Sansa

Sansa rushed back to her hotel when the two men left her, overwhelmed by a flood of mixed emotions. It was a quiet modest place on one of the smaller canals of Venice. She was somewhat displeased that Joffrey did not escort her back after his gallant behaviour in the coffee shop. It was to be expected, she reminded herself of her place in the real world.

When her half brother Jon Snow recommended Sansa to Mr Varys for a task of infiltrating high society in one of the European countries, it all sounded so exciting, but the reality of it was so much better than she could ever dream of. When she landed in Venice, it felt like her life had finally begun. The city was more beautiful than the images of it she looked up on the net, and the most handsome guy she has seen in a long time came to fetch her at the airport.

And then there was the other one, the scary dark haired giant with half his face blown away. And that man was only the second in line to the charming youth who was to be her tutor in the noble art of spying! She wondered how dangerous Joffrey could be when he was working in earnest and not merely welcoming new agents out of politeness or... She didn't dare hope he liked her in any way.

Sansa knew she was reasonably pretty for a tall girl, like her mother before her. She'd also known already in her teens that boys would date her only to inherit shares in a large fishing industry her father owned in Alaska. Boys normally didn't like tall girls. She was trying to make herself look shorter when she walked next to Joffrey, so that he wouldn't notice she had a few inches over him, as over most guys. A boy named Ramsay made sure she understood all that in high school. She made sure he had a blue eye to remind him of their short-lived relationship for another week.

Sansa, the girl who believed at 11 that boys would love her, wanted to study art history.

On the contrary, the single girl in her mid-twenties held a PhD in communications. Her field of expertise was the security of communications and fight against cybercrime in all its aspects. She imagined she would be working for an institution, linked to the US national defence, maybe. She never imagined she would be approached by intelligence so shortly after graduating, and she felt painfully inadequate. Yet she would not back from the challenge: this could be what she needed for a successful active career. Otherwise she could just end up teaching at the university as so many of her girl colleagues, waiting to get married and have kids while men got all the interesting jobs of actually combating crime. Once she would have wanted a family, but not any more. She didn't want to pay for having kids with her father's shares, so it was best not to have any children at all. At 18, she nearly opted for a sterilisation procedure, but her sister Arya, who was normally way crazier than Sansa ever was, talked her out of it.

"Never blow your own chances in life," Arya had said, and for once, Sansa had listened.

Laptop wouldn't start as fast as she wanted it, and the file sent by Mr Varys was taking its time to download, in line with all the necessary security protocols. Bored, she logged into her Facebook account, and liked a few entries from her friends and family. Jeyne Poole was about to marry Ramsay. She wished her all the best, tagging Ramsay in her post for the sake of politeness. Margaery had a new boyfriend, but she wouldn't post his picture, yet. It was going to come as a surprise to everyone, Margaery claimed, excited. Sansa's mother was collecting money for education of orphan children.

Boring, boring, boring. Sansa sighed.

She looked at her avatar and wondered why after all that time she wasn't able to have a Facebook page with her own name and image. A tiny red head of a lovebird looked ever so gently at her, almost ready to peep. For the thousandth time she desired to change that, and for the thousandth time she gave up.

She uploaded the picture of Joffrey and Mr Clegane she took with a camera hidden in her purse, pearl white to match the dress she was wearing. Her mother would have been proud of her attire that day, she knew. She supposed their faces were no secret, and no one told her otherwise. Mr Clegane's face would be hard to keep as a secret anyway. She giggled at the ridiculous thought. "My new colleagues," she typed, shyly, and posted the pic.

When she looked at the picture again, Joffrey looked somewhat dull in two dimensions. She liked to take her photos in black and white, a remnant of her love of art at a young age. Mr Clegane, on the other hand, could be a Picasso's drawing in his early phases, maybe even a Matisse with his bold strokes of powerful, simple and angry lines, or all that at once.

She thought better and edited a comment for her friends. "My new colleagues," she repeated. "Which one do you like best?"

When she was done, the email from Mr Varys was ready for viewing.

There was very little information in writing. They were to attend a large party at the palace of Prince Doran Martell in the surroundings of Venice. He held it every year at the beginning of September, to celebrate the end of summer and the change of seasons. They were to look for a person who was to be their contact and give them further instructions.

The bulk of the email were photographs of the palace, in high resolution images, as if knowing the building in detail was of utmost importance to their task.

The party would last for a week, like a wedding feast in some barbaric faraway country Prince Doran originated from. The name ended on -stan like the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, for instance, but it was none of those countries. Sansa was positive she's never heard the name before.

They were to stay there for the entire week, maybe more.

Prince Doran only invited couples, rich couples. Dating without marriage was a crime punishable by a penalty of death in Dornistan, Sansa read the name of the country again. This time, she retained it, wondering where the hell it was, and if they beheaded people who had sex before marriage.

Because of the Dornish customs, she and Sandor Clegane were to pose as newly wed couple.

Sansa swallowed and switched off the screen.

She remembered the ugly, big man and the unhidden contempt in his eyes when he looked at her.

He thinks of me as stupid, like most guys, she sighed. At 25 she found that she lacked strength to constantly go on proving them wrong.

At least he won't hurt me if I'm not his type, she thought with some relief.

Oddly enough, she forgot to regret that she was not going to pose as Joffrey's wife. Instead, she switched her screen back on. Methodically, she proceeded to study the pictures and the plans of Prince Doran's palace. They were there for a reason, and she was about to figure it first.