Tyrion came to with a gurgle and a groan, the feast's wine setting a hundred bells ringing in his head.
"Guh." he grunted into the carpeted floor, flopping over and blearily blinking Drone's bright sunrise out of his mismatched eyes. I'm not in the hall, he realized. Sitting up with some interest, he could see his surroundings were no dungeon. More Myrish rugs covered the floors, copper suns decorated the walls and a mahogany table sat in the center of the room, a jug sitting atop it. At once Tyrion snatched it, guzzling its contents only to nearly spit them out when he tasted not tart Dornish wine, but water. Rubbing it into his face and hair to wash the smell of wine away, Tyrion peered out a window. The Greenblood ran into the Narrow Sea, the same as it had on every map Tyrion could ever remember reading. Still Sunspear, then. Aside from being alive in the first place, Tyrion could not find it in himself to be surprised. I may make for easy smuggling but I'm hardly worth the bother of vanishing to some alternative locale. A small cough behind him made him turn, and he beheld a short plump maester with a head bald enough and face round enough to be Varys' twin. Indeed, Tyrion blinked furiously to make sure it was indeed not Varys, the eunuch's skills for mummery a rather unpleasantly glaring thought in Tyrion's mind. As the maester grew closer though, Tyrion could see his eyes had none of Varys' razored cunning. A ladybird, not a spider. The maester bowed.
"Good morning, my lord. I am Caleotte, Prince Doran's own maester."
"I don't remember you at the feast." Caleotte sighed.
"I was, regrettably, busy." Tyrion took in the man's round face and slippered feet and was again uncomfortably reminded of Varys. No doubt, he thought, but doing what? "You ought not drink so much wine, my lord. It dehydrates the body and makes the morning after worse…particularly for those not used to Dornish wine. Water would do you better." Tyrion looked into the jug he held.
"Just so. It seems Dornish sours don't agree with me." Caleotte's soft mouth became a line. Sours, my balls. Someone spiked my cup at the feast. "Where am I, anyway?"
"Oh, this is Prince Doran's solar. If I may, I'll bring him word you've woken. He and Prince Oberyn will be along shortly."
"As you like, Maester Caleotte." Tyrion said, turning back to the window and gazing across the sea to the eastern horizon. Bald and fat the man may be, but he's not wrong about my drinking. Tyrion took another sip of water.
He was peering down the height of the Tower of the Sun, giving himself vertigo when the creaking of wheels put the thought of pissing out the window out of his mind. Pity, and I might have been the first to do so from the Wall and the heights of Sunspear both. Prince Doran Martell had not left the chair he'd sat for the feast. Without a table to hide them, Tyrion could see the wheels that allowed it to move, pushed by a tall man as hard and weathered as Caleotte was soft. On the man's back was a longaxe and he had an air Tyrion was much familiar with after dealing with knights of the Kingsguard. Prince Oberyn followed, affable as ever, smirking at Tyrion when he came into view.
"You have a lion's thirst for wine, my lord, but a lamb's belly to hold it."
"Not so. I have a lion's belly for wine as well, but I must admit I have no stomach for sleeping draughts. I can think of a fair few times a lion's bladder might have come in handy as well, but I've needed a piss through so many interminable ceremonies, lectures, and trials to admit I sadly lack that stamina." Oberyn snorted while Doran winced.
"You must forgive my brother, his years of princehood have left him little sense of humor." Years of princehood and years of gout, Tyrion observed.
"And who might I forgive for not making it to my bed last night, my prince?" Oberyn blinked innocently.
"Why, I thought we'd settled that, my lord? You had too much wine."
"Is Myrcella alive, at least?"
"Of course she is, though I cannot vouch for her location. She rises early and may well be quit of her chambers by now." Tyrion washed the last of last night's wine's sour taste from his mouth.
"If you wanted a private word with me, Prince Doran, you needed only ask. I'm not much in a position to refuse you, after all."
"Asking for a private word would have been tale enough to draw unwanted eyes and ears, my lord." Doran replied. He even sounds older than he is.
"Hence your bidding your brother to see to it we never shared a word, and that I was never seen coming into your solar." Tyrion emptied the jug and put it back on the table before sitting next to it, legs swinging. "I'm pleased you've seen fit to move things apace, Prince Doran. That is not your reputation."
"My brother is of the mind that it gives one spare time to do what needs doing."
"What does need doing, my prince? I confess, I am more than happy to play Myrcella's guardian until she and Trystane are wed and one of the Sand Snakes tosses me out a window. Should that be my fate, I'll gladly toast the health of House Martell before I'm thrown."
"Why should we wish you ill, my lord? Did I not take up arms in your name to put the queen's vile accusations to rest?" Oberyn said mildly.
"You had the chance to kill the Mountain right under my father's nose. Forgive me for suggesting it, but you could not resist, my prince."
"A chance you yourself provided when you demanded a trial by combat in the first place. I knew then justice for Elia and her children was near. At least, to start. I saw too that you had, and have, as much love for your father and sister as I do."
"Even so. It hardly warrants a princely invitation to come to Sunspear."
"You do not know my brother." Doran said wearily. "Most every mad fancy that crosses his mind, he humors, though to what degree the gods only know."
He inhaled through his nose, waiting for the latest flare of pain to subside.
"Were I to ask you, Lord Tyrion, what you intend to do while in Dorne, would you answer truthfully?"
"As truthfully as I am able, my prince. On my honor as a Lannister, as a dwarf, and on a Lannister dwarf. I speak my mind now." Tyrion replied. "You might wonder why I should be so forthcoming. In answer, I say that my family has on more than one occasion, tried their very best to write my doom... I know I am not the easiest man to share blood with, and even the odd violent accident I could overlook, truly. But Cersei tried to have me killed while I was in the middle of saving her and Joffrey's worthless hides, my father saw fit to have me stand trial for treason, kinslaying and kingslaying when he bloody well knew I had no more hand in it than he himself… I daresay everyone in the room wanted me dead at that moment, as much as I did them. Well, everyone in Sunspear might want me dead just as well, but at least here they have cause. Meanwhile, I've not the first bit of ill will toward you, your House, or your people, my prince. Sending Myrcella here was mine own notion, if a dwarf may claim his small share of credit for a good idea." As Tyrion spoke, Prince Doran's face slowly flushed with hot, dark anger. Yet, not at me, he knew. Else I'd be halfway to Sunspear's base by now.
"Areo." Doran muttered, the prince's tall guardsman on his knee beside the chair in an instant. To Tyrion's great surprise, Doran made to stand, though it was plain to see that the sworn shield was all but holding the Prince of Dorne up. Oberyn took his other side, as gentle with his elder brother as he was with his paramour. "Then I will ask, my lord, what do you intend to do next?" Doran asked between hissing in and gasping out.
"I will serve as Myrcella's guardian and use my not inconsiderable wits to protect her. It seems your aims and mine align insofar as seeing her marry Trystane, certain factors notwithstanding-"
"Factors such as her being as much Baratheon as I myself?" Doran panted.
"Just so." Tyrion said. "I find it quite compelling that this seems to serve as little obstacle, to either of you."
"Cannot a girl with wits to match her beauty be enough for even a prince?" Oberyn asked. Tyrion scratched at his scar.
"My nose lies cleaved in twain at the bottom of Blackwater Bay, my prince, and even there it can smell something is awry."
"Oh, nothing is awry, my lord." Oberyn replied, his face an infernal blend of sphinx and smirk. As if he knows the worlds greatest jape.
"Well, then, I suppose I'm small enough to avoid it, whatever it is."
"Oh, surely you're not so small as all that. Were you to use the eyes you have instead of the nose you don't, you might well learn something."
"Enough." Doran said. "I have tasted every vintage of grief, eaten a course of agony with every meal. Should I act against Tywin Lannister now, Sunspear would meet the same fate as Castamere and Tarbeck Hall. Events go apace and there is no time to waste on trading japes." It was the last thing in the world Tyrion expected Doran Martell to say.
"My prince, surely you don't mean to openly oppose the Iron Throne? No matter how much blood is shed, your sister and her children are forever out of your reach-" The prince's face was so dark it was almost black.
"I don't want to soothe Elia's ghost, I want to drown mine own rage. Myrcella aside, what do you intend to do?"
"Well, there's the matter of Ser Arys Oakheart."
"What of him?" the prince asked impatiently.
"Doran, he moons after your daughter like a lovesick squire."
"What your brother is trying to put diplomatically is that Arianne is fucking him. Obviously, that's to no one's advantage. I'm loathe to let him keep what dregs of honor he clings to, he beat Sansa Stark whenever Joffrey bid him, but it seems he's escaped justice for now. I suppose I could have Myrcella write a letter to her mother for Ser Arys to bear back to King's Landing, able to leave Sunspear with some semblance of grace. No doubt another will take his place, but we will have considerable time to play with our cocks before the next Kingsguard reaches Sunspear." Doran was wheezing, it seemed his body could not make up its mind which was the greater pain, his gout or his daughter. "But must events, as you put them, go apace at all?" Tyrion said, gentler.
"Stannis Baratheon remains at large and with him alive, the war isn't over." Doran replied.
"Stannis' strength most likely wanes by the hour. These days of blood must surely be numbered, my princes. Truly, is it not better to let the pieces lay as they fall?"
"Robb Stark had Stannis' numbers and more, and yet Lord Tywin did away with him." Oberyn added. Tyrion snorted.
"He might have found a pretext to kill all the Freys and reach a rapprochement with the Starks rather than the other way around. Better an honest enemy than a false friend, I say, and just now nobody's much in a position to try and bring the north to heel."
"No one but a Stark." Doran panted, nostrils flaring. "I seem to recall your being married to one."
"That's nothing the northmen will hold to. And as it happens, Sansa has disappeared."
"And you have no idea where she's gone? Friendless daughters of confessed traitors seldom vanish into thin air, my lord. Truth, now, or my captain and my brother will flip tiles to see who get the privilege of pitching you out my window." Tyrion pursed his lips.
"As I am better off, I suspect, not knowing the breadth of events as you described them, I must tell you, my prince, you have naught to gain from hearing my thoughts on Sansa Stark. It might be I have a notion or two, but nothing yet nearly ripe to act upon. Wherever she is, I suspect she's well safe and out of harm's way…in a manner of speaking." Doran put his hands on the table and Tyrion saw that his knuckles were throbbing swollen things the size of grapes.
"What if she is dead, my lord?" he asked.
The question took Tyrion aback.
"The day Eddard Stark was taken, the younger daughter disappeared, yes? It's been years since, no doubt time your family has spent scouring the countryside for her…and nothing. It seems once Starks disappear, they don't resurface. Perhaps, Lord Tyrion, your northern wife dashed off and leapt into the sea for fear of the queen's wroth at Joffrey's death. Or out of fright of seeing the king die. Or any manner of method, the end being the same." Tyrion's eyes narrowed.
"Why, my prince, one might almost think you want me to declare my wife dead, whether or not 'tis true. Such a tragedy would sever House Lannister's budding claim to the north. My father would never allow it-"
"Your father has given Winterfell to Roose Bolton, or so we hear. It seems the Stark name means rather less than it did when you wed Sansa Stark. Freed from a marriage never sought, you'd be free to wed again."
"And no doubt there are countless blushing beauties lining up to wed Lord Tywin's Bane." Tyrion said, hopelessly flailing at whatever the Martells were playing at in his mind. There is thought here, and a deal of it. He wants me to declare Sansa dead, but it's my marriage's corpse he seeks. Not that Tyrion was much of a mind to deny him. Sansa was safer dead, for certain, and even if King's Landing didn't believe it, his lord father would likely not turn his nose up at a new marriage.
"With Stannis free and the riverlands in chaos, your father can ill afford to give insult to Dorne should an offer come." Doran said. A bad feeling began to stew in Tyrion's belly.
"I admit, I was suspicious as to why the princess remained unwed when by rights she should have children of her own by now…"
"You were suspicious because it's suspicious, lord dwarf." Oberyn chimed in. "Arianne is a rare beauty and the heir to Dorne. Yet at four-and-twenty she has no husband nor children. There is no shortage of eligible lordlings in Dorne, and even a few in the Reach and the stormlands who would scarce balk at such a match."
"Whole lordlings, handsome and charming all." Tyrion replied, though he felt it was a lost battle.
"With claims to pisspots, hovels and ramshackle huts. Pebbles and stones, where you have a claim to Casterly Rock." Doran told him. Tyrion sighed.
"My father will never allow me to hold the Rock in my own name. I have two older siblings, I'll remind you, and the westermen will never follow a dwarf. Even a Lannister dwarf." It hurt to admit and more than Tyrion expected, but truth was truth. "As for any children, I'm sure you're aware of my penchant for whores, my prince. I've been tumbling them for ten years and more, yet not a one came calling to tell me I had fathered a child by them." Oberyn's smirk shrank a bit, but Doran's face finally began to lose its dark color.
"That is no obstacle, my lord. A marriage would be enough. To King's Landing's eyes, it would be nothing more than a continuation of the existing alliance, as well as firmly entrench you in Dorne. Perhaps some mention of it might go in Myrcella's letter to her mother, it would even put you out of your father's mind." Tyrion put his hands up in surrender.
"As you will, my prince. Is Arianne aware of your plans?"
"Anything I tell Arianne she tells the Sand Snakes and they tell who they might imagine can be trusted." Wonderful.
"I might also remind you that I have Sansa to declare dead still, and no doubt time to mourn would be appropriate."
"Or not." Oberyn snorted. "Your marriage to Sansa Stark was a sham from the start. Why should you mourn a girl you never wanted, who never wanted you?"
"So I'm to shrug off Sansa like an ill-fitting cloak and espouse Arianne in her stead?"
"That would be best, my lord." Doran said. "If I might make a suggestion, tell her before the day of the wedding. Elsewise I shudder to think what she might do." Arianne Martell, Tyrion thought, a thunderstorm rumbling in his stomach. No vestal virgin, but when has that ever bothered me? What right have I to take issue with it? The girl was as beautiful as she was unbiddable, not that Tyrion felt at all inclined to try. They are using me to mask their true game, he thought. Somehow I doubt Arianne will much appreciate the role her father and uncle have devised in such. It beat losing his ugly head, though, as well as lurking at the Wall until some crony of Janos Slynt's made an end to him. The Dornish princess filled his thoughts again and his nerves quieted a bit. Arianne Martell, he thought again. Many a dwarf has met a worse fate, and many a Lannister too.