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His father’s voice is gentle when he tells him that Nell died.
Though, really, he doesn’t say it in so many words; he merely tells him that someone hurt her, that she isn’t coming home, that he’s going to have her placed next to Mother in the crypt so they can rest together. He comes down to his knees from where he usually stands tall to deliver this message, and his face is so close that Sandor can see his own warped reflection gawking back at him in his father’s dark eyes. The heavy hand on his shoulder turns into a crushing, trembling embrace, and he hears his father cry for the first time. It will be the only time too, but Sandor doesn’t know that yet.
I’m sorry, he says, I know you were close. I know she was good for you, good to you. I’m so sorry.
Everything about the moment is all wrong. Tears fall heavy and hot on his collar before his father pulls back to look at him again. Stooped like this, he looks small, looks old. When he spoke his voice was broken, wet sounding, and Sandor is scared, and sad too, but scared, so scared.
But his father doesn’t tell him everything. He won’t, or maybe he can’t, tell him how they found Nell. It’s no matter, because Sandor is good at being unseen, unheard, while still seeing and hearing himself, because he has to be. Perhaps the most important thing Sandor has to be good at is listening very carefully from very far away; this way he knows ahead of time if Gregor is slamming doors or stomping up steps, this way he knows to hide. So Sandor listens very, very carefully through a barred door when the kennel master tells his father what their scent-hounds came upon in a forest clearing, and he can just barely make out the words from the man’s low, cautious voice.
His sister has been dishonored, he says. The search party discovered her with her skirts bunched up high around her kirtle, with only one stocking on, with her slippers lying far from where they’d flown off her kicking feet.
Whoever it was, she fought him hard, my lord, the kennel master says, bowed with hat in hand, and he sees his father’s fist turn white-knuckled through the keyhole.
Gregor had gone to the village the morning Nell left for her walk. When Gregor goes to town he usually stays long after dark, and today is no different. Sandor wonders if anyone has told him. He hopes that Gregor finds out before he comes home. He doesn’t know what Gregor will do if he finds out. Nell hated him, and he hated Nell, but he didn’t like Mother either, and when she died it had been awful for months after. Would it be worse this time?
It’s then that a terrible understanding falls upon him; no matter what, it will be much worse this time. Last time, at least, Nell had been there.
Strangely, it’s Septa Cybil who sees him to bed that night, and not his nursemaid. He doesn’t yet know that his father has sent away nearly every other woman on the keep’s staff with no warning and steep severance pay, but part of him is still able to realize that Septa Cybil will be gone soon. House Clegane has no more daughters to instruct.
She squeezes his hands where they lie atop the furs, and starts to pray.
The last time Septa Cybil was at his bedside she was accompanied by Maester Fredricke and Mother, their three faces smeared by tears, poppy milk, and fever. She always prayed to the Mother then, even leaving a sandalwood carving of Her likeness on his nightstand to watch over his recovery. Once, Sandor found the strength to throw it at her and scream how he hated her and the Seven both, but Mother made him apologize, and Nell scolded him after.
Such a mean thing to say, and for what? Did it make you happy? Do you feel any better for it? Of course you don’t.
This time she prays to the Father.
Judgement, she says, she begs. Justice. Someway, somehow. There must be, there has to be. Her grip on his hands begins to hurt before she looses up all at once, and her fingers lie featherlight on one wrist.
He thinks she’s going to cry like his father did, but instead she turns her face to stone. She brings his hand to her lips for a kiss goodnight before leaving him alone in bed.
That night he dreams of Nell leaving him the morning before. He feels her hand ruffling what’s left of his hair, hears her laughing when he swats her away, because she knows he hates it when she does that. He hears her telling him that she’ll bring him back snail shells from the creek, and any mushrooms she finds. She shouldn’t be gone more than an hour. He sees her braids swinging behind her as she walks into the woods for the last time.
He feels himself younger, smaller, in Mother’s slender arms. He sees his father smile, smells Nana’s pipe, hears the hollow knock against Grandfather’s fake leg as he tells them all his autumn story again.
He sees Mother lying still among candles in the Sept. He hears Nana and his father’s fighting echoing through the keep. He sees big hands ripping Nell’s lute from her arms and breaking it against the wall.
He feels lacquered wood in his hands, somehow light and heavy at once. He hears a door open. He smells smoke.
At that he wakes up much too early, damp with sweat. With no hope of returning to sleep, he drags himself to a window to peer at the scant goings on in the courtyard. For a time, the night sky stays dark, and the keep stays mostly quiet, with only the milling of the rising guardsmen and stablehands to color the air.
But dawn brings a Septon and a saddled donkey to deliver Septa Cybil to the nearest Motherhouse, and daybreak brings Gregor on horseback. His father ventures out of the keep to welcome him. When Gregor dismounts Sandor sees him shielding his eyes from the coming sun, and knows his head is hurting him. It’s bad to be around Gregor when his head is hurting him. His father must not know better, or not care, because he approaches his brother undaunted, and puts a hand on his shoulder like he had with him. Gregor is going to know everything soon.
Sandor doesn’t wait to see what happens. The best thing he could do now is leave, but with Gregor at the gate and so many chances to cross his path, that choice and many others vanish. Instead he makes himself as small as he can so he can fit under his bed, and curls up among the dust and cobwebs.
The stone floor is hard against his back and shoulders. His nightshirt is still wet and clinging, and he’s cold. But it isn’t safe to get up and change yet. It might not even be safe to stay put; the door to his room has no bar or lock on it, and Gregor’s checked under the bed before. However, he reasons that it’s still better than leaving himself in the open. He reasons that he should at least try.
So Sandor waits, and he listens. Very, very, carefully.