Lenna LXIII
To her consternation, Tyrion had been right all those years before. Dorne was beautiful and warm, washed in radiant sunlight and shaded by the dark, glossy leaves of countless lemon trees, the fruits shining from the branches like little suns. The gardens of Sunspear were spectacular, and she spent as much time in them as she possibly could. Addy took delight in running up and down the stone pathways with Myrcella trailing behind her, their joined laughter ringing off the warm stone walkways like music. She didn't have the energy to join them. This babe was sapping her in a way Addy never had, and that didn't even take into account the heaviness that had settled on her shoulders when the ship left King's Landing on a gray morning, her husband's enormous frame shrinking away until he disappeared altogether, tears cool on her cheek. In an effort to alleviate the pain, Lenna would sit on the sun-warmed stone walls as they played, her head tilted toward the blazing sung as she concentrated on the feeling of warmth on her skin, heavy like the weight of a palm on her cheek. When she closed her eyes tight and sat thus, she could almost imagine that it was his fingers on her jaw and not just the sunlight, and the heaviness would descend anew.
She might have been in Dorne in body, her skin changing from its perpetual paleness to a faint honey-gold in the Southern sun, but her mind and spirit were thousands of miles North, swirling with the snow and the ice. At night she dreamed of him, saw him stumbling through the snowdrifts, his hair frozen against his face, his breath coming in great clouds that turned his dark, bushy beard as white as her father's. She would wake cold and shivering in her bed hung with light silks, her hand pressed to the top of her growing belly and tears leaking from the corners of her eyes though she had long ago grown too tired to cry in earnest.
She had been three months in Dorne, and every morning she woke and wondered where she was, wondered why she wasn't where she felt that she should be. Then she would see the brightly colored bed-hangings and the filigreed screens on the window, rosy dawn spilling across her floor like the glow of the strange citrus fruits that grew fat and golden in the gardens. Every detail was delicate and beautiful, and she had certainly dreamed of such a place as a girl. The calls of exotic birds filled the room softly, and breezes perfumed with jasmine and sweet balm wafted through the open archways of the windows. There were no shutters on them. There was no need.
But, for all its beauties and its charms, the hospitality of her hosts, and her understanding of why it was she had been sent to Dorne rather than returning North, it was not where she wanted to be. She had caught Prince Oberyn watching her with concern on more than one occasion, his darkly handsome features made somber when they were usually amiable, full lips made narrow with worry.
It was not without cause. For all Dorne was lush and gorgeous, the reminders of what was happening thousands of miles away were never ending. The ravens were unceasing, their sturdy black bodies an ominous contrast to their gay surroundings when she chanced to spot one arriving, cold dread encasing her heart like a cage. The messages were always brought directly to Prince Doran, and she had taken to heading for the small council room even before she was called. Several times she had surprised him, already seated in her spot as emissary before he'd even dispatched his runners. Without a word, he would merely hand the scrolls over for her to read and her heart would freeze again.
Destruction. Utter destruction. An army of the dead that could only be defeated by dragonglass or Valyrian steel. There was plenty of dragonglass being funnelled through her own White Harbor, the ships moving up the White Knife as far North as possible before the weapons were transported overland to the fighting at the Wall. The reports from Castle Black were bleak, but the army of the dead had been held back, kept behind the centuries-old fortification of the Wall and out of Northern lands.
For now.
The people were evacuated south, and reports of thieving and reaving were disheartening and maddening as thousands poured into the Crownlands and the Westerlands from points north with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Winterfell, Sansa wrote, had been made into a center of command, the smallfolk almost entirely gone except for a few trusted servants who would not, or could not, leave.
There were bright moments, of course. Victories, though small ones, and the reappearance of Bran Stark. Reported dead during in the Greyjoy siege years earlier, Sansa wrote that he had suddenly returned with Meera Reed, though according to his sister he was much changed. Lenna found it in herself to smile at the tidings, remembering the adventurous lad that he'd been and the terrible accident that had befallen him, the pall it had cast over them.
It had been an ill-omen that they hadn't had the sense at the time to read.
But it was the lack of news about Sandor and his companions that left Lenna most content, if such a feeling could be called joyful. No news was the best news, and her heart leaped into her throat every time Prince Doran appeared with the scrolls, her eyes darting for the tell-tale black ribbon and never finding it, to her honest pleasure.
Despite the brilliant weather, the clear, blindingly blue skies and the warm southern breezes, Lenna's days were colorless, lusterless, but it was a comfort to have Myrcella near. The princess had been overwrought with joy when she was informed that Lenna would be joining them. It had been the one of the most difficult performances of her life, she thought later, pretending to be glad to attend the Dornish court, to represent the realm and serve as liaison during the war with the North.
The decision was, in her mind, a hasty one. She had awoken in their rooms some few days before they were due to sail north, Addy still in the bed beside her. By the time she had returned from settling the little girl in her own bed in the nursery, Sandor had returned. He smelled faintly of ale, but he was not drunk. She had not seen him intoxicated in years, though he still regularly enjoyed a skin of Dornish sour and a pitcher of ale. No, Sandor Clegane was in some state of high feeling, but he wasn't intoxicated.
He was standing in the center of the room, staring into the fire. His shoulders were hunched and drooping, his head low and his chin nearly brushing his chest, the long hair cast over his features so that Lenna could not see them even when she walked to face him.
"You're to go to Dorne." The words were brittle from his lips, and while she could see the reflection of the fire in his eyes, she could not read his expression.
"Nonsense," she replied with a dry laugh. "I'm recalled to Winterfell. With you."
"You're to go to Dorne," he repeated, each word so heavy that she almost missed the entreaty in them.
"Sandor, what are you-"
"You are to go to talk with Doran," he continued, cutting her off. It was something he seldom did. She quickly closed her mouth and settled her hands before her, eyes cast on the flagstones. Whatever it was he was trying to say was difficult for him, almost rehearsed. "There are matters for you to attend there. Preparations for after."
"I am not the best candidate-" she protested reasonably, slamming her courtier's mask back in place to stave off the trembling in her belly.
"It has been decided," he said flatly, and it made her blood flare with ire.
"By whom? Certainly not by me," she protested with equal equanimity.
"By me," he replied, flicking at his nose with his thumb and avoiding her eye until he no longer could. His gray eyes were dead as steel. She had never seen that expression in them before. When he spoke, his lips barely moved. "You will not come north again, Lenna. Not until this is over."
She choked on a bark of laughter. "Sandor, I am not afraid-"
"No," he replied quietly, "but I am."
That quelled her indignation as quickly as sand poured on a flame kills the embers. She felt thrown off balance, as if a tide had sucked away the sand from beneath her feet. He had never admitted to fear before, and even when face with that he feared most, Sandor Clegane did not back down from a confrontation. Her stomach trembled that he might know something that she did not, and she held his eye even as she shook her head and took a step backwards.
"If we cannot hold them back," he replied carefully, each word a fight, "Winterfell will be the first Keep to fall." He was slowly approaching her, his hands raised as it to soothe her or to protect himself. She did not know which. "If we cannot hold them back, I will not be able to protect you, or Addy, or the babe."
"Sansa-" she began, thinking of the Wardeness alone in her Keep, surrounded by the snowfields.
"Sansa is not a mother," he said without rancor. Icy water ran through her like the froze rapids of the White Knife. "She is the Wardeness of the North, and if it becomes too dangerous, then she will flee south to protect her people. That could be months from now. You will not be able to flee if you are close to birth, Lenna. You are sick all the time as it is. Sansa's duty is to her people. Yours is to our children."
"It will pass," she said weakly, but she heard the reason in his words. She had continued her backwards path until she bumped into the window ledge, her hands bracing there reflexively. She looked down at her hands on the stone as if they didn't belong to her, the fingertips white where she pressed them strenuously against the casement. She lifted her eyes to him again, feeling desperation rising in her. Home, she thought wildly. "I am the Lady of White Harbor, at least let me go to my father."
"No," he said with a firm shake of his head and a press of his lips. "No, you'll be as far from this war as possible. I made a promise long ago to keep you out of it, and your father would not agree to your coming North. Dorne. Prince Oberyn has already agreed. The King has agreed."
"When was all of this being discussed?" she asked in genuine confusion, hearing the pitch of her voice rise in such a way that made her feel juvenile, like some irate old maid. "Who brought it on themselves to-"
"Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth," he replied. "Since you told the Tarth woman about the babe." He paused for a long, tense moment. "I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself."
Lenna took a deep breath and watched the leaping flames. She had confided in Brienne when she was sure, past the third moon, wanting someone, anyone, to share in the joy she felt. It was evident that this plan of theirs, concocted behind her back, was an act of care, and she was honored that her well-being should be of such concern in times like these, but there was a part of her that could not help but smart at the implication that they could not talk openly about such a course of action with her, that they didn't trust her enough to listen.
You wouldn't have listened, she thought woodenly.
"And you," she said, almost a sob. "I shall be far from you again."
"Aye," he replied. "You shall be, and the better for it."
She thought she might vomit, indignation and resentment building up in her like bile. She could almost taste her own anger, torn between hurt and rage that she was being told what she should do. Even if it was her husband doing the telling.
"I will not go," she said passionately, knowing that even as she said it that she would go. "If I am to die, I'd rather it be with you."
"It won't," he said tonelessly, no feeling at all in his face. "If I die, it will be on some fucking battlefield in the snow and the mud, and you will be left unprotected and alone." She shut her eyes at the vision that his words elicited. It had been her nightmare for some weeks. Truthfully, it had always been her nightmare, Sandor Clegane bloody and broken on some unknown plain, but since the war drums had begun to sound the plain had become a snowfield, and he lay in the whiteness slowly freezing, his blood nearly black and steaming in the ice around him.
It hit her like an arrow beneath her breastbone and she staggered, bracing one hand against the window and her fingertips against her lips.
He came to her on silent feet. He'd taken of his boots. It was incongruous to see him like that, discussing their deaths so calmly with his feet bare against the stone floor. She could not take her eyes off his long toes, not even when she felt him brush the backs of his knuckles against her cheek.
"I made vows, Lenna," he said quietly, and his voice was a broken whisper.
She hadn't realized she was crying until the tears coursed down her cheeks and down her nose, trembling at the tip even as she tried to pretend that she wasn't weeping. He wiped it away with a swipe of his fingers, then dug his hands into the hair behind her ears, lowering his head to hers.
"Yes," she said, her throat thick and the syllable muddy in her mouth. "You who never swore vows."
"But I've kept them." He had lifted his head a bit, and his eyes were burning into hers as he looked down at her through the curtain of his hair. There was a light in his gaze that humbled her and she nodded, leaning into him as her anger melted. All she was aware of was how warm he was, the solid expanse of his body before her, the way his breath stirred the hair that had escaped her braid and fluttered about her face.
"Yes, Sandor," she replied, laying her hands on his chest, feeling the thump of his heart beneath her palms. "You have. You always have."
His enormous hands engulfed hers and he drew her closer, one arm wrapped possessively about her waist. He pressed his lips hard to the crown of her head, then brought his face down to hers again, stooping until they were nose to nose.
"You'll go?" he asked, low voice shaking with apprehension.
She forced herself to look at him and saw the earnestness there, the desperate hope.
"It's folly," she gulped, trying one last time to change his mind. "If we lose in the north, going to Dorne will just prolong the waiting. We'll all die in the end."
"You'll go," he repeated, but this time it wasn't a question, but a command. The only other time she could recall him taking that tone with her had been the terrible night of the Blackwater when he had not heeded her protests against leaving and had thrown her over his shoulder and made off with her through the wilds like a pilfered sack of grain or the kidnapped princess in some foolish story.
The same hard anger was there, the anger that she knew was really agony.
"Yes," she whispered,"I'll go."
Later in Dorne, she often thought of what followed, the way he had crushed her to him. There hadn't been a need like that in his hands since the early days of their courtship, like the day he had pressed her against the willow tree by the tourney grounds, or the day of the riots, or the countless times on the road when they had been convinced they'd be caught and killed. She wasn't sure she liked it, the greedy way he touched her, hands hard even as the languor spread through her, the harsh tenderness threatening to overwhelm her. Even when he slept that night, he kept her clasped tight to him, his arm like iron around her waist, his hand splayed on her burgeoning belly. She wasn't sure if he slept, or if, like her, he lay sleepless in a futile attempt to put off the morning.
"Lenna?"
Her head snapped up at the sound of Myrcella's voice carrying down the path. The princess had Addy by the hand but was looking at Lenna in narrow-eyed concern. They were a vivid green, Myrcella's eyes, but unlike her mother's they were filled with kindness. As much as people swore that Myrcella resembled her mother, nearly a perfect copy, Lenna knew better. It was her father that Myrcella took after, her father and her uncle, but in her their crooked honor had been amended.
"Yes, Cella?" Lenna replied, clearing her throat. It was strange calling her that, but Myrcella had insisted. It seemed such a childish name for a woman almost grown and a princess to boot.
"You look quite wan," Cella replied. "Why don't you go rest? I'll keep Addy."
Lenna smiled quickly and nodded. It wasn't that she wanted to leave her daughter or her young friend, but she was tired, and sitting in the gardens gave her no occupation. She rose and kissed the child, the little girl so distracted by the bright butterflies that she practically twisted away from her mother's caress. Lenna put her hand over Cella's and took her leave.
She did not go to rest, though, not the way Cella meant. Her bed was her enemy, the place she fought nightly battles. Instead, she sought respite of a different sort. The only way she had found to ease her mind was to retreat, as she so often had as an unhappy young girl in King's Landing, into the stillness of the Keep's library. While not as extensive as the one in the Red Keep, or as familiar as her father's in White Harbor, Prince Doran's library was intriguing in its own. Rather than dark and cavernous, here the windows were open and sunlight streamed into the stacks. It wasn't even dusty, the breezes moving through the patterned screens in such a way that it never accumulated despite the sandy and arid environment.
It didn't smell like a library, though, something which vexed Lenna. There was no comforting smell of parchment, instead the air was fresh. She couldn't complain too terribly, though, because it was almost as deserted as the one in King's Landing. She had been able to command a table as was her custom, and in the brief periods of relief from war preparations, she was in the midst of reading first-hand accounts of Robert's Rebellion, gleaning whatever she could about the last conflict with the Targaryens in preparation for the next.
She rounded the corner while adjusting her sleeve, and she was alarmed to find someone else already seated at her table.
The young woman stood up quickly, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"Forgive me, my lady," she said quickly, bobbing a curtsy with her hands clasped before her. Lenna smiled indulgently.
"It's alright, Gilly," she said. "You only startled me a little."
"I didn't mean to pry," the girl replied, gesturing to the pile of parchments. "It's just-"
"What?" Lenna asked with genuine interest. She had been surprised to learn of the young woman when it was decided that Jon Snow's would-be maester would also sail to Dorne to help with preparations for fighting dragons rather than following his friend northward. That this young woman was with him, her little boy in tow, was even more or a surprise, but Lenna had grown quite fond of all of them.
"I don't know where to start," she said quickly. She wasn't a lovely person with her over-large front teeth and straight, dun-colored hair, but she radiated kindness and intelligence. Her large brown eyes were quick and discerning, but also full of good humor. From the beginning of the voyage, she had sat close at mealtimes and listened avidly to the discussions between Lenna and Prince Oberyn, though the girl was clearly cowed to be in his presence. Oberyn was kind himself, and he did not object to her being there, even talking to her on occasion. This only had the effect of making the girl tongue-tied and wide-eyed, putting Lenna in mind of a mouse or a rabbit. She knew that feeling all to well herself.
"I don't quite understand your meaning," Lenna replied patiently. The girl struggled to express herself clearly, and it endeared her to Lenna.
Gilly closed her eyes and took a sharp breath, trying to master her thoughts.
"The library," she said at last. "It's too big. I don't know where to start, so I-"
"Helped yourself to my books?" Lenna said with a genuine smile.
"I meant no offense-" she replied hurriedly.
"There has been none taken," Lenna assured her, pressing her hand. The girl's hands were rough, the hands of someone who had worked most of her life. Lenna did not know the girl's story, had not been able to coax it out of her, but she couldn't imagine how out of place she must feel in a place like Sunspear, surrounded by the opulence of Dorne and Samwell Tarly's new companions. "I can only apologize that it isn't more interesting."
"Oh," she exclaimed, "but it is!"
Lenna looked at her a bit skeptically. "These are the records from the maester at the Tower of Joy," Lenna said with a quiet laugh. "All I have found so far are receipts for supplies and the odd mention of the Rebellion."
"Is that what you are looking for?" Gilly asked. "Things about the Rebellion?"
Lenna nodded. "It keeps me occupied, thinking about the past."
Gilly bobbed her head in understanding. "Easier than thinking about the future."
Lenna smiled tightly, then looked around them. "Aye. And the Tower of Joy is of particular interest. It sits in the Red Mountains, you see, close by the border with the Stormlands and the Reach. That, and it is where they found Lyanna Stark, of course." Gilly's face had gone slack and pensive, a little dent appearing between her brows, her front teeth biting hard into her lower lip. Lenna smiled at her though Gilly did not see it. "Here. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Would you like to help me comb through all of this? I would appreciate the help as well as the company."
The young woman lit up, her eyes scrunching up at the corners. Again, Lenna could think of nothing but a friendly mouse when she looked into her face.
Lenna had never had a research assistant before, but Gilly took her new role seriously. There was nothing of import found on that first afternoon, except that Lenna felt she had gained another friend. Gilly was bright and ready to learn, and though she had to labor over the parchments, she was useful. She brought Sam with her on occasion, and Lenna brought Addy, the two children playing in the floor while their mother's worked. Before long, Cella was taking them both into the gardens to chase butterflies, much to Lenna's pleasure and Gilly's befuddlement.
"I didn't mean to presume," Lenna said one afternoon, waving as Cella took the children with her, hand in hand. "If you'd rather he stay-"
"No," Gilly said quickly. "It's just that I never thought my Sam would be playing with princesses and highborn girls."
Lenna looked down at her, the younger girl's face a picture of pleased consternation. No, Lenna thought with a hint of sadness, I never thought my lot would be princes and princesses, either.
The task was slow and tedious. The reading was easy enough as the Dornish spoke the Common Tongue. Lenna didn't even need to translate, but there were few records of the Rebellion it seemed, at least not in Prince Doran's library. She looked in all of the sections of the library where she thought information would be most plentiful, but it yielded little. Even though it had give nothing, she came back, time and again, to the box of papers from the Tower of Joy, more for distraction's sake than any real belief that there was anything at all useful to be found there.
Lenna had only pulled the dusty box off a distant shelf because of the association it had with the end of the Rebellion. After all, Lyanna Stark had been imprisoned in the Tower of Joy by Rhaegar Targaryen, had died there shortly after her brother had come to her rescue. There was quite a bit of mystery surrounding the whole affair, Ned Stark refusing to talk about his sister or the events surrounding her death. Lenna had grown up knowing not to mention it, especially on their trips to Winterfell, and her mother's face had gone so steely whenever it was whispered that Lenna eventually decided she didn't want to know what had happened at all.
They were sifting through supply lists and logs when a little brown leather volume tumbled out onto the table. Lenna picked it up in genuine curiosity. It was worn as if it had been handled often, and she opened it to find it filled with a precise, spidery hand.
"That's odd, isn't it?" Gilly asked, looking up from her own pile of parchments. "What is it?"
Lenna opened it, and a faded petal fell from the pages. It was dry and brittle as an insect's wing, the color of it all but black. A rose petal, if she were to wager. She inserted her finger where it had fallen and peered down at the precise, jagged writing, the ink faint and almost red against the old vellum, trying to find the exact page where the hidden rose had lain.
"It's a diary," she said in mild interest. "A maester's diary from the looks of it."
"Every Keep has a maester, I suppose," Gilly replied. "Sam certainly writes in his all the time."
Lenna smiled, her eyes scanning the pages carefully. At last, she turned and spied the dim outline where the petal had rested, the moisture from the flower leaching into the paper. "Look at this," she said, carefully passing the petal to Gilly. The girl took it carefully, cradling it in her palm. "I wonder why a maester would keep such."
Gilly made some reply, but Lenna didn't hear her. No sooner had she begun to read the entry that had been the petal's home than her heart began to speed.
Princess. Son. Eddard Stark.
"My lady?" Gilly asked, placing her fingers on Lenna's thin wrist. "Are you-"
"Sam," she said lowly. "Fetch him. Do it."
"My lady-"
"Now," she ordered, her heart thumping and her blood racing through her veins, leaving her lightheaded. Gilly jumped from her seat like a frighten rabbit and ran from the library. The petal had fallen from her hand and landed on the table, delicate as a butterfly's wing, and in the sunlight, the blackened rose took on a hue of deep blue.
Sandor LXIII
They limped back to Winterfell exhausted and decimated. The Wall had been breached, but the Night King, whatever he was, was dead. He wasn't sure that such a creature could be killed, was fairly certain he wasn't really alive. But whatever he was, he was defeated. Gone. Five months of marching and fighting, five months of freezing and starving, watching some of the men go mad from the cold or the gnawing hunger in their bellies. He'd loved it once, the campaign, but trudging along through the snow with his men, he couldn't remember why.
So many dead. Thoros of Myr had died one night after receiving a wound they all knew to be mortal. He froze to death, a gentle enough end in comparison to so many others. The great Wildling leader, ginger-haired Tormund, had died between one of the White Walkers and Brienne of Tarth. The woman was still mourning, though she'd held no tender feeling for him beyond friendship, perhaps even kinship. They were the three of them giants and outcasts, and even if he wouldn't exactly have called the man his friend, he admitted to a certain amity. His death hit them both hard, and She walked, like Sandor, with her head down and her eyes on her feet.
Eye, he reminded himself, adjusting the band of the eyepatch that criss-crossed his scarred face now. As if you could have gotten uglier, you cunt.
He'd lost it in the last great push, and it had hurt more than anything ever had before. He was lucky, though. A little deeper and he'd have been dead, his brain pierced by the wight's blade. The bugger had slipped up on him in the thick of the fighting, the knife landing just as Jon Snow struck down the Night King with his father's sword. Valyrian steel. As soon as the young bastard had pierced the creature's chest, the wights had fallen apart, heaps of bone and sinew rather than ferocious fighters. If he hadn't had a knife protruding from his face, Sandor might have watched, like the rest of them, in awe as that strange magic disappeared, retreating like blue flame. But, Sandor had been blinded by the pain, going to his knees as his face was covered in his own blood, waiting for the death blow that was bound to come.
It hadn't, the plain going strangely quiet as the men realized there was nothing left to fight. Dondarrion had come to him quickly, examining him roughly as Sandor bit down on his own tongue to keep from screaming.
"You'll live," Dondarrion had said, hoisting Sandor to his feet.
Victory felt like nothing. In the past, there had been this sense of triumph, of a fight well fought, but there was no celebration in the camp that night or even when they made it back to the walls of Winterfell. Their numbers were too reduced to take much joy in the winning. That, and Sandor knew it wasn't over. They'd been in Winterfell nigh a month. Daenerys Targaryen had flown back to Dragonstone on her monstrous mount, the remains of her army sailing down the White Knife to regroup. The Dothraki had suffered most, unable to bear the cold, the tactics that made them successful against mortal armies proving weakness in the snow-covered land of the North. Horses lost their footing and staggered into snowdrifts, their freezing riders thrown and trampled underfoot, their wild fighting useful against men made of meat, but not against soldiers who no longer relied on the working use of all of their limbs, their innards.
And Daenerys had been unable to set her dragons on her own men once the wights had infiltrated their lines. Sandor wouldn't have paused, not for a moment. It would have been easy to lance the melee with fire, to destroy the dead. But she'd hesitated, and it only took those few moments for that unholy mass to come writhing down amongst the riders as they forged the vanguard. With only dragonglass scythes as protection, they had been beaten down, their numbers so greatly reduced that it took less than half of the ships to carry them south as it had taken to bring them North in the first place.
The Unsullied had fared better, but they, too, were unused to such cold. Not that Sandor was, but he'd experienced his winters in his own time, though nothing could prepare them for fighting through the snow and the frozen mud. He'd dreamed he was dying more than he wanted, his final breaths disappearing into a pale stream as his blood froze around him, fusing him to the ground in a black puddle. But the cold was a mixed blessing once he lost the eye. No infection sprang from it, though it was horrifically painful when it was properly dressed back in their basecamp, the healer thawing life back into the half-frozen skin of the scar and with it an angry redness he was glad he couldn't see. If Brienne of Tarth winced when she saw him, he knew it must be gruesome.
He was almost glad it seemed they would be at Winterfell for some time, maybe give himself some time to physically heal. Not that Lenna had ever cared much about the scars, but he did. And to think that he looked even worse than he had before left him feeling much as he had as a young man, too aware of his face and how hard it was for people to look at him.
Then there were the complications, if that was the right word for it. As much as he felt the tendrils of shame when it came to thinking about seeing Lenna again, he also wished she was there, and not even for purely selfish reasons. It was as if the very air trembled, some strange tension stretching between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen before she pulled her troops southward. For rest, she had said. Sandor suspected it was for some other reason, one he was too weary to contemplate. The little queen had been icy since the battle that destroyed the Night King, and he rather thought she was jealous.
Jealous that it was Jon Snow's oddly luminous sword that had killed him and not her precious Drogon.
That, or it was a lovers' quarrel. Nothing about Jon Snow's demeanor, however, said that it was. He treated the Targaryen girl with the same doleful seriousness he did everyone. If anything, he seemed to avoid her, favoring the company of his commanders. This seemed to displease her, and Sandor couldn't help but think it was because she was used to the men around her drooling. Her Old Bear certainly trailed after her like a dog, Jorah Mormont looking dejected and beaten even as he jumped to her commands with the energy of a man half his age.
Sandor wasn't unhappy to see her go. It had been seven months since they'd left King's Landing, and he was tired of the girl's naive suppositions and endless demands. He'd not been deaf to the grumblings of her own forces, the cold demoralizing to men raised in warmer climes. The Dothraki might have been a ferocious horde, but they were not used to the cold, and not used to fur trappings and the restrictions that came with fighting thus encumbered. And, like him, they just wanted to go home.
Home, he thought darkly. Wherever she is.
The babe would be born by now, he or she already a month or two old. He lived in daily anticipation, watching the ravens as they flew in and out of the Keep. They'd been a few weeks in Winterfell, though he'd lost count of how many. Maybe three. He could not determine why he'd heard nothing, though at night in his bunk his imagination ran rampant, concocting the worst scenarios. When he didn't dream of himself dying, he dreamt of her dying, of the babe born dead. He slept little, to be honest, to avoid facing any it, but he forced himself to go to meals in the Great Hall, sitting among the commanders in unease but grateful for the company of the Tarth woman, of fucking Jaime Lannister. He would look to Sansa Stark where she sat on the dais with her brother with hope in his eye and she would shake her head, just a little, and he would grit his teeth against the cold void that was gradually filling his ribcage.
Now, he took a deep swallow from his tankard and glanced around the Hall. Sansa Stark shot him a little smile from her place at the head table and his gut flooded with warmth. She nearly beamed at him. She leaned over and beckoned to a serving boy, whispering in the lad's ear. The child looked at Sandor with naked fear in his face, but he pressed his lips together and nodded, approaching Sandor with forced courage.
"My lady asks to see you in her study after the meal," he said.
"Tell your lady that I'll come," he rumbled, tucking into the last spoonfuls of stew in his bowl with renewed vigor. The boy fled from him gratefully.
Sansa Stark was waiting for him when he arrived, as were Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth and Jon Snow. It was already growing dark out, and Sansa was standing at her window. Bran Stark was sitting in his wheeled chair before the hearth.
"Clegane's here," Snow said. "So, what is so important that it couldn't wait until the council meeting tomorrow?"
Bran Stark didn't look away from the flames. Sandor wondered what he saw there. Sometimes he thought he saw shapes, figures, himself, but he'd shake his head and they'd be gone. Going mad, old dog. "There's one more."
"Who?" Snow asked, looking around.
"Me."
Every eye in the room turned to the portly young man standing in the doorway. Sandor thought he looked a bit trimmer than he had before, perhaps the toll of the long voyage from Dorne.
Dorne.
"It is to do with this." Sam said, his owl-like face the picture of nervousness. He was weakly holding out the book in his hands. Sansa took a step forward and Sandor pushed himself away from the wall, a strange trembling in his hands.
"What is it?" Jon Snow asked, brow furrowed. It looked fairly ordinary. Sandor had seen three or four dozen such books pass through Lenna's hands over the years. Plain, brown leather that was flaking at the binding, yellowing pages that had played host to some hungry bookworm judging by the maze of tunnels visible along the exposed edges. Just another old book, but whatever it was making the rotund maester sweat, his fingers leaving damp imprints on the cover.
"It changes everything," Sam replied. "Or, it has the potential to, I think."
"Spit it out, Sam," Jon said, the room growing tense and still as everyone turned their focus on the sweating, trembling young maester. Sandor looked at Sansa again. All of the radiance had been sapped from her young face. She looked like the Crone, her cheek drawn and her eyes dim, fingers like white claws against the black of her fur-lined sleeves. She's tired, he thought, unable to repress the memories of Lenna looking just like that, like she was being drained from the inside, the golden light that had suffused her fading like a star in twilight.
"As you know," Sam began, his voice a trembling thread, "I went to Dorne with Lady Helenna." Sandor's head snapped up again and he looked hard at the young man. He swallowed harshly and Sam smiled tepidly in his direction. "To prepare. She spent some time in the library there, and she found this." He laid the book down on the table. "Sent me to bring it to you. It is a diary kept by the Maester at the Tower of Joy. There is an entry in it that is...most interesting."
"Why not send a raven?" Sansa asked.
"Too important," he replied. "Not safe."
Sam opened the book and opened it to a marked page. He slid the book across the tabletop to Jon Snow. The other man looked down at it dubiously, then bent his head to read it.
"This day a son was delivered to the princess, but she labored painfully and long. The loss of blood was too great for her to bear-"
"The princess?" Jaime said, his golden forehead creased and his green eyes dark. "Where was this? And when?"
"281," Sam replied. "The Tower of Joy."
"Princess Elia was not at the Tower of Joy in 281, and Princess Arianne would have been, what, five years old? There was not another princess-"
"Yes," Sam said at last. "There was." And with that he produced another book and slid it across the table. Sandor nearly rolled his eyes, wishing the boy would get on with the dramatic production and just tell them what he needed to say. Tell him about Lenna. About Addy. "Finish that first, though."
Jon Snow cut his eyes at Sam in frustration, but continued to read.
"-the loss of blood was too great for her to bear, and she succumbed shortly after the arrival of her brother, Lord Eddard Stark, who had ridden to bring her home."
Sansa jerked away from the window and for a moment, Sandor thought she was Catelyn Stark, her blue eyes wide and her face full of shock.
"Aunt Lyanna?" she whispered, her very lips white. "Aunt Lyanna did die at the Tower of Joy, but why would this maester call her a princess?"
Sam pushed the second book across the table. "Because she was one. Here," he said pointing to the second book, "the High Septon in King's Landing annulled the marriage between Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen earlier that year, just at the beginning of the Rebellion. I found this quite a while ago- well, Gilly did- but we didn't realize what it actually meant. Not until Gilly and Lady Helenna pieced it together. The High Septon annulled it and then married Lyanna Stark and Prince Rhaegar in secret. Lady Lyanna was not kidnapped, she wasn't raped as we have always believed. She eloped with Prince Rhaegar of her own will, and Lady Helenna discovered that not only did she go to Dorne with him willingly, but that she also bore his child. A son. And that's what changes things. Changes everything."
"She named him Aegon, and her brother has taken him into his own keeping to raise as his own," Jon continued, his lips barely moving. He looked up suddenly, a terrible agony in his face. "Sam, you're not possibly suggesting-"
"It's you," Bran said from his place by the fire. He wasn't looking at them, and to Sandor he was but a black shape before the fire, his hooked nose like a crow's against the flame. "I've seen it. I've seen it all."
Jon stood abruptly, his chair tipping over with a clatter. He had gone pale, and the expression on his face made Sandor wish he wasn't there. He didn't want to be there. The man was shaking, his hands balled up into fists at his side.
"My father was Lord Eddard Stark," he said stonily, his voice shaking from the effort. "Eddard Stark was my father."
"He raised you," Bran replied, "but Rhaegar Targaryen's blood runs in your veins. And all this time you've wondered where your mother was, and she was right here. Right here in Winterfell. In the catacombs."
For a moment, Sandor thought Jon Snow might flip the table, but instead he closed the book on the tabletop and strode from the room, the door slamming against the wall behind him with a clatter.
Sansa stood up and followed him from the room, her cheeks wet. Sam looked around wildly between the door and, inexplicably, Sandor.
"I should go to him," Sam said, but he took a hesitant step towards where Sandor stood with his back to the wall, one foot braced against it. He regarded the boy with his lone eye down the length of his nose. The young man gulped, but dug into his robes and produced another scroll. "A message. From your wife."
Sandor went still, looking down at the proffered parchment. It was tied with crimson ribbon and bore a wax seal imprinted with three running dogs. The first word he'd had from her in months. It felt warm in his hand, like her fingers, and he slid his thumb beneath the seal without a thought for the others in the room. As he did so, Samwell Tarly slipped out through the door.
He grunted to see her writing again, the precise slant of her letters, the little blots that he knew were tears. Strange that the thought of her crying over that bit of parchment made him smile, but nothing could have prepared him for the feeling that erupted in him when he read her words.
Dearest Sandor,
Wendel Manderly Clegane joined us a little sooner than he was supposed to, but he's a fine, jolly fellow and doing as well as can be. He has your hair and my eyes, and I rather think he's going to have your stubborn proclivities based on his tempestuous entrance into the world and his lusty, oft-used voice. Addy dotes on him, and he has her twined around his little fingers.
We are well, as I pray you are. I hope you do not mind the name. I felt the need to make some memorial to my brother who helped us so much, and did not think you'd object. You can name the next.
He felt his face go hot at that, keenly aware that he was not alone in the room. He wanted to weep, felt the tears welling up in his eye, pressure building beneath the patch over the destroyed socket. He sniffed harshly, all too aware that the others remaining in the room were studiously ignoring him
We miss you terribly, relieved at the lack of news. Keep yourself safe. All my love.
Lenna
Short but it fairly thrummed with feeling. A son. He read it quickly again, appalled with himself to feel the wetness on his cheeks and dripping from his nose. He swiped the moisture away with his fingers.
"Clegane?" Brienne of Tarth was looking at him in concern, her homely face knit together, deep creases framing her wide mouth. "Clegane, what is it?"
"A son," he said roughly, clearing his throat. "Wendel Clegane. Born early, but well. They are both well."
"Manderly Clegane," Bran said evenly, still looking into the fire. Sandor glanced at him sharply, wondering how he could possibly know that. He had forgotten the boy was there, he was so quiet. There was something strange about Bran Stark, something that set him on guard, but he couldn't imagine why he should be so wary of a cripple.
"It sounds well," Bran said, turning his odd dark eyes on Sandor.
Sandor nodded, strangely grateful.
"And right now," Jaime Lannister said, getting to his feet and slapping Sandor on the shoulder with his good hand, "we need to celebrate. We have precious little cause for cheer, but this is wonderful news."
"I should write a reply," Sandor said gruffly. "Let her know-"
"Send it to King's Landing," Bran said. "She's not in Dorne anymore."
Sandor froze, pushing himself off the wall and taking a step toward the Stark boy.
"What do you mean?"
"I can see her," Bran replied. "She's on a ship, she and Prince Oberyn and Prince Tristayne. They are going to King's Landing."
"Why?" he demanded.
Bran cocked his head, birdlike, eyes back on the flames again.
"We are betrayed."
A/N: And still not sure where we are going with this, but onwards! I am not adept at writing battles, so I hope the recap is enough. I'm also not particularly interested in them, but they have to be covered, don't they? Nothing particularly new here, but it has to be covered. Separation won't last long. Couldn't bear it myself.
Hope everyone is well. Thanks for still reading. I'll try to get the next out in a timely fashion. Almost there, just have to tie up my loose ends.