Game Of Thrones : Starting as Tommen Baratheon

When you think of Olenna Tyrell, what is the one word that comes to mind?

In a past life, my answer might have been cunning, rude, devious, dangerous. She was intelligent, to be sure, and subtle, and capable of the most elegant wordplay and yet, none of those things came to the front of my mind when I looked at her.

Now, that word was old.

The passing resemblance to Diana Rigg aside, as well as the almost pitch-perfect recreation of the voice I remembered, this woman was... different, to say the least. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that she was the oldest person in the capital. Pycelle offered stiff competition, but I doubted that even he could match the tally of years that she had, and it showed. Her skin seemed to be hanging off her bones, and her entire visage was marked by wrinkles. Her manner of dress did much to alleviate the dreaded sag, but there was only so much to be done.

Her back was hunched, her hair gone a snowy white, her frame smaller than even mine, and I was a child. I thanked whoever was watching that at least she wasn't toothless, and had a still-strong set of teeth with she seemed determined to use to constantly snack on something. Cheese, figs, cakes, and all in the scant few minutes I had been sat here. She munched on her cakes and delighted in bossing her people around, issuing orders like a general, delighting in the mounting frustration of her servants and maids.

In spite of the silliness of her antics, especially considering her age, I did not let myself relax. This was a woman on-par with Tywin Lannister in the power department, and just as ruthless, and perhaps even more subtle than he. In a straight battle of wits, I did not doubt my defeat. Here, she was in her element, overlooking the city, high above it all, on a vast terrace which doubled as a garden. In many ways, her seeming infirmity only enhanced the sense of danger that one got from sitting in her presence.

One did not live that long without serious brains or at least without picking up some tricks along the way. At the peak of her power, the only advantage I had to bring to bear was the element of surprise. My entire plan was predicated on it, and I intended to take full advantage.

"Your Grace," her tone was almost mocking, "not that I don't enjoy your company, but can I ask why you decided to join an old woman for tea today?"

"For the pleasure of your company, of course."

She raised her eyebrows at that, and once again saw fit to mock me, "I am honoured. To think that the His Grace could find time out of his busy schedule of chasing cats to sit with little old me." She brought her tone back down to earth, "Though, once you marry my granddaughter, I suppose you and I will have a lot more time together, won't we?"

I feigned a frown, "Marry your granddaughter? A little presumptive, don't you think?"

Olenna's gaze grew sharper, "Tell me, Your Grace, are you at all familiar with the events of the past year?"

"Only as much as any King tends to be."

"Very well, allow me to illuminate you." She gestured to the table, laden with cakes, "This is the product of my house. House Tyrell has supplied a million bushels of wheat, half a million bushels each of barley, oats and rye, twenty-thousand head of cattle, fifty-thousand sheep, and is set to supply more to feed this cesspit of a city." She gestured to the guards standing at attention at the entrance to the terrace.

"As is that. House Tyrell have supplied twelve-thousand infantrymen, eighteen-hundred mounted lances, two-thousand in support, all for your war." Olenna snorted, "Why, even a member of your own Kingsguard is a Tyrell! All that comes with the assurance that my granddaughter would be queen." She leaned back in her chair, adopting an almost casual air about herself, acting with the kind of nonchalance one would expect if you were discussing the weather.

"Of course, if you don't desire our little rose, we can't fault you for that. The heart want what the heart wants, after all, but then you can't fault us for taking our grain and our men away from here." She leaned in, her tone regaining the intensity it had lost not a moment ago, "And when the people starve, who do you think they'll blame?"

I allowed myself to smile, completely unfazed by her threats, "This is how you sell your granddaughter? With threats? One would think you would seek to exalt to me about her womanly virtues."

"I didn't take you for a fool. My granddaughter is one of the loveliest maidens in the realm, a fact obvious to anyone with eyes, even if you were a sword-swallower like Renly was." She looked me up and down, the insinuation clear in her tone, "Are you?"

I snorted, "Hardly."

"So, why are we here? You knew my granddaughter is nice, kind, and pretty, and now you know that House Tyrell is necessary to your survival. What more could you ask for?"

I allowed myself to smile, "A couple million dragons should suffice."

Olenna snorted on her drink as she laughed, "I offer thousands and thousands of tons of food, thousands of men, the hand of the most eligible maiden in all Seven Kingdoms, and yet you still have the gall to ask for more?"

"I'm not asking."

She raised an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed, "Oh?"

"It is not House Tyrell that is necessary, Lady Olenna, it is the Reach. You have cast a pretty net around the Reach, to be sure, but unlike my grandfather in the Westerlands, your power still rests atop a house of cards. Houses Hightower and Redwyne will never betray you, on account of blood, but the rest? Say I made Lord Tarly's daughter my bride, and Lord Rowan my Hand. They are both sensible men, or so I have heard, and they would doubtless take the opportunity presented.

With the Florents already loyal to Stannis over you, that is three of your most powerful bannermen poised to oppose you. Say my uncle Jaime marries into another great house, and all of a sudden your house of cards comes tumbling down. Mix the Lannister armies in, and the Dornish, who will surely take advantage of the ensuing chaos, and we have the makings of another war on the scale of the one in the Riverlands, all right on your doorstep."

Olenna nodded sagely, "And when the fields burn and the granaries are all looted, who will feed the realm, hmm?" She smiled at me, thinking she had won, "It was a handsome threat to make, child, but an ultimately empty one. You want to be a good king, or at least that is what I hear, and letting your people starve is hardly going to aid you in that cause, is it?"

I ceded her point, "You're right, of course. I never did have much of a stomach for bloodshed." I shook my head almost mournfully, "The only real time I've ever seen any was when Joffrey died. Frothing at the mouth, face turning purple, it was horrid." I looked Olenna in the eye, "Had you ever seen the Strangler work, Lady Olenna, before you had it slipped in his cup?" She paled a shade, her face remaining otherwise flat and her expression unchanged. I smiled at the implicit admission.

"My mother may have stuffing in place of her brains, but I do not." I leaned in, my voice quietening till it was little more than a whisper, "Did you think I wouldn't notice that headdress that Lady Sansa was wearing? That Baelish is mysteriously missing, and straight after Joffrey's death?"

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