A Need to Suffer

Recalibrations

Chapter Twenty

Recalibrations

It was a noble’s duty to uphold pacts and tend to matters of the area and the political arena that encompassed, but the majority of the Stark children hadn’t actually ever been to the Bolton homestead outside of Rob whom had accompanied their father on diplomatic ventures that tended to span visiting many of the noble houses along the way not just the Boltons, so there had been no real gauge of travel time when Sansa had made arrival and return estimations. Coming to the close of the second day of rigorous travel Sansa had to question how much further they had to go before they started to near the Dreadfort. The answer she’d received had shocked her, the men that had known the area well estimated at least another three days as long as the good weather permitted more if not and that was if they could maintain the almost constant clip they had started with rotating the horses out every few hours to keep them spry. This news had come as quite a shock. Sansa had had Maester Medrick depart the more detailed instructions only to the men in charge of leading the caravan before the team had departed. Plans had been made rather suddenly, and as much as Sansa perceived she’d thought the hasty decision to make this venture through, she was realizing now that this could bode poorly for all of them should anything crop up to cause a problem along the way.

If Sansa had spoken to Ramsay beforehand about where she was headed, he could have informed her it was close to two hundred miles or five to six days of travel by horse to reach his old home, but that had been out of the question since she didn’t wish to tell him her plans worried on how Ramsay would behave while she was away if he’d known her intentions for this trip was to discover more about him. It was apparent though that she’d gravely miscalculated the distance; with the new estimated time of arrival, it would take almost twice as long as she’d originally intended.

Jon had not questioned Sansa’s projected time of return; being a bastard, he hadn’t been overly interested in the rounds their father made with his eldest brother, Rob, mostly because it reminded Jon of his sullied status in their family. Jon had no need to be a part of the pomp of such trips, Eddard had many trueborn sons to take the titled lands of their family and to have accompanied him would have likely been met with derision from some of the other less tactful noble houses (even if only spoken about in hushed tones in darkened corners, it was an ugliness Eddard wished to spare the boy.) Jon didn’t begrudge his father for not offering to take him on those journeys, it wasn’t his place after all, and Eddard made up for it with other outings hunting and taking Jon around the surrounding homesteads of their lands to help the people that raised their banner; those excursions always made Jon feel less cut from the herd knowing his father did love him regardless of his baseborn title.

Sansa had brought a couple crows on Jon’s behest worried that she may get caught in an ambush, and with only two crows to be had (in case one perished on the journey), she wondered if it was wise to send one back now to warn that her return home would be severely delayed. It was too risky Sansa ultimately decided, and she would wait until they’d found this riverside mill Maester Medrick had informed her of before sending out a crow. This way Jon would know exactly how much longer it would take to expect her return. She prayed that the two men would be able to get along well enough in her absence with the extended time added to her trip.

The dilemma at least gave her reason to take her time with her embroidery and sewing which always soothed Sansa especially when her mind raced on the many possibilities this journey afforded her saying she were even able to find the fabled miller’s widow. Sansa had been left alone in the carriage for most the day, so it had given her plenty of time to worry and contemplate about both where she was heading and what she was to return to, and so it was now that she abandoned such reservations to the delicate needlework of her stitching to draw her mind away from her anxieties. She couldn’t help but to smile at what she’d already made, Sansa was gifted in this trade she’d always been told. The scarf she’d hemmed was a crushed velvet, a dark hue of sapphire blue with thumbnail sized white and grey emblems of the wolf pattern that represented her family’s house embroidered upon it. It would make for a nice gift to give Ramsay dually to keep him warm and to further claim him as her own. It pleased her immensely to think of the clothes that she could make him; producing clothing for her family and friends had always been a favored past time that felt so long lost to her after having left Winterfell originally. To do so now brought Sansa to feel a small spark of inner peace and for once in a long time a sense of hearth.