Another day and the council had their meeting.
They discussed Renly raising rebels in the Reach, and the lack of news from Dragonstone. As per usual, Tyrion observed his companions. Joffrey disgruntledly listened to them all, presiding the table, likely regretting that he had bothered to attend.
In his place, Pycelle looked particularly anxious, waiting for a turn to speak.
Tyrion wondered why.
In time, he knew.
"Your Grace… The North… had learned about Eddard Stark's girls. They are outraged."
Joffrey began to grin, blatantly amused, before asking.
"Good. How you'd know?"
"The raven I've sent… It's back. With word from Robb Stark."
Around Tyrion, the others fixed their stare in both the king and the maester, looking forward to the rest of the story. He did, as well. The Young Wolf's reaction… It was no laughing matter.
Through their silence, Joffrey's impertinent gaze grated.
"So he wrote me back… And you read it. Are you reading now my personal correspondence, Pycelle? Why?"
Noting he had set foot on thin ice, the decrepit man stuttered, cowardly spilling some words.
"I… don't... I had to make sure… It was word from the enemy… Your Grace, it could be…"
"Shut up. I will get your hand for that if you do it again. Now give me that letter."
Pycelle shook a little in his place, under the boy king's irritated stare, under Tyrion's and the rest's eyes that were, too, all upon him.
Stubbornly, the fool did nothing for too much long a moment.
"My king… You don't want to read it."
Tyrion didn't like hearing that. He'd give the situation the benefit of the doubt, if only for his own sake.
"You only need to know…"
"What's wrong, Pycelle. Is Stark mean to me in that letter…? Haha, I bet he is. Now stop pissing me off and let me read it."
"Your Grace…"
"I said. Now."
The boy went from content and laughing to threatening in too little time. At last, Pycelle seemed to find the will to hand Joffrey that bloody parchment, which ended over their table.
Tyrion could see the wolf seal, broken in half, the long roll of paper. Joffrey grabbed it, quick, noticing too the broken seal. The scorn in his face turned soon into excitement, anyway.
"To the usurper Joffrey, the bastard of King's Landing. What happened, Stark, did I get a wee bit under your skin…?"
The boy cackled, insufferable, before getting his eyes back to the paper.
Then, he laughed some more.
"I know what you fucking did to my sisters. Hahaha, this is priceless. All of it, he says. Oh, someone had told him…"
Tyrion watched him fixedly. His nephew's eyes moved down the letter, some amused smirk drawn in his cruel face.
Too soon, he stopped reading words aloud.
Too bloody soon, the smile was gone.
There was no concern in Joffrey's face, only seriousness as he kept reading, mouthing only silent words. Tyrion was the one feeling the puncture of worry inside himself.
Even more, when Joffrey's face contorted in evident disgust.
And the letter still wasn't finished.
"Your Grace, what does it say…?"
Joffrey kept looking sickened. Pycelle for his part glanced down, to the table.
Tyrion's belly kept clenching tight.
The silence in the room ended, as Joffrey crumpled the paper in his hand, angrily grunting.
"That bloody son of a bitch…"
He slapped the table in anger. Then, they all had to stand his yells.
"I want his damn head!"
He stood, kicking the chair in the process.
"Pycelle! You are going to write my grandfather! You will tell him, I will have that traitor's head! He'll get it for me! And quick!"
Pycelle did his best at standing from the table, stumbling anyway with it. Joffrey pulled the old man's robe in his rage, pushing him towards himself and the door. Then Tyrion found the boy's stare, coming to get focused on him.
The disgust came anew across that face, for the moment that Joffrey chose to stay quiet.
"I guess you are now my only uncle."
Tyrion felt himself freezing in his chair.
"It should have been you," Joffrey said, low, unkind. Then, instead of just leaving as he was, he stepped until reaching Tyrion.
He threw the letter in front of him. Tyrion gazed at the crumpled roll of paper, still his nephew's scorn present in his ears.
"There. You tell Mother."
Finally, the king strode out of the room, shouting something to Pycelle about writing Tywin, to demand him Robb Stark's corpse in pieces, and the heads of his treacherous bannermen and that bitch mother of his.
The rest left, following their king. Suddenly alone, Tyrion found himself with the thing in his hand.
Black wings, black words.
He started reading.
The letter was long and dripped hatred and menace, from the beginning. Knowing already what he was to learn, Tyrion forced himself to read it, in one go.
He had to know. How.
...The North remembers, bastard. We do not forget, nor do we forgive.
...That man you called your uncle is no more.
...The Kingslayer met the same fate my two sisters got, all of it, as you asked me to. Yours will be way worse, the day I get you, Lannister. You cannot even start imagining how bloody painful and slow I am going to make it.
...He soiled himself when we sawed his arm off, and cried when my men took him like a woman, and begged me for death after we got his eye out of him. But you, bastard, you will piss yourself and cry and beg way before, you fucking brat. And I swear to the Gods you shall get yourself much more beyond that.
...I spilled all the blood I could out off him. You will be dry of any when I'm done with you, you son of the Others.
Appalled, Tyrion read to the last of it.
At first, he couldn't react. He stared, blankly, at Robb Stark's damned handwriting.
He knew. He fucking knew this would happen.
Then, the pain and the wrath hit him, too damn hard.
He never knew when he had started to shout or to cry. The table under him shook, as he hit it, once and again.
He had bloody known. The moment those girls were headless, Jaime was as good as damn dead. He could blame himself forever for not being able to talk Joffrey out of that savagery.
But, like this…
No. Jaime didn't deserve any of that.
Tyrion shouted some more, in sorrow and frustration.
That damned crowned kid, that monster. He was never to forgive him.
It was all Joffrey's fucking fault.
He grieved, alone in that room, for quite a bit still.
At some point, purpose made Tyrion get out of it.
Pycelle was a craven, he wouldn't tell Cersei. Joffrey was himself a cunt.
Despite Tyrion, he felt that his sister should be told. At least, before word of it reached the capital a different way, that it would, and likely soon.
As her sibling, he should tell her.
That, or he could send Varys. After all, he likely knew. Not only that. He probably had known about it way before any of them had, the bald bastard.
But no. He wouldn't get the Spider to talk to Cersei.
It was only Tyrion's duty.
He wouldn't be the only one to know, or to have that pain.
Tyrion ordered the table to be set. Fruit, cheese, some sweets, something frugal. Wine, enough quantity to dull both their troubles when the moment arrived.
As if.
He had already drunk half a bottle by himself when his sweet sister arrived, beautiful and smirky. Unaware.
It made him frown.
"Sit. There is something we must discuss."
He put one golden goblet in front of her and filled it to the brim.
"What's the occasion?" She said, all smiles and mockery.
No. He wasn't in the mood.
He told her to drink.
And she didn't refuse to do so.
She was still like that, amused looking, at the point the wine in their cups had been refilled, as Tyrion got sure to do.
"Who is this about?" she'd said, insistent, after a bit of a sigh. "Stannis or Renly."
None of them.
Tyrion wished she could be right.
He emptied his own bloody goblet.
Then, he found himself staring at her, brow furrowed and fixedly.
He tasted the wine and the bile as well in his tongue.
"Robb Stark has heard about his sisters."
Cersei laughed at that, one of those hurtful, singing laughs of her. Tyrion laughed not.
"That's all?"
He wanted to yell at her, spit a thousand things at her face at damn once, yet his mouth stayed shut.
Her foolishness was painful, crudely. But there was a blow coming to hurt her as well.
Tyrion commanded her to drink some more.
"So what about that wolf boy. Is he angry enough to finally face Father or is he still hiding under his mother's skirt in Riverrun?"
"Drink."
Her lips still turned into a smile before she took another sip.
"He killed him."
Robb Stark had set all his wolves on him, before ending his life.
"He killed Jaime."
Cersei's eyes didn't wink, fixed on him. Then, she gave him a look, deprecating.
There it was, again, her bloody grin.
"Who? Eddard Stark's son?" She let out another, short laugh.
Damn her.
"You better be drunk already, Cersei. Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm telling you about our brother, and this is what you do?"
Her eyes bored into him.
"Are you having a laugh, dwarf?"
Damn her, damn her.
"Would I be jesting about my own brother's death?!"
Rage flashed through Tyrion.
"Robb Stark murdered Jaime! As I fucking told you he would! Our brother is dead!"
Cersei gaped, her lip slightly trembling, her eyes insecure.
"No. You are lying."
But he wasn't. And she was to find out he was not.
It took some time for her, anyway, to accept it. In its stead, she kept calling Tyrion a liar, refusing to hear what he was saying. After that, she just shouted, No, repeatedly. Tears surged in her eyes, before going down her cheeks. No. It couldn't be.
"Not my Jaime..."
Tyrion raised his voice, saying Jaime was his brother as well; Cersei wasn't listening.
"He can't be... He... can't..."
Cersei shouted some more until Tyrion couldn't make out anything that made sense. She started throwing everything upon the table away, at that point, the grapes, the plates, at the wall, at Tyrion. Tyrion took away the wine and their goblets.
And she cried some more and shouted even more until the air faltered her, and she halted herself.
Eyes closed, she said their brother's name.
Tyrion sought for her hand, at that point, against his better judgment, against his own intention. She looked frail, for once. His sister.
Cersei sunk her nails stingy into his palm, for the second that it lasted.
Despite everything, Tyrion could see it, in her face. This hadn't taken her by fully a surprise, hadn't broken her truly. She did knew it'd happen.
He had warned her, and that bloody boy of hers as well, after all.
And, with that, he had gotten nothing.
They all were to blame.
It had been something small, a trite remark, Tyrion had been told. About one of the times that Stark had beaten Father's men, old news. But it had been enough to start it all. Joffrey had gotten into one of his foul moods at the reminder of the humiliation they had got, and with that, his choosing.
It had been weeks, at that point, since the moment that his nephew had shown them first that face of him. He had hurt smallfolk, and servants, and soldiers, in ways that Tyrion wished he wouldn't, up to the moment the boy had found there was another layer of fun when their torment was also public.
To that day, it was getting worrisome.
That day, Joffrey's twistedness reached bloodcurdling degrees.
He had demanded it, for lord Eddard's daughters to be gathered and paraded, a chastisement for the sins of their brother, an entertainment for the city's mob. If all and every one of the council members tried to convince him not to go through it, all of them failed at that. Especially the king's Hand.
Joffrey made the entire court see it, the girls' punishment. And it was alarmingly clear how much fun the boy was having, as he made it proceed, more and bloody more.
Tyrion had tried to make him see reason, even he had attempted to trick him to end this play he was hosting, for naught. He had spoken with Cersei, or at her at least, before Joffrey just ordered for Tyrion to be kicked out away from their royal seats for being a bother. Bloody Cersei had looked amused, he hadn't forgotten, while she saw what was being done to her former daughter-in-law-to-be. So much had she hated that girl, to actually enjoy it...?
Defeated, Tyrion kept watching, atrocity after atrocity, while his mind wanted to drift, to a different place.
His brother, somewhere in the Riverlands.
His brother, in a forest, back from Lannisport, chasing away some men while Tyrion stayed behind, consoling a frightened girl.
That girl...
Joffrey shouted, eventually, calling for ser Ilyn. And Tyrion saw it, plain as day.
What that meant.
In Cersei's distressed face he saw Jaime.
So much like him she looked, as if he stayed in her, still, somehow. Tyrion's stomach tied itself in knots. He wasn't going to see him, ever, again.
Yet, at that moment, he saw him in her.
His brother, so far from any place that he could call home, suffering hours long to his last breath. Dying alone, surrounded only by men who despised him and even enjoyed his pain.
He would not hear his voice again. Never would he see his smile.
He wished it could have happened a different way, if it had to. For his brother to die in battle, a warrior's death, his sword in his hand to the end, even if it meant that his life would have been even damn shorter.
He'd be at peace, at least, like that.
Cersei pulled him out of his thoughts, wailing at him, demanding.
"I want him dead!"
As if Tyrion could do something to get that at this point.
And sure, bloody Robb Stark had been the one to end Jaime's life, but somebody else had started all this madness.
"He provoked him, Cersei!"
That wretch of her son.
"He provoked a man willing to trade him, for his living father and sisters!"
For his living sisters, and peace and independence, maybe, later. But still, he was willing to negotiate.
"Stark had him alive and well for months, can't you see? He sent us our cousin as proof of his good faith, for fuck's sake!"
There was resentment, now, biting in his chest.
"He had no right to kill Jaime! I will see him die! Him and all the traitors that support him, to the last of them!"
"Your son was what killed him!"
Cersei glared at him.
"I told you both, if Sansa Stark died Jaime would die along with her. I hope Joff's fun was really worth it, Cersei!"
He could recall it, the words she had spoken to her son against it, scarce if anything. He asked her, then, as Joffrey's mother, as his bloody regent. Why she had let it happen.
Over there, Cersei said no word, choosing instead to retrieve her drink.
He read it, at that point, what her face was telling him.
She had known what she was letting come, sure, but she wouldn't push herself between Joffrey and what Joffrey wanted.
"You are afraid of him", he stated, in awe, realizing what was behind all that. But it wasn't that much a surprise, actually, seeing how quietly terrified everyone around that damn kid had grown lately, no wonder.
Cersei's green eyes filled themselves with contempt, not giving him an answer.
She glanced away.
"How did it happen?"
Now somewhat calmer, Cersei's voice sounded tired. Cold. Sort of quiet.
Tyrion fathomed what she meant.
Stark had told them, and he told his sister. Beheaded, like Lord Eddard. Like the man's spawn.
"Joff tells me he wants Stark fed to wolves. I don't. I want that boy to watch his mother being torn apart in front of him. By lions."
Ah, lady Stark. Tyrion couldn't say he was much fond of her.
"I want all their heads mounted on spikes. Robb Stark, his freak of a wolf, all and each of those trouts, too."
He wanted to yell at her, tell his sister if it wasn't enough that she already had some red-haired head rotting somewhere atop the city's walls.
But all this bloody talk was filling him more and more with anger, aimed at whom, he didn't care.
"And you'll get it if the Gods are good," he spitted.
Starks and Tullies, northerners and riverlanders, curse them all to the most horrid of hells. Why had they not given Jaime a swift end? He tried not to picture, once again, all he had read in that bloody paper. The viciousness set upon his brother, brutality unreasonably drawn out for who knows how fucking long.
Gods.
Tyrion chose not to address it to his sister. It hurt already just trying not to think of it.
He reflected on something very different, at that moment. It made him want to laugh and get ill all at once.
Maybe it was the wine, maybe something else. But the way those words repeated themselves in that letter... My sisters.
"The wolves don't know about the younger kid. They are certain your son has killed her, too."
Cersei's eyes lit up a wee bit.
Of course she enjoyed that sort of thing.
"I hope he pains for that brat, for what he dared doing, the damned bastard. I'm glad that it worked."
Joffrey had insisted, he wanted the two northern girls to be there. As if he didn't know it was partly a farce.
Littlefinger had fetched for it some girl, a daughter of Lord Eddard's steward, one of Sansa's former companions. The actual Stark child seemed to have vanished into thin air right after her father's arrest. Probably for her best.
And the boy king just pretended to not see it was a different girl the one that was getting it.
"It makes no difference. That child is dead somewhere, as well."
But it could pose some different sort of danger, perhaps. It could cause unwanted sympathies, when the word flew, about not even one but two girls being slaughtered by Joffrey's order.
And they didn't need that.
"The North is clamoring for our heads, your son's and yours and mine."
You shall get it, you and anyone that shares your blood.
And even Tommen's and Myrcella's, as clean as their little hands were.
"And if they manage to unite with one of the Baratheons we are fucked."
Not to speak if they somehow got to attract another host to their cause, from the South or the East. They'd be awfully screwed.
Cersei protested, at his remark.
"What are we supposed to do? Of course they're going to try to end us."
Tyrion filled his cup, a last time, before throwing away the empty bottle.
"We kill them instead, naturally. That's what we'll do."
The streets of the city were as busy as ever as he strolled through them, full of stink and noise, full of men, women, and children. Crammed with life. Tyrion's mind wanted to return to some other place, to some other time. He didn't let the thought linger.
How long had been? He wasn't sure. Days. It must have been days, he told himself.
For how long he had been walking, now, without much thinking.
As he stopped his steps to relieve the complaint in his legs, his gaze went up, unintended.
There it was. The red in the sky, shed blood as its tail. He resented it, that comet. The name the smallfolk had actually given it, King Joffrey's Comet, he resented even more.
He started walking again.
The previous night he had had a dream, which memory also annoyed him. He had dreamt of his sister, berating him for not having kept some or some other promise. But the shape of her turned a blur, and Tyrion could not tell which twin was in front of him, whining about how badly he had failed them.
Awaking, Tyrion had found pleased Shae's body against his, her lovely limbs tangled around him.
He had enjoyed his well-spent time with her, these last days, for sure. But lately even her sweet lips managed to taste bitter at some moments, he had found, to Tyrion's regret.
"Lord Hand."
Somebody called for him, yanking him out of his thoughts. A handful of Gold Cloaks, that urged him to go with them.
Once they informed him why Tyrion could not refuse to go along.
From the outside of the cell, he observed him. A sellsword, they had told him he was. A fool, Tyrion had deemed. Admittedly, the man had sneaked into the city, with all the intention of handing over something to the Lannisters in the castle, to the king or queen even if he had the chance.
How thick-witted he had to be to just intend something like that.
The City Watch had seized him, of course, him and the purse of coins he sported, before the man told them everything. That he came from the wolf camp, with orders and coin from some northern lord.
Tyrion had many questions that needed answering, but he wouldn't find those today in the sword for hire that stayed in the cell. He could see it, the sorry state of the man at that point, battered harshly after the questioning those golden-cloaked shits had seemingly unleashed upon him.
He limited himself to only had it confirmed, if the man had been there, when it had happened.
If he had seen his brother Jaime die.
Even with some visible effort, the man nodded his answer.
It was enough. Tyrion pushed himself from the bars and requested to be shown at once what the man had brought with himself through his ride from the Riverlands.
Was he ready? He didn't know.
But he had to see it. He needed to see it.
They have told him of it before, of course, but now that it was right in front of him Tyrion found himself hesitant, the legs supporting him weaker than usual.
A wooden box, it was. A token from the Starks.
Tyrion made himself go on.
The lid removed, and through the cloth sack that still was under it it hit his nose, unavoidable. The foul, pungent smell of decay.
It was strong. Appalling by itself.
He put away the cloth and forced himself to look at it.
Under the dirt and the filth and the rot, he could make it, the colour of gold. A dash of it, telling enough.
He dared to press his fingers to it, that hair.
His body tensed and his eyes started to bother him, before he just did it.
Tyrion grasped at hair and pulled the severed head out of the box, holding his breath before just looking at it.
Dazed, he returned it into the box, carefully, not after long, before putting the lid back into place as well.
That much he could do, before just turning away and retching everything he had eaten that morning to break his fast.
Kevan's boy. It was Kevan's boy, in that box.
Over everything else he felt relief, shamefully if so.
How pointless of him.
As if that could make Jaime any less dead.