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"Speak! Who was it!"
Every kick, Joffrey threw with everything he had.
"Who gave the order! Who told you to kill my father!"
Pycelle convulsed on the floor, bloody froth bubbling from his mouth in chunks mixed with broken teeth.
He wanted to die.
Right now, all he wanted was to die quickly.
But Joffrey clearly had no intention of giving him that mercy.
"Your Grace, you will kill him."
Cersei hauled herself up from the floor, her voice sharp with urgency.
She wasn't concerned about Pycelle. She was afraid that Joffrey, in his fury, would destroy everything the Lannisters had built in King's Landing.
Joffrey ignored her completely.
His bloodshot eyes stayed fixed on the barely breathing Grand Maester lying on the floor.
"Lord Lynn."
Varys's voice, smooth as honey, broke through at entirely the wrong moment.
"You are widely traveled and knowledgeable. Perhaps you know of a way to make the Grand Maester speak?"
Every gaze in the room turned to Lynn.
Lynn had been standing to one side this entire time, watching like a man who had no part in any of this.
He looked at Varys. Then he looked at the half-dead wreck on the floor.
"I've heard that when a person is in extreme pain, they'll say anything to make it stop."
His voice was calm.
"Of course, there's another way."
Lynn walked to Pycelle's side and crouched down, studying that pulped, bloody face.
"Grand Maester. I'm told that when Lord Ned Stark served as Hand, he tried to prevent King Robert from participating in the tourney and the hunt?"
"That ruined your plan to kill Robert, didn't it?"
A faint flicker passed through Pycelle's clouded eyes. He nodded frantically.
"So that time, you never had your chance. Is that right?"
Pycelle nodded again. His eyes were pleading now , begging Lynn to speak for him.
"There. He still has his wits."
Lynn smiled. He rose and turned to Joffrey.
"He knows exactly what he did, and when."
Joffrey went still.
"The first time, Ned Stark disrupted your plan."
Lynn's voice was unhurried.
"And then? There was a second time. Am I right?"
Pycelle's whole body jerked. He stared at Lynn in naked terror.
How could he know?
"Second time?"
Joffrey turned the words over slowly, his expression twisting into something uglier.
"Speak! When was the second time you moved against my father!"
His foot rose.
"Your Grace." Lynn stopped him.
"Let him say it himself. If he refuses, I have ways to make him — but that wouldn't be very fair."
Pycelle looked at Joffrey's raised foot. Then he looked at Lynn's eyes, those eyes that seemed to see straight through everything.
His last defense broke.
"I'll talk... I'll talk..."
He wailed the words, voice thick and indistinct.
"It was... it was Lord Tywin..."
"The second time... he told me to put something in the king's wine..."
Cersei swayed on her feet. The color drained from her face entirely.
"What substance?!" Joffrey demanded.
"A slow-acting poison..."
Pycelle forced the words out in broken fragments.
"It wouldn't kill the king right away..."
"It would only... amplify his emotions... his anger... his desires... all of it, beyond control..."
"Lord Tywin said... a king who has lost his reason is more useful than a dead king..."
"He only asked me to report to the Small Council every day... that the king's health was excellent... nothing more..."
The council chamber went utterly silent.
Barristan Selmy's knuckles had gone white around his sword hilt.
He was thinking of the final months of King Robert's life. The irritability. The rage. The drinking. The women. The way the king had refused every word of counsel anyone offered.
Everyone had assumed it was Robert's own weakness. His own excess.
No one had imagined it was Tywin's most poisonous calculation.
Protecting the king is the duty of the Kingsguard. The thought hit Barristan like a blade.
He had failed.
"So... my father's madness at the end... all of it... that was the old dog Tywin?!"
Joffrey's voice was trembling.
Not from anger. From something that had no clean name , a grief too enormous and too hollow to hold.
The father he had worshipped. The man who had stood in his mind like a god. And all along, his own grandfather had been pulling his strings without him ever knowing.
"What about the third time?!"
Joffrey's roar broke the silence.
"The third time was the hunt! Wasn't it?!"
Pycelle was completely broken. Every last thing poured out of him.
"Yes... yes..."
"The king had drunk the doctored wine... his mind... was already gone..."
"That's why he charged at the boar... without thinking... without stopping..."
"The boar... they arranged that too, beforehand... but I don't know why it was stronger than a normal boar..."
"And then... the king was gravely wounded..."
"Lord Tywin's orders were... to make sure the king... did not survive..."
"So I didn't clean the wound... I rubbed boar dung into it deliberately... told everyone it would help him heal..."
"But that was a lie... I had done research... I knew dung would bring on fever..."
"And then I sealed the wound with a hot iron... I fed him great quantities of milk of the poppy..."
"Everything I did... was to make him... die quietly..."
The truth.
The bloody, unadorned truth.
Dragged out word by word by a craven old man, trembling in absolute terror.
Joffrey stood motionless.
His mind was empty.
His father's death was not an accident.
It was murder. Planned long in advance, carried out with patience.
The mastermind was the grandfather he had always revered , Tywin Lannister.
The accomplice was the Grand Maester he had always trusted , Pycelle.
Joffrey glanced at his mother standing beside him, her face the color of ash.
Did she know?
Was she part of it?
Why did she look so frightened?
"Ha... hahahaha..."
He started laughing. It was not a sane sound. It was laughter filled with despair and something that had snapped.
He staggered back several steps and crashed into the council table. Golden goblets and rolls of parchment tumbled to the floor.
"So that's how it was... so that's how it was..."
He was muttering. Tears ran down his face without stopping.
He was crying for his father.
He was crying for himself.
For being the most pitiful, most foolish joke in the world.
He had revered a murderer like a god. He had treated another murderer's instrument as a loyal servant.
What am I?
I am a complete fool.
A clown.
PFFT,
Blood burst from Joffrey's mouth and spattered across the polished marble floor.
His body swayed. He fell straight backward.
"Your Grace!"
"Joffrey!"
Barristan and Cersei both cried out at once and rushed to him.
The council chamber erupted into chaos.
Only Lynn remained exactly where he had been, still and quiet.
He watched the guards lift the young king , overcome, unconscious, blood on his lips. He looked at Cersei clutching her son, her face streaked with tears and terror. Then his gaze settled on Pycelle, sprawled on the floor, limp as wet mud.
At some point, Varys had drifted to Lynn's side.
"My lord." His voice was soft, almost admiring. "That move of yours was more potent than any poison."
Lynn smiled but said nothing.
He knew what this moment meant. The Lannister grip on King's Landing was finished. When Joffrey woke, he would be something new , not a king. A mad dog with one purpose. He would bite and tear at every Lannister he could reach.
And Tywin Lannister — that proud lion — would find himself facing the most dangerous enemy he had ever made. The one he had built with his own hands.
He deserved every bit of it.
Then Joffrey stirred.
His eyes opened. He shoved everyone away with sudden, violent force, pushed himself upright, and locked his gaze on his mother. The eyes were wrong , bloodshot and burning with something that had gone beyond rage.
"Tell me."
His voice had changed. It was quiet now, and vicious in the way that quiet things can be.
"Were you part of it?!"
"Did you know?!"
Cersei's whole body shook.
She stared into her son's eyes and saw the killing intent there, naked and undisguised. She shook her head frantically.
"No... I didn't know... Joffrey, I swear I didn't know..."
Joffrey didn't press her further.
He only looked at her. His eyes held nothing but disgust and suspicion.
Then, slowly, he turned his head toward the floor.
Toward Pycelle.
The old man seemed to feel it coming. His shaking had grown violent. A foul, sharp smell rose from his robes , he had soiled himself from fear.
Joffrey walked toward him. One step at a time.
Every person in the chamber stopped breathing.
He didn't hit Pycelle. He didn't curse him. He simply walked to where he lay, reached down, and picked up the longsword he had thrown aside earlier.
Then he raised it.
Blade at Pycelle's throat.
Under the horrified eyes of everyone in the room.
"Tell me."
Joffrey looked down at the old man who had destroyed everything , and his voice was terrifyingly calm.
"Did Cersei know? Was she involved or not?"
➤ Next: Inaction Is Acquiescence
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