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"Let me down," he croaks. "Please."
Theon can't remember how long he's been hung up here, chained by the wrists, feet dangling six feet from the floor. He has long lost all feeling in his arms and shoulders, or maybe more accurately the pain in his arms and shoulders grew so immense that he can't tell where the pain starts and where it ends any more. He doesn't know how much strength he has left to endure, only that it isn't much. So he must beg.
"Please. I'll do everything you want."
He used to tell Ramsay the same thing, but Ramsay never wanted anything, really, except his Reek's fear and misery. "You're already giving me what I want," Ramsay once smiled, softly stroking Reek's bloodied head. For Stannis, though, Theon's hurt is secondary; Stannis might yet tire of his begging.
"Unchain me," he begs.
Stannis, seated straight-backed on his lone chair at his desk, briefly looks up in irritation.
"Quiet," he commands.
Theon's vision is blurry. He can barely lift his head. The run through the blizzard, the time spent trudging through the snow, days without eating, nights without sleep, Stannis' sharp questioning, it all depleted him. And he wasn't strong to begin with.
Stannis sits with his jaw clenched shut, bowed over his maps and papers. There is no bed up here in the tower. Clearly, the king doesn't plan on sleeping.
If at least Theon was allowed to stand with his feet on the floor, it might be easier to breathe. It might relieve his shoulders. Now, his weight is dragging him down; he struggles for air. Drowning while hung up in the sky. Theon chortles through the pain, then starts back on his begging.
"Please," he begs. "Let me down."
Stannis skewers him with angry blue eyes. He looks like he wants to swat at him like a fly, hard enough to shut him up for good. He also looks as if the effort to stand up and do so was more than he currently could bear.
"Quiet," he hisses. "I will not suffer your interruptions."
"I'll be quiet. If you let me down."
Stannis scoffs and doesn't dignify this with a response.
Someone is crying. Jeyne, Theon briefly worries, Jeyne back on her bridal bed, but then he remembers.
"You must let me down," he tells Stannis, crying.
I will die, he thinks. And what would be so wrong about that?
Theon misses the ravens. The ravens knew his name, they sung it loudly. A comfort. The king had them removed from the room, they were too noisy. Theon, he kept. Theon should be noisy, too, then. He should rattle his chains and make a commotion, until Stannis looses his patience. But Theon can't find the strength to even kick his feet feebly any more, let alone move with energy, and he can barely breathe, let alone shout.
"Release me," he whispers.
But his voice is so weak by now, maybe the king doesn't hear him.
---
"I have neither the time nor the patience for your scheming," Stannis warns. "So make it quick."
The ironborn girl requested another audience, very tenaciously so. As Stannis suffered through several even worse fools prior to this, he saw no reason to refuse her, though he doubts anything useful will come out of it. Everything is already set in motion.
Asha Greyjoy raises from the knee she took before him. "I have a proposition to make," she starts, but then her head turns sideways and her eyes set on Theon Greyjoy.
"What... Have you kept him like this all this time?" she asks.
"It keeps him safe and at hand," Stannis replies.
Asha's face turns tight. Her eyes dance from the turncloak to the guards and back to Stannis.
The turncloak quietly hangs in his chains, head bowed forward, face obscured by mats of dirty hair. He doesn't stir.
"What have you done to him?" she hisses.
Stannis scoffs. She wasn't as concerned as all that when her brother spent months at the Dreadford.
"I ordered him to keep quiet," he says, irritated.
Stannis is well aware of the fact that many want a piece of his turncloak. The turncloak came to him, though, and Stannis will not let himself be taken advantage of. The Greyjoy girl probably hopes to spring an escape as soon as he lets him out of his sight. Maybe stage a little show of pity to get him released from his chains, as if that would help her any. If she thinks she can steal his captive under his nose, she better think again.
"Did you kill him?" Asha Greyjoy is growing agitated. "You shouldn't have left him to hang like this, weak and starved as he is..."
"Enough! You forget your place."
This ridiculous. A few hours spent hanging won't kill Greyjoy, not if he was hardy enough to survive Bolton. As for starved, Stannis has seen worse. Still, it won't serve to have the Greyjoy girl grow erratic over this. Stannis reaches up to jostle his captive into consciousness.
The turncloak is unresponsive and cold. Stannis gnaws on his own teeth.
"Let him down," he orders the guard.
Chains losened, Theon Greyjoy falls to the floor, hitting the stone with a dull thump.
Stannis crouches at his side, lifts the grimy head with one hand. Under the tangled strings of hair, Greyjoy's face is grey. He's limp, so there's that. His chest is moving , shallow but regular. He is alive. And why wouldn't he be.
"Unconscious," Stannis determines. "Preferable, as he won't prattle on through the night. I grew tired of his madman's titters and his impertinence."
He rises. "Now get out, you wasted enough of my time."
This would be a very appropriate time to bow and leave, instead Asha Greyjoy foolishly keeps complaining.
"It is not right to mistreat him so. Hasn't he suffered enough?"
"I don't mind his suffering," Stannis tells her coolly. "Your brother is a turncloak and a criminal, lest you have forgotten."
Asha Greyjoy looks like she has a great many more things to say to that, but the guard still stands next to her, weapon in hand, and Stannis' hand lies on his own sword.
Asha Greyjoy's smile might have passed as sweet in another context.
"I'm sure it would be so inconvenient if my brother was to die from mistreatment and neglect before you can make proper use of his public sacrifice."
"Why? I could hang up his dead body for all to see, to be burned or tarred or staked, like he did to his foster brothers, who were small boys of three and seven. Now go."
Asha Greyjoy walks out with visible reluctance, eyes fixed on her brother's body.
---
Stannis waits to be alone to take a closer look.
Unfortunately, Asha Greyjoy is quite right. It would be somewhat inconvenient if the turncloak was to die on him like this. Ridiculous, even, useless and foolish.
Stannis pokes at the man, then slaps him hard.
Theon Greyjoy indeed is as starved as a man can get; a skeleton with skin. Stannis has seen worse only on corpses. Greyjoy stirs only after a long while and much jostling. He attempts to curl up protectively but clearly lacks the strength to, stares up at Stannis with naked fear in his eyes. A sour taste settles on Stannis tongue at the sight.
"I won't hurt you," he hears himself say, not quite knowing why he would say such a thing. "Not right now, at least," he amends his lie.
Greyjoy gives him a breathless little chuckle, teeth bared against the floor. He closes his eyes again.
Stannis rises to a stand, then briefly hesitates. For half a moment he entertains the suspicion that Greyjoy might be playacting his weakness to get him to let his guard down. He might attack or run once Stannis has his back turned. Unlikely, he decides. Greyjoy's physical state is doubtlessly dire. Besides, his wrists are still chained to the wall.
The turncloak doesn't deserve gentle treatment but Stannis wishes him to remain alive for the time being and any further ungentleness might kill him. Stannis throws him a skin filled with water. Greyjoy licks his cracked lips, eyes fixed on the skin, struggles to pick it up, tries to work himself back into a sitting position, movement pained and slow.
Stannis watches him for a few heartbeats, then sits back at his desk to resumes his work. He becomes aware that he hasn't drunk or eaten anything himself in a long while. He will have to sleep, too, eventually. Stannis grits his teeth, infuriated, postpones the problem for a while, then finally goes instruct the guard about this.
"And something for him," he adds, gesturing at Greyjoy.
Greyjoy hasn't succeeded in his task, seems to have given up mid-way. Now he half leans half droops against the wall, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He dropped the waterskin, unopened. His eyes stare vaguely at the floor, resigned.
Stannis exhales in annoyance, but finds himself crouching next to the prisoner again, pushes him up into a proper sit, presses the opened waterskin into his hands, even helps him lift the weight of it to his lips when he can't seem to manage to on his own. Greyjoy drinks avidly, near downing half the skin, and looks slightly less withered in the face afterwards.
"It wasn't poisoned?" he croaks.
Stannis could comment on the stupidity of the question. Instead, he just says: "It wasn't."
Greyjoy looks up as if to search Stannis' face, then starts his giggling again.
Stannis leaves him be. He has work to go back to.
---
The stone floor feels distant and muted under Theon's fingertips, as if he was wearing gloves. He tries to move his fingers, but they don't cooperate. His everything hurts, but he is not thirsty any more, and he is lying curled up on the sweet, sweet ground, as such, he is content.
"What are you crying for?"
Stannis' voice. He sounds irritated.
Theon wasn't aware of any crying, but now he can taste the salt on his lips.
"I'm sorry," he cowers, a well-trained animal.
Stannis clenches his jaw. He sets a small bowl of food in front of Theon.
The king wants him alive after all, then. For now, at least. Theon isn't sure it is a mercy. The food looks soft, like Theon could eat it. He doesn't suppose Stannis will go quite as far in his attentions as to spoon-feed him like a baby chicken, though. So Theon tries to sit up again. It goes better this time, but when he is propped against the wall, he is dizzy and nauseous, and feels too sick for the food.
"The Lady Arya," he asks, instead. A more pressing concern. "How is she?"
Stannis throws him a look. "She is no concern of yours anymore."
The wall at Theon's back is rough and cool. Theon can feel himself shivering.
"She is," he insists. "I am concerned."
"Your concerns are irrelevant to me," Stannis says.
Gods, but Theon is tired.
"They should be," Theon rallies anyway, delirious somewhere beyond fear. "It is your duty to protect her now."
Theon has spent a few terrible days with Stannis at most, yet already the man is proving very predictable. "Do not presume to lecture me about duty, turncloak," the king snaps, predictably. "All my life I have been dutiful. What would you know about it."
Make him listen, Theon thinks. He must listen.
"I know that if you don't take Bolton seriously, you will fail. You needn't hurt me so, I will help you, if you'd only listen. You must help her, too. Don't let Bolton get us back."
The thought itself has Theon's body lock up in terror; he closes his eyes against the pain. When he's able to open them again, he finds the king standing over him, jaw muscles bulged.
"Tell me what you think I have failed to hear."
Theon's heart starts racing. Stannis promised he wouldn't hurt him, not yet. It's not that Stannis won't lie, if needs be. He would. But he wouldn't gaud Theon into a game, hopefully. He wouldn't ask only to punish the answer. At any rate, Theon must try.
"You are underestimating him. He is sneaky, he knows mummery, and subterfuge, he won't be where you expect him to be."
"Might be you are underestimating me. What evidence do you have of this man's abilities."
"Look at what happened to us."
Stannis' looks at him with contempt.
"The fate of weaklings is no warning to me."
Theon laughs. Ruthless man. Might he have a chance against the bastard.
He looks up at Stannis between dirty white bangs. "The fate of the Lady Arya is no warning to you?"
Stannis suckles at his teeth, masticates on his molars.
"Will you give me actual information or will you prattle on feeling sorry for yourself."
How to explain Ramsay?
"Have you learned the story of the Lady Hornwood and how Ramsay survived?"
"Vaguely."
Theon starts, and to Stannis' credit, he seems to be listening. Theon barely reached the part where Ramsay tricked his way out of the Winterfell dungeons when his strength flags again.
"Speak up!" Stannis orders, irritated. Theon's voice has turned small and slurred again.
Theon closes his eyes, wakes to Stannis' slap on his cheek.
"You must eat first," Stannis decides.
The king kneels right in front of him, wants to press the bowl into his hands, but Theon's arms can't cooperate. To Theon's shock and discomfort, Stannis then actually takes the spoon to the bowl and then to Theon's mouth, all while steadying him. He does so brusquely and pragmatically. Theon needs to eat to be of any use, Theon lacks the strength to feed himself, so the king takes matters in his own hands. Like that. He could order one of his men to. Mayhaps he doesn't want anyone else to know the details of Theon's survival.
Theon is too anxious -- or maybe too angry -- to cooperate, though, trembling under the king's touch. The food dribbles down his chin.
"Take this in your mouth and swallow," the king instructs, impatiently.
Theon starts laughing, he can't help it. His laughter leads to choking, leads to coughing, leads to crying some more. The king looks ready to slap him in the face again.
Go on, Theon thinks, uncertain of what or whom he hates the most in the world right now.
"Wait, please," is what he says, instead. In Reek's pleading little voice. "Listen to me." He can't eat while talking about Ramsay. He can't eat while thinking about Ramsay.
Stannis complies and waits. Theon hates himself for his gratitude. What a well-worn boot his mind is.
"He called himself Reek..." Theon continues the tale.
Telling about Ramsay doesn't go easy, not even omitting everything Ramsay did to him. Theon gives his best, whatever that might be. Might this information help. After, Stannis lets Theon curl up on the floor and, true to his word, doesn't hurt him. He still means to have me executed; Theon knows. Maybe burned. But for now. For now...