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Silent as shadows, the mist curled around the bases of the trees. Wreaths of thick fog unfurled themselves like the sails of a ship and drifted slowly, steadily, eerily, through the Godswood. As she walked along, a lantern in her hand to guide her way, Catelyn could feel the cold stinging her cheeks and the closeness of the great grey-white voids on either side of her was still, even after all these years, unnerving. Every sound was amplified, from the soft crunching of her footsteps in the frosted leaf litter, to the roaring of her breath as it plumed out in front of her.
A shiver rippled through her, setting her teeth a-chatter, and in response, she wrapped the edges of her cloak around her tighter. How he could sit out here for hours at a time had always been a mystery to her; after just a few moments, she was chilled to the bone.
She knew where he would be. Even as the seasons changed, that part remained the same.
Ned had not told her he was coming here – he never did – but thirteen years of marriage taught you a lot about a person, and if there was one thing she was confident about, it was that she knew her husband. He would come here whenever his mind was troubled, whenever he felt the need to cleanse himself of something, or whenever he simply wanted to be alone with his thoughts. She reflected that it was not so unlikely a thing that he should come here now. After all, they had been through much and more these last two weeks. She had been four moons gone with their fifth babe when she had woken in the dead of night to feel the sheets sticky and wet beneath her body. She had thrown herself from the bed, her hands reaching shakily for a light, but knowing what she would see even before the candle sputtered and the flame caught.
Losing a babe was a terrible thing for a woman, and she had been blessed in that she had never suffered such a cruelty before, though that did not mean that when it happened, she grieved less.
But Catelyn had lived within these walls for almost half her life now and in the North, there was little patience with the indulging of emotions. Grief was kept within, just as every other emotion was, though that did not mean it was any less potent. So, the very next day, she set her face in stone and went about her household duties as if nothing had happened. She had felt the eyes of the castle upon her – she had just begun to show and now her belly was flat, and like every castle, Winterfell traded its gossip. They did not mean ill, of course, but Catelyn did not have need of their sympathies. She would endure this. She was young yet, and the maester said there was no reason why she could not bear another child very soon.
Ned, for his part, dealt with their little tragedy the same way he dealt with Robb’s sword-fighting injuries, Bran’s temper tantrums, and Sansa and Arya’s bickering – with stoical quiet. When he had asked after her, she had told him that she was fine, but one look in his soft grey eyes had told her that he had seen her lie for what it was. He had known she was hurting. And she had known that he was also, although he had shed neither a tear nor talked a word about it.
Two weeks had passed in this carefully constructed impasse, before he had disappeared late in the afternoon to his Godswood. Catelyn had not seen him leave, but she had noticed his absence at supper, and when night fell, he had still not returned. So she had donned cloak and boots and called for a lantern and gone out into the darkness to find him.
She found him seated on the mossy boulder before his heart tree, his head bowed in prayer. In that moment before her light drew his attention, he looked so vulnerable, so young, and his grief was plain to see. Her heart went out to him.
Above his head the full moon filtered through the blood-red weirwood leaves and bathed his form in a soft and lonely glow. “Ned,” she called quietly.
He lifted his head, and in the drawing in of breath, his face had slipped on its mask again. “Cat, what are you doing out here? You should be inside where it’s warm.”
She said nothing; she could not disagree. But where she should be and where she wanted to be were two different things. “I came to find you,” she explained as she approached him. “You’ve been gone for hours and I was worried. Supper has been served and eaten.”
“Hm,” he said and frowned, though it was clear that he had not even noticed his missed meal. His eyes slipped back to the black pool that lay before the heart tree. Its deep, dark waters were so still they were mirror-like and Catelyn could see her own image reflected in them as true as in her own looking-glass. The pool never froze though, even when everything else was covered in snow or hoar frost so thick it had turned the world to white. She waited a moment. Normally, when she came to him here in the Godswood, she would spread her cloak on the ground and sit beside him, but tonight it was much too cold for that.
“Are you well, my love?” she asked finally, when he did not speak again. He looked up at her and regarded her with thought.
“I might ask the same of you,” he said.
Catelyn smiled ruefully at that. They knew each other well. She held out her hand and he took it, then pulled her to him. She stood in the v of his open thighs and he placed both his hands on her waist beneath her cloak. Closing his eyes, he gave a sigh, and then rested his head on her belly. Catelyn frowned at the gesture – almost without exception, Ned kept his expressions of love or dependence for the bedchamber. They were alone here in the Godswood, but still… it was unusual.
She laid her own hands on his head and stroked gently. It was only when a tear fell from her chin onto him that she realised she was crying. “I’m sorry, Ned…” she said, as her voice broke and her frame shook with the effort of restraining more tears.
He lifted his head and looked up at her, his brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re sorry?” he repeated. “Whatever for?”
“For losing our babe,” she said.
Ned looked shocked. He stood and pulled her close to him, one hand sneaking up to wipe away the tears from her cheeks. “Never think that, my love,” he told her. “This was none of your fault. It was something the Gods chose; for what reason, I know not, but it was never your fault.”
Catelyn sucked her lower lip into her mouth and bit down on it hard, willing herself to stop crying, but it seemed that now that the tears had begun, they would not stop. And looking at him, with his blessed, good face and his kindly eyes was making it harder. She fell into his arms and let him enfold her while she sobbed and sobbed.
When eventually there were no more tears, she pulled back and he leaned in and kissed her face, his lips drying the wet tracks left behind. “I wish I had your trust in the Gods,” she said as he held her face in his cool hands. “I would have your Gods or mine if I knew that they were truly looking down on us.”
Ned sighed; his eyes glanced over her shoulder at the great heart tree. He seemed to be regarding the face that was carved in it with a kind of understanding, one that Catelyn supposed was born of trust. “Who are we to question them?” he said softly. “They have their plans for us and we know not what they are. And that is the way of it.” He paused and a faint smile appeared on his lips. “But I think that they look down on you as they look down on me. They know my love for you. Although it seems like a cruelty at the moment, perhaps it was sent us for a reason.” She nodded and swallowed. His words and conviction were soothing her, though, and she felt a little of the tension that had coiled within her release. He continued, “We can have another babe. There is still time for that.”
She studied him a moment, taking in every line of his face, every fleck of colour in his eyes, then embraced him fiercely. In those first hard years at Winterfell, she had often wondered what her life would have been like had things played out differently – now the thought scarcely ever crossed her mind. Their roots had grown together so completely that she could barely imagine herself without him, and what she would even be like. She hoped she never had to.
“It is not good to be out here in this chill,” said Ned as he stepped away from her. “We should go back and thaw ourselves.”
“Yes,” she agreed. He turned back towards the castle, but she kept a hold of his hand and twined their fingers together.
They ate and drank cups of hot spiced wine to heat them, sitting before the fire in his solar, and then he took her hands, warm again, and urged her, “Let’s to bed, my love. The night grows old.”
She nodded and let him lead her to her chambers. For years now, although they still kept separate rooms, Ned slept in her chambers more often than he slept in his own. Sometimes they started apart and he would come to her in the middle of the night, other times he would be there waiting for her when she retired and then be gone by dawn. Often he would stay all night and still be there beside her in the morning. Tonight, it seemed he was not interested in his own rooms.
He closed the door behind them and sat, as he often did, in the chair beside the window while she undressed and donned her nightgown. He seemed to enjoy watching her, and she was not like to stop him. When she sat on the edge of the bed and began to undo the braid from her hair and then brush out the day’s knots and tangles, he came to kneel behind her and took the brush from her. It was another practised thing between them, this hair-brushing. He had always loved to do it and although she had had to teach him to use gentler strokes and take his time when the brush caught in a tangle, he had learned quickly and well. Now, he was never in need of instruction, and when he had finished, her hair shone like beaten copper.
His hands replaced the brush, sliding through the tendrils of hair, and then his lips were on her neck and she could feel their dry warmth tracing through the down at her hairline. She twisted and lifted her face to his and he kissed her.
The brush clattered to the floor.
For a long moment, they stayed as they were, he kneeling, she sat on the edge of the bed, kissing. But then it seemed to Catelyn that this contact, however sweet and enticing, was simply not enough. She grasped at his leather doublet, fingers working on the laces that held it together, and then tugged it from him. He helped her with the tunic beneath, and then her hands fell to his breeches. She felt his hardness within them and cupped it in her palm, smiling when his eyes fluttered closed and a groan escaped his mouth. He kissed her again, wilder now, and his own hands bundled up her nightgown and he pulled it over her head. His eyes were hungry as he beheld her nakedness and he quickly rose, removed the rest of his garb and then bore her down onto the bed.
“Ned,” she murmured as he hesitated. She read the look in his eyes; he imagined that there was some lingering physical pain from what had happened and he did not want to hurt her; and so she sought to convince him with a smile and a nod. Accepting her reassurance, he sank inside her and began to move, slowly at first, then with increasing pace.
Catelyn threw her arms around him, wanting to feel the warm, solid bulk of him. He is my rock, she thought, the weirwood that absorbs my grief and soothes away my troubles.
When the tension exploded inside her, she arched up her back and a moment later, she felt him follow her, filling her up with heat. He collapsed onto her chest afterward, spent and sated. He chuckled low in his throat when she hummed a soft sound of satisfaction from under him, then rolled away onto his back. His withdrawing let a wash of cool air flow over her and she shivered, until he tugged her towards him and she gratefully curled against him, her head on his chest, one hand fisted over his slow-beating heart.
She heard him yawn. “We will have another babe, my love,” he said sleepily. “When the time is right, the Gods will bless us.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“And then we will have another one, and another… for I feel sure that I shall never grow tired of you.”
Catelyn smiled at herself. His hand came up and closed around hers. She listened to his heart thudding steadily, steadily, in his chest, and twined her legs around his like roots.
The End.