HONEY-SWEET
what country girl seduces your wits
wearing a country dress
not knowing how to pull the cloth to her ankles
Sappho, Fragment 57
When Sansa came back into being, she found herself immersed in a tub. Water strewn with petals lapped against her breasts, dampness pulling down her hair, heat making her cheeks warm. And the glow of the light, a gentle amber, telling her that there must be a countless number of candles all around her. She was still blindfolded, her hands bound.
It was a relief. She needed the dash of pretense. To make believe that she was virtue compromised when in truth, she was a bizarre girl who had taken normal desires and twisted them in disgusting ways. A girl who liked perversities in the breathless dark with him.
"Sandor," the girl giggled. She shook her hair back from her shoulders so he could look at her, see the loveliness of her naked candlelit beauty. No one answered and the only sound she heard was the shuh, shuh, shuh of the water as she moved about in the immense tub. She stretched out, floating in the dim warmth, her disappointment sharp.
The thick fragrant vapors rose until they filled her nostrils and without seeing the petals, Sansa knew their color. Their crimson residue swirled sweetly in the air, making her think of the very first rose a man had bestowed upon her. A red rose, while all the other ladies had been handed a white one. She had been so certain then that the color of the rose had meant something, that it had meant everything to the pure, beautiful, gallant Ser Loras. In her fantasies, he would give her a red rose as he crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty, saying over and over …
"Sweet lady, no victory is half so beautiful as you."
Her head swung towards the voice and she heard the fuss of clothing being kicked violently aside. Splosh, the reverberations of water being displaced as he waded in, one foot at a time. Splosh, splosh, splosh.
A man scooped her up, resting her buttocks on top of his firm thighs. He wrapped his arms around her, digging the fingers of his left hand into her waist. She heard the fingers of his right hand run through the water.
"Red roses … are those your favorite flowers?" he said after a long pause. Sansa nodded, Ser Loras' red rose splendidly colorful in her mind. "Common as dirt. You and every witless peasant girl," the Hound snorted as he rubbed a petal against her cheekbone, hard enough that the scent insinuated itself into the beads of moisture on her skin.
The comment rankled her. They were common. Commonplace flowers meant to express commonplace emotions: beauty, desire, courtship, love.
"If you could but see that boy now. Loras Tyrell would make you soak your smallclothes"—the Hound's left arm dived between her legs, molding and cupping her— "with piss."
He cackled at his own feeble wit. She wrinkled her face at him.
"He's even uglier than I am. Boiled in oil at the siege of Dragonstone." His thumb slipped inside of her, pressing against the tail end of her spine. "Fed the goat while thinking of that bugger, did you?" the Hound whispered in the crook of her neck. His touch smarted; it did not seem to be meant to excite her, rather to affirm that he had been there.
She had never imagined anything as grown-up as laying with Ser Loras. The satisfaction of her physical desires were no more than her fingers should have the good fortune and sweet fate to caress the warm skin of his smooth chest underneath his tunic as she stood on her toes to kiss his smiling lips. She would drift into a reverie in her bed at night thinking about the Knight of Flowers, her brain feeding her memories piece by piece: the sweetness of his laugh, the dimples at the corner of his mouth, his wonderful eyes—golden, warm, so luminous in her mind that she could seemingly read just by their light. In a way, those feelings, the little girl's castles-in-the-air, were as vivid and as intense as that other thing.
"You are too"—she hesitated—"advanced in age to understand." The Hound must be twenty-nine, she thought, counting back from the year of Robert's Rebellion.
"Oh, that's bloody sweet. She thinks you're some balding, toothless mongrel, pitiable yet still formidable enough to be feared," the Hound growled.
"Stop your whining, dog. She let you fuck her. You win."
"Sandor!" She squirmed away from the Hound's vulgar invasion and collided with the man.
Sandor took her face in his hands. "Little bird, your skin is so charming in this heat. Wholesome and pretty and bright on the eyes."
"Peaches-and-cream begging to be drowned in my seed," the Hound laughed. He continued to chatter but Sansa's smile did not fade; she hardly heard him anymore, his coarse words given half an ear's attention.
"Complexion of a babe …" Sandor's voice was low, luxuriously deep. He licked her, following the same path along her cheekbones the Hound had drawn with the petal. Her smile broadened, became uninhibited, sweetly thrilled. She liked being looked at, admired, flattered, especially by this man. I wonder if I shall ever understand this about myself, she thought. I am so needy, like a bastard beggar-girl on the street, willing to be thrown anything.
"A Rose ugly enough to scare the shit out of a privy. The Tyrells are just Lannisters with flowers …" the Hound's rasp intruded.
"I know." Her expression went blank completely. Alayne still had the hair net with all its murderous black amethysts in place, save the one that Lady Olenna had plucked. The girl had it hidden away underneath the same chest where she kept her books of chivalry. Alayne's father had never inquired about its whereabouts. Perhaps he didn't think there was a need.
"Complexion of a babe … and a babe's longing to trust," Sandor said gruffly. A stillness descended upon them and there was a hushed, tingly feeling in the air; even the undulating water made no sound as if the entire world was holding its breath. Sansa kissed Sandor's eyelids closed and thought of the first faces, the familiar faces she had seen since infancy: her parents, her brothers, Arya. Then she thought of the first loves, those foreign enchantments, invading her inner life until they gave full form to it. Ser Waymar and Ser Loras and … and the monstrous golden Joffrey. The girl had fashioned herself by choosing them.
Her lips moved to the heavy brow, the gaunt cheek of the right side. "The pain must have been terrible. If I burn my finger, I weep like a child." She wanted to throw her arms around his boyhood self and hug him to her breast and blow cool air on his wounds. "Does it still hurt here?" She kissed the craters and fissures of the left jawbone.
"I can't feel a thing," Sandor said flatly.
"I feel it. Bloody hell. I feel it," the Hound.
Sansa leaned over, circling her tongue at that very spot, wet under the dripping fall of his hair. Her face reddened as she felt the Hound grow thick and rigid against the inside of her thigh. She rubbed herself gently against his shaft before angling her buttocks, bending forward over her knees so that he could enter her if he pleased. But they pulled her to her feet instead, the motion so quick that it made her graceless, her feet slipping along the bottom of the tub. Sandor gripped her legs to support her, then buried his head against her tummy, appealingly shy all of a sudden.
"You're … you're very skilled at kissing," she giggled. She could feel the heat of Sandor's mouth moving low on her tummy. He was skilled. Too skilled. She pictured a multitude of girls, all resembling her: their tousled auburn hair, their dissolute blue eyes, their fleshy mouths with full, wide, open, crimson lips. The thought of them made her a little despondent.
"I've never kissed anyone," Sandor grumbled.
"I wouldn't want to anyway! Why would I?" the Hound rasped. She could hear the anger in the tightness of his voice. "Some slut in whose mouth and cunt a hundred other men have spent themselves? Piss on that."
Sansa was quiet, not quite sure what to say to gentle the fury he was devoted to sustaining.
A deep chortle burst from Sandor's lips, as sudden as quail flushed from the undergrowth. The Hound bent her spine forward ever so slightly. Her buttocks were spread open and a kiss was laid there, in that place. "Don't … I don't like it, I'm dirty." She tried to lunge away but thick arms held her.
"You're not dirty. Where do you think we are? We're in a bath, girl." The mouth continued to lick her. "What does her arsehole taste like, dog?"
"Clean skin," the Hound said, his mouth smirking against her buttocks. He sniffed at her, like an animal. "I've never been with a girl so clean. I want to kiss you all over. Tear you apart, lick your liver, lick your lungs. Knead your entrails." He grabbed her buttocks suddenly with his big hands and she felt him make the symbol of a heart. "Fuck, I'm in love! This arse is so pretty, hard to believe it shits." He smacked her bottom playfully. "Open your legs wider, girl."
"You musn't do this," she said, even as she widened her stance. His kisses were tingly but strangely relaxing.
"I'm your dog. I'm Sansa's dog," the Hound crooned between his licks.
"I didn't think girls like you existed. You're from another world. A better place than this one … you're from the Moonmaid," said Sandor.
Maester Luwin had taught her the stars as a girl in Winterfell. She could find all the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith. On the twilight of Alayne's nameday, she and Lady Myranda had climbed to the highest parapet of the Gates of the Moon.
The stars she had seen as a child she still saw, only fewer, dimmer. She pointed out the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the King's Crown and the shy Moonmaid, only visible during the western twilight or the eastern pre-dawn. The Faith said the Moonmaid was sacred to the Maiden, the aspect of the Seven-Faced God representing chastity and innocence. But Myranda Royce said the same wanderer was sacred to the Lysene goddess.
A goddess of love but not of marriage, the older girl had laughed, those brown eyes sparkling like a malevolent child's, up to pure mischief. Do you feel it, innocent one? The bright queen of the sky is strong tonight. Myranda voice lowered to a hush, as ardent in her devotion as a young septa in the first hour of her calling. My Lady wears a single white garment like the nameless poor, she recited, her moist palm reaching out and taking hold of Alayne's hand. The pearls of a prostitute are placed around Her neck. She prowls the streets, snatching men from taverns for sexual adventure. She can interchange the beast with the man. The brutal and the strong are transformed into the gentle and the tame.
Alayne had fingered Randa's nameday gift of dangling pearls, her eyes fixed on the Moonmaid. She was hiding low in the western sky behind scudding, wispy clouds. Yet the wanderer had exerted a strange brutal pull that walked the hair on the girl's arms.
Each of the two feminine deities, so far apart in their aspects, claimed the same wanderer. What were the girls there like, what were their true natures? Alayne was unable to decide whether they should be good or should be bad or should be either …
"Yes, the little bird is from the Moonmaid. Where all the girls are pretty and kind. So sweet, even their arseholes taste like honey."
Sansa laughed a little nervously. She felt giddy, like someone turned upside down. His bizarre gallantries charmed her thoroughly. To think she had once thought he was incapable of them. Men had praised her hair, her eyes, her face but who but him would praise that place?
"Kiss me," she said, blushing furiously. Her legs were unsteady in the water. She wanted to run away, aghast that she even dared to ask for such a thing
"Lady Sansa's embarrassed herself," the Hound laughed. Sandor teased her with distracting kisses around her mound and pelvic bone, while he held her thighs in place. She smiled sheepishly, like a naughty child, then grunted softly when his tongue finally lavished her with what she wanted to cry out for.
It was so very nice. A nice sensation. Kisses there and there. He was her dog and performing a dog's service. "Ah—ah—ah—" her throat releasing its soft vocal breaths, the sound rising in intensity as their tongues serviced her. "Slower," she breathed, struck by a flash of insight. "Lick me slowly." Make me come hard, dog. She laughed again and the laugh actually brought the good feeling, her voice straining to a crescendo of "Sandor—Sandor. O-o-o-o-ooooh."
How joyful she felt, melting into a puddle of bliss, muscled arms carrying her giggling, jelly-legged body back into the water's embrace. She leaned back and felt the hairy wall of the Hound's chest. Sandor's face was alongside hers and she could hear his intake of breath. He dragged his nose against the softness of her cheek.
What strange sensations, what puzzling duality. A gryphon, with his muscled chest as furred as any beast of the forest behind her. A dragon with his black, leathery skin to her front.
She was wooing bygone creatures from the songs, when heroes walked the earth and magic was strong in the world.
Sansa held out her hands, wrists up. Had they always been free? A blur of pleasure spread, the room melting into soft golden focus. "Your slave, my lord," she said gravely.
Sandor suddenly flipped her over until she was on her back. Her legs swiftly entwined around the Hound's waist as he lifted her buttocks in the palms of his hands, keeping her afloat.
She floated in silence, wisps of her hair drifting over her face and body like the slow motion undulations of seaweed. She was enervated to the point where she could not move, her spirit sinking into the warmth of the water— a hare who had found a cozy nook in the earth, safe and at rest after a long chase.
I love you, the binding enchantment on the very tip of her tongue. She wanted to say it. Just to hear how it would sound.
She mouthed the I but the golden luminosity penetrated through her blindfold until it was behind her eyelids, filling her head, revealing its bright, angry, sun-god self.
Sansa awakened with a cry, gulping air like a fish trying to break the surface of water. Her body was damp, covered in a fine sweat. Voices broke in, full of nervous worry, their murky dour faces floating above her. The cold metal links of a chain brushed against her collarbone. The words sopping wet, drenched, fluid entered her conscious mind.
"Little bird …" Sandor said fiercely. He held her pinned, with arms thick across her breasts as if she might leave the moment he let go.
"Stay," the Hound rasped.
"Oh!" she gave a loud gasp as a sudden rush of warm water was poured on her head. Fingers began to work her wet, stringy hair. They're bathing me, as if they were my maids.
All this endless bathing, I must be very dirty, she thought, then giggled at her unintended jest. She could hear the low pitch of Sandor and the Hound, muttering words she couldn't understand: secretive plots, quiet chuckling, the dirty edge barely holding on. Other times, there was a hostility so subtle that she wondered if she was merely imagining it.
Voices as dry as husks joined in song, rasping out loud lyrics. They soothed her, allowing her to catch her breath, the thumping of her heartbeat slowing to a warm thud of blood as her brain found a firm footing in consciousness.
One song ended and another one began. She sat curled on Sandor's lap, both arms tight around his neck. He kissed his way up her throat while the Hound croaked,
My featherbed is deep and soft,
and there I'll lay you down,
I'll dress you all in yellow silk,
and on your head a crown.
For you shall be my lady love,
and I shall be your lord.
I'll always keep you warm and safe,
and guard you with my sword.
His singing was terrible, like the bawling of dogs, a rough quavering of notes that could curdle milk. Shamelessly, he was la-la-la-ing the rest of the song. A sudden compulsion took hold of her. Sansa began to sing along. The Hound's voice grew quieter, less imposing: he followed her words, picking up her key until they sang in perfect unison, an octave apart. When the song was done, she laughed in pleasure. Sandor covered her mouth with his hand—perhaps he did not know her so well that he would think she was mocking him.
"That's quite a trick you have," the Hound said.
She bit Sandor's hand. "What trick?" she said in breathy giggles.
"Dredging up joy. I wonder how you do it. Even from the Red Keep. From the bottommost shithole in the Seven Kingdoms. Here,"—the Hound's finger jabbed her in the chest— "a hidden spring of happiness. Is the supply unending? I hope so, I had dreamt of bathing in it until I drowned."
"It's been a bloody long time since a naked girl sang with me," Sandor said.
"In truth, never," the Hound snorted.
"Never is indeed a very long time," Sansa agreed, nodding solemnly. She began another song to lure him back to good cheer: Milady's Supper.
The Hound knew this song too but the tune was slightly different, down a fifth from the note, where hers was singing up a third. Their two songs harmonized and how it felt like magic.
Only now the words became dissonant—his song detailing a supper her lady mother would have never approved of—dirty, so dirty, the thought intruded; the song's words spiking something inside of her. By the end of it, she was rubescent, embarrassing herself by the possibilities to which her mind ran. She knelt in the darkness, reaching out to find one of them, to kiss him in the manner he craved. But she was clumsy and his erection ended up poking her in the eye, instead of sliding down her throat. They all burst into laughter after that, the water shaking with their fits. She tried to make up for it a few more times but they eluded her—not a difficult task as she was blindfolded and bound, with sound her only guide.
They sang Sansa Was a Merry Maid, a Merry Maid Was She, as she tottered in the tub chasing after them. Their laughter became bubbly, needing no starter, feeding on itself. It was against the logic of nature, yet here they were. Silly children enjoying themselves when they shouldn't as they were such opposites.
Suddenly, she was caught from behind, her upper arms held in a powerful grip by two huge hands, directing her into place.
"A prize is always sweeter for having to work for it, Lady Sansa," the Hound said. His fingernail tapped against her teeth, telling her to open them. He slipped his finger between her parted lips. She sucked at it with dirty welcome. "Just like that, no teeth, up and down with a little more at the tip. Like you're sucking on an icicle. You Northern girls have plenty of those, don't you?"
That very morning she had been possessed by a dangerous tormenting spirit, some creature stirring awake inside of her, demanding her duty. But Alayne was at a loss on how to satisfy the creature's appetites. She had a heard a story about Sansa Stark: the singers said that Winterfell's daughter was a witch, that she had used magic to murder King Joffrey and then transformed herself into a wolf with great big bat wings to fly out of her tower in the Red Keep.
Oh, how she wished that was true, that Sansa had magic. But it was no good and the Gods—both Old and New—hadn't seen fit to give her any advantages, despite her fervent prayers. She had no wolf to protect her, no experience of battles, no talent for arms, no allies she could trust. The creature would not leave her in peace—it tore at her guts, drove her outdoors to wander the wintry gardens in an intolerable state between anger and terror. On a mad impulse, she had broken off an icicle and sucked on it. She imagined the icicle was the greatsword Ice, sucking at it greedily until it melted into nothing. All day she had felt the coldness of it in her tummy, as if the icicle was lodged there, as if Ice was lodged inside of her. How she wished that she could undergo an alchemy, no longer soft copper but Valyrian steel.
Alayne had retired early. She brushed that brown hair without the need for candle light, her face reflected in the mirror as pale as if she was freshly powdered with twice-boulted flour. Color flashed only when she blinked and there was a giant, a fear, lurking behind the window of her eyes. Instructing her on what to say to the Vale lords about her aunt's death, how frequently she should lace Sweetrobin's milk with sweetsleep.
The girl had tried banish the fear with a little bow of a smile and what should have appeared sweet and vulnerable instead made her skin prickle. The smile that emerged was hard-edged, full of elemental duplicity, the way the street children she had seen in King's Landing appeared canny. Rather than climbing into her bed, the girl laid down on the floor, the cold stones cooling her hot cheeks. She imagined prostrating herself, grinding dirt into her hair, beseeching the Gods with shrieks and great weepings, becoming one of those mad sparrows that wandered the Kingsroad bawling out the wickedness of the world.
Instead the girl cried without a sound, her vacant eyes flooding with tears as if she grieved for something far off, far removed from herself and her present situation. Tears for a lady in a song. Alayne cried until there was nothing left in her, until her body was as hollow as a beetle shell, empty of anything but the desire for the exhausted, black sleep of night.
The flopping plait of Sansa's hair slapped against Sandor's thigh. He brushed it aside then put his hand on her head, stroking her either from affection or to keep her from running away. She turned her face up and smiled at him shyly, slyly, blushing and brazen at the same time.
"Put my cock in your mouth," the Hound rasped.
She kissed Sandor's thigh, nuzzling the hair. It was softer on the inside than the rest. She laid a kiss at the weight of his testicles, her tongue discovering that curious little seam that ran in the middle. Men were delicious, the thought came to her again. Sandor Clegane was delicious.
A faint smile crept into her lips as her tongue ascended until she was sucking delicately on the dome of the head. She was performing a whore's service but he made her like it, thrilling in its own right. He was a strong man but he was relinquishing his strength to her. If she could be a man, she would be him, so brave and ferocious, one of the best fighters in the Seven Kingdoms.
"Pretty. You are so pretty." Sandor lowered his gravelly voice into something near a whisper, hardly more than a rasp underneath his breath: "My lady love."
The gentleness in his voice acknowledged how delicately and substantially their bodies were connected. Even as she could hear the rough excitement in the Hound's scraggy breathing.
He likes this—she thought, as she licked that groove on the underside of the crown— the obeisance of a woman at his feet. Sansa licked it over and over, until the tip exuded a salty drop. "Take it. Take it, little bird," the Hound growled, his hands around her throat. If only she could take it, take a portion of his ferocity, of his strength, to possess his courage through their communion.
With the salty, slippery taste of his seed on her tongue, she slipped her lips around the head and descended inch by inch. Very slowly, the massive column slid down her throat and she paused when she could go no further.
The warm release of each exhalation from her nostrils stirred the thicket of hair at his base. She sniffed deeply, like an animal—between her legs, the inescapable spasm. She whimpered, squeezing her thighs together. The Hound cupped her, the heel of his hand pressing against that button but she wriggled away from his touch, not wanting to be distracted: Sandor's grunts were the reward. She drew out again to the edge of the throbbing crown, pausing there to offer a more sucking kiss then back down, concentrating on every ridge and vein along his length. The rhythmical plunge, steady and slow.
"Clever girl," Sandor said hoarsely. "Go on! Go on!" the Hound breathed. Sandor began to push his hips forward, making short thrusts inside her mouth. She opened her mouth wider and stayed perfectly still. He took away the responsibility and she shivered with delicious, shameful joy. "That's marvelous, little bird," the Hound rasped, pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger as he would a child's cheek.
The thrusts went deeper, Sandor's breathing coming fast, the trembling muscles of his thighs stirring the water. She heard his deep low moan: "Mercy." The Hound tugged at her throat but she waited, her nose laying in the ditch of Sandor's groin, inhaling his sweat.
He grew huge as his pleasure mounted along his cock until he was filling her mouth with his seed. She didn't know what was the proper thing to do so she swallowed it quickly—it was salty-bitter and metallic. She waited a few more moments until his spasms subsided and then pulled away from him, her last gentle sucking kiss making him flinch.
Sansa sank back into the Hound's embrace. He wiped at her lips with his thumb then thrust his tongue inside her mouth. When he finally broke away, she smiled shyly at him. It wasn't so dirty, she thought. Not dirty, so much as messy, earthy, unconcerned about neatness and fuss.
She heard Sandor sit down beside her. She leaned to her side so that her head would rest on his shoulder. "Did you like it?" she asked, afraid that he found her lacking both in skill and enthusiasm. She had a premonition that this service was one he received frequently. It was easy and convenient for the girl, avoiding his ugliest feature: his drunk and sullen eyes.
"First, you slobbered all over him like a puppy," the Hound laughed. "Then … well, he's bloody chafed enough to fall asleep with his legs apart."
Sansa looked downwards, feeling like a frisky dog who had just had received a rap on the nose. "That's unkind," she sniffled, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand as if she was some country girl who didn't know better.
You look almost a woman … face, teats and you're taller too, almost … She suspected that she had been the focus of his lewd thoughts for a long time. She remembered how he held his head in his hands in the tent and pictured him in that same position as the years rolled by. The unexploded weight of his fantasies suffocating his brain, if not other parts. He had built her up into someone she wasn't, as seductive as the Black Pearl of Braavos, when in truth she was shy and inexpert and life had taught her to be afraid of men. Men who wanted to do more than admire her beauty, who wanted to feed off it to satiate their own hungers.
"Bugger you, dog. You should be muzzled," Sandor threw back. He turned her face towards him and kissed her. "Don't think I would ever take any of it for granted. I'm inexpert too."
"Inexpert," the Hound snorted. "No truer word. Ser Three-Pump-Lump." The Hound drew her to him, trying for a kiss. "They weren't all lewd, girl. Some … some were too sharp for the body to contain." She felt the press of his lips on her forehead, the burnt side twitching. "Never had a woman who wasn't crying or demanding gold up front." He hesitantly laid his hand on her bare belly and held it there before his fingers dipped to gently probe her still wet folds. "There's been none better than you. Believe that," the Hound said, his voice gruffer than usual.
"Have you been with a lot of women?" she asked, part maddening curiosity, part pinching anxiety, horrible and rising. She thought of King Robert, bored unless he was fighting or drinking or whoring. It was baffling that her father would be so loyal to such a deeply flawed man. Love could be so inexplicable; sometimes it demanded more than simple commitment.
"Too many," said Sandor.
"Not nearly enough," answered the Hound.
The response was contradictory yet made complete sense to her. He was a contradiction, the tension between his words, his bearing, his actions bewildering her.
"I was twelve. The day after I killed my first man. I thought it would prime me. Pup to Hound. But that first passage… an old man with shit-stained breeches. He cursed me as he bled to death. Said I would be consumed by demons. What a fucking jape, I was already a demon. Gregor made me into one when I was seven in a fucking baptism of fire. It's Sandor who's consuming me. I built him a coffin in my brain, brick by brick but he's still there, always breathing in my soul. The second passage, she was—"
"Shut. Your. Fucking mouth. Dog," Sandor snarled. He turned to her and huffed, "Sack of King's Landing. Bloody Hell." There was something more in his voice, an emotion Sansa couldn't identify, harshly restrained. Her wits deserted her, she hardly knew what to do, what to say. "Bloody hell… what a year that was. I grew up unbelievably fast. Gregor was knighted that year. The taste of my first battle—I wanted to be attacked so I could fight, so I could kill. And my cock, once it was a water spout then it became a pillar of fire …"
The Hound spat, "Cock and cunt, what the fuck is it anyway? Another cork in a bottle. The winesinks were faster in curing my ailments."
"And far cheaper," Sandor snorted.
"There was this girl. I saw her in the window of a brothel behind Rhaenys's Hill. She was born in King's Landing but the blood of summer was in her skin. I tell you, she had your eyes. Not the color. The look. So sweet and so grave. Boiled sugar innocence, no spoil or taint. I saw you when I saw her. Saw you lolling about in bed like a bride, those lovely eyes widening when I entered you. Your lashes fluttering as I fucked you, thick as the wings of a bird from the Summer Isles."
"Stupid slut. She tried to charge me double. Sang the same bloody song I heard in every whorehouse from Lannisport to King's Landing. All my pretty poetry to no avail. I would have been gentle." The rising timbre of the Hound's voice frightened her as if he was fighting the infantile urge to cry, coupled with the monstrous urge to murder. "Don't you want to say something?" he barked.
Her agitation was spinning on itself. Being with him was like walking the parapets, perpetually eighty feet off the ground while looking down endlessly, fretting over the loss of purchase. She tried to focus on what to say to calm him but was at the mercy of the most dithery, birdbrained aspects of her nature.
"You compose poems?" The second she said it, she knew that his words would be of the kind no woman wanted to hear.
"Yes," he laughed, slapping his forehead. "Though those buggering singers lie when they claim poetry makes the girls wet for you. Here's one I wrote for my little bird: roses are red, violets are blue. We're going to fuck because I'm stronger than you."
Sansa laughed, though it took a moment to realize this was what she was doing. It was a fitting poem to describe his behavior towards her. Cruelty and chivalry, all jumbled up together. Her brain leapt to a single moment: that odd, terrifying threat he made to the simple naïve mind of the young girl he had caught alone on the serpentine steps. One day I'll have a song from you, whether you will it or no.
The night of the battle, his offer of protection, his hard kiss … and then the press of the dagger against her throat. What would have happened if she hadn't appealed to his drunken sentimentality? "Would you have raped me?" she asked shakily.
"I wanted to, I wanted to … I was hard," the Hound said intensely.
"Never. Never. I don't want to hurt you. Why the fuck are you asking me this?" Sandor said explosively. He gripped her forearms. His clamp was full of strength and as cold as ice. The agitation in his voice mounted, "How could you even think that? I want only to protect her."
"Don't lie. I hate liars. Go bugger yourself. Gutless fraud. You didn't protect her. There she was, living like that, hurting so bad and you did shit."
He was no longer talking to her at all but to himself. "You didn't help. You stood there in your white cloak and let them beat her. Bloody buggering coward. Men call you the Hound, but you're the King of Hares. I don't see why you should be allowed to live after that. Go on, cry, cry, rabbit. I'd like to skin you alive and watch you cry into the next century."
Sansa shivered in the warm water, struggling to make sense of it all. She felt Sandor's fingertips follow the edge of her blindfold and then he was lifting it up. She tried to discern his expression but couldn't see beyond the blur of hateful potential tears.
"Leave me alone," she growled. With the knuckle of his forefinger, he wiped her eyes.
He had told her in the tavern that loving him would be a burden, that she would feel the weight of it on her shoulders. She had a better understanding of his meaning now. He was more than just angry and wine-sick. She saw through him, saw the depths of his pain and his violence, saw a self-loathing that she couldn't even begin to imagine. Why she should dream of him like this, a man tormented, a man in shambles rather than some white-knight fantasy, confounded her.
The Hound drew her backward into him, up against him. "I'm your dog, I'm your dog," he rasped, tightening himself around her, iron fingers on her waist as he bent low and kissed the top of her head. The ache in his voice made her throat close. Oh, he was in such desperate need. He needed a mother and he needed a whore. But what were her needs? She was more than either of these roles. She was not a sweet piece of honey for his consumption, all heart, no brain.
Born to serve.