The Tunnels in the Red Keep

Background

In this post I thought it would be fun to discuss the history of the tunnels in the Red Keep and how they have been used so far:

And above it all, frowning down from Aegon's high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers' nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. Aegon the Conqueror had commanded it built. His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed. -AGOT, Catelyn IV

Construction

Maegor I had secret tunnels/passageways built in during the continued construction of the Red Keep:

Maegor does hold one distinction in his reign: the completion of the Red Keep in the year 45 AC. It was a project begun by King Aegon and continued by King Aenys, but it was Maegor who saw it finished. He went beyond the plans of both his father and brother, raising a moated castle within the larger castle, which in later days was known as Maegor's Holdfast. More notably, he was the first to command that secret tunnels and passages be made. False walls were introduced, and trapdoors—and riddled throughout Aegon's High Hill were more and more tunnels. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Maegor I

and:

The dawn of the year 43 AC found King Maegor in King’s Landing, where he had taken personal charge of the construction of the Red Keep. Much of the finished work was now undone or changed, new builders and workmen were brought in, and secret passages and tunnels crept through the depths of Aegon’s High Hill. -Fire & Blood I: The Sons of the Dragon

and:

In 45 AC, construction finally came to an end on the Red Keep. King Maegor celebrated its completion by feasting the builders and workmen who had labored on the castle, sending them wagonloads of strongwine and sweetmeats, and whores from the city’s finest brothels. The revels lasted for three days. Afterward, the king’s knights moved in and put all the workmen to the sword, to prevent them from ever revealing the Red Keep’s secrets. Their bones were interred beneath the castle that they had built. -Fire & Blood I: The Sons of the Dragon

It should also be noted that these tunnels have traps:

The eunuch sighed. "The faithful dog is kicked, and no matter how the spider weaves, he is never loved. But if you slay me here, I fear for you, my lord. You may never find your way back to daylight." His eyes glittered in the shifting torchlight, dark and wet. "These tunnels are full of traps for the unwary." -ASOS, Tyrion XI

Tunnel Locations

• Path from lowest level of the dungeons leads to the chamber below the Tower of the Hand and out to Blackwater Rush
• Vary's bedroom has a tunnel with a hidden staircase
• Passage from the bedchamber of the Tower of the Hand to chamber (dragon mosaic) below the tower
• Passageway from the Red Keep to the cliffs facing the Narrow Sea (leads down to a trail beside Blackwater Rush)
• Passageway from the Red Keep to a sewer that empties into the Blackwater
• Separate Tunnels to Maegor's Holdfast:

Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but . . . King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning. He did require a means of secret egress, should he ever be trapped by his enemies, but that door does not connect with any other passages. I can steal your Shae away from Lady Lollys for a time, to be sure, but I have no way to bring her to your bedchamber without us being seen." -ASOS, Tyrion II

Blood & Cheese

During the first Dance of the Dragons, in revenge for Aemond One-Eye's attack on Prince Lucerys outside Storm's End, Daemon Targaryen hired a brute and a rat catcher to enact revenge:

Amidst the stews of Flea Bottom, Prince Daemon’s go-between found suitable instruments. One had been a serjeant in the City Watch; big and brutal, he had lost his gold cloak for beating a whore to death whilst in a drunken rage. The other was a rat-catcher in the Red Keep. Their true names are lost to history. They are remembered as Blood and Cheese.

The hidden doors and secret tunnels that Maegor the Cruel had built were as familiar to the rat-catcher as to the rats he hunted. Using a forgotten passageway, Cheese led Blood into the heart of the castle, unseen by any guard. Some say their quarry was the king himself, but Aegon was accompanied by the Kingsguard wherever he went, and even Cheese knew of no way in and out of Maegor’s Holdfast save over the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat and its formidable iron spikes.

The Tower of the Hand was less secure. The two men crept up through the walls, bypassing the spearmen posted at the tower doors. Ser Otto’s rooms were of no interest to them. Instead they slipped into his daughter’s chambers, one floor below. Queen Alicent had taken up residence there after the death of King Viserys, when her son Aegon moved into Maegor’s Holdfast with his own queen. Once inside, Cheese bound and gagged the Dowager Queen whilst Blood strangled her bedmaid. Then they settled down to wait, for they knew it was the custom of Queen Helaena to bring her children to see their grandmother every evening before bed. -TPATQ

and:

The words Prince Daemon sent to Dragonstone after having learned the news of Lucerys's death were, "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged." He was the Prince of the City, and he still had many friends in the stews and brothels of King's Landing. Chief of them was his once-paramour, Mysaria, the White Worm. She arranged his vengeance, hiring a brute and a rat-catcher known to history as Blood and Cheese. Thanks to his profession, the rat-catcher knew all the secrets of Maegor's tunnels. Slipping into the Red Keep, Blood and Cheese seized hold of Queen Helaena and her children...and then offered Aegon II's wife a brutal choice: which of her sons would die? She wept and pled and offered her own life to no avail. In the end, she named Maelor—the youngest, and deemed too young to understand. Blood and Cheese killed Prince Jaehaerys instead, as his mother screamed her horror. Then Blood and Cheese fled with the prince's head; true to their word that they were only after one of Aegon's sons. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

Aegon II/Larys Strong, etc.'s Escape

Not 100% confirmed this was the secret way, but likely:

For while Aemond had been marching on Harrenhal, Daemon had met Queen Rhaenyra and her dragonriders over King’s Landing, their dragons wheeling above the city. The gold cloaks—many of whom still considered themselves loyal to Daemon—betrayed the officers Aegon had put in charge and surrendered the city with little bloodshed, though blood was spilled in the executions that followed as Ser Otto Hightower, Lord Jasper Wylde (the master of laws, called Ironrod for his sternness), and Lords Rosby and Stokeworth (who had once been of Rhaenyra’s party before turning their cloaks) were beheaded. The Dowager Queen Alicent was imprisoned, but Aegon II (still recovering from the injuries he received at Rook’s Rest) and his remaining children—as well as Lord Larys Strong—had been spirited out of the castle by secret ways. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

Arya & Varys/Illyrio

While hunting for cats/escaping from Lannister guards, Arya finds herself amongst the dragon skulls in a cellar and encountering Illyrio/Varys who drop some knowledge (even though Arya doesn't understand it):

"Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other," the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall. Still as stone, Arya told herself, quiet as a shadow. Blinded by the blaze of their own torch, they did not see her pressed flat against the stone, only a few feet away.

"Perhaps so," the forked beard replied, pausing to catch his breath after the long climb. "Nonetheless, we must have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these savages."

The man with the torch pushed at something. Arya heard a deep rumbling. A huge slab of rock, red in the torchlight, slid down out of the ceiling with a resounding crash that almost made her cry out. Where the entry to the well had been was nothing but stone, solid and unbroken. -AGOT, Arya III

Tyrion's Escape/Tywin's Death

Jaime threatens to kill Varys, so he uses the tunnels to help Tyrion escape execution (after he loses his trial by battle). During this time Tyrion sneaks into the Tower of the Hand and kills Tywin/Shae.

Cersei's Paranoia

Due to her paranoia about Tyrion and the volanqar, Cersei ends up having the Tower of the Hand burned to the ground:

There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too. -AFFC, Cersei I

Tunnel to Chataya's

There is a tunnel from the Tower of the Hand to Chataya's brothel:

"The tunnel was dug for another King's Hand, whose honor would not allow him to enter such a house openly. Chataya has closely guarded the knowledge of its existence." -ACOK, Tyrion III

and:

For which Hand was dug the passage to Chataya's?

GRRM: No comment. Feel free to theorize...- SSM Monthly Correspondence

and:

Question: Tywin Lannister criticized Tyrion for going to whores, and he was believed to have not been with any woman since the death of Lady Joanna. But when Tyrion killed him Shae was naked in his bed. Varys told Tyrion that the passage to the Chataya´s house was constructed by a Hand who wanted to be not known by that kind of activities. Was Lord Tywin the constructor of the passage, and because of that, a regular customer of Chataya?

GRRM: Interesting theory. -SSM, Asshai.com Forum Chat

If interested: The Bastard Sons of Tywin Lannister

Dungeons/Torture

Varys uses the tunnels (likely) to access the dungeons (where one of his disguises "Rugen" resides).

If interested: Dungeons & Prisons of Ice and Fire & Highborn Prisoners of Ice and Fire

There is also lower level to the dungeons (even below the black cells) that seems to access the tunnels/passageways:

"Maegor the Cruel decreed four levels of dungeons for his castle," Varys replied. "On the upper level, there are large cells where common criminals may be confined together. They have narrow windows set high in the walls. The second level has the smaller cells where highborn captives are held. They have no windows, but torches in the halls cast light through the bars. On the third level the cells are smaller and the doors are wood. The black cells, men call them. That was where you were kept, and Eddard Stark before you. But there is a level lower still. Once a man is taken down to the fourth level, he never sees the sun again, nor hears a human voice, nor breathes a breath free of agonizing pain. Maegor had the cells on the fourth level built for torment." They had reached the bottom of the steps. An unlighted door opened before them. "This is the fourth level. Give me your hand, my lord. It is safer to walk in darkness here. There are things you would not wish to see." -ASOS, Tyrion XI

and:

The dungeon was under the Red Keep, deeper than he dared imagine. He remembered the old stories about Maegor the Cruel, who murdered all the masons who labored on his castle, so they might never reveal its secrets. -AGOT, Eddard XV

Varys & his Little Birds

I actually posted about Varys in TWoW yesterday, which is what somewhat inspired this post. Varys seems to make use of the tunnels frequently (talk with Illyrio, meeting with Ned, killing Kevan, escorting Tyrion, etc.)

TLDR: A quick history on the construction of the secret passageways and tunnels that run through the Red Keep as well as how they have been used so far in the series.