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***
- My horse broke a leg, so I fought on foot. That guy kept yelling: 'Wait! Wait!' I hit him with a hammer so hard his rib cage was pushed in. Broke the fool's ribs. That was quite a fight!
The king's big belly shook with laughter. A piece of fatty meat flew out of the king's mouth and stuck in his thick black beard, but the king, heated with wine, did not even notice it. Light saw a grimace of disgust run across the queen's beautiful face. The queen's brother sent her a sympathetic look. The queen smiled with the corner of her lips, and the next moment her face turned into a mask of icy indifference.
- Yes, those were glorious times! - the King was nostalgic. - There was real life then. I fought from morning till night and fucked from night till morning. You weren't a man until you'd fucked a girl in each of the Seven Kingdoms, plus the Iron Islands. It was called making an eight. Have you ever made an eight, Tywin?
- No, Your Grace.
The coldness in the Guardian of the West's voice was capable of freezing the listener's ears off; Light even envied it. But Robert Baratheon remained deaf to the tone.
- That's what I thought. Counting coppers, that's all you know how to do. Your daughter's been bugging me about how much I owe you. The Seventh Hell! I didn't take the throne to pore over boring papers!
- Your Grace,' said the elderly man at the king's right hand in a tired tone, 'royal duties will not fulfil themselves. You ought to look into it more often....
The king waved his hand angrily, telling him to shut up.
- No, John, don't start! You're my Hand, so you run my kingdom. Leave me out of it.
- Your Grace, Tywin said. - I told you this morning about my nephews, Lancel and Tyrek. You promised to take them as squires.
The king waved them away irritably.
- 'Yes, yes. I'll take these your... what's their name.
The king's eyes, bloodshot from the heavy libations, turned to the far end of the table where the younger Lannisters sat. His glazed gaze wandered over the pale heads. Martin and Willem chuckled.
- Seven scorchers, how many Lannisters were there! Which ones are they, Tywin?
Light shoved Tyrek in the side. The young men stood up and bowed to the king. Robert Baratheon nodded and gestured for them to sit down.
- I am surrounded by Lannisters,' the king muttered angrily, taking another drink.
***
Light turned the page of the folio and used tongs to remove the soot from the candle. It was late at night, and Casterly Rock was long asleep. Light's younger brothers, Willem and Martin, were asleep. Asleep in their matrimonial bed were his parents, Ser Kiwan and Lady Dorna. Sleeping in his proud solitude was Lord Tywin. King Robert slept with some fat maid. Even Tyrion fell asleep with a stack of books tucked under his head. Light stretched and yawned.
In recent weeks, he had pored over hundreds of volumes in search of information on local minerals and their chemical compounds. Monopoly was a bad thing, especially a monopoly on knowledge. The Order of Maesters has arrogated to itself the sole right to pursue science, and Westeros has become stagnant and stagnant. To think that in all these centuries none of these 'scientists' even thought of mixing saltpeter with coal and sulphur, even though all three materials were cheap and readily available in Westeros. And in general, the Maesters had little interest in the study of non-living matter. Medicine, history, and astronomy were the Citadel's main areas of study. Alchemy, on the other hand, was the domain of the Pyromancer's Guild, favourites of the Mad King. The dead Aerys loved wildfire, and the pyromancers made it for the king in great quantities. Tyrion believed that somewhere in the capital there must be a hidden vault with the vessels: it was hardly possible to take out of the city a substance easily ignited by the slightest blow.
It was precisely because of its excessive destructiveness that wildfire remained a rare exotic. Most of the fighting was done the old-fashioned way: with swords, spears and arrows. If firearms were to appear in Westeros, they would change the course of history.
To get away from Tyrion's insistent questioning about the purpose of his quest, Light said he was looking for a way to turn base metals into gold. Tyrion was surprised at first - the Lannisters have enough gold already! - But then the idea caught his fancy, and he began digging diligently through the volumes on alchemy, which helped him get a general idea of the state of the science. It was deplorable. But on the bright side, Light seemed to be the only person in the world who knew what gunpowder was and how to make it. Light was in no hurry to share his knowledge. To do so now, when he had no army of his own, no money of his own, not even a house of his own, was simply to give the secret to others. Lord Tywin would probably benefit greatly from the new weapon, but what would Light gain from it? He'd be better off withholding the secret until he's in a position to reap the benefits himself.
We need a war, Light thought. It is in wartime that the fastest careers are made. A war would cut the knot of tangled relations between the great and lesser houses, get rid of rivals, and give a chance to use the new weapons of Westeros in all their glory.
But what could spark the war? What would be the spark that would ignite Westeros? Light knew from Earth's history that in feudal societies, war was most often started over the issue of succession to the throne. The War of the Scarlet and White Rose in England (Light glimpsed that the Starks and Lannisters sounded similar to the Yorks and Lancasters), the Time of Troubles in Russia, the Sengoku Jidai era in Japan. Each of these crises eventually contributed to the centralisation and strengthening of the state. Imagining himself as Oda Nobunaga, Light grinned.
Even a blind man, had he been present at tonight's feast, would have noticed that the king and queen had a hard time tolerating each other. But apparently they had had love in the past, the queen's three children to prove it. Though it would be funny if Cersei's children were not conceived by her husband. Illegitimate descent of princes is the perfect excuse for war, which is exactly what Lythe needs.
Light heard a rustle. He listened, and somewhere in the distance his ears picked up the hurried clatter of footsteps, quickly swallowed up by the rocky cliffs. Following his instincts, Light walked quietly out of the library, careful not to wake Tyrion, and headed for where the sound had come from a moment ago. As he wandered through the narrow, cave-like corridors of the Cliff, Light remembered the frightening tales of the local ghosts that Lancel had feared as a child. Millennia ago, the Cliff had been owned by the Casterly family, who had given the fortress its current name. Lannes the Clever, the legendary ancestor of all Lannisters who lived in the Age of Heroes, travelled secretly through the Cliff's passages and managed to quarrel the Casterlys among themselves. Slaughtering the former owners one by one, Lannes took possession of the Cliff, and his descendants have ruled the West ever since. But they say the ghosts of the murdered Casterlys still roam the corridors, grabbing the unwary and strangling them with their cold, transparent fingers.
- ...everyone's asleep,' a man's voice said to Light. A woman's voice answered something unintelligible. Cautiously, Light walked in the direction of the voices.
- ...I can't wait any longer,' the man said. - I want you.
Light stopped. The usual thing, a pair of lovers. But why had they travelled so far away? Are they hiding from someone or something?
- ...risk,' the woman whispered, but the man did something, and her whisper turned into a passionate moan. Light stepped closer.
A lone candle flickered behind the door, its flickering flame picking out the outline of the abandoned warehouse walls from the gloom. The corridor where Light stood was completely dark. The glow of the flames reflected off her long blonde hair and the jewels that adorned her dress, and Light recognised Queen Cersei.
Light pressed himself into the wall, trying not to breathe.
- Robert... filthy... pig,' the man said, pacing rhythmically. - 'When he... went up that fat slut's skirt... in front of everyone... it made me want to kill him. You want me to kill him for you?
- Don't be silly, Jaime,' Cersei said.
Wow. That's something Light didn't expect. The queen's brother is her lover? Jaime hadn't spoken much at the feast, and now he was keeping a low profile, so Light didn't recognise him at first. Now it was time to go back to the library. Waiting until the lovers had changed their posture and their backs were to the door, Light left quietly.
All three of the queen's children are nothing like their father, Light thought. In the twelve years since Joffrey's birth, had no one suspected anything?
Maybe they have, but the queen's treason has yet to be proven. And how do you do that without catching her with her lover? I'll find a way, Light decided. Not for the king's sake-- that deer deserves the horns. But to have leverage over Cersei. And if, after the king's death, evidence of treason is passed to his brothers-secretly, through third hands-then a war for the throne is assured. The key is that someone else doesn't find that evidence and bring it to the king before Light figures out how to kill him.