A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Tommen, in the place of honor. When she entered, arm in arm with the little king, she made a point of stopping to kiss Cersei on the cheeks and throw her arms around her. “Your Grace,” the girl said, bold as polished brass, “I feel as though I have a second mother now. I pray that we shall be very close, united by our love for your sweet son.”
    â€œI loved both my sons.”
    â€œJoffrey is in my prayers as well,” said Margaery. “I loved him dearly, though I never had the chance to know him.”
    Liar,
the queen thought.
If you had loved him even for an instant, you would not have been in such unseemly haste to wed his brother. His crown was all you ever wanted.
For half a groat she would have slapped the blushing bride right there upon the dais, in view of half the court.
    Like the service, the wedding feast was modest. Lady Alerie had made all the arrangements; Cersei had not had the stomach to face that daunting task again, after the way Joffrey’s wedding had ended. Only seven courses were served. Butterbumps and Moon Boy entertained the guests between dishes, and musicians played as they ate. They listened to pipers and fiddlers, a lute and a flute, a high harp. The only singer was some favorite of Lady Margaery’s, a dashing young cock-a-whoop clad all in shades of azure who called himself the Blue Bard. He sang a few love songs and retired. “What a disappointment,” Lady Olenna complained loudly. “I was hoping for ‘The Rains of Castamere.’”
    Whenever Cersei looked at the old crone, the face of Maggy the Frog seemed to float before her eyes, wrinkled and terrible and wise.
All old women look alike,
she tried to tell herself,
that’s all it is.
In truth, the bent-back sorceress had looked nothing like the Queen of Thorns, yet somehow the sight of Lady Olenna’s nasty little smile was enough to put her back in Maggy’s tent again. She could still remember the smell of it, redolent with queer eastern spices, and the softness of Maggy’s gums as she sucked the blood from Cersei’s finger.
Queen you shall be,
the old woman had promised, with her lips still wet and red and glistening,
until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.
    Cersei glanced past Tommen, to where Margaery sat laughing with her father.
She is pretty enough,
she had to admit,
but most of that is youth. Even peasant girls are pretty at a certain age, when they are still fresh and innocent and unspoiled, and most of them have the same brown hair and brown eyes as she does. Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I.
The world was full of fools, however. So was her son’s court.
    Her mood was not improved when Mace Tyrell arose to lead the toasts. He raised a golden goblet high, smiling at his pretty little daughter, and in a booming voice said, “To the king and queen!” The other sheep all
baaaaaa
ed along with him.
“The king and queen!”
they cried, smashing their cups together.
“The king and queen!”
She had no choice but to drink along with them, all the time wishing that the guests had but a single face, so she could throw her wine into their eyes and remind them that
she
was the true queen. The only one of Tyrell’s lickspittles who seemed to remember her at all was Paxter Redwyne, who rose to make his own toast, swaying slightly.
“To both our queens!”
he chirruped.
“To the young queen and the old!”
    Cersei drank several cups of wine and pushed her food around a golden plate. Jaime ate even less, and seldom deigned to occupy his seat upon the dais.
He is as anxious as I am,
the queen realized as she watched him prowl the hall, twitching aside the tapestries with his good hand to assure himself that no one was hiding behind them. There were Lannister spearmen posted around the building, she knew. Ser Osmund Kettleblack guarded one door, Ser Meryn Trant the other. Balon Swann stood behind the king’s chair, Loras Tyrell behind the queen’s. No swords had been allowed inside the feast save for those the white knights bore.
    My son is safe,
Cersei told herself.
No harm can come to him, not here, not now.
Yet every time she looked at Tommen, she saw Joffrey clawing at his throat. And when the boy began to cough the queen’s heart stopped beating for a moment. She knocked aside a serving girl in her haste to reach