Song of Fire & Ice 01 - A Game of Thrones

by George R. R. Martin

  “Jaime was all in a lather to hunt 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 feed her while my brother rode back to the Rock for help.

  “She was hungrier than I would have believed. We finished 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 fear. The next thing I knew, I was sharing her bed. If she was shy, I was shyer. I’ll 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?” Bronn’s voice was amused.

  “Absurd, isn’t it?” Tyrion began to whistle the song again. “I married her,” he finally admitted.

  “A Lannister of Casterly Rock wed to a crofter’s daughter,” Bronn said. “How did you manage that?”

  “Oh, you’d 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 dying 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, Lord 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 rolling on the floor, she…” The smoke was stinging 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 worth 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 we’re about to die.”

  He rolled himself up in the shadowskin and shut 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.” Bronn’s warning was low and urgent.

  Tyrion was 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 raised himself to one knee, his sword in one hand and his dirk in the other. Tyrion held up a hand: stay still, it said. “Come share our fire, the night is cold,” he called out to the creeping shadows. “I fear we’ve no wine to offer you, but you’re 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 different 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. Massive 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 names, Conn 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 Shagga’s mighty hand far better than that wood-axe he holds.”

  “The half man 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 nothing 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 maiden’s 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 halfman. 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 rich 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 half man’s 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 knights of the Vale ride by?”

  Shagga gave a roar of anger and clashed club against axe. Jaggot poked at Tyrion’s 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 father’s 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.”

  EDDARD

  Through the high narrow windows of the Red Keep’s cavernous throne room, the light of sunset spilled across the floor, laying dark red stripes upon the walls where the heads of dragons had once hung. Now the stone was covered with hunting tapestries, vivid with greens and browns and blues, and yet still it seemed to Ned Stark that the only color in the hall was the red of blood.

  He sat high upon the immense ancient seat of Aegon the Conqueror, an ironwork monstrosity of spikes and jagged edges and grotesquely twisted metal. It was, as Robert had warned him, a hellishly uncomfortable chair, and never more so than now, with his shattered leg throbbing more sharply every minute. The metal beneath him had grown harder by the hour, and the fanged steel behind made it impossible to lean back. A king should never sit easy, Aegon the Conqueror had said, when he commanded his armorers to forge a great seat from the swords laid down by his enemies. Damn Aegon for his arrogance, Ned thought sullenly, and damn Robert and his
hunting as well.

  “You are quite certain these were more than brigands?” Varys asked softly from the council table beneath the throne. Grand Maester Pycelle stirred uneasily beside him, while Littlefinger toyed with a pen. They were the only councillors in attendance. A white hart had been sighted in the kingswood, and Lord Renly and Ser Barristan had joined the king to hunt it, along with Prince Joffrey, Sandor Clegane, Balon Swann, and half the court. So Ned must needs sit the Iron Throne in his absence.

  At least he could sit. Save the council, the rest must stand respectfully, or kneel. The petitioners clustered near the tall doors, the knights and high lords and ladies beneath the tapestries, the smallfolk in the gallery, the mailed guards in their cloaks, gold or grey: all stood.

  The villagers were kneeling: men, women, and children, alike tattered and bloody, their faces drawn by fear. The three knights who had brought them here to bear witness stood behind them.

  “Brigands, Lord Varys?” Ser Raymun Darry’s voice dripped scorn. “Oh, they were brigands, beyond a doubt. Lannister brigands.”

  Ned could feel the unease in the hall, as high lords and servants alike strained to listen. He could not pretend to surprise. The west had been a tinderbox since Catelyn had seized Tyrion Lannister. Both Riverrun and Casterly Rock had called their banners, and armies were massing in the pass below the Golden Tooth. It had only been a matter of time until the blood began to flow. The sole question that remained was how best to stanch the wound.

  Sad-eyed Ser Karyl Vance, who would have been handsome but for the winestain birthmark that discolored his face, gestured at the kneeling villagers. “This is all the remains of the holdfast of Sherrer, Lord Eddard. The rest are dead, along with the people of Wendish Town and the Mummer’s Ford.”

  “Rise,” Ned commanded the villagers. He never trusted what a man told him from his knees. “All of you, up.”

  In ones and twos, the holdfast of Sherrer struggled to its feet. One ancient needed to be helped, and a young girl in a bloody dress stayed on her knees, staring blankly at Ser Arys Oakheart, who stood by the foot of the throne in the white armor of the Kingsguard, ready to protect and defend the king…or, Ned supposed, the King’s Hand.

  “Joss,” Ser Raymun Darry said to a plump balding man in a brewer’s apron. “Tell the Hand what happened at Sherrer.”

  Joss nodded. “If it please His Grace—”

  “His Grace is hunting across the Blackwater,” Ned said, wondering how a man could live his whole life a few days ride from the Red Keep and still have no notion what his king looked like. Ned was clad in a white linen doublet with the direwolf of Stark on the breast; his black wool cloak was fastened at the collar by his silver hand of office. Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth. “I am Lord Eddard Stark, the King’s Hand. Tell me who you are and what you know of these raiders.”

  “I keep…I kept…I kept an alehouse, m’lord, in Sherrer, by the stone bridge. The finest ale south of the Neck, everyone said so, begging your pardons, m’lord. It’s gone now like all the rest, m’lord. They come and drank their fill and spilled the rest before they fired my roof, and they would of spilled my blood too, if they’d caught me. M’lord.”

  “They burnt us out,” a farmer beside him said. “Come riding in the dark, up from the south, and fired the fields and the houses alike, killing them as tried to stop them. They weren’t no raiders, though, m’lord. They had no mind to steal our stock, not these, they butchered my milk cow where she stood and left her for the flies and the crows.”

  “They rode down my ’prentice boy,” said a squat man with a smith’s muscles and a bandage around his head. He had put on his finest clothes to come to court, but his breeches were patched, his cloak travel-stained and dusty. “Chased him back and forth across the fields on their horses, poking at him with their lances like it was a game, them laughing and the boy stumbling and screaming till the big one pierced him clean through.”

  The girl on her knees craned her head up at Ned, high above her on the throne. “They killed my mother too, Your Grace. And they…they…” Her voice trailed off, as if she had forgotten what she was about to say. She began to sob.

  Ser Raymun Darry took up the tale. “At Wendish Town, the people sought shelter in their holdfast, but the walls were timbered. The raiders piled straw against the wood and burnt them all alive. When the Wendish folk opened their gates to flee the fire, they shot them down with arrows as they came running out, even women with suckling babes.”

  “Oh, dreadful,” murmured Varys. “How cruel can men be?”

  “They would of done the same for us, but the Sherrer holdfast’s made of stone,” Joss said. “Some wanted to smoke us out, but the big one said there was riper fruit up river, and they made for the Mummer’s Ford.”

  Ned could feel cold steel against his fingers as he leaned forward. Between each finger was a blade, the points of twisted swords fanning out like talons from arms of the throne. Even after three centuries, some were still sharp enough to cut. The Iron Throne was full of traps for the unwary. The songs said it had taken a thousand blades to make it, heated white-hot in the furnace breath of Balerion the Black Dread. The hammering had taken fifty-nine days. The end of it was this hunched black beast made of razor edges and barbs and ribbons of sharp metal; a chair that could kill a man, and had, if the stories could be believed.

  What Eddard Stark was doing sitting there he would never comprehend, yet there he sat, and these people looked to him for justice. “What proof do you have that these were Lannisters?” he asked, trying to keep his fury under control. “Did they wear crimson cloaks or fly a lion banner?”

  “Even Lannisters are not so blind stupid as that,” Ser Marq Piper snapped. He was a swaggering bantam rooster of a youth, too young and too hot-blooded for Ned’s taste, though a fast friend of Catelyn’s brother, Edmure Tully.

  “Every man among them was mounted and mailed, my lord,” Ser Karyl answered calmly. “They were armed with steel-tipped lances and longswords, with battle-axes for the butchering.” He gestured toward one of the ragged survivors. “You. Yes, you, no one’s going to hurt you. Tell the Hand what you told me.”

  The old man bobbed his head. “Concerning their horses,” he said, “it were warhorses they rode. Many a year I worked in old Ser Willum’s stables, so I knows the difference. Not a one of these ever pulled a plow, gods bear witness if I’m wrong.”

  “Well-mounted brigands,” observed Littlefinger. “Perhaps they stole the horses from the last place they raided.”

  “How many men were there in this raiding party?” Ned asked.

  “A hundred, at the least,” Joss answered, in the same instant as the bandaged smith said, “Fifty,” and the grandmother behind him, “Hunnerds and hunnerds, m’lord, an army they was.”

  “You are more right than you know, goodwoman,” Lord Eddard told her. “You say they flew no banners. What of the armor they wore? Did any of you note ornaments or decorations, devices on shield or helm?”

  The brewer, Joss, shook his head. “It grieves me, m’lord, but no, the armor they showed us was plain, only…the one who led them, he was armored like the rest, but there was no mistaking him all the same. It was the size of him, m’lord. Those as say the giants are all dead never saw this one, I swear. Big as an ox he was, and a voice like stone breaking.”

  “The Mountain!” Ser Marq said loudly. “Can any man doubt it? This was Gregor Clegane’s work.”

  Ned heard muttering from beneath the windows and the far end of the hall. Even in the galley, nervous whispers were exchanged. High lords and smallfolk alike knew what it could mean if Ser Marq was proved right. Ser Gregor Clegane stood bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister.

  He studied the frightened faces of the villagers. Small wonder they had been so fearful; they had thought they were being dragged here to name Lord Tywin a red-handed butcher before a king who was his son by marriage. He wondered if the knights had given them a choice.

 
; Grand Maester Pycelle rose ponderously from the council table, his chain of office clinking. “Ser Marq, with respect, you cannot know that this outlaw was Ser Gregor. There are many large men in the realm.”

  “As large as the Mountain That Rides?” Ser Karyl said. “I have never met one.”

  “Nor has any man here,” Ser Raymun added hotly. “Even his brother is a pup beside him. My lords, open your eyes. Do you need to see his seal on the corpses? It was Gregor.”

  “Why should Ser Gregor turn brigand?” Pycelle asked. “By the grace of his liege lord, he holds a stout keep and lands of his own. The man is an anointed knight.”

  “A false knight!” Ser Marq said. “Lord Tywin’s mad dog.”

  “My lord Hand,” Pycelle declared in a stiff voice, “I urge you to remind this good knight that Lord Tywin Lannister is the father of our own gracious queen.”

  “Thank you, Grand Maester Pycelle,” Ned said. “I fear we might have forgotten that if you had not pointed it out.”

  From his vantage point atop the throne, he could see men slipping out the door at the far end of the hall. Hares going to ground, he supposed…or rats off to nibble the queen’s cheese. He caught a glimpse of Septa Mordane in the gallery, with his daughter Sansa beside her. Ned felt a flash of anger; this was no place for a girl. But the septa could not have known that today’s court would be anything but the usual tedious business of hearing petitions, settling disputes between rival holdfasts, and adjudicating the placement of boundary stones.