Game of Thrones Tales: Lannister Family Values
Summary: In an alternative universe, King Robert calls on a different old friend and brother to assist him. But whose decency, kindness, and sense of honor, while a bit different from Ned Stark's are equally strong. But are the family values of House Addams a match for the ruthless Lannisters?
Part XIII…
Kings' Landing…
Brothels R' Us HQ of the infamous Middlefinger…Where the famed intriguer, and financial wizard of the Kingdom…Though some of that luster for wizardry had faded with the mounting deficit…Was engaged in putting his staff through their "paces"…On the stage of the central music hall of his most famed brothel and theater.
"All right, ladies…Places…" Middlefinger in director's chair, waving girls to their places on stage… "From the top, lets rehearse…And remember, girls. Put your hearts into it!" he waved a fist. "Make your audience love you!" Offering his trademark winning smile… "Ok, action!"
Chorus line of prostitutes dazzling in gold lame outfits…Handsome Knight in center in silver armor, pulls off helmet as they pass by, to reveal his flowing locks…The girls mounting several tiers of decorated stairs behind him…
Orchestra of eunuchs and prostitutes strikes up…
Knight:
"A…Pretty…Girl…Is like a melody…"
Chorus:
"Ooohh…" in heavenly tones…
Knight, bowing to the passing lovelys, then taking pose, one armored arm outstretched:
"…That haunts you night and day. Just like the strain…Of a haunting refrain…
As you start upon a battle marathon…
She runs around your brain…"
Chorus:
"Ooooh…oooh…ooooh…oooh….oooh…"
Knight, sighing:
"You can't escape….She's in your memory.
By morning, night and noon…
She will leave you… and then, come back again
A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune…"
Row of girls pass him again, Middlefinger keeping time, nodding…Holding finger…Tempo, girls, tempo…
Knight, shaking head, resumes:
"A pretty girl…Is like a melody…
That helps you bear the pain…
When you're dying in vain, let her be your refrain…
Our pretty girls are just …." Opens arms, falls to one knee…
"Like a…Pretty tune!"
"Yes! That's it!" Middlefinger beamed, then frowned. "But, it's not enough…We need more. More spectacle! Higher stairs!…More girls! Yes! Busby?!"
"Yes, sir…!" Eager voice of eager and gifted choreographer/apprentice whoremaster, Busby de la Berkley.
"You're on the right track, son. But we need more of everything…Give me more, Busby! Give our audience more! Lets really put on a show!" pumps fist in air.
"Yes, sir!" Busby, eagerly. "Girls, eunuchs…ruined Knights…Shifty pages cut loose by ruined Knights…Stage hands…Lets show Mr. Middlefinger the greatest spectacle in the history of Brothelry!"
"Yeah!" cries…
Knight, taking megaphone from stage hand, resumes as more and lovelier girls in more ornate costumes pass to climb quickly added to stairs:
"Should I reveal…Exactly how I feel?"
Chorus of prostitutes and eunuchs:
"I gotta thought you foolin'! I gotta thought you're not sincere!"
Knight:
"Should I reveal…Exactly how I feel?"
Chorus:
"I gotta thought you're foolin'…"
New line of girls in more ornate costumes, tap dancing across stage now…
"Yes! Yes! More, Busby! More!" Middlefinger raising and shaking fists…
Knight, beaming at the passing girls, wink to imagined audience:
"Beautiful girls…What a gorgeous creature…Beautiful girls…
Somebody call a septra…I'm in a whirl over these beautiful girls…My, oh my!"
Chorus line of girls back across stage, sweeping to form lines of tap dancers…
Knight stepping forward, helmet in hand, soulful look as lovelys pass by, demurely:
"Beautiful…Girls…For you I've got a passion…
Beautiful Girls…You're my queens of fashion…
I'm…In…A..Whirl…"
Rush of lovelys to him…
"Over…My…Beautiful…
Girls!" crash of orchestra's finale…
"Tremendous!" Middlefinger rose…"This will set a new trend in brothel entertainment!"
"Lord Belloq!" a young messenger hurried to him.
"Yeah? What's up, son, we're busy here!"
Boy hands scroll, Middlefinger unrolling, scanning…
Hmmn…So Lord Gomez comes to town shortly with his menagerie of bizarre family, odd if loyal friends, and various hangers-on…The Game begins anew. Sigh.
Politics…That endless division of my soul between my art and my politics resumes…Ah, well.
Time to play…Game…Of…Political…Fortune…
"Busby! I've got to attend to political matters." He turned to Busby. Then addressed the chorus line… "Girls, Knight, eunuchs, you're all swell! Keep working with Busby here, I know our Brothel Belloq Follies will be the biggest thing to hit Kings' Landing since King Robert!" he raised a fist in the air, shaking.
Cheers all around…
"We'll make you proud, boss!" Busby nodded.
"I know you will, Bus…You and all of you…" Middlefinger addressed the group of prostitutes, female and male, bawds, eunuchs…Stage hands, security Knights. "We in the entertainment business form a unique family…Giving something special to the world. Joy and delight to the masses. Never forget that, folks! Be proud of your art! And remember…!"
"Cash up front!" the prostitutes cried.
"That's my team!" he cried, pumping air.
…
Swampflood bedchamber cum emergency hospital room...
Where an anxious Lady Morticia was comforted by Lord Gomez as they waited at the bedsides of the unconscious Pugsly and Branded...Victims of an 'accidental' mutual fall.
A grim Lady Addams shaking head as she watched the maester treating the boys with her gimlet eye.
"Leaches, idiot. They'll clean the wounds." she noted. The maester frowning. "Leaches? Far too radical a therapy...A good poultice of oatmeal and mercury, that's the thing to bring them round." he insisted.
"Quack!" Lady Addams glared. "Mercury kills fish, it'll kill young boys."
"Mama, please..." Morticia sighed.
"Mother, I know you mean well..." Gomez, soothingly. "But Maester Mengele is the best practioner in the Seven Kingdoms"
"I'll bet...But of what?" Lady Addams glared at Mengele.
"Just a little of this dye in their eyeballs..." Mengele noted. "It might relieve the pressure on their spines. Or at least provide useful knowledge for medical maestrally."
"What? Quack, quack...Quack..." Lady Addams mocked.
"Mama..." Morticia, weeping now.
"Oh..." Lady Addams came over. "Morty...Love...I'm sorry. But this idiot don't know his eyeballs from his mercury. Get rid of him and let Fester and me take care of the boys. We've pulled many a dying knight with his guts torn out across a devastated battlefield to live to die in the next murderous fight...Or a cart accident on the way to a rest home."
Fester standing at the foot of the boys' beds, nodding approval...
"Please...I have to know that my boy and poor Branded here..." Morticia eyed Branded. "Are getting the most modern and best care gold can buy."
"I think if they don't wake up soon we could try tearing out their spines and substituting dogs' spines." Mengele suggested eagerly.
"Interesting idea." Lord Gomez nodded. "However a bit more invasive than I think my wife would like..."
"Heroic measures, Lord Addams, must sometimes be employed..." Mengele, sternly.
"Gomez! I must talk with you!" Lady Addams insisted. "Outside...Now! Morty?" she turned to Morticia. "Keep this quack and his dog spines away from your boy. And you..." she eyed Mengele... "I'll have you up before the Maesters' tribuneral of Healing Ethics if you so much as reset a bone before I get back. Gomez!"
Gomez followed her to the door, they opening as Robbed Stark entered.
"Hello. How is Branded...And Pugsly?"
"No change, I'm afraid." Gomez, shaking head. "But on the positive side, they're making medical history by surviving even if utterly crippled for lives of unrelenting misery. Go right in, Robbed."
He and Lady Addams exiting, she leading him to her own spartan bedroom across the hall...He noting the famed battleaxe of her mother, Lady Hamilton on the wall above her bed, in easy grabbing distance. "Good ole 'Ole Bludgeon' still keeps you company, I see." She hastily closing door...
"Gomez..." Narrow look. "You've got to get that quack away from the boys. If he is merely a quack." she frowned.
"Mama?"
"Someone pushed those boys from the Tower, Gomez. Even if I can easily accept Pugsly's fall, there's no way young Branded would have fallen. He climbs like a goat."
"Well, perhaps, Mama..." Gomez sighed. "But 190 lbs of my lovable son crashing into even such an experienced climber as young Branded..."
"Some's wrong here, Gomez. And we need to find out what, before you get to Kings Landing."
"Mama..." Gomez sighed. "I can't possibly go to Kings Landing with Pugsly like this..."
"Hah!" she beamed grimly. "See, there's your motivation..." eager smile.
"Someone not wanting me to bring justice and order to King Robert's realm is trying to stop me from going to the capital? By harming my own son and heir?" Gomez, angrily.
"That would be my conclusion, boy. But why trust in an old woman's foolish mutterings...Even if I've seen this often enough, though not with children as the victims of the power play."
"Power play, eh? Mama, you're convinced this was no accident?"
"I'm no Ned Stark, Gomez." she frowned. "I don't believe in trustworthy politicians or the loyalty pledges of Ser Walter Frey. You said yourself there was something odd about the angle of their trajectory in falling..."
"Well...It did suggest a large, six-foot three male had shoved Pugsly with a force of say...A large, six-foot three male...Into Branded."
He glared darkly... "If violence has been offered to my son...And my cousin while a guest in my home...My Corsican blood demands vendetta!" He calmed a bit... "Though the political situation does require I keep a degree of cool..." he sighed, sweat rolling. A box opened on the bedside table and a hand offered a cloth. "Thank you, Thing. No change yet, I'm afraid." he sighed.
The hand made an "Ok" symbol and went back in its box...
"Gomez, you must proceed to Kings' Landing and find out what's what and who we have to kill there." Lady Addams noted grimly.
"Mama...We're supposed to be reconcilers."
"Reconcile their roasting entrails..." she fumed.
"Mama..."
"Gomez...You must proceed and find out what's rotten in Kings' Landing. Let Morty, Fester, and I work on the problem here, we'll find out the truth if we have to torture every innocent soul from the top of the North beyond the Wall to the last grain of Dornish sand in the South."
...
Plateau above Kings' Landing as the royal train halts to collect stragglers and bury a few servants and camp followers not able to handle life in the royal lane during the slogging death march in 100 degree heat…The panorama of the capital spread out below before them…
"Well there she is, Gomez…The capital. The arm pit of the Seven Kingdoms. Not worth the effort to piss in a bucket let alone the 250000 dead in that bloody civil war." Robert sighed, looking out over his capital. "Shall we go down and join the rest in the corrupt stewpots and violent cesspools of my city?"
"Sounds good, Bob." Gomez nodded.
(Theme from Dallas plays…)
"Lets review the cast of characters…For your edification, my Lord Hand…" Robert began.
"You know me…The King, the ruined fart wreck of a once great warrior prince…Robert Barftheron."
(starring Robert Barftheron…As the King.)
"My worthless, immoral, scheming but beautiful and politically essential wife, Cersei…"
"Bobbie…" Cersie, blushing…Shy beam… "You haven't called me beautiful since the night you came home so pisser drunk you thought you were in Middlefinger's brothel and I was one of your favorite whores…Unless, maybe, that was a fantasy sex game?" she asked, hopefully.
(Cersei Lannister…As the Queen.)
"You know yourself, the new, inexperienced, naively honorable, but quirkily brilliant and noble as they come, Lord Hand…)
(Gomez Addams…As the new honorable and noble if eccentric, Lord Hand.)
"My untrustworthy yet trusted with my life as he was with the life of the last king, Jamie Lannister, Captain of my Kingsguard…And probably involved with my scheming wife in both politics…And the bedroom."
(Jamie Lannister…As the conflicted brother-in-law…)
"My trusted aide and second-in-command of my Kingsguard… Ser Barter de Honor." Robert nodded to Ser Barter…
(Barton de Honor…As the last somewhat honorable courtier.)
"Your kid and the Stark girls you know…"
(Wednesday Addams…As the spunky kid naively loved by the future psycho King; Sansa Stark as the foolishly naïve heiress naively in love with said psycho heir, growing up fast in the sordid world outside her secure home; Arya Stark as the other spunky, rather beyond tomboy kid seeking revenge for her family.)
"And in that nest of vipers we call Kings' Landing…Master of Intel, Lord Verymuchs…"
(Lord Verymuchs…As the creepy SpyMaster of Shadows. Verymuchs giving shrewdly mysterious nod to us by the window of his Red Keep tower office.)
"…That scheming runt if capable minister of finance and coin, Lord Petyr Belloq, the infamous Middlefinger…"
(Petyr Belloq…As Middlefinger… Middlefinger in his office giving us dark smile.)
"And of course there's my awful cunt of a son…Joffrey…"
(Joffrey Barftheron…As the viciously psycho Heir.)
"My other kids, whatever…Don't really know what's to be said about them."
(Tommen Barftheron…Mycella Barfteron…As the surprisingly lovable royal kids.)
"Ser Cyst de la Boil…Joffrey's bodyguard with a troubled past and brother issues but buried within, a man's heart…Not that I give a damn…" Robert, shrugging.
(Cyst de la Boil…As the Airdale.)
"Ser Raging Pus de la Boil…Cyst's crazy, gigantic brother, the Heavy…"
(Raging Pus de la Boil…as the Heavy)
"Handy, Gently, Oooh, you sweet thing, Randy, Cersei, Share, Robert Jr, Robbie, Cersy, Horsefaced, Brienne, Bob, ComeNow, Pumpit, Nothing to worry about, Horny, Cersely, Cerseila, Buffy…Summer. My bastards in the city, current count."
"Don't forget Tywin, and Jamie…" Cersei looked over.
"Oh, right…And Tywin and Jamie…Summer…My other bastards." Chuckle… "Forgotten about them, ha!"
(Handy, Gently, Oooh, you sweet thing, Randy, Cersei, Share, Robert Jr, Robbie, Cersy, Horsefaced, Brienne, Bob, ComeNow, Pumpit, Nothing to worry about, Horny, Cersely, Cerseila, Buffy, Tywin, Jamie…As the mostly doomed Summers.)
"…Word can't have reached ole man Lannister yet in Casterly Rock, he'd put on the pruned face of a man undergoing extreme constipation for life!" Robert guffawed. "And what do you think about one of me bastards bearing your name, Kingslicer." He turned to Jamie.
"Kingslayer, your Grace." Jamie, grimly.
"Slicer, slayer…Hardly matters, eh?" Robert sneered. "You still betrayed yer trust and your most solemn oath. Heck if the rumors are as true as I expect they are about you and my wife, I could forgive you that, easy…With thanks for allowing me the chance to throw that worthless son of mine out of the will. But betrayin' your anointed King?"
"Everyone, including you and that so-called most honorable, if rather dimwitted, of men, the late Ned Stark, betrayed King Eerys." Jamie protested. "There was a perfectly valid precedent for stabbing him in the back, he came to the throne by killing his brother. Besides…If I were to tell you the real reason I killed Eerys…"
"Yeah, yeah…Who gives a flying F now that that nut's food for worms and I been setting my ass on the Iron Toilet for seventeen years. Boring…" Robert shrugged.
"But…If you and the world but knew…" Jamie began.
"There he goes again…" Robert groused to Cersei who shook head. "I know, I know…I tell him no one gives a shite…Say, can we get on down to the city? I got fleas and the runs…"
"No, I've wasted too much daylight in expostulation. We'll camp here and enter tomorrow in the proper procession to honor my new Hand."
"Oh, not another night out in this…Hmmn?" Cersei perked a bit at the word "procession". "A parade? A big, financially crippling and unnecessarily wasteful one?" she beamed at Robert.
"Your Grace…" Gomez began. "Hardly neces…"
"It'll be the biggest thing to hit this place since my army did!" Robert nodded to Cersei.
Oh…She clapped.
"And then of course we'll have to have a tourney, a mammoth one!" Robert raised a fist in the air. "The finest knights from all over, pigs and oxen on the spits, booze gushing from the fountains. It'll be great for our economy…We'll call it Robert Barftheron's Stimulus Tourney for the New Hand!"
"Oh, Robbie, that's brilliant!" Cersei nodded.
"But Bob…" Gomez protested. "Won't that be ruinously expensive on top of all your outlays on orgies, your bastards, redecorating the Keep and your various hunting lodges and the Queen's stolen castles, the army, the navy, your enormous tax giveaways to the 1% and good ole boy corporate buddies to keep them on your side, and your vital entitlement programs like Peasantry Security?"
"Eh…" Robert shrugged. "Finance Minister Middlefinger will deal with the coins…He can always raise another loan from my fabulously wealthy in-law. The only thing this cunt of a wife of mine is good for…Besides providing me with something vaguely resembling an heir…If the father were Jamie Lannister."