"Did you hear?" one servant said softly to another. "The king's really losing it."
"You're talking about..."
"Yeah. Those weird machines. Apparently we're only hearing about it now, but he started on them as soon as he got crowned king. A king who spends his evenings building complicated toys that do nothing useful!"
"They told us from the start his mind is not like that of a normal man."
"Well, that was supposed to be a good thing! They didn't tell us he's going to be wasting time on things like that!"
"How soon before he decides that people are toys for his amusement, too? Joffrey was a little like that..."
A man listened from the shadows of one of the side corridors, where he'd paused on the way to an audience with the king. He nodded to himself thoughtfully. He had been the one who started the rumours, after all.
And they were true. Every time he visited the king in his personal office - a rather large room, for a personal office, the Seven only knew why he needed that much space - he would have some sort of a contraption running, a combination of gears, pulleys, mechanical switches, dominoes, tracks to roll marbles on which triggered further elements... and the end result after two, three, five minutes of the contraption working was... a mechanical arm that flipped the page of a book. Or a miniature trapdoor that opened and dropped a sugar cube into the king's tea. Or something else completely worthless compared to the effort of designing the machine.
The man had discretely made sure people knew about it, and he'd been hearing the rumour back from people for days now. Just one more element to add to the growing dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Dorne, and the new arrangements with Sansa Stark of the combined North, and most importantly, the hardships of a capital and country recovering from an expensive and destructive war.
"Enter", Bran said, unnervingly, before Bronn could knock. He sometimes did that.
"Your Grace", Bronn said, and strolled into the room, stopping in front of the young king. Only Bran's working desk stood between them, containing an inkstand and some neatly sorted papers, as well as a large, brightly lit candle. Most of the room stretched to Bronn's right.
Bran was always pleased to hear Bronn's voice saying that royal form of address, because he was the only man who spoke it with as little respect as Bran himself had for titles. Bronn knew this. Bran had told him.
"Tea?" Bran asked.
"Nah, thanks."
A marble was - somewhat loudly - rolling down a long ramp made from multiple wooden segments, leading to a second desk, far at the other end of the large room, and connecting to yet another of Bran's contraptions. The king must have set it off right before Bronn came in.
Bronn didn't even bother trying to figure out what the machine would do this time. Besides, he could barely see it from here. The room was not only large, but poorly lit.
"Did you succeed in balancing the budget like we planned?" Bran asked, finally looking up from a book he had been slightly hunched over. Sitting with his left side towards the door and Bronn, and with his back towards his crazy machine, wrapped up in his royal cloak, he somehow looked like a lost orphan in rags despite the obvious fine fabrics he was wearing.
"Sure did. Explaining to the Iron Bank our position on Lannister debts wasn't fun, though. Those are hard bastards in their own way. But we've come to an understanding that won't bankrupt us."
Bran answered in his usual calm tone. "I thank you for your service in this. It was quite invaluable."
"Couldn't have done it without you, Your Grace", Bronn said matter of factly, since it was true. "The secrets you provided on their key men - that's what did the real work."
"It took a hard bastard to use those secrets right, Lord Bronn", the king answered, closing the book gently and turning his chair to face Bronn. "Of course you have also done interesting things domestically."
"Aye, I hope you like my work, Your Grace", Bronn said with affected, fake modesty, and grinned.
"I did. It was almost art", Bran said. "You did your best to make sure that the crown's spending was the opposite of shortsighted: good for the medium and far future of the Kingdom, but harsh on the people trying to survive until tomorrow. This led us to our current unhappy populace. An equally difficult task for you lay in not becoming the main target of this dissatisfaction, despite the Master of Coin's direct responsibility for it. But you managed, more or less. Impressive, for a man of your background and training."
Bronn was frozen in spot during this little speech, except for his hand sneaking up to his sword's hilt.
Finally, he said "Yeah, I'm not Littlefinger. Not gonna ruin the Kingdom I intend to rule."
Bran nodded, mildly smiling.
"So, even though you're clearly fucked in the head", Bronn said, "you're not quite as out of touch as people think."
"As you've been helping them think. Though, I understand. 'Kill enough people, and they make you king'", Bran quoted, his smile vanishing.
The noisy contraption in the corner finished the first half of the work, which was to make a cloth cover fall from a large crossbow hidden right under the desk. Above, a secondary gear went into motion, and a marble continued down the last ramp.
Neither of the two men looked in that direction, though.
"Not enough yet", Bronn said. "Gotta kill at least one more to get there."
"I'm afraid you're here too early", Bran said placidly. "I cannot die until I've trained the next Three Eyed Raven. Please come back when I've done that."
Bronn hesitated for just a moment. Then he chuckled at himself - why had he even thought about it seriously?
"What's the worth of having one of those... Three Eyed Ravens around? Not like it helped you see this coming, or you would have gotten on to training that next one already. Or disposed of me."
"But it did", Bran said.
Under the faraway desk, a mechanical arm at last fell on the crossbow's trigger mechanism. A metal-tipped bolt flew across the room, its noise mostly drowned by the final moving gears of the machine winding down. It pierced Bronn's neck from right to left, throwing him to the side. He died quickly, if messily.
"Thank you for your service, Lord Bronn", Bran whispered.
He allowed himself a twinge of regret for the wall tapestry gifted to him by his sister Sansa, which was now ruined with blood. Not that he cared about objects much, yet this was a gift from family, and he had reasoned that he must try to hold on to what little care he had for such things, the care that still made him human.
But to remove the tapestry ahead of time - he had seen that that had not led to a good future. He sighed, looking at the bloody stain. "The things we do to live."