The Hand
The band of lords gathered around him inside the Great Hall of Castle Darry, a small room in a smaller castle, seemed befit both their dire circumstances and their more modest of settings. Unless their banners fought openly during the late Rhaegar's Rebellion, Randyll knew little of which lords the Spider gathered in support for the war he'd abandoned upon the Blackwater, and which houses supported the effort in secret, too timid to openly fly their flags in defiance until House Targaryen won a great victory which never came. If he had to guess, House Darry ranged amongst the latter, Lord Raymun having to keep his cards close to his vest due to this position as the late Hoster Tully's vassal. The fact too was that the Darry's had been amongst those who had kept Jonos Bracken afloat in his war against the Tully's and Blackwoods, a small side war which was about to become engulfed into the main war.
"I don't see why we're here," the arrogant blonde haired Harrold Hardyng spat out, clad in armor befitting a far greater man than his little house, whatever his soon to be inheritance. "My loyalty's to King Robin of the Vale, Lord Randyll. My only wish is to convey you that whatever war you seek to wage in the Riverlands and the North...to keep them there."
"I don't think that's why you're here," Randyll countered gruffly. "Else the poor boy would be dead already. No, you're not content as King of the Vale, are you? Because you're no fool, you don't know just how secure your so-called crown'll fare once it comes down to your so-called vassals, much less the ire of the Seven Kingdoms, no matter who wins this war. And you'd rather the Queen lose, don't you, because if she wins, the Royces and Waynwoods would have your head...no...they'd see to it that you'd suffer far worse than just a simple sword at your neck or shove out your Moon Door."
He spoke in threats, and the boy backed down as he'd expected, because it was the truth. Lyn Corbray, former Protector of the Vale, was dead, fallen through the Moon Door in several pieces, if the whispers were true. The Royces had indeed held the moon gate, despite Robin Arryn's newest guardian, but to the credit of their loyalty to the Iron Throne, they'd chosen to march west alongside the Waynwoods for the resurgent Stark Queen, joining with the Tully's, but in turn leaving the pass to the Eyrie poorly defended. Hardyng, propped up by the bannermen of Houses Grafton and Redfort, amongst others, then stormed the castle, taking control of the Vale...all in the name of King Robin, so he'd tell everyone.
"With all respect Lord Randyll," William Moonton said, a thin man far resembling a warrior, "and believe me, I've no wish to speak ill of the dead, enough good men have died for Hoster Tully's mistake, thinking he could prop up a girl on the Iron Throne. But the fact is...the girl's winning, she whooped you good on the Mander, didn't she? An' she captured and killed her king and husband, by the Gods, it's not right...but it's fact. An' the Sparrows...those fucking fanatics are a plague on the land, brought forth by your King no less. Good men and women are being slaughtered out there, I can't control it all...Sparrows...anyone o' the fucking villagers suspected of being Sparrows, or harboring them, by Gods, innocent butchers who've shorted the wrong man a half pound of meat are gettin' burnt alive out there."
"I know," Randyll conceded the Lord of Maidenpool. "The Sparrows were a mistake. But they're dead, their cause is dead, along with the King who brought them to our shores."
His first act upon returning to King's Landing had been to write all the lords of the realm. He claimed ignorance of whether Rhaegar had truly intended to inflict the fire religion upon the seven kingdoms..."though if I'm to be honest, I think he was fooled by their claims to piety, same as many of us, but alas, the contents of the dragon's heart died with the dragon himself." Then he'd ordered the remaining Sparrow acolytes in the capital executed, and the High Sparrow brought before the same bloodthirsty mob which had cheered him on so rabidly before, all the vermin of Flea Bottom screaming in rapturous glee while his men whipped the old man, then tore out his tongue, blinded him, and cut off his hands and feet.
"They say," Randyll had screamed to the crowd, "the followers of the false fire God burn their heretics, their failures. We can't stoop down to the gutters our enemies dwell in...so we send this scoundrel back to Volantis, to crawl before the wretched witches who'd sent him, so that they may wreak their barbaric brand of barbaric justice upon their own!"
Then, he and Kevan and Mace all stood together while they scourged Prince Viserys for the crime of murdering the Princes Bran and Rickon Stark in a heated fit of passion, upon learning of his brother's death and treatment at the hands of the Queen, that was their story. It was risky, punishing a Targaryen Prince, but truly Viserys held no tangible power despite his name or blood. The days of the dragon may return, but for now, it was the power of the regents who held the seven kingdoms together. Seeing Kevan Lannister standing beside him now, Randyll could only pray that Mace could keep his goodson in line, along with the capital itself, though the arrival of Renly Baratheon, belated as it was, could only but help.
"We made our mistakes," he continued. "But Rhaegar is dead, his era over. The era of the Sparrows is over. The time has come for King Baelor Targaryen, Second of His Name...and the only thing keeping the realms from the blessed peace it so deserves is a wretched woman who'd deny her own son's rightful seat upon the Iron Throne."
"Look at what the bitch did," Jonos Bracken screamed angrily next to him, "look at what she did to the Hightowers, to the Tyrell sons, old Paxter Redwyne."
To your claims to Highgarden, Randyll couldn't help think.
But he had to give credit to the man, the fact that their plight in this war not any worse thanks to his efforts. Before the snows even cleared, the Lord of Stone Hedge managed to mount an attack and rout the Roote armies guarding the River Road, bloodying the banks of the Red Fork red as they advanced towards Stone Hedge. The Tully's and Blackwoods, holding out in Riverrun during the worst of the storms, circled around south towards the King's Road, but the decision of Raymun Darry to declare for Rhaegar gave them the advantage to inflict upon the enemy a defeat at Pennytree, though the Tully's retreated in good order down to Acorn Hall. Then Jonos made the decision to besiege the castle of House Piper, a reasonable decision at the time, though unfortunate, not knowing that the Royces and Waynwoods were already marching west, having declared themselves for House Stark, rejoining the wars of the seven kingdoms. Hearing of their impending arrival, the loyalist army abandoned the siege and rode back towards Darry to meet the Knights of the Vale, except the wily old Bronze Yohn, crossing the Trident first, managed to elude them, arriving at Acorn Hall before Jonos could pivot back.
So there all the girl's armies had gathered, and marching in their direction, while Jonos and his men made the retreat back to Castle Darry, where Randyll and Kevan Lannister met them, having rallied together what banners they could in the Crownlands along the way.
"Lord Jonos is right," Randyll agreed. He turned to Gerold Grafton. "Lord Gerold, Gulltown is the fourth largest city on the continent. Look at what that woman inflicted in Oldtown...they said thousands of people cried out for the blood of the Hightowers, who'd ruled the city rightfully, justly, faithfully for thousands of years. I saw it with my own eyes, I lost on the Mander to the Dayne boy, that's true...but each village and town we passed in the very Reach itself took their toll on my men in blood. The future of House Tyrell destroyed, and their own people cheer, or shrug their shoulders. And why shouldn't they, when the Queen rewards them her ill-gotten spoils in war, robbing all the greatest houses and manors as if she were a bandit rather than proper royalty."
"By the Gods man," Raymun Darry nearly screamed at the two lords of the Vale inside the hall. "She's appointing her little ladies and girls to the proudest seats in the realm. Go back to the mountains, stay and watch her win this war, and then what? You think she's going to leave the last of her kingdoms alone? And if you resist her? Hells, if your men slaughter us in these very chambers now and declare for her...I'd reckon she's still got a stray sister to appoint the new Lady of the Eyrie. A stray Stark girl, Benjen Stark's youngest, to name Lady of Gulltown, and you think she won't? Aye, I bet yer people are already whispering behind your back Gerold, they'd call you a Sparrow and be rid of yer, fer yer riches and gold an' castle..."
"This isn't just any war," Randyll continued, thankful for the cowardly man's help, because who else but the cowardly could stand tallest when faced with the prospect of extinction? "Not between houses and kingdoms, not anymore. She's changed that. You've got a pack of girls leading unruly mobs...just as barbaric as the as any mercenaries or priestesses from Essos...that's the future of the Kingdoms she's fighting for, dammit! And they're wining!" He pounded the table with his fist for effect. But also because he did believe his words...because his heart beat and shook in fear at what Sansa Stark would do to the realm, to himself and Dickon, were she to win this war. "By the Gods, men, this war is a fight for our very survival, our way of life! For our castles, our families, our wealth, our legacies!"
He turned to the man they called the Heir, who had stood perilously close to murdering a child king. Who may yet do so, when all of this was said and done.
"Lord Hardyng, your knights, who are sworn to you, should understand this the most. Mistakes were made by Rhaegar, and in his name, that's true. But the war Sansa Stark wages...it's not for a throne, but it's against all our ways, thousands of years of Andal tradition! Are we to be ruled by men, by lords and knights and the codes and proudest traditions of our ancestors? Or are we to answer to women, see common smiths and beggars who dare to cheer the bleeding of the greatest lords of the realm?"
"It's true," the young Harry answered, "the stakes are indeed high." Beside him, Gerold Grafton breathed a sigh of relief, clearly the Lord of Gulltown would prefer to stand against the champions of mob rule, and a Queen who would strip him of everything he'd hold dear, or so Randyll would have him believe.
"So will be the rewards," Randyll responded. "I've written the Freys, they stand with Edmure now, but they'll seen through the true threat. Once this war is over, old Walder will be rewarded with Riverrun and Harrenhal. House Brax and the other loyal Westerland banners are marching east too. It's not enough, we need more help, I admit, I had to reach an agreement with the Greyjoys. King Euron should be sailing to Seagard as we speak, punish the Mallisters for taking the wrong side. It won't be easy, but we can corner the enemy here, it's crucial we win the war in the Riverlands, no matter the cost, before the Northmen make it down to the Neck."
"And the Vale," Hardyng asked expectedly.
"It's not Robin Arryn's fault he's been used by his mother and everyone else in his kingdom." Including yourself, Randyll thought. "I can't offer you a crown, obviously, that'd be treason. But the Eyrie's yours, the Vale...Jon Arryn's son is old enough to swear his vows to the Watch, once this war's done."
The offer made, and accepted without a word, so Randyll was pleased he wasn't about to join the fate of the Hightowers just yet.
Edric
As they made their way up the Ocean Road, from Old Oak to Crakehall, where the Princess was finally reunited with her beloved son, Edric Dayne kept his attention upon all the whispers of the war around him. The Brax's had fled to the Riverlands, leaving only the Lyddens, Footes, and Plumms guarding Lannisport. Though he'd left thousands of men behind garrisoning Oldtown and Highgarden for Sansa's newest heiresses, they still outnumbered their enemies by far, and only the simplest charge, within sight of the ruins of Tarbeck Hall, had sent the defenders fleeing, his cavalry riding forth through the hills overlooking the Sunset Sea pursuing this newest rout.
His attentions remained on the war, but at night, his eyes were reserved only for his wife, his Queen, and her growing belly, where their child grew larger and larger inside her. When he'd first heard the news in Goldengrove, Edric had thought he'd wanted a son, to teach him how to swing a sword, to make war. Then, he'd wondered what he'd say to a son, after having thrown away their ancestral sword into the ocean. Then Sansa told him she wanted a daughter, and he'd agreed, because his wife was the most formidable and fearsome person he'd ever met, man or woman, and Edric was sure any daughter borne the great Queen would be the same, so how proud would he be to raise such a woman from a babe?
The more she grew, the more he loved her, and desired her. Her breasts, swollen, a prize he'd taste for himself before their babe. Her thighs grew fuller when he pleasured her with his tongue, all her body changing anew for him to conquer, one soft and plush kingdom after another.
They arrived in Lannisport, and the Queen harangued the smallfolk atop the steps to the city square. The grounds were smaller, which was just as well, because Sansa was wearying with every day passed, the burdens of child and war catching up to even the strongest of women, and the humbler crowd meant that she did not have to strain her voice so while she rallied the smallfolk of the west into a bloodthirsty trance, same as the ones in the south.
Tywin Lannister himself can emerge out of the ice, he'd thought, watching the spectacle proudly, and they'd tear him limb from limb.
So they stopped at all the village halls and taverns along the way too. He observed his wife enjoyed the frolickings with the smallfolk less, the maesters having urged Sansa to give up her ale and wine until their child's birth. But then the Princess began joining them too, her presence always a delight when she filled in where a sober and more reserved Queen stood aside, and Edric could sense in her the subtlest pangs of jealousy that the Targaryen woman seemed to genuinely enjoy the company of the commonfolk more than her Queen, even before she'd finished her first glasses of ale.
Theon and Yara Greyjoy met them at the Dragon Princess's abode in Casterly Rock. It was a satisfying secure castle, Edric thought, though Daenerys told them of the weaknesses of the sewage tunnels, which they ensured remained heavily guarded afterwards. The problem was, it was too secure, enough to be tempting for him to sit out the rest of the war, so long as to risk the enemy regaining ground, enough so to march west and so transform this sanctuary into their tomb.
"We march to the Golden Tooth after Castamere and Banefort," Edric said to her, in the privacy of the chambers which had once belonged to Sansa's aunt. "This war will be finished in the Riverlands, I think, regardless of whether your uncle Benjen's armies can make it south in time."
The sigh which emerged from her throat was courageous, too courageous for her own sake, Edric thought. "The mountain passes will difficult, won't they?"
"They will," Edric agreed, rubbing his wife's back and neck with his fingers as she crouched forward, staring down at their worn map, the same one they'd brought and kept fresh from Starfall. "If I were Tarly, I'd have the Brax's and the Lyddens hide near the passes, ambush us at the ready. But then, one bad storm might wipe out whatever fighting fortitude their men have left."
"Do you like your cape," Sansa asked, nestling her head against his shoulder. She was exhausted, she woke exhausted, and Edric could only guess how his wife could persevere through each continuing day.
"I love it," he answered. He'd never worn a cape before. She'd sewn him one, on the march to Casterly Rock, clad in the deepest purple, the sigils of a golden star flying over a red wolf adorning the center of the garment. "I love you. I'll wear it with pride, when the next battle comes."
"I don't think I'll have enough time to make myself anything thicker," she said, worried. "I'll ask Daenerys, see if there's any winter's garb here which may fit me."
"Sansa."
"What?"
"You should stay here. War is not...it's not..."
He couldn't finish, and she looked at him sympathetically. "I know you're worried for me, for our child. It's sweet. I worry too, believe me, I will not risk our child's life. If I ever feel that...that I'm unwell...that she's unwell, I'll ride back to Casterly Rock at once, with a hundred of your finest men protecting me." Her fingers, not as slender as before her pregnancy, fiddled around with a sigil on the map. "Or Riverrun," she said mischievously, greedily, "if we're closer to there by then."
"I trust you." He did. Yet he worried. And it bothered him, deep inside his heart, whom he worried for more. Their child, yes. But were some strange god to hold a knife at his throat, and compel him to answer the truth hidden inside his heart, whom he'd rather save...a child he'd never met, or the woman who'd turned his world upside down and conquered it well before she'd conquered the rest of her kingdoms, Edric stood afraid to voice his answer to anyone besides Sansa.
"Come," she said gently, bidding him rise. "We have pirates to wrangle tomorrow, and I need a good night's sleep for it."
She led, and he followed.
Sansa
"Your Grace," Yara Greyjoy said, "with all respect, Pyke lays open and undefended."
"It does," Sansa agreed. "And with all respect, Queen Yara, how did taking Pyke serve my father? It became his deathtrap, his grave." The woman frowned, but only because she could not argue against her logic. "Perhaps it's a trap laid by your uncle. Perhaps not. But if Euron wins this war because you and your brother were away taking the island, guess where he's going to go next, with the help of Tarly and his men? And guess who won't be around to help you?"
"We can hold them," Theon bluffed. "We'll defeat them, an open and honest battle's all we've ever wanted."
But Sansa could tell that Yara's mind had been changed, and with that, the direction the Iron Born would take to.
"Where are the Baneforts then," she asked, her younger brother shooting her a dirty grin, but not contradicting her implicit decision out loud. "Get this over with, and the closer our uncle is to death."
"They've fled north," Edric said, taking charge of the meeting. He was seven and ten now, still remarkably young compared to all the vaunted warriors standing in deference inside the hall, but added with the weight of all his great successes in the field, the Lord of Starfall and Prince of the Throne held as much respect amongst the fiercest fighters of the land as his famous uncle once had, Sansa guessed, if not more so. "But the Westerlings are bearing down on them. I've word they've taken refuge near the ruins of Castamere."
"By themselves," Brienne continued, "the Westerlings should prevail. With our numbers surrounding them from the south, they have no chance." The woman was both a great fighter, and a leader of men, all of whom couldn't help but respect her because of her almost unnatural strength and skill with the sword. Once this war was over, Sansa thought she should knight her, traditions be damned. Or before, even, because there were still battles to fight, and were the worst to happen, the Lady Brienne of Tarth did not deserve to die without such honors bestowed upon her in life.
"But our eyes are blinded in the oceans," one Queen continued to the other. "Our best laid plans would be for naught if the whispers are false, and Euron Greyjoy plans an ambush on the shores north of Casterly Rock. We need you, King Theon, Queen Yara. The war's not over. We need to fight it together, with one mind, one firm hand."
"And," Edric added with a smirk, knowing the depths of their strategies by now, "don't forget...help us take Banefort, and you'll have all the more treasures to decorate your walls in Pyke with."
So it was decided easily, the pirates departed to set sail, and Edric readied his men. Yet Brienne remained, her clear blue eyes looking at her in apprehension, as if the most loyal of her soldiers were about to admit to the basest treachery.
"My dear lady," Sansa said carefully, sitting back down in her seat, "something troubles your mind?"
"Your Grace," the Lady of Tarth said with a cough, "you know I believe in you, I believe in our cause...that I'd serve you until my dying day..."
"But," Sansa admitted. There was always a but, she had an almost prophetic way of predicting when she'd hear that word by now.
"But...," Brienne repeated, averting her eyes.
"Do you not agree with Edric's strategy? Is it the Riverlands you're concerned with?"
"Storm's End, Your Grace."
You can cut me down without a second thought, yet you stand terrified of me, same as Edric and all the other men, Sansa continued to marvel.
This she'd not expected. The rightful Queen sighed sadly. "Shireen's a good friend of my sister's. She would not make war on us, it's clear that Lord Renly's the one who has her ear...if not outright control of her castle and bannermen, despite her right to rule and make the decisions of where all the Stormlands ought declare."
"You're not wrong, Your Grace," Brienne continued, Sansa was sure she'd never seen the older woman so uneasy. "But...Lord Renly...I've known him all my life, since I was a child..."
"You have?" This was new to her.
"I have," Brienne nodded firmly, her deep voice more confident than before. "I cannot deny that it's a path of treason he's set off towards...yet...his intentions..."
"Were made in good faith, you'd tell me," the Queen interrupted, though she often wondered herself.
"You're skeptical, and I understand, I would think so too, if I did not know the man. Or know him once, and pray him unchanged."
"I do owe him my life," Sansa conceded. "It is a debt I've yet to repay." It seemed appropriate, and she wondered whether the woman had plotted it so, to remind her of her debts while sitting inside the ancient seat of House Lannister in Casterly Rock, not to mention whom she was to meet at Castamere, though not even good Brienne knew of that. "You ask that I spare his life, after the war?"
"He's a good man," Brienne, all but kneeling, though there stood an inherent pride in her heart that kept her from debasing herself too basely on behalf of a traitor, Sansa could tell. "Maybe he's misled, maybe he's misled himself. But...I do believe in him still, I pray nightly to the Gods, that he can see that he's wrong, that he can correct his ways, repent, make reparations for his mistake, though I fear it may well be too late..."
The Queen stood, and immediately her sworn sword fell silent. Sansa Stark walked without emotion to the warrior woman who loomed a full head above her. First she took Brienne's hands warmly into her own, feeling the skin of this killer for the first time, tender in some spots, coarse in others. Then she squeezed them.
"I have my plans for Lord Renly, after the war," she said, betraying no emotion. "I pray he won't lead men in battle, if it comes to that. I understand that his mind may have been clouded by...by the deaths of those he cares for in this war. If Renly survives this war, and he cooperates with me, I assure you...my plans will serve him...and my kingdoms well."
But what she left unsaid they both understood.
Water dripped down from the broken walls, through the cracks in stone into the walls below. Blood, the superstitious may say, phantom remnants of the ghosts those who drowned where they stood, but Sansa knew it was nothing more than the melt from the snows which had blanked the battlefield the day before. Their battle was naught a skirmish against a retreating rearguard, the bulk of the Banefort men escaping eastward through the Pendric Hills, their fleeting victory all the more cause for concern, considering how the odds were stacking ever heavier against her uncle in the Riverlands, with every exodus of Westerland knights still refusing to bend the knee.
Edric stood outside at the ready, his knights posted in corners surrounding the last standing tower amidst the ruins of Castamere, the word standing used loosely, seeing that there stood above no roof for her to crawl underneath and take refuge from the light yet enduring drizzle.
"Where's Jon?"
"At Castle Black," the ancient man dressed in black answered her, "where he belongs." From where she stood, he appeared more frightful than any ghost traversing through worlds which would pass the both of them by.
"Samwell Tarly, and the men you'd sent to Horn Hill?"
"Safe and back at the Wall I've heard," Tywin Lannister answered in his deep and elegant voice, "though I'd already sailed from Eastwatch by then."
"Good." The way father had described the banished lion, Sansa had always pictured him a hideous ogre, balding, skin peeling off his scalp, face dripping with the blood of those whom he'd massacred. Yet Tyrion Lannister's father...well, if he wasn't a handsome man, then he looked like one who'd been handsome in his youth, before war and the Mad King and decades frozen atop the Wall had taken its toll on his features. Still, his posture resembled more a nobleman's, nearly a king himself, rather than that of a warrior's, hands clasped firmly and properly against the small of his back as he stood beneath the walls of the castle he'd nearly burnt to the ground, meeting for the first time a Queen who hadn't yet been born when the formerly great lion last roamed the seven kingdoms.
"Your cousin is a good ranger," Tywin continued, standing deathly still. "A good swordsman, a leader of men, I daresay, people like him, they respect him."
"I love Jon," Sansa began, determined to stand just as strong and forbearing as the man in black before her, who resembled ever the Stranger himself. "But I doubt you've sailed and rode so far to discuss my cousin with me."
"No," Tywin agreed. "But you're the Queen, it's your prerogative, speak what you'd wish, and I'd answer you in turn, as is my obligation and duty."
Or burden, that's what you mean to say.
"I'm winning the war," Sansa began, feeling her voice weakening despite her best efforts. "I've taken Dorne, I've taken the Reach, the Westerlands."
Damn Renly, so I can't claim the Stormlands before this stranger.
"Yet your enemies continue to elude you," Tywin said, picking up where she left off forcefully, yet smoothly enough as to not give the appearance of interrupting her. "Yet King's Landing holds strong and will hold strong, it won't fall barring a massacre. And the fearsome northern warriors from the lands of your father march ever slowly through the winter snows. Randyll Tarly will either lose to or defeat your uncle Edmure in the Riverlands before they come, you know this surely, seeing what you've seen in war by now. He'd also march through the mountain passes and besiege Casterly Rock well before Benjen Stark reaches that Inn at the Crossroads, you know this too."
She meant to interrupt him, to scold him, how dare the man lecture a Queen, the daughter of Eddard Stark, who'd banished him in the first place, yet her throat stood as frozen as the ghosts of the children Tywin Lannister had drowned decades ago beneath their feet.
"But it's not the north you're worried about, is it," the Lord Commander continued. "The odds are stacked against Tarly. He'll fall, sooner or later. Except, what of the kingdoms you've conquered? Dorne, held by a child? The Reach, held by children, by women..."
"By your blood," Sansa finally spoke, emphasizing each word as if she stood in parley before a battle. "By your direct line...by the only grandchildren of Tywin Lannister. If they fall, if they fail, so does everything you've accomplished in your life, south of Castle Black or not."
The old man chuckled. "If you did all of this for me, Your Grace," adding the last words as if an afterthought, "then I suppose I should be flattered." Obviously the fiend was anything but flattered, nor impressed.
"I do this for me," Sansa rebutted firmly. He's just a man, she reminded himself. He's alive, he's flesh and blood, any ghost of Castamere ought be more frightful than he. "I do this for your daughter, and your grandchildren, who were wronged by the lords of the Reach."
"Is that wise," the old crow said, taking a step forward in her direction. She'd not brought any weapons with her, Edric was nearby, standing within earshot, and why should she fear an old man so, the girl once thought, before meeting the actual ghoul herself. "To serve yourself, your friends...rather than your Crown, your birthright?"
"I suppose you mean to say they're different then."
"Don't mistake me, Your Grace." Three steps forward, and his progress stopped, leaving still a respectable distance between them. "What you've accomplished with...with the Lord of Starfall is most impressive. I'd say I'd be surprised, given your ages...yet I myself was not much younger when I..."
"When you slaughtered every man, woman, and child here and in Tarbeck Hall?"
"You disapprove?"
Do I amuse him?
His question was spoken in a tone meant to intimidate. Sansa braced herself to not show any fear towards the seemingly unarmed man. "Clearly I believe in a different kind of war."
The old man laughed, to her chagrin, not impressed at all by her rebuttal. "So alike, yet so different." He turned swiftly, a spring in his step belying his accumulated years, before facing her again. "Do you understand the forces you've unleashed in Oldtown, gir...Your Grace? Do you know what it means, truly means, to unleash the fires of the mob against you and I, fires which may burn harsher than that of any ancient Targaryen dragon?"
"I believe I do, actually," she answered forcefully, before he could continue into what she'd expected to become a lecture, as if she'd become a child again, no words allowed her except those written for her mouth by her council. "Lords and knights are fickle creatures, aren't they? Loyal to the Mad King one day, loyal to Eddard Stark then Rhaegar the Rapist next. Loyal, inside the walls of Casterly Rock, within the Westerlands first to Lord Tywin, then to Lord Tyrion, then to Lords Kevan and Lancel, then Lancel when he defies your traitor brother...and now to a child and a Targaryen Princess. It's startling really, how flexible fealty can be in the eyes of men who see themselves as more powerful and greater than those they'd claim to serve."
"You don't think the sheep are fickle too, compared to these lords you'd slander so?"
"Oh, I know they are," Sansa confirmed, stepping forward, an almost demonic glee echoing within her voice as she spoke. "I know better than anyone else, Lord Tywin. Except, what's the difference between the mobs, and the rich? The people..."
"Who would swallow and devour us all, if given the chance?"
"Except their pretensions fall far shorter, don't they? Knights want to be lords, lords wish to become a great lord, gain wealthier lands, a better castle, better marriages and the such. And Great Lords think, 'how about royalty, a Prince for my daughter, why am I not fit to name myself a King, as in the Age of Heroes? And if I can't claim the Iron Throne for myself, can I, but I can claim it for another, however tenuous their claim, and reap for myself all the rewards, all the benefits, the riches?'" Suddenly, she found herself facing the old man eye to eye, feeling his breath upon her, breathing onto him in turn.
"Except the people, the rotten mobs, the dirty and ignorant masses, the sheep...all they want is shelter, a warm bed, food to feed their families...and something to believe in. A good bedtime story, and they'll sleep happy...unlike our beloved lords...stories aren't enough to satisfy them, are they? They've seen through all the stories, all the codes, the songs, the dim and the clever ones all the same as greedy as a hungry mob. I used to believe in the songs too, of Florian and Jonquil...of the Reynes of Castamere, except I see that man before me now, and I see that he's no legend, no lyric nor verse beyond the understand of men...just a man. No more. No less. So I ask you, Lord Tywin, whom do you fear more, whom should we fear more? The disillusioned, or the feeble?"
He didn't answer her. So she'd won this battle, if not the war.
"My father respected the Night's Watch," she continued, the pursued the huntress now. "He ensured that Castle Black received its share of fighting men, almost ten thousand before Rhaegar's usurpation, I recall my Council appraising me. The strongest the Watch has been, Jon Arryn told me," mimicking the old man's accent, "since the days of the Conqueror."
"Yes," Tywin answered, returning to life. "You think they're as easily led as your simple little mobs? Obviously you seek my help, let's not pretend here. Obviously you seek for not only I to go against my vows, but nearly ten thousand men to betray a tradition of nearly ten thousand years, or why do we meet here? A nephew of Leyton Hightower commands the Shadow Tower, just how do you think I can talk that man into breaking his sacred words, on behalf of a Queen who massacred his family?"
"Kill him then," Sansa said plainly, simply, coldly. "Kill him like you killed the Castameres and Tarbecks, it's your right as Lord Commander, isn't it? So kill him. Replace him with the hundreds of men whom he commands. Replace him with someone like the boy Grenn, I met him in Horn Hill, he's just as good of a fighting man as any highborn lad. Birth or not, people will follow a man worth following who can swing passably a sword or axe...so long as they're ordered so by their Lord Commander."
"And then what?"
His tone told her that she'd won this battle, at the very least.
What would you give me, he was really asking.
"A long deserved reprieve from Castle Black, from the cold."
"Casterly Rock?"
Of course she'd expected this answer. "Lyonel Lannister is the Lord of Casterly Rock, her mother his regent. This will not change."
A smirk from the old lion. This time, it was he who turned his back on her.
"Is that it then," he asked, in a way which made her shudder, how his eyes appraised all of her, her body, her growing belly, the child underneath.
"I am a married woman," Sansa answered firmly, understanding. "Perhaps I can promise a union between your blood and mine a generation or two removed. But Edric is my own...I've suffered enough in this life. I deserve him, he is mine, and I will not give him up, not now, not ever. I'd die before I'd lose the man I chose for me."
"Then," Tywin said, careful feet stepping away from her, back towards the alcove from where she presumed he'd entered the ruins to begin with, "I suppose we have nothing further to discuss, do we?"
"Then I suppose not."
Yet neither one of them budged, or moved to walk away first.
