A Feast for Dragons

dwarf would come for her as well, the
queen knew, just as the old woman had promised her in the dimness of that tent. I laughed in her face, but she had powers. I saw my future in a drop of
blood. My doom. Her legs were weak as water. Ser Boros tried to take her by
the arm, but the queen recoiled from his touch. For all she knew he might be
one of Tyrion’s creatures. “Get away from me,” she said. “Get away!” She
staggered to a settle.
    “Your Grace?” said Blount. “Shall I fetch a cup of water?”
    It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion’s blood, the blood
of the valonqar . The torches spun around her. Cersei closed her
eyes, and saw the dwarf grinning at her. No , she thought, no, I was
almost rid of you. But his fingers had closed around her neck, and she
could feel them beginning to tighten.
    ----
    Cersei
    A cold rain was falling, turning the walls and
ramparts of the Red Keep dark as blood. The queen held the king’s hand and led
him firmly across the muddy yard to where her litter waited with its escort.
“Uncle Jaime said I could ride my horse and throw pennies to the smallfolk,”
the boy objected.
    “Do you want to catch a chill?” She would not risk it;
Tommen had never been as robust as Joffrey. “Your grandfather would want you to
look a proper king at his wake. We will not appear at the Great Sept wet and bedraggled.” Bad enough I must wear mourning again. Black had never been a happy
color on her. With her fair skin, it made her look half a corpse herself.
Cersei had risen an hour before dawn to bathe and fix her hair, and she did not
intend to let the rain destroy her efforts.
    Inside the litter, Tommen settled back against his pillows
and peered out at the falling rain. “The gods are weeping for grandfather. Lady
Jocelyn says the raindrops are their tears.”
    “Jocelyn Swyft is a fool. If the gods could weep, they would
have wept for your brother. Rain is rain. Close the curtain before you let any
more in. That mantle is sable, would you have it soaked?”
    Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king
had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued. He was never easy to cow. “Don’t slump so,” she told Tommen. “Sit like a king. Put your shoulders back
and straighten your crown. Do you want it to tumble off your head in front of
all your lords?”
    “No, Mother.” The boy sat straight and reached up to fix the
crown. Joff’s crown was too big for him. Tommen had always inclined to
plumpness, but his face seemed thinner now. Is he eating well? She must
remember to ask the steward. She could not risk Tommen growing ill, not with
Myrcella in the hands of the Dornishmen. He will grow into Joff’s crown in
time. Until he did, a smaller one might be needed, one that did not
threaten to swallow his head. She would take it up with the goldsmiths.
    The litter made its slow way down Aegon’s High Hill. Two
Kingsguard rode before them, white knights on white horses with white cloaks
hanging sodden from their shoulders. Behind came fifty Lannister guardsmen in
gold and crimson.
    Tommen peered through the drapes at the empty streets. “I
thought there would be more people. When Father died, all the people came out
to watch us go by.”
    “This rain has driven them inside.” King’s Landing had never
loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor
buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night,” she heard him
tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen.
    At the Great Sept of Baelor, that magnificence in marble
atop Visenya’s Hill, the little knot of mourners were outnumbered by the gold cloaks
that Ser Addam Marbrand had drawn up across the plaza. More will turn out
later, the queen told herself as Ser Meryn Trant helped her from the
litter. Only the highborn and their retinues were to be admitted to the morning
service; there would be another in the afternoon for the commons, and the
evening prayers were open to all. Cersei would need to return for that, so that
the smallfolk might see her mourn. The mob must have its show. It was a
nuisance. She had offices to fill, a war to win, a realm to rule. Her father
would have understood that.
    The High Septon met them at the top of the steps. A bent old
man with a wispy grey beard, he was so stooped by the weight of his ornate
embroidered robes that his eyes were on a level with the queen’s breasts . . .
though his crown, an airy confection of cut crystal and