A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

first time. “No. Not him. Get him away from me.”
    â€œWhy, it’s just a song,” said Jaime. “He cannot have
that
bad a voice.”

CERSEI
    G rand Maester Pycelle had been old for as long as she had known him, but he seemed to have aged another hundred years in the past three nights. It took him an eternity to bend his creaky knee before her, and once he had he could not rise again until Ser Osmund jerked him to his feet.
    Cersei studied him with displeasure. “Lord Qyburn informs me that Lord Gyles has coughed his last.”
    â€œYes, Your Grace. I did my best to ease his passing.”
    â€œDid you?” The queen turned to Lady Merryweather. “I
did
say I wanted Rosby alive, did I not?”
    â€œYou did, Your Grace.”
    â€œSer Osmund, what is your recollection of the conversation?”
    â€œYou commanded Grand Maester Pycelle to save the man, Your Grace. We all heard.”
    Pycelle’s mouth opened and closed. “Your Grace must know, I did all that could be done for the poor man.”
    â€œAs you did for Joffrey? And his father, my own beloved husband? Robert was as strong as any man in the Seven Kingdoms, yet you lost him to a boar. Oh, and let us not forget Jon Arryn. No doubt you would have killed Ned Stark as well, if I had let you keep him longer. Tell me, maester, was it at the Citadel that you learned to wring your hands and make excuses?”
    Her voice made the old man flinch. “No man could have done more, Your Grace. I . . . I have always given leal service.”
    â€œWhen you counseled King Aerys to open his gates as my father’s host approached, was that your notion of leal service?”
    â€œThat . . . I misjudged the . . .”
    â€œWas that good counsel?”
    â€œYour Grace must surely know . . .”
    â€œWhat I
know
is that when my son was poisoned you proved to be of less use than Moon Boy. What I
know
is that the crown has desperate need of gold, and our lord treasurer is dead.”
    The old fool seized upon that. “I . . . I shall draw up a list of men suitable to take Lord Gyles’s place upon the council.”
    â€œA list.” Cersei was amused by his presumption. “I can well imagine the sort of list you would provide me. Greybeards and grasping fools and Garth the Gross.” Her lips tightened. “You have been much in Lady Margaery’s company of late.”
    â€œYes. Yes, I . . . Queen Margaery has been most distraught about Ser Loras. I provide Her Grace with sleeping draughts and . . . other sorts of potions.”
    â€œNo doubt. Tell me, was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?”
    â€œK-kill?” Grand Maester Pycelle’s eyes grew as big as boiled eggs. “Your Grace cannot believe . . . it was his cough, by all the gods, I . . . Her Grace would not . . . she bore Lord Gyles no ill will, why would Queen Margaery want him . . .”
    â€œ. . . dead? Why, to plant another rose on Tommen’s council. Are you blind or bought? Rosby stood in her way, so she put him in his grave. With your connivance.”
    â€œYour Grace, I swear to you, Lord Gyles perished from his cough.” His mouth was quivering. “My loyalty has always been to the crown, to the realm . . . t-to House Lannister.”
    In that order?
Pycelle’s fear was palpable.
He is ripe enough. Time to squeeze the fruit and taste the juice.
“If you are as leal as you claim, why are you lying to me? Do not trouble to deny it. You began to dance attendance on Maid Margaery
before
Ser Loras went to Dragonstone, so spare me further fables about how you want only to console our good-daughter in her grief. What brings you to the Maidenvault so often? Not Margaery’s vapid conversation, surely? Are you courting that pox-faced septa of hers? Diddling little Lady Bulwer? Do you play the spy for her, informing on me to serve her plots?”
    â€œI . . . I obey. A maester takes an oath of service . . .”
    â€œA grand maester swears to serve the
realm.
”
    â€œYour Grace, she . . . she is the queen . . .”
    â€œ
I
am the queen.”
    â€œI meant . . . she is the king’s wife, and . . .”
    â€œI know who she is. What I want to know is why she has need of
you.
Is my good-daughter unwell?”
    â€œUnwell?” The old man plucked at the thing he called a beard, that patched growth of thin white hair sprouting from the loose pink