Sansa
The beautiful old wooden floor creaked beneath Sansa's feet under the high round table. Sansa wondered how much Prince Doran must have paid to the authorities to allow so many people to walk in the palace without plastic bags over their shoes for the entire evening. The damage was going to be significant and require costly restoration efforts.
Pitying the work of art she dishonoured with her steps helped her forget who she was paired to work with. A little bit, at least.
The white damask tablecloth hanged almost to her feet. A very large bronze coloured chandelier glimmered above the dining room, looking way more ancient than it was. A modern lamp designed to fit in an old building, Sansa noticed, with dozens of small bulbs housed within the shiny metal holders, to appear as if they were shedding candlelight or moonlight, and not merely low wattage energy saving electricity.
The set of plates in front of her and the long line of glasses and cutlery would have shocked her more than Mr Clegane did, if her mother had not taught her the proper order of courses, eating and drinking on gala dinners. You never know when you might need that, mother had said, and Sansa was a good girl who always obeyed her parents. Well, most of the time, she corrected herself, forcing the embarrassing memories of dating Ramsay Bolton away.
When they were left alone, Sandor Clegane never even bothered to deny that he had killed his brother. What kind of man could do that? Sansa wondered. And then there was his voice as well, loud and frightening in his anger. Would he hit me if I upset him? Ramsay had tried but Sansa didn't allow it. But Mr Clegane was a more imposing man, and he could be more difficult to fight off. Still, she could not admit that Jon or Mr Varys would make her work with someone who'd hurt her. So she did her best to cling to that belief and ignore Prince Doran's words.
All seats at their table were taken pretty soon. A short thin gentleman called Petyr Baelish was placed next to her, and an olive skinned lady, Nymeria Sand, next to Mr Clegane. Both of them were unaccompanied. Lady Nymeria wore a long black braid and an odd brown dress with plenty of gilded fastenings on top of it, revealing barbaric splendour. Her gown clinked when she sat down, enhancing her copious body curves, and the grace of her otherwise silent movements. To Sansa's surprise, she was barefoot. The four of them were facing two European looking couples, Mr and Mrs Lolys Stokeworth, and Mr and Mrs Tyrek Lannister. Mrs Stokeworth was a plump elderly lady. She darted glances of adoration at her her dark haired tall husband, clearly some years her junior, who seemed every inch a mobster from the movies Sansa's little brothers liked to watch. On the other hand, little Mrs Ermesande Lannister looked strangely like a child, and Sansa wondered how Mr Lannister could ever have secured a legal permit to get married to her.
"You must be Sansa," Mr Baelish said, startling her in her observations.
"Sansa Stark," she replied, pretending she was just about to read his name tag as he must have read hers... "Pleased to meet you, Mr Baelish."
"Oh, the pleasure is all mine, my dear," he said in a mocking tone, "I used to be a good friend of your mother. Wasn't Catelyn Tully as beautiful as you are when she was of your age?"
"My mother is still beautiful," Sansa said with modesty. "I am not so sure about myself, but I hope to make her proud of me."
"By marrying this brute who has spent some time paying his debt to the society?" Nymeria Sand rudely interrupted, pointing at Mr Clegane who did his best to ignore the conversation. His shoulders were slumped in a gesture of defeat, and he studied all guests present with a sullen glare, nursing a glass of red wine in one giant hand.
"Sansa, maybe we could take a walk later, to get some air," Mr Baelish suggested. "The garden here is particularly beautiful, I heard. And I would love to hear more about how Catelyn is now doing."
"If you would excuse us," Sandor Clegane said stiffly all of a sudden. The word please was apparently not in his dictionary. He stood abruptly on his feet. "My dear," he said, offering Sansa his enormous arm again. At least he didn't jerk her this time. Small mercies, Sansa thought. Sarcasm dripped from every word he used to address her, and she couldn't quite understand what he wanted from her.
Until she heard the orchestra intoning the first notes of a familiar music, a dance. A waltz, she corrected herself. The fast kind they danced in continental Europe. Oh no, she thought.
The antique floor crunched some more under their joint steps as he led her away, and her flats felt inadequate for what was to come. She could dance well enough in a club, but she rarely indulged in more traditional dancing in couples, mostly because she was a bit too tall for that. No such problem now, she thought with the same sarcasm Mr Clegane used when speaking. He was one of the tallest men she'd ever seen, towering over her like a lantern post, or rather a funerary statue carved out of black marble.
"My dear," he repeated, leading her into the dance. "In case you have found some time to read, we're here looking for a contact to figure out what we should do. Can you keep that much information in your pretty head?"
Pretty? He thinks of me as pretty? It was the first word Sansa retained from his awful sentence before she grasped the rest.
"Mr Baelish," she said with cool smartness. "No one here would know my mother except if they were given such information on purpose. The offer to take a walk may be an excuse to discuss other issues."
"Could be an excuse to try other things as well," Mr Clegane said pensively, weighing his words for a change. "I'll wager it's Lady Nym. A daughter of Oberyn Martell would never sit next to a Clegane if she didn't have a very good reason to do it. She's one of Prince Doran's many nieces. She could have chosen any place she wanted."
Sansa found that Mr Clegane's dark voice was less unpleasant when he wasn't outright ridiculing her or yelling.
"One way to check," Sansa said sweetly to the sound of music. To her delight, she was dancing. And this somehow made the rest of the conversation flow easier. She never imagined the evening to go that way.
"Yeah? And that is?" he asked.
"You take a walk with Mr Baelish to get acquainted with a dear friend of my mother's and I ask Lady Nymeria to show me the palace. As a host she should not refuse. It would not be polite."
Mr Clegane gave her a look which said that maybe she was not that hopeless after all. "Deal," he said briefly, and for the first time since they met he didn't sound awful at all. "Let's finish this damn thing and get the job done."
What he meant with the damn thing was the waltz. Looking through her an above her, as if she had not been there, he made her glide faster and faster over the ancient parquet in total silence.
She had been stiff in his arms at first. Then, she listened to the orchestra, and directed her gaze for the first time properly at the ballroom itself. The high ceiling loomed plain white above the large square hall. It descended smoothly to the walls below by means of a few simple geometric profiles, long, thin, lightly protruding ribbons of white and gold, circling all around the dance floor.
The old fashioned mirrors on the walls were like living eyes of some strange beings from the legend, reflecting the dancers and the musicians alike, staring mutely forward between decorative window frames. They were the judging eyes between the thin panels of glass darkened by the night. All lights were electric now, and there were no torches or candles attached next to the white stucco decorations on the walls, but the dancing couples swerved and swirled in the mirrors as elegant as the noble heroes and their ladies from the past long gone. She caught a glimpse of her own twirling shadow, dark blue and auburn against the blackness of the man holding her.
Soon she lost count of the rounds they made. It was not only one waltz, she realized. It was all of them. When the music stopped completely, Sansa was giddy with excitement. She would have gone on and on and on.
But when Mr Clegane followed her back to the table, she couldn't help feeling diminished, and slightly ashamed.
It was as pitiful as it was fitting that she, the college nerd, a single person by her own decision and choosing, should spend the most magical evening of her life in a company of a convicted murderer.
xxx
A/N Thank you so much for the reviews and for the concrit received. More is welcome, by all means.