Lenna LVI
The gulls' cries echoed off the walls of the Red Keep, dread ricocheting in her blood. Standing on the ship's deck brought to many memories of her first arrival in the capital as a young girl. Her stomach had fizzed with nerves then, but now it felt as if she had exchanged her bowels for snakes. It had been a year since she'd left King's Landing, and she had thought then that she would never have reason to return. Now, the ruddy turrets of the holdfast rose above her again, the cold wind nipping at her cheeks as she soothed the babe in her arms.
It was a risk to bring Addy with her, but she would never have left her, not when she was still so small. Only four months old, and already a traveller. Lenna might have smiled at that if she wasn't so afraid. Not that she had much choice.
Olenna had planned everything before she even arrived in White Harbor, knowing that Lenna would not refuse her. How could she? Olenna had as effectively backed Lenna into a corner has she had the Lannisters themselves, and it was struggle not to resent her for it. A shudder like an eel made its way down Lenna's spine. It was hard to trust someone who viewed you as a gaming piece, who called upon the bond of blood in such a way. Lenna, certainly, could never imagine doing such a thing, even with the Realm at stake.
"Three days," Olenna assured her, still commanding Wyman Manderly's study as if it was her own. "You will be there for three days, then you leave again. I will not let them keep you, dear girl. Not this time."
This had made Lenna uneasy, to say the least, but even her father had agreed in the end, looking at her askance, his moustache drooping as he bid them farewell at the harbor dock. Olenna was too assurring, too placating for either of them to be drawn in. Lenna wondered if her aunt thought her simple, or perhaps simply naive. That the child was in her arms and not with a wet-nurse in White Harbor was a bone of fierce contention between the kinswoman. Olenna thought her niece was daft to even suggest such a thing, but Lenna refused to be parted from Addy. In the end, Lenna had won simply because she outlasted Olenna's patience.
The wind that brushed her cheeks as they pulled into the southern harbor was mild, almost as warm as summer. It stirred the curls that framed Addy's face and the child yawned, making Lenna smile. King's Landing did not feel the winter the way the North did, the only difference a slight muting of the brilliant skies, a crispness to the wind that hadn't been there in the long summer. This winter was going to last long years by all indications, and ire rose up in her that the North should struggle through deep snows while these soft, cruel people in the capital barely shivered with their light silk shawls draped about their shoulders, winter a mere tale made up to scare naughty children. But not hers. Addy had been born that first day of winter, a winter's child, the chill only making her snuggle a little more deeply into her mother's arms but not rousing her from her sleep.
She went below to prepare as she had that first time, only she was not so foolish to repeat her first mistake. She changed into a more suitable gown, a sober blue, and had her maid thread her gray ribbon through her hair. She suspected that she needed his strength today, though she was keenly aware of how unhappy, no, furious, he would be if he knew where she was and what she was about to do. That made her cheeks pink and her lips curl, and when she laid a kiss on her daughter's forehead, she went on deck steeled for whatever it was that would meet her.
She was glad she'd taken the time to make herself presentable. There was a cloaked figure waiting for them on the dock, a woman about Lenna's own age, a sloe-eyed beauty with a heart-shaped face. A group of guards surrounded her, spear-points flashing in the late morning light. Lenna knew who she was immediately, despite never having crossed paths with Margaery Tyrell, and even from a distance, she knew the other woman's eyes rested on her. Their gazes locked across the quay, and the gentle smile on her lips was enough to make the snakes in her stomach settle, still heavy but no longer writhing.
Margaery Tyrell was as beautiful as Lenna had always heard, and it was clear that they were quite fascinated with each other. The young queen's eyes were a vivid blue, and they did not leave Lenna's form, their expression shuttered. There was cunning in her sharp features, but there was also great kindness, and curiosity. She only looked away when Olenna made her first appearance, seeming to ignite when the old lady tottered down the gangway, wrapping her grandmother up in an embrace more suited to an excited child than to a queen. Lenna immediately liked her.
"Margaery, my dear," Olenna said, stepping to the side, impatient with her granddaughter's show of affection. "Your cousin, Helenna Manderly."
"My famous Northern relation," Margaery said as Lenna made a deep curtsey. Her knees were stiff, it had been so long since she'd made such a gesture. When she rose, Margaery had extended both of her hands, drawing Lenna close and dropping a kiss on each cheek. "The ones the ballads are written about. You will have to tell me how much truth is in them."
"Not now," Olenna said with a wave of her hand. "Foolish girls. More worried about spinning romances than saving your own skins."
Margaery looped her arm through Lenna's, much to her surprise, idly talking through the finer points of Olenna's proposition as they walked. Lenna did not know why this shocker her. It made perfect sense that the queen would be aware of exactly what her grandam had planned, but it did make Lenna wonder how far this web of theirs extended, and where exactly her place was supposed to be within it.
Olenna leaned heavy on her other arm as they made their way to Cersei's rooms, a runner sent ahead of them. The young queen would not accompany them into the lion's den. Her very presence would cripple them before they had a chance to do what they came to accomplish. Lenna wondered if her own being there would hurt them. She had no idea what kind of reaction her appearance would inspire after so long an absence, especially showing herself at Olenna's side.
She took a deep breath, forcing her feet to move one in front of the other. Lenna had dared to allow herself to believe that she would never have to walk these passageways again, and they felt foreign to her despite having been her home for so many years, nearly half her life. The beauty she'd once found in the intricate scrollwork was now gone, and she kept her eyes on her toes on the ruddy flagstones, measuring her breathes and her steps as her feet led her on the all-too familiar path through Maegor's Holdfast.
Cersei's study looked the same as it always had, though all but one of the windows was shuttered, casting it into gloom illuminated by ornate lamps. It was scarcely midday, but it felt as though the light had been chased away, save for the thick slab of sunlight coming through the lone window. Lenna went to it immediately, hugging herself tightly as she looked over the familiar view, while Olenna took a seat, head lolling as she dozed and waited. Arms wrapped around her torso, Lenna felt suffocated, desperate for a chill breeze.
Footsteps rang down the hall, and then the door clicked. Lenna turned with determination, her hands clasped before her stomach in a false show of ease. Cersei Lannister entered with her eyes cast on the floor, a look of great annoyance on her features. She seemed thinner, her cheeks more hollow, the bones of her face readily visible under her smooth skin. Yet, she was still golden and beautiful, and the small part of her heart that Lenna could not purge of them swelled with joy to see her well. Lenna had imagined horrible things in the wake of the Blackwater. Her dreams had shown her Cersei Lannister and her golden children bloody and beheaded, purpled with poison, and always, always dead.
The woman who approached her was not dead, but she looked as if she'd seen a lich rise from the grave. The dowager queen stopped mid-stride, eyes finding Lenna where she still stood at the casement, the wind at her back stirring the short curls about her own sharp cheeks. Cersei went ashen under honeyed skin, beryl-green eyes going glassy as she looked back at her in incomprehension. Cersei inhaled sharply like some spell had been broken, throwing a glance to Olenna, before whatever shock had stilled her disappeared and she took three rapid strides to Lenna, arms outstretched as she pulled Lenna into an embrace, face buried in her old friend's hair.
Her fingers dug like claws into Lenna's thin back, but she was warm. It surprised Lenna that Cersei Lannister felt the same as any other human in her arms, the queen's body, strong and upright, going slack in her own stunned grip. Lenna had wrapped her up in her arms without thinking, half-disgusted at her own pleasure in seeing Cersei Lannister again.
"Dear, dear Lenna," Cersei said brokenly, taking a step away, hard hands framing Lenna's face. The queen, nearly her equal in height, peered into her face as if seeking proof that it was not Lenna, that she was some imposter with a good likeness. Her fingers went slack, and then there were tears in her eyes. Lenna herself almost cried, her own tears rising in answer. How she hated how glad she was to see Cersei Lannister. "Wherever have you been?"
The queen's voice was breathy, like a wind in dry leaves, but it was also full, so much passing between them unspoken. Lenna trembled, taking one of Cersei's hands in her own and looking down, away, anywhere but at that searching and wounded and proprietary gaze.
"I am glad to see you, your grace," Lenna said in reply, opting not to address the question. "You look well."
Cersei barked out a mirthless laugh, and the wraith-woman was set aside, the queen again in her place. "Not so well as you. Your hair." The queen had laid a hand on Lenna's braid, and it was almost like taking a physical blow. Cersei, whether she meant to or not, severed the accord between them with that reminder of all that had transpired before her leaving. Lenna felt as if her heart had acquired a thin coat of ice. "I had not thought to see you again."
"Here I am," Lenna said quietly, and Cersei nodded.
"Yet you come with that one," she replied, her fingers busy with the end of Lenna's braid. There was a tremor to them that Lenna had never seen before, a nervousness. "I wonder at that."
"My aunt, you know," Lenna said in what she meant to be reassurance. "Can I get you a glass of wine?"
Cersei nodded, dropping her hands and folding them before her as she turned to Olenna, every inch a queen again. Lenna wondered if she had imagined that brittle vulnerability, if she'd conjured it with her own pathetic sympathy for this creature.
It was an eerie thing to pour out a measure of wine into one of Cersei Lannister's golden goblets again, and Lenna felt a bit like a ghost of her former self as she moved about the room. It was still so familiar to her, though something about the very stones had changed.
"Your father and brothers?" Olenna asked, breaking the delicate silence.
"Have you not heard?" Cersei asked, her face ancient as she crossed her arms. "My father is dead, killed by my brother."
It was not easy to render Olenna Tyrell speechless, but Cersei Lannister managed to do it. Even Lenna saw the change in the old woman, her papery skin going just a shade paler, old lips parting for a dry and almost imperceptible gasp.
"Ser Jaime?" Lenna breathed, not believing her ears, unable to make sense of what she had just heard.
"Tyrion," Cersei replied. "He killed my son, Lenna. And now he's killed Father."
Lenna shook her head. "Your grace, surely you do not believe Tyrion is capable-"
Cersei scoffed. "So what if he won his stupid trial. We all know he is guilty. Oberyn Martell had to stick his Dornish nose where it didn't belong."
"What trial?"
"By combat," Cersei replied. "Tyrion demanded it. Coward, making someone else do his fighting for him, just as always. Prince Oberyn volunteered as his champion. And won."
"Then he has been judged innocent by the gods," Lenna said firmly. "He did not kill your son, your grace. Surely, you can't believe-"
"He killed him," Cersei replied stonily. "You're not a mother, Lenna. You wouldn't understand. I know that he killed Joffrey. Father suffered an apoplexy shortly after. The grief was just too great."
"Tyrion has killed no one," Lenna replied softly in relief. "But I am terribly sorry, your grace, your father-"
"Yes," Cersei said with a flick of a golden brow. "And now Tyrion is fled. Can't even face us like the man he claims to be."
The tight net that wound itself around Lenna's heart loosened slightly. Poor Tyrion, Lenna wanted to come to his defense, but the good will that the queen still bore her was not strong enough to weather it. The look on Cersei's face, though, was that of a hunting falcon, drawn and sharp. Lenna struggled to find something to say, and the door opened again, saving her.
"Lenna," Jaime Lannister breathed, taking quick strides just as his sister had, looking for all the world as if he was going to catch her up in his arms, too. He checked himself at the last minute, instead, grabbing her hand in his. Lenna noted the cold, stiff golden hand that hers rested on, Jaime's own warm fingers covering hers. "I almost didn't believe the messenger, but here you are. Safe, as I see, but how?"
His eyes were alight with questions, none of which Lenna could answer in his sister's hearing.
"Sit down, Lenna, we have much to discuss with your friends," Olenna said sharply. Lenna drew her hand away from Jaime's and did as she was bid, sitting in chair beside her aunt and feeling like a lap-dog. Jaime looked at her strangely, and she shook her head just enough to steal the suspicion out of his eyes. She was uneasy that Olenna Tyrell had held her own counsel for so long, her sharp eyes watching every flick and gesture of her niece's interactions with her former captors. A veil of understanding seemed to settle around her, and if Lenna was not mistaken, Olenna was pleased with what she saw.
"I will get straight to the point, your grace," Olenna said, steepling her hands as she so often did. "Though I am grieved over news of your Father's death, it only makes my business that much more imperative. By now, surely, you are aware of the state of the Crown's debts."
Cersei, halfway through pouring another glass of wine, faltered and the red liquid splashed the floor. "I don't see how that is any of your business."
"Your grace, I must heartily disagree with you. It is all of our business," Olenna replied. "Every last noble house, hedge-knight, and peasant. You are out of money, your grace, and every copper star your continue to borrow puts this realm and its people at risk."
Cersei opened her mouth to speak but Olenna silenced her with a raised hand.
"Don't bother with those empty words," she rasped. "Lannister's don't pay debts so much as demand they be forgiven. No longer. We know that your mines are no longer producing, and that the money which the Crown has been using for the last several years is not, in fact, lent by House Lannister, but rather the Iron Bank of Braavos."
Jaime's brow was drawn into darkness, his lips parted as he looked between Olenna and his sister.
"Is this true?" he asked, his face thunderous. "Why wouldn't you tell me-"
"It was none of your concern," Cersei rejoined, sipping disinterestedly from her goblet again. "You are Captain of the Kingsguard, not Master of Coin. You're not even the Lord of Casterly Rock."
Jaime slammed his jaw shut, a muscle twitching along the bone. Tension between the two of them rose thick and pulsating, so different from the
"Your grace," Lenna said soothingly, pitching her voice to just that place that always calmed Cersei in the past. "Lady Olenna means that she and I will buy this debt from the Iron Bank. As bonds, to be paid back in full, over time. And we shall forgive half of the accrued interest as a gesture of good will."
"He's coming for you, Cersei," Olenna said, a simple statement of fact. "He's already started sniffing, hasn't he? He knows about Tommen, about Joffrey and your girl. About your brother."
Jaime had flushed and then gone white, sitting back in his chair. He would not look up at Lenna.
"You are speaking treason, Lady Olenna," Cersei hissed through her teeth, her eyes narrowed as a snakes.
"Don't try and scare me, girl," Olenna replied. "I am too old to be frightened by a kitten the likes of you." Olenna held her gaze and it fairly crackled. "You will agree to our terms."
"She's right, Cersei," Jaime said from the window. He'd risen once the spitting had begun, going to the window and leaning against the casement as he looked onto the sea. "He will find a way to root us out if he can."
"Buying our debt will not stop him," Cersei hissed, the admission costing her. "It will just enslave us to two- no, three- masters."
"No," Lenna breathed. "It won't. He needs proof. And he won't have any."
"Then why are we worried?" Cersei hurled back, rounding on Lenna with a cat's eyes. "I always thought you were so intelligent, Lenna. Perhaps we have given you more credit than you deserve."
Bile rose in her gullet. She was well-aware of what she was about to do, of what Olenna was doing.
"There is a book," Lenna said quietly. "I came to you about it many years ago."
Cersei paused and looked at her, as if taking her measure. Lenna forced herself to hold her gaze, feeling so like the girl who had been marched into her solar so many years ago. She thought back to what she had did then, how she had steeled herself, her mother's voice in her head, a stranger's smile giving her just enough strength to tip her chin up.
"Are you threatening me?" Cersei asked, laughter in her voice. "Lenna, how you've changed. You were always above such games."
"This is no game," Lenna replied softly, cooly. "But you are right, I have changed. I have always been your friend, despite-" her voice failed her, throat choking. "I have always loved you, your grace. I would not hurt you, not willingly. This book is not mine to give, and I do not know where it is. Only that it still exists."
"Too much credit," Cersei bit out. "I don't have to do anything. I'm the queen." She was pacing now, a caged lioness, her hair about her shoulders in a solid sheet of gold.
"All due respect, but no, you are not," Olenna said. "I only came to you first because I can see you losing your temper and ruining our chances. Margaery and Tommen will do as I say, but it is time to put away your claws, Cersei. The Realm is at stake."
"If you don't agree, your grace," Lenna said. "The Realm will cease to be. Then there will be nothing for you, or anyone, to be queen of."
Cersei stopped in her walking. "What a ludicrous idea. The Realm will not simply disappear because I do not allow you to hold my family hostage."
"Is the idea that ludicrous? The North has sufficient coin and power to take back what is theirs," Olenna replied. "And I mean to help them if needed. Robb Stark is not dead, and you well know it. His banners have gathered, and they will retake Winterfell from the Boltons within the month. Walder Frey's forces are weakened. His sons are dead."
"He has many sons," Cersei said listlessly.
"They are your men," Olenna said evenly. "Don't you care that they will fall? After all, you cannot buy more, now. And if the North gains its independence, what then is to stop Stannis Baratheon from doing the same with the Stormlands? It would give him a foothold, to be a king in his own country. Then the Reach, and the Martell's down in Dorne have always continued to style themselves as princes, who is the say they won't aspire to become kings?"
"The Martells are our allies."
"You shit yourself at the idea, and we both know it. They have your girl. Could make her a princess, could do to her what you did to Sansa Stark, use her as a pawn, a royal guest with a guard and a bolt on her door. If the kingdoms splinter, we lose our supremacy. What sets us apart from Essos? Hm? It isn't that we're richer, or smarter, or better. We are stronger. United. One kingdom, one crown. Allow that to fall apart, Cersei Lannister, and you'll have nothing but Casterly Rock, empty mines, and a pack of enemies baying for your blood for letting it come to this."
"It is not my fault-"
"This was not a problem before Robert died. War was an unpleasant memory, beginning to become a story. But your father loved war. Saw profit in it. But he lost control of it, didn't he? He didn't count on anyone being as clever as he was, or as rich. And in the end, it wasn't about being clever or rich, but who had the support and the will to outlast it. Robb Stark survived, your grace. And so did his armies. They may have been unsure of what they were fighting for before, but make no mistake- they know exactly what they are fighting for now."
Cersei went red, her neck tight, almost like she was going to burst from her own skin. Lenna had never seen that kind of desperation, not counting the night of the Blackwater.
"I beg you, your grace," Lenna said quietly. "I beg you. Listen to her. This proposal will bring the Seven Kingdoms back together. It will keep Tommen on the throne. It will bring peace to our Realm so that we may prosper again." Lenna took a deep breath, wishing she was not on such uneven footing. "The Crown alone must wield the power in the Seven Kingdoms. As long as the throne is indebted, that power is compromised. Faith in the Crown has been damaged. The situation in the North, King Joffrey-" Cersei's eyes flared at the mention of her son. Lenna bit her tongue, weighing her next words. "We are offering a solution, a mutually beneficial one. Let it end, your grace. If you do not, these whispers from the East-"
"You cannot tell me that you believe these rumors about the damn Targaryen girl."
"I do believe them, your grace," Lenna replied. "We would be foolish not to. And we know how the Iron Bank will act if we do not settle the Crown's debt."
"And they have already come calling, have they not?" Olenna asked. Cersei went gray. "I thought so. How much did they ask for? Hm? A tenth? That's the usual starting point, isn't it, Lenna?"
"Aye," Lenna replied. "That is quite usual."
"And then it will increase steadily. I have it on good authority that Stannis Baratheon has already achieved his purpose and gained a new line of credit from them. I wonder if they would do such a thing if they really believed he couldn't lose?"
Jaime rose abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor.
"How many enemies would you have them finance? Stannis does, after all have the better claim to the throne."
"Tommen is the king."
"Right now. And I want to keep him that way," Olenna said icily. "Believe it or not, Cersei Lannister, we are family now. As such, I intend to ensure that my granddaughter keeps her crown, and that means we pay the Iron Bank. Stannis Baratheon or Daenerys Targaryen, take your pick, hells, choose both- when the Iron Bank starts funneling them money, you know that you're in trouble, and here's the cold truth, my dear. They are."
"She's right," Jaime said quietly from the window. "Listen to her, Cersei."
"You would hobble our House, brother?"
"Lannisters always pay their debts one way or another, sister. I'd rather it not be with my blood. Or yours, for that matter. Lenna," he said, looking to her with the same doom as a drowning man, "do you truly believe this is the best way."
"Who would you rather be your banker, Ser Jaime? The Iron Bank of Braavos or your own lords? Who is more forgiving? No matter where we are in this mess, we are all related and bound to each other in some way by honor or blood."
Jaime looked at Lenna a long time, his handsome face grave, the silver in his shorn hair catching the buttery sunlight from the window. His sister did not speak again, but she cocked an eyebrow and stood waiting. Olenna made a quick inhalation as if to speak again, but Cersei silenced her with a raised finger.
"Allow the North to rejoin the Realm," Lenna said in a rush, "as a vassal state. The Northern lords will not kneel to the Iron Throne again, not as they have in the past. Historically, they have governed themselves and still been members of the commonwealth. Robb Stark has already been declared the King in the North, and they will keep him. But he would ally if given the chance, bring the North under the mantle of the Seven Kingdoms. His father was Hand of the King, a loyal and avid supporter of your husband. Robb is proud, but he is just, like Lord Eddard was. He will keep his end of the bargain, open trade, supply troops if necessary, all that the Starks and their bannermen did before, only they would govern themselves within their own borders."
"You have spoken with him?"
"I have not," Lenna replied. "I thought it best not to bring such a proposal until the terms were set. It actually benefits you, your grace, for me to do so."
"Taxes?" Cersei asked shortly.
"Of course. Within reason," Lenna replied cautiously. "And they will buy bonds against the Crown's debt as well, in good faith. The debt itself will be spread around."
Cersei's throat was working, and Lenna knew she was fighting against herself.
"You cannot make this go away, your grace," Lenna replied staunchly. "Either we open the debt for purchase and take the power from the Iron Bank, or you will fall in the process. We all will. And I, like Lady Olenna, would rather Tommen sit the throne than Stannis Baratheon or Daenerys Targaryen. But those, your grace, are the only options available to us."
"You said initially that Houses Tyrell and Manderly will buy it," the queen said tonelessly. "And forgive half the interest."
"We will buy the majority share," Olenna replied. "A third each. The rest will be opened up to the other Houses."
"Blackmail," Cersei growled.
"Insurance," Olenna replied. "And a reminder that it was the people and the families of this Realm that put your husband upon that throne to begin with, and not the gods themselves. You have forgotten, Cersei Lannister, that it took the smallfolk and the vassals to support Robert's claim, to depose a king, a dynasty. And we remember what it took, and we could do it again."
There it was. The threat that Lenna was afraid of, that once spoken it would not be forgotten. Instead of enraging Cersei, though, it instead seemed to subdue her.
"What of the Faith Militant, then?"
"Pull out their teeth. Clip their claws," Olenna replied. "The people love my granddaughter already. Use her, follow her. Let her be queen. The people must turn back to the Crown rather than looking to the Sparrow and his followers."
"How?" Cersei asked incredulously. "You've already said we cannot pay for more men."
"Not by force," Lenna replied. "You cannot make them love you by decree. Queen Margaery will allocate some spending to aid the poor," Lenna said shortly. "Hospitals, supplies, food. There is no reason why the inhabitants of the richest city in the Seven Kingdoms should live in such squalor. This High Sparrow, he gains strength through their misery, does he not? The riots," she said softly, and Cersei's gaze met hers without rancor. "Remember that day, when the people of your own city rose against you in the streets." They had never discussed that day, Cersei had never asked about the cut on her cheek, but now there was a mute, old horror in the queen's green eyes. "They did it once, your grace, and they are certainly capable of doing it again. The raiding in the Riverlands must end. People must be able to return to their lands, their homes, without fear of reprisal. You cannot threaten people into loving you, smallfolk or noble."
She felt like they stood looking at each other forever, both barely breathing. Cersei had never looked harder, colder, than she did then.
"Your grace," Lenna said softly. "You told me, many years ago, that we women are to be weavers of peace. Look about you. Lady Olenna, and you, and I, and queen Margaery- we have the ability to at least try and to stitch them Realm back together. I will go away, and you will never have to see me again, but please. Your grace. We must do this. Do you want to lose more than what you already have? You have lost so much, your grace. We all have."
Cersei looked between Lenna and her brother, ignoring Olenna Tyrell. The old woman sat still as an owl, watching the whole of it play before her like a queen commanding a performance. Lenna didn't like it, but she had nothing better to offer.
"Call the council," Cersei said, and without another word or glance at Lenna, she left the room, hands clenched at her sides. Jaime made to follow her, but he pulled up short at the door. He stopped, turning back to Lenna, and this time he did pull her to him.
"I wish you were far from here, Lenna," he muttered into her hair, laying a hard kiss on her forehead, like a brother.
Lenna looked up into his handsome face, the feeling of dread in her stomach roiling like a hurricane.
"She is not herself," Jaime said. "Or perhaps, she is and I'm just now seeing her for what she is. She will not take this easily."
"She is not the queen," Olenna said stiffly from her seat. Her gnarled hand flexed on the blackthorn cane she carried. "Just the dowager. That we came to her first was a mere precaution. My granddaughter will make sure that what needs to happen will come to pass. She is the queen, even if your sister has never accepted it. That is the problem with you all, you don't know when to stop. To step away."
"You tell us to step away when it is you who have contrived all of this," Jaime spat. Olenna looked at him tartly, her lips pursed. Even Lenna's breast flared in anger at her nonchalant expression.
"Contrived?" Olenna said blandly. "Do you really think, boy, that I want to spend my family's fortune on wiping your family's debt clean? That I have worked my entire life to build House Tyrell into what it now is to see my earnings frittered away on your father's foolishness?" Olenna rose, and the infuriating humor faded from her eyes, turning into something hard and fatal, not at all unlike Tywin Lannister's reptilian glare. "Do you imagine that I enjoyed using your young friend here, my own kinswoman? Do you think she wanted to do this? She still loves your ilk, for whatever reason. I don't know what spell you wrought over her in this city, but she has done nothing but defend your hides since the beginning. A good, but foolish creature. Smart but too soft. I am not too soft. This has nothing to do with you, young man, but I will not pretend that my own interests are not my driver. My granddaughter is the queen. Her children will sit the Iron Throne."
Jaime made a sound of protest, but Olenna pounced on him like a hawk, clucking her tongue at him like he was an errant boy.
"Careful, Ser Jaime," she warned, a smirk twisting her still graceful lip. "Or you will reveal more than you would want me to know. Or will you merely confirm what I already do?" He did not speak, drawing his lips closed and staring at her with flared nostrils. "I would be very careful, if I were you. What is said cannot be unsaid."
Jaime turned again to Lenna, resting his fingers against her wrist. "Lenna. You've always been our friend-"
"I still am, Jaime," she said quietly. "This is the only way. You must know that the longer this foolishness continues the worse it will be. We cannot be fighting amongst ourselves. It has to end."
"I know," he said after a long silence. "I know that. I just wish you were not involved. My sister- she has had her heart so broken I do not know if there is any of it left."
"Time has been cruel," Lenna said softly, and it hung heavy between them. For the briefest moment, Lenna remembered how they had been, and a wash of sadness so cold and deep ran over her that she felt like to drown. She could not bear to look at him, instead glancing about the room itself, but it brought no comfort. All she could do was remember how they had all sat in that very study together, Lenna just inside the circle of their light, Jaime and Cersei, sometimes even Tyrion and Tywin baiting each other and debating, while she sat listening, she and her enormous shadow, ever watchful in the corner.
Part of Lenna did believe in ghosts, but not of the living, but it seemed to her that she saw Cersei in that room again, standing in the window, but in the next moment she was gone, nothing but a fall, a flash, of bright hair and scarlet.
"Make my apologies to her," Lenna said quietly. "I do not know why, but I cannot bear the thought of her thinking ill of me. After all she has done-"
"I know," Jaime said thickly. "I meant what I said, Lenna. I will repay-"
She shook her head, throat thick and not wishing for Olenna Tyrell to hear another word pass between them.
She smiled tightly when he nodded and bent over her hand, so reminiscent of their last parting as he turned, leaving her alone with her aunt. Lenna swiped away the tears from her eyes, stubborn things that had finally made an appearance though they had threatened to choke her the whole interview.
"That went far better than I ever imagined," Olenna said with an air of smug self-satisfaction. "I expected it would take more than half an hour's bickering to bring Cersei over." Lenna looked back at her numbly, feeling as if she had been peeled from the inside out and left open and empty on the floor.
"Aye," she murmured, running her fingers over her lips to assure herself that she was still standing.
"Are you sure you're not a witch, my dear?" Olenna asked, her tone and eyes completely serious. Lenna's mouth dropped open in alarm and denial, but then Olenna batted the idea away like a gnat buzzing around her veil. "Of course not. How silly of me. Only, how they do as you bid them."
Three days turned into three weeks, and in the space of that time, Lenna did not see Cersei again and it grieved her. Torn between self-hatred and mourning, she managed to establish a routine which brought her peace, going to the Sept early in the mornings, even though she no longer felt that her prayers were heard. She wondered if they ever were, but it allowed her a bit of time to collect herself before attending the required meetings and appointments as she and Olenna prepared the bid to the Iron Bank. As much as this trip had cost her, she believed, in her depth, that is was the right thing to do. Olenna Tyrell was grasping and conniving, but she was also right. If anything could bring her comfort, in success or futile failure, it would be the knowledge that she had at least tried.
Most evenings she escaped her aunt, and she sat in the garden with Addy at her side, reviewing her notes and taking a much-needed glass of wine. Being in the Red Keep flayed her news to bleeding, each step in the castle like fleeing specters. A particular one, a shadow, that she expected to see at her heels at every turn. A shadow she was terribly disappointed did not manifest in flesh, each moment she was fooled by some movement in the corner of her eye, some invisible footfall another stab beneath her ribs.
To anyone who knew her, Lenna Manderly was bearing up, but she was certain that she was bleeding internally, a little rivulet of herself that was draining her dry. It had begun a year an a half ago, and only the smiles of her child, her coos and cuddles stanched the flow, and even then, only temporarily.
"She's yours, I take it?"
Lenna set the pen down with a measured calmness that she did not feel, looking up to find Jaime Lannister standing still as column in her garden, Tyrion's old sellsword at his right elbow. Bronn was chewing the inside of his cheek, a cocky brow raised in inquiry, but Jaime remained motionless, intently looking at the babe at her feet. His green eyes seemed darker, like they'd lost their brightness, but they were guileless. Perhaps he is bleeding, too. There was no judgment in his regard, no censure or malice, but perhaps there was a touch of wistfulness. He was still, his full attention on the baby, but then he looked at her sharply with a hint of a smile about his mouth and a glimmer of the man he'd once been. "May I?"
"Aye, of course," Lenna replied with her own small smile, stooping to scoop the baby up in her arms. She rose, coming to Jaime and presented her daughter to him, watching in vague pleasure when his face relaxed and his lips parted, the odd sadness in his eyes reminding her of how he would often look at the royal children, Myrcella in particular. He struggled only a moment to hold her in one arm, and Lenna saw in him something unexpected and tragic.
"How old?" he asked, gently bouncing her against his shoulder. Addy looked up at him curiously, blowing bubbles with her delicate little mouth.
"Nearly six months now," she replied, smiling in spite of herself. "She's growing quite big."
"I'd expect as much, given her sire. What is her name?" he asked lightly, his eyes carefully on the child. Lenna suspected that she knew what he was really asking, taking a deep breath before she told him.
"Adalyn Clegane," Lenna answered firmly. Jaime turned that inscrutable gaze on her and nodded in acceptance.
"I don't know how, or why, and doubt I ever will," he replied softly. "He will always have my gratitude, for what happened on the road. For seeing you safe as he promised."
"He was always better and more honorable than you all gave him credit," Lenna said lowly, two warm circles of color in her pale cheek. Jaime looked faintly ashamed.
"Fucking hells," Bronn murmured in admiration, and Lenna was intrigued to see the hard man so enraptured by a babe. For all he stood apart from them, Bronn was looking at her daughter with that strange tenderness she had once had for babes that weren't her own, as if they were from a separate world, still unblemished. She supposed that Addy was just that, in comparison to the three of them. Bronn looked back into Lenna's face with a bit of a leer on his impertinent visage, breaking the spell. "That ugly cunt didn't get this, did he?"
Lenna bit her lip to keep from laughing. Or crying. She wasn't sure which, so she settled for blushing thoroughly and answering him as best she could.
"He did. Though I wish he had listened to you sooner than he did."
Bronn grinned at that. "Still wished I'd done it myself, stolen you," he said. "Where's he hiding, anyway?"
"I don't know," Lenna replied. "I haven't heard from him in...quite some time."
"He left you?" Bronn's expression had undergone quite a transformation, from indulgence to anger, his neck reddening beneath the close-cropped beard and his eyes hard as lead. "After all that damn mooning, riding through a warzone, and he fucking left you?"
How often had she asked herself the same thing? She had been so angry, so sad, but she understood now. He had left for the same reason she could not leave Addy. He could not protect them at home, not in the way he felt they needed, no more than she could accept that the safest place for the child was away from her. It was a contrast that she'd spent considerable agony examining, that his duty and hers were so strangely at odds.
"He had little choice," she replied quietly and knowing it to be true. "You'd have done the same. He will come back."
The two men exchanged a skeptical look, and at least Jaime had the grace to look contrite when he saw Lenna's furrowed brow and hollow cheeks.
"If he doesn't come back, I'd still have you," Bronn said with a sniff, always the rake, and Lenna was, for once, grateful to him for the poor attempt at humor.
"He will," she said quietly. She opened her arms to take the baby back. Jaime let Addy go a little regretfully, looking down into the sweet face.
"She takes after you," he said quietly.
"Thank the gods for that," Bronn muttered.
Jaime clenched his jaw. Clearly, no one had succeeded in checking the sellsword's cheek.
"Is she going to Braavos, too, then?" Jaime asked, his left hand sitting awkwardly on the hilt of his sword, the lines around his squinted eyes deeper in the waning light.
Lenna took a deep breath. She'd done a good job of forgetting that her stay in King's Landing, already extended from three days into three weeks, was now to be further continued with a sea journey to Essos. It had never been part of the original plan, at least not her plan, though she suspected that it had been Olenna's aim since the start. Lenna had brought papers authorizing her to act as her father's agent, and she should have seen that for what it was at the time. She was quite sure her father had known that she wouldn't be gone a mere three weeks or a month when she had set foot on Olenna's ship, and she was glad that she herself had not. Otherwise, she would have never boarded, and by this time she realized just how imperative it was that she complete this work.
"She goes where I go," she replied at last, laying a kiss on her forehead. "I will not leave her behind."
"Cersei could never bear it, either," Jaime said. Lenna looked at him sharply. "Surprising, no? But the truth. Always had to have the children close to her, even though she never quite knew how to love them, not properly. Not like you do." His hand ghosted across Addy's dark curls, the square lines of his fingers strong. "When will you leave?"
"Three days' time," she said. "And then I am go back to White Harbor."
Jaime pressed his lips together and nodded. "To Lady Sansa."
Addy decided to grab her nose at that moment, and Lenna nearly dropped her.
"So you know," she said quietly. "I suspected as much.
"Yes," Jaime replied, a queer tightness around his eyes. "I hope she is safe." There was a bright splash of color across his cheeks.
"They both are," she replied quietly.
He smiled tightly. "Cersei will forgive you. With time."
"I doubt I shall ever see her again," Lenna said, a little sadly. "I cannot imagine what she would have to say to me."
"She loves you," Jaime said resolutely. "And she does not know how to stop. Just as you do not, though you should have stopped caring about us long ago. If you had-"
"It doesn't bear speaking," she protested, a stone growing in her chest, or perhaps it was ice.
"No," Jaime said quietly. "But this will not be our last meeting, dear Lenna."
"I should hope not," she replied. "That would make me very sad indeed."
His eyes narrowed and he bent over her hand, pressing it warmly between fingers and lips. "Be well."
"And you."
He nodded once, passing a thumb over Addy's forehead and turned on his heel. Bronn took a step closer, pushing down the baby's swaddling clothes to look at her face.
"She got lucky," he said with both eyebrows raised. "She'll take after her pretty mother. What a pity it would be if she didn't." He looked her dead in the face, the most candid expression in his dark eyes she had ever seen. "He isn't dead, my lady. There's nothing in seven hells that could drag him from you. Not after what he did. What you both did."
With a ferocious, unspeakable feeling, Lenna threw her arm around his neck and kissed the sellsword forcefully on the cheek. He looked mildly stunned when she stepped back, his lips twitching. Her hand had come to rest on his shoulder, and he reached up to press it with his own calloused fingers before he took his leave, the cocky gait subdued into a canter as he followed a stoop-shouldered Jaime Lannister out of her garden. She stood for a while after with the baby, looking in the direction they had gone, strangely stirred by their sudden appearance and mourning the inevitability of parting.
The trip to Braavos was in itself uneventful, the preparations in King's Landing having been undertaken with utmost care and precision. Mace Tyrell went with them, and Lenna enjoyed his company, wondering how Olenna could have begotten such a genial and guileless son. He must be a great disappointment, she thought with good humor.
The transfer and payment took quite a bit longer than she wished, and she'd have been gone from White Harbor for nearly four months before she made it back. The days in the bank were long, but Lenna enjoyed an anonymity in the city that she didn't have in King's Landing or at home. She went wandering more than she should, Addy in tow, just another woman out with her child. She found puppet shows for them to watch, though Addy quickly lost interest, still being too young for such things, and bought steaming cups of tea near street musicians, just to have a change of pace. It was intoxicating to simply enjoy the sunlight, which she did unreservedly until guilt inevitably reached out for her with cold hands.
There were so many people, from so many places, and Lenna felt like some drab sparrow among the riotous colors and chattering crowds. Her Braavosi, she found, was quite thickly accented, but the people were kind when she spoke to them, correcting her gently here and there, for which she was grateful. By the week's end, she was not stumbling through her sentences as badly, finding words for things she didn't realize that she even knew, and even able to barter with some of the merchants. It was a small thread of pleasure.
Not that there weren't pockets of Westerosi. She stumbled upon one on a bright afternoon, a group of players enacting a very tasteless rendition of the wars. She stayed only because she believed there was value in understanding other facets of the same issue, but it turned her stomach to see such callous treatment of her own country's troubles.
She was walking away, back toward their lodgings, when a girl passed her, a cockle seller, and something about her struck Lenna as familiar. The girl was pug-faced, small and round-shouldered, her thin hair done up in two hard little buns on either side of her head. The child's eyes met hers and went wide.
Ned Stark's eyes.
The girl kept walking, and Lenna pushed through the crowd to reverse her course, the girl hurrying away from her.
"Arya," she cried out, hoisting Addy in her arms. "Arya Stark."
The girl stiffened, but she did not stop. Lenna continued to chase her, calling after her.
"Arya," she tried again. "I know that's you."
The girl did stop this time, and when Lenna caught a glimpse of her face, there were tears streaming down it, thick and shining in the sun.
"Arya," she said, reaching out to grasp her shoulder. "It's me. It's Lenna."
"You're mistaken, m'lady," the girl replied, hiding her face, her voice like broken stones. "I'm not who you think I am."
"Arya, I'm not going to hurt you-" she insisted, but the girl took a step back.
"Leave me be," the girl cried out, pushing blindly through the crowd and leaving Lenna stunned and confused and bereft, wondering if she had indeed made some mistake, if she was conjuring ghosts again.
There was no mistake a few days later when the clatter rose in the hall. She was packing her trunk, their business at last concluded. She had even found it in herself to buy presents for her nieces, brightly colored silks such as she had never seen, even in King's Landing, when the front door burst open and a small, ragged figure came into the entry, a manservant on her heels.
Lenna came down the stairs in a hurry, and the girl looked up at her. Gray eyes did not leave her face as the girl ran to her, wrapping her arms around Lenna's middle and burying her face in her breast.
"I'm so sorry," the girl said, over and over again. "I'm sorry. I tried. I just want to go home. Please, just take me home."
Lenna ran her hand over Arya Stark's head and shushed her.
"Of course," she whispered. "Let's go home."
Sandor LVI
The darkness was warm, like swimming in a hot spring, and it burbled and eddied about him like a deep-water current, dragging him down and then buoying him up, soundless and soothing. Weightless, painless, nothing at all.
It bore him along, content and faded, and then there was a flash of blue, then white, and then a bright blinding of light and suffocating pain.
A/N: This was a long one, but the pieces are moving into place on the board. It's not perfect, but I wanted to get it up before I lost my courage. I told you, I believe in happy endings. Hope to have the next bit up in the next week or so.