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Lancel looked even thinner than he had at King’s Landing. He was barefoot, and dressed in a plain, roughspun tunic of undyed wool that made him look more like a beggar than a lord. The crown of his head had been shaved smooth, but his beard had grown out a little. To call it peach fuzz would have given insult to the peach. It went queerly with the white hair around his ears.

“Cousin,” said Jaime when they were alone within the sept, “have you lost your bloody wits?”

“I prefer to say I’ve found my faith.”

“Where is your father?”

“Gone. We quarreled.” Lancel knelt before the altar of his other Father. “Will you pray with me, Jaime?”

“If I pray nicely, will the Father give me a new hand?”

“No. But the Warrior will give you courage, the Smith will lend you strength, and the Crone will give you wisdom.”

“It’s a hand I need.” The seven gods loomed above carved altars, the dark wood gleaming in the candlelight. A faint smell of incense hung in the air. “You sleep down here?”

“Each night I make my bed beneath a different altar, and the Seven send me visions.”

Baelor the Blessed once had visions too. Especially when he was fasting. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“My faith is all the nourishment I need.”

“Faith is like porridge. Better with milk and honey.”

“I dreamed that you would come. In the dream you knew what I had done. How I’d sinned. You killed me for it.”

“You’re more like to kill yourself with all this fasting. Didn’t Baelor the Blessed fast himself onto a bier?”

“Our lives are candle flames, says The Seven-Pointed Star. Any errant puff of wind can snuff us out. Death is never far in this world, and seven hells await sinners who do not repent their sins. Pray with me, Jaime.”

“If I do, will you eat a bowl of porridge?” When his coz did not answer, Jaime sighed. “You should be sleeping with your wife, not with the Maid. You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle.”

“A pile of cold stones. I never asked for it. I never wanted it. I only wanted. ” Lancel shuddered. “Seven save me, but I wanted to be you.”

Jaime had to laugh. “Better me than Blessed Baelor. Darry needs a lion, coz. So does your little Frey. She gets moist between the legs every time someone mentions Hardstone. If she hasn’t bedded him yet, she will soon.”

“If she loves him, I wish them joy of one another.”

“A lion shouldn’t have horns. You took the girl to wife.”

“I said some words and gave her a red cloak, but only to please Father. Marriage requires consummation. King Baelor was made to wed his sister Daena, but they never lived as man and wife, and he put her aside as soon as he was crowned.”

“The realm would have been better served if he had closed his eyes and fucked her. I know enough history to know that. In any case, you’re not like to be taken for Baelor the Blessed.”

“No,” Lancel allowed. “He was a rare spirit, pure and brave and innocent, untouched by all the evils of the world. I am a sinner, with much and more to atone for.”

Jaime put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “What do you know of sin, coz? I killed my king.”

“The brave man slays with a sword, the craven with a wineskin. We are both kingslayers, ser.”

“Robert was no true king. Some might even say that a stag is a lion’s natural prey.” Jaime could feel the bones beneath his cousin’s skin. and something else as well. Lancel was wearing a hair shirt underneath his tunic. “What else did you do, to require so much atonement? Tell me.”

His cousin bowed his head, tears running down his cheeks.

Those tears were all the answer Jaime needed. “You killed the king,” he said, “then you fucked the queen.”

“I never. ”

“. lay with my sweet sister?” Say it. Say it!

“Never spilled my seed in. in her. ”

“. cunt?” suggested Jaime.

“. womb,” Lancel finished. “It is not treason unless you finish inside. I gave her comfort, after the king died. You were a captive, your father was in the field, and your brother. she was afraid of him, and with good reason. He made me betray her.”

“Did he?” Lancel and Ser Osmund and how many more? Was the part about Moon Boy just a gibe? “Did you force her?”

“No! I loved her. I wanted to protect her.”

You wanted to be me. His phantom fingers itched. The day his sister had come to White Sword Tower to beg him to renounce his vows, she had laughed after he refused her and boasted of having lied to him a thousand times. Jaime had taken that for a clumsy attempt to hurt him as he’d hurt her. It may have been the only true thing that she ever said to me.

“Do not think ill of the queen,” Lancel pleaded. “All flesh is weak, Jaime. No harm came of our sin. No. no bastard.”