The Shadow Queen of Tywin Lannister

XCVIII. The Trial of Tyrion Lannister, part 2

In the Halls of the Red Keep, Red Keep - King's Landing, CrownLands

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Visenya walked side by side with Olenna, the two of them discussing what had taken place so far in the trial; mostly Olenna, who needed an ear to vent. Thankfully for her, she had the right one, belonging to a person that understood her.

"I am telling you, my son has the same brain as his father. If it were not for me standing above his head, our money would have been gone to anyone with a sad enough story" the Queen of Thorns complained as they walked the corridors of the Red Keep, passing by servants that quickly moved out of the way or bowed.

"Cersei knew what she was doing, although her act was not really needed in my opinion" Visenya commented, not that much worried about speaking her mind.

"With how rigged this trial is, I doubt any witnesses were truly needed after that fossil of old man you have as Grand Maester," Olenna said, making her walking companion smile faintly in amusement.

"Either way, justice needs to be served in the formal terms; whether any of us like it or not" she commented, her eyes ahead as they made their way towards one of the grand balconies existing. "Although, I do suspect there is more behind it" she confessed as they stopped by the railing, looking ahead at the city.

This seemed to draw the interest of the Queen of Thorns. "You suspect Tywin has a plan?" she asked rather openly now that they were on their own.

The Dragoness shrugged her shoulders. "I am not sure. I know him well enough to know that he always plans ahead but these are just my suspicions" she explained and glanced at the older woman. "Speaking of suspicions, I find it odd"

"What is odd?"

"Sansa's disappearance. The parts of the plan were very...private, so to speak. Whoever orchestrated her escape knew of all the details or at least the most important ones" she said, focusing fully on the shorter woman by her side, her face serious. "They had to know because it was all pre-planned. The escape happened during the chaos of the poisoning and earning enough time to escape from the Port before the order was given and the soldiers halted every ship from leaving"

Olenna was not stupid. She could see that Visenya had started to put the pieces together and had started to speculate; if not already know of what had taken place behind her back. However, she was not going to bluntly expose anything.

She chose, instead, to play it safe and proceed with care. "Are you implying that I helped the girl escape, Visenya? For what? To secretly marry her to Loras?"

The Dragoness shook her head. "No, that's not like you. You have nothing to win from this. You did not care enough for her to help her as a chance of doing something good and I have doubts you owed any debts to her father or the Starks" she started to explain. "You also could not smuggle her to Highgarden because if word escaped, it would ruin our alliance and you would not dare have Margaery living in a hostile environment; not after all you did to keep her safe from her second husband"

The Queen of Thorns was silent for a moment, observing the woman by her side. For the first time, Olenna could finally see exactly how calculating and trained her mind was. Her way of thinking, of quickly justifying and eliminating all those theories and suspects about Sansa's escape; was rather outstanding.

However, the older woman also saw just how dangerous Visenya could be as an opponent. Sure, Tywin was ruthless and knew politics but even he could not truly match the talent and skills of his wife; which were often shadowed or concealed by the pride of the Old Lion.