Chapter 251 - Tywin Lannister, Exhausted in Body and Mind
The Lannister army and the Gold Cloaks spent the entire day putting down the Faith Militant uprising.
By the time darkness fell, the shouts of battle across King's Landing had finally begun to thin, like scattered droplets still falling after a storm has passed.
The streets were covered in bodies. Some wore silver-plated armor, some grey robes, some the plain clothes of commoners, impossible now to tell whether they belonged to the Poor Fellows or were bystanders cut down in the crossfire.
Tywin Lannister stood on the steps before the Great Sept of Baelor.
He watched the soldiers gathering corpses in the square. He watched the crack running from the foundation all the way to the dome along the sept's listing wall. He watched the black smoke still rising from a street somewhere in the distance.
A soldier ran up and stopped before him.
"My lord. We have been unable to find the High Sparrow or Barristan Selmy."
Tywin Lannister glanced at him. "They must be hiding in the commoners' homes. Search house to house."
"The men have been fighting all day. They are exhausted. If we go house to house, it will drive more people to resist."
He looked at the Tyrell banners drifting in the thick smoke. "We have been fighting in blood, and the Tyrell army has not moved."
Tywin Lannister drew the sword at his hip. The blade crossed the soldier's throat in a single stroke, opening skin and windpipe alike.
Tywin Lannister looked at the soldiers around him.
"The High Sparrow must not escape. Find him. Search every house. I want him alive or I want his corpse."
The remaining soldiers asked nothing more. They lowered their heads, murmured their acknowledgment, and scattered.
Tywin Lannister sheathed his sword and turned back into the sept. He walked to a side aisle, stopped beside a pillar, lowered his head, and pressed two fingers to his brow.
Varys approached.
He stopped at a precisely calculated distance, close enough for his words to carry, not so close as to give offense.
He folded his hands before him. His expression was graver than usual.
"The Tyrell army has turned. They have seized the Red Keep. The Queen Regent has barely escaped the Faith's clutches only to fall into the hands of the Tyrells."
Tywin Lannister's brow moved, a single ripple crossing still water, then smoothed flat again.
His face did not change. His breathing did not change. Only the muscles along his jaw tightened, slightly, once.
Varys went on. "Oldtown is the heart of the Faith of the Seven, and it is a Tyrell vassal. When you chose to go to war with the Faith Militant, this consequence should have been anticipated."
"Varys. I did not bring you here to lecture me." Tywin Lannister's voice was flat. "What else do you have?"
"Mace Tyrell intends to hand King's Landing to Khal Drogo. You need to mobilize your forces to put down the rebellion — not to hunt for the High Septon."
Tywin Lannister did not answer immediately.
He stood beside the pillar, looking at a shard of stained glass crushed to fragments on the floor.
He was tired. Tired in a way that no longer felt like himself. The last time he had felt this kind of exhaustion was the half year outside Duskendale, standing outside his tent every day, staring at those walls, unable to do anything at all.
After Kevan died, there was no one left to share any of it.
"Is there truly no good news?" he asked.
Varys considered for a moment. Even he was not certain whether the pair of spies he had placed beside Drogo could still be trusted.
But he decided to speak.
"My informants on Dragonstone report that Khal Drogo will not assault the city for the time being. You could pull some of the scorpion crews down from the walls and deal with the Tyrell rebellion first."
Tywin Lannister raised his eyes.
"Your intelligence has been wrong before. Kevan Lannister died because your informants were wrong. Perhaps they have already turned."
Varys did not deny it.
"That is entirely possible. But we have no other choice. If we do not put down the Tyrell rebellion first, then when the dragons come, the Tyrells will open the gates from within and let the Horse Lord's army pour through. House Lannister will be caught between them, struck from front and rear both."
Tywin Lannister remained still. Varys was right. He needed to deal with the Tyrells first, otherwise, when the dragons came, he would have no retreat left to make.
He knew the informants might already be compromised. He had no other choice.
He was about to give the order when a voice called from behind him.
"Grandfather."
Joffrey Baratheon strode into the sept.
He wore a red breastplate smudged with ash, his hair in disarray, the dark circles beneath his eyes deep and obvious.
"Grandfather!" Displeasure and complaint crowded his voice together. "I want to go back to the Red Keep and rest. I have been stationed on the walls for days, eating and sleeping with the soldiers. I cannot sleep at all — the camp reeks of sweat, and someone snores like rolling thunder."
"You are about to lose your kingdom," Tywin Lannister said, "and you are thinking about sleep."
Joffrey stepped closer. "We have already beaten the Faith Militant. We can rest a little. I want to go back to my chambers."
"Your queen has betrayed you. The Tyrell army has seized the Red Keep, killed every guard, and taken your mother captive. Are you certain you wish to return to the Red Keep to rest?"
Joffrey went still.
His mouth opened a crack, then closed.
His face reddened, starting at the forehead, spreading all the way to the tips of his ears, like a bar of iron pushed into a furnace until it glows.
"It is true," Varys said.
"No. That is impossible. The Tyrells have always been our staunch allies." Joffrey's breathing came faster.
His fists clenched. "I will take troops and retake the Red Keep right now."
"With what troops?" Tywin Lannister said. "The men who just spent an entire day fighting the Faith Militant? The Red Keep is full of Tyrell soldiers, Highgarden's finest are stationed just inside the inner walls. If you charge in now, you will only give them reason to lock you up alongside your mother."
"I am the king! I am the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms! I will have that fat Mace Tyrell's head. It would not even be the first time I have taken a father-in-law's head."
Tywin Lannister looked at him with cold eyes, the way one looks at a child throwing a tantrum at the dinner table.
"Your title will not open the gates of the Red Keep."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Find the High Sparrow first. The Faith Militant are still hiding in this city. As long as the High Sparrow lives, those Warrior's Sons and Poor Fellows fanatics can rise again at any moment. You will see to that threat, before they have a chance to catch their breath."
Without waiting for Joffrey to answer, Tywin Lannister turned and lifted his chin toward the herald waiting at the door.
"Send my orders. Pull two-thirds of the men down from the walls, leave only the crews manning the great crossbows. The rest march with me. We take the Gate of the Gods and the Iron Gate first. The Tyrells are holding both."
He left the moment he finished speaking. Iron boots rang against stone. His cloak swept a heavy arc behind him.
He led the withdrawn soldiers through the streets, the clatter of blade and armor dense and rhythmic.
When they reached the foot of the Gate of the Gods, the moonlight overhead dimmed by a shade. A thick bank of clouds was rolling in from the east, like a great hand reaching out to smother the sky above King's Landing.
Joffrey stared up at it. He remembered Rosby, how storm clouds had blotted out the moon the night the dragons broke that city. He stopped looking for the High Sparrow.
He turned and went. His boots hammered the stone steps as he ran, all the way to the sluice gate at the river road.
He shouted back to the guards behind him:
"Pour the wildfire. Now. All of it — pour it into the river."
The guards obeyed.
Joffrey stayed where he was, one hand braced on the stone wall beside the sluice gate, watching the dark clouds above him slowly close in from the east.
➤ Next: Cersei Comforts the Troops