Chapter Text
She pressed her back to the wall and then, cautiously, leaned out again. The yard—tall, narrow, and gloomy as a well—ended above in a scrap of serene sapphire sky, and below in a round patch of cobblestones. In the arches leading here from the west and the south lay the shadow of the coming sunset. The men continued their argument, but Brienne could not hear the words—only the voices, hollow and angry, flying off the walls and crossing like swords in a duel. At last Tyrion said something, but no reply followed. He repeated himself several times, with mounting insistence. Then—she craned her neck again—there came a short, dull clink.
A sack fell at Jaime’s feet, a heavy sack, clearly packed tight with coins. Jaime remained standing, did not pick up the money. Tyrion muttered angrily; finally Jaime replied to him in a low voice. He raised his hand with the golden palm and pointed toward the southern gallery. Tyrion stamped his heel in fury. He turned and strode away, as always so quick and deft on his tiny crooked legs.
When he disappeared, Jaime remained standing over the sack of money. Slowly he lifted it—and then lifted his head. He noticed Brienne at the window. His brows drew together over the bridge of his nose, and she felt a dull, oppressive heaviness in her chest. She pressed her back to the wall again, wondering why she had not drawn the curtains. Watching two brothers quarrel was painful: as if her guilt in that narrow well-like yard grew larger and larger, swelling and expanding like a tumor. Or like her accursed belly.
Brienne touched it, again and again convincing herself that for now it was not yet so obvious, not yet so… bad? But she was afraid to go out to Tyrion. She knew what they were arguing about. The Hand demanded her return to Dorne; the unholy husband (and not even a husband, truth be told) refused; and she had been assigned the role of a silent shadow at the window—and had become just that. A quiet shadow, bloated with her own weight, the guilty cause of every Lannister misfortune, disappointment, loss, and ruined plan.
As always, she thought distantly. As always.
Shuffling steps were heard, and Brienne involuntarily glanced at her dress and adjusted her hair. Old tricks, resurfacing so naturally now in adulthood. Her dress had been altered from two, perhaps three gowns left behind by her father’s companions. It was made of expensive, beautiful dark-blue brocade, but there had not been enough fabric for the sleeves. Just beneath the breasts, numerous folds had been sewn, meant to conceal—at least somewhat from prying eyes—the screaming disgrace of the daughter of Tarth. On the bodice the tailor had embroidered a sun encircled by crescents. Beneath this dress Brienne had to wear another—more like a thin chemise—brought from Dorne, with long gathered sleeves fastened at lovely cuffs of blue pearl. Thus attired, like for a winter fair, she moved through the corridors and galleries of her ancestral castle. And she also had to carefully arrange her hair, adorn it with combs—also left behind by one of her father’s concubines. Whether that woman had been killed along with her father, or had fled without taking her gifts, or had left earlier—no one had bothered to tell Brienne. She was too timid to ask.
Into the room floated the chief cause of her timidity and excessive efforts. Many wonders, many adventures of various kinds had occurred since the moment Brienne left Evenfall. But the greatest wonder now wandered through the rooms, bulging her tin eyes and acting as if nothing were amiss: Septa Roelle, alive and unharmed. As always, dreadful in her displeasure and magnificent in her masculine roughness with which she continued to treat Brienne. Neither threats nor shouting nor heart-to-heart talks from Jaime—nor Brienne’s feeble attempts to defend herself—helped now, just as they never had. Roelle was one of those people who would die under torture or at the stake, yet continue to mutter how poorly the fire was laid, how clumsily the torturers worked, how dull the blades were that tore her flesh, and how badly brought up the incompetent executioner was.
Only the gods—so revered by the stubborn and proud old woman—knew where she had hidden all this time: a gray smudge on the wall, an unheard condemning sigh in a distant castle corridor. The soldiers swore to Brienne that they had not seen Roelle until the very day she appeared to greet her former charge. She must have waited out the troubled times below, in the town or the port.
When she appeared before Brienne, her look was at once martyr-like—and triumphant.
Roelle immediately pierced the innocent lie with which the daughter of Tarth tried to shield herself. She said:
“I know the Lannister is no husband to you—everyone here knows that—and that your child is not his bastard at all, but Martell’s lawful son—everyone knows that too. Spare your strength, do not trouble yourself lying to me, Brienne, my child.”
Brienne sat on the bed, mouth agape—then closed it, shaking her head. Rumors about the child must have run ahead of her; Tyrion had surely had a hand in it too, trying to snatch back the slipping Dornish happiness.
“What, you didn’t expect it?” the septa asked venomously. “And when you married that Dornishman, when you spread your legs for him—what were you thinking?! Who ever put it into your head that he was taking you for love? I always told you the truth, and you never listened, shameless cow that you are. You were even ready to give yourself to that sword-swallower Renly, you foolish head. Always hunting adventures, believing knights and lords who mocked you for your inheritance. And that incestuous Lannister is here, no doubt, to curry favor with his brother—there’s talk the little lion intends to restore your Dornish throne and then rule himself. You don’t have much wit for such matters, of course.”
To this Brienne found no answer either. She only said quietly:
“It seems to me we were never parted, Septa Roelle.”
Roelle was pleased with this reply; it seemed to sum up her life and the triumph of all she believed in. And she believed, fervently and sincerely, in only one thing: that Brienne of Tarth deserved the worst treatment and the worst fate.
Yet she bore a certain jealousy toward Brienne, a strange tenderness. A Baratheon soldier who once said something rude to the heiress of Evenfall received such a beating from Roelle that feathers flew. She shouted that the insolent man had dared disrespect the heiress and a pregnant lady, that he was a boor, a scoundrel, a lecher, a sinner, that he should be executed—and then roasted in Hell for his rudeness. Roelle was quite ready to roast him herself, determined to do so. Many considered her a mad old woman, driven insane by the sorrows of war. The soldier retreated, muttering about mad witches; as for Brienne, only embarrassed, incoherent apologies were offered her.
But the septa allowed herself much—anything, really. She nagged about how ugly and disheveled Brienne was, grumbled about how huge and fat she was, foretold a difficult childbirth, and took food, sword, or ornaments from her—everything, everything—to bend her to her will, to make everything as it had been before, in the “happy times,” as Roelle put it. The happy times were when Selwyn was alive, when Brienne was obedient to her, listened in everything, lived from one bleak command to another, from one cruel litany to the next, from one vile lesson to a new, even more loathsome one.
Roelle hated the Lannister with the most delightful sincerity, and it could not be said the feeling was not mutual. At the same time she now constantly badgered Brienne, instructing her in married life: how badly Brienne cared for her husband (not husband, the septa would gloatfully correct herself at once, but what did it matter if it was necessary to scold Brienne), how poorly and disrespectfully she treated him, how she could neither amuse him with conversation nor surround him with gentle care.
Entering the room, Roelle immediately saw that Brienne was standing by the window, wiping her damp palms on her dress. The septa began setting clay plates and silver dishes of food on the table, casting mocking glances at her victim.
“Why are you standing there?” she finally said. “Help. He’s coming here. Help—don’t stand like a post. Even a lawful husband would run from such a wife. The little lion has come to take him away from here, and I swear he’ll manage to talk your fool out of staying.”
“Out of what?” Brienne asked cautiously.
She hoped Roelle had overheard the brothers’ conversation.
“Out of staying here with you, that’s what. He’s surely already regretted a hundred times that he dragged himself here with you. The castle is poor, ruined, servants have fled, half the rooms are given over to boors from the Stormlands, and the other half are uninhabitable. An inheritance? Pah! Even a rat in a dungeon has more goods. A wife who’s incompetent, slovenly, stupid, stubborn as a cow, and just as ugly. And with a belly growing by the hour, not by the day. Soon it’ll spill out so you won’t see your own feet. What’s keeping him?”
I have no idea, Brienne thought, barely holding back tears. That would have delighted Roelle, and so Brienne suppressed her tears with monstrous effort. Her voice, however, was wet and quiet. The septa could have triumphed if she had not been so busy with her plates and bowls.
“I got him some of the tenderest veal,” Roelle announced. “Found a butcher down below willing to bring us a bit of something for Baratheon coin. You’ll eat too, just be sure to leave him the best pieces. Nothing will happen to you if you fill yourself on trimmings, turnips, and onions, but he’s a man—he needs meat. A man—and a lion at that.”
Roelle chuckled at her own joke.
Brienne began helping her set the table. Jaime entered and, circling the table, remarked in a bored tone:
“Ah. You’re still here.”
“And why shouldn’t I be?” the septa retorted impertinently.
“Yes, indeed. Sometimes I think you’re immortal,” he snorted.
“How polite. How gracious, my lord!”
“And how kind of you to take such care of us.”
“As if there are crowds eager to do so? Ruined lords are not very lucky in that regard.”
“Especially here, on Tarth,” Jaime added acidly.
“…where they have no rights whatsoever,” Roelle snapped at once.
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow with ill humor.
Roelle fearlessly met his gaze and then slammed a stack of plates onto the table with a crash. All this time Brienne watched their skirmish with a mixture of anxiety and disgust. Jaime turned his face toward her, noticed her lost expression—and with visible effort said:
“That’s enough. You’re dismissed, sister. Go.”
Roelle curtsied at once and scurried away, shuffling her worn shoes. If Father were alive, Brienne thought tiredly, if he were alive, he would have seen to shoes for everyone in this castle. He never overlooked anything; everyone was to be fed, clothed, shod. He was a generous man, open, of a soul as broad as Roelle herself used to say—having suddenly imbued his memory with the tenderest affection. Ser Davos once told Brienne how astonished he had been by his generosity, excessive under those circumstances, if not downright dangerous.
Brienne knew none of this. Perhaps the septa hated her for that too—for that shameful, cowardly inability to take the castle into her own hands. The military garrisons remained here, bound by an oath sworn not to her, but to Baratheon. The king was in no hurry—and perhaps had no intention—to indulge her flight, her weakness.
She herself had grown quiet and withdrawn, focused entirely on her womb and her ailments. The rolling of the ship had exhausted her so much that afterward she lay flat for weeks in an empty, dusty little room. Half the furniture was smashed to splinters, half carried off. A gray haze stood before her eyes, and when it passed, everything swam. The walls, it seemed to her, swayed around her. Woodlice crawled over them, rustling beneath torn sheets of silk with which her father had once ordered all the ladies’ chambers to be upholstered.
Jaime sat at the head of the table and stared gloomily at the empty plate before him. Brienne took a plate, served him roast, trying to scoop more meat as Roelle had ordered. She set it before him, laid out a napkin, and poured him wine, holding the jug with a folded towel so that drops would not splash his sleeve or napkin. Then she took another bowl and walked along the table, collecting boiled vegetables and pieces of bread, greens as well, and brought it all back and set it beside his place. Jaime sat motionless, his hand clenched into a fist, the golden hand palm-down.
“Sit,” he said at last. “Sit. Stop this. Eat. Serve yourself and start eating.”
She began to serve herself—but in reverse order, taking vegetables and bread, and more bread, hoping that in his somber brooding he would not notice.
She sat, carefully pulling out the chair and lowering herself with relief; her belly truly protruded now, had begun to hinder her movements. Jaime turned his head toward her but did not raise his face—like a predator scenting prey. It was a bad sign; Brienne already knew that.
“What are you doing?” he asked quietly, slowly.
“What?”
“Has that old crone filled your head with nonsense? About giving your husband the best piece and finishing off bread and turnips yourself? I’ve heard what she spouts down there when she drives the garrison cook.”
“Sorry?” Brienne blinked, not understanding where he was going.
“Damn it, Brienne!” he shouted, and suddenly swept his arm, knocking his plates of food to the floor. Everything crashed down, broke, clattered, and the smell rose—rich and filling—of hot meat in thick gravy of cream and roasted grain.
She jumped to her feet to clean it up, but Jaime caught her wrist and began to rise, his face twisted with rage.
“You think I don’t see? That I’m blind? Stupid? Right here, under your nose!..”
“I don’t understand,” she squeaked, pulling away.
“You understand perfectly. You must not listen to her!”
Brienne tugged her hand toward herself; he tightened his grip and yanked her toward him so that she nearly fell and had to brace her other palm against his chest.
“Listen to me, woman, not her! If I said sit and eat properly, then do as I say,” he hissed into her temple, pressing her with his whole body against the edge of the table.
He moved as if to kiss her—and everything in her fluttered against her will, but a wave of anger rose at once. How cheaply he thought to buy her!
Brienne shoved Jaime away with all her strength.
“To Hell with you. Leave me alone! I’m not going to clean up after you, Jaime Lannister—I can hardly bend anymore! And you! You! You always—!”
She sobbed, pressing her palm to her mouth. Jaime stared, blinking in shock at the change in her mood, his mouth left half open—then, stepping back in silence, he bent and began gathering the shards. He pressed his golden hand to his chest, making it terribly awkward. He stacked the broken pieces on the very edge of the table, then bent again, blinking often and guiltily.
She felt sorry for him almost the instant her fit of anger passed.
“Move away. Let me—go, I’ll do it myself…”
“No, no,” he protested, straightening. “Sit. Brienne! Sit, please, don’t get in my way.”
“Damn it,” she muttered helplessly through clenched teeth, turned, and walked out of the room. Septa Roelle darted past her into the dining hall, no doubt having scented the aroma of scandal so pleasing to her nature. She immediately shrieked:
“Get out of here!”
Brienne turned back in confusion—and saw the septa chasing off Lady Pounce, who had appeared from nowhere. The cat dragged a piece of meat in her teeth and growled dully at the sight of the old woman but did not release her prize, backing under the folds of the tablecloth.
“Leave the cat alone, sister,” Jaime snapped. “Do you really take pleasure in bullying the innocent? At least leave her be…”
Roelle began whining about thieves, because of whom there was nothing to eat in the castle, absolutely nothing, not a crumb… about wasters, about impoverished lords, about those who throw away food—just so, she promised, in Hell demons would scatter their wretched bones across the hot ground for every piece wasted. Jaime weakly argued back, looking like a man resigned to all the misfortunes in the world.
Brienne felt nauseous. She turned away and walked down the corridor leading to the wide galleries and the great balcony above the cliff—once beloved by her. Here the castle of Tarth was built so that it seemed to hover over towering ledges that plunged into the blue sea. Below, waves boiled; and if one looked farther out, carefree turquoise patches were visible under the water—sandy stretches among sharp dark-purple outcrops. Her father had told her stories in childhood, such as that in clear weather one could see mermaids flickering there—their shadows, long hair floating in the transparent water, and green-scaled tails. And she would peer into the sea until her eyes stung. The sun played on the surface with golden and silver sparkles—weightless little coins that belonged to no one, serving only as treasure for those unseen mermaids of Tarth.
She stood there a long time, gripping the marble railing warmed by the autumn sun with both hands. She wanted to close her eyes and find herself—not in another place, but here again, only many years earlier, in her childhood. When there were no terrible days ahead, no rash decisions, no dreadful mistakes.
Footsteps sounded behind her, but Brienne did not turn or open her tightly shut eyes.
“Are you all right? Hey. Everything all right, Brienne?”
Metal clinked against stone.
Brienne opened her eyes and glanced sideways without turning her head. Jaime had set beside her hand a small silver plate, on which lay a piece of meat coquettishly surrounded by circles of carrot, parsnip, and cheerful curls of parsley. Probably Roelle assembled it, she thought bitterly, but remained silent.
“Will you eat?” Jaime offered with poorly concealed hope. “Please. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”
“You have no right to raise your voice at me,” Brienne said, staring straight ahead and blinking away the salty wind. “No right!”
“Yes,” he agreed very calmly and submissively. “Yes. Forgive me. It won’t happen again. Ever.”
“So what, you picked this up off the floor?” she smirked crookedly, only to hear his repentance again.
“Fool,” Jaime muttered in confusion, and she heard him choking with laughter. “What nonsense you’re spouting, my sweet child of Tarth. This is what was left on the table, and I brought it to you, and I will insist: because you haven’t eaten a crumb since morning. Don’t deny it. I know.”
“Then why did you attack me? What came over you? With such stupid accusations?”
He was silent, and Brienne glanced sideways again and saw him standing beside her, hands clasped behind his back, staring out to sea. He frowned when she began questioning him, bowed his leonine head with a stubborn motion; gray strands glinted in his beard, and the wind lifted one long unruly golden lock that always fell onto his high forehead.
“It’s him,” Jaime said reluctantly. “You know. You were watching us from the window.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“You did nothing wrong. Another woman would have burst in during our quarrel and meddled… You’re too delicate for that, that’s all.”
Silence. At last Brienne gathered her courage, drew a deep breath.
“Why was he here?”
Jaime did not answer, and she was already thinking of repeating the question, rephrasing it, when suddenly he parted his lips and, still not turning his head, said:
“He arrived with a ship bound onward to King’s Landing. He demanded that I release you and Martell’s heir back to Dorne. Otherwise, he said, the King would send guards for you and escort you to the capital, where… I don’t know.” He winced as if in pain. “They’d probably decide I should be executed for Martell, while you’d be restored to the throne. Then you’d be married off again, to someone with whom an alliance would be profitable. The child would be taken and sent to Dorne, where the Hand and his lords would rule in his name, while the child would be surrounded by wet nurses and nannies.”
Brienne gasped.
“No. They wouldn’t—”
“That’s the worst that could happen, and he didn’t say it outright—at all. I concluded it could come to that if we continued to resist… And there are many possibilities in between.”
“They won’t do that to me,” she finished desperately, scarcely hearing Jaime’s mournful voice. “No. They can’t. They won’t treat me like that!”
“Maybe not,” he agreed coldly. “You’re dear to them. You’re their treasure. Runaway, yes. Stubborn. Willful.”
She turned away so he would not see her tears. Jaime’s voice changed.
“He brought gold. Threw it at me like alms. I know, he said, that you can’t even feed yourself—and soon there will be three of you. And I heard not only sorrow in his voice, but condemnation—hypocritical, as always. Your woman walks in rags, her castle crumbles and decays, and even a servant—that wretched moldy old woman—pushes you around like a cook kicks stray cats. That’s what he thought, and he didn’t hide it much. When I fled, I least expected that you would flee too—but Tyrion has convinced himself that it was all done in agreement with you. He thinks I’m forcing you into poverty and disgrace.”
Brienne did not know what to say. Her nose stung.
“The worst part is that I feel it myself—that I yielded, gave in, seeing how sick you were from the sea and the rolling, and agreed to go to Tarth, when I should have returned to Pentos and finished what I’d planned.”
“So you didn’t want to be here with me?” she said in a pitiful, wet little voice she herself despised.
Jaime was silent for a long time. Then she felt his hand on her hand. His skin was hot, and these touches always stirred something in her—an unclear feeling, as if again and again, always beside him, she found something precious, inexplicably familiar. She watched, spellbound, as he traced her trembling little finger with his own.
“I want to be only with you, Brienne. You’re a fool if you still don’t understand that,” Jaime said with quiet bitterness. “I want to be yours and for you, and only with you. But not like this. No. Not like this.”
And at last that heart-breaking longing broke through in his voice. Brienne cried out, pressed her left hand to her mouth—and began to weep uncontrollably, awkwardly, bitterly, as she did only with Jaime. Choking on tears, not letting him get a word in, she babbled:
“But I… I don’t… Oh! I don’t know… I… I was so frightened when I learned there would be a child! I’m so… I’m so afraid, listen, listen, I can’t do this, I won’t manage, I’m afraid of it, I’m afraid of dying, afraid the child will die—do you understand that it will be my fault?! And I’m afraid to give birth, I don’t want to, I didn’t want to, and I don’t want to… And I don’t know how to live on, what to do, how to live now?! How? You’re a man, you don’t understand! I don’t know what to do with this life, with what’s happened—how can you… how can you not see? Not understand?!”
And she fell silent, still swallowing tears. No, he didn’t understand, of course. He strove to be with her and help her, but he understood nothing; suddenly it was so clear—the chasm between them was insurmountable and inevitable, and it seemed to her that saying all this she was shouting to a man standing far, far away, on a cliff on the other side, deaf to her cries.
From hot nights and the most beautiful moments, from sweat, moisture, seed, and gods know what other sickly-sweet fluids, something strange is born—new, alien—like a pearl maturing in a shell that had never known pain, from a grain of sand trapped inside. What is a jewel to others is endless pain from within to the shell, growing and multiplying, layering upon itself. Nausea, cramps in the legs, weakness, illness, fear, poverty, disgrace—all of it spinning and spinning, one around another, forming a unique pattern.
I don’t want this pain, I don’t want these fears, I don’t want any child, she wanted to say aloud—but she was afraid of breaking his heart. I don’t want to carry a child, even yours, she wanted to scream; she wanted to tear off this absurd enormous dress tangling at her feet, rip this foreign flesh from herself, be free, leave, put on men’s armor and leap lightly into the saddle.
The way she had yearned for freedom there, imprisoned in Manfrey Martell’s palace—and the way she had feared what would follow the wedding night—suddenly all seemed the only right thing.
“Hey,” Jaime called softly, seeing her tears did not abate. “Hey. Come here. Come on. Come to me.”
He gently turned her, and she weakly pressed her forehead into his shoulder. She felt Jaime shudder as he held her, crying, tighter and tighter.
“I wasn’t glad that you conceived,” he said suddenly, and quite calmly. “I wasn’t, no. I’m not one of those who bind women to themselves that way. I’ve never done that, even with my sister, whom I loved very much. It… just happened, that’s all.”
At the mention of Cersei a wall of anger rose in Brienne again, as if wildfire had been poured into the sea. She recoiled and broke free of his embrace.
“‘Just… happened’?!”
He stared at her, squinting slightly against the sun. Slowly and subtly he smiled.
“Yes. You heard right.”
“An excellent explanation for everything that happens to you,” Brienne began wiping her tears with her splayed palm. Her nose began to run, and before she could bury it in the crook of her elbow she saw Jaime pull a thin folded handkerchief from his pocket.
She took it and blew her nose noisily, hoping to properly annoy the accursed Lannister. But he only smiled gently when she finished.
“Better? Is it easier now?”
“You’re… an unfeeling man,” she muttered. “You don’t understand me at all. And you don’t even want to…”
“I think I understand very well. Listen. The fact that you… that we both… weren’t ready for it doesn’t absolve us of blame, does it?”
She sniffed, sensing where he was going, inwardly indignant—and yet knowing he would again be right.
“And the fact that you didn’t decide to ask for moon tea… You had opportunities. All that time while the army marched through Dorne—you did.”
“Don’t accuse me of not killing your child, Jaime!” she cried angrily. “That’s mercy on my part, not a crime!”
“I’m not accusing you—I even admire it,” he smiled sincerely. “I know how unbearably hard it was for you. And it will be hard. But we’re together. We’ll manage. Just don’t be afraid, all right? You’re with me, and I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Remember, I promised that.”
And you promise again, Brienne thought, as he stepped toward her and embraced her, placing a heavy hand on the back of her head, pressing her so that her face lay in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. She puffed noisily, returned the embrace—not without joy sensing the familiar scent—and indeed it had become for her a sign of salvation, of hope. That scent always comforted her, in the darkest moments. It meant that Jaime was beside her, loved her, and would not abandon her.
Wind, smoke, and steppe grasses: bitter, honeyed, spicy. And tarred logs splashed with seawater that there, in Dorne, was so warm and thick it seemed more like a soup of strange sea creatures.
She rubbed her nose against the rough collar of his doublet and wanted to drive away the treacherous dark thought: you promised, and you did not keep it, and the worst, the most terrible has happened—and keeps happening to us…
Jaime leaned back slightly, made her lift her face. He traced his thumb from the corner of her trembling lips, brushing aside a windblown strand, studying her as always—intently, greedily, as if afraid to miss the smallest sign.
“I want to take you as my wife, Brienne,” he said seriously. “I want it more than anything. For me it is the highest honor, above even knightly vows. But while I am married—even if only in words—this shame will last, and my dream will remain an empty dream, as my younger brother told me.” His lips touched a sad smile. “But I know what must be done, and… yes, I will do as I intended. I will go to them, to Pentos, and ask for a divorce. And our child will bear my name—not Martell, not Tarth. Perhaps I cannot surround you and the child with outrageous luxury or shower you with riches, palaces, and lands—but I will give you all the love I have. And if need be—even more.”
She stared into his darkened eyes.
“You’re leaving?” Brienne finally whispered, scarcely believing her ears. “You’re leaving me AGAIN?!”
Jaime frowned, though some disappointment flickered across his face, as if he had expected this, merely hoped to avoid it, hoped she would bite her tongue and not dare object, demand something.
“It’s necessary,” he began gently.
“You’re leaving?!” she repeated louder.
“No, no, listen, I’ll be back very soon, I—”
“No,” she blurted, trembling with anger and fear. “No. Please. Say you didn’t mean that…”
“But I—”
“Please!”
She pushed his hands away and paced along the railing, breathing noisily and hugging her shoulders. And when he began again to murmur something consoling, reasonable—as usual—she turned sharply toward him.
“Then I’ll go with you.”