Thereafter dishes and diversions succeeded one another in a staggering profusion, buoyed along upon a flood of wine and ale. Hamish left them, his place taken by a smallish elderly bear who danced clumsily to pipe and drum while the wedding guests ate trout cooked in a crust of crushed almonds. Moon Boy mounted his stilts and strode around the tables in pursuit of Lord Tyrell’s ludicrously fat fool Butterbumps, and the lords and ladies sampled roast herons and cheese-and-onion pies. A troupe of Pentoshi tumblers performed cartwheels and handstands, balanced platters on their bare feet, and stood upon each other’s shoulders to form a pyramid. Their feats were accompanied by crabs boiled in fiery eastern spices, trenchers filled with chunks of chopped mutton stewed in almond milk with carrots, raisins, and onions, and fish tarts fresh from the ovens, served so hot they burned the fingers.

Then the heralds summoned another singer; Collio Quaynis of Tyrosh, who had a vermilion beard and an accent as ludicrous as Symon had promised. Collio began with his version of “The Dance of the Dragons,” which was more properly a song for two singers, male and female. Tyrion suffered through it with a double helping of honey-ginger partridge and several cups of wine. A haunting ballad of two dying lovers amidst the Doom of Valyria might have pleased the hall more if Collio had not sung it in High Valyrian, which most of the guests could not speak. But “Bessa the Barmaid” won them back with its ribald lyrics. Peacocks were served in their plumage, roasted whole and stuffed with dates, while Collio summoned a drummer, bowed low before Lord Tywin, and launched into “The Rains of Castamere.”

If I have to hear seven versions of that, I may go down to Flea Bottom and apologize to the stew. Tyrion turned to his wife. “So which did you prefer?”

Sansa blinked at him. “My lord?”

“The singers. Which did you prefer?”

“I . . . I’m sorry, my lord. I was not listening.”

She was not eating, either. “Sansa, is aught amiss?” He spoke without thinking, and instantly felt the fool. All her kin are slaughtered and she’s wed to me, and I wonder what’s amiss.

“No, my lord.” She looked away from him, and feigned an unconvincing interest in Moon Boy pelting Ser Dontos with dates.

Four master pyromancers conjured up beasts of living flame to tear at each other with fiery claws whilst the serving men ladeled out bowls of blandissory, a mixture of beef broth and boiled wine sweetened with honey and dotted with blanched almonds and chunks of capon. Then came some strolling pipers and clever dogs and sword swallowers, with buttered pease, chopped nuts, and slivers of swan poached in a sauce of saffron and peaches. (“Not swan again,” Tyrion muttered, remembering his supper with his sister on the eve of battle.) A juggler kept a half-dozen swords and axes whirling through the air as skewers of blood sausage were brought sizzling to the tables, a juxtaposition that Tyrion thought passing clever, though not perhaps in the best of taste.

The heralds blew their trumpets. “To sing for the golden lute,” one cried, “we give you Galyeon of Cuy.”

Galyeon was a big barrel-chested man with a black beard, a bald head, and a thunderous voice that filled every corner of the throne room. He brought no fewer than six musicians to play for him. “Noble lords and ladies fair, I sing but one song for you this night,” he announced. “It is the song of the Blackwater, and how a realm was saved.” The drummer began a slow ominous beat.

“The dark lord brooded high in his tower,” Galyeon began, “in a castle as black as the night.”

“Black was his hair and black was his soul,” the musicians chanted in unison. A flute came in.

“He feasted on bloodlust and envy, and filled his cup full up with spite,” sang Galyeon. “My brother once ruled seven kingdoms, he said to his harridan wife. I’ll take what was his and make it all mine. Let his son feel the point of my knife.”

“A brave young boy with hair of gold,” his players chanted, as a woodharp and a fiddle began to play.

“If I am ever Hand again, the first thing I’ll do is hang all the singers,” said Tyrion, too loudly.

Lady Leonette laughed lightly beside him, and Ser Garlan leaned over to say, “A valiant deed unsung is no less valiant.”

“The dark lord assembled his legions, they gathered around him like crows. And thirsty for blood they boarded their ships . . .”

“. . . and cut off poor Tyrion’s nose,” Tyrion finished.

Lady Leonette giggled. “Perhaps you should be a singer, my lord. You rhyme as well as this Galyeon.”

“No, my lady,” Ser Garlan said. “My lord of Lannister was made to do great deeds, not to sing of them. But for his chain and his wildfire, the foe would have been across the river. And if Tyrion’s wildlings had not slain most of Lord Stannis’s scouts, we would never have been able to take him unawares.”

His words made Tyrion feel absurdly grateful, and helped to mollify him as Galyeon sang endless verses about the valor of the boy king and his mother, the golden queen.

“She never did that,” Sansa blurted out suddenly.

“Never believe anything you hear in a song, my lady.” Tyrion summoned a serving man to refill their wine cups.

Soon it was full night outside the tall windows, and still Galyeon sang on. His song had seventy-seven verses, though it seemed more like a thousand. One for every guest in the hall. Tyrion drank his way through the last twenty or so, to help resist the urge to stuff mushrooms in his ears. By the time the singer had taken his bows, some of the guests were drunk enough to begin providing unintentional entertainments of their own. Grand Maester Pycelle fell asleep while dancers from the Summer Isles swirled and spun in robes made of bright feathers and smoky silk. Roundels of elk stuffed with ripe blue cheese were being brought out when one of Lord Rowan’s knights stabbed a Dornishman. The gold cloaks dragged them both away, one to a cell to rot and the other to get sewn up by Maester Ballabar.

Tyrion was toying with a leche of brawn, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and almond milk, when King Joffrey lurched suddenly to his feet. “Bring on my royal jousters!” he shouted in a voice thick with wine, clapping his hands together.

My nephew is drunker than I am, Tyrion thought as the gold cloaks opened the great doors at the end of the hall. From where he sat, he could only see the tops of two striped lances as a pair of riders entered side by side. A wave of laughter followed them down the center aisle toward the king. They must be riding ponies, he concluded . . . until they came into full view.

The jousters were a pair of dwarfs. One was mounted on an ugly grey dog, long of leg and heavy of jaw. The other rode an immense spotted sow. Painted wooden armor clattered and clacked as the little knights bounced up and down in their saddles. Their shields were bigger than they were, and they wrestled manfully with their lances as they clomped along, swaying this way and that and eliciting gusts of mirth. One knight was all in gold, with a black stag painted on his shield; the other wore grey and white, and bore a wolf device. Their mounts were barded likewise.

Tyrion glanced along the dais at all the laughing faces. Joffrey was red and breathless, Tommen was hooting and hopping up and down in his seat, Cersei was chuckling politely, and even Lord Tywin looked mildly amused. Of all those at the high table, only Sansa Stark was not smiling. He could have loved her for that, but if truth be told the Stark girl’s eyes were far away, as if she had not even seen the ludicrous riders loping toward her.

The dwarfs are not to blame, Tyrion decided. When they are done, I shall compliment them and give them a fat purse of silver. And come the morrow, I will find whoever planned this little diversion and arrange for a different sort of thanks.

When the dwarfs reined up beneath the dais to salute the king, the wolf knight dropped his shield. As he leaned over to grab for it, the stag knight lost control of his heavy lance and slammed him across the back. The wolf knight fell off his pig, and his lance tumbled over and boinked his foe on the head. They both wound up on the floor in a great tangle. When they rose, both tried to mount the dog. Much shouting and shoving followed. Finally they regained their saddles, only mounted on each other’s steed, holding the wrong shield and facing backward.

It took some time to sort that out, but in the end they spurred to opposite ends of the hall, and wheeled about for the tilt. As the lords and ladies guffawed and giggled, the little men came together with a crash and a clatter, and the wolf knight’s lance struck the helm of the stag knight and knocked his head clean off. It spun through the air spattering blood to land in the lap of Lord Gyles. The headless dwarf careened around the tables, flailing his arms. Dogs barked, women shrieked, and Moon Boy made a great show of swaying perilously back and forth on his stilts, until Lord Gyles pulled a dripping red melon out of the shattered helm, at which point the stag knight poked his face up out of his armor, and another storm of laughter rocked the hall. The knights waited for it to die, circled around each other trading colorful insults, and were about to separate for another joust when the dog threw its rider to the floor and mounted the sow. The huge pig squealed in distress, while the wedding guests squealed with laughter, especially when the stag knight leapt onto the wolf knight, let down his wooden breeches, and started to pump away frantically at the other’s nether portions.

“I yield, I yield,” the dwarf on the bottom screamed. “Good ser, put up your sword!”

“I would, I would, if you’ll stop moving the sheath!” the dwarf on the top replied, to the merriment of all.

Joffrey was snorting wine from both nostrils. Gasping, he lurched to his feet, almost knocking over his tall two-handed chalice. “A champion,” he shouted. “We have a champion!” The hall began to quiet when it was seen that the king was speaking. The dwarfs untangled, no doubt anticipating the royal thanks. “Not a true champion, though,” said Joff. “A true champion defeats all challengers.” The king climbed up on the table. “Who else will challenge our tiny champion?” With a gleeful smile, he turned toward Tyrion. “Uncle! You’ll defend the honor of my realm, won’t you? You can ride the pig!”

The laughter crashed over him like a wave. Tyrion Lannister did not remember rising, nor climbing on his chair, but he found himself standing on the table. The hall was a torchlit blur of leering faces. He twisted his face into the most hideous mockery of a smile the Seven Kingdoms had ever seen. “Your Grace,” he called, “I’ll ride the pig . . . but only if you ride the dog!”

Joff scowled, confused. “Me? I’m no dwarf. Why me?”

Stepped right into the cut, Joff. “Why, you’re the only man in the hall that I’m certain of defeating!”

He could not have said which was sweeter; the instant of shocked silence, the gale of laughter that followed, or the look of blind rage on his nephew’s face. The dwarf hopped back to the floor well satisfied, and by the time he looked back Ser Osmund and Ser Meryn were helping Joff climb down as well. When he noticed Cersei glaring at him, Tyrion blew her a kiss.

It was a relief when the musícians began to play. The tiny jousters led dog and sow from the hall, the guests returned to their trenchers of brawn, and Tyrion called for another cup of wine. But suddenly he felt Ser Garlan’s hand on his sleeve. “My lord, beware,” the knight warned. “The king.”

Tyrion turned in his seat. Joffrey was almost upon him, red-faced and staggering, wine slopping over the rim of the great golden wedding chalice he carried in both hands. “Your Grace,” was all he had time to say before the king upended the chalice over his head. The wine washed down over his face in a red torrent. It drenched his hair, stung his eyes, burned in his wound, ran down his cheeks, and soaked the velvet of his new doublet. “How do you like that, Imp?” Joffrey mocked.

Tyrion’s eyes were on fire. He dabbed at his face with the back of a sleeve and tried to blink the world back into clarity. “That was ill done, Your Grace,” he heard Ser Garlan say quietly.

“Not at all, Ser Garlan.” Tyrion dare not let this grow any uglier than it was, not here, with half the realm looking on. “Not every king would think to honor a humble subject by serving him from his own royal chalice. A pity the wine spilled.”

“It didn’t spill,” said Joffrey, too graceless to take the retreat Tyrion offered him. “And I wasn’t serving you, either.”

Queen Margaery appeared suddenly at Joffrey’s elbow. “My sweet king,” the Tyrell girl entreated, “come, return to your place, there’s another singer waiting.”

“Alaric of Eysen,” said Lady Olenna Tyrell, leaning on her cane and taking no more notice of the wine-soaked dwarf than her granddaughter had done. “I do so hope he plays us ‘The Rains of Castamere.’ It has been an hour, I’ve forgotten how it goes.”

“Ser Addam has a toast he wants to make as well,” said Margaery. “Your Grace, please.”

“I have no wine,” Joffrey declared. “How can I drink a toast if I have no wine? Uncle Imp, you can serve me. Since you won’t joust you’ll be my cupbearer.”

“I would be most honored.”

“It’s not meant to be an honor!” Joffrey screamed. “Bend down and pick up my chalice.” Tyrion did as he was bid, but as he reached for the handle Joff kicked the chalice through his legs. “Pick it up! Are you as clumsy as you are ugly?” He had to crawl under the table to find the thing. “Good, now fill it with wine.” He claimed a flagon from a serving girl and filled the goblet three-quarters full. “No, on your knees, dwarf.” Kneeling, Tyrion raised up the heavy cup, wondering if he was about to get a second bath. But Joffrey took the wedding chalice one-handed, drank deep, and set it on the table. “You can get up now, Uncle.”

His legs cramped as he tried to rise, and almost spilled him again. Tyrion had to grab hold of a chair to steady himself. Ser Garlan lent him a hand. Joffrey laughed, and Cersei as well. Then others. He could not see who, but he heard them.

“Your Grace.” Lord Tywin’s voice was impeccably correct. “They are bringing in the pie. Your sword is needed.”

“The pie?” Joffrey took his queen by the hand. “Come, my lady, it’s the pie.”

The guests stood, shouting and applauding and smashing their wine cups together as the great pie made its slow way down the length of the hall, wheeled along by a half-dozen beaming cooks. Two yards across it was, crusty and golden brown, and they could hear squeaks and thumpings coming from inside it.

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