Tyrion dressed himself in darkness, listening to his
wife’s soft breathing from the bed they shared. She dreams,
he thought, when Sansa murmured something softly—a name, perhaps,
though it was too faint to say—and turned onto her side. As man
and wife they shared a marriage bed, but that was all. Even her
tears she hoards to herself.
He had expected anguish and anger when he told her of her
brother’s death, but Sansa’s face had remained so still
that for a moment he feared she had not understood. It was only
later, with a heavy oaken door between them, that he heard her
sobbing. Tyrion had considered going to her then, to offer what
comfort he could. No, he had to remind himself, she will not look
for solace from a Lannister. The most he could do was to shield her
from the uglier details of the Red Wedding as they came down from
the Twins. Sansa did not need to hear how her brother’s body
had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her
mother’s corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in
a savage mockery of House Tully’s funeral customs. The last
thing the girl needed was more fodder for her nightmares.
It was not enough, though. He had wrapped his cloak around her
shoulders and sworn to protect her, but that was as cruel a jape as
the crown the Freys had placed atop the head of Robb Stark’s
direwolf after they’d sewn it onto his headless corpse. Sansa
knew that as well. The way she looked at him, her stiffness when
she climbed into their bed . . . when he was
with her, never for an instant could he forget who he was, or what
he was. No more than she did. She still went nightly to the
godswood to pray, and Tyrion wondered if she were praying for his
death. She had lost her home, her place in the world, and everyone
she had ever loved or trusted. Winter is coming, warned the Stark
words, and truly it had come for them with a vengeance. But it is
high summer for House Lannister. So why am I so bloody cold?
He pulled on his boots, fastened his cloak with a lion’s
head brooch, and slipped out into the torchlit hall. There was this
much to be said for his marriage; it had allowed him to escape
Maegor’s Holdfast. Now that he had a wife and household, his
lord father had agreed that more suitable accommodations were
required, and Lord Gyles had found himself abruptly dispossessed of
his spacious apartments atop the Kitchen Keep. And splendid
apartments they were too, with a large bedchamber and adequate
solar, a bath and dressing room for his wife, and small adjoining
chambers for Pod and Sansa’s maids. Even Bronn’s cell
by the stair had a window of sorts. Well, more an arrow slit, but
it lets in light. The castle’s main kitchen was just across
the courtyard, true, but Tyrion found those sounds and smells
infinitely preferable to sharing Maegor’s with his sister.
The less he had to see of Cersei the happier he was like to be.
Tyrion could hear Brella’s snoring as he passed her cell.
Shae complained of that, but it seemed a small enough price to pay.
Varys had suggested the woman to him; in former days, she had run
Lord Renly’s household in the city, which had given her a
deal of practice at being blind, deaf, and mute.
Lighting a taper, he made his way back to the servants’
steps and descended. The floors below his own were still, and he
heard no footsteps but his own. Down he went, to the ground floor
and beyond, to emerge in a gloomy cellar with a vaulted stone
ceiling. Much of the castle was connected underground, and the
Kitchen Keep was no exception. Tyrion waddled along a long dark
passageway until he found the door he wanted, and pushed
through.
Within, the dragon skulls were waiting, and so was Shae.
“I thought m’lord had forgotten me.” Her dress
was draped over a black tooth near as tall as she was, and she
stood within the dragon’s jaws, nude. Balerion, he thought.
Or was it Vhagar? One dragon skull looked much like another.
Just
the sight of her made him hard. “Come out of
there.”
“I won’t.” She smiled her wickedest smile.
“M’lord will pluck me from the dragon’s jaws, I
know.” But when he waddled closer she leaned forward and blew
out the taper.
“Shae . . . ” He reached, but
she spun and slipped free.
“You have to catch me.” Her voice came from his
left. “M’lord must have played monsters and maidens
when he was little.”
“Are you calling me a monster?”
“No more than I’m a maiden.” She was behind
him, her steps soft against the floor. “You need to catch me
all the same.”
He did, finally, but only because she let herself be caught. By
the time she slipped into his arms, he was flushed and out of
breath from stumbling into dragon skulls. All that was forgotten in
an instant when he felt her small breasts pressed against his face
in the dark, her stiff little nipples brushing lightly over his
lips and the scar where his nose had been. Tyrion pulled her down
onto the floor. “My giant,” she breathed as he entered
her. “My giant’s come to save me.”
After, as they lay entwined amongst the dragon skulls, he rested
his head against her, inhaling the smooth clean smell of her hair.
“We should go back,” he said reluctantly. “It
must be near dawn. Sansa will be waking.”
“You should give her dreamwine,” Shae said,
“like Lady Tanda does with Lollys. A cup before she goes to
sleep, and we could fuck in bed beside her without her
waking.” She giggled. “Maybe we should, some night.
Would m’lord like that?” Her hand found his shoulder,
and began to knead the muscles there. “Your neck is hard as
stone. What troubles you?”
Tyrion could not see his fingers in front of his face, but he
ticked his woes off on them all the same. “My wife. My
sister. My nephew. My father. The Tyrells.” He had to move to
his other hand. “Varys. Pycelle. Littlefinger. The Red Viper
of Dorne.” He had come to his last finger. “The face
that stares back out of the water when I wash.”
Shae kissed his maimed scarred nose. “A brave face. A kind
and good face. I wish I could see it now.”
All the sweet innocence of the world was in her voice.
Innocence? Fool, she’s a whore, all she knows of men is the
bit between their legs. Fool, fool. “Better you than
me.” Tyrion sat. “We have a long day before us, both of
us. You shouldn’t have blown out that taper. How are we to
find our clothing?”
She laughed. “Maybe we’ll have to go
naked.” And if we’re seen, my lord father will hang you. Hiring
Shae as one of Sansa’s maids had given him an excuse to be
seen talking with her, but Tyrion did not delude himself that they
were safe. Varys had warned him. “I gave Shae a false
history, but it was meant for Lollys and Lady Tanda. Your sister is
of a more suspicious mind. If she should ask me what I
know . . . ”
“You will tell her some clever lie.”
“No. I will tell her that the girl is a common camp
follower that you acquired before the battle on the Green Fork and
brought to King’s Landing against your lord father’s
express command. I will not lie to the queen.”
“You have lied to her before. Shall I tell her
that?”
The eunuch sighed. “That cuts more deeply than a knife, my
lord. I have served you loyally, but I must also serve your sister
when I can. How long do you think she would let me live if I were
of no further use to her whatsoever? I have no fierce sellsword to
protect me, no valiant brother to avenge me, only some little birds
who whisper in my ear. With those whisperings I must buy my life
anew each day.”
“Pardon me if I do not weep for you.”
“I shall, but you must pardon me if I do not weep for
Shae. I confess, I do not understand what there is in her to make a
clever man like you act such a fool.”
“You might, if you were not a eunuch.”
“Is that the way of it? A man may have wits, or a bit of
meat between his legs, but not both?” Varys tittered.
“Perhaps I should be grateful I was cut, then.” The Spider was right. Tyrion groped through the dragon-haunted
darkness for his smallclothes, feeling wretched. The risk he was
taking left him tight as a drumhead, and there was guilt as well.
The Others can take my guilt, he thought as he slipped his tunic
over his head. Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me,
and most especially not the part that seems to want her. Perhaps he
ought to tell her about Shae. It was not as though he was the first
man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa’s own oh-so-honorable
father had given her a bastard brother. For all he knew, his wife
might be thrilled to learn that he was fucking Shae, so long as it
spared her his unwelcome touch. No, I dare not. Vows or no, his wife could not be trusted. She
might be maiden between the legs, but she was hardly innocent of
betrayal; she had once spilled her own father’s plans to
Cersei. And girls her age were not known for keeping secrets.
The only safe course was to rid himself of Shae. I might send
her to Chataya, Tyrion reflected, reluctantly. In Chataya’s
brothel, Shae would have all the silks and gems she could wish for,
and the gentlest highborn patrons. It would be a better life by far
than the one she had been living when he’d found her.
Or, if she was tired of earning her bread on her back, he might
arrange a marriage for her. Bronn, perhaps? The sellsword had never
balked at eating off his master’s plate, and he was a knight
now, a better match than she could elsewise hope for. Or Ser
Tallad? Tyrion had noticed that one gazing wistfully at Shae more
than once. Why not? He’s tall, strong, not hard to look upon,
every inch the gifted young knight. Of course, Tallad knew Shae
only as a pretty young lady’s maid in service at the castle.
If he wed her and then learned she was a
whore . . .
“M’lord, where are you? Did the dragons eat you
up?”
“No. Here.” He groped at a dragon skull. “I
have found a shoe, but I believe it’s yours.”
“M’lord sounds very solemn. Have I displeased
you?”
“No,” he said, too curtly. “You always please
me.” And therein is our danger. He might dream of sending her
away at times like this, but that never lasted long. Tyrion saw her
dimly through the gloom, pulling a woolen sock up a slender leg. I
can see. A vague light was leaking through the row of long narrow
windows set high in the cellar wall. The skulls of the Targaryen
dragons were emerging from the darkness around them, black amidst
grey. “Day comes too soon.” A new day. A new year. A
new century. I survived the Green Fork and the Blackwater, I can
bloody well survive King Joffrey’s wedding.
Shae snatched her dress down off the dragon’s tooth and
slipped it over her head. “I’ll go up first. Brella
will want help with the bathwater.” She bent over to give him
one last kiss, upon the brow. “My giant of Lannister. I love
you so.” And I love you as well, sweetling. A whore she might well be,
but she deserved better than what he had to give her. I will wed
her to Ser Tallad. He seems a decent man. And
tall . . .
Tyrion dressed himself in darkness, listening to his
wife’s soft breathing from the bed they shared. She dreams,
he thought, when Sansa murmured something softly—a name, perhaps,
though it was too faint to say—and turned onto her side. As man
and wife they shared a marriage bed, but that was all. Even her
tears she hoards to herself.
He had expected anguish and anger when he told her of her
brother’s death, but Sansa’s face had remained so still
that for a moment he feared she had not understood. It was only
later, with a heavy oaken door between them, that he heard her
sobbing. Tyrion had considered going to her then, to offer what
comfort he could. No, he had to remind himself, she will not look
for solace from a Lannister. The most he could do was to shield her
from the uglier details of the Red Wedding as they came down from
the Twins. Sansa did not need to hear how her brother’s body
had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her
mother’s corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in
a savage mockery of House Tully’s funeral customs. The last
thing the girl needed was more fodder for her nightmares.
It was not enough, though. He had wrapped his cloak around her
shoulders and sworn to protect her, but that was as cruel a jape as
the crown the Freys had placed atop the head of Robb Stark’s
direwolf after they’d sewn it onto his headless corpse. Sansa
knew that as well. The way she looked at him, her stiffness when
she climbed into their bed . . . when he was
with her, never for an instant could he forget who he was, or what
he was. No more than she did. She still went nightly to the
godswood to pray, and Tyrion wondered if she were praying for his
death. She had lost her home, her place in the world, and everyone
she had ever loved or trusted. Winter is coming, warned the Stark
words, and truly it had come for them with a vengeance. But it is
high summer for House Lannister. So why am I so bloody cold?
He pulled on his boots, fastened his cloak with a lion’s
head brooch, and slipped out into the torchlit hall. There was this
much to be said for his marriage; it had allowed him to escape
Maegor’s Holdfast. Now that he had a wife and household, his
lord father had agreed that more suitable accommodations were
required, and Lord Gyles had found himself abruptly dispossessed of
his spacious apartments atop the Kitchen Keep. And splendid
apartments they were too, with a large bedchamber and adequate
solar, a bath and dressing room for his wife, and small adjoining
chambers for Pod and Sansa’s maids. Even Bronn’s cell
by the stair had a window of sorts. Well, more an arrow slit, but
it lets in light. The castle’s main kitchen was just across
the courtyard, true, but Tyrion found those sounds and smells
infinitely preferable to sharing Maegor’s with his sister.
The less he had to see of Cersei the happier he was like to be.
Tyrion could hear Brella’s snoring as he passed her cell.
Shae complained of that, but it seemed a small enough price to pay.
Varys had suggested the woman to him; in former days, she had run
Lord Renly’s household in the city, which had given her a
deal of practice at being blind, deaf, and mute.
Lighting a taper, he made his way back to the servants’
steps and descended. The floors below his own were still, and he
heard no footsteps but his own. Down he went, to the ground floor
and beyond, to emerge in a gloomy cellar with a vaulted stone
ceiling. Much of the castle was connected underground, and the
Kitchen Keep was no exception. Tyrion waddled along a long dark
passageway until he found the door he wanted, and pushed
through.
Within, the dragon skulls were waiting, and so was Shae.
“I thought m’lord had forgotten me.” Her dress
was draped over a black tooth near as tall as she was, and she
stood within the dragon’s jaws, nude. Balerion, he thought.
Or was it Vhagar? One dragon skull looked much like another.
Just
the sight of her made him hard. “Come out of
there.”
“I won’t.” She smiled her wickedest smile.
“M’lord will pluck me from the dragon’s jaws, I
know.” But when he waddled closer she leaned forward and blew
out the taper.
“Shae . . . ” He reached, but
she spun and slipped free.
“You have to catch me.” Her voice came from his
left. “M’lord must have played monsters and maidens
when he was little.”
“Are you calling me a monster?”
“No more than I’m a maiden.” She was behind
him, her steps soft against the floor. “You need to catch me
all the same.”
He did, finally, but only because she let herself be caught. By
the time she slipped into his arms, he was flushed and out of
breath from stumbling into dragon skulls. All that was forgotten in
an instant when he felt her small breasts pressed against his face
in the dark, her stiff little nipples brushing lightly over his
lips and the scar where his nose had been. Tyrion pulled her down
onto the floor. “My giant,” she breathed as he entered
her. “My giant’s come to save me.”
After, as they lay entwined amongst the dragon skulls, he rested
his head against her, inhaling the smooth clean smell of her hair.
“We should go back,” he said reluctantly. “It
must be near dawn. Sansa will be waking.”
“You should give her dreamwine,” Shae said,
“like Lady Tanda does with Lollys. A cup before she goes to
sleep, and we could fuck in bed beside her without her
waking.” She giggled. “Maybe we should, some night.
Would m’lord like that?” Her hand found his shoulder,
and began to knead the muscles there. “Your neck is hard as
stone. What troubles you?”
Tyrion could not see his fingers in front of his face, but he
ticked his woes off on them all the same. “My wife. My
sister. My nephew. My father. The Tyrells.” He had to move to
his other hand. “Varys. Pycelle. Littlefinger. The Red Viper
of Dorne.” He had come to his last finger. “The face
that stares back out of the water when I wash.”
Shae kissed his maimed scarred nose. “A brave face. A kind
and good face. I wish I could see it now.”
All the sweet innocence of the world was in her voice.
Innocence? Fool, she’s a whore, all she knows of men is the
bit between their legs. Fool, fool. “Better you than
me.” Tyrion sat. “We have a long day before us, both of
us. You shouldn’t have blown out that taper. How are we to
find our clothing?”
She laughed. “Maybe we’ll have to go
naked.” And if we’re seen, my lord father will hang you. Hiring
Shae as one of Sansa’s maids had given him an excuse to be
seen talking with her, but Tyrion did not delude himself that they
were safe. Varys had warned him. “I gave Shae a false
history, but it was meant for Lollys and Lady Tanda. Your sister is
of a more suspicious mind. If she should ask me what I
know . . . ”
“You will tell her some clever lie.”
“No. I will tell her that the girl is a common camp
follower that you acquired before the battle on the Green Fork and
brought to King’s Landing against your lord father’s
express command. I will not lie to the queen.”
“You have lied to her before. Shall I tell her
that?”
The eunuch sighed. “That cuts more deeply than a knife, my
lord. I have served you loyally, but I must also serve your sister
when I can. How long do you think she would let me live if I were
of no further use to her whatsoever? I have no fierce sellsword to
protect me, no valiant brother to avenge me, only some little birds
who whisper in my ear. With those whisperings I must buy my life
anew each day.”
“Pardon me if I do not weep for you.”
“I shall, but you must pardon me if I do not weep for
Shae. I confess, I do not understand what there is in her to make a
clever man like you act such a fool.”
“You might, if you were not a eunuch.”
“Is that the way of it? A man may have wits, or a bit of
meat between his legs, but not both?” Varys tittered.
“Perhaps I should be grateful I was cut, then.” The Spider was right. Tyrion groped through the dragon-haunted
darkness for his smallclothes, feeling wretched. The risk he was
taking left him tight as a drumhead, and there was guilt as well.
The Others can take my guilt, he thought as he slipped his tunic
over his head. Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me,
and most especially not the part that seems to want her. Perhaps he
ought to tell her about Shae. It was not as though he was the first
man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa’s own oh-so-honorable
father had given her a bastard brother. For all he knew, his wife
might be thrilled to learn that he was fucking Shae, so long as it
spared her his unwelcome touch. No, I dare not. Vows or no, his wife could not be trusted. She
might be maiden between the legs, but she was hardly innocent of
betrayal; she had once spilled her own father’s plans to
Cersei. And girls her age were not known for keeping secrets.
The only safe course was to rid himself of Shae. I might send
her to Chataya, Tyrion reflected, reluctantly. In Chataya’s
brothel, Shae would have all the silks and gems she could wish for,
and the gentlest highborn patrons. It would be a better life by far
than the one she had been living when he’d found her.
Or, if she was tired of earning her bread on her back, he might
arrange a marriage for her. Bronn, perhaps? The sellsword had never
balked at eating off his master’s plate, and he was a knight
now, a better match than she could elsewise hope for. Or Ser
Tallad? Tyrion had noticed that one gazing wistfully at Shae more
than once. Why not? He’s tall, strong, not hard to look upon,
every inch the gifted young knight. Of course, Tallad knew Shae
only as a pretty young lady’s maid in service at the castle.
If he wed her and then learned she was a
whore . . .
“M’lord, where are you? Did the dragons eat you
up?”
“No. Here.” He groped at a dragon skull. “I
have found a shoe, but I believe it’s yours.”
“M’lord sounds very solemn. Have I displeased
you?”
“No,” he said, too curtly. “You always please
me.” And therein is our danger. He might dream of sending her
away at times like this, but that never lasted long. Tyrion saw her
dimly through the gloom, pulling a woolen sock up a slender leg. I
can see. A vague light was leaking through the row of long narrow
windows set high in the cellar wall. The skulls of the Targaryen
dragons were emerging from the darkness around them, black amidst
grey. “Day comes too soon.” A new day. A new year. A
new century. I survived the Green Fork and the Blackwater, I can
bloody well survive King Joffrey’s wedding.
Shae snatched her dress down off the dragon’s tooth and
slipped it over her head. “I’ll go up first. Brella
will want help with the bathwater.” She bent over to give him
one last kiss, upon the brow. “My giant of Lannister. I love
you so.” And I love you as well, sweetling. A whore she might well be,
but she deserved better than what he had to give her. I will wed
her to Ser Tallad. He seems a decent man. And
tall . . .