The Hound looked around the small room he had been assigned-a bed, a table and chair, a chest to hold clothes, and a window looking out on one of the most breathtaking views he had ever seen. The whole of the Vale lay under his eyes and he sat in the windowsill gazing over the fields and wishing he were out there, safely away from this place. No matter how beautiful it was, it was a trap that he didn't expect to escape from with his life and although that life had been a sad and bitter thing for almost as long as he could remember, he was not ready to surrender it yet.
His door opened and Arya darted in, followed more slowly by an old woman and two youths, one carrying a basket and the other pushing a brazier red with hot coals. Sansa brought up the rear. Sandor's eyes widened at this invasion but before he could say anything, Sansa came forward. "This is Morwen, the best healer in the Vale."
He didn't move from the windowsill. "I said no fire."
"The fire is for me, young man," said the healer with asperity. "Should you live long enough, you will find the cold bites into old bones."
"It's not that cold in here," said the Hound.
"It is to me!" Morwen was truly old, her face a mass of wrinkles, a mop of white hair floating around her body, her back bent, but Sandor could see that her features were very fine and he could imagine that once she must have been beautiful. She had the imperious manner of a beautiful woman as she gestured to the bed. "Now come over here and let me look at your neck."
Grumbling, he went over to the bed and sat down and she handed him a flask from the basket. "What is this?"
"Honeyed wine. It should help you relax."
The Hound grinned. "Aye, that it should." He drank it down in a couple of swallows, making a face at the taste. "Too much honey." He handed the flask back to the woman. "Well, get on with it."
Morwen smiled. "In a moment."
He looked at her suspiciously but he had trouble getting her face in focus. The room was blurring and spinning and he tried to stand, then started to fall. The youths with Morwen caught him, straining under his weight, and eased him onto the bed as she bent over him, lifting an eyelid and nodding with satisfaction.
"That was quicker than I expected. Of course he's half-starved and very sick…"
Arya grabbed the woman's arm. "What did you give him?"
Morwen straightened up. "Sweetsleep."
"Sweetsleep!" Sansa came over to the bed, appalled. "That's a poison! You'll kill him."
The old woman freed herself from Arya and patted Sansa reassuringly on the shoulder. "It's not a poison in very small doses. It just sends a person into a very deep sleep. And he needs to be asleep for this." She unlaced Sandor's shirt. "Do you see these red streaks running from the wound? This is a very bad infection-it needs to be thoroughly cleaned out and burned." She touched the scarred side of her patient's face. "It looks like he's suffered enough from fire in his life."
"He has," said Arya somberly. The healer looked at her quizzically but she shook her head. It wasn't for her to tell what the Hound had confided about his brother.
Morwen turned back to her patient and felt his face. "You should know there is a chance he may not live. There is a smell of rot and he has a fever. If this were his arm or his leg, I would take it off. As it is…"
"He has been walking a lot slower." Arya stared down at the Hound, then said briskly, "I'm not worried. He's too strong to die from something like this."
"I hope you're right, girl." The healer took out several small knives and put them in the coals, then started cutting the stitches on Sandor's neck. "Did he do this himself?"
"I did it." Arya frowned. "He wouldn't let me burn it, but he let me wash it out and stitch it."
Morwen picked out the last of the threads. "You did a good job." The small knives were glowing red and she wrapped a cloth around one of them and lifted it from the fire. "This won't be pleasant. You girls should leave now."
"No." Sansa regarded Sandor with a troubled expression. "He always protected me in King's Landing. I want to stay."
Arya took her sister's hand. "I'm staying too."