A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

raven. The ironmen had not been content with their new rocks, it seemed. They were raiding up the Mander in strength, and had gone so far as to attack the Arbor and the smaller islands that surrounded it. The Redwynes had kept no more than a dozen warships in their home waters, and all those had been overwhelmed, taken, or sunk. And now there were reports that this madman who called himself Euron Crow’s Eye was even sending longships up Whispering Sound toward Oldtown.
    â€œLord Paxter was taking on provisions for the voyage home when
Sweet Cersei
raised sail,” Lord Waters reported. “I would imagine that by now his main fleet has put to sea.”
    â€œLet us hope they enjoy a swift voyage, and better weather than today.” The queen drew Waters down into the window seat beside her. “Do we have Ser Loras to thank for this triumph?”
    His smile vanished. “Some will say so, Your Grace.”
    â€œSome?” She gave him a quizzical look. “Not you?”
    â€œI never saw a braver knight,” Waters said, “but he turned what could have been a bloodless victory into a slaughter. A thousand men are dead, or near enough to make no matter. Most of them our own. And not just common men, Your Grace, but knights and young lords, the best and the bravest.”
    â€œAnd Ser Loras himself?”
    â€œHe will make a thousand and one. They carried him inside the castle after the battle, but his wounds are grievous. He has lost so much blood that the maesters will not even leech him.”
    â€œOh, how sad. Tommen will be heartbroken. He did so admire our gallant Knight of Flowers.”
    â€œThe smallfolk too,” her admiral said. “We’ll have maidens weeping into their wine all across the realm when Loras dies.”
    He was not wrong, the queen knew. Three thousand smallfolk had crowded through the Mud Gate to see Ser Loras off the day he sailed, and three of every four were women. The sight had only served to fill her with contempt. She had wanted to scream at them that they were sheep, to tell them that all that they could ever hope to get from Loras Tyrell was a smile and a flower. Instead she had proclaimed him the boldest knight in the Seven Kingdoms, and smiled as Tommen presented him with a jeweled sword to carry into battle. The king had given him a hug as well, which had not been part of Cersei’s plans, but it made no matter now. She could afford to be generous. Loras Tyrell was dying.
    â€œTell me,” Cersei commanded. “I want to know all of it, from the beginning to the end.”
    The room had grown dark by the time that he was done. The queen lit some candles and sent Dorcas to the kitchens to bring them up some bread and cheese and a bit of boiled beef with horseradish. As they supped, she bid Aurane to tell the tale again, so she would remember all the details correctly. “I do not want our precious Margaery to hear these tidings from a stranger, after all,” she said. “I will tell her myself.”
    â€œYour Grace is kind,” said Waters with a smile.
A wicked smile,
the queen thought. Aurane did not resemble Prince Rhaegar as much as she had thought.
He has the hair, but so do half the whores in Lys, if the tales are true. Rhaegar was a man. This is a sly boy, no more. Useful in his way, though.
    Margaery was in the Maidenvault, sipping wine and trying to puzzle out some new game from Volantis with her three cousins. Though the hour was late, the guards admitted Cersei at once. “Your Grace,” she began, “it is best you hear the news from me. Aurane is back from Dragonstone. Your brother is a hero.”
    â€œI always knew he was.” Margaery did not seem surprised.
Why should she? She expected this, from the moment Loras begged for the command.
Yet by the time Cersei had finished with her tale, tears glistened on the cheeks of the younger queen. “Redwyne had miners working to drive a tunnel underneath the castle walls, but that was too slow for the Knight of Flowers. No doubt he was thinking of your lord father’s people suffering on the Shields. Lord Waters says he ordered the assault not half a day after taking command, after Lord Stannis’s castellan refused his offer to settle the siege between them in single combat. Loras was the first one through the breach when the ram broke the castle gates. He rode straight into the dragon’s mouth, they say, all in white and