Disclaimer – This fanfiction was not written by me; it belongs to the user William Dellinger on alternatehistory, by publishing it here I only intend to bring it to a wider audience and make it available for offline reading. I do not claim any ownership of the content.

Rhaegar X
Late 274 AC

We were sitting in a circle, a random assortment of mismatched chairs in the interior pit of The Globe. It was an old trick I learned when I still walked the stage in college; the actors would sit in a circle and the scene would be acted out in the middle. No sets, no props, no costumes. Just the actors, creating the scene with words and emotion. And by performing the scene in the middle of the audience, they were fully immersed. There was no backstage or wings to slip out of the character, surrounded as they were. They were watched from all angles, their every movement and gesture subject to narrowed eyes.

Crejon was a dense play. There was so much going on for each character; Crejon's impossible choice, Arya's madness, Theon's guilt, Lyarra's ruthless survivialism. Brynden and Alysanne was relatively simple by comparison, and they had only pulled that off by the skin of their teeth. I had received word earlier in the day from Lord Rickard that he had arrived back in King's Landing after negotiating with the Reach. The young Brandon would meet myself and Ser Barristan in the morning for a lesson or two and Crejon would live on the stage in two days. Which was the main reason for me pulling out all the stops with the current exercise.

The scene Rosley and two of the older men were acting out was probably the most important scene in the play, and arguably the most famous scene in all of Western art from the world I had left.

It was Act III, scene 1. That one. The big one.

Jackon and Timmon, the two playing Theon and Jonos, were crouching behind an imaginary wall, closely listening to Rosley's monologue. Rosley was coming along very well; his Brynden had grown immeasurably in the two months since the opening night. He was moving as Brynden would have, full of the cocky swagger of a young boy, with the soaring highs and tragic lows of hormones run amok. Not that he was much older than Brynden was supposed to be, but Rosley's sixteen years of starvation and abuse and hardship had turned him into a man as surely as three full decades.

Unfortunately, it hadn't given him the experience necessary for Crejon.

Rosley was singularly decisive in most facets of his life; if he wanted a drink, he had one; if he wanted food, he ate; if he wanted a woman, he seduced her. He lived in the moment, his decisions quick and lasting. He didn't live in his head. Crejon was the opposite; constantly vacillating between action and inaction, always intellectual, withdrawn into himself. Rosley was playing the role, and the soliloquy, with brashness and fire and passion. It was a fine role, if I wanted that; indeed, it had given me ideas for my Henry V analog. But it wasn't Crejon, and it sure as shit wasn't Hamlet.

"Rosley, stop for a moment," I said, halting the scene. I stood and walked into the circle. The actors had become used to my inserting myself into their rehearsal, so much that occasionally, we could converse as two people, instead of prince of the realm and a lowly mummer. It didn't happen often, and never lasted more than a question or two. But just enough for me to enjoy it.

"We need to talk about the scene," I said, meeting Rosley in the middle of the circle.

Rosley looked ready to bolt, wondering if the famed Targaryen temper would surface and leave him a bloody spot on the stone floor. I raised a hand to calm him. "You're having trouble with it."

He nodded. "Y-Yes, Your Grace," he said, his eyes still on the ground. "I can't find the truth."

"The truth" had become their prayer, their chant, their mantra and toast and treasure. They searched for it, thinking about their characters and their actions and their words. In six months, I had created a Westerosi theatre scene without peer out of nothing. Izembaro's contacts in Braavos had even written him, asking about the strange Westerosi playhouse and the silver playwright.

I studied him. "And what is the truth?"

"I do not know, Your Grace," he admitted, shrugging. "I say the words and make the movements but I do not have the truth of Crejon. Everyone else has found their truth in their roles," he said gesturing around him. "I am just pretending."

And what he said was true. The others had found their characters easily enough. Timmon, as Jonos, had been around enough nobles to mimic their pomposity, while Jenny's madness as Arya had brought me to tears the first time I had seen it.

I nodded, understanding finally. "And is Crejon not just pretending?"

"No," was Rosley's quick, reflexive response before he remembered who I was. "No, Your Grace," he amended before actually considering the question. "Well, in a way, Your Grace."

A slow smile crept across my face as I saw him piecing the character together. "Crejon... pretends to be mad, with his 'antic disposition,'" Rosley continued, still refusing to meet my eyes. "But, Your Grace, he also becomes mad from the stress of his act and from being unable to avenge his father."

I placed my hands on both of Rosley's slim shoulders. "You have to know, one way or the other, here, in this scene. Not you, as an actor, but the character. Does Crejon know he is being watched?" Rosley nodded in understanding, but I shook him off. "No, Rosley, I'm asking you; does he know he is being watched?"

Rosley looked remarkably like a student in one of my classes when asked the same question. "Y-Your Grace, um, I think... he doesn't?"

I nodded. "That's the question. If he knows he's being watched, then he's acting, feigning madness for a bloodthirsty madman, hidden in this room. If he does not know he's being watched, then he is succumbing to the madness of his inability to choose. Does he kill the king and violate sacred oath against kinslaying? Or leave his father's death unavenged to save his own honor?"

Rosley nodded and I gestured for him to begin again. Taking my seat, I watched the young man prepare himself.

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

I closed my eyes and listened instead of watching, carefully marking the intonation and tone of the words. It was a grand question for the young prince; a question of suicide, a question of whether or not to be the prince he was supposed to be, with all of the duties associated with that rank. Rosley was still making up his mind for his interpretation and it showed as indecision on his face. It worked.

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them;"

Outrageous fortune, indeed. Does the young prince accept his role, knowing the task before him is impossible? Or does he fight on, a broken ship against the tides, one man against the weight of time and fate, giving his life to end the monstrosity before him? The once confident Rosley was on unfamiliar ground and it gave his performance the tone it had been missing.

"to die, to sleep no more; and by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."

Crejon cannot make the decision, so he chooses to make no decision. In this scene, he has run away from the king's center of power, to deep within the crypts of Winterfell. He indulges his indecision, philosophizing his inaction, and romanticizing his thoughts of suicide.

"To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."

And yet, it is the fear of death that stays his hand. The young prince cannot even make the decision to end his life and relieve his suffering.

"There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life: for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?"

More suicide. What man could bear the world against him, the only sane man in the kingdom that sees the king for what he truly is?

"Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of."

Fear. The monologue was about fear. Fear of the unknown, the fear of what could happen.

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action."

The prince felt himself a coward, unable to avenge his father, unable to kill the king, unable to take his own life. It's why he ran away, to a place he didn't have to make a decision.

"Soft you now, the lady Arya? Lady, in thy prayers be all my sins remembered."

I finally opened my eyes, hearing for the first time the Crejon I had been looking for. Rosley was standing, his eyes sadly unfocused to the other side of the circle. I followed his gaze, starting momentarily to see Jenny quietly sobbing into her sleeve. But she wasn't looking at Rosley. She was looking at me.

And that was when everything slid into place.

***
Tywin I
Late 274 AC

The soft flutter of paper was almost the only sound in the Tower of the Hand, the cool night breeze a counterpoint to the sharp flicker of the waning torches. The Hand sat behind his desk, tireless, relentless in his duty, working well past nightfall. It had the sense of familiarity, as if he had sat behind that desk into the night more often than not, reviewing the tiny details that kept the realm running.

The torchlight made his golden hair a sharper hue, spun gold framing his face. There was tension in his shoulders, the product of an entire day spent at the desk, doing the job of a dozen men. The tension in his mouth and eyes, however, had an entirely different set of causes. His hand moved quickly across the page, letters to be sent in the morning. The glass of wine on the desk had cooled, untouched for the past many hours.

Another man stood in front of the desk, waiting to be noticed by the Hand. Long in the service of Tywin Lannister, his first mission had been to keep an eye on House Rosby, collecting information at the numerous feasts thrown by the Crownland lord. Yet, for the last six months, Arry had been serving in King's Landing, keeping an eye on a much more important person.

Tywin finally put the piece of paper back on the desk, leaning back to consider his spy. "You say he knows?" The tone was skeptical, but even.

"Yes, my lord. He as much as said it himself. He was talking about his play, the new one for Lord Stark. 'If he knows he's being watched, then he's acting, feigning madness for a bloodthirsty madman,' he said. Was looking at me the whole time, my lord."

Tywin considered this. It was too unlikely to be a coincidence; indeed, Tywin was not a man to believe in coincidences. Yet, it was hard to believe that the boy who had sat roughly where Arry was standing not nine months before had uncovered the truth of his father's madness where Tywin had thought only he had seen. And Rhaegar leaving the Red Keep to live in a mummer's playhouse? Convincing everyone on the small council, including the king, that he was a foppish young fool? No, the fact remained that the young prince, considered as of late to be of middling intelligence and idle tendencies, had seen through one of his best spies. But why let me know?

"I do not know, my lord."

Tywin realized he had said the thought aloud. As if he would ask the man for his opinion. He was useful in his way, his knowledge of the duties of a head servant allowing him to collect information without being noticed. But a spymaster the man was not.

Could the prince be looking for an alliance? "You say he will be meeting with Lord Stark? And that he has sent letters to Prince Doran?"

"Yes, my lord," Arry answered dutifully.

Tywin's mouth moved into a thin, sharp line. A Targaryen alliance with either the North or Dorne would provide a stabilizing effect to the kingdom, and a prince who knew how to maneuver the ever-shifting landscape would be able to turn that stabilization into a hammer. The Targaryens had ruled with dragons, but the dragons were long gone. They had only managed to maintain power through alliances with the other powerful houses, offsetting one's expanding power by a marriage alliance with another. The fact that both the North and Dorne each had girls of the proper station and close to marriageable age did not escape him.

"His play," Tywin said slowly, "what is it about?" If the prince was indeed reaching out for a possible alliance, then he could also be interested in a possible alliance with the Westerlands – who also had a girl of the proper station and of marriageable age. That would explain why the prince admitted to knowing of Tywin's spy without getting rid of him.

Arry took a moment to collect his thoughts. "My apologies, my lord, it is a very long play, and very complicated. I–"

"Shorten it."

"Yes, my lord. A young prince chooses between kinslaying and avenging his father's death at the hands of his uncle."

Tywin narrowed his eyes. What could be going through Rhaegar's mind to make him write something like that?

A thought occurred to Tywin, but he dismissed it nearly immediately. Yet, the thought came back. The prince looking for an alliance with a major house and writing a play regarding the struggle of kinslaying was certainly cause for thought. But to explain both of those and why Tywin's spy was allowed to continue in service was another thing entirely.

He can't know.

He can't possibly know.

No one knew that, other than Tywin.

"An interesting concept," was all Tywin would say aloud. So, he thought to himself. The Game of Thrones has a new player.