“I have gold. What can I buy with gratitude?”
“You might be surprised. A Lannister pays his debts.”
“Your sister is a Lannister too.”
“My lady wife is heir to Winterfell. Should I emerge from this with my head still on my shoulders, I may one day rule the north in her name. I could carve you out a big piece of it.”
“If and when and might be,” said Bronn. “And it’s bloody cold up there. Lollys is soft, warm, and close. I could be poking her two nights hence.”
“Not a prospect I would relish.”
“Is that so?” Bronn grinned. “Admit it, Imp. Given a choice between fucking Lollys and fighting the Mountain, you’d have your breeches down and cock up before a man could blink.”
He knows me too bloody well. Tyrion tried a different tack. “I’d heard that Ser Gregor was wounded on the Red Fork, and again at Duskendale. The wounds are bound to slow him.”
Bronn looked annoyed. “He was never fast. Only freakish big and freakish strong. I’ll grant you, he’s quicker than you’d expect for a man that size. He has a monstrous long reach, and doesn’t seem to feel blows the way a normal man would.”
“Does he frighten you so much?” asked Tyrion, hoping to provoke him.
“If he didn’t frighten me, I’d be a bloody fool.” Bronn gave a shrug. “Might be I could take him. Dance around him until he was so tired of hacking at me that he couldn’t lift his sword. Get him off his feet somehow. When they’re flat on their backs it don’t matter how tall they are. Even so, it’s chancy. One misstep and I’m dead. Why should I risk it? I like you well enough, ugly little whoreson that you are … but if I fight your battle, I lose either way. Either the Mountain spills my guts, or I kill him and lose Stokeworth. I sell my sword, I don’t give it away. I’m not your bloody brother.”
“No,” said Tyrion sadly. “You’re not.” He waved a hand. “Begone, then. Run to Stokeworth and Lady Lollys. May you find more joy in your marriage bed than I ever found in mine.”
Bronn hesitated at the door. “What will you do, Imp?”
“Kill Gregor myself. Won’t that make for a jolly song?”
“I hope I hear them sing it.” Bronn grinned one last time, and walked out of the door, the castle, and his life.
Pod shuffled his feet. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? Is it your fault that Bronn’s an insolent black-hearted rogue? He’s always been an insolent black-hearted rogue. That’s what I liked about him.” Tyrion poured himself a cup of wine and took it to the window seat. Outside the day was grey and rainy, but the prospect was still more cheerful than his. He could send Podrick Payne questing after Shagga, he supposed, but there were so many hiding places in the deep of the kingswood that outlaws often evaded capture for decades. And Pod sometimes has difficulty finding the kitchens when I sent him down for cheese. Timett son of Timett would likely be back in the Mountains of the Moon by now. And despite what he’d told Bronn, going up against Ser Gregor Clegane in his own person would be a bigger farce than Joffrey’s jousting dwarfs. He did not intend to die with gales of laughter ringing in his ears. So much for trial by combat.
Ser Kevan paid him another call later that day, and again the day after. Sansa had not been found, his uncle informed him politely. Nor the fool Ser Dontos, who’d vanished the same night. Did Tyrion have any more witnesses he wished to summon? He did not. How do I bloody well prove I didn’t poison the wine, when a thousand people saw me fill Joff’s cup?
He did not sleep at all that night.
Instead he lay in the dark, staring up at the canopy and counting his ghosts. He saw Tysha smiling as she kissed him, saw Sansa naked and shivering in fear. He saw Joffrey clawing his throat, the blood running down his neck as his face turned black. He saw Cersei’s eyes, Bronn’s wolfish smile, Shae’s wicked grin. Even thought of Shae could not arouse him. He fondled himself, thinking that perhaps if he woke his cock and satisfied it, he might rest more easily afterward, but it was no good.
And then it was dawn, and time for his trial to begin.
It was not Ser Kevan who came for him that morning, but Ser Addam Marbrand with a dozen gold cloaks. Tyrion had broken his fast on boiled eggs, burned bacon, and fried bread, and dressed in his finest. “Ser Addam,” he said. “I had thought my father might send the Kingsguard to escort me to trial. I am still a member of the royal family, am I not?”
“You are, my lord, but I fear that most of the Kingsguard stand witness against you. Lord Tywin felt it would not be proper for them to serve as your guards.”
“Gods forbid we do anything improper. Please, lead on.”
He was to be tried in the throne room, where Joffrey had died. As Ser Addam marched him through the towering bronze doors and down the long carpet, he felt the eyes upon him. Hundreds had crowded in to see him judged. At least he hoped that was why they had come. For all I know, they’re all witnesses against me. He spied Queen Margaery up in the gallery, pale and beautiful in her mourning. Twice wed and twice widowed, and only sixteen. Her mother stood tall to one side of her, her grandmother small on the other, with her ladies in waiting and her father’s household knights packing the rest of the gallery.
The dais still stood beneath the empty Iron Throne, though all but one table had been removed. Behind it sat stout Lord Mace Tyrell in a gold mantle over green, and slender Prince Oberyn Martell in flowing robes of striped orange, yellow, and scarlet. Lord Tywin Lannister sat between them. Perhaps there’s hope for me yet. The Dornishman and the Highgardener despised each other. If I can find a way to use that …
The High Septon began with a prayer, asking the Father Above to guide them to justice. When he was done the father below leaned forward to say, “Tyrion, did you kill King Joffrey?”
He would not waste a heartbeat. “No.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Oberyn Martell dryly.
“Did Sansa Stark do it, then?” Lord Tyrell demanded.
I would have, if I’d been her. Yet wherever Sansa was and whatever her part in this might have been, she remained his wife. He had wrapped the cloak of his protection about her shoulders, though he’d had to stand on a fool’s back to do it. “The gods killed Joffrey. He choked on his pigeon pie.”
Lord Tyrell reddened. “You would blame the bakers?”
“Them, or the pigeons. Just leave me out of it.” Tyrion heard nervous laughter, and knew he’d made a mistake. Guard your tongue, you little fool, before it digs your grave.
“There are witnesses against you,” Lord Tywin said. “We shall hear them first. Then you may present your own witnesses. You are to speak only with our leave.”
There was naught that Tyrion could do but nod.
Ser Addam had told it true; the first man ushered in was Ser Balon Swann of the Kingsguard. “Lord Hand,” he began, after the High Septon had sworn him to speak only truth, “I had the honor to fight beside your son on the bridge of ships. He is a brave man for all his size, and I will not believe he did this thing.”
A murmur went through the hall, and Tyrion wondered what mad game Cersei was playing. Why offer a witness that believes me innocent? He soon learned. Ser Balon spoke reluctantly of how he had pulled Tyrion away from Joffrey on the day of the riot. “He did strike His Grace, that’s so. It was a fit of wroth, no more. A summer storm. The mob near killed us all.”
“In the days of the Targaryens, a man who struck one of the blood royal would lose the hand he struck him with,” observed the Red Viper of Dorne. “Did the dwarf regrow his little hand, or did you White Swords forget your duty?”
“He was of the blood royal himself,” Ser Balon answered. “And the King’s Hand beside.”
“No,” Lord Tywin said. “He was acting Hand, in my stead.”
Ser Meryn Trant was pleased to expand on Ser Balon’s account, when he took his place as witness. “He knocked the king to the ground and began kicking him. He shouted that it was unjust that His Grace had escaped unharmed from the
mobs.”
Tyrion began to grasp his sister’s plan. She began with a man known to be honest, and milked him for all he would give. Every witness to follow will tell a worse tale, until I seem as bad as Maegor the Cruel and Aerys the Mad together, with a pinch of Aegon the Unworthy for spice.
Ser Meryn went on to relate how Tyrion had stopped Joffrey’s chastisement of Sansa Stark. “The dwarf asked His Grace if he knew what had happened to Aerys Targaryen. When Ser Boros spoke up in defense of the king, the Imp threatened to have him killed.”
Blount himself came next, to echo that sorry tale. Whatever mislike Ser Boros might harbor toward Cersei for dismissing him from the Kingsguard, he said the words she wanted all the same.
Tyrion could no longer hold his tongue. “Tell the judges what Joffrey was doing, why don’t you?”
The big jowly man glared at him. “You told your savages to kill me if I opened my mouth, that’s what I’ll tell them.”
“Tyrion,” Lord Tywin said. “You are to speak only when we call upon you. Take this for a warning.”
Tyrion subsided, seething.
The Kettleblacks came next, all three of them in turn. Osney and Osfryd told the tale of his supper with Cersei before the Battle of the Blackwater, and of the threats he’d made.
“He told Her Grace that he meant to do her harm,” said Ser Osfryd. “To hurt her.” His brother Osney elaborated. “He said he would wait for a day when she was happy, and make her joy turn to ashes in her mouth.” Neither mentioned Alayaya.
Ser Osmund Kettleblack, a vision of chivalry in immaculate scale armor and white wool cloak, swore that King Joffrey had long known that his uncle Tyrion meant to murder him. “It was the day they gave me the white cloak, my lords,” he told the judges. “That brave boy said to me, ‘Good Ser Osmund, guard me well, for my uncle loves me not. He means to be king in my place.’ ”
That was more than Tyrion could stomach. “Liar!” He took two steps forward before the gold cloaks dragged him back.
Lord Tywin frowned. “Must we have you chained hand and foot like a common brigand?”
Tyrion gnashed his teeth. A second mistake, fool, fool, fool of a dwarf. Keep your calm or you’re doomed. “No. I beg your pardons, my lords. His lies angered me.”
“His truths, you mean,” said Cersei. “Father, I beg you to put him in fetters, for your own protection. You see how he is.”
“I see he’s a dwarf,” said Prince Oberyn. “The day I fear a dwarf’s wrath is the day I drown myself in a cask of red.”
“We need no fetters.” Lord Tywin glanced at the windows, and rose. “The hour grows late. We shall resume on the morrow.”
That night, alone in his tower cell with a blank parchment and a cup of wine, Tyrion found himself thinking of his wife. Not Sansa; his first wife, Tysha. The whore wife, not the wolf wife. Her love for him had been pretense, and yet he had believed, and found joy in that belief. Give me sweet lies, and keep your bitter truths. He drank his wine and thought of Shae. Later, when Ser Kevan paid his nightly visit, Tyrion asked for Varys.
“You believe the eunuch will speak in your defense?”
“I won’t know until I have talked with him. Send him here, Uncle, if you would be so good.”
“As you wish.”
Maesters Ballabar and Frenken opened the second day of trial. They had opened King Joffrey’s noble corpse as well, they swore, and found no morsel of pigeon pie nor any other food lodged in the royal throat. “It was poison that killed him, my lords,” said Ballabar, as Frenken nodded gravely.
Then they brought forth Grand Maester Pycelle, leaning heavily on a twisted cane and shaking as he walked, a few white hairs sprouting from his long chicken’s neck. He had grown too frail to stand, so the judges permitted a chair to be brought in for him, and a table as well. On the table were laid a number of small jars. Pycelle was pleased to put a name to each.
“Greycap,” he said in a quavery voice, “from the toadstool. Nightshade, sweetsleep, demon’s dance. This is blindeye. Widow’s blood, this one is called, for the color. A cruel potion. It shuts down a man’s bladder and bowels, until he drowns in his own poisons. This wolfsbane, here basilisk venom, and this one the tears of Lys. Yes. I know them all. The Imp Tyrion Lannister stole them from my chambers, when he had me falsely imprisoned.”
“Pycelle,” Tyrion called out, risking his father’s wrath, “could any of these poisons choke off a man’s breath?”
“No. For that, you must turn to a rarer poison. When I was a boy at the Citadel, my teachers named it simply the strangler.”
“But this rare poison was not found, was it?”
“No, my lord.” Pycelle blinked at him. “You used it all to kill the noblest child the gods ever put on this good earth.”
Tyrion’s anger overwhelmed his sense. “Joffrey was cruel and stupid, but I did not kill him. Have my head off if you like, I had no hand in my nephew’s death.”
“Silence!” Lord Tywin said. “I have told you thrice. The next time, you shall be gagged and chained.”
After Pycelle came the procession, endless and wearisome. Lords and ladies and noble knights, highborn and humble alike, they had all been present at the wedding feast, had all seen Joffrey choke, his face turning as black as a Dornish plum. Lord Redwyne, Lord Celtigar, and Ser Flement Brax had heard Tyrion threaten the king; two serving men, a juggler, Lord Gyles, Ser Hobber Redwyne, and Ser Philip Foote had observed him fill the wedding chalice; Lady Merryweather swore that she had seen the dwarf drop something into the king’s wine while Joff and Margaery were cutting the pie; old Estermont, young Peckledon, the singer Galyeon of Cuy, and the squires Morros and Jothos Slynt told how Tyrion had picked up the chalice as Joff was dying and poured out the last of the poisoned wine onto the floor.
When did I make so many enemies? Lady Merryweather was all but a stranger. Tyrion wondered if she was blind or bought. At least Galyeon of Cuy had not set his account to music, or else there might have been seventy-seven bloody verses to it.
When his uncle called that night after supper, his manner was cold and distant. He thinks I did it too. “Do you have witnesses for us?” Ser Kevan asked him.
“Not as such, no. Unless you’ve found my wife.”
His uncle shook his head. “It would seem the trial is going very badly for you.”
“Oh, do you think so? I hadn’t noticed.” Tyrion fingered his scar. “Varys has not come.”
“Nor will he. On the morrow he testifies against you.”
Lovely. “I see.” He shifted in his seat. “I am curious. You were always a fair man, Uncle. What convinced you?”
“Why steal Pycelle’s poisons, if not to use them?” Ser Kevan said bluntly. “And Lady Merryweather saw—”
“—nothing! There was nothing to see. But how do I prove that? How do I prove anything, penned up here?”
“Perhaps the time has come for you to confess.”
Even through the thick stone walls of the Red Keep, Tyrion could hear the steady wash of rain. “Say that again, Uncle? I could swear you urged me to confess.”
“If you were to admit your guilt before the throne and repent of your crime, your father would withhold the sword. You would be permitted to take the black.”
Tyrion laughed in his face. “Those were the same terms Cersei offered Eddard Stark. We all know how that ended.”
“Your father had no part in that.”
That much was true, at least. “Castle Black teems with murderers, thieves and rapists,” Tyrion said, “but I don’t recall meeting many regicides while I was there. You expect me to believe that if I admit to being a kinslayer and kingslayer, my father will simply nod, forgive me, and pack me off to the Wall with some warm woolen smallclothes.” He hooted rudely.
“Naught was said of forgiveness,” Ser Kevan said sternly. “A confession would put this matter to rest. It is for that reason your father sends me with this offer.”
“Thank him kindly for me, Uncle,�
�� said Tyrion, “but tell him I am not presently in a confessing mood.”
“Were I you, I’d change my mood. Your sister wants your head, and Lord Tyrell at least is inclined to give it to her.”
“So one of my judges has already condemned me, without hearing a word in my defense?” It was no more than he expected. “Will I still be allowed to speak and present witnesses?”
“You have no witnesses,” his uncle reminded him. “Tyrion, if you are guilty of this enormity, the Wall is a kinder fate than you deserve. And if you are blameless … there is fighting in the north, I know, but even so it will be a safer place for you than King’s Landing, whatever the outcome of this trial. The mob is convinced of your guilt. Were you so foolish as to venture out into the streets, they would tear you limb from limb.”
“I can see how much that prospect upsets you.”
“You are my brother’s son.”
“You might remind him of that.”
“Do you think he would allow you to take the black if you were not his own blood, and Joanna’s? Tywin seems a hard man to you, I know, but he is no harder than he’s had to be. Our own father was gentle and amiable, but so weak his bannermen mocked him in their cups. Some saw fit to defy him openly. Other lords borrowed our gold and never troubled to repay it. At court they japed of toothless lions. Even his mistress stole from him. A woman scarcely one step above a whore, and she helped herself to my mother’s jewels! It fell to Tywin to restore House Lannister to its proper place. Just as it fell to him to rule this realm, when he was no more than twenty. He bore that heavy burden for twenty years, and all it earned him was a mad king’s envy. Instead of the honor he deserved, he was made to suffer slights beyond count, yet he gave the Seven Kingdoms peace, plenty, and justice. He is a just man. You would be wise to trust him.”
Tyrion blinked in astonishment. Ser Kevan had always been solid, stolid, pragmatic; he had never heard him speak with such fervor before. “You love him.”
“He is my brother.”
A Game of Thrones 5-Book Bundle: A Song of Ice and Fire Series: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice & Fire) Page 285
