A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

though he was the first man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa’s own oh-so-honorable father had given her a bastard brother. For all he knew, his wife might be thrilled to learn that he was fucking Shae, so long as it spared her his unwelcome touch.
    No, I dare not
. Vows or no, his wife could not be trusted. She might be maiden between the legs, but she was hardly innocent of betrayal; she had once spilled her own father’s plans to Cersei. And girls her age were not known for keeping secrets.
    The only safe course was to rid himself of Shae.
I might send her to Chataya
, Tyrion reflected, reluctantly. In Chataya’s brothel, Shae would have all the silks and gems she could wish for, and the gentlest highborn patrons. It would be a better life by far than the one she had been living when he’d found her.
    Or, if she was tired of earning her bread on her back, he might arrange a marriage for her.
Bronn, perhaps?
The sellsword had never balked at eating off his master’s plate, and he was a knight now, a better match than she could elsewise hope for.
Or Ser Tallad?
Tyrion had noticed that one gazing wistfully at Shae more than once.
Why not? He’s tall, strong, not hard to look upon, every inch the gifted young knight
. Of course, Tallad knew Shae only as a pretty young lady’s maid in service at the castle.
If he wed her and then learned she was a whore
. . .
    â€œM’lord, where are you? Did the dragons eat you up?”
    â€œNo. Here.” He groped at a dragon skull. “I have found a shoe, but I believe it’s yours.”
    â€œM’lord sounds very solemn. Have I displeased you?”
    â€œNo,” he said, too curtly. “You always please me.”
And therein is our danger
. He might dream of sending her away at times like this, but that never lasted long. Tyrion saw her dimly through the gloom, pulling a woolen sock up a slender leg.
I can see
. A vague light was leaking through the row of long narrow windows set high in the cellar wall. The skulls of the Targaryen dragons were emerging from the darkness around them, black amidst grey. “Day comes too soon.” A new day. A new year. A new century.
I survived the Green Fork and the Blackwater, I can bloody well survive King Joffrey’s wedding
.
    Shae snatched her dress down off the dragon’s tooth and slipped it over her head. “I’ll go up first. Brella will want help with the bathwater.” She bent over to give him one last kiss, upon the brow. “My giant of Lannister. I love you so.”
    And I love you as well, sweetling
. A whore she might well be, but she deserved better than what he had to give her.
I will wed her to Ser Tallad. He seems a decent man. And tall
. . .

SANSA
    T
hat was such a sweet dream
, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe.
If only dreaming could make it so
. . .
    She threw back the coverlets.
I must be brave
. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other.
If Lady was here, I would not be afraid
. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane.
All of them are dead but me
. She was alone in the world now.
    Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. Usually she found him in the solar, hunched beside a candle, lost in some old scroll or leatherbound book. Sometimes the smell of the morning bread from the ovens took him to the kitchens, and sometimes he would climb up to the roof garden or wander all alone down Traitor’s Walk.
    She threw back the shutters and shivered as gooseprickles rose along her arms. There were clouds massing in the eastern sky, pierced by shafts of sunlight.
They look like two huge castles afloat in the morning sky
. Sansa could see their walls of tumbled stone, their mighty keeps and barbicans. Wispy banners swirled from atop their towers and reached for the fast-fading stars. The sun was coming up behind them, and she watched them go from black to grey to a thousand shades of rose and gold and crimson. Soon the wind mushed them together, and there was only one castle where there had been two.
    She heard the door open as her maids brought the hot water for her bath. They were both new to her service; Tyrion said the women who’d tended to her previously had all