Thank you for reading.
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Chapter 19
A Thirsty Steed
Where Jaime and Brienne are in for some surprises
Brienne
There was no army in Harrenhal when they arrived.
The peasants shied from Jaime in his white scaled armour, as if he were a fabulous beast and not a knight, so Brienne took up on herself to dress up as a village wench and get some answers. She borrowed the heavy long thick skirts in several layers in the irregularly shaped town of the poor on the outskirts of Harrenhal. They bothered her when she walked, much worse than the lady's finery she had sometimes been forced to wear in her father's castle ever did. She would have never expected that there was something worse than to dress up like a lady, and that was fair and square to dress up as a common woman. The other women in her position did not seem to agree with her, running cheerfully after their work in the kitchens, or bringing heavy jugs of water from the lake, deft and gracious as she would never be. And they were all much shorter than her, causing the awful flood of folds to trail after them on the muddy ground.
Or the ground that would have been muddy if it didn't freeze and harden over night from the change of seasons; they could see no continuous trail showing where the soldiers had gone. A few horse tracks they could find led into all directions and to none in particular. The castle gaped empty of the men-at-arms, only the servants worked hard as if their lord would return at any minute.
"They just left," the baker told Brienne. "To King's Landing."
But the washerwoman told her they rode to the Fingers and a snotty boy heard that one of the companies made straight for Casterly Rock.
None of it made any sense. The questions about Mance the singer, the Elder Brother, or Lady Sansa were all met with a wall of stubborn silence as if no question had been asked at all. If Brienne didn't know any better, she would think that the commoners protected them, from great danger, or certain death.
So she annoyed the baker who seemed to know something, and the washerwoman who sighed about the beautiful lady kissing her prince in the godswood, until they both told her, just to get rid of her, she presumed, to go to the stables and there, she would find her singer.
Brienne went, not nursing much hope in her heart.
And stopped sharply when she heard a familiar gurgle, in place of a trilling lute.
She made a great circle around the stables, in slow counted steps, until she could approach them from behind, grasping a hiltless dagger hidden in her bodice, for it would not do, in her present attire, to wear a sword. They made an exchange: Jaime took her pendant for safe keeping, and he bid her take the knife, and stay safe.
The walls of the stables were thin, not made of the black stones of Harrenhal, but of freshly cut wood, still smelling of pine. Brought here from the Vale of Arryn, she thought, squatting, sneaking as close as she could to better hear the gurgle again, fighting against the persistent murmur of her skirts.
"My lady," she recognised the voice of the red priest, "it's only Tom, you and me now, we cannot hope to prevail against an army."
"And the people won't tell a thing," lamented Tom Sevenstrings.
Lady Stoneheart's inanimate voice squeaked, like a wooden board cracking in two when a too heavy man would venture upon it.
"He told you fifty times what he heard!" complained Thoros of Myr.
"Alright, my lady, I'll tell you again," Tom said. "The man who saved the Kingslayer and his whore was Mance Rayder, King-beyond-the-Wall. He wrote the show they played for you in the pit. He took Winterfell from the Boltons, for Stannis, and it was the Boltons, not the Greyjoy boy, who betrayed Robb. And this Mance works for the bastard of your late husband, who's still Lord Commander on the Wall, or so he told everyone, despite that Anguy shot many ravens sent to capital, when he was still alive, with tidings that Jon Snow's own Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch had murdered him in cold blood..."
The gurgle was so loud that Brienne thought it would pierce not only the stables, but the Wall, had they been that far north.
"I'm sorry, my lady, it's not as if I could have asked any questions," Tom sounded regretful. "It was a talk he invented to stay his own execution. It had a flare of truth to it, though. My fingers itched to take a woodharp and make verses about it as he spoke. When he finished, they all left, your daughter, the righteous monk, the Hound...the real one, the curly haired Lannister, one riverlord, the one with ravens, and Gendry. No one here will talk and there're no traces."
"You didn't repeat the most important thing. Lord Baelish has lost his arm so he couldn't carry out the sentence. He lied to our ladyship in the pit and he may have been working with the Boltons all along. We may have been wrong about the Kingslayer all the while," the red priest reasoned, in spite of the angry slur coming from the dead woman's throat, denying even a half hearted attempt to redeem Ser Jaime.
"Of course, my lady, I agree," Thoros relented. "We cannot be certain about anything any more. We have to find out more about what this Mance Rayder knows. From his songs so far he knows a great deal more about Robert's rebellion and Lord Stark's youth than anyone left alive."
"My lady, why don't you seek out Lord Howland Reed in person?" Tom asked. "He must know as well."
The gurgle became softer and resembled crying.
"Take courage, my lady," Thoros of Myr said. "We will find new allies and get to the bottom of this."
"South," judged Tom, "we should head south as well. That's where Mance was going. Might be we can see another part of his show."
Brienne had heard enough and she backed away, carefully, eager to find Jaime and share the news with him that all those who helped save them from Lady Stoneheart escaped together with Ser Daven.
Lord Baelish's plans, whatever they were, seem to have come to no fruition, she thought.
When she paused to hide the dagger back in her bodice, an image of Jaime with a slender woman at the lake crossed her mind, just like she had seen him in the caves facing the white walker before she ever returned for him and realised that her vision had been real.
She would have feared her new ability if she wasn't somehow hurt that Jaime smiled to the unknown woman who was most likely beautiful, elegant, and small. And it didn't take all that much to have more grace than Brienne.
It would be all right if he spoke to Cersei, Brienne told herself. She somehow made her peace with that, for, wrong or right in the eyes of the gods, no one would ever replace Cersei in Jaime's heart.
But to see him flirt with an entirely different woman hurt like treason on his part, as if he were overstepping a promise he had never made.
Scolding herself for stupid, Brienne released the dagger and walked towards the lake.
Jaime
Jaime stood next to the lake of Harrenhal, waiting for Brienne to return. The surface of the water glimmered like Lannister gold, reflecting the autumn colours of the grass.
After several days with only Brienne for company, Jaime was back in the world where everyone shunned him for different reasons. It was a familiar thing, but being used to it never made it sting any less.
A hooded thin woman came to fetch some water, bending over the calm mirror of the lake very close to Jaime. She was quite short and walked way too smoothly for a peasant. When she grabbed the water, the dark travelling cloak revealed brown breeches and high sandals with many laces where there should have been a dress.
"Are you lost?" he asked, insolent, wondering if the peasant women now also robbed the dead to be able to dress up in anything at all. That woman certainly looked too fragile to attack anyone and too tender to loot a corpse.
"I hope not," the woman replied, facing away from him. Jaime noticed that the large vessel she was filling with water was of an unusual elongated design with the words of an unknown language engraved upon the baked clay. Suddenly he was certain he had never seen anything like that in Westeros, and he had travelled his share of it accompanying Robert and Cersei.
"That's heavy," he commented lightly, eager to examine the object. "I could help you carry it back if you want."
"My steed is very thirsty," she said. "And your help is not required."
"Who are you?" he asked, less certain about his demeanour.
"A widow," she said. "A mother, maybe. Does it matter?"
"You haven't seen an army passing, have you?" Asking couldn't hurt, thought Jaime. Maybe she's another ghost of the High Heart prowling the Riverlands and reading the future.
"I may have," she said, "but I don't think it is the army that you seek. Your words remind me of my brother."
"It pleases me that my person brings you good memories," Jaime reacted. "Where is he?"
"He died. Wearing a golden crown. Maybe it will be your death as well," the woman said with a melodious accent and Jaime felt chilled to the bone.
"What would you know of wearing a crown?" he asked back, sarcastically.
"Not as much as I should. Do you presume to know more?"
"No," he said in earnest, wondering why he felt the urge to talk to a perfect foreigner, or maybe that was in itself the reason he continued speaking. "The closest I came to it was to sit on the Iron Throne wearing no crown, only a bloody sword across my knees. Then I stood up and left the throne to a better man."
"And who was the better man?" she wanted to know.
"At that time, anyone but me."
"Who are you?" she mirrored his initial question.
"I don't see why I should tell you. But you could say that I am a man desperately looking forward."
"Why?" she whispered, stirring the peace of the water with the souple sole of her sandal.
"Because if I look back, I am lost," Jaime replied, staring at her shoe drawing a circle on the lake, also of a peculiar design, made for riding, tiny, to fit a noble woman. Or a queen, he thought, realising that the foreigner for some reason held herself as one.
He could tell that his words startled her because she prepared to leave, showing a thread of long silvery hair from under her hood, but never her face.
"Farewell," she said. "If you go to the capital, I may yet see you there."
She walked away from the lake and from the castle, towards the first row of the trees. Maybe there is another town over there, Jaime thought. He decided to follow her from a distance, curious to see her eyes. But she went very fast, and as soon as he caught up with where she should have been, the traces of feet in soft leather disappeared as if they had been lifted in the air.
Brienne
Brienne saw Jaime following the unknown woman; a new knife in her heart, sharper than Valyrian steel.
She learned the truth about herself long ago and she knew very well that all Jaime's talk of bedding her was empty at best, and an ugly taunt at the worst.
Yet it was easier to stand that too when the only other woman she knew about was Cersei, a destiny Jaime could not escape, even if Brienne was smart enough to know that it was only a fate he chose for himself. But now he had followed a completely unknown woman, not, a real wench, Brienne thought, to the trees. Maybe he told her the same things he'd been telling me, and maybe they are together now, laughing...
The thought of servants coupling in her father's castle came unbidden to her mind, and she just had to know.
She paused to pick up her sword and shield, noting with disgust that Jaime had just left all their possessions at the lake. Brienne chose the same trick that worked for the stables. Walking in a broad loop, she intended to surprise them from behind.
The trees were dark and tall where she entered the wood, and Brienne was dwarfed in their shadow.
A rustle of leaves could be heard from the direction where Jaime must have gone with the woman, to do only the Seven knew what. Embarrassed and humiliated for having to know, she followed the sound to a small clearing.
But the woman was not there, and neither was Jaime.
A huge black beast, covered in scales, spread its wings lazily and breathed a wisp of black smoke at Brienne, whose legs almost gave way. She tried to stay calm, hoping against hope that the monster might leave her be if she didn't provoke it.
The beast made a step forward, each claw on his two bird-like feet larger than her sword. The next blow of smoke was coloured with fire and it came inches from Brienne. She didn't want to wait for the third one.
She raised her painted shield in front of her and stood calm, a Warrior Maiden in a peasant dress, looking for an opportunity to attack. If she could help it, she would not end as a course on a monster's platter. It would not be worthy of her inheritance.
The animal looked at the sigil she had had painted on her shield and snorted in... Recognition? Could it be? Brienne didn't know. Whatever it was, she was grateful.
The beast bent its head in submission, approaching her cautiously, and Brienne was not afraid any more. The monster looked as if it were going to open its mouth and speak to her at any moment.
A dragon, she realized, a living dragon.
A precise jet of fire came from a black dragon's mouth, colouring the falling star painted on her shield until it flickered red with life. She held her shield tight, but it was an unnecessary precaution.
The black lizard crawled back where it came from, ignoring Brienne completely, as if she were only the grass growing, not even worthy of being food. Then it spared her another short look, spread its spidery wings and took flight.
That, for some reason, humiliated the Lady of Tarth all the more, that she was not even worthy to be the prey of the magnificent beast.
She stomped away from the clearing as fast as the skirts allowed her.
And when she finally found Jaime, she was furious.
He was alone, making camp for the night, in a farmer's hut built in the hollow of the hill nearby the lake. The horses look tended and calm, but not even that proof of his efforts could calm her nerves.
The place was modest, but it smelled clean and no corpses could be found; a rare blessing in the times they were trying to survive. It looked like its owner had very recently left it for whatever reason, in search for a better life.
Jaime was out of his armour, and she realized he must have learned how to undress fast with his left hand. It showed how he changed, accepted his condition, from those first moments when the Bloody Mummers maimed him. Back then, she had to beg him to go on, to live, to fight for vengeance if not for anything else.
She rattled how she met Lady Stoneheart and overheard her conversation with the red priest and her singer.
"So it's all the better that we're not using the castle hospitality. I have no longing to meet the good Lady Catelyn so soon, and without some soldiers to cover my back," Jaime reacted.
"There was also a black dragon in the forest-" she tried explaining the rest.
"Yes, and I am a High Septon and you the most beautiful maiden in Seven Kingdoms. How can I resist you?" He provoked her again and Brienne couldn't take it any longer.
It has been quite enough.
"Stop it!" she screamed at him and he winced away. "I know that I may not look like a woman, but I am one! A maiden even, as you put it when you want to wound me to the core!"
She tugged at the laces of her unrefined bodice in frantic movements, almost tearing it apart, until the upper part of her body was naked, her sharp straw-like hair a mess, and she stood in front of him only in her skirts, breathing hard.
"As if you would ever do anything!" she yelled bitterly. "I can stand stark naked before you and you would still not touch me because I am ugly and we both know it! So just stop it, please! I'm not your sister!"
"Gods be good," Jaime said, "you are not."
He closed in on her like an eagle, or a mountain hawk, straight on her breasts. One fit in his hand and another in his mouth. When he kissed her all the way up to her face, an uncalled thought came to Briennes's mind, Don't wake the lion from his sleep. But Jaime didn't look golden at all. His eyes went dark, as if on fire. A stream of black molten steel on which the bright green dots flickered, and danced and almost disappeared, as a call for help of a child, drowning in shallow water.
"Don't ever do that again," he told her, parting from her with great difficulty, "unless you truly want me to do something you will regret."
Brienne fought with the fabric to dress up faster, but the bodice in disarray defeated her, where few man could.
"I'm sorry," she squeezed out, ashamed. "I didn't know. I won't do it again."
She had proven her point. Except that it was not the one she thought to prove.
A new light headedness took over, making her cast the bodice away. She dropped her crumpled skirts very slowly on the cabin floor, peeling them off attentively as she would a fruit. The last layer would have been pale yellow in colour it if had not been stained by usage. It was not ugly, and it agreed with the rosy smoothness of her too long legs.
She straightened the entire dress on the floor as her maids would do with her dresses in Tarth, preparing them for storage, as slow as she could, her embarrassment gone and forgotten. She pulled a thin light blue shift she wore under everything up to cover her breasts, one by one, and then over her shoulders, in measured calm movements. Trust Pod to be a good squire even with a noose around his neck and bring me my things, she thought.
Her monk tunic and breeches were also on the floor, right behind Jaime. Straightening her spine, standing taller than him, she fetched them, taking all the time in the Seven Kingdoms to dress up properly. She stretched her muscles while she was working, revealing perfectly slim limbs and shoulders as much as she could, letting him have a good look if he wanted. She never knew she had it in her; to do to him on purpose what he unwillingly did to her since they met, by being outspoken and by his golden looks.
She could swear he could never take his eyes off her. Although he did his best to pretend he was looking through her, or at his own toes.
"And now," she said, "will you believe me when I tell you that I have seen a dragon?"
Sansa
"We forgot the dog," Sansa complained as soon as they stopped after leaving Harrenhal.
"Another one?" the Hound asked. "You have one already."
Sansa blushed furiously, understanding he meant himself, remembering the godswood of Harrenhal.
"The old blind one-" she tried to say.
"Old, yes, but I'm still not blind," he interrupted, impatient, gazing at her figure with stormy eyes.
Sansa ran to the trees, muttering excuses about having to make water. After Mance's horrible story, she didn't even question when Sandor Clegane took her to his own horse to ride away. She went as she would have gone with Robb, as if they shared the same blood.
But now the magic was gone, the day was over, she was still Sansa, and he was not her family.
The unease she felt next to him was growing, a source of expectation and galloping doubt. Sansa decided to be brave as she squatted to make water, and when she did, the small lights of the fireflies went on in the woods. She instinctively knew Nymeria might come that night. She would have to make sure to sleep near the Hound in case Arya's wolf still considered him as food.
When she returned to the camp, she avoided the Hound, approaching Mance and the Elder Brother, equally careful to avoid the wildling's cloak so that she wouldn't have to think about what it was made of. Lord Blackwood snored loudly, a few ravens perched on the tree above him.
Sansa pretended she was checking Ser Daven's nose when the Elder Brother started a conversation with dreamy dark eyes, looking far younger than the number of his name days, "That Jon Snow, he must be quite a man."
"A man and a warg," said Mance, with pride. "He has a white wolf with red eyes and runs with him at night. He may not know what he is, yet. But he will, in time.
"Warg? That's an unproven belief of the north," commented the Elder Brother as an elderly lady prone to gossip.
"As unproven as the white walkers who almost killed you some days ago."
The bald monk was certainly older than her father, Sansa thought, but maybe not as much as she initially assumed. He had a few name days on Mance and that was all, and Mance a few namedays on Lord Eddard. And the Hound was much younger than both if she looked only at the good part of his face.
"What is a warg?" she asked. "Is it the same as the skinchangers Old Nan told us stories about?"
"Before I begin, Sansa, you must know that I am neither, so I am not entirely acquainted with that lore. People like that protect their secrets. A warg normally has one animal and he can leave his body and occupy the body of the animal when he wants. A wolf, a bear and an eagle being the most common creatures to warg into in the north. A skinchanger, they say, can do more. He can enter any living being, even another human and dominate it, not just see through the animal's eyes, not just run or fly. He can force another being to do his will. But to do so to another man is considered a greatest crime among my people. It is not done."
"Can these... skinchangers... talk to animals?" Sansa asked carefully.
"They can make the animals obey them," Mance cut her off. Sansa wondered if she was a warg or a skinchanger because she could feel where Nymeria was, or talk to Stranger, the Hound's hellish horse, until he willingly transported Petyr part of the way in Pennytree.
"And what happens if the animal of a warg... dies?" She had to ask, in honour of Lady's memory. It was Sansa's cowardice and lies, and Queen Cersei's cruelty, that killed her own direwolf.
"Mostly a warg dies too. Especially if they walked together for many years. Or he finds another animal to replace it. But people say that this is very difficult because the new animal has to be very strong, much stronger than the first one, to comfort the wounded soul of a warg after a loss of his life partner, and not crush into pieces under the pressure of his sorrow."
"What if the warg, or a skinchanger, dies?" Sansa went on.
"He rarely does, as long as his animal lives. I knew a man, he fought for me, Varamyr Sixskins, a nasty bastard. He had six animals and six lives. But the white walkers took them all and his the last."
"I think I'd like to meet this Jon Snow, even if he is a warg," the Elder Brother said. "The Seven have taken me away from the Quiet Isle with a reason. I'll go with you when you return north."
"The Seven have no power beyond the Wall."
"Than it is perhaps time to bring their light over there," the monk said with conviction.
"I say we ride further," the Hound said, approaching Sansa from behind. She jerked away because being close too him was too much and she could not take it for the moment. She never meant for her kissing him in make-believe to sow disorder in her soul.
"No," she shook her head and made several steps away from Sandor Clegane.
"Why not? There can be dead things after us! Will you kill them with your sewing needle when they finish the men off first?" he snickered.
"It's safe, I know it," Sansa insisted.
"My lady, Brother Gravedigger may be right," the Elder Brother pleaded.
"His name is Sandor Clegane," she couldn't tell why she defended the Hound despite his awful manners. "All know that now. As I know it is safe to sleep here and to travel these woods as fast or as slow as we want. When we come to the kingsroad again, there will be danger and we will have to find a safe way to reach the capital.
"And how in seven hells would you know that, girl? Did you scout these grounds?" the Hound barked, and Ser Daven wiped some fresh blood dripping from his nose.
"Nymeria told me," she said. "She protects these woods with her pack. She is my sister's wolf. I think that my sister is a warg. And if what you say is true, that they cannot die if their animal lives, than Arya has to be alive."
"The little wolf bitch is surely hard to kill," the Hound said, falling to his knees because Gendry approached him from behind and pulled his giant feet from the ground, catching him off balance.
Sansa's blood boiled too and she grabbed the Hound's shoulders, hissing, "Don't you dare to call my sister, or me, by that name!"
"Oh, I would never presume," he drooled with venom, "that I could be considered kin of my lady wolf and my lady's wolf sister."
Sansa understood in shock that the Hound took her words as if she would never consider him an equal. Unwilling mental images of dogs breeding in Winterfell came to mind, and she wondered if he hoped she would think of him as her... what? Suitor? Sansa was happy no one looked at her confused face because it was Gendry's turn to protest: "What have you done to Arya?"
"He did nothing," the Elder Brother said with unmistakable authority. "Young Lady Stark left him wounded to die and rode on to Saltpans. I found him and he drifted between life and death for days. And she must have boarded a ship for she was neither among the dead nor among the living after the sack of that city. I personally tended to the wounded and Sandor Clegane helped me burying the dead, thus earning his new name with which he served the Seven with us, Gravedigger."
"Didn't you ask where she could have gone?" Sansa inquired with hope.
"A ship sailed to Braavos at the time Brother Gravedigger was wounded, and another, to Volantis. I believe that your lady sister left Westeros. And I only went asking because he," he pointed an accusing finger at the Hound, "he is my brother, and he was worried about her. And I have a kinder way of dealing with people than he does."
Sandor Clegane looked grey and tried to snarl at Gendry, but his words lacked conviction, "At least the bastard here has some blood in his veins. It will come handy when he has to kill me in the show."
The day was ripe for more questions, and Sansa dared another one to anyone who would answer. "How was Prince Rhaegar in reality? Has any of you ever seen him? Was he as noble as some people whispered when I stayed in the capital?"
"Yes, a proper lord and a prince! His Bloody Grace!" Sandor Clegane scorned Sansa. "He kidnapped your aunt and raped her! Stop believing the horseshit people gossip about and the lies Mance is putting in your head only because he's gifted with words!"
"Thank you, my friend," jested Mance Rayder, "I didn't take you for a song lover."
"I heard a song or two in my childhood as well," the Hound said, sullen, "everyone in damn Westeros did."
Elder Brother helped Sansa out of trouble. "I lived longer than both of you so I remember well how after the rebellion there was talk among Targaryien loyalists, mainly the smallfolk around the Darry castle that Rhaegar never kidnapped Lyanna, but that she went with him willingly. Rhaegar was married, and neither Lord Rickard or King Aerys would consent that he takes Lyanna for his second wife as the Targaryens sometimes did of old. He had a male heir by that time so there was no need for a second marriage to secure the inheritance of the Iron Throne."
"You wore Aerys's armour on your execution, if you have to know," the Elder Brother added, pointing at the wildling's still armoured chest. "I've seen it on his official portrait when I visited Oldtown. He must have forgotten some of his mail in Harrenhal. The only thing you missed were his rubies. Stolen over time, I reckon…"
"My l…, Mance," Sansa stuttered, swallowing the need to address the wildling with kneeler titles as he would call them. The look on the Hound's face was priceless, at Sansa's lack of proper courtesy when addressing a man.
"Mance, what do you think?" Sansa had to continue. "How do you imagine it had happened? We are almost at the point when we have to read about it if I recall my family history correctly. Did he kidnap her and rape her in your song?"
"No, Sansa," Mance finally told them, more serious than a grave. "Rhaegar didn't kidnap Lyanna."
"Aerys did."