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Every year, when the white ravens came and the first day of winter began, the Lady of Tarth would lock herself in her chambers, and would not emerge until the next day.
Her household loved their kind lady, so the servants did not comment on her reddened eyes when they brought up food. Still, they whispered in hushed corners: even now, our lady mourns her husband. And they wondered who could have captured their lady’s heart so thoroughly—they wondered who could have given her her son Galladon, who had his mother's homely face, and his mysterious father's golden hair and green eyes.
Oathkeeper. The ancestral longsword of House Tarth, made of Valyrian steel, the blade black and rippled red, with a ruby-eyed lion’s head on the pommel. To this very day the origin of Oathkeeper is still disputed, but all agree on this: it was Brienne, the Sword of Tarth who was its very first wielder.
Galladon was not a Storm, although there were times he almost felt like one. He had no father, after all, and he knew the crueler of Tarth’s residents claimed his mother had never married at all. A dead husband’s bloody convenient, they muttered, when they thought no one was around. (They never could deny that Galladon was Brienne’s son, though. Mother and son shared the same unfortunate looks.)
Mother had never liked talking about his father. He still remembered, vividly, when he had thrown a tantrum when he was five or six and demanded for papa. The stricken look on his mother’s face still haunted him to this day.
But he was eight, old enough, surely, and he wanted to know more of his father. He tried asking Podrick, the master-at-arms who used to be Mother’s squire, but Podrick told him he would have to ask Mother. He knew his father was a warrior; Mother had told Tarth that he had perished in the Long Night. He knew his father had green eyes, because he had certainly not inherited that from his blue-eyed mother. But that was the limit of his knowledge. It wasn’t enough.
So he went and plucked up the nerve to knock at the door of his mother’s solar.
“Galladon.” She looked up from the papers that lay scattered on her desk and smiled the smile she reserved for him. “What’s the matter, sweetling? Having trouble with your letters again?”
Galladon shook his head. “I wanted to ask.” He bit his lip. “I wanted to ask about my father.”
His mother sucked in a sharp breath. “Your father,” she said carefully. “What about him?”
“Who was he?”
Mother was already shaking her head. “I can’t tell you that.”
Galladon huffed. “Why not?”
“It’s not— Just don’t, Gal.”
“Then what can you tell me?” He crossed his arms. “Can’t you at least tell me how you two met?”
She swallowed. “I met him during the War of the Five Kings.” She shut her eyes. “I hated him. Your father was cutting and cruel and brutally honest. I thought him utterly despicable.”
Galladon lapped up the information, eager and greedy. “If he was so despicable then how did you end up loving him?”
“He saved me.” She smiled sadly. “First from rape, and then from a bear.”
A bear! “How?” he breathed.
“He just— jumped in.” She laughed helplessly. “And then when I asked him why he came back to get me, you know what he told me?”
Galladon’s eyes were wide as dinner plates.
“He told me,” she said, still smiling that sad smile, “that he dreamed of me.”
Jaime Lannister, of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, commonly known as the Kingslayer. He was knighted at the age of fifteen and shortly after was raised to the Kingsguard of King Aerys II Targaryen. He earned the title of kingslayer for slaying Aerys during the Sack of King’s Landing, of which he was pardoned, by the word of King Robert I Baratheon. In his stint as Kingsguard he served four kings in total: King Aerys II Targaryen, King Robert II Baratheon, King Joffrey I Baratheon, and King Tommen I Baratheon.
Jaime Lannister is most notorious for the act of practicing incest with his twin sister Cersei, who was queen to Robert, and passing off their incestous offspring as Robert’s trueborn heirs. The illegitimacy of Robert’s royal children was the main cause of the War of the Five Kings. He participated in this conflict as a commander of the Lannister armies and was captured in the Whispering Wood by Robb Stark.
He remained in Stark captivity until Catelyn Stark freed him, and sent him to King’s Landing with her sworn sword Brienne of Tarth and his cousin Cleos Frey to be exchanged for her daughters Sansa and Arya. Along the way, Cleos was killed and some outlaws cut Jaime Lannister’s sword hand off. It is said he later had it replaced with a hand made of gold; to this day, however, this golden hand has yet to be unearthed.
Having been made Lord Commander of the Kingsguard in absentia, when he returned to King’s Landing, he was promptly sent away once again to keep the King’s peace in the Riverlands. Near the end of Tommen’s reign he went missing in the Riverlands and, being presumed dead, was thereafter released from his vows. Some accounts of the Second Long Night claim he resurfaced in the North and participated in the War for the Dawn; however, there is no evidence of this save for hearsay.
It was so cold. It was so cold but she could barely feel it, she could not bring herself to care about the Others even though she was kneeling in the middle of a battlefield because Jaime was— Jaime was—
“Please,” he rasped, and it was the worst sound she had ever heard.
“I can’t.” Her voice was a wreck. “Don’t ask me to—”
A bloodied hand reached to touch her cheek. “Brienne,” he whispered. “End it.”
A sob tore loose. “You can’t just give up, Jaime, you haven’t seen Tarth yet, you promised—”
“Don’t you know, wench?” He was smiling. It was bloodstained and raw and horrifying and it was Jaime. Jaime, Jaime who was dying and Jaime whose life’s blood was now staining the snow scarlet. “Lannisters lie.”
“Jaime,” she said brokenly.
He coughed harshly; blood bubbled at his lips. “Please…”
She shook her head, wordless in grief, but even so her sword was already moving.
“I am yours,” he said quietly, so quietly it was almost lost in the cacophony of battle, in the howling of winter.
“And you are mine,” she choked.
Then she drove Oathkeeper through his heart, and the light in his eyes went out.
MR [reading]: “There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.
“Azor Ahai endeavoured twice to forge Lightbringer, and twice he failed. A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third and final blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’ he said to her, for that was her name, ‘bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.’ She did this thing, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.”
DS: Sheesh. I don’t know about you, Mel, but I wouldn’t murder my wife for a magic sword.
MR: Not even when “the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world”? [laughs]
DS: Not even then. I’m not one for blood sacrifice.
MR: Some people claim Azor Ahai and Lightbringer was what ended the Second Long Night. What do you think, resident historian of mine?
DS: I think it sounds cool, but it’s far more likely that it was ordinary men who fought and finished it. There’s never been any evidence that prove the validity of the Azor Ahai myths.
MR: True. Besides, I much prefer the stories about the White Wolf, or the Mother of Dragons. So much more messy and human and emotional. Speaking of which, Dav, did you hear about that new show everyone’s talking about, the one about the ancient Night’s Watch…
On his fifteenth name day, Galladon’s mother finally let him use her sword.
Oathkeeper, it was called, and sharp as the day it was forged. His mother told him it was Valyrian steel, and so he must treat it with the utmost care and respect.
Galladon ran his gaze over the sheathed sword, and marvelled.
This was the sword his mother had wielded in the War for the Dawn, against the Others. He could see it so clearly in his mind's eye; the brave, strong Brienne of Tarth, standing fiercely in the barren wasteland of the North and charging at the Others. He grinned.
“Be careful with that edge,” his mother clucked.
“Mm,” he hummed absently. He slid the sword from its scabbard. The blade was black and red, unlike the steel swords in the armory. It looked like magic. He imagined this was the kind of sword Galladon of Morne had, in the stories.
The hilt, though… “Why a lion?” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s so gaudy. Shouldn’t it have something more— starry? For the Evenstar?”
His mother snorted. “It is a little gaudy. In my defense, sweetling, I wasn’t the one who designed it.”
“Who did?”
A beat of silence. “It was a gift from your father.”
Galladon inhaled. His father had been the one to give her Oathkeeper? He frowned. That made him rethink all the times he saw Mother carefully polishing the sword, with that look on her face—like she was remembering the pain of an old wound. At least his father, whoever he was, knew his mother well enough to know this was the kind of gift she’d appreciate.
“Well,” he managed to say, “whoever he was, aesthetic was not one of his strengths.”
A surprised giggle burst from her. “No.” She laughed again. “No, it wasn’t.”
Galladon grinned.
“He was definitely pretty,” his mother continued. “But sometimes he wore the most ridiculous clothes.”
Galladon cocked his head curiously. “Oh?”
“I once saw him wear golden armor. But I liked him best in white.” She smiled, and tucked his curling hair behind his ears. And then, softly: “You know, Gal, you have his hair.”
As one of the most influential historical women figures in Westerosi history, Brienne of Tarth is most renowned for her prowess as a warrior in an era where women were expected to wield needles, not swords. She was born the second child and eldest daughter of Lord Selwyn of Tarth. Due to the untimely deaths of her mother, brother, and sisters, she soon found herself the sole heir of Tarth.
She first makes an appearance in history during the War of the Five Kings, joining Renly Baratheon's Kingsguard after winning a melee at Bitterbridge. When Baratheon died under mysterious circumstances, she swore herself to Catelyn Stark's service. In Catelyn Stark’s name, she freed Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer and escorted him to King’s Landing to exchange for Catelyn Stark’s two daughters. Along the way they were waylaid by a band of outlaws who cut off Lannister’s sword hand and brought them to Harrenhal. Eventually they made their way back to King’s Landing, but Arya Stark had long disappeared, presumed dead, and Sansa Stark had fled in the chaos of the Purple Wedding. Records show that when they arrived she was held in a tower cell, having been accused of being behind Renly’s death, but the charges were dissolved after several days. Soon after her release she left King’s Landing in search of Sansa Stark, in order to fulfill her oath to Catelyn Stark.
She is purported to be behind the dismantling of the Brotherhood without Banners. It is also said that she was behind Jaime Lannister’s disappearance from Pennytree. However popular these theories may be, there is no definitive evidence for these two claims; it is as ludicrous as those that name her “the Kingslayer's whore.” Her next noteworthy appearance is in an altercation at the Gates of the Moon, in which she and Sandor Clegane discovered and subsequently spirited away the then-hidden Sansa Stark. After that she is noted to have fought in the War for the Dawn, or the Second Long Night. Eyewitness accounts claim her sword, Oathkeeper, caught fire when fighting against “the Others.” Regardless of whether or not she really wielded a flaming sword, she contributed in ending the war and was one of its key figures, sharing space alongside heroes like the future Queen Daenerys Targaryen, who styled herself the Mother of Dragons.
When the War for the Dawn was won, she returned to Tarth and promptly took up the title of Evenstar, her father having died in her absence. She earned the title “the Sword of Tarth” for her fair rule and stalwart defense of her isle. She died around the age of forty or forty-five, succumbing to sickness, and was survived by her only son Galladon of Tarth and her squire, who she had raised to castellan of Tarth, Podrick Payne.
Galladon of Tarth’s parentage has sparked minor debates. Tarth family history holds that Galladon was no illegitimate son but trueborn; born of a husband wed during the Second Long Night who soon died shortly before the war’s end. If true, the timing seems far too fortuitous. Thus many modern historians have dismissed this as a mere attempt to strengthen her son’s claim to Tarth. As supporting evidence, they present the tales of her three broken betrothals and the accounts of others claiming her to be the ugliest woman in Westeros. It is unlikely, they claim, that she would be in a position to receive many offers.
However, dissidents of this theory posit that despite her appearance, the isle of Tarth is no small prize for any man. They also point out that during her time on the mainland, her traveling companions were almost all men. Some look to Hyle Hunt—a hedge knight who was known to have traveled with her for quite some time—as the most likely candidate; others claim Sandor Clegane—who, as mentioned earlier, accompanied her to the Vale in their search for Sansa Stark—and even the unlikely Jaime Lannister is offered as a possibility.
The descendants of House Tarth have previously asserted that while they know the truth, they will not reveal it. Unfortunately, the last of them passed on several years ago. And so they take their secret to the grave.
Galladon had been dreading this day.
His mother was a strong woman, and healthy. But she grew older and frailer, and now he was a grown man, wed and well-established in his role as acting Evenstar. And now here he was, sitting at her bedside, clutching her hand as she sighed and coughed and di—
“Mother,” Galladon choked. “You can’t die yet. You’re only three-and-forty.”
“Old.” Brienne coughed. “Older than I thought I would ever be.”
Galladon did not often cry, but now the tears would not stop. “Mother.”
She shifted. “Where's Pod?”
“He’s pacing outside, with Coryanne and the children,” Galladon said tremulously. “I can let him in if you wish.”
His mother nodded.
Podrick Payne rushed to his mother’s bedside the moment Galladon called him in. Perhaps it was a little improper, but he used to be her squire, after all.
“Ser, my lady—” Podrick’s voice shook.
“Hello, Pod. You’ve done so well for yourself, my squire.” His mother’s smile was warm, so warm. “When I'm gone, do look after my son, Pod. For my sake?”
“Of course, my lady, ser,” Podrick babbled. “But you can do that yourself, my lady. You’ll be right as rain in a few days.”
“Yes,” Galladon said fiercely. “Podrick’s right. This will pass, mother.”
Mother sighed. “Oh, Gal.” She smiled tiredly. Then, quietly: “Your father would be so proud of you.”
“Don’t— don’t talk in that tone, mother.” Galladon tightened his grip on her hand. “Don’t talk like you’re giving up.”
Her thumb brushed his fingers. “You’ve grown to be a fine young man,” she murmured. “You and Pod have done so well managing Tarth. I will rest easy knowing Evenfall Hall is in good hands.”
Galladon swallowed a sob. On the other side of his mother, Podrick was still knelt at her side crying.
“There’s a box,” his mother said suddenly, “underneath my bed. Plain. Inside is my wedding cloak and… other things. That belong to your father. I should have given it to you sooner, but—”
Galladon swiped at his eyes. “Never mind my father.”
Brienne shook her head. “Don’t… don’t say that. Podrick… Pod knows who your father is. Pod, tell Galladon after, if he still wants—” A series of coughs cut her short.
“Don’t talk,” Pod begged. “Please, my lady, save your strength…”
“I love you, Gal. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.” She smiled. “You too, Pod. You were like a little brother to me, or my first child.”
“Mother,” he whispered, heart in his throat. “I love you, too.”
“How did we make you, hmm? Our sweet child.” She sighed. “Oh, Jaime, if you were here to see him…”
“My lady,” Pod said brokenly.
“I’m tired,” she murmured. “Will you give me a hug, sweetling, before I go?”
Evening fell, and in her son’s arms, Brienne of Tarth breathed her last.
EVENFALL HALL IN THE TIME OF THE SECOND DAWN: THE EXHIBITION
See more than 100 artifacts, straight from the historical ancestral hall of House Tarth! Experience Evenfall Hall, the way it likely was in Brienne, the Sword of Tarth’s time!
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House Tarth’s ancestral blade, Oathkeeper. Valyrian steel, with its distinctive red and black blade, and golden lion's hilt.
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A large desk, ornate and graven with Tarth’s heraldry. Replicas of period-appropriate writing implements.
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Reproduction of Brienne of Tarth’s armor, blue and engraved with sunbursts.
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Several shields with Tarth’s sigil, in varying conditions.
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A box found inside Brienne of Tarth’s coffin. Contents, from left to right: a white cloak, soiled; a golden object, well-tarnished; and an obsidian hook.
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A luxurious wardrobe, detailed with the suns and moons of Tarth. Contents: reproductions of period-appropriate clothing.
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A letter, faded with age and barely legible. What can be read has been painstakingly pieced together. It lends credibility to the existence of Brienne of Tarth’s unnamed husband.
Brienne,
— are reading this, then I am dead. I am sorry —— liked to return to Tarth with —————————— d to have a life with you.
If you bear any love ———, I beg you, ————————————————————————— ask you to never tell ——— whom you have decided to wed. You once hanged for ——————————. ———————————— I fear they would make you ———————. ——————— who takes the throne, Targaryen or Stark, they will seek —————. Give any name but mine ——— asks who his fath ————— ept for Hyle Hunt. Anyone but him.) ———— know this will pain you, sweetling, but I will not have you die ——————————.
Don’t even ——— about returning Oathkeeper ————— can give back Widow’s Wail back to the Starks but ——————————————— always be yours. Let it be passed ——— descendants.
—— few days ————— the happiest I’ve ever been. Do remember —— love you ————— am sorry.
——rs, —ai——
There was no witness on their stolen marriage day. Only two hopeful souls, shining in this cursed darkness.
“You’re sure?” In the stillness, his words were hushed. Almost reverent.
“Yes.” She clutched his hand. “I should be asking you if you are certain.”
“I love you,” he said, so simply that it made her heart squeeze in her chest. “Of course I am certain. To die as your husband would be an honor.”
“No septons here.” Her voice trembled. “Or heart trees.”
“The end of the world is at hand, wench.” A half-smile curved his lips. “I can’t quite bring myself to care.”
She laughed, feeling like a girl of summer again. “We should have at least gotten Pod to come.”
“He is off with his new friends.” His eyes glittered. “Besides, I prefer having you all to myself.”
She smiled shyly, and he brought her hand to his lips, pressed kisses on the back of her fingers. “No lands, no dowry, no titles,” he murmured absently. “Worse, my name is like to be a death sentence. Somehow I am now a worse prospect than your precious Lyle.”
“Stop it,” she said hotly. “I never even thought— You are enough. You are mine, and you are enough.”
He smiled, then, a real smile—the kind that made her feel all warm and honey-sweet. “I am yours,” he agreed, “and you are mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”
“I am yours, and you are mine.” She shut her eyes for a moment. Tightened her grip on his hand. “From this day, until the end of my days.”
He had no cloak but the one on his back: the Kingsguard white that he had stubbornly held onto, even in the blistering cold of the North. He shucked it off clumsily, and when he tried to place it around her shoulders she had to help him with the fastenings.
“White becomes you, my lady.” His hand had let go of hers, and now he rested it on her cheek. “With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife.”
She swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat. “With this kiss I pledge my love,” she breathed, close enough to spy the snowflakes caught in his eyelashes, “and take you for my lord and husband.”
He pulled her close and their lips met in a fierce kiss. From that moment forth, Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister were one flesh, one heart, one soul.