A Feast for Dragons

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 he thought of “nine.” The serjeant’s fingers were stained a mottled red
from the juice of the sourleaf he chewed. He put two of them into his mouth and
whistled. “
Kem!
Get over here, you fucking pisspot.” Kem came
running. “Take Lord and Lady Imp to the wagons, have Hammer fix them up with
some company steel.”
    “Hammer might be passed-out drunk,” Kem cautioned.
    “Piss in his face. That’ll wake him up.” Snatch turned back
to Tyrion and Penny. “We never had no bloody dwarfs before, but boys we never
lacked for. Sons o’ this whore or that one, little fools run off from home to
have adventures, butt boys, squires, and the like. Some o’ their shit might be
small enough to fit imps. It’s the shit they were wearing when they died, like
as not, but I know that won’t bother fuckers fierce as you two. Nine, was it?”
He shook his head and walked away.
    The Second Sons kept their company armor in six big wayns
drawn up near the center of their camp. Kem led the way, swinging his spear as
if it were a staff. “How does a King’s Landing lad end up with a free company?”
Tyrion asked him.
    The lad gave him a wary squint. “Who told you I was from
King’s Landing?”
    “No one.”
Every word out of your mouth reeks of Flea
Bottom
. “Your wits gave you away. There’s no one clever as a
Kingslander, they say.”
    That seemed to startle him. “Who says that?”
    “Everyone.”
Me
.
    “Since when?”
    Since I just made it up
. “For ages,” he
lied. “My father was wont to say it. Did you know Lord Tywin, Kem?”
    “The Hand. Once I saw him riding up the hill. His men had
red cloaks and little lions on their helms. I liked those helms.” His mouth
tightened. “I never liked the Hand, though. He sacked the city. And then he
smashed us on the Blackwater.”
    “You were there?”
    “With Stannis. Lord Tywin come up with Renly’s ghost and
took us in the flank. I dropped my spear and ran, but at the ships this bloody
knight said, ‘Where’s your spear, boy? We got no room for cravens,’ and they
buggered off and left me, and thousands more besides. Later I heard how your
father was sending them as fought with Stannis to the Wall, so I made my way
across the narrow sea and joined up with the Second Sons.”
    “Do you miss King’s Landing?”
    “Some. I miss this boy, he … he was a friend of
mine. And my brother, Kennet, but he died on the bridge of ships.”
    “Too many good men died that day.” Tyrion’s scar was itching
fiercely. He picked at it with a fingernail.
    “I miss the food too,” Kem said wistfully.
    “Your mother’s cooking?”
    “Rats wouldn’t eat my mother’s cooking. There was this pot shop,
though. No one ever made a bowl o’ brown like them. So thick you could stand
your spoon up in the bowl, with chunks of this and that. You ever have yourself
a bowl o’ brown, Halfman?”
    “A time or two. Singer’s stew, I call it.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “It tastes so good it makes me want to sing.”
    Kem liked that. “Singer’s stew. I’ll ask for that next time
I get back to Flea Bottom. What do you miss, Halfman?”
    Jaime
, thought Tyrion.
Shae. Tysha.
My wife, I miss my wife, the wife I hardly knew
. “Wine, whores, and wealth,”
he answered. “Especially the wealth. Wealth will buy you wine and whores.”
It
will also buy you swords, and the Kems to wield them
.
    “Is it true the chamber pots in Casterly Rock are made of
solid gold?” Kem asked him.
    “You should not believe everything