A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

too. Ser Loras, did you hear it?”
    â€œAs loud as a crack of thunder.” A rose of jade and gold clasped Ser Loras’s white cloak at the shoulder, and the wind was riffling artfully through his brown locks. “You rode a splendid course, but once is not enough. You must do it again upon the morrow. You must ride every day, until every blow lands true and straight, and your lance is as much a part of you as your arm.”
    â€œI want to.”
    â€œYou were glorious.” Margaery went to one knee, kissed the king upon his cheek, and put an arm around him. “Brother, take care,” she warned Loras. “My gallant husband will be unhorsing you in a few more years, I think.” Her three cousins all agreed, and the wretched little Bulwer girl began to hop about, chanting, “Tommen will be the
champion,
the
champion,
the
champion.
”
    â€œWhen he is a man grown,” said Cersei.
    Their smiles withered like roses kissed by frost. The pock-faced old septa was the first to bend her knee. The rest followed, save for the little queen and her brother.
    Tommen did not seem to notice the sudden chill in the air. “Mother, did you see me?” he burbled happily. “I broke my lance on the shield, and the bag never hit me!”
    â€œI was watching from across the yard. You did very well, Tommen. I would expect no less of you. Jousting is in your blood. One day you shall rule the lists, as your father did.”
    â€œNo man will stand before him.” Margaery Tyrell gave the queen a coy smile. “But I never knew that King Robert was so accomplished at the joust. Pray tell us, Your Grace, what tourneys did he win? What great knights did he unseat? I know the king should like to hear about his father’s victories.”
    A flush crept up Cersei’s neck. The girl had caught her out. Robert Baratheon had been an indifferent jouster, in truth. During tourneys he had much preferred the mêlée, where he could beat men bloody with blunted axe or hammer. It had been Jaime she had been thinking of when she spoke.
It is not like me to forget myself.
“Robert won the tourney of the Trident,” she had to say. “He overthrew Prince Rhaegar and named me his queen of love and beauty. I am surprised you do not know that story, good-daughter.” She gave Margaery no time to frame a reply. “Ser Osmund, help my son from his armor, if you would be so good. Ser Loras, walk with me. I need a word with you.”
    The Knight of Flowers had no recourse but to follow at her heels like the puppy he was. Cersei waited until they were on the serpentine steps before she said, “Whose notion was that, pray?”
    â€œMy sister’s,” he admitted. “Ser Tallad, Ser Dermot, and Ser Portifer were riding at the quintain, and the queen suggested that His Grace might like to have a turn.”
    He calls her that to irk me.
“And your part?”
    â€œI helped His Grace to don his armor and showed him how to couch his lance,” he answered.
    â€œThat horse was much too large for him. What if he had fallen off? What if the sandbag had smashed his head in?”
    â€œBruises and bloody lips are all part of being a knight.”
    â€œI begin to understand why your brother is a cripple.” That wiped the smile off his pretty face, she was pleased to see. “Perhaps my brother failed to explain your duties to you, ser. You are here to protect my son from his enemies. Training him for knighthood is the province of the master-at-arms.”
    â€œThe Red Keep has had no master-at-arms since Aron Santagar was slain,” Ser Loras said, with a hint of reproach in his voice. “His Grace is almost nine, and eager to learn. At his age he should be a squire. Someone has to teach him.”
    Someone will, but it will not be you.
“Pray, who did you squire for, ser?” she asked sweetly. “Lord Renly, was it not?”
    â€œI had that honor.”
    â€œYes, I thought as much.” Cersei had seen how tight the bonds grew between squires and the knights they served. She did not want Tommen growing close to Loras Tyrell. The Knight of Flowers was no sort of man for any boy to emulate. “I have been remiss. With a realm to rule, a war to fight, and a father to mourn, somehow I overlooked the crucial matter of naming a new master-at-arms. I shall rectify that error at once.”
    Ser Loras pushed back a brown curl that had