"My lord, is there any news of my mother?" Ever since Renly's assassination and Lady Catelyn's disappearance, Sansa would come every day to inquire about her mother's whereabouts.
"No," Lynd replied casually, without looking up, quickly signing one transfer order after another and handing them to the waiting attendants.
It wasn't that he was intentionally cold to Sansa; it was that he truly had no new information to provide. He was also currently searching for Lady Catelyn and Brienne.
Ever since there was news that they had been seen near Crabclaw Point, sailing by boat towards the mouth of the Trident River, there had been no further news of them.
The boat they had taken was found at a small dock outside Maidenpool, and the boat owner stated that they had disembarked at a small dock near Candlehall. Thus, it was speculated that the two likely entered the mountains on the outskirts of the Vale to avoid Lannister forces, planning to pass through Lannister-occupied territory via mountain paths to return to the North and the Riverlands.
Under these circumstances, it was quite normal not to find their traces.
"What about Winterfell? Is there any news from Winterfell? How are my brothers now?" Sansa asked with concern.
"No…" Lynd was about to answer, but then he suddenly remembered something, picked up a document from the table, handed it to Sansa, and said, "This is intelligence just received. Take a look!"
Sansa quickly took it, opened it, and her face instantly turned pale. Tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes, her legs gave way, and she sank to the ground, burying her head as muffled sobs escaped her lips.
The intelligence Sansa saw had just arrived. It concerned Winterfell: for some unknown reason, Theon Greyjoy had suddenly massacred the people of Winterfell. Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Brother Chale, and other important figures of Winterfell were all killed, and Bran Stark and Rickon Stark were burned to death.
Seeing Sansa in such a state, Lynd stopped his work, handed the signed documents to the attendant, dismissed him, and then rose and walked over to Sansa.
Sansa noticed Lynd standing before her and gradually stopped crying, though her nose still involuntarily twitched slightly. She lifted her head slightly, looking pitifully at Lynd.
"You've been working with Jon for some time now. Jon has praised you to me more than once for being meticulous and good at analysis, always able to see things others miss from subtle clues," Lynd said, looking down at Sansa and pointing to the intelligence in her hand. "Now, look at this intelligence carefully again, and then tell me what hidden content you see within it."
Hearing Lynd's words, Sansa couldn't help but be stunned. Then she wiped her eyes and asked, slightly agitated, "My lord, do you mean that the content of this intelligence is false, and my brothers are not dead?"
"That's for you to tell me," Lynd did not answer Sansa's question.
Sansa immediately picked up the intelligence and read it carefully, not just several times, but analyzing it word by word, sentence by sentence.
After a while, her emotions seemed to calm down, and a smile appeared on her face. She said, "They're not dead, Bran and Rickon are not dead, they're all not dead."
Lynd asked, "Tell me, how did you analyze and come to this conclusion?"
"Because Theon deliberately burned the bodies beyond recognition," Sansa said, her mind becoming much more agile after calming down, as she analyzed seriously: "Theon first went mad and killed Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Brother Chale, and even blacksmiths and stablemen. These people were completely defenseless and could not possibly pose a threat to him. They would have been more useful alive to him; at least they could have made Robb hesitate, worrying that sending troops back to the North to retake Winterfell would lead to the prisoners being killed, and it would also have kept the remaining forces of other Northern lords from making rash moves. However, he suddenly went mad and killed so many useful prisoners. There can only be one possibility: something happened that made him lose his mind, and that something was very likely Bran and Rickon escaping."
Lynd nodded slightly upon hearing this, signaling Sansa to continue.
Seeing Lynd nod, Sansa also seemed to gain encouragement. She stood up and continued, "After Theon executed Maester Luwin and the others, he actually went hunting in the Wolfswood. This is truly too unusual. You must know that he is constantly being watched by the Northern lords; once he leaves Winterfell, it's equivalent to putting himself in danger. Yet he still led a team out of Winterfell, and he even brought over three thousand men. So his purpose in going to the Wolfswood was certainly not for hunting, but to pursue Bran and Rickon."
She paused, her expression growing more confident. "If he caught up to Bran and Rickon, he certainly wouldn't kill them. Living Starks are more valuable than dead ones. Even if he accidentally killed Bran and Rickon, he wouldn't burn their faces beyond recognition with fire. He should have deliberately concealed their escape, creating a false impression that he still held the two Starks. But he brought two charred bodies back to Winterfell and declared that Bran and Rickon had been burned to death. This can only mean he has a guilty conscience. He wants everyone to believe that Bran and Rickon are dead, so that if Bran and Rickon seek aid or refuge from other lords, no one will believe them, as the two of them have never appeared before other lords and their subordinates, and not many people in the North recognize them."
Listening to Sansa's analysis, Lynd couldn't help but applaud approvingly. He said, "You are indeed as excellent as Jon said, and you are truly skilled at analyzing intelligence. In that case, come work by my side! You'll be specifically responsible for assisting me in organizing intelligence."
"Yes, my lord," Sansa said, a hint of joy on her face, followed by a look of worry. She hesitated for a moment, then asked Lynd, "My lord, can you help me find Bran and Rickon?"
Lynd shook his head slightly and said, "I don't know their whereabouts either, but I know they will definitely go to one place, so we just need to wait for news."
"Go to one place?" Sansa was stunned, but quickly realized something and said, "You mean they'll go to the Wall?"
Lynd analyzed, "Jon Snow is the Commander's Steward at the Wall, Benjen Stark is the First Ranger, and Jeor Mormont was once a vassal of Winterfell. If Bran and Rickon were to flee, their best option would be to go north. And once they go north past the Wolfswood, they will be within the Night's Watch's sphere of influence, where they will be relatively safe, as the Ironborn do not dare approach there."
Hearing Lynd's analysis, Sansa couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
However, Lynd at this moment did not know that Benjen had led the Rangers Beyond the Wall on patrol and gone missing, and Jon Snow was currently in peril himself, imprisoned in Black Castle's dungeon. Even if Bran and Rickon reached the Wall, they would not be able to offer them any help, because he was accused by the Night's Watch of being the murderer of Night's Watch Commander Jeor Mormont.
"Jon is absolutely not the murderer! You cannot determine he is the murderer just because he was the first to discover the Commander's incident; such a judgment is too absurd!" Samwell Tarly, suppressing his fear of the castle Commanders before him, bravely argued for Jon: "If you judge like this, then next time you are assassinated, what should the first person to discover your body do? Pretend not to see it? Pretend not to see it until your body stinks and rots away, because as soon as someone says they saw the body, then he is the murderer."
"Sam, you don't need to be so agitated," First Steward Bowen Marsh said with a grim face. "We haven't determined that Jon Snow is the murderer yet. He was, after all, the first to see the Commander's body, and the last to leave the Commander's room…"
Sam immediately retorted, "Lord Bowen, when Jon left the Commander's room the day before yesterday, we were all there. The Commander was arranging tasks for the next day, and we all saw that the Commander was perfectly fine then. How can you use that as evidence to suspect Jon?"
Janos Slynt, who had just been appointed Steward, slammed the table and bellowed, "Enough, fat man! While we are analyzing the situation, you just barge in, saying this and that. I think you are clearly in league with that bastard and want to disrupt our thinking to let your accomplice go free."
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