Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Her maids were quick to surround her, placing rings on her fingers, a string of moonstones around her neck and her tiara among her golden curls. Lilianna came forth offering her two dresses to choose from, both were made from velvet and satin to better defend against the chill in the air and both were richly embroidered on the sleeves and skirts, the only thing that told them apart from one another was the color.
One's bodice and sleeves was black with crimson skirts and the thread the embroidery was done in was red while the other dress was green and white and the thread was golden, Cersei glanced between both dresses for a moment before she reached out and touched one. Lelianna nodded and laid the green dress down on the silk covers of her bed and placed the red and black dress back in the trunk from where it had come.
Soon enough she was garbed all in gold and green, only the silver of her tiara being a different color to the rest of what she wore. She felt strong, beautiful and bright like the sun and like none could ever harm her even if she knew that it wasn't true. She could not allow anyone to see her being weak, certainly not now. The royal court had not changed since the first time her Lord Father had brought her when she was a girl and he was still Hand and still in the King's favour.
This place had always been a pit of vipers, everyone around you always ready to lash out and draw blood and kill you if you did not kill them first but even so it had not been so terrible as it was now when she had been young. The King had not been mad then, you did not need to fear that you would have been tied to a pyre and burned to ashes if you simply said the wrong word at the wrong time.
Cersei remembered the first time she had ever seen the King, the day she was being presented to court. He had looked so splendid, sat atop the Iron Throne. He had looked like he was born to sit it, the seed of the Dragonlords of Old Valyria had run strong in him with his long silvery hair and dark indigo eyes, his beard had been trimmed then and she remembered agreeing with the companions she had brought with her from Casterly Rock, she could not remember the names of either of them for the life of her now, later on that night that the King had seemed so splendid.
But none could hope to be as splendid as her Prince, who could ever hope to match him in any aspect? He always seemed more beautiful with each and every time that she saw him, before she had come to court the last time she had seen him had been when he had come to Casterly Rock with the King and Queen to celebrate the first nameday of his younger brother.
Before the Prince had arrived of course her Aunt had given her a promise, that Father would have her betrothed to the Prince before the royal family made their return to the capital. She had not been able to sleep at all that night, she and Melara Hetherspoon and Jeyne Farman had spent the whole of the night giggling over how very fair the Prince was and how certain it was that he would love her as soon as he saw her and if he won the tourney then he would no doubt crown her to be his Queen of Love and Beauty.
They had been foolish girls then and the world seemed a bright place, where a Father's word meant more than anything. A Lannister pays his debts and Father owed a debt to her as did her Aunt Genna, they had both promised to her that she would be wed to Rhaegar and that she would be Queen. She had wept so harshly the night when she was told that the King had rejected the match, that he had called her Father a servant.
Aunt Genna had merely scoffed at her, told her to dry her eyes and that a lioness did not weep. That had been the first time she had wept since her Mother had died and after that she promised herself that she would never weep again. It wasn't a promise that she had been able to keep since then and every time she had wept since then she had hated herself for it and vowed to always be stronger.
She hadn't wept the day that Rhaegar, her perfect prince, had betrayed her and crowned the ugly wolf bitch as Queen of Love and Beauty instead of her. She had wanted too, if only for a little bit, but the rage had been so all consuming that her tears had frozen within her and her lungs had burned with the effort of holding back her screams.
Thrice she had been denied her crown of flowers, once as a child when Rhaegar had competed in the Tourney at Lannisport only to be knocked off his horse by Arthur Dayne, the second time her own brother had denied it her by trying some fool scheme to make Lord Eddard jealous by crowning his wife as Queen of Love and Beauty, she did hate it when Jaime tried to be clever and if he had just done as she had asked and ran a sword through the Dornish bitch that entire headache that would have followed would never have happened.
And the third time when it should have been hers, when nothing was standing in her way and her husband and perfect prince had defeated all of his challengers and had the crown of beautiful blue roses at the end of his lance, he betrayed her and crowned another. The thought even now was still a blade and the rage it summoned up threatened to steal away her breath.
His death would surely have been easier to bear than that shame he had brought on her with all the great lords and ladies in attendance to bear witness to it, at least if he had died then her sweet little Rhaenys would at least be Queen and Cersei could comfort herself with being her Regent. But no, her husband was still as healthy as a horse and did not seem like to die in his sleep soon.
Indeed, he had even gone on his little hunt with his men and three knights of the Kingsguard. He had gone so very far afield, she should not have taken the map from his solar that day he had left but it had been driving her to madness to watch him pour over it, memorizing routes and marking landmarks while he would tell her nothing.
So she had taken it after he had taken her, that thought was still enough to enrage her that her own Lord Husband could shame her so thoroughly in front of everyone who mattered and yet she was still expected to be willing to let him lay with her and to be pleasant and quiet while he went about it, to be submissive and silent, to suffer with dignity, to be a good wife and a noble lady.
It raked her raw and made her want to scream and yet she had suffered through it and later on that day she had retrieved the map that her husband had left behind and retreated to her own chambers. For a long time she didn't truly understand what she was looking at, it was just a map of the Riverlands with some castles and roads marked with thicker lines of newer ink.
And then it had occurred to her what it was that she had been looking at and she wasn't sure if she should laugh or scream or burn the Red Keep to the ground, instead she had ordered one of her maids to bring her a flagon of wine and then to leave her as she stewed in her own rage. Her fingers had been following the line that had lead up to the Neck and all the way back up to the castle in the far north.
She had been following all of the new lines on the map, all the possible paths any party could take through the Riverlands once they had exited the Neck and the quickest routes that would take you to the Stormlands, when the door to her chamber opened and Jaime came to her. The stench of smoke and ashes and something else, something that only seemed to come with when someone had been burned, like a boar being roasted on a spit but worse than that, clung to every inch of him.
Cersei had known there had been a trial that day, Lord and Lady Forren of Green Oak Hall had held a private dinner for some of their closest friends within the halls of the Red Keep and apparently as more of the wine had been flowing tongues had loosened and they had said things that had not been very flattering of the King at all.
The fools. No corner in the Red Keep was safe from eyes and ears, whether they belonged to the Spider or not there was always someone who was nearby listening and watching for someone else. And they had spoken foul words of a man who saw treason in every shadow to a dining chamber full of vultures who would do anything for advancement, for the King's favor.
And the King had been very eager to hear it, a fool he might have been but it seemed that the noble Lord Forren was not entire deprived of common sense as he had seen the way the wind had been blowing at court, according to one of her maids the fugitive lord had managed to bribe two guards on a postern gate to sneak him and three of his own guards out of the city.
His Lady Wife had been left behind to face the King's Justice on her own, Lelianna and the rest of her ladies had attended the execution and apparently she had died with very little dignity, pleading with the King to show mercy on her when all knew such a thing was a fool's errand when the King had it in his mind to feed someone to his flames.
It had been Jaime who had done it, the King had ordered him to take the torch and light the pyre and have the woman burnt to ashes, Jaime had not been the one to tell her of course, it had been from one of her maids that she had learned that. Jaime had not wanted to upset her and that was the thing that upset and enraged her more than anything, even her own other half thought of her as a weak woman and nothing more.
But at least Jaime had never betrayed her, Jaime had given her comfort and had always been her greatest protector. When he had come to her he had pulled her into the bedchamber and they had laid together for the first time in a long time, she had managed to resist the pull she had always felt for Jaime for the longest time, from the moment that the raven had brought word to Casterly Rock to that day at Harrenhal she had been loyal to her husband.
Even after Harrenhal she had stayed loyal, for a time. Even when all she wanted to do was throw Jaime down on to the floor and ride him in front of the entire court to take her revenge she had tried to forgive. But Cersei was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and such humiliation and betrayal was beyond her to ever forgive.
And the map was the final betrayal, she understood what it meant and what her husband was truly hunting for now. Perhaps King Aerys was right to see treason in every shadow, it certainly seemed to be bred there. The wolf bitch must have written to her husband, to tell him that she was coming south of the Neck and where he could find her, how else could he possibly know that she was coming south and time it perfectly with this hunt of his?
Did her Father and brothers know what she had been planning to do, did they approve of it? Her betrothed would certainly not, she did not care a wit for Robert Baratheon, the man was loud and violent and seemed to take too much pride in how well he could fight and would not stop boasting of it, Cersei would not want to marry him either if she was forced to do it but any hope of her sympathizing with Lyanna Stark had died when she had chosen to run off with her husband.
Oh, for only the knowledge to know where they were now and the ability to get to them. Cersei would wrap her hands around Lyanna's throat and squeeze until her pretty pale little face turned blue, to see the pain and the panic in her eyes as she tried desperately to take a breath, to claw at Cersei's hands to try and make her let go. Oh, that would sooth her perfectly.
And to make her treacherous Lord Husband watch as well would just make it all the sweeter, to think that he could betray her, humiliate her like that and expect her to do nothing but endure it passively, to not punish him for it. She would take a great deal of joy in proving him wrong in that before she killed him for his crimes.
And yet like so many other things that was denied to her, the map gave no signs as to where he would take his whore. Rhaegar would not bring her back to the capital, he may have proven to be more of a fool than she had ever thought but even so he couldn't possibly imagine that he could bring the girl here and not expect her to respond.
Summerhall was the most likely place she expected, she had never been to the ruined castle of course but she knew that her husband loved it and would often go there when he wished to be alone with his thoughts. But it was also in the Stormlands and was close to Dorne as well, Robert Baratheon would certainly not suffer having the man who kidnapped his betrothed holding her in his land and Prince Doran and Prince Oberyn would certainly not suffer having such an insult to their sister being so close to their own border.
For half a heartbeat she had a terrible thought, wondering if Rhaegar had taken her to the west. No, he wouldn't do that, he could not do that. The Westerlands was her home and to take his whore there would be the most grievous insult he could hope to inflict on her. Cersei would not suffer it and more importantly her Lord Father would not suffer it, any hope Rhaegar had for his treason that they had both planned would die then, if it had not done so already.
But Father had been silent since Harrenhal, she had received no letters from him since the day they had arrived in that cursed place. Uncle Kevan and Uncle Gerion had been just as absent, Aunt Genna sent nothing and even Uncle Tygett who had been her favorite as a girl, who almost seemed as angry as she was and understand why she was angry, left her in silence.
Jaime had not mentioned any letters to her so that meant that he had not received any either, she knew that Father might have been irritated with her because of her plan to have Jaime brought to the Kingsguard but he never thought for a moment that he would abandon her, abandon the both of them. But there was only silence from the Rock.
She had a written a letter to her Father, to tell her of her fears, of what she suspected but she had not found the strength to send it off yet. She could not deny it, she was afraid of what the response would be. That her Father had known, that he had condoned her humiliation in order to teach her some lesson. That he had allowed her husband to take a whore and give her shelter in his lands to make her humble.
An image came to her then, Lyanna Stark in Casterly Rock dressed in one of her mother's gowns and bedecked with her jewels and Rhaegar kissing her and both of them laughing at her, with her Father and her aunt and her uncles and her valonqar and all the knights and servants laughed along with them and Cersei wanted to scream.
For a moment she was so consumed with the madness of it that she thought of going to Aerys and telling him of how his son had been acting against him with her own Father but sense soon returned to her and she stopped herself. The King might kill Rhaegar for her but he would also just as like have her and Jaime brought forth and tied to a pyre first, as well as her little Rhaenys.
No, it seemed that she would to have suffer it. At least for now.
Her chamber door opened once again and Lelianna walked into the room with Rhaenys toddling along side her with her hand holding on to her companions skirts and Cersei could not help but smile with pride at that, her daughter would hold no one's hand as she walked, she would merely grab on to whoever was nearest clothes to support herself, every step that she took was her own.
Her little Lioness, already so bold. It had irked her at first that Rhaenys had not looked more like her Father when she had been born, with her golden hair and her rosy skin she had always looked more like a Lannister with only her violet eyes telling the world who had fathered her. But now she saw that it was a mercy, to know that the only child she would bear Rhaegar looked nothing like him. There was a sweet victory in that and enough of a revenge to sate her, for the moment.
"Mama!" Her daughter cried out to her and let go of Lelianna's skirt and stumbled towards her, Cersei fell to her knees and stretched out her arms towards her, her eyes watching closely to ensure that her daughter would not take a tumble and when she was close enough, she pulled Rhaenys close to her and pressed a kiss to the side of her head.
"My sweet girl." Cersei muttered before pressing a kiss to the other side of her head before standing up with Rhaenys in her arms. She did not seem to weigh any more now than she had done when she had been a babe in her arms, newborn and blind and the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen in her entire life.
The sound of armored feet approaching made her tear her gaze away from Rhaenys as she was sucking on her thumb. Jaime stood in the doorway, grabbed in his white armor and clutching at the hilt of his sword. "It's time to go Cersei." She nodded and followed her brother out of her apartments and to the throne room, court was to be held.
They separated as they came into the Throne Room, Jaime making his way to the Dais to take his place guarding the King with his other sworn brothers who were only four while Cersei made her way to the gallery where her good-mother and her young brother-by-law were waiting for her along with all the other ladies of court and their young children.
Queen Rhaella looked even more miserable this morning than usual, apparently the King had been very insistent that the Queen perform her wifely duties and it was showing on her, her already pale skin was even paler and that simply made the dark rings under her eyes stand out that much more. Still, she did not complain and she managed to force a smile on to her face when she saw Rhaenys, reaching out to stroke her golden curls.
It seemed that the king was in a fine mood today, there was no pyre set up in the throne room today and even rarer than that there did not seem to be any of the King's pets in attendance either. Jon Connington was sitting at the right of the Iron Throne, in the rightful place of the King's Hand and Cersei could not help herself from scrutinizing him.
The Hand of The King was a young man and more important than that, he was her husband's friend. Did he know what he meant to do, did he help him to plan it? If such was the case then he was as much a part of her humiliation as Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark were and he was close by to her, Jon she could make suffer while he was here.
Jaime would kill him if she asked him to, she was sure of that. He was as angry as she was that she had been so humiliated, he would want justice as much as she did even if that meant that would simply have to take it in their own hands. Cersei glanced around the court, all the noble lords and proud ladies. Word would them them soon enough, of what Rhaegar had done.
Gods, for the power to kill all of them in a heartbeat.
The King had taken his place atop the Iron Throne and court began in proper. Before the King would hear proposals and grievances however, he had news for the court. The siege of Green Oak Hall had begun and the treasonous and cowardly Lord Forren would be in shackles and be brought to face the King's Justice before the moon turned, a cry of approval went up through the throne room.
There were no proposals brought before the King that day, most of the court knew by now not to anger the King and how easy it was to do so if he thought that you were wasting his time. So, there were only the grievances. A man accused a baker of putting sawdust in his bread, and the man was fined for it. A group of five thieves were brought before him due to robbing a merchant's manse, all of them left short a finger.
It was odd, to see the King so restrained, even lucid. The King had good days and bad days but the only difference was how long it would take before he resorted to calling on his pets to build a pyre for punishment. This was strange, he was reasonable, he was pleasant. He even made a jest at one point, it wasn't funny but it was a jest.
And yet it did not sooth her, it was like waiting for a storm across the horizon to come to you. It was going to come and there is naught you can do but wait for it to do so. She was not the only who saw it, there was barely quiet muttering in the gallery behind her and the Queen looked even more uncomfortable than she already did and Cersei had to wonder if she knew something.
Did they both knew about Rhaegar? Did he inform them of what he had planned to do? Did they approve of it? Were they the ones that had planned it? What had she ever done to brew such treason against herself? The rage came back and Cersei wanted to throttle someone once again and for a moment the rage was so all consuming that she could not breath.
And then the doors of the throne room opened and a guardsman came running, interrupting an old farmer as he complained that another farmer has stolen a dozen of his pigs and his daughter, and tried desperately to catch his breath as he tried to speak. "Your Grace, a thousand pardons. I-there is a-you need to come quickly-"
"Speak you fool!" The voice was sharp and as harsh as a crack of whip and the fair king who had been a stranger to all of them had vanished, replaced with the familiar mad man they all knew. "You are interrupting the King's business and I can assure you that if there is not a good reason for it then you regret having come in here without being beckoned to do so."
The guard turned white and began to chock on his tongue but fear of being burned alive soon meant that he found his nerve and began to speak. "Your Grace, there is a party of armed men outside the wall. Their leader is calling for Prince Rhaegar, I believe that he wants to kill him your Grace!"
It was like someone had kicked a nest of angry hornets, an angry buzzing began to fill the throne room and suddenly everyone turned and began to make their way out even as the herald cried that the King had not given them reason to leave. Cersei turned and began to make her way down to the stream and she knew that the Queen was following when she heard Viserys ask where his elder brother was and who had come to kill him, sounding as though he was on the verge of tears.
It was like being carried along by a river and soon enough they had left Maegor's Holdfast and all the lords and noble ladies began to climb the steps of the battlements, for half a moment Cersei nearly lost a balance but a strong hand reached out to steady her and Cersei did not have to turn and look to know that it was Jaime.
The battlements gave a fine view of the city from the high hill from where the Red Keep was built but they did not need to look all the way down to the city, only a little further down to the road. It was hardly an army, only some thirty men and most of them seemed to be on the younger side. From where Cersei stood she could make out some badges, a green turtle on a lighter green, a blue star on silver, a black bird on green.
She did not recognise the sgils, but in truth she did not need too. She knew the man that lead them, fierce and black beared with blue eyes and his massive war hammer slung over his back, Robert Baratheon was ever a sight. "Where is he!? Where's the silver haired fucker!? Tell him to come out and die! I want my betrothed brought back to me, where is Lyanna!?"
As the young Lord of Storm's End raged King Aerys acended on to the battlements with Lewyn Martell and Barristan Selmy flocking on either side of him. He stared down at Robert Baratheon and Robert Baratheon stared back at him. The King's indigo eyes flashed with something that Cersei had seen before and Cersei turned to look down at the men, wondering if they knew they were doomed. They all seemed so young, so strong and so brave in the light of the sun.
But even the bravest of men turned into wailing babes when they were tied to the pyre and the flames were stoked, Cersei knew that. Everyone who had stayed at court knew that well.
When the King spoke, it was soft and sharp. "Ser Barristan, have the gate raised and the bridge lowered. My Lord of Baratheon has a grievance with mine own son and heir, and as his king. I mean to hear it."
End of Chapter Sixty-Nine
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With a great deal of affection and respect,
DiscordantSymphony