One Month Earlier.
Joffrey smirked, "Does that bother you, my lady? Are you afraid to kill her?"
Cara gritted her teeth. "Your highness, I am not bothered by your request."
"Then why are you standing in my throne room with that look on your face?" He raised a brow. "Come on, out with it woman!"
"It is nothing your highness." Cara cursed herself for even considering talking to the king, she would just have to continue to watch as Joffrey's commander murdered and raped without reason, Joffrey didn't care if his soldiers commited the same crimes that they hung lesser men for, he didn't care.
Cara scowled. It wasn't her place to question Joffrey's rule.
Cara adjusted the dagger slipped into her sleeve, her body was heavy with various weapons. None of which were very comfortable jammed against her body, or squeezed into her shoes. She tightened her cloak and strutted through the gates of the Red Keep, it was better outside the castle. She breathed in the air, the smells of dirt, rotting flesh and blood were mingled with more pleasant smells like baked bread, slightly exotic perfumes and the warm smell of rain hitting hot stones, this was where she belonged. Nobody spared her more than a glance as she strutted through the street, some gave her weary glances, eyeing her attire, but others were too busy to even notice as she weaved through the endless crowd of bodies.
The city was getting darker, and Cara could see the change, whores began to emerge, parading around, attracting customers. Most people with a shred of decency or self respect dissapeared, quickly evading the swarm of lowlives and pickpockets. Though Cara could see some nobles were discreetly wandering into not so flash looking pleasure houses, hoping nobody would notice them.
She tried her best to look non-threatening as she pushed her way into a whore-house that smelt of incense and sweat. Some men were drunk and shouted things at her, surprisingly none of them attempted to touch her, she was glad, if they had tried she would be resisting the urge to chop their hands off.
"Give him the best treatment." A purr of a voice reached Cara's ears and she instantly turned her back to the woman.
"We won't dissapoint you my lord." The owner of the whore-house, Madam Clarice, was smiling and digging her talons into the seemingly rich customer, she wanted money, she wanted him to ask for the best and then empty his wallet into her greedy waiting hands. Not that it mattered, that wasn't Clarice's problem. Clarice's problem was that word had reached the King of her loyalties, word had reached the king that she had been passing information to Stannis Baratheon, everytime one of the king's men sought pleasure Clarice would do her very best to extract information from them, and it worked most of the time, Joffrey's men weren't extremely bright.
"Just give me her, I don't care how much she costs." Cara heard the man say, his voice filled with raw desire.
"Of course." Clarice said.
She had won, Cara could hear the slight hint of pride in Clarice's voice, another small victory, another rich man reeled in because of her beautiful workers, everything was seemingly perfect in her world.
Cara felt an icy smile spread across her face. Not for long.
Clarice loved to be admired, she loved to walk through the crowd of people and have all eyes turn to her, to be fair she was an extremely stunning woman, but her behaviour made it hard for Cara to get her alone. Everywhere she went it seemed their were at least three people following close behind, sapping up her every word, laughing too much at a joke she made, they were begging for her to accept them, it made Cara sick.
"Lady looks hungry for some entertainment."
Cara slowly turned around, her face an impassive mask. "What?"
There was a man, probably mid forties, not incredibly bad looking but her was drunk. She instantly looked him up and down, he could be a foot taller than her and he was carrying a weapon, but she could see he wasn't very fit, he looked like a man who indulged in activities that brought him pleasure more than anything else, he looked like he drank a lot of wine and spent too much time inside. She would give him a chance to walk away unscathed, he was pretty much harmless.
"You look like you need some company."
She smiled. "Ah, no."
"Ya sure?" He swayed.
Cara nodded, keeping her smile in place. "Yes."
He looked almost like he was going to give up, then he leaned forwards and crushed his face against hers. Cara froze for a second, then she snarled and pushed his unshaven face away from hers, kneeing his crotch in the process. "No means no, sir."
The man fell to his knees, groaning and clutching his crotch. "Bitch, how dare you?"
She was about to answer him with a scathing response, then she scanned the room. Clarice was nowhere to be seen. Damn! She had let herself get distracted. Stupid, stupid.
There were stairs, stairs leading up to Clarice's quarters, Cara hoped.
She left the man on the floor, ignoring everybody as she subtly slipped away, darting up the stairs before anyone could notice her.
It didn't take long, all Cara did was look for the most expensive looking room. She was right, Clarice had went up here. Her strong perfume was everywhere, the sickly cloying scent filled her nostrils.
The woman's room was surprisingly, quite plain. Cara would have expected she would adorn it with fine silks and fancy embroidered pillows, but no. The woman had a large bed, made up with ivory covers, her curtains were dark green and drawn across the windows.
"It's about time." Clarice was leaning against her bedpost, casually, without a hint of fear.
"What do you mean?"
She laughed, a lilting beautiful sound. "You have come to kill me, I must say I expected you to try a long time ago."
Cara didn't answer for a moment. "You have betrayed your country."
"Have I dear? Have I really?" She wandered closer to Cara. "I think my country has betrayed me. I think the King has betrayed me."
Cara ignored her, feeling for the knife in her sleeve.
"How can you follow them? How can you watch Joffrey destroy everything we stand for? He is no king of mine." She spat.
Cara bounced across the room, swiftly twisting Clarice's arm behind her back and holding the knife to her throat. "It's over Clarice."
She laughed again, it sent a strange chill down Cara's spine. "It doesn't end with me, dear."
Cara pressed the knife harder against her throat.
"You're better than this." The woman whispered, then closed her eyes.
"No." Cara drew the knife across her throat. "I'm not."
Cara's room was freezing, well the whole bloody castle was freezing, but she felt like her room was more so. The floor was cold, the walls were cold and the bed was cold, she already felt an intense hate for the castle. She was lying flat on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling. Gods, wasn't there work to be done?
"My lady?" A quiet knock on her door.
"Yes?"
"It's me, Henry." He cleared his throat. "We have been told to gather for lunch."
Cara sat up sharply and opened her door. "Okay, show me where to go."
He laughed, "Yes, my lady."
Their dining hall was packed, men sqaushed together on thin wooden benches gave her snide looks as she passed by, above all the men on the next level sat the lord commander, a red headed woman sat beside him, like Jon Snow, she looked incredibly tired and injured. Cara tried not to stare this time.
"As probably most of you know by now," Jon stood up. "Lady Cara here, will be training the new recruits, she will stay with us for the next three weeks."
An instant chorus of grumbling, complaining and insults erupted throughout the room.
"Silence, yes she is a woman. No, that doesn't mean she isn't qaulified to train them. I will moniter the training and make sure it is done correctly. You will have no cause for worry."
The men continued to grumble and mutter to each other, but none of them tried to argue with Jon.
"This is going to be entertaining." Aaron sat down beside her and Henry with his plate of lunch.
"Is it now?" She raised a brow.
"Of course, we have never had a woman trainer here."
She didn't answer, her belly was grumbling for food, but the array of greyish lumps on her plate didn't look the least bit appetizing.
"You will have to learn to like it." Aaron smiled grimly. "It's the only way."
Cara scowled at the food then stabbed something with her fork and jammed it in her mouth, she began to chew, her brain told her to spit it out, she wanted to spit it out and wash the taste from her mouth, but if she wanted anyone to respect her here then she would need to fit in, fit in and not act like a weak stomached woman.
"There you go."
Cara ate a few more pieces of the food, she couldn't stomach all of it.
"By the way, the Commander wants you to start the training right after lunch."
"Right after?"
"Yes." Said Aaron. "Three weeks is not a lot of time, and they have had little to no training."
"Right."
"Be careful with them," Aaron looked serious now. "They aren't soldiers, they aren't men with honour and they I'm afraid they won't respect you very much."
"Then I will have to make them." Cara smirked, all the while her stomach was churning and her head spinning.
