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It has been a year or more since Wex had last seen his lord.
Probably more. Winter has come strong and fast high in the North and Wex has never been particularly good at keeping time. Days had been largely the same for the majority of his young life. Counting them had seemed a pointless endeavour.
But it must have been more than a year, because his lord seems like an old man now. Bent and cowering, the hood of his cloak nearly swallows him. Only a lined and harrowed face peaks from the shadow. Chains clink around his ankles and his gloveless hands. There are fingers missing, two that Wex can see. His lord's hobbling gait indicates other injuries hidden beneath his roughspun cloak. Shock white hair toys about his face giving him a ghostly appearance.
He looks like that awful white tree, Wex thinks. Those terrible northern totems carved with the anguished face of their gods.
Though, Wex supposes, he himself must look different as well now. He is taller, he knows. Nearly as tall as his Lord Greyjoy now. His hair has grown out, and there had been no time or tools to properly trim it during his travels, so he wears it in a knot at the back of his head. The way the northmen wear their hair. The first dark hairs have grown in on his chin, too, though not enough to properly call it a beard. He shaves them when he can.
His clothes are different as well. Quickly he outgrew his ironborn livery and had resorted to scavenging. In the Merman’s Court, in White Harbour, he had been given proper northern garments: padded long-sleeved doublets and fine fur-lined cloaks. Better for keeping out the cold than the salt.
But the journey to Skagos had been punishing. His fine clothes had not stood up well to slogging winter travel and he had traded his doublets for tribesmen’s hides and sinew wrapped boots.
Wex reckons that he doesn’t look very ironborn anymore either.
There had been a great commotion when their odd little band had at last returned to Winterfell with the little Stark brat and his giant wolf in tow. Some southern Baratheon is king now after defeating Lord Bolton at the Dreadfort and his bastard son at Winterfell. His forces numbered northmen, stormlanders, captured ironborn, even wildlings. They are garrisoned all throughout the castle and in the camp beyond. It made the stout northern castle seem so crowded. Last time Wex had been here the cold stony halls and towers had seemed vacant, only a handful of old men and women manning the keep. Those ill-suited to war. The castle had been rebuilt somewhat, but the stone walls still bore dark scorch marks where the high flames had reached.
Wex remembers hiding in the godswood, high in the limbs of that terrible dreadful white tree, praying in his heart that the flame would not reach him.
Maybe the northern gods had heard him.
The northern gods have spared his lord as well. That is what the rumours among the footmen say. Most think Wex an imbecile so men do not guard their tongues when he is about.
Perhaps one day he will ask his lord about it.
He brings a warm bowl of winter porridge to his lord’s room. Not the warm lavish chamber of Eddard Stark where they had slept when they first came to Winterfell, but a servant’s quarters now repurposed to house the highborn captives of Stannis Baratheon. His lord sits upon a wooden stool by the smouldering brazier, regards him with bloodshot eyes.
“Thank you, Wex.”
Wex dips his head. No one had told him to return to Lord Greyjoy’s service when he had returned to Winterfell, but Wex had not known what else to do.
“I heard the wolf out there, last night,” mutters Lord Theon, “calling over the moors. A direwolf’s call is so loud, so low, you could never mistake it. Perhaps looking for his lost littermates. I still have not seen Shaggy, though I do doubt little Rickon will let me. Unless he plans to feed me to the beast.”
Lord Greyjoy smiles. Once the sight of his wicked smile had left Wex feeling bold and adventurous. Like he might be a real raider. Now it is a gruesome thing. Though the false ivory and gold teeth help somewhat.
In reply Wex only shakes his head. He does not think the little Stark child would feed Theon to his wolf. The boy is wild and brattish but not cruel. He is only five or so.
“Spoiled little boys can be the most vengeful creatures there are.” His lord has always been good at knowing Wex’s thoughts. “Mayhaps he’ll decide in a tantrum that the nasty Baratheon king has no say over my life, and who will stop his wolf? Certainly no one here would face the beast to defend me.”
Wex scowls. Lord Greyjoy laughs.
“Your courage will be your folly, Wex. If the wolf is turned on me, you are free to abandon your post.”
If Wex does not have his post, then he has nothing.
But he thinks Lord Greyjoy understands what that is like.
“Hand me that blanket, would you?” Lord Greyjoy indicates with a crooked hand. “The snows have stopped but the cold has worsened. My joints do not weather cold like they used to.”
Wex fetches the woolen blanket from the cot and unfolds it about his lord. He takes care on his lord’s left shoulder, knowing it had once been dislocated and reset clumsily.`
In truth, Wex had not thought his lord still alive when he returned to Winterfell. There had been rumours in the Merman’s Court but Wex had not believed them. What they say of the Bolton Bastard… what man could endure such things and survive?
Ramsay. Ramsay Snow. Now Ramsay Bolton. Once Reek. Bulky and savage with arctic blue eyes. Wex remembers him.
The Bolton Bastard is who did this to his lordship. Wex gathers as much from the gossip in the war camp. The stormlanders and the northmen laugh and crow over indignities his lord had been made to suffer. Some of them keep Wex up at night. Things no ironborn would suffer to live after.
Suitably bundled against the chill, Lord Greyjoy sips his steaming porridge. He still cannot chew meat, which is fine, as there is little to be had.
When his uncle had sold Wex into Lord Greyjoy’s service for a horse, Wex had indeed been eager. Perhaps even hopeful. Until that day he had served in the Botley keep at Lordsport all his life, waiting on his half siblings, and life held no prospect for him beyond that. To serve as squire for Lord Balon Greyjoy’s son and heir, just as the islands stood to sail to war, is an honour not bestowed to bastards often. Though he had no proper training in arms or riding and could not even read or write, Wex had tried to commit himself to the task wholeheartedly. Even if he is to die young, he had thought, he will die as a true raider, seizing glory from the mainland, paying the iron price.
But war had ended up being nothing like the old raiders said it is.
After eating in silence for a few moments, Lord Greyjoy pushes his food aside. Quickly he glances away, wiping at his eyes. His lord’s moods can shift like the tides these days. And he cannot eat much at once.
“Surely this is not what you expected when you came into my service, is it Wex? Playing nursemaid to a crippled traitor.”
Wex takes the bowl away and sets it upon the table top.
“Not the stuff of songs, is it? All that blood spilled, and for what? No glory for turncloaks and bastards. No one awaits them in the Drowned God’s watery halls.” Lord Greyjoy’s voice is raspy and broken now, like a man who had screamed until the chords in his throat burst. Wex had been born without chords in his throat so he doesn’t know how that would feel.
Pouring a ladle of melted snow into a chipped cup, Wex hands it to his lordship, makes him drink.
“Enough of your fussing,” barks Lord Greyjoy. “Why are you so concerned if I eat and drink? Why debase yourself further? Was I ever kind to you? Did I ever foster you? At best I ignored you. Go. Find some other lord to bother with your fretting.”
Wex does not go, but busies himself tidying things so as not to gawk at his lord’s tears.
No one had spared him a thought, at first. The journey had been months, trudging through hellish snows with that brat and his wildling minder, and the old southern smuggler. But no one had cared if he was to live or die. The miraculous return of the lost Stark child had stirred the war camp like a hive of wasps. They all rally for this ill-mannered boy, Wex thinks bitterly, all because he has some man’s family name. Will this boy lead them to war? Will he ride in his wildling nurse’s arms?
No one cheers the persistence of bastards.
But he had been made to testify, later, before the Baratheon king. Doing so had been an ordeal. Through gesture, miming, and his poor childish scrawl, Wex had painstakingly recounted his travels to the king. The Stoney Shore. The taking of Winterfell. The miller’s boys. Ramsay Bolton. It had not been the ironborn who burned the castle, nor killed the children. And they had brought Rickon Stark home to prove it.
Lord Greyjoy had wept like a woman when he saw Rickon. Openly and without care. It had startled Wex. The Stark boy had clung to his wildling woman’s knees, not seeming to remember Theon.
“Thank you, Wex,” says his lord after he has regained some composure, “you have always stood with me, since you came into my service. At Winterfell, during the siege. You journeyed all the way to Skagos to retrieve Rickon, that I may be acquitted. I do not know what compels you to such loyalty. But whatever does… you brought him back. You undid my gravest mistake. The thing I most wish to undo.”
The kindly old sailor, Ser Davos, had begun teaching him a sailor’s gesture pidgin from the Narrow Sea along their journey. Sailors and traders from the Free Cities will talk with their hands when they share no language, or to communicate up and down lengths of a large ship. Most gestures are concerned only with sums, distances, and rigging. It’s not quite the same as talking with words like men do, but Wex has steadily been adding more gestures to his stock. It is difficult. Conceiving gestures for thoughts is more difficult than it is for objects.
Wex does not have the gestures to convey it to his lord, why he stays. It is confusing even to himself at times. At once selfish and dutiful. Without Lord Greyjoy and his highborn name, Wex is doomed to perish in obscurity this winter, far from the sea. He has nowhere else to go. But his lord is not without merit. He is clever, insightful, skilled at the sword, the bow, and the saddle. If Wex becomes half the warrior Lord Greyjoy is, he might be remembered.
Neither of them are very ironborn anymore. Perhaps that is not terrible. As far as Wex has been alive the ironborn do nothing but suffer loss and defeat. And they both have endured things unthinkable; a northern winter and a madman’s knives. What ironborn could say the same?
Crossing to him, Wex places a hand on his lord’s shoulder. Beneath the cloak he winces away. Still loathed to accept compassion. Fearful of touch. The ironborn have no need for comfort.
But Wex is insistent. He shakes his lord boldly, catches his eye. Forces him to hold his gaze.
Wex places his free hand over his own heart, makes a fist.
What is dead may never die.
Lord Greyjoy stares at him, his expression delicate. Dawning slowly. Never since Wex has known him has he been good at guarding his emotions, but now the hesitation is plain to see on his face. Refusing, Lord Greyjoy shakes his head, turns away.
After a moment, Wex reaches for his lord’s fettered hands, presses one to his own heart. Holds it there. He will make his lord understand, whatever method he must use.
What is dead may never die.
His Lord had been mean, vain, easily persuaded. But also funny, amicable, even merciful. A determined warrior but a poor planner. A prince and a traitor and a coward. But he had always been a fair lord to Wex. Never chided his lowborn nature as the other sailors had. Wex has known worse men. Vicious men. Cruel men. And all those men are dead now. Dead while his lord lives. And none have been made to endure what his lord has endured. None of them would survive it.
Someone ought care for him.