AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 100 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Jaime Lannister POV )
Jaime quite liked Highgarden, the truth be told. It was a splendid castle, with 3 towering white curtain walls and more than 50 towers, it dominated the shore of the Mander from its position on a tall hill above the river. The outer wall served as a border between the fields of yellow roses, carefully cultivated over thousands of years by small folk, that stretched away in all directions towards fruitful orchards and idyllic farms.
Currently, Jaime could see none of that though, as he was inside the outer wall, enjoying one of the Castle's more famous features.
Or trying to at least.
Jaime pressed his back up against the hedgerow, quieting his breathing as he held his wooden shield and padded sword to his breast.
Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap, two pairs of footsteps marched along the opposite side of the hedge. One of them sounded heavier than the other- probably Mortimer, Ser Tarly's squire.
Jaime heard them pass the opening beside him, not stopping for more than a moment to look, and then he fell upon them. His wooden sword struck Mortimer in the back and sent the boy tumbling into his smaller companion, now revealed to be Pyter, Ser Larys' squire. Jaime grinned as he walked forward and batted the younger boy about his shoulders too.
"That was foul Lannister!" Pyter groaned. "What sort of knight attacks a man from behind?"
"One who's fighting in the hallways of a castle," Jaime replied playfully. "Or why do you think these bouts are in the hedge maze?"
"So that the Tyrells feel like they're getting some use out of their gardening…" Pyter grumbled, but he got up nonetheless, glancing up to where Ser Ronnel Tyrell, Mace's Granduncle and the arms master of Highgarden, was watching the game. "Back to the table for us, I suppose," Pyter grumbled.
"And back into the hedges for me." Jaime grinned, ducking back into the leafy hallways to hide away from sight once again.
Jaime rather adored this game the Highgarden squire's all played. The Hedgerow of the castle, which sat within its outer wall, was cut in such a way that all angles of it, if one was not pressed directly against a hedge, could be seen from atop the middle wall of the castle, which was near a hundred foot high from base to top, unlike the outer wall at 50. This meant that the defenders of the castle could rain murder down on any invaders trying to navigate or hack their way through the hedgerows, but it also made it a wonderful place for the more practical sort of training.
The knights of the Reach had a reputation in some lands of being flowery tourney knights, rather than true warriors, and while Jaime could well attest that they wore a lot of flowers, to think they were incompetent simply because they were foppish was a mistake. Aye, they loved their games and jousts and feasting, but all were set to the purpose of battle.
Jousts and melees taught men well enough to fight, and regular feasts saw the sons of the Reach grow tall and strong, albeit sometimes a mite heavier around the waist. This hedge-maze fight was no exception, for these winding paths and leafy corridors in practice resembled the halls and chambers of a castle or the alleys of a city street, and Jaime had heard tell that such fighting was the bloodiest and most gruesome form of warfare.
The game was a melee played out in the hedge maze, and it could last for hours or whole afternoons if no reason was found to stop it. Two teams of squires were assigned a table and a clearing that was to be their home castle, perhaps a quarter mile down the walls from the other team. Like a tourney melee, each boy Jaime defeated earned him a point, but unlike a tourney melee, the boys could return to their home castle and after a period of five minutes (measured by an hourglass) had passed, they could return to the fight.
Ser Ronnel or one of the other knights made sure that it was all in fair play, and while some of the boys did come out of it quite battered and bruised, most all of them enjoyed it. It was much better than yet another spar in the courtyard, or worse a day spent maintaining their master's armor. That was one menial task that Lord Luthor mercifully spared Jaime due to his status.
Returning his focus to the game at hand, Jaime paused as he heard the tromp of clanking boots, one or two rows over. He grinned, only one of the squires in Highgarden yet had plate armor. Even Jaime made do with a chainmail shirt for the moment, though his father had arranged that the Tyrells would have a proper suit made for him if he entered any tourneys.
Jaime shouted loud enough to carry over the hedges. "Is that you over there Mace?" The Tyrell heir was on the opposite team from Jaime today, and that meant that both of them would be coming to dinner bruised, possibly bleeding. "I can hear your clunky suit of plates from a mile away."
"Jaime! A good afternoon to you too! Give me a moment… Ah! There's a clearing where we ought to meet a bit ahead if you fancy some sores on your ass."
"I fancy putting some knocks on your head!" Jaime replied over the hedgerows even as he made haste towards the clearing, having spotted it now as well. He grinned as he saw the older boy step out ahead of him.
Mace was tall at 16 years old, technically a man-grown now, but still a squire for the moment. He was in no rush- he had explained. Being a squire was hardly a great inconvenience and he was planning to win the tourney at Horn Hill in a few months to earn a proper knighting with trumpets and such. Jaime was rather hoping to take that knighthood for himself, but even if he won he probably wouldn't get it. In truth, Jaime had learned, it was very rare to see a squire knighted before the age of 13, not unless he'd seen a real battle.
Jaime thought it unfair, but that wasn't to say that Mace Tyrell didn't deserve to be a knight.
With more than a foot of height over Jaime, and nearly as long a reach, Mace struck first, his padded sword whipping around in a slice at Jaime's shoulder, and Jaime was forced to duck back, because he had fought with Mace many times now, and knew that the older boy, now legally a man, had fine control with the edge of his blade.
The sideways cut could have struck up or down or turned into a thrust seamlessly in the hand of the Tyrell heir, just as Jaime himself could manage. That meant that it was worthless to engage Mace on his own tempo. If it came to it he could just drag Jaime into a brawl and beat him to the ground, as had often been the result of their sparring. No, Jaime only won when he managed to get off good, solid hits against Mace, which has become infinitely harder since he started wearing Platemail. That made it almost completely unfair.
Almost, but not quite.
"What's wrong Jaime? Gotten tired of sporting a bloody lip?"
"Figuring out how to give you a bloodier one." Not the best quip, but passable. Jaime thought he could have managed better Banter if he wasn't constantly backpedaling out of the range of the armored boy's strikes.
It really was quite unfair. Anything less than a blow that could knock Mace over would be barely noticeable to the boy.
With that in mind…
Jaime dodged another couple of swings, his plan was formed now, he just needed to execute it. All done up in his armor, Mace was still good but he had a tendency to get overconfident, and he couldn't see as well.
Jaime used that to his advantage as with the next swing, rather than letting Mace recover, he rammed his shield as hard as he could into the tip of the other boy's sword, giving Jaime enough time to step around to the left of it before Mace had full control. With a smooth motion, Jaime pushed his sword towards Mace's face in a thrust, causing the older boy to raise his shield and block it, completely cutting off his line of sight, which was exactly what Jaime wanted.
Since Mace had started the exchange by stepping forward into his swing, his right foot was extended forward from his left in the ground, and Jaime brought his own momentum around to crash into the older boy's back, taking advantage of his extended footing to send Mace stumbling forward into the hedge. With a laugh of triumph, Jaime ran up behind him and shoved him further into the hedge, kicking at his backside with his foot.
"Aaagh, aagh, damn it Jaime I give!" Mace yelled as he thrashed about now half stuck in the branches and thoroughly discombobulated. Casually, Jaime delivered one last kick to his armored behind, then helped drag the larger boy out of the hedgerow, tugging him out by his armor.
The thoroughly embarrassed Mace Tyrell that emerged from the bush had a branch poking out of his helmet still covered in leaves, and he grunted as he pulled the Bascinet off of his head. "Damn it Jaime, did you have to do that?" He complained without an ounce of heat. "I was having fun there for a bit."
"I did!" Jaime replied cheerfully. "In fact I believe that was the cleanest win I've ever gotten on you, not a scratch on me."
"Only scratch on me is on my aching pride." Mace grumbled, "How did you move there? I didn't see you get behind me."
"I just stepped through the whole motion, when you blocked my thrust I was already halfway around," Jaime said cheerfully. "I knew you wouldn't be able to see." Jaime tapped his head.
"Jaime, you are a frightening lad," Mace commented as he finished brushing the leaves out of his hair. "Not as good as me without cheating like that, but still."
"Cheating? It was your footwork that did you in!" Jaime protested, but Mace only laughed.
"Everything's cheating if it's making me lose." He clapped Jaime on the back, "Say what's say we head up to the castle for dinner already. Have some lunch, we can go visit little Willas!" Jaime smirked as he heard the cheerfulness in Mace's voice. The older boy was already a father, married to Lady Alerie Hightower, who had already been pregnant during the King's tourney when Jaime had met Mace. Apparently, the Tyrells wasted no time in forming alliances with their bannermen, though he supposed that Callum's betrothal to Elia had been no less premature.
"Yes, I'd like that I think. He's so much less whiny than his father."
"Hey!"
For his part, Jaime rather like little Willas Tyrell, the cute babe had fat cheeks and a tranquil, almost contemplative look. It reminded him of Tyrion as a baby, only not nearly as ugly. As for Lady Alerie, he had no hard feelings for the woman. Unlike some of the other women of Highgarden.
Jaime did not much like Mace's family. Lord Luthor was fine, cheerful, did all the things a Lord ought to do, and did so with a smile. He spent a good amount of time teaching Jaime in the yard and had a relaxed sort of aura that had shocked Jaime at first. It was so different from the cold steel eyes and flint claws of Jaime's own father. Lord Luthor heaped praises upon Mace and Jaime both at every opportunity, where Jaime could only remember a few occasions that Father gave him so much as an approving nod.
No, Lord Luthor and Mace were fine, but Lady Olenna and her daughters? Janna was the most tolerable and she was still egregiously boring. She didn't know a thing about knights or horses or adventure, and while Jaime had no issue with embroidery, fancy dresses, or flowers, the fact that they seemed to be all the girl was interested in baffled him.
She seemed to be insulted when he so much as suggested that she could perhaps join them on a hunt sometime. The girl liked hawking as a hobby, but that was about the most exciting thing she did, and Jaime didn't have the patience to stand still in a field while a bird did all the work. Janna was thus relegated to boring at best.
Mina, and Especially Lady Olenna were worse than boring. They were mean. They sniped at every little thing Mace and to a lesser extent Jaime did, like a pair of chattering songbirds, they would go on for hours during dinner practicing their insults, subtle and unsubtle at the boy's expense.
Lady Olenna would even make fun of Lord Luthor in his own castle! Being around them was like being ground down by sandpaper or a whetstone, constant irritation at all hours of the day. A lady should be beautiful, fair, and charming, and while Mins was pretty and Lady Olenna was probably beautiful when she was younger, the poison tongues of the mother and daughter put him off of them completely.
Jaime hoped that if he must have a wife, that she would be more like Cersei. Someone fiery enough to match his pace, beautiful as the striking sunlight, and skilled enough to match him in all things, be it the yard or… elsewhere. Jaime felt his cheeks flush a bit at that thought, but shook it off after a moment, following Mace up out of the hedge maze and leaving the other boys to continue the fight behind them with the best combatants gone.
They were halfway past the blue tower when the runner found him with a letter from his sister which had just arrived at the Rookery, one that made Jaime smile. Cersei was going home? That meant that She, Callum, and Tyrion would all be in the same place for the first time in ages!
Perhaps he ought to ask Lord Luthor to take a trip to Casterly Rock soon, so he could see his siblings once again.
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