-x-x-x- Chapter 14 -x-x-x-

I woke up to an insistent, if apologetic, "My Lord." from Leo.

Blinking my eyes a few time before rubbing them once I rolled over to face the third ranking member of my personal guard, yawned once, and said "What is it Leo?" - figuring that he wouldn't have woken me without a good reason.

"Maester Tyto insisted that he needed to speak with you, he said a raven has arrived and that you insisted on seeing it immediately." the guard explained.

That caused me to bolt upright, there being only four messages that I had ordered him to insist I saw immediately - ones reporting a Lannister dead, the King dead, invasion, or the fall of Dragonstone.

"Show him into the Solar, I'll be there in a minute." I ordered as I got out of bed and grabbed the silk pajama bottoms left folded neatly on my dresser by one of the servants. Slippers and a silk morning robe joined the pajamas and barely two minutes after being woken I was entering my Solar.

"Tyto" I said, acknowledging him with a nod.

"Sorry to wake you my lord, but Dragonstone has fallen." the maester said, holding out a tiny sheet of parchment.

I waved a hand in dismissal as I took the paper and read the short, terse, message. "Don't apologize for doing your job, I would have been far more displeased if you hadn't woken me."

The message was from Ser Timmons, the ranking Lannister with Stannis's fleet. "Targ fleet sunk in storm, DS fallen, Q_Rha dead, P_Vis & babe escaped. Report follows."

So Stannis had moved fast to capitalize on the weather's destruction of the Targaryen fleet and the island fortress had fallen with Viserys and Daenerys managing to escape. It's what I had expected but it was still nice to know that my mere presence hadn't butterflied away that little event, now to capitalize on it.

A glance out the window showed it to be about false dawn, 'good enough'.

"Maester, good work and feel free to head back to sleep but make sure I'm promptly notified if any more ravens arrive." I told him in dismissal before turning to Leo "Have my brother and uncle woken, and send word to the kitchens that I want food and tea sent up. Then wake Ser Cyril and have him send word to the Golden Claw to make ready for immediate departure."

Barely ten minutes later Tyrion and Gerion the three of us had poured our tea and sat down for our early morning meeting. "So why couldn't this wait until later brother?" Tyrion asked, earning a grunt of agreement from the still half asleep Gerion.

"Because I want to capitalize on this and every moment could count. Tell me, Tyrion, how many of the language instructors do you think would be willing to become active Sparrows?" I replied.

Tyrion blinked at the apparent non sequitur before saying "You mean the pleasure slaves you sent Gerion off to buy from Lys?", earning a nasty look from the older man who was still not particularly happy with me for giving him that order.

I shook my head 'no', "No brother, slavery is illegal in the Seven Kingdoms and so of course our House would never engage in it. That the language instructors we hired just happened to be pleasure slaves before our Uncle was so moved by their plight that he bought their freedom out of the goodness of his heart is immaterial."

Tyrion snorted "Right, I'm not a Septon or the King brother. So what do you want with the language instructors who regularly grace your bed and are teaching our Sparrows every trick they learned in Lys's pleasure palaces?"

Choosing to ignore the pointed bard, especially as it was quite hypocritical coming from Tyrion, I said "Expanding our spy network to the Free Cities just became critical and none of our home grown Sparrows have either the training or experience to make credible brothel madams. So how many do you think would be willing to play madam and spy mistress for us?"

Tyrion thought for a moment before saying "Five, maybe six. But I still don't understand why this is so important all of the sudden?"

I tapped the raven's message, sitting on the table where it had been left after the two had finished read it, "Because of this. The rightful crown prince and his newborn sister have escaped, and Essos is the only place they could have gone. They would never have risked Dorne, my guess is that their ship fled for Pentos - and plenty of powerful interests over there might find it useful to have a claimant to the Iron Throne under their thumb.

"I want them found, and I want it done without anyone finding out that House Lannister is looking for them."

Tyrion made a hesitant face before slowly saying "Are you planning on following in fathers footsteps Jaime?"

"No, I have no interest in seeing them dead." I answered firmly.

"Then what do you intend Jaime?" asked Gerion, the slightest bit of worry in his tone.

"Why that should be obvious. I intend to kidnap them and have them brought to the Rock." I said, causing Gerion to sag back into his chair with the look of a man who had heard something that he really didn't want to hear but expected anyways.

"Why would you risk war with Robert and the destruction of our House over this?" he asked quietly.

"Because I think the risk is manageable and that it will benefit us in time. Robert is already a bad King, and odds are that he will become a horrible King. If he should die before Cersei produces an heir then the Throne would supposedly go to Stannis but he doesn't have the personal connections to Stark, Arryn, or us and the Tyrells would rise in rebellion before they would see him on the Iron Throne because they know what he would do to them in vengeance for their siege. Dorne would join the Tyrells and the Iron Islands would probably declare independence.

"Having Viserys Targaryen in hand would allow us to decide the outcome. If we judge backing Stannis to be the right play then we let Dorne and the Reach believe that Viserys is still active and has support from some Essos backers, we would probably have to hire the Golden Company through a front man to sell the fiction but that's only a minor detail. Once they publicly declare for him, he dies and we spin a tale about fortuitous luck allowing us to catch him. That gives us all the excuse we would need to seize everything in the Reach West of the Mandar's Northern fork.

"On the other hand, if it seems prudent to see Viserys on the throne then we would have him under our control and he would be our shield against Dornish or Tyrell retaliation. If nothing else he will be a minor and we would be able to make Kevan both Hand and Regent.

"And then there is the third option, we could ensure that both of them end up dead and declare ourselves independent as I crown myself King of the Westerlands. With no strong claimant to the Iron Throne and the chaos of the situation, we could probably make it stick. Stark's bannermen are unlikely to ride South for the second time in a decade to seat some southern lords ass on the Iron Throne, they would probably press him hard to declare himself King in the North. Greyjoy would jump at the chance to put a driftwood crown on his brow as well." I explained, laying out some of my tentative contingency plans.

Tyrion broke out in full blown laughter after several moments of stunned silence "I think you just might be making father look the amateur brother."

Before I could say anything Gerion gave a slight nod, "I wouldn't go quite that far Tyrion, but that is certainly the kind of thing your father did at his best. And what do we do if Cersei does produce an heir before Robert dies?"

I shrugged "We could always quietly dispose of Viserys later, frankly the boy is his fathers son and I wouldn't ever let him take the Iron Throne. Even if I sat him there with a Lannister as Regent, I would still ensure he died before reaching adulthood. But no, my plan for that eventuality is to wait until we need a favor from Robert and then "discover" the boy before delivering his head to Robert's feet."

The two nodded in easy agreement with that comment.

"And the girl?" Tyrion asked, causing me to shrug slightly.

"She will either be the next Queen of the Seven Kingdoms or Lady of Casterly Rock." I answered promptly, resulting in Tyrion doing a spit take.

Gerion said, flatly, "Explain."

"Well if Robert dies before a betrothal has been made for the crown prince then we will easily have the influence to get the Targaryen princess made his Queen and that would secure the throne for Cersei's son in a way nothing else could manage. If the crown prince is already betrothed or married then we marry her to my son, have her renounce her claim on the throne, and use our influence over the new King to have him bless the situation. With the girl raised from birth under out influence, I have no doubt that she can be shaped into whatever best serves our interests." I answered.

Tyrion held up a hand "Ok, fine. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it makes sense to kidnap the two of them, how would we manage it? We don't even know where they are, and yet you want to kidnap them without anyone being able to trace them or find out it was us who did it? What's your plan for that?"

"I'll send Ser Cyril out on an anti-piracy patrol in the Stepstones and he will sink a pirate vessel, rescuing some slaves. Said slaves, now free and given a modest amount of gold by the generous knight, will buy passage to several of the other free cities. Six of our men will also disappear in Lys, and suddenly a merchant and his five guards will appear along with a very large chest of gold bars. They will purchase a few pleasure slaves who speak both High and Low Valyrian and charter a ship to Astapor where they will buy a century of Unsullied before sailing to Pentos.

"Once in Pentos they will get in contact with one of our Sparrows, and once they have a location they will set off. A hundred Unsullied should be more than enough to make short work of any guardians around the children, and with them in hand they retreat to their chartered boat and head to some predetermined point on the coast of the Flatlands where Ser Cyril will be waiting. The Unsullied kill the ships crew and march to Pentos where they depart for our various brothels to act as security.

"Ser Cyril returns from his anti piracy patrol with some extra guests, disguised of course, and the children don't leave the Rock again while the pleasure slaves become Sparrow School instructors. The girl should be young enough that we can pretend she is my bastard by one of the Sparrow's with Valyrian features, and Viserys can be stuffed down in one of the dungeon suites appointed for the nobility. Just make sure it has nothing inside to link it to the Rock and watch the servants and guards who interact with him to ensure that they make it seem like he is locked up in Dorne or something." I said, explaining the basic outline of my plan.

Gerion spoke up after a moment of thought "It will probably be tricky but it seems possible. I assume that the six are those men you have been using for odd jobs since the Sack?", I gave a nod and he continued "Well have you thought about..."

With that the three of us got started on the gritty details of turning my idea from an outline into a serious plan.

-x-x-x-