A Feast for Dragons

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 nephew. 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