In years of hardship, in times
of unimaginable hardship
She was nailed to him by a wave of fate
Was cast upon him.
Amid countless obstacles,
Avoiding danger,
The wave carried her, carried her
And brought her close.
(c) Pasternak
Sansa and Arya had seen only two living human women in the last three months, at Winterfell and at the Reeds', and they had become so unaccustomed to female company that the nineteen women in Craster's small house completely overwhelmed them with their running and chattering, especially loud after the silence of the Haunted Forest.
Craster's house was clean and well-appointed, especially inside, and Craster himself, a heavy old man with bushy eyebrows and a stern gaze, sat at a table opposite them and Lionel in a clean embroidered shirt, drinking hot cider and occasionally dabbing his moustache with a towel.
"And so I believe," Craster said slowly. "If I had nineteen women in my house, there would be filth and disorder, and I would be a worthless man. I don't always have the strength to keep up with everything in the yard, but a woman is a woman, after all.Lionel looked out the window at Queren and Jon repairing the palisade for Craster, which had been damaged by recent rains, and began to understand how Craster's farm worked, while Queren explained everything to Jon in the yard.
"Pass me the sledgehammer," Quoren said to John. "Hold the stake, don't be afraid, I won't miss. What have you heard about Craster?"
"I heard he's the son of Odichala and the watchman," John recalled, and Queren nodded in agreement. "They say all those women are his wives."
"Do you see Krister?" Corren pointed to the window and decided not to use Lionel as an example, who, if Corren's suspicions were correct, would understand the wisdom of the saying "greed is the downfall of fools" in six or eight years. "No doubt he's a powerful old man, but at his age, even two women will drive him to his grave. I'm telling you the truth, as an old man: when you don't need it, but you go after a woman out of greed or to show off, your heart beats like crazy at the end, and your chest tightens. Well, what else have you heard about Cruster?"
"That they're all his daughters," John suggested.
"No wonder they all look alike," Quoren remarked ironically. "They're not his wives or daughters — they're our women who live here, scouts. Why do you think I'm always hanging around the Wall and fixing his palisade?
For a moment, Jon processed the information he had received, which suggested that Qoren was not crazy at all, but a fairly simple and straightforward man who loved to fight, loved women, and regarded rules as shit. and the unofficial title of "friend of the Night's Watch" that Craster bore took on new meaning in light of Queren's story.
"And another thing," said Qoren when they had finished with the crooked section of the palisade and Qoren decided to put off the roof of the cowshed until tomorrow, as it was already getting dark. "You're young, girls will come up to you, with babies or pretending to be pregnant. They'll ask you to take them with you to the Wall and they'll tell you all sorts of things: that Kraester marries his daughters, that their daughters are his, that he sacrifices baby boys to the Others. Don't listen to them, they just have a man on the Wall, they're bored, that's why they want to go to the Wall. Just understand: it's one thing when they're here. It's another when you have women arguing every morning in the Black Castle and dirty nappies hanging on a line across the courtyard. So hang in there, don't let the Night's Watch down.
"Quoren," John called out as Quoren was about to go into the house to eat and climb into bed with his woman. John had heard about Craster's human sacrifices before, so he decided to ask for clarification. "Why are there only women and girls here, no boys at all?"
"John," Coren called out, a little apprehensively. "What do you want with boys? I'm scared to sleep next to you in the tent now."
After the noisy house of Craster, Cuoren's silence was even pleasant to his companions, and they all noticed that the further north the group went, the more pleasant Cuoren became: either they had grown accustomed to him, or he had begun to treat them better.
Of course, Quoren's rough and simple manners had not disappeared.
"Girls," said Quoren in the evening by the fire, running his hands through his hair from his temples back. "Tie your hair back, you'll freeze tonight."
Arya always kept her hair short, but it had grown out during her months of wandering — wandering is such a thing, you can't always keep your hair neatly trimmed — and she looked around a little puzzled, not sure if Quoren's advice was meant for her or not, or not realising what was expected of her.
"What are you looking at?" Cuoren began to laugh. "You girls should have some ribbons with you."
"Come here," said Sansa, taking her sister's hat off to gather her hair into a ponytail, while Quoren grinned with all his remaining teeth. He was a scout and had seen a lot in his life, so he noticed many things: how Arya, a tomboy and a tomboy, blushing like a girl, afraid that her hairstyle didn't suit her, and how she looked at Leo as if asking him to turn away, and how Leo looked at her with a gentle smile, as if persuading her that she was always beautiful to him.
Cuoren laughed in the morning when it turned out that John's hair was frozen.
"Woe is me," sighed Cuoren. "Where's the knife? The girls won't love you now." A minute later, Cuoren returned from the fire with warm water and poured it over John's frozen curls.
The First Men's Fist passed by the group, but they looked at him meaningfully: Quoren launched into one of his evening stories, in which four boys and an experienced tracker spent the night on the Fist. Left to their own devices, the boys lit a fire while the tracker went to look around, and he then fought off five Others who had come out into the light with a torch and a Valyrian blade.
"Those Others must have been pretty weak if he could take five of them on his own," Cuoren concluded. "But even so, one boy was stabbed in the shoulder so badly that he had to go across the sea to Valinor for treatment. There was such a place in Valyria. The conclusion is that we will now only light fires during daylight hours and under trees. The Others are not the Others, but now we have the opportunity to run into them.Without the evening fire, it was much colder in the tent at night, and Lionel hugged Sansa tightly under the blanket, trying to warm her up, but it ended as it always did: the others fell asleep, and under the large blanket for two, they became very warm, even their teasingly cold hands sliding over each other's bodies gradually warmed up," - and then Sansa pulled Leo towards her and wrapped her legs around him like she had never done before.
"Right now?" Leo asked, feeling hot, his heart racing so fast that he couldn't think about whether Sansa was as excited as he was about the danger awaiting them, or whether she was saying goodbye to him, just in case: if they went over the edge, either him or both of them, let her be his wife forever, not just his lover.
Sansa pulled him close and kissed him, long and deeply. She was scared and desperate, but for some reason also happy, and it seemed very appropriate that the wind howled loudly and beat against the walls of the tent, blowing from the Frostfangs and helping them remain unheard by their companions.
"I'll cut my hand after the wedding," she whispered to Leo, who already knew that she had enough spirit to cut her hand and to say such a thing. And for the first time, she didn't imagine it would be like this, and he probably didn't either, although he had hinted at it several times, grabbing her trousers by the waistband with his thumbs, and it had happened in the tent before the Wall, and in castles. Well, so what if they weren't doing things by the book? Maybe that's what they needed. She hadn't thought before that everything else would be so pleasant, maybe now there would be something just as crazy.
"I'm afraid for you," Leo said just as quietly, struggling to restrain himself, Sansa teasing him completely shamelessly. "I don't need an heir at such a price."
"You don't have to be afraid yet," Sansa whispered, running her tongue up his neck to his ear, and Leo didn't bother to ask why; he would find out later. All he could think about was making sure she didn't feel any pain, only pleasure, and probably no girl had ever allowed him to lift her up like this and help her with his hands before, and nothing could possibly come of it, but he could feel, holding back a moan, how her body was trembling beneath him and how she was holding back a scream.
"If you guess what I'm thinking, I'll die of shame," Sansa whispered in his ear as they were falling asleep, and Leo smiled and kissed her lightly. He was probably thinking the same thing: that they would definitely return, and there would be warm rooms where clothes were unnecessary and where he could finally caress her all over, see her all over, feel her with all his skin. And there would be warm forests in the south where they could get lost and hide in the thick undergrowth and not be afraid that anyone would hear them, because he wanted to hear her, and she wanted to hear him. Everything would be fine, and first of all, there would be tomorrow night.
The next day, as they approached the mountains, it grew colder and colder, with a cold wind blowing from the glaciers that did not warm up even in summer, and a day later it turned out that yesterday had been warm, even Cuoren explained the operational situation to the squad in the morning.
"We're going through the Howling Pass, they're not expecting us from this side," said Kuoren, pointing to the wide gorge ahead. "Wrap the horses' legs in rags. Don't light any fires, there's nothing to burn there anyway. Don't talk loudly on the road. If you hear a rumbling above your head, press yourself against the rock. Starky, are the wolves ahead of us or behind us?
"Ahead," John replied confidently. Earlier that morning, he had dreamed of three wolves standing in front of the gorge, sniffing anxiously, then running forward. Dreams in which John saw the world through the eyes of a wolf were rare, but they were so real that he believed them.
In the cold gorge, where the sun never shone, Quoren unexpectedly became the most talkative among his silent and huddled, freezing companions. He often called for a rest to give the horses pulling them uphill a chance to catch their breath, and during the breaks, Quoren began to tell stories.
"Once I was in a detachment with a squire and a knight," Quoren said, ignoring the fact that no one was smiling yet. "That's what we called them. The squire because he carried weapons everywhere he went, he had a quiver here, a throwing knife there, a hunting knife there. Even the girls were afraid of him, in case one of them got too close and he pulled out one of his knives.
John nudged Quoren in the side, unhappy with such jokes in front of his little sisters. Arya was a little embarrassed; she wasn't so little that she didn't understand the joke, but Sansa laughed while John looked reproachfully at Quoren.
"And the Knight was as polite as Jon," Quoren rejoiced at the reaction to his story. "He even called Ebbin by his surname so as not to seem rude. Rumour has it that he said all sorts of things. "Dear Serpent, you are wrong. Can't you see that you spilled boiling water on your comrade's foot?" Or they would say, "The knight said that the soldiers are happy with the chosen route and would like to love the commander's mother, his sister, and many of his relatives."The second time, John did not push Quoren, so as not to be called the Second Knight, and anyway, after Quoren's story, the route they were so happy with became more fun, and at the next stop, Quoren shared his observations of living and non-living nature.
"Now they're recruiting everyone as scouts," Quoren lamented. "Even those whose luggage rattles on their horses like a fool's rattle. Scouting is dirty work; everyone would choose to die in battle rather than freeze to death, but only a scout would choose the latter. If only we could go up the Giants' Ladder — it's nice there, the sun is shining, and there's probably more than one guard on duty. If you spot one first, you can go around him, climb up, and there's carnage, savages flying off the cliffs, meeting those who stayed with the horses with a salute from their brains. Beautiful! You didn't notice the second guard, and a boulder flies at your head. How romantic!
Since then, the whole squad has been looking up at the places where a guard could be posted, and Cuoren has been saving more cheerful tales for the rest stop before the last crossing.
"People say all sorts of things about old Craster, just to make him sound scarier," said Quoren, trying to cheer up the young men on their first winter hike in the mountains. "That's how it should be, otherwise our boys will start hanging around him. What would come of that? One breach of subordination and there'll be quarrels between comrades-in-arms. You've seen for yourselves what kind of creatures live there. But if you want the real story about Kruster, here it is: he was returning from the Wall of Yarl, Mance's brother-in-law, and both our scouts and your northerners let him get away. The jarl was puffed up with pride that he was returning with a prize, and a whole one at that. He came to Krester and demanded arrows. Krester was just seeing our boys off, had a drink with them, was lying on the table and singing a good song they had brought with them, "Your Honour, Lady Stranger." And the jarl, a young fool, pounced on him like a bear on a honey pot, and even ruined the song. "I'm running out of arrows," he shouted, "and I know you have a supply. And stand up when the King-behind-the-Wall's brother-in-law is talking to you!" So the Jarl flew through the palisade with an arrow, and told his companions that Craster simply didn't have the right kind of arrows. Because you have to go to Craster with a pure heart. Here comes a man with a gift, one of us, he comes in, dumps a pile of gold on the table, and shouts: "Happiness for all, free of charge, and let no one leave offended!" For such a man, Krister will bring out a jug of moonshine, and the table will be set with food, and the girls will dance and sing. How can you not help a kind-hearted man?
In the evening, the brave Cuoren chewed some dried meat, drank from a flask of something that didn't freeze in the cold, and fell asleep as if he didn't feel the cold, even though it was difficult to keep warm in the tent, even with two people under a large blanket.
"Arya is chattering her teeth," Sansa whispered to Lionel. "Let her come to us."
It was the right thing to do; they had always been a threesome, even before the Wall, when even the water in their flasks didn't freeze at night, all three of them slept together, so why should Arya be left out in the cold now? Leo sat up and lay back down again — no, it wasn't right, after everything that had happened, both at the Wall and long before. He couldn't hug Arya like a sister; Arya was in love with him, and he loved her with more than brotherly love. That was why, even before the Wall, if he ever hugged them both, it was only in secret, while they were both asleep. But they had always been a threesome, on the road to the Wall, around the campfire here, behind the Wall, and at the table in the castles they stopped at along the way. Everyone in Winterfell had gotten used to them always sitting together, even though Robb had said that it used to be dangerous to sit Arya and Sansa next to each other.
"Go on, go on," Sansa encouraged Lionel, perhaps confusing him even more. "She'll be too shy to get under the blanket with Jon, she's too old now."
Lionel, acting on impulse, got up, stepped over the sleeping Qhoren and picked up Arya, along with her blanket and the thick horse blanket he had found somewhere yesterday, grumbling, so that Arya wouldn't be so cold lying on the stone. Arya must have been waiting for Leo or just thinking about him, because she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck, even if she didn't dare to kiss him, and only realised what was happening when she found herself between him and her sister. It was warm under the two blankets, but Arya's cheeks were burning, and she did the stupidest thing she could have done in that situation — she poked Lionel's neck with her forehead and hid. She wasn't so young that she didn't realise she was in someone else's bed, and she guessed what would have happened if she hadn't been there — or maybe it had just happened. She had to run away, get out, but she had no strength — Arya had never felt so weak-willed before, but the warmth had taken her out of the cold and she had gone limp, because she couldn't think about the fact that her sister had allowed her to fall asleep in Leo's arms, it was some kind of madness.
"I'll leave in the morning," Arya promised guiltily, turning to her sister, her cheeks still burning because Leo had immediately hugged her just like he had at the very beginning, when he had protected her from her nightmares on that warm night in the forest."Sleep," smiled the invisible Sansa in the darkness and kissed Arya on the nose.
On the evening of the third day, when a mountain range loomed ahead, Cuoren left the camp and then returned for Jon.
"You and Arya are the only ones who walk normally, not stomping," said Qhoren, who was not known for his praise, and pointed to the light of the fire above. "I won't tell her, of course — you and I will take out those guards together. Go tell the others to sleep in shifts, one at a time, and wait here until I drop the burning ember down.
John and Queren went up the narrow path to take out the sentries, while Lionel stayed below with Sansa and Arya, pulling them closer to the rock and hugging them both to protect them from the wind and cold. It came so easily and naturally that none of them even thought about how ambiguous it looked, considering everything that had been said at the Wall. Perhaps Leo was the first to think that these icy nights had granted him his dream come true — and then Arya nudged him in the side.
"Don't sleep, summer child," Arya called to him through the wind. Perhaps Lionel had indeed dozed off, even seeing, despite the darkness around him, his beloved red and chestnut hair peeking out from under his cap.
"I'm not that cold," Lionel tried to reassure her.
"That's bad," said Sansa. "People who freeze can feel hot, and that's how they find them, frozen and in their underwear. Let's play tag, no one can see or hear us anyway."
The three of them ran around a little, laughing and bumping into each other in the dark, and again Sansa and Arya stood with their backs to the rock, and again Leo hugged them both, now standing in the middle. Something had changed between them if they were even talking in this position, calmly and about trivial things, and Leo took a chance.
"So, do you agree?" he asked simply, knowing that they would understand what he meant and immediately slip away from him. But from the darkness, so quietly that the words almost blew away with the wind, two voices answered "yes," and Leo leaned down and kissed them both in turn, as if to confirm the agreement, and Sansa immediately leaned towards his ear and whispered that it wasn't necessary for Arya to hear them in the tent.
"What secrets are you keeping?" Arya immediately intervened. "We already agreed."
"You didn't guess," Sansa replied, but Arya didn't keep it a secret.
"Don't even hope for it," Arya told Lionel. "The last time I kiss you in front of my sister is the last time."
***
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