As she made her way through the ragged throng, past their cookfires, wagons, and crude shelters, the queen found herself remembering another crowd that had once gathered on this plaza. The day she wed Robert Baratheon, thousands had turned out to cheer for them. All the women wore their best, and half the men had children on their shoulders. When she had emerged from inside the sept, hand in hand with the young king, the crowd sent up a roar so loud it could be heard in Lannisport. “They like you well, my lady,” Robert whispered in her ear. “See, every face is smiling.” For that one short moment she had been happy in her marriage. until she chanced to glance at Jaime. No, she remembered thinking, not every face, my lord.
No one was smiling now. The looks the sparrows gave her were dull, sullen, hostile. They made way but reluctantly. If they were truly sparrows, a shout would send them flying. A hundred gold cloaks with staves and swords and maces could clear this rabble quick enough. That was what Lord Tywin would have done. He would have ridden over them instead of walking through.
When she saw what they had done to Baelor the Beloved, the queen had cause to rue her soft heart. The great marble statue that had smiled serenely over the plaza for a hundred years was waist-deep in a heap of bones and skulls. Some of the skulls had scraps of flesh still clinging to them. A crow sat atop one such, enjoying a dry, leathery feast. Flies were everywhere. “What is the meaning of this?” Cersei demanded of the crowd. “Do you mean to bury Blessed Baelor in a mountain of carrion?”
A one-legged man stepped forward, leaning on a wooden crutch. “Your Grace, these are the bones of holy men and women, murdered for their faith. Septons, septas, brothers brown and dun and green, sisters white and blue and grey. Some were hanged, some disemboweled. Septs have been despoiled, maidens and mothers raped by godless men and demon worshipers. Even silent sisters have been molested. The Mother Above cries out in her anguish. We have brought their bones here from all over the realm, to bear witness to the agony of the Holy Faith.”
Cersei could feel the weight of eyes upon her. “The king shall know of these atrocities,” she answered solemnly. “Tommen will share your outrage. This is the work of Stannis and his red witch, and the savage northmen who worship trees and wolves.” She raised her voice. “Good people, your dead shall be avenged!”
A few cheered, but only a few. “We ask no vengeance for our dead,” said the one-legged man, “only protection for the living. For the septs and holy places.”
“The Iron Throne must defend the Faith,” growled a hulking lout with a seven-pointed star painted on his brow. “A king who does not protect his people is no king at all.” Mutters of assent went up from those around him. One man had the temerity to grasp Ser Meryn by the wrist, and say, “It is time for all anointed knights to forsake their worldly masters and defend our Holy Faith. Stand with us, ser, if you love the Seven.”
“Unhand me,” said Ser Meryn, wrenching free.
“I hear you,” Cersei said. “My son is young, but he loves the Seven well. You shall have his protection, and mine own.”
The man with the star upon his brow was not appeased. “The Warrior will defend us,” he said, “not this fat boy king.”
Meryn Trant reached for his sword, but Cersei stopped him before he could unsheathe it. She had only two knights amidst a sea of sparrows. She saw staves and scythes, cudgels and clubs, several axes. “I will have no blood shed in this holy place, ser.” Why are all men such children? Cut him down, and the rest will tear us limb from limb. “We are all the Mother’s children. Come, His High Holiness awaits us.” But as she made her way through the press to the steps of the sept, a gaggle of armed men stepped out to block the doors. They wore mail and boiled leather, with here and there a bit of dinted plate. Some had spears and some had longswords. More favored axes, and had sewn red stars upon their bleached white surcoats. Two had the insolence to cross their spears and bar her way.
“Is this how you receive your queen?” she demanded of them. “Pray, where are Raynard and Torbert?” It was not like those two to miss a chance to fawn on her. Torbert always made a show of getting down on his knees to wash her feet.
“I do not know the men you speak of,” said one of the men with a red star on his surcoat, “but if they are of the Faith, no doubt the Seven had need of their service.”
“Septon Raynard and Septon Torbert are of the Most Devout, ” Cersei said, “and will be furious to learn that you obstructed me. Do you mean to deny me entrance to Baelor’s holy sept?”
“Your Grace,” said a greybeard with a stooped shoulder. “You are welcome here, but your men must leave their swordbelts. No weapons are allowed within, by command of the High Septon.”
“Knights of the Kingsguard do not set aside their swords, not even in the presence of the king.”
“In the king’s house, the king’s word must rule,” replied the aged knight, “but this is the house of the gods.”
Color rose to her cheeks. One word to Meryn Trant, and the stoop-backed greybeard would be meeting his gods sooner than he might have liked. Not here, though. Not now. “Wait for me,” she told the Kingsguard curtly. Alone, she climbed the steps. The spearmen uncrossed their spears. Two other men put their weight against the doors, and with a great groan they swung apart.
In the Hall of Lamps, Cersei found a score of septons on their knees, but not in prayer. They had pails of soap and water, and were scrubbing at the floor. Their roughspun robes and sandals led Cersei to take them for sparrows, until one raised his head. His face was red as a beet, and there were broken blisters on his hands, bleeding. “Your Grace.”
“Septon Raynard?” The queen could scarce believe what she was seeing. “What are you doing on your knees?”
“He is cleaning the floor.” The speaker was shorter than the queen by several inches and as thin as a broom handle. “Work is a form of prayer, most pleasing to the Smith.” He stood, scrub brush in hand. “Your Grace. We have been expecting you.”
The man’s beard was grey and brown and closely trimmed, his hair tied up in a hard knot behind his head. Though his robes were clean, they were frayed and patched as well. He had rolled his sleeves up his elbows as he scrubbed, but below the knees the cloth was soaked and sodden. His face was sharply pointed, with deep-set eyes as brown as mud. His feet are bare, she saw with dismay. They were hideous as well, hard and horny things, thick with callus. “You are His High Holiness?”
“We are.”
Father, give me strength. The queen knew that she should kneel, but the floor was wet with soap and dirty water and she did not wish to ruin her gown. She glanced over at the old men on their knees. “I do not see my friend Septon Torbert.”
“Septon Torbert has been confined to a penitent’s cell on bread and water. It is sinful for any man to be so plump when half the realm is starving.”
Cersei had suffered quite enough for one day. She let him see her anger. “Is this how you greet me? With a scrub brush in your hand, dripping water? Do you know who I am?”
“Your Grace is the Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms,” the man said, “but in The Seven-Pointed Star it is written that as men bow to their lords, and lords to their kings, so kings and queens must bow before the Seven Who Are One.”
Is he telling me to kneel? If so, he did not know her very well. “By rights you should have met me on the steps in your finest robes, with the crystal crown upon your head.”
“We have no crown, Your Grace.”
Her frown deepened. “My lord father gave your predecessor a crown of rare beauty, wrought in crystal and spun gold.”