A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

fallen across his forehead. “Your Grace will not find any man half so skilled with sword and lance as I.”
    Humble, aren’t we?
“Tommen is your king, not your squire. You are to fight for him and die for him, if need be. No more.”
    She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and entered Maegor’s Holdfast alone.
Where am I to find a master-at-arms?
she wondered as she climbed to her apartments. Having refused Ser Loras, she dare not turn to any of the Kingsguard knights; that would be salt in the wound, certain to anger Highgarden.
Ser Tallad? Ser Dermot? There must be someone.
Tommen was growing fond of his new sworn shield, but Osney was proving himself less capable than she had hoped in the matter of Maid Margaery, and she had a different office in mind for his brother Osfryd. It was rather a pity that the Hound had gone rabid. Tommen had always been frightened of Sandor Clegane’s harsh voice and burned face, and Clegane’s scorn would have been the perfect antidote to Loras Tyrell’s simpering chivalry.
    Aron Santagar was Dornish,
Cersei recalled.
I could send to Dorne.
Centuries of blood and war lay between Sunspear and Highgarden.
Yes, a Dornishman might suit my needs admirably. There must be some good swords in Dorne.
    When she entered her solar, Cersei found Lord Qyburn reading in a window seat. “If it please Your Grace, I have reports.”
    â€œMore plots and treasons?” Cersei asked. “I have had a long and tiring day. Tell me quickly.”
    He smiled sympathetically. “As you wish. There is talk that the Archon of Tyrosh has offered terms to Lys, to end their present trade war. It had been rumored that Myr was about to enter the war on the Tyroshi side, but without the Golden Company the Myrish did not believe they . . .”
    â€œWhat the Myrish believe does not concern me.” The Free Cities were always fighting one another. Their endless betrayals and alliances meant little and less to Westeros. “Do you have any news of more import?”
    â€œThe slave revolt in Astapor has spread to Meereen, it would seem. Sailors off a dozen ships speak of dragons . . .”
    â€œHarpies. It is harpies in Meereen.” She remembered that from somewhere. Meereen was at the far end of the world, out east beyond Valyria. “Let the slaves revolt. Why should I care? We keep no slaves in Westeros. Is that all you have for me?”
    â€œThere is some news from Dorne that Your Grace may find of more interest. Prince Doran has imprisoned Ser Daemon Sand, a bastard who once squired for the Red Viper.”
    â€œI recall him.” Ser Daemon had been amongst the Dornish knights who had accompanied Prince Oberyn to King’s Landing. “What did he do?”
    â€œHe demanded that Prince Oberyn’s daughters be set free.”
    â€œMore fool him.”
    â€œAlso,” Lord Qyburn said, “the daughter of the Knight of Spottswood was betrothed quite unexpectedly to Lord Estermont, our friends in Dorne inform us. She was sent to Greenstone that very night, and it is said she and Estermont have already wed.”
    â€œA bastard in the belly would explain that.” Cersei toyed with a lock of her hair. “How old is the blushing bride?”
    â€œThree-and-twenty, Your Grace. Whereas Lord Estermont—”
    â€œâ€”must be seventy. I am aware of that.” The Estermonts were her good-kin through Robert, whose father had taken one of them to wife in what must have been a fit of lust or madness. By the time Cersei wed the king, Robert’s lady mother was long dead, though both of her brothers had turned up for the wedding and stayed for half a year. Robert had later insisted on returning the courtesy with a visit to Estermont, a mountainous little island off Cape Wrath. The dank and dismal fortnight Cersei spent at Greenstone, the seat of House Estermont, was the longest of her young life. Jaime dubbed the castle
“Greenshit”
at first sight, and soon had Cersei doing it too. Elsewise she passed her days watching her royal husband hawk, hunt, and drink with his uncles, and bludgeon various male cousins senseless in Greenshit’s yard.
    There had been a female cousin too, a chunky little widow with breasts as big as melons whose husband and father had both died at Storm’s End during the siege. “Her father was good to me,” Robert told her,