Jaime is bored. So, so bored. Yes, the grey plague is very bad. He understands that. The way to keep a plague from spreading is to keep everyone quarantined. He understands that. His father was actually making a special exception by letting him and Arthur out of the city. He understands that.
But if you're going to let someone out of the city, why make them stay in their own little quarantine tent? Why? Why not just make them stay in the city???
He can't go outside. There's not enough room to practice the sword. There is one book, On the Location of Mineral Deposits, and Jaime knew as soon as he deciphered the title that it was from his father's collection. In desperation, he tried reading it, but found that he would have more success trying to eat it as a meal. There is no one to talk to – well, besides Arthur. But Arthur, glorious though he is on the battlefield, is not exactly a thrilling conversationalist, even before taking into account his strange behavior this past year. This confinement is unfairly easy for him; Arthur Dayne seems quite content to stare into space for hours, caressing his sword in a manner Jaime has never had an urge to replicate with any of his weapons. But Jaime needs some stimulation, or else he might go mad. He feels a strange yearning for his childhood, when he and Cersei were identical enough that he could don a dress and try to embroider while she took his place in the training yard. He never developed any skill with a needle and thread (nor did Cersei with a sword), but he finds himself wishing for them now.
If only Tyrion were here. Yes, his little brother's jokes become sharper and more amusing the more unfortunate the situation, and his little head is filled with ideas such that he can make an interesting conversation about anything. If Cersei were here, they could amuse themselves with lovemaking for a time. But Cersei gets bored too, if perhaps not as easily as Jaime, and an unhappy Cersei turns her wrath upon all around her. The sweet flower would eventually turn toxic. So Tyrion would be the best companion to have here, and perhaps also uncle Gerion – but no, his uncle would simply try to escape.
"Gods, I miss my siblings," Jaime says aloud. Then he turns his head to Arthur Dayne, who, like him, is sitting on the floor. "Do you miss yours?"
For a second, he is non-responsive. Then the knight jerks, mutters, "Do you miss yours…" and, with another start, light finally comes back to his eyes and he pushes Dawn away to the edge of the tent. "Ah! My siblings! Yes, yes, I do. Ashara is still at the princess's side, I'm sure. And Allyria will be safe in Starfall. But Anton, Anton must be marching to war right now. I haven't seen him in…four years? Since Princess Elia's wedding. I worry about his safety. But all the same, if this war means we get to meet again…Well, the gods send us small blessings in the midst of hardship, to make life bearable."
"If only the tide of battle would take us near Casterly Rock," Jaime sighs. "Why is it so hard to get from one side of Westeros to the other? Why isn't there a river that cuts through, or something, so you don't need to sail around the Arm of Dorne?"
"If you sail from the Bay of Crabs as far up the Trident as you can, there's only a few dozen miles of land between you and the western coast. That's how Prince Rhaegar made it to the Iron Islands in time for the Sword Council," Arthur recounts.
"I'm glad I was finally able to get you to talk," says Jaime.
"I suppose I have been very distant to you since we left the Red Keep. I apologize. I have been…distracted. By…thoughts. The war, you know. It weighs heavily on my…mind."
"You're a terrible liar, Arthur," Jaime tells him. "But if you don't wish to tell me what it really is…"
The Sword of the Morning glances furtively at Dawn. "I'm afraid not."
It is another half-day after that conversation, at the close of their third day of confinement, when a familiar face unties the tent flap and peers in, outlined by the setting sun. "Both of you still alive? Not dead of the grey plague? None of your limbs turned to stone?"
"NO!" Jaime yells at his uncle.
Gerion Lannister chuckles and fully opens the tent. "You know how your father likes to be safe – dear gods, your hair!" Jaime barely hears that sentence, as he takes the opportunity to dash out of the tent and run as fast as he can in a random direction. There is a large and lonely field separating his little quarantine cell from the rest of the army camp. He runs, zig-zagging, finding no one. He finally stops to enjoy the vibrant burn in his lungs, and counts the banners waving over the camp as he jogs back. Plenty of his father's men, but also some banners he recognizes from his time at King's Landing: Boggs, Brune, Pyne and Crabb; Blount and Hogg and Thorne: men of the Crownlands and the Claw.
His uncle and his mentor are standing by the tent, waiting for him. "Got your legs working again?" Gerion asks. He can't look at Jaime's hair without snickering, but he sobers when he starts talking again: "I was just telling Ser Dayne here that things in Maidenpool have gotten bad. There was a riot over the food we sent today. Bodies are being dumped into the sea, for want of fuel to burn them. It's fortunate those dead of the grey plague don't float."
"Fortunate we got out of there when we did," Arthur says solemnly.
"Aye. Now come," Gerion says to Jaime, "your father wants to see you."
Tywin Lannister is in his great red commander's tent, richly ornamented with gold and lions. He meets Jaime around a table that was surely used for a strategy meeting earlier. The box where he keeps little figurines and tokens to mark the maps is still there, even. The box still has that chip in the varnish, Jaime notices, from when he secretly played with it years ago.
"Son," Tywin says when Jaime has bowed before him. From his lips, the word does not have the warmth of a greeting, but rather the weight of an expectation. "You seem to be in good condition. Save for the fact that your hair looks ridiculous." Jaime resists the urge to tug at his long hair, currently dyed midnight black save for an inch of gold showing at the roots in what he has been told is an eye-watering contrast.
"Well, it probably saved my life."
"I'm sure it did, when the dye was fresh. But you're safe now, and I don't want to look at that longer than I have to. I'll have Gerion find a barber to cut it this very night."
Jaime balks. "But my hair will be so short then! Can't I wait for it to grow a little more?"
"Better a shorn sheep than a laughingstock," says his unsympathetic father. "My decision is made. Now, I wish to hear your account of what transpired in the Red Keep. Few were present and the Mad King's version of events cannot be trusted."
Jaime sighs. "Well, Lewyn Martell was welcoming to me at the Red Keep. I'd say he and Whent were the most fun of all my sworn brothers. We'd go out drinking together. Anyway, one night the two of us were at the Desert Rose –"
"Is that a whorehouse?" his father interrupts.
"It's a brewery." Lewyn Martell did, in fact, go there to get laid, since it was his paramour Cedra's brewery, but Jaime didn't feel like putting his fallen brother up to Tywin Lannister's unforgiving scrutiny. "Anyway, Prince Lewyn asked me how I felt about the king, and it came out that we both wanted him dead, and Martell had been poisoning him for weeks already, and I asked how I could help. After the poison-tasters do their job, the Kingsguard take the king his meals, so it was pretty easy."
The Lord Paramount of the Westerlands is astonished. "You mean the accusations are true?"
"I don't know, there are some very wild accusations flying about. I heard a rumor on Driftmark that Prince Oberyn seduced you into backing the plot against the king." Really, the speculation surrounding the attempted assassination had been a storm of illicit sex, possibly inspired by the close involvement of the Dornish. It must have died down some by now, Jaime thinks. It amuses him that not even the wildest rumors dared to guess at who he was really in bed with, though.
Tywin glares. "I will choose to believe that is not a real rumor. What I meant is I am surprised you genuinely tried to kill the king. Jaime, what hellish impulse inspired you to do that?"
Not an impulse. He's been craving Aerys' death for over a year now. "You should know why."
"No, Jaime, I'm afraid you're going to have to explain your advanced logic to me."
"He raped my mother, your lady wife. Has even your cold heart enough feeling to understand my motives, or do you need me to explain further?" The young knight's eyes narrow. "Perhaps you do. I know you knew, and yet you seem to have done nothing at all to seek revenge."
Tywin…is stricken. Hesitant. For perhaps the first time in his life, Jaime thinks he might have said something to hurt him. "How did you know?" he whispers. "Did Aerys…did that man boast of it to you?" he continues, horrified.
"No. If he had, nothing could have stopped me from taking his head right there and then, even if it would have meant my death. I found out while I was on Dragonstone. Prince Oberyn had come, with a bottle of Shade of the Evening, the wine of warlocks. I took a cup on a whim. But the visions I saw…" He takes a deep breath. "I saw a great many things. But the first thing I saw – no, the first thing I heard, was Aerys, crooning – you know what happened," he breaks off, digging his nails into his palms. "I deliberated on that vision, and why the gods would choose to send it to me. I came to the conclusion that it was my duty – damned as an oathbreaker, or not – to right this wrong against my family. It was terrible, it was disgusting, but I had to thank the gods for letting me know what was to be done. And when that wonderful opportunity came to me in the form of Lewyn Martell, I thanked the gods again."
"…I'm sorry," his father says. "You never should have discovered what happened. I should have had him killed by now. I never imagined it would take this long…but as you have discovered for yourself, Aerys Targaryen has a curious luck when it comes to assassination attempts."
"So you've been trying to kill him secretly?" Jaime asks. "Why not just call your banners and bring your armies against his? Lords have rebelled for far less!"
"And they have been crushed. The Westerlands alone cannot stand against the Iron Throne, it's simple mathematics. And though his actions were horrific, a crime committed against someone else is not enough to make any lord renounce his king; I couldn't count on any allies. Finally, it was…your mother's wish."
His father so rarely speaks of her. "What did she wish, exactly?"
"She did not wish to have her shame aired out and flown as a banner for me to march under. She convinced me that it did not matter if the realm knew what he had done; it did not matter how much he suffered or how much shame he bore. She convinced me that the best revenge would be to watch Rhaegar and Cersei ascend the throne together, on the eve of a glorious reign, while his ashes scattered in the wind." Tywin gives a bitter sigh. "Then she died in childbed nine months later and our dreams began to fall apart."
Jaime stands there, feeling sorrow for his mother, lost to – wait. "Nine months. But she died – Tyrion. Is he…" He can't speak the words.
"A bastard? I don't know." Tywin Lannister had regained his calm, but his eyes turn down and his discomfort begins to show again. "I…gave her comfort, the very night it happened. And several times soon afterward. It's impossible to know for sure who Tyrion's father is. With that and his deformity, the first time I laid eyes on him I wanted to throw him into the sea."
"But you didn't," says Jaime, entreating.
"Your mother wished to hold him in her arms. She held him and called him by the name we had decided, Tyrion. A Lannister name. She seemed not to notice his deformity at all. Perhaps that was the blood loss dulling her senses. But still…"
Jaime is silent. He has no idea how to react to this information: that his beloved brother might be a bastard, a child of a terrible crime. And that their mother loved him anyway.
"So now you see," his father continues, "why I need you back at the Rock. I am willing to let Tyrion sup at my table and wear my colors. For his mother, I do this. But I will not make him my heir. Yes," he says briskly, "we'll simply have you confess to attempting to kill the king – making sure to pin the blame mostly on Martell as the instigator of the plot. Rhaegar will remove you from the Kingsguard and you will be back where you belong. Unless Dorne convinces him to proclaim Prince Lewyn's innocence – in that case you will be innocent too and I can have him release you from your vows as a favor to me. It works either way."
Jaime looks down. His father seems so confident, but he is uncertain. Kingsguard vows are for life. One has never been stripped of his cloak without first committing a major crime – and in that case, he is not simply sent back home to await a rich inheritance. He is executed, exiled, or forced to take the black. And what if…he were to stay a Kingsguard? What if he still wants that white cloak? If no one knows the secret of Tyrion's birth, why not let him inherit the Rock? He is still a Lannister, Jaime fervently believes. Tyrion is Lannister to the bone. Why not let Cersei inherit? She has such a natural talent for authority, much more than he.
"Jaime, look at me." The young man complies. "I deeply wish that none of this had come to pass. This burden should have been only your mother's and mine. But…given all that has happened…you have acquitted yourself well. Your only crime was in failing at the final step, something I myself have done. And, from what I hear, that was more Lewyn Martell's fault than yours." His father is sincere. Jaime blinks, unused to praise from him.
"Have you really been trying to kill the king for years?" he asks.
"Aye. Five or six times, depending on what you count as separate attempts."
"What, did he start building up immunity to poisons, or…"
"Possible. But what really made poisoning him impractical was after he recovered from a sudden illness – caused by me – and started using the three food tasters and delayed meals." Tywin shakes his head. "I suggested the most ridiculous measures I could, but I was surprised when he actually took my advice."
Jaime leans on the table, intrigued. "So aside from poison, what other methods did you try?"
"The most elaborate attempt was certainly the Defiance of Duskendale." Jaime raises his eyebrows. "That took months to prepare. I had to let Serala of Myr think she'd seduced me. I had to break my marriage vows to dear Joanna, though I am sure she would have understood." Tywin shakes his head in disgust. Jaime is quite sure that marriage vows stop applying when one is widowed, but he decides not to bring that up. "And all undone in one move by Barristan Selmy. I must respect a man so skilled, even if I dearly wish he had tripped and broken his neck that day."
"How could he have survived so many of your attempts? What gave him such luck?" Jaime knows his father well enough not to consider the possibility of incompetence or poor effort.
"I have been entertaining a theory that the gods are protecting him, because they enjoy watching us all suffer like fools in a bloody play," Tywin says dryly.
"How harsh," Jaime replies. "Perhaps the Stranger is repelled by him, and is delaying their meeting as long as possible."
Tywin Lannister's lips curve up in the smallest of smiles. "Perhaps. But this time, it seems he has dug his own grave, and is chasing the Stranger like a lovesick girl. With the forces arrayed against him in this war, there is no way he escapes judgment for long. Jaime, stay with me. Together we shall collect what your mother is owed."
----
Father-son bonding, based on the most universal activity in Westeros: hating Aerys Targaryen! Now this side of Tywin is certainly uncommon to see. I welcome your thoughts on his characterization.
Might change the title later. It started out at a placeholder, but I can't think of a better one.
Oh, you'll get to see what Varys thinks.
