A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

dwarf?
    And yet . . . where would Sansa have gotten poison? He could not believe the girl had acted alone in this.
Do I really want to find her?
Would the judges believe that Tyrion’s child bride had poisoned a king without her husband’s knowledge?
I wouldn’t
. Cersei would insist that they had done the deed together.
    Even so, he gave the parchment to his uncle the next day. Ser Kevan frowned at it. “Lady Sansa is your only witness?”
    â€œI will think of others in time.”
    â€œBest think of them now. The judges mean to begin the trial three days hence.”
    â€œThat’s too soon. You have me shut up here under guard, how am I to find witnesses to my innocence?”
    â€œYour sister’s had no difficulty finding witnesses to your guilt.” Ser Kevan rolled up the parchment. “Ser Addam has men hunting for your wife. Varys has offered a hundred stags for word of her whereabouts, and a hundred dragons for the girl herself. If the girl can be found she will be found, and I shall bring her to you. I see no harm in husband and wife sharing the same cell and giving comfort to one another.”
    â€œYou are too kind. Have you seen my squire?”
    â€œI sent him to you yesterday. Did he not come?”
    â€œHe came,” Tyrion admitted, “and then he went.”
    â€œI shall send him to you again.”
    But it was the next morning before Podrick Payne returned. He stepped inside the room hesitantly, with fear written all over his face. Bronn came in behind him. The sellsword knight wore a jerkin studded with silver and a heavy riding cloak, with a pair of fine-tooled leather gloves thrust through his swordbelt.
    One look at Bronn’s face gave Tyrion a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “It took you long enough.”
    â€œThe boy begged, or I wouldn’t have come at all. I am expected at Castle Stokeworth for supper.”
    â€œStokeworth?” Tyrion hopped from the bed. “And pray, what is there for you in Stokeworth?”
    â€œA bride.” Bronn smiled like a wolf contemplating a lost lamb. “I’m to wed Lollys the day after next.”
    â€œLollys.”
Perfect, bloody perfect
. Lady Tanda’s lackwit daughter gets a knightly husband and a father of sorts for the bastard in her belly, and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater climbs another rung. It had Cersei’s stinking fingers all over it. “My bitch sister has sold you a lame horse. The girl’s dim-witted.”
    â€œIf I wanted wits, I’d marry you.”
    â€œLollys is big with another man’s child.”
    â€œAnd when she pops him out, I’ll get her big with mine.”
    â€œShe’s not even heir to Stokeworth,” Tyrion pointed out. “She has an elder sister. Falyse. A
married
sister.”
    â€œMarried ten years, and still barren,” said Bronn. “Her lord husband shuns her bed. It’s said he prefers virgins.”
    â€œHe could prefer goats and it wouldn’t matter. The lands will still pass to his wife when Lady Tanda dies.”
    â€œUnless Falyse should die before her mother.”
    Tyrion wondered whether Cersei had any notion of the sort of serpent she’d given Lady Tanda to suckle.
And if she does, would she care?
“Why are you here, then?”
    Bronn shrugged. “You once told me that if anyone ever asked me to sell you out, you’d double the price.”
    Yes
. “Is it two wives you want, or two castles?”
    â€œOne of each would serve. But if you want me to kill Gregor Clegane for you, it had best be a damned
big
castle.”
    The Seven Kingdoms were full of highborn maidens, but even the oldest, poorest, and ugliest spinster in the realm would balk at wedding such lowborn scum as Bronn.
Unless she was soft of body and soft of head, with a fatherless child in her belly from having been raped half a hundred times
. Lady Tanda had been so desperate to find a husband for Lollys that she had even pursued Tyrion for a time, and that had been
before
half of King’s Landing enjoyed her. No doubt Cersei had sweetened the offer somehow, and Bronn
was
a knight now, which made him a suitable match for a younger daughter of a minor house.
    â€œI find myself woefully short of both castles and highborn maidens at the moment,” Tyrion admitted. “But I can offer you gold and gratitude, as before.”
    â€œI have gold. What can I buy with