A Dance With Dragons

for the ones at the bottom, but we’ll get to those in due course.”
    Oh, I am sure we will. For most men, there was no cost to joining a company, but he was not most men. He dipped the quill into the inkpot, leaned over the first parchment, paused, looked up. “Would you prefer me to sign Yollo or Hugor Hill ?”
    Brown Ben crinkled up his eyes. “Would you prefer to be returned to Yezzan’s heirs or just beheaded?”
    The dwarf laughed and signed the parchment, Tyrion of House Lannister. As he passed it left to Inkpots, he riffled through the pile underneath. “There are … what, fifty? Sixty? I’d thought there were five hundred Second Sons.”
    “Five hundred thirteen at present,” Inkpots said. “When you sign our book, we will be five hundred fourteen.”
    “So only one in ten receives a note? That hardly seems fair. I thought you were all share-and-share-alike in the free companies.” He signed another sheet.
    Brown Ben chuckled. “Oh, all share. But not alike. The Second Sons are not unlike a family …”
    “… and every family has its drooling cousins.” Tyrion signed another note. The parchment crinkled crisply as he slid it toward the paymaster. “There are cells down in the bowels of Casterly Rock where my lord father kept the worst of ours.” He dipped his quill in the inkpot. Tyrion of House Lannister , he scratched out, promising to pay the bearer of the note one hundred golden dragons. Every stroke of the quill leaves me a little poorer … or would, if I were not a beggar to begin with. One day he might rue these signatures. But not this day. He blew on the wet ink, slid the parchment to the paymaster, and signed the one beneath. And again. And again. And again. “This wounds me deeply, I will have you know,” he told them between signatures. “In Westeros, the word of a Lannister is considered good as gold.”
    Inkpots shrugged. “This is not Westeros. On this side of the narrow sea, we put our promises on paper.” As each sheet was passed to him, he scattered fine sand across the signature to drink up excess ink, shook it off, and set the note aside. “Debts written on the wind tend to be … forgotten, shall we say?”
    “Not by us.” Tyrion signed another sheet. And another. He had found a rhythm now. “A Lannister always pays his debts.”
    Plumm chuckled. “Aye, but a sellsword’s word is worthless.”
    Well, yours is , thought Tyrion, and thank the gods for that. “True, but I will not be a sellsword until I’ve signed your book.”
    “Soon enough,” said Brown Ben. “After the notes.”
    “I am dancing as fast as I can.” He wanted to laugh, but that would have ruined the game. Plumm was enjoying this, and Tyrion had no intention of spoiling his fun. Let him go on thinking that he’s bent me over and fucked me up the arse, and I’ll go on buying steel swords with parchment dragons. If ever he went back to Westeros to claim his birthright, he would have all the gold of Casterly Rock to make good on his promises. If not, well, he’d be dead, and his new brothers could wipe their arses with these parchments. Perhaps some might turn up in King’s Landing with their scraps in hand, hoping to convince his sweet sister to make good on them. And would that I could be a roach in the rushes to witness that.
    The writing on the parchments changed about halfway down the pile. The hundred-dragon notes were all for serjeants. Below them the amounts suddenly grew larger. Now Tyrion was promising to pay the bearer one thousand golden dragons. He shook his head, laughed, signed. And again. And again. “So,” he said as he was scrawling, “what will be my duties with the company?”
    “You are too ugly to be Bokkoko’s butt boy,” said Kasporio, “but you might do as arrow fodder.”
    “Better than you know,” said Tyrion, refusing to rise to the bait. “A small man with a big shield will drive the archers mad. A wiser man than you once told me that.”
    “You will work with Inkpots,” said Brown Ben Plumm. “You will work for Inkpots,” said Inkpots. “Keeping books, counting coin, writing contracts and letters.”
    “Gladly,” said Tyrion. “I love books.”
    “What else would you do?” sneered Kasporio. “Look at you. You are not fit to fight.”
    “I once had charge of all the drains in Casterly Rock,” Tyrion said mildly. “Some of them had been stopped up for years, but I soon had them draining merrily away.” He dipped the quill in the