Chapter 37
It did not take long for Lyla to receive a note from Margaery. Her friend from Highgarden was to be queen now, in Sansa's stead, and it did not surprise her that she would find out about her new station in King's Landing so quickly. She thanked the maid who brought her the letter and followed her through the halls, Joanna at her hip. She hadn't left her daughter in anyone's care since coming to King's Landing. She could feel Cersei's eyes on her, waiting for the moment to strike and kill her babe for good.
"They are here, my lady," the girl said, clearly a cousin to Margaery. Perhaps Alla? Whoever she was, Lyla smiled to her and entered the Maiden Vault.
There was a long table, covered in pretty roses, of course, and greenery. Women dressed in the greens and golds of House Tyrell all spoke amongst themselves, that is, until they saw Lyla.
It was Lady Olenna who spoke to her first. "Come, sit with me child," she said, patting the free seat at her side. Margaery was across from her, donning a bright grin, adorned in lavish golds and blacks to show her loyalty to Joffrey.
She made her way to the table and took the seat graciously. "How terrible," the Queen of Thornes said with a pinched frown, "what they did to your father. But that is the grace of being honorable."
"Grandmother!" Margaery looked shocked, eyes disapproving. "Lyla is a friend to us. Don't be so cruel."
"I'm not being cruel, I'm being honest. Something that is lacking here in the capitol." The woman turned to her and shook her head. "Do not mind my granddaughter's courtesies. I know they have no effect on you, wolf girl."
Lyla smiled, slight as it was, and relaxed. So, they had not turned on her since she ran from Margaery and Renly's camp. She wondered if Willas had told his sister what happened between them.
A pip caught her attention and all turned to look at Joanna, who peeked through Lyla's hair shyly.
"My, my," Margaery whispered, smiling. "Might I hold her?"
Lyla pursed her lips. She hadn't let another lay hands on her, save for Tywin when she'd first arrived. Hesitantly, she lifted Joanna and handed her across the table to Margaery's waiting arms. The little golden haired babe giggled when her friend tickled her chin. "She's beautiful, Lyla," praised the queen-to-be. "And her eyes, so unusual. She will be a great beauty, like her mother."
Lady Olenna peered at the baby and sighed. "Poor thing, alone without her father."
"She is not alone," Lyla defended with a scowl. "She has her mother."
"And thank the gods for that," Margaery piped in.
"Not the gods. Loras. If it weren't for him, she'd have been beheaded along with her father." The old woman leaned in close and grabbed her hand. "I don't know why they brought you back here, or what they have in store for you, but know that it won't be good." She took Joanna from Margaery's arms and handed her back. "Keep her close."
Lyla held her daughter tight, smiling when she reached up and grabbed at her curls. "Lyla," Margaery said aloud, "it will not be long before I am queen. Mayhaps then... " Mayhaps then she can send me home. The thought was easy to finish. She smiled her thanks to her friend and after a meal of roasted duck and honey-crisp apples she excused herself.
It had been long since Lyla had found herself at ease, let alone in King's Landing. Every step she made was on thin ice, here, but in Margaery's presence she had allowed her walls to crumble, if only for a second. As she cruised down the halls, returning to her chamber, she thought on what Lady Olenna had said. Yes, I must keep her close, Lyla thought to herself, looking down at her daughter. She was gurgling and tugging at her mother's brown hair, so sweet and innocent...
"Lady Lyla," came a quiet, stern voice, and she looked up to see her goodfather standing over her.
"Lord Tywin, she greeted coolly, holding Joanna closer to her hip.
He looked her over, pale green eyes narrowed and collected. "Might I have a word?" he asked, stare softening when his gaze reached the baby.
She nodded slowly, hesitant, and followed as the great lion turned on his heel and started down the hall, to where his chambers were. They were only a few rooms away from her own, but she was nervous all the same.
They entered his solar and she took a seat, exhausted. She was still recovering from childbirth and walking so long with her child on her hip tired her. "What do you need to speak to me about, Lord Tywin?" she asked when her goodfather was seated in the large mahogany chair behind the giant red-stained desk, with golden lions painted on it and a banner of red velvet running down each leg.
He eyed her for a moment, then slid a paper towards her. She grabbed it, inspected the broken seal, then unfolded it and read.
Lady Catelyn Stark is committed for treason on grounds of releasing the captive Jaime Lannister free.
Lyla looked up, wide-eyed, and clutched the letter to her heart. Jaime was free! "Do you think he is headed for King's Landing?" she asked Lord Tywin, smiling and holding her daughter closer to her. Joanna gurgled and tugged at her mother's curls, rolling her weight from one side to the other, her little gown glinting in the sunlight.
"I believe he will," affirmed her goodfather.
This was the best news she'd had since Robb allowed her and Jaime to share a chamber in Riverrun. Her heart was beating so fast, and her eyes darted over the written words over and over. "Thank the gods," she whispered happily, kissing the crown of Joanna's head. "Shall there be a search sent for him? He must be brought home." Home to me, home to Joanna. Home in my arms.
"There is already a party looking for him. Many, in fact, but there is still the possibility that he will be found by Stark forces or Tully forces, in which case he will be killed."
Her heart fell to a low murmur then and she looked downcast. "Of course," she whispered. It would be asking too much to beg Robb for his life after he fled camp. It had already been asking the world of him to let her husband be with her in her chambers, and to hold their children when they were born and be there to send her off to King's Landing. He had done it out of brotherly love and respect for her, and pity for what she'd been through in her last remaining day in the capitol. But he was a king, and not a negotiator. He would have to kill Jaime, and she would have no chance to save him.
"Perhaps, my lord, I might go with the party," she suggested. "I know the riverlands like the back of my hand. I visited often when I would go to Highgarden as a girl, or when I was returning home to Winterfell."
His pale green eyes went uneasy. "You will go to Casterly Rock," he said firmly. "I want you there waiting for him when my men bring him home. King's Landing is no place to raise a child, you said so yourself. You will be bringing the Prince Tommen with you."
She clutched Joanna tighter. Casterly Rock? That had always been the plan, of course, but life had gotten in the way...
She had never been to Casterly Rock. Never seen it, nor the Sunset Sea that Jaime had spoken so fondly of. The thought made her worry. But she would be bringing Tommen with her, and Joanna. She wouldn't be alone. She would have Jaime's children with her, little pieces of him to love until he was home. "When will I be leaving?" she asked. It seemed like she only arrived in King's Landing yesterday, thought in truth it had been weeks since her arrival.
Joanna began to wail and Lyla rocked her on her knee, but the baby kept whining so Lord Tywin rose and for a split second Lyla though that he might send her away. But he didn't. He grabbed the little babe gently and rocked her in his arms, tapping a finger to her quivering lips until she suckled it. "She is hungry," he noted quietly.
"It is nearly her feeding time," Lyla agreed, watching mystified as the terrifying Lion of Lannister, who had destroyed entire Houses and brought the Targaryens to the ground, cooed for a tiny, suckling babe. He loved her so; perhaps because she carried his dead wife's name, or because she was Jaime's daughter. Lyla could not tell.
Little Joanna reached up and grabbed at his golden whiskers, and Lyla saw Lord Tywin smile for the first time in her life. "You will take Joanna and ride for Casterly Rock at the end of the week. It will be the safest place."
She nodded and stared at the great Lannister Lord, eyeing as he cooed at the baby. "Why was I not sent to Casterly Rock directly instead of King's Landing?" she asked, accepting her daughter back when he handed her over. Joanna was smiling bright, her green-and-blue eyes glistening. "Pretty baby," she whispered to her.
"I wanted to see my granddaughter," Lord Tywin said. "And the Rock was being readied. I had a floor renovated for you and Jaime, so you might live comfortably there."
She thanked her good father, then took her leave to feed Joanna in the comforts of her own bedchamber. It was over with quickly, and she had only just enough time to retie her laces before Joanna was fast asleep on her lap.
Lyla curled her finger under her daughter's chin and sighed. Jaime was released, and would be looking to return to her. She wanted him at her side, wanted his arms around her and his lips on hers. She looked down and touch Joanna's little lips. They were the same shape as her father's, and it made Lyla's eyes water. I miss my husband, she thought miserably. I miss my father, and my home in Winterfell.
But Jaime and her father were gone, and Winterfell was a distant dream. Her eyes darted around to her reality, King's Landing. She remembered how hurt she had been when her father was selected to be Hand. She knew he would never come home, but she hadn't known then that she would never return to Winterfell. I am forever chained to the south, now, she thought sadly.
Lyla put Joanna to rest in the crib Lord Tywin had brought in for her weeks before, then went and watched the world go by, resting her arms on the balcony. It will not be summer forever, she reminded herself. I may be going to Casterly Rock, but I am bringing snow and steel with me.
I am a Stark, and Winter is Coming.
Two days' ride to either side of the kingsroad, they passed through a wide swath of destruction, miles of blackened fields, and orchards where the trunks of dead trees jutted into the air like archer's stakes. The bridges were burnt as well, and the streams were fattened with autumn rain, so they had to range along the banks in search of fords. The nights were filled with the howls of wolves, but they found no people.
It was at Maidenpool when they saw Lord Mooton's red salmon still flying above the castle on the hill. The towns, however, where deserted, the gates smashed, half the homes and shops burned and plundered. There was nothing living, but for stray dogs that skittered away at the slightest sound. The pool from which the town took its name, where legend said Florian the Fool had first glimpsed Jonquil bathing with her sisters, was so choked with rotting corpses that the water turned into a murky grey-green soup.
Jaime took one look and burst into song. "Six maids there were in a spring-fed pool..."
Brienne the Beauty snapped her head towards him. "What are you doing?"
"Singing. 'Six Maids in a Pool,' I'm sure you've heard it. Though somewhat prettier, I'll warrant."
"Be quiet," the wench said. The look on her face suggested she would have loved to seen him floating in the pool amongst the corpses.
"Unchain my hands and I'll play mute all the way to King's Landing. What could be fairer than that, wench?"
"Brienne! My name is Brienne!" A flock of crows went flapping into the air, startled at the sound.
"Care for a bath, Brienne?" He laughed. "You're a maiden and there's the pool. I'll wash your back." He remembered the tender baths he would share with Lyla. The first, the day after their wedding, the last, when they were finally together again in Riverrun...
Jaime missed his wife. He wanted nothing more than to run to her and bury himself in her arms and hold her until the world went black. He was shocked when Catelyn Stark had released him. "Bring my daughter back to me," she ordered. He'd had no objections. He wanted Lyla with him again- their time together had been too short, far, far too short. He wanted to kiss her and their daughter. If it meant gallivanting her off to Riverrun again to be with Lady Stark, that was fine by him.
The wench turned her horse's head and trotted away, catching Jaime's attention and pulling him back to reality. He followed her out of the ashes of Maidenpool, and half a mile on green began to creep back into the world once more. Jaime was glad for it. The burned lands reminded him too much of Aerys.
She's taking the Duskendale road, he noted. It would be safer than following the coast. Safer but slower, he thought.
They were riding past a trampled wheatfield and a low stone wall when Jaime heard the soft thrum from behind, as a dozen birds had taken flight at once. "Down!" he shouted, throwing himself against the neck of his horse. The gelding screamed and reared as an arrow took his rump. Another shaft went hissing past. His gelding lumbered off ponderously, blowing and snorting in pain. He glanced over to Brienne.
She was still ahorse, an arrow lodged into her back and another her leg. She didn't look like she even felt them. She pulled her sword and wheeled in a circle, searching for the bowman.
"Behind the wall," Jaime called, fighting to turn his half-blind mount back towards the fight. The reins were tangled in his damned chains. Fucking Stark, he thought, cursing Robb. It wasn't long before Lyla was gone that he chained Jaime again. The air was full of arrows again. "At them!" he shouted, kicking to show her how it was done.
The sad old horse found a jolt of speed and suddenly they were racing across the wheatfield, kicking up clouds of dust. The wench had better follow before they realize they're being charged my an unarmed man in chains.
Then he heard her coming hard behind. "Evenfall!" she shouted as her plow horse thundered by. She brandished her longsword. "Tarth! Tarth!"
A coupling of arrows flew harmlessly by, then a man, the bowman, broke into a run. The way unsupported bowmen always broke into a run before the charge of knights. Brienne reigned up at the wall. By the time Jaiem reached her, they had all melted into wood twenty yards away. "Lost your taste for battle?"
"They were running."
"That the best time to kill them."
Bowmen are fearless so long as they can hide behind a wall and shoot at you from afar, but if you come at them, they run. They know what will happen when you reach them. You have an arrow in your back, you know. And another in your leg. You ought to let me tend to them?"
"You?"
"Who else?"
The woods rang with course laughter. Brienne looked red-faced and flustered, clothing askew. By the looks of it, they might have caught them fucking, not fighting.
The men surrounded them. Swarthy Dornishmen, and blond Lyseni, Dothraki with bells in their braids, hairy Ibbenese, coal-blank Summer Islanders in feathered cloaks. He knew them. The Brave Companions.
Brienne found her voice. "I have a hundred stags-"
"We'll take that for a start, m'lady," said a cadaverous man in a tattered leather cloak."
"Then we'll have your cunt," said the noseless man. "It can't be as ugly as the rest of you."
"Turn her over and rape her arse, Rorge," urged a Dornish spearman with a red silk scarf wound about his helm. "That way you won't need to look at her."
"And rob her o' the pleasure o' looking at me?" Noseless said, and the other laughed.
Ugly and stubborn though she might be, the wench deserved better than to be gang raped by such refuse as these. "Who commands here?" Jaime demanded loudly. He couldn't sit by and watch it happen- he thought of what he might do if Lyla were there being threatened with rape.
"I have that honor, Ser Jaime." The cadaver's eyes were rimmed in red, his hair thin and dry. Dark blue veins could be seen through the pallid skin of his hands and face. "Urswyck I am. Called Urswyck the Faithful."
"You know who I am?"
The sellsword inclined his head. "It takes more than a beard to deceive the Brave Companions."
The Bloody Mummers you mean. Jaime had no more use for these than he did for Gregor Clegane or Amory Lorch. Dogs, his father called them all, and he used them like dogs, to hound his prey and pull fear from their hearts. "If you know me, Urswyck, you know you'll have your reward. A Lannister always pays his debts. As for the wench, as's highborn, and worth a good ransom."
The other cocked his head. "Is is so? How fortunate."
Jaime did not like the sly smile that crept onto Urswyck's lips. "You heard me. Where's the goat?"
"A few hours distant. He will be pleased to see you, I have no doubt, but I wouldn't call him a goat to his face. Lord Vargo grows prickly about his dignity."
since when had that slobbering savage had dignity? "I'll be sure and remember that, when I see him. Lord of what, pray?"
"Harrenhal. It has been promised."
Harrenhal? Jaime furrowed his brows. Has my father taken leave of his senses? He raised his hands. "I'll have these chains off." There came a paper dry chuckle from the depths of Urswyck's throat. Something felt wrong. "Did I say something amusing?"
Noseless grinned. "You're the funniest thing I seen since Biter chewed that septa's teats off."
"You and your father lost too many battles," offered the Dornishman. "We had to trade our lion pelts for wolf-skins."
Urswyck spread his hands. "What Timeon means to say is that the Brave Companions are no longer in the hire of House Lannister. We now serve Lord Bolton, and the King in the North."
Jaime snarled. "And men say I have shit for honor."
Urswyck was unhappy with the comment. On his signal, two of the Mummers grasped Jaime by the arms and Roge drove a mailed fist into his stomach. As he doubled over, grunting, he heard the wench protesting.
"Stop!" she said. "He's not to be harmed. Lady Catelyn sent us, to get a captive, he's under my protections..." Rorge hit him again, driving the air from his lungs. Brienne dove for her sword beneath the waters of the brook, but the Mummers were on her before she could ley her hands on it. Strong as she was, it took four of them to beat her into submission. He thanked the gods that Lyla was far, far away.
By the end the wench's face was swollen and bloody as Jaime's must have been. They'd knocked out two of her teeth, and it did nothing for her appearance. Stumbling and bleeding, the two captives were dragged back through the woods to the horses. Brienne was limping from the tight wound he'd given her in the brook. Jaime felt sorry for her. She would lose her maidenhood tonight, there was no doubting it.
"When we make camp for the night, you'll be raped, and more than once," he warned her. "You'd be wise not to resist. If you fight them, you'll lose more than a few teeth."
He felt Brienne's back stiffen against his. "Is that what you would do if you were a woman?"
He thought, for a moment, about what Lyla might have done. "If I were a woman, I'd make them kill me. But I'm not." Jaime kicked their horse into a trot. "Urswyck! A word!"
The cadaverous sellsword in the ragged leather cloak reigned up for a moment, then fell beside him. "What would you have of me, ser? And mind your tongue, or I'll chastise you again."
"Gold," said Jaime. "You do like gold?"
Urswyck studied him through reddened eyes. "It has its uses, I do confess."
Jaime flashed a knowing smile. "All the gold in Casterly Rock. Why let the goat enjoy it? Why not take us to King's Landing, and collect my ransom yourself? Hers as well, if you like. Tarth is called the Sapphire Isle, a maiden told me once." The wench squirmed at that, but said nothing.
"Do you take me for a turncloak?"
"Certainly. What else?"
For half a heartbeat Urswyck considered this proposition. "King's Landing is a long way, and your father is there. Lord Tywin may resent us for selling Harrenhal to Lord Bolton."
Cleverer than he looks, this one. "Leave me to deal with my father. I'll get you a knighthood."
"Ser Urswyck," the man said, savoring the sound. "How proud my dear wife would be to hear it. If only I hadn't killed her." He sighed. "And what of brave Lord Vargo?"
"Shall I sing you a verse of, "The Rains of Castamere'? The goat won't be quite so brave when my father gets hold of him."
"And how will he do that? Are your father's arms so long that they can reach over the walls of Harrenhal and pluck us out?"
"If need be," he said. King Harren's monstrous folly had fallen before, and it could fall again. "Are you such a fool as to think the goat can outfight a lion?"
Urswyck leaned over and slapped him lazily across the face. He is not scared of me, he realized with a chill. "I have heard enough, Kingslayer. I would have to be a great fool indeed to believe the promises of an oathbreaker like you." He kicked his horse and galloped smartly ahead.
Aerys, Jaime thought resentfully. It always turns to Aerys. "Why did you tell him Tarth was the Sapphire Isle?" Brienne whispered when Urswyck was out of earshot. "He's like to think my father's rich in gemstones..."
"You best pray he does."
"Is every word you say a lie, Kingslayer? Tarth is called the Sapphire Isle for the blue of its waters."
"Shout a little louder, wench, I don't think Urswyck heard you. The sooner they know how little you're worth in ransom, the sooner the rapes begin. Every man here will mount you, but what do you care? Just close your eyes, open your legs, and pretend they're all Lord Renly."
He thanked the Seven when her mouth stayed just for a time.
The day was nearly done by the time they found Vargo Hoat, sacking a small sept with another dozen of his Brave Companions. The leaded windows had been smashed, the carved wooden god dragged out into the sunlight. The fattest Dothraki Jaime had ever seen was sitting on the Mother's chest when they rode up, prying out her chalcedony eyes with the point of his knife. Nearby, a skinny balding septon hung upside down from the limb of a spreading chestnut tree. Three of the Brave Companions were using his corpse for an archery butt. One of the must have been good; for the dead man had arrows through both of his eyes.
When the sellswords spied Urswyck and the captives, a cry went up in half a dozen tongues. The goat was seated by a cookfire eating a half-cooked bird off a skewer, grease and blood running down his fingers into his long stringy beard. He wiped his hands in his tunic and rose. "Kingthlayer," he slobbered. "You are my captifth."
"My lord, I am Brienne of Tarth," the wench called out. "Lady Catelyn Stark commanded me to deliver Ser Jaime to his father in King's Landing."
The goat gave her a disinterested glance. "Thilence her."
"Hear me," Brienne entreated as Rorge cut the ropes that bound her to Jaime, "in the name of the King in the North, the king you serve, please, listen-"
Rorge dragged her off of the horse and began to kick her. "See that you don't break any bones," Urswyck called out. "The horse-faced bitch is worth her weight in sapphires."
The Dornishman Timeon and a foul-smelling Ibbenese pulled Jaime down from the saddle and shoved him roughly toward the cookfire. It would not have been hard for him to have grasped their sword hilts as they manhandled him, but there were too many, and he was still in fetters. He might cut down one or two, but in the end he would die for it. Jaime was not ready to die just yet, and certainly not for the likes of Brienne of Tarth. He wanted to die old and gray, with his wife at his side and his children around him.
"Thith ith a thweet day," Vargo Hoat said. Around his neck hung a chain linked in coins, coins of every shape and size, cast and hammered, bearing the likeness of kings, wizards, gods and demons, and all manner of fanciful beasts.
Coins from every land where he has fought, Jaime remembered. Greed was the key to this man. If he was turned once, he can be turned again. "Lord Vargo, you were foolish to leave my father's service, but it is not too late to make amends. He will pay well for me, you know it."
"Oh yeth," said Vargo Hoat. "Half the gold in Cathterly Rock, I thall have. But Firth I muth thend him a methage." He said something in his slithery goatish tongue.
Urswyck shoved him in the back, and a jester in green and pink motley kicked his legs out from under him. When he hit the ground one of the archers grabbed the chain between Jaime's wrists and used it to yank his arms out in front of him. The fat Dothraki put aside his knife to unsheathe a huge curved arakh, the wickedly sharp scythe sword the horselords loved.
They mean to scare me, he thought. The fool hopped on Jaime's back, giggling, as the Dothraki swagger towards him. The goat wants me to piss my breeches and beg his mercy, but he'll never have that pleasure. He was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, future Warden of the West, formerly of the Kingsguard; no sellsword could make him scream.
Sunlight ran silver along the edge of the arakh as it came shivering down, almost too fast to see.
And Jaime screamed.