A Feast for Dragons

silent sisters took up the shears. A
practiced barber, no doubt; her order often cleaned the corpses of the noble
slain before returning them to their kin, and trimming beards and cutting hair
was part of that. The woman bared the queen’s head first. Cersei sat as still
as a stone statue as the shears clicked. Drifts of golden hair fell to the
floor. She had not been allowed to tend it properly penned up in this cell, but
even unwashed and tangled it shone where the sun touched it.
My crown
,
the queen thought.
They took the other crown away from me, and now they
are stealing this one as well
. When her locks and curls were piled up
around her feet, one of the novices soaped her head and the silent sister
scraped away the stubble with a razor.
    Cersei hoped that would be the end of it, but no. “Remove
your shift, Your Grace,” Septa Unella commanded.
    “Here?” the queen asked. “Why?”
    “You must be shorn.”
    Shorn
, she thought,
like a sheep
.
She yanked the shift over her head and tossed it to the floor. “Do what you
will.”
    Then it was the soap again, the warm water, and the razor.
The hair beneath her arms went next, then her legs, and last of all the fine
golden down that covered her mound. When the silent sister crept between her
legs with the razor, Cersei found herself remembering all the times that Jaime
had knelt where she was kneeling now, planting kisses on the inside of her
thighs, making her wet. His kisses were always warm. The razor was ice-cold.
    When the deed was done she was as naked and vulnerable as a
woman could be.
Not even a hair to hide behind
. A little laugh
burst from her lips, bleak and bitter.
    “Does Your Grace find this amusing?” said Septa Scolera.
    “No, septa,” said Cersei.
But one day I will have
your tongue ripped out with hot pincers, and that will be hilarious
.
    One of the novices had brought a robe for her, a soft white
septa’s robe to cover her as she made her way down the tower steps and through
the sept, so any worshipers they met along the way might be spared the sight of
naked flesh.
Seven save us all, what hypocrites they are
. “Will
I be permitted a pair of sandals?” she asked. “The streets are filthy.”
    “Not so filthy as your sins,” said Septa Moelle. “His High
Holiness has commanded that you present yourself as the gods made you. Did you
have sandals on your feet when you came forth from your lady mother’s womb?”
    “No, septa,” the queen was forced to say.
    “Then you have your answer.”
    A bell began to toll. The queen’s long imprisonment was at
an end. Cersei pulled the robe tighter, grateful for its warmth, and said, “Let
us go.” Her son awaited her across the city. The sooner she set out, the sooner
she would see him.
    The rough stone of the steps scraped her soles as Cersei
Lannister made her descent. She had come to Baelor’s Sept a queen, riding in a
litter. She was leaving bald and barefoot.
But I am leaving. That is all
that matters
.
    The tower bells were singing, summoning the city to bear
witness to her shame. The Great Sept of Baelor was crowded with faithful come
for the dawn service, the sound of their prayers echoing off the dome overhead,
but when the queen’s procession made its appearance a sudden silence fell and a
thousand eyes turned to follow her as she made her way down the aisle, past the
place where her lord father had lain in state after his murder. Cersei swept by
them, looking neither right nor left. Her bare feet slapped against the cold
marble floor. She could feel the eyes. Behind their altars, the Seven seemed to
watch as well.
    In the Hall of Lamps, a dozen Warrior’s Sons awaited her
coming. Rainbow cloaks hung down their backs, and the crystals that crested
their greathelms glittered in the lamplight. Their armor was silver plate
polished to a mirror sheen, but underneath, she knew, every man of them wore a
hair shirt. Their kite shields all bore the same device: a crystal sword
shining in the darkness, the ancient badge of those the smallfolk called
Swords.
    Their captain knelt before her. “Perhaps Your Grace will
recall me. I am Ser Theodan the True, and His High Holiness has given me
command of your escort. My brothers and I will see you safely through the
city.”
    Cersei’s gaze swept across the faces of the men behind him.
And there he was: Lancel, her cousin, Ser Kevan’s son, who had once professed
to love her, before he decided that he loved the gods more.
My