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"Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world. Don't ever believe any different." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF
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Fifteen
Her pillow was not soft enough, but one had never felt so good or smelled so fine.
Almost like… Lady.
Sansa refused to open her eyes, wishing to cling better to her dreams. She had no claim in them. No one wanted to sentence her to death for a crime she hadn't committed. Her family was alive, her home was whole and she was only Sansa; young and pretty.
Her bedding moved and rumbled softly, in a very deep, conquering voice, spoiling her fantasy.
Her tummy ached dully.
Was she ill?
No, she decidedly was not.
It was only the familiar stickiness between her legs and the uncomfortable, blunt ache brought by the moon… She needed to get up and find a cloth or she would soil her sheets. Spurred to action by pure necessity, Sansa blinked unhappily, lifted her tousled head and startled… from the landscape of peaceful scars, snoring as gently as her dead septa once did.
She must have fallen asleep on Sandor's broad chest.
He was so wonderfully calm when he slept. Today was no exception.
Sansa let her head fall back and felt more at ease from his warmth than she ever did in her dreams. His heart was beating under her ear; a steady thud, reassuring and strong.
A bit nervous, she swallowed, remembering her actions from the night before. They looked so unreal in the first light of the new day. She'd allowed Sandor to enter her deeply, as only a husband should. No, she did not just let him... As every time before, she was overwhelmed by the illicit pleasure and sweet sensation of togetherness she discovered in his arms. But when he begged for her love, her… her heart responded to him…
She was compelled to embrace him and feel his entire body as hard as she could until her pleasure was too much to bear. But it was still not enough for her soul.
The cautious, prudent Sansa who was used to hiding in order to survive would not rest until she completed of her own volition this act of joining which belonged to the marriage bed, challenging the stinging and the burning sensation it brought her. Terribly afraid of strong pain on all other occasions in her life, she had stubbornly endured that one.
She expected her pleasure to be ruined and she was right. But the tender amazement in Sandor's eyes was a delicious treat she could never imagine; better than any new, interesting expression Sansa spied on him since his gaze had changed and stopped containing only unkempt anger. He was stunned by laying with her, good and proper, as he might say. He looked weak… and yet he was at ease with this, not needing to redress himself to a position of strength or bark at her. A sense of awe and wonder filled Sansa. It was as if he surrendered to her, to them together… Her spirit swam in unknown joy from her confused guessings. The contentment of her heart had spilled over her stretched, tense body and made her first true coupling bearable in return.
Not only bearable.
Memorable...
Different, as everything with him was different than with other men.
Unforgettable.
So very, very warm through all the pain.
Contrary to what she was taught, losing her maidenhead did not make Sansa a woman, much like her flowering had been an undesirable and not a magical occurrence; another disgrace she suffered as the queen's hostage, meaning she could have Joffrey's babies.
Her father's head rolling down the stairs of the Great Sept of Baelor marked the first step on Sansa's way to womanhood, followed by the death of her mother and her brothers. She made more tiny steps, one for every cruelty and deceit she fell victim of, never expecting treason from people.
She did not expect it still. Not everyone was awful.
Sansa became a woman by suffering, and not by marriage.
Maybe it is like this for everyone. It is only that we are not told...
The good-natured concern of her parents who withheld the terrible truths of life turned into Sansa's undoing. At times she wondered what she would teach her own children about the world, the good and the bad in it, the honour and the extreme lack of it, often coming hand in hand.
But the act of joining with Sandor did reveal a previously unknown dimension of her womanhood; just like a new verse was a possibility before it was sung or committed to paper.
Having crossed the frontier of her pain, Sansa told Sandor to do as it pleased him, losing her courage, or perhaps lacking the knowledge to finish what she started. Dismayed by the sharp pain, she still wanted them to continue. To see what it would mean to her and for the two of them.
She didn't have to say so twice.
Sandor skillfully assumed control of her movements, not taking long, true to his word that he would not. Unbelievably, not even being manhandled made Sansa withdraw inside until it was all over.
Contrary to Sansa's fears of hating Sandor, just like he hated the world, if he ever pinned her to bed again or forced her, his initiative of wrapping her body around his manhood only made the experience better. It seemed to Sansa, towards the end, that her pain vanished. And maybe it did... She was not certain. Her memory was too fresh and too poignant. Her soul was full of Sandor as it had never been of anyone. She was so awake.
And unsettled, and happy, and imagining how it might be the next time they-
"What?" Sandor rasped gruffly, woken all of a sudden, probably by the excited fluttering of her body from all her new, unbelievable memories. His hands closed over the small of her back. His grip was pleasantly firm, but not iron as it used to be when he caught her in the past, during her illicit night wanderings in the Red Keep.
From the pressure of Sandor's hands Sansa calmed fully. The pain announcing the arrival of her moonblood was numbed; her momentaneous tremor replaced by idle, relaxed warmth.
"I…" Sansa began and forgot what she wanted to say. Sandor's facial expression was almost as delightful now as when he pleaded for her love; vibrant and calm, maybe just a little curious and questioning. Reassuring. Confident. Good.
"You what?" he asked again, staring at her with love. There was no other name for what was in his eyes.
Sansa looked at him intently, feeling more wonderful with every moment.
I must be mad, she thought. A week ago I couldn't even remember him properly. And now… Now it is as if he had never left my side. As if his place is right next to me. Not at my feet as Lady, nor in front of my door as a guard. As if I've known him forever.
Sansa slowed down her mind and her heart. The change in her concerning him contraried all her expectations from the world, more so than the Hound ever managed to challenge her innocent views in their past. Her past. Why did she even think of it as theirs? Well, he had been there, very often even…
Our past it is.
When she didn't answer his query immediately, she expected a hateful remark. A bitter mocking of her attitude, at least. None ever came.
She… she liked it that way.
The room was still dark, but the castle was waking. The winter days were short and devoid of sunshine. Clamor and clash of metal on metal climbed up from the yard below. The song of steel had already begun and the first fights of the tourney would not tardy.
They could not stay like this.
They would never be able to stay together.
And why not? Sansa suffered from the uncharacteristically rebellious thought. She was subjugated to so many outrageous, impossible events and propositions concerning her person in her young years. Nothing of what had been done with her since her father was murdered should have been possible, according to the laws and customs of the society she was born to. Yet it had come to pass because men and women in power took initiative, twisted the rules in their favour by superior force, and Sansa was obliged to follow. Why couldn't she do the same?
Because I have never been strong enough…
Despite that, she couldn't help thinking that since the impossible and the unlikely always occurred whether she willed it or not, nothing was truly impossible. Not even what she wanted.
To go home.
To be loved and happy.
She was loved now. She could not deny it and she felt warm and soft from it; she felt better from it than she'd ever imagined she could feel in life. Happiness, however, kept eluding her; she was still in danger and her home far away. Yet to say she was not happy would be a great lie. She-
"What is it with you?" Sandor asked for the third time, interrupting her introspection. His hands commenced caressing her back. The nervousness grew in his gaze, shading the other nuances of expression as a single cloud on the clear, summer sky. "No chirping for your dog this morning?"
You want chirping, she thought carelessly. Here you go, if it please you, my lord.
"San-dor, San-dor, San-dor," she sang his name wholeheartedly, obediently, playfully. "It's a nice name, didn't you know?"
He looked at her in disbelief and laughed, making that ugly sound she now knew to be friendly and not mocking. To hear it made Sansa feel even better than she already had since he hugged her after waking up.
One of his giant hands flew to her face, traced a fine, precise line from her forehead to her chin bone, repeated the tender gesture. Sansa leaned into it, continuing to enjoy his gaze.
Why?
"Why is it… why is it that you won't look away?" he squeezed out in a very uncertain rasp. "Isn't it… Aren't they ugly?"
Sansa could not answer him, not honestly, not fully, not yet, and he didn't deserve any half true answer after what he did for her and Robin on the mountain. They would have never come down from the Eyrie by themselves. Sandor's scars were as hideous as ever, but she wasn't going to tell him what he already knew.
"I just… can't take my eyes off you," she offered, as if that explained everything. It was the truth, or one part of it. "Isn't that what you always wanted?"
"Yes," he said, "and no…" he added with difficulty, as if that last admission still cost him dearly, despite his abrupt confession of love when they met in the Eyrie, and his demand she loved him back in the middle of their… Sansa lacked words to describe what they did in bed. The words she knew were either too weak or too courteous to express the intensity of it, or too rude, offending the beauty of it.
The nervous curiosity Sandor now exhibited was so great that she had to lean further down and kiss him, completely forgetting that her moonblood was on her, and that she should truly get up and take measures.
It had to be he who ruined the moment when he wished to touch her woman's place in the middle of their latest, wonderful kiss.
"Why didn't you tell?" his question was an exclamation that rang with guilt. He uncovered her and looked between them. "You are bleeding quite some. It's my fault, I… I… I am bloody large… I should have known… I...!" he could not find words now.
"What are you blaming yourself for?" Sansa blurted. Understanding dawned on her only a moment later. "No, Sandor, you did not cause this. This is my moonblood, I should have gotten up by now and dressed, I… I…" she stuttered.
"Why didn't you?" his bewildered rasp came out unnaturally high. He seemed to be calming down with difficulty, finding it hard to believe her.
"It was too beautiful to get up," she answered fast, and truthfully. "You, us… My head on your heart." You in my head. "I didn't want the day to begin."
"Besides, it is fitting," Sansa announced, and rejoiced inexplicably at her thought, brazenly finding her way back into their embrace. They were both soiled. A little more would not hurt. His arms obediently enclosed her again. Do you need the same?
"What is?" he whispered.
"From what you told me before… of how you didn't know how much it takes to…-" Sansa could not use his pertinent, but horribly ugly words.
"-to bed a maiden good and proper, yes," he added, very impatiently.
Sansa marvelled that he paid some attention to the choice of his expressions today, not using the most awful one beginning with f at all. She continued with a burst of joy, "Yesterday we didn't think to look at the bedding for any proof of what we did, and now, with my moonblood… It means I shall never know if I lost my maidenhead to you in the Eyrie by chance, out of my inexperience and curiosity to see if it was different with you than with other men who approached me for… for that reason… or now that we…" Sansa saved herself from having to say what they did by remembering the teachings of her septa. "My septa used to say some highborn ladies did not bleed on their wedding night because they lost their maidenhead from too much riding. I… I am glad it was I who either lost or gave my maidenhead, and not that I was stripped of it by force as with everything else since I left Winterfell. And… it is strange, but after all my various suitors, and with the world fretting so much about the value it has, I am happier not knowing." Sansa felt extremely proud about being able to say everything she meant to, for once, confusing as it might have sounded.
I am not a piece of skin that I no longer have between my legs, nor will my claim be conquered by that sword of any man...
And I still know how to be free and speak the truth as my parents taught me.
She sighed with contentment at the stubbornness of her thoughts.
"But you'll know it was me," he stated, spying her for reaction.
"Yes," Sansa admitted, seeing no difficulty with that. "But not only you." Not regardless of what I wanted and not at all for my claim. "It was you and it was me." And it was so beautiful, every time we touched.
Sandor kissed her soundly when she said that, almost stealing all her air. "Are you certain…" he whispered, "That this is your blood that would've come anyway and not my… not me hurting you… by being damn big."
"It is the third year since I flowered, Sandor," Sansa protested, wishing to reassure him. "I am confident of what it is. My blood is no longer a secret to me."
And perhaps it was not. But the many different responses of her body and… and her soul to Sandor still baffled her as a true mystery she wished to unravel and savour.
She took a kiss from him now and melted in it, savouring the challenging taste of his burned lips and the overwhelming heat of their morning embrace. The songs never told that a lady could also steal a kiss…
Sandor didn't seem worried that she might soil him in her condition, so she decided not to fret about it.
Arya always liked being dirty. For the first time, Sansa almost understood her. Maybe Arya and Sandor would get along.
San-dor. San-dor. San-dor. Her soul sang silently and disobediently.
It was a nice name. She didn't lie to him when she said that. It sounded almost as good as Torrhen or Rickard.
Or like… Sansa. A man's name similar to her own.
You always surprise me, do you not? By being awful when I don't expect it. Or not being awful when I fully expect you to be. By being you... and loving me nonetheless.
His hands stayed respectfully away from her woman's place but did not miss other parts of her, examining them closely. Her sides, her waist, the soft flesh of her behind, the curving of her breasts. Under, against the bare skin of one of her legs, Sansa felt he was ready to do more. She didn't know if it was possible for a woman to be joined with a man when having her moonblood. She supposed it might be, since there were obviously so many positions that could be used, other than the one with her laying on her back, which she could not handle without freezing in place, described in brief and vague terms by her mother and her septa. The blood did not close her woman's place, just sully it. Yet the thought of trying anything new in bed now was extremely far-fetched for Sansa. They had done more than enough already. She could not… She needed a break now to gather herself… She had to… she had to call the servants and ask for a new shift and cloths. Well, first she had to put the shift from yesterday back on and return to her own bed.
Saddened by the necessity to do so, she ended their kiss. His gaze immediately lost some of its beauty when she did it and became duller, inscrutable; more like the angry one she was used to.
One of us had to be the first one to stop, she thought, unhappy about the change, realising… she would be pouting if he would have ended their kiss for any reason, becoming more baffled about her responses to him with every breath she took this morning.
The anger is still with you, is it not? It is always with you...
She cupped his face and kissed him again, very sweetly, wishing to confuse him, needing to see him vulnerable as she felt. "I am under your protection, remember, Winged Knight," she said tenderly, not caring if it offended him, meaning every word of it. "I will wait for this day to end and for you to protect me again. But I fear that if we don't go to break our fast with Robin and show our respect for his decisions, the lords of the Vale might change their mind and imprison me again. Or… surrender me to Gregor, to see if they can make the queen's army leave sooner and without bloodshed."
"Fuck," Sandor said abruptly, returning to his usual language, much to Sansa's disappointment. "I need to find a good sword."
"Don't you need a good lance for a joust?" She wondered.
"Do you remember Gregor using only his lance in a tourney?" The Hound grunted angrily. "Besides, almost any lance will do, provided it is long enough. Even if it isn't, when it is me holding it on horseback. But a sword should better be heavy enough to meet Gregor's. I should have the strength to stop him, but I'd rather not face him on foot with a knife for chopping vegetables."
Gregor had almost hewed Ser Loras in two after losing a tilt. Sandor stopped him with the greatsword. Sansa remembered fearing that Sandor's blade might break despite that it was as large and as broad as Ice. She chastised herself for not remembering this instantly. She was older now, but she was not clever enough. Not letting anyone take her maidenhead would not save her if she remained stupid.
Maiden or not, she would be married to the politically dominant suitor, not to the most noble one, nor the strongest fighter, nor the one who loved her. Merely to the one who prevailed in the game of thrones, or to the man chosen for Sansa by that unknown victor. Maybe she would be married every year anew, and all her husbands would die before she would have a child whom she could love as the queen told her she would. If Cersei was the winner, she would be put to death.
She shivered and sighed deeply in Sandor's arms.
He had once said that the strong ruled the world. But Father had been strong and was killed all the same. Strong arms were not enough.
"Sansa," Sandor called to her, gently pinching her chin. She had never stopped facing him, but she did become lost in her thoughts. "Where have you gone?"
"I was just thinking," she said, nervous and a bit angry with the world.
You are right. The world is awful.
At times.
Sansa refused to believe it was awful all the time. She had to… she just had to strive to be good and she would find her happiness. Like she applied herself in her childhood to becoming a perfect lady. She should go to the tourney. Ser Robert Strong… Gregor… he had to lose. She refused to contemplate that Gregor losing meant Sandor having to kill him, though she knew Gregor deserved punishment.
For what he did to Sandor, if not for anything else.
To poor Sandor who now lifted Sansa out of his bed and carried her to the bed that should have been hers, and which had remained empty for the night. It was cold and she shivered in it, squeezing her legs to contain the sticky flow. Very soon, Sandor returned dressed, holding out her shift to her.
"Good that I am not small," he said mockingly. "The sheets over there are clean. There's no need to replace them or hide them. No sign you were in my bed."
Sansa wondered how he cleaned the blood she noticed he had on his stomach from her. He looked clean from the outside at least, fully dressed and armoured as he could be, in the improvised suit Sansa and Robin gathered for him in the Eyrie. Sansa squeezed her legs harder and decided against asking or knowing. If he did something very unsavoury to make himself presentable, she didn't want to hate him for it. At least he stopped being needlessly upset about his size. She only minded that when he tried to lay on top of her, remembering his angry stance from the night when the sky burned green, and all the other men who would have had their way with her if they could. But as long as this could be avoided, she didn't mind his height. Much on the contrary, one of the reasons she was repulsed by Tyrion, next to the main reason of him being a Lannister, was that he was short and stunted. This was cruel and discourteous; a true lady would have found it in herself to accept the ugliness of her lord husband. Yet the truth remained - Sandor's disfigurement had never had the same reviling effect on Sansa.
"I will call the maids," Sandor announced, "and wait until you wish me to accompany you to the little lord."
"Do so, please," Sansa agreed, not wanting to be left alone by him, not on a day after… after he had asked her to love him and she responded to him with all her being, because she could… she could not act any differently… She set aside a nagging thought that Sandor had to go and look for a sword. Surely he could still do that later. He would only face Gregor towards the end of the tourney.
Maybe in the final tilt.
Will he then crown me as his Queen of Love and Beauty?
Sansa decided that he should do this, before chasing the stupid thought about the brave knight and the pretty maiden out of her bird's head.
Chivalry was nonsense. She was a woman grown and she wasn't even a maiden anymore. Involuntarily, her lips stretched in a broad, unladylike grin. She had to put a hand over her mouth to contain her mirth. She should be worried because one day she would have to marry some lord and lie about being untouched. Her grin broadened, blossomed under her hand. She was unable to worry.
It wasn't that painful, she told herself and believed it, though it probably was.
Two girls soon invaded her chamber and began fussing about Sansa and the state of the bed she had recently bloodied. They were so annoyingly stupid that she couldn't bring herself to ask them if they had a yellow dress, as Sandor wanted her to wear. She opted to don again the blue dress. She had it on when they began... And it was perfectly clean. She'd worn it so little because… they… she and Sandor undressed almost as soon as he was done bathing. Also, her poem and Lord Varys' letter were both still in her bodice, and she didn't want the servants to see her removing them, much less chance that they read any of it or stole it. Most likely none could read, but surely one of them would report to Yohn and the other to Nestor Royce about Sansa's secrets. Before Petyr, resting in peace within the bag in which Gregor put his parts, Sansa could only tell that all her servants in the court had been loyal to the queen, and that she was shunned by the nobles when Father fell out of grace. Now I can see better the exact moves in the game of thrones and the reasons behind them, but I still can't make my own.
With clean shift and stockings, and a cloth set firmly between her legs, Sansa became terribly impatient to exit her room and be in Sandor's company again. She suddenly needed to verify he was real and that she did not imagine everything, from his arrival to the Eyrie until today.
Gingerly, she stood up. Her first step felt like no other she had made in life… Or maybe like a first step a child makes, amazed that it can walk.
In the ten or twenty steps it took her to exit her chamber, position herself to walk next to Sandor and take his arm, Sansa felt like a new woman.
Maybe Septa Mordane was right. This changes everything.
Under the familiar pain of her moonblood, there was a new ache between her legs, distinct and weakening, but not in a way her fears always made her fragile. The inner side of her thighs throbbed as it might happen after too long riding, but the muscles affected by the feeling were much higher, closer to her woman's place. She had never felt them before... she… she did not know she had those muscles. Her body… she was marked. Despite the lies she might tell to her future lord husband, her body carried the footprint of what she did...
And despite that the throb was not entirely pleasant, it was not unpleasant either. Every step carried a tangible remembrance of her pleasure and her pain, of Sandor's manhood scraping her walls, creating an incredible sensation, hurtful, and uniquely awakening... Every step brought back his prayer for love and that singular look in his eyes; her response to his body and… the movement inside her spirit in his direction…
Her heart had gone to him, there was no doubt… whether she willed it or not. It had never gone that way to either Ser Loras or to Joffrey.
Sansa walked and wondered if Sandor could see the difference in her demeanour, if body parts hurt him from what they did, and if she left such a palpable mark on him as he did on her. Maybe he has a trace of me inside him all the time... because he… loves me...
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me.
He cares not about my claim.
Sansa looked up and smiled very timidly at Sandor. His lips thinned and stretched; his face twitched in a peculiar, controlled fashion, as if he smiled back. With this, he both acknowledged her gesture and hid his feelings from anyone looking. An overwhelming, uncontrolled smile illuminated Sansa's face from his response.
So you can be discreet. And clever. Are you cleverer than your silly little bird?
It just occurred to her that he had to be, or he would have fared far worse at court in the long years he had spent there… if he had been a mindless brute, counting only on his strength and intimidation skills for survival, as he liked to say about himself and as people saw him… If they saw him at all, standing in Joffrey's shadow, invisible, just like the poor, innocent, traitor's daughter...
Sansa lifted her head high and walked on, imagining that Sandor's warm gaze pierced her skin as yet another sword, filling her heart with malleable warmth.
How much will it hurt when we do it again?
If we do it again… she corrected herself. By the time her moonblood was done she might well be on the road back to King's Landing.
In Nestor Royce's hall, at the Gates of the Moon, everyone looked at her the same as the day before, when she entered to break her fast. Even Gregor, mute in his Kingsguard armour, and the ugly man who spoke in his stead.
They don't know. Only I know. We know. The thought made her feel strong and giddy. No one will know unless I choose to reveal it.
Sandor loomed behind her back now, tall and frightening. Sansa longed to be on her feet again and to suffer the ache in her thighs. She became a woman before this, at a too young age, no doubt, but today she was a changed woman. She would never be the same.
After the first meal of the day, it was time for the tourney. Sansa did not ride to it in a palanquin with walls of yellow silk that coloured the whole world in gold, like when she went to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole. She walked holding Sweetrobin's arm, carrying the new, painful sweetness between her thighs and the memory of Sandor's wonderful gaze in her heart. The first tilts before midday meal were not very exciting. The knights were perhaps fewer and poorer than those who had come to the capital to compete. Many faces were familiar nonetheless, so maybe it was Sansa who stopped loving tourneys as much…
Sandor unhorsed all his opponents in a single, savagely precise pass. The onlookers cheered for him, but Sansa began to worry… The people and the nobles… they also cheered for Gregor, and for Lothor Brune; for Yohn Royce and for his handsome good-son Ser Michel Redfort. The people did not care. They… amused themselves. Sansa suspected that Sandor might call his opponents gnats with contempt, and none of them, none of them was Gregor… The success against the lesser knights did not guarantee the outcome of brother's war.
Instead of cheering for the Winged Knight, as everyone called Sandor now, Sansa's heart kept steadily climbing into her throat and she did not feel strong or changed anymore. She wished she could see Sandor's face, to know if it still contained anything but anger after all the violence needed for jousting, as well as from seeing his brother in the field as his equal, treated like a respectable, honourable knight.
But she could not see Sandor at all, because the listed men had all gone to the tourney grounds after breaking their fast. As the day went on, Sandor's memory faded from her thighs, but it grew in her chest and in her little, bird-like head.
Sansa… she needed a pen and a parchment, terribly so, or she might shatter in a thousand pieces and die an unladylike death before Cersei put her to it. Or maybe she would… howl in the most unseemly way and shock the noble houses of the Vale by her uncivilised customs.
Catching up with Bronze Yohn's maester before midday meal proved to be an useless endeavour.
"No," he replied sternly to her query. "No paper nor ravens for you, my lady. You are not to write to anyone anymore. My head is forfeit if I disobey those orders."
There must have been a new raven that caused those orders, Sansa realised.
"Has Bronze Yohn received a letter concerning my person?" she wondered aloud.
"I don't know," the maester screamed and pushed her away. His violent, illogical reaction meant that the answer was yes, no doubt. But how was Sansa to find out what it said and who wrote it? Would Varys reply so fast to her missive? If he did, what did he say? Or was it another unknown ally seeking to lay a hold on her claim?
She searched the sky for the living dragon Varys promised if she married Aegon, but there was none… During midday meal, she turned her food on the plate, unable to eat a single bite, glad that no one directed a word to her. She was once more only a disgraced noblewoman and she was happy for it. The confusion and fear in her mind and heart was such that it would have been most difficult to pursue any civil conversation.
When she and Robin headed back to the tourney grounds for the last tilts of the short winter day, she thought she would cry stupidly. But, when they reached the dais raised for Robin and his entourage, her little cousin surprised her before climbing on the improvised high seat of the Arryns. The real seat was left high up in the mountain, in the now truly impregnable Eyrie. Fresh snow had fallen on the Giant's Lance in the night. No one would climb it or come down from it before spring.
Sweetrobin handed Sansa a paper and a quill, bowing slightly. "Here, cousin, my lady," he peeped in his thin voice, not befitting his new lordly demeanour. "I have noticed this new omission of courtesy with regard to your needs when you addressed the maester. I shall not abide such rude behaviour in my lands."
Lord Nestor's small eyes bulged as if they were about to spring from the sockets when Sansa graciously accepted the gift.
"Thank you, my lord," she said melodiously, beaming. Her spirit turned vivid, churning with verses.
Robert blushed and took his seat as calmly as he could. His hands and shoulders shook, but he did not yet have a fit that day. Maester Colemon was never far from him, with the jar of unhappy, skinny leeches who had not yet had their meal.
Sansa wrote compulsively while they were waiting for the next tilt to began. She did not care about the poetic form, nor the number of syllables in her verses, never stopping to ponder where the style she used came from.
A lifetime of your warmth invading my mind.
A trace of your arms, your lips, your eyes on mine.
Your body opening mine, or was it mine embracing yours?
I was blind and dreaming.
Am I asleep still?
How can this be?
This care that haunts me now,
Waiting in my soul,
Dwelling in my heart.
Why is my soul trembling, not rejoicing,
In face of your smooth victories?
What is in your mind?
Your love of me?
Or only fresh hatred…?
The tourney master announced Lord Yohn Royce riding against the Winged Knight.
Sansa crumpled her latest, worthless poem in her lap and squeezed the little paper ball with her fists.
It will be easy, like with those other… gnats, she told herself. Ancient bronze armour with runes of the First Men did not avail Lord Yohn in the Hand's tourney.
Sansa stared down the lists, carefully measuring her glance to award equal attention to both contenders. Inadvertently, she stood up when doing so, the first time that day, because Ser Uthor, a corpulent knight who fell to Ser Michel before midday meal, obstructed her view. She thought… that Sandor appraised her figure just when she looked away...
On the next moment, it was too late to look back.
The lists were not long as in King's Landing and Bronze Yohn's brown horse was almost as spirited as Sandor's black one. Bronze and chestnut clashed against black and silvery grey of Sandor's armour, stolen from the Arryns for the new Winged Knight, created and anointed by Sweetrobin and Sansa. Lances splintered… And it was the grey rider that remained in dirt after the pass, not the bronze one...
Sansa never sat down. This is not real, he… he won the Hand's Tourney, he can't just fall…
She saw her head rolling under the headsman's blade. No one would now be able to withstand Gregor.
Yohn Royce dismounted and gallantly offered his arm to Sandor so that he could get up. Two grooms tried to approach Sandor's horse, but he kicked one and nearly bit off the hand of another. Sandor accepted the arm offered, took his horse by the reins and led him off the field without a word.
Gregor… laughed raucously as Sandor once did when Gregor was unhorsed by Ser Loras. It was the first clear, unmistakable sound that ever came from the mouth of the so-called Ser Robert Strong.
The mindless crowd kept cheering for Lord Yohn who pulled off his helm. Under, he was sweaty from the day's exertion, white-haired and terribly worried. He sized up Gregor differently than the day before, as an opponent he should ride against. He gave a cold look to Sansa and climbed back to the dais, next to Sweetrobin.
"You rode well," Robin said with poise.
"It wasn't bad," Yohn retorted, "but it was your Winged Knight who rode a tad worse than before. Had I not seen his previous jousts, I would think him an old man like myself."
"You both rode well," Robin judged, twittering boyishly, "but the victory was yours this time, my lord, and it was deserved. My father used to say that men fall from horses in tourneys and only one can win the purse. It is not a battle, where the result is life or death. In another competition the outcome might have been different. I enjoyed the spectacle very much - I have not seen a better pass in this tourney yet. I will toast to the health of both of you over dinner. And the Winged Knight will surely wish you luck for the trials of tomorrow."
The rest of the duels passed without surprise. Besides Lord Yohn, the three men left for the final tilts on the next day were Ser Michel, Lothor Brune and Gregor. Before everyone returned to the castle, Gregor and his spokesman, Qyburn, approached Sweetrobin. Significantly, today they ignored the Royces when voicing their latest demands.
"The Winged Knight has lost. Hand us the lady now," Qyburn translated bluntly the wishes of his master.
"He did," Robert agreed dutifully. "But not to brave Ser Robert, who rode so gallantly. Nor is the tourney over. Ser Robert may yet fall on the morrow. Didn't the gods tell him to take part? His part, as I see it, is not over yet. I swear it by the Seven."
Gregor laughed again, but his laugh was ominous now and not mocking, and Sansa was afraid for her cousin's life.
She prayed to all the gods that existed that her lie about Gregor being sent both to fetch her and to kill her cousin never became true.
If Sweetrobin was afraid, he hid it well. He nodded to Gregor and his servant and demanded weakly to be carried to the great hall by servants. His body spasmed so much from his illness that he could not walk. Sansa was glad that Robert Arryn was in charge. Sick as he was, he stayed on her side.
As a consequence, Lord Yohn offered Sansa his arm. When she accepted, he purposefully held her in place. His grip was nowhere near as firm as Sandor's, but still too strong to fight. They were the last to depart in the line of the most illustrious nobles of the Vale.
"What are your intentions? Will you have your new allies burn the Vale of Arryn and its crops in winter? Will you take Lord Arryn as hostage? I have treated you kindly-"
"Yes, my lord, you have," Sansa's instinct was to appease him so that he would let her go. She resented the bronze vambrace squeezing her arm. But before she finished speaking she realised her impulse was wrong. A changed woman, and a brave one at times, Sansa served his lordship the undiluted truth about his noble propositions.
"Yes, my lord, you have treated me kindly," she repeated, hoping to imitate her father's sternest tone when he dispensed justice from his high seat. "But only as an afterthought and out of fear. I assure you; I shall act with prudence when any other forces arrive. As will you." It was a fact, but it could be understood as a threat. Sansa stared icily into Lord Royce's eyes, hoping to underline that second meaning.
He did not reply so she made a step forward, pulling him with her, to see if he would restrain her.
He did not.
Bronze Yohn followed and said curtly, "Prudence is indeed a virtue, my lady. Let us all adhere to it-"
"-and we might live to see another spring," Sansa completed the thought and graced her companion with a small, dry, courtly smile.
She wondered what news the raven caught by Bronze Yohn had brought, and if it was from Lord Varys. Appearing confident when she was not would come easier if she knew more about who her dangerous allies were and what they would give to her in exchange for her claim. At least she knew what everyone wanted from her; Winterfell and the North. She did not have to wonder about that. Without her claim, she was nothing in the game of thrones. Only Cersei would probably still wish to have her head.
Supper was a quiet, subdued affair. To Sansa's surprise, her Winged Knight was not there. Both her and Sweetrobin occasionally looked behind their chairs, masking their glances to look like a part of a casual conversation between cousins, but Sandor's striking, hulking figure never appeared.
The only guest who found joy in the feast was Gregor, laughing raucously between the courses. Did he laugh because he recognised the Winged Knight, just like Sandor did him? Or did he merely rejoice because he was now a favourite to win the tourney? Why didn't everyone know Ser Robert was Gregor and unmask his pretence of being Kingsguard? Couldn't they tell? Or did they all know but just chose to ignore it? Sansa could not decide which attitude was worse.
Sansa quelled her anger by telling herself that, in truth, the people of the Vale did not know either that the Winged Knight was Sandor. Most believed wholeheartedly in a ruse Robin and Sansa invented and perpetuated about their… friend.
No. He was no friend of Sansa's.
He was-
He was-
She had dreamed of him before he had found her in the Eyrie.
She wished to be left alone so that she could dress as a bastard and go find him. There was no winesink in the Gates of the Moon, but there must be some place where men drank.
Sansa was glad when her cousin had to withdraw to his quarters, too ill to continue feasting, until she realised this meant it would be Lord Yohn and… Gregor taking her to her door. She looked down during the entire stroll, thinking what to say to see good riddance of them. She did not want Gregor standing in front of her door.
Fortunately, her Winged Knight was already occupying the place. She would not have to debase herself and search for him.
So this is where you went. Why here and not to the supper as everyone else?
All other losers feasted with the winners, hand in hand. Sandor should have come as well.
"Thank you for your company, my lords," Sansa cleared her throat, trying her best to send Bronze Yohn and Gregor peacefully away to wherever they slept in the overcrowded castle for the duration of the tourney. "I shall see you on the morrow."
She walked into her chamber and closed the door without another word. Nervously, she stood right behind it, waiting for the most desirable sound of two pairs of boots, departing. An eternity went by before they did. She waited some more, for Sandor to enter.
But he did not.
Sick and tired of waiting she opened the door with a clang.
He was there; armoured, helmed and immobile.
"Won't you come in?" she asked in disbelief that she had to ask after their meeting on the mountain, the mad descent from it, and her giving him everything…
Except a declaration of love.
Her manifest affection for him was not tenacious as his love for her seemed to be. But if another man did or said what Sandor did and said with her in the capital, Sansa would have probably gone straight to Cersei. The queen was many things, but she would not tolerate that her precious prisoner was treated so familiarly by one her house guards. Not even by her son's sworn shield.
With Sandor… Sansa was never offended as much as she should have been. And they always found a way to talk about other, interesting, inoffensive things, after and in-between his bouts of mocking anger. At least part of the time. Sansa corrected her eagerness to improve the world by embellishing the events in her head. It became easier to grasp both the truth and her wishes with time. Sandor had been awful to her in the past. The recent days were an exception. He would surely be horrible again.
"Why should I come in?" he barked at her. "Go, smile at Bronze Yohn some more. You did it before the tilt. He has one chance in seven hells to unhorse Gregor. Maybe he needs a special lady's favour to encourage him. You saw that it was not very difficult to-"
"What?" Sansa cried out. What did he think? That she would… with Yohn Royce…? "How can you say this? Do you not… do you not see?"
"I see nothing," he said darkly. "And neither should you. Go save yourself. You've done it before without me. I have lost again."
The Hound's pointless anger over his defeat was larger than the Giant's Lance and Sansa was almost afraid of him.
"Lost?" She decided to use Sweetrobin's wisdom on him, not having much of her own where fighting was concerned. "Men fall from horses in tourneys. That is all. You haven't done anything wrong. You played your part in the farce used to delay Gregor before all knights from the Vale are mustered here to chase him away."
And maybe, maybe a living dragon will come. What shall I do if that is so and if this… Aegon... demands I marry him…
She pushed her hand into her bodice. Her composition about Sandor braving the waterfall was still there, together with the little ball of her latest attempts at poetry…
Helpless, she remembered.
Alyssa's tears…
Alyssa did not cry so many tears in the end and neither would Sansa. Sansa and Sandor found the place where the waterfall did reach the valley floor, on the path untrodden by human feet. It meant that every sadness had its end, even the sorrow sent by the gods for the sins men committed. In the legend about Alyssa, because of her heartlessness in life, the waterfall of her tears kept falling forever after her death, never touching the ground.
Sansa and Sandor would not be punished for their sins for all times. They just had to find a completely new path now. Sansa could not see it, but maybe the gods would show it if they tried hard enough.
Or maybe there was no path and she was stupid for thinking there might be.
What if the Hound was right? Should she seek help elsewhere?
Sansa sighed.
Sandor had entered, now brooding and fuming in a dark corner of the chamber, pretending to stand guard. How many times did you stand enraged behind Joffrey's back, trying to ignore his stupidity and cruelty? She wished to know, but it was not a good moment to ask him.
At least he did not leave nor get drunk this time.
He came to me. Her heart widened at that realisation. In his way, he did what he could do for her, once more. Even in his darkest moments, he would always come to Sansa, and when he did, he wanted to do good by her, though he was sometimes unable to deliver it.
"I'm a cripple," Sandor announced after a while, less angry, perhaps. "It's my leg. It was wounded. I tend to forget it because I don't feel it every day."
"The man who climbed to the Eyrie on the chain and descended from it through the waterfall is no cripple," Sansa protested.
She could not love him when he was like this.
Love him?
"Sandor, do you truly not see? Do you not care about how I feel?"
She offered him her hands and stared him down. Looking at him helped a great deal. It was almost as if she wielded a sword of her own.
When he accepted her hands, he finally had the good sense to pull her closer to him and ask, timid and curious. "What do you want me to see?"
"I…" Sansa stuttered, realising why she kept the blue dress that day… It… it smelled of him, only a little, but it did. "You… you are probably right... I want too much. A life in peace, a place in the world. We should probably leave while we still can. I… I am no great and noble lady from the songs, who is always generous with her attentions and affections and ready to sacrifice herself for the good cause. I… I value my life. I am better in surviving as somebody's hostage than in this…"
"This?"
Sansa was lost in Sandor's arms now. He carried her to her bed with a limp and her heart constricted wildly, wishing he would recover soon.
There was a better, stronger feeling than being loved, one which asked for nothing in return.
If she only wanted to be loved…
She might accept love passively because she had no choice or the feelings of her lover were too strong. Or she might just mildly respond to it as a dutiful wife of some lord she barely knew.
If she only wanted to be loved…
She might be pleased to have her husband's affection yet think nothing of it herself. Her life would be calm and pleasant.
But to be loved was not the only thing Sansa wanted to experience.
The best feeling of all was to love a man. To fear for him. To care for him. To dream of his kiss… which… had never happened before he came back for her to the Eyrie, she realised, laughing inwardly at herself.
To invent his first kiss in her dreams out of love… To paint it faithfully to the difficult man she wanted it from, after observing him in the court and in the dark passes of the Red Keep... Sandor's real kisses were cruel like the one from her dreams… And soft and splendid… and so much better than when she only imagined one of them.
To love a man, to wish him well! To realise this would not easily change even if he did not correspond to her and was perhaps not even a good man. She did not begin dreaming of anyone else's kisses when Sandor had left her with nothing but his bloody cloak and when he was far away… She just buried him deep inside, with all her other losses…
To be overjoyed from seeing him again.
"I love you too," she told Sandor, breathless, seeing very clearly to the bottom of her soul. "I have loved you for years."