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"Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF.
Six
The winter night on Giant's Lance was stormy as no other the Hound had seen before.
Riding through the Mountains of the Moon, and the strenuous climb on foot from the Gates of the Moon to Stone and Snow, seemed like a child's play now. The strong wind he experienced before was a soft, summer breeze compared to the raging, savage gale further up, just where he was climbing now.
There were no more trees. Stony, snowy slopes, plains and spires rose to the sky; peaceful, naked and menacing, torn apart with deep, hollow precipices.
Apart as you and I, Sansa.
The stars were out. Grey wisps of clouds scurried swiftly over the black, starlit sky, carried by the gusts of wind.
The wind was the king of the mountain, and the Hound was at its mercy.
For the first time in his life he wished he were as tall and as muscled as Gregor, but not for the purpose of killing him.
I have to reach the top. I am so close to it now.
So close to you, Sansa. Will you hear me out? Or will I have to cut my way through your guards… or your gaolers… and force you to listen to me. It makes no matter.
There is a truth I've never told you before. One last one. After I may be gone… Should you so wish.
He often wondered what she would do once he told her. More like than not, she'd close her pretty eyes in nameless fear, and blind rage would consume him. Just like that last time…
Or will you look at me now?
He didn't know which possibility troubled him more.
He would tell her either way.
He owed her that truth.
The wind feasted on his scars as a ruthless bird of prey. His hair was frozen wet from icy drizzle, plastered on his face and entering his mouth. He bent to the slope, unable to walk upright, not even when he leaned on his sword. The useless weapon was sheathed now and the advance painfully slow.
Sandor hoped his weight would hold him down to the earth until he reached his goal, just as Gregor once held his face to the brazier. He couldn't help laughing raucously at his own expense, just one long, derisive laugh, to release the tension. It was a mistake. His body jerked away from the steps carved in the body of the mountain, and he nearly tumbled down…
He grabbed a rock sticking out over the void and hung on it, until the helpless chuckles of his laughter subsided. Then, he was strong as steel again. He wished he were only a massive body, a brutal force intent on climbing and nothing more, not a man who had been to seven hells and back many times over. Flaming Lord Beric had the right of that…
What you wish is to find her. Walk on all fours, dog! You've prostrated yourself for less… For a warm kennel and an empty promise… His former masters would never let him kill his brother. It was a lie Tywin and Cersei sometimes hinted at so he would serve them; the lie he could not see on time, blinded by his desire for vengeance.
Empty pride was for knights. The Hound never needed it. Before, he only had to be certain his arms were always strong enough. Now, he wanted to see Sansa and speak to her. If that required crawling, he would crawl.
And crawl up he did, unashamed, taken forward by the iron grip his will had always had over his desires. Except that one time… The merciless wind whipped his face, cracking both the healthy and the puckered skin. His wounded left forearm pricked, poorly bandaged.
Life used to be simple once, the Hound mused calmly, vividly remembering another occasion when his great body weight had infallibly kept him from falling face forward into dried horseshit.
The second day of the Hand's tourney dawned sunny and bright. The highborn and the commons filled the grounds and the hastily built gallery in front of the lists. The wooden structure shook every time contenders rode past it and clashed against each other; the talk of the noble guests on it could be heard across the field.
Sandor Clegane was the first rider to appear, waiting for Ser Jaime Lannister. He listened to the bets being made for and against him.
Renly wagered his gold on the Hound, saying he had a hungry look. Littlefinger disagreed, but Robert's younger brother was surprisingly right. Sandor did wake ravenous that day. And not only from desire to finally kill his brother. He desired something more, something new, without knowing what it was.
That morning he donned an olive-green cloak over his soot armour. Its colour would go well with the silks Joffrey's betrothed had worn the night before, when he had escorted her to her chambers. He searched for her with mild curiosity, just to see how she fared.
Later, Sandor could never remember the colours Sansa wore that day… Because when his grey eyes reached her pretty face next to her father's, instead of fear he fully expected to see on it, after he'd quite seriously threatened to kill her, his future queen or not; Sansa seemed engrossed with the tourney. Worse, she was looking in Sandor's direction, moist-eyed and eager. She never spared a single glance for the handsome Ser Jaime Lannister, who had appeared in the meantime. To his surprise, seeing her so appeased his hunger.
She must want me to win.
Ser Jaime made a mummer's show of saluting the ladies. The lie of it made Sandor angry. He closed the visor of his hound's head helm with an angry clang, after one last look at Sansa… What would you do if I tossed you a kiss like Ser Jaime just did to that woman?
Familiar anger kept his lance steady and rock hard. Too hard. He didn't count on the Kingslayer's trick as he well bloody should have, knowing his gallant opponent. Ser shifted in the saddle just before the impact. The Hound's lance missed, deflected by the shield, and Ser Jaime's hit him hard. Sandor's massive body was the only reason he stayed in saddle. He could hear Sansa's shrill gasp over the collective sighing of the crowd, containing both worry and excitement…
Just look at me again, will you? he thought wickedly. I'm not done here yet.
He grabbed a fresh lance and spurred forward at a hard gallop, not betraying his intent to imitate the trick until the last possible moment. The result was extremely enjoyable. Lances exploded from the force of the collision, and Ser Jaime ended up in the dirt.
"I knew the Hound would win," Sandor overheard Sansa telling her father, confirming in words what her eyes had already told him… She had wanted him to win that day.
Jaime's ornate lion helmet was ruined and he could not get it off. King Robert was amused and laughed.
This is how it is done, the Hound thought arrogantly, pleased with himself. Instead of returning to his pavilion, he found a place close to the lists, under the gallery, from where he could watch the joust of his lordly brother in peace.
And Sansa obviously forgot all about him soon enough, sighing loudly for the handsome Knight of Flowers. She begged her father not to let Ser Gregor hurt the boy. As if Gregor would ever listen to the honourable Hand of the King!
Sandor cursed and mocked himself for having mindlessly enjoyed the Hand's empty-headed daughter's empty looks, which lasted shorter than the false spring. From his new position he saw the girl wore a red rose as if it were a lover's gift. He didn't need to ask anyone to know who gave it to her.
Ser Loras shitted out quite a few roses to a great number of ladies the day before. None of them noticed that the good young ser was notoriously uninterested in their charms, as either Lord Renly or any man who was interested in women could have easily told them.
The Hound hated Ser Loras' false manners, but was honestly willing to admit the boy had guts in the yard. He even proved to be a more skilled knight than Ser Jaime that day. Riding a mare in heat against Gregor's badly tempered stallion was a feat yet to be matched in terms of knightly deception. Seeing Gregor fall brought Sandor such immensurable joy, that the Hound's raucous laugh resounded like a booming thunder over all the clapping and cheering.
Gregor will not be pleased, the Hound mused, gripping his greatsword. And he wasn't. Sandor only needed to wait a little bit longer to have his revenge, until Gregor hewed Ser Loras in two in public, like he did with his stallion.
The boy was the son of the Warden of the South and he'd done nothing against the law. Then, King Robert would ask for Gregor's ugly head; it could not be otherwise in the time of king's peace.
Yet when Gregor pulled the boy off his horse, and just before he would deal a killing blow, Sandor's entire being rebelled against the inevitable. His long legs took him to his brother in giant strides. He forgot all about his desire for vengeance.
One dead boy in this tourney is enough.
He yanked Gregor back with a gauntleted hand, wrenched him away and rasped leave him be, grateful that he still had his dog's helm on, or his head would have rolled in the dirt that day, just like Ser Jaime Lannister.
Sandor was not a boy of six, nor of two and ten any more. He was a man grown and one of the strongest in the realm. He turned Gregor's killing blow back on him, and hammered at his brother as his equal. The good dog waited, moist-eyed and eager under his snarling helm, for the king's order to end Gregor's life, He avoided his brother's naked head until the command came, despite having to block several more attacks aimed at his face… His arms were finally strong enough to prevail over Gregor, after twenty years of waiting.
The word came… but it was not what he wanted to hear. King Robert bellowed them to stop, surrounded by his Kinsguard and other knights and guardsmen... Twenty swords… No one could cut through that many and live. The Hound went on one knee in a well calculated motion; the last blow Gregor sent at his head missed him as he bowed deeply to the king.
Gregor… calmed down just as much or as little for the king to let him go, able to control his temper if he wanted to, much like the Hound. The opportunity was gone if it ever existed. Sandor felt cheated and bitter for it… But then the pretty bird's voice chirped, undeterred, asking her father if the Hound was the champion now…
He saw dried tears on Sansa's face, though he never noticed the exact moment when she began shedding them, and was glad for it. He knew very well since the kingsroad that he would never be able to stay indifferent to her crying.
Sandor didn't feel much like a champion, to be sure. He felt terribly empty, missing his only true purpose in life. But the boy, Ser Loras, said so as well, calling him ser. The Hound sneered he was no ser, but the commons still cheered for him; pitiful, stupid people whose children he would kill some day for Cersei and her eldest bastard.
There was also the champion's purse, which he took gladly. With the lions and the wolves pressed together in the capital, trouble was likely to begin. And when it did, the dog would rather be stuck with gold than without. He never underestimated its power. It was difficult to do so after one served in Casterly Rock.
Yet what stirred him when he was proclaimed champion was not the reward. It was the approval of the empty-headed smallfolk. They kept rejoicing for him after he left the field. As if I were some great hero...
And right next to the bitterness in his chest caused by not killing Gregor, a place for a memory was delved, in which he'd always see Sansa, looking at him as the champion, with her bright blue eyes glimmering from old tears.
Will there be moist in your eyes now? Don't cry when you see me, will you? Curse me, call me awful. Scorn me for being hateful. Just don't cry.
He remembered how he always trembled with joy on those few precious occasions when his cruel words made an opening in her lady's armour of politeness, and showed him a less known part of her. The lady could be angry and selfish, and most discourteous… A perfectly rude, little lady for the hateful, angry dog, sharing his company… So pretty that it hurt.
Except that you were never mine.
Would you be mine now that you know what it is to be a woman? Or are you still dreaming of being a queen? You wanted to make people love you… Didn't you?
As if the people loved anyone… Half of them were not better of heart than their betters by birth who ordered them slaughtered. Do you remember the man with garlic on his breath? Do you know what he'd do to you? You would not come a maid to the Imp's bed… Assuming you'd live to tell the story...
It was reasonably common to kill women after raping them; the wares that had been used were easily discarded, not holding any more interest for the men. And dead they could not accuse the rapers, who were gelded or sent to the Wall in times of peace. In times of war, killing was the rule; it made things simpler, and it saved time. And the pious among the rapers could always justify it to themselves by saying the murdered women were whores who slept with the enemy first.
That Lollys Stokeworth survived the night in the merry company of the commons after the riot in King's Landing, with the only consequence of having a bastard in her belly, was quite an exception in Sandor's reckoning.
The night was everlasting and his limbs numbed from crawling. The slope was about to end… Yet there were no lights of the last fort in sight, so it could not have been the end of his night's journey. The Hound had to risk standing up.
A flattened walk stretched forward, maybe eight yards long; a smooth stone saddle, icy and narrow… Shining like steel in the starlight, polished and deadly. The wind howled and shrieked, screamed and squeaked, a larger monster on the loose than the one climbing.
If he crawled, he would fall. If he walked too slow, the wind would toss him into a waiting precipice. If he… glided forward fast on one leg like a fool walking on stilts... or on a rope… The Moon Boy's performances came into mind…
It was mad, but the notion had some merit. The soles of his looted boots had become worn from so much walking. He tried one foot on the ice and it was slippery enough… He imagined himself couching a lance and running at the invisible opponent on the other side. He had to follow a straight line.
Without further consideration, he stepped on the saddle with his right foot and launched himself forward with the left one.
He slid forward on one leg, as an arrow flying forward with meticulous precision, faster than the wind. As soon as the saddle was behind him, he squatted, happy to leave behind the most dangerous part of his journey so far.
After, the stairs continued, very steep and high, each one wide and deep as bowl, half filled with ice. In the first hollow, more illuminated by starlight than the following one, he noticed a strange token; a dark thicket of… hairs, drifting under the frozen surface. They could belong to a woman. Unreasonable fear seized his heart. If women left the Eyrie already for the winter, then Sansa might have been gone as well… or might have been taken away by her captors… He would never find her.
Yet there was no other place in Westeros but the Vale where the Hound believed she could be; all other castles where she could have gone were taken by her family enemies, and it was not easy to cross the narrow sea for a lady by herself. The former master of coin who now ruled the Vale was not anyone's friend, but he would see Sansa's worth as a hostage. Besides, she could have arrived to her aunt's household before Littlefinger did and just stayed there.
If she ever came here at all...
It was all in his mind. Just like that buggering dream.
Sansa, would you laugh at me if you knew? The hateful Hound cannot shake a dream out of his ugly head... You bloody well should…
The Hound kicked viciously the ice where the hair was trapped, broke it and took it in his huge hands from the little pool of still liquid, freezingly cold water. When the lock melted a bit from the warmth of his body, it was very long. He smelled it… and thought he sensed the scent of Sansa's bed, from the one time he was in it, drunk as a dog. Recklessly, he tied the lock around his left forearm, over the shallow cut he earned before, imagining it was auburn.
A stolen favour for the dog. As I stole a song, and I would have stolen a kiss… Or more…
The climb continued more laborious than before. The steps did not trace the way up in straight line from here on. They went down the mountain, and up, and down again. The irregular progression protected the traveller from the elements, but it also slowed down his journey almost to a standstill.
The wind still reigned, utterly without mercy. Just like there had been none for the wolves when the lion and the wolf finally went at each other's throat.
Lady Stark was stupid enough to take the Lannister Imp as her prisoner, accusing him of crippling her boy in Winterfell. The Hound hated the dwarf, but it must have been plain obvious to anyone that the little gargoyle with stunted legs could not have climbed to the ruinous tower from which the Stark boy had fallen.
Jaime, the only family member who loved the little monster, seethed, threatened Stark and killed some of his guards in a ruthless fashion, and ran away from the capital.
More importantly, Tywin let Gregor and his other servants of that ilk loose in the riverlands. The Tullys and their bannermen needed a reminder that the Lannisters always paid their debts. The lions were not to be touched upon, not even the twisted little gargoyles among them… The opportunity to kill Gregor, which was almost within Sandor's reach, became more distant than ever as long as Tywin had need of his biggest dog again.
King Robert did the same as every time when he didn't know how to deal with trouble his wife's family caused; he went hunting. The Hound went as well. Ser Lancel Lannister was pleased to serve the king his wine, more often than necessary. When the boar opened Robert's guts, the stench told the Hound everything he needed to know. Soon there would be a new king on the Iron Throne, perhaps a bastard one.
Back to the city, a special surprise awaited the Hound. Fellow guards eyed him with more fear than usual… He tried to drink with them and growl at them, but he could not sniff out the gossip everyone tried to hide from him. Later, he understood. They all feared he'd kill the man who told him in his wrath, and maybe they were not wrong. Cersei told him in the end.
Lord Stark, the great honourable oaf, had sent men to kill Gregor in the name of the king in Robert's absence… Passing the judgement for which Sandor had waited his entire life… By what rights? the Hound thought, eager to strangulate the Hand with his own hands.
The opportunity to do just that, or close enough, presented itself soon.
Robert died and Stark tried to buy the gold cloaks from Littlefinger, not knowing they were already bought and paid for by the queen. Slaughter followed. The Lannister guards were ordered to put all members of the Stark household to the sword, except his daughters and the lord himself, who was led to the dungeons from the throne room.
The Hound took part in the necessary bloodshed, enjoying the sensation of strength killing always brought him. The northmen were fighting back, outnumbered as they were. Thirsty for more blood, he arrived at a locked door in the Tower of the Hand, behind which a woman screamed.
Sandor's killing pulse skipped a beat, considering it was Sansa, despite having heard Cersei already had her caged in Maegor's Holdfast. He broke the door with a warhammer… But it wasn't her, it wasn't even her sister. It was that other girl who couldn't stand the sight of blood when Gregor killed Ser Hugh of the Vale in the now fallen Hand's tourney.
The Hound could have raped her and killed her; almost any other guard would have done so. The girl screamed and called him a monster who cut the butcher's boy in pieces. No, he rasped flatly, I cut him in two. She screamed harder at that.
Hating the cries of outrage she was raining on him before he ever did anything to her, he dragged the girl with him to the room where they held Sansa, and intimidated Ser Boros Blount, who was on guard, to lock them together.
Later, Cersei gave the wretched thing to Littlefinger who put her to good use in one of his brothels outside the city. When he heard of it, Sandor honestly regretted not killing the girl. She didn't seem like she would make a decent whore, just like some men would never do well in battle. Killing her would have been a mercy. A clean death.
The day came when Joff gave Sandor a white cloak, and the Hound took it. Why not? He had no wife nor lands, and no one would care if he did. He could not leave to nurse his wounded pride like Ser Barristan Selmy. He wasn't a knight and he wasn't going to die a knight.
Who would take in a stray dog, believed to be as rabid as his brother? Gregor's reputation was growing more notorious every day as the riverlands kept burning.
No, the Hound had never had any choice… He could not leave… He was trapped, just like Sansa became from that moment on…
He hadn't seen her since the tourney.
Draped in old Selmy's white cloak, he listened to Sansa pleading for her father's life in a perfect black dress with a silver chain around her long, white throat. Joffrey played the merciful king, for once, and the girl dared speak… Though she did not seem as enthralled with her prince as on the damn feast after which Sandor had told her everything… Now she was afraid, and suspicious, aware of the change in her situation.
The courtiers no longer smiled at her since she was the traitor's daughter and she had moved very cautiously among them. You are starting to see them for what they are, the Hound thought bitterly. A bunch of liars...
Sansa remained aloof and courteous, tremendously beautiful in her grief and her distress. She even managed to let out a genuine, shy smile from the bottom of her concerned soul towards her golden prince.
Not stupid, are you, girl? Just bloody young…
As he was young when he was burned and later, when King's Landing fell…
The day dawned when the entire court was marched to the Great Sept of Baelor.
Sansa wore sky-blue silk with silver bracelets on her wrists. Her hair was washed and curled. She looked… happy… bursting with hope that her father would be spared and sent to the Wall for the rest of his days. The Hound didn't see much good in joining the Night's Watch, though he supposed the notion did have merit over instant beheading.
Cersei seemed pleased as well and Joff… proud of himself. Varys and Littlefinger both wore small, satisfied smiles. The Hound was detached as always, yet mildly curious. Too many different people looked content that day to expect anything good.
After the High Septon's prattling about mercy, Joff asked for Lord Eddard's head. Cersei and Varys protested, taken by surprise for a change. Sandor remained impassive.
The gold cloaks instantly flung Stark before Ilyn Payne, almost as though someone had paid them well to act that fast. Sansa dropped to her knees, sobbing hysterically. She screamed and screamed in her sky-blue dress. The Hound observed with disbelief how she never once closed her eyes when they murdered her father…
Stark's legs twitched and he did the little dance as any other man, when his head was separated from his body... The Hound had seen quite a few suffer the same fate. Lord Stark, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, this and that fat fart… The Stranger took him as anyone else.
At least, Ilyn Payne used the dead lord's sword, a Valyrian blade, deadly sharp… A clean death.
Sansa screamed until she passed out. Joff ordered his dog to carry his lady to her chambers and the good dog always obeyed. Her body was lifeless in his arms, tiny, supple and warm. You never knew, did you? I've never told you… just like I haven't told you that other thing...
Not yet, but this time I will.
When justice was done for the day, or the killing, as the Hound would call it, Joffrey said to his dog, acting surprised. "I was merciful, wasn't I? Why is my lady upset? I gave him the mercy of clean death."
The Hound said what was expected of him, "Yes, Your Grace. As you say, Your Grace."
But inwardly, Sandor Clegane did not relish hearing his own words in the boy's mouth, listening to his own contempt dripping through the wormy mouth of the boy king.
He took my scorn as fatherly advice, the Hound realised, surprised to sense... displeasure. At seven and twenty he still felt much too young to be anyone's father.
Besides, Joff was almost a man grown now, and Sandor could not bring back the long years where he was guarding him and never paid attention to discipline his own steel-clad tongue. He reasoned it was not his doing what Joff made of his words, but the dismay remained.
At least one good thing came out of the mummers' show in front of the sept that day. The girl remained closed in her room and cried for days. By the looks of it, her love for Joff and Cersei was now well and truly over; a very reasonable, hide-preserving attitude if one asked the Hound, who had witnessed the ugliness beyond their lying, pretty faces better than most.
Some days later, in an hour of boredom and thirst for blood, the boy king remembered his betrothed and desired to enjoy her company.
His Uncle Jaime was defeated and taken prisoner.
His Grace took Ser Meryn, Ser Arys and his loyal dog with him to Sansa's chambers. The girl was whimpering in silence, curled up in her bed, with curtains drawn. Lost in her bad dreams, the Hound supposed. The king commanded his dog to get her out of it.
Sandor scooped Sansa up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she resisted weakly. The blanket slid to the floor. He was wearing a brown doublet and a green mantle that day, and she only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness.
The Hound put her on her feet, called her child, urged her to get dressed, and pushed her toward the wardrobe as gently as he could. Not wearing armour, he saw and felt how her body filled and curved... Not quite yet as in his illicit longings when drunk after the tourney, and she was clearly weak from refusing food, but the figure of her childhood was about to disappear. Somehow, it didn't please him. She would soon bleed and be married to the little shit to have his babies.
Bluntly, Sansa told Joffrey she hated him.
As if the king didn't surmise that much. But it was not the truth he wanted to hear, so he told Ser Meryn to hit her. The knight backhanded Sansa with his fist gloved in elegant white silk. Her ear bled and she fell to the floor.
When Joff, Meryn and Arys left, the Hound lingered behind for as long as he could afford to be missed. He yanked Sansa back on her feet, not certain why he did it, yet unable to act differently.
Stand, damn you, he'd thought. Just stand up.
Moreover, he found himself spitting counsel she'd never asked for. She should just give Joff what he wanted to save herself some pain… The boy would do with her whatever pleased him either way.
Sansa inquired what Joff wanted, with honest curiosity in her watery eyes. The Hound told her to smile and speak pretty lies her septa taught her. She must have known so many of them… Only tell him what he wanted to hear... Love him and fear him… Let the pitiful boy believe he is strong...
Later he could never remember everything he'd told her but it had been a lot. It was already the second time he spoke to her more than to any other highborn lady in his life. And the second time he had an uncanny feeling she had listened to him, paid attention to him, and not to his face.
Sandor left Sansa, and hurried after Joffrey, so as to act on another realisation before it was too late.
"Your Grace," the Hound said when he caught up with the little shit, striving to look and sound more rabid than ever. It was the only notion he could come up with that might work, and which was not too far from the truth. He could hurt Sansa much worse than Meryn with his bare hands. "Let me see to the girl when she offends you again. If I hit her, she'll surely die of it."
Joffrey was intrigued at first, but then he scowled.
"No, dog," he rejected the offer as Sandor hoped he would. "Mother says we should keep her alive. And I don't want to hurt her… much. I like her pretty."
Three hours later, Sansa appeared in court, well-arranged and composed. She wore that same dress of green silk she had that first night of the Hand's Tourney when Sandor confessed the story of his scars... Cold as a summer snow, she watched as the king commanded one cruelty after another in his court and called it justice.
After, Joffrey forced her to walk with him to the battlements, eager to continue his amusement with his lady.
Sansa realised only belatedly where she was being taken and why. Before the gatehouse leading up to the walls, she refused to move, despite Joff's threats he would have Meryn carry her.
The Hound pushed her forward toward the king. "Do it girl," he said, mouth twisting in an ugly scowl. There was nothing he could do for her. She had to climb.
And climb she did amidst Joffrey's sneers and taunts, nervous and breaking into pieces.
Just as I am climbing now...
But, up on the castle walls, when the dog was ordered to show her Stark's head on the spike and when he obediently turned it by the hair, Sansa... stared at it calmly... with poise. The crying, bloody mess she was made into was gone and forgotten in the vast emptiness of her frozen gaze.
She stood very tall, taller than Joffrey. Looking dead on the inside, she asked for how long she had to look.
The Hound was struck by the change and Joffrey merely disappointed. He offered to show Sansa more heads, pointed out that of her septa, but her new composure remained untouched by his ongoing ramblings; her courtesy almost impeccable.
When the heads dipped in tar didn't bring the necessary amusement, Joffrey remembered the missing ones, Sansa's brother's, most of all, the one who caught the Kingslayer.
The boy reminded his dog how he'd called that same brother the lord of the wooden sword in Winterfell. The Hound chose not to remember his own words. He affirmed flatly he didn't recall saying so.
Joffrey promised to bring Sansa her brother's head…
She misspoke again, with that same buggering honesty and bluntness which had caused her honourable father to do the little dance under the headsman's sword.
Sansa said… Her brother might give her Joff's head…
This time, Meryn held her face as he hit her hard twice, splitting her pretty lip in two. The snow-white cloak of the Kingsguard billowed cheerfully from the knight's back as the fresh blood on Sansa's face mingled with her tears.
Joffrey commanded Sansa to wipe the blood.
And then, the Hound saw what no one else had seen… The hint of her daring and passion behind both the tears of her weakness and the implacable frost of her hatred.
Her eyes shone with singular determination. In the next moment she would have pushed His Grace from the battlements, deep down into the bailey of the Red Keep and followed him down herself. Two more purple stains would blossom in the castle whose walls were already dark red like blood. A perfect revenge.
The duty of the sworn shield dictated he should cut her in two, as he did with the butcher's boy, before harm would come to his charge.
Yet on an impulse different than the one which made him save Ser Loras, the Hound knelt before Sansa, just between her and Joffrey. He commanded her to clean herself, right? The king could not blame his dog for disobedience.
Sandor dabbed at the blood surging from her broken lip, surprising himself with the delicacy he never knew he possessed.
The moment stretched forever in Sandor's head, the strength and the weakness in her, the bluntness and the fear… His grey gaze swam in her blue childlike one, lined with blood and tears, more terrifying in its great beauty than any of his scars.
I will always keep your secret, he thought at that moment. As you have kept mine.
Sansa lowered her eyes and thanked him, the pitiful creature. Her wild, mad, admirable strength was gone, and she was once more just a good girl who remembered her courtesies.
Sansa the child was gone from that day, in spirit, if not yet in her body.
The Hound should have known it then, but he didn't, not yet. It was not in the dog's nature to immediately name certain sensations it sniffed within himself. It would still take some time before he knew the truth he now needed to tell her.
The memory of Sansa's crying eyes was replaced by a single light, twinkling orange from a solitary wall, a shelter against the wind.
He had arrived to the third and last fortress guarding the way to the Eyrie. There were no gates. The Hound crawled behind the wall. No guards were in evidence.
Only an old bearded man sat alone next to a single fire, unarmed and covered in furs from tip to toe. Long white beard, equally white bushy hair, and a pair of keen, dark eyes, protruded from the bundle of clothing. He must have been at least twice as old as the Hound, and he had a hump on his back.
"What good brings you up here, son?" he asked, tugging at his beard.
"Nothing good," the Hound said, not bothering to invent a lie. This man was no threat to him. "I'm looking for a woman. She is in the Eyrie."
"There is a great lady in the Eyrie," the old hunchback agreed, "but she may not be the one you seek."
"I will be the judge of that," the Hound said with contempt.
"And so you shall," the bearded man eyed Sandor up and down. "Ah, there is the latest warrior's cut. Let me see."
He removed his furry gloves and pulled Sandor's forearm to him with greater strength than was to be expected. In a few moments the man cleaned, sew and re-bandaged the already healing wound. It would take a few days before it scarred properly.
"May I see your sword, son?" The Hound saw no harm in the demand. The man helped him for no reason. So he handed him the greatsword, hilt first.
"Somewhat rusty," he commented.
"Not for the lack of usage," Sandor muttered. Yet the blade was old. He swapped an axe he snatched at the Twins for a damaged greatsword in a village where he lived with Sansa's sister in the riverlands, before the villagers kicked the dog out of the kennel, and forced them to continue travelling.
"You should see the smith at the Gates of the Moon if you intend to fight in a tourney," his unlikely companion was not shy with counsels. "He has blades and lances aplenty, and Lord Royce is most generous with borrowing steel these days. All swords will be needed this winter. The clansmen are many and hungry. And it is said uglier things are coming from the north…"
"I will fight in no bloody tourney, nor swear my sword to Lord Royce," the Hound muttered darkly. "My business is up in the Eyrie and then I'll be gone."
"So be it. The sept up there has never had a septon. The godswood has never had a heart tree… There are no gods up there. Only the sky." The words were a pious, false lamentation the dog could not abide, growing ferocious and in a mood to bite. This man was no Elder Brother and he didn't owe him his life. He might just kill him for the joy of killing, this once. Or to shut him up.
"Do I look like a septon to you?" the Hound asked crudely, scratching a naked bone protruding from his jaw.
"No," his unwanted companion shook his profusely bearded head.
"Than spare me the bleating," Sandor said wildly. Only then he brought down the torrent of his temper by the force of his will.
Snarling had a desired effect. The old man stopped spitting shit about the gods. He turned almost as polite and as courteous as the little bird in her best behaviour when he continued talking. "If it please you, you are more aware of your looks than I. Should you ever change your mind about the tourney, or perhaps about a different trial which is to come after, the smith is the friend of mine. He will be waiting for you at the Gates of the Moon."
The Hound decided mutely the man's courtesies just saved him; the Stranger would not take him in the night.
"Where do the stairs continue?" the Hound asked, not seeing anything in the darkness, blinded by the light of the fire they were sharing. Behind the single wall which was preposterously called a fortress, with only a few rooms on the inner side, there lay a thin stretch of flat ground. After, there was only the steep mass of the mountain, with no path on its flanks that Sandor could see.
"There are no more stairs," the old man said.
"What is there, then?" the Hound asked, sleepy. When he visited the Eyrie with King Robert, there were more stairs, or a tunnel, of sorts, where men could walk up; and also a winch cage they used to carry turnips and onions to the castle. I will see on the morrow.
The wind and the ascension from Snow to Sky at night took its toll. The man and the dog needed rest or the man would not arrive anywhere. If there was a pursuit, he doubted they would start going after him now, before the new day. What he did had been mad, to climb at night… He should count himself fortunate for making it safely so far without breaking his neck.
Sleep embraced him softly, treacherous and powerful.
In his dream, he climbed on the soft featherbed, smelling not of lemons, but of roses, the red ones which kept their scent for long. Like the one Ser Loras had given Sansa… It should have been me. The certainty was plaguing him.
It should have always been me.
Sansa was lying on the bed. Her hair spilled around her head, like a pool of fresh blood.
Maiden's blood, the dream always suggested. She wore a thin shift as she did the day he pulled her from under the covers after her father was killed. But, under it, her frame was never as small as it should have been. All her curves belonged to a woman… ample and generous.
If the Hound still had his tourney winnings, he would have paid a woods witch to tell him what the dream meant, or maybe to brew for him some tea against it. He heard of one in the riverlands who could read other people's dreams and cure incurable aches, but he had never seen her.
"I'll have a song from you," he heard himself rasp almost every night, body and soul filled with longing.
But he was never to have his song in that dream. Every time, he would infallibly end up pressing his cruel mouth to hers, and she would respond to him and welcome him as no woman ever did, until all the world went black.
When the Hound woke, there was no darkness left.
The dawn was white and silver, and cold beyond measure; a crystal-clear day under the light blue sky… blue as Sansa's dress on the day they beheaded her father.
He was almost at the top of Giant's Lance. Six hundred feet above he could see the seven white towers of the falcon's nest; a castle made of glass, from some tale. Wild hawks soared high above his head.
But the bag with food and his sword were gone… Even his boots were gone. Stolen overnight by the friendly, bearded man, who was seemingly giving him just counsel. His feet were wrapped in unknown black rugs of some sort, woollen, coarse, and prickly. The tissue could have belonged to a cloak of the Kingsguard if the colour hadn't been all wrong. Just like the colour of that lock of brown hair, which smelled of fruits and flowers, and of the little bird's bed in his wishful mind. The false favour was still stuck on his forearm as well as the new bandage…
The Hound wondered why the old man didn't rip that out as well, opened his bowels and let him bleed to death, if he wished him ill.
Sandor had nothing more to offer Sansa except himself.
All his other possessions, scarce as they always might have been were gone. He supposed it may have been… fair… in a cruel way.
Because what he wanted for a long, long time, was to give himself to Sansa as a man. No more and no less. Just as he so often thought of her as a woman, not a child she was when they met.
You've become a woman in another man's arms…
How I wish they could have been mine.
She was the only lady who ever dared scratch the grime off the Hound's mask in order to reveal the true face of the monster, or perhaps of the man behind it, if he still existed. At occasions, Sandor was not certain that he did. Be that as it may, he still wanted her to see more of him, to see all of him; he'd wanted it for so long and so much that every inch of his being hurt from that desire.
Fuck the sword, he thought, stubbornly. I can still kill men with my bare hands if needs be, just like Gregor could…
Prince Oberyn Martell became the most recent witness of that to his sorrow. But the bugger also took Gregor with him, robbing Sandor of his revenge forever.
Sandor swallowed hard and searched for the way up. He made a solemn vow… for the first time in his life. By the evening I shall be in the Eyrie… He would anoint himself with oil to make it more sacred, had there been any. Once would suffice, not seven times, he thought, absurdly.
It was very early in the morning. Ice crunched under his large shoeless feet, and he could see no way forward.
He walked alone in the Sky.