A Dance With Dragons

Imp.”
    Tyrion hopped down from the stool. “My previous brother was entirely unsatisfactory. I hope for more from my new ones. Now how do I go about securing arms and armor?”
    “Will you want a pig to ride as well?” asked Kasporio. “Why, I did not know your wife was in the company,” said Tyrion. “That’s kind of you to offer her, but I would prefer a horse.”
    The bravo reddened, but Inkpots laughed aloud and Brown Ben went so far as to chuckle. “Inkpots, show him to the wagons. He can have his pick from the company steel. The girl too. Put a helm on her, a bit o’ mail, might be some will take her for a boy.”
    “Lord Tyrion, with me.” Inkpots held the tent flap to let him waddle through. “I will have Snatch take you to the wagons. Get your woman and meet him by the cook tent.”
    “She is not my woman. Perhaps you should get her. All she does of late is sleep and glare at me.”
    “You need to beat her harder and fuck her more often,” the paymaster offered helpfully. “Bring her, leave her, do what you will. Snatch will not care. Come find me when you have your armor, and I will start you on the ledgers.”
    “As you wish.”
    Tyrion found Penny asleep in a corner of their tent, curled up on a thin straw pallet beneath a heap of soiled bedclothes. When he touched her with the toe of his boot, she rolled over, blinked at him, and yawned. “Hugor? What is it?”
    “Talking again, are we?” It was better than her usual sullen silence. All over an abandoned dog and pig. I saved the two of us from slavery, you would think some gratitude might be in order. “If you sleep any longer, you’re like to miss the war.”
    “I’m sad.” She yawned again. “And tired. So tired.”
    Tired or sick? Tyrion knelt beside her pallet. “You look pale.” He felt her brow. Is it hot in here, or does she have a touch of fever? He dared not ask that question aloud. Even hard men like the Second Sons were terrified of mounting the pale mare. If they thought Penny was sick, they would drive her off without a moment’s hesitation. They might even return us to Yezzan’s heirs, notes or no notes . “I have signed their book. The old way, in blood. I am now a Second Son.”
    Penny sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What about me? Can I sign too?”
    “I think not. Some free companies have been known to take women, but … well, they are not Second Daughters, after all.”
    “ We ,” she said. “If you’re one of them, you should say we , not they . Has anyone seen Pretty Pig? Inkpots said he’d ask after her. Or Crunch, has there been word of Crunch?”
    Only if you trust Kasporio . Plumm’s not-so-cunning second-in-command claimed that three Yunkish slave-catchers were prowling through the camps, asking after a pair of escaped dwarfs. One of them was carrying a tall spear with a dog’s head impaled upon its point, the way that Kaspo told it. Such tidings were not like to get Penny out of bed, however. “No word as yet,” he lied. “Come. We need to find some armor for you.”
    She gave him a wary look. “Armor? Why?”
    “Something my old master-at-arms told me. ‘Never go to battle naked, lad,’ he said. I take him at his word. Besides, now that I’m a sellsword, I really ought to have a sword to sell.” She still showed no signs of moving. Tyrion seized her by the wrist, pulled her to her feet, and threw a fistful of clothing into her face. “Dress. Wear the cloak with the hood and keep your head down. We’re supposed to be a pair of likely lads, just in case the slave-catchers are watching.”
    Snatch was waiting by the cook tent chewing sourleaf when the two dwarfs turned up, cloaked and hooded. “I hear the two o’ you are going to fight for us,” the serjeant said. “That should have them pissing in Meereen. Either o’ you ever killed a man?”
    “I have,” said Tyrion. “I swat them down like flies.”
    “What with?”
    “An axe, a dagger, a choice remark. Though I’m deadliest with my crossbow.”
    Snatch scratched at his stubble with the point of his hook. “Nasty thing, a crossbow. How many men you kill with that?”
    “Nine.” His father counted for at least that many, surely. Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, Shield of Lannisport, Hand of the King, husband, brother, father, father, father.
    “Nine.” Snatch snorted and spat out a mouthful of red slime. Aiming for Tyrion’s feet, perhaps, but it landed on his knee. Plainly that was what