TYRION III

"He was shut inside a dark room somewhere high up in the Tower of the Hand. His lord father had let drawn the curtains down on the great tall motley-coloured glass pane windows to show the severity in the situation.

On the table in front of him stood a chandelier with thirteen candles, as well as a jug of water and two cups that were clearly not meant to actually be used. Only water, not wine, with the reason for it being obvious to anyone who had been present on the evening of the day before.

"The King mistrusts us", he heard his father say, through the thickening fog of his own mind and the smoke from the candles in the closed-off little chamberlet of the room.

The King mistrusts you, he heard his father's real words echo back to him inside his mind.

He looked up to the face of his father, and saw his usual glaring green eyes flecked with gold staring back at him, his tall figure still cloaked and covered in a midnight black doublet similar, or perhaps identical to the one he had worn on the day before. He was still not sure, even after three months of staying on in the sweltering city, of how often his lord father, the great Lord Tywin Lannister, bathed.

The King mistrusts us, he said. His words echoed inside Tyrion's mind again.

"Do you?" He asked.

Lord Tywin deferred the question and ignored it, instead turning to face the painting on the wall beside him.

"Do you know that I served Aerys for twenty years, even with all of his paranoia, with all of his mad fears about plots and betrayals? The mistrust of a king is something I would like to refrain from."

"So... How exactly do we do that? We cannot change the past", Tyrion pointed out, trying to raise his wine goblet in his hand, but realizing that he had none, instead reaching down sluggishly for a beaker of water from the table that was not meant to be used.

His father wrinkled in annoyance from behind his back, he could feel it without looking, and his eyes became even more filled with hate for the gesture, he was sure of it.

"The Starks have never trusted us", Lord Tywin went on. "Not truly. Not since the war.

Your sister was married to Lord Benjen. They have a full number of three children among themselves, whereof Willam will one day come to further the ancient name of Stark. But still... To this day, King Eddard has his doubts about where our loyalties lie."

"I believe anyone would have doubts after what happened yesterday."

"This is not about that", Lord Tywin said, brushing off the deaths of the Manderly girl and the kitchen boy as if they were already old crumbs on the table in front of them. An annoyance, to be swept away from, and quickly overcome.

"This is about Jaime", he said. "And it is about Aerys."

Tyrion sat quietly, trying his best to take the situation seriously, when his father for once spoke about important matters to him. He refrained from taking another tiny sip from the water cup, even though he was thirsty after the forced walk up all the way up the stairs into his father's tower.

Perhaps you could send him down here from the Wall and ask him to apologize to Aerys's crypt, he thought to himself. I'm sure that the Mad King and his wolf successor would both appreciate it a thousandfold.

But he did not say it. He did not say anything of the sort, while he waited for what his father would say next. And, as per usual, his father did not disappoint.

"We need to tighten our bond with the crown", he said. "Eddard Stark may have chosen me to rule and govern by his side, but he will never truly be content with that so long as we are divided by blood and allegiances. Winterfell is all too far away. It is not enough that Cersei has married into the North. I see that now. I thought it would be, many years ago, but it is apparent that so is not the case."

His father stopped himself, looked down onto the floor, and then back to Tyrion. For a short moment, he seemed almost... vulnerable? No, Tyrion thought. That could not be it. Tired? No, that was improbable as well. Disappointed? Yes. That rang true. Disappointed, frustrated. Joffrey and Sansa should by all accounts already be promised to wed, he knew. And now he would get the blame for it.

"How goes the invitations toward the princess?" Lord Tywin asked. "Not well, I've heard." His tone was that of old stale butter being smeared onto a piece of bread.

"I have tried getting him on to skinning the beasts instead of shooting them", he japed. "Perhaps that will be more to her delicate taste. Her younger sister certainly had a penchant for the young butcher's boy."

"The Stark sisters are as different as night and day", his father said disapprovingly. "And my nephew is... "

Nephew? That is a curious word for it, Tyrion thought, but said nothing.

He had said the word 'nephew' with a tone of contempt, that signalled that he knew as well as any that noone believed the story very well. But what the alternative was, Tyrion left out from both his own mind, and that of his father. This was not the time, after all. They both knew it. This was not the time or place for all that.

His father went on.

"From what I hear, the Princess is more interested in the Tyrell boy." He spat out the word with contempt.

Ah, Loras Tyrell, yes... Tyrion thought. His father certainly had had the truth of that somehow. Though he supposed it was obvious for anyone to see at the tourney, when Princess Sansa had practically been swooning to five heavens in the presence of the Knight of Flowers.

"She might still come around", he suggested. "Once she realizes, finally, that our Knight of Flowers prefers the holding of the lance and not the wearing of wreaths."

His father made an unkempt noise, as his eagle-like nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Even a degenerate can sire an heir", he said. "And the princess will not have the eyes to see it, even when they are wed. She is far too smitten by him."

Tyrion almost chortled. There was something absurdly funny hearing his stiff lord father taking the word 'smitten' into his thin dry lips, that made Tyrion almost guffaw with laughter, but the atmosphere inside the quiet and downturned room somehow managed to make him hold his tongue for once.

He could only imagine when Lord Tywin had used the word last. At Cersei's marriage to Benjen Stark all those years ago? No, they were not smitten. At least not until after. And he would not care whether they were either way. It was simply a matter of forging alliances, especially back then.

When... His mind turned dark for a moment. Tysha... Could he have used the word then? No, of course not, he decided. He would have been far too filled with rage over the ordeal, rage and grief, just as Tyrion himself had been, ever since. It must have been when... When he first met... When he first saw...

"Her royal Mother has not instructed her in the ways of young men, it seems", Tywin said, making Tyrion's thoughts go haystrawled by the coincidental syncing/[ ].

"...What?" He only got out, feeling as stupid as a frog on a lilypad as he held out his cup of water straight out in his hand. He had not been listening, again.

"Are you drunk from yesterday still?" His father gave a small bristle of annoyance from the corner of his mouth, before turning back to face the wall again, and then drew up a slight corner of the heavy curtains to look outside of the windows on the city that he was in charge of ruling, now again.

"The Tyrells will make their move, and soon, if we do not act first. What progress have you been making with Joffrey and the Princess?" His father demanded.

Tyrion was at a loss. The Princess and Joff barely spoke to one another anymore, with the enmity between him and young Arya still hanging like a shadow on the nether floors of the court [ ] and the blood-thirsty impression of his hunting skills continuing to make Princess Sansa's stomach quease with disease. We ought to take that bloody crossbow away from him, once and for all, and throw it straight into the Blackwater.

"She is... Not overly fond of him at the moment", he admitted. "But she may change her mind. Young girls are fickle." At least so he hoped, for his own sake.

"This will not do." Lord Tywin was shaking his head. "If we do not act soon, she will fall right into the hands of the Tyrells. Either one of Mace Tyrell's sons pose a threat, and there are three of them. One who is the heir to Higharden, and two who are formidable fighters known all across the realm."

His father quieted down for a while, before repeating his sentiment.

"Do you hear me?" He asked, his jaws clenched together hard.

"I hear you", Tyrion replied. Too loud, and all too clear.

His head still hurt, feeling like a sharp object scraping and scrawning relentlessly against the dry and rusted inside of a thrumming steel barrel, as he rubbed his temples together carefully, to try and not wake his father's attention to it. He needed to drink. Water, not wine.

It had been folly, of course, but what else was a man – or indeed a dwarf – to do when he had just witnessed death in broad daylight? Well, uplit candle light of an evening banquet, at least. The feast was his, and the wine meant for him, and the king, and his lord father.

This must be an ill omen, he had thought, his entrails sinking to the bottom of his stomach the second he watched the stout Manderly girl hit the floor with a thud in her green and white dress.

The commotion afterwards had been a motley whirlwind, as Lord Tywin put up his usual strong side and roared out orders to have the castle shut down and searched, before any poisioners could have the chance to escape. The king had barely been able to speak against it, as he ran to the side of his beautiful and frail daughter, Princess Sansa. She had fainted, and fallen back to the floor, fallen just like a frail beautiful Northern weirwood leaf in autumn, but not before thrucking her back and side into the chair behind her. The impact had made her hand go up, just like that of a little sweet marionette doll, to feint up ever so fairy-like, ever so dreamily, so airily, upon her pale royal brow. She even faints just like a royal princess, he had thought. She will continue to make her royal mother proud. If the queen and the little princes ever returned from Winterfell, that was.

They had searched through the castle kitchens, as well as the wine cellar, and found at least one of the culprits immediately. Prettyn, one of the kitchen boys, had apperently layn dead on the castle kitchens' stone floor of the Red Keep, with his mouth frothing with red and white and grey vomit, just the same as Lady Manderly, from the moment they had entered, the other terrified kitchen servants still paralyzed from the shock.

The head cook had admitted to having heard something about the boy letting one of the ladies of the castle sneaking in to have a glass of wine before the banquet, but had thought that it was no great deal, certainly not of danger to the keep.

She has most likely offered the boy a kiss or two in exchange for a glass of the king's wine, Tyrion thought. A foolish notion, but one that he would certainly have gone for himself in his youth. Strikes and pummeling, or even hang-stracking as punishment was far more endurable if the price for it was the sweet lips of a noble lady whom one would never be able to otherwise attain. The Mandery girl was handsome, pretty, even, yes, and drew the gazes of many boys and young men, as well as far older ones as well. But here she had drawn her last suitor, he thought with a null mind.

As for the wine itself, it was a red Dornish vintage, just as they had said when the herald had announced it earlier, and it had been stored in a huge sand oakwood cask, a wooden barrel standing on its side somewhere in the kitchens' right or eastern side, where the wine was kept, weighing surely all in all more than fifty stone, all of it presumably posioned wine. ...Or perhaps it was only the small barrel on the side, from which they had gotten it this particular time, the cook could not say. And Tyrion did not remember. The King had ordered that the wine be brought to the examination of Grand Maester Pycelle, as well as others who would know what to make of it, before throwing it all out and cleaning up the entire kitchens dry as bone.

Tyrion could still remember all of it, except for the important detail as to about which exact barrel the poisoned wine had come from. All of it was still sharp and clear in his eyes and mind, as if it was still happening before his eyes, though it was only told to him via the words of his father and his and the king's many many guards.

All of it was like some type of strange waking nightmare, and one where he had to continue to stay on as the man of the hour, once he had wiped what he thought was the last of his vomit off from himself with the remaining white table cloth and a part of his crimson red sleeve.

I must stay on, father will force me to it. If I leave now, this will spell even worse for him, for the family. And so he had done. And tried his best to drink some water, even as the king wiped off the tears from his auburn-haired maiden daughter's face, holding her close while he issued angry commands at his guards, most of which ones were about calming the situation down, and to put the lady Wynafryda in a safe and secure place, preferrably with Grand Maester Pycelle or the Silent sisters – as soon as they could wrench her body from the arms of her grieving father, of course.

...

After it all, who could have slept after such an ordeal? He did not require much sleep usually, anyway, chalking it up to his small size. What the gods had taken away from his body, they had kept to his hours of the dayne, as was his small blessing.

He could not stay on for too long in his bedchamber, though, as he found before long that he was too fraught to even read. What did the deeds of ancient Reach kings matter when the future quarrels and intrepidations of the kingdoms lay before him and had just happened, on his own celebratory dinner? He doubted that anyone still remembered that the occasion had originally been about him, and his still only barely beginning tenure as Master of Whispers, but if his lord father or anyone else got up a negative suspicion about it, they would surely be quick to remind themselves.

And Joff had been sour as well, as he often was. He did not want to talk, nor to bear the horror of a small, but indeed very tall and slowly dripping white wax candle on the desk of his dwarf uncle while he tried to sleep, and wrote another letter to his lady mother at the Rock. Tyrion supposed that he could understand him. The boy might be as cruel as Maegor with a crossbow and a hare, but even he had seemed at least marginally upset by seeing another person of his age die before his own eyes.

Yes, Tyrion Lannister would not be getting any sleep of this night, regardless of whether the King's silent sisters had begun preparing the lifeless body of the Princess' lady-in-waiting, or whether one of his father's bannermen were just now as of his mind plotting to storm the sleeping chambers of the young Prince Quentyn Martell for the vices of Dornish wine.

And so indeed, instead of trying to flick through the tome of histories he had laying just now on his table, he had wandered the castle long and hard in the night, thinking and grubbling on the various possibilities for what had just happened, and what were to happen between his lord father and the king now.

And the Dornish. Yes. The Dornish, of course. Prince Quentyn Martell and the Dornish would, once a hundredth time again, of course be thought about most of all, if the wine was truly from there, as they had said.

Although he supposed that anyone could very well have come in there and posion it. Anyone who... Who...-

No...

His mind slipped to somewhere ugly, that he preferred to not think on. 'He squeals when you put the cart on him, but then he turns quiet soon enough, with a crack.' The boy's sickly words about the hare in the outskirts of the godswood still troubled him beyond belief. But a person, his precious princess's own lady friend, who was also several years his elder? No. No, he could not believe that. Not even about Joff. At least so he hoped, somewhere where a strange red light lifted him from the suspicions inside his little deformed heart.

Yes, the mind's ways went haunting him as the hundred ghosts of Harrenhal, as he turned time and time again past that same corner of the corridor, past the pale beige shape of that particular pillar once more, watched the queer ruddish brownish black stain on that wall, and wondered whether it was blood or wine or simply fly shit.

He could get no sleep, not even a single blink of sleep, with all that had happened in the past few hours. And even before that.

Had it truly been an oddity, then, that he had finally grown weary of his grubbling and thinking, as the night waned on, and turned from the hour of the bat, to the hour of ghosts, and almost half-way into the hour of the eel, before he took up the offer from Lady Falyse Stokeworth to join her and her enormous daughter for a private sejour of drinks and refreshments at their chambers?

Only a fool, or a man with a death wish, would be drinking wine so soon after having almost been poisoned by it, but Lady Falyse had assured most vigorously that hers was from a fine and very special old vintage from The Reach that she had kept up on her chamber for more than three years, and that no one person, spy or killer or servant or other, could have been able to reach it nor to poison it ever since it was first installed there. That staunch assurance from the wrinkly-faced woman, who by the way had for her own sigil a white lamb that held a goblet in its foreleg, had been enough for Tyrion to forego all of his considerations about what his lord father would say, even as he poured up the beautiful liquid in front of him on the table and smutted carefully on it.

I can always wretch it up again, if I begin to feel strange or queasy, he had told himself. Besides, I will only have one half or whole cup. I am mostly here for the talk, and for the company. So had he told himself, meanwhile wondering whether the old spymaster Lord Bloodraven would ever have sunken to such lows as sucking up shrimpcakes and green-wrickled chive gravy with his mouth to the delirious laughter bordering on hysteria coming from Lady Lollys's green barrel of a body and dress.

After that, the night had been all a motley mess of drinks, food, japes, laughter and hysterical bousts of crying coming from Lollys, until at last, while there was still some lingering grey dim darkness of night, veiling them from the horrors of the next day inside the curtains of their chamber, he had somehow slipped into a type of deep sleep, nestled comfortably on the hard green embroidered fabric of one of the Stokeworths' cushioned armchairs.

...

He had been woken up roughly, at the hour of the nightingale, or whenever it was. The sun had begun to rise perhaps an hour or two before, but he had been blacked out for surely two or three.

His lord father had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck collar with his bare hands.

It was the first time in five years that his father had touched him, Tyrion reflected. It was an odd sensation. Last time had been when he had accidentally glanced and brushed his tall crimson-clad leg against him while exiting a door back home at Casterly Rock.

Lord Tywin's leg had smelled a very certain type of way, he still recalled. It had smelled of spirits, of wood and oak-sherry casks and smoked ham and other things. It was some type of perfume, most like. He had pondered on its nature a thousand times before, realizing that once his lord father died, whether it was in the next year or the next twenty, the secret as to the smell would forever vanish. He had searched through half the Rock and asked the servants to find himself a similar type of perfume, simply to know what it was, but to no avail. His curiosity always seemed to get the better of him. He supposed that he might have asked his uncle Kevan, but that had just seemed ridiculous. Even a tumbling nephew dwarf could not shame himself further than to openly admit to his own lack of knowledge – and want to know thereof – of his own father's perfume scent.

He stopped his thinking for a moment, trying to rattle his mind from going in circles. He could still taste the wine from the Stokeworths on his tongue, even though he'd tried washing it off. Damn it.

...

At any rate: Yes. His father had grabbed him up from the floor by the scruff of his neck collar with his own bare hands, lifting him up from the floor with a fury he had never seen or felt before and practically throwing him out into the hallway, where a terrified servant girl with the face of a pale lamb had stared back down at him.

"Get up!" His father had shouted, even as the servant girl ran away with her little mop and bucket.

"Now, you will accompany me to the Tower of the Hand. At once. Wash yourself first, if you find the time. I will expect you there, in my closed-off chambers, within the quarter. If you are not there by then, I will have you discharged from all your duties by order of the king and sent to the Wall."

He had known enough to understand what that meant. His father truly meant it. He would never ever ever speak of or around Jaime unless he truly meant it. The wound was still too deep for that.

But what had he himself surely done, other than to get very very drunk on a different type of wine just after the poisoning of the king's daughter's third closest friend?

He was the Master of Whispers, yes. Officially. And the Master of Whispers should indeed have more wits about him than to sip or drink madly on more wine on such a night as the one before. So far, he was not doing a very good job of it. And it is only still my first one or two moons on the job...

Though he was sure that Petyr Baelish would have gladly flown up all the way from the Vale on his mockingbird wings, just like his little vexing sigil, if it had meant that he could take some praise from the great Lord Tywin Lannister, and to oust the Imp of Casterly Rock from having any power or influence. Perhaps Littlefinger would even have the wits to successfully be able to pair Joff and Princess Sansa. He did know how the minds of most women worked, after all, if the man knew anything.

At any rate. His father's stern voice yanked him back into the moment. They were alone. Him and his father, in the dark of the tiny chamber side-room, once again. He secretly wondered how many of Aegon the Unworthy's mistresses had been f]cked, r]ped or choked to death inside the tiny confines of this very space. Or how many of Maegor the Cruel's many secret critics had been tortured or interrogated here before admitting to their crimes, real or imagined, just as he was being questioned by his father right now.

But enough. He would at least try to engage in his father's words, if he had any more to give before his rage took the better of him. And if Tyrion's own mouth would work to reply. And if his huge, deformed, dry-strained head would for a single second stop beating and begging him for water.

"We are being betrayed!" His father's voice echoed, even in the tiny small dark room. "We are being swindled! By someone far more cunning than us."

"So... Not the Dornish, then?"

His father shook his head, a furious yet enervating motion, seeming almost to fume with anger.

"No. No, no, no, no, no. Oberyn Martell might stoop to such stupidities as to try and poison the king and the hand at a banquet with hundreds of witnesses present, but it is not the Red Viper, nor even Lord Doran, but his feeble nephew, Doran's son, who we have here. Prince Quentyn." He scoffed. "At least that is what they will make us want to think. The ones that are more clever than the king, and who would believe themselves to be cleverer than us as well. We must show them they're not."

"So... Not the Dornish, then?"

"Not the bloody Prince, at the very least! Are you not listening to a single word?"

Tyrion shut his unusually dry mouth for once. He cleared his throat a little, feeling stupidly ashamed for once, he who usually never did.

"I am sorry, father. Please continue."

Lord Tywin snirped on the corner of his mouth before moving on to the next part.

"I am not sure whether I can afford to keep you on, for the moment."

"What, as Master of Whispers, you mean? By all means, take it. Or, no. Rather, take the betrothal away instead. That gives me far more troubles than this, I will have to admit it. Princess Sansa is..."

"-A woman", he finished for him. "A young girl. Anyone who has been made a man will know how to handle her, when the time for it comes. From what I hear, he has already introduced himself in such a matter in two of the wolf king's seven kingdoms.

From what you hear? Tyrion thought. From Ser Clydeon? And him in turn from Taleon or Pasker, surely. Jyck and Morrec would not blather. Those two were fiercely loyal to him, and to the boy, at the very least. Two men against the army of his lord father. That was the proud extent of his own spy network so far. He laughed a dry laugh inside his even dryer, echoing mind.

The whores at the little red horse brothel in the Barrowlands had been nothing particularly special, though the matron had had teats the size of flour bags, and a belly to match, he remembered. Marna, had her name been? Mara? Masha? Bessa? Brenna? He could not remember.

Joff had not needed it even, not truly, though he tried it on with two of the finer, and of course younger, girls. He had already gotten his fill from the servants back home at the Rock, before they had even set out on their journey together, half a year ago or more now, as it stood, and then again with Tyrion's own little favorite troubadore girls. Why did I share them with him, though? What did I hope to gain from that? Perhaps he'd only wanted to be kind to him, to ease the marks of suspicion between them. Perhaps he had just been filled with uncle-like wisdom and camradery that their trip had brought between them, for those first couple of days on the road especially.

The boy had been grateful, though. And for all the others, in the silken red and pink pleasures of city brothels, of late. He suspected that he still was, even though you would never know it from his cranky composure on most days.

"If we are mistrusted, the king may very well wish to see you gone from your post. You must go and speak to him, and ensure that he trusts you."

"Now?"

"Now, or before the day is done", Lord Tywin clarified. "As soon as possible."

"Of course."

"And you would do better to get yourself some informants. Baelish had dozens of them, running around the city. You must have so as well. Find his, and make use of them, or else make your own ones. Pay them by extortion or coin, whatever is your choice. But make sure they are loyal, and answer only to you."

In this, he knew, his father was at least right. He would have to actually hire some people to do the whispering in his ear if he was to be the Master of Whispers.

Littlefinger had given him two of his own informants as a good start, both of them women, as well as a tip about a man among the castle wall guards, though he could not seek him out intil he was well away, since that was one informant that the king himself did not know about.

The first of them was a simple washerwoman named Lysenna, though she was tall, slender and beautiful for her age, somewhere around forty or thereabouts, Tyrion guessed. She had long, dark blonde hair, bordering on brown in certain lighting but not so in truth, and usually dressed in an airy southron King's Landing gown of white, red or pink. She almost reminded Tyrion of his sister in a queer way, with her feline greenish-brown eyes ever keeping watch, and her long beautiful hair put up with an elaborate gold or bronze fastening. In The Red Keep, even the washerwomen were dressed well, he mused. Littlefinger had paid her well in gold for her information over the years. He would be wise to continue to shower her with it himself as well, he noted to himself.

Littlefinger had said much and more praiseful words about her, thankfully. She would stand by a lemon tree in the castle gardens when she was not on duty, and keep close watch over the goings-on in the courtyard. She had the most keen eyes, as well as the best ears in the castle of any adult, Baelish claimed, having multiple times been able to read lips of conversations between friends and foe alike, as well as having overheard Grand Maester Pycelle muttering and reading letters to himself all the way through the in the rookery some four or five flights up from the ground. But most of all, she would be valuable to hear about what Sansa and her lady friends spoke about in the courtyard, and what they thought about Joffrey, or the knight of Flowers, Tyrion thought to himself.

The second of the women spies Littlefinger had given him was a whore from Winterfell named Rosalind or Rosamunda or something similar, but most oftentimes called Roz, for short. She had travelled with the king on their last visit to Winterfell, some five or six years back, and was by now well-acquainted with the city.

She was of average height for a woman, or perhaps a little taller, he was not sure from their one brief encounter in Littlefinger's red silk brothel so far, and she had the beautiful curly ginger hair of desire that many men fawned after. It was her ginger hair in particular, as well as her beautiful face and fair pale skin, that had allured and at first made a man out of Lord Benjen Stark's ward, Theon Greyjoy, up North, Baelish claimed. Other than that, however, she had served hundreds of lords and knights, some of them known frequenters, others far more secretly.

The man was a greater mystery. Tyrion had not been allowed to go and meet him in person before it was considered absolutely necessary, all by Littlefinger's precise orders and advice.

But he had been instructed to put out a small tin bottle with a message in it on a certain brick in the northeastern side of the castle wall, at the Hour of the Bat, and to then come back in the hour of the Nightingale to retrieve it. Thus, Baelish had explained, he would get his information without having to meet with the man, and therefore avoid unnecessary suspicions among his brothers in arms. But in case he needed to know, he had said, he had black hair and a large nose. To Tyrion's as of yet untrained eye, the same description could have been given for about a third of all the men of the City Watch. But he supposed that he would gain the identity of the man, as well as his name, in time, if he would need it, and not just the information in his letters.

At any rate, his father had just reminded him on the importance of expanding the small net into a larger web. And Lord Tywin was right, in most things, as well as in this, Tyrion thought.

"Yes", he said, in reply to his lord father. "I only wish I knew how."

"You will find a way. You must. And when our influence in the city rises, your posititon will be all the safer for it", Lord Tywin said. "I will find a suitable wife for you, and you will stay on the council for many years, continuing to serve His Grace and earn his trust."

"Oh, joyous time", he said dryly.

"Good. Now get out of my sight and speak with the king, now, before the day is done."

His father struck up the door of the little chamber room so that the light from his vast solar shone in as a pale blinding light.

As pleasant a meeting as ever, father, he thought, as he rose on the creaking legs of the chair and waddled his way out, taking a glass of water with him on the way. His father did not object.

Very well, he thought. I shall speak to the king. But first, I will need to refresh myself. Otherwise our meeting will not make me seem better in his mind than the queen's slimey advisor.

Well, I say, wolves and trouts and mermen and golden roses and mockingbirds, watch out. Here comes the little lion of Casterly Rock. And his little birds shall soon come, or he shall find them, and they shall fly only to him. And to his lord father, the great and mighty Paw of the King."