Cersei came into their parents' rooms, loud and unashamed as always.
"Father! What is going on?" She demanded.
Somedays, it's easy to forget who she'll grow up to become. On other days, the warning signs are red flags standing starkly against a sea of white innocence.
"Cersei!" Joanna exclaimed, opening an arm to draw her daughter to her. "Are you well, sweetling? Did you eat or drink anything that horrid maester gave you?"
Cersei gave her a look of confusion, "I am healthy, mother."
"You are the midwife," Tywin stared down the portly woman who looked completely unbothered by her sudden march through the keep's halls by several guards and a lady. Considering her profession and the fact that she had the same face the first time Jaime met her when he climbed in through the window, Jaime is not surprised. In fact, he's slightly amused by the way she was looking at his father, completely unimpressed by the show of power.
"I am, mi'lord," She said. "I am Midwife Alanna, I was trained in my letters and basic healing by the septas in Lannisport and I apprenticed under the previous midwife of the Rock, the Midwife Paege. Will you be needing my services?"
"You are discreet?" He narrowed his eyes at her.
She raised an eyebrow back in return, "I have no use for gossip if that's what you're asking. The only information I be sharing is consulting other midwives for ideas if help is needed, and I have only done so thrice in the past ten years, so unless you're about the tell me your wife is having quadruplets and needs a cesarian, nothing is leaving my mouth to anyone."
Alanna was a woman who took no shit from anyone, not even the Warden of the West and Hand of the King. Jaime admired that greatly about her: she was here to do her job and do it well.
"Is something wrong with mother?" Cersei grabbed Jaime's arm, pulling his attention.
Jaime nodded slowly, "Maester Creylen is a traitor."
She frowned, "How?"
"My wife and your lady have been poisoned by the Maester of the Rock." Tywin's words made Cersei tense and look furious, while Joanna tried to press both twins closer to her. "A few drops of Moontea in her evening tea; for how long, we do not yet know."
Alanna looked like she was made of stone, "I see. If I may, mi'lady, I would examine you now." She motioned for mother to lay down on her back on the bed.
Joanna looked hard-pressed to let go of her children, so Jaime did so for her, slipping out of her embrace and gently tugging Cersei to do the same, pulling himself and his sister to go stand next to their still quietly seething father.
Jaime looked away to watch Cersei once the midwife motioned for his mother to spread her legs. His sister was volatile, though not by any way her fault. For all that their mother loved and cared for them, they were both spoiled by her, and their father was seen perhaps a moon or two a year, busy with his work as Hand. She wasn't very likely to react well to their beloved mother being harmed.
"Father," Cersei looked up at the grim man. "Will the Maester suffer?"
Jaime stopped himself from frowning at the casual bloodthirstiness, or at the hand that came to rest on his sister's shoulder in comfort. He had to constantly remind himself that the moral culture of Westeros was different from the one at home; they had no massive cultural revolutions about the sanctity of a fair trial, nor any major religions that praised forgiveness or the saving of a life above all else, nor an understanding of basic psychology and criminology.
"House Lannister will pay a debt, Cersei."
Jaime stayed silent at his sister's answering bright grin. It's not her fault, it's the way she has been raised.
"Do you know how far along you are, mi'lady?" Alanna pulled away from his mother, frowning deeply.
"8 moons," His father answered. He had left the capital for the birth, riding hard to arrive early after he had nearly missed Jaime and Cersei's birth when the twins came early.
"How many sennights?" She specified, "From your last bleed, if possible."
"It was the eleventh moon of 272," Joanna replied. "I do not know the day, but I believe that it is either four or five and thirty sennights."
"Your body is already preparing for birth, mi'lady," She sighed. "A drop or two of Moontea won't do this, not at the stage you are at. There's a reason that we make the mother drink a full cup. If I guessed, the Maester has been poisoning that tea of yours once a sennight for a few moons."
"What does that mean for my wife?" Tywin demanded.
"Mi'lord, I'll be blunt. If we're lucky, the babe is merely deformed or crippled and may live. If not, they're dead already. My main task now is saving your wife. Mi'lady, your body has been tricked into believing that the babe in your womb is stillborn, and so it is attempting to give birth early. That will be a great risk to you, and you will bleed greatly. If I thought the babe likely to live, I would send a raven to my fellow midwife in Lannisport and attempt a cesarian, but in this case, that would be too risky for you. Instead, I suggest we wait for another sennight, see if your body purges some of the toxins of the Moontea and balances itself, and if it doesn't, then I will induce the labor and pull the babe out myself."
From where Jaime is pressed to his father's side, he could hear his father swallow.
Childbirth was difficult in any era of time, but especially in medieval times where they still use leeches to drain the body of 'bad toxins' and 'curses'.
"Will I be able to have more children?" Joanna looked terrified.
"Likely not, mi'lady. And if you do, I may not be able to save you again. This pregnancy has been too taxing on your body, and your twins… the same Maester treated you then, did he not?"
"In my last moon and the labor," Joanna confirmed, eyes darting to where Jaime and Cersei stood watching. "You think–?"
"Your twins came earlier than most other twins and you bleed greatly." Her eyes flickered over to Jaime, "And, if I may say, I've been watching your boy. He's slow to attention but quick to move, and has difficulty with his letters and sounds. That's common with babes born poisoned by the mother drinking heavily."
Jaime tried not to twitch at her words or at how Tywin tightened his grip on the twin's shoulders. While ADHD and Dyslexia are common and known in his old life, it isn't in Westeros, and his Dyslexia was enough to have the Maester's think him slow-witted. He wasn't, he could read and learn and thrive, he had even gone to university in his past life, he was just slower than others and that's not his fault.
He had heard his mother's worry when he had easily outpaced Cersei and even Uncle Tygett with his numbers, the advantage that coming from a world with algebra to a world that thinks basic statistics is extremely difficult gives, but still struggles to read the most basic of sentences. The handwriting and phonology of this world trip him up, and he longed for his audiobooks and yellow paper. At the least, his ADHD wasn't majorly impacting him other than his schooling and his swiftly abandoned ideas of technologically revolutionizing Westeros a few sennights after he begins.
"Joanna doesn't drink," Genna said.
True. In fact, most of the main Lannister branch rarely drinks, with only Gerion and Genna actually drinking often, but, even then, nowhere near the level of an alcoholic. It made Jaime wonder who Cersei and Tyrion inherit their alcoholism from, or if they'd inherit it at all and their trauma led them both to cope that way.
"Then it is even more likely that the Maester has attempted to kill her before. Your daughter should be checked for signs of poisoning like her brother."
Cersei protested that, "I'm perfect! Jaime and I are perfect! You're a liar!"
"Cersei," her father scolded, and she fell silent.
"You're dismissed, midwife. I will meet again with you in the morning." He said coldly to Alanna, who merely nodded and left, unbothered at his lack of gratefulness.
"Tywin," Their mother sat up, looking devastated. "Tywin, I'm so sorry. I– Our babes–"
"It is not your fault," He said, not unkindly, moving to embrace his wife gently. "You couldn't have possibly known of his treachery."
Their mother began to sob, and Genna decided that they don't need to see this.
"Come, children," She took them both by the hand. "The hour is late and you have had much excitement tonight."
"Will mother be alright?" Jaime heard Cersei interrogate their aunt, but Jaime just twisted his head to stare at the closing gap of the door. Joanna continued to cry in Tywin's arms, the man himself looking tired now that everyone else had left the room.
Jaime wished that neither of his parents was burdened by this, but this was a kindness compared to the sudden death and horrific birth that their story originally told.