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Sean Bean Saves Westeros - Book 1: Sean Lends a Hand by High Plains Drifter

A song of Ice and Fire & Game of Thrones Xover Rated: M, English, Adventure, Eddard S./Ned, Eddard S., Words: 109k+, Favs: 1k+, Follows: 737, Published: Jul 22, 2014 Updated: Feb 1, 2015 423Chapter 14 - Littlefinger (II)

Littlefinger (II)

Cersei jabbed an imperious finger at the guard nearest her and impatiently tapped it downward. The observant sentry responded quickly and began vigorously pounding his spear butt against the stone floor, a beat promptly picked up by the other red cloaks standing about the edges of the Queen's Ballroom. The heavy reverberations cut through the maddening din that had followed Petyr from his very entry into the Outer Bailey, all the long weaving way through the Red Keep, and into the last citadel of Maegor's Holdfast. The Mockingbird hadn't at all minded the clamor surrounding the return of the Queen's 'embassy' from the parley, it alerted his agents to his arrival; and more hopefully, as rumor undoubtedly flew ahead of him, gave time to the smarter and more loyal ones to prepare. One by one, the competing, shouting voices died away until only the noise of the boy King's adolescent tantrum remained to bounce angrily between the walls and reflect peevishly off the polished mirrors behind each embedded torch sconce.

"Kill them, I command it!" the blonde child ranted yet again, the most common refrain to pass his pouty lips since joining up with the party of royal ambassadors back near the keep's main gate.

"Joffrey!" his mother barked, seeking to silence him.

Petyr calmly noted how her lovely face and emerald eyes blazed with a level of fury she once typically only reserved for her not so dearly departed husband. 'Good,' he thought, 'don't think with your silly little brain.'

"They're dirty traitors!" the worthless, spoiled bastard raged, pointing the crossbow he'd been using to take potshots at the unhappy masses mulling about the square outside the keep, begging for food. "I'll kill them myself and turn their heads over to the Starks."

'The head they want most is yours, especially once they see what you've made of their sweet Sansa, my poor, doomed kinglet,' the Mockingbird sang to himself.

"Enough," Cersei ground through teeth so tightly clenched her mouth may as well have been Stannis Baratheon's.

"Mother," her son whined.

The Queen stood up with a swoosh of her lovely gold laced gown; her impressive teats wobbling wantonly, barely contained beneath a quite sheer décolletage. "Enough," she dangerously faux whispered.

The King shut his petulant and, praise the Seven, even stupider mouth.

The daughter of Tywin Lannister, face smoldering, picked up a flute glass and tossed off its contents, before darting her eyes back and forth between the sources behind the current upheaval within her court. Several empty pieces of glassware dotted the table in front of where Cersei had just been seated. The Queen, Petyr knew, had a certain low cunning, surprising in one so full of her own importance. 'Must come from being a woman,' the Mockingbird suspected. Luckily it would not be aided this evening by either her temper or her fondness for drink. 'Unless she has me struck dead here where I stand,' he thought sadly, ruefully admitting to himself the strong possibility of such an unfortunate event occurring. 'Well, time to take charge.' And the dapper, slender, handsome man stepped forward with exaggerated carefulness to pluck a glass for himself off the table, purposefully drawing attention to his injuries.

The Queen's eyes narrowed in on the unexpected, disrespectful movement of her councilor and immediately spotted his bloody forearms. "Lord Baelish, you appear ill-used," she stated with a displeasure aimed not at the status of his health but at the need for having to address him at all.

The Mockingbird smiled, while tilting his head and eyes in the direction of the Hound. "Merely some over exuberant puppy love, your Grace. Please, think nothing of it," he answered drily.

"Don't worry, I shan't. But what am I to think of these … unholy accusations made against the trusted members of my son's own Small Council," she choked out with controlled fury.

Petyr's smile widened. "Why, they're all true, your Grace," the Mockingbird answered cheerfully.

Gasps of shock broke from the crowd still loitering in the ballroom.

"Oh my sweet Grace, do not believe his lies," Varys keened.

"Mother!" Joffrey shouted angrily.

The Queen jabbed out a thickly be ringed hand again, and the pounding of spears returned to remonstrate the audience back to silence.

"Would you care to explain, Littlefinger?" she growled, voice dangerously dropping several octaves.

"Happily, your Grace. But ….?" And here Petyr craned his neck from side to side to take in the throng of on lookers, who until minutes before had been enjoying the bounty of the royal table. "the simple truth sometimes requires more explanation than the most elaborate lie. Perhaps t'would be wiser to have fewer ears listening in, eh?"

Cersei stood there dumbfounded for a moment at the Mockingbird's audacity. "Joffrey, Lord Janos, Grand Maester Pycelle, Lord Gyles, please remain. The rest of you have my leave to go," she commanded.

The mass of gathered lordlings and ladies bowed, as was their particular want, to either the King or the Queen Regent; and for the most sycophantic to both. Over the shuffling of feet heading towards the doorways, Petry heard the jingle of bells announcing Moon Boy's departure. And through the corner of his eye he was exceptionally pleased to spot the newest motley fool, Ser Dontos, exit the sumptuous hall in the company of Sansa. 'A pity what Joffrey's lackeys have done to your looks, child. You were so very much like Cat. Tcha.' The emptied room still also held Captains Vylarr and Allar, Ser Boros, Ser Preston, Ser Arys, young Lancel, the younger Tyrek, the red cloak dinner guards, Ser Illyn Payne, and his compatriots in muteness, Varys' six chained waifs.

As the doors finally closed, Cersei announced, "This better be good, Littlefinger. I've never trusted you, for enough coin you'd go over to Stannis or Renly in a heartbeat. One wrong word and you're Ser Ilyn's" As the King's Justice rasped his throaty cackle, now probably sporting a cock stand at the idea of taking another head, the Queen regally lowered herself and her magnificent bosom back down into her dinner chair.

Petry grinned. "The night the old King died, when I assured Ned Stark he would have the support of the gold cloaks come the morning, he apologized for not having trusted me before. I then told him that not having trusted me was the only smart move he'd ever made in King's Landing."

Joffrey scowled at the mention of the now mysterious grumkin Stark. Cersei scowled at the memory of how narrow an edge the start of her son's reign had rested on and being reminded she had the Mockingbird to thank for it. Janos Slynt and Allar Deem scowled at the implication that their services could be, and frequently were, bought. The rest, save Clegane, all scowled simply at the cheek of the Master of Coin's initial response. Only the Hound laughed, a strangled sound of amusement acknowledging the obvious truth of the statement.

The Mockingbird continued, "But what use would a man of my business persuasions have for Stannis? A man who would make whore houses illegal. Or Renly, who has no idea what the inside of a whore house, or even a whore, looks like? No, I'm bound as tight to your Grace's cause as any other loyal Lannister banner."

"Which is why you killed Lord Arryn?" the strikingly beautiful golden blonde with as much ice in her veins as any northerner asked chillily.

"I should think not. I killed Lord Jon for my own benefit. Loyalty does not demand a lack of self-interest from the humble servant. The aid his death brought to House Lannister in this instance was merely coincidental."

"Then Lady Lysa …?"

"Oh I've been tickling her velvet purse since the day my first cock hair sprouted," the Mockingbird replied with a smirk. "You can't imagine," he groaned dramatically, "how difficult it's been keeping a woman of her lusty temperament satisfied all these years with only the occasional bout under the covers." 'Oh yes, I well imagine you can Cersei, not that I'm stupid enough to utter that aloud.' "So after fifteen years, she could no longer abide sharing a bed with that doddering lump. He had to go or Lysa swore she'd stab him while he snored." Petyr sighed. "A pinch of poison was all it took." He stopped and turned his gaze at another figure seated at the table, not far from the Queen. "Well that and our good Pycelle not only botching his recovery, but moving the Hand along even faster into the Mother's arms. Tears of Lys, wasn't it, eh Grand Maester?"

"Ahem," the old man coughed, puffing himself up indignantly like some fat bird trying to make something out of his dreary plumage. "Jon Arryn was a kindly lord, the … the enemy of no man. Ahem. I resent your accusation, Lord Baelish."

The Mockingbird laughed and the Spider tittered together at Pycelle's discomfort.

"As I said, your Grace, the hard truth is often more difficult to hear than the lie. All I've ever desired since I fostered at Riverrun was marriage to the Lady Lysa. For that I needed Jon Arryn dead and to use my loyal service on the Small Council to be granted a title noble enough, worthy enough, to wed the widowed Lady Regent of the Vale."

The Queen pursed her lips, obviously weighing the explanation she'd just received. Apparently satisfied, she promptly moved on. "And what is the truth of telling the Starks' my brother Tyrion's dagger was used to try and kill their son Bran? Were you trying to start a war between House Lannister and Winterfell, fool?!" the Queen demanded, white hot anger finally boiling to the surface.

"Kill him, mother," Joffrey demanded yet again, stepping forward to poke the Master of Coin with his unloaded crossbow.

'The stupidity really is inbreed into you. What special seeds have the Seven planted in Tommen and Myrcella thanks to your parents ... love?' "Your Grace," Petyr replied, addressing himself to the King. "I'm touched at the heartfelt concern for your uncle, the one you so affectionately call 'Imp.'"

"Step carefully, Littlefinger," hissed Cersei, her pearly white, poisonous fangs showing.

"Yes, do, Lord Baelish," the Eunuch agreed ironically.

The Hounds massive paw dropped heavily on the Mockingbird's wing and Joffrey prodded at the magnificent black plumage again with his shaftless bow.

"Oh you wound me, your Graces. I tried to prevent war, assuredly."

"How?!" the King screeched, voice breaking.

"The dragonbone dagger Lady Catelyn showed me was undoubtedly one I'd once owned, and had lost in a wager, but not to Lord Tyrion."

"Then who?!" Cersei snapped.

"To your husband, your Grace."

The Queen's eyes narrowed suspiciously, her feeble mind trying to work out the implications of the statement.

"Ask young Lancel there," Petyr continued with equanimity. "He was the King's squire that day. He'll remember the wager made, since it depended on the victory or defeat of his dear cousin, Ser Jaime, in a joust. Well Ser?" he asked, address the pimply sprog.

"It's true, Cer … cousin," the youth chirped.

"Now, when out of the blue, confronted by Lady Catelyn, did I, did anyone, truly want her husband Lord Eddard investigating Robert for the murder attempt on poor, crippled young Bran Stark?" the Mockingbird asked. "Or perhaps, more importantly, who of King Robert's court present in drab, frozen Winterfell would have had access to his dragonbone blade?"

Petyr believed he saw a sliver of awareness break through Cersei's shaded from reality emerald eyes; and a thaw in the danger he faced appear.

Joffrey however nervously licked his lips and asked. "Why the Imp?"

The Mockingbird sighed. 'And now it's 'Imp?' Stupid. So truly, utterly stupid. I'd have enjoyed manipulating your court, but not now, when your reign will be measured in days, if not hours.' "In the Game of Thrones, your Grace, much like in Cyvasse, rabble and lowly spearmen must sometimes be sacrificed to protect the King. And such is all your uncle Tyrion is good for. A Lannister, thus worthy of being a piece on the board, but one I erroneously thought no one would worry about seeing removed; after what I hoped to be a long, frustrating chase by the too honor bound for his own good Hand of the King. I unfortunately didn't account for the off chance that his lady wife might encounter the Imp on her long, tedious journey back to Winterfell. Of that offense I plead guilty." 'Your meddling was quite unappreciated, Cat,' Petyr thought.

Cersei still looked unhappy, but her head tilted just enough to show she had listened to the Mockingbird's song seriously, likely even soothed by it.

"Oh how tidily you wrap your filth, Lord Baelish, and pronounce the ordure a name day present," the Eunuch scathed.

"Come now, Varys, I've admitted my crimes," Petyr intoned, the very essence of reasonability. "I aimed to become the Lady Lysa's lover, her husband; to even rule the Vale through her. Admit yours; Stark was right, you scheme for the return of the Targaryens. You've never stopped serving them these last fifteen years, have you?"

For barely the length of a blink, never before seen emotions warred on the Spider's soft, pudgy face; then the familiar, overly sweet voice spoke. "Oh how you wound me, Petyr; clutching at the straws offered you by a dead man to try and obscure your own guilt." Titter, titter. "But our wise Queen can cleverly see through your games, you shan't get away with fooling her into pulling others down into the pit of treason with you."

The Mockingbird laughed. "Oh there's plenty of time for the Grand Maester to draw the truth out of your passel of beakless little birds over there. I'll be happy to wait; and then see you exchanged along with fair Sansa to Lord Stark for Ser Jaime."

"Is he?! Is he Eddard Stark?" the Queen asked nervously.

"Certainly," Petyr answered.

"No, a Faceless Man, your Grace," Varys replied.

'Of course he's a Faceless Man, but the idea of a Ned Stark returned from the dead makes your heart beat faster beneath those delectable teats. Doesn't it Cersei?'

"It's him alright," the Hound grunted.

"And why wouldn't I hand the both of you over Lord Petyr, along with his stupid chit of a daughter, for my dear brother?" Cersei demanded.

"So you don't appear weak, your Grace," the Mockingbird interjected quickly.

"I'm never weak!" the Queen huffed.

"Of course not," Petyr agreed. "Only one better suited for a fool's motley would think so, your Grace. Which is why you're too strong to give Ned Stark exactly what he's demanding from you." He stepped forward again to the table and plucked an apple slice off a plate, every eye in the room on him. Crunch. "Delicious. I'd send the Hound back out tomorrow with a counter offer. Tell the northerners you'll give them Sansa and one head for brave Ser Jaime; I expect he'll take it." 'But by then Sansa and I will have disappeared like dust in the wind.'

"But who's head, dear Lord Petyr?" the Eunuch tittered. "I'm rather fond of mine. And so many interesting things in it still to tell to her Grace; things to reveal about the too clever for his own good Master of Coin."

"Oh you bore me so, Eunuch. Your Grace, may I have leave to return to my suite? I fear not what he will tell you, and I find myself …" he reached out to snare another apple slice. Crunch. "… hmmn, could use some cinnamon … I find myself in need of sustenance."

The Hound laughed at the Mockingbird's balls.

"So you may flee through a bolt hole," hissed Varys. "And desert her grace."

"I rather think you're secretive ways are more of a concern, Spider. But I would happily take Captain Vylarr with me, or if you could spare one, a kingsguard, to my quarters. I mind not having a keeper set close eyes to me while I sleep; so long as he doesn't wish to share the bed. I'm not Lord Renly after all."

Joffrey, Lancel, Tyrek, and the Hound all chortled at Petyr's wit. Cersei even smiled too.

"I find I tire of you as well, Lord Baelish," the Queen responded. Ser Arys! Captain Vylarr! Kindly take the Master of Coin back to his rooms. Stay with him and make sure he goes nowhere. I shall pass judgment on him in the morning. Be careful, he may not sleep well as he awaits."

"Yes, your Grace." "Yes, your Grace."

"Too kind," the Mockingbird answered cheerily, while bowing. "I shall sleep like a babe."

"Or the dead," the Eunuch wished.

"Now Lord Varys, I shall hear your story. Is there any truth that those tortured urchins work as your spies?"

Petyr couldn't keep the smile off his face as he left the Queen's Ballroom, marching between the grizzled red cloak captain and the handsomest, Jaime Lannister aside, as while as the most gullible of the Kingsguard.

They wove their way down rush lit corridors and climbed stairs towards the tiny apartment awarded the Mockingbird in the holdfast as part of his sinecure as Master of Coin. Petyr seldom spent much time there, his personally owned establishments being more conducive to his lifestyle and chosen profession. However, as the Northern and Riverland army began to encroach on the environs of King's Landing and the actions of the royal court became more erratic, he had begun to spend some time in the tedious set of rooms hither too mostly ignored. At one point he informed his dull witted companions, "I must warn you Sers, my rooms will already be occupied by my hapless page Hyle. Or he better be patiently awaiting my return there unless he yearns for a strong whipping." The pair of dullards merely grunted acknowledgment. Apparently the verbal machinations in the Mockingbird's playing of the Game of Thrones having struck them both dumb.

Reaching his door, they found it locked; so the Lannister captain knocked none to gently to announce their arrival.

"Coming," a voice called from within.

Petyr waited patiently, one forearm raised up against his body; two fingers resting on the silver mockingbird pendant pinned to his chest.

Creak. The door opened.

"My lords?" the page's voice called.

"We have special guests, Hyle." Petyr waggled the pair of digits lying on his chest. "Two very special guests. Go see about some wine. Do we have any of that Hedgeberry vintage from Brownhollow? That would go over quite nicely this night."

The page's mouth puffed and wobbled like a fish out of water. "Ye .. ye .. yes, my lord. Right away, my lord. This way my lords."

Vylarr peered in around the edge of the doorway before stepping through while Hyle shuffled off back toward's the study. "Clear," he mumbled.

"May I?" the Mockingbird asked sarcastically.

"Please go ahead, my lord," Ser Arys murmured politely.

"Thank you." Petyr strode confidently forward moving straight towards the door his page had already retreated through. "Follow me to the flagon gentlemen," he proclaimed, never removing the fingers from off his pendant.

"I find myself quite parched after my dealings with her Grace," he said, turning his head to speak to his close following guards as he passed through the doorway. "Glasses, Hyle." First the red cloak entered, then the white cloak. "Now!"

"Awuk!" gurgled Ser Arys Oakheart, a dagger plunged down over the collar of his shimmering chest plate into his neck.

Captain Vylarr spun quickly, hand already drawing steel, to meet the attacker hid behind the door. But not fast enough.

Twa-thunk!

A crossbow bolt sank to its fletching in the red cloak's chest.

The Mockingbird stepped forward to grab the mortally injured man's arm, ensuring the formerly vigorous guard couldn't still pull his blade all the way out and wreak some unexpected havoc.

Thud. Arys Oakheart's corpse hit the floor. The shadowy image behind the deceased white cloak stepped forward.

"Not through the cloak, Lothor; I'll need that."

A hand twitched the mass of cloak in back of the captain to the side, and then Petyr felt the man's body move as a sharp blade jabbed into a kidney.

"Neatly done," the Mockingbird pronounced, reaching up to untie the strings on the red cloak and then twirl the mass of cloth up and over onto his own shoulders.

"You as well, Hyle."

"Thank you, my lord," his page said between loud swallows.

Thud. Captain Vylarr's body hit the floor too.

"Killing your first man's never easy."

"No .. no .. no lord," Hyle stuttered.

"Have a drink," and Petyr gestured to the bottle sitting on his desk. "Then go to the dungeon tower roof, light the green torch, and set it where I told you. Alright?"

The page nodded and poured himself a glass.

Petyr smiled encouragingly at the boy and poured two more glasses, handing one over to the Hedge Knight and henchman Lothor Brune. "Cheers." It was a tangy Arbor with a hint of citrus.

"Better, Hyle?"

"I … I think so, my lord."

"Good, then off with you. We'll be waiting for you at the bottom of the cliff. You remember where the hand holds are? Good. Next stop, Pentos. And you can be sure I'll let the whores of my brothel there know what a fierce killer you are, Hyle."

An eager grin split through the dolt's nerves, and then the boy shot off like a startled doe in the woods.

When they heard the sound of his suite's exterior door closing, the freerider set down his glass and asked with a grunt, "Kill him?"

"Of course," the Mockingbird answered matter of factly.

"The girl?"

"Yes, we'll check her room first. If she's not there, she's likely in the godswood with that fool Dontos. I saw them leave the Queen's ballroom together."

Another grunt of acknowledgement. Then the grey haired warrior reached down and pulled out a simple helm with a noseguard. "Here."

The Mockingbird sighed. He never enjoyed putting anything on top of his well coifed hair, but if needs must. So he settled the heavy, ugly piece of metal atop his head, completing his disguise as yet another red cloak.

The pair departed and trudged for five minutes through the maze of Maegor's Holdfast till they came to the Lady Sansa's gilded cage. A gold cloak and some sell sword stood guard outside her door. Well the gold cloak at least actually stood.

"Cap'n Vylarr wants t'know iz de lady back in?" Petyr asked in gruff, unrecognizable voice.

"Nay," the sellsword said from the stool on which he perched.

The Mockingbird could sense Lothor behind him slowly slipping a dagger back into its sheath.

"Ulright, t'en. Sends word ta de cap'n when she do."

"Fuck d'at," the lazy sellsword spat. "I don't fight fer him."

Petyr shrugged. "Y'er arse den." And off he and Lothor Brune marched, heading for the bridge out of the Holdfast.

At the gate, Ser Meryn held duty that night for the white cloaks, but he didn't give a second look to the aging hedge knight and the short red cloak as they passed over the dry, metal spiked moat. When they reached the top of the serpentine stairs, Petyr thought he saw a pale green light flickering atop the Dungeon Tower roof. 'Good, young Hyle didn't lose his barely descended balls and did his task. A pity Hyle will never get a chance to use them.' As the Mockingbird thought of his page's coming demise, another part of his brain was already calculating how long before a certain, small boat would be setting out from the south shore of the Blackwater.

In ten minutes, they reached the gate to the Godswood. As useless a piece of land as the Master of Coin had ever seen. Nearly a seventh the total space sitting on top of Aegon's Hill devoted to what? Pretend gods and simple trees. The sentimentality of people, even that of ruthless killers like Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel, knew no bounds. Petyr got a thrill exploiting the foibles of sheep to his own ends. "Wait for me here, Lothor," he commanded. "If Dontos comes out with me and Sansa, kill him."

"Aye," the hedge knight grunted.

A bit of moonlight trickled through the thinning clouds above King's Landing, helping to light the Mockingbird's way as he flitted between the trees in search of his passport to freedom and sweet revenge. From the first day he set eyes on Sansa Stark, he'd dreamed of taking her maidenhead, feeling her delicious pain just as he had her mother. He stopped and sighed. That, alas, was no longer to be. Still, he would get a different sort of pleasure out of the pain he'd use her to bring out of Cat and … "No, he's just a Faceless Man," he whispered to himself.

Then, the edge of his vision picked up an ethereal figure dancing and dodging among the huge elms and black cottonwoods filling the Godswood. Nothing else caught his eye. Sansa was alone. He moved to intercept her.

"Uhh. Uhh. Uhh," she sobbed softly.

Petyr stepped out from a tree. "Sansa," he called.

She pulled up right in front of him, caught right in a moonbeam that reflected off the thick scar in her nearer cheek.

"Oh," she panted in surprise. "Lord Petyr?"

"Yes, sweetling, it's me;" He reached out with both hands and wrapped them around her trembling ones, "your friend Petyr. I've come to rescue you, dear child, from this madness. Joffrey and the Queen, they destroy everything they touch. There's a boat coming. We must move swiftly and …"

Suddenly Sansa shrieked, yanking her hands away from Petyr's.

Something spun the slender man around. A large, dark figure loomed menacingly over him in the night gloom of the godswood. "Clegane …" he sputtered in shock.

"Shut up!" the Dog barked.

Then an unbelievable wave of agony swept over Petyr; pain as great as that long ago day when Brandon Stark gutted him. His legs wobbled dangerously. Sheets of wetness flowed down his front and legs. "Ga … ga … ga" he gasped pointlessly, uncontrollably.

A meaty sound filled his ears. And the dagger of pain left his belly, only to be replaced by an unquenchable cauldron of fire. The Mockingbird looked down in disbelief to see the faint outline of a huge bloody hole in his belly. The few rays of silvery moonlight slipping between the thick trunks and tall branches of Godswood revealed glimpses of white intestines inside that gigantic abyss. Petyr crumpled to the ground.

He heard the sharp intake of Sansa's breath. "Wha … wha … wha," he gargled pitifully. Through the pain radiating within him, Petyr barely felt the stomp of the Hound's boot against his ribs; so much effort to keep his eyes open, everything so black and on fire within him.

"I told you before to shut up, but a mockingbird never knows when to fucking stop chattering," Clegane snarled as he bestrode Petyr's prone body.

"Oh. Oh no. Please," Sansa pleaded.

"Yes!" the mad dog growled.

Petyr's tongue flickered feebly across his lips, every part of his body shivering. 'I must … I must … say ...' Darkness hovered tight around him, swirling and tightening, nearly shutting out any trace of light until miraculously a shaft of gold broke through the veil of black and splattered across his face. 'Ha … ha … so unfair,' he thought as he started to choke and gag. The last thing to go through Lord Petyr Baelish's mockingbird of a mouth was not a wry insult, nor pretty, manipulating words, but Sandor Clegane's piss.

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