined to keep to her daily routine, but the babe weighs heavily now so that Catelyn’s back and feet ache enough to bring tears of pain to her eyes when she knows that no one is looking. She scarcely remembers the nights of sitting by the fire – she is always hot, and she feels larger than ever, and the bite of the cold wind takes the edge off of her discomfort.
“No,” Ned replies, and he presses a mug of beer in her hands. “Daughters are important, too.” And they are, Catelyn thinks, for marriage alliances just as the one she has made, to forge valuable ties with other houses. But Ned’s eyes are faraway, and she knows he is thinking of his sister, who had been so fiercely loved. If he loves our daughter half as much, she shall be lucky, Catelyn decides, and carefully she keeps her mind from thoughts of Lyanna’s fate, of Brandon’s fate, the cost of being too well-loved.
Ned blinks, recalled to himself, and he offers a small smile. “And besides,” he adds, and Catelyn knows he is pushing away the thoughts of the family he lost, “with any hope, in time we will have plenty of sons and daughters both.”
Cautiously, she sips the beer, and it sits sickeningly bitter on her tongue. She winces, her stomach rolling in protest, and she lowers the cup to hold it between her hands. “We will,” she answers firmly. Stubbornly, she keeps her mind from her mother, from the sons that never lived and the child that took her life. I shall be different, she tells herself. There is no reason we shall not have a half dozen children, all beautiful and strong.
Ned notices as she holds the cup and does not take another drink. “I’m sorry,” he offers sincerely, nodding towards the beer. “I am afraid I do not know what will agree with a woman with child.”
Her smile comes easily. “No,” she agrees. “But you are a good father, once they are here.” He raises his eyebrows, surprised, but she remembers his steady patience, walking with Robb’s hand clasped in his own, and keeps her smile. There may be many things that Ned Stark is not made for, the pieces of his life that he works so hard to fit, but fatherhood, Catelyn thinks, comes naturally to him. “Our children are blessed,” she adds softly, resting a hand on her belly, and he smiles back, coming over to stand next to her chair.
“You are good to say so,” he answers, and he rests his hand next to hers, against the swell of her belly, as he has done with increased frequency since the first night she pulled his hand down to feel their child move. The skin is stretched taut beneath her gown, and she cannot imagine that there is room for the babe to grow any further, that her belly could get any bigger.
“It will not be long now,” she says ruefully.
“No,” Ned agrees, appraising her, his brow furrowed in thought. She waits, as she is learning to do with increased patience, for him to speak further. “It is a bloody business. Do you fear the birth?” he adds, voice quiet, and she is taken aback by the question, by the way his face is almost troubled as he looks upon her.
This time, she cannot help but think of her mother, but as the memories come she pushes them aside as quickly as they are brought forth. “No,” she answers, and it comes so easily that it almost does not even feel like a lie. “Robb was an easy birth.” At least, she remembers, that was what she had been told after, though at the time she had thought she was being ripped in two, that the blood was too much and the pain nearly unbearable. An easy birth, they told her, and she had been so relieved to see and hold her healthy, squalling son, that she had not let her mind linger on what a difficult birth might be, if Robb’s had been so simple.
He answers with a noncommittal hum, his hand shifting until it settles over their child’s foot inside of her, feeling it thump through skin that feels too thin, so close to her time. She glances away, back out the window, uncomfortable with his eyes scrutinizing her, and his free hand finds her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“You will have the best of care,” he tells her, and his grip on her fingers is tight enough that she wonders if he is trying to reassure them both. He has seen so much bloodshed, she thinks, and she feels a pang of sympathy for this man, who lost everything so dear to him and was thrust into a world of responsibilities he did not ask for.
It is the same sort of sympathy she felt when she first came to Winterfell, when he brought her from room to room and she saw the small touches he had made to accommodate her, the warm rooms and roaring fires and heavy furs, the mulled wine and the small sept made for a lady of the south. He is a good man, she had thought at the time, though his distant courtesies had made her sad for all that he lost.
Ned squeezes her hand once more, and she looks at him again, pulling her gaze from the swirling snow outside her window. If her sympathy is the same, for the unfairness of all he has endured, he does not look at her now through a veil of politeness. His little concessions when she had arrived, from the life he knew to the one that was familiar to her, would have been made for any girl he had wed, simply because he is a good man. But there is a new sincerity to him, as though he seeks to comfort not his lady wife as a good husband should, but Catelyn herself, for her own sake and not the sake of a courtesy.
Something inside her stirs, and she holds tight to his hand – callused and imperfect as it is, it is hers.
“I do not doubt it,” she tells him.
--
It is still snowing when her labor pains begin early in the morning, and all she can see outside her window is endless expanses of white. In the south, she had been confined for the last weeks of her pregnancy as befitting a noble lady, but as so many other things, it is different in the north. Here, there are hardly enough hands as it is, and while the daughter of Riverrun could be absent for the turn of a moon, the lady of Winterfell cannot afford such luxuries. In truth, she had been glad of the distraction of busy days – the prize had been well worth the battle, but she does not quickly forget the pain and blood of the birthing bed. Catelyn had been old enough to remember Edmure’s birth, and the son that followed, that her father did not name in his grief, the one that died beside her mother. Even when she carried Robb, she knew the perils of birthing a child, but this time, she knows far more clearly what sufferings lay ahead.
Winterfell is warm, but it is dark, far darker than Riverrun, and even more so in the winter. In her birthing chamber, the midwife lights candles, orders the fire lit so that she is sweltering, but still Catelyn is seized with a sudden fear that it is too dark, that the snow outside falls too deep, and that she will die here and be buried and no one will know of it.
Two of her maids sprinkle sweet rose water on the sheets and then hover like nervous birds in the corners of the room as the day drags on and her pains worsen, coming sharper and closer together. The room is stifling, and Catelyn gasps for air, begs them to open a window, but her pleas are pointedly ignored. They think it is the madness of childbirth, she realizes bitterly, and she longs for her bright, airy rooms in Riverrun.
More than anything she misses from Riverrun, she misses her sister at her side. Lysa had always been the sensitive one, the one who needed coddling and to be cared for, and sometimes the two years between them had seemed to stretch an eternity. And yet when Catelyn had gone to her birthing bed for the first time, her sister had sat beside her and held her hand, cooing reassurances and patting Catelyn’s brow with a cloth, offering encouragements while Catelyn had cried out in pain.
Here in Winterfell, her maids shrink back in discomfort, and only Old Nan, the sweet nursemaid, sits near her and croons softly, brushing Catelyn’s hair off her forehead with hands thin and delicate as parchment paper. Ropes had been hung from her bedpost for her to cling to instead, and her knuckles turn white as she holds fast when another pain racks through her body. Outside, her husband waits, alerted that her time is near; but it would be improper for him to be in the birthing chamber, only a maester should attend a lady in her labors.
It is different in the north, he had told her mildly in response to her protests. Few hands and deep snow mean that often, a midwife is not at the household’s disposal, so it is not uncommon for a man to help his children into the world. But she had seen her maids’ mouths hang open in disbelief and horror at the mere thought, and she had quickly declined, citing her own southron modesties.
Even if she would not be whispered about, she would not want him beside her in any case, she tells herself stubbornly, even as her head falls back on the pillow and she grits her teeth against the onslaught of pain. There is no purpose to his seeing her weak and frazzled, crying out in pain with blood staining her thighs and the sheets.
“It will not be long now, my lady,” Maester Luwin tells her gently, and he prepares the swaddling cloth to catch the babe when he or she arrives. But when he moves between her legs, holding her ankles with firm hands, he frowns at the sight that greets him, his eyes narrowing so that even in her agony, Catelyn cannot help but notice.
“What is it?” she gasps, breath coming short and fast.
The maester’s eyes flicker up to her briefly, and she inhales sharply at the concern she finds in them, but instead of answering her question, he waves the midwife over. She kneels at the end of the bed, studying in a way so intent that would leave Catelyn humiliated if there were room for any feeling other than pain, and now a flicker of anger as the room stays silent.
“What is it?” she demands again, and though she tries to sound authoritative, her voice comes out shrill and afraid.
The midwife moves to her supplies, reaching for a cream that she slathers over her hand, and Catelyn watches with morbid fascination until Maester Luwin moves to her side, placing one hand on her belly and the other on her shoulder. “My lady,” he says gently, and Catelyn turns her head. “The child is foot first. We must turn him in the womb.”
“Turn him?” she asks, and it is with horror now that she looks back at the midwife, taking her place back at the foot of the bed, all practicality as she plants her elbows on the insides of Catelyn’s knees, forcing her legs apart. Suddenly both of the maester’s hands are on her belly, pushing and rolling just as the midwife reaches up inside of her, and then all Catelyn sees is white behind her eyelids.
The pain is blinding, excruciating so that her entire body, from toes to fingers to head and hair, burns red hot. From far away she can hear screaming, shrieking, sounding nearly inhuman in the agony behind it, and she realizes with a start that it is her making such a noise. Over her cries, Maester Luwin and the midwife exchange instructions as though nothing is amiss, and even Old Nan’s soft croons bring no comfort as she clings to the ropes at her bedposts, the roughness of it cutting into her palms. But the scratch against her hands is nothing compared to the terrible pain as they turn the babe inside her, and she realizes with a sudden, horrible clarity, why they had called Robb’s birth easy. This, she is sure, will kill her, would kill any woman, and she hopes that turning the babe will not be for naught, that the child may come safely into the world even if she leaves it.
“Nearly there,” Maester Luwin says, as though that is supposed to bring her some sort of comfort, and she laughs suddenly at that, laughs even as she cries and shouts, her shoulders shaking and her cheeks damp with sweat and tears both.
She does not hear Ned enter the room, does not see him approach the bed, and so is caught unawares when he gently pries her hand off the rope to hold it between his own. His hands are strong, large and full of life, so much more solid than Old Nan’s tiny, fragile fingers that she had feared crumbling into dust beneath her grip. He is not supposed to be here, she remembers with a daze, even as she holds tight, and if her maids from Riverrun make murmur of it as they shrink back against the walls, she cannot hear them over the roaring in her ears, anyway.
Ned furrows his brow. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks uncertainly, and she realizes she has spoken aloud. The idea of being left alone again terrifies her more than any shame she might feel at being seen in such a state, and she grasps at his hand frantically, nails biting in hard against the back of his hand. He does not flinch or complain, and his grip tightens.
“No,” she manages to sputter, voice thick with tears and raspy from her screams. “No, please…” He squeezes reassuringly, and though he does not offer sweet assurances as Lysa once had, his steady, solid presence is enough to take the edge off her panic. If she dies, she thinks, she will not do so alone now.
The midwife pulls back, her hand and the sheets beneath Catelyn’s thighs stained dark with blood. “It is done,” she proclaims with satisfaction, and Catelyn wants to protest at that – the babe is still inside her, and each new pain that ripples through her body sears ten times deeper, traveling in an arch up her spine. It is far from done, she wants to scream, and she wonders if this midwife, with all of her expertise and her steady, sure hands, has ever birthed a child of her own that she should spew such nonsense.
It comes like a rush then, when the babe has been adjusted, and Maester Luwin moves back between her legs, urging her with a calm voice to push, praising her progress. It falls on deaf ears as she strains and struggles, her worldview narrowing to each new pain that she rides like a wave, waxing and waning. Ned is quiet, still pressing her hand between his own, and he pulls one hand away at times to push her hair back off her face when it falls forward and clings damply.
The skin of his fingers and palms feels rougher than normal, like sandpaper against her cheek, a world away from the soft, finely spun cloth her sister had dabbed against her brow. She thinks she has never loved his hands more than in these moments, and she clutches his fingers hard when with a final push, their child slips into the world.
Catelyn holds her breath, as she did the first time, in those horrible silent moments as the cord is cut, and Maester Luwin clears the baby’s nose and mouth. And as she did once before, she releases the same breath when she hears a tiny sputter of surprise, followed by a loud, long cry, as the baby turns to a flushed pink.
“Gods be praised,” the maester says, and he swaddles the babe before handing her to Catelyn. “A healthy girl, my lady.”
--
It is not until later in the evening, when the sun has sagged towards the horizon, that the embarrassment comes. She has named the baby Sansa, a name from the Riverlands to suit the shock of Tully-red hair upon the top of her head, and has fed her from her breast so that now the baby sleeps, full and contented, against Catelyn’s chest. Gently, Catelyn strokes the slope of Sansa’s cheek, perfectly rosy and the skin petal-soft beneath her finger.
The stained sheets have been removed, and her bed clothes have been changed, but when she wets her lips she can still taste salt on them, and a hint of dampness clings to the roots of her hair. When Ned returns after visiting with Robb and his other son, she sits up a bit straighter, flushing as she remembers how she had wept and screamed in pain, recalling once more why she had wanted him to wait outside so that he would not see her in such a state. What he must think of me, she worries, and she smiles graciously as a proper lady would, closing her eyes when he bends and kisses her forehead before gently lifting Sansa from her arms.
“She is beautiful,” he says, his voice low so as to not disturb the baby’s slumber, and there is such warmth on his face that Catelyn knows he had spoken true when he reassured her that he would not be disappointed with a girl. Sansa scrunches her tiny face briefly, as if she is considering crying, and settles for a yawn instead before her face settles into peaceful contentment. She is a quiet babe already, compared to Robb who had screamed for hours upon his birth, and she looks impossibly small tucked in the crook of Ned’s arm. The wave of affection Catelyn feels at the sight catches her off guard, with its strength, and with the fact that it is for them both.
“I am sorry that I was in such a state earlier,” she says, thinking anew that the entirety of the castle – perhaps the whole of the North – must have heard her cries. “I hope you do not think less of me.”
He looks surprised at that, and he perches on the edge of the bed next to her, the mattress dipping with his weight. His voice is so gentle that it nearly makes her weep, her nerves still frayed and raw, as he responds, “No, my lady.” He puts his free hand to her hair, fingers threading through the strands that are dry but tangled, and she wishes she looked more composed and put together. “I am sorry if I intruded. You sounded…in much pain. If something was amiss, I did not want you to be alone.” For a moment, his eyes are very far away, in a time and place that she still does not know or understand – and perhaps, she realizes, she never will.
But then he blinks, and he is looking expectantly upon her face, his thumb still stroking the hair near her temple, and she realizes suddenly that he is seeking reassurance from her. “I was glad of you,” she admits softly, and when his expression does not change, she takes his hand from her hair, holding it between her own. “I am well, Ned,” she adds gently.
“You are certain?” he presses insistently, his voice laden with worry. “You are not one to exaggerate your pain.” He pulls his hand from hers, curling it instead around the back of her neck, rubbing reassuringly at the junction of her neck and shoulder.
Looking at him now, as he waits for her to confirm, she remembers when she had been so sure it did not truly matter. She had been sure that any woman could be substituted in as his wife and receive the same courteous, removed treatment, and he would never notice the difference. But now here he sits, so attentive and concerned, so worried that her behavior had been so far from what he expected – from what he knew of her.
In these last few moons, they had stopped being strangers.
It had not been that long ago, when they had known nothing of one another, but it feels as though it belongs to a different life, across a line in the sand that she does not quite remember crossing. But when he looks at her, his eyes so serious – he is always serious – but far from cold, searching for assurances, she knows themselves firmly on the other side.
“Yes,” she answers softly. “I am certain.”
His hand slides down her back so that he can curl his free arm around her, drawing her in against him, and she moves close, resting her cheek against his chest. From there she can hear the steady beat of his heart, the soft sound of Sansa’s breathing, and she is hard-pressed to remember the last time she felt at such peace. “I am glad of it,” he tells her, and she feels the words as a rumble against her cheek.
She rests her hand on Sansa’s tiny foot, and her lips curl into a smile when Ned drops a kiss to the top of her head. It is a moment too quiet and small to be the thing of songs or stories, but it is large enough to swallow her whole, so that her heart aches with how full it is.
Despite wanting to enjoy the quiet moment, her head feels heavy as it rests against him, still exhausted from the birth. It is not long before she finds it difficult to keep her eyes open, and she mumbles a sleepy apology for her poor manners.
Ned laughs briefly, his arm tightening around her. “Sleep,” he assures her. “You have need of it.” As she closes her eyes, Catelyn remembers briefly the first night he stayed by her side, not that long ago, and the nights he had done so since then. She marvels at how quickly she grew accustomed to sharing a bed, at how she has found comfort in having his solid body next to hers, and at how easy it is for her now to close her eyes whilst curled against him.
Lyanna Stark will be the one the singers will write of, when they traverse the countryside, of King Robert’s consuming love that came to a terrible end. It is a thing of beauty, of tragedy, of things larger than she or Ned or their children, of this room or of Winterfell. They will be the forgotten Starks, returned to the North, left to a quiet life and simpler things.
When the steady sounds of her husband and daughter breathing lull her to sleep, her last waking thought is that there is a joy in being forgotten in such a fashion, to being left to a life such as this – her own.