Chapter Text
When they bring Jaime Lannister to the sept he is still in chains. Heavy manacles drag his wrists down to his hips and he has been gagged with a foul-looking cloth. His clothes are little more than rags and he smells truly disgusting. But then, he has spent months marinating in his own filth in the dungeons of Storm’s End, so that is to be expected.
But his eyes are clear.
Clear and furious.
Clear and furious and looking directly at her.
“Do you understand what is to happen here tonight?” The septon asks him. He does not take his eyes from her, but he nods.
“Must he be chained?” she asks Renly. He is standing beside her in his armour, strong and shiny and tall. His jaw is clenched, and Brienne suspects he is on the verge of tears. She would not think less of him if he did cry. He had not thought to be the head of his house, let alone so young. In a time of war.
So when he had asked this of her, she had agreed. But seeing her husband-to-be dragged before her, bound and gagged. It is uncomfortable.
"Yes," Renly says firmly. “But he has agreed to the terms of the marriage, lest we send his brother's corpse to keep him company in his cell."
Ser Jaime turns his deadly gaze to Renly now. It was scathing when it was turned on her, but seeing it directed at her friend makes her heart pound wildly in her chest. Baratheons and Lannisters. Lions and stags. And her there as a tie to bind it all together.
How had this happened?
The sept is dark. It is night and the endless siege means candles are rationed. Some small part of her thinks it suits her. A political marriage forged in darkness. That was all she'd ever been able to hope for. She just hadn't expected it to be so literal.
All women are the same in the dark, her septa had told her. Perhaps it might be true.
She is led to the altar by Renly, who stands at her side where her father should have been. Lannister is led behind her by his guards. When he stands and faces her he narrows his eyes and looks her up and down, then he straightens his spine the way that all men do when they realise how tall she truly is. He is almost of a height with her. Perhaps he would be, if he were in new boots, rather than his old worn pair. Instead he looks up at her slightly. His burnished curls lie tangled and dirty around his face.
The ceremony itself is short. The septon does away with the usual prayers and florid speeches and gets straight to the vows. “My lords and ladies. We stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.”
Brienne’s heart clenches in her chest at the words, but she does not protest. This was not what she’d imagined her wedding to be like, to be sure. But lately she had not thought she’d have a wedding at all. So she pushes down the bubbling of feelings prickling her skin into goosebumps and instead looks her husband-to-be in the eyes. She does not want him thinking her weak or scared, or that she is anything other than willing. He looks back at her, his green eyes still cloudy with anger.
The septon clears his throat, drawing her attention away from Lannister. He gestures to their hands. She does not want to touch him, does not want him touching her, but it is part of the ceremony, so she leans forward and takes his right in hers. He is still manacled, and the movement drags his left up higher too. It draws her attention to the dark bruises on each wrist; surely the irons pain him. But he shows no signs of discomfort. Does not flinch. His fingers are loose around her palm, but still they are curled. She can feel his matching calluses rubbing softly against her own.
The septon recites his prayer as he ties the ribbon around their hands. Brienne does not truly hear it. She worries that Lannister can feel her thrumming pulse in their joined hands. Worries that he will misconstrue why her heart pounds.
There is a pause then, and the septon looks awkwardly between them, pointedly looking at the filthy cloth still shoved in Lannister’s mouth. “It is time for the vows.”
She hesitates for a fraction of a second, but reaches out with her unbound hand to pull the filthy rag from his mouth. The smell of it gets in her nostrils and makes her gag; it must have been disgusting to have stifling his tongue.
He works his mouth a little, tongue darting out to wet his cracked lips, but he does not speak.
“Look upon each other and say the vows,” the septon prompts, and Brienne returns her gaze to Lannister. His grip on her hand tightens ever so slightly.
There is some slight shift in his eyes, a slight darkening, and they begin to speak in unison.
“Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger.”
It is the first time she has heard his voice. Croaky with misuse, but strong and clear enough for their purpose. She is so intent on his words that she can barely hear her own voice. Her throat tightens.
“I am his and he is mine.”
“I am hers and she is mine.”
Everything slows. Neither blinks. Her heart flutters wildly in her chest.
“From this day until the end of my days,” they finish together.
In the distance a bell rings. It startles her. She looks away, over her shoulder. The changing of the guard. She will be needed on the walls. Her hand is still bound.
“Will that be enough?” Renly says, surprising her again.
The septon hesitates. It is not a binding ceremony yet. Not without a bedding. They’re all aware of that much.
“I am bound as much as she is,” Lannister says to Renly. His grip on her hand has not wavered. The ribbon feels as if it has tightened more in the passing minutes. “Let me see my brother and I’ll agree to any story you wish.”
Renly glares. “Your brother will be kept hostage until your father retreats. Same as you.”
“I’ve done everything you said.” He pulls away from her a little, but bound as they are the movement tugs her closer. He tries to use his spare hand to untie the ribbon but the shackles make that impossible.
“Yes.” Renly agrees, and pulls a dagger from his belt. Brienne steps forward, but he stops her with a hand on her breastplate, restraining her. He uses the dagger to sever the ribbon, then turns to Lannister’s guards. “Take him back to the dungeon.”
The guards jump at the order.
“Renly!” Lannister says, resisting. But he has been held in the dungeons for some time; he is weak and he is chained. “Let me see him. He’s a child.”
Brienne looks between the two men. Something is caught in her throat. She swallows it down.
He is led out of the sept, struggling all the way. His cries become more furious, more panicked, until he is out of earshot. Returned to his dungeon. At her side Renly is unmoved.
The septon makes some excuse, bows and leaves just Brienne and Renly alone. Her right hand clutches the shredded ribbon. She still holds the filthy gag in her left. It gives her the courage to ask what she had avoided asking this whole time.
“If he finds out we don’t have his brother…”
“He won’t,” Renly says firmly, then he, too, leaves the sept, leaving Brienne standing alone between the statue of the Mother and the Father.
It is a week before Brienne sees her husband again. She is escorting another prisoner to his cell and must pass by the one occupied by Renly’s ‘guest of honour’. The man struggles against her hold, cries, screams, begs, generally makes quite a scene but it does him no good. She is bigger than him and stronger than him and she’s not swayed by his pleading with her to: “Think of my family! I have a young wife! Who will look after her if you lock me in here?”
“Better she learns young that you cannot depend on men if you want to survive in this world,” she says, and pushes the man into his cell. The guard with her closes the door behind and locks it.
“I did not realise I married such a cold woman,” a voice says from behind, startling her. She had been so occupied with the prisoner she had forgotten who else was down here. It had been all she could do all week to put it to the back of her mind. Perhaps she’d done a better job of it than she’d thought.
She turns to see that he has made his way to the door, hands wrapped around the heavy iron bars fixed in the small window at head-height. His face is pressed against them, nose poking between two bars so that he has a better view of the hallway and all its many, varied entertainments. Even from here, obscured as he is, she can see he is even more filthy than he had been in the sept.
Brienne knows she should not rise to the bait, because that is what this clearly is. Renly had warned her of this, that he would try to goad her into a conversation. All Lannisters lie, it is all they know how to do, he had told her to justify his marriage scheme. We must lie to them in turn, if we are to defeat them.
But she is tired. Tired of the day, of the war, and she wants nothing more than to be back in her bed, and in this moment of weakness she says, despite herself, “That man is lucky he isn’t dead.”
She cannot see his face, but she hears his noise of disbelief well enough. “I’m guilty of no crimes, other than that I was born the son of Tywin Lannister and for that they shackled me to you. I hate to think what crime this man did that should have him dead.”
“He... took advantage of a serving girl,” she says, glancing over his shoulder at the cell of the man in question. That cell has no bars, only one very high window it would be impossible to see out of. It’s what the man deserves.
She expects Lannister to scoff at that, as several of the other lords upstairs had done when she’d brought the man before Renly to be judged. If the girl had gone to any of them with her bruised throat and her torn dress she expects the rest of them would’ve finished the job. It was what men did, afterall. They were all beasts incapable of controlling their basest of urges.
But he does not scoff. He leans in closer, until his nose is peeking out between the bars. His green eyes catch the firelight so that they flash alarmingly. “Is she all right?” he asks, quieter than she expects.
She hesitates a moment, but cannot see how it would matter for him to know. “She’ll be fine,” she says, then drags her eyes away from him and back up the hallway, back towards her tower room and her bed and the end of this conversation.
The ribbon she kept, the one that bound their hands together, though she does not know why. It’s draped over the edge of the small looking glass in her room, the one she avoids looking at unless forced. Sometimes she does such a good job at ignoring the glass, she forgets it’s there, only to be frightened when she catches her own reflection moving in it as she moves about the room.
The ribbon dangles there, its frayed, messy ends proof that it did happen. That she has a husband. He will never warm her bed, of course, nor ever be her true husband, not in the eyes of the gods.
She had never really thought she would marry. Even when she had been betrothed it had seemed such a far-off thing. Each one a contract planned for years before it would be sealed, and broken every time besides. One ended by death. One ended by her own distasteful face. The last at the tip of her sword.
And yet her true betrothal and wedding had taken place in the space of half an hour. It was easy to forget it had happened.
But the ribbon is there.
The ribbon is proof.
She is married.
Brienne doesn’t see her husband for another month. It isn’t that she avoids him, she just has no reason to go down into the dungeons. The siege has held, but they are well provisioned and the unrest among the men has settled down now that they have made examples of the few who could not control their urges.
She is reviewing a scout report when a voice calls up to her where she stands on the battlements. “Look, it is my Lady Lannister.”
Against all her better judgement, she freezes. It is not that it is a secret. That she married the man at Renly’s request is common knowledge throughout the castle, as is the unwritten rule that it should not be discussed. She did not command it of her men, and she doubts that Renly did either, but the fact that no one has brought it up around her, even in passing, has not gone unnoticed.
So it is all the more jarring to be confronted with it so openly.
Brienne looks down to see that he is in leg irons, chained to several other prisoners and tethered to the bars of the dog cage by the stables. Even from this distance she can see that he is even more filthy than he had been on their wedding night.
She ignores him, but turns to the soldier who had delivered her the report. “What are they doing with the prisoners?” she asks.
“Lady Lannister!” he calls again, seeing her watching him.
“I don’t know m’lady,” he says with a frown.
Each cry is more and more mocking to her ears. And all the more easily ignored.
“Get someone to find out,” she says, then steps closer to the embrasures, so that she is out of sight of her husband. It means she must look out across the fields where his father’s army surrounds them on all sides.
Perhaps Tywin Lannister has scouts of his own watching the battlements even now. She wonders if they have spied her, whether they recognise her. Whether the news of her marriage to the heir to Casterly Rock has reached them there too, where they sprawl like some kind of hideous infection polluting the countryside.
Better they see her than him.
Below, her husband calls her a third time, sounding almost desperate. “Lady Lannister!”
She does not reply. Words are wind and up here where she stands on the battlements she can feel a strong wind blowing. It carries his cries away. In the distance she can see heavy clouds forming, dark and full of rain. A storm is brewing.
Brienne retreats inside before the rain sets in.
Sometimes it is easy to forget that she is married. That she has a husband. Her life has not changed in any of the ways it should have changed now she has one. She still wears men’s clothes. Still carries her sword, fights when she can. She still sleeps alone, barring the door to her chambers every night.
But when she does remember, it is when she lies abed, surrounded by the cool night air and her thoughts.
In the dark here, no one is to know what she thinks of. What she remembers. As a girl she had dreamed of knights and ladies and the romance of the songs, even when the world was determined to remind her that would never be her story.
It’s hard to admit that they were right.
The songs were never about her.
It is not that she avoids the dungeon. Because that would mean she worries about what she will find down there. She knows what she will find there.
Her husband.
Her husband and all the other criminals and prisoners that day by day increase in number.
Avoiding it would be cowardly, and she is not a coward. She has faced many opponents, bigger men than her, better trained men, and she has beat them all into the dust.
If she had reason to visit the dungeons, she would venture there.
But she doesn’t.
But she is not a coward.
She just doesn’t have a reason.
It is late when she is woken from her sleep. It had been a restless sleep, in fact she had slept poorly for weeks, so at first when she wakes she does not realise she was woken by something. It is just that she is awake, again, when she so desperately wishes she was asleep.
But then the banging on the door continues. Harsh and loud and so hard it rattles the door at its hinges. Instinct has her reaching for her sword. “My lady!” a voice calls from without. A voice she does not recognise. “My lady, wake up!”
It breaks through the fog of sleep. She pushes back the covers and retrieves her sword belt from where she always leaves it, leaning up against the edge of the bed. Its weight is grounding; she feels more alert the instant she grips the pommel.
“My lady!”
Brienne strides to the door, wearing nothing but her threadbare sleep shirt. She unlocks the door and opens it, sword at the ready to deal with whatever faces her on the other side--perhaps the siege has broken and the castle is swarming with Lannister soldiers, or perhaps it is a rebellion within their own ranks. Whatever comes, she will face it armed and ready to fight, and that is what matters.
But it is just a servant. A young boy she recognises, though she cannot for the life of her remember his name. “My lady!” he says, then his eyes take in her appearance, her bare legs, her wild hair and he flushes, precious in his innocence. “There is a problem in the dungeons,” he says, forcing his eyes back to her face. “Lord Renly bids you attend it.”
She frowns. “What happened to the guards?”
But the boy doesn’t answer, scurrying away back down the hall. She is left standing undressed in her doorway, the cold of the night air drawing her nipples to peaks, even through her shift.
She retreats before she advances. Finds yesterday’s clothes--a dirty blue tunic, breeches and solid boots--and pulls them on before she leaves her room. Whatever might await her below can wait until she is properly dressed.
Later, she wonders what would have happened if she’d followed orders quickly. If it would have changed anything.
If she would have changed anything.
The dungeon is well lit when she arrives, and noisier than it should be. Every prisoner in every cell is awake. Most are yelling. The tight hallways and low ceilings only make the cacophony worse--every noise echoes off every surface threefold, making it feel as though the entire enemy army is somehow encased within the stone walls. The guards have lit all of the torches, so she has no problem navigating until she arrives at his cell.
Because of course that is where the problem is.
Him.
Guards line the walls, each one young and scared, and they all look to her with a puzzling mix of terror and relief. Still she cannot say why.
“What is going on?” she asks the nearest guard.
He pales further, glances between her and the locked door.
It is his cell.
Her husband.
“The cells have been filling for some time,” he explains in a rushed whisper, “We have been running out of room. So my lord ordered we house several prisoners in one cell.”
And then she hears it.
The laughter.
It is not his laughter. She has heard him speak on only three occasions, and never once has she heard him laugh, but that is not him, of that she is certain. This laugh is terrifying. Maniacal.
“Who is in there with him?” she asks, sure that they will be able to hear the shake of her voice, or the pounding beat of her heart. Even above the jeers and yowls of the prisoners excited by whatever has happened behind this door.
Another guard steps forward. “They call him the fool, my lady.”
“The fool?”
“He wears the hat of a court jester, and plays at jokes as they do, but…” the same guard explains, and pales. Looks positively green in the scant firelight.
Inside the cell, the man laughs again.
“Both were chained to walls on either side of the cell, but the fool broke free of the shackles, somehow, and… It is hard to see what he has done, but we have heard nothing from your husband, since--”
For half a heartbeat, the bedlam in the dungeons breaks into a soft lull, as though even the most raucous of prisoners had heard the guard’s transgression. Speaking of what he should not. Breaking the unwritten rule that has, nonetheless, been scrupulously followed by every inhabitant of Storm’s End since that night.
The guard flinches back, realising his grave error too late. But she does not react. Her many years of practice schooling her emotions, hiding them behind an impassive expression, serve her well, and instead she draws in a deep breath of rancid air. It steadies her.
“Very well,” she says, calmly. Coolly. She draws her sword from its scabbard. “Open the door and step back.”
They do as she commands. For all their mockery in the daylight, they do trust in her skill. One guard steps forward to grasp the latch, while the others step back. Inside the cell the laughter rings once more, followed by the sound of something heavy and fleshy hitting stone.
On her signal, the guard opens the door and she steps forward, sword raised. The cell is filthy, the firelight from the torches in the hallway only lighting a fraction of the space, but it is light enough to see the carnage.
There is blood everywhere.
So much blood.
In the dim light it is black like tar, but it is the way it pools near the body that makes her sweat. The man she married is lying face down in the muck, unmoving. Perhaps he is breathing, she doesn’t get a chance to check. His cellmate uses her shock to his advantage, leaping from behind the door to attack her from behind.
His arms wrap tightly around her throat as he jumps into her back, throttling her from behind with strength that is more surprising than it is brutal. She brings her free hand up to grip his wrist, and he laughs in her ear, a maniacal cackle so close she can feel his wet breath on her skin. He squeezes her neck tighter still. For a moment, white lights appear in her vision, constellations in the darkness. But just for a moment.
Brienne holds tight to his wrist and curls forward with a jerk, using her superior height and strength against him; wrenching him forward and pulling him from the ground. He kicks his feet against the back of her legs, but if he hurts her, she doesn’t feel it. Instead she arcs backwards, while still holding him in place, until she rams him into the stone wall. Hard.
It works. His hold breaks and she wheels around with her sword at the ready, prepared to run him through, but she sees at once there is no need; she has knocked him unconscious.
“He is subdued.” she calls to the guards without, hoping they don’t notice the way her voice shakes. “Bring chains. And a light.”
They do as she commands, and soon the cell is filled with more men than it is designed to hold. But two bind the fool quickly, and drag him from the room, and it is then she turns her attention properly to his victim.
Lannister still lies still, has not moved at all, despite the scuffle, and it sends a chill down her spine. She sheaths her sword and moves to kneel beside his body. One of the guards brings his torch near, the soft glow doing nothing to help improve the grey pallor of his skin.
And then there is the blood.
She cannot see the wound, but the pool of blood beneath him does not bode well. She wishes one of the guards would take the lead and flip him over to see the damage done. But she knows none of them will. If they could not manage the fool without her, she cannot rely on them to do what needs to be done now. Like all difficult things, she must do them herself.
She crouches down beside him, grasps him by the shoulder and the hip, taking care to check for any wounds as she does. But she feels nothing but skin and bone through ragged cloth, so she steels herself and turns him carefully. His head lolls to the side, golden curls and burnished beard catching the firelight, his sharp nose and soft lips looking too beautiful and fine to be splattered with gore.
For the wound is plain to see. It is on his neck, a jagged red rip through his creamy skin, the only consolation being the soft pulse of blood that still, now, pumps. Without thought she presses her hand to the cut to stem the flow and calls with all the authority she can muster, “Someone fetch the maester. Cloths too. And a stretcher.”
The men move quickly to see to their tasks, leaving her alone with her husband, but for the one guard who holds the torch. She has to hold the wound carefully to keep it closed without squeezing too much on his throat. But though her hands quickly become slick and slippery with his blood, she feels him shift slightly. He breathes, is still alive, still breathing and when she looks down she sees his eyes are open. Green and open and watching her.
Just for a moment.
“Jaime,” she breathes, words barely above a whisper.
But his eyes flutter closed, and he is out once more.
Perhaps it is for the best.