Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.
Book 2
Chapter One-Hundred and Nineteen
Cersei had been dreaming when Varys shook her awake, she would have screamed but the eunuch dared to clamp his hand over her mouth and Cersei bit into his palm, she tasted his blood on the back of her throat and the plump man fell back, off of her bed and down to the floor, shrieking and squealing like a pig that had just been fresh gelded.
"What are you doing!?" Cersei spat at him along with a mouthful of blood, she dragged the back of her hand over her mouth to try and get the taste of it out of her mouth.
Varys whimpered and he stayed sat on the ground, looking wide-eyed down at the blood that was now trickling down his hand and down the flesh of his arm like he had never bled before, Cersei felt a surge of disgust for how pathetic he was. Honestly, was all the bravery that men were meant to have truly locked inside the worm that they kept between their legs? Perhaps she was better not having one when it came to that.
"Answer me you fool!" Cersei cried as she climbed out of her bed, her bare feet brushing against the stone floor. "If you do not tell me right now then I will summon my guards!"
That seemed to reach him, the fool and the mincing eunuch climbed to his feet. "Oh no, you mustn't do that Princess," the eunuch looked close to tears, and the disgust she felt for him only grew. If she had any other choice for allies then she would have gladly turned her back on the pathetic creature but alas the only one that Cersei could truly count as a friend aside from him was Falyse Stokeworth, and she was hardly a powerful ally at all.
Cersei breathed out and pushed her down her rage, the awful truth was she needed Varys and she could not risk losing him now. "Just tell me what you want Varys, why are you here? How late is it?"
It was dark out of the window, it was raining again but it was only a light trickle and the moon was a fat silver coin in the black sky. It was a beautiful sight, but something about it twisted in Cersei's gut. The night was too quiet, every sound seemed to be louder in that vast silence and Cersei could see her breath in the air, she had never been cold enough to do that. Nowhere outside of the North.
Varys spoke before she had time to consider what that meant. "Very late indeed your Grace, or very early depending on how you look at it. The rest of the castle is abed, aside from the guards on their watches. We must hurry and get you out of the castle before the castle begins to stir, we do not have long."
"Out of the castle?" Cersei asked, her eyes narrowing. She had dreamed plenty of times of fleeing from this gilded cage more times than she could count but Varys had always told her that the time was not right for it, it never seemed to be right. "Why?"
"The royal family will be traveling north in a matter of days," Varys spoke, his voice was so quiet that for a moment Cersei had to strain to hear him. "For the wedding of Lady Catelyn's first son with Brandon Stark to the eldest daughter of Lord Benjen Stark with Lady Lysa Tully, only the younger boys will remain here while a great portion of the court will follow the King north. Among them will be your elder son."
"No." It came out of her mouth as soon as Varys had finished speaking, it was the first word, the first thought, that came to her. She knew what would happen if Aemon went north, he would never come back to her. He would be condemned to spend the rest of his days atop the wall, slowly freezing to death while keeping watch for savage barbarians, grumpkins, and snarks.
Cersei Lannister would not allow it.
"I am glad to see we are of one mind when it comes to this matter Princess," Varys said before he walked over to her trunk and opened it, looking over her clothes without a single word from her. "We must get the both of you out of the castle and away from King's Landing, I have made arrangements for a ship to be waiting for us and sail out with you and Prince Aemon on the morning tide."
"But not you?" Cersei asked the suspicion that had kept her alive flaring in her gut. "Why not?"
"Oh, I have never loved traveling by sea," Varys muttered as he threw her clothes onto the bed, all her old silks and velvets that she needed to have remade a thousand times over as they had become more and more worn over the years and no longer fit as well as they did. "And I must remain here Princess, I shall be more useful to you and your son within the Red Keep then without it."
She supposed that made sense, Cersei nodded. Yes, the more that she thought about it the more she did like the sound of it. She and Aemon would flee this castle that had been a prison for the both of them and while they found loyal swords to surround themselves, Varys could lay the seeds for their return from within the Red Keep. He had always told her that there were thousands and thousands of houses who were still loyal to the Targaryens, who were sewing dragon banners and sharpening their blades in wait for the day when their rightful king would rise up to take back his throne.
"It will be a long voyage back to the Rock," they would have to sail down from King's Landing, and all the way around Dorne which did not sit well with her, but it would be worth it when she was finally home with her son within the impregnable walls of the Rock.
"Casterly Rock?" Varys asked as he turned to look at her. "No princess, the boat that I have chartered for you and Prince Aemon will be taking you to Pentos."
"Pentos?" Cersei had never been to Pentos before and she did not intend to go now, there was nothing for her or her son across the Narrow Sea regardless. "Why would we wish to go to Pentos? Casterly Rock is our home." It had been so very long since she had seen the Rock, she would go back there and her son would have all the knights of the west at his disposal to put him on the throne that was his by rights.
"Princess," Varys simpered at her. "I am sorry but I have little birds within Casterly Rock as well and I am afraid that from what they have told me it seems that your Father's wrath at you has not cooled. I am afraid that if you try and go to the Rock now, you may find that your son is welcomed readily enough but that you are left out in the cold. And that is the best outcome if you go there."
Cersei already knew that her father had not forgiven her but she had hoped that if she came home with her son in tow then he would have looked past it, there were no Westerlanders at court aside from herself and her children and Varys had told her that for all the stinking people of this foul city loved Eddard Stark and Elia Martell, there was no love for them in the west.
And Father had fought for the crown when the war had happened, he had done that for her because she had been a hostage to the Targaryens and he did not wish for her to die. If she brought him her son, the rightful king, then surely he would decide to move past it and focus all his efforts on putting his grandson on the throne.
But if he wouldn't do that, then she would simply have to do it without him. She had waited twenty years for her vengeance, she would not be pushed to the side or disregarded. Cersei Lannister nodded. "Pentos then," a city-state of cheesemongers and spice merchants from what she had heard but there would be plenty of coin in the city and with that coin, they could hire sellswords.
"Yes, I have friends in the city Princess. Powerful and rich men who will do all they can to ensure that your son will one day sit on his grandfather's throne, but you must not tarry there as there is something more precious than gold that is waiting for you across the sea but we must put that to the side for the moment," Varys scuttered over to her then with a brown lambswool dress, Cersei only wore it when she had to mend her other clothes. "Time is against us."
Cersei allowed Varys to help her dress, it felt strange to have a man help her to dress but then she supposed that Varys wasn't truly a man anymore and he seemed to know what he was doing. But whenever Varys came to her he always wore different clothes, changed how he spoke and how he walked and how he carried himself, and sometimes he came to her dressed as a woman so maybe that was how he knew how to do it.
"There we go," Varys hummed as he finished tying her into the dress. "The boat is ready for you and your son but there are a few more things that must be done before I can get you there, while I see these things done Princess you must go and fetch your son while drawing no notice to yourself."
"How am I meant to do that?" Cersei asked with a heavy frown, Aemon's rooms were within Maegor's Holdfast and the drawbridge that kept the holdfast separated from the rest of the castle was raised, she could see that from the window in her apartments and no doubt the iron portcullis on the other side of the bridge would be down as well and there was always a knight of the kingsguard or the queensguard keeping watch on it.
"Come with me," Varys spoke as he handed her a cloak that Cersei put on and then followed him out of the apartments that had been her prison for so very long.
She was shocked to see the crumpled bodies of two of her guards on the ground outside the door to her apartments. "Are they dead?"
"Oh no Princess," Varys said but he did not turn to look back at her as he spoke and he was already making his way down the steps as he continued to speak to her. "I merely had one of my little birds mix a heavy sleeping potion into their evening wine, they are sleeping a deep and dreamless sleep but they shall wake in a few hour's time with only a heavy head as a reminder."
A pity, Cersei would have preferred it if they were dead. It would be a fitting punishment for them, they had taken part in her imprisonment and that made them her enemies, and would that she had a knife she would have cut their throats right there and then and let their bodies serve as a reminder of what happened to those that dared to try and oppose her.
But instead, she simply left them where they lay and followed Varys down the steps, she had never walked down these steps in the dark before and she didn't think that she had known a silence like it, the only sounds she could hear was the sound of her own footsteps, the sound of Varys's feet gently scuffing the stones of the steps and the sound of her own heartbeat.
They came to the ground floor of the kitchen keep and Varys led her into the main kitchens of the keep. The large space was dark and the air was filled with the sound of snores from the kitchen servants who were curled up on the floor. "Watch your step now Princess," Varys whispered as he moved ahead of her, Cersei followed behind him to make sure she did not step on anyone.
She had lived above the kitchens long enough to know that the cooks would be up before the sun was and she had often been woken by the smell of bread baking beneath her feet. She had always gotten loaves of bread that were still warm from being in the oven and it had made the butter melt so fast on the bread, it had been a small comfort but it had been something.
Varys lead her towards the buttery, the coldest part of the kitchens, and shut the door behind them once they were inside. He then walked over to a shelf where round wheels of cheese waited to be sliced and pulled the shelf to the side and pressed on a stone, the stone sunk into the wall and the wall itself swung inward to a small passageway which ended at a dark hole in the floor, with an iron ladder that went down deep.
Cersei had heard all the stories of Maegor the Cruel having secret passages within the Red Keep but she had never thought that there was any truth in them, she thought that it had simply been Maegor's enemies telling tales about him to make him seem worse than he actually was, you didn't try to overthrow a king that people liked after all but regardless it didn't matter. It was a way out.
Varys went down the ladder first and Cersei waited until the eunuch called up to her before she began to descend into the dark, the cool metal of the ladder stuck to the skin of her palms as she went down it, and by the time that she had reached the bottom of it she found that she was out of breath.
Varys was waiting for her with a dimly lit lantern in his hand, it barely cut through the darkness and cast even darker shadows across his face which seem to make the smile he gave her then less reassuring than it might have been. "Well done Princess, there are no more ladders from here on in I am glad to say but there are a few stairs that we must climb. Follow me."
Cersei followed, and Varys seemed to know these tunnels like he was born to them and she was glad of his presence as she was certain that it would be far to easy to become lost in the sprawling darkness beneath the Red Keep. She kept as close to Varys as she could, not wanting to lose sight of him as he lead her through the tunnels.
They came to a rough-hewn staircase carved out of the stone that led up and Varys turned to look at her, "This is where I must leave you now Princess. This staircase will lead you to a small room at the back of the library chamber within Maegor's, will you be able to find your son's room from there?"
Cersei nodded, the only time she went into Maegor's, unless she was commanded to attend the dornish bitch, was to see her children.
"Excellent," Varys hummed before he stepped away from her, handing her the heavy lantern as he did so. "I must attend to the other matters that I mentioned before now Princess, go now and find your son and I shall be here waiting for you both."
Cersei nodded and began to walk up the stairs, they were very narrow, and more than once she had to stop to regain her balance. For a horrible moment, she thought that the stairs had no end but almost as soon as she had thought that she reached the end of them, a small passageway which ended in a wall. With a single hand, she pushed on the wall and it swung open like a door.
The air of the room smelled dry and dusty as Cersei stepped into it and the room was filled with shelves with dozens of scrolls and leather-bound tomes. Cersei shut the hidden passageway's door, but not all the way as she wasn't certain how to get it open again if she did so, and made her way to the other door that she assumed would take her into the main library chamber.
Her assumption was right and from here she knew where she was going, making her way towards the door that would lead out into the castle proper. The same old man that had been here when she had come to see Tygett was still here as well, slumped over his desk and snoring loudly with a wine goblet on the floor next to his desk and that told Cersel all she needed to know.
The halls of Maegor's were dark and silent with only the dim light of the lantern to see by, she knew the halls of Maegor's well enough but it had been a very long time since she had walked them in near darkness but she knew where her son's chambers were and thus she made her way towards them, doing her best to keep her breathing low and her footsteps silent.
Her son should have had the grandest chambers in all of Maegor's, chambers that befitted his status as the true lord of the Seven Kingdoms but his chambers were not within the royal wing of the castle, and instead, they were with the chambers that were given to notable knights or rich merchants. Another insult that they had no choice but to bear but not for much longer.
There were no guards on the door, if she had been in Elia Martell's place then she would have guards following her son at all hours of every day but then if she was in the bitch's place then she would have strangled Aemon in the crib the very first chance she got.
Cersei opened the door to the chamber and walked inside, she placed the lantern on a side table and walked over to the bed. She found herself stopping when she saw that there were two bodies in the bed, the covers covering all but their heads. She shook her head, her son was a grown man and she understood the appetites that men had so she should not have been surprised to find a whore with brown curls in his bed.
She went around to the side of the bed where the silver-haired head was resting and placed her hand on his shoulder and shook him roughly. "Aemon, wake up!" She hissed at him.
His dark violet eyes flew open then and he lept back from her, the whore in his bed let out a cry as her son bumped against her and the woman had a deeper voice than Cersei would have expected before he sat up in his bed and did his best to cover himself. "Mother! What are you doing here?"
"There is no time for that now, we must get you away from here now because-" Cersei stopped talking when she got a better look at the whore in her son's bed, it wasn't a woman like she had assumed and he was a man who would no doubt not be pleased with her initial thought that he was a whore though her opinion on that fact had not changed overly much as she stared intensely at Loras Tyrell.
Aemon followed her gaze and her son paled before looking back at her, his eyes wide. "Mother, it's not what you think."
"It doesn't matter now," Cersei said as she reached for Aemon's wrist and began to tug at him. "You must get up and get dressed, be quick about it. We are leaving."
Aemon pulled his hand out of her grasp. "Why? What is happening?"
"There is a ship that is going to take us away from here, across the sea. You must come with me and you must come with me now, you are the rightful King and I mean to ensure that before this game is done it is you that will be sitting on the iron throne."
Aemon gaped at her, over his shoulder Loras Tyrell was staring at her but he did not seem as shocked as her son was and for a moment Cersei truly wished that she had a knife on hand. "Mother...this is treason if anyone hears about this-"
"How can it be treason? You are the rightful king by blood," Cersei snapped. "And no one will hear about this because we will be gone before they can do anything about it, if you do not come with me then you will be sent to the Wall, is that what you want? To spend the rest of your life guarding the realm against made-up monsters and stinking savages? To slowly freeze to death?"
"There...there is honor in serving in the Night's Watch."
"That is what they have told you, to make it a sweeter poison for you to swallow. Men sworn to the Night's Watch must swear to have no children, to take no wives," though it seemed that her eldest son was not inclined that way regardless. "And if you try to leave then they will kill you, going to the Wall will be the end of your life. They might as well take your head, it would be more honest than what they are actually doing to you."
Aemon was silent for a few moments, and then he rose from the bed and walked over to where his trousers lay crumpled on the floor and pulled them on before going over to his shirt, speaking as he did so. "Where are we going?"
"Pentos, we will speak more of it later."
Aemon nodded and once he was fully dressed he walked over to where Loras Tyrell was sitting on the bed, he sat down next to him and took his hands. "Come with us."
Loras looked shocked for a moment before he shook his head. "I...I can't, my family, I can't leave them. And if I go with you, and you get caught then my family will be punished. They might be punished anyway, I can't."
Aemon cupped Loras's face then and Cersei was shocked to see that there were actual tears in her son's eyes. "You said you loved me more than anything, you swore that it was so. Do not make me beg you, because I will my love. I need you at my side if that is as a king or a criminal or a damned man. Please, stand with me."
Loras Tyrell shut his eyes, and then rose. He gathered his own clothes up quickly and put them on before walking back over to her son and burying his face into the side of his neck and Aemon wrapped an arm around his middle and held the other man tight to him, Cersei wondered how long it had been since someone had held her with that much tenderness.
"We have to go," Cersei hissed as her gaze cut over to the door to the room, how long had they been in here? Time was running short, if a single guardsman caught them then all would be lost. "Now!"
Aemon nodded and pulled away from Loras, though their hands were still clasped together. "How are we leaving? The drawbridge will be up and there will be a guard on it."
"Just follow me," Cersei spoke and turned to leave, making sure to grab the lantern as they went. Having Loras Tyrell with them was not how she imagined this going but she doubted that her son would listen to her if she told him to leave him behind, Mace Tyrell was unlikely to bestir himself for a thirdborn son, after all, it would be easy for him to dismiss the knight's treason as his own folly that Highgarden had naught to do with.
Cersei took them both back through the secret passage in the backroom of the library chamber and they down the hidden stairway, Varys was waiting for them at the bottom of it. "Oh, your Grace. It is so very good to see you." The eunuch said with a simpering smile as soon as he caught sight of her son. "I hope that you will forgive me for having to serve those that stole your throne from you but I have no mighty armies to fight with, I simply have little birds and whispers and I have used them in your service as best as I could."
Aemon stared at the eunuch for a few long moments before he nodded. "See me and mine away from the city Lord Varys and your debt to me will be forgiven."
"Please follow me, your Grace," Varys turned and their small group followed him deeper into the dark, for a few moments it seemed to grow so dark that even the light of the lantern could do nothing to push back against it and they needed to rely on Varys's directions to get through the darkness. They had descended more stairs, down and down and down again.
During one of those descents, Cersei found herself stopping in the middle of the stairs, she was at the back of the group so no one was going to bump into her and send her tumbling down, as her thoughts turned to Rhaenys, Tygett, and Jaime.
Her sweet daughter, her baby boy. She hadn't had the time to stop and think about them through all of this, not what would happen to them if she did this. In Eddard Stark and Elia Martell's eyes what she was doing was treason, and her other children would be future treasons as well. They would die, they would kill them for this. It was what Cersei would do.
And Jaime...
When was the last time that we saw Jaime? When was the last time that he came to see us? Jaime abandoned us a long time ago.
Cersei Lannister shut her eyes, swallowed hard, and carried on descending.
There was the smell of fresh air, scented heavily with salt, as their descent ended and Varys lead them through a tunnel which led outside onto a beach where a small skiff was waiting for them with a man standing guard over it that looked vaguely familiar to Cersei in the gloom of the early morning, he bent his knee when they approached. "Your Grace, I am Ser Meryn Trant. Your mother helped to ensure that I was made a knight and it was your father who raised me up as a knight and I have never forgotten that debt for a single moment, making sure to see you on the throne is the least that I could do."
Meryn Trant, the squire to Ser Harlan Grandison of Aerys Targaryen's kingsguard who had been older than any other squire in the yard, he had been the one who had put the poison in the old knight's cup so a spot could be made for Jaime in the kingsguard and he had done it readily enough for a knighthood. Cersei had forgotten all about him in truth, but her son would need every sword he could get.
Her son took the older man into his service and then all of them, aside from Varys, climbed into the skiff. The eunuch kissed the back of his son's hand and swore that he would see him on the Iron Throne or die trying and gave Cersei a sealed message before he turned and made his way back into the tunnel they had all come out from.
It was hardly a comfortable ride in the skiff but there was a larger ship waiting for them deeper in the harbor, the captain helped them all board his galley and when the sky was starting to turn the color of a ripe peach with the morning sun shining through the clouds the ship sailed through the Blackwater rush out into the bay itself.
Cersei went below deck to her own cabin as her son and his lover looked out across the water to the city and when she sat down on the cot she took out the message that Varys had given her and broke the red and black wax that kept it sealed.
As she read the words on the parchment then she smiled and laid back on the cot and closed her eyes, dreaming of dragonflame and the Red Keep coming down on all of her enemies' heads.
End of Chapter One-Hundred and Nineteen