I looked back at the great double doors of the sept from the podium, watching as Margaery walked down the aisle. Mace escorted her in his arm, looking as pompous as always, nose pointing as high as could go. Until he snagged his feet at the carpeted step and fell, almost taking Margaery with him.

“Oh for fuck’s sakes,” I muttered under my breath. Mace guffawed at his misshapen, shook himself off, and took my abashed bride back to the doors. “How many times can a man stumble on the same step before he learns.” It was good I had Lightbringer with me, otherwise I would be going into this marriage minus a father-in-law.

“One more time, my lords,” Margaery’s septa said from where she stood a few steps higher than me, watching us all like a warhawk. She was a large woman, broad at the shoulders and with finger’s thick as sausages that seemed to love pointing out mistakes. Apparently, she was the one in charge of the wedding, from the food and decorations for the celebrations later in the night, to coordinating the religious ceremony with the Faith. The High Septon hadn’t been chosen yet, so she was taking his role during this rehearsal.

“This has lasted well over four hours, my lady… Surely I could—”

“And marriage will last for the rest of your lives.” The septa had both hands fisted at her sides, her homely face scowling. “Surely, His Grace could spend a few hours of his day to make your wedding day perfect for your lovely bride.”

Well fuck me, she’s got balls. I smiled pleasantly. “Of course, lady septa. But I only have three parts to play in this wedding. I cloak her, I kiss her, then, later that night, I’ll bed her. Neither of those, I believe, will cause me to make a fool of myself.”

“I certainly hope not,” A mocking voice said from the side, and I turned. Lady Olenna was standing by the back entrance of the Great Sept, hand-in-hand with Tywin. “I expect to see a royal great-grandchild before the Stranger has his way with me.”

I could have kissed her right then, though I didn’t want making out with eldery people to become a habit. “Lady Olenna, Lord Tywin. I’ll be just a moment,” I called down to them, before turning and grinning at the septa. “Alas, king business calls, my lady. But don’t let that stop you from rehearsing.”

I swivelled about, whiffing the air for prey. “You there!” I pointed at a teenage boy with the brown robes of an apprentice-septon standing by the front pews; he held a jar filled with the holy oils that would be used to anoint Margaery and I man and wife in both hands. He yelped when he saw I had meant him, almost dropping the jar. His hair was shorn short, though chunks of it still showed here and there in his scalp, as if someone had taken a dull blade to it. “Come up here, good man, if you please.”

The apprentice-septon hurriedly put down the jar on one of the pews, before scrambling up the podium, all clumsy with his steps. He walked like a child who’d just taken a whopping from his parents. “Y—Your Grace.” He stopped just below me, then made to kneel.

I stopped him with a hand. “None of that now,” I said, clapping him in the shoulder. “Tell me, what’s your name?”

He flushed. “It’s… it’s Pate, Your Grace.”

“Ah, Pate.” I paused. Wait… oh. Looking at him closer this time, I could peek at the bandages beneath his robes going around his back. He’d probably taken a good round of lashes for that stunt I pulled in the Most Devout meeting. “Well, Pate, good man. Why don’t you help me here, eh? It’s every man’s dreams to be king once, and you just earned that right. Pretend to be the groom for a few hours, won’t you?” Leaning closer to him, I whispered, “Just say the words and nod Pate, that’s all you need to know about married life. And here, for the trouble.” I slipped a couple of gold dragons into the folds of his robe.

Turning back to the septa, I opened my arms. “There you go, lady septa. A groom for the bride. She’ll hardly see the difference, I’m sure. Until later, then.”

I felt her burning stare on my back as I sauntered down the podium, but she knew enough to avoid actually trying to stop the king from doing what he wished.

“Have more lords arrived that I don’t know of?” I asked when I reached the two great powers of Westeros, moving to stand on Olenna’s other side.

“No, not as of yet,” she said, turning back the way they’d come. “Though Lord Ashford has been seen a few day’s ride from the city, as were the Fossoways.”

“Which ones?” I asked.

“Both, red and green.”

“Should I expect to meet my good-brother soon, then?”

“Yes, yes. Garlan is coming with his wife’s family.”

“I expect they bring their forces with them?” Tywin’s voice echoed in the sept’s halls.

“All the lords are traveling with a substantial retinue with them,” she said, “no less than three hundred men each. Though I’m told Randyll Tarly left Horn Hill with four-hundred hundred knights and near a thousand and a half men-at-arms.”

Tywin looked surprised, but I shrugged. “I did call him for war,” I said. “He’ll be given command of the forces taking Dragonstone.”

Olenna sniffed. “Boys and their obsession with their sticks.”

We crossed wide open doors and came upon an open veranda that looked out at one of the sept’s many gardens. Our guards had lagged behind during the stroll, spreading themselves out to cover as many points of entrance and exit as possible. Tywin wasn’t kidding around with mine or his own safety since the demon incident.

I rested my hands on the white-stone railing. “And your own kinsman, Lady Olenna? Does he come with the ships I asked?”

“One hundred and fifty,” she said. “Give or take. Mostly carracks and cogs, with some forty warships holding the center. The rest of the Redwyne fleet shall stay in the Reach, as commanded by the king.”

I nodded, and Tywin cleared his throat. He didn’t like being left out of the conversation. “We have also started rebuilding the royal fleet, Your Grace.” He grit his teeth for a moment, then said, “Tyrion has been doing an… apt job at finding the coin to do so.”

More like I did. Aside from the three-million owed to House Lannister, the Crown was debt free for the first time in over a decade. The Iron Bank had been paid with Tywin’s coin—and I only lost a one-handed Kingsguard for it, and Margaery’s dowry had more than paid for what the Faith was due.

The Tyrells gave me a million golden dragons to spice up the wedding, something they had actually been owed before war broke out and they chose to side with Renly, and I still pocketed half of the seven-hundred-and-fifty thousand of the Faith’s debt.

I smiled. “I’m sure he has, my lord.”

“All of this watercrafting because you fear those feckless Greyjoys?” Olenna asked, giving me a look that seemed to doubt my intelligence.

“It’s their sanity I fear, my lady. Or the lack thereof.” I turned to face her fully. “The enemy you can’t predict is the most dangerous type of foe. They could have raided the Westerlands during the War of the Five Kings, as rich and fat a kingdom in gold as your own is in grain, right next to those dull islands of theirs, ripe for the picking; but instead they chose to turn North and capture a stretch of land with nothing other than rocks and fish as its wealth.” Tywin’s face had pinched just by the idea of another Ironborn sortie in Lannister lands. “I won’t be another Robb Stark and underestimate the stupidity of the Kraken,” I told her.

Olenna hummed as if to herself, and for once looked serious when she nodded my way. “Well, let me allay your fears when it comes to our godless, aquatic neighbors. The lords of the Shield Islands will remain in their castles, and Willas has arranged for nearby troops to reinforce them in case of an attack.”

I gave her a thankful smile, but I was anything other than unworried. With the knowledge of Aegon Targaryen/Blackfyre’s existence, a whole world of new and disturbing possibilities had made themselves available for me. And one of them seriously complicated the whole Greyjoy situation. I didn’t know if the Iron Throne had what it took to defeat the monster that Euron was in the books. Hell, I didn’t know if anyone in the world had what it took.

Tywin’s voice broke through my thoughts. “You have been busy in the Reach, it seems.”

Olenna snorted. “I have been eating lemon cakes and peaches by that sunny terrace in the Red Keep I like. It’s Garlan and Willas who’ve been doing all the work. They’ve taken Brightwater Keep and Grassfield Keep from the Florents and the Meadows, for their continuous support of Stannis.”

“Shall I call Garlan my lord instead of ser when I see him, then?”

She raised her near-hairless eyebrows at me. “That decision falls solely in your shoulders, Your Grace.”

“Lord Garlan does suit him,” I said. “Think of it as a wedding gift for my bride’s family.” I also didn’t want a civil war in the territory of one of my biggest supporters. Had I left the matter unsolved, a dozen different houses would press their claim on the castle. “Is Lord Willas coming for the wedding as well?”

“He is,” Olenna said.

That was good. I had gone through all the trouble of kidnapping his bride for him.

“And what of Grassfield Keep, Your Grace?”

Now she was just being greedy. “War looms, my lady,” I told her. “That means many brave second sons and glory-hungry landed knights for a king to bestow a rich reward on, no?” I could swear I saw a pout come to her lips. “Now, I best leave before that septa pulls me back by the ears. Until later, my lord, my lady.”

I gave them a shallow bow and turned, waving at Ser Lyle and a few Baratheon men to follow me.