Brienne leaned over the rail and, despite the twinge of pain from her wound, took a deep breath of the salty cold sea air. She was reminded of home and closed her eyes for a moment, lost in the memory of warm sunlight on her face as she stared out over the rich blue waters of Tarth. Her hand found her face and flitted over the torn flesh of her cheek. Would she ever see home again?
"Are you as much in need of fresh air as I am?"
She turned to see Jaime sauntering across the deck toward her. His hair ruffled in the breeze, his bearded jawline seemingly highlighted by sun that touched nothing else under the grey winter skies.
"Pod isn't a sailor," she said, turning back to look down over the rail again, hating the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach at the sight of Jaime. There was a distance between them she could not bridge and even the thought of it was nearly too much to bear.
"Nor is Hunt. I don't know if it's the stench of vomit or the rough waves, but Sandor has made himself scarce," Jaime said, stepping up beside her and resting his forearms on the rail as he leaned down next to her. "It must be so strange not to have been born on water."
She knew what he meant and nodded, wondering about his childhood on the Sunset Sea. Closing her eyes again, she could see the stretching waters of Shipbreaker Bay in her mind. Would the waters of their childhoods differ so greatly? She knew Evenfall Hall was tiny compared to Casterly Rock, and the Sunset Sea fearsomely large when compared to the Bay. Her life was so small in comparison to Jaime's.
The day before, when he'd climbed over the rail onto the deck of the ship, she'd been baffled and started to ask him if she'd forgotten something.
"Which bunk is mine?" he'd asked, never giving her the chance. And she hadn't said a word, afraid to break the spell which brought him aboard. Ser Hyle had grumbled and gone below with Jaime while The Hound simply watched them all, unblinking.
Even now, she could scarce believe Jaime was with her and couldn't bring herself to ask him why. She glanced over at him. Why did you come with me? What of those who need you in the South?
"When I was a child I always dreamt of crossing the Narrow Sea," she said, grasping for conversation. "I never made it east of Tarth."
"I sent Tyrion off over the Narrow Sea," Jaime said, squinting as he stared out over the rough water. "Well, that's where I meant to send him. He had his own ideas."
Brienne swallowed and didn't respond.
"I couldn't let them kill him," he said, with a bitter laugh. "I released him and he killed my father."
Taking a deep breath, Brienne looked out over the water, wondering what Jaime saw in the empty sea that made him speak of these things. She remembered Catelyn Stark's ruined head rolling from its rotted body and understood his need to speak of culpability no one else could ever understand.
Jaime continued, "I knew he was innocent. I knew it. And do you know what he told me when I released him from that black cell? My beloved little brother told me he did it, he told me he killed my son."
She nearly trembled with the weight of his confession. Even as she felt the pain of it, the burden he bore, a part of her wondered why he was telling her any of this. Had he forgiven her?
"He killed Joffrey," Jaime said, "but someone needed to kill him, and if anyone had reason, it was Tyrion. So I let him go. But then he killed my father, and..."
Brienne swallowed again, trying to imagine what would make a father say his child deserved to die.
"I wronged my little brother, you see," Jaime said softly, so softly Brienne leaned a bit closer, not certain she had heard him correctly. "He had something, once. The only thing he'd ever wanted. And I helped my father take it from him. My father took this thing from Tyrion so cleverly he never even knew what had been done, not until I confessed it to him when I released him from his prison.
"I killed my father that night, surely as if I'd held that wretched crossbow myself."
Brienne felt her eyes grow wide in surprise and turned her face from him to hide her reaction-to hide her interest in what he would say next.
But Jaime was silent then. Regretful of his confession, or merely reflecting on it, she could not be sure. She chewed her lip and wondered if he expected her to respond.
"You would never touch a crossbow," she whispered.
Jaime chuckled at that. "That much is true. Kinslayer, Kingslayer, but at least I'd never touch a crossbow."
"Tarth is famous for its arrows."
He smiled, looked at her conspiratorially and whispered, "I know."
Her heart began to pound as she felt things ease between them. If he'd forgiven or temporarily forgotten, she didn't know. All she knew was that she would do anything to keep things like this between them.
"I can't remember my brother," she said, unsure if she should continue. "I have a vague impression of him in my mind perhaps, but no real memory. Yet if someone came to me today and told me I could save him, though I know him not, be he a good man or an evil one, I think I might do anything to let him live."
"And so you would absolve me of my sins," Jaime said, then he sighed. "Love of a brother is justification enough for the murder of a father? And if that brother had betrayed you just as you had betrayed him..."
"As I betrayed you."
He barked out a laugh and gave her a long look. "I forgot. You're the one who wants absolution. Everyone betrays me, Brienne, and you owe me less loyalty than any of the rest."
"Forgive me."
"I would, just to stop you moaning about it."
"Jaime."
He gave an exasperated shake of his head and looked out into the distance again. "You would have to wrong me before I could forgive you."
Again they reached this impasse. He said there was nothing to forgive, and yet she felt it between them again. She pushed down the memory of his face as they'd left Pennytree, of the utter confidence he'd had in her competence and her honor. I handed you over to your enemies, Jaime, she thought. I believed I could save all of you, but I took you to them and you can't forget it.
As they leaned against the rail side-by-side, she tried to remember a time when she wouldn't have cared if she led Jaime Lannister to his death, those early days when every moment in his presence was a trial, when the very sight of his smugly beautiful face filled her with loathing. But all she could remember was Jaime shouting "Sapphires!", and the thud of his feet landing in the bear pit. All she could recall was that when all hope had abandoned her, when she had known no rescue would come, Jaime had been there. She swallowed past the heavy lump in her throat and wished it could all be undone somehow.
Later that night, she left Pod alone in their small cabin and found Jaime on deck again. They shared a supper of stale bread and cheese, sitting with their backs against the ship's rail. Neither could stomach eating in the stench of their cabins and even the cold wind and spray off the waves was preferable to what awaited them below.
"They say Tyrion didn't consummate the marriage," Jaime said, as though he were commenting on the weather.
Brienne was grateful for the cover of darkness as she blushed. "You once told me he was chivalrous."
He have a low chuckle. "Did I? He can be."
"Perhaps he is not all bad."
Jaime snorted and said, "Not all bad, hmm? Or mayhaps Sansa Stark is simply more clever than anyone could guess."
Brienne bristled, memories of her terrified younger self finding the courage to defy Ser Humfrey Wagstaff springing to mind. But not all girls could wield a sword. "Even a clever maid can rarely expect such accommodation. Surely your own sister prayed her maidenhead would be spared the night she wed the king."
Jaime laughed again, but it had a sharp, brittle sound. "Do you think Cersei was a maid on her wedding day?"
Brienne felt herself blushing even more furiously, but she continued to stare at him, feeling defensive of all womankind. "Why did you let her go, then? If you were already..."
"If we were already...what? Fucking? I couldn't stop it. Life isn't a song, Brienne. I was already in the Kingsguard. And besides, she wouldn't have wanted me to interfere."
"How do you know? If you had gone to her and told her-"
Jaime wasn't laughing anymore. "Told her what? That I wanted to wed her as the Targaryens would have done? Or say if years later we'd been separated for over a year and she'd been widowed and when I returned I saw things so clearly that I begged her to marry me. What if, upon returning to King's Landing, I sought my sweet sister in the holy sept, and fucked her on the Mother's alter strewn with candles lit for our dead son whose body was on a bier beside us, and what if I told her I'd forsake my vows and tear the world apart to have her as my wife?"
He was angry and glaring at her, as though she'd played a part in it all. Her own anger had fled in the face of his pain and bitterness. "Is this why you have not returned to King's Landing? The Elder Brother told me the queen had been seized by the High Septon."
Jaime sighed and held his golden hand up before his face and examined it, twisting it left, then right. "She will find someone new to be her warrior. It will not be me."
Brienne searched his face, wondering how he could mean what he said, but wondering more how anyone could resist Jaime Lannister if he laid the world at their feet.
Just then, Sandor Clegane emerged from belowdecks. He spotted them and walked over to the rail beside Jaime. They both looked up at him from their seated position. It was a rare moment when anyone made Brienne feel small, but this man made her feel insignificant. It wasn't that he was so much taller, it was the hulking, angry presence of him that made her uneasy. If this was Sandor Clegane at peace, she shuddered to think what he had been like in torment.
"A sailor's just been telling me a tale, he says the Blackfish escaped your net," Clegane said to Jaime.
Jaime had a look of distaste. "So he did. Slippery old trout."
"The squire told me the outlaws heard you threatened to put Edmure Tully's wife in a trebuchet if he didn't surrender Riverrun."
Brienne held her breath and glanced at Jaime out of the corner of her eye. A muscle worked in his jaw, and he narrowed his gaze at some point across the deck. "His child," Jaime said. "It was his unborn babe I offered to send him in a trebuchet, once it was born."
Brienne felt chilled. Suddenly she could hear the mocking laughter of Jaime Lannister as she'd first known him. She knew if she closed her eyes she would find herself in the dungeons of Riverrun again, eyes wide as she tried not to eavesdrop through the door of Jaime's cell.
Clegane laughed. "And where is Edmure now?"
"I sent him to the Rock and told him if he behaved he could have his wife and child."
Brienne stared down at the crust of bread in her hand as The Hound grumbled something about seasick hedge knights to Jaime before he went back down to his cabin. Alone again, they sat silently in The cold as she tried not to think about what she'd just heard.
She looked over to see Jaime staring pensively across the deck, likely pondering Clegane's questions about the Blackfish.
"I should go see to Podrick," Brienne mumbled, rising to her feet and giving him one last backward glance.
Jaime simply sat and watched her go, his face devoid of expression. She didn't know what she expected.
In the cabin, she saw to the slop bucket and sat down next to Pod. His skin was damp and ghostly in the soft light of the lantern. The smell of sickness was not as bad as it had been. She suspected Pod had nothing left to give the sea. When she offered him a sip of water, the boy looked up at her briefly, then closed his eyes again in misery and whispered, "Ser..."
"Hush, Pod. Only one more day to Gulltown. You'll survive."
She doused the lantern and climbed onto the bunk above Pod, though it was made for a man a foot shorter than she. Cramped and miserable, her wound aching, she reached out to touch Oathkeeper where it was hanging from a rusty old nail driven into the bedpost. She tried not to imagine what Renly would have said if he'd heard someone threaten to load an infant into a trebuchet.
"He had something, once. The only thing he'd ever wanted. And I helped my father take it from him," Jaime had said.
"I sought my sweet sister in the holy sept, and fucked her..."
For a time she stared into the darkness, trying not to think of Jaime's face, but he filled her thoughts just the same. First the whisper of his breath in her ear as his nose grazed her skin. Then she saw his green eyes, cold and mocking and resigned as he gave her an almost imperceptible left-handed salute with his sword before they began their fight to the death. A woman who betrays a friend has no fingers to point, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
The next morning she lingered in her cabin, but finally had to seek fresh air. On deck, she saw Jaime deep in conversation with the captain as they stood at the rail of the ship's stern. She walked out to bow of the ship, standing before its weathered old bowsprit where the driving wind and cold mist off the waves washed away the stench of her cabin.
She was startled when The Hound stepped up next to her and spoke in his deep raspy voice. "You lost your master, girl?"
Brienne caught herself before she looked back over her shoulder at Jaime, and kept her spine straight. Again she wondered why it wasn't as pleasant as she'd always thought it would be to feel so much smaller than a man. "I have no master."
"No?" Clegane gave Oathkeeper's hilt a sharp glance where it was strapped around her waist. "That looks like a Lannister leash to me."
Reflexively, protectively, her fingers curled about the lion-headed hilt. Kingslayer's whore. "They say you wore a Lannister leash."
"Yes. My last leash was white and whipped about on my back in the breeze. It wasn't as pretty as yours, though."
"You slipped that leash easily enough," Brienne said, wishing she were better at matching wits. "As though it were nothing."
Clegane looked her up and down, the scarred side of his face somehow so much easier to bear than the implacable untouched side. With something like disdain he gave a small shake of his head, turned and walked away.
She felt like a weight lifted after he was gone. Turning her face back into the wind, she took a gulping breath.
"Clegane pleasant as usual?" Jaime asked from behind her.
She did not turn to look at him, but simply nodded.
"The Captain says we'll make port by sundown. I, for one, will be happy to sleep somewhere Hyle Hunt is not."
Brienne turned then to look at him. He was watching her very carefully, the lightness of his tone not matched by the concern on his face. Had he heard what the Hound said to her?
"Pod will be relieved," she said.
"Yes. We'll all be very relieved."
They docked as the sun set. Jaime told Clegane to keep a scarf about his face and his cowl on. Brienne had to hold Pod's arm to keep him upright once he tried to walk on solid ground. Ser Hyle made a great show of pretending he hadn't been as ill as poor Pod.
Jaime played the role of simple traveler, keeping his head down and the collar of his cloak turned up, and only shook his head when Ser Hyle suggested they present themselves to the Arryns of Gulltown for lodging. The innkeeper liked Jaime's coin well enough to find them three rooms when he'd claimed no vacancy, and had even procured them hot water for bathing.
Brienne convinced Pod to eat some watery stew as they huddled at a table in the corner of the crowded taproom. She tried not to notice the stares they garnered, especially as most of them were pointed her way. Let them stare, she thought, fighting the urge to cover the bite on her cheek.
Jaime tried to act casual, but she noticed he kept his right arm concealed as he ate.
"You're all so conspicuous," Ser Hyle said, taking a bite of the mutton stew and glancing around the table at them all. "Even Pod, still dressed in red."
Jaime and Brienne both spared Podrick a glance.
"New clothes on the morrow, boy," Jaime said.
Podrick nodded apprehensively, as though he'd been asked to muck out the stables. The pretty tavern girl stopped to refill Jaime and Ser Hyle's tankards, glancing disdainfully at the watered ale Brienne, Pod, and Sandor Clegane drank.
"Anything else, Ser?" the girl asked Jaime with a saucy wink.
"What else is on offer?" Ser Hyle asked her with a wink of his own.
The tavern girl looked the hedge knight over and gave him a vaguely appreciative smile, though most of her attention was still on Jaime. "What would you like, then?"
Brienne looked down at the table, pretending not to notice any of it. The girl had already stared suspiciously at the scar when they entered the room.
"He's asking the price, girl," Sandor said with a growl.
The girl frowned at Clegane, glanced at his hooded face and his robes, muttered something about a septry and left in an offended huff.
Ser Hyle glared at Clegane, though he backed down a bit when the bigger man glared back.
"You were more fun when you drank, Sandor," Jaime said.
"Only a fool flirts with a whore," Clegane said.
"I only wanted to steal a kiss," Ser Hyle said, giving Brienne a sidelong glance. "She didn't look too deadly to allow it."
Jaime smiled too widely at Ser Hyle and in a far too unassuming voice said, "My brother told me a whore will never kiss you."
"A tavern wench will kiss you well enough," said Clegane. He turned his eyes on Jaime. "Though I can't say what the highborn breed of whores you've known will or won't do."
Clegane and Jaime stared daggers at one another, and Brienne feared they may come to blows. She had never forgotten Jaime's viciousness at a perceived slight to his sister.
"Ser-My lady...don't feel well."
They all turned to look at Podrick who had swayed against the wall. Sandor stood and grabbed Pod's shoulder, hauling the boy up. "I'll take him upstairs," he said, then smirked at Ser Hyle, "but he sleeps with you."
"Can we trust The Hound?" Ser Hyle asked when they had gone.
"Can we trust you?" Jaime responded, taking a long drink of his ale.
Ser Hyle leaned back on the bench until he rested against the wall, assuming a pose of easy confidence. "When did we become we?"
"We never weren't we," Jaime said, gesturing between Brienne and himself. "These are our oaths. I'm not certain where you come into it at all."
Anxiety already making her weary, Brienne stared back and forth between them. "Ser Hyle has been helpful," she said.
"Yes, I see how helpful he's been," Jaime said. Then he gave Hyle a hard look. "I've known Sandor Clegane since he was no older than Podrick. He's not one for scheming. If he decides he wants to kill us, we'll know."
"He bears you no love," Ser Hyle told Jaime, glaring at him.
Jaime only smiled and returned the glare. "The tavern wench liked me well enough. I'll console myself with that."
Brienne watched the two men stare at one another. She leaned her elbows on the table, exasperatedly dropping her head into her hands.
"Yes," Ser Hyle said, "don't let us stop you from seeking the wench. You'll want to be consoled."
"Alas, I've sworn a vow. She is yours, Ser Hyle. If she'll have you."
"I have sworn no vows, it's true" Hyle said. "But I will seek comfort elsewhere. Vows are not for tavern girls."
"Brienne," Jaime said, rising abruptly. "Would you care for some air?"
She watched Jaime leave the table and walk toward the door and found herself following before she realized what she was doing. Ser Hyle caught her eye and gave her a wry smile as she left him to his ale.
It was snowing thick, coin sized flakes when Brienne stepped into the inn yard. Jaime never turned back to see if she followed as he led her toward the stables. Oathkeeper was like a leaden weight dragging at her hip. That looks like a Lannister leash to me...
At the door of the stable she waited as he'd bid her, until he emerged with two tourney swords. He led her behind the stables and past a row of houses to a small wooded area.
"We must be mindful of your stitches, but we'll both need to flex our sword arms if we're going out amongst the Hill Tribes," he said, handing her a blunted steel sword after she left Oathkeeper hanging from a bare branch.
Jaime came at her with none of the caution he'd shown before Thoros and Lady Catelyn. She'd known he had been training with his left hand when they'd fought that day, and now she saw the concentration he'd managed to hide behind his bravado. Her wound stung as she met his first blow, but she did not think it would open. She knew he would accept nothing less than her full effort.
They danced for a moment or two as Jaime tried to find an opening, but as soon as she parried two-handed, even weakened as she was, Brienne was able to thump the blunted tip of her sword against his heart.
Jaime sighed, stepped back to regroup, and said, "Again."
He was better than he had any right to be with his off hand, but he was still little better than average. They fought for what felt like hours and she landed more than a dozen killing blows, but Jaime got her in the end, bending low as he swept her legs out from under her with a punishing kick, knocking her flat on her back and bringing his sword to rest against her neck.
"Never forget," he said, "I'll forsake honor to win."
Brienne looked up the length of the sword at him, his golden curls were wet with snow and pasted to his grinning, bearded, impossibly handsome face. In a blink, she grabbed his ankle and pulled with a violence that made her wound burn. She felt and heard Jaime fall beside her, the wind knocked out of him with a grunt.
"I haven't forgotten," she said, and lay back to look up with squinted eyes into the white flakes falling from the black sky.
Sprawled beside her, Jaime gave a pained chuckle. Then the laughter died and he whispered, "I had a siege to end."
...a trebuchet...
"I'm not a lackwit, Jaime. I know."
She closed her eyes for a moment and saw Lady Catelyn's head again, as Jaime cleaved it from her body. I was only relieved, she remembered. Jaime had done the thing she couldn't.
"Forgive me, Brienne."
She found herself biting back a laugh and turned her head away, lest look her way and he see it. "You can't have everything," she said.
He laughed long and hard at that, but she had her lips set in a firm line when she stood and offered him her hand. He came up off the ground with a wince, but he met her with a clear gaze that warmed her despite the snow. She almost asked him to forgive her again, but knew she should leave it unsaid. Somehow the matter was done.
They trudged back to the inn and up the two flights of stairs to the rooms Jaime had taken. In front of her, on the top step, Jaime paused and threw softly back over his shoulder, "I'll have bruises in the morning, wench, but it was worth it."
Then Jaime had stepped away and slipped open the door of the room he was sharing with The Hound. Brienne was puzzled until she reached the top step to find Ser Hyle, arms crossed, leaning against the door jamb of his own room staring at Jaime's back as it disappeared behind the closing door.
Hyle gave her a long suspicious look up and down, taking in the muck clinging to her back from when she'd lain on the forest floor. "Swordplay?" he asked.
Brienne knew Jaime wouldn't want anyone to know, so she simply ducked her head and entered her own room without answering.