“I swore an oath to keep him safe,” she said to Rhaegar’s shade. “I swore a holy oath.”
“We all swore oaths,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, so sadly.
The shades dismounted from their ghostly horses. When they drew their longswords, it made not a sound. “He was going to burn the city,” Jaime said. “To leave Robert only ashes.”
“He was your king,” said Darry.
“You swore to keep him safe,” said Whent.
“And the children, them as well,” said Prince Lewyn.
Prince Rhaegar burned with a cold light, now white, now red, now dark. “I left my wife and children in your hands.”
“I never thought he’d hurt them.” Jaime’s sword was burning less brightly now. “I was with the king…”
“Killing the king,” said Ser Arthur.
“Cutting his throat,” said Prince Lewyn.
“The king you had sworn to die for,” said the White Bull.
The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out, and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in.
“No,” he said, “no, no, no. Nooooooooo!”
Heart pounding, he jerked awake, and found himself in starry darkness amidst a grove of trees. He could taste bile in his mouth, and he was shivering with sweat, hot and cold at once. When he looked down for his sword hand, his wrist ended in leather and linen, wrapped snug around an ugly stump. He felt sudden tears well up in his eyes. I felt it, I felt the strength in my fingers, and the rough leather of the sword’s grip. My hand…
“My lord.” Qyburn knelt beside him, his fatherly face all crinkly with concern. “What is it? I heard you cry out.”
Steelshanks Walton stood above them, tall and dour. “What is it? Why did you scream?”
“A dream… only a dream.” Jaime stared at the camp around him, lost for a moment. “I was in the dark, but I had my hand back.” He looked at the stump and felt sick all over again. There’s no place like that beneath the Rock, he thought. His stomach was sour and empty, and his head was pounding where he’d pillowed it against the stump.
Qyburn felt his brow. “You still have a touch of fever.”
“A fever dream.” Jaime reached up. “Help me.” Steelshanks took him by his good hand and pulled him to his feet.
“Another cup of dreamwine?” asked Qyburn.
“No. I’ve dreamt enough this night.” He wondered how long it was till dawn. Somehow he knew that if he closed his eyes, he would be back in that dark wet place again.
“Milk of the poppy, then? And something for your fever? You are still weak, my lord. You need to sleep. To rest.”
That is the last thing I mean to do. The moonlight glimmered pale upon the stump where Jaime had rested his head. The moss covered it so thickly he had not noticed before, but now he saw that the wood was white. It made him think of Winterfell, and Ned Stark’s heart tree. It was not him, he thought. It was never him. But the stump was dead and so was Stark and so were all the others, Prince Rhaegar and Ser Arthur and the children. And Aerys. Aerys is most dead of all. “Do you believe in ghosts, Maester?” he asked Qyburn.
The man’s face grew strange. “Once, at the Citadel, I came into an empty room and saw an empty chair. Yet I knew a woman had been there, only a moment before. The cushion was dented where she’d sat, the cloth was still warm, and her scent lingered in the air. If we leave our smells behind us when we leave a room, surely something of our souls must remain when we leave this life?” Qyburn spread his hands. “The archmaesters did not like my thinking, though. Well, Marwyn did, but he was the only one.”
Jaime ran his fingers through his hair. “Walton,” he said, “saddle the horses. I want to go back.”
“Back?” Steelshanks regarded him dubiously.
He thinks I’ve gone mad. And perhaps I have. “I left something at Harrenhal.”
“Lord Vargo holds it now. Him and his Bloody Mummers.”
“You have twice the men he does.”
“If I don’t serve you up to your father as commanded, Lord Bolton will have my hide. We press on to King’s Landing.”
Once Jaime might have countered with a smile and a threat, but one-handed cripples do not inspire much fear. He wondered what his brother would do. Tyrion would find a way. “Lannisters lie, Steelshanks. Didn’t Lord Bolton tell you that?”
The man frowned suspiciously. “What if he did?”
“Unless you take me back to Harrenhal, the song I sing my father may not be one the Lord of the Dreadfort would wish to hear. I might even say it was Bolton ordered my hand cut off, and Steelshanks Walton who swung the blade.”
Walton gaped at him. “That isn’t so.”
“No, but who will my father believe?” Jaime made himself smile, the way he used to smile when nothing in the world could frighten him. “It will be so much easier if we just go back. We’d be on our way again soon enough, and I’d sing such a sweet song in King’s Landing you’ll never believe your ears. You’d get the girl, and a nice fat purse of gold as thanks.”
“Gold?” Walton liked that well enough. “How much gold?”
I have him. “Why, how much would you want?”
And by the time the sun came up, they were halfway back to Harrenhal.
Jaime pushed his horse much harder than he had the day before, and Steelshanks and the northmen were forced to match his pace. Even so, it was midday before they reached the castle on the lake. Beneath a darkening sky that threatened rain, the immense walls and five great towers stood black and ominous. It looks so dead. The walls were empty, the gates closed and barred. But high above the barbican, a single banner hung limp. The black goat of Qohor, he knew. Jaime cupped his hands to shout. “You in there! Open your gates, or I’ll kick them down!”
It was not until Qyburn and Steelshanks added their voices that a head finally appeared on the battlements above them. He goggled down at them, then vanished. A short time later, they heard the portcullis being drawn upward. The gates swung open, and Jaime Lannister spurred his horse through the walls, scarcely glancing at the murder holes as he passed beneath them. He had been worried that the goat might not admit them, but it seemed as if the Brave Companions still thought of them as allies. Fools.
The outer ward was deserted; only the long slate-roofed stables showed any signs of life, and it was not horses that interested Jaime just then. He reined up and looked about. He could hear sounds from somewhere behind the Tower of Ghosts, and men shouting in half a dozen tongues. Steelshanks and Qyburn rode up on either side. “Get what you came back for, and we’ll be gone again,” said Walton. “I want no trouble with the Mummers.”
“Tell your men to keep their hands on their sword hilts, and the Mummers will want no trouble with you. Two to one, remember?” Jaime’s head jerked round at the sound of a distant roar, faint but ferocious. It echoed off the walls of Harrenhal, and the laughter swelled up like the sea. All of a sudden, he knew what was happening. Have we come too late? His stomach did a lurch, and he slammed his spurs into his horse, galloping across the outer ward, beneath an arched stone bridge, around the Wailing Tower, and through the Flowstone Yard.
They had her in the bear pit.
King Harren the Black had wished to do even his bear-baiting in lavish style. The pit was ten yards across and five yards deep, walled in stone, floored with sand, and encircled by six tiers of marble benches. The Brave Companions filled only a quarter of the seats, Jaime saw as he swung down clumsily from his horse. The sellswords were so fixed on the spectacle beneath that only those across the pit noticed their arrival.
Brienne wore the same ill-fitting gown she’d worn to supper with Roose Bolton. No shield, no breastplate, no chainmail, not even boiled leather, only pink satin and Myrish lace. Maybe the goat thought she was more amusing when dressed as a woman. Half her gown was hanging off in tatters, and her left arm dripped bloo
d where the bear had raked her.
At least they gave her a sword. The wench held it one-handed, moving sideways, trying to put some distance between her and the bear. That’s no good, the ring’s too small. She needed to attack, to make a quick end to it. Good steel was a match for any bear. But the wench seemed afraid to close. The Mummers showered her with insults and obscene suggestions.
“This is none of our concern,” Steelshanks warned Jaime. “Lord Bolton said the wench was theirs, to do with as they liked.”
“Her name’s Brienne.” Jaime descended the steps, past a dozen startled sellswords. Vargo Hoat had taken the lord’s box in the lowest tier. “Lord Vargo,” he called over the shouts.
The Qohorik almost spilt his wine. “Kingthlayer?” The left side of his face was bandaged clumsily, the linen over his ear spotted with blood.
“Pull her out of there.”
“Thay out of thith, Kingthlayer, unleth you’d like another thump.” He waved a wine cup. “Your thee-mooth bit oth my ear. Thmall wonder her father will not ranthom thuch a freak.”
A roar turned Jaime back around. The bear was eight feet tall. Gregor Clegane with a pelt, he thought, though likely smarter. The beast did not have the reach the Mountain had with that monster greatsword of his, though.
Bellowing in fury, the bear showed a mouth full of great yellow teeth, then fell back to all fours and went straight at Brienne. There’s your chance, Jaime thought. Strike! Now!
Instead, she poked out ineffectually with the point of her blade. The bear recoiled, then came on, rumbling. Brienne slid to her left and poked again at the bear’s face. This time he lifted a paw to swat the sword aside.
He’s wary, Jaime realized. He’s gone up against other men. He knows swords and spears can hurt him. But that won’t keep him off her long. “Kill him!” he shouted, but his voice was lost amongst all the other shouts. If Brienne heard, she gave no sign. She moved around the pit, keeping the wall at her back. Too close. If the bear pins her by the wall…
The beast turned clumsily, too far and too fast. Quick as a cat, Brienne changed direction. There’s the wench I remember. She leapt in to land a cut across the bear’s back. Roaring, the beast went up on his hind legs again. Brienne scrambled back away. Where’s the blood? Then suddenly he understood. Jaime rounded on Hoat. “You gave her a tourney sword.”
The goat brayed laughter, spraying him with wine and spittle. “Of courth.”
“I’ll pay her bloody ransom. Gold, sapphires, whatever you want. Pull her out of there.”
“You want her? Go get her.”
So he did.
He put his good hand on the marble rail and vaulted over, rolling as he hit the sand. The bear turned at the thump, sniffing, watching this new intruder warily. Jaime scrambled to one knee. Well, what in seven hells do I do now? He filled his fist with sand. “Kingslayer?” he heard Brienne say, astonished.
“Jaime.” He uncoiled, flinging the sand at the bear’s face. The bear mauled the air and roared like blazes.
“What are you doing here?”
“Something stupid. Get behind me.” He circled toward her, putting himself between Brienne and the bear.
“You get behind. I have the sword.”
“A sword with no point and no edge. Get behind me!” He saw something half-buried in the sand, and snatched it up with his good hand. It proved to be a human jawbone, with some greenish flesh still clinging to it, crawling with maggots. Charming, he thought, wondering whose face he held. The bear was edging closer, so Jaime whipped his arm around and flung bone, meat, and maggots at the beast’s head. He missed by a good yard. I ought to lop my left hand off as well, for all the good it does me.
Brienne tried to dart around, but he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell in the sand, clutching the useless sword. Jaime straddled her, and the bear came charging.
There was a deep twang, and a feathered shaft sprouted suddenly beneath the beast’s left eye. Blood and slaver ran from his open mouth, and another bolt took him in the leg. The bear roared, reared. He saw Jaime and Brienne again and lumbered toward them. More crossbows fired, the quarrels ripping through fur and flesh. At such short range, the bowmen could hardly miss. The shafts hit as hard as maces, but the bear took another step. The poor dumb brave brute. When the beast swiped at him, he danced aside, shouting, kicking sand. The bear turned to follow his tormentor, and took another two quarrels in the back. He gave one last rumbling growl, settled back onto his haunches, stretched out on the bloodstained sand, and died.
Brienne got back to her knees, clutching the sword and breathing short ragged breaths. Steelshanks’s archers were winding their crossbows and reloading while the Bloody Mummers shouted curses and threats at them. Rorge and Three Toes had swords out, Jaime saw, and Zollo was uncoiling his whip.
“You thlew my bear!” Vargo Hoat shrieked.
“And I’ll serve you the same if you give me trouble,” Steelshanks threw back. “We’re taking the wench.”
“Her name is Brienne,” Jaime said. “Brienne, the maid of Tarth. You are still maiden, I hope?”
Her broad homely face turned red. “Yes.”
“Oh, good,” Jaime said. “I only rescue maidens.” To Hoat he said, “You’ll have your ransom. For both of us. A Lannister pays his debts. Now fetch some ropes and get us out of here.”
“Bugger that,” Rorge growled. “Kill them, Hoat. Or you’ll bloody well wish you had!”
The Qohorik hesitated. Half his men were drunk, the northmen stone sober, and there were twice as many. Some of the crossbowmen had reloaded by now. “Pull them out,” Hoat said, and then, to Jaime, “I hath chothen to be merthiful. Tell your lord father.”
“I will, my lord.” Not that it will do you any good.
Not until they were half a league from Harrenhal and out of range of archers on the walls did Steelshanks Walton let his anger show. “Are you mad, Kingslayer? Did you mean to die? No man can fight a bear with his bare hands!”
“One bare hand and one bare stump,” Jaime corrected. “But I hoped you’d kill the beast before the beast killed me. Elsewise, Lord Bolton would have peeled you like an orange, no?”
Steelshanks cursed him roundly for a fool of Lannister, spurred his horse, and galloped away up the column.
“Ser Jaime?” Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman. “I am grateful, but… you were well away. Why come back?”
A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. “I dreamed of you,” he said.
CATELYN
Robb bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered horse to plead with her young king to take her along.
Robb was touched by that, Catelyn saw, but abashed as well. The day was damp and grey, a drizzle had begun to fall, and the last thing he wanted was to call a halt to his march so he could stand in the wet and console a tearful young wife in front of half his army. He speaks her gently, she thought as she watched them together, but there is anger underneath.
All the time the king and queen were talking, Grey Wind prowled around them, stopping only to shake the water from his coat and bare his teeth at the rain. When at last Robb gave Jeyne one final kiss, dispatched a dozen men to take her back to Riverrun, and mounted his horse once more, the direwolf raced off ahead as swift as an arrow loosed from a longbow.
“Queen Jeyne has a loving heart, I see,” said Lame Lothar Frey to Catelyn. “Not unlike my own sisters. Why, I would wager a guess that even now Roslin in dancing round the Twins chanting ‘Lady Tully, Lady Tully, Lady Roslin Tully.’ By the morrow she’ll be holding swatches of Riverrun red-and-blue to her cheek to picture how she’ll look in her bride’s cloak.” He t
urned in the saddle to smile at Edmure. “But you are strangely quiet, Lord Tully. How do you feel, I wonder?”
“Much as I did at the Stone Mill just before the warhorns sounded,” Edmure said, only half in jest.
Lothar gave a good-natured laugh. “Let us pray your marriage ends as happily, my lord.”
And may the gods protect us if it does not. Catelyn pressed her heels into her horse, leaving her brother and Lame Lothar to each other’s company.
It had been her who had insisted that Jeyne remain at Riverrun, when Robb would sooner have kept her by his side. Lord Walder might well construe the queen’s absence from the wedding as another slight, yet her presence would have been a different sort of insult, salt in the old man’s wound. “Walder Frey has a sharp tongue and a long memory,” she had warned her son. “I do not doubt that you are strong enough to suffer an old man’s rebukes as the price of his allegiance, but you have too much of your father in you to sit there while he insults Jeyne to her face.”
Robb could not deny the sense of that. Yet all the same, he resents me for it, Catelyn thought wearily. He misses Jeyne already, and some part of him blames me for her absence, though he knows it was good counsel.
Of the six Westerlings who had come with her son from the Crag, only one remained by his side; Ser Raynald, Jeyne’s brother, the royal banner-bearer. Robb had dispatched Jeyne’s uncle Rolph Spicer to deliver young Martyn Lannister to the Golden Tooth the very day he received Lord Tywin’s assent to the exchange of captives. It was deftly done. Her son was relieved of his fear for Martyn’s safety, Galbart Glover was relieved to hear that his brother Robett had been put on a ship at Duskendale, Ser Rolph had important and honorable employment… and Grey Wind was at the king’s side once more. Where he belongs.
Lady Westerling had remained at Riverrun with her children; Jeyne, her little sister Eleyna, and young Rollam, Robb’s squire, who complained bitterly about being left. Yet that was wise as well. Olyvar Frey had squired for Robb previously, and would doubtless be present for his sister’s wedding; to parade his replacement before him would be as unwise as it was unkind. As for Ser Raynald, he was a cheerful young knight who swore that no insult of Walder Frey’s could possibly provoke him. And let us pray that insults are all we need to contend with.
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