A/N - Double update since I'm a little ahead!

And here you come
With a shield for a heart
And a sword for a tongue – Medusa, Carol Ann Duffy

Jaime was bored. They'd spent the last three days in near silence, with Bryn providing nothing but monosyllabic replies to any attempt at conversation. The only moment that even approached excitement was their crossing of the Trident; they had no boat (she doubted that they could get one across the river even if they had taken an oar each) and the only bridge posed the risk of their being seen. Nevertheless, they had risked the crossing, and made it across unmolested. Now, Bryn was leading her through dense forest, pausing every few miles to consult a small compass hanging from his robe. He had insisted that this way was safer, since while he could defend himself adequately enough, he would be no match for any outlaws they might encounter if they risked one any of the known roads.

She had to admit that it was not an entirely ridiculous idea, but the walk seemed as endless as it was dull. I am going home; she forced herself to think, back to my children, back to Caesare.

"Where did Catelyn Stark find you anyway?" Jaime asked, desperate to break the heavy silence that hung over the forest; even the animals seemed to be in hiding, or the peasants had killed them all for food. "Houses don't tend to have more than one maester, and the one at Winterfell was as grey as his robe."

"I was serving at Renly's camp when she came to speak with him." Bryn told her. She was surprised by his answer, not least because he had been steadfastly ignoring her all day.

"Renly? Really? I would have thought Stannis was more your kind of king: honourable, serious, dull beyond belief. Renly was so… frivolous. You didn't fancy him, did you?"

"Gods, no."

"Then what was it?" Bryn gave no answer, only trudged onwards. Jaime doubted that even her father had ever put such effort into ignoring her.

"Come on… what was it? It must have been something. You're so… honourable, I suppose, and his was not the strongest claim; even all the wealth of Highgarden was not enough to make him King."

His jaw twitched at that, and Jaime smiled.

"Oh, you lost your heart to Highgarden then? Margaery Tyrell is, I grant you, very pretty. Not that Renly will have noticed. Does it make your blood boil to think that he likely just turned her over and imagined she was her brother?" It was a shot in the dark, but it found its target. Though Bryn did not stop his relentless march forwards, she could see the tension winding through his shoulders and arms; the knuckles holding her chains turning white.

"Lord Renly's personal matters were not and are not my concern."

"You were his maester; your purpose was to be concerned with his personal matters," Jaime pointed out, but Bryn would not hear her.

"I saw to his wounds and those of the men at camp. His marriage was his own business."

He is stubborn enough to be a Baratheon himself, Jaime thought, but does he fight like one?

"You wished his wife was yours, though. If it's any consolation, even you would have done a better job as her husband; I can only imagine where Renly was sticking-"

"Shut up," he snapped. He tugged her chain to make her walk faster; how he enjoys making my wrists bleed.

"Touchy, aren't we?"

"You will not provoke me to anger, Kingslayer."

"Oh won't I? Tyrion is the betting man in our family, but I'd place a wager that I could; how much would it take before you struck me, do you think?"

"I will not strike you." But you want to.

"You're a man, at least in some capacity, of course you will." They all had; she lost count of Robert's blows before Myrcella was born, and even Caesare's hand had flown when Joffrey first stirred within her. He had held her afterwards, when she promised the child was his.

Her father never had to touch her; he could do more damage with one look than Robert could with a thousand war hammers.

"That is not something to make light of." Bryn chastised her, and Jaime laughed mirthlessly.

"What is there to do but make light of it? It was my favourite game in King's Landing; how far can I push dear Robert before his hand flies? The bruises were like badges and it would be at least a fortnight before he crawled into my bed again. I suppose it would lose some of its charm with you, since I'm stuck with you whether you hit me or no. Though I am sure your noble guilt about it would give me amusement for a time."

"Does it bring you joy to see people suffer?" Bryn asked, though it sounded as though he had made up his mind on the subject. Catelyn Stark had been the same; why do they insist on asking me when they think they know the answers?

"Not everyone; your Lady Catelyn, for example, seems the type to bear her suffering with stoic dignity, and that is so boring. Robert, on the other hand, liked to drink and shout and throw things at Lancel, which was terribly funny. You I haven't figured out yet, but we've a long journey ahead of us." She smiled at him, and the look she received in return could have curdled milk.

"Oh come on," she teased, "You must have some reply to give, some cutting words to reproach my callousness. It's no fun to bait you when you won't dance."

"Then I don't see why I should give you the satisfaction."

"I'm really not convinced you could give me any kind of satisfaction, maester eunuch, but it's going to be a terribly dull walk if you won't at least play along."

She had expected more sullen silence, but instead he stopped and turned to her. It occurred to Jaime then that he had never looked at her properly before; he was all cursory glances to check she was behaving herself, never really showing more than a perfunctory interest. Now that she felt his gaze boring into her, Jaime found it hard to meet his eye.

"Why?" he spat, "You have no power over me. You carry yourself like a queen and yet you are not. You boast like a knight and yet you have no sword. You speak of your brother as though he was your husband, yet he has a wife to warm his bed. Only the Gods know why Lady Catelyn has sent you back to King's Landing; I for one cannot fathom what exactly you are worth."

As much as my father will pay to get me back; more gold than your entire island is worth. Jaime knew that no matter how much she disgusted him, Tywin Lannister would never suffer the indignity of allowing his only daughter to die at the hands of the Starks. Or is it as much as he'd sell me for? A few copper stars. She tutted,

"Is that the best you can do? Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music's still playing. Sing me another sweet song."

"Is this nothing more than a game to you? You think that taunting me will get you home any faster?"

"No, but it might make me feel better about being your prisoner. At least when we get back to King's Landing it will be in my power to have you executed."

I wouldn't. But I could. Jaime regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth; she had no plans to renege on her oath to Catelyn Stark, and no matter how much she disliked him, she could trust no-one else to deliver the Stark girls back to their mother.

She expected anger from him, it would have been deserved, but it was not there. She would have relished his fury; instead she found nothing but pity.

"It is no wonder Joffrey is what he is with a mother like you. If he is a mark of your tender care then I pray for Tommen and Myrcella."

A knife between her ribs. Her breath caught.

"I couldn't help Joffrey. Don't you dare presume I never tried; there was nothing I could do."

"Is it any wonder? With his parentage, it's lucky he's not as malformed as he is cruel."

She started forward, expecting him to back away, but he stayed stubbornly where he stood as she hissed,

"Don't talk about him like that."

"Why shouldn't I? He is no better than you are: he's a monster."

"And my son."

Nothing he had said was untrue (and she couldn't deny what Joffrey was any more than she could stop loving him), but even the idea of this pig-headed maester from some backwater island speaking about her son as though he was nothing more than a badly trained dog had every muscle in her body tense with anger. Rid me of these chains, maester eunuch, and you will see how much of a monster I can be.

"I can't imagine your father is particularly pleased with having a sickly, whining, cripple for a son," she continued, "but I suppose he loves you as best he can."

"I do not choose to be sickly, and my Father did not make me so; Joffrey chooses to kill and maim with the power of a crown that should never be his."

"I thought his nature was the unavoidable result of his parentage. You claim such moral superiority, but how much whiter are you really?" He frowned, and she hated him. She hated his whining voice and his sallow face and his crooked teeth. He hated his clear eyes that hardened when he looked at her. "Every other sentence you utter is a contradiction of the previous one; you condemn me for my whoredom with your vows and that chain around your neck, but when you close your eyes at night I know you see Margaery Tyrell's firm little tits bouncing as she rides whatever it is you have that passes as a cock."

Bryn took a furious step towards her before he checked himself. Not the way that Joffrey had, afraid of retaliation, but as though he knew he would regret the action. He truly does not want to hurt me. More fool him.

They were so close that Jaime could feel the hilt of Bryn's dagger brushing against her hip. Triumph swelled in her chest as she leaned in to whisper in his ear,

"Go on; do it. I know you want you. Wrap your hands around this pretty white throat and squeeze the venom out. Kill me; break your oath. Feel how freedom feels."

For a moment, she almost thought he would, so intense was the fury that set his face like stone.

"I will not kill you."

"Then maybe it is you who will gasp your last, sad, breaths on this road. I opened the Mad King's throat; yours would not present a problem."

His neck is smaller than mine. Perhaps I would not even need a knife.

"Do not presume me so stupid as to arm you."

Jaime smiled, wrapping a hand around the hilt of the dagger.

"Oh believe me, I do not. I can arm myself without your help." It took no more than a heartbeat for her to pull the dagger from its sheath, and no more than a heartbeat for Bryn to clutch her arm and twist it behind her. She slammed into the trunk of a tree, the bark pressing into the soft skin of her cheek.

"Drop the knife." Bryn ordered. His grip was tight and his voice hard but Jaime kept her fingers curled around her weapon, now pressed between her back and his stomach. She aimed a swift kick at his shins and he stumbled; the point of the knife tore Bryn's robe, but no blood bloomed from the place. A pity, Jaime thought, but soon remedied.

However, she had no sooner raised the knife than her back was against the tree, her hands pinned above her and the dagger hanging uselessly in her grip. Bryn's face was flushed; his breath came in hard sharp gusts and he breathed,

"Drop it. Now."

Jaime cocked an eyebrow.

"Why not take it? You know you could." She arched her back, slowly pressing her softness against him. Despite being thin from weeks of imprisonment, her body still moulded to his shape. He shivered, and she knew she was winning.

"Just give it to me," he panted.

"You know I won't. If you want it, you're going to have to take it. Or aren't you strong enough?"

She had never imagined he could look so murderous. Sharp eyes searched her face and his brow furrowed; he tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth, and Jaime smiled.

"You don't know if you want to fight me or fuck me; pick either, it does not matter. They will both taste the same, and sweeter than your honour ever could."

"And what do you know of honour?"

"That it is bitter."

A flicker of confusion flitted across Bryn's face, his grip loosed ever so slightly, but before he could speak, there came a cough from behind them.

Bryn sprang away from her, his face flushed and his robe twisting around him; Jaime's skirts were in disarray, her chest still heaving. We look as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting.

The armed men surrounded them, and Jaime wondered how neither she nor the maester had noticed their approach. Outlaws, she thought, but then she really looked; these were not deserters and broken men, they were the scum scraped from every corner of the world. Blond Lyseni stood by Summer Islanders with feathered cloaks and skin as black as pitch; Caesare had told her about these men, The Brave Companions. The cougher was a cadaverous man whose thin, pale lips were curled in a vicious smile as he looked her up and down with red-rimmed eyes.

"Well met, friends." Jaime called with a smile, "I am sorry you had to come upon us in such a state! A lovers' tiff and nothing more, though I'll wager it sounded more like a battle, for here you are to enforce the peace. May I say what a pleasure it is to see such strong, brave men guarding the Riverlands in these troubled times."

The sound of their coarse laughter set her teeth on edge, and she griped Bryn's knife a little tighter.

"My lady Kingslayer," the cadaver wheezed, "I think the pleasure will be all ours."

A/N - If you would be so kind as to leave a review, that'd be just swell :)