The column hit Casterly Rock at dusk on the third day.
Hooves on the gate flags.
A grey steward was already there.
“Young lord.
His lordship is in the solar.
He is waiting.”
Lyonel dropped off, threw the reins to Bronn, and slapped dust off the coat.
“How long.”
“Since the morning you left.”
“…Then another minute won’t kill him.”
The steward’s face did not move.
“He said as soon as you were in.”
Lyonel scraped the mud off his boots and took the long passage to the solar.
The door was not shut.
Tywin sat the long table.
Port tax sheets open.
A cup of red gone cold at his right hand.
Lyonel ran the top of the stack.
First leaf: a copy of the Golden Sail transfer.
[System]
Host asset record accessed.
Risk: low.
Tywin mood swing: ±5%.
Very low.
Old fox.
“Father.”
Tywin did not look up.
“You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
“The Golden Tooth was acceptable.
The books are clean.
Dennis put in fifteen hundred dragons of missing tax.
He admitted it without making a show.”
Lyonel’s mouth moved.
Fifteen hundred.
The man had taken three thousand.
The rest was the share.
Tywin did not mention the share.
He turned a leaf.
Finger on one line.
“The Golden Sail in Lannisport.
Five hundred dragons.
Casterly seal on the transfer—”
His head came up.
Pale green.
On Lyonel.
“Who cut that seal for you.”
Lyonel did not blink.
“Bloom.”
“He’s gone.”
“…Fine.”
Tywin did not give it a second line.
He turned pages.
Five seconds.
The finger stopped.
“You bought a brothel.
For what.”
Lyonel sat the chair across the desk.
Feet off the floor.
Toes moving.
“Word.”
Tywin’s brow did not move.
“Speak.”
“The Sail is the biggest gold-hole in the port.
Merchants.
Captains.
A lord’s steward.
Fifteen lots a night, on a mean count.”
“Beds hear things tables don’t.”
Tywin’s finger hit the wood twice.
Even.
A clock.
“Five hundred dragons for a house, to listen under a mattress.”
“I bought a person with it.”
“The one called Shay.”
Lyonel did not deny it.
Three seconds.
“You know what your sister said when she heard you’d spent five hundred dragons on a whore.”
“What.”
“That you put this house in the dirt.”
Lyonel gave him nothing.
Tywin came forward a fraction.
Hands folded on the table.
“I don’t agree.”
Lyonel looked at him.
The face was the same face that cut men down.
No warmth in it.
No heat either.
Not pleased.
Not not.
“The whore.
How do you mean to use her.”
“Train her to take the port.”
“How long before she works.”
“Three months.”
“Too slow.
Two.”
“Two months I need another two hundred dragons in her.”
Tywin looked at him.
The look was water at the bottom of a mine.
Heavy.
Quiet.
Into every crack.
“You spend my coin.
You fly my lion.
You buy a brothel for a listening post.”
“What do you take me for.”
Lyonel dropped off the chair and stood.
“King of the West.”
Tywin’s finger stopped.
Three seconds of the room.
Lyonel held the pale green.
One word at a time.
“Father.
You don’t lack coin.”
“The mines don’t run out.
The ships don’t come in empty.”
“You lack eyes.”
The finger started again.
Two taps.
Then a flick of the hand.
“Out.”
Lyonel turned.
Almost at the door, Tywin’s voice came after him.
“The five hundred for the whore comes out of next month’s allowance.”
Lyonel’s foot caught.
He looked back and showed the teeth.
“Then next month I eat in Jaime’s rooms.”
Tywin did not take it up.
Back to the sheets.
Before the door shut, the corner of the mouth moved.
Once.
Impatience.
Or something else.
Tywin regard: −3 → 2 (change +5)
Note: Tywin Lannister reads the spend as coin for a net.
No refusal = leave it stand.
Lyonel shut them in.
Jaime was on the passage wall, arms folded.
Gold hair taking the lamp.
“Done.”
“Done.”
“He take a strip off you.”
“He took five hundred out of my pocket money.”
Jaime stared.
Then he laughed.
Shoulders in it.
“Five hundred—you get twenty a month—”
“So I live in your rooms.”
“…Fuck.”
They walked toward the sleeping floors.
Two sets of boots on stone, one high, one short.
Jaime went a few yards and looked down at the small shadow.
“So you did spend five hundred on a girl.”
“Mm.”
“Pretty.”
“Fine.”
“Fine meaning what.”
“Fine meaning fine.”
Jaime clicked his tongue and put a hand in Lyonel’s hair.
“Five hundred dragons.
A girl who’s ‘fine.’ And the house thrown in—”
“Brother ever fails to find a wife—”
“You’ll keep a room for me in the brothel.”
Jaime’s laugh hit the vault and came back.
The lamp flames jumped three times.
Lyonel kicked him in the calf.
“Out.”
Jaime ran, still laughing.
Lyonel stood and rubbed an ear.
The sound came around the corner and kept going.
[System]
Task 2.0 — West intelligence net
Progress: 1%
(Shay bound.
Golden Sail taken.)
He gave the 1% five seconds.
“…One.”
[System]
Host may invent the other ninety-nine houses himself.
“You would.”
He pushed his own door and fell on the bed.
Same stone ceiling.
Same scrap of moss in the seam, moving in the candle.
He shut his eyes.
The day ran once.
Tywin had not killed it.
Five hundred gone.
One pair of ears gained.
Draw tomorrow.
Silverhill the day after.
He rolled and pulled the blanket to his throat.
Wind on the battlements.
Rust from the mines in it.
Jaime’s laugh was gone from the passage.
The leftover sat in the ear anyway.
“I fill a hundred houses, I save you two,” he told the dark.
The system did not answer.
The 1% bar sat in the corner and burned quiet.