Martin, George R. R. - Song of Ice and Fire 01 - A Game of Thrones

by Game of Thrones (lit)

  Mirri Maz Duur made no reply.

  "When will he be as he was?" Dany demanded.

  "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."

  Dany gestured at Ser Jorah and the others. "Leave us. I would speak with this maegi alone." Mormont and the Dothraki withdrew. "You knew," Dany said when they were gone. She ached, inside and out, but her fury gave her strength. "You* knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it."

  "It was wrong of them to burn my temple," the heavy, flat-nosed woman said placidly. "That angered the Great Shepherd."

  "This was no god's work," Dany said coldly. If I look back I am lost. "You cheated me. You murdered my child within me."

  "The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dusU,

  "I spoke for you," she said, anguished. "I saved you."

  "Saved me?" The Lhazareen woman spat. "Three riders had taken

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  me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god's house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved."

  "Your life."

  Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. "Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone."

  Dany called out for the men of her khas and bid them take Mirri Maz Duur and bind her hand and foot, but the maegi smiled at her as they carried her off, as if they shared a secret. A word, and Dany could have her head off . . . yet then what would she have? A head? If life was worthless, what was death?

  They led Khal Drogo back to her tent, and Dany commanded them to fill a tub, and this time there was no blood in the water. She bathed him herself, washing the dirt and the dust from his arms and chest, cleaning his face with a soft cloth, soaping his long black hair and combing the knots and tangles from it till it shone again as she remembered. It was well past dark before she was done, and Dany was exhausted. She stopped for drink and food, but it was all she could do to nibble at a fig and keep down a mouthful of water. Sleep would have been a release, but she had slept enough . . . too long, in truth. She owed this night to Drogo, for all the nights that had been, and yet might be.

  The memory of their first ride was with her when she led him out into the darkness, for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man's life must be done beneath the open sky. She told herself that there were powers stronger than hatred, and spells older and truer than any the maegi had learned in Asshai. The night was black and moonless, but overhead a million stars burned bright. She took that for an omen.

  No soft blanket of grass welcomed them here, only the hard dusty ground, bare and strewn with stones. No trees stirred in the wind, and there was no stream to soothe her fears with the gentle music of water. Dany told herself that the stars would be enough. "Remember, Drogo," she whispered. "Remember our first ride together, the day we wed. Remember the night we made Rhaego, with the khalasar all around us and your eyes on my face. Remember how cool and clean

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  the water was in the Womb of the World. Remember, my sun-andstars. Remember, and come back to me."

  The birth had left her too raw and torn to take him inside of her, as she would have wanted, but Doreah had taught her other ways. Dany used her hands, her mouth, her breasts. She raked him with her nails and covered him with kisses and whispered and prayed and told him stories, and by the end she had bathed him with her tears. Yet Drogo did not feel, or speak, or rise.

  And when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," she said sadly. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before."

  Never, the darkness cried, never never never.

  Inside the tent Dany found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream.

  She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face.

  TYRION

  They have my son," Tywin Lannister said.

  "They do, my lord." The messenger's voice was dulled by "Texhaustion. On the breast of his torn surcoat, the brindled boar of Crakehall was half-obscured by dried blood.

  One of your sons, Tyrion thought. He took a sip of wine and said not a word, thinking of Jaime. When he lifted his arm, pain shot through his elbow, reminding him of his own brief taste of battle. He loved his brother, but he would not have wanted to be with him in the Whispering Wood for all the gold in Casterly Rock.

  His lord father's assembled captains and bannermen had fallen very quiet as the courier told his tale. The only sound was the crackle and hiss of the log burning in the hearth at the end of the long, drafty common room.

  After the hardships of the long relentless drive south, the prospect of even a single night in an inn had cheered Tyrion mightily . . . though he rather wished it had not been this inn again, with all its memories. His father had set a grueling pace, and it had taken its toll. Men wounded in the battle kept up as best they could or were abandoned to fend for themselves. Every morning they left a few more by the roadside, men who went to sleep never to wake. Every afternoon a few more collapsed along the way. And every evening a few more

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  deserted, stealing off into the dusk. Tyrion had been half-tempted to go with them.

  He had been upstairs, enjoying the comfort of a featherbed and the warmth of Shae's body beside him, when his squire had woken him to say that a rider had arrived with dire news of Riverrun. So it had all been for nothing. The rush south, the endless forced marches, the bodies left beside the road . . . all for naught. Robb Stark had reached Riverrun days and days ago.

  "How could this happen?" Ser Harys Swyft moaned. "How? Even after the Whispering Wood, you had Riverrun ringed in iron, surrounded by a great host . . . what madness made Ser Jaime decide to split his men into three separate camps? Surely he knew how vulnerable that would leave them?"

  Better than you, you chinless craven, Tyrion thought. Jaime might have lost Riverrun, but it angered him to hear his brother slandered by the likes of Swyft, a shameless lickspittle whose greatest accomplishment was marrying his equally chinless daughter to Ser Kevan, and thereby attaching himself to the Lannisters.

  "I would have done the same," his uncle responded, a good deal more calmly than Tyrion might have. "You have never seen Riverrun, Ser Harys, or you would know that Jaime had little choice in the matter. The castle is situated at the end of the point of land where the Tumblestone flows into the Red Fork of the Trident. The rivers form two sides of a triangle, and when danger threatens, the Tullys open their sluice gates upstream to create a wide moat on the third side, turning Riverrun into an island. The walls rise sheer from the water, and from their towers the defenders have a commanding view of the opposite shores for many leagues around. To cut off all the approaches, a besieger must needs place one camp north of the Tumblestone, one south of the Red Fork, and a third between the rivers, west of the moat. There is no other way, none."

  "Ser Kevan speaks truly, my lords," the courier said. "We'd built palisades of sharpened stakes around the camps, yet it was not enough, not with no warning and the rivers cutting us off from each other.
They came down on the north camp first. No one was expecting an attack. Marq Piper had been raiding our supply trains, but he had no more than fifty men. Ser Jaime had gone out to deal with them the night before . . . well, with what we thought was them. We were told the Stark host was east of the Green Fork, marching south . . ."

  "And your outriders?" Ser Gregor Clegane's face might have been hewn from rock. The fire in the hearth gave a somber orange cast to

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  his skin and put deep shadows in the hollows of his eyes. "They saw nothing? They gave you no warning?"

  The bloodstained messenger shook his head. "Our outriders had been vanishing. Marq Piper's work, we thought. The ones who did come back had seen nothing."

  "A man who sees nothing has no use for his eyes," the Mountain declared. "Cut them out and give them to your next outrider. Tell him you hope that four eyes might see better than two . . . and if not, the man after him will have six."

  Lord Tywin Lannister turned his face to study Ser Gregor. Tyrion saw a glimmer of gold as the light shone off his father's pupils, but he could not have said whether the look was one of approval or disgust. Lord Tywin was oft quiet in council, preferring to listen before he spoke, a habit Tyrion himself tried to emulate. Yet this silence was uncharacteristic even for him, and his wine was untouched.

  "You said they came at night," Ser Kevan prompted.

  The man gave a weary nod. "The Blacklish led the van, cutting down our sentries and clearing away the palisades for the main assault. By the time our men knew what was happening, riders were pouring over the ditch banks and galloping through the camp with swords and torches in hand. I was sleeping in the west camp, between the rivers. When we heard the fighting and saw the tents being fired, Lord Brax led us to the rafts and we tried to pole across, but the current pushed us downstream and the Tullys started flinging rocks at us with the catapults on their walls. I saw one raft smashed to kindling and three others overturned, men swept into the river and drowned . . . and those who did make it across found the Starks waiting for them on the riverbanks."

  Ser Flement Brax wore a silver-and-purple tabard and the look of a man who cannot comprehend what he has just heard. "My lord father-"

  "Sorry, my lord," the messenger said. "Lord Brax was clad in plateand-mail when his raft overturned. He was very gallant."

  He was a fool, Tyrion thought, swirling his cup and staring down into the winy depths. Crossing a river at night on a crude raft, wearing armor, with an enemy waiting on the other side-if that was gallantry, he would take cowardice every time. He wondered if Lord Brax had felt especially gallant as the weight of his steel pulled him under the black water.

  "The camp between the rivers was overrun as well," the messenger was saying. "While we were trying to cross, more Starks swept in from the west, two columns of armored horse. I saw Lord Umber's giant-in

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  chains and the Mallister eagle, but it was the boy who led them, with a monstrous wolf running at his side. I wasn't there to see, but it's said the beast killed four men and ripped apart a dozen horses. Our spearmen formed up a shieldwall and held against their first charge, but when the Tullys saw them engaged, they opened the gates of Riverrun and Tytos Blackwood led a sortie across the drawbridge and took them in the rear."

  "Gods save us," Lord Lefford swore.

  "Greatjon Umber fired the siege towers we were building, and Lord Blackwood found Ser Edmure Tully in chains among the other captives, and made off with them all. Our south camp was under the command of Ser Forley Prester. He retreated in good order when he saw that the other camps were lost, with two thousand spears and as many bowmen, but the Tyroshi sellsword who led his freeriders struck his banners and went over to the foe."

  "Curse the man." His uncle Kevan sounded more angry than surprised. "I warned Jaime not to trust that one. A man who fights for coin is loyal only to his purse."

  Lord Tywin wove his fingers together under his chin. Only his eyes moved as he listened. His bristling golden side-whiskers framed a face so still it might have been a mask, but Tyrion could see tiny beads of sweat dappling his father's shaven head.

  "How could it happen?" Ser Harys Swyft wailed again. "Ser Jaime taken, the siege broken . . . this is a catastrophe!"

  Ser Addarn Marbrand said, "I am sure we are all grateful to you for pointing out the obvious, Ser Harys. The question is, what shall we do about it?"

  "What can we do? Jaime's host is all slaughtered or taken or put to flight, and the Starks and the Tullys sit squarely across our line of supply. We are cut off from the west! They can march on Casterly Rock if they so choose, and what's to stop them? My lords, we are beaten. We must sue for peace."

  "Peace?" Tyrion swirled his wine thoughtfully, took a deep draft, and hurled his empty cup to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. "There's your peace, Ser Harys. My sweet nephew broke it for good and all when he decided to ornament the Red Keep with Lord Eddard's head. You'll have an easier time drinking wine from that cup than you will convincing Robb Stark to make peace now. He's winning . . . or hadn't you noticed?"

  "Two battles do not make a war," Ser Addam insisted. "We are far from lost. I should welcome the chance to try my own steel against this Stark boy."

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  "Perhaps they would consent to a truce, and allow us to trade our prisoners for theirs," offered Lord Lefford.

  "Unless they trade three-for-one, we still come out light on those scales," Tyrion said acidly. "And what are we to offer for my brother? Lord Eddard's rotting head?"

  "I had heard that Queen Cersei has the Hand's daughters," Lefford said hopefully. "If we give the lad his sisters back . . ."

  Ser Addam snorted disdainfully. "He would have to be an utter ass to trade Jaime Lannister's life for two girls."

  "Then we must ransom Ser Jaime, whatever it costs," Lord Lefford said.

  Tyrion rolled his eyes. "If the Starks feel the need for gold, they can melt down Jaime's armor."

  "if we ask for a truce, they will think us weak," Ser Addarn argued. "We should march on them at once."

  "Surely our friends at court could be prevailed upon to join us with fresh troops," said Ser Harys. "And someone might return to Casterly Rock to raise a new host."

  Lord Tywin Lannister rose to his feet. "They have my son, " he said once more, in a voice that cut through the babble like a sword through suet. "Leave me. All of you."

  Ever the soul of obedience, Tyrion rose to depart with the rest, but his father gave him a look. "Not you, Tyrion. Remain. And you as well, Kevan. The rest of you, out."

  Tyrion eased himself back onto the bench, startled into speechlessness. Ser Kevan crossed the room to the wine casks. "Uncle," Tyrion called, "if you would be so kind-"

  "Here." His father offered him his cup, the wine untouched.

  Now Tyrion truly was nonplussed. He drank.

  Lord Tywin seated himself. "You have the right of it about Stark. Alive, we might have used Lord Eddard to forge a peace with Winterfell and Riverrun, a peace that would have given us the time we need to deal with Robert's brothers. Dead His hand curled into a fist. "Madness. Rank madness."

  "Joff's only a boy," Tyrion pointed out. "At his age, I committed a few follies of my own."

  His father gave him a sharp look. "I suppose we ought to be grateful that he has not yet married a whore."

  Tyrion sipped at his wine, wondering how Lord Tywin would look if he flung the cup in his face.

  "Our position is worse than you know," his father went on. "It would seem we have a new king."

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  Ser Kevan looked poleaxed. "A new-who? What have they done to Joffrey?"

  The faintest flicker of distaste played across Lord Tywin's thin lips. "Nothing . . . yet. My grandson still sits the Iron Throne, but the eunuch has heard whispers from the south. Renly Baratheon wed Margaery Tyrell at Highgarden this fortnight past, and now he h
as claimed the crown. The bride's father and brothers have bent the knee and sworn him their swords."

  "Those are grave tidings." When Ser Kevan frowned, the furrows in his brow grew deep as canyons.

  "My daughter commands us to ride for King's Landing at once, to defend the Red Keep against King Renly and the Knight of Flowers." His mouth tightened. "Commands us, mind you. In the name of the king and council."

  "How is King Joffrey taking the news?" Tyrion asked with a certain black amusement.

  "Cersei has not seen fit to tell him yet," Lord Tywin said. "She fears he might insist on marching against Renly himself."

  "With what army?" Tyrion asked. "You don't plan to give him this one, I hope?"

  "He talks of leading the City Watch," Lord Tywin said.