Jaime felt Arya clutch his hand as they stared out at the crowd that had come to watch Cersei die. They had been standing on the steps of the Red Keep with the rest of the royal party for almost twenty minutes; Tommen pale but calm as he held his kitten; Tyrion highly agitated and annoyed; Uncle Kevan sorrowful and disbelieving; and Sansa and Myrcella not present at all. Sansa had let it be known for almost a week that she would not be attending; but as a princess of the realm who needed to distance herself from her mother in order to survive, Myrcella had little choice in the matter. The princess, however, had not been seen since breakfast, and had proved such a genius at evading both her handmaidens and the gold cloaks that the entire execution had had to be delayed until Myrcella was found.
The delay – and the implications of Cersei's having refused to see the High Septon earlier that morning – made Jaime want to vomit in anxiety, but as he watched Arya standing silent, constant and fearless as a sentinel by his side, and felt the tenseness in her fingers as they held onto his; he felt his heart sink further into his chest as he contemplated the effect that a scene like this must have on her; and the memories it must evoke.
When she sensed his gaze and looked back at him, her grey eyes like the wolfswood, he opened his mouth for the first time in an hour, and spoke to her.
'Are you alright, Stark?' Jaime asked.
'Yes,' Arya lied, 'are you?'
'Yes,' he lied back, his voice shaking from the falsehood.
Arya squeezed his hand again and looked out at the crowd once more, leaving him no choice but to contemplate the shit storm that he had endured the previous evening, and to feel anger, fear and the beginnings of panic as they clouded up the breath in his lungs and turned his blood to wolfsbane.
After seeing Cersei, Jaime had walked rapidly out of the dungeons; turned back again with every intention of strangling her with her chains; changed his mind and walked away; thought seriously about returning later that evening to cut her throat; and eventually ended up in Tyrion's chambers, knowing that his brother would counsel him well without doing him the dishonour of suggesting that he decide to stand as Cersei's champion after all.
To Jaime's extreme chagrin, Tyrion's initial reaction had been to swear violently, drain his wine goblet and throw it hard against the wall; sending the crystal shattering and splintering like a thousand iridescent stars in the candlelight. But then he had calmed himself, poured himself more wine and had begun to think. And thinking was what Tyrion did best.
'Even if she does decide to tell the truth,' Tyrion had reasoned, 'nobody will believe a word she says, least of all the bloody High Septon. Her refusal to honour the Crown's debts to the Faith has crippled whatever trust he might have had in her.'
'This is not just about the High Septon,' Jaime snapped, 'what about Stannis Baratheon and his fucking letter?'
'She cannot possibly think to use that against you,' Tyrion assured him, 'she has publicly denounced the document on numerous occasions, and many still consider it to be little more than petty sedition.'
'Many more people don't!' Jaime insisted.
'Will you calm down?' Tyrion hissed in desperation, 'you can't –'
'I can't?' Jaime shouted, 'I can't what? Once this conversation is over, I will have to go back upstairs and tell my wife that she may be a widow before the week is out! How can I calm down?'
'Unless you want every little bird in the castle to hear you, then I suggest that you find a way!' Tyrion growled back at him, his mismatched eyes glaring at Jaime in a thoroughly frightening way…before softening wordlessly, and smiling at him like candles.
Jaime forced himself to take several deep breaths, and poured himself a glass of wine while his brother glanced out of each of the windows, closed them, and opened the door to tell Bronn to impale any lurkers on a spike. He then returned to where Jaime stood, and continued to speak to him with carefully-calculated calm.
'Trials require proof to be successful,' Tyrion told him, 'and there is no proof of Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella's true parentage. Joffrey slaughtered all the proof when he had the gold cloaks murder Robert's bastards – and Robert's bastards were scant proof to begin with. If someone had pointed that out to Jon Arryn or Ned Stark, they would both still be alive –'
'What are you saying, brother?' Jaime interrupted.
'I'm saying that Cersei's playing with you,' Tyrion declared simply.
Jaime shook his head.
'She isn't.'
Tyrion glared impatiently at him.
'How do you know?'
'I just do.'
'How? Has she told you of some new evidence that she's magically acquired from the darkness of her prison cell?'
It took every ounce of self-restraint that Jaime possessed not to reach out and hit him.
'I want to go back down there and kill her,' he growled between gritted teeth.
'A kinslayer as well as a kingslayer?' Tyrion shot back, amused, 'a rare distinction, brother.'
'I don't care a fuck if I end up in the deepest of the seven hells for this!' Jaime spat, growing angrier by the second, 'for the first time in my life I'm hap – that is, I don't care a fuck what she does to me, but I will not let her do this to Arya, or…or to Tommen, or Myrcella. I want her dead before she causes any more damage; I want her dead!'
'Don't be a child, Jaime,' Tyrion said harshly, a hint of contempt in his voice, 'everyone would know it was you.'
'So I do nothing?' Jaime concluded in disbelief, 'you would have me do nothing?'
'Yes, because Cersei will also do nothing!' Tyrion insisted, furious, 'nobody will believe her, she cannot provide convincing proof, and she cannot make such a confession without endangering Tommen and Myrcella. She has too much to lose by talking.'
Jaime almost screamed in frustration.
'She doesn't care about endangering Tommen and Myrcella, can't you understand?'
'Brother, please –'
'She believes she's lost everything, including her children! She's so convinced that you'll slit their throats in the night that she probably sees condemning them to die with both her and me as mercy!'
Tyrion stared.
'Who said anything about condemning them to die?' he asked.
'Cersei did,' Jaime replied, staring back as Tyrion snorted in disgust.
'Then Cersei is a bigger fool than I thought her,' he said, 'I will not suffer two children to be executed for no greater crime than being born. I'll change the fucking law if I have to. But let us imagine, for argument's sake, that Cersei does stage this grand confession of which you speak, and you are tried, somehow found guilty and then condemned to die. Yes, you will certainly lose your head and that may very well please her, but Tommen and Myrcella will be dishonoured, attainted and stripped of all rank and titles; and I do not think our sweet sister would do such a thing to her own children just to get at you. She loves them. She sees her own power as living on through them.'
Jaime looked intently into Tyrion's face and prayed desperately, to the old gods and the new, that Tyrion would believe him.
'Our sister is half-mad with hatred and desperation and paranoia,' he said, 'she will do anything at any time; can't you see? It is the dying serpent that bites deepest.'
'You're beginning to talk like Father,' Tyrion observed.
'Have you ever known Father to be wrong where dying serpents are concerned?' Jaime insisted; praying that his words would be enough, and seeing, in Tyrion's eyes, that they weren't.
Why doesn't he understand? Jaime fumed as Tyrion stood looking silently at him as he would at a fool that he was only humouring, why does nobody understand the way her twisted fucking mind works? Is the whole world blind as well as stupid?
No. The whole world doesn't know her like I do. Gods help me.
Tyrion was speaking to him once more.
'Brother,' he asked softly, 'do you trust my judgment? Do you trust me?'
'Do I trust you even when I know you're wrong?' Jaime scoffed bitterly.
Tyrion did not reply, and Jaime could see that he'd hurt him.
But he did trust him. More than he would ever admit.
'I trust you,' Jaime said gravely.
'Then do as I say,' Tyrion replied in relief, 'go back to your chambers. Get some sleep. Say nothing of this to Arya. And by this time tomorrow, our sweet sister's head will be decorating a spike on the dry moat, and this whole mess will be behind us. I promise you.'
Jaime had returned to his chambers furious, exhausted and unconvinced, but he had done as Tyrion had said. Because infuriating as the clever little shit was, Tyrion tended to be right.
The arrival of an officer of the city watch, and the subsequent roar of acknowledgment from the crowd, brought Jaime back to the stairs of the Red Keep and the feeling of Arya's hand in his as the officer stopped in front of Tommen and bowed, his gold cloak shining like a signal beacon.
'Has my royal sister been found?' Tommen asked.
'No sign, Your Grace, I'm afraid,' the officer replied.
Jaime watched as Tommen had a whispered word with Tyrion. A kitten in the boy king's arms squirmed in discomfort as Nymeria growled hungrily and was immediately shushed by Arya, who buried her hand in the direwolf's fur to keep her firmly by their side. Tommen grew paler as his conversation with Tyrion came to a close, and he turned regally back to the officer in gold; his fingers gliding through the kitten's fur.
'We shall proceed without Princess Myrcella,' Tommen declared, 'you may bring out the prisoner.'
'Your Grace,' the officer responded, before raising his hand above his head and moving to rejoin his company as the doors to the Keep began to open.
Arya did not turn her head as Cersei was lead out of the doors behind them, and down the stairs to the scaffolding that had been erected in the square. She could feel every move the woman made without seeing her; the legacy of what Jaqen, and memory, had taught her.
For years she had been dreaming of seeing Cersei Lannister die; sweet dreams in which she held the knife or swung the sword while Cersei wept and screamed and tore at her own flesh. Arya had always wanted it to be that way. Nevertheless, she had to admit that seeing the stupid bitch beheaded in the square before the Red Keep with a screaming mob in attendance did have a certain…appeal, and she even found herself to be capable of forgiving Ilyn Payne for claiming her father's greatsword, Ice – for one day only. Because Cersei would die by a Stark blade, and that was the way it should be.
Arya felt Jaime's fingers tighten through hers, and felt herself crushed by shame; a feeling that had hung constantly and menacingly about her shoulders in the course of the past week. She had wanted to talk to Jaime about Cersei…so many times, it had been right on the tip of her tongue…but each time she had held back, because talking would reveal the fierce joy that she felt at the prospect of seeing Cersei die; and that would hurt Jaime no matter how much he pleaded the contrary.
Arya was not ashamed of what she felt, nor did she blame Jaime for not sharing it. She was ashamed that silence was the only comfort she could offer him. But anything else would be a lie, and he would know if she lied to him.
Arya's eyes flickered across to the scaffolding, where Cersei stood with one shoulder to the crowd and the other to the stairs of the Keep; her eyes fixed on Tommen, and clearly searching for Myrcella, as the High Septon read out the list of her crimes; his voice drowned out by the baying and the howling and the cheering of the mob as they screamed out 'whore' and 'traitor,' and Arya shuddered as identical cries and screams, and the sound of a blade falling, were called up from the darkness of her eleven-year-old self, and she held Jaime's hand tighter as she looked out over the crowd.
Jaime needs your help today, not the other way round. So stop being stupid, and grow up.
'Stark.'
Arya turned her head to look at her husband. His face was haggard and pinched, and his golden hair was slick with sweat, but his eyes were gentle as he softly kissed her forehead and asked her, once again, if she was alright.
'Yes,' Arya repeated, feeling a rush of affection and guilt, 'are you?'
And suddenly Jaime's face changed, haunted by a voice that only he could hear, and the expression in his eyes was slaughtered by denial and disbelief and horror as he gazed suddenly and intently away from her and towards the scaffold; his face growing harsher and paler as he did so.
Cersei's eyes had left her son, and had come to settle on her brother. She was gazing at him with an unsettling calm and radiance; the glorious, unholy beauty of her face seeming to pull every scream and cry and jeer of the crowd into her gaze; so that her emerald eyes roared silently and vengefully in the face of death, and her stupid pouty lips, like Joffrey's, began to turn up at the corners and smile. Several feet away, Arya saw Tyrion turning pale, his fingers balling into fists, and when Arya looked back at Cersei, she was still leering at them with that grotesque smile of fear and blood; and Jaime was holding her hand so tightly it hurt.
'Jaime,' she uttered, ashamed of how small her voice sounded, 'what haven't you told me?'
Jaime's eyes were wild as they met hers.
'How can you ask me that question?'
'Why aren't you answering it?'
Arya tore her eyes away from Jaime's as the High Septon finished his list and roared out over the crowd; his voice a harsh chorus of drums and funeral horns.
'Does the accused have anything to say?' he thundered.
Jaime's hand was shaking in Arya's; Tyrion's face was marble and stone and grief, like Tywin's; Kevan's was perplexed but panic-stricken, and Tommen was stroking his kitten; the boy king's eyes a horror as he looked upon his mother's cruelly smiling face. Nausea begin to rise in Arya's chest along with dread and fear, and Nymeria was growling beside her as the crowd fell silent and Cersei's eyes burned pale with the threat of wildfire.
Burn them all.
'I am Cersei Lannister of Casterly Rock,' she proclaimed, the sun catching the crimson of her gown like a heartbeat, 'the eldest child and only daughter of Tywin Lannister; and Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms. I come before you to confess my treason. In the sight of gods and –'
Arya cried out as a scream of pain and fear and shock tore from Cersei's throat; her proud words rent from her as a cloudburst of blood gushed from her mouth; her white hands closing slowly and disbelievingly around the arrow protruding from her stomach. The crowd grew very silent, then transformed itself into a colossal, roaring monster that burst apart and tore itself limb from limb; each appendage stampeding away from the others and hollering in terror as Cersei fell to her knees under the impact of more arrows; from heaven, it seemed, from nowhere; that savagely pierced her chest, throat, stomach and arms; dragging the life from her as she collapsed onto the scaffolding, dead.
Arya felt the breath crushed from her lungs as Jaime seized hold of her and shielded her body between his and those of the red cloaks behind them; roaring at her not to be stupid as she hopped on the balls of her feet to see over his shoulder. Tyrion was shouting orders, Kevan was rushing to obey them, the Kingsguard were leaping in front of Tommen and pulling him back to the Keep, the High Septon was running for cover, and Ilyn Payne was staring stupidly at Cersei's body as though wondering what he should do with it. The gold cloaks were charging into the square to deal with the pandemonium, and Jaime was ordering the red cloaks to take Arya back into the Keep while he remained to help Tyrion.
She protested and scratched and shouted and did everything in her power to prevent them from obeying him, until Jaime barked in a briskly impatient and military voice that she had never heard him use before:
'Captain, you will restrain Lady Lannister and escort her back to our chambers. You will keep her there, under guard, until I return for her. You will chain her up if she refuses to comply, and you will not under any circumstances allow her to get near anything at all that may be used as a weapon. Is that understood?'
'Yes, my lord!' the captain barked in return.
'I will kill you for this, Lannister!' Arya shouted as Jaime turned his back on her to rejoin Tyrion. She seethed with rage as the red cloaks took hold of her arms, formed a tight press around her and marched her back into the Keep.
Tears of rage welled up violently in Arya's eyes as she thought of Jaime out there in the square, standing with his brother at the mercy of an archer sitting triumphantly on a rooftop somewhere with little or nothing to stop him from dispatching all of Tywin Lannister's children in one morning; an archer silently contemplating the justice that he had administered…and the justice that he had stolen. She thought of the arrows piercing Cersei's body; the arrows that had given her grace and wholeness of form in death instead of the grotesque mutilation and spectacle of a head with long blonde hair being held up for the pleasure of a screaming mob. She thought of the morning of Joffrey's wedding, and the heaviness and the agony in her heart as she had loosed one arrow after another into the morning air; each shot speaking to her of Jaime and the harrowing absence of him. And she thought of the girl who had stood beside her, young and beautiful in cloth of gold; who had danced and laughed like a child, hitting the target after ten minutes of holding a bow.
