Chapter 7

Celebrating Murdering Children

I own nothing, only playing in others sand boxes. This is the last chapter that has any relation to the Wizard of Harrenhal. From here on out there's a lot of death, violence, perhaps even humour if I can get my funny bone to re engage with the story. Be warned there are lots of deaths in this chapter that most might not like, however I'm keeping with DisobedienceWriters ending for AU 2 in the Wizard of Harrenhal as it was the ending that gave me the idea for this story. Hopefully some will stick with me even if they don't like it. Also sorry for not putting this out earlier, got busy and distracted even though it was finished a few days after the last post.

Tywin

One long meeting with the bald old falcon was more than enough to put Tywin off his dinner. Reading what Little finger did to the finances of the realm was more than he expected. Tywin expected to see that it was his stupid goodson that was spending the realm into debt or his daughter spending on trivialities. It was little wonder to Tywin that they received as much money back as they had since most of it came from the money that Little Finger squirrelled away.

Deciding that it would be better for him if he just went to sleep for the night rather than trying to deal with his daughter again. Tywin went to the chambers that were made available to him. Upon entering he saw his brother.

"Tywin." Kevan greets Tywin while drinking straight from the decanter. This action has Tywin raising his eyebrow. This was not a normal action for his brother.

"Kevan. Learn something more I should know?"

"Yes. Tywin. Fuck it all. Tywin, it's true. Every damn word the spy said is true." Tywin's face pales with this news.

"How sure are you of that?"

"Very. The maid arrived while I was still there talking to her. I was most thorough. I even asked for the names of the guards, I then questioned the guards. Tywin they had orders to rape her to death. If I could get away with it I would kill all the Lannister guards here in King's landing. If it wouldn't be noticed I would. That girl has so corrupted them they are no longer Lannister guards." Kevan says draining the decanter and moving on to the next one.

This news startles Tywin more. How could his children be this stupid. Cuckolding the king in his own city. Tywin just hopes that it wasn't in his own bed. However knowing now how stupid his children are that could be a big possibility.

"Please tell me you at least silenced the maid?" Tywin asks.

"Of course I did. I'm not a moron like your children. I slipped her some Tears of Lys, while the spy master Tyrion hired wasn't looking. I'm tempted to silence her too but we need her. The news she has on the Targaryen children is more up to date than anything for our other spy's." Tywin rubs his temples at this. Knowing he can't kill the women while she still is getting good information.

"Kevan, go to bed. We can talk about this more on the morrow. Hopefully then we can figure a way to get Jaime away from Cersei."

Once Kevan left Tywin readied himself for sleep and fell into a restless sleep. In the morning everything looked just as bad as the previous night.

In the two weeks that Tywin has been in the capital, nothing he said to Jon Arryn would change his mind about having Jaime on the King Guard. He couldn't even talk to his son since the fat fool had taken him out on the hunt with him.

Trying to talk to Cercei was a lesson in frustration. All that woman could think of was that she is the queen and can do what she wants because of that. Cercei wouldn't even think about lowering her spending. Such an unlannister thing to do. Lannister's know better than to get into debt, and they definitely knew how to save. Tywin didn't know where he went wrong with his twins but it had to be somewhen around the time his lovely wife died.

During this time Tywin thought about remarrying to produce competent heirs. However he couldn't bring himself to replace the love of his life. Tywin knew he would have to distance himself from his eldest children so the blowback from this scandal didn't fall on him. Tywin could only hope that the king didnt find out about it until after Tywin left the city. If ever.

Jon Arryn

That old lion was a right bastard every meeting they had Tywin tried to make it about Jon stepping down and him becoming the hand again. Saying he can raign his daughter in, control the fat king, fix Kings Landing. In Jon's opinion the old lion was an idiot. No one could raign the king in, control the wasteful queen. Too many meetings, too much time spent with a murderer, too much time worrying about the mountain and making sure the servants know to stay away from him.

While planning the royal celebration for the victory over the Targaryens Jon goes into the wine cellars, not trusting this task to any of his subordinates. The cellar supervisor and attendants were quite shocked at his arrival. In the history of King's Landing, no other Lord Hand had ever stepped a foot in the wine cellars. Always ordering it through a servant

"We're having a feast soon in honour of the anniversary of the King's victory as you should know. I wonder which are the rarest casks we have on hand? As well as that we need to make sure there is enough wine and ale for all the nobles of the court, the only other visiting lord's are Lords Tywin and Kevan Lannister and the three lords from Crack Claw point. We should only need slightly more than the normal amount for a feast." Jon asks staring at the ugly man that was in charge.

It was the right question to ask. Cellarers loved to talk about the content of their cellars. Jon marked out several for the feast, but the most special one was rare, from Norvos. He sampled it and declared he'd never had its equal before. "This will be the centrepiece. It's quite rare that the Norvosi allow their wines to leave their shores."

"Yes, Lord Hand. This was one of a bribe given to the Conciliator in hopes he would marry one of his daughters to the then Norvosi prince" Jon just nodded at this. It was well known that the Conciliator King Jaehaerys had been given many bribes to marry off his children to the princes of Essos.

"Have it sent to my solar. I'll keep an eye on it, so it survives until the feast. I have no idea how you managed to keep it from disappearing."

The cellarer, who is as excited as Jon felt, smiles an almost toothless smile, those teeth that he did have were broken and rotten. "I discovered it in a mostly unused cellar a few sennight ago, a cellar the cooks have started to use to hold their vinegar. I needed to check if there was anything in there that should be in another part of the cellar. I had to go back to the ledgers to find out what it was. It was the last cask of the thirty acquired in the bribe. No one's even wiped away the dust in at least three decades. absolutely caked in it, it was"

Jon nods extremely pleased. He has a surprise that no one at the feast could pass up. No one thinks Norvos and good wine, but this one is, but Jon had known from his travelling days that Norvos had some of the best wines he had ever tasted. It would be a particular surprise and treat for the feast.

As Jon reentered his rooms in the tower of the hand, he brought out the trunk that held the vials of poison from Baelish's whore house. While waiting for the cask to be brought up from the cellar, Jon read the information sheets that were with the poisons. choosing the unscented and slow acting and clear poisons, Jon places a drop of ink on the corks. Once the cask arrived he drank a few glasses of the pure wine while doing some of the paper work he has for the Vale. Making additional room in the cask, then more than replaced what he'd taken with the poisons. Jon is no master of poisons, but he thought he'd done enough. Hopes that it is more than enough. Those he wanted to save were away from the capital, those he most wanted gone were here waiting for the feast.

The feast began two nights later. The grand hall was bright, smoky, and hot. The food came in wave after wave of enormous portions. Most of the meat came from the animals that Robert has managed to hunt in the past two sennight. Robert, not having come back to the city until the day before the feast, has killed a lot of animals, but not the one he sought the most. The white hart has been as elusive as all ways. There is much laughter and much joking that involves little fingers somewhere along the way, especially those drunk lords that know Jon is in hearing range. It not being a secret any more what his wife and that man had planned as things went in court. The Lords are enjoying themselves more than they had expected to.

Two hours into the feast Jon stood and waves at a particular servant of his. A cask holder on wheels with the large wine cask upon it was rolled into the room. Jon looked to his old foster-son, Robert Baratheon, and began explaining the history of the cask, its origins and its age and its delicious properties.

He walked to it with a small glass and took the first drink. "Delicious," He proclaims. He looks back at King Robert. "Today we drink for you, Your Grace, and the peace you have brought to the realm."

The room thrumming with happiness. Robert roars back something undoubtedly about his victory. The servants in the room descend on the cask and make a particular show of filling the wine glasses, which were quite expensive to make, carrying them out to the guests. The King and Queen are of course first, followed by the various lords, then the Sers, then everyone else which means the richest merchants in King's Landing.

The first unexpected issue came then though not truly unexpected since he is as spoiled as Queen Cersei. Joffrey Baratheon, seated at the Royal childrens table just below the dias where the head table sat, demanding a glass. "Father, I want some of the Norvosi wine. Make the old hand give me one." Robert looks at Jon and waves his hand. A drunkard wasn't concerned about making more drunkards. Jon nods to the servants, not noticing that the servants also gave Myrcella and Tommen glasses as well. Little Robert came up to Jon.

"May I try it please? Myrcella and Tommen also got glasses." He is whining, of course, which was more than normal behaviour for his proclaimed son. Jon looks to the childrens table where young Robert comes from. Yes, that open seat was next to Myrcella Baratheon. Neither young Robert nor Myrcella wore their true bastard's names.

"Fine. Let me get you a glass. but just the one. Your mother would have my hide if I gave you more. You can have watered mead after this." Jon says to the boy. Jon pours it himself for the boy. Young Robert grinned before he gulping it down at once, then coughing from the shock of the potent wine. Nothing comes up though. The wine stays down, the boy must be like his true father.

"Back to your seat. and behave while you are with the royal children" Jon says no longer caring what happens fully expecting not to survive the sennight.

Jon limits himself to just the one glass of the wine, it's more than enough. He notes that King Robert has a dozen of the small glasses. Queen Cersei has almost as many. Twelve was just gluttony, but a glutton would do as he or she wanted. This is what the king and queen of the seven kingdoms were reduced to utter gluttons. Even Tywin and his brother have three in front of each of them

He saw some of the Kingsguard sneaking sips Jon was pleased to note that Ser Arys didn't partake and shot glares at his brothers in white, Ser Barristan being another who refrained but the man has not taken to drink since just after the battle at the Red Fork. Jon looks especially at the others on the Small Council. Pycelle and Varys both indulged, as was the expectation, though Varys had had to be bullied into attending the feast. He seemed not to enjoy such large gatherings. Couldn't be a spider spinning its webs in the shadows if one was forced into the light.

Even Renly Baratheon has two glasses in front of him as well as his not so secret paramore the Knight of Flowers, Loras Tyrell has glasses in front of him. This would aggravate the Fat Flower Mace and his mother, the Queen of thorns, Ollena. The Fat Flower has two other sons both much better than their instupid brother, much smarter as well.

The Mountain that would soon die, has six glasses in front of him, while his brother the Hound Joffrey's sworn sword has none but is most definitely eyeing up the Mountain about to crumble. Jon knows about the hatred that has festered between the two brothers. If it wouldn't ruin his plans, Jon would love to see the duel that would have happened between the two, if Jon wasn't set on killing the Mountain before the sennight was out with the poison in the wine. Jon can't help himself but chuckle at all the names he has for these people.

Even the High Septon, a man who should not be drinking due to his position in the faith, has two glasses in front of him. Even just as a septon he should not have been drinking. It's not too surprising as the man is one of the most corrupt in the city. Many of the young orphaned women that go in the Sept of Baelor never leave. Nor did they become septa's

The feasting and celebrating went on long into the night, Jon decides to leave not long after the cask was empty. Hope with all his being that every murderer in this hall would perish from the poison he had made sure would enter their bodies.

Jon felt the poison's effect two days after the feast. He began to pour the darker or smellier poisons down the drains and dispose of the vials. He had no more use of Baelish's poison store. Having his steward throw all the vials away stating they were too contaminated by whatever Baelish had stored in them.

By the third day he was nearly insensate. He would see the Stranger soon and pay for what he'd done in life and not done soon enough. The Kingdom would be a better place with King Robert gone - and Jon gone. Let whomever survived pick up the pieces.

Maybe someone would start a campaign to clean up King's Landing after a bunch of nobles and royals died from a fever. Someone else would be Hand. Maybe he would do a better job at seeing what was clearly happening. Jon had been blind for so very long.

Falling.

Burning.

Pain.

Screaming himself raw.

Suffocating.

Fading.

Pain leaving.

Voices coming closer.

Head becoming clearer.

Jon wakes in a bed, not his bed not soft enough to be his. The room smelt too clean to be his room. He was alive and surprised at that unpleasant fact.

Stannis Baratheon rose from a chair near Jon's bed. "I'm so glad that the fever didn't take you too. It's been three sennight since you took ill." So the story is a fever, not poison. Good that means that Jon is not suspected. Then who would blame someone that also drank the poison.

"Stannis, you live?" Jon croaked. His voice was disused for some time. Stannis had not been in King's Landing during the feast, Jon remembers. Then Jon remembers sending him away saying a training trip would be a good idea. Jon breathes a sigh of relief.

"I'm alive, one of the few, it seems. I was on the training trip remember. Robert and his family are dead. My little brother Renly and his not so secret paramore Loras died. Varys and Pycelle, Tywin and Kevan Lannister, plus several minor lords, are all gone. Three of the Kingsguard too. The only one I'm glad is dead is Gregor Clegane, as we speak his body is being sent to Dorne."

Jon closed his eyes. Those are the ones Jon hoped to get. Glad that Stannis is trying to heal the rift between the crown and Dorne.

"Your son, Jon. He is also among the dead. He passed quickly, at least the acolytes tell me he did."

Jon swallows and nods. He knew allowing the boy a glass was a death sentence. He'd done it anyway. Lysa would be heart broken, he was not. Only the smallest amount of regret, and only because it was regret over the fact that he had become a child killer like the old lion.

"The servants and cooks are cut by a third." How? Jon thought. They hadn't been invited to the feast. Then again Jon had delivered the special cask into the kitchen's care two hours before the festivities began. Some, no doubt, had risked little nips. Taking it as their so-called due for having to cook for nobility.

"Thousands inside the city walls also." At that, Jon's eyes popped open. How? Thousands. Is there a real fever ravaging this place? No. realisation comes to Jon. No, Jon was to blame for those deaths, too. All the poison he dropped down the drains went somewhere. Maybe the residential water supplies were contaminated by what went down the castle's drain. With how the Dragons built this damn city it wouldn't surprise Jon if that's exactly what happened. The Dragons never cared about the small folk. Not like they were meant to.

Jon turns his head toward Stannis. "So I should have called you King Stannis?" Jon asks.

Stannis frowned but nodded. "I am now King, though my coronation is some time off. My family must come to the city first. But that won't happen until the fever has left."

Jon smiles at this. "Good, don't bring them until it clears. Keep the new royal family safe."

"I will. I have already sent Ser Arys to protect them. There is one other thing you must know, Jon." Stannis says with a serious look to him.

Jon wondered if Stannis knew that this fever wasn't a fever. Better to hear it all. Jon expected to die because of what he'd done. The Black Cells didn't terrify Jon, in his heart he knew that's where he belongs after what he has done to the city. He attempted to heal the Kingdoms. Even if he has killed thousands. Healing what he allowed to happen is worth paying a great fee. Even if the price is his death.

"We sent word to the Eyrie about your sickness and young Robert's death, we also got word back from the Eyrie. There was an accident not long after the letter arrived." King Stannis says, slowly.

"What happened?" Jon asked.

"Your wife was already doing poorly. Perhaps drink, perhaps illness. The details were not clear from the letter."

"What happened to Lysa?"

"The letter says she fell out of the Moon Door. Though I suspect she may have jumped. With her rumoured closeness with Little Finger and how she took his death, I think that the death of her son sent her over the edge of grief." Lysa was dead. Lysa's son was dead. Jon did his level best not to show his relief. The House of Arryn was unstained by her and House Tully. Even his friendship with the black fish was stained and strained due to her.

"I loved her. Even after everything, I loved that woman." Jon says, which was true for a long period of his life, though not recently. Recently it was hate he felt towards her and her family. He would allow the black fish to stay as Knight of the Gate but he would not step foot in the Eyrie again.

"I know," Stannis says with a sad tone to his voice.

"I'll have to arrange for her to go back to the Riverlands for the Tully customary funeral." the one thing he fought the most with Hoster Tully. That stupid funeral rite. It was in their marriage agreement, that upon her death she would be returned for that rite. Sailing down a river to be burnt. A funeral that makes no sense.

"I sent a letter on your behalf when you were ill. Robert told me about what was in your marriage agreement, while I was complaining about my own marriage agreement." Stannis says with a half smile on his face. Likely remembering better times with his brother.

Jon nods. "Thank you, Your Grace."

"I never expected to be King, not even when Robert was new to the throne. I may have been Prince of Dragonstone, but I knew he favoured Renly above me. Especially not after Cersei bore him a son. I've not prepared for this." Robert hadn't either. He just had the job, though he did it more poorly than Jon could have believed. Stannis would make a far better king than Robert ever had.

"I must ask something of you." Stannis says.

"Anything." Jon hopes it won't be anything too cumbersome.

"Will you serve as Hand for me."

"Your Grace, I'm an old man and this fever may not be one I recover from." Especially not with the soreness in his chest. Jon may be in less pain but there was still some there

"If you'd let me finish." Jon nods.

"If you survive another week or another decade, I'll receive your advice better than my brother ever did. You have run the Kingdoms his entire reign. Do this for me and begin training your successor, if you wish. I would wish to name Ser Davos as your replacement. The man may have humble beginnings but he is a steadfast man. Trustworthy. Saved my life." Stannis says rubbing at his chin.

The Stranger may have decided to spare Jon for now. Jon really had no choice. "I will serve, Your Grace, so long as you allow me to retire to the Eyrie in a year's time. I need must try for an Heir."

Stannis gave a flinty smile and retook his seat. "I will help you find a wife. I will send a letter to Bronze Yohn Royce. He has a daughter that is of marriage age. What do we do first?" Stannis isn't one for dallying.

Jon is quiet for a moment. He expected death and has gotten a form of rebirth instead. This he hasn't prepared for. Still, there were items on his list that were now within reach. "This fever has come from the disgusting condition of King's Landing."

"Yes." Stannis nods looking at Jon with a quizzical look.

"It's not the first in recent years and, if we do nothing, it will not be the last. Worse is that this time it took the royal family and so many others. Those that wouldn't usually go into the city. So it must have come from the servants."

"So how do we start?" Stannis asked.

"We start by honouring the dead, then cleaning the filth of this city. A new sewer system is a must and it's what needs to happen first. That should also create jobs for those left in Flees Bottom" Jon says.

King Stannis nodding considering. "Yes. This is what we must do."

Of course, the two understood different things from Jon's statement. Jon would construct plans for both types of filth cleansing, the physical and the moral. He'd bury those he'd murdered and put in sewers - but he'd put more people on the list and continue to pluck out the corrupt.

Stannis had suggestions but the plan they would work from was Jon. This is what Jon's wife had given him, the wrong glass to drink and the wrong man dead. Jon would move forward for as long as his luck would hold. There was hope for the Arryn family to live on. Bronze Yohn wouldn't deny him the chance to have an heir. One more year. Less if he can manage to train the reformed smuggler fast.

King's Landing would be cleansed.

Decided to end it here and move on to the next chapter rather than add the next lot I had prewritten but that means another post soonish as I have some of that mapped out too. I have realised I may have written more than one post while I was away from my computer. It is just putting them all in the same file editing and flushing out that's taking its time now. Up next Ramsey and the not so floppy fish at the gate. But it will probably be another week or more before I have it up as things are busy right now.