Harryn Stark Ch.6

CERSEI I

The wheelhouse bounced violently underneath her for the hundredth time, and Cersei Lannister's patience, worn thin by forty days on the kingsroad, finally snapped like a dry twig. Her temples throbbed. Forty days on the kingsroad had left her with little patience and even less comfort. The savage North, she thought bitterly. They can't even build a road.

Beside her, Tommen leaned against her side, playing with the stuffed cat toy he had named after his favorite kitten, Ser Pounce.

Myrcella pressed her small face to the window, her green eyes wide with excitement, her breath fogging the glass. "Look, Mother! I see walls! Great big grey ones!"

Cersei did not bother to look. Walls. How splendid. And grey, like everything else in this miserable kingdom, she straightened her heavy crimson cloak, lined with the finest fur that even now barely kept the northern chill at bay.

She had protested this progression from the beginning. What reason could there be to drag the entire court to this frozen edge of the world, if not for Robert's mad obsession with Ned Stark? The honorable, dutiful Lord of Winterfell, Robert's precious boyhood friend. The man her husband preferred over his own blood, his own wife.

Stark, she thought with contempt. An apt name for such a dour, humorless man. The Hand of the King should be someone who understands the realm.

Someone like Jaime.

Her brother should be the Hand, not some northern lord who had hidden away in his frozen castle since the rebellion ended. What would a Stark know about running the Seven Kingdoms?

"Are we there, Mother?" Tommen asked.

"Soon, sweetling. Very soon now." She smoothed his hair which shone like beaten gold in the dim light. My lion cub.

"Mother, I can see it!" Myrcella clapped with childish wonder. "Winterfell!"

Cersei finally decided to look at the approaching castle. Through the window, she could see Winterfell looming ahead, ancient, but simple. Her lips curled in disdain. Grey stone against grey sky, crude and unadorned. Where were the graceful towers, the gilded domes, the marble colonnades of civilization? This was a fortress built for survival, not beauty or pleasure.

Even the Red Keep, which she had never considered particularly elegant, seemed a marvel of architecture compared to this grim northern pile. And neither could compare to the soaring splendor of Casterly Rock, with its natural caverns and gilded halls, its gardens cascading down to the Sunset Sea. The Rock looked as if it had been carved from a mountain by the gods themselves, while this northern castle seemed cobbled together by crude hands against an unforgiving landscape.

"It's very... old."

"Is it not beautiful, Mother?" Myrcella asked, her voice bright with the wonder of youth.

Cersei stroked her daughter's golden hair, so like her own, so like Jaime's. She glanced at the castle again. Admittedly, there was a certain power to it, a brute strength in those ancient grey walls. But power without elegance was just force, and force was the crude tool of lesser minds.

The wheelhouse slowed as they approached the massive outer walls. Cersei could see the procession ahead already passing through the gates. Three hundred strong, the crowned stag of Baratheon and the Lion of Lannister on a dozen golden banners whipping in the northern wind. The carriage door opened, letting in a bitter gust of cold air that made her shiver and hug Tommen tighter to her side.

A figure stood silhouetted against the grey sky. "Your Grace," a voice said, "we approach Winterfell. The king has ridden ahead with the main party."

For a moment, Cersei's heart quickened. The golden hair, the voice stance—but no. It was not Jaime. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and disappointment soured her mouth. Only Lancel, her cousin, Robert's squire, stood in the opening, snow dusting his shoulders.

Of course he has, Cersei thought. Straight to his precious Ned, like an eager pup returned to its master.

"And where is Jaime?" she asked.

"Ser Jaime accompanied the king, Your Grace."

Even my own brother abandons me in this frozen wasteland. Cersei felt suddenly alone, surrounded by Starks and Northmen and her drunken husband.

"Shall I tell the driver to continue, Your Grace?"

Cersei nodded. "Yes. Let us get this over with."

Lancel bowed low, a flush creeping up his neck at her tone. There was something in his eyes when he straightened—something that reminded her fleetingly of Jaime, the way he would look at her when they were Lancel's age, and they would sneak away to swim naked in the river. She'd never forget the look on Jaime's face when he first saw her tits once they began to grow. Perhaps her cousin was not entirely without potential. Something to consider, should the need arise.

The wheelhouse lurched forward again, the massive convoy of knights and retainers, and servants moving toward Winterfell's gates. Three hundred strong, they said. A royal progress worthy of the crown. All this way so Robert could beg his precious Ned to come south and rule the kingdom while her husband drinks and whores himself into an early grave. The position should have gone to Jaime.

As they approached the gates, the driver called out something, and again the wheelhouse ground to a halt. Irritation flashed through Cersei like wildfire.

"What now?" she snapped.

"Why have we stopped, Mother?" Myrcella asked.

Cersei frowned, looking out the window. They were directly before the gates of Winterfell, but the wheelhouse wasn't moving.

Lancel reappeared at the door, visibly uncomfortable. "Your Grace," he said with a bow, "the wheelhouse... it cannot pass through the gates. They are not wide enough to accommodate its size."

For a moment, Cersei could only stare at her cousin in disbelief, certain she had misheard. Then understanding dawned, along with a cold fury and outrage.

"You mean to tell me," she said, her voice dangerously soft, "that I, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, am expected to walk into Winterfell? Like a common traveler?"

Lancel paled. "The gates were built thousands of years ago, Your Grace. Before wheelhouses of this size—"

The Starks had no doubt designed this slight deliberately. They would make the southern queen trudge through snow and mud like a commoner.

"Where is the king?" she demanded.

"I... the king has already entered, Your Grace," Lancel said. "He awaits you in the courtyard with Lord Stark and his family."

Of course Robert had already entered. He had probably not given a second thought to his wife and children, so eager was he to embrace his precious Ned.

Cersei fixed her cousin with a cold stare. "And you did not think to determine whether the royal wheelhouse could enter the castle before we left King's Landing?"

"I... that is..." Lancel as though he wished the ground would swallow him.

Cersei cut him off with a sharp gesture. "Enough. Send for my handmaidens."

Lancel bowed again and hastened away.

Robert would be amused by this, Cersei knew. He wouldn't see the absurdity of it – the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, forced to abandon her carriage and walk through castle gates like a merchant's wife.

Fuck this frozen wasteland and fuck these northern savages, she thought, her anger rising like bile in her throat. And fuck Robert most of all.

Moments later, her handmaidens arrived, fussing with her hair and cloak, ensuring every detail of her appearance was perfect, that not a single golden strand was out of place. If she must walk into Winterfell, she would do so looking every inch a queen.

"Come, children," she said. "Let us go meet our hosts."

Cersei stepped from the wheelhouse with Tommen and Myrcella at her sides. Her fur and silks did nothing to protect her from the freezing cold. She had thought it cold inside the carriage, but that had been nothing compared to the chill outside. How did people live in such a place? How did they bear it?

No wonder northerners are such a grim, joyless lot, she thought. How could anyone find pleasure in life when surrounded by such bleakness?

She took Tommen's hand in her right and Myrcella's in her left, holding her head high as they approached the gates. Behind them followed her handmaidens and guards, and behind them the Lannister household knights, all filing into a muddy courtyard that stank of horses and hay and tallow. This was not how a queen should enter a vassal's keep. She should be carried in state, not trudging on foot like a beggar. It was yet another slight, another way Robert showed his disregard for her position.

The courtyard beyond was teeming with people – servants, guards, stable boys, all craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the royal family. Cersei ignored them. The smallfolk were of no consequence. It was the figures at the center of the courtyard that held her attention.

Robert stood with a tall, solemn-faced man who could only be Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell. Beside him was his wife, Lady Catelyn, a Tully by birth. Behind them stood a row of children—the Stark brood, arranged by age and height like steps on a stair.

"Your Grace," Stark said, dropping to one knee in the snow. "Winterfell is yours."

Robert pulled him up and embraced Lord Stark with unseemly enthusiasm, his laughter booming across the courtyard like a drunkard at a tavern rather than a king greeting his subject.

"Ned! Ah, but it is good to see that frozen face of yours!" he roared, looking Stark over from head to toe. "You have not changed at all."

Unlike you, husband, Cersei thought coldly. Robert had been magnificent once, a true warrior king. Six and a half feet tall, muscled like a maiden's fantasy. Now he was simply large. Fat and red-faced, hiding his multiple chins behind a coarse black beard. Seven hells, he's even fatter than I remembered, she thought, eyeing her husband with disgust. Robert Baratheon, the mighty warrior king. Look at him now – a bloated sack of wine and flesh.

Lord Eddard looked as grim as his reputation suggested, with a long face and dark hair going to grey. His wife was handsome enough in a conventional, uninteresting way—auburn hair and blue eyes marking her riverlands ancestry. The children each had varying measures of Stark and Tully in them, none particularly remarkable to Cersei's eye.

Cersei watched as Robert embraced Lady Stark like a long-lost sister, and stepped forward, extending her hand to Lord Stark. She noticed his slight hesitation before he took it, the briefest flicker of something – distaste? wariness? – in those cold grey eyes before he bent to kiss her ring. The hesitation was so subtle that none but she would have marked it, but Cersei missed nothing. Especially not insults, however minor.

So the honorable Lord Stark finds it difficult to bow to his queen, she thought. I shall remember that.

"My queen," Stark murmured, his lips barely brushing her fingers before he straightened.

"Lord Stark," she said. "Your hospitality is... most welcome after our long journey."

Lady Stark curtsied deeply, a model of proper deference. "Your Grace."

The woman's two daughters curtsied as well—one a perfect miniature of her mother with the same auburn hair and blue eyes, the other a thin, long-faced child who seemed more boy than girl.

"These are my daughters," Lady Stark said. "Sansa and Arya."

The pretty one—Sansa—was all eagerness and admiration, her eyes wide as she gazed at Cersei and Myrcella. The other one looked as though she'd rather be anywhere else.

"Charming," Cersei said, her tone making it clear she found them anything but.

"And my sons," Lady Stark continued, gesturing to the boys who stood behind her. "Robb, my eldest. Harryn, my second. And Rickon."

Cersei extended her hand to the Stark heir, a stocky youth with his mother's Tully coloring. He bowed over it properly, kissing her ring.

"Your Grace," he said, meeting her eyes only briefly before stepping back.

The second son stepped forward. Harryn Stark was leaner than his brother, with darker auburn hair and his father's long face. When he took her hand, Cersei felt him hold it a fraction longer than was proper, his lips missing the ring to kiss her finger.

"My queen," he said, his eyes flicking up to meet hers with startling boldness. "Winterfell has never seen such beauty."

Cersei nearly laughed in his face. Did the boy think himself charming? She had heard the whispers about this one during their journey north. The serving women giggled behind their hands when speaking of young Lord Harryn. It seemed the boy had developed quite the appetite for female flesh, despite his youth. His current conquest was said to be a kitchen woman thrice his age, a widow with sagging breasts and spread thighs.

Is that what passes for a man here in the North? she thought scornfully. A green boy who thinks his cock a mighty sword because he's wet it in some servant's used-up cunt?

She had known men. Real men. Jaime, with his swordsman's grace and lion's strength. Even Robert, before the drink and fat took him. This northern pup was nothing. Less than nothing. A boy playing at being a man, sticking his little pink worm into the first willing hole he found, imagining himself a great lover.

Doubtless the old sow made the appropriate noises for him. That was the way of it. Men never could tell a true moan from a false one. They believed whatever flattered their pride.

"How... gracious," she said, her tone dismissive, turning her attention to the youngest boy presented, dismissing Harryn Stark from her notice.

She imagined the blow to his pride – the queen herself, the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, brushing off his awkward advances. The thought gave her a small, spiteful pleasure. Let the boy learn that a few fumbles with a servant didn't make him a man, and certainly didn't make him worthy of a queen's attention.

Cersei could feel the boy's eyes still on her, hungry and presumptuous. Imagining her naked, no doubt. Imagining his hands on her golden skin. The very thought was laughable. As if a queen would ever notice a second son of a minor house in a frozen backwater.

The formalities of greeting dragged on, each Stark child being presented in turn, each bowing or curtseying as their station required. Cersei maintained her regal smile throughout, though her patience was wearing thinner by the moment. The cold seemed to seep through her furs, through her skin, into her very bones. How anyone could choose to live in such a place was beyond her.

Finally, when the last introduction had been made, Robert turned to Stark and said, "Take me down to your crypt, Ned. I would pay my respects."

Cersei felt a flash of indignation. They had been riding since dawn. Everyone was tired, cold, and in need of refreshment. The dead could wait.

"We've been traveling a month, my love," she said. "Surely the dead can wait."

Robert didn't spare her a glance. Fifteen years of marriage, and still he would put his precious Lyanna before her. Fuck you, Robert, she thought, the words burning behind her carefully composed expression. Fuck you and your dead northern whore.

Stark hesitated, glancing between them. For a moment, Cersei thought he might support her position—surely northern hospitality demanded that guests be shown to their quarters first?—but then he nodded, calling for a lantern.

Cersei stood, seething, as the two men turned and walked away, disappearing through a door that presumably led to the crypts beneath the castle. To her—to the ghost that had haunted their marriage from the first.

She felt a hand on her arm. Her twin brother. Let him go, Jaime's touch seemed to say. Let him have his ghosts.

"Your Grace," Lady Stark said, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the courtyard. "If you would allow me to show you to your chambers? You must be weary after your journey."

Cersei forced a smile. "Thank you, Lady Stark. That would be most... appreciated."

She followed the Stark woman across the courtyard. Robert could have his precious Lyanna. Let him kneel before her tomb and weep for what might have been. She was the queen. She was the mother of the heir to the Seven Kingdoms.

Robert could worship at Lyanna's stone feet for eternity. He could have his dead love. She had Jaime. Her other half. Her mirror image. The only man who had ever truly known her. The only cock that had ever truly satisfied her.

Cersei straightened her shoulders and followed Lady Stark into Winterfell, her children and her twin close behind.