Day stole upon them just as Stannis had: unseen.

Winterfell had been awake for hours, its battlements and towers crammed¹ with men in wool and mail and leather awaiting an attack that never came. By the time the sky began to lighten the sound of drums had faded away, though warhorns were heard thrice more, each time a little closer. And still the snow fell.

“The storm will end today,” one of the surviving stableboys was insisting loudly. “Why, it isn’t even winter.” Theon would have laughed if he had dared. He remembered tales Old Nan had told them of storms that raged for forty days and forty nights, for a year, for ten years … storms that buried castles and cities and whole kingdoms under a hundred feet of snow.

He sat in the back of the Great Hall, not far from the horses, watching Abel, Rowan, and a mousy brown-haired washerwoman called Squirrel attack slabs² of stale brown bread fried in bacon grease. Theon broke his own fast with a tankard of dark ale, cloudy with yeast³ and thick enough to chew on. A few more tankards, and perhaps Abel’s plan might not seem quite so mad.

Roose Bolton entered, pale-eyed and yawning, accompanied by his plump and pregnant wife, Fat Walda. Several lords and captains had preceded him, amongst them Whoresbane Umber, Aenys Frey, and Roger Ryswell. Farther down the table Wyman Manderly sat wolfing down sausages and boiled eggs, whilst old Lord Locke beside him spooned gruel⁴ into his toothless mouth.

Lord Ramsay soon appeared as well, buckling⁶ on his sword belt as he made his way to the front of the hall. His mood is foul⁷ this morning. Theon could tell. The drums kept him awake all night, he guessed, or someone has displeased⁸ him. One wrong word, an ill-considered look, an ill-timed laugh, any of them could provoke his lordship’s wroth and cost a man a strip of skin. Please, m’lord, don’t look this way. One glance would be all it would take for Ramsay to know everything. He’ll see it written on my face. He’ll know. He always knows.

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