Chapter Text
*/*/*/*/*
Jaime’s shirt sticks to his back as he swings the machete. The air is humid and filled with the stench of green, growing plants and probably the stench of all the living things that want to kill him, which is pretty much everything on this godsforsaken island…or so he’s assured the seven men at his back.
Still. Cutting his way through the jungle at the height of summer is not his idea of a good time.
“Come to Piratas Island,” he mutters as he whacks at a particularly thick vine, “we’ll have a few laughs.”
“What’th that, Lannithter?”
Jaime rolls his eyes. “Nothing,” he says.
“Didn’t sound like nothing to me,” another of his companions growl and Jaime’s grip tightens on his machete as he stops and turns to eye the seven men with him. The Brave Companions, they call themselves, and Jaime reminds himself that while the name is pretentious as fuck and these men are as thick as castle walls, neither of those things make them any less dangerous.
Jaime says, “I was simply lamenting the fact that I could be sitting in a half-heartedly air conditioned bar drinking lukewarm beer rather than struggling my way through this jungle shit.”
The leader, Vargo Hoat, gives him a smile that chills him to the bone.
“You agreed to take uth to the ruby mine,” he says, “for a price few have the ballth to athk from uth. What are you complaining about?”
Jaime’s smile is almost as cutting as the edge of his machete. “I complain about everything on this godsforsaken island, Hoat. Outside of drinking and fucking, it’s the only other way to pass the time.”
“Well, keep your mouth shut and keep moving.”
It takes all of Jaime’s bravado to turn his back on his companions and once again begin cutting his way through the thick jungle growth. As he does, he seriously questions his life decisions that have put him in this situation.
Yes, the men behind him have agreed to pay him a king’s ransom for leading them to the mine where Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s famed rubies were supposedly discovered, but he knows they have no intention of paying him. He just doesn’t know why.
*/*/*/*/*
The journey is long, arduous and exhausting. They’re paying him a king’s ransom, after all. They deserve to get their money’s worth.
Hoat watches Jaime with narrow, suspicious eyes from across the small fire they’ve built for comfort against the thick darkness of the night. Jaime takes a sip of the whiskey in his metal mug.
Hoat’s eyes narrow even more. “Why is this journey taking tho long? We’ve been walking for weekth and this island ithn’t that big.”
“It’s been twelve days,” Jaime says, “and the island is filled with swamps and quicksand, especially the deeper inland you go. In some places, there’s only one safe way through the jungle.”
Jaime calmly meets Hoat’s suspicious glare and wonders how much research he and his men did before they arrived here.
Hoat finally grunts what sounds like acceptance and leaves the fire for his bedroll. Jaime hides a snicker behind his cup at Hoat’s high-pitched scream when he finds the snake Jaime tucked inside it while they were making camp.
“You knew that wath there!” Hoat shouts.
“Knew what was there?” Jaime shouts back.
“You didn’t even jump when I yelled or rush to thee what wath going on!”
“Neither have any of your friends,” Jaime says, “although they’re exhausted enough, they must not have heard you.”
Hoat stomps back into the firelight, his expression murderous. “If you’re fucking with me,” he growls, “I’ll make thure you regret it.”
Jaime raises an eyebrow. “I have absolutely no doubt you will,” he says. “I’m not fucking with you, but you’ve screamed every time you’ve found something in your bedroll since we began this journey. I would think you’d be used to the night creatures by now.”
Hoat shudders and turns back to his bedroll. “How you can stand thith place with all its thnaketh...”
“I’ve endured far worse,” Jaime says and gulps down the last of the liquor in his mug.
*/*/*/*/*
Four days later, they finally break through the jungle to stare at the dark, gaping maw of a cave located half-way up a gently sloping mountain.
“That’th where Rhaegar’th Rubieth came from?” Hoat demands, skeptical.
Jaime shrugs. “So the legends tell me. Not that you’ll find them scattered on the ground like pebbles. The stories also say they mined that vein dry and no one has discovered a new one, no matter how hard we try.” He turns and gives them a curious look. “You’ve never said why you’re so desperate to get to this dried up old mine.”
Desperate enough to resort to threats and intimidation in an effort to force someone to bring them here, Jaime thinks but knows better than to say.
Hoat’s smile is cold before he turns to his companions. “Zollo, thtay here and help our guide make camp.” He turns to the others. “The retht of you, come with me.”
Jaime watches them clamber up the loose rock and disappear into the cave’s mouth then turns to Zollo.
“So,” Jaime says, “how long do we expect to stay here?”
Zollo is fat, even after all these days in the jungle, and even less forthcoming than Hoat.
“Set up camp,” he growls, “and stop asking fucking questions.”
*/*/*/*/*
Jaime sets up camp with one eye on Zollo and the other on the cave mouth, waiting for Hoat and the others to reappear. Zollo seems to be watching him just as carefully and Jaime raises a mental eyebrow. Whatever it is these men are after, he doubts they plan to search for rubies in a played out mine.
Finally Hoat reappears and begins his descent, his men following after him. Zollo straightens, like a well-trained dog coming to attention, and walks to the edge of the sloping gravel to meet them.
It’s the moment Jaime’s been waiting for.
*/*/*/*/*
“By the godth, you fat fucking idiot! All you had to do wath watch him!”
Hoat’s rage is as amusing as it is chilling. Jaime watches and listens, hidden in the thick upper branches of a tree on the edge of the campsite.
“He can’t have gone far!” Zollo says.
“Far enough, you fool! Look around you! We have no way of knowing which way the bastard went!”
“What does it matter?” Shagwell says. “He doesn’t know anything.”
“No witnetheth. Thothe were our orderth! Do you want to tell the Mountain we let the fucking man who led uth here ethcape?”
Jaime frowns. These assholes really didn’t do their homework. Piratas’ tourism economy is built around Rhaegar’s Rubies, after all, although whether this is the actual mine where those legendary rubies came from is still hotly debated. Some historian even wrote a book a few years ago claiming the real mine was on an island a thousand kilometres to the north. It took some fancy advertising to lure the touries back after that one.
The mine Jaime led them to was a ruby mine at one point and it’s only the morons from Westeros who believe the legends of Rhaegar and his magic rubies and endlessly scour the island searching for something that’s been lost to history, if it ever truly existed at all.
Of course...he’d been just such a moron when he first arrived on the island and decided to stay.
Still.
Only the most fanatical believe Rhaegar’s ruby mine holds anything other than rubble and mayhaps one last gem or two.
Nothing worth killing for.
Jaime considers his arguing former companions and debates if he should spend the night in the tree; see if they say anything that might tell him what they’re hoping to find.
“What’s in there?” Zollo says, almost as if he read Jaime’s mind.
Hoat glares. “Nothing. Jutht a maze of caveth that will have uth join the rankth of the lost if we’re not careful.”
No shit, Jaime thinks, rolling his eyes. It had once been a working mine, burrowing deep into the mountainside. Did Hoat think the rubies had been simply sparkling on the ground, waiting for Rhaegar to wander by?
“We need more equipment,” Timeon says, “and supplies. It will take time to search those tunnels, much longer than the Mountain thinks.”
Hoat nods. “You and Pyg will have to go back to the village to get thupplieth.”
There’s sudden, charged silence following Hoat’s words and Jaime bites his lip so hard to keep from laughing that he tastes blood.
“...do you know where the village is?” Pyg finally asks.
*/*/*/*/*
It’s almost dawn when Jaime strolls into the village bar.
Melisandre raises an eyebrow then draws a pint from the spigots in front of her. “You’re back,” she says as she puts the frosty glass filled with frothy beer in front of him.
“I always said you were the most observant person I know,” Jaime grins and she shrugs.
“I’ve been up all night,” she says, “you can’t expect wit from me now!”
He gulps at his beer and gives her a beatific smile as he lowers his mug. “No judgment,” he says. “I’ve been walking through the jungle for the last three hours. It’s not like I’m going to be very witty, either.”
“And the first place you came was here?”
He lifts his mug with a grin. “I’ve been out there with only men for weeks. I needed beer and the sight of your pretty face.”
She rolls her eyes. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she says, her voice dry. She leans closer and lowers her voice. “Where did you leave them?”
Jaime glances round the almost-empty bar and tilts his head towards the only other people in sight. Two young women, a redhead and a brunette, are arguing drunkenly while a large man with a scarred face slumps in his chair, head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth gaping. Jaime can hear his snore from here.
“What’s the story?” he asks.
Mel shrugs. “Typical touries. Don’t worry; they’ve been passed out most of the night. Where did you leave them?”
“At the mine,” he says after he drains his mug and hands it to her to be refilled. “Hopelessly turned around and believing the island is three times larger and filled with five times as many deadly creatures, quicksands and swamps than it actually is. I didn’t try to convince them there were cannibalistic tribes hiding behind every tree because I knew I was going to have to abandon them at some point and I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”
Melisandre places another mug of beer in front of him. “How long should we wait before we rescue them?”
He frowns. “They’re dangerous men, Mel. I don’t know what they’re searching for but they’re willing to kill to keep it secret.”
Mel raises one impeccably groomed eyebrow. “So we should let them die in the jungle?”
Jaime ponders the question, drinking his second beer much more slowly than his first. Finally, he sighs. “It’s tempting, not going to lie. Just another group of treasure hunters, lost in the thick jungles of the island.” He shakes his head. “Still, I don’t want to be responsible for it. Let them wander far enough away from the mine they can believe their rescuers don’t know where they’ve been, then scoop them up. The sooner we can get them off the island, the better.”
Mel nods. “I’ll put it on the coconut telegraph. And you should go get some sleep.”
*/*/*/*/*
The sun is just above the horizon when Jaime finally walks into his apartment. The air is heavy with heat and humidity, and his bed smells musty and feels like heaven.
*/*/*/*/*