Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 189 News from the Lord of Winterfell
"I think so. Before, when Ser Dondarrion led us, we upheld the law and protected the people. We were enemies of anyone who harmed the weak, and we believed in and practiced chivalry. The people of the Riverlands and the common people loved us and believed that we represented justice and fairness. Life was a bit hard, but to be honest, I was happier at that time."

"There is nothing more just than revenge in this world."

"Of course I'm not against it. However, while taking revenge, can we also care about the interests of civilians as before? That would also be good for us, right?"

"You're not coming to take me into the mountains, are you, Watt?"

It was a dream, Brienne thought, but if it was a dream, why was the pain so severe?
She suspected that it was all just a fever dream.

She found herself on a horse, though she had no memory of getting on one. She was now lying face down on the horse's rump, like a sack of wheat, with her wrists and ankles tied up. The rain had stopped for a while, but the ropes that bound her wrists were soaked and very tight. No matter how Brienne twisted, she could not get free. She vaguely remembered asking these people who called themselves the Brotherhood Without Banners, but they would not answer.

Half asleep and half awake, she heard the voices of a girl and a man.

Brienne remembered that she was looking for a girl. A noble girl of thirteen, with blue eyes and auburn hair. Lady Sansa.

She remembered. Jaime gave her the Oathkeeper in King's Landing and sent her to find the mysteriously missing Sansa Stark to fulfill their respective promises to Lady Catelyn. So she returned to the riverlands and got news from the mercenaries that Sandor Clegane had been with a girl, so she began to look for Sandor Clegane in the Three Rivers along the Kingsroad.

But unfortunately, she encountered some members of the Warriors who had fled Harrenhal and were ordered to be slaughtered by the Lannister army at the Crossroads Inn. Brienne and them settled their old and new grudges there. It was originally one against seven, but in the end she killed four of them and replaced the fifth one, Rorge the Fang, with a serious injury. She thought she was dead. New people joined the battle group.

Yes, that's them.

She opened her eyes blearily.

She first looked at the girl in the line. That girl was not the one she was looking for. She was very thin, with brown hair tied into a braid and eyes that looked more mature than her actual age. Brown hair, brown eyes, and average looks.

The girl was talking to a brotherhood member called Watt, who was wearing a patchwork of combat boots, leather armor, and a helmet. He carried a bow and quiver on his back, had thick brown beard on his temples, and his skin was a dry red from the wind and sun.

There were two more people in their group. One was Gendry, the blacksmith she had met at the Crossroads Inn—even now, when Brienne saw him, she was still shocked by his similarity to Renly Baratheon. The other was a bearded man with thick white hair and a terrible scar on his head.

The Brotherhood member called Watt replied, "Jennie, I'm not. I just... maybe there are other things we can do instead of risking our lives to avenge a noble lady. I'll be honest. I joined the Brotherhood because of what Ser Dondarrion did to the civilians in the Riverlands, but the Brotherhood is obviously not what it was at the beginning. How many people have been hanged without trial by the Brotherhood after Ser Dondarrion's death? Are we any different from other criminals and bandits from now on?"

"Watt." The girl looked complicated, but she didn't give an answer. She just asked, "Where are you going next?"

"Go find the Mad Hunter and Greenbeard. They used the gold coins confiscated from the Hound to buy food south of the Mander River to help the people in the Three Rivers area as instructed by Sir Beric. I think they may need help. I'm going to find them. Look, I'm not leaving. I'm just going south. My heart is always with the brothers in the Brotherhood. The brothers' food for the winter is waiting for me. I will come back sooner or later."

"And me." The other man also said, "Jenny, Watt and I will go to the south to meet them. We will not return to Kongshan for the time being."

"Merry, you too?" Jenny's face was filled with worry. "Why did you tell me these things? Can't you keep them from me?"

Watt spread his hands: "Jenny, we will come back, and we will still have to find you then."

"The Hound?" Brienne heard them mention the Hound. "Gentlemen, I am looking for someone." She moved, and her whole body was in pain. "Untie me. Please. Have mercy on me. I am in pain. I am bleeding."

No one answered her.

She looked at Gendry, who had Renly's black hair. He had a bitter face and seemed a little overwhelmed. "Gendry, please."

Gendry looked up at the girl called Jeyne. They exchanged a glance.

Gendry replied, "No. You must be tied until... until the lady summons you." He looked at the two elders of the Brotherhood in front of him and said, "The lady wants you to answer for your crimes."

Brienne saw the struggle on his face.

"My lady?" Brienne thought of the rumors on the way. "Lady Stoneheart, do you mean her?"

Gendry answered, "Some people call her that. Others call her Sister Silent, Our Lady of the Heartless, The Gallows."

The gallows. Brienne thought of the bodies she had seen on the road, hanging from the bare brown branches, their faces black and swollen. She was suddenly terrified. She thought of failing Jaime, and Lady Catelyn, as she had failed Renly.

Her head began to spin, her words were gibberish: "I'm looking for a girl, the girl of the Hound. My oath. Please, I must find her. My sword." She realized that she didn't have the sword belt under her, the sword that Ser Jaime had given her. Oathkeeper. His oath, Brienne's oath. "Please, I must find my sword." She was soaked with sweat, hot and shivering.

The girl finally spoke: "She is seriously ill. Let her rest. I will give her some wine."

"Then we shall part here, Jenny," said Watt. "I hope all is well when we return."

".Good-bye, then, old Watt, and Merry."

"I hope you and the kids are well, Janie."

Brienne heard the horses pull away. Her horse suddenly stopped, and a pair of strong hands grabbed her and laid her on the ground, with her back against the tree.

The girl named Jenny held a water bag close to her: "Drink this, miss."

Brienne took a sip and spat it out. The taste was strong and sour. "Water, please give me water."

The girl brought the wine to Brienne's lips again. "Water won't stop the pain, but this will."

The red wine flowed down her chin and dripped onto her chest. Her whole body was in pain. She cried out in pain.

"Your arm is broken, and your ribs are broken. Two or three ribs. I gave you some simple treatment, but it's not good."

“You are the innkeeper of the Crossroads Inn.” Brienne finally recognized her.

The girl squinted and said, "So what?"

“Your name is Jeyne?” Brienne asked.

"Janey Hyde," she answered.

Brienne remembered what she had heard. When the Lannister army arrived here, they hanged Martha Hyde, the owner of the famous inn, in public because Tyrion of the Lannister family was captured by Lady Catelyn at the Crossroads Inn. Martha's nephew once took over the inn, but was killed by an unknown nobleman during the war. Now Martha's two nieces, Willow and Jeyne, are in charge of the inn.

Brienne realizes that they have become collaborators with the Brotherhood Without Banners.

"Janey, untie me, please," she began to beg, "I'm looking for the hound, and there's a girl with him."

"I know. Sandforth Clegane," Jeyne answered. "The Brotherhood is looking for him, too. They found the boatman who rowed his boat, and the peasants he robbed on the kingsroad. Word is that he went to Riverrun."

She became agitated and coughed.

"Relax," Jenny said.

She pleaded between gasps. "Please, Jeyne. You and Gendry. Please. Please. Let me fulfill my vows."

"No, miss. The lady wants to see you."

Gendry came back with his horse, looking indifferent: "They are coming."

Behind Gendry, faces began to appear, hooded men in rusted armor and leathers, swords and daggers at their hips.

One of them came over, looked down at her from above, and laughed: "Ah, she is almost dead. Perhaps it will save us a rope. But the lady wants to see her hanged."

Hanged. The word made Brienne shudder. "No, no." She looked at Jeyne in fear. "Bread and salt," Brienne gasped, "at the inn... the children and I ate... we shared our bread with your sister..."

"Since the madam came back from the wedding, the hospitality has changed." The girl said. "Many people who thought they were guests have dead bodies by the river."

"We have our way," said the superior. "Guests want beds, we give them trees."

“We have lots and lots of trees,” another man, wearing a rusty helmet and one eye, chimed in. “There’s always plenty of trees.”

Brienne looked at Gendry. He had Renly's looks, but not his kindness. He had a grimace and said nothing.

When they mounted the horse again, they covered her face with a leather hood. There were no eye holes. The leather muffled any sounds.

They're going to hang me, she realized.

She thought of Jaime, of Sansa, of her father back home on Tarth, of her mission and her oath. From time to time she heard the outlaws talking, but could not make out the words. After a while she succumbed to fatigue and fell asleep to the slow, steady pace of her horse.

After an unknown amount of time, she woke up again. She found herself in a cave, lying on a cot, covered with sheepskins, with rocks above her head and tree roots sticking out from the walls. The air was cold and gloomy, with the smell of soil, maggots and medicine.

The only light came from a tallow candle, which smoked in a pool of melted wax.

She found that someone had taken off her clothes and armor, and now she was only wearing a loose woolen robe, thin but freshly washed. Her forearms were clamped with a wooden board and then bandaged with linen. The pain in her ribs seemed to have subsided.

The person guarding her was a ragged gray-haired old man: "Are you awake?"

"What is this place? A dungeon?"

"The cave. May I touch your forehead, young lady?" The old man's hands were scarred and calloused, but surprisingly gentle. "Your fever is gone," he announced, speaking in a Free Cities accent. "Not bad, not bad. Yesterday your skin felt like it was on fire. Jenny was worried we would lose you."

"Jenny?"

"Yes, that's her. People call her 'Long-legged Jenny,' but she's not as tall as you. She set your arm, splinted it, straightened your ribs, and did a great job as a maester. Part of your wound is festering, and I'm sure that's why you have a fever. Jenny should be able to do a better job of healing sword wounds when she learns how to treat them."

She looked at the gray-haired old man strangely and asked curiously, "If you just want to hang me, why did you set my bones, treat my wounds and high fever?" "Why?" The old man looked at the candle, "They told me that you fought bravely in the inn. The people we sent have not arrived yet. They should have arrived near the inn faster and ambushed. If there was smoke rising from the chimney of the inn, they would have rushed there immediately... We have been tracking this group of people for a long time... But despite this, the brothers who went to ambush did not realize that the Bloody Mummer used a stream to hide their tracks and arrived near the inn faster than expected, and they wasted time taking a detour to bypass a team of Frey's knights. If it weren't for you, when Lemon and his people arrived, there would be only corpses left in the inn. Perhaps that's why Jenny treated your wounds. No matter what you did before, these injuries you suffered were for a completely legitimate cause."

No matter what you did before.

"What do you think I did?" she asked. "Who are you?"

"We were the king's people at first," the old man in gray told her, "but the king's people must have a king, and we have not. We were brothers, but our bond has fallen apart. I do not know who we are, except that our path is dark, and the flame does not tell me what awaits at the end of it."

"The flame," Brienne repeated. "You are the Myrish priest, Thoros of Myr."

He looked down at his tattered robes and smiled sadly: "Yes, I am Thoros of Myr... a bad monk and an even worse wizard."

"You lead the Brotherhood Without Banners alongside Lightning Lord Dondarrion."

"The flame of Lord Beric is dead, and a darker shadow leads us in his place."

"Shadow?" she asked. "What will happen to me next?"

"Judgment."

"Trial?" She frowned.

Soros smiled weakly: "Yes."

"I heard about your righteous deeds in the Riverlands."

"Justice." Thoros sighed. "I remember justice. Under Lord Beric's leadership, we acted as if justice were God's will. We were justice incarnate, or so we told ourselves. It tasted so good. We were knights, heroes... but the night is dark and treacherous, my lady. The war has turned us all into monsters."

"You said you were monsters?"

“I said we are all human beings.”

Brienne heard footsteps and saw torchlight flickering in the tunnel.

The monk stood up and said, "I'm afraid our time for chatting is over. The lady must have returned from outside. She sent someone to look for you."

Brienne tried not to look scared. There were four of them, strong men with unruly faces, wearing rusted mail, scale mail, and leather armor. She recognized two of them. They were the ones who had put the leather hood on her under the tree.

She remembered the speaker's laughter. "Haha, did you enjoy your meal?" he asked. "I hope so. That was your last meal."

Soros closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to watch. "Lemon, will she be judged? Or have we fallen to that level?"

The man frowned at the monk and gave no answer: "Take her away."

Brienne did not resist. There were four of them, and she was weak.

They marched her through winding tunnels, twisting and turning, and into a giant cave filled with bandits.

In the middle of the dirt field was a large fire pit. The air was thick with smoke, and many people were warming themselves by the fire. Others were standing along the walls or sitting cross-legged on straw mats. There were women, too, and even a few children, peering from behind their mothers' skirts. The only face Brienne recognized was that of Jeyne Hyde.

In the middle of the cave, on a raised platform, sat a trestle table. Behind it sat a woman dressed in gray, wearing a cloak and a hood. She looked dusty, and the bottom of her cloak was still stained with wet mud. It seemed that she had just returned from the outside to summon Brienne. In her hand was a crown with a bronze hoop and a circle of black iron swords. She was examining it, her fingers feeling the blades, as if testing their sharpness. Her eyes flashed coldly under her hood.

Lady Stoneheart.

Brienne couldn't see her face, but she was already shocked by the dangerous aura around her, and felt a shiver crawling up her spine.

"Madam," the escort announced, "she's here."

"Yes," someone added, "Kingslayer's bitch, Lannister's lackey."

She argued, "How can you call me that?"

"You called his name while you were unconscious."

She wanted to explain: "It's just..."

"Hmph, you stink of a lion, running dog." Another bandit stepped forward, holding Brienne's Oathkeeper in his hand. "This sword proves she is a lion."

The sword was pulled out of the sheath and placed in front of Lady Stoneheart. In the light of the fire, the black and red ripples showed the sharpness and extraordinaryness of the sword, but Lady Stoneheart's eyes were only fixed on the round head at the back of the hilt: a golden lion's head.

"And this." Someone else took out a piece of parchment and placed it next to the sword. "It has the seal of the Lion King on it, saying that the bearer is working for him." She found that the man was the gray-haired monk Thoros.

Mrs. Stoneheart began to read the letter.

“Ser Jaime gave me this sword for a good purpose,” Brienne said. “He swore an oath to Lady Catelyn Stark—”

"He told his friends to slit her throat," someone interrupted her. "We all know about the Regicide and his oath."

"He promised Lady Catelyn the return of her daughters." She realized that it was no use explaining, but she went on anyway. "But when he arrived in King's Landing, they were gone. Jaime sent me out to find the Lady Sansa—"

"Suppose you find that girl," one asked, "what will you do with her?"

She responded, "Protect her. Take her to safety."

The man laughed. "A safe place, the dungeon in King's Landing?"

"Do not."

"You can deny it all you want. The sword and the paper both prove you're lying."

“Please believe me, ma’am,” she pleaded.

Mrs. Stoneheart did not answer. She paused for a moment, then reached under her chin and grasped her neck, as if she were strangling herself. But she spoke, her voice broken and tortured, as if it came from her throat, hoarse and gasping, like the sound of a death rattle.

Brienne was uneasy. "I don't understand what she's saying?"

Someone said, "She asked you the name of the sword."

"Oathkeeper Sword."

The disturbing hissing sound began again, and Lady Stoneheart spoke again.

"She said it should be called 'Oathbreaker'. Used for betrayal and murder, just like you."

"Who did I betray?"

"Her, have you forgotten who you swore to serve?"

Her? Brienne had only ever sworn to one woman. "Impossible. She's dead."

“Death and guest rights, they don’t mean what they used to mean.”

Brienne was surprised and looked at Lady Stoneheart. She lifted her hood and untied her face covering, revealing a horrible white face with strips of flesh clinging to her face from her eyes to her chin. Some of the gaps were clotted with dried blood, while others showed the bones underneath. There was a shocking wound on her neck, from one ear to the other.

"Lady Catelyn?" Brienne said incredulously.

The thing that was Catelyn Stark made a sound again.

Someone translated: "What else do you have to say?"

Brienne was as if in a dream: "I have never betrayed you, I swear on the Seven Gods, I swear on my sword. I heard about the girl beside the Hound. My lady, they went to Riverrun, please give me a chance to prove it."

Madam Stoneheart spoke again.

"No," someone translated, "she said you have only one choice to prove your oath to her. Either take up the sword and kill the regicide, or be hanged as a traitor. Sword or rope, choose."

"Lady Catelyn, I... you don't understand, Jaime... we were held captive by the Blood Mummers, and he saved me from being raped, and then he came back and jumped into the bear pit with his bare hands... I swear to you, he is not like that. He sent me to find Sansa, to keep her safe. He could not have been at the Red Wedding."

There was a long silence.

Madam Stoneheart croaked.

This time Brienne understood.

"Hanging."

Brienne closed her eyes in resignation.

"Ma'am." Suddenly, Brienne realized that it was Jeyne who was speaking. "I'm sorry to bother you at this time. In fact, I came here this time to bring you a piece of news. The brother who went to Riverrun to inquire brought back information that the Hound did take one of your daughters to Riverrun, but that was not Sansa, but Arya. Arya Stark publicly announced in Riverrun that she would succeed the Duke of Winterfell and called on all the lords who were close to Stark to lend her troops and send her back to the North to rescue the Great Wall."

(End of this chapter)