The earlier part of Ser Barristan’s storied career had been entered by Ser Gerold Hightower in a big forceful hand. Selmy’s own smaller and more elegant writing took over with the account of his wounding on the Trident.

Jaime’s own page was scant by comparison.

Ser Jaime of House Lannister. Firstborn son of Lord Tywin and Lady Joanna of Casterly Rock. Served against the Kingswood Brotherhood as squire to Lord Summer Crakehall. Knighted in his 15th year by Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard, for valor in the field. Chosen for the Kingsguard in his 15th year by King Aerys II Targaryen. During the Sack of King’s Landing, slew King Aerys II at the foot of the Iron Throne. Thereafter known as the “Kingslayer.” Pardoned for his crime by King Robert I Baratheon. Served in the honor guard that brought his sister the Lady Cersei Lannister to King’s Landing to wed King Robert. Champion in the tourney held at King’s Landing on the occasion of their wedding.

Summed up like that, his life seemed a rather scant and mingy thing. Ser Barristan could have recorded a few of his other tourney victories, at least. And Ser Gerold might have written a few more words about the deeds he’d performed when Ser Arthur Dayne broke the Kingswood Brotherhood. He had saved Lord Sumner’s life as Big Belly Ben was about to smash his head in, though the outlaw had escaped him. And he’d held his own against the Smiling Knight, though it was Ser Arthur who slew him. What a fight that was, and what a foe. The Smiling Knight was a madman, cruelty and chivalry all jumbled up together, but he did not know the meaning of fear. And Dayne, with Dawn in hand . . . The outlaw’s longsword had so many notches by the end that Ser Arthur had stopped to let him fetch a new one. “It’s that white sword of yours I want,” the robber knight told him as they resumed, though he was bleeding from a dozen wounds by then. “Then you shall have it, ser,” the Sword of the Morning replied, and made an end of it.

The world was simpler in those days, Jaime thought, and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen? They were all in their graves now, the Sword of the Morning and the Smiling Knight, the White Bull and Prince Lewyn, Ser Oswell Whent with his black humor, earnest Jon Darry, Simon Toyne and his Kingswood Brotherhood, bluff old Sumner Crakehall. And me, that boy I was . . . when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys’s throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead.

When he heard the door open, he closed the White Book and stood to receive his Sworn Brothers. Ser Osmund Kettleblack was the first to arrive. He gave Jaime a grin, as if they were old brothers-in-arms. “Ser Jaime,” he said, “had you looked like this t’other night, I’d have known you at once.”

“Would you indeed?” Jaime doubted that. The servants had bathed him, shaved him, and washed and brushed his hair. When he looked in a glass, he no longer saw the man who had crossed the riverlands with Brienne . . . but he did not see himself either. His face was thin and hollow, and he had lines under his eyes. I look like some old man. “Stand by your seat, ser.”

Kettleblack complied. The other Sworn Brothers filed in one by one. “Sers,” Jaime said in a formal tone when all five had assembled, “who guards the king?”

“My brothers Ser Osney and Ser Osfryd,” Ser Osmund replied.

“And my brother Ser Garlan,” said the Knight of Flowers.

“Will they keep him safe?”

“They will, my lord.”

“Be seated, then.” The words were ritual. Before the seven could meet in session, the king’s safety must be assured.

Ser Boros and Ser Meryn sat to his right, leaving an empty chair between them for Ser Arys Oakheart, off in Dorne. Ser Osmund, Ser Balon, and Ser Loras took the seats to his left. The old and the new. Jaime wondered if that meant anything. There had been times during its history where the Kingsguard had been divided against itself, most notably and bitterly during the Dance of the Dragons. Was that something he needed to fear as well?

It seemed queer to him to sit in the Lord Commander’s seat where Barristan the Bold had sat for so many years. And even queerer to sit here crippled. Nonetheless, it was his seat, and this was his Kingsguard now. Tommen’s seven.

Jaime had served with Meryn Trant and Boros Blount for years; adequate fighters, but Trant was sly and cruel, and Blount a bag of growly air. Ser Balon Swann was better suited to his cloak, and of course the Knight of Flowers was supposedly all a knight should be. The fifth man was a stranger to him, this Osmund Kettleblack.

He wondered what Ser Arthur Dayne would have to say of this lot. “How is it that the Kingsguard has fallen so low,” most like. “It was my doing,” I would have to answer. “I opened the door, and did nothing when the vermin began to crawl inside.”

“The king is dead,” Jaime began. “My sister’s son, a boy of thirteen, murdered at his own wedding feast in his own hall. All five of you were present. All five of you were protecting him. And yet he’s dead.” He waited to see what they would say to that, but none of them so much as cleared a throat. The Tyrell boy is angry, and Balon Swann’s ashamed, he judged. From the other three Jaime sensed only indifference. “Did my brother do this thing?” he asked them bluntly. “Did Tyrion poison my nephew?”

Ser Balon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Ser Boros made a fist. Ser Osmund gave a lazy shrug. It was Meryn Trant who finally answered. “He filled Joffrey’s cup with wine. That must have been when he slipped the poison in.”

“You are certain it was the wine that was poisoned?”

“What else?” said Ser Boros Blount. “The Imp emptied the dregs on the floor. Why, but to spill the wine that might have proved him guilty?”

“He knew the wine was poisoned,” said Ser Meryn.

Ser Balon Swann frowned. “The Imp was not alone on the dais. Far from it. That late in the feast, we had people standing and moving about, changing places, slipping off to the privy, servants were coming and going . . . the king and queen had just opened the wedding pie, every eye was on them or those thrice-damned doves. No one was watching the wine cup.”

“Who else was on the dais?” asked Jaime.

Ser Meryn answered. “The king’s family, the bride’s family, Grand Maester Pycelle, the High Septon . . .”

“There’s your poisoner,” suggested Ser Oswald Kettleblack with a sly grin. “Too holy by half, that old man. Never liked the look o’ him, myself.” He laughed.

“No,” the Knight of Flowers said, unamused. “Sansa Stark was the poisoner. You all forget, my sister was drinking from that chalice as well. Sansa Stark was the only person in the hall who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king. By poisoning the wedding cup, she could hope to kill both of them. And why did she run afterward, unless she was guilty?”

The boy makes sense. Tyrion might yet be innocent. No one was any closer to finding the girl, however. Perhaps Jaime should look into that himself. For a start, it would be good to know how she had gotten out of the castle. Varys may have a notion or two about that. No one knew the Red Keep better than the eunuch.

That could wait, however. Just now Jaime had more immediate concerns. You say you are the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, his father had said. Go do your duty. These five were not the brothers he would have chosen, but they were the brothers he had; the time had come to take them in hand.

“Whoever did it,” he told them, “Joffrey is dead, and the Iron Throne belongs to Tommen now. I mean for him to sit on it until his hair turns white and his teeth fall out. And not from poison.” Jaime turned to Ser Boros Blount. The man had grown stout in recent years, though he was big-boned enough to carry it. “Ser Boros, you look like a man who enjoys his food. Henceforth you’ll taste everything Tommen eats or drinks.”

Ser Osmund Kettleblack laughed aloud and the Knight of Flowers smiled, but Ser Boros turned a deep beet red. “I am no food taster! I am a knight of the Kingsguard!”

“Sad to say, you are.” Cersei should never have stripped the man of his white cloak. But their father had only compounded the shame by restoring it. “My sister has told me how readily you yielded my nephew to Tyrion’s sellswords. You will find carrots and pease less threatening, I hope. When your Sworn Brothers are training in the yard with sword and shield, you may train with spoon and trencher. Tommen loves applecakes. Try not to let any sellswords make off with them.”

“You speak to me thus? You?”

“You should have died before you let Tommen be taken.”

“As you died protecting Aerys, ser?” Ser Boros lurched to his feet, and clasped the hilt of his sword. “I won’t . . . I won’t suffer this. You should be the food taster, it seems to me. What else is a cripple good for?”

Jaime smiled. “I agree. I am as unfit to guard the king as you are. So draw that sword you’re fondling, and we shall see how your two hands fare against my one. At the end one of us will be dead, and the Kingsguard will be improved.” He rose. “Or, if you prefer, you may return to your duties.”

“Bah!” Ser Boros hawked up a glob of green phlegm, spat it at Jaime’s feet, and walked out, his sword still in its sheath.

The man is craven, and a good thing. Though fat, aging, and never more than ordinary, Ser Boros could still have hacked him into bloody pieces. But Boros does not know that, and neither must the rest. They feared the man I was; the man I am they’d pity.

Jaime seated himself again and turned to Kettleblack. “Ser Osmund. I do not know you. I find that curious. I’ve fought in tourneys, mêlées, and battles throughout the Seven Kingdoms. I know of every hedge knight, freerider, and upjumped squire of any skill who has ever presumed to break a lance in the lists. So how is it that I have never heard of you, Ser Osmund?”

“That I couldn’t say, my lord.” He had a great wide smile on his face, did Ser Osmund, as if he and Jaime were old comrades in arms playing some jolly little game. “I’m a soldier, though, not no tourney knight.”

“Where had you served, before my sister found you?”

“Here and there, my lord.”

“I have been to Oldtown in the south and Winterfell in the north. I have been to Lannisport in the west, and King’s Landing in the east. But I have never been to Here. Nor There.” For want of a finger, Jaime pointed his stump at Ser Osmund’s beak of a nose. “I will ask once more. Where have you served?”

“In the Stepstones. Some in the Disputed Lands. There’s always fighting there. I rode with the Gallant Men. We fought for Lys, and some for Tyrosh.”

You fought for anyone who would pay you. “How did you come by your knighthood?”

“On a battlefield.”

“Who knighted you?”

“Ser Robert . . . Stone. He’s dead now, my lord.”

“To be sure.” Ser Robert Stone might have been some bastard from the Vale, he supposed, selling his sword in the Disputed Lands. On the other hand, he might be no more than a name Ser Osmund cobbled together from a dead king and a castle wall. What was Cersei thinking when she gave this one a white cloak?

At least Kettleblack would likely know how to use a sword and shield. Sellswords were seldom the most honorable of men, but they had to have a certain skill at arms to stay alive. “Very well, ser,” Jaime said. “You may go.”

The man’s grin returned. He left swaggering.

“Ser Meryn.” Jaime smiled at the sour knight with the rust-red hair and the pouches under his eyes. “I have heard it said that Joffrey made use of you to chastise Sansa Stark.” He turned the White Book around one-handed. “Here, show me where it is in our vows that we swear to beat women and children.”

“I did as His Grace commanded me. We are sworn to obey.”

“Henceforth you will temper that obedience. My sister is Queen Regent. My father is the King’s Hand. I am Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Obey us. None other.”

Ser Meryn got a stubborn look on his face. “Are you telling us not to obey the king?”

“The king is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself. Use that ugly thing you keep inside your helm. If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me.”

“Aye. As you command, my lord.”

“Dismissed.” As he left, Jaime turned to Ser Balon Swann. “Ser Balon, I have watched you tilt many a time, and fought with and against you in mêlées. I’m told you proved your valor a hundred times over during the Battle of the Blackwater. The Kingsguard is honored by your presence.”

“The honor’s mine, my lord.” Ser Balon sounded wary.

“There is only one question I would put to you. You served us loyally, it’s true . . . but Varys tells me that your brother rode with Renly and then Stannis, whilst your lord father chose not to call his banners at all and remained behind the walls of Stonehelm all through the fighting.”

“My father is an old man, my lord. Well past forty. His fighting days are done.”

“And your brother?”

“Donnel was wounded in the battle and yielded to Ser Elwood Harte. He was ransomed afterward and pledged his fealty to King Joffrey, as did many other captives.”

“So he did,” said Jaime. “Even so . . . Renly, Stannis, Joffrey, Tommen . . . how did he come to omit Balon Greyjoy and Robb Stark? He might have been the first knight in the realm to swear fealty to all six kings.”

Ser Balon’s unease was plain. “Donnel erred, but he is Tommen’s man now. You have my word.”

“It’s not Ser Donnel the Constant who concerns me. It’s you.” Jaime leaned forward. “What will you do if brave Ser Donnel gives his sword to yet another usurper, and one day comes storming into the throne room? And there you stand all in white, between your king and your blood. What will you do?”

“I . . . my lord, that will never happen.”

“It happened to me,” Jaime said.

Swann wiped his brow with the sleeve of his white tunic.

“You have no answer?”

“My lord.” Ser Balon drew himself up. “On my sword, on my honor, on my father’s name, I swear . . . I shall not do as you did.”

Jaime laughed. “Good. Return to your duties . . . and tell Ser Donnel to add a weathervane to his shield.”

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