A Feast for Dragons

them morsels of pike off his own royal plate. “The bad
cat was outside my window last night,” he informed Kevan at one point, “but Ser
Pounce hissed at him and he ran off across the roofs.”
    “The bad cat?” Ser Kevan said, amused.
He is a sweet
boy
.
    “An old black tomcat with a torn ear,” Cersei told him. “A
filthy thing, and foul-tempered. He clawed Joff’s hand once.” She made a face.
“The cats keep the rats down, I know, but that one … he’s been known
to attack ravens in the rookery.”
    “I will ask the ratters to set a trap for him.” Ser Kevan
could not remember ever seeing his niece so quiet, so subdued, so demure. All
for the good, he supposed. But it made him sad as well.
Her fire is
quenched, she who used to burn so bright
. “You have not asked about
your brother,” he said, as they were waiting for the cream cakes. Cream cakes
were the king’s favorite.
    Cersei lifted her chin, her green eyes shining in the
candlelight. “Jaime? Have you had word?”
    “None. Cersei, you may need to prepare yourself for—”
    “If he were dead, I would know it. We came into this world
together, Uncle. He would not go without me.” She took a drink of wine. “Tyrion
can leave whenever he wishes. You have had no word of him either, I suppose.”
    “No one has tried to sell us a dwarf’s head of late, no.”
    She nodded. “Uncle, may I ask you a question?”
    “Whatever you wish.”
    “Your wife … do you mean to bring her to court?”
    “No.” Dorna was a gentle soul, never comfortable but at home
with friends and kin around her. She had done well by their children, dreamed
of having grandchildren, prayed seven times a day, loved needlework and
flowers. In King’s Landing she would be as happy as one of Tommen’s kittens in
a pit of vipers. “My lady wife mislikes travel. Lannisport is her place.”
    “It is a wise woman who knows her place.”
    He did not like the sound of that. “Say what you mean.”
    “I thought I did.” Cersei held out her cup. The freckled
girl filled it once again. The cream cakes appeared then, and the conversation
took a lighter turn. Only after Tommen and his kittens were escorted off to the
royal bedchamber by Ser Boros did their talk turn to the queen’s trial.
    “Osney’s brothers will not stand by idly and watch him die,”
Cersei warned him.
    “I did not expect that they would. I’ve had the both of them
arrested.”
    That seemed to take her aback. “For what crime?”
    “Fornication with a queen. His High Holiness says that you
confessed to bedding both of them—had you forgotten?”
    Her face reddened. “No. What will you do with them?”
    “The Wall, if they admit their guilt. If they deny it, they
can face Ser Robert. Such men should never have been raised so high.”
    Cersei lowered her head. “I … I misjudged them.”
    “You misjudged a good many men, it seems.”
    He might have said more, but the dark-haired novice with the
round cheeks returned to say, “My lord, my lady, I am sorry to intrude, but
there is a boy below. Grand Maester Pycelle begs the favor of the Lord Regent’s
presence at once.”
    Dark wings, dark words
, Ser Kevan thought.
Could
Storm’s End have fallen? Or might this be word from Bolton in the north?
    “It might be news of Jaime,” the queen said.
    There was only one way to know. Ser Kevan rose. “Pray excuse
me.” Before he took his leave, he dropped to one knee and kissed his niece upon
the hand. If her silent giant failed her, it might be the last kiss she would
ever know.
    The messenger was a boy of eight or nine, so bundled up in
fur he seemed a bear cub. Trant had kept him waiting out on the drawbridge rather
than admit him into Maegor’s. “Go find a fire, lad,” Ser Kevan told him,
pressing a penny into his hand. “I know the way to the rookery well enough.”
    The snow had finally stopped falling. Behind a veil of
ragged clouds, a full moon floated fat and white as a snowball. The stars shone
cold and distant. As Ser Kevan made his way across the inner ward, the castle
seemed an alien place, where every keep and tower had grown icy teeth, and all
familiar paths had vanished beneath a white blanket. Once an icicle long as a
spear fell to shatter by his feet.
Autumn in King’s Landing
, he
brooded.
What must it be like up on the Wall?
    The door was opened by a serving girl, a skinny thing in a
fur-lined robe much too big for her. Ser Kevan stamped the snow off his