Sandor

Sandor finally managed to lose the Stark boy in the yard. The child had been clinging to him since they broke their fast, but it seemed the stonemasons and the duelling men were more interesting than a holy brother, even one who had taught the whelp to hold a sword. He wore roughspun breeches and tunic today, with a plain leather jerkin most like borrowed from that stable oaf whose only word was his name. His robes were gone, the things so tattered after two months on the road that they had been fit to be burned and little else. Is this what you wanted, Elder Brother? I am all but myself again.

He had not wanted to leave the Quiet Isle. He had not wanted to accompany another Stark brat across country. But he had sworn the novice's vows with every intention of keeping them, and one of them was the promise of obedience. Elder Brother had told him little, but the letters he had sent with Sandor had not been sealed, and the bastard knew he could read – a test, most like, but he had not been told not to open them, and so why not?

What will it take for you to be at peace? Sandor doubted the answer was in Winterfell, and the sight of the great granite castle as it rose up on the horizon had filled him with nothing but anger and resignation. He had expected to be met on the road, though he had not known the little she-wolf was still alive. Not so little any more, in truth, but no less ferocious.

There's one Stark I haven't sinned against, at least. He had gone out of his way to keep that one safe in the riverlands, not that she was like to thank him. Probably still sore over the axe, though it had saved her life. He had not thought she would kill him, not when she'd refused him the gift of mercy, and yet as she'd held the point of her sword to his heart the echo of Elder Brother's words pushed him to his knees in the snow: Brother Sandor walks the penitent's path.

And what a windy fucking path it is, he thought as he skirted the Stark men-at-arms practicing in the yard. Most of them were little crannogmen, sent up from Greywater Watch by Howland Reed to serve here indefinitely. Half his size and half his skill with the sword, if he was any judge, and him not having held a weapon in four years or more. His hand itched for a greatsword, the weight and surety of it, and he glanced into the armoury on his way past, tempted. That was when he saw her, talking to the she-wolf.

He had barely slept for dreaming of her last night, the same dream over and over – him trapped and unable to move while a man in a white cloak and shining armour beat her bloody. How much easier his conscience would lie if that had been the way of it. The Hound is dead, Elder Brother had told him, and yet if that were the truth, why was Sandor Clegane paying for his sins?

He stepped back into the shadows, and though, as at the feast, he could not bring himself to look at her, he listened to the rise and fall of her voice with something like hunger pricking in his chest. She did not see him as she left the armoury, walking straight past him on her way back to the Great Keep, and he told himself that was for the best.

He had not been given any instructions as to what he was to do with himself now he was here, and he would not have asked any of the castle folk even if he could. He would have liked to find a nice dark winesink to drown himself in, but wine was not permitted on the Quiet Isle, and he had sworn the novice's vows. Instead, he went to the godswood in search of the hot springs that young maester had made mention of last night.

The castle was surprisingly comfortable, but after two months on the road in the middle of winter it would take more than a warm room and a soft bed to shake the chill from his bones. When he found the pools, they stank to the seven hells of fouled eggs, but on climbing in he found himself very reluctant to leave again, old wounds that had knotted themselves up on the journey here finally soothed and unwinding.

It had gone midday when he entered the stables. With nothing else to do, he tended to Stranger, brushing him down, picking his hooves, tending to the little cuts and rubs he had taken on their journey here. He had just returned his bridle to its hook, freshly cleaned and waxed, when the door at the far end of the stable opened, and a figure stepped inside.

She looks different. That had been his first thought upon seeing Sansa Stark again. She was older, of course, no longer a child, but that was not the whole of it. Before, she had gone through the world with her pretty head bowed, barely daring to look up through her lashes in case she should bring disaster raining down. Such a timid little bird. Now, it was she who sought his gaze and he who could not hold it. He felt a bitter laugh welling up in his chest, causing his mouth to twitch though he made no sound.

The stable was gloomy and warm with the horses' bodies. She had closed the door when she entered and put the bar across it, and now she stood before him, barely an arm's breadth away, and he stared at her feet and waited to see what she had come for.

Yet she did not speak, simply stood in silence, and Sandor could feel the weight of her eyes on him. Further down the stable, the she-wolf's piebald courser whickered and Stranger snapped at him from his stall. The air was still and scented with musty horsehair and sweet-smelling hay. She had a small square of parchment in her hand, he saw. The hem of her gown was wet, as though she had been walking in the snow. And still she did not speak.

He struggled briefly with himself before giving in to desire. Sandor raised his eyes and looked at her. And looked, and looked. Little bird.

"Your Elder Brother writes me that you are a Hound no longer," she said softly, once he had met her eye, "and so I suppose I am to call you Brother Sandor. I am sorry for your loss, Brother Sandor."

Did she mean Gregor? Had she forgotten? He remembered a dark field dotted with tents, and a frightened little girl putting her hand on his shoulder. The only loss I suffered was not having the chance to put him in the ground myself. She knew that, he was certain, and yet her expression was earnest, and a little sorrowful.

It made him inexplicably furious, and he turned away back to Stranger's stall, showing her the burnt side of his face that she loved so well. The silence stretched once more, and from the corner of his eye he could see she had not moved.

He had once taken a brutal pleasure in forcing her to look at him. Now, he felt none of that. What will it take for you to be at peace? Elder Brother had asked him. Not this, he thought viciously. Not this.

He froze when he saw her raise her hand, and flinched when her fingers touched the ruin of his cheek, but his hand flew up of its own volition to catch her wrist when she withdrew it.

"Pardons, my lord," she murmured.

I am no lord, girl. He had pulled her close when he'd grabbed her, he realised, so close that he could count each eyelash fringing those deep blue eyes, feel the flutter of her breath on his skin. She looked up at him searchingly.

"You are just as I remember you," she said after a moment, a queer look of relief suffusing her features. He could not understand it, and that angered him too. "Though a little quieter," she added, wry. "Your Septon writes that you are to enter our service. Is that the case?"

Sandor scowled down at her, and jerked a nod.

"Then perhaps you would release me. Unless you intend to break your lady's wrist on your first day in her castle?"

He let go as though burned, and stared at the red marks he had left on her skin.

"You are not a very good penitent," she said, and though her voice remained soft, almost gentle, he still heard it for the accusation it surely was. "How is it you came to be on the Quiet Isle? You were never a godly man, before. You once laughed when I spoke of the Seven, do you remember? 'What gods?' you said."

You will not take Septon's vows, and you do not seem to like to pray, Elder Brother had said. What are you hiding from, Sandor?

"Do you remember when I asked you why you allowed people to call you a dog when you would not let them call you a knight? Last time I saw you, you put a dagger to my throat and made me sing when I could barely speak from terror. And now people call you Brother."

Protecting, not hiding, Sandor had told him.

"Why did you come here, Brother Sandor?"

Yourself? Elder Brother had asked. Everyone else, Sandor replied.

She was searching his face again, looking freely at him in a way she never had in King's Landing. "Speak," she whispered, and he saw tears in her eyes. "Speak. Please."

He laughed then, the sour desperate taste of it erupting from his throat. She turned her face away at the sound, and that was too much for Sandor to bear. I will see you in hell, Elder Brother.

"As my lady commands," he rasped.