A Feast for Dragons

and even undyed
roughspun, belted with lengths of hempen rope. Some hung the iron hammer of the
Smith about their necks, whilst others carried begging bowls.
    None of the devout paid Jaime any mind. They made a circuit
of the sept, worshiping at each of the seven altars to honor the seven aspects
of the deity. To each god they made sacrifice, to each they sang a hymn. Sweet
and solemn rose their voices. Jaime closed his eyes to listen, but opened them
again when he began to sway. I am more weary than I knew.
    It had been years since his last vigil. And I was younger
then, a boy of fifteen years. He had worn no armor then, only a plain white
tunic. The sept where he’d spent the night was not a third as large as any of
the Great Sept’s seven transepts. Jaime had laid his sword across the Warrior’s
knees, piled his armor at his feet, and knelt upon the rough stone floor before
the altar. When dawn came his knees were raw and bloody. “All knights must
bleed, Jaime,” Ser Arthur Dayne had said, when he saw. “Blood is the seal of
our devotion.” With dawn he tapped him on the shoulder; the pale blade was so
sharp that even that light touch cut through Jaime’s tunic, so he bled anew. He
never felt it. A boy knelt; a knight rose. The Young Lion, not the
Kingslayer.
    But that was long ago, and the boy was dead.
    He could not have said when the devotions ended. Perhaps he
slept, still standing. When the devout had filed out, the Great Sept grew still
once more. The candles were a wall of stars burning in the darkness, though the
air was rank with death. Jaime shifted his grip upon the golden greatsword.
Perhaps he should have let Ser Loras relieve him after all. Cersei would
have hated that. The Knight of Flowers was still half a boy, arrogant and
vain, but he had it in him to be great, to perform deeds worthy of the White
Book.
    The White Book would be waiting when this vigil was done,
his page open in dumb reproach. I’ll hack the bloody book to pieces before
I’ll fill it full of lies. Yet if he would not lie, what could he write but
truth?
    A woman stood before him.
    It is raining again, he thought when he saw how wet
she was. The water was trickling down her cloak to puddle round her feet. How
did she get here? I never heard her enter. She was dressed like a tavern
wench in a heavy roughspun cloak, badly dyed in mottled browns and fraying at
the hem. A hood concealed her face, but he could see the candles dancing in the
green pools of her eyes, and when she moved he knew her.
    “Cersei.” He spoke slowly, like a man waking from a dream,
still wondering where he was. “What hour is it?”
    “The hour of the wolf.” His sister lowered her hood, and
made a face. “The drowned wolf, perhaps.” She smiled for him, so sweetly. “Do
you remember the first time I came to you like this? It was some dismal inn off
Weasel Alley, and I put on servant’s garb to get past Father’s guards.”
    “I remember. It was Eel Alley.” She wants something of
me. “Why are you here, at this hour? What would you have of me?” His last
word echoed up and down the sept, mememememememememememe, fading to a
whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that all she wanted was the comfort of
his arms.
    “Speak softly.” Her voice sounded strange . . . breathless,
almost frightened. “Jaime, Kevan has refused me. He will not serve as Hand, he
. . . he knows about us. He said as much.”
    “Refused?” That surprised him. “How could he know? He will
have read what Stannis wrote, but there is no . . .”
    “ Tyrion knew,” she reminded him. “Who can say what tales
that vile dwarf may have told, or to whom? Uncle Kevan is the least of it. The
High Septon . . . Tyrion raised him to the crown, when the fat one died. He may
know as well.” She moved closer. “You must be Tommen’s Hand. I do not
trust Mace Tyrell. What if he had a hand in Father’s death? He may have been
conspiring with Tyrion. The Imp could be on his way to Highgarden . . .”
    “He’s not.”
    “Be my Hand,” she pleaded, “and we’ll rule the Seven
Kingdoms together, like a king and his queen.”
    “You were Robert’s queen. And yet you won’t be mine.”
    “I would, if I dared. But our son—”
    “Tommen is no son of mine, no more than Joffrey was.” His
voice was hard. “You made them Robert’s too.”
    His sister flinched. “You swore that you would always love
me. It is not loving to make me beg.”
    Jaime could smell the fear on