A Game of Thrones Chapter Forty-two

TyrionThey had run inton render ben obliterateh a copse of aspens just off-key the high road. Tyrion was gather deadwood while their horses took water from a mountain stream. He asymmetrical to pick up a splintered commencement and examined it critically. Will this do? I am not practiced at starting glows. Morrec did that for me.A fire? Bronn said, cough up. Are you so hungry to die, dwarf? Or get hold of you taken leave of your senses? A fire exit earn the clans hands graduate on us from miles nigh. I mean to survive this journey, Lannister.And how do you expect to do that? Tyrion asked. He tucked the branch under his arm and poked around by means of the sparse undergrowth, looking for much. His back ached from the effort of bending they had been riding since daybreak, when a st bingle- hu earth manifestationd Ser Lyn Corbray had ushered them through the Bloody Gate and com populaceded them never to return.We have no observe of contracting our way back, Bronn sa id, notwithstanding two finish cover much ground than ten, and attract less notice. The fewer days we spend in these mountains, the more like we argon to grip the riverlands. Ride hard and fast, I say. Travel by iniquity and hole up by day, repress the road where we can, arrive no noise and light no fires.Tyrion Lannister sighed. A splendid plan, Bronn. Try it, as you like . . . and forgive me if I do not linger to bury you.You lissomek to placelive me, dwarf? The sellsword grinned. He had a dark gap in his smile where the edge of Ser Vardis Egens scale had cracked a tooth in half.Tyrion shrugged. Riding hard and fast by night is a sure way to tumble d give a mountain and crack your skull. I privilege to bring up my crossing fall and easy. I jockey you love the taste of horse, Bronn, but if our mounts die under us this clipping, well be returning to saddle shadowcats . . . and if truth be told, I think the clans testament find us no matter what we do. Their eyeball are all around us. He swept a gloved arrive at over the high, wind-carved crags that surrounded them.Bronn grimaced. Then were dead men, Lannister.If so, I prefer to die comfortable, Tyrion replied. We need a fire. The nights are cold up here, and importunate food will warm our bellies and lift our spirits. Do you suppose theres either game to be had? brothel keeper Lysa has kindly provided us with a typical feast of salt beef, hard cheese, and stale bread, but I would abominate to break a tooth so far from the come nearest maester.I can find meat. Beneath a fall of black hair, Bronns dark eyeball regarded Tyrion suspiciously. I should leave you here with your fools fire. If I took your horse, Id have twice the misfortune to make it through. What would you do because, dwarf?Die, nearly like. Tyrion stooped to get another(prenominal) stick.You dont think Id do it?Youd do it in an instant, if it meant your life. You were quick enough to repose your friend Chiggen when he caught that arrow in his belly. Bronn had yanked back the mans head by the hair and driven the point of his dirk in under the ear, and afterwardward told Catelyn utter(a) that the other sellsword had died of his wound.He was good as dead, Bronn said, and his moaning was bringing them down on us. Chiggen would have d genius the same for me . . . and he was no friend, barely a man I rode with. Make no mistake, dwarf. I fought for you, but I do not love you.It was your blade I needed, Tyrion said, not your love. He dumped his armful of wood on the ground.Bronn grinned. Youre bold as any sellsword, Ill give you that. How did you know Id take your part?Know? Tyrion squatted awkwardly on his stunted legs to lay down the fire. I tossed the dice. Back at the inn, you and Chiggen helped take me captive. Why? The others saw it as their duty, for the honor of the superiors they served, but not you two. You had no manufacturer, no duty, and precious bitty honor, so why trouble to involve yourselves? He took out his stab and whittled some thin strips of bark off one of the sticks hed gathered, to serve as kindling. Well, why do sellswords do anything? For gold. You were thinking Lady Catelyn would reward you for your help, maybe even take you into her service. Here, that should do, I hope. Do you have a stony?Bronn slid two fingers into the pouch at his belt and tossed down a granitelike. Tyrion caught it in the air.My thanks, he said. The thing is, you did not know the Starks. master Eddard is a proud, honorable, and undecomposed man, and his lady wife is worse. Oh, no doubt she would have found a coin or two for you when this was all over, and pressed it in your hand with a polite word and a look of distaste, but thats the most you could have hoped for. The Starks look for courage and loyalty and honor in the men they choose to serve them, and if truth be told, you and Chiggen were lowborn scum. Tyrion struck the flint against his dagger, trying for a spark. Nothing.Bronn snorted. You have a bold tongue, little man. ane day someone is like to cut it out and make you eat it.Everyone tells me that. Tyrion glanced up at the sellsword. Did I offend you? My pardons . . . but you are scum, Bronn, make no mistake. Duty, honor, friendship, whats that to you? No, dont trouble yourself, we two know the answer. Still, youre not stupid. Once we reached the Vale, Lady Stark had no more need of you . . . but I did, and the one thing the Lannisters have never lacked for is gold. When the moment came to toss the dice, I was reckoning on your being smart enough to know where your best relate lay. Happily for me, you did. He slammed stone and steel together again, fruitlessly.Here, said Bronn, squatting, Ill do it. He took the natural language and flint from Tyrions hands and struck sparks on his first try. A curl of bark began to smolder.Well done, Tyrion said. Scum you may be, but youre undeniably useful, and with a sword in your hand youre almos t as good as my brother Jaime. What do you emergency, Bronn? Gold? Land? Women? obtain me alive, and youll have it.Bronn blew gently on the fire, and the flames leapt up higher. And if you die?Why indeed, Ill have one mourner whose grief is sincere, Tyrion said, grinning. The gold ends when I do.The fire was blaze up nicely. Bronn stood, tucked the flint back into his pouch, and tossed Tyrion his dagger. Fair enough, he said. My swords yours, then . . . but dont go looking for me to bend the knee and mlord you every clock date you take a shit. Im no mans toady.Nor any mans friend, Tyrion said. Ive no doubt youd flush it me as quick as you did Lady Stark, if you saw a cyberspace in it. If the day ever comes when youre tempted to sell me out, remember this, BronnIll match their price, some(prenominal) it is. I like living. And now, do you think you could do something about determination us some supper?Take care of the horses, Bronn said, unsheathing the immense dirk he wore at his hip. He strode into the trees.An hour later the horses had been rubbed down and fed, the fire was crackling outside(a) merrily, and a haunch of a young goat was turning above the flames, spitting and hissing. both we lack now is some good wine to washout down our kid, Tyrion said.That, a woman, and another dozen swords, Bronn said. He sit down cross-legged beside the fire, honing the edge of his longsword with an oilstone. There was something strangely reassuring about the rub offing proceed it make when he drew it down the steel. It will be amply dark soon, the sellsword pointed out. Ill take first watch . . . for all the good it will do us. It might be kinder to let them kill us in our sleep.Oh, I imagine theyll be here long before it comes to sleep. The looking of the roasting meat made Tyrions mouth water.Bronn watched him across the fire. You have a plan, he said flatly, with a scrape of steel on stone.A hope, call it, Tyrion said. Another toss of the dice.With our lives as the stake?Tyrion shrugged. What choice do we have? He leaned over the fire and sawed a thin stinger of meat from the kid. Ahhhh, he sighed happily as he chewed. Grease ran down his chin. A bit tougher than Id like, and in want of spicing, but Ill not opine too loudly. If I were back at the Eyrie, Id be dancing on a precipice in hopes of a boiled bean.And yet you gave the turnkey a purse of gold, Bronn said.A Lannister always pays his debts.Even Mord had scarcely believed it when Tyrion tossed him the leather purse. The gaolers eyeball had gone big as boiled eggs as he yanked open the drawstring and beheld the glint of gold. I kept the silver, Tyrion had told him with a bend smile, but you were promised the gold, and there it is. It was more than a man like Mord could hope to earn in a lifetime of abusing pri boyers. And remember what I said, this is except a taste. If you ever grow tired of Lady Arryns service, present yourself at Casterly Rock, and Ill pay you the rest of what I owe you. With golden dragons spilling out of both hands, Mord had fallen to his knees and promised that he would do just that.Bronn yanked out his dirk and pulled the meat from the fire. He began to carve thick chunks of charred meat off the bone as Tyrion hollowed out two heels of stale bread to serve as trenchers. If we do reach the river, what will you do then? the sellsword asked as he cut.Oh, a work and a featherbed and a flagon of wine, for a start. Tyrion held out his trencher, and Bronn filled it with meat. And then to Casterly Rock or Kings Landing, I think. I have some questions that want answering, concerning a certain dagger. The sellsword chewed and swallowed. So you were telling it true? It was not your knife?Tyrion smiled thinly. Do I look a liar to you?By the time their bellies were full, the stars had come out and a halfmoon was rising over the mountains. Tyrion spread his shadowskin garb on the ground and stretched out with his saddle for a pillow . Our friends are pickings their sweet time.If I were them, Id vexation a trap, Bronn said. Why else would we be so open, if not to lure them in?Tyrion chuckled. Then we ought to sing and send them fleeing in terror. He began to whistle a tune.Youre mad, dwarf, Bronn said as he cleaned the skank out from under his nails with his dirk.Wheres your love of music, Bronn?If it was music you wanted, you should have gotten the singer to brilliance you.Tyrion grinned. That would have been amusing. I can just see him fending off Ser Vardis with his woodharp. He resumed his whistling. Do you know this song? he asked.You hear it here and there, in inns and whorehouses.Myrish. The Seasons of My Love. Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first little girl I ever stratified used to sing it, and Ive never been able to put it out of my head. Tyrion gazed up at the sky. It was a clear cold night and the stars shone down upon the mountains as bright and merciless as truth. I met her o n a night like this, he hear himself saying. Jaime and I were riding back from Lannisport when we heard a scream, and she came running out into the road with two men tag her heels, shouting threats. My brother unsheathed his sword and went after them, while I dismounted to protect the girl. She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your heart. It certainly stony-broke mine. Lowborn, half-starved, unwashed . . . yet lovely. Theyd disunite the rags she was wearing half off her back, so I wrapped her in my cloak while Jaime chased the men into the woods. By the time he came trotting back, Id gotten a name out of her, and a story. She was a crofters child, orphaned when her suffer died of fever, on her way to . . . well, nowhere, really.Jaime was all in a lather to be given down the men. It was not often outlaws dared prey on travelers so near to Casterly Rock, and he took it as an insult. The girl was too frightened to send off by herself, though, so I offered to take her to the closest inn and lean her while my brother rode back to the Rock for help.She was hungrier than I would have believed. We ideal two whole chickens and part of a third, and drank a flagon of wine, talking. I was only thirteen, and the wine went to my head, I idolise. The next thing I knew, I was share-out her bed. If she was shy, I was shyer. Ill never know where I found the courage. When I broke her maidenhead, she wept, but afterward she kissed me and sang her little song, and by morning I was in love.You? Bronns percentage was amused.Absurd, isnt it? Tyrion began to whistle the song again. I married her, he finally admitted.A Lannister of Casterly Rock wed to a crofters daughter, Bronn said. How did you manage that?Oh, youd be astonished at what a boy can make of a few lies, fifty pieces of silver, and a drunken septon. I dared not bring my bride home to Casterly Rock, so I set her up in a cottage of her own, and for a fortnight we played at being man and wife. And then the septon sobered and confessed all to my lord father. Tyrion was surprised at how desolate it made him feel to say it, even after all these years. Perhaps he was just tired. That was the end of my marriage. He sat up and stared at the decease fire, blinking at the light.He sent the girl away?He did better than that, Tyrion said. First he made my brother tell me the truth. The girl was a whore, you see. Jaime arranged the whole affair, the road, the outlaws, all of it. He thought it was time I had a woman. He paid double for a maiden, knowing it would be my first time.After Jaime had made his confession, to drive home the lesson, master copy Tywin brought my wife in and gave her to his guards. They paid her fair enough. A silver for each man, how many whores command that high a price? He sat me down in the corner of the barracks and bade me watch, and at the end she had so many silvers the coins were slipping through her fingers and roll ing on the floor, she . . . The smoke was flimflam his eyes. Tyrion cleared his throat and turned away from the fire, to gaze out into darkness. Lord Tywin had me go last, he said in a quiet voice. And he gave me a gold coin to pay her, because I was a Lannister, and price more.After a time he heard the noise again, the rasp of steel on stone as Bronn sharpened his sword. Thirteen or thirty or three, I would have killed the man who did that to me.Tyrion swung around to face him. You may get that chance one day. Remember what I told you. A Lannister always pays his debts. He yawned. I think I will try and sleep. Wake me if were about to die.He rolled himself up in the shadowskin and turf out his eyes. The ground was stony and cold, but after a time Tyrion Lannister did sleep. He dreamt of the sky cell. This time he was the gaoler, not the prisoner, big, with a strap in his hand, and he was hitting his father, driving him back, toward the abyss . . .Tyrion. Bronns warning was low a nd urgent.Tyrion was wide-awake in the blink of an eye. The fire had burned down to embers, and the shadows were creeping in all around them. Bronn had brocaded himself to one knee, his sword in one hand and his dirk in the other. Tyrion held up a hand stay still, it said. enter share our fire, the night is cold, he called out to the creeping shadows. I fear weve no wine to offer you, but youre welcome to some of our goat.All movement stopped. Tyrion saw the glint of moonlight on metal. Our mountain, a voice called out from the trees, deep and hard and unfriendly. Our goat.Your goat, Tyrion agreed. Who are you?When you meet your gods, a polar voice replied, say it was Gunthor son of Gurn of the Stone Crows who sent you to them. A branch cracked underfoot as he stepped into the light a thin man in a horned helmet, armed with a long knife.And Shagga son of Dolf. That was the first voice, deep and deadly. A boulder shifted to their left, and stood, and became a man. ample and slow and strong he seemed, dressed all in skins, with a club in his right hand and an axe in his left. He smashed them together as he lumbered closer.Other voices called other call, direct and Torrek and Jaggot and more that Tyrion forgot the instant he heard them ten at least. A few had swords and knives others brandished pitchforks and scythes and wooden spears. He waited until they were done shouting out their names before he gave them answer. I am Tyrion son of Tywin, of the Clan Lannister, the Lions of the Rock. We will gladly pay you for the goat we ate.What do you have to give us, Tyrion son of Tywin? asked the one who named himself Gunthor, who seemed to be their chief.There is silver in my purse, Tyrion told them. This hauberk I wear is large for me, but it should fit Conn nicely, and the battle-axe I carry would suit Shaggas mighty hand far better than that wood-axe he holds.The halfman would pay us with our own coin, said Conn.Conn speaks truly, Gunthor said. Your silver is ours. Your horses are ours. Your hauberk and your battle-axe and the knife at your belt, those are ours too. You have cryptograph to give us but your lives. How would you like to die, Tyrion son of Tywin?In my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a maidens mouth around my cock, at the age of eighty, he replied.The huge one, Shagga, laughed first and loudest. The others seemed less amused. Conn, take their horses, Gunthor commanded. Kill the other and seize the halfinan. He can milk the goats and make the mothers laugh.Bronn sprang to his feet. Who dies first?No Tyrion said sharply. Gunthor son of Gurn, hear me. My House is replete and powerful. If the Stone Crows will see us safely through these mountains, my lord father will shower you with gold.The gold of a lowland lord is as worthless as a halfmans promises, Gunthor said.Half a man I may be, Tyrion said, yet I have the courage to face my enemies. What do the Stone Crows do, but hide behind rocks and shiver with fear as the k nights of the Vale ride by?Shagga gave a roar of indignation and clashed club against axe. Jaggot poked at Tyrions face with the fire-hardened point of a long wooden spear. He did his best not to flinch. Are these the best weapons you could steal? he said. Good enough for killing sheep, perhaps . . . if the sheep do not fight back. My fathers smiths shit better steel.Little boyman, Shagga roared, will you mock my axe after I chop off your manhood and feed it to the goats?But Gunthor raised a hand. No. I would hear his words. The mothers go hungry, and steel fills more mouths than gold. What would you give us for your lives, Tyrion son of Tywin? Swords? Lances? Mail?All that, and more, Gunthor son of Gurn, Tyrion Lannister replied, smiling. I will give you the Vale of Arryn.