Despite sitting up most of the last several nights next to Sansa as she slept fitfully or gazed sadly into emptiness in the dim of their silent chamber, Sandor went to the yard in the morning to train the garrison: it was his responsibility as their commander and as Lord Clegane. He chose to oversee their battles rather than spar himself. He knew that his fatigue would prevent him from fighting at his most skillful; or possibly his rage at his own frustration would make him kill someone. It would not do for the commander of the garrison to set either a sloppy or murderous example for the soldiers. Afterward he broke fast in the hall as he always did with his men but he largely ignored their talk and jests, as he had these last days. He ate methodically without tasting anything and then rose and left. The soldiers bowed their heads and murmured m'lord as he passed but he ignored them too.
As he reached the top of the stairs leading to his chamber, he saw young Robb sitting on the last step with his hands gripped together in his lap. Sandor stopped and stood over him.
"What are you doing there, little man? You should be readying for your training in the yard."
His son looked up at him with big Tully blue eyes: Sansa's eyes. The boy had her colouring more than any of their other children and was said to resemble his namesake, the King in the North. He was a favourite among the people of Winterfell and the winter town because of his happy nature; but today he did not look happy. Instead of his usual toothy smile, his mouth worked to keep from pursing up and his brow furrowed together to ward off a look of fear and possible tears.
"Papa…is Mama going to die?" he asked in a hushed voice.
Sandor was taken aback. "No, Robb. No." he rasped emphatically, too stunned by his son's question to be gruff with him. "I told you your mother will be well; she just needs time. Why would you think- I'll never lie to you, boy, so don't fear now."
He rubbed his eye with his small fist and swallowed hard. "But Mama almost died once before….when I was born," he ventured sadly.
Sandor's own heavy brow furrowed in anger now. Bloody servants. "Who told you that?" he demanded sharply. "Why I'll-" He stopped when he saw his son's eyes fill with tears. He sighed and bent and lowered himself to sit behind him on the stone step. His long legs in their tall boots stretched out before him.
"Look at me, Robb," he rasped gentlynow, "I said I'll never lie to you and I won't…but that don't mean I tell you everything either, especially things you aren't old enough to understand. But you know now so I'll try to explain: yes, your mother had a hard time bringing you into the world but it weren't your fault, do you hear me? She would be the first to say so; fact is she did say that, to me, to everyone." He put his great big hand on his son's shoulder now. "Do you remember how she rubbed her big belly and sang to it these past moons? She did the same when she carried you. Your mother wanted you, wanted to bring you into the world as her own babe. She loves you fierce, boy…and so do I; so you never let anyone say you hurt your mother because she'd die for you, for all of you. Never forget that."
Robb frowned again despite his father's words. "But she wanted the baby that died too," he concluded unhappily.
Sandor squeezed his shoulder. "Aye, son: she did."
Robb nodded and tears coursed down his cheeks. "She must be very sad. I wish I could help her."
Sandor remembered Sansa's sad resignation that their pup had been buried in the crypt while she slept. He would have preferred tears or even recriminations: anything but her dull acceptance and distant expressions and bearing. He pulled his son close to him now. "So do I," he choked out. "We just needs let her rest and get stronger, and try to comfort her when she's ready. Be a good lad for her then, will you?"
"I will, Papa," he sniffled.
"Dry your eyes; go find your friend Willam and join the other boys for training now," Sandor prompted him gently.
Robb wiped his eyes on his sleeve and nodded obediently. "Yes, Papa. Thank you, Papa."
Sandor let his son go so as to push himself up from the stone step, but then he impulsively bent over to kiss his son's auburn head.
"I'd kill and die for you too, boy," he rasped.
Robb turned moist Tully-blue eyes up to his fierce father and, for the first time in many days, showed a tentative smile.
….
It wasn't the first time that Sandor had let the Blackfish train the younger boys: the old knight had a way with children and Sandor thought it did them good to have different expectations and experiences from time to time, even letting Jon take over once on a visit to Winterfell. Sandor had trained under different masters-at-arms in his father's keep, then at Casterly Rock and in King's Landing, and though his advantages had always been his size and ferocity, it had never hurt to learn from different men and to fight against new adversaries. He'd never been in a battle where they set out to pair you off with an equal.
He rounded the stairs to the next floor and stopped short when he heard singing.
Sansa.
But he knew just as quickly that it was not her; it was Catya, who sang as well as her mother, but Sansa's voice, her singing voice was still the sweetest sound in the world to him.
Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.
He leaned against the wall and banged his head on the hard stone there. How could he have ever thought to hurt her, to take her by force and end her life? Rage, fear, drink, and the knowledge that he was throwing his own life away had made him deadly dangerous. Her helplessness had made him want to end her life quickly without any more suffering: but it was her fear of him and her refusal to look at him had made him near mad with jealousy and hate for everything he would never have.
And there in the queer green-tinged darkness she had sang to him: Gentle Mother, font of mercy…
She had undone him with a song, a wish for mercy and gentleness and kindness: for everything she was to him now, and to their children.
He remembered what he had told Robb, about how Sansa had rubbed her swollen belly and sang sweetly to it. She had glowed with a deep and boundless happiness, as she had with all their children, and he had taken pleasure in watching her smile to herself and hum contentedly as she sat with her needlework in the solar. He had fretted privately so many times when she was with child, fearing for their safety as the wars still raged in the North and an enemy lurked in Winterfell. Later he had feared for her life after Robb had been born when she carried Brynden and then Benjen after nigh five years without quickening. And then this last child…
The little bird loved her children, just like the Mother herself; and there was no mother so gentle and sweet in the whole world in his eyes. She had confided to him that she wished for another girl, and he had let himself be carried along with her happiness and her plans.
He closed his eyes to think of her pain, of the loss he must feel now not to have that child to sing to, to hold and to love. He heaved a great sigh, and shook his head to clear it. He too, had been quietly happy to think they may have another daughter; and he had been happy to see the little bird happy, just as he was wretched to see her grief and his children's uncertainty. But their mother was grieving, and so it fell to Sandor to be the one to reassure them. He entered the nursery.
Catya was holding her youngest brother Benjen in her lap as she sang. He clung to the sleeve of her gown and leaned into her embrace. Brynden sat on the floor looking up at her. In one hand he held a carved wooden horse and in the other a slice of apple. He dropped both when he saw his father. Benjen also looked up expectantly, and then Sandor saw his eyes were looking past him to the doorway.
They're looking for their mother, he knew.
"Hello, Papa," Catya greeted him with a soft smile.
"Don't stop your singing because of me, girl; go on," he rasped.
"Mama?" Benjen asked simply, still watching the door. Sansa and Sandor often visited the nursery together at midday once Sandor was done in the yard and had broken fast with his men in the hall.
"Your Mama is resting now," he told them.
"Mama sleeps always now," Brynden observed with a sad, serious face.
Sandor set his mouth grimly. He remembered years ago, when Ned had a fever and cough, how Sansa had stayed with him in the nursery despite the presence of his nurse and other servants. She had still been acting warden then, and Sandor worried that she was taking on too much and wearing herself out.
"Seven hells, little bird, haven't you enough to do? Let the nurse look to him; that's her duty."
Sansa had looked down at her sick son before explaining.
"We had nurses and then Septa Mordane when I was a girl; but whenever I was sick or unhappy, I always wanted my mother, Sandor," she told him.
Sandor had lost his mother when very young and had many times as a boy wondered if his life would have been different if she had lived, if Gregor would have been protected by their father when he'd burned Sandor. He had said no more then and let Sansa tend their son without further reproach. When he had found time, he had sat with her in the nursery, and it had become their habit.
He sat on the bench now with his daughter and patted the place next to him. "Come here," he told Brynden.
The boy stood from the floor and came to Sandor who picked him up and sat him down next to him.
"Yes, your mother sleeps a lot because she is hurt; but she will be better. I'll sit with you now; and if you need me then you ask the nurse to send for me, do you hear?"
Brynden looked at him with dark blue eyes and nodded solemnly.
"Good," Sandor nodded back.
The nurse returned now with maids carrying linens and dishes with food on trays.
"Time for your midday meal," Sandor noted. "I'll stay and eat with you. Catya, have them send up a meal for me, and will you sit with your mother now? I'll stay here until your brothers are fed and put down for naps."
Catya stood obediently. "Yes, Papa, I'll go to Mama now, and I'll have our meals brought as well."
Sandor reached for her hand as she turned to leave and held it a moment.
"You're a good girl, Puppy Dog," he rasped gently and quietly.
Catya squeezed his hand in return and bend down to kiss his scarred cheek. "I love you, Papa Dog," she whispered into his burned stub of ear.
Sandor watched her as she walked out of the nursery in measured steps and with her hands clasped before her: the same gentle gestures as her mother. A ghost of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
All the daughter I could ever want, he thought proudly.
….
Sansa stirred faintly in her sleep, unknowingly tilting her head to listen for the sounds of crying. Then she opened her eyes with sad resignation. There would not be any crying, not from her babe anyway.
"Mama?" her daughter called from near the window. The light outside was fading fast and there was a tinge of pink lingering in the sky from the sunset over the castle walls.
Sansa turned her head to see Catya sitting in that fading light; she held her needlework in her lap but was not sewing. She rose now to walk to the bed.
Sansa winced as she sat up and her daughter hurried to her.
"Are you unwell, Mama? Shall I fetch the maester?"
"No," Sansa replied. Osha had helped to bind her breasts to stop her milk but the bandages were tight and her breasts were still heavy. "Thank you, Catya. I will be fine." She forced herself to sit up now and reached for the embroidered woolen bed-jacket her daughter brought her. When she held out her arms she was once again overwhelmed by loss: her arms felt so terribly empty. She set her mouth grimly. I'm a wolf. But Sansa did not feel like a wolf; she felt defeated and sad. She looked forlornly around the chamber.
"What are you making?" she asked Catya to distract herself. Sansa had slept in the same chamber since returning to Winterfell, even before she had married Sandor. There was not a corner or a mark on the wood floor or a scar on the ceiling with which she was not familiar. Her daughter's work was the only thing of note in the room…besides the missing cradle that had been removed days ago while she slept. That had caused her near as much anguish as when they had taken her lifeless babe from her arms.
Her daughter's eyes dropped at Sansa's question and she saw the girl hesitate.
"It- it's for Papa," she finally replied, averting her eyes.
Sansa knew that Sandor and Catya were close but her daughter did not usually keep secrets from her.
"Will you not show me, Catya?" she asked quietly.
"I…it's…Papa…Mama, I wanted to make him something to remember…to remember baby Jonquil," she wrung her hands in anxiousness, fearful that she would upset her mother.
"Oh. May I see it?" Sansa asked dully.
Catya hesitated only briefly before picking it up and handing her needlework to her mother.
"The border is unfinished," she told Sansa awkwardly.
Sansa held it up to see and caught her breath sharply. The square of fine linen had been embroidered with a black dog from Sandor's House Clegane sigil and well as the grey wolf of Sansa's House Stark. There were five pups trailing: a black dog with a grey wolf's tail; the next four were grey wolves with black paws and dogs' tails. The last two were small as pups. All four of Sansa's sons had her Tully colouring, with auburn hair and blue eyes.
"Dog-and-wolf pups," Sansa murmured the term Sandor often used to describe their children.
But the last was not a pup. The last was a small yellow jonquil, firmly planted in the ground by a green stem: never to run and play with the others, or follow the dog and direwolf.
Sansa ran her fingertip gently over the finely stitched flower as her eyes blurred from tears.
"It's beautiful, my Catya," she barely whispered.
"You taught me well, Mama," her daughter answered, sniffling. "I love to ride with Papa, and learn to hunt with a bow," she dropped her eyes demurely, "but I have always wanted to be a lady too, just like you are, Mama. Papa says you are the gentlest lady in all the world."
Sansa smiled faintly through her tears. "Did he truly tell you that?"
"He did: the gentlest and the strongest, he said. He says that true lady is both; just as a true lord is strong and kind, like Grandpapa Eddard."
While it pleased Sansa that her children knew of their grandfather; it still pained her that her parents had not lived to know her children, or Arya's or Rickon's. Her brother Robb had been murdered before he could father children with his young queen; and Jon and Bran had joined the Night's Watch.
"My father should have grown old, surrounded by his children and his grandchildren. My mother as well, but…my mother-"
My mother became a murderous shade intent on avenging her family; may the gods give her sweet rest now.
Doubtless her older children had heard stories by now, just as they had heard their father called 'Hound' by some Northerners who still resented his presence in the North, as well as his place in Winterfell and in the bed of Lord Eddard's daughter. "Often women do not live as long as men; at least not in times of peace," she said instead.
Catya looked down and then back to her mother. "Because…because of childbearing?"
Sansa shut her eyes and when she opened them she turned her head to her daughter. "Catya, you are of an age now to understand such matters. Osha and I have explained to you what will happen when you flower, and what it means," she began.
"It means that I will be able to bear children," Catya replied, pinking from embarrassment.
"Yes, though it is better to wait. Twelve or thirteen can be very young to marry and-" she broke off shortly, reminded of the unwanted marriage forced on her by the royal Lannister family when she was a moon's turn short of her thirteenth nameday. She had been fortunate that her then-husband had not forced himself on her, as was his right. Tyrion Lannister had vowed to wait for her but instead she had escaped and, years later, she was relieved to have their miserable union invalidated.
"Catya," she reassured her daughter now, "we will never force you to marry against your will. Marriage and motherhood, well: these are wonderful things, my Catya, but they are not always easy, even when it is what you want, even when it is with a man you truly love. There is joy, to be certain; but there is also pain…and tears, as you have doubtless observed. A woman's life can be full of grief and tears," she stopped herself now and shook her head. "Forgive me: I do not mean to discourage you. Love…love and family are worth everything: that is why the losses are sometimes so very hard," she finished hoarsely as her tears filled her eyes again.
"Papa shed tears too, Mama. Jonquil was his daughter too, and he cried for her…and for you, Mama. He hates to see you hurting," Catya told her quietly.
Sansa was quiet a moment. "When…when did your Papa cry, Catya: in the crypt?"
Catya shook her head. "No, Mama, in the stable the morning…the morning Jonquil…He came to find me, to ask me to comfort you. He said your heart was broken," she lowered her eyes sadly, "but his was too."
"Oh…" Sansa exclaimed softly. "Your poor Papa. Thank you, Catya, for being kind to him; I fear…I fear that I have given little thought to aught but how I must have disappointed him."
Catya put her hand over her mother's. "How have you disappointed him, Mama? It's not your fault that Jonquil…He does not blame you, Mama. He explained to me that some are strong and some are not and that is the way of the world, whether we should like it or not. Poor Jonquil was not strong, Mama."
Sansa sniffled. "Your father learned very early of the way of the world," she murmured sadly.
"Because of the Mountain," Catya ventured. "I know what he did, Mama; I guessed when I was young. I promised Papa that I would keep it our secret but…Mama, I know that you do not blame Papa for what happened to him. You cannot think that he would blame you for- for baby Jonquil. Please, Mama."
Sansa lowered her eyes sadly. "I realize now that your father would never blame me but-"
"What is it, Mama?"
"Catya, you know about the Mountain and how unhappy your father once was without any true family; and so my greatest happiness had been giving him a family of his own. He loves you all so much; and he is very close to you, my sweetling," she took her daughter's hand. "I- I simply want him to be happy, as happy as I can make him and- and instead I have given him more grief…I have failed him-"
"No! Mama, no! You have not failed Papa…or me, or…or anyone…ever."
Sansa smiled gently. "You are very sweet to say so, Catya."
"I know so, Mama; and so does Papa. I swear he does," she implored her mother. "Please do not keep yourself from him, Mama: he loves you and would give you anything, but it hurts him, Mama."
Sansa blinked, and looked at her daughter in astonishment.
Keep herself from Sandor? As though she could, she almost laughed out loud this time. Sansa had loved him with all her heart from the moment she had found him again, when he had pledged to bring her home, to the North and Winterfell, and to keep her safe. She had wisely kept it to herself though, believing his time on the Quiet Isle with the Brown Brothers of the faith had tempered his rage and also his crude looks and comments, the looks that once told her she was a woman and not a girl. But Sandor had once compared her to a pretty little talking bird in a cage, and made her feel stupid. She did not know if he shared her feelings, if he truly ever had, and she put her trust in him as her sworn shield and vowed never to make him feel any more obligated to her.
But he had loved her, or at least wanted her. They were soon lovers in the truest sense: Sansa gave herself to him in a small cottage where they had sheltered on their way North. But even then he had sworn to end their affair once they reached Winterfell: she was high-born, he reasoned, and he was not; nor was he like to be welcomed or wanted by her people. His duty was to protect her and he could not put her danger by letting men think she was free with herself, especially with a man with his reputation. He had been the Hound; and to most people he still was.
Sansa had reluctantly agreed; after all, how could a mere girl, high-born or not, control a man like Sandor Clegane. But she was too weak, or her love had been too strong: she needed him, wanted him and did not shy to tell him so whenever they were alone. He had resisted but not for very long: she had loved him and then failed him by getting with child against his wishes. Fearful that she would drive him away, she had instead been relieved and overjoyed when Sandor insisted that they marry, despite not believing himself worthy of her or his place at Winterfell.
Sansa had been so grateful that she had promised herself that she would never fail him again, that she would make him so terribly happy that he would never again have cause not to trust her, that he would never regret marrying her. When she saw how he loved their children, she had thanked the old gods to have brought him the happiness of a family of his own, and resolved to give him many children so that he would see he was a good father, and a good husband and a good man; she wanted him never to doubt that she loved only him and wanted only him and that he was worthy of their love and his life in the North.
Remembering it all now, Sansa laughed a short mirthless laugh; then covered her mouth with her hand.
Catya looked at her, speechless; and so Sansa explained.
"No, Catya, I do not laugh at your father's pain; I laugh at myself for being a fool. You see, your father has always held himself distant from me when he believed that he…that he was somehow not worthy of me and my love because he was not high-born, nor a knight, nor terribly honourable at one time in his life; at least not the kind of honour we know from songs." She wiped a lone tear away. "And now I realize that I have done the same to him. I have kept myself distant because I have felt unworthy, a failure; and you have helped me to see that it has hurt him as much as his distance had once hurt me."
She leaned forward and took her daughter's face in her hands gently.
"Oh, my Catya, you are already the lady you wish to be: strong and kind and gentle. I am so very grateful for your comfort…and your wise counsel."
Catya blushed: she was flattered but confused. "But...but Mama I only told you the truth."
"And you must always tell the truth, as your father has taught you. You told me what I needed to hear, Catya," she told her firmly, "and I am grateful." Sansa sat up straighter now and she shook her head as though to clear it. "Will you help me dress, or shall we call for my maid?"
"Will you…Mama, are you well enough?"she asked concernedly. "Mayhaps we should ask the maester."
"I will venture only as far as the solar, if you will help me."
Catya nodded resolutely. "Yes, Mama. I will help you."