Inside the castle study, wind howled outside the windows and rattled the shutters. The air was suffocating.
Lady Rona was curled in a cold chair.
Since the news of the Ironborn invasion arrived, she had not closed her eyes once.
Every creak and sound from inside or outside the castle was enough to startle her awake, her heart hammering.
Fear breeds in suppressed conditions, and fear breeds longing. She had never missed that man the way she missed him now, had never craved so badly the sense of safety he brought. But the more that longing kept rising, the more her dread surged along with it.
She kept turning the same thoughts over. What value did she have to him? Would he come? The Ironborn were ravaging everything. His own lands might be facing an even greater threat. Would he risk battle against savage Ironborn to come and save a woman with nothing to offer? Or would he be like those cold men who weighed everything on the scales of profit and simply cast her aside?
The study door was pushed open gently. Lady Rona looked up in fright, then let out a long breath when she saw who it was.
Old steward Nyken shuffled in with a stoop, a stack of parchments in his hands.
"My lady, these are a few documents from the estate. They require your signature."
Lady Rona's eyes did not rest on those documents for even a second. She raised her head. Her bloodshot eyes fixed on the face of the old steward Solomon had appointed and whom she had confirmed without a moment's hesitation to show her loyalty to him. Without a second's pause she snatched up the quill and scrawled her name at the bottom of each parchment. Ink splattered across the page.
Her voice was dry and anxious, carrying the faint tremor of someone holding themselves together.
"Old steward Nyken, is there... is there a reply from Lord Solomon?"
Old Nyken looked at the lady's exhausted face and felt a wave of quiet pity. He could of course guess that this poor noblewoman and his young master had some kind of entanglement between them that defied easy description. These past few days she had eaten nothing and shrunk visibly.
The old man let out a slow sigh. The Ironborn hadn't even reached the walls yet, and the mistress of this castle was already in danger of being consumed by her own despair. This woman was very nearly driving herself mad.
He shook his head apologetically and looked away.
"Not yet, my lady."
Just as Lady Rona's eyes went completely dark and she raised her hand to dismiss him, a clatter of urgent, chaotic footsteps broke out in the courtyard outside. A guard came bursting into the hall, rolling and scrambling, his helmet still crooked on his head.
His face held no fear.
Only a joy close to madness.
"My lady! Reinforcements! It's reinforcements! Lord Solomon's army has arrived!"
The name Solomon sent a bolt of electricity through Lady Rona. Every scrap of fear, anxiety, and doubt was shattered in an instant.
She let out a sharp cry of joy, like a bird suddenly freed from its cage. She snatched up her beautiful skirts and bolted for the door. The high threshold caught her foot and she nearly went down on her knees, but she barely noticed. She had not stopped to put on shoes.
"My lady! Your shoes! My lady!" Several handmaids cried out in alarm behind her and tried to give chase, but they could only watch helplessly as her figure vanished around the corner of the castle's inner courtyard.
Solomon had just dismounted and was bringing his horse to a stop before the drawbridge. Behind him, his column of cavalry and infantry stood orderly and silent as a stand of trees.
He had imagined many versions of this reunion in his head. Perhaps a formal reception. Perhaps a worried question or two. He had never imagined that when the heavy castle drawbridge began to slowly lower, it would look like this.
A woman in a beautiful gown, chestnut hair loose around her shoulders, bare white feet on the cold damp stone, with nothing in her eyes but him as though the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist, came running through the gate with complete abandon.
Before Solomon had time to react, that warm, fragrant, soft body had thrown itself straight into his arms.
Solomon went completely stiff.
This was not proper. And they were standing in plain view of everyone. If word got out it would not be a good thing at all.
Behind him, Brin and Rosso turned away at almost exactly the same moment. One tilted his face upward and studied the shapes of the clouds with deep interest. The other looked down and inspected his sword, apparently finding something on the blade worthy of careful examination.
The soldiers farther back had no such coordination. Some dropped their heads in awkward silence. Others looked away, shoulders shaking, teeth clenched hard to keep any sound from escaping.
Rosso Bren glanced sidelong with one eye and felt nothing in particular. Yes, this had happened in full view of everyone, and yes, that was not ideal. But the private lives of the nobility were a mess by any measure, and he had seen far worse than this.
This was Westeros. A land where power and desire were always tangled together. If you were a noble, you could do as you pleased.
Lady Rona was beyond caring about any of that. She held on to Solomon, who stood rigid and uncertain, as though she were holding the whole world. Her face was pressed against his chest. Her body trembled faintly from the depths of her relief and the last of her terror.
Her voice was broken and thick with tears, like a child who had been through too much, murmuring into his chest over and over.
"You finally came... I knew you would come... I was so frightened... I was truly so frightened... I was afraid you wouldn't come for me..."
Solomon, who had just calmly commanded a bloody ambush and watched without flinching as his men took the heads of enemies, stood completely at a loss when faced with a woman weeping in his arms.
He raised one hand, hesitated a moment, and then set it gently on top of her head, stroking her soft hair.
"I won't abandon you." His voice was slower and gentler than usual. "I made you a vow."
His gaze dropped to her bare feet.
Those feet that should have known only comfort and warmth were now caked with mud and grass. Small cuts marked the skin. In the cool air, they had turned faintly red.
Solomon frowned slightly and let out a quiet breath.
He stopped thinking about it.
He put one arm around her and slipped his other arm behind her knees, lifting her cleanly off the ground. Lady Rona let out a startled cry and threw both arms around his neck on instinct.
He carried her to his warhorse, settled her on the saddle, then took the reins and turned the horse around.
He gave his soldiers one quiet order.
"Into the city."
And so, under the many and varied gazes of every guard and handmaid at Deepvale Castle, and every last one of Solomon's hundreds of soldiers, their lord walked his warhorse forward through the gate with a barefoot noblewoman sitting in the saddle, and disappeared inside the castle.
Only old Nyken stood on the steps and watched this undignified scene, his aged face creased like a walnut.
An unmarried young lord. A recently widowed noblewoman. In front of everyone. Openly intimate. If this got out, what would become of things? What noble family would still be willing to give a daughter to his young master?
But then he thought about everything his young master had done, how he had taken a minor family with a few muddy riverside fields and brought it to a place it had never reached before. What right did an old servant like him have to criticize? He could only let out a deep sigh, turn around, and go arrange quarters for the army.
Solomon carried Lady Rona all the way back to her bedchamber and spent the better part of half a day calming her down. Only when she had cried herself out, her emotions gradually settling, and she had drifted into a deep sleep, did he pull the blanket over her, rise from the bedside, and make his way to the castle's great hall.
Old Nyken and Toman were already waiting there.
Solomon walked forward and took the old man's hands in both of his, the first person he had ever met here, the most loyal and tireless of servants, studying his face carefully.
"Old Nyken."
"How are you? Are you all right?"
Old Nyken's eyes grew warm. He nodded several times.
"Thanks to your lordship's care, everything is fine."
After a brief exchange, Solomon's expression returned to its usual cool composure.
He turned to Toman and issued an order that left everyone in the room stunned.
"Toman. Organize men immediately. Everything of value in this castle, Lady Rona included, all the food, all the goods, everything. Pack it up and move it to the Lion's Den."
Old Nyken's eyes went wide. He chose to speak.
"My lord... that may not be quite appropriate..."
On what grounds would you take another family's property and carry it away? What would that be called? Word would get out and there would be talk. Done quietly, he would not have raised a single objection. But an army entering a castle by force, the lord's open intimacy with the lady in full view of everyone, and now this, the outside world's imagination would run wild.
Solomon's voice left no room for argument.
"War may be about to break out in full. I cannot split my forces to protect this castle. It is a liability I cannot afford."
He paused and added, "As for the lady's wishes, I have... already discussed it with her. She has no objection."
Old Nyken started to say something more but found himself silenced completely by that one sentence. He knew that once Lady Rona herself agreed, he had no ground left to stand on. He should have urged his young master to think of his reputation. If the family was to grow stronger in future, he would need to marry a woman from a powerful house.
After thinking it through carefully, he still chose to speak, making one last effort.
"My lord, you are still unmarried. Lady Rona is a noble widow. If you simply bring her to your lands and settle her in your castle like this, what will people say?"
Solomon was quiet for a moment.
Old Nyken's words were genuinely loyal and sincere, he felt that clearly. But he also could not walk away and leave this woman behind.
He paced back and forth, seeming to turn over how to phrase it. The hall was silent except for the fire crackling in the hearth.
At length he stopped walking and finally spoke, his voice clear and decisive.
"Then how about this?"
"We announce publicly:"
"Lady Rona, in fear of the Ironborn ravaging her lands, voluntarily abandoned her castle and fled to my estate to seek my protection."
The excuse was thin. No, it was extremely thin. But it at least preserved both parties' dignity on the surface. Old Nyken's deeply furrowed brow relaxed just a fraction.
Then Solomon seemed to remember something. He looked at old Nyken and Toman, and a faint, unreadable smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"One more thing, by the way."
"When you announce the battle report, say that my five hundred reinforcements, on the way to aid House Deddington, encountered an Ironborn force of six hundred men."
"That we defeated them, but suffered heavy losses and require time to recover."
"I will have Lady Rona write to House Deddington on my behalf."
Toman and old Nyken both drew a sharp breath at the same time. Their eyes went wide.
"S... six hundred?" Toman's voice cracked. "My lord, is that true?"
Solomon gave a small shrug. The smile on his face took on a slightly crafty edge.
What he needed to do now was stay perfectly still, half truth half lie, and beyond reproach.
The Ironborn had indeed numbered "over four hundred." Even though in reality there had been just over forty of them, plus a crowd of Riverlands refugees who had been forced into their column.
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