A Feast for Dragons

to return to King’s
Landing.
To the king
, he told himself, but another part of him
whispered,
to Cersei
.
    He would have to face her, he supposed. Assuming the High
Septon had not put her to death by the time he got back to the city.
“Come
at once,”
she had written, in the letter he’d had Peck burn at
Riverrun.
“Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you
before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.”
Her need
was real enough, Jaime did not doubt. As for the rest … 
she’s
been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know …
Even if he had gone back, he could not hope to save her. She was guilty of
every treason laid against her, and he was short a sword hand.
    When the column came trotting from the fields, the sentries
stared at them with more curiosity than fear. No one sounded the alarm, which
suited Jaime well enough. Lord Bracken’s pavilion did not prove difficult to
find. It was the largest in the camp, and the best sited; sitting atop a low
rise beside a stream, it commanded a clear view of two of Raventree’s gates.
    The tent was brown, like the standard flapping from its
center pole, where the red stallion of House Bracken reared upon its gold
escutcheon. Jaime gave the order to dismount and told his men that they might
mingle if they liked. “Not you two,” he said to his banner-bearers. “Stay close.
This will not keep me long.” Jaime vaulted down off Honor and strode to
Bracken’s tent, his sword rattling in its scabbard.
    The guards outside the tent flap exchanged an anxious look
at his approach. “My lord,” said one. “Shall we announce you?”
    “I’ll announce myself.” Jaime pushed aside the flap with his
golden hand and ducked inside.
    They were well and truly at it when he entered, so intent on
their rutting that neither took any note of his arrival. The woman had her eyes
closed. Her hands clutched the coarse brown hair on Bracken’s back. She gasped
every time he drove into her. His lordship’s head was buried in her breasts,
his hands locked around her hips. Jaime cleared his throat. “Lord Jonos.”
    The woman’s eyes flew open, and she gave a startled shriek.
Jonos Bracken rolled off her, grabbed for his scabbard, and came up with naked
steel in hand, cursing.
“Seven bloody hells,”
he started, “who
dares—”
Then he saw Jaime’s white cloak and golden breastplate. His swordpoint dropped.
“Lannister?”
    “I am sorry to disturb you at your pleasure, my lord,” said
Jaime, with a half-smile, “but I am in some haste. May we talk?”
    “Talk. Aye.” Lord Jonos sheathed his sword. He was not quite
so tall as Jaime, but he was heavier, with thick shoulders and arms that would
have made a blacksmith envious. Brown stubble covered his cheeks and chin. His
eyes were brown as well, the anger in them poorly hidden. “You took me
unawares, my lord. I was not told of your coming.”
    “And I seem to have prevented yours.” Jaime smiled at the
woman in the bed. She had one hand over her left breast and the other between
her legs, which left her right breast exposed. Her nipples were darker than
Cersei’s and thrice the size. When she felt Jaime’s gaze she covered her right
nipple, but that revealed her mound. “Are all camp followers so modest?” he
wondered. “If a man wants to sell his turnips, he needs to set them out.”
    “You been looking at my turnips since you came in, ser.” The
woman found the blanket and pulled it up high enough to cover herself to the
waist, then raised one hand to push her hair back from her eyes. “And they’re
not for sale, neither.”
    Jaime gave a shrug. “My apologies if I mistook you for
something you’re not. My little brother has known a hundred whores, I’m sure,
but I’ve only ever bedded one.”
    “She’s a prize of war.” Bracken retrieved his breeches from
the floor and shook them out. “She belonged to one of Blackwood’s sworn swords
till I split his head in two. Put your hands down, woman. My lord of Lannister
wants a proper look at those teats.”
    Jaime ignored that. “You are putting those breeches on
backwards, my lord,” he told Bracken. As Jonos cursed, the woman slipped off
the bed to snatch up her scattered clothing, her fingers fluttering nervously between
her breasts and cleft as she bent and turned and reached. Her efforts to
conceal herself were oddly provocative, far more so than if she’d simply gone
about the business