Carliene Stark

II Chapter 86

Jamie

I hesitated a moment before knocking on the heavy doors. I had my hands full with trying to organise the journey north, a task which proved more difficult than I would have thought when I wasn't just handed the men by my father or my uncle and actually had to gather them and call the banners myself. It meant I was not really in the mood for whatever Cersei was calling me to her chambers for. Especially this late.

A gentle call told me to enter and I did, pushing the door closed with my golden hand before turning to face the candle-light room. Cersei sat on a cushioned bench by the balcony. Wearing a golden robe and probably nothing else. Once, only the thought if what lay beneath it would have excited me, but now I just felt annoyed. Was this any way to meet the Lord Commander of her armies?

"I hear you've been busying yourself with preparing our army" she stated, bringing a glass of wine to her lips.

She drinks as much as Robert had. Something she always hated him for. "I have" I agreed simply, taking a few steps into the room. "I am told the Targaryen host will depart Rosby within the next few days. We will have to be quick about our own preparations if we wish to catch up to them in time" I told her, growing slightly frustrated when I could tell by her expression that she was not entirely listening to me.

She still thinks me a fool. I thought I was beginning to realise that she had always thought of me as a fool. And now that I saw the way she treated these other Lords around her to secure her position as queen, I began to realise that maybe that was what she had been doing with me all my life: keeping me close, because she could use me as a pawn in her intrigues. As complicated as these circumstances were, a small part of me was glad to leave King's Landing behind.

"How are you getting on with that?" she pondered absentmindedly. 

"What?"

"The troops" she turned her head to look at me, crossing her legs and leaning back. Her hair was growing, but probably not as quickly as she would have liked. Without her large crowns she looked far less regal and noble. 

I fumbled with my right hand, adjusting the golden replica as the straps on it started to irritate my stump. Managing a somewhat enthusiastically nod I spoke again, recalling the numbers I had done earlier. "We should manage to raise about three-thousand to five-thousand men and knights" I told her. "Provisions will be a little harder to come by, but I have set good men to the task of figuring that out" 

She thought for a moment, swaying her head from side to side. Then she shook it. "We're not sending three-thousand men out of this city" she then told me in a tone a parent would use to forbid something to their child.

Why did it not surprise me that she would have objections to my plans, no matter what they were? "What do you mean?" my mood already turning sour.

"A thousand men" she stated simply. "And not a single soul more" 

"We can spare more than that!" I argued. More importantly, we needed to spare more than that, otherwise, how would any of the other Targaryen allies take us serious?

Her green eyes narrowed at me. "And why should we? We need our men here" she challenged. 

To do what? If the battle in the north should be lost, I doubted very much we would be able to hold the city against whatever it was that would be coming south. "What? You heard what they said about what we will be facing you saw-"

"We saw what they wanted us to see!" she talked over me loudly, then her green eyes too me in, a disapproving look within them. "But I shouldn't be surprised by your willingness to believe it all" she scoffed.