Anxiety will take away your peace today, but it is unlikely to solve problems tomorrow. Worry less, think more. Always think, but don't be afraid to act. My children should be aware of the dangers of inaction.
Cersei slowly emptied the cup of warm, fragrant wine in an attempt to distract herself from her unusual concern about Jaime - they rarely parted for long, they were rarely separated by such a long distance. Her beloved brother along with her not-too-beloved brother went to see a local landmark, the old ice wall, which, according to the old legends, was protection from the very walkers that Ned Stark was talking about. And no one even ridiculed him for it. And there was a reason - the Lord was obviously too enthusiastic about grumkins and snarks...
It was the scariest thing to think otherwise.
That's why the anxiety about her brother's absence was odd - after all, he only went to assess the deplorable state of the Wall on the order of the King, as a member of the Royal Guard.
If not for the plans of the Warden of the North, which he decided to implement at the most inopportune moment for this, everything would've been much better. Brother and sister would've met, drunk wine and made love. These were empty thoughts now, and she knew who to blame for that.
Jaime had not expressed the slightest wish to go with Tyrion to the Wall until the moment he was given the order. The Wall is a place for murderers, thieves, rapists and unwanted children, but not for the King's Guard, as Cersei herself hastened to remind Robert when it came to Jaime.
Eddard Stark took away from her the opportunity to stay in the presence of her brother, convincing Robert that only a trusted person of the King is able to assess the degree of desolation of the Wall, through which, according to evidently crazy eyewitnesses, the wights and walkers will soon climb.
Of course, Stark prepared in advance, sent his brother-watchman to all the fortresses along with a detachment of scouts and troops of his own vassals. All information about the fortresses of the Wall was already ready, it just needed to be picked up. And someone had to make sure that the Commander of the Watch described the problems accurately. After all, only the king's confidence and relatively accurate data, as Eddard himself said, would be able to help in the subsequent actions of the Iron Throne in this regard.
The abandoned castles of the Wall will be handed over to the representatives of all the most noble houses of Westeros for restoration. Only on these terms does Eddard agree to "watch Robert's back," as he put it, when Robert, Cersei and the Warden of the North were returning from the Stark crypt.
That's why it's needed to get information about the state of the Wall in order to provide it to the southern lords as some sort of guide to action. And this was also a quote from Eddard's utterly convincing speech on the way out of the crypt.
Then there was the feast, the announcement of the restoration of the Wall by the forces of all the Seven Kingdoms, and the assurance of the loyalty and respect of the Warden of the North to Robert Baratheon.
Cersei put down her goblet and reread her letter to her father, which she intended to send before Tyrion and Jaime returned. He truly needed to know about Stark's odd plot, about the alleged cause of Arryn's death... Which wasn't arranged by her, although it was incredibly profitable for her. As it was beneficial to her father.
And that's why Tyrion, with his multicolored eyes pumped out from anxiety and surprise and his breath of a drunkard that she had to endure all their hasty conversation, told her that he simply did not have time to compose a letter himself if he wanted to go to the Wall as quickly as possible.
He handed her a hastily sketched sheet with topics that needed to be touched upon in the letter, and was off in the morning after the feast. Such a combination of efforts was extremely rare for Tyrion and Cersei, but both understood that their father should receive a warning about the oddities in Stark's behavior as soon as possible.
None of Tywin Lannister's children wanted to feel his displeasure.
Cersei blew off the golden sand off the parchment. She had previously sprinkled it on the ink. Then she rolled the message into a tube. She was about to get up and go to the raven cages brought with the royal family's cortege, but there was a knock on her door.
"Your Grace!"
"It's open!" Cersei replied and put the letter on the tabletop, so that she could get up and meet those who decided to bother her.
The door was opened by a White Cloak, whose face was for some reason puzzled when he met the Queen's stare, but then the extent of his surprise became clear, because the most unexpected person of all that could have entered her chambers was in the doorway.
"Your Grace," Sansa Stark curtsied, then looked at the Queen with the cold eyes of her father. "My father sent me with a message to you, Your Grace."
Cersei held out her hand, expecting it to be, like the last time, a brief note.
"Your Grace, my father wanted to tell you," the red-haired girl continued to speak, seemingly not noticing the Queen's outstretched hand, "that he would like to see you in the part of the castle being rebuilt. At the time of the arrival of guests from the capital, all repair work there has been stopped. That's why father believes that your meeting will be protected there from any unwanted ears."
"He could have sent a servant with a note," the queen said in a matter-of-fact tone, not even waiting for an answer from the eldest of Stark's daughters.
"Father likes to give us quests," the girl shrugged and smiled slyly. "Your Grace, Father has given me permission to ask you a question. May I?"
"Girl, this is impudence," Cersei said, not without a stingy smile in response. "Ask away."
"Do you like lemon cakes?"
"I won't say that this is my favorite sweet... I can eat it, nothing more."
The girl slightly frowned, but it did not escape Cersei's gaze, which is why she decided to clarify.
"Why do you ask, young lady?"
"Father said he would allow them to be served three times a day if the Queen liked them as well. I'm the only one in the family besides Jon who loves them. And Jon won't ask my father for such a small thing, but I would like to treat him one last time."
"One last time? Jon is your father's bastard, isn't he? Such a shame..."
"Yes, but everyone knows that he is our cousin! I just want to leave good memories of his last days in Winterfell. And lemon cakes will help that a lot," the girl blushed and added. "He is the bastard of our father's elder brother, Your Grace. I am not ashamed to mingle with him, no matter what our mother says. He is our family. And I wanted to ask you to play along, Your Grace, if you don't mind."
Cersei laughed and lifted the face of the completely embarrassed daughter of Ned Stark by the chin. Sansa Stark blushed even more and awkwardly squeezed out the answering chuckle.
"My girl, as a gratitude for your message, I will tell Eddard about your lemon cakes when I see him today. This does not present any complication for me. By the way, when exactly I'll be seeing him today?"
"Father asked me to tell you that he'll be waiting for you in the tower after luncheon. Thank you, Your Grace! Can I go now?"
Cersei, with a smile and a move of her palm, got rid of the girl, who was obviously stupid and impressionable. So she closed the door behind her, not hiding her joy about the lemon cakes.
Cersei Lannister unfolded the letter to her father and decided to add a couple of lines.
No one in the South ever suspected that Eddard Stark was raising not his bastard.
The Queen paused for a moment before folding her letter again.
"That means, he did not cheat on his wife," Cersei whispered to herself and waved away her own thoughts a moment later. "It doesn't matter."
"Your Grace!" one of her handmaids was at the door after knocking. "The repast is expected in an hour."
Cersei beckoned the girl with an imperious gesture, she understood everything instantly, ready to serve.
The queen began to undress, glancing towards the warm bath that had been waiting for her for half an hour and therefore, indeed, was warm. She touched her breasts - the nipples were unpleasantly hardened by the sudden change in temperature.
The handmaid carefully gathered the Queen's hair under a hairpin and then picked up her garment off the stone floor.
Cersei sank into the bath and reached for the scented soap. There was nothing more pleasant than a ready bathroom at any time of day or night.
Still, she was beginning to like the North at the moment much more than when their procession had just crossed the Neck.
"And the letter could wait until the afternoon..." the queen muttered to herself and soaped her shoulders with pleasure, and a moment later she leant back on the side of the tub and closed her eyes.
The warm bathroom and hot wine were the cure for any complex thoughts. And that was exactly the kind of remedy Cersei Lannister needed, when unreasonable anxiety and odd - especially for such, as it turned out, proper Stark - looks full of lustful admiration led her into a twitchy state. Though something made Cersei smile.
"And yet such a naive girl, Sansa Stark. It may come in handy."
***
Eddard Stark was sitting on his spread-out fur cloak, laid-back and crossing his legs, hiding under the window so that his profile could not be seen in the tower window. He could sit in the depths on the same furs and not worry that someone might see him, but this could prevent his persistent reading of some parchment.
"My wife's sister, Lisa Arryn, writes about the most unpleasant things," Eddard said into the air, turning his head slightly as soon as he realized that the Queen was already close enough to be able to hear him. "And my wife believes her."
"I didn't think to hear such flexible wording for a northerner, my lord," Cersei froze in the doorway and let out a high feminine laugh, not typical of her in her usual state, to which Eddard lifted his chin and looked at her in bewilderment, although he didn't know Cersei in her usual state. "That was a compliment, Lord Stark."
After that the Queen's voice was controllably seductive - a little lower than usual. This woman knew that men are greedy for everything they think is obtainable. Quite an example of this is Robert Baratheon, who did not miss a single skirt. She wasn't going to seduce the Warden of the North, but it was worth having certain approaches to this man. Because he, along with the royal family, is heading to King's Landing to become the Hand. And if he's giving her such an opportunity all on his own, then it would be foolish not to take advantage of it.
"Is he beating you?" Edward suddenly asked, looking up at her sullenly. "I see that he looks at you without love. And your eldest son sometimes looks at his father as if he wants to strangle him with his own hands. Even I have become attached to my wife, as much as she is not my type. What is the problem?"
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, my lord."
Cersei's voice faltered, and she was about to back away, but vital, she felt it in her gut, news from the Valley, where Jon Arryn's wife quickly hid immediately after his death, could be useful in her upcoming letter to the Lord-father.
"Well, how about this. I'll tell you about what Lisa Arryn writes. And you will tell me about what could've been waiting for my sister in marriage to our dashing king."
Cersei looked at Stark as if he had spoken in the language of Old Valyria instead of the Common Tongue. Lannister couldn't understand his motives. And Eddard was in no hurry to continue - he silently pointed the surprised queen to a place on the furs beside him and handed her the parchment.
" What is it? That's complete nonsense?!" the queen exclaimed, grabbing and quickly running through the sheet with her eyes.
Ned Stark just winced and quickly touched his lips, barely shaking his head. So the Queen prudently fell silent.
"Stop yelling at me all the time, Your Grace. Silence is the best thing I've ever heard."
"I don't like silence," the Queen muttered and sat down next to him. "What could be worse than complete silence?"
"I'm not talking about this kind of silence," Lord Stark frowned. "That silence also has its own sound, and it's not that very pleasant. I'm talking about enjoying the absence of loud human speech near my ears."
"I'll keep your silence, then."
"I'll see to it. uh-huh."
"It's not nonsense, is it?" she thought a bit and muttered.
"It's a cipher. Only my wife and Lisa Arryn know about it, as I understood from my wife's explanations. And it says bluntly that it was you Lannisters who killed Jon Arryn. And I would have believed her if it wasn't for what you and Robert and I talked about in the crypt. You do understand, my queen, that I will cover for you and curtail the investigation if it was you, after all?"
"I didn't poison the Hand," Cersei said firmly, and immediately realized how stupidly she had fallen for a lie that actually didn't happen, but Eddard seemed to take her slip as confirmation of some of his thoughts.
"So you think he was poisoned, too? You may exhale, uh-huh."
Cersei did not notice how she held her breath under Stark's gaze, but immediately bared her teeth at her weakness and hissed.
"Does it give you some sort of pleasure?"
"Sure," Edward shrugged, then rolled up the parchment and put it in a leather pouch hanging from his belt. "A very low number of people can afford to make the Queen speechless with impunity."
"Why do you think that's with impunity?" Cersei replied in an indifferent tone and measured her husband's vassal with a disparaging look. "I could..."
"I noticed your bitchy nature at first glance, my queen," now Eddard grinned. "Imagine, someone sees through your games, Your Grace. And yes, I know for sure that you didn't poison the Hand, but someone from Lisa Arryn's entourage or Lisa herself is sure that if I go to King's Landing, I will find confirmation that you are involved. I'm supposed to find your motive, Cersei Lannister. Will I find it, Cersei, answer me honestly?"
"I don't simply think he was poisoned," Cersei said.
She decided to lift the veil of lies and also share information. This information could be valuable of course only for such a person who is going to join the Small Council only in the future, who still doesn't understand the slightest bit about the Capital politics, a person like Eddard Stark.
"Maester Pycelle has friendly relations with my father, so he told me about his suspicions. Equally, it could be both intestinal colic and the effect of poison.
"Colic... I keep a diary with everything I eat. If I am poisoned, my children will always know what with and how exactly. I recommend it, by the way. Keep a diary, I mean. Encrypt it however you want, but it will be a very interesting source of data about our lives for posterity. Selected moments may even be published as a book."
"Why are you even thinking about this kind of thing, Eddard Stark," Cersei breathed out and nervously straightened her maroon skirts, getting comfortable next to him. "So Lisa Arryn has successfully made it to the Vale and she's plotting out of there..."
"What's your motive, Cersei? Why would you need Arryn's death?"
"I didn't kill him!" the queen snapped again and, barely managing to calm her breathing, continued. "You told me about your wife's sister letter. What for?"
"Because you didn't kill. And we need to understand who is trying to start a war between the Grand Houses of Westeros. Ask your father, Cersei, if he wants a war with the Starks on the threshold of winter. And I'll tell you in advance - no one wants to fight the North on its terms. We know when winter is coming. Winter is coming with us."
"Is that a threat?" Cersei said hoarsely, not taking her cat-like green eyes off Stark's narrowed gaze. "If so, then Lannisters always...""
"Not the only ones who pay their debts," Stark interrupted, but then he closed his eyes and exhaled. "But Winter is coming, I feel it in every breath of the Weirwood Godswood... In every howl of the direwolves of my pack... I feel it, Cersei. The magic is coming back. The White Walkers have awakened. I don't want to figure out what the royal court is like in this chaos. Therefore, I will support those who sit on the Throne. And I absolutely don't care who it will be if my idea with the restoration of the Wall will work out under their rule. Therefore, whoever wants to overthrow Robert, whoever gets to him through the Arryns, this someone is an enemy of House Lannister, House Baratheon, and House Stark. And as you know, dear Queen, the enemy of my enemy..."
"Our friend."
"That's right," Stark stretched out his hands to the fur cape that had slipped off Cersei's shoulders and pulled the edges a little higher. "'Tis breezy here," he explained. "And now you're going to tell me what Robert Baratheon did to you that was so hideous. So that any accusations in your direction from your foes are broken on my "so what" as often as possible. Anything you can tell me."
"Yes, he beat me. In front of servants. In front of the members of the Small Council. In front of Joffrey. In... I don't want to sleep with him, Eddard. He remembers your sister as if she's still alive, as if..."
"As if you have to live up to her dreams just because you were unlucky enough to become a spouse. As if it's okay to constantly chide about something you can never give because you're not him."
"Your wife..."
"Was in love with Brandon the Wild Wolf at first sight. Always compares me to him. Still compares me to him. I hate this helplessness. I can't imagine what it's like for you as a woman... At least it's impossible to take me by force," Eddard grinned at the stupid joke, but when he looked into Cersei's face, he turned pale abruptly and somehow seemed more dangerous. "You're not playing right now, are you? Not pretending. Don't... He is my... He's my friend. He wouldn't."
"I'm his wife," Cersei didn't shed a tear when her throat was seized by a lump of old memories, but Eddard managed to notice the suppressed emotions and therefore reacted this way. "This is expected."
"And that's most vile," Eddard's broad palm landed on Cersei's knee and clasped it. "I'm sorry."
She slapped his cheek without thinking. A second after Eddard's silent acceptance of the slap, they heard a stifled sigh and strange rustling sounds, as if a mouse ran or a bird flapped its wings.
For a moment, Eddard's eyes lit up with an unpleasant and painful realization, and he jumped on the spot, almost fell out of the window opening, and Cersei followed dumbfounded, squeezing between Eddard's shoulders and the walls of the window opening. It was covered with ivy and slippery, disgusting moss, on which she accidentally caught her nails."
"He saw us," Cersei said, stunned. "He saw us and this slap frightened him, and I... he..."
"This is Bran."
Cersei finally noticed through a strange stupor a desperately yapping direwolf, he was rushing towards the training ground. She slowly repeated out loud what she finally recognised.
"This is your son."
Author's note: The next chapter is Sansa's, but I need some time to get it done. I think you'd be surprised. I'd be happy to know what you think of this work. Thank you for reading.