Author's Notes: Good day, everyone! I hope everyone is doing well. I know the holidays can be stressful, but try not to overload yourself. Just keep calm and read on!
Thanks again for all of your support! I appreciate all of your reviews, favorites, and alerts!
So I muck around in maps as my day job and, wouldn't ya know it, I come across a Kings Landing in Canada. Ergo, Game of Thrones takes place in Canada. I knew those Canadians were hiding something. Their reputation for politeness is clearly an insidious cover. (Love you, Canada! Try to ignore the crazy shenanigans of you neighbor to the south.)
Chapter 39
Brienne I
Brienne strode out to the training grounds early in the morning. After luncheon, the men would be out, seemingly unable to keep themselves from leering and jeering at her. It didn't matter how many she beat to the ground, they refused her any kind of respect. If she hadn't cared so much for Renly, she wouldn't have put up with it.
Renly, she thought with a sad sigh. A rush of excitement had flowed through her upon receiving the summons to join Renly in King's Landing to "keep the throne out of the hands of the dragon." She recalled her father frowning over the summons, deliberating it.
"What's wrong, father? It's a summon from our lord paramount! It cannot be ignored."
"I do not intend to ignore it," he replied. "I am trying to decide how to answer."
"Lord Renly needs our help and we are bound by our oaths to help him."
Her fathered looked old and weary as he watched her. He had fought with King Robert and Stannis Baratheon without hesitation when the Ironborn attacked, so why was this causing him pause?
"It's not that simple, Brienne. All we know is, a young boy claiming to be Aemon Targaryen has dethroned King Robert in Winterfell. I have met Lord Stark and he is not a man to make light of his convictions. As you well know, he suffered mightily under the Targaryens. He would never see them return to power, unless…" His gruff voice trailed off and he had a far off look in his eyes.
"Unless what?" She demanded. Her ire had already built enough that she knew what she was going to do, whether her father permitted her or not. She was just humoring him at this point.
"Unless there were something more to this. He and King Robert were best friends, nigh inseparable during the war. There must be something that tore them apart. I'm sorry, my dear, but there simply isn't enough information here to act on. And I don't trust Renly to speak plain and even."
"Are you calling Lord Renly a liar?" She leapt from her place at the table.
"Not a liar. There's simply too much left unsaid in this summons. I am not comfortable committing to this cause. Tarth will remain neutral."
"You would break your oath?"
"I would act with caution."
"Tarth may remain neutral, but I will not," she declared. He raised his eyebrows at her in surprise, but waited. "I will answer Renly's summon as if I were a knight."
"Do you think that wise, Brienne?" He asked softly. "You will be a singular woman amongst men who may not accept you."
"But one does," she said, a blush blossoming in her cheeks as she recalled that night not so long ago where Renly gave her her first dance. "As you might very well recall."
"I have not forgotten, but I worry for you, child. I fear you may run headlong into disappointment."
She straightened up and pressed her mouth into a stubborn line. "That may be. But my lord paramount calls and I shall answer his summon."
With that, she had gone straight to her room and donned her armor, strapping her sword to her side. She was waiting by the docks when her father showed up with a retinue. She had just been ready to argue when he had shook his head, "I know a lost cause. Be safe, my dear. You are all I have left."
"I was taught well, father," she replied. "I will return."
He nodded and gave her a pack of clothes and food, as, having left in such a hurry, she hadn't thought to grab anything. Once aboard the ship, she dared not to look back.
That had been five months ago. It was as her father said, she was the only lady in the Red Keep, the rest of them having fled the capital to avoid being at the wrong end of a sword. At first, she had attracted a lot of interest - curiosity, perhaps - but it hadn't taken long for whispers to start following her around the Keep. She ignored them, but they were persistent.
Brienne the Beauty soon became her nickname. Once, someone had broken into her room at night on a drunken dare. She came close to removing his intestines, but settled for breaking all the fingers in his hand and booted him out her door. From that point on she barricaded her door at night. When she had informed Renly about it, he had shown concern, and promised to instill discipline, but nothing ever came of it. He was far too wrapped up in the war, consulting frequently with Loras.
It was not the only incident and it wasn't the last. At one point, the tone changed and she found a handful of men treating her well. To go from one extreme to the other had been suspicious and she had maintained a courteous distance. Then her former betrothed, Ronnet Connington, had jokingly informed her they had a betting pool going to see who could take her maidenhead first. Now she looked at every man with sullen mistrust, all except Renly.
She was not blind. She had suspected that his feelings may lie elsewhere. She also wasn't naive enough to believe that he would ever marry her. Sweet, beautiful Renly could not be seen with Brienne the Beauty. She decided that should he ever be king, she would offer herself to his Kingsguard. She hoped he might be open to the idea of a woman joining.
When the siege initially started, everyone had been in good spirits. Though the Lannister army was settled quite far away, the men still jeered from the top of the wall at them. They had felt invincible! Then the armies of the North and the Riverlands arrived and had numbed them to quietude. The Westerland's force was the most substantial in the kingdoms, but seeing two more hosts show up reminded them that they had few allies. Renly apparently tried to keep it secret, but word had leaked out eventually: the Vale and the Reach had committed to Aemon Targaryen as well.
Some merely disregarded it as rumor, but there was no mistaking the fear in their eyes when they saw the Reach banners join with the ever-growing horde, not in battle, but in camaraderie. It was the nail in their coffin.
Brienne steeled herself to meet her end on the battlefield, wincing internally at the broken oath she would be causing upon her death, but she would not falter. The other lords around her were not quite so content. Now that it was all too real, they had forgotten to tease her and angrily turned to Renly. He had attempted to soothe their worries by saying his brother Stannis would ease the siege and that the Targaryen would burn everyone alive now that they were still in the Keep. Word had come back to them of Lord Tywin's torture of those who attempted to flee the inevitable massacre. But the Keep was quickly becoming like a hornet's nest as the eve of battle approached. More men fled despite the danger of being captured and tortured by Tywin.
The mood had lightened when the musician showed up. The few goldcloaks left to patrol the city had reported being stopped in their tracks by a musician playing for a crowd in the streets. If the soldiers in the Keep were strung too tight, the poor people of King's Landing were on the brink of panic, but the music the man played had seemed to ease their fears. He was quickly invited into the keep to ease the soldiers' nerves as well.
Brienne had heard plenty of musicians in her lifetime, but she could say that none were as good as him and she paid very little attention to music. He appeared to have an uncanny knack for gauging the mood and knew which song to play to uplift. When Brienne listened from the shadows, she felt at ease.
She should have known he was a spy. It was suspicious, after all, that a musician would show up right before a siege. The last time King's Landing was stormed, many people died, armed and unarmed, so he could hardly expect a safe exit. Amidst all the fear and doubt, no one had given it much thought, and he had been allowed to slink and spy to his heart's content.
Brienne gritted her teeth in frustration. Everything went wrong so quickly. How could the Reach have failed us? She had an inkling. Aemon's declaration of his heritage had come out of nowhere. By taking King Robert captive in Winterfell, everyone else was left scrambling, but he had stretched out his hand in friendship the instant he declared himself. For such a young man, the affair was handled in such a way that suggested this had been in the planning for years. The Starks were far more treacherous than she had ever thought possible.
We never stood a chance, she mused. It was then she was taken out of her thoughts by the familiar clang of swords.
"Move your feet! You forget about your feet, Pod. You need to move your whole body."
She stared. The Kingslayer was in the training grounds with a boy whom she presumed must be his squire. Even from her distance, the boy was holding the sword incorrectly and was far too stiff in his movements. The Kingslayer was languid and at ease. He was almost lazy as he swatted the sword out of his squire's hands again.
"Relax. You can't be swift if you're stiff as a tree trunk. Shake out your limbs, Pod. Try again." He pounced on his squire again like a cat toying with a mouse. The boy grunted but made no complaints, much to her pleasant surprise. "Be quicker! In battle, your opponent won't let you reach your sword, they'll just gut you. You have to be ready."
The squire staggered to his feet again and managed to fend off a few hits, though his technique and his footwork were still clumsy. "Better. Keep to your feet, hold your sword the way I taught you, and practice. It'll come naturally, Pod. Eventually."
Finally, the boy spotted her, nodded in her direction, and then said, "Uhh...my Lord."
The Kingslayer turned. She was taken aback by the surprise on his face. It took him a moment, but he gave her a short bow and said, "My Lady."
She glared at him. He was the one who had knocked her out! She thought the voice sounded familiar and upon seeing his eyes, recalled seeing the man dressed in black in the hall, leading his team with her beloved Renly as captive. She'd never forget the way his voice taunted her and the litany of apologies nettled her as she had fallen unconscious.
Then it struck her: she had been knocked out by the Kingslayer. She would begrudgingly admit that it took a rare courage to lead a team into the heart of your enemy's fortress when the odds had undoubtedly been stacked against him. By all accounts, they should've been caught, but the other lords had been too drunk to even be awake. It had irritated her that Renly allowed everyone to indulge so deeply into their cups on the eve of battle, but he hadn't even been present for the evening and if the stories were true, the Kingslayer had caught him in bed with Ser Loras Tyrell.
She had suspected something between those two. They shared looks like how she imagined new lovers would, but it saddened her that Renly was now forever disgraced from it. Banished to the Wall, the one place she could not follow. She would likely never see him again and sighed sadly at the loss the world didn't realize it had suffered.
Her ire returned once more to the man in front of her. It was his fault Renly was now doomed to the Wall, when his rightful place was as Lord of Storm's End! Will this be the end of the Baratheon line then? Or will Lord Stannis betray his own brothers and yield for his house? They were to have found glory on the battlefield, but this man had robbed them of that.
The Kingslayer, the Oathbreaker. She could think of few names more vile than those. He had murdered his King and now, again, he betrayed his oath as Kingsguard to leave the order, when none ever had before him. That he even dared to gloat his victory was enough to cause her blood to boil. Typical power-hungry lion, she thought, but at the same time found herself admiring him. His hair glowed gold in the morning sun and he was the very picture of the Warrior with his sword in hand. He was striking enough, despite the scars that swept across his face, marring his otherwise beautiful skin.
Of the many things she had heard racing around the Keep since the Dragon and his Lion entered, most of them were in regards to Jaime Lannister. She'd heard he'd been caught fucking his sister, she'd heard he'd been raped by his sister - and this left her puzzled because she had long thought being raped was only a woman's fear. He got into a battle with Robert Baratheon when King Aemon declared himself. And also that he'd decided to make a trophy of a bear by using his sword rather than a bow. He had walked away with the bear's head, but not before it had adorned him with those marks. Still, he was not ugly, not with those dancing green eyes.
That's enough of that, she scolded herself. It was time she moved on, but where next she knew not. She was not ready to head back to Tarth, a disgraced rebel, but there was nothing left here for her in King's Landing. If the teasing had been bad before, it would only get worse with the new men in the Keep and no Renly to curb it.
Her scowl deepened when she returned her attention to Jaime. She didn't like the look he was giving her. He was looking at her with something akin to awe, but she didn't understand how that could be possible. It had to be a prelude to more teasing. She bowed and said, "Forgive me, my lord. I did not mean to disturb you." Then began walking away.
"You don't need to leave," he called out to her. "There's certainly plenty of room for the both of us."
She turned to him and stared. What is he playing at? She was surprised that he, the Lord Hand to the new King Aemon, would look at her with anything other than disgust. She was ugly and a rebel who had stood in his way, quite literally. Staying could only lead to humiliation. I thought you were a warrior, she chided herself. She had made her pledges on behalf of Tarth and the king had accepted her back into the embrace of the kingdoms.
The Kingslayer turned away from her to focus on his squire again, but she thought she saw a faint look of disappointment on his face. I am not a coward, she steeled herself and walked back towards the training yard, but veered away from him and his squire over to an empty square with practice dummies and space to practice her technique.
"Let's start again, Pod. When I step this way, you step...good!" Clack, clack, clack-clack. "Don't be afraid to strike me. You can't simply defend or else your opponent will win."
She was typically good at staying focused when training, but she couldn't resist glancing over at the other two. She was a sword fighter after all and no matter her feelings, the Kingslayer was among the best swords in the Seven Kingdoms. She kept surreptitiously glancing over to them as the Kingslayer shouted instructions at his hapless squire. While the squire took several rolls in the dirt and was huffing and blowing - a rather embarrassingly poor swordsman for even his age group - not one word of complaint left his lips and he simply got back up and took his stance again. He at least seemed to have that down, finally. By contrast, the Kingslayer hardly expended his energy and was remiss in his takedowns of his squire. For someone so at ease with the sword, she had expected him to be impatient and ill-tempered at having such a pathetic squire, but while he did shout, it was never abrasive.
The Kingslayer finally caught her watching and smirked. There was something in his eyes she did not like, but she wouldn't allow him to intimidate her. She turned back to the wooden figure when he called out to her, "The wench fights well with a sword." She turned to glare at him, but he just continued to grin in an infuriating manner. "Perhaps she would like to serve as another sparring partner for my squire."
She scowled. "Are you insulting me?"
He raised his eyebrows, but the smile remained. "Why would I do that? I may be the best sword in the Seven Kingdoms, but my style of fighting is not the only style of fighting. You do appear to be rather admirable with that sword. In fact, I heard Ser Beric singing your praises the other day when he said you managed to best Ser Loras."
"What of it?" She barked.
"So, my squire could learn something from a fight with you."
"Your squire is no match for me."
"It's called practice. Everyone needs it. Come, wench, it will be an easy fight."
"I am not a wench!" She finally rounded on him and crowded his space, but he seemed merely amused by her efforts. "You may be the Hand to the King, but I am not your plaything. I need not tolerate your mocking. Good day, my Lord," she snarled and stalked off.
Just as she expected, the teasing would be worse with the new arrivals, especially with the Hand of the King now joining in. I need to leave, but to where? The deafening silence around her was her only answer.
