A Clash of Kings (119 page)

“It loves you too, my lady.”

“I love to say your name. Tyrion Lannister. It goes with mine. Not the Lannister, t’other part. Tyrion and Tysha. Tysha and Tyrion. Tyrion. My lord Tyrion . . . ”

Lies
, he thought,
all feigned, all for gold, she was a whore, Jaime’s whore, Jaime’s gift, my lady of the lie
. Her face seemed to fade away, dissolving behind a veil of tears, but even after she was gone he could still hear the faint, far-off sound of her voice, calling his name. “ . . . my lord, can you hear me? My lord? Tyrion? My lord? My lord?”

Through a haze of poppied sleep, he saw a soft pink face leaning over him. He was back in the dank room with the torn bed hangings, and the face was wrong, not hers, too round, with a brown fringe of beard. “Do you thirst, my lord? I have your milk, your good milk. You must not fight, no, don’t try to move, you need your rest.” He had the copper funnel in one damp pink hand and a flask in the other.

As the man leaned close, Tyrion’s fingers slid underneath his chain of many metals, gra1bbed, pulled. The maester dropped the flask, spilling milk of the poppy all over the blanket. Tyrion twisted until he could feel the links digging into the flesh of the man’s fat neck. “No. More, “ he croaked, so hoarse he was not certain he had even spoken. But he must have, for the maester choked out a reply. “Unhand, please, my lord . . . need your milk, the pain . . . the chain, don’t, unhand, no . . . ”

The pink face was beginning to purple when Tyrion let go. The maester reeled back, sucking in air. His reddened throat showed deep white gouges where the links had pressed. His eyes were white too. Tyrion raised a hand to his face and made a ripping motion over the hardened mask. And again. And again.

“You . . . you want the bandages off, is that it?” the maester said at last. “But I’m not to . . . that would be . . . be most unwise, my lord. You are not yet healed, the queen would . . . ”

The mention of his sister made Tyrion growl.
Are you one of hers, then?
He pointed a finger at the maester, then coiled his hand into a fist. Crushing, choking, a promise, unless the fool did as he was bid.

Thankfully, he understood. “I . . . I will do as my lord commands, to be sure, but . . . this is unwise, your wounds . . . ”

“
Do. It
.” Louder that time.

Bowing, the man left the room, only to return a few moments later, bearing a long knife with a slender sawtooth blade, a basin of water, a pile of soft cloths, and several flasks. By then Tyrion had managed to squirm backward a few inches, so he was half sitting against his pillow. The maester bade him be very still as he slid the tip of the knife in under his chin, beneath the mask.
A slip of the hand here, and Cersei will be free of me
, he thought. He could feel the blade sawing through the stiffened linen, only inches above his throat.

Fortunately this soft pink man was not one of his sister’s braver creatures. After a moment he felt cool air on his cheeks. There was pain as well, but he did his best to ignore that. The maester discarded the bandages, still crusty with potion. “Be still now, I must wash out the wound.” His touch was gentle, the water warm and soothing.
The wound
, Tyrion thought, remembering a sudden flash of bright silver that seemed to pass just below his eyes. “This is like to sting some,” the maester warned as he wet a cloth with wine that smelled of crushed herbs. It did more than sting. It traced a line of fire all the way across Tyrion’s face, and twisted a burning poker up his nose. His fingers clawed the bedclothes and he sucked in his breath, but somehow he managed not to scream. The maester was clucking like an old hen. “It would have been wiser to leave the mask in place until the flesh had knit, my lord. Still, it looks clean, good, good. When we found you down in that cellar among the dead and dying, your wounds were filthy. One of your ribs was broken, doubtless you can feel it, the blow of some mace perhaps, or a fall, it’s hard to say. And you took an arrow in the arm, there where it joins the shoulder. It showed signs of mortification, and for a time I feared you might lose the limb, but we treated it with boiling wine and maggots, and now it seems to be healing clean . . . ”

“Name,” Tyrion breathed up at him. “
Name
.”

The maester blinked. “Why, you are Tyrion Lannister, my lord. Brother to the queen. Do you remember the battle? Sometimes with head wounds—”

“
Your
name.” His throat was raw, and his tongue had forgotten how to shape th1e words.

“I am Maester Ballabar.”

“Ballabar,” Tyrion repeated. “Bring me. Looking glass.”

“My lord,” the maester said, “I would not counsel . . . that might be, ah, unwise, as it were . . . your wound . . . ”

“
Bring
it,” he had to say. His mouth was stiff and sore, as if a punch had split his lip. “And drink.
Wine
. No poppy.”

The maester rose flush-faced and hurried off. He came back with a flagon of pale amber wine and a small silvered looking glass in an ornate golden frame. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he poured half a cup of wine and held it to Tyrion’s swollen lips. The trickle went down cool, though he could hardly taste it. “
More
,” he said when the cup was empty. Maester Ballabar poured again. By the end of the second cup, Tyrion Lannister felt strong enough to face his face.

He turned over the glass, and did not know whether he ought to laugh or cry. The gash was long and crooked, starting a hair under his left eye and ending on the right side of his jaw. Three-quarters of his nose was gone, and a chunk of his lip. Someone had sewn the torn flesh together with catgut, and their clumsy stitches were still in place across the seam of raw, red, half-healed flesh. “
Pretty
,” he croaked, flinging the glass aside.

He remembered now. The bridge of boats, Ser Mandon Moore, a hand, a sword coming at his face.
If I had not pulled back, that cut would have taken off the top of my head
. Jaime had always said that Ser Mandon was the most dangerous of the Kingsguard, because his dead empty eyes gave no hint to his intentions.
I should never have trusted any of them
. He’d known that Ser Meryn and Ser Boros were his sister’s, and Ser Osmund later, but he had let himself believe that the others were not wholly lost to honor.
Cersei must have paid him to see that I never came back from the battle. Why else? I never did Ser Mandon any harm that I know of
. Tyrion touched his face, plucking at the proud flesh with blunt thick fingers.
Another gift from my sweet sister
.

The maester stood beside the bed like a goose about to take flight. “My lord, there, there will most like be a scar . . . ”

“
Most like?
” His snort of laughter turned into a wince of pain. There would be a scar, to be sure. Nor was it likely that his nose would be growing back anytime soon. It was not as if his face had ever been fit to look at. “Teach me, not to, play with, axes.” His grin felt tight. “Where, are we? What, what place?” It hurt to talk, but Tyrion had been too long in silence.

“Ah, you are in Maegor’s Holdfast, my lord. A chamber over the Queen’s Ballroom. Her Grace wanted you kept close, so she might watch over you herself.”

I’ll wager she did
. “Return me,” Tyrion commanded. “Own bed. Own chambers.”
Where I will have my own men about me, and my own maester too, if I find one I can trust
.

“Your own . . . my lord, that would not be possible. The King’s Hand has taken up residence in your former chambers.”

“I.
Am
. King’s Hand.” He was growing exhausted by the effort of speaking, and confused by what he was hearing.

Maester Ballabar looked distressed. “No, my lord, I . . . you were wounded, near death. Your lord father has taken up those duties now. Lord Tywin, he . . . ”

“
Here?
”

“Since the night of the battle. Lord Tywin saved us all. The smallfolk say it was King Renly’s ghost, but wiser men know better. It was your father and Lord Tyrell, with the Knight of Flowers and Lord Littlefinger. They rode through the ashes and took the usurper Stannis in the rear. It was a great victory, and now Lord Tywin has settled into the Tower of the Hand to help His Grace set the realm to rights, gods be praised.”

“Gods be praised,” Tyrion repeated hollowly. His bloody father
and
bloody Littlefinger and
Renly’s ghost
? “I want . . . ”
Who do I want?
He could not tell pink Ballabar to fetch him Shae. Who could he send for, who could he trust? Varys? Bronn? Ser Jacelyn? “ . . . my squire,” he finished. “Pod. Payne.”
It was Pod on the bridge of boats, the lad saved my life
.

“The boy? The odd boy?”

“Odd boy. Podrick. Payne. You go. Send
him
.”

“As you will, my lord.” Maester Ballabar bobbed his head and hurried out. Tyrion could feel the strength seeping out of him as he waited. He wondered how long he had been here, asleep.
Cersei would have me sleep forever, but I won’t be so obliging
.

Podrick Payne entered the bedchamber timid as a mouse. “My lord?” He crept close to the bed.
How can a boy so bold in battle be so frightened in a sickroom?
Tyrion wondered. “I meant to stay by you, but the maester sent me away.”

“Send
him
away. Hear me. Talk’s hard. Need dreamwine.
Dreamwine
, not milk of the poppy. Go to Frenken.
Frenken
, not Ballabar. Watch him make it. Bring it here.” Pod stole a glance at Tyrion’s face, and just as quickly averted his eyes.
Well, I cannot blame him for that
. “I want,” Tyrion went on, “mine own. Guard. Bronn. Where’s Bronn?”

“They made him a knight.”

Even frowning hurt. “Find him. Bring him.”

“As you say. My lord. Bronn.”

Tyrion seized the lad’s wrist. “Ser Mandon?”

The boy flinched. “I n-never meant to k-k-k-k—”

“
Dead?
You’re, certain?
Dead?
”

He shuffled his feet, sheepish. “Drowned.”

“Good. Say nothing. Of him. Of me. Any of it.
Nothing
.”

By the time his squire left, the last of Tyrion’s strength was gone as well. He lay back and closed his eyes. Perhaps he would dream of Tysha again.
I wonder how she’d like my face now
, he thought bitterly.

Chapter Sixty Eight
Jon

When Qhorin Halfhand told him to find some brush for a fire, Jon knew their end was near.

It will be good to feel warm again, if only for a little while
, he told himself while he hacked bare branches from the trunk of a dead tree. Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever.
Will he howl for me when I’m dead, as Bran’s wolf howled when he fell?
Jon wondered.
Will Shaggydog howl, far off in Winterfell, and Grey Wind and Nymeria, wherever they might be?

The moon was rising behind one mountain and the sun sinking behind another as Jon struck sparks from flint and dagger, until finally a wisp of smoke appeared. Qhorin came and stood over him as the first flame rose up flickering from the shavings of bark and dead dry pine needles. “As shy as a maid on her wedding night,” the big ranger said in a soft voice, “and near as fair. Sometimes a man forgets how pretty a fire can be.”

He was not a man you’d expect to speak of maids and wedding nights. So far as Jon knew, Qhorin had spent his whole life in the Watch.
Did he ever love a maid or have a wedding?
He could not ask. Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter.

The Halfhand eased himself to the ground and sat cross-legged by the fire, the flickering light playing across the hard planes of his face. Only the two of them remained of the five rangers who had fled the SkirlingPass, back into the blue-grey wilderness of the Frostfangs.

At first Jon had nursed the hope that Squire Dalbridge would keep the wildlings bottled up in the pass. But when they’d heard the call of a far-off horn every man of them knew the squire had fallen. Later they spied the eagle soaring through the dusk on great blue-grey wings and Stonesnake unslung his bow, but the bird flew out of range before he could so much as string it. Ebben spat and muttered darkly of wargs and skinchangers.

They glimpsed the eagle twice more the day after, and heard the hunting horn behind them echoing against the mountains. Each time it seemed a little louder, a little closer. When night fell, the Halfhand told Ebben to take the squire’s garron as well as his own, and ride east for Mormont with all haste, back the way they had come. The rest of them would draw off the pursuit. “Send Jon,” Ebben had urged. “He can ride as fast as me.”

“Jon has a different part to play.”

“He is half a boy still.”

“No,” said Qhorin, “he is a man of the Night’s Watch.”

When the moon rose, Ebben parted from them. Stonesnake went east with him a short way, then doubled back to obscure their tracks, and the three who remained set off toward the southwest.

After that the days and nights blurred one into the other. They slept in their saddles and stopped only long enough to feed and water the garrons, then mounted up again. Over bare rock they rode, through gloomy pine forests and drifts of old snow, over icy ridges and across shallow rivers that had no names. Sometimes Qhorin or Stonesnake would loop back to sweep away their tracks, but it was a futile gesture. They were watched. At every dawn and every dusk they saw the eagle soaring between the peaks, no more than a speck in the vastness of the sky.

They were scaling a low ridge between two snowcapped peaks when a shadowcat came snarling from its lair, not ten yards away. The beast was gaunt and half-starved, but the sight of it sent Stonesnake’s mare into a panic; she reared and ran, and before the ranger could get her back under control she had stumbled on the steep slope and broken a leg.