Brienne helped Ser Hyle pull branches off the dead pine tree they'd found just as the sun was setting. It seemed they couldn't gather enough firewood now that they'd reached the mountains where the wind whipped through the small passes and made the flames of the campfire dance and eat their fuel quickly. The threat of attack from the Mountain clans was also greater, and no one dared venture away from camp alone.

"The Blackfish says we will reach the Gates of the Moon in two days' time," Ser Hyle said as he shook dead needles from a pine branch.

Ser Brynden, who had followed them at a distance for a fortnight, never deigning to ride with them or share their camp, had suddenly appeared at their campfire two nights earlier.

"I pray that we find Lady Sansa at the Gates of the Moon," she told Ser Hyle as she broke loose another dead branch.

"And if we do?" Ser Hyle asked.

Brienne sighed. "There is her sister."

Ser Hyle snorted derisively. "You have far less chance of finding that one. Besides, to hear the Hound tell it, she manages well enough on her own."

"She is only a girl, traveling alone-"

"You were only a girl traveling alone."

"I have never been that sort of girl."

"My lady," Ser Hyle said, pausing to lay a hand on her shoulder, "there is only one sort of girl."

She shook off his hand, sensing where this conversation would lead. "No, there is only one sort of man."

Though she could barely see his face, she knew Ser Hyle was smiling. "You're an expert on men, now," he said.

"I think I've learned enough."

"You have a great deal more to learn," he said. "Learn it from me. Take me south with you, for surely if we find the girl you will go home to Tarth. Present me to your father; see if he approves."

Brienne gave her own derisive snort at that. "I may go south, but I have other business to settle before I return home."

"You will follow him," Ser Hyle said softly.

She had been thinking of Stannis, but Ser Hyle's remark gave her pause. There was no question which "him" he meant.

"What if I did?" she asked with equal softness.

Ser Hyle drew a deep breath. "You will not hear me, for you will think I only say it to win you."

"Hear what?"

"I knew you at Bitterbridge, my lady," he said. "You have changed, grown a bit more guarded, but I saw how you served Renly."

Brienne's pulse began to quicken and she knew she would not like to hear what he had to say. "I served him, faithfully..."

"Yes, and you loved him."

"Yes, I loved him-"

"No, not as one loves their liege lord. You were a maid who had given her heart to a man." Ser Hyle stepped closer and she could see the exasperation on his face. "You could not hide it."

She swallowed a bitter lump in her throat, remembering how she wept the night Renly wed. But she had long ago relinquished the girlish dreams that brought such pain.

"I held no delusions," she said, though it was difficult to form the words.

"No," he said, "nor do you now, I think. And yet you would throw your life away again. Can you not see that Renly enjoyed having you stand at his side, like...like some strange pet from a foreign shore? And now, again..."

That looks like a Lannister leash to me.

Ser Hyle's words about Renly hurt, but the other implication felt like the tearing of Biter's teeth into her flesh. It felt like being eaten alive.

Kingslayer's whore.

"I am his friend," she said, "as he is mine. I know this, and nothing will make me doubt it."

"You should not doubt it," Ser Hyle said, and laughed softly, "I have the bruises to prove it. But such a man has a hundred friends."

You are wrong, she thought, even as his words gnawed at her.

Did he purchase your loyalty with gold, or did he win it between your legs?

"He saved my life and he saved my honor, both more than once," she said.

"As you have done for him. But he would not shape his life to yours. Make your own life, my lady. You deserve better than Renly would have given you. You deserve better than to live your life in service to anyone, no matter how you love them."

"Are you not asking service of me, Ser?" Brienne asked sharply, standing at her full height. "Is that not what a wife must give her husband?"

"Ah, but a husband gives in return, my lady. A secure life and a home, children, warmth on the coldest of nights."

"I need no husband," she said. "I will not wed."

Ser Hyle laughed and turned back to grab another branch. "As you say, my lady."

They talked no more as they gathered their bundles of sticks and walked through the snow back to the campfire to find Ser Brynden and Pod watching one another warily across the flames.

Jaime and Sandor had gone off to spar and had not yet returned.

"It's not sparring, it's beating," Jaime had whispered several nights before as he gingerly laid himself out before the fire beside her. Brienne had been amused as she watched him through the slim opening she'd left for her eyes when she'd wrapped her woolen scarf around her face. "Laugh all you want, wench, the man isn't human."

Jaime had refused to let her practice with him anymore, even though she scarce felt her wound now. First he'd tried to practice with Ser Hyle, but that lasted only two nights, then Jaime had finally convinced Clegane to spar with him.

"Come, squire," Clegane had taken to saying every evening after they had eaten. And Jaime would ruefully smile and follow the hulking man into the darkness.

Brienne and Ser Hyle dropped their bundles beside the fire and sat down to warm themselves. Ser Brynden was silent as usual. He'd hardly spoken since the first night he'd joined them, save when he questioned Jaime about his proposed strategy with Lord Baelish. Later Jaime told her he thought Ser Brynden was there for Robert Arryn as much as for Sansa. She misliked the air of intrigue that had begun to hang over their journey, for she had no stomach for such games.

When Jaime and Sandor returned, Jaime gave Brienne a mischievous look. She moved aside so he could join her next to the fire and he didn't sit tenderly like one recently battered.

"Did you best him?" Brienne asked softly, sparing a glance at Sandor who looked a bit more thunderous than usual.

Jaime raised his eyebrows at her and one corner of his mouth pulled up ever so slightly. The boyish glee he was trying to hide made Brienne feel breathless and she had to turn away from him for fear she might weep at the ache of it. She caught Ser Hyle's gaze and saw the almost sorrowful pity in his eyes.

Is it written on my face? she wondered. Then she happened to catch Ser Brynden's eye and she thought she read pity there too. A man who would like to see me dead, and even he thinks me a pathetic creature, she thought.

She was on her feet suddenly, stumbling toward the forest. Though she tried to mutter something about being only a moment, she wasn't certain any words had come out of her mouth. When she was sure she was far enough away, she leaned against a tree trunk and let the tears come.

The next night, they rode into a small garrisoned town one day's ride from the Gates of the Moon. Ser Brynden would not join them, for Jaime intended to ride in under the pretext of searching for the fugitive Brynden Tully.

"Half the lords of the Vale would gladly take my head off my shoulders," Jaime had said that morning, "so who knows if this will work. Only fear of the crown may keep them in line."

"Half? Make no mistake, Kingslayer," Ser Brynden had said, "every one of the lords of the Vale would gladly take your head."

Jaime had only smiled his knowing grin and given Ser Brynden a bow.

Brienne had expected to be watched carefully when they entered the town's inn, but it was the attention paid to Jaime that caught her curiosity, that and the lack of conversation; the talk in the taproom was low, peppered with suspicious glances darted their way.

It was Ser Hyle, who had lingered in the stables talking to the groomsmen, who brought them the news. He came in and sat heavily at the table, even Pod and Sandor looked at him oddly.

"My lord," Ser Hyle said to Jaime. Brienne almost told Ser Hyle he was taking the show of deference to Jaime too far, but then she read the reluctance in the hedge knight's eyes.

"My lord," Ser Hyle began again, more softly this time. "It is the queen regent."

Brienne watched as Jaime's hand stilled where it had been reaching for his tankard of ale.

"Yes?" Jaime asked, his voice frighteningly soft as he stared intently at Ser Hyle.

"The queen regent has confessed to the crime of fornication with a member of the Kingsguard and his brothers-the Kettleblacks. And with Lancel Lannister."

"What have they done to her?" Jaime asked, his gaze cool and clear as he stared at Ser Hyle.

Ser Hyle blinked and glanced down at the table, then back at Jaime. "She was stripped and shorn bald, then made to walk barefoot and unclothed from the Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep. There she awaits her trial."

Jaime looked up sharply at that. "There will still be a trial?"

"She remains accused for King Robert and the High Septon's deaths. And still she is accused of instigating the charges against Queen Margaery...and she remains accused of incest and treasonous adultery."

Brienne watched as Jaime's pride turned his face to stone. "Thank you, Ser Hyle," Jaime said, downing the rest of his ale in one gulp. "Please excuse me."

Brienne watched as Jaime stood and left, walking straight and proud with all the arrogance of a prince. She heard his heavy steps up the staircase of the inn.

Ser Hyle sighed. "I wasn't finished."

"What more could there be?" Sandor asked.

Ser Hyle called the innkeep over and asked for a round of ale for the table. He waited until they were served and had all taken a drink, even Pod with his eyes wide with curiosity.

"The Princess Myrcella," Ser Hyle began, "has been maimed in Dorne by a certain Ser Gerold Dayne. Ser Arys Oakheart was slain defending her."

"Maimed?" Brienne asked. "How? Why?"

Ser Hyle grimaced. "They say she has lost her ear and part of her face. No reason but madness has been given."

Brienne took a long swallow of her ale. "I will go and tell him."

Shaking his head, Ser Hyle laid his hand on her arm. "There is more. There are reports of mercenaries landing in the Stormlands, the Golden Company they say, led by Jon Connington. It is said that he brings Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar, with him."

"Bugger that," Sandor said. "My brother killed Aegon Targaryen."

"It is rumored he lives," Ser Hyle said.

"Where in the Stormlands?" Brienne asked. "Where have they landed?"

Ser Hyle let out a heavy sigh. "Cape Wrath, Estermont, the Stepstones, it is said they besiege Storm's End."

"And Tarth?" she asked.

"Tarth as well," Ser Hyle answered. "There is no word of your father."

Brienne felt the blood pound in her head and all through her veins. She stood, forcing the spectre of her father's face from her mind, for she could not begin to face it or she would shatter. "I must tell Jaime."

"Let Hunt do it, girl," Sandor said. "Finish your ale."

But Brienne was already walking toward the stairs. Each footfall up each step seemed to whisper to her: Tarth, Evenfall, Tarth, Evenfall...

She knocked on Jaime's door and received no answer. "Jaime?" she asked with her cheek pressed to the wood of the doorframe.

"Leave me," he said through the door.

"No, Jaime, there is more..."

The door cracked open. It was dark within, there was no fire, no candle was lit. Brienne stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Jaime stood before the diamond paned window, his shoulder leaned against the frame looking out into the winter night. She could see him in shadowed profile, tense and angry.

"What more?" he asked.

And she told him. All of it. All of it but Tarth.

When she was finished, Jaime covered his eyes with his hand. "Myrcella," he said. "Doran takes his revenge on my child."

"That is not certain, this Dayne-"

"It was Ned Stark who killed Arthur Dayne; Brandon or Ned fathered Ashara's babe, depending who you believe. What vengeance would they seek against a Lannister? And Elia's child supposedly returned from the dead? Doran is in this. It reeks of him and his bloody dead brother."

"Jaime-"

"And here I am, in the heart of the Vale, a thousand leagues from either of my children. I have abandoned my family and my duty."

"You could not have known. You have come for a matter of honor. To fulfill your vow-there is no dishonor in that."

He turned to her then, but she could see nothing of his face in the dark. "To fulfill a vow. Is that why I am here?"

"Yes..."

"And Cersei has confessed. Tyrion told me about Cersei and Lancel. And Kettleblack-well, one of them. I had it from my cousin's own lips that he fucked her. She was lonely while I was gone."

"Jaime, is that why you would not return-"

"You heard me say it, I know you did, for I know you heard the rest. How many other lovers have I taken?"

"None," she whispered.

"None."

"She was recently widowed-"

Jaime hissed. "I was only gone a year."

"She bore your children, she loves you."

"You've grown a new tolerance for monsters. Once, you could not even speak it without loathing."

"I do not...I know you love her as she must love you-"

"You defend her. You. Tell me, Brienne, you're a woman, can you go a full year without taking a lover?"

She felt herself begin to blush and blessed the darkness. She thought of her father's many mistresses. "I am not like other women."

"No."

"I face no temptation, I mean. I saw the queen once, in the Red Keep. She was so beautiful... Every day men must throw themselves at her feet, it may be too much to resist."

He laughed then, cold and bitter. "It's not too much to resist. I have resisted."

"She loves you."

"You are so certain."

"How could she not love you?"

"If she stood where you are and made a plea on her own behalf with a tenth the passion you expend arguing for her, I could forgive her anything."

"Forgive her. It hurts to wound you, Jaime. She could not have meant to do so."

"This again."

"Jaime-"

"She wrote me, she asked me to help her, she begged for my help."

"When?"

"At Riverrun. I burned the note. I did not reply. I did not go."

"She will understand."

"Instead I followed you."

"Not for much longer."

"No."

"Forgive me first, Jaime, before you return to her. Please."

"I have forgiven you, Brienne."

"Then what is this between us? Why must you make me talk about Ser Hyle? If not to punish me, why?"

"I don't know. Why do you punish me? Why couldn't you just leave me as you found me?"

"I will leave you now."

"Good," he said, turning back to look out the window.

Brienne was angry and heartsick and she nearly left then, but something made her turn back. "You are new to this, but I know what it is, Jaime, to love without hope of return. It is a bitter, endless sea that will drown you if you do not find a handhold. Don't slip into this despair when you could reach for her, when you could claim some part of her to hold as your own, some small slip of hope to buoy you and keep your head above the waves."

Then she slipped out the door, shaking, wishing she and Jaime were both in the south were they should be, rather than chasing the phantom of Sansa Stark.

Brienne descended the stairs to the inn's main room slowly. Each step more difficult than the last. She thought of Jaime lashing out in pain, she thought of Ser Hyle's hand on her arm as he said, "there is more", she thought of her father standing alone on the battlements of Evenfall-no, she could not, she must not-think of her father.

When she sat again with the others, the silence was heavy. She finished the ale Ser Hyle had purchased her and when he quietly handed her another and then another, she drank those as well. Her fingers began to feel warm and heavy, and her eyes seemed a beat too slow to focus, but the ale did nothing to dull her pain.

Ser Hyle and Pod went upstairs to bed and she noticed Sandor Clegane had been drinking tankards of ale right along with her. Like she and Pod, he had only accepted watered wine and ale before this. She noticed that his cowl had slipped back from his face and that the last few patrons in the room were exiting one by one, warily watching him as he had begun to snarl into the liquid in his cup before each sip. Soon she was alone with him and the innkeep came to the table with four more cups of ale and left them while murmuring excuses about going to bed himself.

Brienne reached for one of the new tankards and sloshed some ale onto her wrist.

"You ever had this much ale, girl?" Sandor asked.

"No," she replied, and took a sip.

"Good time to start," he said.

"Jaime said you must have given up strong drink," she said.

His lip curled mockingly on the good side of his face. "Jaime said..."

Brienne looked sharply at him. "You must still have some love for the Lannisters if this evening's news has driven you into a cup of ale."

Sandor snorted. "Bugger the Lannisters. I hope they all rot."

"You're the sort of man who simply cannot resist the temptation of strong drink, then?" she asked, feeling angry, feeling like fighting.

"Sometimes a man drinks to face the sunrise, and the sound of a little bird singing. You'll learn that soon enough when your master turns you loose to fend for yourself," Sandor said, the scarred side of his face a gentler prospect than the unscarred. "You'll learn it when you find your island in tatters."

"You should never have left the Quiet Isle," she said.

Sandor tipped his cup at her with a sneer. "There we agree."

"Why did you leave the Isle and the Elder Brother's influence, then? Do you owe some service to Sansa Stark? Or to her family? Or to her husband?"

The laugh that followed her questions was low and dangerous. "Why are you here, girl? Hunt says you keep faith with Catelyn Stark, but that dumbstruck look on your face every time Lannister's in the room says he's the one you serve."

For some reason, Brienne's hands flew to her face, feeling it to see where the truth was hiding in plain sight, but then her fingertips slipped over her scar, as they always did. She pretended to simply wipe the tiredness from her eyes, but her hands were clumsy from the drink and Sandor was watching too closely. "Do not look at my face if it offends you," she said harshly.

"Learn, girl, and learn well," he said, drawing his finger along the angry ridgeline that wove its way down his face dividing the clean from the marked, "your face is all anyone can see. They'll pretend to look away, but when they think you're not looking they'll be staring again. Your days of walking easily among the beautiful are done. They were done the day some man decided to make a meal of your face."

"Do you think I ever walked among the beautiful?"

"You were never one of them, I can see that," Sandor said solemnly. "But you walked among them well enough or you'd have learned by now not wear your lovesickness on your face."

Brienne swallowed hard and felt a blush rising up her face, and a panic rising up her throat. She found herself forgetting for a moment that this man was an enemy with no kindness in him.

"Does he see it?" she asked in a whisper, for she had to know, though she found herself hoping against hope that this thing everyone else saw remained hidden from just one pair of eyes. "Does he laugh with the rest of you?"

"That one? He'd see it if you looked eager for the feel of his cock, that's a look he knows well enough," Sandor said, pausing to take a sip of his ale, his face suddenly contemplative. "But the way you look, as though he's the one who makes the sun rise? What does he know of that look? He's never seen it directed his way."

Brienne pushed herself to her feet, turning away from what she suspected was pity-pity-on the face of Sandor Clegane. She went up to her room, stepping around Pod's sleeping form curled before the dying fire and falling into her bed. The drink made her feel a bit ill, and she curled up under the blankets feeling as though she were going to vomit.

She pushed all thoughts of Sandor Clegane and the Lannisters, Ser Hyle and Ser Brynden, Catelyn Stark and Sansa Stark, and Oathkeeper and him from her mind. And all that remained was Tarth; Tarth and her father's stoic, resigned face the morning she'd said goodbye and sailed for Storm's End.

The next morning, Brienne was in pain, but was careful not to show it. Her head hurt and her stomach recoiled at the idea of food. She left the inn and made straight for the stables while the others broke their fast. Jaime followed a few minutes later, appearing at her shoulder to help her strap her pack to her horse's saddle.

"You might have told me about Tarth," he said.

She shrugged and turned away from him to Pod's horse, to secure the boy's pack. "It must wait until we reach the Gates of the Moon," she said, holding very still for a moment as a wave of nausea swept over her.

Jaime sighed. "Your father will have acted sensibly. I'm sure there was no bloodshed."

She was careful not to look at him, uncertain how to keep her face from revealing what she wanted to keep hidden.

"I cannot turn my thoughts to it now, or I will break," she said, glancing at him just long enough to see his sympathetic nod.

"I understand," he said quietly, and left her.

That day they pushed hard for they knew they neared their destination. Occasionally as they rode, Ser Brynden showed himself in the trees beside them, the last glimpse of him was as the Giant's Lance began to loom ever larger above them.

"He was the Knight of the Gate for years and will have spent a great deal of time here as well," Jaime said when he saw Brienne craning her neck trying to keep track of Ser Brynden. "He'll be close enough to help-or cause trouble."

As night fell, the snow began. The conversation had been sparse during the last day of their journey and their party was silent as they traveled the last miles in darkness.

Even through the swirling snow, a faint glow could be seen when they reached the castle. Pinpricks of light from tower windows seemed to materialize before them as they rode up to the raised drawbridge and its gatehouse.

"Who goes there?" a voice called down.

Even in the dark, Brienne could see the flicker of hesitancy on Jaime's faced as Ser Hyle announced them as they'd planned.

"Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard," Ser Hyle announced, with enough authority that Brienne suspected he'd played the same role for Randyll Tarly.

A laugh resounded from the gatehouse, joined by a second voice and a third. Brienne grabbed for Oathkeeper's hilt.

"You are a lackwit, you should have chosen your jape more wisely, for the Lord Commander would not be fool enough to venture here."

"Yet here I am," Jaime called out in the crispest, most deadly commanding voice Brienne had ever heard him use. "And I would have the name of the man who calls me fool."

The authority with which Jaime spoke saw the men in the gatehouse send for permission and then quickly lowering the bridge and opening the gate.

As they entered the castle yard, Brienne felt a hundred eyes on them. In doorways and through windows, she saw shadowed faces watching their entrance with thinly disguised curiosity.

Some men came walking toward them as they dismounted and Brienne moved close to Jaime's side as Pod followed closely behind Ser Hyle as she'd instructed earlier.

"Lord Commander?" asked a large, gruff looking bearded man.

"Lord Nestor Royce, is it?" Jaime asked with the slightest nod, oozing Lannister entitlement and absolute authority.

The man looked unhappy, but nodded. "I will take you to the Lord Protector."

"By all means," Jaime said, jerking his head for the rest of them to follow, his eyes stuttering just briefly as they met Brienne's. He doesn't trust me to carry off this deception, she thought.

They were lead to a ground floor solar in which a man waited.

"Lord Commander," the man said. He was far shorter than Jaime and dark haired with a sharp beard on his chin.

"Lord Baelish," Jaime responded, giving the man a brief nod before walking over to warm himself by the fire.

Jaime glanced at where the door was open and Lord Nestor and some other men milled about.

"Lord Nestor," said Baelish, "if you would come in and close the door so we may speak candidly with the Lord Commander?"

When the door was closed, Jaime said, "My thanks."

"Imagine my astonishment to find you here in the Vale, my lord," Baelish said. Then he spared a glance at Brienne, his gaze latching onto her scar. "It was rumored you disappeared in the Riverlands with a woman..."

"Ah yes," Jaime said, gesturing to Brienne, "Lady Brienne, the Maid of Tarth. And her liege man, Ser Hyle Hunt. Of course, you know Clegane."

Ser Hyle had given an annoyed exhale at his introduction.

Sandor pushed back his cowl at the sound of his own name, then quickly pulled it back up to shade his face again.

Petyr Baelish's eyes flared at the sight of Sandor. "Ah, many rumors I've heard have been...incorrect, then."

Jaime said, "I seek the Blackfish."

"Surely you don't think I would hide him here, I am King Tommen's loyal man," Baelish said.

"It's your help I need," Jaime said. "To ferret out which of the Vale lords would hide him."

Baelish and Lord Nestor both seemed to relax at that. "Any help you need, my lord," Baelish said, "though I confess I am surprised to see you here, so far from King's Landing at such a time-"

Jaime pounded his fist against the mantle and roared, "The man escaped me-ME! And thinks to plot continued rebellion against the King whilst I am a laughingstock. I may have lost my hand, but I have not lost my wits!"

Petyr Baelish smiled knowingly and Brienne thought the man believed every word of Jaime's charade. It made her wonder what Jaime had truly been like before she knew him that made this so easily believable.

"Of course, my lord," Baelish said, "this slight must not go unpunished, we will help you run the Blackfish to ground. But first, you must rest, I think. Lord Nestor has ordered rooms prepared for you-"

"Go to no great trouble, my men can use the rooms in my apartment."

"Yes, and the lady-"

"She will feel most comfortable near her man-at-arms," Jaime said.

"I see," Baelish said. "Well, we will have it seen to. Lord Nestor, if you could? And Lady Brienne, my natural daughter will show you to the bathing house."

Brienne straightened her shoulders, readying herself for the stares of other women. She noticed Sandor pulling his cowl fully forward to cast his face in shadow. Your days of walking easily among the beautiful are done, he'd told her.

They left Baelish and Lord Nestor in the room. In the hall, servants came to take the men and Pod, and a tall, slender black haired girl stepped barely out of the shadows, her long hair hanging half over her face, and gestured toward Brienne, darting a cautious glance at Jaime, before quickly turning to walk away.

Before Brienne could follow her, she saw both Jaime and Sandor give the girl sharp, almost imperceptible glances. But it was Pod, who nearly moved to speak to her before Sandor clamped a hand on his shoulder and turned him away, that made Brienne understand. With one last questioning glance at them, Brienne turned to follow Sansa Stark down the hallway.