A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

dying. I wish he would be quicker about it.”
    Tyrion glanced down and saw the Hound standing with young Joffrey as squires swarmed around them. “At least he dies quietly,” the prince replied. “It’s the wolf that makes the noise. I could scarce sleep last night.”
    Clegane cast a long shadow across the hard-packed earth as his squire lowered the black helm over his head. “I could silence the creature, if it please you,” he said through his open visor. His boy placed a longsword in his hand. He tested the weight of it, slicing at the cold morning air. Behind him, the yard rang to the clangor of steel on steel.
    The notion seemed to delight the prince. “Send a dog to kill a dog!” he exclaimed. “Winterfell is so infested with wolves, the Starks would never miss one.”
    Tyrion hopped off the last step onto the yard. “I beg to differ, nephew,” he said. “The Starks can count past six. Unlike some princes I might name.”
    Joffrey had the grace at least to blush.
    â€œA voice from nowhere,” Sandor said. He peered through his helm, looking this way and that. “Spirits of the air!”
    The prince laughed, as he always laughed when his bodyguard did this mummer’s farce. Tyrion was used to it. “Down here.”
    The tall man peered down at the ground, and pretendedto notice him. “The little lord Tyrion,” he said. “My pardons. I did not see you standing there.”
    â€œI am in no mood for your insolence today.” Tyrion turned to his nephew. “Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them your comfort.”
    Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my comfort do them?”
    â€œNone,” Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been noted.”
    â€œThe Stark boy is nothing to me,” Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing of women.”
    Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face. The boy’s cheek began to redden.
    â€œOne word,” Tyrion said, “and I will hit you again.”
    â€œI’m going to tell Mother!” Joffrey exclaimed.
    Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks flamed.
    â€œYou tell your mother,” Tyrion told him. “But first you get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall to your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with them. Do you understand?
Do you?”
    The boy looked as though he was going to cry. Instead, he managed a weak nod. Then he turned and fled headlong from the yard, holding his cheek. Tyrion watched him run.
    A shadow fell across his face. He turned to find Clegane looming overhead like a cliff. His soot-dark armor seemed to blot out the sun. He had lowered the visor on his helm. It was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling black hound, fearsome to behold, but Tyrion had always thought it a great improvement over Clegane’s hideously burned face.
    â€œThe prince will remember that, little lord,” the Hound warned him. The helm turned his laugh into a hollow rumble.
    â€œI pray he does,” Tyrion Lannister replied. “If he forgets, be a good dog and remind him.” He glanced around the courtyard. “Do you know where I might find my brother?”
    â€œBreaking fast with the queen.”
    â€œAh,” Tyrion said. He gave Sandor Clegane a perfunctorynod and walked away as briskly as his stunted legs would carry him, whistling. He pitied the first knight to try the Hound today. The man did have a temper.
    A cold, cheerless meal had been laid out in the morning room of the Guest House. Jaime sat at table with Cersei and the children, talking in low, hushed voices.
    â€œIs Robert still abed?” Tyrion asked as he seated himself, uninvited, at the table.
    His sister peered at him with the same expression of faint distaste she had worn since the day he was born. “The king has not slept at all,” she told him. “He is with Lord Eddard. He has taken their sorrow deeply to heart.”
    â€œHe has a large heart, our Robert,” Jaime said with a lazy smile. There was very little that Jaime took seriously. Tyrion knew that about his brother, and forgave it. During all the terrible long