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When she heard the name spoken by the stablemen, clutching the reins as hard as her fingers allowed was all Sansa could do not to scream.
“Dead! ”
“Clegane?”
“The one! Turned the yard’s sand red as dornish wine. Choked on that viper for his troubles.”
Talk of how Tyrion had lost his trial had spread fast around the Gates of the Moon. The Queen would gladly kill her brother to pay for her son’s life. She would never believe him innocent, no matter if he truly was. Sansa had learned that Tyrion escaped, but not before murdering his father, Hand of the King. The same man who had forced their own marriage.
The combat itself was hardly news. However details delayed on the road crept up the kingsroad every now and then, adding to the confusion. And this particular death, this name , was news to her. She held back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.
No, how could he be dead? A man strong as the Hound should not lose fights. She had seen his ferocity with her own eyes.
“The Hound is dead?”, she heard herself ask.
They looked up at her, puzzled, as if they just now realized she was there. They probably noticed her distress, for they answered even more roughly.
“No, my lady , the Mountain. Fought the Dornish prince.”, the first one sneered.
“Oberyn Martell?”
“Died in the trial by combat for the Imp who killed that cunt Joffrey.”, the other added.
They were right she realized, exhaling deeply, the Hound had deserted. Of course, she knew that better than anyone. Going back to King’s Landing would cost him his head.
“The Hound deserves no better fate, if you ask me.”
She snapped her head back up. The small folks had had no love for Joffrey or his sworn shield, no one did. But when he abandoned his king, many claimed the boy only got what he deserved, but all agreed the Hound had turned craven, not savage. Nobody knew the truth but her.
“Why do you say so?”
“Raping and plundering in Saltpans, a few days past. Shouldn't tell that to our lord’s own daughter, even bastard that you are, but soon that will be all people talk about.”
Sansa was about to protest but remembered that Alayne, born and raised in Gulltown, never met the Hound and had no opinion of the man, neither good nor bad. She didn’t know of the desperation of his grey eyes when King’s Landing burned. She didn’t know of his taunts, his help.
She only knew his terrible reputation.
“Raped a girl about your age, they said.”
“Burned down the whole town with his pack of rats”, the other man nodded with a frown.
“Never takes off his helm, that coward.”
“No good ever came out of that house.”
“How terrible.”, she managed to answer in a flat voice. “I hope someone put a sword through him. And soon.”, she added, realizing the men expected outrage from her.
“No sword for that animal, when they catch him they'll make a noose of his guts and hang him high.”
She nodded, then lead her horse back to the stables with shaking hands.
* * *
Later that evening, she joined the Lord Protector in his solar. She mentioned the news, feigning the fear he would expect from her.
“Ah! I forgot you knew that beast from the Red Keep.”
Saltpans sat at the edge of the Vale, a few days journey from the Gates of the Moon. What else happening down the kingsroad was he not telling her?
His eyes narrowed.
“Did that animal ever behaved…”, he hesitated, “ unchivalrously with you?”
Petyr Baelish still needed her maidenhead intact for marrying Harry the Heir. She wondered when he would have her appraised.
Yes , she thought, He did. But nothing like you did.
She wouldn't tell Petyr of their many encounters, even if he suspected anything. If his spies had never told him, he didn't need to know. Sandor Clegane had yelled at her, threatened her. He had also confided in her, lied to Joffrey to save her from beatings, and when she had been beaten after all, he had been the only Kingsguard to oppose the boy king, exposing himself to his wrath.
He fled the fire and hid in her bedroom at the height of battle, and offered her an escape as well as the sharp edge of his blade if she didn't sing. The better to hurt her once they were away? Sansa doubted it. If he had meant to abuse her, any opportunity would have been enough. He could have taken much more than a kiss if he had wanted. And besides, of all the harsh words he had for her, and his behavior harsher still, none had been enough to make her truly afraid of him. His actions told more than what came thundering out of his mouth. The Hound never fooled her.
For a man who praised his own ruthlessness, he had never shown cruelty to her. Neither of the crimes the men had mentioned resembled anything he would do. Not the man who had gone against his king’s orders to save her from the riot.
Of course, he might only have protected her because of her surname and planned to steal her away and exchange her all along. Or because his orders came from the Queen rather than her son.
Could the man who had hid in her room and cried when she sang, be the one who would rape, kill and burn? How could a man, burned as a child, disgusted by the savagery of his brother, who had lost everything he had built in his life to wildfire, use fire and rape as weapons? It made no sense. It was not him.
It had soothed her, she realized, knowing he was out there, even if he would never protect her again.
“Never, father.”, Alayne answered, adding a nervous edge to her voice, “He drank too much to be any threat.”
Petyr smiled and sat back in his seat. The sunset light shone into his grey green eyes, giving them a fiery glow.
“Good.” He sighed. “The Hound… I could have used a man in his position. He would have made my fortune in wine, if nothing else, twice over, but he never was that careless. Carelessness, Alayne, is what makes flies fall prey to cats.” He took her hand, planting small kisses on each knuckle. “Do not trouble yourself over peasant gossip. No one can reach you here. You are safe in the Vale, my sweet.”
Safe and forlorn , she thought. Petyr drew her on his lap and kissed her cheek. She made herself be very still. Moving while on his lap only encouraged him. His shallow breaths blew on the small hair of her nape, making her skin crawl.
This was happening more on the nights when his men had left him and she remained. She would need to be cautious.
After she had endured long enough, she wriggled out of Petyr’s embrace, exhausted, and excused herself for the night, barring the door behind her. She would have no patience for her cousin tonight. Since they came down the Giant’s Lance, there were troubles to navigate through and enough to drown in if she wasn't careful, she did not need to bring the memory of the Hound back to torment her. She needed rest.
Yet, she stumbled into bed, too tired to disrobe, and the man was there with her, a living shadow thrice the size she remembered he was. It filled up all the air of her room.
“I could keep you safe.”, Sandor Clegane rasped into her ear, climbing on top of her, pushing her into the featherbed. Shivers traveled down her body to die at the tip of her fingers. Her thoughts melted and Sansa felt no fear. Her arms locked around his shape, hesitant at first, but his touch was intoxicating. He was everywhere.
He breathed her name in her neck in a wet hot whisper, again and again like a spell. Fingers slid under her dress, under her skirts. His clothes were gone already and she saw him grow to impossible proportions.
He pushed on his arms to take the sight of her, the curtain of his hair brushing her cheeks in light tickles, dark as Alayne’s hair in the gloom. Behind that veil, she searched for his eyes, or even his scars, something familiar. But there was only darkness. She wondered if his eyes were still so full of wrath or if they had softened for her somehow.
The stroke on her woman's place grew more intense, surer. There, on top of her, was a wanted man who overstepped every boundary she had carefully set up and she moaned for more. She must be mad not to demand he stop. To let him touch her. To explore the scarred skin of his chest. To wonder why his cruel mouth would still not kiss her again.
In the falling dusk, her pleas for more rippled in the silence.
* * *
“My lady!”
Sansa roused with a start at the knocks on her door. She turned and found no one next to her. The bed was as empty as it always was. Though rumpled, the sheets smelled only of her. Her dress was loose but no one had removed it. The door was barred from the inside, the shutters still closed. It was still night.
A dream, she realized suddenly. She had dreamt him. In her exhaustion she had not even questioned his presence, his longing.
She had made no matters of hers, either.
She straightened her dress, smoothed her hair and unbolted the door. The maid usually never bothered her before morning light came snaking between the mountains. The better to catch her unaware.
“I saw a rat, my lady, scampering under the door!”, she said, pushing past Alayne.
The older woman peeked around the room, opened the wardrobe and dropped to the floor to look under the bed. The woman stared at the shutters for a few seconds before deciding Alayne wasn't worth scaling the mountain for.
Like Lothor Brune, she was Littlefinger’s servant first and foremost.
To the woman Sansa was Alayne, and Alayne was a bastard girl. Wanton, deceitful, every last one of them. Worse, the daughter of a fallen septa. Gods, it was me! She heard me and she thinks I had a man with me . Let her take a good look so she'll know that I did not give favors. I won’t give her a tale to spin out of this.
A cold shiver ran down Sansa’s back. If it had been true, what would her protector do to punish her for disrupting his plans? Where was Jeyne, her friend? She needed her so. Perhaps Myranda knew of such dreams. She needed to make sense of it.
In the morning, Sansa went to Sweetrobin that called to her desperately. The maid’s lips were pursed in disgust but Sansa did not let anything show through Alayne’s calm. She had to act as if nothing was amiss.
And nothing was, truth be told. Of course it had only been a dream, she told herself. She would not be so foolish as to open her arms to a man who wasn't her husband and would never be. A man who would never be this gentle to her.
Throughout the next day nagging her mercilessly, a sweet ache kept on pulsing between her thighs, the feel of his long fingers wrapping around her arms would not vanish. The side of her neck where he murmured her name over and over again was still flushed.
Her sleeping mind, bold and carefree and honest , had not cared it had not been real, and it was the most unnerving sensation she had felt in a long time. The truth was, all force and blunt honesty that he was, she had wanted him to continue, and she had no clue what it all come to mean. She had been benighted by her own want, her shivers, her lack of doubt. Her relief.
There was a telling difference, she realized, between remorse and regret.