3. AND WHO WILL FALL FAR BEHIND?
If anything can be said of Cersei Lannister, it's that she is a shrewd woman. Often paranoid and quick-tempered (although she'd never admit that, even if she knew), she is perceptive; one look at you, and she knows what you want.
Take her family, for instance; Robert had wanted another woman, and he replaced both her and his wife with dozens upon dozens of others — faceless replacements for what he would never have. Joffrey wants power and little else, certainly not the responsibility that comes with it. her father wants Jaime for an heir; he would prefer Tyrion dead. (Wouldn't we all...? she often wonders.) Tyrion wants wine and whores and the chance to make Cersei's life a burden, a curse. And Jaime... Jaime used to want her, but it had been so long since she had looked at him... He's a prisoner of war now. She tries not to think of it. She doesn't have time for wistful thinking, for pining.
She can't trust anyone. Too many people want her son dead, her family in upheaval and disgrace, and she can't pave the way for their enemies just because she can't stop thinking of her brother. She might as well hand them the Iron Throne.
It's what they want. Even if Cersei couldn't tell by the look of them — Ned Stark's accusatory face, Renly's knowing glances, Sansa's quiet despair — she would have known, anyway. People are so easy.
Arthur Pendragon had been no different.
Cersei is no fool. The boy is fresh, young, eager to please; his desire to turn himself from a man to a legend is so all-encompassing that he was a natural choice for the Kingsguard. It doesn't hurt that his skill with a sword is rivaled only by Jaime, and he is perhaps even more adept than Loras Tyrell.
Cersei needed someone like him, a young knight with blood on his tongue and glory in his fantasies, someone to put his life on the line in her son's stead. Arthur Pendragon is easy to mold. He is at once necessary and disposable.
Pity if she has to get rid of him.
But no, Cersei thinks. She's getting ahead of herself. She had cause for concern shortly after his appointment to the Kingsguard, when one of her little birds reported to her…
"He was out in the yard, he was," the obviously aging woman had told her, perhaps a month ago. "Out with some of the squires and the like. And then some of the woman passed…"
Sansa had been among them, straight-backed but with her head bowed, Cersei is sure. Sansa carries herself like a lady, but her confidence has waned and her heart is tired. As her woman told her what she'd heard, Cersei could all but see it herself: A sun-washed lawn, streaked with the shadows of lords and ladies, squires and knights, servants and handmaidens. Arthur had taken off his helmet, drenched with sweat after a round of practice with his fellows.
"Laughing, they'd been," Cersei's woman had said. "Normal as anythin'. If it weren't for a moment later, why, Your Grace, I wouldn't have come to you at all."
And yet she had. Because apparently a moment later, Arthur had stopped laughing. In her mind's eye, Cersei could see the look on his face, as she'd seen it on so many men's faces — eyes glazed, jaw slackened, just a bit, Adam's apple bobbing as he spoke.
"Who on earth's that?" he'd asked, voice dazed as though he'd had the wind knocked from him.
Cersei's woman had followed his line of sight, a straight shot to the young wolf girl, the key to the North, her son's betrothed. A straight spine and bowed head, like a dying flower. Hair as red as the blood that spilled from her father's neck. A beauty who wished no longer to be a beauty, for what had beauty bought her?
Cersei knows the feeling well.
Arthur had gotten his answer — Sansa Stark, daughter of a dead traitor, sister to a false king. The Lannisters' bargaining chip. Their lady and future queen.
Cersei had worried. She had seen what a beautiful woman could do to an honorable man. She'd seen betrayals and wars spurred by soft skin and pretty smiles, brawls begun with curves, swords guided by the promise of what comes after a lady's favor. Cersei had seen better men than Arthur Pendragon fall at the feet of a porcelain angel.
But now, weeks later, Cersei's frets have subsided. Her eye stays sharp on the young knight, whose own eyes linger forever on his king's lady. When Sansa looks within ten feet of his way, his Adam's apple bobs the way Cersei imagined it had the first time. But he has not spoken to her, as far as Cersei knows, and his skill in the yard is too promising, too good, for Cersei to exile based on lingering gazes across the dining hall.
Joffrey has not noticed, and Sansa dare not betray him.
"How have you found your new Kingsguard?" Cersei asks her son.
"Suitable enough," Joffrey replies carelessly. He sits next to her on the veranda, slumping, legs splayed. "Doubtful any of them will drop dead on the battlefield."
"You should put one of them in charge of Sansa."
Joffrey snorts. "What for? She has her handmaidens."
"Handmaidens can't wield a sword should our enemies come to call."
"So? Let them have her. Perhaps then I will be granted a bride worthy of a king."
Cersei frowns. "Sansa is the only thing keeping Robb Stark and his band of Northerners from riding down and burning the Red Keep to a pile of rubble. She is all we have to give for your Uncle Jaime. Both Stannis and Renly would gladly keep her alive after they've slit our throats, and then who would win the war? The Starks, and whoever they ultimately choose to align themselves with. Don't allow them the satisfaction. Your pride will do you no good if you're dead."
"Fine." Joffrey sneers, displeased but unable to argue. Not that he cares enough about the Stark girl to bother arguing much either way, Cersei thinks. "Who would you have me give up? Ser Meryn?"
"No," Cersei says. "I don't trust Ser Meryn alone with her."
"Did you have someone in mind, then?"
"Ser Arthur, I think." Cersei watches her son's face and knows he's not keen on the suggestion. "He's fit to the task. Unlikely to fall to an enemy, and he'll do as he's told without argument."
"You'd have me give up such a knight?" Joffrey demands.
"It will please the North to hear their lady is under such protection. You'd be surprised what good that will do for us."
Joffrey waves a hand and says again, "Fine. Do it. But I expect to remain first priority."
"Of course, my love," Cersei assures him. She smiles — a small, tight-lipped twitch of her mouth. "Always."
She has seen what Arthur Pendragon wants, and she will dangle it in front of him. A test of loyalty, she thinks. Pity it may be, but she'll see him disposed of if he fails.
Cersei Lannister is a shrewd woman. She knows better than to trust anyone, harmless as they may seem.
Young Arthur will do well to keep his dreams of glory, and nothing else.
