The evening sun blazed through the leaded glass windows, striking the corpse laid out upon the altar of The Stranger in a way that leant warmth to its pallid skin, making it appear almost as though the Hand of the King still lived.
In the sept's topmost gallery two golden heads bent together. Although the beautiful faces beneath the blonde curls bore a strong resemblance to one another, their expressions could not have been more different. The man seemed relaxed, almost cocky, while the woman wore a look that spoke of deep anxiety.
"What if Jon Arryn told someone?" Queen Cersei asked her brother.
"But who would he tell?" Ser Jaime replied with a shrug.
"My husband."
"If he'd told the King both our heads would be skewered on the city gates by now. Whatever Jon Arryn knew or didn't know it died with him. And Robert will choose a new Hand of the King, someone to do his job while he's off fucking boars and hunting whores. Or is it the other way around? And life will go on."
"You should be Hand of the King."
"That's an honour I can do without. Their days are too long, and their lives are too short."
From the far side of the gallery, beside the statue of The Smith and hidden under the shadow of his raised hammer, Tyrion Lannister watched his brother escort their sister down the marble staircase and out of the sept and wondered.
Succumbing to a stomach malady seemed like the wrong end for a man as venerable as Jon Arryn. In his eightieth year, The Hand had been hale and vigorous as a man in his fifties until the illness that had so suddenly come upon him mere hours before his passing. Any astute mind would suspect poison.
Would others suspect Tyrion's siblings?
Undoubtedly. Protecting a secret was an obvious motive, and while Tywin Lannister remained blindly ignorant of his grandchildren's parentage, Tyrion had seen the discerning looks other courtiers directed towards his nephews and niece. Varys, Pycelle, Stannis… had Jon Arryn begun to harbour the same suspicions? Could he have found proof?
Who would be motivated to expose the royal children's bastardy if they knew of it? Robert's brothers, obviously, and perhaps other great houses with marriageable daughters ripe to take Cersei's place should she be deposed as Queen. Mace Tyrell's girl was what, fifteen, sixteen years old now? Doran Martell's daughter was older than twenty yet still unwed. If Jon Arryn had been in league with any of them in a plot to expose the truth and Cersei had discovered it, a hasty and poorly obscured poisoning would have been a reaction entirely in keeping with her character.
"Wrong."
Tyrion almost tumbled backwards in surprise at the sound of the dismissive baritone. Catching himself on the railing, he turned to see the thin silhouette of a man leaning against the wall at the back of the gallery, face hidden in the shadows.
"You believe your sister murdered The Hand - not that you'd ever publically accuse her, it's obvious from the horse hair on your hose and the way you're favouring your left leg that you adore your brother. You find being in the saddle painful, but you go riding with Ser Jaime regularly because it allows you to spend time alone with him. He thinks you like it, so he gifted you a horse for your last nameday. Conclusion; you'd never inflict the pain that losing his sister and lover would cause upon him, but nevertheless you think she did it."
The speaker stepped forward into the light. Even though he was a newcomer at King Robert's court Tyrion recognised him immediately. With his light blue eyes, fair skin and finely sculpted features, Sherlock Holmes was striking in a way that suggested a strong Valyrian bloodline. He dressed in dark blues, deep purples and midnight black, befitting his status as a high-ranking Braavosi nobleman, but he also had a bravo's flamboyance about him. Tyrion could read it in the black lotus flower pattern embroidered on his sleeves, the golden swept hilt of the slender sword hanging from his belt and the impudent wildness of a second-born son inherent in his manner.
"You're taking a rather bold interest in the affairs of the royal family for a Braavosi exile," he said. "Foreigners usually have the sense to keep a low profile during moments of political upheaval."
"Do they?" said Holmes. "Dull. The most powerful man in Westeros has been murdered by someone who clearly means to frame the Queen as the perpetrator, destroying the alliance between the Lannisters and the Baratheons and plunging the seven kingdoms into civil war. I wouldn't dream of removing myself from such a tremendously fascinating situation when it seems as though the fun is just beginning."
Holmes had been a popular subject with court gossips since his arrival in King's Landing two moons ago, and seemed to have developed a reputation for being something of an eccentric. Watching him all but rubbing his hands together in excitement whilst talking of war and murder, Tyrion began to think the man's burgeoning notoriety might be well deserved.
"There's been speculation at court as to what caused the Sealord to banish you from Braavos. I wonder if your notable tact and sensitivity had a part to play in the matter?"
Holmes snorted, "I wasn't banished, I left because I was bored. Do you know how many interesting murders are committed in Braavos? None. They're all carried out by a cult of religious assassins whose chief criteria for membership seems to be an utter lack of creative flair."
"So you like 'interesting' murders?"
"The murder of a powerful man is always a singular event, a fixed point from which a man with a talent for observation and deduction can reason not only the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which will follow from it. Such a man can unravel the strategies of the greatest players of the great game, Lord Tyrion, and once he has done so he has them in his power."
"Ah. Then you're a man who enjoys the game of thrones?"
"As I said, I like things that are interesting. My mind rebels at stagnation. I need problems, mysteries, riddles to solve. My elder brother plays the game of thrones to win. As a child, I used to sneak into his solar while he was at supper and re-arrange the pieces on his Cyvasse board in a manner that would subtlety alter the outcome of the game in accordance with my own carefully calculated projections with no motivation beyond my own amusement. It used to drive him to distraction."
"The joys of being a younger sibling," said Tyrion. "Once when my sister was a girl I persuaded her maid to lengthen the hems of all her gowns by an inch or so every moon until she was convinced she was shrinking in height."
"You dislike her," Holmes observed. "She's always been cruel to you, yet you can't quite find it in yourself to hate her as she hates you."
"How are you so certain she didn't kill Jon Arryn?"
"You heard her as well as I did; 'what if Jon Arryn told someone?' She's anxious, so anxious that her mind is beginning to crack from it. She's afraid a secret's about to be exposed, but it's the secret of her incest, not the secret that she's just killed a man. If she'd murdered the King's Hand, especially if she'd killed him reactively without proper time to plan it, she'd be terrified that someone would find out and expose the deed."
Tyrion found he could not fault Holmes's reasoning. He had often wondered what would happen if King Robert were to become aware his wife was fucking her own brother and that his supposed heirs had in fact been sired by Jaime. Just how many Lannister heads would end up on spikes? Jaime's and Cersei's certainly. Would Robert have the mercy to exile or imprison the children or would he execute them as well? Would House Lannister itself survive, or would Robert attempt to strip Tyrion's family of their lands and titles in retribution?
"Do you think you know who the killer is?" he asked.
Holmes shook his head. "One shouldn't theorise until one is in possession of all the available evidence," he said, "but there are a number of interesting avenues of inquiry I intend to pursue and there is no doubt in my mind I shall know soon enough."
"And then what? Will you tell The King?"
"No," Holmes said plainly, "I'll tell you."
"Me?"
"I detest repeating myself."
"Why? Do you want gold?"
"You know my heritage," said Holmes. "I have gold enough without needing to extort more from the Lannisters." While most men spoke Tyrion's family name with the utmost reverence, Holmes seems to spit it as though it was a great slur. "I'm going to tell you who's trying to frame your sister and you, my dear Lord Tyrion, are going to use that knowledge to prevent a civil war."
Perhaps there was more to the Braavosi's interest in Jon Arryn's murder than a predilection for mysteries and intrigue, then.
When he had come of age at sixteen, Tyrion had begged his father to be allowed to travel the free cities, and although he had been disheartened by Lord Tywin's refusal it had not stopped him from exploring the more remote parts of the known world through the libraries of Casterly Rock, King's Landing and any other great house or city he had the opportunity to visit. So he knew something of Braavos, and of the eminence of the name 'Holmes' in the history of the richest and most powerful of the free cities. The first 'Holmes' had been among the original twenty-three keyholders of the Iron Bank and had established the wealthiest house in the city by wedding one of his compatriots. Tyrion had never seen Sherlock Holmes wearing a ceremonial key, but his name and bearing left Tyrion in no doubt that the man was a powerful affiliate of the bank.
The bank to which the Iron Throne had been sinking slowly further into debt since the beginning of King Robert's reign.
Holmes released a heavy sigh. "Must you think so loudly?" he asked. "Yes, it's in Braavos's interest to avert a civil war in the Seven Kingdoms and to keep the current regime in place so that it may be held accountable for its debts, although I fear that may change as the Iron Bank's patience begins to wear thin. But are we not both men who would avert the slaughter of three children, not to mention a war that would take countless lives, as an end in itself?"
Tyrion started at Holmes. "That remains to be seen," he said eventually. "Nevertheless I shall await the findings of your investigation with avid interest, although how you expect me to use them to avert war is a mystery."
"You'll figure it out," said Holmes, adjusting the collar if his cloak. "I've been watching you, Tyrion Lannister. I've been watching you watch this nest of vipers you call a court and I think you have a talent for politics. Do start to think on it, though; our opponents are cunning and treacherous men, and you'll need to be clever in order to outmaneuver them."
With that, Holmes bowed to Tyrion and turned to walk away, his footsteps on the marble floor echoing through the sept. "I'll see you again very soon, Lord Tyrion," he said. "Good evening."