Mid November, 299 AC
Gods he wanted Cersei.
The rain pounded against his helm, making his head ache. Jaime was cold, soaked, and his stump throbbed with pain. Why suffer the road when he could daydream? The horse would hardly wander off, not when they rode in the middle of the column.
For a moment Jaime thought, trying to remember when he last had his sister. It was over a year since he'd fled the city, leaving Ned Stark to Cersei's tender mercies. The Hand's Tourney. Yes, that was it, he'd had her after the tourney ended. While Robert was busy getting drunk at the feast, Jaime had gotten drunk on Cersei.
Cersei had been furious that Robert had failed to fight in the mêlée, and her anger made her demanding. She'd shoved his face between her legs, yanking at his hair as he feasted. After his sister peaked she rode him, marking his chest with her nails. How sweet it will be to reclaim her. Cersei rarely took him in her mouth unless she wanted something, but he didn't intend to give her a choice. Hopefully she'd be done weeping over Joffrey by now; mourning black made her look half a corpse.
Jaime smiled as he pictured his lovely sister in a gown of Lannister crimson. The necklines she favored bared the tops of her breasts, a tantalizing vision of what lay beneath. Cersei had always hated how Robert clumsily groped at her teats, and now no one but Jaime would cup them in his hands.
Hand , he remembered bitterly, and the vision was gone. Jaime looked down at the stump, his mouth twisted in disgust. He'd gut Edmure Tully like a fish for this.
The wound had seemed little enough at the time, just a nick on his right hand that barely troubled him as he swam. When Jaime emerged from the river it took little time to find a sword. There were plenty of corpses in the Riverlands. It was in poor condition, though not as poor as the maggot infested knight he took it from.
Still, a sword was a sword, and with a blade in his hand, Jaime was invincible. He acquired clothing, food, and coin from ragged smallfolk at swordpoint, laughing at the curses they rained down on him. The gods hadn't punished him for Aerys, and he feared no red wolf, whatever that was.
Horses were even scarcer than gold, so he'd had to walk. He couldn't imagine how smallfolk endured the tedium of traveling by foot. So he began practicing his sword play. He practiced first thing when he arose, again when he paused to eat, and one last time before he slept. Captivity in Riverrun had dulled his skill, but he regained it quickly, exulting over his speed and ignoring the trickle of blood from the little wound.
Then the wound had begun to fester.
Much of the time after that was a blur. Jaime remembered fleeing up a tree to escape a pack of wolves; he remembered staggering onward once the beasts had fled.
Most of all, he remembered the wench. He could not forget those eyes, blue and bright and determined as she brought the sword down. It's festered , the wench's voice echoed. I swore an oath to keep you alive. Damn her oath, damn Catelyn Tully for asking it, and damn Edmure Tully again for nicking him. Tully was an adequate swordsman at best, it had been pure bad luck.
Still, my luck seems to be improving. He smirked as he glanced at the pair of lily white hands wrapped around his waist, the wrists bound together with rope. Half the realm must be searching for Sansa Stark, and I find her bathing.
Brienne had nearly bit her tongue off when she saw the maid. I swore to bring her back to her mother, the wench had insisted to Steelshanks Walton. When that failed, Brienne had asked for Sansa to ride with her. Jaime had refused. The wench was stubborn enough to get Sansa back to Riverrun, two hundred Bolton men bedamned.
Steelshanks had proposed tying the girl to a spare horse, but Jaime had dismissed that notion as well. For all he knew, she rode like Lyanna Stark. He'd seen the she-wolf race her brothers at Harrenhal; the girl was half a horse herself. No, Jaime was taking no chances with his prize.
He still couldn't believe that he'd caught her. At first he'd thought the maiden was some feverdream, the way she stood there in the lake, blood-red hair clinging to her breasts and belly. Then Jaime had heard the crossbowman shouting at her, and supposed she was some fisherman's whelp, unlucky enough to be bathing when their column passed by. At last he'd drawn near enough to see her face.
Like Jonquil in her pool, but all alone. For half a moment he had considered pretending not to recognize the poor shivering girl. Then he'd remembered how much Cersei wanted her. Florian was a fool. He may have been a better knight than me, but Florian didn't have Cersei waiting for him.
He didn't care how in the seven hells the girl ended up there, and she volunteered no explanation. The Stark girl had barely said a word since he took her. They'd dressed her in the tattered remnants of that awful pink satin gown, and put Brienne in spare men's garb. At some point the girl had asked for needle and thread to mend the worst of the tears made by the bear's claws, but he couldn't recall hearing her speak otherwise. Even Ned Stark spoke more, damn him.
The sun was nearly set when Steelshanks called a halt for the day. While the men set up camp Qyburn changed the dressings on Jaime's stump. The former maester was oddly fatherly for a man who had ridden with the Bloody Mummers. A clean cut, he'd said approvingly when he examined the stump at Harrenhal. Had it not been removed, the rot would have spread up the arm and killed you.
An hour later, Jaime had showed his gratitude by trying to kill the wench. Unfortunately, she was too damned big and strong for him to drown her in the baths. He'd nearly drowned himself instead when he fainted from the effort. The wench had saved him, of course. Because she swore an oath. Jaime's fury at her pigheadedness had loosened his lips and he'd told her exactly what he thought of oaths, and more besides, things he'd never told anyone.
Now Brienne sat across the campfire, awkwardly hunched over her meal. Beside her sat Sansa Stark, her poise as perfect as if she were eating roast swan at a banquet, not salted beef in the woods.
How different they were, the maiden and the wench. Where Brienne was thick, Sansa Stark was slender. Where Brienne's hair fell to her shoulders, brittle and pale as straw, Sansa's hair flowed to her waist in a braid of brilliant red that drank in the firelight. Where Brienne's mouth was wide, her lips swollen, Sansa's mouth was shapely, her lips a pretty rose pink.
Dimly Jaime realized those lips were moving, her voice hushed as she spoke to Brienne. What do they speak of, he wondered. If they are sharing tales of kingslaying, they should have invited me. Jaime snorted as he took a gulp of wine. No, he was the only kingslayer present. Whoever had slit Renly's throat, it wasn't the wench, no more than Sansa Stark had done for Joffrey.
In his dreams he sat the Iron Throne. He was seventeen again, whole and handsome. Cersei was radiant as she approached the throne, stepping daintily over Aerys' corpse.
"Well done, brother," she breathed. "Now no one may keep us apart."
Her hands were warm as she freed his cock, her hair shone like gold as she lifted her skirts. As he sank into her cunt he looked at her green eyes, those lovely green eyes- and then there were eyes all around, the eyes of the dead. Rhaegar's deep purple eyes judged him; Ned Stark's cold grey eyes found him wanting. What right had they to look at him so?
Then he saw the amber eyes, so soft, so disappointed.
"I never knew what my father would do," Jaime pleaded.
"You knew I wed the prince," the woman said. "You knew your father wanted him to wed another."
"I played no part in what was done."
"You played no part in stopping it."
And Jaime was in that room again, that terrible room. His eyes took everything in in an instant. The infant beside the fire, his skull a bloody pulp. The knight in white armor lying dead upon the floor, pierced by a thousand wounds. The giant sprawled beside him, his chest heaving as he struggled to rise. And across the room, a woman wept, and he looked into the eyes of Elia of Dorne.
