The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 25
by Technomad
Tyrion Lannister
"Well, father," Tyrion said, once Lady Oleanna had been escorted to her new quarters, "we have a problem on our hands, don't we?" He crossed over to the table and poured himself some wine.
"That we do," Tywin replied. He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands, surprising Tyrion. In all his years, he had never seen his father show so much emotion, particularly around him. "Why, why couldn't it have been a Faceless Man? Or a Sorrowful Man?"
Tyrion knew exactly what his father meant. Openly announcing that Lady Oleanna had murdered her granddaughter's new husband, the King, at his own wedding would blow up the hard-won alliance with the Tyrells, right when it was looking to bring the wars to a close. For all that he couldn't approve of the way that Tywin had dealt with the Starks, his scheme with the Freys at the Red Wedding had apparently all but decapitated the threat from the North. A few fortresses, notably the Tully stronghold at Riverrun, held out, but without their charismatic young claimant king, the Northerners would soon be under control.
Alienating the Tyrells would drive them straight back into rebellion, and there were still other rebels in the field. At the same time, letting Lady Oleanna go unpunished would not only bring dishonor to the crown and the Lannister lineage, but would rankle personally.
Tyrion had no illusions about his nephew. Joffrey had been a tyrant, as mad as the Mad King on his worst days, and Tyrion had had no intentions of returning to Kings Landing as long as his nephew sat the Iron Throne. If necessary, he would have explained to Asha that they, and the Black Wind, needed a long vacation in the Free Cities. He had always wanted to see Braavos.
Nonetheless, an attack on any Lannister was an attack on all…and this was an attack on two Lannisters, or three, if the unborn babe she bore was to be counted. At the thought of the threat to Asha's life, Tyrion found himself shaking with rage. Threats to his own life, he could deal with. Threats to Tywin or Cersei, he could bear with manly fortitude, standing aside to see how well they handled the situation. And Jaime was, or at least had been, well able to take care of business. While Asha was also, as he knew from firsthand observation, a capable combatant, she was also pregnant, and he found that instinct overwhelmed reason on that subject.
Tyrion had really been looking forward to fatherhood. He and Asha had spent happy hours discussing possible names for their child-to-be, and he had daydreamed possible futures for him or her. He imagined his son a man grown, handsome as his Uncle Jaime but far more scrupulous, winning tournaments and bringing fresh luster and laurels to the Lannister name. Or he saw his daughter, dark and beautiful as her mother, breaking men's hearts and winning a noble husband for herself.
Asha, being an ironwoman, had had different ideas. She had hoped that their child, of either sex, would take to the sea and follow in its mother's footsteps, possibly inheriting the Black Wind one day and becoming a legendary seafarer. He had caught her talking to her babe, when she didn't know he was nearby, telling him or her long rambling stories of great ironborn sea explorers and raiders, and expressing hope that her babe would do things that cast them all into the shadows. Tyrion knew that Asha would have been rather embarassed to be caught acting in such a silly way, so he had quietly slipped away.
The door opened, and a servant came in. "My lords? The Lady Asha is awake, and would like to speak to her husband." At that, Tyrion suddenly was galvanized; he jumped out of his chair and hurried for the door, hardly noticing the way his father looked after him with a strange, almost wistful look in his eyes.
Asha Greyjoy Lannister
Asha was comfortable, but she knew that was partly due to the extract of milk-of-poppy that the maesters had dosed her with. She'd had broken bones and other injuries before. Life in the Iron Islands was rough, even for nobles, and life at sea was also no place for a shrinking violet. She nestled back in the comfortable cushions surrounding her, and awaited her husband's arrival.
The servants hovered over her in a way that no Iron Islands thralls ever would have. Muzzily, she wondered if her people's custom of taking thralls was really all that well-thought-out. She had heard of people dying, or taking longer to recover than they would have on the mainland, and suspicions that thrall neglect or outright mis-treatment might be to blame. The servants were much more conscientious than thralls would have been.
Tyrion appeared by her bedside. "Asha? Are you awake?" The concern and worry on his face touched her. She had never had that sort of concern for her before she married. Her relatives were generally indifferent, or downright hostile, and while her crew would have died for her, they would have been horribly embarassed to hover over her the way Tyrion would if she allowed it.
"Yes, love. I'm awake. And you're here, which is all I needed to complete my happiness," she mumbled. "The maesters told me that our baby is unharmed, so as soon as they let me, I'll be up out of this bed looking for whoever pushed me." Her face twisted into an ominous-seeming smile. "And when I find him, or her, I have some plans!"
"We're miles ahead of you, darling. It was Erryk, one of Lady Oleanna's bookend bodyguards. He did it because Lady Oleanna was getting nervous about our investigations. Damn me for a fool," Tyrion's face twisted in disgust, "I should have insisted you have guards at all times! I knew there was at least one killer in this castle! This is all my fault!"
Asha bent her sternest "captain's" gaze on her husband. "Don't you dare blame yourself, my love! I could have had some of my crew with me, but I was overconfident and didn't think I needed them! The blame goes entirely to Lady Oleanna's guard." Then she narrowed her eyes as she thought about what Tyrion had said. "And why would Lady Oleanna in particular be nervous?"
Tyrion gestured, and all the guards and servants left, giving him some privacy with his wife. "She was the one who poisoned the King!" Even though they were alone in the chamber, his voice was low, and his eyes flicked around uneasily. Asha remembered Varys and his "little birds," and understood her love's unease. This was the sort of information that could blow things right up!
"So what do we do about it?" Asha had a sharp, practical mind, and even through the milk-of-poppy fog, she was quickly turning over options. Openly accusing Lady Oleanna was right out. The royal faction needed the Tyrells, badly. Even Joffrey's death hadn't done much to change that; the wheels were turning to wed young Tommen to Lady Margaery as soon as could be. An open rift would be an invitation to everybody who'd been in rebellion to rise up again, and the whole weary war would be to do again. And winter was coming.
Asha was no Stark, and hated the whole family for, as she saw it, stealing her only surviving brother away. However, she was no fool, and she could see the signs that winter was on its way. The war had already done dreadful damage to the Westeros mainland; stocks of food that had been piled up during the long summer had been used up, or in some cases, destroyed, during the fighting. Without that, the smallfolk would starve, and even the nobles would be on short rations.
So, open accusation of the guilty party was unthinkable. But there were other options. "She's awfully old, isn't she? Her dropping off the twig wouldn't surprise anybody, now would it?"
Tyrion nodded. They shared a predatory grin. "However, I don't think she's the only person in on this, whatever she may say. Keeping her alive is the only way to find out if there's more to this than just a plot aimed at putting Joffrey out of the way."
"So hideous vengeance will have to wait." Asha snuggled back down into the pillows. "And I think I'm just about worn out. I want to sleep some more, and recover my strength." Her eyes drifted shut, and she felt Tyrion kiss her lightly on the cheek. She smiled as she fell back into sleep, knowing that she would have lovely dreams, starring herself, her husband, and a bunch of unorthodox places for making love.
Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion had not looked forward to telling his sister the truth about what had befallen her precious oldest boy, her golden prince, the apple of her eye. He hadn't been wrong about her reaction. Cersei's rage and fury was awe-inspiring. If Lady Oleanna hadn't been guarded by people with strict orders to let nobody at all past who was not personally carrying orders signed by the Hand of the King, Tyrion wouldn't have given a bent copper coin for the Tyrell matriarch's chances of seeing the sun set.
"That hideous old hag, that shrivelled old witch, dared to lay her hands on my Joffrey?" she hissed. Even though the servants had been ordered away, she did still have just enough self-control to keep herself from raising her voice and announcing the truth to the whole castle in a full-throated shriek. Cersei's face twisted into a terrifying smile. "Let me at her. That's all I'm asking. Five minutes, that's all. Surely you can let me have that, can't you?" Her fingers twisted into claws. Tyrion was rather glad that this time, at least, her fury was not directed at him.
"I understand how you feel, Cersei. For once, we're on the same side. Let us not forget, she…or her guard, acting on what he believed were her wishes…tried to kill my pregnant wife!" Cersei paused in her pacing to look at Tyrion as though she had never seen her youngest brother before. Then she collapsed into a chair as though she were a puppet with the strings suddenly cut.
"Yes…you're right, aren't you, Tyrion?" She gave a strange, strained laugh. "I never thought of it that way! Who'd ever think that we would have the same goals?" She shook her head as though she were a horse bedeviled by flies.
"For one thing, we daren't let this blow up into a public scandal. There are far too many people who rebelled recently who might take that as a signal to rise up again, oaths or no oaths." Tywin had been watching the byplay between his children, but took this as his signal to join in the conversation.
"Are you saying we let her walk free?" Cersei's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she stepped closer to her father, raising her hand as though to strike. Tywin fixed her with an unblinking stare, daring her to make good her threat, and after a second, she subsided. Tyrion sighed inwardly; he had long thought that his sister would have been much improved by being treated like bread dough; punching her down at the first rising would have improved her attitude enormously, in his opinion.
"Did I say that?" Tywin stood up to his full height, towering over his daughter and son alike. His voice was soft and menacing, and Cersei visibly quailed. For all her bravado, she never could forget for long that she lived in a world dominated by men, and if her feminine wiles or queenly rank did not avail, she could be beaten as easily as a peasant wife in a cottage. "Did I say one solitary word that gave you that foolish impression?"
"Then what do you think we should do?" Tyrion was turning over alternatives in his mind, and unable to decide on one. "Killing her would be very easy. After all, she's about ninety or so, and old ladies do die."
"Oooh!" Cersei was clearly taken by this idea. "Let me do it, Father, please! I won't need a dagger or poison! All I'll need is my bare hands!" Her hands twisted together as though Lady Oleanna's throat were between them, and her expression would have frightened the Silent Sisters. "I'll take my time, and let her find out how much fun it is to be strangled!"
Tyrion flashed on an image of Cersei kneeling on Lady Oleanna's chest, her hands gripping the old lady's neck with insane strength, as the Queen prolonged the suffering, playing with her victim as though she were a cat with a mouse she particularly hated. He didn't mind that idea much…until he reminded himself that Cersei was by no means the only injured party in this affair.
"Before you get too wrapped up in daydreams of hideous vengeance, sweet sister, do please remember that you are not the only person with a claim on dear Lady Oleanna," Tyrion drawled, in tones calculated to snap his sister out of her fantasies. And it worked. Nobody knew better how to manipulate Cersei than Tyrion. She whirled on her brother, her eyes blazing with fury. Before she could do anything, Tyrion went on: "I should also remind you that my wife is alive and well, and growing stronger by the minute. Do you remember the last time you and she tangled?"
As he had known it would, that took the wind out of Cersei's sails. She went pale, and sank down in a chair. "Then what can we do? What can I do?" she said softly, before she broke down weeping as though her heart were broken. "My Joffrey's dead! He's dead! I'll never see him again!" She burst out in a full-throated howl: "I want Joffrey!"
Against his will, Tyrion felt a rush of empathy for his sister. He'd hated Cersei all his life, but her suffering was patently real and poignant, and as a father-to-be himself, he could imagine the pain that he'd feel if his child were to die before him, particularly if he had to watch, helpless to do anything. His throat ached with sadness. If Cersei had been anybody else, he would have tried to comfort her. He felt that no matter what Cersei had done, she had not deserved this.
Tyrion and his father exchanged helpless looks. Their family had not run much to affection since Tyrion's mother had died, and neither of them knew what to do for Cersei. Tyrion wished their mother was there. Not for the first time, he bitterly regretted her death. Had she lived, Tyrion thought that Cersei would have been much less of a poisonous serpent, and her relationship with Jaime would have been on a healthier basis.
Just then, Jaime came in. Less inhibited than his father and brother, he sat down beside Cersei, taking her in his arms. She clung to her twin, sobbing helplessly, as Jaime tried to comfort her. Tyrion remembered that Jaime had also suffered a great loss, and, unlike Cersei, couldn't even acknowledge it publicly for fear of disgrace overtaking him, his sister and their surviving children. He had to grieve in solitude.
Tyrion wondered who had told Jaime that he was needed, then his eyes widened with shock. Asha was standing in the door, unsteady on her feet and barely able to keep her eyes open, but clearly tracking and aware of what was going on. He rushed to her, leading his wife over to a chair. "Asha! You shouldn't be up! Why aren't you in bed?"
"When the ship is in danger…the captain must be on deck!" Asha mumbled. She focussed on Tyrion, her dark eyes suddenly sharp and clear. "My good-brother was in seeing to my well-being, and I thought that his sister would need him. I came along because I want in on the discussion of what's to be done!"
"That was well done, Asha," Tywin said. He came over and took Asha's hand, bowing over it as though to kiss it. "We are privileged to have you as a member of our family." From Tywin, this was all but unheard of, and Tyrion tried not gape at his father.
Asha gave her good-father a rather fuzzy smile. "The privilege was all mine, my lord. Tyrion is everything I ever wanted in a husband, and married life suits me down to the ground."
"Now that we're all here," Tyrion took charge, steering the conversation back to where it was supposed to be, "maybe we can decide about what to do about Lady Oleanna. And the Tyrells. How to best punish Lady Oleanna without alienating the Tyrells unnecessarily?"
Tywin looked thoughtful. "I'd suggest that we put out, for public consumption, the story that Joffrey was poisoned by a die-hard adherent of one of the defeated rebel factions. Maybe a follower of Renly Baratheon. His people scattered after his death, and some of them may have come to Kings Landing. We had to hire on many extra servants for the wedding, and screening wasn't necessarily as thorough as it could have been. Someone with local connections who would vouch for him as a loyal subject of the crown could have slipped through our scrutiny. How does that sound?"
Tywin chewed this over, and Asha looked thoughtful as well. She was visibly shaking off the effects of the milk-of-poppy; the maesters were sparing in its use, not wanting to engender dependency on the drug in anyone. "That sounds plausible. Many members of the defeated factions could be out there, and pinning this crime on a faction as throughly defeated as 'King Renly' will cut down on potential blowback against House Lannister, or the Throne itself."
"That just leaves us with the question of what to do with Lady Oleanna," Jaime pointed out. He'd been comforting his grief-stricken sister, but he was listening carefully to the conversation. Tyrion reminded himself that Jaime was probably just about as intelligent as he was; he just had less occasion to show it. Had Tyrion been born tall and straight and handsome, he rather thought that he and his older brother would be two peas in a pod, tourney champions and godlike figures to the smallfolk. But things were as they were, Tyrion was what he was, and there was no changing reality. And he had things Jaime didn't - couldn't - have. Like a wife who loved him dearly and acknowledged, legitimate children on the way.
"Anything we do to her we'll have to justify to the Tyrells," Tyrion said. "They'd take it ill if we hauled their matriarch off to Casterly Rock and threw her into an ouiblette, no matter what she'd done to deserve it!"
"But we dare not put her on public trial, dare we?" Tywin looked worried, and Tyrion knew just why. Putting the revered matriarch of House Tyrell on trial for regicide and attempted murder would precipitate just the sort of horrible scandal that they were trying to avoid.
"We'll have to level with the Tyrells," Tyrion said. "If they understand why we're doing what we're doing, they'll almost certainly object less."
"If I'd done anything so egregrious, I think my father would have had my head off with his own hands," Asha remarked. "We'll have to tell them the truth, and swear them to secrecy."
With that, the meeting broke up.
END Chapter 25