Chapter 242 - Nearly Strangling Cersei

The septa pulled the door shut behind her.

The iron gave a dull thud. The bolt slid home, the sound bouncing once down the stone corridor before the damp cold swallowed it.

Two people left in the cell.

"Lord Tywin sent me to rescue you," Barristan Selmy said.

Cersei Lannister stared at him.

A long moment passed.

"Rescue me?" Her voice was flat. "You're old. You couldn't handle a boar. And you think you can break me out of a cell inside the Great Sept of Baelor?"

She lifted her chin. The gesture had once carried a queen's arrogance. Now there was a red mark on her chin, as if something had struck it, and when she raised her head her lips trembled with the effort.

"I don't need the loyalty of a turncoat."

"I will never swear loyalty to you again," Barristan Selmy said. "It was Tywin who sent me. He clears the wildfire beneath King's Landing. I get you out."

"A trade." Cersei Lannister gave a short, cold laugh. "You're making a trade with a Lannister? Do you have any idea what kind of man my father is?"

"He told me himself."

"Then he has other plans." She held his gaze. "You think you understand Tywin Lannister? I've been his daughter for over thirty years. I know him better than you ever will."

Barristan Selmy said nothing.

He had seen Tywin too many times. He knew she was probably right. It didn't matter.

He had already decided what he was going to do before he walked through that door.

"The wildfire explosion on Iron Street." Cersei Lannister changed course without warning. "That was you? Those five charred corpses, you brought them into the city?"

"That's right. I did."

"You stupid, vicious woman." Barristan Selmy said it plainly, the first time he had ever cursed the Queen Mother to her face. "You planted the wildfire. You buried that green fire under every street in King's Landing."

"And how exactly would you know that?"

"How do I know?" He met her eyes. "When Tyrion Lannister came to Dragonstone to negotiate, he told us everything."

"Tyrion."

Cersei Lannister's face changed. The muscle along her cheekbone pulled tight. Her jaw locked.

"When he comes back from the North, I will kill him."

"Worry about yourself first," Barristan Selmy said. "The High Septon has charged you with five crimes. You may already be dead before Tyrion Lannister ever sets foot in King's Landing again."

"My father will save me."

"Then wait," Barristan Selmy said. He leaned against the wall, head tilting slightly as he watched her. "Wait for Tywin to come."

Cersei Lannister raised her chin higher. "What are you stalling for? Either leave now, or get me out. Don't squat there like a crow waiting to die in its nest."

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"I've been thinking about it since I left the Tower of the Hand." He paused. "Years ago, I rescued Aerys from Duskendale."

A beat of silence.

"After Aerys came back to King's Landing, what he did was worse than anything the rebels had done. He killed many people. Burned many people. If I hadn't saved him — if he had died in that stone room and Rhaegar had taken the throne — everything would have been different."

"What does that have to do with me?" Cersei Lannister said.

"Nothing at all. The trade Tywin proposed — I never agreed to it."

He had thought it through clearly before coming here.

"I saved Aerys once and brought disaster upon the realm," he said. "I won't make that mistake again."

The words were barely out of his mouth before he moved.

He pushed off the wall, crossed the cell in two strides, and closed both hands around Cersei Lannister's throat.

The scream never made it out. It hit her windpipe and died there, a muffled, strangled sound.

She clawed at his face. Her nails opened a line across his right cheek, but his grip didn't loosen.

She kicked at his knees. Kicked at his legs. The thin-soled cloth shoes had nothing in them, and after a few blows her legs simply buckled.

He took her down with him, pressing her spine against the cold, wet stone, and the sounds coming from her mouth turned to a wet, rattling rasp.

Footsteps thundered from the far end of the corridor. Iron boots on stone, fast and heavy.

"Let go of him!" a voice roared.

Barristan Selmy did not let go. He drove his thumbs deeper into the soft cartilage on either side of her throat.

Cersei Lannister's eyes began to roll. Her lips went purple.

A forearm hooked around his neck from behind. A hand wrenched at his wrist. Then two more bodies hit him from the side, one seizing his arm, another driving a fist hard into his ribs.

He was torn off her.

Three Warrior's Sons guards, none of them wearing helmets, shoved him down onto his knees and held him there, gasping against his weight. One braced a knee into the small of his back and pinned him flat.

Cersei Lannister clutched her throat and coughed.

She coughed until she folded, retching dry and heaving, tears and mucus running together down her face as she dragged air back into her lungs in great raw gulps.

Two bright red lines of fingerprints stood out on her throat.

"Kill him..." She coughed and kept talking. "He tried to kill me... he..."

Barristan Selmy lay face-down on the stone. Cold and damp against his cheek. He could feel the nail scratch on his right cheek seeping, blood running down along his cheekbone and dripping onto the floor.

He did not struggle.

They hauled him upright. Two guards took his arms, one on each side. The third walked ahead with his sword half out of its scabbard.

At the cell door, Barristan Selmy turned his head and looked back.

Cersei Lannister had dragged herself to the pile of straw in the corner. She was curled there with both hands still pressed to her throat, eyes fixed on the floor.

He remembered the first time he had seen her. The steps of the Red Keep, many years ago.

She had been a little girl then. A green silk dress. Hair plaited into braids.

He had been standing in the Kingsguard ranks, and he had watched that golden head go past and thought, yes, the Lannister children really were something to look at.

Now he was looking at a woman coming apart at the seams.

The guards marched him out of the cell block, through the corridor that narrowed as it went, past a row of locked empty cells, up a stretch of stone steps.

The light came back gradually. Dark gray to gray-white. The damp cold thinned from the air.

He was standing in the side aisle of the Great Sept of Baelor.

The High Sparrow stood ten paces off, hands clasped behind his back, barefoot, face composed.

"Ser Barristan. I'm told you attempted to murder a defenseless woman."

"That woman," Barristan Selmy said, "is the one who planned to blow up the entire city."

"Even if that is true, you have no right to carry out judgment before a trial has been held."

"Cersei Lannister has to die. Tywin knows about the wildfire under King's Landing, I'm certain of it. Sooner or later he will get her out. She had to be killed before he makes his move."

The High Sparrow did not answer.

Back in the cell, Cersei Lannister had her breath back.

She got to her feet, crossed to the iron door, and wrapped both hands around the vertical bars.

"Septa!"

Footsteps from down the passage. The gray-robed septa came to the door and looked at her through the grate.

"Please," Cersei Lannister said. "Tell the High Septon. I'm willing to turn witness for the crown. Whatever it takes to get me out of here."

"It's too late for that."

Cersei Lannister's hands tightened on the bars. "What do you mean, too late?"

"Your cousin Lancel beat you to it. He has already come forward as a crown witness. He will testify against you at the trial." The septa held her gaze through the iron. "He's been made captain of the Order of the Sacred Sword."

Cersei Lannister's lips moved.

No sound came out.

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