Chapter 271 - The Lion's Choice

Drogo walked into the dungeons of King's Landing. His boots found the damp stone slabs, each step throwing an echo back at him.

Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell followed behind.

Sansa Stark's belly had grown past the point of hiding. On the downward slope she reached out and braced against the wall, fingertips dragging across the rough stone, then pulled her hand back.

Margaery Tyrell walked at her side, pace steady, gaze straight ahead.

Soldiers kept appearing from the dungeon's depths.

Most of them moved with their heads down and their steps quick, collars and cuffs in disarray, wearing the look of men who had finished something and wanted no part of whatever came next. They sidestepped as they passed Drogo, muttered "Khal" or "King," and made for the exit.

Drogo didn't stop any of them.

He slowed when he reached the deep end of the cell block.

Cersei lay on her side in the hay.

A man climbed off her, hitched up his trousers, and moved to the door. He saw Drogo, saw Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell behind him, ducked his head, and slipped past without a word.

Two or three soldiers remained outside the cell, backs against the wall, loosely queued, talking at nothing.

Far fewer than before.

In the beginning Cersei had cursed and fought. Then she had gone still, lying like a corpse, making no sound, not moving, not wiping her face clean when things were left on it. The soldiers had lost interest on their own.

Drogo stopped in the middle of the corridor. His gaze moved off Cersei and settled on the cell across from hers.

Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell came to stand on either side of him.

Tywin Lannister sat against the far wall with his back straight.

His clothes were still clean. Long wear had put some creases in them, but he sat upright enough that he could have passed for a man at a council table.

Jaime Lannister leaned against the opposite wall, his left hand wrapped around his right wrist. The right hand was gone. What remained was a cloth-wrapped stump resting on his knee.

His hair had grown since the last time. He hadn't shaved. He looked far older than Tywin.

Joffrey Baratheon saw Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell and came off the hay pile in the corner in a single lunge, slamming against the iron bars and jamming his face into the gap between them.

"You two whores—"

"Save it," Margaery Tyrell cut him off. "You've already been sentenced to death."

"No one can sentence me. I am the King of the Seven Kingdoms."

Compared to Joffrey Baratheon's snarling, Tywin and Jaime Lannister's silence was almost peaceful.

Jaime Lannister especially. Three years spent mostly in a cell. After they took the right hand, half the arrogance went with it. He had believed, once, that the Lannister name opened every door in Westeros. Now he understood that was only true when you could step outside and find your own soldiers waiting.

Sansa Stark looked at Joffrey Baratheon, her voice tight with fury. "You stand accused of usurping the throne, murdering former Hand of the King Eddard Stark, and killing the High Septon of the Seven Kingdoms."

Drogo added, "Also pushing an old woman into the sea and raping a sow."

Joffrey Baratheon's face contorted. "I absolutely did not rape that pig!"

Jaime Lannister's voice came from the side of the cell, low and worn through. "Joffrey, they're lying."

Tywin Lannister's gaze had drifted to the cell across the corridor.

Cersei lay there stripped bare on the hay, letting whoever came do whatever they liked, her face holding nothing at all. A living body. Nothing else.

"You are humiliating the Lannisters," Tywin said. "I was not aware we had any quarrel with you."

"You don't. But you have one with my queen, Daenerys Targaryen, and my consort, Sansa Stark."

Drogo looked at the three of them. "You've really outdone yourselves. The Mad King wanted to burn King's Landing to the ground. What he couldn't finish, Cersei went ahead and finished for him."

Jaime Lannister went rigid.

He stared at Drogo. "How do you know about that?"

Only he and a handful of pyromancers had ever known. The Mad King had sent the entire Kingsguard away and kept only Jaime Lannister in the city. Everyone else who had known about the plan to burn King's Landing was dead. He had never once explained why he killed the Mad King Aerys. He had saved half a million lives, and not a soul knew it. All anyone knew was that he had killed the king he swore to protect. An oathbreaker. A Kingslayer.

"I know everything," Drogo said, with the air of a man who enjoyed saying so. "Everything that has ever happened in Westeros, at least."

Jaime Lannister's mouth pressed shut.

Tywin said, "You didn't come all the way down here just to enjoy the sight of us."

"What, I can't come visit a few old acquaintances? Check in on the beloved King Joffrey the Great?" The reference landed on all three of them with equal blankness.

Sansa Stark glanced into the neighboring cell. Cersei was still there. A soldier had walked in and was crouching over her.

Cersei's body was covered in a white, viscous film. Sansa Stark's face tightened. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose and turned away.

"Say what you came to say. I'm going to be sick."

"Same," Margaery Tyrell said flatly. "I want out of here."

"I came to offer an arrangement." Drogo glanced at Joffrey Baratheon. "Joffrey Baratheon stands in the square outside the Red Keep and confesses to the people of King's Landing that he ordered the destruction of the city."

He looked at Tywin. "Tywin Lannister confesses to killing the High Septon."

His gaze moved to Jaime Lannister. "Jaime Lannister confesses that Joffrey is his son by Cersei."

"Why would I confess to any of this?" Tywin said. "I didn't kill the High Septon."

"In exchange," Drogo said, "Joffrey Baratheon takes the black and joins the Night's Watch. Jaime Lannister takes Cersei back to Casterly Rock and keeps his lordship. And you, as the man who killed the High Septon, get beheaded."

Sansa Stark stepped forward.

She stood at the bars and looked at all three of them. Then she turned to Joffrey Baratheon, and her voice came out shaking.

"No. I want them all dead. I want Joffrey's head sewn onto a lion's body."

Tears broke loose and ran down her face, cutting through the dim light before dropping onto the fabric at her chest.

"I want Cersei's throat cut, and then I want her thrown naked into the Blackwater Rush and left to float."

Joffrey Baratheon's expression shifted.

He stared at Sansa Stark's face in the gap of the bars, half-lit, half in shadow. Several breaths passed. Then he looked at Margaery Tyrell, who stood with her hands clasped at her waist, face blank, at Drogo's side.

"I accept your terms, Horse Lord."

He turned to Tywin Lannister, his voice cracking into something faster, more desperate.

"Grandfather. We sacrifice you, we save the family. Isn't that what you always told us? Family first. Everything for the family."

His voice dropped. "Besides. You're past fifty. You don't have many years left anyway."

Tywin Lannister studied him for a long moment.

"Cold enough." He almost sounded approving. "A true Lannister."

He turned to Drogo. "I agree. We don't appear to have a better choice."

Drogo nodded.

He didn't look at Joffrey Baratheon again. Didn't look at Jaime Lannister. He gave Tywin Lannister one last glance, then turned and walked toward the dungeon stairs.

Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell fell in behind him. The three of them walked back up the narrow corridor in silence.

They climbed the last step. Sunlight fell from the far end of the passage and turned the stone pale yellow. Sansa Stark tilted her head toward Drogo.

"How was my performance?"

"Overdone," he said. "A bit much."

Sansa Stark rolled her eyes, pulled her cloak tighter around herself, and walked on ahead.

When Margaery Tyrell caught up, the corner of her mouth twitched in a way she probably hadn't noticed herself. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared.