Work Text:
Mama had told her to stay close, but when the guards had come to take them back to Mama’s apartments, Rhaenys had gotten so frightened and confused that she had lost her grip on her mother’s hand and by the time she knew where she was her mother was long gone. The castle was full of shouts and echoes and screams that made Rhaenys tremble, and she wanted Balerion and her mother and the baby and Uncle Lewyn and most of all, she wanted Papa. If she could only find her father, she would be safe, she was sure of that. Mama had said he was gone, but no-one would tell Rhaenys where he had gone.
Everywhere there were men shouting and women screaming, and when Rhaenys crossed the yard she looked up and saw the evening sky was blood red. That frightened her even more badly, and she began to run, stumbling, up the turnpike stair and into her father’s chambers. Terrified, she slipped under the bed. Papa would come soon. He would come back and find her here, and all the noise would stop and he would take her in his arms and carry her to her mother and the baby. Then they would all be safe and happy again.
Rhaenys curled into a tight, miserable ball. She didn’t know where Balerion was. The kitten had been asleep in her room, but when the guards had come for them they hadn’t let Rhaenys go back for him. She hoped he wasn’t frightened by the noise, too.
Rhaenys felt safe, finally under the bed. Her eyes began to droop, even though it was still so noisy in the castle and the cold flagstones were uncomfortable. In her dreams, Balerion grew wings and became a true dragon, not just a black kitten named for one, and breathed fire on all the bad noisy men. After, he took Rhaenys on his back to her father. She never remembered the bolts on the door of her father’s rooms, until she heard the door crash open, and the heavy footsteps.
Startled, she scrambled into a cramped, half-sitting position.
She saw feet enter the room, in heavy leather boots spotted in red. A red cloak swished on the floor of her father’s chamber. Terrified, Rhaenys drew herself back against the wall, hugging herself tight beneath the bed.
The boots paced away out of sight, and Rhaenys heard the crash of her father’s desk and chairs and chests of clothes being tipped over and thrown open and broken apart. Tears began to roll down her cheeks. They were ruining everything; all her father’s precious things, all the talismans Rhaenys was using to protect herself. The boots trod on her father’s silk tunics and ripped up his books. When she heard the off-kilter twang of her father’s harp smashing, she gave an involuntary whimper of grief and fury.
The boots stopped. The crashing stopped. Rhaenys’ breath caught in her throat.
The boots paced towards the bed, and Rhaenys tried to make herself smaller as a questing hand was thrust into the gap and began to grope blindly. She drew herself in as tight as she could as the fingers nearly brushed her bare toes.
A burst of fear went through her then, like lightening, and she tried to make a break for it, to crawl away towards the door, but as soon as she moved she felt fingers close on her ankle, hard and painful. She shrieked as she was dragged backwards, fingers scrabbling on the flagstones, head smacking painfully against the underside of the bed. She tried kicking, felt her foot connect and heard a man curse, but the iron hand kept pulling her, back and back.
The man who had destroyed her father’s room was a tall shadow, terrible and red, with a blade of fire in his hand, lifted above his head to strike. As he brought it down, Rhaenys screamed. She screamed and screamed, for her father, her mother, her uncles, anyone, anyone.
Then the man’s neck grew a tongue, or so it seemed to Rhaenys through her haze of fear; a red, dripping tongue, right out of the apple of his throat. He gurgled, and spat out blood, and Rhaenys screamed again, but then the red tongue slid away and the man collapsed on the floor. Rhaenys could finally see the person behind him, the person who had saved her, and for a heartbeat she thought it was her father – armoured all in molten white, with white hair and a gleaming red sword. Then her father spoke, but it was not his voice, and then she could see that this person was shorter than her father and his hair was yellow gold instead of silver-white, and his armour was gold as well, and she knew him.
“Here, little princess. Come to me. You’re safe now.”
The fires burning in the yard and in the city were glowing through the window, so bright they nearly blinded Jaime, but no matter. He had already dispatched Lorch. Killing him had been as easy as Aerys. Neither of them had expected to die.
The girl scrambled into his arms, and Jaime held her awkwardly with one arm, his other still holding his unsheathed sword. He dared not put it away. It would likely be a bloodier fight than the one he had just had to get her out of the city. If he even could. But what choice was there? Turn her over to his father? Jaime could see the tender mercies of Tywin Lannister, burning all around him. No. I swore to protect the king. Well, he’s gone, and Rhaegar and likely the babe as well. She’s the only one left.
The castle was pure chaos. Jaime had never been the most religious, but if he had to believe in seven hells, then he believed they looked like the Red Keep that night. The turnpike stair was wet with blood as he carried the princess down it, so much that he went slowly for fear of slipping in it. He pressed the girl’s face into his shoulder. She did not need to see it. She was only a slip of a thing, weighing less than a feather in his arms. Jaime had never paid too much attention to her before that night.
He expected to be stopped half a dozen times as he left Maegor’s Holdfast and crossed the yard with the princess in his arms, but everywhere men were dead or dying and no-one seemed to see him, even as his white cloak cut a brilliant swathe through the red evening. It was impossible to tell the scarlet of the Targaryen men from the crimson of his father’s. Everything was just red, dark red, the rusty colour of blood.
Jaime walked swiftly but calmly, trying to seem as though he belonged. Did he belong? It was difficult to tell. He had yesterday, when he was a knight of the Kingsguard, the last left in the Red Keep, charged with defending the King and his family. Tonight, though, that king was dead, by Jaime’s own hand, and anyone with eyes could see that Lord Tywin Lannister ruled in King’s Landing now, at least for the time being. And who was Jaime? A knight of the Kingsguard, or his father’s son?
The girl in his arms squirmed, clinging to his neck with a chokehold. Not a girl. A princess.
Dragonspawn.
Jaime stopped in the yard. They had passed the worst of the fighting, though the screams and smoke still hung in the air.
Since he heard the princess screaming in Rhaegar’s chamber the minutes had blurred into one another, but now it had hit him. Killing Lorch had been easy, it was always easy – no need to think, just act. The brave hero charges in and puts an end to the savage beast, saving the innocent. But now he had no idea what to do next.
Get her out of the castle, out of the city. To Dragonstone, perhaps. Or…
To Father.
His blood ran cold. He felt rooted to the spot, in the shadow of the Kitchen Keep, the princess still whimpering into his neck.
She’s a valuable hostage. Father would never order Lorch to kill her. He must have acted alone, the bloody fool.
But valuable to whom? Aerys was dead. Rhaegar was dead. The Queen was hiding on Dragonstone with her boy and in no position to ransom anyone. The Dornish had scarcely lifted a finger; his father needed no hostage to force their compliance.
Jaime tried to imagine handing the princess to his father. Tried to imagine what Tywin Lannister might do.
“Ser Jaime?”
Jaime turned, slowly.
He knew the man – Ser Tybolt Crakehall. They had been boys together, when Jaime squired for his uncle Lord Sumner. Jaime watched as Ser Tybolt’s eyes took in his bloody sword and gore-splattered armour, and then tracked up, to the little dark figure cradled in the crook of his arm.
“Is that – the princess?”
For a second, fear constricted Jaime’s throat, and he could not answer. He shook the fear away. This was a man he’d known half his life. He trusted Jaime. “It is. She was hiding in her father’s rooms.”
Ser Tybolt raised his brows, but soon recovered from his surprise. “Well done, Ser. Your lord father will be well pleased to have the princess in custody.”
“What of Princess Elia, and Prince Aegon?” Jaime asked, trying to keep his voice at an even, nonchalant drawl. If Tybolt noticed a tremor in his words, he took no notice.
“Dead.” Tybolt must have noticed Jaime’s shock, because his mouth twisted into a grimace of disgust. “A bad business. Clegane must have gone rogue – you know how a man gets when his blood is up.”
A monster like Clegane always has his blood up. Jaime tasted bile, crawling up the back of his throat. He was aware that the little princess had begun to shake in his arms. He couldn’t tell how much of the conversation she understood, but it was clearly enough.
“It was Clegane? You are sure?”
“Yes – but – that mustn’t leave these walls. You understand, Ser. It was not your lord father’s doing, he did not order it, but the Dornish would never accept that.”
“Of course.” Gregor Clegane never had a thought pass between his ears that Lord Tywin did not put there. He could no sooner do a thing of his own volition than a dog could. It was then that Jaime realised what he had to do.
His sword was still unsheathed, hanging in a loose grip by his side.
“Come, Jaime. Your father has secured the throne room. We will find him there.”
The look of faint surprise on Tybolt’s face was what Jaime would remember, years later. It was so odd. Death was all around him, yet he did not expect to die, no more than Aerys or Lorch had. As he fell, his numb hands clutched at Jaime’s blood-stained white surcoat.
The princess shrieked at the sight of more blood, and Jaime finally put his sword away, the better to comfort her. “There, now, princess. It’s alright. I’m taking you away now, we’re going to go somewhere safe.” Where, he didn’t rightly know, but Jaime knew that they could no longer linger in the castle. Tybolt Crakehall was only the first. There would be more blood on his sword before the night was done.
They found the postern gate by the stables open, and Jaime wondered for a brief moment if that was how the Lannister forces gained egress to the castle, before passing through. It mattered not. They hurried down the steps and out into the city.
If the castle yard had been one of the seventh hells, the city proper had to be the lowest one. The further down the hill they went, the more chaos became apparent. Shops and homes were burning, children and animals screaming, women weeping. Jaime saw a girl no older than Cersei pressed against a wall by a dozen men and whipped his head away, pressing Rhaenys’ face into his neck as they passed by. I charge you to protect the weak. But he was only one man, and the child weeping into his neck was weak as well.
Jaime had seen horrors before, of course. He was only a squire, a boy in truth, when he had fought the Kingswood Brotherhood and witness Ser Arthur strike down the Smiling Knight. He had seen Jeyne Swann weeping in the arms of her septa, lip split and swelling and dress in rags. And later, he had stood outside the Queen’s chamber every night and heard her sobs, he had stood by the Iron Throne and heard Brandon Stark’s choked gurgles as he tried to reach his father. Every time had had managed to go away, to go dreamy and numb, to think of Cersei. But it was no longer possible to do so. He needed to be there, to be present and alert, because one wrong move and they would both be dead.
Jaime was confident – perhaps too confident – in his prowess with a sword, but every man in the city was a beast that night, and even he did not think he could take more than three alone. It was impossible to tell the soldiers of House Lannister from the common men of the city, but it scarcely mattered. Any and all of them would happily rip the princess from his arms and – his mind shied away from the thought.
He headed downhill, away from the castle and towards the harbour. Most people seemed to have a similar idea, and it was a struggle to get through the press in places. Halfway down, Jaime realised with a gut-churning lurch that it was probably a fool’s errand. Any ship in the harbour would be long gone or burning at its mooring by now.
His suspicions were confirmed as they neared the waterfront. He passed by fleeing men with children on their backs, a burning donkey braying as soldiers laughed, a hanged figure swaying from an inn sign. He had to cut down a man in an alleyway that tried to block his path. But as the houses thinned out and he could see to the water beyond them, he also saw the great bonfires on the water, what remained of the Targaryen fleet that had been left at King’s Landing, and common trading vessels and fishing boats alongside it, all burning to sticks. He wanted to sob, then, to cry like the child in his arms.
Jaime slunk back from the waterfront, one hand pressed against Rhaenys’ soft hair. “It’s all right,” he said hoarsely, to himself or the girl he could not say. “It’s all right, we’ll find someplace, someplace to hide until morning, then we’ll get away.” He hoped he was right. By morn, would the city still be in chaos, or would his father’s iron grip have restored order? With order would come guards on the gate, searches conducted, questions asked. And dawn would not bring back the ships in the harbour. But he didn’t know what else to do.
The initial surge of violence in the streets was slowing, and his father’s soldiers seemed to be settling in to drink and gorge themselves on the food, and the women, of the city. Jaime headed along the waterfront. There was a motherhouse he knew of, not far from the inn where he had met Cersei that night. The Queen had visited it once to distribute alms to the girls there and Jaime had guarded her that day. He remembered the way on horseback, but on foot all the streets looked different, like a nightmare, and he got lost several times. Thankfully, they met with no more violence.
The motherhouse had once had a seven-pointed star lamp swinging over its door, lit night and day. That lamp now lay smashed into a thousands shards of glittering rainbow glass on the floor, but the door seemed untouched, still firmly barred against intruders. The windows were dark.
Jaime’s shoulders were beginning to ache. He shifted Princess Rhaenys onto his other arm and freed his hand to bang his fist against the door once, twice, three times. He thought he saw movement in the windows.
“Please,” he cried, as loud as he dared. The street was quiet, every window dark, smashed in, candles smoking, furniture destroyed, doors hanging off hinges. But who knew what eyes were watching them from the shadows. “Please, I have a child with me. A little girl. I mean you no harm. I beg you, let me in.”
Footsteps beyond the door.
“Who are you?” A woman’s voice, youthful, full of suspicion. “What do you want from us? This is a holy place. We have no treasures. Be off with you, soldier.”
“I’m no soldier. The girl – please, just take the girl. She can’t be out here.” He could have commanded, used the voice of Ser Jaime Lannister, son of Tywin, heir to Casterly Rock. But that voice seemed to have deserted him, leaving him only the voice of Jaime – frightened, exhausted, cracking a little.
The door opened, just a little. A chain across it prevented it from swinging wide. In the gap he could see a pale face, dark eyes, squinting at him.
“Who are you?” the septa – he presumed – asked again. “That armour –”
He had to tell her. She would never let them in otherwise.
“I am Ser Jaime Lannister, of – of the Kingsguard. And this – this is the Princess Rhaenys.” He turned to show the girl to the septa. The dark eyes widened as she took in his golden armour, his white cloak, and understood.
“Inside, quickly,” she hissed. The chain fell and the door swung open.
The woman closed the door behind them with a snap, and all was darkness until she lit a candle and illuminated the hall. Then Jaime saw that she was much younger than he realised – no older than he was, in fact. Only a novice. Her dark hair was held back under a grey veil, but whisps of it escaped around her face.
Now that they were under shelter, Jaime realised how hard his heart was beating, how much his body ached from fighting and running. He put the princess down. Her face was red and sticky and swollen with tears.
“I’ll take her,” the novice said quickly, taking her hand. “Get her cleaned up, get her deeper inside."
"Thank you,” Jaime whispered hoarsely. She nodded and began to move further into the dark building. Jaime caught her arm. “Your name?”
“Bethany,” she replied softly. Then she led the princess down the dark corridor, her candle bobbing brightly in the darkness, and Jaime followed her blindly.
Rhaenys felt numb. She had been frightened, very frightened, but sometime after Ser Jaime had killed that man in the bailey in the castle, she had stopped being frightened and just gone numb. After the man said Mama and baby Aegon were dead. That was the last thing she really remembered. Then everything became messy and confusing. There was screaming, and bright lights, and everything smelled terrible and hot. She had buried her face in Ser Jaime’s neck and tried to shut it all out.
And then they were inside, and everything was quiet and cool and smelling a little of incense. A soft hand took hers and led her away, and she was scared to lose sight of Ser Jaime, but he was right behind them. The lady washed her face with a wet cloth and wrapped her in a blanket in a small room off the corridor lit by candles. Footsteps came and went. The same lady put a warm cup in her hand and helped her to drink it. It was milk, warmed and with honey mixed in.
A fire was burning in the grate. Rhaenys was feeling warm, and sleepy. She wasn’t happy, she still felt numb, but now she was tired as well, so tired she couldn’t keep her eyelids open. She felt like she should, that to sleep while Mama and Aegon were – gone – was wrong somehow, but she couldn’t help it. Someone had picked her up and put her on a lumpy featherbed. She fell asleep.
Once she had seen to the princess, Bethany turned to Jaime. “Take off that cloak and that surcoat,” she said sharply. “They’re too easily recognised. And they’re ruined anyhow.”
Jaime nodded and stripped them off in silence. His armour glinted in the candlelight. He had only just realised how heavy it was.
“Take that off as well.”
“I can’t. I don’t know when I’ll need it again.”
Bethany watched him, brows drawn together. “You can’t go out there again, not for a while.”
“I have to get her away while I still can. By the morning the city might be under…control.” He had almost said Lannister control. But he didn’t like to think of that. He didn’t like to think of his father as his enemy, although of course, just by the mere act of taking the princess, his father had become his enemy. “It’s better we move now, while the city is in chaos. While no-one is looking too closely.”
“Where will you go?” the young novice asked. She had taken his discarded cloak and surcoat and piled them in the corner, wiping her bloodied hands on her novice’s habit. Her voice was soft, so as not to disturb the girl sleeping in the cot bed in the corner.
“Her grandmother is on Dragonstone with Ser Willem Darry and the Prince Viserys.”
“And from there? Lord Robert’s wrath will surely follow you to Dragonstone.”
Indeed. Jaime did not even know if the island fortress was still unbreeched. Even if it remained loyal, it could easily fall between now and their arrival.
“I…I’m not sure.” He felt desperate and foolish, throat aching. “Essos? I suppose?” He had never been one to plan ahead. His father, Cersei, even Tyrion…all of them had made him feel slow, at times. He had covered it up with action, with sword and lance. He had never come across a knot he could not untie with a slash of a blade. Until now.
“Sit down.” He looked up to see Bethany staring at him, expression a mix of frustrated and pitying. He was almost offended. He misliked being pitied. “Let me help you with those straps.”
She was as good as any squire Jaime had ever had, working the buckles quickly and piling the golden armour neatly in a corner. When they were done she nudged the pile of metal with a foot. “What coin have you to secure passage to Dragonstone? This might fetch a pretty penny, if you can find someone willing to pay and not just take. Or use it to bribe a captain.”
He had not thought of coin, or much of anything. Her idea was not a bad one. “Are there any? Captains to bribe?”
“Some, whose ships escaped the torches. The smarter ones, that took their ships around the headland when the banners were spotted.” She did not say which banners, but Jaime knew which she meant very well.
She spoke to him boldly for a common girl, he finally noticed. She did not bow her head and call him “milord” as he was accustomed, and she spoke well, though not wholly like a lady. He took her for an especially pious merchant’s daughter. “Who are you?” he asked her, to take his mind off the fear and the exhaustion.
She looked at him sideways. “Bethany, a novice of this motherhouse, sworn to the gods. Who else did you take me for?” There was a mocking glint in her eye that momentarily reminded him of Cersei.
“You speak well for a novice.”
“I was taught to speak well, by the septas of this motherhouse. I was left here as a babe. An offering to the gods. And who taught you to speak well, ser?”
Now she calls me ser. “Maester Creylen, who was sworn to my house. To my father’s house.” My father, whose good works you may look upon if you care to glance out of your windows. Jaime had seen many pairs of wet wide eyes looking at him from the rooms as they passed down the corridor. How many children were hiding here? Not all of them could be sworn to the motherhouse. And where was the septa in charge? Bethany could not be the only novice or septa in the place.
“What happened here?”
Bethany licked her lips. Her face was very pale in the candlelight, beneath her grey veil. “I…when the fighting started in the streets, Septa Anyse bid us lock the doors and shutters and blow out all the lights in the windows. She said she was going out to see if there were any souls needing help, any children needing shelter. She came back a few times with children from our street, but then…when you knocked, I thought it was her. She left me in charge. She bid me not let any men in the motherhouse, especially not men in armour, but…”
Jaime felt a bitter smile appear on his face. “You were simply overpowered by my charms?” The look on her face froze his smile. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “for your Septa Anyse.” For everything.
Bethany glanced over at the sleeping princess. In sleep, the girl looked calm and peaceful, not a trace of the events of the night on her face. Her breathing was even, and she had a chubby fist held against her mouth. Jaime wondered if she was dreaming. He hoped not. Surely they could not be sweet dreams.
Soon he would have to wake her. They could not linger her forever. For a second, he entertained the idea of leaving her here, disguising her as a pledge to the motherhouse, but it was a terrible idea, even for him. Soon, maybe even tonight, as they sat there, his father would be sending men to hunt for Rhaenys. He needed to take her as far away as he could, so far that the long arm of Tywin Lannister could not touch her.
And I must go with her.
Silently, Jaime cursed himself for a bloody fool. What did he think would happen, when he killed Tybolt Crakehall and ran with the girl? That he could leave her with the Queen on Dragonstone and trot merrily back to his father? Back to Cersei? The thought of her brough an ache to his throat. I will never see her again. She was waiting for him, under the Rock, locked away along with the other precious things of House Lannister. She would laugh herself sick if she could see him now, huddled in a motherhouse and begging help from a Flea Bottom orphan over a Targaryen princess. But I swore to protect them. It was for Cersei I made the vows, but I did make them. And now he could never go back. If it had just been Aerys, perhaps…his father would have made it right. Lord Tywin would never have allowed his son and heir to be sent to the Wall or executed. But now…
He looked over at the little girl in the bed once again. If he brought her back now, concocted some tale of finding her in the city…
Something clenched in his heart. He remembered how he found her, with bloody Lorch standing over her, that monster, and how she’d looked when Jaime killed him. How she’d clearly been hiding under her father’s bed. Rhaegar couldn’t protect her. He barely even tried.
Jaime could not pretend to be a good man, not now that he was an oathbreaker and a murderer. But he could at least be better than a monster.
There was a flare of light through the shuttered windows, the sound of breaking glass and crude cheers. Bethany jumped. Her face was tight and wan in the candlelight. Instinctively, Jaime laid a hand on her arm.
“Don’t fear,” he said, trying to sound braver than he was at present feeling. “I’ll protect you.” I’m a knight, a true knight, not like Clegane or Lorch or any of my father’s dogs. I’m a Lannister of the Rock, and a knight. Like as not it was Lannister soldiers setting those houses aflame. Jaime dug his fingernails into his palm.
Bethany looked at him for a moment and then gave a hesitant ghost of a smile. She had been cocksure and quick a moment ago, but now in the glare of the fires outside he could see how young she truly was. Her mouth had a childish softness to it. It reminded him that he was only her age in truth. If she is still a child, what does that make me?
She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed it again. Jaime, used by now to her complete disinterest in respecting his nobility, felt vaguely disturbed by this. “Come, speak. There’s little else to do.”
“I fear you would not like my question, ser.”
“All the more reason to ask it. This is not a night for polite talk.”
She looked at him from behind a thin lock of dark hair that had come loose from her veil. “When the cry went up that your…that Lord Tywin’s banners had been spotted on the horizon, they all said we were saved. But then…things turned. They were cutting down Targaryen men everywhere you looked.” Jaime did not have to ask who they were.
“That is not a question.”
“No. I suppose…I wished to ask why you did not turn. Why you did not join your lord father.” She looks up at him, and her eyes were frightened. It was a highly personal question, to be sure, especially to be asked by some novice from a tiny motherhouse near the docks of King’s Landing. Jaime could not remember ever being addressed so boldly by a common girl. But he had told her to ask.
Jaime swallowed. How to answer her? Honestly?
“I suppose I did not think my father a suitable caretaker for a girl of three. In the circumstances.” He tried for another of his smiles, the ones he would give to Cersei when she was in a rage, the ones that would make her curse him and kiss him, but it felt weak and hollow even to him.
“For this girl of three in particular,” Bethany said softly. “You are loyal, ser. Many men would have handed her over, to their own fathers.”
Loyal. The word was like poison in his ears. Ah yes, Ser Jaime the Loyal. How loyal of him, to have shoved a sword in his king’s back.
“As are you,” he forced himself to say. “Many novices would have sent me packing as soon as they saw the sword at my hip.”
“Forgive me, ser. It was not for love of the Targaryens that I gave you shelter. The Mother Above bestows her mercy on all little children, high and low.”
“It was still a brave act. You are harbouring a fugitive.”
“I would say I am giving aid to two children of the Seven.” She smiled, and Jaime nearly laughed.
“It was not for love of the Targaryens that I took her, either,” he found himself saying. “She is a child, and she was about to be killed by a monster. It was the only thing to do.”
He looked on Bethany, and thought of the children hiding in the other rooms, the girl out on the street, the little boy carried on his father’s back. Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat. Let him be the king of ashes. Jaime swallowed dryly.
“And I killed him,” he said dully, blood ringing in his ears. “I killed Aerys.”
Bethany’s head snapped up.
“He said he was going to burn the city. He told the pyromancer…he had wildfire, and he wanted to burn the city, every man, woman and child. And it was the only thing to do.” Tyrion would have used his words, Father would have used fear, and Cersei tears. But Jaime only had his sword. He didn’t know why he was telling her this, this plain little Flea Bottom orphan, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
“He laughed when he burned Lord Stark,” he said, in a rapid tumbling rush. “And every time after. He was laughing when he was ordering Rossart to burn the city…” His lips were wet. Tears. He hung his head and hoped that the firelight was not bright enough to show his face. “I couldn’t let him do it. So I killed Rossart first and then…I killed him.”
There was a long silence after that. Occasionally there was some smash of glass or scream of terror. Neither Jaime nor Bethany said a word. The Princess Rhaenys slept on, thumb now jammed in her mouth.
“I should have killed Clegane as well,” Jaime whispered finally. His voice was hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours. “I wasn’t there and he killed the Princess and her…the baby. I should have been there, so I could kill him as well.”
A small hand, white and soft, touched his shoulder through his shirt.
“You did all you could,” Bethany said very quietly.
Jaime put his own hand over hers. “Not enough,” he said shortly, but he did not push her away.
The next he knew, the grey light of pre-dawn was weakly breaking through the gaps in the shutters and the fire in the grate was ashes. Bethany was gone, and Rhaenys was awake, and standing over him.
“Ser? Ser, are you awake?” She was hugging herself anxiously, hair tangled and face puffy. Her voice cracked with fear.
Jaime sat up. “Princess, it’s all right. We are safe. We’re with friends.”
Her little face crumpled, eyes filled with tears. Jaime wondered miserably how long it would take her to forgot the previous night. When his own mother had died he had not known it for hours, and had seen nothing of her body until she was laid to rest under the Rock. But he had still wet the bed for two years after. And he had not nearly died himself.
He held her as she cried, because it seemed like the thing to do.
Bethany entered. “Ser Jaime, my princess. You must come now. We haven’t much time.” Jaime wondered if she had slept at all. Her veil was askew and her eyes were darkly circled.
The world outside the motherhouse was grey and black and white. The moon was still visible in the sky, just beyond the haze of smoke, and only the palest light of dawn was breaking over the city walls. Jaime, Bethany and Rhaenys slipped through deserted streets strewn with broken glass, past burned out shells of houses and ruined corpses.
The docks were similarly quiet, eerily quiet. Jaime guessed that those citizens of King’s Landing who were not dead were laying as low as possible. The docks themselves were a mess, the water choked with corpses and the burned skeletons of ships. Jaime couldn’t see how Bethany’s captain could get close to the shoreline. At least there were no soldiers. It seemed his father did not deem it worth the trouble to guard a few shipwrecks and dead men.
The little boat was moored at one of the only docks not completely blockaded with debris. Jaime could just see the ship she had come from on the horizon, well out of the bay.
“How did you get the message to them?” he asked Bethany curiously as the sailor carefully climbed from the boat and onto the badly damaged dock.
“The motherhouse fostered one of the cabin boys a few years ago. He rowed in to check we were all safe when the soldiers came. Now he’s going to row you back out.” She hailed him with a wave.
As the cabin boy picked up Rhaenys and placed her carefully in the bow, Jaime turned to Bethany.
“Farewell, Ser Jaime. Keep that child safe.” She reached out a hand, as if to touch him, but it fluttered and then fell to her side. “Seven blessings go with you.”
Jaime hefted the sack from his shoulder and held it out to her. “This is for you.”
She was confused, until he held it open and showed her the glint of his gilded armour in the dawn light. “You need this. You need it to protect the princess.”
“I can get more. I hear this is worth a great deal. And a Lannister pays his debts.”
She smiled at him then. She had a very pretty smile, dimpled and white and bright like the sun.
Rhaenys clutched at his arm as they rocked away from the docks and out to the waiting ship. “Ser, where are we going?”
To Dragonstone, to Braavos. To somewhere safe, where the shadow of the Rock does not touch. Somewhere, anywhere, as long as it’s far from this accursed city.