Chapter 29
It was a dreary day.
Lyla Lannister had been awake for hours, sitting at her window sill and staring out at the ominous hill where she'd found her father just about a month passed. It had been the day she'd found herself with child. It had been the day that Jaime first told her he loved her. It already seemed so long ago.
Reaching a hand up to the glass, she tentatively rested it against the cool window and sighed. Jaime or no, her father was taking her home today, the girls in tow with Lady and Nymeria and every one that had followed them south. King's Landing is no place for the Starks of Winterfell, her father had said to her and her sisters, and she agreed wholeheartedly. The world of endless summer was not a home for winter folk, and it seemed the feeling was mutual for those of the south.
But she couldn't shake the dead pit in her belly. Like she was becoming a widower of sorts, left to tend to her child alone while her husband was gone for who knew how long. Her little boy with dark hair and grey eyes. Hand falling to her stomach, she turned from the glass and sighed, looking around the room. It had been packed since the previous morning, when Robert had been rushed through the halls in front of her rooms, and they were to set sail by midday.
What would Jaime do? She'd found herself wondering just that for quite some time. If he had to choose between his wife and his family, who would he pick? His family, his family, his family. He already has. And his decision hurt her every day. We're his family too, she thought as she rubbed her belly.
There was a soft knock and she bid them enter. "M'lady Lannister," came the voice of one of the northern maids who had followed them down to the capitol. She had all the looks of a winter woman, with deep brown hair and light peppery eyes, and the way she stumbled over the name Lanniser, nearly calling her Stark, only proved it. "Breakfast has been set. The Ladies Stark are awaiting you."
"Very well," Lyla replied, gathering her silver skirts and allowing the woman to lead her from the Red Keep to the Tower of the Hand.
Outside her father's chamber, she heard the clamor of chain mail and ordered the maid to wait there while she peered around the wall. Men in leather and mail and crimson cloaks were making mock warriors with straw. Sandor Clegane was atop a giant dark horse with a choppy mane, galloping across the hard-packed ground and diving an iron-tipped lance through a dummy's head. Canvas ripped and straw exploded as the Lannister men muttered curses under their breath and jested.
How dare they be so jubilant after Robert is so freshly hurt, she thought with a scowl. Robert may not have been great, but he had not been so bad as Aerys. Not nearly so bad.
Continuing on with the maid, Lyla made her way to her father's chamber, where the girls already sat. "Good morn, Arya," she murmured to her smaller sister, running fingers through her hair. "Good morn, Sansa."
The redhead looked up long enough to give a weak "Good morn," before her head fell down again. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she'd cried all through the night and her nose was pink and raw from rubbing it. Still, she was the prettiest thing Lyla had seen, dressed in a soft green gown that brought out the shine in her hair, bound up in the southern style. Arya left her hair loose, and wore a thin cotton top with breeches and boots.
"Septa Mordane," Lyla called across the room, "Has my father been sent for?" The woman nodded and just then, the door opened.
Dressed in deep ash-grey, her father entered. He looked almost sorrowful as he sat down beside her and ordered the first course to be served. Sansa just sat and stared a her meal while Arya wolfed everything down. Lyla took feather-light bites but otherwise cared little for her food. Her father was the same.
Arya stopped eating just long enough to say, "Syrio says we have time for one last session before we take ship this evening. Can I, Father? All my things are packed."
"A short lesson," he said.
"And make certain you leave yourself time to bathe and change. I want you ready to leave by midday, is that understood?" Added Lyla.
Arya nodded and kissed her and their father on the cheek before scurrying off, calling, "By midday," over her shoulder.
Sansa looked up from her food. "If she can have a dancing lesson, why won't you let me say farewell to Prince Joffrey?"
"I would gladly go with her, Lord Eddard," offered Septa Mordane. "There would be no question of her missing the ship."
Eddard's face grew grimmer. "It would not be wise for you to go to Joffrey right now, Sansa. I'm sorry."
Sansa's already red eyes filled with tears. "But why?"
"Sansa, your lord father knows best," Septa Mordane said. "You are not to question his decisions."
"It's not fair!" Sansa shoved away from the table, stood, knocked over her chair, and ran weeping from the solar.
Lyla rose to go to her sister, her sad, sweet sister, but her father gestured for her to sit again. "Let her go, Lyla. I will try to make her understand when we are all safely back in Winterfell." Lyla pursed her lips and stared off in the direction that Sansa went, but sat, slowly finishing her breakfast.
Nearly an hour later, as the plates were being cleared away and Septa Mordane had gone to show Sansa the gardens one last time, Grand Maester Pycelle came to see her father. His shoulders were slumped over, as if the weight of his maester's chain had become too great a burden to carry around his neck. "My lord," he said, "King Robert is gone. The gods give him rest."
"No," said her father. "He hated rest. The gods give him love and laughter, and the joy of a righteous battle." He looked so strangely empty, void of sadness or particular grief, as though something died within him. She wished he would weep. She wished he could weep. "Be so good as to summon the members of the council here to my solar," he told Pycelle.
"My lord?" The old man blinked in surprise. "Surely the affairs of the kingdom will keep till the morrow, when our grief is not so fresh."
Ned was firm. Quite so. "I fear we must convene at once."
Pycelle bowed. "As the Hand commands." He called his servants and sent them running, then gratefully accepted the chair that Lyla offered him, as well as a cup of sweet beer. "I fear I had nearly not noticed your presence, Lady Lannister. How does the child fare?"
"Well," she replied stiffly. She did not trust the Grand Maester, the fumbling oaf that he was. Perhaps her father did, but she was not so easy to put faith into others.
The man looked up at her again after a while. "And how does your husband fare, Lady Lannister?"
Clenching her fists into tight balls, Lyla fought not to lurch at him and clobber him until he bled from his fingernails. How dare he ask that? Everyone knew Jaime had gone, and she certainly did not need reminding of that. Her father reached over and put a hand over her fist, holding her there, and she forced herself to look away from the maester. She had nothing to say to him.
Silence crept into the room like a serpent, constricting each of them. Until Ser Barristan Selmy arrived. He looked immaculate in his white cloak, the enameled scales of his Kingsguard armor glimmering. "My lords, my lady," he said, "my place is beside the young king now. Pray give me leave to attend him."
"Your place is here, Ser Barristan," her father told him.
Littlefinger walked in next, garbed in sapphire velvets and a silver mockingbird cape. His dark boots were dusty from riding. His eyes held Lyla's, and in her mind his last words to her rang. I only mean to warn you of one thing, my lady. That you are in a dangerous city with dangerous people around you. Life is not a song, here in the game of thrones, and eventually your time will come.
Grey-green eyes watched her, closely at that, and she lifted her chin as his eyes met her belly. Her hands folded over the corset bodice of her gown, embroidered with pristine white stars and moons and small full-bodied wolves, grown tight since she last wore it. It was only when she cleared her throat that Baelish looked back up, turning to her father. "My lords, my lady," he said in his ever charming voice. He then leaned in closer to Eddard. "That little task you set me is accomplished, Lord Eddard."
What little task? Lyla eyed her father with confusion, but could not speak up before Vary arrived in a flourish of lavender, his skin plump and pink from his bath, face scrubbed and freshly powdered. His soft-padded slippers were soundless. He was his own sort of waterdancer. "The little birds sing a grievous song today," he said as he seated himself. "The realm weeps. Shall we begin?"
"When Lord Renly arrives," Lyla said. He was a member of the council, surely they could not start without him?
Varys looked to her with sorrowful eyes. "I fear Lord Renly has left the city."
"Left the city?" Lyla pursed her lips with confusion.
"He took his leave through a postern gate an hour before dawn, accompanied by a squire of Ser Loras Tyrell and some fifty retainers," the eunuch told her. "When last seen, they were galloping south in some haste, no doubt bound for Storm's End or Highgarden in search of the young Ser Loras."
Loras was still missing? Lyla was sure he would have been safe and sound in his home of everlasting spring by now, where the roses were as plentiful as the fruit. "How could this be? I saw Lord Renly only last night."
"Some things are a mystery, Lady Lyla." Varys leaned back in his chair and her father sighed.
"The king called me to his side last night and commanded me to record his final last words. Lord Renly, Grand Maester Pycelle, and my daughter stood witness as Robert sealed the letter, to be opened by the council after his death. Ser Barriastan, if you would be so kind?"
The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard examined the paper. "King Robert's seal, unbroken." He opened the letter and read. "Lord Eddard Stark is herein named Protector of the Realm, to rule as regent until the heir comes of age."
Lyla inwardly scoffed. Joffrey was of age and needed no help from her father, but she remained silent. She did not trust the ears of Varys, Pycelle, or Baelish, and Ser Barristan was now sworn to the boy king. So rather than speak, she went to her father's side and took his hand as she sat. "I would ask the council to confirm me as Lord Protector, as Robert wished," her father said, eying the members. From Pycelle's half-closed eyes to Littlefinger's lazy half-smile to Varys nervously fluttering his fat fingers. They were all suspicious, and the look on her father's face proved that he knew it.
And then the door opened. Fat Tom stepped into the solar. "Pardon, my lords, my lady, the king's steward insists..."
The royal steward entered and bowed. "Esteemed lords, the king demands the immediate presence of his small council in the throne room."
"The king is dead," said Eddard. "But we shall go with you nonetheless. Tom, assemble an escort, if you would. And take Lyla to her chambers."
The steward eyed her for a moment. "Her Grace, Queen Cersei, has requested Lady Lyla's presence as well," he said in a low voice.
Lyla blinked, wide-eyed. There was no reason for the queen to see her. She looked to her father, but he seemed scattered, eyes dark. "I'll come," she replied, and Ned's fog drifted away.
"You must attend to the girls," he said, shaking his head. There was something telling in his eyes. "You are far too busy."
"Her Grace commands of my lady's arrival," insisted the steward.
"It would not be wise to refuse the queen's demands," Littlefinger added quietly to her father, all eyes falling on Lyla.
She brushed her hair behind her shoulders and held her chin high, holding her arm out to her father for support and praying to the old gods and new that the direwolves were safe with Carinya and the girls were safe with Syrio and Septa Mordane. No good could come from this.
She helped her father down the steps, lending her arm to him. The rest of the small council followed closely behind. A double column of men-at-arms in chainmail and steel helms was waiting outside the tower, eight strong. Grey cloaks snapped in the wing as the guardsmen marched them across the yard. There was no Lannister crimson to be seen, but there were plenty of gold cloaks visible on the ramparts and at the gates.
It was Janos Slynt who met them at the door to the throne room, armored in ornate black-and-gold plate, with a high-crested helm under one arm. The Commander bowed stiffly, and Lyla could sense something was amiss with the man by the glimmer in his eyes. His men pushed open the great oaken doors, twenty feet tall and banded with bronze.
The royal steward led them in. "All hail His Grace, Joffrey of Houses Baratheon and Lannister, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm," he sang.
It was a long walk to the far end of the hall, where the boy waited atop the Iron Throne, and Lyla supported her father heavily, going slowly across the distance to the one who proclaimed himself a king. The others followed. The first time her father had come this way, he was on horseback with a sword in his hand, and the Targaryen dragons had watched from the walls as he forced Jaime Lannister down from the throne. Her own husband. She wondered if Joffrey would step down so easily.
Five knights of the Kingsguard- all but Jaime and Ser Barristan- were arrayed in a crescent around the base of the throne. They were all in full armor, enameled steel from helm to heel, long pale cloaks over their shoulders, shining white shields strapped to their left arms. Cersei and the prince and princess stood behind Ser Boros and Ser Meryn. She wore a gown of sea-green silk, trimmed with Myrish lace as pale as foam. On her finger was a golden ring with an emerald the size of a pigeon's egg, on her head a matching tiara.
Above all, Price Joffrey sat amidst the barbs and spikes in a cloth-of-gold doublet and a red satin cape. Sandor Clegane was stationed at the foot of the throne's steep narrow stair. He wore mail and soot-grey plate and his snarling dogs-head helm. His daunting grey eyes mocked her, like he was inwardly laughing at the situation that had befallen her. I wish I'd killed him with that sword on the kingsroad, when I had the chance, she thought bitterly, clenching her fists.
Behind the throne, twenty Lannister guardsmen waited with longswords hanging from their belts. Crimson cloaks draped their shoulders and steel lions crested their helms. They all stared at her, knowing exactly who she was. All along the walls, in front of the hunting tapestries that Robert had put up during his reign, the gold-cloaked ranks of the City Watch stood stiffly to attention, each man's hand clasped around the haft of an eight-foot-long spear tipped in black iron. They outnumbered the Lannisters five to one.
They stopped when her father patted her arm, and Ned kept a hand on her shoulder to help support his weight.
Joffrey stood. His red satin cape was patterned in gold thread; fifty roaring lions to one side, fifty prancing stags to the other. "I command the council to make all the necessary arrangements for my coronation," the boy demanded. "I wish to be crowned within the fortnight. Today I shall accept oaths of fealty from my loyal councilors."
Her father produced Robert's letter. "Lord Varys, be so kind as to show this to my lady of Lannister."
The man carried the letter to Cersei, and she quickly glanced at the words. "Protector of the Realm," she read. "Is this meant to be your shield, my lord? A piece of paper?" She ripped the letter in half, ripped the halves in quarters, and let the pieces flutter to the floor.
"Those were the king's words," Ser Barristan said, shocked.
"We have a new king now," Cersei Lannister replied. "Lord Eddard, when last we spoke, you gave me some counsel. Allow me to return the courtesy. Bend the knee, my lord. Bend the knee and swear fealty to my son, and we shall allow you to step down as Hand and live out your days in the grey waste you call home, your daughter free of her marriage to my brother and her child named a Snow."
"Would that I could," Ned said grimly. Lyla held her father's arm back, shaking her head. They had a chance to go home safely. They had a chance to be free of the capitol and all of its troubles, and she could raise her babe without any pain from being the wife that Jaime Lannister left behind. She could be a Stark again. But her father took no care for it. "Your son has no claim to the throne he sits. Lord Stannis is Robert's true heir."
"Liar!" Joffrey screamed, red-faced, blood boiling.
"Mother, what does he mean?" Princess Myrcella asked the queen plaintively. "Isn't Joff the king now?"
Lyla looked up at Eddard with wide eyes. Cersei's children were not Robert's? Who sired them, then, if not the king? Her heart thundered, blood racing, and she stared at each of the royals. Gold hair and green eyes, all of them. But Robert was black of hair, with eyes like the sea. She stared harder. Tommen's nose, Myrcella's waves, all of their ears. They weren't like Cersei, they were like Jaime.
She felt sick, and her eyelids grew heavy, forcing her to look down. It can't be. There is no way. But it would explain why Cersei hated her more than anything, why Jaime had been so reluctant to see the children and take them back to Casterly Rock. No, she told herself, it's not true. But the look in her father's eyes when she looked back up... it was too much for her to bear.
"You condemn yourself with your own mouth, Lord Stark," said Cersei. "Ser Barristan, seize this traitor. Ser Meryn, take his daughter."
The Lord commander of the Kingsguard hesitated, but Ser Meryn did not, and in the blink of an eye they were both surrounded by Stark guardsmen, bare steel in their mailed fists.
"And now the treason moves from words to deeds," Cersei said. "Do you think Ser Barristan stands alone, my lord?" There was an ominous rasp of metal on metal, and the Hound drew his longsword. The knights of the Kingsguard and twenty Lannister guardsmen in crimson cloaks moved to support him.
"Kill him!" the boy king screamed down from atop the Iron Throne. "Kill all of them, I command it!"
Ned pushed Lyla behind him, and she reached around his waist and ripped his sword from its sheath, baring it. "You leave me no choice," Ned told Cersei. "Commander, take the queen and her children into custody. Do them no harm, but escort them back to the royal apartments and keep them there, under guard."
"Men of the Watch!" Janos Slynt shouted, donning his helm. A hundred gold cloaks leveled their spears and closed.
"I want no bloodshed," Ned told the queen. "Tell your men to lay down their swords, and no one need-"
With a single sharp thrust, the nearest gold cloak drove his spear into Tomard's back. Fat Tom's blade dropped from nerveless fingers as the wet red point burst out through his ribs, piercing leather and mail. He was dead before his sword hit the floor.
Lyla screamed and Ned's shout came all too late as Janos himself slashed open Varly's throat. Cayn whirled, steel flashing, and drove back the nearest spearman with a flurry of blows. For an instant it looked as though he might cut his way free, but then the Hound was on him. Lyla called to him, warning him, but the dog's sword slashed before her voice could be heard, taking off Cayn's sword hand at the wrist. The second drove him to his knees and opened him from shoulder to breastbone.
The northmen died all around them and Lyla was pulled away from her father, kicking and screaming. "No! Let me go!" She cried, trying to thrust the sword she'd grabbed at the men who held an arm each, but the sword was kicked from her hand and she cringed as it twisted at the wrist.
"The tansy tea, please," called Cersei, voice level. Her eyes were right on Lyla's, and there was such a fury and utter joy in them that it made bile rise in her throat. "We shall not have this little bastard ruining the Lannister name."
A maid rushed forward with a teapot of sloshing liquid and Lyla cried out for her father, for anyone that could help her, but it was too late, and all she could do was try and keep her throat passage closed as the spearmen forced her mouth open for the hot tea.
