Chapter Text
At her first wedding, Sansa wore silk and samite and drank summerwine. Now, here, it is winter, and there is fur lining her cuffs and her hood and her cloak, and the heat in her husband's full-moon silver eyes is welcome in a way Tyrion Lannister's warm, greedy hands never were.
Harrion is not a man given to smiling. His sister says that he was, once, but captivity and the cost of war have robbed him of that ease, just as they have Sansa. He tries for a smile as he wraps her in the heavy darkness of her new marriage cloak, and almost manages it when she wrinkles her nose against the tickle of the thick fringe of ice-bear fur that he is so careful to tuck close around her neck. Solemnity suits the long, serious lines of his face, but that small smile matches his bright-hot eyes better.
Sansa offers him her warmest smile in return. It is a tiny thing, made at great effort, but worth it for the pleasure that softens his ever-tense shoulders.
Sansa agreed to marry Harrion Karstark not for political gain - although as the finest warlord in the North short of the indomitable Umbers, there is plenty to be said for tying him a step closer to Winterfell. She did not agree to marry him for his sister’s sake either, no matter than Alys’ marriage to her wildling has done a great deal to bring peace to the further reaches of Bran’s kingdom, where the Magnar and his queen-in-all-but-name reconcile the lawless free folk with the two clashing laws of lowlanders and highlanders.
She did not agree to marry him to give Rickon a father-but-not who could be trusted, or to give Bran a strong right hand. She did not agree to marry him to stave off the requests for Arya’s hand, nor to quell the rising interest in Bran’s bed, stirred up by Meera Reed’s swelling belly, and by his betrothed’s supposed unsuitability.
She did not agree to marry him to guard against the other Harry, who chases her even now, on her wedding day, with aspirations to gaining-strength Sweetrobin’s lofty throne. She did not agree to marry him to scare away Petyr’s ghost, which trails unfriendly whispers in her wake. She did not agree to marry him to keep Tyrion’s phantom from her heels, nor the nightmare of Joffrey’s sworn threats.
Or rather, she did agree to marry him for all of those reasons. But she mostly agreed to marry him because he asked her to dance but did not expect her to smile. He arranged for a smith to come to Winterfell when none would come on her invitation, and even gave the man orders to forge a new sword for Arya. He personally ferried the plate glass for the gardens all the way from White Harbour, without her asking and without asking for anything in return, insisting that it was his duty to see that the King in the North was well provisioned. He brought her seeds to plant all kinds of flowers, and ribbons for her hair when such frivolous things were beyond what she could spare coin for.
He smiles for her, and for no one else. That is why Sansa agreed to marry him.
“It is our duty to lead the dancing, wife,” he says, rising from his seat and offering her his hand, and his support with it. They have guests from across the North and the Riverlands and the Vale, and Harry Hardyng’s eyes are near as pale as Harrion’s as they track her from across the room. Harrion will allow no harm or harassment, though, unwavering in his expectation of good behaviour from every man who so much as walks in her direction - himself included.
“And our pleasure, husband,” she assures him, winning another smile which she rewards with a kiss to the wine-flushed pink of his cheek above his dark beard. “Shall we?”
He hands her down from the dais gently, with war-worn hands, and Sansa thinks that it will not take much to soften him to careworn.
Arya begs Sansa’s assistance on some important endeavour just as a fresh cask of ale is opened. The errand turns out to be undoing Sansa’s hair, for Arya and Bran and Rickon agreed that they would ensure she did not have to endure the procession of a bedding.
She almost cries in the face of such a welcome, unexpected kindness. Almost. Sansa has not cried in years, and will not begin again at the gentle touch of Arya’s hands on her shoulders.
Harrion arrives with a knock on the door, and stands patiently aside until Arya is satisfied with her work. Then, as soon as she is gone, he bolts the door behind her, and crossed the room to open the windows a little.
“Begging your pardon, my lady, but the heat below was unbearable” he says, shucking his furs and fine clothes until he is down to his shirtsleeves. Without his tunic and cloak distracting attention, she can see the way the leather of his trews hugs his thighs, see the hard plane of his stomach where his shirt is tucked in tight, and she thinks that for the first time, she truly understands the weight of his thick, strong arms.
She is as tall as him, more or less, but when he takes her into those sturdy arms, she feels as delicate as any maiden in a song.
The road to the Karhold is long, but made easier by how much better Sansa is ahorse now than she was when last she rode forth from Winterfell.
They are a small party, herself and her husband, his few retainers, her few ladies, and as many guards as seemed sensible to bring travelling in the barely-crowned spring, and so they make good time. Sansa is delighted by the bright flashes of crocuses and tulips under the trees, and cannot help but exclaim when she sees the first clump of daffodils, so sunny and sweet, just off the road.
“True spring, then,” her husband says, his smile coming easier than she has ever before seen. His eyes seem bright in the sunlight, rather than pale, and she wonders if their children will have her river-blue or his winter-sun silver.
“We never really discussed your accommodations here,” Harrion says, guiding her into her new solar. “I hope they are to your liking.”
The furnishings are simple, sturdy and comfortable looking - and newly upholstered, she thinks, running her fingers along a line of shining brass studs atop a chairback.
“Your rooms are nearby?” she asks, coming to stand right before him, close enough that she can catch her fingers in his belt and be rewarded by his hands - careworn already, and them only a moon’s turn wed - settling on her hips. “Or will my nightly wanderings take me far afield?”
“The door to the left of the window takes you to your bedchamber,” he says. “The door to your right takes you to mine.”
“Oh! So this is less a solar than a sitting room?”
“I thought you might prefer something more private,” he says, his breath warm against her mouth, “for when we sit together in the evenings.”
Jeyne seems to be flourishing in the peace of the Karhold, and while she’s no seamstress - not with her hands as they are now - she’s discovered a love of weaving, and no small skill with it. The muted rush of her loom pairs sweetly with Dara Tallhart’s attempts on the harp, and the pluck-and-pull of Sansa’s embroidery. Wylla Manderly likes to knit, and the click-clack of her needles ticks along just sharp enough to keep them from getting sleepy.
Sansa will never allow Jeyne to be sent away, not unless Jeyne asks for it herself, but her other ladies are due to reverse her own path - little Dara for Rickon, bold Wylla for old-souled Bran, and she will see them all safe and well. She will see her brothers happy.
Arya will make her own way. Sansa does not know what that will be yet, but she will fight as fiercely as she knows how to keep Arya as herself - she has listened to her sister’s stories of the war, and she will never allow Arya to come close to that again. Sansa has spoken with her husband about safeguarding her sister, and Harrion, perhaps feeling that he owes Arya the protection Jon Snow once offered to Alys Karstark, has been more understanding than she could have hoped.
He has exceeded her hopes in many regards, she’s glad to say.
But Jeyne’s inability to help with the sewing, Dara’s complete lack of skill with dressmaking - despite an uncanny skill for the heavy Dornish-style blackwork that’s become popular since the war - and Wylla’s refusal to work in any medium other than wool has meant Sansa has been looking after her own repairs and adjustments since her arrival here. Oh, she has maids, two of them, capable girls with bright eyes and sensible minds, but she’s always enjoyed sewing, and she likes the freedom it has given her.
“Would you have been angry,” Harrion asks, one arm folded under his head and the other warm around her shoulders, “had I done as your brother has?”
“What, sired a bastard while we were betrothed?”
Sansa considers this. Hurt, perhaps, but she does not think she would have been angry. Confused, as well, because he has been so earnest in his protestations of loyalty and affection since she accepted his suit.
“Surprised,” she says. “It does not seem in character for you.”
“Nor for your brother, I would have thought,” Harrion says. “And yet his betrothed sleeps under our roof, while his child has been born to another woman this past week. A strange thing.”
“Our mother would have been heartbroken,” Sansa admits. “I know how much pain Jon’s presence caused her in our home, and Mother would have been furious that Bran was risking that pain for another woman.”
“Well,” he says. “Just as well I’ve managed not to shame either one of us before we managed a child between us.”
She leans up to scowl down at him, but can’t quite maintain it in the face of his broad, unrelenting smile. The sun in winter indeed!
“Did you plan on telling me,” he asks, sitting up with her so he can gather her against his warmth, “or was I supposed to guess when you ran out of seam to let out on your gowns?”
“Whatever my plans were, you’ve spoiled them now,” she says, but she doesn’t mind. Not really.
“Boy or a girl, my lady?” Wylla asks, draping a half-finished blanket over Sansa’s shoulder. It’s dark blue, edged with white, and Wylla brings Sansa’s hair forward as if testing the play of colours. “I know everyone says they want a boy first, but I can’t help thinking you’d suit a little daughter.”
“So long as the babe is healthy,” Jeyne says, her loom whispering under her careful hands. “That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”
“Having a boy first would be very neat,” Sansa concedes. “It would leave us at our leisure to have the rest, I think.”
Harrion is leaning against the doorframe, watching proceedings with that small smile on his face. Sansa thinks she’d prefer their first child to have his eyes, pale and warm, but perhaps her own nose. Her nose is long and straight, true, but not so long as his, and would look less out of place on a babe’s face.
“Either way,” she says. “Jeyne is right - so long as the babe is healthy, we need ask no more.”
Dara bundles her way past Harrion with a parcel in her arms - a heavy wooden box, with elaborate silver fittings and a falcon on the latch.
Oh dear.
“Look, my lady!” Dara trills. “A gift all the way from the Vale!”
“From Robin, I hope,” Harrion says, stepping forward to take the box from Dara. “But from his cousin, I fear.”
Harrold Hardyng’s persistence, all these long years, has not endeared him to many in the North - Sansa managed to avoid wedding him in Petyr’s schemes when she was a girl, but she is four-and-twenty now, a woman wed with her husband’s child near due to be born, and still he seeks to bed her. Gods willing Robin will be well enough to get a child on his Upcliffe before the early death everyone insists he will suffer, and, though it is probably blasphemous or evil, Sansa would feel a little better if it turned out that pretty, smiling Maryden was a sorceress such as her ancestresses are reputed to have been. Even Harry Hardyng and his insatiable lusts would pause against such a sinister legend.
But this - this is indecent! Had this gift, whatever it is, come from Robin, that might have been one thing, but behind the falcon on the latch is a chequer of red-and-white enamel - Harry’s personal badge. The fiend.
“It will be expensive,” Sansa says, keeping her hands on the huge swell of her belly when Harrion settles beside her with the box. “And it will be vulgar, somehow, I just know it.”
“Not everyone has tastes as elegant as yours, my love,” Harrion says. “Not even I can match you, sweetheart.”
“No indeed,” Sansa agrees, hugely amused now that he’s apparently taking this disturbance well. “I shall endeavour to train it into you, my darling. Now - unveil whatever hideous thing my dear old friend has sent.”
“Had any other man sent you a courting gift while you were carrying my child, I’d be furious,” Harrion murmurs just for her ears, throwing back the latch and rolling his eyes. “But given it’s Hardyng, I cannot even pretend surprise.”
The lid opens silently, and Sansa wonders if the silversmith in town will be able to remove that horrible decoration from the latch - the box itself is a pretty thing, so there’ll be some use out of all of this.
“Gods be good,” Harrion says, irritation and laughter equal in his voice. “What a fool that man is.”
He stands to draw the full length of the cloak from the trunk, and when he holds it up, it seems long enough that it might fit him, never mind Sansa and certainly never mind the babe.
“Perhaps Ser Harrold has set his sights on a more difficult prize even than me,” Sansa says, biting her lip to keep from laughing - and she even succeeds, until Harrion shoots her an absolutely scandalised look the moment he realises what she means.
Jeyne laughs too, and Wylla, and even Dara - although Sansa isn’t sure Dara understands why she’s laughing.
Harrion sits back down, laughing as well, and he swings Harry’s enormous cloak around them both, using it to draw Sansa almost into his lap.
“Well,” he says, tucking the shadowcat fur up around Sansa’s neck, “at least it’s in my colours.”