Iron and Blood: a Theon & Sansa Story

Chapter 73

Sansa
Aby brought medicine that eased Sansa's aches significantly. She promised the baby was healthy and that the pain was not unusual, especially in young women who had never birthed children.

Eventually, Sansa felt well enough to leave the tower, which meant she and Arya could walk together outside. Some days, Aby joined them, and the three talked about their lives in the North: what they missed most, how Greywater Watch was so different from Winterfell.

When she was able, Sansa visited with Alannys Harlaw, who sewed clothes every day to prepare for the baby. She loved to hear Sansa talk about Theon—what her son had been like growing up at Winterfell. It seemed to restore something inside of the old woman: she did not ask after her eldest sons, and she knew that Theon was a grown man now, raised under Ned Stark.

"How long has he loved you?" Lady Alannys asked her one day, as Sansa sewed another nightshift for the baby.

Sansa smiled and replied, "I don't really know. He never seemed to like me when we were younger."

"He's always been grumpy," Alannys remarked. "Since he returned, he's been much livelier. I can only imagine it's because he has a beautiful wife to keep him company."

It was true that Theon was gruff by nature, even when he was just a boy at Winterfell. The sweetness he had shown Sansa in the last year was so far from what she knew of the Ironborn. "What was he like before I knew him?" she asked Lady Alannys, who paused her work to sigh.

"He was small for his age," she recalled. "When I saw him, I couldn't believe how tall he was. If he had been so tall back then, the other boys might not have teased him so much."

Sansa only ever remembered Theon being tall—though her brothers often made jokes at his expense when they were younger. Sometimes when they were older, too. Before Sansa could say anything else, Lady Alannys smiled to herself.

"He had his nose broken standing up for his sister," she remarked. "After that, it was always Asha standing up for him."

Sansa nodded. "He knew that she would help us. That's why we came."

"You couldn't stay at Winterfell?" Alannys asked. "This island is dreadful."

"It isn't so bad," Sansa giggled. She added, "Winterfell wasn't safe for me anymore. I would have been forced to marry someone else. Someone I didn't love. He beat me and my sister, so Theon brought us both here."

Lady Alannys looked up from her work to touch Sansa's knee tenderly. "Will you ever go back?" she asked.

Sansa didn't know. She hoped she would be able to return someday, but it seemed less and less likely with each passing moon. If Joffrey had not given up on her yet, then there was a chance he never would. It was true that Sansa had come to love her little life on Pyke, at least when Theon was there with her. Still, she missed her mother and father, along with her little brothers, even Jeyne Poole and Helda Wuthers. If she had known she would never see them again, she might have given them a true farewell. It was too late for all of it now.

"I'll return if it's safe for me and my sister," Sansa answered after a moment. "Safe for Theon and the baby, too."

Lady Alannys nodded along, absorbed in her stitches. Still, she mused, "Are you hoping for a baby boy or a baby girl?"

It made Sansa smile. She remembered asking Theon the same question on their first night back at Pyke. He said he wanted a boy, since he had spent too much time alone with only Sansa and Arya to keep him company. Sansa cared little about the baby's sex, but she entertained Lady Alannys's curiosity. "A girl, I think," Sansa decided, "but I would love a boy just as much."

"I would like a granddaughter," Alannys sighed in agreement. "I hope she has your eyes."

They were her mother's eyes, Tully eyes—the same way that Sansa had Tully auburn hair. She did not want to think about giving birth without her mother to comfort and encourage her. It made Sansa immeasurably sad.

She excused herself from Lady Alannys's chamber and descended the long stairwell to reach the street below. Men and women shouted at one another while children wrestled and laughed. Sansa smiled at one little girl who stumbled into her path, before a boy chased her from the road again.

It was a short walk to her own tower, but Sansa lingered and watched the children play. She hoped her own child would know such happiness—the kind of happiness she had known at Winterfell as a girl. Perhaps her child would know only these angry islands, made ever angrier by Sansa's presence. Theon and Asha would keep them safe, she knew, but it hardly comforted her. In the North, Sansa was loved and respected. She was too kind and gentle to make enemies, and yet on Pyke she was surrounded by them.

Soon, Sansa's back began to ache. It had been too long since she had seen Aby for medicine, and the sweet midwife would be looking for her.

As Sansa turned towards the tower that had become her home, a big man brushed close beside her. She stepped aside to let him through, but he did not pass. Instead he remained still at Sansa's side, even when she looked up to face him. He was a burly man with a thick mustache; Sansa recognized him but could not recall his name.

When she opened her mouth to ask him, a hand came down on her other side, tight against her hip. Sansa spun to see who had grabbed her, only to find a second man, though this one she did not recognize.

"What are you doing?" Sansa asked. Something sharp bit into her rib, and she cried out in pain. The first man had cut past her gown with a rusty dagger, and its tip now dug through Sansa's skin, threatening.

"Make another noise, and I'll put this knife through your belly," he muttered at her. "Your baby will die inside of you, would you like that?"

Sansa glanced wildly around the street, but no seemed to notice the men who now had a hold on their rightful queen. "Please," Sansa whispered, and she felt the tears swelling inside her. "Please let me go."

The familiar man with the knife pressed his blade further into Sansa's skin, and she stifled a whimper. "I told you to shut your mouth," he hissed at her.

Harrag, Sansa remembered.

He had convinced men all over Pyke to obey Asha after Balon's death. Theon had always spoken highly of him, and he and his men had dined with Sansa, Arya, and the Greyjoys more than once. Sansa could not imagine what would have led him there.

Harrag and the man at Sansa's right clung to her, leading the way down the street, away from her tower. All Sansa could think about was the baby inside of her and what Theon would think if he returned to find Sansa dead. She did not want to die yet—not before her baby had made it safely into the world. Once, her life mattered not. But she had to survive now for her child.