Chapter Text
Sansa
Sansa knew that something was happening behind her in the throne room, something that had nothing to do with her. Joffrey’s face was white as a ghost, and all the little noises that had tittered through the room after Ser Meryn drove his fist into her stomach—the whispers, muffled shrieks, even the giggles—were falling silent.
Sansa was sprawled across the floor and she could not have looked away from Joffrey’s face had she wanted to. She scarcely cared what was happening elsewhere. Her life and death lay in Joffrey’s next words. Something was wrong with her; she could barely breathe, and she did not think she could walk. Her back was cold where Ser Meryn had torn her gown open. The welts laid down by the flat of his sword burned against her thighs and back like wildfire.
Suddenly, there was movement nearby, and Sansa realized she was probably making a spectacle of herself as people tried to move past her. But it scarcely mattered. If Sansa was in the way of some lord’s stately progress, they were simply going to have to step over her or drag her aside. Or perhaps Joffrey would just make an end of her with his crossbow. His mother would be displeased if Sansa died, but for all the Queen’s treachery, she had not wanted Sansa’s father beheaded, either. Joffrey did what he liked in the end. He’d proven that by now.
“Your Grace, my lords, ladies.” The seneschal’s voice rang through the throne room, clear as a bell against the hushed silence. “Doran Martell, ruling prince of Dorne, is come to renew his oaths of fealty to his Grace the King. Along with…his retainers.”
Sansa gasped quietly, forcing herself up to her knees. The prince of Dorne, Septa Mordayne’s voice seemed hiss in her ear, on your feet, girl, you must curtsey!
But before Sansa could do more than plant her hands on the floor, there was a strong hand at her elbow, pulling her upright. She nearly flinched, certain it was Ser Meryn again, but when she blinked the tears out of her eyes she found herself face-to-chest with an unfamiliar suit of armor—copper scales that glinted in the sunlight streaming through the windows. She looked up further and saw the face of a handsome young man. His mouth was tipped up at the corners in a sympathetic smile, but something hard and angry burned in his eyes.
“Come along,” he whispered. “We must make way for my prince.”
Sansa scarcely heard Joffrey beginning to make some elaborate apology for the scene at the foot of his throne—“my betrothed wife, you know, in need of correction”— nor did she hear much of Prince Doran’s reply, though his low and gracious tones were just audible from behind the hangings of his palanquin chair, which was held at waist level by four knights.
The other Dornish knight, the one was supporting most of Sansa’s weight against his arm, began to lead her towards the exit leading from the throne room beneath the gallery. Sansa mustered the strength to glance back towards the palanquin before she was out of view.
There, propped upon cushions, she saw a thin man with dark hair, streaked in silver. His cool black eyes lit on her for only the briefest of moments before turning their dark light once more onto the King.
Sansa shuddered, and as soon as she had passed through the doors of the throne room she grasped for the wall, freezing and numb and unable to take another step. The knight at her side muttered a curse under his breath and barked an order at a man standing at attention in the corridor—another Dornish knight, distinctive by the orange cloth wound round his helm.
Sansa thought both knights angry with her at first, and it would have frightened her more if she hadn’t already been so sick with fear. But the second knight only marched up to them and removed his orange cloak; the first knight, the handsome one, covered Sansa with it, so that neither her corset nor the bloody welts on her shoulders were exposed to the open air.
Sansa could have wept for gratitude, but they were strangers here, they did not know. “Ser,” she whispered, “the king will not thank you for this. Nor will he thank your prince.”
The knight smiled at her again, and this time his eyes were warm. “It was Prince Doran sent me,” he said. “May I escort you to chambers?”
“I—” Sansa was not certain how she would make it back to her chambers without help, but she was afraid of this Dornish knight, for all his gallantry. She did not know him, and he did not know that she was but a traitor’s daughter. Who was to say that he would not become angry with her when he learned that he’d wasted his time courting the favor of a girl whose favors were worth less than nothing?
The knight waited for her answer, but as the moment dragged on he seemed to arrive at a decision of his own.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, “but truly, I do not think you have the strength to go anywhere under your own power just now. I must carry you. Please do not be alarmed. On my honor, I shall take no liberties.”
So saying, he placed an arm under her legs and swept her off her feet so suddenly that Sansa had no choice but to wind her arms around his neck, or else fall.
Nor did she have any chance about crying out at the sudden pain—in all the places he was gripping her most tightly, the welts from Ser Meryn’s sword were burning their hottest. Miserable, humiliated, she felt the tears soaking her cheeks, but the Dornish knight did not laugh at her or drop her again. Instead, he made a soft, soothing noise of apology under his breath and adjusted his grip, until his arms were no longer pressing into the welts on her thighs or her back.
“You…you are you certain your prince does not require you to attend him?” Sansa managed to ask once she had got her breath back. One of her maids—the one who had tittered loudest when Ser Meryn knocked the wind from her, Sansa remembered—was leading the way back to Sansa’s chambers, but she seemed to be taking them the long way.
“On the contrary, my lady,” said the knight. “I am certain that I am precisely where my prince requires me to be.” His strides were long and confident, as though she weighed no more to him than one of the straw knights the master-at-arms used to train the boys in the yard.
“You do not know who I am,” she protested, her voice feeble, though her urgency gave her strength. “You do not understand. The King does not permit me to receive such attentions—”
“I serve Prince Doran,” said the knight, and though his tone was not harsh, it forbade further argument. “And he knows who you are, Lady Sansa.”
Sansa did not have the strength to argue with him further. He was kind, she thought, and she only hoped he would not come to any harm on her account. Her maids—the Queen’s spies, one and all—were watching him closely, their eyes alight with curiosity, even envy. Let them take a beating from Meryn Trant, Sansa thought viciously. Then they would learn whether the attentions of even the handsomest Dornish knights are sufficient recompense.
When they reached her chambers at last, the maids opened the door for them, and the Dornish knight carried Sansa all the way to her bed, depositing her gently against the pillows. Before she could thank him, or even speak to him, he turned towards the senior of her maids, and told her to send for a maester.
“Ser…” The maid exchanged nervous looks with the other girls. “The King does not…that is, he has never before given instructions…”
Even though Sansa was beginning to feel light headed, she could sense the anger in the knight’s silence.
“Ser, I will be well enough,” she called to him quietly. “I thank you for your kind service. May I know the name of the one to whom I am so obliged?”
The knight continued to stare at the maids a moment longer before turning back to Sansa. “I am Ser Daemon Sand, the Bastard of Godsgrace, my lady,” he said, bowing. “And there is no obligation. I did no more than my duty.”
He bowed again, a little more briefly, to her ladies, before departing the room at a swift clip.
Some ten or twenty minutes later, after Sansa had nearly fallen asleep, there came a knock at her door. When the maid answered it, a young man in maester’s robes and chain entered.
“Lady Sansa.” He bowed. “I am Maester Myles, I have come to tend to your injuries.”
There was a small casket in his hands, of the kind Maester Luwin once used to keep his ointments and potions. Sansa kept her eyes trained on the casket, and avoided looking at her maids.
“The King was most kind to send you,” she said, though even as she said it, she knew that Joffrey had nothing to do with his being here.
The maester arched an eyebrow and began unpacking his casket on her bedside table. “Prince Doran sent me, my lady. The King is…otherwise occupied, or no doubt you would be receiving the benefits of his maester’s attentions.”
Sansa struggled to sit up. Bad enough that she had been whisked from Joffrey’s presence without his leave. This could lead to far more serious consequences.
“Prince Doran is most attentive,” she said. “But I beg you…I tried to tell Ser Daemon…if the King hears of it...”
“That is not my concern, my lady,” said the master, his tones brisk. “I am bound to obey Prince Doran’s commands. Drink this, please.”
Sansa knew it was milk of the poppy, and sensing that she would have no more luck repelling this maester than she had had in repelling Ser Daemon, she chose to drink it straight down. Whatever he was about to do to her, it was bound to be painful, and she would just as soon sleep through it.
“I will leave more for the morning,” the maester said, noting the expression of relief on her face as the potion spread numbing hands over all her hurt places.
“Thank you,” Sansa whispered, even as she collapsed back onto the bed. “Please give Prince Doran my gratitude as well.”
“I shall, my lady.”