"Enter," Geralt said from the desk, pretending he hadn't heard guard on the way down to his chambers. He only turned to look at the Red Cloak who's face was marred by some pox as a child, leaving him with many noticeable scars into adulthood, when he opened the door. "Yes?"
"Master Witcher," He bowed, accompanied by the noise of his armor clanking. "Lord Tywin has requested your presence in his solar."
Geralt could guess why. "Understood, please inform the Lord Hand I'll be up shortly."
The marred guard bowed again, closing the door on his way out. Judging by the sound of his labored breathing and slowing pace, the man would take his time returning to Tywin on his two-story trek. It meant Geralt would have enough time to complete the final chapter of Madness in Blood, the Fall of House Lohston by Maester Barker. One of several books given to him by Grand Maester Pycelle, many of which about the dark history of Harrenhal castle. This particular tome made as recently as but ten years prior, told the story of the second-to-last House to rule Harrenal.
Like all of their predecessors, including House Hoare, whose methods for constructing the monstrosity were far from bloodless, another's tragedy laid the foundation for House Lohston's. House Strong was annihilated in the Dance of the Dragons, the brutal Targaryen civil war, and possibly the worst conflict seen in these lands in centuries. The first Lord of Harrenhal to come from House Lohston was Lucas Lohston, a master-of-arms for the Red Keep elevated to high nobility through his marriage to Falena Stokeworth. He even became Hand of the King until he, his lady wife, and daughter were sent away from the Red Keep at Aegon the Unworthy's command.
The Lohston's ties to the dragon kings were far from over. Lord Lohston's wife and daughter became mistresses' to the fourth Aegon. His descendent earned himself an ill reputation as a traitor, siding against House Targaryen in-favor of House Blackfyre during the First Blackfyre Rebellion only to switch sides again when the tide began to turn. Then came the last, most despised of the Lohston's: Mad Danelle. Known as a practitioner of blood magic and cannibalism, the lady spent her last years of life killing countless innocents in her dark pursuits, bathing in their blood, and indulging in perverse rituals combining magic, human misery, and sex.
For the cause of this madness, the tale tells not. Understanding a monster was frequently more difficult and unpleasant for people than putting a sword through it. And to swords, it inevitably came down to. King Maekar Targaryen took action against the mad lady, assembling a sizable force to bring her to justice. Ser Walter Whent, now Lord Whent and ruler of Harrenhal, played a pivotal role in Danelle's downfall. Before they were lords, House Whent was a small noble family, offering knights to the Lohston's. It was their familiarity with Harrenhal, which allowed them to open the gates and turn what could have been a long, drawn-out disaster into a swift victory. Maekar himself cut off Danelle's head, burned her remains to ash, and cast them into the wind from atop the highest tower of Harrenhal.
So fell House Lohston, so rose House Whent. The misfortune of one elevating another. The actual foundation of Harrenhal, not stone, steel, sweat, or blood. Geralt was convinced the place was cursed by House Harroway, everything after only reinforced the idea. Every House appointed by the Targaryens to rule the castle was inevitably destroyed by them. At least one representative of each was known to have been involved sexually with someone in the royal family. Several of them rose high in the ruling governments of their time, ascending to the position of Hand of the King.
Too many repeating occurrences to simply wave aside as coincidences. Places of great human suffering, pain, and death eventually gained a sort of aura about them. Drawing more of each to the spot years down the line, perpetuating them ad infinitum. What Harren the Black purportedly did to simply build the place alone would've been enough to attract to stir trouble years down the line. Yet on a world where the power was diminished, the end result of such issues wouldn't necessarily be magical in nature, unless the starting point itself was magic. Such as thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children being burned alive by a massive dragon oozing with the power even centuries after his death.
As Geralt stepped away from the desk, dressing for the next insufferable evening with Aerys, he recalled Ser Oswell's story after their sparring match.
"Harrenhal is home to strange sights and sounds, Master Witcher," The Kingsguard said, running a cloth along his sword at the table they sat at. "The flapping of unseen birds at the mews, the patter of footfalls from someplace down its many long hallways belonging to no one, lone torches lit in halls and rooms none reside in. Strange to be sure yet as my father says, naught that can't be explained."
Yet even as he spoke those words, the grave stare he gave to his sword showed he was unconvinced of them.
"What cannot be explained by tricks of the mind or children playing at ghosts to frighten others with is... Something I witnessed as a lad of but seven years of age, a frightening experience which robbed me of sleep for many moons thereafter. I was returning from my lessons with the Maester, bored of quills and lectures, and eager for the practice sword. I cannot say when or how I lost my way, I'd gone down the endless steps countless times. On that day, however, my memory and wits failed me.
"I pressed onward, unafraid... For a time. I was to be a knight, and knights were not afeared of anything, certainly not losing themselves inside their own home. I kept telling myself this, too young and stupid to know better. Soon enough, I began noticing drops of water in my path, in places without holes in the roof, and where no rain had fallen for weeks. I paid it no mind, even playing a game of avoiding the puddles which grew with every new one... Until a thirst took me. I thought to drink from the water, to my regret.
"There, in the crystal clear puddle, as I knelt, my heart plummeted to oblivion, and icy fear froze my blood. In the water, there was the flame, and amongst the fire stood a man. He seemed a knight, though his coat of arms was impossible to say for his armor was black. His wet hair stock to his charred skin and where a man has eyes, he had naught save empty holes. He... Tried to speak but his tongue... It was melted... After that-"
"After that, you made another puddle when you pissed yourself," Ser Lewyn said at the time, wearing a new suit of armor and laughing.
"Others take you, brother," Ser Whent sounded aggrieved only for a moment before laughing with him. Perhaps Leywn did not notice or care to comment, but to Geralt's ears, the laughter seemed forced. When asked about his birth date a bit later that day, Ser Oswell said it was 245 years after the Conquest. The incident occurred the same year as the 250th anniversary of Aegon torching Harrenhal to a smoldering ruin. The event gained no great attention amongst the Whent family, why should it? It was nothing but the wild imagination of a boy.
Did the Lady Danelle suffer a similar trauma? Further examination revealed she'd been born around the 200th anniversary. Yet, the signs of madness were not apparent until much later in life. Who could say, magic and madness could be and frequently were mutually exclusive. In this case, the Witcher doubted very much that they were. Putting the matter from his thoughts for the day, Geralt checked himself in the mirror close to the garderobe then checked if another lackey of Varys' was spying on him from the rung ladder. None that he could hear, this time.
Nor did he hear any on his way up to Tywin's quarters atop the tower. Geralt found him, unsurprisingly, deep amidst official paperwork, two stacks of which stuck out quite prominently to his left side. To his right was a cask of ale with two cups. One of which was already placed at guests' end of the table for his convenience.
"Lord Hand," Geralt said, bowing his head, eyes straining with the setting sun shining into his face. "You wished to see me?"
"Of course, be seated Geralt, we will begin our business shortly," A few more papers required his attention and the Witcher was glad for them. His considerable stack proved the perfect means of blocking the sun's rays once he sat down.
"My apologies for interrupting, but would you mind if I began my newly acquired drinking habit earlier this evening?" Geralt inquired, nodding at the cask.
"Help yourself."
He did so and found the taste of the Arbor wine as delightful as ever. The scent alone was enough to calm Geralt even in Aerys' presence, and in the time it required for Tywin to end his duties, he closed his eyes and basked in its sweet taste.
"Mm, I'll have to take some of that with me when I return home."
"And when may this be?"
"Difficult to say," Geralt answered truthfully, putting the cup down. "It depends on a great many factors. Why do you ask, Lord Tywin? Is there some reason I should hurry along?"
"Quite the opposite in fact," He placed a final stamp bearing the kings seal onto the paper, setting it aside atop the stack. "I understand your usual meeting with Pycelle did not come to pass today."
"Indeed, it seems some urgent matter required his immediate attention. Leaving me free to spend the afternoon reading about destroyed Houses and train with your son, Jaime. Judging by your absence at his arrival, and by the paperwork mountain on your desk, I would say you weren't able to greet him until not too long ago yourself."
"A most interesting series of events which you no doubt pieced together within minutes," Tywin said, leaning back into his seat. "Let us speak plainly then, Master Witcher, what do you think of him?"
"Truthfully? His skill with the sword is considerable," Geralt answered and meant it. Though still a boy, possibly no older than fifteen or sixteen, Jaime Lannister fought better than most men Geralt had crossed swords with, men twice his age and some even thrice his experience. Ser Barristan chose the Frey boy, citing a brother or cousin of his who impressed him at some tourney as an example of a fine Frey knight. Geralt and Jaime went after, using blunt weapons even as the Witcher saw a frown of distaste cross the boys face at this fact.
The rules were a revised version of what Geralt and Ser Arthur used, the first to fall five times was the loser. The boy didn't use a shield, opting to use a single longsword. Not out of arrogance, the Witcher saw, but of simple preference, he wasn't the type for trying to withstand his opponent. This one preferred the dance of blades. This is precisely what it turned into moments after Ser Barristan told them to begin. Jaime wasted not a moment trying to score a blow, his blunted sword whirling in his hand into a thrust.
Geralt smacked it aside and counter-attacked with a swing, the squire saw it coming and deftly twisted his head to the opposite side, wrist already angling his sword for another attack. Geralt avoided this as well, spinning his blade into an intentionally quick series of circles and semi-circles to confuse him. Jaime responded well, however. His sword met Geralt's time and again, even if the Witcher was holding back considerably. On and on this went during their first bout, the young lion using the seemingly boundless energy of youth against the Witcher, severely holding back to test his capabilities. There was another reason for his offensive dervish, fear.
Though the boy tried to hide it through a mask of concentration and exertion, Geralt's purposefully unblinking, emotionless stare seemed to hold him back.
"What's wrong?" He asked, boring his viper-eyes into the squire's green ones, his sword deflecting a swing. "Does this look frighten you?"
"N-No!"
"I should hope so, never let your enemies face make you scared, lax, or fooled. Your body must be ready to move, to defend, to kill, at the mere instinctual presence of danger."
To hammer the point home, Geralt kept fighting him this way well into the fifth bout after Jaime had fallen four times beforehand. By then, the boy seemed to catch on, afeared still but fighting it back, drawing strength from the defiant counter glare he offered the Witcher. His stamina remained impressive throughout, despite the countless strikes they'd sent against one another, Jaime in the last round was barely any slower or sloppier than the one from the first.
It was during this final exchange that Geralt decided to test his personality in other ways. Feigning weakness, the Witcher allowed himself to get pushed back and back, intentionally missing strikes and even letting the boy's sword bruise him on the right shoulder. The change in demeanor was swift and troubling, the focus he'd acquired when fighting a superior shifted into arrogance. He couldn't help but smile cockily, his head no doubts imagining a million fantasies of gloriously defeating the man who'd bested the entire Kingsguard.
Geralt put a stop to it quickly, the shift in the balance of power occurring so swiftly Jaime's mouth would've gone agape if the Witcher gave him enough time for such a luxury. With the same speed he'd used to defeat Ser Arthur, Geralt unleashed a veritable storm of thrusts, swings, counter attacks, ripostes, and even a pirouette or two. To the boy's swordsmanship credit, Jaime withstood the barrage for a while longer than expected, letting his body instinctually move and react when his mind could barely comprehend anything.
When his back hit the ground for the fifth time, Geralt offered him a hand up. The squire's response was to begrudgingly take it, even as the Witcher could already hear his teeth grind. If it was just the two of them, his reaction would've been far less respectful, Geralt had seen enough from Ciri to gauge petulance in a child from a glance. Acting like a scorned little boy in front of his two heroes kept him in check, to a point.
"You acquitted yourself well, young Lannister," Geralt said, meaning every word even as the squire before him didn't know whether to take comfort or offense from them. "But a fight isn't won until your enemy is defeated or dead. Out there, your arrogance will cost you dearly."
"Y-Yes, Master Witcher," He responded with a forced tone of respect, bowing his head. "Thank you for the lessons."
After that, he and Ser Barristan went several more rounds. Geralt did not participate in anymore. He stayed on the sidelines to observe how the boy thought and acted with one of his heroes. As before, his swordwork was impeccable, the rest...
"He won his first tourney melee at the age of three and ten," Lord Tywin explained, not smiling but with a hint of pride in his eyes. "At my behest, the Kingsguard have offered to continue his training, to finish what Lord Crakehall has begun."
"He'll go far, I would even dare say that in a few years, he will be a match for the likes of Ser Barristan and Ser Arthur."
"Not better?"
"Perhaps," Geralt shrugged, knowing the point of this conversation was drawing close. "They've set the bar quite high. Your son most definitely has the potential to realize it, he fights with a natural talent many would envy."
"I am aware of this, and I would see this potential realized."
"And who better to do it than the man who's already far and away superior to the current Kingsguard crop?"
This time, the Lord Hand almost smiled. "Quite so, and as you've told us the other evening, you have experience as a sword instructor."
"That I do," Geralt nodded, with pride in his voice as well. "My daughter Ciri is, without question, one of the best fighters there or even here. Though I don't take full credit for it, several of my Witcher brothers and instructor helped make her what she is."
"Then let us arrive at the heart of the matter at all, I offer you a great opportunity, Geralt, a chance to tutor not only the son of a Great House of Westeros. But an heir to one. It is a matter most important, and one I would not trust anyone so lightly. Jaime is the future of House Lannister, our name, our reputation, our power... it all rests on his shoulders, and I will see that all three continue well after I am naught but dust and bone."
"The legacy of House Lannister must remain strong, by any means necessary," Geralt continued, omitting the word supremacy.
"Precisely, and you are just such a man to help see it become a reality. I have already taken the necessary steps to ensure the means of performing such exercises and will compensate you for your efforts most generously. Aerys cannot know of this. And so, you will train in secret, within the Tower of the Hand. There are a number of chambers and places well suited to the task. Rest assured, I will make it painfully clear to him never to reveal the existence of these lessons, and silent he will remain."
They would have to do such exercises even earlier in the morning, before their schedules, as everyone else knew them, began. Not impossible for him, Geralt had grown accustomed to doing more with less sleep.
"You will also be generously compensated for your efforts."
"Supposing I do accept this agreement, let's keep the means of my payment something to discuss for later. I've already got three hundred golden dragons in my chambers and nothing to spend them on."
Aerys, appreciable for a change, rewarded Geralt for the Brotherhood's destruction. Though an official bounty had not been issued for them, three hundred golden coins seemed quite a fair sum. In truth, it was more than fair. Geralt never left the Red keep and thus spent not a single one of them. Tywin accepted this with a nod, even as his eyes grew suspicious at the word "Supposing."
"In truth, Lord Hand, I wonder how much I can even do for your son."
"Explain."
"Firstly," Geralt leaned forward, filling his cup again. "The training of a Witcher requires a wide assortment of specific equipment you can only find at Kaer Morhen, far, far away from here. I speak of large training machines that would be impossible to transport, place, and use someplace discretely. You'd have to put them atop one of the Red Keep's battlements. I'm also no builder, I can't give you the specifics of their construction no matter how much money you offer me.
"Second," Geralt took a swing of the wine. "The fighting style of a Witcher is ill-suited to the kind of warrior your son will be. It requires speed and space to maneuver. Jaime will be fighting in heavier armor, surrounded by hundreds or thousands of others just like him in the piss and shit covered fields and city walls. Places where a man is just as likely to fall to an enemy sword as he is to his own comrades crushing him to death.
"Lastly," Geralt placed the cup down, looking Tywin in the eye. "When I trained my daughter, she was much younger and had no prior experience. She was moldable into whatever kind of warrior one could want her to be. Your son isn't. He's been squiring for years and has ingrained fighting techniques. To start teaching him in something quite different would confuse and set him back. I can, of course, teach him about footwork, help him fight well with his other hand, let him incorporate some Witcher techniques applicable to his style. Make no mistake, though, Lord Tywin, Jaime can't ever fight like me."
The head of House Lannister did not respond, he didn't even grip his armchairs. Instead, he looked... Conflicted, the same expression his son wore the day before. Furious at the seeming refusal Geralt was giving him and perhaps even impressed by the way he was doing it? Tywin had no doubt spent many, many years of his life amongst idiots, men whose reasons for failing were laziness or incompetence. He couldn't number Geralt among them, not with the rational reasons provided for it.
After the way he reminded the Witcher of Emhyr, with all his talk of a child being first and foremost the means of securing some legacy, Geralt enjoyed watching him squirm a bit. But, Lord Tywin was also the closest thing he had to a true, powerful ally save Pycelle. And besides, he pitied the boy more than he may dislike the father.
"And yet," Geralt said, in a more placating tone of voice. "I suspect your son doesn't have to be close to my way of fighting to realize his potential. His larger problems are up here," He tapped the side of his head. "May I speak plainly?"
"You've found no compulsion to do otherwise so far, why stop now?"
"Your son needs to get his head out of his ass. He's gifted with the sword, and his training thus far has brought it out spectacularly. He knows this all too well. The instant I feigned losing my strength and gave ground, your son foolishly walked into my trap. The smirk on his face said it all: I'm about to achieve incredible glory! It doesn't matter how little sense my act made, his head was in the clouds, and I threw him down easier that time than all the previous ones.
"Ser Barristan later performed the same trick on him later and, the boy fell for it again, though he had enough courtesy to bob his head up and down in understanding more convincingly there. But he doesn't understand, not really. The world may let you suffer your flights of fancy in a training yard, but out there? Not a chance. He'll do or say something stupid and lose his head for it."
Again, Geralt's speech was met with silence by Lord Tywin, though he appeared far less conflicted than before. There was some fury there, doubtlessly he misliked anyone speaking so brazenly ill of his golden air. And yet, there was something else too... A look of respect?
"An astute examination, Master Witcher," He replied, slowly. "Yes, I am aware of my sons... Tendency towards foolishness. Even as a boy, he and his sister both would perform dangerous stunts simply to show they could."
"Fearlessness, talent and arrogance, a dangerous combination but not an unfixable one. There is something I can share with your son to help him overcome this, something besides fighting better with a sword."
"Which is?"
"My experience," Geralt said, knowing this would work and be far, far kinder to the boy than whatever else the world may use to correct this mistake for him. Because the Witcher himself had experienced how quickly life can shatter your wildest dreams. He had been a boy gifted with the sword, all too aware of it, and dogmatically convinced he could fix everything wrong by swinging it about.