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The Queen in the North stands in the breezeway overlooking Winterfell’s courtyard; she can remember glancing up from her childhood play to see her mother in this same spot, a warm smile on her pretty lips as she watched her children caper and cavort.
(The smile would dim whenever Jon appeared, but Lady Catelyn would stay in place and continue to watch all the same.)
“Watch me, Ser Jaime! Watch me!”
Sansa’s son brandishes his wooden sword in his left hand. His Aunt Arya had been delighted to discover that her nephew was left-handed, and during her last visit to Winterfell, she’d taken it upon herself to visit the woodworkers and help them craft a sword that would fit comfortably in Edmund’s dominant hand. The little boy holds it firmly now, his green eyes narrowing with concentration as he tries to find the proper position for his feet.
Jaime slides from his seat on the stone wall and offers the child a grin before stepping around him and kneeling at his back. He hesitates for a moment- he always hesitates for a moment before touching Edmund- and then places his hands under the boy’s elbows and guides his arms upward.
“You’ll want your sword a little higher- gives you better control.” He releases Edmund and steps away, tilting his head before nodding, his smile wider than ever before. “Very good. You’re quite the fearsome sight now, Your Highness.”
“Will you fight with me? Please, Ser Jaime, please...” Edmund scurries up to Jaime and prods him with the tip of his practice sword. Jaime’s eyes darken a shade as he looks at the child’s pleading face, and he lowers his left hand to softly ruffle Edmund’s yellow curls before he nods.
“Aye, but only for a little while, my prince. It’s nearly time for supper.”
“Ah, I see how it is.”
She nearly jumps at the sudden arrival of the voice behind her. The Queen turns and smiles at her Lady Commander, who bows her head in a respectful nod before moving to stand beside Sansa.
“I’m company enough for the little prince while the Lord Commander is away. But once Ser Jaime returns, I may as well be invisible.”
There’s no actual affront in Brienne’s tone, and Sansa replies with a shrug,
“I know the feeling. I don’t think Edmund’s spared me so much as a glance since Jaime came back from the Wall.”
Brienne and Sansa stand together in a benevolent sort of silence, watching as the tall, golden-haired man and the small, golden-haired boy circle each other in the yard, green eyes locked on green eyes.
And then Sansa wrinkles her nose and puffs a sigh of exasperation. On his right hand, Edmund wears one of the beautiful, expensive golden-yellow kid-gloves that Margaery Tyrell sent him on his last name-day. Its fellow, however, is nowhere to be seen.
It’s unlike her son to wear anything as fussy as these gloves by choice, but it is very like him to lose one of the set. She shakes her head as she mutters, “He really cannot have anything fine. It always comes back torn or dirty or half-missing...”
When Brienne responds with a quizzical stare, she elaborates: “He’s only had those gloves for three moons, and he’s already lost one. What he’s doing playing with them on, I’m sure I don’t know...”
Suddenly, Brienne laughs, and Sansa whips her head around to face the other woman.
“Your Grace, the prince often wears that glove when he plays on the training field. And it’s always just on the one hand.” Brienne pauses expectantly, but Sansa isn’t sure what she’s meant to understand.
Then the Lady Commander leans forward and says with a pointed nod toward the figures on the field, “It’s always just on his
right
hand.”
And now she understands. The Queen in the North leans against the rail and watches Jaime and Edmund, their swords in their left hands, flashes of gold in place of their right. An overzealous charge at his opponent causes Edmund to slip in a damp patch of mud, and he falls hard on the ground. Jaime drops his sword and rushes to the boy, eyes wild with panic, and he collapses to his knees in the mud to take Edmund in his arms and scan his body for injuries. But the prince of Winterfell just laughs, squirming away from the Lord Commander and demanding that he take up his weapon again.
Long after Brienne leaves her to set the nightly assignments for Winterfell’s guard, Sansa remains in the breezeway, a peculiar knot forming in her throat as she continues to observe. Edmund has yet to ask about his father; he knows that he is the Son of the North, the heir to everything above the Neck, the child of the Winter Queen, and that is quite enough for him. She wonders vaguely whether he even truly understands what a father
is
, and the idea both relieves and pains her.
She has no doubt that Edmund would be delighted, were he to learn who sired him, and she sees no reason to keep the truth from him when the time comes; Jaime knows better than to try and assert any real claim, and Edmund will have spent enough years raised in a matriarchy to understand how little it means. But this is enough for now- for Edmund and Jaime both, she thinks.
The sun nearly vanishes completely below the horizon before Maester Sam calls Edmund in for his supper and evening lessons. Jaime nudges the filthy, reluctant child up the steps to the breezeway; Edmund offers Sansa a distracted hug around the waist before turning to Jaime.
“Will you come and read to me before I go to sleep?”
Jaime smiles down at his wide-eyed little doppleganger and nods. “Of course I will. Go on now; don’t make Maester Sam wait any longer for his supper. I think I can hear his belly growling from all the way over here.”
Sansa shoots Jaime a sharp glare of disapproval, but Edmund giggles merrily, turning on his heel and racing toward the portly young man on the other side of the field gallery.
Jaime’s gaze follows the boy until he disappears into the castle with Samwell. There’s a tenderness in his expression that quite takes her breath away; without thinking, she steps closer and places her hand on his arm, squeezing gently as she says,
“He loves you.”
The Lord Commander opens his mouth to reply, but for the first time since Sansa’s known him, he seems quite speechless.
He removes his arm from her grasp and brings it around to encircle her waist. She blinks with surprise; they’re never so familiar without the protection of closed doors. But she utters no words of protest, instead stepping closer and resting her head on his breastplate. A flood of warmth courses through her body, pinching at her muscles and bubbling in her blood- her own words echo in her ears:
“He loves you.”
But in her head, she replaces the first pronoun...the words push at her lips, and she isn’t sure that she’ll have the time or the wherewithal to bite them back-
And then she takes a breath to collect herself (it isn’t time yet, she isn’t ready yet). She tilts her face up to smile at Jaime before she says, “Brienne set the assignments already. After you’ve seen to Edmund, you’ll be guarding my chambers tonight.”
Jaime returns her smile before bringing his face close and whispering, “As my ladies command.”
She grains upward, he grains down- just a light brushing of lips over lips, but enough to set Sansa’s pulse to thrumming. He asks her leave to depart- she agrees, trying to ignore the sinking in her stomach- and crosses the gallery to exit in the same direction as Edmund and Maester Sam.
Sansa watches him go, the dim torchlight casting a reddish glow on his golden hair. And then a sudden smile, wide and bright, as she wonders what Edmund would think of a little brother or sister.