Prudently to Tyrion's mind, Daenerys Targaryen saw fit to quarter him and the rest of the "Windblown" in no better quarters than the other sellsword companies' envoys enjoyed. No more than throwing the Tattered Prince a bone. No one will suspect anything is awry with the lot of us living and acting as sellswords. Unfortunately, their arrival had come too late to halt the queen's marriage to her slaver lord, though it seemed to Tyrion less an obstacle than Ser Barristan presented it. Still, two days had passed before Daenerys found time to consult with them again.
"When the slavers turn on Meereen, she need only set this Hizdahr aside." Tyrion said to the knight with a shrug while they waited in her apartments. The Dornishmen had not been asked to bestir themselves, which quite piqued Tyrion's interest.
"It is not so simple. To ensure the safety of Yunkai's envoys, we had to give them hostages. Three of Hizdahr zo Loraq's own blood, one each of the queen's bloodriders and Unsullied captains, our admiral Groleo and Daario Naharis. The loud sellsword from before." the old knight replied.
"Whom you disapprove of." Tyrion said, fingertips touching. "How long has he been fucking the queen?" Ser Barristan sniffed, though at the notion of Daario Naharis in his presence, in the queen's bedchamber or both Tyrion could not say. "Well, it is what it is. A dragon or three is likely to push aside any talk of keeping a sellsword as a paramour, particularly if he should die as a Yunkish hostage. Ample time to be forgotten before we sail for home."
"The others are not so easily lost, my lord."
"Oh, we'll have to get them back, certainly. I've seen with mine own mismatched eyes what regard these slavers have for their fellow slavers' lives, Ser Barristan. The prospect of a few Yunkish hostages and their sellsword pets does not remotely instill confidence in me." The knight's mouth became a bitter line.
"These families view men as chattel, the same as pigs or sheep. Small wonder they hold men's lives in such little regard."
"All the harsher a truth to face when someone starts breaking chains and snapping off collars left and right." Tyrion mused. "All this talk of gaiety and peace is drowned out by the whetstones sharpening blades, and on both sides. That one officer with the beady black eyes…"
"Skahaz mo Kandaq, called the Shavepate. Ghiscari men style their hair most extravagantly-"
"-and so by shaving his own, he shows he's put the past behind him. Well and good, but hair grows back."
"A nose will not." came a growl from the corridor, Kandaq emerging with several Unsullied in tow ringing the queen.
Tyrion looked at him for a long time, making a point not to move his eyes to the queen.
"You do not strike me as unable." he said at last. "But you are brutish, with a sharp gelding knife for a tongue and bricks for hands. You carry your anger like it's a mallet, and to a man with a mallet…every problem is a chisel." Tyrion did not have to be well-versed in judging men to know Kandaq had expected anything but that.
"Chisels are how the Harpy bites at the dragon's ankles. Meereen is full of Sons of the Harpy, chisels all."
"Some, certainly. But not all."
"There are enough within the Great Pyramid alone to bring any edifice down. The Yunkishmen stinking of their camps along the Skahazadhan, their sellswords drink the queen's own wine, those who'd once pledged themselves to her only to turn when Yunkai took the field-"
"That stands to reason, they're sellswords. You might as well rebuke shit for having the gall to stink." Tyrion interrupted, all but shrugging. "It wasn't the Company of the Cat, was it? I've heard plenty of their commander, none of it recommendatory."
"Seven save us, no." Ser Barristan said, looking affronted.
"Brown Ben Plumm took the Second Sons over to the Yunkish lines when…ah…"
"…when it seemed the dragons had gone beyond my control." the queen finished for him, trying to sound neither small nor sullen and failing on both accounts.
"Again, what exactly is the problem with that? They're dragons, not little tweeting songbirds from the Summer Isles. That they should seek to fly far afield and leave the nest, for want of a better term, can only be seen as a good thing, surely."
"Perhaps, if I sat the Iron Throne and wasn't all but besieged by an army that grows by the hour."
"Should but one of the dragons bother to bestir themselves, we'll watch that same army shrink by the moment." Tyrion replied dryly. He stroked his chin. "Plumm, did you say, ser?"
"The same."
"I shouldn't wonder if Your Grace's dragons thought him rather agreeable." Tyrion said, the queen and Ser Barristan exchanging a glance.
"Why do you say this?" she asked.
"An old tale from back home. Old Lord Ossifer dying so soon after wedding his Targaryen girl…only for her to deliver a son of decidedly un-Plumm coloring before the year was out. More than one person supposed the boy had not a drop of Plumm in him…but rather was Targaryen upon both sides, thanks to Aegon the Unworthy." Tyrion explained.
"It's not the blood he might have that concerns me, it's the swords he does. Having the Second Sons back on side would mean much come the battle." Daenerys said.
"Of course, and we must get them back before it joins. The Tattered Prince was less than overawed by the acumen of the Yunkish high command, Your Grace. It's by his whimsy that the Dornishmen and I reached you at all. This Plumm may share his sentiment. I would were I him, and I saw but the least of their bumbling." He grinned. "Never trust a sellsword is both a popular adage and an old one. I find that may be due for a reexamination. One can always trust a sellsword to be untrustworthy."
Tyrion busied himself with pouring a small cup of lemonwater, but he could feel the queen's eyes on him.
"Either you are morbidly fascinated by the extent of my injury," Tyrion said, not looking up, "or I am rather more welcome now than I was a moment ago."
"You are still a Lannister, born of Casterly Rock." Daenerys told him.
"And what a rock it is, Your Grace. It stands higher than the Wall, even higher than the Hightower. But what would a dwarf know of 'high'?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her purse her lips.
"Are you curious as to why I did not ask the Dornishmen to accompany you?"
"Of course, though not so curious as to the whereabouts of the third of your dragons." Tyrion answered, pushing the first cup toward her before filling one for himself.
"He killed a child while out hunting." she said, taking it and staring into its depths as though the last of her children would poke out his snout from within. "Her name was Hazzea. I wanted all three kept within the pit, but-" Tyrion's snort interrupted her.
"Well, good news of that. The chains you bound the two I saw did not last long, no number of Unsullied were going to keep all three down there at once. As for the child, well, there's nothing more to be done for her. For the children who remain slaves as well as the grown men and women, three dragons will do better fighting their captors than two." Tyrion said, trying to omit gentility for objectivity.
"Perhaps, but no one has seen Drogon since he left." the queen told him.
"Nobody's about to catch a dragon in the middle of this mess, either. The gods only know where he's gone." Kandaq added. Tyrion sat back in his chair. Shit. He rubbed his tongue with his teeth. Once, I thought I knew more than anyone alive about dragons. Slugs know more about the sky.
"Well…what is his temperament? Were he here, pit notwithstanding, what would he be doing?" The queen stared.
"He's a dragon, my lord."
"And I am a Lannister, as you said. That does not mean all Lannisters are misshapen, or particularly intelligent. You might be stunned to learn that the vast majority of living Lannisters are beautiful idiots."
"He is proud." A voice from behind a column had Tyrion starting. Bloody hell, I'd forgotten she was there. The queen uttered something in Valyrian, the golden-eyed shadow emerging almost shyly. "This one saw him up close, the day Your Grace freed this one and many more. Rhaegal and Viserion busied themselves with destruction wholesale, but Drogon clung close to your person and slew the makers of the Unsullied to a one."
"He's larger than the other two. Not half so tractable." Kandaq grunted.
"And the two below are such harmless lambs." Tyrion mused, beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
"Well, we can hardly ask anyone if they've seen him. It would do no good to advertise that one of the dragons has gone to ground somewhere. It surprises me no rumors have been bandied about, though. Sellswords gossip worse than any highborn women, I might have thought at least that stories of a dragon would spread from their camps and to the rest of the Yunkish forces as a whole." Tyrion said. "We heard nothing of a dragon in Astapor, so that's Slaver's Bay spoken for.
"I've spent enough time in the Red Waste to know there's aught there." Daenerys said flatly.
"Not east, not south, not west. I've never been good with maps-"
"You'd be hard-pressed to follow a horse across the Dothraki Sea, let alone a dragon. Besides, there are khals aplenty loyal only to themselves roaming the grass, supposedly one of them has even been brought on by the Yunkai'i." Barristan intoned.
"Splendid, another ally of the slavers we could stand to flip. Should they see one or more of the dragons blast through a line of slave soldiers, they'll either flee back into the Dothraki Sea or turn on the Yunkai'i who run."
"Dothraki follow only the strong." the queen said.
"It isn't a matter of strength. If the choice is between a pack of fools in half-dresses tripping over their own tails while slipping in each other's shit and three dragons, I rather think the choice makes itself. The dragon will have to wait, he's not within reach. Plumm and the Second Sons are. I suppose if Your Grace indeed intends to marry Loraq, the wedding feast would be as ripe an opportunity as any to plunder the orchard while the Yunkish lords aren't looking." Tyrion replied. The prospect of marrying into the House of Loraq seemed no more palatable to the queen than it had before. Not that I blame her. I thought highborn Westerosi proud.
"I trust you will do your part on that score, my lord. I don't intend to endure Hizdahr's embrace any longer than I have to."
"On my honor as a dwarf, Your Grace. I can see you would have shared a bed with Hizdahr and a city with the slaver lords if they had given you the option, truly. No slavery, that's all you asked. But if the harpy must crack her whip and shake her chains, the dragon must fan his wings and breathe his fire."
Tyrion dared to think he'd earned a smile from Daenerys Targaryen on the waddle back to the quarters he shared with the Dornishmen. Masked guardsmen served as his escort, taking him the roundabout way to keep any eyes off him. By the time he reached his quarters his legs ached and he felt as though he'd spent a quarter hour walking in a drunken circle. As soon as he slipped inside, he beheld the lot of them waiting for him.
"We have been tasked with acquiring a wedding gift for the queen." he announced, the younger men gaping in confusion while the Red Viper waited leaning on the opposite wall, smirking.
"A gift?" Quentyn asked, mystified.
"It seems she's partial to plums, at least today."
"I hate to mar your lofty aims, my lord, but has it occurred to you that the plums you seek may hang from a branch too high for you to reach?" Prince Oberyn asked.
"How fortunate I am to know a number of splendid fellows more than able to reach high-hanging fruit." Tyrion replied.
"Plums are treacherous sorts, my lord. Pick them too late, you'll taste brown rot on your tongue. Bite into them too hard, you'll chip a tooth on the pit." Ser Archibald said, looking dubious.
"True. The plum the queen desires is in need of careful picking, when most its ripe." Brown as it may be. "I think the queen's wedding feast would be the perfect time for your good self to inspect it for any rot I might fail to spot, my prince."
"Daenerys will wed her Ghiscari, then?" Quentyn asked.
"It seems she must, to stay the Harpy's invisible claw." For now. The Dornishmen did not miss what he'd left unsaid.
"Well and good, but you'd never have made it here without us, little man." Ser Gerris said.
"I'm certainly not going to dispute that."
"Why weren't we summoned to be party to all this in person?"
"Because you're Dornishmen, and your allegiance lies first to Dorne. Daenerys cannot rely on Sunspear when she still reigns in Meereen, and I scarce think you are the first noble-born lads to prostrate themselves before her." Tyrion answered. "Until she reaches Westeros, you're just the latest of a very great number."
"What if the Harpy's murders should continue past the wedding?" the viper inquired mildly. "The Yunkishmen and their sellswords will not long remain within Daenerys' grasp."
"No longer than they must. I have a hard time believing Yunkai will release the queen's own hostages as quickly as it demands its contingent back, as well."
"Some peace." Ser Archibald grumbled.
"It's not a peace at all, Arch. Even you ought to see that." Ser Gerris said, mouth thin and hard. That reality was not lost on Prince Quentyn either, though the prospect of another battle had him so green he might have been a frog for true.
"The gods granted me many blessings, my lord. For one, they made me Dornish, for which I'll ever be grateful." Prince Oberyn's countrymen tittered, though Quentyn remained green. "However, I have not yet learned how to read men's thoughts, nor tell them mine own by much the same method. How am I to confer with you during the feast, my lord, with all of Slaver's Bay watching?"
"You can't, unless I see fit to stuff myself down another privy and you act the fool answering nature's call every time Ben Plumm poses a query you need my aid to answer. I've drunk and feasted with Plumms and their men my whole life, how I've gone without hearing of one leading a sellsword company I cannot guess. Find out how he managed to seize the reins of the Second Sons, I doubt he'll be reticent. It would behoove him to bandy about how he managed the thing, it will make him look good in front of his officers."
"And if he should guess who I am? Or who you are? You may recall, I served with the Second Sons for some time, a tale or two might linger among the rank-and-file."
"All the better. If he sees you, and by extension us, acting like the Volantene bilgewater that the Old Blood shipped out here by the bucketful, proper Windblown in a word, he'll realize the Tattered Prince's confidence in a Yunkish victory is nil at best. Such a revelation is no small thing, and he'll have seen the breadth of Daenerys' forces during such time as he was on her side. In truth, this plum may need no picking…"
"…we need only wait for it to fall." the Red Viper finished for him. His hands slid up in front of him, their latest plot evidently as appealing as it was amusing. "Glad and gladder I am that your father parted with you so cheaply, Lord Tyrion. And to think, all I needed do was kill Clegane."
"It's rather like the whore giving you coin after the fact, isn't it? That your good fortune is not lost on you is something I am glad for, Prince Oberyn."
"A pity he had no other children he had so roundly misused, we could use more Lannisters of your sort."
"You never know, my prince. That little chat we had on the way out to sea from Sunspear's docks was most illuminating." And Jaime and Cersei were hardly gently raised themselves.
They spent the rest of the evening listening to the pyramid fill with wedding guests. Many and more did not speak the Common Tongue, but what Tyrion understood of what he heard sounded like men trying to seem more at ease, even eager, than they were. These slavers and sellswords know the dragons are here somewhere. It may be that they've gone unseen so long will prove a boon. The two beneath the pyramid might have gone into the pit no bigger than goats, half-hatchlings in truth, but by the time fate had afforded Tyrion a glimpse of them, they were hardly harmless oddities. The wings and roaring are not the worst, he reflected, nor even the fire. Those eyes are not the eyes of beasts. When you look at them, they look at you. Should battle join with them thrown into the mix, they would know who and who not to burn, generally. Of that Tyrion was certain. Whether they bothered to take such care in the heat of battle was another notion. Quite another. So much uncertainty, so much volatility would normally have repulsed him, but Tyrion found himself smiling grimly. These slavers have no choice but to come in force before Daenerys gets stronger. Before more freedmen flock to the Targaryen banner, before her dragons are larger still. He wondered if a soul attending the wedding believed that the peace they professed to favor had the slightest chance of lasting. As much as a snowball does balanced on a dragon's tongue. In between smatterings of sellsword gabble, Tyrion heard talk of half a dozen massive trebuchets rising out of the Yunkish camp.
"It will be the Harridan to smash the gate," one of them said. "She's the biggest."
"Mazdhan's Fist is closer, and manned by more than drunks." another voice opined. A wooden fist, no less wooden than its fellows. Tyrion knew these trebuchets were more a boast of the slavers', a show of Daenerys' acquiescence, than any real threat. I wonder how many Yunkishmen will still favor war when they see their trebuchets go up in flames like the piles of firewood they are.
"Sounds like this is fixing to be a right proper piss-up." Ser Archibald said from behind him.
"No less, and the only reason the pissing hasn't already started is because the slavers haven't yet fielded all their power." Tyrion replied. Not that it will matter. Rather more troubling than the news of trebuchets was the sellswords' anticipation for the reopening of the fighting pits.
"What's that to do with us?" Ser Gerris asked. "These slavers corral men like chattel, small wonder they're lovers of blood sport."
"Because, Ser Handsome, the flux is likely worming its way into the Yunkish host and Meereen's walls both as we speak, as well as Slaver's Bay beyond. Packing a great number of people into so small a space as a ring of benches seems a markedly foolish idea and should be so even to those who own the fighting pits. Oh, they'll fill to standing room the first time, but shan't again, I think."
That grim observation was not lost on the Red Viper, Tyrion saw. The plum may fall of its own accord, my prince, but we scarce have time to waste waiting unduly. The rest of this garden is a moldy waste, watered in blood.
"The Windblown, the Second Sons, the Company of the Cat, the Long Lances…" Tyrion rattled off the sellsword companies, hoping to take the young men's minds off a painful and humiliating death. Full of them though the world may be. "We seem to be missing the Golden Company. How such a piss-up, as Ser Archibald so fittingly put it, has failed to attract the largest of the sellsword companies is quite the mystery."
"Maybe they heard about the flux and decided the best thing to do was to simply keep well clear." Ser Archibald suggested.
"Or rumors of dragons." Quentyn replied. "Their founders were Blackfyre loyalists, they will know all the tales of home well. Black Harren's Folly, the Field of Fire. Were the Golden Company to join the slavers, the dragons would be the end of them. They cannot join Daenerys through the slavers' blockade, so that road is closed."
"Flux or fire, it seems the Golden Company is unlikely to be party to our brewing botch. Oh well, that just leaves more mischief for us to make."
"How are you going to hide in a hall full of people?" Ser Gerris asked doubtfully.
"By not hiding at all. There will be servants aplenty filling cups at the feast, but as we've seen for ourselves the Tattered Prince wears his pride better than he does his rags. He'll have at least the one lickspittle on hand to do his pouring for him. A man in his position does not reach the age he has by blindly trusting in slavers and barbarians." Tyrion answered. "While everyone is watching the queen, the viper can plunder the orchard. On the off chance I'm wrong about the Golden Company, though, do delicately inquire if you can."
"No less, my lord. I'm no stranger to delicate." Oberyn grinned. So you are. Tyrion remembered the man spinning about like a dervish at his trial by combat. The Mountain could have been a statue. That he'd bothered to poison his spear at all seemed now just typical viper-madness more than a truly needed addendum. Not that you're anyone to judge the efficacy of his methods, dwarf. You're still here, aren't you?
There was a deal of mummery to be done at the feast, and so Tyrion declared they must look the parts they intended to play. When at last they went to join the festivities such as they were, the Dornishmen looked no different from any number of other sellswords in the hall, quickly going to join the entourage of the Tattered Prince.
"Where've you been, gone for an hour-long piss?" a serjeant barked on seeing them, all but giving Ser Archibald a shove to get seated with the others of the company. Old Rags is no stranger to mummery in turn, it seems. The Tattered Prince himself gave them not one look, instead talking to Caggo in a low voice. After a wedding or two of his own and the farce that was Joffrey's, Tyrion knew well how to wait his way through a feast. It helps when I'm not forcing wine down by the cupful, he reflected as he waited on the Tattered Prince, face behind a rag. The Second Sons were seated a table away, though Tyrion saw that the Windblown and the Company of the Cat were dining in nearly opposite corners of the hall. Only after the queen and her husband arrived and the last of the Meereenese traditions were observed did the food and wine flow. Another hour passed before Tyrion looked to Oberyn, the Red Viper slinking off to make trouble without another word.
"What is the next course?" The Tattered Prince was saying suddenly, looking to Caggo as Tyrion moved between them. The horselord gaped in confusion, shrugging before Tyrion muttered just loud enough to be heard through the rags.
"Why, plums, milord. Come try them." Though there were none in sight, Rags gave the Second Sons the briefest of glimpses. The half-smirk that followed was gone almost before it came, and of all the people in the hall Tyrion was certain he was the only one to see.
"The day has been long and hot, and dusty shut up in this pyramid. I find a plum would be most welcome…provided it has escaped brown rot."
"As to that I could not say, milord. They seem fine and better to me." The Tattered Prince had to bring a hand up to hide his smile. No doubt Brightwater Keep has gotten a step closer for you. Tyrion did not press further, content to pour when he must and answer emptily whenever prompted. I wonder how a snake might catch a falling plum. This ought to be more than entertaining.
When Oberyn reappeared amidst the Second Sons, Ben shot the Tattered Prince a look. Without a second's hesitation, the Pentoshi raised his cup. He might be toasting the queen, the peace, the company or just the vintage. Plumm's eyes slid from him to the Dornishmen and then Tyrion, whom he looked away from immediately. It was somewhat odd to watch much the same mummery he himself was performing in but it was worth it to see Brown Ben Plemm, captain-general of the Second Sons, shift from impassive to pensive. I daresay he knows who I am beneath my rag, if the snake has not out and out told him. Talk of trained lions, no doubt. Are you as tempted by true lordship as your brother sellsword captain, Ben? The Second Sons were five hundred strong. Even if their applicability toward a Targaryen restoration in Westeros was little, the barrel of wildfire at hand could use a few hundred more hands to tip it in the right direction. Surely turning your cloak the first time was but a plot, Lord Plumm. No man deserts the cause that has the only living dragons in the world, wild and vicious or no. Brown Ben Plumm did not strike Tyrion as the sort to act boldly, to take the initiative. Spurred on by a reconciliation with Daenerys and a lordship in Westeros, though, and even this old tortoise may quicken pace. Twice more before the last of the food and entertainments were presented did Tyrion catch Plumm looking at him. Good, Tyrion thought. Had he not looked at all might have been better, showing his commitment to one side or the other, but Tyrion took what he could get. As do sellswords, and a good thing too. Yunkai will never count you among their own, never raise you to the heights your ancestors knew. Daenerys may. 'Come Try Me' were the words of House Plumm, and Tyrion found they could not fit the captain of the Second Sons any better. You've seen fit to sit on your arse until something you want comes traipsing into view. Well, here the bloody fuck I am, my lord. Come try me.