Chapter 21
Pitch-Black
Where the characters arrive to King's Landing but not all of them fare well.
Jaime
The white Kingsguard armour brought Jaime straight to the Iron Throne. The guards even let Brienne in, not asking any questions. Small mercies.
The court was full for the morning audience where the king would hear the plaints of his people. Tommen sat the Iron Throne with Cersei at his side. A huge new brother of the Kingsguard towered before the king and the Queen Regent standing guard, his face hidden by a white helm. Old Mace Tyrell wore the badge of the Hand of the King. How very good for you, Lord Hand. Only the title of the Lord of Harrenhal bears a higher likelihood of violent death, Jaime thought mockingly. The court was full of Tyrell roses and the Warrior Sons, the crimson cloaks of Lannister guards almost nowhere to be seen. If the knights of the Faith did not wear swords, he would think he was in a newly built sept and not in the royal palace.
How it has changed, Jaime thought. Every time I leave this city and come back to it again, it's a different place all over. Tapestries with roses decorated the walls where once stood the hunting scenes and the crowned stag of Robert Baratheon. Soon the dragon skulls will return from the cellars, I reckon, he thought and didn't care.
He only cared about what he came to do.
He looked for Uncle Kevan but he could not find him. Cersei wore a black dress with starched skirts as if she were a pious septa. The black only enhanced her beauty in Jaime's eyes, her sparkling green eyes and hair like molten gold. At least she didn't turn into a Warrior's daughter, wearing a sword, he thought. He would never be able to resist her when he didn't see her for a long time. Wasn't she supposed to stand a trial? he remembered, but there was no time for further thoughts.
"Lord Commander," Mace Tyrell addressed him, "we are glad that you could return for the funeral. Have the Riverlands been brought to King's peace? The news of it have been different of late, depending on who tells the story."
"Depending on who lived to tell the tale, Lord Hand," Jaime said sweetly.
"Uncle!" Tommen interrupted with a good-natured voice of a cat loving boy, not a king. "Uncle Kevan was murdered just a day ago! It's good that you returned to help us find the killer. Maester Pycelle is dead as well."
"Your Grace," Cersei said softly. "Lord Commander is tired from his journey. He has to rest before he informs us of everything."
"Tommen," Jaime said and dead silence followed. The entire court noticed the absence of the proper words in his treatment of the king. Cersei's beautiful face went pale as a corpse and she only missed the bright blue eyes to resemble the living dead Jaime had burned, up north in the Riverlands.
"I am not your uncle," Jaime continued, I am your-"
"Witchcraft!" Cersei screamed like a mummer would on a smallfolk fair, tearing apart her black gown in fake penitence, revealing too opulent breasts of a lady who had nursed more healthy children. They hung forward, and made her twin speechless. All eyes looked at her, and not a single one at Jaime.
"Ser Robert!" the Queen Regent commanded, "Lord Commander of the Kingsguard has been bewitched by the so called ghost of the High Heart, an evil thing contrary to the blessed will of the Seven. I would not have it when the Lord Paramount of the Trident sent us the raven bearing these sad news, but now I see it to be true."
"Tommen," Jaime said, obstinate as when he offered Lady Catelyn to warm her widow's bed in the dungeons of Riverrun, finishing his thought despite the turmoil of the court. "I am not your uncle. I'm your father. And we have to leave King's Landing before Daenerys Targaryen comes back to take what is hers. She has a dragon! No army will stand in front of such enemy. As to Lord Baelish, I had the great pleasure to know him better in the Riverlands and I am quite certain that he had sent ravens to the last Targaryen as well, perhaps with some more valuable information than my presumed insanity.
None of them would hear reason, and Jaime wondered if it had always been like that at court, only that he was ofttimes unable to see it, safe in his love for his siblings who, at least in the past, would do anything for him, and he for them.
"Seize him!" Mace Tyrell ordered the knights of his house. For the first time he agrees with Cersei in earnest. It must not come lightly for him, to side with a Lannister in truth, Jaime thought about the head of the House Tyrell, an old rival of the House Lannister. He advanced towards the Iron Throne among the undecided roses, eager to reach Tommen and at least repeat what he had to say, hoping that the innocent boy would hear him.
"Grievous tidings, my lords, grievous indeed," said the slow voice of Varys the eunuch from the left side under the throne. "They say that not only one, but two Targaryen pretenders are marching on the capital, Daenerys Stormborn from Dragonstone and a boy with silver hair claiming to be Aegon of the House Targaryen, Sixth of His Name, Rhaegar's son who we all know died-"
"-who was murdered by Ser Gregor Clegane at the orders of my father," Jaime added ruthlessly.
"Grievous tidings, as I said, Your Grace," said Varys, ending his own thought with perfect ease, "but entirely untrue. The realm is safe with its rightful King Tommen, First of His Name."
Jaime was lifted from the ground by a pair of strong arms of his new sworn brother, who looked even taller than Ser Gregor the Mountain in the white armour of the Kingsguard. He tried to see the man's face but he could not. He only thought that under the helm he might have seen a strand of auburn hair, and the eyes of crystal blue. Struggling against his captor, he turned to Tommen and Cersei.
Tommen's eyes watered as if what Jaime had told him saddened him beyond measure.
What did they tell you about me, boy? Jaime thought, bewildered, more regretful than ever for never being a part of his son's life, just like he hadn't been there for Joff before it was too late. He noticed two more people close to Cersei, two who by rights should not even stand in court, much less next to the Queen Regent. There was Qyburn, who saved Jaime's life, but who was no better than the rest of the Bloody Mummers who took Jaime's hand and killed hundreds of innocents in the many times bloodied fields and streams of the Trident. And a beautiful dark haired woman in a Myrish dress who only had eyes for Cersei.
Sweet sister, so it was not only Osney and Osmund, and the Moon Boy, and the Others know who else, but also the Myrish beauty, Jaime thought with a pang of jealousy threatening to burn him alive, as if he had been a wight, and not a living thing. They must have all entered Cersei's cold bedchambers in the nights of the long summer since Robert Baratheon's death. While Jaime was away.
His sister stood as a statue of a Mother, all grief and proper sorrow. She borrowed the Mother's holy voice to rise to the occasion: "I endured a penitence walk for my sins, a fruit of a widow's weakness. It is only just that my brother suffers the same for his transgressions. Mercifully, not on the way through the city as I had to walk, for he is not himself. I will pray to the Mother that he recovers from the evil that made him lose his mind. Let him walk only from here to the black cells. All present in court, do us this kindness in the name of King Tommen, extend Lord Commander the pleasure of judging his actions. Please, share your true feelings with my dearest brother. It is for the best."
Tommen nodded gravely, trying hard to look older.
Jaime didn't know what Cersei meant, but he feared he would discover it soon enough.
His mysterious sworn brother stripped him of his white armour, and of all else, as if he were a common thief sentenced to die. Than he nudged him forward with a metal clad hand, colder than snow, and it had only been a short while since Jaime learned how cold the snow could feel. They made him walk through the throne room, towards the yard, and in the direction of the black cells. Jaime walked naked as his name day while all present at court showered him with insults. Many spat at him and hit him as he passed. Is this what they did to Cersei? he thought. The mob? In the city? He was moved by deep pity for her and ignored his own pain.
When they reached the second level of the dungeons, his body started feeling numb from blows and unearthly chill. Winter, he thought and laughed hysterically, suffering another blow from one of the Warrior's Sons zealous to enforce penitence on him, wondering if the ghost of Eddard Stark could hear him thinking the Stark words deep in the bowels of the Red Keep. Winter is coming, Jaime thought. Even here in the south, there is no doubt about that.
Almost at the stairs leading to the third underground level, that of the black cells far beneath the hall of the Iron Throne, a familiar woman's voice pierced the chatter of insincere insults. "Kingslayer!" Brienne shouted.
An offence no one else had given him yet in his walk of shame, for it was not convenient to remind the court of his biggest known crime, the one that brought into power the so-called father of the boy who was now king. Brienne, he thought but he could not speak for her lean body crushed into his, beating him on his face worse than any other courtier did. They fell down a flight of stairs, and he ended all over her. She cried out in pain, struggling to get up, but he wouldn't let her, wanting to pierce her blue gaze with a betrayed green look of his own.
But he could not, because they landed in utter darkness in which, for a second, they were completely alone. The rest of his penitence party would descend safely and slowly, carrying lanterns and torches.
Her insult hurt Jaime profoundly, for she said it as if she had meant it, just like she would in the first days of their travels together when she still served Lady Catelyn wholeheartedly as only Brienne could. He opened his mouth, the last weapon left to him, to wound her, when he was pulled forward by two long hands. His words got sealed with warm swollen lips tasting better than summerwine, better than anything. The numbness and the chill were gone. Wildfire whirled in his belly when he responded to her kiss with an eagerness he didn't know he could muster.
"Kingslayer..." she sighed sweetly in his face and was gone.
He felt all his bruises again, but he could also suddenly feel something else in the sweaty palm of his sole hand. He kept it clutched for no reason at all, until his walk ended and a heavy door closed behind him, leaving him in an even more absolute darkness of an ancient holding cell where he could barely stand up straight. They gave him a tunic harder than a hempen rope. He hurried to dress up, despite being alone, as a maid eager to preserve her modesty.
Only then he opened his hand and by the shape he knew he was holding a black obsidian pendant Brienne had worn before she gave it to him for safe keeping. He had it around his neck in the Throne Room. They must have stripped it away with his armour and his garments.
She came after me to give this back to me, he thought. She must have kissed me only to give me this. Why?
No, he understood it, finally, she hit me for the others to see, and than she did the only thing that in her mind could make me believe that she didn't mean to betray me. Not again.
He caressed the small black thing as if it were a lion cub, holding it close to his chest. Suddenly he saw Brienne in his mind as if he were only one step away from her. She was weeping inconsolably in one of the corridors of the Red Keep, searching for a way out from its walls, into the sunlight and semblance of good life. He missed her, terribly so.
Hitting him, or kissing him, it mattered little.
For the first time he considered that telling the truth to Tommen in front of them all had not been the cleverest thing he ever did. His brother Tyrion would have surely thought of something better. Maybe I should have asked Brienne to help me kidnap my son, he chuckled in fear of losing his mind.
Jaime expected some resistance, the truth be told, but he would have never believed that Cersei would make him endure what she did, to keep up with the lies they told for years. He'd known for long that his love for his sister would be his undoing and that he was never going to learn. If there was any evil spell on him, it was her. But even that was another lie. There had never been any spell. He just loved her and that was all. And whatever else she was, or did, Cersei loved him too.
Jaime grasped the sharp black jewel tightly and waited. He was certain that his twin would not be tardy in paying him a visit.
Elder Brother
"Yes, mummers," the Elder Brother repeated serenely to one of the men from the City Watch guarding the gate as if he were talking to an oaf, the monk's dark gaze calm like the sea at night. He wore Mance's human cloak and held the reins of the wagon pulled by five horses. "There are also two brothers of the Seven riding in our company. One is here for the trial of the Queen."
"We can escort them to the High Septon," the guard offered. "He seems to be expecting the Elder Brother from the Quiet Isle."
"I will go myself, at once," said Mance Rayder with authority, hiding under the Elder Brother's brown coil, riding Patience. Sandor Clegane luckily didn't say a thing. Even his hellish horse kept quiet, and the monk wondered if Sansa had bewitched them both. The Elder Brother's opinion on Sansa has never been quite the same since Mance had explained them about wargs and skinchangers, but his unease towards her ran deeper than a simple dislike of a natural ability contrary to the teachings of the faith. Sansa started to make him nervous as a man. Except that it was not her, it was a memory she woke up, but he could not say of whom. Maybe he was finally going to remember more vividly at least one of the women he did a tumble with in his old life, not that it would do him any good to awaken such appetites in his station and mature age. Yet he was curious to know.
Sansa and Blackwood peered out of the wagon wearing the white weirwood masks, waving at the guards to give more credit to their story. Sansa's hair was high up in the elaborate southern style. The semi-darkness inside the wagon did not let the red gleam in her hair shine, a colour which, in the sun, would make the sunlight shy and hide away.
The human skin felt warm and strangely safe along the Elder Brother's body, as if it wanted to protect him from a threat unknown. He cursed himself for such feelings, and asked the Seven to forgive him for cursing. What is wrong with me? he thought and he knew he was changing. He stopped being the man who left the Quiet Isle, but the answers he sought would not yet come. Perhaps they never would.
He wore the hood down and the guards stared at his rounded head and dark eyes, at loss as to what they should do. The Elder Brother remained perfectly calm in certainty that not even the High Septon had ever seen his face. There was no way he could be recognised. The only people who have seen it were some of his brothers on the Quiet Isle, and only two of them were still alive, Sandor Clegane, and Robert, the brother apprentice healer who started to call himself Benjen, after Mance's show.
The Elder Brother prayed to the gods that the gold cloaks would not search the wagon and discover a bastard of Robert Baratheon, wounded Ser Daven Lannister, at least three ravens (the quantity of black birds following Blackwood, or all of them, was always far from certain), and a huge living female of a direwolf. Only the gods knew what would happen then.
"May we come in, if it pleases you?" he asked, not showing his impatience in the slightest. "It's getting dark and we should find an inn."
The gods were good and an hour later they were in a dirty winesink eyeing with suspicion the big kettle of the bowl of brown waiting to be served. Lady Sansa frowned and even Clegane who was not picky about food did not seem to approve of the smell. Mance produced some coin and ordered them cheap ale instead. He picked up his lute and left, telling them to wait, and stay out of trouble.
When the ale was gone, the northern singer returned as well, with a bag full of fresh looking food and new coin, his eyes twinkling with joy.
"A singer could make a living over here," he said. "Pity I would miss the cold."
"First time in the capital?" rasped the Hound.
"Yes," Mance said. "On my previous visits south of the Wall I've been to the riverlands, even to the westerlands of yours, but that was as far as I went."
"How do you know he's a Westerman?" asked the Elder Brother.
"Isn't it obvious?" Mance asked and answered. "Their mouth is normally even harsher than their deeds. A fashionable thing over there, I'd say. No offence meant, brother killer. As opposite to us northerners who are scarce with words. If we say to someone that we'll kill him and cut him in two pieces, we'll probably cut him in four."
Sandor Clegane made that awful sound which in his case meant a friendly laugh as the Elder Brother well knew. The monk's gloomy keen eyes of a raven, seeing all, observed the Lady Sansa giving a furtive look to a twitching burnt face, and then to Mance, pondering his words.
All is well, the Elder Brother thought, strangely at ease with all his companions, despite the cloak they made him wear, and despite that they convinced him to commit the sin of showing his face. I did it to save them from possible harm. The Seven will see and they will understand. And tomorrow I will seek out the High Septon, find out why he bid me come, and soon I can go back to my solitude and the many labours needed for the weak.
But for some reason the thought of his imminent return to the Quiet Isle did not make him anywhere as pleased as it should have. He thought of the Wall, and of the marshes of the Neck, where Lord Reed had his moving seat, one of the best hidden wonders of the Seven Kingdoms. And he saw himself traveling far, a pilgrim of the Seven, restless to bring their light to the farthest corners of the realm. There were no monks left on the Quiet Isle anyway.
Jaime
"Well met, beloved sister," Jaime told her when he heard the black cotton rustling hard in the darkness.
She didn't wear a lantern and her perfume came closer to him than what he would have liked, making him cough. If I choked, she would step over my body daintily and make a small surprised smile, Jaime imagined, laughing at the senselessness of his own thoughts.
"Did you also come to see Lord Stark before you took his head?" Jaime asked.
"I did. But not instantly," Cersei replied casually. "First I sent Varys to see him with my terms"
"Then I feel honoured," he retorted.
"As you should. Besides, you well know that I didn't ask for the death of Lord Eddard. Not at that time. His death in the Great Sept of Baelor was merely an accident," she knelt next to him and whispered in his ear. "Do not worry. I will let you back to the court and into my bed when you come back to your senses."
"What of your trial?" he asked with genuine concern. Knowing that she deserved to be punished for her crimes and burning her letter where she asked him to be her champion was one thing, but having to be in King's Landing and endure seeing her lose the trial, and with it, her head, was not the same thing at all.
"Ah, that, so you got my letter," she said, amused. "It has been settled. Since you are a cripple and as I now see also a craven, I chose a champion for whom the Faith has so far been unable to find a challenger. No one has volunteered for months. As long as no one does, I am safe. And when they find someone, their champion will die, and I will be found innocent."
"How can you be so certain?"
"Let's say that Ser Robert Strong-"
"-Strong? There's no such name in the Seven Kingdoms!"
"-let's just say that he is even stronger and much more reliable than Ser Gregor used to be," Cersei said with radiant complacency.
The darkness was between them and it could not speak.
"And you would still take a cripple and a craven in your bed?" Jaime had to ask.
"I would take you. No matter what you are," she told him and came so close to his battered face that her lips brushed one corner of his mouth.
He tried to grab her but he once again made a mistake of reaching for her with the hand he didn't have. It made her laugh, wholeheartedly, and in the oppressive quiet of the black cells he remembered all too clearly the thirteen year old girl he had adored.
"Speechless, are you?" she said, satisfied with herself. "You know what you are missing, and you know what you have to say to get it back."
"What about Osney, and Osmund, and that dark haired woman?" he asked in a low voice. "Is it all true?"
"What should I say, sweet brother? I was not given a sword so I use such weapons as I have. I'm sure you have been with whores on your campaigns. That's what they all are, to me."
But I didn't, thought Jaime, I've never been with anyone but you. And I've never even told you that, thinking that for you it was the same.
Jaime missed Tyrion with all his heart. He was so smart, and he would know what to do. Now more than ever. Still, he had to try.
"Cersei," he begged her. "I know that you don't want to hear it but you must. I've seen Daenerys Targaryen with my own eyes and a loyal friend of mine saw her dragon. We have to leave. Please."
"Beloved brother," her cold words dug deeper in the gaping pit of differences between them. "Let her come. Tyrion took care of one thing before he killed Joffrey and father and ran off as a traitor scum. We have enough wildfire for both her and her dragon."
With that she left him to ponder her words, always thinking herself to be so smart, precisely at the moments when she was not.
Instead of missing her, Jaime was glad she was gone. And even more glad that he made her angry so she didn't reach for him. He knew that one day when she would, and if he was not going to respond her, he might truly lose his head. And he was decided to keep it on his shoulders for just a little bit longer.
To make Cersei understand.
To save Tommen against all odds.
To find Tyrion, one day.
To see why Brienne had kissed him and if it was only to give him the stone…
He pressed his lips on the black jewel, mindful of its sharp edges, and lay down on the floor, still as the animal saving up its forces before hunting for a new prey. His body felt warmer from that, and he knew it in a heartbeat.
He was resting somewhere very close to the storage of Cersei's wildfire.
Sansa
"I found her in one of the worst winesinks right out of the Red Keep when I was listening for the news," Gendry informed the rest of his companions, dragging Lady Brienne on his arm. "The innkeep swore he had served her no wine, only water. She just keeps on repeating how stupid she is and she can't stop crying."
Mance had found them a decent house before nightfall. They shared it with a family of fisherfolk, a young couple with only two children, and plenty of desire to make more of them. It was on the good place, close to the walls of the Red Keep, the city gate and the outside wall of King's Landing, washed incessantly by the restless waves of water leading to the open sea. The company took the ground floor, a broad room where they could lay down pallets for sleeping. The owners would sleep upstairs at night. During day, the ground floor would belong to everyone.
All eyes turned to Sansa. She wondered why women were always supposed to know what to do when someone else was crying.
She had known the lady knight too briefly to be able to offer any meaningful consolation. Still, Sansa was a lady, and a real lady would at least try. That other part of her which was not the lady, but something else entirely, longed for the night to get thicker, so that she may talk to the Hound. They were never alone since they ran away from Harrenhal, and Sansa had been afraid for days of facing the capital again on her own. She took a fancy in imagining that other part of her being as having feral yellow eyes like Nymeria's, trying to convince herself that she, Sansa, Cersei's little dove, could also be fearsome, but it was to no avail. Seeing the walls of King's Landing was enough to make her scared of everything and bring back the memories of beatings and humiliations. On top of it all reigned her terrible guilt for being stupid enough to betray her own father, great and cruel. Yet she would suffer all that in her new company, a thousand times so, rather than be a safe little bird perched behind bars in the Vale, at the mercy of Lord Baelish, waiting to take a new husband in her bed.
Sansa walked to lady Brienne to attempt to do her duty.
"My lady," she told her. "Pray, tell us, what makes you not feel clever? As far as I have known you, you are more learned than most ladies I have met." It was the truth and she managed not to mention that the disciplines Brienne was good at were usually not the ones meant for the ladies.
"Please, excuse me, Lady Sansa," Brienne said between sobs. "It is good that Gendry found me so that I can return the dagger Ser Jaime borrowed from the Elder Brother."
"The Elder Brother left," Sansa said. "He will stay with the High Septon tonight."
Brienne twiddled the hiltless steel in her hand, her face changing colours from white to light green. Sansa made an unconscious step back, in case that Brienne would drop the knife and make Sansa lose one of her fingers. I would never be able to play the high harp again, thought Sansa, dreaming about being somewhere else, in a place where there was still beauty in the world.
"Wait," Brienne called out, staring at the blade as if she had seen something in it, and her tears started drying. "Help me!"
The lady knight's eyes turned to the singer, dry and glaring, and Sansa marvelled at the change.
"You need Ser Jaime for your show, don't you? Than you'll have to find a way to get him out of the black cells where the Queen Regent has put him. But I don't think she means to kill him, at least, only to scare him, and lure him with promises..."
A large tear ran down Brienne's cheek but it was the last one.
"I can try," Mance said. "And I will ask for a favour in exchange."
"I am not much of a lady for giving favours," Brienne muttered and blushed.
"Oh, no offence, my lady, your reputation is safe with me. I had a different favour in mind."
"Name it," she commanded.
"If we get him out, you will read a role with him."
"What role shall I play?" Brienne said bitterly. "His horse?"
"No," Mance explained. "Ser Arthur Dayne's sister. Lady Ashara Dayne. I heard she was almost as tall as you are."
"She was also one of the most beautiful women in the Seven Kingdoms," Brienne reminded them all.
Sansa's words were out of her mouth before she had time to think. "Prince Rhaegar was also one of the most handsome men in the realm. Yet Sandor Clegane is perfect in his role." She realised what she had said and wondered how the Hound would take it. Probably not very good, Sansa thought, staring at the floor.
"What my lady wants to say," Sansa heard him rasp, "is that people will believe even an ugly bugger like me to be a handsome prince if I cover my face good enough and say silly words. The same goes for you."
"If that's what you want, I will read any role if you help Ser Jaime first," Brienne said, as if she had made a holy vow. "Even if you change your mind and make me a serving wench."
"No need to spill good wine," the Hound said, but Sansa noticed, not for the first time since they met again, that he had not been drinking at all.
"You can use the Elder Brother's pallet for the night," Gendry offered, and the lady knight nodded, gifting them all with an uncertain smile.
Sandor
Sandor found Sansa sitting on the high stone threshold at the entrance, in the hour of the wolf when even Nymeria seemed to be sleeping. Her words about his ugliness stung him profoundly, not so the tone of her voice, softer than summer rain. He was not handsome, there was nothing to say about that. But she had also called him perfect, whatever that meant in her little chirping head.
And all that had passed between them since the Quiet Isle has just further addled his brains. If another woman kissed him like Sansa did in Harrenhal, he would have taken her right under the heart tree and the watchers could go to seven hells when he was concerned. But she was Sansa, so, as always, he wanted to do something, but he had no idea what he should do.
So he sat on the porch next to her and glared into the darkness. The moon had not risen. The breeze, while still warmer than in the snow affected riverlands, turned perceptibly colder in the long time that had passed since he had run away from the city.
"We are back," she said, saving him the trouble of having to say something first.
"Aye," he grunted.
"I never thought I would go back."
"Same here," he chuckled, feeling his face twitch, seeing her face turn slightly away even if she could barely see him in the moonless night. His stomach burned. "What? Should I retire so that my unpleasantness does not disturb my lady?"
"No," she simply said, as if that explained all.
And than she said, after a minute of silence that the breeze used diligently to freshen their brows, tired after the long time on the road: "I was waiting for you."
"Were you now? To do what? Kiss me again?" he laughed at his own stupid joke, not caring how his face looked when he did so. "No need for that now."
"Is it true what Mance said about how you speak where you are from?"
"The wildling has his way of seeing things, and I never thought of it in that way, but yes. You could say it is one good way to describe the westermen, while not entirely true."
"Ah," she said, blue gaze staring at the night.
"Although I am different than most in that as well. You called me hateful once, I believe, and that's what I am, in word and deed. Ser Jaime, on the other hand, talks far worse than he is. Tell me, girl, is what Mance said true for you in the north as well?"
"As one way of describing it," she admitted, carefully.
"So if you kissed me once in a mummery, would that mean you would do it two more times?" he sneered and choked on his words, and on the pathetic longing he suffered from, hoping she would say yes.
"I don't know about that," she said, sounding honest. "But I wondered about one other thing."
"About what?"
The silence was thick with air smelling of the sea, like in Lannisport, when the tide was high flooding the streets.
"I wondered if you would kiss me. Not in a mummery," she said and half-looked into his face. "Kiss me as Sandor would kiss Sansa."
Nothing had ever shocked him more, not even when Gregor killed their sister.
She said it in that honourable tone he was never able to stand without getting angry. And Sansa was still such a terrible liar except when she read the songs. Then again, she believed the songs to be true, so they were not lies in her pretty head.
Which left only one possible explanation for her words.
They were the truth, plain and simple.
She would not be able to see him, and it was for the better. Easier. And he would not have to see her eyes turning away.
He never closed his own eyes when he put his hands in her hair and returned the kiss she bestowed on him in Harrenhal, fearing for someone else's life. She asked for it, he thought, reason retreating, when he launched the onslaught of her heart shaped face.
She was in his arms again, no masks, no audience, only the salty smelling darkness. I'd never want to breathe again after we finish this, the Hound knew. The air seemed impure and unworthy after inhaling her scent.
Her breath turned ragged, and he abruptly stayed the madness before it would all get way out of hand. Why not? a voice said in his mind. She wants it. They all do. "Because I'm not Gregor," he replied to the voice, but it came out loud and embarrassing.
She heard him and started pulling away. He let her go and felt the rise of melancholy as he always would with her when his sick hopes would first stir and than crumble down. But she didn't go far, she just nestled into his arms and looked again into the darkness before them.
"And yes," she said, "I would kiss you as often as needed in the mummery. In exchange for a kindness, since we both seem to have trouble sleeping here-"
He couldn't fathom what else she would possibly want from him.
"-that you do this as often as we are alone and the gods see fit for us to stay together in King's Landing. To keep the ghosts of the dead away."
She sounded more serious than the late Lord Stark did when dealing out king's justice in his short-lived service as the Hand of the King
"This?" he asked and did it again, allowing himself more freedom, nuzzling her face, biting her lips, bending her mouth to his will for a fleeting moment. The whores and the wenches would not allow any of it to the likes of him. The mass of his scars touched the perfection of her face, and her only reaction was to hold onto him, her fingers entangled in his black tunic, in his black hair.
"If the others see us," he managed to drop in, to save a little bit of pride he still had left, "we can always say we're practising for the show."