A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

“My friends, I put my honor in your hands . . . but what is a queen’s honor against a mother’s fears?”
    â€œSay on, Your Grace,” Ser Balman assured her. “Your words shall ne’er leave this room.”
    Cersei reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “I . . . I would sleep more easily of a night if I were to hear that Ser Bronn had suffered a . . . a mishap . . . whilst hunting, perhaps.”
    Ser Balman considered a moment. “A
mortal
mishap?”
    No, I desire you to break his little toe.
She had to bite her lip.
My enemies are everywhere and my friends are fools.
“I beg you, ser,” she whispered, “do not make me say it . . .”
    â€œI understand.” Ser Balman raised a finger.
    A turnip would have grasped it quicker.
“You are a true knight indeed, ser. The answer to a frightened mother’s prayers.” Cersei kissed him. “Do it quickly, if you would. Bronn has only a few men about him now, but if we do not act, he will surely gather more.” She kissed Falyse. “I shall never forget this, my friends. My
true
friends of Stokeworth.
Proud to Be Faithful.
You have my word, we shall find Lollys a better husband when this is done.”
A Kettleblack, perhaps.
“We Lannisters pay our debts.”
    The rest was hippocras and buttered beets, hot-baked bread, herb-crusted pike, and ribs of wild boar. Cersei had become very fond of boar since Robert’s death. She did not even mind the company, though Falyse simpered and Balman preened from soup to sweet. It was past midnight before she could rid herself of them. Ser Balman proved a great one for suggesting yet another flagon, and the queen did not think it prudent to refuse.
I could have hired a Faceless Man to kill Bronn for half of what I’ve spent on hippocras,
she reflected when they were gone at last.
    At that hour, her son was fast asleep, but Cersei looked in upon him before seeking her own bed. She was surprised to find three black kittens cuddled up beside him. “Where did those come from?” she asked Ser Meryn Trant, outside the royal bedchamber.
    â€œThe little queen gave them to him. She only meant to give him one, but he couldn’t decide which one he liked the best.”
    Better than cutting them out of their mother with a dagger, I suppose.
Margaery’s clumsy attempts at seduction were so obvious as to be laughable.
Tommen is too young for kisses, so she gives him kittens.
Cersei rather wished they were not black, though. Black cats brought ill luck, as Rhaegar’s little girl had discovered in this very castle.
She would have been my daughter, if the Mad King had not played his cruel jape on Father.
It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin’s daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.
    The memory of the rejection still rankled, even after all these years. Many a night she had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful?
He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods.
When she was just a little girl, her father had promised her that she would marry Rhaegar. She could not have been more than six or seven. “Never speak of it, child,” he had told her, smiling his secret smile that only Cersei ever saw. “Not until His Grace agrees to the betrothal. It must remain our secret for now.” And so it had, though once she had drawn a picture of herself flying behind Rhaegar on a dragon, her arms wrapped tight about his chest. When Jaime had discovered it she told him it was Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys.
    She was ten when she finally saw her prince in the flesh, at the tourney her lord father had thrown to welcome King Aerys to the west. Viewing stands had been raised beneath the walls of Lannisport, and the cheers of the smallfolk had echoed off Casterly Rock like rolling thunder.
They cheered Father twice as loudly as they cheered the king,
the queen recalled,
but only half as loudly as they cheered Prince Rhaegar.
    Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk had floated behind his helm, like flames. Two of her uncles