20

Chapter 20: Part XXNotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: I own nothing, just borrowing for a while.

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"If I have played my part well, clap your hands, and dismiss me with applause from the stage"

Joffrey Augustus

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The Red Keep - King's Landing – 298 AL

Wearing the gold cloaked uniform of the City Watch Octavian stood on the battlements of the keep looking out across Blackwater Bay, the body of water King's Landing stood upon. Beside him, stood on a box so he could also see over the top of the wall, Tyrion held a cup of wine and slowly sipped from it. "An impressive sight the Royal Fleet" the dwarf observed. "Pity that it comes here under the command of Stannis" he added wryly.

"And who else should command the fleet than the Master-of-Ships?" Octavian responded, his face impassive.

"Well ideally somebody that doesn't want your crown, and probably your head beneath it too" Tyrion replied.

Octavian allowed himself a hint of a smile. "Stannis merely proves himself no great philosopher if he thinks such a show of strength does more than indicate his actual weakness" he remarked. "Lord Stark may have granted him the right to bring his forces here in order to balance the City Watch under my command but not only doesn't he have nearly enough to overwhelm the garrison, it shows a lack of trust in Lord Stark's word that he would have safe passage and a guarantee of personal security" he said. "Also several of the Great Houses will choose to see the presence of the fleet here, and Stannis's army embarked upon it, as intended to threaten them to vote in his favour."

"They might think the same about the City Watch you know" Tyrion pointed out, reaching out with his free hand to tug on his nephew's gold cloak.

"The City Watch is regarded as a joke, nothing more than toy soldiers who do little more than take bribes and break up tavern brawls" Octavian responded. "Even people that don't like him regard Stannis's military prowess highly and know his men are experienced, well drilled and properly equipped" he continued. "Far more intimidating and likely to raise their ire and suspicions than a teenage boy with a yellow blanket hung over his shoulders."

Tyrion raised his eyebrows. "Do you spend all your time calculating like this?" he inquired, genuinely intrigued.

"No, just enough to make sure I'm always a few steps ahead" Octavian replied. "The Great Council should be forming now, shall we go face Stannis in the battlefield of my choosing not his?" he asked, confident in his abilities.

"Oh, Gregor Glegane himself couldn't stop me from being there to watch" Tyrion replied, downing the last of his wine.

Trying to stick to precedent for the sake of legality Eddard Stark as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm had suggested two places in which to hold the Great Council, the other being Harrenhal which hosted the Great Council of 101 AL. Because Harrenhall was land-locked however Stannis had rejected that location outright, not wishing to have to leave his fleet behind, and thus it was that all the Great Houses of Westeros had sent representatives to the capital in order to decide who the next king of Westeros would be.

Oddly enough to some, of the Seven Kingdoms the one that took the process most seriously and sent nearly the largest delegation was the Iron Islands, with not only Balon Greyjoy arriving early but also bringing his daughter Yara and his brother Victarion, as well as representatives of the other houses of his fiefdom. Although the islanders stubbornly kept to their own traditions, and looked down upon the ways of others, among those traditions was the Kingsmoot, a gathering much akin to a Great Council in which in earlier times kings of the Iron Islands would be chosen. In fact Balon himself had issued a statement that regardless of the outcome of the Great Council the Iron Islands would go to war with the loser if they refused to accept the will of the majority. They didn't care if Stannis or Joffrey sat on the Iron Throne, they only cared that the Kingsmoot of 298AL as they insisted on calling it was respected.

With Doran Martell the Prince of Dorne considering himself unfit to travel he had dispatched his brother Oberyn to lead their own delegation. Their votes considered a true wildcard because of their stubborn tradition of independence and their grudge against both the Baratheon and Lannister Houses nobody knew how they might lean, or whether they might simply choose to cast their votes in the way that would cause the most trouble for everyone else.

House Tyrell from the Reach would probably vote with whoever looked most likely to win, but if that looked like being Stannis they would be very unhappy about it. Mace Tyrell and Stannis were old foes politically and militarily and even if Stannis won with their vote it would be unlikely that he would reward them. Due to the fractious nature of politics and inter-house rivalries within the Reach it wasn't even known if they would all vote the same way however, unlike the Northern and Riverland houses who were thought all certain to vote whichever way the Starks and Tullys did.

Presenting their cases before the gathered dignitaries in the throne room, Eddard Stark presiding from the Iron Throne while his eldest son Rob acted in his stead as chief representative of the North, it didn't take long for everyone to realise that Stannis was badly outclassed as a speaker and rhetorician by the boy he claimed was not his nephew but who maintained he was. Having already cast extreme doubt on the supposed proof of bastardy based on his hair-colour and lineage Octavian went on to slash through each of Stannis's arguments with a mix of logic, persuasion and a biting sarcastic wit that forced Ned Stark to chide the Great Council for breaking out into laughter on several occasions as Stannis Baratheon seethed from his chair.

"If I thought that bringing my mother back here from Casterly Rock and her swearing under oath that the allegations made by Lord Stannis were false would persuade him I would of course have asked my grandfather Lord Tywin to bring her along" Octavian told the Great Council, "but somehow I doubt he would accept her word on the matter so it's rather a moot point" he said, stood in front of the Iron Throne looking back towards them. "Unless I'm wrong and you would accept her word?" he asked Stannis, who had retaken his chair after his latest diatribe.

"Why would I accept the word of a scheming, incestuous adulteress?" Stannis responded with a scowl.

"Then why ask her in the first place?" Octavian asked rhetorically. "You were complaining about her not being here to answer your accusation in person and insisting she travel here from the Westerlands to do so just minutes ago" he said, turning to the audience with an exaggerated incredulous expression on his face provoking a smattering of laughter, including some from Oberyn Martell who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle.

"You're twisting my words" Stannis complained.

"I think it's more your thought processes that are twisted rather than my words, if you want a witness statement from a witness you wouldn't believe and couldn't prove was lying even if they were" Octavian retorted. "If you want to waste people's time why not get them to keep digging holes and filling them back in again, at least it would be good exercise?" he suggested, rolling his eyes before shaking his head sadly and giving the audience a knowing look.

"This is a Great Council, not a mummer's performance, less theatrics please" Ned Stark requested.

"I apologise to both the Council and the Regent for so openly seeing the inadvertent humour in my opponent's position" Octavian responded, taking the reprimand but doing so in a less than total fashion. "Returning for now to the dubious suggestion that a person with Lannister blood having fair haired children is somehow unusual or indeed evidence of infidelity I would like to remind many in the hall, and perhaps inform others, that I was not in fact the first child born by Cersei Lannister but rather the second" he said, looking around and noting a few surprised looks in the crowd. "My older brother died in extreme infancy before his first name-day and was, you might be interested to hear, dark haired" he announced, causing a great deal of muttering to ripple around the hall.

Octavian nodded for effect. "Yes, while it is true that my surviving brother, and also our only sister, inherited the blond locks of the Lannister family from our mother, one of the four children born to King Robert by his wife Queen Cersei had hair like yours Uncle Stannis" he noted. "Perhaps even more dark hair than you these days despite being a new-born" he added, trying to keep a straight face as Eddard Stark made a disapproving sound behind him.

"That just means one of her children was Robert's, not all of them" Stannis countered.

"Possibly, but children can take after either parent randomly, as clearly evidenced by anyone in this hall by comparing the hair and features of Lord Eddard Stark, his eldest son sat over there and his youngest daughter who is trying desperately not to be noticed lurking over yonder" Octavian said, pointing out Arya who tried to dive behind a courtier.

"Arya get back to your room!" Ned Stark ordered curtly, glaring at his son Rob who had started to laugh.

"I'm sure that a great proportion of the men in this room with multiple children have sons and daughters that favour their wives, as well as others that favour them," Octavian continued his train of thought, "and think very little of it because that's perfectly normal."

"There are no blond Baratheon children" Stannis declared loudly.

"No, there are three blond Baratheon children Uncle Stannis, we just happen to be the first because very few Baratheons have ever married Lannisters and the seed is strong as regards hair-colour in both Great Houses" Octavian countered. "If you can demonstrate otherwise with something more resembling actual proof rather than conjecture, speculation and self-interested insinuation I'll sit down and let you right now" he offered looking to Stannis before pausing. "I'll take your silence and that glare you're directing my way as indicating you can't" he continued eventually, turning back to those watching.

Tywin Lannister, attending as both Hand of the King (or rather the Lord Regent) and also as Lord of Casterly Rock and the Westerlands had taken hours of persuading to accept that his grandson could do his own talking, even after testing the boy with searching, awkward questions of his own as a test, but now he found himself almost as shocked as everyone else at how well Joffrey was doing. An initially concerned expression on his face had gradually morphed into wide-eyed surprise and now creeping admiration as Stannis was mercilessly outplayed.

"It was interesting that you seem to accept that my mother's first, dark haired child, was your nephew but not her subsequent offspring" Octavian remarked, in an almost off-handed manner. "A curious man might wonder how King Robert only managed to get her pregnant the once in so many years of marriage" he continued, feigning a quizzical expression. "I mean, with four children born to her Queen Cersei is clearly fertile so perhaps we are meant to think that Robert wasn't particularly fertile himself?" he theorised, pausing for effect before shaking his head, dismissing the notion. "No of course he couldn't be could he, because of all those dark-haired bastard offspring with other women you listed earlier" Octavian recalled. "It doesn't add up does it?" he asked rhetorically before starting to pace up and down.

"Maybe King Robert just wasn't having sex with his wife all those years, preferring barmaids and whores to the bed of one of the most beautiful women in all Westeros" Octavian now suggested. "No that would mean he wasn't smart enough to be suspicious that his wife kept getting pregnant without his…" Octavian paused again, "input into the process" he finished his sentence to more laughter.

"He was probably too drunk to realise" Stannis interjected, ever more annoyed at the way the boy was winning over the men he needed to win over by humour as much as reason.

"Perhaps, but his being drunk all the time didn't seem to stop him getting all those other girls pregnant did it" Octavian dismissed that argument immediately.

"There are ways to end or prevent a pregnancy" Stannis muttered.

"Speak up please Lord Stannis so everyone in the hall can hear you" Eddard Stark requested.

"I said, there are ways to prevent or end a pregnancy" Stannis practically bellowed in annoyance at the request.

"Yes, Moon Tea for example" Octavian agreed. "But how would my mother know who she was pregnant by, her dark-haired husband or a hypothetical other man she was bedding at the same time?" he asked. "And get it right every time?" he added, looking at Stannis with a patronising expression you might give a young child making a deeply foolish statement.

Octavian sighed. "Uncle Stannis, I know that it would be in your interest for me to not be your nephew but have you ever considered that your opinion on the matter might be badly clouded by that self-interest?" he suggested. "If we accepted your arguments then practically every man in Westeros that thinks he could run things better than his elder brother could use the same ones to seek to replace him, because their case would hold just as much water as yours does" he continued. "That being not much to be perfectly frank" he stated almost apologetically, "as I think most everyone in his room has the intelligence to realise" he continued after a short pause, looking around from face-to-face and being greeted by more than a few nods of agreement.

"As for myself" Octavian spoke again , "if anyone on the Great Council wishes to ask me any questions, or come up with a better argument than you have, I am at their disposal" he announced. "Let's face it, they couldn't come up with a much worse one" he added sardonically as he headed back to his seat. "Your turn" he said, offering Stannis back the floor.

Some claimed later that they saw Tywin Lannister grin at that moment, but few told the story believed it.

Notes:

Note from the author:

As Master-of-Ships Stannis controlled most of the Royal Fleet, with his naval strength far greater in relative terms than his limited land forces. As such he would want to attend a Great Council by the shore, hence wanting it to be held in King's Landing rather than Harrenhal where the Great Council of 101AL took place.

The Iron Islanders don't like the other Westerosi but since the Great Council resembles their own Kingsmoot tradition they are going to be more inclined to go along with it than they would most political moves.

The short-lived first born son of Cersei having dark-hair is show canon rather than book by the way.