In the chilly white raiment of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon Moore
looked like a corpse in a shroud. “Her Grace left orders, the
council in session is not to be disturbed.”
“I would be only a small disturbance, ser.” Tyrion
slid the parchment from his sleeve. “I bear a letter from my
father, Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King. There is his
seal.”
“Her Grace does not wish to be disturbed,” Ser
Mandon repeated slowly, as if Tyrion were a dullard who had not
heard him the first time.
Jaime had once told him that Moore was the most dangerous of the
Kingsguard—excepting himself, always—because his face gave no hint
as what he might do next. Tyrion would have welcomed a hint. Bronn
and Timett could likely kill the knight if it came to swords, but
it would scarcely bode well if he began by slaying one of
Joffrey’s protectors. Yet if he let the man turn him away,
where was his authority? He made himself smile. “Ser Mandon,
you have not met my companions. This is Timett son of Timett, a red
hand of the Burned Men. And this is Bronn. Perchance you recall Ser
Vardis Egen, who was captain of Lord Arryn’s household
guard?”
“I know the man.” Ser Mandon’s eyes were pale
grey, oddly flat and lifeless.
“Knew,” Bronn corrected with a thin smile.
Ser Mandon did not deign to show that he had heard that.
“Be that as it may,” Tyrion said lightly, “I
truly must see my sister and present my letter, ser. If you would
be so kind as to open the door for us?”
The white knight did not respond. Tyrion was almost at the point
of trying to force his way past when Ser Mandon abruptly stood
aside. “You may enter. They may not.” A small victory, he thought, but sweet. He had passed his first
test. Tyrion Lannister shouldered through the door, feeling almost
tall. Five members of the king’s small council broke off
their discussion suddenly. “You,” his sister Cersei
said in a tone that was equal parts disbelief and distaste.
“I can see where Joffrey learned his courtesies.”
Tyrion paused to admire the pair of Valyrian sphinxes that guarded
the door, affecting an air of casual confidence. Cersei could smell
weakness the way a dog smells fear.
“What are you doing here?” His sister’s lovely
green eyes studied him without the least hint of affection.
“Delivering a letter from our lord father.” He
sauntered to the table and placed the tightly rolled parchment
between them.
The eunuch Varys took the letter and turned it in his delicate
powdered hands. “How kind of Lord Tywin. And his scaling wax
is such a lovely shade of gold.” Varys gave the seal a close
inspection. “It gives every appearance of being
genuine.”
“Of course it’s genuine.” Cersei snatched it
out of his hands. She broke the wax and unrolled the parchment.
Tyrion watched her read. His sister had taken the king’s
seat for herself—he gathered Joffrey did not often trouble to
attend council meetings, no more than Robert had—so Tyrion climbed
up into the Hand’s chair. it seemed only appropriate.
“This is absurd,” the queen said at last. “My
lord father has sent my brother to sit in his place in this
council. He bids us accept Tyrion as the Hand of the King, until
such time as he himself can join us.”
Grand Maester Pycelle stroked his flowing white beard and nodded
ponderously. “It would seem that a welcome is in
order.”
“Indeed.” Jowly, balding Janos Slynt looked rather
like a frog, a smug frog who had gotten rather above himself.
“We have sore need of you, my lord. Rebellion everywhere,
this grim omen in the sky, rioting in the city
streets . . . ”
“And whose fault is that, Lord Janos?” Cersei lashed
out. “Your gold cloaks are charged with keeping order. As to
you, Tyrion, you could better serve us on the field of
battle.”
He laughed. “No, I’m done with fields of battle,
thank you. I sit a chair better than a horse, and I’d sooner
hold a wine goblet than a battle-axe. All that about the thunder of
the drums, sunlight flashing on armor, magnificent destriers
snorting and prancing? Well, the drums gave me headaches, the
sunlight flashing on my armor cooked me up like a harvest day
goose, and those magnificent destriers shit everywhere. Not that I
am complaining. Compared to the hospitality I enjoyed in the Vale
of Arryn, drums, horseshit, and fly bites are my favorite
things.”
Littlefinger laughed. “Well said, Lannister. A man after
my own heart.”
Tyrion smiled at him, remembering a certain dagger with a
dragonbone hilt and a Valyrian steel blade. We must have a talk
about that, and soon. He wondered if Lord Petyr would find that
subject amusing as well. “Please,” he told them,
“do let me be of service, in whatever small way I
can.”
Cersei read the letter again. “How many men have you
brought with you? “
“A few hundred. My own men, chiefly. Father was loath to
part with any of his. He is fighting a war, after all.”
“What use will your few hundred men be if Renly marches on
the city, or Stannis sails from Dragonstone? I ask for an army and
my father sends me a dwarf. The king names the Hand, with the
consent of council. Joffrey named our lord father.”
“And our lord father named me.”
“He cannot do that. Not without Joff’s
consent.”
“Lord Tywin is at Harrenhal with his host, if you’d
care to take it up with him,” Tyrion said politely. “My
lords, perchance you would permit me a private word with my
sister?”
Varys slithered to his feet, smiling in that unctuous way he
had. “How you must have yearned for the sound of your sweet
sister’s voice. My lords, please, let us give them a few
moments together. The woes of our troubled realm shall
keep.”
Janos Slynt rose hesitantly and Grand Maester Pycelle
ponderously, yet they rose. Littlefinger was the last. “Shall
I tell the steward to prepare chambers in Maegor’s
Holdfast?”
“My thanks, Lord Petyr, but I will be taking Lord
Stark’s former quarters in the Tower of the Hand.”
Littlefinger laughed. “You’re a braver man than me,
Lannister. You do know the fate of our last two Hands?”
“Two? If you mean to frighten me, why not say
four?”
“Four?” Littlefinger raised an eyebrow. “Did
the Hands before Lord Arryn meet some dire end in the Tower?
I’m afraid I was too young to pay them much mind.”
“Aerys Targaryen’s last Hand was killed during the
Sack of King’s Landing, though I doubt he’d had time to
settle into the Tower. He was only Hand for a fortnight. The one
before him was burned to death. And before them came two others who
died landless and penniless in exile, and counted themselves lucky.
I believe my lord father was the last Hand to depart King’s
Landing with his name, properties, and parts all intact.”
“Fascinating,” said Littlefinger. “And all the
more reason I’d sooner bed down in the dungeon.” Perhaps you’ll get that wish, Tyrion thought, but he said,
“Courage and folly are cousins, or so I’ve heard.
Whatever curse may linger over the Tower of the Hand, I pray
I’m small enough to escape its notice.”
Janos Slynt laughed, Littlefinger smiled, and Grand Maester
Pycelle followed them both out, bowing gravely.
“I hope Father did not send you all this way to plague us
with history lessons,” his sister said when they were
alone.
“How I have yearned for the sound of your sweet
voice,” Tyrion sighed to her.
“How I have yearned to have that eunuch’s tongue
pulled out with hot pincers,” Cersei replied. “Has
father lost his senses? Or did you forge this letter?” She
read it once more, with mounting annoyance. “Why would he
inflict you on me? I wanted him to come himself.” She crushed
Lord Tywin’s letter in her fingers. “I am
Joffrey’s regent, and I sent him a royal command!”
“And he ignored you,” Tyrion pointed out. “He
has quite a large army, he can do that. Nor is he the first. Is
he?”
Cersei’s mouth tightened. He could see her color rising.
“If I name this letter a forgery and tell them to throw you
in a dungeon, no one will ignore that, I promise you.”
He was walking on rotten ice now, Tyrion knew. One false step
and he would plunge through. “No one,” he agreed
amiably, “least of all our father. The one with the army. But
why should you want to throw me into a dungeon, sweet sister, when
I’ve come all this long way to help you? “
“I do not require your help. It was our father’s
presence that I commanded.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “but it’s Jaime
you want.”
His sister fancied herself subtle, but he had grown up with her.
He could read her face like one of his favorite books, and what he
read now was rage, and fear, and despair.
“Jaime—”
“—is my brother no less than yours,” Tyrion
interrupted. “Give me your support and I promise you, we will
have Jaime freed and returned to us unharmed.”
“How?” Cersei demanded. “The Stark boy and his
mother are not like to forget that we beheaded Lord
Eddard.”
“True,” Tyrion agreed, “yet you still hold his
daughters, don’t you? I saw the older girl out in the yard
with Joffrey.”
“Sansa,” the queen said. “I’ve given it
out that I have the younger brat as well, but it’s a lie. I
sent Meryn Trant to take her in hand when Robert died, but her
wretched dancing master interfered and the girl fled. No one has
seen her since. Likely she’s dead. A great many people died
that day.”
Tyrion had hoped for both Stark girls, but he supposed one would
have to do. “Tell me about our friends on the
council.”
His sister glanced at the door. “What of them?”
“Father seems to have taken a dislike to them. When I left
him, he was wondering how their heads might look on the wall beside
Lord Stark’s.” He leaned forward across the table.
“Are you certain of their loyalty? Do you trust
them?”
“I trust no one,” Cersei snapped. “I need
them. Does Father believe they are playing us false?”
“Suspects, rather.”
“Why? What does he know?”
Tyrion shrugged. “He knows that your son’s short
reign has been a long parade of follies and disasters. That
suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad
counsel.”
Cersei gave him a searching look. “Joff has had no lack of
good counsel. He’s always been strong-willed. Now that
he’s king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as
he’s bid.”
“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them,”
Tyrion agreed. “This business with Eddard
Stark . . . Joffrey’s work?”
The queen grimaced. “He was instructed to pardon Stark, to
allow him to take the black. The man would have been out of our way
forever, and we might have made peace with that son of his, but
Joff took it upon himself to give the mob a better show. What was I
to do? He called for Lord Eddard’s head in front of half the
city. And Janos Slynt and Ser Ilyn went ahead blithely and
shortened the man without a word from me!” Her hand tightened
into a fist. “The High Septon claims we profaned
Baelor’s Sept with blood, after lying to him about our
intent.”
“It would seem he has a point,” said Tyrion.
“So this Lord Slynt, he was part of it, was he? Tell me,
whose fine notion was it to grant him Harrenhal and name him to the
council?”
“Littlefinger made the arrangements. We needed
Slynt’s gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was plotting with Renly and
he’d written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We
might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa
hadn’t come to me and told me all her father’s
plans . . . ”
Tyrion was surprised. “Truly? His own daughter?”
Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and
courteous.
“The girl was wet with love. She would have done anything
for Joffrey, until he cut off her father’s head and called it
mercy. That put an end to that.”
“His Grace has a unique way of winning the hearts of his
subjects,” Tyrion said with a crooked smile. “Was it
Joffrey’s wish to dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy from his
Kingsguard too?”
Cersei sighed. “Joff wanted someone to blame for
Robert’s death. Varys suggested Ser Barristan. Why not? It
gave Jaime command of the Kingsguard and a seat on the small
council, and allowed Joff to throw a bone to his dog. He is very
fond of Sandor Clegane. We were prepared to offer Selmy some land
and a towerhouse, more than the useless old fool
deserved.”
“I hear that useless old fool slew two of Slynt’s
gold cloaks when they tried to seize him at the Mud
Gate.”
His sister looked very unhappy. “Janos should have sent
more men. He is not as competent as might be wished.”
“Ser Barristan was the Lord Commander of Robert
Baratheon’s Kingsguard,” Tyrion reminded her pointedly.
“He and Jaime are the only survivors of Aerys
Targaryen’s seven. The smallfolk talk of him in the same way
they talk of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield and Prince Aemon the
Dragonknight. What do you imagine they’ll think when they see
Barristan the Bold riding beside Robb Stark or Stannis
Baratheon?”
Cersei glanced away. “I had not considered
that.”
“Father did,” said Tyrion. “That is why he
sent me. To put an end to these follies and bring your son to
heel.”
“Joff will be no more tractable for you than for
me.”
“He might.”
“Why should he?”
“He knows you would never hurt him.”
Cersei’s eyes narrowed. “If you believe I’d
ever allow you to harm my son, you’re sick with
fever.”
Tyrion sighed. She’d missed the point, as she did so
often. “Joffrey is as safe with me as he is with you,”
he assured her, “but so long as the boy feels threatened,
he’ll be more inclined to listen.” He took her hand.
“I am your brother, you know. You need me, whether you care
to admit it or no. Your son needs me, if he’s to have a hope
of retaining that ugly iron chair.”
His sister seemed shocked that he would touch her. “You
have always been cunning.”
“In my own small way.” He grinned.
“It may be worth the trying . . . but
make no mistake, Tyrion. If I accept you, you shall be the
King’s Hand in name, but my Hand in truth. You will share all your plans and intentions with me before you
act, and you will do nothing without my consent. Do you
understand?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you agree?”
“Certainly,” he lied. “I am yours,
sister.” For as long as I need to be. “So, now that we
are of one purpose, we ought have no more secrets between us. You
say Joffrey had Lord Eddard killed, Varys dismissed Ser Barristan,
and Littlefinger gifted us with Lord Slynt. Who murdered Jon Arryn?
“
Cersei yanked her hand back. “How should I
know?”
“The grieving widow in the Eyrie seems to think it was me.
Where did she come by that notion, I wonder?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. That fool Eddard Stark
accused me of the same thing. He hinted that Lord Arryn suspected
or . . . well, believed . . . ”
“That you were fucking our sweet Jaime?”
She slapped him.
“Did you think I was as blind as Father?” Tyrion
rubbed his cheek. “Who you lie with is no matter to
me . . . although it doesn’t seem quite
just that you should open your legs for one brother and not the
other.”
She slapped him.
“Be gentle, Cersei, I’m only jesting with you. If
truth be told, I’d sooner have a nice whore. I never
understood what Jaime saw in you, apart from his own
reflection.”
She slapped him.
His cheeks were red and burning, yet he smiled. “If you
keep doing that, I may get angry.”
That stayed her hand. “Why should I care if you
do?”
“I have some new friends,” Tyrion confessed.
“You won’t like them at all. How did you kill
Robert?”
“He did that himself. All we did was help. When Lancel saw
that Robert was going after boar, he gave him strongwine. His
favorite sour red, but fortified, three times as potent as he was
used to. The great stinking fool loved it. He could have stopped
swilling it down anytime he cared to, but no, he drained one skin
and told Lancel to fetch another. The boar did the rest. You should
have been at the feast, Tyrion. There has never been a boar so
delicious. They cooked it with mushrooms and apples, and it tasted
like triumph.”
“Truly, sister, you were born to be a widow.” Tyrion
had rather liked Robert Baratheon, great blustering oaf that he
was . . . doubtless in part because his sister
loathed him so. “Now, if you are done slapping me, I will be
off.” He twisted his legs around and clambered down awkwardly
from the chair.
Cersei frowned. “I haven’t given you leave to
depart. I want to know how you intend to free Jaime.”
“I’ll tell you when I know. Schemes are like fruit,
they require a certain ripening. Right now, I have a mind to ride
through the streets and take the measure of this city.”
Tyrion rested his hand on the head of the sphinx beside the door.
“One parting request. Kindly make certain no harm comes to
Sansa Stark. It would not do to lose both the daughters.”
Outside the council chamber, Tyrion nodded to Ser Mandon and
made his way down the long vaulted hall. Bronn fell in beside him.
Of Timett son of Timett there was no sign. “Where’s our
red hand?” Tyrion asked.
“He felt an urge to explore. His kind was not made for
waiting about in halls.”
“I hope he doesn’t kill anyone important.” The
clansmen Tyrion had brought down from their fastnesses in the
Mountains of the Moon were loyal in their own fierce way, but they
were proud and quarrelsome as well, prone to answer insults real or
imagined with steel. “Try to find him. And while you are at
it, see that the rest have been quartered and fed. I want them in
the barracks beneath the Tower of the Hand, but don’t let the
steward put the Stone Crows near the Moon Brothers, and tell him
the Burned Men must have a hall all to themselves.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m riding back to the Broken Anvil.”
Bronn grinned insolently. “Need an escort? The talk is,
the streets are dangerous.”
“I’ll call upon the captain of my sister’s
household guard, and remind him that I am no less a Lannister than
she is. He needs to recall that his oath is to Casterly Rock, not
to Cersei or Joffrey.”
An hour later, Tyrion rode from the Red Keep accompanied by a
dozen Lannister guardsmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested
halfhelms. As they passed beneath the portcullis, he noted the
heads mounted atop the walls. Black with rot and old tar, they had
long since become unrecognizable. “Captain Vylarr,” he
called, “I want those taken down on the morrow. Give them to
the silent sisters for cleaning.” It would be hell to match
them with the bodies, he supposed, yet it must be done. Even in the
midst of war certain decencies needed to be observed.
Vylarr grew hesitant. “His Grace has told us he wishes the
traitors’ heads to remain on the walls until he fills those
last three empty spikes there on the end.”
“Let me hazard a wild stab. One is for Robb Stark, the
others for Lords Stannis and Renly. Would that be right?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“My nephew is thirteen years old today, Vylarr. Try and
recall that. I’ll have the heads down on the morrow, or one
of those empty spikes may have a different lodger. Do you take my
meaning, Captain?”
“I’ll see that they’re taken down myself, my
lord.”
“Good.” Tyrion put his heels into his horse and
trotted away, leaving the red cloaks to follow as best they
could.
He had told Cersei he intended to take the measure of the city.
That was not entirely a lie. Tyrion Lannister was not pleased by
much of what he saw. The streets of King’s Landing had always
been teeming and raucous and noisy, but now they reeked of danger
in a way that he did not recall from past visits. A naked corpse
sprawled in the gutter near the Street of Looms, being torn at by a
pack of feral dogs, yet no one seemed to care. Watchmen were much
in evidence, moving in pairs through the alleys in their gold
cloaks and shirts of black ringmail, iron cudgels never far from
their hands. The markets were crowded with ragged men selling their
household goods for any price they could
get . . . and conspicuously empty of farmers
selling food. What little produce he did see was three times as
costly as it had been a year ago. One peddler was hawking rats
roasted on a skewer. “Fresh rats,” he cried loudly,
“fresh rats.” Doubtless fresh rats were to be preferred
to old stale rotten rats. The frightening thing was, the rats
looked more appetizing than most of what the butchers were selling.
On the Street of Flour, Tyrion saw guards at every other shop door.
When times grew lean, even bakers found sellswords cheaper than
bread, he reflected.
“There is no food coming in, is there?” he said to
Vylarr.
“Little enough,” the captain admitted. “With
the war in the riverlands and Lord Renly raising rebels in
Highgarden, the roads are closed to south and west.”
“And what has my good sister done about this?”
“She is taking steps to restore the king’s
peace,” Vylarr assured him. “Lord Slynt has tripled the
size of the City Watch, and the queen has put a thousand craftsmen
to work on our defenses. The stonemasons are strengthening the
walls, carpenters are building scorpions and catapults by the
hundred, fletchers are making arrows, the smiths are forging
blades, and the Alchemists’ Guild has pledged ten thousand
jars of wildfire.”
Tyrion shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He was pleased that
Cersei had not been idle, but wildfire was treacherous stuff, and
ten thousand jars were enough to turn all of King’s Landing
into cinders. “Where has my sister found the coin to pay for
all of this?” It was no secret that King Robert had left the
crown vastly in debt, and alchemists were seldom mistaken for
altruists.
“Lord Littlefinger always finds a way, my lord. He has
imposed a tax on those wishing to enter the city.”
“Yes, that would work,” Tyrion said, thinking,
Clever. Clever and cruel. Tens of thousands had fled the fighting
for the supposed safety of King’s Landing. He had seen them
on the kingsroad, troupes of mothers and children and anxious
fathers who had gazed on his horses and wagons with covetous eyes.
Once they reached the city they would doubtless pay over all they
had to put those high comforting walls between them and the
war . . . though they might think twice if they
knew about the wildfire.
The inn beneath the sign of the broken anvil stood within sight
of those walls, near the Gate of the Gods where they had entered
that morning. As they rode into its courtyard, a boy ran out to
help Tyrion down from his horse. “Take your men back to the
castle,” he told Vylarr. “I’ll be spending the
night here.”
The captain looked dubious. “Will you be safe, my
lord?”
“Well, as to that, Captain, when I left the inn this
morning it was full of Black Ears. One is never quite safe when
Chella daughter of Cheyk is about.” Tyrion waddled toward the
door, leaving Vylarr to puzzle at his meaning.
A gust of merriment greeted him as he shoved into the
inn’s common room. He recognized Chella’s throaty
chuckle and the lighter music of Shae’s laughter. The girl
was seated by the hearth, sipping wine at a round wooden table with
three of the Black Ears he’d left to guard her and a plump
man whose back was to him. The innkeeper, he
assumed . . . until Shae called Tyrion by name
and the intruder rose. “My good lord, I am so pleased to see
you,” he gushed, a soft eunuch’s smile on his powdered
face.
Tyrion stumbled. “Lord Varys. I had not thought to see you
here.” The Others take him, how did he find them so
quickly?
“Forgive me if I intrude,” Varys said. “I was
taken by a sudden urge to meet your young lady.”
“Young lady,” Shae repeated, savoring the words.
“You’re half right, m’lord. I’m
young.” Eighteen, Tyrion thought. Eighteen, and a whore, but quick of
wit, nimble as a cat between the sheets, with large dark eyes and
fine black hair and a sweet, soft, hungry little
mouth . . . and mine! Damn you, eunuch.
“I fear I’m the intruder, Lord Varys,” he said
with forced courtesy. “When I came in, you were in the midst
of some merriment.”
“M’lord Varys complimented Chella on her ears and
said she must have killed many men to have such a fine
necklace,” Shae explained. It grated on him to hear her call
Varys m’lord in that tone; that was what she called him in
their pillow play. “And Chella told him only cowards kill the
vanquished.”
“Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse
his shame by winning back his ear,” explained Chella, a small
dark woman whose grisly neckware was hung with no less than
forty-six dried, wrinkled ears. Tyrion had counted them once.
“Only so can you prove you do not fear your
enemies.”
Shae hooted. “And then m’lord says if he was a Black
Ear he’d never sleep, for dreams of one-eared men.”
“A problem I will never need face,” Tyrion said.
“I’m terrified of my enemies, so I kill them
all.”
Varys giggled. “Will you take some wine with us, my
lord?”
“I’ll take some wine.” Tyrion seated himself
beside Shae. He understood what was happening here, if Chella and
the girl did not. Varys was delivering a message. When he said, I
was taken by a sudden urge to meet your young lady, what he meant
was, You tried to hide her, but I knew where she was, and who she
was, and here I am. He wondered who had betrayed him. The
innkeeper, that boy in the stable, a guard on the
gate . . . or one of his own?
“I always like to return to the city through the Gate of
the Gods,” Varys told Shae as he filled the wine cups.
“The carvings on the gatehouse are exquisite, they make me
weep each time I see them. The eyes . . . so
expressive, don’t you think? They almost seem to follow you
as you ride beneath the portcullis.”
“I never noticed, m’lord,” Shae replied.
“I’ll look again on the morrow, if it please
you.” Don’t bother, sweetling, Tyrion thought, swirling the wine
in the cup. He cares not a whit about carvings. The eyes he boasts
of are his own. What he means is that he was watching, that he knew
we were here the moment we passed through the gates.
“Do be careful, child,” Varys urged.
“King’s Landing is not wholly safe these days. I know
these streets well, and yet I almost feared to come today, alone
and unarmed as I was. Lawless men are everywhere in this dark time,
oh, yes. Men with cold steel and colder hearts.” Where I can
come alone and unarmed, others can come with swords in their fists,
he was saying.
Shae only laughed. “If they try and bother me,
they’ll be one ear short when Chella runs them
off.”
Varys hooted as if that was the funniest thing he had ever
heard, but there was no laughter in his eyes when he turned them on
Tyrion. “Your young lady has an amiable way to her. I should
take very good care of her if I were you.”
“I intend to. Any man who tries to harm her—well,
I’m too small to be a Black Ear, and I make no claims to
courage.” See? I speak the same tongue you do, eunuch. Hurt
her, and I’ll have your head.
“I will leave you.” Varys rose. “I know how
weary you must be. I only wished to welcome you, my lord, and tell
you how very pleased I am by your arrival. We have dire need of you
on the council. Have you seen the comet?”
“I’m short, not blind,” Tyrion said. Out on
the kingsroad, it had seemed to cover half the sky, outshining the
crescent moon.
“In the streets, they call it the Red Messenger,”
Varys said. “They say it comes as a herald before a king, to
warn of fire and blood to follow.” The eunuch rubbed his
powdered hands together. “May I leave you with a bit of a
riddle, Lord Tyrion?” He did not wait for an answer.
“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich
man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of
common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him
slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I
am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest,
‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do
it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be
yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?” Bowing
deeply, the eunuch hurried from the common room on soft slippered
feet.
When he was gone, Chella gave a snort and Shae wrinkled up her
pretty face. “The rich man lives. Doesn’t
he?”
Tyrion sipped at his wine, thoughtful. “Perhaps. Or not.
That would depend on the sellsword, it seems.” He set down
his cup. “Come, let’s go upstairs.”
She had to wait for him at the top of the steps, for her legs
were slim and supple while his were short and stunted and full of
aches. But she was smiling when he reached her. “Did you miss
me?” she teased as she took his hand.
“Desperately,” Tyrion admitted. Shae only stood a
shade over five feet, yet still he must look up to
her . . . but in her case he found he did not
mind. She was sweet to look up at.
“You’ll miss me all the time in your Red
Keep,” she said as she led him to her room. “All alone
in your cold bed in your Tower of the Hand.”
“Too true.” Tyrion would gladly have kept her with
him, but his lord father had forbidden it. You will not take the
whore to court, Lord Tywin had commanded. Bringing her to the city
was as much defiance as he dared. All his authority derived from
his father, the girl had to understand that. “You won’t
be far,” he promised. “You’ll have a house, with
guards and servants, and I’ll visit as often as I’m
able.”
Shae kicked shut the door. Through the cloudy panes of the
narrow window, he could make out the Great Sept of Baelor crowning
Visenya’s Hill but Tyrion was distracted by a different
sight. Bending, Shae took her gown by the hem, drew it over her
head, and tossed it aside. She did not believe in smallclothes.
“You’ll never be able to rest,” she said as she
stood before him, pink and nude and lovely, one hand braced on her
hip. “You’ll think of me every time you go to bed. Then
you’ll get hard and you’ll have no one to help you and
you’ll never be able to sleep unless you”—she grinned
that wicked grin Tyrion liked so well—“is that why they
call it the Tower of the Hand, m’lord?”
“Be quiet and kiss me,” he commanded.
He could taste the wine on her lips, and feel her small firm
breasts pressed against him as her fingers moved to the lacings of
his breeches. “My lion,” she whispered when he broke
off the kiss to undress. “My sweet lord, my giant of
Lannister.” Tyrion pushed her toward the bed. When he entered
her, she screamed loud enough to wake Baelor the Blessed in his
tomb, and her nails left gouges in his back. He’d never had a
pain he liked half so well. Fool, he thought to himself afterward, as they lay in the center
of the sagging mattress amidst the rumpled sheets. Will you never
learn, dwarf? She’s a whore, damn you, it’s your coin
she loves, not your cock. Remember Tysha? Yet when his fingers
trailed lightly over one nipple, it stiffened at the touch, and he
could see the mark on her breast where he’d bitten her in his
passion.
“So what will you do, m’lord, now that you’re
the Hand of the King?” Shae asked him as he cupped that warm
sweet flesh.
“Something Cersei will never expect,” Tyrion
murmured softly against her slender neck. “I’ll
do . . . justice.”
In the chilly white raiment of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon Moore
looked like a corpse in a shroud. “Her Grace left orders, the
council in session is not to be disturbed.”
“I would be only a small disturbance, ser.” Tyrion
slid the parchment from his sleeve. “I bear a letter from my
father, Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King. There is his
seal.”
“Her Grace does not wish to be disturbed,” Ser
Mandon repeated slowly, as if Tyrion were a dullard who had not
heard him the first time.
Jaime had once told him that Moore was the most dangerous of the
Kingsguard—excepting himself, always—because his face gave no hint
as what he might do next. Tyrion would have welcomed a hint. Bronn
and Timett could likely kill the knight if it came to swords, but
it would scarcely bode well if he began by slaying one of
Joffrey’s protectors. Yet if he let the man turn him away,
where was his authority? He made himself smile. “Ser Mandon,
you have not met my companions. This is Timett son of Timett, a red
hand of the Burned Men. And this is Bronn. Perchance you recall Ser
Vardis Egen, who was captain of Lord Arryn’s household
guard?”
“I know the man.” Ser Mandon’s eyes were pale
grey, oddly flat and lifeless.
“Knew,” Bronn corrected with a thin smile.
Ser Mandon did not deign to show that he had heard that.
“Be that as it may,” Tyrion said lightly, “I
truly must see my sister and present my letter, ser. If you would
be so kind as to open the door for us?”
The white knight did not respond. Tyrion was almost at the point
of trying to force his way past when Ser Mandon abruptly stood
aside. “You may enter. They may not.” A small victory, he thought, but sweet. He had passed his first
test. Tyrion Lannister shouldered through the door, feeling almost
tall. Five members of the king’s small council broke off
their discussion suddenly. “You,” his sister Cersei
said in a tone that was equal parts disbelief and distaste.
“I can see where Joffrey learned his courtesies.”
Tyrion paused to admire the pair of Valyrian sphinxes that guarded
the door, affecting an air of casual confidence. Cersei could smell
weakness the way a dog smells fear.
“What are you doing here?” His sister’s lovely
green eyes studied him without the least hint of affection.
“Delivering a letter from our lord father.” He
sauntered to the table and placed the tightly rolled parchment
between them.
The eunuch Varys took the letter and turned it in his delicate
powdered hands. “How kind of Lord Tywin. And his scaling wax
is such a lovely shade of gold.” Varys gave the seal a close
inspection. “It gives every appearance of being
genuine.”
“Of course it’s genuine.” Cersei snatched it
out of his hands. She broke the wax and unrolled the parchment.
Tyrion watched her read. His sister had taken the king’s
seat for herself—he gathered Joffrey did not often trouble to
attend council meetings, no more than Robert had—so Tyrion climbed
up into the Hand’s chair. it seemed only appropriate.
“This is absurd,” the queen said at last. “My
lord father has sent my brother to sit in his place in this
council. He bids us accept Tyrion as the Hand of the King, until
such time as he himself can join us.”
Grand Maester Pycelle stroked his flowing white beard and nodded
ponderously. “It would seem that a welcome is in
order.”
“Indeed.” Jowly, balding Janos Slynt looked rather
like a frog, a smug frog who had gotten rather above himself.
“We have sore need of you, my lord. Rebellion everywhere,
this grim omen in the sky, rioting in the city
streets . . . ”
“And whose fault is that, Lord Janos?” Cersei lashed
out. “Your gold cloaks are charged with keeping order. As to
you, Tyrion, you could better serve us on the field of
battle.”
He laughed. “No, I’m done with fields of battle,
thank you. I sit a chair better than a horse, and I’d sooner
hold a wine goblet than a battle-axe. All that about the thunder of
the drums, sunlight flashing on armor, magnificent destriers
snorting and prancing? Well, the drums gave me headaches, the
sunlight flashing on my armor cooked me up like a harvest day
goose, and those magnificent destriers shit everywhere. Not that I
am complaining. Compared to the hospitality I enjoyed in the Vale
of Arryn, drums, horseshit, and fly bites are my favorite
things.”
Littlefinger laughed. “Well said, Lannister. A man after
my own heart.”
Tyrion smiled at him, remembering a certain dagger with a
dragonbone hilt and a Valyrian steel blade. We must have a talk
about that, and soon. He wondered if Lord Petyr would find that
subject amusing as well. “Please,” he told them,
“do let me be of service, in whatever small way I
can.”
Cersei read the letter again. “How many men have you
brought with you? “
“A few hundred. My own men, chiefly. Father was loath to
part with any of his. He is fighting a war, after all.”
“What use will your few hundred men be if Renly marches on
the city, or Stannis sails from Dragonstone? I ask for an army and
my father sends me a dwarf. The king names the Hand, with the
consent of council. Joffrey named our lord father.”
“And our lord father named me.”
“He cannot do that. Not without Joff’s
consent.”
“Lord Tywin is at Harrenhal with his host, if you’d
care to take it up with him,” Tyrion said politely. “My
lords, perchance you would permit me a private word with my
sister?”
Varys slithered to his feet, smiling in that unctuous way he
had. “How you must have yearned for the sound of your sweet
sister’s voice. My lords, please, let us give them a few
moments together. The woes of our troubled realm shall
keep.”
Janos Slynt rose hesitantly and Grand Maester Pycelle
ponderously, yet they rose. Littlefinger was the last. “Shall
I tell the steward to prepare chambers in Maegor’s
Holdfast?”
“My thanks, Lord Petyr, but I will be taking Lord
Stark’s former quarters in the Tower of the Hand.”
Littlefinger laughed. “You’re a braver man than me,
Lannister. You do know the fate of our last two Hands?”
“Two? If you mean to frighten me, why not say
four?”
“Four?” Littlefinger raised an eyebrow. “Did
the Hands before Lord Arryn meet some dire end in the Tower?
I’m afraid I was too young to pay them much mind.”
“Aerys Targaryen’s last Hand was killed during the
Sack of King’s Landing, though I doubt he’d had time to
settle into the Tower. He was only Hand for a fortnight. The one
before him was burned to death. And before them came two others who
died landless and penniless in exile, and counted themselves lucky.
I believe my lord father was the last Hand to depart King’s
Landing with his name, properties, and parts all intact.”
“Fascinating,” said Littlefinger. “And all the
more reason I’d sooner bed down in the dungeon.” Perhaps you’ll get that wish, Tyrion thought, but he said,
“Courage and folly are cousins, or so I’ve heard.
Whatever curse may linger over the Tower of the Hand, I pray
I’m small enough to escape its notice.”
Janos Slynt laughed, Littlefinger smiled, and Grand Maester
Pycelle followed them both out, bowing gravely.
“I hope Father did not send you all this way to plague us
with history lessons,” his sister said when they were
alone.
“How I have yearned for the sound of your sweet
voice,” Tyrion sighed to her.
“How I have yearned to have that eunuch’s tongue
pulled out with hot pincers,” Cersei replied. “Has
father lost his senses? Or did you forge this letter?” She
read it once more, with mounting annoyance. “Why would he
inflict you on me? I wanted him to come himself.” She crushed
Lord Tywin’s letter in her fingers. “I am
Joffrey’s regent, and I sent him a royal command!”
“And he ignored you,” Tyrion pointed out. “He
has quite a large army, he can do that. Nor is he the first. Is
he?”
Cersei’s mouth tightened. He could see her color rising.
“If I name this letter a forgery and tell them to throw you
in a dungeon, no one will ignore that, I promise you.”
He was walking on rotten ice now, Tyrion knew. One false step
and he would plunge through. “No one,” he agreed
amiably, “least of all our father. The one with the army. But
why should you want to throw me into a dungeon, sweet sister, when
I’ve come all this long way to help you? “
“I do not require your help. It was our father’s
presence that I commanded.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “but it’s Jaime
you want.”
His sister fancied herself subtle, but he had grown up with her.
He could read her face like one of his favorite books, and what he
read now was rage, and fear, and despair.
“Jaime—”
“—is my brother no less than yours,” Tyrion
interrupted. “Give me your support and I promise you, we will
have Jaime freed and returned to us unharmed.”
“How?” Cersei demanded. “The Stark boy and his
mother are not like to forget that we beheaded Lord
Eddard.”
“True,” Tyrion agreed, “yet you still hold his
daughters, don’t you? I saw the older girl out in the yard
with Joffrey.”
“Sansa,” the queen said. “I’ve given it
out that I have the younger brat as well, but it’s a lie. I
sent Meryn Trant to take her in hand when Robert died, but her
wretched dancing master interfered and the girl fled. No one has
seen her since. Likely she’s dead. A great many people died
that day.”
Tyrion had hoped for both Stark girls, but he supposed one would
have to do. “Tell me about our friends on the
council.”
His sister glanced at the door. “What of them?”
“Father seems to have taken a dislike to them. When I left
him, he was wondering how their heads might look on the wall beside
Lord Stark’s.” He leaned forward across the table.
“Are you certain of their loyalty? Do you trust
them?”
“I trust no one,” Cersei snapped. “I need
them. Does Father believe they are playing us false?”
“Suspects, rather.”
“Why? What does he know?”
Tyrion shrugged. “He knows that your son’s short
reign has been a long parade of follies and disasters. That
suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad
counsel.”
Cersei gave him a searching look. “Joff has had no lack of
good counsel. He’s always been strong-willed. Now that
he’s king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as
he’s bid.”
“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them,”
Tyrion agreed. “This business with Eddard
Stark . . . Joffrey’s work?”
The queen grimaced. “He was instructed to pardon Stark, to
allow him to take the black. The man would have been out of our way
forever, and we might have made peace with that son of his, but
Joff took it upon himself to give the mob a better show. What was I
to do? He called for Lord Eddard’s head in front of half the
city. And Janos Slynt and Ser Ilyn went ahead blithely and
shortened the man without a word from me!” Her hand tightened
into a fist. “The High Septon claims we profaned
Baelor’s Sept with blood, after lying to him about our
intent.”
“It would seem he has a point,” said Tyrion.
“So this Lord Slynt, he was part of it, was he? Tell me,
whose fine notion was it to grant him Harrenhal and name him to the
council?”
“Littlefinger made the arrangements. We needed
Slynt’s gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was plotting with Renly and
he’d written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We
might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa
hadn’t come to me and told me all her father’s
plans . . . ”
Tyrion was surprised. “Truly? His own daughter?”
Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and
courteous.
“The girl was wet with love. She would have done anything
for Joffrey, until he cut off her father’s head and called it
mercy. That put an end to that.”
“His Grace has a unique way of winning the hearts of his
subjects,” Tyrion said with a crooked smile. “Was it
Joffrey’s wish to dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy from his
Kingsguard too?”
Cersei sighed. “Joff wanted someone to blame for
Robert’s death. Varys suggested Ser Barristan. Why not? It
gave Jaime command of the Kingsguard and a seat on the small
council, and allowed Joff to throw a bone to his dog. He is very
fond of Sandor Clegane. We were prepared to offer Selmy some land
and a towerhouse, more than the useless old fool
deserved.”
“I hear that useless old fool slew two of Slynt’s
gold cloaks when they tried to seize him at the Mud
Gate.”
His sister looked very unhappy. “Janos should have sent
more men. He is not as competent as might be wished.”
“Ser Barristan was the Lord Commander of Robert
Baratheon’s Kingsguard,” Tyrion reminded her pointedly.
“He and Jaime are the only survivors of Aerys
Targaryen’s seven. The smallfolk talk of him in the same way
they talk of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield and Prince Aemon the
Dragonknight. What do you imagine they’ll think when they see
Barristan the Bold riding beside Robb Stark or Stannis
Baratheon?”
Cersei glanced away. “I had not considered
that.”
“Father did,” said Tyrion. “That is why he
sent me. To put an end to these follies and bring your son to
heel.”
“Joff will be no more tractable for you than for
me.”
“He might.”
“Why should he?”
“He knows you would never hurt him.”
Cersei’s eyes narrowed. “If you believe I’d
ever allow you to harm my son, you’re sick with
fever.”
Tyrion sighed. She’d missed the point, as she did so
often. “Joffrey is as safe with me as he is with you,”
he assured her, “but so long as the boy feels threatened,
he’ll be more inclined to listen.” He took her hand.
“I am your brother, you know. You need me, whether you care
to admit it or no. Your son needs me, if he’s to have a hope
of retaining that ugly iron chair.”
His sister seemed shocked that he would touch her. “You
have always been cunning.”
“In my own small way.” He grinned.
“It may be worth the trying . . . but
make no mistake, Tyrion. If I accept you, you shall be the
King’s Hand in name, but my Hand in truth. You will share all your plans and intentions with me before you
act, and you will do nothing without my consent. Do you
understand?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you agree?”
“Certainly,” he lied. “I am yours,
sister.” For as long as I need to be. “So, now that we
are of one purpose, we ought have no more secrets between us. You
say Joffrey had Lord Eddard killed, Varys dismissed Ser Barristan,
and Littlefinger gifted us with Lord Slynt. Who murdered Jon Arryn?
“
Cersei yanked her hand back. “How should I
know?”
“The grieving widow in the Eyrie seems to think it was me.
Where did she come by that notion, I wonder?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. That fool Eddard Stark
accused me of the same thing. He hinted that Lord Arryn suspected
or . . . well, believed . . . ”
“That you were fucking our sweet Jaime?”
She slapped him.
“Did you think I was as blind as Father?” Tyrion
rubbed his cheek. “Who you lie with is no matter to
me . . . although it doesn’t seem quite
just that you should open your legs for one brother and not the
other.”
She slapped him.
“Be gentle, Cersei, I’m only jesting with you. If
truth be told, I’d sooner have a nice whore. I never
understood what Jaime saw in you, apart from his own
reflection.”
She slapped him.
His cheeks were red and burning, yet he smiled. “If you
keep doing that, I may get angry.”
That stayed her hand. “Why should I care if you
do?”
“I have some new friends,” Tyrion confessed.
“You won’t like them at all. How did you kill
Robert?”
“He did that himself. All we did was help. When Lancel saw
that Robert was going after boar, he gave him strongwine. His
favorite sour red, but fortified, three times as potent as he was
used to. The great stinking fool loved it. He could have stopped
swilling it down anytime he cared to, but no, he drained one skin
and told Lancel to fetch another. The boar did the rest. You should
have been at the feast, Tyrion. There has never been a boar so
delicious. They cooked it with mushrooms and apples, and it tasted
like triumph.”
“Truly, sister, you were born to be a widow.” Tyrion
had rather liked Robert Baratheon, great blustering oaf that he
was . . . doubtless in part because his sister
loathed him so. “Now, if you are done slapping me, I will be
off.” He twisted his legs around and clambered down awkwardly
from the chair.
Cersei frowned. “I haven’t given you leave to
depart. I want to know how you intend to free Jaime.”
“I’ll tell you when I know. Schemes are like fruit,
they require a certain ripening. Right now, I have a mind to ride
through the streets and take the measure of this city.”
Tyrion rested his hand on the head of the sphinx beside the door.
“One parting request. Kindly make certain no harm comes to
Sansa Stark. It would not do to lose both the daughters.”
Outside the council chamber, Tyrion nodded to Ser Mandon and
made his way down the long vaulted hall. Bronn fell in beside him.
Of Timett son of Timett there was no sign. “Where’s our
red hand?” Tyrion asked.
“He felt an urge to explore. His kind was not made for
waiting about in halls.”
“I hope he doesn’t kill anyone important.” The
clansmen Tyrion had brought down from their fastnesses in the
Mountains of the Moon were loyal in their own fierce way, but they
were proud and quarrelsome as well, prone to answer insults real or
imagined with steel. “Try to find him. And while you are at
it, see that the rest have been quartered and fed. I want them in
the barracks beneath the Tower of the Hand, but don’t let the
steward put the Stone Crows near the Moon Brothers, and tell him
the Burned Men must have a hall all to themselves.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m riding back to the Broken Anvil.”
Bronn grinned insolently. “Need an escort? The talk is,
the streets are dangerous.”
“I’ll call upon the captain of my sister’s
household guard, and remind him that I am no less a Lannister than
she is. He needs to recall that his oath is to Casterly Rock, not
to Cersei or Joffrey.”
An hour later, Tyrion rode from the Red Keep accompanied by a
dozen Lannister guardsmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested
halfhelms. As they passed beneath the portcullis, he noted the
heads mounted atop the walls. Black with rot and old tar, they had
long since become unrecognizable. “Captain Vylarr,” he
called, “I want those taken down on the morrow. Give them to
the silent sisters for cleaning.” It would be hell to match
them with the bodies, he supposed, yet it must be done. Even in the
midst of war certain decencies needed to be observed.
Vylarr grew hesitant. “His Grace has told us he wishes the
traitors’ heads to remain on the walls until he fills those
last three empty spikes there on the end.”
“Let me hazard a wild stab. One is for Robb Stark, the
others for Lords Stannis and Renly. Would that be right?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“My nephew is thirteen years old today, Vylarr. Try and
recall that. I’ll have the heads down on the morrow, or one
of those empty spikes may have a different lodger. Do you take my
meaning, Captain?”
“I’ll see that they’re taken down myself, my
lord.”
“Good.” Tyrion put his heels into his horse and
trotted away, leaving the red cloaks to follow as best they
could.
He had told Cersei he intended to take the measure of the city.
That was not entirely a lie. Tyrion Lannister was not pleased by
much of what he saw. The streets of King’s Landing had always
been teeming and raucous and noisy, but now they reeked of danger
in a way that he did not recall from past visits. A naked corpse
sprawled in the gutter near the Street of Looms, being torn at by a
pack of feral dogs, yet no one seemed to care. Watchmen were much
in evidence, moving in pairs through the alleys in their gold
cloaks and shirts of black ringmail, iron cudgels never far from
their hands. The markets were crowded with ragged men selling their
household goods for any price they could
get . . . and conspicuously empty of farmers
selling food. What little produce he did see was three times as
costly as it had been a year ago. One peddler was hawking rats
roasted on a skewer. “Fresh rats,” he cried loudly,
“fresh rats.” Doubtless fresh rats were to be preferred
to old stale rotten rats. The frightening thing was, the rats
looked more appetizing than most of what the butchers were selling.
On the Street of Flour, Tyrion saw guards at every other shop door.
When times grew lean, even bakers found sellswords cheaper than
bread, he reflected.
“There is no food coming in, is there?” he said to
Vylarr.
“Little enough,” the captain admitted. “With
the war in the riverlands and Lord Renly raising rebels in
Highgarden, the roads are closed to south and west.”
“And what has my good sister done about this?”
“She is taking steps to restore the king’s
peace,” Vylarr assured him. “Lord Slynt has tripled the
size of the City Watch, and the queen has put a thousand craftsmen
to work on our defenses. The stonemasons are strengthening the
walls, carpenters are building scorpions and catapults by the
hundred, fletchers are making arrows, the smiths are forging
blades, and the Alchemists’ Guild has pledged ten thousand
jars of wildfire.”
Tyrion shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He was pleased that
Cersei had not been idle, but wildfire was treacherous stuff, and
ten thousand jars were enough to turn all of King’s Landing
into cinders. “Where has my sister found the coin to pay for
all of this?” It was no secret that King Robert had left the
crown vastly in debt, and alchemists were seldom mistaken for
altruists.
“Lord Littlefinger always finds a way, my lord. He has
imposed a tax on those wishing to enter the city.”
“Yes, that would work,” Tyrion said, thinking,
Clever. Clever and cruel. Tens of thousands had fled the fighting
for the supposed safety of King’s Landing. He had seen them
on the kingsroad, troupes of mothers and children and anxious
fathers who had gazed on his horses and wagons with covetous eyes.
Once they reached the city they would doubtless pay over all they
had to put those high comforting walls between them and the
war . . . though they might think twice if they
knew about the wildfire.
The inn beneath the sign of the broken anvil stood within sight
of those walls, near the Gate of the Gods where they had entered
that morning. As they rode into its courtyard, a boy ran out to
help Tyrion down from his horse. “Take your men back to the
castle,” he told Vylarr. “I’ll be spending the
night here.”
The captain looked dubious. “Will you be safe, my
lord?”
“Well, as to that, Captain, when I left the inn this
morning it was full of Black Ears. One is never quite safe when
Chella daughter of Cheyk is about.” Tyrion waddled toward the
door, leaving Vylarr to puzzle at his meaning.
A gust of merriment greeted him as he shoved into the
inn’s common room. He recognized Chella’s throaty
chuckle and the lighter music of Shae’s laughter. The girl
was seated by the hearth, sipping wine at a round wooden table with
three of the Black Ears he’d left to guard her and a plump
man whose back was to him. The innkeeper, he
assumed . . . until Shae called Tyrion by name
and the intruder rose. “My good lord, I am so pleased to see
you,” he gushed, a soft eunuch’s smile on his powdered
face.
Tyrion stumbled. “Lord Varys. I had not thought to see you
here.” The Others take him, how did he find them so
quickly?
“Forgive me if I intrude,” Varys said. “I was
taken by a sudden urge to meet your young lady.”
“Young lady,” Shae repeated, savoring the words.
“You’re half right, m’lord. I’m
young.” Eighteen, Tyrion thought. Eighteen, and a whore, but quick of
wit, nimble as a cat between the sheets, with large dark eyes and
fine black hair and a sweet, soft, hungry little
mouth . . . and mine! Damn you, eunuch.
“I fear I’m the intruder, Lord Varys,” he said
with forced courtesy. “When I came in, you were in the midst
of some merriment.”
“M’lord Varys complimented Chella on her ears and
said she must have killed many men to have such a fine
necklace,” Shae explained. It grated on him to hear her call
Varys m’lord in that tone; that was what she called him in
their pillow play. “And Chella told him only cowards kill the
vanquished.”
“Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse
his shame by winning back his ear,” explained Chella, a small
dark woman whose grisly neckware was hung with no less than
forty-six dried, wrinkled ears. Tyrion had counted them once.
“Only so can you prove you do not fear your
enemies.”
Shae hooted. “And then m’lord says if he was a Black
Ear he’d never sleep, for dreams of one-eared men.”
“A problem I will never need face,” Tyrion said.
“I’m terrified of my enemies, so I kill them
all.”
Varys giggled. “Will you take some wine with us, my
lord?”
“I’ll take some wine.” Tyrion seated himself
beside Shae. He understood what was happening here, if Chella and
the girl did not. Varys was delivering a message. When he said, I
was taken by a sudden urge to meet your young lady, what he meant
was, You tried to hide her, but I knew where she was, and who she
was, and here I am. He wondered who had betrayed him. The
innkeeper, that boy in the stable, a guard on the
gate . . . or one of his own?
“I always like to return to the city through the Gate of
the Gods,” Varys told Shae as he filled the wine cups.
“The carvings on the gatehouse are exquisite, they make me
weep each time I see them. The eyes . . . so
expressive, don’t you think? They almost seem to follow you
as you ride beneath the portcullis.”
“I never noticed, m’lord,” Shae replied.
“I’ll look again on the morrow, if it please
you.” Don’t bother, sweetling, Tyrion thought, swirling the wine
in the cup. He cares not a whit about carvings. The eyes he boasts
of are his own. What he means is that he was watching, that he knew
we were here the moment we passed through the gates.
“Do be careful, child,” Varys urged.
“King’s Landing is not wholly safe these days. I know
these streets well, and yet I almost feared to come today, alone
and unarmed as I was. Lawless men are everywhere in this dark time,
oh, yes. Men with cold steel and colder hearts.” Where I can
come alone and unarmed, others can come with swords in their fists,
he was saying.
Shae only laughed. “If they try and bother me,
they’ll be one ear short when Chella runs them
off.”
Varys hooted as if that was the funniest thing he had ever
heard, but there was no laughter in his eyes when he turned them on
Tyrion. “Your young lady has an amiable way to her. I should
take very good care of her if I were you.”
“I intend to. Any man who tries to harm her—well,
I’m too small to be a Black Ear, and I make no claims to
courage.” See? I speak the same tongue you do, eunuch. Hurt
her, and I’ll have your head.
“I will leave you.” Varys rose. “I know how
weary you must be. I only wished to welcome you, my lord, and tell
you how very pleased I am by your arrival. We have dire need of you
on the council. Have you seen the comet?”
“I’m short, not blind,” Tyrion said. Out on
the kingsroad, it had seemed to cover half the sky, outshining the
crescent moon.
“In the streets, they call it the Red Messenger,”
Varys said. “They say it comes as a herald before a king, to
warn of fire and blood to follow.” The eunuch rubbed his
powdered hands together. “May I leave you with a bit of a
riddle, Lord Tyrion?” He did not wait for an answer.
“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich
man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of
common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him
slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I
am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest,
‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do
it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be
yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?” Bowing
deeply, the eunuch hurried from the common room on soft slippered
feet.
When he was gone, Chella gave a snort and Shae wrinkled up her
pretty face. “The rich man lives. Doesn’t
he?”
Tyrion sipped at his wine, thoughtful. “Perhaps. Or not.
That would depend on the sellsword, it seems.” He set down
his cup. “Come, let’s go upstairs.”
She had to wait for him at the top of the steps, for her legs
were slim and supple while his were short and stunted and full of
aches. But she was smiling when he reached her. “Did you miss
me?” she teased as she took his hand.
“Desperately,” Tyrion admitted. Shae only stood a
shade over five feet, yet still he must look up to
her . . . but in her case he found he did not
mind. She was sweet to look up at.
“You’ll miss me all the time in your Red
Keep,” she said as she led him to her room. “All alone
in your cold bed in your Tower of the Hand.”
“Too true.” Tyrion would gladly have kept her with
him, but his lord father had forbidden it. You will not take the
whore to court, Lord Tywin had commanded. Bringing her to the city
was as much defiance as he dared. All his authority derived from
his father, the girl had to understand that. “You won’t
be far,” he promised. “You’ll have a house, with
guards and servants, and I’ll visit as often as I’m
able.”
Shae kicked shut the door. Through the cloudy panes of the
narrow window, he could make out the Great Sept of Baelor crowning
Visenya’s Hill but Tyrion was distracted by a different
sight. Bending, Shae took her gown by the hem, drew it over her
head, and tossed it aside. She did not believe in smallclothes.
“You’ll never be able to rest,” she said as she
stood before him, pink and nude and lovely, one hand braced on her
hip. “You’ll think of me every time you go to bed. Then
you’ll get hard and you’ll have no one to help you and
you’ll never be able to sleep unless you”—she grinned
that wicked grin Tyrion liked so well—“is that why they
call it the Tower of the Hand, m’lord?”
“Be quiet and kiss me,” he commanded.
He could taste the wine on her lips, and feel her small firm
breasts pressed against him as her fingers moved to the lacings of
his breeches. “My lion,” she whispered when he broke
off the kiss to undress. “My sweet lord, my giant of
Lannister.” Tyrion pushed her toward the bed. When he entered
her, she screamed loud enough to wake Baelor the Blessed in his
tomb, and her nails left gouges in his back. He’d never had a
pain he liked half so well. Fool, he thought to himself afterward, as they lay in the center
of the sagging mattress amidst the rumpled sheets. Will you never
learn, dwarf? She’s a whore, damn you, it’s your coin
she loves, not your cock. Remember Tysha? Yet when his fingers
trailed lightly over one nipple, it stiffened at the touch, and he
could see the mark on her breast where he’d bitten her in his
passion.
“So what will you do, m’lord, now that you’re
the Hand of the King?” Shae asked him as he cupped that warm
sweet flesh.
“Something Cersei will never expect,” Tyrion
murmured softly against her slender neck. “I’ll
do . . . justice.”