A Need to Suffer

Bumps in the Road

Chapter Twenty-Four

Bumps in the Road

The next four days passed in a similar fashion for Ramsay where Temeric and Cecil would come to fetch him for breakfast with Jon. The first few days in Jon’s company had started off stiff and quiet but as each day came and went, their conversation grew less strained. Ramsay found his anticipation for Sansa’s return growing and as such, he would typically start the meal with asking Jon if he had heard word from crow or if any of the scouts had reported back from the direction she had departed. Ramsay’s concern for Sansa was something that Jon easily shared, and Jon was quick to impart the status that he had yet to hear anymore of her whereabouts to him.

Jon had sent two capable riders to ride out a few miles from the keep the morning after Sansa’s crow had arrived. The men were given orders that once Sansa had been spotted to split off where one would ride to Sansa to escort her back to the keep, and the other would ride back to inform Jon how soon to expect her arrival home. Both men were eager for Sansa’s safe return, so it made for an easy start to their morning meal conversation between the two to speak about Sansa’s homecoming which typically branched into (for Jon) mostly boring matters of court that Jon felt comfortable enough imparting to Ramsay. Part of Jon’s duties these days consisted of settling farmer’s land disputes over such things as wandering cows eating another’s winter food stores or some other fashion of drudgery Jon really didn’t want to deal with, but the news seemed to engage Ramsay well enough to give the two something light to talk about during their meals.

Ramsay listened to Jon raptly not because he really gave a damn about some peasant’s cows getting into another peasant’s grain stores, but the summary of goings on around the area was better than the nothingness of his days filled with much of the same bland activity within the dungeon and isolated from the majority of any other people. His life had become better than it was Ramsay realized, and where he may not have appreciated the small added privileges he was now granted before, having originally spent over a week mostly chained to a mattress or tied to the X cross that decorated the dungeon had changed his perspective considerably.

As Jon had offered to him earlier, Ramsay was awarded a morning walk each day. To keep hateful eyes from staring Ramsay down or anything more drastic, Ramsay was directed to take his walks inside the castle and along the keep’s upper wall. Jon opted this course to keep Ramsay safe; the first uncomfortable walk the two had taken outside around the perimeter had shown there were many in his ranks that still regarded Ramsay with glares that echoed intent to maim or kill, and so Jon decided it best to remove any opportunity for altercations (either from someone with a grudge or Ramsay himself who seemed prone to fight if at all goaded.)

Jon attended Ramsay’s side for these morning trysts when time permitted him to do so, and if not, Temeric and Cecil still accompanied Ramsay and would occasionally amuse him by sharing stories or jokes walking beside him rather than a few paces behind him as they were prone to do when Jon accompanied Ramsay. Much to Ramsay’s surprise, these guards treated him less as a secured prisoner and more as an amiable acquaintance now. They didn’t chain him down to his mattress in their presence anymore and instead let Ramsay wander about the small space of the dungeon freely where instances of mutually enjoyed moments between them were becoming more common as the days went by.

There easygoing attitude was a mark of trust that Ramsay took to heart especially on their walks about the castle in the early afternoons. Temeric and Cecil (with Jon’s permission) had decided to start taking Ramsay to the kitchens to let him be given his lunch to eat it in the servant’s dining hall rather than at the small table in his cell. The change in environment meant that Ramsay was exposed to more people in the keep (even if none of them seemed to acknowledge him and those that did notice him actively avoided Ramsay.) The ability to at least watch people milling about and interacting with one another cheered Ramsay’s mood and left him feeling less dour and lonely. It wasn’t as if he’d regularly made a habit to talk to any of them anyhow, so taking in their activities from afar was calming like that of observing fish swimming about in a glass bowl.