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When Catelyn first saw the golden knight, she was up to her knees in the waters of the Red Fork. Lord and Lady Piper had been gracious hosts for the feast of their heir's birth, welcoming each new visitor to their door with baskets heaped with strawberries, the very first fruits of what everyone agreed to be the new spring. Deep down Catelyn knew that they had done nothing to deserve their guest slipping from their castle with not even a guard or attendants. But with each new guest that slipped over to her and begged the attention of Lady Tully - and Catelyn had no idea where they would all fit inside the castle, it felt full to the seams already - Catelyn's smile grew thinner and thinner, until she decided that she had to sneak out for just a moment or the smile would snap.
So she waded out into the Red Fork, holding her skirts in a bundle above her knees as she relish the shock that the water sent through her. Despite the new spring, the river flowed desperately cold around Catelyn's legs. The freeze shot through her body up to her head, so that Catelyn swayed dizzily by the time the knight had ridden up to her. If it hadn't been for the clank of his armor as he raised his visor up, she would have thought she had imagined him entirely.
"You are not afraid of me," the golden knight said. A strange thing to start a conversation with, but he said it easily, as if it were a mere jest between friends. He rested a careless hand on the pommel of the saddle as Catelyn stepped out of the river and righted her skirts around her. "I could be anyone, a bandit or a hero or a mystery knight," he continued, in the same light way. "Who do you think I am, fair maid?"
"Not a mystery knight. Mystery knights are fine, but there is no mistaking a knight in gold," Catelyn said, bemused. And if the golden armor hadn't given it away, the roaring gold sigil on the red shield hanging lazily in his grip would. "Well met, Ser Jaime."
The youth smiled, seemingly not in the least bit unhappy about the failure of his disguise. If anything, he seemed to puff up even more in his seat, throwing his chest out as he said, "I knew you would remember me. And I cannot help but remember you, Lady Catelyn."
That did surprise her. She had met Ser Jaime only once, when he'd come to Riverrun the year before delivering a message. Her father had hoped for a match between Jaime and Lysa - she thought Lysa might have wished it too, considering how much she stammered and blushed whenever the golden boy looked at her. But he'd spent so much time on that visit trotting after Uncle Brynden that she and Lysa both had exchanged fewer than ten sentences with him the whole time.
Still, she curtsied politely as he tied his horse to a nearby tree. If he wasn't completely as she remembered - his voice seemed a little higher, she thought, and maybe his gait seemed different as he walked over beside her - well, she'd have to make a better memory of him this time. She could admit to herself, as Jaime grinned at her again, that making good memories of Jaime wouldn't be the most unpleasant task.
"You certainly weren't who I expected to meet at the river," he said, putting his water skin to his lips and taking a long drink after he finished speaking. He still hadn't removed his helmet or any of his other armor, but he seemed completely unbothered as water dripped down his chin. Catelyn's eyes followed the path of one of those droplets as one of those droplets slipped down his smooth pale neck and into his gorget.
"Who were you expecting, then?" Catelyn got ahold of herself and dragged her eyes back up to his face. His eyes - she did remember those, bright green and glowing with mischief.
"An adventure," he purred. "You might be that. Yes, I think you might." He offered her the water skin, and his eyes made it feel like a promise.
A frisson of danger ran through Catelyn as she took the water skin and drank, but she took it anyway. She closed her eyes as she drank, but they flew open when she heard a thud in the grass below and something metal roll against her foot. She raised her head to find the knight's helmet gone, and his hair falling in sweaty locks down near to his waist.
Not his hair, she realized as her heart thudded faster. Not his helmet. Hers.
From over the hill came the sound of a trumpet, and as the Lannister riders crested over and toward them, Cersei's triumphant smile shone bright as her armor, bright as the sun glinting off the river water.
Lady Cersei's dramatic entrance caused much talk among the guests, of course, although the gossips were disappointed when Cersei announced that she would only stay a night, to give a gift to the new Piper heir on behalf of her lord father. At morning, she said, she must continue on to the capital. She had much to attend to and must obey her father's summons with all haste.
Besides, she added, it had been far too long since she had seen her brother. "He needs me to return his mail to him," she said cheekily, and while the room laughed, Catelyn swore she saw Cersei look out the corner of her eye at Catelyn, a corner of her mouth tilting up.
The Piper seated them far enough apart at the evening's feast that Catelyn did not have to make conversation with Cersei. Still, she couldn't help glancing a few places over at Cersei every so often. She had washed the sweat out of her hair and pinned it up in a crownlike looping braid upon her head, kept in place with gold-and-ruby pins. More gold threaded through her deep emerald dress and looped around her fingers in thick, emerald-studded rings. Every time Catelyn looked at Cersei, she could see the golden knight for just an instant before the girl reappeared. Sometimes she thought she saw Cersei looking back at her, and wondered who Cersei saw in her, a lord's daughter or a girl with her skirts up to her knees.
It had been a foolish whim to go out alone, Catelyn reminded herself ruefully. Even so close to the Piper's walls, with loyal men near enough to run to her at a scream, she might have faced worse than Lady Cersei in a mummer's game. Every time Catelyn told herself this, she tried to stir up regret with it; it dismayed her that she could not.
When the feast ended, Catelyn thought that would be the end of it. Just an amusing story to tell at dinner for a week or so, she thought as she passed through the gardens, and then she and Cersei would both go back to being the same people they always were, the lord's eldest daughters. She had been preoccupied with how Lysa would laugh at it, and perhaps that was why Cersei took Catelyn completely by surprise when Catelyn turned into a shadowy part of the cloister and stepped directly into Cersei's arms as they gripped her upper arms with surprising strength.
"Lady Cersei?" Catelyn's own hands instinctively curled around Cersei's forearms; she meant to throw her off, but she did not yet try to push Cersei away.
"They said you were clever, Lady Catelyn," Cersei hissed. "The ladies told me that the whole time we rode from the Rock - a clever maid and a beautiful one, a great lord's daughter and another's betrothed, we ought to be friends, all that natter. But you still couldn't guess it, could you? Nobody ever could, except Mother." Cersei slid her hand farther up Catelyn's back until she nearly had her hand around the back of Catelyn's neck. The rings dug into the back of Catelyn's neck, like the grooves of a gauntlet.
The whole time Cersei spoke, Catelyn felt conscious of the metal warming on the skin of her neck - she wondered if her neck had gone completely red in heat and shame and something deeper and warmer. Still, her voice came out steady as she said, "You won't get away with it forever." And what was the point of dreaming of something you couldn't have? Dreaming of someone you couldn't be?
Cersei's smile grew thinner and colder as she slid closer Catelyn, pressed against her body. "Why not?" Cersei's breath was hot against Catelyn's face, sending hot and icy prickles down her spine one after the other. "Why should I ever stop, when I see what all I gain from it? You were all smiles for Jaime, out here with your skirts hiked up like some lusty fishwife." Her mouth moved up Catelyn's jawline until Cersei breathed in her ear, "If he had tried to kiss you, would you have let him? I think you would have."
Catelyn caught the moment of Cersei's eyes on her lips, right before she dove her head forward - but before Cersei could claim her kiss, Catelyn herself had pushed her own mouth hard against Cersei's. Courtesy is a lady's armor, her mother had said, but courtesy burned up in the heat of Cersei's mouth and her golden rings on Catelyn's skin - she felt Cersei shiver as Catelyn's tongue met hers, and wildly thought now we have no armor on, neither of us. When Cersei abruptly pulled away, Catelyn's fingers couldn't decide between untangling with Cersei as fast as she could or scrabbling to keep her closer.
"Are you satisfied, then?" Catelyn heard herself rasping as she spoke, still catching her breath - but then, Cersei's breasts rose and fell rapidly too, color high in her cheeks. "Ser Cersei?" The wildness had not left her yet (maybe it never had, since the morning).
They did not speak again the rest of the visit, but Catelyn could hear Cersei's response in the heartbeat of silence as Cersei turned and stalked away: never.