There was a feast to negotiate afterward, Tyrion gladder by the moment that he'd given the morning's wine a miss. And not just to make keeping down this Dornish fare easier. He spotted those Dornish lords who'd accompanied the Red Viper to King's Landing. A sober head will pay dividends surrounded by such. Yet, the fact they'd lingered so at Sunspear niggled at him. What were they waiting for? Or was it a prince's orders they were waiting on? He spotted Lord Harmen Uller talking to Prince Oberyn down the table. Ellaria Sand's sire, the grandfather of the prince's younger brood. A name and face that will need knowing. Though the Ullers were reputed to be impulsive and unpredictable, traits Tyrion could not have possibly imagined Prince Oberyn being attracted to, Lord Harmen struck him as more similar to Prince Doran. The sort willing to wait for the opportunity to thrust rather than chase the boar, spear in hand, only to get his guts dropped on his boots when the brute gives him a spearing of his own. Myrcella was sitting with Prince Trystane, feeding him bits of fish off her fork and blushing. His niece had demonstrated a canniness that her brothers (and parents, official and otherwise) wholly lacked. No doubt she's aware there's more to all this than first appears. Cersei would stick her nose where it didn't belong, but Myrcella looked more than content to keep out of whatever was going on, her days spent with Trystane. A wisdom lost on even me, Tyrion thought. I pray it keeps you alive until your golden hair goes white, child. At last Arianne took her place beside him, looking perfectly pleased with her lot. How, I cannot fathom, but surely the Red Viper's plans are at the bottom of it. He was certainly not one to spoil the merry mood, sipping something bodied with lemon so heavily he felt his mouth tie itself in a knot.
"My lord, is Dornish fare too sour for you?" Princess Arianne teased.
"Entirely, though it has a fine quality the sweets of the capital do not."
"Oh?"
"I'm somewhat less tempted to drink as much of it as my belly can hold. Sustained sobriety is a new acquaintance of mine, and I'm learning to enjoy its company."
"From what I'm told, it's rare a man makes it through his wedding day to reach the bedding sober."
"I daresay you've been told true. More than one handsome knight has reached the marriage bed only to find his lance made of wet rag during the crucial tilt." Tyrion replied. He lowered his voice. "Though, what boon is it to the bride when the groom is an ugly dwarf?" To his very great surprise, Arianne pursed her lips.
"Suffice it to say a man who can be counted on to perform is the least mercy the gods can grant me." Tyrion almost spat out the Dornish sour.
"Water, then." he said through coughs, drinking deep of the nearest jug.
Despite his new bride being singularly fit for a bedding, no one seemed in a rush to undress Tyrion. At least I spared Sansa Stark that indignity, if unintentionally. He had been well on his way to drunk when his chiding of Joffrey got him and Sansa away from the wedding guests and by the time they were alone in the bedchamber together, he'd truly arrived. Yet I was sound of mind enough to forgo serving her as I served Tysha. Had it started then? The first step on the road that had brought him to Dorne? Since the day Lady Joanna had died birthing Tyrion, Lord Tywin had loathed him. Cersei acted as though he were something that crawled out of a chamber pot and learned to talk. But for Jaime, all my life I've been hated by my closest kin. How strange that Lord Tywin's Bane should fall into the hands of House Martell, whose exception to Robert's reign was well known, well founded? I did not so much follow the Red Viper, Tyrion mused, as leave House Lannister behind. There was nothing he could do to see to Tommen's safety or education, but Lord Tywin could be counted on to do that much, at least. Unless he finds out the rumors about Jaime and Cersei are anything but. Tyrion had Myrcella well in hand, her betrothal seemed if anything as ironclad as ever, what more was there to see to?
"My lord?" A woman's voice pulled him away from thoughts of his family. He cleared his throat, seeing a tall blonde woman in a blue dress addressing him. She wore a gold ring capped with a blue jade hawk. Her twin was talking to Arianne, who was smirking.
"Apologies, Lady Fowler. Official dwarf business."
"Oh my, is it perilous?" the Fowler girl asked, though which she was he had no idea.
"Incredibly. Or not at all. No doubt I'll puzzle it out once I figure out just what it is."
"I see. Shall we get you and the princess bedded in the meanwhile?"
"Why, Lady Fowler, if you sought to be polite you might have spoken as if you had even the slightest desire to do such a thing." His bluntness made her eyes flash. "As there's no doubt the ravishing lot of you can scarcely wait to bask in the masterpiece that is my unclad body, perhaps we'd best get to it." He turned to Arianne.
"Or we could go on our way and let the feast wear on, your countrymen seem more interested in each other than us anyway."
"I find I don't much relish the thought of being stripped by mine own future vassals, either." Tyrion gave her a knowing look. "I said 'much'." Arianne said, half defensively, half apologetically. "And anyway, I'm certain you're more than equal to the task."
"Have no doubts, princess, I'm no stranger to helping a woman out of her clothes. It seems a shame to have that lovely blue gown off you so early, though." She scoffed. "Is it so unbelievable? That purple…garment you wore the evening I proposed-"
"I proposed." she corrected.
"However it happened, it landed us here. Anyway, that thing looked thin enough to be shaken off, quite without need for hands."
"Oh?" Arianne seemed intrigued. "Does my new Imp think shaking out of clothes is behavior quite befitting a princess?"
"No." Tyrion replied. "But it strikes me as just the sort of thing that would fit a build such as yours better than any silk ever could." Her cheeks reddened and she muttered something along the lines of "You mind your business", busying herself with a cup of wine to hide her blush. Had I known Dorne would be so kind to me, I'd have left for Sunspear the day I learned to walk!
When the dancing started, Tyrion saw his chance to make his escape, bride in tow. The Red Viper seemed only too pleased to steal every eye partnering with Ellaria Sand in some obscene Lysene gyrating, the timing too perfect to ignore.
"I hope my uncle's paramour hasn't given that deviant little mind of yours any ideas. I'm a princess of Dorne and intend to conduct myself as such." Arianne said airily.
"You'd do better than I would. Your uncle is quite graceful." He sat in a chair, which seemed to take her by surprise.
"Aren't you coming to bed?"
"I'm not so naïve as to think you could possibly desire-"
"You are by far the ugliest man I've ever met and would comfortably be so even if an open grave hadn't been made of your face. It isn't your face that's very relevant tonight, though, is it?" Abruptly, Tyrion stopped talking. "From what my cousins tell me, you were as fond of whores as crows are of corpses and fonder until very recently. Not exactly the sort of thing a woman desires in a new husband…but there's something to be said for battle-tested steel over something fresh from the forge, no? And if nothing else, I'll bet you've spent plenty of time whetting said steel as well as putting it to use."
"Whatever obscene metaphor you're making is going over my head. However, consider me engaged." Tyrion said, hands clasped in his lap. Then her words unpuzzled themselves in his head. "Ah. Well, whores are fond of gold and that I had aplenty-"
"I daresay they're fond too of men who do what needs doing and get it over with rather than break down crying or apologize as if they're ladies or even blame them for their own hungers of the flesh." Again, Tyrion was lost for words.
"I suppose they would be."
"Well then, might I be permitted to behold my lordly husband sans pretty feathers? Better a hideous husband who knows what to do with what's between his legs than a handsome maid who hasn't the first idea." It was Tyrion's turn to blush.
"Oh, thank you for these, by the way." he said as he started unbuttoning the doublet.
"As I recall, those weren't originally a pair."
"Well, I thought green too Tyrell-"
"As if anyone would mistake you for the famed Knight of Flowers or our lovely new queen." Tyrion shrugged.
"For someone so eager to see me naked, you're putting rather a lot of thought in what I wore today. Speaking of, there was no Martell cloak waiting for me in that courtyard-" Arianne pulled another length of purple silk out from between her breasts and flung it at him.
"There's your bloody cloak. Consider yourself in the protection of House Martell." As if I weren't already, Tyrion thought, reaching up to pull the still-warm silk off his face.
"Your aim is surprisingly good. Dare I ask if that's a bit of wooing you've had practice with?"
"You should have seen Ser Arys when I tried it with him. He nearly spilt himself in his breeches." Tyrion was reminded of the knight's blushes and stammers. Stalwart Ser Arys. Her admission of a dalliance with a knight of the Kingsguard did not get the reaction she perhaps expected.
"There could be no keeping him in Dorne. Anyone with eyes could have spotted that you seduced him, Myrcella's safety was compromised." Arianne rolled her eyes.
"She was, and is, Lord Dwarf, perfectly safe."
"How was I to know? How am I to know, quite frankly? If nothing else, a knight of the Kingsguard ought be made of sterner stuff."
"That's true enough. Stiffer stuff as well, I daresay." She passed behind a screen, the blue dress coming over the top to hang, forgotten. Arianne Martell wore nothing more than the night air when she cantered to the bed, laying out on her belly to look at him the way a cat might look at a mouse it had caught.
Tyrion frowned.
"Stiffer stuff?" Arianne huffed.
"The less I need tell, the better."
"Well, my princess, now an imp is curious." Her hands came up to her cheeks, her feet swinging idly through the air behind her.
"Suffice it to say he was a maid, or near enough when first I had him…if even I did."
"You're not sure? It seems to me rather black and white-"
"He spent on my thigh, he didn't even manage to fuck me proper until the time next. Yet the way he broke down, you'd have thought he'd had me bent over Baelor the Blessed's tomb." This poor fucking girl. "Enough about Ser Arys, he's got Baelor to keep him company now I think on it. Off with your clothes, lord husband, or I shall handle things in mine own time." Tyrion took the time to fold his garb and leave it on the chair. "You're stunted, all right. Your limbs are too short, your fingers are like stubby cold blood sausages, your face is a holy terror. Lord Tywin's Bane indeed." Arianne observed. The coldness of it, the dispassion was so un-Dornish that Tyrion looked back at her. Before he could think of something witty to say, her fingers were curling back over her palm in a beckon, Tyrion answering without a word. "Turn around." she said. While he stared at the door, he felt her hand on his arm, his leg, down his back and over a buttock.
"Do I dis-" he began, but she cut him off.
"When I want words from you, I will ask for them." In time, she bid him turn back to her. Her face had lost its sultry flirtatiousness. "I have no need of gold, and you have none in the first place. You are in my House's power, I have no reason, no motive to lie to you."
"So you don't." Tyrion could not remember being so confused and yet so aroused. No whore had ever touched him thus, not even Shae.
"You're a suspicious man by nature, and skeptical, which has served you well in this treacherous world. However, what I say next will be the truth, regardless of whether you choose to believe it."
"As you say, my princess."
"You are stunted, but not twisted. You are not broken or infirm. Your arms are short but they are strong, and you have the calves of a sand steed. The gods may have cheated you in shaping you, but you have cheated them in extolling this shape to the limits of its ability. Also, you have a cock like a fucking warhammer." Tyrion's jaw dropped. "You may be half Ser Arys' height, but you are twice his length. Then again, perhaps Reachmen don't reach very far below the belt as a rule." She reared up on her knees. "If I wanted you to stand there motionless all night I'd have married a gargoyle." She slapped the bed. "It strikes me that yours is not a body well made for plate, but it did not get the way it is by tiring quickly." she said as he clambered up to her. "Much in the way sand steeds are made for stamina rather than strength. They cannot bear the armor a mundane warhorse can, but they can run through day, night and day again without tiring. I would see how far the parallel extends, lord husband."
As it turned out, the parallel extended long enough to see the first light of dawn wink into the room. Tyrion could not remember being so thirsty, nor so exhausted…well, at least in mind. To even his own amazement the rest of him did not buckle even as head pounded from lack of sleep. If the noises Arianne was making, was continuing to make were any hint, she could find no fault with her lord husband in the bedchamber. He could scarcely imagine it, but the day had come where his body had proved the superior of his mind. It's what they say, he thought deliriously, the world turns upside down in Dorne. Once they finally stopped, Tyrion collapsed onto the bed like a bad suit of empty plate. My bride is made of sunlight, he thought, drunk on the Dornishwoman. He came to in a small bath some time later, the sun high in the sky. He saw the tub had been set up well away from the light filling the room. He thanked whatever servant was canny enough to look ahead. Else I might have been boiled like a crab. Gingerly he stood, blinking the light out of his eyes. His head still hurt but all the rest of him felt fine…indeed, a very vocal bit of him was all for finding out where his bride had gone. Maybe I've been dosed again, he thought mildly. Surely there's something in the world that turns a man's mind off and his flesh to granite for a few hours of tirelessness in his lover's embrace. He yawned. Then again, why grant him such a boon? Unless Arianne just needed to make certain she conceived my child. He'd told them he was unlikely to be of much use in that regard, but it seemed the Martells were the sort to see for themselves. Or at least Arianne is. Her blue dress remained over the screen where she had flung it, the sheets on the bed had been changed, but those aside there was no hint that Arianne had been there at all. While Tyrion half-drowned himself in the water jug, a feeble stirring issued from under the bed. There was a feminine groan, and a hand clumsily emerged, feeling around uselessly for nothing. Tyrion filled a cup and put it in the hand, letting it slip back into the shadows. Arianne half-crawled, half-flopped out from the other side, hair askew and likewise blinking in the sun.
"What were you doing under there?" Tyrion asked, filling her cup whenever she emptied it. Watering the sun, he thought jovially.
"Nguh." she grunted.
"Ah, very good. Shall I report to your father and uncle that Nguh is well and truly underway, then?"
"Were you a wiser man, dwarf, your mouth would be shut and my cup full just now." Dutifully he obeyed, as a lord husband must of his princess. Finally she seemed sated, sitting up against the wall out of the sun's rays.
"My compliments to your poisonous cousin. Whatever she found a way to slip me last night worked…and better. I wonder, was it in the clothes you provided?" Tyrion asked.
"What are you talking about?" Arianne asked, sounding grouchy.
"What's this? The sun, not one for mornings?"
"Tyene didn't slip you anything." Tyrion was dumbfounded.
"But then, how does one account for last night?" he asked. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him blearily for a moment, then her gaze hardened.
"I told you I was going to tell you the truth." "That's just what someone says before they lie." Tyrion said, half in apology, half in protest. She snorted. "All the lions lie, it's in the name. How sad it is that they lie to each other so oft they lose their ears for truth." She drew her legs up to plant her chin on her knees. "If nothing else, you proved equal to the task. A sand steed indeed…and one it seems wrought from iron, not borne of flesh." she said, noticing the part of him unequivocally glad to see her. "How is it you have the strength to stand? I feel like a fresh-squeezed lemon, or perhaps an alley rat someone's run over with a melon cart." Did Tyrion's ears deceive him, or did she sound not entirely displeased with that fact?
"Call it imp magic." he replied, unable to stop a smile forming on his face.
"Oh, magic's a good word and better for it." Arianne said, reaching up to take him in her hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Only a man as stupid as you would open his mouth when his wife has his cock in her hand." Arianne said, shaking her head in near dismay. Then she opened hers, and Tyrion felt as though every question ever asked were being answered all at once.