The king is dead, they told him, never knowing that Joffrey was
his son as well as his sovereign.
“The Imp opened his throat with a dagger,” a
costermonger declared at the roadside inn where they spent the
night. “He drank his blood from a big gold chalice.”
The man did not recognize the bearded one-handed knight with the
big bat on his shield, no more than any of them, so he said things
he might otherwise have swallowed, had he known who was
listening.
“It was poison did the deed,” the innkeep insisted.
“The boy’s face turned black as a plum.”
“May the Father judge him justly,” murmured a
septon.
“The dwarf’s wife did the murder with him,”
swore an archer in Lord Rowan’s livery. “Afterward, she
vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly
direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his
jaws.”
Jaime sat silent through it all, letting the words wash over
him, a horn of ale forgotten in his one good hand. Joffrey. My
blood. My firstborn. My son. He tried to bring the boy’s face
to mind, but his features kept turning into Cersei’s. She
will be in mourning, her hair in disarray and her eyes red from
crying, her mouth trembling as she tries to speak. She will cry
again when she sees me, though she’ll fight the tears. His
sister seldom wept but when she was with him. She could not stand
for others to think her weak. Only to her twin did she show her
wounds. She will look to me for comfort and revenge.
They rode hard the next day, at Jaime’s insistence. His
son was dead, and his sister needed him.
When he saw the city before him, its watchtowers dark against
the gathering dusk, Jaime Lannister cantered up to Steelshanks
Walton, behind Nage with the peace banner.
“What’s that awful stink?” the northman
complained. Death, thought Jaime, but he said, “Smoke, sweat, and
shit. King’s Landing, in short. If you have a good nose you
can smell the treachery too. You’ve never smelled a city
before?”
“I smelled White Harbor. It never stank like
this.”
“White Harbor is to King’s Landing as my brother
Tyrion is to Ser Gregor Clegane.”
Nage led them up a low hill, the seven-tailed peace banner
lifting and turning in the wind, the polished seven-pointed star
shining bright upon its staff. He would see Cersei soon, and
Tyrion, and their father. Could my brother truly have killed the
boy? Jaime found that hard to believe.
He was curiously calm. Men were supposed to go mad with grief
when their children died, he knew. They were supposed to tear their
hair out by the roots, to curse the gods and swear red vengeance.
So why was it that he felt so little? The boy lived and died
believing Robert Baratheon his sire.
Jaime had seen him born, that was true, though more for Cersei
than the child. But he had never held him. “How would it
look?” his sister warned him when the women finally left
them. “Bad enough Joff looks like you without you mooning
over him.” Jaime yielded with hardly a fight. The boy had
been a squalling pink thing who demanded too much of Cersei’s
time, Cersei’s love, and Cersei’s breasts. Robert was
welcome to him. And now he’s dead. He pictured Joff lying still and cold
with a face black from poison, and still felt nothing. Perhaps he
was the monster they claimed. If the Father Above came down to
offer him back his son or his hand, Jaime knew which he would
choose. He had a second son, after all, and seed enough for many
more. If Cersei wants another child I’ll give her
one . . . and this time I’ll hold him,
and the Others take those who do not like it. Robert was rotting in
his grave, and Jaime was sick of lies.
He turned abruptly and galloped back to find Brienne. Gods know
why I bother. She is the least companionable creature I’ve
ever had the misfortune to meet. The wench rode well behind and a
few feet off to the side, as if to proclaim that she was no part of
them. They had found men’s garb for her along the way; a
tunic here, a mantle there, a pair of breeches and a cowled cloak,
even an old iron breastplate. She looked more comfortable dressed
as a man, but nothing would ever make her look handsome. Nor happy.
Once out of Harrenhal, her usual pighead stubbornness had soon
reasserted itself. “I want my arms and armor back,” she
had insisted. “Oh, by all means, let us have you back in
steel,” Jaime replied. “A helm, especially. We’ll
all be happier if you keep your mouth shut and your visor
down.”
That much Brienne could do, but her sullen silences soon began
to fray his good humor almost as much as Qyburn’s endless
attempts to be ingratiating. I never thought I would find myself
missing the company of Cleos Frey, gods help me. He was beginning
to wish he had left her for the bear after all.
“King’s Landing,” Jaime announced when he
found her. “Our journey’s done, my lady. You’ve
kept your vow, and delivered me to King’s Landing. All but a
few fingers and a hand.”
Brienne’s eyes were listless. “That was only half my
vow. I told Lady Catelyn I would bring her back her daughters. Or
Sansa, at the least. And now . . . ” She never met Robb Stark, yet her grief for him runs deeper than
mine for Joff. Or perhaps it was Lady Catelyn she mourned. They had
been at Brindlewood when they had that news, from a red-faced tub
of a knight named Ser Bertram Beesbury, whose arms were three
beehives on a field striped black and yellow. A troop of Lord
Piper’s men had passed through Brindlewood only yesterday,
Beesbury told them, rushing to King’s Landing beneath a peace
banner of their own. “With the Young Wolf dead Piper saw no
point to fighting on. His son is captive at the Twins.”
Brienne gaped like a cow about to choke on her cud, so it fell to
Jaime to draw out the tale of the Red Wedding.
“Every great lord has unruly bannermen who envy him his
place,” he told her afterward. “My father had the
Reynes and Tarbecks, the Tyrells have the Florents, Hoster Tully
had Walder Frey. Only strength keeps such men in their place. The
moment they smell weakness . . . during the Age
of Heroes, the Boltons used to flay the Starks and wear their skins
as cloaks.” She looked so miserable that Jaime almost found
himself wanting to comfort her.
Since that day Brienne had been like one half-dead. Even calling
her “wench” failed to provoke any response. The
strength is gone from her. The woman had dropped a rock on Robin
Ryger, battled a bear with a tourney sword, bitten off Vargo
Hoat’s ear, and fought Jaime to
exhaustion . . . but she was broken now, done.
“I’ll speak to my father about returning you to Tarth,
if it please you,” he told her. “Or if you would rather
stay, I could perchance find some place for you at
court.”
“As a lady companion to the queen?” she said
dully.
Jaime remembered the sight of her in that pink satin gown, and
tried not to imagine what his sister might say of such a companion.
“Perhaps a post with the City
Watch . . . ”
“I will not serve with oathbreakers and
murderers.” Then why did you ever bother putting on a sword? he might have
said, but he bit back the words. “As you will,
Brienne.” One-handed, he wheeled his horse about and left
her.
The Gate of the Gods was open when they reached it, but two
dozen wayns were lined up along the roadside, loaded with casks of
cider, barrels of apples, bales of hay, and some of the biggest
pumpkins Jaime had ever seen. Almost every wagon had its guards;
men-at-arms wearing the badges of small lordlings, sellswords in
mail and boiled leather, sometimes only a pink-cheeked
farmer’s son clutching a homemade spear with a fire-hardened
point. Jaime smiled at them all as he trotted past. At the gate,
the gold cloaks were collecting coin from each driver before waving
the wagons through. “What’s this?” Steelshanks
demanded.
“They got to pay for the right to sell inside the city. By
command of the King’s Hand and the master of coin.”
Jaime looked at the long line of wayns, carts, and laden horses.
“Yet they still line up to pay?”
“There’s good coin to be made here now that the
fighting’s done,” the miller in the nearest wagon told
them cheerfully. “It’s the Lannisters hold the city
now, old Lord Tywin of the Rock. They say he shits
silver.”
“Gold,” Jaime corrected dryly. “And
Littlefinger mints the stuff from goldenrod, I vow.”
“The Imp is master of coin now,” said the captain of
the gate. “Or was, till they arrested him for murdering the
king.” The man looked the northmen over suspiciously.
“Who are you lot?”
“Lord Bolton’s men, come to see the King’s
Hand.”
The captain glanced at Nage with his peace banner. “Come
to bend the knee, you mean. You’re not the first. Go straight
up to the castle, and see you make no trouble.” He waved them
through and turned back to the wagons.
If King’s Landing mourned its dead boy king, Jaime would
never have known it. On the Street of Seeds a begging brother in
threadbare robes was praying loudly for Joffrey’s soul, but
the passersby paid him no more heed than they would a loose shutter
banging in the wind. Elsewhere milled the usual crowds; gold cloaks
in their black mail, bakers’ boys selling tarts and breads
and hot pies, whores leaning out of windows with their bodices half
unlaced, gutters redolent of nightsoil. They passed five men trying
to drag a dead horse from the mouth of an alley, and elsewhere a
juggler spinning knives through the air to delight a throng of
drunken Tyrell soldiers and small children.
Riding down familiar streets with two hundred northmen, a
chainless maester, and an ugly freak of a woman at his side, Jaime
found he scarcely drew a second look. He did not know whether he
ought to be amused or annoyed. “They do not know me,”
he said to Steelshanks as they rode through Cobbler’s
Square.
“Your face is changed, and your arms as well,” the
northman said, “and they have a new Kingslayer now.”
The gates to the Red Keep were open, but a dozen gold cloaks
armed with pikes barred the way. They lowered their points as
Steelshanks came trotting up, but Jaime recognized the white knight
commanding them. “Ser Meryn.”
Ser Meryn Trant’s droopy eyes went wide. “Ser
Jaime?”
“How nice to be remembered. Move these men aside.”
It had been a long time since anyone had leapt to obey him quite so
fast. Jaime had forgotten how well he liked it.
They found two more Kingsguard in the outer ward; two who had
not worn white cloaks when Jaime last served here. How like Cersei
to name me Lord Commander and then choose my colleagues without
consulting me. “Someone has given me two new brothers, I
see,” he said as he dismounted.
“We have that honor, ser.” The Knight of Flowers
shone so fine and pure in his white scales and silk that Jaime felt
a tattered and tawdry thing by contrast.
Jaime turned to Meryn Trant. “Ser, you’ve been
remiss in teaching our new brothers their duties.”
“What duties?” said Meryn Trant defensively.
“Keeping the king alive. How many monarchs have you lost
since I left the city? Two, is it?”
Then Ser Balon saw the stump. “Your
hand . . . ”
Jaime made himself smile. “I fight with my left now. It
makes for more of a contest. Where will I find my lord
father?”
“In the solar with Lord Tyrell and Prince
Oberyn.” Mace Tyrell and the Red Viper breaking bread together? Strange
and stranger. “Is the queen with them as well?”
“No, my lord,” Ser Balon answered.
“You’ll find her in the sept, praying over King Joff—”
“You!”
The last of the northmen had dismounted, Jaime saw, and now
Loras Tyrell had seen Brienne.
“Ser Loras.” She stood stupidly, holding her
bridle.
Loras Tyrell strode toward her. “Why?” he said.
“You will tell me why. He treated you kindly, gave you a
rainbow cloak. Why would you kill him?”
“I never did. I would have died for him.”
“You will.” Ser Loras drew his longsword.
“It was not me.”
“Emmon Cuy swore it was, with his dying breath.”
“He was outside the tent, he never saw—”
“There was no one in the tent but you and Lady Stark. Do
you claim that old woman could cut through hardened
steel?”
“There was a shadow. I know how mad it sounds,
but . . . I was helping Renly into his armor,
and the candles blew out and there was blood everywhere. It was
Stannis, Lady Catelyn said. His . . . his
shadow. I had no part in it, on my
honor . . . ”
“You have no honor. Draw your sword. I won’t have it
said that I slew you while your hand was empty.”
Jaime stepped between them. “Put the sword away,
ser.”
Ser Loras edged around him. “Are you a craven as well as a
killer, Brienne? Is that why you ran, with his blood on your hands?
Draw your sword, woman!”
“Best hope she doesn’t.” Jaime blocked his
path again. “Or it’s like to be your corpse we carry
out. The wench is as strong as Gregor Clegane, though not so
pretty.”
“This is no concern of yours.” Ser Loras shoved him
aside.
Jaime grabbed the boy with his good hand and yanked him around.
“I am the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, you arrogant pup.
Your commander, so long as you wear that white cloak. Now sheathe
your bloody sword, or I’ll take it from you and shove it up
some place even Renly never found.”
The boy hesitated half a heartbeat, long enough for Ser Balon
Swann to say, “Do as the Lord Commander says, Loras.”
Some of the gold cloaks drew their steel then, and that made some
Dreadfort men do the same. Splendid, thought Jaime, no sooner do I
climb down off my horse than we have a bloodbath in the yard.
Ser Loras Tyrell slammed his sword back into its sheath.
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“I want her arrested.” Ser Loras pointed.
“Lady Brienne, I charge you with the murder of Lord Renly
Baratheon.”
“For what it’s worth,” said Jaime, “the
wench does have honor. More than I have seen from you. And it may
even be she’s telling it true. I’ll grant you,
she’s not what you’d call clever, but even my horse
could come up with a better lie, if it was a lie she meant to tell.
As you insist, however . . . Ser Balon, escort
Lady Brienne to a tower cell and hold her there under guard. And
find some suitable quarters for Steelshanks and his men, until such
time as my father can see them.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Brienne’s big blue eyes were full of hurt as Balon Swann
and a dozen gold cloaks led her away. You ought to be blowing me
kisses, wench, he wanted to tell her. Why must they misunderstand
every bloody thing he did? Aerys. It all grows from Aerys. Jaime
turned his back on the wench and strode across the yard.
Another knight in white armor was guarding the doors of the
royal sept; a tall man with a black beard, broad shoulders, and a
hooked nose. When he saw Jaime he gave a sour smile and said,
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“Into the sept.” Jaime lifted his stump to point.
“That one right there. I mean to see the queen.”
“Her Grace is in mourning. And why would she be wanting to
see the likes of you?” Because I’m her lover, and the father of her murdered son,
he wanted to say. “Who in seven hells are you?”
“A knight of the Kingsguard, and you’d best learn
some respect, cripple, or I’ll have that other hand and leave
you to suck up your porridge of a morning.”
“I am the queen’s brother, ser.”
The white knight thought that funny. “Escaped, have you?
And grown a bit as well, m’lord?”
“Her other brother, dolt. And the Lord Commander of the
Kingsguard. Now stand aside, or you’ll wish you
had.”
The dolt took a long look this time. “Is
it . . . Ser Jaime.” He straightened.
“My pardons, milord. I did not know you. I have the honor to
be Ser Osmund Kettleblack.” Where’s the honor in that? “I want some time alone
with my sister. See that no one else enters the sept, ser. If
we’re disturbed, I’ll have your bloody head.”
“Aye, ser. As you say.” Ser Osmund opened the
door.
Cersei was kneeling before the altar of the Mother.
Joffrey’s bier had been laid out beneath the Stranger, who
led the newly dead to the other world. The smell of incense hung
heavy in the air, and a hundred candles burned, sending up a
hundred prayers. Joff’s like to need every one of them,
too.
His sister looked over her shoulder. “Who?” she
said, then, “Jaime?” She rose, her eyes brimming with
tears. “Is it truly you?” She did not come to him,
however. She has never come to me, he thought. She has always
waited, letting me come to her. She gives, but I must ask.
“You should have come sooner,” she murmured, when he
took her in his arms. “Why couldn’t you have come
sooner, to keep him safe? My boy . . . Our boy. “I came as fast I could.” He broke from the
embrace, and stepped back a pace. “It’s war out there,
Sister.”
“You look so thin. And your hair, your golden
hair . . .
“The hair will grow back.” Jaime lifted his stump.
She needs to see. “This won’t.”
Her eyes went wide. “The
Starks . . . ”
“No. This was Vargo Hoat’s work.”
The name meant nothing to her. “Who?”
“The Goat of Harrenhal. For a little while.”
Cersei turned to gaze at Joffrey’s bier. They had dressed
the dead king in gilded armor, eerily similar to Jaime’s own.
The visor of the helm was closed, but the candles reflected softly
off the gold, so the boy shimmered bright and brave in death. The
candlelight woke fires in the rubies that decorated the bodice of
Cersei’s mourning dress as well. Her hair fell to her
shoulders, undressed and unkempt. “He killed him, Jaime. Just
as he’d warned me. One day when I thought myself safe and
happy he would turn my joy to ashes in my mouth, he
said.”
“Tyrion said that?” Jaime had not wanted to believe
it. Kinslaying was worse than kingslaying, in the eyes of gods and
men. He knew the boy was mine. I loved Tyrion. I was good to him.
Well, but for that one time . . . but the Imp
did not know the truth of that. Or did he? “Why would he kill
Joff?”
“For a whore.” She clutched his good hand and held
it tight in hers. “He told me he was going to do it. Joff
knew. As he was dying, he pointed at his murderer. At our twisted
little monster of a brother.” She kissed Jaime’s
fingers. “You’ll kill him for me, won’t you?
You’ll avenge our son.”
Jaime pulled away. “He is still my brother.” He
shoved his stump at her face, in case she failed to see it.
“And I am in no fit state to be killing anyone.”
“You have another hand, don’t you? I am not asking
you to best the Hound in battle. Tyrion is a dwarf, locked in a
cell. The guards would stand aside for you.”
The thought turned his stomach. “I must know more of this.
Of how it happened.”
“You shall,” Cersei promised. “There’s
to be a trial. When you hear all he did, you’ll want him dead
as much as I do.” She touched his face. “I was lost
without you, Jaime. I was afraid the Starks would send me your
head. I could not have borne that.” She kissed him. A light
kiss, the merest brush of her lips on his, but he could feel her
tremble as he slid his arms around her. “I am not whole
without you.”
There was no tenderness in the kiss he returned to her, only
hunger. Her mouth opened for his tongue. “No,” she said
weakly when his lips moved down her neck, “not here. The
septons . . . ”
“The Others can take the septons.” He kissed her
again, kissed her silent, kissed her until she moaned. Then he
knocked the candles aside and lifted her up onto the Mother’s
altar, pushing up her skirts and the silken shift beneath. She
pounded on his chest with feeble fists, murmuring about the risk,
the danger, about their father, about the septons, about the wrath
of gods. He never heard her. He undid his breeches and climbed up
and pushed her bare white legs apart. One hand slid up her thigh
and underneath her smallclothes. When he tore them away, he saw
that her moon’s blood was on her, but it made no
difference.
“Hurry,” she was whispering now, “quickly,
quickly, now, do it now, do me now. Jaime Jaime Jaime.” Her
hands helped guide him. “Yes,” Cersei said as he
thrust, “my brother, sweet brother, yes, like that, yes, I
have you, you’re home now, you’re home now,
you’re home.” She kissed his ear and stroked his short
bristly hair. Jaime lost himself in her flesh. He could feel
Cersei’s heart beating in time with his own, and the wetness
of blood and seed where they were joined.
But no sooner were they done than the queen said, “Let me
up. If we are discovered like
this . . . ”
Reluctantly he rolled away and helped her off the altar. The
pale marble was smeared with blood. Jaime wiped it clean with his
sleeve, then bent to pick up the candles he had knocked over.
Fortunately they had all gone out when they fell. If the sept had
caught fire I might never have noticed.
“This was folly.” Cersei pulled her gown straight.
“With Father in the castle . . . Jaime,
we must be careful.”
“I am sick of being careful. The Targaryens wed brother to
sister, why shouldn’t we do the same? Marry me, Cersei. Stand
up before the realm and say it’s me you want. We’ll
have our own wedding feast, and make another son in place of
Joffrey.”
She drew back. “That’s not funny.”
“Do you hear me chuckling?”
“Did you leave your wits at Riverrun?” Her voice had
an edge to it. “Tommen’s throne derives from Robert,
you know that.”
“He’ll have Casterly Rock, isn’t that enough?
Let Father sit the throne. All I want is you.” He made to
touch her cheek. Old habits die hard, and it was his right arm he
lifted.
Cersei recoiled from his stump.
“Don’t . . . don’t talk like
this. You’re scaring me, Jaime. Don’t be stupid. One
wrong word and you’ll cost us everything. What did they do to
you?”
“They cut off my hand.”
“No, it’s more, you’re changed.” She
backed off a step. “We’ll talk later. On the morrow. I
have Sansa Stark’s maids in a tower cell, I need to question
them . . . you should go to Father.”
“I crossed a thousand leagues to come to you, and lost the
best part of me along the way. Don’t tell me to
leave.”
“Leave me,” she repeated, turning away.
Jaime laced up his breeches and did as she commanded. Weary as
he was, he could not seek a bed. By now his lord father knew that
he was back in the city.
The Tower of the Hand was guarded by Lannister household guards,
who knew him at once. “The gods are good, to give you back to
us, ser,” one said, as he held the door.
“The gods had no part in it. Catelyn Stark gave me back.
Her, and the Lord of the Dreadfort.”
He climbed the stairs and pushed into the solar unannounced, to
find his father sitting by the fire. Lord Tywin was alone, for
which Jaime was thankful. He had no desire to flaunt his maimed
hand for Mace Tyrell or the Red Viper just now, much less the two
of them together.
“Jaime,” Lord Tywin said, as if they’d last
seen each other at breakfast. “Lord Bolton led me to expect
you earlier. I had hoped you’d be here for the
wedding.”
“I was delayed.” Jaime closed the door softly.
“My sister outdid herself, I’m told. Seventy-seven
courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it. How long have you
known I was free?”
“The eunuch told me a few days after your escape. I sent
men into the riverlands to look for you. Gregor Clegane, Samwell
Spicer, the brothers Plumm. Varys put out the word as well, but
quietly. We agreed that the fewer people who knew you were free,
the fewer would be hunting you.”
“Did Varys mention this?” He moved closer to the
fire, to let his father see.
Lord Tywin pushed himself out of his chair, breath hissing
between his teeth. “Who did this? If Lady Catelyn thinks—”
“Lady Catelyn held a sword to my throat and made me swear
to return her daughters. This was your goat’s work. Vargo
Hoat, the Lord of Harrenhal!”
Lord Tywin looked away, disgusted. “No longer. Ser
Gregor’s taken the castle. The sellswords deserted their
erstwhile captain almost to a man, and some of Lady Whent’s
old people opened a postern gate. Clegane found Hoat sitting alone
in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, half-mad with pain and fever from
a wound that festered. His ear, I’m told.”
Jaime had to laugh. Too sweet! His ear! He could scarcely wait
to tell Brienne, though the wench wouldn’t find it half so
funny as he did. “Is he dead yet?”
“Soon. They have taken off his hands and feet, but Clegane
seems amused by the way the Qohorik slobbers.”
Jaime’s smile curdled. “What about his Brave
Companions?”
“The few who stayed at Harrenhal are dead. The others
scattered. They’ll make for ports, I’ll warrant, or try
and lose themselves in the woods.” His eyes went back to
Jaime’s stump, and his mouth grew taut with fury.
“We’ll have their heads. Every one. Can you use a sword
with your left hand?” I can hardly dress myself in the morning. Jaime held up the hand
in question for his father’s inspection. “Four fingers,
a thumb, much like the other. Why shouldn’t it work as
well?”
“Good.” His father sat. “That is good. I have
a gift for you. For your return. After Varys told
me . . . ”
“Unless it’s a new hand, let it wait.” Jaime
took the chair across from him. “How did Joffrey
die?”
“Poison. It was meant to appear as though he choked on a
morsel of food, but I had his throat slit open and the maesters
could find no obstruction.”
“Cersei claims that Tyrion did it.”
“Your brother served the king the poisoned wine, with a
thousand people looking on.”
“That was rather foolish of him.”
“I have taken Tyrion’s squire into custody. His
wife’s maids as well. We shall see if they have anything to
tell us. Ser Addam’s gold cloaks are searching for the Stark
girl, and Varys has offered a reward. The king’s justice will
be done.” The king’s justice. “You would execute your own
son?”
“He stands accused of regicide and kinslaying. If he is
innocent, he has nothing to fear. First we must needs consider the
evidence for and against him.” Evidence. In this city of liars, Jaime knew what sort of
evidence would be found. “Renly died strangely as well, when
Stannis needed him to.”
“Lord Renly was murdered by one of his own guards, some
woman from Tarth.”
“That woman from Tarth is the reason I’m here. I
tossed her into a cell to appease Ser Loras, but I’ll believe
in Renly’s ghost before I believe she did him any harm. But
Stannis—”
“It was poison that killed Joffrey, not sorcery.”
Lord Tywin glanced at Jaime’s stump again. “You cannot
serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—”
“I can,” he interrupted. “And I will.
There’s precedent. I’ll look in the White Book and find
it, if you like. Crippled or whole, a knight of the Kingsguard
serves for life.”
“Cersei ended that when she replaced Ser Barristan on
grounds of age. A suitable gift to the Faith will persuade the High
Septon to release you from your vows. Your sister was foolish to
dismiss Selmy, admittedly, but now that she has opened the gates—”
“—someone needs to close them again.” Jaime
stood. “I am tired of having highborn women kicking pails of
shit at me, Father. No one ever asked me if I wanted to be Lord
Commander of the Kingsguard, but it seems I am. I have a duty—”
“You do.” Lord Tywin rose as well. “A duty to
House Lannister. You are the heir to Casterly Rock. That is where
you should be. Tommen should accompany you, as your ward and
squire. The Rock is where he’ll learn to be a Lannister, and
I want him away from his mother. I mean to find a new husband for
Cersei. Oberyn Martell perhaps, once I convince Lord Tyrell that
the match does not threaten Highgarden. And it is past time you
were wed. The Tyrells are now insisting that Margaery be wed to
Tommen, but if I were to offer you instead—”
“NO!” Jaime had heard all that he could stand. No,
more than he could stand. He was sick of it, sick of lords and
lies, sick of his father, his sister, sick of the whole bloody
business. “No. No. No. No. No. How many times must I say no
before you’ll hear it? Oberyn Martell? The man’s
infamous, and not just for poisoning his sword. He has more
bastards than Robert, and beds with boys as well. And if you think
for one misbegotten moment that I would wed Joffrey’s
widow . . . ”
“Lord Tyrell swears the girl’s still
maiden.”
“She can die a maiden as far as I’m concerned. I
don’t want her, and I don’t want your Rock!”
“You are my son—”
“I am a knight of the Kingsguard. The Lord Commander of
the Kingsguard! And that’s all I mean to be!”
Firelight gleamed golden in the stiff whiskers that framed Lord
Tywin’s face. A vein pulsed in his neck, but he did not
speak. And did not speak. And did not speak.
The strained silence went on until it was more than Jaime could
endure. “Father . . . ” he
began.
“You are not my son.” Lord Tywin turned his face
away. “You say you are the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,
and only that. Very well, ser. Go do your duty.”
The king is dead, they told him, never knowing that Joffrey was
his son as well as his sovereign.
“The Imp opened his throat with a dagger,” a
costermonger declared at the roadside inn where they spent the
night. “He drank his blood from a big gold chalice.”
The man did not recognize the bearded one-handed knight with the
big bat on his shield, no more than any of them, so he said things
he might otherwise have swallowed, had he known who was
listening.
“It was poison did the deed,” the innkeep insisted.
“The boy’s face turned black as a plum.”
“May the Father judge him justly,” murmured a
septon.
“The dwarf’s wife did the murder with him,”
swore an archer in Lord Rowan’s livery. “Afterward, she
vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly
direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his
jaws.”
Jaime sat silent through it all, letting the words wash over
him, a horn of ale forgotten in his one good hand. Joffrey. My
blood. My firstborn. My son. He tried to bring the boy’s face
to mind, but his features kept turning into Cersei’s. She
will be in mourning, her hair in disarray and her eyes red from
crying, her mouth trembling as she tries to speak. She will cry
again when she sees me, though she’ll fight the tears. His
sister seldom wept but when she was with him. She could not stand
for others to think her weak. Only to her twin did she show her
wounds. She will look to me for comfort and revenge.
They rode hard the next day, at Jaime’s insistence. His
son was dead, and his sister needed him.
When he saw the city before him, its watchtowers dark against
the gathering dusk, Jaime Lannister cantered up to Steelshanks
Walton, behind Nage with the peace banner.
“What’s that awful stink?” the northman
complained. Death, thought Jaime, but he said, “Smoke, sweat, and
shit. King’s Landing, in short. If you have a good nose you
can smell the treachery too. You’ve never smelled a city
before?”
“I smelled White Harbor. It never stank like
this.”
“White Harbor is to King’s Landing as my brother
Tyrion is to Ser Gregor Clegane.”
Nage led them up a low hill, the seven-tailed peace banner
lifting and turning in the wind, the polished seven-pointed star
shining bright upon its staff. He would see Cersei soon, and
Tyrion, and their father. Could my brother truly have killed the
boy? Jaime found that hard to believe.
He was curiously calm. Men were supposed to go mad with grief
when their children died, he knew. They were supposed to tear their
hair out by the roots, to curse the gods and swear red vengeance.
So why was it that he felt so little? The boy lived and died
believing Robert Baratheon his sire.
Jaime had seen him born, that was true, though more for Cersei
than the child. But he had never held him. “How would it
look?” his sister warned him when the women finally left
them. “Bad enough Joff looks like you without you mooning
over him.” Jaime yielded with hardly a fight. The boy had
been a squalling pink thing who demanded too much of Cersei’s
time, Cersei’s love, and Cersei’s breasts. Robert was
welcome to him. And now he’s dead. He pictured Joff lying still and cold
with a face black from poison, and still felt nothing. Perhaps he
was the monster they claimed. If the Father Above came down to
offer him back his son or his hand, Jaime knew which he would
choose. He had a second son, after all, and seed enough for many
more. If Cersei wants another child I’ll give her
one . . . and this time I’ll hold him,
and the Others take those who do not like it. Robert was rotting in
his grave, and Jaime was sick of lies.
He turned abruptly and galloped back to find Brienne. Gods know
why I bother. She is the least companionable creature I’ve
ever had the misfortune to meet. The wench rode well behind and a
few feet off to the side, as if to proclaim that she was no part of
them. They had found men’s garb for her along the way; a
tunic here, a mantle there, a pair of breeches and a cowled cloak,
even an old iron breastplate. She looked more comfortable dressed
as a man, but nothing would ever make her look handsome. Nor happy.
Once out of Harrenhal, her usual pighead stubbornness had soon
reasserted itself. “I want my arms and armor back,” she
had insisted. “Oh, by all means, let us have you back in
steel,” Jaime replied. “A helm, especially. We’ll
all be happier if you keep your mouth shut and your visor
down.”
That much Brienne could do, but her sullen silences soon began
to fray his good humor almost as much as Qyburn’s endless
attempts to be ingratiating. I never thought I would find myself
missing the company of Cleos Frey, gods help me. He was beginning
to wish he had left her for the bear after all.
“King’s Landing,” Jaime announced when he
found her. “Our journey’s done, my lady. You’ve
kept your vow, and delivered me to King’s Landing. All but a
few fingers and a hand.”
Brienne’s eyes were listless. “That was only half my
vow. I told Lady Catelyn I would bring her back her daughters. Or
Sansa, at the least. And now . . . ” She never met Robb Stark, yet her grief for him runs deeper than
mine for Joff. Or perhaps it was Lady Catelyn she mourned. They had
been at Brindlewood when they had that news, from a red-faced tub
of a knight named Ser Bertram Beesbury, whose arms were three
beehives on a field striped black and yellow. A troop of Lord
Piper’s men had passed through Brindlewood only yesterday,
Beesbury told them, rushing to King’s Landing beneath a peace
banner of their own. “With the Young Wolf dead Piper saw no
point to fighting on. His son is captive at the Twins.”
Brienne gaped like a cow about to choke on her cud, so it fell to
Jaime to draw out the tale of the Red Wedding.
“Every great lord has unruly bannermen who envy him his
place,” he told her afterward. “My father had the
Reynes and Tarbecks, the Tyrells have the Florents, Hoster Tully
had Walder Frey. Only strength keeps such men in their place. The
moment they smell weakness . . . during the Age
of Heroes, the Boltons used to flay the Starks and wear their skins
as cloaks.” She looked so miserable that Jaime almost found
himself wanting to comfort her.
Since that day Brienne had been like one half-dead. Even calling
her “wench” failed to provoke any response. The
strength is gone from her. The woman had dropped a rock on Robin
Ryger, battled a bear with a tourney sword, bitten off Vargo
Hoat’s ear, and fought Jaime to
exhaustion . . . but she was broken now, done.
“I’ll speak to my father about returning you to Tarth,
if it please you,” he told her. “Or if you would rather
stay, I could perchance find some place for you at
court.”
“As a lady companion to the queen?” she said
dully.
Jaime remembered the sight of her in that pink satin gown, and
tried not to imagine what his sister might say of such a companion.
“Perhaps a post with the City
Watch . . . ”
“I will not serve with oathbreakers and
murderers.” Then why did you ever bother putting on a sword? he might have
said, but he bit back the words. “As you will,
Brienne.” One-handed, he wheeled his horse about and left
her.
The Gate of the Gods was open when they reached it, but two
dozen wayns were lined up along the roadside, loaded with casks of
cider, barrels of apples, bales of hay, and some of the biggest
pumpkins Jaime had ever seen. Almost every wagon had its guards;
men-at-arms wearing the badges of small lordlings, sellswords in
mail and boiled leather, sometimes only a pink-cheeked
farmer’s son clutching a homemade spear with a fire-hardened
point. Jaime smiled at them all as he trotted past. At the gate,
the gold cloaks were collecting coin from each driver before waving
the wagons through. “What’s this?” Steelshanks
demanded.
“They got to pay for the right to sell inside the city. By
command of the King’s Hand and the master of coin.”
Jaime looked at the long line of wayns, carts, and laden horses.
“Yet they still line up to pay?”
“There’s good coin to be made here now that the
fighting’s done,” the miller in the nearest wagon told
them cheerfully. “It’s the Lannisters hold the city
now, old Lord Tywin of the Rock. They say he shits
silver.”
“Gold,” Jaime corrected dryly. “And
Littlefinger mints the stuff from goldenrod, I vow.”
“The Imp is master of coin now,” said the captain of
the gate. “Or was, till they arrested him for murdering the
king.” The man looked the northmen over suspiciously.
“Who are you lot?”
“Lord Bolton’s men, come to see the King’s
Hand.”
The captain glanced at Nage with his peace banner. “Come
to bend the knee, you mean. You’re not the first. Go straight
up to the castle, and see you make no trouble.” He waved them
through and turned back to the wagons.
If King’s Landing mourned its dead boy king, Jaime would
never have known it. On the Street of Seeds a begging brother in
threadbare robes was praying loudly for Joffrey’s soul, but
the passersby paid him no more heed than they would a loose shutter
banging in the wind. Elsewhere milled the usual crowds; gold cloaks
in their black mail, bakers’ boys selling tarts and breads
and hot pies, whores leaning out of windows with their bodices half
unlaced, gutters redolent of nightsoil. They passed five men trying
to drag a dead horse from the mouth of an alley, and elsewhere a
juggler spinning knives through the air to delight a throng of
drunken Tyrell soldiers and small children.
Riding down familiar streets with two hundred northmen, a
chainless maester, and an ugly freak of a woman at his side, Jaime
found he scarcely drew a second look. He did not know whether he
ought to be amused or annoyed. “They do not know me,”
he said to Steelshanks as they rode through Cobbler’s
Square.
“Your face is changed, and your arms as well,” the
northman said, “and they have a new Kingslayer now.”
The gates to the Red Keep were open, but a dozen gold cloaks
armed with pikes barred the way. They lowered their points as
Steelshanks came trotting up, but Jaime recognized the white knight
commanding them. “Ser Meryn.”
Ser Meryn Trant’s droopy eyes went wide. “Ser
Jaime?”
“How nice to be remembered. Move these men aside.”
It had been a long time since anyone had leapt to obey him quite so
fast. Jaime had forgotten how well he liked it.
They found two more Kingsguard in the outer ward; two who had
not worn white cloaks when Jaime last served here. How like Cersei
to name me Lord Commander and then choose my colleagues without
consulting me. “Someone has given me two new brothers, I
see,” he said as he dismounted.
“We have that honor, ser.” The Knight of Flowers
shone so fine and pure in his white scales and silk that Jaime felt
a tattered and tawdry thing by contrast.
Jaime turned to Meryn Trant. “Ser, you’ve been
remiss in teaching our new brothers their duties.”
“What duties?” said Meryn Trant defensively.
“Keeping the king alive. How many monarchs have you lost
since I left the city? Two, is it?”
Then Ser Balon saw the stump. “Your
hand . . . ”
Jaime made himself smile. “I fight with my left now. It
makes for more of a contest. Where will I find my lord
father?”
“In the solar with Lord Tyrell and Prince
Oberyn.” Mace Tyrell and the Red Viper breaking bread together? Strange
and stranger. “Is the queen with them as well?”
“No, my lord,” Ser Balon answered.
“You’ll find her in the sept, praying over King Joff—”
“You!”
The last of the northmen had dismounted, Jaime saw, and now
Loras Tyrell had seen Brienne.
“Ser Loras.” She stood stupidly, holding her
bridle.
Loras Tyrell strode toward her. “Why?” he said.
“You will tell me why. He treated you kindly, gave you a
rainbow cloak. Why would you kill him?”
“I never did. I would have died for him.”
“You will.” Ser Loras drew his longsword.
“It was not me.”
“Emmon Cuy swore it was, with his dying breath.”
“He was outside the tent, he never saw—”
“There was no one in the tent but you and Lady Stark. Do
you claim that old woman could cut through hardened
steel?”
“There was a shadow. I know how mad it sounds,
but . . . I was helping Renly into his armor,
and the candles blew out and there was blood everywhere. It was
Stannis, Lady Catelyn said. His . . . his
shadow. I had no part in it, on my
honor . . . ”
“You have no honor. Draw your sword. I won’t have it
said that I slew you while your hand was empty.”
Jaime stepped between them. “Put the sword away,
ser.”
Ser Loras edged around him. “Are you a craven as well as a
killer, Brienne? Is that why you ran, with his blood on your hands?
Draw your sword, woman!”
“Best hope she doesn’t.” Jaime blocked his
path again. “Or it’s like to be your corpse we carry
out. The wench is as strong as Gregor Clegane, though not so
pretty.”
“This is no concern of yours.” Ser Loras shoved him
aside.
Jaime grabbed the boy with his good hand and yanked him around.
“I am the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, you arrogant pup.
Your commander, so long as you wear that white cloak. Now sheathe
your bloody sword, or I’ll take it from you and shove it up
some place even Renly never found.”
The boy hesitated half a heartbeat, long enough for Ser Balon
Swann to say, “Do as the Lord Commander says, Loras.”
Some of the gold cloaks drew their steel then, and that made some
Dreadfort men do the same. Splendid, thought Jaime, no sooner do I
climb down off my horse than we have a bloodbath in the yard.
Ser Loras Tyrell slammed his sword back into its sheath.
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“I want her arrested.” Ser Loras pointed.
“Lady Brienne, I charge you with the murder of Lord Renly
Baratheon.”
“For what it’s worth,” said Jaime, “the
wench does have honor. More than I have seen from you. And it may
even be she’s telling it true. I’ll grant you,
she’s not what you’d call clever, but even my horse
could come up with a better lie, if it was a lie she meant to tell.
As you insist, however . . . Ser Balon, escort
Lady Brienne to a tower cell and hold her there under guard. And
find some suitable quarters for Steelshanks and his men, until such
time as my father can see them.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Brienne’s big blue eyes were full of hurt as Balon Swann
and a dozen gold cloaks led her away. You ought to be blowing me
kisses, wench, he wanted to tell her. Why must they misunderstand
every bloody thing he did? Aerys. It all grows from Aerys. Jaime
turned his back on the wench and strode across the yard.
Another knight in white armor was guarding the doors of the
royal sept; a tall man with a black beard, broad shoulders, and a
hooked nose. When he saw Jaime he gave a sour smile and said,
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“Into the sept.” Jaime lifted his stump to point.
“That one right there. I mean to see the queen.”
“Her Grace is in mourning. And why would she be wanting to
see the likes of you?” Because I’m her lover, and the father of her murdered son,
he wanted to say. “Who in seven hells are you?”
“A knight of the Kingsguard, and you’d best learn
some respect, cripple, or I’ll have that other hand and leave
you to suck up your porridge of a morning.”
“I am the queen’s brother, ser.”
The white knight thought that funny. “Escaped, have you?
And grown a bit as well, m’lord?”
“Her other brother, dolt. And the Lord Commander of the
Kingsguard. Now stand aside, or you’ll wish you
had.”
The dolt took a long look this time. “Is
it . . . Ser Jaime.” He straightened.
“My pardons, milord. I did not know you. I have the honor to
be Ser Osmund Kettleblack.” Where’s the honor in that? “I want some time alone
with my sister. See that no one else enters the sept, ser. If
we’re disturbed, I’ll have your bloody head.”
“Aye, ser. As you say.” Ser Osmund opened the
door.
Cersei was kneeling before the altar of the Mother.
Joffrey’s bier had been laid out beneath the Stranger, who
led the newly dead to the other world. The smell of incense hung
heavy in the air, and a hundred candles burned, sending up a
hundred prayers. Joff’s like to need every one of them,
too.
His sister looked over her shoulder. “Who?” she
said, then, “Jaime?” She rose, her eyes brimming with
tears. “Is it truly you?” She did not come to him,
however. She has never come to me, he thought. She has always
waited, letting me come to her. She gives, but I must ask.
“You should have come sooner,” she murmured, when he
took her in his arms. “Why couldn’t you have come
sooner, to keep him safe? My boy . . . Our boy. “I came as fast I could.” He broke from the
embrace, and stepped back a pace. “It’s war out there,
Sister.”
“You look so thin. And your hair, your golden
hair . . .
“The hair will grow back.” Jaime lifted his stump.
She needs to see. “This won’t.”
Her eyes went wide. “The
Starks . . . ”
“No. This was Vargo Hoat’s work.”
The name meant nothing to her. “Who?”
“The Goat of Harrenhal. For a little while.”
Cersei turned to gaze at Joffrey’s bier. They had dressed
the dead king in gilded armor, eerily similar to Jaime’s own.
The visor of the helm was closed, but the candles reflected softly
off the gold, so the boy shimmered bright and brave in death. The
candlelight woke fires in the rubies that decorated the bodice of
Cersei’s mourning dress as well. Her hair fell to her
shoulders, undressed and unkempt. “He killed him, Jaime. Just
as he’d warned me. One day when I thought myself safe and
happy he would turn my joy to ashes in my mouth, he
said.”
“Tyrion said that?” Jaime had not wanted to believe
it. Kinslaying was worse than kingslaying, in the eyes of gods and
men. He knew the boy was mine. I loved Tyrion. I was good to him.
Well, but for that one time . . . but the Imp
did not know the truth of that. Or did he? “Why would he kill
Joff?”
“For a whore.” She clutched his good hand and held
it tight in hers. “He told me he was going to do it. Joff
knew. As he was dying, he pointed at his murderer. At our twisted
little monster of a brother.” She kissed Jaime’s
fingers. “You’ll kill him for me, won’t you?
You’ll avenge our son.”
Jaime pulled away. “He is still my brother.” He
shoved his stump at her face, in case she failed to see it.
“And I am in no fit state to be killing anyone.”
“You have another hand, don’t you? I am not asking
you to best the Hound in battle. Tyrion is a dwarf, locked in a
cell. The guards would stand aside for you.”
The thought turned his stomach. “I must know more of this.
Of how it happened.”
“You shall,” Cersei promised. “There’s
to be a trial. When you hear all he did, you’ll want him dead
as much as I do.” She touched his face. “I was lost
without you, Jaime. I was afraid the Starks would send me your
head. I could not have borne that.” She kissed him. A light
kiss, the merest brush of her lips on his, but he could feel her
tremble as he slid his arms around her. “I am not whole
without you.”
There was no tenderness in the kiss he returned to her, only
hunger. Her mouth opened for his tongue. “No,” she said
weakly when his lips moved down her neck, “not here. The
septons . . . ”
“The Others can take the septons.” He kissed her
again, kissed her silent, kissed her until she moaned. Then he
knocked the candles aside and lifted her up onto the Mother’s
altar, pushing up her skirts and the silken shift beneath. She
pounded on his chest with feeble fists, murmuring about the risk,
the danger, about their father, about the septons, about the wrath
of gods. He never heard her. He undid his breeches and climbed up
and pushed her bare white legs apart. One hand slid up her thigh
and underneath her smallclothes. When he tore them away, he saw
that her moon’s blood was on her, but it made no
difference.
“Hurry,” she was whispering now, “quickly,
quickly, now, do it now, do me now. Jaime Jaime Jaime.” Her
hands helped guide him. “Yes,” Cersei said as he
thrust, “my brother, sweet brother, yes, like that, yes, I
have you, you’re home now, you’re home now,
you’re home.” She kissed his ear and stroked his short
bristly hair. Jaime lost himself in her flesh. He could feel
Cersei’s heart beating in time with his own, and the wetness
of blood and seed where they were joined.
But no sooner were they done than the queen said, “Let me
up. If we are discovered like
this . . . ”
Reluctantly he rolled away and helped her off the altar. The
pale marble was smeared with blood. Jaime wiped it clean with his
sleeve, then bent to pick up the candles he had knocked over.
Fortunately they had all gone out when they fell. If the sept had
caught fire I might never have noticed.
“This was folly.” Cersei pulled her gown straight.
“With Father in the castle . . . Jaime,
we must be careful.”
“I am sick of being careful. The Targaryens wed brother to
sister, why shouldn’t we do the same? Marry me, Cersei. Stand
up before the realm and say it’s me you want. We’ll
have our own wedding feast, and make another son in place of
Joffrey.”
She drew back. “That’s not funny.”
“Do you hear me chuckling?”
“Did you leave your wits at Riverrun?” Her voice had
an edge to it. “Tommen’s throne derives from Robert,
you know that.”
“He’ll have Casterly Rock, isn’t that enough?
Let Father sit the throne. All I want is you.” He made to
touch her cheek. Old habits die hard, and it was his right arm he
lifted.
Cersei recoiled from his stump.
“Don’t . . . don’t talk like
this. You’re scaring me, Jaime. Don’t be stupid. One
wrong word and you’ll cost us everything. What did they do to
you?”
“They cut off my hand.”
“No, it’s more, you’re changed.” She
backed off a step. “We’ll talk later. On the morrow. I
have Sansa Stark’s maids in a tower cell, I need to question
them . . . you should go to Father.”
“I crossed a thousand leagues to come to you, and lost the
best part of me along the way. Don’t tell me to
leave.”
“Leave me,” she repeated, turning away.
Jaime laced up his breeches and did as she commanded. Weary as
he was, he could not seek a bed. By now his lord father knew that
he was back in the city.
The Tower of the Hand was guarded by Lannister household guards,
who knew him at once. “The gods are good, to give you back to
us, ser,” one said, as he held the door.
“The gods had no part in it. Catelyn Stark gave me back.
Her, and the Lord of the Dreadfort.”
He climbed the stairs and pushed into the solar unannounced, to
find his father sitting by the fire. Lord Tywin was alone, for
which Jaime was thankful. He had no desire to flaunt his maimed
hand for Mace Tyrell or the Red Viper just now, much less the two
of them together.
“Jaime,” Lord Tywin said, as if they’d last
seen each other at breakfast. “Lord Bolton led me to expect
you earlier. I had hoped you’d be here for the
wedding.”
“I was delayed.” Jaime closed the door softly.
“My sister outdid herself, I’m told. Seventy-seven
courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it. How long have you
known I was free?”
“The eunuch told me a few days after your escape. I sent
men into the riverlands to look for you. Gregor Clegane, Samwell
Spicer, the brothers Plumm. Varys put out the word as well, but
quietly. We agreed that the fewer people who knew you were free,
the fewer would be hunting you.”
“Did Varys mention this?” He moved closer to the
fire, to let his father see.
Lord Tywin pushed himself out of his chair, breath hissing
between his teeth. “Who did this? If Lady Catelyn thinks—”
“Lady Catelyn held a sword to my throat and made me swear
to return her daughters. This was your goat’s work. Vargo
Hoat, the Lord of Harrenhal!”
Lord Tywin looked away, disgusted. “No longer. Ser
Gregor’s taken the castle. The sellswords deserted their
erstwhile captain almost to a man, and some of Lady Whent’s
old people opened a postern gate. Clegane found Hoat sitting alone
in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, half-mad with pain and fever from
a wound that festered. His ear, I’m told.”
Jaime had to laugh. Too sweet! His ear! He could scarcely wait
to tell Brienne, though the wench wouldn’t find it half so
funny as he did. “Is he dead yet?”
“Soon. They have taken off his hands and feet, but Clegane
seems amused by the way the Qohorik slobbers.”
Jaime’s smile curdled. “What about his Brave
Companions?”
“The few who stayed at Harrenhal are dead. The others
scattered. They’ll make for ports, I’ll warrant, or try
and lose themselves in the woods.” His eyes went back to
Jaime’s stump, and his mouth grew taut with fury.
“We’ll have their heads. Every one. Can you use a sword
with your left hand?” I can hardly dress myself in the morning. Jaime held up the hand
in question for his father’s inspection. “Four fingers,
a thumb, much like the other. Why shouldn’t it work as
well?”
“Good.” His father sat. “That is good. I have
a gift for you. For your return. After Varys told
me . . . ”
“Unless it’s a new hand, let it wait.” Jaime
took the chair across from him. “How did Joffrey
die?”
“Poison. It was meant to appear as though he choked on a
morsel of food, but I had his throat slit open and the maesters
could find no obstruction.”
“Cersei claims that Tyrion did it.”
“Your brother served the king the poisoned wine, with a
thousand people looking on.”
“That was rather foolish of him.”
“I have taken Tyrion’s squire into custody. His
wife’s maids as well. We shall see if they have anything to
tell us. Ser Addam’s gold cloaks are searching for the Stark
girl, and Varys has offered a reward. The king’s justice will
be done.” The king’s justice. “You would execute your own
son?”
“He stands accused of regicide and kinslaying. If he is
innocent, he has nothing to fear. First we must needs consider the
evidence for and against him.” Evidence. In this city of liars, Jaime knew what sort of
evidence would be found. “Renly died strangely as well, when
Stannis needed him to.”
“Lord Renly was murdered by one of his own guards, some
woman from Tarth.”
“That woman from Tarth is the reason I’m here. I
tossed her into a cell to appease Ser Loras, but I’ll believe
in Renly’s ghost before I believe she did him any harm. But
Stannis—”
“It was poison that killed Joffrey, not sorcery.”
Lord Tywin glanced at Jaime’s stump again. “You cannot
serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—”
“I can,” he interrupted. “And I will.
There’s precedent. I’ll look in the White Book and find
it, if you like. Crippled or whole, a knight of the Kingsguard
serves for life.”
“Cersei ended that when she replaced Ser Barristan on
grounds of age. A suitable gift to the Faith will persuade the High
Septon to release you from your vows. Your sister was foolish to
dismiss Selmy, admittedly, but now that she has opened the gates—”
“—someone needs to close them again.” Jaime
stood. “I am tired of having highborn women kicking pails of
shit at me, Father. No one ever asked me if I wanted to be Lord
Commander of the Kingsguard, but it seems I am. I have a duty—”
“You do.” Lord Tywin rose as well. “A duty to
House Lannister. You are the heir to Casterly Rock. That is where
you should be. Tommen should accompany you, as your ward and
squire. The Rock is where he’ll learn to be a Lannister, and
I want him away from his mother. I mean to find a new husband for
Cersei. Oberyn Martell perhaps, once I convince Lord Tyrell that
the match does not threaten Highgarden. And it is past time you
were wed. The Tyrells are now insisting that Margaery be wed to
Tommen, but if I were to offer you instead—”
“NO!” Jaime had heard all that he could stand. No,
more than he could stand. He was sick of it, sick of lords and
lies, sick of his father, his sister, sick of the whole bloody
business. “No. No. No. No. No. How many times must I say no
before you’ll hear it? Oberyn Martell? The man’s
infamous, and not just for poisoning his sword. He has more
bastards than Robert, and beds with boys as well. And if you think
for one misbegotten moment that I would wed Joffrey’s
widow . . . ”
“Lord Tyrell swears the girl’s still
maiden.”
“She can die a maiden as far as I’m concerned. I
don’t want her, and I don’t want your Rock!”
“You are my son—”
“I am a knight of the Kingsguard. The Lord Commander of
the Kingsguard! And that’s all I mean to be!”
Firelight gleamed golden in the stiff whiskers that framed Lord
Tywin’s face. A vein pulsed in his neck, but he did not
speak. And did not speak. And did not speak.
The strained silence went on until it was more than Jaime could
endure. “Father . . . ” he
began.
“You are not my son.” Lord Tywin turned his face
away. “You say you are the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,
and only that. Very well, ser. Go do your duty.”