Five days into the eight day journey, at least at the speed my party was moving, we crossed paths with Cersei's party heading the other direction.
Cersei Lannister might have been a bug fuck nuts psychopath but god was she hot. I had thought that Lena Headey looked smashing all dolled up for the role but she didn't hold a candle to the real thing. Eyes of emerald, hair that seemed to be spun of sunlight reflecting off gold, perfect proportions. The memories of how good, and inventive, she was didn't help. I know, I know, "Don't stick your dick in crazy", not to mention the whole incest thing and that she was going to become Queen. Still...
Thankfully we had broken camp for the day barely an hour before and so I didn't have to face temptation.
"Jaime!" she had greeted me, jumping down from her carriage to give me a hug moments after I unhorsed.
"Sister." I answered
"It's good to see you again brother, and father says that I'm to be Queen!" she said, sounded excited.
I smiled and said "A Lannister Always Pays Their Debts and he did promise you a crown on our sixth birthday, although I will admit that he was shocked to be able to make good on his promise." before discreetly waving our guards off until they were out of earshot.
"Why? The Stark bitch could always have been removed." she said, barely even checking that only I was near enough to overhear.
I winced, 'and there is the Cersei we know and hate, lets see if I can pound a little sense into that pretty head of hers', before saying "Don't let anyone but me hear you speak that way Cersei. Your husband-to-be loved that "Stark bitch" deeply enough to overlook blood ties and three hundred years of unflinching service to House Targaryen when Rhaegar kidnapped his betrothed, and in his rage the Stag brought low the Dragon.
"If Robert ever hears you speak that way, your pretty head will be crowned in blood and brains faster than you could even think to apologize."
She scoffed, "Come now brother, surely you jest. Lyanna was good looking enough I suppose but nothing spectacular."
I shook my head "No, Cersei. This has nothing to do with beauty. Robert loved her like Father loved Mother, and you remember how he changed after she passed. That is your husband-to-be, a man deep in mourning and furious at the gods for tearing away his love after he did the impossible to secure her hand. I have no doubt that if he but had directions to the Seven's Halls, Robert would call the banners tomorrow and smash their gates in with his warhammer. And I'm not sure that he wouldn't win."
She looked slightly worried, 'good, maybe I'm getting through to her'. "Really...? But that's madness! He spent barely more than a week, total, in Lyanna's presence."
I shrugged "Whether he actually loved the women or only his image of her is irrelevant to my point. Right now he is in mourning and spends his days fighting in the practice yard, feasting in the Great Hall, and fucking in the pleasure house. All while imbibing a truly staggering amount of alcohol.
"That is the scene you are going to step into when you arrive at King's Landing, and if you aren't prepared then things are liable to go poorly."
Cersei sighed, "What do you suggest then brother? You've at least seen him since he was crowned."
"First, dismiss any thoughts of him loving you in the near future. I have no doubt that he could come to love you in time," in fact I had quite a lot of doubt, but she didn't need to know that, "but for him this marriage will be simply a duty of state and of no true emotional value to him. As far as Robert is concerned, you will exist to provide him an heir and look pretty sitting next to him in public. I doubt he will care about your feelings or even slow down his whoring ways, and you won't have any power to compel him.
"My advice is to accept that going in and give him an heir as rapidly as possible, ideally with a spare to go along with it. Know that in time your child with him will sit the throne as King, and given Robert's ways that will probably be much earlier than you might expect. Once you do that, you will be secure enough that with our family's leverage we should be able to get him to keep his hands off you from then on. If you want to really have some power over him then control his whores. You will be Queen, that will give you nigh limitless power to choose the Red Keep's servants.
"I'll have our brother gather a collection of fine looking smallfolk and have Casterly Rock's servants train them up to be proper palace servants before sending them your way. Staff the palace with them and provide regular moon tea while also paying them to be our eyes and ears. That at least should keep the pox from becoming an issue and give you some control over his vices. If father would allow it I would have Tyrion takeover all the whore houses in King's Landing, he would probably love the task and it would give us a near peerless information network throughout the capital. Not to mention another hook on the King."
She almost shrieked as she spat out "Your advice is to help him cheat on me!?"
I sighed and pulled her into a hug "Cersei, I know you well enough to know that you want that crown more than almost anything and father will ensure that you have it regardless of whatever you may wish. You will be Robert Baratheon's Queen and he will be unfaithful to you. Those are simple facts outside the ability of you or I to control, or even much influence. What we do in response to those facts though... well that is something we can influence.
"So yes, if he is going to cheat on you then you may as well figure out how to profit from it. The price you will pay for your crown is giving Robert a true born male heir.", I pushed her away slightly while grasping her by the shoulders and shaking her gently "That part is critical, you must bare him an heir and do so as fast as possible. Without that, you, me, our entire house, are all in grave danger. Especially if you choose to cheat on him. There must be an heir that all the other Kingdoms will acknowledge as the right and proper, legitimate, heir to the throne if we want our blood to sit that throne in the years and centuries to come. Understand?"
She looked me straight in the eyes, and seeing that I was both deadly serious and utterly unwilling to back down on this point, sighed and said "Yes, I understand. I have to spit out a Baratheon brat, gods I wish I had been born with a dick."
I gave her a wounded look, a slight smirk gracing my lips "But your cunt suits me so very well and I'm not a pillow biter."
She blushed and slapped me on the shoulder in gentle admonishment "Jaime, not now. We don't have the privacy for pleasure today."
"True", I sighed, "but returning to less happy matters; the other part of the price your crown will demand is that you put up with Robert's whoring and generally shitty behavior. So the best course of action for you to take is making his behavior have some benefit for you. If nothing else, controlling who he is fucking will allow you to limit the number of bastards he spreads around."
"I'll think about it, hopefully you are wrong about Robert and this is all just borrowing trouble without reason." she said, the hope evident in her tone even as her eyes made it clear that she believed me.
"I hope you're right, now hows the Rock been?" I said, holding out an arm for her to grab and leading her on a short stroll as we chatted about much less serious matters for another thirty or so minutes.
Three days after that encounter my party came around a bend in the Gold Road and Casterly Rock became visible in the distance for the first time, all I could think was that the book's descriptions had done the place a grave disservice and the shows visuals were a gross insult.
Lannisport curved around the end of a small bay of the Sunset Sea. To it's south stood a great wall, extending more than a mile out into the water, rising a hundred feet high and more than a dozen feet thick. That wall curved around the whole of Lannisport, protecting the three hundred and fifty thousand people who called the city home, until it met melded seamlessly with a small mountain of rock a mere twelve hundred feet tall. That mountain had been sculpted over the past several thousand years until it looked like a giant lion laying in repose. Between it's paws, themselves two hundred feet tall and filled with archer slits to turn the ground between into an excellent killing field, stood the Lion's Mouth.
That gate might have started as a natural cavern but it had been entirely reshaped until it resembled a Lion's roaring maw. Stalactites and Stalagmites plated in white gold formed the teeth, and after passing between those great jaws one found a truly massive door formed of several foot thick weirwood inlaid with gold. When we approached, the door sank into the ground until it was flush. Past that was a half mile long straight, level, tunnel whose walls and ceiling were gold plated steel that formed an intricate cage. Its purpose to allow water to flood the whole tunnel as one of its many defenses, or to allow men armed with spears to stand beside the tunnel and stab any invaders.
At the other end of the tunnel, and through another massive weirwood gate, was a bridge wide enough for twenty men abreast. Below, more than a thousand feet down, was nought but water crashing on jagged rocks. And at the other end of that bridge? Well there was Casterly Rock proper.
It rose another thousand feet in the sky, standing twenty two hundred feet from the sea that the vast pillar of granite jutted out of, and had likewise been carved into the shape of a lion; although this one was more sitting than lying. The face looked out over Lannisport and it was crowned with a pyramid of glass that shown golden in the light. Countless balconies and windows dotted the sculpted mountains surface while at its base opened a massive, gated, cave with enough dock space to dock a dozen war galleys.
Thanks to my memories I knew that what was visible from the outside was barely a tenth part of The Rock. Over the years the entire visible mountain had been hollowed out and turned into apartments, galleries, forges, greenhouses, storage facilities, and all manner of other things. The simple truth was that the Rock had so much available space that even we Lannisters had never really managed to find a use for it all. Then there were the mines and tunnels, dozens - perhaps hundreds - of miles worth extending in all directions another thousand or so feet below sea level.
All told, the Rock was one of the most utterly defensible and impossible to capture fortresses imaginable for a society without modern artillery. Come to think of it, it would still be a bitch to take with the best weapons of the twenty first century. Sadly it was only the second most defensible castle in Westeros. First place went to The Eyrie of the Arryn's, it was hard to top a castle that required you basically scale Mt. Everest by walking up a set of treacherous stone stairs barely five feet wide before you could even start assaulting its gates. On the other hand, the Eyrie was more likely to fall to siege and could house far fewer people.
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