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The Hand's Tower's dining hall had become Joffrey Baratheon's private execution chamber.
Tywin wanted to teach his disrespectful grandson a lesson, and he wanted to do it now. He could not wait to drag the boy back to his bedchamber. He could not wait at all.
He was furious.
Ser Trant and Ser Oakheart held the King of the Seven Kingdoms down on a long bench, one on each side, pinning him with the calm efficiency of men who had done worse things for lesser lords.
Joffrey's magnificent trousers, embroidered in gold thread and stamped with the lions of Lannister, were yanked to his ankles along with the last shred of his dignity.
The servants and guards in the room kept their eyes on the floor. Their shoulders, however, were another matter. They trembled. They couldn't stop trembling.
They didn't dare look.
But that suppressed laughter , squeezed from the backs of their throats, thin and muffled and desperate , was sharper than any blade. It flayed Joffrey's nerves inch by inch.
Tywin Lannister rolled up his sleeves. He held a thick leather belt.
He said nothing. His face was stone.
CRACK ,!
The first stroke was crisp and loud.
Joffrey's entire body jerked.
Then the pain hit , searing, burning, radiating from his rear through every limb and nerve ending in his body all at once.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse. He wanted to order the Kingsguard to drag this old man outside and take his head!
He couldn't make a sound.
Ser Trant's hand clamped over his mouth like an iron vice, stuffing every roar back down his throat.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Every stroke was precise. Controlled. Powerful.
Tywin didn't look like a grandfather disciplining a grandson. He looked like a craftsman working a stubborn piece of iron , methodical, unhurried, thorough.
Joffrey ground his teeth until he tasted blood.
The pain kept building.
But worse than the pain was the humiliation. It was everywhere. It got into everything.
He heard it , a guard failing, a short involuntary pfft escaping before the man could swallow it.
He saw it , the serving girl in the corner, the one who poured his wine, pressing a handkerchief over her mouth with both hands while her whole body shook.
He could even feel it through the hands holding him down. The faint tremors in the arms of his own Kingsguard.
They were laughing.
All of them.
At him.
Joffrey Baratheon.
King of the Seven Kingdoms.
Bent over a bench, trousers at his ankles, being whipped like a stable boy's bastard.
Rage and venom churned through his chest in waves, so hot and violent he thought they might burn his mind to ash.
Damn every one of you.
I remember.
I remember every face in this room.
I swear to every god there is , I will kill you. All of you. I will kill you in the cruelest ways I can imagine.
Crossbows. I'll put a bolt through every single one of you.
And you , you old bastard ,
Tywin Lannister.
I will beat you into a rug. I will lay you in front of my bed and walk on you every day for the rest of your miserable life.
Somewhere during all of it, the whipping stopped.
Tywin tossed the belt aside. He produced a handkerchief and wiped his hands with unhurried precision.
"Now." His voice was perfectly calm. "Do you know how to respect your elders, Your Grace?"
Perfectly calm , except Joffrey caught it. The barely-there edge of breathlessness underneath.
The old man tired himself out.
Tough bones, for a corpse.
Joffrey said nothing.
The two Kingsguard hauled him upright. He pulled his trousers up with all the dignity a person could manage in that situation, which was none.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He turned his head and looked at Tywin. His eyes were bloodshot, bright as fever. The look in them was the look of something venomous and patient, something that waits in the dark.
Tywin held that gaze.
Something finally shifted in those pale green eyes. A ripple. An emotion.
Disgust.
Not the hot disgust of anger. The cold, quiet disgust of a man looking at something broken beyond repair.
And he didn't bother hiding it.
Tywin waved a hand , a small, dismissive gesture, like shooing away a fly.
"Take him back."
Joffrey was escorted out of the room where he had suffered the worst humiliation of his life. Each step sent a fresh burn radiating from behind, a reminder with every stride.
He would remember.
He would never, ever forget.
---
Back in his bedchamber, Joffrey threw himself face-down on the velvet bed and buried his face in the pillow.
He didn't want to see anyone.
He just wanted to be alone, to lie there in the dark and tear Tywin Lannister apart with words no one would ever hear.
The door flew open.
"Joffrey!"
Cersei swept in wearing scarlet, her face sharp with a fury that had fear underneath it. She was shocked , shocked that Joffrey had dared to speak to Tywin that way , and furious that he had been stupid enough to back himself into a corner like this.
"Have you gone mad?!"
Her voice cut through the room.
"How dare you — how dare you speak to your grandfather like that?!"
Joffrey lifted his head slowly.
He looked at his mother. Looked at her beautiful face twisted with anger. And laughed.
"Grandfather?"
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and pushed himself upright, settling against the headboard.
"I don't recall having a grandfather like that."
"Joffrey, you —"
"I've already been beaten. Are you here to have a turn as well, Mother?"
A thin smile curled his mouth.
"Go ahead. Pull down my trousers. Use the belt. I'll wait."
Cersei shook with rage.
"I am the king!" Joffrey's voice cracked through the room. "King of the entire Seven Kingdoms! And you snakes have the nerve to gang up on me in my own ,"
"Listen to me." Cersei crossed to him, reaching for his hand. "Joffrey. You have to go back to Tywin and apologize. Right now. He's the only one who can ,"
"Preserve the Baratheon name. Yes. I know the speech."
He yanked his hand away. His eyes went cold.
"You Lannisters. Is there anything in your heads besides profit?"
"We are family —"
"Family."
He laughed. A real laugh, like she'd said something genuinely absurd.
"Don't make me laugh, Mother."
He leaned in close. His voice dropped to just above a whisper, and his eyes caught the candlelight like something feral.
"Don't think I don't know."
Cersei's heart seized.
"You... what do you know?"
"I know," Joffrey said , soft as a whisper, heavy as stone , "about you and Uncle Jaime."
The world stopped.
Cersei staggered back. One step. Her face had gone the color of old ash.
"You , that's , you're lying ,"
"Am I?"
His smile turned ugly.
"I saw you. Two years ago. The gardens of the Red Keep." He stood and moved toward her slowly, step by step. "That night, you thought no one was watching. I saw you in each other's arms. I saw his hands go inside your clothes." His voice stayed low and vicious. "You were like two dogs in heat."
Cersei couldn't speak.
He kept coming.
"You lecture me every day on being a noble king. You tell me what honor means. What dignity means." He was close enough now that she had to look up at him. "And you are this."
"A woman without shame." His voice dropped further. "A slut who spreads herself for her own brother. What makes you different from the girls in the brothels who sell themselves for coin? Tell me."
"You Lannisters," he said, almost conversationally. "You're all so depraved."
"Has Tywin ever had you? Hm? Why not offer yourself to Lord Lynn while you're at it — he's so impressive, isn't he? You should be lining up to throw yourself into his bed —"
CRACK ,!!!
The slap hit him so hard it rang off the walls.
Cersei had put everything she had into it , every gram of fear and shame and fury , and the force of it snapped his head to the side.
Her chest heaved. Her eyes , those beautiful green eyes , blazed with the desperate rage of someone whose secret had just been ripped open.
She stared at the five red fingers blooming across her son's cheek. At the cold, contemptuous eyes staring back at her.
"You..." She tried to find words. Her throat had sealed shut. "You..."
She looked at him , this stranger wearing her son's face, this thing that frightened her , and couldn't finish a single sentence.
What came out of her in the end was half roar and half sob.
"You vile, wretched child!"
"You will be the death of me!"
She turned and fled.
Joffrey pressed his palm against his burning cheek and watched her go.
No regret. Not a trace.
Only satisfaction.
Tywin had humiliated him. And he had taken that humiliation and returned it twice over , to a Lannister, to the Lannister who had disgusted him most.
He had won something.
A small figure appeared in the doorway. She was holding a basin of warm water with both hands, peering in with a hesitant, worried expression on her delicate face.
Liana.
She'd clearly heard everything.
The moment Joffrey saw her, the violence in his chest went quiet. What rushed in to replace it was something softer, rawer.
Grief.
He sank back onto the bed like a puppet with cut strings.
Liana set down the basin and came to him. She reached into her sleeve and produced a clean handkerchief, then began to gently dab the tear stains from his face.
"Don't be sad, Joffrey."
Her voice was soft. Warm. It came into the cold, hate-filled place in his chest the way sunlight comes into a room that has been locked too long.
"They don't understand you."
"But I do."
She settled onto the carpet at his feet, graceful and attentive, and tilted her face up to look at him. Her eyes were wide and dark and full of something Joffrey had never seen directed at him before.
Reverence.
"In Liana's heart," she said quietly, "you will always be the wisest, greatest king the Seven Kingdoms has ever known."
"They're jealous of you. They're afraid of you." She held his gaze. "Afraid of who you'll become."
Joffrey looked at her.
He had never seen that look in Sansa's eyes. Not once. He had never seen it in his mother's eyes either.
Right now, the whole world had turned against him.
Except her.
Just this one girl , this girl from the brothel , still standing at his side without flinching.
He reached out and pulled her into his arms.
She was soft and warm, and she smelled faintly of something clean and sweet.
"Liana..."
His voice broke.
"Only you. Only you understand me."
"Mm." She rubbed slow circles on his back, steady and gentle, the way you'd calm an animal in pain. "I will always understand you."
He pressed his face into the curve of her neck and breathed her in.
Something unfamiliar stirred in his chest and spread through him , deep and hungry and absolute.
He wanted her.
This woman, the only one in the world who understood him, who worshipped him, who was his.
He wanted to make her his queen. He wanted her to give him an heir , a true heir, a noble heir, one with Baratheon blood in his veins.
And the others , the ones who had betrayed him, humiliated him, looked at him like he was nothing ,
A cold light passed through Joffrey's eyes.
He would make them pay. He would make them understand what happened when you put a stag's back against the wall.
He raised his head. His gaze drifted past Liana's shoulder to the deep black of the night outside the window.
"Grandfather. Mother."
His voice was quiet. Certain.
"Wait for me."
"One day, I will have you both kneeling at my feet. And you will lick my boots like dogs."
---
Across the city, in the Tyrell residence, there was quite a different kind of commotion.
➤ Next: Tywin's Letter — The Conversation
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