A Clash of Kings. George R.r. Martin

Your Grace?”

      Joffrey frowned. Sansa felt that she ought to say something. What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady’s armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, “I’m sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord.”

      “A great many people are sorry for that,” Tyrion replied, “and before I am done, some may be a deal sorrier … yet I thank you for the sentiment. Joffrey, where might I find your mother?”

      “She’s with my council,” the king answered. “Your brother Jaime keeps losing battles.” He gave Sansa an angry look, as if it were her fault. “He’s been taken by the Starks and we’ve lost Riverrun and now her stupid brother is calling himself a king.”

      The dwarf smiled crookedly. “All sorts of people are calling themselves kings these days.”

      Joffrey did not know what to make of that, though he looked suspicious and out of sorts. “Yes. Well. I am pleased you’re not dead, uncle. Did you bring me a gift for my name day?”

      “I did. My wits.”

      “I’d sooner have Robb Stark’s head,” Joff said, with a sly glance at Sansa. “Tommen, Myrcella, come.”

      Sandor Clegane lingered behind a moment. “I’d guard that tongue of yours, little man,” he warned, before he strode off after his liege.

      Sansa was left with the dwarf and his monsters. She tried to think of what else she might say. “You hurt your arm,” she managed at last.

      “One of your northmen hit me with a morningstar during the battle on the Green Fork. I escaped him by falling off my horse.” His grin turned into something softer as he studied her face. “Is it grief for your lord father that makes you so sad?”

      “My father was a traitor,” Sansa said at once. “And my brother and lady mother are traitors as well.” That reflex she had learned quickly. “I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey.”

      “No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves.”

      “Lions,” she whispered, without thinking. She glanced about nervously, but there was no one close enough to hear.

      Lannister reached out and took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “I am only a little lion, child, and I vow, I shall not savage you.” Bowing, he said, “But now you must excuse me. I have urgent business with queen and council.”

      Sansa watched him walk off, his body swaying heavily from side to side with every step, like something from a grotesquerie. He speaks more gently than Joffrey, she thought, but the queen spoke to me gently too. He’s still a Lannister, her brother and Joff’s uncle, and no friend. Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father’s head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.

      TYRION

      In the chilly white raiment of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon Moore looked like a corpse in a shroud. “Her Grace left orders, the council in session is not to be disturbed.”

      “I would be only a small disturbance, ser.” Tyrion slid the parchment from his sleeve. “I bear a letter from my father, Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King. There is his seal.”

      “Her Grace does not wish to be disturbed,” Ser Mandon repeated slowly, as if Tyrion was a dullard who had not heard him the first time.

      Jaime had told him once that Moore was the most dangerous of the Kingsguard—excepting himself, always—because his face gave no hint as to what he might do next. Tyrion would have welcomed a hint. Bronn and Timett could likely kill the knight if it came to swords, but it would scarcely bode well if he began by slaying one of Joffrey’s protectors. Yet if he let the man turn him away, where was his authority? He made himself smile. “Ser Mandon, you have not met my companions. This is Timett son of Timett, a red hand of the Burned Men. And this is Bronn. Perchance you recall Ser Vardis Egen, who was captain of Lord Arryn’s household guard?”

      “I know the man.” Ser Mandon’s eyes were pale grey, oddly flat and lifeless.

      “Knew,” Bronn corrected, with a thin smile.

      Ser Mandon did not deign to show that he had heard that. “Be that as it may,” Tyrion said lightly, “I truly must see my sister and present my letter, ser. If you would be so kind as to open the door for us?”

      The white knight did not respond. Tyrion was almost at the point of trying to force his way past when Ser Mandon abruptly stood aside. “You may enter. They may not.”

      A small victory, he thought, but sweet. He had passed his first test. Tyrion Lannister shouldered through the door, feeling almost tall. Five members of the king’s small council broke off their discussion suddenly. “You,” his sister Cersei said, in a tone that was equal parts disbelief and distaste.

      “I can see where Joffrey learned his courtesies.” Tyrion paused to admire the pair of Valyrian sphinxes that guarded the door, affecting an air of casual confidence. Cersei could smell weakness the way a dog smelled fear.

      “What are you doing here?” His sister’s lovely green eyes studied him without the least hint of affection.

      “Delivering a letter from our lord father.” He sauntered to the table and placed the tightly rolled parchment between them.

      The eunuch Varys took the letter and turned it in his delicate powdered hands. “How kind of Lord Tywin. And his sealing wax is such a lovely shade of gold.” Varys gave the seal a close inspection. “It gives every appearance of being genuine.”

      “Of course it’s genuine.” Cersei snatched it out of his hands. She broke the wax and unrolled the parchment.

      Tyrion watched her read. His sister had taken the king’s seat for herself—he gathered Joffrey did not often trouble to attend council meetings, no more than Robert had—so Tyrion climbed up into the Hand’s chair. It seemed only appropriate.

      “This is absurd,” the queen said at last. “My lord father has sent my brother to sit in his place in this council. He bids us accept Tyrion as the Hand of the King, until such time as he himself can join us.”

      Grand Maester Pycelle stroked his flowing white beard and nodded ponderously. “It would seem that a welcome is in order.”

      “Indeed.” Jowly, balding Janos Slynt looked rather like a frog, a smug frog who had gotten rather above himself. “We have sore need of you, my lord. Rebellion everywhere, this grim omen in the sky, rioting in the city streets …”

      “And whose fault is that, Lord Janos?” Cersei lashed out. “Your gold cloaks are charged with keeping order. As to you, Tyrion, you could better serve us on the field of battle.”

      He laughed. “No, I’m done with fields of battle, thank you. I sit a chair better than a horse, and I’d sooner hold a wine goblet than a battleaxe. All that about the thunder of the drums, sunlight flashing on armor, magnificent destriers snorting and prancing? Well, the drums gave me headaches, the sunlight flashing on my armor cooked me up like a harvest day goose, and those magnificent destriers shit everywhere. Not that I am complaining. Compared to the hospitality I enjoyed in the Vale of Arryn, drums, horseshit, and fly bites are my favorite things.”

      Littlefinger laughed. “Well said, Lannister. A man after my own heart.”

      Tyrion smiled at him, remembering a certain dagger with a dragonbone hilt and a Valyrian steel blade. We must have a talk about that, and soon. He wondered if Lord Petyr would find that subject amusing as well. “Please,” he told them, “do let me be of service, in whatever small way I can.”

      Cersei read the letter again. “How many men have you brought with you?”

      “A few hundred. My own men, chiefly. Father was loath