Chapter 170

All actions have consequences, and Robert’s fate today was one of his own making.

Consider this: if all the Kingsguard were like Barristan Selmy, what could Jaime have done, even with three heads and six arms?

The Kingsguard exists to protect the king and his bloodline, with members chosen for their strength, loyalty, and wisdom. After the Rebellion, six vacant positions needed to be filled, including Jaime’s seat as a kingslayer. In an ill-conceived gesture of love for his new wife and gratitude to Tywin Lannister for his financial support of the new Baratheon dynasty—worth tens of thousands of gold dragons—Robert granted Cersei the authority to fill the other five slots. Perhaps there was also the unspoken intent to use Jaime as a hostage.

Under the public eye, young Cersei couldn’t brazenly stack the Kingsguard entirely with Lannisters. But she had no intention of selecting the best candidates for Robert, either. Without consulting Tywin, she made her first royal decision as queen: bypassing the North, Riverlands, and Dorne—regions traditionally unfriendly to the West—she chose five families allied with the Lannisters from the Reach, Vale, Stormlands, Westerlands, and the Crownlands. Each family was tasked with selecting one member to join the Kingsguard.

The result was inevitable: five knights who were competent warriors in their own right, perhaps even their families’ best, but far from the caliber required to don the white cloak. As Barristan Selmy once described them, “Even now, I could cut down all five of you like slicing cheese.”

Though Barristan despised Jaime for his betrayal, he admitted with sorrow that, apart from himself, Jaime was the only Kingsguard member whose skill met the order’s standard. These new recruits might not actively betray Robert, but their collective competence was the worst in the history of the Kingsguard since Aegon the Conqueror founded the order.
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Driven by concern for Cersei’s safety, Jaime tapped into unprecedented strength. It was a familiar scene: a knife aimed at the king he had sworn to protect. Sixteen years ago, he had done the same.

Honor? Jaime’s bloodshot eyes silently repeated the word, knowing it was a virtue forever out of his reach. Before the eyes of the two remaining Kingsguard in the room, Jaime drove the dagger through Robert’s back, piercing the king’s armor and flesh. But that wasn’t enough—Jaime lunged forward, using his shoulder to knock the massive man off balance. With a surge of strength and momentum, he toppled Robert to the ground. In the same motion, he wrenched the warhammer—the hammer that had killed Rhaegar—from the stunned king’s grip.

“You!” Ser Arys Oakheart, momentarily caught off guard when Jaime’s sword broke earlier, had let his guard down. Realizing too late what had happened, he roared and drew his blade, charging at Jaime.

Robert groaned in pain from the wound and fall, his hand loosening just enough for Cersei to tear herself free. Gasping for air despite the pain in her neck, she screamed at the top of her lungs: “Attack—now!”

Her piercing voice drowned out the children’s cries and cut through the room’s walls. In that moment, chaos erupted both inside and outside.
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This hammer is heavy, Jaime thought as he struggled to wield the unfamiliar weapon. That Robert could swing it with ease was a testament to his raw power. Anyone foolish enough to underestimate him deserves to lose.

Oaths? Jaime scoffed at the thought, gripping the warhammer—nearly twice the weight of his usual longsword—and swinging it violently. “Get out of my way!”

The hammer struck with devastating force. Ser Arys’s blade managed to graze Jaime’s chest plate, leaving a long scratch, but Jaime’s counterstrike crushed Arys’s arm guard, breaking the man’s arm and knocking him off balance. Arys stumbled backward, crashing into a wooden table and falling to the floor, incapacitated.

Outside, over a hundred red-cloaked Lannister guardsmen, hearing Cersei’s scream, launched an attack on the king’s men. The three remaining Kingsguard, though far more skilled than the average soldier, were backed by fewer than fifty men. The Red Keep’s royal guards, in truth, were merely a small detachment of the City Watch assigned to palace duty. They wore the same golden cloaks but lacked the training and discipline of even the Lannisport guard.

The king’s forces were outnumbered and outmatched. Without the presence of the Kingsguard, they would have been overwhelmed instantly. Yet the white-cloaked knights couldn’t disengage from the fight outside to check on the chaos within; they knew that if they abandoned their posts, only Lannister soldiers would remain to dictate the aftermath.

“Kill them both!” Robert bellowed from the ground, refusing to surrender. His attempt to grab Cersei ended with nothing but a torn strip of fabric. He reached for the knife lodged in his back, but his girth made it impossible to grasp the handle. The wound in his lung burned as he moved, and with every breath, the pain grew sharper. His massive frame began to weaken from blood loss and lack of oxygen, his vision darkening as he struggled even to rise.

“Don’t come any closer!” Jaime yelled, clutching his abdomen and feeling blood on his fingers, though he couldn’t locate the wound. With his free hand, he pulled Cersei close, raising the warhammer as a warning toward Ser Boros Blount, who stood protectively in front of Myrcella. “The king’s not dead yet. Watch over him—I don’t want to kill you!”

“He’s wounded! Stop him!” Arys croaked from the ground, his right arm useless. Gripping his sword in his left hand, he tried to rise but could barely manage to kneel.
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If this Kingsguard was the worst in history, then Ser Boros Blount was the worst of the worst. A coward at heart, he hesitated, his courage evaporating after watching Jaime crush Arys with a single blow. Hiding behind the excuse Jaime had handed him—“protect the king”—he stood motionless, like a statue, as Jaime and Cersei retreated toward the door.

Cersei called out to her children: “Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen—come with me!”

“No! Stay here!” Jaime barked, his abdomen flaring with pain. “You’re the prince and princess. Eddard Stark won’t dare harm you!” Jaime didn’t fully believe his own words, but he knew Cersei couldn’t escape King’s Landing with three children in tow. Wiping the blood from his hands, he grabbed Cersei and, step by step, backed toward the door, keeping his eyes on Boros.

Reaching the door, Jaime opened it, turned, and fled with Cersei into the chaos outside.
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The courtyard was a maelstrom of violence, filled with the clash of swords, cries of pain, and shouts of orders. The Lannister guards held the upper hand, their numbers overwhelming the king’s soldiers. Preston Greenfield spotted Jaime, bloodied and battered, dragging Cersei behind him. His eyes widened in fury. “Jaime! What have you done?”

“You need a horse. Without one, you’ll never make it out of King’s Landing,” Jaime said, ignoring the shouted accusations. The Red Keep was under Stark’s control; even with horses, their escape was uncertain. But they had to try. Feeling the ground tremble beneath his feet, Jaime realized that more soldiers were approaching. He shoved Cersei forward. “Find horses and break through one of the less-guarded gates. Get out before they close the city gates. Go!”

“No! We’ll go together! I’ve already prepared a way out!” Cersei grabbed Jaime’s arm, refusing to leave him behind. Barking orders to her guards, she commanded, “Porter, take half the men and hold them here. Amos, take twenty men and come with me—stop that Kingsguard!”

The charging Kingsguard was forced back by a wall of Lannister spears. A dozen red-cloaked soldiers converged on Jaime and Cersei, shielding them as they made their way toward the stables. But from the southern side of Maegor’s Holdfast came the sound of approaching soldiers, their march like rolling thunder. At their head was Eddard Stark, leading a large contingent of City Watch. Spotting the fighting, he quickened his pace, determined to intervene.

“Can you keep going? Hurry! The sewer gate is guarded by my men—it’s small, and Stark likely forgot about it. It hasn’t rained recently, so it’s not flooded. The commander at the city’s gate is loyal to me—we can escape!” Cersei shouted, dragging a reluctant Jaime along. Turning back one last time, she issued a final order to her guards: “Hold them off!”