Chapter 24: Saving
The tussle on the training yard Sandor had to sort out had not been worth even Loras' attention, let alone his own. Some idiot had thought it smart to practice with real swords instead of the training equipment. Subsequently, some blood had been spilt, but the damage caused was nothing a halfway competent maester couldn't mend with his eyes closed.
Sandor had known this was a ploy to keep him away from the feast all along, but when Loras suggested some big discussion with every men-at-arms how such accidents could be prevented in the future, Sandor lost the last of his patience and made to go back.
"You cannot go, Ser," Loras insisted. "The king…"
"The king needs to be protected," Sandor bellowed at the boy, who shrunk from him. "And that's what we're here for your and I, or have you forgotten?"
It was probably his own satisfaction at seeing the whelp shake with fear that kept him from realizing sooner that men were advancing towards him from behind, which was only really brought to his attention when a blade was pressed to his throat.
"If you value the life of Sansa Stark," Kettleblack's voice hissed in his ear, "You'll come with us nice and quiet."
He closed his eyes for a moment as the certainty of what was about to happen seeped into him like filthy black oil, making him sick with fear.
They'd kept him away from Joffrey and Sansa, to kill the former and abduct the latter and here he was with a blade to his throat, because he had been too bloody distracted, unable to help her.
"Baelish has her, am I right?" he asked, maybe just to stall for time, but also because he needed the confirmation. "He won't hurt her," he added to assure himself.
Behind him, he could feel how Kettleblack shrugged.
"Probably not," he said while prodding him in the back to get him to move. "Surely wants to fuck her first."
Sandor lurched forward, his instincts overriding every consideration for his own safety, but he was brutally stopped as he felt a blade cutting viciously into his skin.
This wouldn't do. He was no help to Sansa if he was dead.
"Careful, dog," Kettleblack said dispassionately. "I have you on a leash here."
Sandor swallowed and nodded carefully, trying to signal his cooperation. While he walked, he let his eyes roam over the yard. He had a pretty good idea where Kettleblack meant to stow him away, somewhere in the now depleted storage cellars beneath the keep.
He'd be found eventually, but by that time Sansa would be long gone.
As he tried the think of how to get out of this, he caught sight of a familiar figure trying to keep to the shadows, watching them. Petite and full-figured.
Betsy.
He lowered his head and tried to keep a sigh of relief to himself.
Docile as a lamb, he let Kettleblack lead him to – as he had suspected – an empty cellar that stank of spoiled turnips and didn't even protest as he trussed him up like a Sevenmas goose.
Kettleblack smirked down at him when he was done, apparently admiring his handiwork.
"As for your little redhead," he said, delivering a vicious kick to Sandor's ribs, "she wouldn't be the first whore Baelish has killed."
For a moment, both the kick and the mental image the words had provoked left him without breath.
He'd never told Sansa, but he had seen Sibyl's broken body when he'd gone looking for her and it was a sight that was not easily stomached even for him. To think that…
No, he mentally admonished himself. He couldn't think like that. That was exactly what they wanted.
"As for you," Sandor said, when he had his breath back, "I'll make sure you'll die screaming, just as Baelish will."
Kettleblack snorted and then turned to leave.
…
When Sansa woke, the first sensation she became aware of was a headache so painful she was sure she would not even be able to open her eyes.
The second, even more alarming realization was that of her hand and feet being immovable, because they were bound. She was lying on something soft and comfortable, a bed, probably. Unfortunately, she was shivering all over, because she had not a stitch of clothing on her.
Pushing the pain in her head aside as she had learned to do, she forced her eyes open, momentarily blinded at the light flooding in from a number of high glass windows, the colourful lead-glass decorations on them making the room seem like a sept.
A townhouse, she concluded, somewhere in the better parts of the city, near the keep.
Sorting through the events she could remember from before she was clouted over the head, she arrived at the somewhat reassuring realization that Littlefinger was so sure of his plan, he had not bothered to spirit her away from King's Landing, but meant to keep her in his own house until he had figured out what to do with her or whom to marry her off to.
"Ah, you're awake, my sweetling," came from somewhere to her left, but turning her head yielded no result, because her head was too deeply sunk into the pillow it rested on.
Baelish's smiling face appeared in her vision moments later, however.
He had changed into a silken dressing gown, richly embroidered with gold thread and was slowly sipping from an ostentatiously decorated goblet.
Bile rose in her throat as he let his eyes roam over her exposed body.
"Such perfection," he said, sighed and then let his fingertips trail over her exposed breast down to her stomach. "And to think all that was wasted on a dog."
"Well," Sansa said, after having recovered from her shiver of revulsion, "since I am thus ruined, you can let me go, I am of no use to you anymore."
Baelish took another sip of wine and then smiled again.
"Oh Cat," he said with a dramatic sigh, "you underestimate the deepness of my love for you. Wolf or dog, I do not care whose leavings I get, as long as you will be mine."
Her pounding headaches made thinking difficult, so she went with the first reply that came to mind immediately.
"I will never be yours."
"Oh, you will, sweetling," he cooed, opening his dressing gown and presenting her with a clue as to what he intended to do with her.
The last shred of bravery she had felt, even in her helpless state, fled her as she the realization of what was about to happen crept like cold acid through her veins, paralyzing her.
Tears stung in her eyes, but she blinked them away. He would not see her cry; she had been through worse.
Although right now, she couldn't remember anything worse than what was about to happen.
She'd happily endure any of Joffrey's beatings instead of this and she began to shake so badly, only gritting her teeth kept them from rattling.
For days after it had happened, she had felt violated by what had transpired between her and Sandor on their first night together. Although she had refrained from calling it rape even in her thoughts, she had sometimes wondered what it should have been called. It was forgotten and forgiven, but only now, helpless and panicked, she realized how different that night had been from truly being forced by a man against her will. Back with Sandor, she had known from the start that had she said no, had she asked him to stop, he would have. There had been not even a trace of uncertainty in her mind about that, not then and not now.
She had suffered and – as she had later learned – so had he, but if nothing else, there had been a mutual understanding that it had to be done.
This… this was something entirely different. This was calculated destruction of her soul and her will; this was something as brutal and as beyond her control as every bit of torture inflicted on her by Joffrey.
Baelish smiled as he saw her reaction and sipped at his wine again.
"While you were out, I had a maester examine you," he told her as if it was the weather they were conversing about, not her dignity. "It's unfortunately true that nothing can be done about your maidenhead, but he assured me you are not pregnant. Now you might argue I should wait until our wedding before I put my seed into you, but seeing as you have not been particular about this before, I figured we can dispense with such formalities now."
She took desperate gulps of breaths and tried to breathe through her panic as the full implication of his words sunk in. Had she been so careful not to get pregnant with Sandor's child before they were wed, only to be soiled with Baelish's seed against her will? The thought was even more abhorrent than the prospect of having to endure his possession, or the even more remote threat of him forcing her to become his wife.
A scream of horror built inside of her and the force it took to keep it in almost broke her.
Baelish got rid of his dressing gown and put the goblet on a nearby table, then sauntered over to the bed again to look down on her with a strange mixture of desire and disgust.
In his face, his nose stood out like a beacon, red and puffy, nostrils stuffed with white wool to staunch the bleeding.
Somehow, seeing this, made her horror recede a bit and enabled her to think rationally.
She had fought back before, she just had to find another way now. Time was what she needed, what Sandor needed. Surely he was on his way already, trying to figure out how to free her. They had dreaded just such a scenario for weeks, she was certain he had been prepared for this all along.
Unwilling to give up just yet, she closed her eyes and recalled his face, the way he had smiled at her just an hour ago, so happy, so proud and with a promise in his eyes.
Her yes flew open again when she felt Baelish's hand at her inner thigh, painfully pinching the soft flesh.
"And let me assure you, I will not endeavour to make it nice for you," he said, viciously pinching her again. "I have a broken nose thanks to you, so you will repay me every drop of blood you spilled."
She looked away from him, striving not to let him see how his words scared her and incidentally, her eyes fell on the remnants of her beautiful dress that was thrown over the back of a chair. Someone – not too difficult to guess who – had ripped the trimmings from the sleeves, but it was otherwise intact.
Closing her eyes again, she concentrated on trying to find out if she still wore her necklace, which seemed to be important to her right now and found that yes, the small weight rested in the hollow at her throat.
Weirdly reassured at both the thought of Sandor and her family whose sigil she wore around her neck, she looked straight into Baelish's eyes.
"He'll kill you for that, of that you can be sure," she said.
Baelish smiled, his hand roaming over her leg.
"Do you think he'd risk his life for you?" he asked and then chuckled as if he'd made a particularly funny joke. "Why should he? Do you really misjudge a man like him so badly that you think him capable of this sort of loyalty?"
He laughed derisively, something apparently meant to destroy her confidence.
"You were a juicy bone the king had thrown him, no more no less. He told me so himself."
Sansa felt her jaw going slack for a moment at the sudden insight she'd just gained, and then she laughed. Loud and long and somewhat hysterically, even to her own ears.
Littlefinger seemed a bit taken aback at her hilarity.
"You really do not believe in it, do you?" she wheezed, after having managed to get enough air into her lungs. "You manipulate people like a master, play on their emotions, but you do not really believe in them. You do not believe in loyalty and you don't believe love truly exists."
It truly was a staggering discovery. She'd always believed him to act out of some twisted sort of love and was driven by ideals that exceeded anyone's understanding. But there was nothing more to any of what he did than greed. He wanted to own. Everything.
Having felt unfairly treated by what his birth had given him in wealth and station, his only motive had been to own and possess everything and everyone he wanted.
Including her mother. Including herself.
Baelish made a disgusted face and seemed rather put out about her laughter.
"I believe what you think is love is nothing but a clever mix of sexual desire, possessiveness and sentiment coloured by unrealistic expectations," he said, almost sniffing with disdain, could he have done that with his stuffed nose. "I do not need to believe in it to manipulate those who do."
Sansa let a slow smile spread over her lips.
"See, therein lies your problem," she said in the lecturing tone of a particularly strict septa, as if she was not a terrified girl lying bound and naked before her would-be rapist. "You think you can possess me by raping me, but you won't. I will belong to Sandor Clegane for as long as I live and nothing you can do will change that. Because I've given him more than just my body, I've given him my heart and my soul."
Baelish's face twisted into an ugly sneer and he clambered atop her, erection bobbing against her stomach.
"I'll prove to you how I can possess you, you bitch."
Again, she smiled, even though it was with much more effort this time, because she had no idea how to prevent what would be happening in a couple of seconds.
"You can do with me as you can with every one of your whores, but you'll not possess me," she spat at him, not bothering to hide her disgust. "You never will. Just like you could never have my mother." A twitch went over his features as if she had slapped him and she thought it smart to keep to this particular topic. "Not because her father deemed you unworthy of her, but because she... didn't... love you!"
She grinned at him and while looking down, saw his erection flagging a little. Remembering how Sandor had told her not to laugh at an aroused man, she started giggling, pointedly looking down.
"Besides, if you intend to poke me with this," she gave another derisive chuckle, "I might not even notice. I'm accustomed to be treated to something significantly more sizeable."
As she had hoped, her words had a very detrimental effect on aforementioned appendage.
Trained by months of abuse, however, she saw the glint in his eyes, the one that would be immediately followed by another form of violence, so it wasn't much of a surprise when he backhanded her hard across her face, causing her bottom lip to bleed lightly.
"You bloody whore."
She smiled again, licking provocatively at her lip. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement behind Baelish, a dark shadow, moving with the grace and deliberation of a large cat.
Relief, almost blinding in its intensity rolled through her in a wave, almost forcing a cry of victory to her lips, the sound of his name, and a great sigh of relief.
She fought to do neither, to keep Littlefinger's focus on her.
"You will regret that," she said, smiling.
Littlefinger was in the midst of giving a retort to that statement, when cold steel – liberally coated with dark blood – was pressed against his throat.
"Where do you want me to start cutting, my love?" Sandor asked with exaggerated politeness while half kneeling behind the naked man. "Fingers, balls, cock?"
"Well, to be quite honest, the ropes at my wrists and feet would be excellent," she replied, equally polite. "I mean to enjoy my revenge dressed and upright."
Sandor nodded and with a quick knock of his closed fist against the back of Baelish's head, rendered the little man unconscious.
As soon as Baelish dropped to the floor like so much dead meat, Sandor started to cut her ropes, his efforts hindered by a notable shaking of his fingers.
"I'm unharmed," Sansa felt the need to reassure him. "You were here so quickly; he didn't have the chance to do anything."
He nodded jerkily and continue to saw through her bindings as swiftly as his trembling hands allowed and once she was free, she found herself being crushed against him, armour and all, feeling that it wasn't only his hands that trembled.
"I am sorry," he murmured into her hair, over and over again. "I am so sorry. I should've been there, I knew something was up, but…"
She stroked her hands through his hair, kissed his face, and pressed herself closer, despite his armour being cold and uncomfortable against her naked skin. There was no price too high for his closeness, his arms around her.
"It's alright, you came, you saved me," she whispered back, not much more eloquent than he was.
He drew back a little, wiped the thumb of his gauntleted hand across her lips.
"I'll kill him, he won't come after you again."
She nodded and then leaned in for him to kiss her. It wasn't much of a kiss, just a desperate meeting of mouths, hard and brutal and just what both of them needed.
"And I'll get you out of here," he murmured against her lips in between kisses that slowly lost their urgency in favour of some more gentleness. "Out of this house and this twice damned city. We'll marry somewhere on the way, in a small sept and travel on to Clegane Keep. We'll take Betsy and Eric and all we want from the house and we'll make a new life there. I'll kill whoever stands in our way. I promise."
He drew back and his face grew alarmed as he saw the tears that had unbidden come to her eyes.
"If that is what you wish, of course," he said, his voice breaking.
Sniffling, she put a hand on the marred side of his face.
"Nothing would make me happier," she said.
…
While she got dressed, Sandor had used the time to tie Littelfinger to the bed just the way Sansa had been before and, once satisfied with the result, threw a pitcher of water in his face.
Baelish came away spluttering and then proceeded to scream for help.
Sandor folded his arms across his chest.
"It's useless," he said. "Your men are all dead."
They both waited patiently while Littlefinger saw fit to test Sandor's statement until his voice broke.
"Why don't just kill me and get it over with?" he demanded, while uselessly tugging at his bindings.
"Just needed to talk to you first," Sansa said. "If for no other reason than to say 'I told you so'."
Baelish sneered.
"You are throwing yourself away on a dog, that's what you do. You could have Winterfell and be the Queen of the North. I would have made you Queen of Westeros, too. I would have given you the world. And you throw that away for what? For love? He doesn't love you. He does believe no more in it than I do. He wants you because you're a good fuck and beautiful besides and you are making the worst mistake of your life."
Sansa stood and looked at herself in a mirror hanging at the wall. She looked a bit the worse for wear after her 'adventure', but still well enough in her beautiful dress.
"A queen, hmm?" she said casually as she walked back. "With you as my king, I presume?"
Baelish opened his mouth to answer her rhetoric question.
"Thanks, but no thanks," she said. "I long for Winterfell, you guessed that correctly, but I would not dishonour my family by getting it back by selling myself to you."
"I would have made you my wife," Baelish spat. "You're Clegane's whore, in case you have forgotten. Your father would turn in his grave if he knew."
"My father," she said tartly, "the man you helped killing, incidentally, promised me a man brave, gentle and strong. I am fortunate to have the love of just such a man."
"You're nothing but his whore, no matter which pretty words you find for it."
Quick as lightning, Sandor was suddenly at the side of the bed, half kneeling on Baelish's chest. Sansa was sure she heard a rib or two cracking as he pressed the tip of a knife against the screaming man's throat.
"Call her whore one more time," he said, low and quiet but so threatening, a shiver ran down Sansa's spine, "and I'll carve you up just the way you did Sibyl."
"Sibyl?" Baelish croaked as Sandor moved away again.
"The wh...," Sandor started but then cleared his throat. "The brothel owner you tortured to death."
Baelish turned his attention to Sansa, bleeding from a cut to his neck, breathing in a shallow way that confirmed Sansa's suspicions about the state of his ribs.
"She sure was loyal," he said, "didn't give up a single thing."
Tears shot to Sansa's eyes and she had to turn away to hide them.
"Because she didn't know," Sandor said menacingly behind her and the next thing she heard was a blood-curling yell from Baelish.
"And while we are conversing so openly right now," Sandor continued as Baelish had stopped screaming, "let me tell you something about love, Littlefinger."
Sansa turned back to find Sandor sitting at Baelish side, tracing the point of his knife over the man's quivering belly. A deep, bright red gash went all the way down Baelish's right arm, blood seeping into the white linen beneath him.
"Not that I am much of an expert at it... love, I mean," Sandor went on. "But when I saw you kneeling between my woman's legs just now, whatever it is I am feeling for her made me want to rip off your cock and shove it down your throat and then disembowel you and have you watch your own guts flop to the floor."
Baelish swallowed visibly, his eyes bulging and for once without a smart comeback.
"You might call it possessiveness and maybe that's part of it, but in the end, I will not do it although I could and I want to - and Gods do I fucking want to - because what I feel for her tells me that the revenge for what you did belongs to her and I will be only the sword that does her bidding."
After a few failed attempts at speaking, Littlefinger at last found his voice again.
"Well, then maybe I was wrong," he said, while unsuccessfully trying to appear bravely contemptuous. "Insanity quite probably is part of the mix as well."
Sandor laughed at that, almost joyfully and without spite.
"You might have a point here; it certainly sometimes feels like it."
Baelish clearly took Sandor's laughter as some sort of peace offering, and eagerly snatched at what he thought might be a chance to talk himself out of his predicament.
Forgetting about her revenge for a moment, Sansa watched the drama unfolding with all the curiosity of an uninvolved spectator.
"Think about what we could achieve together, Baelish wheedled. "We could become a force everyone would fear, with you at my side, no one would stand against us."
Sandor used the tip of his knife to clear some invisible dirt from his gauntlet, looking for all the world as if he was contemplating Baelish's offer.
"What about Sansa?" he asked conversationally.
Gray-green eyes darted nervously from Sansa to Sandor and Baelish slowly licked dry lips.
"We could share her, or maybe you could have her, I do not care."
"You do not care?" Sandor asked, lifting his good eyebrow. "Sounded to me before as if you care very much."
"Probably not even close to as much as you do, now that I think of it," Littlefinger said, trying to chuckle but wincing with pain as he did.
"Hmm, I think I care at least so much that I owe it to her not to accept your offer."
"You are not married to her, you owe her nothing."
Sandor looked at Littlefinger for a moment completely stunned.
Then he turned to her, grinning.
"You are right; he just doesn't even remotely understand."
Sansa almost smiled and then gravely gave a nod, signalling for Sandor to end this. She was eager to be on her way and they had wasted enough time as it was.
Sandor turned back to Baelish and leaned forward.
"Wrong again, Littlefinger," he growled into his face, slowly shoving the point of his dagger into the man's gut. "I owe her everything."
...
tbc