Summary: Brienne, Podrick, Sansa, and Castle Black. This is a book-style Brienne chapter written to fill in some of the gaps in Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 4: Book of the Stranger.
Rating: M for language
Spoilers: Everything through Season 6 Episode 4
Disclaimer: I don't own A Song of Ice and Fire or HBO's Game of Thrones. This was written only for entertainment.
Enjoy
Brienne
North and north and north they traveled: she, Podrick, and Lady Sansa. Snow fell steadily, enough to obscure their tracks but never so heavily that it slowed their pace. Each night the three of them huddled together in whatever natural shelter they could find, be it tree well or cave or crevice. Each day they shuffled stiffly from their inadequate blankets, mounted their underfed horses, and plodded on. The sky was white. The ground was white, and if there were no black, bare trees it was difficult to tell where snow ended and sky began. On and on it went, this vast wilderness; a kingdom as big as the other six combined.
They stayed clear of the Kingsroad, a choice which perhaps kept them alive, but added days to their journey. They spent those first days in grim silence, moving as quickly as they could to get away from any Bolton soldiers that might be on their trail. Sansa rode pale and stiff in her saddle. Brienne knew that more than their tireless pace and the rough terrain were to blame for the tiny grunts and gasps that escaped her. As to what had happened at Winterfell, Brienne had her answer.
"We could double back, my lady," Brienne suggested gently one night. She feared the journey would prove too much for her.
Sansa's lips were cracked and blue with cold, but her words were steady and strong. "No. We go to Castle Black. My brother will help us." But as their horses ate up the miles between Winterfell and Castle Black Sansa's resolve seemed to weaken. "We weren't close, Jon and I," she confessed.
"Was he cruel to you?" Brienne asked. All she knew of Sansa's bastard brother were the bits that she had overheard from Sansa's conversations with Theon Greyjoy and the brief exchange that Jaime Lannister had forced on Lady Catelyn.
"Cruel?"
"Did he ever strike you? Did he call you names?" Brienne had known more than her share of cruel boys and even crueler men. She'd not carried Sansa Stark out of the reach of one cruel man to place her in the arms of another.
"No. Not Jon. He is -was- a lot like Father, a lot like Robb."
Brienne nodded, satisfied. She hadn't known King Robb well, but she had known him by his honorable reputation.
Why then, if Robb Stark was so honorable, a traitorous voice inside her whispered, did his allies betray him?
Sansa was silent for a time. "I never thought that I would need him," she said finally, "and I behaved like it. I don't think I even said goodbye to him when I left Winterfell. I can't remember."
Of course all of that was done and there was no way of undoing it. They would soon find out what sort of welcome awaited them at Castle Black, so on they walked toward it.
In all the vast emptiness of the North they passed only a few farmsteads and villages. Brienne kept them at a distance for fear of being discovered by Bolton men. The farther they went, the more Brienne realized that she need not have been so careful. One day, desperate for horse feed, Brienne hid herself in the forest and watched one hamlet from a distance. After a very long time she decided that it was abandoned, and approached. She dared not allow them to take shelter in the buildings, lest they be spotted, but she did find a little grain and even a bit of corn. It was enough to keep the horses going. Every settlement that they passed seemed to be the same, but Brienne never let herself grow complacent. When she saw signs of human habitation, she led them another way.
"Robb took a lot of men with him when he went south," Sansa explained away the empty farms. "Some of them were peasant levies. Most of them probably never made it back. The rest of the farmers would be heading for the winter towns by now."
Brienne nodded in assent, but as they rode on then they came to a burned-out shell of a barn and a farmhouse. Further on, a tiny hamlet had met with the torch as well, and there were bodies in the snow. At first Brienne had thought that the dark, still shapes were rocks, but the curve of hip and the jut of shoulder were too easy to recognize, even blanketed as they were with snow. They did not stop to bury them.
The days grew colder and shorter. They all slept less. The day that they came within sight of the Wall the three of them rose before dawn. The sun was up as they crested a rise, and Brienne sucked in a breath, awed in spite of herself.
The Wall was big beyond imagining. In the dawn light the shadow it threw stretched easily a league or more from its base. It was a dirty, blue-white color and it stretched off into the distance to the East and West, vanishing at each horizon. Brienne had read about the Wall, heard about it in songs and stories, but seeing it was different. She felt almost as if something so big could not be real, and she blinked her eyes as if to clear them, and yet the Wall remained, huge and implacable. She felt like such a fragile and fleeting thing beside it. It muttered to the deep and unspoken fear in her heart that everything she did, everything she was, every effort that she made mattered not at all. She was insignificant, helpless.
Unbidden, thoughts of Renly floated into her mind.
The awe that Brienne felt when looking upon the Wall did not extend to the jumble of stone and timber buildings at its base. Castle Black was hardly worth the name. As they approached, Brienne found herself wondering if they would find it as abandoned as the other settlements they had passed, but as they rode she began to see signs of life stirring in the ragged castle. A winch lift slowly scaled the shear, icy face of the wall, disappearing into the low morning clouds that shrouded the top of the Wall. A figure moved on a raised walkway, a flap of cloak fluttering behind.
The castle's wooden gate had seen better days. The thick planks were weather-worn and axe-scarred. The enormous hinges that held the gates to the timbered palisade wall showed signs of having been bent and then hammered straight, but not straight enough.
They had not yet slowed their horses to a stop when a single horn blast sounded. A man's disembodied voice announced, "Three riders!" to someone in the courtyard below.
"My name is Brienne of Tarth" Brienne called out before anyone could ask their business. If she could avoid naming Sansa before they were safely within Castle Black's walls, she would do so. "We seek an audience with your Lord Commander." She glanced at Lady Sansa, sitting stiffly on her mount, not daring to look relieved that they had made it this far. "It is a personal matter, and urgent." Brienne added.
There was silence. If anyone exchanged words behind those scarred planks of wood, Brienne did not hear it.
"Open the gates!"
The gates swung wide, held open by two men in black. Brienne, Pod and Sansa urged their mounts forward and into the snow-covered courtyard beyond.
Castle Black was hardly a castle at all, more a collection of moldering buildings and crumbling walkways. In the southern parts of Westeros the Night's Watch had a somewhat fanciful reputation: a brotherhood of knights in black defending the realm from wildling marauders. As she had traveled north the stories she had heard showed the black brothers in a less than shining light. Now she could see for her own eyes what it was: a dumping ground for the dregs of the seven kingdoms.
There were men in the courtyard, some in tattered blacks and some in furs, even a few that might have been women, but it was difficult to tell, bundled and haggard as they were. There were men sharpening weapons, fletching arrows, carrying pails, talking in pairs or small groups. One by one they looked up at the newcomers as they passed. A man in furs with a red beard stood and gaped openly, tracking Brienne with his eyes. Brienne put her hand to her sword. It was a warning. She'd sworn to carry Lady Catelyn's daughter to safety, wherever that was. Perhaps here but perhaps not. She didn't dare hope.
Something had happened here, and recently. Violence, that was certain. There was an unsettled feeling to this place. Uncertainty hung in the air like a fog, like this was the trough between waves or the eye of a storm. Everyone here seemed like they were poised, waiting for something.
Beside Brienne, Sansa looked lost. She glanced all around, searching.
As they dismounted but Brienne kept her hand near her sword and herself near Sansa, and looked for her brother.
Brienne found him before she realized it. In any group of people it was easy to tell who gave the orders and who followed. Villagers looked to their elders or their priests to see how they should react. Warriors took their lead from to their commander, or whoever was biggest and strongest. Subjects looked to their lord or their king. These folk, nearly to a man, looked to a man on a wooden walkway at the top of a rickety staircase.
He was a Northman, and unremarkable to her eyes. He was dark-haired and dark eyed, lean and hard as the North itself and dressed as she had seen many a foot soldier in King Robb's army dressed: in a quilted doublet and coat of plates. On the right side of his face he bore a fresh scar in the shape of a cresent from temple to cheek. He stood above them, his hands resting on a snow-covered railing, looking as curious as any other man. If he bore any emblem of rank that might set him apart from the other men in the courtyard she could not see it, and yet she knew him to be significant.
Sansa turned in place. When she faced the Northman, she stopped. He froze in place when her eyes found him, and his hands fell from the railing.
A steady, purposeful gait brought Jon Snow down the stairs toward them, as if he were being pulled against his will. Brienne watched him closely as he came, not yet daring to stray from Sansa's side, but Jon paid her no mind. He had eyes only for his sister.
Sansa had come so far, from King's Landing to the Eyrie to Winterfell and finally to a forgotten castle at the end of the world to find what safety she could. Brienne knew that she was hurt, weak, starved, and half-frozen, but she ran the last few feet into her half-brother's arms.
Brienne dropped her gaze.
For a long time Sansa clung to her brother like a drowning person might cling to wreckage in a storm. When they parted, Jon slid his hands down her arms. He clasped her hands in his own as if to warm them. His voice was husky as he said, disbelieving, "You're really here." His gaze traveled past his sister and settled on her companions.
Sansa's voice shook only a little, "Jon, this is Brienne of Tarth and her squire, Podrick Payne. They helped me escape from the Boltons. She is my sworn sword."
Out of habit Brienne stood straighter and set her mouth in a grim line. She gave a small bow. If Jon Snow thought there was anything strange about a woman in mail and plate he gave no sign. "You were at Winterfell," he said to Sansa. "I didn't know."
"I was wed to Ramsay Bolton," she explained. It seemed to Brienne that the words were a shameful burden that she was eager to be rid of. She choked on them. "I escaped. Jon, he'll be looking for me."
"Are you being followed?"
Sansa shook her head, tears in her eyes. "I don't think so, but he's sure to look for me here."
Jon was still holding her by the forearms, and she him.
Another man had approached at Jon's elbow, a plain-faced fellow dressed all in black. He was a thin man and his lank brown hair was retreating from his forehead. Jon seemed to sense him without turning. He said, "Ed, this is my sister, Lady Sansa Stark." He kept his eyes on Sansa, as if he were afraid that if he looked away she might disappear. "Sansa, this is Eddison Tollett."
"M'lady," Ed said formally. "Castle Black is yours... such as it is."
"Edd is in charge here now," Jon said. "I'm no longer sworn to the Night's Watch."
Eddison Tollett sucked air between his teeth and looked away.
Sansa frowned. The fear was back in her eyes. "I don't understand."
Nor did Brienne. Like the Kingsguard, service in the Night's Watch was for life. Of course Barristan Selmy had been stripped of his white cloak. Perhaps a man could be stripped of a black cloak as well.
Can a black cloak be soiled?
"Come, you're freezing," Jon said gently. "We'll talk inside."
While Pod stabled the horses Brienne followed Sansa and Jon toward a large, low building that had the look of a long hall such as Brienne had seen in some of the oldest keeps and castles she'd visited. It was in a similar state of decay as the rest of the place, and yet the idea of being indoors was quite appealing, no matter the state of the building.
Sansa walked at her brother's side. Their heads were bowed together and their voices were low. Brienne strode a respectful distance behind. Let them have their privacy.
As they passed under a timber walkway Brienne heard a thunderous crash. A wooden door on her left shuddered and bowed as something heavy had been shoved against it from the inside. Snow that had collected on the crossbars cascaded to the ground. Her sword was halfway out of her scabbard before she saw Jon Snow turn calmly and approach the door. He held up a hand for Brienne to stay her weapon.
"It's only Ghost," he said to Sansa, who had stepped back, clutching her arms to her chest.
Brienne could hear whimpering and scratching. An instant before Jon opened the door she guessed what was on the other side.
Jon slid the bolt and a huge white shape slipped around the door as soon as it was open enough for it to do so.
He's bigger than Grey Wind, Brienne thought. She had glimpsed King Robb's direwolf only once or twice, and at a safe distance. He had preferred to keep the beast clear of the horses and men, and for good reason. A wolf that big could tear a man's arm off at the shoulder. She guessed that if Ghost stood on his hind legs he would be at least a head and shoulders taller than her. As tall as a bear, and with claws just as big.
The direwolf's unsettling red eyes found her first, and a shiver walked up Brienne's spine. He was smiling at her, it seemed. The wolf seemed to judge her no threat, and instead turned toward Sansa. Ghost sniffed and then nosed her skirts, making a high-pitched whine. Sansa dropped to her knees and Ghost began to clean the tears and the dust from her cheeks. She put her arms around the beast's neck, drying her eyes in his ruff.
The common hall was lit warmly by an immense fire in an enormous stone hearth. It was the first real warmth Brienne had felt since the Riverlands. She felt muscles that she had not even known were clenched relax out of sheer relief.
There were a few men in the hall, one scrubbing a table with sand, a second and third eating from wooden bowls and drinking from horns, a fourth squinting as he mended some bit of black leather near the fire. To a man they straightened and looked, wide-eyed at Jon Snow and his wolf as they entered, and the fear in their eyes was not for the wolf. As they noticed Sansa the men stood uncertainly.
"May we have the room?" Jon asked. It was an order sheathed in a request.
One by one the men in black abandoned their meals and their tasks, offering a deferential, "Lord Commander" with eyes lowered as they left the warmth of the hall for the icy courtyard beyond. Brienne was used to drawing all the wrong sort of attention, but found herself almost invisible as the men shouldered past her.
What sort of man was this bastard brother of the Night's Watch? Had Brienne made a mistake in bringing Sansa here?
Jon Snow settled Sansa on the bench closest to the fire and went off to the kitchens. Brienne helped Sansa remove her cloak and hang it on a peg near the flames. The garment was damp and heavy with melted snow. It smelled of mildew. Sansa was soon fumbling her gloves from her stiff fingers and her shoes from her feet. She laid her stockings on the hearth. Sansa's toes were white from cold but showed no signs of frostbite. She tucked her feet up under the dirty hem of her dress. Ghost watched all this with calm interest, then came to lay at Sansa's feet before the fire, massive head between his paws, a great white sentry.
Brienne pealed off her gloves and tucked them into her belt, then stationed herself near the door. She did not know yet how safe Castle Black would prove. She disliked the look of some of the men here and how that bearded fellow's eyes had followed her in the yard.
Soon Jon returned with two wooden bowls brimming with a thick, dark stew and a loaf of crusty bread, which he broke in half. Steam was rising from the bowls and despite herself Brienne's mouth watered.
"Food gets cold quickly here, no matter how many fires we light. Eat, both of you. I'll have chambers prepared. There's no shortage of empty rooms at Castle Black."
Jon slid past her, out the door and into the cold.
Brienne ate standing and she ate quickly, both out of hunger and the need to be ready to guard Sansa if the need arose. What passed for stew at Castle Black was a brown slurry of turnips, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and a bite or two of meat from an animal that Brienne could not readily identify, perhaps rabbit or squirrel. Still, hot food had been a rare luxury these past months. She was grateful for anything that warmed the belly. She was mopping up the last of her stew with the bread when Pod found them. To the squire's credit he balked only a little at the direwolf curled at Sansa's feet.
"My lady... my lady," he greeted them, more nervous than usual. He continued in a low voice that was almost a whisper, "There's strange talk in the yard."
"Strange how?" Brienne asked impatiently.
"There was a battle here, between the wildlings and the Night's Watch. There's a giant here, not in the castle but not far. I was talking to a stable hand and he said there was a mutiny and that-"
The shriek of a badly oiled hinge betrayed Jon as he entered. He was carrying a dark bundle. Podrick stood straight as an arrow and regarded him with wide, almost panicked eyes.
Jon, unsurprised, said, "Podrick Payne, was it?"
Pod gave a brief nod. Brienne decided that he must have heard some of what Podrick had said, but he only said, "You must be hungry. Help yourself to something from the kitchens. There's always a cauldron of something on the fire, and perhaps beer on the windowsill and fresh bread on the hearth."
Podrick's nod was both stiff and grateful. He couldn't seem to find any words but he did as Jon suggested.
Jon settled a dark cloak across Sansa's shoulders. It had grey fur around the collar and looked thick and warm.
"I gave away the black one," he explained, "But I still have this. It might be a bit musty but at least whole. It's too cold for moths here."
Sansa clutched it tightly closed at her throat and breathed deep into the collar. "Thank you."
Jon nodded and went about adding wood to the fire. "Is there anything I can bring you?"
She smiled, "You're not my servant."
"I was a steward before I was the Lord Commander. I don't mind a bit of fetching and carrying." He was looking at Sansa's feet. Her shoes had not been intended for hard travel. There were sores and blisters on her heels and toes. "I'm afraid we have no Maester, but I can send someone for salve and bandages. Are you hurt otherwise?"
"Nowhere that can be helped by bandaging," Sansa assured him.
Jon sat on the bench beside her. "Tell me how I can help," he said.
Sansa gave him a tremulous smile. "Just talk to me now. Let me hear your voice," she looked at him and drew a breath. It was as if the sight of him steadied her and lent her strength. "You said you're not the Lord Commander anymore. Who is?"
Jon shook his head slightly, "I suppose Edd is in charge until the Night's Watch can hold a choosing."
"Forgive me, my Lord," Brienne said. It wasn't her place, but Brienne felt the words rise in her throat before she could stop herself. "I understood that the Night's Watch swore a vow to serve for life." She'd sworn to bring Sansa to safety. If she was to consider her oath discharged then she would know if this man was trustworthy.
"They do," Jon said. "I did." He offered no more explanation than that.
Ghost lifted his head from between his paws to nuzzle under Jon's bare hand, which prompted Jon to scratch absently behind the direwolf's ears. "Arya," he said suddenly, as if remembering a name from a past life. "What of Arya? I had word that you were both being held captive at King's Landing."
Sansa shook her head. "They never had her, only me. Arya disappeared when the Lannisters moved against us, after King Robert died. " Jon looked stricken, but Sansa pressed on, "Brienne said she saw her while she was traveling through the Vale."
Jon's eyes lit up with hope. He sat straighter and fixed Brienne with an intense, almost desperate gaze. "Is this true? You saw Arya Stark?"
Brienne stepped forward and returned his stare levelly. "I called her by name. She didn't deny it. She was traveling with a man who claimed to be her protector. He seemed to know who she was as well."
She recalled Sandor Clegane's horrible scarred face when she told Arya she'd bring her to safety.
Safety, where the fuck's that?
Just so. Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, and Robb Stark, all dead. The remaining Stark children had been scattered to the wind, all but one, and he was no Stark.
"I bade her come with me," Brienne continued. "She refused. Her companion and I fought. I searched for her after, but by then she had disappeared. She seemed to be in good health. I see no reason why she couldn't still be alive somewhere."
"You're sure it was her?" Jon asked, very intent.
Brienne scoured her memory.
"She had dark hair. She was small of stature and she had a little sword that she held in her left hand. She was practicing with it when I first saw her. She told me her sword's name."
"Needle," she and Jon said at the same time. Tears stood in his eyes.
Sansa looked from Brienne to Jon, questioning. "My parting gift to her. I had it made for her, before she left Winterfell," Jon explained, his confession edged with guilt. "I told her to keep it a secret."
A fleeting look passed over Sansa's face. It might have been jealousy or perhaps regret, but it was gone too quickly for Brienne to tell.
"I think Bran and Rickon are still alive," said Sansa.
Jon didn't look surprised, and he didn't look hopeful either. "I've had no news of Rickon, but Bran..." he trailed off uncertainly.
"Tell me," Sansa begged.
"He went beyond the Wall. That's as much as I know. A Night's Watchman saw Bran at the Night Fort. He said that Bran was traveling with Hodor and a couple of other companions. He knew Bran by his direwolf."
Sansa shook her head. "I don't understand. There were loyal houses that would have taken him in: the Umbers, the Manderlys, the Hornwoods. Why would they go north?"
"I don't know. All he said was that he had to. Sam tried to convince them not to. In the end it was all he could do to make sure they were armed." Jon sighed heavily, "I've been north since then. I didn't imagine that a crippled boy, a direwolf, a half-giant and two others could vanish so quickly but they did."
Sansa pulled Jon's cloak tighter to her throat. She cast a furtive glance at the door. "Those men out there, they're from beyond the Wall, aren't they? They're wildlings?"
Sansa pronounced 'wildlings' as if she disliked the taste of the word. Brienne could not blame her if she did. The men in the yard had an unsavory look to them. Even as far south as the Reach the wildlings were known to be raiders and rapers, godless thieves who carried women off in the night.
"Yes, they are, and not one of them has seen Bran either."
"Father always said they were dangerous, that they raid villages and steal women. Can you trust the word of people like that?"
"No more than any other man," Jon said. "And that's all they are. They're no better or worse than anyone south of the Wall."
"Rapers and thieves-"
"Half the Watch are rapers and thieves. Believe me when I say that they're not the enemy," Jon said. "And they're here because of me, because I brought them here."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because there are worse things beyond the Wall than men."
Sansa regarded him steadily. For a certainty she had seen some of the more horrible things that men were capable of, as had Brienne. "What?" Sansa asked.
Jon hesitated.
Sansa sat up straight. "Pretty lies have hurt me worse than ugly truths. If you want to protect me, Jon, tell me... please."
He did, reluctantly, and in a voice gone raspy and hollow. "White Walkers," he said. "They come with the cold, or the cold comes with them. The wildlings weren't invading, they were fleeing, because anything that dies north of the wall becomes part of their army."
Sansa sat frozen and expressionless. Brienne felt as if the very air in her lungs had turned cold.
Brienne wanted to disbelieve Sansa's bastard brother, but she dared not, not completely at least. She recalled snippets of conversations she'd heard as far south as Bitterbridge, messages that Renly had received, then ignored, gossip at inns and taverns, about wildlings south of the Wall, about darker things stirring in the vast frozen waste beyond it. Ghost stories, she'd dismissed them, and nothing to do with her or the oath she'd sworn.
"It's like those stories Old Nan used to tell, the ones Bran liked so much," Jon explained. "The Walkers have been dormant for a thousand years, so long that the realm has forgotten the reason that the Wall was built in the first place."
"You've seen them?"
"Seen them, aye, and fought them." As if he were laying down an enormous burden, Jon breathed out his tale, "We found a corpses beyond the Wall, brothers of the Night's Watch, or so they'd been in life. At night they woke, but they weren't men anymore. They were just... things... things with bright blue eyes. One of them came for Lord Commander Mormont. Fire was the only thing that stopped it.
"Rangers had been disappearing north of the Wall for months, including Uncle Benjen. So Lord Commander Mormont led a great ranging into the north to find out what was happening to our brothers. They made camp at the Fist of the First Men, where they were set upon by the White Walkers and an army of wights. They were driven back and along the way there was a mutiny. The Lord Commander was murdered. Most of the rangers never made it back to the Wall, but one man did manage to kill a White Walker. He did it with a knife made of dragonglass."
Jon swallowed. His eyes were distant, staring past the flames, into the past. He continued, "The first time I saw a White Walker was at Hardhome. After I was chosen to be Lord Commander, I led a mission to rescue the remaining wildlings from beyond the Wall. I wanted to save them from a slaughter, but I failed. The White Walkers came on their undead horses with their swords made of ice... and the wights, thousands of them. Some of them were barely more than skeletons. They poured over the cliffs and down the hills like a flood. Some of us escaped. I'm only alive because of the sword that Lord Commander Mormont gave me. Every other weapon shattered like glass against the Walkers, but Longclaw was Valyrian Steel."
Brienne found that her mouth was dry. She was barely breathing, and her hand was on Oathkeeper's hilt.
Sansa was shivering visibly.
"We fled in the ships that Stannis lent us, and took as many wildlings with us as we could. As for the rest, it was a massacre, and as we rowed from the beach I saw... him... the Night King. He looked right at me, and when he raised his arms his arms, all of the slain stood up at once."
The only noise was the crackling of the fire and their shallow breathing.
"Gods," Sansa breathed. Perhaps she believed all of her brother's story, or part of it, or none at all. Brienne could not tell. Brienne's own mind rebelled at the possibility that all of this was true. Perhaps the brothers of the Night's Watch had spent too many long nights listening to the wind howling through the cracks of their crumbling castle, telling ghost stories to each other over braziers to pass the time. Perhaps they were all insane.
Jon went on, "So far the Walkers haven't been seen near the Wall. If it was built to keep them out in the first place then I think we can assume that we're safe here. Even so, listen carefully if you hear a horn. One blast is for rangers returning. Two blasts for wildlings. Three for White Walkers." He was deadly serious. Jon nodded to Oathkeeper, "And I'd keep that close if I were you. The Night's Watch and the wildlings have a truce, but there are dangerous men on both sides. It won't take much for tempers to flare."
Brienne heard the scrape of boots against the floor. At some point during Jon's tale Pod had returned from the kitchens. He bore a tray laden with bread and beer and a dish of that grey-brown stew. He stood rooted to the spot and staring, as if he had forgotten why he was there.
"Put that down, Pod," Brienne snapped, breaking the tension in the room. She added quietly, "Find Lady Sansa something gentler to eat."
Sansa had barely touched her food. There had been little to eat on the journey to Castle Black and Brienne knew she must be hungry. Even so, Sansa had shunned most solid food, preferring broth made with melted snow and the bones of whatever small animal Pod could catch and kill. It hadn't taken Brienne long to understand why, after seeing tear tracks on Sansa's cheeks when she made her way back from a trip into the woods to relieve herself.
Pod set the tray down with a clumsy clatter and rushed off, his own hunger apparently forgotten.
"Are you ill?" Jon asked Sansa.
"Not ill," Sansa said. There was a sharp edge of bitterness in her voice. "Sore. Tired. My lord husband was not gentle with his affections."
Jon looked away, perhaps shamed for her sake. After a moment he said, "The last news I had about you was that you'd been wed to Tyrion Lannister."
"My first forced marriage," Sansa said. "It wasn't something Tyrion wanted either. He never shared my bed. He probably did it as much to anger his father as he did to spare my dignity. He wasn't a bad man. He was certainly a better husband than Ramsey. Ramsey didn't have much of a care for my dignity."
Sansa's lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly. Sansa was practiced at maintaining a facade of composure. Brienne imagined that it was practically all she'd done since her father died, and she'd gotten very good at it. Still, she thought that if Jon had chosen that moment to reach out to her, she would have crumbled.
Instead Jon's hands balled into fists. "How did you come to be his?" he asked. Brienne realized that perhaps he was as practiced at maintaining a facade as Sansa, but where Sansa's held back a river of grief and despair, his walls retained a darker and more dangerous current.
"You heard that King Joffrey died."
"Aye."
Sansa kept her sentences short. "He was poisoned. The queen thought that Lord Tyrion killed him. She thought that I helped. One of the lords on the small council helped me escape. Then he turned around and sold me to the Boltons. I was the key to the North, you see. That's what they all wanted. That's what has kept me alive."
A softness came to Jon's eyes. Some of the anger bled out of him. "I'm sorry, Sansa. I hate that I wasn't there for you, or for Arya, or for Robb, or Father." Jon admitted slowly, "I ran away once, when I had the news that Father had been executed. Some of my brothers came after me and brought me back. They were right to do it. What could I have done but force Robb to behead me for a deserter?"
"Do you think he would have?"
"If he had taken any of Father's lessons to heart then yes, he would have," Jon assured her. "Father used to say that an oathbreaker was the most dangerous sort of man there was."
"Why is it different now?" Sansa asked. She kept the accusation out of her voice but it was there all the same, with or without her leave.
Jon looked away. There was silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire while Jon seemed to come to some sort of decision.
He said, "When I first came to Castle Black I was given over to the Master at Arms, Ser Alliser Thorne, for training, along with the rest of the recruits. I hated the man. We all did, but he was a good fighter, a good leader. After a while we settled into an uneasy peace. When I was elected Lord Commander I named him First Ranger." Jon smiled a grim smile that did not reach his eyes. "Yesterday I hanged him for murder, along with the First Steward, the First Builder, and my own personal steward."
Sansa stared at her brother with her lips slightly parted. She searched his face and seemed not to know him.
Brienne heard herself ask, "Who did they kill?"
Jon looked at her as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Me," he answered.
Jon turned to face the flames. He said, "I was the Lord Commander, sworn to defend the realms of men, and instead I brought thousands of wildlings through the Wall, gave them sanctuary, fed them from our stores, and settled them on the very lands they used to raid. I brought thieves and rapers and killers into our lands. I did it to save them, but some of my sworn brothers didn't agree with my decision, so they lured me out of my chambers in the dead of night... and they murdered me."
He's a madman, Brienne thought, until he next spoke.
"Stannis," Jon said, "brought a red priestess with him when he came north. When the wildling army bore down on us we begged for aid from every corner of the realm, and only Stannis came to help us. After he crushed the wildling army he vowed to take back the north from the Boltons. His army marched for Winterfell. Only his priestess and Hand returned. The red woman," Jon's voice went husky as if his throat had gone dry. He swallowed, "She did something to me. I remember dying, bleeding out in the snow. It was cold, colder than I've ever been. Then I was awake, lying on a table with holes in my chest where their knives had gone in. The room was hot but the cold was still in me, so deep I thought I'd never be rid of it. There was nothing in between."
Brienne found that the cold was in her as well. The cold was in everything here, from the air to the walls to the very clothes on her back. Winter is coming, said the Starks, and the North itself resonated in agreement.
Jon stared into the fire as if the answers to a thousand questions were dancing in the flames. "Six times they stabbed me. For the Watch, they said. For the Watch." He sighed. "I understand if you don't believe me."
"I believe you," Brienne stated.
Jon turned to look at her, and the fire lit one half of his face warmly while the other remained a wintry blue-white color.
"I met this red woman," Brienne explained stiffly. "when I was Kingsguard to Renly Baratheon, before he was murdered." She knew she must tread carefully here. "Stannis' priestess seemed to have... abilities that cannot be easily explained."
Jon Snow's haunted eyes were set in a solemn face, a serious face. Sansa had described Jon as having more of the North in him than his half-siblings, and Brienne could see it now. "Yes she does," he said frowning. "The Reach is a long way from Winterfell. How did you come to be in my sister's service?"
Brienne wondered how many times she would have to tell her story. She wondered also if it would ever get any easier. "Lady Catelyn came to treat with King Renly on her son's behalf. She was in the King's pavilion with me when Renly was killed. She saw the same thing that I saw. A shadow murdered King Renly, a shadow with the face of Stannis Baratheon."
Always when she had told the tale before her words had been greeted with disbelief, laughter, accusations, or polite, smiling silence.
"A shadow," Jon repeated. He was not looking at her but through her.
Brienne continued, "Lady Catelyn knew that neither of us would be believed, so we fled. That was how I came to be in her service. I was her sworn sword until she tasked me with escorting Jaime Lannister to King's Landing in exchange him for the safe return of her daughters. Lady Catelyn was murdered before I could fulfill my oath. Then King Joffrey died and Sansa was taken beyond my reach. Still, I had sworn a vow that I would find Lady Catelyn's daughters and bring them to safety."
Jon said nothing. His brows were drawn together. Perhaps he was caught up in a memory, or perhaps Brienne had opened an old wound by mentioning Catelyn Stark or Ser Jaime. Lady Catelyn had had little affection for Jon Snow, and Jaime Lannister had crippled Jon's brother. She could understand Lady Catelyn's feelings. Jon had not been her son, only a reminder of her husband's infidelity. Nothing could have made him something different to her. And whatever Ser Jaime was to her, Brienne, reflected, he was something entirely different to the Starks.
"Thank you," Jon said. He was sincere, Brienne saw. She felt her cheeks grow hot.
"How did she do it?" Sansa asked. "How did the red woman... bring you back?"
Brienne expected a dark secret to come pouring forth, something involving a blood sacrifice or burning men alive, but instead Jon said, "I don't think even she knows. No one expected it to work, least of all her. She cut my hair, burned it in a brazier, said some words in a strange tongue. I don't remember that part... only the cold."
The door to the common hall banged open, admitting a blast of icy wind and a stout, bearded man in a black cloak shuffled into the room, stamping snow and mud from his feet.
Jon stood abruptly at the intrusion. Ghost raised his head. Brienne's hand had never left her sword. Except for a short knife at his belt, the man didn't seem to be armed, but she was taking no chances. The man's hair was equal parts grey and brown, his face was lined, and his eyes were shot with blood. He looked at her, unconcerned, then he looked at Sansa. He gave a grunt, and began pealing his gloves off. When he removed them Brienne saw that he was missing the first two fingers on his left hand.
"Beg pardon, Lord Commander," he said to Jon. "I don't mean to interrupt."
"Sansa, this is Hobb, the head cook for the Night's Watch." Jon introduced him. "Hobb, this is Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell."
"In that case I very much mean to interrupt. Been more'n thirty years since I cooked for anyone who could taste the difference between a leg o' mutton cooked in wine and an aurochs' balls boiled in piss, beggin' your pardon m'lady." He gave Sansa a perfunctory bow and lowered his voice a shade. Brienne thought he must either be hard of hearing or simply used to shouting over other men. She decided it was most likely the latter. "I don't have much to work with but I reckon I can fix you something better than crow food."
"You've been holding out on us then," Jon said.
Hobb grinned and air hissed out from gaps in his smile where he was missing teeth. "Why cast pearls before swine, eh, Lord Commander? You know as well as I do that the lads would eat horse teeth if I served 'em with enough gravy."
"Now I know what you made for supper last night."
There was a pause, and then Hobb threw back his head and laughed. He clapped Jon on the shoulder and said, "You was always a good lad, but I think you've got funnier since you died."
Hobb lowered his voice and spoke gently to Sansa, "M'lady, a cup of broth will warm you better than that," he gestured to her cooling dish of stew. "I always keep a bit of good stock set by."
Sansa smiled, and Brienne saw Hobb pull himself straighter and puff his chest out. Sansa had that effect on men. Even fresh from the road, bedraggled, caked with dirt, and smelling of mildew, Sansa was beautiful. Brienne felt a small and ridiculous spark of jealousy. She had spent a good portion of her life wishing she had been born pretty, or at least smaller and less awkward. It would have made several things in her life more easy. Brienne chided herself for a fool and a child. It was pointless to long for something that would never be hers, and in any case beauty had been no guarantor of happiness for Sansa.
Hobb rolled up his sleeves and strode off to the kitchen. There was a booming, "Get yer arse out of here, boy!" and Pod was unceremoniously ejected into the common room.
Brienne was at last warming and her layers of plate and mail were beginning to be uncomfortable. She started to remove her gauntlets, trusting that for the moment at least, they were in little danger. She would take Jon's advice, though. Wherever she went in this castle she vowed to go armed, and if she should cross paths with Stannis' red witch... she wondered. She did not want to jeopardize Sansa's safety. If the red woman truly had helped Jon then that made her his ally. She'd sworn vengeance, and she'd taken it from Stannis. Was it enough? How many deaths would it take to fill the hole that Renly had left?
Pod moved to help her with her breast plate but Brienne waved him off. "Eat something." Jon was right, Pod's stew was no longer steaming. Brienne felt a pang of guilt. She poured him a horn of ale from the pitcher by way of an apology and then took one for herself, and sipped thoughtfully as she unfastened her armor.
Shortly a steward arrived with word that their chambers had been prepared. The unwashed look of the man and his garments did very little to reassure Brienne about the cleanliness of their rooms, but she did not doubt, judging by the sooty state of his knees that at least a fire had been built for them. Brienne was not surprised when Sansa used his arrival as an excuse to dismiss Pod and her. Doubtless she would welcome some time alone with her brother. By then Brienne had stripped out of most of her plate. Pod carried it and followed in her wake as she crossed the bailey to a crumbling old tower. Hardin's Tower, the steward had named it.
A disconcerting number of eyes followed them as they went. Brienne could feel their interest as a weight between her shoulders. Suddenly, she turned.
One of the wildlings, the bearded man from earlier, had been following them at a distance, always behind and to the side.
Brienne pulled Oathkeeper half out of its scabbard. Pod slid instinctively to one side.
The wildling froze, eyes open wide. A knife hung at his belt but his hands were at his sides. He started toward her slowly but purposefully.
Brienne unsheathed her sword.
"Come any closer and I'll open you from balls to brains."
He halted and stood straighter. Brienne saw his shoulders pull back and his chest expand. He did not retreat, but he did smile as he laid a hand on his chest. "Tormund Giantsbane." He was a great bear of a man.
"The leader of the Wildlings," Pod explained in a low voice. "More or less."
Brienne frowned, and she and Tormund Giantsbane both stood there, unmoving, she with her naked steel pointed at him and he, virtually unarmed and completely unconcerned by the sword in her hand and the scowl on her face. Finally he said, "That is a fine weapon, Brienne of Tarth."
Of course he would know her name. He'd been in the yard when they'd arrived, when Sansa had introduced her to Jon. Still, it was disconcerting to be named by a stranger.
"And if you take one more step I'll make sure you get a good look at it."
Brienne hadn't thought Tormund's smile could get any wider but it did. He laughed and nodded his head in what Brienne could only assume was approval. "The Night's Watch can't spare the men, but I sent some of my people to keep eyes on the road. They'll warn us if any of those Bolton fuckers come looking for the girl."
Brienne shifted but she did not lower her sword. "Thank you," she said flatly. As she backed away she made it a point to keep him in her line of sight. Every time she glanced back, she saw him smiling.
Brienne kept Oathkeeper in hand the rest of the way to their chambers and she made it a point to glare menacingly at any man, wildling or otherwise, who met her eyes. Most, wisely, did not.
Their rooms were on the second floor of a building the steward had called Hardin's Tower. They lay at the end of a wooden walkway that protested at every footfall. The chambers were small, better to trap the heat from the fire, Brienne realized with no small degree of gratitude. Large, airy rooms were for the south. Even Lady Sansa's chamber would have been considered pitiful by the most impoverished lordling in the Reach. Brienne and Podrick would share an antechamber that had room enough for two pallets, with its own small hearth between them. As she had expected, fires were lit in both chambers and black iron racks brimmed with firewood. Also as she had expected there was a fine layer of dust on most of the surfaces, and when she sank down upon her pallet a faint smell of mildew wafted up from the straw in the mattress. Yet it was infinitely preferable to a night spent sleeping on the ground, wrapped in every scrap of clothing that they had, waking at the howling of wind and wolves alike.
Once they were behind closed doors Brienne found herself turning over Jon Snow's words in her mind like a craftsman looking for flaws in another man's work, but she did not know what she was looking for. She had only just met Sansa's bastard brother. There was no trust to be shared, and so she decided that she would follow Sansa's lead in this matter. Then there was the matter of the Red Woman. Brienne would never put her thirst for vengeance before the oath she had sworn to protect Sansa Stark, and if this woman truly had brought Sansa's brother back from the dead then she was Jon Snow's ally, and Sansa's as well. In the past Brienne had made common cause with those she mistrusted. She could do so again, and she vowed silently that she would keep herself between Sansa and the Red Woman and see that the witch caused the Stark girl no harm.
Brienne laid her sword across her lap. Her thoughts went to Jaime Lannister. He was with Cersei now, his sister, his lover. Absurdly she felt her cheeks flush hot.
"My lady," Pod said. Here at Castle Black the walls were thick and the windows small. Pod was on his toes peering out one of them now. "I think I see your Red Priestess."
She was on her feet at once. Pod made space for her at the window.
She was impossible to miss. No other woman Brienne had ever seen had quite that shade of hair, nor dressed as she did. She was tall, beautiful, and bundled against the cold in layers of rich scarlet. She was speaking with a grey-haired man whom Brienne also recognized as belonging to Stannis.
Brienne did not consider what she might say to them. If Pod called after her she did not hear. She had no solid plan in mind, only that she wanted to make sure that they saw her, that they knew their guilt. That would be enough. For now it would have to be enough.
When she caught up with the pair in the yard below her sword was still in her hand. They were unarmed. They were... not arguing exactly, but Brienne saw Ser Davos grab the Red Woman by the elbow, heard him demand to know what had happened to Stannis' forces, and to a princess that Brienne could only assume had been Stannis' daughter.
"I saw what happened," Brienne said. "I saw Stannis' forces defeated in the field."
Davos seemed annoyed at the interruption. "My Lady, I'm Ser Davos Seaworth-"
"We've met before," Brienne cut him off. She cared not at all if she were annoying him. "I was Kingsguard to Renly Baratheon, before Renly was assasinated with blood magic." She let her gaze wander accusingly to the Red Woman. Stannis' red witch seemed unable to meet her eyes.
"That's... in the past now," Davos ventured.
Oh indeed. "Yes, it's in the past," she agreed. "That doesn't mean I forget... or forgive." She had the Red Woman's attention now. "He admitted it, you know."
"Who did?" Davos asked quietly.
"Stannis," she informed him. She let fall her final blow, just as she had let fall her sword in those silent, snowy woods. "Just before I executed him." It was more than a warning. It was a threat, naked as the steel blade in her hand.
She turned on her heel and strode away.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she almost did not see Jon Snow until he was right in front of her, standing on the walkway outside the chambers that she, Sansa, and Pod would share. His eyes went to Oathkeeper, and she noted that he wore a sword at his hip now too, a hand-and-a-half bastard sword with a white wolf carved on the pommel.
"Lady Brienne," he greeted her. "Sansa is resting now. I'll have hot water brought for a bath."
"Thank you," she uttered, her mind still on Stannis and the Red Woman. Jon seemed distracted as well.
"And you have my thanks, Brienne of Tarth... for all you've done, for saving her, for bringing her here. I don't know how to repay you."
Brienne drew a breath and said hesitantly, "Did she explain the part that Theon Greyjoy played in her rescue? He helped her escape from Winterfell. Pod and I arrived only to chase off Ramsey's dogs."
"She did," Jon said, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. "It doesn't erase what he did. He betrayed Robb, sacked Winterfell. He was right to fear that I'd take his head." Like a wave receding from the shore the fury that had been on him broke and the fight seemed to go out of him. Something about the look in his eyes put her in mind of Jamie Lannister as he had been on the road to King's Landing after he'd lost his hand: crushed, defeated.
"What is it?" she asked instinctively.
For a while it seemed he might not answer, and then, "Sansa... wants my help to retake Winterfell from Ramsey Bolton."
This was not a plan that Sansa had shared with Brienne. Until today Brienne had not dared to hope that they would make it as far as Castle Black unmolested. What would come after had depended in large part upon what they found, and they had found Jon Snow. Reuniting with her brother seemed to have emboldened Sansa, but was taking back Winterfell even possible? Sansa had barely escaped with her life.
Jon may well have had the same questions. His voice was hoarse when he admitted, "I'm not ready for another fight."
Brienne blinked, caught off guard by his admission. She was unsure what she could say, or if it were indeed wise to say anything at all.
After a moment of strained silence Jon nodded and turned away, grimacing as if he were in pain.
"Jon snow," she said, for he had no title.
He turned. She thought this might be a mistake. "You are still a fighter." She was good at sizing up her opponents. Even under the layers of wool and leather there was no mistaking the way that Jon was muscled, how he moved, and the way that his hands were calloused from years of sword practice. "If Ramsey Bolton were to arrive at your gate tomorrow you would take up arms in your sister's defense."
"Yes, I would," he said solemnly.
She did not doubt his answer, but she also sensed that he would relish neither the battle nor a victory.
She said, "Sooner or later a fight will come to you. It may be a fight that you choose, or one that is chosen for you."
"Aye," he said simply. He looked out over the yard, over the ragged men and crumbling walks and walls. "That's true enough."
Jon's dark hair stood in stark contrast to the opaque white sky behind him. Another snowstorm was on the way.
"I'd rather die again than fail her," he said.
She believed him. She herself had failed so many times that it was difficult to keep track. Even if he did fail, he may very well have no choice but to keep going.
"Don't," she said simply.
He absorbed the word in silence.
They parted as the first snowflakes began to fall, dusting the yard and settling in their hair. Brienne watched Jon Snow until he turned a corner and was lost from view. When he was gone Brienne thought on the oath she'd sworn, and considered it fulfilled.
End