Time had become a debauched and reckless thing, fickle and uncaring, either unconscious of its own rules or choosing to ignore them. The Tragedy of Summerhall had ripped through it, puncturing the fabric; innumerable strands of silk and wool that never should have touched uniting in Tywin's mind.

He remembered standing by Joanna's side as the ashes of King Aegon and Prince Duncan were entombed in their mausoleum by the newly-crowned King Jaehaerys, whose sweetness and intelligence did not entirely succeed in masking the scent of impending death that he seemed to carry about with him like a stone. Melancholy had limped painfully in Tywin's veins, and he had been baffled, asking himself why he so mourned Aegon; a man too good and too kind to be an effective king; but still hated his own father for no worse crime than having the same sickness.

You mourn Aegon because he saved you; from Casterly Rock and from yourself.

The marble slab had come down on the empty tomb with a crash and he had jumped; Joanna holding his hand all the tighter.

Prince Aerys' violet eyes turning lavender with fear at the edge of the dry moat always seemed to have occurred after Aegon's death rather than before it; and though Tywin knew it was not so; the memories persisted in taking on that order, making his head ache and his heart leap as he realised, yet again, that Aerys seemed to have taken his words at face value and had not addressed a word to Joanna beyond formalities and courtesies since that day. She was safe.

And somewhere between these two events, though he couldn't imagine where, Joanna had turned into his right hand. She had begun to sort his letters, answering most of them and reorganising his entire library, deeming the way that he left books stacked in piles about his chambers a disrespectful disgrace.

'What are you doing?' he had asked her the first time he had come upon her ripping through a two-foot-high pile of letters on his desk with her right index finger, a considerably smaller pile accumulating in her left hand.

'I'm sorting the important ones from the trivial,' she had replied, methodically opening each one of the letters in her left hand and skim-reading them.

'How do you know which is which?' he had demanded, rather annoyed that she was opening his letters without permission.

'Princess Rhaella gives her ladies a broad education,' she had said, still reading, 'your desk is a child's playtable compared to what hers looks like every morning.'

She had finished reading and had looked up at him, briefly telling him the contents of each letter in her hand.

'King Jaehaerys wishes to hear your opinion of the proposed new tax for wine merchants from the Arbour; Prince Doran Martell wishes to enter into a fashionable correspondence with you; Cousin Genna asks you to assassinate her husband (again); and Chataya respectfully informs you that your account is overdrawn for the third month in a row.'

'What?'

'Lighten up, Tywin.'

Blasted impudence.

She was his right hand in that she knew as much as he did, if not more, about his own affairs; in that the desk in their chambers was now hers as much as it was his. She was his right hand in that she was his castellan, his steward, his chief counselor, his confidante, the honourary captain of his guards; and Tywin had not known a more terrifyingly efficient mistress of a household since his mother had been alive.

She was his right hand in that imagining the loss of her was like imagining the end of himself. She was his, and he was hers.

Tywin stood silently looking at her, feeling impossibly small and vulnerable despite his armour, not wanting to wake her up. Because if he did, it might very well be years before he would see her again.

Your family's honour is more important than your own whims and wishes, and more important than any woman. Do not be a ridiculous boy.

She was lying on her stomach fast asleep, as naked as he felt, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathed, her skin prickling from cold. They had made love three times that night, and his loins still ached tenderly beneath the layers of plate and boiled leather that covered him like a shell. It was the only good kind of pain he knew.

Standing here will not change anything, he told himself, and sentimentality will get you killed. You cannot afford to be sentimental now. Just do it. Do it.

Tywin walked to the bed, wincing at the clank and rustle of his armour, and gently pulled the covers over her again, his fingers softly brushing her skin as he tucked them around her shoulders.

So much for not being sentimental.

She shifted beneath his touch and curled into a ball, smiling in her sleep.

Tywin took a deep breath, and shook her.

'Joanna.'