Chapter Text
I had a dream about you. We were in the golden room
where everyone finally gets what they want.
- Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain
“The tourney’s back the other way, Ser,” the miller yells as he rides closer.
Jaime bites back something bitter in response. “I’m for Kings Landing. Would you fill up my waterskin?”
It was a good a place as any to make a rest. The miller’s daughter, presumably, takes the skin from his outstretched hand, smiling shyly.
She reappears while he’s brushing his horse down, the light quickly fading.
“Your skin, Ser.”
Jaime nods in thanks, but she keeps a hold of it, hovering.
“You are a Kingsguard, are you not?”
“Who else would choose to wear the most impractical colour,” he mutters, mood soured by the mention of what he has sold himself to. He’s mine now, not Tywin’s. He’ll serve as I see fit. I am the king. I rule, and he’ll obey, Aerys had said before he’d dismissed him. He didn’t want to be his fathers, to be the Kings, he wanted to be Cersei’s, only Cersei’s. How could he have been so blind?
“It may be impractical,” she says in a halting voice, for she is still speaking somehow. “But it makes you look like a true knight from a song. Bright against the darkness.”
Jaime looks down at his cloak. The girl is right, even now in the gloaming he stands out like a beacon.
“Will you be staying overnight, Ser? My father wishes to know if you’ll be needing a palette.”
“No, I’ll not trouble you. I shall sleep outdoors tonight. Spring is in the air, after all.”
He does not say that he would rather sleep outside, his anger a furnace, not wanting the dissatisfaction of a warm bed. He wants to feel every stick in his back, he wants to lay in his new white cloak and make it muddy. The millers girl blushes like he has said something gallant, though he has, he supposes. Still, she leaves all the same. If he were another other man, he might follow her steps to her own bed. But her figure walking back toward the mill is only a passing imitation of his sister. Round shoulders that melt into the darkness, not Cersei’s, cutting through the air like a sharpened blade. To look at Cersei is to know what all woman were shaped around.
Once he lies on the ground, settled, with the fire taking care of itself, all the anger saps out of him and leaves only exhaustion. Jaime doesn’t even notice when he falls asleep.
He stands in middle of the lists of Harrenhal as if he never left. Armour clad, but not in the brilliant white of the Kings Guard he was now sworn, nor his Lannister gold. No, it is plain beaten metal, ill-fitting in a thousand places. Too large on the arms, too tight on the calves. But even so, helmed and dressed like a hedge knight, Jaime sits ahorse in front of the main pavilion.
The cheers are deafening. A thousand voices, from the small folk, from the nobles, from near all the royals aside from the King himself, stewing back in his seat. They do not know me, he realises. Not a single one of them.
To his side, his fallen foe lies in the mud, fussed over by his squire. The shield at his arm has the two towers on it that represent House Frey. The horse beneath him, not his own, jerks and Jaime bolts up in the forest. Alone, in his white cloak, and far away from Harrenhal.
All morning, he cannot shake the dream from his mind. When the miller delivers him a bowl of porridge, thick with egg and meat and broth, when he leads his horse to the lake to drink, when he dunks his own head in the water to wash the dream away. They did not know me for a Lannister, nor for the newest Kings Guard. Not a single one of them, not even the king.
What it would be to knock each Kingsguard, each other noble off their horses until only Rhaegar remained and down he would go too. For one last moment before his fate was resigned to being a plaything between his father and his king and even Cersei, he could be the kind of knight he had been whittling himself into since birth. To fight in the lists of a great tourney, and to know that for one single moment, the warrior himself rode through him. In his dreams, it had been as the golden son of Lord Tywin Lannister. But perhaps…
Nobody would know who sat beneath the chainmail. There would be no songs. But he would be a true knight and each time he heard a bard singing of the secret knight of Harrenhal, he would know and he would smile and he would toss them a copper. Glory not belonging to anyone but himself.
He saddles his horse and rides back the way he came, leaving only the empty porridge bowl behind, scrapped clean.
Even now, there is some strange tug in him when he must remove his new cloak and put it with his armour in the saddle bags. He refuses to think anything more about it. Soon, he will put it back on.
It is ridiculously easy to hang around the outer circle of tents and wait until the unlucky hedge knight he chose goes stumbling off to piss and steal away with his cloak. He’ll have need of a better disguise soon but hopefully soon the shadow of his beard would thicken. Never before had it been longer than what remained in the morning. It had grown in at four and ten, to the surprise of them all, when Merrett Frey had tickled his chin and told him to look in the glass. In that moment, he had thought for the first time that he no longer looked like Cersei. By the hour, it had been shaved as closely as he could.
Keeping his eyes on the ground, Jaime weaves between tents until he finds the sigil of House Marbrand. There are camp followers scrubbing away at a tunic and he pulls the cloak hood further down.
“I’m looking for Ser Adamm, do you know where I would find him?”
One of the whores drops the tunic with a thud into her bucket of soapy water.
“Where he’s like to be at this time, at the tourney,” she scoffs. It might be the first time anyone aside from his father has dared speak to him like that. Jaime staggers back a little, suddenly realising what a gods stupid plan this was. To get to Adamm, to get him alone, and then to persuade him to go against his King. It was folly, it was– “He’ll be back soon for some food no doubt. He rides this afternoon.”
She’s looking at him pitying now, as if he really is a hedge knight, come to beg for Ser Adamm’s help. Yet again, he wonders if anyone has ever looked at him like that. Perhaps when his mother died.
“Come, sit. Hold this side of the board for me.”
When Adamm finally appears, Jaime’s trousers are sopping with soapy water, and he’s making his way through an apple she’d given him. Jaime hauls him into the tent before he can even grab the plate offered him, with Adamm spluttering until he throws the hood off.
“Jaime? What in the seven hells are you doing here? Aren’t you meant to be heading back to Kings Landing?”
“To go bounce a child on my knee and embroider with the queen and her women? Not a chance.” He says, with all the confidence he hadn’t felt before. After all, he had gone, witless as a worm, all the way till the mill until the dream came to him. “No, I have a mind to join the lists. Not as a Lannister, not as a Kings Guard, but as myself.”
While Adamm scoffs down some food, and Jaime helps him into his armour, they make plans for how he shall go about it. Adamm will find him some armour; they would make up as much as they could with his father’s armour, brought on the off chance, and the pieces too distinctive to hide, he would purchase from one of the blacksmiths. He will ride the next day.
Jaime slinks away from Adamm once they reach the smallfolk crowd, a scarf tightly wrapped around his hair and the bottom of his face. With a cup of cheap cider in one hand, he watches while Adamm wins his first tilt against a Tarly, breaking only two lances. Who will he fight on the morrow, he ponders. Late in the day when he has cheered and jeered and thrown cider all over, tiredness sinking in fast, a knight enters the lists with a shield he does not recognise.
Nobody else seems to either, across the field, nobles are craning their necks for a closer look.
“A mystery knight? They haven’t had one of those since the tourney at Cornfield,” a man beside him chunters to the woman beside him.
“How do you even know that?”
“I was there, wasn’t I. Went on that pilgrimage across the Westerlands and ended up pissed at a tourney instead.”
Jaime wants to tell them to shut up, to keep their nonsense to their own ears but he’s far too busy trying to breathe. It is a mystery knight, and just like the one in his dream. As the knight rides past, he can see the armour clear as day to be the very one he thought he had worn. It was meant to be me, he thinks, it was meant to be me.
There is a very strong urge to run, to burst through the crowds and ride straight for Kings Landing and not look back. What a fool he has been. He has believed in dreams. Aerys would string his neck if he found out and it had been, all of it, for nothing. Despite it all, he stays and watches as the knight knocks down all his opponents, with rough skill but a sure enough talent.
When the knight has finished his jousts, Jaime does push through the crowd but not to flee. No, he needs must speak to this knight, whoever he was, and find out why he had dreamed of him. Why it was not him. Quick as a lark, he makes his way toward where the knight wandered off into the woods.
Jaime, feeling little more than a ghost now, slips between the trees behind the knight. When the knight slows to adjust his glove, he takes the opportunity to catch up closer. Only then the knight, quick as anything, spins around, sword pointed at his throat.
“I would not take one step closer if I were you.”
“And if I were you, who would I be?” Jaime asks calmly, eyeing the blade. Good steel, well made, with an almost decorative style to it. Stolen, perhaps, or at the very least this knight came from a noble house.
“With my sword at your throat, I hardly think this is the time to question me,” the knight says, and even through the helm, Jaime can hear the voice, young almost, that of a boy not much older than himself. A northern boy, to be sure. “I imagine you have come here in the hopes of some reward for unmasking me. Your hopes were misplaced, I’m afraid. Do not try this again, and I may spare you.”
“I have no intentions for a reward, I assure you,” he says, pushing the blade away. The knight lets him. Up close, he can see even more so how ill-fitting this armour is, tight in one place, loose in others.
“Then what are your intentions.”
“I dreamed of you,” tumbles out of his mouth before he can stop it. The knight raises his sword again by an inch as if compelled.
“What drunken nonsense is this? Who are you?”
It’s fear he can hear in the knight’s voice now. He’s just a child, scared and in over his head. For a moment, Jaime is reminded of himself.
“You will explain this dream or you will unmask yourself. Be grateful I do not ask for both.”
“I have dreamed of you, in that very armour, stood in the lists as you were today. With the knight of House Frey beaten.”
“Is that meant to-”
“Last night, I dreamed of you.”
“How am I meant to believe you?” he asks warily, but Jaime can tell he is faltering now. Whatever his ill laid plans had been, it had not been his intention to reveal his dream. They will think me mad. “Why tell me? What do you want?”
Somehow it stumps him. Why had he told the knight? What could he have hoped to gain? So the knight was not him. Telling him so would not change that. What do you want, the knight was asking. Jaime doesn’t know anymore.
“I thought it was me.”
He had not meant to say it. Only stood here, in the shadow of the night with someone who was hiding, for whatever reason, just as he was, he wants to confess. Mayhaps this knight is the Warrior himself. Maybe he of all people can gives him answers. It cannot all mean nothing.
The knight’s sword arm goes limp. He turns, as if to leave, before stopping.
“You had better come with me.”
They wander until the tents begin again, before the knight halts.
“Is the jousting finished?”
“Not yet.”
“Then come with me.”
He ducks down and sneaks around the tents, heading toward the larger ones, the noble ones. But always, he stays out of sight, and Jaime doesn’t need telling twice. They both have secrets to keep. They arrive at the Stark tent, and truthfully he is not surprised. Northern, he clearly was; his words hardened as if they could weather snow. There were three Stark boys from the main branch, but he had no reason to think they would need to hide. Perhaps their father was tyrannical. There was a slit in the back of the tent, as if torn by a knife, and the knight pulls it aside a sliver, before slipping inside.
Jaime follows, and finds the knight hushing two boys, both of an age, both brown haired and spotty.
“Who is that?” One asks, moving forward as if to protect the knight. This was certainly one of the stark boys; he recognised that kind of long face anywhere.
“Yet to be determined. Now one of you keep an eye out while I question our guest.”
They look between them, silently deciding, before the non-Stark boy slips out the main tent flap.
“Why would you enter the lists as a mystery knight?” His voice is softer than it was before. He thinks I am common born, or some such thing. Who would have pity for Jaime, son of a Lannister, who offered up himself to the King willingly?
“Why would you?”
“You cannot do this all night,” the other boy says, exasperated. “You can both take off your helms, cloth or steel.”
“How do I know you will not reveal my identity?” The knight asks of him, ridiculous sat in the tent with his helm still on.
“You don’t. But you will have my own in your hands, to do with as you will.”
The other boy wanders behind Jaime, covering the slit in the tent. “So that you don’t try and run.”
The knight lifts his hands to his helmet, as Jaime lifts his hands to the cloth. Out of the helm comes a tumble of dark hair. Jaime unwinds the cloth, and pulls his hood back. The knight places his-no her, helm on the floor. His mouth slackens involuntarily.
“Jaime Lannister.”
He does not remember her name, but he knows she is the sole daughter of Lord Stark. If he had not known her from the feast the night before, he would know anyway. That hair, that face, those eyes. She was all Stark, all. She is everything Cersei is not.
“You were meant to be on the way to Kings Landing.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Then my question remains the same. Why would you ride as a mystery knight?”
“Is it not obvious?” he asks, scoffing almost. “I’m the youngest knight to ever make the Kingsguard, and he has sent me back to be a nursemaid. When I was just a squire, I could unhorse men of thirty. Now? I could beat them all without even trying. I will show them. I am a knight. I should be a knight. And you? Are your Lord Father’s sons so dire at tourneys he needs must send his one daughter.”
Disappointment seems to mar her face for a moment, before she shifts it into stillness. Shame, he feels, tickling at the back of his spine. Why should he feel shame? He had told the truth.
“Then you do not understand me after all. I will keep your secret. Ride as a mystery knight if you will. I have done what I intended to.”
“And that is?”
“There is not much in the way of glory to be a mystery knight.” She states, ignoring his question. “And yet you want to show them all. Show who? It would do you no good to be unmasked.”
“They would not know but I would,” he says, honest rising like bile in his throat. Why is he still talking? “Surely it is not so different for you. You won every joust. You are skilled, clearly. But a woman still. Who is it for if not you?”
The stark girl bites the inside of her lip. Jaime still does not even know her name. They will have said, but why would he have listened. He had not known she would have been this.
“I was defending a friend.”
“And this scheme was the only possible way to do so?”
After a moment, where she looks towards the boy behind Jaime, the boy he had almost forgot hanging behind him for his sheer silence, she shifts closer towards him. “No. It was for me too. I will not deny it. But you say you wanted to do this because you wanted to be a knight. Defending the innocent, is that not what a knight does, beyond this pageantry.”
As before, shame rises, but it is stronger now, less a crawling than a fierce tugging, climbing the rungs of his spine like a ladder. Where in his vows had he sworn to fight in tourneys? To put other knights into the dust? Nowhere. He had sworn to the Mother to protect the weak and innocent. To the Warrior he had sworn to be brave. What bravery was there in what he had planned?
Before he can speak, the tent flap parts and the other boy peers in.
“Quick, you’ve got to change. The tourney’s over and they’re all heading back.”
All gentleness in the girl is gone, now she is almost a knight again, sat tall in her armour. “Benjen, go and distract them. Howland, keep watch.”
The boys both exchange looks, between themselves and with her. They seem to lose to her glare, for they both exit the tent.
“Ser, you may leave now. Ride in the lists tomorrow, I shall not be among your competition.”
Bending down, she begins to undo her greaves.
“You will need help with your armour,” he says, practically. No matter how well she jousts, it takes a very particular kind of knight who can remove all of his own armour.
For a moment, she stares at him, leg raised on a chair where she unties it. Theres a guardedness on her face he expected, but it is not a vision of maidenly afront but something deeper. The face of someone expecting the jape to reveal itself.
“If you insist.”
As he works the buckle on her pauldron, which is far too small and troublesome to get off easily, he must move her long hair to one side. Her neck meets his eyes, hairs prickling, and he finds himself searching for a question to break the silence.
“Where did you get the armour?”
“Some is my brothers.” She says, hesitantly. “What was distinctive we did away with. He bought the rest from one of the blacksmiths.”
“It is not wise to ride in armour too small. They should have bought it all.”
“Well, we are not all as rich as Lannisters.”
He catches her eye then, raises his eyebrows in mock question. The Starks are not exactly poverty stricken.
“Speaking of which… you said you dreamed of me. Is it often that Lannisters are greenseers or was that a lie to talk to me?” She’s teasing, Jaime can hear it in her voice. He pulls at the buckle on her shoulder and she winces. “I thought… at first I thought you were the Prince. They do say the Targaryens once had prophetic dreams.”
“It was no lie.” He says simply. “I am sorry to disappoint.”
As he slides the pauldron off, she looks him deep in the eyes again, questioning. Her eyes are grey, that very distinctive Stark colour. He had always thought it sounded dull, especially alongside the bright green of the Lannister eyes, but no. Up close, it is anything but dull. They were grey as iron, grey as steel.
“There,” he says blandly, “All removed.”
Even with the armour off, and stood in only a gambeson, she is not very womanly beneath. The armour was hiding no breasts as he can see, and her body is lithe, more a boys than any girls. All he can compare it to is his sisters; Cersei’s smooth lines, her soft belly, her breasts, her open thighs. Once Cersei had looked like that, but it had not lasted. The Maiden had come for her eventually.
“Hurry up,” someone calls through the flaps of the tent. The watch boy, surely. Jaime gathers up the armour, and looks around for somewhere to put it.
“In the chest,” she says, tugging her gambeson off. “Throw me a dress.”
In the chest he finds gowns, the like she must wear when she is playing the prodigal daughter. He roots through and pulls out one that shimmers like hoarfrost and stuffs the armour further down beneath blankets and overdresses. Stood in her small clothes, she extends a hand for the dress but pulls back when she sees what it is.
“Something simpler, I’m meant to be sick.”
Jaime rolls his eyes but still looks for another. Instead, he finds something plainer, grey with red embroidery. Quickly, she shoves her arms into the sleeves and pulls it over her head. The lacing at the back hangs loose, as she contorts herself to try and pull it.
“Here, let me do it.”
“You know how to lace a dress?”
“Me and my sister used to pretend to be each other. I’d wear her dresses and she’d go marching down into the training yard.” He replies, turning her around and pulling at the laces. Her skin is only a breath away, beneath gossamer thin linen. He can smell the sweat on her from all those layers. She smells real, plucked fresh from the earth.
“He’s almost here,” the boys voice comes harsh whispering in again. His head pops through the tent flap this time, and he blinks in surprise to see Jaime still there, and helping her with the dress.
“Almost done,” Jaime says, pulling the lacing tight as she arches her back against it. When he’s done, he has only a minute to take in the sight, the knight put away and the maid returned. You would never once think to see her. Before he can trail a hand out for the dress again, she is stuffing his scarf in his hands and bundling him towards the hidden slit.
“I never caught your name,” he says, wincing at how pitiful he sounds.
“Lyanna.” She says, sounding almost regretful. “My name is Lyanna.”
“Will you ride tomorrow?”
“I told you, I’ve done what I intended.”
“But is that what you want?” He asks, half in the tent and half out, both their hands wrapped around the scarf. “Ride against me tomorrow. Two mystery knights against each other.”
“I’ll win,” she grins.
“I’d like to see you try,” he manages to say before she pushes him out of the tent.