"He has lost his master and kennel as well. He cannot go back to the Lannisters, the Young Wolf would never have him,
nor would his brother be like to welcome him. That gold was all he had left, it seems to me."
Thoros of Myr on Sandor ASOS
"Where is Shaggydog?" Ned asked his uncle about his great black direwolf.
"Out hunting. Forgive me," Rickon said to Sansa now, "should I leave you?" He was still somewhat wild and dismissive of formality, but he was considerate and kind.
Sansa smiled gently at him, and shook her head. She knew her youngest brother had always looked up to her husband, even when he was but her sworn shield; and that he loved him like a brother. He lowered himself onto a rug by the bed and turned his gaze up to Sandor with the same respectful attention as her small children.
The little wilding boy is now a young man and Lord of Winterfell. She felt her heart fill for him; he had taken the loss of his family to heart as a boy and so had wanted them to stay on at Winterfell after the wars, hovering on the edges of their family and looking to them for love and guidance. Mayhaps he would have his own family soon, she hoped, when he came into his majority. He had become shyly attentive in the last year towards the youngest Poole sister, Ayme, who was pretty and dark-haired like her friend Jeyne, but still soft and gentle unlike her oldest sister's now haunted and jittery countenance. Poor Jeyne: her ordeals, harsher than Sansa's own even, had left her a frail ghost of herself, and she rarely ventured from her family's small keep, sometimes not even leaving her chamber for days on end. But Ayme had spent the wars in relative isolation with her mother and sisters, suffering only the privations of cold and hunger that the long winter had brought on all of them and the losses of fighting the Others. Now a young woman flowered, she brightened in Rickon's presence, and looked up at him with her soft doe eyes and a softer smile, blushing prettily. The Pooles would once have been too low-born for the Starks, but the loss of so many in the North had meant an easing of such constraints. Many had died and many had risen to take their places; even her husband had risen from sworn shield to commander to Captain of the Guards and Master-at-Arms to Lord Clegane, a fit consort to the Lady of Winterfell though Sansa would not have cared if he had been made a squire again, so in love with him was she by the time they had made their journey to Winterfell. Sansa wondered now if Rickon had confided his feelings or his plans to Sandor; but certainly he, in turn, would have confided in her. But all that was for another time, she reminded herself. Her husband was speaking again.
"I served the lions many years. I guarded their daughter, who was wed to the king. And there were more battles and another rebellion. The king was a mighty stag, a warrior, and from him I learned that sharp steel and strong arms ruled the world. As the lions became more powerful, I saw that they were able to rule others and so I thought the kind were weak and the honorable foolish; I thought nobles' courtesies were just lies behind which they hid their contempt for others, their ambitions or their failures," he admitted. "Especially did I hate knights, for their ceremonies and their vows seemed like more lies: they fought and killed as brutally as any men, if not worse. My brother was knighted, and I told you what kind of man he was."
"In time I guarded the queen's son, called a prince though in truth he was not the king's true son. He was proud like a lion, but became mean like a cur and cruel like my brother, though not strong and never brave. They boy had everything: title, riches, a family, even the love of a beautiful young girl and still he wanted to be feared; and he liked hurting people though he would never do it himself. Fearsome and hard as I was, I flinched at his cruelty. I didn't like him, and I didn't like serving him; not anymore."
"Did you leave him, Papa?" Catya asked, sounding relieved.
"That boy king would have had his head," Rickon told her when he saw Sandor hesitate. He drew his finger across his throat and Catya gasped and shook.
"Yes, undoubtedly," Sansa agreed firmly. She had known Joffrey's cruelty too well.
"True enough," Sandor rasped, "but I also believed I had nowhere to go, I had no home. No one would want the cruel king's dog: my loyalty to them had made me feared but without a great house to shelter him even the fiercest fighter is just a sellsword who needs a master to feed and board him. Without the lions, I was a freerider and worse, a deserter. I had no family, no friends, no comrades: I had placed all my faith and loyalty with the lion's house, and I had been wrong. I only know who's lost. Me. I may have been free, but now I was alone."
"But didn't you have Mama?" Robb asked, confused.
Sandor looked to his little bird. "Not yet," he answered in a strangely wistful rasp.
"Where was she?"
His mouth twitched; then his eyes dropped to the floor under heavy brows: ashamed. "I left her with the lions."
…..
All three children drew sharp breaths, their eyes widening and little mouths dropping open in stupefaction.
"But why, Papa, why?" Catya questioned, on the verge of tears.
"Your Papa tried to rescue me," Sansa interrupted firmly, "but I was too scared to run: it was dark, and everything was on fire." She looked to Sandor now; it had been him she had feared and he knew that but she hesitated to tell her children, feeling it disloyal to their father.
"Your mother was only a girl then," he rasped. "I came to her from battle covered in blood and smelling of the fires: I must have looked like the Stranger himself that night." Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life. "She had good reason to be just as frightened of me."
Dog: you held a dagger to her throat and made her sing for you. You threw away what you wanted most because you thought you could never have it, have her. Yet here you sit with your children, by her, gods be good; and she defends you to them.
"What fires? Was it a battle with dragons?" Ned asked him. He loved to hear about dragons.
"The Battle of the Blackwater, it's called, Ned," Sandor told him. "The whole river and the fleet at King's Landing caught fire. I was fighting for the lions when I decided I did not care if they won; I did not care who ruled the world anymore but I would not help the lions do it and so I stopped fighting for them. But there were no dragons, not yet."
"Why were you in King's Landing, Mama? Why did you live with the lions and not here at Winterfell?" Robb wrung his little hands together.
She reached to put her hand gently over his. "I also left home when I was young; though not like your Papa did. I lived here and was safe and had a loving family. Our house was happy one, and I knew only kindness and honor. But I loved songs and stories of brave knights and beautiful ladies, and so I wanted to leave, to see the world of love and honor and beauty for myself. So when the king of the Stag house came to visit Winterfell, I feel in love with the lion queen and her princely son. They were so beautiful and golden that I thought that they must be noble and good, for the gods could not give so many gifts to cruel hard people. And I thought they loved me too," she trailed off weakly.
"You left," Rickon looked up at her now, "you and father and Arya…and Jon."
"…and Lady and Nymeria and Ghost. You were so young. You cried," she remembered.
Rickon nodded, and looked away.
"The stag king asked my father to serve him; since my father was his oldest friend, and honorable, he left Winterfell, and took my sister and I with him to King's Landing. I was to marry the lion prince," she admitted, staring dully into the middle distance; "I thought he was beautiful and I wanted him to love me and to have a beautiful life together, like I had heard of in songs." She swallowed hard before continuing. "But the lion prince was a cruel craven, and a liar." She thought guiltily of the butcher's boy she had not defended, the one killed by Sandor but it had been his duty; and how her beloved direwolf Lady had paid with her life, while Arya's direwolf Nymeria had to be driven off. She had blamed Arya, and her father; everyone but Joffrey and the queen…and herself.
If only I had told the truth then, I would not have had to spend the next years of my life lying.