"It could just be the storm that's making the animals uneasy." Brienne said, watching the stable hand adjust her horse's saddle. She gestured the lad aside and checked the cinch, then butted Sean's ribs with her shoulder. The horse whuffed out a breath and she yanked the strap up, retied it, and walked over to check Ser Fluffy Tail's saddle.
"Possibly," Jaime allowed, "But it's better if folk get used to taking precautions now. The war will be here sooner than the Queen suspects. While she's been decorating her castle the threat grows, and we've had no word from the North since we arrived."
Brienne nodded, considering, "Even if they've sent ravens I doubt they would survive such a trip. Flying between here and Tarth is nothing compared to coming overland from the Wall."
Jaime worried that the silence from the troops they'd left behind had nothing to do with lost ravens. The few precious days they'd had together here had distracted them from the grim possibility that there might be no one left to send word or beg for the help so long delayed. Much as he disliked being forced to train the Queen's unruly dragons, the beasts should have joined the battle long ago.
He took Fluffy's reins from the nervous groom holding them. "Go to the Queen. Tell her that from now on, the dead are to be burned immediately."
"The dead, Ser?" The man's eyes widened and he looked around as though expecting to see corpses lying in the aisles.
Jaime champed down his impatience. "Anyone who dies, or has recently died, their bodies must be given to the flames. She's a Targaryen; she'll know what to do. All of the Red Keep, King's Landing and beyond, the dead must be turned to ash lest they rise again. Tell Queen Daenerys to send riders to tell folk beyond the gates to come to King's Landing, if they hope to survive." His hand closed over the man's thin shoulder, giving him a little shake, "Tell her that Ser Jaime and Brienne of Tarth request these actions, and by the gods, may she listen."
"Both of you, go now." Brienne said as the second groom backed away, looking as though he might bolt. "Tell her to burn the heads, too."
"The – the heads?"
"The ones spiked outside Maegor's Keep. You don't want them pulling themselves along the ground to the stables using only their teeth, do you?" She grinned and clacked her own large teeth together; both grooms shrunk back in fear.
"Go!" Jaime roared, and they fled, one of them sliding on the slush they'd tracked in and almost going down as he tuned the corner. Jaime chuckled. "You might have made the skinny one wet himself."
"If that scared them they'd have no hope at all against a wight." Brienne gave Jaime a wan smile, "I almost feel sorry for them."
"Save your pity for those outside the walls, Wench. If the Walkers are coming they won't survive."
"I'll save my pity for our troops in the North. Do you think they've perished?"
Jaime brushed her with his shoulder as he led Fluffy past. "I hope not, Brienne. We've got unpleasant work to do, if we want to make their sacrifice mean anything at all."
She followed with Sean. The clomp of hooves in sodden straw was solemn and steady compared to the way Jaime's heart beat, erratic with fear and excitement. He stopped, stepping aside to let Brienne push the big wooden doors out against the steady wind. The stable dogs backed, cowering beneath the tack-covered table, backs hunched as the snow swirled in and the torches flickered and smoked.
Brienne led Sean out and held the door for him and Fluffy to follow, letting it slam shut as an icy gust hit it like a battering ram. They'd not been in the stable long, but already the daylight had changed, becoming the oddly murky, greenish glow of fading afternoon they knew too well.
A storm was coming such as King's Landing hadn't seen in decades.
They mounted their horses and Brienne raised her head, sniffing the air. "Not as bad as some," she decided, "But enough to test them sorely, ere it's done. We'd best get to shelter soon, and may the gods be with Tyrion, on his journey. Should we send word for him to delay his meeting with Tysha?"
"He wouldn't heed it, anyway." Jaime put heels to his mount and the horses headed out of the big gates. "Besides, the gods look out for drunks and fools, and this morning he was both."
"True. We're better off worrying about getting out of it ourselves. I hope there's a fire in the hearth when we get to the Dragon Pit. We'll want to warm up before we begin working with them."
"With him, Brienne. Again: just the one dragon. And I doubt you'll be doing much with Viserion today, when you can barely see your hand in front of your face." Jaime urged his horse closer to Brienne's, their thighs jostling together as they descended Aegon's Hill.
"No one has been up or down this road today," Brienne said, raising her voice to be heard, though Jaime was right next to her. "I see no tracks, no sign of passage at all." She turned to look at him, feathery flakes of snow clinging to her brows and lashes.
"That can't be right. This path is always cleared just after daybreak for couriers and tradesmen. Has everyone decided to hide indoors?" Jaime swiped at his eyes, trying to dry wind-drawn tears before the water could freeze them on his face, wishing they, too, had the luxury of walls and ceiling to keep the stinging snow at bay.
Lifting his eyes from the trail, Jaime looked down at King's Landing, expecting white roofs and sooty chimneys in their thousands, the network of roads clogged with carts and foot traffic. All was whistling wind and emptiness. Flea Bottom, Visenya's Hill, the Great Sept of Baelor, the Street of Silver with its forges glowing hot; all had vanished under a veil of white.
"Eerie, isn't it?" Brienne said, startling him.
For a dizzying moment he'd felt out of time and place. "It looks like the end of the world," Jaime said. They might have been in the far north, waiting for something nightmarish to appear out of nothing. "It's as though winter came for a hundred, hundred years and never left."
"Winter comes and winter goes, Jaime. Whatever becomes of us, spring has always followed winter. Even the Long Night only lasted twenty or thirty years."
"Only? Imagine being born into darkness and growing to adulthood without ever knowing how the sun feels on your skin."
"Spring must have seemed like a myth to them, no more than a greybeard's tale: 'spring is coming.'" Brienne sighed, "So many died without ever seeing it. The Long Night lasted a lifetime for them."
"If this winter should wear on for a generation or more there won't be much left to fight for. King's Landing would be nothing more than a memory." Jaime said.
They road quietly for a several minutes. To the east lay Blackwater Bay, a dark smudge beneath the blowing snow, insubstantial but undeniably there.
Three quarters of the way down Aegon's Hill the houses and streets of the city appeared, leached of color but solid and familiar. They skirted the edges of the city, staying close to the wall.
The few folk they saw were scurrying about ghostlike in cloaks dusted with dull white flakes. Paths worn by foot and wheel were dirty and packed down hard. It was slippery going, and when Ser Fluffy spooked, his black hooves skittering on the ice, Jaime assumed he'd lost his footing.
Then he saw what had spooked the horse.
There were seven of them. Four men, a boy, and two women, hanging from the worn lintel of a tavern known by the dubious name of The Fancy Flea, The scantily clad flea-lady of its sign gaudy even in the weak light. The corpses swung in the wind, the ropes making the wood they were tied to creak in protest.
Brienne gasped, "Jaime, they're each missing a hand."
Jaime had already noticed and urged Fluffy closer. "Criminals, maimed for stealing. But why hang them, too?"
"I don't know. See there – the beardless man and the boy? Their bodies are still rigid. They were killed recently." recently.
"But their hands – their stumps – aren't new. No fresh blood on any of them, and the old woman's stump healed years ago; there's no puckering, no sign she ever had a hand. You there!" Jaime called to a stout man just coming out of the tavern, shoulders already hunched against the storm and a voluminous cloak pulled close.
Startled, the man turned, nearly bumping into the line of corpses, then moved away, shuffling though the sludge as fast as his rag-wrapped feet could take him. Jaime hailed him again in his best tone of command, but the man ducked into an alley and disappeared.
"That was odd," Brienne said. "Did he seem frightened to you?"
"He did. Jumpy as a Greyjoy in the desert. You'd think we were going to eat him."
"Or hang him. I'd be nervous too, with the swaying seven here." Brienne urged Sean closer to the building's entrance.
Jaime saw what she was about and brought Fluffy around the other side of the bodies on the lintel to block the other exit. They hadn't long to wait before the door opened and a lanky teenager slouched out. He looked from Brienne to Jaime to the corpses he'd need to push through to escape, and decided to stay where he was.
Jaime was about to speak when Brienne raised a finger to quiet him. "We'd like to ask you some questions," she said, and Jaime smiled at the way her voice softened to calm the boy. "Will you talk to us?" Staring sullenly at the ground, he nodded. "Why were these people hung?"
"Thieving, m'lady. City Watch did 'em."
"The penalty for theft is the loss of a hand. How is it that all seven of them were already missing one?"
"Second time," the teen said. His nose had started to run, and his cloak was thinner and likely older than he was. "Watch brought 'em. Said with times gettin' worse they'd make a 'zample of known thieves. Anyone already missing a hand." He finally raised his pockmarked face to stare at Brienne, then Jaime. "Or missing both hands an' a foot, but they's not as easy to find."
Jaime flipped him a coin and moved Fluffy back to let him depart. The lad hurried past, keeping his eyes down. "'Times getting worse.'" he repeated, "And they're not even in the thick of it yet, this far south." He wheeled Fluffy around and started back along the road to the Dragon Pit.
Brienne fell in beside him. "Hadn't we better tell the innkeep to burn those bodies?"
"There are bound to be others. King's Landing is full of thieves; there are enough to hang a few from every public house in Flea Bottom."
"That's dreadful. The ones back there, Jaime, I'm not even certain they were thieves. Oh, maybe one or two, but just as likely to have lost a hand in an accident."
Jaime held up his stump. "Might as well hang me."
"As if they could." sniffed. "But the small folk –"
"Haven't got Brienne of Tarth to keep them alive?"
"Well, no. They haven't. Do you think Daenerys ordered the city watch to do this?"
"I doubt the queen knows much about what goes on down here." Jaime guided Fluffy around a windblown branch jutting out of the snow. "Probably just an overzealous Watch captain trying to curry favor with his commander."
"Jaime, we should tell her. We need to tell her."
"Are we really doing them any favors, though? How many people do you think would survive another Long Night with only one hand? Not many are as fortunate as I, Brienne." He looked back at her, shrugged, "We'll send a message to the queen and hope she heeds our words without Tyrion there to prod her."
"You give little credit to her." Brienne said, "She's accomplished much, for a young woman. She's –"
"You've accomplished far more, Brienne."
"You are prejudiced. I am four years older, and I'm not ruling seven kingdoms."
"Neither is she." They turned onto the road that would lead them to the Dragon Pit. "I'm sorry. The woman does little more than make problems that others must make right. She should be the one training her dragons. Not you." Jaime looked at Brienne.
Snowflakes clung to her lashes and brows, to the hood of her cloak. Her jaw was clenched, eyes flashing with anger. "This again, Jaime?" She turned Sean sharply up the path to the cottage and rode ahead of him.
Jaime kicked Fluffy into a canter, coming up quickly on her right to and cutting in front of her mount. She made to move around him but he grabbed Sean's reins. The horse jerked his head up, rolling his eyes in confusion. "Yes, this again." Jaime rasped out, "Is there some reason we can no longer look out for each other as we always have? I am no more protective of you now than I was when you were my second in command. So tell me, Brienne, is there something about being betrothed to me that makes you want to change that, to somehow care less for your safety than I always have?
She glowered at him. "You needn't hold Sean's reins, Ser. I am not going anywhere."
Jaime dropped them and picked his own reins up again, not moving out of her way. "I don't want us to be at odds, Wench. We've never faced anything like this before, but had I been the one recruited by the queen you'd behave the same."
"How so? Are you suggesting that I would ask you not to train the dragons that we desperately need?"
"No, you wouldn't have, and neither did I. But you would have insisted on being involved, and you'd try to disguise your worry for me by discussing tactics." Jaime brushed impatiently at the snow crusting his beard, "The only difference is that now I am framing my misgivings as someone who loves you and needs you."
Brienne's expression softened, but she didn't back down. "Only because you're not my commander anymore, Jaime. It doesn't set right when you attempt to dissuade me from doing what needs to be done. I almost feel like your respect for my competence has lessened since…well, since you decided you wanted me as more than someone to fight by your side."
"In that case I have been disrespecting you for years. We have fought side by side so long that folk think would barely know us apart. But before that, Brienne, what do you call all those nights we've slept curled together like a couple of stable cats? The meals we've eaten from the same dish, sitting so close that one cloak could cover us both?"
"Convenience?" She smiled. If he didn't know better, Jaime would think she was being coy.
"Convenient." He agreed. "Just like it was all the times we kissed."
"Those were," the corners of her lips turned down as she fought her smile, "an accident."
"Is that so?"
"Somehow your lips just found mine, I think. You were drunk, stumbled a little too close…"
"Wench, you kissed me first."
"I probably stumbled. When I was drunk." Brienne looked down, petted her horse's wet mane. There was a pretty flush to go with her small smile. "And you took advantage."
"Maybe I did. Also the second time you did it. For a woman who swore she only liked watered wine, it didn't take long for you to take a liking to what was in my flask."
"Yes, it was definitely what was in your flask."
"And did I take advantage by kissing you back that second time? Do you remember?"
"No, not really," Brienne admitted, "I had no idea how much alcohol was too much, back then. Did I do something stupid?"
"If you call kissing me to within an inch of my restraint stupid, then yes. Me, I'd call it something else entirely. I had to escort you to bed and then lay beside you, Wench."
She grinned, "Was it torture?"
"Oh yes." Jaime said.
She'd been clumsy but so eager, the second time she'd gotten drunk enough to kiss him. They'd had their small campsite away from the common soldiers, back before the Walkers were a nightly threat. That first tentative touch of her lips on his had been much like the first time, not a week before.
He'd eagerly returned that second kiss, daring to tangle his cold fingers in her matted hair as he did so. Her mouth had been firm but unyielding under his, and when they drew apart moments later they'd both been dazed as anyone unexpectedly getting their heart's desire would be.
Brienne's eyes had been almost black in the firelight, her lips already damp when she licked them nervously and mumbled a question which might have been 'was that right?'
Jaime recalled telling her that he wasn't sure, that she should maybe kiss him again, just to be certain.
With all the seriousness and sincerity that oftimes emboldens drunks and lovers, she had; her sweet, earnest kisses soon softening as she responded to his passionate ones.
The rough log beneath their bums might have been a feather bed for all Jaime noticed, the ragged edge of frustrated need for her ignited by those early, barely unchaste touches. It was a favorite memory of his, one he'd brought out over the years when something bright and hopeful was needful to distract him from darkness and fear.
"I'm not questioning your competence to do anything you set yourself to do, Wench, and I've never forbidden you to face danger."
"What about the time I wanted to take a group of the men and explore the catacombs we found hidden near the bogs?"
"That was a suicide mission. I gave you orders to stay away from them, as was my responsibility as your commander."
Brienne grinned at him. "You wanted to send Ser Hunt instead. Alone."
"As I said: a suicide mission."
"So you'd risk him, one of your underlings, but not me?"
"Not much of a risk, really."
"Those passageways collapsed the next afternoon," she pointed out.
"And had I sent Hunt he'd have been squished beyond use even as a wight."
"How was that not much of a risk?"
"It was Hyle Hunt, my lady. Half the camp would have cheered. Shame you talked me out of sending him." Jaime smirked at her, "But you admitted that no one should explore them after we talked about the dangers. Allow me the courtesy now of voicing my misgivings, even though you are not mine to command." He turned his horse back onto the track leading to the Pit and Sean followed.
"Are you sure you can handle this, Jaime? Perhaps you're as jealous of Viserion as you were of Hyle."
"Jealous? Of Ser Cunt?" Jaime smirked, thinking, Good thing she doesn't know about that time I cornered Tormund and threatened him if he didn't stop his leering at you.
"See?"
"I am not jealous of Viserion, sweetling, and I'd as soon be jealous of that hedge knight as I would an actual hedge."
They were both chuckling when they entered the courtyard through an open gate, Jaime hailing Hemikh as he appeared from the stable. The big Dothraki was made mountainous wrapped in a cloak that looked to be stitched together from the coat of a winter aurochs. He shivered as a blast of wind swept in from the north.
"Not quite the Dothraki Sea, is it?" Jaime remarked as he and Brienne dismounted.
Hemikh responded in his own tongue, a string of rough words that Jaime knew few of. "Govak jeshoy!" The warrior concluded, grasping Jaime's forearm in greeting.
"Fucking…jesh…?" Jaime looked to Brienne, now engulfed in Hemikh's embrace.
"Govak jeshoy.'Fucking freezing,'" she explained. "He said, 'curse this evil wind and the snow it brings; I am fucking freezing."
Hemikh released her, nodding and smiling at her translation. He scooped up the reins to both horses and waved at the cottage. "Lavakhat goes inside to light the fire. Warmth, rest before riding dragons."
"I won't be riding any dragons today, okeo anni. Only working with Viserion. I'll go see him straight away. They haven't been fed?"
"We waited to feed, as you asked."
"Brienne, I think we should go inside and thaw ourselves by the fire first, as we'd planned." Jaime told her.
"We lost some time when we stopped at the tavern, and there'd be no such respite up north, Ser. Freezing or not we wouldn't be able to slow down and rest."
"We've got plenty of time to be miserable and tireless when we go back. Right now you need your strength and wits about you to work with Viserion for the first time."
Brienne looked a question at him, deciding he might be in the right when another icy blast whipped her cloak back from her shoulders. "We'll go out to the pen in a few minutes," She addressed Hemikh, "We brought clothes in our saddlebags, if one of you would bring them in? I don't think we'll be going back to the Keep tonight."
Hemikh nodded and led the horses into the warmth of the stable. Lavakhat appeared from the house dressed only in his tanned hides and walked toward them, his hair streaming out behind him and the flap of his breechclout to show that the weather touched him at all.
After they'd exchanged greetings and discussed plans for feeding the dragons, the younger Dothraki also retreated to the stables. Jaime and Brienne waded through the snow to the door of the cottage and went inside, stamping their boots on a small rug made from woven grass.
Melted snow had puddled around the mat, and muddy tracks showed everywhere the Dothraki had trod.
"It's almost like he was raised in a barn," Jaime joked.
"Or out on the plains. To be fair, it is difficult to get all of the snow off your boots and clothes with it coming down so thick outside." Brienne walked over to the fire and dropped into one of the big chairs with a groan. "Say what you like about his house manners, the lad knows how to build a fire. Is that steam rising from my cloak?"
"I believe it is, sweetling. If you stand up I can hang it somewhere to dry." Jaime nudged her booted toe with his own, and she let her head loll back, gazing up at him with half-closed eyes, deliberately stretching her legs out and slumping further into the chair. "Or you could just sit there and make the chair damp as well, Wench. Me, I'd rather not feel like a wad of wet laundry while I'm trying to relax."
"I'm not going to sit here for long anyway," Brienne sighed, "Just long enough to warm up, and –" she yawned, long and deep, the bridge of her nose squinching up and lips pulling back from her teeth like a growling hrakkar. "Gods, I'm sleepy all of a sudden. How late were we up last night, anyway?"
"Late." Jaime swung his cloak off his shoulders and spread it over one of the chairs. "No one would fault you for taking a nap, you know." He sat in the chair closest to hers and toed his boots off. The warmth on his chilly socks spread up his legs and through him.
"I would. We don't have much daylight left, an hour and a half at most." Brienne unfolded herself to stand and Jaime stirred, ready to go outside if she insisted. Fortunately she was only laying her cloak out on the floor. "I smell mulled wine. Would you like some?"
"I can get it," he said, "you rest."
Brienne was already moving. "I'm up, and you were awake before I was this morning." The sound of cupboards being opened and closed and earthenware being set on a counter carried from the kitchen. "How did we ever survive up north?" she mused. "Here we are, living beneath a roof, sleeping on soft beds –"
"You forget my time in the dungeons," he called, "Where the only thing soft was the rat turds heaped everywhere."
Brienne carried the wine out and handed him one. "You'd have slept on them happily up north, if they could keep you warm. But I meant that we've had a life of relative ease here, and I worry that we're getting too used to it. Imagine getting so much sleep on campaign and then complaining about it." She sat down carefully with her brimming mug while Jaime rolled his head to look at her.
"Think of it as hibernating. Gathering strength." Jaime sat up and blew on his wine before taking a cautious sip. It was redolent with cinnamon and cloves, and more than a little rum. "Gods, can we get some of this to take back with us?"
"We'd have to bring enough with us to share. So, no." She took a long sip, fingers curled around the mug for warmth.
Jaime thought she looked unusually young, her cheeks rounded and the darkness beneath her eyes gone, despite her sleepiness. He was used to seeing her haggard, thin and mal-nourished. Seemingly even the poor fare of Daenerys dining hall had been good for her.
"Why are you staring at me, Jaime?" She asked after a while, a hint of exasperation in her voice.
"Was I staring?"
"You know you were." She got up and took her cup to the kitchen, looked out the small window there. "I think it's gotten worse. We should go out."
"We could stay in." Jaime drained his mug and smacked his lips. "Is there more of this?"
"Yes. I'm going out." She picked her cloak up from the floor and swung it around her shoulders. The snow had melted and dark patches streaked down from hood to hips.
Jaime heaved himself out of the chair, leaving his mug on the table. Brienne helped settle his damp cloak over his shoulders. "I'll let the lads know it's dinner time for dragons," he said, "Meet you at the cages."
