Two Gold Cloaks stood on either side.
Expressionless, they hoisted Petyr up and dragged him toward the center of the dais like a dead dog.
The game was over.
Everyone watched the unconscious man, stripped of all dignity and respectability.
Once, he had been the most indispensable Master of Coin in King's Landing.
No one had dared offend him.
Now he was a criminal, a piece of meat about to be laid on the chopping block.
Lynn watched it all calmly.
His gaze passed over the deathly pale Petyr and settled on King Robert.
The excitement of the duel still lingered on Robert's face.
He gulped down a cup of wine, an unsettling fervor gleaming in his bleary eyes.
"Drag him away! Throw him into the Black Cells!"
Robert swept his great hand through the air, his voice ringing like a bell.
"In three days, I will cut off his head myself, before all the people of King's Landing!"
"I want everyone to see with their own eyes what happens to those who betray me!"
Execute him himself?
Ned Stark frowned.
This was nothing like the northern custom of carrying out one's own executions.
He could see the exhilaration in Robert's eyes.
Robert was plainly indulging his own desires.
Cersei's lips curled almost imperceptibly, undisguised disgust in her eyes.
A king obsessed with personally executing prisoners was no good sign.
He truly was beyond saving.
It seemed the poison her father had administered was working well.
Just as the Gold Cloaks were about to drag Petyr away, hurried hoofbeats drew closer, breaking the strange atmosphere at the Tournament Grounds.
"Make way! Make way!"
A shrill voice cut through the noisy crowd.
Everyone instinctively turned to look.
A knight wearing an Eagle-Wing Helm, with the Blue Sky and Crescent Moon and