AFFC: Jaime III (Chapter 27)
"Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold."
I prefer you dappled in sunlight, with water beading on your naked skin. He wanted to kiss her, carry her to her bedchamber, throw her on the bed. . .
Did she just say ghost? Uh oh!
In the sweltering heat of the bedchamber, his brow was slick with sweat. He [Renly] might have been Robert's ghost as he stood there, young and dark and handsome. - Eddard XIII, AGOT
In their midst, watching and laughing with his [Renly] young queen by his side, sat a ghost in a golden crown. - Catelyn II, ACOK
There's more examples, but I can't be bothered to include them all.
"I swore an oath to Lady Stark, never again to take up arms against the Starks or Tullys."
"A drunken promise made with a sword at your throat."
She's correct Jaime, it's well established vows made at sword point are not valid.
"If you had not sent Balon Swann to Dorne—"
"I need him there. These Dornishmen cannot be trusted. That red snake championed Tyrion, have you forgotten that? I will not leave my daughter to their mercy. And I will not have Loras Tyrell commanding the Kingsguard."
Turns out if you don't trust anyone, you're going to be vindicated every once in awhile.
"Ser Loras is thrice the man Ser Osmund is."
"Your notions of manhood have changed somewhat, brother."
Jaime felt his anger rising. "True, Loras does not leer at your teats the way Ser Osmund does, but I hardly think—"
"Think about this." Cersei slapped his face.
Purple with rage, the king lashed out, a vicious backhand blow to the side of the head. She stumbled against the table and fell hard, yet Cersei Lannister did not cry out. - Eddard X, AGOT
Jaime made no attempt to block the blow. "I see I need a thicker beard, to cushion me against my queen's caresses." He wanted to rip her gown off and turn her blows to kisses. He'd done it before, back when he had two good hands.
The queen's eyes were green ice. "You had best go, ser."
Part of him would be glad to put King's Landing behind him. He had no taste for the company of the lickspittles and fools who surrounded Cersei. "The smallest council," they were calling them in Flea Bottom, according to Addam Marbrand.
And Qyburn . . . he might have saved Jaime's life, but he was still a Bloody Mummer. "Qyburn stinks of secrets," he warned Cersei. That only made her laugh. "We all have secrets, brother," she replied.
I want to know Qyburn's secrets.
. . . she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy . . .
. . . she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . .
. . . Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack, and Moon Boy . . .
. . . she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . .
Which one is going to make me lose my mind first?
His palfrey was a blood bay, his destrier a magnificent grey stallion. It had been long years since Jaime had named any of his horses; he had seen too many die in battle, and that was harder when you named them. But when the Piper boy started calling them Honor and Glory, he laughed and let the names stand. Glory wore trappings of Lannister crimson; Honor was barded in Kingsguard white.
This near to King's Landing, the kingsroad was as safe as any road could be in such times, yet Jaime sent Marbrand and his outriders ahead to scout. "Robb Stark took me unawares in the Whispering Wood," he said. "That will never happen again."
Is the author telling me it will?
Pretty sure Field of Fire 2.0 will be Aegon and crew, but it's fun to imagine a scenario where Jaime is caught unawares by dragons that couldn't be scouted.
So it had been left to Rennifer Longwaters, the head undergaoler with the twisted back who claimed at tedious length to have a "drop of dragon" in him, to unlock the dungeon doors for Jaime and conduct him up the narrow steps inside the walls to the place where Ilyn Payne had lived for fifteen years.
The chambers stank of rotted food, and the rushes were crawling with vermin. As Jaime entered, he almost trod upon a rat.
False alarm, it's not a harbor rat.
The hand was wrought of gold, very lifelike, with inlaid nails of mother-of-pearl, its fingers and thumb half closed so as to slip around a goblet's stem. I cannot fight, but I can drink, Jaime reflected as the lad was tightening the straps that bound it to his stump. "Men shall name you Goldenhand from this day forth, my lord," the armorer had assured him the first time he'd fitted it onto Jaime's wrist. He was wrong. I shall be the Kingslayer till I die.
At least he's not delusional?
"Has there been no word of our Lord Tyrek?" her castellan asked as a course of trout was served.
"The boy is dead." Jaime had drunk three cups of wine, and his golden hand seemed to be growing heavier and clumsier by the moment. A hook would serve me just as well. "If they realized whom they'd killed, no doubt they threw him in the river for fear of my father's wrath. They know the taste of that in King's Landing. Lord Tywin always paid his debts."
"Always," Strongboar agreed, and that was the end of that.
Yet afterward, alone in the tower room he had been offered for the night, Jaime found himself wondering. Tyrek had served King Robert as a squire, side by side with Lancel. Knowledge could be more valuable than gold, more deadly than a dagger. It was Varys he thought of then, smiling and smelling of lavender. The eunuch had agents and informers all over the city. It would have been a simple matter for him to arrange to have Tyrek snatched during the confusion . . . provided he knew beforehand that the mob was like to riot. And Varys knew all, or so he would have us believe. Yet he gave Cersei no warning of that riot. Nor did he ride down to the ships to see Myrcella off.
Maybe Varys isn't forming a hot boy crew to rule Westeros. Maybe Varys is more interested in exposing the Lannisters and their crimes.
The hot boy crew was a better idea. I should write these books.
With his grim face and deep-sunk hollow eyes, Ser Ilyn might have passed for death himself . . . as he had, for years.
Payne seemed as comfortable in his silence as in his rusted ringmail and boiled leather. The clop of his gelding's hooves and the rattle of sword in scabbard whenever he shifted his seat were the only sounds he made. Though his pox-scarred face was grim and his eyes as cold as ice on a winter lake, Jaime sensed that he was glad he'd come.
Ser Ilyn raised his blade in reply, and Jaime moved at once to the attack. Payne was as rusty as his ringmail, and not so strong as Brienne, yet he met every cut with his own blade, or interposed his shield. They danced beneath the horned moon as the blunted swords sang their steely song. The silent knight was content to let Jaime lead the dance for a while, but finally he began to answer stroke for stroke.
Is it just me, or is Jaime Lannister fighting a dead guy?
The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking. - Prologue, AGOT
Thank you @agentrouka-blog for the help!
"We will dance again," he promised Ser Ilyn. "On the morrow, and the morrow. Every day we'll dance, till I am as good with my left hand as ever I was with the right."
Ser Ilyn opened his mouth and made a clacking sound. A laugh, Jaime realized. Something twisted in his gut.
The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking. - Prologue, AGOT
Thank you @agentrouka-blog for the help!
Little Lew Piper voiced the question the knights and lordlings dared not ask. Jaime grinned at him. "They have lusty wenches in House Hayford. These are love bites, lad."
Why would the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard have love bites?
Soon the signs of war could be seen on every hand. Weeds and thorns and brushy trees grew high as a horse's head in fields where autumn wheat should be ripening, the kingsroad was bereft of travelers, and wolves ruled the weary world from dusk till dawn. Most of the animals were wary enough to keep their distance, but one of Marbrand's outriders had his horse run off and killed when he dismounted for a piss. "No beast would be so bold," declared Ser Bonifer the Good, of the stern sad face. "These are demons in the skins of wolves, sent to chastise us for our sins."
If you believe they're a gift from the Old Gods, he's not far off?
At a place called Sow's Horn they found a tough old knight named Ser Roger Hogg squatting stubbornly in his towerhouse with six men-at-arms, four crossbowmen, and a score of peasants.
Sow's Horn may be a reference by George R. R. Martin to the story Three Little Pigs. The earth and timber halls of the brothers Wode are burned down by raiders, but the stout stone of Sow's Horn resists Amory Lorch. - A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Maester Gulian consulted a map and announced that these hills were held by the brothers Wode, a pair of landed knights sworn to Harrenhal . . . but their halls had been earth and timber, and only blackened beams remained of them.
No Wodes appeared, nor any of their smallfolk, though some outlaws had taken shelter in the root cellar beneath the second brother's keep. One of them wore the ruins of a crimson cloak, but Jaime hanged him with the rest. It felt good. This was justice.
I don't think it's a coincidence this happens so close to the 'broken men' speech.
And I don't think it's an accident George included such a loaded word.
It felt good. This was justice. Make a habit of it, Lannister, and one day men might call you Goldenhand after all. Goldenhand the Just.
Never mind, he's delusional.
Across the pewter waters of the lake the towers of Black Harren's folly appeared at last, five twisted fingers of black, misshapen stone grasping for the sky.
Ser Addam's outriders had reported that the gates of Harrenhal were closed and barred. Jaime drew his men up before them and commanded Ser Kennos of Kayce to sound the Horn of Herrock, black and twisted and banded in old gold.
The speaker was a younger man with a mop of sandy hair. He wore the chain of coins that had once belonged to Vargo Hoat; coins from half a hundred distant cities, silver and gold, copper and bronze, square coins and round coins, triangles and rings and bits of bone.
"I wouldn't say afraid, m'lord. I'd say we was leaving him for our betters. Someone like Ser. Or you."
Me, when I had two hands. Jaime did not delude himself. Sandor would make short work of him now. "You have a name?"
"Rafford, if it pleases. Most call me Raff."
He's no longer delusional. It's a fluid situation.
There's Raff the Sweetling! I never noticed he wore coins. . . whatever that means.
Remember when I questioned whether Arya would kill a Frey if she knew his name? Yeah, erase all of that, I forgot she gets her hands on Raff, and never hesitates.
When they brought it to him, he found that the Goat's lips had been sliced off, along with his ears and most of his nose. The crows had supped upon his eyes. It was still recognizably Hoat, however. Jaime would have known his beard anywhere; an absurd rope of hair two feet long, dangling from a pointed chin. Elsewise, only a few leathery strips of flesh still clung to the Qohorik's skull. "Where is the rest of him?" he asked.
"One of the captives was always begging food," Rafford admitted, "so Ser said to give him roast goat. The Qohorik didn't have much meat on him, though. Ser took his hands and feet first, then his arms and legs."
"The fat bugger got most, m'lord," Shitmouth offered, "but Ser, he said to see that all the captives had a taste. And Hoat too, his own self. That whoreson 'ud slobber when we fed him, and the grease'd run down into that skinny beard o' his."
Father, Jaime thought, your dogs have both gone mad.
The fat bugger is Wylis Manderly. Wylis Manderly was fed a human.
It's always the kids that pay for the (future) sins of the parents.
He found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls.
That Mad Dan elle was such a prankster.
The girl [Pia] fell at Jaime's feet when she saw him, sobbing and clinging to his leg with hysterical strength till Strongboar pulled her off. "No one will hurt you now," he told her, but that only made her sob the louder.
The other captives had been better treated. Ser Wylis Manderly was amongst them, along with several other highborn northmen taken prisoner by the Mountain That Rides in the fighting at the fords of the Trident.
Norrey, Locke, and Burley men are the other highborn northmen.
I'm losing track of where everyone is.
"I will not have such sinners in my service."
"My septon used to say all men were sinners."
"He was not wrong," Ser Bonifer allowed, "but some sins are blacker than others, and fouler in the nostrils of the Seven."
And you have no more nose than my little brother, or my own sins would have you choking on that pear.
Maintaining his not delusional streak. Small wins are still wins.
George should have called this book A Feast of Worship.
Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his lance for good and all.
"What happened to this knight?"
"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood." - Daenerys VII, ADWD
"This castle has an ill repute," he warned him, "and one that's well deserved. It's said that Harren and his sons still walk the halls by night, afire. Those who look upon them burst into flame."
"I fear no shade, ser. It is written in The Seven-Pointed Star that spirits, wights, and revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith."
Okay, why did he say wights? What do you mean by armored in faith?
No, no, I won't fall for this.
"Beric Dondarrion is a different matter. Should you capture him, hold him for my return. I'll want to march him back to King's Landing with a rope about his neck, and have Ser Ilyn take his head off where half the realm can see."
"And this Myrish priest who runs with him? It is said he spreads his false faith everywhere."
"Kill him, kiss him, or pray with him, as you please."
"I have no wish to kiss the man, my lord."
"No doubt he'd say the same of you." Jaime's smile turned into a yawn.
Something tells me Ser Bonifer Hasty, castellan of Harrenhal, won't be seeing the end of this story.
"Ser Ronnet," he called, "have you lost your way? It is a large castle, I know."
Red Ronnet raised his lantern. "I wished to see where the bear danced with the maiden not-so-fair." His beard shone in the light as if it were afire. Jaime could smell wine on his breath. "Is it true the wench fought naked?"
"I was betrothed to her."
That took him by surprise. Brienne had never mentioned a betrothal.
I must have missed the time Brienne told you anything about herself.
But the Mad King was always chopping off his Hands. He had chopped Lord Jon [Connington] after the Battle of the Bells, stripping him of honors, lands, and wealth, and packing him off across the sea to die in exile, where he soon drank himself to death. The cousin, though—Red Ronnet's father—had joined the rebellion and been rewarded with Griffin's Roost after the Trident. He only got the castle, though; Robert kept the gold, and bestowed the greater part of the Connington lands on more fervent supporters.
Does this count as an unreliable narrator?
"How is it that you did not wed?" Jaime asked him.
"Why, I went to Tarth and saw her. I had six years on her, yet the wench could look me in the eye. She was a sow in silk, though most sows have bigger teats. When she tried to talk she almost choked on her own tongue. I gave her a rose and told her it was all that she would ever have from me." Connington glanced into the pit. "The bear was less hairy than that freak, I'll—"
Jaime's golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning. "You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne."
Connington edged away from the spreading flames on his hands and knees. "Brienne. If it please my lord." He spat a glob of blood at Jaime's foot. "Brienne the Beauty."
And let me assure you, nothing has appeared in this chapter that would make this feel hollow.
Jaime found himself wondering if Brienne might have passed this way before him. If she thought that Sansa Stark had made for Riverrun . . . Had they encountered other travelers, he might have stopped to ask if any of them had chance to see a pretty maid with auburn hair, or a big ugly one with a face that would curdle milk. But there was no one on the roads but wolves, and their howling held no answers.
I don't know what I'm supposed to think of Ser Bonifer Hasty, and that's upsetting me.
