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Jon Arryn put Robert Baratheon in her bed, and before he died he’d begun sniffing about her and Jaime as well. Eddard Stark took up right where Arryn had left off; his meddling had forced her to rid herself of Robert sooner than she would have liked, before she could deal with his pestilential brothers. Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen, made one of her sons his hostage, and murdered the other. And when Lord Tywin returned to King’s Landing . . .
    The next Hand will know his place,
she promised herself. It would have to be Ser Kevan. Her uncle was tireless, prudent, unfailingly obedient. She could rely on him, as her father had.
The hand does not argue with the head.
She had a realm to rule, but she would need new men to help her rule it. Pycelle was a doddering lickspittle, Jaime had lost his courage with his sword hand, and Mace Tyrell and his cronies Redwyne and Rowan could not be trusted. For all she knew they might have had a part in this. Lord Tyrell had to know that he would never rule the Seven Kingdoms so long as Tywin Lannister lived.
    I will need to move carefully with that one.
The city was full of his men, and he’d even managed to plant one of his sons in the Kingsguard, and meant to plant his daughter in Tommen’s bed. It still made her furious to think that Father had agreed to betroth Tommen to Margaery Tyrell.
The girl is twice his age and twice widowed.
Mace Tyrell claimed his daughter was still virgin, but Cersei had her doubts. Joffrey had been murdered before he could bed the girl, but she had been wed to Renly first . . .
A man may prefer the taste of hippocras, yet if you set a tankard of ale before him, he will quaff it quick enough.
She must command Lord Varys to find out what he could.
    That stopped her where she stood. She had forgotten about Varys.
He should be here. He is always here.
Whenever anything of import happened in the Red Keep, the eunuch appeared as if from nowhere.
Jaime is here, and Uncle Kevan, and Pycelle has come and gone, but not Varys.
A cold finger touched her spine.
He was part of this. He must have feared that Father meant to have his head, so he struck first.
Lord Tywin had never had any love for the simpering master of whisperers. And if any man knew the Red Keep’s secrets, it was surely the master of whisperers.
He must have made common cause with Lord Stannis. They served together on Robert’s council, after all . . .
    Cersei strode to the door of the bedchamber, to Ser Meryn Trant. “Trant, bring me Lord Varys. Squealing and squirming if need be, but unharmed.”
    â€œAs Your Grace commands.”
    But no sooner had one Kingsguard departed than another one returned. Ser Boros Blount was red-faced and puffing from his headlong rush up the steps. “Gone,” he panted, when he saw the queen. He sank to one knee. “The Imp . . . his cell’s open, Your Grace . . . no sign of him anywhere . . .”
    The dream was true.
“I gave orders,” she said. “He was to be kept under guard, night and day . . .”
    Blount’s chest was heaving. “One of the gaolers has gone missing too. Rugen, his name was. Two other men we found asleep.”
    It was all she could do not to scream. “I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.”
    â€œSleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace. How long shall—”
    â€œForever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch.”
He is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff.
The dwarf would come for her as well, the queen knew, just as the old woman had promised her in the dimness of that tent.
I laughed in her face, but she had powers. I saw my future in a drop of blood. My doom.
Her legs were weak as water. Ser Boros tried to take her by the arm, but the queen recoiled from his touch. For all she knew he might be one of Tyrion’s creatures. “Get away from me,” she said.
“Get away!”
She staggered to a settle.
    â€œYour Grace?” said Blount. “Shall I fetch a cup of water?”
    It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion’s blood, the blood of the
valonqar
.
The torches spun around her. Cersei closed her eyes, and saw the dwarf grinning at her.
No
, she thought,
no, I was almost rid of you.
But his fingers had closed around her neck, and she could feel them beginning to tighten.

BRIENNE
    I am looking for a maid of