His bitch sister’s mouth moved, and sounds came with it. “Gilbert Farring is dead,” they said to the Small Council. “The Sand Sluts killed him.”
As the chokingly eloquent Littlefinger and the parrot Qyburn mumbled grave condolences, it took Jaime Lannister a full minute for him to recall who Gilbert Farring was. “The Lord of Storm’s End,” he said, more to himself than his darker side. “So, the Dornishmen are close as well?”
“Yes,” his darker side replied. Her eyes refused to meet Jaime’s, but when he saw them, there was no mistaking it. They were similar when the Stark boy had scaled the roof, when Joffrey choked on his wine. She was in fear, fear that made her crazier than she was, fear that was yet to find him.
Jaime tried to force it. “A Targaryen is at our doorstep,” he kept thinking to himself, “the daughter of the king you slew,” but his heart replied with hollow reverberations, and the words he told himself remained words. “And what of the threat at the Wall?” he said aloud to the Council, hoping if they expressed fear, some of it would settle in him. “The rumors, if they are, are legendary. Do you believe the White Walkers are real? Do you believe in the Prince and the Dragon?”
Littlefinger, this time, was more direct. “From my time at Winterfell, I do not doubt there is truth to the tale, although not certain of how much,” he said, “but there is only so much we can do. One army at a time, Lord Jaime,” he said, lips almost curling, reminding Jaime how much he loved to play this game.
Jaime had already known the Red Keep was a cave of lepers, but he had cast them no heed until now. His talks with Sansa had made him realize how much he truly hated them: the squirmy Hand, the old whisperer fool who licked the hand which fed it, the clueless Commander of the City Watch, and ruling them all the bitch whom the gods made one face, yet she went and made herself three more.
“I promised myself I would never be like them,” Jaime remembered telling Sansa, “but I became someone worse. I became the man who shrugged at violence, turned a blind eye to betrayals. Giving Brienne of Tarth liege to save you was the only thing I am proud of. Hopefully, it will be a thing the bards will note me for. That, and being the Kingslayer.”
Sansa had listened with eyes wide, patient and delicate. The poor girl had nothing better to do while war approached, and Jaime had taken advantage of her ear to spill his sins. He had still not told her of darker days, of the Mad King’s plan or the day he pushed Bran. The former was too delicate, and the latter would risk losing company of the only woman in the Red Keep with one face.
Whenever he met Sansa in the godswood, Jaime always saw the silhouette of Brienne, distant enough to give the pair privacy, but close enough to see her swollen, impassioned face. He had greeted her courteously when they met, but as their conversation progressed, Jaime felt a wall bigger than the Wall between them. He had particularly felt it when Brienne had asked, “So, how fare things since we parted?”
Not much. Still the same man with shit for honor.
When the Council ended, Jaime got up to meet with the lieutenants of the Windblown sellsword company, whom had arrived in the capital. When he left the room, however, there she stood, still not staring at him, but plainly longing to talk. “Speak,” he told her, the word coming harsher than he thought it would.
Her eyes still did not meet his, but Jaime saw Cersei’s body seize at his imperative. “It is of no significance,” she said to the air shortly, with grinding teeth and sweaty skin, before she shuffled away to her chambers.
Did it take the white walls of Riverrun to turn black for her to remember that the enemy has a dragon? Jaime thought to himself, finally feeling a brief upsurge of joy.
*
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