The Kraken and the Lion

Chapter 20

by Technomad

Tyrion

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Sansa started: "I was at the wedding. Joff…His Majesty…commanded me to be Lady Margaery's attendant." She sniffled. "I think he meant it to rub in the fact that he was marrying Lady Margaery and not me, but by that time, I didn't care. I was perfectly happy not to be marrying Joff. You remember that time with the whip, don't you?"

Tyrion nodded. Privately, he couldn't blame Sansa for being relieved to be free of Joffrey. He knew his nephew well, and would not have wished him as husband on any woman in the Seven Kingdoms. If he had been raised differently, with a firm hand and parents who cared about him and each other, rather than neglecting him while carrying on an endless cold war against each other, he might have turned out a different, or at least a more tolerable, boy. But the facts were what they were, Joffrey had been what he had been, and he had to deal with reality as it was.

Sansa went on: "At the feast, I was sitting near Lady Oleanna Tyrell. She was rather kind to me; at one point she even helped me rearrange my hair under this hair net she gave me." She instinctively reached up to touch her hair, and Tyrion's eyes were drawn to the hair net. The gems in it glinted purple in the dim light.

"I was watching as the king and queen were married. He had had a good deal to drink, and was wishing that you could have been there so he could make you participate in the dwarfs' joust. Then he took his sword and cut the pie open. Birds were flying all over the place. Then he took another swig of wine, saying the pie was dry. Then…" She couldn't go on; she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. "It was horrible! He was choking to death, and nobody could help him! The queen…his mother, I mean…was screaming and screaming like a mad thing, and then she pointed at me! She screamed: 'Arrest her! Arrest the little traitor! She killed my son!' And the guards came, and cuffed my hands behind my back, and dragged me down here…"

"That was all you saw?" Asha leaned forward, gently taking one of Sansa's hands in her own. Tyrion could see her wince at the way one finger stuck out at an unnatural angle. He felt fresh disgust, and promised himself a very long talk with whoever was in charge of this level of the dungeons. There was absolutely no reason to treat this fragile, broken creature roughly!

"That was all I saw, Lady Asha." Sansa looked into Asha's eyes, and Asha visibly recoiled slightly; whoever had broken her finger had also taken care to beat her viciously around the face, and she'd clearly not had the attentions of a maester.

"Thank you, my lady. I shall see that you are moved to more comfortable confinement. My lady Asha…shall we go?" Tyrion rose, and Asha rose as well, taking his hand. Sansa's eyes widened.

As they turned to leave, Sansa called after them: "My lady…please accept my congratulations on your pregnancy. I shall pray to the Mother for an easy confinement and a healthy babe for you and my lord Tyrion." Tyrion nodded his thanks, and then they were out in the hall with the guards locking the cell back up.

Tyrion snarled at the guard: "See to it that the Lady Sansa has a maester attending her, and a chance to wash up." He wrinkled his nose. "And, for the Seven's sake, get her some clean clothes to wear!" The cell had been malodorous, and it had been very obvious that Sansa had not been able to bathe or take care of herself.

Asha said, in a low voice: "Even now…even brought as low as it's possible to get, and in the literal shadow of Ser Ilyn's sword…she remembers her courtesies!" She shook her head. "That girl may not be ironborn, but she doesn't lack courage!"

Tyrion murmured back: "If that girl had anything direct to do with Joff's death, I'm the Mountain that Rides!" He had always pitied Sansa Stark, and wished he could do something to help her.

They began walking down the corridor to their next interview. Tyrion looked up at his wife and grinned. "After the Battle of the Blackwater, do you really think that courage is an ironborn monopoly, my love?" He was rewarded with a blush as Asha lowered her eyes.

Asha

Asha was very curious to see what accusation and imprisonment had done to the Red Viper of Dorne. When she and Tyrion had guested at Sunspear, on their honeymoon voyage to Lannisport, he had been all but openly hostile to them, thanks to his long-nursed grudge over the terrible fate of his elder sister during the fall of Mad King Aerys. Maybe he's been taken down a peg? she wondered.

When they were let into his cell, they found that Oberyn Martell was, at least on the surface, unbent, unbowed and unbroken, befitting his House's words. Even wearing ragged clothes that had been given him in place of his own finery, he managed to look insouciant and elegant. When he saw who had come, he gave them both a sardonic smile. "Well? Come to gloat? I admit I wasn't the best host possible when you were at Sunspear, but really, this is a little extreme as a way to get me back!"

"Your pardon, m'lord. This was not my doing." Tyrion looked around. "Is there a chair here? My lady is with child, and may need to sit down."

"She is? Well, congratulations to both of you! I have some children of my own, and they do keep me on the bounce. Fatherhood is like no other experience." He raised an elegant eyebrow. "Speaking of which, how is my paramour faring? Elleria Sand?"

"We don't know, my lord. We just got here not long ago and were tasked by m'lord father to get to the bottom of this murder. Could you give us your view of what happened when the king died?"

"I will, if you'll see to Elleria's safety. I fear for her in this place." Asha could understand why. As a paramour, she was likely to fall foul both of Tywin's hatred of "whores," which Tyrion had spoken of in considerable, bitter detail, and Cersei's loathing of most of her gender. And as a bastard, with her protector in the dungeons, she had little recourse should an "accident" befall her.

"Done. And you know the Lannister words." A Lannister always pays his debts. Those words had been a shield to Tyrion's family for centuries, and a warning that it was better to be their friends than their enemies. Tyrion would do his utmost to ensure Elleria's safety.

Oberyn smiled, clearly taking Tyrion's meaning. "In that case, m'lord, I'll be happy to help you out as much as I can. However, I honestly don't know much."

Tyrion nodded. "Begin at the beginning, go on till you come to the end, and then stop. If I don't understand things, I'll ask you to explain. But right now, I want to hear what you have to say about it."

Oberyn launched into his tale. "The feast was splendid; rather too splendid, I thought. Elleria and I were restricting ourselves to one or two bites of most of the dishes, and even so, I doubt we'd have been able to last through to the end of the feast. Whose brilliant idea was that, anyway? The Tyrells?" He sneered. The Martells and Tyrells had long been bitter enemies, and having a large Dornish delegation at the wedding of a Tyrell to the King had been all but begging for trouble. Asha could easily understand how Oberyn had come under suspicion.

Oberyn went on: "Elleria and I were watching the king cut the pie full of doves with his sword. I thought it was a degrading thing to do to a Valyrian steel blade, and she was agreeing with me. There was a storm of doves…somebody, probably a Tyrell, thought that letting loose a bunch of live, pooping birds in a hall where people was feasting was a good idea…and I couldn't see the king. When I saw him next, he was going down, his face turning red, clawing at his throat."

"Why were you accused, m'lord?" asked Asha.

"My reputation, my repeated questions about justice for my sister, and my House's warm relations with our dear neighbors, the Tyrells, were all it took to whip up suspicion. After poor Lady Sansa was dragged off, the next thing I knew, the queen…your charming sister, I mean, not her good-daughter…was pointing at me, screaming that I'd had a hand in her precious royal brat's death." Oberyn grinned suddenly, and Asha found herself warming to him. While she was monogamous and happy that way, she was not blind or indifferent to an attractive man, and one thing Oberyn Martell shared with her husband was charisma by the bucketload. "I ask you, in all honesty…" Oberyn spread his hands, the fetters on them clanking slightly… "does that sound at all like me?"

Tyrion shook his head. "I would say not, m'lord. Whatever you are, you've never been obvious, and sitting there watching as the king you've poisoned dies sounds screamingly obvious. If you'd been the guilty party, you'd have been keeping your mouth shut about your sister and what happened to her, and done your best to make like the Tyrells were your best friends ever. At the same time, though, I can see why you and Lady Sansa both came under suspicion."

Oberyn suddenly looked very grim; the affable, friendly manner he had been affecting fell away, and Asha shivered. She now could see how he had earned his nickname of "Red Viper of Dorne." She had seen friendlier eyes above shields when boarding enemies' ships at the head of boarding parties.

"In my judgement, m'lord, Lady Sansa doesn't have it in her to say 'boo' to a goose. Her poisoning the king is about as likely as me joining up with the Silent Sisters." He shook his head. "Not to mention, the poison used looks to me very like the Strangler, and that stuff takes specialist knowledge to even know about, much less use."

"Knowledge which you have," Tyrion said flatly.

The Red Viper gave them an ironic little bow. "But of course. I am Oberyn Martell."

"Do you have witnesses to where you were during the feast?" asked Asha. "It seems to me that if you were never within arm's reach of the king, you'd have had a hard time poisoning him. And the same goes for Lady Sansa, too."

"A good question, that," Oberyn said, giving Asha a sharp look. "Apparently there's more to you than good looks, m'lady. As it happens, I was always in the middle of a group of my traveling companions from Dorne. They will testify that I was never nearer to the king than fifteen or so feet away, and had no opportunity to put anything in his food or wine. Of course," he gave them both a roguish grin, "that testimony may be impugned. And it says nothing about the time before the wedding, does it?"

"You are shrewd, m'lord," Tyrion commented. He stood up. "Our investigations shall go on for a while, but while I do not have the authority to free you, you shall be placed in more comfortable lodgings. These cells are supposed to be reserved for those convicted of crime, and you have not been. And we shall see that you get your own clothes. After they have been thoroughly searched."

"Of course, of course," Oberyn waved a hand carelessly. "You wish to take no chances with the dread Red Viper of Dorne, do you, m'lord?" He raised an eyebrow. "Dare I hope that there'll be a trial?"

"There will be. Make sure all your arguments are in good order. But my lord father would never execute anybody, much less someone of your importance, without a trial." With that, Tyrion and Asha left the cell.

Once they were safely back in the room they were using as their headquarters, Tyrion sank down in a chair and sipped greedily at a glass of wine. "This whole situation couldn't have been worse-handled if Joffrey was in charge of it! It's like his malignant ghost possessed everybody who should have had their wits about them!"

"Even dead, the pestilential brat stirs up trouble," Asha agreed. She poured herself a cup of wine and sat down at the desk. "It's like the Storm God sent him into the world as his particular agent, may the Storm God devour his soul!"

"He's dead, Asha." Tyrion's voice was unwontedly sharp, and Asha looked up from the papers she was arranging to see him looking at her sternly. "And I think that this is one mess he's innocent of." Asha remembered that Joffrey was Tyrion's nephew, and that Tyrion believed in family solidarity, whatever his opinions of individual members of his family might be.

"I'm sorry, Tyrion." Asha remembered that she had some relatives she wasn't too proud of; her idiotic brother, Theon…and what was Theon up to, she wondered…and her nuncle Euron Crows-eye. Much as she may have disapproved of, or opposed, what they did, they were still her kin and she wouldn't have wanted Tyrion making cracks about them.

"No problem. Let's look over what we've got." They sat together and began looking at the notes that they had compiled.

"One thing we need to do is find out who was sitting with Lady Sansa and Lord Oberyn and ask them what happened during the feast. Another is to make up a complete, and I mean really complete, list of people who both hated Joffrey and had access to the castle. Yet another is to find out where this poison, the 'Strangler,' is to be obtained, and how difficult it actually is to use." Tyrion's mind was working, and Asha sat back and basked in it, admiring the man she loved all over again. Playful as he was in private, inventive and fun as he was in bed, it was when he was using that incredible mind that she felt that he was at his very best.

She put her hand over her belly, feeling the bulge that heralded a new life on the way. Tyrion often said jokingly that he hoped that their baby took after its mother. She hoped that the baby would be as intelligent as its father.