Chapter 08: Bastard's Mercy

"How are you feeling, Racy Bolton?"
I was awake by Bran Stark's soft but firm voice. He was sitting on his chair near in my bed. Hodor, too, was with him.
"L-lord Stark. Forgive me of my rudeness, but I felt slightly better now. Must be the herbs and ointments the Maester had put on my bruises and wounds." I shyly smiled at him as I struggled to get up from the bed. "Look, the wounds, they were almost healed now, Lord Stark." I showed him my wounded  arm.
"H-Hodor! Hodor!"
It was Hodor. His face was beaming with smile. He seemed glad when he saw my nearly healed wounds.
Bran's gesture and treatment towards me was the perfect opposite of his older brother Jon. He was very kind to me even though my true identity being a true-born Bolton was revealed in all Winterfell Castle and of North. I never received any remorse and hate from him, unlike Jon and the rest of the Northerners.
"I was very pleased that you were finally healing now, Racy Bolton. I felt very sorry for my brother's rudeness to you. It was not of his true nature. Jon was really a good man."
The young Stark smiled at me.
"I understand very well, Lord Stark. I couldn't blame Lord Snow of his treatment towards me. My father and brother had wronged your family. And I couldn't do anything to save myself from his wrath."
I bowed my head,tried to conceal the pain that I felt.
"He owned me. He bought me from my brother Ramsay. So, there's nothing I could do to save myself from him. He could do anything he wanted to do with me, because I was my father and brother's parcel that was sold to him and to the Starks.. And that was the truth, Lord Stark."I said painfully to him. Tears had...