A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

dwarf?”
    â€œMy brother Jaime gave me that mare for my twenty-third name day,” Tyrion said in a flat voice.
    â€œThank him for us, then. If you ever see him again.” Chiggen grinned, showing yellow teeth, and swallowed the raw meat in two bites. “Tastes well bred.”
    â€œBetter if you fry it up with onions,” Bronn put in.
    Wordlessly, Tyrion limped away. The cold had settled deep in his bones, and his legs were so sore he could scarcely walk. Perhaps his dead mare was the lucky one.
He
had hours more riding ahead of him, followed by a few mouthfuls of food and a short, cold sleep on hard ground, and then another night of the same, and another, and another, and the gods only knew how it would end. “Damn her,” he muttered as he struggled up the road to rejoin his captors, remembering, “damn her and all the Starks.”
    The memory was still bitter. One moment he’d been ordering supper, and an eye blink later he was facing a room of armed men, with Jyck reaching for a sword and the fat innkeep shrieking, “No swords, not
here
, please, m’lords.”
    Tyrion wrenched down Jyck’s arm hurriedly, before he got them both hacked to pieces. “Where are your courtesies, Jyck? Our good hostess said no swords. Do as she asks.” He forced a smile that must have looked as queasy as it felt. “You’re making a sad mistake, Lady Stark. I had no part in any attack on your son. On my honor—”
    â€œLannister honor,” was all she said. She held up her hands for all the room to see. “His dagger left these scars. The blade he sent to open my son’s throat.”
    Tyrion felt the anger all around him, thick and smoky, fed by the deep cuts in the Stark woman’s hands. “Kill him,” hissed some drunken slattern from the back, and other voices took up the call, faster than he would have believed. Strangers all, friendly enough only a moment ago, and yet now they cried for his blood like hounds on a trail.
    Tyrion spoke up loudly, trying to keep the quaver from his voice. “If Lady Stark believes I have some crime to answer for, I will go with her and answer for it.”
    It was the only possible course. Trying to cut their way out of this was a sure invitation to an early grave. A good dozen swords had responded to the Stark woman’s plea for help: the Harrenhal man, the three Brackens, a pair ofunsavory sellswords who looked as though they’d kill him as soon as spit, and some fool field hands who doubtless had no idea what they were doing. Against that, what did Tyrion have? A dagger at his belt, and two men. Jyck swung a fair enough sword, but Morrec scarcely counted; he was part groom, part cook, part body servant, and no soldier. As for Yoren, whatever his feelings might have been, the black brothers were sworn to take no part in the quarrels of the realm. Yoren would do nothing.
    And indeed, the black brother stepped aside silently when the old knight by Catelyn Stark’s side said, “Take their weapons,” and the sellsword Bronn stepped forward to pull the sword from Jyck’s fingers and relieve them all of their daggers. “Good,” the old man said as the tension in the common room ebbed palpably, “excellent.” Tyrion recognized the gruff voice; Winterfell’s master-at-arms, shorn of his whiskers.
    Scarlet-tinged spittle flew from the fat innkeep’s mouth as she begged of Catelyn Stark, “Don’t kill him here!”
    â€œDon’t kill him anywhere,” Tyrion urged.
    â€œTake him somewheres else, no blood here, m’lady, I wants no high lordlin’s quarrels.”
    â€œWe are taking him back to Winterfell,” she said, and Tyrion thought,
Well, perhaps
 … By then he’d had a moment to glance over the room and get a better idea of the situation. He was not altogether displeased by what he saw. Oh, the Stark woman had been clever, no doubt of it. Force them to make a public affirmation of the oaths sworn her father by the lords they served, and then call on them for succor, and her a woman, yes, that was sweet. Yet her success was not as complete as she might have liked. There were close to fifty in the common room by his rough count. Catelyn Stark’s plea had roused a bare dozen; the others looked confused, or frightened, or sullen. Only two of the Freys had stirred, Tyrion noted, and they’d sat back down quick