The King of Winters

Chapter-116

They struck out north by the Kingsroad, across the rising forests, high plains and pine-covered hills flanked by the snow-capped mountains in the distance. At some places where the plains rolled as far as the eyes could see she saw the lands speckled with tiny villages and holdfasts. They didn't make a stop anywhere and continued through the pale snow-covered road toward Winterfell, the stronghold of House Stark and her husband's home from where the crown of the Queen of the North awaited her and her icy throne with it.

She had been so used to the sight of burnt fields and corpses of men and horses littered around that she found the calmness and peace of the North so still and strange and pleasant. War is happening, thought Argella, and this time the North is spared. Doom and death had been part of these lands and the people who lived here for so long, ever since their King and Queen were butchered and disgraced. And their long last prince was back from the dead after years, a King now, leading another war that split the Kingdom into two.

Argella wondered what the people of the North thought of it. Did they rue the war that was being waged by her husband in the distant south? Or do they welcome the freedom Andrew had delivered them from the dragon's yoke? It came with a great cost though and many of those who had gone south with him would never return to see their wives or mothers or sisters or fathers or brothers.

And her? She is reduced to stay back to run her husband's household while waiting for him. Argella hated waiting. There was nothing worse than waiting. Not a day passed without her worrying about her father or brothers or Andrew himself. They said that he fought in the front lines, often at where the fighting was the thickest and she had seen enough battles and seen enough injuries to know how dangerous the affair was. She would have preferred going to sleep seeing his sad smile and handsome brooding face, instead of dreading about some raven that might bring dark news.

Solemn as he was Andrew could be stubborn as a bull. He was never going to allow her to accompany him. It was a lonely time for Argella, surrounded by so many strangers. She knew most of her guards but they were still not Gendry or her father or mother or even Joffrey. Only Trent and Brienne were her closest companions. The rest of her companions she hardly knew at all. Despite that most of those northern soldiers had warmed up to her and she enjoyed their company and the stories some had to say at night around the fire.

Argella missed her family and friends. Gendry and her father, her uncles, sweet little Shireen and her friends from Storm's End who had been a part of her since she was little, trusted confidants who had shared her dreams and secrets, cheered her when she was sad, helped her with all the things when she needed help. Even Joffrey with his idiocy and his insolence. She had never thought she would ever miss him but she missed him all the same. They had all been part of her life and to have them taken away suddenly Argella couldn't make peace with that as she had originally thought to.

Argella missed Andrew too, more than she ever would have thought and more than she would care to admit. He never loved her madly like most of the young knights who met her often said, she thought to herself, yet his solemn and kind courtship was more fond and impressive than all the sweet words the knights had spoken. She found herself missing their private lessons and watching him sleep on the chair with his legs rested on top of the table, over the maps where he would spend most of his nights studying. Did he miss her just as how she missed him? Or was he too busy with his war to spare a thought about his wife?

Argella shook the thoughts away. It was folly to think of all those things now. She was in the North and here she shall stay as long as that was expected of her. Andrew had placed his trust in her as much as her father had and she was not about to break that trust by riding away on her own no matter how much the thought was tempting.