A humble and a contrite heart proved to have benefits over and beyond cleansing the soul of sin. That night the queen was moved to a larger cell two floors down, with a window she could actually look out of and warm, soft blankets for her bed. And when time came for supper, instead of stale bread and oaten porridge, she was served a roast capon, a bowl of crisp greens sprinkled with crushed walnuts, and a mound of mashed neeps aswim in butter. That night she crawled into her bed with a full stomach for the first time since she was taken, and slept through the black watches of the night undisturbed.
The next morning, with the dawn, there came her uncle.
Cersei was still at her breakfast when the door swung open and Ser Kevan Lannister stepped through. “Leave us,” he told her gaolers. Septa Unella ushered Scolera and Moelle away and closed the door behind them. The queen rose to her feet.
Ser Kevan looked older than when she’d seen him last. He was a big man, broad in the shoulder and thick about the waist, with a close-cropped blond beard that followed the line of his heavy jaw and short blond hair in full retreat from his brow. A heavy woolen cloak, dyed crimson, was clasped at one shoulder with a golden brooch in the shape of a lion’s head.
“Thank you for coming,” the queen said.
Her uncle frowned. “You should sit. There are things that I must needs tell you—”
She did not want to sit. “You are still angry with me. I hear it in your voice. Forgive me, Uncle. It was wrong of me to throw my wine at you, but—”
“You think I care about a cup of wine? Lancel is my son, Cersei. Your own cousin. If I am angry with you, that is the cause. You should have looked after him, guided him, found him a likely girl of good family. Instead you—”
“I know. I know.” Lancel wanted me more than I ever wanted him. He still does, I will wager. “I was alone, weak. Please. Uncle. Oh, Uncle. It is so good to see your face, your sweet sweet face. I have done wicked things, I know, but I could not bear for you to hate me.” She threw her arms around him, kissed his cheek. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”
Ser Kevan suffered the embrace for a few heartbeats before he finally raised his own arms to return it. His hug was short and awkward. “Enough,” he said, his voice still flat and cold. “You are forgiven. Now sit. I bring some hard tidings, Cersei.”
His words frightened her. “Has something happened to Tommen? Please, no. I have been so afraid for my son. No one will tell me anything. Please tell me that Tommen is well.”
“His Grace is well. He asks about you often.” Ser Kevan laid his hands on her shoulders, held her at arm’s length.
“Jaime, then? Is it Jaime?”
“No. Jaime is still in the riverlands, somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” She did not like the sound of that.
“He took Raventree and accepted Lord Blackwood’s surrender,” said her uncle, “but on his way back to Riverrun he left his tail and went off with a woman.”
“A woman?” Cersei stared at him, uncomprehending. “What woman? Why? Where did they go?”
“No one knows. We’ve had no further word of him. The woman may have been the Evenstar’s daughter, Lady Brienne.”
Her. The queen remembered the Maid of Tarth, a huge, ugly, shambling thing who dressed in man’s mail. Jaime would never abandon me for such a creature. My raven never reached him, elsewise he would have come.
“We have had reports of sellswords landing all over the south,” Ser Kevan was saying. “Tarth, the Stepstones, Cape Wrath … where Stannis found the coin to hire a free company I would dearly love to know. I do not have the strength to deal with them, not here. Mace Tyrell does, but he refuses to bestir himself until this matter with his daughter has been settled.”
A headsman would settle Margaery quick enough. Cersei did not care a fig for Stannis or his sellswords. The Others take him and the Tyrells both. Let them slaughter each other, the realm will be the better for it. “Please, Uncle, take me out of here.”
“How? By force of arms?” Ser Kevan walked to the window and gazed out, frowning. “I would need to make an abbatoir of this holy place. And I do not have the men. The best part of our forces were at Riverrun with your brother. I had no time to raise up a new host.” He turned back to face her. “I have spoken with His High Holiness. He will not release you until you have atoned for your sins.”
“I have confessed.”
“Atoned, I said. Before the city. A walk—”
“No.” She knew what her uncle was about to say, and she did not want to hear it. “Never. Tell him that, if you speak again. I am a queen, not some dockside whore.”
“No harm would come to you. No one will touch—”
“No,” she said, more sharply. “I would sooner die.”
Ser Kevan was unmoved. “If that is your wish, you may soon have it granted. His High Holiness is resolved that you be tried for regicide, deicide, incest, and high treason.”
“Deicide?” She almost laughed. “When did I kill a god?”
“The High Septon speaks for the Seven here on earth. Strike at him, and you are striking at the gods themselves.” Her uncle raised a hand before she could protest. “It does no good to speak of such things. Not here. The time for all that is at trial.” He gazed about her cell. The look on his face spoke volumes.
Someone is listening. Even here, even now, she dare not speak freely. She took a breath. “Who will try me?”
“The Faith,” her uncle said, “unless you insist on a trial by battle. In which case you must be championed by a knight of the Kingsguard. Whatever the outcome, your rule is at an end. I will serve as Tommen’s regent until he comes of age. Mace Tyrell has been named King’s Hand. Grand Maester Pycelle and Ser Harys Swyft will continue as before, but Paxter Redwyne is now lord admiral and Randyll Tarly has assumed the duties of justiciar.”
Tyrell bannermen, the both of them. The whole governance of the realm was being handed to her enemies, Queen Margaery’s kith and kin. “Margaery stands accused as well. Her and those cousins of hers. How is it that the sparrows freed her and not me?”
“Randyll Tarly insisted. He was the first to reach King’s Landing when this storm broke, and he brought his army with him. The Tyrell girls will still be tried, but the case against them is weak, His High Holiness admits. All of the men named as the queen’s lovers have denied the accusation or recanted, save for your maimed singer, who appears to be half-mad. So the High Septon handed the girls over to Tarly’s custody and Lord Randyll swore a holy oath to deliver them for trial when the time comes.”
“And her accusers?” the queen demanded. “Who holds them?”
“Osney Kettleblack and the Blue Bard are here, beneath the sept. The Redwyne twins have been declared innocent, and Hamish the Harper has died. The rest are in the dungeons under the Red Keep, in the charge of your man Qyburn.”
Qyburn, thought Cersei. That was good, one straw at least that she could clutch. Lord Qyburn had them, and Lord Qyburn could do wonders. And horrors. He can do horrors as well.
“There is more, worse. Will you sit down?”
“Sit down?” Cersei shook her head. What could be worse? She was to be tried for high treason whilst the little queen and her cousins flew off as free as birds. “Tell me. What is it?”
“Myrcella. We have had grave news from Dorne.”
“Tyrion,” she said at once. Tyrion had sent her little girl to Dorne, and Cersei had dispatched Ser Balon Swann to bring her home. All Dornishmen were snakes, and the Martells were the worst of them. The Red Viper had even tried to defend the Imp, had come within a hairbreadth of a victory that would have allowed the dwarf to escape the blame for Joffrey’s murder. “It’s him, he’s been in Dorne all this time, and now he’s seized my daughter.”
Ser Kevan gave her another scowl. “Myrcella was attacked by a Dornish knight named Gerold Dayne. She’s alive, but hurt. He slashed her face open, she … I’m sorry … she lost an ear.”
“An ear.” Cersei stared at
him, aghast. She was just a child, my precious princess. She was so pretty, too. “He cut off her ear. And Prince Doran and his Dornish knights, where were they? They could not defend one little girl? Where was Arys Oakheart?”
“Slain, defending her. Dayne cut him down, it’s said.”
The Sword of the Morning had been a Dayne, the queen recalled, but he was long dead. Who was this Ser Gerold and why would he wish to harm her daughter? She could not make any sense of this, unless … “Tyrion lost half his nose in the Battle of the Blackwater. Slashing her face, cutting off an ear … the Imp’s grubby little fingers are all over this.”
“Prince Doran says nothing of your brother. And Balon Swann writes that Myrcella puts it all on this Gerold Dayne. Darkstar, they call him.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Whatever they call him, he is my brother’s catspaw. Tyrion has friends amongst the Dornish. The Imp planned this all along. It was Tyrion who betrothed Myrcella to Prince Trystane. Now I see why.”
“You see Tyrion in every shadow.”
“He is a creature of the shadows. He killed Joffrey. He killed Father. Did you think he would stop there? I feared that the Imp was still in King’s Landing plotting harm to Tommen, but he must have gone to Dorne instead to kill Myrcella first.” Cersei paced the width of the cell. “I need to be with Tommen. These Kingsguard knights are as useless as nipples on a breastplate.” She rounded on her uncle. “Ser Arys was killed, you said.”
“At the hands of this man Darkstar, yes.”
“Dead, he’s dead, you are certain of that?”
“That is what we have been told.”
“Then there is an empty place amongst the Kingsguard. It must be filled at once. Tommen must be protected.”
“Lord Tarly is drawing up a list of worthy knights for your brother to consider, but until Jaime reappears …”
“The king can give a man a white cloak. Tommen’s a good boy. Tell him who to name and he will name him.”
“And who would you have him name?”
She did not have a ready answer. My champion will need a new name as well as a new face. “Qyburn will know. Trust him in this. You and I have had our differences, Uncle, but for the blood we share and the love you bore my father, for Tommen’s sake and the sake of his poor maimed sister, do as I ask you. Go to Lord Qyburn on my behalf, bring him a white cloak, and tell him that the time has come.”
THE QUEENSGUARD
You were the queen’s man,” said Reznak mo Reznak. “The king desires his own men about him when he holds court.”
I am the queen’s man still. Today, tomorrow, always, until my last breath, or hers. Barristan Selmy refused to believe that Daenerys Targaryen was dead.
Perhaps that was why he was being put aside. One by one, Hizdahr removes us all. Strong Belwas lingered at the door of death in the temple, under the care of the Blue Graces … though Selmy half suspected they were finishing the job those honeyed locusts had begun. Skahaz Shavepate had been stripped of his command. The Unsullied had withdrawn to their barracks. Jhogo, Daario Naharis, Admiral Groleo, and Hero of the Unsullied remained hostages of the Yunkai’i. Aggo and Rakharo and the rest of the queen’s khalasar had been dispatched across the river to search for their lost queen. Even Missandei had been replaced; the king did not think it fit to use a child as his herald, and a onetime Naathi slave at that. And now me.
There was a time when he might have taken this dismissal as a blot upon his honor. But that was in Westeros. In the viper’s pit that was Meereen, honor seemed as silly as a fool’s motley. And this mistrust was mutual. Hizdahr zo Loraq might be his queen’s consort, but he would never be his king. “If His Grace wishes for me to remove myself from court …”
“His Radiance,” the seneschal corrected. “No, no, no, you misunderstand me. His Worship is to receive a delegation from the Yunkai’i, to discuss the withdrawal of their armies. They may ask for … ah … recompense for those who lost their lives to the dragon’s wroth. A delicate situation. The king feels it will be better if they see a Meereenese king upon the throne, protected by Meereenese warriors. Surely you can understand that, ser.”
I understand more than you know. “Might I know which men His Grace has chosen to protect him?”
Reznak mo Reznak smiled his slimy smile. “Fearsome fighters, who love His Worship well. Goghor the Giant. Khrazz. The Spotted Cat. Belaquo Bonebreaker. Heroes all.”
Pit fighters all. Ser Barristan was unsurprised. Hizdahr zo Loraq sat uneasily on his new throne. It had been a thousand years since Meereen last had a king, and there were some even amongst the old blood who thought they might have made a better choice than him. Outside the city sat the Yunkai’i with their sellswords and their allies; inside were the Sons of the Harpy.
And the king’s protectors grew fewer every day. Hizdahr’s blunder with Grey Worm had cost him the Unsullied. When His Grace had tried to put them under the command of a cousin, as he had the Brazen Beasts, Grey Worm had informed the king that they were free men who took commands only from their mother. As for the Brazen Beasts, half were freedmen and the rest shavepates, whose true loyalty might still be to Skahaz mo Kandaq. The pit fighters were King Hizdahr’s only reliable support, against a sea of enemies.
“May they defend His Grace against all threats.” Ser Barristan’s tone gave no hint of his true feelings; he had learned to hide such back in King’s Landing years ago.
“His Magnificence,” Reznak mo Reznak stressed. “Your other duties shall remain unchanged, ser. Should this peace fail, His Radiance would still wish for you to command his forces against the enemies of our city.”
He has that much sense, at least. Belaquo Bonebreaker and Goghor the Giant might serve as Hizdahr’s shields, but the notion of either leading an army into battle was so ludicrous that the old knight almost smiled. “I am His Grace’s to command.”
“Not Grace,” the seneschal complained. “That style is Westerosi. His Magnificence, His Radiance, His Worship.”
His Vanity would fit better. “As you say.”
Reznak licked his lips. “Then we are done.” This time his oily smile betokened dismissal. Ser Barristan took his leave, grateful to leave the stench of the seneschal’s perfume behind him. A man should smell of sweat, not flowers.
The Great Pyramid of Meereen was eight hundred feet high from base to point. The seneschal’s chambers were on the second level. The queen’s apartments, and his own, occupied the highest step. A long climb for a man my age, Ser Barristan thought, as he started up. He had been known to make that climb five or six times a day on the queen’s business, as the aches in his knees and the small of his back could attest. There will come a day when I can no longer face these steps, he thought, and that day will be here sooner than I would like. Before it came, he must make certain that at least a few of his lads were ready to take his place at the queen’s side. I will knight them myself when they are worthy, and give them each a horse and golden spurs.
The royal apartments were still and silent. Hizdahr had not taken up residence there, preferring to establish his own suite of rooms deep in the heart of the Great Pyramid, where massive brick walls surrounded him on all sides. Mezzara, Miklaz, Qezza, and the rest of the queen’s young cupbearers—hostages in truth, but both Selmy and the queen had become so fond of them that it was hard for him to think of them that way—had gone with the king, whilst Irri and Jhiqui departed with the other Dothraki. Only Missandei remained, a forlorn little ghost haunting the queen’s chambers at the apex of the pyramid.
Ser Barristan walked out onto the terrace. The sky above Meereen was the color of corpse flesh, dull and white and heavy, a mass of unbroken cloud from horizon to horizon. The sun was hidden behind a wall of cloud. It would set unseen, as it had risen unseen that morning. The night would be hot, a sweaty, suffocating, sticky sort of night without a breath of air. For three days rain had threatened, but not a drop had fallen. Rain would come as a relief. It might help wash the city clean.
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From here he could see four lesser pyramids, the city’s western walls, and the camps of the Yunkishmen by the shores of Slaver’s Bay, where a thick column of greasy smoke twisted upward like some monstrous serpent. The Yunkishmen burning their dead, he realized. The pale mare is galloping through their siege camps. Despite all the queen had done, the sickness had spread, both within the city walls and without. Meereen’s markets were closed, its streets empty. King Hizdahr had allowed the fighting pits to remain open, but the crowds were sparse. The Meereenese had even begun to shun the Temple of the Graces, reportedly.
The slavers will find some way to blame Daenerys for that as well, Ser Barristan thought bitterly. He could almost hear them whispering—Great Masters, Sons of the Harpy, Yunkai’i, all telling one another that his queen was dead. Half of the city believed it, though as yet they did not have the courage to say such words aloud. But soon, I think.
Ser Barristan felt very tired, very old. Where have all the years gone? Of late, whenever he knelt to drink from a still pool, he saw a stranger’s face gazing up from the water’s depths. When had those crow’s-feet first appeared around his pale blue eyes? How long ago had his hair turned from sunlight into snow? Years ago, old man. Decades.
Yet it seemed like only yesterday that he had been raised to knighthood, after the tourney at King’s Landing. He could still recall the touch of King Aegon’s sword upon his shoulder, light as a maiden’s kiss. His words had caught in his throat when he spoke his vows. At the feast that night he had eaten ribs of wild boar, prepared the Dornish way with dragon peppers, so hot they burned his mouth. Forty-seven years, and the taste still lingered in his memory, yet he could not have said what he had supped on ten days ago if all seven kingdoms had depended on it. Boiled dog, most like. Or some other foul dish that tasted no better.
Not for the first time, Selmy wondered at the strange fates that had brought him here. He was a knight of Westeros, a man of the stormlands and the Dornish marches; his place was in the Seven Kingdoms, not here upon the sweltering shores of Slaver’s Bay. I came to bring Daenerys home. Yet he had lost her, just as he had lost her father and her brother. Even Robert. I failed him too.
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