His hand burned.
Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch
they’d used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could
still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in
the flames, the fingers he no longer had.
He had taken wounds before, but never like this. He had never
known there could be such pain. Sometimes, unbidden, old prayers
bubbled from his lips, prayers he learned as a child and never
thought of since, prayers he had first prayed with Cersei kneeling
beside him in the sept at Casterly Rock. Sometimes he even wept,
until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry
and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his
tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed
at him.
After the second time he fell from the saddle, they bound him
tight to Brienne of Tarth and made them share a horse again. One
day, instead of back to front, they bound them face-to-face.
“The lovers,” Shagwell sighed loudly, “and what a
lovely sight they are. ’Twould be cruel to separate the good
knight and his lady.” Then he laughed that high shrill laugh
of his, and said, “Ah, but which one is the knight and which
one is the lady?” If I had my hand, you’d learn that soon enough, Jaime
thought. His arms ached and his legs were numb from the ropes, but
after a while none of that mattered. His world shrunk to the throb
of agony that was his phantom hand, and Brienne pressed against
him. She’s warm, at least, he consoled himself, though the
wench’s breath was as foul as his own.
His hand was always between them. Urswyck had hung it about his
neck on a cord, so it dangled down against his chest, slapping
Brienne’s breasts as Jaime slipped in and out of
consciousness. His right eye was swollen shut, the wound inflamed
where Brienne had cut him during their fight, but it was his hand
that hurt the most. Blood and pus seeped from his stump, and the
missing hand throbbed every time the horse took a step.
His throat was so raw that he could not eat, but he drank wine
when they gave it to him, and water when that was all they offered.
Once they handed him a cup and he quaffed it straight away,
trembling, and the Brave Companions burst into laughter so loud and
harsh it hurt his ears. “That’s horse piss you’re
drinking, Kingslayer,” Rorge told him. Jaime was so thirsty
he drank it anyway, but afterward he retched it all back up. They
made Brienne wash the vomit out of his beard, just as they made her
clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle.
One damp cold morning when he was feeling slightly stronger, a
madness took hold of him and he reached for the Dornishman’s
sword with his left hand and wrenched it clumsily from its
scabbard. Let them kill me, he thought, so long as I die fighting,
a blade in hand. But it was no good. Shagwell came hopping from leg
to leg, dancing nimbly aside when Jaime slashed at him. Unbalanced,
he staggered forward, hacking wildly at the fool, but Shagwell spun
and ducked and darted until all the Mummers were laughing at
Jaime’s futile efforts to land a blow. When he tripped over a
rock and stumbled to his knees, the fool leapt in and planted a wet
kiss atop his head.
Rorge finally flung him aside and kicked the sword from
Jaime’s feeble fingers as he tried to bring it up.
“That wath amuthing, Kingthlayer,” said Vargo Hoat,
“but if you try it again, I thall take your other hand, or
perhapth a foot.”
Jaime lay on his back afterward, staring at the night sky,
trying not to feel the pain that snaked up his right arm every time
he moved it. The night was strangely beautiful. The moon was a
graceful crescent, and it seemed as though he had never seen so
many stars. The King’s Crown was at the zenith, and he could
see the Stallion rearing, and there the Swan. The Moonmaid, shy as
ever, was half-hidden behind a pine tree. How can such a night be
beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down
on such as me?
“Jaime,” Brienne whispered, so faintly he thought he
was dreaming it. “Jaime, what are you doing?”
“Dying,” he whispered back.
“No,” she said, “no, you must live.”
He wanted to laugh. “Stop telling me what do, wench.
I’ll die if it pleases me.”
“Are you so craven?”
The word shocked him. He was Jaime Lannister, a knight of the
Kingsguard, he was the Kingslayer. No man had ever called him
craven. Other things they called him, yes; oathbreaker, liar,
murderer. They said he was cruel, treacherous, reckless. But never
craven. “What else can I do, but die?”
“Live,” she said, “live, and fight, and take
revenge.” But she spoke too loudly. Rorge heard her voice, if
not her words, and came over to kick her, shouting at her to hold
her bloody tongue if she wanted to keep it. Craven, Jaime thought, as Brienne fought to stifle her moans.
Can it be? They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword
hand? Gods be good, is it true?
The wench had the right of it. He could not die. Cersei was
waiting for him. She would have need of him. And Tyrion, his little
brother, who loved him for a lie. And his enemies were waiting too;
the Young Wolf who had beaten him in the Whispering Wood and killed
his men around him, Edmure Tully who had kept him in darkness and
chains, these Brave Companions.
When morning came, he made himself eat. They fed him a mush of
oats, horse food, but he forced down every spoon. He ate again at
evenfall, and the next day. Live, he told himself harshly, when the
mush was like to gag him, live for Cersei, live for Tyrion. Live
for vengeance. A Lannister always pays his debts. His missing hand
throbbed and burned and stank. When I reach King’s Landing
I’ll have a new hand forged, a golden hand, and one day
I’ll use it to rip out Vargo Hoat’s throat.
The days and the nights blurred together in a haze of pain. He
would sleep in the saddle, pressed against Brienne, his nose full
of the stink of his rotting hand, and then at night he would lie
awake on the hard ground, caught in a waking nightmare. Weak as he
was, they always bound him to a tree. It gave him some cold
consolation to know that they feared him that much, even now.
Brienne was always bound beside him. She lay there in her bonds
like a big dead cow, saying not a word. The wench has built a
fortress inside herself. They will rape her soon enough, but behind
her walls they cannot touch her. But Jaime’s walls were gone.
They had taken his hand, they had taken his sword hand, and without
it he was nothing. The other was no good to him. Since the time he
could walk, his left arm had been his shield arm, no more. It was
his right hand that made him a knight; his right arm that made him
a man.
One day, he heard Urswyck say something about Harrenhal, and
remembered that was to be their destination. That made him laugh
aloud, and that made Timeon slash his face with a long thin whip.
The cut bled, but beside his hand he scarcely felt it. “Why
did you laugh?” the wench asked him that night, in a
whisper.
“Harrenhal was where they gave me the white cloak,”
he whispered back. “Whent’s great tourney. He wanted to
show us all his big castle and his fine sons. I wanted to show them
too. I was only fifteen, but no one could have beaten me that day.
Aerys never let me joust.” He laughed again. “He sent
me away. But now I’m coming back.”
They heard the laugh. That night it was Jaime who got the kicks
and punches. He hardly felt them either, until Rorge slammed a boot
into his stump, and then he fainted.
It was the next night when they finally came, three of the
worst; Shagwell, noseless Rorge, and the fat Dothraki Zollo, the
one who’d cut his hand off. Zollo and Rorge were arguing
about who would go first as they approached; there seemed to be no
question but that the fool would be going last. Shagwell suggested
that they should both go first, and take her front and rear. Zollo
and Rorge liked that notion, only then they began to fight about
who would get the front and who the rear. They will leave her a cripple too, but inside, where it does not
show. “Wench,” he whispered as Zollo and Rorge were
cursing one another, “let them have the meat, and you go far
away. It will be over quicker, and they’ll get less pleasure
from it.”
“They’ll get no pleasure from what I’ll give
them,” she whispered back, defiant. Stupid stubborn brave bitch. She was going to get herself good
and killed, he knew it. And what do I care if she does? If she
hadn’t been so pigheaded, I’d still have a hand. Yet he
heard himself whisper, “Let them do it, and go away
inside.” That was what he’d done, when the Starks had
died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son
Brandon strangled himself trying to save him. “Think of
Renly, if you loved him. Think of Tarth, mountains and seas, pools,
waterfalls, whatever you have on your Sapphire Isle,
think . . . ”
But Rorge had won the argument by then. “You’re the
ugliest woman I ever seen,” he told Brienne, “but
don’t think I can’t make you uglier. You want a nose
like mine? Fight me, and you’ll get one. And two eyes,
that’s too many. One scream out o’ you, and I’ll
pop one out and make you eat it, and then I’ll pull your
fucking teeth out one by one.”
“Oh, do it, Rorge,” pleaded Shagwell. “Without
her teeth, she’ll look just like my dear old mother.”
He cackled. “And I always wanted to fuck my dear old mother
up the arse.”
Jaime chuckled. “There’s a funny fool. I have a
riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait,
I know.” He shouted, “SAPPHIRES,” as loudly as he
could.
Cursing, Rorge kicked at his stump again. Jaime howled. I never
knew there was such agony in the world, was the last thing he
remembered thinking. It was hard to say how long he was gone, but
when the pain spit him out, Urswyck was there, and Vargo Hoat
himself. “Thee’th not to be touched,” the goat
screamed, spraying spittle all over Zollo. “Thee hath to be a
maid, you foolth! Thee’th worth a bag of thapphireth!”
And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect
them from his own.
Two nights passed in silence before the wench finally found the
courage to whisper, “Jaime? Why did you shout out?”
“Why did I shout ‘sapphires’, you mean? Use
your wits, wench. Would this lot have cared if I shouted
‘rape’?
“You did not need to shout at all.”
“You’re hard enough to look at with a nose. Besides,
I wanted to make the goat say ‘thapphireth’.” He
chuckled. “A good thing for you I’m such a liar. An
honorable man would have told the truth about the
Sapphire Isle.”
“All the same,” she said. “I thank you,
ser.”
His hand was throbbing again. He ground his teeth and said,
“A Lannister pays his debts. That was for the river, and
those rocks you dropped on Robin Ryger.”
The goat wanted to make a show of parading him in, so Jaime was
made to dismount a mile from the gates of Harrenhal. A rope was
looped around his waist, a second around Brienne’s wrists;
the ends were tied to the pommel of Vargo Hoat’s saddle. They
stumbled along side by side behind the Qohorik’s striped
zorse.
Jaime’s rage kept him walking. The linen that covered the
stump was grey and stinking with pus. His phantom fingers screamed
with every step. I am stronger than they know, he told himself. I
am still a Lannister. I am still a knight of the Kingsguard. He
would reach Harrenhal, and then King’s Landing. He would
live. And I will pay this debt with interest.
As they approached the clifflike walls of Black Harren’s
monstrous castle, Brienne squeezed his arm. “Lord Bolton
holds this castle. The Boltons are bannermen to the
Starks.”
“The Boltons skin their enemies.” Jaime remembered
that much about the northman. Tyrion would have known all there was
to know about the Lord of the Dreadfort, but Tyrion was a thousand
leagues away, with Cersei. I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told
himself. We will die together as we were born together.
The castleton outside the walls had been burned to ash and
blackened stone, and many men and horses had recently encamped
beside the lakeshore, where Lord Whent had staged his great tourney
in the year of the false spring. A bitter smile touched
Jaime’s lips as they crossed that torn ground. Someone had
dug a privy trench in the very spot where he’d once knelt
before the king to say his vows. I never dreamed how quick the
sweet would turn to sour. Aerys would not even let me savor that
one night. He honored me, and then he spat on me.
“The banners,” Brienne observed. “Flayed man
and twin towers, see. King Robb’s sworn men. There, above the
gatehouse, grey on white. They fly the direwolf.”
Jaime twisted his head upward for a look. “That’s
your bloody wolf, true enough,” he granted her. “And
those are heads to either side of it.”
Soldiers, servants, and camp followers gathered to hoot at them.
A spotted bitch followed them through the camps barking and
growling until one of the Lyseni impaled her on a lance and
galloped to the front of the column. “I am bearing
Kingslayer’s banner,” he shouted, shaking the dead dog
above Jaime’s head.
The walls of Harrenhal were so thick that passing beneath them
was like passing through a stone tunnel. Vargo Hoat had sent two of
his Dothraki ahead to inform Lord Bolton of their coming, so the
outer ward was full of the curious. They gave way as Jaime
staggered past, the rope around his waist jerking and pulling at
him whenever he slowed. “I give you the Kingthlayer,”
Vargo Hoat proclaimed in that thick slobbery voice of his. A spear
jabbed at the small of Jaime’s back, sending him
sprawling.
Instinct made him put out his hands to stop his fall. When his
stump smashed against the ground the pain was blinding, yet somehow
he managed to fight his way back to one knee. Before him, a flight
of broad stone steps led up to the entrance of one of
Harrenhal’s colossal round towers. Five knights and a
northman stood looking down on him; the one pale-eyed in wool and
fur, the five fierce in mail and plate, with the twin towers sigil
on their surcoats. “A fury of Freys,” Jaime declared.
“Ser Danwell, Ser Aenys, Ser Hosteen.” He knew Lord
Walder’s sons by sight; his aunt had married one, after all.
“You have my condolences.”
“For what, ser?” Ser Danwell Frey asked.
“Your brother’s son, Ser Cleos,” said Jaime.
“He was with us until outlaws filled him full of arrows.
Urswyck and this lot took his goods and left him for the
wolves.”
“My lords!” Brienne wrenched herself free and pushed
forward. “I saw your banners. Hear me for your
oath!”
“Who speaks?” demanded Ser Aenys Frey.
“Lannither’th wet nurth.”
“I am Brienne of Tarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the
Evenstar, and sworn to House Stark even as you are.”
Ser Aenys spit at her feet. “That’s for your oaths.
We trusted the word of Robb Stark, and he repaid our faith with
betrayal.” Now this is interesting. Jaime twisted to see how Brienne might
take the accusation, but the wench was as singleminded as a mule
with a bit between his teeth. “I know of no betrayal.”
She chafed at the ropes around her wrists. “Lady Catelyn
commanded me to deliver Lannister to his brother at King’s
Landing—”
“She was trying to drown him when we found them,”
said Urswyck the Faithful.
She reddened. “In anger I forgot myself, but I would never
have killed him. If he dies the Lannisters will put my lady’s
daughters to the sword.”
Ser Aenys was unmoved. “Why should that trouble
us?”
“Ransom him back to Riverrun,” urged Ser
Danwell.
“Casterly Rock has more gold,” one brother
objected.
“Kill him!” said another. “His head for Ned
Stark’s!”
Shagwell the Fool somersaulted to the foot of the steps in his
grey and pink motley and began to sing. “There once was a
lion who danced with a bear, oh my, oh
my . . . ”
“Thilenth, fool.” Vargo Hoat cuffed the man.
“The Kingthlayer ith not for the bear. He ith
mine.”
“He is no one’s should he die.” Roose Bolton
spoke so softly that men quieted to hear him. “And pray
recall, my lord, you are not master of Harrenhal till I march
north.”
Fever made Jaime as fearless as he was lightheaded. “Can
this be the Lord of the Dreadfort? When last I heard, my father had
sent you scampering off with your tail betwixt your legs. When did
you stop running my lord?”
Bolton’s silence was a hundred times more threatening than
Vargo Hoat’s slobbering malevolence. Pale as morning mist,
his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes.
They reminded him of the day at King’s Landing when Ned Stark
had found him seated on the Iron Throne. The Lord of the Dreadfort
finally pursed his lips and said, “You have lost a
hand.”
“No,” said Jaime, “I have it here, hanging
round my neck.”
Roose Bolton reached down, snapped the cord, and flung the hand
at Hoat. “Take this away. The sight of it offends
me.”
“I will thend it to hith lord father. I will tell him he
muth pay one hundred thouthand dragonth, or we thall return the
Kingthlayer to him pieth by pieth. And when we hath hith gold, we
thall deliver Ther Jaime to Karthark, and collect a maiden
too!” A roar of laughter went up from the Brave
Companions.
“A fine plan,” said Roose Bolton, the same way he
might say, “A fine wine,” to a dinner companion,
“though Lord Karstark will not be giving you his daughter.
King Robb has shortened him by a head, for treason and murder. As
to Lord Tywin, he remains at King’s Landing, and there he
will stay till the new year, when his grandson takes for bride a
daughter of Highgarden.”
“Winterfell,” said Brienne. “You mean
Winterfell. King Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark.”
“No longer. The Battle of the Blackwater changed all. The
rose and the lion joined there, to shatter Stannis
Baratheon’s host and burn his fleet to ashes.” I warned you, Urswyck, Jaime thought, and you, goat. When you
bet against the lions, you lose more than your purse. “Is
there word of my sister?” he asked.
“She is well. As is
your . . . nephew.” Bolton paused before
he said nephew, a pause that said I know. “Your brother also
lives, though he took a wound in the battle.” He beckoned to
a dour northman in a studded brigantine. “Escort Ser Jaime to
Qyburn. And unbind this woman’s hands.” As the rope
between Brienne’s wrists was slashed in two, he said,
“Pray forgive us, my lady. In such troubled times it is hard
to know friend from foe.”
Brienne rubbed inside her wrist where the hemp had scraped her
skin bloody. “My lord, these men tried to rape me.”
“Did they?” Lord Bolton turned his pale eyes on
Vargo Hoat. “I am displeased. By that, and this of Ser
Jaime’s hand.”
There were five northmen and as many Freys in the yard for every
Brave Companion. The goat might not be as clever as some, but he
could count that high at least. He held his tongue.
“They took my sword,” Brienne said, “my
armor . . . ”
“You shall have no need of armor here, my lady,”
Lord Bolton told her. “In Harrenhal, you are under my
protection. Amabel, find suitable rooms for the Lady Brienne.
Walton, you will see to Ser Jaime at once.” He did not wait
for an answer, but turned and climbed the steps, his fur-trimmed
cloak swirling behind. Jaime had only enough time to exchange a
quick look with Brienne before they were marched away,
separately.
In the maester’s chambers beneath the rookery, a
grey-haired, fatherly man named Qyburn sucked in his breath when he
cut away the linen from the stump of Jaime’s hand.
“That bad? Will I die?”
Qyburn pushed at the wound with a finger, and wrinkled his nose
at the gush of pus. “No. Though in a few more
days . . . ” He sliced away Jaime’s
sleeve. “The corruption has spread. See how tender the flesh
is? I must cut it all away. The safest course would be to take the
arm off.”
“Then you’ll die,” Jaime promised.
“Clean the stump and sew it up. I’ll take my
chances.”
Qyburn frowned. “I can leave you the upper arm, make the
cut at your elbow, but . . . ”
“Take any part of my arm, and you’d best chop off
the other one as well, or I’ll strangle you with it
afterward.”
Qyburn looked in his eyes. Whatever he saw there gave him pause.
“Very well. I will cut away the rotten flesh, no more. Try to
burn out the corruption with boiling wine and a poultice of nettle,
mustard seed, and bread mold. Mayhaps that will suffice. It is on
your head. You will want milk of the poppy—”
“No.” Jaime dare not let himself be put to sleep; he
might be short an arm when he woke, no matter what the man
said.
Qyburn was taken aback. “There will be pain.”
“I’ll scream.”
“A great deal of pain.”
“I’ll scream very loudly.”
“Will you take some wine at least?”
“Does the High Septon ever pray?”
“Of that I am not certain. I shall bring the wine. Lie
back, I must needs strap down your arm.”
With a bowl and a sharp blade, Qyburn cleaned the stump while
Jaime gulped down strongwine, spilling it all over himself in the
process. His left hand did not seem to know how to find his mouth,
but there was something to be said for that. The smell of wine in
his sodden beard helped disguise the stench of pus.
Nothing helped when the time came to pare away the rotten flesh.
Jaime did scream then, and pounded his table with his good fist,
over and over and over again. He screamed again when Qyburn poured
boiling wine over what remained of his stump. Despite all his vows
and all his fears, he lost consciousness for a time. When he woke,
the maester was sewing at his arm with needle and catgut. “I
left a flap of skin to fold back over your wrist.”
“You have done this before,” muttered Jaime, weakly.
He could taste blood in his mouth where he’d bitten his
tongue.
“No man who serves with Vargo Hoat is a stranger to
stumps. He makes them wherever he goes.”
Qyburn did not look a monster, Jaime thought. He was spare and
soft-spoken, with warm brown eyes. “How does a maester come
to ride with the Brave Companions?”
“The Citadel took my chain.” Qyburn put away his
needle. “I should do something about that wound above your
eye as well. The flesh is badly inflamed.”
Jaime closed his eyes and let the wine and Qyburn do their work.
“Tell me of the battle.” As keeper of Harrenhal’s
ravens, Qyburn would have been the first to hear the news.
“Lord Stannis was caught between your father and the fire.
It’s said the Imp set the river itself aflame.”
Jaime saw green flames reaching up into the sky higher than the
tallest towers, as burning men screamed in the streets. I have
dreamed this dream before. It was almost funny, but there was no
one to share the joke.
“Open your eye.” Qyburn soaked a cloth in warm water
and dabbed at the crust of dried blood. The eyelid was swollen, but
Jaime found he could force it open halfway. Qyburn’s face
loomed above. “How did you come by this one?” the
maester asked.
“A wench’s gift.”
“Rough wooing, my lord?”
“This wench is bigger than me and uglier than you.
You’d best see to her as well. She’s still limping on
the leg I pricked when we fought.”
“I will ask after her. What is this woman to
you?”
“My protector.” Jaime had to laugh, no matter how it
hurt.
“I’ll grind some herbs you can mix with wine to
bring down your fever. Come back on the morrow and I’ll put a
leech on your eye to drain the bad blood.”
“A leech. Lovely.”
“Lord Bolton is very fond of leeches,” Qyburn said
primly.
“Yes,” said Jaime. “He would be.”
His hand burned.
Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch
they’d used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could
still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in
the flames, the fingers he no longer had.
He had taken wounds before, but never like this. He had never
known there could be such pain. Sometimes, unbidden, old prayers
bubbled from his lips, prayers he learned as a child and never
thought of since, prayers he had first prayed with Cersei kneeling
beside him in the sept at Casterly Rock. Sometimes he even wept,
until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry
and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his
tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed
at him.
After the second time he fell from the saddle, they bound him
tight to Brienne of Tarth and made them share a horse again. One
day, instead of back to front, they bound them face-to-face.
“The lovers,” Shagwell sighed loudly, “and what a
lovely sight they are. ’Twould be cruel to separate the good
knight and his lady.” Then he laughed that high shrill laugh
of his, and said, “Ah, but which one is the knight and which
one is the lady?” If I had my hand, you’d learn that soon enough, Jaime
thought. His arms ached and his legs were numb from the ropes, but
after a while none of that mattered. His world shrunk to the throb
of agony that was his phantom hand, and Brienne pressed against
him. She’s warm, at least, he consoled himself, though the
wench’s breath was as foul as his own.
His hand was always between them. Urswyck had hung it about his
neck on a cord, so it dangled down against his chest, slapping
Brienne’s breasts as Jaime slipped in and out of
consciousness. His right eye was swollen shut, the wound inflamed
where Brienne had cut him during their fight, but it was his hand
that hurt the most. Blood and pus seeped from his stump, and the
missing hand throbbed every time the horse took a step.
His throat was so raw that he could not eat, but he drank wine
when they gave it to him, and water when that was all they offered.
Once they handed him a cup and he quaffed it straight away,
trembling, and the Brave Companions burst into laughter so loud and
harsh it hurt his ears. “That’s horse piss you’re
drinking, Kingslayer,” Rorge told him. Jaime was so thirsty
he drank it anyway, but afterward he retched it all back up. They
made Brienne wash the vomit out of his beard, just as they made her
clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle.
One damp cold morning when he was feeling slightly stronger, a
madness took hold of him and he reached for the Dornishman’s
sword with his left hand and wrenched it clumsily from its
scabbard. Let them kill me, he thought, so long as I die fighting,
a blade in hand. But it was no good. Shagwell came hopping from leg
to leg, dancing nimbly aside when Jaime slashed at him. Unbalanced,
he staggered forward, hacking wildly at the fool, but Shagwell spun
and ducked and darted until all the Mummers were laughing at
Jaime’s futile efforts to land a blow. When he tripped over a
rock and stumbled to his knees, the fool leapt in and planted a wet
kiss atop his head.
Rorge finally flung him aside and kicked the sword from
Jaime’s feeble fingers as he tried to bring it up.
“That wath amuthing, Kingthlayer,” said Vargo Hoat,
“but if you try it again, I thall take your other hand, or
perhapth a foot.”
Jaime lay on his back afterward, staring at the night sky,
trying not to feel the pain that snaked up his right arm every time
he moved it. The night was strangely beautiful. The moon was a
graceful crescent, and it seemed as though he had never seen so
many stars. The King’s Crown was at the zenith, and he could
see the Stallion rearing, and there the Swan. The Moonmaid, shy as
ever, was half-hidden behind a pine tree. How can such a night be
beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down
on such as me?
“Jaime,” Brienne whispered, so faintly he thought he
was dreaming it. “Jaime, what are you doing?”
“Dying,” he whispered back.
“No,” she said, “no, you must live.”
He wanted to laugh. “Stop telling me what do, wench.
I’ll die if it pleases me.”
“Are you so craven?”
The word shocked him. He was Jaime Lannister, a knight of the
Kingsguard, he was the Kingslayer. No man had ever called him
craven. Other things they called him, yes; oathbreaker, liar,
murderer. They said he was cruel, treacherous, reckless. But never
craven. “What else can I do, but die?”
“Live,” she said, “live, and fight, and take
revenge.” But she spoke too loudly. Rorge heard her voice, if
not her words, and came over to kick her, shouting at her to hold
her bloody tongue if she wanted to keep it. Craven, Jaime thought, as Brienne fought to stifle her moans.
Can it be? They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword
hand? Gods be good, is it true?
The wench had the right of it. He could not die. Cersei was
waiting for him. She would have need of him. And Tyrion, his little
brother, who loved him for a lie. And his enemies were waiting too;
the Young Wolf who had beaten him in the Whispering Wood and killed
his men around him, Edmure Tully who had kept him in darkness and
chains, these Brave Companions.
When morning came, he made himself eat. They fed him a mush of
oats, horse food, but he forced down every spoon. He ate again at
evenfall, and the next day. Live, he told himself harshly, when the
mush was like to gag him, live for Cersei, live for Tyrion. Live
for vengeance. A Lannister always pays his debts. His missing hand
throbbed and burned and stank. When I reach King’s Landing
I’ll have a new hand forged, a golden hand, and one day
I’ll use it to rip out Vargo Hoat’s throat.
The days and the nights blurred together in a haze of pain. He
would sleep in the saddle, pressed against Brienne, his nose full
of the stink of his rotting hand, and then at night he would lie
awake on the hard ground, caught in a waking nightmare. Weak as he
was, they always bound him to a tree. It gave him some cold
consolation to know that they feared him that much, even now.
Brienne was always bound beside him. She lay there in her bonds
like a big dead cow, saying not a word. The wench has built a
fortress inside herself. They will rape her soon enough, but behind
her walls they cannot touch her. But Jaime’s walls were gone.
They had taken his hand, they had taken his sword hand, and without
it he was nothing. The other was no good to him. Since the time he
could walk, his left arm had been his shield arm, no more. It was
his right hand that made him a knight; his right arm that made him
a man.
One day, he heard Urswyck say something about Harrenhal, and
remembered that was to be their destination. That made him laugh
aloud, and that made Timeon slash his face with a long thin whip.
The cut bled, but beside his hand he scarcely felt it. “Why
did you laugh?” the wench asked him that night, in a
whisper.
“Harrenhal was where they gave me the white cloak,”
he whispered back. “Whent’s great tourney. He wanted to
show us all his big castle and his fine sons. I wanted to show them
too. I was only fifteen, but no one could have beaten me that day.
Aerys never let me joust.” He laughed again. “He sent
me away. But now I’m coming back.”
They heard the laugh. That night it was Jaime who got the kicks
and punches. He hardly felt them either, until Rorge slammed a boot
into his stump, and then he fainted.
It was the next night when they finally came, three of the
worst; Shagwell, noseless Rorge, and the fat Dothraki Zollo, the
one who’d cut his hand off. Zollo and Rorge were arguing
about who would go first as they approached; there seemed to be no
question but that the fool would be going last. Shagwell suggested
that they should both go first, and take her front and rear. Zollo
and Rorge liked that notion, only then they began to fight about
who would get the front and who the rear. They will leave her a cripple too, but inside, where it does not
show. “Wench,” he whispered as Zollo and Rorge were
cursing one another, “let them have the meat, and you go far
away. It will be over quicker, and they’ll get less pleasure
from it.”
“They’ll get no pleasure from what I’ll give
them,” she whispered back, defiant. Stupid stubborn brave bitch. She was going to get herself good
and killed, he knew it. And what do I care if she does? If she
hadn’t been so pigheaded, I’d still have a hand. Yet he
heard himself whisper, “Let them do it, and go away
inside.” That was what he’d done, when the Starks had
died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son
Brandon strangled himself trying to save him. “Think of
Renly, if you loved him. Think of Tarth, mountains and seas, pools,
waterfalls, whatever you have on your Sapphire Isle,
think . . . ”
But Rorge had won the argument by then. “You’re the
ugliest woman I ever seen,” he told Brienne, “but
don’t think I can’t make you uglier. You want a nose
like mine? Fight me, and you’ll get one. And two eyes,
that’s too many. One scream out o’ you, and I’ll
pop one out and make you eat it, and then I’ll pull your
fucking teeth out one by one.”
“Oh, do it, Rorge,” pleaded Shagwell. “Without
her teeth, she’ll look just like my dear old mother.”
He cackled. “And I always wanted to fuck my dear old mother
up the arse.”
Jaime chuckled. “There’s a funny fool. I have a
riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait,
I know.” He shouted, “SAPPHIRES,” as loudly as he
could.
Cursing, Rorge kicked at his stump again. Jaime howled. I never
knew there was such agony in the world, was the last thing he
remembered thinking. It was hard to say how long he was gone, but
when the pain spit him out, Urswyck was there, and Vargo Hoat
himself. “Thee’th not to be touched,” the goat
screamed, spraying spittle all over Zollo. “Thee hath to be a
maid, you foolth! Thee’th worth a bag of thapphireth!”
And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect
them from his own.
Two nights passed in silence before the wench finally found the
courage to whisper, “Jaime? Why did you shout out?”
“Why did I shout ‘sapphires’, you mean? Use
your wits, wench. Would this lot have cared if I shouted
‘rape’?
“You did not need to shout at all.”
“You’re hard enough to look at with a nose. Besides,
I wanted to make the goat say ‘thapphireth’.” He
chuckled. “A good thing for you I’m such a liar. An
honorable man would have told the truth about the
Sapphire Isle.”
“All the same,” she said. “I thank you,
ser.”
His hand was throbbing again. He ground his teeth and said,
“A Lannister pays his debts. That was for the river, and
those rocks you dropped on Robin Ryger.”
The goat wanted to make a show of parading him in, so Jaime was
made to dismount a mile from the gates of Harrenhal. A rope was
looped around his waist, a second around Brienne’s wrists;
the ends were tied to the pommel of Vargo Hoat’s saddle. They
stumbled along side by side behind the Qohorik’s striped
zorse.
Jaime’s rage kept him walking. The linen that covered the
stump was grey and stinking with pus. His phantom fingers screamed
with every step. I am stronger than they know, he told himself. I
am still a Lannister. I am still a knight of the Kingsguard. He
would reach Harrenhal, and then King’s Landing. He would
live. And I will pay this debt with interest.
As they approached the clifflike walls of Black Harren’s
monstrous castle, Brienne squeezed his arm. “Lord Bolton
holds this castle. The Boltons are bannermen to the
Starks.”
“The Boltons skin their enemies.” Jaime remembered
that much about the northman. Tyrion would have known all there was
to know about the Lord of the Dreadfort, but Tyrion was a thousand
leagues away, with Cersei. I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told
himself. We will die together as we were born together.
The castleton outside the walls had been burned to ash and
blackened stone, and many men and horses had recently encamped
beside the lakeshore, where Lord Whent had staged his great tourney
in the year of the false spring. A bitter smile touched
Jaime’s lips as they crossed that torn ground. Someone had
dug a privy trench in the very spot where he’d once knelt
before the king to say his vows. I never dreamed how quick the
sweet would turn to sour. Aerys would not even let me savor that
one night. He honored me, and then he spat on me.
“The banners,” Brienne observed. “Flayed man
and twin towers, see. King Robb’s sworn men. There, above the
gatehouse, grey on white. They fly the direwolf.”
Jaime twisted his head upward for a look. “That’s
your bloody wolf, true enough,” he granted her. “And
those are heads to either side of it.”
Soldiers, servants, and camp followers gathered to hoot at them.
A spotted bitch followed them through the camps barking and
growling until one of the Lyseni impaled her on a lance and
galloped to the front of the column. “I am bearing
Kingslayer’s banner,” he shouted, shaking the dead dog
above Jaime’s head.
The walls of Harrenhal were so thick that passing beneath them
was like passing through a stone tunnel. Vargo Hoat had sent two of
his Dothraki ahead to inform Lord Bolton of their coming, so the
outer ward was full of the curious. They gave way as Jaime
staggered past, the rope around his waist jerking and pulling at
him whenever he slowed. “I give you the Kingthlayer,”
Vargo Hoat proclaimed in that thick slobbery voice of his. A spear
jabbed at the small of Jaime’s back, sending him
sprawling.
Instinct made him put out his hands to stop his fall. When his
stump smashed against the ground the pain was blinding, yet somehow
he managed to fight his way back to one knee. Before him, a flight
of broad stone steps led up to the entrance of one of
Harrenhal’s colossal round towers. Five knights and a
northman stood looking down on him; the one pale-eyed in wool and
fur, the five fierce in mail and plate, with the twin towers sigil
on their surcoats. “A fury of Freys,” Jaime declared.
“Ser Danwell, Ser Aenys, Ser Hosteen.” He knew Lord
Walder’s sons by sight; his aunt had married one, after all.
“You have my condolences.”
“For what, ser?” Ser Danwell Frey asked.
“Your brother’s son, Ser Cleos,” said Jaime.
“He was with us until outlaws filled him full of arrows.
Urswyck and this lot took his goods and left him for the
wolves.”
“My lords!” Brienne wrenched herself free and pushed
forward. “I saw your banners. Hear me for your
oath!”
“Who speaks?” demanded Ser Aenys Frey.
“Lannither’th wet nurth.”
“I am Brienne of Tarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the
Evenstar, and sworn to House Stark even as you are.”
Ser Aenys spit at her feet. “That’s for your oaths.
We trusted the word of Robb Stark, and he repaid our faith with
betrayal.” Now this is interesting. Jaime twisted to see how Brienne might
take the accusation, but the wench was as singleminded as a mule
with a bit between his teeth. “I know of no betrayal.”
She chafed at the ropes around her wrists. “Lady Catelyn
commanded me to deliver Lannister to his brother at King’s
Landing—”
“She was trying to drown him when we found them,”
said Urswyck the Faithful.
She reddened. “In anger I forgot myself, but I would never
have killed him. If he dies the Lannisters will put my lady’s
daughters to the sword.”
Ser Aenys was unmoved. “Why should that trouble
us?”
“Ransom him back to Riverrun,” urged Ser
Danwell.
“Casterly Rock has more gold,” one brother
objected.
“Kill him!” said another. “His head for Ned
Stark’s!”
Shagwell the Fool somersaulted to the foot of the steps in his
grey and pink motley and began to sing. “There once was a
lion who danced with a bear, oh my, oh
my . . . ”
“Thilenth, fool.” Vargo Hoat cuffed the man.
“The Kingthlayer ith not for the bear. He ith
mine.”
“He is no one’s should he die.” Roose Bolton
spoke so softly that men quieted to hear him. “And pray
recall, my lord, you are not master of Harrenhal till I march
north.”
Fever made Jaime as fearless as he was lightheaded. “Can
this be the Lord of the Dreadfort? When last I heard, my father had
sent you scampering off with your tail betwixt your legs. When did
you stop running my lord?”
Bolton’s silence was a hundred times more threatening than
Vargo Hoat’s slobbering malevolence. Pale as morning mist,
his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes.
They reminded him of the day at King’s Landing when Ned Stark
had found him seated on the Iron Throne. The Lord of the Dreadfort
finally pursed his lips and said, “You have lost a
hand.”
“No,” said Jaime, “I have it here, hanging
round my neck.”
Roose Bolton reached down, snapped the cord, and flung the hand
at Hoat. “Take this away. The sight of it offends
me.”
“I will thend it to hith lord father. I will tell him he
muth pay one hundred thouthand dragonth, or we thall return the
Kingthlayer to him pieth by pieth. And when we hath hith gold, we
thall deliver Ther Jaime to Karthark, and collect a maiden
too!” A roar of laughter went up from the Brave
Companions.
“A fine plan,” said Roose Bolton, the same way he
might say, “A fine wine,” to a dinner companion,
“though Lord Karstark will not be giving you his daughter.
King Robb has shortened him by a head, for treason and murder. As
to Lord Tywin, he remains at King’s Landing, and there he
will stay till the new year, when his grandson takes for bride a
daughter of Highgarden.”
“Winterfell,” said Brienne. “You mean
Winterfell. King Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark.”
“No longer. The Battle of the Blackwater changed all. The
rose and the lion joined there, to shatter Stannis
Baratheon’s host and burn his fleet to ashes.” I warned you, Urswyck, Jaime thought, and you, goat. When you
bet against the lions, you lose more than your purse. “Is
there word of my sister?” he asked.
“She is well. As is
your . . . nephew.” Bolton paused before
he said nephew, a pause that said I know. “Your brother also
lives, though he took a wound in the battle.” He beckoned to
a dour northman in a studded brigantine. “Escort Ser Jaime to
Qyburn. And unbind this woman’s hands.” As the rope
between Brienne’s wrists was slashed in two, he said,
“Pray forgive us, my lady. In such troubled times it is hard
to know friend from foe.”
Brienne rubbed inside her wrist where the hemp had scraped her
skin bloody. “My lord, these men tried to rape me.”
“Did they?” Lord Bolton turned his pale eyes on
Vargo Hoat. “I am displeased. By that, and this of Ser
Jaime’s hand.”
There were five northmen and as many Freys in the yard for every
Brave Companion. The goat might not be as clever as some, but he
could count that high at least. He held his tongue.
“They took my sword,” Brienne said, “my
armor . . . ”
“You shall have no need of armor here, my lady,”
Lord Bolton told her. “In Harrenhal, you are under my
protection. Amabel, find suitable rooms for the Lady Brienne.
Walton, you will see to Ser Jaime at once.” He did not wait
for an answer, but turned and climbed the steps, his fur-trimmed
cloak swirling behind. Jaime had only enough time to exchange a
quick look with Brienne before they were marched away,
separately.
In the maester’s chambers beneath the rookery, a
grey-haired, fatherly man named Qyburn sucked in his breath when he
cut away the linen from the stump of Jaime’s hand.
“That bad? Will I die?”
Qyburn pushed at the wound with a finger, and wrinkled his nose
at the gush of pus. “No. Though in a few more
days . . . ” He sliced away Jaime’s
sleeve. “The corruption has spread. See how tender the flesh
is? I must cut it all away. The safest course would be to take the
arm off.”
“Then you’ll die,” Jaime promised.
“Clean the stump and sew it up. I’ll take my
chances.”
Qyburn frowned. “I can leave you the upper arm, make the
cut at your elbow, but . . . ”
“Take any part of my arm, and you’d best chop off
the other one as well, or I’ll strangle you with it
afterward.”
Qyburn looked in his eyes. Whatever he saw there gave him pause.
“Very well. I will cut away the rotten flesh, no more. Try to
burn out the corruption with boiling wine and a poultice of nettle,
mustard seed, and bread mold. Mayhaps that will suffice. It is on
your head. You will want milk of the poppy—”
“No.” Jaime dare not let himself be put to sleep; he
might be short an arm when he woke, no matter what the man
said.
Qyburn was taken aback. “There will be pain.”
“I’ll scream.”
“A great deal of pain.”
“I’ll scream very loudly.”
“Will you take some wine at least?”
“Does the High Septon ever pray?”
“Of that I am not certain. I shall bring the wine. Lie
back, I must needs strap down your arm.”
With a bowl and a sharp blade, Qyburn cleaned the stump while
Jaime gulped down strongwine, spilling it all over himself in the
process. His left hand did not seem to know how to find his mouth,
but there was something to be said for that. The smell of wine in
his sodden beard helped disguise the stench of pus.
Nothing helped when the time came to pare away the rotten flesh.
Jaime did scream then, and pounded his table with his good fist,
over and over and over again. He screamed again when Qyburn poured
boiling wine over what remained of his stump. Despite all his vows
and all his fears, he lost consciousness for a time. When he woke,
the maester was sewing at his arm with needle and catgut. “I
left a flap of skin to fold back over your wrist.”
“You have done this before,” muttered Jaime, weakly.
He could taste blood in his mouth where he’d bitten his
tongue.
“No man who serves with Vargo Hoat is a stranger to
stumps. He makes them wherever he goes.”
Qyburn did not look a monster, Jaime thought. He was spare and
soft-spoken, with warm brown eyes. “How does a maester come
to ride with the Brave Companions?”
“The Citadel took my chain.” Qyburn put away his
needle. “I should do something about that wound above your
eye as well. The flesh is badly inflamed.”
Jaime closed his eyes and let the wine and Qyburn do their work.
“Tell me of the battle.” As keeper of Harrenhal’s
ravens, Qyburn would have been the first to hear the news.
“Lord Stannis was caught between your father and the fire.
It’s said the Imp set the river itself aflame.”
Jaime saw green flames reaching up into the sky higher than the
tallest towers, as burning men screamed in the streets. I have
dreamed this dream before. It was almost funny, but there was no
one to share the joke.
“Open your eye.” Qyburn soaked a cloth in warm water
and dabbed at the crust of dried blood. The eyelid was swollen, but
Jaime found he could force it open halfway. Qyburn’s face
loomed above. “How did you come by this one?” the
maester asked.
“A wench’s gift.”
“Rough wooing, my lord?”
“This wench is bigger than me and uglier than you.
You’d best see to her as well. She’s still limping on
the leg I pricked when we fought.”
“I will ask after her. What is this woman to
you?”
“My protector.” Jaime had to laugh, no matter how it
hurt.
“I’ll grind some herbs you can mix with wine to
bring down your fever. Come back on the morrow and I’ll put a
leech on your eye to drain the bad blood.”
“A leech. Lovely.”
“Lord Bolton is very fond of leeches,” Qyburn said
primly.
“Yes,” said Jaime. “He would be.”