A Dance With Dragons

the guards waved their spears to chase away the kestrels, gulls, and carrion crows paying court to the deceased. The birds returned to the heads within moments.
    “What did they do?” Tyrion inquired innocently.
    The knight glanced at the inscriptions. “The woman was a slave who raised her hand to her mistress. The older man was accused of fomenting rebellion and spying for the dragon queen.”
    “And the young one?”
    “Killed his father.”
    Tyrion gave the rotting head a second look. Why, it almost looks as if those lips are smiling.
    Farther on, the knight paused briefly to consider a jeweled tiara displayed upon a bed of purple velvet. He passed that by, but a few steps on he stopped again to haggle over a pair of gloves at a leatherworker’s stall. Tyrion was grateful for the respites. The headlong pace had left him puffing, and his wrists were chafed raw from the manacles.
    From the far end of the Long Bridge, it was only a short walk through the teeming waterfront districts of the west bank, down torchlit streets crowded with sailors, slaves, and drunken merrymakers. Once an elephant lumbered past with a dozen half-naked slave girls waving from the castle on its back, teasing passersby with glimpses of their breasts and crying, “Malaquo, Malaquo.” They made such an entrancing sight that Tyrion almost waddled right into the steaming pile of dung the elephant had left to mark its passage. He was saved at the last instant when the knight snatched him aside, yanking on his chain so hard it made him reel and stumble.
    “How much farther?” the dwarf asked. “Just there. Fishmonger’s Square.”
    Their destination proved to be the Merchant’s House, a four-story monstrosity that squatted amongst the warehouses, brothels, and taverns of the waterside like some enormous fat man surrounded by children. Its common room was larger than the great halls of half the castles in Westeros, a dim-lit maze of a place with a hundred private alcoves and hidden nooks whose blackened beams and cracked ceilings echoed to the din of sailors, traders, captains, money changers, shippers, and slavers, lying, cursing, and cheating each other in half a hundred different tongues.
    Tyrion approved the choice of hostelry. Soon or late the Shy Maid must reach Volantis. This was the city’s biggest inn, first choice for shippers, captains, and merchantmen. A lot of business was done in that cavernous warren of a common room. He knew enough of Volantis to know that. Let Griff turn up here with Duck and Haldon, and he would be free again soon enough.
    Meanwhile, he would be patient. His chance would come.
    The rooms upstairs proved rather less than grand, however, particularly the cheap ones up on the fourth floor. Wedged into a corner of the building beneath a sloping roof, the bedchamber his captor had engaged featured a low ceiling, a sagging feather bed with an unpleasant odor, and a slanting wood-plank floor that reminded Tyrion of his sojourn at the Eyrie. At least this room has walls. It had windows too; those were its chief amenity, along with the iron ring set in the wall, so useful for chaining up one’s slaves. His captor paused only long enough to light a tallow candle before securing Tyrion’s chains to the ring.
    “Must you?” the dwarf protested, rattling feebly. “Where am I going to go, out the window?”
    “You might.”
    “We are four floors up, and I cannot fly.”
    “You can fall. I want you alive.”
    Aye, but why? Cersei is not like to care. Tyrion rattled his chains. “I know who you are, ser.” It had not been hard to puzzle out. The bear on his surcoat, the arms on his shield, the lost lordship he had mentioned. “I know what you are. And if you know who I am, you also know that I was the King’s Hand and sat in council with the Spider. Would it interest you to know that it was the eunuch who dispatched me on this journey?” Him and Jaime, but I’ll leave my brother out of it. “I am as much his creature as you are. We ought not be at odds.”
    That did not please the knight. “I took the Spider’s coin, I’ll not deny it, but I was never his creature. And my loyalties lie elsewhere now.”
    “With Cersei? More fool you. All my sister requires is my head, and you have a fine sharp sword. Why not end this farce now and spare us both?”
    The knight laughed. “Is this some dwarf’s trick? Beg for death in hopes I’ll let you live?” He went to the door. “I’ll bring you