Maidenpool, Duskendale, and the kingsroad. In the west, Ser Daven Lannister had linked up with Ser Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth for a march on Riverrun. Ser Ryman Frey was leading two thousand spears down from the Twins to join them. And Paxter Redwyne claimed his fleet would soon set sail from the Arbor, to begin the long voyage around Dorne and through the Stepstones. Stannis’s Lyseni pirates would be outnumbered ten to one. The struggle that the maesters were calling the War of the Five Kings was all but at an end. Mace Tyrell had been heard complaining that Lord Tywin had left no victories for him.
“My lord?” Pod was at his side. “Will you be changing? I laid out the doublet. On your bed. For the feast.”
“Feast?” said Tyrion sourly. “What feast?”
“The wedding feast.” Pod missed the sarcasm, of course. “King Joffrey and Lady Margaery. Queen Margaery, I mean.”
Tyrion resolved to get very, very drunk tonight. “Very well, young Podrick, let us go make me festive.”
Shae was helping Sansa with her hair when they entered the bedchamber. Joy and grief, he thought when he beheld them there together. Laughter and tears. Sansa wore a gown of silvery satin trimmed in vair, with dagged sleeves that almost touched the floor, lined in soft purple felt. Shae had arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking with dark purple gemstones. Tyrion had never seen her look more lovely, yet she wore sorrow on those long satin sleeves. “Lady Sansa,” he told her, “you shall be the most beautiful woman in the hall tonight.”
“My lord is too kind.”
“My lady,” said Shae wistfully. “Couldn’t I come serve at table? I so want to see the pigeons fly out of the pie.”
Sansa looked at her uncertainly. “The queen has chosen all the servers.”
“And the hall will be too crowded.” Tyrion had to bite back his annoyance. “There will be musicians strolling all through the castle, though, and tables in the outer ward with food and drink for all.” He inspected his new doublet, crimson velvet with padded shoulders and puffed sleeves slashed to show the black satin underlining. A handsome garment. All it wants is a handsome man to wear it. “Come, Pod, help me into this.”
He had another cup of wine as he dressed, then took his wife by the arm and escorted her from the Kitchen Keep to join the river of silk, satin, and velvet flowing toward the throne room. Some guests had gone inside to find their places on the benches. Others were milling in front of the doors, enjoying the unseasonable warmth of the afternoon. Tyrion led Sansa around the yard, to perform the necessary courtesies.
She is good at this, he thought, as he watched her tell Lord Gyles that his cough was sounding better, compliment Elinor Tyrell on her gown, and question Jalabhar Xho about wedding customs in the Summer Isles. His cousin Ser Lancel had been brought down by Ser Kevan, the first time he’d left his sickbed since the battle. He looks ghastly. Lancel’s hair had turned white and brittle, and he was thin as a stick. Without his father beside him holding him up, he would surely have collapsed. Yet when Sansa praised his valor and said how good it was to see him getting strong again, both Lancel and Ser Kevan beamed. She would have made Joffrey a good queen and a better wife if he’d had the sense to love her. He wondered if his nephew was capable of loving anyone.
“You do look quite exquisite, child,” Lady Olenna Tyrell told Sansa when she tottered up to them in a cloth-of-gold gown that must have weighed more than she did. “The wind has been at your hair, though.” The little old woman reached up and fussed at the loose strands, tucking them back into place and straightening Sansa’s hair net. “I was very sorry to hear about your losses,” she said as she tugged and fiddled. “Your brother was a terrible traitor, I know, but if we start killing men at weddings they’ll be even more frightened of marriage than they are presently. There, that’s better.” Lady Olenna smiled. “I am pleased to say I shall be leaving for Highgarden the day after next. I have had quite enough of this smelly city, thank you. Perhaps you would like to accompany me for a little visit, whilst the men are off having their war? I shall miss my Margaery so dreadfully, and all her lovely ladies. Your company would be such sweet solace.”
“You are too kind, my lady,” said Sansa, “but my place is with my lord husband.”
Lady Olenna gave Tyrion a wrinkled, toothless smile. “Oh? Forgive a silly old woman, my lord, I did not mean to steal your lovely wife. I assumed you would be off leading a Lannister host against some wicked foe.”
“A host of dragons and stags. The master of coin must remain at court to see that all the armies are paid for.”
“To be sure. Dragons and stags, that’s very clever. And dwarf’s pennies as well. I have heard of these dwarf’s pennies. No doubt collecting those is such a dreadful chore.”
“I leave the collecting to others, my lady.”
“Oh, do you? I would have thought you might want to tend to it yourself. We can’t have the crown being cheated of its dwarf’s pennies, now. Can we?”
“Gods forbid.” Tyrion was beginning to wonder whether Lord Luthor Tyrell had ridden off that cliff intentionally. “If you will excuse us, Lady Olenna, it is time we were in our places.”
“Myself as well. Seventy-seven courses, I daresay. Don’t you find that a bit excessive, my lord? I shan’t eat more than three or four bites myself, but you and I are very little, aren’t we?” She patted Sansa’s hair again and said, “Well, off with you, child, and try to be merrier. Now where have my guardsmen gone? Left, Right, where are you? Come help me to the dais.”
Although evenfall was still an hour away, the throne room was already a blaze of light, with torches burning in every sconce. The guests stood along the tables as heralds called out the names and titles of the lords and ladies making their entrance. Pages in the royal livery escorted them down the broad central aisle. The gallery above was packed with musicians; drummers and pipers and fiddlers, strings and horns and skins.
Tyrion clutched Sansa’s arm and made the walk with a heavy waddling stride. He could feel their eyes on him, picking at the fresh new scar that had left him even uglier than he had been before. Let them look, he thought as he hopped up onto his seat. Let them stare and whisper until they’ve had their fill, I will not hide myself for their sake. The Queen of Thorns followed them in, shuffling along with tiny little steps. Tyrion wondered which of them looked more absurd, him with Sansa or the wizened little woman between her seven-foot-tall twin guardsmen.
Joffrey and Margaery rode into the throne room on matched white chargers. Pages ran before them, scattering rose petals under their hooves. The king and queen had changed for the feast as well. Joffrey wore striped black-and-crimson breeches and a cloth-of-gold doublet with black satin sleeves and onyx studs. Margaery had exchanged the demure gown that she had worn in the sept for one much more revealing, a confection in pale green samite with a tight-laced bodice that bared her shoulders and the tops of her small breasts. Unbound, her soft brown hair tumbled over her white shoulders and down her back almost to her waist. Around her brows was a slim golden crown. Her smile was shy and sweet. A lovely girl, thought Tyrion, and a kinder fate than my nephew deserves.
The Kingsguard escorted them onto the dais, to the seats of honor beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne, draped for the occasion in long silk streamers of Baratheon gold, Lannister crimson, and Tyrell green. Cersei embraced Margaery and kissed her cheeks. Lord Tywin did the same, and then Lancel and Ser Kevan. Joffrey received loving kisses from the bride’s father and his two new brothers, Loras and Garlan. No one seemed in any great rush to kiss Tyrion. When the king and queen had taken their seats, the High Septon rose to lead a prayer. At least he does not drone as badly as the last one, Tyrion consoled himself.
He and Sansa had been seated far to the king’s right, beside Ser Garlan Tyrell and his wife, the Lady Leonette. A dozen others sat closer to Joffrey, which a pricklier man might have taken for a slight, given that he had been the King’s Hand only a short time past. Tyrion would have been glad if there had been a hundred.
“Let the cups be filled!” Joffrey proclaimed, when the gods had been given their due. His cupbearer poured a whole flagon of dark Arbor red into the golden wedding chalice that Lord Tyrell had given him that morning. The king had to use both hands to lift it. “To my wife the queen!”
“Margaery!” the hall shouted back at him. “Margaery! Margaery! To the queen!” A thousand cups rang together, and the wedding feast was well and truly begun. Tyrion Lannister drank with the rest, emptying his cup on that first toast and signaling for it to be refilled as soon as he was seated again.
The first dish was a creamy soup of mushrooms and buttered snails, served in gilded bowls. Tyrion had scarcely touched the breakfast, and the wine had already gone to his head, so the food was welcome. He finished quickly. One done, seventy-six to come. Seventy-seven dishes, while there are still starving children in this city, and men who would kill for a radish. They might not love the Tyrells half so well if they could see us now.
Sansa tasted a spoonful of soup and pushed the bowl away. “Not to your liking, my lady?” Tyrion asked.
“There’s to be so much, my lord. I have a little tummy.” She fiddled nervously with her hair and looked down the table to where Joffrey sat with his Tyrell queen.
Does she wish it were her in Margaery’s place? Tyrion frowned. Even a child should have better sense. He turned away, wanting distraction, but everywhere he looked were women, fair fine beautiful happy women who belonged to other men. Margaery, of course, smiling sweetly as she and Joffrey shared a drink from the great seven-sided wedding chalice. Her mother Lady Alerie, silver-haired and handsome, still proud beside Mace Tyrell. The queen’s three young cousins, bright as birds. Lord Merryweather’s dark-haired Myrish wife with her big black sultry eyes. Ellaria Sand among the Dornishmen (Cersei had placed them at their own table, just below the dais in a place of high honor but as far from the Tyrells as the width of the hall would allow), laughing at something the Red Viper had told her.
And there was one woman, sitting almost at the foot of the third table on the left… the wife of one of the Fossoways, he thought, and heavy with his child. Her delicate beauty was in no way diminished by her belly, nor was her pleasure in the food and frolics. Tyrion watched as her husband fed her morsels off his plate. They drank from the same cup, and would kiss often and unpredictably. Whenever they did, his hand would gently rest upon her stomach, a tender and protective gesture.
He wondered what Sansa would do if he leaned over and kissed her right now. Flinch away, most likely. Or be brave and suffer through it, as was her duty. She is nothing if not dutiful, this wife of mine. If he told her that he wished to have her maidenhead tonight, she would suffer that dutifully as well, and weep no more than she had to.
He called for more wine. By the time he got it, the second course was being served, a pastry coffyn filled with pork, pine nuts, and eggs. Sansa ate no more than a bite of hers, as the heralds were summoning the first of the seven singers.
Grey-bearded Hamish the Harper announced that he would perform “for the ears of gods and men, a song ne’er heard before in all the Seven Kingdoms.” He called it “Lord Renly’s Ride.”
His fingers moved across the strings of the high harp, filling the throne room with sweet sound. “From his throne of bones the Lord of Death looked down on the murdered lord,” Hamish began, and went on to tell how Renly, repenting his attempt to usurp his nephew’s crown, had defied the Lord of Death himself and crossed back to the land of the living to defend the realm against his brother.
And for this poor Symon wound up in a bowl of brown, Tyrion mused. Queen Margaery was teary-eyed by the end, when the shade of brave Lord Renly flew to Highgarden to steal one last look at his true love’s face. “Renly Baratheon never repented of anything in his life,” the Imp told Sansa, “but if I’m any judge, Hamish just won himself a gilded lute.”
The Harper also gave them several more familiar songs. “A Rose of Gold” was for the Tyrells, no doubt, as “The Rains of Castamere” was meant to flatter his father. “Maiden, Mother, and Crone” delighted the High Septon, and “My Lady Wife” pleased all the little girls with romance in their hearts, and no doubt some little boys as well. Tyrion listened with half a ear, as he sampled sweetcorn fritters and hot oatbread baked with bits of date, apple, and orange, and gnawed on the rib of a wild boar.
Thereafter dishes and diversions succeeded one another in a staggering profusion, buoyed along upon a flood of wine and ale. Hamish left them, his place taken by a smallish elderly bear who danced clumsily to pipe and drum while the wedding guests ate trout cooked in a crust of crushed almonds. Moon Boy mounted his stilts and strode around the tables in pursuit of Lord Tyrell’s ludicrously fat fool Butterbumps, and the lords and ladies sampled roast herons and cheese-and-onion pies. A troupe of Pentoshi tumblers performed cartwheels and handstands, balanced platters on their bare feet, and stood upon each other’s shoulders to form a pyramid. Their feats were accompanied by crabs boiled in fiery eastern spices, trenchers filled with chunks of chopped mutton stewed in almond milk with carrots, raisins, and onions, and fish tarts fresh from the ovens, served so hot they burned the fingers.
Then the heralds summoned another singer; Collio Quaynis of Tyrosh, who had a vermilion beard and an accent as ludicrous as Symon had promised. Collio began with his version of “The Dance of the Dragons,” which was more properly a song for two singers, male and female. Tyrion suffered through it with a double helping of honey-ginger partridge and several cups of wine. A haunting ballad of two dying lovers amidst the Doom of Valyria might have pleased the hall more if Collio had not sung it in High Valyrian, which most of the guests could not speak. But “Bessa the Barmaid” won them back with its ribald lyrics. Peacocks were served in their plumage, roasted whole and stuffed with dates, while Collio summoned a drummer, bowed low before Lord Tywin, and launched into “The Rains of Castamere.”
If I have to hear seven versions of that, I may go down to Flea Bottom and apologize to the stew. Tyrion turned to his wife. “So which did you prefer?”
Sansa blinked at him. “My lord?”
“The singers. Which did you prefer?”
“I… I’m sorry, my lord. I was not listening.”
She was not eating, either. “Sansa, is aught amiss?” He spoke without thinking, and instantly felt the fool. All her kin are slaughtered and she’s wed to me, and I wonder what’s amiss.
“No, my lord.” She looked away from him, and feigned an unconvincing interest in Moon Boy pelting Ser Dontos with dates.
Four master pyromancers conjured up beasts of living flame to tear at each other with fiery claws whilst the serving men ladeled out bowls of blandissory, a mixture of beef broth and boiled wine sweetened with honey and dotted with blanched almonds and chunks of capon. Then came some strolling pipers and clever dogs and sword swallowers, with buttered pease, chopped nuts, and slivers of swan poached in a sauce of saffron and peaches. (“Not swan again,” Tyrion muttered, remembering his supper with his sister on the eve of battle.) A juggler kept a half-dozen swords and axes whirling through the air as skewers of blood sausage were brought sizzling to the tables, a juxtaposition that Tyrion thought passing clever, though not perhaps in the best of taste.
The heralds blew their trumpets. “To sing for the golden lute,” one cried, “we give you Galyeon of Cuy.”
Galyeon was a big barrel-chested man with a black beard, a bald head, and a thunderous voice that filled every corner of the throne room. He brought no fewer than six musicians to play for him. “Noble lords and ladies fair, I sing but one song for you this night,” he announced. “It is the song of the Blackwater, and how a realm was saved.” The drummer began a slow ominous beat.
“The dark lord brooded high in his tower,” Galyeon began, “in a castle as black as the night.”
“Black was his hair and black was his soul,” the musicians chanted in unison. A flute came in.
“He feasted on bloodlust and envy, and filled his cup full up with spite,” sang Galyeon. “My brother once ruled seven kingdoms, he said to his harridan wife. I’ll take what was his and make it all mine. Let his son feel the point of my knife.”
“A brave young boy with hair of gold,” his players chanted, as a woodharp and a fiddle began to play.
“If I am ever Hand again, the first thing I’ll do is hang all the singers,” said Tyrion, too loudly.
Lady Leonette laughed lightly beside him, and Ser Garlan leaned over to say, “A valiant deed unsung is no less valiant.”
“The dark lord assembled his legions, they gathered around him like crows. And thirsty for blood they boarded their ships…”
“… and cut off poor Tyrion’s nose,” Tyrion finished.
Lady Leonette giggled. “Perhaps you should be a singer, my lord. You rhyme as well as this Galyeon.”
“No, my lady,” Ser Garlan said. “My lord of Lannister was made to do great deeds, not to sing of them. But for his chain and his wildfire, the foe would have been across the river. And if Tyrion’s wildlings had not slain most of Lord Stannis’s scouts, we would never have been able to take him unawares.”
His words made Tyrion feel absurdly grateful, and helped to mollify him as Galyeon sang endless verses about the valor of the boy king and his mother, the golden queen.
“She never did that,” Sansa blurted out suddenly.
“Never believe anything you hear in a song, my lady.” Tyrion summoned a serving man to refill their wine cups.
Soon it was full night outside the tall windows, and still Galyeon sang on. His song had seventy-seven verses, though it seemed more like a thousand. One for every guest in the hall. Tyrion drank his way through the last twenty or so, to help resist the urge to stuff mushrooms in his ears. By the time the singer had taken his bows, some of the guests were drunk enough to begin providing unintentional entertainments of their own. Grand Maester Pycelle fell asleep while dancers from the Summer Isles swirled and spun in robes made of bright feathers and smoky silk. Roundels of elk stuffed with ripe blue cheese were being brought out when one of Lord Rowan’s knights stabbed a Dornishman. The gold cloaks dragged them both away, one to a cell to rot and the other to get sewn up by Maester Ballabar.
Tyrion was toying with a leche of brawn, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and almond milk, when King Joffrey lurched suddenly to his feet. “Bring on my royal jousters!” he shouted in a voice thick with wine, clapping his hands together.
My nephew is drunker than I am, Tyrion thought as the gold cloaks opened the great doors at the end of the hall. From where he sat, he could only see the tops of two striped lances as a pair of riders entered side by side. A wave of laughter followed them down the center aisle toward the king. They must be riding ponies, he concluded… until they came into full view.
The jousters were a pair of dwarfs. One was mounted on an ugly grey dog, long of leg and heavy of jaw. The other rode an immense spotted sow. Painted wooden armor clattered and clacked as the little knights bounced up and down in their saddles. Their shields were bigger than they were, and they wrestled manfully with their lances as they clomped along, swaying this way and that and eliciting gusts of mirth. One knight was all in gold, with a black stag painted on his shield; the other wore grey and white, and bore a wolf device. Their mounts were barded likewise.
Tyrion glanced along the dais at all the laughing faces. Joffrey was red and breathless, Tommen was hooting and hopping up and down in his seat, Cersei was chuckling politely, and even Lord Tywin looked mildly amused. Of all those at the high table, only Sansa Stark was not smiling. He could have loved her for that, but if truth be told the Stark girl’s eyes were far away, as if she had not even seen the ludicrous riders loping toward her.
The dwarfs are not to blame, Tyrion decided. When they are done, I shall compliment them and give them a fat purse of silver. And come the morrow, I will find whoever planned this little diversion and arrange for a different sort of thanks.
When the dwarfs reined up beneath the dais to salute the king, the wolf knight dropped his shield. As he leaned over to grab for it, the stag knight lost control of his heavy lance and slammed him across the back. The wolf knight fell off his pig, and his lance tumbled over and boinked his foe on the head. They both wound up on the floor in a great tangle. When they rose, both tried to mount the dog. Much shouting and shoving followed. Finally they regained their saddles, only mounted on each other’s steed, holding the wrong shield and facing backward.
It took some time to sort that out, but in the end they spurred to opposite ends of the hall, and wheeled about for the tilt. As the lords and ladies guffawed and giggled, the little men came together with a crash and a clatter, and the wolf knight’s lance struck the helm of the stag knight and knocked his head clean off. It spun through the air spattering blood to land in the lap of Lord Gyles. The headless dwarf careened around the tables, flailing his arms. Dogs barked, women shrieked, and Moon Boy made a great show of swaying perilously back and forth on his stilts, until Lord Gyles pulled a dripping red melon out of the shattered helm, at which point the stag knight poked his face up out of his armor, and another storm of laughter rocked the hall. The knights waited for it to die, circled around each other trading colorful insults, and were about to separate for another joust when the dog threw its rider to the floor and mounted the sow. The huge pig squealed in distress, while the wedding guests squealed with laughter, especially when the stag knight leapt onto the wolf knight, let down his wooden breeches, and started to pump away frantically at the other’s nether portions.
“I yield, I yield,” the dwarf on the bottom screamed. “Good ser, put up your sword!”
“I would, I would, if you’ll stop moving the sheath!” the dwarf on the top replied, to the merriment of all.
Joffrey was snorting wine from both nostrils. Gasping, he lurched to his feet, almost knocking over his tall two-handed chalice. “A champion,” he shouted. “We have a champion!” The hall began to quiet when it was seen that the king was speaking. The dwarfs untangled, no doubt anticipating the royal thanks. “Not a true champion, though,” said Joff. “A true champion defeats all challengers.” The king climbed up on the table. “Who else will challenge our tiny champion?” With a gleeful smile, he turned toward Tyrion. “Uncle! You’ll defend the honor of my realm, won’t you? You can ride the pig!”
The laughter crashed over him like a wave. Tyrion Lannister did not remember rising, nor climbing on his chair, but he found himself standing on the table. The hall was a torchlit blur of leering faces. He twisted his face into the most hideous mockery of a smile the Seven Kingdoms had ever seen. “Your Grace,” he called, “I’ll ride the pig… but only if you ride the dog!”
Joff scowled, confused. “Me? I’m no dwarf. Why me?”
Stepped right into the cut, Joff. “Why, you’re the only man in the hall that I’m certain of defeating!”
He could not have said which was sweeter; the instant of shocked silence, the gale of laughter that followed, or the look of blind rage on his nephew’s face. The dwarf hopped back to the floor well satisfied, and by the time he looked back Ser Osmund and Ser Meryn were helping Joff climb down as well. When he noticed Cersei glaring at him, Tyrion blew her a kiss.
It was a relief when the musicians began to play. The tiny jousters led dog and sow from the hall, the guests returned to their trenchers of brawn, and Tyrion called for another cup of wine. But suddenly he felt Ser Garlan’s hand on his sleeve. “My lord, beware,” the knight warned. “The king.”
Tyrion turned in his seat. Joffrey was almost upon him, red-faced and staggering, wine slopping over the rim of the great golden wedding chalice he carried in both hands. “Your Grace,” was all he had time to say before the king upended the chalice over his head. The wine washed down over his face in a red torrent. It drenched his hair, stung his eyes, burned in his wound, ran down his cheeks, and soaked the velvet of his new doublet. “How do you like that, Imp?” Joffrey mocked.
Tyrion’s eyes were on fire. He dabbed at his face with the back of a sleeve and tried to blink the world back into clarity. “That was ill done, Your Grace,” he heard Ser Garlan say quietly.
“Not at all, Ser Garlan.” Tyrion dare not let this grow any uglier than it was, not here, with half the realm looking on. “Not every king would think to honor a humble subject by serving him from his own royal chalice. A pity the wine spilled.”
“It didn’t spill,” said Joffrey, too graceless to take the retreat Tyrion offered him. “And I wasn’t serving you, either.”