Chapter Text
Jaime Lannister is standing on the battlements outside Riverrun.
Night is falling, and quiet has settled over the castle since the fighting ceased.
He is standing outside looking out over the water in the advancing twilight and waiting for a report.
He is rigid beneath his armor, his fingers tingling oddly. Both the real ones, and the ones that aren’t there anymore.
It seems very important to be still. All of his concentration is devoted to not thinking about the thing that he isn’t thinking about, and it is difficult.
They used Edmure’s ruse to get into the Keep. The Tully men were supposed to surrender peacefully. The Blackfish did not agree. When the fighting broke out he ordered his best Lannister captains to squash their small resistance. He knew when he did it what the likely outcome would be. She would fight with them, of course. To the last.
He told them to take prisoners wherever they could. To seek the Blackfish and take the rest alive. By the time he himself got inside, he has word that the fighting is over. They are counting the dead now.
Since that moment he has said very little. There was something very like: “Bring me your report. What became of the Blackfish and his men. How many casualties.” Then he added on to the end, calculated to sound like an afterthought: “If there is a woman amongst the fighting men, bring her to me.”
Now he stands very still and waits.
Usually when he is distressed he tries to think of Cersei, but just now, that only makes him more anxious, for some reason. So he tries to think of nothing. Listens to the sound of the water lapping against the castle walls, and the distant murmur of soldiers moving into the Keep. They are reassuring sounds. Usually.
The last colors of sunset have vanished completely before he is joined on the balcony by one of his lieutenants.
“My Lord.”
Jaime inhales deeply, and turns with deliberate slowness.
“The Blackfish?” he inquires in a flat tone.
“He fell, my lord. He fought seven men at once - it was astonishing, I’m told. Three men had to strike him to bring him down, and he took the other four with him.”
“I would expect no less,” he says faintly. “And the others?”
“Surrendered, ser. After the Blackfish went down they had little heart for a fight.”
He nods. That makes sense.
“We suffered few losses aside from that. Some Tullys went down.”
“Were there any women among them?”
“Possibly, Milord. Most who put up resistance were taken to the cells.”
Ah yes, the cells. He knows the prison at Riverrun well. It would be amusing to meet her again there, on the other side of the bars. He smirks at the thought, already imagining what he will say.
The Lieutenant takes this as a dismissal, and salutes.
Jaime turns back to the water, relaxing a little. He had hoped to take Riverrun without any bloodshed, but all in all, it is the ideal outcome. No extended siege, no huge loss of forces. He will be ready to move on long before he anticipated.
He will, of course, have to figure out what to do with Brienne and Podrick if they are sitting in a cell. If they have any sense, they obeyed Edmure’s order to stand down, rather than draw arms with the Blackfish. Then he will not have to justify letting them go. But, he knows, a small band of Tully rebels protecting their ancestral home against an overwhelming force will be difficult for her to resist. She does love a lost cause.
In the midst of this line of thought, he spies in the rising moonlight a shape on the water. He gasps a little when he sees it. It is headed downstream, away from the Keep, though how anything had gotten out onto the water he doesn’t know. He thought they had blocked every exit.
The boat is some distance out, too far to pursue. But there is clearly a figure in the boat, rowing steadily away.
Jaime takes a deep breath of the evening air and looks closely. At this distance he cannot at first make out the identity of the person in the boat. He can see the glint of armor and bulky shoulders working the oars.
But then he frowns. The hair is all wrong, at least for the person he is looking for.
“Milord?” Another one of his lieutenants approaches.
He turns away from the water quickly, not wanting to draw their attention. “Yes.”
“Your man Bronn reports. He says he has located the squire. Podrick Payne?”
Jaime’s head jerks around and looks again at the boat.
Unmistakably, the moonlight glints off the bald forehead of a man.
The Blackfish, he is suddenly sure. Rowing out to Sansa.
The Lannister soldier takes on a quizzical tone. “He says you should come right away. Ser?”
He can’t move. He’s rooted to the spot somehow. He fell, ser. He fought seven men at once.
“My lord?”
Three men had to strike her to bring her down.
“Bring him to the great hall,” someone says. It sounds like him.
The whole world seems to shiver around him. Like it has taken a mortal wound.
He goes blank after that. A terrible calm comes over him, one that leaves him numb to all feeling. He will keep performing his duty but the greater part of him is gone away.
When he blinks and looks around it’s not clear how much time has passed, but several soldiers are looking at him and whispering.
He does not know what will come out of his mouth if he opens it now, so he doesn’t. He simply wills himself, with great effort, to walk inside.