But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her. There was no pleasure in it, not for her. For Taena, yes. Her nipples were two black diamonds, her sex slick and steamy. Robert would have loved you, for an hour. The queen slid a finger into that Myrish swamp, then another, moving them in and out, but once he spent himself inside you, he would have been hard-pressed to recall your name.
She wanted to see if it would be as easy with a woman as it had always been with Robert. Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace, she thought, slipping a third finger into Myr. Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the darkness I would eat your heirs. Taena gave a shudder. She gasped some words in a foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed. She sounds as if she is being gored, the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her fingers were a bore’s tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat.
It was still no good.
It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime.
When she tried to take her hand away, Taena caught it and kissed her fingers. “Sweet queen, how shall I pleasure you?” She slid her hand down Cersei’s side and touched her sex. “Tell me what you would have of me, my love.”
“Leave me.” Cersei rolled away and pulled up the bedclothes to cover herself, shivering. Dawn was breaking. It would be morning soon, and all of this would be forgotten.
It had never happened.
JAIME
The trumpets made a brazen blare, and cut the still blue air of dusk. Josmyn Peckledon was on his feet at once, scrambling for his master’s swordbelt.
The boy has good instincts. “Outlaws don’t blow trumpets to herald their arrival,” Jaime told him. “I shan’t need my sword. That will be my cousin, the Warden of the West.”
The riders were dismounting when he emerged from his tent; half a dozen knights, and twoscore mounted archers and men-at-arms. “Jaime!” roared a shaggy man clad in gilded ringmail and a fox-fur cloak. “So gaunt, and all in white! And bearded too!”
“This? Mere stubble, against that mane of yours, coz.” Ser Daven’s bristling beard and bushy mustache grew into sidewhiskers as thick as a hedgerow, and those into the tangled yellow thicket atop his head, matted down by the helm he was removing. Somewhere in the midst of all that hair lurked a pug nose and a pair of lively hazel eyes. “Did some outlaw steal your razor?”
“I vowed I would not let my hair be cut until my father was avenged.” For a man who looked so leonine, Daven Lannister sounded oddly sheepish. “The Young Wolf got to Karstark first, though. Robbed me of my vengeance.” He handed his helm to a squire and pushed his fingers through his hair where the weight of the steel had crushed it down. “I like a bit of hair. The nights grow colder, and a little foliage helps to keep your face warm. Aye, and Aunt Genna always said I had a brick for a chin.” He clasped Jaime by the arms. “We feared for you after the Whispering Wood. Heard Stark’s direwolf tore out your throat.”
“Did you weep bitter tears for me, coz?”
“Half of Lannisport was mourning. The female half.” Ser Daven’s gaze went to Jaime’s stump. “So it’s true. The bastards took your sword hand.”
“I have a new one, made of gold. There’s much to be said for being one-handed. I drink less wine for fear of spilling and am seldom inclined to scratch my arse at court.”
“Aye, there’s that. Maybe I should have mine off as well.” His cousin laughed. “Was it Catelyn Stark who took it?”
“Vargo Hoat.” Where do these tales come from?
“The Qohorik?” Ser Daven spat. “That’s for him and all his Brave Companions. I told your father I would forage for him, but he refused me. Some tasks are fit for lions, he said, but foraging is best left for goats and dogs.”
Lord Tywin’s very words, Jaime knew; he could almost hear his father’s voice. “Come inside, coz. We need to talk.”
Garrett had lit the braziers, and their glowing coals filled Jaime’s tent with a ruddy heat. Ser Daven shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it at Little Lew. “You a Piper, boy?” he growled. “You have a runty look to you.”
“I’m Lewys Piper, if it please my lord.”
“I beat your brother bloody in a mêlée once. The runty little fool took offense when I asked him if that was his sister dancing naked on his shield.”
“She’s the sigil of our House. We don’t have a sister.”
“More’s the pity. Your sigil has nice teats. What sort of man hides behind a naked woman, though? Every time I thumped your brother’s shield, I felt unchivalrous.”
“Enough,” said Jaime, laughing. “Leave him be.” Pia was mulling wine for them, stirring the kettle with a spoon. “I need to know what I can expect to find at Riverrun.”
His cousin shrugged. “The siege drags on. The Blackfish sits inside the castle, we sit outside in our camps. Bloody boring, if you want the truth.” Ser Daven seated himself upon a camp stool. “Tully ought to make a sortie, to remind us all we’re still at war. Be nice if he culled some Freys too. Ryman, for a start. The man’s drunk more oft than not. Oh, and Edwyn. Not as thick as his father, but as full of hate as a boil’s full of pus. And our own Ser Emmon. no, Lord Emmon, Seven save us, must not forget his new title. our Lord of Riverrun does nought but try to tell me how to run the siege. He wants me to take the castle without damaging it, since it is now his lordly seat.”
“Is that wine hot yet?” Jaime asked Pia.
“Yes, m’lord.” The girl covered her mouth when she spoke. Peck served the wine on a golden platter. Ser Daven pulled off his gloves and took a cup. “Thank you, boy. Who might you be?”
“Josmyn Peckledon, if it please my lord.”
“Peck was a hero on the Blackwater,” Jaime said. “He slew two knights and captured two more.”
“You must be more dangerous than you look, lad. Is that a beard, or did you forget to wash the dirt off your face? Stannis Baratheon’s wife has a thicker mustache. How old are you?”
“Fifteen, ser.”
Ser Daven snorted. “You know the best thing about heroes, Jaime? They all die young and leave more women for the rest of us.” He tossed the cup back to the squire. “Fill that full again, and I’ll call you hero too. I have a thirst.”
Jaime lifted his own cup left-handed and took a swallow. The warmth spread through his chest. “You were speaking of the Freys you wanted dead. Ryman, Edwyn, Emmon. ”
“And Walder Rivers,” Daven said, “that whoreson. Hates that he’s a bastard, and hates everyone who’s not. Ser Perwyn seems a decent fellow, though, might as well spare him. The women too. I’m to marry one, I hear. Your father might have seen fit to consult with me about this marriage, by the bye. My own father was treating with Paxter Redwyne before Oxcross, did you know? Redwyne has a nicely dowered daughter. ”
“Desmera?” Jaime laughed. “How well do you like freckles?”
“If my choice is Freys or freckles, well. half of Lord Walder’s brood look like stoats.”
“Only half? Be thankful. I saw Lancel’s bride at Darry.”
“Gatehouse Ami, gods be good. I couldn’t believe that Lancel picked that one. What’s wrong with that boy?”
“He’s grown pious,” said Jaime, “but it wasn’t him who did the picking. Lady Amerei’s mother is a Darry. Our uncle thought she’d help Lancel win the Darry smallfolk.”
“How, by fucking them? You know why they call her Gatehouse Ami? She raises her portcullis for every knight who happens by. Lancel had best find an armorer to make him a horned helm.”
“That won’t be necessary. Our coz is off to King’s Landing to take vows as one of the High Septon’s swords.”