Chương 26: Chapter 27: The Lioness

Cersei Lannister's POV The chill in Winterfell's halls seeped into my bones like poison, no matter how many furs I wrapped around myself, or how many of their so-called warm pipes ran through the walls. These Northern savages called it home, but to me it was a barbaric pile of stone, fit for wolves and worse. I'd expected a keep. What I'd found was a glorified masterwork castle — big, sure, but dressed up in old bones and older superstition — and I meant to endure it for as few days as duty allowed.

I sought out Lady Catelyn in her solar first, as my duty for appearances that a lion had to play such games for sheep dulled me, but it would kill some boredom; my steps measured perfectly, my smile a mask of courtly grace. As I entered, she rose to greet me, auburn hair neatly bound, her face all polite grace; she was a pretty fish, but a fish all the same. A Tully trout swimming in Stark waters — how quaint, for a house so overreaching.

"Lady Catelyn," I said, settling into a chair by the hearth. The fire did little to warm me.

"I've heard the most curious rumors since our arrival. Grumpkins, and… giants, they say, wandering south of the Wall. Surely such tales are mere peasant fancy?" Her eyes flickered, though she smiled smoothly enough, folding her hands in her lap.

"The North clings to its old superstitions, Your Grace, more than the other realms do. Stories to frighten children by the fire, nothing more. It even took me some time myself, getting used to their version of things." I arched an eyebrow, letting a hint of disdain curl my lips.

"How charming. And now my daughter might be left lingering in this monstrous keep? Winterfell may suit your ways, but a princess deserves better than frozen towers and wild tales." Catelyn's expression stayed serene, though I caught the slight tightening of her jaw.

"Myrcella will be treated with the utmost respect, Your Grace. Robb's a dutiful son, and I'll guide her myself in the duties of a lady here. She'll learn what it means to hold Winterfell one day." I snorted, unable to help myself. This river woman, teaching a Lannister? A princess?

"I'm sure your guidance will be… adequate." The words dripped with just enough venom to sting, without quite giving outright offense. Leaving her solar, my mind churned and turned until it fell on Robb Stark — that hulking brute who'd dared tie, and tried to embarrass my Jaime in the yard, the very afternoon we'd arrived. I hadn't seen it myself, having been occupied settling Myrcella and Tommen into their rooms, but the whole castle buzzed with it before the sun had even set.

I'd caught the tail end from my Imp of a brother with his recounting of — Jaime, sweat-soaked and grinning through gritted teeth, with the Stark boy circling him with an ease that had no business belonging to a lad his age. A true savage, nothing more, I bet, yet the sheep out there called it a match, as if some wolf pup could truly equal my golden brother, the finest sword in the realm. It was an insult, a stain on Lannister pride.

My Joff would never need to fight his kind — his auburn curls and boyish charm did hide a charm I would give him credit for. Yet still, how dare this Stark boy stand as anyone's equal? It galled me, the way it elevated the Starks, let them believe they stood on our footing, that we were anything close to the same. I held my tongue, kept my rage to a few snide barbs, but inside, I seethed.

I found Jaime later, in the small guest solar we'd claimed for our own, nursing a cup of wine and a bruise along his forearm he tried, badly, to hide from me. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"You're limping," I said, shutting the door behind me.

"I'm walking exactly as I intend to walk." He didn't look up from the cup.

"The whole castle's talking about it. My sweet brother, tied with a Northern boy who hasn't yet had his first proper beard." That got his eyes up, at least, a flicker of something behind the practiced ease he always wore for me.

"He's fast and strong, Cersei. Faster than most men his size — better than half the knights I've faced or sparred with in the Kingsguard, grown men twice his years. I don't know what they're feeding him up here, but it isn't mutton and turnips."

"Don't tell me you're impressed."

"Never, sweet sister. I'm just cautious," he said, and that, from Jaime, was as good as an admission.

"A boy who fights like that, and thinks as clearly as this whole household's praise of him suggests, is worth watching. Not fearing. Just watching." I didn't like the careful way he said it, as if measuring a new sparring partner rather than dismissing an upstart wolf where he belonged.

"He's a Northern lordling with delusions bred into him by an overindulgent father. Nothing more." Jaime only smiled into his cup and said nothing further, which irritated me more than any argument could have. That evening's feast did little to improve my humor. I sat beside Robert as he grew louder and redder with each cup, recounting his rebellion to anyone fool enough to be still listening, one meaty hand finding some serving girl's waist while he thought I wasn't watching. I was always watching.

I simply no longer cared enough to make a scene of it in front of these Northern dogs, who'd only have gossiped about it for a fortnight besides. Sansa Stark I found tolerable enough — pretty in the vague, unfinished way young girls sometimes are before they learn what beauty actually costs a woman, eager to please, easily flattered. Joffrey would break her sweetness soon enough, I imagined, the way he broke most things given time.

Arya, the younger one, I found no use for at all — a grubby, restless creature who looked as if she'd rather be mucking out a stable than sitting at a royal table, which said everything one needed to know about how loosely Catelyn Tully held her own household. And then there was Robb Stark himself, bowing over my hand with a courtesy that felt, infuriatingly and entirely, genuine rather than performed.

Most lordlings his age fumbled through such courtesies like a dog walking on its hind legs, proud simply to have managed the trick in front of me. This one wore it like a man twice his years, and something in his blue-grey eyes lingered a moment too long when he looked at me, before turning to Myrcella and taking her hand as well — assessing, not admiring. I filed that away too. I file everything away, eventually.

When Robert stood to announce the betrothals — Myrcella to this Stark whelp, Sansa to my own perfect Joffrey — the hall erupted in the kind of braying cheer only Northmen seemed capable of, half of them already deep in their cups. I smiled through it, because a queen learns to smile through anything, but my mind was already elsewhere, turning the arrangement over from every angle I could find. Myrcella had to have been the Stark boys' own suggestion, since Catelyn hardly seemed the sort to think of it unprompted.

He wanted my daughter here, under his roof, under his eye, and he'd shaped the whole negotiation to ensure it. I was fairly certain the wolf pup wanted a lion for a wife, chiefly to raise his own standing, I bet — no doubt he thought me too foolish a woman to see through it, the way men so rarely used their heads when sizing up mine. Robert saw a fine match and a flattered old friend. Ned Stark, I was fairly certain, saw exactly what his son wanted him to see. I intended to see more than either of them.

Let the Northern heir think he could rise so high. I had yet to put him in his place.