Répondre à : AFFC 21 – Brienne IV

[R.Graymarch BarralPosts : 10585]

On retourne avec Brienne dans sa quête perdue d’avance. A la relecture, une fois qu’on a fait le deuil de cette quête, on peut se focaliser sur autre chose et l’ambiance est vraiment très bien décrite, ça confine à l’horreur, au fantastique, au gothique, c’est très réussi

La route est sinueuse et de plus en plus déserte. On se demande « mais où on va, là ? ». Tout le chapitre est construit sur la méfiance de Brienne envers son guide, les agressions sexuelles (décidément) et les contes de fées, puis l’honneur. Même si Dick dit venir d’une lignée de noble, il y a une vraie différence avec Brienne car elle a de l’argent, assez pour se payer une chambre à l’auberge

“Cheaper if we all shared the same bed, m’lady,” Nimble Dick would say. “You could lay your sword between us. Old Dick’s a harmless fellow. Chivalrous as a knight, and honest as the day is long.”

“The days are growing shorter,” Brienne pointed out.

“Well, that may be. If you don’t trust me in the bed, I could just curl up on the floor, m’lady.”

“Not on my floor.”

“A man might think you don’t trust me none.”

“Trust is earned. Like gold.”

“As you say, m’lady,” said Crabb, “but up north where the road gives out, you’ll need t’ trust Dick then. If I wanted t’ take your gold at swordpoint, who’s to stop me?”

“You don’t own a sword. I do.”

Fun fact, Dick finira avec une épée. Mais mort quand même.

J’aime beaucoup la relation qui se noue entre Brienne et Podrick : elle lui fait confiance, et on voit qu’il est très débrouillard (si on l’avait oublié car faut se rappeler qu’il sauve Tyrion à la bataille de la Néra) même s’il insiste sur le fait qu’il sait se battre et veut en découdre au lieu de rester dans un rôle subalterne.

Cela dit, Brienne a raison de se méfier car Dick a en effet les mains lestes

Crabb showed his true colors the next day, when they stopped to water the horses. Brienne had to step behind some bushes to empty her bladder. As she was squatting, she heard Podrick say, “What are you doing? You get away from there.” She finished her business, hiked up her breeches, and returned to the road to find Nimble Dick wiping flour off his fingers. “You won’t find any dragons in my saddlebags,” she told him. “I keep my gold upon my person.” Some of it was in the pouch at her belt, the rest hidden in a pair of pockets sewn inside her clothing. The fat purse inside her saddlebag was filled with coppers large and small, pennies and halfpennies, groats and stars . . . and fine white flour, to make it fatter still. She had bought the flour from the cook at the Seven Swords the morning she rode out from Duskendale.

“Dick meant no harm, m’lady.” He wriggled his flour-spotted fingers to show he held no weapon. “I was only looking to see if you had these dragons what you promised me. The world’s full o’ liars, ready to cheat an honest man. Not that you’re one.”

Brienne hoped he was a better guide than he was a thief.

Il y a un passage étrange sur les chansons. Dick tente de les entrainer mais Pod et Brienne ne le font pas. Dans ce lieu lugubre, Dick alterne les chansons et les infos sur l’endroit

Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. “The Andals tried t’ take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn’t win with swords, their pretty daughters won with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn’t conquer, aye.”

The Darklyn kings of Duskendale had tried to impose their rule on Crackclaw Point; the Mootons of Maidenpool had tried as well, and later the haughty Celtigars of Crab Isle. But the Crackclaws knew their bogs and forests as no outsider could, and if hard pressed would vanish into the caverns that honeycombed their hills. When not fighting would-be conquerors, they fought each other. Their blood feuds were as deep and dark as the bogs between their hills. From time to time some champion would bring peace to the Point, but it never lasted longer than his lifetime. Lord Lucifer Hardy, he was a great one, and the Brothers Brune as well. Old Crackbones even more so, but the Crabbs were the mightiest of all. Dick still refused to believe that Brienne had never heard of Ser Clarence Crabb and his exploits.

On a un passage fort intéressant aussi sur ce qui est connu. Et Brienne a des héros inconnus de Dick aussi. Des héros très légendaires avec beaucoup d’honneur. Bon, le chevalier parfait, ça va super bien à Brienne aussi

“Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair.”

Crabb thought that was hilarious. “The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What’s the point o’ having some magic sword if you don’t bloody well use it?”

“Honor,” she said. “The point is honor.”

That only made him laugh the louder. “Ser Clarence Crabb would have wiped his hairy arse with your Perfect Knight, m’lady. If they’d ever have met, there’d be one more bloody head sitting on the shelf at the Whispers, you ask me. ‘I should have used the magic sword,’ it’d be saying to all the other heads. ‘I should have used the bloody sword.’”

Brienne could not help but smile. “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but Ser Galladon was no fool. Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say.”

Nimble Dick was unimpressed. “Crackbones fought a dragon too, but he didn’t need no magic sword. He just tied its neck in a knot, so every time it breathed fire it roasted its own arse.”

Et donc on apprend qu’à Claquepince, on préférait Aerys à Robert

Don’t stop them bloody Celtigars from sending men to t’ eastern shore to collect his taxes. If he sends enough, a few come back to him . . . elsewise, we bow only to our own lords, and the king. The true king, not Robert and his ilk.” He spat. “There was Crabbs and Brunes and Boggses with Prince Rhaegar on the Trident, and in the Kingsguard too. A Hardy, a Cave, a Pyne, and three Crabbs, Clement and Rupert and Clarence the Short. Six foot tall, he was, but short compared to the real Ser Clarence. We’re all good dragon men, up Crackclaw way

Nouvelle pause dans la grange d’un paysan d’un village de pêcheurs. Dick reste en bas, à son grand dam (et en effet un peu contre la logique car s’il voulait voler les montures…). Flashback de Brienne qui se rappelle la septa qui l’a éduquée… Après le conte qui bâtit son honneur, on a l’origine de sa méfiance

I was not always wary, she might have shouted down at Crabb. When I was a little girl I believed that all men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who had lifted the scales from her eyes. “They only say those things to win your lord father’s favor,” the woman had said. “You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.” It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game. A maid has to be mistrustful in this world, or she will not be a maid for long, she was thinking, as the rain began to fall.

Ensuite, elle se rappelle Pont-l’amer où elle fait payer à tous ses mecs leur fausse galanterie

And when the last of them had fallen, the Mother had delivered Connington to her. This time Ser Ronnet held a sword and not a rose. Every blow she dealt him was sweeter than a kiss.

Petit passage sur Loras, wink wink (et va se coucher en pensant à Jaime)

Loras Tyrell had been the last to face her wroth that day. He’d never courted her, had hardly looked at her at all, but he bore three golden roses on his shield that day, and Brienne hated roses. The sight of them had given her a furious strength.

Il pleut à verse et Brienne prend un peu en pitié Dick

Brienne felt a moment’s pity for the man. He has not eaten well, that’s plain. She wondered if there truly was a smugglers’ cove, or a ruined castle called the Whispers. Hungry men do desperate things. This all might be some ploy to cozen her. Suspicion soured her stomach.

Et là, hop des esquicheurs. Ca impressionne beaucoup Pod, mais pas Brienne. Il est sympa Dick mais méfiance quand même

He tells a lively tale, she had to admit, but Mark Mullendore was amusing too, with his little monkey.

Brienne se demande si Sansa est au bout de sa quête puis s’endort et rêve

Twice she dozed. The second time she woke all at once, heart pounding, convinced that someone was looming over her. Her limbs were stiff, and her cloak had gotten tangled round her ankles. She kicked free of it and stood. Nimble Dick was curled against a rock, half-buried in wet, heavy sand, asleep. A dream. It was a dream.

Elle pense à de meilleurs compagnons : Creighton, Illifer, voire Jaime et Renly… et comment elle a le sentiment d’avoir failli à sa tâche.

Le lendemain, pendant que Dick nomme toutes les caillasses du coin (stone dragon….), et qu’on passe près du château des Brune (qui est beaucoup plus isolé que je ne me le rappelais… faut la motivation pour aller là bas), Pod repère un cavalier qui les suit. On s’approche du château des Brune et Brienne suspecte que Dick est un déserteur

Ils continuent et l’ambiance devient de plus en plus irréelle

Lord Brune’s castle dwindled at their backs, and soon was lost to sight. Sentinels and soldier pines rose all around them, towering green-clad spears thrusting toward the sky. The forest floor was a bed of fallen needles as thick as a castle wall, littered with pinecones. The hooves of their horses seemed to make no sound. It rained a bit, stopped for a time, then started once again, but amongst the pines they scarce felt a drop.

The going was much slower in the woods. Brienne prodded her mare through the green gloom, weaving in and out amongst the trees. It would be very easy to get lost here, she realized. Every way she looked appeared the same. The very air seemed grey and green and still. Pine boughs scratched against her arms and scraped noisily against her newly painted shield. The eerie stillness grated on her more with every passing hour.

Dick chante La Belle et l’ours mais tout ne se passe pas comme prévu

The pines drank his song, as they drank the wind and rain. After a little while he stopped.

“It’s bad here,” Podrick said. “This is a bad place.”

Brienne felt the same, but it would not serve to admit it. “A pine wood is a gloomy place, but in the end it’s just a wood. There’s naught here that we need fear.”

“What about the squishers? And the heads?”

“There’s a clever lad,” said Nimble Dick, laughing.

Brienne gave him a look of annoyance. “There are no squishers,” she told Podrick, “and no heads.”

Plus ils s’avancent et moins Brienne est à l’aise… On la comprend un peu car elle dépend beaucoup de son guide dans un environnement hostile ou menaçant. Brienne se prépare au pire et envisage de devoir tuer quelqu’un. Ce qui lui rappelle des choses avec un entraînement pas si loin de la méthode Tarly Sr (oui j’exagère un peu). J’avais oublié ce passage que j’aime beaucoup et qui en dit beaucoup sur la vraie nature des combats

“A piglet is a piglet. It is different with a man. When I was a squire young as you, I had a friend who was strong and quick and agile, a champion in the yard. We all knew that one day he would be a splendid knight. Then war came to the Stepstones. I saw my friend drive his foeman to his knees and knock the axe from his hand, but when he might have finished he held back for half a heartbeat. In battle half a heartbeat is a lifetime. The man slipped out his dirk and found a chink in my friend’s armor. His strength, his speed, his valor, all his hard-won skill . . . it was worth less than a mummer’s fart, because he flinched from killing. Remember that, girl.”

I will, she promised his shade, there in the piney wood. She sat down on a rock, took out her sword, and began to hone its edge. I will remember, and I pray I will not flinch.

Le lendemain est un jour sans soleil et ils arrivent aux Murmures. C’est saisissant. Surtout avec les têtes (ou les vagues ?) qui murmurent. Et tout le reste (plantes vénéneuses, barral etc)

The castle was built of old, unmortared stones, no two the same. Moss grew thick in clefts between the rocks, and trees were growing up from the foundations. Most old castles had a godswood. By the look of it, the Whispers had little else. Brienne walked her mare to the cliff’s edge, where the curtain wall had collapsed. Mounds of poisonous red ivy grew over the heap of broken stones. She tied the horse to a tree and edged as close to the precipice as she dared. Fifty feet below, the waves were swirling in and over the remnants of a shattered tower. Behind it, she glimpsed the mouth of a large cavern.

Dick prend encore Brienne à rebrousse-poils en lui mettant la main dans le dos alors qu’ils sont près d’un trou.

On est arrivés au but et Dick parle de ses anciens employeurs. Y a baleine sous gravier

“This fool o’ yours, he’s not a man to hold a grudge, is he?” he said nervously. “I mean, last night I got to thinking that he might be angry at old Nimble Dick, on account o’ that map I sold him, and how I left out that the smugglers don’t land here no more.”

“With the gold that you’ve got coming, you can give him back whatever he paid you for your help.” Brienne could not imagine Dontos Hollard posing a threat. “That is, if he’s even here.”

Tout est vermoulu, pourri, voire pire…

The castle had been triangular, with square towers at each corner. Its gates were badly rotted. When Brienne tugged at one, the wood cracked and peeled away in long wet splinters, and half the gate came down on her. She could see more green gloom inside. The forest had breached the walls, and swallowed keep and bailey. But there was a portcullis behind the gate, its teeth sunk deep into the soft muddy ground. The iron was red with rust, but it held when Brienne rattled it. “No one’s used this gate for a long time.”

“I could climb over,” offered Podrick. “By the cliff. Where the wall fell down.”

“It’s too dangerous. Those stones looked loose to me, and that red ivy’s poisonous. There has to be a postern gate.”

Ils trouvent un buisson avec des baies fraichement cueillies. Mais elle imagine mal Dontos amener Sansa ici (tu m’étonnes^^). Cela dit, il y a quelqu’un

Something about the ruins filled her with unease. She would not find the Stark girl here . . . but she had to have a look. Someone was here, she thought. Someone who needed to stay hidden.

Brienne force Pod à rester derrière en disant que c’est important de garder les montures. Heureusement qu’il ira un peu au delà de ça. Et là on a des murmures qui suggèrent à Brienne de prendre son épée en acier valyrien

The sound was just the sea, echoing endlessly through the caverns beneath the castle, rising and falling with each wave. It did sound like whispering, though, and for a moment she could almost see the heads, sitting on their shelves and muttering to one another. “I should have used the sword” one of them was saying. “I should have used the magic sword.”

“Podrick,” said Brienne. “There’s a sword and scabbard wrapped up in my bedroll. Bring them here to me.”

Elle offre même son autre épée à Dick qui n’en revient pas

“The mistrustful maid’s giving old Dick a sword?”

“You do know how to use one?”

“I’m a Crabb.” He snatched the longsword from her hand. “I got the same blood as old Ser Clarence.” He slashed the air and grinned at her. “It’s the sword that makes the lord, some say.”

Après avoir passé encore des soldier pines, elle tombe sur un feu. Dick donne de la voix… Idiot ou complice ? Et on arrive aux mini-boss ! De vieilles connaissances, « amies » de Varshé. Il y a bien un fou mais c’est Shagwell avec un fléau et il bousille le genou de Dick (son épée n’aura pas vraiment servi)

“Oh, look,” said Shagwell, “it’s Smuggler Dick, the one who made the map for us. Did you come all this way to give us back our gold?”

Un crunch plus tard et Dick est mort écrabouillé. En primolecture s’est on demandé si Brienne et Pod allaient mourir ? En tout cas, on menace beaucoup Brienne

Shagwell danced from foot to foot and spun his flail. “It’s me she come for. She dreams of me every night, when she sticks her fingers up her slit. She wants me, lads, the big horse missed her merry Shags! I’m going to fuck her up the arse and pump her full of motley seed, until she whelps a little me.”

Avant le combat, on a des infos sur leurs pérégrinations

“We all went our own ways, after we left Harrenhal. Urswyck and his lot rode south for Oldtown. Rorge thought he might slip out at Saltpans. Me and my lads made for Maidenpool, but we couldn’t get near a ship.” The Dornishman hefted his spear. “You did for Vargo with that bite, you know. His ear turned black and started leaking pus. Rorge and Urswyck were for leaving, but the Goat says we got to hold his castle. Lord of Harrenhal, he says he is, no one was going to take it off him. He said it slobbery, the way he always talked. We heard the Mountain killed him piece by piece. A hand one day, a foot the next, lopped off neat and clean. They bandaged up the stumps so Hoat didn’t die. He was saving his cock for last, but some bird called him to King’s Landing, so he finished it and rode off.”

Et un quiproquo sur qui accompagne le Limier

“I’m a fool,” Shagwell announced happily.

“The wrong fool,” blurted Brienne. “The one I want is with a highborn girl, the daughter of Lord Stark of Winterfell.”

“Then it’s the Hound you want,” said Timeon. “He’s not here neither, as it happens. Just us.”

“Sandor Clegane?” said Brienne. “What do you mean?”

“He’s the one that’s got the Stark girl. The way I hear it, she was making for Riverrun, and he stole her. Damned dog.”

Riverrun, thought Brienne. She was making for Riverrun. For her uncles. “How do you know?”

“Had it from one of Beric’s bunch. The lightning lord is looking for her too. He’s sent his men all up and down the Trident, sniffing after her. We chanced on three of them after Harrenhal, and winkled the tale from one before he died.”

“He might have lied.”

“He might have, but he didn’t. Later on, we heard how the Hound slew three of his brother’s men at an inn by the crossroads. The girl was with him there. The innkeep swore to it before Rorge killed him, and the whores said the same. An ugly bunch, they were. Not so ugly as you, mind you, but still . . .”

He is trying to distract me, Brienne realized, to lull me with his voice. Pyg was edging closer. Shagwell took a hop toward her. She backed away from them.

Les trois sont sûrs de leur victoire et ne promettent même pas de clémence si Brienne se rend….

“Drop that pretty sword and might be we’ll go gentle on you, woman. We need gold to pay these smugglers, that’s all.”

“And if I give you gold, you’ll let us go?”

“We will.” Timeon smiled. “Once you’ve fucked the lot of us. We’ll pay you like a proper whore. A silver for each fuck. Or else we’ll take the gold and rape you anyway, and do you like the Mountain did Lord Vargo. What’s your choice?”

“This.” Brienne threw herself toward Pyg.

Brienne + acier valyrien + effet de surprise vs mauvais combattant mal équipé = mort instantanée

Brienne stabbed him through the throat, gave the blade a hard turn, and slid it out, whirling just as Timeon’s spear came flashing past her face. I did not flinch, she thought, as blood ran red down her cheek. Did you see, Ser Goodwin? She hardly felt the cut.

Brienne est en mauvaise situation mais un caillou lancé par Pod (quel talent) vient la sauver. Brienne en profite et tue rapidement Timeon.

Shagwell was on his knees when she turned, looking dazed as he fumbled for the morningstar. As he staggered to his feet, another stone slammed him in the ear. Podrick had climbed the fallen wall and was standing amongst the ivy glowering, a fresh rock in his hand. “I told you I could fight!” he shouted down.

Il est vraiment super, Podrick 😀

Brienne insiste pour que Dick ait une tombe et force Shagwell à la creuser à mains nues

Brienne sheathed Oathkeeper, gathered up Dick Crabb, and carried him to the hole. His face was hard to look on. “I’m sorry that I never trusted you. I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

Elle anticipe que Shagwell va tenter sa chance et elle a raison. Mais elle n’est pas aussi stable qu’elle aurait pu l’espérer

 Shagwell had a jagged chunk of rock clutched in one hand. Brienne had her dagger up her sleeve.

A dagger will beat a rock almost every time.

She knocked aside his arm and punched the steel into his bowels. “Laugh,” she snarled at him. He moaned instead. “Laugh,” she repeated, grabbing his throat with one hand and stabbing at his belly with the other. “Laugh!” She kept saying it, over and over, until her hand was red up to the wrist and the stink of the fool’s dying was like to choke her. But Shagwell never laughed. The sobs that Brienne heard were all her own. When she realized that, she threw down her knife and shuddered.

Brienne met deux dragons d’or dans la tombe… et Hyle Hunt arrive (c’était lui le cavalier… mais qui arrive trop tard pour le combat)

“If there are brothels down in hell, the wretch will thank you,” the knight called down. “Elsewise, that’s a waste of good gold.”

“I keep my promises. What are you doing here?”

“Lord Randyll bid me follow you. If by some freak’s chance you stumbled onto Sansa Stark, he told me to bring her back to Maidenpool. Have no fear, I was commanded not to harm you.”

Brienne snorted. “As if you could.”

De mauvaise grâce, Hyle aide Brienne à enterrer Dick

 “Will you help me cover up poor Crabb, ser?”

“No true knight could refuse such beauty.” Ser Hyle climbed down from the wall. Together, they shoved the dirt on top of Nimble Dick as the moon rose higher in the sky, and down below the ground the heads of forgotten kings whispered secrets.

J’ai l’impression que Dick s’en « sort bien » (enfin, OK il est mort) car sa mort fait oublier le fait qu’il était méga louche et sans doute un voleur. Mais Brienne fait une leçon sur l’honneur et la chevalerie. Brienne incarne cet idéal de chevalerie tandis que Dick a des millions d’étoiles au fond de son caveau.

Excellent chapitre à relire mais du coup… où va errer Brienne en vain ? Vivesaigues ?? Euh… mauvaise pioche… Naaaaan

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