A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

“and she and I would play together when the two of us were small.” It did not take him long to start playing with her again. As soon as Cersei closed her eyes, the king would steal off to console the poor lonely creature. One night she had Jaime follow him, to confirm her suspicions. When her brother returned he asked her if she wanted Robert dead. “No,” she had replied, “I want him horned.” She liked to think that was the night when Joffrey was conceived.
    â€œEldon Estermont has taken a wife fifty years his junior,” she said to Qyburn. “Why should that concern me?”
    He shrugged. “I do not say it should . . . but Daemon Sand and this Santagar girl were both close to Prince Doran’s own daughter, Arianne, or so the Dornishmen would have us believe. Perhaps it means little or less, but I thought Your Grace should know.”
    â€œNow I do.” She was losing patience. “Do you have more?”
    â€œOne more thing. A trifling matter.” He gave her an apologetic smile and told her of a puppet show that had recently become popular amongst the city’s smallfolk; a puppet show wherein the kingdom of the beasts was ruled by a pride of haughty lions. “The puppet lions grow greedy and arrogant as this treasonous tale proceeds, until they begin to devour their own subjects. When the noble stag makes objection, the lions devour him as well, and roar that it is their right as the mightiest of beasts.”
    â€œAnd is that the end of it?” Cersei asked, amused. Looked at in the right light, it could be seen as a salutary lesson.
    â€œNo, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions.”
    The ending took the puppet show from simple insolence to treason. “Witless fools. Only cretins would hazard their heads upon a wooden dragon.” She considered a moment. “Send some of your whisperers to these shows and make note of who attends. If any of them should be men of note, I would know their names.”
    â€œWhat will be done with them, if I may be so bold?”
    â€œAny men of substance shall be fined. Half their worth should be sufficient to teach them a sharp lesson and refill our coffers, without quite ruining them. Those too poor to pay can lose an eye, for watching treason. For the puppeteers, the axe.”
    â€œThere are four. Perhaps Your Grace might allow me two of them for mine own purposes. A woman would be especially . . .”
    â€œI gave you Senelle,” the queen said sharply.
    â€œAlas. The poor girl is quite . . . exhausted.”
    Cersei did not like to think about that. The girl had come with her unsuspecting, thinking she was along to serve and pour. Even when Qyburn clapped the chain around her wrist, she had not seemed to understand. The memory still made the queen queasy.
The cells were bitter cold. Even the torches shivered. And that foul thing screaming in the darkness . . . “
Yes, you may take a woman. Two, if it please you. But first I will have names.”
    â€œAs you command.” Qyburn withdrew.
    Outside, the sun was setting. Dorcas had prepared a bath for her. The queen was soaking pleasantly in the warm water and contemplating what she would say to her supper guests when Jaime came bursting through the door and ordered Jocelyn and Dorcas from the room. Her brother looked rather less than immaculate and had a smell of horse about him. He had Tommen with him too. “Sweet sister,” he said, “the king requires a word.”
    Cersei’s golden tresses floated in the bathwater. The room was steamy. A drop of sweat trickled down her cheek. “Tommen?” she said, in a dangerously soft voice. “What is it now?”
    The boy knew that tone. He shrank back.
    â€œHis Grace wants his white courser on the morrow,” Jaime said. “For his jousting lesson.”
    She sat up in the tub. “There will be no jousting.”
    â€œYes, there will.” Tommen puffed out his lower lip. “I have to ride
every day.
”
    â€œAnd you shall,” the queen declared, “once we have a proper master-at-arms to supervise your training.”
    â€œI don’t
want
a proper master-at-arms. I want Ser Loras.”
    â€œYou make too much of that boy. Your little wife has filled your head with foolish notions of his prowess, I know, but Osmund Kettleblack is thrice the knight that Loras is.”
    Jaime laughed.