[ASOIAF SI] The Gilded Stag: A Ruthless Joffrey Uplift | Chapter 20: VARYS II (Public) (Patreon)

The heavy, measured tread of booted feet echoed in the stone corridor outside the Prince's solar, vibrating faintly through the ancient masonry.

In the stifling, stale heat of the secret crawlspace, Varys held his breath. He pressed his soft, powdered cheek tighter against the rough-hewn stone, ignoring the sharp bite of the saltpeter and the pulverized mortar scraping his flesh. His dark eye remained fixed upon the tiny, jagged peephole hidden behind the heavy warp and weft of the Myrish tapestry.

He remembered precisely why he had been forced into the suffocating belly of the castle like a hunted rat.

Only an hour past, the Master of Whisperers had attempted to deliver the dark purple crystals of the Strangler with his own hands. Varys had not approached as himself. The dry moat of Maegor's Holdfast, lined with its rusted iron spikes, was a fortress within a fortress. The red cloaks upon the drawbridge would have put a heavy crossbow bolt through an unrecognized intruder's chest before he took three steps onto the wooden planks.

Instead, Varys had become a cellar-steward. He had shed his heavy, clinging silks and washed away his overpowering, sweet lilac perfumes. He had donned a tunic of coarse, undyed wool that itched fiercely against his soft skin, rubbing his gums with crushed garlic and spilling a measure of sour wine down his collar to mask his natural scent. He had bowed his back, adopted a heavy, shuffling limp, and carried a heavy silver platter bearing a flagon of dark Arbor red and a single, polished goblet.

Servants were the invisible, flowing blood of the Red Keep. They crossed the drawbridge of Maegor's a hundred times a day, bearing firewood, fresh rushes, and roasted meats. The guards upon the bridge had paid the stooped, garlic-smelling steward no mind at all.

Varys had climbed the serpentine steps, his heart beating a steady, calm rhythm beneath the rough wool. He had intended to shuffle into the Prince's sanctuary, wait for the boy to call for a cup, pour the wine, slip the seed-pearl crystals directly into the goblet, and vanish back into the sprawling, unseen army of the castle's scullions before the first cough seized the Prince's throat.

But when he reached the landing, he found the heavy oak doors of the solar firmly closed. And they were not guarded by the easily bribed gold cloaks or the vain, soft squires of seasons past.

Sandor Clegane stood there.

The Hound was a scarred, unsleeping mountain of burned flesh and dark steel. He wore no white cloak, only a battered, soot-darkened breastplate over a stained leather jerkin, his massive hands resting casually upon the heavy pommel of his broadsword. The right side of his face was gaunt and sharp, but the left was a horrific ruin of slick, black scars and twisted flesh, a ruined testament to his brother's fire.

Varys, playing the part of the terrified, simple-minded steward, had lowered his eyes, shivering beneath the Hound's dark, dead gaze, and offered the heavy silver platter. He mumbled a broken, servile apology, asking leave to bring the Prince his evening vintage.

Sandor Clegane had not moved. He had not stepped aside, nor had he bothered to search the stooped servant for hidden daggers. The Hound had simply glared down at the silver flagon with absolute contempt.

"The Prince drinks only what is drawn by his own hand, or poured by his sworn shields," Clegane had rasped, his voice like a heavy millstone grinding against rock. "Bugger off back to the cellars, old man, before I use your head to sweep the steps."

There was no negotiation. There was no opening for a whispered bribe of silver stags, nor any crack in the armor where a shadow might slip through. Clegane's terrifying presence was the absolute, impenetrable shield. Joffrey had completely locked down his personal quarters, trusting no one but the monsters he had bought with gold and purpose.

Robbed of his chance to slip the venom directly into the cup, the Spider had been forced to retreat. He had scurried away, shed the coarse wool in a hidden alcove, and crawled into the stifling, dusty wall-passages to access the solar's ventilation slits, tipping the crystal phial from above to lace the open flagon and praying the boy would drink.

How did a boy build a cage so perfectly? Varys wondered in the dark, a bead of cold sweat running down his thick neck, stinging the fresh scratches on his skin.

He closed his eyes, the memory of his crumbling empire flashing behind his eyelids. He remembered why he had not simply fled the capital the moment Petyr Baelish's neck snapped in the black cells.

He had tried.

Three nights past, when the sheer, terrifying shift in the realm's balance of power had truly settled over the Red Keep, Varys had descended into the deepest, dampest bowels of Aegon's High Hill. He had walked among the massive, black teeth of the Targaryen dragon skulls, the flickering light of his torch casting long, monstrous shadows against the stone.

There, in the damp gloom of the dragon cellars, he had met with Illyrio Mopatis. The Pentoshi Cheesemaker had looked absurd in the shadows, his massive bulk draped in yellow silks, his forked yellow beard dripping with fragrant oils, the heavy gemstone rings glittering on his fat fingers.

Varys had spoken frantically of the fifteen-year-old behemoth. He had told Illyrio of the Prince's unnatural calm, the bloodless purge of the Master of Coin, and how swiftly the martial pride of the Vale had bent the knee.

"The boy is a monster of order, my friend," Varys had whispered, his soft hands trembling within his wide sleeves. "He does not play the game of thrones. He shatters the board. We must accelerate the timetable. Aegon must be brought forth, or the Seven Kingdoms will be locked behind a wall of iron we can never breach."

Illyrio had merely waved a fat, dismissive hand, his breath reeking of saffron and roasted garlic. "He is a boy, Varys. A boy who won a tourney and frightened a few sheep. Let him play at being a warlord. When the Golden Company lands, his iron will melt."

The Pentoshi had turned his massive bulk, waddling away toward the ancient, secret river tunnels that led down to the hidden grates where his smuggler's skiff waited.

Varys had remained among the dragon skulls, his heart heavy with a profound, creeping dread. And then, less than a quarter of an hour after Illyrio had disappeared into the dark, the earth had violently shaken.

It was not a natural tremor. Varys had heard the horrific, unmistakable sound of massive, load-bearing ironwood timbers deliberately splintering. It sounded like the cracking of a giant's bones. A deafening, thunderous roar followed. A cloud of choking white dust had billowed up from the lower tunnels, smelling of crushed stone and ancient dust.

Tons of the ancient masonry and cracked stone had collapsed, crushing the Pentoshi Cheesemaker into the mud.

Varys had stood frozen in the dust, the horrifying realization washing over him. The tunnel had been rigged. The Prince's men had found the secret exits.

The very next morning, the trap had closed completely.

Varys remembered sitting at the heavy oak table of the Small Council chamber. Joffrey had sat in his lord father's chair, dressed impeccably in slashed black velvet, his handsome face set in a mask of solemn, civic concern.

"A tragic cave-in within the lower dungeons, my lords," the Prince had declared, his baritone voice smooth and perfectly measured. "The ancient masonry of Maegor's time has grown weak. We cannot risk the foundation of the Keep, nor the lives of the castle staff."

Under the guise of absolute safety, Joffrey had turned to Ser Jacelyn Bywater. The Iron Hand, now commanding a fiercely disciplined City Watch, was given a royal mandate. Joffrey assigned Ser Humfrey Waters as Bywater's deputy commander, ordering heavy ironwood doors installed and locked across the lower descents, and commanded that armed Gold Cloaks be posted at every external river grate and tunnel exit along the Blackwater.

Varys had sat perfectly still, his soft hands folded neatly in his lap, while his internal world collapsed. Joffrey had not merely murdered Illyrio Mopatis. The Prince had cleanly and absolutely severed the Spider's unseen path to the Blackwater.

Panic had finally taken the Master of Whisperers.

Cut off from his unseen exits, Varys had desperately attempted to mobilize his little birds to find out what the Stag Prince planned next. He had crept through the hidden passages, checking the designated hollows and the dark dead-drops within the walls where the mute children usually left their tiny scraps of parchment. He had waited in the suffocating dark, listening for the soft, padding footsteps that brought him the secrets of the realm.

The hollows were completely empty. The dark passages of the Red Keep were terrifyingly, utterly silent.

It was only through the mundane, idle gossip of the castle laundresses, washing linens in the outer bailey, that Varys had learned the chilling truth.

The Prince's new shadows had swept the city.

Wat, a fiercely intelligent survivor of the alleys who was now armed with the Prince's coin, had been elevated in the dark. Operating under a public mandate of the Crown Prince's holy charity, Wat and his network of hardened orphans and gutter-thieves, backed by the looming threat of Bywater's disciplined guards, had gently but systematically combed the gutters, the septs, and the shadowed wynds of King's Landing.

They had gathered up every mute, broken, and orphaned child they could find. The little birds had not been slaughtered; they had been taken in. Joffrey had funded a series of heavily guarded royal orphanages in the city. The mute children were given hot stew, warm beds, and heavy iron locks on the doors.

Joffrey had not just blinded the Spider. He had stolen Varys's eyes and ears using an impenetrable, unassailable shield of royal piety. No high lord or begging brother could argue against a Prince pulling starving orphans from the winter mud.

Crouched in the heat of the wall, Varys felt a phantom ache in his chest, a physical manifestation of his utter defeat.

Without his spies, he had been forced to watch from the high windows of the Keep as Joffrey dismantled the entire economic and criminal infrastructure of the capital.

Petyr Baelish's vast, corrupt empire had not merely been seized; it had been absorbed and weaponized.

Varys remembered looking down upon the Street of Silver. He had watched the ruthless freerider, Lothar Brune—a deadly, pragmatic killer whom Joffrey had poached from Baelish's own payroll with the promise of a true knighthood—executing the King's writ of attainder. Brune, clad in battered plate and surrounded by Joffrey's hardened men, had taken a heavy warhammer to the carved cedar doors of the Antler Men.

The wealthy, highborn merchants who had laundered the Master of Coin's stolen gold were dragged into the muddy streets in their velvet doublets, weeping as the Gold Cloaks clapped them in irons. Brune's men had hauled out heavy, iron-bound chests of physical silver stags, along with priceless ledgers of Myrish lace, saffron, and pepper.

Yet Joffrey did not stoop to managing the filth of the merchants' trade himself. The wealth of the city was violently redirected, flowing in a massive, unbroken river straight into King Robert's depleted treasury, while Joffrey granted the operational charters to loyal, Crown-sanctioned merchant guilds, ensuring the Iron Throne took a massive tax without managing the day-to-day burdens.

The underworld had fallen just as swiftly.

Varys had tried to seek refuge in the Street of Silk, hoping to utilize the secret tunnel built into Chataya's brothel—a passage he had discovered independently. But Joffrey had declared the entire Street of Silk under Royal Audit. When Varys crept near the carved doorways, he found them guarded by towering walls of muscle and steel.

The three Kettleblack brothers—Osmund, Osfryd, and Osney—stood on the cobblestones. They wore fresh, gleaming ringmail and dark cloaks, their massive hands resting casually on the hilts of their longswords. They were no longer hedge knights scrambling for coppers; they were the Crown's newly appointed wardens. They physically blockaded the lucrative establishments under the guise of the King's peace, auditing the patrons and ensuring the gold continued to flow to the Iron Throne without a single coin being skimmed by corrupt overseers.

The sheer, suffocating scale of the Prince's military lockdown had finally driven Varys to absolute despair when he had attempted to approach the Mud Gate.

He had crept through an alley reeking of fish offal and rotting kelp, hoping to slip out of the city amidst the chaotic flow of merchants and dung carts. He had looked up, scanning the high battlements of the gate for a weakness in the Watch.

He had not seen sleepy, corrupt guardsmen. He had seen a firing line.

Anguy the Archer commanded a squad of royal marksmen along the stone parapets, enforcing a strict curfew with deadly accuracy. The young Dornish Marcher wore boiled leather and a cloak the color of rusted iron, blending perfectly into the shadows of the merlons. Across his knees rested a custom yew bow of immense draw weight.

Varys had watched, frozen in the shadows of the alley, realizing his disguise would not save him if the heavy iron portcullis was physically sealed and guarded by expert marksmen ordered to shoot curfew-breakers on sight. No one entered or left without the royal seal. King's Landing was no longer a sprawling, chaotic city where a spy could vanish into the crowd. It was a locked cage of steel, muscle, and arrows, commanded entirely by a fifteen-year-old boy.

The heavy oak door of the solar groaned inward on its iron hinges, tearing Varys from his terrifying memories.

The warm light from the corridor spilled across the Myrish carpets. The heavy thud of the door closing sealed the room in quiet intimacy.

Joffrey Baratheon stepped into the candlelight.

He was a behemoth of bone and corded muscle, clad in a loose, open-collared tunic of black wool and dark leather breeches. He did not look like a boy; he moved with the heavy, predatory grace of a shadowcat, his sheer bulk making the grand solar feel suddenly cramped.

Varys did not blink. He pressed his eye to the jagged hole in the tapestry. Drink, you magnificent monster, the eunuch prayed to gods he did not believe in. Drink and choke on your own ashes.

Joffrey crossed the room to the heavy oak table. He did not hesitate. He reached out with a massive hand and took up the silver flagon. He poured the dark Arbor red into his personal goblet, the wine splashing rich and dark against the silver.

Varys held his breath, the suffocating heat of the wall entirely forgotten.

Joffrey raised the cup to his lips and drank deeply, his thick throat working rhythmically as he swallowed the laced vintage. He set the goblet down.

Varys watched, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He waited for the boy's massive hands to fly to his throat. He waited for the handsome face to turn the color of crushed plums, for the desperate, tearing gasp for air. A single crystal of the Strangler was enough to stop a bull's heart. Varys had given him three.

Suddenly, Joffrey froze. The silver goblet remained suspended inches from the table. A sheen of cold sweat broke out across the boy's brow, glistening sharply in the candlelight.

A surge of dark, desperate victory flared within Varys's breast. Fall, the Spider thought. Fall, damn you.

He watched as the thick muscles of the Prince's neck corded violently, straining against the open collar of his tunic. The boy's broad chest locked, rising and falling in sharp, jagged, agonizing breaths. His massive hands curled into fists, the knuckles turning bone-white as they rested heavily upon the oak table.

His very blood was going to absolute war with the deadly crystal seed.

But the behemoth remained standing. Joffrey closed his emerald eyes, his jaw clenching so hard the bone looked ready to crack under the immense strain. Slowly, agonizingly, the rigid, violent tension began to leave his massive shoulders. The horrific spasms in his chest subsided. He exhaled a long, ragged breath that sounded like a heavy bellows in the quiet room.

The dark victory in Varys's chest curdled instantly into paralyzing, primal dread.

The horrific truth dawned on the Master of Whisperers in the dark.

The late nights in the high towers. The hushed whispers surrounding the massive, mastiff-faced Archmaester Marwyn.

He had been drinking venom. The agonizing realization paralyzed Varys. A fraction of a drop, heavily diluted in a skin of water, slowly increasing over months. The boy had subjected himself to unimaginable agony to forge his own flesh into iron.

Joffrey opened his eyes. They were completely devoid of fear. The agony of the poison had passed, leaving behind a cold, terrifying clarity. He set the silver goblet down onto the table with a quiet, deliberate clink.

Then, the Prince turned his head.

His emerald gaze cut across the room, locking directly onto the hidden peephole behind the torn Myrish tapestry.

Varys stopped breathing entirely. The air in the crawlspace turned to solid ice.

"The Strangler, Lord Varys?" Joffrey asked the seemingly empty room.

His baritone voice was cold, ragged from the violent war within his blood, and utterly devoid of surprise. He spoke to the wall as if addressing a mildly disappointing pupil.

"The Archmaester warned me the rot would turn the wine bitter," Joffrey continued, his massive chest rising and falling smoothly now. "But when you drink it every day, Lord Varys, it tastes of nothing at all."

Before Varys could even flinch, before his paralyzed mind could command his soft limbs to retreat, the Prince moved.

Joffrey's massive hand snatched a heavy iron candlestick from the table. He did not aim carefully; he hurled the iron mass with a monstrous, inhuman force.

The heavy iron slammed into the wooden paneling a hairsbreadth from Varys's eye. The wood shattered with the sound of a thunderclap, tearing the Myrish tapestry to ribbons and sending sharp, jagged splinters of oak flying into the dark of the crawlspace.

Varys recoiled, a choked, high-pitched gasp tearing from his throat. He scrambled backward into the blackness like a panicked insect. His soft hands tore against the rough stone, his silk robes catching and ripping on the pulverized mortar.

The Prince knew exactly where he was. Joffrey did not need to fit into the narrow shafts himself; he possessed the raw power to command Sandor Clegane or the Kingsguard to take heavy axes to the walls and smash the paneling to splinters, dragging the Spider out by his soft neck.

King's Landing was lost. The web was completely burned away.

Varys crawled blindly through the suffocating dark, panic driving him, descending deeper and deeper into the bowels of Aegon's High Hill. Because Bywater's Gold Cloaks had sealed his usual wide, ancient tunnels, Varys was forced into the forgotten, crumbling architecture of the deep keep, squeezing his heavy bulk through shafts that had not seen light since Maegor the Cruel fell upon the throne.

He did not stop until the air turned foul and cold, thick with the damp, bitter stench of human waste and the salt of the sea. He slid down a slick, moss-covered stone chute, tearing the last of his fine silks, and splashed heavily into a half-flooded stone sewer outfall.

The freezing black water soaked him to the bone, shocking the breath from his lungs. Varys waded forward, the muck sucking at his soft leather slippers, until he saw the pale moonlight bleeding through a rusted, broken iron grate that the Gold Cloaks had somehow overlooked.

He dragged his heavy bulk out of the stone sewer, shivering violently in the bitter night air.

The dark, restless waters of Blackwater Bay stretched out before him, vast and indifferent. To his left, the sheer, imposing curtain walls of the Red Keep loomed against the starry sky, black and unyielding.

He had arrived in King's Landing decades ago as a master of secrets. Now, he was stripped of his little birds, his network, and his entire empire. He was a beggar in the mud once more.

Varys wiped the foul, freezing water from his face and looked toward the eastern horizon, toward the salt and the narrow sea.

Illyrio is dead, the eunuch thought, a profound bleakness settling over his spirit. The Cheesemaker's immediate coin is buried under cracked stone. I must race across the narrow sea before his absence is noted in Pentos. He has no trueborn heir; the rival magisters will tear his manses apart the moment they realize the Cheesemaker is never coming home.

A sudden, freezing horror seized him. Viserys and the girl. They were still at the manse, waiting for the Dothraki Khal to appear from the grass. The petrified dragon eggs were still resting in the deep vaults. If the magisters raided the estate, they would find the Beggar King and his sister, and sell them to King Robert for a mountain of gold before the moon turned.

He must find a smuggler's skiff in the chaotic dark of the wharves. He must secure the Targaryen children from the vultures of Pentos, and send word to the river where the boy Aegon sailed.

Westeros was lost to him now. The dragon was a distant hope across the water, but the stag had grown monstrous iron horns.

***

Author's Note on Mithridatism: Mithridatism is the physiological practice of protecting oneself against a specific poison by gradually and continuously self-administering sub-lethal amounts of that exact toxin to build up biological immunity. The term originates from its most famous historical practitioner, the ancient King Mithridates VI of Pontus (often called the Poison King), who ingested a daily cocktail of diluted poisons out of a profound paranoia of being assassinated, eventually rendering himself immune to the standard lethal toxins of his era. In more modern history, this phenomenon has been well-documented in researchers and snake handlers—most notably Bill Haast, who injected himself with increasingly potent, diluted snake venom for decades, successfully building antibodies that allowed his body to survive dozens of normally fatal cobra and viper bites.

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Arc 1 complete. Book canon starts from here on after. Maybe need a week or two of research before the next arc starts. Thanks to all my readers for their love and support.