A Dance With Dragons

wine and vomit. “No-Nose will stay up here.” If the gods wanted him, he would sooner die by drowning than choking on his own vomit. And overhead the cog’s canvas sail rippled slowly, like the fur of some great beast stirring from a long sleep, then filled with a sudden crack that turned every head on the ship.
    The winds drove the cog before them, far off her chosen course. Behind them black clouds piled one atop another against a blood-red sky. By midmorning they could see lightning flickering to the west, followed by the distant crash of thunder. The sea grew rougher, and dark waves rose up to smash against the hull of the Stinky Steward. It was about then that the crew started hauling down the canvas. Tyrion was underfoot amid-ships, so he climbed the forecastle and hunkered down, savoring the lash of cold rain on his cheeks. The cog went up and down, bucking more wildly than any horse he’d ever ridden, lifting with each wave before sliding down into the troughs between, jarring him to the bones. Even so, it was better here where he could see than down below locked in some airless cabin.
    By the time the storm broke, evening was upon them and Tyrion Lannister was soaked through to the smallclothes, yet somehow he felt elated … and even more so later, when he found a drunken Jorah Mor-mont in a pool of vomit in their cabin.
    The dwarf lingered in the galley after supper, celebrating his survival by sharing a few tots of black tar rum with the ship’s cook, a great greasy loutish Volantene who spoke only one word of the Common Tongue ( fuck ), but played a ferocious game of cyvasse, particularly when drunk. They played three games that night. Tyrion won the first, then lost the other two. After that he decided that he’d had enough and stumbled back up on deck to clear his head of rum and elephants alike.
    He found Penny on the forecastle, where he had so often found Ser Jorah, standing by the rail beside the cog’s hideous half-rotted figurehead and gazing out across the inky sea. From behind, she looked as small and vulnerable as a child.
    Tyrion thought it best to leave her undisturbed, but it was too late. She had heard him. “Hugor Hill.”
    “If you like.” We both know better. “I am sorry to intrude on you. I will retire.”
    “No.” Her face was pale and sad, but she did not look to have been crying. “I’m sorry too. About the wine. It wasn’t you who killed my brother or that poor old man in Tyrosh.”
    “I played a part, though not by choice.”
    “I miss him so much. My brother. I …”
    “I understand.” He found himself thinking of Jaime. Count yourself lucky. Your brother died before he could betray you.
    “I thought I wanted to die,” she said, “but today when the storm came and I thought the ship would sink, I … I …”
    “You realized that you wanted to live after all.” I have been there too. Something else we have in common.
    Her teeth were crooked, which made her shy with her smiles, but she smiled now. “Did you truly cook a singer in a stew?”
    “Who, me? No. I do not cook.”
    When Penny giggled, she sounded like the sweet young girl she was … seventeen, eighteen, no more than nineteen. “What did he do, this singer?”
    “He wrote a song about me.” For she was his secret treasure, she was his shame and his bliss. And a chain and a keep are nothing, compared to a woman’s kiss. It was queer how quick the words came back to him. Perhaps they had never left him. Hands of gold are always cold, but a woman’s hands are warm.
    “It must have been a very bad song.”
    “Not really. It was no ‘Rains of Castamere,’ mind you, but some parts were … well …”
    “How did it go?”
    He laughed. “No. You do not want to hear me sing.”
    “My mother used to sing to us when we were children. My brother and me. She always said that it didn’t matter what your voice was like so long as you loved the song.”
    “Was she … ?”
    “… a little person? No, but our father was. His own father sold him to a slaver when he was three, but he grew up to be such a famous mummer that he bought his freedom. He traveled to all the Free Cities, and Westeros as well. In Oldtown they used to call him Hop-Bean.”
    Of course they did. Tyrion tried not to wince. “He’s dead now,” Penny went on. “My mother too. Oppo … he was my last family, and now he’s gone too.” She turned her head away and gazed out across the sea. “What will I do? Where will