A Clash Of Kings Part 18

"Very good. Help me dress." The doublet was black velvet covered with golden studs in the shape of lions' heads, the chain a loop of solid gold hands, the fingers of each clasping the wrist of the next. Pod brought him a cloak of crimson silk fringed in gold, cut to his height. On a normal man, it would be no more than a half cape.

The Hand's private audience chamber was not so large as the king's, nor a patch on the vastness of the throne room, but Tyrion liked its Myrish rugs, wall hangings, and sense of intimacy. As he entered, his steward cried out, "Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the King." He liked that too. The gaggle of smiths, armorers, and ironmongers that Bronn had collected fell to their knees.

He hoisted himself up into the high seat under the round golden window and bid them rise. "Goodmen, I know you are all busy, so I will be succinct. Pod, if you please." The boy handed him a canvas sack. Tyrion yanked the drawstring and upended the bag. Its contents spilled onto the rug with a m.u.f.fled thunk of metal on wool. "I had these made at the castle forge. I want a thousand more just like them."

One of the smiths knelt to inspect the object: three immense steel links, twisted together. "A mighty chain."

"Mighty, but short," the dwarf replied. "Somewhat like me. I fancy one a good deal longer. Do you have a name?"

"They call me Ironbelly, m'lord." The smith was squat and broad, plainly dressed in wool and leather, but his arms were as thick as a bull's neck.

"I want every forge in King's Landing turned to making these links and joining them. All other work is to be put aside. I want every man who knows the art of working metal set to this task, be he master, journeyman, or apprentice. When I ride up the Street of Steel, I want to hear hammers ringing, night or day. And I want a man, a strong man, to see that all this is done. Are you that man, Goodman Ironbelly?"

"Might be I am, m'lord. But what of the mail and swords the queen was wanting?"

Another smith spoke up. "Her Grace commanded us to make chainmail and armor, swords and daggers and axes, all in great numbers. For arming her new gold cloaks, m'lord."

"That work can wait," Tyrion said. "The chain first."

"M'lord, begging your pardon, Her Grace said those as didn't meet their numbers would have their hands crushed," the anxious smith persisted. "Smashed on their own anvils, she said."

Sweet Cersei, always striving to make the smallfolk love us. "No one will have their hands smashed. You have my word on it."

"Iron is grown dear," Ironbelly declared, "and this chain will be needing much of it, and c.o.ke beside, for the fires."

"Lord Baelish will see that you have coin as you need it," Tyrion promised. He could count on Littlefinger for that much, he hoped. "I will command the City Watch to help you find iron. Melt down every horseshoe in this city if you must."

An older man moved forward, richly dressed in a damask tunic with silver fastenings and a cloak lined with foxfur. He knelt to examine the great steel links Tyrion had dumped on the floor. "My lord," he announced gravely, "this is crude work at best. There is no art to it. Suitable labor for common smiths, no doubt, for men who bend horseshoes and hammer out kettles, but I am a master armorer, as it please my lord. This is no work for me, nor my fellow masters. We make swords as sharp as song, armor such as a G.o.d might wear. Not this."

Tyrion tilted his head to the side and gave the man a dose of his mismatched eyes. "What is your name, master armorer?"

"Salloreon, as it please my lord. If the King's Hand will permit, I should be most honored to forge him a suit of armor suitable to his House and high office." Two of the others sn.i.g.g.e.red, but Salloreon plunged ahead, heedless. "Plate and scale, I think. The scales gilded bright as the sun, the plate enameled a deep Lannister crimson. I would suggest a demon's head for a helm, crowned with tall golden horns. When you ride into battle, men will shrink away in fear."

A demon's head, Tyrion thought ruefully, now what does that say of me? "Master Salloreon, I plan to fight the rest of my battles from this chair. It's links I need, not demon horns. So let me put it to you this way. You will make chains, or you will wear them. The choice is yours." He rose, and took his leave with nary a backward glance.

Bronn was waiting by the gate with his litter and an escort of mounted Black Ears. "You know where we're bound," Tyrion told him. He accepted a hand up into the litter. He had done all he could to feed the hungry city-he'd set several hundred carpenters to building fis.h.i.+ng boats in place of catapults, opened the kingswood to any hunter who dared to cross the river, even sent gold cloaks foraging to the west and south-yet he still saw accusing eyes everywhere he rode. The litter's curtains s.h.i.+elded him from that, and besides gave him leisure to think.

As they wound their slow way down twisty Shadowblack Lane to the foot of Aegon's High Hill, Tyrion reflected on the events of the morning. His sister's ire had led her to overlook the true significance of Stannis Baratheon's letter. Without proof, his accusations were nothing; what mattered was that he had named himself a king. And what will Renly make of that? They could not both sit the Iron Throne.

Idly, he pushed the curtain back a few inches to peer out at the streets. Black Ears rode on both sides of him, their grisly necklaces looped about their throats, while Bronn went in front to clear the way. He watched the pa.s.sersby watching him, and played a little game with himself, trying to sort the informers from the rest. The ones who look the most suspicious are likely innocent, he decided. It's the ones who look innocent I need to beware.

His destination was behind the hill of Rhaenys, and the streets were crowded. Almost an hour had pa.s.sed before the litter swayed to a stop. Tyrion was dozing, but he woke abruptly when the motion ceased, rubbed the sand from his eyes, and accepted Bronn's hand to climb down.

The house was two stories tall, stone below and timber above. A round turret rose from one corner of the structure. Many of the windows were leaded. Over the door swung an ornate lamp, a globe of gilded metal and scarlet gla.s.s.

"A brothel," Bronn said. "What do you mean to do here?"

"What does one usually do in a brothel?"

The sellsword laughed. "Shae's not enough?"

"She was pretty enough for a camp follower, but I'm no longer in camp. Little men have big appet.i.tes, and I'm told the girls here are fit for a king."

"Is the boy old enough?"

"Not Joffrey. Robert. This house was a great favorite of his." Although Joffrey may indeed be old enough. An interesting notion, that. "If you and the Black Ears care to amuse yourselves, feel free, but Chataya's girls are costly. You'll find cheaper houses all along the street. Leave one man here who'll know where to find the others when I wish to return."

Bronn nodded. "As you say." The Black Ears were all grins.

Inside the door, a tall woman in flowing silks was waiting for him. She had ebon skin and sandalwood eyes. "I am Chataya," she announced, bowing deeply. "And you are-"

"Let us not get into the habit of names. Names are dangerous." The air smelled of some exotic spice, and the floor beneath his feet displayed a mosaic of two women entwined in love. "You have a pleasant establishment."

"I have labored long to make it so. I am glad the Hand is pleased." Her voice was flowing amber, liquid with the accents of the distant Summer Isles.

"t.i.tles can be as dangerous as names," Tyrion warned. "Show me a few of your girls."

"It will be my great delight. You will find that they are all as sweet as they are beautiful, and skilled in every art of love." She swept off gracefully, leaving Tyrion to waddle after as best he could on legs half the length of hers.

From behind an ornate Myrish screen carved with flowers and fancies and dreaming maidens, they peered unseen into a common room where an old man was playing a cheerful air on the pipes. In a cus.h.i.+oned alcove, a drunken Tyros.h.i.+ with a purple beard dandled a buxom young wench on his knee. He'd unlaced her bodice and was tilting his cup to pour a thin trickle of wine over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so he might lap it off. Two other girls sat playing at tiles before a leaded gla.s.s window. The freckled one wore a chain of blue flowers in her honeyed hair. The other had skin as smooth and black as polished jet, wide dark eyes, small pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They dressed in flowing silks cinched at the waist with beaded belts. The sunlight pouring through the colored gla.s.s outlined their sweet young bodies through the thin cloth, and Tyrion felt a stirring in his groin. "I would respectfully suggest the dark-skinned girl," said Chataya.

"She's young."

"She has sixteen years, my lord."

A good age for Joffrey, he thought, remembering what Bronn had said. His first had been even younger. Tyrion remembered how shy she'd seemed as he drew her dress up over her head the first time. Long dark hair and blue eyes you could drown in, and he had. So long ago . . . What a wretched fool you are, dwarf. "Does she come from your home lands, this girl?"

"Her blood is the blood of summer, my lord, but my daughter was born here in King's Landing." His surprise must have shown on his face, for Chataya continued, "My people hold that there is no shame to be found in the pillow house. In the Summer Isles, those who are skilled at giving pleasure are greatly esteemed. Many highborn youths and maidens serve for a few years after their flowerings, to honor the G.o.ds."

"What do the G.o.ds have to do with it?"

"The G.o.ds made our bodies as well as our souls, is it not so? They give us voices, so we might wors.h.i.+p them with song. They give us hands, so we might build them temples. And they give us desire, so we might mate and wors.h.i.+p them in that way."

"Remind me to tell the High Septon," said Tyrion. "If I could pray with my c.o.c.k, I'd be much more religious." He waved a hand. "I will gladly accept your suggestion."

"I shall summon my daughter. Come."

The girl met him at the foot of the stairs. Taller than Shae, though not so tall as her mother, she had to kneel before Tyrion could kiss her. "My name is Alayaya," she said, with only the slightest hint of her mother's accent. "Come, my lord." She took him by the hand and drew him up two flights of stairs, then down a long hall. Gasps and shrieks of pleasure were coming from behind one of the closed doors, giggles and whispers from another. Tyrion's c.o.c.k pressed against the lacings of his breeches. This could be humiliating, he thought as he followed Alayaya up another stair to the turret room. There was only one door. She led him through and closed it. Within the room was a great canopied bed, a tall wardrobe decorated with erotic carvings, and a narrow window of leaded gla.s.s in a pattern of red and yellow diamonds.

"You are very beautiful, Alayaya," Tyrion told her when they were alone. "From head to heels, every part of you is lovely. Yet just now the part that interests me most is your tongue."

"My lord will find my tongue well schooled. When I was a girl I learned when to use it, and when not."

"That pleases me." Tyrion smiled. "So what shall we do now? Perchance you have some suggestion?"

"Yes," she said. "If my lord will open the wardrobe, he will find what he seeks."

Tyrion kissed her hand, and climbed inside the empty wardrobe. Alayaya closed it after him. He groped for the back panel, felt it slide under his fingers, and pushed it all the way aside. The hollow s.p.a.ce behind the walls was pitch-black, but he fumbled until he felt metal. His hand closed around the rung of a ladder. He found a lower rung with his foot, and started down. Well below street level, the shaft opened onto a slanting earthen tunnel, where he found Varys waiting with candle in hand.

Varys did not look at all like himself. A scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his spiked steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, dirk and shortsword at his belt. "Was Chataya's to your satisfaction, my lord?"

"Almost too much so," admitted Tyrion. "You're certain this woman can be relied on?"

"I am certain of nothing in this fickle and treacherous world, my lord. Chataya has no cause to love the queen, though, and she knows that she has you to thank for ridding her of Allar Deem. Shall we go?" He started down the tunnel.

Even his walk is different, Tyrion observed. The scent of sour wine and garlic clung to Varys instead of lavender. "I like this new garb of yours," he offered as they went.

"The work I do does not permit me to travel the streets amid a column of knights. So when I leave the castle, I adopt more suitable guises, and thus live to serve you longer."

"Leather becomes you. You ought to come like this to our next council session."

"Your sister would not approve, my lord."

"My sister would soil her smallclothes." He smiled in the dark. "I saw no signs of any of her spies skulking after me."

"I am pleased to hear it, my lord. Some of your sister's hirelings are mine as well, unbeknownst to her. I should hate to think they had grown so sloppy as to be seen."

"Well, I'd hate to think I was climbing through wardrobes and suffering the pangs of frustrated l.u.s.t all for naught."

"Scarcely for naught," Varys a.s.sured him. "They know you are here. Whether any will be bold enough to enter Chataya's in the guise of patrons I cannot say, but I find it best to err on the side of caution."

"How is it a brothel happens to have a secret entrance?"

"The tunnel was dug for another King's Hand, whose honor would not allow him to enter such a house openly. Chataya has closely guarded the knowledge of its existence."

"And yet you knew of it."

"Little birds fly through many a dark tunnel. Careful, the steps are steep."

They emerged through a trap at the back of a stable, having come perhaps a distance of three blocks under Rhaenys's Hill. A horse whickered in his stall when Tyrion let the door slam shut. Varys blew out the candle and set it on a beam and Tyrion gazed about. A mule and three horses occupied the stalls. He waddled over to the piebald gelding and took a look at his teeth. "Old," he said, "and I have my doubts about his wind."

"He is not a mount to carry you into battle, true," Varys replied, "but he will serve, and attract no notice. As will the others. And the stableboys see and hear only the animals." The eunuch took a cloak from a peg. It was roughspun, sun-faded, and threadbare, but very ample in its cut. "If you will permit me." When he swept it over Tyrion's shoulders it enveloped him head to heel, with a cowl that could be pulled forward to drown his face in shadows. "Men see what they expect to see," Varys said as he fussed and pulled. "Dwarfs are not so common a sight as children, so a child is what they will see. A boy in an old cloak on his father's horse, going about his father's business. Though it would be best if you came most often by night."

"I plan to . . . after today. At the moment, though, Shae awaits me." He had put her up in a walled manse at the far northeast corner of King's Landing, not far from the sea, but he had not dared visit her there for fear of being followed.

"Which horse will you have?"

Tyrion shrugged. "This one will do well enough."

"I shall saddle him for you." Varys took tack and saddle down from a peg.

Tyrion adjusted the heavy cloak and paced restlessly. "You missed a lively council. Stannis has crowned himself, it seems."

"I know."

"He accuses my brother and sister of incest. I wonder how he came by that suspicion."

"Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d's hair, as Ned Stark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in his ear." The eunuch's laugh was not his usual giggle, but deeper and more throaty.

"Someone like you, perchance?"

"Am I suspected? It was not me."

"If it had been, would you admit it?"

"No. But why should I betray a secret I have kept so long? It is one thing to deceive a king, and quite another to hide from the cricket in the rushes and the little bird in the chimney. Besides, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were there for all to see."

"Robert's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? What of them?"

"He fathered eight, to the best of my knowing," Varys said as he wrestled with the saddle. "Their mothers were copper and honey, chestnut and b.u.t.ter, yet the babes were all black as ravens . . . and as ill-omened, it would seem. So when Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen slid out between your sister's thighs, each as golden as the sun, the truth was not hard to glimpse."

Tyrion shook his head. If she had borne only one child for her husband, it would have been enough to disarm suspicion . . . but then she would not have been Cersei. "If you were not this whisperer, who was?"

"Some traitor, doubtless." Varys tightened the cinch.

"Littlefinger?"

"I named no name."

Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. "Lord Varys," he said from the saddle, "sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King's Landing, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy."

"How odd. I think quite the same of you."

BRAN.

Long before the first pale fingers of light pried apart Bran's shutters, his eyes were open.

There were guests in Winterfell, visitors come for the harvest feast. This morning they would be tilting at quintains in the yard. Once that prospect would have filled him with excitement, but that was before.

Not now. The Walders would break lances with the squires of Lord Manderly's escort, but Bran would have no part of it. He must play the prince in his father's solar. "Listen, and it may be that you will learn something of what lords.h.i.+p is all about," Maester Luwin had said.

Bran had never asked to be a prince. It was knighthood he had always dreamed of; bright armor and streaming banners, lance and sword, a warhorse between his legs. Why must he waste his days listening to old men speak of things he only half understood? Because you're broken, a voice inside reminded him. A lord on his cus.h.i.+oned chair might be crippled-the Walders said their grandfather was so feeble he had to be carried everywhere in a litter-but not a knight on his destrier. Besides, it was his duty. "You are your brother's heir and the Stark in Winterfell," Ser Rodrik said, reminding him of how Robb used to sit with their lord father when his bannermen came to see him.

Lord Wyman Manderly had arrived from White Harbor two days past, traveling by barge and litter, as he was too fat to sit a horse. With him had come a long tail of retainers: knights, squires, lesser lords and ladies, heralds, musicians, even a juggler, all aglitter with banners and surcoats in what seemed half a hundred colors. Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from his father's high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the arms, and afterward Ser Rodrik had said he'd done well. If that had been the end of it, he would not have minded. But it was only the beginning.

"The feast makes a pleasant pretext," Ser Rodrik explained, "but a man does not cross a hundred leagues for a sliver of duck and a sip of wine. Only those who have matters of import to set before us are like to make the journey."

Bran gazed up at the rough stone ceiling above his head. Robb would tell him not to play the boy, he knew. He could almost hear him, and their lord father as well. Winter is coming, and you are almost a man grown, Bran. You have a duty.

When Hodor came bustling in, smiling and humming tunelessly, he found the boy resigned to his fate. Together they got him washed and brushed. "The white wool doublet today," Bran commanded. "And the silver brooch. Ser Rodrik will want me to look lordly." As much as he could, Bran preferred to dress himself, but there were some tasks-pulling on breeches, lacing his boots-that vexed him. They went quicker with Hodor's help. Once he had been taught to do something, he did it deftly. His hands were always gentle, though his strength was astonis.h.i.+ng. "You could have been a knight too, I bet," Bran told him. "If the G.o.ds hadn't taken your wits, you would have been a great knight."

"Hodor?" Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown eyes, eyes innocent of understanding.

"Yes," said Bran. "Hodor." He pointed.

On the wall beside the door hung a basket, stoutly made of wicker and leather, with holes cut for Bran's legs. Hodor slid his arms through the straps and cinched the wide belt tight around his chest, then knelt beside the bed. Bran used the bars sunk into the wall to support himself as he swung the dead weight of his legs into the basket and through the holes.

"Hodor," Hodor said again, rising. The stableboy stood near seven feet tall all by himself; on his back Bran's head almost brushed the ceiling. He ducked low as they pa.s.sed through the door. One time Hodor smelled bread baking and ran to the kitchens, and Bran got such a crack that Maester Luwin had to sew up his scalp. Mikken had given him a rusty old visorless helm from the armory, but Bran seldom troubled to wear it. The Walders laughed whenever they saw it on his head.