Chapter 3: Chastised
He was sleeping a dreamless sleep when a pair of hands seized him and dragged him on the wooden floor across his room. Tybolt, the young page who slept beside him, began to scream in fear and protested, but someone commanded him to keep quiet. Sandor thrashed about, but the intruder – it was dark and he couldn't see anything – pinned him to the ground and pummeled his face and his rib cage. He winced in pain and tried to bite whoever was attacking him.
There were two persons now; one lay on top of him, making sure he didn't move, and gagged him while the other one kicked his bare legs. Lying on his belly, he couldn't do anything: when he extended his arm to reach something useful – a stick, a chamber pot, anything he could hit them with – his hand met his attacker's heel and the gag muffled his shouting. Why?
"Let's turn him over, for a change," a hissing voice suggested above him. "Tybolt, give us some light."
"What do you plan to do?" the other one growled in Sandor's ear.
There was an ominous silence and a hundred thoughts crossed his mind, as he wondered who they were and what they wanted from him.
"Take a piss," the first voice replied.
All of a sudden, Sandor realized who they were and why they had something against him. Serrett and Peckledon. They didn't stomach their defeat. Serret blames me for his humiliation. As pressure on his back seemed lighter, he understood this might be his only chance to escape them.
"I drank a lot tonight," Serrett said. "Made sure my bladder was full for the bastard."
The knight-to-be gave a raucous laughter in anticipation and slowly raised, his big hand still on his victim's back. Sandor's elbow reached his jaw and Peckledon fell with all his weight on the floor. When Sandor got on his feet, the page had finally lit the candle and fear made Serrett recoil.
Defeating two older boys one after the other was not enough; they came for him at the same time, at night, taking him unawares. Their cowardice almost elated him. Father would have loved that. Lord Clegane would have been proud, though he was not generous with paternal pride. Buggers! As if it was the first time someone intended to beat me up in the middle of the night...
Tybolt cowered on his pallet, while Sandor threw himself on Serrett and began to hit indifferently his face, his stomach and his chest. However hard Serrett protested, his whining didn't covered his accomplice's groan.
"I won!" Sandor said and his voice, distorted by anger, sounded even more high-pitched. "You hear me? I won," he repeated, careless of the racket they made.
The door suddenly creaked open and Kevan Lannister's massive figure appeared. He only wore a pair of breeches.
"What's going on, here?" he shouted.
"My teeth, Ser, the Clegane boy broke my teeth!" Peckledon complained, crawling to the door.
"Help me!" Serrett begged. "He assaulted us."
No matter how absurd it seemed, Serrett repeated Sandor had attacked them in his own room. How they came in and why he would beat bloody two older boys didn't seem to disturb the squire.
"He lies!" Sandor replied, "They sought revenge after I defeated them. I was asleep when they came and started beating me."
He hit the high note, once more, his girlish voice exuding fury.
"Very well. Tell me then why I found you thumping Serrett when I came in? Tell me who broke Peckledon's teeth – and probably his nose?"
Folding his arms over his little paunch, Kevan ignored Sandor's bruises, and slowly turned to Tybolt.
"What did you see, boy?"
Frightened, the boy cringed. Without any other warning than slow footsteps in the corridor, Tywin arrived; Sandor noticed he was fully dressed, whether he didn't left his room before putting his clothes on or didn't go to bed yet.
"I found Clegane's son beating up the two squires, but he persists in saying they started the fight," Kevan told his elder brother, stepping aside so that Tywin could look at the messy room and assess the damage. "I always told you too many pages and squires in Casterly Rock was a problem-"
"Not now, Kevan. Why would Clegane beat them in his room, in the first place?"
Father always praised Tywin's intelligence. He understand what happened. He won't punish me.
"My page saw everything," Kevan said. "What did you see, Tybolt?"
Tybolt shook his head and gave them a poor excuse.
"I don't know... I didn't see anything. I was asleep," he whimpered.
"Children quarreling," Kevan summed up. "I'll tell Symon to flog Serrett and Peckledon until they bleed. Thirty whip lashes for Clegane."
"No," Tywin said coldly.
He believes me. Sandor suddenly felt relieved.
"Serrett and Peckledon did attack him. Have them whipped, if you feel like it. Lock Clegane in the dungeon. That's for ruining a future knight's face. Water and bread, five days. That's for disturbing me when I work late. Send him to the maester first; he'll have a look at his black eye."
Back in the maester's tower, he felt ill-at-ease. Casterly Rock's maester, a frail creature with a grey beard, deaf in one ear and smelling of thyme and herbs, had been waken up in the middle of the night. The old man rubbed his eyes and yawned once in a while: a mute reproach to the young trouble maker Kevan Lannister had commanded him to examine.
Shambling on the creaky wooden floor, the old man lit all the candles and gestured to the pallet. Sandor sat there bare-chested and let the maester scrutinize the bruises on his arms, legs and rib cage.
"Contusions," the maester said with a quavering voice. "Nothing serious. Lie down."
The old man stared at his face for a minute and Sandor understood he didn't care for his black eye. He clenched his jaw, waited and prayed the Seven, if they ever existed, to help him. The old man brushed his dark hair aside, to gaze at his scars and the scent of thyme became stronger. Though he avoided mirrors, Sandor had quite a good idea of what his burnt side look like: when healing, the skin had turned into something thick and red. There were craters oozing pus and, by places, his scars cracked. More than five years after he got burnt, there had been no improvement and he looked like a monster. A cursed boy, some peasants near Clegane's Keep said. He didn't need a bonehead maester to remind him his disfigurement.
"What happened?" the old man asked. His bluntness made Sandor jump. People were usually so frightened or disgusted by his face they never asked for details. Father already gave them details. How his bedding had caught fire and wounded his youngest son. Convenient details everyone preferred to the truth, he thought bitterly. The bleary-eyed maester nodded to encourage him.
"My pallet caught fire. Thought I had blown the candle out," Sandor replied.
The old man neither commented his answer nor took care of his black eye; he stayed there, leaning over him in the flickering light a dozen candles provided and had a careful look at his face. At first, Sandor felt angry and clenched his fists, repressing the urge to beat him. The maester blinked from time to time, trying to adjust his old eyes to the dim light; under his insistent gaze, he was vulnerable. He yielded to this feeling of weakness and closed his eyes tightly. As the maester's look lingered on him, he realized the man could read his scars and knew for sure what had happened the day he had played with Gregor's discarded toy. Perhaps someone had whispered to the maester the rumors leaking out of Clegane's Keep, perhaps he was more sagacious than the other ones: he knew the truth all the same.
Sandor hated him for gazing at his scars and seeing right through him. When the old man applied balm on his black eye, his muscles tensed up in the tremendous effort he made to conceal his feelings. I want to be as still as a stone; no grimace, no smile, nothing he could use against me.
In the end, the smell of thyme faded and he became aware the maester was done with him; he opened his eyes and saw the man bending over a table to reach a cloth and clean his hands. Sandor didn't wait for his command to get on his feet, he grabbed his clothes and he walked to the door, deliberately forgetting to give his thanks.
Five days, Tywin had said. Five days seemed like five years to him. As long as he remembered, Sandor loved to live in the open air. He was certainly not cramped for room in the large twenty feet high cell Kevan Lannister locked him in, but he missed daylight and the caress of a gentle breeze on his face. He heard men shouting and the shrieking voices of pages in the yard, carts lugged around and swords clanging together: that was how he knew it was daytime. At dusk, the only noise came from the birds of prey chasing nearby: he remembered his father's lessons and recognized ospreys and falcons thanks to their cry. Later on, lying on the straw, he listened to the owls screeching.
He couldn't even complain: the dungeon didn't stink nor was filthy and he had a bucket as a replacement for a chamber pot. On the second day, a young crippled servant offered him a basin of water, so that he could wash his face and hands. There wasn't even mice in his cell to keep him company: Tywin would not tolerate rodents in the castle. All the rooms he had visited so far were as clean and tidy as possible, revealing the Lord of Casterly Rock's high sense of order. Nothing to do with the pigsty Gregor had once shut him in for two days, taking advantage of their father's absence.
Bread and water. He was not new to lack of food but he had plenty of time to think about his hunger and to listen to his stomach gurgling. He salivated every time the crippled servant entered, bearing a torch and a plate; the contents of his dish hardly changed. It was either brown or black bread, nothing nourishing enough for a boy of two-and-ten.
Sitting on the rather fresh straw, he wrapped his arms around on his knees and waited. Serrett and Peckledon would not attack him again. Once bitten, twice shy; and on top of that, they are both cowards. However, something puzzled him, more than the other squires' mute hostility or Kevan's distrust: why in Seven Hells Tywin had punished him if he knew he didn't start the fight? 'That's for ruining a future knight's face, that's for disturbing me when I work late': dubious explanations, really. There had to be another reason, but the meaning of all this eluded him.
On the late afternoon of the third day – the master-at-arms' booming voice was gone and the squires didn't shriek anymore – a key rattling in the keyhole startled him. It wasn't the crippled boy's hour: he had already come earlier with stale bread and a jug of water. Sandor jumped on his feet and leaned against the bars of his cell; at first, he only saw a tall figure half-lit by a torch, standing straight in the corridor leading to the dungeon. Him? Why would he come here? The stately demeanor and the slow footsteps confirmed his visitor was the Lord of Casterly Rock himself. He stopped in front of the steel bars, holding his torch so that he could look at Sandor, and for a heartbeat, there was a half-smile on his noble face.