At Maidenpool, Lord Mooton's banner flew above the castle on its hill, but the town was deserted, half the buildings burned or plundered. The town's famous pool, where legend said that Florian had first glimpsed Jonquil bathing with her sisters, was so choked with rotting corpses that the water had become a grey-green soup.

Jaime took one look and burst into song. 

"Six maids there were in a spring-fed pool..."

"What are you doing?" Brien demanded. She just grinned at him. 

"Singing. 'Six Maids in a Pool,' I'm sure you've heard it. And shy little maids they were, too. I'll warrant a big ugly lad like you would've scared them off,"

"Be quiet," The boy looked like he would love to leave her floating among the corpses. Let him try.

"Please, Jaime," Cleos said. "Lord Mooton is sworn to Riverrun, we don't want to draw him out of his castle. And there may be other enemies hiding in the rubble,"

"His or ours? They are not the same, coz," She gave Brien a sly look. "I'd rather like to see if the boy can use that sword he wears,"

"If you won't be quiet, you leave me no choice but to gag you, Kingslayer,"

"Unchain my hands and I'll play mute all the way to King's Landing. What could be fairer than that, boy?"

"Brien! My name is Brien!"

"Care for a bath, Brien?" She laughed. "You're a maiden boy and there's the pool. I'll wash your back," The boy turned his horse and trotted away, and Jaime followed, grinning. 

"He's taking the Duskendale road," Cleos muttered. "It would be safer to follow the coast,"

"Safer but slower. I'm for Duskendale, coz. If truth be told, I'm bored with your company," You may be half Lannister, but you're a far cry from my brother. Whether they were fighting or fucking, Cersen was at least more interesting than this weasel of a Frey.

Jaime could never bear to be long apart from her twin. It just felt wrong, even now, even when the anger she felt against him still burned hot. It had always been that way. She remembered their mother's maid catching them doing gods know what; Lady Joanna's horrified fury at whatever they'd been doing had resulted in Cersen's bedchamber being moved to the other side of Casterly Rock. They need not have feared, though, as she had died not long after. Jaime barely remembered what her mother had looked like. If I die on this road, how long will it take my face to fade? Will Steffon and the twins remember only a faceless golden shadow as their mother? She supposed that was better than the older ones, who would only remember a lying whore who abandoned them at the first chance she got.

Once, long ago, she might have thought that their enemies had done them a kindness in spreading their tale of incest all over the Seven Kingdoms, so there was nothing left to hide. That was before she had become a mother. Jaime had not seen any of her children in nearly a year, and dreaded what they'd have to say when they met again. 

She had long since stopped caring what Joffrey thought of her, but didn't think she could stand it if any of her other children looked at her in hate and judgement, like so many others had before them. And Myrcella, gods... Joff was mad and cruel, but Myrcella did not deserve to be named a bastard, an abomination, simply due to her honourless mother.

They were riding past a trampled wheatfield and a low stone wall when she heard a soft thrum from behind.  She knew that sound from the Whispering Wood, arrows suddenly all around them as Northmen came howling from the trees.

"Down!" She threw herself against the neck of her horse. The gelding screamed and reared as an arrow took him in the rump. Other shafts went hissing past. Jaime saw Cleos lurch from the saddle, twisting his foot in the stirrup. As his palfrey bolted, he was dragged along the ground, head bouncing. She might have tried to catch his horse, but her gelding was lumbering off the other way, blowing and snorting in pain. 

Brien was still ahorse, an arrow lodged in his back and another in his leg, but he seemed not to feel them. She saw him draw his sword and wheel in a circle, searching for the bowmen. 

"Behind the wall," She called, wrestling her half-blind mount back toward the fight. The reins were tangled in her damned chains. What was it Daven said about bowmen? "At them!" She kicked, hard. The old sorry horse found a burst of speed from somewhere, and suddenly they were racing across the wheatfield. The boy had better follow before they realise they're being charged by a woman in chains.

Then Brien's plow horse thundered by, as he brandished his longsword. The last few arrows sped harmlessly past, then the archers broke and ran. He reined up at the wall, however, and by the time Jaime reached him, they had all melted into the woods. 

"Lost your taste for battle?" She raised an eyebrow. 

"They were running,"

"Isn't that the best time to kill them?" During a drunken night travelling into the Riverlands, her cousin Daven had mentioned in some argument with one of his captains that unsupported bowmen always fled before the charge of knights. Jaime was glad that half-remembered theory had proved true. "You have an arrow in your back, you know, and your leg. I spent my childhood with a septa pressing a needle into my hand, you ought to let me tend them,"

"You?"

"Who else? The last I saw of cousin Cleos, his palfrey was using his head to plow a furrow. Though I suppose we ought to find him. He is a Lannister of sorts,"

They found Cleos still tangled in his stirrup, and very dead. The top of his head was a mess of blood and bone, and looked mushy to the touch, though Jaime had no wish to find out if that was true.

"He's still warm," Brien had knelt and held his hand.

"I want his horse and his clothes," She folded her arms. "I'm weary of ragged dresses, being cold and fleas," 

"He was your cousin," The boy was shocked.

"Was," Jaime agreed. "Have no fear, I am amply provisioned in cousins. I'll have his sword as well. You need someone to share the watches," She was sorry on some level that Cleos was dead, but they had hardly been close, and she would rather be honest and gain something, than act the grieving woman. He believes me a monster regardless.

"You can stand a watch without weapons," He rose.

"Chained to a tree? Perhaps I could," She smiled sharply. "Or perhaps I could make my own bargain with the next lot of outlaws and let them slit that thick neck of yours, boy,"

"I will not arm you. And my name is -"

"Brien, I know. I'll swear an oath not to harm you, if that will ease your childish fears,"

"Your oaths are worthless. Aerys is proof of that,"

"You haven't cooked anyone in their armour so far as I know. And we both want me safe and whole in King's Landing, don't we?" She knelt and began to undo Cleos' swordbelt.

"Step away from him. Now. Stop that." You talk to me like I'm a disobedient child.

Jaime was tired. Tired of his suspicions, tired of his insults, tired of his broad face and crooked teeth. She grasped the hilt of her cousin's longsword with both hands, held the corpse down with her foot, and pulled. As the blade slid from the scabbard, she was already pivoting, bringing the sword around in a deadly arc. Steel met steel; somehow Brien had gotten his own blade out in time. 

"Very good, boy," She laughed. It felt good to hold a blade again. The weight of it was familiar in her grip, reassuring, bringing a feeling of strength she had been missing for nearly a year. Cousin Cleos hardly being a large man, the sword was just the right weight for her, a pleasant surprise. 

"Give me the sword, Kingslayer," She liked the wariness in his eyes. There was no feeling quite like a big strong man like that taking her for a serious threat. Almost as satisfying as the realisation in the eyes of a man who has disdained me when he realises I'm better than he is.

"Oh, I will," She sprang forward, the longsword alive in her hands. Brien jumped back, parrying, but she pressed the attack. No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. Jaime's blood was singing. She rarely felt so alive as when she was fighting.

She rained down steel upon him, so quick most couldn't have followed her, always attacking, moving into him, step and slide, strike and step, faster, faster, faster... until, breathless, she stepped back, giving him a moment of respite. 

"Not half bad," Jaime acknowledged. "For a green boy," He took a slow deep breath, still wary, evidently realising that Catelyn Stark's sour-faced warning that she was 'surprisingly good with a blade' didn't even begin to cover it. 

"I would not hurt you, Kingslayer," Her lips curled into a smirk.

"As if you could," She whirled the blade up above her head and flew at him again.

Jaime drove him across the road, into the trees. He stumbled once on a root, went down to one knee  and never lost a beat, sword leaping up to block her downcut, and then he cut at her, fighting his way back to his feet. She followed him through a shallow brook, steel ringing and screaming, and Brien started grunting like a pig, yet somehow she could not reach him. It was as if he had an iron cage around him that stopped every blow.

"Not bad at all," She paused to catch her breath.

"For a green boy?" 

"Exactly," Jaime laughed raggedly, breathless. "Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music's still playing. Might I have this dance, ser?"

Grunting, he came at her, and suddenly it was Jaime struggling to keep steel from skin. One of his slashes caught her brow, and blood ran down into her right eye. The Others take him, and Riverrun as well! Her hard-won skills had gone to rust in that bloody dungeon, her body wasted away. Her eye closed, her shoulders were going numb, and her wrists ached from the weight of chains, manacles, and sword, which grew heavier with every blow. She knew she was not swinging it as quickly as she had done earlier.

He never underestimated me.

She was finally realising what that meant, and it chilled her. The boy was closer to seven feet than six, and built like an aurochs; it was obvious that he was stronger than Jaime could ever hope to be. But it did not matter; nearly all of her opponents were larger and stronger than she was. With speed and skill - and the element of surprise - Jaime could beat them all. Yet despite his size, Ser Brien of Tarth was scarily quick.

Most men underestimated Jaime, expecting her to be good with a hidden knife or poison, never so knightly a weapon as a sword. So she unleashed hell on them from the very start, catching them off guard to win as soon as possible. If that didn't work then it still tired them rapidly in their haste to to finish things as soon as possible, so as not to have people say they struggled to beat a woman. The boy should be the one wearing down, not her.

Instead he forced her back into the brook.

"Yield! Throw down the sword!" Brien shouted. She slipped on a stone, and twisted into a diving lunge as she fell, her sword slashing his thigh. Jaime had an instant to savour the sight of his blood before her knee slammed into a rock. The pain was blinding. Brien kicked away her sword. "YIELD!"

She drove her shoulder into his legs, catching him by surprise on the uneven, slippery ground and bringing all six foot eight of him down on top of her. It was like the occasion her horse had tripped and fallen with her riding as a girl. 

Not such a good idea in hindsight. The wind went out of her as she gasped in pain, though didn't stop her fighting. They rolled, kicking and punching and clawing, but without a sword, Jaime had lost her advantage and it wasn't long before he was sitting astride her. She managed to grab his dagger from its sheath, but he caught her wrist before she could gut him and slammed her hands back on a rock so hard she thought he'd wrenched an arm from its socket. 

"Yield!" He shoved her head down with the other dinner-plate of a hand, held it under, pulled it up by her hair. "Yield!" Jaime spat water into his face. Under she went again, kicking uselessly, fighting to breathe. "Yield, or I'll drown you!"

"And break your oath?" She snarled, body wracked with coughs; it felt like she'd breathed in half the river. "Like I did?" He let her go, and she went down with a splash. 

And the woods rang with coarse laughter.

Brien lurched to his feet. He was all mud and blood, his clothing askew, his face red. He looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting. Armed men lined both sides of the brook. Jaime quickly picked herself out of the river.

"Well met, friends," She called amiably, well aware she looked like a drowned rat with her muddy, dripping hair and clothes. "My pardons if we disturbed you. You caught me and my husband in a little row,"

"Looked more like a rape than a little row," A big man with no nose snorted.

These were not the outlaws who had killed Ser Cleos, Jaime realised. The scum of the earth surrounded them. She knew them, they'd been with her father's armies at Casterly Rock, the only ones bold enough to not bother hiding their leers towards her. The Brave Companions. But did they know her like this?

"I have a hundred stags - " Brien started, finding his voice.

"We'll take that for a start, ser," A cadaverous man cut him off.

"Then we'll have her cunt," Noseless nodded at Jaime with a leer. "Woman who looks like that can't be happy with an ugly fucker like you," She bared her teeth.

"Touch me and I'll enjoy ripping your cock off,"

"That smile's fucking annoying," He replied. "I'll wipe it off your face soon enough,"

"Turn her over and rape her arse, Rorge," A Dornish spearman urged. "That way you won't need to look at her,"

"And rob her o' the pleasure o' looking at me?" Noseless said, and the others laughed.

Jaime looked wryly at Brien, whose eyes had widened, but his mouth swiftly twisted in righteous anger. What did you expect, courtly pleasantries?

"She is a highborn lady," The boy said through gritted teeth. Oh, perfect, thank you ser. That turned everyone's eyes onto her. She saw the spark of recognition in several pairs of eyes, heard the mutter of Kingslayer being spread around, although the fear of any consequences for their crude speech a minute ago wasn't quite as strong as she would like. Something's wrong. One way to find out.

"Who commands here?" Jaime demanded.

"I have that honour, Lady Jaime," The cadaver said. "Urswyck, I am,"

"You know who I am?"

"It takes more than mud and shorn hair to deceive the Brave Companions," The Bloody Mummers, you mean. 

"If you know me, Urswyck, you know you'll have your reward. A Lannister always pays their debts. As for the boy, he's highborn, and worth a good ransom,"

"Is it so?" Urswyck cocked his head. "How fortunate," There was something sly about the way the man was smiling that Jaime did not like. 

"You heard me. Where's the goat?"

"A few hours distant. He will be pleased to see you, I have no doubt, but I would not call him a goat to his face. Lord Vargo grows prickly about his dignity," Since when has that slobbering savage had dignity? 

"I'll be sure and remember that, when I see him. Lord of what, pray?"

"Harrenhal. It has been promised," Harrenhal? Has my father taken leave of his senses? 

"I'll have these chains off," Jaime raised her hands, despite her unease growing. Urswyck's chuckle was paper dry. Something is very wrong here. She smiled, giving no sign of her discomfort. "Did I say something amusing?"

"You're the funniest thing I seen since Biter chewed that septa's teats off," Noseless grinned.

"Your father lost too many battles. We now serve Lord Bolton, and the King in the North,"

"And men say I have shit for honour?" Jaime gave him a cold, contemptuous smile, hardly surprised, though it was a blow to say the least.

Urswyck was unhappy with that. At his signal, two men grasped her by the arms and Rorge backhanded her across the face. As she staggered, gritting her teeth so as not to cry out, Jaime heard the boy protesting.

"Stop, she's not to be harmed! Lady Catelyn sent us, an exchange of captives, she's under my protection," Rorge hit her again, making blood bubble up in her mouth. Gods, boy, just shut up. Brien dove for his sword, but the Mummers were already on him.

It took five of them to beat him into submission. By the end the boy's face was as swollen and bloody as Jaime's must have been. Stumbling and bleeding, they were both dragged through the woods to the horses, Brien limping from the thigh wound she'd given him. 

Jaime felt sorry for him, but not as sorry as she felt for herself. They would rape her tonight, she had no doubt. That noseless bastard would have her for a certainty, and some of the others would likely take a turn. Her best hope was that she'd manage to make them kill her before the numbers climbed too high. Wasn't that something to look forward to.

"I hope you're pleased, boy," She whispered at Brien, after they were bound back to back on his plow horse. To her irritation, she was the one facing backwards. She spat out a mouthful of blood. "If you'd armed me, we'd never have been taken," He made no answer. There's a pig-stubborn fool. But brave, too. She could not take that from him. "When we make camp for the night, I'll be raped, and more than once," She told him flatly. "You'd be wise not to fight them again, you'll lose more than a few teeth," Brien's back stiffened. 

"Is that what you would do, if you were a man?" If I were a man I'd be Cersen. 

"If I were a man, it wouldn't be an issue. But I'm not," Jaime kicked their horse to a trot, using her right leg more strongly so as to steer left without the reins, and Brien didn't stop her. "Urswyck! A word!" 

"What would you have of me, my lady? And mind your tongue, or I'll chastise you again,"

"Gold," Jaime said. "You do like gold?" It was a challenge to seem dignified with her arms bound at her sides as she faced backwards on a horse, but she held her head high nonetheless.

"It has its uses, I do confess," Urswyck studied her. She gave him a knowing smile. 

"All the gold in Casterly Rock. Why let the goat enjoy it? Why not take us to King's Landing, and collect my ransom for yourself? His as well, if you like. Tarth is called the Sapphire Isle, a knight told me once," Brien squirmed at that, but said nothing.

"Do you take me for a turncloak?"

"Certainly. What else?"

"King's Landing is a long way, and your father is there," Urswyck considered it. "Lord Tywin may resent us for selling Harrenhal to Lord Bolton," He's cleverer than he looks. Jaime had been been looking forward to hanging him while his pockets bulged with gold. 

"Leave me to deal with my father. I'll get you a royal pardon for any crimes you have committed. I'll get you a knighthood,"

"Ser Urswyck," The man savoured the sound. "How proud my dear wife would be to hear it. If only I hadn't killed her," He sighed. That was less promising than she'd have liked. "And what of brave Lord Vargo?"

"Shall I sing you a verse of 'The Rains of Castamere'? Are you such a fool as to think the goat can outfight the lion?" Urswyck leaned over and slapped her lazily across the face. The sheer casual insolence of it was worse than the blow itself. He does not fear me. 

"I have heard enough, Kingslayer. I would have to be a great fool indeed to believe the promises of a murderous whore like you," Hypocrite. He kicked his horse and galloped ahead. So much for that. Jaime leant her head against Brien's broad back. 

"Why did you tell him Tarth was the Sapphire Isle?" The boy whispered. "He's like to think my father's rich in gemstones,"

"You best pray he does,"

"Is every word you say a lie, Kingslayer? Tarth is called the Sapphire Isle for the blue of its waters,"

"Shout it a little louder, boy, I don't think Urswyck heard you. The sooner they know how little you're worth in ransom, the sooner they slit your throat and leave you dead at the side of the road. As it is now, of the two of us, you have it best. Every man here will mount me, but what do you care? Perhaps they might even let you take a turn,"

Mercifully, that shut his mouth for a time.

They found Vargo Hoat sacking a small sept with another dozen Brave Companions. The goat was seated by a cookfire eating a half-cooked bird, grease and blood running into his long stringy beard. He wiped his hands on his tunic and rose. 

"Kingthlayer," He slobbered. "You are my captifth,"

"My lord, I am Ser Brien of Tarth," The boy called out. "Lady Catelyn Stark commanded me to deliver Lady Jaime to her brother at King's Landing," The goat gave him a disinterested glance. 

"Thilence him,"

"Hear me," Brien cried as Rorge cut the ropes that bound him to Jaime. "In the name of the King in the North, the king you serve, please, listen - " Rorge dragged him off the horse and began to kick him. 

"See that you don't break any bones," Urswyck called out. "The horse-faced fucker's worth his weight in sapphires,"

Two of them pulled Jaime down from the saddle and dragged her toward the fire, leering, hands all over her as they did so. She could have grasped one of their sword hilts as they manhandled her, but there were too many, and she was still in fetters. She might cut down one or two, but in the end she would die for it.

"Thith ith a thweet day," Hoat said. If he was turned once, he can be turned again.

"Lord Vargo, you were foolish to leave my father's service, but it is not too late to make amends. He will pay well for me, you know it,"

"Oh yeth," Hoat said. "Half the gold in Cathterly Rock, I thall have. But firth I mutht thend him a methage," He said something in his slithery tongue.

A jester in motley kicked her legs out from under her. When Jaime hit the ground on her knees, wincing in pain, one man grabbed the chain between her wrists and used it to yank her arms above her head, whilst the fat Dothraki unsheathed a huge curved arakh.

They mean to scare me. The fool giggled as he tore open the front of her ruined dress, exposing her breasts as the Dothraki swaggered toward her. She had to force herself not to try and cover up, not to cringe in any way. The goat wants me to piss myself, cry and weep and beg his mercy, but he'll never have that pleasure. She was a Lannister; no sellsword would make her scream.

Sunlight ran silver along the edge of the blade as it came shivering down, almost too fast to see. And Jaime screamed.