However it happened, from that day forward the love that Ser Criston Cole had borne for Rhaenyra Targaryen turned to loathing, and the man who had hitherto been the princess's constant companion and champion became the most bitter of her foes.

- Archmaester Gyldayn

114 AC, King's Landing

Criston's throat is parchment-dry. "I have sinned most grievously," he says huskily. "I would be absolved."

"Men sin as easily as they breathe," the septon tells him. "You do right to turn to the gods. How have you transgressed, my son?"

He turns his eyes to the Maiden, laughing on her plinth. Her marble tresses are all a tumble as though she has just risen from her bed, her pouting lips full of promises and her beauty almost too bold and brazen for the sept. The craftsman has done his work too well, no mortal man can resist this goddess. In vain, Criston tries to turn his thoughts to piety but it is no good. Her form, contorted in all manner of lewd postures, her smile languorous and inviting, is branded in his brain.

"I-I have had impure thoughts about a woman," he says. The septon nods patiently as though to say who hasn't? "A lady far above me in rank and wed to another."

"A venal sin," the septon says. "I would urge you to-"

"She pushed me to it!" he bursts out angrily. It is not right that he should bear the weight of the sin alone. "She inflamed me with her body, strutting her wares like the most shameless harlot-"

A woman laughs, the sound low and musical in the empty sept. "Your Grace," the septon murmurs, sinking to his knees.

Queen Alicent wears the palest of greens, almost silvery, the color of springtime shoots and willow leaves. Her honey-gold braids, so much richer in tint than Rhaenyra's wheat-gold, she wears in a jeweled crispine. "Ser Criston," she says, addressing herself to him, "Forgive me. I could not help but overhear the last of your confession. Will you walk with me?"

"Your Grace's command is my pleasure," he says gallantly, taking the proffered arm. He can hardly refuse his queen.

"I did not see your name in the lists set down for the day's jousting," she says. "I thought you meant to bear my stepdaughter's token?"

"She has other knights," he says shortly. Alicent raises her plucked eyebrows delicately, as though to say oh really? The slight gesture manages to imbue his innocently-spoken words with the filthiest of meanings - but then, Alicent Hightower has always had excellent control of her face. Every modulation of her graceful hands, every shift of her pleasing face is steeped in significance.

"Other knights," she echoes him. "Such Ser Harwin Strong. I hear she has given her favor to Breakbones... and much else."

"Gossip," he says brusquely. "Forgive me, Your Grace, but I will have no part in calumnies spread against the princess's good name."

"When half-a-dozen men whisper it, it is gossip," she says. "When it is half-a-hundred, it is a truth. Surely you have heard the tale, Ser Criston?" He has and it sours him like curdled milk. That she should give her virtue to that grinning ape when he had- he had-... without thinking, he clenches his fist and Alicent takes note at once. "It is hard for those who love her well to hear it," she says swiftly. "When I think of the child she was, so bright and beautiful, and how she let herself be debased- but it is not sweet Rhaenyra's fault alone. Her rogue of an uncle played no small part in her downfall."

You never loved her, you old hag, he thinks sardonically but he has to agree that yes, Prince Daemon has a hand in his princess's shame. "She offered herself to me," he says dully. "The night before last." The night before her wedding. The loathing it inspires in him is enough to make him retch - that she should tarnish the purity of his love by making such an offer, that she should think... that she should think...

Alicent's eyes gleam, like a lioness's who has scented a kill. "Did you have her?" she asks bluntly.

He looks at her, horrified that she should think such a thing. "Gods above, Your Grace, no! I have loved her since she was a child of seven and named me her white knight and I have perhaps thought of her in ways not befitting my honor or her rank since she became a woman but no- no. I never could."

Oh the nights he has writhed in silent lust in his sterile chamber in the White Sword. The dawns he was woken, sheets drenched in sweat and face twisted in futile, baffled desire. To be so near her, night and day, day and night, and never to do more than take her arm at supper or on walks to the garden. To hear her whisper her secrets to him, confess her deepest fears and longings, to be her protector and almost her husband in closeness and never to be allowed to take her in his arms and love her as a man does a woman.

"Then you are more honorable than any man now alive," Alicent says with a tinkling laugh. "You belong to the Age of Heroes, Ser Criston. So my stepdaughter offered herself to you. No doubt she offered you her tongue and her teats, whichever should please you most."

Her crudeness takes him aback but only for a moment. There is no love lost between queen and princess, this viciousness is no less than he should expect. "She came to me naked under her cloak last night," he says, swallowing thickly at the memory. The swansdown collar tickling her white throat, her flaxen hair trailing over full, milky breasts. He will never forget, never. And, he finds to his shock, that he does not particularly want to. "She offered me her maidenhead and said it would mean little and less to her betrothed."

Alicent sucks in her breath in pleased delight. "Wanton," she sighs, folding her hands piously in her lap. "Her lord father would be grieved... yet not surprised. We all know how she would disport herself with Daemon."

Criston has heard it too, the ugly rumors that at first he staunchly refused to believe. Now he is not so sure. "She has valor and wisdom and I once thought her the most queenly of women. But how can I serve a woman so debased?" he asks wretchedly. She has betrayed me, as a princess and a woman. He does not know which is worse.

"You cannot," the queen tells him brusquely. "To aid and abet her in her shame would only besmirch your honor." She fingers a fold of his white cloak. "She has appointed Breakbones as her champion today. It is counted a slight against you and a signal mark of how far the Strong boy has risen in her favor." She licks her lips. "For services rendered. You take my meaning?"

He nods.

"Criston," she murmurs, her voice rich and throaty, as she lays her hand over his. "You know me for a virtuous woman. You know how hard I have worked to win my place at this doubting court, at the king's side. Serve me instead of her. Wear the green ribbon in place of the black at the lists today. Stand against Breakbones and Laenor's catamite, Lonmouth, and I promise you, you will never regret it."

That Alicent is rigidly virtuous, he has no doubt. That she uses her beauty, her woman's wiles as freely as she does her wit to maintain her position at court and the king's heart, he knows. Wear the green ribbon in place of the black. It is just one day, he thinks to himself. Rhaenyra will see - must see - that there are others who appreciate his value, who treat him with dignity - not just as a receptacle for their baser needs.

"I will be proud to serve you, my queen," he lies. For he will serve her, but not with pride as he has served his princess these many years. If he serves her, it will be for vengeance.