The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 37
by Technomad
Tyrion Lannister
It was officially a day of sorrow in Kings Landing. The dead from the sea battle were being laid to rest, and the Great Sept of Baelor was crammed with mourners. The huge building was hung with black banners, and sorrowful music echoed off the rafters.
Along with the rest of the royal family, Tyrion and Asha sat in the frontmost seats, facing the altar and the pulpit from which the High Septon would deliver the eulogies. Tyrion gazed at the nearest coffin. It was draped with a banner combining the golden rampant lion on a red background of the Lannisters with the black stag rampant on a yellow background of the Baratheons.
For so many years, he had dreamed of this day. At long, long last, he was rid of his pestilential sister! She had made his life a misery for as far back as he could remember, out of nothing but hatefulness and malice. She blamed him for their mother's death. Tyrion regretted their mother's death more than words could say, because he had always had the idea that if their mother had lived, she would have been able to rein in Cersei's behavior, and possibly had her fostered somewhere well out of range of Casterly Rock.
If Cersei had grown up under the tutelage of a noble lady who was not prepared to tolerate her shenanigans, she might have been a decent human being. As it was, Tyrion strongly suspected her of being a murderess, and knew perfectly well that she'd been their brother's incestuous lover for years.
Tyrion didn't blame Jaime for that liaison. Ever since his older siblings had been born, Cersei had led Jaime around by the nose, and the unhealthy closeness between them had made it easy for her to seduce her brother. That was another thing that could have been headed off, had both Cersei and Jaime been fostered out separately, a good long distance from each other.
Without that liaison, Jaime might well have refused to join the Kingsguard, although saying "no" to the Mad King was not something to be done lightly. He had always been an anomaly in their ranks. Most of the Kingsguard were younger sons, men with no realistic prospect of inheriting lands or titles from their families. Tyrion privately thought that the Kingsguard and the Night's Watch had a lot in common, but knew better than to say so out loud. The Kingsguard saw itself as an elite, while the Night Watch was seen as a place for those with nowhere else they could go.
Beside Tyrion, Asha stirred. The High Septon was stepping up to the pulpit, and the formal service was about to begin.
Asha Greyjoy Lannister
Asha was privately rather amused. Beside Cersei's coffin lay another coffin, draped in a Greyjoy banner, black with a golden kraken embroidered on it. In it lay Euron Greyjoy, the Crow's Eye, soi-disant King of the Iron Isles.
Since the ironborn usually practiced burial at sea, Asha knew that Euron would have been taken aback, at the least, to find that he'd be spending eternity in a tomb on land. She had made sure, at least, that there would be a sealed container of sea water in his crypt with him, if only to keep him from rising from the grave and seeking out whoever had treated his remains in a way he found displeasing.
However, she wasn't sorry at all that her nuncle was dead. Euron Crow's Eye had been the embodiment of the Old Ways of the islands, and his sick, sadistic ways had worried Asha. Not that she cared much for Euron's victims. She was too much an ironborn to give a fig about such things. But Euron's indiscriminate raiding could easily have brought retribution down on the Iron Islands as a whole, and not just on him as an individual.
Asha never let herself forget the time when Balon Greyjoy had tried raising his standard as an independent king, not long after Robert Baratheon's accession to the throne. Balon had fatally misread the situation on the Westerosi mainland, and had thought that Robert's position would be too precarious to allow him to dispute Balon's independence. He had found out how wrong he was the hard way. He had lost several sons, and his capital city and citadel were both taken out from under him. Only his willingness to bend the knee to his conqueror had saved him.
The Iron Islands were the smallest, and poorest, of the Seven Kingdoms. Once, long long ago, before the coming of the accursed Targaryens, the Ironborn had been able to take advantage of their mastery of sea warfare to take control of large chunks of the Westerosi mainland. The Targaryens' dragons had ended that. No Ironborn could ever forget, or forgive, the Targaryens' destruction of King Harren's mighty fortress of Harrenhal.
Asha had never seen Harrenhal, but she'd heard it described often enough. Even half-ruined, it was one of the most formidable castles in Westeros, and after its fall it had been the property of one ambitious lordling after another. But the tops of the mighty towers were half-melted, never-failing reminders of the incredible heat of dragons' breath. Aegon the Conqueror had burned Harren Hoare and his sons and almost all of his followers in one night, with the help of his dragon Balerion, the Black Dread.
Asha's thoughts turned to Daenerys Targaryen. The "Dragon Queen" was currently being held in the Red Keep. She was treated with courtesy, and kept in comfort, but it had been made very, very clear to her that any sign of an attack by her three dragons, whether on Kings Landing or elsewhere, would result in her instant death. She was watched every second, in case she had some way of communicating with her deadly "children." She had been searched to the skin by knowledgable septas, and was wearing clothing provided for her instead of what she had worn when captured, just as a further precaution.
The High Septon was beginning his sermon. Asha turned her attention to the prelate, dismissing other thoughts from her mind. For the moment, she had to be a good Lannister wife, and that meant at least the pretense of godliness.
Tyrion Lannister
It took all of Tyrion's lifetime of practice at self-control to keep him from breaking out in uncontrollable giggling at the things the High Septon said about his sister. To hear the prelate, Cersei had been a devoted, dutiful daughter, an obedient, submissive wife whose sole concern had been her husband's well-being, a loving, attentive mother to her children, and in all ways, a Queen equal in all ways to the greatest royal consorts ever to walk the earth of Westeros.
He glanced over at his father and brother. Tywin's face was unreadable. While he knew that Tywin had had few, if any, illusions about Cersei's true nature, Tywin would never have let on that he knew any such inconvenient truths. At least, not in public. Even so, Tyrion felt the unfamiliar sensation of pity for his father. He'd had to bury the wife he had loved, and now he was burying one of his children. The thought of having one of his own beautiful twin children pre-decease him gave Tyrion cold chills.
Beside Tywin, Jaime's face was twisted with grief. Alone of all their immediate family, he sincerely mourned Cersei. Tyrion loved his brother, and seeing him in such pain tore at him, making him feel guilty. Even though he'd had nothing to do with Cersei's death, he still felt responsible. If he'd managed to keep Cersei from meeting Euron Crow's Eye, she'd have stayed safely in Kings Landing. And she'd have been alive that very minute.
Tyrion noticed that on the other side of Jaime, Brienne of Tarth was seated. The Maid of Tarth looked surprisingly elegant in a set of men's clothes. She was there at Jaime's request. "She helped me, kept me alive, and delivered me back here when I'd have probably died otherwise. A Lannister always pays his debts, and I owe her a debt all but impossible to repay!" he had roared, when the protocol maester had dared to object to her accompanying him to this ceremony. The maester had cringed from his rage, and had given up his objections hurriedly.
One thing Jaime shared with Tywin was a flinty devotion to principle. While he'd had no problem sleeping with his own twin sister and cuckolding his royal brother-in-law, Tyrion knew that he would repay a debt as surely as any Lannister ever born.
Listening with half an ear to the High Septon's long-winded platitudes in meretricious praise of his dead sister, Tyrion considered the possiblity of marrying Jaime to Brienne of Tarth. The more he examined that idea, the more he liked it.
Brienne of Tarth was no beauty, but Tyrion knew that after Cersei, Jaime was not going to be swayed by beauty alone. From all he had been able to find out, Brienne of Tarth was far more of an exemplar of the ideals of knighthood than any of the knights he had met...and that included his brother, for all of Jaime's former glory and glamor. While many knights mouthed the words of honor, duty and courage, Brienne lived them.
She'd also shown that she cared a lot about Jaime. It would have been very easy for her to abandon him after his hand was severed, but instead, she'd done all she could to keep him alive, make him feel that there was a reason for continuing to live, and brought him back to Kings Landing, even knowing that the welcome she would get was far from certain.
Tyrion began thinking, hard. He'd have to talk their father around to it, but he thought that if Tywin could be brought on-side, getting the laws about the Kingsguard having to be celibate and having to serve for life could be easily repealed. Unlike his hateful older brother, King Tommen was easily led by the adults around him, and would sign what they put in front of him without demur.
Tyrion wasn't sure that Jaime wanted to leave the Kingsguard. From things he'd heard his brother say, Jaime felt that the Kingsguard needed to be reformed. Too many of its members were of dubious origins at best, and their skills and loyalty, in Jaime's eyes, were questionable. But Tyrion felt that Jaime, and, for that matter, the rest of the Kingsguard, could guard the King just as well if they were married.
Allowing them to marry would attract a better class of recruits, as would allowing Kingsguard knights to serve for a term of years, rather than for life. That way, instead of being a dead end, the Kingsguard could be made into a badge of honor for ambitious young knights eager to make names for themselves. The sons of the highest lords could be recruited, to bind them closer to the Iron Throne, and meet more eligible marriage prospects. While the firstborn sons would probably not be interested, their younger brothers often had little to look forward to, and an outlet like the Kingsguard might be just the place for them. That way, they could be kept out of mischief and intrigues.
Tyrion made up his mind. After the obsequies were over, and Cersei and Euron were safely entombed, he'd have a talk with his father. And Asha, of course. Every day since his engagement, he had blessed the fates that threw him and Asha together and made them man and wife. Asha often saw sides of things that he did not, and could point out weaknesses in his ideas that he had overlooked. However, he was pretty sure that on this, they'd see eye-to-eye.
From things his wife had said, Asha seemed to not have much regard for how the Kingsguard was organized. And he knew that Asha was so happy being married that she wanted others to share that joy. She also sorrowed over the loss of her good-brother's hand, and had given him some good ideas about what he could do with the rest of his life. Jaime clearly liked and respected her, and honored her for making his little brother so happy. He'd listen to her, Tyrion decided.
Asha Lannister
Up in the pulpit, the High Septon had finally finished painting Cersei as a saint as holy as Baelor the Blessed, and turned to the subject of Euron Crow's Eye. Asha could hardly wait to see how much whitewash it would take to make her late relative into a person fit for anywhere but the locals' Seven Hells...or the clutches of the Storm God.
Rather to her surprise, the prelate didn't go into any detail about Euron being a good, virtuous man. He's probably afraid that one of his precious Seven would strike him down where he stands for telling lies that blatant in the Great Sept itself! Asha thought. Instead, the High Septon admitted that Euron had done grevious wrongs in his life, but pointed out that he had always been a courageous seaman and fearless fighter, daring to sail his ship to places and into seas that no other captain would have dared to enter.
Asha had to admit that part was perfectly true. She'd been under no illusions whatsoever about her nuncle, and had known that, niece or no niece, she'd have been in danger of her virtue if she'd been stupid enough to give him an opportunity...and that he'd have no problems killing her if she resisted. However, she had to admit that even discounting a lot of what he said as bragging, he had been an extraordinarily skilled seaman and ship captain, even by the very high standards of the ironborn.
After dwelling on Euron's travels and adventures (suitably cleaned up for the occasion, Asha noticed with a secret smile) the High Septon started in on Euron's final exploits. To hear him tell it, Euron had known somehow about the "Dragon Queen" and her planned attack, and had sailed straight for Kings Landing to put himself and his ship and skills into the service of the Iron Throne.
The mad, forbidden love between Euron and Cersei was glossed over with a brief reference to a "proposed match with a member of the Royal House." While that was true enough, as far as it went, Asha noted that to those unfamiliar with the people being referred to, it sounded like one of the "nothing personal, just business" arrangements that noble and royal families routinely made among themselves, to seal alliances or to gain power or land.
Asha figured that Euron would have wanted Cersei, and Cersei, Euron, even if neither of them had a rag of property or power to their names. In some ways, she regretted that they couldn't have married. Her private opinion, which she'd only shared with Tyrion in the privacy of their marriage bed, was "My nuncle and your sister marrying is a wonderful idea. That way, only two people are miserable, instead of four." Tyrion had laughed and agreed completely. She knew that Cersei had made Robert a dreadfully bad wife, even without the systematic infidelity. Cold, rejecting, and unloving, she'd been a wonderful argument for lifelong bachelorhood.
But it looked like the High Septon was winding down, at long, long last. Asha thought that he was a long-winded, pompous ass, and that any truths that came out of his mouth did so purely by accident. Still and all, she had to admit that he looked the part well, and at least, wasn't so fat that he couldn't walk. When his new crystal crown was completed, he would look every inch the leader of the Faith of the Seven.
Tyrion Lannister.
At long, long last, the High Septon had finally run out of comforting lies to tell. He wound up his eulogy in a way Tyrion found surprisingly appropriate. Maybe he'll not be the empty space the last High Septon was? "And so, my brothers and sisters, we join the rest of Kings Landing in bidding a bitter farewell to those we loved. Today, all of Kings Landing is as one. From the Red Keep down to the lowliest dwellings in Flea Bottom, people grieve the loss of those who were taken from us in the Battle of the Straits. While we mourn their loss, we rejoice in their victory, and we can be sure that were they here, they would rejoice with us. Go in peace, in the name of the Seven."
Tyrion had to admit that the High Septon's last statement was nothing but the truth. All through Kings Landing, funerals were being held, and every sept was packed with mourners. The Silent Sisters were stretched to the uttermost to deal with all the dead, and had called back even long-retired members of their order to help out.
If the Ironborn had not preferred burial at sea, Tyrion knew that things would be even more strained. He mentally blessed whichever priest of the Drowned God had decreed that faithful followers of that god should be buried at sea, particularly if the sea was where they had died.
He knew that Euron Crow's Eye had scoffed privately at the Drowned God, and at all other gods. "I am the godliest man in the world!" Euron had boasted once to Tyrion, when deep in his cups. "My cousin, the Damphair, serves one god, but I have served hundreds, if not thousands!" He had leaned forward, his blue lips twisting in a terrifying grin. "When men see my sails at sea...they pray!"
As Tyrion stood, along with his family, Silent Sisters came in to carry the coffins to their tombs, he reflected that Euron's boast was not such a big thing. Tyrion knew some others who were just as much, and as justly, feared. Gregor Clegane came to mind. He kept his thoughts from his face with the ease of long practice as he joined his family, offering Asha his arm as they followed the coffins out to where the tombs awaited.
Euron's and Cersei's tombs were near each other, but not indecorously so. Each was decorated with the arms of their occupants' noble house, and the tops were inscribed with the names of those who were within. Cersei's read:
Cersei Lannister Baratheon
Queen of the Seven Kingdoms
Mother of Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella
"The Sea Lioness."
Euron's inscription ran:
Euron Greyjoy
King of the Iron Isles (in fealty)
Savior of Kings Landing
Victor over the Invader
Captain of the Silence.
To the haunting tune of a mourning hymn sung by the Great Sept's choir, both coffins were put in their tombs, and the tops were ceremonially sealed shut. Eventually, there would be statues of both Cersei and Euron, by command of the King (through his Hand), in honor of their victory. When the funeral was finally over, Tyrion and Asha went back on up to the Red Keep.
When they were there, they were pounced on by a terrified servant. "Your pardon, my lords, my lady, but something has arrived! You must see this, as quickly as possible!" "What is it?" Tyrion was instantly on alert. While the main threats were dealt with as far as he knew, he was always aware that some new awful thing could come at any time. "Please, come!" Along with Tywin, Jaime, and Brienne of Tarth, Tyrion and Asha hurried down to where the new arrival was. When Tyrion saw it, he drew in his breath in horror.