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Chapter 22
The Hall of Lamps
Where the Faith launches things in motion
xxxxx
Jaime
Jaime didn't know how long he slept, or if it was the next day or the day after his imprisonment. In the black cells there was no difference. Only the warmth of the wildfire remained. He touched the black pendant for no reason at all, and all of a sudden, his eyes could see.
"Don't slap him that hard," shouted the northern singer in front of a modest house somewhere in the city. "You're teasing him for his stupidity, you don't want to break his nose. Again!"
"Lady Ashara," Ser Hyle Hunt announced cockily to Brienne, whose hips swayed too gently in tight breeches. "You have not yet met a man who is man enough. Let me show you how the old gods have made us, descendants of the First Men, fierce and strong."
Undeterred by the slap that Jaime missed, the knight tried to kiss her, only to meet a slap so hard that Jaime's cheek started hurting in the dungeons of the Red Keep.
"No!" Mance yelled again, but Ser Hyle looked so pitiful that he seemed to have changed his mind and only waved to the players to continue reading.
"My lord," Ashara Dayne said to Brandon Stark, and Jaime could almost imagine Ser Arthur's sister, proud, tall and fair beyond count. "The women in Dorne are different from all others, all the realm knows about it. Do not seek peril in coming after one. We are made of sand, and the sand will slip through your hands and leave you with nothing. Man of the north, best return home."
"All the realm talks how the blood of the women in Dorne runs hot, and not of sand at all. Show me, Lady Ashara. Give me a little taste. No one will know."
"The sand is hot, but not for you, my lord. Get out of my chambers now if you don't want to wait for Dawn. My brother's sword will find you, firstborn son of a lord or not."
"It's your loss, my lady," Brandon Stark said, winking cheerfully. "I will not bar the door to my chambers, should you change your mind."
Jaime dropped the pendant and the darkness returned. Eager to continue his vision of Brienne, even if it involved Hyle Hunt, he nervously groped on the floor and found it again. With childlike adoration, he held it to his chest, and his vision cleared.
Brienne and Ser Hyle stood in daylight, near the city walls, under the blue sky sinking in the vastness of the sea.
"I'm sorry," she told him, plain and well spoken, as if she talked to an old friend. "For hitting you hard. Mummery is for ladies, not for me."
"My lady," Ser Hyle said with a friendly smile, "I have known you for a while and I can abide your nature. It pleases me greatly that we meet again so that I can pay my respects and reiterate my marriage offer. Tarth needs heirs and you would find me a most undemanding husband."
Jaime's delight faded, and before he could see her answering, presumably in acceptance, he smashed the pendant on the floor of the cell right on the place where he had slept. Anger ran through him like a demon made of swirling fire, but even so he could hear the cracking of the stone.
Something was wrong. The obsidian pendant was very sharp, and instead of ruining the damn thing as he intended, Jaime had made a fissure on the floor.
Interest in what was under took over all other confused ideas and images in his head. He ferociously set himself to widen the passage further, in a schooled stubborn motion of too many days spent learning how to be a son, under the ever watchful eye of his now dead father.
Elder Brother
The Elder Brother stood vigil in the Great Sept of Baelor, in front of the Father's altar. That face had always been his, despite how much he cherished all aspects of the gods as their faithful servant. He was not alone in that: every time he came to the capital, many candles were lit to the Father, distant and yet protective of his sons.
When the Elder Brother came the night before, a gaunt young septon told him that His Holiness would receive him shortly but than he was left alone to ponder about the Seven Faces of the One God for the duration of the night. It was good. It helped him clear his mind, stirred during travel and the company he kept in the depths he rarely needed to access in the Quiet Isle.
Walking up Vysenia's Hill woke up much older memories of many earlier trips to King's Landing, and many different High Septons. This one, the latest one, was his friend, a wandering septon from the riverlands. A short skinny man eager to help the poor, whom the destiny and the rebellion of the sparrows elevated to the highest honour against the usual plotting of the court. The outcome made the Elder Brother strangely pleased.
Morning crept in through the high windows, and the Elder Brother remained alone. Barefoot, he ventured from the sept proper into its antechamber, the Hall of Lamps. Something must have happened to my friend for not coming to meet me despite sending the message to the contrary, he thought.
"Elder Brother," another very thin aged septon greeted him, scrubbing the floor.
"I am not sure that I have had the pleasure-" the Elder Brother could not recognise him.
"-I am Torbert, remember. The penitence is hard on us sinners."
"Septon Torbert," the monk from the Quiet Isle acknowledged the bony septon, trying not to show the surprise at how he could have lost all of his weight in a rather short time. Septon Torbert he remembered was so plump that he could barely move. He must have been born a fat babe and he never lost a pound as a man grown.
"I should have voted for you... I was a fool..." Septon Torbert spoke between teeth, looking around as if he were afraid of invisible eyes and ears.
His incoherent speech was interrupted by the opening of the main door from the plaza outside the sept to the Hall of Lamps. The Elder Brother's recently elevated friend, albeit short of stature, entered wearing simple patched robes, followed by Ser Bonifer Hasty. The High Septon stared first at the Elder Brother's feet. An unspoken admonition died on his lips seeing they were bare just like his own, horny and callused spiders of grey and brown skin.
"Your Holiness," the Elder Brother said bowing to kiss the fingers of his superior unprovoked by his inquisitive stare.
"We are honoured, friend," His Holiness said finally, "we were told that your vigil was impeccable."
The statement made the Elder Brother wonder not only why Septon Torbert had become skin and bones beyond measure, but even more so why should anyone spy on the vigil of others. It was a simple act of devotion done in solitude, dear to the heart of a simple Seven-loving monk as the Elder Brother always saw himself in all honesty.
"There is no higher honour than to stand before the faces of the Seven, here in their magnificent home," replied the Elder Brother, serene, his cowl on as was proper when addressing His Holiness.
"Ser Bonifer mentioned to us you protected a sinner from the far north, a man wanted for his crimes against the realm, what do you say?"
Septon Torbert crawled away from them, polishing the floor as he went, in subservience and palpable fear.
They ventured in the main part of the sept, standing in the middle, illuminated by the blessed first light of a new day, spreading its glory through the high windows and the holy crystals in bright tones of a rainbow. The Elder Brother found his chance to answer:
"That man was a wildling who should be brought to King Tommen, not judged by Lord Baelish who should himself stand the trial of the Faith, as you well know, Your Holiness. I recall you saying that he cared not for the people of the riverlands. And the wildling revealed another sin against the gods Lord Baelish committed, sending an innocent girl up north to marry a madman."
"Ah, yes, we have heard. That has been foul indeed," the sharp face of his friend turned stern and his muddy brown eyes frowned. "What of the Hound who killed and raped in Saltpans? I heard that you protected him too."
The Elder Brother relayed the true story of the Saltpans in great detail, observing how the face of Ser Bonifer slowly sunk and the face of his friend, the avatar of the gods, grew more worried with every word.
"We are glad that you could have joined us, brother," His Holiness said, "or we could have made a terrible mistake and pronounced an anathema on the soul of Sandor Clegane. Unless he would repent and choose to serve the Faith as its champion."
"I am certain Ser Bonifer had only the best interest of the Faith in his mind when he suggested something like that," the monk from the Quiet Isle said, gaining awareness that the sept was not getting full of septons, septas, silent sisters or visiting monks in prayer as it normally should have in the morning. Instead, five or six Warrior's Sons walked in and encircled them from afar, some lingering at the altars in silent prayer, some lurking at the three men in the middle, as if waiting for a sign of His Holiness.
"Before we were elevated to this high office by the will of the Seven, some sparrows suggested you, Elder Brother, for the function we now have," the High Septon said in a voice as gnarled as his bare feet.
The Elder Brother had prayed the entire night, and his penitent looked matched His Holiness point by point, unforced and natural. "That would be most undeserving," he said. "But I would like to beg Your Holiness to give me leave, to continue protecting the innocents as we used to do together when we both walked the riverlands."
"In due time, Elder Brother," his superior said. "Tell me, has Sandor Clegane sworn the vows of the Faith?"
"No. He accepted the shelter and the cowl not to offend our community by his attire, but he never took any vows. He served us digging graves."
"How unfortunate," the High Septon sighed profoundly.
"I don't understand," began the Elder Brother, noticing the Warrior's Sons approaching him.
Ser Bonifer proudly wore a thin-lipped awkward smile.
The door to the main part of the sept coming from the Hall of Lamps burst open as if it had been forced to do so.
In the doorway stood Sandor Clegane, bare-faced, black hair shining with youth it had never known, looking like a man on his marriage day. Greatsword was hauled on his back, in a huge soot-black scabbard over his brown robes of the Faith. After him came a dozen of sparrows, their eyes full of adoration. A few septas peered shyly to the inside, standing behind the little birds of the Faith.
I think in his words, the Elder Brother realised, recalling the piercing cries of a man dying who only wanted his little bird; the Brother Gravedigger who stayed alive against all odds and followed the Elder Brother as a shadow ever since, in silent gratitude for keeping his life.
"Your Holiness," Sandor Clegane said with a sneer, kneeling in front of the High Septon in a way that no one could question the propriety of his gesture despite the extreme mocking in his voice. He covered his face with a hood then, and went straight to the lonely altar of the Stranger bringing several golden dragons, and a single candle, which he had to light on those still burning on the altar of the Crone.
"The Hound!" Ser Bonifer yelped and the man whose name was called out responded flatly. "We are here to adore in silence. I came to pray to the face of the Seven Faced God with which the gods have blessed me. And to beg His Holiness for a public absolution regarding Saltpans. The Elder Brother will confirm-"
"-he already said so," the High Septon inserted with unhidden impatience. The Elder Brother noticed that some of the Warrior's Sons had hands on the star-adorned-pommels of their swords and for a second the house of the gods seemed more sinister than the black halls of Harrenhal.
"Stand down, my sons," His Holiness ordered his swords.
The candle lit to the Stranger was born to life under the crystals of the sept, when white daylight finally shone in all corners, powerful and brighter than fire.
The morning was over, and the shadows of the darkness gone.
"You are the legend of the riverlands, the Elder Brother," said one of the sparrows who had come in.
"You cured a deadly plague in my village," said another.
The Elder Brother turned to face the sparrows, his hood half lowered from the movement. A septa fainted in the background and another helped her to stand up.
"I did nothing," the old monk said, adjusting his robes to cover his face. "I merely obeyed the will of the Seven. Please step away, someone is in need of help right there."
And so the Elder Brother walked out of the main hall of the Great Sept of Baelor back to the Hall of Lamps. The sparrows pushed themselves forward to touch his robes, whispering exaggerated stories of his good deeds.
"Calm down, brothers, we all work for the glory of the Seven, none of us is any better than the other," he told them, realizing they all held axes in the holy place. "Why are you armed here? I came empty handed to worship."
"We are sworn to High Holines as the Order of the Star reborn," one of the sparrows stated proudly. "And them are the Order of the Sword", another pointed to the Warrior's Sons.
The Elder Brother looked at His Holiness with an untold question in his charcoal dark eyes which saw everything.
"Brother," the avatar of the gods answered the unspoken plea, "you said many times when we wandered the Riverlands together that the gods cannot do everything alone. We have to labour as well. What better way to protect the weak than to arm the servants of the Faith?"
"Your Holiness," the Elder Brother said politely, but the tone of his voice was iron, "with so many swords around, what will a few more achieve? You may only create another army in an ongoing war. And where there are more armies, they tend to use their arms against each other."
"The demands of the Faith are sometimes great," said the High Septon, caressing his brown and grey beard, closely trimmed to fit his face.
The Elder Brother found that maybe, that man he had known and loved, that septon he had admired, was no longer his friend. Or they had both changed with the seasons, in ways only gods could explain.
"In your wisdom, you know best, Your Holiness," he said, wishing to reconcile with his superior. He had been on the Quiet Isle for too long. Maybe the rebirth of the Faith Militant was the right way forward.
When the Elder Brother moved to check on the septa who fainted, she was gone. Only a dark skinned young septa still stood behind the sparrows. "Septa Lemore has travelled to King's Landing from afar," she said, "please, forgive her distress. Seeing High Holiness in person has proven too much for her fragile condition."
"His Holiness will be glad to meet such devoted septas," said the Elder Brother. "May I take a look at Septa Lemore to ensure that she is in good health?"
"She made a vow of silence, and a vow of not showing her face at all for a fortnight, in a sign of penitence. She withdrew in meditation for the rest of this day," answered the other one.
"Young Septa Tyene is very wise and you can trust her advice in all matters, brother," His Holiness said from the back. "She was of immense help in accusing the Queen Regent of her heinous crimes."
"When is the trial taking place?" the Elder Brother asked. "I wish to return to the riverlands when it is done."
"Now that depends," Septa Tyene said. "When the Faith finds a worthy champion," the High Septon finished her thought. "The Kingsguard member to fight for the queen is very strong. Cursed, some say."
"Please, Elder Brother, come out to meet the rest of us sparrows who are here on the plaza even if the main force is now in the field, fighting for the poor!" pleaded the sparrow whose village had suffered from plague.
The Elder Brother stepped out, on to the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, overlooking the plaza and the statue of Baelor the Blessed. Too many eyes looked at him, and he desired to leave and be invisible. Sandor Clegane suddenly appeared behind his back, shielding him from harm.
Ser Bonifer said: "Dog, is your prayer over?"
"That is Clegane to you, Hasty," the Hound barked, "or my offer to draw my sigil in your skin still stands. Don't take me upon it."
"Brothers," the Elder Brother told all the sparrows, three dozens of them gathered at the stairs, "it pleases me to come to the capital after many years and to see the men of Faith in such numbers. May the Seven appoint a worthy champion to fight for the Faith on the trial of the queen."
The monk started descending the high steps followed by the dark shadow of the Hound. He hid his face completely and was tempted to turn around and check if the insistent stare he felt on his back belonged to the holy old eyes colour of mud or to a confused septa.
"May the Seven hear your voice, brother," repeated the pious voice of the High Septon, clearing the monk's suspicions about his old friend, not betraying any ill will at all. "I will absolve Sandor Clegane of his sins, and he can leave the shelter of the Faith if he so wishes."
"And for that I am grateful. Undeserving as I am of the mercy of the Seven, I yet dare to pray to them to hear my voice and do as they please," the Elder Brother replied bowing deeply to His Holiness.
The Hound only nodded in acknowledgement, not bending an inch. Tall as a sentinel of the North, the Elder Brother thought, and wondered when he had seen the sentinels in his previous life. The memory felt real yet he could not put it in place, or in time.
The monk walked down the hill, chasing the fleeting blasphemous thought that the clear light of the day in the open air was ten times more beautiful than all the candles and the crystals of the Seven.
Sandor Clegane walked two steps behind him. When they were on the bottom of the hill, the burned man visibly let his high shoulders slump and spoke gruffly. "Come on, brother, I'll show you where Mance put us. Unless you want to spend every night you have to stay in the capital in the sept or chatting with the sparrows and withered septas."
"Why did you come after me? Pardon me, brother, but you don't care about the absolution of the Faith you have just received. I always knew I was going to have to demand it in your stead," the monk asked, curious about his brother's motivation.
"A dog can sniff trouble," the animal's namesake answered. "I could not sleep. I thought I would find you in the sept so I went there. Then I saw the door barred, and the sparrows waiting outside. You know the rest."
"I am glad you came, brother," the Elder Brother said, relieved in his turn, not certain from what he had been saved yet again by the will of the gods. "And now I want to find something worthy of doing while I am forced to wait for the queen's trial. Let's visit the poor of King's Landing!"
Brienne
"Don't worry," Mance told Brienne, "I understand now that when someone believes me that I come from White Harbor it means he is not particularly bright. The commander of the gold cloaks will not suspect a thing."
Brienne wore a rough-spun dress she brought from Harrenhal, her face was smeared with soot and her hair stood more prickly than usual.
"It looks like the Queen Regent had all the previous gaolers killed, but now she wants to hire one to feed her brother for the time she intends to keep him in the dungeons. She requested an ugly woman."
The Lady of Tarth looked every bit as ugly as Cersei wanted, her blue eyes big from crying and the lack of sleep.
"Are you sure she's a woman?" the commander of the gold cloaks asked when they arrived to the gates of the Red Keep.
"I checked it thoroughly last night," Mance said, ignoring Brienne's hurt expression. She can be quite ferocious, I tell you." Mance made a growl and a jump as if he were a beast.
"Have it your way, singer. You helped us solve a problem and you can play for the garrison tonight if you so wish."
"I'm glad I can be of service," Mance grinned, nudging Brienne decisively towards the door.
Two other gold cloaks ushered her in, down the way she had crossed before, following Jaime. She was given a platter of food and left in front of a cell door with a ring of keys and no torch.
"Crawl back up when you are done," a gold cloak jeered.
She waited for them to be gone before trying all the keys in the hole. When the door finally opened and her eyes were a bit more adjusted to darkness, she entered and called him.
"Jaime," she stuttered, still unused to call him out loud the way she started calling him in her thoughts.
He was not there. She must have been in the wrong cell. She made a step back but the soil was slippery, making her slide. Catching one of the walls, she kept balance and the tray of food in her hands.
A hand touched her ankle from below and she was afraid. "Leave me," she said, trying to hide her fear, thinking if she should aim the tray at her attacker. Maybe the gold cloaks took her to some beast left from the age of Targaryens that the smallfolk whispered about.
"Is it you, my lady?" a familiar voice said from under and Brienne could breathe again.
"I brought you some food," she rattled, finding it difficult to say meaningful things to Jaime when all she wanted was to ensure his safety.
"Good to hear that", he said. "I went for a walk and I am hungrier than a lion. Step back and sit down next to the wall. There is a passage down here which I have to close after me."
Brienne did as she was told and after some sounds of pulling he was seated next to her, moving with assuredness of a cat who could see in the dark.
"All I could see was darkness," she said. "I was afraid that the Queen Regent changed her mind and that she put you away for real."
"Shh! I saw you talking to Ser Hyle… It's the pendant, right?" he asked for confirmation.
"The pendant, and the dagger," she gave him the explanation gladly. "I noticed in the caves and in Harrenhal. I could see what you were doing."
"So could I," Jaime said, removing the platter with food from her confused hands.
"And since I have the pleasure to be awarded a most charming gaoler," he continued, "know that as your brother in the mummers' farce I would never let you succumb to the dubious charms of Ser Hyle, or Brandon Stark, or anyone else."
"We only read the scene when Brandon boosts to Ashara about his manly virtues and she is teasing him to prove himself. The singer asked it of me in exchange of arranging this position for me. It goes with a set of keys to free you," she said. "You can take my dress and go up now. Our sizes match."
"Wearing a dress does not appeal to me, my lady. I so find that they fit you much better. Some of them, at least," he teased her but there was kindness, and hidden resentment in his voice.
"And what will happen when Cersei finds you here in my place?"he asked her, more composed this time. "Believe me, she is not the forgiving kind. Besides, that little pendant is a sharp thing. It helped me open a way to a passage I wish to explore further. I think I will enjoy the black cells hospitality for just a bit longer, on one condition," Jaime whispered nervously as if the walls could hear him if he raised his tone.
"And that is?" she inquired timidly, feeling the warmth of him next to her face as if he puffed out small clouds of fire.
"That you come and feed me every day. You can tell Mance how grateful I am to him for arranging this prosperous position for you and that in exchange I will read whatever platitudes he put in Dayne's mouth when I am out of here… in a while…" Jaime said merrily.
Brienne tried to get the platter back and give it to him, but a touch of a stump stayed her hand.
"Meanwhile," he said in a rough voice. "The kind of food I had in mind was a bit different."
Perfect lips touched Brienne's full ones forcing them to open. It was nothing like the knightly kisses she imagined in her solitary nights in Tarth, all chaste and cold, in sign of proper and measured devotion. Her body glowed from his touch and she imagined she would go alight as a torch the gold cloaks didn't give her.
The precision she needed for sword fight returned and helped her to move a tray to a safe distance from a tangle of long arms in the dark, and her mind was swerving with thoughts of how twisted it all was, and how completely lost she was.
And how he was truly strong enough.
"Brienne," he said coarsely, breaking his kiss, pressing his lips on her bitten cheek. "I saw you with Ser Hyle and I couldn't take it. I know I have no honour and that I carry my family past on my shoulders. I cannot and I will not forsake what is left of it even if I have to force it on Cersei and Tommen to accept my help."
"But I am still asking you this, selfish as it may be," he stopped lacking the force to continue.
"What?" she said, surprised at the tenderness in her own voice she was not used to hear leaving her mouth very often.
"I am asking you to wait. Don't marry Ser Hyle. Don't marry. Please."
"On one condition," she managed to say, unable to process the magnitude of his demand.
"Name it," he said, more serious than a septon.
"That you eat your dinner," she punched back and enjoyed how his body twitched in an uncontrolled laughter between her arms, certain she would make them continue where they stopped when he would finish his meal. He still needed to tell her why he wanted to remain in prison.
After all, the ladies do favour their knights with kisses, she thought when he finally accepted the platter, refusing to give in to the creeping belief that what they started was wrong, and that the gods would surely find a way to punish them.
Sansa
"My lady, the heralds," Gendry said to Sansa who had been looking for Sandor the entire day, to no avail.
She had fallen asleep in the Hound's arms, and he must have carried her inside. Where he went after that, she did not know.
He is very strong, she tried to convince herself, nothing could have happened to him.
So was your father, said Queen Cersei's voice in her head, and Joffrey's dead face laughed madly, choking on a piece of his wedding pie.
"The heralds, my lady," Gendry repeated, breathless from running back to the fishermen's house from the more central parts of the town. "They are proclaiming it everywhere, with drums and flutes. The Faith has found the champion to fight for the Seven against the champion of the queen."
"And who is the champion of the queen?" Sansa bleated, feeling grey as the colour of her house.
"A new sworn brother of the Kingsguard, called Ser Robert Strong. No one has seen his face because he covers it with a white helm specially made to fit the man of his size. People whisper that no one can withstand him."
"His size?" Sansa repeated, dread pulling in her stomach.
"They say that the knight is over eight feet tall."
There was only one man over eight feet tall in all Westeros and Sansa had seen him almost killing Ser Loras Tyrell at the tourney of the Hand. Ser Gregor, Sandor's brother, the Mountain That Rides. Only he was supposed to be dead, killed by Prince Oberyn Martell, and his head sent to Dorne, shortly after Sansa stopped living as a ward of the crown.
And there was only one thing left to ask before the inevitable would hit her again, her, Sansa, bound to lose everything she held dear, in payment for being a stupid girl and betraying her father. Sandor, Sandor, Sandor, he was going to fight his brother, an abomination in life, and, seemly, in death.
"Who is the champion of the Faith?" Sansa asked, admiring that her own voice did not falter.
"Now that is a strange thing," Gendry said, and Sansa's tummy turned in expectation. "The gods have named a holy man to hold high the lamp of the Faith, or so says the High Septon."
"Holy? It can't be… He isn't… He never swore any vows!" Sansa could not understand.
"He looked holy enough to me," Gendry offered his opinion on the matter. "The heralds announce the champion of the Faith to be the Elder Brother from the Quiet Isle."