An Honest Woman | Female Jaime Lannister | GOT/ASOIAF

Light Of The Seven

The king is dead, they told her, never knowing that Joffrey was her son as well as her sovereign.

"The Imp opened his throat with a dagger," A man declared at the inn where they spent the night. "He drank his blood from a big gold chalice," The man did not recognise the thin, short-haired woman in a modest faded yellow gown, no more than any of them did, so he said things he wouldn't have had he known who was listening.

"It was poison did the deed," The innkeep insisted. "The boy's face turned black as a plum," Pia turned to her, concerned, horrified, and Jaime felt Brien's eyes on her, but she just stared, not moving, not saying a word. My son is dead.

"May the Father judge him justly," A septon murmured. For Joff's sake, I hope he does not. 

"The dwarf's wife did the murder with him," An archer swore. "Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws,"

Jaime sat silent through it all, letting the words wash over her, a horn of ale forgotten in her hand. Joffrey. My firstborn. My son. She thought of the boy's face - a face she normally associated with feelings of anger, regret and mild disgust - but his features kept blurring into Cersen's. He will be furious. Vengeful. Grieving, though for his secret son or for the power the boy brought him? 

Jaime knew she should be in mourning herself, her eyes red from crying. But she was never one to weep publicly. Only to her twin did she show her wounds, and even then... But what wounds are these? My son is dead, and I feel... What did she feel? Not nothing, certainly not, but it wasn't quite grief either. Not like she had grieved for Ashara. Not even like she had for Stannis. 

That night, the more important members of their group had squeezed into the only room left at the inn - the poorest room in the building, lacking even a bed - laying out bedrolls on the wooden floor whilst the others made camp outside. Jaime did cry then, silently, lying between Pia and Brien as everyone else slept.

It wasn't the vile boy Joffrey had grown into that she wept for, but the golden-haired baby she had pushed screaming into the world, had held and soothed and loved. My boy, my first child. 

She hadn't been prepared to love anything more than Cersen, yet holding her son had disproved that notion in ways that awed and terrified her. Memories flashed through her mind; Joffrey as a young child, holding his hand as he took his first steps, laughing as he played with toy knights. Jaime supposed she wept for what the boy had become as well, for what mother, even a mother like her, would wish to see their child grow to be a tyrant? Could I have done more for him? I tried, I did... but there was poison in him from the start. 

Despite her best efforts, a small sob escaped her. 

"Jaime?" Brien's whisper in the darkness made her jump. The knight had slept the other side of her since Harrenhal, an arrangement they had wordlessly agreed upon. She lay on her side now, facing him as she believed him to be asleep. "Are you alright?" Jaime had the mad urge to laugh. 

"Wiser men would have heard my weeping and turned over to get some sleep," She whispered back, her cutting tone perhaps ruined by the bitten-back sob that followed. "Or pretended to, at least. If I want your comfort, I'll ask for it, boy,"

"You're allowed to grieve," He said, stubborn as ever. "He was your son - "

"He was a monster," She cut him off. "He killed Ned Stark and started this whole bloody mess in the first place. And regardless, I swore to myself on the road to Harrenhal that no one else would see my tears. Go back to sleep, ser,"