A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

him.
    â€œOnly a little wine that went down the wrong way,” Margaery Tyrell assured her, smiling. She took Tommen’s hand in her own and kissed his fingers. “My little love needs to take smaller sips. See, you scared your lady mother half to death.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mother,” Tommen said, abashed.
    It was more than Cersei could stand.
I cannot let them see me cry,
she thought, when she felt the tears welling in her eyes. She walked past Ser Meryn Trant and out into the back passage. Alone beneath a tallow candle, she allowed herself a shuddering sob, then another.
A woman may weep, but not a queen.
    â€œYour Grace?” said a voice behind her. “Do I intrude?”
    It was a woman’s voice, flavored with the accents of the east. For an instant she feared that Maggy the Frog was speaking to her from the grave. But it was only Merryweather’s wife, the sloe-eyed beauty Lord Orton had wed during his exile and fetched home with him to Longtable. “The Small Hall is so stuffy,” Cersei heard herself say. “The smoke was making my eyes water.”
    â€œAnd mine, Your Grace.” Lady Merryweather was as tall as the queen, but dark instead of fair, raven-haired and olive-skinned and younger by a decade. She offered the queen a pale blue handkerchief of silk and lace. “I have a son as well. I know that I shall weep rivers on the day he weds.”
    Cersei wiped her cheeks, furious that she had let her tears be seen. “My thanks,” she said stiffly.
    â€œYour Grace, I . . .” The Myrish woman lowered her voice. “There is something you must know. Your maid is bought and paid for. She tells Lady Margaery everything you do.”
    â€œSenelle?” Sudden fury twisted in the queen’s belly. Was there no one she could trust? “You are certain of this?”
    â€œHave her followed. Margaery never meets with her directly. Her cousins are her ravens, they bring her messages. Sometimes Elinor, sometimes Alla, sometimes Megga. All of them are as close to Margaery as sisters. They meet in the sept and pretend to pray. Put your own man in the gallery on the morrow, and he will see Senelle whispering to Megga beneath the altar of the Maiden.”
    â€œIf this is true, why tell me? You are one of Margaery’s companions. Why would you betray her?” Cersei had learned suspicion at her father’s knee; this could well be some trap, a lie meant to sow discord between the lion and the rose.
    â€œLongtable may be sworn to Highgarden,” the woman replied, with a toss of her black hair, “but I am of Myr, and my loyalty is to my husband and my son. I want all that is best for them.”
    â€œI see.” In the closeness of the passage, the queen could smell the other woman’s perfume, a musky scent that spoke of moss and earth and wildflowers. Under it, she smelled ambition.
She gave testimony at Tyrion’s trial,
Cersei recalled suddenly.
She saw the Imp put the poison in Joff’s cup and was not afraid to say so.
“I shall look into this,” she promised. “If what you say is true, you will be rewarded.”
And if you’ve lied to me, I’ll have your tongue, and your lord husband’s lands and gold as well.
    â€œYour Grace is kind. And beautiful.” Lady Merryweather smiled. Her teeth were white, her lips full and dark.
    When the queen returned to the Small Hall, she found her brother pacing restlessly. “It was only a gulp of wine that went down the wrong way. Though it startled me as well.”
    â€œMy belly is such a knot that I cannot eat,” she growled at him. “The wine tastes of bile. This wedding was a mistake.”
    â€œThis wedding was necessary. The boy is safe.”
    â€œFool. No one who wears a crown is ever safe.” She looked about the hall. Mace Tyrell laughed amongst his knights. Lords Redwyne and Rowan were talking furtively. Ser Kevan sat brooding over his wine at the back of the hall, whilst Lancel whispered something to a septon. Senelle was moving down the table, filling the cups of the bride’s cousins with wine as red as blood. Grand Maester Pycelle had fallen asleep.
There is no one I can rely upon, not even Jaime,
she realized grimly.
I will need to sweep them all away and surround the king with mine own people.
    Later, after sweets and nuts and cheese had been served and cleared away, Margaery and Tommen began the dancing,