Nerd In the North 6-3 (Patreon)

Many a time, if not all, there was a task laid upon his not-quite-broad shoulders.

The act of noticing often passed others by, as simple as it was, leaving such a laborious task for him to bear. While he could venture many a conjecture as to why — possibly bad air up so high causing a thickening of the body’s humors — Tyrion Lannister often had little time to think about said act, in favor of the action itself.

As of now, the first thing Tyrion noticed was the pause.

Not the sort of pause men ever admitted to; never the kind that could be blamed on thought or caution or even the weight of the late hour. This one lived in the eyes. 

The Hand’s chambers were home to many eyes this night, high ceilings and thick walls narrowed with shouts and crowded by bodies filled with fear and panic. A guard had dragged a brazier closer at the order of his sister before quickly being dismissed, the heat sitting wrong on his face; sweat from the heat nothing against the sweat already on his brow.

The second thing the dwarf noticed was Joffrey’s voice.

The boy’s tantrum was a constant scream dressed in soft velvet, loud and thick; Tyrion fighting a wince every second his nephew spoke from the way the room shifted to accommodate it. 

Not quite bending. Not quite. But the air still tightened regardless, a compliance underneath his skin that made his chest itch beneath his doublet.

The ruler of the Seven Kingdoms paced in front of the table, boots striking the stones with snaps as impatient as every bite from his lips. Torchlight caught the boy’s hair enough to gild it, and for a heartbeat, Tyrion’s eyes caught the look of his elder brother more than his sister; the shape of the jaw, the arrogant set of the shoulders. 

The resemblance splintered with a blink from Tyrion and a turn from Joffrey, because Jaime had been proud and powerful, and his son was loud and resentful. Golden eyes—no longer those of Lannister like mother or father—burned bright and unnatural in a manner that made the whites seem so much lesser by comparison, as if the fire had leaked out of some painting of the Father and chosen the worst vessel available.

“They took them.” The repetition bore as much weight as everything else Joffrey had said, the young king seemingly unable to grasp that echoes did not add soldiers to walls or shift simple realities. “Myrcella and the Stark girl from under my roof. Under my command.”

Queen Mother sat near the table’s head, so still she might have been carved from wrought stone as her green eyes remained firmly on the true power in the room. Unshed tears refused to fall, even as Cersei trembled, fingers working against each other as she likely envisioned strangling someone for the events of tonight.

Providing a guard for the Kingsguard, Tyrion nearly sighed, wishing for more than one measly goblet of Arbor Gold to ease himself. The very idea.

Pycelle shook in his chain and rings, hands fluttering near his belly whenever Joffrey’s voice rose. At the same time, Littlefinger lounged with the ease of a man at a pleasant supper, expression carefully somber as if he hadn’t already betrayed himself to anyone with more brains than they could spare. The fat spymaster sat closest to Tyrion’s side, opposite the fool maester and only one chair separating him from the whoremonger; Varys looking surprisingly contrite with his hands folded and head slightly bowed.

Tyrion had taken his place at the table’s end, because the table’s end was always the safest place for a dwarf; more room to keep his wine close and as much space from the others to give them their due pleasure of looking down on him. 

“Finished breathing fire, Your Grace?” The word Grace left a sour taste, one that even a sip of wine did little to dull. “Because we may speak of what can be done, once you have.”

Those eyes of polished gold snapped toward him, each one fiixed on Tyrion’s face as he felt that invisible pressure behind them; that power he knew could press simple orders into rapt obedience. Tyrion had seen the work of it, the unhidden might that had the High Septon declaring Joffrey as the Blessed King ‘wielding the Father’s own tongue.’

Nothing very blessed in it, not in the sight of grown men carrying out commands with the dazed expression of those waking from sleep. But such was the Faith’s new pet miracle; the Seven’s mockery of every old Maester’s lecture about the limits of prayer.

Joffrey opened his mouth as Tyrion lifted his goblet and took more than simple sip; the act small and perhaps childish. Yet it accomplished what small acts often did, especially when performed by a small man.

All eyes turned to him again. Even those of his sister’s, her lips narrowing as if to say do not provoke him, and provoke him; both at once.

“Do not speak to me as if I am a child.” 

No command, your Grace? Tyrion set the goblet down with care, not willing to risk an actual order imprinted on his soul. As much as each order took something from Joffrey, Tyrion was well aware of the pettiness the boy bore with less restraint than his dear mother. “Then do not shout as if you are one.”

His nephew’s lips peeled back. “Mock me again and I will have y-”

“You will have your sister returned,” Speaking to the ‘Holy King’ required a much more hand than before, the time when he could have slapped the boy long past. Now, he had to coddle and calm him, not entirely unlike a frightened horse. “A thing that requires thought. Screaming rarely helps with searches, your Grace, unless your voice is so powerful it can lay down doors.”

If Joffrey felt the attention of the room shift away, the boy did not show it. 

Yet, the gold in his eyes brightened regardless, the king’s fist clenching with strength Tyrion had witnessed match any knight.  For an instant, the Hand of the King saw the shape of a command forming on his tongue, and it was that same instant the spymaster chose to speak.

“Your Grace, the Red Keap is tightly sealed, the city gates shut as the Gold Cloaks search the Kingswood,” Varys was not one to plead, but the Essosi seemed determined to ward off any more displays of the king’s power. “We shall have them soon enough, if they have not gone too far.”

“If?” Venom worthy of his mother spat from the boy king’s lips in a hiss. “These savages invaded my city. Northmen crept through my halls. They are g-”

“They are gone.” Tyrion raised an eyebrow as his sister finally spoke for the first time since the king entered his chambers. Her voice was quieter than usual, all the screams gone with the tears shed for her perfect princess. “You would already know as much if you listened to the men you summoned.”

Joffrey’s gaze swung to her, gold flaring brighter as Tyrion’s stomach tightened. Yet, Cersei did not flinch. She never did, not when she knew eyes were upon her.

Pycelle cleared his throat, a dry clamor of a sound. “If I may, Your Grace, such outrages are not unheard of, though of course it is… m-most alarming… and I should like to remind those present of the simple truth that young ladies taken in the night often come t-”

“If you dare to speak of rape again in my presence, I will have a knife brought in to remove your tongue myself.”

Pycelle’s mouth worked, the aged maester clearly uncertain whether to be offended or terrified at the Queen’s immediate and unflinching threat. It took the man’s face only a few seconds to settle on both.

Two stubby fingers rubbed the bridge of Tyrion’s nose, the dwarf of House Lannister feeling the inevitability of a headache threatening what little calm he held onto. His chambers were filled with people who loved hearing themselves speak, and none of them had yet to know a night’s rest. “Enough.”

More authority put into the word than he cared to admit he possessed, Tyrion dropped his fists onto the table to make sure attention was properly on him. “We have two girls taken, one my niece and the other our only hostage worth having. The men who took them have wounded us most grievously, their knife placed precisely where it would bleed us.”

Joffrey’s pacing slowed step by step, until the purest Lannister present stopped entirely. “Who?” 

Tyrion let his gaze travel the room, avoiding the pressure of Joffrey’s as he met his sister’s eyes next to those of her son. “You know of the Northmen seen in the city earlier today.”

“Of course.” Cersei’s eyes narrowed as she bit out the word. 

“Not a lord’s retinue.” He reached for his goblet again; not to drink, not yet. “A small knot of cloaks and hoods, enough to slatter a score of Goldcloaks in the streets.”

“That could be any number of sellswords,” Littlefinger was quick to add. “King’s Landing remains full of them.”

“Among them,” Tyrion snubbed the man with the practiced ease of someone who had been slighting Petyr Baelish for years, “a boy was spotted. Hair of gold and eyes of blue, with a face as soft as a septa’s son.”

Varys’s voice slid in like silk. “The same one they call the Bright Lord, the sorcerous boy Robb Stark is said to favour.”

Pycelle made a small, distressed noise. “Sorcery!”

Joffrey’s lips curled. “A boy.”

“A boy,” Tyrion echoed the words of his king. “A boy who has already killed Lord Bolton and his bastard and elevated to the position of a High Lord, if whispers from the North ring true.”

“The whispers are always true when we least wish them to be,” was the murmur from the spymaster’s lips; his words not an answer and not meant to be.

“And this…” Cersei’s hands tightened atop the table, “This is the same boy who…”

“Who helped take him, yes.” Tyrion could only watch as his words landed in his sister’s side like a spear, their brother’s name not needing to be spoken for it to ache.

Tyrion swallowed down the pain himself, grief a luxury Lannisters could not afford in these times. Cersei did not show pain either, eyes going harder and her mouth thinning to nothing; a list written in corpses forming in her thoughts.

“From what Ser Meryn managed to stammer between apologies,” Tyrion continued his retelling of what he had heard, “the intruder broke in, fought off a number of the Red Cloaks, and reached the girls.”

“A-alone?”

“Not entirely,” Tyrion answered the Grand Maester’s question with only the slightest bit of hesitation, already thinking of the descriptions, the inconsistencies, and the way frightened men added horns and shadows with each retelling. “There were… companions, perhaps. A great swordsman dressed in black, if you trust the guards who were not unconscious. And past that, things became more… more…”

The Queen Mother’s eyes remained on him, nostrils flared in a manner most unladylike. “What more?”

Tyrion took a sip from his goblet, wine buying him a few moments more. “I asked how he escaped and the answer…” Tyrion lifted a shoulder in a small shrug, “the prevailing answer from Trant himself was that he jumped.”

Pycelle blinked at him. “Jumped.”

“Jumped,” Tyrion repeated. “Not just from Myrcella’s window but through the glass itself.”

Cersei stared at Tyrion, as if the dwarf of Lannister had lost his mind. “You expect me to believe a boy jumped out of a tower with my daughter and lived.”

“Impossible.”

Tyrion’s eyes flicked to king and mother both. “So it seems and yet we wake up to new impossibilities every day.”

Varys’s hands remained folded as the fat man spoke soft words. “News throughout the kingdom has shown that many across the land have been favoured by gifts such as these.”

Tyrion took another slow sip from his goblet as his thoughts drifted to his own sworn sword, Bronn; the man able to cut down many a challenger with ease even the man himself had yet to understand. Yet he pressed on, unwilling to let all those gathered here circle the same outrage for too long. “They say he forced the wind to carry him up, breaking his fall upon the ground, before he ran.”

“Ran,” Pycelle echoed faintly.

“With the speed of a destrier at that.” Tyrion could only sigh at news of impossibility after impossibility and yet the story had yet to reach its end. “He ran for the gates even as the Goldcloaks gave chase until he reached the outer wall and simply… leapt.”

“Over the gates,” Varys supplied, the spymaster bearing a hint of sadness in each word, as if he regretted the world’s lack of sense. “Over.”

Cersei’s face tightened. “You speak of madness.”

“Nay, sister, the Gold Cloaks speak of madness, the people of the city and the Kingsguard as well. If this is madness spoken, it is a madness shared,” Tyrion could only sigh again, “which makes it all the more inconvenient.”

“Enough!” Joffrey slammed a single fist on the table, the sound cracking across the chamber as the guards at the door flinched with another wave of that unseen pressure passing through them all. “Find them.”

The words rang, a weight suddenly laid upon the room.

Pycelle’s lips parted, ready to agree, a dazed smile on the old maester’s face. Varys’s head dipped, almost imperceptibly. Even Littlefinger’s false solemnity faltered for the smallest instant. For a heartbeat, Tyrion himself felt his own spine want to straighten, obedience forcing itself upon him; yet spite was always his greatest weapon. “We shall, your Grace, but we should know what else we are hunting.”

Golden eyes narrowed, face near a perfect recreation of the Queen Mother. “What else?”

Tyrion set his goblet down again, heartbeat thick in his chest. “Upon the city road, as the intruder fled, a beast was seen. Dark wings and fire enough to light the night.”

The word fire changed the room, Cersei herself flinching as she stared at Tyrion with an edged whisper upon her lips. “Do not say it.”

Tyrion did not enjoy saying it, truly. He would have preferred a simple enemy with simple weapons, a force carrying mere swords as all wars had been for nearly two hundred year. But the world cared little for any man’s preference. “A dragon.”

Silence swallowed the chamber as if the word had weight.

Pycelle stared at him, mouth open as Varys’s eyes lowered.. Joffrey’s gold gaze blazed with an unholy heat, Tyrion unable to tell whether the boy was thrilled or terrified.

“No.”

“The size of a pony at least,” Tyrion continued despite his sister’s shock, because details were the only things that made madness sound less mad. “It even burned several Gold Cloaks before it flew away.”

Pycelle’s hands fluttered at his chain. “No dragon has lived s-since”

“Since you were still capable of remembering without help?” Tyrion offered mildly, scoffing at the foolish grand maester. “It has been said the sorcerous boy had some dark beast at his command. We were foolish enough to treat the claims from the North as little more than tavern prattle to weaken the strength of our own. Yet, it seems Tommen is not the first in these times to  hatch a dragon. The North has had one far longer, judging by the size.”

“The North,” Joffrey’s fingers dug into the table, each word from his lips dripping contempt. “Just wolves and mud men.”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “Just, Your Grace?”

Before Joffrey could rage his way, Varys took the chance to speak. “And yet we see that wolves can bite, Your Grace. Especially when they believe themselves cornered.”

“Cornered?” The king spat the word. “They stole from me.”

“They struck against the Crown, Your Grace.” Tyrion corrected, voice as measured as he could manage. To let Joffrey turn this into a personal slight rather than a political move would only result in the boy ordering heads for the pleasure of it. “They acted against the kingdom. Against the penitent Lord Stark who admitted his crimes and faced his execution with dignity. And ultimately, they struck against House Lannister by taking what we claimed.”

Cersei’s gaze snapped to him, something in her face like gratitude for all of an instant. Only for it to vanish under suspicion, because his sister lacked the ability to hold grace or humility without choking on it. “Take any man born above the Neck you find still in the city. The first hundred you find, hang them tfrom the walls. The rest, imprison them.”

The gold in his nephew’s eyes pulsed with satisfaction to match his mother’s as his mouth widened into a smile. Tyrion hated that smile more than he hated the threat.

“Do not hang northmen,” Tyrion had to deny that much, even as he kept his voice calm; calm was the only way to say no to a lioness without losing a hand. “To openly hang them would be to frighten the people.”

“No. Do not hang them.” Joffrey’s voice sharpened again. “Find them and bring them to me.”

The command pressed outward, heavy as a hand on the back of Tyrion’s neck as the room leaned towards it. Exactly as I feared. Tyrion let out a slow breath through his nose, nothing else to say to risk even more of his fears becoming an unpleasant reality. 

“As you command, Your Grace.”