Chapter 3: Lord Tyrion's Proposition

The library smelled of tallow and old leather and the particular mustiness of books that had not been opened in long enough to develop opinions about it. Elizabeth had found it the morning after her court presentation, during the hour before any sensible member of the household was awake, navigating the Red Keep's corridors by the logic of stone — older sections near the center, newer additions branching outward like arguments from a premise — until she located the one room that had not been decorated within living memory.

It was not a large library. The maester's collections at Haresford, what she could access of Elara's memories on the subject, had apparently been more personally curated than institutionally comprehensive, and the Red Keep's collection reflected the priorities of a succession of kings who had found the sword considerably more interesting than the scroll. But there were histories. There were trade records going back a century. There were, in a lower shelf that someone had made a cursory attempt to obscure behind a stack of tournament records, three volumes on Westerosi inheritance law that she had immediately and without apology relocated to the table nearest the window.

She had been there for two hours on the morning of her third day when the door opened.