TYRION
It was morning in Blackwater Bay, though from the cold one could have thought it midnight. Narrow Sea winds whistled above the waters, which were no longer dark and fathomless but paler and gentler as the Maiden Dancer drew nearer to land.
Tyrion had not slept well. Having awakened before the dawn and endured several miserable hours pacing aboard the ship as she tossed in the waves, he was quite alert, and he had had plenty of time to ponder and make himself miserable. They saw no galleys on patrol before coming in sight of the city. That boded ill, and he could not help but compare King's Landing's meagre fleet to Lady Baratheon's in the harbour of Dragonstone, which seemed so numerous that they could have been an army of men afoot, so numerous that no man could count to the end of them.
With their red-and-golden lion standards streaming, and with only three ships, they were not bothered by the ships at the city. Clearly there was no invading army here. The sight of Joffrey's banner, stag and lion rampant, over the Red Keep spurred Tyrion to let out a breath of relief. He had not truly thought, in his rational mind, that Lord Renly could have already taken the capital—the pretender's army was too distant yet—but he was pleased, nevertheless, to be free from the fear of it.
The Loyal Man came first to the Iron Gate that faced the sea. Men-at-arms whose fealty was to the Rock and knights and squires from the westerlands and crownlands poured out of the ship like falling rubies, with their lion-crafted halfhelms and their weapons gleaming in the morning light. The war galley that had carried them, free of her cargo, drew away to rejoin her fellows, and then the Wildwind followed suit. Only then did the Maiden Dancer take her own berth in the harbour. Consequently Tyrion was surrounded by an honour guard of faceless red-cloaked men as he disembarked. The unloading of the big-bellied merchant ship that he had travelled on took much longer than that of her escorts, full as she was with gifts from her cargo hold, but Tyrion did not remain to watch the servants at their work. He gave commands, and his guardsmen drew tightly around him as they headed to the Iron Gate. It was well that they did, for the fisherfolk's mood was mutinous. A sea of thin and cold-eyed people parted for their passing, giving them no trouble, but fixed them with stares in accusing silence.
A company of the City Watch awaited them at the Iron Gate. "Who goes there?" called their leader.
"Tyrion of House Lannister," Tyrion replied, "and acting Hand of the King in the name of Lord Tywin Lannister, who will hear of it if I am not let in at once."
"Then pass." With ceremony complete, the gate opened.
As the gold cloaks slotted into formation around the red cloaks, who outnumbered them—surprising Tyrion with the well-practised smoothness of the shift—Tyrion crooked his finger at their leader and called, "Captain."
The lanky captain came through the Lannister guardsmen, who parted for him. He was younger than Tyrion had at first realised, and Tyrion guessed that he had never spoken with such a lofty personage before, for he shook slightly as he spoke, "M-my lord?"
Tyrion said, quite loudly, "Walk with me." His men formed a red and golden wall around him, bristling with steel, as he walked at a leisurely pace southward, treasuring the motionless solidity of the ground beneath his feet.
The Iron Gate opened unto a square, like all of King's Landing's gates, for ease of organising the defences of the city. Rosby Road, which started far outside the city, continued through the Iron Gate within it, roughly southwestwards, leading to the great square at the city centre, but Tyrion had no desire to go hence. He took a more meandering, winding path along several lesser roads to the Red Keep to meet his sister. My sweet sister will be so displeased. All those opportunities to drown, and I missed all of them.
This part of King's Landing, between Aegon's High Hill and the Hill of Rhaenys, was one of the poorer parts of the city. As one could tell by nose alone, Flea Bottom lay nearby, on the other side of Rosby Road from here. The houses' roofs drew inward, overhanging their foundations so far that there were places they almost met those on the other side of the little road, which Tyrion was fairly sure was against the laws established by King Aenys for the then-young city. Nobody had cared since then. This was a place of beggars and of poorer craftsmen, those too junior in their guilds to secure better incomes and accommodation, a place of cutthroats and of taverns that would sell dubious wines and meats with no questions asked. The streets scattered behind and ahead of Tyrion's column, their denizens often not the sort that saw the presence of lords and the law.
"Why were the fisherfolk wroth with me?" Tyrion asked the captain as they wandered through the narrow, twisting streets. "I have never been loved, well do I know it, but I've never seen such great mislike."
"The fish, m'lord," the captain said. He had regained a measure of composure, Tyrion was glad to see; silently walking for a while may have convinced him that high lords would not bite if they were close to him. "Lord Lannister sent some food from the riverlands—not much but it seemed much, since the city has been starving—so the prices fell, seeing as there's more food to be sold, m'lord, that's how it is. The fishermen's catches were poor before, even when you left hence, m'lord, and they've only been getting poorer, but when fish was all there was to eat, a man can make a living off 't. Now they can't. There was a riot last week along the waterfront. The Watch, we dealt with it better, we would, if we had the chance, but the disorder would spread, 'twas feared, so the army crushed them. 'Twas ill done, too harsh by far. The Fishing Guild is stuck in a rut, hopeless and penniless. The Lord Regent promised them a little money in recompense, but he revoked it after the riot, and many of their masters are arrested or dead."
In that, Tyrion's ears pricked at a single phrase. "Lord Regent?"
"What?" The gold cloak was back to stuttering. "You—you—you didn't know? But—but we thought—we all thought you and he—"
"Yes, I did not know," Tyrion said irritably, "and I will not for a while more, unless you tell me. So be quick to it."
"Y-y-yes, my lord, I'm, I'm sorry, m'lord, a thousand pardons, m'lord—"
"I said be quick to it."
"Y-yes, m'lord." The captain drew in a deep breath. "When you left, the very day aft the last you were seen here, the Lord Marshal called our Lord Commander to a meeting. Ser Jacelyn swore to follow m'lord, and m'lord, the Lord Marshal that is, not Ser Jacelyn, secured the Red Keep with his army and the Watch. Ser Mandon was slain in defence o' the queen, while Ser Boros deserted once he was guaranteed that she would receive good treatment. For Ser Boros's cowardice Ser Kevan stripped him of his white cloak and sent him to the Wall, and good riddance to that one. Most of us in the Watch did as we were told, so only a few dozen were slain in the taking of the castle, those who didn't follow the Lord Marshal, and the queen was taken into custody. She was mad, screaming about treason and suchlike, didn't do as m'lord said, so m'lord spoke with the king instead and now he's Lord Regent. The king 'nnounced it next day, saying the queen 'laid down the hard burden of rule into prayer and contemplation of the gods'—though I was there and that's a bunch of codswallop, begging your pardon, m'lord, there was nothing willing about it—and he's ruled here ever since."
Shock ran down Tyrion's spine. He had not known, had not even imagined, that his lord uncle would dare to go so far. I meant that revelation about Lancel to hurt Cersei's standing in the mind of our lord uncle. I had no notion that he would just depose her!
But should I have been surprised? Tyrion pondered. Mayhaps I should not. He had never seriously considered simply deposing Cersei before their lord uncle had come, lacking the strength to do it, and, perhaps as a fault in him, nor had he afterwards. But Kevan did not lack that strength. All it would take was to convince those western lords and heirs and knights who had come hither from Harrenhal that it was ill-fitting for the Seven Kingdoms to be ruled by a woman and that it would serve Lord Tywin and the westerlands better for a man grown to rule, and he, through them, would control the bulk of the men-at-arms in the city. Ser Jacelyn Bywater might have served Cersei instead of Kevan, thus spoiling the smoothness of the seizure of power, but, Tyrion realised, he was partly to blame in that. Ser Jacelyn had been appointed by Tyrion, was loyal to Tyrion, and knew Cersei to be Tyrion's usual foe. Doubtless the man had thought that he was doing as Tyrion would have bidden him.
This was not wholly a bad thing. Tyrion was quite sure that his uncle would be a better regent than his sister had been. But it did mean that he had no real authority in this city any more, save for what Ser Kevan chose to permit him. The last barrier to Ser Kevan's power had been that he was a military leader only, acting in Lord Tywin's name, lacking civil authority. Such a man could not have the legitimacy he needed to rule if all civil authority were against him and his position came only from the naked application of brute force. But now, by means of the gullibility of Tyrion's man, Ser Kevan had assumed a position that gave him the right to rule in the king's name. As both Lord Regent and the man with the army, there was little doubt that he ruled in King's Landing now. Since Cersei and Littlefinger had successfully plotted to expel Tyrion from the city, and especially in the ever-shifting sands of the court of Dragonstone, he had become accustomed to relative powerlessness, and certainly Tyrion trusted his lord uncle more than his sister, but it was still a blow.
The column emerged from a side street onto King's Way, the great straight road that stretched from the Red Keep to City Square to the Gate of the Gods at the opposite end of the city. They had not taken the swiftest route to the Red Keep, but they had to come in from the front gate, so the usage of King's Way was requisite. Some measure of ceremony needs must be observed.
Tyrion's stunted legs ached as they walked up Aegon's High Hill to the gate of the Red Keep. "My lord of Lannister," called the captain of the gate, a gold cloak older than the captain from the Iron Gate who had escorted Tyrion. "You are expected. But I am commanded to tell you that you must enter with no more than ten men."
Tyrion bade goodbye to his knights and squires and his lowborn men-at-arms and hurried through the gate and towards Maegor's Holdfast. Gold cloaks were everywhere. Tyrion could not help but note the calm of those around him as they moved seamlessly into formation. He would not have believed them to be Lannister soldiers, not truly, but his lord uncle had done an excellent job. Under the training of the red cloaks, the City Watch was being turned into something more like an army.
They did not meet in the throne room. Ser Kevan, as was his wont, preferred a small, private audience chamber. "My lord," the captain of the gate said at the door, "your lord nephew awaits."
"Send him in."
Tyrion entered, and beheld the Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms. The sight was underwhelming. Ser Kevan, a stout and balding man with short blond hair, was dressed no more grandly than he had been before, though still in doublet and breeches of red and black and golden velvet elegant enough to befit a brother of the Warden of the West.
"Tyrion," his uncle greeted him. "I hope you are well."
"All the better for the cool clean ocean air," Tyrion said with a bright smile that did not reach his eyes. He regretted the bitter allusion to his exile as soon as he said it, but fortunately the quip sailed over Kevan's head. "Yourself?"
"Well enough," the Lord Regent said with a sigh, "though hard at work of late. Some of the guilds have been interminably rapacious and arrogant in their demands, and just as I placate one, the Bakers' Guild for instance, another, such as the Fishing Guild, jumps down my throat… but that is not your affair. How goes your mission?"
"A mixed bag, truth be told." Tyrion took a seat and plucked a cup of wine from a tray proffered silently by a serving girl. "Some of Lady Selyse's vassals were for us, others against us. I persuaded enough to be for us that Lady Selyse chose to speak with me in person and give our offer a chance to win her approval, but the issue is, from her lord husband she has heard tidings of… ah… His Grace's nature."
It took Kevan a few seconds to catch the meaning of that delicate circumlocution, at which point he took a great glug from his cup. "Gods preserve us!"
"Quite," Tyrion said. "I bandied words with her as best I could, but she is not wholly convinced, in no small due to the words of her daughter. Before marrying Joffrey, Lady Shireen wants to meet him, at her leisure."
"That should not be too hard to arrange," Kevan said, brightening. "A few days should suffice to arrange a suitably magnificent escort for her from Dragonstone and to prepare some quarters."
"You misunderstand me, uncle." Tyrion sipped his wine. "She requires that they meet at her home, not his. At Dragonstone."
"Father judge me, I'm not drunk enough for this. I know not which will be the more intolerable, the king or his mother."
"Oh, I'd never bet against my sweet sister on that," Tyrion said wryly. "But truly, her thoughts are irrelevant. Only the Red Keep's septons will hear them. You yourself saw to that. Joffrey's are the objections that matter."
"I will speak with him," Kevan promised, "to impress upon him the gravity of the matter."
"I think you may be ill-suited to that."
"And why is that?" Kevan's voice rose very slightly. A man who did not know him might have thought him calm.
Tyrion trod carefully. He was on thin ice with his uncle's pride. "I mean no usurpation on your rights as Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, uncle. It is merely that Joffrey may have too much faith in you as family, faith which he does not have in me. I had him chastened for that messy business with the Stark girl before I put her in your custody, as you may remember. I recall no such event with you. I fear that he thinks you would never hurt him, because you never have, and if so, he may not take a warning from you gravely. Or am I wrong?"
"You are not wrong," Kevan admitted. "Very well, Tyrion. It is incumbent upon you to speak with the king, and, I needs must confess it, I do not envy you that."
"I am so glad we agree."
"As am I," said Kevan. "I, meantime, shall speak with Cersei. I doubt she will be pleasant about it. Women's humours are oft unbalanced, and hers more than any I've known. She scarcely suffered one child to be sent from her, nor two. She may pitch a fit for the third, even knowing it temporary."
"Third?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. He knew that Princess Myrcella had been meant to leave the capital three days after he did, but he knew naught else. "What have you done with Tommen?"
"I shan't say." At Tyrion's carefully put-upon wounded expression, Kevan elaborated, "Please understand, this is no gesture of mistrust. 'Tis but the pure and simple truth that, the more men know of a secret, the easier it is to slip free. If this city falls and the king mayhaps with it, 'twould be best if as few men as may be know where Prince Tommen has been dispatched to."
"I see," Tyrion said, thinly.
His uncle caught the bitterness this time, he was sure, though the man said naught of it. "Good. I would speak with you, also, concerning your duties on the king's council. You were looking over the master of coin's accounts, you told me a turn of the moon past. Lord Brax had to rather hurriedly assume the role and has been wholly focused on more recent dealings. He could benefit from your counsel as regards how they measure against past payments."
It took Tyrion a moment to think through the implications. "Littlefinger's gone?"
"Of course," Kevan said impatiently. "The man tried to kill you, Tyrion, did you think I wouldn't remember? In the Father's name I can't imagine why you let him live as long as you did. Even if your sister were his staunch defender, you could have told me the very day I entered this city, and with my strength 'twould have been easy work to tear him from his ill-earned post. 'T has never been fitting to grant such high rank to men of such low birth, your lord father has always told you, and he is quite right. Just look at what has come of this foolish promotion! I wish I could say he was clapped in irons as he deserves, but the man had caution as a virtue, if nothing else. The attempt on his arrest ended with a dozen red cloaks slain and Lord Baelish fled, which is all but an admission of guilt, I would say. All the lords of the realm now know him for a traitor and there is a price on his head, I could at least make sure of that. Tytos Brax, young as he may be, is better-suited to the position: Lord of Hornvale, who fought well for us on the Green Fork and has an unimpeachable record of loyalty to my lord brother."
Tyrion struggled to grasp the enormity of it. It seemed that since he had left King's Landing the capital had been turned upside down. Cersei deposed, Littlefinger exiled and a fugitive, Kevan Lannister in the ascendant, bullish western lords without experience of anything but war replacing councillors because the Lord Regent trusted them… it would take quite some effort to re-familiarise himself with how things stood at court. "I see," he said. "I will give Lord Brax what aid I may." Who will do the real work while this soldier holds the title? he wondered. That determines who will be master of coin in truth, no matter who is in name.
"I am glad," Kevan said. "I would that we dine together, for then I'll hear from you the full truth of which of the Narrow Sea lords we ought to count as foes and which as friends. Ere that hour, is there aught left to discuss?"
"There is," said Tyrion, perplexed that the matter had not been raised long past. "A trifling little matter. What plan do you have to deal with the eighty-thousand angry Reachmen and stormlanders who are doubtless soon to reunite at the roseroad if they have not done so already, soon to march north to decorate some spikes with our heads? Some thoughts occurred to me on the voyage home; I believe I have a plan."
"Not eighty-thousand," Kevan said. "You mistake the number of Lord Renly's rebels; 'tis not quite as high as you believe. But that will suffice for now. We will speak of it this eve, and not before. I shan't discuss the most sensitive of my plans except in the utmost secrecy."
There was little more to say at that. Tyrion bowed his head. "My lord Regent."
"My lord Hand," his uncle answered him, and he took his leave.
Tyrion gave some instructions to a serving boy and departed from Maegor's Holdfast. His chambers in the Tower of the Hand were much as he had left them. With the Black Ears who were guarding them today, he exchanged nods of mutual acknowledgement, but they were not alone there. "Nice trip?" Bronn suggested.
"Oh, superb," Tyrion replied as he waddled through his door. "Lords and ladies plotting against each other in a pit of snakes where every second word is a lie. How very refreshing. I've never encountered anything of such a kind before. I trust that your stay has been uneventful?"
"Aye. Bit of blood spilt when your uncle put the queen in a cage, but there weren't many men foolish enough to fight on the wrong side in that one, not with half the soldiers of the west staring them down."
"A cage?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Surely you jest."
"Aye," said the sellsword.
"A pity. I would have rather liked to see that." As Bronn chortled, Tyrion added, "And I am expecting a visitor. Tell the guards I shall be quite put out if they stop my spidery friend at the door."
Tyrion busied himself with Littlefinger's accounts, writing down some of the regular payments and the changes the old master of coin had made to them, until his visitor arrived at his study. "I am, as ever, at your service, my lord," Varys simpered.
"Spare me," Tyrion said, dryly. "I don't doubt for a moment you said the same to Eddard Stark. Tell me, what tidbits have you heard since I left that you might see fit to share with me?"
"You wound me, my lord," the eunuch answered in a tone so aggrieved that Tyrion might almost have thought he meant it. "I tell all that I think you would value. Ah, and there is much you should know. I trust you know of your lord father's victory?"
"Of course."
"What you may not know," Varys continued, undaunted, "is that his host has diminished yet further, at his own choosing. As we speak, Leo Lefford marches with three-thousand Golden Tooth men towards the capital. Your lord father wishes it to be secret, lest it reach the ears of Lord Renly."
"And what of the pretender?"
"Those tidings are not so sweet," Varys admitted. "Since the battle Lord Renly's host of foot have at last taken their leave of Bitterbridge—doubtless to the relief of Lorent Caswell, who can't have foreseen that he would host a hungry horde so long—and marched east along the roseroad. But he himself has not come north on the kingsroad, to reach the capital as soon as he may, lest he leave his foot too far behind him—and of course that is what he would fear, given how poorly such strategy served him in the Clash of the Stags. Instead, he turned to ride west. A week past, the rebels' horse joined with their foot half their way along the roseroad, further west, even, than the bounds of the kingswood, and by now surely they must be on their way towards the capital. At a typical pace he could arrive here within three weeks; if he pushes hard, it may be two and a half. We have not the strength to spare a host to send so far south of the river Blackwater, so mayhaps our power in his thoughts is a long shadow of what we truly possess."
"Ill tidings," said Tyrion, "though I am glad to have heard them. There is else that I needs must hear from you. Where is my nephew?"
"Our dear Lord Regent didn't tell you?" Varys giggled.
"Do not mock me," Tyrion warned, his voice soft.
"I wouldn't dream of it, my lord. You see, the Lord Regent was a little concerned over Prince Tommen, due to the riot at the departure of his sister."
"Riot?"
"Oh yes. The smallfolk wanted food, you see, and Ser Kevan, the city's new-made master—new-made indeed, for, you must recall, 'twas a mere two days before the riot that our sweet queen retreated into prayer and seclusion—had none to give them. Some were impertinent, and he reacted… vigorously. His fearsome westermen put it down, of course, it only took a few hours, but the whole affair inflamed the situation in the city, and our dear Lord Regent feared, not without reason, that releasing Prince Tommen to your lord father's army in the open would put him at risk not only from Lord Renly."
Tyrion felt cold. So not only are some of the guilds up in arms, we are so hated in the city that even with his army Kevan dares not risk the provocation of a ceremonial occasion with a Lannister. "I see," was all he managed to say.
Tyrion rested in his chair, alone, once the eunuch had gone. He had to speak with Joffrey, he knew, but that would be left for the morrow. Now, he had no stomach for it. Then instinct awoke and he knew what must come.
"Bronn," he called, "dress yourself warmly."
With the sellsword by his side he left the Tower of the Hand, and the Red Keep it lay in, passing the guards at the postern gate. On horseback, they took Shadowblack Lane, which wound around and down like a snake coiled about Aegon's High Hill, and at such time of night was as dark as its name, and followed some further winding alleys through the poor north of the city towards the Hill of Rhaenys. He left Bronn in Chataya's, and took a tunnel from Alayaya's room that emerged in the far north of the city, near the Iron Gate. There, dressed in a ratty cloak, looking like a child, he headed to the manse he had acquired.
His sellswords let him in, and he found her in the bedroom there, though not yet asleep. She sat up when she saw him, drawing clean white sheets over her teats as if from modesty, to preserve her innocence. Innocence? Fool of a dwarf, you've learnt nothing, she's a whore, fool.
"M'lord, how—" Shae began, but he had not come for talk, not for schemes and plots woven with mindless chatter like snakes in the grass. What he sought was purer, simpler. He pulled off his clothes in trembling, clumsy motions and tore away the sheet that concealed her from him. He was already hard, and he entered her quickly, delighting in the softness of her skin, her breasts beneath his hands.
When he was done, he stood and left her lying there, still breathing deeply. He fastened his garb, strode outside and remained for minutes there till she too stood and joined him in the garden. She looked more beautiful than ever with the starlight in her hair.
"Did you miss me, in Dragonstone, m'lord?" she asked him, her voice low.
"More than anything," he told her. "It is a damp place, cold and dreary and cruel."
"Did you find what you wanted there?"
"In a way," he said. I doubt that she would understand. "Sweetling, I must tell you. You are not safe here."
"I have my walls, and the guards you gave me."
"Sellswords," Tyrion said. "They like my gold well enough, but will they die for it? As for these walls, a man could stand on another's shoulders and be over in a heartbeat. Lord Renly is three weeks' march from the city, two and a half if he drives a hard pace. We have four-thousand proper soldiers here. 'Tis more like thrice that number if you count all of the gold cloaks, but that would be unwise. Even if you do, Lord Renly has more than six times our numbers. It may be that only the Red Keep holds out against him, for my lord father's army to relieve. And the sack of a city is always a bloody affair. Otherwise ordinary men will rape, pillage and burn when their comrades have been dying like fish in a net, struggling up a wall, and their blood is hot and angry."
Her face was pale, and he feared he had said too much. Whore she might be, she was still innocent to some of the world's crueller truths. "Then what do I do?"
"I have… well, call it the seed of a plan. I think I might be able to bring you into the castle kitchens."
Shae's face went still. "The kitchens."
"Yes. If I act through Varys, no-one will be the wiser."
She giggled. "M'lord, I'd poison you. Every man who's tasted my cooking has told me what a good whore I am."
"The Red Keep has sufficient cooks. Butchers and bakers too. You'd need to pose as a scullion."
"A pot girl," she said, "in scratchy brown roughspun. Is that how m'lord wants to see me?"
"M'lord wants to see you alive," Tyrion said. "You can scarcely scour pots in silk and velvet."
"Has m'lord grown tired of me?" She reached a hand under his tunic and found his cock. In two quick strokes she had it hard. "He still wants me." She laughed. "Would you like to fuck your kitchen wench, m'lord? You can dust me with flour and suck gravy off my titties if you…"
"Stop it." The way she was acting reminded him of Dancy, who had tried so hard to win her wager. He yanked her hand away to keep her from further mischief. "This is not the time for bed sport, Shae. Your life may be at stake."
Her grin was gone. "If I've displeased m'lord, I never meant it, only… couldn't you just give me more guards?"
Tyrion breathed a deep sigh. Remember how young she is, he told himself. He took her hand. "Your gems can be replaced, and new gowns can be sewn twice as lovely as the old. To me, you're the most precious thing within these walls. The Red Keep is not safe either, but it's a deal safer than here. I want you there."
"In the kitchens." Her voice was flat. "Scouring pots."
"For a short while."
"My father made me his kitchen wench," she said, her mouth twisting. "That was why I ran off."
"You told me you ran off because your father made you his whore," he reminded her.
"That too. I didn't like scouring his pots no more than I liked his cock in me." She tossed her head. "Why can't you keep me in your tower? Half the lords at court keep bedwarmers."
"I was expressly forbidden to take you to court."
"By your stupid father." Shae pouted. "You're old enough to keep all the whores you want. Does he take you for a beardless boy? What could he do, spank you?"
He slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough. "Damn you," he said. "Damn you. Never mock me. Not you."
For a moment, Shae did not speak. The only sound was the cricket, chirping, chirping. "Beg pardon, m'lord," she said at last, in a heavy wooden voice. "I never meant to be impudent."
And I never meant to strike you. Gods be good, am I turning into Cersei? "That was ill done," he said. "On both our parts. Shae, you do not understand." Words he had never meant to speak came tumbling out of him like mummers from a hollow horse. "When I was thirteen, I wed a crofter's daughter. Or so I thought her. I was blind with love with her, and thought she felt the same for me, but my father rubbed my face in the truth. My bride was a whore Jaime had hired to give me my first taste of manhood." And I believed all of it, fool that I was. "To drive the lesson home, Lord Tywin gave my wife to a barracks of his guardsmen to use as they pleased, and commanded me to watch." And to take her one last time, after the rest were done. One last time, with no trace of love nor tenderness remaining. "So you will remember her as she truly is," he said, and I should have defied him, but my cock betrayed me, and I did as I was bid. "After he was done with her, my father had our marriage undone. It was as if we had never been wed, the septons said." He squeezed her hand. "Please, let's have no more talk of the Tower of the Hand. You will only be in the kitchens a little while. Once we're done with Renly, you'll have another manse, and silks as soft as your hands."
Shae's eyes had grown large but he could not read what lay behind them. "My hands won't be soft if I clean ovens and scrape plates all day. Will you still want them touching you when they're all red and raw and cracked from hot water and lye soap?"
"More than ever," he said. "When I look at them, they'll remind me how brave you were."
He could not say if she believed him. She lowered her eyes. "I am yours to command, m'lord."
It was as much acceptance as she could give tonight, he saw that plain enough. He kissed her cheek where he'd struck her, to take some sting from the blow, and bade her good night.
Tyrion left the manse in silence. Why did I tell her about Tysha, gods help me? he asked himself, suddenly afraid. There were some secrets that should never be spoken, some shames a man should take to his grave. What did he want from her, forgiveness? The way she had looked at him, what did that mean? Did she hate the thought of scouring pots that much, or was it his confession? How could I tell her that and still think she would love me? part of him said, and another part mocked, saying, Fool of a dwarf, it is only the gold and jewels the whore loves.
Sleep was long in coming, that night.
Author's Note: This chapter contains various things of interest, but most of them—the really twisted Tyrion-Shae relationship and what it reveals about Tyrion's character, for example—speak for themselves. There are two things which I feel that I need to clarify for you.
First of all, with regard to riots in King's Landing, the riot happened in A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling just as it did in the original A Clash of Kings. The riot by the fisherfolk isn't a replacement for it; it happened as well as the canonical riot. And Kevan Lannister isn't an evil man; he's no Gregor Clegane. However, he isn't a lord; he is a household knight of a lord; he has spent his life serving as a military commander for Lord Tywin. He isn't accustomed to police work in King's Landing. He's accustomed to leading an army. Therefore, when there's a disturbance of public order, the frame of reference that his mind puts the rioters into is "enemy". Hence the extreme violence with which the rioters are put down, as if they're an enemy army rather than a bunch of scared and hungry civilians. It's the same sort of brutality that you often see when armies are used instead of police forces.
Secondly, with regard to Cersei's fall, it is important to emphasise that I DON'T HAVE AN OMNISCIENT NARRATOR. I am telling this story from the perspective of the point-of-view characters. In both canon and Knees Falling, Tyrion dreaded being expelled from the city for fear of Cersei undoing all his work; in Knees Falling but not in canon, he was expelled from the city. Ever since Kevan sided with Cersei in sending Tyrion to Dragonstone, Tyrion regarded Kevan as Cersei's pawn. If you look at Tyrion's plotline in A Clash of Kings, he thinks of Cersei as his main political opponent, and regards almost everything as a conflict between himself and Cersei. It's an odd form of self-centredness. He isn't generally distrustful; he isn't the perfectly cynical intelligent man that he views himself as. (A lot of people miss this because Martin presents this storyline from Tyrion's own point of view.) He's specifically opposed to Cersei. The most dramatic examples of this are Littlefinger and Varys. Tyrion knows that Littlefinger has literally tried to kill him and has sparked the war between Houses Lannister and Stark with his lie to Catelyn about the dagger. There is no ambiguity about it; Tyrion knows this; Martin is totally explicit about it. Yet Tyrion doesn't get rid of Littlefinger, even though Littlefinger is not a great lord with a powerful family to avenge him and a great retinue to guard him; it's perfectly within Tyrion's power to have Littlefinger arrested and beheaded for treason on the spot and there's nothing Littlefinger can do about it, and the most that could happen is that Cersei might be a bit upset about it afterwards (but not very, because she doesn't care very much about Littlefinger). Yet Tyrion refuses to, because Littlefinger is useful to the crown's finances. This is, to put it bluntly, an incredibly stupid attitude. Littlefinger is a known traitor. Yet Tyrion doesn't punish him because he falls into Tyrion's blind spot because he isn't in Cersei's pocket. Instead, Tyrion does punish Pycelle, who's loyal to House Lannister, unlike Littlefinger, but is in Cersei's pocket, unlike Littlefinger. Similarly, Tyrion has no good reason to trust Varys. Yet he follows Varys along shady passages where Varys could easily get him captured or killed, doesn't bother trying to get leverage over Varys, and even trusts Varys when Varys is providing him with lists of supposed traitors among the prominent people in the city, with no evidence but Varys's word, and executes them. For all that Tyrion knows, Varys might want Stannis to win and might be handing Tyrion the names of various prominent people in the city in order to stir up rebellion among the cityfolk on Stannis's behalf. (We the readers know that isn't true, but only because Varys is serving a different anti-Lannister pretender to the Iron Throne.) Cersei is correct to note that Tyrion trusts Varys far more than he should, yet Tyrion dismisses this statement out of hand and continues to trust Varys, because Varys isn't Cersei. He's so totally, myopically opposed to Cersei that he refuses to give other threats the proper attention.
Because of this perspective, Tyrion thinks that, by telling Kevan about Cersei's indiscretions (especially her questionably-consensual affair with Lancel, Kevan's own son, as there's a really creepy power-dynamic in that relationship), he can deprive Cersei of a pawn. This perspective turns out to be totally wrong about Kevan. Kevan didn't cooperate in sending Tyrion out of the city because he was in Cersei's pocket; he did so because he genuinely thought Tyrion was the right person to send to negotiate with Selyse. And when Kevan learns what Cersei has done to his son (especially bearing in mind the medieval perspective here, the madonna/whore dichotomy; if Cersei isn't a fair virgin / loyal wife, she's an evil whore and must not be trusted) his reaction isn't to stop being Cersei's servant. He was never Cersei's servant. He just goes straight over Cersei's head, because he is, after all, the guy with the army. This is a predictable response, but Tyrion fails to predict it because he's so absolutely fixed on the perspective that everything in King's Landing is a struggle between himself and Cersei that he's unable to think outside that box.
Kevan, meanwhile, carries out his role in King's Landing in the way that Lord Tywin intended Tyrion to. He's a simple loyal man, and I don't mean that as an insult to him. When he learns Littlefinger is disloyal, his reaction is the same sort of reaction that Lord Tywin wanted Tyrion to have: "heads, spikes, walls". When he learns about Cersei being untrustworthy, he just gets rid of her, by stripping her of her power and basically putting her under house arrest. And he fills the small council and the Kingsguard with men whom he knows and trusts, men like him, military-minded men from the westerlands. They might not be the most able of administrators but he regards King's Landing as a snakepit and he wants to be surrounded by men whom he can trust, because, as he views it, an incompetent subordinate is better than a treacherous one.