The Kraken and the Lion

Chapter 18

Tyrion

Running just ahead of a squall line under full sail, Black Wind sped into the harbor at Kings Landing. Unlike her first voyage here, the royal navy welcomed her; she was flying the Baratheon/Lannister colors of the late King Joffrey, which marked her as friendly. Even if she'd been flying Greyjoy colors, Tyrion figured that would have been no problem. After resupplying the hungry city, the ironborn were more popular in Kings Landing than they were in many other places on the Westerosi mainland.

Asha herself was at the helm, steering her ship straight and true for her anchorage. Tyrion had not quite believed how fast Black Wind could be when her captain wanted to really show what the ship could do, and made a mental note not to try to chase ironborn ships. Not that that was a likely scenario at the moment, with the Greyjoys allied with the Lannisters and Lannister-Baratheons, but he had long since learned to keep even unlikely possibilities in his mind. And not all ironborn were friendly…

"Remember," Asha had warned him, "do not, under any circumstances, trust my Uncle Euron! He's easy to spot; he wears a patch over one eye and his lips are blue. He's pure poison, and he's never given up the Old Ways of the islands, not for one day. Even many ironborn fear him."

"I'll keep that in mind, Asha," he had assured her. Quietly, he had sent a raven to Kings Landing warning them to keep a weather eye out for the Silence, Euron's ship. At least she was not difficult to tell from other ironborn ships, with her figurehead of a maiden. Euron had apparently not been seen in Westerosi waters for some time; he'd left the islands after some sort of dispute. Asha had been vague about the details.

Asha

Once the Black Wind was secured to the quay, Asha leaped ashore. She turned and waited impatiently until her crew could run the gangplank out and allow her husband to join her. Tyrion was soon at her side, taking her arm as the royal guards came up. "Asha! You should take better care of yourself!" The guards also looked slightly scandalized; in her Iron Islands clothing, her baby bump was visible and unmistakable.

Asha looked down fondly at her husband. "Darling, it's very sweet of you to be so concerned for me, but I feel absolutely fine. In any case, on the Iron Islands women routinely keep on with their routines until the first pangs of labor." She grinned at his scandalized expression. Tyrion apparently thought that since she was pregnant, she was now a fragile blossom that needed to be coddled. She'd had to have some confrontations with him when he tried to keep her from taking her usual exercises. Lucky, the maester had backed her up fully.

"Lady Asha is one of the healthiest, strongest young women it has ever been my pleasure to attend," he had said. "If she is an example of what regular outdoor exercise and sea air does, I shall be sure to recommend it to all my lady patients." Faced with expert opinion, Tyrion had backed down, but he still did all he could to make things easier for her. Asha shamelessly accepted some of his pampering, but kept right on with her exercising and weapons practice. She now felt she had a better reason than before to keep her fighting skills sharp. Soon, she thought, she would be fighting for two. She would not allow her child to suffer the fate of the children of the Mad King, not while she had breath in her body and weapons in her hands!

With the guards trailing behind them, Asha and Tyrion made for the Red Keep. The guards at the gate gasped to recognize them. "My lord! My lady! We did not expect you so soon…" one of them began. Asha cut him off with a quick gesture.

"Apparently you don't know how fast a longship can travel with a motivated captain and crew. We're wasting time. Where are the Queen and the Hand?"

"Her Majesty and the King's Hand are in the royal chambers, my lady. If you will follow me?" Asha narrowed her eyes at Varys, who had appeared as if out of nowhere. She had heard that he had secret passages and listening posts all through the Keep, and she wondered how much he knew about the King's death. She and Tyrion followed the eunuch down the passageway, while she tried to spot listening holes and other signs of clandestine activity.

Tyrion

Tyrion had expected to find his sister shattered at the death of her eldest son, her golden princeling, and he was not disappointed. Cersei looked dreadful, with her eyes red, face swollen from weeping and her hair in a tangle. Tywin was pacing up and down, occasionally smacking his fist into his open palm, but otherwise apparently calm.

What shocked him senseless, though, was the third person in the room. Haggard, bearded, and looking like he'd been dragged through all seven hells by his balls, Jaime Lannister was sitting near, but not too near, his sister. Before he could stop himself, Tyrion ran over to his brother.

"Jaime!" At the sound of his voice, all three Lannisters looked up. Cersei looked indignant, Tywin looked reluctantly approving, but Jaime…Jaime had an expression on his face like he was staring into the worst of the hells. "Jaime, I've come! And so has Asha!" Tyrion ran over and took his brother's hand…hand? Only one hand?…in both of his. Involuntarily, Tyrion cried out: "Jaime, what happened to you?"

Jaime came back from whereever he'd been. "Tyrion? Seven gods, it's good to see you! As for what happened to me…" he gave Tyrion a twisted smile… "after Catelyn Stark released me on my oath to bring her back her daughters, I fell into the hands of the Bloody Mummers. They said they'd make me scream. I said they wouldn't. I was wrong."

"The Bloody Mummers? Don't they work for us?" Tyrion turned to their father. "Father? Didn't you bring the Mummers to Westeros in the first place?"

Tywin's face twisted into a terrifying smile. "That I did, Tyrion, that I did. And when I catch up to them…"

Tyrion and his father chorussed: "A Lannister always pays his debts!" For a second they looked at each other, in complete agreement for once.

Asha

Asha had been expecting a cold welcome. So far, though, she was being completely ignored. She stood back, letting Tyrion deal with his blood kin. That gave her an opportunity to evaluate all of them.

Cersei looked like hell, but for once, Asha couldn't blame her a bit. Seeing your own eldest son poisoned at his own wedding feast had to be every mother's nightmare. Cersei finally looked up, staring through Asha as though she were not even there. Asha privately promised herself that she would keep her temper with her good-sister. If for no other reason, she knew that hand-to-hand brawling in her condition was not a good idea, and she would not put it past Cersei to deliberately try to injure the child she was carrying. And if she did do such a thing, she, Asha Greyjoy Lannister, would pay her debt…by selling Cersei into slavery in Yunkai, if possible!

Tywin reminded Asha of caged wild animals she had seen here and there in her travels. He clearly longed to lash out, but didn't know who to lash out at. If he had been anybody else, Asha might have thought that he was afraid. Even the lion fears the viper in the reeds, she thought. That was a proverb she had heard in the Summer Islands.

A viper was somewhere or other in the castle. For a second, Asha shivered involuntarily, wondering who it might be. Poison was an insidious weapon, and not always easy to figure out. It would be so fatally easy to point the finger at someone unpopular, scream "Poisoner! Poisoner!" and let mob mentality and most people's ignorance of poisons do its work.

Asha privately suspected her uncle Euron Crows-eye of knowing far more about poisons than she was comfortable with. Good job he's nowhere nearby, she thought, before the corollary occurred to her. Or is he? Did the people here know enough to not treat the Silence as though she were a friendly ironborn ship? She made a mental note to speak to the people in charge of harbor defenses. If the Silence came within range of their catapults, Asha wanted her sunk. She was not about to take chances with the Crow's-eye.

Tyrion was talking to a man she didn't recognize. She focussed on what he was saying, and her mind reeled as she realized that the strange man was none other than her long-missing good-brother, Jaime Lannister. This haggard, bearded man was nothing like the arrogant, too-handsome-for-his-own-good knight in gold-colored armor that people had described, and that she had seen in family portraits.

Suddenly feeling rather shy, she came across the room, and he looked up curiously as she approached. "Ser Jaime?" she asked. He nodded, and she went on: "You don't know me, but I'm your good-sister. Asha Greyjoy Lannister."

"I had heard that Tyrion had finally been married off," Jaime responded, with a haggard grin. "A pleasure to meet you at last…good-sister! And, to family, it's just 'Jaime.'" He stood up, rather unsteadily, and clasped her with his good arm. Less inhibited, she hugged him, noting that he smelled like he needed a bath.

"Drowned God, what all happened to you? We knew you were captured by the northmen, but what…how did you get free? And who did this to you?" She gestured at the stump of his right arm.

"Catelyn Stark set me free, on condition that I bring her back her daughters. I failed," Jaime answered, with a bitter laugh. "She had me on a leash, of course. I was in the charge of Brienne, the Maid of Tarth. Don't look at me that way. The wench is ugly, and a better fighter than most men. Unfortunately, we were taken prisoner by the Bloody Mummers."

Asha felt a cold chill go down her back. She knew about the Bloody Mummers, and she knew they were very, very bad news. "Did they -"

"Yes, they did. They were working for the Northmen at the time, but nobody really controls the Mummers. Bringing them to Westeros was not one of Father's brighter ideas."

"And now you return to find your nephew poisoned." Asha leaned close. "Well, we'll find out what happened. And then, I think that your brother and I might just cook up a little surprise for the 'Brave Companions!'" She spoke the mercenary company's name for themselves with bitter contempt.

Improbably, Jaime gave her a very wicked grin, looking, for a moment, almost like the god-like young man who stared out of the portraits in Lannisport and Casterly Rock. Although Asha had no designs on him, she felt weak in the knees for a second. How did Cersei manage to keep him faithful? she asked herself. If I had been betting on such things when he was whole and around court, I'd have bet that every woman in the Red Keep would be plotting to get her legs around him!

"You just do that, my lady. However, I think my father and brother want to speak to you." Asha turned away, to find herself facing Cersei.

For a second, all previous enemities were forgotten, and Asha took Cersei's hands in hers. "Cersei. I just want you to know that I'm terribly sorry about Joffrey's death."

"If so, you're probably the only one," Cersei husked. "I've seen the smallfolk, from the battlements. Kings Landing did not go into mourning at the death of their King. They did for the Targaryens, all save the Mad King. They did for Robert, may he suffer forever in the seven hells. But not for my Joff. Not for my golden boy." Hatred flashed in her eyes. "They hate us. The smallfolk hate us. They threw dung at my boy. They tried to kill us. Aerys had the right idea about this city."

Asha drew away slightly. She had suspected for quite some time that Cersei was unbalanced, and this did nothing to allay those suspicions. Of course, having gone through what she'd gone through, a certain amount of crazy talk was understandable. But unlike most grief-maddened mothers, Cersei was in a position to make good on her threats. Asha made a mental note to have a long, serious talk with Tyrion and her good-father, as soon as could be. Keeping the Queen under control might save them all a great deal of dreadful trouble.

And, speak of the Storm God, Tyrion was beckoning her over. "Asha? Father wants to speak to us both."

She disengaged herself tactfully from Cersei, thankful, at least, that Cersei had not lashed out at her. Guess that beating I gave her had some lasting results! "Good-father? How can I serve you? Please accept my condolences over the loss of your grandson."

Tywin folded her in his arms for a second, before releasing her, clearly uncomfortable at such close proximity. "Asha. I accept your condolences, on my own behalf and that of my House. And I should be congratulating you on your pregnancy. But I have a task for you, and for Tyrion."

At this, Asha perked up her ears, as did Tyrion, and, she noticed with interest, Jaime. "What is it, my lord?"

"I have heard many good things about Tyrion's time as acting Hand, and you, my lady, are a formidable, resourceful young woman who seems to make a remarkably good team with Tyrion. Your mission is to investigate this murder and find out who did it!"

Asha had not expected that, and, clearly, neither had Tyrion. Both of them bowed in acquiescence. Asha began thinking out what to do first, and she could see that Tyrion was thinking hard, too.

END