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“Lady Brienne, do you know any songs?”
Podrick is the first to raise his head and give Sansa a questioning glance. Hunt guffaws to himself and Jaime merely ignores it, holding onto his reins and focusing on the footing of his mare down the treacherous, mountainous path.
Brienne has no choice but to meet Sansa's wide blue stare. “Some,” she admits.
“My mother used to sing to me as a child. She wasn't much of a singer, but her voice always soothed me. Later, I loved hearing the more intricate songs that the real singers brought and I grew tried of her meanderings..” she trails off and sighs. “I miss it now.”
“I could sing for you, Lady Sansa,” Hyle offers from his place behind the two.
“No,” Sansa says immediately. “I tire of men's voices. Do not sing.”
But her eyes are on Brienne again.
“Did your mother ever sing to you?” Sansa asks.
“I did not know my mother.”
“That is unfortunate.” Her eyes turn sad. “I am sorry for bringing it up.”
Brienne shifts uncomfortably on the saddle, aware of Pod and Jaime and Hunt. She gives her head a small shake. “Don't be. It was a long time ago.”
“And I have brought it back up.” Sansa looks about the cold landscape and pulls her furred hood closer to her cheeks. “Do you like the snow? I adore it sometimes.. when I remember Winterfell and the summer showers. It makes me think of home and of Arya.. my brothers..” There comes no one answers; Sansa has been speaking nonstop since they left the Bloody Gate, and they are well used to her voice rambling to fill the silence the howl of the wind leaves. “Do you have any siblings, Lady Brienne?”
“Once.”
“Me, too,” Sansa breathes. “Once.”
A longer pause endures that one. None of the men have tried to bar their way into the conversation – if one would call the small, blunt responses on Brienne's side a part of a conversation. There were a few feeble tries on Hyle's end that led to Sansa's voice telling him to stop. Jaime leads their small group, Podrick behind him, Sansa and Brienne ride behind that, sometimes side by side when the path allows and Brienne is behind when it does not. Hyle lingers in the back, muttering things to the wench every so often, but nothing that raises concern.
“Will you sing for me, Lady Brienne? Please.”
“I do not have much of a voice.”
“Your voice is splendid,” Sansa says earnestly. “You've a woman's voice. That is all I need.”
Sing to yourself, Brienne thinks at first; her memories are scattering to those handful of other times she was made to sing in public, attending ceremonies at the sept and during a feast in Evenfall Hall. All of them with dreadful endings. Her voice does not catch tunes, does not change pitch, is scratchy, is raw. “I do not know any songs.”
Suddenly, up ahead, Jaime snorts. “She's already thought of that, wench. She made you admit to knowing a song before she asked.” At his words Sansa looks bashfully at her hands twisted in the mane of her horse, the flash of her cheeks are either whipped red in the cold or flushed. Brienne feels her own heat in her shoulders; she can't decide if it is because Jaime caught the trap before she did or because him speaking seemed to liven his presence there.
“I do not know any songs that will be familiar to you,” Brienne corrects herself, directing the words at everyone, rather than Sansa. “The one I know is something from the Stormlands.”
“I know which one you speak of,” Hyle says from his place, smiling. He agrees with her by dipping his head at the rest of the group. “No northerners will know it.”
“I'm not quite a northerner,” Jaime muses.
“To us, yes,” Hyle diffuses him – Brienne nods absently in agreement.
“I would like to hear it, nonetheless,” Sansa tells the wench. “I welcome new songs. Tell me, what is it about?”
“Sleeping,” Hyle hums.
“It's a lullaby,” Brienne adds. “Short.”
“Do you love it?”
That is a strange question to Brienne; because it's true. She likes the song, remembers one or two of her father's concubines humming it in her direction and she's sung it to both her younger sisters when they lay at night, across the sheets of the same cradles they died in.
She shrugs at Lady Sansa.
It is much later when they are stopping for the night that the subject is brought up. Of course, it is Hyle who does, not Sansa. He is the one who moves forward to help Brienne dismount, which make Sansa smile and Jaime scuffs. Podrick is helping Jaime set up the makeshift shelters – he curses his gold hand more than once – while Brienne works to unload their provisions.. Hyle has ghosted closer to her.
“You should sing it, for me,” he says. “I have not heard that song in a long time.”
Brienne grunts uninterestedly and goes about sorting the salted beef from rock-hard bread. Hyle sighs and leans an arm on the horse's warm flank. He watches the wench's face, and the scar on the side of his face twists with his next smile. “You could sing it sweetly in my ear as you move above me.” At the sight of her sharp glance, he adds, “The offer still stands.”
She locks her jaw. His advances have not stopped since she rescued him from Lady Stoneheart and they wore at her in a way that swordplay could not. “I could use a warm body next to mine,” he continues to murmur, and his eyes trace over her armored limbs. “Yours is large enough to cover me, don't you think? The others won't mind the sounds.. unless you like to scream. That might –”
“You must stop this,” she says, hush. “I will not marry you, I have told you.”
“Who said I am only in it for the marriage now?” Hyle teases. His eyes say he is.
Brienne finds no answer.
That night, she places herself nearer to Sansa's bed and makes sure Podrick lays between her and Hyle. She can never be cautious enough, even with others there to hear her protests. Jaime is on the other side of Sansa, his back to everyone, sleeping while the others seem to shiver. Soon enough the stars are out. Clouds blow them into a turmoil of gray.
And it is not Brienne, but Sansa who screams in the night.
In the pale daylight, Sansa Stark looks a woman and an adult with a mane of scarlet hair and blue eyes that are compassionate and well-veiled, but in the night she looks a child and a little girl. She twists into the blankets and there is sweat on her face and her lips are chewed and ravaged by teeth. Her gasps, pitiful mewls, and those few high-pitched, short lived screams that escape pierce straight through Brienne's heart.
No one moves to comfort the girl when she is sobbing to herself into her pillows.
There are some words that slip through from her dream to reality. Things like; moon, Petyr, sweet robin, mother, father, prince, Arya, sorry, please, no, no more, mother, mother, mother. And it is the tenth time that Sansa cries out for her mother in her sleep that Brienne rolls over toward the girl, sits up and places a jarring hand on her thin shoulder.
“Sansa. Wake. You're dreaming.”
The girl is still crying and her eyes only lull weakly, before she curls her knees to her chest and twists herself worse into the tangle of her blankets. Brienne tries to shake her awake, but it only seems to worsen Sansa's belief someone is hurting her, and she cries out at someone to stop hitting her, to please, stop – someone that no one but her can see.
Pale hands tug at Brienne's shirt by the time the Stark pulls herself from her nightmares and Sansa moves her own self into the wench's chest, the arms finding a way to snake around Brienne's neck, fingers shifting through straw colored hair. Sansa's tears soak down the side of Brienne's neck. “Sing to me,” she murmurs. “Please.”
The Maid of Tarth is at loss of what to do with a crying child in her arms. Any other woman would have rocked Sansa and petted her hair and murmured soothing things – would have sung – but she is not any other woman. She is mad at herself for giving in, whereas all the men ignored and endured. They heard, she knows they had to have heard Sansa's torment, but they did not stir. But they are wide awake, even now. She sees Jaime's shift and hears Podrick's hand scratching his nose and Hyle's unsleeping breaths.
Her arms clutch awkward against Sansa's lower back and she stares passed the girl's shoulder. Jaime is there, laying on his back and the glint of moonlight on his open eyes tells her that he's watching her. His lips move. He mouths something at her. Sing. In her head she imagines what he'd really say out loud, if he could; “If you don't sing to that kid, stubborn wench, then no one is going to get to sleep.”
So she musters her courage. A hand finds Sansa's head and holds it and she stares at the Lannister who nods his head slightly. A big breath and a wavering exhale, before Brienne closes her eyes and opens her mouth; her voice cracks, it is raw, but feminine enough, and the song is at an easily remembered slow pace, lulling slightly, only eleven lines.
Sansa sniffs at the sound and sighs.
“Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
Smiles await you when you rise,
Sleep, my pretty baby,
Do not cry,
And I will sing you a lullaby.”
There is the smallest sound behind Brienne's back; a hum of approval. She wonders momentarily if Sansa is not the only one who wishes to be coddled and sung to and pet. The songs continues moments later into the next set of lines:
“Care I know you don't,
My beautiful minx, therefore sleep,
While I watch over you and do keep.
Sleep, my pretty darling,
Do not cry,
And I will sing you a lullaby.”
Brienne still has an uncomfortable hold on the girl, whom has by now calmed herself. She is feeling self conscious and the night air is chilly.. has carried her voice into the completely silent chorus of the night. Sansa mutters a thanks and wipes her tears and lays against the blankets. When Brienne lays down beside her, she is halfway between her own bedroll and the girl's. Behind her back, she feels the blankets shift and feels a hand press against her upper back, on a shoulder; Podrick. The hand rests against the blankets, the fingers just touching.. much like Sansa's fingers tangled around Brienne's forearm.
It is hard to sleep that way, between the two, even with how light their touches are.
Jaime rolls away again – she'd forgotten about him for a moment, but now that he's moved she is staring passed Sansa and at his back. She wonders what he thinks, what japes he might use to mock her voice, or more offensively, the song she likes so much. Which is strange of her, to like songs over swords or knightly stories. Perhaps it's the simplicity of the song she likes best.
Either way, the next morning, there is no talk of it. Everyone rises from their beds and moves about their business as usual. They eat and mount and go on their way. Sansa talks less, but seems happier for it. Jaime does not say anything mocking, and Hyle does not shove his advances at Brienne.
It is a years later that Jaime brings it up.
He is filthy, is in chains. The black cells have not been kind to him and the silver queen even less so.
But she likes to call herself kind, the mother, and she looks down at Jaime Lannister, as he's forced to his knees in front of her, before the whole court, days away from his execution and she asks him if he has any last requests or pleas or debts he'd like to pay.
“A last requests,” he tells her. His voice is raw. He remembers another voice that is raw. A cold night, where the Vale bowled him in on all sides and his companions were awake, listening to the Stark girl's nightmares. He remembers turning and wanting to says something, to help, but he couldn't, of course. He wanted to sleep, too. Couldn't sleep because his stomach felt off and boiling and the screams were a hundred different screams he's heard before from people he, himself, was hitting as they begged otherwise.
And his wench rolled over when no one else did.
“Tell me and I will see what I can do,” Daenerys allows.
“I want you to find a knight.”
There is a skeptical wave through the room. “Which knight? Do you wish for me to find you a champion to fight for your innocence?”
Jaime smiles, amused. “Even I do not proclaim innocence. No, I want you to find the knight, the Knight of Tarth.”
“Lady Brienne?” The queen knows the nickname. “She is in Maidenpool. What do you wish of her?”
“I knew her on my travels during the war.”
“She kept you prisoner.”
These people are so under-informed, Jaime thinks to himself, exasperatedly. “Yes,” he answers. “I would like to speak with her once more, before I lose my head. Nothing more.”
One of the men on the queen's council steps forward, to speak, and Daenerys turns her head to him. The man directs his question at Jaime; “What do you wish to speak of with this woman?”
“Actually, I wasn't going to make speaking a large part of it.”
Many people recoil from that and others raise eyebrows and the queen laughs. She is the only one, but Jaime feels it is more to what her bear rumbles in her ear than anything he said. “Pray someone send for this woman,” the queen decides and then turns back to regard Jaime. Her amusement is quick to disappear. “She will be here within the next day and then you shall speak with her. Afterward, justice must take place. You understand this?”
“I am not afraid of your judgment.”
“Then fear the gods, they are the ones who can decide for the end.” She waves him away.
It is late that same night that Jaime hears footsteps coming to his cell.
Impossible, he thinks, but scrambles to his feet when the door opens anyway. Bright light hits his face as a blow and he reaches out his stump to rest it against the dirty wall, blinking to regain vision. When it clears, there is a large shape in the doorway, and he notes the blue eyes first.
Astonishing eyes.
“My lady. I didn't think you'd come so soon.”
“I rode fast,” Brienne answers, dismissively. “You told me not to come. That when the queen captured you, you told me that I was not supposed to come riding in with sword and horse and try to make a difference. Now, she tells me you have called me hear on your last wish.”
Jaime remembers that. “That does sound like something I would say.”
“So why.. I don't understand. Why am I here? I can't champion you if you won't let me.”
He remembers Sansa's mewling and the way he watched behind the wench's back as Podrick inched uncertainly and skittishly forward and touched Brienne with a reverent hand. Or Hyle Hunt gazing up at the sky and frowning and.. Jaime remembers the way Hyle helped her dismount. A moment before he might of tried to. Chivalry, he thinks, I should have tried that on her aside insults.
“I wanted to know if you were well,” he finally manages. There is a stiff space between them, his clothes are rags, but the room smells and is worse. He smiles when the wench's eyes scan the surroundings and her lips press together in her distaste of it.
“I am well.”
“And Podrick?”
“He is a man grown.”
“But you must still see him..”
Brienne sighs. “I do. He is brave.”
“Sansa?”
“Still with her sister, they are both well. Starks are well. I am well. Podrick and Hyle are well.” Brienne forces Jaime to meet her gaze and she leans slightly into the threshold. “That is not why you have called me here.”
“I confess, I thought I'd have more time to think of what to say to you. But you came so quick and I find myself without anything.” Which isn't true. “Hyle.. he is well, you said.”
“Well, yes.”
“How well?”
Brienne is confused by the direction of his questions. “As well as me.”
“As a Tarth?” Jaime ventures. The stillness in her face tells him that she gets what he's doing.
“He is unmarried, still. I am unmarried.”
“Ah.” There is nothing more he says on that matter. “You know..”
“I know, what?” Brienne asks.
“My mother used to sing to me, too, when I was young. Before she died.”
This one dawns on her much faster than the last. She has learned the way I speak. “You want me to sing?” There is much disbelief in her voice and face. “That's what your last request is?”
“There are hundreds of worse ones I could make,” he replies and moves forward. She does not shrink away from him as he nears and stops before her and smiles. “Will you deny a man his dying wish?”
She doesn't. She sings her lullaby and Jaime closes his eyes and memorizes the lines. He listens and she sings and one of the guards is laughing. But Jaime has never cared what others think. When she is done, she is embarrassed, wants to leave, and before she can escape he hugs her. Just once, just one squeeze, before the guard comes and tells him that their time is up.
Brienne fingers refuse to let go of his shirt for a few seconds.
He savors that and the words, raw and lulling and timid – golden slumber kiss your eyes – as he is pushed to his knees before the headsman. Jaime screws his eyes shut and thinks of the words – smiles await you when you rise – and he hopes that by holding a good memory close before he dies, the gods will not be judgmental enough to take it from him. Or perhaps, if there are no gods, then he will merely be able to remember.
The line is just slipping through his thoughts – while I watch over you and do keep – when there is an uproar. A shout. Tyrion is there, and Daenerys looks surprised and delighted. Jaime isn't sure how but he ends up slumped against the wall of his cell that night. And for many more nights to come. Still alive, still breathing, still remembering.
It is three years later and she thinks he can't hear her.
Her voice fills the hallway, though. The door is ajar and he is leaning into the stone beside the nursery, soaking in the sound of her voice – raw, worked, but strong, filled with intent and emotion. All the milkmaids have been dismissed for the night and Brienne's footsteps are whispering on the floor as she paces and walks and rocks her arms. Across the wall she throws a warm shadow, her form silhouetted in lamp light.
Their daughter is still. She never cries when her mother is singing to her.
But he is sure that he loves the sound more than the infant.
He is sure that someday, he will turn to the door and step inside and laugh when the wench jumps. Something teasing will slip from his tongue and she will redden and clutch her daughter closer. He'll tell her to continue. She'll pretend she doesn't know what he's talking about. He'll prove he's heard, and then she'll refuse stubbornly anyway.
He won't be able to find her in the nursery late at night after that.
And he isn't quite ready to give it up. So that day isn't today, or the next, or the hundreds of others he spends slumped into the wall, listening and smiling on the later years, when their little girl joins into the lyrics, fumbles them, and even further along the road when it is mother and daughter serenading a toddling boy.
His children are more of the Stormlands than he thought they would be, when he watches them play in the few lush and green gardens that Casterly Rock possessed... when they want to go to Tarth more than to King's Landing... When their daughter is engaged to a Dondarrion... when he hears his son hummingmy beautiful minx underneath his breath at one of his tourneys.
That doesn't bug him. He's glad. The world needed a little less Lannister blood in circulation.
But he is glad, most of all, that his children get to say they knew their mother.. that they remember her songs and never grew tired of them.. that when he sees his granddaughter for the first time, five and energetic, freckled and dimpled and blue eyed, tugging at his graying hair, he gets to tell the story of when he first heard Brienne sing.