Three days passed; three days of riding in the morning and ending in a clearing in the early evening, sometimes near the creek, sometimes in the dense wood.
Sansa had seen, one morning, a stag in rut knocking his antlers against a trunk, velvet hanging in shriveled ribbons from the rack. They'd picked on by it lazily, the Hound had pointed; and she'd been reminded of the tourney, the beribboned swords, the beribboned rack, the same preening, jouncing step. She'd slept against the oar, slept in her pallet, eaten baked fish and hare, thought about her mother, talked to the tall man across the fire each night. The net was not mentioned; she kept it wadded in the bottom of her bag. She'd torn her slipper and sewn it by the fire, had been delighted by a fox running past her through the brush, had been stung by a wasp. One night, the man had rolled in his sleep and his arm had fallen across her shoulders. It was warm but very heavy, too heavy; she'd pushed it off and slept against the bellows instead.
That next morning they'd woken to mist and a low sky, and the Hound, scratching at fleas as he packed, had asked after her bread. She'd none left. Her face was wet with mist. She'd frowned at him, hungry, and he'd shrugged at her, looked at the horse for a minute, and then told her that they'd turn in towards the Road and buy more at an inn. "We've been long enough. We've been hunted for all along there, but some time ago. By the time the word is back we'll be far back again in the wood." She'd shivered a little, and he'd laughed, bared his teeth at her. She'd bared hers back; he'd laughed again, louder, scratching, smacked the flank of the horse soundly. And so, agreeing, they ambled back towards the Road through the brush.
They passed a stand of reedy silver trees that had black scars and marks all over them, as if a wild army had run through. The Hound reached out and pulled from one a leaf, handed it to the girl, and as she looked at the little papery arrowhead he told her to remember the leaf, and the tree.
"If you break off a branch it drips a kind of honey water; it won't feed you well, but it'll help. Should what you choose to eat be a bloody tree, out of everything." She waited for him to remark on the net, but he didn't; nevertheless, she felt the smirk riding above her as clearly as if she'd seen it.
As they neared the outskirting wood of the Road they saw, again, evidence of men. There was a torn rag fluttering, hooked to a briar; it was a sleeve of a blouse with a dirty cuff. Footsteps, again, stopping as they passed. Breaks in the brush like a maze; clumsy from men's shoulders, not neat from the wandering deer in rut, all of this adding slowly. She forced away the thought of the stranger and his wife and instead thought of the quail man in the creek, shaking as they passed, and how she imagined the little men with their bog-iron. She felt better; she hummed to herself and thought lustfully on again possessing the red cloak she'd left at home, and on having new slippers made, and on pie. The Hound, bored, began a murmured diatribe on the northern cities to which she barely listened, and he trailed away, defeated. And then, as the sky blued to purple and they both were lost in the intensity of their separate thoughts, the wood cleared and the Road lay bare before them, wide and dirty.
They passed few riders, and a staggering man in the gutter. She was nervous still until she noted how much taller they were than the other riders; it was as if they were passing by on a great ship. It was then that she understood the safety of their prior route. They were as a great ship in a harbour, impossible not to stare after. The Hound was nothing if not the Hound, and she– And the black horse. She felt a sudden gratitude for the anonymity of the wood. They rode quick on the clear way, much faster than before. It was not long before she saw smoke curling in streams in the distance, and then the rambling structure came to view.
The inn was ancient; as old as the Road itself, or older, a sagging house rebuilt a hundred times and added to and covered over again with so much thatch and wattle and vines it looked like a small mountain, rising from its loam. It was steaming with cooking and shouts of laughter, smoking from all chimneys, the two low kitchen windows pulsing with light. Circling about it were dogs and cats and raggy boys, all denied entrance, all hoping for the scrap-bucket and ducking clear of the horses. The Hound waved them away, tied the horse and lifted her down, left his bags packed but pulled from hers her cloak and a shawl. He bid her cover her hair and she did while he frowned down at her, and the raggy boys watched from the brush and whistled through their teeth at her, soft whistles meshing with the birdcalls of the early evening.
Then he stooped and ran his knuckles through the mud at their feet, brought his hand to her face. She jerked away but he held her fast and brushed at her cheekbone lightly with the mud.
"No, I can't." She held his wrist away, and he grimaced at her and asked her how easy she'd like to make it for the lions, anyhow, and then she let him. The awning was black thatch; the door was as thick as a stone wall and shining black, ancient wood gone all pitch-black and glassy from the thousands upon thousands of hands. Warmth blew out from under it in gusts.
When they opened it and entered there was a stall in the laughter; her heart stopped until she saw it was not herself, but the scar, that had caused it.