Sandor

It was the end of summer and the grey sky looked as if it were going to rain.

The coffee Sandor Clegane was having on a terrace of a small coffee shop was conveniently black. He still found that the mug and the quantity of liquid in it should have been way bigger to merit the name coffee. Not a fragile little thing with delicate handle he could squash with his huge fingers if he was not careful.

His liaison officer was late, the boy as stupid as he was rich if someone asked for Sandor Clegane's opinion. Unluckily, no one did, and the boy's uncle Stannis just brought him in three weeks ago, saying that the boy had a decent military training and wanted to work for national security. Wanting and actually working for the damn thing were two very different things, at any rate, and the handsome blond boy seemed almost retarded in some aspects. One could not say that to Stannis, who was as stubborn as he was smart, so everybody did their best to tolerate Joffrey.

Piazza San Marco was getting full of tourists when the wonder of an army boy finally appeared.

"Hi," he said, "sorry I'm late," he had the grace to mumble.

"I was about to leave," Sandor Clegane said curtly.

"Not yet," Joffrey contradicted him with an arrogance only truly stupid persons could possess. "There is an important reason for my delay. Mr Baratheon sent me to the airport to fetch the new agent you are to work with in the coming days."

"Where is he?" Clegane asked. "Hiding behind you?" He guffawed at his own stupid joke, starting to hate Venice as much as he hated mornings.

There was no one to be seen except for Joffrey and more tourists. The waiter brought another espresso without anyone ordering it. The boy smelled it and pushed the cup away. "Disgusting," he said. "Tea would be better but they don't know how to make it over here." To Clegane, he said in a conspiracy tone of an idiot thinking himself to be James Bond: "Our new colleague will join us shortly."

Not having anything better to do, Sandor drank Joff's coffee, sugarless, hoping it would prevent him from falling asleep. The night before was long. If the Italians could not make proper tea, they surely produced good wine. It was nothing he couldn't handle, but still.

A new bunch of tourists attracted his attention, as he tried hard to parry Joffrey's incessant talking with a sound similar to "a-ha" and an occasional "m-hm", pretending he was listening, while in reality he didn't register a single word being said. He was going to check the paperwork for the task and figure out what he was supposed to do in Venice later on. Maybe ask Varys a question or two if he didn't find it clear. Whatever the boy said was rubbish anyway. From Sandor's previous experience of the one and only operation they worked on together, he was never able to focus on essential details. Only on his perceived role in the affair, a highly uninteresting and unnecessary part of it.

There was a young woman in a white summer dress, taking photographs of Saint Mark's church with her phone. When she was satisfied with one of them, she stooped, probably tweeting the damn thing or putting it on Facebook. Sandor Clegane despised social networks even if he was able to use them at need. His avatar on all of them was a large black dog with flaming eyes. The thing looked better than his normal face, and at least he didn't receive too many messages of working girls saying hi and similar.

She lingered behind the group she was with, and tied her brown hair in a tight bun on top of her head. When her friends were gone, she looked around in confusion.

Good lord, but she's even too stupid to follow the tourist guide, Sandor concluded.

Then, the girl walked in their direction, staring at all the terraces of all coffee shops before she noticed Joffrey. Her innocent features spread in a small smile.

"Hello, Mr Baratheon," she said as she took her seat next to the blond boy, not sparing a single look for Sandor Clegane and his two empty espresso cups. She looked at Joffrey as if he were Prince Charming or something. Unbelievable, Sandor Clegane thought. Where is she from? Oz?

"It's Joffrey, I told you, my dear," the boy said in a flirtatious voice, getting a strand of blond hair out of his swamp coloured green eyes.

"Well, then, Joffrey...When do we start? I am eager to begin with my first task," she said.

"We?" Joffrey asked, perplexed. "Why, my dear, while I am the most important agent in our organisation, you did not honestly expect to be paired with me on your first job, did you? You will work with my associate here. That much was clear from the paperwork you received."

"Oh," the lady said, "I only received them now by email. I didn't have time to go through the materials, I swear." Her voice was pleading as she was trying to excuse herself for her insufficiency. "Mr Varys said there was a delay in sending for technical reasons. Or maybe a security breach, he's not sure."

More likely you can't read, or not fast enough my dear, Sandor said in his head. His amusement sharply turned into boiling fury when his hangover clouded brains clicked together slower than usual, and he understood two things. First of all, little shit, Joffrey, lied to the girl that he was an important agent, and not just an apprentice serving as liaison for things of little or no importance. He, Sandor Clegane, was the best agent of the service. He never bragged about it and never thought much about it, but it was the truth. And he was to work with a stupid girl on a "job of a century", as Varys had put it before Sandor Clegane embarked on a flight to Venice two days ago.

"My name is Sansa, Sansa Stark," the stupid girl in white said to him then, and he saw red when she outstretched her arm.

Swift as a snake, he turned toward her the side of his face which he had previously kept in the shadow of a large sun umbrella, which would have been white as the dress she was wearing if it weren't soiled by usage. At the same time he caught her hand so hard he knew he must have caused her pain.

"Sandor Clegane," he grunted at her.

Her friendly face changed in a mask of shock. Her eyes went open, mirroring the blue and grey of the sky of Venice. She fought to keep her mouth closed, suppressing a cry. The elaborately styled bun she had made of her hair fell apart without her noticing. A lost ray of sun passing high above them illuminated a copper tone in it, a glint of red that the clouds had kept hidden by then. Dim-witted and beautiful, by all means, Sandor Clegane thought, feeling the scars on his face twitch.

Until she opened her mouth and said politely: "Nice to meet you, Mr Clegane."

She shook his hand vigorously, ignoring the pain he must have been causing her. And if he didn't see the initial shock on her face, used as he was to study the reactions of others to his ugly face with sick precision, he could have sworn that she had kept it even and friendly all the time.

Then, she turned her attention to Joffrey, and gave him that sweet look again. The way girls usually looked at Joffrey, anyway.

Sandor Clegane was overwhelmed with desire to show off his own achievements in the 15 years of service, such as he has never felt before. One of the colleagues he didn't loathe that much, Jaime Lannister, always claimed that some girls were attracted to danger, or to the guys wearing guns in their expensive suits. He already forgot the exact insipid argument. Maybe she was one of them.

"Well then, Joffrey," she said as softly as rain could fall, "I hope that I will do right with Mr Clegane, so that one day you and I may work together."

"I hope so as well," Joffrey said.

You hope, Sandor Clegane thought. There were things money and his uncle's unquestionable influence in the service could not buy. Becoming an agent was one of them.

He couldn't tell why it irked him no end that Sansa Stark so obviously fancied Joffrey Baratheon.