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“Hm,” Tyrion said at breakfast, reading the letters that he’d just received. Jaime didn’t really know where they all came from, but Tyrion had gone on a tour of the realm a few years ago—Father usually didn’t let Tyrion have anything he wanted except money, but he’d been glad to send him away for seven months—and ever since he’d got back, there was an entire packet of mail for him almost every day. Jaime knew it annoyed Father violently, especially when Tyrion occasionally acquired news before he did, even though it was mostly gossip and occasionally wrong.
Which of course pleased Tyrion immensely. Not that he let on in any way that anyone but Jaime could tell, but one of those ways was the faint tone that came into his voice when he’d just got something interesting and important. “Yes?” Jaime said, and at the head of the table, Father paused and glanced up from his own correspondence.
“A friend from Derry tells me that Lord Stark is entering the tourney at the Crossings,” Tyrion said.
“He’s what?” Jaime said incredulously. “His first tourney at forty?”
“Not that Lord Stark,” Tyrion said. “The young one. Robb, I think his name is.”
Jaime was already clearing the unexpected jump of the surprise and well on into delight. “The weather at the Crossings is lovely this time of year,” he said in blithe tones, ignoring the tightening of Father’s jaw. “Perhaps I’ll drop in myself.”
“Yes, I thought that seemed likely,” Tyrion said, putting the letter aside with a sigh of his own. “You do realize it’s going to look rather bullying for you to go after a seventeen year old boy who is after all entering his first tourney?”
Jaime glared at Tyrion: whose side was he on, anyway? “No one’s making him enter,” he said coolly.
“Yes, but he wouldn't be entering if you’d been planning to attend.”
“In that case, when he does know I’m coming, he can stay off the field instead,” Jaime said. “Oh, don’t frown,” he added, because Tyrion’s faint look of disappointment made him feel a vague squirm of guilt, small but irritating. “I’ll wait until the second day, how’s that?”
“And how much of a ransom were you planning to ask for him?” Tyrion said pointedly.
Jaime knew the answer to that question exactly. “With interest, Lord Stark owes me a hundred thousand in silver, I think,” he said.
“Because he said something disparaging about your honor once eighteen years ago?” Tyrion said. “The boy wasn’t even born yet.”
“It’s a matter of principle,” Jaime said coolly. “A Lannister always pays his debts.”
It was also, although he wasn’t going to say so out loud, a matter of money. Lately Father had been making increasingly ominous efforts to push Jaime into expressing opinions about the various eligible noble daughters of the realm. Jaime had been doing his best to avoid offering any, but he knew perfectly well that eventually Father would substitute his own—and if he chose not to accept that opinion, the purse strings of House Lannister would be drawn up tight and turned into reins.
He’d been trying to tuck money of his own away for the last few years, but he wasn’t very good at not spending money, and he’d started a little too late. Tyrion wasn’t wrong: these days, no one who was worth a really large ransom ever entered a tourney if they knew he was going to be attending. But if Stark didn’t rabbit away, well, a hundred thousand in silver would keep him on the circuit for another ten years at least, even if Father refused to pay for so much as a single one of his horseshoes.
Father knew it, too; he gave a small snort of disapproval and irritation and threw down his report and left the table. Jaime watched him go a little anxiously, and when he’d gone, Tyrion said, in a faintly apologetic tone, “Stark really will withdraw when you enter.”
Jaime knew it, too, but it didn’t really matter. He had nothing better to do but try, until the last of his time and money ran out together and Father finally brought him down, ready for gutting and skinning. “I won’t enter until I get there,” Jaime said. “And no telling your friends,” he added. “If the boy wants to back out like a coward, he can do it in front of everyone. I’ll take that in payment if Stark doesn’t want to pay with silver,” because he’d take what he could get.
#
But Robb Stark didn’t withdraw from the tourney, even after Jaime formally put himself into the lists the night before the tourney began. Jaime tried not to hope; Stark also wasn’t going in on the first day at all, which meant he might still have been planning to back out at the last moment. But at least he wasn’t performing the usual excuses of illness or fatigue that so routinely turned up right about the time Jaime did. Robb ate at the feast tables outdoors, walked round with his men to meet other knights and lords, talked easily to his company; Jaime even overheard him saying he had promised his mother he’d only enter the second day, this time.
Jaime did go in for the first day himself, to have a bit of exercise, and pad out his purse a bit more. The field had improved significantly after Stark had entered: Jaime wasn’t the only one interested in hooking a nice fat Northern fish. Most other knights wouldn’t dare ask that large of a ransom from a Lord Paramount, but even a hedge knight would ask for at least ten thousand, a healthy chunk by any ordinary standards. So Jaime amused himself by picking off all the real competition, piling up despondent knights in his camp for Father to glower at, a small private defiance.
Father had announced that he was coming along at dinner on the very same evening that Jaime had decided to go. Afterwards, closeted in his room, Tyrion had poured him a glass of brandy, by way of offering comfort, and then bluntly told him, “Father’s going to privately tell all the best knights at the tourney that he’ll ransom you for a truly ludicrous amount of money, and he won’t be in the least annoyed if they’ve collaborated to bring you down. And then he’ll sell off all your mounts and arms to raise part of it.”
Jaime looked away, trying not to feel the hounds closing in, the hunter’s horn sounding at his back. “Let them all try,” he said, still fighting.
And they were trying, but none of them were succeeding. Three of the Freys came at him all together at one point, and Jaime tore them contemptuously to pieces, chased them out in front of the stands for the final exchange, so everyone could see him beat the shit out of them, and sent them limping to his tent with their swords at his feet. He felt gloriously alive by the end of the day, savage with victory and power and conquest: there were nine knights already sitting in his camp waiting for ransom, and he grinned with anticipation and satisfaction across the feast tables at the next day’s juicy prey: the dark-haired boy with his short new beard sitting beneath the direwolf banners on the other side. It was just as well Robb hadn’t come in today after all. Now the field was clear, and Jaime wouldn’t have anyone interfering; the others had surely all learned their lesson.
He didn’t go straight at Stark the next day, though; it was the boy’s first tourney, and he deserved a chance to properly cross swords with someone who wasn’t completely out of his league. Jaime just kept in range, staying close enough to make sure no one else was going to take him. It wasn’t hard; the Freys’ keeps were dingy and uncomfortable, but their tourney field was delightful: good firm ground, packed dirt with a few hills and boulder mounds for variety, a couple of small streams, and stands of old pines and pruned brambles. Jaime could easily keep an eye on things without making himself so obvious that the boy would notice. Oddly enough, no one came after him, ha.
It made for a pleasant day. The weather really was lovely, clear and not too hot, and it was the fun of watching a tourney instead of fighting in one. Stark was actually quite decent—he wouldn’t pose anything like a real challenge, but he was more than good enough to take down the first three men he went after himself, good solid knights that Jaime vaguely recognized, the sort who came to tourneys to fight in the middle of the pack, taking the weaker sons of large houses for modest ransoms and hoping to catch the eye of a greater lord who wanted a solid retainer. Not a bad way to get some practice and hone your eye, for a talented young man, he thought with a pleasant sense of condescension, and waited until after Stark sent the third man off to his tents to make his own move.
Robb was turning for the tents himself, then, obviously satisfied with his day’s work. Jaime stepped out into his way, smiling. “Ser Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock,” he said, lightly.
The boy stopped and inclined his head. He was quite a pretty young thing: tall, dark hair, blue eyes, good shoulders and thighs. Surely his father would be putting him on the marriage market soon enough; maybe he’d at least do to remove one of the eligible candidates. “Robb Stark of Winterfell,” he said, courteous and firm; no cringing. Oh well; Lord Eddard could do the cringing, when he saw the bill.
“Shall we?” Jaime said, drawing his sword, and the boy drew his, and then before Jaime had even moved into guard position, the boy abruptly lunged at him, swinging wildly overhand, and whacked his sword out to the side, forcing it down with his own.
It was a bizarrely stupid move: he'd gotten Jaime’s sword out of the way for roughly twenty seconds, and left himself ridiculously overbalanced. Jaime actually paused to stare at him, baffled, and Stark clenched a fist at the height of his eyes, jerked it down to the level of his waist, and said, “Down.”
“What?” Jaime said, or started to say; he was interrupted by being hit by a trebuchet stone, or at least what he imagined that would feel like: a solid mass that just smashed him bodily to the ground, completely flat. He tried to roll, to tumble, to get up; all movement was utterly impossible, and then Stark put a hand on his wrist and snapped, “Yield.”
Jaime still hadn’t the faintest idea what had just happened. He gripped his sword tighter instead, and then froze in pure atavistic terror as a dreadful low growling came right in his ear, so close he could feel the panting breath on his cheek and neck. “Do you want your throat ripped out?” Stark said. “Let go and yield so I can get him off you.”
Jaime let go, because off off off was everything he wanted in the world at that moment, and by the time it was the next moment and the thing was off him and he was standing on his feet gasping, staring at a seventeen year old boy who had his sword, it was too late. The beast was sitting on its haunches right next to Robb with its tongue lolling out, licking its chops from the treat it was being fed. It was a monster out of nightmares: it looked like a wolfhound, but it was more than four times the size of any of them Jaime had ever seen. “What the hell kind of dog is that?” he demanded, his breath still shaky.
“He's not a dog at all. He’s a direwolf,” Stark said, while scratching it behind the ears exactly as if it was a two-pound lapdog. “Shall we go? Best to get him off the field now that he’s excited.”
That was when it sank properly in for Jaime that he’d just been taken down, for the first time ever, by a snot-nosed boy in his first tourney. Rage clenched his stomach; he snapped, “Where’d he come from? You’re not allowed to have handlers helping you on the field, and I’d have seen that beast if he’d been fighting with you today.”
Robb only grinned at him, the expression making him look rather wolf-like himself. “Oh, I set him on you first thing this morning, just before I came onto the field. He’s been following you around, all the while that you were following me.” Jaime stared at him. “Did you think I didn’t know you’d be coming? Every man I know told me I couldn't dare enter any tourney in the realm or you’d cross the entire continent just to get at me. Even that you’d try to sneak into the tourney at the last minute to keep me from withdrawing. It seemed rather unsporting, actually,” he added, with a faint hint of censoriousness—quite like his father. “I didn’t like to disappoint you when you wanted a chance so badly, but I thought you couldn’t really object if I was a bit unsporting myself in turn. Shall we? I asked my servants to have baths ready before lunch.”
What Jaime immediately and passionately wanted to do after that speech was knock Stark down and take back his own sword and beat him with the flat. But thanks to the direwolf—which was still eyeing Jaime in a vaguely regretful way, like a much larger treat it hadn’t been allowed to devour—that wasn’t an option, and he knew with absolute certainty that if he tried to appeal his capture on the grounds of a technicality, Lord Walder would laugh in his face. Possibly it hadn’t been such a good idea to publicly humiliate three of his sons yesterday. “How hospitable of you, Lord Stark,” Jaime said through his teeth. “Lead the way.”
The bath was ready and steaming hot in the private tent he was shown to, and afterwards he was served an excellent beef and kidney pie with good red wine, of which he drank too much, thinking grimly about just how much Stark was going to ask in ransom. Father wouldn’t even need to encourage him. But there wasn’t any sense not knowing the worst; when Robb came in after the dishes had been cleared, Jaime said coolly, “Out of curiosity, what will you be asking for me? My father will pay it, of course.”
“Oh, I don’t mean to ransom you,” Robb said, with a tone of faint surprise, as he seated himself in the camp chair across from Jaime and took a glass of wine himself. “I’m claiming you instead.”
“Claiming—” Jaime stared at him. “You can’t take me as a vassal. I’m the heir to Casterly Rock!”
Robb looked at him over the cup with an expression that had very much the quality of the direwolf panting at him with its tongue lolling out in a grin. “I know who you are,” he said, with an amused note in his voice. “I’m not claiming you as a vassal. I’m claiming you as a husband. For a men’s match,” he added, as if that was some sort of rational explanation. “Tonight, at the tree.”
Jaime had so little idea of what to say to that announcement that he just sat speechlessly for a moment. He’d heard of the men’s match before, mostly in giggling rude whispers, but as far as he knew, it was one of those odd relics of ancient Northern law that septons denounced when they couldn’t think of any better sermon topics; he’d had the impression that only backwoods smallfolk did it anymore, even in the North. “You can’t be serious,” he said, bewildered.
“Lord Walder called an open tourney, not a southron one,” Robb said. “That means captor’s law applies. And by the law of the North, if you’ve yielded to me on the field, I’ve the right to claim you at the tree.” Jaime just kept staring; he still couldn’t actually believe it, and then Robb raised a brow at him, smirking. “Did you not bother to pay any attention to the rules before you entered? It’s almost as though you assumed you’d win.”
Jaime glared at him as rising outrage replaced his bewilderment. “My father has two thousand men right in this camp; were you planning on having me dragged to the godswood in front of them? And what about the bedding; am I to be held down?”
Robb gave him a wide-eyed look, as if he’d said something outrageous. “Drag you? Have you held down?” he said, incredulously.
“How were you thinking this would go?” Jaime demanded.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Robb said, glaring back, as if he had any right to be angry. “How did you think it would go if you took me? Surely you had a number in mind. A hundred thousand in silver, perhaps?” Jaime twitched a little, and Robb gave a huff. “Do you know what that would have meant to my house, to the North, to pay such a sum? Roads and keeps unmended, men at arms let go. Widows and orphans hungry and cold this winter. I’d not have liked it, but I’d not have made you tie me up to keep me, after I’d yielded myself on the field!”
“What I wouldn’t have done is made you marry me!” Jaime said.
“So you wouldn’t have entered this tourney if you’d known you risked something you didn’t like, is that it?” Robb said, and that was contempt bright in his voice. “I suppose it must be nice, to have a father who could hand over a hundred thousand in gold and never miss it. How brave it must make you.”
Jaime sucked in a sharp breath, gawking at him, too shocked by the insult to even say anything right away, and before he got over it, Robb looked down at the chest where the servants had put Jaime’s arms, and he put his boot heel on the edge of it and shoved it across towards him, then stood up. “I’ve told you the ransom I’d take,” he said coldly. “That’s what made it worth it to me, the risk that I ran, knowing the greatest knight in all Westeros meant to hunt me down on the field. But I won’t drag you anywhere, even if I have the right. You’ll come to the tree of your own will, and make your vows of your own will, and if you won’t do that, then take your arms and get out of my camp. But you should be ashamed to ever show your face on a tourney field again, against men who run real risks. I won’t take a single copper penny out of your father’s purse for your honor.”
Jaime almost couldn't see, he was so enraged; he could have strangled Robb. It would be worse than being dragged off by his father: the entire realm would be laughing at him for the rest of his days, and he wouldn’t be able to enter a single tourney ever again. “If I did do it, you idiot,” he managed to choke out through fury, “my father would tear your house apart. Did you think about that, while you were so busy considering your risks?”
Robb snorted. “I thought you were of age. Do you want me to get his consent first? I’ll do that if you like.”
“You’ll get his—what?” It was like running headlong at full speed into a low-hanging tree branch: Jaime halted, knocked right back out of rage into still-greater confusion. He stared at Stark.
Robb rolled his eyes a bit and said, in the tones of indulging a child, “Not if you’re refusing; I won’t waste my time. Are you or not?”
Jaime couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking. Robb—who was presumably counting on his two younger brothers providing his house with heirs—really thought that Father would give consent to taking him into a men’s match? His father was vastly more likely to murder Stark and his entire family just for asking. Which was quite an appealing outcome, now that Jaime thought of it. “Oh, go ahead,” he snarled. “Get my father's consent, and I’ll be at the tree whenever you like.”
Robb snorted and said, “Your word of honor on it, I suppose?” as if that was a doubtful option.
“Yes. My word of honor,” Jaime said between his teeth.
#
He was still seething an hour later, pacing the tent and waiting with impatience for Stark to come back with his tail between his legs, when the tent flap lifted and Tyrion peered inside instead, with an odd and wary expression, as if he wasn’t sure what he expected to find. “What are you doing here?” Jaime said.
“Trying to find out if you’ve been drugged or hit on the head,” Tyrion said, coming inside and looking around as if he thought there might be someone with a club standing ready to give him a knock on top of it. He stared up at Jaime “You seem all right. Is it possible that you actually agreed to marry Robb Stark?”
Jaime snorted. “Not like that. I told him I’d do it if Father gave his consent.” Tyrion just kept staring. “Apparently there’s some Northern legal technicality that gives him the right to make me do it, and if I refused, he wasn’t going to take a ransom at all. He might as well have spat on my honor in front of the entire realm. So I told him Father would go to war over it, and he said he’d get his consent first if I agreed, so I sent him trotting off. I only wish I could have been there. What did Father say?”
Tyrion’s stare was narrowing into a more thoughtful frown; he went over to the wine jug and peered in before putting it down disappointed. “Well,” he said, seating himself on one of the camp chairs, “admittedly, Father was rather outraged at first. And then Lord Stark asked with quite innocent bewilderment whether Father really wanted you providing him with more tourney victories instead of grandchildren.”
Jaime stared at him. “Where exactly did he think these grandchildren were going to come from?”
“Yes, that was my exact question,” Tyrion said. “And the ready answer he had was, Roslin Frey and Yara Greyjoy.”
“What?”
“It seems that Lord Walder and Lord Balon have just recently agreed to let this pair of most charming and eligible young women pledge to one another in a women’s match,” Tyrion said. “As soon as a men’s match of appropriate stature offered to provide them with home and children.”
“Provide them with—” Jaime said, his voice rising.
“It turns out this sort of arrangement is a little-known twist on the Northern custom,” Tyrion said. “Lord Stark explained that the results are unusually reliable—if one of the girls turns out to be barren, the other one can still have heirs for both of you, while if all went well, you could end up with an absolute pile of children—and four noble families to provide them with inheritances. Father started feeling quite differently about the proposal at that point.”
“Oh,” Jaime said blankly, and sat down.
“What I couldn’t understand was why you’d agreed,” Tyrion said. “But I’m starting to gather that Lord Stark didn’t fully explain the arrangement to you.”
“You southrons do so like to snicker at our odd Northern ways,” Stark said, ducking into the tent himself with a cheerful air, carrying another jug of wine. He had the gall to pour all the cups full and offer them around, as if they were celebrating something, and Tyrion had the gall to take one. “I rather thought you’d be ready to imagine that I was proposing to make a childless match for us, even though we’re both our fathers’ heirs.”
At least Jaime wasn’t the only one staring at him now; Tyrion looked just as startled. Jaime said, “You deliberately made me think—” Robb sprawled back comfortably into one of the chairs with his own cup of wine and made a little smirking shrug at him. “And Walder Frey’s daughter is one of the—are you saying you arranged all of this on purpose?”
“I know, it’s strange,” Robb said, in a marveling tone. “It’s almost as though I came here to do something of sense for my house, instead of just fucking around with a sword to entertain myself.”
Jaime was so blindingly angry he could have started frothing at the mouth more easily than saying anything; Tyrion came to his rescue. “Lord Stark, forgive me, but why exactly do you want this match so much? You could ransom Jaime for a hundred thousand in gold and marry anyone you like.”
“I don’t need a hundred thousand in gold,” Robb said. “I’d not enter a tourney for that. The risk of losing wouldn’t be worth it to me. What I need is a way to make the ironborn stop raiding the North. That’s what this match will do. Balon Greyjoy’s pledged safe passage for all our ships, and Walder Frey’s pledged to build a keep on the Cape of Eagles for Roslin’s second-born son, to host traders coming from Essos over the Crossings.” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the bridge. “We’ll make a safe shipping route from Bear Harbor to Lannisport, all the ironborn will turn traders instead of reavers, and it’ll be over for good, not just put down with a war we have to have over again every ten years.”
“And all you needed to do was trick me into it!” Jaime said through his teeth, fresh anger pulsing in his temples all over again: no wonder Father had loved the idea. “Tell me, what if I decide I won’t go through with your elaborate arrangement after all?”
Robb just grinned at him, sharp and gleaming. “Well, I still won’t drag you to the tree, Ser Jaime. But I’m afraid your father might.” He gave a small snort of laughter, as if he didn’t realize Jaime was inches away from leaping at his throat. “I’ve never seen a man so pleased once I’d explained. Especially after I told him how fond I am of children, and how eager the girls are to get started on a family. I think he rather fancies me as a son-in-law now.”
Tyrion emitted a strangled deep coughing noise; Jaime whipped round to glare at him in outraged betrayal. “I’m sorry!” Tyrion squawked out, still stifled. “It’s only—you do almost have to admire the—sorry!”
“Admire?” Jaime said. “Admire?”
Robb gave a sigh as wide as the tent and said, “All right, look, I’m sorry, I admit, I’ve played a bit of a trick on you, and I’m having a laugh at your expense. But you can’t honestly say you didn’t ask for it! I couldn’t have done any of this if you hadn’t ridden across half the entire realm just to have a go at me. Do you think you could stop being such a sore loser and be serious a moment? What’s wrong with the match?”
“What’s—are you joking?” Jaime said. “You think I want to be forced into this four-way sham of a marriage with you and two girls so you can build a trade route?”
“So that we can build it!” Robb said. “It’ll secure the strength of all our houses for generations.”
“Do you think I care?” Jaime said, savagely.
Robb paused, looking at him with a suddenly different expression, a narrow hunting gleam coming into his eye. “No, you don’t, do you,” he said thoughtfully. “I thought you’d care, once you got over being annoyed, but I suppose if you cared about your house, you’d have cared enough to marry before this, too.”
“I care about my house!” Jaime said. “But I’m not going to be shoved about like a pawn piece to satisfy my father’s ambition, much less yours.”
“But then what do you want?” Robb said, in an odd way: he made it sound as though he actually wanted to know. Jaime eyed him warily and didn’t answer: Robb was studying him; it felt like having his armor examined for weak points. When he didn’t say anything, Robb waved a hand out towards the tourney field. “This? But you’re thirty and four; how long until your strength starts to go? Do you mean to keep entering the lists until you’re defeated by some twenty year old twat with half of your skill?”
“What, do you mean like you?” Jaime snarled, although his stomach had squeezed down into a hard knot.
“No, not like me!” Robb said. “Everyone here knows I’ve only taken you with a clever trick, and after your father’s hosted the wedding feast tonight, the whole realm will be sure you were in on it, to boot, as a way to slip the match past the septons. If you end your career this way, then for all the rest of your days, you’ll still be the invincible knight who only left the field to make a great alliance match. Wouldn’t that suit you better than waiting until you really lose?”
What would have suited Jaime better was not to lose, ever; that had always been what he wanted, only—he couldn’t quite manage to say so in the face of all this horrible earnest Northern practicality: you’re thirty and four, how long until your strength starts to go? He could just see Robb’s face changing if he tried it. The boy wouldn’t put on any more false outrage, he’d only be sincerely taken aback by Jaime’s stupidity. Even Tyrion had darted a sidelong look of worry at him, as if he was suddenly wondering to himself what Jaime was thinking. “Should I be grateful that you don’t mind marrying an ancient with one foot in the grave?” he said instead, venomously.
“You look all right to me,” Robb said, making a show of looking him up and down, bright-eyed with amusement again. “Have I pricked you somewhere tender? For once, I didn’t mean to. If all you want is truly to just go on fighting in tourneys, all right! Come to Winterfell for a couple of months every other year, fuck one of the girls until she’s with child, and other than that, you can please yourself!” Jaime stared at him. “You won’t be abandoning some poor woman alone with a child coming. The girls will have each other, and I’ll look after them all. I don’t fear women and small children,” he added.
That jolted Jaime loose. “Is this another charming Northern courtship custom, insulting someone as you ask them to marry you?” he snapped.
“No, I’ve done it just for you,” Robb said, laughter in his voice. “You’re making it too hard to resist. Even if I’m still wrong, what else are you going to do? If I’m any judge, your father’s ready to drag you off the field by the heels anyway. As soon as I told him about the girls, he was planning our wedding feast and promising to settle ten thousand in gold on every child of the match, even though when I walked in the tent, he was ready to start a war over the very idea that you’d lie with a man.”
Jaime only barely stopped himself from grinding his jaws against one another: it was worse to hear Stark telling him what he already knew, with that bright amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Yes, what about that part of it?” he said furiously. “You’ve thought of everything else; I’m agog to hear what you have in mind.”
Robb raised his brows. “What, lying together? No one’s going to come in the bedding tent to make sure. We can just play a hand of cards and go to sleep if you like.”
“Oh, so my preferences will get consulted on the matter?” Jaime snapped. “Or perhaps those are yours. What if what I like is to assert my conjugal rights and fuck you twice a day?”
Robb gave a snort. “Twice a day, really? That seems ambitious. What about your advancing years?” He put down his cup and stood up and beckoned. “But all right, Lannister; come on then, let’s see what you’ve got,” tilting his head at him in challenge, and Jaime stared and then surged across the tent at him, grabbed him by the front of the doublet and hauled him in for a brutal kiss.
Robb’s hand just went around the back of his head and pulled him in even harder, and Jaime started angrily yanking open the buttons of his doublet to get at him, at the thin soft linen of his shirt, sliding over the hard curves of his muscles. Robb was working on Jaime’s belt, jerking the buckle loose; he shoved a hand down the back of Jaime’s trousers and gripped his ass, squeezing hard enough to make Jaime gasp, a shiver running like water up his spine and down his legs, and oh, fuck him; he grabbed Robb’s shirt and pulled it off over his head, and pushed in against him hard, their bodies lined up from hip to chest, sweet pressure all over, and Robb made a delicious small whimper of eagerness.
It was like hearing the horns calling him to battle. Jaime stopped thinking of anything, just letting his hands and his body lead him, the way they always did on the field. He fought out of his own shirt with frantic haste; Robb had stepped back just long enough to get out of his trousers before they came back in to grapple together, naked and slick with fresh sweat, and Robb took a hold on his hips and maneuvered him over to the cot, kissing along his throat, over his shoulders. Jaime went down onto the cot backwards, dragging Robb with him, managing their weight as if they’d been going down on the field together in battle, and then Robb was kissing down his chest, biting a little, oh gods, down his belly—oh, Robb’s mouth, warm and wet and sweet, and Jaime whimpered too, helplessly, his hips rising to thrust up, his hands tangling in the thick dark hair.
“Twice a day sounds about right, honestly,” Robb said, panting, from the floor next to the cot, some impossibly short time later.
Jaime, lying on his back on the cot, staring up at the slanted wall of the tent and still gasping for air, couldn’t manage any words at all. Then he sat up with a sudden jerk and stared around the tent. “Where did Tyrion go?”
Robb gave a snort of laughter. “Don’t worry, he left early on. I think he decided you didn’t need rescuing anymore once you were tearing my clothes off.”
“Once I was!” Jaime said, glaring down, but Robb only grinned up at him, easy and unrepentant, naked and with one arm behind his head like a sumptuous feast laid out for the devouring, and Jaime found his breath coming hard. There was a strange prickling sensation dredging its way up through his belly and his chest, a hunger he’d drowned so deep he hadn’t known it was even there. He’d found other things to want instead—the sword, the tourney, the thrill of battle—but they’d been smaller fish in safe, shallow waters, all scattering away now as the leviathan came up again at last, with panic tangled around it like a lost fishing net.
As if he’d seen it, Robb’s gaze softened a little, and he rolled up with prowling grace to come and lean over the cot, propping himself over Jaime’s shoulders. He bent and nuzzled at his throat, kissing under his ear, along his jaw, slowly, giving him time to grow used to it before Robb reached his mouth and began coaxing kisses out of him, each one a little more lush, a little more devouring, until the panic wore off and went tumbling away into the depths and Jaime was shaking and open beneath his lips and hands, nothing but the hunger left churning in his belly. “Oh,” he groaned, wantonly, letting one of his legs slide down off the cot.
“Mm,” Robb murmured back, low and satisfied, and put his hand on Jaime’s thigh, sliding it up, and Jaime reached down and covered it with his own, drawing it between his legs to stroke over his cock, his balls, thrusting a little into the touch, and then even further back, Robb’s fingers drifting over him, just pressing the tip lightly in. Jaime pushed his hand harder down and his hips up to meet it, begging, and Robb nuzzled at his neck some more and then said into his ear, softly, his voice lust-thickened, “After we’re married.”
“Oh, you bastard,” Jaime said, a snarl, but Robb only grinned against him, victoriously, and nipped at the lobe of his ear.
“Come on, Lannister,” he said. “It’s ten minutes at the tree, then we’ll all have a party and I’ll drag you off to the tent as soon as politeness allows.”
“You’re doing all this for a trade route,” Jaime said, in protest, because he wasn’t going to just yield that easily.
“For duty,” Robb said, agreeing. “But I have to admit, the fun of tormenting you is starting to be a close second.” He snatched another kiss and Jaime’s breath before he could use it to splutter out fresh indignation, and then slid the back of his knuckles gently along his jaw, a caress, tender. “Duty’s just another word for all the hard parts of love, isn’t it? Real love doesn’t come, doesn’t last, without it. And you know it, too. You could’ve had the easy part of it before now; I don’t doubt that half the men in Westeros would’ve lined up to suck your cock. But you couldn’t find a way to have the work: the vows, the quarrels, and aye, the trade route; the bargaining, the lands, the children—it matters, it does matter to you! But if you’d taken the match your father wanted to make for you, you wouldn’t have had any of the easy part. But now we’ll have both, and that’s what you wanted, so will you stop grousing about it and come and be happy already?”
“I’m so glad I have you to tell me these things!” Jaime said, in irritation that was at least ten times more vast because he had the uncomfortable suspicion that Robb was right.
“As you should be,” Robb said, intolerably smug; he stood up and held his hand out, and Jaime scowled at him and then caught him by the hand and gave him a yank as he shoved Robb’s leg out from under him at the same time, and pushed up from the cot even as Robb fell forward into his arms, twisting them over so Robb tumbled back down into the place where he’d just been lying—with an extremely satisfying squawk of surprise—and he got on top instead, pinning Robb’s hands over his head.
“Maybe the formalities will have to wait a bit,” he told Robb, with some smugness of his own, and slid his other hand up Robb’s thigh to pull it up around his waist. “I would have won if you’d fought fair, you know.”
“Well, then I suppose I owe you a ransom myself,” Robb said, his eyes gone bright with wolfish hunger of his own, lustful and eager and unashamed.
# End