A Feast for Dragons

her breasts
heaving with the effort of the climb. Some shouted obscene proposals, others
insults.
Words are wind
, she thought,
words cannot hurt
me. I am beautiful, the most beautiful woman in all Westeros, Jaime says so,
Jaime would never lie to me. Even Robert, Robert never loved me, but he saw
that I was beautiful, he wanted me
.
    She did not feel beautiful, though. She felt old, used,
filthy, ugly. There were stretch marks on her belly from the children she had
borne, and her breasts were not as firm as they had been when she was younger.
Without a gown to hold them up, they sagged against her chest.
I should
not have done this. I was their queen, but now they’ve seen, they’ve seen,
they’ve seen. I should never have let them see
. Gowned and crowned,
she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very
different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little
maiden daughters.
What have I done?
    There was something in her eyes, stinging, blurring her
sight. She could not cry, she would not cry, the worms must never see her weep.
Cersei rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. A gust of cold wind made
her shiver violently.
    And suddenly the hag was there, standing in the crowd with
her pendulous teats and her warty greenish skin, leering with the rest, with
malice shining from her crusty yellow eyes.
“Queen you shall be,”
she hissed,
“until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to
cast you down and take all you hold most dear.”
    And then there was no stopping the tears. They burned down
the queen’s cheeks like acid. Cersei gave a sharp cry, covered her nipples with
one arm, slid her other hand down to hide her slit, and began to run, shoving
her way past the line of Poor Fellows, crouching as she scrambled crab-legged
up the hill. Partway up she stumbled and fell, rose, then fell again ten yards
farther on. The next thing she knew she was crawling, scrambling uphill on all
fours like a dog as the good folks of King’s Landing made way for her, laughing
and jeering and applauding her.
    Then all at once the crowd parted and seemed to dissolve,
and there were the castle gates before her, and a line of spearmen in gilded
halfhelms and crimson cloaks. Cersei heard the gruff, familiar sound of her
uncle growling orders and glimpsed a flash of white to either side as Ser Boros
Blount and Ser Meryn Trant strode toward her in their pale plate and snowy
cloaks. “My son,” she cried. “Where is my son? Where is Tommen?”
    “Not here. No son should have to bear witness to his
mother’s shame.” Ser Kevan’s voice was harsh. “Cover her up.”
    Then Jocelyn was bending over her, wrapping her in a soft
clean blanket of green wool to cover her nakedness. A shadow fell across them
both, blotting out the sun. The queen felt cold steel slide beneath her, a pair
of great armored arms lifting her off the ground, lifting her up into the air
as easily as she had lifted Joffrey when he was still a babe.
A giant
,
thought Cersei, dizzy, as he carried her with great strides toward the
gatehouse. She had heard that giants could still be found in the godless wild
beyond the Wall.
That is just a tale. Am I dreaming?
    No. Her savior was real. Eight feet tall or maybe taller,
with legs as thick around as trees, he had a chest worthy of a plow horse and
shoulders that would not disgrace an ox. His armor was plate steel, enameled
white and bright as a maiden’s hopes, and worn over gilded mail. A greathelm
hid his face. From its crest streamed seven silken plumes in the rainbow colors
of the Faith. A pair of golden seven-pointed stars clasped his billowing cloak
at the shoulders.
    A white cloak
.
    Ser Kevan had kept his part of the bargain. Tommen, her
precious little boy, had named her champion to the Kingsguard.
    Cersei never saw where Qyburn came from, but suddenly he was
there beside them, scrambling to keep up with her champion’s long strides.
“Your Grace,” he said, “it is so good to have you back. May I have the honor of
presenting our newest member of the Kingsguard? This is Ser Robert Strong.”
    “Ser Robert,” Cersei whispered, as they entered the gates.
    “If it please Your Grace, Ser Robert has taken a holy vow of
silence,” Qyburn said. “He has sworn that he will not speak until all of His
Grace’s enemies are dead and evil has been driven from the realm.”
    Yes
, thought Cersei Lannister.
Oh,
yes
.
    ----

    TYRION
    The pile of