Chapter Text
Cersei wanted to laugh when she saw the Stark girl. She had never met Robert’s precious Lyanna, but she’d heard all the tales of the maid’s wild beauty, suffered through them with a serene smile, imagined icy little Lyanna Stark wriggling like a dying fish under Robert to amuse herself at times.
There was no wild beauty to the sister. If some small part of Cersei had worried she might be confronted with a snarling wildling woman, determined to sink her claws into her brother, she needn’t have fretted.
Berena Stark was a gawky young woman of eighteen, long-faced and plain, nothing like the romantic picture painted by the singers and poets who described her sister. A tall, flat-chested, lanky maiden, with pin-straight, thin brown hair that fell to her waist, as if the length could make up for its lack of luster.
The only thing notable about her were her eyes, which leaned more blue than grey, and seemed a little more lively, unlike her somber older brother.
She dressed well, Cersei would give her that. She wore a velvet gown so dark a midnight blue it was nearly black, which accentuated her pale eyes and fair skin.The scooped neckline and dagged sleeves were lined with silver grey ermine fur; while it was still autumn, Winterfell was coated in several inches of snow, which Cersei had been horrified to discover when she alighted from her wheelhouse. The cold didn’t seem to bother Berena Stark; the gown still bared the very top of her meager chest and her stick-like collarbones. She wore pearls around her thin throat.
Cersei, though she would not let herself deign to show discomfort, was considerably colder in her silk brocade gown, which was patterned with snarling lion’s heads with garnets for eyes. She was even wearing her embroidered, jeweled gloves inside Winterfell’s drafty guesthouse, daring anyone to mention it. While the more modern Great Keep was substantially warmer due to its position over the hot springs, she would never call it anything more than rustic. It was a wonder that Catelyn Tully’s stiff smile had not yet melted off her face.
Cersei pitied the woman. To stand there holding onto Ned Stark’s arm as if he had not come home from war with a bastard son who he expected to seat at the same table as his trueborn.
Cersei would never have tolerated such a thing. And she had come to indulge Robert far more than she had ever expected. But a bastard? No, never that. She still had her pride, unlike most women, who went belly-up for their husbands like dog begging for a treat.
Still. While she would never tolerate a bastard in her own hall, she was aware she would soon be forced to endure something far worse; her brother’s wife.
That was what she had come here to see. The Stark girl. Cersei could easily fathom why she might want to marry Jaime and escape this wretched place. And it was true enough that years and years ago, long before the Rebellion, there had been talk of betrothing Jaime and a Stark maid. Rickard Stark had gotten a Baratheon for his eldest daughter, after all, and could be expected to hold even loftier ambitions for his second.
Yet there had also been talk of betrothing Jaime to Lysa Tully, and see what had come of that. Cersei had arranged for Jaime to join the Kingsguard, and Lysa, the little slattern, had dishonored herself in some way and wound up shackled to old Jon Arryn. Jaime should be down on his knees every day thanking Cersei for sparing him that fate.
Instead their father had had the temerity to die less than a year after Robert and Cersei were wed, and in dreadfully short succession Jaime had been released from the Kingsguard, named Lord Lannister, and that old betrothal to Berena Stark suddenly waved about like a flag. Cersei was not sure who she hated more.
Her father, for succumbing to a seemingly minor wound taken during the Sack of King’s Landing, which had quietly developed into a raging infection.
Robert, for cleaving Jaime from her in one grim stroke, insisting he could not in good conscience see the Westerlands ruled by a twelve year old dwarf or wracked with Lannister in-fighting.
Or Jaime, for agreeing to it all and having the audacity to expect her to bear it like a martyr, like a tearful wife seeing her beloved off to war.
Only the war was the rest of his life, and his opponent the Stark woman across from her.
Cersei took another sip of her summerwine.
Berena did likewise.
“But you are such a sweet thing, my lady,” Cersei finally said, forcing some levity into her tone, and letting her gaze rake over the girl once more. “You cannot be eighteen. You are so young. You look no older than one of my little cousins.”
“I am eighteen,” Berena said. “Though I will accept your compliment. When I was a girl, I was so tall that sometimes visitors would take me for the oldest. Ned never liked that much.”
Cersei noted that she did not mention Brandon or Lyanna. She could have probed at that, but she knew better. It would be too obvious a jab.
“Brothers are bothersome like that,” Cersei agreed. “But I am Jaime’s elder, of course, so there could never be any mistake there.”
“By how many minutes, Your Grace?”
To Cersei’s annoyance, there was some humor flickering in those blue-grey eyes. Of course. She must think she was so very clever, having wrangled her way into Lady of Casterly Rock.
But she would never be, not so long as Cersei lived. It didn’t matter a whit what those bleating sheep called her. Cersei was her father’s firstborn child. The Rock belonged to her, in truth. It always had. No matter what they say. No matter what Jaime believed.
“Six,” said Cersei, tartly, and set down her cup. “And how many years younger than your sister were you, my lady?”
The humor vanished. Berena stiffened, a shade drawn over her face, and when she spoke again, her voice was cold and sharp.
“Ten months,” she said. “They used to call us twins. We were close enough.”
Cersei softened her voice, adopted a look of mild repentance for speaking so brusquely. “Forgive my curiosity, my lady. May I call you Berena? We are to be sisters by marriage, after all.”
She almost shocked herself with what she said next, with how far she was willing to extend her hand to get in a good slash of the knife. “I hope that may be some comfort to you, in the years to come. I know it shall be to me. I have never had a sister before.”
Nor would she want one. A sister would have none of Jaime’s better qualities. His strength. His determination. His cruelty. She would be a weeping wretch that Cersei need console and comfort.
Berena Stark shifted in her seat. Cersei was pleased to have finally gotten under her skin. It took distressingly longer than she expected. She was a wriggly bitch, this one. Not so easy to pin down and gouge out as Cersei had anticipated.
Still, she was only so confident now because this is her home, her kingdom. Cersei was sure Berena’s every whim was indulged here. The poor little Stark girl, who lost her father and brother and sister.
Doubtless Ned Stark denied her nothing. Well, she was in for a rude awakening when she left these bleak halls. Court was Cersei’s domain. Nothing escaped her notice. And wolves without a pack did not last long.
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Berena wore the gown made for her sister. There was no use in letting it lie in some chest, useless and yellowing. It was already a little faded, meant for a wedding day three years prior. One Lyanna never saw. But it was still beautiful.
Ivory lamb’s wool with sleeves that billowed out when she raised her arms, and two embroidered bands of silver brocade crisscrossing over the chest. It gave the illusion of more chest than she had, which she supposed was the point. The girdle was embellished with moonstones and pearls and tied very low around the waist, the sashes falling down over the skirts.
Of course, Lyanna would have worn flowers in her hair. She was ever so fond of them. Berena used to be, as well, but these days she favored hardier things, so her hair was braided in a bun and covered with a shimmering net of opals and diamonds. They were hard and cold and did not wither from sun or frost. They lasted longer than flowers.
Everyone hovered around her all morning, though she did not see why. She had not protested the marriage in the least nor made any fuss about the thought of court and eventually a life in the West. She was eager to leave this place. Eager to not spend another sleepless night in a bed she had once shared with her sister. Eager to not spend another tense dinner avoiding her brother’s stricken gaze. Eager to not endure another hushed argument about Jon Snow. Ned was distraught, but then, Ned was always distraught.
He had only been home a year and a half, and his wife could not countenance his refusal to discuss his bastard’s mother, nor his strange behavior towards his own sister. Berena felt for Catelyn. She hoped things would be easier after she had left. It was not easy for there to be two Lady Starks in the same castle. Catelyn would feel more comfortable asserting herself when she did not have to worry about the servants looking to Berena for guidance instead.
It was no one’s fault, save perhaps Ned’s, but even he, Berena could not hate, for her was her brother and he still loved her, when other men would have spat at her and driven her from their homes. She had nearly destroyed their entire house. She had encouraged, participated in a most heinous scandal. She had played the thief and spy and liar and urged her own sister to abscond with a married man, and not just any married man, but the Crown Prince. It had all been a game, a wild, frantic, giggly game, and then it wasn’t.
She could not quite explain it, even now. What had come over them. It was as if they’d been drunk on spring sunshine, on dew and roses and the green, green grass of the Riverlands. It was as if they’d been possessed. They’d cavorted about like animals, wild and feckless. None of it had seemed real.
It had all been a grand jape to Berena, a way to rebel against their father and their teachers and their brothers and everyone who forbid yet another delight, year after year, until she could practically see the world growing narrower and narrower before her very eyes. Marry a great lord. Have his children. Die like your mother.
Ah, and what a prize she and Lyanna had traded in for. Instead her sister had been a prince’s mistress. Had his child. Died like their mother. What a clever calculation they’d made. Stupid, willful little girls, thinking they’d somehow escaped their fate. Thinking they could leap from the pages of one story to a wholly different one.
The world was no wider than it had been when she was a stupid girl of fourteen. It was a little colder and lonelier, was all, without Lya. Lya was dead. Berena had helped kill her. Marrying a Lannister and retiring to court to eat cakes and watch mummers seemed a rather light punishment, but anything- anything- was better than spending another day at Winterfell with the ghosts who visited her every night and Lyanna’s son living a lie a room away.
Berena would not miss the boy. She looked at him and saw his father. She saw Rhaegar. It was cruel and it was false yet it was true. She looked at an innocent child and thought, I helped kill her, but it was you he put inside her to strike the final blow. You tumor. You rot. You are only here because I helped them make you. I orchestrated your life. Gods, what a jape. You owe me everything and nothing, Jon Snow. You are my just reward for faithlessness.
No, the only tears shed on her wedding day were Robb’s, crying in his mother’s arms when the ceremony in the godswood lasted a moment too long.
Her bridegroom was all that had been promised to her since she was a girl of twelve and there was talk of her marrying Lord Lannister’s son. She’d had a little miniature of him then, and Lyanna and her had shrieked with laughter.
“He looks like a girl!” Lyanna had howled. “He has prettier lips than you, Beri!”
And Berena had said, “Good thing I’ve only kissed girls, then,” and Lyanna had dared her to go and kiss one of kitchen girls again, and Berena had, and the girl had tasted like cloves and cinnamon and she could still taste her now.
Jaime Lannister didn’t taste like cloves and cinnamon. He tasted like sweat and mint leaves, which she expected everyone chewed before their wedding. At the feast in the Great Hall he tasted like mead and roast boar. Robert tasted like mead and more mead. His look were hungry and frequent and Berena knew that his motivation in pushing this match ahead was not purely to ‘honor’ House Stark or protect peace in the Westerlands.
She looked just enough like Lyanna to make him a little mad, and when he pulled her into his arms and called her sister and kissed her on the mouth, she pitied him. Ned didn’t see, he was talking to an Umber, but Catelyn did, her mouth creased with concern, and Cersei did, her eyes bright with hatred. She did not know if Jaime did, but then, he looked everywhere but her during the feast.
Mostly, he looked at his cup, which he kept filled to the brim, and when the dancing started he said, “Save me the last, I’ve a dreadful headache,” and sulked through it.
Berena got up and danced with her brother and Bolton and Umber and Karstark and Ryswells and Flints and crannogmen, but her husband sat and drank and his sister coiled up in Berena’s empty seat, murmuring back and forth with him, their faces pink and shiny and miserable in the torchlight.
She saved him the last, and they danced well enough. Berena was more graceful than her gawkiness might suggest, and he cut a fine figure. He wore a tunic bisected by Lannister gold and Lannister scarlet, with copper buttons down the front. His curls dripped down past his shoulders, a mane of gold, and his smile was as thin and sharp as hers.
She knew while she was no great beauty, she was still a handsome woman, and they made a striking couple. She enjoyed that, for the length of the dance, and then she remembered the bedding, and his obvious displeasure weighed a little heavier on her. She thought it clear he was devoted to his sister.
In her experience kind, gentle men were not often devoted to callous bitches, no matter what the storytellers professed of innocent men taken in by she-devils. She expected that sooner or later, he would unsheath his claws, just as his twin had. She didn’t want to be taken entirely unawares, so she stopped drinking after that.
The bedding was called for and the Greatjon slung her into the marriage chamber like a sack of grain. She lost her veil and her hairnet and her slippers, but that was all. She expected everything was a little too raw from the war for Ned’s bannermen to be overly familiar with the sole remaining Stark maiden.
Jaime traipsed in artfully disheveled, missing one shoe and his belt. She had half expected his sister to escort him to the threshold, but Cersei was nowhere to be seen.
He looked disappointed she was alert and sober, not giggling drunkenly in bed or half asleep already. He unlaced her carefully, with a talent that suggested he’d done this many times before, and then stepped back, looking both unenthused and impatient simultaneously.
Berena kissed him tentatively, which he endured like a stone bust. She drew back, a little stung, and he said, “We’re both tired. Get on the bed and it will be quick, I promise you that.”
He imparted this to her as though he expected her to sigh in relief.
“Quick?” she echoed instead, and looked down. “Nothing is quickening for you, my lord.”
Irritation flashed across his pretty face, and he amended his statement. “Get on the bed,” he said. “Back or belly, I don’t care. You can keep the gown on if you like.”
“This is my sister’s gown,” she snapped. “I don’t want your seed on it.”
He made a face and unbuttoned his tunic. She shed the gown and hurried onto the bed; she was not entirely bold, and had never been naked before a man before. He looked lithe and lean as his sister with clothes on, but nude, she saw how strong he was, though he was not half as broad and burly as Robert.
Berena laid on her back and he climbed atop her. She thought of Lyanna. Rhaegar’s hair had been long like this, but much paler, with no curl. She wondered if he’d felt so heavy. He didn’t explain anything he was doing and barked, “Enough,” when she tried to grab his hand.
She balled her hands into fists instead and slammed them against the mattress, like a toddler throwing a silent tantrum. Once. Twice. On the third blow she made a pained noise, and he stopped, readjusted, then continued. On the fourth he turned his head to stare at the wall, and woodenly found her breast with his hand. On the fifth he finished and got out of her.
It didn’t hurt as bad as they said it did. That was a relief. That meant maybe it hadn’t been all bad for Lyanna. Maybe some of it had been good. Maybe there had been brief flashes of pleasure. Maybe she’d been happy, for a little while.
Berena had never been in this bedchamber before, but at least it was not her own. She listened to her husband moving around the room. He dressed and came up to the side of the bed. She had one leg under the sheet, one over it.
“My head,” he explained. “I need the fresh air. Don’t wait up for me. You should rest.”
“I don’t want to do that again,” she said, loudly. “I don’t want to do that again if you won’t even let me speak during it.”
She felt his gaze rest on her, incredulous and scornful, and then he swept out of the room.
She released her fists and examined, dispassionately, the bloody crescents her nails had left in her palms. Then she rolled over and dreamed a dreamless sleep, her first in over a year.
Chapter Text
In the morning, she found that her errant husband had eventually returned to their bed. He’d shed all his clothes again- he was not worried about being nude in front of her, at least- and was lying so that his legs and feet were up by her head, his head down at the bottom of the bed.
Berena was unsure if this was a deliberate show of spite, or if he’d been so drunk he’d genuinely mixed up what was up and what was down.
She felt a little dizzy, though she’d drunk far less than him. The chamber was hot and stuffy and only had one window, which was closed. She pushed herself up and out of bed and staggered over to open it, wincing. She was more sore in the morning than she’d been last night, though it was not any worse than she would feel after a day of riding.
She could tell they’d slept late by the bright sunshine spilling through the narrow window. The keep was alive with the usual routines of the day, and it was much warmer than it had been the day before. Snow was melting off the roof and down the window pane; by the time they left it would be mostly slush.
As much as Robert adored Ned, he didn’t intend to stay longer than a fortnight, wary of risking being trapped in the North for months by heavy snows. Worst came to worst, they could sail from White Harbor, but it would be a brutal voyage in stormy autumn seas.
She inspected her husband as he slept. He looked a little younger and boyish while unconscious, closer to the distant figure she’d watched Aerys knight that bright day at Harrenhal. She ought to have been shocked when it happened, but she was too immature and flippant to care that her potential future husband had been ripped away from her.
She knew her father would find another man- there had also been talk of her wedding Elbert Arryn- and she had never dreamed of being Lady Lannister and ruling Casterly Rock. She had never dreamed of being Lady of anywhere.
She’d wanted everything to stay the same, for them all to be together, the four of them, forever. Frozen in childhood, riding and hunting in the wolfswood, swimming in the hot springs, playing hide-and-seek in the crypts.
It had hurt her deeply when Ned and Brandon pulled away, when they returned from their fosterings more like strangers. Brandon was still lighthearted, but he’d treated her as a pet to be indulged, not a partner in play. And Ned had always been kind, but he disapproved of how she and Lyanna still cavorted like little girls, despite having flowered.
But Brandon was dead now, and Ned soon might be dead to her as well. He had vowed to never come to court again, and she doubted the Kingslayer would have much interest in paying a visit to Winterfell. She could attempt to travel herself, but she would need guards and coin for her passage, and it would be out of the question whenever she was pregnant or nursing an infant.
She wondered if he looked forward to having children. He must have put them out of his head for years, renouncing his position as heir in order to devote himself to the King he would later kill. She puzzled over that. Why had he joined the Kingsguard? A boy’s dreams of heroism? Distaste for his father and homeland? Sheer love for his sister?
Berena supposed she might have done as much for Lyanna, if ladies could become one another’s sworn swords. Unlike Lyanna, she’d had little serious interest in lances or blades, but she’d always been willing to play the warrior maid and spar with sticks. She’d preferred archery, something even ladies could partake in, and riding. She was the only one of them to ever beat Lyanna in a race.
Restless in the confined space, she began digging around for a robe to put on, and that was what woke him.
“Good morning,” he said hoarsely. He was watching her warily, as if she might attack at any moment, or dissolve into tears, though he did not bother to cover himself. He seemed to consider his options, then said, “I apologize for my manners last night, my lady. I was overtired and indulged more than I ought to have in drink. I hope you can forgive me.”
His voice was terse and bored. He was lying through his teeth, simply eager to avert an argument. He didn’t care if he’d made her uncomfortable or even hurt her, he just didn’t want to hear her complain about it, or nag Ned or Robert to scold him.
“Apologize for what?” she asked. “Your rutting or your midnight stroll? We needn’t have even consummated it, if you had no appetite.”
His lips twitched, those cat’s eyes narrowing at her. “I don’t recall any weepy protests on your part.”
“You would have liked that, would you?” she goaded.
She knew she was being unreasonable. Lying or not, he’d been attempting to preserve some peace between them.
But her head hurt and she was already sick of his company. Eager though she was to ride south, she couldn’t stand the thought of sharing a tent with him for three moons on the road.
“No,” he said, and his voice went high and mocking, and she knew him now. Not the poorly made mask he’d been struggling to keep on for the past few days. Now she saw him, as much as she had his sister the Queen when she pressed Berena about Lya.
“No,” he said, “I don’t much have a taste for rapine, though you Stark maids like to play the ravished heroines. Tell me, do they still say Rhaegar took her by force? Out of Robert’s earshot, it is a different story, I assure you.”
She had not found herself a robe, but she had found a silver serving tray, which she flung at him. It crashed to the floor; he startled, then stood up and stalked her.
Berena backed up around the wardrobe, certain he would not actually strike her, but also just unsure enough to set her heart pounding. Part of her was excited. What was he going to do? Maul her in her brother’s hall? He was arrogant, but not stupid. She had baited the lion and now she wanted to watch him pace in his cage.
His cage was much larger than hers, anyway.
“Throw something at me again,” he said, “and I will remove everything from your rooms at court. You can sleep on the floor like a penitent. Is that what you want? To play the martyr? Why did you agree to this match? I know the sort your brother is. He would never have forced you.”
“Why did you agree?” she retorted, breathless, still keeping several feet between them as he advanced on her. To her mirth, she saw he was growing hard. This was exciting him, though he refused to acknowledge it. Far more than their icy interaction the night before.
“What can I say?” he drawled. “I wanted to see Ned Stark’s face the morning after I took his sister to bed. He should rather I have ridden past Winterfell on my way to the Wall.”
So she’d heard, many times over. Ned had been horrified Robert had released Jaime Lannister from his vows, only to grant him the Westerlands. He insisted by rights the West belonged to the child Tyrion, the Imp, and that Robert ought to have made Ser Kevan the lad’s regent.
“Spoken with every ounce of honor you still possess,” she laughed shakily. “Kingslayer.”
He grabbed her then, and she did not scream, but struggled furiously, her fist glancing off his jaw. He shook it off admirably, before seizing her wrists in one hand and forcing her backwards onto the bed, the sheets tangling underneath them.
Her breath came very quick now, and her excitement had faded, replaced by genuine panic. He was not straddling her, but she couldn’t get up with him standing over her.
His grip was hard, but not bruising. He knew exactly how much strength to exert.
What he said next he said in a low, foul little voice, and his breath was warm against her ear.
“I was there when they killed your father and brother. The Old Wolf went without a sound, but your brother screamed and swore like a beast straight out of the seven hells. Retching and clawing at his own throat. Trying to reach that sword of his.”
She tried to bring her feet up to kick him, but his legs kept hers pinned against the side of the bed.
“That’s where their honor got them,” the Kingslayer told her softly. “Cooked and strangled. Do you know how many men watched them die? And not a single sound. I remember. It wasn’t so long ago. So why don’t you think about that, the next time you wish to speak to me of honor.”
She looked up at him. There was no triumph on his face, only a bright, furious sort of earnestness. His eyes glittered, emeralds rimmed in red. He looked like he might laugh. He looked like he might cry.
Berena jerked against his grip once more, then made a choking, sobbing sort of splutter, and he let her go.
“No,” she said, horrified, when he reached for her again. She scrambled across the bed away from him, and nearly fell onto the floor. “No! No, don’t!”
He seemed to realize their condition, and backed away from her.
“I will find a maid,” he said, over the noises she was making. Now he sounded uncertain, half a boy again, baffled by her sudden switch from defiant and goading to tearful and frightened. “I- Excuse me.”
He attended their wedding breakfast, but they quickly moved to opposite ends of the table, flanked by their families. There are few Starks, but even fewer Lannisters. Besides several cousins, his sister is the only close relation who came to see him wed. The prospect of travel north this close to winter would have put off even the bravest of lions.
Berena found it easy to be all smiles during the meal; Catelyn seemed relieved by her calm, but Ned was not so convinced; he knew her better.
Afterwards, he followed her around while she packs, and repeated the same well-worn arguments.
“There was no need for any of this. You and I both know Robert would never have commanded you marry Lord Lannister.”
“He would not have dared provoke you, no,” she said. “But I agreed. Did you mean to keep me here forever, your spinster sister?”
It’s a cruel jab, and she felt guilty for it a moment later, but Ned did not rise to the bait. He seldom did, unlike her husband.
“Many men have offered for your hand since the war ended,” he said. “You could have been Lady Bolton or Lady Umber. I thought that is what you would have wanted, Berena. You were never so eager to go south before.”
“That was before,” she said, flinging another scarf into a trunk. “This is now. Why should I not have a Lannister for a husband? Even if he is a Kingslayer.”
“You are too old,” Ned said, voice hard and flinty now, “to make out life to be some game of spite. You have enough sense to know a good man when you see one. Jaime Lannister is not that man. It is too late now, but gods, Berena, what do you expect to come of this? Do you think you will be happy at court? Robert is not as he was. His queen is as proud and haughty as her brother. They will never accept you as one of them.”
“I know that,” she snapped, frightening one of her maids, who was sorting through her chemises. “I am not some little girl you needs explain the workings of the world to, Eddard. I am a woman grown, and a married one now, at that. Mayhaps I don’t wish to be accepted by them. Mayhaps I imply don’t wish to spend the rest of my days in the North, surrounded by the dead. Mayhaps I should be happy to never set foot in the crypts where Brandon and Lya sleep again!”
She’d hurt him, and deeply, with that. He drew back from as her, his long face still and blank, his eyes hollow. Berena exhaled and reached for him, but Ned flinched back, as she had from her husband.
“If that is what you wish,” he said, flatly, “then I wish you every happiness in your marriage, Lady Lannister. I hope it brings you a peace you cannot have here.”
Her goodbye to Catelyn was calmer and briefer. Her brother’s wife embraced her like a true sister, urging her to write, and told her not to let any Lannister of the Rock look down their nose at her. Behind the formalities and duty there was a fire to Cat Tully, and Berena thought it would likely spark brighter after she’d gone.
Robb babbled and smiled in her arms, a heavy, pleasant weight. He looked just like his mother; it was a relief to not have a miniature Brandon in her arms. Berena kissed him a thousand times and told him that next she saw him, he would likely be nearly a man grown, and he had best be a good one for his mama.
The boy Jon Snow, though, she could not bring herself to hold. She stood and watched him play on the nursery floor. He was a skinnier toddler than Robb, not pleasingly pudgy, but very clever.
He knew she was watching him, and when he looked up, Lyanna’s grey eyes stared accusingly back at her. They said, Why do you get to leave? I am always here. I am rotting in the dark, and you are leaving me behind. You promised we would be together forever. Liar. Faithless bitch.
It was better, Berena thought, to leave now, before she was another unpleasant memory for the child. Ned loved him whole-heartedly, without reservation. He was a better man than any of them. He saw Lyanna in Jon, and he adored him. He did not cringe away in guilt and cowardice.
She closed the door, and stepped back into the dimness of the hall.
When they left Winterfell, the sunlight was blinding on the slush and broken ice covering the roads. Stark men rode with them as far south as the Barrowlands. Berena made a point of embracing Ned soundly before he turned back for Winterfell, and he returned the gesture, but neither could say a word to the other.
She rode mostly apart from the column, turning her nose up at the Queen’s gilded wheelhouse. Jonelle Cerwyn rode with her; they had been friends of a sort for years, though Berena had often abandoned quiet, shy Jonelle for Lyanna’s schemes. There was also little Lyra Mormont, just ten but brave as a bear, and two Umbers, Serena and Arrana, only thirteen and eleven.
Sometimes Robert insisted she ride with him; he was not quite flirtatious, but boisterous and immature, showing off like a boy of fifteen again. Berena was polite and did not dare goad him the way she had her husband, who likewise scorned his sister’s wheelhouse, but spent every evening attached to her side as she held sway in some damp pavilion.
There were no further attempts on either of their parts to lie together, which Berena was relieved by, and the travel passed quickly; despite passing rains, the weather was not as bad as it otherwise might have been. They made good time through the Neck, and after three day at the Twins and two at Seagard, made camp at Oldstones, where they said Prince Duncan had found his witchy Jenny and taken her to wife.
Jaime once again attempted to make peace with her there; in the past six weeks, they’d barely exchanged more than a few words.
Berena often bedded down with her ladies, and left him to sleep alone. Or mayhaps not so alone. There were plenty of whores in the baggage train, and the sense she got from him was that he was used to having women. Likely ones who did not throw things at him.
He found her picking the last blackberries of the season in the brush, and impatiently waited for her to extricate herself from the thicket without her gown becoming lodged on the brambles and branches.
When she finally made her way out, he said, clipped and curt, “I want no quarrel with you. Court is difficult enough as it is without us giving the gossips fodder. If you want me to go down on one knee and beg forgiveness for putting my hands on you, I will.”
It’s your tongue, not your hands, she thought, but said, “There’s a very simple solution. Keep my family’s names out of your mouth, and I’ll do likewise.”
To her annoyance, he said, with a slight sardonic edge, “That may prove difficult once we reach Casterly Rock.”
“We’re spending the winter at court, first,” she reminded him, though she sensed he was no in great hurry to return to the Westerlands either. His sister belonged at court, after all. And he belonged with her. He was her constant shadow, though no longer her Kingsguard.
“Do we have an agreement, or not?” he pressed.
She nodded, and extended her hand to him. He looked baffled and started to raise it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles; she jerked away and blackberries went flying. One hit him in the face, leaving a blue mark.
He stood there, and she could not help herself; she laughed. When he did likewise, he felt an unexpected flush of pleasure; he had a rich, charming laugh, despite his many defects. If she was not careful, she might even prove fond of him, vicious tongue and all.
Chapter Text
By the time the royal party returned to court, the year was drawing to a close, and few leaves remained on the trees. King’s Landing, though, was veritably warm compared to the North and the Neck, and Berena was cheered by the fact that she was in fact shedding layers of clothing, despite the increasingly barren foliage.
She had never mistrusted the luxury and decadence of the south. While she enjoyed a good ribald mockery of chivalry, knights, and ladies in see-through silks as much as any proper northerner, she was not so proud as to pretend there was nothing of value south of the Trident.
Nor would she have agreed to wed a Lannister had she thought she would loathe the capital, court, and the South in general. As much as Berena despised herself, she was not so willful as to disregard all sense. This was to be her penance, not an exercise in melodramatics. She would be expected to socialize, to travel, to spend coin and exert influence as a patron. Sulking in her room, satisfying though it might be, would earn her contempt.
The war had ended nearly a year and a half prior, but the poorer sections of King’s Landing were still a blackened ruin. Rows and rows of buildings were little more than piles of wood and stone, battered by wind and rain, surrounded by thick moats of human waste, kindling, and starving dogs and beggars.
When they rode through the lower city, before ascending to the wealthy hills, Robert commanded that all Lannister banners ride in the center of the column.
Berena realized this was to protect them from angry mobs. The people screamed and hissed like alleycats when they saw lions ride by, though oddly enough, they still cheered for their Queen. Berena assumed it was because they counted her as more Baratheon and Lannister, though she had yet to bear the King an heir.
She needn’t have worried. A scant fortnight after their arrival at court, it was announced formally that the Queen was with child. This meant she was at least five moons gone; they would not dared have proclaim it earlier than that, and risk her losing the babe. She had been pregnant when she’d first come to Winterfell, and even earlier than that. It was likely the child had been conceived en route north.
Despite her mistrust of the woman, Berena was well pleased for her. Robert was thrilled with the news, and a happy, open-handed king meant a pleasurable and happy court.
The first time she entered the throne room, however, any anticipation or excitement withered up in an instant. All traces of the Targaryens had been erased. The tapestries and drapings were new, the floors freshly polished, the rafters cleaned. But underneath it all, she smelled the acrid stench of smoke. It tickled her throat and nose and made her cough and want to retch aloud.
It made her stomach gurgle, too. Her father, hanging from the rafters, cooking in his armor. His body breaking down and leaking through the metal joints. Her brother, clawing at his throat. She never knew exactly how they died until her husband told her. She’d assumed they’d been burned, of course, but this was worse. Oh, this was worse.
But she had agreed to a tentative truce with her husband, and it would not do to upset that now by hating him all over again. She had resolved not to hate anyone. All her enemies were dead. It was not worth the effort. There were better uses of her time than brooding on the Queen’s jab or the Kingslayer’s cruel tongue. To his credit, he had been almost gentlemanly since Oldstones.
While no one could call their interactions warm, he paid her every courtesy in public, introduced her to dozens of new faces, and left her well enough alone. He made no attempt to visit her bed at night, though they often dined together. When they did not, she ate with her ladies, and he with his sister. Berena knew this was tolerable enough.
She’d never dreamed of a love-match; she’d never dreamed of marriage at all. If she had to have a husband- and she did, she had always known that, there were no motherhouses for women who worshiped the Old Gods- then best he be someone who would let her do as she pleased, rather than dictate her every movement.
There was plenty of movement to be made. Berena busied herself assembling a new household at court; while she had brought a few servants with her from Winterfell, and a few brave guards, it had not been easy to secure folk willing to pack up their entire lives and travel south with her to lands unknown.
She needed men and women to run their household at court; Jaime, for all his finery, had lived a rather sparse life as a bachelor. She’d seen his private chambers; they were nearly devoid of furnishing, and he sometimes seemed to sleep on a mat on the floor as though he were still a squire training for the Kingsguard, and not the Lord of the West. She assumed, by now, that his true passion had been knighthood.
He’d given it up with great reluctance, out of duty to his kin and nothing more. That was why he resented her. And she resented him, for his arrogance, for his pity, which she realized the more she spent time around him. He was not heartless. He did feel sorry for her. He saw her as a spoilt child who’d been sorely beaten by the world she’d set out to conquer. He seemed relieved that most of his family remained at Casterly Rock; he seemed to think they would intimidate her, master her.
Berena wanted to tell him that after Harrenhal, no Lion of Lannister could menace her. He understood nothing. He understood Aerys, of course, which she assumed was why he’d killed him, but he did not understand Rhaegar. Rhaegar had put a terror in her that she could not scrub out, no matter how he tried.
With a soft word and a firm hand, he’d led Lyanna away, to a place Berena could not follow. Like a wraith, he haunted her dreams at night, not tormenting or cackling, but simply waiting. Waiting to tear her sister from her arms again. He had great patience. He could wait an eternity, but he would always succeed.
She didn’t sleep much easier at court. She supposed it had been childish to assume otherwise. Even when bedding down between Jonelle’s soft snores and comforting weight, and Lyra Mormont’s little rabbit kicks, she didn’t rest easy.
She’d lost weight while traveling, as everyone did, but Jonelle and these new maesters worried for her health. They said she deprived herself at meals, or forgot to eat entirely. Berena supposed that might be true.
She didn’t really think about it. For a time, during the war, her moonblood had stopped entirely, for months on end. Eventually Maester Walys had declared it was simply stress, and prescribed her rich food, plenty of rest, and sleeping potions. But Berena had vomited up the food, paced her feet bloody at night, and thrown out the potions. She’d been waiting for her sister. But Lyanna had never come home. Not truly.
She was bleeding regularly again now, not that there was much chance of getting with child when her husband didn’t touch her. It surprised her that he would not even make an attempt, but then she figured he had some woman. Most Kingsguard did, one way or another, and she never saw him as chaste or self-repressed in that sense.
When he danced and ate, even when he sang along to the music at feasts, there was a lustiness to him. Not in a perverse way, but in a lively, vibrant sense. She saw it in the Queen as well. They were simply people who, no matter how dire the circumstances, burned brighter, not dimmer. Nothing quelled their appetites or hushed their tongues.
One month passed, then another. She rode out into the frosty city to meet with dressmakers and cobblers and hatters and artisans of all stripes. There was plenty of money to spend, and she did so almost frivolously. Her husband’s purse seemed a bottomless, yawning pit.
She would never reach the depths of it. There were fabrics and jewels and saddles and boots and gloves and cups and platters and wines to inspect. Her women all needed new wardrobes, as did she, and new horses for the hunts and hawking along the river.
Berena realized she was almost goading the Kingslayer to chastise her, to make some comment on her spending, but he never did. He would compliment her and her ladies if he saw them in new finery, and once deigned to race horses with her, though he seemed to regret that afterwards, but he never told her to stop or use more caution.
By the eighth month of her pregnancy, Cersei was in her glory. The babe had added a plump softness to her face and hands, but she was still as slender as ever aside from that. Her hair seemed thicker and more lush, spilling out of nets and diadems, and her skin was smooth and fair as milk.
It was her greatest pleasure to be seated next to Berena at tourneys and feasts, and to, without even speaking, highlight the contrasts between them. Her, rounded with child and resplendent in gold and scarlet and emerald. Berena, pinched and tired in midnight blue and dark grey and forest green.
Berena might have chosen cheerier colors for herself, but she couldn’t quite manage it. That reminded her of Lyanna, who had never been one for humility, who had never in her life hoped to escape notice and scuttle by. Instead she dressed as severe as a widow, and wondered if her husband ever took that for a veiled insult.
The Queen certainly did not.
“Your time will come,” she told Berena. “Perhaps in the spring. They say common women are at their most fertile then, like animals.” Then she blushed gracefully. “Though I did not mean to imply…” She let out a polite chuckle.
“Perhaps my time has already come, and I don’t yet know it,” Berena mused, rolling her goblet between her fingers.
Cersei looked sharp at that, but then forced herself to relax. “I hear you suffer from horrible nightmares, my lady,” she said, and laid a hand on Berena’s arm. “I do hope it is not too taxing for Jaime. They say you retire separately, most every eve. But I am sure Maester Pycelle can give you some sort of prescription for your ailments.”
Berena had heard enough to know she was not the only one in the marriage with nightmares. Jaime’s squires were talkative lads. But she only smiled, and removed her arm from Cersei’s vice-like grip. “You’re very kind.”
For the turning of the year- the second one with Robert on the Iron Throne- the Blackwater Rush froze solid and a great celebration was held on the ice. Fireworks in the shapes of stags and lions and wolves and eagles danced across the velvet night sky like shooting stars, and there were ice carvers and mummers with dancing bears and pigs, slipping and sliding as the court howled in appreciation.
Cersei was so huge with child by then that it was little wonder she retired early, but Robert did not mind in the least, and swept women around in madcap dances, Berena among them. It was like trying to keep pace with one of those dancing bears, he was so covered in furs.
He kissed her again while they danced, full on the mouth, hungry and searching for Lyanna. She wrenched away, laughing to cover her discomfort, and slipped and fell, to her annoyance, flat on her arse.
“Your Grace,” someone said coldly, and Jaime had seized her up, his hands under her armpits. “Lord Stannis is looking for you.”
Robert, warmed by good ale and in high spirits, waved them off with a guffaw, and skated away to find someone else to sup on.
Berena jerked away from her husband, brushing ice shavings off her fur-lined cloak. He looked furious, though the ruffled high collar of his cloth-of-gold cape detracted from that.
“You might protest a little more firmly, next time,” he said, scathingly. “You are ever the helpless maid when Robert is around.”
“Of course,” said Berena. “I should have drawn steel on him, challenged him for my honor. How could I make such an error? Thank the gods you are here to correct me, husband. Wait, he’s getting away- it’s not too late to earn your title twice over!”
It was the second time in six months that she had called him a Kingslayer to his face. This time, they were surrounded by laughter and music and curious stares, so whatever rage he felt, he did not dare show. Instead he said, voice tight and crackling like pigskin, “I am returning to the castle. Don’t feel any particular hurry on my account. You have a king to tend to.”
She could have clawed his eyes out for that, though she’d said worse. Jonelle looked askance at her sour mood for the rest of the night, and no one was surprised when Berena announced her head ached and even this tepid southern cold was enough for her.
She took the next horse-drawn sleigh back to the Red Keep, coasting through the slick and frozen streets of the city, burning like a torch in the night, and went straight to her husband’s quarters.
What she meant to do there she could not say. Berate him? Hit him? Goad him into something heinous? But her first sign of warning out to have been the strange silence of his apartments. Usually one could hear him pacing, or the chatter of his squires and servants, or the rustle of parchment.
Now all was still and dark. Save for the glow under the door. She was breathless and panting as if she’d ran all the way here in the snow. She knew she was acting like a hysterical child, chasing after her husband to bicker with him. But his contempt infuriated her. Some part of her was still an outraged little girl, demanding the attention of her elder siblings.
Berena paused outside that door, and over the beating of her heart in her ears, heard a woman’s breathy moans of pleasure.
That alone sparked a fury in her like a blade of ice was burning in her chest. She would kill him. She would. In that moment, she did not care at all for anything else save the thought of killing him and his whore. How dare he. In his own fucking rooms. Any halfway decent man went out to do such things.
She put a hand to the door and made to shove it open; it was not quite closed. But then her eye found the narrow slit of light between door and frame, and she saw him, head buried between a woman’s trembling legs, and the woman was huge with child, her hands gripping white-knuckled on the sheets, and what was between her legs was as golden as the hair on her head.
And the woman did not see her, her gaze on the ceiling, but he raised his head and half-turned on some instinct, and Berena saw him with his sister on his mouth, and stepped back, one silent step, two silent steps, and then thought, run, you idiot, run.
She did not quite run, but by the time she made it back to her own chambers, she was trembling all over, already rewriting the story in her head. No. No it had not been her it had been some other woman. Cersei was not the only blonde pregnant woman at court. No it had been some other women he was cuckolding some other man’s wife it was not his sister.
No. The woman hadn’t been pregnant at all, she’d just imagined the swell of her belly, the sheets and furs had been bunched up. It was some other woman he was fucking with his mouth it was not his sister. No sister would let her brother do such a thing; no brother would do that to his sister.
They were not Targaryens; the Targaryens were all dead. They were not Targaryens and she was wrong, that woman was not Cersei, it was someone else, some kitchenmaid or laundress he’d enticed to his bed.
Her ladies were very late in returning from the festivities; Berena insisted a maid sleep with her. Her wan appearance and breathless voice seemed to convince Agnes that she was feeling poorly; the maid insisted she drink some tea and take a warm bath before bed. Berena all the while kept expecting her door to be broken down and her husband to storm in- to what?
Strangle her in front of a shocked servant? Swear her to silence? He’d had his chance to pursue her, and done nothing. Why would he do nothing? Either she’d imagined the entire thing and he’d never seen her at all, or he had no reason to worry.
She was wrong. It had not been Cersei at all. Who would believe such a wild tale? What cause did the Queen and the Kingslayer have to destroy themselves in such a way? Even if they had those urges, why risk everything their father had devoted his life to?
She’d calmed herself by the time the bells were tolling the new year, and managed to fall asleep surprisingly fast, given the nature of her night.
When she woke, it was still dark, and she could still hear the odd distant chime and toll in the distance, though the sky was no longer lit by fireworks and plumes of smoke from bonfires. Berena rolled over, mumbling, and reached for Agnes, only to touch something else.
She opened her eyes fully, and saw that her husband was sitting on the side of her bed. Agnes was gone. Berena stared at him, her cheek pressed flat against the pillow, her hair a bird’s nest around her head. His face was unreadable in the dark. So slowly, almost tentatively, he put his hand on her throat. Her pulse did not quicken right away; she was still half asleep, convinced it was a nightmare.
He close his fingers there, but did not squeeze.
“What are you doing?” she murmured, not just playing innocent, but confused, still, in her exhaustion.
He clambered over her, sitting on her legs.
“What are you doing,” she yawned, and batted at his hand ineffectively, like a kitten batting at a lion.
His other hand he put to her face, as if to rouse her. It was cold as ice. She woke up all the way then.
“Did you come to my rooms tonight?” he whispered. He didn’t sound enraged or panicked with guilt. He sounded dreadful- literally, as though he dreaded what she would say next. There was something pathetic and pleading in his voice.
She stared at him, and then pushed weakly at his chest with her hands.
“Get off,” she said.
“Tell me you did not,” he said. “And I will.”
“Get off,” she said, a little louder, shoving at him, but it made no difference.
“Tell me,” he said. “I am your husband, you must tell me. You didn’t. You never did. You went straight back to this chamber and went to bed.”
“Stop,” she said, and grabbed at his hand on her throat. “Stop, stop!”
She was starting to shout. He put his other hand over her mouth for a moment; she bit him, deep enough to taste blood and flesh in her mouth.
He ripped his hand away with a curse, and made to strike her; she screamed out, once, “Brandon!”
And he stopped.
She did not know why she had screamed for her dead brother, and not her living one. Brandon could not help her. Brandon was gone. Brandon had died screaming while the Kingslayer watched. He had not killed the King then. Not for many more months.
Jaime removed his hand from her throat. He said, “If you had seen something…” he shook his head. “It would end the worst for you. Do you understand?”
She understood. He was saying, he would kill her. And she would be with Lyanna and Brandon. And all of Ned’s siblings would have been murdered.
Someone knocked timidly on the door. It was the maid or one of her ladies.
“Excuse us,” Jaime called back, sharply and clearly, not slurred by drink or sleep, and Berena heard muffled laughter. They thought he was finally bedding her again.
He got off her, and laid down beside her instead, fully clothed, watchful as a housecat. He brushed her tangled hair from her face.
Berena wiped her mouth blearily. She had some of him on her lips, just as he had his sister.
She rolled over and away from him; as if he feared she might be about to leap out of bed and run screaming, he put an arm over her hip.
“Please, don’t,” she said. “Please.”
She was frightened, but she let her voice truly warble in terror then, because now she knew he could be appeased by it. She wondered if it reminded him of the old queen, or the Princess Elia.
He removed his arm.