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* * *
Jaime Lannister considered the question. “I suppose it’s inevitable, but I—”
The blonde woman at the wheel of the car gritted her teeth. “Do you want to die now?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then in the name of the seven, will you kindly shut up?”
He thought she was being overdramatic. It was just a little snow and ice after all. “Would you like me to drive?” He couldn’t remember her name. She worked for Renly Baratheon and Catelyn Stark. He didn’t know what it was exactly she did at Stark & Associates, but they seemed to think a lot of her. Clearly, judging by her size and appearance, it must mean their appraisal was based on merit.
“What I want is for you to shut up, Mr. Lannister.”
“There are lanes, you know.”
“And where would those be?” She tore her eyes from the road to glare at him for a few seconds.
He was struck by how blue her eyes were, but he thought she was making far too big a deal about the conditions. “I’m a rather good driver, much better than you.”
She made him no answer.
Jaime caught a glimpse of an exit sign for the highway.
She braked hard and they both lurched forward and back.
“What are you doing? Let me drive—” and then he stopped. He had thought they were in the middle of the highway. If that object inches to his right was the guard rail, they were, in fact, on the far side of the road. “Seven hells.” He shut up.
Catelyn Stark’s pet employee very cautiously nudged the car off the shoulder and onto the road. The snow was falling so quickly and so heavily that there was no visibility. A large semi lumbered ahead. She got into its wake and at a speed of 5 mph she followed it.
“Where is it you live again?”
“Lannisport.”
She shot him another look.
“You asked me where I lived. I'm staying at the Hilton in Brindlewood.” He turned the heater up a notch. “What’s your name again?”
“Brienne Tarth.”
“Well, Brianna—”
“Brienne,” she corrected.
He ignored her. “If you’ll pull over at the next exit, I'll be happy to drive.”
“I have more experience driving in this weather.”
“How hard can it be?”
“Seeing as how you couldn’t get your fancy sports car out of the parking lot, I think you know the answer.”
Jaime thought this wasn’t quite fair. It wasn’t his fault the car was so low to the ground. “There. The next exit is five miles ahead.”
She peered at the sign. “Harrenhal,” she read aloud.
“You missed the exit for Brindlewood.”
“You do realize they’re saying this is the worst blizzard in recent memory?”
“If we’d had my car, my GPS would have—”
She edged over to the right to get into the exit lane. “If we’d taken your car, we would still be in the parking lot.”
On and on, they sniped at each other. They barely contained their irritation long enough for the attendant at the toll booth to tell them the authorities had closed the highway and that there was a ban on travel.
“Well, it’s a decent sized place,” Brienne Tarth reasoned. “There should be plenty of hotels.”
There were, but every one of them was full up.
* * *
It was hard to tell if Jaime Lannister shared her opinion. Clearly, his mouth was not hinged on either end because he kept up a running commentary the whole time.
She decided Jaime was nervous; it must explain why he was talking so much. She was nervous herself. The house was positively spooky, although she was hard pressed to decide what pushed it over the edge from unnerving into really disturbing. It might have been from all the taxidermy in every room they’d been in so far. Or it might have been from the man’s extensive gun collection also present all over the house, or it might have been the large array of exotically carved knives encased in glass beneath the top of the coffee table.
“I’ve never seen one like that before,” Jaime commented as he pointed to one specimen.
“It’s used exclusively for flaying,” Mr. Bolton informed them. “It’s a nice little blade.”
Even Jaime had a hard time responding to this. He gradually stopped asking questions about the objects in the room.
Brienne held her hands around the mug of herbal tea. Their host neither drank alcohol nor caffeine. She had wanted quiet, but not like this. Apparently Mr. Bolton felt no need to provide any conversation. Instead he sat in his leather armchair watching them, while the winds whipped mercilessly against the house. Whenever Jaime stopped talking in order to breathe, she asked polite questions and Mr. Bolton gave polite short answers. Finally they all fell silent.
When he rose, both she and Jaime jumped. “Excuse me. I should check on dinner.”
“Do you need any help?”
Mr. Bolton spared her a glance. “No,” he told her in a tone that suggested she should not have dared to ask.
They watched him disappear into the back of the house.
“Why do I have the uneasy feeling that he’s got some giant pot in the kitchen, and he’s waiting for the water to come to a boil before he shoves us both in and makes soup out of us?”
“Shhhh.” But she had been wondering something similar. Brienne stood up to stretch her legs. She examined the oil painting over the mantel. It was of a godswood. There was a pool of water beneath the requisite heart tree. In the background, which was dark and murky, she suddenly realized there were faces staring out between the other trees. She heard Jaime come over to where she was standing.
“Gods, is that a dead body?”
Brienne looked around wildly.
“No, there.” He pointed to a spot in the print on the other wall. “It is,” he hissed. “Look, that figure is dragging a corpse.” He moved over to the bookcases. “Seven hells.”
She cast her eye over the titles. Roose Bolton had an extensive library covering the subjects of serial killers, guns, and leeches.
“I think we may have been better off freezing by the side of the road.”
“There aren’t any hotel or motel rooms and there’s a travel ban,” she whispered back.
“Aren’t you glad I told him we were vegetarians?”
She was, although at the time he said it, she’d felt sorry for their host, who had allowed himself to look annoyed and stymied for a moment before returning to his mask of politeness.
They heard the sound of footsteps and they fell over themselves trying to make it to the couch. Somehow Jaime ended up practically sitting on her.
Mr. Bolton blinked quite a lot. “Dinner is ready.”
Brienne thought Jaime was making too big a deal out of disentangling himself from her.
The dining room shouldn’t have been creepier. There were no guns or knives for one thing and the walls were mercifully free of dead animal heads. On the walls though, there were a series of handsomely framed anatomical prints where the figures, denuded of their skin, were standing around in oddly casual poses. And in the corner there was a magnificent bear standing on its hind legs, its face stretched in a rictus of rage, and posed as if it were about to attack.
“Seven hells.”
“My father liked to hunt . . . animals. His work,” Mr. Bolton explained quietly causing them both to jump. “He was quite a taxidermist. Do sit. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Brienne was relieved when their host set down a salad and macaroni and cheese in front of them. The meal was a silent affair.
“I only have one spare bedroom,” Mr. Bolton said as he got up to clear their plates. “But the sofa opens up into a—”
“We’ll share,” Jaime told him quickly.
Brienne was starting to object to this when Jaime kicked her.
“Catelyn didn’t tell me you were a couple. I received the impression that Ms Tarth was merely—”
“We’ve been keeping it quiet,” Jaime lied easily. “But I’m sure we can trust you not to spread it around.”
“Of course. Dessert? I’m afraid all I have are stewed prunes.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed to Jaime while Mr. Bolton went to the kitchen.
Jaime shushed her. “Keeping us alive,” he whispered back.
* * *
Brienne hushed him. “We don’t know how thick the walls are.”
“Don’t worry. He probably has corpses stuck between them. I’m sure they’re very insulating.” Still, he lowered his voice.
She surveyed the spare clothing Roose Bolton had found for them.
“He’s quite a bit shorter than we are. Perhaps he feels inadequate. Do you think that’s why he turned to serial killing?”
“Oh my gods, do you never shut up?”
“We’re supposed to be engaged. You should be more affectionate with me.”
Brienne took the throw pillow off the bed and hurled it at him full force. “That’s another thing. Why did you have to go so far? Couldn’t you have stopped with ‘we’re dating?’”
“It added to the realism.”
She quoted him: “‘We’re planning on three children, triplets if we can manage it. Brienne wants to name them Arthur, Barristan, and Penelope.’ Where did that come from?”
Jaime unbuttoned his shirt. “From him staring at us like he didn’t believe a word we were saying. You were just as bad. Telling him we were getting married in medieval costumes with swords, no less?”
She grew defensive. “Engaged people talk about the wedding ceremonies they’re planning. I’ve heard them do it at work. They don’t tell strangers what they’re going to name their future children. Besides you got into it too with little Tommy being our ring bearer and Marcy being the flower girl.”
“Tommen and Myrcella,” Jaime corrected. “I think if we’re going to get married, you should know the names of my relatives.”
“And you should know that my father is still alive and it certainly didn’t help your ‘realism’ when you called me ‘wench.’”
“I forgot your first name, all right? You seemed to be really into this medieval fantasy wedding. I thought it suited the theme.”
Brienne held up and discarded t-shirt after t-shirt. “None of these are going to work. I said I wanted a medieval-themed wedding; I did not say I wanted to dress as a tavern barmaid.” Finally she found a t-shirt whose logo proclaimed “Qyburn’s Scalpels – The Blade that Never Dulls.” She held it up against her to see if it would fit.
“I don’t even want to know.”
“Neither do I,” Brienne admitted. She turned her back, quickly removed the top she was wearing, and pulled the t-shirt over her head.
He was surprised she wore a brassiere. She didn’t seem to need one. Then she performed some complicated maneuver to remove it. The shirt fell to her mid thighs. She managed to take off her trousers without revealing too much skin. Finally she dived under the covers.
Jaime shrugged. He looked through the pile of rejected t-shirts. The only one left that would fit him was a solid pale pink. He almost wished it had a motto.
Brienne snickered.
“Shut up.” He shrugged out of his button down.
Brienne was oddly quiet.
He turned and noticed her watching him. Blood rushed into her cheeks and she looked away. Jaime took far longer than he needed to finish undressing. He knew she was peeking because every time he looked, her face grew redder. It was somehow enjoyable to provoke her like this. But he ran out of clothing and the room was cold, so eventually he joined her under the covers. She was busily stuffing pillows between them, when they heard the knock at the door. Jaime grabbed the pillows and put them back behind them. “Come in,” he called.
Brienne shot him one agonized look, but submitted when he yanked her so she was lying on top of him.
Jaime felt Brienne trying to sit up. “Wench, I’m sure Mr. Bolton understands.”
Mr. Bolton looked as if he did understand, but that he didn’t like it very much. “I am turning in. Do you require anything else?”
Brienne wrenched free of Jaime. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Bolton. He has attachment issues. We have everything we need, thank you. Good night.”
He nodded uncertainly and left them.
Jaime waited a minute and then positioned a chair underneath the door handle. He got back in the bed. He looked at the pillows. “He might come back.”
“Fine.”
They lay in the dark, trying not to jump at the creaks in the floorboards. It was a noisy night. The windows rattled and once or twice, it felt like the house was shaking. He slept fitfully. A sound that came perilously close to wailing woke him up. He tried to move, but Brienne had evidently thrown herself bodily against him in the night. The moaning noise started again.
“Jaime?”
“I think it’s coming from outside.”
She pushed herself off him and returned to lying on her back. “That’s all right then.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re on the second floor.”
“We leave at first light, travel ban or no travel ban.” He waited for her to agree. “Brienne?”
She sighed. “I think the sooner we’re gone, the better.”
* * *
“Please accept my best wishes for your happiness,” he told her as she and Jaime bickered over who was going to drive. “You seem to be uniquely suited to each other.”
Brienne thanked him and physically grabbed the keys out of Jaime’s hand.
“If this were a horror film, we’d discover he was lying in wait in the back seat with a knife,” Jaime commented as they drove through the silent snow-covered streets of Harrenhal toward the highway entrance back to Brindlewood.
“I checked already,” she admitted. “Twice.” She felt him look at her with surprise. “I’ve seen those movies too. I used to watch them even though my father forbade it.”
“Yours too?” Jaime chuckled. “He used to rant about the trash on television all of the time.”
She smiled. “That wasn’t why Dad objected.”
The snow was still falling and at times she was inching along behind traffic, but the conversation flowed smoothly. By the time they reached the highway, it was like they’d always known each other.
Brienne was relieved the plows had been down the highway. There were actual lanes once again. She stayed on the right. It was still a slow journey, but it lacked the harrowing feeling of the trip the night before.
By the time they were at the exit for Brindlewood, she knew this was something special.
He said as much.
Her phone rang and Brienne was glad of the distraction. She put it on speaker.
“Brienne?”
“Hi, Catelyn.”
“Are you all right?”
“We’re fine.”
“You should have stayed in Harrenhal. It’s not safe. The weather reports are urging extreme caution.”
From the way Jaime’s eyes were rolling and the way she felt, Brienne felt she would rather take her chances on the road. “We’re fine,” she said again.
Catelyn’s voice grew flatter. “Now that we’ve established you’re not in imminent danger, we need to talk about your behavior. On the clock or not, you represent Stark & Associates. I just got off the phone with Roose. He talked to me for quite a long time, which is not like him; he’s not a loquacious man. I’m going to assume that the strain of driving in the storm was responsible for your behavior.”
“Our behavior?”
There was a pause. “Perhaps I’m being too harsh. The things he said about the two of you didn’t seem . . . he said you’re engaged and planning a medieval themed wedding? He said you wouldn’t shut up about it. That can’t be right. Can it? I thought you just met each other. And I know legally I shouldn’t ask you this, but how are triplets something you can possibly plan on having?”
Brienne’s lips twitched.
“He went on at length about your inappropriate public displays of affection. He said something about Jaime Lannister not being able to contain his ardor, that he left the room for a minute and came back to find him literally jumping on you. And then he told me that you were the loudest houseguests he’d ever had—what’s that sound?”
“Jaime’s laughing. I’ll explain it to you later, Catelyn. I’m going to drive Jaime to Brindlewood, and I’ll—”
“Brienne is going to stay over in Brindlewood today. I do hope that’s all right, but I know you wouldn’t want her to risk life and limb. We’ll call you back later.” He ended the call. “Well, I like that. Mr. Serial Killer found us disturbing.”
She kept her eyes on the road. “So what exactly am I going to do in Brindlewood with you for the whole day?”
He leaned back and stretched out his long legs. “I thought we could get to know each other a little better and talk more about this medieval wedding you’ve clearly been planning in such great detail.”
“Only if you tell me how long you’ve wanted triplets named Arthur, Barristan, and Penelope.”
* * *
* * *