Sandor
The seat of the creepy bastard who invited Sansa for a walk was conveniently empty, but a mint perfumed note lay on the girl's napkin. She had set it aside primly when they went dancing, to use it for the next course. His own napkin lay unusable in a wine soaked puddle on the floor.
He should stop thinking of dancing if he was to work tonight.
"What does it say?" he asked her under the voice, happy that the rest of the people at their table were busy exchanging words about the levels of humidity in Venice. Even Lady Nym seemed absorbed by the passionate subject.
The Hall of Swans, it said. They read it together, and shared a look that could be called of complicity if she didn't immediately lower her trusting eyes, to look at his crumpled napkin with infinite sadness.
"What's wrong?" he barked, stirring little Ermesande Lannister who was playing with a wooden doll as the adults talked. Sansa straightened her head and chin, but he could say she was still not at ease in his presence, at best. "Me, I guess," he said. "Sorry for the asking," he mumbled. He stood up, needing fresh air.
"Where are you going?" she talked through him, not at him, a well mannered fiancee chitchatting with her man.
"To the Hall of Swans," he said.
The said Hall was not hard to find. A narrow corridor separated it from the dining room. The title was hung on a small wooden board in front of the door, so that the tourists would know what they were visiting, on more normal days when the palace was not rented, but served as what it was, a museum.
Unlike the rooms housing the dinner, the Hall of Swans was dark, and when Sandor tried to press the light switch, it didn't work. He went from the door toward the window, avoiding the old fragile furniture, but there was no one there. The moon was out over the garden below, and he could see better. The floor was some sort of marble, not wood, and swans were depicted on the ceiling.
Then, he sniffed. The air smelled like the dirty old man who claimed to be a friend of Sansa's mother, and like something, or someone else entirely.
"Mr Baelish," he called out in a tone as neutral as he could muster. An object was about to fly past him, and he ducked faster than he thought possible, instincts taking over. A blade hit the flower patterned wallpaper in front of him, with tiny roses barely discernible in the almost absence of light. The knife would have been buried somewhere in his body if he reacted any slower. Several dark hairs from his scalp hung loosely from is hilt. Razor sharp, he concluded.
"You are the Hound," a sensual voice said, incredulously. Golden details clinked as Nymeria Sand walked out of the shadows into the weak pool of moonlight streaming in from the window.
"And?" he asked back.
"I know very well where the heart is," she commented, "so the reason you bent on time must be the infamous inhuman smell and hearing abilities of the illusive secret agent called the Hound..."
"So?" he wouldn't give in or admit she was right. Secret agent Hound was a legend among world intelligence professionals. Only three people in total knew his identity to be Sandor Clegane: Varys who created him, in a way, the Hound's little sister and Sandor Clegane himself.
"And here I thought that the infamous Hound was straight, not seeking male company in obscure chambers," she mocked him.
"I have no idea who the Hound is," he lied. "I was looking for my fiancée," he said flatly, summing two and two in his head. If Lady Nym was here, Baelish was with Sansa. His guts told him it was not a good thing. "Mr Baelish summoned her here." He showed her the note.
"She'll be fine," the dark haired beauty picked up her knife, and slid it in a sheath under her skirts. "For a little while, at least."
"Tell me," she continued, "what is the truth?"
"About what?" he asked, sullen, refusing to share details about his past no matter who did the asking. The Martells wouldn't buy it anyway. Not even Varys did when he sacked him out of the juvenile prison when he was barely 16, on the condition he work for the service for the rest of his natural life. And that was half of his lifetime ago. They made him sign a contract that he'd never marry or start a family. A medieval thing, really. Then again, it mattered little in his case, he supposed. He was just fine on his own.
"We asked Varys to send us his best man. You can imagine we were a bit surprised to see you."
"Whatever I could tell you, you'd not believe me," he said, blatant honesty flaring in his dark gaze.
"That much is true," Nymeria confessed.
Silence danced with moonlight in the Hall of Swans.
"Why not ask her?" Sandor Clegane suggested, almost shy.
"Elia?" Lady Nym asked, distractedly pulling her shining black braid. "She's been seeing a European shrink. She's unable to talk about what happened 16 years ago. She's blocking it on an unconscious level, the shrink says."
"Who's the shrink?" he asked.
"Pucey, no, Dr Pycelle, I think."
"Ah," the Hound said and kept his mouth shut. There was no way Elia was ever going to remember anything with Pycelle as her doctor. And it was perhaps for the best if she did not. She could live just fine not knowing. "He has good credentials," he added, hoping Nymeria would now finally spill out whatever she wanted to tell him, so that he could go and find Sansa.
"Mr Clegane," Nymeria said, and her voice sounded tired beyond measure. "Dornistan is a peaceful country no matter what your government believes. It would sadden us greatly if we would become responsible for atrocities that do not correspond to this philosophy. Mother Rhoyne would curse us, and the little water we still have would be lost forever, the sacred books say."
"What am I looking for?" he put it bluntly, to cut the religious crap she'd been giving him.
"A seed... a fruit..." she stuttered. "An egg, why not?"
There was another round of silence. The moon waned in the garden, as if it was tired of riddles too.
"If that would be all?" Sandor Clegane still lingered for a moment, to give Nymeria an occasion to speak further, while all he could feel was a terrible mental itch, a desire to storm away and search for his pretty dancing partner. Stupid or not. He owed the girl that much. Many people died on their first task. He didn't know when he decided that Sansa was not going to be a part of those statistics.
"For now," she said, and he bolted out of the Hall of Swans, pondering the nonsense about fruit and eggs to calm himself. Rage would not help, he knew.
In the ballroom, the couples still danced. The little girl, Ermesande, was alone at their table, playing with Lego blocks, and the other guests have left it. The Hound took a sip of wine and carefully wiped his mouth with Sansa's napkin, to remind himself.
Of the scent he felt when she kissed his cheek.
He proceeded to walk around the palace in long strides, from the dining room to the ballroom and to the entrance hall. There, he felt it. A trail of fragrance, leaving.
"Which parking lot are we using?" he barked at the kind man who still guarded the entry and didn't deserve his impatience.
"Further in front and to your left," he was told, and then, he was running, unable to hide any longer the terrible nervousness he had felt ever since he realized Sansa was gone.
He found their car first. Joffrey was asleep in it, his golden curls sprawled all over the steering wheel. The Hound opened a door, and shook him. "Hey," he said, "James!" he mocked him. "Pull toward the exit. I'll meet you there in a second"
The scent was still there, diluted among fuel and exhaust vapours under the low flat ceiling. The garage was all on one level, small and crowded, with more cars than proper parking places, thanks to the damn gala. All cars had Italian license plates so he had nothing to go by other than his nose. He reconstructed Baelish in his head. Ugly. Grey-green eyes. Expensive clothes. Slightly showing off he'd been wearing designer stuff. Something Tyrek Lannister and Mrs Stokeworth never did. A person who was not born with money, then, he thought. He narrowed his search to the most expensive cars and widened his nostrils further. The car he looked for was right in front of his nose, it turned. It was an inconspicuous metallic grey BMW. A closer look revealed a unique driving console, and a set of special features. Every one of them would significantly increase the basic price of the vehicle.
A couple walked after him, hand in hand. He whistled, playing stupid, feeling his pockets for a key he didn't have. The scent he followed intensified when he approached the back side of the car. He seized the pocket knife which served more frequently as a bottle opener, glad he always had that in his pocket. In two clicks, the trunk was open.
The bag inside kicked and moved. He hauled it over his shoulder and hurried to the exit, not bothering to close the car. Baelish could do it himself for all he cared.
Another couple passing by gave him a queer look, but he just glared at them as frightening as he could. They decided to look away.
Like everyone looked away when it was Elia's turn, he remembered, bitterly, grateful for the cowardly reaction of the passers-bye all the same.
He shoved the bag on the back seat of their car and commanded Joffrey: "Drive, James! Our hotel, not hers."
For once, the boy listened. Maybe Stannis was right. Maybe serving others could yet make a man out of him.
When they were at least a mile away from the palace, he dared open a bag, which had been twitching and trying to hit him all the time. If he were Baelish, he would have them followed with discretion.
She was gagged and tied and her hair was tousled from the struggle like a mane of a fabulous beast. The dark blue softness of her gown was slightly torn open on the back. Luckily, her breasts were still covered. She was too close for his liking and Sandor Clegane swallowed. He untied her hands and pulled out the cloth which was strapped over her mouth. It stank of some medicine that should normally put a man to sleep. Or a woman. Or would have if she didn't keep her lips stubbornly glued together under it by a sheer force of her will, he supposed. Sansa's response to being freed was instantaneous.
First she slapped him, and then she spat in his face. Joffrey startled and nearly drove the car to a lamp post.
"And there I thought you were the kind of girl saying please and thank you all the time," he said, cynically, wiping his face, inhaling the unique smell of that product of her body as well, against his better judgement. He was mightily pissed and pleased about her reaction at the same time.
If truth be told, the girl was not as hopeless as he thought.
xx
A/N Thank you again to all who reviewed. A fic without reviews is a fic without readers. And a fic without readers is a sad thing.