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“Oh, many and many a year ago, when my mother ruled in Dorne and your lord father was Hand to a different king.”
Not so different as you might think, reflected Tyrion.
“It was when I visited Casterly Rock with my mother, her consort, and my sister Elia. I was, oh, fourteen, fifteen, thereabouts, Elia a year older. Your brother and sister were eight or nine, as I recall, and you had just been born.”
A queer time to come visiting. His mother had died giving him birth, so the Martells would have found the Rock deep in mourning. His father especially. Lord Tywin seldom spoke of his wife, but Tyrion had heard his uncles talk of the love between them. In those days, his father had been Aerys’s Hand, and many people said that Lord Tywin Lannister ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but Lady Joanna ruled Lord Tywin. “He was not the same man after she died, Imp,” his Uncle Gery told him once. “The best part of him died with her.” Gerion had been the youngest of Lord Tytos Lannister’s four sons, and the uncle Tyrion liked best.
But he was gone now, lost beyond the seas, and Tyrion himself had put Lady Joanna in her grave. “Did you find Casterly Rock to your liking, my lord?”
“Scarcely. Your father ignored us the whole time we were there, after commanding Ser Kevan to see to our entertainment. The cell they gave me had a featherbed to sleep in and Myrish carpets on the floor, but it was dark and windowless, much like a dungeon when you come down to it, as I told Elia at the time. Your skies were too grey, your wines too sweet, your women too chaste, your food too bland . . . and you yourself were the greatest disappointment of all.”
“I had just been born. What did you expect of me?”
“Enormity,” the black-haired prince replied. “You were small, but far-famed. We were in Oldtown at your birth, and all the city talked of was the monster that had been born to the King’s Hand, and what such an omen might foretell for the realm.”
“Famine, plague, and war, no doubt.” Tyrion gave a sour smile. “It’s always famine, plague, and war. Oh, and winter, and the long night that never ends.”
“All that,” said Prince Oberyn, “and your father’s fall as well. Lord Tywin had made himself greater than King Aerys, I heard one begging brother preach, but only a god is meant to stand above a king. You were his curse, a punishment sent by the gods to teach him that he was no better than any other man.”
“I try, but he refuses to learn.” Tyrion gave a sigh. “But do go on, I pray you. I love a good tale.”
“And well you might, since you were said to have one, a stiff curly tail like a swine’s. Your head was monstrous huge, we heard, half again the size of your body, and you had been born with thick black hair and a beard besides, an evil eye, and lion’s claws. Your teeth were so long you could not close your mouth, and between your legs were a girl’s privates as well as a boy’s.”
“Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don’t you agree? And I can think of a few times when claws and teeth might have proved useful. Even so, I begin to see the nature of your complaint.”
Bronn gave out with a chuckle, but Oberyn only smiled. “We might never have seen you at all but for your sweet sister. You were never seen at table or hall, though sometimes at night we could hear a baby howling down in the depths of the Rock. You did have a monstrous great voice, I must grant you that. You would wail for hours, and nothing would quiet you but a woman’s teat.”
“Still true, as it happens.”
This time Prince Oberyn did laugh. “A taste we share. Lord Gargalen once told me he hoped to die with a sword in his hand, to which I replied that I would sooner go with a breast in mine.”
Tyrion had to grin. “You were speaking of my sister?”
“Cersei promised Elia to show you to us. The day before we were to sail, whilst my mother and your father were closeted together, she and Jaime took us down to your nursery. Your wet nurse tried to send us off, but your sister was having none of that. ‘He’s mine,’ she said, ‘and you’re just a milk cow, you can’t tell me what to do. Be quiet or I’ll have my father cut your tongue out. A cow doesn’t need a tongue, only udders.’”
“Her Grace learned charm at an early age,” said Tyrion, amused by the notion of his sister claiming him as hers. “She’s never been in any rush to claim me since, the gods know.
“Cersei even undid your swaddling clothes to give us a better look,” the Dornish prince continued. “You did have one evil eye, and some black fuzz on your scalp. Perhaps your head was larger than most . . . but there was no tail, no beard, neither teeth nor claws, and nothing between your legs but a tiny pink cock. After all the wonderful whispers, Lord Tywin’s Doom turned out to be just a hideous red infant with stunted legs. Elia even made the noise that young girls make at the sight of infants, I’m sure you’ve heard it. The same noise they make over cute kittens and playful puppies. I believe she wanted to nurse you herself, ugly as you were. When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, ‘He killed my mother,’ and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off. You shrieked, but it was only when your brother Jaime said, ‘Leave him be, you’re hurting him,’ that Cersei let go of you. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told us. ‘Everyone says he’s like to die soon. He shouldn’t even have lived this long.’”
The sun was shining bright above them, and the day was pleasantly warm for autumn, but Tyrion Lannister went cold all over when he heard that. My sweet sister. He scratched at the scar of his nose and gave the Dornishman a taste of his “evil eye.” Now why would he tell such a tale? Is he testing me, or simply twisting my cock as Cersei did, so he can hear me scream? “Be sure and tell that story to my father. It will delight him as much as it did me. The part about my tail, especially. I did have one, but he had it lopped off.”
Prince Oberyn had a chuckle. “You’ve grown more amusing since last we met.”
“Yes, but I meant to grow taller.”
“While we are speaking of amusement, I heard a curious tale from Lord Buckler’s steward. He claimed that you had put a tax on women’s privy purses.”
“It is a tax on whoring,” said Tyrion, irritated all over again. And it was my bloody father’s notion. “Only a penny for each, ah . . . act. The King’s Hand felt it might help improve the morals of the city.” And pay for Joffrey’s wedding besides. Needless to say, as master of coin, Tyrion had gotten all the blame for it. Bronn said they were calling it the dwarf’s penny in the streets. “Spread your legs for the Halfman, now,” they were shouting in the brothels and wine sinks, if the sellsword could be believed.
“I will make certain to keep my pouch full of pennies. Even a prince must pay his taxes.”
“Why should you need to go whoring?” He glanced back to where Ellaria Sand rode among the other women. “Did you tire of your paramour on the road?”
“Never. We share too much.” Prince Oberyn shrugged. “We have never shared a beautiful blonde woman, however, and Ellaria is curious. Do you know of such a creature?”
“I am a man wedded.” Though not yet bedded. “I no longer frequent whores.” Unless I want to see them hanged.
Oberyn abruptly changed the subject. “It’s said there are to be seventy-seven dishes served at the king’s wedding feast.”
“Are you hungry, my prince?”
“I have hungered for a long time. Though not for food. Pray tell me, when will the justice be served?”
“Justice.” Yes, that is why he’s here, I should have seen that at once. “You were close to your sister?”
“As children Elia and I were inseparable, much like your own brother and sister.”
Gods, I hope not. “Wars and weddings have kept us well occupied, Prince Oberyn. I fear no one has yet had the time to look into murders sixteen years stale, dreadful as they were. We shall, of course, just as soon as we may. Any help that Dorne might be able to provide to restore the king’s peace would only hasten the beginning of my lord father’s inquiry—”
“Dwarf,” said the Red Viper, in a tone grown markedly less cordial, “spare me your Lannister lies. Is it sheep you take us for, or fools? My brother is not a bloodthirsty man, but neither has he been asleep for sixteen years. Jon Arryn came to Sunspear the year after Robert took the throne, and you can be sure that he was questioned closely. Him, and a hundred more. I did not come for some mummer’s show of an inquiry. I came for justice for Elia and her children, and I will have it. Starting with this lummox Gregor Clegane . . . but not, I think, ending there. Before he dies, the Enormity That Rides will tell me whence came his orders, please assure your lord father of that.” He smiled. “An old septon once claimed I was living proof of the goodness of the gods. Do you know why that is, Imp?”
“No,” Tyrion admitted warily.
“Why, if the gods were cruel, they would have made me my mother’s firstborn, and Doran her third. I am a bloodthirsty man, you see. And it is me you must contend with now, not my patient, prudent, and gouty brother.”
Tyrion could see the sun shining on the Blackwater Rush half a mile ahead, and on the walls and towers and hills of King’s Landing beyond. He glanced over his shoulder, at the glittering column following them up the kingsroad. “You speak like a man with a great host at his back,” he said, “yet all I see are three hundred. Do you spy that city there, north of the river?”
“The midden heap you call King’s Landing?”
“That’s the very one.”
“Not only do I see it, I believe I smell it now.”
“Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you’ll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father’s own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don’t they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can’t really say how many are left, but there’s more than I care to count, anyway.”
Martell gave a shrug. “In Dorne of old before we married Daeron, it was said that all flowers bow before the sun. Should the roses seek to hinder me I’ll gladly trample them underfoot.”
“As you trampled Willas Tyrell?”
The Dornishman did not react as expected. “I had a letter from Willas not half a year past. We share an interest in fine horseflesh. He has never borne me any ill will for what happened in the lists. I struck his breastplate clean, but his foot caught in a stirrup as he fell and his horse came down on top of him. I sent a maester to him afterward, but it was all he could do to save the boy’s leg. The knee was far past mending. If any were to blame, it was his fool of a father. Willas Tyrell was green as his surcoat and had no business riding in such company. The Fat Flower thrust him into tourneys at too tender an age, just as he did with the other two. He wanted another Leo Longthorn, and made himself a cripple.”
“There are those who say Ser Loras is better than Leo Longthorn ever was,” said Tyrion.
“Renly’s little rose? I doubt that.”
“Doubt it all you wish,” said Tyrion, “but Ser Loras has defeated many good knights, including my brother Jaime.”
“By defeated, you mean unhorsed, in tourney. Tell me who he’s slain in battle if you mean to frighten me.”
“Ser Robar Royce and Ser Emmon Cuy, for two. And men say he performed prodigious feats of valor on the Blackwater, fighting beside Lord Renly’s ghost.”
“So these same men who saw the prodigious feats saw the ghost as well, yes?” The Dornishman laughed lightly.
Tyrion gave him a long look. “Chataya’s on the Street of Silk has several girls who might suit your needs. Dancy has hair the color of honey. Marie’s is pale white-gold. I would advise you to keep one or the other by your side at all times, my lord.”
“At all times?” Prince Oberyn lifted a thin black eyebrow. “And why is that, my good Imp?”
“You want to die with a breast in hand, you said.” Tyrion cantered on ahead to where the ferry barges waited on the south bank of the Blackwater. He had suffered all he meant to suffer of what passed for Dornish wit. Father should have sent Joffrey after all. He could have asked Prince Oberyn if he knew how a Dornishman differed from a cowflop. That made him grin despite himself. He would have to make a point of being on hand when the Red Viper was presented to the king.
ARYA
The man on the roof was the first to die. He was crouched down by the chimney two hundred yards away, no more than a vague shadow in the predawn gloom, but as the sky began to lighten he stirred, stretched, and stood. Anguy’s arrow took him in the chest. He tumbled bonelessly down the steep slate pitch, and fell in front of the septry door.
The Mummers had posted two guards there, but their torch left them night blind, and the outlaws had crept in close. Kyle and Notch let fly together. One man went down with an arrow through his throat, the other through his belly. The second man dropped the torch, and the flames licked up at him. He screamed as his clothes took fire, and that was the end of stealth. Thoros gave a shout, and the outlaws attacked in earnest.
Arya watched from atop her horse, on the crest of the wooded ridge that overlooked the septry, mill, brewhouse, and stables and the desolation of weeds, burnt trees, and mud that surrounded them. The trees were mostly bare now, and the few withered brown leaves that still clung to the branches did little to obstruct her view. Lord Beric had left Beardless Dick and Mudge to guard them. Arya hated being left behind like she was some stupid child, but at least Gendry had been kept back as well. She knew better than to try and argue. This was battle, and in battle you had to obey.
The eastern horizon glowed gold and pink, and overhead a half moon peeked out through low scuttling clouds. The wind blew cold, and Arya could hear the rush of water and the creak of the mill’s great wooden waterwheel. There was a smell of rain in the dawn air, but no drops were falling yet. Flaming arrows flew through the morning mists, trailing pale ribbons of fire, and thudded into the wooden walls of the septry. A few smashed through shuttered windows, and soon enough thin tendrils of smoke were rising between the broken shutters.
Two Mummers came bursting from the septry side by side, axes in their hands. Anguy and the other archers were waiting. One axeman died at once. The other managed to duck, so the shaft ripped through his shoulder. He staggered on, till two more arrows found him, so quickly it was hard to say which had struck first. The long shafts punched through his breastplate as if it had been made of silk instead of steel. He fell heavily. Anguy had arrows tipped with bodkins as well as broadheads. A bodkin could pierce even heavy plate. I’m going to learn to shoot a bow, Arya thought. She loved swordfighting, but she could see how arrows were good too.
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