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Cersei can barely hear above the pounding of blood in her ears, and the ringing like a distant unceasing scream. The king is missing. Her son is missing. He’d refused to return to the red Keep when she’d sent for him, and now he is missing in the middle of battle! Simmering with rage she presses harshly against Lancel’s wound, making him pale drastically and his please for reinforcements dry up.
“If anything has happened to my son, I will have your head,” Cersei spits the promise with more venom than any snake, clawing at Lancel’s sword belt, and pulling it free from his body. She doesn’t care about the blood staining it as she ties it about her own waist, feet carrying her towards the door.
Sansa’s insipid voice sounds behind her but she doesn’t care to listen to the child, nor the wailing of the women she’s leaving behind. Cersei can think only of her son, her eldest, her beautiful golden boy. She will find him herself since everyone else is so incompetent.
(Somewhere in the depths of her mind, the whispering memory of a woman’s voice makes her so very, very afraid. “Gold their shrouds.”)
Her ire gives her speed and she reaches the stables far sooner than she expects.
“Ready my horse!” She roars at the nearest attendants, who quiver by the doors in fear of what’s happening outside the safety of the Red Keep’s walls. There are soldiers nearby, men who’d been kept back from the outer walls to defend the Keep as a last resort. One of them, a captain it seems, dares to question her judgement, arguing when she tells him she intends to ride for the Mud Gate.
“But your grace! The Mud Gate was breached!”
She quells him with only a glare. He quavers and calls for his men. When Cersei mounts up moments later, it is with a group of soldiers to guard her on her ride.
There are smallfolk by the gate as they leave, screaming and crying and jumping out of the way of the horses, but Cersei pays them no mind, she can only focus on the thought of her son. She and her guards thunder down the roads, around the arc of the Hook until the road becomes clogged with the wounded being brought back from the gate to the temporary hospital that had been set up in an old manor along the edge of Aegon’s High Hill.
Cersei does not wish to slow, but she does, only so she doesn’t risk her horse’s legs by trampling the injured. Being thrown from her steed at such a crucial time was not a preferred outcome, it would stop her from reaching her son.
‘If they have time to cart the injured,’ Cersei thinks spitefully as she skirts yet another cart, not caring if her guards kept up, ‘then they should pick up a weapon and fight!’
The sound and stench as she finally neared the Mud Gate is horrific, her horse whinnying with distress, bucking beneath her as armed and armoured men charge in her direction.
The Mud Gate had been breached, yes, but the breach was still within sight of the gate, it has not yet had time to spread further. Even the numbers of men were less than she’d expected.
Cersei dismounted instead of trying to fight the men and her horse, stepping towards them she drew Lancel’s sword with a cry and struck.
It had been so many years since she’d last held a sword for training, since the days she’d been able to fool the sword master into thinking she was Jamie. But the memories were there, the training remained, her rage gives her strength as she parries the oncoming blades, skidding her own borrowed blade around them, and into the gaps she creates.
She strikes down one man and then another and another and another, uncaring of their blood splattering her dress and skin and hair, until she at last has enough space to breathe, to look around. She sees some men dazed, weapons by their feet.
“PICK UP YOUR WEAPONS!” She roars across the din of the fight, “PICK UP YOUR STEEL AND DEFEND OUR HOME!”
She doesn’t realise it as she says it, she says ‘our’ and means hers and Joffrey’s, the Lannister’s, the royal family’s home. The men hear her say ‘our,’ and see her, blade in hand, and take it to mean ‘your homes and mine, we are all in this together.’
It gives them courage where it was fleeing, the men pick up their weapons, because even the queen is fighting with them. Fighting in only her fancy gown and winning.
“FOR THE QUEEN! FOR KING’S LANDING!”
The cry takes up and the tide turns.
Sansa and Shae help Lancel down the corridors towards Maester Frenken, the music of Moon Boy and murmuring of the nervous nobles cutting off as the heavy doors swing shut once again. The feeling of Janos Slynt’s heavy gaze takes longer to fade though, Sansa swears she can still feel it as they enter the Maester’s room.
There’s a messenger in the rooms, pleading with Maester Frenken. The field hospital they’d set up on Hook was understaffed, more wounded than expected, than the staff could care for.
Frenken only half listened to the messenger, directing Lancel to a seat and getting him disrobed enough to get at the wound on his arm. Frenken washes his hands with something alcohol smelling from a jug and spreads a paste across the wound. He tells the room that Lancel will need a few stitches and a bandage but the limb is not at risk.
He wipes the paste off before beginning the stitches, and Sansa watches with a detached fascination. She thinks she understands the stitch’s measurements by the third one, so when Frenken turns to yell at the messenger, stepping away from Lancel to do so, Sansa steps into his spot.
“WASH YOUR HANDS, GIRL!” Frenken’s yell makes her startle before she can touch the needle halfway through Lancel’s flesh. She shares an alarmed look with Shae, who grabs the jug and pours it for Sansa to wash her hands. Frenken doesn’t stop her again as she finishes the stitches.
“Hmmm, done those before by chance?” Frenken asks over her shoulder as she reaches the end of the wound.
“No, Maester Frenken,” Sansa replies, “I merely copied what you did, my Septa says – said – I’m gifted with a needle.”
“Hmm, tie it off,” he directs her on finishing the stitches, clipping the thread and dressing the wound with cloth. “Not squeamish are you?”
“I’m from the North,” Sansa replies, though it doesn’t answer the question. She doesn’t like things that smell, or things that are messy, and the injured were often both. She’s never seen the aftermath of a battle like this one though, and she doesn’t know.
“Alright, just don’t vomit on the patients,” Frenken says, and before Sansa can refuse, she and Shae are helping to carry extra supplies for the hospital down to the stables.
They pick up more people on their way to the stables, but Sansa doesn’t really know who or why, she merely allows herself to be carried away by their little procession. She helps stow the supplies in saddlebags and a small cart, then mounts a horse for the ride through the unsafe streets of King’s Landing when Frenken direct her to. Shae mounts up beside her and they go, through the crowd by the gate and the almost empty streets, until they reach the overflowing manor grounds.
Sansa thinks she could escape now. Shae would go with her she was sure.
But there are people screaming in pain, crying for gods and mothers and lovers, and as she had in Maegor’s Holdfast, Sansa does what she can to quell the chaos.
She listens to Frenken and washes wounds, stitches flesh back up, learns quickly how to feel a pulse and detect life as she and the others try to save as many as they can. Shae stays by her side, helping her, pouring the hand cleaning alcohol and swapping out needles as needed. Shae’s face shows distaste when she has to handle the injured, but she does it anyway, persevering by Sansa’s side.
There’s only a few moments when she doesn’t know where her maid is, but Sansa thinks it’s normal to lose track of the people around you when you’re busy trying to hold a man’s insides inside him while a Maester shouts rapid instructions you can barely understand.
Sansa doesn’t know what her face is doing as she works, but she tries to talk to the men she stitches up, calm them.
She has no sense of time or the battle taking place just down the road from them, knows only one patient then the next until the torchlight’s orange glow is replaced by the clearer light of the sun and the patient before her is a blood drenched Cersei, looking furious and weary.
It shocks Sansa enough that she is brought out of the focused state she’d been in since she’d started tending the patients, around the room, though more wounded trickle in, there’s calls of victory. They’ve won.
Sansa squashes everything she feels at the news and refocuses on her patient. There’s an arrow stuck in her skirts, but as Sansa moves the fabric she finds only the barest of scratches. Sansa can handle that easily enough.
The broken arrow shaft in her side, on the other hand, is beyond Sansa’s limited ability.
“Fetch a Maester, Her Majesty needs attending,” Sansa tells Shae, who races off. To the queen, she says “Your Majesty?”
Cersei’s distracted gaze narrows in on her, one hand coming up to clutch too tightly at Sansa’s arm.
“Has there been any word of Joffrey?” The question is a desperate whisper.
“I’ve not heard anything, but I’m sure he lives or word would have spread even here,” Sansa tries to assure her.
Cersei attempts to stand, looking about the room.
“Your majesty, please,” Sansa pushes her back gently to sitting, “you’re injured, you need to wait for a Maester.”
“I need to find my son!” Cersei looks dangerous, her glare furious.
Sansa nods, “I’ll send Shae to ask around for him, to tell him to come and see you here,” she drops her voice, leaning in to Cersei, “if he can be found no one needs to know he was missing, if he’s beyond help, hurting yourself further will not help him,” Cersei’s grip tightens painfully on her arm, “and if he is injured, you being injured will only worry him when he needs to focus on his own recovery. Staying here, letting the Maesters tend you while Shae searches is the best solution.”
For a few seconds, Sansa thinks Cersei’s torn nails are going to cut through cloth and break skin, but then the older woman lets go with a huff and a hissed “make sure he’s found.”
The Maesters appear soon after with Shae, who Sansa takes aside while the Maesters begin fussing over the queen. Shae is clever and Sansa doesn’t have to spend long relaying the plan. There’s a group of gold cloaks by the doors, not far from where they are, one of the men has a sigil on his armour that Sansa recognises as a high rank. She approaches them with more confidence than she feels, and more authority than she has.
“Ser,” she addresses the man of rank, “my maid needs an escort, she must return to the Red Keep quickly to relay a message to the king, and fetch fresh garments for the queen. I know you all must be tired, but if one of your men could be spared to ensure she is not delayed, I would be grateful.”
The man of rank eyes her coolly for a long, long second, then he nods, gesturing for one of his men to go with Shae.
Sansa squeezes Shae’s hand gently before the other woman departs, hurrying down the manor’s steps to a waiting horse, the soldier’s golden cloak swirling in his haste to follow. Behind Sansa the queen snarls something, and Sansa turns to see what’s happening.
The queen has not been taken to a private room, there are none in the field hospital, only beds and stretchers squashed in together, as many per room as can fit without blocking the way for the Maesters and blue-clad nurses. Cersei is holding the collar of her dress to her neck, the fabric more torn than it had been moments ago.
“I’m sorry your majesty, but the dress must come off for us to get to the wound!” One of the Maesters exclaims, and Sansa looks around the room.
Cersei’s spot is next to the wall, if Sansa can find something to block the rest of the room from her view, or rather, Cersei from the view of the room…
“Sers,” Sansa addresses the tired group of gold cloaks again, “may I borrow your cloaks on behalf of the queen?”
Cersei keeps waiting for the betrayal as Sansa helps stitch the wound on her back closed. The one she hadn’t even realised she’d received during the battle until the Maesters had cut her from her dress. Keeps waiting for the girl to take the opportunity to slide a medical knife between Cersei’s ribs and flee, off into the remnant chaos of King’s Landing.
‘The girl will probably be raped and dead before she makes it out of the city,’ Cersei thinks to herself. And it curdles oddly in her stomach, the thought of it. True, Cersei would finally be free of the wretched girl, ‘younger and more beautiful,’ but then Cersei would also be alone down the only remaining hope she had to keep the North under any kind of control.
Cersei tries to focus on other things, but her mind keeps trying to wonder to thoughts of her son, who she’s still had no word of. If she thinks on him, she fears the worry will take her mind. She wonders instead if her brother is dead, and hopes he is. She hopes Tyrion died in the battle, dishonourably struck down tripping over his own wretched feet. His plans had almost lost them the Mud Gate, had allowed the enemy into the city where her son was.
Her son who-
The cloak of one of the gold cloaks surrounding her rustles, the soldier’s arms dipping slightly, lowering the cloak he has spread behind him before he catches himself and raises his arms back into place, securing her temporary wall of fabric once again.
If he drops his arms and exposes her to the masses, she’ll have his head on a pike.
She’ll cut it from his shoulders herself, Cersei decides. Her eyes slide about the small space they created at Sansa’s behest, looking for her sword. It was nowhere to be seen, Cersei wondered if one of the Maesters had taken it when they’d left her, arrow-free and mostly stitched up, with only Frenken and Sansa to tend to her. Perhaps it was a good thing for Frenken that her sword was gone, if he didn’t stop praising Sansa, Cersei was going to find a way to stab him, sword or no sword.
“Well done,” Frenken says, as if to tempt Cersei’s violent desire further, “we’ll make a blue bird of you yet I dare say.” Cersei rolls her eyes at the thought, though Sansa was certainly pious enough that becoming one of the Mother’s blue-clad Septa’s might suit her weak heart.
“Thank you, Maester Frenken,” Sansa replies, then, “your majesty? How do you feel? Do you need more numbing paste or milk of the poppy?”
“No,” Cersei replies flatly, she will not allow herself to be insensate when news of her son comes. She will not allow herself to be insensate while naked and surrounded by so many men, especially when their loyalty is cheap and easily lost and sold, she had seen it herself in the dark hours of the night, men preparing to flee their posts.
The desire to remain alert doesn’t stop her from losing time in small, drowsy increments. Cersei startles at the touch of a cold damp cloth, her hand flies out to swat it away, but she misses her target, and only manages to pull at the stitches on her side.
“It’s just me, your majesty,” Sansa says in her soft voice, as though Cersei were a small child to be coddled, as though it is supposed to be soothing to have an enemy so close. “I’m just rinsing the last of the blood from your skin, some of the Septas are bringing more water to wash your hair, and Shae should be back soon with word from the Red Keep. Ser Bywater’s men are still guarding you, you’re safe.”
Cersei snorts at the thought. ‘Safe,’ as if she has ever been safe since her childhood days had faded into the reality of being a woman. She manages to sneer in Sansa’s general direction before her tired body settles back down, wordlessly giving Sansa permission to continue.
As the girl swipes the cold cloth over Cersei’s shoulder she leans in to whisper, “Ser Bywater told me Joffrey was seen fleeing the battle towards the Red Keep after the gate was breached, it is likely he made it to safety.”
‘It’s also likely some ungrateful peasant killed him on the dark streets,’ Cersei thinks viciously, afraid. They cannot know for certain until she has her son before her. The hope and worry coil inside her like writhing serpents. She cannot think on it, she must not think on it, or they will devour her from within. It seems as though she looses time again, because she is startled back to full waking by a dry, almost scratchy sheet being draped over her body. She hears a voice that is not Sansa’s.
“The king made it back shortly after we left, he’s sending a cart down to bring his mother back to the keep,” the voice is accented, feminine, and tight with worry. “My lady, Lord Tyrion was… he was injured in the battle, he lives but…”
“Go,” Cersei manages to get out, mumbled through tired lips. ‘Finish the job,’ she intends to say, but the words won’t flow. Sansa, the little wretch, takes it upon herself to misinterpret the word.
“I must stay with the queen, Shae, please go tend to Lord Tyrion, make sure he gets any treatment he needs. If anyone tries to bother you, let them know it is the queen’s command.”
“Thank you my lady, your grace,” the voice, Shae, Cersei supposes, says gratefully, “I will ensure he is well.”
“Of course, but if you could help me turn her majesty before you go, I still need to wash her hair before she redresses.”
Cersei is awake enough to help turn herself, despite the pulling pain of her wounds, if only to get the hands off her sooner. Sansa and Shae have her resettled slightly off the bed, her head supported by Sansa’s hand as water is poured through her hair. She doesn’t mean to drift off again, but between the warmth of the water and the gentle ministrations of Sansa’s hands, she hasn’t much choice in the matter.
She misses Jamie with a soul deep ache before she slips under.
Sansa can tell the men are desperately relieved when the empty tapestry frames arrive, and they are able to tie their cloaks to the wood and put down their arms at last. They grumble somewhat, but they puff up when Lannister soldiers finally arrive to relieve them of their duty to guard the sleeping queen.
For a brief moment, Sansa, dizzy with tiredness after a hectic, sleepless night, thinks about escaping now in the light of day. She could wander off to other corners of the manor, perhaps climb out through a window and flee off into the city.
Two things stop her.
The first is the gut clenching terror that floods through her at the thought of being in the city undefended, memories of the bread riot clawing at her insides. The second, is one of the Lannister guards who questions her when she tries to move away.
“Where are you going?” She can hear the scowl in his words as easily as she can see it on his face.
“The queen has had a long night, I was going to get her food to eat, before the cart arrives.”
The man eyes her, and after a brief silence, gestures for one of his companions to go. The man takes his time, but only returns with a single bowl of lukewarm broth. Sansa does not take it from him, she turns instead to wake the queen, helping the woman sit up so she doesn’t pull yet again at her stitches.
“Joffrey is well, he has returned to the Red Keep,” Sansa tells the queen quietly as she can, unsure how much of Shae’s news the queen had truly heard, “he’s sending a cart to bring you back to the Keep. One of your father’s men has brought you broth, would you like to eat or dress first?”
“Dress,” Cersei says, trying to stand on her own. Sansa waves the guards back behind the makeshift privacy screens and ignores Cersei own attempts to wave her off. Standing seems to help the queen wake up, and she’s back to her normal alertness by the time Sansa finishes helping her into the dress Shae had brought. A gold and red gown with pleating that reminded Sansa vaguely of armour.
“Ser?” Sansa calls out, “the queen’s broth.” The soldier appears around the screen and hands her the bowl, which Sansa passes to Cersei who is sitting on the bed managing to look regal despite her tiredness. The queen grimaces, ignores the spoon and drinks the broth from the bowl directly. She gets through about half before stopping, another, stronger wince crossing her face.
Sansa doesn’t realize she’s wavering until Cersei pulls her down beside her with a waspish “Sit down you silly girl.” When Cersei passes her back the bowl of broth and indicates for her to drink it, Sansa suspects it’s less an act of kindness and more a desire to not have to drink the now cold broth. Sansa chokes down what remains, if only because her stomach is threatening to eat her spine from the lack of food. She hadn’t paid it much attention while she was busy with the wounded, but sitting with the queen had given her body time to make its complaints known.
The broth sits in her stomach, heavy and greasy, but it quiets the grumbles.
They sit in silence after that, until Sansa longs to fidget, or stand and run, or even just ask if any of the wounded need tending to. Before she can break, there’s a commotion at the doors. The carriage from the king has arrived to retrieve the queen. Sansa doesn’t even have the chance to hope she might be left behind before Cersei is using her shoulder to stand and pulling her along towards the door.
The cart is backed all the way up to the steps, and Lannister men help the queen make the small gap between stairs and cart. Sansa has to make the gap by herself, and sends a quick prayer that she doesn’t fall, followed by one of thanks when she makes it gracefully enough. She settles in across from the queen, wondering if she should have removed the nurse’s apron she’d been given when she’d arrived, or if she should simply wear the blood speckled garment until she reached the Red Keep.
The queen makes no comment on it, so Sansa continues to wear it as the cart begins to roll, taking them back through the streets towards her prison which she had once hoped to call home.
They pass by smallfolk and soldiers alike as they travel, and noise builds around them, the people cheering as they pass. Sansa doesn’t understand it, the feeling of the people is so different from the last time she travelled through the city, they do not call for blood or bread, demand justice and food, they simply cheer.
It will take several days for the rumours to reach Sansa, of the warped stories people are telling of herself and the queen, one who healed the dying with a touch, the other who slew hundreds with her roar alone.
For now Sansa merely waves as people pass and shares the silent ride with the queen, both of them longing for the chance to lie down in their own beds and sleep.