Chapter 11

The next morning, Tyrion stepped from the courtyard into his working quarters, and smirked when he saw Bronn already inside, sitting in the only other chair in the room, a faint smile on his face, his feet propped up on Tyrion's desk, peeling an apple with a knife in one long, continuous strip.

Tyrion sat down across from him, absently shuffled a few papers and then said, "What brings you by this morning?"

The sellsword looked up at him at his words and finished peeling the apple and then proceeded to take a bite.

After a long moment of chewing and then swallowing, he said, "Your wife and I will be havin' another trainin' session, today. Involves some new moves…" He paused and took another bite, and then dropped his feet from the desk and leaned forward in his chair, putting his elbows on his knees as he added, with a serious look, "And it will involve some…risk."

Tyrion chuckled and replied, almost flippantly, "You mean more so than what you're doing right now? My, I didn't think that was even possible," and he pulled a document towards him and began to sign it, not taking any more notice of the man across from him…until a knife suddenly made itself known in the stack of papers just to his left. Tyrion glared at him, and then pulled the knife out and handed it back to him, saying, "Alright, you have my attention. What sort of risk are we talking about?"

Bronn stood up and began to slowly pace as he spoke.

"The sort of risk where she might be…physically hurt." Tyrion glared at him, and simply said, "Explain."

Bronn nodded and stopped pacing as he said, "I want to teach her some offensive fighting. In case she has no choice but to attack. It involves some…techniques…that aren't, strictly speaking, entirely without the possibilities of broken bones if done wrong."

Tyrion arched an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him, thinking it over.

After a long moment, he looked up at his friend and asked, "Do you plan on letting her get hurt?" Bronn shook his head. "Then I don't see an issue."

At that, Bronn nodded his head, and turned to leave, but Tyrion's conscience about having told Shae about the sellsword training his wife, he called to him. The man stopped and turned towards him, his hand resting, as it usually did, in a deceptively casual manner on the hilt of his sword. Tyrion looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out where to start, opening and closing his mouth a few times before Bronn rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, just spit it out, already."

Grimacing, he nodded and finally managed to say, "Shae came to me last night accusing me of bedding my wife, as Sansa apparently has marks on her that would indicate that she had been…amorous with someone recently, in a rough manner of speaking. I had no choice but to defend my wife's honor and tell Shae the truth that you are training her…"

Bronn was silent.

So silent, in fact, that it worried Tyrion to some extent. The sellsword looked pensive and his shoulders had tightened and pulled back. Bronn then stared at him, and as Tyrion saw his hand tighten on the hilt of his sword, for a brief moment he felt a flicker of fear, certain that the mercenary was going to draw on him…but then his hand relaxed and Tyrion let out the breath that he had been holding in.

"Dammit," Bronn said, shaking his head in suppressed anger.

"What did you expect me to do? Let her believe that I was secretly fucking my wife behind her back?

Bronn's face tightened, and he said, "You could have told her…" But then he paused, obviously not finding the words, causing Tyrion to smirk.

"Precisely," replied Tyrion to the unspoken suggestion. "Nothing I told Shae would have kept Sansa safe except for the truth. So, you may be angry with me, but I honestly don't give a shit. So long as I'm still paying you, you'll still keep Sansa safe."

Bronn said nothing, but from the way his jaw was clenched and the way he dutifully avoided the Lannister's gaze, it told Tyrion that he agreed, but was still upset by the situation. Tyrion simply rolled his eyes and went back to his papers. Lord Baelish had been hounding his steps recently implied that he was trying to change how Tyrion was running the kingdom's finances. He was also fairly certain that Petyr was trying to find out more about Sansa and if she could be…influenced.

Had Sansa not been training with Bronn, Tyrion might not have been so sure, but because of the sellsword's influence, he was certain that she was safe. Safer than she had ever been before, actually.

Baelish, however, he knew had a strange determination when it came to Stark girl. Tyrion suspected that it was because of her uncanny resemblance to her mother at that age, but, despite his wariness, he trusted Bronn to keep her safe.

Bronn strode from Tyrion's offices, heading towards the handmaiden's quarter. He was more than a bit familiar with them, actually, but it had been a long time since he'd frequented that part of the castle. He was going to give Shae a piece of his mind, and, quite possibly, some of his sword.

Despite all of the trust that Tyrion seemed to put in her, the sellsword knew better than that.

He had meant what he'd told Sansa so many weeks before; Shae would sell anyone out for the right price, same as him…and he was also fairly positive that she wasn't above blackmail. In fact, Bronn was certain of it. The woman had very few morals, after all.

The sellsword quickened his pace, determination in his stride, ignoring the looks he received as he stormed into the rooms, his hand once more going to the hilt of his blade. Looking past the half-dressed and fully naked women, he found her, lounging casually at the side of the room, her breasts on full display as her violet dress fell lazily around her waist as two women lay next to her, completely oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their presence.

Looking her square in the eye, he strode up to her.

"You and I need to have a talk," he said simply.

Shae raised an eyebrow at his words, but then said, in a bored tone, "Fine. Talk," not even bothering to try and cover herself up.

Bronn shook his head.

"Not here."

Again, Shae raised her eyebrow, but after a silent stare down, during which the women proceeded to strip down and involve themselves in some interesting acrobatics, she finally acquiesced and slowly rose, taking her time as she drew her dress back over her shoulders. He waited, not showing any hint of emotion at her actions. She wasn't his type anyway.

She followed him out of the women's quarters and towards one of the outer courtyards that was partly hidden by the tall hedges that lined the far pathway. The instant they were around the corner, completely unseen, Bronn whirled on her and pressed his curved knife to her throat, holding his other hand over her mouth, and he hissed out, "Tyrion may trust you, but I don't. You even think about breathin' a word of this to anyone…I will kill you. Is that understood?"

Just from her eyes, the sellsword knew that she didn't believe him…so he pressed his knife just hard enough against her skin for it to bite, but not leave a mark.

"Who were you going to tell?" he asked, trying to figure out who she had been planning on selling them out to. "Lord Tywin?" No reaction. "Lord Varrys, perhaps?" Still nothing. He thought about it a moment longer…and then smirked. "Ah, so it would be Lord Baelish, then."

A faint reaction. Yes, the bitch had been planning on selling them out to the weasel. How fitting.

Shae, just like so many others in King's Landing, knew of Lord Baelish's ill-timed and practically non-existent romance that he'd once had as a youth with the unparalleled beauty that was Sansa Stark's mother, Catelyn Stark, nee Tully. Baelish was the perfect choice to tell. He would pay well, and he would essentially put a perfectly placed three-pronged wedge between Tyrion, Sansa, and Bronn in one fell swoop should he know about their…arrangement.

Feeling a surge of anger, Bronn reigned it in for a moment and then lowered his voice.

"We may be quite a bit alike, you an' I," he said, letting her know just how serious he was by moving his hand from her mouth to her neck, tightening his fingers just above where his blade rested. "We both sell our talents to the highest bidder. Money before people, our own lives before money, and, most of the time, I'd agree with you…but let me explain somethin' to you, whore," he said, emphasizing the word, "Sansa is not to be touched. Do you understand."

She sneered and hissed out, "She's just a girl! She has no place here. If it weren't for Tyrion, she would be dead already!" Shae struggled slightly in his grip, and then added, with a dark look in her eyes, "A little wolf cub does not belong in a den of lions!"

He smirked and replied, without even thinking about what he was saying…

"Who are no match for the dragon guarding her…"

At his words, her look of smug arrogance, which always seemed to linger in her eyes, if not on her lips, completely vanished, and was replaced with a look of pure shock. At her look, he realized what he'd inadvertently revealed and that Shae had been intelligent enough to pick up on.

She whispered, "You…you…are…?"

He glared at her and tightened his grip on her throat and leaned in, whispering into her ear, "You wouldn't be the first woman I've killed. Far from it, actually," he added, sliding his knife back into its' sheath behind his back as he easily held her up with the hand pressed to her trachea while her fingers scrabbled helplessly against his wrist, trying in vain to pry him off of her, her eyes going wide in desperation. "But here's somethin' you need to know. So long as I live and breathe, I will keep Sansa Stark from harm. She will be under my watch and care, and no one will touch her…especially not that man."

They both knew who he spoke of, and, after a steely moment of silence, she finally nodded, and he let her drop back down.

Coughing and rubbing her neck, she glared at him from the corner of her eye and then said, in a slightly less than confident tone significantly hoarser than before, "This isn't over, sellsword."

He smirked back at her.

"No, I suspect it isn't, whore."

And with that, they parted ways. As Bronn slowly wandered along the paths, heading towards Sansa's quarters, he thought about what Shae was planning to do. Go to Baelish with the information. If she went to him, how would the weasel react? What would his actions be?

Bronn adeptly came to the conclusion that Baelish would try to approach Sansa while she was on her own, in hopes of swaying her mind over to the idea that she was simply being used by Bronn and Tyrion, and that they were not really her companions or people to be trusted. At first, the sellsword tried to think of a way to keep that from happening…but then he smiled to himself as a rather brilliantly ingenious plan formed in his mind.

No. He would let it happen.

Instead, he would warn Sansa ahead of time, so that she would be on Bronn's side when the moment came…but Lord Baelish didn't have to know that. If Bronn knew anything at all about the man, he knew that the man would do anything to keep Sansa safe, which meant that the man had to have an escape plan at the ready to present to her the minute that he got her alone.

The sellsword already had his escape plan in place, but with Sansa's help, they could use Baelish's plan to get them both out of King's Landing, without Lord Baelish being any the wiser about it.

In fact, he realized with a faint grimace, it was the only actual plan that would work to keep Sansa safe. However risky it might be, it would be the best way to ensure her safety. So long as she stayed in King's Landing, she would never be safe, and he couldn't let her leave the place without him. No…never without him. He would stay with her.

That thought left an unsettling feeling in his chest, but he brushed it off and headed towards her quarters, thinking of the new plan once more in his mind.

With a smirk on his lips, Bronn picked up his pace. He had a woman to train, after all.

Part 11/?