Jaime wishes Tyrion were with him so he could describe the dreams to his brother and listen to his explanation. Tyrion has read so many books, he's sure some must be about dreams and supernatural things. Jaime regrets spending so little time reading, on the pretext of his difficulty in distinguishing words.
Tyrion had offered him help several times over the years, but Jaime had always entrenched himself in the belief that it was not important for a knight to be able to read and write well, behind the fear that knowledge was an attribute of the kind of Lord that he stubbornly refused to become.
Now the trophy of the stupidest Lannister definitely belongs to him. He needs help, maybe a septon could provide it, but the risk of being identified is too high.
His hand and sword are the elements that can betray him.
A witch, a healer, someone from the smallfolk would be more suitable in this circumstance.
After seeing Bran Stark's eyes transform into those of a greenseer - the three-eyed raven - and hearing his voice when they spoke inside the Godswood, Jaime believes there are superior forces, against which a man and his sword have no power.
In his youth he had acted too many times against the will of the Gods, but now as a grown man he has understood and atoned, being left with one hand, losing Tommen and Myrcella, fighting during the long night.
He remembers there were huts in the woods before arriving at the inn - maybe some of the inhabitants are accustomed to the dark arts – and so he quickly grabs his clothes, leaves his golden hand on the bed and takes the sword.
Going down the stairs there is a figure next to the huge fire of the inn; a woman is cleaning some vegetables.
"Do you need anything, Ser?"
Jaime has been silent, not wanting to disturb anyone, but the woman must have very sensitive hearing, helped by the silence of the night and the absence of people around.
He observes her, from under the scarf she wears around her head he glimpses red hair, the same colour as that of the innkeeper who had welcomed him on his arrival. Perhaps she is the mother, perhaps the grandmother; it is difficult to define the age of the woman, she could also be younger than her wrinkles suggest.
"I'm looking for someone who can heal strange wounds. The ones you don't see."
She smiles with the few teeth she has left, but nevertheless it is a kind smile, not repulsive.
"We don't have a maester here, my Lord, the village is too small. But my daughter helps women deliver their babes and my sister knows the herbs and things of the heart."
The last words seem directed at Jaime, as if the woman already knew his true needs.
"Where's your sister?"
"I will accompany you, if you will. Her house is beyond the inn's vegetable gardens."
The starry night allows Jaime to see where to put his feet and not to step on the squares of cultivated land, the sustenance of a group of families; the poverty of the village is confirmed by the chicken coop made of broken planks and by the paddock without draft horses.
The woman knocks three times in quick succession on a dark wooden door and calls in a low voice for someone named Anwen; after maybe a minute the peephole opens.
Anwen has the same face as her sister, with fewer wrinkles.
"Come in, Goldenhand."
She doesn't seem surprised to have night-time visitors.
Jaime can't help gasping, is it possible that the woman saw him when he arrived to call him so?
He hadn't noticed if there were people around, his hand had been covered with a black glove and Jaime had stayed for a short time in the common room: could this woman called Anwen really read the signs of mystery more than he wants to admit?
Cersei is obsessed with Maggie's prophecy and Jaime is afraid to be conditioned in the opposite direction, to reject everything the woman could tell him precisely because his sister ruined her life by making sure to fulfil the prophecy, at the cost of the lives of their three children.
The fire is still burning and gives off heat, two oil lamps shine above a table, it does not look like a witch's house; behind a partially pulled across curtain Jaime sees two heads sleeping in a bed, the long hair of two little girls. One has hair the same colour as Myrcella.
Do witches have families or are they forced by the ghosts and demons that work with them to live outside villages, on the edge of forests?
"You're staring at me, Ser. What are you afraid of?"
"Nothing."
"Liar. In the past, perhaps, not anymore. You're afraid you won't be able to do something, scared you're too late."
In the past anyone who called the Kingslayer a liar would not have lived to see the new sun.
"You can say these things because your sister saw me arrive at the inn at a gallop."
"You know that's not true."
Jaime tries to speak with the scornful tone he uses to mock people, but he can't, he's no longer the man who once would have dared without fear.
Anwen approaches Jaime, she invites him to sit on the bench by the fire and takes the stump in her hands, removing the fabric that covers it; instinctively he retracts, no one since Qyburn has attempted to touch the most repellent part of his body. Cersei has come to tolerate it - as on the last night of love they spent together, the one in which Jaime was sure she had become pregnant - but never to feel it with her own hands.
Brienne didn't care, though she preferred a glove to cover the horrific cut.
Anwen stares at him with two dark eyes, almost black in the reflection of the lamps.
"You're here to look for answers. Don't cover your wound. It's always a part of you."
"I dreamt that I held a sword without my fingers."
Anwen listens to the tale of the dream and Jaime reports it with great precision, at first hesitating, as if a knight cannot be afraid of what happens to him in his sleep.
Jaime's tone soon becomes more pressing and Anwen holds his arm and begins to massage it with circular movements, tracing small marks around the edge of the cut - light and non-intrusive touches - while she keeps her eyes half-closed, as if to remove herself from the place where they are.
When Jaime concludes, adding that he has always considered Cersei's fears regarding an old prophecy silly, Anwen remains silent for a few minutes, without ceasing to caress the fragile, rosy skin.
A touch that reassures Jaime and the instinct that in the past would have made him laugh at the situation is tempered by the need to find understanding and an explanation.
"Your story is not decided yet."
Anwen speaks in a different voice, which somehow reminds Jaime of the East wind that passes through the branches of the trees and makes the leaves move, a slight hiss that amplifies every words.
"You've made your choice, Goldenhand, you've left one woman and you're running to another."
Jaime painfully grits his teeth, he is not proud of how he behaved toward Brienne, because of the wine and the escaped danger.
He believed he could feel something for the blonde warrior, so as to cover the dishonour that he caused her, but what he shares with his twin sister is stronger and more intense than any other feeling, Brienne does not know about his unborn child to come, nor about his desire to save other innocent creatures, fleeing away south forever.
"She is your past and your future. A possible future if you are cautious and shrewd enough to overcome the obstacles in your path."
The living hand rests on the woman's. Jaime realizes that he wants this future with all his being; Cersei is his world, always was, always will be.
"I need to understand the dream."
"What you dreamed of is clear. Your sword and hand must disappear. People mustn't see them and the dragon doesn't have to burn them."
Anwen has opened her eyes, they are wide open and she stares at Jaime as if she is piercing him with her gaze.
The knight is nailed to the wood on which he sits, he feels a powerful force that reminds him of Bran's words - before the battle against the Night King - about the future.
Bran had neither promised nor denied and Anwen says the same, but she adds that Jaime's task is to forge this hope with intelligence.
The lion is afraid, he knows it well, he is a good military strategist, but he isn't skilled off the battlefield, because his impulses and desires have always dominated him, not like his father or Cersei, who learned at her own expense the practice of exercising power.
Jaime leaves some coins for Anwen, she refuses and he insists, soon soldiers will pass through the village, ready to raid; her daughters need food, and there is also a younger son who is sleeping with his father in the other bed. He's doing so in memory of Myrcella and Tommen, two innocents who didn't deserve their fate.
Leaving the house, the light of dawn opens to the East, while from the South the wind carries smellS of rain. Jaime saddles his horse, picks up his few things and stares at the fire of the inn's great chimney. There are black coals now quite gone out, he takes one and passes it over his sword. It is a pity to darken and stain it, but it is a sword that makes recognizable those who brandish her, too recognizable in such an uncertain hour.
The innkeeper and his wife observe him, Jaime does not know if the red-haired woman told them about his encounter with Anwen.
Jaime looks at his hand, having worn it through habit, he could still use it to help himself with the reins, but he is too close to the capital, where many remember him and many still fear him.
The hand ends up in the bag tied to the saddle.
He asks the innkeeper's wife for hay and fabric cut-outs, uses them to fill his glove and asks her to tie it tightly to his right forearm.
From a distance he looks like a knight with two hands.
Up close his sword is even faster than many others.
He hopes that it is enough to get inside the fortress, to reach the most important person in his life.
Jaime covers his head with the cloak hood as the thunder screams, bringing rain.