"Perhaps," said Tyrion, "but my father—"
"—ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but was ruled at home by his lady wife, or so my mother always said."

- A Storm of Swords

Lord Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals. He had extinguished the proud Reynes of Castamere and the ancient Tarbecks of Tarbeck Hall root and branch when he was still half a boy.

- A Storm of Swords

253 AL

When he looks out of the arrow-slit, the world is all in black and silver - a star-sequined sky lapping at dark waves limned in silver. For a moment he rests his fever-warm forehead against the chilly stone and lets his face crumple in sheer exhaustion. He lets himself be the boy of seventeen that he really is. Just for a moment, he is no longer the Heir to the Westerlands, he is no longer the young lord who will lead his levies to campaign on the morrow, he is only a untried boy who smells, even to himself, green and raw and summer-sickly.

And in that moment, the girl slips into the library, her footsteps soft as a fairy's tread on the flagstones.

When he turns around, his face still wan and unsettled, she is busying herself with setting out food and drink for him on a table. He supposes that she is a cousin of some sort, you would know her for a Lannister anywhere for her looks. A hanger-on, there is no shortage of them in the castle the gods know. By her age he supposes that she is some sort of a companion to his sister, plainly from the looks of her drab gown she is a charity case.

"You may thank my sister Genna from me," he says to the girl. "It was kind of her to have refreshments sent to me at this late hour. I often forget to call, though I might be in sore need of them."

The girl looks up at him and he sees that she is little more than a child - twelve or thirteen at the most, no more. "The Lady Genna did not send me, Ser," she says gravely and her air suggests that she does not think of herself as a handmaid to be sent where bidden. This is a girl who clearly thinks most highly of herself - and he mislikes that at once. He has seen too many of his father's mistresses who thought most highly of themselves as well. "I sent myself."

"Why for?"

She pours the wine herself and says, "Because I thought you might be tired and hungry. You have been up here for hours."

He mistrusts this thoughtfulness at once. She wants something of me, he decides and his voice is clipped as he says, "I thank you for your... kindness. It is no less than what a man must do."

She spreads cheese on a loaf of manchet bread. "Then you are in sore need of a woman to take care of you, Ser," she says. She looks up and gives him the most infectious grin - in a moment the child's face is transformed, she is so endearing that he cannot help but smile. "Besides," she says busily, like a goodwife of steady years, "I've done this for my Father for years. He used to find it hard to keep track of the time too when he was with his books, poor dear - but he never found a midnight snack amiss either."

She looks over the food and drink with satisfaction and then waves airily. "Be seated, Ser," she says, as though she has the command of him.

He does sit and finds himself famished. He remembers his table manners before the girl but from the gleam in her witch-green eyes he can tell that she is amused. Unbidden, she perches on a chair before him and somehow, he does not have the heart to tell her to take herself off.

"So what of your Father now?" he asks her.

The gleam in her eyes dies down, like shutters drawn over a lantern flame. "He is dead," she says quietly. "He died last year of the Sweating Sickness and we had to leave our house in Lannisport. Mother died when I was little so I was sent here, to wait on your sister, Lady Genna. My brother Stafford's been a squire here for three years now."

"Stafford..." he remembers that cousin and not favorably. "We took him on as a squire after Ellyn Tarbeck released him." And more's the pity for a thicker lout I've seldom seen. Ellyn Tarbeck had captured three Lannisters in retaliation for her husband's imprisonment by Casterly Rock. All three were cousins that in Tywin's opinion they could well stand to lose. He had urged his father to send Lord Tarbeck home in three pieces but Lord Tytos had a tender heart and ransoms had taken place.

And all for what? Tywin thinks bitterly. So that the Reynes and Tarbecks might join together now, perhaps to our utter ruination? So that they have had years to know that we are weak and have had time to arm themselves the better?

The girl studies him gravely, the hard set of his mouth and the coldness in his pale eyes. "Brother or no brother," she says softly. "I would have done what you meant to, after Lady Tarbeck captured my kin."

"What do you think I would have done?"

"Hanged Lord Tarbeck," the girl says, folding her hands on the table. "And then sent his head back to his lady. Thus must traitors be dealt with."

"And your brother?" It is almost amusing to hear the sharp words from this slip of a girl's mouth.

"I would be very sad and sorry to hear of his death," she says quietly. "But I knew it would be the only way. When you pull out a weed, you pull hard. And when it is most noxious, you burn all the field around it to be sure that it has spread no seeds. You sat back and let the traitors have their way and now look what you have on your hands."

"I hope you do not presume to educate me, madam," he says icily.

She smiles at him, as though his coldness is only a mask and that she truly believes that no one can be angry with her. Not for too long at least. "Certainly not. I was only voicing your own thoughts, Ser. You looked as though you needed someone to say them aloud, to reinforce your belief in yourself." Her voice is tender and strong and far beyond her years when she says, "You are doing the right thing, Tywin Lannister, never despair. You will win."

He almost melts to hear her words, the kindest words he has heard in what seems centuries. But he forces his face to keep still and his voice does not betray his feelings. "How do you, a child of twelve, presume to know anything of my opinions or what fortunes the morrow might bring me?"

"Father always said I was old for my years," the girl says sagely. "Perhaps it was all the reading I did. I've always been good at studying people and I've rather taken a special interest in you, Ser." Her eyes light up mischievously as she adds, "You'd be surprised to know all that I know - or rather that I've guessed - about you."

"And why have you taken a special interest in me?"

"Oh why, for the same reason any girl would," she says. "Because you're so handsome, of course."

For a moment he stares at her. And then suddenly he starts to laugh, mad laughter that spills out and makes his belly ache, he chokes on his laughter and the tears pool out of his eyes. It is mad exhaustion and despair, it is a madman's laughter. When he stops a long while later, she is still there, he has not frightened her away - indeed she does not seem like a girl to be easily frightened. But instead of looking amused, as he expected her to be, her face is compassionate.

"Know that you will win," she says gently and rising, pats his shoulder as though she is a mother and he her little boy. "Singers will sing of your victories over the Reynes and Tarbecks in days to come."

"I highly doubt that," he says sourly. "I am no Daeron Targaryen."

She begins to clear up the table. "Not now," she says, "but you will be as great someday. You'll see."

As she turns to leave, he realizes that he has not asked her name. "Joanna," she says simply, when he asks and then adds impishly, "I don't think you'll need to ask me again, Ser. Nobody ever forgets me."

"I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair..."

256 AL

When he looks down from the balcony, the world is awash with sunlight.

They are dancing in the courtyard, on this, the first day of spring. The Princess leads her ladies in the steps, today they are all of them, be they fair or foul of countenance, heartrendingly lovely as they dance in the bright sunshine. They wear their hair loose and flowing, declaiming themselves highborn maidens, woven with ribbons and flowers. They have put aside their heavy gowns of wool and velvet, they wear light robes of gauze and pale silks and muslin, arms bare and jangling with bracelets. Their cheeks are flushed, there is laughter on their lips and their eyes are bright with joy.

Gods bless them, he thinks, admiring the lovely tableau the girls make, They could not be fairer if they were handmaids to the gods in the Seven Heavens.

His companions are less poetically moved by the innocent grace of the scene. The Prince himself leads them as they jape amongst themselves of the women's carnal charms, pointing out girls they find of particular interest and loudly discussing what pleasures they would take with such and such a pretty virgin. They are screened from view by the ivied latticework of the balcony, they are sodden with wine as Prince Aerys' companions usually and Tywin holds himself apart from them, ashamed to be part of the company.

That is, until Prince Aerys calls him over. "Who is that one, Tywin?" he asks, pointing out at a girl. "She looks to be a kinswoman of yours but I'm damned if I can name her."

Tywin squints and looks out. The girl has the fair hair of the Lannisters, honey-gold ringlets where his sister's is wheat-blond. Her gown of green silk is pulled tight around a willowy figure and she dances with her eyes shut like a woman moved by the music, like a woman in a dream. Her skin has the creamy sheen of old ivory, her lips are like rose-petals and her face has the proud, austere beauty of a marble goddess. She is dazzlingly beautiful, even from a distance and he realizes that he remembers her. No one, in truth, who had ever seen her could forget her - as she herself had rightly predicted when she was only a child.

"My cousin, the Lady Joanna," he says.

Prince Aerys hoots and is about to say something bawdy but stops short when he catches the look on Tywin's face. "Well then you must introduce me to her," he says, "If I had to choose between all the gold in Casterly Rock and a cousin so sweet, I know what I'd choose!"

"She is a very young maid," Tywin says unwillingly and calculates her age in his head. It has been years since he has seen her. "She can hardly be fifteen years of age, Your Grace." The Prince's tastes run to more experienced women, warm widows and willing wives. And there are whispers that his tastes run dark, that he is oft wont to pay for his pleasures. Though most women would be honored to share his bed only hardened - and well-paid - whores can satisfy his foul lusts. They say he likes to use knives and whips.

"Oh but I love young maidens," Prince Aerys says cheerfully and Tywin has no choice but to lead the prince to the courtyard after the music has stopped.

"Sister," Prince Aerys greets his sister pleasantly and - because he knows that she hates it - kisses her full on the mouth. She is to be his wife, she cannot say anything, but she grimaces and does not trouble to conceal her dislike. "You look beautiful today."

"No," she says curtly, turning away as though she has smelt something foul, "I look beautiful everyday." She is fourteen years old, an impetuous girl who has never been taught to hold her tongue, a girl who has always had anything she wants for the taking. She cannot imagine that defying her brother, that inviting his dislike on her when she does not trouble to mask her own, can have any consequences. She has not lived in a world where there are any consequences - not for her at least.

"And won't you introduce me to your ladies, sweet sister? I vow that each strove to outdo the other in beauty today."

"Why would I want to introduce you to them?" Princess Rhaella asks disdainfully. "So that you can debase all of them?"

"Well if you will not, Ser Tywin here will," her brother says, his eyes dancing in amusement. "I have a particular fancy to meet his fair kinswoman."

"I wish Ser Tywin had the good sense to knock you off your horse at the last joust," the Princess says and not in jest. "A few weeks of you being bedridden would have been so very pleasant." She snaps her fingers like a girl born to command and Joanna steps forwards and curtsies. "This is my lady, Joanna Lannister. Of Lannisport, not of Casterly Rock. Joanna, this is my tiresome brother. He says he's taken a fancy to you." She scowls at her lady-in-waiting.

"Indeed I have," the Prince says smoothly, "What man could not be dazzled by you, my lady?"

The girl is only fifteen but already she has the grace of the consummate courtier. She does not blush or stumble over her words as any other girl would. "All that glitters is not gold, Your Highness," she says, sweeping him a curtsey. She rises with her head high, like a queen. "Indeed, I would say that glass must glitter more brightly because it has more to prove. I think that you might have been dazed by a false sparkle, Your Highness, and not dazzled at all." She steps back lightly and the Princess smiles smugly.

"There," she says smugly and takes Joanna's hand, they are friends again. If the Prince is a fool, his young sister is little better and Tywin pities the two of them when they come to their throne. If only Prince Duncan had had the sense to make a better match and not defy his father, he thinks, He was no fool that one, he only made one folly in his life. Not like Prince Jaehaerys and his spawn.

Prince Duncan had thrown away his inheritance, whether for love or lust or sorcery's daze no man could truly say. He had taken to bride a common maid, one Jenny of Oldstones, a beauty with a voice like silk and honey. There were men who called her sorceress, she came from a dark place, Oldstones that was said to be haunted by ghosts, she was attended by a dwarf-woman who looked more like a witch than any good woman should and there was her voice... her voice was magic. She was barren, she had borne the Prince no children but that did not matter since he would never inherit his father, King Aegon's throne. It did not seem to matter to either of them - they held court at Summerhall while King Aegon, Prince Jaehaerys and his children lived at King's Landing. They were said to love each other greatly and that Tywin considered most suspicious. Love was always a trap.

At the night's banquet, he seeks her out. "You did well with the Prince," he tells her. "You are a perfect courtier, my lady."

"Oh, is it my lady now?" she asks him lightly. "The last time we spoke you called me child, though I wasn't then. And I don't think I'm a lady now either." She makes a little face. "Though I agree that it is easy to appear perfect next to my insipid princess. Is her brother as much a fool as she?"

"Worse," he has to admit. "Rhaella seems as wise as the Father, next to some of Aerys' follies."

"But he has such a pretty face," she says, her voice edged with malicious. "Men have died for less."

"Yes," Tywin has to admit. "He seems kingly. And when he is in a good humor, he can play the part well, he can be gracious and generous - better than Rhaella. She is no player, she wears her heart upon her face."

"And that is the most dangerous thing any woman can do," Joanna says smoothly. "I never do and look how well I have prospered. Lord Tytos himself chose me above all others to be sent to court to serve the Princess. And we were, all of us charity cases and dependents, quite hungry for the position. Who knows how far I might rise at court."

Tywin eyes her askance. "As far as I know," he says coolly, "my father does little choosing for himself these days."

"I make a good impression on everyone it seems," Joanna says. "Princes, peasants..."

Whores, Tywin thinks, thinking of his father's mistress who would surely have done the choosing for him. And somehow he does not like his fair kinswoman as much, anymore. She is too cunning by far and he mistrusts a woman's cunning - indeed he has had good reason to. "You are a schemer, my lady."

"I am," she says frankly, "And if I were not, I would be a fool. Who would rather have to wife, Ser Tywin, a fool or a schemer?"

"Neither," he says, "I would rather have a biddable wife who knew her place and knew enough to follow all of my orders."

"Then you would never consider me for a wife," she says teasingly, "For I am the least biddable woman I know, though I can be all cream and honey if need be. More's the pity for you, cousin."

"Tell me," Dany said, as the procession turned toward the Temple of the Graces, "if my father and my mother had been free to fol ow their own hearts, whom would they have wed?"
"It was long ago. Your Grace would not know them."
"You know, though. Tell me." The old knight inclined his head. "The queen your mother was always mindful of her duty." He was handsome in his gold-and-silver armor, his white cloak streaming from his shoulders, but he sounded like a man in pain, as if every word were a stone he had to pass. "As a girl, though … she was once smitten with a young knight from the stormlands who wore her favor at a tourney and named her queen of love and beauty. A brief thing."
"What happened to this knight?"
"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood."

- A Dance with Dragons

258 AL

When he looks out to the see the sunset on the Blackwater, he sees her standing like a figurehead at the prow, a mermaid with a woman's limbs, a mortal woman transforming at this most beautiful hour into a goddess.

Her golden hair is limned with black and the face that she turns to the light is tinted red. Tall and slim and dark as she is she could be a pagan goddess of battle such as the ancient made earthen idols of and worshiped. No man can say what colors are in her eyes, they have taken on all the rich, swirling tints of a dye-pot, and her lips are as dark as though she has sucked blood.

But her smile is her own when she turns to him, with her hand outstretched. "Well met, Ser," she says, turning her back on the sunset to speak with him. He can see King's Landing behind her, they have taken sail not an hour past and within days he expects to be back home at the Rock. She wears a new gown of scarlet - a most recent gift. On the occasion of her marriage, Princess Rhaella had dispensed silk gowns in the Targaryen colors and a rope of black pearls to each of the maidens who would attend her at the ceremony.

She looks well in it - but then when does she not? Her hair hangs loose and heavy down her back, her black pearls woven through some strands. At the royal wedding, not a sennight past, she was the most beautiful woman present - outshining even the sixteen-year-old bride. Though that was not much cause of wonder - Rhaella had never looked so ill, in Tywin's opinion. Her face was wan and swollen, her eyes circled with black rings and rimmed with red as though she had spent a month weeping in place of sleeping.

But she was wedded and bedded now, little as she liked it, little as her brother liked it - the marriage was all the making of their royal grandfather, King Aegon. He had heard it said, by a dwarf-seer no less, that a great prince would be born of his line and being the Targaryen that he was nothing else would satisfy him but his grandchildren's marriage, though they were all but dragged to it. The young Prince and Princess had been dispatched on a bridal tour to the cities of the Reach and there was nothing for Tywin and Joanna to do but leave for a span home.

"She could not stop for weeping for days," Joanna said softly, "Sometimes she would rave most wildly and it was all that I could do to calm her down - none of her other women were of any help to me or her, they might as well be sheep for all the bleating they did. She said that she'd be a septa, she said that she'd rather join the Silent Sisters than marry her brother - sometimes she swore that she'd run off, that she'd rather be the whore of a good man who loved her, no matter how mean, than her brother's queen."

A good man who loved her, no matter how mean... he supposes that she is talking of the Princess's last adorer, one Ser Bonifer Hasty who crowned her his Queen of Love and Beauty at a tourney in the stormlands, some months past. A most personable young man but only a landed knight, hardly someone for a princess of blood to moon over - and yet she did. Still... he wonders why Joanna is repeating this piece of choice gossip to him, and for free.

Tywin raises his eyebrows. "You are tactless to repeat her words. They might have been misconstrued."

Joanna smiles artlessly up at him and puts a light hand on his arm. "Oh cousin," she sighs, "You doubt me. You think that I mean to curry favor with you by borrowed tittle-tattle, you still think me a most advantage-seeking wench. You are much mistaken, I adore you too passionately to trade and barter secrets with you as is the way of court. All I do I do for love."

When he chuckles unwillingly, she says more gravely, "I trust you, Tywin. I repeat these words only to you as a cousin - as a friend if you will have me for one."

If he were any other man, he would have said, Any man would be glad of your friendship, my lady. But he does not. He looks her over gravely and thinks that she would make a good friend - and if she so chose, a most dangerous enemy. "I have few friends," he tells her.

"I know," she says sweetly, "and I know that I am one of them, though you will not admit it now." She turns to look at the sunset, breathing in the salty sea breeze and smiling like a child. You would not think it to look at me, Ser Tywin, but the simplest pleasures hold the greatest charm for me. To walk by myself in a garden with no one to disturb me but the birds, to read in my bed wrapped in furs while the rain thunders on the slats, to watch the sunset on the seashore.

"Have you ever wept, Joanna?" he asks her. He cannot imagine her weeping, she does not seem like a girl for tears.

"No." She does not look at him as she says it. "Not that I can remember, not even when there is nothing else I would rather do, when it just hurts so much. Not when Stafford was captured by the Tarbecks and we thought he would come back to us in pieces, not when Father died, not when..." she stops sharply and does not finish her sentence. "No matter how easy it is to just sit back and weep, there is no point to it. I would rather do something than sit and weep."

At Casterly Rock, there is a suitor waiting for her.

Tywin is called to sit with his father and their guest, Lord Frey, one day while a servant is dispatched for Joanna. She is late to come, as though she senses the trap laid out for her. When she does, she is as plain as a serving maid - in her oldest gown, her luxuriant hair knotted away from her face in a severe braid. When she makes her curtsy, her face is curiously bloodless though she is as graceful as ever.

It is no use - no man would be blind enough not to see her beauty.

Lord Frey looks her up and down, like a brood-mare that pleases his eye. "Heh," he says approvingly, "My Raymun told me you were the fairest young maid at court when I was drawing up a list of suitable brides, he did not lie I can say that. How old are you, girl?"

"Seventeen, my lord," she says, folding her hands behind her back. She is not offered a seat by either of the two lords - as though she is too irrelevant to matter. Tywin draws one out for her nevertheless and she nods discreetly at him as she takes her seat.

"I need a wife," Lord Frey says without preamble and Tywin wonders if it is his fifth or sixth. He certainly has a talent for going through wives. "By the looks of you, you seem a good breeder - strong and young and with a fine set of birthing hips. And you're not hard on the eye either, as I'm sure you know. Lord Tytos tells me you have no fortune, you're an orphan, heh. Well I don't need a dowry in a wife, not like some men demand, and I have my own influence at court, aye. All I need is a good young girl who'll do as she's told and who's like to give me strong sons. She needn't even be a maiden if I find her personable enough."

"I am a maiden," Joanna says coldly, white-lipped.

Lord Frey eyes her suspiciously and Tywin all but glares at him. "That is creditable... if unexpected."

Lord Tytos beams around the table nervously and gives a shaky laugh. "Well then that's settled!" he says comfortably. "Lord Frey is an eager bridegroom, I must say, we can make the arrangements quickly and have you wed within a week! Lady Frey, now that's a step up for you, Joanna-"

Beneath the table, her hands curl into fists and suddenly he cannot bear it any longer. "No," he says. He does not raise his voice but both his father and Lord Frey look up as sharply as though he had screamed for all the world to hear. "No, it is not a step up for her."

Coldly he turns to his father, this father who has shamed him all his life and for whose death he secretly prays. "You sold Genna to his son years ago and shamed us all in the eyes of the world. There was never a more unequal match made until you hatched this one again. I was too young to stop it then but this one I will stop."

His father's face is as pale as though he has held a sword to his throat and Lord Frey begins to swell up like an apoplectic frog. "Too good for me, heh, some penniless chit? And who are you to question your father's word, boy? What's good enough for him should be good enough for the likes of you."

Tywin looks at him steadily, his pale eyes boring slowly into the older man's. He does not blink and finally Lord Frey is forced to look down, grumbling wordlessly. He stands up as though he has just taken leave of them graciously, taking Joanna's hand in his. "My lords," he says, bowing, and strides out.

She is as pale as a wraith but when they are outside that terrible room, she throws her arms around his shoulders and sags into him. "Thank you," she breathes, "oh thank you, thank you, Tywin! I would have died if he married me, I would have-"

Awkwardly he pats her back and she turns her shining eyes up to him. "I won't forget this," she says breathlessly, "I will do something to make up to for this, truly I will-"

"You do not have to," he says gently, "I did it for you because... because..." He hesitates and then finally gets the words out, "because we are friends." It sounds impossibly childish but there it is, the truth of it.

"Friends," she murmurs and laughing like a girl, hugs him again.

"There was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense... " The old man hesitated again.
"Say it," she urged. "A sense...?"
"...of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days."
Viserys had spoken of Rhaegar's birth only once. Perhaps the tale saddened him too much. "It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?"

- A Storm of Swords

"Were you aware that our mothers knew each other of old?"
"They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?"
"Just so. It was my belief that the mothers had cooked up this plot between them. Squire Squishlips and his ilk and the various pimply young maidens who'd been paraded before me were the almonds before the feast, meant only to whet our appetites. The main course was to be served at Casterly Rock."

- A Storm of Swords

"I was the oldest," the prince said, "and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Saltshore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother's mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking. I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools. Yet here I sit, and they are gone."

- A Feast for Crows

259 AL

When she looks down the nave of Baelor's sept, she sees the only woman in the world that she has ever admired.

Joanna has always been slow to give respect, though she mouths the empty words and smiles the vacant smiles better than anyone else. As for admiration, there are few men outside of histories that she has had cause to admire - and no living woman. Not until she met the Princess of Dorne.

Princess Loreza cocks her head towards her and Joanna slips out of the sept and follows her into the shaded walkways of the knot gardens outside. "How long has our little princess been on her knees?" the Princess asks, but not unkindly. "Its been a good hour since I left and I believe myself to be as respectful to the gods as any woman of sense should be. I wonder that you stayed with her for so long, you don't look like a very devout young girl to me."

Joanna smiles. "It is nothing to sit with Her Highness for a while," she says. "She was always devout and in her grief she finds solace in the gods."

Princess Loreza nods sagely. "Poor child," she murmurs, "Perhaps I would do as she did if all my family were dead."

"Not all her family," Joanna reminds her though it is all but true. There are only four Targaryens left now - the new King, his two children and the infant born at Summerhall, Prince Rhaegar.

Princess Loreza snorts inelegantly. "As good as," she says, "All she has left is that overgrown child, her brother, and her father who looks as though he won't last more than a season. Her grandfather and uncle would shield her some from the brother, I hear - but her father does not interfere. And she has a babe in the cradle, born under the unluckiest star you could think of. Here child, lets sit for a while. I'm not as spry as I used to be and the healers tell me I should take care not to overtire myself."

They have been walking only for a few minutes but Joanna helps the Princess to a stone bench under an arbor. Underneath a pearl-studded girdle, the Princess' belly curves proudly outward - she is four months into her time. "Shall I fetch anything for you?" Joanna asks solicitously.

The Princess shakes her head and her voice sounds very old and weary as she says, "No girl, though I thank you for your consideration. It won't matter what you or anyone else does - I don't think this child is long for the world."

Joanna all but gapes at her. "Your Highness, you must not say such-"

The Princess shrugs. "Ill wishing can't do the poor babe any more harm," she says resignedly. "Do you know how many children I have lost, Joanna?" Mutely she shakes her head. The Princess holds up five fingers on one hand and then two on the other. "Seven," she says quietly. "Two sons who died before they could walk, a daughter in the cradle. A boy and a girl who came out dead. Two that I bled away, who never came to term. I have carried eight children in my womb, each as precious to me as a dream, and I have only one left now."

Joanna squeezes the Princess' arm, for once at a loss for words. Somehow she cannot mouth empty platitudes to this woman, of all other women.

"Doran will be my only child," the Princess murmurs and a smile of tenderness creeps on her hard face. "A squire at Saltshore in service to Lord Gargalen - he will be nine this year."

"You must be proud of him."

The Princess nods briskly and folds her hands over her stomach. "He seems a shy child at first, a bookish boy, but he is wise beyond his years for all that. A most deliberate boy, cautious and prudent - not like his mother, I fear. More like his father."

They were wed for love, Loreza of Dorne and her Pentoshi lover. When she came to her inheritance at the age of eighteen, there were no shortage of suitors for the reigning Princess of Dorne but she wed a handsome sellsword - for love of his hard young body the malicious said, because after all, being only a lewd Dornishwoman how could she see past her lust?

But she chose well for all that, she must have seen something more in him, Joanna thinks. He has always sat on her councils and dispensed good advice to her, he won the admiration and faith of her lords though half of the them plotted to kill him when she first wed him. Neither of them have ever taken other lovers, though that is the Dornish way. She trusts him now to rule in Sunspear in her stead while she has come to King's Landing to take her place on the Small Council. She is the only woman on the Small Council, the only woman in the realm that men would have suffered to occupy such a great position. A great lady, a great woman, happy in her love and strong in her conviction. Would that I might be like her.

Loreza looks at her sharply, as though she can read her mind. "I would never wish my life upon any other woman," she says quietly, "you would be a fool to wish to be like me." Joanna nods dutifully. "So, what of you, girl? They call you the Light of the West these days, I hear. You are eighteen years old and the greatest beauty of the court - no don't blush like a silly chit, you know well that its true - and still unspoken for. Why, I wonder?"

"Perhaps I am waiting for the right man to sweep me off my feet," Joanna says demurely.

"Hardly," Loreza snorts. "I know your ilk, madam. No silly love affair would hold for you long - I suppose you're saving up for the highest bidder, eh?"

Joanna flushes faintly, though there is truth in the Princess' words. "It is not easy for a girl like me to be matched," she murmurs, "You know that I am an orphan, that I have no dower. Lord Lannister, my guardian, holds no power at court - any man who took me to wife would have only my beauty for his pains."

"Good enough for some men."

Joanna nods. "But not the kind of man I'm looking for," she says simply. "I want to be more than just Lady So-and-So, queen of a single castle and unknown outside the county with naught to do but raise children for a mean estate."

"So its power you want."

"Any woman of sense would," Joanna says dryly. "I have known what it is like to be powerless, Your Highness. And I do not care to repeat it again. I want as much as I can take - power and fame and gold." I want that men should know my name as they know yours or Rhaella's. I want them to honor me, to respect me.

"My, what a shameless girl you are," the Princess tsks, but there is kindness in her black eyes. She pats Joanna's hand. "But honest. Why are you so honest with me, child? You do not look like an honest young girl to me either."

Because I admire you, Joanna thinks but does not say aloud. The Princess understands. Because I am always honest with those who command my admiration - you, Tywin...

And just as she begins to think of him, she sees him striding down the arbors, beaming like a boy in love. "There's your handsome cousin," the Princess says slyly, "my, what a bonny maid you look when you blush. Walk with him, child, I'll go in to see to Rhaella. She shouldn't be on her knees for so long - moderation in all things..." Grumbling, the Princess leaves and Joanna walks slowly towards Tywin. They meet halfway and formally, he offers her his arm.

His face is radiant, he is smiling - yes, actually smiling. "Good news?" she asks. She cannot help but beam at him as well, it is so rare to see him smile but when he does... when he does...

"Wonderful news," he says and he is not a man for superlatives. "My sister has been safely delivered of a healthy son. They're to name the boy Cleos."

"That is wonderful news indeed," Joanna agrees sweetly although inwardly she feels anything but. They are all my age - Rhaella, Genna - and they are breeding sons already while I am still a maid, still unspoken for.

"I've had a messenger not an hour past," Tywin says, still glowing with joy. "And you are the first one I've told. I am an uncle," he says and chuckles as though richly amused. "I'll sail to go see her and the babe as soon as I can - she had her lying in at the Rock, attended by our own healers. She insisted on it."

Ah yes, Tytos' precious princess, Joanna thinks sourly. She can have what she wants for the asking. She has never had to claw her way upwards, she should have a fat, petted tabby-cat for her sigil in place of a lioness. I pretended to be her dearest friend when we were children and all the while I would have most joyfully scratched her eyes out.

"An uncle," Tywin repeats in awe.

"Soon you'll be wanting sons of your own," Joanna teases him, "high time that you took a wife, Ser Tywin." She wonders who it will be - he will take a high lord's daughter to bride, or a great heiress, he will seek as advantageous an alliance for himself as he can get. Perhaps he might even look further afield, to the princesses of the Free Cities.

Tywin shakes his head. "Before I think of a son, I must think of the inheritance that I would pass to him," he says darkly. "My lord father has done his best to squander my own - I would not want a son before I was safe in my mind that when I died, I could pass on an inheritance to him that I would be proud of. You have heard of the Farmans?"

She nods. They are threatening to rise against him, she remembers, they think that they might have a better chance than the Tarbecks or Reynes. The fools think that he was just lucky in his last campaign. Idiots. "Send them a lute," she says lightly.

"A lute?" He looks puzzled.

"Aye, and a bold man to wield it." She dimples. "Let him play the Rains of Castamere in Faircastle Hall but once. That should be enough I think."

Tywin considers her thoughtfully. "You are a sharp woman, my lady."

"That is not a compliment, I fear. I thought you misliked sharp women, Ser Tywin."

"No," he says dryly. "You have taught me better. I find that I quite admire them now."

262 AL

When she looks out of her window, the Western Hills are drear and grey as a crone's shroud, cloaked in fog.

She is one-and-twenty today and the face that greets her in the looking glass is still as smooth as alabaster. Yet already she feels that her hourglass is almost run out. She is a woman grown, she has beauty and wit, charm and polish, she has been a lady-in-waiting at court for six years now - and she has nothing to show for it. I thought to be married by now, she thinks, dressing slowly, married brilliantly.

Yet the grand offer that she dreamed of never came. There was no prince outside of a fairy story or a troubadour's song who would be a fool to fall for a pretty face. I thought to be a great lady, the more fool I. The wife of a Lord Paramount at the very least, of a Warden of the Realm or a prince from faraway.

Perhaps Lord Tytos will marry me to a hedge knight, she thinks dully as she dresses, a rising man in his favor. Perhaps he will give me away as a sop to a rich tradesman, a pretty Lannister cousin in exchange for a few discreet favors. For a moment she wants to sag back on her bed and sleep away for a thousand years, like a beauty from a song. But then she remembers who she is.

"A Lannister," she whispers to her reflection. "You might be a Lannister of Lannisport and not of the Rock but that makes you no less a lioness than Genna Lannister." And she smiles her infectious smile, a smile that no man she has ever met has been able to resist so far. Her eyes take on the bright, hard glitter of emeralds and for a moment she almost frightens herself with that gargoyle smile, as cold and dazzling as sunlight reflecting off ice.

She has never lost hope for too long, she never will. It is her greatest strength and her greatest sorrow - that she can always dare to hope, that she can never be content with what might be enough for a lesser woman.

The castle is quiet at the dawn hour. Casterly Rock is far from empty - Prince Aerys and his entourage have arrived recently, to honor the stronghold of the Lannisters - but you would hardly believe that at this hour. She walks alone into the great hall and there she runs into the young prince himself. He is still the young prince, only a year older than her, though his son is three years old. He will always be the young prince, he does not seem like a man who might grow out of boyhood.

"Lady Joanna," he says brightly and holds out his hand to her.

She curtseys. "Your Highness."

"What takes you out of your warm bed at this hour?" he asks her. She is surprised to see that he is not rip-roaringly drunk, though she can smell wine on his breath. "Though I must say I'd rather have you here, before me, then tucked in your bed unless it was me tucked in with you." He winks at her roguishly but she takes it in her stride - he has never ceased to flirt with her but then he is equally generous with his attentions to any pretty girl that catches his fancy. She is not alone in that.

"I am an early riser, Your Highness," she says sedately.

"And I am a late sleeper, my lady," he says. "I haven't gone to bed at all and now I find that I can't sleep. I thought a walk or a ride might clear my senses. Would you ride with me, my lady?"

"If you promise to behave," she says, dimpling slyly. He holds his hand over his heart like a little boy and she giggles. He is just like a little boy, she thinks warmly, a spoiled little boy, sweet and charming when the mood is on him, but usually a miserable wretch whom she longs to bend over her knee like a misbehaving child. "Well then, I can see no reason to refuse you," she says graciously, offering him her arm.

They ride out to the beach, it is hardly five minutes from the castle, and then they sit on the rocks companionably together like children. She sits wrapped up in her scarlet cloak but with the hood pushed back so that her dark golden curls tumble down her shoulders. The lighthouse is a misty orange speck in the distance and the sky is like dark lead. Not a bonny day at all, and he says so.

"It'll storm soon," she tells him, "A mermaid's storm, as the fisherfolk say."

"What?"

"They sing up a storm," she murmurs, "Short and sharp and sudden, all thunder and lightening. Vengeance when one of their sisters is taken - for they say that far off, on other shores, the sailors and reavers sometimes catch mermaids. Beautiful creatures with eyes like crystal and hair of silver and gold, their tails scaled with jewels - amber and jade and laps-lazuli. And then the men cannot help themselves, though they know it is terrible folly - the madness is on their blood when they hear the mermaids sing and they use them viciously and when they are broken, they flay the jeweled scales off them. It is mortal agony to them, it would be like skinning a woman alive. Then toss them out to sea to be eaten alive by other creatures. But the mermaids can tell..."

Aerys smiles at her. He has hair of silver-gold as well and his eyes are pale, like watered amethyst. He is beautiful, she thinks detachedly, all the Targaryens are beautiful. They carry the golden blood of Valyria, the blood of gods and dragons. But he is not a man, though he looks like a young god - not like Tywin is a man.

"Do you believe in mermaids, my lady?" he asks her.

She laughs. "Hardly."

"I do," he says softly, "I see one sitting before me."

She is about to say something but before she can get the words out, he has risen, he has his hands on her shoulders and his breath is hot on her face. "Your High-" she begins, but then he kisses her. His lips are surprisingly soft, astonishingly he is gentle as his hands caress her face and hair and then slip down the curves of her slim neck...

She pulls away abruptly and stares at him. He smiles at her like an angel. "I've always wanted to do that," he says lazily, "ever since I first saw you. The Light of the West they call you, Joanna - and for sure I have never seen a fairer maid."

She bites her lip and looks away. "You should not have done that."

"No," he admits. "But I wanted to and so I did. And so did you, Joanna. No, don't speak. You do not want me as a man but you want me as a prince. Why have you never married, Joanna, hmm? Always looking out for something better, aren't you?"

"There could be no honorable love between us, Your Highness," she says coldly. "I am sorry to have led you to believe that I-"

"You could be my mistress."

"Your whore." She spits it out.

"Aegon the Fifth had mistresses," he tells her. "Naerys, his sister, was queen only in name - a most devout woman who bore but one prince, just like my sweet sister. Surely in all those great books you love to read you've come across them? Serenei of Lys, the sorceress, the Blackwood and Bracken women... they ruled the king, they commanded the realm and all men knew of their power, they bore sons who were all but princes. I would let you rule me if you gave me what I want."

"You could take me here and now if you wanted," she says recklessly, "it is not like you to be so delicate, Your Highness. You could rape me right now and there would be none to say nay to you." Except Tywin, she thinks, Prince or no prince, he would drive a sword through your black heart. For me he would.

"Tempting," he says, "but I want more than just your body, my pretty Joanna."

"My love?" she asks and thinks that he has run mad after all.

"Better," he says, and she can see the darkness in his eyes. "I want you as my slave, Joanna. I want you to fear me and hate me and serve me as you do. Ser Tywin the Bold's pet collared and bound to me - he thinks so highly of you, my lady. I suppose you know." And there it is - the spite, the poisonous envy and hatred and sunk deep beneath it, the fear. He fears Tywin. Why? "I want him to see that you are no better than a filthy slut, that I can command you, that I am his master in all things just as I am yours."

"Do you think that I will ever come to you freely?" She holds her head high and her voice steady though she has seldom been so frightened. A lioness, she thinks. I am a lioness of the Rock.

He looks at her as though he admires her spirit. "For the right price you will. I know you. I can read men and I can read women, I know they are cheaply bought - and I know whom to fear and those who I should make fear me. Think about it."

He leaves her and for a long while, she sits on the rocks by the shore while a mermaid's storm begins to brew. When she reaches the castle, an hour later, there is a storm brewing within. Men calling for horses, servants flying, women weeping and whispering, everything helter-skelter.

She catches Tywin in the stableyard, just as he is mounting up. "What is it?" she asks urgently, "what is happening?"

He is in haste to be off but he is gentle with her. He holds her hand and says, "The King is dead, Joanna. Gods bless, we have a new king now."

She falls back as he rides off, her hands going to her lips. "Aerys," she whispers aloud. "Aerys is King now." And unbidden, the thought comes to her head, And I might be all but queen.

A/N: Next chapter coming up soon! As of May 1, I've been on this site for seven years! And this is my 54th published story. O.o O.o O.o