A Feast for Dragons

drawn by their
voices—a skinny stubble-jawed piece of work with teeth stained red from
sourleaf.
A serjeant
, Tyrion knew, from the way the other two
deferred to him. He had a hook where his right hand should have been.
Bronn’s
meaner bastard shadow, or I’m Baelor the Beloved
. “These are the
dwarfs Ben tried to buy,” the serjeant told the spearmen, squinting, “but the
big one … best bring him too. All three.”
    The Tyroshi gestured with his spear. Tyrion moved along. The
other sellsword—a stripling, hardly more than a boy, with fuzz on his cheeks
and hair the color of dirty straw—scooped up Penny under one arm. “Ooh, mine
has teats,” he said, laughing. He slipped a hand under Penny’s tunic, just to
be sure.
    “Just bring her,” snapped the serjeant.
    The stripling slung Penny over one shoulder. Tyrion went
ahead as quick as his stunted legs would allow. He knew where they were going:
the big tent on the far side of the fire pit, its painted canvas walls cracked
and faded by years of sun and rain. A few sellswords turned to watch them pass,
and a camp follower sniggered, but no one moved to interfere.
    Within the tent, they found camp stools and a trestle table,
a rack of spears and halberds, a floor covered with threadbare carpets in half
a dozen clashing colors, and three officers. One was slim and elegant, with a
pointed beard, a bravo’s blade, and a slashed pink doublet. One was plump and
balding, with ink stains on his fingers and a quill clutched in one hand.
    The third was the man he sought. Tyrion bowed. “Captain.”
    “We caught them creeping into camp.” The stripling dumped
Penny onto the carpet.
    “Runaways,” the Tyroshi declared. “With pails.”
    “Pails?” said Brown Ben Plumm. When no one ventured to
explain, he said, “Back to your posts, boys. And not a word o’ this, to
anyone.” When they were gone, he smiled at Tyrion. “Come for another game of
cyvasse
,
Yollo?”
    “If you wish. I do enjoy defeating you. I hear you’re twice
a turncloak, Plumm. A man after mine own heart.”
    Brown Ben’s smile never reached his eyes. He studied Tyrion
as a man might study a talking snake. “Why are you here?”
    “To make your dreams come true. You tried to buy us at
auction. Then you tried to win us at
cyvasse
. Even when I had
my nose, I was not so handsome as to provoke such passion … save in
one who happened to know my true worth. Well, here I am, free for the taking.
Now be a friend, send for your smith, and get these collars off us. I’m sick of
tinkling when I tinkle.”
    “I want no trouble with your noble master.”
    “Yezzan has more urgent matters to concern him than three
missing slaves. He’s riding the pale mare. And why should they think to look
for us here? You have swords enough to discourage anyone who comes nosing
round. A small risk for a great gain.”
    The jackanapes in the slashed pink doublet hissed. “They’ve
brought the sickness amongst us. Into our very tents.” He turned to Ben Plumm.
“Shall I cut his head off, Captain? We can toss the rest in a latrine pit.” He
drew a sword, a slender bravo’s blade with a jeweled hilt.
    “Do be careful with my head,” said Tyrion. “You don’t want
to get any of my blood on you. Blood carries the disease. And you’ll want to
boil our clothes, or burn them.”
    “I’ve a mind to burn them with you still in them, Yollo.”
    “That is not my name. But you know that. You have known that
since you first set eyes on me.”
    “Might be.”
    “I know you as well, my lord,” said Tyrion. “You’re less
purple and more brown than the Plumms at home, but unless your name’s a lie, you’re
a westerman, by blood if not by birth. House Plumm is sworn to Casterly Rock,
and as it happens I know a bit of its history. Your branch sprouted from a
stone spit across the narrow sea, no doubt. A younger son of Viserys Plumm, I’d
wager. The queen’s dragons were fond of you, were they not?”
    That seemed to amuse the sellsword. “Who told you that?”
    “No one. Most of the stories you hear about dragons are
fodder for fools. Talking dragons, dragons hoarding gold and gems, dragons with
four legs and bellies big as elephants, dragons riddling with
sphinxes … nonsense, all of it. But there are truths in the old books
as well. Not only do I know that the queen’s dragons took to you, but I know
why.”
    “My mother said my father had a drop of dragon blood.”
    “Two drops. That,