A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

we’ll see how well they ride.
He flew through the moonlight
streets, clattering over cobbles, darting down narrow alleys and up twisty
wynds, racing to his love.
    As he hammered on the gate he heard music wafting faintly over the spiked stone
walls. One of the Ibbenese ushered him inside. Tyrion gave the man his horse
and said, “Who is that?” The diamond-shaped panes of the longhall windows
shone with yellow light, and he could hear a man singing.
    The Ibbenese shrugged. “Fatbelly singer.”
    The sound swelled as he walked from the stable to the house. Tyrion had never
been fond of singers, and he liked this one even less than the run of the
breed, sight unseen. When he pushed open the door, the man broke off. “My lord
Hand.” He knelt, balding

and kettle-bellied, murmuring, “An honor, an honor.”
    â€œM’lord.” Shae smiled at the sight of him. He liked that smile, the quick
unthinking way it came to her pretty face. The girl wore her purple silk,
belted with a cloth-of-silver sash. The colors favored her dark hair and the
smooth cream of her skin.
    â€œSweetling,” he called her. “And who is this?”
    The singer raised his eyes. “I am called Symon Silver Tongue, my lord. A
player, a singer, a taleteller—”
    â€œAnd a great fool,” Tyrion finished. “What did you call me, when I
entered?”
    â€œCall? I only . . .” The silver in Symon’s tongue seemed to have
turned to lead. “My lord Hand, I said, an honor . . .”
    â€œA wiser man would have pretended not to recognize me. Not that I would have
been fooled, but you ought to have tried. What am I to do with you now? You
know of my sweet Shae, you know where she dwells, you know that I visit by
night alone.”
    â€œI swear, I’ll tell no one . . .”
    â€œOn that much we agree. Good night to you.” Tyrion led Shae up the
stairs.
    â€œMy singer may never sing again now,” she teased. “You’ve scared the voice
from him.”
    â€œA little fear will help him reach those high notes.”
    She closed the door to their bedchamber. “You won’t hurt him, will you?” She
lit a scented candle and knelt to pull off his boots. “His songs cheer me on
the nights you don’t come.”
    â€œWould that I could come every night,” he said as she rubbed

his bare feet. “How well does he sing?”
    â€œBetter than some. Not so good as others.”
    Tyrion opened her robe and buried his face between her breasts. She always
smelled clean to him, even in this reeking sty of a city. “Keep him if you
like, but keep him close. I won’t have him wandering the city spreading tales
in pot-shops.”
    â€œHe won’t—” she started.
    Tyrion covered her mouth with his own. He’d had talk enough; he needed the
sweet simplicity of the pleasure he found between Shae’s thighs. Here, at
least, he was welcome, wanted.
    Afterward, he eased his arm out from under her head, slipped on his tunic, and
went down to the garden. A half-moon silvered the leaves of the fruit trees and
shone on the surface of the stone bathing pond. Tyrion seated himself beside
the water. Somewhere off to his right a cricket was chirping, a curiously homey
sound.
It is peaceful here,
he thought,
but for how
long?
    A whiff of something rank made him turn his head. Shae stood in the door behind
him, dressed in the silvery robe he’d given her.
I loved a maid as white
as winter, with moonglow in her hair.
Behind her stood one of the begging
brothers, a portly man in filthy patched robes, his bare feet crusty with dirt,
a bowl hung about his neck on a leather thong where a septon would have worn a
crystal. The smell of him would have gagged a rat.
    â€œLord Varys has come to see you,” Shae announced.
    The begging brother blinked at her, astonished. Tyrion laughed. “To be sure.
How is it you knew him when I did not?”
    She shrugged. “It’s still him. Only dressed different.”
    â€œA different look, a different smell, a different way of walking,” said
Tyrion. “Most men would be deceived.”
    â€œAnd most women, maybe. But not whores. A whore learns to see the man, not his
garb, or she turns up dead in an alley.”
    Varys looked pained, and not because of the false scabs on his feet. Tyrion
chuckled.