"-. 274 AC .-"
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By the King.
Aerys Targaryen, the Second of His Name, by the grace of the Old Gods and New Gods, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.
Having been heretofore informed of despicable assassination, subornation, line theft, and line extinction conspiracies perpetrated by the Order of Maesters against Most Noble personages of the Realm, and following the Crown's own verification of these allegations with all due tenacity and diligence, the Iron Throne hereby issues the following proclamation.
Firstly. Grand Maester Pycelle, having confessed to the murder by poison of King Jaehaerys II Targaryen, as well as the murders, similarly by poison or negligence, of Princess Shaena Targaryen, Prince Daeron Targaryen, Prince Daenor Targaryen, Prince Aegon Targaryen, and Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, has been found guilty of high treason against the Iron Throne. He is hereby sentenced to death by fire, to be carried out in the Great Square of King's Landing within a moonturn's time.
Secondly. Pending verification of allegations of conspiracy levelled against the Citadel Conclave by a Warden of the Realm and a High Lord Declarant, the post of Grand Maester is hereby suspended.
Thirdly. Rickard of the House Stark, Lord Paramount and Warden of the North, who single-handedly uncovered and informed the Crown of these most heinous plots at great personal cost, is to be rewarded as follows:
1. A permanent exemption for the city of White Harbour from all Crown tarrifs on imports.
2. Suspension of all taxes paid by the North for the remainder of the current winter, as well as a number of years thereafter equalling the full length of this same season.
3. A public commendation by Himself the King, to be given at Lord Stark's pleasure if and when he may choose to visit the capital in future.
Finally. Leyton of the House Hightower, in his role as Lord Defender of the Citadel and Head of House Hightower, is hereby summoned to King's Landing, that he may give account of House Hightower's independent investigation into these matters, or any other actions perpetrated by the Order of Maesters, or other parties, that may or may not have proven injurious towards the Seven Kingdoms, House Targaryen, or its vassal lords.
Thus ends this Royal Proclamation, given in the Great Hall of the Red Keep on the First Day of the Second Week of the First Moon of 274 AC, the twelfth year of His Grace's Reign.
Long Live the King.
Written in the hand of Lord Symon Staunton, Master of Laws.
Witnessed by Lord Qarlton Chelstead, Master of Coin, and Ser Harlan Grandison, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
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Kevan Lannister dropped the transcript next to the signed confession of the late Maester Creylen and carefully thought over what he was going to say. "It seems our dear cousin wasn't exaggerating after all."
Genna scoffed from where she'd been stress-knitting since well before Kevan had entered the solar. "I told you he was understating things, if anything. Honestly, why send the man to the Citadel if you're just going to assume he's too much of a lackwit to act as our ear there?"
"Don't pretend you believed it any more than we, dear sister," Tygett growled from where he stood near the door. His brother stood as stiffly as he did when he first came in, hand on the hilt of his sword. "You didn't think Hightower would butcher his precious Citadel any more than we did."
"I'm surprised any of his ravens reached our eyes at all," Gerion scoffed from where he lounged in the chair beneath the bookcase. "Anyone else and it could make one wonder if maybe our late maester wasn't a no good traitor."
Kevan had to force himself to stop wringing his hands. "I'm more interested in what the royal decree says." He hoped someone would accept the change in topic. Questioning the confession even obliquely was not a field of caltrops he wanted to wade in.
"You mean what it doesn't say," Gerion's customary smirk seemed to have curdled on his face over the past few days. "No actual summons for Stark. No condemnation for Hightower. Missive witnessed by Lord Commander Harlan Grandison."
"Stark has a dying wife to tend," Genna's needles went click click click. "Even a dragon will know better than to keep the wolf away from his den right now."
"Will he really? Or maybe he doesn't want to risk Stark breaking something important in King's Landing," Gerion teetered on the back legs of his chair precariously. "If I had to live there I'd be worried too. He broke the Citadel. No, he got the high and mighty Hightower to do it. Gods, I still can't believe it."
"Hightower must have managed to get a raven of his own to King's Landing before Pycelle gave his confession," Kevan surmised.
"Not like anything else makes sense," Gerion muttered. "Whatever happened to the White Bull is what I want to know."
"What else?" Tygett grunted. "If the king is smart he's holding him hostage."
"He just tortured the poor Grand Maester," Gerion drawled. "Mighty fine scapegoating work there. Who's to say he's not putting Hightower through the same?"
Kevan didn't disagree but someone had to be the voice of sanity. "Gerold Hightower is his most loyal Kingsguard."
"Who knows what madness seized him in his grief?" Genna murmured. "If the King wants someone to blame, he'll get it."
"Especially if he really means to have the good Grand Maester live to see his burning day. If his blood is up, he might need a distraction."
That was almost seditious, so Kevan had to intervene again. "That's enough out of you, brother. Speculating will do us no good. If you're going to badmouth the king, do it on your own time, in your own company."
"I'm only saying what we're all thinking."
Left unsaid was that a man will admit to anything under torture.
"Brothers. Sister." Tywin finally spoke. He'd been standing near the window all that time. With the way the afternoon light cascaded over him, he looked like statue made of gold and marble. "I am emotionally compromised. Advise me."
Kevan drew a blank. Another thing left unsaid was that late maester Creylen had also admitted to everything under torture. Everything and more and nothing and anything until he could no longer croak any sound at all. Kevan had read and re-read his signed confession and his only conclusion was that there was no conclusion. It was enough to make him feel as unbalanced as he was angry at that possibility that… that he'd… Joanna and Tywin. Joanna and the King. Joanna's children. Her dismissal from court by the queen. The admissions and claims were so inconsistent and plentiful and conflicting and spiteful by the end… Kevan couldn't find even one that didn't have another casting it into doubt. The torturer had gone well beyond what the old man could take. And Kevan couldn't even come out and say it. Tywin had been there for all of it. To question the torture and its result was to question him. If Kevan lost even his paltry ability to mediate between his siblings-
"Give me Tyrion."
Kevan suddenly felt like the living embodiment of their sigil was breathing down his neck.
Tywin slowly turned from the window, face casting into shadow as he did. Like gangue. "You dare." Ground the Lord of the West at their youngest sibling. "You would insinuate I'd do any harm to Joanna's blood."
"A Lannister always pays his debts," Gerion said, ignoring how Tywin didn't acknowledge Tyrion as his blodd with all the fearlessness of someone who'd long given up on any notion of good acknowledgement. "But what if that debt is to the King? And what happens when you don't even know what debt there is to pay?"
"… Explain yourself."
Kevan was shocked. He'd have thought Tywin would order him to silence, if not banished him from his sight.
"A stunted dwarf. Maybe poison to the womb could have done it. But mismatched everything? Hair so blond it almost looks white. Mismatched eyes from birth. One blue going on green. One blue going on purple. What if it doesn't turn all the way to black? What if it stays like that? Where would the purple come from? How far do we have to look for black eyes in the family even? It'd have to be the Marbrant branch because he sure as hells didn't get it from aunt Rohanne. Cersei was torturing him in the crib the other day, did you know?"
Tywin had been glaring balefully at their youngest sibling, but that last revelation cracked his composure. "… She did what?"
Kevan almost failed to mask his shock a second time. To latch onto that obvious deflection over everything else… Was he… was he actually doubting Joanna's fidelity? How many of Creylen's tortured lies did Tywin believe? Were they lies? If Tywin believed them…
"Genna's the one who found her," Gerion revealed when the silence stretched too long.
"It's true," their sister admitted. Her knitting needles paused. "She threatened the wetnurse into leaving. Then she undid his swaddling clothes and hurt him until I stopped her. She didn't even notice I'd come in, that's how lost she was in it. When I took her to task, you know what she told me? 'The little monster killed mother, he deserves it.'"
Tywin said nothing. Kevan couldn't meet his eyes, Or Genna's. They were all far too near to broaching topics that were forbidden.
"Give me Tyrion," Gerion repeated, face bereft of the usual mockery he aimed at the rest of the world, as he dared those matters that were utterly unthinkable before Creylen's ill-fated testimony. "You'll have your hands full with Jaime and Cersei."
"Enough." Tywin didn't shout, but he didn't need to. "Your part in this talk is over. This subject is closed."
Gerion nodded, conveying mockery without seeming to, but did not rise to leave. In that, at least, he knew better. He'd not been dismissed.
"What else could the maesters have been up to?" Kevan desperately hoped the others would accept the blatant attempt to change the topic. 'Confessions' under torture about Tyrion's parentage were one thing. Claims about Jaime and Cersei's parentage were another disaster entirely. "If there really was a conspiracy of them that tried to kill the Starks…"
"Whatever the truth is, Hightower had a grievance of his own to go so bloody," Genna ventured. Click click click. "Somehow or other, the maesters overstepped…"
"And he put them in their place," Tyg guesed, sounding vaguely approving.
"No," Tywin said, shaking his head. "If that were the case, he'd have done so from the beginning. Instead, he waited and then seemingly panicked when Stark's swift arrival blindsided him. There must have been something else going on in Oldtown, or perhaps the Citadel itself. A single house's reputation wouldn't have been enough for Hightower's response on its own, even Stark's."
"You think the Hightowers were part of it, whatever it was," Kevan surmised, though he'd already reached that conclusion. "That he killed the maesters for deniability, not justice."
"You do not?" Tywin asked, sounding forbidding and diapproving.
Kevan thought seizing Creylen for torture was the same mistake, instead of trying something more subtle. Now they didn't know any better than anyone else whether or not they were among the 'few' great houses undermined by their maesters. "I think we're past the point of knowing," he instead told his brother. "Hightower's purge is already looking so complete that there likely isn't any way left to get straight answers."
"I think you're all missing the point," Tyg cut in. "Rickard Stark just marched his troops across all the southern kingdoms during winter, faster than a rider in summer, when nobody else could match his pace."
"I did not, in fact, miss it," Tywin rebuked him. "But it's a distant concern to the real prize."
Kevan, for a moment, couldn't process what he'd heard. He thought Tywin was sharing in their grief and anger left without a viable target. Wasn't he? Or had he already moved on to… what exactly?
Tywin looked down at them from where he stood near the window, then walked to sit at his desk. "The Citadel has been blooded, broken and disgraced. Ser Baelor Hightower seems to have gone on his own purge after Stark left as well. What do you think this means for the maesters and acolytes there? Many eyes are turned towards Oldtown. There will be dozens if not hundreds of maesters, or acolytes as good as maesters, doing the opposite right as we speak. Avowed or not, think you there aren't those looking to flee into the night after what Hightower did? A lord could easily have his pick of just those poor sods. And, if what all we heard is correct, Stark already has. He got first pick of them and their precious books. I will not have House Lannister miss the opportunity now open to us. I expect full support from all of you."
"… You want to make our own Citadel," Kevan couldn't muster any emotion. He could barely muster the comprehension as to what Tywin was trying to tell them. Creating a Citadel of their own… he couldn't imagine it.
Neither, it seemed, could the others, so deep their quiet had grown.
"No longer will House Lannister kowtow to the wisdom of self-deluded old men from across the continent. Nor will we open ourselves up to treachery from Hightower's grey rats. This is not the first time the maesters forgot their place. Nor the first time they were killed for dubious loyalty. Yet always has House Hightower managed to retain its stranglehold on all knowledge everywhere. I doubt Stark knew what he would set in motion when he left his empty lands, but house Lannister will not waste an opportunity so uniquely suited for us and only us."
Kevan could see it. The Citadel's history. Their great library without equal. The constant stream of gold from all lords who needed a maester in their keep. Right there, right then, it had been rendered moot, if only temporarily. If they could act within the window of opportunity…
It took many instructed scholars to start an institute of learning. The maesters had no obligation to create a competitor to the Citadel, especially since they made their vows to the lord, the realm and the citadel itself. Even if a lord forced the maester to teach others, one maester alone would never be enough to start anything. The less time consuming choice was to just send more men to the citadel. Writing books was never easy either. It took a lot of money, parchment and time. Not even House Lannister ever bothered with such a waste of time, even if they could ignore the issue of expenses. Why do that when you could just buy the book? Sure, it can cost a fortune, but it would cost a fortune to have it made too. As for a treacherous maester… all you had to do is kill him and hire another. The citadel was always happy to provide more.
Of course, that was suspicious on its own too, in hindsight.
Kevan blinked. "You think Stark will fail," he realized.
Tywin nodded. "Even if the Citadel does lose its monopoly on scribes, it won't be enough. Hightower and the Conclave doubtlessly know this, or they wouldn't have so easily acceded to Stark's demands. A fistful of acolytes that have not completed their chains and some books will never be enough to start a new Citadel. Others have tried the same, many times over these thousand years of history. Even if Stark did get one or two maesters to join him, they will have to spend years just to complete the education of the acolytes and there is still the problem of the scribes and the production of books. I am certain that the triad of Oldtown has already divined the conclusion to this sordid drama."
"They'll renounce the effort by next winter," Kevan supposed that was what Tywin was getting at. "The North struggles with winter and is not the most wealthy. Certainly not enough to fund anything that could compete with Oldtown."
"Southern lords won't risk the stewardship of their lands or their children's education either," Tyg agreed, much as he hated to agree with Tywin on anything. "Not on an upstart organisation from the northmost backwards reaches of the world."
"Quite so. Kevan."
"Yes, brother."
"You will take the Sea Lion and attendant vessels to Oldtown. Recruit as many maesters as you can. As many learned acolytes as you can. You have my leave to tap the treasury for however much gold you need to acquire the right books as well. Perform well, brother. Our House cannot afford half measures here."
Kevan stood and bowed. "I will do all I can, brother, but they'll obstruct me every step of the way. If they say no, or Hightower says no, there won't be much I can do." Stark wasn't the only one facing the issue of too few learned men and too few books.
"Of course. Which is why I will join you for the trip and then go on to King's Landing. I am the Hand of the King and his Grace has summoned me back to his side to put the realm in order. Given recent developments, I've no doubt he will see the wisdom in signing the appropriate royal permits and decrees to solve this small matter."
"I understand. Good luck then, brother."
"Indeed. Take Gerion with you. Perhaps some time at sea will remind him what the proper noble airs smell like."
Mercifully, their youngest brother didn't make a sound. "As you say."
"Dismissed."
Kevan, Tygett, Genna and Gerion left the solar of Casterly Rock in silence.
By unspoken agreement, the four walked down the corridor towards their family's private living room. They didn't all keep their peace for so long though. That it was Gerion who broke it wasn't a surprise. What he said, however, was.
"The King won't agree." None of his typical smirk showed on his face. "Lannisport could easily become another Oldtown. His Grace currently believes the order of maesters murdered all his children. And his father. Who knows what else he'll believe next. Gods save us if he decides they were behind Summerhall. The Dance. The death of the dragons even. He won't admit it, but he'll know he's at the lowest House Targaryen has ever been since Maegor's rule."
"You think he'll deny his own Hand?" Tyg asked.
"I think he'll want to do everything but empower a second such threat if he's in such a weak position."
Or maybe he'll order the Citadel dismantled. Maybe he'll fund a rival institution himself. Maybe he'll try to have the Hightowers attained, which means Tywin will have all his time taken by trying to stop a war. "There's no point in speculating," Kevan told him.
"Yes," Gerion said with a derisive sneer. "After all, what better way for a new, loyal order of knights of the mind than Lannisport? A harbor, protection from a powerful house, and if Tywin proposes building it somewhere in King's Landing, Aerys would refuse just to spite him. After all, was his Hand suggesting he bring more of those treacherous rats within reaching distance of House Targaryen? He'd have to build it in Lannisport at that point. After all, what other place was there? Gulltown? Starfall? White Harbor? Maybe Tywin should suggest Dragonstone, just to see what happens."
Kevan bleakly wondered if there was anyone else in the world with the same skill in providing perfectly persuasive arguments in such a way that you doubted every single one of them.
"You don't think our brother will succeed?" Genna asked when they all stopped at the last fork in the corridors.
"Town charter," was all Gerion said as goodbye.
They watched their youngest brother leave, feeling discomfited.
Kevan hesitated before leaving for his own preparations, but… he was never as confident as Tywin. He could never be so sure of his course of action as to bet all on his chosen path. "Keep a close eye on the children."
"Not just Tyrion?" Tyg asked, surprised.
Kevan looked at Genna.
"Best to be thorough," their sister agreed, offering their bemused brother knight her arm to be led onwards. "Wouldn't want to miss any notable leanings, you understand. 'We're halves of the same soul' indeed. That girl will be the death of us, I swear."
It was two weeks later while still in Oldtown that the next royal decree reached them. It sent Kevan reeling, left all their plans upended, and sent Gerion Lannister into the most uproarious, breath-stealing laughing fit of his entire life to date.
"Hahahahahah! I told you! I told you! Hah Hah Hah Hah Hah!"
Kevan heard his brother's words and read the king's words feeling the same dismay.
Tywin, what did you do?