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"Woman, thou art the owner of this mill?" the lead rider asked as he looked down on her from atop his horse.
"Aye, milord," she replied nervously.
"And your name?" he asked again, surveying the surroundings as he spoke.
"Mila, milord."
"Mila, huh?" he said, as if weighing the word.
"Search the house and the mill. Find the boy and Heke."
"Milord!" she exclaimed in fear as ten men-at-arms dismounted at their leader's command.
"What is this about?" she cried. "What has my son done, or my servant, to be hunted like criminals?"
"Ramsay Snow and Heke… also know as Reek are wanted for murder, rape, and assault. They are to face the king's justice and his Lord's"
The words were spoken by Ser Bartimus, a quiet yet brutal lieutenant of Walton Steelshanks. He was large and broad of frame, one might mistake him for an Umber at a glance, yet he spoke softly, like a careful whisper. His scarred, expressionless face accompanied by his monotone made men flinch more than his size ever could and for that he was feared back at the fort.
"And you," he added, dismounting his massive horse with surprising ease and towering over her, "are accused of treachery and conspiracy."
He struck her without warning. The backhand from his steel gauntlet sent her crashing to the ground, blood spilling from her mouth.
"Accessory to treason , murder, bribery, and corruption, if it were up to me I'd have you hanged right here and right now but alas , your life is not mines to take. Lord Domeric would decide your fate",
"Ser Bartimus, it's empty," one of the soldiers reported, holding a sack he had clearly rummaged through.
Bartimus was unsurprised. His lord had warned him this was likely. Ramsay would be out during the day, committing some other crime alongside that foul creature called Heke.
In context Reek, whose true name was Heke, was a man-at-arms in service to House Bolton. He served as the personal attendant to Ramsay Snow and his mother and was rarely far from his master. Nearly as infamous for cruelty as Ramsay himself, Reek was rumored to practice necrophilia, a filthy act defiling a corpse sexually, though hardly surprising for such a man.
He was said to never bathe, hence the name Reek. And according to the late Lord Roose Bolton, the stench had been with him since birth. Reek bathed three times a day and wore flowers in his hair, but nothing masked the odor.
Once, he stole perfume from Roose's second wife, Bethany, and doused himself in it. When caught and whipped, even his blood smelled foul. A year later he drank the perfume and nearly died. Though Maester Uthor diagnosed the condition as some sickness, Reek was otherwise strong and healthy.
No one at the Dreadfort could stand his presence. He slept in a pigsty.
When Ramsay's mother came seeking a servant to help raise her wild young son, Roose gave her Reek as a jape. Instead, the two became inseparable.
Though Reek had no formal training in arms, he tutored Ramsay in his own vicious methods—explaining the boy's brutal, uncontrolled fighting style .
The Reek of the books was not the same man shown later in the shows. That name belonged to another , theon greyjoy.
"Where are they?" Bartimus demanded, his voice still soft.
She said nothing.
She had been complicit in her son's crimes, whether through encouragement or indulgence, grooming him with dreams of inheritance, telling him the Bolton lands were rightfully his. Those dreams died the moment Domeric returned, swift and inevitable as flame to smoke.
She had known this day would come, ever since the first whispers of Roose's trueborn heir return reached her ears. Still, she believed herself protected by secrets the late lord had kept close or died with in this case.
"I'll start breaking fingers, wench," Bartimus said evenly. "Speak now, or you will scream."
She met him with silence…and defiance.
"Do it," he ordered.
One man seized her hair, another her left arm as she struggled. The sickening crunch echoed through the millyard, followed by her cries in pain,…loud, raw, and unbroken.
"Whether you speak or not only delays the inevitable," Bartimus said calmly. "We will find your bastard and that scum. They will die…. and not peacefully. But you may yet cleanse yourself of this stain. Lord Domeric might show you mercy if you tell us where they are."
Even he sounded unconvinced.
"Your good lord stole my son's birthright," she spat through blood. "May the Old Gods curse him and his kin to the deepest hells!"
One man raised his fist to shatter her teeth, but Bartimus stopped him.
For a moment there was silence.
Then Bartimus smiled—wide, slow, and cruel.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
The smile vanished as quickly as it came.
Ser Bartimus was of Roose Bolton's old guard. Most of those lieutenants and masters-at-arms were sadistic, brutal men, unchanged even now under a new lord. Domeric had purged the incompetent and the thuggish, but Bartimus along with a few likewise had remained. Duty came before all else for him, especially human pleasures.
"Tie her up. We're taking her back to the Dreadfort,"
Bartimus ordered. "Brix, take three men and hide in the mill. If they return, you know what to do. The lord wants them alive. We'll rally a search party and bring out the hounds. Take some clothing… anything of their scent to track them."
"With that foul-smelling creature," he added, "I doubt it'll be hard."
"Aye, Ser Bartimus," one of them replied.
Rope was cinched tight around her arms before she was thrown across a horse.
The hunt had begun and the intended preys would be caught as Lord Bolton demanded this and just like his father before him , he would not accept failure at any juncture.
No lapses
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