Sandor II
Weeks passed, and then a month, then two. The queen said nothing about sending him after her new lady, and he rather hoped she'd forgotten. He'd taken to watching her while he was on duty, careful that she wouldn't detect him doing so. It gave him pleasure to watch her reactions from across the room. It was obvious that she hated every second she had to spend in the solar. She did well keeping her face blank, but he was learning the lexicon of her expressions, and it made him want to know what she was thinking when she cocked her head this way or pursed her lips, ever so slightly, that way.
Of course, she'd flouted the unspoken rules of the solar within a week or two. He'd been entertained the morning she'd walked purposefully across the room and plopped down next to the little prince at his feet. From the look on her face, she was surprised she'd done it as well. Once she had, though, she had won Joffrey to her, doting on him. Clegane didn't think the boy needed more spoiling, but she talked to him directly, like they were equals. She would sit on the floor with him, much to the distress of the other women. While many at court cooed and fawned over the prince, none of them treated him like a little boy. But she played with him, everything from blocks to games. She didn't just let him win, either.
When he lost, which he frequently did, he would pout and she would put the toys away and bring out the book. Before long he would sidle up beside her to see the pictures, his anger forgotten. Since that day he'd been sent to show her the library it seemed like she brought a new book with her each time she came to wait on the queen. Joffrey would get excited to see her when she came in with the others in the morning, looking to see what she had brought him. Often times he would have to wait, but he made his displeasure known to his mother, who watched his interactions with her young attendant with a mixture of enjoyment and jealousy.
Clegane was surprised that Cersei permitted it, but she encouraged the young lady to play with the prince. There were mornings when she suggested Lady Helenna should not feel obligated to sew if she would prefer to read to him. The girl would smile, as brightly as she could, and Joff would run to her, often climbing into her lap like a much younger child. She would open whatever book she'd brought and read quietly into his ear, her hair falling about them like a curtain, their fingers tracing the words together. She often made him try the words himself, and soon enough he was reading to her instead of the other way round, a pleased, proud smile on her lips as she listened to him lisp his way through story after story.
Clegane only wished she would bring something other than fucking fairy stories. Knights and ladies and dragons and bollocks. Filling the little prince's head with ideas of honor and chivalry and sacred duties. He'd curl his lip without meaning to, and she caught him several times. She never said a word to him, but a blush would spread across that white skin. He'd humph and look away. He wasn't quiet in his disdain for knights. He'd never taken vows. He didn't believe in them, and thought most of those that swore them did a better job breaking them than they did living by them. Especially his brother.
That was probably why he hated the stories most. They made him think of Gregor, and he hated thinking about Gregor.
Cersei seemed to soften toward the girl. She started greeting her first, which did the girl no favors with the other attendants. Truth be told, the others already despised her, just as he feared they would. After her rather irregular introduction to the court they had clearly marked her as beneath them. "It doesn't matter how rich her father is," he'd heard them whisper, "she's not like us." As a result, he noticed that she kept to herself unless she was talking to the little prince or the queen. No one else would speak to her. She was an avid listener, as he learned by watching her himself, noting the subtle signs of amusement or boredom. And often anger.
Because Cersei seemed to have relented in her attitude toward the girl, it came as a surprise when nearly three months after her arrival the queen bid him to follow her.
He'd spent that morning watching her with the prince and princess. She smiled and answered Joff's questions, volunteered to walk and bounce little Myrcella while she cried. Something was always wistful about her, even when she was smiling at the children, the corners of her eyes crinkling but their brightness just a little dimmed. Cersei had dismissed her at the usual time, and the girl had left after assuring the little prince that she would return the next morning.
His replacements arrived just as the girl was leaving, and Cersei had waved him over.
"I want to know where goes and who she talks to," she'd said lowly. He'd nodded but made no reply, walking quickly to catch up with her.
He gave her a head start of fifty paces, just far enough away that she wouldn't hear him, that he'd be able to duck out of her sight if she happened to turn, but close enough that he wouldn't lose her.
It was like she was a different girl entirely once she walked out of sight of the doors. Her head was bent, eyes on her hands, her shoulders slightly slumped. It was the first time he hadn't seen her rigid-backed since her first introduction to the queen. She'd stood terrified at the door for a long moment, but she'd quickly recovered herself. This girl wasn't terrified, but she looked weary even from afar. She was fast, walking with purpose toward her as-of-yet unknown destination, and he nearly lost her in the winding halls of the Keep. He was surprised when he realized where she was going, trekking fast through the Keep toward the Sept, ducking through a side door.
He went in silently through the back, keeping himself to shadow and alcoves. He watched as she knelt before each statue in turn, lighting two tapers at the foot of each. She took her time, and he thought she made a lovely picture with her dark hair and pale skin in the candlelight. Her silk gown was made in the King's Landing style, but it was a muted green, unlike the bright colors the women wore in the capital, and she had not adopted any of the court hairstyles. Instead, it still flowed down her back, rolled back from her face in two waves that met in the back and fell to her waist.
He felt uncomfortable watching and listening to her pray. He hoped she would go somewhere else after this. Cersei frowned on piety, and he didn't want to lie outright. He would by omission, but she had to give him something else to report. Maybe it was because she smiled at him, or maybe it was because when no one else was looking she looked so heartsick, but he wanted to protect this girl. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to help the queen hurt her, if that was the aim. It seemed to him that she had been brought to the capital to settle some odd personal grievance, and despite her bright smiles and laughter with the prince it was clear to him that she was miserable. From what the queen and her father had discussed, it seemed the only reason she had been called was to irk Wyman Manderly. He was powerful and rich, sure, and known to be somewhat hot-headed, but Clegane was not aware of any particular reason why the Lord of White Harbor would be at odds with the Lord of Casterly Rock. He was sure, though, that the girl was being used to some end or other.
He was startled when she started singing. He must have stopped paying attention, wrapped up in trying to figure out why the girl meant anything to the Lannisters at all. She had moved on from the Maid and was now kneeling and singing a hymn to the Mother. It was a high, sweet sound that he desperately wanted to hate. He didn't hate it, quite the opposite. Thought fled, but this time his focus was concentrated solely on her, admiring the sound of her voice along with her pale face, her brows like raven feathers, her mouth pink and plump as rosehips.
You're not supposed to pant after her from the shadows, dog.
He attempted to divert his thoughts. It wouldn't do to go muddy-headed into battle, and that's what he felt like he was waging with himself now. He turned his thoughts away from his growing admiration and back to simple observation: she looked tired, darker patches under her eyes, her shoulders sagging, her voice faltering here or there. He wasn't sure, but she might be crying.
With that awareness, guilt rolled over him like a tide.
He was relieved when she was finished and left the Sept, slipping out as quietly as she had entered. He headed out the back and waited to see her pass him up the passageway. Again, she was fast, moving quickly with her head bowed and he had to be careful to keep her in view.
The next set of doors shouldn't have surprised him. With a glance in both directions, checking for guards or anyone else that might see her, she eased open the iron-bound entrance to the library and slipped inside.
There was no way she'd not know he was there if he went in, so he stayed in the courtyard. He had to wait a long time. He started to get annoyed, he was supposed to be off duty, and right when he was about to give up and leave she slipped out again, this time hastening back to the queen's solar to prepare for the evening meal. As she walked she looked down at her hands, licking her left thumb with a little pink tongue and rubbing at her right thumb and forefinger where a dark smudge bloomed. Ink.
He returned to the library when he was sure she was back with the queen, prowling through the stacks until he found what he was looking for. Tucked into a back corner beneath one of the high windows she had collected a pile of books, rolls of parchment, and pots of ink on a dusty table. It was less organized than he expected, every inch of surface covered by some fragment or other.
He picked up the books, slightly put off when he realized they weren't in the common tongue. He'd been taught to read, to do sums, but he hadn't had a predilection for learning. Cleganes were soldiers, not scholars. It had been enough of a fight for the mealy-mouthed Maester in their Keep to hammer letters and numbers into his thick head. He didn't see the point of spending time looking at the skins of dead animals. He'd rather be killing them. There was nothing he couldn't say well enough with a sword. At least, that's what he'd always been told. But here lay books in far-off tongues of Meereenese, Braavosi, Myrish, and reams of paper covered with fluid scrawlings. Translations. Notes. Questions.
His mouth quirked up. Here the queen was worried her little captive might be some Northern schemer, but she'd gotten a fucking scholar instead. It made him feel lighter to know that the girl wasn't up to anything interesting. If this is where she went everyday, the queen couldn't have gotten a more boring ward. It surprised him, honestly. He'd not have thought her interested in such things with her penchant for fairy stories.
He followed again over the next few weeks, and no matter what day he went it was always the same: prayers and songs in the Sept, hours in the library, then back to her duties. Sometimes she took a turn in the gardens. She seemed to favor the ones that overlooked the sea, sitting on a bench or standing at the wall with the wind in that hair. He was starting to have more than a passing fascination with her hair, wondering what it would feel like against his his fingers. Truth be told, he was starting to have more than a passing fascination with her, fueled on by her insistence on fucking smiling when she saw him. It didn't matter that he'd look away or glower back, without fail she would smile every time his eyes met hers. He'd started collecting them like a child might collect marbles, mulling them over in his head as he contrasted them with each other: this one impish, that one wan and sad, another pleased. All of them sincere, reaching all the way to her eyes.
The eyes, they had started to haunt him, too. He'd thought they were dark, like her hair, but she'd looked up at him once from the floor and he saw the play of green light in them. Not the beryl-green of Lannister eyes, but dark and mottled, swirled up with amber and brown and even gray. Sea eyes, not the blue sea of a song, but the true sea of storms and whitecaps and kelp. It had sent a little jolt of pleasure through him when he noticed their color, and they began to figure prominently in his nightly musings, thoughts he couldn't bat away no matter how hard he tried. He'd been attracted to maids before, but his imaginings had always been fairly rough in nature, along the lines of what he got up to at the bawdy houses. These thoughts were disconcertingly different. He lusted after her plenty, but it was softer, and instead of just her body, he thought about her smile, her blushes, her voice.
He hated himself for it.
Cersei dismissed her courtiers one morning before lunch, pretending to have correspondence to attend, keeping the little princes with her. As soon as the doors closed she had looked to Clegane. He'd been expecting an interrogation, preparing himself to answer her. He'd been dreading it, knowing that even though the girl was innocent Cersei had a way of twisting everything to make it ugly.
"And?"
"Little to report, your grace." Not a lie.
"Well, where does she go?"
"The library. Sometimes the gardens." Not a lie.
"Where else?"
"That's it, your grace." It wasn't a falsehood, he told himself, just an omission. He wasn't about to tell the queen that the girl spent an hour in the Sept every morning. The queen didn't like piety, and it was clear the girl found comfort at the feet of those statues. He didn't put stock in the gods either, but he wasn't about to risk her losing anything that seemed to give her comfort.
"You can't mean she does that every day."
"Every time I've followed, your grace. Same schedule."
"What does she do in the library?"
"Reads. Takes notes. Seems to speak a lot of languages."
"Which ones?"
"Myrish, Braavosi, Meereenese. Others." He paused, looking away self-consciously. "I'm not a learned man, your grace."
"No," she agreed offhandedly, rising and walking to the princess's crib. Her eyes had narrowed and she gathered the little princess in her arms. "Who does she talk to?"
"No one, your grace." Not a lie.
"She's made no friends, no acquaintances she walks with?" Cersei sounded surprised, and Clegane faintly wondered why. She didn't look like the other ladies, she didn't talk like them. She was younger than most of the ladies-in-waiting and older than the wards. Nothing about her fit. It was clear even to him that she had been refused entry into the social circles of Cersei's court. He wondered that she would have missed it.
"None that I have seen."
This seemed to please the queen. It made his blood boil. With a flick of her wrist he was dismissed.
"Thank you, Clegane. You're relieved. Send in your replacements."
He nodded, the closest he got to a bow and left, the two guards waiting to relieve him stepping in to take his place.
Without thinking, he followed his feet. He walked down into Flea Bottom to an alehouse he knew and ordered a flagon of Dornish sour. The barkeep looked at him oddly. It was just midday. He didn't usually come until the evening, and he often went with a few of the other guards, not alone as he was today. He wasn't exactly popular, he had a foul mouth and fouler temper, but he didn't like to drink alone. The others were far too scared of him not to include him in their revelry though he couldn't say he counted any of them as friends.
We're alike that way, he mused, his thoughts turning once more to the girl.
Today he had an excuse, or at least a desire, to be alone. The barmaid brought the wine, but left him when she noticed the scowl on his face. He'd had her once or twice in the alley out back. She wasn't bad for the money, but he wasn't up for it today. Instead he looked at his cup, laying his hands flat on either side of it and wondering why he felt like he'd done something indecent. He wondered what she would do or say if she knew he'd been sent to spy on her. Would she care? Would she be angry? Or would those dappled eyes narrow with hurt? He didn't want to know, not truly.
He took a deep swig of the wine, enjoying the burn of it, drinking it like water. He wiped a hand across his mouth and scowled. Damn her. He shouldn't even be giving her a second thought, and here he was drinking of an afternoon because he felt guilty for watching her without her knowledge. Anyone else and he'd have done it without a second thought.
What is she to me? Just another highborn wench.
There was a dark knot of foreboding in his gut that warned him not the believe that lie, and it angered him.