JOFFREY II
"He sat at the table, his golden sleeve extended towards his goblet of red wine, as they all ate dinner in the Small Hall. It was called that, but it was large enough for his taste, he supposed.
The roasted quails and partridges were quite good, and they came with fried potatoes, honeyed turnips, leeks and dill chives in a red wine sauce. He tasted the partridge, and felt it almost be like a regular chicken, as he was sure it had not been the last time he had one back at Casterly Rock.
He took noteful care to not look directly at Princess Sansa while he was chewing, as Tyrion had instructed him before they had went down from their chambers earlier. He shot a glance or two at her from across the table between his glasses of wine, however, as he wondered whether he should stop at two cups, or reach for a third one. Sansa had only taken one mug of light ale and lemonwater.
"So... Joffrey..." King Eddard inclined, as he harkled himself and leaned forward in his carved wooden dining throne, "how are you liking the capital so far?"
He could feel that it was a question forced by the King, but nonetheless he appreciated it, bowing down to acknowledge it, and then doing his best at replying in polite fashion.
"I like it. It's... pleasant. A wonderful city. … A sprawling testament to your good rule as king, Your Grace."
His mother Lady Reldina had taught him how to lie. In truth, King's Landing was as loud and dirty as three of the seven hells when one were outside the castle walls of the Red Keep, as he had only dared to go twice so far, in their three days of staying here.
The King looked skeptical, yet accepted the compliment.
"I thank you. It is a large city, with all that comes with it, good and bad. I do my best to uphold the order, but it is seldom enough, I find. No doubt you will find your own accomodations a bit cramped, but I fear that the Red Keep is not as spacious as Casterly Rock. Nor did the Targaryens of old intend for it to be so, I imagine..." The King seemed to trail off on a tangent as Joffrey lost his footing in the conversation for the briefest of moments.
"The Targaryens, yes..." He said, putting his hand up in the air across the table, wifting it up and down. "I had thought to ask you something of the matter, Your Grace."
The King looked surprised, though he did not shy away from the topic, Joffrey saw, as he leaned forward in his chair and slightly over the table, his long brown royal beard and hair gathering slightly at the creases in his collar, his grey wolf eyes watching from across the long table.
"Yes...?" the King inclined.
"Only... I had heard from some foolish servants back at my Father's castle that you had taken the skulls of the Targaryen dragons and had them smashed to pieces once you had taken the crown, Your Grace. But then my uncle Tyrion told me that those rumours were most certainly false, and that the dragon skulls had only been moved to the confines of the dungeons. If it is not too much to ask... Your Grace... Is it true?"
"Aye, the dragon skulls remain. They are in the dungeons, as your... As Lord Tyrion said."
He gestured politely towards Tyrion, who sat beside Joffrey, also on the right or northeastern side of the room, whereas the king sat at the short end, and Sansa to his left, northwest, by her septa, and all the rest at the table to the south.
"I did not wish for them to be destroyed, but neither did I much appreciate them looking down on the throne room, and so I had them put there", he said simply. "Anything else?"
"Might I see them some day? My uncle would very much enjoy the sight of a true dragon skull. He has only ever seen one once, at the Citadel in Oldtown. Is not that right, uncle?"
Tyrion awoke from his goblet, to speak.
"Yes, indeed, it's true, and it was not a very large one either, I'm afraid. Its head was only as the size of a small dog."
He smiled his strange, wry smile, blinking with mismatched eyes and turning his massive ugly head to the side with a look towards the king.
"One from the reign of King Aegon the Dragonbane, I do believe, though I could not tell His Grace when it was gathered and taken."
"I assure you", said the King, "there are far greater skulls than that down in the underbelly of the keep. If you and Lord Tyrion should be so inclined, I would be glad to take you there. Perhaps if your... If Lord Tywin would like to take a look at them too, we might wait for his arrival before doing so, however," He suggested.
"I dare say that my lord father has seen them but a thousand times", Lord Tyrion interrupted, no doubt a stupid jape on his mind as usual, Joffrey thought, as he felt the conversation slipping away from him. "I cannot say whether he would appreciate the sight of seeing the precious pets of the owner who put him out of a job. His and Aerys's relationship was... not the best in the end", Tyrion said.
The King regarded the dwarf with a cool look, all of a sudden.
"As neither was mine", he said, his voice suddenly just like a frozen lake beginning to crack.
Tyrion said nothing, only pretending not to hear, taking another swallow of wine with his usual arrogant ugly smile.
Joffrey almost pitied his dwarf uncle in that briefest of moments. He had japed along the long road to Winterfell and back that his rapid tongue always got him into trouble at the least suiting of times, and Joffrey at last felt there to be some truth to what he had said, and not only a joke or self-deprecation. Tyrion truly could not keep his mouth shut, although he himself had been instructing Joffrey before the dinner on precisely how to speak.
...
They had sat ahorse next to each other for the most part of the journey, when Tyrion did not feel the cramping in his stunted legs all to much and had to excuse himself to go into the backer wheelhouse with the old Lady Tanda Stokeworth and her grotesquely obese daughter Lollys, while Joffrey rode outside, speaking with Morrec and Jyck and the other guards.
All in all, they had gotten to know each other more than before on their long journey, and although they quarrelled, he supposed that he was glad to have Tyrion with him, somewhere deep inside, although the dwarf always thought that he knew the best despite being little more than a debaucherous drunk, in truth. His advice had helped Joffrey get past the first hurdles towards the princess, but as the rest remained, he thought that he had most of it on his own clearing, despite it all. It was rather exemplary, in all actuality, when one thought about it. And how could anyone else previously have done what he had done? Only a little more than a moon or so earlier he had been Joffrey Hill, the golden bastard of Casterly Rock, and getting everything he could crave, but a bastard nonetheless, and not openly acknowledged by his distant lord father. After the letter they got of the death of the Hand, however, everything had changed.
...
They had held the legitimization ceremony out in the sunlight, at mid-day at the courtyard, a little less than a fortnight later, sooner than Lord Tywin had planned, but a well-managed and great ceremony all the same, with a goodly number of more than five thousand guests from their lands and Lannisport looking on, as well as the attendance of all the lords Marbrand, Brax, Lefford, Payne, Crakehall, Stackspear, Cyldigen, Mineton, Marston, Kevan's good-father Ser Harys Swyft, and many more. All of them bowed down before him and swore him fealty and to obey him as lord.
Joffrey had gleamed in his newly made finest golden armour, made by the Rock's finest goldsmiths, as his lord father placed the scarlet red and golden cloak of House Lannister upon his shoulders, proclaiming him for all to hear Joffrey Lannister, by decree of himself and the King, and the trumpets sounded as loud as brass ever could, roaring in jubilation towards the sky, as four dozen white pigeons were released and flew up towards the azure blue sky, the sunlight shining off Joffrey's armour, as he smiled, and waved towards the people, feeling as proud and happy as he had ever been.
His lord father had even brought up some of the lions from the cells in the bowels of Casterly Rock for the showcasing, although the ones he had chosen were surely not the best specimens, thought Joffrey, as they were old and greying, their tails only stumping with their black fur, their short tufty blond manes parted in several places as they paced about through their cages, roaring at times when the music became too loud and barring their fangs and giant sharp claws outside of the iron bars of the cages. All the same, Joffrey had been marvelling at the sight of them all the same, though, as there were not many lions left in the West, and their inclusion in the ceremony more or less cemented his position as the heir, though his father did not say the words aloud.
And so, after that... It had all begun. As they had set out from Casterly Rock, riding on Joffrey's new white horse, a gift from his lord father, and Tyrion on a cream golden one which was only ever almost as beautiful, Joffrey soon found out that his father had apparently not chosen the dwarf to come along so that he could have him killed by falling from his horse along the way, however.
They made their slow way along the high yellow grass of the Gold Road, riding while speaking and bantering back and forth, all the while Joffrey waited for the inevitable fall, or stray arrow from some deliberately turncloak guard.
But as he heard his uncle repeat all of his best insults back into his face, and as they traded insults and devilish innuendos alike, and as the horses and their honour guard gradually made their way east along the golden plains and valleys of the Westerlands, hour after hour, afternoon after afternoon, day by day, Joffrey soon realized that such an act from his father would apparently not come, after all.
Still, he supposed that he would try his best to enjoy the journey. As they soon discovered on the backs on their horses, well away from the cramped confines of the Rock, they in all actuality rather enjoyed each other's company. Tyrion had his particular moments at times, when he was not vexing Joffrey unnecessarily, and for all his physical deformities, he did have rather keen eyes. He spied a red-tailed buzzard hawk, as they sat out on the first day, and pointed at it to make Joffrey see as well, as it cleared the skies from across the great praire valley and up along the crest of the mountains on the other side.
The next day they continued moving along the path of the Gold Road, riding slowly along the great golden yellow fields of the Westerlands with the endless blue sky above them. It was a magnificent landscape, thought Joffrey, and he became more and more glad of being the heir to it all for each step their horses took, every new crest that revealed even further fields, acres of fields and hills and sheer cliff mountainsides gleaming with bronze and gold off into the distance. Eagles soared high above in the sky, small roe deer and cranes walked on the fields, and rabbits and murmelhogs hopped around in small burrows of dirt in the side of the hills.
Green flourishing oak trees and beeches flanked the fields, along with lush forests off into the distance to the south, like small islands poking up between the vast yellow fields of wheat, sunflowers and tall grass.
Already on their second day, they had met upon a small keep with a brothel that Tyrion had visited many a time before, and one that Joffrey had also heard talk about several times. The Inn of the Golden Rose, it was named, in truth, near the small village of Southmont, although it had another name as well. The First Aid Keep, it was called, half jokingly, by the villagers who lived close by, as it was the first brothel keep on the gold road to be far away from Casterly Rock to not stir the anger of Lord Tywin's constantly watchful eyes.
They all entered through the doors of the inn, dismounting from their horses and tying them up at the sides. Tyrion walked first, his misshapen little shape waddling forth on the floor with Jyck and Morrec to his side, and Joffrey following soon behind him along with Loften and the other guards, a little suspicious, but nonetheless curious of what place the imp could have to show to them all.
Tyrion soon spotted his favourite pair of girls and they smiled upon his entering into the doors.
"Lord Tyrion! My lion!" They both squealed, as they came up to him, and stopped only close enough so that he could kiss them by their hands, and give them each a bag of gold.
"I have sorely missed you, my sweet ones", he said with a dreamy smile, and then turned back to Joffrey.
"Nephew, if you would like...?"
And then had awaited a wonderful night, with golden-haired whores and red-haired whores, golden ale and brown ale, the laughter of Jyck and Tyrion and the innkeep, and all of the girls as well, a night in which he was almost feeling glad that Lord Tywin had not seen fit to disinherit or kill his favourite misshapen little uncle.
After they left the brothel, Tyrion's two favourite girls were kind enough to follow them along on the road for another day or two, with the promise that Loften and Taleon would escort them back and see them safely back to the inn again, with three more bags of gold each, to which they readily agreed with smiles on their beautiful faces. The blond one trailed along Joffrey's horse as well, often smiling back at him and lending him her hand, to which he became hard, once again, and again.
The girls could sing too, it turned out. They were minstrels from the beginning, or simply singers, he supposed, only female. And they sang all of the imp's favourite songs to Tyrion, the songs which they had apparently come up with themselves, to Joffrey's great admiration, and they played their rebecs, and knee-harps, and much more, as they sang.
It was, Joffrey had to admit to himself after a while, one of the most beautiful songs he had ever heard, and surely one which encapsulated the feel of the Westerlands itself. He thought that he might have heard it at Casterly Rock once, even, but he found that he could not be sure. At any rate, the girls certainly sang, and sang they did good.
"The sun shone high those few summer days, it left us in a soft, wide-eyed haze...
It shone like gold, it shone like gold...
But just as the moon, it shall stray... So too dawn goes down today... No gold can stay... No gold can stay...
What if our hard work ends in despair? What if the road won't take me there? Oh I wish for once... We could stay gold...
What if to love and be loved is not enough, what if I fall and your lady can't get up? Oh I wish for once... We could stay gold... We could stay gold...
We're on our way through rugged lands, on top of that mountain we wanted to stand
With hearts of gold, with hearts of gold...
But there is only four words, no other way, tomorrow is your hope at the end of the day
And gold turns grey... And gold turns grey...
What if our hard work ends in despair? What if the road won't take me there? Oh I wish for once... We could stay gold...
What if to love and be loved is not enough, what if I fall and your lady can't get up? Oh I wish for once... We could stay gold... We could stay gold... "
Joffrey swore to his uncle that he would see the girls had a great golden keep entirely to their own, and as many servants and gold as they would like to fill it, or even one great keep each, even, if they preferred, when he became the Lord of the Rock. Tyrion smiled deeply at that, and said that he had no doubt about it.
The girls then kissed them both, as well as several of the guards, as they made their way back, and were escorted by Loften and Taleon as promised.
After that first pleasant encounter with the land, they continued their journey, and Joffrey's spirits were greatly raised, he found to his joy.
They had stopped by several keeps on their way, large and small. House Clegane, House Meldigen, House Brax, House Lydden, House Spicer of [ ], with the old Lord Samwell Spicer, who looked like some grey moth in his beard and robes, and who greeted them as courteously and laudingly as anyone else on the road, professing his great loyalty for Lord Tywin, and when Joffrey thanked him for the praise of his lord father continued on to say how he reminded him of him in his stance. He also extended a similar comment of praise towards Tyrion as well, however, which soured the compliment's genuinity notedly for Joffrey.
All in all, he seemed a decent bannerman, but nervous, and a lackwit at that. They had only stopped there for a night, looking out at the starry deep blue night sky above the yellow plains, sleeping in Lord Spicer's tiny upper-story bedroom and breaking their fast the next morning on buttered lightbread, spotted wild fowel's eggs, green apple cider, rabbit pie and rashes of bacon. The breakfast was quite good, wonderful in fact, but the company was sparing in its stimulation, as Lord Spicer did not have much of importance to tell regarding the happenings of his keep, nor indeed of any other stories of note. And neither did he have his son there for Joffrey to speak or practice at fencing with, for he was off in some business across the Narrow Sea. Strange people...
After the first eight or nine days, they had switched the Gold Road for the River Road, leaving the hills around the Golden Tooth behind them, and from then on they were in the Riverlands, journeying northwest until they had met up with the King's party at the [Inn of the Crossroads?].
...
His thoughts returned to the present, as his uncle once again cleared his throat and brought forth his concerns for Prince Bran at Winterfell. He told the king that he would continue to pray for the prince's wellbeing and speedy recovery.
The king seemed grateful, thanking him and nodding.
"Thankyou, my lord. That means a great deal to me and the Queen both."
Tyrion nodded again, and then angled his gaze down towards the table, stopping himself from speaking any further. He then looked at Joffrey, with a meaningful gaze in his eyes.
Joffrey took the hint, though he had preferred not to. He had barely met Prince Bran for more than two or three hours in all before his fall. He did not know what to say.
"Yes... " he said, uncertainly, but then found his footing. "It was certainly a terrible accident... from what I understand... prince Bran... had never fallen before, Your Grace... "
"Indeed he had not", the King agreed.
They were silent for an awkward while, as Joffrey could come up with nothing more to say.
"Well... As my uncle says, our thoughts and prayers shall be with him, Your Grace. We will pray that he wakes soon."
The King nodded, thanking him as well.
"And surely that someone tears down that broken old tower", he added, reciting what he had heard his sister Lady Cersei say in passing conversation already back at Winterfell.
Before the King had a chance to reply, as he seemed to be about to speak agains the suggestion, or to add something of his own, Sansa clinked her glass slightly, as she moved it from her plate and took to word.
"Thankyou,... Joffrey. You are most kind."
The King became quiet, surprised the sudden interruption as he regarded the words from his daughter, but sat still in his place on his throne, and saying nothing.
Joffrey nodded back at Sansa, with a moral severity and presence in his eyes that he could only muster due to being in shock from her having finally suddenly acknowledged his presence at the table. Before that, she had only looked down during the whole dinner, looking downcast and sour like a true fussy princess, and barely speaking to him at all.
Tyrion and the King both regarded their encounter with unspeaking gazes from each his own chair, their eyes gliding across the long expanse of the table and back.
Robb took to word then.
"He will wake. It is true. I know it. I have spoken to the old gods already, and they have assured me that he is to be well."
Well then, perhaps we will not pretend to be praying for any much longer, my prince, Joffrey thought, as you seem to possess the same magic powers as your tree-talking royal father.
"We cannot know that, although we may certainly hope that the gods are on his side."
"I do know it!" Robb protested. "The old gods told me. They told me already on the road here, in the Riverlands, and Grey Wind can sense it too. He feels the waiting of his brother back at Winterfell. Summer is still alive, and watching over him... I promise you, Father... Bran will wake."
The King regarded his son, and then decided to believe him.
"As you say, Robb..."
Tyrion harkled himself.
"Well... Please forgive me, Your Grace, but I must say that this is simply a most entrancing dinner. I dare say I have never tasted such fine partridge at my father's keep, or at least not since I was even smaller than I am now. What is the recipe, exactly?"
"It is a secret, my lord, though you can ask the cook afterwards if you would like", the King only inclined, a vague nod towards the kitchens that lay in a different part of the castle, some one or two corridors away and down the stairs.
"I would be most delighted to do so. Is the fowl caught nearby?"
"Aye. In the borderlands to the south, in the forest just outside the castle walls on the way to the Kingswood.", the King said.
"Do you know the hunter or archer? I do swear that my lord father seldom sends his own hunters out with such a good prize coming back."
"It is a tame bird, I believe", the King said then. "It was taken and bought from a small village close to the woods, rather. Just by the northern part of the Kingswood, as I recall. It was not by the skill of the archer. Rather the partridge itself, or the farmer who raised him."
"Well then... The partridges in the Kingswood certainly know how to grow fat and get caught, then", Tyrion japed.
Joffrey felt close to smacking his forehead at the idiotic jape.
You are embarrassing us both, and our lord Father as well, with your low quips, dwarf. The king's frozen heart will not open up to us by your talking of the food. Just shut your face and let me and the princess do the talking instead. You said before that you would. The king has eaten hundreds of partridges while he's ruled here. He does not think it any different than we take our leaf beef and potatoes covered in yellow dragon sauce on Sundays.
Septa Mordane took to word, however, praising the food.
"Oh but it is certainly a nice type of fowl", she agreed. "The farmers are doing a marvellous job at keeping them, even as the dry season is coming upon them."
"Is it truly that dry already?" Tyrion questioned. "Back at Casterly Rock the oak trees and beeches are still green and lush most everywhere, only having begun to yellow in small places, I believe. And Red Lake is still high with water in most places."
"Oh but it is, my lord!" Septa Mordane intensified her insistence. "South of the city, there has been practically no rainfall for the past two weeks, Grand Maester Pycelle informed us as we came back! And there are some small lakes already beginning to dry up in the Stormlands, at least. Did not maester [Gorth/Jurne]of Storm's End write so in his last letter, Your Grace?"
"He did", the King agreed. "The long end of summer is fast beginning to be on its way."
Joffrey did his best to keep smiling at Sansa, even as she looked at her father the King, and pretending to care about the conversation. The Starks all seemed to be obsessed with the weather, the same as Lord Benjen and Willam had been up at Winterfell. Joffrey found it all tedious. Important for the realm, perhaps, yes, but tedious. He would have preferred to hear some talk of the latest skirmishes of the mountain clans in the Vale, or the robbers in the Kingswood, or the latest catch at the Fishmarket instead of talking of the weather now that they were finally back in a warm and comfortable place in the south again, where the weather actually made some sense.
After the dinner, they made their way out in the stairway again, preparing to go up to their chambers. Tyrion had said that he might move around the upper stories and explore the place, and Joffrey decided to do the same around the nether stories. If they were to stay here for a goodly enough time, and if he was indeed to try his best and marry Princess Sansa, it would be good to become well aquainted with as much of the Red Keep as they could.
He examined the dragon paintings along the walls and on the sides of the stairway, just along the handle of it which was present at these stairs at least, to the fortune of his misshapen uncle. Usually, Jyck or someone else of the guards, Loften perhaps, would help him ascend the stairs at Casterly Rock, but here he insisted on managing it himself, even though it tired him out all too quickly. Joffrey tought him a fool for having such a stubborn pride about it, though at the same time he supposed that it was better to try and retain his dignity than to be born around like some misshapen baby. The Red Keep was only perhaps around five or six stories high in its tallest castles, after all, from what he had seen of it so far, compared to that of close to forty or more stories at the Rock.
As he stood perusing the dragon paintings, wondering at its details and comparing them to the lessons of his maester, he heard a sound coming from somewhere upstais.
"Hello? Your Grace? … Who goes there?"
Noone replied.
"Uncle? … Jyck, is that you? ..."
Then he saw the dark hair of her. It was Princess Arya, the terrible unruly child which was still the bane of his existence, and who came at him in his nightmares already. She had been locked inside her room for three full days, as King Eddard had told Tyrion when he had asked before why she had not been present for dinner, but now apparently that time was up. Three days had gone by and she was free to roam about her father the King's castle again like a scrawny menace in a grey dress. Bloody wolf bitch...
She appeared to not have her wolf with her, at least, as it had ran away at the Trident and so far not made it back from the Riverlands, but all the same... He shuddered within himself, and held closer onto his new simple steel sword that he had gotten to loan from Tyrion after she had thrown his in the river. He hated her for it. He had never ever had a finer sword than Lion's Tooth.
He let his gaze tense at the shape of her terrible dark hair, as dark and northern as that of the King's, as he wondered if she was unarmed or held a dagger somewhere on her. She most like did.
He did not want to call out for her. That would serve no purpose, if she truly stood somewhere up there, watching him. Besides, this was her keep, the Starks' keep, her father the Wolf King's keep, after the fall of the dragons, and he was the guest and newcomer here in this so far dreary and unfamiliar place.
He never wanted to speak to her, nor even see her again, but he knew that he would still have to see her ugly horse-like face and spreaty black hair around the castle for as long as they were all here, and be courteous to her, although she would be the opposite, the little wolf bitch, all the time until he could marry Princess Sansa and bring her with him all the way back to the Rock, that was.
And even then she would most like have to have an important part to play at their wedding, gods forbid. Flower girl or one of Sansa's seven maids of honour or something like it. Something stupid, which she would no doubt ruin as well, or else attack him and set her beast on him once it had returned from the hellish forests to the north.
Why did he have to marry Princess Sansa? And why was her family all so... strange? Why did she have to have such a horrible, dirty, common-like sister? He even liked the sight of Prince Robb more than Arya, he found. How such a wild forest child could ever be construed as a royal princess was beyond him, but here they were, no less, King Eddard, the silent wolf king, whom he still almost feared somewhat at times, and his unruly young wolf bitch daughter. I hope she runs away too, he thought. Into the dark of the Riverwood, where she belongs, or the Kingswood, or out to sea to never be found again, or to break her neck while riding like Princess Viserra of the Targaryens...
Then he saw something which was almost worse. The red hair of the butcher's boy, Mycah or whatever his ugly name was, the pale red empty-headed sausage of a boy. He poked up his head and eyes above the walls, high above there, right next to the wolf bitch, but Joffrey saw him well enough.
Fools... Ugly, savage, commonborn scum... He thought. I ought to go up right there now, and finish the job.
But he knew better than that, to his detriment and annoyane. The king would have his head, if not anyone else out of the hundreds of guards did first. Jyck and Taleon, Lick, Pasker and Ser Clydeon were not strong enough to hold against the entirety of the King's castle guard. And besides, if he tried something like that, the savage beast might come back. She might even be hiding up there even now, as Robb had brought his wolf into the castle on at least one or two occasions. He feared it more than he could say, as he stood holding his sword in a cramp-aching grip at his hilt at the side of his waist.
His uncle Tyrion awoke him from his troublesome thoughts. He heard his voice coming from upstairs, only a couple of feet away from where Arya stood, though far away as to make it unclear whether he had seen her or not. Joffrey thought that he saw a large vase or two standing in the way between his dwarf uncle and the wolf bitch, for her and the ginger sausage boy to hide behind. Perhaps he truly did not see them, though it seemed absurd, even for him. He was whistling in the dark of the corridor, as he reached the edge where the L-shaped stairway began and looked down.
"Ah. Joffrey", Tyrion said, as he walked down the stairs, apparently as unmoved as ever, some moments after that. He saw his tiny little lordly form parading down the stone steps as if he had not even spotted the Stark princess, nor her lowborn friend.
"You must come up and look at these murals. It is the story of the Dance of the Dragons, and how it all started. All the way from King Viserys the First, and his proclamation of his daughter Lady Rhaenyra Targaryen as his heir before all the realm to hear. It's quite an interesting story, if you don't recall it. And one which I believe has a strong sense of resemblance to...-"
"Uncle!" He hushed.
Tyrion looked estranged in his mismatched eyes, as if he did not understand.
"What? … What is it?"
"The princess..." He whispered, trying his best to form the words with his mouth, and angling his golden head of hair slightly up towards the right of the stairway railing high up above, where Tyrion had just come from.
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Did you not see her?" Joffrey practically spat out, trying to figure out if he was in the first moments of going mad.
"I... don't believe I did, no."
"And yet you saw that bloody bird on the Gold Road well enough...", he chided, half mumbling...
"I... don't quite see what relevance that has here..."
"Forget it.", Joffrey said, sour now. "Only make sure that you are not stabbed by the princess the next time you go around on your own."
Tyrion looked taken aback, but then he almost smiled.
"Well... Now that is a surprise. I should not have thought that you cared so deeply and much for your old uncle dwarf's well-being, nephew."
"Oh, shut up... …. uncle."
Tyrion smiled.
And Joffrey turned around his head, waving somewhere behind him into thin air, trying to dash away at the situation, so that they could return to whatever it is that they were even doing here. He said as much, very soon.
"What are we even doing here, uncle? Why were we sent to come all the way here?"
Tyrion looked strange at him once again.
"You ask me that? Surely it was you who was so willing a moment ago to marry the princess...? Or am I wrong?"
"You are not wrong", he forced himself to say, gritting it out between his teeth.
"Then... What is the problem?"
"The problem is... " Joffrey articulated, "that her wild young sister is still leaping about the castle as wildly as her bloody wolf."
"Oh..." Tyrion figured, stopping up his descent and standing only a couple of steps before Joffrey, far away to almost meet him at eyegaze without having to stretch his neck any, and yet close enough to hopefully not have Princess Arya or the butcher's boy hear them.
"Well... Think of it this way. At least that beastly wolf of hers is as close to dead as can be. "
"Not so loud, uncle!..." He hushed him again. "Do not say that so certainly. One does not speak of the... perils... Or else they will come again for you in the night", he said, feeling himself grow truly terrified with his worries even more now.
"What's this, all of a sudden? A touch of northern superstition, in the heir to Casterly Rock? … I dare say that the stay at Winterfell did work miracles for you, dear nephew."
"This is no joke, you fool!" Joffrey sheered his white teeth at him. "This is real! They have... wolves. Bloody direwolves. Beasts. As their pets, mind you! As their bloody pets, I say it! And you and all of the others act as if that were not some big deal!"
"Well... Regardless of whether it is a big deal or no, I should think it best to not dwell on the matter too much", Tyrion said. "The King has already made it clear that yours and ours all safety is of the utmost concern for him. Surely you would agree? He did sentence the beast of Princess Arya to die, after all."
"Yes, but they still have not found the bloody beast...!" Joffrey practically screamed in whisper, as he cursed himself for being so loud in his anger all of a sudden, and he cursed his stupid tongue-rolling uncle for being such a dimwitted prattler, and the bloody wolf bitch princess and her sausage boy of a friend for surely still hiding up there, just behind the protection of that bloody railing some thirty or forty feet up, and most like hearing everything they said with her werewolf's ears...
"This is no bloody joke, dwarf.", he said again. "The beast could kill us at any time if it came here."
"It is... Still... In the Riverlands." Tyrion marked, his tone a decided one, to quell his nephew's fears.
"And if it should be sighted anywhere near of here, or indeed even south of the Trident, then I am sure that the king's men, or the lords of any close-residing keep, would do their best to hunt it down. The King told us that he has sent out orders for it to be found and taken to him, to all the lords of the holdfasts of the Riverland, and the Crownlands, as well, did he not? From Castle Darry down to the Blackwater Rush. You may rest assured that it will not come all the way here to the Red Keep."
"But you do not know that...!" Joffrey continued. "Nobody knows what magic tricks they have!"
"All right... Now you are scaring me, nephew. Did you have too much wine, by any chance? Or something else which did not agree with you?" He looked up at him curiously. "Some strange mushrooms that you found outside in the godswood, perhaps?"
"Don't speak to me of the accursed godswood either! It is all too much, damn you! Stop it, now!" Joffrey swore, hitting himself on his head, and then on his knee, and at the hard stone of the stairway walls, before he rushed down the stairways and all the way down to the floor again.
Then it all became worse. Tyrion did not see, could not see it, but Joffrey surely did.
The wolf.
"Oh, Seven save me!" He said. "Please... Seven... Mighty Mother of Mercy..." He whimpered, as he saw that the grey beast of Prince Robb was fast approaching from all the way in the halls. No, no...
"No, no, no... Not like this! Not like this, uncle!" Joffrey cried. "Please, uncle... Help me..."
"What are you talking about?" His uncle snapped at him, "Are you seeing ghosts in the mind?", before climbing down with his funny little red-clothed form all the way down the nine or ten stairs to stand beside him on the edge of the lowest stone step. Then he was beside him finally, both of their boots, Joffrey's large slender ones and Tyrion's small putty ones, both black leather, standing beside each other at the precipice, mere inches over the red mat of the floor down below, as they saw the terrifying shape edging closer as a shadow from the dark of the corridor some forty or fifty feet away.
… It was the beast of Robb Stark come walking down the hall.
"Oh... " Tyrion became abash in his voice. "Yes, perhaps that is a reason to fear, despite it all..."
"Hush, you bloody fool, what shall we do?! We're trapped here!"
"Trapped?" Tyrion looked up at him. "We'll just go upstairs again. Come on. The wolf will not follow if we are quick about it. Make haste."
His words were low, and he seemed serious and afraid, the dwarf was afraid and filled with actual alware – for the first time since the Andals had come to Westeros, Joffrey thought. Now it was truly serious. And his uncle surely only said that to keep him calm. But he needed to tell him.
"No, we can't go up there either! It's like I said... She is up there."
"Oh come on, Joffrey. She is a nine-year-old girl. Are you to be afraid of her, just on the account of her wolf away in the Riverlands, that she does not have with her anymore? … Hm?" He questioned him quietly, as his breath seemed to flare up at the torch which sat behind him on a sconce on the stairway railing.
"It's not only that", he said, shaking his head. "She is a bloody fighter. A warrior, like her father the King. I said so. I told you so. I am sure that she no doubt has a sword with her this time around. She got one from her uncle at Winterfell."
"A sword? You speak nonsense. She is only nine. And a girl, at that. She only ever had a stick."
"It's a small sword! Only for practice! But it can kill a man all the same", he insisted. "Have you not seen her prancing around with it? Are you completely blind all of a sudden? Or have you drunk yourself through the trip more than I thought?"
"Even if she does have a sword... Which I very much doubt... She will not harm us, nor will we harm her. We are not lions, and the Starks are no wolves. We are their honoured guests. The King made you all swear not to harm one another while at Lord Roote's keep, did he not?"
"She won't care about that. And she has her bloody sausage boy with her as well. Mycah."
"The butcher's boy, you mean?" He looked as if he could scarcely believe it. "Here, in the keep?"
"Yes! Now do you see, uncle? They are all just waiting to attack us! To spill our Lannister blood!"
"Oh please! Just come with me up and we can sort this", Tyrion said, strangely clandestine in his words, and then he marched on up the stairs, thudding and heaving his way up, jiggling his round little bottom and legs from one side to the next as he braved the steps. The sight would have been a funny one... A far funnier one if Robb Stark's snarling six foot beast did not await them a mere wall beyond, slowly making its way along the corridor to find and kill them.
"Come on, then, if you are so serious about this as you say! Help me up!" His uncle said, and Joffrey hurried to.
He lifted his uncle up, dragged him along, took him by the arm and hurried to go up, just at the same time as he looked up for any signs that Arya and Mycah might still be hiding behind the vases by the railing, armed with swords or knives in their hands. But they were not there, it seemed.
Joffrey thought that he could at least find some semblance of relief in that, but it was not enough.
"Jyck!" He wheezed, trying to scream without making an echo loud enough for the fast approaching wolf downstairs in the long corridor to hear.
"Jyck, you bloody waste of a watchman! Come here!" He half-shouted, half-whispered, as Jyck appeared from the shadows of the upper corridor to their right, where Princess Arya must surely have been only moments ago before. And yet he had not seen her pass by, it seemed. What a terrible bloody watchman... What red fools we have for our guards... Joffrey thought, once again.
"Come and take us to our rooms!" Joffrey said again, as Jyck looked on him in a dumb stare.
"Certainly, my lord, but... What is the great hurry?"
"The wolf is after us!" Joffrey snarled. "Prince Robb's bloody wolf!"
"The... The wolf is in here?" Jyck said, his eyes now glowing up white and terrified.
"Yes!" Joffrey inclined, trying to push Jyck around. "Now bloody help us to get away before it senses that we are up here, you fool! Come on!" He pushed at Jyck, and though the man was as big and muscled as any guard worth his gold could be expected to be, he managed to turn him around in the corridor, as Jyck realized the truth of their words.
"But... How... Surely the Prince will be with it, then? To keep watch over it?" Jyck said.
"It would appear not. Prince Robb is clearly elsewise occupied.", Tyrion said, mumbling frettingly between clenched jaws, also pushing on Jyck to make another step in the corridor back towards their apartments, as just then, they heard a terrible sound.
"Whaa-ouuh...! WHAAA-OUUUWWHLL...!"
Every single fiber in Joffrey Lannister's body stood on end. Tyrion and Jyck did as well.
The wolf. He has found the scent of us. Now we are done.
Jyck had a sword, and so did Joffrey, surely, and from he recalled even his uncle had a small letter knife and a moderately large dagger at his hilt, but as he had seen at the Trident, a direwolf was no simple foe, not any man, nor even any ordinary beast. It was a monster, one which only four men armed with spears perhaps had a chance at killing, Joffrey thought. Where in the Seven hells were the others when they need them? Where was Loften, and Taleon, and Pasker? Were they still sitting drunk on wine and gambling at dice in their chambers? He swore to the Warrior that he would have their heads on spikes if the wolf caught them because of this.
"Come on, come on, come on...!" Jyck said then, finally having gotten some sense as to the severity of the situation into his thick head, as he practically carried Tyrion up into his arms, holding him as one held a child, and Joffrey felt it more pressing than ever that this was no time to argue. He followed after Jyck, terrified to hear a single more sound coming from down the hall, feeling his blood run faster than it ever had been before in his life, faster than on the Trident even, perhaps, or perhaps not, for he wasn't sure... He was only ever certain that they had to get away as quickly as they could.
There was only the L-shape of the great enormous stairway behind them, and some small expanse of the floor corridor down below, perhaps ten or fifteen feet now, that separated them from the beast. If they looked back now, or indeed even straight down, they would be able to see it, he was sure. But he dared not even look. Instead they hurried over the turned-over chandeliers, and the... Wait, why was the chandeliers overturned just here? Was that the work of the wolf bitch princess? And why had he not heard the sound of it before? The candles they had blown out anyway, before knocking the chandelier down into their path, the blasted demons and fools...
And then they heard a sound. But it was not the wolf's sound. It was a sound altogether as strange, although perhaps long-awaited at their minds' deep wanderings. It was the voice of Prince Robb.
"Grey Wind. Come here."
Joffrey, Jyck and Tyrion all froze. What was this? Had the Crown Prince finally come out of the chambers, and followed after his wolf before it could do any harm? They all certainly hoped so. They stood still, inching back only a couple of feet or more, as they listened again for a sound.
The Crown Prince's voice was silent, echoing off from the stone floor in the relative dark of the corridor down below, but they were all sure that it was his voice, and not of someone else.
Thank the gods... Thought Joffrey, for at least a moment, before he became scared again. What if Prince Robb would take the side of his sister, and try and attack them, just like her? His blood began to curdle when he thought of how even greater than Arya's wolf the Crown Prince's had grown since their journey from the Riverlands and coming here. He was close to pissing himself, he was sure.
When he looked at Jyck, however, he seemed to stand steadfast with fighting resolve, only waiting for a sign to take charge, and turn around to go all the way down the stairs. If he meant to only kill the Crown Prince, and somehow magically not be engaged by the wolf as well, Joffrey could not say. Jyck was brave enough when it came to human enemies... But a fool without much thought to the actions of his consequences all the same.
Joffrey felt at the hilt of his own sword, wavering, waiting for another sound from the beast or the prince. And then it came.
"Come on. Here, boy... Good. That's good, boy. … Come on."
...And then they seemed to be on their way. Padding footsteps echoed off the stone floor down in the great corridor, the sound ringing hollow against the tall ceiling above.
Prince Robb and Grey Wind had turned around in the corridor, and it appeared from the sound were finally walking back.
Joffrey and Tyrion breathed a sigh of heavy relief as loud as ever a man had breathed, as Jyck lowered his sword gradually, and put down Tyrion's befuddled shape on the mosaic of the ground in front of him.
"Well then... The Prince seems to have taken it sorted", Jyck said, putting his sword carefully into its hilt again, although his gaze remained watching, waiting to be sure that that was all that there was to it. And so did Joffrey and Tyrion both.
The moments ticked away into minutes, and then more than that... And finally, finally, the began to think that perhaps indeed the Prince had indeed truly taken his wolf with him and gone back to the entrance of the keep, and out.
Thank the Mother... Joffrey thought. Thank the Father... Thank the Warrior...
And then he scowled within him, hating his own heart in the moment for its treason towards his own honour and pride.
And thank the merciful, stupid, bloody Tully prince."