A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

a fresh cup of wine. “How safe do you think Myrcella will be if King’s
Landing falls? Renly and Stannis will mount her head beside yours.”
    And Cersei began to cry.
    Tyrion Lannister could not have been more astonished if Aegon the Conqueror
himself had burst into the room, riding on a dragon and juggling lemon pies. He
had not seen his sister weep since they were children together at Casterly
Rock. Awkwardly, he took a step toward her. When your sister cries, you were
supposed to comfort her . . . but this was
Cersei!
He
reached a tentative hand for her shoulder.
    â€œDon’t
touch
me,” she said, wrenching away. It should not have
hurt, yet it did, more than any slap. Red-faced, as angry as she was
grief-stricken, Cersei struggled for breath. “Don’t look at me,
not . . . not like this . . . not
you.
”
    Politely, Tyrion turned his back. “I did not mean to frighten you. I promise
you, nothing will happen to Myrcella.”
    â€œLiar,” she said behind him. “I’m not a child, to be soothed with empty
promises. You told me you would free Jaime too. Well, where is he?”
    â€œIn Riverrun, I should imagine. Safe and under guard, until I find a way
to free him.”
    Cersei sniffed. “I should have been born a man. I would have no need of any of
you then. None of this would have been allowed to happen. How could Jaime let
himself be captured by that
boy
? And Father, I trusted in him, fool that I am,
but where is he now that he’s wanted? What is he
doing
?”
    â€œMaking war.”
    â€œFrom behind the walls of Harrenhal?” she said scornfully. “A curious way of
fighting. It looks suspiciously like hiding.”
    â€œLook again.”
    â€œWhat else would you call it? Father sits in one castle, and Robb Stark sits
in another, and no one
does
anything.”
    â€œThere is sitting and there is sitting,” Tyrion suggested. “Each one waits
for the other to move, but the lion is still, poised, his tail twitching, while
the fawn is frozen by fear, bowels turned to jelly. No matter which way he
bounds, the lion will have him, and he knows it.”
    â€œAnd you’re
quite
certain that Father is the lion?”
    Tyrion grinned. “It’s on all our banners.”
    She ignored the jest. “If it was Father who’d been taken captive, Jaime would
not be sitting by idly, I promise you.”
    Jaime would be battering his host to bloody bits against the walls of
Riverrun, and the Others take their chances. He never did have any patience, no
more than you, sweet sister.
“Not all of us can be as bold as Jaime, but
there are other ways to win wars.

Harrenhal is strong and well situated.”
    â€œAnd King’s Landing is
not,
as we both know perfectly well. While
Father plays lion and fawn with the Stark boy, Renly marches up the roseroad.
He could be at our gates any day now!”
    â€œThe city will not fall in a day. From Harrenhal it is a straight, swift march
down the kingsroad. Renly will scarce have unlimbered his siege engines before
Father takes him in the rear. His host will be the hammer, the city walls the
anvil. It makes a lovely picture.”
    Cersei’s green eyes bored into him, wary, yet hungry for the reassurance he was
feeding her. “And if Robb Stark marches?”
    â€œHarrenhal is close enough to the fords of the Trident so that Roose Bolton
cannot bring the northern foot across to join with the Young Wolf’s horse.
Stark cannot march on King’s Landing without taking Harrenhal first, and even
with Bolton he is not strong enough to do that.” Tyrion tried his most winning
smile. “Meanwhile Father lives off the fat of the riverlands, while our uncle
Stafford gathers fresh levies at the Rock.”
    Cersei regarded him suspiciously. “How could you know all this? Did Father
tell you his intentions when he sent you here?”
    â€œNo. I glanced at a map.”
    Her look turned to disdain. “You’ve conjured up every word of this in that
grotesque head of yours, haven’t you, Imp?”
    Tyrion
tsk
ed. “Sweet sister, I ask you, if we weren’t winning, would
the Starks have sued for peace?” He drew out the letter that Ser Cleos Frey
had brought. “The Young Wolf has sent

us terms, you see. Unacceptable terms, to be sure, but still, a beginning.
Would you care to see