A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire 4)

The scorn in his voice made Jaime bristle. "There is a quicker way to decide the matter. A single combat. My champion against yours."

"I was wondering when you would get to that." Ser Brynden laughed. "Who will it be? Strongboar? Addam Marbrand? Black Walder Frey?" He leaned forward. "Why not you and me, ser?"

That would have been a sweet fight once, Jaime thought, fine fodder for the singers. "When Lady Catelyn freed me, she made me swear not to take arms again against the Starks or Tullys."

"A most convenient oath, ser."

His face darkened. "Are you calling me a coward?"

"No. I am calling you a cripple." The Blackfish nodded at Jaime's golden hand. "We both know you cannot fight with that."

"I had two hands." Would you throw your life away for pride? a voice inside him whispered. "Some might say a cripple and an old man are well matched. Free me from my vow to Lady Catelyn and I will meet you sword to sword. If I win, Riverrun is ours. If you slay me, we'll lift the siege."

Ser Brynden laughed again. "Much as I would welcome the chance to take that golden sword away from you and cut out your black heart, your promises are worthless. I would gain nothing from your death but the pleasure of killing you, and I will not risk my own life for that . . . as small a risk as that may be."

It was a good thing that Jaime wore no sword; elsewise he would have ripped his blade out, and if Ser Brynden did not slay him, the archers on the walls most surely would. "Are there any terms you will accept?" he demanded of the Blackfish.

"From you?" Ser Brynden shrugged. "No."

"Why did you even come to treat with me?"

"A siege is deadly dull. I wanted to see this stump of yours and hear whatever excuses you cared to offer up for your latest enormities. They were feebler than I'd hoped. You always disappoint, Kingslayer." The Blackfish wheeled his mare and trotted back toward Riverrun. The portcullis descended with a rush, its iron spikes biting deep into the muddy ground.

Jaime turned Honor's head about for the long ride back to the Lannister siege lines. He could feel the eyes on him; the Tully men upon their battlements, the Freys across the river. If they are not blind, they'll all know he threw my offer in my teeth. He would need to storm the castle. Well, what's one more broken vow to the Kingslayer? Just more shit in the bucket. Jaime resolved to be the first man on the battlements. And with this golden hand of mine, most like the first to fall.

Back at camp, Little Lew held his bridle whilst Peck gave him a hand down from the saddle. Do they think I'm such a cripple that I cannot dismount by myself? "How did you fare, my lord?" asked his cousin Ser Daven.

"No one put an arrow in my horse's rump. Elsewise, there was little to distinguish me from Ser Ryman." He grimaced. "So now he must needs turn the Red Fork redder." Blame yourself for that, Blackfish. You left me little choice. "Assemble a war council. Ser Addam, Strongboar, Forley Prester, those river lords of ours . . . and our friends of Frey. Ser Ryman, Lord Emmon, whoever else they care to bring."

They gathered quickly. Lord Piper and both Lords Vance came to speak for the repentant lords of the Trident, whose loyalties would shortly be put to the test. The west was represented by Ser Daven, Strongboar, Addam Marbrand, and Forley Prester. Lord Emmon Frey joined them, with his wife. Lady Genna claimed her stool with a look that dared any man there to question her presence. None did. The Freys sent Ser Walder Rivers, called "Bastard Walder," and Ser Ryman's firstborn Edwyn, a pallid, slender man with a pinched nose and lank dark hair. Under a blue lambswool cloak, Edwyn wore a jerkin of finely tooled grey calfskin with ornate scrollwork worked into the leather. "I speak for House Frey," he announced. "My father is indisposed this morning."

Ser Daven gave a snort. "Is he drunk, or just greensick from last night's wine?"

Edwyn had the hard mean mouth of a miser. "Lord Jaime," he said, "must I suffer such discourtesy?"

"Is it true?" Jaime asked him. "Is your father drunk?"

Frey pressed his lips together and eyed Ser Ilyn Payne, who was standing beside by the tent flap in his rusted mail, his sword poking up above one bony shoulder. "He . . . my father has a bad belly, my lord. Red wine helps with his digestion."

"He must be digesting a bloody mammoth," said Ser Daven. Strongboar laughed, and Lady Genna chuckled.

"Enough," said Jaime. "We have a castle to win." When his father sat in council, he let his captains speak first. He was resolved to do the same. "How shall we proceed?"

"Hang Edmure Tully, for a start," urged Lord Emmon Frey. "That will teach Ser Brynden that we mean what we say. If we send Ser Edmure's head to his uncle, it may move him to yield."

"Brynden Blackfish is not moved so easily." Karyl Vance, the Lord of Wayfarer's Rest, had a melancholy look. A winestain birthmark covered half his neck and one side of his face. "His own brother could not move him to a marriage bed."

Ser Daven shook his shaggy head. "We have to storm the walls, as I've been saying all along. Siege towers, scaling ladders, a ram to break the gate, that's what's needed here."

"I will lead the assault," said Strongboar. "Give the fish a taste of steel and fire, that's what I say."

"They are my walls," protested Lord Emmon, "and that is my gate you would break." He drew his parchment out of his sleeve again. "King Tommen himself has granted me - "

"We've all seen your paper, nuncle," snapped Edwyn Frey. "Why don't you go wave it at the Blackfish for a change?"

"Storming the walls will be a bloody business," said Addam Marbrand. "I propose we wait for a moonless night and send a dozen picked men across the river in a boat with muffled oars. They can scale the walls with ropes and grapnels, and open the gates from the inside. I will lead them, if the council wishes."

"Folly," declared the bastard, Walder Rivers. "Ser Brynden is no man to be cozened by such tricks."

"The Blackfish is the obstacle," agreed Edwyn Frey. "His helm bears a black trout on its crest that makes him easy to pick out from afar. I propose that we move our siege towers close, fill them full of bowmen, and feign an attack upon the gates. That will bring Ser Brynden to the battlements, crest and all. Let every archer smear his shafts with night soil, and make that crest his mark. Once Ser Brynden dies, Riverrun is ours."

"Mine," piped Lord Emmon. "Riverrun is mine."

Lord Karyl's birthmark darkened. "Will the night soil be your own contribution, Edwyn? A mortal poison, I don't doubt."

"The Blackfish deserves a nobler death, and I'm the man to give it to him." Strongboar thumped his fist on the table. "I will challenge him to single combat. Mace or axe or longsword, makes no matter. The old man will be my meat."

"Why would he deign to accept your challenge, ser?" asked Ser Forley Prester. "What could he gain from such a duel? Will we lift the siege if he should win? I do not believe that. Nor will he. A single combat would accomplish nought."

"I have known Brynden Tully since we were squires together, in service to Lord Darry," said Norbert Vance, the blind Lord of Atranta. "If it please my lords, let me go and speak with him and try to make him understand the hopelessness of his position."

"He understands that well enough," said Lord Piper. He was a short, rotund, bowlegged man with a bush of wild red hair, the father of one of Jaime's squires; the resemblance to the boy was unmistakeable. "The man's not bloody stupid, Norbert. He has eyes . . . and too much sense to yield to such as these." He made a rude gesture in the direction of Edwyn Frey and Walder Rivers.

Edwyn bristled. "If my lord of Piper means to imply - "

"I don't imply, Frey. I say what I mean straight out, like an honest man. But what would you know of the ways of honest men? You're a treacherous lying weasel, like all your kin. I'd sooner drink a pint of piss than take the word of any Frey." He leaned across the table. "Where is Marq, answer me that? What have you done with my son? He was a guest at your bloody wedding."

"And our honored guest he shall remain," said Edwyn, "until you prove your loyalty to His Grace, King Tommen."

"Five knights and twenty men-at-arms went with Marq to the Twins," said Piper. "Are they your guests as well, Frey?"

"Some of the knights, perhaps. The others were served no more than they deserved. You'd do well to guard your traitor's tongue, Piper, unless you want your heir returned in pieces."

My father's councils never went like this, Jaime thought, as Piper came lurching to his feet. "Say that with a sword in your hand, Frey," the small man snarled. "Or do you only fight with smears of shit?"

Frey's pinched face went pale. Beside him Walder Rivers rose. "Edwyn is no man of the sword . . . but I am, Piper. If you have more remarks to make, come outside and make them."

"This is a war council, not a war," Jaime reminded them. "Sit down, the both of you." Neither man moved. "Now!"

Walder Rivers seated himself. Lord Piper was not so easy to cow. He muttered a curse and strode from the tent. "Shall I send men after him to drag him back, my lord?" Ser Daven asked Jaime.

"Send Ser Ilyn," urged Edywn Frey. "We only need his head."

Karyl Vance turned to Jaime. "Lord Piper spoke from grief. Marq is his firstborn son. Those knights who accompanied him to the Twins were nephews and cousins all."

"Traitors and rebels all, you mean," said Edwyn Frey.

Jaime gave him a cold look. "The Twins took up the Young Wolf's cause as well," he reminded the Freys. "Then you betrayed him. That makes you twice as treacherous as Piper." He enjoyed seeing Edwyn's thin smile curdle up and die. I have endured sufficient counsel for one day, he decided. "We're done. See to your preparations, my lords. We attack at first light."

The wind was blowing from the north as the lords filed from the tent. Jaime could smell the stink of the Frey encampments beyond the Tumblestone. Across the water Edmure Tully stood forlorn atop the tall grey gallows, with a rope around his neck.

His aunt departed last, her husband at her heels. "Lord nephew," Emmon protested, "this assault on my seat . . . you must not do this." When he swallowed, the apple in his throat moved up and down. "You must not. I . . . I forbid it." He had been chewing sourleaf again; pinkish froth glistened on his lips. "The castle is mine, I have the parchment. Signed by the king, by little Tommen. I am the lawful lord of Riverrun, and . . ."

"Not so long as Edmure Tully lives," said Lady Genna. "He is soft of heart and soft of head, I know, but alive, the man is still a danger. What do you mean to do about that, Jaime?"

It's the Blackfish who is the danger, not Edmure. "Leave Edmure to me. Ser Lyle, Ser Ilyn. Attend me, if you would. It's time I paid a visit to those gallows."

The Tumblestone was deeper and swifter than the Red Fork, and the nearest ford was leagues upstream. The ferry had just started across with Walder Rivers and Edwyn Frey when Jaime and his men arrived at the river. As they awaited its return, Jaime told them what he wanted. Ser Ilyn spat into the river.