Chapter Text
The Queen in the North clung to the branch of the Heart Tree like a blossom in the wind. Her arms ached, and she gasped for enough breath to say a single word. “ Enough .”
A single word. For anyone else in the North, one word from their Queen was a command. But Brienne of Tarth was not anyone else.
“Five more breaths, My Lady,” said Brienne. Her always-calm voice would not accept defeat. “Pull the branch toward you. Use the shoulders.”
Queen Sansa Stark counted. Her long red braid and woolen skirts swung as she kicked, trying to heave herself up without losing her grip. She thought of letting go. It would be a blessed relief to her burning arms to finally rest. She had fallen so many times before, Brienne would only think she was weak, and would not guess that she was simply giving up.
Sansa Stark did not give up.
“Enough,” Brienne finally said, and Sansa let go, falling staggering onto the ground.
Jeyne Poole, her childhood friend, helped Sansa to her feet. “You torment her,” Jeyne scolded Brienne. “When I agreed to help you train, I imagined a useful skill like archery. Not this silliness. Why not a bow? Why not knife work?” Jeyne herself kept a dagger in the garter of her stocking.
Brienne shook off the suggestion that she would ever torment their Queen. “Any fighting man can hoist his weight. Most women cannot. A simple exercise. A clear goal.” They had trained many mornings in the Godswood, and neither Jeyne nor the Queen could yet lift Brienne’s great Valyrian steel sword. “Your skirts are too heavy, My Lady. Tomorrow perhaps you will try the breeches Jeyne made for your training.”
“No thank you. Skirts will do.” Sansa would never be seen in breeches, not even by her two most trusted friends. “I don’t know how you can move with your belly and legs bound up. And anyone can see –” anyone could see your bum , is what she meant, but would not say something so undignified.
“Come clean up for the Council meeting,” Jeyne said, throwing a cloak over Sansa’s shoulders as they made their way back through the halls of Winterfell. “There is much to do. We host Lord Wyllem Manderly for dinner.” They’d had the breeches argument before, and they would again. As with so many things, the Queen had her mind made up. Her friends could only stand ready, preparing for the day when she changed it.
Brienne would provide the Queen no weapons before she was ready. First, she would make Sansa Stark stronger. Brienne was not only the Captain of the Queensguard. She was Ser Brienne , bound by an oath that had passed down a generation to Sansa. The oath ran deeper, for Brienne, than her allegiance to her own home and family in Tarth. Brienne would die for Sansa. She had killed for her many times over.
Now peace had come to the North. Stark banners hung freely from Winterfell, and the North’s Great Houses swore grateful allegiance to their Queen. And Sansa, Queen in the North, swore to serve them. To protect the North from its enemies. To bring prosperity to the land. But prosperity required justice, and hard work, and difficult decisions. Sansa Stark was a young Queen with much to learn. The wars had passed, but enemies still could be anywhere. Even her loyal bannerman, Lord Wyllem Manderly, would not visit Winterfell out of simple friendship. There could always be danger afoot. Brienne hated politics.
In Winterfell’s Armory, near the Blacksmith’s forge, Brienne was grateful for the fire in the hearth and thick stone walls against the chill. All around were the arms of House Stark: swords, carefully cleaned and sheathed. Shield upon shield shining with the great sigil of the Stark’s Direwolf. Axes, maces, knives. Iron chains bound the weapons to their hooks and great iron locks secured cabinets and cases.
The Armorer, a thin man with sharp eyes and a great belt of keys at his waist, always welcomed the Captain of the Queensguard. “A fresh edge for the great blade, Ser?” The Armorer knew a knight when he saw one, and never addressed Brienne as My Lady.
Brienne’s longsword had not seen enough use of late to need sharpening. But she unsheathed it anyway, laid it on his worktable, and they admired it together. Oathkeeper: one of two daughter swords formed of Ice, the former greatsword of the late Ned Stark, Warden of the North under King Robert Baratheon. The Armorer ran a woolen cloth along the rippling pattern of Valyrian steel. The Armorer passed no judgment on Oathkeeper’s hilt, the golden lion of House Lannister. He knew Brienne had many stories that were not his to tell.
Brienne asked after the Armorer’s inventory, and he walked her proudly through the great ledger of Winterfell’s armaments. Not all who worked in Winterfell could read and write, but the Armorer must record every weapon in the Queen’s custody. Even his assistant, a boy feeding logs into the fire, was learning his numbers.
Brienne always had one question. “Is this all of it?” She must know of any rumor of finding more steel. She must ask whether he had word from the armorers of the North’s other Great Houses.
The Armorer assured her. He had inventories from the armories of Manderly and Reed, and most importantly, House Glover, a great military power in its own right. “If you want more steel, Ser Brienne, there’s always the Ash Ridge, but I know –”
“-- the Queen says no,” said Brienne. The Ash Ridge was a pile of war wreckage, burned bones and rusting metal. Brienne knew it could hide treasures. The Queensguard patrolled it for scavenging. But the Queen declared it off limits for exploration, and Brienne was happy to obey. It did not take a superstitious person to believe the Ash Ridge could well be haunted by the kind of Dead who would not take kindly to pillaging.
Brienne examined the Armory’s daggers, and considered whether Jeyne Poole was right. Swordswork was beyond the Queen’s strength, but she asked the Armorer what he might have that was small. Something lightweight, but strong. “A dagger for a novice.” The Armorer showed her some simple blades, and she selected one of shining steel.
“But if I may, Ser Brienne –” he handed the boy a broom and shooed him outside. “If I’m guessing who this dagger is for, Blacksmith would be proud to make one anew. A sharp blade, delicate enough for a lady. A blade to fit a --” He nodded toward the Queen’s tower. The Armorer took pride in keeping secrets, and did not want to presume.
“I’ll think about it.”
Outside in the courtyard, Brienne saw the Armorer’s boy wearing only his shirtsleeves, sweeping fallen leaves into a great pile.
“Aren’t you cold, boy?” Brienne asked. She wished for another layer of linen beneath her cloak.
But the Armorer’s boy was not bothered. “Not too cold for a Northerner! Begging your pardon, Ser!”
Everyone at Winterfell knew she was from the South. Brienne smiled faintly and kicked the leaf pile with her boot, then quickly apologized to the Armorer’s boy for mussing his work. She should not be afraid of the cold. These were only leaves – simple oak and maple. She could build her hearthfire high and shake out her heaviest cloak.
But it wasn’t only the cold that made her dread the autumn. Autumn meant winter, and winter still carried the dark weight of death. Even though she had fought in the Battle of the Long Night and seen Arya Stark defeat the Night King. Even though the Northerners seemed to embrace it, this cycle of the year’s natural seasons – a time of harvest and shortening of days to rest after the sweet moons of summer. Even though they had survived one natural year already, singing through the dark days by candlelight and greeting the fresh spring with grateful tears. It was only a season.
Still, Brienne was vigilant. Winter was coming.
And Brienne hated winter.