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The chill from the ground seeps through Sansa’s wools and into her bones. She has been shivering for what feels like hours, unable to summon heat in the tent she shares with the Hound.
Sandor, she reminds herself. Though it tastes like blasphemy on her tongue.
They ran away together after the Battle of the Blackwater because Stannis won and it was time for Ilyn to chop her head and she couldn't bear the idea, so she fled to her room instead. It is not a fairytale and it is not pretty. The Hound is not a knight; he is an enormous, ferocious dog who drinks too much and swears too much to be considered noble at all. Sansa herself is no longer a princess, no longer a future queen. The Hound left Prince Joffrey to die on the battlefield.
He is cowardly.
Faced with death or a coward, she chose the coward. She lays next to this coward but not close to him, because the impropriety of the situation weighs on her like the Wall. This type of arrangement is the favored fodder of ribald singers: Lady Stark and the Dog. A fair maiden and a beast, it is impossible for her to escape this fate with her chastity intact.
Sansa is worried her virtue will slip from her at any moment: the grazing of their bare hands, his frontside pressed to her back in the saddle, or each time she lifts her skirts to make water. She knows virtue is delicate and hardly guards itself. She knows the Hound is strong, that his fingers are large, and all parts of him as well. She does not like knowing all parts, but there have been many accidents, many unintended moments. They are living quite close to each other in a manner most scandalous and so the harsh lines of moral and immoral have bowed and buckled.
This gives Sansa tummy aches, most often at night, after a meal of oats and small game that does not satisfy like sweet biscuits and clotted cream. Her memories are knives to her heart and belly. First flashes of them fleeing: the opened up bodies of men, the squeals of horses who smelled blood. Flashes of Father's head tumbling on those steps. Flashes of a dagger against her neck and breath burdened by wine.
Little bird, little bird, little bird.
Then the more recent flashes come, like the times she's seen the Hound make water. He lacks shame, like a dog, and does not command her away when he bathes. She does not wish to be commanded away, because rapers hide in the woods, and a strange raper would be worse than the Hound. See, these are the horrid decisions she must make. Death or a coward. Strange rape or familiar.
She does not think the Hound has raped her, though she isn't quite certain. Seven days ago she would have thought that merely laying within a foot of each other was enough to erode her purity. The first night the Hound put up their tent and said we sleep together or you'll wake dead, Sansa cried and cried until he manhandled her into the small canvas cove. She said don't touch me, don't touch me. The Hound said hush, girl. You don't know what's best for you.
She knows what constitutes good and what constitutes evil but good and evil are mostly useful within the safety of a castle wall. Out here, it's better and worse, and sometimes better is sleeping with a rogue swordsman she has seen nude.
Not on purpose. Never on purpose.
She prays for her chastity every night. She says in her head, I am still a maiden, because otherwise she cries. She worries about her brothers and sister and mother. She worries where they're going—to find Robb—though he has taken to battle, and battle is no place for a lady.
She can never get warm. She misses fur and she misses her hearth, she misses her curtains that swaddle her feather mattress and protect her from all things chilling and dangerous. Danger is what twists her tummy and her thoughts. Danger lies at her back. Danger will ride with her come dawn.
“Hush, girl,” comes a raspy voice.
Maybe she was praying out loud again. Maybe her clattering teeth are making too much noise. She learns it's the latter when she tries to speak and all that comes out is:
“I'm c-c-cold.”
The Hound doesn't like when she says this. Most times he says, come close, then. Sometimes he grunts. Tonight he chides:
“Enjoy the pretty grave you dug for yourself.”
The Hound is awful. He does not like the rule that they must rest two feet apart, to prevent the dissipation of her virtue by sheer proximity. He has said, that's a crock of horseshit.
Do you know how babes are created?
Sansa said yes the first night but it was a little bit of a lie, because she was scared. She is aware of the necessary organs, her flower and his staff, but the process is not fully clear to her. His staff bumps her buttocks all day long in the saddle, and she frets even then that something savage has transpired, through leather and wool and the linen of her underkirtle. The saddle is necessary. The same closeness is not required for sleep, aside from the fact that neither of them sleep. Not tonight and not the nights prior.
Sansa has learned what it means to read another's breath. The Hound does not wield the breath of a sleeping man, steady and deep. His breath is jagged, barbed with grunts and groans and the creaky noises of a man who is part mongrel. He tosses often and scolds Sansa in terse utterances like, hush and quit and enough peeping. There are frightening moments when his breath does deepen. Then he succumbs to loud snores, and he no longer remembers that Sansa is beside him. He suffers night terrors and becomes a man possessed, who punches and writhes and calls out: no, no, no. Gregor.
Brother.
Stop.
One must understand the fright this inflicts on Sansa: a man four times her size at least, thrashing his mighty limbs, atwist in his wool cloak, yelling as if to alert the night watch. It is incredibly difficult to break these spells, but Sansa must, because elsewise she would abscond into the woods and face her grisly death. She screams to match him: wake up, wake up, wake up. It isn't safe to come near because she might get battered, so she scoots back, lays down, and uses her heels to temper him. She kicks into his ribs and belly and thighs. Sometimes she jostles his face.
When he wakes, he jolts back into his body, back to stillness and silence, and pretends nothing has transpired. He turns with his back to Sansa and continues his feint of slumber.
Tonight is another night where he does not sleep for true. His irregular exhalations burst from behind and become frozen mist in Sansa’s curls. She hears his lips click as if he intends to speak, but nothing spills from them save for grunts and grumbles.
At last: “You need to be close. You are far too small to warm yourself in this cold.”
Sansa especially loathes the Hound’s game of true and false, because he often says true things, even if the true things coincide with wrong.
“My virtue,” she mopes. “I can't.”
“If I wanted to rape you, I would have raped you in the Keep, or any night after. You're a pretty girl, but you're just that. A girlchild. My cock would break you in half and spill all your maidenly guts.”
“No.”
He says such things to torment her. She feels them deep in her tummy, the same way his staff would lance through her middle. He does not lie about the size of himself, and she knows this for lecherous reasons. She does not leave his side. It is lamentable, but necessary, to follow his every step. While he bathes, while he sets traps, while he hunts and gathers timber and yes, digs holes to void his bowels. She covers her ears for the completion of the act.
He only ever abandons her sometimes, in the dead of night, usually after a restless few hours. One time Sansa woke and found him gone, which frightened her so badly her blood frosted to ice. She peeked out of the tent and didn’t see him by the glowing pit of coal, but she heard hard breathing not far off.
By the blue light of the stars and moon, she found him reclined against a tree trunk. He clutched his giant staff and milked it, pearls of moisture shining at his tip. Sansa gasped of course, and this captured two mean, steely eyes.
“Go back to the tent,” the Hound barked. “This is no mummer’s show for the peeping of pretty birds. Stay for much longer and I won’t be asking you to join.”
Sansa first stumbled to a private hollow to make water, her water spindling down her thighs with each step she took. She no longer follows the Hound if he departs at these small hours of the night. She will wait, listen, and know he is close by the tattered pattern of his exhales. When he returns to the tent, she makes sure to shut her eyes tight.
“Why do you do that?” she asked, one night, after the Hound settled back at a proper distance in the tent.
“Men have needs, girl,” he said. “Needs I can’t inflict on you.”
So that is what he references when he speaks so crassly this very night. His staff is sized for mutilation. Sansa knows she is not raped because she still has her tender tummy, roiling beneath her crossed forearms. If she was raped she would have no tummy, no flower, perhaps no heart or no lungs. She would be dead. Raped is as good as dead.
She does not like sharing close quarters with a man who has needs. She does not like knowing the sight of man’s staff when hardened. She does not know why they grow, why it is bigger in the Hound’s fist than when he bathes in cold creeks. It is already large then, so what possible reason does the Father or the Warrior have for further engorgement?
So he can ravish me, Sansa thinks. And she spews a whimper.
The Hound lets out an agitated snort. “What ails you now?”
“Rape.”
She can’t find a prettier word for this, her least favorite word. So she poisons her tongue with its bitterness.
“I told you,” says the Hound. “I won’t rape you.”
“I think—I think your staff is hard for r-rape. Because when it’s soft it can’t. But when it’s big—”
Sansa worries a beast has taken residence in her belly. It contorts like a nest of evil, slithering creatures, and she clutches herself tighter, moaning. She will die out here, whether she is a maiden or a mutt’s whore, because her guts revolt. They have betrayed her through this turmoil, never at peace, always brewing fangs and claws and other sharp ends that don’t belong in her soft innards.
The Hound sighs. It shakes like he is the one pained, not her.
“Sansa,” he says, so softly tears spring in her eyes. He says it in the tone of a father, of her dead father, when he wanted her to calm. “I know you worry for rape. I know you wish you had a prettier, more chaste knight to guide you to safety, not an ugly dog who can barely keep his cock tame. It is not easy for me, but you have my word. I will not fuck you. I only wish to keep you warm.”
Sansa cries for a moment, because it satisfies to release her sorrow. She sees herself from above as if this is a song, the sad tale of the maiden and the dog. She wallows in it.
“They will say I’m ruined,” she says.
“Who will?”
“All. They’ll know we travelled alone. You are a smudge on my reputation as a lady. If you were a true knight, you would have taken a vow of purity. But you have not, which means you are welcome to have me.”
The Hound grunts a mean-sounding laugh, because he is mean.
“What? You think a knight’s vows bestow him a caged cock? Your truest knights have sampled little ladies and lords alike. And I’ve sampled the knights, girl. More knights than I have fingers. No true knight is pure. There’s blood on both his swords.”
“You’re awful,” Sansa says. She wishes she were anywhere but here, except dead. She can’t fathom a prurient knight, nor a knight paired with another knight. That is unnatural and frowned upon by the Gods. There is a word for such coupling that Sansa forgets, but she knows even more so that the Hound is a sinner. If he is a dog, he is the one who needs a cage, especially on his most licentious body parts.
“Awful but warm. If you ever wish to sleep, you must hang your woe outside the door and come close. I mean you no harm. My word is my word.”
“What if you become hard?”
“I will.”
“No,” Sansa gasps.
“Yes, little bird. Every night and every morn, with or without your buttocks against me. I told you this before. You are a pretty little prize, but you are breakable. I need you unscathed for your brother, not defiled and swollen with child.”
Sansa doesn’t understand his speech. He claims he won’t touch her, that he only cares for her comfort, then attests to his appetite. Hard is but a hair away from her ruin.
“If you are in such a state,” she says, “how will you stop yourself?”
“I will picture your shrill cries and the terrible look on your face when you look upon mine. It will kill all the heat in my blood.”
“I thought it made you angry.”
“What did?”
“My looks at you.”
“Often, yes. But no longer. I’m too tired to take offense to a flighty little bird. I have grown accustomed to it, like bruises on the battlefield. Ugliness is my lot. It smarts when poked but is not bloody nor deadly.”
“I would hate to be ugly.”
“So I won’t damage you.”
The quiet of night bears down on the tent with the weight of water. It sloshes in her ears: a hollow breeze, the rustling of grass, the calls of night birds. She can’t recall why she fights so fiercely. She can’t recall which statements of the Hound’s are the truest, because the truest statements are usually the most frightening. Like the words I won’t damage you. She must wonder if the Hound came to her chambers not to slit her throat, not to plunder her virtue, but to rescue her from certain death. He may still ransom her to Robb or her mother—that can’t be helped. He spared her life nonetheless.
“Do you care for me?” she quietly asks.
The Hound exhales a load of air that trembles.
“Yes,” he says. “Why else would I have you?”
Rape, she thinks. Rape, and gold, and rape. She assigned the Hound the role of lech from their earliest interactions, owing to his harsh language and love of drink. He is a difficult man to treat with because he does not uphold the same moral notions as she does. Sansa does not enjoy being told that her senses are unsensible and that she is childish for it. She does not enjoy her current state as a runaway, a captive to a lawless not-knight, her purity resting on the knife’s edge of his desire. So she struggles to rearrange her impression of this man from a fearsome cur to something virtuous or soft.
Sansa turns then. She does not quite know where her bravery comes from, but she knows that it is polite to face a person when speaking to them. Facing the Hound is like facing a burnt, black tree. In the oldest part of the Wolfswood, the trees grow so high you can’t see their tops, so wide you can’t stretch your arms around their trunk. The Hound only ever rests on his back or on his side, the side of his face that is unharmed. His scars greet the open air above with no hair for coverage. It is all tucked under his head.
Ugly is the correct word for his burns. Mottled blackish-reddish skin ravages half his face, though it lacks at the back corner of his jaw, which protrudes in a nodule of white. His lips are crisped away into a permanent sneer that bares his pointed canine. Ugly things are bad. This is probably why Sansa hates him so. Ugly people are beggars and criminals, or violent and dangerous. Ugly people don’t have the same morals, though she can’t quite remember where she learned this.
She squeezes one eye shut to hide the scars. This game is better. She notices that the good half of the Hound’s face is quite appealing, if not a little scary. He has a harshly angled jaw and cheekbone, plus a strong, hooked nose. An arched black brow sits atop the slanted eye of a predator. He is not boyishly beautiful like Joffrey or Loras. He can only be called masculine, cut from the cloth of the Warrior. His skin is tan and weathered, his jaw covered in a spray of sharp black hair.
Sansa reaches out an unsteady hand and lightly prods him. The hair prickles her fingertips and she recoils quite suddenly, having also felt a puff of living breath from the Hound’s nostrils.
“What game do you play?” he asks.
“I do not know if you are good or bad,” says Sansa.
“Neither. Nothing is pure.”
“Babes are innocent,” says Sansa. As am I. “And you brother—”
“Do not speak of him.”
Sansa swallows down a startled peep. When he is angry, when he looks at her with his scowling face that speaks only to its deadliness, she can’t help but think, he’s bad. This is a cruel man who finds the world cruel because it’s baked into his blood. And in this case, Gregor is the one to blame. He put his brother’s head to the brazier and therefore marked him as evil, as Gregor’s equal. That was not something Sandor himself supplicated. He hates his brother. Which might mean he hates cruelty. He was taught cruelty like Sansa was taught courtesy, and perhaps both of them live in these songs.
Sansa knows that the world is not so pretty, so Sandor should know the world is not so ugly.
“I will grow to like you,” Sansa says.
“How’s that?”
“Well, being ugly doesn’t mean you’re evil. I think you were cursed as a boy to know all the world’s ugliness, even though you were little and didn’t deserve it. I think that if you speak for true and will do me no harm, then we will be good companions. Do you promise to protect me? Do you promise to protect my virtue?”
Sandor grunts, but it seems to come from reflex rather than wroth. His eyes search her, shiny like a dog’s eyes.
“I do,” he says. “I have told you so many times.”
“We can make it a vow. If I’m your lady, and you my protector, then you should swear yourself to me for the Gods to hear.”
“I don’t believe in any Gods. You know this.”
Sandor always tries his best to hurt her. He doesn’t need to brandish a dagger for her to feel the sting of steel. So she dons her finest lady’s armor: manners.
“You must believe in something,” she says. “Something other than violence and cruelty. Otherwise you would have let Ilyn have my head.”
“I believe only in you. If not for your company, I would have fallen on my own sword.”
Sansa blinks at him. She does not understand the sentiment at first, but then she realizes that is the type of poetry for bards. For stories of enchanted romance. A knight who would do anything to secure his lady’s hand. It isn’t something she expects to come singing from Sandor’s lips. She wonders if he is confessing love. Love would be a good reason to abandon an unjust prince and flee with his betrothed. If Sandor believes in her, then she must be the statue at whose feet he falls for mercy. Then this tent is their sept and she too the highest priestess. To her, it means she is the Maiden, and Sandor has merely misplaced his faith in the Seven.
She decides to bless her swordsman. Every vow requires consecration. She does so by kissing two of her fingertips. She presses these fingers to the furrow between Sandor’s brows.
“Swear that you’ll protect my maidenhead,” she says.
“I swear it.”
“And you swear to protect me to your dying breath?”
“I swear it.”
“Do you swear to love me above all others, even your own kin?”
“I swear it.”
Sansa smiles, because it’s true that Sandor loves her. That is one aspect of being queen that she hadn’t pondered for herself—adoration. Thousands of men love their queen, though a queen needn’t love them back. She runs her fingers down the slope of Sandor’s nose, over his sneering lips, to his chin. She opens her palm to cradle the cracked expanse of his scars, though they far exceed her sprawled fingers. She is uniquely entitled to relieve his suffering, as his lady and deity and beloved. Pretty things can help ugly things, and Sandor is in need of such help. As she touches him, tears fall from his eyes and drip sideways into the bundle of cloth beneath his head.
Sansa’s tummy aches. She has seen his tears once and felt them once, and she pictures his tears while he was being burned as a little boy. Boys do not maintain virtue like noble girls, but they do have innocence, and innocence slips away far easier. For Sansa, it left when Father killed Lady, when Ilyn killed Father, and when Joffrey beat her. Each act was a rape, though her guts remained, to complain each night, to accept little food and drink, to torture her as she woke. She knows then that Sandor was raped the same way. He did not ask to be burned. No one does.
“Little bird,” Sandor softly says, when she begins to cry. She doesn’t protest when Sandor pulls her closer with a simple hook of his arm around her waist. She thinks she needs it. She needs to know that big beings can be gentle, because it means the Gods are gentle. They watch over her from their heavenly perches and send Sandor to do the good work of preserving her innocence. It is odd, yes. But he is warm and tender. His brawny arms shroud her. He tugs his cloak around her shoulders, and cradles her head in his broad hand. He presses her into his chest, to his quilted gambeson that reeks of smoke and sweat. The scent is not pretty, but today, all things rank are right. She does not know why rose and lavender claim utmost beauty, because even the sweetest bloom will never hold her on an early winter’s night and whisper in her ear, “You are safe with me, Sansa. I will guard you to my dying breath. And I would rise from my grave if you needed me again. I won’t rest until you’re home, crowned as the queen. You have my word, and my word is stronger than steel.”
Sandor presses his rough lips to Sansa’s forehead, where her crown will one day rest. Her heart flutters like a bird’s wings. She too is blessed.