V – "No, not him."
Eventually, Sandor stood up and went to rinse his bowl in a tub of water. As if it had been a sign, Sansa spoke.
"It is not Tyrion Lannister I am married to."
Sandor grunted. "That's not what I heard. And he is still alive, isn't he? Wormed his way into the favour of the new king."
"Our marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation when he was still in exile in the continent. My…my guardian arranged it."
That stopped him in his tracks, the wet plate dripping water on the floor. Non-consummation? The Imp?
And she told him about her escape - if it could be called an escape when a prisoner changed hands from one jailor to another.
"Baron of Yarmouth, Petyr Baelish, helped me to get away from the capital and took me in. He made me dye my hair and told everyone I was his ward, a daughter of his old friend from the continent who had recently died together with his wife." Her speech was toneless as if she didn't want to speak of it.
"Baelish?! Littlefinger?! You married him? Fuck me sideways, you couldn't…"
It was Sansa's turn to interrupt him. "No, not him. A man of his choosing."
Fucking Littlefinger! Sandor had seen the way he had watched her in the court, eyes narrowing as a cat assessing its prey. He had had a thing for the girl's mother, everyone knew that, and then he had had Sansa in his clutches… Sandor gripped the edge of the roughly hewn kitchen bench so tight to that a splinter pierced his thumb. It was all he could do to keep himself in check and not start shouting and breaking things.
He had known no good would befall on her when he had left her behind.
But Baelish marrying her to another?
"He wanted you fine, but not as his daughter. Surely even you could see that?"
"It was not as if I was in a position to turn down the only offer of help I received," Sansa snapped. "My family dead and our lands confiscated by the Parliament, where was I to go?"
It was too much; Sandor sank on a stool next to the fireplace. For all the years he had spent thinking of her and imagining what he would say if he ever saw her again, he suddenly found himself unable to speak anything at all.
Not that he had ever clarified in his head what it could be – only some half-formed notions of apology for the way he had behaved before, especially that last night when the Parliamentarian troops had attacked the capital, lit the palace on fire and he had broken.
And almost broken her.
VI – "But I thank you."
"If not him, who then?"
Sansa took a deep breath. "You wouldn't have heard of him. Harold Hardyng was his name, and he was relative to the Duke of Norwich and became the Duke when the true heir, my young cousin Robert died. Baron Baelish intended for him to become the Duke of Carlisle as well after our marriage. Because of my claim"
"Was?"
"He is dead. He died not many years after our marriage, but not before leaving me with two sons. Children who mean the world to me."
Sandor would have denied it had anyone challenged him for that, but for a fleeting moment he felt relieved. Then an ugly doubt took the moment away.
"And Baelish?"
She looked at him now, her expression inscrutable.
"He wanted to marry me, but by then I had something worth fighting for. I denied him and defeated him in his own game; I am now the Dowager Duchess of Norwich by my own right. The last I heard he was sailing to the colonies with a price on his head. He can never return home, I made sure if it." She smiled, unexpectedly, but it had an eerie edge that chilled Sandor's spine. "Nobody will make me do anything I don't want to do. Hasn't done for many years now."
Hearing the determination in her voice Sandor didn't doubt it. He had always through there had been more strength in that slip of a girl than anyone had given her credit – and it seemed he had been right.
He didn't truly care about Littlefinger – but one thing niggled him.
None of your business. Let it go.
Still it didn't go away and finally, he had to ask.
"This man, Hardyng. Did he… did he treat you well?"
Sansa's features relaxed. "He did, in his own kind. He was not a strong man, and not always the wisest – but he loved his sons and he let me be as I wanted. He never hurt me."
What she left unsaid were all the other times the other men had done exactly that – including Sandor.
A log crashed in the fire and Sandor's attention was focussed on lifting it back to the grate. When he turned back towards the room Sansa was at the door.
"I must go, my son must be wondering where I have gone. But I thank you."
A nod of her head and she opened the door and was gone.
Thank you for what? Sandor was mystified, but years of practice in learning to let go of thigs he didn't understand kicked in and he only shrugged his shoulders. She had wanted to tell him her story, for one reason or another, and now she had done it. If it gave her some closure, so be it.
For him, though, that night was as restless as the previous had been, and by the time he sank into a dreamless sleep the dawn was already peeking through the window.
VII – "It was not me."
On the third night, she arrived carrying a basket filled with supplies; fresh white bread, cold chicken, rich cheese, pickles and little lemon cakes. The contents included also a bottle of wine, and although the offer tempted him briefly, Sandor declined. His years of drinking were long past.
As before, they were not in a hurry to talk while they shared the sumptuous fare, and Sandor liked it that way. He still couldn't fathom why she came or why would she seek his company – an old man who was nothing to her; a lowly woodcarver and clockmaker with Leveller leanings and an aristocratic lady who was also one of the great landowners in the country.
"Twice I was told you were dead."
Sandor stared at her. He had been picking the last crumbles of the cake – a rare treat for him – from his plate and licked his lips before answering.
"Me? By whom?"
"The first time I read it in the broadsheet; how a group of highwaymen had been caught and hanged, among them a well-known Royalist called The Hound."
"It was not me," Sandor said, stupidly. "It was a rogue who stole my identity, thinking to gain more notoriety be pretending to be someone else."
"So I thought after I heard about your death the second time." Sansa's voice had started to quiver but she maintained her composure as a great lady would.
"From where?" Sandor wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disturbed by the revelation that he had, in fact, been in her thoughts – at least twice.
"From Arya. My sister."
The little bitch. So she had found her way to her family after all. Without his questionable help.
Sansa got up and started to clean the table, a task which she did remarkably deftly for a highborn lady. Sandor made a gesture to get up but she put her hand up to stay him.
"She told me you two travelled together for a while. That you saved her life."
"So she came back? Good on her. As for 'traveling together' – did she tell that I intended to ransom her to your family? Did she tell how she hated my guts and left me dying in a ditch?"
"She told me you tried to take her back to my mother and brother – for which in all fairness you would have earned a handsome reward, had that come true. And at that time… she hated everyone. She thought she had lost everything and everyone, and you represented those who did that to her. Can you blame her? But she is not like that anymore, and she doesn't hate you. She knows you had been ill-treated as well."
"Well, that is news I never expected to hear," Sandor muttered.
"She told me that you were dead because she didn't expect you to survive the injuries you got when you ran into your brother's regiment. That there had been nothing more she could have done for you, all alone in the battle zone, you two being sought by the Royalists and Roundheads alike."
"She should have let me out of my misery, that's what she should have done." Yet even saying that Sandor realised he was lying and only repeating angry words that had lost their meaning.
He had survived against all odds and been nursed to health by Doctor Elder. Not only his broken body but also his broken soul. And then he had been taken in by the community of freethinkers and his life had never been the same.
VII – "I like it."
"I was angry at her," Sansa whispered.
"Why?"
"Because she didn't try harder." Sansa stared at her hands, then raised her head. "What happened to you afterwards?"
Sandor's story came out slowly and torturously but he persevered with it; thought he owed her that much in return of her confidences. He told her about his recovery and initial struggle to get out and seek revenge, seek battle and his old way of life. He told her about Doctor Elder and the community and how they had accepted him, warts and all, and allowed him to come to terms with his life at his own pace. He told her about the teachings of John Lilburne and others about a better world, and how he had drunk their words - as utopian as they were.
"So you too know what it is like to rely on unlikely people for help when there is nothing else out there for you," Sansa said softly. There was no challenge in her tone and Sandor decided not to take the words as such.
"What about the clocks?" She swept her hand to encompass the many finished and unfinished designs on the workbenches and side tables.
"Ah, those. When it was clear that my leg would never be good enough for farming, I still had to find a way to be useful around here. For a while I dug graves, but then I moved to do repair jobs around the place; mostly woodwork but gradually more and more mechanical repairs."
While he talked Sansa had gotten up and moved around the haphazard collection, touching them.
"Then one day the grand clock of the Main House stopped working. It was a newfangled thing, given to us by an enlightened nobleman and freethinker who bequeathed his estate to the cause. Doctor Elder asked me to have a look at it and I did." Sandor followed her as she moved around his creations. Usually he was uncomfortable about showing his unfinished work to outsiders, but this time he didn't mind.
"It seems I have a penchant for widgets and so I started to do that work more and more; not only within the community but for the folk in nearby villages and towns too. Now I take my clocks to the markets in my cart and sell them to make money that goes towards the upkeep of the community."
"So all the time when you were brought to believe that your talent was in soldiering and killing, you were meant to be fixing things, building things? I like it." Sansa ran her fingers down the new clock-case Sandor was just starting; pure clean wood, its form only faintly starting to take shape.
Then she seemed to take note of the time – all working clocks that were set on a correct time – and sighed.
"I have to go."
He didn't ask why she had come or whether she would be back.