CHAPTER 25

Sandor

After the ambush on the road, I decided for us to keep to the woods as much as possible before reaching Highgarden.

When we arrive two days later, it feels unnerving to be part of the noise, crowds and smells of a city after the quiet of the country side and the scents of the woods. Highgarden, while being smaller than King's Landing, has similar architecture, being of a compatible climate; but there are enough differences to it to know that we're in an unknown city. Women's garb is still lighter, with high fitted bodices and full skirts; a lot have on headscarves wrapped around their heads while their long hair flow from underneath it.

I've noticed that since entering the city gates, a dark cloud has crossed Sansa's face and won't leave it. While she's walking besides me docilely enough, she has remained silent and her gaze has been restless, like she was searching for something. I'd told her that we would stop there only long enough to purchase food and lighter garments, and have found the market easily enough. Her mood has awakened in me the vat of anger that is ever lastly present there, and it's starting to simmer and bubble ominously; I think I know the why of it. I stop near the entrance and look down at her.

"You're longing for him, aren't you?"

She startles at the question, a puzzled frown wrinkling her smooth forehead.

"For whom?"

I snort dismissively. "Don't pretend with me girl. You know who I mean. Willas Tyrell, the one you thought you would marry."

"I cannot long for a man I've never met," she replies coolly with a haughty set to the way she holds her head.

"Why the long face then?" I growl.

"It was a dream for me to live here, having a safe life with the Tyrells. Now, because of politics and alliances, it's not possible anymore. I'm leaving all that I've known behind. Please allow me to grieve about it, my lord."

The way that she's stated that, with the dignity and poise of a well bred lady makes me shut up, although I still feel unhappy. To regain my composure, I order her to remain at my side through the visit to the market, and she nods stiffly.

I start with the food supplies, the wine and my garments while leaving her purchases for the last stop. All the stalls here are built of wood, with long sheer white curtains in the entrances swaying in the breeze. We enter one for ladies' garb, and I give her my coin pouch while retreating to the side, where I've parted the curtain a bit to watch the proceedings inside, as I don't like the look of the seller, an older man with grey hair and a gold tooth.

I keep my eye on him as he doesn't stop watching her while she chooses three dresses, in hues of blues and greens, a few coloured headscarves. After her selection has been put on the table, she takes out the pouch from a pocket but he stops her with a hand grasping her wrist. She tenses at this, trying to free herself, but he's holding fast while an oily lecherous stretches his lips.

"Sweetling, what are you doing with such a rough and ugly man? Surely you deserve better. I would be as sweet as a lamb with you, and spoil you like you deserve it."

"Please seller, tell me what I owe you so we can conclude this transaction. I have to go."

"Don't think that by fucking him that you'll gentle him. He looks like a wild beast and will kill you one day."

"Seller, you're forgetting yourself. I'm a lady travelling with her sworn shield. Let me go before something happens."

Now he's tugging at her arm, and I come in the stall, swaggering up to him with a smirk on my face.

"Wise advice. Let the lady go."

Before he has the time to open his mouth again, I unsheathe my dagger and stride to him behind his table, lifting him up by the front of his tunic, letting him dangle a bit while I show him the dagger. Her eyes have gone round with shock.

"Little man, do you see this dagger? Keep a watch on it, as when you don't see it anymore, it'll be buried in your fucking rotten heart. Then?"

He whimpers, and I let him down hard on his feet. While he's profuse now with apologies, I cut him short to ask the price and pay him myself. After I've put the last of the purchases in my big leather bag, I find that he's still trembling. Good. As I swing the pouch on my shoulder and turn around, I discover that she's not in the stall anymore.

Emotions strong and hot envelop me swiftly from head to toes. A hard set to my face and heart pounding, I got out the stall, my gaze searching right and left through the passerby's to find her. Then I spy her crossing the entrance to the market and running in the direction of a narrow alley. I growl and start running, and while I'm slowed down by the heaviness of the bag, my strides are long and people are giving me a wide berth. I reach the entrance to the alley in no time, finding her in the middle of it, having stopped and panting. I drop the bag on the cobbled stones and pin her to the wall by grasping her arms. Her blue eyes widen with fright and she's trembling. I too am breathing heavily and take a few moments to regain my regular breathing. Then I lean down my face closer to hers.

"Hound, will you ever stop doing this? It scares me."

"I don't care," I say through clenched teeth. "How do you think I felt when I found you gone? You could have been snatched by any fucking rat. Is this your way of dealing with reality, always running away from it?"

"I thought...I thought that you would kill him and the change that came over you... Like a beast, and you seem to enjoy it... I couldn't stand it."

"Would you have preferred him to have his way with you then?"

She lowers her head and starts sniffing. The madness is upon me again and it reminds me so much of King's Landing that I release her from my grasp and let my arms fall; getting angry with her never worked and I should have learned it by now, but my temper often gets the better of me. I take several deep breaths to cool down the bubbling vat inside.

"Now little bird, I'll make you a deal. I'll give you back your things and some gold. I can even escort you to the Tyrells, as that's what you want, throw yourself at their mercy for all I care. You want to get away from me that bad; you can."

That makes her snap back her neck and look up at me in surprise.

"It's not that, Sandor," she replies haltingly. "It's just that ... you scare me so much some time. Can you be less angry?"

I chuckle drily. "You're asking a lot of me, girl. That's in my nature."

She inclines her head again. Small hands come up tentatively on my chest, fingers playing with the ridges of my armor, then climbing up even more hesitantly to rest on the sides of my neck, stroking the skin there and strands of my air. I gasp. I lower my head and kiss the crown of her head; then my thumb and index finger lift up her chin and the other arm encircles her body, pressing it to mine. I'm surrounded by the scent of her hair and can't resist the lure. I lean down still further until our lips touch and I move mine over hers slowly, as if exploring an unpredictable territory. She kisses me back with that way that she has, with her lips slightly parted, cushiony and moist. As I feel the thrill again, I'm glad that she had never kissed Joffrey this way. As twisted as he was, he was still a boy with awakening desires and would certainly have enjoyed it. Her hands move from the sides of my neck and behind on my nape, the feather light touches making me shiver all over. I grunt and feel her mouth opening under mine as I thrust my tongue inside, and yet she responds again... I'm filled with wonder at the sweetness of this. I love the way her tongue strokes and circles mine slowly, enhancing the already unbearable pleasure, making me slow down to savor instead of devouring.

This time it is I who stop, as the sensations of it are getting to be too intense, and I keep looking intently at her, as if searching for an answer to my unnamed anguish.

"Sansa, I can't breathe when you're out of my sight. Don't do this again."

"Sandor," she replies softly after a moment, as if she has read my thoughts. "I won't fly away again; I'm quite resigned to my fate."

This unnerves me more and makes my heart sink. "You make it sound like a death sentence."

She gets flustered at this, resting her forehead against my armor, small fingers moving on my plated chest. When she speaks, her face still hidden, her voice has the tone of the little girl that I find so endearing.

"I'm sorry; I often find it hard to say what I mean with the right words. Please forgive me. So much has changed and I'm still confused. While I'm sometimes still scared by you, I've grown to care about you in a way I can't explain. It's like the boys that I've known, my brothers, my father, some knights that I liked have all been concentrated and merged into you, the man that you are."

We both let out a big sigh at the same time; she for having said these things and I for feeling the constriction in my chest loosening. Then she dares to look up at me with turmoil in her blue eyes and I, the one who is older, just hold her in a way that I hope is reassuring. I whisper against her ear.

"While I'm not a lord like this Willas and can't offer you things like he can, I can give you a life where you'll be safe."

We get back on the road soon afterward. While I know that it's risky, my instinct tells that as far away as we can get for this other city, the better it will be.

We feast on flaky meat pies and fruit this night, side by side in front of the fire. While it's getting milder, we still need the fire for the light it gives us. As we finish and drink wine, leaning against a large tree, she turns her head and looks at me, looking embarrassed.

"You must think me stupid and submissive, my lord, for me not to have asked you where we are going."

I shake my head. "No. It just shows that you trust me."

"Oh. I know that when we arrive a Oldtown, we'll be very near Dorne. Is that the destination?"

I chuckle at her expression of disquiet. "Fuck no. Have no fear of that. I don't want to finish my life in that damn desert, with snakes and scorpions for company. It is said that the sun there is so hot and relentless that people have to travel at night, with veils on their faces to protect them from the sand and winds. And I have a feeling that they too will take part on these wars for the throne. And I've had enough of this."

"Then?"

As I'm not sure how she'll react to this, I take my time before replying."I know a freighter's ship captain. Thoren. We met when I was younger in the Lannister's camps, and we've kept up a friendship for all these years. He'd sent me a raven, not long after the Blackwater battle, to tell me that he would be docking soon in King's Landing. I met him, and one of the best in his crew, Booka, at a winesink in the harbor. I told him of my miscontent at King's Landing, that I wanted a new life. I wasn't well enough to travel then, and we discussed his plans. He was supposed to sail after to Sunspear, and then to Oldtown. If all goes well, we'll meet him there, and sail away on his ship."

Now her eyes have become bewildered and wider.

"Sail to where?"

"To the Summer Isles."

"But... but it's the end of the world! I don't know much of it, except that the people have black skin and are said to be more primitive than us."

"Not so, pretty bird. Booka comes from there, and he's told me a lot that night about his islands. The climate is warm and even all the time, with extinct volcanoes, jungles and waterfalls. The food grows all year long and is plentiful, as for the fish and birds. And there beliefs are very different from ours, more natural and free. They have fewer rules and rejoice in life. And they're not interested in games of throne."

Her expression has changed from worry to wonder as she listened, and a tentative smile touches her mouth.

"This sounds marvellous, almost like paradise. This is not what I had expected you would tell me." Then she giggles shyly." But I have a hard time imagining you there."

It makes me laugh. "I'll try. I'll find something to occupy myself, as I don't think I'll lie down under palm trees all days long. They surely must have fights between them."

This thought sobers me. I know my nature, the warrior inside me that won't rest and will have a hard time with peace, however tired he's right now of endless fighting.

I've lowered my head as I ponder on this, and feel a small hand covering mine. I raise my head to find her gazing at me with shining blue eyes, the way that I had always wished her to look at me. Now that she does it, I feel a tightening in my chest, as I'm apprehensive that I'll do something to extinguish this light, to disappoint her and break this new trust she has in me. I failed so many times before.

I take her hand and lace my big fingers with her slender with ones, stroking them tentatively. I sigh deeply.

"I don't scare you anymore?"

"Just a bit sometimes."

She rests her head on my shoulder while our hands still stay clasped together, and I wonder at all of this. Not what I had planned or expected. But I'm discovering that I love this, the innocent touches, embraces and kisses, feeling like if I were the young man that I had never been, going about with his lady love, instead of the hard youth who had been impatient with the taking of his pleasures and whom whores were the only ones able to bear the sight of his face. But then the fates had not presented him with this gift of a heartbreakingly beautiful young girl who could smile at him and kiss him willingly.

On one night, my dreams make me travel back in time, in bits and pieces like through a fog.

The Blackwater battle happens again, with the smells of fire, blood and my own despair. I find sanctuary in Sansa's Stark bed, get angry when she refuses to look at me and leave with me; she sings and I cry. But I find no knights lurking in the halls and leave the Keep in a daze. Suddenly I'm riding with Arya Stark sitting in front of me, looking sullen and angry. It's raining endlessly. Where the fuck are we, and what is she doing with me? Then I remember having been caught by some group of men, fighting in a dark cave and taking her to her mother for ransom money because I've no gold anymore. We seem to ride on and on, and I find myself gravely wounded, lying against a tree.

Then I find myself striding through the empty and quiet halls of the Red Keep, feeling a strong sense of premonition. Knights are pursuing Sansa Stark and I'm catching her in mid flight, hiding her in my room. We manage to escape through some cunning plan, racing through the night to embark on a cargo ship. Thoren's ship... We cross the Narrow Sea and while being at our first port of call, Volantis, I visit a market with her and manage the day after to get in trouble and slay a lot of men at the bazaar. Bazaar? What is that? We continue on the long journey across the Summer Sea. There are nights of delirious pleasures with Sansa; I'm holding her naked in my arms, in my bed. Then we arrive in Yiti, settling in the city of Yin. I buy a beautiful house by the sea, we live happily until I hear news about Westeros; about how she's lost the rest of her family, and she gets very sick with grief. Fortunately, she gets better and I meet an unusual man at of one of my drinking places, Jaqen H'gard. He has travelled with Arya Stark in their quest to find her sister, and they are reunited again.

I wake up feeling much disoriented, not knowing where I am anymore. I find myself lying down in a forest on a bedroll next to Sansa's Stark while the dawn is breaking. I try to breathe calmly as to regain my wits, and even pinch myself to be assured that I'm awake. I see Stranger tied to a tree and snoozing peacefully on his hooves. I get up carefully as not to disturb her and also to keep me from falling asleep again, lest these mad dreams continue.

I sit leaning against a tree, gazing at the still pond in the forest. While the first dream is getting hazier still in my wakened state, the second remains clear: so vivid and detailed and involving my life. Or lives... The dreams had such a long span, as I had lived every moment of them with smells, sensations, pains, pleasure. I wonder if too much drink has started to rot my brain and is sending me into madness. But I've drunk less in the last months, not feeling a raging thirst like before.

Then I remember somebody telling me that a new fork would open in the path that I was walking on and the memories of the fortune teller and the Lannister feast come back. That feels real... The fork that she spoke of seemed not to have appeared in the first dream, or had I missed it? In the second it had appeared earlier, but with events happening differently. And in this life now, it came much later, but it still came, unlike in the first one, but again with changes in my world. I certainly would have liked to be this Hound who had saved his gold, unlike I who had spent it all on drink, whoring and gambling, because I didn't care about the future or if I lived or died. Had something which I had done or not done affected these different outcomes? Why had I dreamed of this if I had no control over it? Maybe these dreams came to me as a warning for the future. I'll keep that in mind, but for the moment, these questions have started to make my thoughts twist in never ending knots and I shake my head to chase them away.

I hear a rustle of fabric and see her getting up and standing over me with a concerned expression in her still sleepy eyes.

"Is something wrong?"

I smile reassuringly, shaking my head negatively, and she turns a fold of her skirt brushes my face; she walked away to go relieve herself.

I call out: "Be careful though and don't stay away too long."

I can't wait to leave. These woods seem to be imbued with a powerful magic of some kind, and I find it quite disturbing. Magic is not for men, or at least for this Hound.

We seem to have earned another period of peace as the rest of the journey to Oldtown spends itself uneventfully.

We arrive near the middle of the afternoon through yet another sunny day, close to the meeting with Thoren's ship, which is probably already docked in the harbor. But I know that Thoren usually spends more than a day to deliver goods and to buy new ones, so I'll just check later if his ship is in and send a raven to advise him of my arrival on the morrow. For the moment, I have too many things to prepare for the departure; renting a room for the night at a nice inn, selling the horse – unfortunately, I'll not take Stranger with me, not wanting to subject him to the confinement of the hold for the sea journey – and more purchases. I want to make this last day in Westeros special for Sansa.

I leave Sansa at our room at the inn for my errands; I've spied both Thoren and his ship in the harbor, and have told him I would come back next morning. Feeling a wrench, I manage to get a very handsome price for Stranger and let him go to a new master who likes the challenge of a magnificent spirited horse.

When I get back, we got out for a walk through the city and its market. I wish that we could stay longer, as this is the oldest city of Westeros and I appreciate the bravery of the first men who built it, the dangers which it had encountered, the landmarks of thousands and thousands of years. It is also a city for scholars, with the Citadel having made masters for millennia. I tell Sansa of all of this as we walk, and on impulse I take her hand and hold it. She stops and looks up at me in surprise.

"Why are you doing this? Nobody else holds hands while walking."

"So what?"

She smiles shyly. "You're right. Here I am, still seeing things so narrowly. I'm really not an adventurous person."

This time I buy her five dresses at the market, in silk and gauzy fabrics with lavish embroidery on the bodice, sleepwear, sandals and gold earrings. I love pleasing her like this, creating this excitement in her. Throughout our short journey, she has smiled more than in the years in King's Landing.

We take baths in turns at the inn's bath house and eat a nice and spicy meal in its common room. I drink a flagon of red sour wine and she drinks a cup of golden one. I ask her if she has even been at sea and she shakes her head negatively.

"Well, neither have I. I hope that we'll not get seasick."

"Please don't expect the worse, Sandor. The Summer Sea must be warmer and quieter than the Shivering Sea or the Narrow Sea. I'm sure that it doesn't have storms like up north."

I nod, although I don't agree. She resists as usual what she judges to be a darker way of thinking but which is usually just a realistic view on things. She hasn't heard of the southern storms at sea which can happen as the colder winds up north meet the warmer ones here when autumn starts and winter is coming. What would it matter that she knew of them? Nothing could be done to stop it if one erupted. But since she doesn't know of these storms, I prefer to hope that there won't be any while we sail further south and not create in her the apprehension of one. I want to keep her happy as long as possible.

When we finally retire in the room, I lock the door and spread out a blanket on the floor alongside it. When I had asked for an extra blanket, the servant girl had looked at me as if I were mad, the climate being so warm here.

Sansa, who is sitting on the bed, looks at me with a frown.

"What are you doing? Are you sleeping there on the floor?"

I grin. "Yes, I'll be your guard dog for the night. If somebody tries to come in, they'll have to step over me before."

"But... The bed is big enough for two. We slept besides each other in the forest."

I press my lips together. She examines me with puzzled eyes, not understanding the change of mood and the hard expression on my face.

"But Sandor... You'll not be comfortable on the floor."

"Then? Leave me be. Why persist in this?"

"Because I care about your comfort."

This consideration again... What a sweet girl she is. I sigh deeply and move toward the bed. I remove my armor, the weapons and put it all on the floor. She looks down at them with a mischievous smile.

"We could put your sword between us."

This makes me throw back my head and erupt in gales of laughter, making me lose the tension. Ah, that little copper head is still full of songs. I smile down at her.

"What is not said in those songs is how uncomfortable and dangerous it can be to sleep with a sharp blade. One wrong move and you're cut."

"Oh."

"No sword is needed to protect you from me. Except when I'm drunk, as you remember. Then stay the hell away from me."

I say this in a harsh tone, and she gasps. I don't like dredging up these memories again, but what had happened on that green night came from a part of me and I want to protect her from it now. It has sobered her, and I wait from some kind of assent or protest before I make a move to get in the bed. She just puts the covers up to her chin, watching me with big blue eyes. So I slide in next to her.

"Just put your hand on my chest and I'll be as happy as a dog can be."

She turns on her side while I remain on my back. When I feel her hand landing on my chest, I cover it with my own and feel a lump in my throat form, some stinging in my eyes. Then I blow out the candle and drift softly into slumber as I hear her regular breathing lulling me to safety.