A Storm of Swords Read Online Free PDF Page A

in this one
. Cleos was his Aunt Genna’s son by that dullard Emmon Frey, who had lived in terror of Lord Tywin Lannister since the day he wed his sister. When Lord Walder Frey had brought the Twins into the war on the side of Riverrun, Ser Emmon had chosen his wife’s allegiance over his father’s.
Casterly Rock got the worst of that bargain
, Jaime reflected. Ser Cleos looked like a weasel, fought like a goose, and had the courage of an especially brave ewe. Lady Stark had promised him release if he delivered her message to Tyrion, and Ser Cleos had solemnly vowed to do so.
    They’d all done a deal of vowing back in that cell, Jaime most of all. That was Lady Catelyn’s price for loosing him. She had laid the point of the big wench’s sword against his heart and said, “Swear that you will never again take up arms against Stark nor Tully. Swear that you will compel your brother to honor his pledge to return my daughters safe and unharmed. Swear on your honor as a knight, on your honor as a Lannister, on your honor as a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard. Swear it by your sister’s life, and your father’s, and your son’s, by the old gods and the new, and I’ll send you back to your sister. Refuse, and I will have your blood.” He remembered the prick of the steel through his rags as she twisted the point of the sword.
    I wonder what the High Septon would have to say about the sanctity of oaths sworn while dead drunk, chained to a wall, with a sword pressed to your chest?
Not that Jaime was truly concerned about that fat fraud, or the gods he claimed to serve. He remembered the pail Lady Catelyn had kicked over in his cell. A strange woman, to trust her girls to a man with shit for honor. Though she was trusting him as little as she dared.
She is putting her hope in Tyrion, not in me.
“Perhaps she is not so stupid after all,” he said aloud.
    His captor took it wrong. “I am not stupid. Nor deaf.”
    He was gentle with her; mocking this one would be so easy there would be no sport to it. “I was speaking to myself, and not of you. It’s an easy habit to slip into in a cell.”
    She frowned at him, pushing the oars forward, pulling them back, pushing them forward, saying nothing.
    As glib of tongue as she is fair of face
. “By your speech, I’d judge you nobly born.”
    “My father is Selwyn of Tarth, by the grace of the gods Lord of Evenfall.” Even that was given grudgingly.
    “Tarth,” Jaime said. “A ghastly large rock in the narrow sea, as I recall. And Evenfall is sworn to Storm’s End. How is it that you serve Robb of Winterfell?”
    “It is Lady Catelyn I serve. And she commanded me to deliver you safe to your brother Tyrion at King’s Landing, not to bandy words with you. Be silent.”
    “I’ve had a bellyful of silence, woman.”
    “Talk with Ser Cleos then. I have no words for monsters.”
    Jaime hooted. “Are there monsters hereabouts? Hiding beneath the water, perhaps? In that thick of willows? And me without my sword!”
    “A man who would violate his own sister, murder his king, and fling an innocent child to his death deserves no other name.”
    Innocent? The wretched boy was spying on us
. All Jaime had wanted was an hour alone with Cersei. Their journey north had been one long torment; seeing her every day, unable to touch her, knowing that Robert stumbled drunkenly into her bed every night in that great creaking wheelhouse. Tyrion had done his best to keep him in a good humor, but it had not been enough. “You will be courteous as concerns Cersei, wench,” he warned her.
    “My name is Brienne, not
wench
.”
    “What do you care what a monster calls you?”
    “My name is Brienne,” she repeated, dogged as a hound.
    “Lady Brienne?” She looked so uncomfortable that Jaime sensed a weakness. “Or would
Ser
Brienne be more to your taste?” He laughed. “No, I fear not. You can trick out a milk cow in crupper, crinet, and chamfron, and bard her all in silk, but that