You want eat?” Mord asked, glowering. He
had a plate of oiled beans in one thick, stub-fingered hand.
Tyrion Lannister was starved, but he refused to let this brute
see him cringe. “A leg of lamb would be pleasant,” he
said, from the heap of soiled straw in the corner of his cell.
“Perhaps a dish of peas and onions, some fresh baked bread
with butter, and a flagon of mulled wine to wash it down. Or beer,
if that’s easier. I try not to be overly
particular.”
“Is beans,” Mord said. “Here.” He held
out the plate.
Tyrion sighed. The turnkey was twenty stone of gross stupidity,
with brown rotting teeth and small dark eyes. The left side of his
face was slick with scar where an axe had cut off his ear and part
of his cheek. He was as predictable as he was ugly, but Tyrion was
hungry. He reached up for the plate.
Mord jerked it away, grinning. “Is here,” he said,
holding it out beyond Tyrion’s reach.
The dwarf climbed stiffly to his feet, every joint aching.
“Must we play the same fool’s game with every
meal?” He made another grab for the beans.
Mord shambled backward, grinning through his rotten teeth.
“Is here, dwarf man.” He held the plate out at
arm’s length, over the edge where the cell ended and the sky
began. “You not want eat? Here. Come take.”
Tyrion’s arms were too short to reach the plate, and he
was not about to step that close to the edge. All it would take
would be a quick shove of Mord’s heavy white belly, and he
would end up a sickening red splotch on the stones of Sky, like so
many other prisoners of the Eyrie over the centuries. “Come
to think on it, I’m not hungry after all,” he declared,
retreating to the corner of his cell.
Mord grunted and opened his thick fingers. The wind took the
plate, flipping it over as it fell. A handful of beans sprayed back
at them as the food tumbled out of sight. The turnkey laughed, his
gut shaking like a bowl of pudding.
Tyrion felt a pang of rage. “You fucking son of a
pox-ridden ass,” he spat. “I hope you die of a bloody
flux.”
For that, Mord gave him a kick, driving a steel-toed boot hard
into Tyrion’s ribs on the way out. “I take it
back!” he gasped as he doubled over on the straw.
“I’ll kill you myself, I swear it!” The heavy
iron-bound door slammed shut. Tyrion heard the rattle of keys.
For a small man, he had been cursed with a dangerously big
mouth, he reflected as he crawled back to his corner of what the
Arryns laughably called their dungeon. He huddled beneath the thin
blanket that was his only bedding, staring out at a blaze of empty
blue sky and distant mountains that seemed to go on forever,
wishing he still had the shadowskin cloak he’d won from
Marillion at dice, after the singer had stolen it off the body of
that brigand chief. The skin had smelled of blood and mold, but it
was warm and thick. Mord had taken it the moment he laid eyes on
it.
The wind tugged at his blanket with gusts sharp as talons. His
cell was miserably small, even for a dwarf. Not five feet away,
where a wall ought to have been, where a wall would be in a proper
dungeon, the floor ended and the sky began. He had plenty of fresh
air and sunshine, and the moon and stars by night, but Tyrion would
have traded it all in an instant for the dankest, gloomiest pit in
the bowels of the Casterly Rock.
“You fly,” Mord had promised him, when he’d
shoved him into the cell. “Twenty day, thirty, fifty maybe.
Then you fly.”
The Arryns kept the only dungeon in the realm where the
prisoners were welcome to escape at will. That first day, after
girding up his courage for hours, Tyrion had lain flat on his
stomach and squirmed to the edge, to poke out his head and look
down. Sky was six hundred feet below, with nothing between but
empty air. If he craned his neck out as far as it could go, he
could see other cells to his right and left and above him. He was a
bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off his wings.
It was cold in the cell, the wind screamed night and day, and
worst of all, the floor sloped. Ever so slightly, yet it was
enough. He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid that he might roll
over in his steep and wake in sudden terror as he went sliding off
the edge. Small wonder the sky cells drove men mad. Gods save me, some previous tenant had written on the wall in
something that looked suspiciously like blood, the blue is calling.
At first Tyrion wondered who he’d been, and what had become
of him; later, he decided that he would rather not know.
If only he had shut his mouth . . .
The wretched boy had started it, looking down on him from a
throne of carved weirwood beneath the moon-and-falcon banners of
House Arryn. Tyrion Lannister had been looked down on all his life,
but seldom by rheumy-eyed six-year-olds who needed to stuff fat
cushions under their cheeks to lift them to the height of a man.
“Is he the bad man?” the boy had asked, clutching his
doll.
“He is,” the Lady Lysa had said from the lesser
throne beside him. She was all in blue, powdered and perfumed for
the suitors who filled her court.
“He’s so small,” the Lord of the Eyrie said,
giggling.
“This is Tyrion the Imp, of House Lannister, who murdered
your father.” She raised her voice so it carried down the
length of High Hall of the Eyrie, ringing off the milk-white walls
and the slender pillars, so every man could hear it. “He slew
the Hand of the King!”
“Oh, did I kill him too?” Tyrion had said, like a
fool.
That would have been a very good time to have kept his mouth
closed and his head bowed. He could see that now; seven hells, he
had seen it then. The High Hall of the Arryns was long and austere,
with a forbidding coldness to its walls of blue-veined white
marble, but the faces around him had been colder by far. The power
of Casterly Rock was far away, and there were no friends of the
Lannisters in the Vale of Arryn. Submission and silence would have
been his best defenses.
But Tyrion’s mood had been too foul for sense. To his
shame, he had faltered during the last leg of their day-long climb
up to the Eyrie, his stunted legs unable to take him any higher.
Bronn had carried him the rest of the way, and the humiliation
poured oil on the flames of his anger. “It would seem
I’ve been a busy little fellow,” he said with bitter
sarcasm. “I wonder when I found the time to do all this
slaying and murdering.”
He ought to have remembered who he was dealing with. Lysa Arryn
and her half-sane weakling son had not been known at court for
their love of wit, especially when it was directed at them.
“Imp,” Lysa said coldly, “you will guard that
mocking tongue of yours and speak to my son politely, or I promise
you will have cause to regret it. Remember where you are. This is
the Eyrie, and these are knights of the Vale you see around you,
true men who loved Jon Arryn well. Every one of them would die for
me.”
“Lady Arryn, should any harm come to me, my brother Jaime
will be pleased to see that they do.” Even as he spat out the
words, Tyrion knew they were folly.
“Can you fly, my lord of Lannister?” Lady Lysa
asked. “Does a dwarf have wings? If not, you would be wiser
to swallow the next threat that comes to mind.”
“I made no threats,” Tyrion said. “That was a
promise.”
Little Lord Robert hopped to his feet at that, so upset he
dropped his doll. “You can’t hurt us,” he
screamed. “No one can hurt us here. Tell him, Mother, tell
him he can’t hurt us here.” The boy began to
twitch.
“The Eyrie is impregnable,” Lysa Arryn declared
calmly. She drew her son close, holding him safe in the circle of
her plump white arms. “The Imp is trying to frighten us,
sweet baby. The Lannisters are all liars. No one will hurt my sweet
boy.”
The hell of it was, she was no doubt right. Having seen what it
took to get here, Tyrion could well imagine how it would be for a
knight trying to fight his way up in armor, while stones and arrows
poured down from above and enemies contested with him for every
step. Nightmare did not begin to describe it. Small wonder the
Eyrie had never been taken.
Still, Tyrion had been unable to silence himself. “Not
impregnable,” he said, “merely inconvenient.”
Young Robert pointed down, his hand trembling.
“You’re a liar. Mother, I want to see him fly.”
Two guardsmen in sky-blue cloaks seized Tyrion by the arms, lifting
him off his floor.
The gods only know what might have happened then were it not for
Catelyn Stark. “Sister,” she called out from where she
stood below the thrones, “I beg you to remember, this man is
my prisoner. I will not have him harmed.”
Lysa Arryn glanced at her sister coolly for a moment, then rose
and swept down on Tyrion, her long skirts trailing after her. For
an instant he feared she would strike him, but instead she
commanded them to release him. Her men shoved him to the floor, his
legs went out from under him, and Tyrion fell.
He must have made quite a sight as he struggled to his knees,
only to feel his right leg spasm, sending him sprawling once more.
Laughter boomed up and down the High Hall of the Arryns.
“My sister’s little guest is too weary to
stand,” Lady Lysa announced. “Ser Vardis, take him down
to the dungeon. A rest in one of our sky cells will do him much
good.”
The guardsmen jerked him upright. Tyrion Lannister dangled
between them, kicking feebly, his face red with shame. “I
will remember this,” he told them all as they carried him
off.
And so he did, for all the good it did him.
At first he had consoled himself that this imprisonment could
not last long. Lysa Arryn wanted to humble him, that was all. She
would send for him again, and soon. If not her, then Catelyn Stark
would want to question him. This time he would guard his tongue
more closely. They dare not kill him out of hand; he was still a
Lannister of Casterly Rock, and if they shed his blood, it would
mean war. Or so he had told himself.
Now he was not so certain.
Perhaps his captors only meant to let him rot here, but he
feared he did not have the strength to rot for long. He was growing
weaker every day, and it was only a matter of time until
Mord’s kicks and blows did him serious harm, provided the
gaoler did not starve him to death first. A few more nights of cold
and hunger, and the blue would start calling to him too.
He wondered what was happening beyond the walls (such as they
were) of his cell. Lord Tywin would surely have sent out riders
when the word reached him. Jaime might be leading a host through
the Mountains of the Moon even now . . . unless he was riding north
against Winterfell instead. Did anyone outside the Vale even
suspect where Catelyn Stark had taken him? He wondered what Cersei
would do when she heard. The king could order him freed, but would
Robert listen to his queen or his Hand? Tyrion had no illusions
about the king’s love for his sister.
If Cersei kept her wits about her, she would insist the king sit
in judgment of Tyrion himself. Even Ned Stark could scarcely object
to that, not without impugning the honor of the king. And Tyrion
would be only too glad to take his chances in a trial. Whatever
murders they might lay at his door, the Starks had no proof of
anything so far as he could see. Let them make their case before
the Iron Throne and the lords of the land. It would be the end of
them. If only Cersei were clever enough to see that . . .
Tyrion Lannister sighed. His sister was not without a certain
low cunning, but her pride blinded her. She
would see the insult in this, not the opportunity. And Jaime was
even worse, rash and headstrong and quick to anger. His brother
never untied a knot when he could slash it in two with his
sword.
He wondered which of them had sent the footpad to silence the
Stark boy, and whether they had truly conspired at the death of
Lord Arryn. If the old Hand had been murdered, it was deftly and
subtly done. Men of his age died of sudden illness all the time. In
contrast, sending some oaf with a stolen knife after Brandon Stark
struck him as unbelievably clumsy. And wasn’t that peculiar,
come to think on it . . .
Tyrion shivered. Now there was a nasty suspicion. Perhaps the
direwolf and the lion were not the only beasts in the woods, and if
that was true, someone was using him as a catspaw. Tyrion Lannister
hated being used.
He would have to get out of here, and soon. His chances of
overpowering Mord were small to none, and no one was about to
smuggle him a six-hundred-foot-long rope, so he would have to talk
himself free. His mouth had gotten him into this cell; it could
damn well get him out.
Tyrion pushed himself to his feet, doing his best to ignore the
slope of the floor beneath him, with its ever-so-subtle tug toward
the edge. He hammered on the door with a fist. “Mord!”
he shouted. “Turnkey! Mord, I want you!” He had to keep
it up a good ten minutes before he heard footsteps. Tyrion stepped
back an instant before the door opened with a crash.
“Making noise,” Mord growled, with blood in his
eyes. Dangling from one meaty hand was a leather strap, wide and
thick, doubled over in his fist. Never show them you’re afraid, Tyrion reminded himself.
“How would you like to be rich?” he asked.
Mord hit him. He swung the strap backhand, lazily, but the
leather caught Tyrion high on the arm. The force of it staggered
him, and the pain made him grit his teeth. “No mouth, dwarf
man,” Mord warned him.
“Gold,” Tyrion said, miming a smile. “Casterly
Rock is full of gold . . . ahhhh . . . ” This time the blow
was a forehand, and Mord put more of his arm into the swing, making
the leather crack and jump. It caught Tyrion in the ribs and
dropped him to his knees, wimpering. He forced himself to look up
at the gaoler. “As rich as the Lannisters,” he wheezed.
“That’s what they say, Mord—”
Mord grunted. The strap whistled through the air and smashed
Tyrion full in the face. The pain was so bad he did not remember
falling, but when he opened his eyes again he was on the floor of
his cell. His ear was ringing, and his mouth was full of blood. He
groped for purchase, to push himself up, and his fingers brushed
against . . . nothing. Tyrion snatched his hand back as fast as if
it had been scalded, and tried his best to stop breathing. He had
fallen right on the edge, inches from the blue.
“More to say?” Mord held the strap between his fists
and gave it a sharp pull. The snap made Tyrion jump. The turnkey
laughed. He won’t push me over, Tyrion told himself desperately as
he crawled away from the edge. Catelyn Stark wants me alive, he
doesn’t dare kill me. He wiped the blood off his lips with
the back of his hand, grinned, and said, “That was a stiff
one, Mord.” The gaoler squinted at him, trying to decide if
he was being mocked. “I could make good use of a strong man
like you.” The strap flew at him, but this time Tyrion was
able to cringe away from it. He took a glancing blow to the
shoulder, nothing more. “Gold,” he repeated, scrambling
backward like a crab, “more gold than you’ll see here
in a lifetime. Enough to buy land, women, horses . . . you could be
a lord. Lord Mord.” Tyrion hawked up a glob of blood and
phlegm and spat it out into the sky.
“Is no gold,” Mord said. He’s listening! Tyrion thought. “They relieved me of
my purse when they captured me, but the gold is still mine. Catelyn
Stark might take a man prisoner, but she’d never stoop to rob
him. That wouldn’t be honorable. Help me, and all the gold is
yours.” Mord’s strap licked out, but it was a
halfhearted, desultory swing, slow and contemptuous. Tyrion caught
the leather in his hand and held it prisoned. “There will be
no risk to you. All you need do is deliver a message.”
The gaoler yanked his leather strap free of Tyrion’s
grasp. “Message,” he said, as if he had never heard the
word before. His frown made deep creases in his brow.
“You heard me, my lord. Only carry my word to your lady.
Tell her . . . ” What? What would possibly make Lysa
Anyn relent? The inspiration came to Tyrion Lannister suddenly. “ . . . .tell her that I wish to confess my crimes.”
Mord raised his arm and Tyrion braced himself for another blow,
but the turnkey hesitated. Suspicion and greed warred in his eyes.
He wanted that gold, yet he feared a trick; he had the look of a
man who had often been tricked. “Is lie,” he muttered
darkly. “Dwarf man cheat me.”
“I will put my promise in writing,” Tyrion
vowed.
Some illiterates held writing in disdain; others seemed to have
a superstitious reverence for the written word, as if it were some
sort of magic. Fortunately, Mord was one of the
latter. The turnkey lowered the strap. “Writing down gold.
Much gold.”
“Oh, much gold,” Tyrion assured him. “The
purse is just a taste, my friend. My brother wears armor of solid
gold plate.” In truth, Jaime’s armor was gilded steel,
but this oaf would never know the difference.
Mord fingered his strap thoughtfully, but in the end, he
relented and went to fetch paper and ink. When the letter was
written, the gaoler frowned at it suspiciously. “Now deliver
my message,” Tyrion urged.
He was shivering in his sleep when they came for him, late that
night. Mord opened the door but kept his silence. Ser Vardis Egen
woke Tyrion with the point of his boot. “On your feet, Imp.
My lady wants to see you.”
Tyrion rubbed the sleep from his eyes and put on a grimace he
scarcely felt. “No doubt she does, but what makes you think I
wish to see her?”
Ser Vardis frowned. Tyrion remembered him well from the years he
had spent at King’s Landing as the captain of the
Hand’s household guard. A square, plain face, silver hair, a
heavy build, and no humor whatsoever. “Your wishes are not my
concern. On your feet, or I’ll have you carried.”
Tyrion clambered awkwardly to his feet. “A cold
night,” he said casually, “and the High Hall is so
drafty. I don’t wish to catch a chill. Mord, if you would be
so good, fetch my cloak.”
The gaoler squinted at him, face dull with suspicion.
“My cloak,” Tyrion repeated. “The shadowskin
you took from me for safekeeping. You recall.”
“Get him the damnable cloak,” Ser Vardis said.
Mord did not dare grumble. He gave Tyrion a glare that promised
future retribution, yet he went for the cloak. When he draped it
around his prisoner’s neck, Tyrion smiled. “My thanks.
I shall think of you whenever I wear it.” He flung the
trailing end of the long fur over his right shoulder, and felt warm
for the first time in days. “Lead on, Ser Vardis.”
The High Hall of the Arryns was aglow with the light of fifty
torches, burning in the sconces along the walls. The Lady Lysa wore
black silk, with the moon-and-falcon sewn on her breast in pearls.
Since she did not look the sort to join the Night’s Watch,
Tyrion could only imagine that she had decided mourning clothes
were appropriate garb for a confession. Her long auburn hair, woven
into an elaborate braid, fell across her left shoulder. The taller
throne beside her was empty; no doubt the little Lord of the Eyrie
was off shaking in his sleep. Tyrion was thankful for that much, at
least.
He bowed deeply and took a moment to glance around the hall.
Lady Arryn had summoned her knights and retainers to hear his
confession, as he had hoped. He saw Ser Brynden Tully’s
craggy face and Lord Nestor Royce’s bluff one. Beside Nestor
stood a younger man with fierce black side-whiskers who could only
be his heir, Ser Albar. Most of the principal houses of the Vale
were represented. Tyrion noted Ser Lyn Corbray, slender as a sword,
Lord Hunter with his gouty legs, the widowed Lady Waynwood
surrounded by her sons. Others sported sigils he did not know;
broken lance, green viper, burning tower, winged chalice.
Among the lords of the Vale were several of his companions from
the high road; Ser Rodrik Cassel, pale from half-healed wounds,
stood with Ser Willis Wode beside him. Marillion the singer had
found a new woodharp. Tyrion smiled; whatever happened here
tonight, he did not wish it to happen in secret, and there was no
one like a singer for spreading a story near and far.
In the rear of the hall, Bronn lounged beneath a pillar. The
freerider’s black eyes were fixed on Tyrion, and his hand lay
lightly on the pommel of his sword. Tyrion gave him a long look,
wondering . . .
Catelyn Stark spoke first. “You wish to confess your
crimes, we are told.”
“I do, my lady,” Tyrion answered.
Lysa Arryn smiled at her sister. “The sky cells always
break them. The gods can see them there, and there is no darkness
to hide in.”
“He does not look broken to me,” Lady Catelyn
said.
Lady Lysa paid her no mind. “Say what you will,” she
commanded Tyrion. And now to roll the dice, he thought with another quick glance
back at Bronn. “Where to begin? I am a vile little man, I
confess it. My crimes and sins are beyond counting, my lords and
ladies. I have lain with whores, not once but hundreds of times. I
have wished my own lord father dead, and my sister, our gracious
queen, as well.” Behind him, someone chuckled. “I have
not always treated my servants with kindness. I have gambled. I
have even cheated, I blush to admit. I have said many cruel and
malicious things about the noble lords and ladies of the
court.” That drew outright laughter. “Once
I—”
“Silence!” Lysa Arryn’s pale round face had
turned a burning pink. “What do you imagine you are doing,
dwarf?”
Tyrion cocked his head to one side. “Why, confessing my
crimes, my lady—”
Catelyn Stark took a step forward. “You are accused of
sending a hired knife to slay my son Bran in his bed, and of
conspiring to murder Lord Jon Arryn, the Hand of the
King.”
Tyrion gave a helpless shrug. “Those crimes I cannot
confess, I fear. I know nothing of any murders.”
Lady Lysa rose from her weirwood throne. “I will not be
made mock of. You have had your little jape, Imp. I trust you
enjoyed it. Ser Vardis, take him back to the dungeon . . . but this
time find him a smaller cell, with a floor more sharply
sloped.”
“Is this how justice is done in the Vale?” Tyrion
roared, so loudly that Ser Vardis froze for an instant. “Does
honor stop at the Bloody Gate? You accuse me of crimes, I deny
them, so you throw me into an open cell to freeze and
starve.” He lifted his head, to give them all a good look at
the bruises Mord had left on his face. “Where is the
king’s justice? Is the Eyrie not part of the Seven Kingdoms?
I stand accused, you say. Very well. I demand a trial! Let me
speak, and let my truth or falsehood be judged openly, in the sight
of gods and men.”
A low murmuring filled the High Hall. He had her, Tyrion knew.
He was highborn, the son of the most powerful lord in the realm,
the brother of the queen. He could not be denied a trial. Guardsmen
in sky-blue cloaks had started toward Tyrion, but Ser Vardis bid
them halt and looked to Lady Lysa.
Her small mouth twitched in a petulant smile. “If you are
tried and found to be guilty of the crimes for which you stand
accused, then by the king’s own laws, you must pay with your
life’s blood. We keep no headsman in the Eyrie, my lord of
Lannister. Open the Moon Door.”
The press of spectators parted. A narrow weirwood door stood
between two slender marble pillars, a crescent moon carved in the
white wood. Those standing closest edged backward as a pair of
guardsmen marched through. One man removed the heavy bronze bars;
the second pulled the door inward. Their blue cloaks rose snapping
from their shoulders, caught in the sudden gust of wind that came
howling through the open door. Beyond was the emptiness of the
night sky, speckled with cold uncaring stars.
“Behold the king’s justice,” Lysa Arryn said.
Torch flames fluttered like pennons along the walls, and here and
there the odd torch guttered out.
“Lysa, I think this unwise,” Catelyn Stark said as
the black wind swirled around the hall.
Her sister ignored her. “You want a trial, my lord of
Lannister. Very well, a trial you shall have. My son will listen to
whatever you care to say, and you shall hear his judgment. Then you
may leave . . . by one door or the other.”
She looked so pleased with herself, Tyrion thought, and small
wonder. How could a trial threaten her, when her weakling son was
the lord judge? Tyrion glanced at her Moon Door. Mother, I want to
see him fly! the boy had said. How many men had the snot-nosed
little wretch sent through that door already?
“I thank you, my good lady, but I see no need to trouble
Lord Robert,” Tyrion said politely. “The gods know the
truth of my innocence. I will have their verdict, not the judgment
of men. I demand trial by combat.”
A storm of sudden laughter filled the High Hall of the Arryns.
Lord Nestor Royce snorted, Ser Willis chuckled, Ser Lyn Corbray
guffawed, and others threw back their heads and howled until tears
ran down their faces. Marillion clumsily plucked a gay note on his
new woodharp with the fingers of his broken hand. Even the wind
seemed to whistle with derision as it came skirling through the
Moon Door.
Lysa Arryn’s watery blue eyes looked uncertain. He had
caught her off balance. “You have that right, to be
sure.”
The young knight with the green viper embroidered on his surcoat
stepped forward and went to one knee. “My lady, I beg the
boon of championing your cause.”
“The honor should be mine,” old Lord Hunter said.
“For the love I bore your lord husband, let me avenge his
death.”
“My father served Lord Jon faithfully as High Steward of
the Vale,” Ser Albar Royce boomed. “Let me serve his
son in this.”
“The gods favor the man with the just cause,” said
Ser Lyn Corbray, “yet often that turns out to be the man with
the surest sword. We all know who that is.” He smiled
modestly.
A dozen other men all spoke at once, clamoring to be heard.
Tyrion found it disheartening to realize so many strangers were
eager to kill him. Perhaps this had not been such a clever plan
after all.
Lady Lysa raised a hand for silence. “I thank you, my
lords, as I know my son would thank you if he were among us. No men
in the Seven Kingdoms are as bold and true as the knights of the
Vale. Would that I could grant you all this honor. Yet I can choose
only one.” She gestured. “Ser Vardis Egen, you were
ever my lord husband’s good right hand. You shall be our
champion.”
Ser Vardis had been singularly silent. “My lady,” he
said gravely, sinking to one knee, “pray give this burden to
another, I have no taste for it. The man is no warrior. Look at
him. A dwarf, half my size and lame in the legs. It would be
shameful to slaughter such a man and call it justice.”
Oh, excellent, Tyrion thought. “I agree.”
Lysa glared at him. “You demanded a trial by
combat.”
“And now I demand a champion, such as you have chosen for
yourself. My brother Jaime will gladly take my part, I
know.”
“Your precious Kingslayer is hundreds of leagues from
here,” snapped Lysa Arryn.
“Send a bird for him. I will gladly await his
arrival.”
“You will face Ser Vardis on the morrow.”
“Singer,” Tyrion said, turning to Marillion,
“when you make a ballad of this, be certain you tell them how
Lady Arryn denied the dwarf the right to a champion, and sent him
forth lame and bruised and hobbling to face her finest
knight.”
“I deny you nothing!” Lysa Arryn said, her voice
peeved and shrill with irritation. “Name your champion, Imp . . . if you think you can find a man to die for you.”
“If it is all the same to you, I’d sooner find one
to kill for me.” Tyrion looked over the long hall. No one
moved. For a long moment he wondered if it had all been a colossal
blunder.
Then there was a stirring in the rear of the chamber.
“I’ll stand for the dwarf,” Bronn called out.
You want eat?” Mord asked, glowering. He
had a plate of oiled beans in one thick, stub-fingered hand.
Tyrion Lannister was starved, but he refused to let this brute
see him cringe. “A leg of lamb would be pleasant,” he
said, from the heap of soiled straw in the corner of his cell.
“Perhaps a dish of peas and onions, some fresh baked bread
with butter, and a flagon of mulled wine to wash it down. Or beer,
if that’s easier. I try not to be overly
particular.”
“Is beans,” Mord said. “Here.” He held
out the plate.
Tyrion sighed. The turnkey was twenty stone of gross stupidity,
with brown rotting teeth and small dark eyes. The left side of his
face was slick with scar where an axe had cut off his ear and part
of his cheek. He was as predictable as he was ugly, but Tyrion was
hungry. He reached up for the plate.
Mord jerked it away, grinning. “Is here,” he said,
holding it out beyond Tyrion’s reach.
The dwarf climbed stiffly to his feet, every joint aching.
“Must we play the same fool’s game with every
meal?” He made another grab for the beans.
Mord shambled backward, grinning through his rotten teeth.
“Is here, dwarf man.” He held the plate out at
arm’s length, over the edge where the cell ended and the sky
began. “You not want eat? Here. Come take.”
Tyrion’s arms were too short to reach the plate, and he
was not about to step that close to the edge. All it would take
would be a quick shove of Mord’s heavy white belly, and he
would end up a sickening red splotch on the stones of Sky, like so
many other prisoners of the Eyrie over the centuries. “Come
to think on it, I’m not hungry after all,” he declared,
retreating to the corner of his cell.
Mord grunted and opened his thick fingers. The wind took the
plate, flipping it over as it fell. A handful of beans sprayed back
at them as the food tumbled out of sight. The turnkey laughed, his
gut shaking like a bowl of pudding.
Tyrion felt a pang of rage. “You fucking son of a
pox-ridden ass,” he spat. “I hope you die of a bloody
flux.”
For that, Mord gave him a kick, driving a steel-toed boot hard
into Tyrion’s ribs on the way out. “I take it
back!” he gasped as he doubled over on the straw.
“I’ll kill you myself, I swear it!” The heavy
iron-bound door slammed shut. Tyrion heard the rattle of keys.
For a small man, he had been cursed with a dangerously big
mouth, he reflected as he crawled back to his corner of what the
Arryns laughably called their dungeon. He huddled beneath the thin
blanket that was his only bedding, staring out at a blaze of empty
blue sky and distant mountains that seemed to go on forever,
wishing he still had the shadowskin cloak he’d won from
Marillion at dice, after the singer had stolen it off the body of
that brigand chief. The skin had smelled of blood and mold, but it
was warm and thick. Mord had taken it the moment he laid eyes on
it.
The wind tugged at his blanket with gusts sharp as talons. His
cell was miserably small, even for a dwarf. Not five feet away,
where a wall ought to have been, where a wall would be in a proper
dungeon, the floor ended and the sky began. He had plenty of fresh
air and sunshine, and the moon and stars by night, but Tyrion would
have traded it all in an instant for the dankest, gloomiest pit in
the bowels of the Casterly Rock.
“You fly,” Mord had promised him, when he’d
shoved him into the cell. “Twenty day, thirty, fifty maybe.
Then you fly.”
The Arryns kept the only dungeon in the realm where the
prisoners were welcome to escape at will. That first day, after
girding up his courage for hours, Tyrion had lain flat on his
stomach and squirmed to the edge, to poke out his head and look
down. Sky was six hundred feet below, with nothing between but
empty air. If he craned his neck out as far as it could go, he
could see other cells to his right and left and above him. He was a
bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off his wings.
It was cold in the cell, the wind screamed night and day, and
worst of all, the floor sloped. Ever so slightly, yet it was
enough. He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid that he might roll
over in his steep and wake in sudden terror as he went sliding off
the edge. Small wonder the sky cells drove men mad. Gods save me, some previous tenant had written on the wall in
something that looked suspiciously like blood, the blue is calling.
At first Tyrion wondered who he’d been, and what had become
of him; later, he decided that he would rather not know.
If only he had shut his mouth . . .
The wretched boy had started it, looking down on him from a
throne of carved weirwood beneath the moon-and-falcon banners of
House Arryn. Tyrion Lannister had been looked down on all his life,
but seldom by rheumy-eyed six-year-olds who needed to stuff fat
cushions under their cheeks to lift them to the height of a man.
“Is he the bad man?” the boy had asked, clutching his
doll.
“He is,” the Lady Lysa had said from the lesser
throne beside him. She was all in blue, powdered and perfumed for
the suitors who filled her court.
“He’s so small,” the Lord of the Eyrie said,
giggling.
“This is Tyrion the Imp, of House Lannister, who murdered
your father.” She raised her voice so it carried down the
length of High Hall of the Eyrie, ringing off the milk-white walls
and the slender pillars, so every man could hear it. “He slew
the Hand of the King!”
“Oh, did I kill him too?” Tyrion had said, like a
fool.
That would have been a very good time to have kept his mouth
closed and his head bowed. He could see that now; seven hells, he
had seen it then. The High Hall of the Arryns was long and austere,
with a forbidding coldness to its walls of blue-veined white
marble, but the faces around him had been colder by far. The power
of Casterly Rock was far away, and there were no friends of the
Lannisters in the Vale of Arryn. Submission and silence would have
been his best defenses.
But Tyrion’s mood had been too foul for sense. To his
shame, he had faltered during the last leg of their day-long climb
up to the Eyrie, his stunted legs unable to take him any higher.
Bronn had carried him the rest of the way, and the humiliation
poured oil on the flames of his anger. “It would seem
I’ve been a busy little fellow,” he said with bitter
sarcasm. “I wonder when I found the time to do all this
slaying and murdering.”
He ought to have remembered who he was dealing with. Lysa Arryn
and her half-sane weakling son had not been known at court for
their love of wit, especially when it was directed at them.
“Imp,” Lysa said coldly, “you will guard that
mocking tongue of yours and speak to my son politely, or I promise
you will have cause to regret it. Remember where you are. This is
the Eyrie, and these are knights of the Vale you see around you,
true men who loved Jon Arryn well. Every one of them would die for
me.”
“Lady Arryn, should any harm come to me, my brother Jaime
will be pleased to see that they do.” Even as he spat out the
words, Tyrion knew they were folly.
“Can you fly, my lord of Lannister?” Lady Lysa
asked. “Does a dwarf have wings? If not, you would be wiser
to swallow the next threat that comes to mind.”
“I made no threats,” Tyrion said. “That was a
promise.”
Little Lord Robert hopped to his feet at that, so upset he
dropped his doll. “You can’t hurt us,” he
screamed. “No one can hurt us here. Tell him, Mother, tell
him he can’t hurt us here.” The boy began to
twitch.
“The Eyrie is impregnable,” Lysa Arryn declared
calmly. She drew her son close, holding him safe in the circle of
her plump white arms. “The Imp is trying to frighten us,
sweet baby. The Lannisters are all liars. No one will hurt my sweet
boy.”
The hell of it was, she was no doubt right. Having seen what it
took to get here, Tyrion could well imagine how it would be for a
knight trying to fight his way up in armor, while stones and arrows
poured down from above and enemies contested with him for every
step. Nightmare did not begin to describe it. Small wonder the
Eyrie had never been taken.
Still, Tyrion had been unable to silence himself. “Not
impregnable,” he said, “merely inconvenient.”
Young Robert pointed down, his hand trembling.
“You’re a liar. Mother, I want to see him fly.”
Two guardsmen in sky-blue cloaks seized Tyrion by the arms, lifting
him off his floor.
The gods only know what might have happened then were it not for
Catelyn Stark. “Sister,” she called out from where she
stood below the thrones, “I beg you to remember, this man is
my prisoner. I will not have him harmed.”
Lysa Arryn glanced at her sister coolly for a moment, then rose
and swept down on Tyrion, her long skirts trailing after her. For
an instant he feared she would strike him, but instead she
commanded them to release him. Her men shoved him to the floor, his
legs went out from under him, and Tyrion fell.
He must have made quite a sight as he struggled to his knees,
only to feel his right leg spasm, sending him sprawling once more.
Laughter boomed up and down the High Hall of the Arryns.
“My sister’s little guest is too weary to
stand,” Lady Lysa announced. “Ser Vardis, take him down
to the dungeon. A rest in one of our sky cells will do him much
good.”
The guardsmen jerked him upright. Tyrion Lannister dangled
between them, kicking feebly, his face red with shame. “I
will remember this,” he told them all as they carried him
off.
And so he did, for all the good it did him.
At first he had consoled himself that this imprisonment could
not last long. Lysa Arryn wanted to humble him, that was all. She
would send for him again, and soon. If not her, then Catelyn Stark
would want to question him. This time he would guard his tongue
more closely. They dare not kill him out of hand; he was still a
Lannister of Casterly Rock, and if they shed his blood, it would
mean war. Or so he had told himself.
Now he was not so certain.
Perhaps his captors only meant to let him rot here, but he
feared he did not have the strength to rot for long. He was growing
weaker every day, and it was only a matter of time until
Mord’s kicks and blows did him serious harm, provided the
gaoler did not starve him to death first. A few more nights of cold
and hunger, and the blue would start calling to him too.
He wondered what was happening beyond the walls (such as they
were) of his cell. Lord Tywin would surely have sent out riders
when the word reached him. Jaime might be leading a host through
the Mountains of the Moon even now . . . unless he was riding north
against Winterfell instead. Did anyone outside the Vale even
suspect where Catelyn Stark had taken him? He wondered what Cersei
would do when she heard. The king could order him freed, but would
Robert listen to his queen or his Hand? Tyrion had no illusions
about the king’s love for his sister.
If Cersei kept her wits about her, she would insist the king sit
in judgment of Tyrion himself. Even Ned Stark could scarcely object
to that, not without impugning the honor of the king. And Tyrion
would be only too glad to take his chances in a trial. Whatever
murders they might lay at his door, the Starks had no proof of
anything so far as he could see. Let them make their case before
the Iron Throne and the lords of the land. It would be the end of
them. If only Cersei were clever enough to see that . . .
Tyrion Lannister sighed. His sister was not without a certain
low cunning, but her pride blinded her. She
would see the insult in this, not the opportunity. And Jaime was
even worse, rash and headstrong and quick to anger. His brother
never untied a knot when he could slash it in two with his
sword.
He wondered which of them had sent the footpad to silence the
Stark boy, and whether they had truly conspired at the death of
Lord Arryn. If the old Hand had been murdered, it was deftly and
subtly done. Men of his age died of sudden illness all the time. In
contrast, sending some oaf with a stolen knife after Brandon Stark
struck him as unbelievably clumsy. And wasn’t that peculiar,
come to think on it . . .
Tyrion shivered. Now there was a nasty suspicion. Perhaps the
direwolf and the lion were not the only beasts in the woods, and if
that was true, someone was using him as a catspaw. Tyrion Lannister
hated being used.
He would have to get out of here, and soon. His chances of
overpowering Mord were small to none, and no one was about to
smuggle him a six-hundred-foot-long rope, so he would have to talk
himself free. His mouth had gotten him into this cell; it could
damn well get him out.
Tyrion pushed himself to his feet, doing his best to ignore the
slope of the floor beneath him, with its ever-so-subtle tug toward
the edge. He hammered on the door with a fist. “Mord!”
he shouted. “Turnkey! Mord, I want you!” He had to keep
it up a good ten minutes before he heard footsteps. Tyrion stepped
back an instant before the door opened with a crash.
“Making noise,” Mord growled, with blood in his
eyes. Dangling from one meaty hand was a leather strap, wide and
thick, doubled over in his fist. Never show them you’re afraid, Tyrion reminded himself.
“How would you like to be rich?” he asked.
Mord hit him. He swung the strap backhand, lazily, but the
leather caught Tyrion high on the arm. The force of it staggered
him, and the pain made him grit his teeth. “No mouth, dwarf
man,” Mord warned him.
“Gold,” Tyrion said, miming a smile. “Casterly
Rock is full of gold . . . ahhhh . . . ” This time the blow
was a forehand, and Mord put more of his arm into the swing, making
the leather crack and jump. It caught Tyrion in the ribs and
dropped him to his knees, wimpering. He forced himself to look up
at the gaoler. “As rich as the Lannisters,” he wheezed.
“That’s what they say, Mord—”
Mord grunted. The strap whistled through the air and smashed
Tyrion full in the face. The pain was so bad he did not remember
falling, but when he opened his eyes again he was on the floor of
his cell. His ear was ringing, and his mouth was full of blood. He
groped for purchase, to push himself up, and his fingers brushed
against . . . nothing. Tyrion snatched his hand back as fast as if
it had been scalded, and tried his best to stop breathing. He had
fallen right on the edge, inches from the blue.
“More to say?” Mord held the strap between his fists
and gave it a sharp pull. The snap made Tyrion jump. The turnkey
laughed. He won’t push me over, Tyrion told himself desperately as
he crawled away from the edge. Catelyn Stark wants me alive, he
doesn’t dare kill me. He wiped the blood off his lips with
the back of his hand, grinned, and said, “That was a stiff
one, Mord.” The gaoler squinted at him, trying to decide if
he was being mocked. “I could make good use of a strong man
like you.” The strap flew at him, but this time Tyrion was
able to cringe away from it. He took a glancing blow to the
shoulder, nothing more. “Gold,” he repeated, scrambling
backward like a crab, “more gold than you’ll see here
in a lifetime. Enough to buy land, women, horses . . . you could be
a lord. Lord Mord.” Tyrion hawked up a glob of blood and
phlegm and spat it out into the sky.
“Is no gold,” Mord said. He’s listening! Tyrion thought. “They relieved me of
my purse when they captured me, but the gold is still mine. Catelyn
Stark might take a man prisoner, but she’d never stoop to rob
him. That wouldn’t be honorable. Help me, and all the gold is
yours.” Mord’s strap licked out, but it was a
halfhearted, desultory swing, slow and contemptuous. Tyrion caught
the leather in his hand and held it prisoned. “There will be
no risk to you. All you need do is deliver a message.”
The gaoler yanked his leather strap free of Tyrion’s
grasp. “Message,” he said, as if he had never heard the
word before. His frown made deep creases in his brow.
“You heard me, my lord. Only carry my word to your lady.
Tell her . . . ” What? What would possibly make Lysa
Anyn relent? The inspiration came to Tyrion Lannister suddenly. “ . . . .tell her that I wish to confess my crimes.”
Mord raised his arm and Tyrion braced himself for another blow,
but the turnkey hesitated. Suspicion and greed warred in his eyes.
He wanted that gold, yet he feared a trick; he had the look of a
man who had often been tricked. “Is lie,” he muttered
darkly. “Dwarf man cheat me.”
“I will put my promise in writing,” Tyrion
vowed.
Some illiterates held writing in disdain; others seemed to have
a superstitious reverence for the written word, as if it were some
sort of magic. Fortunately, Mord was one of the
latter. The turnkey lowered the strap. “Writing down gold.
Much gold.”
“Oh, much gold,” Tyrion assured him. “The
purse is just a taste, my friend. My brother wears armor of solid
gold plate.” In truth, Jaime’s armor was gilded steel,
but this oaf would never know the difference.
Mord fingered his strap thoughtfully, but in the end, he
relented and went to fetch paper and ink. When the letter was
written, the gaoler frowned at it suspiciously. “Now deliver
my message,” Tyrion urged.
He was shivering in his sleep when they came for him, late that
night. Mord opened the door but kept his silence. Ser Vardis Egen
woke Tyrion with the point of his boot. “On your feet, Imp.
My lady wants to see you.”
Tyrion rubbed the sleep from his eyes and put on a grimace he
scarcely felt. “No doubt she does, but what makes you think I
wish to see her?”
Ser Vardis frowned. Tyrion remembered him well from the years he
had spent at King’s Landing as the captain of the
Hand’s household guard. A square, plain face, silver hair, a
heavy build, and no humor whatsoever. “Your wishes are not my
concern. On your feet, or I’ll have you carried.”
Tyrion clambered awkwardly to his feet. “A cold
night,” he said casually, “and the High Hall is so
drafty. I don’t wish to catch a chill. Mord, if you would be
so good, fetch my cloak.”
The gaoler squinted at him, face dull with suspicion.
“My cloak,” Tyrion repeated. “The shadowskin
you took from me for safekeeping. You recall.”
“Get him the damnable cloak,” Ser Vardis said.
Mord did not dare grumble. He gave Tyrion a glare that promised
future retribution, yet he went for the cloak. When he draped it
around his prisoner’s neck, Tyrion smiled. “My thanks.
I shall think of you whenever I wear it.” He flung the
trailing end of the long fur over his right shoulder, and felt warm
for the first time in days. “Lead on, Ser Vardis.”
The High Hall of the Arryns was aglow with the light of fifty
torches, burning in the sconces along the walls. The Lady Lysa wore
black silk, with the moon-and-falcon sewn on her breast in pearls.
Since she did not look the sort to join the Night’s Watch,
Tyrion could only imagine that she had decided mourning clothes
were appropriate garb for a confession. Her long auburn hair, woven
into an elaborate braid, fell across her left shoulder. The taller
throne beside her was empty; no doubt the little Lord of the Eyrie
was off shaking in his sleep. Tyrion was thankful for that much, at
least.
He bowed deeply and took a moment to glance around the hall.
Lady Arryn had summoned her knights and retainers to hear his
confession, as he had hoped. He saw Ser Brynden Tully’s
craggy face and Lord Nestor Royce’s bluff one. Beside Nestor
stood a younger man with fierce black side-whiskers who could only
be his heir, Ser Albar. Most of the principal houses of the Vale
were represented. Tyrion noted Ser Lyn Corbray, slender as a sword,
Lord Hunter with his gouty legs, the widowed Lady Waynwood
surrounded by her sons. Others sported sigils he did not know;
broken lance, green viper, burning tower, winged chalice.
Among the lords of the Vale were several of his companions from
the high road; Ser Rodrik Cassel, pale from half-healed wounds,
stood with Ser Willis Wode beside him. Marillion the singer had
found a new woodharp. Tyrion smiled; whatever happened here
tonight, he did not wish it to happen in secret, and there was no
one like a singer for spreading a story near and far.
In the rear of the hall, Bronn lounged beneath a pillar. The
freerider’s black eyes were fixed on Tyrion, and his hand lay
lightly on the pommel of his sword. Tyrion gave him a long look,
wondering . . .
Catelyn Stark spoke first. “You wish to confess your
crimes, we are told.”
“I do, my lady,” Tyrion answered.
Lysa Arryn smiled at her sister. “The sky cells always
break them. The gods can see them there, and there is no darkness
to hide in.”
“He does not look broken to me,” Lady Catelyn
said.
Lady Lysa paid her no mind. “Say what you will,” she
commanded Tyrion. And now to roll the dice, he thought with another quick glance
back at Bronn. “Where to begin? I am a vile little man, I
confess it. My crimes and sins are beyond counting, my lords and
ladies. I have lain with whores, not once but hundreds of times. I
have wished my own lord father dead, and my sister, our gracious
queen, as well.” Behind him, someone chuckled. “I have
not always treated my servants with kindness. I have gambled. I
have even cheated, I blush to admit. I have said many cruel and
malicious things about the noble lords and ladies of the
court.” That drew outright laughter. “Once
I—”
“Silence!” Lysa Arryn’s pale round face had
turned a burning pink. “What do you imagine you are doing,
dwarf?”
Tyrion cocked his head to one side. “Why, confessing my
crimes, my lady—”
Catelyn Stark took a step forward. “You are accused of
sending a hired knife to slay my son Bran in his bed, and of
conspiring to murder Lord Jon Arryn, the Hand of the
King.”
Tyrion gave a helpless shrug. “Those crimes I cannot
confess, I fear. I know nothing of any murders.”
Lady Lysa rose from her weirwood throne. “I will not be
made mock of. You have had your little jape, Imp. I trust you
enjoyed it. Ser Vardis, take him back to the dungeon . . . but this
time find him a smaller cell, with a floor more sharply
sloped.”
“Is this how justice is done in the Vale?” Tyrion
roared, so loudly that Ser Vardis froze for an instant. “Does
honor stop at the Bloody Gate? You accuse me of crimes, I deny
them, so you throw me into an open cell to freeze and
starve.” He lifted his head, to give them all a good look at
the bruises Mord had left on his face. “Where is the
king’s justice? Is the Eyrie not part of the Seven Kingdoms?
I stand accused, you say. Very well. I demand a trial! Let me
speak, and let my truth or falsehood be judged openly, in the sight
of gods and men.”
A low murmuring filled the High Hall. He had her, Tyrion knew.
He was highborn, the son of the most powerful lord in the realm,
the brother of the queen. He could not be denied a trial. Guardsmen
in sky-blue cloaks had started toward Tyrion, but Ser Vardis bid
them halt and looked to Lady Lysa.
Her small mouth twitched in a petulant smile. “If you are
tried and found to be guilty of the crimes for which you stand
accused, then by the king’s own laws, you must pay with your
life’s blood. We keep no headsman in the Eyrie, my lord of
Lannister. Open the Moon Door.”
The press of spectators parted. A narrow weirwood door stood
between two slender marble pillars, a crescent moon carved in the
white wood. Those standing closest edged backward as a pair of
guardsmen marched through. One man removed the heavy bronze bars;
the second pulled the door inward. Their blue cloaks rose snapping
from their shoulders, caught in the sudden gust of wind that came
howling through the open door. Beyond was the emptiness of the
night sky, speckled with cold uncaring stars.
“Behold the king’s justice,” Lysa Arryn said.
Torch flames fluttered like pennons along the walls, and here and
there the odd torch guttered out.
“Lysa, I think this unwise,” Catelyn Stark said as
the black wind swirled around the hall.
Her sister ignored her. “You want a trial, my lord of
Lannister. Very well, a trial you shall have. My son will listen to
whatever you care to say, and you shall hear his judgment. Then you
may leave . . . by one door or the other.”
She looked so pleased with herself, Tyrion thought, and small
wonder. How could a trial threaten her, when her weakling son was
the lord judge? Tyrion glanced at her Moon Door. Mother, I want to
see him fly! the boy had said. How many men had the snot-nosed
little wretch sent through that door already?
“I thank you, my good lady, but I see no need to trouble
Lord Robert,” Tyrion said politely. “The gods know the
truth of my innocence. I will have their verdict, not the judgment
of men. I demand trial by combat.”
A storm of sudden laughter filled the High Hall of the Arryns.
Lord Nestor Royce snorted, Ser Willis chuckled, Ser Lyn Corbray
guffawed, and others threw back their heads and howled until tears
ran down their faces. Marillion clumsily plucked a gay note on his
new woodharp with the fingers of his broken hand. Even the wind
seemed to whistle with derision as it came skirling through the
Moon Door.
Lysa Arryn’s watery blue eyes looked uncertain. He had
caught her off balance. “You have that right, to be
sure.”
The young knight with the green viper embroidered on his surcoat
stepped forward and went to one knee. “My lady, I beg the
boon of championing your cause.”
“The honor should be mine,” old Lord Hunter said.
“For the love I bore your lord husband, let me avenge his
death.”
“My father served Lord Jon faithfully as High Steward of
the Vale,” Ser Albar Royce boomed. “Let me serve his
son in this.”
“The gods favor the man with the just cause,” said
Ser Lyn Corbray, “yet often that turns out to be the man with
the surest sword. We all know who that is.” He smiled
modestly.
A dozen other men all spoke at once, clamoring to be heard.
Tyrion found it disheartening to realize so many strangers were
eager to kill him. Perhaps this had not been such a clever plan
after all.
Lady Lysa raised a hand for silence. “I thank you, my
lords, as I know my son would thank you if he were among us. No men
in the Seven Kingdoms are as bold and true as the knights of the
Vale. Would that I could grant you all this honor. Yet I can choose
only one.” She gestured. “Ser Vardis Egen, you were
ever my lord husband’s good right hand. You shall be our
champion.”
Ser Vardis had been singularly silent. “My lady,” he
said gravely, sinking to one knee, “pray give this burden to
another, I have no taste for it. The man is no warrior. Look at
him. A dwarf, half my size and lame in the legs. It would be
shameful to slaughter such a man and call it justice.”
Oh, excellent, Tyrion thought. “I agree.”
Lysa glared at him. “You demanded a trial by
combat.”
“And now I demand a champion, such as you have chosen for
yourself. My brother Jaime will gladly take my part, I
know.”
“Your precious Kingslayer is hundreds of leagues from
here,” snapped Lysa Arryn.
“Send a bird for him. I will gladly await his
arrival.”
“You will face Ser Vardis on the morrow.”
“Singer,” Tyrion said, turning to Marillion,
“when you make a ballad of this, be certain you tell them how
Lady Arryn denied the dwarf the right to a champion, and sent him
forth lame and bruised and hobbling to face her finest
knight.”
“I deny you nothing!” Lysa Arryn said, her voice
peeved and shrill with irritation. “Name your champion, Imp . . . if you think you can find a man to die for you.”
“If it is all the same to you, I’d sooner find one
to kill for me.” Tyrion looked over the long hall. No one
moved. For a long moment he wondered if it had all been a colossal
blunder.
Then there was a stirring in the rear of the chamber.
“I’ll stand for the dwarf,” Bronn called out.