GOT: The Great — Chapter 289 - Ramsay Is Not at Winterfell Either

At dawn, the gates of Winterfell opened.

The hinges turned in their iron rings with a long, piercing screech of metal on metal. Ravens burst from the battlements in a flurry of black wings, wheeling through the grey-white sky before slowly settling back down.

The surrendering men filed out through the gate tunnel.

They walked with their heads bowed, out into the snow beyond the walls, forming a few crooked lines.

Drogo sat astride Drogon's back and looked down at the scene.

Ser Marlon Manderly stood at the front of the column. Lord Wyman's cousin. Acting commander of the White Harbor forces.

Wyman Manderly's bulk made even standing difficult, let alone commanding in the field.

"The dragon's intimidation factor is something else — the moment you arrived they folded immediately. We had them besieged for a full week. They swore they'd fight to the last man."

Drogo didn't bother with a minor figure like Marlon. His eyes never left Winterfell.

Then he heard a voice.

"They're not entirely stupid. Surrendering now isn't too late."

Drogo snapped his head around.

Margaery Tyrell stood with one hand on her hip and the other raised to her brow, shielding her eyes from the morning light.

She had on only a deep green wool cloak, its hem embroidered with a trailing rose-vine in gold thread. The morning light came from behind her and turned her brown curls into a halo of golden haze.

"Why are you here? When did you arrive?"

"I came with Sansa."

"Then why didn't you come out last night?"

"I didn't want my screaming to keep every soldier within earshot awake all night." The corner of Margaery's mouth curved upward.

Drogo understood exactly what she meant. The corner of his mouth twitched.

Then he gave a sharp tug on the reins. Drogon let out a low growl, and all three dragons planted their wings against the ground and began walking toward the gate.

Their claws pressed into the frozen earth with each step, sinking half a foot deep, leaving claw prints the size of bathtubs.

The White Harbor infantry advanced on Winterfell behind them.

Drogo's mind had already moved on from the surrendered men.

His gaze swept over the rows of bowed heads without lingering on a single face for even a second.

Defeated soldiers. He had seen plenty of those.

Something else was turning over in his head.

What the hell was Daenerys thinking, she couldn't even manage her own harem properly.

Sansa and Margaery were running off to the battlefield one after another. This was the North, not the gardens of King's Landing, not the rose gardens of Highgarden.

These two are both my beloved consorts. Losing either one of them would break my heart.

He would have to talk to Daenerys when he got back. A serious talk.

Inside, Winterfell looked even worse than it did from the outside.

When Ramsay took the castle, he had used Theon Greyjoy as a plaything to his heart's content and shown the castle itself no mercy whatsoever.

After sacking it, he ordered the place put to the torch. The fire had reduced nearly every structure within the walls to rubble, everything except the godswood.

Drogo walked through the streets of Winterfell. It felt like coming back to his own hometown. He couldn't help it. He started to sing.

"Snow falling, falling — back home, the weeds have swallowed the old yard deep. I heard the news, you've been alone this whole time. The mottled gate, tangled in old roots. What echoes on the stone is: wait."

His steps didn't slow, but the rhythm of his feet fell in with the syllables. The sound of boot against stone kept the beat.

"It would be nice if Scarlett were here," he said. "She could play for me."

Margaery stood two paces behind him, head tilted, watching.

"Is that Dothraki? It sounds rather beautiful."

"It's Mandarin Chinese."

He answered and turned away. He walked over to Marlon Manderly.

"Did anyone catch Ramsay Bolton? I want him executed by dogs."

"If we had caught him, it wouldn't be this quiet right now, Your Grace," Marlon said. "Forgive my bluntness, Winterfell surrendered because Ramsay was never here to begin with."

Drogo lost any desire to keep singing.

He began the interrogation.

Each surrendered soldier was brought before him, made to kneel, then made to answer.

The first said he didn't know. The second said he didn't know. The third still didn't know.

By the fortieth man, Drogo started using his fists.

By the hundredth, the skin on his knuckles had been scraped raw.

By the two hundredth, blood had seeped into the cracks between the flagstones and frozen into a thin film of dark red ice.

White Harbor soldiers stood to one side and watched, occasionally called in to drag someone out.

Every interrogation yielded the same answer: I don't know. Lord Ramsay never came back.

Margaery leaned against a stone column that was more or less still standing, arms folded across her chest.

She had watched 200 interrogations now. The expression on her face had traveled a long way from keen interest to undisguised impatience.

"He's not stupid. He knows perfectly well that hiding inside a castle means nothing against dragonfire." Her voice was calm. "It seems he simply never came back at all."

Sansa heard that and spoke.

"He went to the Twins. House Frey took him in."

Drogo turned his head to look at her.

"Order the march to the Riverlands at once," Sansa said.

Drogo let out a short grunt.

The Twins. House Frey. The people who killed her brother and her mother at the Red Wedding.

Sansa wasn't even pretending anymore. She was in a hurry to borrow his dragons to settle her score with House Frey, and anyone with eyes could see it.

"The White Harbor troops aren't my personal forces. I may be able to command them, but I have no interest in leaving myself exposed on all sides."

"Then why did you ride all three dragons alone to the Wall? And fly alone from Harrenhal to Winterfell?" Sansa took a step forward. "Both times you didn't wait for ground forces. You can go to the Wall alone, come to Winterfell alone, but you can't go to the Twins alone?"

"If you hadn't kept throwing yourself into danger, would I have needed to take those risks at all?"

Sansa held his gaze for a few breaths. Then she smiled. She didn't argue.

Drogo glanced down at the drying blood on the back of his hand and wiped it on his trousers.

"Since no one knows where Ramsay Bolton is — take all the prisoners as slaves."

Marlon Manderly said, "Your Grace, Westeros has had no slavery for over a thousand years."

"Then bring it back." Drogo's voice didn't waver. "I'm offering you slaves to help you build wealth, and you're still not satisfied?"

"Do you have any idea what these men did under Ramsay? Winterfell was massacred by them, not by Theon Greyjoy."

"I didn't slaughter them all. That's mercy enough. And I have a rule from Essos: the children of slaves are not themselves slaves."

"Is that understood?"

The courtyard went quiet. The White Harbor soldiers looked at one another, uncertain whether to follow Marlon or Drogo.

Bolton's surrendered troops knelt in the snow. Most of their faces held no fear, only a deep, worn numbness, the kind that comes from being ground down by fate one too many times.

A rider came charging through the gate into the courtyard, hoofbeats hammering the flagstones like a burst of hard rain.

He swung out of the saddle. His boot skidded on the broken ice. He rushed to Marlon and dropped to one knee.

"Lord Petyr Baelish of the Riverlands has arrived with the Knights of the Vale, he's come to offer reinforcement!"

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