Cersei laughed. "The butterfly knight who lost his arm on the Blackwater? What good is half a man?"

"Megga thinks him sweet. She has asked Lady Margaery to help her find a monkey for him."

"A monkey." The queen did not know what to say to that. Sparrows and monkeys. Truly, the realm is going mad. "What of our brave Ser Loras? How often does he call upon his sister?"

"More than any of the others." When Taena frowned, a tiny crease appeared between her dark eyes. "Every morn and every night he visits, unless duty interferes. Her brother is devoted to her, they share everything with . . . oh . . ." For a moment, the Myrish woman looked almost shocked. Then a smile spread across her face. "I have had a most wicked thought, Your Grace."

"Best keep it to yourself. The hill is thick with sparrows, and we all know how sparrows abhor wickedness."

"I have heard they abhor soap and water too, Your Grace."

"Perhaps too much prayer robs a man of his sense of smell. I shall be sure to ask His High Holiness."

The draperies swayed back and forth in a wash of crimson silk. "Orton told me that the High Septon has no name," Lady Taena said. "Can that be true? In Myr we all have names."

"Oh, he had a name once. They all do." The queen waved a hand dismissively. "Even septons born of noble blood go only by their given names once they have taken their vows. When one of them is elevated to High Septon, he puts aside that name as well. The Faith will tell you he no longer has any need of a man's name, for he has become the avatar of the gods."

"How do you distinguish one High Septon from another?"

"With difficulty. One has to say, 'the fat one,' or 'the one before the fat one,' or 'the old one who died in his sleep.' You can always winkle out their birth names if you like, but they take umbrage if you use them. It reminds them that they were born ordinary men, and they do not like that."

"My lord husband tells me this new one was born with filth beneath his fingernails."

"So I suspect. As a rule the Most Devout elevate one of their own, but there have been exceptions." Grand Maester Pycelle had informed her of the history, at tedious length. "During the reign of King Baelor the Blessed a simple stonemason was chosen as High Septon. He worked stone so beautifully that Baelor decided he was the Smith reborn in mortal flesh. The man could neither read nor write, nor recall the words of the simplest of prayers." Some still claimed that Baelor's Hand had the man poisoned to spare the realm embarrassment. "After that one died, an eight-year-old boy was elevated, once more at King Baelor's urging. The boy worked miracles, His Grace declared, though even his little healing hands could not save Baelor during his final fast."

Lady Merryweather gave a laugh. "Eight years old? Perhaps my son could be High Septon. He is almost seven."

"Does he pray a lot?" the queen asked.

"He prefers to play with swords."

"A real boy, then. Can he name all seven gods?"

"I think so."

"I shall have to take him under consideration." Cersei did not doubt that there were any number of boys who would do more honor to the crystal crown than the wretch on whom the Most Devout had chosen to bestow it. This is what comes of letting fools and cowards rule themselves. Next time, I will choose their master for them. And the next time might not be long in coming, if the new High Septon continued to annoy her. Baelor's Hand had little to teach Cersei Lannister where such matters were concerned.

"Clear the way!" Ser Osmund Kettleblack was shouting. "Make way for the Queen's Grace!"

The litter began to slow, which could only mean that they were near the top of the hill. "You should bring this son of yours to court," Cersei told Lady Merryweather. "Six is not too young. Tommen needs other boys about him. Why not your son?" Joffrey had never had a close friend of his own age, that she recalled. The poor boy was always alone. I had Jaime when I was a child . . . and Melara, until she fell into the well. Joff had been fond of the Hound, to be sure, but that was not friendship. He was looking for the father he never found in Robert. A little foster brother might be just what Tommen needs to wean him away from Margaery and her hens. In time they might grow as close as Robert and his boyhood friend Ned Stark. A fool, but a loyal fool. Tommen will have need of loyal friends to watch his back.

"Your Grace is kind, but Russell has never known any home but Longtable. I fear he would be lost in this great city."

"In the beginning," the queen allowed, "but he will soon outgrow that, as I did. When my father sent for me to court I wept and Jaime raged, until my aunt sat me down in the Stone Garden and told me there was no one in King's Landing that I need ever fear. 'You are a lioness,' she said, 'and it is for all the lesser beasts to fear you.' Your son will find his courage too. Surely you would prefer to have him close at hand, where you could see him every day? He is your only child, is he not?"

"For the present. My lord husband has asked the gods to bless us with another son, in case . . ."

"I know." She thought of Joffrey, clawing at his neck. In his last moments he had looked to her in desperate appeal, and a sudden memory had stopped her heart; a drop of red blood hissing in a candle flame, a croaking voice that spoke of crowns and shrouds, of death at the hands of the valonqar.

Outside the litter, Ser Osmund was shouting something, and someone was shouting back. The litter jerked to a halt. "Are you all dead?" roared Kettleblack. "Get out of the bloody way!"

The queen pulled back a corner of the curtain and beckoned to Ser Meryn Trant. "What seems to be the trouble?"

"The sparrows, Your Grace." Ser Meryn wore white scale armor beneath his cloak. His helm and shield were slung from his saddle. "Camping in the street. We'll make them move."

"Do that, but gently. I do not care to be caught up in another riot." Cersei let the curtain fall. "This is absurd."

"It is, Your Grace," Lady Merryweather agreed. "The High Septon should have come to you. And these wretched sparrows . . ."

"He feeds them, coddles them, blesses them. Yet will not bless the king." The blessing was an empty ritual, she knew, but rituals and ceremonies had power in the eyes of the ignorant. Aegon the Conqueror himself had dated the start of his realm from the day the High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. "This wretched priest will obey, or learn how weak and human he still is."

"Orton says it is the gold he really wants. That he means to withhold his blessing until the crown resumes its payments."

"The Faith will have its gold as soon as we have peace." Septon Torbert and Septon Raynard had been most understanding of her plight . . . unlike the wretched Braavosi, who had hounded poor Lord Gyles so mercilessly that he had taken to his bed, coughing up blood. We had to have those ships. She could not rely upon the Arbor for her navy; the Redwynes were too close to the Tyrells. She needed her own strength at sea.

The dromonds rising on the river would give her that. Her flagship would dip twice as many oars as King Robert's Hammer. Aurane had asked her leave to name her Lord Tywin, which Cersei had been pleased to grant. She looked forward to hearing men speak of her father as a "she." Another of the ships would be named Sweet Cersei, and would bear a gilded figurehead carved in her likeness, clad in mail and lion helm, with spear in hand. Brave Joffrey, Lady Joanna, and Lioness would follow her to sea, along with Queen Margaery, Golden Rose, Lord Renly, Lady Olenna, and Princess Myrcella. The queen had made the mistake of telling Tommen he might name the last five. He had actually chosen Moon Boy for one. Only when Lord Aurane suggested that men might not want to serve on a ship named for a fool had the boy reluctantly agreed to honor his sister instead.

"If this ragged septon thinks to make me buy Tommen's blessing, he will soon learn better," she told Taena. The queen did not intend to truckle to a pack of priests.

The litter halted yet again, so suddenly that Cersei jerked. "Oh, this is infuriating." She leaned out once more, and saw that they had reached the top of Visenya's Hill. Ahead loomed the Great Sept of Baelor, with its magnificent dome and seven shining towers, but between her and the marble steps lay a sullen sea of humanity, brown and ragged and unwashed. Sparrows, she thought, sniffing, though no sparrows had ever smelled so rank.

Cersei was appalled. Qyburn had brought her reports of their numbers, but hearing about them was one thing and seeing them another. Hundreds were encamped upon the plaza, hundreds more in the gardens. Their cookfires filled the air with smoke and stinks. Roughspun tents and miserable hovels made of mud and scrap wood besmirched the pristine white marble. They were even huddled on the steps, beneath the Great Sept's towering doors.

Ser Osmund came trotting back to her. Beside him rode Ser Osfryd, mounted on a stallion as golden as his cloak. Osfryd was the middle Kettleblack, quieter than his siblings, more apt to scowl than smile. And crueler as well, if the tales are true. Perhaps I should have sent him to the Wall.

Grand Maester Pycelle had wanted an older man "more seasoned in the ways of war" to command the gold cloaks, and several of her other councillors had agreed with him. "Ser Osfryd is seasoned quite sufficiently," she had told them, but even that did not shut them up. They yap at me like a pack of small, annoying dogs. Her patience with Pycelle had all but run its course. He had even had the temerity to object to her sending to Dorne for a master-at-arms, on the grounds that it might offend the Tyrells. "Why do you think I'm doing it?" she had asked him scornfully.

"Beg pardon, Your Grace," said Ser Osmund. "My brother's summoning more gold cloaks. We'll clear a path, never fear."

"I do not have the time. I will continue on afoot."

"Please, Your Grace." Taena caught her arm. "They frighten me. There are hundreds of them, and so dirty."

Cersei kissed her cheek. "The lion does not fear the sparrow . . . but it is good of you to care. I know you love me well, my lady. Ser Osmund, kindly help me down."

If I had known I was going to have to walk, I would have dressed for it. She wore a white gown slashed with cloth-of-gold, lacy but demure. It had been several years since the last time she had donned it, and the queen found it uncomfortably tight about the middle. "Ser Osmund, Ser Meryn, you will accompany me. Ser Osfryd, see that my litter comes to no harm." Some of the sparrows looked gaunt and hollow-eyed enough to eat her horses.

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.