TYRION

      Janos Slynt was a butcher’s son, and he laughed like a man chopping meat. “More wine?” Tyrion asked him.

      “I should not object,” Lord Janos said, holding out his cup. He was built like a keg, and had a similar capacity. “I should not object at all. That’s a fine red. From the Arbor?”

      “Dornish.” Tyrion gestured, and his serving man poured. But for the servants, he and Lord Janos were alone in the Small Hall, at a candlelit table surrounded by darkness. “Quite the find. Dornish wines are not often so rich.”

      “Rich,” said the big frog-faced man, taking a healthy gulp. He was not a man for sipping, Janos Slynt. Tyrion had made note of that at once. “Yes, rich, that’s the very word I was searching for, the very word. You have a gift for words, Lord Tyrion, if I might say so. And you tell a droll tale. Droll, yes.”

      “I’m pleased you think so … but I’m not a lord, as you are. A simple Tyrion will suffice for me, Lord Janos.”

      “As you wish.” He took another swallow, dribbling wine on the front of his black satin doublet. He was wearing a cloth-of-gold half-cape fastened with a miniature spear, its point enameled in dark red. And he was well and truly drunk.

      Tyrion covered his mouth and belched politely. Unlike Lord Janos, he had gone easy on the wine, but he was very full. The first thing he had done after taking up residence in the Tower of the Hand was inquire after the finest cook in the city and take her into his service. This evening they had supped on oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crumbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter. Each dish had come with its own wine. Lord Janos allowed that he had never eaten half so well. “No doubt that will change when you take your seat in Harrenhal,” Tyrion said.

      “For a certainty. Perhaps I should ask this cook of yours to enter my service, what do you say?”

      “Wars have been fought over less,” he said, and they both had a good long laugh. “You’re a bold man to take Harrenhal for your seat. Such a grim place, and huge … costly to maintain. And some say cursed as well.”

      “Should I fear a pile of stone?” He hooted at the notion. “A bold man, you said. You must be bold, to rise. As I have. To Harrenhal, yes! And why not? You know. You are a bold man too, I sense. Small, mayhap, but bold.”

      “You are too kind. More wine?”

      “No. No, truly, I … oh, gods be damned, yes. Why not? A bold man drinks his fill!”

      “Truly.” Tyrion filled Lord Slynt’s cup to the brim. “I have been glancing over the names you put forward to take your place as Commander of the City Watch.”

      “Good men. Fine men. Any of the six will do, but I’d choose Allar Deem. My right arm. Good good man. Loyal. Pick him and you won’t be sorry. If he pleases the king.”

      “To be sure.” Tyrion took a small sip of his own wine. “I had been considering Ser Jacelyn Bywater. He’s been captain on the Mud Gate for three years, and he served with valor during Balon Greyjoy’s Rebellion. King Robert knighted him at Pyke. And yet his name does not appear on your list.”

      Lord Janos Slynt took a gulp of wine and sloshed it around in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. “Bywater. Well. Brave man, to be sure, yet … he’s rigid, that one. A queer dog. The men don’t like him. A cripple too, lost his hand at Pyke, that’s what got him knighted. A poor trade, if you ask me, a hand for a ser.” He laughed. “Ser Jacelyn thinks overmuch of himself and his honor, as I see it. You’ll do better leaving that one where he is, my lor—Tyrion. Allar Deem’s the man for you.”

      “Deem is little loved in the streets, I am told.”

      “He’s feared. That’s better.”

      “What was it I heard of him? Some trouble in a brothel?”

      “That. Not his fault, my lo—Tyrion. No. He never meant to kill the woman, that was her own doing. He warned her to stand aside and let him do his duty.”

      “Still … mothers and children, he might have expected she’d try to save the babe.” Tyrion smiled. “Have some of this cheese, it goes splendidly with the wine. Tell me, why did you choose Deem for that unhappy task?”

      “A good commander knows his men, Tyrion. Some are good for one job, some for another. Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certain sort. Not every man’d do it. Even if it was only some whore and her whelp.”

      “I suppose that’s so,” said Tyrion, hearing only some whore and thinking of Shae, and Tysha long ago, and all the other women who had taken his coin and his seed over the years.

      Slynt went on, oblivious. “A hard man for a hard job, is Deem. Does as he’s told, and never a word afterward.” He cut a slice off the cheese. “This is fine. Sharp. Give me a good sharp knife and a good sharp cheese and I’m a happy man.”

      Tyrion shrugged. “Enjoy it while you can. With the river lands in flame and Renly king in Highgarden, good cheese will soon be hard to come by. So who sent you after the whore’s bastard?”

      Lord Janos gave Tyrion a wary look, then laughed and wagged a wedge of cheese at him. “You’re a sly one, Tyrion. Thought you could trick me, did you? It takes more than wine and cheese to make Janos Slynt tell more than he should. I pride myself. Never a question, and never a word afterward, not with me.”

      “As with Deem.”

      “Just the same. You make him your commander when I’m off to Harrenhal, and you won’t regret it.”

      Tyrion broke off a nibble of the cheese. It was sharp indeed, and veined with wine. Very choice. “Whoever the king names will not have an easy time stepping into your armor, I can tell. Lord Mormont faces the same problem.”

      Lord Janos looked puzzled. “I thought she was a lady. Mormont. Beds down with bears, that’s the one?”

      “It was her brother I was speaking of. Jeor Mormont, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. When I was visiting with him on the Wall, he mentioned how concerned he was about finding a good man to take his place. The Watch gets so few good men these days.” Tyrion grinned. “He’d sleep easier if he had a man like you, I imagine. Or the valiant Allar Deem.”

      Lord Janos roared. “Small chance of that!”

      “One would think,” Tyrion said, “but life does take queer turns. Consider Eddard Stark, my lord. I don’t suppose he ever imagined his life would end on the steps of Baelor’s Sept.”

      “There were damn few as did,” Lord Janos allowed, chuckling.

      Tyrion chuckled too. “A pity I wasn’t here to see it. They say even Varys was surprised.”

      Lord Janos laughed so hard his gut shook. “The Spider,” he said. “Knows everything, they say. Well, he didn’t know that.”

      “How could he?” Tyrion put the first hint of a chill in his tone. “He had helped persuade my sister that Stark should be pardoned, on the condition that he take the black.”

      “Eh?” Janos Slynt blinked vaguely at Tyrion.

      “My