A Dance With Dragons

ink again. Another dozen notes, and he would be done. “Perhaps I could supervise your camp followers. We can’t have the men stopped up, now can we?”
    That jape did not please Brown Ben. “Stay away from the whores,” he warned. “Most o’ them are poxy, and they talk. You’re not the first escaped slave to join the company, but that don’t mean we need to shout your presence. I won’t have you parading about where you might be seen. Stay inside as much as you can, and shit into your bucket. Too many eyes at the latrines. And never go beyond our camp without my leave. We can dress you up in squire’s steel, pretend you’re Jorah’s butt boy, but there’s some will see right through that. Once Meereen is taken and we’re away to Westeros, you can prance about all you like in gold and crimson. Till then, though …”
    “… I shall live beneath a rock and never make a sound. You have my word on that.” Tyrion of House Lannister , he signed once more, with a flourish. That was the last parchment. Three notes remained, different from the rest. Two were written on fine vellum and made out by name. For Kasporio the Cunning, ten thousand dragons. The same for Inkpots, whose true name appeared to be Tybero Istarion. “ Tybero? ” said Tyrion. “That sounds almost Lannister. Are you some long-lost cousin?”
    “Perhaps. I always pay my debts as well. It is expected of a paymaster. Sign.”
    He signed.
    Brown Ben’s note was the last. That one had been inscribed upon a sheepskin scroll. One hundred thousand golden dragons, fifty hides of fertile land, a castle, and a lordship. Well and well. This Plumm does not come cheaply. Tyrion plucked at his scar and wondered if he ought to make a show of indignation. When you bugger a man you expect a squeal or two. He could curse and swear and rant of robbery, refuse to sign for a time, then give in reluctantly, protesting all the while. But he was sick of mummery, so instead he grimaced, signed, and handed the scroll back to Brown Ben. “Your cock is as big as in the stories,” he said. “Consider me well and truly fucked, Lord Plumm.”
    Brown Ben blew on his signature. “My pleasure, Imp. And now, we make you one o’ us. Inkpots, fetch the book.”
    The book was leather-bound with iron hinges, and large enough to eat your supper off. Inside its heavy wooden boards were names and dates going back more than a century. “The Second Sons are amongst the oldest of the free companies,” Inkpots said as he was turning pages. “This is the fourth book. The names of every man to serve with us are written here. When they joined, where they fought, how long they served, the manner of their deaths—all in the book. You will find famous names in here, some from your Seven Kingdoms. Aegor Rivers served a year with us, before he left to found the Golden Company. Bittersteel, you call him. The Bright Prince, Aerion Targaryen, he was a Second Son. And Rodrik Stark, the Wandering Wolf, him as well. No, not that ink. Here, use this.” He unstoppered a new pot and set it down.
    Tyrion cocked his head. “Red ink?”
    “A tradition of the company,” Inkpots explained. “There was a time when each new man wrote his name in his own blood, but as it happens, blood makes piss-poor ink.”
    “Lannisters love tradition. Lend me your knife.”
    Inkpots raised an eyebrow, shrugged, slipped his dagger from its sheath, and handed it across hiltfirst. It still hurts, Halfmaester, thank you very much , thought Tyrion, as he pricked the ball of his thumb. He squeezed a fat drop of blood into the inkpot, traded the dagger for a fresh quill, and scrawled, Tyrion of House Lannister, Lord of Casterly
    Rock, in a big bold hand, just below Jorah Mormont’s far more modest signature.
    And it’s done . The dwarf rocked back on the camp stool. “Is that all that you require of me? Don’t I need to swear an oath? Kill a baby? Suck the captain’s cock?”
    “Suck whatever you like.” Inkpots turned the book around and dusted the page with a bit of fine sand. “For most of us, the signature suffices, but I would hate to disappoint a new brother-in-arms. Welcome to the Second Sons, Lord Tyrion.”
    Lord Tyrion . The dwarf liked the sound of that. The Second Sons might not enjoy the shining reputation of the Golden Company, but they had won some famous victories over the centuries. “Have other lords served with the company?”
    “Landless lords,” said Brown Ben. “Like you,