"My guilds thanks for condescending to call upon our humble hall, my lord," Master Froom, which rhymed with loom, said with some evident gratitude and blissfully little of the sycophancy he had been typically receiving as he re-introduced himself to his father's domains.
The Clothe Guild's Senior Elect had smartly kept the tour short: a look into a storage room or two full of bolts of clothe, a quick demonstration of their finest weaving machines, introduction to a few of the most influential members, and then a brief explanation over a fine ale that the guild wished nothing more from Casterly Rock than assurance of continued oversight of fairness within the Lannisport Masters Guildhall and further benign neglect beyond that.
Nevertheless, Jaime found the whole thing frightfully boring and with long practice at boredom easily stifled the building yawn. "A pleasure, Master Froom," he lied with an even easier smile. "And better, no requests to involve House Lannister in petty disputes between guilds."
The solemn, balding, grey fringed man smiled and offered a small bow before chuckling softly, "Petty is an excellent word, my lord, to describe Master Gryer."
Jaime's piercing green eyes stared into intelligent, soft brown ones. Yes, this one seemed the clever type to have tracked the heir of Casterly Rock's movements within Lannisport. Gryer, rhymed with Dyer, both a perfect bore and a stupid boar to him yesterday. "The Dye Makers Guild had much to complain to me of your guild's practices," he declared with steely tone and look to simply judge how the merchant would react.
To his credit, Froom refused to flinch under the Lion's gaze. "I admit there are two or three areas where Elect Gryer's concerns have some validity, my lord – properly adjusting dye prices by whole clothe versus thread for example; however, the Masters Guildhall has wisely seen to reject the Dye Makers' overreaching suits," he answered equitably.
And thus, your continued interest in maintaining the "fairness" of the Masters Guildhall, Jaime realized. What did it really matter to him? Nothing, he decided. His concern he was beginning to better understand was whether this now was the "pleasure" left him in life; watching the squabbles of coin grubbers as if they were free swords and hedge knights hammering away at each other in a tourney melee.
Jaime refrained from screaming and instead put on his bored, amused smirk. "Remind me to never play Cyvasse with you, Master Froom."
The guild head bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the compliment while refraining from speaking to his better.
"A good day to you," Jaime permitted himself.
"And you, my lord."
The Lion saw himself out of the Clothe Merchants' castle made of wares and silver. As he tugged his riding gloves out of his belt and stepped down sunlit warmed stairs towards the pair of red cloaks guarding his horse; Jaime's thoughts drifted off to the departure of his Uncle Kevan two days earlier. 'Come back soon, Nuncle, lest I die from boredom,' he lied to himself.
While portions of each day were spent idiotically preparing for an unlikely war with the Ironborn, Robert, from his generous heart, had after all commanded him to the Westerlands for that purpose; much, if not most, of Jaime's time now involved learning the unlooked for, undesired, skills of being the heir of Casterly Rock.
As the first glove slide on over his sword hand, it twitched in yearning. Since his arrival, the dearth of turning, side-stepping, lunging, jumping thrusting, and sweating while heavily weighed down and carrying the most intimate of lovers, was near driving him to madness. And that drunk whore fucker's betrayal only made his need for release all the greater.
"Hoke," he said with an easy smile, taking White Gold's reins from the man.
It felt good to have a solid horse between his legs. If only he could truly dig his spurs into the stallion's flanks; a good hard ride.
"Where next, milord?" Puckens queried.
"An excellent question, man," he cheerily rejoined, contrary to his dour mood and blazing wants. In addition to expanding his familiarity with the life-blood of Lannisport, commerce, Father expected him to gain familiarity with the city's legal courts. "They are only two blocks away from the Clothe Guild, Jaime. Kevan informed me there is a large insurance case over a missing cog on the docket. What do you know of Brocks Shipping?"
Fuck it, he decided. "To the Harbor," he announced. He owned Stannis an update on the collection of naval stores. He already had the figures from the Rock's Dockmaster, which covered House Lannister's personal wargalleys. Those spare masts, ropes, rigging, sails, and victuals were a pittance compared to the depot business run out of Lannisport for merchant and foreign ships needs; a Lannister business which they further subsidized by a portion of each slippage fee.
He saw Hoke's lips puckering in anticipation. "You'll get your ales, but no whores today," he commanded, setting expectations. Father's expectations would be disappointed, again; but so far there were still limits as to how far Jaime pushed back, for now.
Father expected much; and he was no Uncle Kevan. 'Tyrion would thrive on this shit,' he thought perversely.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Jaime twisted in the saddle to catch where the sudden pealing of bells was coming from. In his head he positioned where he was and where Loreon's Sept was.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'No, not from Loreon's,' he realized, unless the streets warped the echoes more than he calculated they should.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
People on the street began stopping and looking high to the Northeast.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
"Seven Hells!" Jaime swore; and without conscious thought his spurs viciously raked the sides.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
"Out of my way!" the Lion roared at anyone in his way.
"Milord!" "Milord, wait!" he vaguely heard until another round of bells cut muted the cries of his escorts who failed to keep up with him.
More and more and more bells started joining the chorus started by Casterly Rock to merge at the exact beat and pattern; first the large bells of Loreon's Sept and then more and more from the score plus of other, lesser septs in the city.
"Fools, the sea warning bell!" he screamed, as the blood beat through him almost as loudly as the bells, at the smallfolk all too placidly responding to the alert.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG! DUM! DING! DUM! DONG! DUM! DING! DUM! DONG! DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
"Ironborn! Ironborn!" he screamed. Men and women and children fled out of his way, White Gold's shod hooves tattooing a fast beat on cobblestone streets. The idea that Uncle Kevan could already be dead, triggered some sense of remorse in his nephew at his earlier selfish complaints about the man's absence.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
At the entrance to the harbor frontage, smallfolks and sailors stood about as slack jawed as the rest of the city; staring not to sea and the threat, but back stupidly towards the Rock.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
"Out of my way!"
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Jaime flung himself off his mount in front of the Sunset Tower, the small keep detailed with commanding the seaward defenses. Where were the red cloaks? The city watch? He wondered in utter amazement and growing anger.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
"You!" he raged at the ragged, middle aged guard at the main gate. "Why isn't the sea gate closing!? Where the fuck are the men on the outer wall!? Who's in charge!?"
"Wha-wha-what?"
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
He grabbed the lout by his mail and lifted him off his feet. "Where!?" he screamed, spittle flecking up on to the man's scummy salt-and-pepper beard.
"Wh-wh-wh-why?"
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Jaime ignored the piss leaking through the oaf's pants. "The bells, godsdamnit! Are you deaf!?"
"The m-m-m-mourning bells, milord?"
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'What?' "Mourning bells," the Lion growled, showing all his sharp teeth.
"Yyyyyes, milord."
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
His arm starting lowering the old fool. "Not the sea attack bells?"
The man shook his head no quite vigorously. "Those go 'dum-dum-dong-dong,'" he whimpered.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Jaime dropped the man utterly, letting him fall in a messy, piss stained clump at his feet. He searched his mind for when he might have heard the Rock ring that sad call; not liking that he could not remember though he knew he should.
"The mourning ones last played from the Rock when old Lady Lannister died, milord," the useless lump of unmanned flesh beneath him continued in a fearful breath.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Lady Lannister? Jaime's stomach sank in terror as it had only twice before in his life; when the Smiling Knight almost slew him in the Kingswood and the moment he killed Aerys. "Gods," he whispered. And then in a rush of gold he bestrode his horse again; knowing the stallion would bleed fiercely by the time Jaime rode through the Lion's Mouth.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
While rumor and bad news in Jaime's experience travelled fast, neither the guards at the Lion's Mouth nor the stable hands who took White Gold's reins knew why the bells rang and rang and rang. Though as far as any of them knew, Lord Lannister was fine.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'Not Cersei! Not Cersei! Please Gods, anyone but Cersei!'
"Hurry up, Jaime! Before the Septa catches us!" cried the little blond girl in pigtails from the lowest branch of the twisted petrified weirwood in the Stone Garden; her formerly pristine crimson smock soiled from the twins' previous antics.
DUM! DING! DUM! DOOM!
Up the Rock's central stairway, conveniently cleared of all guards and servants, Jaime sprinted.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'Not Cersei! Not Cersei! Please Gods, anyone but Cersei!'
"And I drank your beauty till it filled me," the singer on the floor below them in the shoddy old inn on Eel Alley crowed as Jaime entered his other half roughly; finding her warm and wet and willing upon the rough straw mattress in the small, dimly lit room.
DUM! DOOM! DUM! DOOM!
On the level of the Golden Gallery he came across his father's Steward, Hobar Lannis, waiting for him. Before slapping the insolent man down, Hobar refused to tell Jaime why the bells were ringing; only that his lord Father awaited him on the Lannister seat.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'Not Cersei! Not Cersei! Please Gods, anyone but Cersei!'
"Hurry," Cersei begged, lifting her wedding gown up over her hips. The ladies-in-waiting would return in less than ten minutes to escort her into the Great Sept of Baelor. He moaned, sliding into her; the merge completing them into one. Too soon he felt the release come upon him; he speeded up from the urgency. "Careful," she hissed. "You'll leave a stain."
DUM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
As he frantically hurried to the Golden Gallery, stunned, frightened looking Willem and Martyn rushed their weeping, nerveless looking mother, his goodaunt Dorna, to the far side of the hallway from his sprinting form.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
'Lancel? But not Cersei! Not Cersei, please Gods!'
He held her, long golden hair draped across his bare chest; a rare hour to laze luxuriously together, the King off on a hunt and the rest of the Keep too busy with their petty concerns. "I tell you, Robert loves me not." "Why must you speak of him?" "He keeps us apart. Don't be so blind."
DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
Guards wisely opened one of the two wide main doors to the Golden Gallery for Jaime without requiring him to slow his run a step.
And once within, the door closing just quickly, the Lion wrenched to a stop; frozen in-place by the cold, sharp green eyes of his father, the Old Lion. Not a single tear was in evidence. Jaime would have been shocked to have seen one.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Nothing human watched him from behind those pupils. This was the most dangerous Lion ever born to Westeros; with green eyes, stronger than a host of Valyrian steel, that had stared down every slight, every threat, and every ravenous beast in existence. Not a tear.
And instantly, Jaime knew. "Yes, Cersei," the two little words slipped out of him softly, carelessly, bereft of emotion to barely echo across a now permanently colorless, pointless physical world.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Within, his soul shredded in unimaginable pain feeling at last the loss of his other half. His twin. His love. Himself. This was not how the dream was to end. The mangled, intangible thing bled a river, bled to fill a sea, and continued bleeding as the agony roiled and roiled and roiled inside.
Unlike his sire, this Lion allowed himself the luxury of a single, brief whimper.
DUM! DING! DUM! DONG!
Then Jaime calmly approached the throne of the Lannister's since Lann the Clever himself. "Tell me."
"Dark wings, dark words," the Old Lion intoned; pathetically relying on stupid platitude.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The scroll came out and was handed over.
Jaime's hand was perfectly steady accepting it. He noted the direwolf sigil of House Stark upon the outside.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
With perfectly clear, utterly emotionless eyes; and white hot heat burning within his shattered heart, the most horribly maimed man in the Seven Kingdoms began to read:
Lord Tywin, As his Grace has remained disconsolate for days, I take upon myself the terrible burden of informing you of the murder of your daughter, Queen Cersei. While the King and your grandchildren were with me and most of Winterfell on a hunt, the vile deed upon her Grace's person was committed by one whom she most trusted, her cousin Lancel.
After the Queen sent off her ladies-in-waiting on errands, the kinslayer apparently tricked her Grace into visiting an abandoned tower. There, by my hunt master's reading of the footprints in the dust on the floor, he tried to ravage her. But her Grace would have nothing of it. In the ensuing struggle, while she was able to push her attacker out a window; alas, she too plummeted to her doom.
Let there be no doubt in your mind as to the events of this appalling occurrence; my honor as a Stark upon it. The murderer's broken body was discovered with his pants about his ankles. While her Grace was fully clothed and sporting fresh choke marks that could only have been made by a hand about her throat.
Winterfell shall remain silent on this matter and leave it to the King, once he regains himself, to decide what the Realm shall or shall not be told of this tragedy.
And as I well know the horror of having close family horribly, senselessly murdered; you and your House have my deepest sympathies. Rest assured, that while your grandchildren remain in Winterfell, they will be denied nothing to ease their pain. Lord Eddard Stark.
'Lies, All lies,' he knew from the very first word. The parchment fell carelessly to his feet as he turned about.
"Jaime."
He no longer heard the bells; deaf to all but the sole purpose left him.
"Jaime."
He strode back the way he came in, came in to the world, grasping for Cersei. Grasping for his twin.
"Jaime!"
He was the Warrior.
"JAIME!"
No, he was the Stranger. An outcast. Unknown. Unknowable. His was the face of death.
AND SO ENDS ACT ONE OF THIS STORY