Taena laughed. "My husband is more comforting than exciting, this much is true. Yet, and I hope Your Grace will not think less of me for saying so, I did not come quite a maid to his bed."
You are all whores in the Free Cities, Cersei thought, aren't you?
...
"And pray tell," she said, "who was this... lover?"
Taena's dark skin turned darker as she blushed. "Oh, I should not have said. Your Grace will keep my secret, yes?"
I will have his name from you soon enough. "Men have scars," she reached over to kiss her cheek, "women have mysteries."
When Dorcas returned with Ser Osney, Cersei saw fit to dismiss her ladies.
"Come sit with me by the window," she beckoned. "Will you take a cup of wine?" She tutted, "Your cloak is threadbare. I have a mind to put you in a new one."
"What, a white one?"
"Is that your wish?" she asked him. "To join your brother Osmund on the Kingsguard?"
"I'd rather be on the queen's guard," he said, waggling his eyebrows and breaking out into a grin, "Your Grace."
"You have a bold tongue, ser," she said as she caressed his cheek. "You will make me forget myself again."
"Good," Osney grabbed her fingers roughly and kissed them.
"You are a wicked man," she said into his ear, her voice a husky whisper, "and no true knight, I think." She let him touch her breasts through her gown, and then feel his way up to her bare skin.
If only Jaime could see this, she thought, he'd rip you in two. And then he'd rip me in two... It had been so long since they had last been together. She was almost tempted to just give in.
"Enough," she finally commanded.
"It isn't," he said. "I want you."
"You've had me."
"Only once." He grabbed her breast and gave it a hard squeeze that reminded her of Robert. Cersei felt herself become vaguely disgusted with him.
"One good night for one good knight," she said, making sure to keep her voice sweet. "You did me valiant service, and you had your reward." Against her hip, she could feel him hardening under his breeches. She gave him a coy smile and quick squeeze. "Tell me," she asked, "do you think our little queen is pretty?"
Ser Osney stiffened and drew back, wary. "For a girl, I suppose," he cautiously ventured. "I'd sooner have a woman. Like you."
"Why not both?" she leaned over and whispered, hand sliding down his chest. "Pluck the little rose for me, and I won't be ungrateful."
"... Margaery, you mean?" In spite her efforts, his passion was beginning to wilt. "She's the King's wife. Wasn't there a Kingsguard who lost his head for bedding the King's wife?"
"Ages ago," she assured him. His mistress, not his wife. And he didn't just lose his head. Aegon tore him apart piece by piece, and made the woman watch. Cersei did not want Osney dwelling on that, however. "Have no fear, he will do as I bid," she lied. "And Tommen is no Aegon the Unworthy. I mean for Margaery to lose her head, not you."
That gave him pause.
"Unless you think Margaery would prove unresponsive to your..." she squeezed his crotch slightly, "charms?"
Osney looked down and then looked back up at her with a wounded expression. "She likes me well enough."
"Well, there you are then."
"There I am," he agreed, tone doubtful, "but where am I going to be after... I mean...if we...?"
Cersei gave him a barbed smile. "Lying with the queen is treason. Tommen would have no choice but to send you to the Wall." It was all she could do not to laugh as he balked at her. Best not. Men, especially the prideful lot like him, hate being laughed at. "A black cloak would go well with your hair."
"No one returns from the Wall," he said.
"You will. All you need to do is kill a boy."
Kettleblack was afraid, she could smell it on him, but he was too proud to back down. They're all alike, aren't they? "What boy?"
"A bastard," she said, "in league with Stannis Baratheon. You'll have a hundred men by your side."
"And once this boy is dead, I'll get my pardon?"
"And a lordship." Unless Snow's brothers hang you first. "A queen must have a consort."
"Lord Kettleblack..." He rolled the words around his mouth. "Aye, I like the sound of that. A lordly lord..."
"...fit to bed a queen."
"Fit to bed two queens." Osney grinned. "I'm your man."
She put her arms around his neck. "You are, ser." She kissed him fully, letting him have a little tongue before she pushed him away.
After he was gone, Cersei had Jocelyn brush out her hair whilst she readied herself for bed and stretched and luxuriated like a cat. It's genius, she told herself. Not even Mace Tyrell would defend his daughter abed with another man, much less with the likes of Osney Kettleblack. Neither Stannis nor Snow would have any cause to wonder for Osney's crime, nor any reason for suspicion till the moment he slipped a blade betwixt their ribs.
Father will approve, she told herself, it was his suggestion in the first place, after all. And Tommen's defiance will end here. It was good of him to put me back on his council, but he must know his place till he turns of age.
Dreams or no, I am still the queen.
Cersei summoned Taena to her bedchambers that night. "On the morrow," she said, "I want you to pay a visit to my good-daughter."
"Lady Margaery is always happy to see me."
Cersei smiled. "I know. Tell her that she has a secret admirer, a knight so smitten with her beauty he cannot sleep at night."
"Might I ask which one?" Taena asked, mischief sparkling in her eyes. "Could it be Ser Osney?"
"It may be," she shrugged, "but don't offer that name up freely. Make her draw it out from you."
"Yes, Your Grace," Taena said. "If it please you."
Cersei smiled and poured her a cup of wine. They stayed up late into the night, trading stories. Taena became quite drunk, and as she had promised, Cersei prised the name of her lover from her lips.
"A hundred times I told him no," she said, "and he said yes. Until finally I was saying yes as well. He was not the sort to be denied."
"I know the sort," Cersei said, thinking of Jaime in all his glory, as he had once been.
"Who?"
"Robert," she lied.
...
( Victarion POV )
"The king is dead!" his brother's drowned men intoned.
"Balon is dead," Aeron Damphair continued, his hair wet and claggy with seawater. "Balon my brother, who honoured the Old Way and paid the Iron Price! Balon the Brave, Balon the Blessed, Balon Twice-Crowned, who won us back our freedoms and our god. Balon is dead... but an iron king will rise again, to rule the isles. For what is dead may never die!"
"What is dead may never die!" the drowned men again intoned, their voices discordant and clanging in his ears, but still fervent and eager. "A king shall rise! A king shall rise!"
The crashing of the waves answered their chants. Victarion watched as the drowned men quieted, watching the waves roll and crash and lap at the rocks below. All around him, the crowd seemed to jostle and stir, each man looking to their neighbours to see which one of them might presume to chance a claim on the Seastone Chair.
Victarion watched from the corner of his eye as Euron stood silent with his arms crossed, flanked by his mutes and monkeys and monsters. Go on, Victarion silently urged. But Euron did not speak, no doubt in the knowledge that as these captains had all come this long way to this feast and would not choose the first dish set before them. Go on, Victarion again thought, his gaze acerbic, claim the throne like you claimed my wife. She won't come so easy to you this time.
But only the winds and waves answered Aeron's call, and Euron stayed silent. "The Ironborn must have a king," Aeron declared. "So I ask again: Who shall be king?"
"Me!" a deep voice boomed, and the crowd parted. He was a great old ruin of a man, ninety-years old and fat. He wore a cloak of white bearskin, like the last few strands of hair on his head and the great shaggy beard that fell down to his knees. He sat in a driftwood throne, carried up the hill by his grandsons, all of whom were made red-faced by the effort.
Forty years ago he might have been a threat, Victarion thought, but his best days are all long past.
...
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