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Tywin stared at the message from Tyrion, and for several moments could not have named the sensation he felt most strongly. Relief should have predominated: Jaime was alive, and safe, and back in their hands again. And if not relief then perhaps gratitude: the idea that this one bannerwoman of Catelyn Stark’s had somehow managed to get him out and back to King’s Landing was so absurd that it almost seemed the generosity of the gods.
But he didn’t believe in divine interventions, and though he was relieved, and deeply so, the more honest sensation in his heart was instead outrage, at the rest of Tyrion’s message. Only it could not find its way to real anger under the circumstances, and instead he put the letter down and let out a helpless bark of laughter. Ser Alwyn stretched his eyes like a fool in front of him, and the girl—the girl—startled and darted a glance over at him, from the cup of wine she’d been pouring.
He looked at her, and tried to glare, and couldn’t manage that, either. “Barrowton,” he said to her, levelly, and she only gazed blankly back at him, still not giving the game away, the clever little creature. “Hah.” He shook his head and raised his voice. “Mortimer! Soren!” His squires looked in at once. “Have a guest chamber prepared, with two guards. For Lady Arya Stark.”
She bolted instantly, ducked under Alwyn’s too-late grab, and flung the jug of wine in his squires’ faces; the two idiots yelped and groped for their eyes, and she actually made it past them into the corridor. Tywin had to get up himself and run after her, and shout at the four guards at the foot of the stairs to take her gently, which needed to be said, because she kicked one of them in the knee and tried to get the dagger out of the other’s belt.
After four grown men working together finally managed to haul her back to him, she glared defiance up at him, refusing to be afraid, and he still couldn’t be angry; he only said to her, indulgently, “All right, stop trying to get yourself killed; there’s no need. You’re going to be released.”
There wasn’t the slightest break in her suspicion. “Why would I be?” she said coldly.
“You and your sister are being exchanged for my son,” Tywin said.
She still didn’t waver. “That’s a stupid trade,” she said. “Robb wouldn't do that.”
He snorted in admiration. “Indeed he wouldn't. Your mother, however, did. She released Jaime out of your brother’s camp, and he’s returned to King’s Landing. Your sister is already on her way here, with your mother's bannerwoman, and then I’ll arrange to see you both delivered to her safely, as my son promised.”
She only glared at him the harder. “Then she’s been stupid, and I don’t believe you anyway. You’re probably lying.”
He gave her a stern look. “Watch your tongue.”
“Or what, you’ll cut my head off, like your grandson did to my father?” she spat at him, a cub trying to bite with milk teeth, and he stiffened. “Sansa believed him. She was smiling at him right until he did it. I don’t believe you. You want to murder my brother and probably have me and Sansa raped to death like Princess Elia. If you do give us back, it’ll just be another lie, so you can pretend you pay your debts.”
He didn’t flinch. “Take the child away before I have to have her gagged,” he told the guards, whose faces had blanched pale, more afraid than she was. “Someone would probably lose a finger at it.” They took her off in a hurry, and then he dismissed the rest and then sat down and discovered that his jaw had gone involuntarily tight. He glared down at the letter on the table, the letter telling him that Jaime was half-miraculously alive and well and free, a very stupid trade, in exchange for two young girls who would indeed very likely be raped, though not to death, after he’d killed their brother.
He drummed his fingers on the table once, before he caught himself, and then with determination he put the letter aside, and turned to the rest of his work, but he couldn’t settle to it. Arya Stark’s cold, angry, smart words kept coming back to his mind: so you can pretend you pay your debts. It was an accusation that might well stick in the minds of others, as well, and finally he stopped trying to work and reached out for the letter again. She made Jaime vow to return her daughters to her safely, Tyrion had written, which was looking like a debt that we’d have a puzzle to repay, until Lord Baelish informed me that he spotted Arya, concealed—he’d thought deliberately—as your cupbearer at Harrenhal.
Tywin frowned at it: safely was the sticking point. He could send them back to their mother, but Arya would be right in the end, because Robb Stark had to die, and it was too clear that he wasn’t going to be killed in the field. Tywin knew the best he could do was try to ensure the girls were delivered to him afterwards, unharmed or close to it, and keep them safe afterwards. So that was what he’d do. The decision made, the only option available, he put the letter aside, and forced himself to begin on the review of the goldroad supply lines.
#
Jaime rode in personally nine days later, along with Sansa Stark and the woman who’d escorted him back to King’s Landing. He brought her up with him to Tywin’s study, and said, “Father, may I present Lady Brienne of Tarth? Lady Brienne, my father, Lord Tywin Lannister,” with an excessive flourish.
The woman pressed her lips together and looked at him disapprovingly before she inclined her head a little and said stiffly, “My lord.”
Tywin eyed Jaime, who didn’t notice, because he was beaming back at her as if he were pleased to have annoyed her, and a sensation of alertness tightened across his shoulders, like getting the first glimpse of a new track, a sign of interesting prey. Although the woman was an oddity to look at: nearly seven feet tall, ungainly, her armor a mismatched patchwork. And it fit her and showed plentiful signs of use, as did the two scabbards she wore. “Is Selwyn your father?” Tywin asked, after a moment.
“He is, my lord,” she said.
He nodded a little. “A good man. I’m glad to meet you. We’ll speak further soon. For now, I’d like to speak with my son, and you must be tired.”
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said, “I’m not very tired. I would like to see Lady Arya, and reunite her with her sister, and give her what reassurance I can. I’m sure she must be very afraid.”
“If she is, she’s keeping it to herself,” Tywin said dryly. He’d gone to look in on Arya three times each day, despite being gnawed on further every time: he didn’t trust his men to not make some stupid mistake, guarding her, and he did trust her to take advantage of it, if they did. He nodded to Soren. “See it done.”
He turned to Jaime after she’d been shown out, and indulged himself in taking him by the shoulders and looking him over: the captivity had worn on him, a loss of muscle visible and his face sharpened and thinner. His hair had been cropped short, and there was a badly-healed jagged scar across his forehead. “From the battle?” he asked, jerking his chin towards it.
“From the pen,” Jaime said. “After Eddard was executed, Catelyn Stark got angry. She hit me with a rock.”
“I suppose I should be grateful that’s where it stopped,” Tywin said.
“I certainly am,” Jaime said, with an effort at brightness that was in fact a visible effort. Tywin gripped him a little harder for another moment, letting himself believe that his son was back, and safe. He let go and went and poured him a cup of wine, himself. He’d tried three other cupbearers out of the prisoners, and all of them had been sniffling incompetents; he’d had to send them away. The contrast had made him too annoyed at himself for not realizing the girl was something truly unusual, sooner.
“Was the journey very difficult?” he asked. “I don’t suppose that woman was of any real use.”
Jaime gave a snort, taking the cup and sitting down, just heavily enough for Tywin to know that his legs were actually tired. “She only saved my life six or seven times.” He grimaced a bit. “Occasionally despite my own best efforts. The one time I got away from her, I ran straight into a bear the size of a barn. I had to yell for her to come save me out of a tree.”
Tywin eyed him again, the bright alertness returning, stronger. “It sounds as though we owe her quite a debt.”
“Good luck persuading her to take payment,” Jaime said. “She’s very single-minded. When Tyrion told us you didn’t have Arya, I thought I was probably going to be marched the whole way back.”
“Was she under the impression Tyrion was going to let her?” Tywin said, raising a brow.
“She did have a knife at my throat at the time,” Jaime said, in wry tones. “And she’d’ve used it, too.”
He was smiling to himself a little as he spoke, a light coming into his face which made nothing of all the wear and abuse of captivity; Tywin had only ever seen it in him once or twice at tourneys, in the exaltation of battle. He disliked feeling annoyed with himself, but it seemed he was due for some more of it. Twenty years trying to find a suitable match for his heir, sending one graceful, eligible beauty after another to King’s Landing to be dragged across his path, only to have them all ignored. He ought to have realized this sooner, too. He inhaled deeply and put that small irritation aside; better to have found her now. “I’ll speak with her later,” he said. “Now, tell me how matters stand at King’s Landing.”
“Oh, everything’s fine. Except we’re about to be completely fucked by Stannis Baratheon,” Jaime said and took out a thick letter from Tyrion to give to him.
Tywin sent for the woman that evening, after he’d sent Jaime off to his rest early, after as substantial a meal as his cook could manage. It was obvious Jaime had been trying to push himself, instead of properly recuperating; Tywin had pointedly said, “If I put you in a ring right now with that woman, who’d win?”
And then Jaime had said with a helpless laugh, “She already beat the shit out of me once along the way.” He could only have declared himself more plainly if he’d been in front of a septon making his vows. Tywin repressed a sigh.
Lady Brienne came in answer to his summons promptly, still under arms; she returned his greetings awkwardly and fell into silence afterwards: her manners were unappealing and wholly without grace. But that hardly mattered. She was still young enough to bear Jaime’s children, and though Tarth itself was insignificant, the Lords of Tarth were a cadet branch of the ancient Storm Kings of old: she was arguably more directly descended of the Durrandons than the Baratheons were themselves. And there was blood of both House Baratheon and House Targaryen in that lineage as well. Tywin would have been glad to have found her ten years sooner; as it was, he was impatient to have it done now. “I’ve spoken with Jaime, Lady Brienne,” he said. “He’s made it clear that my house owes you a great debt. I hope you will let me repay it.”
She said stiffly, “You owe me nothing, my lord. Whatever I’ve done, I haven’t done it for you. I’ve done it for Lady Catelyn. The debt you owe is to her, and if you’ll repay it by giving me the girls and letting me take them home to her in safety, as was promised, that’s all you need do, and all I’ll accept.”
He frowned at her. “You saved my son’s life.”
“Only to save theirs,” she said.
He paused on another stirring of instinct, conscious suddenly that he was hunting an unfamiliar beast over uneven ground, and remembered Jaime saying good luck getting her to accept payment. However graceless this woman appeared to be, there was something more in her, or Jaime wouldn't have wanted her. She wasn’t going to be taken easily, and he needed to take her whole. He said after a moment, “He’s admitted that he didn’t make it easy for you.”
She only frowned a little, as if puzzled. “He tried to escape and get his hands on a sword. I’d’ve done the same, in his place.” He was debating another line of approach when she said abruptly, “My lord, may I speak plainly?”
“You may,” he said, though he felt wary: the chase curving towards a thick stand of forest, where the trail might easily be lost.
“The girls don’t believe you’re going to release them, and after what they’ve already suffered, I can’t tell them they’re wrong to fear,” she said. “If I took any reward at all from you, it would only make them doubt me, and be more afraid. I won’t do it. If you want to pay your debt, either to Lady Catelyn or to me, then just keep your word, and let me leave with them first thing in the morning. That’s all I want.”
His jaw tightened; he’d been right to be wary. “And after you have returned them?” he said. She blinked at him. “Robb Stark didn’t make this bargain. His mother betrayed him to do it, and he has held her as a prisoner since. Do you think he will be grateful to you?”
Her shoulders only went back a little further. “That’s his business,” she said. “Mine is to see the girls back safe.”
“Will they be, in the middle of an army?” Tywin said. “And Winterfell is in the hands of the ironborn. Would you not prefer to take them with an escort to their aunt in the Vale? We could send a messenger to let their mother know they’re in the Eyrie.”
“No, thank you,” she said, and went back to her wooden silence staring at him, only it wasn’t wooden at all, nor even just well-forged metal, but Valyrian steel, impervious. He was understanding better with every moment: this was what Jaime wanted for their house. A woman beyond any ordinary price, a masterwork hidden from the eyes of dullards inside an ugly sheath, but which he’d glimpsed exposed and shining.
“And yet I must ensure their safety to keep the promise that was made, and also yours, to repay what we owe you,” Tywin said, still looking for a trap he could catch her in, a snare he could slip into the path ahead. “I’ll send a message to Robb Stark in the morning and inform him that you’re bringing the girls to their mother, and learn where you’re to go. You’ll leave when I have his answer, with an escort large enough to make certain you reach them without difficulty. And I’ll require him to let you return afterwards, and reward you when you have.”
But her mouth only set mulishly. “I didn’t need an escort to bring Ser Jaime to King’s Landing, and I don’t need one to get the girls back to Lady Catelyn,” she said, which would have been absurdly unreasonable, if only the first part hadn’t been demonstrably true. “And I won’t be returning, for a reward or anything else. I’m sworn to Lady Catelyn’s service, and to protect her girls, and that’s what I’ll do. I don’t believe their brother will harm me for having done my best for them.”
Tywin didn’t believe it either. He put his hands behind his back, curled into fists, wondering what else he could do. And then she added, abruptly, “And if you truly wanted to make the girls safe, my lord, you have the power to do it.”
“Do I?” he said, sharply.
She looked him straight in the face, unsmiling. “You can give their brother peace terms he can accept, in honor, that will let him take them home. And if you won’t do that, then anything else you do is lip service, and they know it. So they’d rather just be out of your hands as soon as they can, and I don’t blame them.”
“Their brother is in open rebellion against the crown,” he said.
“I’m not trying to negotiate for him,” she said. “It’s not my place. I only know what the girls have told me, of the abuse they and their father have endured. No man of honor could bend the knee to the man who did it. So as long as those are your terms, you’re fighting to kill Robb Stark and his brothers, and you can’t do that and make Sansa and Arya truly safe. I ask again that you let me take them in the morning and go.”
He grunted, thinking it through; he turned and said, “Mortimer. Go and bring Lady Sansa and Lady Arya here. You’ll remain,” he added to Lady Brienne, and seated himself to wait; the girls were brought in shortly. Sansa was as different from her sister as a willow from a shrub: a tall, ladylike girl, already a beauty, and where her sister was still glaring like a hellcat, her face was calm and serene, although she had Arya’s hand gripped in hers, a little too tightly by the look, even while she curtseyed.
“Lady Brienne tells me that you’re concerned that you won’t be released,” he said. “You will be. Our debt to your mother will be paid.” Their faces didn’t change, either one; he looked at them narrowly. “But what I would have from you, before I send you back to her, is a better understanding of what has been going on in King’s Landing. I already know that my grandson had your father executed for no good reason, because there wasn’t one. But I’ve now heard enough to be concerned that there’s more to the matter.” He looked at Sansa. “What were you told, before the execution?”
She dropped her eyes. “My father was a traitor, my lord,” she said.
“No, he wasn’t!” Arya said, and then twisted her hand free. “He wasn’t, and I won’t say it!” she said to Sansa, who was desperately grimacing a warning at her.
“No child of a good father would believe him a traitor,” Tywin said. “And I’m not interested in making you lie to me, Lady Sansa. Were you told beforehand that your father was to be put to death? Yes, or no?”
She swallowed and said, softly, “No, my lord.”
“Were you told otherwise?” he said. She nodded a little.
He dragged the story out of her piece by piece, which came quicker as he went on insistently prying them loose, until she was telling him freely, tears standing in her eyes, even of the mere rumors she’d heard among the women of the castle: infants murdered at their mothers’ breasts, whores killed in the king’s bedchamber. He listened to all of the stories, regardless of how extreme: it didn’t especially matter what was true, what mattered was what people were saying, even in Joffrey’s own castle, about their king.
“And he had my friend Micah killed, on the way to King’s Landing,” Arya threw in. “Because Micah wouldn’t fight him, and then Nymeria bit him for me and I took his sword away,” the actual details obscured by a child’s incoherent rage, and yet details were scarcely needed: I took his sword away alone was almost more damning than all the rest.
“All right,” he said, finally, when he’d squeezed them dry. “I’ve heard enough. I’ll send word to arrange a parley with your brother, where you’ll be released to him, and we’ll ride out tomorrow to meet him. And now it’s late, and both of you should be abed. Lady Brienne, if you’d care to escort them upstairs, my squires will see you housed near them.”
Brienne had been listening with a deep frown to the stories, and also to his questioning; she was still visibly wary when he’d finished, and looked at him sidelong before she ushered the girls out with her, but she didn’t protest any further against the escort. When they’d gone, Tywin sent for his officers and issued orders for the morning, then wrote a raven message to go to Tyrion before he sought his own bed.
#
Stark’s agreement to the parley came when they were nearly a week on the road, as did Tyrion’s reply, neither unexpected, and his resolution remained unchanged. Tywin had ordered Jaime to ride with Lady Brienne and the girls, and every day made it plainer that he’d have an heir for Casterly Rock in a year, or not at all, if he didn’t get the woman. And it was clearly going to be his work to get her. Infuriatingly, Jaime himself didn’t even attempt to pursue her: he only hung upon her train and pestered her instead, whenever Arya didn’t interrupt his attempts—a small guard dog yapping away a teasing boy—and occasionally when Brienne wasn’t looking gazed at her wistfully, as if he imagined her some sort of fanciful creature out of reach, about to vanish forever.
As for her, she didn’t even manage to conceal her feelings behind a puerile façade. She couldn’t so much as look Jaime directly in the face without color coming into her cheeks; but when it happened, she immediately looked away again, and so never saw the naked hunger that Jaime looked back at her. To give Jaime some credit, she did always look away at once, and resolutely, refusing to give free rein to her own sentiments, and plainly wouldn’t yield when she thought it was against her duty.
Four days before the agreed parley, Tywin divided his forces, sending most of the cavalry and infantry to continue along the Godstongue river towards the Blackwater, keeping only the Lion Guard with them. Jaime and Brienne and the girls watched the soldiers marching away, and that evening when they ate together, Jaime looked at him anxiously, and twice almost asked him where they had gone, and then thought better of knowing, clearly because he might have had to lie to Brienne about it.
They turned their own path a little further west the next morning, and marched the rest of the way to the Oyster Isle ford of the Blackwater, from the north. The Stark banners had marched from the Westerlands and were already encamped there on the southern side of the ford, tents pitched near the water, with—oddly—a small battering ram standing on a rack along with them, wearing the metal head of a snarling wolf on the end.
Narrow footbridges led from either side to the island, little more than large stones set in the water with a few planks laid across them. He and Stark each sent a man across; after a brief negotiation, Tywin then sent over a party of men to erect a pavilion on the island, and once it was up and they’d left, Stark sent men to inspect it. Then both sides came to the edge of the water and forded over, as agreed, with a party of the same size, and only an honor guard of twelve men under arms for either side.
The rest of them one after another thrust their swords into the dirt of the bank, where they could be seen from the other side, before they crossed. Stark’s men were doing the same on the opposite bank; but their swords had a guardian: a monstrous wolf as big as a warhorse, sitting beside the row of blades and eyeing them across the water with its ears pricked up for hunting. Jaime stared at it with his face grim. “Stark’s direwolf?” Tywin said to him.
Jaime gave a jerk of a nod. “The thing keeps growing,” he said through a tight jaw. He turned and noticed the last of the armed guards going across. “I should be one of the—” he started.
“No,” Tywin said firmly. He thrust his own sword into the ground, and gestured pointedly. Jaime scowled and sullenly left his blade; Lady Brienne put both of hers in the ground next to his, and gave Sansa her hand to cross the ford. Arya had already scampered over the footbridge up to the heels of the last guard. As soon as she’d made it past the deeper part of the ford, she jumped off into the water and ran splashing the rest of the way and across the island, straight to the almost absurdly young man in the lead of the Stark party, a soft-cheeked boy with an early beard, who caught her up in his arms as she leapt. She was already babbling at him, furiously, “You shouldn't be here! Don’t believe anything they say! It’s probably a trap!”
But the boy said, “It’s all right. I’m ready to spring it, if he likes,” with the confidence of an expert craftsman facing a large and difficult task, which a lesser man might call impossible, and which he knew he could accomplish. “Don’t fear.” Sansa was across and running to him also, then, and he put his arms round them both, kissing them and drawing them into his embrace and putting his head down with theirs in a huddle for a long moment, and when he let them go there were unashamed tears on his face.
The big, grizzled old man behind him was beaming at Arya. “Do you remember me, little wolf?” he said to Arya. “You knocked my grandson into the pigpen, last time I visited your keep.”
“You’re the Greatjon,” she said, smiling back up at him, and he herded the girls to one side, Brienne joining them, as Robb turned and finally came to sit down: the rest of the officers on both sides had already ranged themselves on either side of the table. Tywin regarded him narrowly, evaluating as he might a beast he’d seen in the forest, a prize to be taken. Stark was still a boy, not at his own full growth yet, but already tall and broad-shouldered, with muscle and discipline that showed he wasn’t neglecting his own exercise and drill despite the labor of leading an army. He was also unusually handsome, a virtue for a king: the eyes of men and women alike would pick him out of a crowded room of strangers, and nod when they learned who he was. The effect could be achieved with posture and dress and physical discipline, but it was an advantage to begin with looks.
And the eyes that met his own across the table had the same bright quickness as his sister’s, and the same ferocity, a predator’s gleam: only this one had full-grown teeth. “Well, Lord Tywin,” Robb said, “you’ve asked me to parley, but I don’t know what there is to discuss. I’m glad to have my sisters back, but I’ll not thank you for returning them, after the way you had it done, and the only debt I owe you is this.” He nodded towards Jaime—who was glaring back at him, foolishly—and said, “If your son ever falls into our hands as a prisoner again, his life’s forfeit at once. I’ll not let you breed more treachery in my camp. Was there something else you wanted, or shall we just get started?”
Tywin raised a brow. “With what?”
Robb smiled at him a little, hard. “Here I am with my army, encamped on an open field with a river and a Lannister infantry line at our backs. Surely the rest of your forces crossed at the goldroad bridge and are half an hour’s march south of us?”
Tywin grunted and looked over at Stark’s encampment, which he realized now was not, in fact, an encampment: yes, there was a double row of tents, but beyond those, all he could see were pennants, which were presumably flying from spears stuck into the ground; and even the men among the tents were not idle, but standing alert, ready for battle. “Enlighten me: what is the battering ram for? There isn’t a keep for you to take in five miles.”
“Oh, it won’t break down the door of the smallest keep in the realm,” Robb said. “It’s made of dry pine and light metal. But with ten men behind it, it’ll do to knock a hole in a shield wall. I thought we’d wait for the horses from the other side of your guard.”
“Very clever,” Tywin said, dryly. Jaime was stiff with tension at his side, his hand groping instinctively for the hilt of the sword he’d left on the bank, and all his officers were darting anxious looks at him. “I’m sorry not to give you the pleasure of trying it. My cavalry isn’t half an hour’s march behind you. They’re three days down the river to King’s Landing, going to meet Stannis Baratheon, along with the rest of my infantry. I’m here with three thousand men and nothing more.”
Now every man at his side, Jaime included, was staring at him with utter horror: they’d all imagined the same thing Stark had, presumably. But the only person more dismayed was Stark himself, who had the expression of a starved beast whose meal had just been taken away. Tywin raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to break the parley and murder us?”
Robb’s jaw tightened; his eyes were brilliant with rage. “No,” he said, through his teeth.
Tywin nodded. “I didn’t think so. I’m not a fool, Stark. You have a mind for war like none I’ve seen in all my years, and I won’t be meeting you on any field, open or otherwise, where you expect me; not if I have three times your numbers. Because if you’re there, it’ll be because you’ve found a way to win.”
Robb stared at him with something between indignation and bemusement, as if he didn’t know how to take what sounded like a compliment. “Are you planning to just sit behind the walls of the Red Keep until I take enough holdfasts in the Westerlands and get seventy thousand men together to take the place?”
“And battlefields are the only places where men die?” Tywin said.
Stark’s face went hard with disdain. “I suppose I’d better get a taster for my food, then.”
Tywin grunted. “If you don’t have one yet,” he said, censorious. “You don’t need to make it that easy for your enemies. I’m hardly the only one you’ll ever have who’s going to think better of trying to defeat you in the field. If all you aspire to be is a general, you shouldn’t be calling yourself a king.”
Robb’s eyes were narrowing, but now with thought more than resentment. “So if you’re not here for a fight, Lord Tywin, what are you here for?” he said, and he meant the question. It was a good sign: the boy was quick, just like his sister; and he was already starting to understand that there were worlds he’d missed, by keeping his eyes fixed too closely on the field of war.
“I told you in my message,” Tywin said. “I’m here to return your sisters to you in safety, as your mother was promised. A safety,” he added, “which they cannot have, so long as this war lasts.” He glanced over at them, standing with Brienne of Tarth, and was rewarded: she was staring at him, startled nearly to gawking.
It wasn’t a unique expression inside the pavilion; although his own men all looked alarmed, and Robb’s had begun to be foolishly jubilant, imagining they knew what was coming next. Only Robb himself had gone wary instead; he said, flatly, “But you’re not going to recognize me.”
“No, and you and your bannermen are fools to want it,” Tywin said. The men at Stark’s back stopped smirking at one another and glared at him. He snorted. “The ancient kingdom of the North. It’s a story for children. Before Aegon’s conquest, Westeros was a collection of seven petty kingdoms, one of which went to war with another every decade like clockwork, and every time a winter went more than five years, half of your proposed realm starved or came raiding south to murder and steal. And you aspire to those glories?”
“We’re not children, and we’ve not started this war without cause,” Robb said. “I’d not trust your grandson to lead me down a mile of the kingsroad in good repair, much less through winter. We’ll do better looking after ourselves.”
“No, you won’t,” Tywin said, heavy with disdain. “You could be the greatest general and the wisest lord of men in the history of the continent, rebelling against the stupidest and worst king, and you still wouldn’t. Do you realize that there are more than ten times as many men living in Westeros today as when the dragons came, with a thousand times more wealth, by any measure?” Robb blinked at him, in visible surprise. “The greatest city in the world now stands at King’s Landing, and in another century, White Harbor and Lannisport will be its only rivals. That’s what unification has brought to the realm. You can’t do better than that.”
Stark was hardly convinced, still frowning, but even though Tywin had left him a pause to speak, he didn’t say anything: he’d recognized that someone was telling him something important that he hadn’t known, and he was listening, ready to be told more of it. A fairly novel behavior, in Tywin’s experience, and one that deserved to be answered. He kept Stark’s gaze and told him, “One of the truly great empires in the history of the world is about to arise on this continent, one that might last a thousand years and more. And the only reason it hasn’t already happened is because the Targaryens refused to marry their children to the lines of the ancient kings. So the seven kingdoms have remained, despite centuries of unified rule, seven kingdoms, instead of one.” He sat back with a small gesture of impatience. “Which is why you can even entertain the folly of making the North independent again. But if you did, you’d only make yourselves and the realm both weaker. What we need is to bind the kingdoms closer, not break them apart.”
He'd rarely bothered to explain as much to anyone. Jaime had heard it before, many times, and to his private frustration had only been bored; Cersei had listened and only dreamed of imperial grandeur as if it was going to materialize for her instantly and now, instead of at the cost of the labor of several more generations of their house. He knew that if he looked round, his own officers would be wearing self-important expressions, as if they too imagined themselves already in service to empire, and Stark’s own men were only scowling and belligerent over the puncturing of their own fantasy.
But Robb himself had been taken aback, and his face was gone open and uncertain: he almost certainly didn’t truly understand, yet, but he’d started to grasp the idea. Tywin nodded to him. “So no. I won’t recognize you. The realm isn’t going to be smashed on my watch. If that means I have to have you murdered, I’ll see it done. I spent twenty years as Hand of the King for Aerys Targaryen; there’s very little I can’t stomach after that. But I hope I don’t have to.”
Robb’s face hardened again, swiftly. “Make whatever threats or promises you like,” he said. “I’ll not swear fealty to Joffrey.”
“No,” Tywin said. “Nor will anyone.” There was a rustling of surprise all around. “My grandson’s condition has worsened, and he’s had to be confined for the sake of his health. I trust you won’t demand vengeance of a sick boy who will spend the rest of his days under the care of septas.”
The news was too much for discipline; he could hear even the men at his own back murmuring, and Stark’s side was considerably noisier, all of them whispering as if they could confirm the news for one another, and trying to make sense of what it all meant. Jaime was restive at his side, fidgeting with the desire to demand to have things explained to him, and even Stark looked stunned. But he wouldn’t be for long.
Tywin went on, raising his voice just loud enough to be heard through the pavilion, “By now, Princess Myrcella has been crowned as queen in her own right.” Which might not literally be true, depending on the winds from Dorne, but it would be, soon enough for any practical matter. “And you, Lord Stark, are going to put aside that camp follower you’ve been playing games with, and marry my granddaughter.”
All the noise fell away at once into a single breath, drawn almost in unison, and then to silence, as every last man in the tent instantly understood what it meant, and how he was going to end the war: the tried and true method, obvious as soon as they all got over the surprise.
“I will serve as her Hand,” Tywin continued, “and you will be her Protector of the Realm. In which role, your first duty will be to come back with us to King’s Landing and defeat Stannis Baratheon’s rebellion, and afterwards, to take the armies of the kingdom and chastise Balon Greyjoy, and any other enemies of the realm that try to break the peace. A better use of your talents than smashing it yourself,” he added, dryly. “And the interests of the North, as well as its honor, will be served by your standing beside Myrcella as King of the Seven Kingdoms, and not just one of them. Which I imagine your men will far prefer to the romance of ancient days when their queen can order grain sent to them from the Reach this winter.”
Robb was now staring at him appalled; he was about to speak, undoubtedly to make a boy’s childish bleating protests: he didn’t want to put aside his wife, he didn’t want the Iron Throne, he wanted to be King in the North; they were easy to read off his face. Tywin held a hand up to forestall them and rose from his chair. “But I can see that I’ve taken you by surprise,” he said. “You’ll want to consult with your lords and your mother, and I am sure your sisters are anxious to see her. We’ll return here in the morning, and you’ll give me your answer then.”
An answer which—as the rising alarm on Stark’s face showed he was already realizing, smart boy—was going to be put forcibly in his mouth by his own men, who’d undoubtedly been annoyed by his marriage to a whore from Volantis in the first place, and who certainly weren’t going to keep following him into battle if he meant to waste their lives fighting a grinding years-long war of attrition, just for the sake of keeping her, when instead he could marry a beautiful princess who was being handed to him on a platter along with the Iron Throne.
And Stark plainly didn’t want to do it, but he was made of better stuff than Robert Baratheon. After a moment, he put his hands on the table and rose as well, though slowly. “Aye,” he said, unsmiling. “That I will,” and he inclined his head in the acknowledgement of an enemy, recognizing his own defeat. Tywin nodded back, satisfied: the boy would do. He wouldn’t like it at first, but he’d stop fighting the harness soon enough; he was too smart not to, once he’d better grasped the reward their houses would reach, pulling together.
The Tyrell alliance would have been the more natural one, but Joffrey would clearly have made far more trouble than he was worth, and Stark was an asset Tywin would put to good use. One that would give Highgarden pause. They had men, but they didn’t have even a half-decent general, much less one who could tear apart armies twice his size. Tywin would give them Tommen and Sansa instead, to grow themselves a great many fair flowers of royal blood, and make clear to Lady Olenna that House Tyrell would have their turn on the Iron Throne in the not-too-distant future. One generation after Jaime’s heirs had married Robb’s, to cement the alliance of House Stark and House Lannister, and secure the military core of the realm.
Stark had turned back to his bannermen. Tywin was pleased to see them already doing his work for him, gathering round Robb and grinning at him in congratulations, clapping him on the shoulder; even Lord Umber, the man who’d first acclaimed him, boomed a laugh and told him, “Well, Stark, I suppose we can’t blame the southerners for knowing a good king when they see one,” each one of them tightening the straps a little more securely. Sansa and Arya had gone to him and were hugging him in delight; Sansa was telling him how lovely Myrcella was, and how sweet, and how nothing like Joffrey, and he was looking down at her with growing resignation.
Arya slipped away from the crowd, and came across the tent to look up at him. Tywin raised an eyebrow back, and she said, her small chin jutting belligerently, “I’m not going to say I’m sorry.” Then she dropped her eyes and muttered, a little grudgingly, “But maybe you’re not a liar.”
“I’ll accept your formal apology at your brother’s wedding,” he told her, and she darted a scowl up at him, but didn’t argue. He snorted a small laugh under his breath. He’d have Stark leave her with Myrcella at court; he was going to make something of her. He jerked his chin to where Stark’s bannermen were leaving the tent. “Go on; go with your brother. You’ll see Lady Brienne again soon. She’ll have to get her swords back from our side. Among other things.”
Arya smiled up at Brienne, who’d come towards them, before running to go join Robb and Sansa. Tywin gave a jerk of his head to his own officers, dismissing them as well; they all began to cross back to their side, except for the honor guard. He turned back to Brienne, who herself hesitated, then bowed her head. “I do apologize, my lord,” she said. “You have made the girls safe, after all. I didn’t think you meant it.”
“A Lannister always pays his debts,” Tywin said. “And I trust you’ll now permit me to clear the last one.”
Brienne heaved a small sigh of resignation and said, “I truly don’t need any reward, my lord. But if you feel you must do something in honor, very well.”
“Good,” Tywin said. He turned and beckoned to Jaime, who was still standing by the table, his whole body stiff, plainly waiting for everyone else to clear out so he could start some childish bleating protests of his own of some variety; most likely that he wanted to kill Robb Stark, not crown him, or some other foolishness.
Jaime came to him. “We need to talk,” he said, his voice sharp with urgency.
Tywin snorted. “That can wait. This can’t.” He nodded towards Brienne. “Our house still owes a debt to Lady Brienne. And you’re going to pay it the only possible way we can.” They were both frowning at him now in puzzlement; he let them stew a few moments, then raised his brows. “The woman saved your life seven times, at risk of her own, in the teeth of armies and beasts. What are we going to give her, except your hand in marriage?” They both gawked at him, then at one another, and back at him.
“I’m Kingsguard!” Jaime said, idiotically.
“Not anymore you aren’t,” Tywin said. “Joffrey dismissed you as he did Barristan Selmy—one of his final irrational acts,” he added, dryly. “I understand he was angry you’d taken Lady Sansa away.”
“And I’m sworn to Catelyn Stark,” Brienne said, also idiotically.
“Who will very shortly be our kin by marriage,” Tywin said. “You can hardly protect her daughters better than by adding another tie between our houses. Come along; the septon’s waiting.”
“The septon’s what?” Jaime said, and then he noticed that Brienne had gone still, and was looking behind them. He turned his head and followed her gaze—to the twelve armed men of the honor guard, who had quietly filed around and were now standing at their backs. Tywin had made their orders extremely clear.
Jaime and Brienne stared at the guards, then both at the same time looked at each other’s empty swordbelts, and then stared wide-eyed back at one another, as the situation began to sink in. Tywin nodded to himself in satisfaction and went to cross back over the ford without bothering to listen to anything else the two of them might come up with. The septon was waiting, and so was a well-appointed tent for the bedding, and he was sure that they would both stop thinking of stupid reasons why they couldn’t be married as soon as they were in it.
# End