Tyrion
In the Throne room of the Red Keep King Rhaegar took his morning meal with his son and chief knights and all his lords bannermen who had come to King's Landing for his son's wedding. He found the king having a good morning surrounded by his allies, the Iron throne loomed up behind him, the dragons watching from the red walls.
Tyrion arrived late, saddlesore, and sour, all too vividly aware of how amusing he must look as he waddled up the grand room amidst the dragons. It was a long ride from the inn to the Red Keep. The skulls of dead dragons looked down from its walls. He could feel the empty eyes of the dragon skulls watching him as soon as he entered with Bronn and his men.
Right from the door they hung and reached to the other end of the room where the iron throne sat. The skull of Balerion, the Black Dread, the dragon's fire which forged the Iron Throne from the thousand swords of Aegon the Conqueror's fallen foes hung right next to the throne itself.
Tyrion always had a morbid fascination with dragons. When he had got his first chance to come to King's Landing by his father, he had made it a point to seek out the theree dragons Daenerys Targaryen had brought forth into this world. When he could not see any of them In the capital he had been disappointed. They again he could atleast see the dragon skulls that hanged on the walls of Targaryen's throne room.
He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful. Yet they were. As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of the torches on the wall. Dragonbone was black because of its high iron content, he had read that in a book once. It was strong as steel, yet lighter and far more flexible, and of course utterly impervious to fire. Dragonbone bows are greatly prized by the Dothraki, and small wonder. An archer so armed can outrange any wooden bow.
They liked the fire, he sensed. Their mouth stayed open as if they were waiting to get anyone who is foolish enough to come near. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flames of the torch were nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires.
There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff's skulls hung near the doors, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.
From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of old. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion watched their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar's gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again. Meraxes was even bigger. And the greatest of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, could have swallowed an aurochs whole, or even one of the hairy mammoths said to roam the cold wastes beyond the Port of Ibben.
He tried to grasp the size of the living animal, to imagine how it must have looked when it spread its great black wings and swept across the skies, breathing fire.
His own remote ancestor, King Loren of the Rock, had tried to stand against the fire when he joined with King Mern of the Reach to oppose the Targaryen conquest. That was close on three hundred years ago, when the Seven Kingdoms were kingdoms, and not mere provinces of a greater realm. Between them, the Two Kings had six hundred banners flying, five thousand mounted knights, and ten times as many freeriders and men-at-arms. Aegon Dragonlord had perhaps a fifth that number, the chroniclers said, and most of those were conscripts from the ranks of the last king he had slain, their loyalties uncertain.
The hosts met on the broad plains of the Reach, amidst golden fields of wheat ripe for harvest. When the Two Kings charged, the Targaryen army shivered and shattered and began to run. For a few moments, the chroniclers wrote, the conquest was at an end . . . but only for those few moments, before Aegon Targaryen and his sisters joined the battle.
It was the only time that Vhaghar, Meraxes, and Balerion were all unleashed at once. The singers called it the Field of Fire.
Near four thousand men had burned that day, among them King Mern of the Reach. King Loren had escaped, and lived long enough to surrender, pledge his fealty to the Targaryens, and beget a son, for which Tyrion was duly grateful.
The cooks were serving the meat course while he entered: five suckling pigs, skin seared and crackling, a different fruit in every mouth. The smell made his mouth water. The king watched him as he neverd the table.
Rhaegar Targaryen was everything and more the singers praised him to be. His long silver hair flowing over his shoulder and a face fit to make maidens go mad, Tyrion could only see the proud dragonlord sitting before him. "My lord, Tyrion," he said when he saw him there. "We are surprised to see you here." Everyone in the room turned to look at him all wide-eyed in surprise.
"My pardons, Your Grace," Tyrion began, bowing his head. "My lord father finds himself occupied with his health issues. So I'm here to congratulate the prince in his wedding, if it please you."
"Oh," the king said. "I'd thought of something better from the Westerlands, like a full man and not a half." A roar of laugher erupted in the room as he said that. "Come join us in our meal, my lord. I'm sure we could squeeze some place for you as, we all could see that you don't require a lot of space."
"Oh, surely you can save me a seat, your grace," Tyrion replied. "I'm grateful for that." He filled his wine cup and watched a serving man carve into the pig. The crisp skin crackled under his knife, and hot juice ran from the meat. It was the loveliest sight Tyrion had seen in ages.
"What ails your father, my lord?" Rhaegar asked as his trencher was filled with slices of pork. "I'm hoping that the gods grant him good strength."
You better not, Tyrion thought. He has every strength to do his dirty work from the shadows. "Ageing makes men restless," Tyrion said. "My father is not an expection."
"I never thought that age would bring down the great lion of Casterly Rock? I believe the news of your brother Jaime's death broke him down."
I hope it did. Nothing ever broke Lord Tywin, not even his son and heir's death. Tyrion wondered what his father would do if he died. He might even dance elated before his lords. Lord Tywin's bane and shame finally died out Tyrion could never think of a better news for his father. "Jaime's death broke us all, my king," he said. "And like as not a Lannister always pays his debt."
He could see that Rhaegar did not like that tone of his. He ought to hold his tongue from here else he would soon end up as Ned Stark.
Lord Tyrell, the sour fat man who knows nothing about warfare, leaned forward. "You should be proud of your brother. Your father should be too. Ser Jaime was a good and honorable knight who died valiantly protecting his king."
Oh, he did that, my fat fool, Tyrion thought, but it was the king who ought to have died in his place.
"Isn't that right?" Rhaegar said. He looked over to Ser Gerold Hightower behind him. "Ser Gerold please tell Lord Tyrion of how valiantly his brother died."
The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard showed no emotion in his face. "Ser Jaime was a true true knight of the Kingsguard. He held to his vow till the end and defended his king with his dying breath."
Was that supposed to make me feel better, your grace? You can play your great hero's facade to all your fools over here but you won't fool me. You can't fool me with your honey dripping voice and sweet words.
"You can ask your father to rest easy now, Lord Tyrion," he said, "for Ser Jaime left no debt unsettled. I settled his debt for him in Braavos. Enjoy your stay here, my lord. You'll be given the high seat reserved for your father at my son's wedding." With that the king stood up and left with all his knights and lords trailing after him like obedient ants.
Tyrion sat there all alone for a while. He took one bite of pork, chewed a moment, and spit it out angrily. "I find I am not hungry after all," he said to the dragon skulls on the walls, climbing awkwardly off the bench.
Outside, Bronn was waiting for him with the horses. Tyrion had never wanted anything more than to leave this place for now.
"How did it go?" Bronn asked as he waddled past him, hurriedly.
"As far away from good as it goes," Tyrion replied.
Bronn chukled. "I've told this to you more than once, dwarf," he said smiling through the crooked teeth. "You should keep your mouth shut if you wish to live long."
"Perhaps, you're right," he said walking across the yard. "Bronn, be a sweet and make sure to cut off my tongue the next time I say something that will have my head cut off." He could only muse about how vain and empty his threats in the throne room had been. Rhaegar had seen it for some empty boast and paid no mind to them, no more that he had minded Tyrion. Even with the might of the west looming behind Lord Tywin, it was no match for the might of three adult dragons.
"I'll for sure."
Tyrion crossed the yard to the gate where Vylarr was waiting for him with the horses and his guards.
"Imp," he heard someone calling from behind. Tyrion turned to see and the sight was not the one he had been expecting. Out from the pan and into the brazier, gods, this day couldn't get any worse.
Oberyn Nymeros Martell, Tyrion muttered under his breath as the man fell in beside him. The Red Viper of Dorne. And what in the seven hells am I supposed to do with him?
"Prince Oberyn," he greeted warmly. He's made enough enemies for one day and this is one man whom no man ever wants as his enemy.
"We have met before," the Dornish prince said lightly to Tyrion as they walked side by side to the gate. "I would not expect you to remember, though. You were even smaller than you are now."
Tyrion misliked the tome of the Dornish prince but he held his tongue this time. "When did that happen, my prince?" he asked.
"Oh, many years ago, when my mother ruled in Dorne and your lord father was Hand to a different king, the Mad King."
"It was when I visited Casterly Rock with my mother, her consort, and my sister Elia. I was, oh, fourteen, fifteen, thereabouts, Elia a year older. Your brother and sister were eight or nine, as I recall, and you had just been born."
A queer time to come visiting. His mother had died giving him birth, so the Martells would have found the Rock deep in mouming. His father especially. Lord Tywin seldom spoke of his wife, but Tyrion had heard his uncles talk of the love between them. In those days, his father had been Aerys's Hand, and many people said that Lord Tywin Lannister ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but Lady Joanna ruled Lord Tywin. "He was not the same man after she died, imp," his Uncle Gery told him once. "The best part of him died with her." Gerion had been the youngest of Lord Tytos Lannister's four sons, and the uncle Tyrion liked best.
But he was gone now, lost beyond the seas, and Tyrion himself had put Lady Joanna in her grave. "Did you find Casterly Rock to your liking, my lord?"
"Scarcely. Your father ignored us the whole time we were there, after commanding Ser Kevan to see to our entertainment. The cell they gave me had a featherbed to sleep in and Myrish carpets on the floor, but it was dark and windowless, much like a dungeon when you come down to it, as I told Elia at the time. Your skies were too grey, your wines too sweet, your women too chaste, your food too bland . . . and you yourself were the greatest disappointment of all."
"I had just been born. What did you expect of me?"
"Enormity," the black-haired prince replied. "You were small, but far-famed. We were in Oldtown at your birth, and all the city talked of was the monster that had been born to the King's Hand, and what such an omen might foretell for the realm."
"Famine, plague, and war, no doubt." Tyrion gave a sour smile. "It's always famine, plague, and war. Oh, and winter, and the long night that never ends."
"All that," said Prince Oberyn, "and your father's fall as well. Lord Tywin had made himself greater than King Aerys, I heard one begging brother preach, but only a god is meant to stand above a king. You were his curse, a punishment sent by the gods to teach him that he was no better than any other man."
"I try, but he refuses to learn." Tyrion gave a sigh. "But do go on, I pray you. I love a good tale."
"And well you might, since you were said to have one, a stiff curly tail like a swine's. Your head was monstrous huge, we heard, half again the size of your body, and you had been born with thick black hair and a beard besides, an evil eye, and lion's claws. Your teeth were so long you could not close your mouth, and between your legs were a girl's privates as well as a boy's."
"Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don't you agree? And I can think of a few times when claws and teeth might have proved useful. Even so, I begin to see the nature of your complaint."
Bronn gave out with a chuckle, but Oberyn only smiled. "We might never have seen you at all but for your sweet sister. You were never seen at table or hall, though sometimes at night we could hear a baby howling down in the depths of the Rock. You did have a monstrous great voice, I must grant you that. You would wail for hours, and nothing would quiet you but a woman's teat."
"Still true, as it happens."
This time Prince Oberyn did laugh. "A taste we share. Lord Gargalen once told me he hoped to die with a sword in his hand, to which I replied that I would sooner go with a breast in mine."
Tyrion had to grin. "You were speaking of my sister?"
"Cersei promised Elia to show you to us. The day before we were to sail, whilst my mother and your father were closeted together, she and Jaime took us down to your nursery. Your wet nurse tried to send us off, but your sister was having none of that. 'He's mine', she said, 'and you're just a milk cow, you can't tell me what to do. Be quiet or I'll have my father cut your tongue out. A cow doesn't need a tongue, only udders.' "
"My sister learned charm at an early age," said Tyrion, amused by the notion of his sister claiming him as hers. She's never been in any rush to claim me since, the gods know.
"Cersei even undid your swaddling clothes to give us a better look," the Dornish prince continued. "You did have one evil eye, and some black fuzz on your scalp. Perhaps your head was larger than most . . . but there was no tail, no beard, neither teeth nor claws, and nothing between your legs but a tiny pink cock. After all the wonderful whispers, Lord Tywin's Doom turned out to be just a hideous red infant with stunted legs. Elia even made the noise that young girls make at the sight of infants, I'm sure you've heard it. The same noise they make over cute kittens and playful puppies. I believe she wanted to nurse you herself, ugly as you were. When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, 'He killed my mother', and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off. You shrieked, but it was only when your brother Jaime said, 'Leave him be, you're hurting him', that Cersei let go of you. 'It doesn't matter', she told us. 'Everyone says he's like to die soon. He shouldn't even have lived this long.' "
My sweet sister. Isn't it wonderful that I grew up to be a man, half or not, just to spite Cersei. He the Dornishman a taste of his "evil eye." Now why would he tell such a tale? Is he testing me, or simply twisting my cock as Cersei did, so he can hear me scream? "Be sure and tell that story to my father. It will delight him as much as it did me. The part about my tail, especially. I did have one, but he had it lopped off."
Prince Oberyn had a chuckle. "You've grown more amusing since last we met."
"Yes, but I meant to grow taller."
"Speaking of amusement," Prince Oberyn inched closer to him, "I do hear some queer tales of your father and his pet Lorch, dwarf."
"My prince," Tyrion said. "I don't have any reason to imply-"
"Imp," the red viper seethed. "I care nothing for your reasons. I told this to Rhaegar and I'll say this to you. I care nothing but justice for Elia. I'll have it sooner or later. One by one and I'll not stop until everyone who had a hand in it are dealt with. Tell your lord father that the viper is not a being to tread with."
"You talk as if you're bringing a huge host behind you, my prince," Tyrion turned to look only at Bronn following him, "but I could only see you."
The Red Viper laughed. "Do you think you frighten me with a couple of your father's sworn swords? I think not."
When Tyrion heard his laughter, he knew he'd made a mistake. Guard your tongue, you little fool, before it digs your grave. Suddenly the last talk he'd had with his father came to his mind. Tyrion rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. He had nothing to lose by telling Oberyn the truth. But if there was a chance he might make his first friend in the capital today against all the other enemies. "Ser Amory Lorch is with my father but I believe he is not the man you want."
"Is that so," said the Red Viper. "Do all dwarfs lie so badly, I wonder?"
"I am not lying. Ser Amory may have brought Princess Rhaenys out from under her father's bed. He had some men-at-arms with him, but I do not know their names." He leaned forward. "But the one you should be seeking is the Mountain. It was Ser Gregor Clegane who brought Prince Aegon and your sister Elia to their fate, all beaten up badly."
"Why should I believe you?" Prince Oberyn asked. "This could be another one of your Lannister lies."
"You don't have to believe me, my prince," Tyrion said. "But I could get you to Amory Lorch and Gregor Clegane so that you may ask them yourselves." He left the Prince of Dorne there in the yard to think about what he had said to him.
He left the Red Keep and took the long route to the inn to keep no one from knowing where he stayed and with whom he stayed. They can't hurt me by hurting Shae if they never knew of the girl.
A gust of merriment greeted him as he shoved into the inn's common room. He recognized the throaty chuckle of a man 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 his guards 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 you in having a good time with the king," 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. "He told you were given a place in the high table of the prince's upcoming wedding feast."
"Did he now?" Tyrion asked. "I'm surprised to know of Lord Varys' sudden interest in spreading the tales of my honors."
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 Shae and the others 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, m'lord Tyrion would send them running for their lives."
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 — will never find himself running again." Because you can't run if you're not alive now, can you? 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 in the capital. 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. While others call it as the bleeding star. You do know the story of the star who bled don't you, my lord." I know everything I need to know about Ashara Dayne, eunuch and if you try to imply that Shae will follow on her tragedy to the depths of a watery grave then gods help you as I'll make sure that you follow her, with a stone strapped to your chest. 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 battlefield comes two men face to face, a dragonrider and a dragonslayer, one risking everything he has and the other with nothing left for him to risk. So tell me — who lives and who dies?"
"The dragonrider, of course," Shae said at once. "Dragons melt swords."
Tyrion sipped his wine, thoughtful. "Perhaps. Or not. It depends upon who is who."
"You're a smart man, Lord Tyrion," Varys said. Bowing deeply, the eunuch hurried from the common room on soft slippered feet. What is the truth behind the riddle, Spider? Tyrion thought as he watched him go.