A Feast for Dragons

the
Kettleblacks, wrestling their bundle through the ashes. Even the guardsmen
heard, Puckens and Hoke the Horseleg and Shortear. It will be all over the
castle by nightfall. Cersei felt the heat rising up her cheeks. “Rule? I
said naught of ruling. I shall rule until my son comes of age.”
    “I don’t know who I pity more,” her brother said. “Tommen,
or the
Seven
Kingdoms
.”
    She slapped him. Jaime’s arm rose to catch the blow, cat-quick
. . . but this cat had a cripple’s stump in place of a right hand. Her fingers
left red marks on his cheek.
    The sound brought their uncle to his feet. “Your father lies
here dead. Have the decency to take your quarrel outside.”
    Jaime inclined his head in apology. “Forgive us, Uncle. My
sister is sick with grief. She forgets herself.”
    She wanted to slap him again for that. I must have been
mad to think he could be Hand. She would sooner abolish the office. When
had a Hand ever brought her anything but grief? Jon Arryn put Robert Baratheon
in her bed, and before he died he’d begun sniffing about her and Jaime as well.
Eddard Stark took up right where Arryn had left off; his meddling had forced
her to rid herself of Robert sooner than she would have liked, before she could
deal with his pestilential brothers. Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen,
made one of her sons his hostage, and murdered the other. And when Lord Tywin
returned to King’s Landing . . .
    The next Hand will know his place, she promised
herself. It would have to be Ser Kevan. Her uncle was tireless, prudent,
unfailingly obedient. She could rely on him, as her father had. The hand
does not argue with the head. She had a realm to rule, but she would need
new men to help her rule it. Pycelle was a doddering lickspittle, Jaime had
lost his courage with his sword hand, and Mace Tyrell and his cronies Redwyne
and Rowan could not be trusted. For all she knew they might have had a part in
this. Lord Tyrell had to know that he would never rule the Seven Kingdoms so
long as Tywin Lannister lived.
    I will need to move carefully with that one. The city
was full of his men, and he’d even managed to plant one of his sons in the
Kingsguard, and meant to plant his daughter in Tommen’s bed. It still made her
furious to think that Father had agreed to betroth Tommen to Margaery Tyrell. The
girl is twice his age and twice widowed. Mace Tyrell claimed his daughter
was still virgin, but Cersei had her doubts. Joffrey had been murdered before
he could bed the girl, but she had been wed to Renly first . . . A man may
prefer the taste of hippocras, yet if you set a tankard of ale before him, he
will quaff it quick enough. She must command Lord Varys to find out what he
could.
    That stopped her where she stood. She had forgotten about
Varys. He should be here. He is always here. Whenever anything of import
happened in the Red Keep, the eunuch appeared as if from nowhere. Jaime is
here, and Uncle Kevan, and Pycelle has come and gone, but not Varys. A cold
finger touched her spine. He was part of this. He must have feared that
Father meant to have his head, so he struck first. Lord Tywin had never had
any love for the simpering master of whisperers. And if any man knew the Red
Keep’s secrets, it was surely the master of whisperers. He must have made
common cause with Lord Stannis. They served together on Robert’s council, after
all . . .
    Cersei strode to the door of the bedchamber, to Ser Meryn
Trant. “Trant, bring me Lord Varys. Squealing and squirming if need be, but
unharmed.”
    “As Your Grace commands.”
    But no sooner had one Kingsguard departed than another one
returned. Ser Boros Blount was red-faced and puffing from his headlong rush up
the steps. “Gone,” he panted, when he saw the queen. He sank to one knee. “The
Imp . . . his cell’s open, Your Grace . . . no sign of him anywhere . . .”
    The dream was true. “I gave orders,” she said. “He
was to be kept under guard, night and day . . .”
    Blount’s chest was heaving. “One of the gaolers has gone missing
too. Rugen, his name was. Two other men we found asleep.”
    It was all she could do not to scream. “I hope you did not
wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.”
    “Sleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace.
How long shall—”
    “Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not
suffer guards to sleep on watch.” He is in the walls. He killed Father as he
killed Mother, as he killed Joff. The