The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

5.05

"I thought I might find you here," the voice of Petyr Baelish echoes towards her, following the sound of footsteps she'd easily recognize for whose they were. He steps up beside her and gazes at the large statue with a lovely face that cannot be mistaken for Lyanna Stark, "Your Aunt Lyanna."

"Father never talked about her. Sometimes I'd find him down here, lighting the candles," Sansa's warm voice parts for him, that homely smile taking root as she looks upon the dreary sight of death. "They say she was beautiful."

"I saw her once," Littlefinger replies, and Sansa cannot hide her curiosity as she turns to him with wondering blue eyes. "I was a boy, living with your mother's family. Lord Whent had a great tourney at Harrenhal. Everyone was there. The Mad King, your father, Robert Baratheon. And Lyanna, she was already promised to Robert."

"You can imagine what it was like for me, a boy from nowhere, with nothing to his name, watching these legendary men, tilting at the lists. The last two riders were Barristan Selmy and Rhaegar Targaryen. When Rhaegar won, everyone cheered for the prince. I remember the girls laughing when he took off his helmet and they saw that silver hair. How handsome he was."

"Until he rode right past his wife, Elia Martell, and all the smiles died. I've never seen so many people so quiet. He rode past his wife, and he lay a crown of winter roses in Lyanna's lap. Blue as frost. How many tens of thousands had to die because Rhaegar chose your aunt?"

"Yes, he chose her... and then he kidnapped her and raped her," Sansa responds with the story she's heard many times over, never from her father but from those of King's Landing. And yet, there was the singular exception on part of the truly honest woman--Littlefinger's daughter. Lyanna and Rhaegar loved each other. But even Sansa doubts that such a love could ever excuse the death of thousands in their folly.

As Sansa and Petyr stroll through the crypt with words exchanged, the whoremonger turns to her with those sly eyes of many plots playing in his favor. "Once Stannis liberates these lands from the Boltons he'll rally your father's bannermen to his cause. With the North behind him, Stannis can finally take the Iron Throne."

"You think he'll defeat the Boltons?" Sansa asks, yet highly doubts at the same time as Petyr always picks the winning side--and he'd never met with Stannis in the recent years. No, Littlefinger expects the Lannisters to win.

But Petyr does not see her suspicions, and he plays into her expectations, "He has a larger army. He's the finest military commander in Westeros. A betting man would put his money on Stannis. As it happens, I am a betting man."

"And if you're right?" Sansa asks, intent on being prepared for all outcomes, fair or false.

"Stannis takes Winterfell, he rescues you from the most despised family in the North. Grateful for your late father's courageous support for his claim, he names you Wardeness of the North," Littlefinger relates, and Sansa's struck not by the title but with a sudden realization of what Petyr intends. Marry her and become Warden of the North. She wants to beat him for using her, and scream at him for thinking she's ignorant enough to believe him.

But she does neither in her acting, instead stuttering with false surprise, "But I, I wouldn't... Wardeness of the North"

"You are the last surviving Stark," Baelish presses. "He needs you."

"What if you're wrong? What if Stannis never attacks Winterfell, or he does and the Boltons defeat him?" Sansa has to ask, knowing she'll need all the knowledge she can acquire to achieve revenge on both the Boltons and Petyr Baelish.

Petyr grins snakily at her, "Then you will take this Bolton boy, Ramsay, and make him yours."

"I don't know how to do that." Yes, she does.