Sansa lifted the spoon of broth to her lips. Her hand shook and the broth spilled again. At least by now it was cool and didn't burn her. She tried to steel her wrist to stop it shaking and carefully scooped the spoon into the bowl, and again lifted the broth in her wobbly hand. She would eat on her own, she would.
Though she swallowed the tiny spoonful weakly, it felt as if she'd overcome Stannis' entire fleet to lift it. It was five days since she had stumbled in behind the Hound; most of those days she couldn't remember. It was only last evening that she had finally awoken to setting sun pouring in through her window and the sounds of evening birds. She had hardly been able to move and her arms felt as if they weighed a dozen stone each. But she was alive.
He had not counted on her getting sick, she knew. He had kept them far away from roads and people ever since they had stopped at that lake, and his plan had been to head north to the Trident. But somehow she had taken a fever and had spent a day lurching weakly behind him before the Hound had really looked at her and realized how sick she was. She remembered his fingers gripping her chin and turning her face up to the sky; she remembered him forcing her to drink from a stream. Thank the gods for this village, she thought; close enough that he had found it, and somehow also isolated enough that war had not touched it too savagely. Although there were no men in it any more, it had not been burned or looted or even seen an army pass near it, and so there was still enough food here that the old woman was willing to sell them meals.
She laid her head back on the bed frame and breathed hard, exhausted by the effort of sitting upright, closed her eyes and listened to the sounds drifting in through the open window. Birds. A breeze in the trees. Retching. Retching?
Sansa opened her eyes and struggled as upright as she could make herself to look out onto the square.
He was next to the well, bent over and looking like someone's armor left in a heap. His head had disappeared in to the dark maw. He heaved one last time and then came up, wiping his mouth with the back of his gauntlet, shaking and spitting.
Sansa pressed her lips together and lay back down in her bed. I've been awake a whole day and he hasn't even come in to see that I'm alive. He's drunk. He's drunker than I've ever seen him.
"Your father's at it again, retching and puking, just like a boy at his first banquet," said Bethyl as she tottered into the room and set the water flagon on the bedside table.
"He's not my father. My father is dead." Sansa closed her eyes and clutched the blanket to her chin.
Bethyl looked at her with her cloudy blue eyes. "Well, father or what else he may be, he's been no use these last two days. We'll have no more ale if he keeps drinking it so." She hummed to herself and puttered around the room, pulling the bed coverings straight, picking up the empty bowl in her gnarled hands. "I'd say he's drowning his worries in his cups, eh? Stood around here for ages getting underfoot, pestering me to bring you this herb and that broth, then when the sickness really comes on, runs and grabs the nearest tankard. Big man like that, he can brave a thousand swords but a little bit of fever and he falls to pieces. Can't face what they can't fight, yes?" She cackled and hobbled out the door.
Sansa rolled the words Bethyl had said around in her mind, feeling them tumble through the grooves of her own fears. I have seen him fight and kill, I've seen him stand like a statue while horrors rage around him, I've felt his back strong and straight while he carried me...why would my fever bother him? It was me who was dying, not him. She pushed herself up on her elbow again, and looked out in to the yard. He was slumped against the well, head fallen back, asleep and snoring. Sansa pressed her lips together in a thin line, and lay back down. I will sleep, she thought. I will sleep for a whole other day if I feel like it. She closed her eyes and tried to let herself drift away. It was not long before her breathing came slow and even.
She woke with a start. It was dark in the room. She clutched at the blanket, hit her elbow on the bedframe. What was that noise? Was Joffrey come to her room to bed her finally? And then she remembered, I'm not in King's Landing, I'm in an inn somewhere in the Riverlands and I'm with the Hound. No, she corrected herself. I'm not with the Hound, he is asleep in the village somewhere, drunk.
But someone was scratching at the door; she could hear it. Soft though it was, the noise had woken her. Sansa tried to still her breathing; in the faint light from the slim moon she watched as the door jerked slightly and opened, a sliver of black growing wider and wider. She froze while cold tingles crawled down her back and then settled heavily around her legs.
The shadow of the open door grew wider and a hand, a leg and then a face came slowly into view. They had not seen her yet. Sansa felt a scream beginning in her belly but her throat would not utter a sound. All she could do was fight for her chest to rise, in a moment they would be in the room, she would be too weak to run or scream—
A great fluid streak of metal and darkness rose up from the floor beside her bed. A shriek of wood and a crash of rusted hinges broke the night in two and in that space Sansa found the breath to scream, a high thin sound, as a great gloved fist wrenched the figure in the doorway off his feet and crushed him up to the wall. In the dim light the small body struggled and writhed as Sandor Clegane's hand pinned him high up off the floor.
"And what fucking rat comes sneaking in to my room in the dead of night?" he snarled, deadly and quiet. "Did Cersei send you? Did the cunt think she could kill me that easily? Who are you?!" he roared, shaking the small figure as if it were a puppy. A piece of crockery dropped from its hand and shattered on the ground and Sansa saw all at once who it was the Hound was throttling.
"Sandor," she gasped weakly, trying to reach his leg, but it was too far. "It's the boy, it's Bethyl's boy, he's only a boy, please…" She couldn't reach him. Oh gods, he's going to kill a child in front of me, she thought. "Please, Sandor…" Her voice was a wisp of sound but it must have been loud enough. The Hound stumbled in the darkness, and the boy dropped, coughing, to the ground.
"I'm sorry m'lady, Bethyl told me to bring you fresh water, I was only bringing water…" he gasped, crawling to the door. He stumbled as he found the threshold and was gone into the darkness. The Hound swayed, and kicked the door so that it bounced off the wall, and then tripped and fell in an armored heap at the end of the bed. She could hear him breathing hard.
Slowly she relaxed her hands and uncurled her fingers stiffly. Her chest slowed its pounding and she waited for the Hound to move. Was he alright, she wondered? Had he somehow been hurt? He was not moving, but she could still hear him, his breaths hitching now with a high moaning sound. Slowly, fearfully, she crawled down the bed to the foot and reached out a shaking hand. Jonquil never had to do this, she thought suddenly.
And it was no Florian she found either. In the darkness the first thing she touched was his hair; his great dark head was bowed down on the coverlet as if it were an altar. But if he was praying it was to no god she knew; she could hear him whispering now, but she could barely understand him.
"Sandor?" she whispered softly. His head rolled under her fingers and he was laughing.
"…a little boy, ha! The great Dog fights a pup, the mighty Hound… can't even kill a child properly…gods won't they all laugh…" His tangled armor rattled as he shifted and slipped sideways, his legs spilled out beside the bed.
"You're drunk." Sansa knew it was both true and useless to say so. He probably had not even heard her.
She was wrong. His head rose suddenly and even in that faint light she could see his eyes burning.
"Aye, I'm fucking well drunk as I can be, little bird. Even with this weak piss for ale. What comes of traipsing about the countryside for weeks on end with nothing but a little bird for company and not a drop in sight." He paused, and Sansa waited, wondering if he would keep talking or fall asleep. He was looking at her, she could see that his eyes were fixed on her. "You…" He stopped, and swallowed. "I am… I am very drunk, my lady. But not so drunk I can't kill anyone who comes in here." He laughed and his head fell to the bed again.
"You very nearly did," she whispered. She couldn't say why she was whispering, the gods knew who she would wake. "You almost killed that boy who lives with Beryl. I don't even know his name. He must be no more than ten and you very nearly strangled him." She was angry now, and shaking. "They saved my life, and you almost killed him."
The hand that flashed out to grab her arm was so fast that she did not even see it move before her wrist was squeezed painfully tight. "It was me that saved your fucking life, little bird. Me. And no thanks from you either. All the same with ladies. Mouthing pretty words but never speaking the truth…the truth..." He shoved her hand away. "Go sing your songs."
Sansa held herself still. It was true. Never once had she thanked him for taking her away. Even if he was drunk and rude and dangerous, she was still a lady.
"Sandor." The sound of his name brought his head around again. Now his face was in shadow but she knew he was listening. "Sandor," she said again, not sure now exactly what to say. "I'm—I'm very glad you took me with you. I thank you," she finished simply. The words seemed small and flat.
He didn't move. And then he bowed his head down to the bed and she heard him laughing again, but it was not laughter somehow either.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice small and unsure.
His laughing stopped and he was still. "Say my name again, little bird. It sounds so sweet when a little bird sings it." She could hear the roughness in his voice, but it was strangely gentle too.
She felt shy to say it now. He was so big, even when he was slumped over the bed. It seemed odd that this huge man in front of her had such a soft whisper of a name. The word felt strange in her mouth, as if it were a forbidden spell. "Your name is…is Sandor."
"Aye," he said, and sighed, and reached his arms around her knees and bowed his head. In a moment she heard him breathing deeply and she realized that he had fallen asleep. She reached out again and found his head, and stroked his hair as he snored quietly.
"Thank you," she whispered. Then she carefully lowered herself back down to the bed and let herself sleep as well.