Lenna XII

She'd never seen her father toss back ale like that before. He had filled his mug to the brim and then drunk the entire contents without pausing for a breath. It wasn't like him, and it worried her. He was a man who loved a drink, but he savored it. His goal was never drunkenness, so when he returned to pour himself yet another she felt her sense of foreboding increase ten-fold.

Wyman Manderly didn't sit, but rather he paced, as she often did, up and down the length of the room, his eyes focused on some point in the middle-distance, or on something years in the past. She watched him closely, taking in every detail as he clearly battled with himself. What she found dismayed her. As she looked at him, she realized how much he had aged in the six, almost seven, years she had been away from home. He had always been a large man, but now he was much stouter than before, with deep bags under his eyes and ponderous jowls, the handsome man he'd once been a frail skeleton within the oversized frame. Add to this a contrary sort of delicacy, especially in the fine wrinkles around his eyes, and she found him very much changed. He had been a vital man when she left, still strong and boisterous, but standing before her now was an old man. A weary old man.

He turned to look at her, his eyes tired and a faint smile lifting the ends of his moustache. He reached a hand up, twisting the white bristles between a thumb and forefinger. It was the same gesture Wendel and Wylis both made when they were thinking, when they were hesitant. It might have made her smile to notice how it was shared between them if she didn't have such a lump of dread weighing in her belly.

"I was sent as a ward to Casterly Rock when I was eight. It was a tremendous honor," he began. His voice was low, almost conspiratorial, like he was telling a story. "Our family was originally from down that way, in the Reach, you know. Not terribly far from Lannisport and just upstream of Highgarden. Our seat was Dunstonbury, on the banks of the Mander, which I saw as a young man. That river is our namesake, or we are the river's, no one can really tell for sure. We have always been deft administrators, it seems, something the long-ago Gardener kings grew wary of, and which our Peake foes exploited to be rid of us. We were expelled, for what I cannot say, but almost a thousand years ago. No one remembers what we did, or didn't do, and I suppose it doesn't really matter now, dow it?

Friendless, in fear of our lives, we Manderlys travelled North. The Starks took us in and gave us the Wolf's Den. They were building their own kingdom, and we were useful. We have always been capable as well as cultured, and all they did was require us to swear an oath to them as their bannermen. In return, they gave over control of the White Knife to us. We have obviously prospered in the interim."

Wyman indicated the room, the Castle, the city itself with a broad sweep of his mug. Not a drop of ale spilled, and he drank deeply again, a grin playing about his mouth. Lenna didn't return it, and her father's face went slack and tired again.

"The Lannisters are so like us in many ways that it made sense to foster me with them," he continued quietly. "They are rich, powerful, in command of one of the largest cities in the Seven Kingdoms, and it's a port to boot. It was, and still is, the fashion to send sons off to learn the ways of things from men other than their fathers. Supposed to give them clearer heads, and foster alliances. Just as sending ladies off to be maids-in-waiting is supposed to help them master the skills they will need as wives and mothers of the great lords."

Lenna flicked her gaze to her father again, finding him looking at her with regret. Perhaps they both felt that any alliance for her was beyond their reach at this point. She was twenty-one, older for a woman of her birth to remain unwed, and she doubted the queen would release her into marriage while the princess was still so young. Not that she would consent to one.

"So, I grew up alongside Tywin Lannister, though he is two years my junior," he continued, his eyes grown far off again. "Lannisters were, of course, too good to foster their sons or daughters with lesser houses. That said, Tywin and I were friends. Very good friends, indeed. He was always a bit mirthless, but I made up for that in spades, and for our growing up years we were as inseparable and as different as Wynna and Wylla.

"I loved him like a brother, having none of my own," he said softly. Lenna glanced to Sandor and found him looking at her father with the same feeling of shock on his features. She knew her mouth had fallen slightly open, and she made an effort to close it. She couldn't imagine her father and Tywin Lannister in the same room, let alone close as brothers.

"Of course, things change. I believe Tywin began to hate me the moment I laid eyes on your mother, my dear. Adalyn Locke. He had no designs on her himself, no, Tywin only ever wanted his cousin. Joanna. She was your mother's dearest friend in King's Landing. They both served Rhaella Targaryen, and Joanna brought her to Lannisport for a festival. I don't remember which one. The problem lay in the fact that Tytos was in talks with my father to betrothe Tywin's sister, Genna, to me."

"Genna Frey?" Lenna blurted out. "You were to marry Genna Frey?"

"It never went beyond negotiations. I broke no promises when I married your mother," her father said hesitantly. "Tywin, of course, greatly supported a match with his sister. Marry his favorite sister to his best friend, what more could he want? Add to that, it would unite two of the five great cities and bring in imports from the Narrow Sea and the Sunset Sea. Together, we'd have encircled the continent, more or less. Imagine the power, I know he did.

"But then I met your mother, and the talks broke down. Tywin didn't complain at the time, insisted he understood, he loved Joanna after all, he knew my predicament. But I knew he was angry. He wasn't used to not getting his way. It was Joanna that assuaged him, and he turned the blame on Genna herself. He had everything arranged to his liking, and it was spoiled. If she'd managed make me love her, it wouldn't have happened in Tywin's mind. So, he blamed her, the poor girl."

"I'm not sure I can muster too much pity for Genna Frey," Lenna said with an archly raised brow and a purse of her lips. "She was always horrible to me." Lenna thought of all the banquets where they'd met in her childhood. Genna Frey always had an unkind word concealed in her endless chatter for Lenna, whether it was about her adolescent skin or the size of her waist. She was like a jellyfish, stoutly floating along looking innocuous, then out of nowhere a sharp zing of pain as she attacked without warning or provocation. Lenna disliked very few people at that age, and Genna Frey was one of them.

"I'm sure I believe you," Wyman said. "After that, things became a little stilted between us. But not at all bitter. No, that came later."

"The Reynes," Sandor said. Lenna looked at him sharply, having almost entirely forgotten he was there. He was looking at her father intently, intelligent gray eyes watching the lord for his reaction. It was clear to her that he knew something she did not, that the two of them had talked. Again, she wondered what all was said when he told her father he'd been sent as a spy. It clearly went beyond the information he was tasked with gathering.

"Aye," Wyman sighed, closing his eyes, the wrinkles of his face cast into sharp relief by the afternoon sun through the window. "The Reynes."

Lenna shuddered, drawing her shawl around her shoulders. It was an old one she found in the chest at the foot of her bed, dark gray and soft, but now it did nothing to warm her. The mention of the name made her feel a chill down to her bones, like she'd been caught on the strand in a winter's fog, damp and freezing and still.

"They owed him gold," Sandor said, a hint of derision in his voice. "Quite a bit of it, for all their mines."

"They did, Clegane, and I never said that nothing should have been done. In fact, I agreed with Tywin in that regard. His father was terrible with money, and he was ruining the family. My most valuable lessons in Casterly Rock weren't on how to properly administer a city, but on what not to do. Tytos was vain and brash and a spendthrift. He lent that money to the Reynes while his most able manager, Tywin, was off with me fighting against the Ninepenny Kings.

"I was engaged to your mother by then. She waited for me to come back, gods bless her. We were off on that campaign most of a year. When we came back, Tywin found the coffers near empty, and he did the sensible thing. He called in the debts.

Her father once again got that far-away look, but his face was also drawn and pained, like dredging up the memories were physically taxing him.

"The Reynes and the Lannisters and the Tarbecks...that's a story it would take weeks to tell, and it went back at least a generation. It was a horrible muddle, what warring greed and slander did to those families. Certainly no love lost between them, despite their intermarrying. When Tywin called in the debts, Roger and Reynard Reyne laughed and refused. Tywin called them in, as was his right. They again refused. There was no other word for it by then but rebellion."

"Lord Tywin had a duty and a right to take back what was his and protect his territory against rebels," Sandor said lowly. Lenna was taken aback by the hardness in his voice. "To fail to do so would have put the people under his protection at risk."

"Of course, Clegane, you are right. But," Wyman paused, "he took it too damn far."

"He routed out those who opposed him," Sandor protested.

A momentary wave of fear hit Lenna like a stone to her breast-bone. Sandor's face was drawn in indignation, like he was growing angry that her father was even daring to question Tywin Lannister, his treatment of the Reyne's those many years before.

"Yes, he did, but it wasn't just those who wielded the power, Clegane. He took out the women and the children, too. It started with the Tarbecks. He wiped them out, including Lady Ellyn. Should Tywin ever decide to call me to account, should my girls die for it?"

Sandor's brow furrowed, and she could see his trouble in his eyes. "But Lady Ellyn-"

"Lady Ellyn was still a high born woman, and the way she was put to the sword was unpardonable. It was against our ways." Manderly looked tired, rubbing his temple with his free hand, taking another sip of ale, pressing his tongue against his teeth as if it tasted bitter. "But, I held my tongue."

"Did he look to you, Papa?" Lenna asked, wondering if her father had not played a greater role than he'd ever let on.

"Of course," he replied. "I went to him immediately, leaving your mother almost ready to give birth to Wylis. I rode south with a small company to Casterly Rock, listened to him rant and rage. And I heard him, and then I counseled him to be merciful, but Tywin had gotten a taste for carnage in the War. One I didn't share."

"But you fought the Ninepenny Kings, and again in Robert's Rebellion," Sandor said, lack of understanding written clearly across his face. He was incredulous. "You know it is necessary."

"Aye, and I was proud to fight. But doing one's duty and enjoying it for the sake of bloodshed are two different things. Roger and Reynard tried to stand against him, but they were defeated. They took their households, even the servants, to shelter in the mines beneath the castle. It was always their best defense, those rocky passageways beneath Castamere. After they were secure, safe, Roger and Reynard came to talk terms, ready to surrender."

"He refused to hear them," Lenna said breathlessly.

Wyman closed his eyes and nodded. "I was there, I tried to get Tywin to listen to reason. It would be one thing to execute Roger and Reynard, and he should have. It was his right. They were his bannermen and they rose up against him. He absolutely should have taken their traitorous heads, but the smallfolk-"

"He killed them all," Lenna said, remembering the song.

"He blocked the entrances and diverted the stream. It poured into the mines. They all drowned. Every last man, woman, and child, and it wasn't a swift death. I could only think about how they all knew what was coming. It took days for the caverns to fill. He drowned them down there in the dark with no escape, scrambling away from the waters until there was nowhere left to go. I can't bear to think of it, not even now," Wyman said, and there were tears welling in his rheumy eyes. "And it was so silent. Midsummer, beautiful blue skies. He turned the whole place into a giant tomb, a place that had once been so beautiful. He torched the keep, and the fires burned for a week, blocking out the sun. Before he was done, it was all gone."

"And then what happened?" Sandor asked, the words mimicking a child eager for a story, but his tone doleful.

"We argued bitterly - violently- and I left. His last words to me, having called me a traitor and a back-biter for not supporting him, I'll never forget. 'Remember the Reynes.' As if I had a choice. We haven't spoken since."

"And she signs the ravens with it," Sandor murmured, his brow troubled.

"Aye," Wyman replied. "Every month, lass. She sends a raven and signs it with his words. I'm sure she doesn't know how meaningful, how dreadful, those words truly are. To me."

Lenna looked at her father in horror. As much as Tywin had scared her before, she hadn't ever dreamed him capable of such absolute cruelty. It made her skin crawl to remember talking with him in the library at the Red Keep, the way he smiled at her and bent over her hand. The respect with which he'd treated her.

"And you will send her back," Sandor growled, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Lenna looked worriedly between them, on unsure footing as they faced off like to two angry dogs.

"Aye, and you will guard her," Wyman returned, his voice no longer that of a genial host, but that of a powerful lord issuing a command.

Sandor XII

His brain was a furnace. He'd heard the story since he was a child, always so sure that the Lannisters were in the right, admiring their resolve, their ability to take and keep what was theirs. He'd grown up in the shadow of Casterly Rock, his family's humble existence relying on them. His father never let them forget what they were, that their grandfather had acquired their sound little keep and their lands because of his loyalty to them, because he was so like the dogs he bred and trained for them.

They were trained to be like dogs for them, too. He'd exemplified it for his whole career, from the age of twelve until just the day before. But, like a dog, his allegiance could only stand so much. Kindness spoke more powerfully than violence, a caress here or there more potent than beatings, and now he knew that they were more or less holding her as a hostage, that she was being used as some perverse bargaining chip against her father to settle an old score, the Hound was turning.

"So that's why they brought her in the first place," he rasped, looking at Manderly. "To put the screws to you."

"That is my nearest guess. That, and to make sure that when the war comes that they have the power of White Harbor behind them in the North."

"The war?" Lenna burst out. "There is no war, we've been at peace for years."

"Not long enough. You remember the Rebellion, lass. It didn't touch you as it could have. Your brothers and I all came back alive and whole. It was not that way for everyone. Robert has only sat the throne for thirteen years. He overthrew a long dynasty. His reign is nothing in comparison," her father said gravely. "Something is coming. I don't know what. I don't know who we will be fighting, but it's coming."

"Aye," Sandor replied. He'd felt it, too. Even before they'd been sent to White Harbor, but now his suspicions were confirmed. The information he was supposed to gather sounded like war preparations, now he felt that they most definitely were. It may be months away, even years, but it was coming. "Surely it is safer for Lady Helenna to remain here if war is coming."

"Lenna, my dear, where is the safest place in a hurricane?" Wyman asked, looking at his daughter. Sandor was bewildered. What the fuck does a hurricane have to do with a war?

"The eye," she whispered. Her lips had gone white.

"I don't understand," Sandor bit out.

"Have you ever been in a hurricane, Clegane?" Manderly asked.

"No, my lord," he replied. He'd heard of them, knew they sometimes hit King's Landing, but they usually spent themselves in the Stormlands.

"They are deadly powerful storms. Sometimes they make it all the way up here, bouncing like a child's ball between us and Essos, right up the Narrow Sea. One hit us when Lenna was just a child. Do you remember?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, her brow knitting together as she remembered. She looked to Sandor and held his gaze with hers. "The winds ripped the banners off the ramparts, tore them to shreds. It lifted tiles from the roofs of the houses in the city, shattering them like glass, picking up barrels and carts and flinging them about like toys. One struck the merman in Fishfoot Yard, breaking his trident. It was never repaired, as a reminder. People died," she said, her voice trailing off. "The water rose so high it was six feet deep beyond the wharf. We watched the waves from the walls at the beginning, then you had us huddled in the lower parts of the castle, near the passageway to the Wolf's Den."

"And in the middle of the storm, what did we do?"

"We went into the eye, Papa," she replied quietly. "It was like a fine midsummer day, few clouds overhead, bright blue skies. It was warm."

"And?"

"And we could see the stormwall looming, coming toward us. Black and roiling and flecked with lightning."

"Aye, but as long as we were in the eye there were no winds, not rains."

"I understand, Papa," she said. She seemed greatly troubled, wringing her hands as she suddenly rose from her seat. "If you will both excuse me."

She slipped her little white feet into her slippers, not meeting either man's eye. He couldn't help but follow her with his gaze as she left. The way she held herself, so consciously upright and poised, reminded him of the day the news of her mother's death had arrived. He knew that she was working very hard to keep herself calm, and he wondered if she'd manage it this time. He doubted it, a tight stab of dismay slicing through his chest, knowing that as free as he was to walk this castle, he still couldn't go to her as he wished.

He understood Manderly's point. He didn't want to, and wanted to admit he did even less, but he understood. She was safest in the midst of the Lannisters, looking useful, pleasing, and a buffer between them and her family. She was safest in the place she would be the most miserable. The traitorous part of him that had feared being separated from her rejoiced, even while the better part of him raged like a bull at the injustice of it.

He doubted very much that the Lannisters would rain destruction on House Manderly for keeping her, but he knew that in the very least she occupied a privileged place in King's Landing as Myrcella's tutor. Cersei even liked the girl, had as much affection for her as she was capable of feeling for someone not born into her clan. Even Tywin seemed to have a grudging respect, even warmth for her. As long as they both continued to play their parts and do their duty, they could weather the storm. It was something he'd been doing for years, talking his way around the things he had done for their service, the men he had killed and maimed. It had been easy for him, and he'd done it unthinkingly. How often in the alehouses had he boasted that killing was the sweetest thing in a man's life? He enjoyed it. This was probably the first time he'd ever thought twice about it.

"What will you do if he calls you?" Sandor demanded, looking at Manderly. The old man was warming his hands before his study's little fireplace.

"That I cannot answer, not right now."

"But you will provide for her."

"I already have," he replied, turning to look at Sandor. "Or, rather, they already have."

Sandor looked at him flatly.

"You, Clegane," Wyman said quietly. "You'll let no harm come to my girl."

"I told you before. I took a vow," Sandor said, so angry his voice shook with it.

"Yes. Yes, you did. And you'll keep it." It wasn't a command, it was an entreaty. Wyman Manderly was once again a tired man who missed his daughter.

"Aye, my lord," he replied, feeling chastened.

Wyman Manderly looked strained and old, his fat jowls sagging against his chest as he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders stooped.

"I'll leave you, my lord," he said, rising.

He stumbled out of the study and found himself walking the ramparts aimlessly. An hour or two passed, and he was not closer to peace than he had been when he started. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he nearly tripped over Wendel Manderly without seeing him.

"Clegane!" he exclaimed. "Wouldn't think you'd be for strolling on the walls."

"Needed to clear my head," he replied. Wendel looked at him with his head tilted to one side.

"Father has spilled all, I see. To Lenna, too?" His face was almost jaunty, and it turned his stomach.

Sandor nodded.

"Just as well. Better that you both know," he said matter-of-factly.

"How long have you known?" He knew he was snarling, and he didn't much care. Manderly didn't look the least bit intimidated.

"Always," he replied. "I was born right after it all happened, and he wasn't so quiet about it when I was a lad. He always wanted to protect our Lenna though. We all do."

"Bloody fine job you've done, too," Sandor growled. Instead of angry, like other lordlings might be, Wendel had the grace to look chastened. Sandor felt immediately ashamed.

"You're right, Clegane. We've let other men do our duty." The words were soft, but he left no doubt of his meaning by raising his eyes to meet Sandor's. These Manderlys were an honest and self-effacing group. He wondered how they had managed to survive this far.

The older man excused himself, extracting a promise of a game of cards after supper, and Sandor watched him go with relief.

"Clegane."

Sandor turned, not even trying to hide the annoyance on his face. The other man looked back at him sheepishly. There was a hesitance about his manner that made Sandor curious, like he was about to do something he thought he might regret.

"My sister went to the Sept. Maybe you could fetch her, see her safely back?" he asked. Sandor's brow furrowed with bemusement. "She'll be in the crypts."

The last sentence was uttered gravely and slowly, and Clegane knew at once why he'd been so slow to speak. Wendel looked back at him imploringly, like he was asking him to be gentle, like he knew he could be so. A wave of white-hot awareness crashed over him. These Manderlys see too much for their own good, he thought.

He nodded, and turned to make his way to the Sept of Snows. The distance wasn't as far is it seemed from the height of the New Castle, maybe a quarter of an hour. The city was quiet, people indoors as they prepared for their evening meals. He wondered if their tables would look like the one in the Merman's court, covered in simple food, like the people themselves.

He wondered what she would have been like, if she had stayed here rather than go to King's Landing. He wondered how Helenna Manderly would have laughed had she been allowed to remain among these plain-spoken, honest people as she came into her own, rather than constantly being surrounded by the snakes of court. He had seen her throw her head back in merriment more than once these last two days, exposing that fine white throat in a way she would never feel safe doing in King's Landing, never for an instant worried about who was or wasn't watching her.

And that's when he realized that he was among the chosen group allowed to actually see her. She had never endeavored to hide herself from him, had only ever censored herself when both of them were being watched. She had always spoken to him like they were the same, like he was her peer, her friend.

It humbled him at the same time that it fueled something searing in his loins.

Openly entering the Sept doors in search of her felt foreign. He was used to sneaking through side doors, taking up positions in the shadows to watch her. He vividly remembered what it felt like, her warmth, her head tilted far back so she could raise her luminous eyes to his as they stood so close together in the alcove of the Sept of Baelor. He'd wanted to strangle her and kiss her in equal measure. She'd taken such a risk to find him, and he'd been furious and exhilarated by it.

A silent sister nodded toward the entrance to the crypts when he asked the direction, and he went down the wide stone stairway softly. It was a lustrous white, just like the Castle Stair, just like everything in the city.

The catacomb was underground, the tombs set in recesses carved into the bedrock. They, too, were white, the effigies of their occupants carved from pale marble, bathed in honey-warm light from the flames in the sconces. Whale oil again, he thought warily.

He spotted her down the corridor. She was sitting on a bench facing an effigy of a woman. Her mother, of course. He approached slowly, though she didn't look up at him.

He looked at the statue and held his breath. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought it was a likeness of her. The woman was tall, graceful of figure, her face fair and open. The sculptor had given her a thick rope of hair that fell across her shoulder, her hands caressing it. The lady smiled down at him, and for a brief moment it was like her eyes could actually see him.

"I always thought they were being polite, saying I looked like her," Lenna whispered from behind him. "She was so beautiful."

"She was," he answered. As you are. "You do look like her."

Lenna smiled half-heartedly. Her nose was red and her eyes bore the familiar strain of crying. She sniffled.

Compulsively, he reached into his pocket and produced a handkerchief. It was plain, undyed linen, well-worn and soft with many washings. As he sat down beside her, he held it out and she took it from him, her fingers lingering against his. Another streak of heat to his groin.

"It has been a trying day," she said, her voice imbued with false good humor.

"Why come here after that business?" he asked roughly.

She smiled a little more broadly. "Because she always knew what to do. She was full of these little sayings: 'the best remedy for sorrow is a good laugh,' 'a lady's smile is her armor and her courtesy her shield,' 'be pleased to see whomever you meet and they will be pleased to see you.' That worked, didn't it? I was pleased to see you in Cersei's solar, and you smiled back at me."

He thought of that moment again, how she had been able to transform herself from a frightened girl into a composed lady in a matter of moments. It was like watching a knight arm himself, putting on his armor piece by piece, preparing himself for the fight to come. It made so much more sense now, that iron control she possessed. She'd been bred to strap her courtesy on like armor, to gird herself with pleasantries and smiles in the same way he'd been taught to fight with swords and spears and violence. Hers was such a paltry defense.

"What would she tell you to do now?" he asked, genuinely curious. They were in such a predicament, even the advice of a dead woman was welcome. He felt for her, so keenly it was hard to breathe. He feared that she would struggle to keep up the facade necessary to endure going back now that she knew how easily she could be manipulated, how brutal the Lannisters could be to those that crossed them. For all their perverse kindness to her since she'd arrived in the capital, the Lannisters had still taken her as a punishment, to hobble her powerful father and bring him over to their side. They didn't believe they needed affection to rule. Steel and force were good enough for them.

"She'd tell me to bear up and do my duty. And do it with a glad heart."

"Sounds like bullshit," he responded quickly, immediately regretting it.

"Oh, Sandor," she whispered forlornly. "It's all bullshit. She knew it, as do you. I'm the only one who didn't." Her voice broke, and part of his heart did, too.

"Aye," he answered sadly. She wiped her eyes, proffering the handkerchief back to him. He waved it away, attempting something like humor. "You need it more. Your brother is right. You cry at fucking everything."

She nodded, her face crumpling again. Then she did the most extraordinary thing. She leaned her head onto his shoulder. He froze just for a breath, snaking his arm around her, letting his fingers splay against his waist. He drew her closer to him, sliding her across the bench, and she buried her face into his neck. He nearly flinched when her smooth forehead made contact with his scarred skin on that side, but he held still in the wonder of her warmth pressed against him. Her arm snaked its way up to loop around his neck, the tears coming in earnest. He turned his head just slightly, resting his lips against her hair. It wasn't a kiss, but it was the closest he imagined he'd ever get. Her hair was smooth and silky under the sensitive skin of his mouth, and he tightened his hold on her waist, his fingers traveling in slow circles he couldn't control, relishing her warmth.

She sagged against him, her little hand twining through the hair at the base of his skull, her fingers digging in and pulling him closer. It was enough to move him. He sat there and held her as she cried, hoping she didn't glance up to see the wetness on his own cheeks. He could feel her heart thundering where her breast pressed against his, and knew that his own was reverberating in a similar fashion. Her ear was pressed to his chest, she must be able to hear it, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to feel her arms around his neck, the rise and fall of her breast against his as she breathed, the smell and texture of her hair in his nose and against his skin.

Like she is mine, as I am hers.