"Magister Embati would like to point out that the recent incursions into the city are not a reassurance to the merchant captains that Kings Landing is a safe and profitable place for them to continue trade." Tess explained.
They were seated in the small council chamber around the table. A large Pentoshi lord with a purple pointed beard was standing before them. It had been Tyrion's idea to ask Tess to serve as the translator when foreign dignitaries had business with the crown, and he had to admit it turned out to be a brilliant one. The men of Essos especially loved her charm and charisma and he knew she could be completely counted upon for transparency in what was being said. There had already been times that she'd let him know behind the scenes of things that were being murmured under the assumption they wouldn't get back to him or the king.
"Please tell the magister that the unfortunate incident with the Sand Snakes of Dorne is in no way relevant to the security of our port. That our City Watch has all but eliminated the thievery and smuggling in the harbor, and our ports are the safest they have been in the last twenty years. If he is hesitant to believe my statements I invite him to have a tour of the docks, speak with Commander Clegane, and have a look at the records of the merchant ships currently in port.
Tess began speaking very quickly, relaying Tyrion's words to the magister. He seemed please and nodded, saying something back to her. She seemed to agree and when she responded his face brightened in a smile and he nodded enthusiastically to her as her responded.
"He said he is very eager to see the workings of the harbor and speak with the Lord Commander as soon as possible." She said to Tyrion, "I informed him that the Lord Commander is my husband, and I will be able to make the introductions as soon as this afternoon. He is pleased with the arrangement."
"Wonderful!"Tyrion responded, "is there anything else honored Magister Embati wishes to bring before the kings small council?" Tess translated the question.
"No." She answered, "Magister Embati thanks you for your hospitality and accommodation. He says he will continue discussions of trade with you once he has observed the ports for himself."
Tyrion nodded to the man, who returned his gesture with a sweeping bow and walked from the room. Tyrion pushed out one of the empty chairs that would have usually been taken by Davos and motioned for Tess to come and sit.
"You should consider a career as a translator." He told her, "you have a gift for it."
"Not really looking for a new career currently." Tess responded, "but I do enjoy being helpful in a more significant way than pouring wine and ale in the cups of more important people than myself."
"Importance is a matter of perspective." Bronn pointed out, "considering the caliber of drink in your establishment compared to the rest of the city. Your ability to pour drinks makes you of very high importance in my life Lady Clegane."
Tess smiled. It seemed impossible for her not to smile when her new marriage was brought up in any way, Tyrion thought. It was refreshing. So often marriages were somber affairs when it came to nobles. The best one could usually hope for was an arranged marriage with the hope that love might eventually bloom. Marrying for love was a rare and special thing.
"So how are your plans coming along for the Lady's wedding feast?" Bronn asked Tyrion, "I always liked wedding feasts myself. The foods good, the wine is excellent and all the ladies are besotted by love and it makes them very agreeable."
"You are just a hopeless romantic aren't you?" Said Brienne sarcastically, but Bronn grinned.
"It's going quite well actually. We've invited all the nobles from the surrounding region. Bronn isn't the only one who likes a good wedding feast, and a wedding feast hosted my a Lannister is a draw for many to be sure. I was wondering Tess about the question of inviting...your family." Tess looked at him in surprise.
"Oh...I never really thought about it...I suppose they probably should be invited shouldn't they? Yes, send them an invitation I think..." she smirked slightly and then looked as though she was trying to keep from laughing.
"What is it?" Sam asked her.
"Oh it's nothing." She said, still suppressing a giggle, "I was just amusing myself trying to imagine my mother's reaction. She's going to be completely torn between feeling overjoyed that her headstrong willful child that she washed her hands of years ago, actual married into a noble family of Westeros. A feat she told me to my face she'd all but given up on me doing by the time I was four and ten. And being horrified that I somehow managed to marry into the one house that would possibly make her wish I hadn't married at all. My mother was originally a Tarbeck of the Westerlands, she knows the stigma of the Clegane name. Once again...I'm making my mother's life difficult." She smiled again and shook her head. "I'll be very interested to see who, if anyone comes to represent my family at my wedding feast."
"Have you made any progress on the planning you need to do?" Brienne asked her.
"Yes and no..." Tess responded, "I'm going to wear the same dress I was married in. Sand bought it for me might as well get some use out of it. I gave Elle free reign with the menu with the exception of the fact that we're having roast chicken because Sand likes it. It's Tyrion's job to give her a budget if he dares." She winked at him, "as far as gifts I got the one thing I knew I wanted to get him, a horse. He hasn't had his own since before he left Joffery's service. I found the perfect dapple grey destrier, big monster stallion. The stable hand said he's a little ornery and not easily trusting but he'd be a great horse to form a bond with a specific rider. His name is Sojourner."
"Sounds perfect." Tyrion commented.
"Oh he is. Sand is going to love him. The only problem is I can't think of anything else to get him. A bride's gifts to her new husband are supposed to be cherished things of great value, and significant meaning. Sand doesn't cherish things. He doesn't even really want things. There's only one thing I've ever heard him talk about wanting, and it's unfortunately the one thing it's literally impossible for me to get for him." Tess explained.
"Valyrian steel" said Brienne, "he told me the first time we fought when he saw my blade. 'I always wanted some Valyrian steel' he said. And on the way to Dorne, he was telling me about how he knows the histories of all the great Valyrian steel blades."
"Exactly." Said Tess, "he's wanted a Valyrian steel blade since he was a child. Leave it to my husband to only have one material possession he's ever dreamed of owning, and it's a dream I can never make reality."
"What if you could?" Tyrion asked. They all turned to look at him.
"How?" Said Tess, "there's only a handful left in existence. They're all claimed and there's no way to forged more."
Tyrion hopped out of his chair and walked into his office beside the council chamber. He opened a chest he had sitting next to his desk and dug in the bottom for the object he intended to retrieve. He walked back out into the council chamber and dropped it on the table with a clatter.
"This is Widows Wail." He said, "So named by my cunt of nephew. It's the twin to Brienne's sword Oath Keeper. It's definitely on the small side for a man of Clegane's stature, but it is Valyrian steel, and I can think of no better poetic justice than for this sword, which was given to Joffery at his wedding feast, to pass to the man who spent more than half his life protecting that miserable little shit, at his own wedding feast."
"Tyrion..." Said Tess as she picked up the sword in awe... "This is incredible."
"You'll want to have a new hilt made for it that is more representative of House Clegane, but that shouldn't be to difficult." Tyrion said.
From the other side of the table Sam cleared his throat and gave a shy smile when the others looked at him.
"I um...I was just thinking, if you were interested in making a new sword. More suited to the Lord Commander personally. I also have a Valyrian sword." He said. "Heartsbane, it's my families ancestral sword. I stole it when I left my home. You could melt both blades down and have them reforged into a great sword."
"Sam..."Tess said, "you can't give up your family sword. That's a priceless heirloom of your House."
"I know it is..." Sam said, "but I'm not a warrior. I very much doubt my sons will be warriors and even if they were. The Tarly house as it used to be was nothing but pain, shame and humiliation to me, and that's the Tarly name that sword represents. My father and brother are dead, so I get to decide what being a Tarly means now. I want to create a new legacy for me, and Gilly and our boys. So that's why I want you to have it. Because you're doing that too aren't you? You're deciding what House Clegane is now, and a strong House should have a strong sword to wield with honor."
Tyrion felt a lump in his throat. God damn Sam and his sweet genuine nature. He looked around the table, and saw he was not the one who seemed to be blinking their eyes and clearing their throats.
"Sam," Tess said again, and her voice was slightly hoarse, "this might be one of the most fucking beautiful gestures anyone has ever done for me. Thank you." Same gave her a small shy smile and shrugged.
"I'll take you down to the smith my father used on the street of steel tomorrow." Tyrion said to her, "He's Volenteen and one of the few left in the world who knows how to work Valyrian steel. But I warn you a project like this will not come cheap."
"Oh wait...you're saying reforging a great sword using the trickiest and most valuable metal on earth is going to be expensive?" Tess said raising her eyebrows in mock surprise, "I've got it covered." She added with a wink.
"Holy shit...I'm getting Sand a Valyrian steel blade." She said, as if the reality had just finally hit her.
"And with the combination of the two blades it will be big enough to rival Ice, Ned Stark's great sword." Brienne pointed out, "I can't wait to see his reaction when he unsheathes it."
"What do you think he'll call it?" Tyrion asked, "I think Hound's Tooth has nice ring to it. But is it to on the nose?"
"More like on the snout..." teased Sam with a chuckle.
"He won't name it." Tess and Brienne said at the same time and then they looked at each other and laughed.
"Once it's forged this blade might be the only Valyrian great sword left in Westeros." Sam pointed out, "it has to have a name."
"You're welcome to tell him that." Tess said, "but I'll tell you exactly what his response will be, or actually I'll let Brienne tell you." She looked sideways at her friend who smiled back.
"He'll tell you only cunts name their swords." Brienne responded, and Tess nodded laughing appreciatively.
"You know every once in while..." Bronn said chuckling, "only every once in a great while mind you...I really do like that ugly fucker."
"That is my husband you're speaking of!" Tess playfully chided.
"And may the seven bless you for your patience, and long suffering my lady." Bronn shot back.
Tyrion decided to walk Tess back down to the gates, a little while later. As they walk through the corridors his mind began to wander. To say the past few weeks had been a whirlwind was an understatement of the century. From the time of his unexpected night with Sansa it seemed as if some new insane turn of events was there to greet him every time he opened his eyes in the morning. Then everyone had left and he and Tess had found themselves essentially alone in Kings Landing. Then she'd almost died. It was ironic, he thought, how often it takes really believing you would lose someone to appreciate what they mean to you. When he had rushed down from the castle with Sam that first night, knowing only that Tess had been poisoned. He realized that if she died, the hole in his life would be just as significant as the one that had been left by Jamie's death, far more significant than the deaths of Cersei or his father. Was this what it must feel like to actually have a sister who loves you? He thought to himself. And then before any of them we're able to process that event. Tess and Sandor got married. It was so sudden and quick, but if Tyrion really though about it, not completely unexpected. It really did seem like a natural response to the threat of feeling like they almost lost one another.
"Tyrion?" Tess was looking down at him questioningly, "are you alright?" She asked, "you have a strange look on your face."
"Are you sure that's not just my strange face?" He teased, and she smiled.
"Come on now I mean it..." she said, "what are you thinking?"
"I was thinking about my wedding feast actually." He said, "all this love and happiness has me very nostalgic."
"Your wedding feast with Sansa?" She asked.
"No...my first one. It was a very small affair, attended by only a select few friends and common folk."
"I wasn't aware you were married before Sansa." Tess said, she stopped walking and leaned on the railing that looked down into one of the many courtyards of the Keep, Tyrion joined her.
"Not many people are aware of it. I don't like to talk about it, don't really like to think about it if I'm honest. But when I'm around you and Sandor. I find it hard not to."
"Why is that?" She asked.
"I'm not sure if you've ever noticed but we share a lot of similarities your husband and I. In the way we were raised, how the world treats us, even our opinions on it. The point at which we diverge is in how we let those things shape us. He became hard and cruel, he used fear and intimidation to keep people away. I on the other hand was not provided the means to be intimidating or fearsome so I learned to use my whits, to use people like pawns on a board. I learned to play the game, and I'm quite good at it."
"You are." Tess agreed.
"But at our core we are, or should I say were, two men who truly believed the world would always find us unlovable, worthless and a burden. So it's sometimes hard for me, to see him having found the person who truly knows and accepts him as he is, with unconditional love. Because it reminds me of what I lost." Tyrion explained.
"Who was she?" Tess asked gently.
"Her name was Tysha. She was a common girl, but that never mattered to me. For a time we were very happy. It was the only time I can remember in my life feeling that what I had might actually be enough. That I could be content and happy just having her." Tyrion explained.
"Did she die?"
Tyrion smiled a hard tight smile.
"No," he said, "it would have been much cleaner and less painful if she did I assure you. No it was much messier than that. I will spare you the unsavory specifics but let's just say my father went to great and unimaginably cruel lengths to prove to me that my wife was only with me for the Lannister name, and gold. And in the end, he was right. I told myself that day that I would never love again. And considering that the next woman I fell in love with I strangled with my bare hands, and the following I conspired to have murdered by her own lover, I probably should have stuck to that promise."
"Or maybe set your sights on a more average woman, somewhere between a whore and a queen?" Tess suggested, but then she smirked, "but now that I think about it...queens seem to be a new theme for you." Tyrion smiled back wryly.
"I'm not in love with Sansa." He said, "I love her dearly, but I'm not in love with her. If she were to write me tomorrow and tell me she found another I would be disappointed but I would genuinely wish her the best with no hostility or bitterness."
"Maybe that's the key?" Tess said.
"Maybe it is..."he conceded.
They stood there quietly for a few minutes, watching as various people scurried back and forth across the courtyard, before Tyrion spoke again.
"Tess, be careful with his heart." Tyrion said finally, "I know you love him, and you have no intention of ever leaving but he's going to be stupid and mess it up at some point. I just need you to hear it from someone who fully understands, who's been there. He'll never recover from you, you loving him changed everything about who he is irrevocably. You are the only person with the power to break him now. So please don't."
"I never realized you cared so much about Sandor's well being." She said.
"He is the person who's known me the longest in this life. I'd call him a childhood friend but weren't friends for most of it. Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure we're friends now. Are we friends?" He asked, looking up at her for confirmation and she laughed.
"You're friends." She said.
"Well there you are...and like I said. We're much more alike than we may seem." He explained.
He walked her the rest of the way down to the gate and then returned to his office, his thoughts still a swirling storm he couldn't seem to tame.