A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues Books 1-4. George R.r. Martin
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He thought he might get quite drunk tonight. It was twilight, and the air was alive with drifting fireflies.
The cooks were serving the meat course: five suckling pigs, skin seared and crackling, a different fruit in every mouth. The smell made his mouth water. “My pardons,” he began, taking his place on the bench beside his uncle.
“Perhaps I’d best charge you with burying our dead, Tyrion,” Lord Tywin said. “If you are as late to battle as you are to table, the fighting will all be done by the time you arrive.”
“Oh, surely you can save me a peasant or two, Father,” Tyrion replied. “Not too many, I wouldn’t want to be greedy.” He filled his wine cup and watched a serving man carve into the pig. The crisp skin crackled under his knife, and hot juice ran from the meat. It was the loveliest sight Tyrion had seen in ages.
“Ser Addam’s outriders say the Stark host has moved south from the Twins,” his father reported as his trencher was filled with slices of pork. “Lord Frey’s levies have joined them. They are likely no more than a day’s march north of us.”
“Please, Father,” Tyrion said. “I’m about to eat.”
“Does the thought of facing the Stark boy unman you, Tyrion? Your brother Jaime would be eager to come to grips with him.”
“I’d sooner come to grips with that pig. Robb Stark is not half so tender, and he never smelled as good.”
Lord Lefford, the sour bird who had charge of their stores and supplies, leaned forward. “I hope your savages do not share your reluctance, else we’ve wasted our good steel on them.”
“My savages will put your steel to excellent use, my lord,” Tyrion replied. When he had told Lefford he needed arms and armor to equip the three hundred men Ulf had fetched down out of the foothills, you would have thought he’d asked the man to turn his virgin daughters over to their pleasure.
Lord Lefford frowned. “I saw that great hairy one today, the one who insisted that he must have two battleaxes, the heavy black steel ones with twin crescent blades.”
“Shagga likes to kill with either hand,” Tyrion said as a trencher of steaming pork was laid in front of him.
“He still had that wood-axe of his strapped to his back.”
“Shagga is of the opinion that three axes are even better than two.” Tyrion reached a thumb and forefinger into the salt dish, and sprinkled a healthy pinch over his meat.
Ser Kevan leaned forward. “We had a thought to put you and your wildlings in the vanguard when we come to battle.”
Ser Kevan seldom “had a thought” that Lord Tywin had not had first. Tyrion had skewered a chunk of meat on the point of his dagger and brought it to his mouth. Now he lowered it. “The vanguard?” he repeated dubiously. Either his lord father had a new respect for Tyrion’s abilities, or he’d decided to rid himself of his embarrassing get for good. Tyrion had the gloomy feeling he knew which.
“They seem ferocious enough,” Ser Kevan said.
“Ferocious?” Tyrion realized he was echoing his uncle like a trained bird. His father watched, judging him, weighing every word. “Let me tell you how ferocious they are. Last night, a Moon Brother stabbed a Stone Crow over a sausage. So today, as we made camp, three Stone Crows seized the man and opened his throat for him. Perhaps they were hoping to get the sausage back, I couldn’t say. Bronn managed to keep Shagga from chopping off the dead man’s cock, which was fortunate, but even so Ulf is demanding blood money, which Conn and Shagga refuse to pay.”
“When soldiers lack discipline, the fault lies with their lord commander,” his father said.
His brother Jaime had always been able to make men follow him eagerly, and die for him if need be. Tyrion lacked that gift. He bought loyalty with gold, and compelled obedience with his name. “A bigger man would be able to put the fear in them, is that what you’re saying, my lord?”
Lord Tywin Lannister turned to his brother. “If my son’s men will not obey his commands, perhaps the vanguard is not the place for him. No doubt he would be more comfortable in the rear, guarding our baggage train.”
“Do me no kindnesses, Father,” he said angrily. “If you have no other command to offer me, I’ll lead your van.”
Lord Tywin studied his dwarf son. “I said nothing about command. You will serve under Ser Gregor.”
Tyrion took one bite of pork, chewed a moment, and spit it out angrily. “I find I am not hungry after all,” he said, climbing awkwardly off the bench. “Pray excuse me, my lords.”
Lord Tywin inclined his head, dismissing him. Tyrion turned and walked away. He was conscious of their eyes on his back as he waddled down the hill. A great gust of laughter went up from behind him, but he did not look back. He hoped they all choked on their suckling pigs.
Dusk had settled, turning all the banners black. The Lannister camp sprawled for miles between the river and the kingsroad. In amongst the men and the horses and the trees, it was easy to get lost, and Tyrion did. He passed a dozen great pavilions and a hundred cookfires. Fireflies drifted amongst the tents like wandering stars. He caught the scent of garlic sausage, spiced and savory, so tempting it made his empty stomach growl. Away in the distance, he heard voices raised in some bawdy song. A giggling woman raced past him, naked beneath a dark cloak, her drunken pursuer stumbling over tree roots. Farther on, two spearmen faced each other across a little trickle of a stream, practicing their thrust-and-parry in the fading light, their chests bare and slick with sweat.
No one looked at him. No one spoke to him. No one paid him any mind. He was surrounded by men sworn to House Lannister, a vast host twenty thousand strong, and yet he was alone.
When he heard the deep rumble of Shagga’s laughter booming through the dark, he followed it to the Stone Crows in their small corner of the night. Conn son of Coratt waved a tankard of ale. “Tyrion Halfman! Come, sit by our fire, share meat with the Stone Crows. We have an ox.”
“I can see that, Conn son of Coratt.” The huge red carcass was suspended over a roaring fire, skewered on a spit the size of a small tree. No doubt it was a small tree. Blood and grease dripped down into the flames as two Stone Crows turned the meat. “I thank you. Send for me when the ox is cooked.” From the look of it, that might even be before the battle. He walked on.
Each clan had its own cookfire; Black Ears did not eat with Stone Crows, Stone Crows did not eat with Moon Brothers, and no one ate with Burned Men. The modest tent he had coaxed out of Lord Lefford’s stores had been erected in the center of the four fires. Tyrion found Bronn sharing a skin of wine with the new servants. Lord Tywin had sent him a groom and a body servant to see to his needs, and even insisted he take a squire. They were seated around the embers of a small cookfire. A girl was with them; slim, dark-haired, no more than eighteen by the look of her. Tyrion studied her face for a moment, before he spied fishbones in the ashes. “What did you eat?”
“Trout, m’lord,” said his groom. “Bronn caught them.”
Trout, he thought. Suckling pig. Damn my father. He stared mournfully at the bones, his belly rumbling.
His squire, a boy with the unfortunate name of Podrick Payne, swallowed whatever he had been about to say. The lad was a distant cousin to Ser Ilyn Payne, the king’s headsman … and almost as quiet, although not for want of a tongue. Tyrion had made him stick it out once, just to be certain. “Definitely a tongue,” he had said. “Someday you must learn to use it.”
At the moment, he did not have the patience to try and coax a thought out of the lad, whom he suspected had been inflicted on him as a cruel jape. Tyrion turned his attention back to the girl. “Is this her?” he asked Bronn.
She rose gracefully and looked down at him from the lofty height of five feet or more. “It is, m’lord, and she can speak for herself, if it please you.”
He cocked his