The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 23
by Technomad
Asha Lannister
Asha felt as though she were floating to the surface of the water, from very deep down. She heard voices, from what seemed like very far away, but gradually getting closer.
"…Is she going to suffer long-term damage, Maester?"
"I do not believe she will, my lord. She is young, in excellent health, and by great good fortune, landed on a table, which broke, but cushioned her fall sufficiently to prevent major injuries."
Another voice: "What of her baby?"
My baby…Asha remembered that she was pregnant, and fear lashed through her. She struggled to return to full consciousness. I must protect my baby! Or avenge it!
"You are extraordinarily fortunate, my lords. She is one of the healthiest women I have ever seen, and she apparently instinctively fell in such a way as to minimize injury to herself. She does not even appear to have any fractures, and her pregnancy seems to be going normally. The fetus responds to stimuli from outside as it should at this stage."
Gradually, Asha recalled that her babe had begun moving in her womb. Sometimes, at night, when they were in bed together, she and Tyrion would put their hands on her belly to feel the new little life moving and responding to their touch. The thought of a threat to her baby made new strength and life surge through her body, and she forced her eyes open, to find herself lying in bed, with Tyrion, her father-in-law, and a maester she did not recognize all hovering over her.
"Tyrion?" she croaked. At the sound of her voice, all three men gasped. Tyrion leaned in close, and she could see tears in his eyes. "Tyrion…I'm sorry I fell."
"Never you mind that! You rest up and get well!" Tyrion grabbed her hand, and she squeezed his hand as hard as she could. "Do you remember what happened at all?"
"I was walking down the corridor, and when I came to the stairs, someone pushed me hard from behind. That's the last thing I remember before I woke up here." Tyrion and his father looked at each other.
Tywin narrowed his eyes. "I'll have to have a little talk with Varys," he said, his voice low and throbbing with menace. "Anything his little birds twittered to him about this, I want to know!"
Tyrion looked at his father and nodded. "I hadn't thought of Varys, but that mincing bastard knows everything that goes on in the Red Keep before it happens. I want him here and I want him here ten minutes ago!"
Asha felt her head being raised, and a cup being put to her lips. She dutifully swallowed what the maester was trying to give her, and felt herself spiralling down into slumber deeper than she had ever experienced.
Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion had seldom been more furious in his life. The only other time had been when his father had broken up his marriage to Tysha. This time, though, he and his father were on the same side. "This was no damned accident!" he snarled. "This was attempted murder, and only the grace of the Seven and a lot of luck prevented it from succeeding! Whoever did this, I want to see their head on a spike on the wall!"
Tywin nodded. "Spoken like a Lannister! We owe whoever did this a debt, and we pay our debts." Looking into his father's eyes, Tyrion decided quickly that if he had been the guilty party, he'd be running for his life right about then. When his father had that look, bad things happened to people. Tyrion hoped to be able to get in on making those bad things happen.
Varys appeared quickly, wringing his hands. The eunuch was a consumnate actor, but Tyrion judged that the fear he was showing was very real this time. "Oh, dear! I hope the Lady Asha takes no permanent harm from this!"
"So do we." Tywin's voice could have cut stone. "We know that nothing goes on in this castle without your knowledge. We want your input about who could have shoved my daughter-in-law down a flight of stairs!" At the words "shoved down a flight of stairs," Varys went even paler than before, with his eyes bugging out in a way that, under other circumstances, Tyrion would have found wonderfully funny. The eunuch was seldom caught wrong-footed, and even more seldom showed much emotion.
"Shoved…down a flight of stairs?" Varys' voice was faint.
"Yes. By great good fortune and the favor of the Mother, she landed in such a way as to not be damaged, and the maester says that her pregnancy is unaffected. We want to know who would have done it!" Tyrion's fingers flexed as he longed to have the guilty parties' necks in them, just for a few minutes.
"My lords, I…I know of nobody who would have tried to murder the Lady Asha! With your permission, I shall examine my little birds, and see what they can tell me." Varys looked from father to son, and what he saw clearly did not reassure him. "I give you my word, my lords, I shall do all I can to investigate this crime and determine the perpetrator!"
"You just do that." Tyrion had talked to Varys before, at length, about his nephew's death, and had come away convinced that the eunuch knew a great deal more than he let on to anyone. However, neither he alone, or Asha, or the two of them together, had been able to get more from the Master of Whisperers.
Later that day, Tywin and Tyrion were looking over a list of people who had been in the relevant section of the castle. "Here's that servant of Lady Tyrell, one of those two man-mountains she has with her nearly everywhere. Now, I wonder what he was doing here? This is nowhere near her quarters, and there is nothing around here that would be of interest to her, is there?"
Varys poked his head in. "My lords, forgive me, but I have found someone who claims to be a witness to the attempt on Lady Asha's life." He turned and made a gesture, and two royal guardsmen escorted a trembling maidservant into the room. Her eyes went wide when she found herself confronted by the Hand of the King and his son, and when the guards let her go, she fell to her knees.
"What is your name?" Tyrion took the lead in the questioning, knowing that people found his very strangeness rather less threatening than his formidable father. Tywin leaned back against a table, letting Tyrion do as he pleased. Tyrion knew that if his father had questions, though, he would put them to the girl himself. While his and Asha's handling of the investigation into the King's death had pleased his father, he was always aware that he would never really measure up in Tywin's eyes. Neither his father nor his sister would ever forgive him for being a dwarf or for his mother's death giving him birth.
"My name is Shivaun, may it please m'lords," the girl whispered. She was clearly terrified out of her wits, and Tyrion felt a moment's pity, which he quashed ruthlessly. He knew that Asha would have gone to any length to protect him or their child, and he felt he could do no less. Frightening this girl was nothing.
"Shivaun, there's been an attempt on my lady wife's life. You know her, or know of her. She's the ironwoman, Lady Asha Greyjoy as-was. Apparently you were very close by when it happened. Tell me what you know!"
Shivaun looked at him with huge eyes. "There's little to tell, m'lord. I was walking down a corridor with a load of laundry for the washerwomen, when I passed the Lady Asha. I paid her no mind, but then there was a loud crash from behind me, and then I heard people screaming that the Lady Asha had fallen and was hurt. I dropped the laundry and ran for help."
Tywin nodded. "Yes, you were one of the first to summon assistance. We thank you for your help, and will see that you're properly rewarded." The girl's face brightened; she didn't see the implicit threat in the Hand's words. "Properly rewarded" could just as easily mean an appointment with Ser Ilyn, if it came out that this girl was complicit in the attack on Asha, as a handful of gold coins and a promotion in the castle's hierarchy of servants.
"Were there others nearby that you noticed?" asked Tyrion.
The girl thought, scratching her head as though to stimulate her brain. Finally she came out with: "Well…there was one of those dreamy guards that follow Lady Oleanna Tyrell around. I noticed him because it's unusual to see either of them without the other, or without Lady Oleanna." She sighed, her eyes going slightly unfocussed. "If I could get one of them alone…" She licked her lips, not noticing how Tywin's mouth went tight.
"Could you tell which one it was?"
"Not really. They're so alike it's difficult to tell them from each other."
"Was there anybody else?" Tywin's eyes were hard enough to pierce diamond.
Shivaun looked at him with wide eyes. "No, my lord. At least none that I noticed."
"You may go, but we may need to call you back," said Tyrion. He looked at his father. "Father, may we speak privately?" Tywin nodded, and they repaired to a nearby room where there was at least nobody around to overhear the conversation.
"Father, Asha and I began to suspect Lady Oleanna of complicity, at least, in Joffrey's death. She was up on the platform very near him, and could easily have dropped something into the wine cup. If she got wind of our suspicions, she may have acted to rid herself of Asha."
"If she did, I don't care who she is or how old she is, I'll have her head on a spike!" snarled Tywin. "Joffrey was shaping up to be a monster, but he was my grandson, and nobody harms a member of my family without answering to me!"
Unless the person doing the harm is you, Father, thought Tyrion. But he was not unwise enough to say the words out loud.
Very soon after that, the two guards were dragged in, escorted very roughly by a combined force of royal guardsmen and ironborn. Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Ah, I see that my lady's crew has heard about her unfortunate state."
Jinjur, the lone woman among Asha's crew, snarled: "If either of these two hurt our skipper, we want first refusal on dealing with them!" The other ironborn growled, fingering their weapons. Asha was beloved by her crew, who saw her as a good-luck charm as well as a highly skilled longship captain. And the ironborn were fiercely loyal to their leaders.
Tywin raised a blond eyebrow. "If either or both of them did hurt my daughter-in-law, I promise you all on my honor as a Lannister that you will get a vengeance that your skalds will sing of for a thousand years!" The ironborn grinned ferociously. They knew enough about the Lannisters, from dealing with them and fighting them over the years, to know that that promise was sacrosanct.
The twin guards paled, tensing up as though they were about to break away. They were sat down in chairs, with the ironborn ranged behind them in a half-circle. Tywin turned to a servant, who had been watching the whole drama, fascinated. "Call Shivaun back in. We need her." A door opened, and Shivaun came in. She turned pale at the sight of Lady Oleanna's guards, and her eyes went wide. Servants generally did not like being caught up in the affairs of the mighty, for good reason. As the saying went: "When the giants fight, the grass is trampled."
"What are your names? Lady Oleanna just calls you 'Left' and 'Right,' but you have to have names." Tyrion started the interrogation.
"My name is Erryk," said the one on the left.
"And my name is Arryk," the one on the right added.
Tywin and Tyrion exchanged looks of exasperation. "Your mother lacked an imagination, I think," snarled Tywin. He reached for some paper and a pen, scribbling rapidly. When he was done, he held out labels with the names the guards had given. "Here. Take the one that has your name on it, and put it on your chest. I want to have some way of keeping track of who's speaking, at least!" Obediently, the twins put the labels on, pinning them in place with the long pins of the C-pins that held their cloaks together.
"Now that I know whom I am addressing, I have a few questions for you," Tyrion said, his voice dripping honeyed poison. "Where were you two an hour ago?"
"We were with the Lady Oleanna, m'lord," said Erryk. His brother nodded. "You can ask any of her people. They saw where we were."
Tywin and Tyrion looked at each other uneasily. If all of Lady Oleanna's people were in on this, pinning Asha's injuries on either of the twins would be much more difficult. And their identical nature would also be a dreadful handicap. "I wish that we had some of those legendary truth potions," Tyrion muttered to his father. "They would make this sort of thing much easier."
"True enough, but if either of these two did this, they were almost certainly acting on the orders of the Lady Oleanna, or to protect her." Tywin turned to Shivaun. "Can you tell me which of these two men you saw?"
Shivaun looked at them both narrowly. Finally, she pointed to Erryk. "That one. He had a cut on one cheek from shaving." Erryk paled, and made as if to rise, but two ironborn put their hands on his shoulders and forced him back into his chair.
"Even identical twins have differences, it seems," Tyrion purred. He leaned closer, speaking gently to the terrified guard. "Come on, now. We know you didn't do it because you wanted to. You'd never met the Lady Asha, as far as I can remember, so why would you want to do her harm?"
"Because he's filth! He's scum! He's the sort of lowlife who would hurt a pregnant woman!" Tywin snarled. The ironborn all growled and fingered their weapons, and even Arryk gave his twin a shocked look.
"Erryk…did you know she was pregnant?" he asked in a low voice.
Erryk was looking around, desperate for any sign of sympathy or understanding. Tyrion smiled at him, and he grasped at that like a drowning man at a straw. "I didn't know she was pregnant! Her clothes hid it!" Sweat poured down his face. "Is she going to be all right? I swear by the Seven…"
"The Lady Asha will live, and, by the grace of the Seven, so will her babe, it seems," Tyrion said, to Erryk's visible relief. "You, on the other hand…your survival depends on coming clean, right now! I'm a patient man, but I'm also a father-to-be and a husband, and my patience is getting a little thin!"
"And I am not notorious for my patience," growled Tywin. "You have a choice. You may tell us everything about this incident without pain…or with pain. The choice is yours. And I would advise choosing quickly. I don't think the Lady Asha's crew are as merciful and forgiving as I am."
Erryk visibly struggled with himself for a second, then finally broke. "I'll talk! I'll tell you what I know!" Once he was past that barrier, the words tumbled out of his mouth as though they were desperate to escape. "My lady has wanted the Lord Tyrion and Lady Asha dead for some time now. She hasn't been able to figure a way to get at the Lord Tyrion; he's surrounded by guards at all times. But the Lady Asha wanders the castle at will, and is more vulnerable. I happened upon her, saw my opportunity and took it." He paused, seeing the stony stares that Tywin and Tyrion were giving him. "Mercy, my lords! You said yourselves no permanent harm was done! You said my survival depended on coming clean, and I have! Mercy!"
"And why, I wonder, would the Lady Oleanna want the two of us dead?" Tyrion mused aloud. "Could it be something to do with the fact that we're looking into the causes of the death of my dear nephew?"
"I doubt that it's because she dislikes dwarves," Tywin said. He gave his son a rueful look. "You're just about her size!"
"And it's not like we've ever had anything to do with her before this," Tyrion answered. "I think we may have hit on the solution to the Case of the Poisoned Princeling." He turned to the guards. "Take these two out and put them in the cells. Do not permit them to speak with anyone, even each other. Then go to the Lady Oleanna Tyrell and inform her that the Hand of the King requests and requires her presence at once. No excuses for tardiness will be accepted." The guards saluted and marched Erryk and Arryk out. Arryk looked like he wanted to say something, but restrained himself.
"This is a pretty kettle of fish, as Asha would say," Tyrion muttered. "Accusing the grandmother of the Queen-elect of murdering the King? Between her age, her sex, and the fact that she's a prominent member of two powerful Houses, this could blow up in our faces!"
"And we can't be too rough with her. She's tougher than she looks, but she's also very old, and may have weaknesses we can't see. We may have to keep this whole thing strictly in-house, and put out some story for the world to hear that Joffrey choked on his wedding feast." Tywin, as always, was thinking in terms of the politics of the Great Houses, and Tyrion listened intently. His father was a cold, arrogant man who had never been good to his dwarf son, but Tyrion had never for a second underestimated his intelligence.
Shortly thereafter, the Lady Oleanna herself came in, escorted respectfully but firmly by two royal guards. She sat down across from Tywin and Tyrion, looking at them keenly. Tyrion knew that getting the truth out of her would not be easy at best.
"Well?" she snapped. "What's all this I hear about you men arresting Left and Right? I'll have you know that they're good boys, and you have no business meddling with them!" She snorted indignantly. "A fine thing, when a lady has to do without her guards because of some foolishness…"
"Oh, I don't know," Tyrion said, his voice as innocent as he could get it. "It could be because one of them was the one who pushed my lady wife Asha down the stairs in an attempt to kill her!"
"An…attempt?" Oleanna tried to recover, but that seemed to rock her back. "What do you mean, an attempt?" For a second, she looked very shifty. "Why would either of those boys want to harm the Lady Asha?"
"That was what we were wondering," Tywin said, his voice cold as stone. "By luck, there was a witness who saw what happened. Your guards are loyal, my lady, but not too bright. This one apparently saw a chance and took it. Since he has never had anything to do with the Lady Asha, he could have had no personal motive. That leaves loyalty to you, my lady. Why do you want the Lady Asha dead?"
Lady Oleanna tried to look defiant, but under their stares, she visibly shrank into her chair.
END Chapter 21