The Last Stag • Game of Thrones

31.

Chapter Thirty-One
Clever

On the night that Renfri Baratheon was born, her mother says that she came into the world holding the leg of her twin brother, as if she was saying 'This way, Orys! This way to life!'

And what a life it had been.

As the ink was still drying in The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, a teenaged Cersei Lannister had fawned over her newborn babes, with their golden eyes and blackened curls. They were so sweet together, so enamored in each others presence, as all twins were.

On the night that Orys Baratheon died, it was said that Renfri Baratheon had cried so loudly that every light in the Red District had turned on as disgruntled Ladies and Lords rose from their slumber to see what the fuss was about. Cries and shouts filled the streets as the cityfolk learned of the news that their prince, their heir, had been taken by a fever. It was supposedly the loudest night that King's Landing had ever had.

On the night that Ben Baratheon died, everything was silent.

No tears were shed in King's Landing, no fires burning offerings for the little Lord's soul. Nobody had even known. Perhaps if they had, if the commoners knew the truth, that their conquistador Queen had murdered her own grandchild, they would have stormed the castle themselves.

But nobody knew. Only those in the most inner circle of the royal family were aware that in the great book that documented the descendants of the great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, fresh ink was drying on a very old page.

Ben Baratheon, born to Princess Renfri Baratheon and an unknown father at King's Landing in the 302nd year after Aegon's Landing. Black of hair, dark brown of eye, born still. Swirling black lettering written in Jaime Lannister's own scrawl. It did not matter that Ben had not been legitimized, that he was born still, not to Jaime. He was Renfri's son, and that made him a Baratheon through and through.

Jaime adjusted his armor, fixing his artificial hand into the sleeve. He had hardly been able to look at Cersei, let alone touch her. Not after what she had done to Renfri.

He exited his chambers, moving down the hall, hand on the hilt of his sword. Stopping at Renfri's door, he noticed that for the first time, there were no guards standing outside her room. Nobody responsible for keeping the Princess in her chambers.

Jaime pushed open the door, his breath catching in his throat.

Inside, the stench of rot smacked him in the face.

There was no visible body, no blood staining the wooden floor. The only sign that something was amiss was the smell of blood.

It grew stronger as he reached the bathing room. Jaime clamped his hand over his nose, breathing through his mouth to avoid losing his lunch.

The bathing room was a complete bloodbath.

Six bodies littered the floor, four guards and two handmaidens. Their throats meaningfully and cleanly sliced, their dead eyes staring up at the ceiling in surprise, bodies still fresh enough that no real decay had set in. But no Renfri.

He had to hand it to her, it was clever. If he had not come to say goodbye before departing for Highgarden, she might have not been found out for days. The handmaidens were responsible for delivering her meals, the guards for watching her door. Nobody else saw the Princess, nobody else checked in often enough.

Jaime stepped closer to the bodies, noticing something peculiar.

The guards were missing parts of their clothing. One missed his helm, another his breastplate, the third his pants and boots. Behind the tub, a great pile of black curls sat on the floor, kicked underneath the tub.