A Feast for Crows

Jaime nodded. Tywin Lannister was not a man to overlook such details. “Unhand the girl,” he said, “I’m done with her for now.” As Jeyne fled sobbing down the stairs, he considered her mother. “House Westerling has its pardon, and your brother Rolph has been made Lord of Castamere. What else would you have of us?”

“Your lord father promised me worthy marriages for Jeyne and her younger sister. Lords or heirs, he swore to me, not younger sons nor household knights.”

Lords or heirs. To be sure. The Westerlings were an old House, and proud, but Lady Sybell herself had been born a Spicer, from a line of upjumped merchants. Her grandmother had been some sort of half-mad witch woman from the east, he seemed to recall. And the Westerlings were impoverished. Younger sons would have been the best that Sybell Spicer’s daughters could have hoped for in the ordinary course of events, but a nice fat pot of Lannister gold would make even a dead rebel’s widow look attractive to some lord. “You’ll have your marriages,” said Jaime, “but Jeyne must wait two full years before she weds again.” If the girl took another husband too soon and had a child by him, inevitably there would come whispers that the Young Wolf was the father.

“I have two sons as well,” Lady Westerling reminded him. “Rollam is with me, but Raynald was a knight and went with the rebels to the Twins. If I had known what was to happen there, I would never have allowed that.” There was a hint of reproach in her voice. “Raynald knew nought of any. of the understanding with your lord father. He may be a captive at the Twins.”

Or he may be dead. Walder Frey would not have known of the understanding either. “I will make inquiries. If Ser Raynald is still a captive, we’ll pay his ransom for you.”

“Mention was made of a match for him as well. A bride from Casterly Rock. Your lord father said that Raynald should have joy of him, if all went as we hoped.”

Even from the grave, Lord Tywin’s dead hand moves us all. “Joy is my late uncle Gerion’s natural daughter. A betrothal can be arranged, if that is your wish, but any marriage will need to wait. Joy was nine or ten when last I saw her.”

“His natural daughter?” Lady Sybell looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. “You want a Westerling to wed a bastard? ”

“No more than I want Joy to marry the son of some scheming turncloak bitch. She deserves better.” Jaime would happily have strangled the woman with her seashell necklace. Joy was a sweet child, albeit a lonely one; her father had been Jaime’s favorite uncle. “Your daughter is worth ten of you, my lady. You’ll leave with Edmure and Ser Forley on the morrow. Until then, you would do well to stay out of my sight.” He shouted for a guardsman, and Lady Sybell went off with her lips pressed primly together. Jaime had to wonder how much Lord Gawen knew about his wife’s scheming. How much do we men ever know?

When Edmure and the Westerlings departed, four hundred men rode with them; Jaime had doubled the escort again at the last moment. He rode with them a few miles, to talk with Ser Forley Prester. Though he bore a bull’s head upon his surcoat and horns upon his helm, Ser Forley could not have been less bovine. He was a short, spare, hard-bitten man. With his pinched nose, bald pate, and grizzled brown beard, he looked more like an innkeep than a knight. “We don’t know where the Blackfish is,” Jaime reminded him, “but if he can cut Edmure free, he will.”

“That will not happen, my lord.” Like most innkeeps, Ser Forley was no man’s fool. “Scouts and outriders will screen our march, and we’ll fortify our camps by night. I have picked ten men to stay with Tully day and night, my best longbowmen. If he should ride so much as a foot off the road, they will loose so many shafts at him that his own mother would take him for a goose.”

“Good.” Jaime would as lief have Tully reach Casterly Rock safely, but better dead than fled. “Best keep some archers near Lord Westerling’s daughter as well.”

Ser Forley seemed taken aback. “Gawen’s girl? She’s—”

“—the Young Wolf’s widow,” Jaime finished, “and twice as dangerous as Edmure if she were ever to escape us.”

“As you say, my lord. She will be watched.”

Jaime had to canter past the Westerlings as he rode down the column on his way back to Riverrun. Lord Gawen nodded gravely as he passed, but Lady Sybell looked through him with eyes like chips of ice. Jeyne never saw him at all. The widow rode with downcast eyes, huddled beneath a hooded cloak. Underneath its heavy folds, her clothes were finely made, but torn. She ripped them herself, as a mark of mourning, Jaime realized. That could not have pleased her mother. He found himself wondering if Cersei would tear her gown if she should ever hear that he was dead.