An east wind blew through his tangled hair, as soft and fragrant
as Cersei’s fingers. He could hear birds singing, and feel
the river moving beneath the boat as the sweep of the oars sent
them toward the pale pink dawn. After so long in darkness, the
world was so sweet that Jaime Lannister felt dizzy. I am alive, and
drunk on sunlight. A laugh burst from his lips, sudden as a quail
flushed from cover.
“Quiet,” the wench grumbled, scowling. Scowls suited
her broad homely face better than a smile. Not that Jaime had ever
seen her smiling. He amused himself by picturing her in one of
Cersei’s silken gowns in place of her studded leather jerkin.
As well dress a cow in silk as this one.
But the cow could row. Beneath her roughspun brown breeches were
calves like cords of wood, and the long muscles of her arms
stretched and tightened with each stroke of the oars. Even after
rowing half the night, she showed no signs of tiring, which was
more than could be said for his cousin Ser Cleos, laboring on the
other oar. A big strong peasant wench to look at her, yet she
speaks like one highborn and wears longsword and dagger. Ah, but
can she use them? Jaime meant to find out, as soon as he rid
himself of these fetters.
He wore iron manacles on his wrists and a matching pair about
his ankles, joined by a length of heavy chain no more than a foot
long. “You’d think my word as a Lannister was not good
enough,” he’d japed as they bound him. He’d been
very drunk by then, thanks to Catelyn Stark. Of their escape from
Riverrun, he recalled only bits and pieces. There had been some
trouble with the gaoler, but the big wench had overcome him.
After that they had climbed an endless stair, around and around.
His legs were weak as grass, and he’d stumbled twice or
thrice, until the wench lent him an arm to lean on. At some point
he was bundled into a traveler’s cloak and shoved into the
bottom of a skiff. He remembered listening to Lady Catelyn command
someone to raise the portcullis on the Water Gate. She was sending
Ser Cleos Frey back to King’s Landing with new terms for the
queen, she’d declared in a tone that brooked no argument.
He must have drifted off then. The wine had made him sleepy, and
it felt good to stretch, a luxury his chains had not permitted him
in the cell. Jaime had long ago learned to snatch sleep in the
saddle during a march. This was no harder. Tyrion is going to laugh
himself sick when he hears how I slept through my own escape. He
was awake now, though, and the fetters were irksome. “My
lady,” he called out, “if you’ll strike off these
chains, I’ll spell you at those oars.”
She scowled again, her face all horse teeth and glowering
suspicion. “You’ll wear your chains,
Kingslayer.”
“You figure to row all the way to King’s Landing,
wench?”
“You will call me Brienne. Not wench.”
“My name is Ser Jaime. Not Kingslayer.”
“Do you deny that you slew a king?”
“No. Do you deny your sex? If so, unlace those breeches
and show me.” He gave her an innocent smile. “I’d
ask you to open your bodice, but from the look of you that
wouldn’t prove much.”
Ser Cleos fretted. “Cousin, remember your
courtesies.” The Lannister blood runs thin in this one. Cleos was his Aunt
Genna’s son by that dullard Emmon Frey, who had lived in
terror of Lord Tywin Lannister since the day he wed his sister.
When Lord Walder Frey had brought the Twins into the war on the
side of Riverrun, Ser Emmon had chosen his wife’s allegiance
over his father’s. Casterly Rock got the worst of that
bargain, Jaime reflected. Ser Cleos looked like a weasel, fought
like a goose, and had the courage of an especially brave ewe. Lady
Stark had promised him release if he delivered her message to
Tyrion, and Ser Cleos had solemnly vowed to do so.
They’d all done a deal of vowing back in that cell, Jaime
most of all. That was Lady Catelyn’s price for loosing him.
She had laid the point of the big wench’s sword against his
heart and said, “Swear that you will never again take up arms
against Stark nor Tully. Swear that you will compel your brother to
honor his pledge to return my daughters safe and unharmed. Swear on
your honor as a knight, on your honor as a Lannister, on your honor
as a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard. Swear it by your
sister’s life, and your father’s, and your son’s,
by the old gods and the new, and I’ll send you back to your
sister. Refuse, and I will have your blood.” He remembered
the prick of the steel through his rags as she twisted the point of
the sword. I wonder what the High Septon would have to say about the
sanctity of oaths sworn while dead drunk, chained to a wall, with a
sword pressed to your chest? Not that Jaime was truly concerned
about that fat fraud, or the gods he claimed to serve. He
remembered the pail Lady Catelyn had kicked over in his cell. A
strange woman, to trust her girls to a man with shit for honor.
Though she was trusting him as little as she dared. She is putting
her hope in Tyrion, not in me. “Perhaps she is not so stupid
after all,” he said aloud.
His captor took it wrong. “I am not stupid. Nor
deaf.”
He was gentle with her; mocking this one would be so easy there
would be no sport to it. “I was speaking to myself, and not
of you. It’s an easy habit to slip into in a cell.”
She frowned at him, pushing the oars forward, pulling them back,
pushing them forward, saying nothing. As glib of tongue as she is fair of face. “By your speech,
I’d judge you nobly born.”
“My father is Selwyn of Tarth, by the grace of the gods
Lord of Evenfall.” Even that was given grudgingly.
“Tarth,” Jaime said. “A ghastly large rock in
the narrow sea, as I recall. And Evenfall is sworn to Storm’s
End. How is it that you serve Robb of Winterfell? “
“It is Lady Catelyn I serve. And she commanded me to
deliver you safe to your brother Tyrion at King’s Landing,
not to bandy words with you. Be silent.”
“I’ve had a bellyful of silence, woman.”
“Talk with Ser Cleos then. I have no words for
monsters.”
Jaime hooted. “Are there monsters hereabouts? Hiding
beneath the water, perhaps? In that thick of willows? And me
without my sword!”
“A man who would violate his own sister, murder his king,
and fling an innocent child to his death deserves no other
name.” Innocent? The wretched boy was spying on us. All Jaime had
wanted was an hour alone with Cersei. Their journey north had been
one long torment; seeing her every day, unable to touch her,
knowing that Robert stumbled drunkenly into her bed every night in
that great creaking wheelhouse. Tyrion had done his best to keep
him in a good humor, but it had not been enough. “You will be
courteous as concerns Cersei, wench,” he warned her.
“My name is Brienne, not wench.”
“What do you care what a monster calls you?”
“My name is Brienne,” she repeated, dogged as a
hound.
“Lady Brienne?” She looked so uncomfortable that
Jaime sensed a weakness. “Or would Ser Brienne be more to
your taste?” He laughed. “No, I fear not. You can trick
out a milk cow in crupper, crinet, and chamfron, and bard her all
in silk, but that doesn’t mean you can ride her into
battle.”
“Cousin Jaime, please, you ought not speak so
roughly.” Under his cloak, Ser Cleos wore a surcoat quartered
with the twin towers of House Frey and the golden lion of
Lannister. “We have far to go, we should not quarrel amongst
ourselves.”
“When I quarrel I do it with a sword, coz. I was speaking
to the lady. Tell me, wench, are all the women on Tarth as homely
as you? I pity the men, if so. Perhaps they do not know what real
women look like, living on a dreary mountain in the sea.”
“Tarth is beautiful, “ the wench grunted between
strokes. “The Sapphire Isle, it’s called. Be quiet,
monster, unless you mean to make me gag you.”
“She’s rude as well, isn’t she, coz?”
Jaime asked Ser Cleos. “Though she has steel in her spine,
I’ll grant you. Not many men dare name me monster to my
face.” Though behind my back they speak freely enough, I have
no doubt.
Ser Cleos coughed nervously. “Lady Brienne had those lies
from Catelyn Stark, no doubt. The Starks cannot hope to defeat you
with swords, ser, so now they make war with poisoned
words.” They did defeat me with swords, you chinless cretin. Jaime
smiled knowingly. Men will read all sorts of things into a knowing
smile, if you let them. Has cousin Cleos truly swallowed this
kettle of dung, or is he striving to ingratiate himself? What do we
have here, an honest muttonhead or a lickspittle?
Ser Cleos prattled blithely on. “Any man who’d
believe that a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard would harm a child
does not know the meaning of honor.” Lickspittle. If truth be told, Jaime had come to rue heaving
Brandon Stark out that window. Cersei had given him no end of grief
afterward, when the boy refused to die. “He was seven,
Jaime,” she’d berated him. “Even if he understood
what he saw, we should have been able to frighten him into
silence.”
“I didn’t think you’d want—”
“You never think. If the boy should wake and tell his
father what he saw—”
“If if if.” He had pulled her into his lap.
“if he wakes we’ll say he was dreaming, we’ll
call him a liar, and should worse come to worst I’ll kill Ned
Stark.”
“And then what do you imagine Robert will do?”
“Let Robert do as he pleases. I’ll go to war with
him if I must. The War for Cersei’s Cunt, the singers will
call it.”
“Jaime, let go of me!” she raged, struggling to
rise.
Instead he had kissed her. For a moment she resisted, but then
her mouth opened under his. He remembered the taste of wine and
cloves on her tongue. She gave a shudder. His hand went to her
bodice and yanked, tearing the silk so her breasts spilled free,
and for a time the Stark boy had been forgotten.
Had Cersei remembered him afterward and hired this man Lady
Catelyn spoke of, to make sure the boy never woke? If she wanted
him dead she would have sent me. And it is not like her to chose a
catspaw who would make such a royal botch of the killing.
Downriver, the rising sun shimmered against the wind-whipped
surface of the river. The south shore was red clay, smooth as any
road. Smaller streams fed into the greater, and the rotting trunks
of drowned trees clung to the banks. The north shore was wilder.
High rocky bluffs rose twenty feet above them, crowned by stands of
beech, oak, and chestnut. Jaime spied a watchtower on the heights
ahead, growing taller with every stroke of the oars. Long before
they were upon it, he knew that it stood abandoned, its weathered
stones overgrown with climbing roses.
When the wind shifted, Ser Cleos helped the big wench run up the
sail, a stiff triangle of striped red-and-blue canvas. Tully
colors, sure to cause them grief if they encountered any Lannister
forces on the river, but it was the only sail they had. Brienne
took the rudder. Jaime threw out the leeboard, his chains rattling
as he moved. After that, they made better speed, with wind and
current both favoring their flight. “We could save a deal of
traveling if you delivered me to my father instead of my
brother,” he pointed out.
“Lady Catelyn’s daughters are in King’s
Landing. I will return with the girls or not at all.”
Jaime turned to Ser Cleos. “Cousin, lend me your
knife.”
“No.” The woman tensed. “I will not have you
armed.” Her voice was as unyielding as stone. She fears me, even in irons. “Cleos, it seems I must ask
you to shave me. Leave the beard, but take the hair off my
head.”
“You’d be shaved bald?” asked Cleos Frey.
“The realm knows Jaime Larmister as a beardless knight
with long golden hair. A bald man with a filthy yellow beard may
pass unnoticed. I’d sooner not be recognized while I’m
in irons.”
The dagger was not as sharp as it might have been. Cleos hacked
away manfully, sawing and ripping his way through the mats and
tossing the hair over the side. The golden curls floated on the
surface of the water, gradually falling astern. As the tangles
vanished, a louse went crawling down his neck. Jaime caught it and
crushed it against his thumbnail. Ser Cleos picked others from his
scalp and flicked them into the water. Jaime doused his head and
made Ser Cleos whet the blade before he let him scrape away the
last inch of yellow stubble. When that was done, they trimmed back
his beard as well.
The reflection in the water was a man he did not know. Not only
was he bald, but he looked as though he had aged five years in that
dungeon; his face was thinner, with hollows under his eyes and
lines he did not remember. I don’t look as much like Cersei
this way. She’ll hate that.
By midday, Ser Cleos had fallen asleep. His snores sounded like
ducks mating. Jaime stretched out to watch the world flow past;
after the dark cell, every rock and tree was a wonder.
A few one-room shacks came and went, perched on tall poles that
made them look like cranes. Of the folk who lived there they saw no
sign. Birds flew overhead, or cried out from the trees along the
shore, and Jaime glimpsed silvery fish knifing through the water.
Tully trout, there’s a bad omen, he thought, until he saw a
worse—one of the floating logs they passed turned out to be a
dead man, bloodless and swollen. His cloak was tangled in the roots
of a fallen tree, its color unmistakably Lannister crimson. He
wondered if the corpse had been someone he knew.
The forks of the Trident were the easiest way to move goods or
men across the riverlands. In times of peace, they would have
encountered fisherfolk in their skiffs, grain barges being poled
downstream, merchants selling needles and bolts of cloth from
floating shops, perhaps even a gaily painted mummer’s boat
with quilted sails of half a hundred colors, making its way upriver
from village to village and castle to castle.
But the war had taken its toll. They sailed past villages, but
saw no villagers. An empty net, slashed and torn and hanging from
some trees, was the only sign of fisherfolk. A young girl watering
her horse rode off as soon as she glimpsed their sail. Later they
passed a dozen peasants digging in a field beneath the shell of a
burnt towerhouse. The men gazed at them with dull eyes, and went
back to their labors once they decided the skiff was no threat.
The Red Fork was wide and slow, a meandering river of loops and
bends dotted with tiny wooded islets and frequently choked by
sandbars and snags that lurked just below the water’s
surface. Brienne seemed to have a keen eye for the dangers, though,
and always seemed to find the channel. When Jaime complimented her
on her knowledge of the river, she looked at him suspiciously and
said, “I do not know the river. Tarth is an island. I learned
to manage oars and sail before I ever sat a horse.”
Ser Cleos sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “Gods, my arms
are sore. I hope the wind lasts.” He sniffed at it. “I
smell rain.”
Jaime would welcome a good rain. The dungeons of Riverrun were
not the cleanest place in the Seven Kingdoms. By now he must smell
like an overripe cheese.
Cleos squinted downriver. “Smoke.”
A thin grey finger crooked them on. It was rising from the south
bank several miles on, twisting and curling. Below, Jaime made out
the smouldering remains of a large building, and a live oak full of
dead women.
The crows had scarcely started on their corpses. The thin ropes
cut deeply into the soft flesh of their throats, and when the wind
blew they twisted and swayed. “This was not chivalrously
done,” said Brienne when they were close enough to see it
clearly. “No true knight would condone such wanton
butchery.”
“True knights see worse every time they ride to war,
wench,” said Jaime. “And do worse, yes.”
Brienne turned the rudder toward the shore. “I’ll
leave no innocents to be food for crows.”
“A heartless wench. Crows need to eat as well. Stay to the
river and leave the dead alone, woman.”
They landed upstream of where the great oak leaned out over the
water. As Brienne lowered the sail, Jaime climbed out, clumsy in
his chains. The Red Fork filled his boots and soaked through the
ragged breeches. Laughing, he dropped to his knees, plunged his
head under the water, and came up drenched and dripping. His hands
were caked with dirt, and when he rubbed them clean in the current
they seemed thinner and paler than he remembered. His legs were
stiff as well, and unsteady when he put his weight upon them. I was
too bloody long in Hoster Tully’s dungeon.
Brienne and Cleos dragged the skiff onto the bank. The corpses
hung above their heads, ripening in death like foul fruit.
“One of us will need to cut them down,” the wench
said.
“I’ll climb.” Jaime waded ashore, clanking.
“Just get these chains off.”
The wench was staring up at one of the dead women. Jaime
shuffled closer with small stutter steps, the only kind the
foot-long chain permitted. When he saw the crude sign hung about
the neck of the highest corpse, he smiled. “They Lay With
Lions,” he read. “Oh, yes, woman, this was most
unchivalrously done . . . But by your side, not
mine. I wonder who they were, these women?”
“Tavern wenches,” said Ser Cleos Frey. “This
was an inn, I remember it now. Some men of my escort spent the
night here when we last returned to Riverrun.” Nothing
remained of the building but the stone foundation and a tangle of
collapsed beams, charred black. Smoke still rose from the
ashes.
Jaime left brothels and whores to his brother Tyrion; Cersei was
the only woman he had ever wanted. “The girls pleasured some
of my lord father’s soldiers, it would seem. Perhaps served
them food and drink. That’s how they earned their traitors’ collars, with
a kiss and a cup of ale.” He glanced up and down the river,
to make certain they were quite alone. “This is Bracken land.
Lord Jonos might have ordered them killed. My father burned his
castle, I fear he loves us not.”
“It might be Marq Piper’s work,” said Ser
Cleos. “Or that wisp o’ the wood Beric Dondarrion,
though I’d heard he kills only soldiers. Perhaps a band of
Roose Bolton’s northmen?”
“Bolton was defeated by my father on the Green
Fork.”
“But not broken,” said Ser Cleos. “He came
south again when Lord Tywin marched against the fords. The word at
Riverrun was that he’d taken Harrenhal from Ser Amory
Lorch.”
Jaime liked the sound of that not at all. “Brienne,”
he said, granting her the courtesy of the name in the hopes that
she might listen, “if Lord Bolton holds Harrenhal, both the
Trident and the kingsroad are likely watched.”
He thought he saw a touch of uncertainty in her big blue eyes.
“You are under my protection. They’d need to kill
me.”
“I shouldn’t think that would trouble
them.”
“I am as good a fighter as you,” she said
defensively. “I was one of King Renly’s chosen seven.
With his own hands, he cloaked me with the striped silk of the
Rainbow Guard.”
“The Rainbow Guard? You and six other girls, was it? A
singer once said that all maids are fair in
silk . . . But he never met you, did
he?”
The woman turned red. “We have graves to dig.” She
went to climb the tree.
The lower limbs of the oak were big enough for her to stand upon
once she’d gotten up the trunk. She walked amongst the
leaves, dagger in hand, cutting down the corpses. Flies swarmed
around the bodies as they fell, and the stench grew worse with each
one she dropped. “This is a deal of trouble to take for
whores,” Ser Cleos complained. “What are we supposed to
dig with? We have no spades, and I will not use my sword, I—”
Brienne gave a shout. She jumped down rather than climbing.
“To the boat. Be quick. There’s a sail.”
They made what haste they could, though Jaime could hardly run,
and had to be pulled back up into the skiff by his cousin. Brienne
shoved off with an oar and raised sail hurriedly. “Ser Cleos,
I’ll need you to row as well.”
He did as she bid. The skiff began to cut the water a bit
faster; current, wind, and oars all worked for them. Jaime sat
chained, peering upriver. Only the top of the other sail was
visible. With the way the Red Fork looped, it looked to be across
the fields, moving north behind a screen of trees while they moved
south, but he knew that was deceptive. He lifted both hands to
shade his eyes. “Mud red and watery blue,” he
announced.
Brienne’s big mouth worked soundlessly, giving her the
look of a cow chewing its cud. “Faster, ser.”
The inn soon vanished behind them, and they lost sight of the
top of the sail as well, but that meant nothing. Once the pursuers
swung around the loop they would become visible again. “We
can hope the noble Tullys will stop to bury the dead whores, I
suppose.” The prospect of returning to his cell did not
appeal to Jaime. Tyrion could think of something clever now, but
all that occurs to me is to go at them with a sword.
For the good part of an hour they played peek-and-seek with the
pursuers, sweeping around bends and between small wooded isles.
Just when they were starting to hope that somehow they might have
left behind the pursuit, the distant sail became visible again. Ser
Cleos paused in his stroke. “The Others take them.” He
wiped sweat from his brow.
“Row!” Brienne said.
“That is a river galley coming after us,” Jaime
announced after he’d watched for a while. With every stroke,
it seemed to grow a little larger. “Nine oars on each side, which means eighteen men. More, if they crowded on fighters
as well as rowers. And larger sails than ours. We cannot outrun
her.”
Ser Cleos froze at his oars. “Eighteen, you
said?”
“Six for each of us. I’d want eight, but these
bracelets hinder me somewhat.” Jaime held up his wrists.
“Unless the Lady Brienne would be so kind as to unshackle
me?”
She ignored him, putting all her effort into her stroke.
“We had half a night’s start on them,” Jaime
said. “They’ve been rowing since dawn, resting two oars
at a time. They’ll be exhausted. Just now the sight of our
sail has given them a burst of strength, but that will not last. We
ought to be able to kill a good many of them.”
Ser Cleos gaped. “But . . . There are
eighteen.”
“At the least. More likely twenty or
twenty-five.”
His cousin groaned. “We can’t hope to defeat
eighteen.”
“Did I say we could? The best we can hope for is to die
with swords in our hands.” He was perfectly sincere. Jaime
Lannister had never been afraid of death.
Brienne broke off rowing. Sweat had stuck strands of her
flax-colored hair to her forehead, and her grimace made her look
homelier than ever. “You are under my protection,” she
said, her voice so thick with anger that it was almost a growl.
He had to laugh at such fierceness. She’s the Hound with
teats, he thought. Or would be, if she had any teats to speak of.
“Then protect me, wench. Or free me to protect
myself.”
The galley was skimming downriver, a great wooden dragonfly. The
water around her was churned white by the furious action of her
oars. She was gaining visibly, the men on her deck crowding forward
as she came on. Metal glinted in their hands, and Jaime could see
bows as well. Archers. He hated archers.
At the prow of the onrushing galley stood a stocky man with a
bald head, bushy grey eyebrows, and brawny arms. Over his mail he
wore a soiled white surcoat with a weeping willow embroidered in
pale green, but his cloak was fastened with a silver trout.
Riverrun’s captain of guards. In his day Ser Robin Ryger had
been a notably tenacious fighter, but his day was done; he was of
an age with Hoster Tully, and had grown old with his lord.
When the boats were fifty yards apart, Jaime cupped his hands
around his mouth and shouted back over the water. “Come to
wish me godspeed, Ser Robin?”
“Come to take you back, Kingslayer,” Ser Robin Ryger
bellowed. “How is it that you’ve lost your golden
hair?”
“I hope to blind my enemies with the sheen off my head.
It’s worked well enough for you.”
Ser Robin was unamused. The distance between skiff and galley
had shrunk to forty yards. “Throw your oars and your weapons
into the river, and no one need be harmed.”
Ser Cleos twisted around. “Jaime, tell him we were freed
by Lady Catelyn . . . An exchange of captives,
lawful . . . ”
Jaime told him, for all the good it did. “Catelyn Stark
does not rule in Riverrun,” Ser Robin shouted back. Four
archers crowded into position on either side of him, two standing
and two kneeling. “Cast your swords into the
water.”
“I have no sword,” he returned, “but if I did,
I’d stick it through your belly and hack the balls off those
four cravens.”
A flight of arrows answered him. One thudded into the mast, two
pierced the sail, and the fourth missed Jaime by a foot.
Another of the Red Fork’s broad loops loomed before them.
Brienne angled the skiff across the bend. The yard swung as they
turned, their sail cracking as it filled with wind. Ahead a large
island sat in midstream. The main channel flowed right. To the left
a cutoff ran between the island and the high bluffs of the north
shore. Brienne moved the tiller and the skiff sheared left, sail
rippling. Jaime watched her eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought, and
calm. He knew how to read a man’s eyes. He knew what fear
looked like. She is determined, not desperate.
Thirty yards behind, the galley was entering the bend.
“Ser Cleos, take the tiller,” the wench commanded.
“Kingslayer, take an oar and keep us off the
rocks.”
“As my lady commands.” An oar was not a sword, but
the blade could break a man’s face if well swung, and the
shaft could be used to parry.
Ser Cleos shoved the oar into Jaime’s hand and scrambled
aft. They crossed the head of the island and turned sharply down
the cutoff, sending a wash of water against the face of the bluff
as the boat tilted. The island was densely wooded, a tangle of
willows, oaks, and tall pines that cast deep shadows across the
rushing water, hiding snags and the rotted trunks of drowned trees.
To their left the bluff rose sheer and rocky, and at its foot the
river foamed whitely around broken boulders and tumbles of rock
fallen from the cliff face.
They passed from sunlight into shadow, hidden from the
galley’s view between the green wall of the trees and the
stony grey-brown bluff. A few moments’ respite from the
arrows, Jaime thought, pushing them off a half-submerged
boulder.
The skiff rocked. He heard a soft splash, and when he glanced
around, Brienne was gone. A moment later he spied her again,
pulling herself from the water at the base of the bluff. She waded
through a shallow pool, scrambled over some rocks, and began to
climb. Ser Cleos goggled, mouth open. Fool, thought Jaime.
“Ignore the wench,” he snapped at his cousin.
“Steer.”
They could see the sail moving behind the trees. The river
galley came into full view at the top of the cutoff, twenty-five
yards behind. Her bow swung hard as she came around, and a
half-dozen arrows took flight, but all went well wide. The motion
of the two boats was giving the archers difficulty, but Jaime knew
they’d soon enough learn to compensate. Brienne was halfway
up the cliff face, pulling herself from handhold to handhold.
Ryger’s sure to see her, and once he does he’ll have
those bowmen bring her down. Jaime decided to see if the old
man’s pride would make him stupid. “Ser Robin,”
he shouted, “hear me for a moment.”
Ser Robin raised a hand, and his archers lowered their bows.
“Say what you will, Kingslayer, but say it
quickly.”
The skiff swung through a litter of broken stones as Jaime
called out, “I know a better way to settle this—single
combat. You and I.”
“I was not born this morning, Lannister.”
“No, but you’re like to die this afternoon.”
Jaime raised his hands so the other could see the manacles.
“I’ll fight you in chains. What could you
fear?”
“Not you, ser. If the choice were mine, I’d like
nothing better, but I am commanded to bring you back alive if
possible. Bowmen.” He signaled them on. “Notch. Draw
Loo—”
The range was less than twenty yards. The archers could scarcely
have missed, but as they pulled on their longbows a rain of pebbles
cascaded down around them. Small stones rattled on their deck,
bounced off their helms, and made splashes on both sides of the
bow. Those who had wits enough to understand raised their eyes just
as a boulder the size of a cow detached itself from the top of the
bluff. Ser Robin shouted in dismay. The stone tumbled through the
air, struck the face of the cliff, cracked in two, and smashed down
on them. The larger piece snapped the mast, tore through the sail,
sent two of the archers flying into the river, and crushed the leg
of a rower as he bent over his oar. The rapidity with which the
galley began to fill with water suggested that the smaller fragment
had punched right through her hull. The oarsman’s screams
echoed off the bluff while the archers flailed wildly in the
current. From the way they were splashing, neither man could swim.
Jaime laughed.
By the time they emerged from the cutoff, the galley was
foundering amongst pools, eddies, and snags, and Jaime Lannister
had decided that the gods were good. Ser Robin and his
thrice-damned archers would have a long wet walk back to Riverrun,
and he was rid of the big homely wench as well. I could not have
planned it better myself. Once I’m free of these
irons . . .
Ser Cleos raised a shout. When Jaime looked up, Brienne was
lumbering along the clifftop, well ahead of them, having cut across
a finger of land while they were following the bend in the river.
She threw herself off the rock, and looked almost graceful as she
folded into a dive. It would have been ungracious to hope that she
would smash her head on a stone. Ser Cleos turned the skiff toward
her. Thankfully, Jaime still had his oar. One good swing when she
comes paddling up and I’ll be free of her.
Instead he found
himself stretching the oar out over the water. Brienne grabbed
hold, and Jaime pulled her in. As he helped her into the skiff,
water ran from her hair and dripped from her sodden clothing to
pool on the deck. She’s even uglier wet. Who would have
thought it possible? “You’re a bloody stupid
wench,” he told her. “We could have sailed on without
you. I suppose you expect me to thank you?”
“I want none of your thanks, Kingslayer. I swore an oath
to bring you safe to King’s Landing.”
“And you actually mean to keep it?” Jaime gave her
his brightest smile. “Now there’s a wonder.”
An east wind blew through his tangled hair, as soft and fragrant
as Cersei’s fingers. He could hear birds singing, and feel
the river moving beneath the boat as the sweep of the oars sent
them toward the pale pink dawn. After so long in darkness, the
world was so sweet that Jaime Lannister felt dizzy. I am alive, and
drunk on sunlight. A laugh burst from his lips, sudden as a quail
flushed from cover.
“Quiet,” the wench grumbled, scowling. Scowls suited
her broad homely face better than a smile. Not that Jaime had ever
seen her smiling. He amused himself by picturing her in one of
Cersei’s silken gowns in place of her studded leather jerkin.
As well dress a cow in silk as this one.
But the cow could row. Beneath her roughspun brown breeches were
calves like cords of wood, and the long muscles of her arms
stretched and tightened with each stroke of the oars. Even after
rowing half the night, she showed no signs of tiring, which was
more than could be said for his cousin Ser Cleos, laboring on the
other oar. A big strong peasant wench to look at her, yet she
speaks like one highborn and wears longsword and dagger. Ah, but
can she use them? Jaime meant to find out, as soon as he rid
himself of these fetters.
He wore iron manacles on his wrists and a matching pair about
his ankles, joined by a length of heavy chain no more than a foot
long. “You’d think my word as a Lannister was not good
enough,” he’d japed as they bound him. He’d been
very drunk by then, thanks to Catelyn Stark. Of their escape from
Riverrun, he recalled only bits and pieces. There had been some
trouble with the gaoler, but the big wench had overcome him.
After that they had climbed an endless stair, around and around.
His legs were weak as grass, and he’d stumbled twice or
thrice, until the wench lent him an arm to lean on. At some point
he was bundled into a traveler’s cloak and shoved into the
bottom of a skiff. He remembered listening to Lady Catelyn command
someone to raise the portcullis on the Water Gate. She was sending
Ser Cleos Frey back to King’s Landing with new terms for the
queen, she’d declared in a tone that brooked no argument.
He must have drifted off then. The wine had made him sleepy, and
it felt good to stretch, a luxury his chains had not permitted him
in the cell. Jaime had long ago learned to snatch sleep in the
saddle during a march. This was no harder. Tyrion is going to laugh
himself sick when he hears how I slept through my own escape. He
was awake now, though, and the fetters were irksome. “My
lady,” he called out, “if you’ll strike off these
chains, I’ll spell you at those oars.”
She scowled again, her face all horse teeth and glowering
suspicion. “You’ll wear your chains,
Kingslayer.”
“You figure to row all the way to King’s Landing,
wench?”
“You will call me Brienne. Not wench.”
“My name is Ser Jaime. Not Kingslayer.”
“Do you deny that you slew a king?”
“No. Do you deny your sex? If so, unlace those breeches
and show me.” He gave her an innocent smile. “I’d
ask you to open your bodice, but from the look of you that
wouldn’t prove much.”
Ser Cleos fretted. “Cousin, remember your
courtesies.” The Lannister blood runs thin in this one. Cleos was his Aunt
Genna’s son by that dullard Emmon Frey, who had lived in
terror of Lord Tywin Lannister since the day he wed his sister.
When Lord Walder Frey had brought the Twins into the war on the
side of Riverrun, Ser Emmon had chosen his wife’s allegiance
over his father’s. Casterly Rock got the worst of that
bargain, Jaime reflected. Ser Cleos looked like a weasel, fought
like a goose, and had the courage of an especially brave ewe. Lady
Stark had promised him release if he delivered her message to
Tyrion, and Ser Cleos had solemnly vowed to do so.
They’d all done a deal of vowing back in that cell, Jaime
most of all. That was Lady Catelyn’s price for loosing him.
She had laid the point of the big wench’s sword against his
heart and said, “Swear that you will never again take up arms
against Stark nor Tully. Swear that you will compel your brother to
honor his pledge to return my daughters safe and unharmed. Swear on
your honor as a knight, on your honor as a Lannister, on your honor
as a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard. Swear it by your
sister’s life, and your father’s, and your son’s,
by the old gods and the new, and I’ll send you back to your
sister. Refuse, and I will have your blood.” He remembered
the prick of the steel through his rags as she twisted the point of
the sword. I wonder what the High Septon would have to say about the
sanctity of oaths sworn while dead drunk, chained to a wall, with a
sword pressed to your chest? Not that Jaime was truly concerned
about that fat fraud, or the gods he claimed to serve. He
remembered the pail Lady Catelyn had kicked over in his cell. A
strange woman, to trust her girls to a man with shit for honor.
Though she was trusting him as little as she dared. She is putting
her hope in Tyrion, not in me. “Perhaps she is not so stupid
after all,” he said aloud.
His captor took it wrong. “I am not stupid. Nor
deaf.”
He was gentle with her; mocking this one would be so easy there
would be no sport to it. “I was speaking to myself, and not
of you. It’s an easy habit to slip into in a cell.”
She frowned at him, pushing the oars forward, pulling them back,
pushing them forward, saying nothing. As glib of tongue as she is fair of face. “By your speech,
I’d judge you nobly born.”
“My father is Selwyn of Tarth, by the grace of the gods
Lord of Evenfall.” Even that was given grudgingly.
“Tarth,” Jaime said. “A ghastly large rock in
the narrow sea, as I recall. And Evenfall is sworn to Storm’s
End. How is it that you serve Robb of Winterfell? “
“It is Lady Catelyn I serve. And she commanded me to
deliver you safe to your brother Tyrion at King’s Landing,
not to bandy words with you. Be silent.”
“I’ve had a bellyful of silence, woman.”
“Talk with Ser Cleos then. I have no words for
monsters.”
Jaime hooted. “Are there monsters hereabouts? Hiding
beneath the water, perhaps? In that thick of willows? And me
without my sword!”
“A man who would violate his own sister, murder his king,
and fling an innocent child to his death deserves no other
name.” Innocent? The wretched boy was spying on us. All Jaime had
wanted was an hour alone with Cersei. Their journey north had been
one long torment; seeing her every day, unable to touch her,
knowing that Robert stumbled drunkenly into her bed every night in
that great creaking wheelhouse. Tyrion had done his best to keep
him in a good humor, but it had not been enough. “You will be
courteous as concerns Cersei, wench,” he warned her.
“My name is Brienne, not wench.”
“What do you care what a monster calls you?”
“My name is Brienne,” she repeated, dogged as a
hound.
“Lady Brienne?” She looked so uncomfortable that
Jaime sensed a weakness. “Or would Ser Brienne be more to
your taste?” He laughed. “No, I fear not. You can trick
out a milk cow in crupper, crinet, and chamfron, and bard her all
in silk, but that doesn’t mean you can ride her into
battle.”
“Cousin Jaime, please, you ought not speak so
roughly.” Under his cloak, Ser Cleos wore a surcoat quartered
with the twin towers of House Frey and the golden lion of
Lannister. “We have far to go, we should not quarrel amongst
ourselves.”
“When I quarrel I do it with a sword, coz. I was speaking
to the lady. Tell me, wench, are all the women on Tarth as homely
as you? I pity the men, if so. Perhaps they do not know what real
women look like, living on a dreary mountain in the sea.”
“Tarth is beautiful, “ the wench grunted between
strokes. “The Sapphire Isle, it’s called. Be quiet,
monster, unless you mean to make me gag you.”
“She’s rude as well, isn’t she, coz?”
Jaime asked Ser Cleos. “Though she has steel in her spine,
I’ll grant you. Not many men dare name me monster to my
face.” Though behind my back they speak freely enough, I have
no doubt.
Ser Cleos coughed nervously. “Lady Brienne had those lies
from Catelyn Stark, no doubt. The Starks cannot hope to defeat you
with swords, ser, so now they make war with poisoned
words.” They did defeat me with swords, you chinless cretin. Jaime
smiled knowingly. Men will read all sorts of things into a knowing
smile, if you let them. Has cousin Cleos truly swallowed this
kettle of dung, or is he striving to ingratiate himself? What do we
have here, an honest muttonhead or a lickspittle?
Ser Cleos prattled blithely on. “Any man who’d
believe that a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard would harm a child
does not know the meaning of honor.” Lickspittle. If truth be told, Jaime had come to rue heaving
Brandon Stark out that window. Cersei had given him no end of grief
afterward, when the boy refused to die. “He was seven,
Jaime,” she’d berated him. “Even if he understood
what he saw, we should have been able to frighten him into
silence.”
“I didn’t think you’d want—”
“You never think. If the boy should wake and tell his
father what he saw—”
“If if if.” He had pulled her into his lap.
“if he wakes we’ll say he was dreaming, we’ll
call him a liar, and should worse come to worst I’ll kill Ned
Stark.”
“And then what do you imagine Robert will do?”
“Let Robert do as he pleases. I’ll go to war with
him if I must. The War for Cersei’s Cunt, the singers will
call it.”
“Jaime, let go of me!” she raged, struggling to
rise.
Instead he had kissed her. For a moment she resisted, but then
her mouth opened under his. He remembered the taste of wine and
cloves on her tongue. She gave a shudder. His hand went to her
bodice and yanked, tearing the silk so her breasts spilled free,
and for a time the Stark boy had been forgotten.
Had Cersei remembered him afterward and hired this man Lady
Catelyn spoke of, to make sure the boy never woke? If she wanted
him dead she would have sent me. And it is not like her to chose a
catspaw who would make such a royal botch of the killing.
Downriver, the rising sun shimmered against the wind-whipped
surface of the river. The south shore was red clay, smooth as any
road. Smaller streams fed into the greater, and the rotting trunks
of drowned trees clung to the banks. The north shore was wilder.
High rocky bluffs rose twenty feet above them, crowned by stands of
beech, oak, and chestnut. Jaime spied a watchtower on the heights
ahead, growing taller with every stroke of the oars. Long before
they were upon it, he knew that it stood abandoned, its weathered
stones overgrown with climbing roses.
When the wind shifted, Ser Cleos helped the big wench run up the
sail, a stiff triangle of striped red-and-blue canvas. Tully
colors, sure to cause them grief if they encountered any Lannister
forces on the river, but it was the only sail they had. Brienne
took the rudder. Jaime threw out the leeboard, his chains rattling
as he moved. After that, they made better speed, with wind and
current both favoring their flight. “We could save a deal of
traveling if you delivered me to my father instead of my
brother,” he pointed out.
“Lady Catelyn’s daughters are in King’s
Landing. I will return with the girls or not at all.”
Jaime turned to Ser Cleos. “Cousin, lend me your
knife.”
“No.” The woman tensed. “I will not have you
armed.” Her voice was as unyielding as stone. She fears me, even in irons. “Cleos, it seems I must ask
you to shave me. Leave the beard, but take the hair off my
head.”
“You’d be shaved bald?” asked Cleos Frey.
“The realm knows Jaime Larmister as a beardless knight
with long golden hair. A bald man with a filthy yellow beard may
pass unnoticed. I’d sooner not be recognized while I’m
in irons.”
The dagger was not as sharp as it might have been. Cleos hacked
away manfully, sawing and ripping his way through the mats and
tossing the hair over the side. The golden curls floated on the
surface of the water, gradually falling astern. As the tangles
vanished, a louse went crawling down his neck. Jaime caught it and
crushed it against his thumbnail. Ser Cleos picked others from his
scalp and flicked them into the water. Jaime doused his head and
made Ser Cleos whet the blade before he let him scrape away the
last inch of yellow stubble. When that was done, they trimmed back
his beard as well.
The reflection in the water was a man he did not know. Not only
was he bald, but he looked as though he had aged five years in that
dungeon; his face was thinner, with hollows under his eyes and
lines he did not remember. I don’t look as much like Cersei
this way. She’ll hate that.
By midday, Ser Cleos had fallen asleep. His snores sounded like
ducks mating. Jaime stretched out to watch the world flow past;
after the dark cell, every rock and tree was a wonder.
A few one-room shacks came and went, perched on tall poles that
made them look like cranes. Of the folk who lived there they saw no
sign. Birds flew overhead, or cried out from the trees along the
shore, and Jaime glimpsed silvery fish knifing through the water.
Tully trout, there’s a bad omen, he thought, until he saw a
worse—one of the floating logs they passed turned out to be a
dead man, bloodless and swollen. His cloak was tangled in the roots
of a fallen tree, its color unmistakably Lannister crimson. He
wondered if the corpse had been someone he knew.
The forks of the Trident were the easiest way to move goods or
men across the riverlands. In times of peace, they would have
encountered fisherfolk in their skiffs, grain barges being poled
downstream, merchants selling needles and bolts of cloth from
floating shops, perhaps even a gaily painted mummer’s boat
with quilted sails of half a hundred colors, making its way upriver
from village to village and castle to castle.
But the war had taken its toll. They sailed past villages, but
saw no villagers. An empty net, slashed and torn and hanging from
some trees, was the only sign of fisherfolk. A young girl watering
her horse rode off as soon as she glimpsed their sail. Later they
passed a dozen peasants digging in a field beneath the shell of a
burnt towerhouse. The men gazed at them with dull eyes, and went
back to their labors once they decided the skiff was no threat.
The Red Fork was wide and slow, a meandering river of loops and
bends dotted with tiny wooded islets and frequently choked by
sandbars and snags that lurked just below the water’s
surface. Brienne seemed to have a keen eye for the dangers, though,
and always seemed to find the channel. When Jaime complimented her
on her knowledge of the river, she looked at him suspiciously and
said, “I do not know the river. Tarth is an island. I learned
to manage oars and sail before I ever sat a horse.”
Ser Cleos sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “Gods, my arms
are sore. I hope the wind lasts.” He sniffed at it. “I
smell rain.”
Jaime would welcome a good rain. The dungeons of Riverrun were
not the cleanest place in the Seven Kingdoms. By now he must smell
like an overripe cheese.
Cleos squinted downriver. “Smoke.”
A thin grey finger crooked them on. It was rising from the south
bank several miles on, twisting and curling. Below, Jaime made out
the smouldering remains of a large building, and a live oak full of
dead women.
The crows had scarcely started on their corpses. The thin ropes
cut deeply into the soft flesh of their throats, and when the wind
blew they twisted and swayed. “This was not chivalrously
done,” said Brienne when they were close enough to see it
clearly. “No true knight would condone such wanton
butchery.”
“True knights see worse every time they ride to war,
wench,” said Jaime. “And do worse, yes.”
Brienne turned the rudder toward the shore. “I’ll
leave no innocents to be food for crows.”
“A heartless wench. Crows need to eat as well. Stay to the
river and leave the dead alone, woman.”
They landed upstream of where the great oak leaned out over the
water. As Brienne lowered the sail, Jaime climbed out, clumsy in
his chains. The Red Fork filled his boots and soaked through the
ragged breeches. Laughing, he dropped to his knees, plunged his
head under the water, and came up drenched and dripping. His hands
were caked with dirt, and when he rubbed them clean in the current
they seemed thinner and paler than he remembered. His legs were
stiff as well, and unsteady when he put his weight upon them. I was
too bloody long in Hoster Tully’s dungeon.
Brienne and Cleos dragged the skiff onto the bank. The corpses
hung above their heads, ripening in death like foul fruit.
“One of us will need to cut them down,” the wench
said.
“I’ll climb.” Jaime waded ashore, clanking.
“Just get these chains off.”
The wench was staring up at one of the dead women. Jaime
shuffled closer with small stutter steps, the only kind the
foot-long chain permitted. When he saw the crude sign hung about
the neck of the highest corpse, he smiled. “They Lay With
Lions,” he read. “Oh, yes, woman, this was most
unchivalrously done . . . But by your side, not
mine. I wonder who they were, these women?”
“Tavern wenches,” said Ser Cleos Frey. “This
was an inn, I remember it now. Some men of my escort spent the
night here when we last returned to Riverrun.” Nothing
remained of the building but the stone foundation and a tangle of
collapsed beams, charred black. Smoke still rose from the
ashes.
Jaime left brothels and whores to his brother Tyrion; Cersei was
the only woman he had ever wanted. “The girls pleasured some
of my lord father’s soldiers, it would seem. Perhaps served
them food and drink. That’s how they earned their traitors’ collars, with
a kiss and a cup of ale.” He glanced up and down the river,
to make certain they were quite alone. “This is Bracken land.
Lord Jonos might have ordered them killed. My father burned his
castle, I fear he loves us not.”
“It might be Marq Piper’s work,” said Ser
Cleos. “Or that wisp o’ the wood Beric Dondarrion,
though I’d heard he kills only soldiers. Perhaps a band of
Roose Bolton’s northmen?”
“Bolton was defeated by my father on the Green
Fork.”
“But not broken,” said Ser Cleos. “He came
south again when Lord Tywin marched against the fords. The word at
Riverrun was that he’d taken Harrenhal from Ser Amory
Lorch.”
Jaime liked the sound of that not at all. “Brienne,”
he said, granting her the courtesy of the name in the hopes that
she might listen, “if Lord Bolton holds Harrenhal, both the
Trident and the kingsroad are likely watched.”
He thought he saw a touch of uncertainty in her big blue eyes.
“You are under my protection. They’d need to kill
me.”
“I shouldn’t think that would trouble
them.”
“I am as good a fighter as you,” she said
defensively. “I was one of King Renly’s chosen seven.
With his own hands, he cloaked me with the striped silk of the
Rainbow Guard.”
“The Rainbow Guard? You and six other girls, was it? A
singer once said that all maids are fair in
silk . . . But he never met you, did
he?”
The woman turned red. “We have graves to dig.” She
went to climb the tree.
The lower limbs of the oak were big enough for her to stand upon
once she’d gotten up the trunk. She walked amongst the
leaves, dagger in hand, cutting down the corpses. Flies swarmed
around the bodies as they fell, and the stench grew worse with each
one she dropped. “This is a deal of trouble to take for
whores,” Ser Cleos complained. “What are we supposed to
dig with? We have no spades, and I will not use my sword, I—”
Brienne gave a shout. She jumped down rather than climbing.
“To the boat. Be quick. There’s a sail.”
They made what haste they could, though Jaime could hardly run,
and had to be pulled back up into the skiff by his cousin. Brienne
shoved off with an oar and raised sail hurriedly. “Ser Cleos,
I’ll need you to row as well.”
He did as she bid. The skiff began to cut the water a bit
faster; current, wind, and oars all worked for them. Jaime sat
chained, peering upriver. Only the top of the other sail was
visible. With the way the Red Fork looped, it looked to be across
the fields, moving north behind a screen of trees while they moved
south, but he knew that was deceptive. He lifted both hands to
shade his eyes. “Mud red and watery blue,” he
announced.
Brienne’s big mouth worked soundlessly, giving her the
look of a cow chewing its cud. “Faster, ser.”
The inn soon vanished behind them, and they lost sight of the
top of the sail as well, but that meant nothing. Once the pursuers
swung around the loop they would become visible again. “We
can hope the noble Tullys will stop to bury the dead whores, I
suppose.” The prospect of returning to his cell did not
appeal to Jaime. Tyrion could think of something clever now, but
all that occurs to me is to go at them with a sword.
For the good part of an hour they played peek-and-seek with the
pursuers, sweeping around bends and between small wooded isles.
Just when they were starting to hope that somehow they might have
left behind the pursuit, the distant sail became visible again. Ser
Cleos paused in his stroke. “The Others take them.” He
wiped sweat from his brow.
“Row!” Brienne said.
“That is a river galley coming after us,” Jaime
announced after he’d watched for a while. With every stroke,
it seemed to grow a little larger. “Nine oars on each side, which means eighteen men. More, if they crowded on fighters
as well as rowers. And larger sails than ours. We cannot outrun
her.”
Ser Cleos froze at his oars. “Eighteen, you
said?”
“Six for each of us. I’d want eight, but these
bracelets hinder me somewhat.” Jaime held up his wrists.
“Unless the Lady Brienne would be so kind as to unshackle
me?”
She ignored him, putting all her effort into her stroke.
“We had half a night’s start on them,” Jaime
said. “They’ve been rowing since dawn, resting two oars
at a time. They’ll be exhausted. Just now the sight of our
sail has given them a burst of strength, but that will not last. We
ought to be able to kill a good many of them.”
Ser Cleos gaped. “But . . . There are
eighteen.”
“At the least. More likely twenty or
twenty-five.”
His cousin groaned. “We can’t hope to defeat
eighteen.”
“Did I say we could? The best we can hope for is to die
with swords in our hands.” He was perfectly sincere. Jaime
Lannister had never been afraid of death.
Brienne broke off rowing. Sweat had stuck strands of her
flax-colored hair to her forehead, and her grimace made her look
homelier than ever. “You are under my protection,” she
said, her voice so thick with anger that it was almost a growl.
He had to laugh at such fierceness. She’s the Hound with
teats, he thought. Or would be, if she had any teats to speak of.
“Then protect me, wench. Or free me to protect
myself.”
The galley was skimming downriver, a great wooden dragonfly. The
water around her was churned white by the furious action of her
oars. She was gaining visibly, the men on her deck crowding forward
as she came on. Metal glinted in their hands, and Jaime could see
bows as well. Archers. He hated archers.
At the prow of the onrushing galley stood a stocky man with a
bald head, bushy grey eyebrows, and brawny arms. Over his mail he
wore a soiled white surcoat with a weeping willow embroidered in
pale green, but his cloak was fastened with a silver trout.
Riverrun’s captain of guards. In his day Ser Robin Ryger had
been a notably tenacious fighter, but his day was done; he was of
an age with Hoster Tully, and had grown old with his lord.
When the boats were fifty yards apart, Jaime cupped his hands
around his mouth and shouted back over the water. “Come to
wish me godspeed, Ser Robin?”
“Come to take you back, Kingslayer,” Ser Robin Ryger
bellowed. “How is it that you’ve lost your golden
hair?”
“I hope to blind my enemies with the sheen off my head.
It’s worked well enough for you.”
Ser Robin was unamused. The distance between skiff and galley
had shrunk to forty yards. “Throw your oars and your weapons
into the river, and no one need be harmed.”
Ser Cleos twisted around. “Jaime, tell him we were freed
by Lady Catelyn . . . An exchange of captives,
lawful . . . ”
Jaime told him, for all the good it did. “Catelyn Stark
does not rule in Riverrun,” Ser Robin shouted back. Four
archers crowded into position on either side of him, two standing
and two kneeling. “Cast your swords into the
water.”
“I have no sword,” he returned, “but if I did,
I’d stick it through your belly and hack the balls off those
four cravens.”
A flight of arrows answered him. One thudded into the mast, two
pierced the sail, and the fourth missed Jaime by a foot.
Another of the Red Fork’s broad loops loomed before them.
Brienne angled the skiff across the bend. The yard swung as they
turned, their sail cracking as it filled with wind. Ahead a large
island sat in midstream. The main channel flowed right. To the left
a cutoff ran between the island and the high bluffs of the north
shore. Brienne moved the tiller and the skiff sheared left, sail
rippling. Jaime watched her eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought, and
calm. He knew how to read a man’s eyes. He knew what fear
looked like. She is determined, not desperate.
Thirty yards behind, the galley was entering the bend.
“Ser Cleos, take the tiller,” the wench commanded.
“Kingslayer, take an oar and keep us off the
rocks.”
“As my lady commands.” An oar was not a sword, but
the blade could break a man’s face if well swung, and the
shaft could be used to parry.
Ser Cleos shoved the oar into Jaime’s hand and scrambled
aft. They crossed the head of the island and turned sharply down
the cutoff, sending a wash of water against the face of the bluff
as the boat tilted. The island was densely wooded, a tangle of
willows, oaks, and tall pines that cast deep shadows across the
rushing water, hiding snags and the rotted trunks of drowned trees.
To their left the bluff rose sheer and rocky, and at its foot the
river foamed whitely around broken boulders and tumbles of rock
fallen from the cliff face.
They passed from sunlight into shadow, hidden from the
galley’s view between the green wall of the trees and the
stony grey-brown bluff. A few moments’ respite from the
arrows, Jaime thought, pushing them off a half-submerged
boulder.
The skiff rocked. He heard a soft splash, and when he glanced
around, Brienne was gone. A moment later he spied her again,
pulling herself from the water at the base of the bluff. She waded
through a shallow pool, scrambled over some rocks, and began to
climb. Ser Cleos goggled, mouth open. Fool, thought Jaime.
“Ignore the wench,” he snapped at his cousin.
“Steer.”
They could see the sail moving behind the trees. The river
galley came into full view at the top of the cutoff, twenty-five
yards behind. Her bow swung hard as she came around, and a
half-dozen arrows took flight, but all went well wide. The motion
of the two boats was giving the archers difficulty, but Jaime knew
they’d soon enough learn to compensate. Brienne was halfway
up the cliff face, pulling herself from handhold to handhold.
Ryger’s sure to see her, and once he does he’ll have
those bowmen bring her down. Jaime decided to see if the old
man’s pride would make him stupid. “Ser Robin,”
he shouted, “hear me for a moment.”
Ser Robin raised a hand, and his archers lowered their bows.
“Say what you will, Kingslayer, but say it
quickly.”
The skiff swung through a litter of broken stones as Jaime
called out, “I know a better way to settle this—single
combat. You and I.”
“I was not born this morning, Lannister.”
“No, but you’re like to die this afternoon.”
Jaime raised his hands so the other could see the manacles.
“I’ll fight you in chains. What could you
fear?”
“Not you, ser. If the choice were mine, I’d like
nothing better, but I am commanded to bring you back alive if
possible. Bowmen.” He signaled them on. “Notch. Draw
Loo—”
The range was less than twenty yards. The archers could scarcely
have missed, but as they pulled on their longbows a rain of pebbles
cascaded down around them. Small stones rattled on their deck,
bounced off their helms, and made splashes on both sides of the
bow. Those who had wits enough to understand raised their eyes just
as a boulder the size of a cow detached itself from the top of the
bluff. Ser Robin shouted in dismay. The stone tumbled through the
air, struck the face of the cliff, cracked in two, and smashed down
on them. The larger piece snapped the mast, tore through the sail,
sent two of the archers flying into the river, and crushed the leg
of a rower as he bent over his oar. The rapidity with which the
galley began to fill with water suggested that the smaller fragment
had punched right through her hull. The oarsman’s screams
echoed off the bluff while the archers flailed wildly in the
current. From the way they were splashing, neither man could swim.
Jaime laughed.
By the time they emerged from the cutoff, the galley was
foundering amongst pools, eddies, and snags, and Jaime Lannister
had decided that the gods were good. Ser Robin and his
thrice-damned archers would have a long wet walk back to Riverrun,
and he was rid of the big homely wench as well. I could not have
planned it better myself. Once I’m free of these
irons . . .
Ser Cleos raised a shout. When Jaime looked up, Brienne was
lumbering along the clifftop, well ahead of them, having cut across
a finger of land while they were following the bend in the river.
She threw herself off the rock, and looked almost graceful as she
folded into a dive. It would have been ungracious to hope that she
would smash her head on a stone. Ser Cleos turned the skiff toward
her. Thankfully, Jaime still had his oar. One good swing when she
comes paddling up and I’ll be free of her.
Instead he found
himself stretching the oar out over the water. Brienne grabbed
hold, and Jaime pulled her in. As he helped her into the skiff,
water ran from her hair and dripped from her sodden clothing to
pool on the deck. She’s even uglier wet. Who would have
thought it possible? “You’re a bloody stupid
wench,” he told her. “We could have sailed on without
you. I suppose you expect me to thank you?”
“I want none of your thanks, Kingslayer. I swore an oath
to bring you safe to King’s Landing.”
“And you actually mean to keep it?” Jaime gave her
his brightest smile. “Now there’s a wonder.”