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Lannister : Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2025-03-13 14:20:13 +0000 UTC
( Tywin POV )
Ser Bonifer was out in the tourney today, wheeling and riding and praying to the seven between every list. A fine enough knight and an excellent jouster, he was once smitten with queen Rhaella, before she married Aerys, but since her marriage, he had thrown himself into the faith. Seeing him joust again was unusual, but Tywin knew that in this case, the high Septon had encouraged the man. With the high nobility of Westeros watching this tourney he would be a reminder of the strength men found in piety.
That was the theory at least. Tywin assumed that the High Septon had instead placed a bet on the knight's shoulders without his knowing. The old septon was a well-known gambler amongst the well-to-do in King's Landing.
Still, the religious man made a good show for the crowd and was an excellent lancer. He held the attention well.
Well, he didn't hold Tywin's attention, that was on his children.
He had been pleasantly surprised by all of them when he had met them on the road into the city. Jaime was a young boy in good health, taken with fantasies of the warrior and knighthood and chivalry and such, which was entirely appropriate. Personally, Tywin found it more than gratifying that his eldest son did not have to suffer in the manner of his own upbringing. There were no Reynes to mock young Jaime, or to jape at his father in front of the boy, and so Jaime was like so many other young lordlings, clever and skilled and cheerful. He had none of the bitterness in him that Tywin had even at his age.
Cersei, his sole daughter, resembled her brother greatly, which was a tad more concerning. Not the physical resemblance, that was reasonable as they were twins, though Joanna did bemoan that they used it to get into trouble, and he could see that the two were nigh identical. No, the issue was that she was far too taken with boy's fantasies and boy's things.
When Jaime wanted a sword, she wanted a sword, and she hooted and hollered in excitement at the jousts the same way her brother did. It wasn't… a problem, not yet, but it was concerning, he'd ask Joanna to perhaps take stricter matters with Cersei. She was a girl, not a boy, and destined to be a fine lady of court someday. It'd be best if she was weaned off of fantasies of being a man. Whatever she may want, she could change neither her gender nor her role.
Callum, much as Joanna's letters had told, was strange. He knew far too much for a boy his age and brought it up constantly. He had found himself in a conversation with his four-year-old son about his tariff reforms in Lannisport. Tariff Reforms? From a child?
It was disconcerting to be sure, but not bad. Not bad in the slightest. Tywin wasn't one to waste an opportunity like this. He would have to test the boy, thoroughly, when he next visited Casterly Rock. He needed to know just how much the boy knew, how far he could potentially go. Jaime was the heir, and he would inherit the Rock in time, but an intelligent brother could bring House Lannister's fortunes to yet greater heights. Besides, grim a thought as it was, there was no guarantee that Jaime would live to adulthood, or long enough to succeed Tywin, especially if he became a tourney knight as he seemed so eager to do.
Tywin's gaze drifted back over to the tournament as Ser Bonifer won the joust.
"Haha!" King Aerys' boisterous laughter filled the air from the box just next to Tywin, queen Rhaella was nowhere to be seen but one of the King's mistresses was on his knee, it was blatant to all that the Targaryen monarch was deep in his cups. As Tywin glanced over the man was laughing and cheering at the end of the joust, with Ser Bonifer unhorsing a Hedge knight from the vale. "Good strike, good strike!"
Tywin snorted. His friend hadn't just grown pettier with age, but he'd let himself go as well, and his lack of love for his lady wife was on full display for the entire kingdom. Propriety had never been Aerys's strong point, but this had reached the point of absurdity. Fortunately, the King had mostly been content to leave Tywin's family alone for the tourney thus far.
Unfortunately, that was about to end.
"Joanna, Joanna, come up here, sit with me!" The King's voice shouted down into their box, and Tywin glanced over to see him craning his neck around the divider. "Haha, come sit with your old friend!"
There was a manic gleam in Aerys's besotten eyes that set Tywin's nerves on edge, his heart starting to pound as he could almost feel that the man was going to do something stupid, a palpable premonition.
"I doubt that would be proper my liege." Joanna shook her head beside him, ever loyal, and courteous of Tywin's reputation. She was not willing to give voice to even the slightest of rumors that she was cuckolding him, much less with the queen, there had been enough of that when he had married her, that she had been one of Aerys's women. He knew quite well that it wasn't true, for Tywin had taken her maidenhead himself. "I must decline."
Aerys stared at her with wide eyes for a second, the king not used to being declined, before his eyes flipped to Tywin, and his nostrils flared. Tywin thought he saw hatred in those purple eyes.
The King's gaze snapped back to Joanna, and Tywin stood up, almost reflexively, between that gaze to protect her.
"Fine then… nursing 3 children probably ruined your breasts anyway." Aerys spat with venom, practically snarling.
The King's face disappeared back behind the divider, but the mark his words left was clear as Joanna gasped, and Tywin saw red. The insult sent his heart thundering like a war drum in his ears, and his fingers clasped around the flimsy railing to his left tightened enough to splinter the wood. His lips were pulled back in something like a snarl as he dearly wished his death glare could burn a hole in the king's box, and light Aerys and his damned mistress ablaze while he was at it.
Tywin's fire lasted just a moment though, before the ice he was known for pumped through his veins. No. If Aerys hated him so much, was going to make passes at his wife, and then insult her when she rightfully denied him, before the whole of Westeros no less, then the man could have his damn iron throne. Tywin would return to the Westerlands, and rule there in full. He could leave King's landing to rot in the hands of lesser men. Let others clean up the King's shit, he didn't have to deal with this. He was a Lord Paramount!
His anger cooled, he had already begun to write his resignation in his mind when he finally chanced to glance to his right. There beside him, with a dark expression as he gazed at the King's box, was Callum. The boy had moved to protect his mother. He had known enough to hear the double insult for what it was.
This was not his fight though, not something he was ready for. It was admirable, but he was far, far too young.
Tywin put his hand on the boy's head, and when he turned, gave him a curt nod, sharing his understanding. They had been wronged here, and a Lannister paid their debts. However, "Go sit back down with your siblings Callum." Tywin instructed, his voice stern. "This isn't your debt to repay, not until you're older."
"..." Callum looked up at him, those clever green eyes giving Tywin a hard look, before nodding, accepting his role for what it was at the time. "Alright, I'll be patient," Callum replied, before returning to his seat.
The boy didn't say it, but Tywin could hear the words he left out. 'But he won't wait forever.'
Tywin stiffened at the sentiment, and a chill ran down his spine. When the Reynes and Tarbecks had needed humbling, he had thought something similar with his own lord father. His frown, already almost painful, deepened.
'The debts of the father pass to the son.' Tytos had left Tywin with a great many debts in his time, debts he'd had to extract in blood. Tywin hated him for it, even as he still loved his father's memory, in some small warm place in his heart. The gaze Callum had given him made him pause a moment and think.
What sort of debts was he leaving his sons?
...
Chronicle of the Targaryen Dynasty in the Seven Kingdoms
Maester Willem
272 AC- Sixth moon
At the Anniversary Tourney, Ser Barristan Selmy wins the melee while Ser Bonifer Hasty wins the joust, though he reportedly discovered that the High Septon had gambled and won on his victory. Outraged, Ser Bonifer took an oath to the Seven to never Joust again. During the Tourney, while deep in his cups, King Aerys insulted Lady Joanna, the wife of Lord Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King, in front of many assembled lords and ladies between jousts. Lord Tywin turned in his resignation of the Hand's position on the next morn, but the now sober King Aerys refused his resignation, and after reportedly apologizing, convinced him to remain in King's Landing.
