Spies 15

Sansa – night 3

The night was warm as cooling embers.

Sansa dreamed about the nights like this during endless winters and fresh summers in Oregon where she used to live with her family. Once she went with Jeyne for a vacation in Mexico. She liked the country a lot, but the weather was another disappointment; it had been too hot.

The Martell guests poured into the garden after an exhausting day like a school of fish swarming in the same pond. Sansa and Sandor lingered behind them all. He was extremely silent since the exhibition ended. Sansa felt superfluous. It was obvious he didn't want her near. Yet he wouldn't leave her side. Not when he accompanied her back to their room to change, nor now, at yet another society dinner. Sansa wore a pale yellow summer dress which barely covered her knees. The sleeves were tight and short, but the top was closed up to her neck. The soft fabric yielded and widened on her chest in several thin layers, just as she liked it. She didn't want anyone to tell her how her eyes were beautiful while staring at her teats, as it had happened so many times in the past.

Sandor seemed to be chewing on something in his thoughts. His brow was wrinkled, and his scars tense. It must be the challenge, the duel, she thought. When she found his hand, he did not take it back, scampering after her like a sentinel armoured in silence.

Sansa's phone chose that moment to buzz in her purse after three days of total silence. It was her father calling. So mother has told him about my marriage. She answered it, wishing to be done with it quickly. I'll explain them all after only two more days.

"Hi dad," she said.

"Sansa," her father sounded relieved to hear her voice. "Are you okay? Your mother has just received an email from her old friend, Mr Baelish. He claims you were in the news in Italy for being a suspect in a crime. Murder, he said."

"Mr Baelish must have misunderstood things," Sansa said quietly.

"And... Sansa..."

"Yes, dad?"

"Your mother told me..."

"About Sandor, I guess."

"Yes," her father sounded happy that she broached the subject so he didn't have to do it.

"He is brave and strong," Sansa said. "And gentle," she added. "You will like him when you meet him." She wasn't really sure of that last bit but it seemed like a good thing to say to a worried father over the phone.

"I hope so," her father said, suspicious, as he should be, Sansa guessed. I'd be suspicious if my daughter married an older guy all of a sudden. Hers was not the usual situation.

"I'll be back from Italy in three days," she offered. "Then we can talk some more."

"I'm going to Alaska tomorrow," her father said. "Mom will accompany me this time. Call us there or fly over to meet for the weekend."

The Stark family may have lived in Oregon, but the core of their fishing business was in Alaska.

"Okay, dad," Sansa said, "I'll do that."

"Take good care of yourself," father said.

"I will," Sansa promised, and then she hung up the phone. This was easier than I thought.

Sandor was still brooding and she wondered if he had been listening to her conversation with her father at all. Better not, she concluded. I had to say something nice about him. He knows it's not what I really think. She imagined presenting him to her father as... what? Her boyfriend?

The dark of the night was deep as grief.

Prince Oberyn and his wife, Lady Nymeria accompanied by male twins instead of a single husband and all other Dornish couples gathered together in the far end of the garden, as much away from the palace as possible. It was the first time since the party started that they didn't mingle with the other guests. They all wore yellow and pale orange. Scarlet red, the third Martell colour, was conspicuously absent. They all held lanterns made of bright orange or lemon yellow paper. The shades of the lamps were like soft papery wings, flapping gently on top. It looked as if the colours of light protected the burning of the living fire from the night's warm wind. A wooden plank on the bottom of each lantern embraced a candle in its tiny metal holder, a candle-boat, of sorts.

The garden ended with a large square fountain in front of the high back wall overgrown with climbing yellow and pale orange roses. The sculpture in the back of the fountain leaned on the bushes. It showed Jupiter or Zeus with his thunder, the father of ancient gods. Unlike most of the other statues, it didn't pea or eject water in any way.

"My brother is gone," Prince Oberyn said quietly. "Gone at the change of seasons," Ellaria echoed. "Gone to a better place where he can find water in the desert," Nymeria added. Every Dornish person said something nice about the deceased Prince. They would let their lanterns sail on the dark surface of the fountain when they said their words. Water soon glowered red and orange. The weak moon hid entirely behind the clouds, and the Dornish wept. Women wept freely as did most of the men. Prince Oberyn just stared at the water, eyes dry and dead.

At least he forgot about Sandor, Sansa thought. Why does he hate him so?

At length, Oberyn spoke. "Dear guests," he said, "do take your seats. We are here to celebrate the end of summer. My brother would wish us to continue, and he would bid us drink to his well being in the other world beyond this one."

"To Doran!" he exclaimed. "Whose life I am not likely to forget. And whose death I am not likely to forgive. Not to myself, not to his killer."

Oberyn gently set to sail the largest lantern of them all, a huge orange flower with yellow petals, burning brightly like a small sun on the blackness of the water.

Several guests who already took their seats joined Prince Oberyn in his toast. "To Doran!" champaign glasses clinked as one.

"You won't kill him, will you?" Sansa asked of her husband in the eyes of god, if not in her own eyes, strangely unafraid for his well-being in a coming duel.

"What do you want? That he kills me?" the sarcastic reply came her way. "And here I thought we were starting to get along."

It was not what Sansa wanted to hear, but at least he spoke to her again.

"There has to be another way," she said ignoring the mocking in his tone. "You are... you are..." she couldn't say what he was.

"A cold blooded murderer?" he supplanted, sounding as if he wanted to be helpful.

"No!" Sansa's anger flared because she could only take as much of her partner misunderstanding her on purpose after his sullen, frightening silence. "You are better than that! But if you insist in being just that, please, go ahead! Shoot him now! I'm sure you're carrying a gun or two on your person. That way we'll never be able to stop the destruction of his country!"

Sandor Clegane laughed. "You can be so pretty when you're angry," he said with queer appreciation. Sansa felt more flattered than with any other compliment she had been given before. Rebel words poured out of her before she could think them through. "Only when I'm angry?" she asked and was astonished by the deep tone of her voice. Normally she didn't sound anything like that.

Her partner suddenly showed great interest in Martell lanterns and mourning customs. He stared across the garden to the pool where the Dornish stood, united in their pain, letting the lights float like fairies flying over the water still as oil.

"Oberyn is genuinely sorry about his brother, I'll give him that," Sandor said, "and he doesn't mistreat his wife. So maybe he doesn't deserve to die." Sansa smiled. He won't do it. I knew that he wouldn't, she thought. "But neither do I," Sandor said harshly, "and if it's him or me, I will kill him. Believe that."

"Mr and Mrs Blackfyre," the herald announced at that moment, and not a moment too soon to end the awkward conversation they were having. The entrance from the palace to the garden was very close to Sandor and Sansa so they had to shut up. An extremely elderly couple scampered in. Both looked as if they were about to collapse and die, albeit from different causes. Mr Blackfyre was bald, plump and so fat he could barely move. He looked as if his heart was about to fail him at any moment. His cheeks and chin were thick layers of sagging skin, and he wore a tailor made lavender coloured suit. A womanly colour, Sansa realized. A vague of sweet perfume came to her from his direction, soft and sickening. It only had a touch of of sharpness to it, in order to qualify as a male, and not a female scent in a shope, Sansa guessed. Mrs Blackfyre was short, stooped and spotted on her face and hands. A black hat covered her elderly head and a black woollen dress her body. The night was so warm that Sansa could stand there naked, but the elderly lady shivered from cold and old age. She looked over one hundread years old and at least three times as old as her husband.

To Sansa's surprise, Mr Baelish was the first one to enthusiastically greet the strange couple.

"Well met," he said, "Mrs Blackfyre, Mr Blackfyre. May I join you for dinner? Our host is taken by grief, it may be some time before he resumes his role and greets you properly."

"Gladly, my friend," the fat man said and Sansa gaped in astonishment, recognising the familiar laziness in Mr Blackfyre's voice. It sounded different, yet somehow the same. He attacked me! He was with Brune! But he didn't smell so sweet back then... Mr Blackfyre noticed Sansa looking at him as if he possessed a seventh sense to hear her thoughts. "I do not believe we have met, Miss..." he said.

"N..n...no," Sansa stammered.

"This is our lovely Sansa Stark," Mr Baelish helped her with introduction. "My pardons, Sansa Clegane."

"And Mr Clegane, I see," Mrs Blackfyre said in a broken, centuries old voice. On a positive side, she sounded kind, and sincere, unlike her husband. "You no longer work for Mr Lannister, do you, young man?"

"I worked for him only very briefly as a twelve years old boy," Sandor informed with uncharacteristic politeness. He was almost docile, which in itself shocked Sansa.

"My memory is the only thing that still serves me more or less well," the elderly lady said with certain pride. "Mr Baelish," she pleaded, "please show me to our table, my poor old legs are about to betray me..."

"As you wish," Baelish said as if it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he didn't dare refuse her.

As soon as they were half the garden away, Mr Blackfyre changed his face expression. It almost looked sharp.

"You," Sandor told him then, with blatant disbelief and anger. Sansa couldn't understand if he was angry because of her, Mr Blackfyre or himself.

"Me," Mr Blackfyre agreed. His voice was harsh as Sansa remembered it, when he discussed with Mr Baelish the doom of Dorne.

"Why?" Sandor said.

"You tell me," Mr Blackfyre was not one for explanations. And he had difficulty moving his left shoulder, it was plain to see. "I should join my wife. Enjoy your dinner, Mrs Clegane, Mr Clegane."

It was good that he left because the sweetness of his perfume was going to make Sansa faint. She faced her partner and banged him with both hands on his chest. He was in league with the people who were after her, just like Petyr, who claimed to be her mother's friend. Sansa had no friends in the world outside her family. Only people who wanted something from her.

Sandor caught both her hands above his heart and stopped them from moving.

"Do you believe me after last night?" he asked. "At least a little bit?"

"No," she shook her head.

"It's not what you think," he said.

"Then what is it?" she was on a verge of shouting and scaring other guests.

Sandor caught her head with both his hands and pulled her forward. She thought he was going to kiss her again, but he only buried his face in her hair and whispered to one of her ears. "It's Varys," he said. "Don't look at him now!" his whisper was almost a cry as he kept her head in place to stop her from moving. "I shot him in the shoulder, just like Brune, I didn't recognise him on time," the words came mingled with kisses on her earlobe and on her neck.

"But you could have..."

"Killed him?" the whisper was a rasp. "Yes. I guess that's why he trained me not to kill when it was not necessary. And he especially warned me not to kill too many people abroad. He must have known he'd come under cover as well..."

"Does it mean we failed?" Sansa asked cautiously. "We didn't find on time what we were looking for, did we?"

"No," Sandor said darkly, "it just means that the shit is deeper than we thought."

No more business of any kind was discussed during dinner. They shared a table with Mr and Mrs Blakcfyre, Mr Baelish and his wife, and the little Lady Ermesande and her husband. Petyr's wife turned out to be a mad lady in her late thirties slobbering over him. Her name was Lysa, like her mother's sister who had run away from her good old husband with some pop singer. Mr Baelish tried to send her back to their room to rest on several occasions, but she always refused and continued to smile at him and at Mr Blackfyre. She pointedly ignored Sandor. When Sandor went to the men's room, she said to Sansa, with compassion. "How could you marry that beast?" she asked. "Is he that ugly in bed as well?" she giggled. "My sweet Petyr is so much more handsome... And skilled." She winked at her thin husband who looked sickened by her attentions. And who was not as handsome as Lysa claimed.

I don't know what Sandor is like in bed. Sansa reddened. "My husband is a good man," she offered, wishing to be one hundred percent certain. The fact was, she was not. She still didn't believe that Mr Blackfyre was Varys. The Varys she knew was a strong man with brown hair wearing a smart grey suit; they had met briefly before Sansa boarded a plane for Venice. Then again, the spider has many disguises, Jon had warned her. Maybe he was right.

There was one way to check. "Mrs Blackfyre," Sansa started, "I wonder, what did my husband do when you met him? We are just married, and he's reluctant to talk about his past."

"He would be, wouldn't he?" Mrs Blackfyre's voice
sounded like death throes. "Poor lad. He was very young then. His brother was a head of security in Mr Lannister's company and young Sandor was occasionally helping, two hours per week or so, after school. Until that terrible tragedy with his brother, of course."

Sandor was seething, seated on the other side of the table from Sansa, between Varys (if that was him) and Ermesande and her doll. The hosts graciously separated the couples along the tables for the dinner, as if they had hoped the arrangement was going to make all their guests unhappy for the duration of the evening, and cause them to be in a proper mood for mourning. The approach worked miracles with Sandor, it seemed.

"Of course," Sansa said. As his wife, she was supposed to know all about the tragedy. It would be imprudent to ask further questions. Mr Blackfyre decided to help her then, as if he sought to confirm his identity.

"Oh my, what a tragedy it was," he drooled. "Mr Clegane is now with us, so he must have paid his debt to the society. Do you still remember, dear wife," he addressed the wizened woman about to die on a chair next to Sansa, "he refused to speak in court. Silence was his defence."

Sansa could understand that. They didn't believe him when his brother burned him. Why would he expect them to believe him later on?

The old woman nodded, and Mr Blackfyre dropped the subject until Mrs Baelish started kissing Mr Baelish squarely on his mouth. She had to stretch all over the table to do that. Her too opulent breasts dipped in uneaten spicy red sauce as she did that, a special treat of Dornistan. Petyr closed both his eyes and his mouth to suffer through the ordeal. He was not paying attention to anything.

At that moment, Mr Blackfyre shot a look of expectation at Sansa.

"My husband doesn't speak much," Sansa commented. "That much is true."

"Well, sometimes he should, my dear," Varys said, imperceptibly changing his voice to match the voice of the Varys Sansa had met, although with a different face. "Sometimes he really should."

The night was beautiful as sin.

The meal was ending, and only half-empty wine glasses were left on the table. Lady Ermesande puked on Mr Baelish. Apparently the red sauce did not sit well with children. Mrs Blackfyre offered him a black handkerchief to clean himself. Sansa wondered if it was made of wool. Tyrek, Ermesande's husband, was nowhere to be seen.

The lanterns still sailed for dead Prince Doran. It was very late. The guests scattered in the garden like lantern bugs, some standing, some still seated. The Martells and their people withdrew for the night. Sansa walked toward the lights, wishing to be alone. But her shadow was always with her.

"No good night kisses for me tonight?" Sandor asked, ironic again. "I could die tomorrow, you know."

"And if I kiss you, you won't?" Sansa said, tired, tired, tired.

He was behind her, a warm puff of air over her shoulders, warm arms over her belly. The tiredness vanished. She struggled in his embrace to turn around and face him.

"I still might," he said.

Their room seemed too far away. He held her so tight that she thought she would be warm even if they immersed themselves in the fountain. The idea of night swimming was disquieting and his presence was rapidly becoming more than she could handle. Just like the night before when she had ended up kissing him. We could shower together. The thought was unseemly, but once it was born, it could not be easily set aside. He seemed to read her thoughts like Varys before him. I'm not a spook, she thought. Why am I even trying? I should have stayed back home and taken an office job. His embrace turned stronger if that was possible at all. Lights twinkled on the water, lonely, some dying out.

"You are hurting me," Sansa complained. It was not what she wanted to say.

"Am I?" he asked and she wouldn't give him an answer.

Later she would not remember how they walked to one of the niches in the garden she hadn't seen before. It was not the one with mermaids where Prince Oberyn hanged Sandor. It was a quiet rounded space where a winged curly-haired stone angel spurted water through a long flute he was playing, on top of a high marble pillar in a circular basin surrounded by blue stones. No other guests were in evidence.

"Here?" she said.

"No open closets here," he said. "No people. And no lights."

It was a bit too dark for Sansa's liking. Dark wisps of clouds roamed over the black sky, hiding most of the stars, and the lanterns burning for Prince Doran were half a garden away. It was not a prudent question, but she wanted to know. "Is this how you pick up all your girls? You take them some place dark so that you wouldn't have to see them?"

He gave an incredulous laugh. "Mostly I don't want to see them as much as they don't want to see me. It works both ways. Didn't pick up one for a while. But old habits die hard."

"And me?"

He retreated several steps away from her, skulking in the dark.

"I've seen too much of you already," his voice was different, thick with pain and remorse. "I'm not good for you," he stated, as if in defence.

And I haven't seen anywhere near enough of you, Sansa decided. She made a step closer to him, not saying a word.

There was a bench, wood or stone, Sansa could not tell. He sank on it and pulled her down with him. His lips spread in a most likely ugly thin smile, right next to hers. She couldn't see them very well, but she was certain that they felt much better than they looked. It was this day, Sansa concluded. One step at the time they came one step too far, and they made one step too much. It was the small accidental touches, the even smaller smiles, his antics with birds and their feathers. It was the awful things he sometimes said. And all the other things forever left unspoken. In his lap she was taller than him and there was no mistake as to what he wanted them to do. It was not like Sansa to have sex with a man who picked her up on some party and she frequently liked kisses and caresses more than the deed itself. But now she was a lantern too, and she was on fire. She wanted no more kisses.

"Please," she said and pressed herself closer. She couldn't say any more.

It didn't take him long.

It came suddenly and it was exactly what she wanted, an immediate possession. Surprising, lethal and mind-stopping. It didn't even matter if he left her in the morning. Or maybe it did, but not right now. It was lasting longer than she expected, or shorter, or it was just right, she didn't know. Before this, Sansa never knew desire as simple as thirst, with no yesterdays, and no tomorrows.

In the middle of it, he stopped, not parting from her.

"What's wrong?" she said from above, staring in his eyes, trying to see his face in the gloom of vague starlight and distant lanterns. She saw ridges and shadows, and grey eyes gleaming like water, vulnerable before they smiled.

"There's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned sex," he said.

The moon had vanished that night, and no one was watching.