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“It is nothing much,” Brienne said, half bashful, half defiant, shoving the bundle of fabric into Jaime’s arms. “I just noticed the rips in your tunic and, well, this is no time to be walking around with holes in your clothes. These days it feels as though the wind can rattle a man’s teeth out of his gums and tear through his flesh. My stitches are ugly, I know that, so you need not make mock. But until you find a worthy seamstress, it will have to do.”
Jaime raised his eyebrows. “My lady, you must forgive me. So slow that I am, that I quite failed to keep up with your breathless ramble. Pray explain, what were you doing with my tunic?” He smirked. “Or did you merely wish to keep it close, to feel the cloth that had been close against my skin?”
“No!” Brienne protested, mortified that Ser Jaime had come too close to the truth, for more than once had she stroked the fabric and held the tunic under her nose for a sniffe. She took a breath. “I sewed the holes in your tunic, for you will find no one North who is willing to sew up your clothes. Here, people tend for themselves.”
“Of course they do,” Jaime said dryly, for just that day before he had seen two red eyed, bent backed maids towing up a tub for Lady Sansa’s bath. He paused, finally comprehending the truth of Brienne’s words. “My lady, do you mean to say that you sewed up my tunic for me?”
Brienne stared at the ground. “It was nothing,” she said mulishly.
Jaime blinked. ‘No wife,’ the vow had said. And when he met Brienne, he had known no woman as true as her would care to give her his hand. And yet, here she was, sewing up his tunic. “On the contrary, my lady,” he said gently. “My lady, this is everything.”