A/N: Feedback is appreciated.
Chapter Seven
The inn is half a ruin.
Gray, white and black mold wastes away a high ceiling, slanting as it gives way to a crumbling roof. Beneath the old and rotting, the floor is a maze of missing planks and new timber. Untreated and hardly flat the floor sticks to the bottom of Sansa's boots, in a gray ooze of sap and soot from the main hearth. The windows are unwashed, the shutters undusted, and the common room unkempt.
And it stinks! In fact all of it stinks: the men, the meat, the mead. It made no matter. The whole of it is dark, and wet, and dirty too!
The girl now named Bastard shifts from boot to boot, uneasy in her looking about. It is unladylike to fidget and to fiddle ones hands, but there is not a friendly face insight, and Bastard is a bastard.
I wouldn't have to be a bastard if Lady were here now. Maybe her father would be alive too.
The Hound keeps a grip on her through the hall, while others pass. None stop. No greetings, yet they eye her, ill favor for the man she travels with. Did they know him? The girl cannot say. But the Hound is at ease, so the girl stills.
The innkeeper, short but brawny in his old age comes limping in, and a crow calls out a greeting.
Above on a chandelier, where the flames shimmy and shake the lonely crow hops from spindle to spindle, cawing as crows do. Curses echo throughout the hall from the customers below. But for every curse a reply is sure to follow… and well the crow leaves his in a pile on the floor.
"Like that bird, milady?" asked the innkeeper. He's a toothless man with a wandering eye. "You can have em' if it please you. Its name's Friend." The innkeeper gives his gums a quick lick.
"Friend?" interrupted the innkeeper's wife, their room key between her fat fingers. She's a heavy browed woman, with light hair, and shaped like an egg. "Thought your father named it Fred."
"No… No… It's Friend. I'm sure o' it." The innkeeper didn't sound so sure.
He licks his gums.
The woman laughs at her husband, her teeth all yellow and black. "He must o'meant Fred, you ol'fool."
"Damn ya' woman! I ain't no fool. And that bird ain't no Fred!"
"We don't want the bloody crow!" The Hound snatches the key from the innkeeper's wife. "We are in want of supper. Drink as well. Wine if you have it and cider for the girl." His gaze narrows, pointed, and chafed at the innkeeper's fat wife. "Draw my bastard a bath. She'll eat in the room."
I'm not a bastard. She'd never say it aloud.
The woman quivers a smile, her eyes wandering dimly, until they seek the girl's. "Come along, Milady." The woman departs, and Sansa follows, but not before the Hound can give her a pinch. The girl squeaks and the Hound laughs.
His pinches have become a game. Sansa wonders what he'd do if she were to pinch him back?
The woman is quick despite her girth. Long legs bellow out her tattered gown, as she leads Sansa pass the commons and through a door.
The innkeeper's wife is plain as she is plainly dressed, yet Sansa envies her gray and brown rags. They are not her summer silks to be sure, but the fabric moves all the same.
And Sansa hates breeches.
The room is larger than Sansa expects, yet dirtier than she hoped. Still, a bed stuffed with feathers is more than any girl can dream. There's a wood basin for her bathing and a table and chair for supping.
Sansa cannot remember the last time she sat on anything that wasn't a saddle.
It is rare to find a single bed, in a single room in a place such as this, and rarer still to have one's own hearth. Sansa would sleep soundly without the damp, and the cold, and the ache in her bones. Sansa Stark had never known the cold. Inside the walls of the castle no one ever lacked of warmth. Winterfell had its summer snows, but Winterfell's daughter never left the castle unless bundled like a babe.
"I'll bring you your supper and the water for your bathing. When you're well and clean, I'll send my boy to build a fire, while that man o'yours is off in his cups. Make no mistake, milady: it will be cold"
Sansa blushes a pretty pink, but utters her courtesies all the same.
"No need to be embarrassed, milady. My husband ain't no different." With that woman takes her leave.
Sansa supper is a stew of beef and barely with large clods of carrots and potatoes. Scolding but rich, the girl spoons it up quickly, savoring only the satisfaction of a full tummy. The Hound fed her well enough, but it is good to sit and to sup.
One bucket after the other, the innkeeper's wife pours the boiling bath water into the great wooden tub. Her husband, the fool delivers each bucket, licking his gums all the while.
They finish and duck from the room, and the girl has the door barred, quick as that.
Stew and cider leaves her damp, sweating, and sticking to the coarse fabric of her tunic and breeches. Dull and gray and doused in mud they peel away from the girl's lean plains of ivory and pink. Fatigue has taken its toll, for she wobbles, struggling to remove a boot. A simple task, but her knees are jelly and her feet lead weights. Weak as Sansa feels, the days on the road have indeed firmed her. In more ways than one.
Pleased, she stretches. Sansa gasps a sharp intake of scent and air; her perfume is a ripe surprise. With her nose wiggling, Sansa scurries into the tub, giddier than the day she left for Kings Landing. What a fool I was.
Sansa dips in. An eager smile plays upon her mouth, as the water in excess spills over. Laughter, airy and rippling heaves past a lip rimmed cage, as she dunks beneath the water. Soot and bubbling laughter thickens to a mire, as the girl continues to dunk. Once, twice, thrice, four times over and beyond, it only ends when the girl is half drowned.
Coughing, sputtering, and grinning all the while Sansa surfaces. A bar of soap and sheet of cloth is put to quick work. Lathering her hair and scrubbing it at the root, her hair shines like copper in the golden light of a dying day. Her face is next, arms and pits, breasts, and her tummy too. The girl takes to the inside of either thigh where her woman's blood had ended, staled; it washes away in a brown bloom.
If what her lady mother said was true it would be back again in less than a moons turn. It's daunting. The road is hard enough, but if they were to keep a steady course, could they not make it back before? But, how many days had it been, truly? How far had they come? Did the Hound mean to take her home, to Winterfell? Or to her brother, Robb? Everything points north, and that was the direction they were heading; in this, Sansa takes comfort.
The girl drifts, content, and humming some wordless tune.
Sansa wakes in the open air, upright and striding pass the front door and into the back courtyard.
Others make a staggering pass, onward to home, to a wife, to a ditch, or to nothing. Though, they all take their pause… Their look. Sansa has become accustom to the men and their gawking. She liked it once; it filled her with pride and her lady mother too. But now, these men do not gawk at all. They only stare.
Her mouth is dry. Unwarranted, the girl reaches, grasping hopelessly for something that is not there. She bristles. There's a curse on her tongue and hate buried in the heart of it.
Sansa catches sight of a basin, lapping with water. Before she knows, a green tunic is pulled over her head and discarded in the mud. She's bare from the neck down. There's shame, but no blush. She's modest, but no move is made to cover herself.
A heavy palm, thick with hair is dipped into the basin. Greedily, she takes the water in. Sweet in a stale mouth, she sloshes it about briefly before swallowing it down. The water dribbles down her lip, and well past the collar of her neck. She wipes backhanded against a coarse cheek.
And a flint of understanding is lit.
A moaning current wafts across her ear and licks at her chest. She's shivering when a flock of starlings burst overhead, a dark shadow in an darkening sky.
Birds, came the Hound's voice, with a dismissive shake of her head… His head… their head?
A taunt tug of a twitching lip, and they dunk their head into the freezing water.
The girl wakes for true, gasping to her feet.
"Milady?" a boys voice peeped from the door. "I have the wood for the fire." He knocks. "Milady?"
"One moment, I beg you, Sir."
Sansa climbs from the tub, trembling. On the basins edge, she steadies herself, as she reacquaints with what is real, briefly, before scrambling for her clothes. They smell terribly like horse and her own filthy scent. What a waste.
Her hair is still a dripping mop when she unbars the door to find the stable-hand from before, with a pile of wood stacked high. And his doggy. The mutt laps at her hand, before the boy can send him slinking away.
A smile brightens his face, as Sansa allows him in. The stable boy attends to the hearth, and Sansa seats herself on the bed.
He stacks the wood, and lights the flame with flint and steel. As it catches, he turns back, grinning. Sansa can only do but smile back, her cheeks reddening beneath his pale gaze.
"Anything else, milady?"
"No. Thank you, ser."
"I ain't no ser, milady." He stands, wiping the brush from his breeches. "My uncle is. Fought on the Blackwater, he did. Says he'll take me to squire." He puffs out his chest, all pride. "I'll be a knight someday. You could be my lady. I could wear a white cloak, serve the king. Always wanted to be a knight of the king's guard."
No you don't. They're not knights. They're monsters. She wants to scream. She wants him to leave. "The knights of the King's guard have no ladies," she told him flatly. "They cannot marry."
The stable boy's face grows still, and he sets himself beside her, on the edge of the bed. "Oh… " Disappointment looks to be bitter on his tongue.
He's just a boy, silly as me.
The stable boy kisses her then, his wet lips smear clumsily against her own.
"You forget yourself." She pushes his face away, scratching him in a jagged line from cheek to jaw. "I am a lady!"
"Aye, my uncle says the king's lost his lady to his dog." He wipes the welling blood from his cheek. "I know who ya'are, Sansa Stark. And the ugly one you with."
He's not so ugly as you. "No. I'm not."
"The king's already found himself another. I could be your knight, and you my lady." He creeps closer and he sighs an airy whisper, " Don't you want to be my lady?"
No.
He kisses her again.
And the door opens.
The boy is cowardly quick. The girl expects death, blood, bruises, yet he goes on, past the Hound unmolested.
The Hound shuts the door behind him. He doesn't look at the girl. He doesn't look at anything. "Did you tell him your name?"
"No." The lie came too quick.
"Good."
The Hound moves for her, quicker than she has ever seen him. Sansa twists in his grasp, but it's for naught, and he's pulling the girl to her feet. He quivers a sigh, his eyes hooded.
Does he mean to kiss me too? His face is near, as near as the stable-hand's. His breath is cool across her face, but his eyes big and gray flutter like a moth to the flames.
His scabbard sings of drawn steel, it trills throughout the room. And his eyes grow hard, reflecting the tremulous fire. She wiggles worm like, caught in some birds clutch. He won't release her. The girl cannot win. She shuts her eyes.
And the first cut is made.
Her eyes pop open, big as a plump berry, and just as blue. A single tendril of hair drops to the ground, as light as any feather. Another slice is delivered soon after, and another, and another, until her hair, is but stubs on Sansa's head.
Filmy with her own sad dew, Sansa looks to the ground, and to his hands, fists filled with her red beauty, and then his face, hard as stone.
"Why?" she sobbed. I didn't want him to kiss me. Sansa thinks to say it, but would it make a difference?
"I've told you before. And now this." His voice is softer than it ought to be, softer than a voice like his could be. "You've caused me trouble, plenty and more. More than you're worth, some might say. You're better off without it."
"Why would you come to me then? Why would you take me? You knew."
"I wouldn't take you, Bird." He releases her. "But that stable-hand might. Now, gather your things. It's best we leave."
The Hound urges her forward on, out the door, down the hall, and into the emptied commons. The sun diminished not long ago, dipping below the horizon's belt, yet early still for most.
Something is wrong, realized Sansa.
Where had they all gone?
The Hound turns on his heels, from the front door to the kitchens. The girl grasps, clawing at his arm, till he anchors it about her. He drags her along, nearly lifting her in his hurry.
The courtyard is no different, empty and raining; the stables too are silent, save the animals.
Their things have not been tampered with.
Pleased, the Hound pats Stranger down. None would tempt the Hound's beast with blood. The animal nickers merrily for its master.
Quickly, the Hound lifts Sansa on the horses back, and leads him on by the reins, through the barn doors.
They've gathered outside; the innkeeper, his wife, patrons all, and the stable-hand.
"There." The boy holds out his hand, finger pointed. "The traitor's daughter, Sansa Stark, and the Hound. He cut me! Meant to kill me too."
The Hound turns to her, no illusion. He had known my lie. But did he know Sansa wore his skin whilst she slept? The girl wore his skin, felt his malice, but knows him not.
The Hound's sword is in his hand, and the weather turns from rain, to sleet, to snow.
