THE BLOODS OF BOLTON | GAME OF THRONES

CHAPTER 24

FOR EIGHT DAYS, Drucilla refused to leave her brother's side.

"Don't you understand, Alison?" she had said when beckoned elsewhere. "The bastard wants my brother dead. Maester Uthor will tell you it's just another story I've woven, but it's true. He's always plotting and whispering, you see. Him and his Reek ... and his two little whores."

She had seen Violet and Myranda walking out of his bedchamber in the late night hours. Once, she thought she had overheard them talking about the bastard while they were scrubbing the kitchen floors. They said he, not Domeric, was the rightful heir to the Dreadfort — the natural-born heir. Drucilla would have taken their tongues for that, just as her lord father would have done, but her words had no power now. Nobody listened to her when she spoke. They all looked at her with such pity, then tenderly brushed her aside and told her not to worry her little head over such things.

As the days went on, the sickroom began to feel more and more like a prison. Alison had prepared a small bed in the corner of the room and served all her meals beside the warm hearth, but Drucilla scarcely slept or ate. She barely moved if she could help it, but she saw everything from the window.

On the first day, she had watched the ravens scatter into the grey sky and flap away in every direction. In return, she had hoped for swords, spears, and lances, but instead she received only prayers from the other Northern houses. Sansa Stark had promised to pray to all the gods, the old and the new, and to stand vigil in both the godswood and the sept until her betrothed recovered. 

Such a proper lady, Drucilla bitterly thought. She even had the grace to weep as she wrote it. Drucilla had seen the tear stains, those three tiny wrinkles in the parchment; then she tossed the letter into the flames with all the others.

"Any word from my father?" she asked Maester Uthor when he came to visit her one night.

"No, my lady, but no need to worry. He's likely shipbound now, somewhere off near the Fingers, I might dare to guess. He'll be home soon, trust that." The old man's smile was tired, and it brought her no comfort. "You should get some rest now, my lady. I'll have Sara fetch more wood for the fire. That should be enough to get you through the night, but you must stop opening that window, my lady. The night's are far too cold for that. Keep it locked real tight like I showed you."

"But I never open the window, Maester Uthor," Drucilla said. "It's the wind."

"The wind?" He chuckled. "What nonsense!"

But it wasn't nonsense. Every night, the wind blew open the shutters and tried to snuff out the hearth fire. Drucilla wanted to keep the window boarded shut, but Maester Uthor insisted the fresh afternoon air was good for Domeric, and Hilda had always told her to trust the wisdom of maesters. 

But he doesn't understand, she wanted to say. This is a different kind of cold. Quiet, so quiet. Drucilla shuddered at the thought of it. 

Willow had once said a strange chill in the night meant Death was near, but Alison told her to pay Willow no mind. It was just a silly peasant superstition, after all, no more real than grumkins or snarks. Or the Others.

Sighing, she looked at Domeric in his sickbed. Alison and Jeyne were bathing him with rags soaked in herb water. He seemed to groan in his sleep when Jeyne accidentally nudged his arm with her elbow. Drucilla feared he might be in need of more milk of the poppy. Maester Uthor had administered a cup the night before, after Domeric awoke screaming in pain. Drucilla thought he was dying.

She gently took his hand. His skin was cold and slick with sweat, but she could still feel the faint pulse of life against her fingertips. "He's stronger today," she told the serving girls. "Doesn't he seem stronger? Soon he'll be walking again, and riding just like before."