It hadn’t been until the woman slid in under his blankets and put his good hand on her breast that he roused. She was a pretty little thing, too. “I was a slip of a girl when you came for Lord Whent’s tourney and the king gave you your cloak,” she confessed. “You were so handsome all in white, and everyone said what a brave knight you were. Sometimes when I’m with some man, I close my eyes and pretend it’s you on top of me, with your smooth skin and gold curls. I never truly thought I’d have you, though.”
Sending her away had not been easy after that, but Jaime had done it all the same. I have a woman, he reminded himself. “Do you send girls to everyone you leech?” he asked Qyburn.
“More often Lord Vargo sends them to me. He likes me to examine them, before... well, suffice it to say that once he loved unwisely, and he has no wish to do so again. But have no fear, Pia is quite healthy. As is your maid of Tarth.”
Jaime gave him a sharp look. “Brienne?”
“Yes. A strong girl, that one. And her maidenhead is stil intact. As of last night, at least.” Qyburn gave a chuckle.
“He sent you to examine her?”
“To be sure. He is... fastidious, shall we say?”
“Does this concern the ransom?” Jaime asked. “Does her father require proof she is stil maiden?”
“You have not heard?” Qyburn gave a shrug. “We had a bird from Lord Selwyn. In answer to mine. The Evenstar offers three hundred dragons for his daughter’s safe return. I had told Lord Vargo there were no sapphires on Tarth, but he will not listen. He is convinced the Evenstar intends to cheat him.”
“Three hundred dragons is a fair ransom for a knight. The goat should take what he can get.”
“The goat is Lord of Harrenhal, and the Lord of Harrenhal does not haggle.” The news irritated him, though he supposed he should have seen it coming. The lie spared you awhile, wench. Be grateful for that much. “If her maidenhead’s as hard as the rest of her, the goat will break his cock off trying to get in,” he jested. Brienne was tough enough to survive a few rapes, Jaime judged, though if she resisted too vigorously Vargo Hoat might start lopping off her hands and feet. And if he does, why should I care? I might stil have a hand if she had let me have my cousin’s sword without getting stupid. He had almost taken off her leg himself with that first stroke of his, but after that she had given him more than he wanted. Hoat may not know how freakish strong she is. He had best be careful, or she’ll snap that skinny neck of his, and wouldn’t that be sweet?
Qyburn’s companionship was wearing on him. Jaime trotted toward the head of the column. A round little tick of a northman name of Nage went before Steelshanks with the peace banner; a rainbow-striped flag with seven long tails, on a staff topped by a seven-pointed star. “Shouldn’t you northmen have a different sort of peace banner?” he asked Walton. “What are the Seven to you?”
“Southron gods,” the man said, “but it’s a southron peace we need, to get you safe to your father.”
My father. Jaime wondered whether Lord Tywin had received the goat’s demand for ransom, with or without his rotted hand. What is a swordsman worth without his sword hand? Half the gold in Casterly Rock?
Three hundred dragons? Or nothing? His father had never been unduly swayed by sentiment.
Tywin Lannister’s own father Lord Tytos had once imprisoned an unruly bannerman, Lord Tarbeck. The redoubtable Lady Tarbeck responded by capturing three Lannisters, including young Stafford, whose sister was betrothed to cousin Tywin. “Send back my lord and love, or these three shall answer for any harm that comes him,” she had written to Casterly Rock. Young Tywin suggested his father oblige by sending back Lord Tarbeck in three pieces. Lord Tytos was a gentler sort of lion, however, so Lady Tarbeck won a few more years for her muttonheaded lord, and Stafford wed and bred and blundered on till Oxcross. But Tywin Lannister endured, eternal as Casterly Rock. And now you have a cripple for a son as well as a dwarf, my lord. How you will hate that...
The road led them through a burned village. It must have been a year or more since the place had been put to torch. The hovels stood blackened and roofless, but weeds were growing waist high in all the surrounding fields. Steelshanks called a halt to al ow them to water the horses. I know this place too, Jaime thought as he waited by the wel . There had been a small inn where only a few foundation stones and a chimney now stood, and he had gone in for a cup of ale. A dark-eyed serving wench brought him cheese and apples, but the innkeep had refused his coin.
“It’s an honor to have a knight of the Kingsguard under my roof, ser,” the man had said. “It’s a tale I’ll tell my grandchildren.” Jaime looked at the chimney poking out of the weeds and wondered whether he had ever gotten those grandchildren. Did he tel them the Kingslayer once drank his ale and ate his cheese and apples, or was he ashamed to admit he fed the likes of me?
Not that he would ever know; whoever burned the inn had likely killed the grandchildren as well.
He could feel his phantom fingers clench. When Steelshanks said that perhaps they should have a fire and a bit of food, Jaime shook his head. “I mislike this place. We’ll ride on.” By evenfall they had left the lake to fol ow a rutted track through a wood of oak and elm.
Jaime’s stump was throbbing dul y when Steelshanks decided to make camp. Qyburn had brought a skin of dreamwine, thankfully. While Walton set the watches, Jaime stretched out near the fire and propped a rol ed-up bearskin against a stump as a pillow for his head. The wench would have told him he had to eat before he slept, to keep his strength up, but he was more tired than hungry. He closed his eyes, and hoped to dream of Cersei. The fever dreams were al so vivid...
Naked and alone he stood, surrounded by enemies, with stone wal s all around him pressing close. The Rock, he knew. He could feel the immense weight of it above his head. He was home.
He was home and whole.
He held his right hand up and flexed his fingers to feel the strength in them. it felt as good as sex. As good as swordplay. Four fingers and a thumb. He had dreamed that he was maimed, but it wasn’t so. Relief made him dizzy. My hand, my good hand. Nothing could hurt him so long as he was whole.
Around him stood a dozen tal dark figures in cowled robes that hid their faces. In their hands were spears. “Who are you?” he demanded of them. “What business do you have in Casterly Rock?”
They gave no answer, only prodded him with the points of their spears. He had no choice but to descend. Down a twisting passageway he went, narrow steps carved from the living rock, down and down. I must go up, he told himself. Up, not down. Why am I going down? Below the earth his doom awaited, he knew with the certainty of dream; something dark and terrible lurked there, something that wanted him. Jaime tried to halt, but their spears prodded him on. If only I had my sword, nothing could harm me.
The steps ended abruptly on echoing darkness. Jaime had the sense of vast space before him.
He jerked to a halt, teetering on the edge of nothingness. A spearpoint jabbed at the small of the back, shoving him into the abyss. He shouted, but the fal was short. He landed on his hands and knees, upon soft sand and shallow water. There were watery caverns deep below Casterly Rock, but this one was strange to him. “What place is this?”
“Your place.” The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of al the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who’d lived at the dawn of days. But most of all it was his father’s voice, and beside Lord Tywin stood his sister, pale and beautiful, a torch burning in her hand. Joffrey was there as wel , the son they’d made together, and behind them a dozen more dark shapes with golden hair.
“Sister, why has Father brought us here?”
“Us? This is your place, Brother. This is your darkness.” Her torch was the only light in the cavern. Her torch was the only light in the world. She turned to go.
“Stay with me,” Jaime pleaded. “Don’t leave me here alone.” But they were leaving. “Don’t leave me in the dark!” Something terrible lived down here. “Give me a sword, at least.”
“I gave you a sword,” Lord Tywin said.
It was at his feet. Jaime groped under the water until his hand closed upon the hilt. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have a sword. As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand’s breath from the hilt. The fire took on the color of the steel itself so it burned with a silvery-blue light, and the gloom pulled back.
Crouching, listening, Jaime moved in a circle, ready for anything that might come out of the darkness. The water flowed into his boots, ankle deep and bitterly cold. Beware the water, he told himself. There may be creatures living in it, hidden deeps...
From behind came a great splash. Jaime whirled toward the sound.. but the faint light revealed only Brienne of Tarth, her hands bound in heavy chains. “I swore to keep you safe,” the wench said stubbornly. “I swore an oath.” Naked, she raised her hands to Jaime. “Ser. Please. If you would be so good.”
The steel links parted like silk. “A sword,” Brienne begged, and there it was, scabbard, belt, and al . She buckled it around her thick waist. The light was so dim that Jaime could scarcely see her, though they stood a scant few feet apart. In this light she could almost be a beauty, he thought. in this light she could almost be a knight. Brienne’s sword took flame as wel , burning silvery blue.
The darkness retreated a little more.
“The flames will burn so long as you live,” he heard Cersei call. “When they die, so must you.”
“Sister!” he shouted. “Stay with me. Stay!” There was no reply but the soft sound of retreating footsteps.
Brienne moved her longsword back and forth, watching the silvery flames shift and shimmer.
Beneath her feet, a reflection of the burning blade shone on the surface of the flat black water.
She was as tal and strong as he remembered, yet it seemed to Jaime that she had more of a woman’s shape now.
“Do they keep a bear down here?” Brienne was moving, slow and wary, sword to hand; step, turn, and listen. Each step made a little splash. “A cave lion? Direwolves? Some bear? Tel me, Jaime. What lives here? What lives in the darkness?”
“Doom.” No bear, he knew. No lion. “Only doom.”
In the cool silvery-blue light of the swords, the big wench looked pale and fierce. “I mislike this place.”
“I’m not fond of it myself.” Their blades made a little island of light, but all around them stretched a sea of darkness, unending. “My feet are wet.”
“We could go back the way they brought us. if you climbed on my shoulders you’d have no trouble reaching that tunnel mouth.”
Then I could fol ow Cersei. He could feel himself growing hard at the thought, and turned away so Brienne would not see.
“Listen.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and he trembled at the sudden touch. She’s warm.
“Something comes.” Brienne lifted her sword to point off to his left. “There,” He peered into the gloom until he saw it too. Something was moving through the darkness, he could not quite make it out...
“A man on a horse. No, two. Two riders, side by side.”
“Down here, beneath the Rock?” It made no sense. Yet there came two riders on pale horses, men and mounts both armored. The destriers emerged from the blackness at a slow walk. They make no sound, Jaime realized. No splashing, no clink of mail nor clop of hoof. He remembered Eddard Stark, riding the length of Aerys’s throne room wrapped in silence. Only his eyes had spoken; a lord’s eyes, cold and grey and ful of judgment.
“Is it you, Stark?” Jaime called. “Come ahead. I never feared you living, I do not fear you dead.”
Brienne touched his arm. “There are more.”
He saw them too. They were armored all in snow, it seemed to him, and ribbons of mist swirled back from their shoulders. The visors of their helms were closed, but Jaime Lannister did not need to look upon their faces to know them.
Five had been his brothers. Oswel Whent and Jon Darry. Lewyn Martel , a prince of Dorne.
The White Bull, Gerold Hightower. Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning. And beside them, crowned in mist and grief with his long hair streaming behind him, rode Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and rightful heir to the Iron Throne.
“You don’t frighten me,” he called, turning as they split to either side of him. He did not know which way to face. “I will fight you one by one or al together. But who is there for the wench to duel? She gets cross when you leave her out.”
“I swore an oath to keep him safe,” she said to Rhaegar’s shade. “I swore a holy oath.”
“We al swore oaths,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, so sadly.
The shades dismounted from their ghostly horses. When they drew their longswords, it made not a sound. “He was going to burn the city,” Jaime said. “To leave Robert only ashes.”
“He was your king,” said Darry.
“You swore to keep him safe,” said Whent.
“And the children, them as well,” said Prince Lewyn.
Prince Rhaegar burned with a cold light, now white, now red, now dark. “I left my wife and children in your hands.”
“I never thought he’d hurt them.” Jaime’s sword was burning less brightly now. “I was with the king...
“Killing the king,” said Ser Arthur.
“Cutting his throat,” said Prince Lewyn.
“The king you had sworn to die for,” said the White Bull.
The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out, and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in.
“No,” he said, “no, no, no. Nooooooooo!”
Heart pounding, he jerked awake, and found himself in starry darkness amidst a grove of trees.
He could taste bile in his mouth, and he was shivering with sweat, hot and cold at once. When he looked down for his sword hand, his wrist ended in leather and linen, wrapped snug around an ugly stump. He felt sudden tears wel up in his eyes. I felt it, I felt the strength in my fingers, and the rough leather of the sword’s grip. My hand...
“My lord.” Qyburn knelt beside him, his fatherly face all crinkly with concern. “What is it? I heard you cry out.”
Steelshanks Walton stood above them, tal and dour. “What is it? Why did you scream?”
“A dream... only a dream.” Jaime stared at the camp around him, lost for a moment. “I was in the dark, but I had my hand back.” He looked at the stump and felt sick al over again. There’s no place like that beneath the Rock, he thought. His stomach was sour and empty, and his head was pounding where he’d pillowed it against the stump.
Qyburn felt his brow. “You still have a touch of fever.”
“A fever dream.” Jaime reached up. “Help me.” Steelshanks took him by his good hand and pul ed him to his feet.
“Another cup of dreamwine?” asked Qyburn.