He is just a priest, he cannot do this. “It is not for the Faith to condemn a man to death, whatever his offense.”
“Whatever his offense.” The High Septon repeated the words slowly, weighing them. “Strange to say, Your Grace, the more diligently we applied the scourge, the more Ser Osney’s offenses seemed to change. He would now have us believe that he never touched Margaery Tyrell. Is that not so, Ser Osney?”
Osney Kettleblack opened his eyes. When he saw the queen standing there before him he ran his tongue across his swollen lips, and said, “The Wall. You promised me the Wall.”
“He is mad,” said Cersei. “You have driven him mad.”
“Ser Osney,” said the High Septon, in a firm, clear voice, “did you have carnal knowledge of the queen?”
“Aye.” The chains rattled softly as Osney twisted in his shackles. “That one there. She’s the queen I fucked, the one sent me to kill the old High Septon. He never had no guards. I just come in when he was sleeping and pushed a pillow down across his face.”
Cersei whirled, and ran.
The High Septon tried to seize her, but he was some old sparrow and she was a lioness of the Rock. She pushed him aside and burst through the door, slamming it behind her with a clang. The Kettleblacks, I need the Kettleblacks, I will send in Osfryd with the gold cloaks and Osmund with the Kingsguard, Osney will deny it all once they cut him free, and I’ll rid myself of this High Septon just as I did the other. The four old septas blocked her way and clutched at her with wrinkled hands. She knocked one to the floor and clawed another across the face, and gained the steps. Halfway up, she remembered Taena Merryweather. It made her stumble, panting. Seven save me, she prayed. Taena knows it all. If they take her too, and whip her…
She ran as far as the sept, but no farther. There were women waiting for her there, more septas and silent sisters too, younger than the four old crones below. “I am the queen,” she shouted, backing away from them. “I will have your heads for this, I will have all your heads. Let me pass.” Instead, they laid hands upon her. Cersei ran to the altar of the Mother, but they caught her there, a score of them, and dragged her kicking up the tower steps. Inside the cell three silent sisters held her down as a septa named Scolera stripped her bare. She even took her smallclothes. Another septa tossed a roughspun shift at her. “You cannot do this,” the queen kept screaming at them. “I am a Lannister, unhand me, my brother will kill you, Jaime will slice you open from throat to cunt, unhand me! I am the queen!”
“The queen should pray,” said Septa Scolera, before they left her naked in the cold bleak cell.
She was not meek Margaery Tyrell, to don her little shift and submit to such captivity. I will teach them what it means to put a lion in a cage, Cersei thought. She tore the shift into a hundred pieces, found a ewer of water and smashed it against the wall, then did the same with the chamber pot. When no one came, she began to pound on the door with her fists. Her escort was below, on the plaza: ten Lannister guardsmen and Ser Boros Blount. Once they hear they’ll come free me, and we’ll drag the bloody High Sparrow back to the Red Keep in chains.
She screamed and kicked and howled until her throat was raw, at the door and at the window. No one shouted back, nor came to rescue her. The cell began to darken. It was growing cold as well. Cersei began to shiver. How can they leave me like this, without so much as a fire? I am their queen. She began to regret tearing apart the shift they’d given her. There was a blanket on the pallet in the corner, a threadbare thing of thin brown wool. It was rough and scratchy, but it was all she had. Cersei huddled underneath to keep from shivering, and before long she had fallen into an exhausted sleep.
The next she knew, a heavy hand was shaking her awake. It was black as pitch inside the cell, and a huge ugly woman was kneeling over her, a candle in her hand. “Who are you?” the queen demanded. “Are you come to set me free?”
“I am Septa Unella. I am come to hear you tell of all your murders and fornications.”
Cersei knocked her hand aside. “I will have your head. Do not presume to touch me. Get away.”
The woman rose. “Your Grace. I will be back in an hour. Mayhaps by then you will be ready to confess.”
An hour and an hour and an hour. So passed the longest night that Cersei Lannister had ever known, save for the night of Joffrey’s wedding. Her throat was so raw from shouting that she could hardly swallow. The cell turned freezing cold. She had smashed the chamber pot, so she had to squat in a corner to make her water and watch it trickle across the floor. Every time she closed her eyes, Unella was looming over her again, shaking her and asking her if she wanted to confess her sins.
Day brought no relief. Septa Moelle brought her a bowl of some waterly grey gruel as the sun was coming up. Cersei flung it at her head. When they brought a fresh ewer of water, though, she was so thirsty that she had no choice but to drink. When they brought another shift, grey and thin and smelling of mildew, she put it on over her nakedness. And that evening when Moelle appeared again she ate the bread and fish and demanded wine to wash it down. No wine appeared, only Septa Unella, making her hourly visit to ask if the queen was ready to confess.
What can be happening? Cersei wondered, as the thin slice of sky outside her window began to darken once again. Why has no one come to pry me out of here? She could not believe that the Kettleblacks would abandon their brother. What was her council doing? Cravens and traitors. When I get out of here I will have the lot of them beheaded and find better men to take their place.
Thrice that day she heard the sound of distant shouting drifting up from the plaza, but it was Margaery’s name that the mob was calling, not hers.
It was near dawn on the second day and Cersei was licking the last of the porridge from the bottom of the bowl when her cell door swung open unexpectedly to admit Lord Qyburn. It was all she could do not to throw herself at him. “Qyburn,” she whispered, “oh, gods, I am so glad to see your face. Take me home.”
“That will not be allowed. You are to be tried before a holy court of seven, for murder, treason, and fornication.”
Cersei was so exhausted that the words seemed nonsensical to her at first. “Tommen. Tell me of my son. Is he still king?”
“He is, Your Grace. He is safe and well, secure within the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, protected by the Kingsguard. He is lonely, though. Fretful. He asks for you, and for his little queen. As yet, no one has told him of your… your…”
“… difficulties?” she suggested. “What of Margaery?”
“She is to be tried as well, by the same court that conducts your trial. I had the Blue Bard delivered to the High Septon, as Your Grace commanded. He is here now, somewhere down below us. My whisperers tell me that they are whipping him, but so far he is still singing the same sweet song we taught him.”
The same sweet song. Her wits were dull for want of sleep. Wat, his real name is Wat. If the gods were good, Wat might die beneath the lash, leaving Margaery with no way to disprove his testimony. “Where are my knights? Ser Osfryd… the High Septon means to kill his brother Osney, his gold cloaks must…”
“Osfryd Kettleblack no longer commands the City Watch. The king has removed him from office and raised the captain of the Dragon Gate in his place, a certain Humfrey Waters.”
Cersei was so tired, none of this made any sense. “Why would Tommen do that?”
“The boy is not to blame. When his council puts a decree in front of him, he signs his name and stamps it with his seal.”
“My council… who? Who would do that? Not you?”
“Alas, I have been dismissed from the council, although for the nonce they allow me to continue my work with the eunuch’s whisperers. The realm is being ruled by Ser Harys Swyft and Grand Maester Pycelle. They have dispatched a raven to Casterly Rock, inviting your uncle to return to court and assume the regency. If he means to accept, he had best make haste. Mace Tyrell has abandoned his siege of Storm’s End and is marching back to the
city with his army, and Randyll Tarly is reported on his way down from Maidenpool as well.”
“Has Lord Merryweather agreed to this?”
“Merryweather has resigned his seat on the council and fled back to Longtable with his wife, who was the first to bring us news of the… accusations… against Your Grace.”
“They let Taena go.” That was the best thing she had heard since the High Sparrow had said no. Taena could have doomed her. “What of Lord Waters? His ships… if he brings his crews ashore, he should have enough men to…”
“As soon as word of Your Grace’s present troubles reached the river, Lord Waters raised sail, unshipped his oars, and took his fleet to sea. Ser Harys fears he means to join Lord Stannis. Pycelle believes that he is sailing to the Stepstones, to set himself up as a pirate.”
“All my lovely dromonds.” Cersei almost laughed. “My lord father used to say that bastards are treacherous by nature. Would that I had listened.” She shivered. “I am lost, Qyburn.”
“No.” He took her hand. “Hope remains. Your Grace has the right to prove your innocence by battle. My queen, your champion stands ready. There is no man in all the Seven Kingdoms who can hope to stand against him. If you will only give the command…”
This time she did laugh. It was funny, terribly funny, hideously funny. “The gods make japes of all our hopes and plans. I have a champion no man can defeat, but I am forbidden to make use of him. I am the queen, Qyburn. My honor can only be defended by a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard.”
“I see.” The smile died on Qyburn’s face. “Your Grace, I am at a loss. I do not know how to counsel you…”
Even in her exhausted, frightened state, the queen knew she dare not trust her fate to a court of sparrows. Nor could she count on Ser Kevan to intervene, after the words that had passed between them at their last meeting. It will have to be a trial by battle. There is no other way. “Qyburn, for the love you bear me, I beg you, send a message for me. A raven if you can. A rider, if not. You must send to Riverrun, to my brother. Tell him what has happened, and write… write…”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
She licked her lips, shivering. “Come at once. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.”
“As you command. ‘I love you’ thrice?”
“Thrice.” She had to reach him. “He will come. I know he will. He must. Jaime is my only hope.”
“My queen,” said Qyburn, “have you… forgotten? Ser Jaime has no sword hand. If he should champion you and lose…”
We will leave this world together, as we once came into it. “He will not lose. Not Jaime. Not with my life at stake.”
JAIME
The new Lord of Riverrun was so angry that he was shaking. “We have been deceived,” he said. “This man has played us false!” Pink spittle flew from his lips as he jabbed a finger at Edmure Tully. “I will have his head off! I rule in Riverrun, by the king’s own decree, I—”
“Emmon,” said his wife, “the Lord Commander knows about the king’s decree. Ser Edmure knows about the king’s decree. The stableboys know about the king’s decree.”
“I am the lord, and I will have his head!”
“For what crime?” Thin as he was, Edmure still looked more lordly than Emmon Frey. He wore a quilted doublet of red wool with a leaping trout embroidered on its chest. His boots were black, his breeches blue. His auburn hair had been washed and barbered, his red beard neatly trimmed. “I did all that was asked of me.”
“Oh?” Jaime Lannister had not slept since Riverrun had opened its gates, and his head was pounding. “I do not recall asking you to let Ser Brynden escape.”
“You required me to surrender my castle, not my uncle. Am I to blame if your men let him slip through their siege lines?”
Jaime was not amused. “Where is he?” he said, letting his irritation show. His men had searched Riverrun thrice over, and Brynden Tully was nowhere to be found.
“He never told me where he meant to go.”
“And you never asked. How did he get out?”
“Fish swim. Even black ones.” Edmure smiled.
Jaime was sorely tempted to crack him across the mouth with his golden hand. A few missing teeth would put an end to his smiles. For a man who was going to spend the rest of his life a prisoner, Edmure was entirely too pleased with himself. “We have oubliettes beneath the Casterly Rock that fit a man as tight as a suit of armor. You can’t turn in them, or sit, or reach down to your feet when the rats start gnawing at your toes. Would you care to reconsider that answer?”
Lord Edmure’s smile went away. “You gave me your word that I would be treated honorably, as befits my rank.”
“So you shall,” said Jaime. “Nobler knights than you have died whimpering in those oubliettes, and many a high lord too. Even a king or two, if I recall my history. Your wife can have the one beside you, if you like. I would not want to part you.”
“He did swim,” said Edmure, sullenly. He had the same blue eyes as his sister Catelyn, and Jaime saw the same loathing there that he’d once seen in hers. “We raised the portcullis on the Water Gate. Not all the way, just three feet or so. Enough to leave a gap under the water, though the gate still appeared to be closed. My uncle is a strong swimmer. After dark, he pulled himself beneath the spikes.”
And he slipped under our boom the same way, no doubt. A moonless night, bored guards, a black fish in a black river floating quietly downstream. If Ruttiger or Yew or any of their men heard a splash, they would put it down to a turtle or a trout. Edmure had waited most of the day before hauling down the direwolf of Stark in token of surrender. In the confusion of the castle changing hands, it had been the next morning before Jaime had been informed that the Blackfish was not amongst the prisoners.
He went to the window and gazed out over the river. It was a bright autumn day, and the sun was shining on the waters. By now the Blackfish could be ten leagues downstream.
“You have to find him,” insisted Emmon Frey.
“He’ll be found.” Jaime spoke with a certainty he did not feel. “I have hounds and hunters sniffing after him even now.” Ser Addam Marbrand was leading the search on the south side of the river, Ser Dermot of the Rainwood on the north. He had considered enlisting the riverlords as well, but Vance and Piper and their ilk were more like to help the Blackfish escape than clap him into fetters. All in all, he was not hopeful. “He may elude us for a time,” he said, “but eventually he must surface.”
“What if he should try and take my castle back?”
“You have a garrison of two hundred.” Too large a garrison, in truth, but Lord Emmon had an anxious disposition. At least he would have no trouble feeding them; the Blackfish had left Riverrun amply provisioned, just as he had claimed. “After the trouble Ser Brynden took to leave us, I doubt that he’ll come skulking back.” Unless it is at the head of a band of outlaws. He did not doubt that the Blackfish meant to continue the fight.
“This is your seat,” Lady Genna told her husband. “It is for you to hold it. If you cannot do that, put it to the torch and run back to the Rock.”
Lord Emmon rubbed his mouth. His hand came away red and slimy from the sourleaf. “To be sure. Riverrun is mine, and no man shall ever take it from me.” He gave Edmure Tully one last suspicious look, as Lady Genna drew him from the solar.
“Is there any more that you would care to tell me?” Jaime asked Edmure when the two of them were alone.
“This was my father’s solar,” said Tully. “He ruled the riverlands from here, wisely and well. He liked to sit beside that window. The light was good there, and whenever he looked up from his work he could see the river. When his eyes were tired he would have Cat read to him. Littlefinger and I built a castle out of wooden blocks once, there beside the door. You will never know how sick it makes me to see you in this room, Kingslayer. You will never know how much I despise you.”
He was wrong about that. “I have been despised by better men than you, Edmure.” Jaime called for a guard. “Take his lordship back to his tower and see that he’s fed.”
The Lord of Riverrun went silently. On the morrow, he would start west. Ser Forley Prester would command his escort; a hundred men, including twenty knights. Best double that. Lord Beric may try to free Edmure before they reach the Golden Tooth. Jaime did not want to have to capture Tully for a third time.
He returned to Hoster Tully’s chair, pulled over the map of the Trident, and flattened it beneath his golden hand. Where would I go, if I were the Blackfish?
“Lord Commander?” A guardsman stood in the open door. “Lady Westerling and her daughter are without, as you commanded.”
Jaime shoved the map aside. “Show them in.” At least the girl did not vanish too. Jeyne Westerling had been Robb Stark’s queen, the girl who cost him everything. With a wolf in her belly, she could have proved more dangerous than the Blackfish.
She did not look dangerous. Jeyne was a willowy girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, more awkward than graceful. She had narrow hips, breasts the size of apples, a mop of chestnut curls, and the soft brown eyes of a doe. Pretty enough for a child, Jaime decided, but not a girl to lose a kingdom for. Her face was puffy, and there was a scab on her forehead, half-hidden by a lock of brown hair. “What happened there?” he asked her.
The girl turned her head away. “It is nothing,” insisted her mother, a stern-faced woman in a gown of green velvet. A necklace of golden seashells looped about her long, thin neck. “She would not give up the little crown the rebel gave her, and when I tried to take it from her head the willful child fought me.”
“It was mine.” Jeyne sobbed. “You had no right. Robb had it made for me. I loved him.”
Her mother made to slap her, but Jaime stepped between them. “None of that,” he warned Lady Sybell. “Sit down, both of you.” The girl curled up in her chair like a frightened animal, but her mother sat stiffly, her head high. “Will you have wine?” he asked them. The girl did not answer. “No, thank you,” said her mother.
A Feast for Crows asoiaf-4 Page 84
