Jorah Mormont/Lynesse Hightower: Enough
Title: Enough
Author: mrstater
Pairing: Jorah Mormont/Lynesse Hightower
Prompt(s): broken vows, dishonor
Word Count: 1324 words
Rating & Warnings: PG for references to the slave trade
Summary: Ruined for the sake of his wife, Jorah takes Lynesse's advice yet again. But does he still have more to lose?
Enough
"Lord Stark wants your head…" said Lynesse, slowly, as though to better comprehend the words she'd just read from the parchment clutched between her white, slender fingers. "…because you sold a couple of sorry poachers?"
She spat the final word, the spray of it landing on Jorah's cheek, though he did not flinch.
"They would have been bound for the Wall for their crimes," she went on, pacing the creaking rough-hewn wooden planks of their bedchamber, her skirts rustling over the woven rush mats that she found so loathsome since her precious Myrish rugs had been sold. "The men of the Night's Watch are as good as slaves there, anyway--"
"You need not justify my actions to me," Jorah cut her off. "I had this argument already with myself, before I did this shameful thing."
The parchment crinkled as Lynesse's manicured fingers curled into a tight fist around it. "What is shameful is that your liege lord would give new protectors to the realm, while the man they robbed--a loyal bannerman, a decorated hero of his wars--would be made no reparations for what was taken from him."
A sickly deer. A brace of conies. To fill the bloated bellies of babes whose lord squandered coin he could ill-afford on a Southron cook to appease his wife's refined palate.
Blearily, Jorah's eyes followed the wad of paper to the floor when it fell as Lynesse swept toward him in a swirl of emerald green velvet which served only to remind him of his own kinswomen carrying out their duties with quiet dignity in drab roughspun made with their own work-worn hands.
Lynesse's white ones which had never known a day's labor cradlde his cheeks, his beard scratching against her skin, softened and scented with the lotions and perfumes which so delighted her that he could not deny her the luxury--or himself, if he were honest. Hadn't her differentness called to the part of him that longed for something apart from the life he'd always known, something more like in the songs and stories?
"You have little enough as it is, husband…"
He stood, unmoving, unfeeling, in the touch that he had once believed brought him to life such as he had never lived, such as he'd never believed could be real; he breathed in her sweetness, and swallowed down a hard lump of bitter bile.
"Far too little for you," he ground out through clenched teeth.
A bowl of stew made of fish pulled out of the waters with his own nets in the small hours of the morning, or a roast venison which that afternoon ran through the forest before he brought it down with his own arrows as he japed with his fellow huntsmen…and women…A hall of logs hewn from oaks and pines that had sprawled and grew tall before any Mormont set foot on the island…A green banner with the bear rampant that clung fast and defiant to its pole against the winds of winter.
Once all this had been enough for him. Here, he had stood.
But Lynesse withdrew her hands from his face and took a step back from him, and the absence of her touch made Jorah feel as though he had nothing left to stand on. When had this fickle girl become his foundation? All that glitters is not gold…
"Do not even think of laying the blame for this on me," she hissed.
"Why shouldn't I?" he flung back at her. "I broke this law of men and the gods because you gave me no other choice! I had already given you everything else that I had--more than I had--to make you happy. Are you happy now?"
Her face paled, and then reddened, as if he had struck her, and Jorah could not have felt more ashamed of himself if he actually had dealt her a blow with his hand.
"Lynesse, forgive me, I--"
"What will you do?" she asked, her voice small. She looked small, as she sank down upon a wooden bench at the foot of the bed, and it seemed strange to Jorah that she could, this woman who had become the world entire to him. "Will you go to the Wall and join the Night's Watch?"
"And be bound myself in servitude?"
And too ashamed to look mine own lord father in the eye?
Jorah shook his head. "No. I will not take the Black."
Though of what he would do, he was less certain.
"You cannot accept Ned Stark's justice!" Lynesse cried, leaping to her feet and clutching at the front of his surcoat. "You may have broken this one commandment of the gods--such a small thing, a trifle--but what about the oath you made before them to a woman? To me?" She pressed her flushed cheek against his chest, her hands moving to clutch at his arms. "You did do this for me…to be a good husband to your lady wife…Is that so punishable a crime? An unforgiveable sin?"
Jorah wanted to hold her, but his hands hung helpless at his sides. "A good husband would not have brought such dishonor down upon his lady wife…"
Nor upon his aunt…his cousins…on his noble house.
He dragged his leaden hands up to rest upon Lynesse's shoulders, gently pushing her back from him. "There will be no life for you, Lynesse, so long as I live."
She looked up at him, that wild look that had come in her blood-shot, red-rimmed eyes when he'd spoken of pawning her jewels. "Think how much less a life there will be for the widow of a man beheaded for slaving!"
That was true…Jorah bowed his head, and saw the crumpled death warrant written in Eddard Stark's hand. Jorah's own hands began to tremble, and it was he who clung to Lynesse as he held her shoulders.
"What would you have me do?"
Lynesse drew herself up to her full height, his golden Queen of Love and Beauty, a goddess come down to earth. At length, she said, "We must flee."
"Flee?" Jorah repeated, stupidly, as she slipped out of his slackened grip and strode toward her dressing table in the corner of the room. "How? Where?"
"We still have our ship. We can be halfway to the Free Cities before Ned arrives here."
The Free Cities. Free. The idea ought to ease the constriction that had held Jorah round the throat since the raven arrived bearing his liege-lord's letter, but instead he imagined the heat and humidity of that southeasterly clime made it even more difficult to breathe.
"What would we live on?" He watched Lynesse sweep the earrings and necklaces and bracelets and hair ornaments off her table into an embroidered silk bag.
"We can sell the ship," she said with a shrug, "whenever we get where we're going. Wherever we're going."
And thus sever all ties with home. "It won't last," he said, sinking down upon the bench as his knees gave way. "The money will run out." It always did.
With a clunk, Lynesse put down her bag of jewels on her table and strode to him, pushing her green-skirted form between his knees and sliding her fingers into his thinning hair. She cradled his head to her bosom. "Our love will be enough."
It never had been. But Jorah shoved that thought to the back of his mind--along with the whisper of his father's voice: The things we love destroy us every time--and listened instead to Lynesse's promises, murmured amid soft kisses to his forehead and cheeks and jaw and finally his lips as he tilted his face up to hers, his hands bunching the velvet folds at her hips.
This time, their love would be enough. It must be enough. He had naught else but that in the world.
He could not let the doubt take hold that he lacked even that.