I must not lose
The opportunity to hold on to life.
I must stand up and save myself,
Stop, find myself.
Wake up when in my soul
Suddenly, a cloud rises,
Fight for my essence.
(c) Kukryniksy
When the intoxication wore off, Lionel always became gloomy and was visited by remorse for his recent actions, and now he could even be afraid that both Sansa and Arya would shy away from him: he had spoken his mind, and now he had provoked a more vicious and dangerous young beast. Of course, tomorrow Lionel would be sober and kind again, but who knows when he is his real self, and who knows if he has a dagger hidden up his sleeve, and when he will next decide to unexpectedly slit a couple of people's throats or aim a knife at them without even turning around as a way of arguing his point? He beats those who are down, finishes off the wounded, the huge sword of the Mountain fits well in his hand, like a baton," he should be taken behind the Wall and thrown to the Others, let them run and drown in the ice holes in the Cold Sea, until something worse comes along.
Lionel could have continued to berate himself if he hadn't been stopped by surprise. Sansa and Arya helped him out of his armour like squires, Sansa carried his armour and helmet to the stream to wash off the dried blood, and Arya returned from the stream with water so that Lionel could wash himself, and the water almost immediately turned brownish-red.
"You're just getting dirty again," Arya said after a couple of minutes and went to fetch more clean water, while Lionel remained sitting by their tent, fatigue gradually setting in, which was the only reason his surprise did not become too overwhelming. Despite his unchivalrous and rather frightening behaviour, he was now a hero, a protector and a victor to Sansa and Arya, and in that way they became accomplices, as if he had shed blood on their behalf as well.
This thought was enough to bring back the lessons of Ser Barristan, who had told Lionel that the way we fight leaves an imprint on what we fight for. Ser Barristan was a knight of the Kingsguard, he had no wife or children, his parents were dead, and he had no other relatives, and everything he said came out simple and noble: An unworthy victory tarnishes a worthy cause, and above all, you must preserve your honour and not lose the dignity of what you are fighting for, because what good is it if you win, but what you served is no longer worth fighting for?
It was harder for Lionel: he fought for Sansa and Arya, and if he had been asked how he wanted to see them when the battle was over, his heart would have answered without hesitation, just as they thought of him when he fought with the Mountain: the main thing is that they are alive. Even if they were stained with unjustly spilled blood, as long as they were alive. But would he be happy, would they both be happy, if people first began to dislike and fear him, and then them, because his merciless sword stood behind them?
He would have to live with these questions, restrain his heart, sometimes hold back his hand, remember his loved ones who had entrusted not only their lives but also their honour to him. He now made decisions for three people, not only for himself and for Sansa, who forgave him everything, but also for the rebellious Arya, who was unlike her sister, and it was very difficult to know what decision would be right for all three of them. was very difficult to understand — he would have to learn this himself before King Lionel could rule the kingdom, and there was no one around to offer advice, neither his battle-honoured father, nor the experienced Lord Eddard, nor the wise Jon Arryn.
The bloody sword of the Mountain lying beside Lionel could have suggested a solution, whispering something, explaining to Lionel how to understand the current situation and why he should not be surprised that Sansa and Arya were now caring for him and not condemning his behaviour on the battlefield. "They now see how much stronger and older you are," said a strange voice in Lionel's mind. "Women give themselves to the strong. Now is the moment when you can do anything — you can kiss Arya in front of Sansa, and they will both accept it. You have decided. It is easy to make decisions for everyone when you have power. You give orders, and they obey."
Lionel was able to resist this intoxicating power, but at night he realised that the sword of the Mountain was not only speaking to him. Sansa came to him in the darkness of the tent, unashamed and without a thought of waking her sister, and she was passionate and bold; if Lionel had wanted, everything would have happened that very night. "Yes, like this!" Sansa seemed to say to him as she lifted his shirt and slowly moved down from his lips to untie the straps on his breeches. At that moment, she was his lover and his wife on the march, not a noble bride. "Let it be! Smelling of iron and foreign blood, wild, dangerous — but alive, but mine!" Of course, Lionel did not stop her; such memories were also necessary, there was no shame in them, but they had to be controlled — and Lionel pulled Sansa up to his face when she had done what she wanted, and he came to his senses a little. He caressed and kissed Sansa slowly, as if returning her tenderness and silence, returning her to a forest morning in the dewy grass, returning her to her first innocent surprise that something could be so pleasant, and Sansa became the same as always, even beginning to hide her lips from him, how could he kiss her after she had... but Leo didn't let her feel particularly ashamed, she was already going crazy in a different way and for a different reason, and he covered her mouth with a kiss, they really would wake Arya, and scare her, too, probably.
In the morning, the sight of the camp and yesterday's battlefield still made Lionel feel sick, although it was already weaker. The captured soldiers, their hands tied behind their backs and joined together by a long rope, like a string of slaves, sat in a group under the trees, and it felt as if Toros had urinated on the rope, and they could hardly even stand up to relieve themselves. At the other end of the clearing, a small trench dug yesterday by the same prisoners was black with the bodies of their slain comrades, and here and there gnawed dead hands stuck out of the ground. Lionel didn't want to think that Sansa and Arya's wolves had done the work, but the wolves obviously didn't care what kind of meat they ate.
He needed to cling to something, to look into Sansa's clear blue eyes, to say something generous and kind to separate himself from the filth around him, but all he could think about was who had arranged all this yesterday, threatening to attack a much stronger enemy.
"Forgive me," Lionel said to Sansa and Arya when they came out of the tent, and it was probably the first time he had ever addressed them both.
"You did everything right," Sansa said with conviction. She didn't want to see Lionel feeling guilty and doubting himself. She loved him, and she was scared without his confidence. She too could now see the dead hands sticking out of the ground, and she had woken up several times during the night because in her dreams her arrows were either knocking fountains of blood out of her enemies' necks, flying past, or killing Arya. But now it was all over, everything had turned out all right, and they just had to forget about it. Leo shouldn't have brought it up.
"After the duel, I lost my head and started a fight I couldn't win," Lionel objected, as if he were being debriefed by Ser Barristan. "You should have left long before the duel, as I told you."
"No way!" Sansa and Arya replied again.
"Then I'll have to be smarter next time," Lionel shook his head, and Sansa finally gathered the strength to offer him her hand. She didn't want to remember how she had gotten the stupid idea to watch her father's trial, to see what the people who had escaped the Mountain's raid on the Riverlands looked like and what they had to say, and how twenty Northerners had set out on a campaign, and twenty men led by Beric, and forty more led by Thoros and Lord Lothar.
"The gods fought for us," Sansa said firmly. "Those who lie covered in earth over there deserved to die for what they did. If there is justice, you could not have lost."
"I'll go talk to Amory Lorch," Lionel said calmly after listening to Sansa's account of her grandfather's vassals' crimes and the evidence against them. He was sober now, but his face was pale and angry again.
"I'll go with you," Arya immediately interjected. her heart also burning with her sister's story, and she thought that Sansa was just as bad at talking about what was on her mind as she was, only Arya kept quiet and snapped at people, while Sansa, after returning from the trial by combat against the Mountain, told Jeyne silly stories about the fairy-tale Loras, as if hiding behind a veil of words. We should talk to each other more often, Arya thought, and she didn't get angry with her sister for coming with them.
Amory Lorch was kept separate from the other prisoners, near Beric and Thoros' tent. His hands were bound like the others, and he slept under the open sky because Beric did not consider him worthy of better treatment.
"Who sent you?" demanded Lionel, standing over Lorch, who was sitting on the ground, and from his voice, Sansa understood that there was nothing for Arya or her to do here. "Who gave the order to attack the Riverlands?
"Ser Gregor gave the orders," Amory Lorch tried to be clever, and the king smashed his face with his knee.
"The girls will leave, and you will talk," Lionel promised, crouching down in front of Lorch and sticking a dagger into the ground between his legs.
"Leo!" Sansa cried out, and Amory Lorch tried to rush to her feet, but Lionel knocked him back onto his back.
"Spare me, my lady," Lorch whimpered through his broken mouth, and Sansa realised her mistake: now she would either save Lorch from execution or become his accomplice; she couldn't stay out of it now that she had gotten involved, and Lionel had to save her.
"This letter will be sent to Oberyn Martell," Lionel promised, pulling a folded map from his pocket, and the fear on Amory Lorch's face turned to horror. "He has just decided to visit King's Landing and will not fail to visit our camp. He loves to ask questions, and I will be happy to give him a nice gift. Choose whose questions you will answer. And don't you dare lie to me again — the letter will be sent, and in three or four days Prince Oberyn will be here.
"Lord Tywin expected Lord Eddard to come to battle with us, and Queen Cersei to become regent in Lord Eddard's place when he died," whispered Amory Lorch, trembling. "I am not lying to you, my king, I swear that Gregor was then ordered to kill you so that your brother could take the throne..."
"I will write that down," Lionel promised, listening to Lorch's confession and struggling to contain his anger and disgust. "My letter will fly ahead of you, and you will go to King's Landing for trial by hand."
"Not to King's Landing, my lord!" Lorch squeaked in a thin voice, writhing on the ground and trying to kiss the king's boots. "I will go to the Wall with my men! I will give you everything I have! Lord Eddard is a just man, but spare my family, Tywin will kill them all! Not to King's Landing, my lord! Kill me! Prince Oberyn is in King's Landing!
"He will be there, you cowardly creature," promised the young king, and unfolded the map he had passed off as a letter in front of Amory Lorch. "My second letter will go to Dorne.
The unworthy priest Toros of Myr gradually grew accustomed to helping the Starks because, when he left Winterfell, Toros learned that Bran, who had regained consciousness after his prayers, remained paralysed below the waist, and for some reason, his first thoughts were not about his legs.
"The boy will never have children," Thoros lamented. "And to hell with the children, but the process itself!" Since then, the unworthy priest began to pester R'hlar with not entirely decent prayers, for which the Lord of Light would have long ago incinerated the blasphemer with lightning, had it not been for Toros' touching appeal to the faith he had revered all his life as fairy tales. Toros now stood every evening to pray, and prayed briefly but sincerely and to the point. "Lord of Light, protect us!" Toros would say. "I'm not afraid of the dark, but at night something strange happens to me, a temptation. Let it not be. And also, about the boy in Winterfell..." "Lord of Light, protect us!" Toros addressed the deity again after the battle at Shutovsky Ford. "Grant health and victory to Lord Beric, I won't kiss him again. And I have one more small request..."
Perhaps Rglor, the Fiery Heart, God of Flame and Shadow, grew tired of listening to the evening prayers about dick and pussy, and the Lord of Light decided to strike Toros of the World with his generosity, sending him a vision in the flames of Bran Stark limping with difficulty on crutches. But the scythe found a stone, because Thoros was not very faithful and continued to pester the Lord of Light as before. Finally, they spat in the heavens, rubbed their hands together and decided to fight fire with fire: instead of inappropriate thoughts about the potency of an eight-year-old boy, Toros was seized by equally inappropriate thoughts about the inability of ten-year-old girls to fight in cavalry formation, and what to do about it.
"Following in the footsteps of our past performances," Toros began, approaching Arya and Sansa and casually pushing the still-howling Amory Lorch away from the king with his foot. "The horsemen stand side by side only before charging. This does not apply to you. Spread out and shoot. If you learn to shoot like the Dothraki, on horseback, it will be very useful. You have a crossbow, I saw it." "What do you have?"
"I have a bow," Arya replied warily.
"I can imagine," Thoros nodded. "When you draw the bowstring, can you bend your arms? Well, that's no good. A bow should be either an infantry bow, which is bent over the leg, or a Dothraki bow, for shooting from horseback. Here," and, inspired by the gods, Thoros took a Dothraki bow from under his cloak, the best gift for a ten-year-old girl, in his opinion. "Let me show you how to draw the bowstring, and then we'll saddle up and shoot a little.
***
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