LITMIR.BIZ

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he had never thought what the role might cost her. “I promised my sister I would treat Tommen as she treated Alayaya,” he remembered aloud. He felt as though he might retch. “How can I scourge an eight-year-old boy?” But if I don’t, Cersei wins.

      “You don’t have Tommen,” Bronn said bluntly. “Once she learned that Ironhand was dead, the queen sent the Kettleblacks after him, and no one at Rosby had the balls to say them nay.”

      Another blow; yet a relief as well, he must admit it. He was fond of Tommen. “The Kettleblacks were supposed to be ours,” he reminded Bronn with more than a touch of irritation.

      “They were, so long as I could give them two of your pennies for every one they had from the queen, but now she’s raised the stakes. Osney and Osfryd were made knights after the battle, same as me. Gods know what for, no one saw them do any fighting.”

      My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like? “Is it true that Stannis was put to rout by Renly’s ghost?”

      Bronn smiled thinly. “From the winch towers, all we saw was banners in the mud and men throwing down their spears to run, but there’s hundreds in the pot shops and brothels who’ll tell you how they saw Lord Renly kill this one or that one. Most of Stannis’s host had been Renly’s to start, and they went right back over at the sight of him in that shiny green armor.”

      After all his planning, after the sortie and the bridge of ships, after getting his face slashed in two, Tyrion had been eclipsed by a dead man. If indeed Renly is dead. Something else he would need to look into. “How did Stannis escape?”

      “His Lyseni kept their galleys out in the bay, beyond your chain. When the battle turned bad, they put in along the bay shore and took off as many as they could. Men were killing each other to get aboard, toward the end.”

      “What of Robb Stark, what has he been doing?”

      “There’s some of his wolves burning their way down toward Duskendale. Your father’s sending this Lord Tarly to sort them out. I’d half a mind to join him. It’s said he’s a good soldier, and openhanded with the plunder.”

      The thought of losing Bronn was the final straw. “No. Your place is here. You’re the captain of the Hand’s guard.”

      “You’re not the Hand,” Bronn reminded him sharply. “Your father is, and he’s got his own bloody guard.”

      “What happened to all the men you hired for me?”

      “Some died at the winch towers. That uncle of yours, Ser Kevan, he paid the rest of us and tossed us out.”

      “How good of him,” Tyrion said acidly. “Does that mean you’ve lost your taste for gold?”

      “Not bloody likely.”

      “Good,” said Tyrion, “because as it happens, I still have need of you. What do you know of Ser Mandon Moore?”

      Bronn laughed. “I know he’s bloody well drowned.”

      “I owe him a great debt, but how to pay it?” He touched his face, feeling the scar. “I know precious little of the man, if truth be told.”

      “He had eyes like a fish and he wore a white cloak. What else do you need to know?”

      “Everything,” said Tyrion, “for a start.” What he wanted was proof that Ser Mandon had been Cersei’s, but he dare not say so aloud. In the Red Keep a man did best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders. “Help me up,” he said, struggling with the bedclothes. “It’s time I paid a call on my father, and past time I let myself be seen again.”

      “Such a pretty sight,” mocked Bronn.

      “What’s half a nose, on a face like mine? But speaking of pretty, is Margaery Tyrell in King’s Landing yet?”

      “No. She’s coming, though, and the city’s mad with love for her. The Tyrells have been carting food up from Highgarden and giving it away in her name. Hundreds of wayns each day. There’s thousands of Tyrell men swaggering about with little golden roses sewn on their doublets, and not a one is buying his own wine. Wife, widow, or whore, the women are all giving up their virtue to every peach-fuzz boy with a gold rose on his teat.”

      They spit on me, and buy drinks for the Tyrells. Tyrion slid from the bed to the floor. His legs turned wobbly beneath him, the room spun, and he had to grasp Bronn’s arm to keep from pitching headlong into the rushes. “Pod!” he shouted. “Podrick Payne! Where in the seven hells are you?” Pain gnawed at him like a toothless dog. Tyrion hated weakness, especially his own. It shamed him, and shame made him angry. “Pod, get in here!”

      The boy came running. When he saw Tyrion standing and clutching Bronn’s arm, he gaped at them. “My lord. You stood. Is that … do you … do you need wine? Dreamwine? Should I get the maester? He said you must stay. Abed, I mean.”

      “I have stayed abed too long. Bring me some clean garb.”

      “Garb?”

      How the boy could be so clearheaded and resourceful in battle and so confused at all other times Tyrion could never comprehend. “Clothing,” he repeated. “Tunic, doublet, breeches, hose. For me. To dress in. So I can leave this bloody cell.”

      It took all three of them to clothe him. Hideous though his face might be, the worst of his wounds was the one at the juncture of shoulder and arm, where his own mail had been driven back into his armpit by an arrow. Pus and blood still seeped from the discolored flesh whenever Maester Frenken changed his dressing, and any movement sent a stab of agony through him.

      In the end, Tyrion settled for a pair of breeches and an oversized bed robe that hung loosely about his shoulders. Bronn yanked his boots onto his feet while Pod went in search of a stick for him to lean on. He drank a cup of dreamwine to fortify himself. The wine was sweetened with honey, with just enough of the poppy to make his wounds bearable for a time.

      Even so, he was dizzy by the time he turned the latch, and the descent down the twisting stone steps made his legs tremble. He walked with the stick in one hand and the other on Pod’s shoulder. A serving girl was coming up as they were going down. She stared at them with wide white eyes, as if she were looking at a ghost. The dwarf has risen from the dead, Tyrion thought. And look, he’s uglier than ever, run tell your friends.

      Maegor’s Holdfast was the strongest place in the Red Keep, a castle within the castle, surrounded by a deep dry moat lined with spikes. The drawbridge was up for the night when they reached the door. Ser Meryn Trant stood before it in his pale armor and white cloak. “Lower the bridge,” Tyrion commanded him.

      “The queen’s orders are to raise the bridge at night.” Ser Meryn had always been Cersei’s creature.

      “The queen’s asleep, and I have business with my father.”

      There was magic in the name of Lord Tywin Lannister. Grumbling, Ser Meryn Trant gave the command, and the drawbridge was lowered. A second Kingsguard knight stood sentry across the moat. Ser Osmund Kettleblack managed a smile when he saw Tyrion waddling toward him. “Feeling stronger, m’lord?”

      “Much. When’s the next battle? I can scarcely wait.”

      When Pod and he reached the serpentine steps, however, Tyrion could only gape at them in dismay. I will never climb those by myself, he confessed to himself. Swallowing his dignity, he asked Bronn to carry him, hoping against hope that at this hour there would be no one to see and smile, no one to tell the tale of the dwarf being carried up the steps like a babe in arms.

      The outer ward was crowded with tents and pavilions, dozens of them. “Tyrell men,” Podrick Payne explained as they threaded their way through a maze of silk and canvas. “Lord Rowan’s too, and Lord Redwyne’s. There wasn’t room enough for all. In

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