Lenna IX

She was greatly befuddled by her conversation with the Lord of Casterly Rock. She was left feeling like she was standing in the breakers, the waves washing the sand out from around her feet until she suddenly found herself mired ankle deep. The revelations about her father confused her greatly, and she felt like there was some great piece to that puzzle that was yet missing, something that needed to be uncovered before the last six years made sense.

If that wasn't enough upset for one time, she was now standing on the deck of a ship speeding across the waters toward the home she hadn't seen in six years. She was unsure how exactly she felt about the fact, torn between raw excitement and yearning, and a terrible fear of the welcome she might find. She knew, at least, that Wynna would be glad to see her, and she tried to console herself with that knowledge. The thought of her father's anger, however, left her feeling sick to the pit of her stomach, and so helpless she couldn't think straight. She was so distracted by these thoughts that when the ship pitched she lost her footing, groping wildly at the railing to keep her balance.

"Steady there," Sandor murmured, grasping her upper arm and setting her back on her feet. He was standing beside her, silently watching the water. He must have just come up from settling his rucksack below.

It had happened so quickly. The queen had summoned her the morning after her conversation with Tywin Lannister. It was only the second time she had been called that way, and she had been just as nervous that afternoon as she was the first time. Cersei had even sent Sandor, and from the moment Lenna saw him, she knew something was off.

For one, he refused to look at her, his jaw set like he was biting his tongue. He'd come to her room before she even made it to the Sept or the library, and seeing him stony-faced on the other side of her door had caused a wash of cold apprehension to run through her veins. When she'd tried to get him to speak, he had shaken his head and kept walking, bearing her back before the queen without a word.

Once there, Cersei had imparted her wishes in the most businesslike terms. Lenna was to return to White Harbor for a time to see her family. She was to remain there for two weeks, then return at the beginning of the following month. The ship would leave the following morning, and she and Clegane were to be on it.

She'd been elated. Six years since she'd been home, two years since she'd had a letter from them, and that one only because Sandor had stolen it. She had fluttered about in an ecstatic haze, but the enormous man that was to accompany her looked grim, his gray eyes hard.

They had embarked that very morning from King's Landing. A servant had arrived before dawn to wake her and collect her things. She hoped she had brought enough with her. She had been so shocked by the queen's orders that she had trouble packing properly, and she had been so distracted that the only book that had made it into her luggage was the red book of tales she had brought with her years before.

He had met her in the courtyard astride the most massive black warhorse she'd ever seen. He was fully armored, as usual, even his helm in place, the sun glinting wickedly off the sharpened points of the hound's teeth. She had to admit that the two of them were a grim picture, but a magnificent one all the same. Astride her own little gray palfrey, the same Prim she'd brought with her when she arrived, she felt positively miniscule.

She looked up into his face. He still looked grim as he stood there looking down at her with his hands on her shoulders, the sea breeze ruffling his long hair. If he looked windswept, she didn't want to imagine how she appeared. The sight of him pleased her. It was only the second time she'd seen him without his armor clad only in a plain tunic and trousers with a leather jerkin, much as he had been the midnight he'd carried her letter. He'd already pulled a thick dark cloak pulled around his hulking shoulders, whereas she was quite comfortable in the old woolen dress she'd pulled from the bottom of her chest. It was two inches too short, and much too tight across the bust and hips, but she felt more at ease in it than she had in the dozens of silken gowns she'd worn since she last left home.

"Settled in?" she asked with a smile, taking in the change in his appearance with a smile. He still looked dour, but he also seemed more relaxed, his mein placid and shoulders hanging loose. It made her smile. Despite her foreboding, she couldn't help but be excited. I am going home, she thought, a flutter of excitement in her chest. She knew it would be a long week and a half careening around the Fingers, and this ship was considerably less comfortable than the one her father had sent her to King's Landing on. Her cabin was little more than a closet, so she couldn't imagine what Sandor had been given.

"I'll manage," he replied, releasing her and turning to squint against the glare of the sun on the water. Even his voice was smoother, less raspy.

"Are you looking forward to seeing White Harbor?" she asked, leaning on the railing with her elbows. He mimicked her posture, his head bent quite close to hers.

"Not really," he replied. A part of her deflated, but she tried not to let him bother her.

"I can't wait to show it to you," she said lightly, looking back over the waves. "The Wolf's Den and Seal Rock and the New Castle, and you'll love the Merman's Court."

"Of course you are eager to see your home," he said, picking at his fingers. It was one of his habits she had noted that meant he was uncomfortable. He only ever picked his nails when he didn't know what to say.

"I'm glad it was you who was sent with me."

"Why?" he asked bluntly, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

"I don't know what I'll find when I get there, what kind of welcome," she replied cautiously. "Wynna will be pleased to see me, but my father- I don't know if he will. It will be a comfort to have at least one friendly face, regardless of what I find," she replied, looking at him askance. His eyes were still focused far off on the horizon, but the corner of his mouth quirked up, the deep groove that framed it curving into something more like a smile.

"He will be glad," he said softly.

They stood and watched the water for a long time, Lenna rejoicing in the everlasting roll of the water. It had fascinated her since childhood, the way she could train her eye on one wave or ripple and follow it, only to have it disappear seamlessly into another. Always moving, always changing, never the same from one moment to the next. Never leaving a trace of itself behind, a part of the larger body. As much as it gave her peace, standing there with his silent, comforting bulk beside her and watching the water, there were pressing matters to speak of, ones that couldn't wait any longer.

"Sandor, happy as I am, am I right in thinking this has nothing to do with the queen's kindness?" It had been bothering her constantly for the last day, and he was the only one she knew that might be able to answer. She needed to talk it over before her memory dimmed or changed.

"You would be right." He looked down at his hands, his brow creased.

"I think it has something to do with Lord Tywin," she began.

He looked at her sharply but said nothing.

"I was studying, day before yesterday. He just, well, he just appeared. I think he was looking for me."

Sandor grunted. "He was."

"Do you know why I am being sent home? To what end?"

He shook his head, shifting on his feet as he continued to watch the waves.

"Please," she said, "I need to know. I don't know which way is up anymore."

"Don't you just want to go home? See your family?" he replied, snap in his tone.

"Of course I do," she protested.

"The less you know-"

"The less equipped I am. I'm quite sure that I'm hurtling into deeper waters that I could possibly know."

He considered his words carefully. "He thinks you are theirs. Their ally. Theirs to use."

"I suppose both are true," she replied. "I am loyal, and I have been Myrcella's tutor."

"I don't think that's what he meant," he replied shortly, his nostrils flaring.

"It has been my honor to serve the royal house."

"Lenna," he said quietly. "You haven't been serving the royal house."

Something brittle and hot started burning in her chest.

"Of course I have," she whispered. "I'm tutor to Myrcella Baratheon, princess of the realm."

"Who called you to King's Landing? Who gave that order? Who has sent you here?" he asked urgently. "You aren't a stupid girl, but fuck all if you aren't naive."

"You can't mean that they-"

"Aye. You aren't a servant of the Crown, Lenna. You're their servant, just as I am. We are both of us Lannisters now."

All Tywin's talk of loyalty wasn't about the Crown. Here she had always thought of herself as a servant of the Crown, but she had missed the key detail of who it was the gave her orders. Cersei may be queen, but it was not exactly secret that she still worked to enrich her own house. Lenna hadn't been appointed by the king, but by the queen, to train her daughter as she had been raised by her father, the Lord of Casterly Rock. Like a Lannister. Of course, she thought dejectedly, that's why Tywin wanted me to know about father, to know my family's connection to his. He wasn't speaking of loyalty to the Crown, he was speaking of loyalty to them.

"What did you talk about with him? The other day in the library?" Sandor asked gently.

"He kept asking me questions, about my family. About how my father raised me. Then, he told me something most peculiar, that has caused me great distress." Her brow knitted together as she remembered his words, the cataclysmic information that rocked her to her foundations.

Sandor cocked a thick brow at her.

"He told me that my father had been fostered at Casterly Rock. He grew up with Lord Tywin."

The brow shot up in surprise, creating a series of ripples across his unscarred brow.

"He went on to say that his late wife introduced my parents, and he was surprised I did not know of the story."

"You didn't?"

"No," Lenna said forcefully. "I had no idea that my father had been in the Westerlands, or even that my mother had been a lady-in-waiting for a time. I can't imagine why they would keep either from me, but I cannot help but believe that they did so deliberately. My father has always hated the Lannisters. I have never heard him say a good word about them. To hear that they knew each other in such a way was a complete shock."

Sandor looked skeptical. "What else did he say?"

"It was so strange, he seems to think I am wise? I think he's conflating intelligence with wisdom, and I told him as much, that I was a poor player of this game. I even called myself foolish."

"Aye, you're right there," he said with conviction. She chose to ignore it.

"Then he said something else: 'the fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.'"

"Fuck if I know what that means," he replied, shaking his head. "But I don't usually understand what he means until long after."

"Me either. It makes me uneasy. Truthfully, he scares me, Sandor."

"He should," he said, looking at her full in the face. "Lenna, you can trust none of them. Not even Lord Tyrion. When we return, you must not speak to any of them about this."

"But Tyrion-"

"No," he bit out. "Not even him. You're being swatted around like a mouse, and I don't know for what purpose yet. I'm sure it will become clear soon enough. You must talk of this to no one. You can bet they are counting on you to squeak to someone."

"I am," she said quietly, her eyes widening slightly. "I'm squeaking to you."

"Do you think I'd be the one to tell them? really?"

"I don't know," she mumbled, her voice small.

She looked at him full in the face and saw a trace of hurt. Oddly, it was most noticeable on the scarred side of his face, his eye drooping a little more than it had before, the cheek a little more withered. She couldn't help it. If she was to trust no one, how could she trust him? What if all his years of odd kindnesses had simply been orders he was bound to follow as their servant? What if he meant none of them, the risks, the ribbons? She reached up and touched the gray one that bound the end of her braid. He'd left it for her on her last nameday, the month before, adding it to the green one from the previous year. An unlooked for kindness. Don't be a fool, of course he meant it.

"I swore an oath. I'll keep it," he said slowly, his dark voice pitched low, his eyes on her fingers as they ran over the smooth weave of the satin, then on her eyes.

"Against your liege lords?"

"Even then," he bit out. "I told you, there's a reason I don't take oaths. When I do, I fucking keep them."

A rush of something blazing and biting hurtled through her chest. His face was still cast with hurt, but his eyes were earnest. She smiled slightly, half-heartedly, and his features relaxed into something more like their familiar scowl.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Of course you will. I'm just-"

He huffed out a breath. "Scared. You should be scared. I want you to be scared," he said. A long moment of silence passed between them as they watched the endless ribbon of the sea. He sighed. "Nothing would stop you from staying in White Harbor," he said quietly, "and not go back."

"I am to be back by the beginning of the month," she replied, not quite grasping his meaning.

"That was the order, aye. But who will drag you there? It certainly won't be me." He wrestled with something unspoken for a moment, so evident in his eyes, before turning his gaze back to the sea.

Sandor IX

It took them a little over a week to sail from King's Landing to White Harbor. He took an almost perverse pleasure in the trip, greedily lapping up the time he got to spend with her, like a dog who has come across a spilled bucket of cream. They stayed on deck most days, and he enjoyed watching the wind stir in her hair, making it whip about her like sea-snakes, her cheeks rosy from the wind that got crisper with each day.

They didn't talk about unpleasantness after the first day. He figured there would be time enough for that later. Instead, he encouraged her to talk about her home as much as possible, and he delighted in watching her excitement grow. Every day, they would stand at the rail and without fail she would point out some landmark or other. A lighthouse, an interesting outcropping of rock, an island covered with forest. All the while, she called him by his name in her laughing voice, no longer worried about who might overhear them. He found himself using hers in the same way, enjoying the way her eyes lit up when he said it, like it meant as much to her as it did to him. He didn't even mind listening to her read her fucking stories of knights and dragons and maidens-fair as long as she kept saying his name and letting him use hers.

Looking at her was distracting for other reasons. She had taken to tying her hair back simply, if at all, always with one of his ribbons. He realized now that she'd had none before he placed the first on her desk over a year ago. Green, shot with gold, the ends of it were beginning to fray because she wore it so often. He'd added a second on her last nameday, a dove gray, slipping it under her door before she rose to face the sorrow-laden raven. It had made his chest tight to see her wearing it that afternoon, woven through her hair like he wished he could weave his fingers.

She had also put off the court style of dress and taken to wearing her old garb, much as he had abandoned his armor while they were on the ship. Surely, she must have known that she had outgrown them. After all, the last time she had worn them she had been a girl of fifteen, not a woman of twenty-one. She was nearly spilling out the top of them, her chemise barely serving its purpose, and he continuously got glimpses of her nipples, pebbled against the straining fabric by the chilly winds. Add to this the way the wool stretched across her hips and backside and he was in an almost constant state of arousal.

Not that he really minded.

He relished every moment he got her to himself, even coaxing, or rather daring, her into singing once or twice, her sweet voice for his ears alone. He'd often daydreamed about just that, commanding a song from the Lady of White Harbor, getting to listen to her voice and know it was just for him. Though when she had once suggested Come again, sweet love, he had objected. He didn't know that he'd have been able to control himself with those lyrics on her lips again, and her in such close proximity to him with none to see them. He wondered for a split second what she would do if he leaned over and kissed her, but he brusquely batted the idea away as he had the suggestion of the song, asking instead for The Bear and the Maiden Fair. She had laughed and colored, but she'd sung it anyway, her rendition garnering whoops and hollers from the crewmen. Though bawdy, it didn't stir him the way the other did.

Now he stood beside her at the rail as they slid smoothly into White Harbor. He should have been taking in their surroundings, but he was far too involved in watching her, the way her eyes seemed to glow when she spied the bleached ramparts of the New Castle, her family's banners streaming bright against the pale Northern Sky. He could imagine, when her eyes turned to him with that light inside them, that he had put that gleam there.

He'd never been this far north before, had never made it further than Robert's Rebellion had taken him. White Harbor was far larger than he imagined, much grander than he'd thought she'd hailed from, though why he thought so he didn't know. He knew the Manderlys were rich and powerful, that White Harbor was one of the five great cities, but he'd never imagined that she'd come from the family that commanded a place like this, plain and simple but obviously wealthy. She was born to be a great lady, even if she wasn't from a great house. The castle itself was solid and prudently constructed but enormous all the same, and even he had to admit there was a beauty to its clean lines and simple architecture. It wasn't as ornate as the Red Keep, and certainly not as overwrought as Casterly Rock. It looked honest, and seeing it helped him understand the woman standing beside him a little bit better.

"What do you think, Sandor? How does White Harbor look to you?" she asked turning to him, tears in her eyes. She laughed as she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

"Like a port," he replied woodenly. Beautiful, he wanted to say, and honest, and good. Like you.

She laughed again, and the sound tore at him. The journey had been too brief, he thought as she retreated below decks to prepare. He followed, putting his armor on piece by piece. He would need a squire to tighten the straps, but it would do. It felt heavy and unwieldy after a week without it, and with it came more than just physical discomfort.

It made him keenly aware of why they were there and who he really was.

As he strapped on his plate, he put Sandor away and reminded himself that they queen had sent her Hound. No more afternoons spent listening to her read and sing on the sunny deck of the ship, watching the wind whip his ribbons in her hair, imagining that they were different people, that she cared for him. It was such a simple fantasy, one that had consumed him, one that he didn't want to emerge from despite the fact that it was a lie, just his own imagination. The easiness which he'd relished for the last week was transformed to heaviness that went beyond the physical weight of the hauberk and mail and plate, beyond the heft of his longsword on his hip or the press of his dagger in his boot, and settled into his chest like lead.

He felt his chest clench, knowing what he had to do, who he was doing it for. At least she's safe. He hadn't lied when he didn't tell her why she'd been sent home. He had simply refused to speak. He hadn't wanted to spoil her excitement. There is plenty of time for that later. The day he'd brought Lenna to see the queen, he had been briefed. If he was to go with her, he would serve a purpose. He was to find out three very specific things: how many ships Wyman Manderly had at his command, how many more he was capable of building in a short period of time, and how many troops were in his garrison.

Sandor didn't like the sound of that, and he couldn't imagine why he was being asked to ferret it out. Well, he could imagine it, but it didn't make much sense to him. It sounded like war preparations, but the realm had been peaceful since King Robert's ascent to the Iron Throne with the small exception of the Greyjoy Rebellion. That had been settled fairly quickly, the Iron Islands brought back into the fold, Balon Greyjoy brought to heel, and Theon Greyjoy sent as a hostage to the North.

It had all the hallmarks of a Lannister plot, the deeply laid plans, the piecemeal execution, but just what the plot was he would have to bide his time and see.

He stood at the railing and squinted up against the brilliance of the city. He hadn't realized that White Harbor was literally white. It was blinding, so blinding that he didn't immediately notice her until she was beside him on the deck, arrayed again in her court dress, though this time she had a stout woolen cloak. He recognized it as being the same one she'd worn when she'd entered King's Landing years before.

"It's nearly new," she said, following his gaze to the roughspun folds. "I didn't get any wear out of it at all in the capital."

"No, I'd expect not," he replied, slinging his own cloak around his armor and fastening it firmly. They walked down the gangplank to the waiting horses, and he smiled to himself when she swung herself easily up into her saddle. He followed suit and secured his helm. When he looked at her, she was looking at the snarling dog with an expression of aversion. Hound again.

They were met at the gate by a company of Wyman Manderly's city guards, each carrying the signature trident of White Harbor, the cold sun glinting wickedly from the tines. He thought idly that he'd never fought with a trident, and he rather hoped he'd have the opportunity to train with one while he was there. Between his spying.

He was struck with how different the city was from King's Landing. For one, the air seemed cleaner. There was no cloying stench of the slums like the smell that clung to Flea Bottom and Gin Alley. There didn't seem to be much poverty in general. The people they passed were simply dressed, but they were open-faced and tidy. The homes were humble, but they were well-tended and hospitable, children playing on the cobblestones out front. There were curious grates running on either side of the street for as far as he could see, wrought from iron.

"It's the sewer system," Lenna said from beside him, following his gaze. "My father devised it before I was born. It carries the waste out of the city to a point beyond the fishing zones, downstream. It keeps the smell out, and it's far safer for the people. They don't sicken as much, he says."

Sandor nodded. It made sense. He wondered how she had stomached all those years in the stench of the capital if she had grown up somewhere like this.

"I think Lannisport has something similar," he said, "but perhaps not as well-developed."

He was right. Lannisport had a sewer as well, as did Casterly Rock, but it hadn't been run through the sections of the city where the poorest people lived. They had been allowed to continue to live in their own filth. It seemed Wyman Manderly took a different approach to his responsibilities to his people.

They passed an ancient looking fortress at the base of the harbor. It was built of gray stone and had a dreary look to it.

"The Wolf's Den," Lenna said. He smirked that she should be playing at a guide. "It's the oldest part of the city. King Jon Stark raised it before the Conquest. Before there were any Manderlys in the North."

"What do you mean?"

"We are originally from the Reach, but we were exiled. It's a long story," she replied. "And now we've reached the Castle Stair."

Before them stretched a wide path of white stone that rose in wide landings easy enough for Stranger and her little grey palfrey to climb without winding themselves. On either side were rows of marble mermaids, each one different from the next, their smooth faces serene as they cradled flame in their arms. Somehow every one one of them looked just like her.

"Whale oil," Lenna said. "Many of our seafarers hunt whales for their oil. But whales produce many useful things."

"Like what?"

"Their bone for tools, their meat is good for eating, and sometimes we find ambergris." He looked at her questioningly. She smiled. "For making perfume."

At the top of the stair, she surprised him by reining her horse around. Below them lay the harbor, spread out in both directions.

"The outer harbor," she said, pointing to the left, "is separated from the inner harbor by the jetty wall. It's our first line of defense. The inner harbor, obviously, is where we anchored. The gate we came through is called the Seal Gate, because of that." She pointed to a large gray-green rock jutting out of the waters of the outer harbor. He estimated it was about fifty feet tall, and it's base was covered with the glistening brown bodies of seals. At the top were the remains of something man-made that he couldn't quite make out from the distance. "Seal Rock."

She took a moment to look over it all, and he thought he heard her sigh.

"Come," she said quietly, bringing her horse back around.

"Wait," he said, holding out a hand. "What's that?"

He was looking at structure that rivalled the Sept of Baelor, domed in white and surmounted by tremendous statues.

"That's the Sept of the Snows," she said quietly. "My father is Shield of the Faith. The statues are the Seven. See, there's the Warrior, and the Stranger, and the Maiden."

He squinted and could make out the hood of his warhorse's namesake, the blade of the Warrior, the uplifted arms of the Maiden.

"Aren't Northerners followers of the Old Gods?" He knew the answer, that she wasn't. He knew because he watched her in the Sept all the time, even six years later. At least once a week, he found himself standing in the shadows mesmerized as she made her prayers to her gods. Now he was buying time before he had to give her over to her family. He could still feel Sandor struggling to push out from under the armor, wanting just a few more minutes.

"We brought the Faith with us when we were expelled from the Reach," she explained. "White Harbor follows the Seven, though our liege House is of the Old Gods. There is a godswood in the Wolf's Den, though I have never seen it."

He nodded, turning Stranger back toward the castle. He leaned back in the saddle to see to the tops of the towers.

"And this is the New Castle," she said quietly. "This is home."

It looked awfully cold to be her home, but he could hear the warmth in her voice as she spoke. The walls were blindingly white, no algae would dare green its surface, and hung from the crenellated walls were banners the same color as the handkerchiefs she carried, a vivid aqua-blue, emblazoned with a merman and his trident, green hair streaming behind him.

He slowed Stranger so that he would enter behind her rather than beside, taking a breath as he became fully the Hound again. He kept his visor up as they came into the broad courtyard and he found himself before Wyman Manderly.

The party that greeted them was small, but there was no mistaking them. There was no fanfare for her return, but standing in the middle of the yard were three men and two girls. The man in the middle was enormously fat with a mop of curling, wild hair and a crisp goatee, all snowy white. He was dressed in the aqua of their house. Beside him stood two more robust men, one a little shorter than the other. One had curls of dark gold, the other of the same almost-black as Lenna. They all had the odd green eyes, lit up by the cold harbor sun.

One of the girls could have been Lenna's sister, though her hair was rather lighter and her eyes more blue than green. Wynna, he guessed. The girl standing next to her was pug-faced and fair-haired, but it had been dyed a shocking green and wrapped in a strand of pearls.

He dismounted, handing Stranger's reins to the stable boy but instructing him not to attempt to lead the beast. He was temperamental and libel to take off the boy's hand. He'd take care of him himself once Lenna was delivered.

He went to help her dismount, but it was unneeded. She slid off easily and walked slowly toward her family. At a respectable distance she paused and dropped a deep curtsey to her father.

"By the gods, Lenna," the old man blustered. Sandor noted that there were tears running openly down the man's face as he looked at his daughter. "You look just like her. I had forgotten."

"Papa," she replied brokenly, crossing the distance between them and throwing her arms around the massive man's shoulders.

"You are home," Manderly murmured, over and over, clutching her to him and rocking her back and forth as if she were a child. "You are here."

It was painful to watch, to see her wrapped up in such care in the span of a few seconds, knowing she had been without it for so many years. One by one, each of the Manderly's joined together until there was one weeping, laughing mound of them standing inelegantly in the courtyard of their castle.

Sandor felt intensely uncomfortable and out of place. And jealous. Just as he was about to make himself known, Lenna seemed to remember him.

"Papa," she said, pulling out of all of their embrace, wiping her eyes but still beaming, "this is Sandor Clegane, he's the queen's personal bodyguard."

"Ser Sandor," Manderly said icily.

"I'm not a ser," Sandor replied, just as frostily.

"I thank you for bringing my daughter safely home to us."

Sandor grunted, noting the way the men were forcing themselves to look at him, how the blonde girl wouldn't raise her eyes. The other one looked at him much the same way her aunt had done that first time, with curiosity rather than disgust, able to meet his eye without hesitation.

"I am sure you are tired. The guards will show you to the barracks. A private bunk has been prepared for you there."

"My lord," he replied, tipping his helm in a nod. He turned on his heel to take Stranger's reins from the stable boy.

"Clegane," Lenna called. It hit him like a brick. Already the Lady of White Harbor again. He stiffened and half turned back to her. "You'll come to supper."

"As my lady commands," he replied levelly, a glower returning to his face.

She smiled, turning back to her father, seizing both of his hands, running her fingers over her nieces faces, forgetting him.