Adam/CERSEI
Adam sat at the head of the table in the council chamber; Petyr, Varys and Littlefinger had been quick to vie positions. Yet their discussions were at an end when the door opened to permit Ser Boros leading in -
"Sansa," Adam smiled, and beckoned she sit closest. The advisors moved down a rank.
"What have I done wrong, Your Grace?" Sansa stared.
"It's your father," Adam summoned reserves of energy for speaking with a teenage girl. "You see, our association with the Starks must be at an end."
"Why?" Sansa moaned, and Adam frowned.
"Your father, of course," he prodded. "It cannot be said for my son to wed the daughter of a traitor."
"No - no," Sansa glanced around the table, and found an ally in Petyr's look. "Please! He didn't know what he was doing… "
"Then you must write," Adam nodded and Pycelle produced the parchment and quill, however at an aching pace. "To your mother, your brother - all who would be pleased to hear how well you are treated, and how well the king's justice would sit on their shoulders."
Varys kept his lips pressed together. Petyr was too much in a gaze of Sansa. Pycelle, doddering, his chains of office clanking, watched Sansa with a phlegm of spit and distaste.
"Well?" Adam glanced to his advisers, who by now knew he did not like to be interrupted.
"Your Grace," Varys took the initiative. "She is a sweet thing, but… "
" - only a girl," Littlefinger took the handle. "And you, surely Your Grace, you know she will follow your lead, whatever you say. The girl respects you."
Adam kept his face wilfully bland. "Grand Maester?"
"She is born of treason and will die of treason," he railed. "Nothing will permit to get the stench out. It is as Jon Arryn said, may the gods give him rest. The seed is strong!"
Adam held up a hand, and a withering gaze.
Sansa turned to the queen. "So, you'll free him?"
Adam pushed forth the quill and inkpot. "You must write, and the king will consider your case."
"But - " Sansa paused. "If I could just see - "
"The king - " Adam interrupted, with a flaring of the nostrils, a raising of the eyebrows, and a churlish glance shared between Varys and Littlefinger that they had quickly come to expect of the queen. Adam smiled sweetly, and his belly was coiled like a serpent. " - the king will consider your case in good time."
Clara/JOFFREY
"How do you feel, ser?" Clara smiled, up at the Hound.
"Stop that," the Hound rasped, and Clara walked along the castle wall, the parapets and stationed guard and towers with bundles of arrows and torch sconces in the shine of the day.
Theirs was a silent walk, until the Hound interrupted her musings,
"It's me who should be asking you."
Clara frowned up at him. "Why?"
"For your father," the Hound reminded her, and she became solemn. "Yeah, that's right. Forgot about him already, didn't you?"
Clara watched the Blackwater sparkle and glow. The kingswood stretched achingly beyond. On the horizon, a blanket of water so thick as to drown herself in, and twist and wrap around like a cape if she were an emerging giant from the subterranean.
"It's Your Grace, to you," Clara nocked him down a peg.
"You're a little shit," the Hound rasped, and Clara only laughed.
The clouds hid the sun such that Clara gave a little shiver; she adjusted her robe that was emblazoned with both Lannister crimson and Baratheon black.
"And what of Sansa?" Clara eyed him, and his face changed not a bit. He continued walking and she kept up.
"What about her?" Sandor asked.
"Plucked from the north," Clara rolled her eyes. "Perhaps she's too pretty for me."
Sandor continued walking, and Clara tried her luck. She paused to waited for him to turn around.
"Perhaps she's pretty enough for you?"
Clara watched the burnt, scarred side of his face move a jolt. He turned towards the spiral staircase. Their descent was their footsteps alone.
"I've got Littlefinger's brothels for that," the Hound remarked.
Max/ARYA
Max glanced up at the door in the chambers of Maegor's Holdfast where he was kept; behind which, he heard scurrying and footsteps and coughing from the Lannister guards flanking the doors.
Otherwise, he buried an immense fury; the room was not without ornamentation, but his stomach was seized and pulling apart at the seams.
Nymeria, that companion so steadfast; an innocent, and how was she to know Max wasn't truly in danger? How to tell her that yes, the Lannisters were enemy; but not these Lannisters, not right now…
Max felt shuddering, puking grief; he vomited up the contents in his chamber pot, and hated how raw he felt afterwards. He lay in bed, provided of food and drink, but he could not see Sansa, he could not see Ned, he almost even wished he could see Grace…
Yet the ajar window he stood on a table for was too small to climb out of, and would end in his spirited release to the gods if he tried. The fall was immense to see the layout of the Red Keep's courtyard; gold cloaks and Lannister soldiers, but none of Robert's.
That king was slowly being erased; his mark like a stain. Of course, his sigil still hung, his presence still felt; but the influence was of the lion, curling up upon the rug and yawning; content.
He almost wished he had scarpered; what had happened to his friend, Syrio Forel? Surely the two would have been able to make a fantastic adventure together. But then, Arya hadn't been able to convince him, from what he remembered…
It made him sad to think some deaths could have been avoided; and then he was reminded of one that would at least could be. At least, he hoped, that would be if Adam could keep his word; and Clara, too.
Grace/TOMMEN
Grace could count her blessings that at least she was permitted passage around the castle; yet with Ser Arys and a score of guards, she could tell they were not best pleased solely to escort the little prince around. War was coming, she had overheard them talking while she had been getting dressed by servants; they lusted for battle, and wished they had gone with Ser Jaime, who was said to have ridden to Casterly Rock, to command one of his father's armies.
Grace shivered; she wanted nothing of battle! She hoped it wouldn't touch here.
The ramifications of Ned's arrest did not last long with her. From her eye, the man had tried to decry Clara and take down Adam, too. She hoped they were alright; when she went knocking on their doors like trick-or-treat, she heard only a hollow silence.
The yard was full of sparring men, and Grace's guard gave them a passing glance. She caught Ser Arys' fond smile and beamed; she looked forward to the gate which permitted passage further into the city.
"No further, my prince," Ser Arys warned. "Our orders are to keep you safe."
"I wish we were back in the kingswood, I had lots of fun," Grace despaired, and to remember that of the king's body being trailed out. She hated blood, she hated bodies and she hated death.
All of this was a tumult to her; and Ser Arys nodded her back to the Red Keep, her thoughts all of a boil.
Zoe/GREGOR
The steady drip of the rain had long since petered off; the drizzle had accumulated and left its stain on the kingsroad; half sunk into the unsteady gait any traveler would hope to cross. The wintry land was a haze; yet footfalls and booms heralded the crescent: a semicircle growing larger on the horizon, thinning in a line as studied as ants.
Zoe watched from the window as the northerners made good their approach.
Hers was a tower where the fire measly lept from cinder to ash and she rubbed her hands to get warm. A pail near full did not need to remind her of the swarthy beard which itched; the rank smell of her sodden clothes; oh, how she longed for a bath. Her greatsword leaned against the wall opposite, which was to say in the small accommodations there could be no word of having a guard posted on her door.
They had since taken her horse, she knew; and should she slay the bowmen of the fortifications, she would meet in kind a force greater than any wroth contrived in her mind.
The footfalls were heavier, the voices greater, the tumult turning and churning a whirl in her gut. She was big and monstrous and ugly. And she had never felt more scared in her life.
It did not take long once the men had swarmed the towers, camps erected and lean-tos, fires made despite the wintry cold that she heard footsteps; harried footsteps on the spiral staircase leading into her room, and those clanking with steel and armor. The door came upon at but a shove.
Robb Stark was a boy, she saw; reddish hair and fury on his grimace. He was accompanied by a dozen retainers, among his most trusted of lords. She saw Roose Bolton's gaze and almost crapped herself.
"Who do we have here, then?" Robb looked her up and down, and paused a still silence, wintry in the north. "You must be mad to come here."
"I'm here to pledge my sword," spoke Zoe, and the voices drew utmost merriment, hidden only by the sliver of steel. Her greatsword, after all, was within their reach; yet they were never so wary as when Zoe rose from her seat.
The Greatjon spat. "You, Lord Tywin's dog?"
"I'm his dog no longer," Zoe hated the reputation she dragged around like lice. "I'll prove it. I'll fight him in battle."
"Not bloody likely," chimed in Lord Karstark. "You'd as soon slay us as the horns sounded. Lord Tywin's gone mad, he has. Sending his dog to sneak in our camp!"
"I'm not a spy," Zoe got angry, and they all tensed. His bulk and size was tremendous.
The silence was still in the air; the rain padded down in a steady drip-drip. The wind whistled and made Zoe shiver. If they tried to kill her, she'd only let them try.
"Well, then," Robb spoke up. "There's only one way to settle this."
Zoe watched as the ruffled bulk of a shaggy-fur direwolf wounded its way underneath Robb's legs with refrain; and careened to the side where even the northern lords stepped back.
Robb spoke up. "This is Grey Wind."
The direwolf loped forward, yellow eyes and black pupils; Zoe stood frozen to the spot, as Grey Wind sniffed her hand, so armored in black and heavy plate. The direwolf sat; and improbably, the chuckle of the Greatjon at what had at first been a meal for his lord's pet; the direwolf scrambled up on Zoe whose ribcage hammered and scraped as though for a pat.
Lightly, daintily, Zoe gave the direwolf the briefest of pats; and the relief, shudder of tension, the palpable exhaustion of the men was apparent to her from the look on their faces.
Robb stared her down; Zoe thought that this was to be the commander of the northmen? He nodded and the direwolf crept back to his side, lathering happily.
"Well, then," Robb studied a little smile from his lips. "That's that, then."
"That's that?" the Greatjon countered. "This beast? He'll kill us in his sleep!"
Zoe took a step to the Greatjon, whose hand was swinging for his sword; the steel a song he craved.
"Oh, just take one step further - " the Greatjon grit his teeth. "Just one, bloody step!"
And Zoe took one back, and sat on the bench, fuming. The Greatjon savored his triumph; yet Roose's eyes cut into hers. And Robb continued to stare.
"If Grey Wind trusts him, that's all we need," Robb nodded. "Ser Gregor."
Zoe watched him file out with his direwolf; and his bodyguard and his lords, who wavered just a bit as though to capture the moment. To instill in her the fear of the pack of wolves outside her door.
"We'll be waitin'," the Greatjon pointed. "And I'll cut your damn head off myself."