A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Renly’s name. Meanwhile, Tyrion’s winch towers stood three-quarters
complete. Even now men were hoisting heavy blocks of stone into place, no doubt
cursing him for making them work through the festivities. Let them curse.
Another fortnight, Stannis, that’s all I require. Another fortnight and it
will be done.
    Tyrion watched his niece kneel before the High Septon to receive his blessing
on her voyage. Sunlight caught in his crystal crown and spilled rainbows across
Myrcella’s upturned face. The noise from the riverside made it impossible to
hear the prayers. He hoped the gods had sharper ears. The High Septon was as
fat as a house, and more pompous and long of wind than even Pycelle.
Enough, old man, make an end to it,
Tyrion thought irritably.
The gods have better things to do than listen to you, and so do
I.
    When at last the droning and mumbling was done, Tyrion took his farewell of the
captain of
Rob’s Hammer.
“Deliver my niece safely to Braavos, and
there will be a knighthood waiting for you on your return,” he
promised.
    As he made his way down the steep plank to the quay, Tyrion could feel unkind
eyes upon him. The galley rocked gently and the movement underfoot made his
waddle worse than ever.
I’ll wager they’d love to snigger.
No one
dared, not openly, though he heard

mutterings mingled with the creak of wood and rope and the rush of the river
around the pilings.
They do not love me,
he thought.
Well, small
wonder. I’m well fed and ugly, and they are starving.
    Bronn escorted him through the crowd to join his sister and her sons. Cersei
ignored him, preferring to lavish her smiles on their cousin. He watched her
charming Lancel with eyes as green as the rope of emeralds around her slim
white throat, and smiled a small sly smile to himself.
I know your secret,
Cersei,
he thought. His sister had oft called upon the High Septon of
late, to seek the blessings of the gods in their coming struggle with Lord
Stannis . . . or so she would have him believe. In truth, after
a brief call at the Great Sept of Baelor, Cersei would don a plain brown
traveler’s cloak and steal off to meet a certain hedge knight with the unlikely
name of Ser Osmund Kettleblack, and his equally unsavory brothers Osney and
Osfryd. Lancel had told him all about them. Cersei meant to use the
Kettleblacks to buy her own force of sellswords.
    Well, let her enjoy her plots. She was much sweeter when she thought she was
outwitting him. The Kettleblacks would charm her, take her coin, and promise
her anything she asked, and why not, when Bronn was matching every copper
penny, coin for coin? Amiable rogues all three, the brothers were in truth much
more skilled at deceit than they’d ever been at bloodletting. Cersei had
managed to buy herself three hollow drums; they would make all the fierce
booming sounds she required, but there was nothing inside. It amused Tyrion no
end.
    Horns blew fanfares as
Lionstar
and
Lady Lyanna
pushed out from shore, moving downriver to clear the way for
Seaswift.
A few cheers went up from the crush along the banks, as
thin and ragged as the clouds scuttling overhead. Myrcella smiled and waved
from the deck. Behind her stood Arys Oakheart, his white cloak streaming. The
captain ordered lines cast off, and oars pushed the
Seaswift
out into
the lusty current of the Blackwater Rush, where her sails blossomed in the
wind—common white sails, as Tyrion had insisted, not sheets of Lannister
crimson. Prince Tommen sobbed. “You mew like a suckling babe,” his brother
hissed at him. “Princes aren’t supposed to cry.”
    â€œPrince Aemon the Dragonknight cried the day Princess Naerys wed his brother
Aegon,” Sansa Stark said, “and the twins Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk died with
tears on their cheeks after each had given the other a mortal
wound.”
    â€œBe quiet, or I’ll have Ser Meryn give
you
a mortal wound,” Joffrey
told his betrothed. Tyrion glanced at his sister, but Cersei was engrossed in
something Ser Balon Swann was telling her.
Can she truly be so blind as to
what he is?
he wondered.
    Out on the river,
Bold Wind
unshipped her oars and glided downstream
in the wake of
Seaswift.
Last came
King Robert’s Hammer,
the might of the royal fleet . . . or at least that portion
that had not fled to Dragonstone last year with Stannis. Tyrion had chosen the