A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

but a boy. In the streets, it is said that he has evil
councillors. The queen has never been known as a friend to the commons, nor is
Lord Varys called the Spider out of love . . . but it is you
they blame most. Your sister and the eunuch were here when times were better
under King Robert, but you were not. They say that you’ve filled the city with
swaggering sellswords and unwashed savages, brutes who take what they want and
follow no laws but their own. They say you exiled Janos Slynt because you found
him too bluff and honest for your liking. They say you threw wise and gentle
Pycelle into the dungeons when he dared raise his voice against you. Some even
claim that you mean to seize the Iron Throne for your own.”
    â€œYes, and I am a monster besides, hideous and misshapen, never forget
that.” His hand coiled into a fist. “I’ve heard enough. We both have work to
attend to. Leave me.”
    Perhaps my lord father was right to despise me all these years, if this is
the best I can achieve,
Tyrion thought when he was alone. He stared down
at the remains of his supper, his belly roiling at the sight of the cold greasy
capon. Disgusted, he pushed it away, shouted for Pod, and sent the boy running
to summon Varys and Bronn.
My most trusted advisers are a eunuch and a
sellsword, and my lady’s a whore. What does that say of me?
    Bronn complained of the gloom when he arrived, and insisted on a fire in the
hearth. It was blazing by the time Varys made his appearance. “Where have you
been?” Tyrion demanded.
    â€œAbout the king’s business, my sweet lord.”
    â€œAh, yes, the
king,
” Tyrion muttered. “My nephew is not fit to sit
a privy, let alone the Iron Throne.”
    Varys shrugged. “An apprentice must be taught his trade.”
    â€œHalf the ’prentices on Reeking Lane could rule better than this king of
yours.” Bronn seated himself across the table and pulled a wing off the
capon.
    Tyrion had made a practice of ignoring the sellsword’s frequent insolences, but
tonight he found it galling. “I don’t recall giving you leave to finish my
supper.”
    â€œYou didn’t look to be eating it,” Bronn said through a mouthful of meat.
“City’s starving, it’s a crime to waste food. You have any wine?”
    Next he’ll want me to pour it for him,
Tyrion thought darkly.
“You go too far,” he warned.
    â€œAnd you never go far enough.” Bronn tossed the wingbone to the rushes.
“Ever think how easy life would be if the other one had been born first?” He
thrust his fingers inside the capon and tore off a handful of breast. “The
weepy one, Tommen. Seems like he’d do whatever he was told, as a good king
should.”
    A chill crept down Tyrion’s spine as he realized what the sellsword was hinting
at.
If Tommen was king . . .
    There was only one way Tommen would become king. No, he could not even think
it. Joffrey was his own blood, and Jaime’s son as much as Cersei’s. “I could
have your head off for saying that,” he told Bronn, but the sellsword only
laughed.
    â€œFriends,” said Varys, “quarreling will not serve us. I beg you both, take
heart.”
    â€œWhose?” asked Tyrion sourly. He could think of several tempting
choices.

DAVOS
    S er Cortnay Penrose wore no armor. He sat a sorrel stallion, his
standard-bearer a dapple grey. Above them flapped Baratheon’s crowned stag and
the crossed quills of Penrose, white on a russet field. Ser Cortnay’s
spade-shaped beard was russet as well, though he’d gone wholly bald on top. If
the size and splendor of the king’s party impressed him, it did not show on
that weathered face.
    They trotted up with much clinking of chain and rattle of plate. Even
Davos wore mail, though he could not have said why; his shoulders and lower
back ached from the unaccustomed weight. It made him feel cumbered and foolish,
and he wondered once more why he was here.
It is not for me to question
the king’s commands, and yet . . .
    Every man of the party was of better birth and higher station than Davos
Seaworth, and the great lords glittered in the morning sun. Silvered steel and
gold inlay brightened their armor, and their warhelms were crested in a riot of
silken plumes, feathers, and cunningly wrought heraldic beasts with