A Dance With Dragons

who might still live if Mad Aerys only had two fellow kings to share the rule.”
    Instead he had my father, Tyrion thought. “Some in the Free Cities think that we’re all savages on our side of the narrow sea,” the knight went on. “The ones who don’t think that we’re children, crying out for a father’s strong hand.”
    “Or a mother’s?” Cersei will love that. Especially when he presents her with my head. “You seem to know this city well.”
    “I spent the best part of a year here.” The knight sloshed the dregs at the bottom of his tankard. “When Stark drove me into exile, I fled to Lys with my second wife. Braavos would have suited me better, but Lynesse wanted someplace warm. Instead of serving the Braavosi I fought them on the Rhoyne, but for every silver I earned my wife spent ten. By the time I got back to Lys, she had taken a lover, who told me cheerfully that I would be enslaved for debt unless I gave her up and left the city. That was how I came to Volantis … one step ahead of slavery, owning nothing but my sword and the clothes upon my back.”
    “And now you want to run home.”
    The knight drained the last of his ale. “On the morrow I’ll find us a ship. The bed is mine. You can have whatever piece of floor your chains will let you reach. Sleep if you can. If not, count your crimes. That should see you through till the morning.”
    You have your crimes to answer for, Jorah Mormont, the dwarf thought, but it seemed wiser to keep that thought to himself.
    Ser Jorah hung his sword belt on a bedpost, kicked off his boots, pulled his chain mail over his head, and stripped out of his wool and leather and sweat-stained undertunic to reveal a scarred, brawny torso covered with dark hair. If I could skin him, I could sell that pelt for a fur cloak, Tyrion thought as Mormont tumbled into the slightly smelly comfort of his sagging feather bed.
    In no time at all the knight was snoring, leaving his prize alone with his chains. With both windows open wide, the light of the waning moon spilled across the bedchamber. Sounds drifted up from the square below: snatches of drunken song, the yowling of a cat in heat, the far-off ring of steel on steel. Someone’s about to die, thought Tyrion.
    His wrist was throbbing where he’d torn the skin, and his fetters made it impossible for him to sit, let alone stretch out. The best he could do was twist sideways to lean against the wall, and before long he began to lose all feeling in his hands. When he moved to relieve the strain, sensation came flooding back as pain. He had to grind his teeth to keep from screaming. He wondered how much his father had hurt when the quarrel punched through his groin, what Shae had felt as he twisted the chain around her lying throat, what Tysha had been feeling as they raped her. His sufferings were nothing compared to their own, but that did not make him hurt any less. Just make it stop.
    Ser Jorah had rolled onto one side, so all that Tyrion could see of him was a broad, hairy, muscular back. Even if I could slip these chains, I’d need to climb over him to reach his sword belt. Perhaps if I could ease the dagger loose … Or else he could try for the key, unlock the door, creep down the stairs and through the common room … and go where? I have no friends, no coin, I do not even speak the local tongue.
    Exhaustion finally overwhelmed his pains, and Tyrion drifted off into a fitful sleep. But every time another cramp took root inside his calf and twisted, the dwarf would cry out in his sleep, trembling in his chains. He woke with every muscle aching, to find morning streaming through the windows bright and golden as the lion of Lannister. Below he could hear the cries of fishmongers and the rumble of iron-rimmed wheels on cobblestones.
    Jorah Mormont was standing over him. “If I take you off the ring, will you do as you’re told?”
    “Will it involve dancing? I might find dancing difficult. I cannot feel my legs. They may have fallen off. Elsewise, I am your creature. On my honor as a Lannister.”
    “The Lannisters have no honor.” Ser Jorah loosed his chains anyway. Tyrion took two wobbly steps and fell. The blood rushing back into his hands brought tears to his eyes. He bit his lip and said, “Wherever we’re going, you will need to roll me there.”
    Instead the big knight carried him, hoisting him by the chain between his wrists.
    The common room of the Merchant’s House was a dim labyrinth of