Strong and powerless,
Guilty and innocent,
Like in a film
"Eight and a Half"...(c) Gorodnitsky
Whether they beat him up or not, Leo couldn't remember the next morning, but in any case, he got much more from the Other and the dead than he expected, which gave him hope for a successful outcome to the negotiations. But Sansa and Arya did not open the door for him, advising him to first bring Vhagar and Merakhes as ransom, without which, of course, he was of no use to Aegon. So the song about Aegon and his wives, which had once served Lionel well in the mouth of Tom Seven, and on which his uncle Tyrion continued to rely, backfired on Lionel: he felt he shouldn't have sung it on the way to the Wall, even though Arya seemed to like it. The hint was too obvious.
Lionel could only hope that Sansa and Arya had not heard the cruel northern song sung at the last feast, about how there is no brother for a man to take, or that they at least did not agree with it:
I can marry again,
So I'll get another husband.
I can bear a child again,
Then I'll get another son.
But I cannot get a brother,
There's nowhere to get a brother...**
Lionel looked at his sisters' window and climbed up to it on a rope across the roof so that nothing would be thrown on his head.
"I'll cut your rope," Sansa said angrily, appearing at the window when Lionel stood on the ledge next to it, and Lionel saw that Sansa, unlike her sister, was not capable of staying angry for long, and that the sisters had not behaved so badly as children that Lord Eddard had made them stand in a row and sing that very song to them.
"Ruby," Lionel said bravely. "But why? I love you, and I'm going to marry you."
"So you're saying that I crossed the road for my sister?
"I'm marrying Arya too.
"That's worth cutting off," Sansa concluded, and Arya appeared at the window next to her.
"Pervert," Arya said angrily, but Lionel realised that she wasn't really angry with him, that she was mostly putting on a show. In reality, she was both pleased and embarrassed that he had done this for her. "You and your Aegon.
"Aegon, yes, he had sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys," Lionel agreed. "But why should I treat you like my sister?"
"Remember Meyrin," Sansa advised. Meyrin was a notorious polygamist and constantly fought with the Church over it. "And how did that end?"
"He was the only one who barely survived the trial by combat at the Judgement of the Seven, fighting alone against seven of the Holy Host," Lionel recalled. "I think he went to trial for the crown, but if I have to go to trial for you, I'm ready."
With these words, Lionel quickly slid down to the end of the rope, pushed off the tower wall, and jumped down from a height of ten feet.
"Leo!" two voices cried out above him, and Lionel realized that he was far from defeated.
Lionel knew perfectly well that the talks would not end there, and he was hardly surprised when Arya slipped through his door late that evening. He had even managed to take a nap before that, without undressing, as if his warrior instincts told him to be alert and ready for the unexpected. And indeed, Arya looked desperate, but her voice was calm, as if she had staked everything on this one card.
"Leo, give it up," Arya suggested. "What kind of home wrecker am I? I'd understand if it were the other way around, if you had your eye on Sansa..."
"As if I can't stare at you," Leo replied, catching Arya's gaze and almost drowning in her eyes. Arya was one of those people who only became more beautiful, better and stronger in times of trouble. There were few people like that, and Leo was now especially sure that he had made the right decision. No matter how hard Arya tried, she would not be able to change his mind.
"I really love you," Leo said quietly, trying not to let go of Arya's gaze. "You have a loyal and passionate heart, I can trust you with my life. And if anyone told you that you're not beautiful, they lied."
"They all lied," Arya said almost inaudibly, averting her gaze from his insistent stare, even though she wanted to snap back.
"Don't worry about them," Leo suggested, and Arya suddenly realised that even though he hadn't heard her, he would truly spit on the whole world for her.
"Can I kiss you?" Leo asked, probably for the first time in his life.
"No!" Arya took another step back and silently cursed herself: how could she answer that?
"I'm not lying," Leo said and took a step forward, so that Arya's attempt to run away didn't help her at all, quite the contrary. "I really will marry you."
"You're crazy!
"The discourse of John and his uncle from the land of dreams is beginning to take over the whole family," Lionel remarked to himself and quickly found the right words.
"You can't marry me because I'm crazy, and I'm crazy because I want to marry you?" Lionel asked. "Something's wrong here, I think."
"Oh, I think it's all right!" Arya replied immediately, trying to figure out how Leo was going to catch her out, but Lionel only used logic with women to confuse them; he caught them with his hands. That's where Arya got caught, and when Lionel leaned towards her and covered her lips with his, her lips opened to meet his."You're a trickster," Arya said with feigned reproach, already in Leo's arms and realising the justice of his latest outrageous and correct statement, "You're caught, so don't try to get away."
"You have two choices," said Leo, sly and satisfied. "Either kiss someone else's fiancé, or kiss your own fiancé. I don't think you have a choice. Marry me, will you?"
Sansa was already Lionel's fiancée and mistress, so Lionel had to talk to her seriously. He and Sansa met early in the morning in the snow-covered courtyard of the Black Castle, as they had done almost every day since the day before yesterday, to walk in the slowly falling snow, listen to the silence, and kiss while climbing to the top of the Spear, an abandoned high tower where no one had ever been.
"I don't think you know what you want," said Sansa angrily. She never lost her head when she was angry and could be persuasive and pushy; she could have been left to defend the castle in wartime if all the men had gone off to fight. "You're hugging Arya and carrying her around, fine, but you say you want to get married. If you get married, you'll sleep with her, just like you do with me now, and not only that. Are you sure that's what you really want, and with her?"
Lionel couldn't help but admit that Sansa had cornered him: Arya was not yet eleven, and she was small and thin. Of course, Lionel didn't want anything from Arya right now, he couldn't even lie about that, he couldn't bring himself to say such things. He himself sometimes wondered if it was brotherly love, if it was because he had been left without a family and had always been a bit isolated. If he hadn't seen Arya's bottomless, warm, laughing, prickly, sparkling eyes many, many times every day, maybe he would have convinced himself, or Sansa would have convinced him now. And now it wasn't just her eyes, but her lips too — it was a miracle that such a thin, sharp, unyielding girl could have such soft lips. Leo was still a little crazy after last night — but not so much that he couldn't find an answer in a few seconds.
"Ask her that yourself," Leo suggested, a little mockingly, "whether she'll ever be ready for such things or not.
"Don't be silly," Sansa cut him off. "Everyone gets married, some at fourteen, some at sixteen, when the family says so. And no one plays with dolls with their husband.
"Well, there you go," Leo agreed. "We're talking about back then, not now."
And Sansa realised that Leo had got out of it; you really couldn't outsmart him. After all, marriages are arranged when the bride-to-be is ten, and when the bride-to-be is still in her cradle and the groom-to-be waves a thin stick instead of a sword. Time brings everything to where it should be, and Arry will also get tired of being a boy in time. And if you choose a good person, look at his family, select someone with a similar character — yes, Leo would be a good husband for Arya. You couldn't find anyone better if you immediately ruled out misfits, old men and tournament swordsmen. It seems as if Sansa is taking something very important away from Arya, but Leo is the only good husband for her, and she won't find anyone better.
"Do you think I'll give you up?" said Sansa and pulled Leo towards her, and he smiled to himself: Sansa had come in from the other side, and at the same time they had made up, and they wouldn't play the "I'm offended, I don't need you" game anymore. "Do you think it will be easy for me to watch that?
"I'm not suggesting a threesome," Leo replied unexpectedly, and Sansa jumped up and looked at him to see if he had lost his mind. So Leo got out of it again; you can't fool him with emotions, he can surprise you at any moment. In time, he will become a great king and a great commander; he has a mind and a heart faster and stronger than others.
Lionel didn't quite know what the conversation with Sansa would be like, but he knew how it would end. The winner always takes prisoners first and then sets them free.
"If you don't agree, then nothing will happen," said Lionel, because it was time to take a risk. "Only then should we do something. We can't leave everything as it is and expect something different to happen. We need to go south, leave Arya in Winterfell. It's a shame John isn't there. But if you say no, I won't be able to see her for a long time.
Sansa understood that Lionel was offering the right solution, but her heart resisted. She had seen the day before yesterday that Arya was in love, but Leo had not revealed that her love was not unrequited, and so Sansa had never thought that it was just a whim and that he was to blame for everything. She silently pitied her sister, even before the conversation that took place when Leo was beyond the Wall; she marvelled at Arya's golden heart — she was not angry with Sansa, as she had been in childhood, for getting everything, but only kinder to her sister. And Sansa, as absurd as it may sound, was initially happy for Arya when Leo told her he loved her. They only became angry with Leo later, for complicating everything without resolving anything. And now Sansa could not choose between her love and her sister, between her happiness and hers. In ballads, romantic love is above all else and "what wouldn't you do for love," but the journey to the Wall quickly taught them responsibility and loyalty, and that Sansa was the eldest in their little wolf pack with Arya.
"We're not going anywhere," said Sansa, thinking for a moment and also not deciding anything. "We'll see when we get there."
Leo didn't expect anything more; it was clear that neither of them would agree right away, and he had to get used to that. Although Arya seemed to have almost gotten used to it over the past few months. Even if Leo hadn't used entirely honest methods to get her consent yesterday, he had asked her seriously if she would marry him as his second wife, and she had said yes.
The conversation could have gone on for a long time, but Samwell saved everyone. The sisters, who had become friends in a difficult moment, decided to interrogate him for fun, and Lionel heard this and did not rush to Samwell's rescue at first.
"You don't look like Randyll Tarly's son," Arya declared, blocking Samwell's path.
"Yes, yes, and that is my misfortune, my lady," Samwell sighed heavily, feigning great sadness. "I am not a warrior, I am a steward and a merchant. Randyll Tarly himself would now disown me as his son. All my childhood they tried to make me a warrior, called me a coward, made me sleep in chain mail, once even tried to buy me with bull's blood so that it would give me cruelty and courage..."
"That's what we wanted to know about the bull's blood," Sansa nodded and lied a little for a good cause: she had long since begun to estimate the value of everything Samwell had sold them and had come to the conclusion that even with delivery to the Wall and the debt he had incurred at the feast, Samwell had earned quite well, but Leo had gone beyond the Wall because of him and nearly died. "One of your friends and I have been in touch.
And then Samvel was truly frightened, without pretence.
"Which friend?" Samvel stammered in a fallen voice. "With or without a moustache?"
"Samvel, tell us the truth," suggested Lionel, approaching from behind. "Your accent isn't from the Reach; I've been there many times."
"I'm from Pentos," Samvel admitted quietly. "My father is a spice merchant, and I've started trading well too, and not just spices. You can see I'm good at persuading people. The only problem is that I play backgammon, and in Pentos they don't play the same way you do here. You just sit down at the board, and I want to cry or declare mars right away. And then one day, a magistrate introduced me to a khal who had come to get married...
"I think we've heard something like that before," Arya remarked, remembering the stories about dragons told by Jojen Reed, while Samwell concluded that Sansa's imaginary correspondent was his "friend" with a moustache.
"Well, first I sold the khal a mammoth tusk, made of solid limestone," Samwell continued contritely, "and then I even became a wedding planner. I had a lot of money, but I got back into backgammon with a bandit from Tyrosh...
"How much do you owe him?" asked Lionel. Samwell was a funny guy and smart too, and helping people like that was both pleasant and useful.
"Oh, if only it were money!" Samvel waved his hand. "I took some dragon eggs from them, promising to hatch baby dragons for the wedding. Illirio didn't believe me, but the khal was so excited that he even started threatening him, because he really wanted baby dragons at the wedding, even if they were small. Anyway, they gave me the eggs, they put them right in my hands. Of course, I sold the eggs to make up for my losses and to at least do everything else for the wedding as I had promised, but instead I ended up stuck behind the board for two days again. And again with the same result. The fall of the eagle and the falcon!
"So the khal was left with no money and no eggs," Lionel clarified, and the mocking Samvel burst out laughing, seemingly without a shred of remorse. "And because of you, they had to hold the wedding in a field — they scraped together whatever they could find in the khalasar, ate it, drank it, and gave it away as gifts.
"I sent him fake eggs," Samwell confessed. "Listen, yes, I chickened out and hid here where no one will find me. But I've turned over a new leaf..."
"Is that how you're reforming yourself?" Sansa asked indignantly, and Samwell realised that the noble lords of Westeros don't haggle, and the noble ladies may succumb to the temptations and persuasion of merchants, but if it leads them into a difficult situation, they can sometimes be very vindictive, and in the Tully family, perhaps even heartless.
"It was for a good cause," Samwell protested. "I already bought one egg — I can show you. I know where the second one is, but the third one went beyond the Wall."
"Oh, how awful," Arya finally remembered the part in Jojen Reed's stories where the Targaryen princess, widowed by her own stupidity, throws herself into her husband's funeral pyre with the dragon eggs. Now it turned out that in reality she would throw herself in there with three painted stones, and if she had a hard time in Joyen's stories, then in reality she would have it even worse. "Listen, I think we need to return the egg from beyond the Wall."
***
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