46

Chapter 46: Part XLVINotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

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

----------

"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."

King Joffrey (borrowed from Herodotus)

"It's a reasonable position to take nephew, but It's not me that you have to convince."

Tyrion Lannister(entirely his own thoughts on the matter)

----------

Coppersmith's Wynd – King's Landing – 299 AC

Ros suspected that her host kept little nooks like this one, a room in the back of a shabby rather non-descript shop selling pots and pans, all across King's Landing, places where he could meet his agents discreetly but despite the somewhat shabby run-down location he did make an effort to be hospitable.

"Is the wine to your taste?" Varys asked, sipping at his own glass. "It's from Lys" he told her.

"A little taste of home perhaps?" Ros asked, smiling. "I thought you came here from Pentos though?" she queried, having overheard that from a client once upon a time.

"I did, but I'm not from there originally, I actually grew up in Myr" Varys replied honestly, though still obfuscating because he had been born in Lys. "What with how long I've resided here in Westeros it all makes my accent quite unplaceable by now" he told her, although in reality he had put a great deal of effort into making that the case.

"Moving around so much will do that. I'm already starting to lose a little of my Northern accent for a King's Landing one I think" Ros commiserated.

Varys smiled. "To my foreign ear the King's Landing accent is merely a mixture of Riverlands and Stormlands which was then heinously violated by the atrocious grammar of the cities average denizen" he replied. "Do try and keep your own as best you can" he implored her. "When I speak Valyrian with visitors from the Free Cities they tell me my own accent, in what was my first language, is now bastardised to the point of being grating" he said, shaking his head regretfully. "It could be worse though, I could have an entirely uncorrupted Tyroshi accent instead" he joked, not sure if Ros would get it. The dialect of Valyrian spoken in Tyrosh was oft regarded as sounding faintly ludicrous and caused them to be the butt of many a joke.

Ros laughed, though she was practiced enough at pretending to find men's attempts at wit amusing, whether they were or not, that Varys wasn't sure if it was genuine. Frankly her intelligence and guile was quite wasted working for Petyr Baelish, who was far too self-absorbed and certain of his own intellectual superiority to appreciate that of his employees. As such it had hardly been difficult for Varys to poach her loyalties out from under him by the simple act of recognising her skills outside the bedchamber and valuing her for them.

Naturally it helped that once you got to know him Baelish was even more vile a character than most people thought he was, whereas conversely Varys's genial conviviality wasn't as much of a pretence as the majority assumed. The Master of Whispers was ruthless when required, calculating and dispassionate into the bargain where necessary, but he had no inclination towards being mindlessly vicious or cruel and despised those that were.

"I do hope that the king didn't beat you and the other girl too badly" Varys told her with genuine concern for her wellbeing. Having once been forced by circumstances to sell his body as a juvenile catamite living on the streets of Myr, his knowledge of how a prostitute might be mistreated was far from theoretical.

Ros shook her head. "No, it was quite mild really, nothing that Daisy or I haven't experienced before many a time from men with a taste for such amusement" she replied. "He actually expressed concern at one point because Daisy cried out more than the pain really warranted, she's prone to overacting when she's faking reaching the heights of pleasure with men too."

Varys frowned. "But he did enjoy beating you both?" he wanted to be certain.

"Oh yes, very enthusiastic" Ros confirmed.

Just as I suspected, Varys thought to himself with satisfaction. The loathsome little bastard was still the sadistic monster he had always been, he was simply smart enough now to keep his baser instincts in check and restrain his darkest impulses.

Joffrey's proposed pre-emptive 'Defensive War" in the Stepstones was surely another example. He had presented a proposal to the Small Council that was clearly intended to make naked aggression and bloodthirsty warmongering sound reasonable, a scheme that would slake his thirst for violent conquest whilst still projecting an image more akin to Jaehaerys than Maegor.

"How did you know that would appeal to him?" Ros asked curiously. From the king's uncertainty as to exactly how to proceed it didn't seem like he had indulged in that particular form of pleasure before, though once he was sufficiently worked up he was quite evidently not a virgin either.

"I'm an excellent judge of character" Varys replied.

Ros smiled sweetly. "Well, you saw my potential so I'll have to agree with you on that" she replied immodestly, a hardly uncommon trait in her profession. "Seriously though, how did you know?" she queried.

"Let's just say that as a younger boy his inclination towards sadism was demonstrated less surreptitiously" Varys told her. "I don't think it's an aspect of one's character you ever grow out of" he explained his thinking on the matter.

"You're not going to use this information are you?" Ros asked nervously. "I mean, there are going to be quite a few people in the Red Keep, and the Brothel, that will know Daisy and I visited the King, but if the specifics of what happened come to light… well Daisy and I will be the ones that get into trouble" she pointed out. "Littlefinger is very particular that we don't tell anyone what we're asked to do by men. It would cost him a fortune if clients thought they couldn't indulge certain cravings discreetly."

"I assume he insists on being told himself though?" Varys surmised.

"Of course, but you know he'll keep this to himself in case he ever needs leverage over the man sat on the Iron Throne" Ros replied. "Something that might get him out of terrible trouble one day is not something he would squander."

"Yes Indeed. If you're involved in as many schemes as Lord Baelish it's wise to plan for at least one of them to fail spectacularly one day and have the means to weasel out of getting your head put on a spike when it does" Varys observed, he certainly had a few such contingency plans himself. "Rest assured that if the more unsavoury details become public knowledge it will not be because I let them slip" he promised, although it was certainly his intention to let slip a sanitised version to certain individuals for the sake of political chicanery. "If you don't trust me, trust that you're too close to Baelish for me to squander as a resource. His schemes and intrigues are always worth keeping a wary eye upon."

"Thank you" Ros replied with a smile.

Varys smiled back. "As a note of caution however, how reliable is Daisy, do you think?" he asked.

"She's smart enough to know when to keep her mouth shut, especially after I warned her that things work differently here in King's Landing than they do in Hastings Hall or wherever it is she comes from" Ros replied.

"Haystack Hall" Varys corrected her. "It's in the Stormlands, on the other side of the Kingswood. She worked in a tavern there which also operated as a Bawdy House" he continued, noting Ros's surprise he knew that about her. "I like to find out as much as possible about people I deal with and it's considerably easier to learn where someone is from than it is what's in their head or heart" he explained. "I must confess I was somewhat surprised to find out you were literate from one of my little birds. It's not a common skill… "

"For a whore?" Ros interrupted him.

"For a woman that isn't of High Birth" Varys corrected her. "It's not as if every woman, or indeed man, belonging to a Great House can read either. Squandering the advantages of their birth and the availability of a maester to teach them."

"I just found a master stonemason who knew how to read and do his numbers and I sucked his cock a couple of times a week in return for lessons" Ros explained. "He said his wife wasn't interested in learning how."

"How to read or how to perform fellatio?" Varys asked out of mild curiosity.

"Either" Ros told him with a shrug.

Varys sighed. "Nobody wants to improve themselves anymore" he said sadly.

Meanwhile, a mere half-league away as the raven flies, Lady Sansa Stark was showing her father's new charge around the Red Keep, or rather the small portion of it where the Lord Protector and his family resided. "The King's Apartments are over there in in the top floor of Maegor's Holdfast" she said, pointing out of a window towards the castle within a castle that dominated the Red Keep. "With the Queen Dowager, Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella away at Casterly Rock it always seems a little sad and empty to me but the King says he likes the quiet and the lack of interruptions when he reads" she added.

"I've heard it's haunted" Lady Alys Karstark replied, looking out at the Holdfast nervously.

"No more than any other part of the Red Keep, thanks largely to Maegor himself" Sansa told her, holding an expression of utter seriousness for a few seconds before giggling. "No the only thing haunting this place is Arya when she's trying to find secret passages."

"Has she found any?" Alys asked with interest, following Sansa as the other girl started walking down the corridor again.

"If she has she's kept it a secret from me" Sansa replied with a shrug. "Oh, talking of Arya she's usually to be found here" she said, stopping at the next door, unlatching it and swinging it open.

Inside a young woman and a young girl were sparring with wooden swords, both were wearing men's clothes and both seemed like they knew what they were doing with the swords.

"Lady Alys, may I introduce my brother, sorry I mean my sister Arya and father's ward Lady Yara Greyjoy" she said, smirking when Arya stuck out her tongue at her for the 'brother' comment. "Despite what you see, wearing a dress is the proper way for a lady to dress in King's Landing."

"Wearing a dress in a fight will get you killed" Yara stated flatly. "And since you can never be sure when the next fight is going to break out…"

"It's best to stick with breeches" Arya finished for her, grinning.

Sansa rolled her eyes. "Be grateful you're not as closely related to her as I am" she told Alys.

"I met your brother Theon once, Lady Yara" Alys told the Ironborn. "We danced."

"Did he grab your arse?" Yara inquired.

Alys blushed. "No" she replied.

"I might have" Yara told her, laughing.

Sansa leaned close to whisper in Alys's ear. "One of them is a bad influence on the other" she said quietly. "When I figure out which it is I'll let you know."

"Swapping Theon for Yara was the best idea father ever had. He was alright as a sort-of brother but she's a great sort-of sister" Arya opined. "One day we're going to take a ship to the Sunset Sea and sail West until we fall off the edge of the world" she announced with enthusiasm.

"The world is round, Arya" Sansa replied

"Who says?" Arya wanted to know.

Sansa looked smug. "King Joffrey" she replied, appealing to the highest authority.

"How does he know?" Arya persisted.

"Ask him. He'll even explain how you can use mathematics and observations to work out how big it is."

Yara was curious now. "How big does he say it is then?" she wanted to know.

"Eight thousand leagues around" Sansa replied.

Yara frowned. "If that's right then unless Essos continues further East than we think, or there's an undiscovered land in the Sunset Sea between Essos and Westeros then we're going to need a very big ship to carry supplies for the crossing" she reasoned.

"King Joffrey is always right" Sansa maintained.

"He is good at doing sums" Arya had to admit. "Everyone says so."

"The way I heard it he's got a mind like a Maester with an abacus shoved up his backside" Yara joked.

"Who said that!" Sansa demanded to know. That Braavosi her father had hired to teach Arya how to use a sword was right, the Ironborn were vulgar, horrid, pirates and thieves to a man, or woman.

"I'll not say but it was meant as a complement I'm sure" Yara replied, amused by her reaction.

Sansa glared at Yara who grinned back.

Eventually Sansa realised that staring daggers at the uncouth Ironborn pirate was not going to get her to talk and she abandoned the futile attempt at intimidation. Frankly even the threat of a real dagger wouldn't have worked, Yara had probably used one on a man for real. "Do you know where Lady Shireen is?" Sansa asked Arya.

"If she's not in her room, probably the library" Arya replied.

"We'll go visit her next" Sansa announced haughtily. "At least she knows how a highborn lady should comport herself."

"You just like her because she lets you put ribbons in her hair and dress her up in pretty clothes like a doll" Arya retorted.

"I like her because she has good manners!" Sansa exclaimed. "Come along Lady Alys" she said, turning on her heels and striding off, Alys Karstark hurrying to catch up, assuming that if she intended to become Sansa's Lady-in-Waiting once she became queen she should get used to doing that.

Yara watched them leave then turned to Arya. "Personally, I like Shireen because she's not totally up herself" she declared loudly enough for Sansa to still hear her.

"Me too" Arya agreed.

Notes:

Note from the Author:

The Spider interprets the situation through the lens of his own preconceived opinions of Joffrey being a sadistic monster (which he was of course, Varys has no idea it's not really Joffrey any more). To be fair Octavian's new-found penchant towards certain activities is a bit of a red flag if you knew Joffrey before Octavian took over.

Varys and Ros seemed to get on quite well in the show with interactions more like friendly chats than an informant reporting to her superior (she certainly liked him more than she did Petyr Baelish which likely made her easy to turn). They both also seemed to have some regard for the wellbeing of other people (not an entirely common attitude in Westeros).

Somehow I imagine Arya and Yara getting on rather better than Sansa and Yara would (it's not just the preferred mode of dress).

The Greek scholar and mathematician Eratosthenes worked out the circumference of the world pretty accurately about a century-and-a-half before Octavian was born. People didn't laugh at Christopher Columbus because he thought he world was round, they laughed at him because they knew he had screwed up his own calculations when he said it was a lot smaller than Eratosthenes had determined nearly two millennia earlier. If there isn't another continent west of Westeros in the Sunset Sea then it could be a long way from there to Essos if you were trying to circumnavigate Planetos.