Bronn had returned without either of the Stark girls, and as Tyrion rushed to the throne room; cursing both the sellsword at his side and his own stunted legs, he imagined Sansa and Arya weeping while Joffrey gleefully pointed a crossbow at them; His Grace cooing about sending Robb Stark a message while his courtiers looked silently on and wondered where the fuck the small council had got to, or indeed the Queen Regent.

But the scene that awaited him as he strode through the throne room doors was rather different from what he had expected. True, both Stark girls were on their knees before the steps and showed signs of a savage preliminary beating; Sansa weeping quietly as she clutched her stomach, Arya's face entirely blank despite the bruise that was staining the skin around her eye like ink.

Ser Boros and Ser Meryn, however, had abandoned their traditional places at the foot of the dais for the apparently preferable task of restraining Jaime, whom Tyrion immediately suspected to be the perpetrator of the crimson river pouring out of Ser Meryn's nose. His brother looked deathly pale and on the point of fainting, and his stump had fallen out of the sling around his neck, suggesting either that he had punched Ser Meryn with it or that Joffrey had commanded the Kingsguard to deliberately injure it. It was this last possibility, more than any other that made Tyrion's blood boil.

I swear by the old gods and the new that I will kill every last one of you sons of bitches.

Nevertheless, Jaime was speaking lucidly and with perfect composure while Joffrey's face grew redder and redder; the red glow falling on his face from the stained glass windows making him look less like a conqueror and more like a tomato. It was a funny thought, but Tyrion was no longer capable of laughing sincerely at Joffrey – only emptily. The boy was too pathetic, too simple and too cruel to elicit anything apart from that. That…and tears, of course.

'I'm punishing them!' Joffrey was shouting at his uncle.

'For what crimes, you imbecilic little shit?' Jaime shot back, 'are you suggesting that Lady Sansa or Lady Arya intend to take up arms and march on Casterly Rock? Their petty coats will be something of an encumbrance when it comes to an actual battle, don't you think?'

'You can't talk to me like that!' Joffrey shrieked, 'the King can do as he likes!'

Tyrion rolled his eyes, and interjected.

'The Mad King did as he liked,' he said gravely, noting with satisfaction that Joffrey's face turned somewhat paler when his presence was noted, 'has your uncle Jaime ever told you what happened to him?'

Jaime grinned at Tyrion and responded without missing a beat.

'He was quite a bleeder, Your Grace. It took weeks to get the blood out of the marble.'

'You can't make threats against my person!' Joffrey insisted, pounding his fist on the arm of the throne in what he clearly thought was a menacing fashion, 'I am the king!'

'I did not threaten Your Grace,' Jaime interrupted obsequiously, 'nor do I deny that you are the king. I simply stated that blood is unfailingly difficult to get out of marble.'

Tyrion relished the look of confusion on his idiot nephew's face, as well as the unmistakable, if unconscious way that he turned to the chair usually occupied by his mother; seeking, no doubt, to be advised on whether or not he should feel insulted.

Hm. Apparently he does still give a fuck what Cersei thinks.

'Do you remember exactly how long it took to get the blood out of the marble, dear brother?' Tyrion asked cheerfully.

'Not in the least,' Jaime replied with a flourish, 'After the Sack I had thousands of helpless girls to beat and wasn't paying attention.'

'We are not helpless!' Arya exclaimed, her voice piercing the Stark girls' silence like a crossbow bolt, 'my brothers were helpless, and that stupid coward Theon killed them anyway! I wonder who gave him the most trouble: the cripple or the eleven-year old!'

'You two wolves are just as helpless as your brothers were; and if you do not hold your tongue, Lady Stark, you'll end up just as dead as they are!' Joffrey cried, squealing like a child playing at kings, 'I'll have you and your sister stripped and beaten until you understand that, and until you understand, once and for all, that I am the king!'

Arya's contempt was exquisite to behold.

'A man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king at all,' she spat, and seven hells, Tyrion thought, she sounds just like my father.

Father was banished from Tyrion's mind as Joffrey leapt to his feet in a rage, barely noticing the blood that began to pour down his hand when he cut himself on one of the barbed spikes of the Iron Throne.

'Tear off her gown and beat her till she bleeds!' he shrieked, his voice monstrously high and demonic, 'let them hear her screams as far as Riverrun, so that Robb Stark will finally understand – '

'Touch either of those girls again,' Jaime growled at Joffrey as Ser Meryn moved to obey him, 'and Casterly Rock will declare war before the day is done. I'm sure the irony isn't lost on you.'

'Bronn, fetch my hill tribesmen,' Tyrion muttered, 'and be quick about it.'

'Is that supposed to threaten me, Uncle?' Joffrey hooted as the sellsword exited the hall unnoticed, 'you have no power over what happens at Casterly Rock because you're not the heir. Kingsguard can't inherit or marry, no matter how many appendages they lose.'

'Appendages?' Tyrion remarked, hating him, 'a fancy word for a boy with the wits of a goose.'

'You can't!' Joffrey squealed.

'I can, I am!' Tyrion roared.

'You can't because you're not the heir to Casterly Rock either! Mother told me all about it; how you can't be heir because you'retoo short, too debauched and too much of a fucking disappointment, and Ser Cripple here is too fucking Kingsguard to be the Lord of Casterly Rock, even if he can't hold a sword up anymore - '

'Very well,' Jaime interrupted, 'I resign.'

'What?' Joffrey and Tyrion said together.

'Would His Grace like my resignation in writing?' Jaime asked with exaggerated deference, 'or will a declaration of war serve just as well?'

'Perhaps both of them, dear brother,' Tyrion responded before Joffrey could open his mouth, 'the King has demonstrated considerable slowness when it comes to administrative matters.'

'Seize him!' Joffrey screamed, 'seize all of them! Beat them and make them lick their own blood off the floors!'

But the only thing that fell to the floor was Olenna Tyrell, a gasp and a frail-sounding shriek preluding a spectacularly-executed faint; her small body crashing to the floor with an ease that seemed a little too practised; and Lady Margaery was kneeling beside her grandmother, weeping and tearing her hair out like a consummate tragedian in the depths of despair.

'Oh, Joffrey, help,' she cried, her beautiful blue eyes bright with tears, 'help!'

And to Tyrion's astonishment, the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms entirely forgot about the Stark girls and leapt off his throne like an arrow launched from a bow, rushing immediately to Margaery's side and making it perfectly clear that the sight of her tears was unbearable to him.

Tyrion's hill tribesmen chose that moment to burst into the throne room, their mere presence causing utter pandemonium in most of the hall and galleries, but Joffrey was so overwrought at the sight of Margaery crying that he scarcely noticed their presence at all, shouting for a maester and seizing her as she too sank into a dead faint.

Tyrion reminded himself to think on Margaery Tyrell's considerable manipulative powers, turned his back on them with something like regret, and found himself face-to-face with Bronn, who was eating an apple that he'd speared on the end of his dagger.

'Where the fuck have you been?' Tyrion demanded.

'Shagga was drinking,' Bronn shrugged.

In his mind, Tyrion wrung an imaginary neck.

'Help me get the girls out before Joffrey remembers they're here.'


'They hurt Arya,' Sansa cried once they were safely in the antechamber, her hands clasping her sister's face, 'he told them to hurt her face and leave mine; he said she was ugly and she didn't matter - '

'It doesn't even hurt,' Arya scowled, shrugging her sister's hands away and attempting (unsuccessfully) to disguise the glow of affection in her eyes at Sansa's concern, 'you'd think they would teach them how to punch people in the Kingsguard.'

Tyrion's mouth opened to command her to stop being brave, but the resulting glare from Arya made him clamp it shut again and turn to Sansa.

'Are you seriously injured, my lady?' Tyrion enquired politely, trying hard not to stare as Sansa turned towards him; a breeze moving in from the courtyard and mischievously caressing her hair.

'Only my stomach, my lord,' she replied, and smiled softly at him before promptly turning pale again, 'gods be good, where's Arya?'

Tyrion cursed his short and stunted legs for the second time that morning as he cast about for the wretched younger Stark girl; Sansa's face becoming his guide as she looked about her; the fear turning her whiter and whiter; only to be replaced by astonishment as she finally found her sister; Tyrion's eyes following hers.

Arya was standing with Jaime not three feet away from them; his left hand supporting her head, his stump resting on her shoulder as he asked her, fiercely, again and again, a question that Tyrion assumed had something to do with her health. She nodded repeatedly and seemed to be struggling to speak, and as Tyrion saw tears forming in her eyes and her small hands clutching Jaime's elbows, he remembered the girl shrugging Sansa's hands away and boldly declaring that she felt no pain.

Matters have obviously progressed further than I had thought. Cersei must be thrilled.

Tyrion scowled to himself that this was all extremely interesting, but that he would prefer the girls to be far away from the throne room by the time it occurred to Joffrey to leave it.

He told Bronn to take Sansa and Arya to Grand Maester Pycelle, and to kill anyone who tried to stop them.

Bronn's face lit up.

'Really?'

'Yes,' Tyrion said, and he was perfectly serious.

Tyrion watched Jaime kiss Arya's forehead as he let her go; then approached his brother once again, trying not to show his concern at how utterly ghastly he looked. Jaime was whiter than summer snow and not half as healthy-looking, but nevertheless he seemed angry, angry and alive.

'Shall we go and tell our sweet sister the good news?' Tyrion proposed.

Jaime looked down at him and grinned.

'Why not?' he said.