Lenna XLIX
It was if she could feel time passing, the inevitable morning when he would ride one direction and she the other stalking them like a lion or a wolf. It crawled across her skin, skittered up her backbone. She hated it, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it. When she tried to talk to Sandor, he shushed her, distracted her, and she was left with a darkness that she shoved to the back of her mind as best she could.
She spent the following days fretfully sewing in the queen's solar while the men continued to plot. Along with Lady Catelyn, they were busy working on a wardrobe. She would need enough gowns in woolen to get her from Riverrun to her father in White Harbor. Where once such a task would have at least brought her contentment, every stitch seemed another moment lost. She'd pricked her fingers so often that they were calloused and sore, and she found herself pressing them to test the pain long into the night.
"Why not have a seamstress do it?" Sandor asked, bussing her fingertips with his lips as they sat on their bed. She had been pressing them to her own mouth, almost grateful for the discomfort that cut through the strange, buzzing numbness of her effort not to think of the future. There was no point in ignoring it now. He would ride the next day, and she and her brother would set out by midday. With only a short amount of time left, Sandor been insistent that they withdraw directly after dinner, skipping the small council meeting that evening, bolting the door against any knocks and keeping her greedily to himself. Not that she minded.
"We do have one," she replied. "But there are plenty of uniforms to make up as well. You're to march in the morning, or have you forgotten?"
It was a poor jest, and his face fell.
"I've not forgotten," he replied, the shadow falling across the ridges and plans of the scar. Sandor had taken care to keep his expression neutral with her in the wake of Tywin Lannister's raven. More than neutral, he'd been almost pleasant, and she'd seen through the farce almost immediately. She knew he was doing it for her, trying hard to, for once, be the one who kept them buoyant. Gratitude rushed through her at the effort, her own struggle testing her ability to hold onto the bright fluttering that threatened to escape her grip, fickle as a bird.
He had taken to talking more when it was the two of them, his hands always on her in some way, telling her about his men and what they planned to do, where he planned to go. He spoke of days to come, and while he meant it to be a comfort, he could not have guessed how that had increased the weight in her chest. Sandor Clegane was not a man who made plans for the future, and that he was doing so now set her at odds with herself.
He's distracting you, she thought, and she loved him for it even as it increased the strange tremble in her entrails.
"You're to go to Harrenhal," she said lightly, drawing her finger down his throat from his chin, "and I'm to go to the Twins first, then White Harbor."
"You'll have to beat the Freys off you with a stick," he said, almost genially, warmth and humor returning, the harshness of the scar smoothing. "They sniffed around you a few years ago. I won't have that."
She smiled despite herself. The night they had quarreled, after Joffrey's nameday tourney, she had danced with what felt like every young Frey in the Seven Kingdoms.
"I don't know," she replied with a smirk, "I might get lonely on the road. You wouldn't begrudge me a dance, would you?"
She was playing with fire, and they both knew it. Sandor's jealousy that night had started them on the path that had led them to this place, their mirrored anger and hurt, along with their subsequent reconciliation, pushing them together despite their reticence and fear.
He grunted, his eyes flashing at her. "Nothing more than a dance," he replied with half a smirk. Then his eyes went serious, all humor fled. "You would do well to remember that you're mine."
"Yes," she replied breathlessly. As if she could forget. "I'm yours."
His face was full of fire and he was on her again. He was insatiable. If she'd thought he'd been attentive before, in the short week since their marriage she had lost count of the times that he'd snuck into her rooms at midday or woken her in the wee hours for another tumble in their sheets, not to mention the usual after-dinner activities. He was certainly achieving his ends, if it was his intention to distract her from their impending separation. She was exhausted and sore in the most blissful way, his ministrations succeeding in keeping her thoughts and her focus solely on him.
It had the added benefit of making him ferociously happy. It was evident in the intense lines of his face, the vibration of his fingertips on her skin, the playfulness that seeped into him as he relished not having to sneak in and out of their chambers. Despite keeping their marriage quiet, they were in no danger in that Keep. Even the servants kept their distance, Lenna ringing for a maid when she needed to dress or bathe, but otherwise left alone.
Reality and the knowledge that he would leave in the morning came stampeding back even as he worked his mouth against the place on her neck that made her whimper.
"And you will go to Harrenhal and find this Brotherhood," she persisted, pushing him away by the shoulders with a sighing giggle, not yet ready to go too far in that direction. He wore her out when he put his mind to it, and she wanted to delay sleep as long as possible tonight. There was no reason to rush the dawn. She wanted to be wrapped up in him, of course, but she needed more time to enjoy him with his clothes on first. She traced her fingertip over the ridge of his good brow, memorizing him in the same way he'd always tried to commit her face to his memory. Her heart gave a painful leap. "And then you will come to White Harbor."
A muscle shuddered in his jaw, his lips pressing together. She drew her finger across his mouth, again admiring its graceful curve. She'd always thought his mouth was beautiful. "As soon as I can," he said, pressing his lips to her finger.
"As soon as you can," she repeated with a smile, running her hands into his hair. "Before Yule, I hope." A veil settled over his face, carefully schooled into his least threatening brooding. She pressed on. "I have grand plans of roasting apples in the Great Hearth in the Merman's Court, of plying you with good black ale and oysters." He smiled half-heartedly as she whispered to him conspiratorially. "You know what they say about oysters," she grinned saucily, looking up at him from under her lashes, knowing how he liked it when she teased him. Not tonight. He grunted, her flirtation falling flat.
"I'll do what I can," he replied softly, making no promises. Part of her wished that he would, while another piece of her was grateful that he didn't. It would be too hard if he had to break one, never having failed her before. She didn't think she could bear it if he said he'd be home before Yule and didn't make it in time.
"I know you will," she said, with far more brightness than she felt. "And I'll continue to hope that all will be as it should."
His grip around her waist tightened and he pressed his lips to her crown. She closed her eyes and refused to frown, feeling the tension in her cheeks against the strain.
"Aye," he replied, his mouth against her hair, his grip on her tight. "That's your job. You hope and you wait." She sighed. "No more meddling."
She was glad that he could not see her face, because he would have read her heart there. Sandor had been vocal in his opposition to her being involved in anything beyond the basic orders that Tywin Lannister would doubtless send her at her father's castle. He had been vehement in his insistence that she have as little contact with them as possible. She had even loved him a little more for it, if such a thing were possible,
But Lenna had no intention of not 'meddling,' as he put it. She knew that his worry stemmed from a very real well of fear, of anxiety. She was not out of danger, and they both knew it, just as they knew that his riding to Harrenhal was extremely risky. It took great strength of will to turn her thoughts from that line of thinking. He'd extracted her promise to think as little on it as possible, and she was doing her best to keep her word. It did neither of them any good to dwell of their parting.
Or the possibility of not meeting again.
She burrowed a little more snugly into the warmth of his side.
"I'll hope and I'll wait," she said softly, turning to bury her face in the crook of his shoulder, his fingers making their way into her hair. It had grown in the months since he'd been forced to cut it, almost brushing her shoulders. The curls loved his fingers, twining about them tenaciously, and he seemed to love having his hands twisted up in their warmth.
She sat up quickly and went to her desk, aware of his eyes on her back. She took out a pair of scissors from the drawer, a neat little set with a wicked point, and smiled at him as he looked back at her perplexed. She almost went to select and cut the lock herself, but thought the better of it, returning to the bed and sitting beside him again.
"I always liked it in the stories when knights would ride off with locks of their ladies' hair against their hearts," she said quietly, blushing and feeling rather foolish. "I'd have you carry mine. If you would."
He took the scissors from her, comically small in his enormous hand, and he chose a curl. Stretching it out, he let it wrap itself around his finger. It gave her ample opportunity to admire the hands she loved so well, massive but beautifully sculpted, calloused but strangely fine. Her hair caught on the rough pads of his fingers as he brought it closer to his face, careful as he raised the scissors.
She hoped that he was not thinking of shearing her hair in the throne room, knowing that the act had cost him more than he would, or even could, articulate. She watched his face as he snipped it free, the shortened hair springing back in a loose coil. He held the lock in front of his eyes for a moment, his forehead furrowed, looking at how the dark curl was twined around his finger as the scissors fell uselessly to the counterpane.
"Here," she said, taking the bit of hair from him. She returned to the desk and pulled out his red ribbon. "Do you mind if I cut it?"
He shook his head, and she used the scissors to cut a short length of it, just long enough to tie the strands together. She returned with it outstretched on her palm. He looked at her for a long moment, then reached into his jerkin pocket and pulled out her handkerchief, the tip of his nose going pink.
She smiled as she accepted it, the fabric soft against her fingers, the embroidery dingy from laying so close to his body for so long, his sweat having stained it despite the repeated washings she knew he'd given it. She lay it open in her palm, tucking the lock of hair in it and folding the handkerchief over it, pressing it to her lips before offering it back to him. He was studiously looking down as he accepted it, the muscles of his face pulsing as he tightened his jaw.
"I'd have the same of you," she said softly, and he lifted his eyes to hers. She picked up the scissors again, and picked up a length of his hair. She'd always rather liked it, surprised by the wave in it. He was such a fierce man, and always had been, but the undulation in his dark hair had always seemed to soften him, just marginally. She snipped a length of it off and looked at it laying across her palm.
She returned to the desk and retrieved his green ribbon, the first one he'd ever given her. She held it up, fingers toying with the frayed end, and when she turned, she found he was watching her with grey eyes that could be glistening in the candlelight, but she couldn't tell.
"I always refused to trim this," she said, running her fingertip along where the fabric had split, the threads of gold standing out more stiffly from their green brethren. "Wynna tried to make me do it in White Harbor, but I wouldn't."
"Why?" he asked, swallowing hard. His face was taut with tension, and there was so much she wanted to tell him, to have him hear before he left, but such an unburdening would feel too final.
"It felt wrong," she replied. "I told her it was a gift, that she should just tuck the ends in. Really, I think I felt it was part of you. She guessed it was you who had given it. She asked me that same night if you loved me."
"Did you know?" he asked, eyes burning into hers.
"No," she replied. "And when she asked me if I loved you, I-"
"She asked you the same?"
Lenna smiled, looking down at his hair in her hand, tracing her finger over it rather than looking at him. She was blushing like a girl.
"I tiptoed around my answer in such a way that I am quite sure that she knew, even if I did not."
"I couldn't admit it yet," he replied lowly, "but I did, Lenna. I did when I gave it to you, even."
She felt her heart expand in her chest and she bit her lip. "I know. I know that, Sandor. And I knew that very night Wynna asked, because I sang and I couldn't do anything but think of you. I was just too afraid to name it. Too afraid of what might happen if I did."
Another time he might have looked away, but he didn't this time, keeping his gaze steadily on hers. He reached his hand out and she passed him the ribbon, the fabric tawny in the hearthlight. He measured a length of it and snipped it, big fingers strangely dexterous as he tied it in a bow. She handed him his handkerchief, the one he had given her in the crypts, and he repeated the same gesture of folding it carefully inside and pressing it to his lips.
"I'm doing it for you, Lenna," he said thickly, handing it back to her. The effort of his words was plainly evident to her. She knew how much he hated talking about such things. "I don't want to leave you, but I have to-"
"It's alright, Sandor," she replied, forcing herself to believe it, taking the hand that held her handkerchief between both of hers. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed as she stood before him. She traced his cheek, but he was still staring at her feet intently. "I am not angry, or disappointed, or...anything but proud of you."
His head came up abruptly, a look of astonishment on his face. "Proud?" he said, as if such an idea were foreign to him.
"Yes," she said, laying her hand along his scarred cheek. "You are leaving because you are honorable and good, and-"
"I'm not honorable or good," he protested vehemently, but his own hand came up to cover hers and press it more firmly to his face.
"Yes," she insisted, leaning down and pressing her forehead to his. Even standing before him, he was so tall that when she stooped that their were eyes were level. "You are. You have always looked after me, kept me safe, helped me and cared for me-"
"I'm selfish," he whispered harshly. "I only did it because I-"
"You love me," she finished for him when his voice cut out. "Love is good, Sandor. It makes you good."
She had resolved she was not going to cry, that this last evening of theirs would not be disfigured by tears. She was finding it almost impossible to fend them off.
"I'm a killer," he said benignly, addressing the stone floor again, "I'm a sellsword and a traitor, a brute who doesn't deserve-"
"Not another word," she said harshly, at a loss as to why he was saying such things. "I don't believe that, Sandor Clegane. Which is why you must come back to me. You must." She knew that her voice had gone thick, the pitch higher than her usual. Her eyes were starting to smart and she bit down on her lower lip to drive the tears back down.
"As my lady commands," he said softly, with a quirk of his lip, wrapping his arm around her waist as he drew her to him, his face pressed to her abdomen.
They took their time, and Lenna was moved by the lingering care in how he touched her, how he spoke in her ear. His whisperings left her feeling like a candle had been lit in the center of her chest. Instead of teasing her with talk of what he wanted to do to her as he usually did, Sandor Clegane talked of dreams instead. Not hopes, nothing so frivolous could come from his lips, but actual dreams he'd had of her, of them, of their children and a time when the violence was over. She knew it cost him to speak like that, but rather than feeling like farewell, she had the distinct impression that he was planning for the future.
The future was not something that he ever spoke of, and both gave Lenna heart and set her off-balance as she lay next to him as he drifted to sleep. Though it almost frightened her, she could not resist the temptation to plan with him. He'd fought against his own exhaustion as she continued to talk to him, his replies becoming dreamy and indistinct as she prattled on foolishly about children's names, his keep in the Westerlands, her family's affection for him. The crags of his face, even the scar, relaxed finally in sleep, and Lenna lay her head against his shoulder, a strange quivering ache in her belly.
Morning came too quickly, and a single, solid knock roused them both. They didn't answer it, knowing it was Wendel sent to wake Sandor. He sat up slowly in the bed, looking down at her in the pillows.
"Don't get up yet," he said quietly, rising and going about his morning routine as if it were any other day. She watched as he splashed his face and wiped himself down with a cloth, as he pulled on his trousers and tunic and boots. He sat on the edge of the bed and did the laces, his hair falling in a curtain around his face.
When he was dressed, he turned to face her. Even though he didn't have his armor on yet, it was the Hound that looked back at her.
"You can't come to the courtyard," he said flatly.
"I know," she replied, feeling choked, pulling the coverlet up under her chin.
"Don't do something foolish like watch me ride off," he growled. "I won't look back."
"I know you won't," she smiled. "But I'll watch you all the same."
"Please, Lenna," he said, his face crumpling. "Stay here. Don't-"
She silenced him by climbing out of the bed and stopping his mouth with hers.
"Don't you dare say goodbye," she whispered. "This is not goodbye."
His nostrils flared and he let out a tremendous breath as he leaned his forehead against hers.
"I won't say it then," he replied, pulling back from her and straightening his shoulders. Lenna shrugged on her robe and caught her handkerchief from where it lay on the side table.
"Here," she said, tucking it inside the left breast of his hauberk. "I'll only say one more thing, Sandor Clegane." He looked at her, grey eyes gleaming. "I love you, and you're always in my prayers."
He kissed her forcefully then, his hands in her hair, palms cradling her jaw, and it was like a shattering when he abruptly pulled away from her and strode out of the door. Lenna stood in their rooms feeling bereft, taking a long moment before finding the willpower to dress herself.
She sat at the window and focused on breathing as she looked out into the little godswood. When the time came for him to ride, she rose and went to the wardrobe, pulling out her cloak. As she did so, her fingers brushed the yellow and black that she had made for him, and in a moment of rashness, she took it out instead. Turning it inside out, Lenna fastened it at her throat and made her way to the ramparts above the causeway.
If he looked back, she knew she would look like some sort of crow, some sort of raven, the black silk in such stark contrast to the creamy stone. She would look like a mourner, but if he looked back, she wanted him to know she was wearing his cloak. The yellow and black might be concealed, turned in close to her body, but he'd know.
For a moment, her mind flashed to her younger days when she had sighed over scenes like these in her books. She thought of how romantic it had seemed when the ladies watched their men ride off to war, weeping and fluttering their handkerchiefs. It didn't feel romantic now, her hands full of the yellow wool and black silk as she watched him on Stranger, riding at the head of his column of men, his back to her resolutely. The stiffness in his shoulders told her what she needed to know. He was very aware that she was standing there, but he was going to keep his word and not look back at her. It wasn't a romantic feeling at all, standing there unable to breathe and perversely unable to cry. Something in her stretched tight and thin as the distance between them increased.
But it didn't break.
Sandor
He did not look back. If he'd looked back it would have felt like goodbye, and he had made the decision that it was not going to be the last time he saw her. He'd made a decision, and he'd made a deal. He didn't believe in the gods, but he'd told them, if they were listening, that he'd be on their right side if only they let him come back to her. He snickered darkly at his own foolishness. He doubted anyone was listening, and if they were, with his luck, it was the Stranger. Fat lot of good that would do him.
He could feel her eyes on him, had spotted her on the ramparts immediately when he turned to speak with one of his men. It reminded him too much of one of her damn stories, the lady watching as her knight rode off to war. She was cloaked in black, and he knew it was their marriage cloak. He didn't know whether it pleased him or saddened him or angered him, Lenna taking that risk, reminding them both of the increased stakes. At least she's not waving a handkerchief, he thought brutally, and pretending I'm some cunt knight.
He was no knight, he reminded himself savagely, brow darkening as it became harder and harder to resist the urge to look back at her. Instead, he shook the thought from his head with as much animosity as he could muster, and turned his sole focus on the road before him, on the road away from her.
The farewell in their room was like to break him. He had dreaded such a parting for going on ten years, always managing to stave it off by this measure or that. The only time he could think of that he'd been physically away from her had been the two weeks that preceded King Robert's death.
This separation would be much longer, and he was sure that they both knew it.
He hadn't slept well the night before, and neither had she, alternating between pleasurable pursuits and whisperings. She'd never been one to hold back her words, and he'd never been able to keep his mind out of his hands. Together, they had created some language that they both understood, and they had spent the night before in constant communication, napping here or there, but wakeful and aware of each other.
He'd told her things that he'd never imagined saying out loud. He still struggled to tell her that he loved her, let alone anything else. He'd managed to tell her, of course, to say that he wanted her, in his home, in his bed. But he'd always relied on her to fill in the rest. But last night, he'd told her of all the dreams he'd had of her, the ones of her in his bed when he was much younger, the ones of her round with his pups, of her standing in the Sept with his cloak around her shoulders, of them standing on the ramparts and watching the colors over the Sunset Sea. He'd told her of the night in White Harbor when he'd dreamt that he'd taken her hand in his, of wandering through meadows with bonnie, robust children toddling in their wake. He'd always kept those dreams to himself, locked them away for his own use, and he'd felt utterly flayed in sharing them with her.
And he'd felt like he was tempting the gods, or fate, or whatever other unjust force it was that was propelling them away from each other.
She hadn't laughed at him as he had feared, she hadn't done anything but spin them herself, talking of what she would name those bairns when they came: Adalyn, Wyllis, Myrcella. He had chuckled that the little princess' name made her list, but he rather liked the thought, too. She'd dropped his name in there and he had grunted, but the thought of a son named after him made him puff up a little, even if it wasn't how things were done. He preferred something completely different, to give the boy a fighting chance of being free of him, he just didn't know what.
He'd left her that morning, her own trunks packed for her departure later in the day, and he'd kissed her with the same perfunctory force that he had before the Blackwater, though he had let his hands bury themselves in her hair, his nose full of the sweetness of whatever it was she washed it was. If he did something as soppy as smell his fingers, he knew they'd still smell like that. As did the curl that was tucked against his breast, so palpable to him it was almost heated. Such a kiss and such a token were promises for more to come.
Later.
Much later.
It already felt like forever.
He'd bidden her not to come to the yard, and she had agreed. It would have raised eyebrows among his men if she had been there. He sighed, and knew it was for the best that she stay in her rooms, but now he could feel her eyes upon his back and it took every ounce of his strength, great as it was, not to turn and get one last glimpse of her.
Last, he thought determinedly, it will not be the last.
And he could believe that as long as he kept his eyes forward, Stranger's head pointed away from her.
He felt the Hound creeping back into his blood the morning that he left Riverrun. The beast had been confined for quite a while, and he'd started to push against the bars of his kennel before Sandor was even dressed, getting stronger as the day wore on. Perhaps it was the helm, the plate, but he knew it was his distance from her. Every step away from her felt like a stretching, a tightening, and the Hound was slipping further and further off his leash as the days plodded on. When a full week had passed, Sandor felt almost as he had before she'd ever come to King's Landing, full of bile and rage, and only the strange, nauseating ache in his belly reminded him of his better nature.
That, and the damned dreams.
Sandor pushed the remembrance of those dreams away from him with frenzy. It did him no good to think of her sighs and parted lips, her warmth and soft voice. The softness that overtook him when he had flashes of those dreams did him no good out here in the wood, hunting for his brother. Though he might have been someone else when he was asleep, when he was wakeful, he returned to being every inch the Hound. It was good. He tried to hold himself in check with his men, but to his perverse satisfaction they seemed to like it when he snarled at them. It wasn't a hard thing for him to do. He wanted to snarl and bark and shout. Anything to distract him from the excruciating tightness in his chest, even if just for a moment.
His party spent days, weeks, combing through the forests around Harrenhal, interrogating the smallfolk they encountered. He recognized the fear in their faces when they looked at him, knew that word would spread quickly that he was abroad in the territory. He didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was definitely something.
The people did know who he was talking about when he asked about the Brotherhood, many of them had encountered the men themselves, but they gave him the strangest report. He expected to hear them talk of Thoros of Myr- the cunt wore a topknot that could be identified by an imbecile- but it wasn't Thoros they described as the leader of the band. The captain of this group was spoken of as tall, with red-gold hair and a sober face. Sandor found it strange that Beric Dondarrion should still be making appearances in the countryside. After all, he was supposed to be dead.
He was chasing down the stories at the same time that he was sending scouts out into the woods around Harrenhal, the men returning to him each day with reports of his brother's forces. The daily messages that he sent back to Riverrun had astonishingly little content, but somehow the consistency made Sandor wary. Five thousand men camped at the fortress, no significant forces within a few days ride. It seemed too easy.
He was sitting by the fire when one of his most trusted scouts returned for the night. The young man had a stealthy way about him, and Sandor appreciated his plainspeaking ways. The lad didn't hesitate when he drew into the fire's light.
"He's gone," the scout said simply. He had a sharp young face, and Sandor saw his eye twitch when he spoke, a sure sign that the soldier was disturbed by the news he bore.
"What do you mean?" Sandor ground out, looking up at the boy over the chicken leg in his hand.
"The Mountain. He's not there anymore."
Sandor stood slowly, wiping the grease from hands on his thighs before fisting them at his sides.
"Where did he go?"
"Not north," the lad continued, drawing back a bit in hesitation. "And not west, neither. Must have been south, perhaps east."
"Back to Tywin," he replied. "But why?"
He was more or less asking himself, but the lad looked back at him with a look that plainly said he didn't have a fucking clue. Sandor swiped his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes as a headache started behind his forehead.
"I need to send a raven," he said darkly, striding away from the fire and into his tent, the scout on his heels.
"Forgive me, but isn't this good news?" the lad asked hopefully. "We can take Harrenhal-"
"There's no such thing as good news," he replied, dashing off a message to the King. "And we won't be taking Harrenhal. He's still out there," he jabbed the quill in the general direction of the southern wild. "And not far off. He has five thousand, we have fifty. There's no way we could meet them all, and the King is nearly a week's ride away."
The lad fell silent, and Sandor took a breath to avoid cursing the greenness of such young soldiers. Take Harrenhal with fifty men, he scoffed. What a fucking notion. A sourness had coated his tongue, and his only consolation was the knowledge that Lenna must be almost to the Twins, if not already past, three weeks into her journey with her brother and far away.
The bird flew swift, returning the next afternoon. Sandor had kept them in camp, sending out only a handful of scouts to keep an eye on Harrenhal itself. The king bid them hold their camp until they could figure out where the Mountain and his men had gone. Scouts were to be sent out not only from Sandor's men, but from Roose Bolton's army, currently thirty miles to the north.
For once, Sandor thought that Robb Stark was acting with prudence. He'd half expected the boy to tell him to take possession of the fortress, and he was relieved when he didn't. He tasked his scouts with moving south whilst he continued his own hunt for the Brotherhood.
He was beginning to feel that the whole mission had been ludicrous, as slap-dash and likely to fail as Lenna's original idea of luring the Lannisters out. This Brotherhood was proving hard to find, even if every smallfolk they talked with seemed to have seen or heard of them. There had been a farmer that claimed to have encountered them the week before a few miles away. Once the scouts were dispatched to chase his brother, Sandor roused his men early, leaving a contingent of men to wait on the scouts while he and the others headed in the direction the old man had pointed them in.
It was a fine day, and he didn't hate to be out riding. They were on a side road, in the wood about ten miles distant from Harrenhal. He couldn't help but think Lenna would like such a place, the sun slanting through the leaves, lighting them all shades of green, light falling thickly like honey. She always pointed out such little beauties to him, and he had finally started to see them for himself. She would have liked these woods, she liked the quiet.
That thought made him halt in his tracks. The birds had stopped singing.
"Out for a little exercise, Hound?"
A figure stepped into the middle of his path, flanked on either side by archers. Sandor suspected there were more in the trees, gritting his teeth against his own blindness. He should have noticed. But, along with the lance of apprehension that cut through him, he also felt a thread of pleasure. He'd recognize the rangy man looking evenly back at him anywhere. He'd been bested by the man's damn flaming sword three times in his life, and he reined a mouthy Stranger back into check as he stared him down.
"Thoros of Myr," he said quietly, repressing the urge to grin. "I've been looking for you."
"You have, have you?" the other man smirked. "How strange. Certainly didn't expect to see you here. Though we have heard tell that you were about for some time. Odd story, though. Come down off your horse and we'll see if what you tell us matches what we've heard."
Sandor eyed him warily and he let out a grunt. One of the archers standing behind the Red Priest shifted in his stance, steadying himself as his hand flexed on the bow's grip. His arrow was nocked, and Sandor didn't like the heated anger in his dark eyes.
"Tell your men to stand down," he barked.
"Why would I do that?" Thoros asked, his blackened teeth winking. Sandor didn't reply, chewing his tongue. He made a gesture to his own men not to move, their hands relaxing on their pommels. "Take him, lads."
Against his wishes, Sandor raised his hands in surrender and dropped to the ground as the band of marauders stepped into the road. He let out a sigh like a gale. He counted at least a dozen in addition to the three in the road.
Fuck.
"Your men can go," Thoros said, leaning on the hilt of his sword as if it was a mere walking stick. "How did you come by a Stark guard, I wonder? We've no quarrel with them. Would rather not feed them, anyways." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. They looked to Sandor. He kept his mouth shut, but he nodded, watching them go. Thoros cocked a rangy brow at him. "Now, our business is with you, Hound."
Sandor put up no resistance as they bound his hands and threw a sack over his head. He knew his men would stay close by, at the very least they'd ride back to camp and bring back reinforcements as soon as may be. He hoped none of them would try to play the hero and follow him. He didn't think Thoros of Myr would take kindly to that kind of valor.
Two of Thoros' men took him by the elbows and frogmarched him through the woods, his feet clumsy in his blindness, stumbling over rocks and roots and fallen branches. They walked him for nearly an hour before halting. Though he couldn't see, he thought they must be in some kind of clearing. He hadn't brushed against any trees in at least a dozen yards. He could hear the sound of running water from high up, falling into a pool. When his escorts finally pushed him forward again, he was only mildly startled to feel a cold rush of it as he stepped through the trickling curtain into a coolness that would have been refreshing under other circumstances.
A cave. They must have brought him to a cave.
The sack was removed from his head, but the two men still held him firmly by the arms. He could shake them off like flies, and he felt certain that they all knew that, just as they all knew that he wouldn't try.
"What is this place?" he asked, looking at Thoros with mild annoyance, trying to hide his relief. If they were already decided on killing him, he would have been dead by now.
"Somewhere neither wolves nor lions come prowling," he answered. Sandor fought the impulse to roll his eyes. The Red Priest always had a flair for the dramatic, flaming sword and all. Sandor looked around at the gathered men, their faces dancing in the shadows cast by their torches.
"You look like a bunch of swineherds." He should bite his tongue, but it was too easy to lob insults at his captors. They were a rough bunch, men of all walks, dirty and mangy and altogether shabby. There were even some boys, no more than ten or twelve, hanging back in the shadows. An older lad stepped in front of the smallest, his eyes narrow. Even from the distance Sandor could make out the color -blue- and he felt that he'd seen that boy somewhere before. The lad had powerful shoulders, the rough hands of a worker, but he couldn't place him.
"Some of us were swineherds," said the young archer from the road, drawing Sandor's attention away from the boy. "And some of us were tanners and masons. But that was before." His guards let go and left Sandor standing bound in their circle with his hands behind his back.
"You're still swineherds," he replied flatly, derisively, "and tanners, and masons. You think carrying a crooked spear makes you a soldier?" The archer looked back at him with smouldering annoyance. Sandor threw his head and shoulders back in response, looking at him from hooded eyes. Thoros of Myr was strangely quiet, and Sandor wondered that he should let a mere boy do his talking for him.
"No," replied a familiar voice, and the young archer took a step back. "Fighting in a war makes you a soldier."
Sandor turned his head slowly in the direction of the speaker, feeling a strange chill lace its way up his spine.
"Beric Dondarrion," Sandor replied, not quite believing his eyes. He had thought surely the rumors were false. He had been confirmed dead at the Mummer's Ford at his own brother's hands. In truth, the man looked only a little better than a corpse, his clothes ragged and stained, and he was wearing an eyepatch he hadn't had in his time in King's Landing. "You've seen better days."
"And I won't see them again," Dondarrion replied with what could have been a smile.
"So the rumors are true," Sandor said, looking around. "Is this all that remains of your band?"
"Yes, but we picked up some more besides," Dondarrion replied, his tone not at all what Sandor expected. There was no hostility, no threat in his voice. Just plain talk, soldier to soldier, despite Sandor's hands being bound.
"Stark deserters, Baratheon deserters," Sandor said, noting the armor some of them wore. "Are you fighting in a war, or running from it?"
Dondarrion smirked at the barb rather than being stung by it. "Last time I heard you were King Joffrey's guard dog, but here you are a thousand miles from home. Which of us is running?"
"Not running from anything, Dondarrion," he replied, leveling his gaze at the knight. "Sent hunting. For you."
"What a good dog," Beric said scoffingly, "but whatever for?" Amusement was written in his square face, the remaining eye glinting with odd good humor. "To finish the job your brother started?"
Sandor winced, grunting and flaring his nostrils to avoid spitting out his bitterness. He'd have time for that later, and it would do him no good to do it now.
"Robb Stark sent me," Sandor replied when he had mastered himself. "Work for him now."
"You betrayed your King-" Dondarrion had cocked an eyebrow up at him mockingly, almost like it was a good joke. Sandor's temper flared.
"Why does everyone seem to think I should have stayed with that little cunt?" Sandor demanded, spit flying. "Would you have stayed? Would you have died for the likes of him?" There was silence. He turned and looked at the men assembled around him, all looking at him like some entertainment, a trapped bear that they were wary might break his chain. "Who among you didn't turn your back on something. If you hadn't you would be here, you'd be in your proper armies, your fields or your tanneries." He was breathing hard, agitation and anger threatening to turn him feral. He took a deep breath, feeling his ribs expand against his hauberk, the little parcel pressing against his breast and reminding him to check his temper. "But that's not why I came, though if you don't believe me, there's a scroll from King Robb in the pouch beneath my breastplate."
Thoros stepped forward and rooted around until he found it, withdrawing it and pulling on the string. Sandor was thankful his hand had found the cloth tucked against his chest. He didn't feel like explaining that to the cunt. Thoros pulled out the scroll with its direwolf seal and flicked his eyebrow upward at his leader in what Sandor took to be surprise at his honesty.
"Robb Stark's seal. He's not lying," the priest said, extending the parchment.
"Let me read it," Beric said holding out his hand. He broke the seal and his eyes scanned the contents. He gave it back to Thoros with a gesture of impatience. "So he did send you. To talk of your brother."
"Aye. To gain your help," Sandor replied, fumbling on the last word. He was a terrible diplomat. "What exactly are you doing, leading a mob of peasants?"
"Ned Stark ordered me to execute your brother in King Robert's name."
"Ned Stark is dead," Sandor said flatly. "King Robert is dead. My brother is alive." And you haven't killed him yet. "You're fighting for ghosts. Robb Stark is Lord Eddard's heir, fight for someone still living."
"But we are ghosts, waiting for you in the dark. You can't see us, but we see you. I've been watching you in these woods for some time, Hound. Only before you were not alone."
"My men have been in these woods for weeks," he replied quickly, cold trepidation welling in his gut.
"That's not what I mean. I mean before, just after the Blackwater." Fucking hells. "You had a woman with you. Where is she now?"
Beric Dondarrion had pinned him with his lone eye, like some old god of war or wisdom. Sandor read anger in that gaze, but also patience.
"Safe," he replied stiffly. "Where she belongs."
"So you did ransom her?" Dondarrion asked, cocking his head, but his face was like carved stone.
"She is where she belongs," Sandor replied in no more than a whisper, unwilling to tell him much more. From the strange understanding in Dondarrion's eye, he didn't have to.
"She will never be safe while your brother lives," Beric said quietly. "He's been looking for her. Knows she was with you."
"And she isn't anymore," he ground out through gritted teeth.
"If you prey on the weak the Brotherhood Without Banners will hunt you down."
Horseshit, he thought meanly. Beric Dondarrion was looking at him with that kind of conviction only fools and martyrs have, all blazing eyes and set jaw. Sandor didn't know if his words were a warning or some sort of fucking vow.
"You found god, is that it?" Sandor asked derisively.
"Aye," Beric said with a smile. "I've been reborn in the light of the one true good, as have we all, as would any man who had seen what we have seen."
Even though the words sounded ridiculous, Sandor couldn't detect a hint of irony in them. Sandor's patience was running thin, and he was tired of dancing around his purpose for being there. Dondarrion, on the other hand, seemed in no rush to get to the point.
"If you mean to murder me, bloody well get on with it," Sandor said, with more courage than he felt. He didn't want to die today. All this talk of Lenna reminded him of just how much he didn't want to die today.
"You'll die soon enough, dog," Thoros retorted. "But it won't be murder. Only justice."
"The kind of fate that you deserve." It was the cunt archer again. Sandor rolled his eyes. "Lions, as you call yourselves, at the Mummer's Ford. Girls as young as seven years were raped, and babes still on the breast were cut in two while their mothers watched." His voice was shaking, with sorrow or rage, Sandor couldn't tell.
"I wasn't at the Mummer's Ford," Sandor replied tersely. "Cast your dead children at some other door."
"House Clegane was built upon dead children," Thoros said, his tone vicious. "I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne."
"Do you take me for my brother?" Sandor asked bitterly, leaning as close as he could and baring his teeth. "Is being born Clegane a crime? Gods know I wish I hadn't been, but here I am."
"Murder is a crime," the angry young man said.
"I never touched the Targaryen babes," he protested, real offense flashing in his blood. He had done many things, but he had had no connection to those horrors in King's Landing. "I never saw them. Never smelled them, never heard them bawling," he insisted. "I was in service, aye, but in the Westerlands, far from my brother." Running, he thought, I was already running. No more. "You want to cut my throat, get on with it."
He'd had no illusions that getting them to listen to him was going to be easy. He had even come to terms with the possibility that this very scenario was going to unfold, that they'd kill him without even hearing him out, but he'd walked into that den with a singular thought in mind: Lenna. He'd do this if he wanted to go back to her. She thought Beric Dondarrion was a model of knighthood, and if that was true, he would at least listen before he killed him. If he listened, if he was as good as she believed him to be, then he would be swayed.
"But don't call me murderer and pretend that you're not," he said, looking straight at Thoros. "You've done your share." Thoros looked back at him dispassionately, but there was a strange, quick jumping in his jaw.
"You murdered Mycah." A strong little voice broke the tense stand-off. "The butcher's boy. My friend. He was twelve years old. He was unarmed and you rode him down. You slung him over your horse like he was some deer."
A moment of recognition almost made him stumble. When he turned to face the child, for he was sure it was a child, he was almost glad. It was the boy he'd spotted in the shadows, no more than ten, only it wasn't a boy. Looking back at him through a curtain of stringy dark hair were the hard grey eyes of Arya Stark. The girl was filthy, dirt streaking her face, caked across the knuckles that gleamed white as she clenched her hands. He was sure her nails would be black with grime, too, and he noted that she didn't shirk from meeting his eye.
Scrappy, he thought absently.
"Aye," Sandor replied, addressing her like she was their equal. He'd not shield her. "He was a bleeder. My saddle stank for weeks."
"You don't deny killing this boy?" Dondarrion demanded, anger in his voice for the first time.
"I was under orders," he replied straightforwardly. "The prince alleged that the boy had attacked him. The queen bid me bring him back. Dead or alive."
"And you chose dead!" Arya shouted, her shrill voice bouncing off the stone walls, her shoulders hunched as she lurched a step forward in her grief.
"Aye," he replied, turning to her slowly, not letting her look away from him. "I chose dead, Arya Stark, because if I hadn't he'd have been tortured and maimed in the Black Cells. Doesn't matter that he didn't do it, he was going to die for it either way. Did you want him to suffer? Did you want him to be kept at the edge of death while Joffrey played with him, hm?"
"He didn't do anything," she protested hotly. "I hit Joffrey. Mycah ran away."
"Then I should have killed you," Sandor said, taking a step forward. He was gratified when the girl took a step back. Still a child, he thought as she looked at the ground. "Wasn't my place to question the queen."
Dondarrion looked between them for a long moment. "You stand accused of murder," he said, voice ringing through the cavern. "But no one here knows the truth of the charge. So it is not for us to judge you. Only the Lord of Light may do that now. I sentence you to trial by combat."
Sandor forced himself not to laugh. "If I win, will you help me? Hm?" Dondarrion didn't agree, but he didn't refuse either. Sandor sighed. "Who will it be. Going to find out if your fire god really loves you, priest?" he said to Thoros of Myr. "Or you, archer," he turned on the young man who had frogmarched him in. "What are you worth with a sword in your hand?" Then he faced Arya Stark. "Or is the little girl the bravest one here?
"Aye," Beric said. "She might be. But it's me you'll fight."
Shit.
It gave him a moment's pause. On the lists of skilled fighters in the Seven Kingdoms, Beric Dondarrion was near the top, same as he was. The other man was smaller, would be quicker, and Sandor really didn't want to kill him. For Lenna's sake.
He looked around, getting his bearings. The cavern was dark, the light of the torches barely making a dent in the darkness. The shadows undulated gently, and he tried to make out the rocky outgrowths from the floor, but he couldn't get a good look in the dim light. He heard the trickle of water, and assumed the floor itself would be slick in places, but he could not see well enough to identify them. He groaned.
"Lord," Thoros of Myr said, his voice low and solemn. Sandor huffed at the theatrics. "Cast your light upon us."
A chorus of response went up around him though he didn't quite make out the words, and despite his scoffing the hairs on the backs of his arms, his neck, stood on end.
"Show us the truth," Thoros continued. "Strike this man down if he is guilty, and give strength to his sword if he is true." Someone cut his bonds and Sandor shook them off, hand immediately going to grip his sword as it was handed back to him. He nearly sighed with relief. "Lord, give us wisdom, for the night is dark and full of terrors."
He was warming his arm when he heard it, a rush like wind. When he looked to Dondarrion, he took a step back in simple fear. The damned knight's sword was aflame. Only, it wasn't like Thoros of Myr's flaming sword, green with wildfire, this one had lit itself, the flames crimson and gold. He had no idea how such a thing could be.
He didn't have time to quail, though, and someone shoved a buckler into his grasp. Dondarrion made the first thrust, Sandor blocking it before making his first advance. He let the battle rage take over, his vision going white, shrinking down to only Dondarrion and his fucking flaming sword. He parried, thrust, and blocked, the two of them making a wide circuit about the cavern. He was only vaguely aware of stumbling through a cooking fire, the heat momentarily scorching his leg through his greaves. He was quickly driving Dondarrion back, gaining the upper hand, when it happened.
One of Beric's blows landed on his buckler, making contact long enough to set the damn thing alight. His heart began to bleat like a goat, rapid and irregular as he tried to focus on fighting and not the fear bubbling in his brain. Sandor bit down and fought on, the fucking thing lodged on his arm. He could not shake it off, but he had no choice but to try and ignore it. The heat was becoming too much to bear, sweat rolling off of him as his arm began to burn. Pain and the shadow of pain made him frenzied, and it sent him into a flurry of clumsy hacking. It caught Dondarrion off-guard, forcing him to his knees. When the knight raised his sword to block one of Sandor's wild thrusts, his blade was cleaved in two and Sandor found his own sword lodged deep into Beric's torso.
Sandor let go, not at all able to savor the dull thump of his opponents body as it hit the ground, too busy ripping the damn buckler off his arm, at last succeeding as the damn thing splintered and fell apart. He had fallen to his knees clutching his burning arm, rolling on it to stifle the flames. He was only vaguely aware of what was happening, overwhelmed by the panic and fear in his blood, the pain from the burn. It made him sweat and shudder and want to curl up in a ball on the floor.
Thoros of Myr was bent over the body of his fallen leader, and for a wild moment Sandor pitied him. A wound like he'd inflicted was already fatal. Sandor wouldn't have been surprised if he'd sliced through his heart.
A flurry of anger threw itself at him, Arya Stark rushing at him with a little sword and a nameless shriek. He briefly thought that it would be a shit way to die, at the end of a child's blade, but someone caught her around the waist, dragging her away.
"Burn in hell," she shrieked. Sandor huffed, the pain in his arm a torment.
"He will." The familiar voice surprised him for the second time, and Sandor slowly turned his head to see Beric Dondarrion looking back at him. "But not today."
He blinked. Hard. He didn't know what he was seeing, couldn't trust his eyes. Dead men weren't supposed to talk, and there was no way that he wasn't dead.
"What-" he muttered.
"He's a murderer," Arya shrieked again.
"Not in the eyes of the lord," Dondarrion replied, very much alive and impatient with the girl's shouting. "Sit, Clegane. We'll speak of why you came here, then."
Sandor was still shaking, clutching his arm where it had burned, the pain washing over him in unbearable waves of hot and cold, making him shiver.
"About fucking time," he muttered, heavily taking a seat on a boulder and willing his heart to stop thundering in his chest, his brain still reeling and railing against the idea that he was listening to the dead speak.
A/N: I've had some extra time. I could not let go of this plotline no matter how much I tried to convince myself to do it. Sandor isn't Sandor without Arya, and vice versa. Even if I went completely rogue, nothing would work without them finding each other.
Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for sticking with it, and hope you're down for the rest of the ride. Never saw it going this far, but here we are. I think this is the longest chapter to date... I'm interested to see where it goes, and hope you are, too!
Drop a line or two in the comments! Please?
