The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 08
by Technomad
Asha GreyjoyWhile Asha was more at home on the deck of a longship than astride a horse, she could ride. She squirmed slightly, trying to find a more comfortable seat, as she rode out of the gates of the Red Keep along with the rest of the court, to see the Princess Myrcella off to Dorne.
It was a fine, clear day, good for sailing. Asha looked out at the sea, and wished that she and the Black Wind were out there, instead of being trapped in this stinking, unhappy city.
She did not fail to notice that the smallfolk did not seem at all pleased to see their rulers up close. The mood on the streets as their cavalcade rode past was sullen at best, and nobody raised a single cheer as Joffrey went by.
Princess Myrcella smiled bravely as she rode along, while King Joffrey and Queen Cersei pretended not to notice the hostile looks they were getting. Their guards would keep the smallfolk from doing more than scowl…or so Asha hoped.
She was not the only ironborn present. She had several of her crew with her, but if things turned ugly, she had no illusions about her chances. At least they don't hate us as personally as they do the court, she thought. Even so, it was comforting to see Lorren Longaxe, looking as out of place on horseback as a septon in a brothel, watching the crowd carefully, while Qarl the Maid and Eerl Harlaw stared straight ahead and ostensibly paid the crowd no mind.
At the harborside itself, they had to wait for the High Septon to pronounce a blessing. On and on and on he droned, as Asha sat in her saddle and tried not to look too bored. At least my nuncle the Damphair can get to the point! She privately thought that introducing the High Septon to Aeron Greyjoy would be funny. However, she doubted that her humorless, fanatical uncle would find the sight of a priest too fat to walk in a starving city at all amusing.
Finally, the last benediction was pronounced, and Princess Myrcella boarded her ship. Asha approved strongly of how she behaved. Even though she knew that the little princess' heart was breaking inside her, she held her head high and did not shed one tear. Instead, she comforted her weeping younger brother, Tommen. The Seaswift would be carrying her to Braavos, with escort from King Robert's Hammer, Lionstar, Bold Wind and Lady Lyanna. Once in Braavos, she would transfer to a Braavosi ship for the second leg of her voyage to Sunspear in Dorne.
Asha looked the Seaswift over with a professional eye. She looked to be much faster than the usual war ship, and Tyrion had told her that the plan was, in the event of an attack, for the Bold Wind to escort the Seaswift away while the rest of the fleet engaged the enemy to allow the Seaswift time to escape.
Personally, Asha was of the opinion that if they were that frightened of a move by Stannis Baratheon, having the princess travel to Dorne in a Braavosi ship all the way would have been a much better plan. However, she had not been included in the planning of the voyage; Tyrion had told her about it later, when they were resting from a bout of lovemaking.
"I told Varys, Littlefinger and Pycelle three different stories of where I was planning to place Myrcella," Tyrion had explained, lying on his side with his head on his hand and idly tracing patterns on Asha's bare belly. "When sweet Cersei came to me howling about the plan that Pycelle had been told, I knew he was in her pay…and I had him thrown into the black cells. After I had Shagga shave his beard with his axe."
Tyrion had told Asha that his sister was furious about the imprisonment of Pycelle. Ever since their engagement had been formalized, Cersei had been all icy politeness to her, but Asha still thought that she and Cersei were destined for a knock-down, drag-out fight. She looked forward to it. She had taken just about enough of the Queen's little "inadvertent" references to ironborn as marauders and savages, no better than the wildlings north of the Wall. Asha sometimes thought about how good it would feel to get a good handful of Cersei's glorious blonde hair and bang her head against the floor, real hard.
Finally, the Seaswift began heading out to sea with her escorts, and Asha turned her horse's head toward the Red Keep, along with the rest of the court. She wished that the quays were closer to the castle; she had a very bad feeling about this situation.
Tyrion rode closer, and said, in a low voice: "I've got guards planted in the crowds, my lady. Hopefully, they'll be able to tamp down trouble before it starts." Asha nodded, not letting her worry show. It was like keeping cool in a storm at sea; no matter how worried she was, she had to keep a cool façade in place for the sake of the crew.
She glanced over at the Queen. Cersei, to give her her due, was acting as cool as though she and the court were just out for a ride in a place of complete safety, instead of threading their way through a crowd that pretty clearly hated the sight of them. She was chatting quietly with one of her ladies. Sansa Stark was riding along behind her fiance, her face as blank as usual.
Just about then, a woman came out from the crowd, holding up a dead baby, forcing Joffrey to rein in. Joffrey tried offering her gold, but she ignored the money, holding her baby out as though she expected the King to make it live again.
"The people blame us for the situation, instead of Stannis," Tyrion muttered. "This doesn't look good." Asha agreed, and wished that she'd thought to have some of her crew accompany her. It wasn't that she didn't trust the Kingsguard or the Goldcloaks, but she'd have felt safer with ironborn guards.
The woman screamed: "Brotherfucker!" at Cersei, who paled. Asha heard the insult, and saw how the queen reacted, and suddenly knew exactly who the queen's children's father really was. Tyrion did say that they were a loving couple! she thought to herself, mentally doffing her hat to her lover's cleverness.
That set the crowd off. There were screams of "Brotherfucker!" at the queen, "Imp!" and "Halfman!" at Tyrion, and shouts of "Stannis!" and "Robb!" Then someone yelled "Bread!" and in a second, everybody was calling for bread. Stones and dung flew, and someone lobbed a particularly well-aimed blob of horse-dung into the king's face.
Joffrey screamed with rage, yelling for the culprit to be brought before him, and several of his guards plunged into the crowd, which quickly turned into an angry mob. Tyrion yelled "Back to the castle! Now!" Asha needed no instruction to tell her how good an idea this was, and she clapped spurs to her horse, riding through a knot of people who were converging on her, yelling about "stringing up the ironborn slut." She didn't feel like being strung up that day, and lashed out with her sword, cutting down the ones that got too close to her before her horse got free of the crowd and began to run. Eerl Harlaw and Loren Longaxe were right beside her; she couldn't see Qarl the Maid anywhere, and hoped fervently that her former lover was all right. He's a good fighter, but these are very bad odds!
As Asha pounded up the road to the castle, with the crowd roaring behind her, she saw Tyrion, galloping along beside her, and she felt a lot better. Most of the people around the court, as far as she was concerned, would be no big loss. In fact, she could see the crowd's point of view; she could hardly believe that something like this hadn't happened already, what with Joffrey's general misrule. She had been utterly shocked to hear of him greeting a crowd of people calling for bread with shots from his crossbow.
After what seemed to her like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, she was reining in in the safety of the courtyard, as the rest of the court was streaming in, battered-looking and spattered with dung. Joffrey was screaming about how the people were all traitors and how he was going to have them all killed, until Tyrion slapped him, hard. The guards murmured, but made no move to intervene; Joffrey had put them in danger, too.
"You stupid, spoiled little fool, you've killed Clegane, and the Seven know how many others! Where is the Lady Sansa?"
"I don't know," said one of the guards. Tyrion gave him a look that should have left him lying on the pavement with a smoking hole where his chest had once been.
"Well, find her! We need her alive!" Tyrion had explained to Asha about how Sansa was an important part of his father's plans; with her claim to Winterfell, she could end up securing the North for the kingdom, and possibly averting more war. Asha raised her hand to volunteer to go, but Tyrion saw it and shook his head slightly.
"Have you seen Qarl the Maid?" Asha asked the men around her. They all shook their heads, and Asha began to really worry. She cared about all her crew, and Qarl would always hold a special place in her heart.
"Are you cowards refusing an order from my brother?" snarled Cersei at the guards. "He is the Hand of the King, and disobedience is treason!" Asha raised an eyebrow. She knew that Cersei and Tyrion loathed each other, but she approved completely that in a situation like this, they worked together without friction. The good of the kingdom came before their private hatreds. That marked a good ruler…or a good captain.
For a second, she amused herself by imagining Cersei and Tyrion as ironborn, each commanding a longship. Cersei, of course, would be commanding the Blonde Harridan, while Tyrion would be sailing the Shrewd Thinker. And they'd be bitter rivals, competing to see who could bring the most loot home to Pyke!
Before she could go on with her mad idea, Sandor Clegane came galloping in astride Sansa Stark's horse, with Sansa herself clutching on behind him. He jumped off, snarling about what would happen if anything happened to his own horse, and Sansa clambered down stiffly. When Sansa saw Asha, she ran to her, throwing herself into the ironwoman's arms. Ever since Asha had taken compassion on her, Sansa saw Asha as someone who would protect her.
"They…they were all shouting! They yelled for bread, but I had no bread to give them! Some men tried to grab the reins of my horse, but Sandor…Sandor was there suddenly, and he cut off…he cut off a man's arm…" Asha held the girl tightly, feeling her whole body shaking with fear and reaction.
Some hours later, Asha and Tyrion were up in the keep, watching a big chunk of the city burn. Tyrion had given orders to try to keep the rioting away from certain important areas, but that was the limit of what he could do. Tyrion turned his mismatched eyes on his fiancee.
"My lady…I hope your people's shipments of food come quickly. We're on the edge of a volcano here."
END Chapter 08