THE SHROUDS OF GOLD
Jaime I
Jaime had been denied the chance to see his son's body. Cersei had seen him burned and buried without ceremony on the very day of his death. She hadn't even seen fit to send a raven. Not that a raven would have been of much use seeing as he had reached the Capital only two days after Tommen had left the world and just in time to watch his twin take a seat on that damned throne. The image had been like stepping back through time to a time when he was still golden-haired and unmaimed and proud, a time when he himself had been found slumped on that same throne and stained by a deed he would never explain…
That stain mocked him now. Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. A man without honour. He should have searched out Aerys' cursed stashes of wildfire himself back when he had the chance, then perhaps she wouldn't have…
But she would have, that was the problem.
When he'd seen that smoke drifting in the breeze above King's Landing he had felt many things; horror, dread, sadness and anger, but not surprise. No, there had been no surprise, and it was that which surprised him. He wondered just how long he'd known, somewhere deep in his heart, that his other half was capable of such an act?
He'd tried to pinpoint the moment, obsessed over it even, while he had quietly organized all the remaining caches of Wildfire smuggled out of King's Landing. Had it been the day their mother died, perhaps, when he'd first seen the loathing he could never fully understand twisting her beautiful face? Had it been the day their father sat them down, still knobby kneed and damn near indistinguishable from one another, and laid out the vastly different courses their lives would take? He had never forgotten the moment the stutters closed behind her gaze; he'd spent the next thirty years trying for just one more peek at the girl they locked away. In the end, all this obsession had done was yield an even more unsettling question. What if that girl he remembered had existed nowhere but in his own mind?
Bronn was talking, but then Bronn was always talking and Jaime had long since grown accustomed to blocking him out. He'd shut up briefly at the sight of the Sept, but not even mass slaughter had been able to keep the sellsword quiet long. He'd cursed a strip off Cersei all the way to the Red Keep and Jaime had found himself too numb to even attempt to stop him. The man's sense of self preservation was strong though, and he'd held his tongue any time his words may have found their way back to his sister's ears.
"You listenin' to a word I'm sayin'?"
"No." Jaime didn't bother to deny his disinterest. Bronn had pulled his horse up beside him at the head of the formation. A breach of proper procedure, yes, but neither unexpected nor irregular by this point…
"I was sayin' we should be careful with our approach — "
Gods, he was tired.
The thought pushed the sellsword's voice aside like smoke invading a room. He hadn't always been, he knew that, but for the love of him he could not remember just when the feeling had taken up residence deep in his very bones. Perhaps this was how Tommen had felt in his final moments? Exhausted in a way that no amount of sleep seemed to touch…
Oh, Cersei hadn't told him how their youngest had died, but he knew. Even without the snide remarks and accusations hissed from shadowed corners of the city, he knew. Joffrey had been all Cersei's and Myrcella as well, although in a different way, but Tommen… No one begrudged a second-born son time spent with his uncle.
Uncles, he corrected himself, Tyrion had always loved his niece and nephew. The way he used to make them laugh, their grins as he told them secret stories his sister would never have allowed… Jaime could hate his brother through and through for what he did to their father (and by extension, Cersei) but he would never hate those memories. He wondered if Tyrion knew what had happened to those innocent children? Wherever his brother was in the world, Jaime wondered if there was anyone to tell him.
"Send for a raven when we make camp for the night," he instructed Bronn abruptly. His request was met with silence and he turned to look at the sellsword for the first time. There was an odd look on the older man's face, Jaime would have almost thought it was sympathy if he believed that Bronn was capable of such a feeling or that he were worthy of warranting it.
"I wrote him before we rode out. Didn't figure your sister would."
Jaime could only stare at him.
"Your brother, I mean," Bronn elaborated with a shrug, "He was always goin' on about those kids."
Something clenched so tightly in Jaime's chest that it stole his breath away for a moment. Pain, he realized, and the thought damn near made him laugh. The mighty Kingslayer, brought to his knees by sadness. Joffrey would have found it hilarious, and likely would have added it to that damned book as his one and only noble deed — dying like a fucking woman.
"Jaime."
The knight looked up, his own name cutting through the noise in his head.
Bronn was glaring at him. "Get your shit together. We're into the Riverlands now, we need to be alert."
Heaving a sigh, Jaime pulled himself straighter in the saddle and tried to clear his head. Godsdamned Riverlands. Godsdamned useless Freys. They'd only been there to clean up their mess a month ago, and yet it seemed they'd fucked up again. "You really think there's something to Qyburn's rumours?"
"Rumour's got to start somewhere, can't say I'm keen to meet whatever started this one."
Jaime frowned. "House Frey is more than one hundred men strong," he mused, "Perhaps someone finally offed old Walder, but to slaughter the entire House would be…"
"Mighty impressive," Bronn smirked, "You sure there ain't any Starks left?"
"Just Sansa Stark and the bastard up north," Jaime replied with far less amusement than the sellsword.
Bronn looked almost disappointed, as though the thought of the Freys reaping what they sowed at the hands of a wayward Stark was something he could get behind. Jaime ignored him. The Red Wedding was hardly a more pleasant topic to consider than his previous line of thinking, just more honourless slaughter. He remembered Joffrey's utter joy at the news, his father's quiet pride, Tyrion's horror, and the self-satisfied smirk Cersei had worn for days (when she wasn't eyeing his stump with distaste.) Perhaps that was the moment he knew…
"So, are you running or did she put you out?"
Fucking, Bronn. "Aren't you the one who believes the rumours we're here to investigate?" Jaime snapped.
The sellsword wasn't fazed. "Running, then."
"I am not — " Jaime began harshly, but reined himself in. Bronn didn't know. He couldn't know. Only Tyrion and Brienne knew the truth of that day, only they would understand why he couldn't stay… "We are following our Queen's orders to investigate rumours of a massacre and violence in the Riverlands, and that's the end of it."
The sellsword gave him a look Jaime couldn't be bothered to decipher and a mock bow. "And the barrels of wildfire we're haulin' all over the bloody country?"
Jaime didn't dignify that with a response. He should never have told the older man what was in those barrels. The increased risk of a fiery death would have been almost worth it to keep him quiet.
Bronn rolled his eyes, clearly sensing the dismissal and actually acquiescing for once. He slowed his horse to rejoin the rest of the formation behind them, whistling the tune to the Rains Of Castamere jauntily as he did so.
