Chapter Text
Father’s expression would have been very enjoyable under other circumstances. He was doing his best to control it, but Tyrion knew him well enough to tell that he had been taken completely off his guard, and was also in a towering rage. There was nothing quite as satisfying as vindictive pleasure. If only that pleasure didn’t seem uncomfortably likely to involve Tyrion’s own painful immolation.
“She then had the lords slaughtered, and her dragons burned much of the city,” Varys said, thus concluding his very dramatic narrative of how Daenerys Targaryen had sacked Astapor and made off with an entire army’s worth of elite Unsullied crack troops. He laid down an illustration of charred towers and city walls, done by a skilled hand in pen and ink from a good vantage point, although at what had clearly been a healthy distance. “She is now marching for Yunkai, which has a substantial fleet. By a generous estimate, she could be landing in Westeros within a year.”
“I thought you said the dragons were small!” Joffrey said to Father loudly, a panicky edge in his voice. Father ignored him; he was glaring down at the picture in outrage.
“They are, your Grace,” Varys said, stepping into the silence. “That…does not seem to be stopping them.”
Tyrion glanced around the table; Joffrey wasn’t the only one who was deeply alarmed. Cersei was wearing a cool mask of unconcern, too carefully maintained, and Jaime had come around to stand by Father’s chair and study the picture, his jaw so tight that the lines were as sharp-edged as iron. Lord Mace was darting uneasy looks around the table, and Uncle Kevan just said to Father straight on, “How can we beat her?”
Father didn’t immediately answer. The many difficulties laid themselves out for consideration: they were still at war with half the realm, and significant portions of the remainder hated them passionately. Daenerys could find allies all over the continent if she did any looking whatsoever: in the North, in the riverlands, in the stormlands; in Dorne or even in the Iron Islands. Too many potential places to land, too many potential places to raise more men and supply. And a year wasn’t enough time to close all those doors.
Tyrion shook his head a little and said, “Unorthodox problems require unorthodox solutions.” Everyone looked at him except Father, but even he was listening. “Let’s make peace with Robb Stark.”
Father’s head did come up then. “What?” Joffrey said, a snarling, while Cersei demanded, “Have you lost your mind?” Even Uncle Kevan said in irritation, “Stark is beaten.”
There were various other noises of bewildered outrage; Tyrion let them settle down. “Stark is not beaten,” he said. “We now can beat him. That’s not the same thing. We’ll still have to spend our men and our time and our money to get the job done, and not to upset anyone, but if you recall, virtually all of us thought he was beaten on previous occasions, and it turned out he wasn’t. And even if everything goes as smoothly as possible, we’ll be left with the most significant disadvantage of all: if we beat him, he’ll be dead.”
“Is that a joke?” Joffrey said, standing up. “I want him dead! I want his head on a spike!”
“And Daenerys Targaryen undoubtedly wants all of our charred corpses in a smoldering pile at her feet—including his,” Tyrion said. “So maybe we shouldn’t get rid of the best general in all of Westeros right before she invades us.”
Everyone else started talking at once, but Tyrion ignored them all. Father had sat back in his chair, studying him across the table with a narrow frown; Tyrion looked back at him and raised an eyebrow. Father would have enjoyed killing Robb Stark, of course, but it really wasn’t worth it when instead they could just pack him off to his kennel in the North, and keep him safely tucked away for future use. For the very minor cost, which Tyrion didn’t count as one, of handing over his sister, instead of marching her to the altar with him.
After a moment, Father lifted a hand, quelling the furore, and said to Tyrion shortly, “You’ll take Sansa Stark to Riverrun, to pay our debt for Jaime’s release, and bring the Stark boy to heel.”
“He keeps the title, we keep the Riverlands, and he swears to help protect the Continent against invasion from outside foes,” Tyrion said.
Father gave a grunt of dismissive approval, yes of course, then looked at Uncle Kevan. “Move the mustering point south of the Blackwater. You’ll go and take Storm’s End instead. Destroy any of the stormlords who refuse to forswear Stannis, and replace them with loyal knights. Grandmaester, you’ll send a raven to the Vale and tell Lysa Arryn that we’ve made peace with her nephew, and if she wants her boy to live, he’ll bend the knee as well. And so long as the realm is unified, we can hold the dragons off.”
#
Robb had shut himself up in the study at Riverrun for the third day in a row, still trying—without much luck—to find a way to word his letter so that it had enough groveling to satisfy Walder Frey on reading it, without so much that he couldn’t bear to write it. He looked over his latest attempt and sighed and had to crumple the sheet entirely; he’d now written upon it crosswise, three ways on both sides, and there just wasn’t any way to fit in another try. He threw it in the fire and sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, pushing his hands into his hair. He was starting to think he’d have to ask Mother to draft it instead. Or maybe to write it entirely, and then give it to him to sign with his eyes closed and his nose held.
He scrubbed his hands against his skull a little and sat back up again and took a fresh sheet, but before he put more on it than To Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossings, from Robb Stark, King in the North, Greetings, Grey Wind lifted his head from the hearth where he was sleeping and gave a low whine, his ears twisting to listen to a noise from inside the keep. Robb put down his pen and stood at once, grateful for any excuse. When he opened the door to the corridor and came out, the page coming to get him was running so hard the boy couldn’t stop in time and ran right into him; Robb had to catch the boy up off the ground. “Careful there,” he said, trying not to laugh at the boy—a Tully, one of his third cousins, he thought; the poor lad was crimson and stammering as Robb put him back on his feet. “It’s all right. What is it?”
“It’s your sister, your Grace,” the boy said. “Your sister’s here!”
Robb stared at him and then he was running down the corridor at full speed himself, Grey Wind bounding ahead with a loud whuffing as he caught the scent, long lost but never forgotten, and they burst into the courtyard together and found the Lannister party dismounting under a flag of parley. Sansa was already standing out in front of them, looking anxiously around at all the doors of the keep, elegant in a gown of silk and fur and her hair shining in woven braids, grown so tall and beautiful he hardly knew her for the same little girl who’d left Winterfell, three years before, when they’d still had a home, a father, a family.
Then she turned and her eyes fixed on his face, and in their mirror he saw himself the same way, with three years of war and sorrow written on him. And then the years were all gone and they were running towards each other; her face was crumpling into tears, and he had her swung up into his arms and was crushing her against him as she buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed, clinging, a part of his heart come back.
There were footsteps coming out of the keep behind him; he heard Mother cry out and he let Sansa go tumbling into her arms, tears streaming down both their faces as she pressed their cheeks together, gulping sobs and wrapping Sansa up, clutching at her head. Talisa had come outside with her; she came to Robb’s side, her quiet smile shining up at him in happiness for their joy, and he beamed at her helplessly.
Then he wiped the tears from his own face, taking a deep breath, and put aside being the brother, so he could be the king; he turned to give formal greetings to the escort, and paused in surprise: the horses had been taken by the ostlers, and Tyrion Lannister himself was at the head of the party. “Lord Tyrion,” he said, wondering. “It’s kind of you to have brought my sister yourself.” It came out half a question.
“Your sister,” Tyrion said, with an inclination of his head, “and—peace terms, I hope,” as Robb stared down at him.
#
Robb made himself follow all the forms of courtesy: he had the servants bring the bread and salt, and welcomed Tyrion and his men as guests; then he offered meat and drink, and a chance to rest, but he was inwardly glad when Tyrion accepted for his men but not himself. “Why don’t we have a chat first,” he said. “The terms aren’t very complicated, but I expect you’ll want some time to think them through, and if I lie down now, I won’t be getting up until morning.”
“As you wish,” Robb said, with private gratitude, and took him to the lord’s study, off the great library; he poured wine, and composed his face, and sat down to listen, and then did his best not to gape like a bewildered yokel as Tyrion laid out the terms that he was offering. It was hard going.
When he’d finished, Robb said slowly, utterly at sea, “I thank you for bringing these terms, my lord. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll take counsel with my lords before I answer,” mostly to snatch some time to make any sense of them.
“Yes, of course,” Tyrion said. “And I’m sure you’re anxious to be with your sister after all this time. To be honest, I’m rather anxious for a hot bath and a night in a real bed myself.”
“The hospitality of Riverrun is yours,” Robb said, and after he’d seen Tyrion shown to an appropriate chamber and provided with his dinner and his bath, he also gave quiet orders for him and his men to be watched closely, in case they were here with some scheme to open the doors of the keep to an invasion in the night. At least that would have made some sense, instead of none.
“They agree to recognize you?” Mother said again, just as bewildered herself, when he’d gathered back in the library with his family to tell them the terms and talk them over; she was sitting together side by side with Sansa on a bench, still holding her hand, as though she couldn’t bear to let her go again.
“Aye,” Robb said. “The Riverlands must go back to the Iron Throne, but they’ll recognize the independence of the North, with the border at Moat Cailin. He’s promised amnesty to all the riverlords who bend the knee, and an open border for trade.”
They were all silent together, until Talisa burst out, as if she’d tried to stifle herself while they considered, but couldn’t hold back any longer, “Robb—why wouldn’t you accept? Surely these are good terms?”
Edmure darted a look at her and back, as if he’d been privately wondering the same thing, but the Blackfish snorted, and Robb said grimly, “They’re too good. My army’s down to eleven thousand men. I’ve had to yield all our positions in the Westerlands and release most of my prisoners. The Lannisters have the Tyrells; they’re mustering an army nearly eighty thousand men strong. The question’s not why we wouldn’t take the terms. The question’s why they’d give them to us. They know nothing of…our other hopes.”
“Lord Tywin surely fears the damage we’d do to his army, even in falling,” Uncle Edmure said after a moment.
But Mother shook her head. “What does he care about their lives? He has his son back, and he’s secure in the Red Keep. Why wouldn’t he spend forty thousand men to kill us, if it took so many? It must be a trap of some kind, some plot he means to lay against you.”
“What were the other terms, Robb?” Sansa asked.
Robb jerked his hand a little, dismissive; they weren’t anything. “You can’t marry a southern lord, and I must still keep the oath of the Warden of the North. That’s all. “
“That’s it, then,” Sansa said at once, with so much certainty Robb stared at her. “They want you to keep the Warden’s oath.”
“What?” he said.
“That’s the only part of the terms that they couldn’t get by killing you,” Sansa said. “So that must be what they really want.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Robb said, bewildered. “If an army of Wildlings comes over the Wall, we must fight them anyway; they won’t just walk through the North to attack the south.”
“But if it didn’t matter, they wouldn’t make it part of the terms,” Sansa said. “The oath of the Warden isn’t just about enemies from the North, is it?”
“No,” Robb said slowly. “To defend all Westeros against enemies from without.”
Sansa nodded. “They must think someone else is going to invade Westeros. That’s why they want to make peace with you.”
“Just to keep from having to finish us off?” Robb said.
“Maybe,” Sansa said. “But I think the real reason is to get you. That’s what the peace would give them, that they can’t get any other way.” She shook her head a little impatiently, seeing his perplexity. “You don’t know how they talk about you, the Lannister knights and officers who came back from the war. I’ve heard them talking to the Tyrell men about the battles you’ve won. They would play them out together, trying to learn from them. They say you can’t be beaten in the field; they’d argue if it would be enough to outnumber you seven to one. That’s what they’re after.”
“I must be flattered, I suppose,” Robb said, still dubious, but he was thinking it over. “If they did have some real reason to fear an invasion from abroad,” he said slowly, “it could be worth it for them—not only to get me, but to end the whole war as quick as they could. They beat Stannis, but many of the stormlords still haven’t bent the knee. So they’ll take the army they were making ready to destroy us, and go pacify the stormlands—and meanwhile they know that I’ll deal with the Greyjoys for them, to avenge their raids on the North,” he went on, beginning to believe it. “And once we’ve made peace, Aunt Lysa will surely come round; then they’ve got the Vale back as well. And if an invader comes, they’ll have the right to demand that I bring the armies of the North, which otherwise they’d have to spend their own men to destroy, to come and help them.”
“They can’t imagine that you would fight for them, Robb,” Edmure said in protest. “For Joffrey?”
Robb grimaced, but Mother said, “The more important question is who they would expect you to fight against.”
He still half doubted if it was true, but when he went to speak with Tyrion again, the next morning, and they sat down together, Robb took a chance: he thought at least he’d find out if it wasn’t true. “You’ve offered us generous terms,” he said. “And I’m likely to accept them. But before I do, I must ask you to tell me who it is that you want my help to defend Westeros against.”
Tyrion Lannister eyed him sidelong, but there wasn’t any confusion in his face: the question hadn’t puzzled him. “Fair enough,” he said. “Daenerys Targaryen.”
Robb hadn’t been able to think of anyone to expect—the Dothraki? A great raid from the slave cities? A company of sellswords?—but he was still taken by surprise. “The Mad King’s daughter? And you really think she’s going to find an army somewhere to invade us?”
“She already has one,” Tyrion said. “Four weeks ago, she bought eight thousand Unsullied slave-fighters in Astapor. And then she turned them around and used them to sack the city, while her dragons burned half of it to the ground.”
Robb stiffened a little, staring at him. “Her father’s daughter, then,” he said after a moment.
“It would seem so,” Tyrion said. “By our last report, she’s now marching on Yunkai—which has a substantial fleet of transports. More than enough ships to take eight thousand Unsullied across the Narrow Sea. She might land as soon as next year, or two perhaps.”
The first surprise was over: so Sansa had been right after all. Robb said slowly, “All right. Yes. In return for the freedom of the North, I’ll pledge to help you against her. If she lands, I’ll come south and join in the defense—and I’ll go home again after,” he added, dry. “But I’ve three conditions.”
Tyrion spread a hand open, inviting him to go on.
“First: you’ll spare the Riverlands the crown’s taxes for five years,” Robb said. “They’ve borne the brunt of this war, and the smallfolk have taken harm from both sides. My uncle and his lords must have some time to repair towns and keeps, and get in one last autumn harvest, or their smallfolk will be starving in the winter; they’re already going hungry.”
Tyrion was listening with a thoughtful frown, and then he said, “And you don’t want us to make good our losses by taxing the recalcitrant lords who followed you.” Robb inclined his head. “Let me suggest an alternative. We already have grain caravans coming north from the Reach. They were going to supply our army. Instead, they can provide immediate relief to the hungry in the Riverlands, and replenish their winter stores. And we’ll give them two years of tax relief instead. I can’t really promise more than that: if there is an invasion, we’re going to need them to do their share.”
Robb nodded, a little surprised and glad. “That will do.”
“Excellent,” Tyrion said. “And the rest?”
“I want my father’s sword back,” Robb said. “You’ll not keep a trophy of his murder.”
Tyrion grimaced a little, and Robb repressed a flaring of anger. His hands clenched underneath the table, out of sight. He knew Tywin Lannister had long wanted a Valyrian blade for his house. If the Lannisters wouldn’t give it back—that wasn’t something he could refuse this peace over, but he’d want to. But after a moment, Tyrion said, “All right. I’ll be honest, I’m going to have to do some fast talking to my father to pry it out of his hands, but—we’ve only been able to give you back one of your sisters. So call it paying the rest of the debt we owe, for my brother coming home.”
Robb let his breath out slow, trying to conceal his relief. “And last—though I’ll come south and defend your realm, I’ll come as an allied king, not as your vassal. I will never,” he went on, low and tight, “take a single order from Joffrey. And he’d better keep his Kingsguard close when he’s around me.”
Tyrion put on a grave face, but there was something like amusement in his eyes. “I’m sure it will deeply grieve my beloved nephew not to be able to personally lead the defense of the realm. But much as we’ll all feel the sad lack of his inspirational leadership, if it’s him or you—we’ll take you,” he finished dryly, and when Robb eyed him sidelong, Tyrion shrugged up at him. “It’s not as though we like him, you know. I don’t think even his mother likes him. We’re just stuck with him.”
Robb couldn’t quite laugh, but he felt his shoulders ease a little, some of the anger flowing back out. “Then,” he said, slowly, almost not believing the words as he said them, “it seems we have an accord.”
“It does look that way, doesn’t it,” Tyrion said. “Your Grace.” And he held out his hand. Robb stared at it a moment more before he took it with his own, and shook on the bargain.
Robb went to the Great Hall, where he’d asked his bannermen to assemble; there were servants and men at arms loitering along the way in all the corridors nearby, the word already spreading, and when Robb went inside and said, “My lords, the war is over,” the cheer that began in the room went spilling over through the halls and out the windows, men pouring into the courtyard, shouting, “The King in the North! The King in the North!” in exalted voices, a ringing sound wild with triumph, and Robb found himself breaking into a helplessly wide smile, finally beginning to believe it himself, and Lord Umber gave a shout and charged him and seized him with both hands, and half a dozen of his other lords converged on him as well, and together they heaved him up on their shoulders and carried him out into the roaring crowd.
#
“Is it just me, or do the Northmen seem to have more fun than we do?” Tyrion said to Bronn wistfully. Robb had prudently ringed their seats at the high table with a wall of his most reliable men—to make sure no one with a lingering thirst for Lannister blood tried to take a last opportunity to satisfy it—and there wasn’t much variety in the food, but wine was flowing and platters of choice bits of roast were being sent over to their side of the table on a regular basis, and they had an excellent view of the festivities: the aisles were full of dancing and laughter and cheerful drunkenness. Robb himself had spent more time down at other tables than at his own, clapping his men on the shoulders, sitting down and speaking with them, sharing tales and jokes, dancing with some of the ladies of the court or—as the night wore on—joining in the outbursts of extremely vigorous Northern men’s dances, stumbling out of them laughing and sweating to collapse on a bench and take another cup of wine, grinning at his men.
“They’re not ruled by a sour fucking cunt, are they,” Bronn said.
“How true,” Tyrion said. “Regardless of whether you mean my nephew or my father.” He drained his cup and got up to risk going a few seats out of his protective wall to speak to Sansa, who was sitting with her mother and Robb’s wife. Catelyn threw a cold look in his direction, but it softened a bit when Sansa smiled at him and gave him her hand to kiss. “I’m glad to see you smiling again, my lady,” he told her. “It’s been too long.”
“Thank you, Lord Tyrion,” she said. “And for this.” She gestured out at the room.
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“This is your doing,” she said, and he blinked at her. “I don’t believe your father would have thought of peace with Robb, and I know Joffrey and the queen wouldn’t have. I know why he’s done it—but someone had to give him the idea. And I’m sure that was you. Am I wrong?”
“No,” he said, bemused. Catelyn was gazing at Sansa in surprise herself, almost a little dismayed, as if she didn’t quite know what to make of this grown woman she’d got back in the place of the child she’d lost. “I suppose you’re right.”
He did take the precaution the next morning of making courtesy farewell calls on some of the senior Northern bannermen, which gave him the opportunity to drop a pointed hint to Lord Bolton to exercise some self-restraint for the moment. “Let him know he’ll have his chance in the end,” Father had said. “After we’ve dealt with the Targaryen girl.”
Tyrion didn’t especially want Bolton to have that chance—he seemed distinctly like a sour cunt himself, even on short acquaintance—but that would have to be Robb’s problem, not his. And at least Robb would have a few years to grow up in before he had to prove capable of dealing with it. Unless, of course, Daenerys Targaryen did ship herself over and burned them all to death before then. There were always these little silver linings available when you looked for them.