TYRION
Tyrion's throat felt dry as bone. "You are certain?"
"As certain as I can be, my lord," the westerman said. "I wasn't there on the day itself, thanks be to the Mother. We docked at Dragonsport the day after. But the tales they told me fitted with what I saw. They're digging shallow pits near Dragonsport, hundreds of them, mayhaps thousands. There are heads on spikes at the castle that weren't there before. And above the heads they're flying new standards: a swordfish, stripes, a seahorse, and a black stag alone on its banner. The stag above them all."
Everybody in the pavilion knew the significance of that. Renly's banner, not Joffrey's. That lone stag crushed underfoot any gasping, shuddering remnant of doubt.
"I see," Lord Tyrion said. "Leave me."
There were bows, murmurs, and then he was alone.
Tyrion collapsed into his seat, shaking. Mother isn't here any more, the tearful boyish voice repeated in his thoughts. Nor Father, that awful oaf, he hit Mother, I'm glad he's dead… nor Uncle Jaime. Nor Grandfather, who she always said would keep me safe if she's gone. He's many miles away, and never went to save me in King's Landing. But you're a Lannister, you're my uncle too, but not like Baratheon uncles, Mother said, ambitious, they hate me, they envy me, they have claims to crowns of their own. Lannisters can be trusted. Will you keep me safe now?
Whatever else he had been, he had been a frightened boy. He had just lost his mother, on whose unwavering support his whole life had been built. He had been Jaime's son.
I will, Tyrion had said, with reluctance but without hesitation. Because you are my blood.
That, it seemed now, had meant as little as any of his other oaths.
You could have saved me, another voice called to him. You could have stopped this. Why didn't you come?
I wanted to come! he told his sister's restless shade. I couldn't come! I had to save your son… Her son. The gods played japes on men, and liked to make them cruel.
Sweet Myrcella, looking down at him with more kindness than he had ever seen in her mother's identical eyes. Are they going to hurt me, Uncle?
You'll be safer there than here, he had told the girl whom the Dornish were taking to Renly at this very moment.
Plump and harmless little Tommen, who had scarce the temperament to lift a wooden sword. It's the prince, m'lord, the guardsman had said to him. He vanished, same day as Lord Tywin fell. No-one knows nothin' where 'e's gone. Except, of course, the traitors who had murdered him and his grandfather.
And the unkindest cut of all: One flesh, one heart, one soul… Look at her. Look. At. Her…
You didn't help me, mocked his brother, Jaime as Tyrion had last imagined him, filthy and despairing, imprisoned in his dreams. You've failed all of us.
No, Tyrion thought. You live yet. I have failed all the others. But I will not fail you.
"Mychel."
His steward re-entered the pavilion. "My lord?"
"See to it that Master Sebastion is compensated handsomely for his troubles." Let it not be said that Lord Lannister doesn't pay his debts. "And summon my bannermen. I would speak with them. Now."
The noble knights and lords of the westerlands trickled into the extravagant cloth-of-gold pavilion he had inherited from his lord father. Tyrion Onearm did not mingle among them. He was seated, whilst all of them had to stand, and as they entered they came to pay their respects to him one by one.
"Lest there be any of you who do not already know," Tyrion began when they were assembled, "a foul atrocity has been perpetrated on Dragonstone, contravening the laws of gods and men. Lady Selyse Baratheon, her daughter and her household have been murdered by treacherous slime that oozed between her walls, pretending to be her loyal men. The Rape of Dragonstone, men are calling it. Acting in service to the usurper Lord Renly of Storm's End, they broke their sworn word as guests beneath her roof and turned suddenly against their comrades, slaying thousands—to the sorrow of us all, including the king."
A frenzy of whispers and exclamations—"Good gods!" "Seven hells!" "Mother have mercy!" "Infamy!"—broke out among the westerlords as he spoke. It surprised Tyrion to hear how many did not know. His personal servants had done well; the tidings had not spread as far as he would have expected.
"A service for His Grace the King will be held by Septon Pearse on the morrow," Lord Tyrion said, "and I've no doubt that I will see you there. On that day we shall properly mourn His Grace and pray for his soul. It is not, however, for that purpose that I have called you here. Lord Renly Baratheon has now successfully murdered his brother, both of his goodsisters, both of his nephews and one of his nieces, and the other niece is being transferred to his custody, for which purpose it is not difficult to guess. The elder lines of House Baratheon, that of His Grace King Robert and that of Lord Stannis of Dragonstone, are being strangled by the usurper. As His Grace's loyal lords bannermen—" and mine, he did not need to say— "it is fitting to hear your counsel as to our future course."
A dozen knights and lords raised their voices at once to speak, but one voice clear as cold water flowed highest of them all. "What of it?" spoke Richard Serrett the severe Lord of Silverhill, who oft reminded Tyrion of his lord father. "My lord, His Grace's death is tragic, to be sure, but it seems to me that, overall, the lay of the land is little-changed. We remain obliged to destroy the dagger at our back that is Lord Bolton's host and then to march westward. We remain obliged to either treat with or confront Lord Stark. And Lord Renly remains our enemy, with the strength of Storm's End and Highgarden aligned against Casterly Rock. So long as these remain true, our course is set."
"Yet who would rule us?" asked Ser Dennis Plumm. "King Robert is dead, his sons slain."
"Our liege," Lord Ilyn Algood answered him. "It is yet to be seen who will reign in King's Landing once the war is done, but whoever that may be, whoever our liege's liege may be, our allegiance lies with House Lannister, as it always has."
"That is not under dispute," said tall, dark-haired Ser Ormund Banefort. "But it is pertinent to ask what we are fighting for. If we should lose, well, then our miserable fate is not difficult to glimpse; but what if we should prove victorious? Who will sit the Iron Throne? Are we to bend the knee in exchange for well-treatment, and seek the mercy of Renly?"
"Never," swore Ser Addam Marbrand, anger flashing in his pale blue eyes. "The Others take me first! I spit on Renly's mercy. He has no right to offer it. That traitor and slayer of women and children and his own kin who seeks to dispossess us all cannot rule anybody."
A group of other westermen raised their voices in agreement, clamouring in favour of Ser Addam. Tyrion was troubled by that. The handsome young knight was a close friend of Jaime and it had not pleased him to see Tyrion's accession.
"Then who?" Ser Ormund pressed, speaking alone. There was no chorus for his thoughts, though some, such as Lord Plumm and both of his surviving sons, looked sympathetic. "One of King Robert's bastard sons?" He glanced at Tyrion. "Our lord?"
"Queen Myrcella," Tyrion interjected. "House Targaryen may have practised elsewise since the Dance, but by our law, passed down to us by the Father, the daughter of the elder brother comes before any fruit of the younger brother's loins. Myrcella is King Joffrey's heir by blood right."
Lord Philip Plumm, whose hair contained more white than grey but who had killed more men in his sixty-fifth year than other men at twenty, seemed doubtful. "From within an armed party of Dornish guards?"
"It is a difficulty," Tyrion admitted. Almost certainly an unnavigable one, though it would be unwise to tell them that. "She is the rightful queen nevertheless."
"And if Lord Renly kills her, or consigns her to the silent sisters? I am sorry for your niece, my lord, but the prospect cannot be ignored."
Tyrion drew in a deep breath. Here it comes. "We must pray not. But if that dark hour comes, then the west will become a sovereign kingdom again, as it was of old."
At that, the pavilion fell into a sharp-edged silence.
Tyrion had known that this would be contentious. His courtiers were not such fools as to mutter against their liegelord when he was standing at their side, but he had no doubt that they doubted the wisdom of this course. It was a drastic thing, to split from the Seven Kingdoms, and he had all but told them that there was no circumstance in which he would consent to bend the knee to Renly. Doubtless there were more than a few westerlords who disagreed with that. But they dared not give voice to their opinion here and now, lest they be denounced. It was no easy thing to speak in favour of reconciliation with Renly Baratheon when the red tidings of the Rape of Dragonstone were fresh to their ears.
That was what Tyrion had been counting on, when he had taken the gamble of holding this council so soon. Now that House Lannister had no claimant to the Iron Throne, some would be bound to ask for peace and submission to the usurper, and Tyrion would not allow that—not after everything Renly had done to his family.
Strangely enough, it was Addam Marbrand who broke it. "My lords! Sers! Myrcella Baratheon is our queen by rights, a fair young maid who has never done ill, and even as we speak the perfidious Dornish are delivering her towards her death at the hands of the man who slew her brothers. Does the injustice of it not sting?"
"Of course it does," said Ser Jaime Peckledon, who had lost his right leg in the Battle of the Green Fork, fighting for House Lannister, "but nothing can be done of it, ser. The Dornish will have her under heavy guard."
"Not too heavy," said Ser Addam. "The stormlanders hate the Dornish. Lord Renly would never let them take too great a party through the stormlands; his bannermen would loathe him for it."
"He might fear that animosity," Lord Robert Brax replied, "but not nearly as much as he would fear her release. He'll let them take as many as they need."
"Even if they were a hundred-thousand strong, she is the queen! Daughter to King Robert, to whom we all pledged our allegiance! My lords, sers, I ask you—are we not men? Is there not valour in the men of the west? Then I say we take a party of true and courageous men, we come by sea, we intercept the band of Dornish traitors on the road, and we fall upon them and bring Queen Myrcella to safety!"
Ser Harrold Myatt rushed to Ser Addam's side. "The queen will not perish in captivity. Not while I draw breath."
Ser Robert Algood rose too. "Sers, I am with you."
Then Ser Humfrey Swyft. "I, too."
"I'm with you—"
"I—"
"And I—"
"And I—"
One by one, knights of the westerlands rose and pledged themselves to the rescue. Bold young men for the most part, but some older men too. Many were not even second sons. Ser Addam himself was the heir to Ashemark, yet disdained the comfort of a sure inheritance for the dream of eternal glory.
Magnificent, thought Tyrion Onearm. It would make for a splendid song. But no such song would ever be written, he expected; for singers did not seem to oft write songs about great adventures where all the adventurers ended with Dornish spears in the gut or on a headsman's block.
Provisions were established and, in secret, the party was sent. Tyrion did not imagine he would see them again. Meantime, he gathered back the remnants of House Lannister's strength. Day by day, knights and soldiers of the westerlands returned from wherever they had been foraging or garrisoning castles or depleting House Tully's strength throughout the riverlands. His lord father had dispersed Lannister strength too far and wide, Tyrion considered. The attempt to lure Robb Stark out of the westerlands by reaving the riverlands had failed. Oh, it had drawn out Edmure Tully, eventually, and the Stark boy as a result, but only too late; and for what Tyrion now intended, he would need every man of the westerlands' host.
Would it work? Quite possibly not. But Lord Tyrion did not intend to be the last Lannister to rule Casterly Rock, the inglorious end of a glorious legacy of ten-thousand years. No matter that, at the time he succeeded his lord father, the situation had already been almost hopeless. If House Lannister fell while he was its lord, he would be remembered for that, not the mighty Lord Tywin who had never lost a battle.
Joffrey led us into ruin, Father, not I, Tyrion thought. I escaped from Catelyn Stark and Lysa Arryn without doing harm to our House. Joffrey gave us an unnecessary war against House Stark by killing Lord Eddard, at the same time as we had to face Lord Renly. You bequeathed to me a war that's all but lost and I am trying to salvage as much as I can. He touched the stump of his right arm. If Jaime had done what I did, you would have called it courage… I am not a burden on House Lannister. Why did you never see that?
It irritated Tyrion that even now, as Lord of Casterly Rock, he could not escape his father in his thoughts. Lord Tywin's shadow was too long. He did not wish to live his life inside it.
He called in Mychel and spoke at great length about the arrangements at camp, to busy himself with other things.
A week and a half after word of the Rape of Dragonstone reached Lord Tyrion's army's camp on the Trident, the last of the garrisons arrived from Lannister-held castles throughout the riverlands: a portly knight of medium height named Ser Amory Lorch with two-hundred western men-at-arms and a larger number of rivermen and riverwomen as servants. On the other hand, that did not mean that all of House Lannister's power had been recalled from throughout the riverlands, for it was harder for messengers to find a roving party of raiders than a stationary garrison. On the other hand, mounted raiding parties could move faster than the likes of Ser Amory's company. So Tyrion determined that he would have the whole of his strength soon enough.
At that prompt, he gathered some envoys. Messengers were sent to the gates, one final time. Their offers of food and well-treatment in case of surrender were rejected with contempt, one final time. And so he gave the long-awaited order to take Lord Bolton's castles by storm.
War, Tyrion reflected afterward, is pitiless. The northern foot were gaunt shadows of men. They had been besieged here by the western host ever since his lord father had taken Lord Bolton by surprise and inflicted a savage defeat upon him in the Battle of the Banks, more than five turns of the moon ago. The remainder of Lord Bolton's army had fled into these small castles near the river Trident (not one of them was big enough to accommodate them all), to endure an unexpected siege in places that they had not prepared, and that ordeal had taken a terrible toll upon them. He had attacked at night, since starved men were slower than healthy men to wake up and get into their armour in a hurry. Many were so weak that they could scarce lift their swords; many others had starved to death entirely. Yet this remnant of a remnant still slew hundreds of westermen in the effort to climb their walls, when they would not have stood a fraction of a chance in a battle on an open field.
The northern foot's supply situation had been even more desperate than the lords and captains of the western host had imagined. Roose Bolton, it transpired from interrogating the prisoners, had not been commanding the besieged host. He never had been. He had taken an arrow in the Battle of the Banks and then died of a wound gone bad shortly afterwards. For all this time that Tyrion's lord father had thought he was besieging the Lord of the Dreadfort, he had in truth been besieging a certain Robett Glover, a northman of a minor House that, to add insult to injury, did not even hold lordly rank.
Tyrion could not help but compare this miserable shattered host to the far vaster one that he had seen in the Battle of the Blackwater and the Battle of King's Landing. He looked upon the companies of skeletal northern prisoners, ravenously gulping their meals, eating better in Lannister captivity than they had done for moons under their own lords, and thought of the gleaming-mailed ranks of the stormlands and the Reach, stretching in their thousands and their tens of thousands beyond the horizon. Father decided his priority should be to face down this host, instead of the campaign against Renly. Because Robb Stark hurt his pride.
He did not know whether to laugh or cry.
The evening after the taking of the final castle, at the dining table, Ser Harys Swyft rose and lifted his cup. "To our lord," he cried, "and to our victory! May he win a hundred more!"
"A hundred more!" roared the westerlords, cheering and hammering their fists on the table.
It was a victory, Lord Tyrion supposed. The enemy had lost a great deal more men than he had. But most of those losses had been in the previous moons, due to lack of food, rather than in battle due to the sword-thrusts of his soldiers. The outcome of the storming had been preordained, thanks to Lord Tywin's long siege; the northmen could never have prevailed. And now he had fewer men to use against Renly.
He rose to his feet, and he smiled, and he acknowledged his bannerman's praise with grace, and all the while he thought, Some victory.