Chương 48: Interlude - The Three Queens I

The Queen of Thorns Tywin came to her the evening of the trial. Olenna had been expecting him. Her eyes and ears in the castle had reported the rumors spreading like wildfire through every corridor and servant's stair—the Reach contingent would be leaving Casterly Rock on the morrow, days before the tournament's official conclusion. A protest, the whispers called it. A statement. A refusal to grant legitimacy to the farcical proceedings that had nearly seen a true knight murdered in a courtyard for sport.

She had set herself up on the wide stone balcony adjoining her apartments, the one that overlooked the great expanse of the Sunset Sea to the west and the sprawl of Lannisport to the south. The afternoon had been hot, but evening brought a cool breeze in from the water that ruffled the curtains hanging by the open doors. Gulls cried somewhere above, and the distant sounds of the ocean drifted up the mountain on the wind. Victaria sat across from her in a high-backed wicker chair, a piece of embroidery in her lap.

The girl had been working at the same patch of flowers for the better part of an hour, her needle moving with the absent precision of someone whose mind was decidedly elsewhere. Olenna had not pressed her on it. The girl had her own troubles, and Olenna found she had little patience for them at the moment. A knock came at the chamber doors inside. Left stepped out onto the balcony a moment later. The tall young man bowed properly, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

"My lady. Lord Tywin Lannister is without. He asks an audience." Olenna chuckled, the sound dry as old leather.

"I am surprised it took him this long. And that he did not simply barge in like the lion he fancies himself." Left looked uncertain.

"My lady?"

"Yes, yes, go let the man in before he hires a bard to sing that horrendous song of his to us." Olenna waved her hand.

"We have suffered enough today without enduring the Rains of Castamere on top of it all." Left bowed again and retreated inside. Victaria looked up from her embroidery, her dark eyes wide with sudden alarm.

"My lady, should I leave?"

"No, stay, girl." Olenna thought for a moment, then nodded to herself.

"Stay. You might learn something." She could see the girl's throat bob with nerves. She could not blame her entirely. Lord Tywin Lannister had a way of making even seasoned lords uncomfortable in his presence, and Victaria was barely eight and ten and from a lower branch besides. Olenna herself would have feared the Lord of Casterly Rock as a girl. But old age had a way of stripping away your basic instincts along with control of your bowels, and Olenna had long since stopped fearing men who could only kill her.

What a fine release that would be. The doors inside opened. Heavy footsteps crossed the chamber's marble floor, then Tywin Lannister stepped out onto the balcony, his face sharp and hard as a smith's anvil. Cold green eyes swept across the space, instantly cataloging and dismissing Victaria before they came to rest on Olenna.

He wore his finest evening clothes—crimson velvet with golden thread, a blood-red cape, a small lion brooch at his throat—but the fineness of his garb could not disguise the fury simmering beneath his impassive exterior. He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working tightly. The silence stretched.

"This is a mistake, Olenna," Tywin said at last.

"Oh, spare me the lecture if you can bear it," Olenna replied, settling herself more comfortably in her chair.

"We are simply leaving a few days early. No need to twist yourself into knots over it."

"I will not have my house shamed."

"You and your daughter shamed yourselves today, Tywin. Do leave me out of it." Tywin's voice took on that careful, controlled tone Olenna remembered from negotiations long past.

"House Lannister had nothing to do with Ser Galad's trial. It was a matter between him and Ser Meryn and Ser Mandon of the Kingsguard." Olenna scoffed loudly enough to startle a gull on the railing into flight.

"Is that so? How fortuitous for you, then. So be it. I will pretend your fiction is true, and you need not be offended at our leaving, since you and yours had nothing to do with the trial. No?"

"It is my tournament you will be dishonoring," Tywin said, his teeth gritted now.

"On my lands. I do not take dishonor lightly."

"And it was our knight, in your lands, under your watchful eye, who had to slay seven men in the most disgraceful trial in living memory." Olenna leaned forward slightly in her chair.

"Perhaps, my lord, you should worry about stamping out such malfeasance within your own ranks instead of bothering this old lady about things she has no control over. I am no Lord of Highgarden, after all. Merely an old woman tending to her embroidery." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Tywin's voice grew quieter, which Olenna knew was a more dangerous sign than if he had raised it.

"Is House Tyrell so sure of its position that it would make an enemy of House Lannister over a landless knight?"

"Is House Lannister in such a rush to fracture its new dynasty that it would create an enemy of House Tyrell in such times?" Olenna shot back.

"With dragons sailing by King's Landing?" She showed him as sharp a smile as her toothless mouth could provide.

"No, I do not think so. We could do worse, Tywin. Could make demands. Could make public proclamations. You are lucky indeed that my son rules the Reach and not I, for I would not contain myself to the simple theatrics of leaving a tournament early." She paused, letting her smile sharpen further.

"Now, will that be all, my lord?" A vein on Tywin's forehead was jumping, she could see. His gold-flecked green eyes stared darkly at her own, and for a moment Olenna thought he might actually lose his composure. That would have been a sight worth recording for posterity, Tywin Lannister losing his temper in front of an old woman and her lady-in-waiting. But Tywin Lannister did not lose his temper. He had not lost it in the many decades she knew him, and he would not lose it now.

He let out a simple breath through his nose. Then he gave her the smallest of nods.

"So be it. Safe travels, my lady." He turned on his heel and stormed out of the balcony, the heavy fabric of his red cape sweeping behind him. The doors inside opened and closed. Heavy footsteps faded down the corridor beyond. Olenna let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding. Victaria, whose eyes had grown wide enough that they looked to be jumping out of her face, waited until she was certain Lord Tywin was well away before she dared to speak.

"That was..." Victaria began, her mouth ajar. She seemed unable to find the proper word.

"Yes," Olenna said.

"That man can still make my heart race after all these years. And not in the fun way a fine man could in my younger days, mind you." She picked up the cup of watered wine from the small table beside her and took a small sip, more to steady her hands than from any real thirst. Her heart was indeed pounding. She would not admit it to Victaria, but the encounter had cost her more than she let on. Tywin Lannister was no ordinary man, and standing up to him was no ordinary thing. But she had done it.

And he had retreated. That was what mattered.

"Be careful which lessons you take from this, girl," Olenna said, setting her cup back down.

"Men like Tywin Lannister must be handled with great care. Oh yes. But you must never show weakness to his like. A bare throat is an invitation to even the weakest of predators, and Tywin Lannister is a lion indeed, even if our dear woodsman knight did his best to defang him today. That gave me the upper hand. Without Ser Galad's victory, I might have been more conciliatory. With it, I could afford to push."

"I see, my lady. Thank you for the lesson." Olenna waved the gratitude away, turning her gaze out toward the Sunset Sea beneath the great mountain that House Lannister called home. The water glowed orange and red in the dying light, the colors shifting as the sun sank toward the horizon. Lannisport spread out below them to the south, a thousand chimneys already sending up smoke from evening cooking fires. The girl would need plenty of lessons, Olenna thought, given she could still be so foolish.

To think she had actually gone and fallen for a mere sergeant in their household. A sergeant! At least Olenna had acted quickly enough to kill that sentiment in its crib. Ben the sergeant accompanying Ser Galad meant he would be too far away for those particular feelings to blossom into anything inconvenient, and the arrangement also served the dual purpose of keeping an eye on the knight and on young Garlan. A shame, really.

If it had been the woodsman himself Victaria had fallen for, then perhaps a match there could be arranged now that Ser Galad's star had risen so high. The girl was pretty enough, and well-bred. She might have caught his eye in time. But the heart wanted what it wanted, and Victaria's heart had wanted a sergeant. Sometimes even the best-laid plans had to bend around such foolishness. No matter. Olenna had other plans, plans that did not require any marriage arrangements.

If it were up to Olenna, Ser Galad's star would only rise higher, despite her previous doubts about the young man. She had already sent letters in advance to her agents in Highgarden with her instructions. Every bard, minstrel, septon, and maester in House Tyrell's pockets—and there were a great many of those indeed—would spread the heroics of Ser Galad of Dunstonbury. His war record at Grey Garden where he had defeated the Ironborn champion, Ser Harras Harlaw, in single combat.

His tournament victories at Lannisport, where he had won the archery contest, the joust against Ser Jaime Lannister himself, and the grand melee. His trial by seven, where he had slain seven anointed knights in solo combat to prove his innocence against false charges. And of course, his intimate connection with House Tyrell. The house that had raised him to knighthood. The house of his loyal squire, with whom he traveled the countryside even now.

Before the year was out, Olenna intended that the tale of the Woodsman Knight of Highgarden would be on the tongues of every smallfolk and every lordling from Dorne to the Wall. A man so beloved by the realm would be a powerful asset, even one who insisted on being landless and wandering. Especially one who insisted on being landless and wandering.

Tied to no faction, beholden to no lord but Tyrell, he could be a sword that pointed in whatever direction House Tyrell needed when the great game of dragons and lions and kings finally returned to Westeros. And it would return. Of that, she had no doubt at all. She picked up her own embroidery from the small table beside her and resumed her work, her gnarled fingers moving with practiced ease. The gulls cried below. The sea sparkled. Lannisport began to light its evening lanterns one by one as the dark gathered.

The Reach would leave Casterly Rock in the morning. Tywin Lannister would seethe in his great hall. The realm would whisper of trials and woodsmen and seven dead knights. And Olenna Tyrell would set the stage for what came next.