THE GRAVEDIGGER
The call of bells broke the deepening evening, and the setting sun splintered colors from the leaded-glass windows of the sept. It was time to cease from labor, to go within and hear the fifth of the seven offices sung by the proctor whose turn it was to speak today. There would be one more after supper, and then the last just before retiring. The brothers would then rise at midnight for the first of the next day's offices, candles burning in the darkness and prayers made as quiet as their souls.
Some of them, at least. The gravedigger wiped his big hands on his plain brown robe, and, leaning on his spade as a crutch, stumped up the hill. Other brothers passed by, some offering a nod or other small acknowledgement, but no one offered to help him. They had learned by now that he would never accept it.
The gravedigger paused to catch his breath and look out over the Bay of Crabs, the mudflats quickly being swallowed in water as the evening tide rushed in. The Quiet Isle lay just offshore, in the estuary of the Trident, and to the north, he could see the distant peaks of the Vale. South, the riverlands. East, the bay, which eventually opened into the narrow sea. And west, Saltpans. But he never looked west.
The day had been short and the air was full of chill. His breath steamed as he resumed the climb, wincing and occasionally cursing his bad leg. But out of a certain respect that he always mocked in himself whenever it arose, he did it quietly. It was another idiosyncrasy which the brothers had learned to excuse in him, along with the fact that he only ever lit his candles to the Stranger. And the fact that you're an ugly bloody dog with a face that not even the Mother could love. You think, Clegane?
Yet it was true that the brothers, whatever they may think of him in their private hearts, had never allowed it to overlap into their public behavior. He was still entirely unsure what to make of that. It could have been argued that it was more difficult for a man to be impertinent when he did not speak, as the novices, postulants, brothers, and proctors of the Quiet Isle were the Faith's male equivalent of the silent sisters. They tended not only the dead, but also the sick, hungry, wounded, and alone, and swore holy vows not to let words pass their lips unless utterly needful. But the deepest wounds were ones that could be inflicted without words. From the day he finally woke, and walked out among them in a humble brother's robe, he waited for their stares, their horror-struck expressions, wondering what such as him was doing in their pristine refuge. He waited for them to make the sign of the horns whenever he came near, to whisper in his ear the name he had left behind in the Elder Brother's arms, dying on the banks of the Trident: Hound. But they never did.
Considering that the brothers were only mute, not blind, they could not have failed to see the scars on his face, and the ginger way he walked on the lame leg, from the wound Gregor's men had given him at the inn. On his orders, the little wolf bitch had poured boiling wine onto it and bandaged it, but it quickly festered. He had been reeling with fever, swearing, gasping, struggling to stay on his horse, but, finally, fell.
His mouth twisted. She could have done me a bloody favor and killed me. She owed it to me. I saved her life, not letting her run into the Twins while the Freys were murdering her precious mother. The gods alone knew why. He'd taken it into his head to sell Arya Stark off for ransom, had some half-baked notion of collecting the gold and going – where, exactly? Likely nowhere. He would have just gone to the first tavern he found, bought all the wine they had, and happily drunk himself into permanent oblivion. But instead, she had told him that he didn't deserve the gift of mercy. Maybe you'll find out what wolves do to dogs.
"Maybe I have, at that," he growled aloud, reaching the top of the hill. He then glanced around guiltily, in case someone had heard, but the brothers were filing into the septry, paying him no mind. So he returned the spade to the shed, and followed them.
The small, plain sanctuary was dimly lit with candles when Sandor Clegane stepped inside. He dipped his fingers in the ewer of water and touched the seven-pointed star on himself. A mindless little thing, but he had to admit that it comforted him.
Soon after the proctor entered, swinging a censer, and ascended the pulpit. This particular one had a better voice than some of the others, and he sang the evening office well. There were times when Sandor listened eagerly, truly hungry to experience one fucking aspect of forgiveness or grace, let alone seven. There were others when he couldn't wait for the bloody charlatans to shut their mouths and get out of his sight. This time was neither. His mind was still drifting, not quite here or there.
At last the office concluded, and the brothers decamped to the refectory for supper. Sandor limped behind them, feeling more of a cripple than ever; his leg had been acting out today. Four patients had died last night, an old man and a little boy and two women, and he'd had to bury them all. But there was a bowl of brown and a chunk of bread, and he was hungry. No wine, but that couldn't be helped. The brothers did brew their own ale, a rich dark yeasty stuff you could practically chew, and kept a buttery and smokehouse where they stored their wheels of cheese, strings of onions and apples and carrots, and sides of meat and barrels of salted fish. And it had snowed today, and the day before, and the one before that. Not much, just a frosty dew on the fields in the morning, but it was a harbinger of worse to come. Soon what was in those stores would become crucial.
Sandor finished his supper and rose awkwardly, intending to retire to his bed. No one had ever obliged him to attend any of the offices; he could go or not as he chose. But he had just taken a step in the direction of the door when he saw the Elder Brother rise from the table at the front, catch his eyes, and beckon to him.
Surprised, Sandor made his way over, and the Elder Brother led them out into the cloisters, their robes swirling and snapping at their ankles. Then he turned, lifted a gate on the latch, and led them down the hill, past the terraces and the windmill and the sundial, down to the Hermit's Hole. It was dark inside, and smelled of earth and water, but when the Elder Brother lit the candle on the driftwood table and closed the door, it was warm enough.
"Sit." The Elder Brother spoke at last, gesturing to a chair. "It has come time that we discuss your future, Sandor. I understand that mayhaps you will not want to remain a gravedigger for the rest of your life – that is not much for a man like you."
"A man like me? I think you mean a dog. A broken-down old dog who didn't have the sense to die when he should have."
"I think not. That part of you is already dead. You know that."
"I will always be a bloody dog."
"Only if you choose to be." The Elder Brother took the seat across from him. "After the amount of time you have spent here, it would be customary either to make your vows as a postulant, or heal and become strong enough to leave our care. You are of course welcome so long as it is your will to stay. But you are not who you used to be – for better, for worse."
Sandor ran a hand through his lank black hair. "So what do you suggest? Go take up service as a hedge knight somewhere, and when the mobs come after me, tell them they've got it wrong? I'm a different hideously burned bastard? They all think I'm dead – either that, or the butcher of Saltpans. I'd not get more than a mile before I ran into the torches and pitchforks."
"Leaving your helm behind was a mistake I deeply regret." The Elder Brother's voice remained quiet. "And I desire to make it up to you how I can. I remember what you cried out, when you were delirious and raving with fever, and what you told me after. There is no joy in service for you, only bitterness, yet you bite the hand of anyone who tries to hurt your masters. Is that truly what you want?"
"No." Bloody hells, what do I want?
"I see there is still a great deal of rage in you. I do not blame you for that, but if I was to offer my counsel. . . Sandor, you cannot stay like this, halfway between one life and the other. Join our order, and you can remain here forever, healing from everything that has been done to you. Even you, sad, angry, broken, and lonely though you are. The Mother's mercy and love knows no limits."
Sandor did not know what to say to that. He had never believed in redemption, never believed in forgiveness. Everything piled up, one after the other, sin upon sin, darkness his only comfort, wine his only friend, his sword his only stalwart, his nights full of drunken dreams and old demons and fire, fire, fire. I crawled deeper and deeper into the barrow, and never found the way back out.
"I know you do not want my pity," the Elder Brother said at last. "But I have never met a creature I grieve for the more."
Sandor shifted his position, trying to ease the pain in his leg. Suddenly, it dawned on him. "You know something," he accused. "What?"
The Elder Brother hesitated. "I did not mean – "
"Tell me."
The other man looked into the Hound's eyes. Whatever he saw there was enough to decide him not to play games. "Very well. First, I am told that the she-wolf, the man-killing terror who stalked the Trident with her savage pack, has finally been caught. She has been chained half a hundred times, tied down, and confined in a cage; she cannot escape, no matter how she howls and struggles. She is to be sent south to King's Landing, as a prize."
"A prize." Sandor snorted. "Good riddance."
"Aye. We will all sleep easier of a night, it is true. And as for the other news. . . Sandor, I do not think I should, this will lead you to madness – "
"Too late."
The Elder Brother sighed, and chose each word carefully. "Queen Cersei has been imprisoned this last moon's turn in the Great Sept of Baelor, for her crimes against gods and men. She finally agreed to confess, and submitted to a walk of penance through the city. She was stripped of all royal authority, allowed to rejoin her son the king in the Red Keep, but her formal trial still awaits. She will be brought before a council of the Faith, and the full weight of her misdeeds judged. If found guilty, she must die."
Sandor shrugged. Cersei Lannister was nothing to him. Not anymore.
"But," the Elder Brother continued, "there is more. The queen has always been cunning, and surely knows that she can never hope to prove her innocence before a court – the evidence of her guilt is simply too overwhelming. It is widely believed that she intends instead to exonerate herself by combat."
"What, that one? The only weapon she has to hand is her cunt."
The Elder Brother looked briefly scandalized, but chose to overlook the vulgarity. "Sandor. . . before I say this, I must stress that there is no proof. But Ser Arys Oakheart was killed in Dorne, defending Princess Myrcella. Ser Balon Swann has gone to Sunspear to repair relations. Ser Osmund Kettleblack has been caught up in the intrigues against the queen. Ser Loras Tyrell is said to be horribly wounded and dying. And Ser Jaime Lannister has gone missing in the riverlands. And since Queen Cersei is a member of the royal family, her cause can only be championed in battle by one of the Kingsguard."
"Which leaves what – Blount or Trant?" Sandor had once been a member of the Kingsguard himself, the only one that was never a knight. With that sort of shit for his Sworn Brothers, he had never felt the need. Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger. He had said that to the little bird, once.
"Not entirely." The Elder Brother lifted his head. "Sandor. . ."
"Just bloody tell me, would you?" His patience was fast running short.
"Very well." The Elder Brother let out a long sigh. "Two things. First, Ser Kevan Lannister and Grand Maester Pycelle are dead. No one knows how, or by whom, but they were found in Pycelle's chambers, Pycelle with his skull split open and Kevan with a crossbow bolt in his chest."
"Dead?" Seven hells, Lannisters were falling like flies these days.
"Aye. And the High Septon and the Most Devout have taken it as a further sign of the family's guilt, a divine judgment from the Father upon the foulness that has festered so long in Casterly Rock. Furthermore, there are whispers that Lord Jon Connington has returned to Griffin's Roost. . . it sounds so absurd that I hesitate to say it, but the tale is that the Golden Company, a sellsword brotherhood founded by Aegor Bittersteel after the Blackfyre Rebellions were – "
"I know what the Golden Company is."
"Of course you do. My apologies. The point is, the tale is that the Golden Company is in Westeros, led by Aegon Targaryen, the Sixth of his Name."
That did throw Sandor badly for a loop. "Bloody hells, what? Rhaegar's whelp? The brat is dead. Had his head smashed against a wall. My dearly beloved brother raped his mother while his brains were still leaking from his skull." He made a sound that was half a laugh and half a snarl.
"So everyone thought." The Elder Brother's fists closed tightly. "Of course, it is impossible to know if this is so, or if it is merely another royal pretender. But it seems certain that it is in fact Lord Connington."
"Another dead man. Drank himself to death in exile." Which you might well have done, given half a chance, and yet here you are.
"There are tales and tales, my friend."
"I'm not your bloody friend. And there's something else you're not saying."
"Yes. About the Kingsguard, the dragons, the sins of House Lannister. . . and dead men, Sandor. Dead men that walk."
"I don't like riddles, you bastard."
"Sandor, please. Hear me out before you decide to do anything."
"That depends on what you have to say."
"Just this. You will know that the Faith has been arming again, that Warrior's Sons and Poor Fellows alike clamor to make the realm pay for its sins. And the High Septon, as I said, demands the queen's trial take place immediately, but King's Landing is in chaos. The Tyrells are all that stand between us and total anarchy, and Queen Margaery still must be tried as well. If, gods forbid, they were to fall too. . ."
"We'd be dead. It happens to everyone. Some more than once, it seems."
"Yes. But if this is indeed Rhaegar's son, the one supposedly killed by Lannister men, his mother Princess Elia raped and murdered by Gregor Clegane. . ."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" Sandor roared, lurching to his feet. He immediately regretted it, his leg cramping worse than ever, and sank down, wincing. "Stop bloody babbling!"
"Sandor. With Ser Arys' death and Ser Jaime's disappearance, there is an open place on the Kingsguard. And there has been a Ser Robert Strong named to it. For the sole purpose of serving as Queen Cersei's champion in a trial by combat."
"Ser Robert Strong? Who in the seven buggering hells is that?"
"No one knows. No one has ever heard of him. He does not eat, drink, sleep, use the privy, or speak. He never takes off his armor. He is never seen in company. He is eight feet tall and clad entirely in plate and mail. He is a giant. A Mountain."
Sandor was suddenly glad that he'd sat back down. When he could speak, he said, "Oberyn Martell is still dead, isn't he?"
"So far as I am aware. Dorne is in a ferment."
"Good, otherwise I'd be the first in line to kill him again." He had never been so angry as he was that night, never. The thrice-fucking-damned Red Viper had taken from him the only thing he had ever wanted. . . well, almost the only thing. But if this was true. . . if "Robert Strong" was who the Elder Brother seemed to be implying. . .
Seven hells. Sandor wished he could think of something stronger. His breath was coming short, his chest was tight. For a moment he actually thought he was going to faint. His blood was roaring in his ears, the world was possible again and terrible and unholy. How many men of that size are there? No proof. But who needs proof?
"Please, don't do something stupid," Elder Brother urged. "You can still barely walk, you've not swung a sword in months – "
"Why did you tell me this, if not for me to do something about it?" Sandor crashed back to his feet. Anger swept over him in a blackening torrent, and he almost launched himself across the table at the middle-aged monk. "She's accused by the Faith, you said – my bloody undead brother is standing as her champion, Aegon Targaryen is fucking returned from the dead and the Lannisters on the brink of destruction – so fuck them! All of them! Bloody fuck them all to seven fucking hells!"
He picked up his chair and threw it. He was making a terrible sound which belonged to neither man nor dog, a noise of pain and betrayal and utter agony, and he sank to his knees, pounding the floor, wishing he could tear it up, wishing he could tear his heart out, anything to make it stop, make it stop. Then Elder Brother was kneeling beside him, trying to put an arm over his shoulders, but Sandor ripped away. He flung himself against the wall, screaming.
Prudently, Elder Brother did not attempt to come anywhere near again until the tempest had run its course. He stood silent, saying nothing. At last, when Sandor knelt motionless, gasping raggedly, the monk moved closer. "Sandor, I apologize."
"Fucking strange way to make it up to me." Sandor meant to shout, but his voice was strangled in his chest. It sounded hoarse, thin as a thread, shattered.
"You are right. I did know what you would think if I told you. If Ser Robert is your brother, then he is a creature from the deepest and foulest of the seven hells. A reanimated corpse, in a half-life meant only to serve the Lannister woman, to kill anyone who challenges her. . . or him."
Sandor tasted bile in his mouth. Clumsily, he struggled to his feet. "If this was so, the Faith could never allow it to live."
"This would be so. True, Queen Cersei has attempted to get around that. The false maester, Qyburn, claims that Ser Robert is a most devoted champion of the Faith. Indeed, this abomination wears the seven-pointed star on his armor, and, according to Qyburn, has taken a holy vow not to speak until the queen's name is cleared. But I find it rather more likely that he does not speak because he has no head."
"What the – "
"Ser Gregor's skull was sent to Dorne, a token of vengeance for the Martells. Only the skull. And Ser Robert, apart from being mute, never lifts his visor."
"Gods," Sandor muttered involuntarily. He had lost whatever scrap of naïve childhood faith he had when half his face was burned off, when he saw his sister lying with her neck broken, blood on her skirts and terror still frozen in her eyes. The day Gregor became lord of the Clegane lands and keep, the day their father died (supposedly in a hunting accident) was the day Sandor left home forever and journeyed to Casterly Rock to swear his sword to the Lannisters, when he realized that his brother was in fact the Stranger made flesh. And death will not have improved his temper any.
An unhinged laugh burst from Sandor's lips, and the Elder Brother looked at him, startled. Then he said, "Sandor, so much as I mislike it, it may yet be that you could have what you want. But for the sake of your soul, listen to me. This. . . thing has been woven together by the most terrible and blasphemous dark sorceries. Ser Gregor was invincible while he lived, and with this now possessing him. . ."
"Someone has to stop him, then." Sandor showed his teeth. "Isn't that a job for a knight in a story?" Tall handsome heroes and fair maidens. "But the knights are the monsters and all there is on the other side is me. The Hound."
The Elder Brother made the sign of the star. Quietly he said, "If you choose it. You know there will be others who could stand as the Faith's champion. Warrior's Sons, Poor Fellows, any number of sparrows. . ."
"He'll kill them." Sandor was certain of it. "Eat them up and shit them out. Tell me, monk. You ever seen a bird beat a mountain?" Little bird. Gods, no. The last thing he wanted was to think about her.
"I have not."
Sandor lurched toward the door. Just then, he would have taken on any number of undead abominations in exchange for a flagon of wine. "Would you let me go? If I wanted it. I could, you know. My bloody horse is still in the stables. No use turning him into a beast of burden."
"Driftwood does have a terrible temper."
"Driftwood? Bugger that. His name is Stranger."
The Elder Brother made the sign of the star again. "Not here."
"Well then, maybe I'll have to be somewhere that isn't here." At last, Sandor realized what this feeling was, tearing through him. He was alive. He had a purpose again. It was kindling in his stomach, heating him, searing him. Burning me. Like fire. Damn it, he hated fire – and yet he loved this just the same.
"Sandor. Listen to me." The Elder Brother galloped after him. "You were saved for a reason. And so you must – "
"Shut up, monk. Unless you're willing to admit that this might have been the fucking reason?"
The Elder Brother had no answer for that. At last he allowed, "It would be a noble thing to do. If it were done. If it was even possible."
And would I be a hero then? Would you think so, little bird? Seven bloody hells, who cared about her? She was dead by now anyway, raped by some outlaw scum and left to bleed to death in a ditch, or hauled back for Cersei fucking Lannister to hang by the hair above the gates. Or with the Imp.
Hating himself, Sandor nonetheless forced himself to ask. "Monk. One other thing. Where is Tyrion Lannister these days?"
"Nobody knows. He has fled Westeros."
"With his bloody little wife?"
"It is not believed so." The Elder Brother regarded him shrewdly. "There is no word of Sansa Stark, in case you were wondering."
"I wasn't," Sandor snapped. "Fuck you."
"If you say so. You did call for her quite often in your delirium, so I understand the girl means something to you, but all you can do for her now is pray to the Maiden on her behalf. Well, then. If you must leave us, I advise you do so quietly and anonymously. Perhaps I will accompany you a way, so we are seen only as two humble religious men, traveling without arms or armor."
"What? Where are you going?"
"To the Vale, as it happens. I have been summoned by one Maester Colemon, who is in service to Lord Robert Arryn. The little lord is. . . most unwell, and my skills as a healer are well known in this part of the country. The maester begs that I come and do what I can."
"The Vale." Sandor had once thought of ransoming the wolf bitch to her aunt there, he recalled, but that was before some piss-drunk singer pushed Lady Lysa out the Moon Door. "Fine, then. You bloody do that. But I'm going to King's Landing. Maybe I'll take that she-wolf they trapped on the Trident, tell the lordlings I was the one who did it. Think that would make them rush to kiss and pardon me?"
The Elder Brother bowed his head, and opened the door of the Hermit's Hole into the night. Beyond, it smelled of snow and sea and salt, and the stars were coming out above. "Let be it as you wish," he said. "May all the Seven save you, Sandor Clegane."