Knights of the golden-cloaked guard maintained order. Beneath the storm battle banners, the stag and dragon, the wolf pack, and the freed slaves all seemed to cheer and leap in the wind.
"I had a wife once, didn't I?" Tyrion the dwarf stood frozen in place, laughing and crying at the same time. Some shames a man ought to carry into the grave.
In truth, Tyrion Lannister himself had a loose tongue. He had at least told Bronn and Varys about Tysha, and that whore Shae had heard some of it as well. Under the circumstances, Tyrion suspected his drunken recollections might have leaked the secret too. And back when Tysha was humiliated, there had been a whole crowd of soldiers there.
Bronn froze where he stood. He had already confessed everything, yet Gendry's truth was even bloodier.
"Poor little dwarf."
The lords were lost in the fog, but after hearing Tyrion speak of Tysha, a whore, and the little dwarf's wife, they could more or less piece together the shape of it.
"Can such a thing truly happen?" Great Lord Mace Tyrell scratched at his head as he listened. "Tywin sent men to go after his own son's peasant 'wife'? Even if she was only a farmer's daughter?"
Bronze Yohn clasped his broad hands together. Come to think of it, Tywin had once sought a marriage alliance with him for the little dwarf. Perhaps this was why.
"He is capable of it. Tywin's arrogance and hardness are known throughout the world," the good-natured Selwyn Tarth said. "Look at The Mountain and Amory under his command. Look at his massacres in King's Landing and the Riverlands. Tywin has never treated commoners as people."
"A tyrant!"
"The cold lion!"
"Lying Tywin!"
The lords listened intently, and murmurs rose on every side.
"Silence!" Great Lord Stannis Baratheon shouted, and every voice fell still.
"She was never a whore?" Tyrion asked, trembling all over.
"Never. Tysha... Tysha was simply Tysha, a farmer's daughter whom you met by chance on the road." Gendry looked at the dwarf curled into himself. The most fragile part of his heart had been shattered. Sometimes, not knowing the truth was a kind of blessing. Before winter came, he would shatter Tyrion's illusions about Casterly Rock.
Tyrion heard his own faint, hissing breaths tugging at the scar on his face. He did not dare remember. Tysha. Suddenly, he had forgotten what she looked like. A little girl. She had only been a little girl, no older than Sansa.
"My wife," he rasped. "She married me."
"Jaime? My good brother?"
"He lied to you," Gendry said. "Whatever Tywin told him to say, that was what he repeated."
Tyrion stood woodenly in place. "I hate them. No, no, Jaime lied to me too. He was only a child. It was my father Tywin's order. He never let us escape his control."
Gendry looked at the pitiful man. "You are right. Tywin has always looked down on commoners. He believed the girl only wanted your money. She was lowborn, and you were a Lannister of Casterly Rock. If not for gold, she would never have come to you, so she was no different from a whore. That was why Jaime believed what he said was not a lie, not a real lie. And Tywin believed you needed a proper lesson. From then on, you would learn from it and be grateful to your brother."
"Grateful?" Tyrion could barely speak. "He gave her to the guards. A whole camp of guards. And made me... watch it all."
No, not only watch. In the end, I also... my wife...
Perhaps the Kingslayer had not imagined Tywin could be so cold, but such words no longer meant anything.
The lords, knights, and nobles had changed from spectators watching a diversion into men filled with pity. Betrayal, violence, and the public humiliation of the one he loved. If one's mind were twisted like that, any ordinary man would want to strangle Tywin himself.
"Tyrion," Lord Yohn Royce, the Master of Laws, suddenly said. "This is your father's style. In truth, he sought marriages for you among many noble houses. Including mine."
Everyone looked at Bronze Yohn at once. Here was another man who knew something.
"Then I ought to thank him?" Tyrion's eyes were red as he looked at Bronze Yohn.
"No need. You were merely his tool. In the past, Tywin planned to marry Jaime to Lysa Tully, but unfortunately, Aerys took Jaime into the Kingsguard before he could. Tywin then proposed you as a substitute to Great Lord Hoster. His reply was that a daughter of House Tully needed a whole man, not half a man. Tywin also offered you to Dorne, but they regarded it as an insult. After that, Lord Tywin came to me, and I refused as well," Yohn said.
Tyene listened carefully. They had heard some talk of this too.
"Lord Tywin also approached The Reach," Great Lord Mace cut in. "Lord Leyton Hightower, my old father-in-law."
"And Florent," Stannis said, raising his eyebrow. It was the woman Robert had defiled in his marriage bed, Edric's mother. Yet her father would rather marry her to a knight of House Norcross than accept the dwarf.
"It is true."
The lords would not all lie from every direction, so the truth was beyond question. Tyrion's heart sank slowly into the abyss. He understood his father's logic, treating his children as tools for marriage alliances. He knew Tywin wanted to find him a lord's daughter, and so he had ruthlessly crushed Tyrion's love to teach him a lesson.
The lords whispered and judged. Tywin's family teachings were truly terrible, and the man himself was worse. His children had all been ruined.
"Jaime? And my dear old sister and my kindly old father. One day I will take cruel revenge on them, I swear it before the heavens! A Lannister always pays his debts. Perhaps, perhaps I will never have the chance, but the gods' vengeance is already working. The first step was that little monster Joffrey." Tyrion staggered as he roared.
"If someone would carry a message to Jaime for me, I would be grateful. His lover is a whore, and his son is a little monster," Tyrion pleaded.
"We will. Now, this is about you. Your treason as Hand to the usurper," Bronze Yohn said, looking at Tyrion. Tywin was far too arrogant, and had happened to raise several children who were impossible to guide well.
"Whore!"
"Bastard!"
"Gods above!"
"Kingslayer! Liar!"
The lords and knights shouted together. The scandal was simply too explosive, and there was the Imp's tragic past besides. Poor man.
"Now you may speak," Stannis said.
"I will speak. I will tell you everything I know. Cersei is a whore. When the Eunuch took her away, we had no idea at all. She hates me. She thinks Joffrey was killed by the mob because of my incompetence," Tyrion roared. "Cersei is a rotten whore who lies without blinking. As far as I know, she slept with Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack, and perhaps she even wanted to bed Moon Boy!"
"That is true. A fat noblewoman came to see Queen Dowager Cersei, and then the Queen Dowager hurriedly disappeared from Maegor's Holdfast," Lady Tanda said, stepping forward.
"It was Varys, that traitor," Stannis said.
"You knew the truth about Cersei's misrule and Joffrey's usurpation, yet you kept helping them maintain order. You are also an accomplice to treason," Gendry said.
"I am." Tyrion had no strength left. The whole world was in chaos, so let them do as they pleased.
"Your plan to burn the river with wildfire was not bad. It badly wounded those slave-master whelps of Volantis."
"Thank you for the praise. Now I hope to send my family into the fire."
"The axe or the Wall," Stannis said.
"Do I have a choice?" Tyrion shook his head. "Send me to the Wall. Let me live to see their retribution."
After admitting his guilt, Tyrion returned to the crowd, carrying his fury as he thought of his family.
Tywin, Jaime, Cersei. You are my kin, so I refused to hurt you. But you have gone so far that I can no longer endure it. I do not yet know what I should do, but time will give me the answer. One day, when you think yourselves safe and happy, joy will turn to ash in your mouths. Then you will know the debt has been paid.
"Next," Great Lord Stannis said. "Ser Balon Swann."
Balon stepped forward. "I had the honor of fighting beside Tyrion on the bridge of boats during the Battle of the Blackwater Rush. Though he is not tall, he is very brave, truly admirable. But today, Tyrion has confessed to treason, and I am also willing to apologize for my foolishness and return to the embrace of the true king."
"What of the other white knights?"
"The Hound fled and cannot be found. Boros is missing as well. Perhaps they were sent to escort Cersei. Meryn died in the riot, one drowned, and before that another died in the riot too. Oh, and there are the Kettleblack brothers, the sellswords the Queen Dowager trusted," Balon said. "In truth, my skill is better than Boros's, but I am a knight of the Stormlands, and that day I was outside commanding the assault troops, so I do not know how the false Queen Dowager Cersei escaped."
"How did the Hound disappear?"
"The Hound feared fire and refused to fight anymore. It was Tyrion who led the troops to assault the King's Gate. The Hound likely fled under cover of darkness and did not return to escort Cersei."
"Very well." Stannis waved a hand.
Balon passed and moved to another corner. He was a son of House Swann, a great noble house of the Stormlands, and only a white knight. He did not have so many sordid matters clinging to him.
"I admit it. Kill me or spare me, as you please, but can someone call a maester to look at me?" Lancel Lannister said in pain. "I obeyed Cersei's orders and added strongwine to the wine, making King Robert drink too much on the day of the hunt, which led to him being gored to death by the boar. I also deliberately got Lord Eddard drunk the night before. As for Cersei, I admit I slept with that whore after the King died. Tyrion was right. She is a heartless whore. She told us to hold firm, then slipped away herself, and even called Joffrey back from the battlefield."
The hall rippled with commotion. The news was even more explosive from the squire's mouth.
"Death or the Wall!" Yohn asked him.
"I..." Lancel said weakly. He was still burning with fever. "My arm feels as though it has already left me. I feel like I am about to become useless. Can I still go to the Wall like this?"
"Come with me, cousin," Tyrion pleaded.
"Enough. Take Lancel to have his wounds treated. Do not let this poor wretch burn to death in the black cells. Put him somewhere cleaner."
Most of the captive lords from the Westerlands did not dare say much either. They bowed their heads, bent their knees, and begged for forgiveness.
"Next!"
The pyromancers of the Alchemists' Guild looked gloomy, as did the surviving captains and officers of the royal fleet. They too volunteered to serve the new king.
But Hallyne, the previous pyromancer and the man most skilled with wildfire, had disappeared.
It seems the people who escaped brought quite a few useful subordinates with them. Boros may be useless, but at least he would not be as awkward as Balon, Gendry thought.
"In view of the Lannisters' clear treason, Tywin Lannister is stripped of the honorable title of Great Lord and Warden of the West, and deprived of his authority over Casterly Rock as well as all lands and taxes attached to his fiefs. The honors and titles of his son Jaime Lannister, his daughter Cersei Lannister, and his brother Kevan Lannister are likewise stripped. Any lords of the Westerlands who stubbornly resist shall also be treated as traitors and deprived of their lands, castles, and all revenues from their fiefs. Those who reflect deeply and repent may still preserve their houses by the King's great mercy," Bronze Yohn, the Master of Laws, first announced.
"Varys, the Master of Whisperers, stirred up discord and aided the Lannisters in treason. This is high treason. His title is stripped, and he shall be put to death."
Then came the second decree.
"Balon Greyjoy has rebelled many times in earlier years and defied royal decrees. Though he received the pardon of the late King Robert and the mercy of Eddard, Warden of the North, he did not repent despite such favor. Instead, he repaid kindness with hatred, raided The North, and murdered the realm's people. To punish Balon's great crime of treason, he is stripped of his authority over Pyke and all lands and taxes attached to his fiefs. The rights of his brothers and children are likewise stripped in full. The lordly authority of the Iron Islands is also entirely revoked. Any Ironborn captain who joins Balon in his crimes and refuses to repent shall be executed with him on the day the castle falls."
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