A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

reluctantly agreed to honor his sister instead.
    â€œIf this ragged septon thinks to make me
buy
Tommen’s blessing, he will soon learn better,” she told Taena. The queen did not intend to truckle to a pack of priests.
    The litter halted yet again, so suddenly that Cersei jerked. “Oh, this is infuriating.” She leaned out once more, and saw that they had reached the top of Visenya’s Hill. Ahead loomed the Great Sept of Baelor, with its magnificent dome and seven shining towers, but between her and the marble steps lay a sullen sea of humanity, brown and ragged and unwashed.
Sparrows,
she thought, sniffing, though no sparrows had ever smelled so rank.
    Cersei was appalled. Qyburn had brought her reports of their numbers, but hearing about them was one thing and seeing them another. Hundreds were encamped upon the plaza, hundreds more in the gardens. Their cookfires filled the air with smoke and stinks. Roughspun tents and miserable hovels made of mud and scrap wood besmirched the pristine white marble. They were even huddled on the steps, beneath the Great Sept’s towering doors.
    Ser Osmund came trotting back to her. Beside him rode Ser Osfryd, mounted on a stallion as golden as his cloak. Osfryd was the middle Kettleblack, quieter than his siblings, more apt to scowl than smile.
And crueler as well, if the tales are true. Perhaps I should have sent him to the Wall.
    Grand Maester Pycelle had wanted an older man “more seasoned in the ways of war” to command the gold cloaks, and several of her other councillors had agreed with him. “Ser Osfryd is seasoned quite sufficiently,” she had told them, but even that did not shut them up.
They yap at me like a pack of small, annoying dogs.
Her patience with Pycelle had all but run its course. He had even had the temerity to object to her sending to Dorne for a master-at-arms, on the grounds that it might offend the Tyrells. “Why do you think I’m
doing
it?” she had asked him scornfully.
    â€œBeg pardon, Your Grace,” said Ser Osmund. “My brother’s summoning more gold cloaks. We’ll clear a path, never fear.”
    â€œI do not have the time. I will continue on afoot.”
    â€œPlease, Your Grace.” Taena caught her arm. “They frighten me. There are hundreds of them, and so dirty.”
    Cersei kissed her cheek. “The lion does not fear the sparrow . . . but it is good of you to care. I know you love me well, my lady. Ser Osmund, kindly help me down.”
    If I had known I was going to have to walk, I would have dressed for it.
She wore a white gown slashed with cloth-of-gold, lacy but demure. It had been several years since the last time she had donned it, and the queen found it uncomfortably tight about the middle. “Ser Osmund, Ser Meryn, you will accompany me. Ser Osfryd, see that my litter comes to no harm.” Some of the sparrows looked gaunt and hollow-eyed enough to eat her horses.
    As she made her way through the ragged throng, past their cookfires, wagons, and crude shelters, the queen found herself remembering another crowd that had once gathered on this plaza. The day she wed Robert Baratheon, thousands had turned out to cheer for them. All the women wore their best, and half the men had children on their shoulders. When she had emerged from inside the sept, hand in hand with the young king, the crowd sent up a roar so loud it could be heard in Lannisport. “They like you well, my lady,” Robert whispered in her ear. “See, every face is smiling.” For that one short moment she had been happy in her marriage . . . until she chanced to glance at Jaime.
No
, she remembered thinking,
not every face, my lord.
    No one was smiling now. The looks the sparrows gave her were dull, sullen, hostile. They made way but reluctantly.
If they were truly sparrows, a shout would send them flying. A hundred gold cloaks with staves and swords and maces could clear this rabble quick enough.
That was what Lord Tywin would have done.
He would have ridden over them instead of walking through.
    When she saw what they had done to Baelor the Beloved, the queen had cause to rue her soft heart. The great marble statue that had smiled serenely over the plaza for a hundred years was waist-deep in a heap of bones and skulls. Some of the skulls had scraps of flesh still clinging to them. A crow sat atop one such, enjoying a dry, leathery feast. Flies were everywhere.