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Chapter Five

Oathbreaker

'I've come to free you, we're going to get out of here.'

His eyes, wide and flecked with amber light find hers. 'Addy…'

'Listen to me, we've not got long. I slipped past the guard on the door, but he checks up on me and the alarm will be raised.' She cups his cheek and smiles bravely. 'Please let's leave this place, I want to leave and I can't do it without you.'

Jaime breathes out heavily, looks down and then back up at her. 'Untie me then.'

•

They make it to a farmstead that first night. There's a barn set aside from the main buildings. Jaime tells her that the harvest is long over, that they'll be safe there for a day until sundown.

Ada just nods, teeth chattering and follows him across the swathe of long grass to the barn doors.

Inside, the barn is full of hay, the floor dusty with it and the smell thick in the air.

Jaime skirts round toward the far end of the barn, so that if anyone were to glance in they would not be seen immediately.

He settles down in the hay with a groan, eyes closing in exhaustion and Ada thumps down beside him, strands of grass flying up about them.

She looks across at Jaime whose face is just visible in the semi dark.

'You look like shit,' she tells him, with a smile in her voice.

He manages a weak laugh. 'Thank you.' He glances at her, eyebrows raising. 'You've washed, and been given new clothes. Some of us weren't so lucky.'

She colours, but he can't see.

He only sees her turn her face down, worry etched into every line.

'Hey-' He touches her cheek. 'I'm alright.'

'Sure.'

He settles back a little more, scrubs at his brow. 'It looks worse than it is. Little Fox, don't fret.'

She is silent. Then- 'What did you call me?'

Jaime laughs, a rasping sound in his throat. Shakes his head and shrugs 'I saw a fox just before you came for me, grey as night and quick as shadows. Made me think of you.'

'Oh.' She says, thinking it was probably the same animal she had disturbed before she had found him.

He pushes a swathe of clean, soft curls back from her face and draws her to him. 'You sleep, I'll take the first watch.'

Dawn creeps quietly. Rosy light and a dew, fresh and chill - the smell of autumn already heavy on the air. The birds stir, fluttering wings and then song starting. Jaime stretches out his legs, pulls them in again and groans.

'Damn. Damn…'

He scrapes a hand through his hair and grimaces when he cannot draw it all the way through - the tangles and mud and blood catching his fingers.

His body, bruised and damaged as it is, tells him to get up and start walking and not stop till he's back in Kingslanding with Cersei. He forces in a breath and controls his desire.

His father is in Harrenhal, he had heard Robb Stark's men talking. So East is best, East to Tywin and then on to Cersei. He could start now, there is nothing to stop him. Find a horse and go full pelt to the river and then take his chances across the low ground between High Heart and Stone Hedge all the way to Harrenhal.

It's just light. If he's going to go, he must go quickly. He must go now.

Jaime stands, cracks his back and eases his neck and looks down at the sleeping girl. She's not stirred, her head is still tucked into the crook of her arm, the other drawn about her waist as though she's holding herself together. Such a strange little thing- Best if he leaves now, she'll not thank him when she finds out who he really is. When she hears why Catelyn Stark hates him so, when she hears of Robert and Cersei and Joffrey. Best to go, now.

He sniffs and crosses back to the barn door without looking back, cracks it open and breathes in fresh, clean, free air.

Dawn has never looked so inviting, a golden haze over damp grass and stubbled fields. The wooden door shudders as he pushes it shut and steps out.

'Good morning, freedom,' Jaime breathes, looking about for some sign of the stables or other outhouse. But he's not been quick enough, already there's voices in the yard and the clop of hooves. The snort of a plough horse, heavy and clear in the quietness. He curses and slips round the side of the barn.

To the trees again, that is his best bet. Find a steed in some other farmstead.

He makes as far as a stream. In the early light the water rushes clear and sweet in a shallow bed and he cannot resist the urge to stop and splash his face, cup his hands and pour some over his head, shivering at the feel of it against his scalp. He's not a vain man, his beauty had been born and perhaps he takes it for granted, yet he makes no real effort with his appearances. But even Jaime has to admit he's been feeling perhaps a little too grimy for his liking these past few months.

The sound of raised voices and tramping feet alerts him almost instantly and his moment of peace is shattered.

'Fuck,' Jaime mutters, scrambling back up the bank and muddying his hands which had just been rinsed clean for the first time in a very long time.

Robb Stark's men perhaps. Or maybe it's just farm workers. Jaime doesn't stop to find out, because his thoughts had fled instantly to Ada.

If she was caught… if she was found by anyone. He might have shit for honour, but he feels in his chest the wrench of self loathing at the idea he could leave her so heartlessly. Silent, gone with the dawn leaving her alone in this world which she knows so little of.

He's back the way he came in a few short strides, staying low and quiet, ears listening for the sound of the men who had disturbed him.

The barn door creaks a little as Jaime returns, feeling now something he would not admit to- something a little too like shame. Jaime Lannister has never been ashamed of anything before in his life. Never. Not even when he had been pulled before his father, red faced and dripping following his dive from the cliffs at Casterly Rock. Not even when his mother had found him with his head between his sisters thighs and left the room, white faced and speechless. But something's there now, sat in the pit of his belly as he slips back into the dim light of the barn and Jaime finds it hard to lift the feeling.

Ada is still there, just as he left her. Perhaps sunk a little further in the hay having lost the support of his body against hers, but still sound asleep. He slumps down beside her, rubs a hand over his face and sighs. She had set him free when she could have run herself. To have left her… would have been cruel, and cruel is not a word Jaime likes to associate with himself. He is not cruel. Hotheaded, rash, proud. Arrogant, certainly.

Jaime sniffs and eases back.

•

When Ada wakes, the light is seeping grey through the slats of the barn and Jaime is asleep on her breast, his arm about her waist.

'Jaime you idiot,' she whispers, stroking back his hair and setting a hand on his back. 'You should have woken me up, we could have been found.'

But he has no reply. She sits up a little more and leans her head back, the weight of him heavy on her side.

The day outside looks overcast and rainy. Like every other day she's seen in this world, it is cold. Relentlessly so.

Jaime stirs, murmuring low in his throat, little sounds of worry, fear. Then he quietens again, perhaps lulled by the steady thud of her heart in her chest.

Ada keeps awake by counting the number of grazes on her hands. Twenty seven by her last count. She sighs and sets her hand on his back again, tucks her knees up and plays with the edge of her stolen boots.

'Cersei-'

She jumps a little, but it's just Jaime, mumbling against her, his fingers stroking at her waist. She tucks his hair back, his face clearer and simpler for her to see than ever before, even though the sky is hid from her by the roof of the barn. He looks cleaner than he had. Ada frowns. It's just the scabs and beard now, the trails of blood and smudges of mud are gone. He must have left her to wash his face…

A clump of hair flops back defiantly and she strokes the skin of his brow beneath it. There's another wound at his temple and a black eye is blossoming, the bruising and swelling tracing his right cheek. His beard has grown, unkempt and sprouts thick across his cheeks and over his upper lip. The hairs she finds, are oddly soft, despite their rough appearance and she can see how the hair on his head could have once shone, were it not filthy and matted with mud and blood.

Just as the sun is dipping beyond the horizon and the first glow of the day proves to be the last, Jaime wakes suddenly.

Ada is jolted from her reverie as he shudders upright, and then with a heavy outward breath sets his head back on her breast and tries to calm himself. Ada leans over him, strokes his hair and puts her free arm about his shoulders.

His grip tightens about her waist. 'It's been so long since I've been held,' he mumbles into her, his breath warm through her shirt.

'Pardon?' she whispers, curving her body round him and letting her breath brush his ear.

'I said, I've not been held for a long while.'

She hugs him a little closer. 'Well, it's the least I can do,' Ada tells him.

'Did anyone come?' he asks after a moment, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes with a scabbed hand.

Ada is sorry for the loss of his weight and his arm about her.

'No.' She shakes her head. 'We've had no unwanted visitors.'

'Good.'

She sees his hand go to the collar at his throat, his grimace at the tightness of it. She can see the skin beneath rubbing raw like her wrists had done.

'We'll leave in a couple of hours.' He tells her, standing and stretching. 'They might have some horses we can take.'

'Good,' she says pulling out the plait she had drawn earlier and threading her fingers through her curls. 'I want to get as far away from Theon Greyjoy and Robb Stark as we can.'

Jaime watches her comb through her dark hair with a glazed look, as though hypnotised. He's crossed a boundary with this girl. He should not have let himself sleep, but the rhythm of her breathing had been so steady and she was soft and warm. Woman, against his side. He had felt his eyelids dropping, his arm closing about her waist.

'What?' her eyebrow is raised, a quirk to the side of her mouth, fingers threaded in her hair.

'Nothing, just looking at you.'

She flushes, and Jaime feels a little flare of triumph. She's nervous around him, even with his hair filthy and his beard scabbed across his cheeks. All those women who would have swooned over him in the past, with his golden hair and his armour gleaming, they would mistake him for a beggar in the street. But now, for this girl he still holds some power. The way a male lion, however scarred has the loyalty of his pride. He feels warmth kindle in his belly.

'Do you think me handsome, Addy?'

Her cheeks colour hotly. She scowls. 'Lannister, you know how you look.'

He laughs at her. 'Even with this beard and the collar? I'm flattered that you think anything of me at all.'

'I can see you beneath the grime Jaime,' she tells him, fingers still working through her hair.

'So, handsome then?'

'Perhaps you think a little too much of yourself for that.'

He grins at her, but she has finished her plait and tucks her knees up under her chin. 'Don't mock me. You are the only person who has shown me any true kindness in this world Jaime, please, don't let us fall out over your pride.'

His smile is a little rash, lopsided. He drops himself onto the hay beside her, leans across and plants a chaste, soft kiss on her cheek.

'Sorry old thing, forgive me my arrogance. It comes with being Lannister.'

She crosses her arms sharply across her chest and Jamie is reminded so strongly of a younger Cersei that he feels a pang of longing in his heart.

'When can we leave?' She asks after a little while, picking at a loose thread on the dark sleeve of his jacket. She's rolled the leather sleeves up and her forearms look strangely delicate, bruised and brown.

He glances up through the slats of the barn.

'It's getting dark, we can risk the stables and be on our way.'

He pulls her up. 'Lady,' he dips a little bow and she manages a weak grin.

'Alright then, Ser, lets get moving.'

She hides in the shadow of the long building as he steals their mounts.

Her heart thrums heavy in her chest. She's afraid. Afraid for him.

He comes back to her quickly, two horses clopping quietly behind him, their breath steaming in the night air.

She looks at the beasts worriedly, thinking how tall they look, even compared to her tall knight.

'I've never-' she begins as Jaime hands her the reigns of the grey. 'That is, I've not ridden a horse before. I rode ponies when I was little.' She glances worriedly at the horse, who is nosing her dark sleeve. 'Can't we just take one?'

He looks at her, standing apprehensively at the horses head, her eyes dark and smudged.

'You can't ride?'

She shakes her head.

Jaime swings himself up onto the black easily, long legs slung with feet in the stirrups.

'You can ride with me,' he tells her. 'We'll lead the other horse. Incase one goes lame - we'll be grateful for them both.'

She looks quietly thankful.

Jaime reaches for her. 'Up you get.'

One foot over his, her knee brushes his belly on the way over, but she's set in front of him and Jaime finds her closeness temptingly uncomfortable.

With the grey on a long rope they make their way out into the night.

She can't settle back, his hips seem to roll with every dip of the horse, his chest tight to her back and his strong arms about her waist.

Ada's face heats, and she tries to ignore his body behind her.

'Are you alright?'

His voice startles her and she jumps a little in his arms, colouring furiously.

'Fine,' she mutters.

'We've made good progress,' he tells her, breath warm against her ear.

But Ada is not truly paying attention, instead she is distracted by the insistent warmth of his crotch against her lower back, his belly pressed to her spine.

'Ada?'

'Mhmm?'

'You can sleep if you like.'

She thinks that it's unlikely she'll ever sleep again after having him pressed so intimately against her, but she nods and leans back.

The rocking is easier now that they seem to be moving as one. Her head starts to drop against his shoulder, her breath deepening and soon Jaime finds she is asleep in his grasp.

He is grateful, her stiffness in the saddle had been making him horribly aware of the way he rode into her, the movement of the horse pushing him forward. Now that she sleeps, she seems to mould into him a little more. Jaime finds it eases the tightness in his braes.

Jaime tells himself thinking about Ada as something more than companion, something closer to lover, is betraying his oath to the Kingsguard.
But he snorts aloud. Fucking his sister in a dark closet, closing his mouth about her breast as she lay in Robert's bedchamber, taking her from behind up in Ned Stark's tower. All those had been a betrayal of his oath.

Somehow he feels he taints Ada by thinking of her. His mind turns instead to Cersei. Picturing her golden head dipping to his waist is easy, the mischief in her green eyes as she teases him, fingers gripped tight at his hips. Holding him down.

The night is dark and long, and they make it to a deep pine forest before sunrise.

Jaime drives the horse up into the trees on the hill and onto the ridge, before retreating a little down the side. They will be in the lee of the hill there, protected from the chill wind and the horses can graze on the rough ferns that scatter the floor.

He slips from the horse first and lifts a sleeping Ada from the saddle. She murmurs a little, but quietens when he pulls the jacket about her more and sets her at the base of one of the pines. He tethers the horses and then settles beside her.

In her sleep she finds his shoulder, nuzzles into his shirt like a cub and makes a low, contented noise in her throat. He stares at her for a moment, head cocked to one side. So unlike his sister. Her eyes are soft and blue-green, like the sea or the pines, not sharp, steely emerald. Her face is small, heart shaped, a jaw that cracks easily into laughter and a mouth that shows all her teeth when she smiles. Which is often.

Her hair, not spun gold, but dark soft curls, with red in them. Red that gleams like hot embers in the night.

Jaime allows himself to lean back, close his arm about her and shut his eyes. He can hear her breath, heavy in her lungs, in her nose. The huffs of her chest expanding and contracting, steadily. His heart seems to meet that rhythm, thumping steady and slow. His mind wanders, the way it does before sleep. He finds himself thinking of what they will do when they are far enough away from Robb Stark. Return to his father perhaps, return to the chastising - the dry, vicious drawl of a man who is disappointed with his first born. The way he is disappointed with his other son. His dwarf. Jaime feels a shiver of righteous rage for Tyrion. Only Cersei truly has his father's affections, and even then…

He dozes. His mind walks restlessly.

He could return to his post at Kingslanding. A jumped up bodyguard for his jumped up son. Joffrey. He cringes a little. Everything bad from her and from him. Her vanity, his arrogance, pride, insolence. Stubbornness. Her cruelty. Not a kind bone in that boys body.

No, perhaps not there then. Not quite yet. Even if his mind and body do ache for Cersei. Perhaps, this once, he could summon her to him. She could make the journey down back alleys and through dark corridors to find him, if she loves him so. If she craves him as much as she claims.

Jaime lies there feeling wickedly used.

Ada stirs. A branch creaks and the horses shift, dreaming of fields and grass and sweet nothing.

Jaime's mind is soft again. He finds himself in the glow of a late summer sunset. He's nowhere he knows, but he feels content and a pleasant warmth has flooded his body. Barley fields bow, heavy with their fruits and the breeze is soft, bringing sweet scents and honey on the air. He's sat in the grass, fingers dug into it's thick shoots and feeling the earth grit beneath his nails. Someone calls him, but he just smiles to himself and lies back, staring up at the sky.

The body that settles against his side is familiar, the hand that rests against his hip well learned - he knows the flatness of the nails and the length of the fingers. And when he turns his face into the warmth of their hair, there's darkness