Small Council

The Small Council is the supreme administrative body of the Iron Throne, charged with advising the king and executing the governance of the Seven Kingdoms. By the events of A Dance with Dragons, the council has become a theater of intense factional struggle, its composition and authority shifting dramatically in the wake of King Joffrey's death, the disappearance of Tyrion Lannister, and the arrest of Queen Regent Cersei Lannister. The body is no longer a unified instrument of royal will but a fractured arena where Lannister loyalists, Tyrell power-brokers, and the newly empowered Faith of the Seven vie for control over the boy king Tommen Baratheon.

Composition and Factional Divide

The council that governs in Tommen's name is a carefully balanced but deeply unstable coalition. Ser Kevan Lannister serves as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm, the de facto head of the government and the chief representative of Lannister interests. Lord Mace Tyrell holds the office of Hand of the King, a position he has long coveted, and brings with him the immense military and economic power of Highgarden. Grand Maester Pycelle, a Lannister loyalist, provides counsel and healing. The other seats are filled by figures of varying allegiance: Lord Paxter Redwyne, a Tyrell bannerman, is grand admiral and master of ships; Ser Harys Swyft, Kevan's good-father, serves as master of coin; and the disgraced maester Qyburn, Cersei's creature, holds the post of master of whisperers. The council chamber itself physically reflects the divide, with Lannister spearmen lining one wall and Tyrell guards in green cloaks facing them from the opposite wall, a silent testament to the mutual suspicion that poisons every deliberation.

Key Decisions and Conflicts

The council's meetings are dominated by a series of intractable crises. The most immediate is the fate of the two queens: Cersei Lannister and Margaery Tyrell, both imprisoned by the Faith and accused of high treason, fornication, and murder. Mace Tyrell demands that his daughter be declared innocent by royal decree, a move Ser Kevan resists, knowing it would inflame the High Septon and the pious masses. The council is forced to accept a trial by battle for Cersei, whose champion is the silent, mysterious Ser Robert Strong, and a trial by the Faith for Margaery. The second great crisis is the invasion of the stormlands by the Golden Company, led by the exiled Lord Jon Connington and a young man claiming to be Prince Aegon Targaryen. Mace Tyrell dismisses them as mere adventurers, but Ser Kevan, remembering Connington's past vigor, argues for a swift military response before Daenerys Targaryen can join her strength to theirs. The council is paralyzed by a lack of funds—the Iron Bank of Braavos has ceased all lending due to Cersei's default—and by the need to keep the Tyrell armies in the city for the trials, preventing them from marching south.

The Assassination of the Regent

The council's fragile order is shattered in the epilogue. Ser Kevan Lannister, having successfully navigated the immediate crises and begun to reconcile the Lannisters and Tyrells, is murdered in the Grand Maester's chambers by Lord Varys, the former master of whisperers who has been in hiding. Varys kills both Kevan and Pycelle with a crossbow and a dagger, framing the act to appear as the work of the Tyrells or the Imp, Tyrion Lannister. The eunuch explains his motive: Kevan was too competent, too capable of uniting the realm under Tommen, which would have thwarted Varys's long-laid plans for the return of Aegon Targaryen. With the regent and the grand maester dead, the council is left leaderless and riven by suspicion, its ability to govern the realm fatally compromised on the eve of winter.