Chapter Text
At the crest of the last hill, Brienne slowed her palfrey to a stop and took a long breath.
Below her unfurled the entire Lannister army, rows and rows of red tents filling the valley from end to end. The camp swam with noisy activity and she briefly gave thanks that she had arrived before their next march. If they had already struck camp she might not have caught them; she had only days to return to her young squire where she had left him, safe at an inn in Pennytree, while she swept the Riverlands in search of the Lannister camp. Already she had ridden the length of it following their trail and her time was growing short. Though she would need little time for this task, additional complications would be unwelcome.
It would be complicated enough, as it was.
Slowly she swung over the saddle and dismounted, deciding to lead her mare by the bridle down the embankment, towards the camp. It would not do to rush and create an alarm amongst the scouts, as much as she wanted to gallop straight in. Instead she moved deliberately and calmly and tried very hard to give more concern to the aches of many days’ riding than to the task ahead.
This was an errand, nothing more. She would pay her courtesy to Lord Lannister and be on her way, and, she told herself quite firmly, expect little in the way of pleasantry. After all, the last words she and he had spoken were harsh ones, and she doubted there would be any reason for him to welcome her warmly. For all he knew she was still a failure, slinking back to his side to ask for some favor. She doubted he would have any way to know that she had succeeded after all, that with Sandor Clegane she had set forth from the Quiet Isle and located Sansa Stark in the Vale just in time to help Sansa extricate herself from the machinations of Petyr Baelish. They had arrived outside Winterfell to see Stannis Baratheon in desperate conflict with the Bolton forces. The Northerners had decimated one another until only ruins of their armies remained, and the Vale Knights made the decisive claim to the castle with Sansa pulling together the remaining Stark bannermen in her name.
Winterfell had been won by the efforts of many, and her own role had been hardly decisive, but Brienne had laid her own claim on the battlefield. In single combat, she had put an end to Stannis Baratheon.
At the thought of it Brienne drew herself up a little straighter and raised her chin against the questioning looks of the camp guards. A poor joke she may be to these men, as she had always been, but at last she knew herself a true knight. She had completed her quest, avenged King Renly, and now wore the Stark colors as a sworn sword. At last she had proven herself worthy, and could hold her head high.
Then why did her stomach quiver with nerves at the thought of facing Jaime Lannister again?
Three young guards posted at the stables roused themselves well in advance of her approach. When they stopped her at the foot of the hill, she told them as boldly as she could that she would see their Lord Commander, whose blade she carried. At this she withdrew the sword a little way from its scabbard, enough for the lads to take its measure. When they saw the lion on the pommel, her claim could not be denied, and the three guards exchanged an expression of widened eyes and raised eyebrows. Without ceremony, she was led into the camp, with soldiers eying her warily and staring openly at the valyrian blade strapped to her side.
Her horse stabled and fed, she left her pack and shield behind and followed her escorts with as much pride as she could muster in the face of a great many questioning glances. Even here, a lady in armor was a strange sight, but she had long grown immune to such stares. It tired more than troubled her now.
She caught sight of their Lord Commander only briefly as they made their way through the camp. Even at a distance, in a crowd of men, he was instantly recognizable. His golden hair stood out like a flag in the muddy barracks, even more so than his golden armor. One of the guards had run ahead to inform him of her arrival and he had to speak over at least four other soldiers clamoring for his attention. He must have said the right thing, because their Commander quickly lost all interest in the conversation and searched out where her two escorts lead her through the camp.
To her surprise, he turned his entire body in the direction pointed and searched through the distance until their eyes met. His eyes should have been too far away to tell if they met her gaze, or even whether they were open or shut, but she knew it just the same. She could feel the contact as a physical sensation, a touch at a distance.
Her breath caught in her chest. She had the sudden, strange idea that she ought to have brushed her hair before she came into the camp. It was not the sort of thing she thought of doing, in general. She didn’t even own a brush. There was no point, really, when she would be muddy and bruised and battered and vanity would be a poor trick to play on herself with a face like hers. Still, the thought came to her that she might at least have brushed her hair.
Then he turned away, and she kept walking and could not see him anymore.
She was lead into the Lord Commander’s tent with a soldier at each shoulder, new soldiers, blonds. More Lannisters? Or simply bannermen? There never seemed to be any shortage of Lannister blonds, even if they were only lowly ones. The Great Houses were ruthless that way, if they lost their heirs there were always spares. Not like Tarth, she thought, and quickly banished the memory.
The guards did not say how long she might wait or invite her to sit, so she stood awkwardly at attention and took in her surroundings. Everything was Lannister crimson, a deep, bloody red. It was by far the fanciest tent she had ever seen, nicer than many cottages. Even King Renly’s tents had not been so fine, and he had a keen taste for the ostentatious. But like most things Lannister it was impressive not in decoration or excess but in quality; every surface from the floors to the footstools were the highest caliber and well-matched to each other, and nothing was out of place.
Except her, of course.
At this thought Brienne willed herself to stand straighter, telling herself, you are a knight. You are a true knight. It would not do for her to slump and slouch when Lord Lannister came in. All her old timidity she had banished long ago, and a knight did not cower no matter how out of place he may feel.
Almost in response the fingers of her left hand played soothingly over the golden hilt of her magic sword, Oathkeeper. She had only recently acquired the habit of grasping for it at regular intervals, as if to remind herself it was there. Sometimes, when particularly anxious, she would curl her fingers around it, more as if to clutch it to her chest than to draw it out. She held it now, and thought about what she had come to do here today, and was suddenly solemn.
When the Lord Commander arrived he was surrounded in a thick cluster of officers, all in Lannister gold and red, who abruptly passed her by. The other men were two or three decades older than her, and none of them acknowledged her in any way. Had she stood directly in their path she would still be well beneath their notice, she sensed. She was reminded of Lord Tarly, and all the others of his ilk, and she set her jaw unhappily.
Lord Lannister did not look at her then. He looked at the parchment in his hands and at the men in his command and gave orders in a measured tone punctuated with authority, and seemed only dimly to realize that she was there.
Brienne shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, at a mild remove, waiting to be addressed. She found herself reluctant to speak up, taking the time to steady herself to the fact of Jaime Lannister in his element, a commander and leader of men. She had seen him as a prisoner, as a knight, and as a warrior, but never before as a Lord. Most often they had been alone together on the road or as captives, not in the company of others. Even at Kings Landing he had seen her only by herself, presumably because he would not wish to be seen with her. The Brotherhood without Banners and the Brave Companions did not count, she knew. But here was a side of the man she had not seen before, more serious and more substantial.
He sat down behind the great desk and smoothed down his hair with his hand, making some comment that made the men around him chuckle. His beard had grown in again and his hair was longer, making him a good deal scruffier than he had been when she saw him last, though not quite the mangy lion she had first met. He wore it well. She tried not to stare. It had been sixteen long months since she saw him. Though she had been stern with her remembrances of his handsome face, she found every detail as sharply familiar as though she had seen him only yesterday. Only the ache in her chest told her how terribly long it had been.
As ever, she had to marvel at the ease with which he moved through the world, an ease she had never known for a single moment. It wasn’t merely confidence – though he certainly had that – it was a kind of skill. An ability to say and do precisely what was needed at any moment. He simply fit, wherever he was, whoever he was with. What must it be like, she wondered, to blend so easily into your surroundings? Not to have to measure every word and consider every move, but simply to belong? She could not imagine it.
Finally, and loudly enough for her to hear, The Lord Commander dismissed them all to their respective orders and waved the guards outside the tent. Somehow she knew she was not included in their number, and simply stood silently, waiting.
When they had all gone, Jaime looked up at her. A long, sustained look with not a flicker of distraction that told her he had only been waiting for them to be alone together. Now there would be nothing that could possibly divert his attention. He sat back and considered her, looked her up and down in a way that made her feel almost naked despite her armor.
Her heart quickened, and the blood pounded in her ears.
“Well,” he said with a slow smile, “Brienne of Tarth. You look a great deal livelier than when last I saw you.”
“I don’t recall,” she stammered slightly. She could kick herself, already stumbling over her words.
“I don’t suppose you would.” He laid aside his messages on the table with profound disinterest, his eyes locked onto her. “You were quite ill. I trust you have recovered by now.”
She kept her tone formal, in contrast to his sudden casualness. “As much as I’m likely to, Ser. I am well.”
“I’m glad.” He did seem unaccountably pleased with her, just as he should have been cross. Instead he raised his eyebrows teasingly. “I had no news of you after we parted, I thought you had forgotten me. Only months later did I even receive the message that you had survived…”
The way he trailed off was a question that she did not know how to answer. Brienne could not quite read his expression; she had never been very good at that sort of thing. She knew he might still be angry with her for what she had done to him, but would he have seen her at all if he were? She took a deep breath. “I am sorry that I did not contact you sooner – I’m sorry for a lot of things, Ser Jaime.”
He cut her off. “Don’t start up the apologizing again. It’s all well behind us now. It’s funny,” he added with a crooked smile, “I was thinking of you only yesterday, and I have just heard that the Starks are back at Winterfell. I thought you must be most pleased to hear it.”
“I am pleased. I mean, I am well aware,” Brienne said with great satisfaction. “I found them.”
“You found…” She watched him realize, his eyes widening as he straightened up in his seat. “My news was not so specific as that. The Stark in Winterfell is Sansa, then? You restored her to her home?”
“Sansa and Arya both, I brought to Winterfell. Where they will soon be joined by their half-brother Jon Snow.” She was sure she looked foolish just then, so prideful and pleased she could not contain herself. But she could not stop herself smiling. “In your name, of course. All of Winterfell knows you sent me to their aid.”
Jaime gestured to the letter on his desk. “And that explains this missive. I wondered why they would extend a hand to me in their time of need. Here I thought it was my diplomatic prowess,” he said with a wry smile. “How? How did you find them?”
She dropped her gaze a little bashfully. “It is a long tale, Ser, and mainly not of interest. I had help from a few unexpected quarters. In the end we rode with the Knights of the Vale to join the Siege of Winterfell. Unfortunately there was some unpleasantry in the Vale, and Lord Baelish is no more. I understand he has served your family in the past, but it could not be avoided. I hope it will not inconvenience you.”
Jaime’s smile grew. “Not in the least. I imagine Littlefinger made himself a nuisance. I doubt anyone would miss him, I certainly won’t.”
That was a sad end for even so wicked a man, that no one alive would mourn him, Brienne thought and frowned.
He pressed on with great interest, leaning forwards. “But why are you not at your lady’s side in Winterfell then? Surely she would have taken you into her service?”
“I am sworn, yes. But not to Lady Sansa. I left Sandor Clegane – yes, the Hound, who accompanied me from the Isle to the Vale”, she added at his raised eyebrows, “at Winterfell, to guard the Stark girls. But I will serve in the Stark’s command once I have discharged my duty to you, Ser.”
“The Hound, guarding Sansa and Arya Stark…” Jaime shook his head wonderingly and chuckled to himself. “How did you pull that off, I wonder? No, don’t spoil it, let me guess. You’ve converted him with your purest virtue. Tamed the Hound, made my father’s beast an honorable knight. Of course where the white cloak fails, you would succeed.”
“Something like that,” she defended, squaring her shoulders. She had forgotten how quickly he could irk her with his remarks. “Laugh if you will. Anyway it was not my doing, Ser. The Quiet Isle sheltered him first, and he followed me of his own will.”
“You do tend to acquire followers. I suppose stray dogs are to be expected.” He narrowed his eyes slightly and continued with an indifference that struck her as feigned. “What of young Podrick Payne, and your friend Hunt?” His voice landed oddly on the word “friend”, and Brienne remembered how poorly an impression the two had made on one another.
“Ser Hyle remained in the Vale after we rescued Lady Sansa.” She saw no reason to elaborate on that detail, or mention that she had forced him to stay behind after a last awkward attempt to woo her. It was not likely to improve Jaime’s opinion of the man, and anyway it was no business of his. “Podrick awaits me at Pennytree. I will be journeying there on the morrow.”
“If you wait a few days more, you might accompany us.” Jaime lifted the un-sealed letter before her eyes. “We will move on as well soon, most likely down the River Road in that direction, though we have not yet decided our goal. The Starks called for aid, and as we are no longer defending King’s Landing we’re in a position to give it. But there are many such calls to consider these days.”
Brienne bit back her questions on that count. The retreat of the Lannister army from the capital had been a matter of much speculation in the North. Rumors of dragons and wildfire, dark magic and ritual sacrifice had filtered out across the countryside, things she would not have credited had she not seen herself the shadow that had murdered King Renly. The Sept at Baelor had burned somehow, that much was certain, and King Tommen was dead, the Queen’s wicked Hand and his abominations had been turned out, and Aegon Targaryen had taken the throne. What had become of the Lannisters, and why their army had marched intact into the Riverlands rather than confront the Targaryens, was an utter mystery.
She herself had spent no small amount of time imagining what could have happened in the time since Jaime Lannister had left her on the Quiet Isle. But of course the Lord Commander of the Lannister army owed her no explanations, and she would not ask for them.
Perhaps her expression betrayed her, for Jaime cut into her thoughts with a knowing tone. “We have much to catch up on, Brienne of Tarth. But I must make one last circuit around the camp before dusk. Walk with me?”
So she did. They walked together through the rows of tents, Jaime in his long black gambeson, Brienne in her full armor. Even more wondering eyes followed her now that she walked at his shoulder, but in his presence she did not mind so much being stared at, and even felt a kind of pride.
They circled the army at a short distance, sometimes dipping down into corners of the encampment where Jaime would have quick exchanges with his men. He kept her at his side then, and any strange looks were quickly dispelled by his calm insistence on her presence. He even involved her in a conversation about shield-smithery at the quartermaster’s area, at which she was too surprised to much contribute.
“They have to see their commander there,” he told her as they walked a little way up the hills surrounding the camp. “Even when you’re of little use. I may not stock the supplies with them or train with them, but they need to see me now and again as they do it. Then they won’t mind so much later when I must ask them to do more.”
Brienne nodded, thinking Renly had not greeted the blacksmith as he repaired their arms nor called the fletchers by name. An uncommonly disloyal sentiment for her, but one she was more comfortable with than she might have been all those months ago. It was much stranger to think of Renly with Jaime at her side. They were so different, and yet her mind would set them against each other, even here. She tried to imagine the two of them in the same room – it must have happened at King’s Landing more than once. The scene made her quite nervous to consider for reasons she did not quite understand.
They conversed rather idly on matters of war and battle, saving, she sensed, the more serious matters for when they returned to the tent. If she was not mistaken he was lingering here with her longer than was strictly necessary, walking rather slowly and looking lingeringly on her when she gave her terse replies to his comments about battle formations. Though her company could not have been much to offer, there were reasons to delay. The afternoon was quite pleasant, the air crisp and clear and not nearly so frigid as in recent days, a violet winter sunset beginning just over Jaime’s shoulder. With the constant noise of camp at a comfortable distance, a peaceful quiet fell over them both.
Falling into step next to him reminded her of the last leg of their journey to King’s Landing. The same comfortable quiet, the same unconscious rhythm of journeying together without having to ask or answer their next moves. The same strange melancholy, which she now knew as reluctance to reach their destination. When they arrived everything would be different.
She was not eager to return to the Commander’s tent.
At a particularly steep segment of their path he offered a hand to her, and she took it without hesitation. Only then, at the warmth of his hand around hers and the sudden pull in her chest, did she remember that she did not accept such help, and should be affronted by the implication that she needed it, and worried that her blush would be visible even in the rapidly dimming afternoon. For all that Jaime seemed not to notice her discomfiture, and all too quickly, when she pulled up and over an awkward footing, he let go of her again.
“So tell me,” he said suddenly, cocking an eyebrow arrogantly in a manner seemingly calculated to best annoy her, “what brings you riding into my camp? Do you want something of me?”
“No,” she said quickly, falling back into step beside him, and sounding more defensive than she meant.
“I didn’t think you made social calls, Lady Brienne.”
She glared at his teasing tone. “I came for a purpose, yes. A few, actually.”
“Here it comes,” he told the empty air around them. “If you want a knighthood, I’m afraid I’m not in that business anymore. If anyone is.”
Brienne never quite understood how he could so quickly get her back up – one moment things would be quite peacable, and then the next… she ground her teeth a little. “I do not seek anything for myself, Ser. And anyway one of my aims you must know already. You have the call for aid from the North.”
“Aye.” He looked idly curious. “Though reports from the North are all a muddle, and I’m honestly not sure what to make of them. You have been there, tell me: what army troubles the northern kingdom? They speak of enemies from beyond the wall, and then of armistice with wildlings. Surely they cannot be mobilizing against folktales and shadows?”
“It’s more than tales, I’m afraid.” Brienne frowned, thinking of what she had seen and heard. “Others. Dead things. Creatures of ice.”
Jaime shook his head. “It sounds like Northern superstition.”
“You of all people in the South know there is dark magic at work.” She could not help but shudder at the thought, and finished it reluctantly. “We both have seen the dead rise.”
He stopped short, and Brienne immediately regretted having conjured that particular memory. She knew without doubt the vision it called into both of their minds, of the risen shade of Catelyn Stark and the awful trial they had faced at her hands. A vision she still had yet to banish from her dreams.
As well, it would call to mind how she had betrayed him to the Brotherhood without Banners. Though she hoped she had made it up to him after, and he did not seem angry, she did not like to remind him of that.
Jaime faced into the sunset, looking out over his camp. “I have not forgotten,” he murmured finally. “And I’ve seen more than that, since.”
He did not elaborate, and Brienne did not press him. She just stood at his shoulder and watched, quietly, as his gaze grew faraway and his expression clouded.
The sudden change in mood troubled her, even moreso that she had caused it. Surely she could have waited to bring up such dark subjects and not spoiled their walk together. Now he seemed lost in thought, and Brienne wondered if she might be distracting him from more important matters.
She could not help but take the opportunity to watch him. All along she had been resisting the urge to look long at him, focusing instead on their surroundings, other people around them, her own feet. She gave him only sidelong glances, quick glimpses. But she wanted to look at him constantly, and anytime she did not stop herself her eyes would be seeking his face. His ridiculous handsome face which would surely have made a jest if ever he had noticed her looking.
That was no different from before, though. What was new was catching him looking up at her. Ever since she had first drawn his attention that day, there had been a strange intensity in his gaze, and a certain searching expression she had never seen from him before. It confused her, made her nervous. It made her wonder if her mutilated face, though much healed, was even more hideous than she had imagined, to draw his gaze so. She had avoided his eyes, at any rate, as they walked.
There had been so many eyes on her since she had left Tarth. At first it had made her want to crawl out of her skin, and then she had grown used to it. Let them stare, let everyone stare. Jaime staring was different. It made her want to run away, and yet she didn't want him to stop. Both at once, a most confusing sensation.
Brienne studied him now, with his attention safely elsewhere. There was more silver in his beard than she remembered. The pale winter sunset gave him a pallor she had not noticed before, and drew dark shadows under his eyes. He looked tired, subdued, unlike himself. It worried her.
What happened to you in King’s Landing, Jaime?
Almost in response he spoke up, startling her. “I don’t disbelieve them, exactly. A Stark would not call for aid from the South unless the situation was truly dire. I merely wanted to hear your opinion.” Here a smile tugged at his lips. “If Brienne of Tarth says there is an army of ice, there surely must be. You haven’t the imagination to make up such things.”
Relief rippled through her at the sight. That, and an odd sort of pride that made her cheeks flush hotly. She knew he was teasing her with this last, and yet, she thought he meant it too. Perhaps he did want to hear her thoughts on the matter. She could not be sure, it was strange to her. Her opinion had never mattered to anyone before. Maybe this was what that felt like.
“I have not seen the army of the dead,” she told him in measured tones, wanting to be as precise and honest as she could, “but I have seen its result. There is something terrible coming, and the wall will not hold it. Already at Eastwatch there is a breach.”
Jaime nodded at the horizon to his right. “Nearly two weeks ago? When the ground shook and the dust clouds formed? We’ve had little news since leaving the capital, but that has been difficult to ignore.”
Brienne grimaced at the darkened horizon to the North. It was far less ominous this far south but even here the shadows in the distance drew the eye and conjured dark rumors of The Long Night. When she had ridden out from Winterfell, the ominous clouds had taken up a quarter of the sky, and looked like the end of the world.
“How bad is it?”
“A small incursion, but it is enough. The creatures pour through at a constant stream, without break, without apparent need for food or sleep. The wildling forces have tried to close the breach, but they cannot get close enough. More and more men are sent, and they do not return.”
“And Jon Snow wishes to throw my men at them, to plug the hole.” He did not sound impressed with this plan. “If they are indeed an army of the dead, won’t we just be donating them more soldiers?”
“I think,” Brienne said archly, “Lord Snow is open to suggestions.”
Jaime laughed. “I don’t think he wants them from a Lannister. But who knows? Winter makes strange bedfellows, don’t they say? It sounds like something they would say.”
“Then you will go?”
“I will recommend it to my bannermen, if they will follow. It’s true that the Lannister army has never marched North, but things are much changed. We will have to do many things that have never been done before, now.”
“And the King?” she raised hesitantly. The status of the Lannisters with the Iron Throne was not at all clear to her. She did not know if Jaime had bent the knee in order to survive. It seemed a rude question to ask.
“Fuck the King.” He swore crisply, without feeling, which clarified nothing.
“After he permitted your departure from King’s Landing—“
“King Aegon,” Jaime pronounced the title with more than a little sarcasm, “permitted nothing. We abandoned King’s Landing before his arrival.”
Her jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. “Abandoned?”
“Surrendered, retreated, call it what you like. My forces left him the city rather than face a siege, and left my sister to the Black Cells.”
Her thoughts scattered. Jaime had abandoned Cersei? But why? She had always assumed he had smuggled his twin out of the city. “I am certain you had no choice…” she stammered.
“Oh, I had a choice. I always have a choice. And always I must live with it, after.” He gave her a sidelong look that she could not interpret. “You disapprove, I imagine.”
“You imagine. I don’t know enough to think anything.” But her mind whirled. If they had fled before Aegon’s arrival, then Jaime was beholden to no one, but also an enemy to all. He held the Riverlands, but unhappily, from what she had seen in the towns and villages she had passed through to reach him. No wonder he would consider joining the battle in the North. He had nowhere else to go. But why would he give up King’s Landing in the first place?
“We should return,” he said abruptly, perhaps to forestall any more uncomfortable questions.
“I must ask you something first,” Brienne said tentatively, and steeled herself. “About what happened when you left me at the Quiet Isle.”
“I left you?” His tone turned hard, and for the first time Jaime looked angry. “Is that what you remember? That I abandoned you?”
“I don’t remember any of it, actually,” she put in quickly. “I’m told I collapsed in the road. But the last thing I recall is speaking to you that morning.”
Jaime cut in sharply. “We argued.”
“We disagreed,” she settled on. “And then I was riding, and then I awoke in the monastery on the Quiet Isle some time later. Very little in between is clear to me. I was fevered, out of my head. They kept me abed for a long time, weeks. Even longer than that resting to regain my strength. Only when I was well again did they explain. The Elder Brother – he told me that he had forbidden you to stay on the Isle. He would not say why. He only said that if I would insist on continuing with my quest and it eventually brought me back to you, that I should ask you why. He said I should ask you what you said, when they would not allow you to come in.”
Elder Brother had been remarkably cryptic about this matter, enough to raise her curiosity to unbearable levels. At the same time he had been strangely resigned about it, certain that his admonishments to forget her oaths would have as little effect as his entreaties to return to her home isle and leave the war behind her.
She had wondered all along what it might be. Something terrible? Had he said something to offend the brothers, Elder Brother in particular? Something disparaging of the Isle? Of her? Deep down she knew Jaime could not have been sorry to leave her at the Quiet Isle. After what she had put him through she would have no right to expect him to wait for her convalescence, and she knew he wanted to return to his sister. It was probably most convenient for everyone that she had collapsed and solved the problem of what to do with her.
She assumed that the reason he struggled for an answer. Jaime looked at her for a long time, framed in the violet sunset, perhaps remembering harsh words. Then he shook his head slightly and started walking in the direction of the camp. “I’m sure I said a lot of things, many of them rude. I was angry.”
“Ser?” Brienne followed him tentatively.
“As to why…” He glanced back at her, then gestured vaguely. “At the time I would have said something quite different and rather disparaging of their virtue and their mothers and so on. I would have called it jealousy, house enmity, that sort of thing. Or Aerys again. It always comes back to that. Reputation is a strange thing, my lady. One accumulates it like barnacles on a boat, quite without intent or notice, and with no way to clean it off. People look at you and it’s all they see, it’s all you are. I spent a great deal of energy on the unfairness of it all but I’ve come to realize some things. Did you know you have a reputation of your own?” Jaime looked back at her with an insolent grin, taking clear pleasure in this change of topic.
“I can imagine,” she said crossly, and picked up her pace to keep up with him. Brienne the Beauty. Brienne the Beast.
“I don’t think you can. The Blue Knight, they’re calling you. The bravest of warriors, wandering the King's Road in the shadow of this endless war. Amusingly they tend to leave out that the Blue Knight is a maid, but I recognized you just the same. You’re doing great deeds. Putting an end to the Brotherhood without Banners, rescuing children and maidens from evildoers. Pulling kittens from trees. That sort of thing.”
Brienne scoffed, certain he was making it up. “But you were there when the Brotherhood was dispersed, as responsible for it as I.”
“I’ll dispute that, but you’re getting the general point. You’re the Blue Knight and I’m still the Kingslayer, no matter what I do. Why should that be?” He shrugged extravagantly. “But then there are the facts. For my affair with Cersei King Robert was killed, King Joffrey was assassinated for being an illegitimate heir, I abandoned Tommen and he died for it, I abandoned my sister and she was deposed, will probably be executed. I’ve slain more kings than anyone in history by now. My reputation knew the truth of me before I did. And yours? Will only grow in stature, I am certain of it. Because you are a good person, and I am not.”
Brienne gaped at him. She could easily recall a time when such a sentiment would have been simply true, in her eyes at least. She could remember being certain of her honor and what was right, and that Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, was emblematic of everything that was not. Since then she had grown a lot less sure of both.
“You are a knight, Ser Jaime,” she said firmly, once she had recovered from her momentary shock. “There is honor in you, I have seen it.”
“You are kinder than you know,” he replied. “But even you do not delude yourself enough to think me a righteous man.”
“Of late I am grown tired of righteous men,” she confided, a little uncertainly. “The righteous and unrighteous both keep driving us to war, and the casualties are just as dead.”
Jaime seemed a little surprised at that comment. He slowed, looking at her with some concern. “That sounds not at all like you, Brienne.”
She chewed her lip, looking carefully down at the path below her feet and feeling his eyes on her. Once she had known exactly what was she was. Now she wasn’t sure anymore what was like her, and what was not. So much had happened.
“You will find me more changed than you know,” she told him quietly. “I am less naïve than I was, and less certain. I, too, have broken oaths when it was necessary. Perhaps I have grown more like you.”
“I sincerely hope not,” he said darkly. “That’s what the brothers of the Isle feared, and your good luck that they did. Had I stayed your quest might have gone un-fulfilled along with all the good you have done.”
“Or you could have come along with me, and done that same good,” she suggested. “I would have welcomed your help. I mean…” she trailed off, realizing what she must sound like. “Had you not more important duties to attend, of course.”
He snorted at that. “Not so important as you might think. It would have been just as well if I didn’t return, for all the good it did us. For all the good it did my King.”
“I was sorry to hear of what happened to Tommen,” she told him quietly. “He seemed a sweet boy.”
Jaime stared hard at her and she was immediately sorry she had mentioned Cersei’s ill-fated son. Then he put on an awful smile.
“What happened to Tommen… which version did you hear? The terrible lie, or the worse truth?”
She couldn’t be sure which was which, and was nervous to guess. There were many stories of what became of the boy king. She bit her lip and chose one. “I heard he burned at the Sept. That the Queen –“
“That would be the lie.” He dismissed the tale with grim humor and resumed walking, fast enough she had to rush to keep up. “My sister burnt the Sept, that much is true. But Tommen did not perish there. He threw himself from the King’s Tower when he learned what she was about to do, and knew that neither he nor his father could stop her.”
Brienne had no idea what to say to that.
“There’s the comedy of it all. You know that I once pushed the Stark boy from a window when he caught us at it, back at Winterfell. I had no grudge against the boy. I did it so that Cersei and the children would live. But Cersei wound up in the Black Cells anyway, just as I meant to prevent. Our children are all dead. Seven hells, one of them even jumped out a window.”
Jaime laughed, strangely. There was a lightly hysterical edge to it that made her stomach twist.
“The Gods laugh at us, Brienne. In a split second I chose my family over another mother’s child and ultimately it didn’t matter. I might have saved us all the time and not have bothered. If we’d let it all come out then, and let the King do as he would, could it have been any worse than what we’ve come to now? Was there ever any way to save them? Perhaps if I’d thrown myself from the tower instead they would all be alive and well now. Cersei could have claimed I forced her, perhaps Robert would not have looked too closely at the implications. She could be clever with him when she needed to be…”
Jaime went on talking but Brienne stopped in her tracks, horrified at the thought. It had always disquieted her, the cavalier way he could say such morose things, but the last chilled her to the marrow. Much as what he had done troubled her deeply, if he had jumped from the tower at Winterfell, she could not help thinking, she would never have met him at all.
Jaime slowed to a stop before her, sighing. He looked back at her expectantly, though what he expected of her she could not imagine. She must have looked horror-struck. “Come now, surely you don’t think suicide a greater sin than attempting to murder an 8-year-old.”
“Perhaps not, but… I’m glad you didn’t,” Brienne said softly. Had she been a better, more thoughtful person, she could have thought of a better answer. But as usual, she could only offer the strange, slightly shameful truth.
Jaime for his part, did not seem reassured exactly, but he did seem changed. She wasn’t quite sure how. He walked beside her the rest of the way around the camp without another word.