Catelyn

Where is she? Catelyn was worried to death over her daughter. She had sent Sansa to fetch some vegetables at the market earlier in the day but what should have taken her only a few moments had lasted hours by now! And she was not back yet! This city was a dangerous place. She had warned Ned about it and told him that moving here was a terrible idea, yet when did men ever listen? Ned had been convinced that he would be able to make a better living in the capital and so, the whole family had had to migrate to the other side of the Seven Kingdoms. They were paying very cruelly for that mistake now. Oh! Sansa! What happened to you?

Catelyn had sent Bran, her younger son, searching for her missing daughter in the streets of their neighbourhood while Rob, her oldest child, was looking for her farther into the city. There were a few areas no so far from where they lived that were not recommendable for any respectable woman or girl of any class and Catelyn was afraid that Sansa might have gotten lost in the mazes that surrounded the market and accidentally reached these streets. She should never have sent her do the grocery by herself. Catelyn felt terribly guilty for it.

"I can go search for her too, Mother," she heard Arya plead by her side. Her youngest daughter was nothing like Sansa and had always insisted in doing everything the boys did.

"No, you stay here. I'm not going to send you outside after what might have happened to your sister." One lost daughter was enough.

Obviously frustrated by her answer, Arya went straight through the forge and headed for her room on the second floor of the shop. Catelyn didn't feel guilty for her daughter's outburst; she knew sending her out would have been an even bigger mistake than what she had done earlier with Sansa.

Ned was still in the workshop; she could hear the banging of his hammer on steel, each blow resounding in her eardrum and painfully increasing her growing headache. With the war at its peak, her husband didn't lack of any work. Swords were in cruel need and he had to produce new weapons night and day. The situation in King's Landing had been so harsh of late and the price of the food had increased so drastically that there was no way he could refuse any job he was offered. Going out to look for Sansa could have meant no food for the rest of the family for a few days and so he had to keep on working even though the situation was worrying him to no end.

Lassitude was slowly taking over Catelyn and her whole body ached for her to rest but she simply couldn't. No matter how tired she was, there was no way she'd have slept anyhow. Going outside their house, she sat on the bench they had installed just in front and gazed at the moon in a silent prayer to the gods for her sweet daughter's well-being.

Catelyn was still staring at the starlit sky when she suddenly heard the sound of an approaching horse. She turned her head in surprise, mounts not being very common in this neighbourhood after business hours. Where they came from, in the North, even commoners had horses, donkeys or mules. Their beasts were either old or of a lesser quality but they nevertheless faithfully did their work. In King's Landing, smallfolk didn't have these kinds of luxuries. Regular houses had no stables since space was cruelly lacking but people rarely had to walk very far so that had always seemed fair to Catelyn.

The shape of a huge mounted horse was slowly beginning to draw itself from afar and Catelyn's eyes were fixed on its approaching form.Sansa? Catelyn could not help herself from hoping that her missing daughter was being brought back home by some unlikely hero, coming straight out of one of the stories she had so often told Sansa throughout the years of her childhood. We smallfolk are only in this world to suffer. Why should I hope for anything?

She now could clearly distinguish the shape of the mounted man coming toward her. He was riding an enormous beast, which one moved in such an agile way that Catelyn had no doubt it was a trained animal belonging to a nobleman. The moon was behind the unlikely rider as he finally halted his horse and was gleaming so brightly that she was unable to make out his features.

"Mother!" she heard a soft voice cry out.

In an incontrollable instinct, Catelyn instantly stood up. As she did, she saw the rider jump off from the horse's back, grab the small form of a girl who she could now see had been ridding in front of him and bring it down easily to the ground. The girl ran in her direction and Catelyn strode toward her, her heart beating faster with every step she took. Tears went rolling down her cheeks when Sansa finally jumped in her arms, sobbing and shacking while Catelyn held her tightly against her breasts.

"Sansa! It's you! What happened? Where have you been? We've been so worried over you!"

She was caressing her daughter's back when she noticed that Sansa was wrapped in a white wool cloak obviously too large and long for her. Raising her head, she gazed in the stranger's direction. He was slowly approaching them, his face still indistinguishable in the darkness of the night, yet his impressive height would have been hard to miss. He was taller than any men she had ever met before.

"The girl has been attacked by some bastard. She's been lucky though: I was near and heard her screams. And then, I killed him," he rasped, speaking the harsh words in the same tone most men used while commenting the weather.

This man has killed someone for my daughter? While Catelyn knew she should be thankful that her safety had been guarded, the thought that someone that had spent time with her was capable of such violence made her feel uneasy. Sansa has been riding with a bloodthirsty murderer! She could still hear the soft sobs of her daughter and feel her warm tears on her shoulder when she finally got a good look at the tall man, a gasp escaping her mouth as she recognised him.

There was no mistaking who he was. Everybody knew him in Westeros as King Joffrey's swornshield, his dog. Sandor Clegane was said to be a cruel man that killed and raped everywhere he went. Violence ran in his family: his brother, the mountain that rides, was no better than him from what she had heard. They both hated each others to no end but they were made of the same steel and neither was better than the other. Catelyn was suddenly frightened and she tightened the circle of her arms around Sansa in a protective instinct. She had to find a way to be respectful while getting rid of this most unwelcomed visitor.

"I thank you, ser, for what you did for my daughter," she said a bit more dryly than she had meant.

Just then, she heard footsteps coming from inside the forge and heading toward the door and jerked her head to see Ned coming out to join her. His stare darted directly to the Hound and she could read the shock in his eyes even though he managed to keep a straight face.

He was obviously nervous as he started to talk a few seconds later, although he did a good job at hiding it. "I heard from inside that you were to thank for our daughter's life. We are indebted to you, ser, of a debt we won't ever be able to repay you. Yet, you can be assured that you'll have our eternal gratitude for what you did for us."

The Hound snorted with contempt at Ned's words. "And what will I do with that eternal gratitude of yours? It's not worth shit to me. You're lucky though, I don't want anything from you."

Catelyn was horrified at his unnecessary rudeness. What a dreadful man!

"The little bird told me that you were new in this city. Might be a good idea for you not to send your maiden daughter out in these dirty streets if you want her to stay as such."

The Little bird? Why would he give Sansa such a strange nickname?

Ned looked in Sansa's direction, his brow creased with worry. "Is she all right though?"

"I'm fine, Father," Sansa replied while leaving Catelyn's arms and walking slowly towards the Hound. She seemed so small and fragile next to that massif and monstrous man and the sight of her daughter by his side was enough to make her shudder. "Thank you for what you did for me today, my lord. I will be more careful from now on, I promise."

A smirk appeared on the man's face as he glanced down at Sansa, his cruel eyes gleaming with an interested spark. Catelyn didn't like one bit the way he was looking at her daughter.

"You've better be. I'd hate to have saved you for nothing. Now go clean yourself up and get some rest." Sansa nodded politely before obediently going inside the house.

Relief flooded over Catelyn as the Hound turned his back to her and headed at last to his war stallion but just as he was about to get on its back, he laid his gaze on her and Ned and told them: "I'll be back in a few days to see how the girl's doing. Take good care of her." After that, he jumped on his saddle and quickly disappeared into the darkness from where he had come minutes earlier.

A stab of fear went bolted Catelyn's heart as she heard his last words echo in her mind, over and over again, all the while dreadfully contemplating the prospect that the Hound was not yet done with her sweet and innocent young daughter.