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could only mean that they were near the top of the hill. “You should bring this son of yours to court,” Cersei told Lady Merryweather. “Six is not too young. Tommen needs other boys about him. Why not your son?” Joffrey had never had a close friend of his own age, that she recalled.
The poor boy was always alone. I had Jaime when I was a child . . . and Melara, until she fell into the well.
Joff had been fond of the Hound, to be sure, but that was not friendship. He was looking for the father he never found in Robert.
A little foster brother might be just what Tommen needs to wean him away from Margaery and her hens.
In time they might grow as close as Robert and his boyhood friend Ned Stark.
A fool, but a loyal fool. Tommen will have need of loyal friends to watch his back.
    â€œYour Grace is kind, but Russell has never known any home but Longtable. I fear he would be lost in this great city.”
    â€œIn the beginning,” the queen allowed, “but he will soon outgrow that, as I did. When my father sent for me to court I wept and Jaime raged, until my aunt sat me down in the Stone Garden and told me there was no one in King’s Landing that I need ever fear. ‘You are a lioness,’ she said, ‘and it is for all the lesser beasts to fear you.’ Your son will find his courage too. Surely you would prefer to have him close at hand, where you could see him every day? He is your only child, is he not?”
    â€œFor the present. My lord husband has asked the gods to bless us with another son, in case . . .”
    â€œI know.” She thought of Joffrey, clawing at his neck. In his last moments he had looked to her in desperate appeal, and a sudden memory had stopped her heart; a drop of red blood hissing in a candle flame, a croaking voice that spoke of crowns and shrouds, of death at the hands of the
valonqar.
    Outside the litter, Ser Osmund was shouting something, and someone was shouting back. The litter jerked to a halt. “Are you all dead?” roared Kettleblack.
“Get out of the bloody way!”
    The queen pulled back a corner of the curtain and beckoned to Ser Meryn Trant. “What seems to be the trouble?”
    â€œThe sparrows, Your Grace.” Ser Meryn wore white scale armor beneath his cloak. His helm and shield were slung from his saddle. “Camping in the street. We’ll make them move.”
    â€œDo that, but gently. I do not care to be caught up in another riot.” Cersei let the curtain fall. “This is absurd.”
    â€œIt is, Your Grace,” Lady Merryweather agreed. “The High Septon should have come to you. And these wretched sparrows . . .”
    â€œHe feeds them, coddles them,
blesses
them. Yet will not bless the king.” The blessing was an empty ritual, she knew, but rituals and ceremonies had power in the eyes of the ignorant. Aegon the Conqueror himself had dated the start of his realm from the day the High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. “This wretched priest will obey, or learn how weak and human he still is.”
    â€œOrton says it is the gold he really wants. That he means to withhold his blessing until the crown resumes its payments.”
    â€œThe Faith will have its gold as soon as we have peace.” Septon Torbert and Septon Raynard had been most understanding of her plight . . . unlike the wretched Braavosi, who had hounded poor Lord Gyles so mercilessly that he had taken to his bed, coughing up blood.
We had to have those ships.
She could not rely upon the Arbor for her navy; the Redwynes were too close to the Tyrells. She needed her own strength at sea.
    The dromonds rising on the river would give her that. Her flagship would dip twice as many oars as
King Robert’s Hammer.
Aurane had asked her leave to name her
Lord Tywin,
which Cersei had been pleased to grant. She looked forward to hearing men speak of her father as a “she.” Another of the ships would be named
Sweet Cersei,
and would bear a gilded figurehead carved in her likeness, clad in mail and lion helm, with spear in hand.
Brave Joffrey, Lady Joanna,
and
Lioness
would follow her to sea, along with
Queen Margaery, Golden Rose, Lord Renly, Lady Olenna,
and
Princess Myrcella.
The queen had made the mistake of telling Tommen he might name the last five. He had actually chosen
Moon Boy
for one. Only when Lord Aurane suggested that men might not want to serve on a ship named for a fool had the boy