Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, other than my own the original character(s) in this story. This is purely a work of my personal enjoyment so don't expect anything worthy of GRRM. I fully welcome criticism/suggestions/questions. The story will eventually be finished (I hate leaving things unfinished) but I have no real schedule. Please review as I'd love useful thoughts :) feedback helps encourage my writing.
Chapter 48: Ripe for Victory
"Now you sound like Aerys..."
– Lord Jaime Lannister
She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all. The courtiers were brightly coloured mice below. Great lords and proud ladies knelt before her. Bold young knights laid their swords at her feet and pleaded for her favours, and the queen smiled down at them. Until the dwarf appeared as if from nowhere, pointing at her and howling with laughter. The lords and ladies began to chuckle too, hiding their smiles behind their hands. Only then did the queen realize she was naked.
Horrified, she tried to cover herself with her hands. The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening.
And all the while her brother capered below, laughing heartily at her misfortune.
The laughing mice turned to snarling wolves – a court of teeth and bloody maws – edging closer to her throne.
The dwarf's merriment still echoed in her ears when she felt a light touch on her shoulder and woke suddenly.
For half a heartbeat the hand seemed part of the nightmare, and Cersei cried out, but it was only Senelle. The maid's face was white and frightened.
"We are not alone," the queen realized. Shadows loomed around her bed, tall shapes with chainmail glimmering beneath their cloaks. Armed men had no business here. "Where are my guards?" Her bedchamber was dark, but for the lantern one of the intruders held on high.
Cersei pushed back sleep-tousled hair, and said, "What do you want of me?"
A man stepped into the lantern light, and she saw his cloak was white as snow.
She'd dreamt of one brother, but the other has come to wake her… no… white was no longer Jaime's cloak, was it?
"Your Grace." The voice was not Jaime's. "Lord Lannister said come get you." His hair curled, as Jaime's did, but her brother's hair was beaten gold, like hers, where this man's hair was black and oily. She stared at him, confused, as he muttered about a privy and a crossbow, and said her father's name.
"I am dreaming still," Cersei thought. I have not woken, nor has my nightmare ended.
Tyrion would surely creep out from under the bed any moment now and begin to laugh at her…
She looked down at her hands, turning them over to make certain all her fingers were still there. When she ran a hand down her arm the skin was covered with gooseprickles, but unbroken. There were no cuts on her legs, no gashes on the soles of her feet. A dream, that's all it was, a dream.
"I drank too much last night," she told herself quietly. "These fears are only humours born of wine. I will be the one laughing, come dusk."
Jocelyn Swyft was at her elbow, pressing a cup on her. Cersei took a sip: water, mixed with lemon squeezings, so tart she spit it out. She could hear the night wind rattling the shutters, and she saw with a strange sharp clarity. Jocelyn was trembling like a leaf, as frightened as Senelle. Ser Osmund Kettleblack loomed over her. Behind him stood Ser Meryn Trant, with a lantern. At the door were Lannister guardsmen with gilded lions shining on the crests of their helmets.
They looked afraid as well. What was wrong, the queen wondered. What nonsense had the knights been spewing?
She rose and let Senelle slip a bedrobe over her shoulders to hide her nakedness. Cersei belted it herself, her fingers stiff and clumsy. "My lord father keeps guards about him, night and day," she said. Her tongue felt thick. She took another swallow of lemon water and sloshed it round her mouth to freshen her breath. A moth had gotten into the lantern Ser Trant was holding; she could hear it buzzing and see the shadow of its wings as it beat against the glass.
"The guards were at their posts, Your Grace," said Osmund Kettleblack. "We found a hidden door behind the hearth. A secret passage…"
"Lord Lannister's gone down to see where it goes," Ser Trant added helpfully.
"Jaime?" Terror seized her, sudden as a storm. "Jaime should be with the king…"
"The lad's not been harmed. Lord Jaime sent a dozen men to look in on him. His Grace is sleeping peaceful."
Let him have a sweeter dream than mine, and a kinder waking. "Who is with the king?"
"Ser Loras has that honor, if it please you…"
It did not please her. The Tyrells were only stewards that the dragon-kings had risen far above their station. Their vanity was exceeded only by their ambition. Ser Loras might be as pretty as a maiden's dream, but underneath his white cloak he was Tyrell to the bone. For all she knew, this night's fruit was planted in Highgarden.
That was a suspicion she dare not speak aloud… she would have to find some way to remove the Knight of Flowers from the game…
"Allow me a moment to dress. Ser Osmund, you shall accompany me to the Tower of the Hand. Ser Meryn, gather some men and see that the dwarf is in his chambers." She would not say his name. The little monster lacked the courage to have lifted a hand against Father, she told herself, but she had to be certain he'd not fled…
"As Your Grace commands." Trant surrendered the lantern to Ser Osmund.
Cersei was not displeased to see the back of him. The man was loyal to her – blindly so – but far from good company.
By the time they left Maegor's Holdfast, the sky had turned a deep cobalt blue, though the stars still shone. "All but one," Cersei thought. The bright star of the west had fallen, and the nights would be darker now. She paused upon the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat, gazing down at the spikes below.
"They would not dare lie to me about such a thing, would they?"
She kept the thought to herself…
"Who found him?"
"One of his guards," said Ser Osmund. "Lum. He felt a call of nature and found his lordship in the privy..."
No, that couldn't be. That was not the way a lion dies. The queen felt strangely calm. She remembered the first time she had lost a tooth, when she was just a little girl. It hadn't hurt, but the hole in her mouth felt so odd she could not stop touching it with her tongue. Now there is a hole in the world where her once Father stood…
If Tywin Lannister was truly dead, no one was safe… …least of all her son upon his throne. When the lion falls the lesser beasts move in: the jackals and the vultures and the feral dogs. They would try to push her aside, as they always had. She would need to move quickly, as she had when Robert died. This might be the work of the Dwarf, through some catspaw, or perhaps that dornishman that fancied himself a Prince. None of them could frighten her, no more than Mace Tyrell did. No one frightened her. She was a daughter of the Rock, a lion. There would be no more talk of forcing her to wed again. Casterly Rock was Jaime's now and all the power of House Lannister.
No one would ever disregard her again. Even when Tommen had no further need of a regent, her brother would ensure Casterly Rock remained a power in the land.
The rising sun had painted the tower tops a vivid red, but beneath the walls the night still huddled. The outer castle was so hushed that she could have believed all its people dead. They should be. It was not fitting for Tywin Lannister to die alone. Such a man deserved a retinue to attend his needs in the hells…
Four spearmen in red cloaks and lion-crested helms were posted at the door of the Tower of the Hand.
"No one is to enter or leave without my permission," she told them.
The command came easily to her. Her father had steel in his voice as well.
Within the tower, the smoke from the torches irritated her eyes, but Cersei did not weep, no more than her father would have.
Her heels scraped against the stone as she climbed, and she could still hear the moth fluttering wildly inside Ser Osmund's lantern.
"Die," the queen thought at it, in irritation. "Fly into the flame and be done with it…"
Two more red-cloaked guardsmen stood atop the steps. Red Lester muttered a condolence as she passed. The queen's breath was coming fast and short, and she could feel her heart fluttering in her chest. The steps, she told herself, this cursed tower has too many steps. She had half a mind to tear it down.
The hall was full of fools speaking in whispers, as if Lord Tywin were asleep and they were afraid to wake him. Guards and servants alike shrank back before her, mouths flapping. She saw their pink gums and waggling tongues, but their words made no more sense than the buzzing of the moth. What are they doing here? How did they know? By rights they should have called her first. She was the Queen Regent, had they forgotten that!?
"Clear these people away," Cersei told her Kingsguard. "Is my father in the privy?"
"They carried him back to his bed, m'lady." Ser Osmund pushed the door open for her to enter.
Morning light slashed through the shutters to paint golden bars upon the rushes strewn across the floor of the bedchamber. Guardsmen were clustered near the hearth. The secret door that Ser Osmund had spoken of gaped open behind the ashes, no bigger than an oven. A man would need to crawl. "Tyrion is only half a man," the thought made her angry. No, the dwarf wouldn't have dared. This could not be his work. "Dorne did this," she told herself. "Or the Tyrells… or perhaps all of them…"
There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too…
For a moment she did not recognize the dead man. He had hair like her father, yes, but this was some other man, surely, a smaller man, and much older. His bedrobe was hiked up around his chest, leaving him naked below the waist. His pubic hair was stiff with dried blood. More was congealing in his navel…
The smell of him made her wrinkle her nose. "Cover him," she commanded. "This is the King's Hand!"
The King's Hand, dead on the privy; having shit his bowls out by the foul smell of him.
"My father," she thought quietly. "My lord father. Should I scream and tear my hair out in grief?"
She wondered if her father would like that you like that. Or would he want her to be strong? Did he weep for his own father?
Her grandfather had died when she was only a year old, but she knew the story. Lord Tytos had grown very fat, and his heart burst one day when he was climbing the steps to his mistress. Her father was off in King's Landing when it happened, serving as the Mad King's Hand. Lord Tywin was often away in King's Landing when she and Jaime were young. If he wept when they brought him word of his father's death, he did it where no one could see the tears.
The queen could feel her nails digging into her palms. "How could you leave him like this? My father was Hand to three kings, as great a man as ever strode the Seven Kingdoms. The bells must ring for him, as they rang for Robert. He must be bathed and dressed as befits his stature, in ermine and cloth-of-gold and crimson silk. Where is Pycelle? Where is Pycelle?" She turned to the guardsmen. "Puckens, bring Grand Maester Pycelle. He must see to Lord Tywin at once!"
"He's seen him, Your Grace," said Puckens. "He came and saw and went, to summon the silent sisters... said the voiding of his bowls was the cause…"
They sent for her last. The realization made her almost too angry for words . And Pycelle ran off to send a message rather than soil his soft, wrinkled hands. The man was useless. "Find Maester Ballabar," she commanded. "Find Maester Frenken. Any of them." Puckens and Shortear ran to obey. "Where is my brother?"
"Down the tunnel. There's a shaft, with iron rungs set in the stone. Lord Jaime went to see how deep it goes..."
The men who murdered their father might be down there, waiting for him. Her twin had always been too rash. She was about to command the guards to go down after him and bring him back when Puckens and Shortear returned. "How shall we deal with the girl, Your Grace?"
"Girl?" Cersei had overlooked the woman entirely. The Queen hissed like an angry cat. "What is she doing here?"
"We found her here, Your Grace," said Shortear. "It's the Imp's whore…"
As if that explained why she was here. What fresh madness was this?
"My lord father had no use for whores," she thought. After their mother died, he never touched a woman.
She gave the guardsman a chilly look. "This is not… …when Lord Tywin's father died, he returned to Casterly Rock to find a woman of this sort bedecked in his lady mother's jewels, wearing one of her gowns. He stripped them off her, and all else as well. For a fortnight she was paraded naked through the streets of Lannisport, to confess to every man she met that she was a thief and a harlot. That was how Lord Tywin Lannister dealt with whores. He never… this woman is here for some other purpose…"
Cersei looked at the woman with cat-like eyes, would that a look alone could kill her dead…
"What was your purpose whore!?"
"I-" Shae the Whore looked terrified.
"Did you poison him!?" Cersei's eyes locked on the woman's neck. "You-"
The whore was naked – with bedsheets to cover her – around her neck was a chain of linked golden hands, each holding the next.
"Ser Osmund…"
"Your Grace?" The knight's hand rested on his pommel.
"Arrest this whore," Cersei demanded. "My father was questioning her, no doubt; she is behind this!"
The knights paused only a brief moment before speaking "Your Grace" as the guardsmen seized the whore, dragging her away screaming innocence.
"He was questioning her," Cersei mumbled. "To be sure, there can be no doubt…"
She was Tyrion's whore… her brothers… the monsters…
"You are to seize the Imp as well Ser…"
"Lord Tyrion?"
"The dwarf," Cersei snarled. "You think his whore acted alone Ser!?"
"I-" The Knight blinked. "As you say Your Grace – I will see to it personally!"
"See that you do," she looked to her father's corpse
What did her lordly father want with the common whore?
"What better way to question her than with her legs well spread?" She could practically hear Tyrion's voice mocking her…
The queen turned away. Suddenly it was too much even to be in the same room as her father. She pushed out into the hall.
Ser Osmund had been joined by his brothers Osney and Osfryd.
"Kill the whore," Cersei told the Kettleblacks. "Get answers, then deal with her…."
"Aye, m'lady." Ser Osney had faint scratches on his cheek. "And what shall we do with her, afterwards?"
"Feed her to your dogs. What do I care? She was never here. I'll have the tongue of any man who dares to say she was. Do you understand me?"
Osney and Osfryd exchanged a look. "Aye, Your Grace…"
Shae, her name was Shae. They had last spoken the night before the trial by combat, after Jaime had so foolishly offered to champion the monster. Shae had been asking about some jewels Tyrion had given her, and certain promises Cersei might have made, a manse in the city and a knight to marry her. Foolish woman…
"I want the chain from that whore," Cersei said. "See that you do not scratch the gold."
Osfryd nodded and started toward the door, off to assist his brothers with their tasks.
As Ser Osfryd went, then Jaime emerged, his boots kicking up puffs of soot from Lord Tywin's last fire.
"Get out of my way," he told the Kettleblacks.
Cersei rushed toward him. "Did you find them? Did you find the killers? How many were there?"
Surely there had been more than one. One man alone could not have killed their father… there must have been several…
Her twin's face had a haggard look. "The shaft goes down to a chamber where half a dozen tunnels meet. They're closed off by iron gates, chained and locked. I need to find keys." He glanced around the bedchamber. "Whoever did this might still be lurking in the walls. It's a maze back there, and dark…"
"Take hammers to the walls. Knock this tower down if you must. I want them found. Whoever did this. I want them killed!"
Jaime hugged her, his hands pressing against the small of her back. He smelled of ash, but the morning sun was in his hair, giving it a golden glow. She wanted to draw his face to hers for a kiss. Later, she told herself, later he will come to her, for comfort. "We are his heirs, Jaime," she whispered. "You must take Father's place as Hand…"
He pushed away from her. "Don't ask me to rule, sweet sister; I've enough headaches with Casterly Rock…"
She knew that well. A shame that her brother's mind was not so sharp as his blade…
"Rule?" She scoffed. "I said naught of ruling. I shall rule until my son comes of age."
"I don't know who I pity more," her brother said. "Tommen, or the Seven Kingdoms."
She slapped him. Jaime's arm rose to catch the blow, cat-quick, he caught her arm easily.
Jaime frowned at her then. "You're sick with grief, sweet sister…"
She wanted to strike him for that. She must have been mad to think he could be Hand. She would sooner abolish the office… or take the position herself…
When had a Hand ever brought her anything but grief? Jon Arryn put Robert Baratheon in her bed, and before he died, he'd begun sniffing about her and Jaime as well. Eddard Stark took up right where Arryn had left off; his meddling had forced her to rid herself of Robert sooner than she would have liked, before she could deal with his pestilential brothers. Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen, made one of her sons his hostage, and murdered the other. And when Tywin returned to King's Landing…
The next Hand will know his place, she promised herself. She had a realm to rule, but she would need new men to help her rule it…
Mace Tyrell was no more than ten years older than Cersei, yet she thought of him as her father's age, not her own. He was not quite so tall as Lord Tywin had been, but elsewise he was bigger, with a thick chest and a gut grown even thicker. His hair was chestnut-coloured, but there were specks of white and grey in his beard. His face was often red. "Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man," he declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. "We shall never see his like again, I fear."
"You are looking at his like, fool," Cersei thought. It was his daughter standing here before him now…
She needed Tyrell and the strength of Highgarden to keep Tommen on his throne, so all she said was, "he will be greatly missed."
Tyrell put a fat meaty hand upon her shoulder. "No man alive is fit to don Lord Tywin's armour, that is plain. Still, the realm goes on, and must be ruled well; to ensure the good King's rule. If there is aught that I might do to serve in this dark hour, Your Grace need only ask…"
The queen smiled. Let him read into that as much as he likes…
"Surely my lord is needed in the Reach?"
"My son Willas is an able lad," the man replied, refusing to take her perfectly good hint. "His leg may be twisted but he has no want of wits. And Garlan will soon take Brightwater. The Reach will be in good hands, if it happens that I am needed elsewhere. The governance of the realm must come first, Lord Tywin often said. And I am pleased to bring Your Grace good tidings in that regard. My uncle Garth has agreed to serve as master of coin, as your lord father wished. He is making his way to Oldtown to take ship. His sons will accompany him. Lord Tywin mentioned something about finding places for the two of them as well. Perhaps in the City Watch?"
The queen's smile had frozen so hard she feared her teeth might crack. Garth the Gross on the small council and his two bastards in the gold cloaks…
"Garth has served me well as Lord Seneschal, as he served my father before me," Tyrell was going on. "Littlefinger had a nose for gold, I grant you, but Garth-"
"My lord," Cersei broke in, "I fear there has been some misunderstanding. I have asked Lord Gyles Rosby to serve as our new master of coin."
Mace gaped at her. "Rosby? That… cougher? But… the matter was agreed, Your Grace. Garth is already on his way to Oldtown!"
"Best send a raven to Lord Hightower and ask him to make certain your uncle does not take ship. We would hate for Garth to brave an autumn sea for nought."
A flush crept up Tyrell's thick neck. "This… your lord father assured me…"
Then his mother appeared and slid her arm through his own. "It would seem that Lord Tywin did not share his plans with our regent, I can't imagine why. Still, there 'tis, no use hectoring Her Grace. She is quite right; you must write Lord Leyton before Garth boards a ship. You know the sea will sicken him and make his farting worse."
Lady Olenna gave Cersei a toothless smile. "Your council chambers will smell sweeter with Lord Gyles, though I daresay that coughing would drive me to distraction. We all adore dear old uncle Garth, but the man is flatulent, that cannot be gainsaid. I do abhor foul smells." Her wrinkled face wrinkled up even more. "I caught a whiff of something unpleasant in the holy sept, in truth. Mayhaps you smelled it too Your Grace?"
"No," Cersei said coldly. She spoke of her father, she knew. "A scent, you say?"
"More like a stink. A terribly foul one at that…"
"Perhaps you miss your autumn roses. We have kept you here too long." The sooner she rid the court of Lady Olenna the better. Lord Tyrell would doubtless dispatch a godly number of knights to see his mother safely home, and the fewer Tyrell swords in the city, the more soundly the queen would sleep.
"I do long for the fragrances of Highgarden, I confess it," said the old lady. "I cannot leave until I have seen my sweet Margaery wed to your precious Tommen."
"I await that day eagerly as well," Tyrell put in. "Lord Tywin and I were on the point of setting a date, as it happens. Perhaps you and I might take up that discussion?"
"Soon," Cersei plastered her best smile.
"Soon will serve," said Lady Olenna with a sniff. "Now come along, Mace, let Her Grace get on with her… grief..."
"I will see you dead, old woman," Cersei promised herself as the Queen of Thorns tottered off between her towering guardsmen, a pair of seven-footers that it amused her to call Left and Right. "We'll see how sweet a corpse you make." The old woman was twice as clever as her lord son, that was plain…
The queen rescued her son from Margaery and her cousins and made for the doors.
Outside, the rain had finally stopped. The autumn air smelled sweet and fresh.
Tommen took his crown off. "Put that back on," Cersei commanded him.
"It makes my neck hurt," the boy said, but he did as he was bid. "Will I be married soon? Margaery says that as soon as we're wed, we can go to Highgarden."
"You are not going to Highgarden, but you can ride back to the castle." Cersei beckoned to Ser Meryn Trant. "Bring His Grace a mount and ask Lord Gyles if he would do me the honor of sharing my litter." Things were moving more quickly than she had anticipated; there was no time to be squandered…
Tommen was happy at the prospect of a ride, and of course Lord Gyles was honoured by her invitation… though when she asked him to be her master of coin, he began coughing so violently that she feared he might die right then and there. But the Mother was merciful, and Gyles eventually recovered sufficiently to accept, and even began coughing out the names of men he wanted to replace, customs officers and wool factors appointed by Littlefinger, even one of the keepers of the keys.
"Name the cow what you will, so long as the milk flows. And should the question arise, you joined the council yesterday."
"Yester-" A fit of coughing bent him over. "Yesterday. To be sure."
Lord Gyles coughed into a square of red silk, as if to hide the blood in his spittle. Cersei pretended not to notice.
When he dies, she'd find someone else. Perhaps she'd recall Littlefinger? One could not imagine that Petyr Baelish would be allowed to remain Lord Protector of the Vale for very long, with Lysa Arryn dead. The Vale lords were already stirring. Once they take that wretched boy away, Baelish would come crawling back…
"Your Grace?" Lord Gyles coughed and dabbed his mouth.
"Might I…" He coughed again.
"…ask who…"
Another series of coughs racked him.
"…who will be the King's Hand?"
"I shall," she replied absently.
"I-" Gyles was at a loss for words.
"You disagree My Lord?"
"No-" His eyes betrayed him. "It's just that…"
His coughs no doubt gave the fool time to craft a lie.
"It is unprecedented that-"
"Who better than the kings own mother?"
She might have named her Uncle Kevan, but the fool was still a captive of the Stark boy… useless man that he was…
It was a relief to see the gates of the Red Keep looming large before her. She gave Tommen over to the charge of his squires and retired gratefully to her own chambers to rest, weighing her schemes and plotting her plots; preparing herself for the wedding that would no doubt be forced upon them sooner than she'd like…
They'd found only darkness, dust, and rats in the secret tunnels. And dragons, lurking down below. Jaime remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. "I know you, Kingslayer," the beast seemed to be saying. "I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me." And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone…
The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armour with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."
Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him."
Jaime's anger had risen up in his throat. "I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard."
"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done, I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but… well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return Ser Jaime."
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him.
The Prince of Dragonstone had mounted up and donned his tall black helm and rode forth to his doom.
He was righter than he knew. When the battle was done, there were changes made. "Aerys thought no harm could come to him if he kept me near," he told his father's corpse. "Isn't that amusing?" Lord Tywin seemed to think so; his smile was wider than before. He seems to enjoy being dead.
It was queer, but he felt no grief. Where were his tears? Where was his rage? Jaime Lannister had never lacked for rage…
"Father," he told the corpse, "It was you who told me tears were a mark of weakness in a man, so you cannot expect that I should cry for you."
A thousand lords and ladies had come that morning to file past the bier, and several thousand smallfolk after noon. They wore sombre clothes and solemn faces, but Jaime suspected that many and more were secretly delighted to see the great man brought low. Even in the west, Lord Tywin had been more respected than beloved…
Of all the mourners, Grand Maester Pycelle had seemed the most distraught. "I have served six kings," he told Jaime after the second service, whilst sniffing doubtfully about the corpse, "but here before us lies the greatest man I ever knew. Lord Tywin wore no crown, yet he was all a king should be."
Without his beard, Pycelle looked not only old, but feeble. Shaving him by force was the cruellest thing Tyrion could have done, in truth…
"Lord Jaime, I have seen terrible things in my time," the old man said. "Wars, battles, murders most foul. I was a boy in Oldtown when the grey plague took half the city and three-quarters of the Citadel. Lord Hightower burned every ship in port, closed the gates, and commanded his guards to slay all those who tried to flee, be they men, women, or babes in arms. They killed him when the plague had run its course. On the very day he reopened the port, they dragged him from his horse and slit his throat, and his young son's as well. To this day the ignorant in Oldtown will spit at the sound of his name, but Quenton Hightower did what was needed…"
Jaime doubted the people of Oldtown thought the same. What of their families?
"Your father was that sort of man as well. A man who did what was needed."
"Is that why he looks so pleased with himself?"
The vapours rising from the corpse were making Pycelle's eyes water.
"The flesh… as the flesh dries, the muscles grow taut and pull his lips upward. That is no smile, only a drying, that is all." He blinked back tears. "You must excuse me. I am so very tired." Leaning heavily on his cane, Pycelle tottered slowly from the sept. That one is dying too, Jaime realized. Small wonder Cersei called him useless…
To be sure, his sweet sister seemed to think half the court was either useless or treasonous; Pycelle, the Kingsguard, the Tyrells, Jaime himself… even Ser Ilyn Payne, the silent knight who served as headsman. She blamed Tyrion chief of all, but Jaime refused to believe it… his sister was blinded by her hatred for their brother…
That same hate had shifted onto his own shoulders when he'd championed him.
"How could you defend our mother's murderer!?" Those were her words.
Jaime had snapped back at her, shouting how their mother would have loved Tyrion.
Above him, all the windows had gone black, and he could see the faint light of distant stars.
The sun had set for good and all. The stench of death was growing stronger, despite the scented candles.
There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. "Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well…"
That notion pleased Lord Tywin; his smile widened further. Bloody hells, he was grinning like a bridegroom at his bedding…
That was so grotesque it made Jaime laugh aloud. The sound echoed through the transepts and crypts and chapels.
It had been years since his last vigil. He was younger then, a boy of fifteen years. He'd worn no armour then, only a plain white tunic. The sept where he'd spent the night was not a third as large as any of the Great Sept's seven transepts. Jaime had laid his sword across the Warrior's knees, piled his armour at his feet, and knelt upon the rough stone floor before the altar. When dawn came his knees were raw and bloody. "All knights must bleed, Jaime," Ser Arthur Dayne had said, when he saw. "Blood is the seal of our devotion." With dawn he tapped him on the shoulder; the pale blade was so sharp that even that light touch cut through Jaime's tunic, so he bled anew.
He never felt it. A boy knelt; a knight rose. The Young Lion, not the Kingslayer.
But that was long ago, and the boy was long dead.
He could not have said when the devotions ended.
Perhaps he slept, still standing. When the devout had filed out, the Great Sept grew still once more. The candles were a wall of stars burning in the darkness, though the air was rank with death. Jaime shifted his grip upon the golden greatsword. Perhaps he should have let Ser Loras relieve him after all. Cersei would have hated that. The Knight of Flowers was still half a boy, arrogant and vain, but he had it in him to be great, to perform deeds worthy of the White Book.
The White Book that was no longer any concern of his.
"I'll hack it to pieces before they fill it full of lies…"
Yet if he would not lie, what could be written but truth? That seemed a sorry story for anyone to read…
"Ser Jaime Lannister," he thought spitefully. "Kingslayer, stripped of his white cloak for protecting his brother against the crown he was sworn to defend…"
A woman stood before him now. It must be raining again, he thought when he saw how wet she was. The water was trickling down her cloak to puddle round her feet. How did she get here? He'd never heard her enter. She was dressed like a tavern wench in a heavy roughspun cloak, badly dyed in mottled browns and fraying at the hem. A hood concealed her face, but he could see the candles dancing in the green pools of her eyes, and when she moved, he knew her…
"Cersei." He spoke slowly, like a man waking from a dream, still wondering where he was. "What hour is it?"
"The hour of the wolf." His sister lowered her hood and made a face. "The drowned wolf, perhaps." She smiled for him, so sweetly. "Do you remember the first time I came to you like this? It was some dismal inn off Weasel Alley, and I put on servant's garb to get past Father's guards."
"I remember. It was Eel Alley." She wanted something from him. "Why are you here, at this hour? What would you have of me?" His last word echoed up and down the sept, mememememememememememe, fading to a whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that all she wanted was the comfort of his arms.
"Speak softly." Her voice sounded strange… breathless, almost frightened. "You must be Tommen's Hand. I do not trust Mace Tyrell, or anyone else. What if he had a hand in Father's death? He may be conspiring with Tyrion, or with the Dornish! Please brother…"
"He's not involved," Jaime frowned. "If anything, it's Prince Oberyn's doing…"
The dornishman had fled the city with his company some nights past. His sister refused to see reason though.
No matter the logic – Tyrion was involved – even if their brother hadn't fled with the Prince, he was still guilty in her eyes.
"Be my Hand," she pleaded. "We'll rule the Seven Kingdoms together, like a king and his queen…"
"You were Robert's queen. And yet you won't be mine..."
"I would if I dared. But our son-"
"Tommen is no son of mine, no more than Joffrey was." His voice was hard. "You made them Robert's too..."
His sister flinched. "You swore that you would always love me. It is not loving to make me beg."
Jaime could smell the fear on her, even though the rank stench of the corpse. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, to bury his face in her golden curls and promise her that no one would ever hurt her… not here, he thought, not here in front of the gods, and his Father. "No," he said. "I cannot. I will not…"
"I need you. I need my other half." He could hear the rain pattering against the windows high above. "You are me; I am you. I need you with me. In me."
Jaime looked to make certain Lord Tywin was not rising from his bier in wrath, but his father lay still and cold, rotting.
"I was made for a battlefield sweet sister, not a council chamber. It's worse enough that he stripped me of my cloak..."
"That was your own doing," she told him, scowling unhappily. "You defended that monster, and how has he thanked you!?"
"Tyrion did not kill father," Jaime insisted. "It was his bowls – with the Viper having fled; how can you not see the true culprit!?"
"You were always a fool," she glared daggers.
"Takes one to know one, my sweet sister…"
She wanted to strike him, but he was too quick for that…
Cersei wiped her tears away on a ragged brown sleeve. "Very well. If it is battlefields you want, battlefields you can have." She jerked her hood up angrily. "I was a fool to come. I was a fool ever to love you!" Her footsteps echoed loudly in the quiet and left damp splotches on the marble floor.
Dawn caught Jaime almost unawares. As the glass in the dome began to lighten, suddenly there were rainbows shimmering off the walls and floors and pillars, bathing Lord Tywin's corpse in a haze of many-colored light. The King's Hand was rotting visibly. His face had taken on a greenish tinge, and his eyes were deeply sunken, two black pits. Fissures had opened in his cheeks, and a foul white fluid was seeping through the joints of his splendid gold-and-crimson armour to pool beneath his body.
The septons were the first to see, when they returned for their dawn devotions. They sang their songs and prayed their prayers and wrinkled up their noses, and one of the Most Devout grew so faint he had to be helped from the sept. Shortly after, a flock of novices came swinging censers, and the air grew so thick with incense that the bier seemed cloaked in smoke. All the rainbows vanished in that perfumed mist, yet the stench persisted, a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag.
When the doors were opened the Tyrells were amongst the first to enter, as befit their rank and position.
Margaery had brought a great bouquet of golden roses. She placed them ostentatiously at the foot of Lord Tywin's bier but kept one back and held it beneath her nose as she took her seat. So, the girl was as clever as she was pretty. Tommen could do a deal worse for a queen. Others had. Margaery's ladies followed her example.
Cersei waited until the rest were in their places to make her entrance, with Tommen at her side.
Ser Osmund Kettleblack paced beside them in his white enamel plate and white wool cloak.
"She'll name that illiterate boot-licker as Lord Commander…"
That was not a thought Jaime liked… better the Tyrell boy than Kettleblack…
The Kingsguard was in such a sorry state that he was almost glad to be rid of it.
Red-eyed and pale, Cersei climbed the steps to kneel above their father, drawing Tommen down beside her.
The boy recoiled at the sight, but his mother seized his wrist before he could pull away. "Pray," she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to sob. "Stop that!" Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him.
"Ser Osmund, relieve me," Jaime said sharply, as Kettleblack turned to chase the crown. He handed the man his golden sword and went after his king. In the Hall of Lamps he caught him, beneath the eyes of two dozen startled septas. "I'm sorry," Tommen wept. "I will do better on the morrow. The smell made me sick…"
This would not do. Too many eager ears and watching eyes. "Best we go outside, Your Grace." Jaime led the boy out to where the air was as fresh and clean as King's Landing ever got. Twoscore gold cloaks had been posted around the plaza to guard the horses and the litters. He took the king off to the side, well away from everyone, and sat him down upon the marble steps. "I wasn't scared," the boy insisted. "The smell made me sick. Didn't it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle?"
"A man can bear most anything, if he must," Jaime told his son. He'd smelled a man roasting before, as King Aerys cooked him in his own armour. That foul memory felt like a lifetime ago. "The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing… go away inside…"
Tommen considered that. "I… I used to go away inside sometimes," he confessed, "when Joffy…"
"Joffrey." Cersei stood over them, the wind whipping her skirts around her legs. "Your brother's name was Joffrey. He would never have shamed me so…"
"I never meant to. I wasn't frightened, Mother. It was only that your lord father smelled so bad…"
"Do you think he smelled any sweeter to me? I have a nose too." She caught his ear and pulled him to his feet. "Lord Tyrell has a nose. Did you see him retching in the holy sept? Did you see Lady Margaery bawling like a baby?"
Jaime got to his feet. "Cersei, that's enough, he's only a boy!"
Her nostrils flared. "Lord Lannister? Why are you here? You swore to stand vigil until the wake was done, as I recall."
"It is done, Your Grace. Go look at him..."
"No. Seven days and seven nights, you said. Surely the Lord of Casterly Rock remembers how to count to seven?"
"I vaguely recall, sweet sister…"
"Take the number of your fingers," she reminded him. "Then add two."
Others had begun to stream out onto the plaza, fleeing the noxious odours in the sept.
"Cersei, keep your voice down," Jaime warned quietly. "Lord Tyrell is approaching."
That reached her. The queen drew Tommen to her side.
Mace Tyrell bowed before them. "His Grace is not unwell, I hope?"
"The king was overwhelmed by grief," said Cersei.
"As are we all. If there is aught that I can do…"
High above, a raven cawed loudly, perched on the statue of King Baelor; it had emerald eyes… oddly enough. Jaime dismissed it as a trick of the light. "There is much and more you can do for Tommen, my lord," he said. "Perhaps you would do Her Grace the honor of supping with her, after the evening services?"
Cersei threw him a withering look, but for once she had the sense to bite her tongue.
"Sup?" Tyrell seemed taken aback. "I suppose… of course, we should be honoured. My lady wife and I."
The queen forced a smile and made pleasant noises. But when Tyrell had taken his leave and Tommen had been sent off with Ser Addam Marbrand, she turned on Jaime angrily. "Are you drunk or dreaming, Ser? Pray tell, why am I having supper with that grasping fool and his puerile wife?" A gust of wind stirred her golden hair.
"You need Tyrell," Jaime countered.
"I will not name him Hand, if that's what-"
"Not here," he denied, shaking his head. "Ask him to capture Storm's End for Tommen. Flatter him, and tell him you need him in the field, to replace Father. Mace fancies himself a mighty warrior. Either he will deliver Storm's End to you, or he will muck it up and look a fool. Either way, you win."
"Storm's End?" Cersei looked thoughtful. "Yes, but… Lord Tyrell has made it tediously plain that he will not leave King's Landing till Tommen marries Margaery."
Jaime sighed. "Then let them wed. It will be years before Tommen is old enough to consummate the marriage. And until he does, the union can always be set aside. Give Tyrell his wedding and send him off to play at war. At the very least the fool will be out of your hair and away from your son…"
A wary smile crept across his sister's face.
"Sieges have their dangers," she murmured. "Why, our Lord of Highgarden might even lose his life in such a venture."
"There is that risk," conceded Jaime. "Especially if his patience runs thin this time, and he elects to storm the gate."
Cersei gave him a lingering look. "You know," she said, "for a moment you sounded quite like Father."
The idea had merit, but her brother thought too small. There was more than one rose in need of plucking.
Her servant girl preyed to not let it raid upon the King's wedding as she laced up the Queen Mother's gown.
"No one wants rain," said Cersei. For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage. To Jocelyn she said, "Tighter. Cinch it tighter, you simpering little fool!" It was the wedding that enraged her, though the slow-witted Swyft girl made a safer target.
Tommen's hold upon the Iron Throne was not secure enough for her to risk offending Highgarden. Not so long as there was a Baratheon on Dragonstone – even if it was a disfigured child – the creature's supporters still held Storm's End. And then The Riverlands and The North continued in their defiance, not to mention the ironborn…
To break her fast the queen sent to the kitchens for two boiled eggs, a loaf of bread, and a pot of honey. But when she cracked the first egg and found a bloody half-formed chick inside, her stomach roiled. "Take this away and bring me hot spiced wine," she told Senelle. The chill in the air was settling in her bones, and she had a long day ahead.
Jaime did not help her mood when he turned up to tell her how he meant to keep her son from being poisoned.
"I will have men in the kitchens watching as each dish is prepared," he said. "Ser Addam's gold cloaks will escort the servants as they bring the food to table, to make certain no tampering takes place along the way. Ser Meryn will be tasting every course before Tommen puts a bite into his mouth. And if all that should fail, Maester Ballabar will be seated in the back of the hall, with purges and antidotes for twenty common poisons on his person. Tommen will be safe, I promise you…"
"Safe?" The word tasted bitter on her tongue. Jaime did not understand. No one understood. Only Melara had been in the tent to hear the old hag's croaking threats, and Melara was long dead. "Our enemies will not kill twice the same way! They could be under the floor even now, listening to every word we say and making plans!"
"Suppose they are," said Jaime. "Tommen will be surrounded by the finest knights in Westeros. The Kingsguard will be there too..."
Cersei glanced at him. "I want you to remain with Tommen all night, is that understood?"
"He'll have a Kingsguard outside his door…"
She seized his arm. "Not a guardsman. You. And inside his bedchamber..."
"In case Tyrion crawls out of the hearth?" Jaime scoffed at that. "You've imprisoned him – again – sweet sister; for no reason…"
"I will not have Tommen alone with Margaery either, not for so much as half a heartbeat…"
It seemed she'd opted to completely ignore him about Tyrion.
"They will not be alone. Her cousins will be with them."
"As will you. I command it, in the king's name." Cersei had not wanted Tommen and his wife to share a bed at all, but the Tyrells had insisted. "Husband and wife should sleep together," the Queen of Thorns had said, "even if they do no more than sleep. His Grace's bed is big enough for two, surely."
Lady Alerie had echoed her good-mother. "Let the children warm each other in the night. It will bring them closer. Margaery oft shares her blankets with her cousins. They sing and play games and whisper secrets to each other when the candles are snuffed out."
"How delightful," Cersei had said. "Let them continue, by all means. In the Maidenvault."
"I am sure Her Grace knows best," Lady Olenna had said to Lady Alerie. "She is the boy's own mother, after all, of that we are all sure. And surely, we can agree about the wedding night? A man should not sleep apart from his wife on the night of their wedding. It is ill luck for their marriage if they do."
Someday she vowed to teach them all the meaning of ill luck, hopefully sooner rather than later…
"Margaery may share Tommen's bedchamber for that one night," she had been forced to say. "No longer."
"Your Grace is so gracious," the Queen of Thorns had replied, and everyone had exchanged smiles.
Cersei's fingers were digging into Jaime's arm hard enough to leave bruises. "I need eyes inside that room," she said.
"To see what?" he said. "There can be no danger of a consummation. Tommen is much too young."
"And Ossifer Plumm was much too dead, but that did not stop him fathering a child, did it?"
Her brother looked lost. "Who was Ossifer Plumm? Was he Lord Philip's father, or… who?"
He was near as ignorant as Robert. All his skill with a sword and not an ounce of wit in his head…
"Forget Plumm, just remember what I told you. Swear to me that you will stay by Tommen's side until the sun comes up."
"As you command," he said, as if her fears were groundless. "Do you still mean to go ahead and burn the Tower of the Hand?"
"After the feast." It was the only part of the day's festivities that Cersei thought she might enjoy. "Our lord father was murdered in that tower. I cannot bear to look at it."
Jaime frowned at the notion of it, but one supposed it would smoke out any rats inside the walls there… but the mere idea of Wildfire brought up old memories…
"Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle," said Cersei. "After the war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river." She had dreamed of it the night before last, a magnificent white castle surrounded by woods and gardens, long leagues from the stinks and noise of King's Landing. "This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock."
"So long as Tommen sits the Iron Throne, the realm sees him as the true king. Hide him under the Rock and he becomes just another claimant to the throne…"
"I am aware of that," the queen said sharply. "I said that I wanted to move the court to Lannisport, not that I would. Were you always this slow?"
Jaime ignored her. "If these flames spread beyond the tower, you may end up burning down the castle whether you mean to or not. Wildfire is treacherous."
"Lord Hallyne has assured me that his pyromancers can control the fire." The Guild of Alchemists had been brewing fresh wildfire for a fortnight at her orders, all too happy to show her the usefulness of their order. "Let all of King's Landing see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies..."
"Now you sound like Aerys..."
Her nostrils flared. "Guard your tongue, Lord Lannister..."
"I love you too, sweet sister..."
How could she ever have loved him? She'd wondered after he left…
He was her twin, her shadow, her other half, the voices answered.
"Once, perhaps," she thought. No longer. He had become a stranger to her.
Compared to the magnificence of Joffrey's nuptials, the wedding of King Tommen was a modest affair, and small too…
No one wanted another lavish ceremony, least of all the queen, and no one wanted to pay for one, least of all the Tyrells. So the young king took Margaery Tyrell to wife in the Red Keep's royal sept, with fewer than a hundred guests looking on in place of the thousands who had seen his brother joined to the same woman.
The bride was fair and beautiful, the groom still baby-faced and plump. He recited his vows in a high, childish voice, promising his love and devotion to Mace Tyrell's twice-widowed daughter. Margaery wore the same gown she had worn to marry Joffrey, an airy confection of sheer ivory silk, Myrish lace, and seed pearls.
"This is wrong," Cersei thought. It was too soon. A year, two years, that would have been time enough. Highgarden should have been content with a betrothal. Cersei stared back to where Mace Tyrell stood between his wife and mother. They'd forced her into this travesty of a wedding, and she would not soon forget it.
When it was time for the changing of the cloaks, the bride sank gracefully to her knees and Tommen covered her with the heavy cloth-of-gold monstrosity that Robert had cloaked Cersei in on their own wedding day, with the crowned stag of Baratheon worked upon its back in beads of onyx. Cersei had wanted to use the fine red silk cloak Joffrey had used. "It was the cloak my lord father used when he wed my lady mother," she explained to the Tyrells, but the Queen of Thorns had balked her in that as well.
"That old thing?" the crone had said. "It looks a bit threadbare to me… and dare I say, unlucky? And wouldn't a stag be more fitting for King Robert's trueborn son?"
Thanks to Stannis, there were already too many rumours concerning Tommen's parentage. Cersei dared not fan the fires by insisting that he drape his bride in Lannister crimson, so she yielded as gracefully as she could. But the sight of all that gold and onyx still filled her with resentment.
The more they gave these Tyrells, the more they'd demand of them… there was no end to their ambition…
When all the vows were spoken, the king and his new queen stepped outside the sept to accept congratulations.
"Westeros has two queens now, and the young one is as beautiful as the old one," boomed Lyle Crakehall, an oaf of a knight who oft reminded Cersei of her late and unlamented husband. She could have slapped him. Gyles Rosby made to kiss her hand, and only succeeded in coughing on her fingers. Lord Redwyne kissed her on one cheek and Mace Tyrell on both. Grand Maester Pycelle told Cersei that she had not lost a son, but rather gained a daughter. At least she was spared Lady Tanda's tearful embraces. None of the Stokeworth women had appeared, and for that much the queen was grateful…
Jaime escorted her to the Small Hall, where the feast was being readied. "I blame you for all this," she whispered as they walked. "Let them wed, you said. Margaery should be mourning Joffrey, not marrying his brother. She should be as sick with grief as I am. I do not believe she is a maid. Renly had a cock, didn't he? He was Robert's brother; he surely had a cock. If that disgusting old crone thinks that I will allow my son to-"
"You will be rid of Lady Olenna soon enough," Jaime cut in quietly. "She's returning to Highgarden on the morrow."
"So she says." Cersei did not trust any Tyrell promise made no matter the words used.
"She's leaving," he insisted. "Mace is taking half the Tyrell strength to Storm's End, and the other half will be going back to the Reach with Ser Garlan to make good his claim on Brightwater. A few more days, and the only roses left in King's Landing will be Margaery and her ladies and a few guardsmen."
"And Ser Loras. Or have you forgotten?"
"Ser Loras is a knight of the Kingsguard."
"Ser Loras is so Tyrell he pisses rosewater. He should never have been given a white cloak…"
"He would not have been my choice, I'll grant you. Loras will do well enough, I think. Once a man puts on that cloak, it changes him."
"It certainly changed you brother, and not for the better..."
"I love you too, sweet sister." He held the door for her and walked her to the high table to her seat beside the king. Margaery was on the other side of Tommen, in the place of honor. When she entered, arm in arm with the little king, she made a point of stopping to kiss Cersei on the cheeks and throw her arms around her.
"Your Grace," the girl said, bold as polished brass, "I feel as though I have a second mother now. I pray that we shall be very close, united by our love for your son."
"I loved both my sons..."
"Joffrey is in my prayers as well," said Margaery. "I loved him dearly, though I never had the chance to know him."
"Liar," the queen thought. "If you had loved him even for an instant, you would not have been in such unseemly haste to wed his brother."
His crown was all she'd ever wanted. For half a groat she would have slapped the blushing bride right there upon the dais, in view of half the court.
Like the service, the wedding feast was modest. Lady Alerie had made all the arrangements; Cersei had not had the stomach to face that daunting task again, after the way Joffrey's wedding had ended. Only seven courses were served . Butterbumps and Moon Boy entertained the guests between dishes, and musicians played as they ate. They listened to pipers and fiddlers, a lute and a flute, a high harp. The only singer was some favorite of Lady Margaery's, a dashing young cock-a-whoop clad all in shades of azure who called himself the Blue Bard. He sang a few love songs and retired.
"What a disappointment," Lady Olenna complained loudly. "I was hoping for 'The Rains of Castamere.'"
Whenever Cersei looked at the old crone, the face of Maggy the Frog seemed to float before her eyes, wrinkled and terrible and wise.
She could still remember the smell of it, redolent with queer eastern spices, and the softness of Maggy's gums as she sucked the blood from Cersei's finger. "Queen you shall be," the old woman had promised, with her lips still wet and red and glistening. "Until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down…"
Cersei glanced past Tommen, to where Margaery sat laughing with her father. She was pretty enough, she had to admit, but most of that was simply youth. Even peasant girls are pretty at a certain age, when they are still fresh and innocent and unspoiled, and most of them have the same brown hair and brown eyes as she does. Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than Cersei, surely. The world was full of fools, however. So was King Tommen's court…
Mace Tyrell arose to lead the toasts. He raised a golden goblet high, smiling at his pretty little daughter, and in a booming voice said, "To the king and queen!" The other sheep all baaaaaaed along with him. "The king and queen!" they cried, smashing their cups together. "The king and queen!" She had no choice but to drink along with them, all the time wishing that the guests had but a single face, so she could throw her wine into their eyes and remind them that she was the true queen. The only one of Tyrell's lickspittles who seemed to remember her at all was Paxter Redwyne, who rose to make his own toast, swaying slightly.
"To both our queens!" he chirruped. "To the young queen and the old!"
"My son is safe," Cersei told herself. "No harm can come to him, not here, not now." Yet every time she looked at Tommen, she saw Joffrey clawing at his throat. And when the boy began to cough the queen's heart stopped beating for a moment. She knocked aside a serving girl in her haste to reach him.
"Only a little wine that went down the wrong way," Margaery Tyrell assured her, smiling. She took Tommen's hand in her own and kissed his fingers. "My little love needs to take smaller sips. See, sweetheart? You scared your poor lady mother half to death."
"I'm sorry, Mother," Tommen said, properly abashed.
It was more than Cersei could stand. "I cannot let them see me cry," she thought, when she felt the tears welling in her eyes. She walked past Ser Meryn Trant and out into the back passage. Alone beneath a tallow candle, she allowed herself a shuddering sob, then another. A woman may weep, but not a queen…
It didn't take long for the Tyrell girl to start acting like she owned the whole country once that crown rested atop her pretty little head.
"They have my brother!" The little queen's brown hair was tousled and uncombed, and the torchlight made her cheeks look flushed, as if she had just come from some man's embrace. "Your Grace, this must be answered fiercely!" Her last word rang off the rafters and echoed through the cavernous throne room.
Seated on her gold-and-crimson high seat beneath the iron throne, Cersei could feel a growing tightness in her neck.
"Must," she thought. "She dares say 'must' to me."
She itched to slap the Tyrell girl across the face.
She should be on her knees, begging for her help…
Instead, she presumed to tell her rightful queen what she must do.
"A thousand ships?" Ser Harys Swyft was wheezing. "Surely not. No lord commands a thousand ships…"
"Some frightened fool has counted double," agreed Orton Merryweather. "That, or the Redwyne's are puffing up the numbers of the foe so we will not think them lax."
The torches on the back wall threw the long, barbed shadow of the Iron Throne halfway to the doors. The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel that the shadows were closing around her too. Her enemies were everywhere, and her friends were useless. She had only to glance at her councillors to know that; only Jaime seemed awake. The others had been roused from bed by Margaery's messengers pounding on their doors and stood there rumpled and confused. Outside the night was black and still. The castle and the city slept. Kettleblack and Trant seemed to be sleeping too, albeit on their feet…
"Half as many ships would still be five hundred, my lord," Jaime pointed out. "Only the Arbor has such strength at sea..."
"Had such strength," Ser Harys countered with a frown. "What of the crowns new dromonds?"
"Aurane Waters is said to have fled," Jaime answered him.
Ser Desmond Redwyne had limped back to the capital to inform them as much.
Why they'd ever named that bastard as Master of Ships was beyond Jaime's understanding.
"Sweet Cersei will be her equal, once complete," Waters had told them. "And the Lord Tywin will be twice the size of either."
"The Arbor will be Greyjoy's next target," Jaime hummed his assumption.
"With the Redwyne Fleet lost," Ser Harys agreed. "Aye, but what can we do?"
Robert should have scoured those isles after Balon Greyjoy rose against him, Cersei thought. He smashed their fleet, burned their towns, and broke their castles, but when he had them on their knees, he let them up again. He should have made another island of their skulls. That was what her father would have done, but Robert never had the stomach that a king requires if he hopes to keep peace in the realm. "The ironmen are cravens," she argued. "What has emboldened them?"
"Their new king." Jaime told her. "Lord Balon's brother. The Crow's Eye, he is called…"
Euron Greyjoy was not the only new king – since news of Robb Stark had arrived – it seemed Kings were sprouting up everywhere…
"Carrion crows make their feasts upon the carcasses of the dead and dying," said Grand Maester Pycelle. "They do not descend upon hale and healthy animals. Lord Euron will gorge himself on gold and plunder, aye, but as soon as we move against him, he will back to Pyke, as Lord Dagon was wont to do in his day."
"You are wrong," said Margaery Tyrell. "Reavers do not come in such strength! Lord Hewett and Lord Chester are slain, as well as Lord Serry's son and heir. Serry has fled to Highgarden with what few ships remain him, and Lord Grimm is a prisoner in his own castle. Willas says that Euron has raised up four lords of his own in their places."
"Willas Tyrell," Cersei thought, "The cripple? He is to blame for this…" That oaf Mace Tyrell left the defence of the Reach in the hands of a hapless weakling. "It is a long voyage from the Shield Islands to Dragonstone," she pointed out. "How could Euron's ships come all that way without being seen?"
"It's not Euron at Dragonstone," Jaime sighed. Once more his sister insisted on foolishness.
"I refuse to believe-"
"Believe it sister," Lord Jaime insisted. "I have spoken at length with Ser Desmond, his account is quite clear…"
"Willas believes that Greyjoy does not follow the coast," said Margaery. "They made the voyage out of sight of land, sailing far out into the Sunset Sea…"
More like the cripple did not have his watchtowers manned, and now he feared to have them know it. The little queen was making excuses for her brother. Cersei's mouth was dry. She needed a cup of Arbor gold. If the ironmen decided to take the Arbor next, the whole realm might soon be going thirsty.
"How is it possible?" She frowned. "Balon Greyjoy offered my lord father an alliance. Perhaps his son has offered one to the Starks?"
"Willam Stark," Jaime named the man.
The council hushed at mention of the Prince.
"What about him," Cersei scowled impatiently.
"Ser Desmond vows he saw wolves on the enemy fleets sails," Jaime could feel a headache coming along.
"He also spoke of a ship that spit fire and lightning," Ser Harys scoffed at the notion. "It's madness!"
"His crewmen – what few returned with him – all say the same thing. It is a Stark fleet…"
Pycelle frowned. "Willam Stark made mention of such a fleet, did he not?"
"Mhmm," Jaime hummed. "That he did…"
"What of the girl?" Cersei asked suddenly. "The scaled one…"
"Shireen Baratheon," Jaime named her with a frown.
Would these Starks butcher children, just as Lord Tywin had Aegon and Rhaenys?
"That's the one," Cersei didn't seem to share his concerns.
"We've received no word from the fortress Your Grace," Lord Merryweather answered.
"And what of Euron Greyjoy?" The little queen was frowning.
"Grimm and Serry and the rest are sworn to Highgarden, are they not?" Cersei smiled sweetly. "It is for Highgarden to answer..."
"Highgarden shall answer," said Margaery Tyrell. "Willas has sent word to Leyton Hightower in Oldtown, so he can see to his own defences. Garlan is gathering men to retake the isles. The best part of our power remains with my lord father, though. We must send word to him at Storm's End. At once…"
"And lift the siege?" Cersei did not care for Margaery's presumption.
She said "at once" to her. Did she take her for a common handmaid!?
"Have you been listening, my lady? If we draw our eyes away from Dragonstone and Storm's End to these rocks-"
"Rocks?" gasped Margaery. "Did Your Grace say rocks!?"
"If I recall my lessons," Jaime sighed, pouring himself a class of Arbor Red. "From those rocks the ironmen threaten Oldtown and the Arbor. From strongholds on the Shields, raiders can sail up the Mander into the very heart of the Reach, as they did of old. With enough men they might even threaten Highgarden…"
"Truly?" said the queen, all false innocence. "Why then, the brave Tyrell brothers had best roust them off those rocks, and quickly…"
"How would the queen suggest they accomplish that?" asked Margaery. "Willas and Garlan can raise ten thousand men within a fortnight and twice that in a moon's turn, but they cannot walk on water, Your Grace, now that we've lost the Redwyne Fleet and the Royal Fleet has abandoned us; thanks to your Lord Admiral!?"
"Highgarden sits above the Mander," Cersei's smile didn't falter. She loved to see the young girl squirm. "You and your vassals command a thousand leagues of coast. Are there no fisherfolk along your shores? Do you have no pleasure barges, no ferries, no river galleys, no skiffs?"
"Many and more," the young Queen admitted reluctantly.
"Such should be more than sufficient to carry a host across a little stretch of water, I would think."
"And when the longships of the ironborn descend upon our ragtag fleet as it is making its way across this 'little stretch of water,' what would Your Grace have us do then?"
Drown, thought Cersei. "Highgarden has gold as well. You have my leave to hire sellsails from beyond the narrow sea..."
"Pirates out of Myr and Lys, you mean?" Margaery said with contempt. "The scum of the Free Cities!?"
"Sad to say, all of us must deal with scum from time to time," Cersei said with poisoned sweetness. "Perhaps you have a better notion?"
"Only the Arbor had sufficient galleys to retake the mouth of the Mander from the ironmen and protect my brothers…"
"Alas," Cersei sighed for effect. "Ser Loras was tasked to relieve the fleet, but has failed; quite spectacularly…"
Paxter Redwyne had owned two hundred warships, and five times as many merchant carracks, wine cogs, trading galleys, and whalers. Redwyne was encamped beneath the walls of Dragonstone, for a time, and the greater part of his fleet had been engaged in ferrying men across Blackwater Bay for the assault on that island stronghold.
The remainder prowled Shipbreaker Bay to the south, where only their presence prevented Storm's End from being resupplied by sea.
Ser Desmond Redwyne had limped back to the capital with only a handful of warships and galleys, brining word of their defeat at Dragonstone.
Cersei sipped her chalice of wine. "Storm's End is a hundred times more valuable than the Shields, while Dragonstone… so long as Dragonstone remains in the hands of our enemies, it is a knife at my son's throat. We cannot afford to look elsewhere." The queen pushed herself to her feet. "This audience is at an end…"
"They have my brother, Your Grace!" Queen Margaery pleaded. "Please, we must-"
"The Stark's are all honor," Jaime tried to assure the girl. "I doubt they'd harm your brother, Your Grace."
"I-" Margaery calmed somewhat. "You are right, Lord Jaime…"
Cersei bristled. How dare her brother act as if She was Queen…
"If it pleases Highgarden," Jaime offered, ignoring the glare from his sister. "Casterly Rock may be able to spare some men?"
The Westerlands were locked down, with the Riverlands apart of the new Kingdom of the North… but they could spare a handful…
He'd give them old men and green boys. If the Reach somehow fell to Euron Greyjoy?
That was a thought that didn't bare thinking on. It would be utter chaos.
"That-" Margaery seemed surprised by the offer.
"It would not be much I'm afraid," he told the Tyrell girl.
"Any help would be a blessing Lord Lannister," she smiled sweetly at the new Lord of Casterly Rock.
Cersei fought the overwhelming urge to claw out the young Queen's throat with her very nails – like the lioness she was…
"As I have said," Cersei growled like a lion. "This meeting is-"
The council door swung open.
Kettleblack and Trant drew their steel.
"Lord Lannister," it was a Redcloak, knelt as if to his king.
"Rise man," Jaime bid him, up from his seat. "This had best be important."
"Aye m'lord," the man nodded frantically. "Tis- well, you should see for yourself m'lord…"
Jaime followed the man, ignoring Cersei's shouts of protect as he stormed down the hallway.
Four other Redcloaks had been waiting outside the council room, seemingly having thrown their friend to the lions; no doubt afraid to intrude – though from the looks on their faces, perhaps fear was not the word. Confusion? The whole castle seemed alive with it now that Jaime looked around… servants were muttering in the shadows…
"It only just happened m'lord," one of the redcloaks began to explain as they walked.
"In the courtyard it was," another added. "We were on patrol, as your Lordship-"
"What happened," Jaime pushed, unwilling to hear the man stumble over his words.
"I-" The first redcloak – apparently the bravest – made to answer for his friend.
"They came from… well… the sky m'lord…"
"The sky?" Jaime raised a brow at that as he walked.
"Aye," the man hummed. "I know how it sounds, but tis true; swear on me mother, m'lord…"
"One of em struck poor Terrold over the head," the second redcloak added with a frown. "Knocked him out cold, unlucky bastard…"
Outside in the courtyard Jaime expected to see some threat, some enemy, anything to swing his sword at; but there was wholly nothing.
"Rocks m'lord," the first redcloak handed him one off the floor.
"A rock?" Jaime scowled. "You brought us out for a fuckin-"
Wait. There was parchment wrapped around it, the rock fitting snug in his hand…
At a glance the courtyard was littered with the same rocks – of differing sizes – all wrapped with parchment.
Cersei stormed up behind him, all shouts and orders.
Jaime unwrapped the parchment from the rock and began to read it.
"What is this!?" Cersei demanded to know.
"How in the seven hells…"
"Lord Lannister," his sister practically growled.
"Winter is Coming," Lord Jaime mumbled. This was madness.
"Jaime?" Cersei's voice softened somewhat.
"They all say same the same thing m'lord," the Redcloak said. "Far as we've seen…"
Jaime handed his sister the parchment and stepped forward into the courtyard proper.
On the ground amidst the stone and the mud were a littering of rocks. He knelt to pick up another.
"How?" His sister asked aloud behind him. "You there, fools!"
"Y- You're Grace?"
The Redcloaks looked between themselves.
"Search the castle!" The Queen-Mother demanded. "Find who left these here!"
"I um-"
"Well-"
"You see-"
"Are you deaf!?" Cersei commanded.
"Lord Jaime?" Queen Margaery had arrived.
"Your Grace," Jaime nodded to the girl briefly, tossing one of the rocks aside.
"They-" The bravest of the Redcloaks spoke up. "There's no one to find, Your Graces…"
"Explain," Cersei was scowling at the man like she'd pounce and eat him.
"They fell Your Grace," the Redcloak glanced up to the sky. "From… well… the sky?"
Jaime glanced over to see the others from the council arrive.
"They're written in blood," Jaime revealed in a mutter.
"My Lord?" Ser Harys pried wide-eyed.
"They all say the same," Jaime gestured to the rocks that littered the courtyard.
"Not just here m'lord," one of the Redcloaks added hesitantly.
All their eyes fell on the man, causing him to cover somewhat under their gazes.
"Aye m'lords, your Graces," the braver one sighed. "It's the same across the city…"
"How is that possible!?" Cersei all but screamed, as if the heavens would answer her…
And perhaps they would? Jaime wouldn't dismiss the possibility, given how strange this day was so far…
"Couldn't say Your Grace," the Redcloak had his head bowed. "They just… rained… struck one of my lads on the head and-"
"Impossible!" Cersei scoffed. "You're lying! This is madness, Lord Lannister; control your men!"
Jaime frowned at the look of terror on the Redcloaks faces.
"I swear m'lord it's-"
Jaime only had to raise his hand to silence the man.
"One of their own was struck," Jaime sighed. "They've fallen – however mad that is – across the whole damn city…"
"That's impossible though," Queen Margaery muttered. "Isn't it?"
"It would appear not Your Grace," he could only frown at the whole notion.
House Stark continued to be the bane of his existence, crowning themselves and now throwing rocks from the damn heavens of all things.
Cersei was quick to order every rock and message removed but it was far too little too late, there was no hiding it nor stopping the whispers from the smallfolk; who spread word as quickly as wildfire. It wasn't long before the Faith started to declare that the messages had been sent from the Gods themselves as a warning for all sinners.
Winter is Coming. Jaime doubted the Seven would send a message, written in blood no less, with the words of House Stark as a warning. He highly doubted that.
My Note(s): Tywin Lannister is dead and Prince Oberyn has fled the city. The two things are surely unconnected, it was clearly just Tyrion's doing! This chapter is a catch-up of sorts from the Lannister's PoV up till the events at Dragonstone happen and they learn from it. Rodrik kicks off the war by having what is essentially propaganda dropped from the skies over the capital; taking a page from history – dropping leaflets over enemy cities to fuck with their heads – only with birds and rocks… it just works…
If one considers the possibilities, one realises that warging is potentially Extremely damn useful. Willam only had limited use of it, but Rodrik has free reign.
At any rate I greatly look forward to the reaction for next week's chapter. You know how I love my chaos. It's gonna be grand… *insert evil laughter*
FractiousDay: Politics had nothing to with Robb's decision. He's been pushing Jon about his birthright since he learnt of it, because Jon's his brother and Robb believes he deserve his birthright and there's nobody else Robb would rather see on the Iron Throne than his own brother/cousin. He revealed it because he felt it was the honourable thing to do, supporting his brothers claim. Now, was that the 'politically smart' thing to do? Probably not no… but then Robb isn't politically smart. He's his father's son.
Gangui: I'm not sure who the 'people' are that you've had forget Rickard & Brandon's deaths / Aerys demanding Ned & Roberts heads being the cause for the rebellion, but I've certainly never forgotten that; considering my knowledge of this universe is beyond religiously extensive :P I've read the books multiple times – hard to forget that.
246vili: It's covered briefly here (and will be noted elsewhere) but aye the Riverlands have declared themselves 'free' alongside Robb as their King. Walder Frey is probably dancing and throwing parties to celebrate his good luck right about his getting a free Queen :P and yeah the Vosstark's are doubtlessly happy too; we'll see them later. As for the south reacting to Jon? Its's easily dismissed by the Lannister's as a falsehood, aye, they're used to lying at this point I think heh. They'll just keep denying it.
Jon's future is yet to be determined though, just because Robb's the King in the North doesn't rule out someone being the King in the South. We'll see though.
Dave: Glad you enjoyed it :) know there's a lot of Jon fanboys out there that might've hoped for Jon being declared King but ultimately that wasn't my plan.
RohanVos: Happy to hear you enjoyed it :) lots to come, things really start escalating this next half of the story.