JORAH
Never had Jorah attended so tense of a breakfast as the one he sat through now, seated between Daenerys and Lady Sansa in the library. It was an odd place to take the morning meal—or any meal—but Daenerys had spread out maps of King's Landing detailing every gate, gutter, and underground passageway to give her and Lady Sansa something to discuss in possible exit strategies Cersei would take when the siege began. The lady wolf knew the Red Keep well enough, Tyrion knew it better, and Lord Varys knew it best, but the queen was not taking breakfast with either of those men. No doubt she would bring up this very discussion during the war council meeting later in the day, but for now she was playing the flattery card, hoping that by acknowledging Lady Sansa as a strategist, she would earn some respect from the Lady of Winterfell.
Daenerys had asked Lady Sansa which path Cersei was most likely to try and escape by and the latter had mused about the passage that led out from under the Black Cells to a seaside cavern that eventually spilled out into the Blackwater, but she had become lost in thought, tracing various secretive routes with her fingers as her other hand clutched a half-eaten apple.
Doing her best to conceal an exasperated sigh, Daenerys shared a look with Jorah and if he didn't know any better, he would say that she blamed him for Lady Sansa's disinterest even though this tactical breakfast was her idea.
Daenerys cleared her throat pointedly and Lady Sansa's glazed-over eyes refocused.
"Forgive me if I seem distracted, Your Grace."
"You are. What troubles you?"
Lady Sansa returned her apple to her plate in contemplation and just when Jorah concluded that she would not speak on the matter, the lady gave a sigh and revealed, "Sandor Clegane."
"Ah, yes, he does seem to be the base of many problems as of late," observed the queen. "Has he said something profoundly insulting this time?"
"He is of a mind to carry out a suicidal mission and nothing I say can sway him," said Lady Sansa miserably.
"Perhaps I might be able to help. I find that with the assistance of my dragons, people see me as most persuasive," offered the queen.
"I thank you, Your Grace, but you would have to be a miracle worker to convince Sandor Clegane otherwise once he sets his mind to something."
That much was certainly true. Once Clegane had a mind to be a condescending, miserable old bat, no one could convince him otherwise and he had taken it upon himself to be more disagreeable than not whenever not in the company of Lady Sansa.
"You wish him to stay here? You are concerned for him because you are fond of him?" asked Daenerys shrewdly.
Ever graceful, Lady Sansa held her chin high in response. "I have a friendly fondness of him, true enough, however, I do not wish him to stay here. I wish him to accompany the army to King's Landing, but he will not wait. We are still several days out from the march, but he is determined to leave on the morrow."
"I see, so it was imperative to have the men remain here to rebuild your castle but now that it is built, we must make for King's Landing with all haste before your friend gets himself killed on this suicidal mission?"
Jorah shot Daenerys a look that reprimanded her for being so insensitive, but Lady Sansa was able to defend herself adequately.
"This is the stronghold of the North and your place of fallback if for some reason the battle goes ill, so it was imperative to have it refortified but I do not ask or command for the army to reach the capital before Sandor Clegane. I merely wish to travel with him, but am unable because of my inability to ride just yet. Wishful thinking and a distraction, as I noted, but you asked, so I obliged."
"What intentions could he possibly have that are so urgent that he cannot wait a handful of days to ride in the rearguard with you?"
"Those intentions are not for me to say, Your Grace. He might tell you himself, if you cared to ask him, but he would not appreciate me divulging that information to you. I can assure you, though, it is of the same impossible feat to accomplish for one man as it was for our armies to engage the Night King's wights. My sister had an unforeseen critical role, but she was one among thousands who fought, and she had many others to help her reach her goal. Sandor Clegane has no one but himself and the odds of him surviving this foolhardy mission are less than ours were."
"You fear for him quite strongly."
"As you would and have for Ser Jorah, Your Grace," responded Lady Sansa.
Daenerys softened on Jorah's behalf, recalling as he did how he had come so close to leaving her forever and had it not been for Clegane, he might have for the simple reason that there had been no one left to help him as he knelt dying in the snow. She would have wept for him, longer and louder than she did when she thought he was close to the end, for he was everything she had seen and been, everything she had done that made her into the woman she was. They had began this journey together and she did want to complete it without him. That Lady Sansa considered her relationship with Sandor Clegane to be the same was not a fair assessment in the least.
"You consider this man to be your oldest, dearest, kindest, and most trustworthy friend? Someone who would lay down his life for you without question, who would respect your every wish, give you counsel in your endeavors and guidance when you allow yourself to be led astray? You look to this man as your family? Because that is what I see in the knight beside me, Lady Sansa, and forgive me my doubts, but I do not believe you care for Sandor Clegane in quite the same manner."
He knew he meant all these things and more to his queen; she had said the words to him in privacy, but she had never spoken them to another as she did now. There was hope to be had in that act. She did not consider him a brother, a father, a relative, but family. There were many definitions to that word and he would have the exact one from her, know just exactly how he stood in her heart and mind—but not now. Now was for befriending Lady Sansa.
"I have not endured what you have, Your Grace," said Lady Sansa, now with more confidence. "I do not know how you came to meet Ser Jorah or the many tribulations that crossed your paths. I do know that you and I have both suffered greatly to be where we are, but neither of us would be here if not for these men, Sandor Clegane and Jorah Mormont. And I do not have to care for him exactly as you do for Ser Jorah in order to care for him at all. He is a good man, if not a pleasant one. My family is indebted to him and by that token, everyone living, but more than that, he is my friend, and I do not have many of those left. Most of the inhabitants of this castle were slaughtered long ago, as were those who traveled with me to King's Landing. My family remains, and Sandor Clegane. I would protect him by whatever power resides in my hands, but there is absolutely nothing I can do, and so my mind has indeed been elsewhere as I accept the fact that I will be losing my friend and am powerless to stop him."
Daenerys pushed herself back from her seat, came around Jorah, and grasped Lady Sansa's hands. There was no look of polished sincerity to be seen on her face as Jorah had so often noticed when his queen spoke to Lady Sansa, only empathy. It was the look he had seen when her heart ached for those unable to do anything by the way of changing their own fortunes.
"I will speak with him for you and see if I might convince him to change his mind. If he will not obey his lady, he will obey his queen."
"I fear that he will not speak kindly if you try, Your Grace. He is used to telling people what he thinks of them."
"He is not the only one who can deliver harsh truths. Allow me to try, as a gesture of friendship," Daenerys insisted.
"I thank you, Your Grace."
The man in question came to retrieve Lady Sansa with no suspicion that he had been the subject of their conversation as he half-carried her from the room to take her to the godswood where the two of them and her sworn shield had been disappearing to every day for near two weeks. When they had gone, Daenerys let the multitude of maps roll back into their scrolled forms, collecting the plates to stack at one corner of the table.
"She plays a dangerous game in allowing him so close to her if she does not intend on reciprocating his obvious affections for her," the queen observed to Jorah.
To the contrary, Jorah believed that Daenerys did not have much room to be speaking when she had done much the same in her relationship with him. Until Daario Naharis had come along, Jorah was the only man to be so close to her, but unlike Clegane, he had not taken liberties with the woman whose attention he sought. But she had never discouraged him in his quest to earn her favor so he had continued to pursue her without letting on that he wanted her. She knew, long before he told her, but he maintained a level of professionalism that did not put her in an awkward position and when it had come time to remember his love for her or question his loyalty, she had done the only thing she could: exiled him. With Clegane going into a sort of exile of his own doing, he was essentially removing himself from the equation and Lady Sansa was left trying to hold him back. Not at all situations unrelated, in Jorah's mind.
He voiced his opinion to Daenerys. "I don't know that the man is capable of having affection for someone so much as badly wanting to either bed them or kill them, but he does understand loyalty and acts with no thought of his own safety. But I do understand what you mean and I think that Lady Sansa is unaware of how her actions might be misinterpreted by a man so starved for proper human interaction."
As you were, my queen, all those years before I admitted that I loved you.
"Perhaps, but I would wager that she knows exactly what he wants from her and she is allowing their interactions to proceed as we just saw without caring about the consequences."
"And if she does harbor more than just friendly feelings for her, is that so wrong?" asked Jorah, knowing his queen would catch his double meaning.
"Were her parents still alive, they would wish for her to marry a man of titles and lands, neither of which Sandor Clegane has, but she is old enough and experienced enough to know what she wants. If what she wants is him, I would not be the one to stop her. I chose a man known as a bastard with no titles other than the ones his people gave him, but now there is no King in the North and Jon Snow remains a bastard to all except those who know of his true lineage. And if he remains a bastard in name, they will say that the queen took that bastard as her companion and there will be no shame in it, so there would be no shame in Lady Sansa choosing a man like that for her own. But she will not choose him, even if she does have affection for him, because she was broken in that way and he cannot repair her."
"He might surprise us all, khaleesi. He, a man of no importance among the lords and ladies of Westeros, has managed to become the topic of much discussion by the queen herself by simply being the man that he is. Who knows what he might accomplish if he put forth the effort to be anything more?"
"If he does not listen to reason and put aside whatever mummer's farce he is playing at to weasel some sort of proclamation from Lady Sansa, he will not accomplish much more than he already has," said Daenerys darkly.
/ /
"…still open-minded to the possibility that Cersei has no depths to which she won't sink?"
Jorah's mind had been elsewhere as the war council trickled into its second hour. With the day of their departure nearing its dawn, Daenerys insisted on mapping out contingency plans, addressing every possibility for any sort of attack Cersei might launch to stop them from reaching King's Landing. Of the dozen or so individuals who made up the queen's advisors, only Tyrion, Lord Varys, and Jon Snow had much to say on the matter, for they were the ones to plot back and forth while the rest of them stood by, trying to look engaged. Lady Sansa and her sister Arya chimed in every now and again, Ser Davos gave excellent advice on the waters surrounding the city, having navigated them most of his life, and Grey Worm and Missandei dutifully listened to their queen's plans. The only two to not utter a word were Brandon Stark, staring with seeming disinterest at the maps, though Jorah knew his thoughts to be on past successful and failed sieges, and of course, Sandor Clegane who had given up pulling books at random from the library shelves to seem occupied and returned to his favored spot at the window.
As Jorah had predicted, Lord Varys and Tyrion knew better than Lady Sansa of which routes Cersei might take to escape the castle if the city fell and that conversation had taken the better part of a half hour so that before they had even addressed where they might be in the line once they reached King's Landing, Jorah's legs were starting to tire. The maester's close attentions had helped him heal tremendously in both body and mind, but he would not be facing a battle as long-winded as the one he had just fought until he could go more than an hour on his feet without feeling the need to sit, so the near month they would spend on the march was the best time to test himself, not here at the war council table.
"Negotiations will be handled by Lord Tyrion, as he knows both parties equally," said Daenerys presently, finally moving on. "Grey Worm and Jon Snow will be present to offer protection and ensure that Cersei doesn't try to end the terms before they've begun."
"Though admirable warriors both men are, if they are protecting Lord Tyrion, who is protecting yourself and Lady Sansa, Your Grace? Ser Jorah and perhaps Sandor Clegane?"
"I won't be there," said Clegane shortly and Jorah braced for the likely storm to follow now that the man had spoken out.
"Oh? Where, pray tell, do you plan to be if not protecting your lady?"
"She's not my lady because I haven't said any bloody vows to her. That's her sworn shield's job, wherever the fucker's got to. I won't be there because I'm not a part of your army. I'm heading off on my own at first light."
"Pay him no heed," said Lady Sansa, bent forward over the table to take some of the pain from her broken leg. With Clegane standing now directly behind her, she had the courage to continue to give him only the attention of her back as she addressed the council. "He and Ser Bronn will provide protection enough for me in case Cersei stages one final attempt at having me killed."
Clegane brought himself to the table beside her and thumped both knuckles down, rattling the various army sigils in their places and knocking quite a few over. "What fantasy world do you live in where we discussed that?" he asked Lady Sansa.
"You will travel with the rest of us, or you will not go," said Lady Sansa again, this time with what Jorah could only describe as fear of betrayal on her face. "That is not a request."
"Bears the same weight as one: none," said Clegane.
"The Lady of Winterfell gave you an order, ser," said Daenarys, joining the verbal fray.
"I'm not from the North, Your Grace," said Clegane mildly. "And I'm no ser. I have no titles and no place among the Northerners. I'm a free man who chose to fight for the living and now that the dead are twice-dead, I fight for no man but myself. My decision is to settle my own score and it's not by following orders."
Daenarys looked to the Lady of Winterfell. "You claimed not long ago that you know this man well, Lady Sansa?"
"I do."
"Has he always been so—so…"
"Insubordinate and rude, yes," said Lady Sansa, glaring at Clegane.
"And what score do you have to settle that you would risk defying your queen?" asked Daenerys.
"I'm going to kill the man who did this to me," said Clegane, pointing viciously at the scarred side of his face. "And it'll do you lot a favor if I'm able to. He's Cersei's bodyguard, you saw him at King's Landing."
"The giant," said Jorah, remembering the hulking, silent figure that stood never more than three feet from Cersei Lannister. Supposedly he had fallen in single combat against Oberyn Martell and suffered for days before succumbing to the various poisons from the Dornish prince's blade, but either the reports had been incorrect or he was—something else now. Clegane planned to battle his brother now, at the most inopportune moment when there was a war going on.
"Gregor Clegane, the Mountain," said Arya Stark.
Jorah saw remorse and empathy flash across his queen's face as she regarded Clegane. "Your family?"
"I wouldn't call him that, but we share blood and I aim to spill his until he's good and dried out. It won't hurt your plans to let me go and I'd like to see which of you aims to stop me."
"Lady Sansa both requested and ordered that you remain here and you ignored both—"
"She can request and orders all she likes. I'm not her sworn shield, I'm not her bannerman. I'll go where I damn well please."
"There may not be a man here who can stop you, but I do have two dragons to bar your path," said Daenerys. Her threat registered heavily with Clegane, for he knew that their greatest strength was fire and that was the only thing that could prevent him from walking out this very moment, never mind how much they seemed interested in him. If their mother commanded it, they would attack or hold him, whichever she preferred.
"Damn it all to hells, is my business really that much of a bother that we need a war council to address it?" asked Clegane in aggravation. "You lot know how to waste valuable time arguing over something that's not worth a damn to anyone but the people who are involved and last I checked, that was me and no one else in this room."
"If you are to be snooping around the Red Keep, full of the knowledge that you possess, and happen to fall into Cersei's hands before you manage to confront your brother, you can imagine that we are more than slightly concerned with how much unpleasantness you would have to endure before it loosened your tongue," said Lord Varys.
"And a shit lot of good it would do her," said Clegane, seething at the bald advisor. "By the time she thinks to ask me anything valuable, you'll already be knocking on her door. Nothing's been said here that she doesn't already know, so if she gets a hold of me before I get a hold of my brother, you'll still be perfectly safe, Lord Eunich."
"You will show restraint when addressing those in this room you do not mingle well with, my lord," said Daenerys austerely. "But I cannot ignore the fact that you were part of that company that went beyond the Wall and the only survivor of the remaining five who I have not been able to reward for your efforts. If it is your wish to go, neither my dragons nor I will not stop you, but I will request that you not travel alone. I will send Ser Jorah Mormont with you."
That certainly was not part of the plan and Jorah was about to protest his queen's decision before realizing that that argument would be best served in private so as not to question her in front of a people who did not fully trust her.
"I'll go as well," said Arya Stark. "I might even be able to get into the castle on my own and kill Cersei while she's sleeping. The rest of you can keep her soldiers busy. And if you'd like to reward me for killing the Night King, Your Grace, this is how."
"The fuck you are," said Clegane. "I'm not spending another month on the road with you, let alone a day."
"You will ride to King's Landing and seek your own justice, but you will do so with the company I have assigned to you," said Daenerys. "Or you will march with Jon Snow and the rest of the army six days hence. Or, you will remain here in chains for the duration of the war. I leave the decision up to you."
"That's hardly a decision."
"You have three options, my lord, surely one of them must appeal to you."
"Aye, the one I had walking in here where I'm the only one to go."
"You may not recognize authority when it is given, but you will obey this command, Sandor Clegane, or you will not be going anywhere. I will hear no more on the matter other than your decision, and let it be now while you still have one."
Clegane tore his fingernails through the soft wood of the table and Jorah stepped back a pace in case the former upended it but instead the man pointed warningly at Jorah and then Arya Stark. "If either of you gets me killed before I get to my brother, you'd best hope there's not some fucking secondary Night King beyond the Wall to raise me from the dead because I'll come back to eat both of you alive."
Jorah did not take offense to the comment, for this was the norm as far as insults went from Clegane, but he had no intention of getting the man killed because he did not intend to go with him to King's Landing. He would speak with Daenerys and plead his case to counter whatever reason she had for sending him away.
Lastly, Clegane rounded on Lady Sansa, glowering. "Happy now, are you?"
"You have my leave to go, my lord," said Daenerys, sparing Lady Sansa the task of trying to answer the angry dog.
Clegane lingered long enough to glower at Lady Sansa and then stormed out, not able to stand on ceremony one second longer and they could hear him shouting for some time down the passageway.
"Such a mild, agreeable man," said Lord Varys which earned a chuckle from Jorah despite his attempts to conceal it.
Tyrion cleared the bad taste of the argument from the air as he brought them back to the more pressing matters. "Now, then, returning to the task at hand, the matter of personal bodyguards if Jon Snow and Grey Worm are protecting me and Ser Jorah and Sandor Clegane are not present…"
/ /
Jorah had stopped listening entirely after Daenerys announced that he would not be in her company for the siege. He did not need or want to know who would be given the task of protecting the queen because there would be no one to take his place. He would not be going with Sandor Clegane and Arya Stark, of that he was determined. He had not come through the seven hells to be sent off on a self-serving mission of Sandor Clegane's instead of being by his queen's side during the battle that would bring her to victory.
He waited until they were quite alone in her quarters, asking for a private audience with her to address his qualms, but she already knew his reasoning for wanting to speak to her and breached the subject before he could.
"You don't approve of my decision to send you away, and I would expect nothing less from the man who has served by my side for so long, but my decision is still final."
"Does Sandor Clegane's safety merit the jeopardy of yours, my queen?" asked Jorah. "Is that man's life worth that of mine, Lady Sansa's own sister, and possibly yours if I am not there to protect you?"
"You think quite highly of your ability to defend me as if Jon Snow, Grey Worm, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and my dragons are incapable of doing what you can do, Ser Jorah," said Daenerys with some amusement.
"I do not joke, not about this. Why would you do the one thing I have always fought to avoid?"
"We cannot think of ourselves in times such as these, Ser Jorah. We must think of those whose needs are direr than ours."
Since when was Lady Sansa's fondness for Sandor Clegane a dire situation? And when did that merit the queen removing her own Queensguard to protect a brute of a man like Clegane? Jorah could not, for the life of him, see the wisdom in this decision.
"You would send me away to grant Lady Sansa some peace of mind? Forgive me, khaleesi, but there have not been many worse strategies than this."
"It is not strategy; it is an act of kindness."
"My queen—"
"You returned to my service, so serve me. I wish for you to go with this man."
"My place is by your side, khaleesi."
"But you cannot go where I will be in battle. My dragons will keep me safe in the sky and you would be on the ground with Jon and Grey Worm."
"But I would be in the battle. Against the army of the dead, I commanded the Dothraki and then helped man the walls when I was unseated from my horse. I came to you as you fell from Drogon and I know that you claim he would never allow you to come to harm in the skies, but that does not mean he might not come to harm and if he does, I desire to be there, to defend both of you."
"No, my dear knight, you will go with Sandor Clegane. He is dear to Sansa Stark as you are to me and she fears for him in a way that only a woman understands. By sending you, the man I trust with my life, I am easing her mind. You know she doubts me and does not support me despite the strength and courage I have shown her with my army. In this small gesture, I hope to show her that I can be more than what she believes me to be and I genuinely believe that she and I will be able to bond over this experience. I must gain a friend in her, not just an ally, if I am to have her cooperation and have her accept me as queen."
So Jorah was being replaced to get a foot in the door with Sansa Stark's friendship? To say he was irate was a grave understatement.
"Go with Sandor Clegane and Arya Stark, protect them, and meet me again once I have taken King's Landing. You will not fail, I have faith in you."
"I do not fear failure, my queen, I fear that I will be unable to assist in the battle to come if I am elsewhere."
"I do not want you in the battle to come. Your mission is no less dangerous, infiltrating King's Landing to allow Sandor Clegane to deal with his brother and if the gods be good, for Arya Stark to do the same for Cersei. If you succeed, there might not be a battle, but I would still have you far from it. I will not risk you in open war again. There is nowhere safe for either of us, but I will never allow you to come to such harm as you have already. I need your council, your kindness, and you in the years to come when I rebuild my kingdom."
Now was the time, the only time, before there might never be another.
Tell her. Tell her everything.
Jorah knelt before her, not trusting himself to speak for fear that she would hear the quiver in his voice. He had an uneasy feeling about this parting, a feeling of foreboding, a bad omen.
Daenerys lowered herself onto her knees and took his hands, squeezing hard with watery eyes. She was afraid, as always, that this parting might be their last and that his luck would no longer hold and yet she was still ordering him to leave her.
He brought his lips to her hands and she leaned forward to touch her forehead against his, knowing what he wanted to say and encouraging him to say it, even though he knew that she would not return his affections. His love for her was no secret and she knew it was what kept him at her side, but she would let him say it again if he so desired. He could not. It would only shatter him to hear himself profess his love for her and see the sadness in her eyes as she knew that she could not accept him in the same way.
"Be safe, my queen, until I come back to you."
"Until we are reunited, then, my brave one."
/ /
Tyrion Lannister waited without his room to see him off as soon as he had risen at the faintest hint of dawn. "You are more eager to be on your way than Clegane. He might still even be asleep."
"Think again, Imp," said Clegane himself, sweeping by the two of them and calling back at Jorah over his shoulder, "Within the half hour, Mormont, don't dawdle."
Jorah let his door close behind him, feeling slightly ill. He had left many a rooms in his years: his quarters on Bear Island with his belongings, the room he shared with his wife, the room in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, the solitary cell in the Citadel, the lonely tower room at Dragonstone, and now this space, little more than a closet, but the one place that had felt like home more than all of his previous abodes. He was loathe to leave it.
He let Tyrion lead, pretending to listen to the man's words as they followed Clegane outside. Dawn was coming in colorless and cold and Jorah fastened his riding gloves on tighter to fight back the chill.
"As we prepare for yet another battle, I have to wonder what our fallen comrades might be doing at this very moment," said Tyrion, inhaling the freshness of a new day and then choking on the smoke that came up from the armory's fires as the lad Gendry began his daily tasks at the forge. "Might we have valued more wisdom gained from books long forgotten from Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch? Surely Brienne of Tarth would be in the Queensguard to safeguard your position until your return. And young Lady Lyanna…"
Jorah bowed his head in memory of his fallen cousin. She would have had something to say about Sandor Clegane's mission, might even have frightened him into silence and Jorah might have found himself not participating in this monumental waste of time.
"Your cousin was a fierce young woman, Mormont. She took pride in her people, she stood tall at half the height of men, and she took no shit from anyone, big or small. Your father was just as fierce and fair in judgment. I had enormous respect for both of them. But you aren't of the same stock, my friend. You're a warrior, a bear, but you don't have the commanding presence that your other family members had."
"Is that meant to insult me or inspire me?" asked Jorah.
"It is merely an observation. I found myself trying to piece this merry band of potential assassins together in my head. Sandor Clegane, the Hound, the largest man to fight for the queen's side, the grouchiest shit in the Seven Kingdoms and a contender with myself for most colorful insult-maker. Arya Stark, savior of the Seven Kingdoms, skilled fighter, silent stalker. And you, Ser Jorah Mormont of the Queensguard, disagreeable at worst, loyal companion at best, brooding when needs be, less than talkative otherwise, wise counselor. No one could have placed the three of you together, and yet here you are. Perhaps it is a good thing that you have less of a presence than the other members of your family, for I don't believe you and Clegane would make it halfway down the road before the two of you came to blows. There is only room for one dominant male in your party, and so you must be the advisor to him that you were to the queen. If you put forth the same devotion to protecting him as you do our queen, I feel strongly that both of you will return."
"You would not have me protect Arya Stark?"
"She killed the greatest enemy our world has ever seen. Do you think she requires protection?"
No, for a girl of no more than ten-and-seven, she certainly did not need anyone's protection, least of all Jorah's.
"Shift yourself or wait for me to come back out and trample you, little lord, you're holding up my damned traveling party," said Clegane, carrying a collection of saddlebags over his shoulders as he headed for the stables.
"Do you still have the coin I gave you when you parted Dragonstone for the lands beyond the Wall?" asked Tyrion suddenly.
Jorah patted his boot. He did not tell Tyrion this, but he had kept the coin with him during the Great Battle, believing that it might just hold some sort of luck for him. As silly of a thing it was to trust in trinkets, his meeting with Tyrion had not been chance and the coin was a reminder of that.
"Hold onto it yet, my friend, and return it to me as we sit the small council table in the Red Keep," said Tyrion, grasping Jorah's hand firmly. "And remember, our queen needs you."
The same parting words he had given Jorah as he departed the beaches, bound for beyond the Wall. They had favored him last time; they might just do so again.
As Daenerys had requested, the stablemaster gifted Jorah with a brilliant bronze stallion named Oris, apparently the eighth in a long line of such noble beasts all given the same name as his sire. The horse was well-mannered and quiet, which Jorah appreciated, for he had had his share of finicky and feisty horses and he knew which he preferred. As he set about to loading his belongings onto the horse's back, he fed Oris a carrot to establish the bond between horse and rider, for Jorah would need it if he was to take the beast so far.
There would not be need of so many blankets the further south they traveled, but they could expect at least a week's worth of miserable weather, then more of it in the form of mud and rain as they entered the Riverlands. Food could be caught or bought, water could be gathered from streams, and bedding could be made if it became too much for his horse to carry him, for he did not expect that he would get many chances to exchange horses on the road with Clegane who would want to avoid interaction with others as much as possible. The less people knew that the Hound was on the road again, the better. Still, Jorah took the pouch of gold Daenerys had given him and dropped it into one of the saddlebag pockets.
"Won't do you much good to pack sacks of gold, Mormont, I don't plan on letting many men see us long enough to guess who we are," said Clegane, as Jorah knew he would.
"It could buy a man's silence if we happen upon the wrong sort of them."
"Silence buys a man's silence. Coin buys his treachery because then he's got a fat pocket and the liberty to tell whoever the fuck he wants."
"Coin could be useful," said Jorah, stuffing the sack of it into his saddlebag all the same. He did not approve of slitting a man's throat on the off chance that the man might tell some innkeeper down the road of what he had seen.
"What'll be useful is if you can tell me now if you snore because if we get thirty miles from the castle to bed down and I find out that you sound like a bloody whale, I'll gut you right there."
"I couldn't say, as I'm not often awake to hear myself if I do," said Jorah curtly.
"You're dead-silent when you sleep, Mormont," said Tormund Giantsbane, inviting himself into the conversation as he so often did. "On the frozen lake," he added when Jorah gave him a look of confusion, unable to recall sleeping in the same room as the wildling. "We slept in shifts those few days, huddled together like piglets for warmth. You didn't sleep much, but when you did, I could have sworn you had died. You were as still as those corpses watching us from the shore."
"There's your answer then, Clegane," said Jorah.
"But you," Tormund lightly punched Clegane in the chest. "You tossed about like you were dancing. Dreaming of fighting or fucking, you almost knocked me into the lake when you kicked out at me. So I would not lay my bedroll beside him if I were you." Tormund advised Jorah, offering out his hand. Jorah shook it with no ill feelings toward the wildling. His father may have hunted Tormund and his kind, but the man proved that wildlings were more than savages and Jorah respected him, even if it was rather difficult to like him.
"Where will you go now?" asked Jorah.
"Nowhere just yet. As a favor to Jon Snow, we will watch his castle and guard his crippled brother until the war ends, then we will go home."
"But you have no need. These lands are yours as much as they are ours."
"Aye, but they're not home," Tormund reasoned, and Jorah understood.
"Then we part ways, my friend."
"You have bear's blood in you, Mormont, and bears belong to the wild. If ever you venture north of the Wall and come across my people, tell them you're a friend of mine, and I'll see to it that we share a campfire." Tormund once again ran his hand vigorously through Jorah's head, mussing his hair in an act of camaraderie that Jorah did not understand. "And as for you, Clegane, if you survive, you should think about joining us. Those kissed by fire are blessed beyond the Wall."
"I've been beyond the Wall and I wasn't anymore fucking blessed up in that shithole than I am down in this one," said Clegane moodily, but Tormund extended his hand all the same and Clegane grasped it, shaking it once.
Returning to his saddlebags, Clegane muttered to Jorah, "If you talk as much as that one, this is going to be a very short journey."
"Stop projecting what you think your problems with me will be," said Jorah. "I have no more wish to be joining you than you do to have me along, but we're stuck in each other's company so as long as you guard my back, I'll try my best to not talk your ear off."
Jorah knew enough about himself that he figured he could go the entire journey without uttering a word to Clegane. He had managed to travel for days without saying a word to Tyrion Lannister, so avoiding conversation with Clegane would be no bother whatsoever. It was Clegane who would have the problem, dropping random insults in a state of boredom. And Arya Stark would be thrown into the middle of it, which automatically earned her sympathy from Jorah. He did not know much about her, other than that she was reclusive and had a history with Clegane, so at least there would be someone else to take over the task of arguing with the man if Jorah grew weary of it.
Had it been anyone else, Jorah would have refused outright, but as he bartered with Daenerys over this foolhardy mission, he recalled that he did owe the man his life twice over and had been meaning to find a way to repay him. If that meant assisting in a covert mission, the better to allow that the man could chop off his brother's head, then so be it. Having no siblings himself, Jorah could only imagine the betrayal he might have felt if his own brother had scarred him as severely as Clegane's had. It gave him a newfound appreciation for Clegane's surliness and isolation and if all Jorah could do was make sure nothing stabbed the man in the back as he ended his brother, he would be sure to do it and call the debt paid.
