Tyrion
The rainfall was continuous that Tyrion rode in wet clothes everyday. Three days ride from Riverrun they found upon the first fall of the summer rain and it had never stopped after that. Tyrion huddled himself in a hooded bearskin cloak and rode through the rain without complaint. But the rain was not the best of his concern. As they came away from the domains of Riverrun there were talks of raw bandits harassing the small folk on the lands, hiding away from the eyes of the river lords. The more they rode away from the stronghold the more the talks of raids they heard.
They were attacked for the first time when they were spending a night in the woods east to the Hills of the Golden Tooth away from Pinkmaiden. The bandits were a small party consisting of five men but was enough to overwhelm Tyrion's party of three, him and the two guards who had accompanied him from Casterly Rock, Jyck and Morrec. Suddenly the bandits had come thundering out of the dark blanket of the night. Though they were outnumbered Tyrion's party had managed to get away alive from it with Jyck dead. He had put on a bold show and rode bareback to charge at the bandits and got cut from behind while he sliced open at a man on his front. Jyck had been the good sword of the three and it was a bad blow for Tyrion to lose him.
The second attack came two days after that in the break of dawn. This time Tyrion lost Morrec to a festered wound but he found himself alive with the help of a sellsword named Bronn. The sellsword had come out of nowhere and fought the bandits cutting them left and right. Tyrion never knew why the sellsword bothered helping him but he could see that the man thought to earn some gold from him assuming him as a lord by seeing his clothes. And paid him Tyrion did with the little gold he had and with promises of more. After all, A Lannister always pays his debts. Bronn stuck with him afterwards, getting the smell of gold as any sellsword would do. Tyrion had no problems with it though, Bronn was almost as good as his brother Jaime with a sword in hand and the way to Casterly Rock was so long. He might need his help again.
As dusk came creeping in from the west, Tyrion stopped his horse. The rain had finally stopped and the trees were so thick and close that it made a natural shelter from the rain if it was to come again. Tyrion knew that the next time he would have a roof above his will be when they reach Golden Tooth, the stronghold of the Leffords but until then he wanted to make use of everything to keep him away from getting wet.
Bronn had no complaints to say about his decision and he took both the horses to graze them beneath the nearby trees. The sellsword acquired Morrec's horse after he had no use for it and he sat it deftly. He had pulled off Morrec's boots as well. They were good boots, as befit one of Lord Tywin's men; heavy leather, oiled and supple, much finer than what Bronn had been wearing.
They took shelter beneath a copse of aspens. Tyrion was gathering deadwood while their horses took water from a nearby stream. He stooped to pick up a splintered branch and examined it critically. "Will this do? I am not practiced at starting fires. Morrec did that for me."
"A fire?" Bronn said, spitting. "Are you so hungry to die, dwarf? Or have you taken leave of your senses? A fire will bring some other bandits down on us from miles around. I mean to survive this journey, Lannister."
"And how do you hope to do that?" Tyrion asked. He tucked the branch under his arm and poked around through the sparse undergrowth, looking for more. His back ached from the effort of bending; they had been riding since daybreak as the sun came peeking out of the east sky.
"We have no chance of fighting our way back if more of the bandits came," Bronn said, "but two can cover more ground than ten, and attract less notice. Ride hard and fast, I say."
Tyrion Lannister sighed. "A splendid plan, Bronn. Try it, as you like . . . and forgive me if I do not linger to bury you."
"You think to outlive me, dwarf?" The sellsword grinned. He had a dark gap in his smile where his tooth broke in half during the fight.
Tyrion shrugged. "Riding hard and fast by night is a sure way to run your horse into a hole and break it's leg. If our mounts die under us we'll have a hard time reaching Casterly Rock. We need a fire. The nights are cold up here with the rain, and hot food will warm our bellies and lift our spirits. Speaking of food we might need to find some since the supplies I've brought from Riverrun has run out."
"I can find meat." Beneath a fall of black hair, Bronn's dark eyes regarded Tyrion suspiciously. "I should leave you here with your fool's fire. If I took your horse, I'd have twice the chance to make it through. What would you do then, dwarf?"
"Die, most like." Tyrion stooped to get another stick.
"You don't think I'd do it?"
"You'd do it in an instant, if it meant your life. But do that and you'll never get your gold."
Bronn eyed him warily. "Make no mistake, dwarf," he said. "I fought for you, but I do not love you."
"It was your blade I needed," Tyrion said, "not your love." He dumped his armful of wood on the ground.
Bronn grinned. "You're bold as any sellsword, I'll give you that."
Tyrion squatted awkwardly on his stunted legs to build the fire. "Do you have a flint?"
Bronn slid two fingers into the pouch at his belt and tossed down a flint. Tyrion caught it in the air.
"Thank you, lowborn scum," he said. Tyrion struck the flint against his dagger, trying for a spark. Nothing.
Bronn snorted. "You have a bold tongue, little man. One day someone is like to cut it out and make you eat it."
If it ever happened, it will more likely be Cersei. Tyrion had said much and more that day at Riverrun to her and Cersei will remember them. He glanced up at the sellsword. "Did I offend you? My pardons . . . but you are scum, Bronn, make no mistake. Duty, honor, friendship, what's that to you? No, don't trouble yourself, we both know the answer. Still, you're not stupid. You helped me just because I was in rich clothes so that I would reward you. The one thing the Lannisters have never lacked for is gold. You need your gold and I have need of your sword so why not help each other." He slammed stone and steel together again, fruitlessly.
"Here," said Bronn, squatting, "I'll do it." He took the knife and flint from Tyrion's hands and struck sparks on his first try. A curl of bark began to smolder.
"Well done," Tyrion said. "Scum you may be, but you're undeniably useful, and with a sword in your hand you're almost as good as my brother Jaime. What do you want, Bronn? Gold? Land? Women? Keep me alive, and you'll have it."
Bronn blew gently on the fire, and the flames leapt up higher. "And if you die?"
"Why then, I'll have one mourner whose grief is sincere," Tyrion said, grinning. "The gold ends when I do."
The fire was blazing up nicely. Bronn stood, tucked the flint back into his pouch, and tossed Tyrion his dagger. "Fair enough," he said. "My sword's yours, then . . . but don't go looking for me to bend the knee and m'lord you every time you take a shit. I'm not your toady nor your friend."
"Though I would treasure your friendship, I'm mainly interested in your facility with murder." Tyrion said. "If the day ever comes when you're tempted to sell me out, remember this, whatever their price I'll beat it. I like living. And now, do you think you could do something about finding us some supper?"
"Take care of the horses," Bronn said, unsheathing the long dirk he wore at his hip. He strode into the trees.
An hour later the horses had been rubbed down and fed, the fire was crackling away merrily, and a haunch of a young goat was turning above the flames, spitting and hissing. "All we lack now is some good wine to wash down our kid," Tyrion said.
"That, a woman, and another dozen swords," Bronn said. He sat cross-legged beside the fire, honing the edge of his longsword with an oilstone. There was something strangely reassuring about the rasping sound it made when he drew it down the steel. "It will be full dark soon," the sellsword pointed out. "I'll take first watch . . . for all the good it will do us. It might be kinder to let them kill us in our sleep."
Tyrion thought maybe the sellsword had a point. He should've got an escort when he left Riverrun. Robert had offered Tyrion a twenty good men from his own guards. "Take the men, imp," he had said when Tyrion refused him. "It will not be a good news to your father to hear about your death too."
Oh, there will be no better news for Lord Tywin than learning the death of his younger son. He might even be fuming about the fact that Jaime died instead of him. He will be terribly wishing that it was Tyrion who had died in Jaime's place. But Tyrion had other plans. He would return back to his father as complete as his father had sent him to Riverrun that too with only the escort Lord Tywin had given him. He had refused Robert's men and now he wondered how big a mistake was it to refuse the men.
The smell of the roasting meat made Tyrion's mouth water.
He leaned over the fire and sawed a thin slice of meat from the kid. "Ahhhh," he sighed happily as he chewed. Grease ran down his chin. "A bit tougher than I'd like, and in want of spicing, but I'll not complain too loudly. I am content with it."
Bronn yanked out his dirk and pulled the meat from the fire. He began to carve thick chunks of charred meat off the bone as Tyrion hollowed out two heels of stale bread to serve as trenchers. "If we do reach Casterly Rock, what will you do then?" the sellsword asked as he cut.
"Oh, a whore and a featherbed and a flagon of wine, for a start." Tyrion held out his trencher, and Bronn filled it with meat. "And then I'll meet my lord father. I have some important things to do with him."
By the time their bellies were full, the stars had come out and a halfmoon was rising over the mountains. Tyrion spread his bearskin cloak on the ground and stretched out with his saddle for a pillow. "Our friends are taking their sweet time."
"If I were them, I'd fear a trap," Bronn said. "Why else would we be so open, if not to lure them in?"
Tyrion chuckled. "Then we ought to sing and send them fleeing in terror." He began to whistle a tune.
"You're mad, dwarf," Bronn said as he cleaned the grease out from under his nails with his dirk.
"Where's your love of music, Bronn?"
"If it was music you wanted, you should have gotten yourself a singer to guard you."
Tyrion grinned. "That would have been amusing." He resumed his whistling. "Do you know this song?" he asked.
"You hear it here and there, in inns and whorehouses."
"Myrish. 'The Seasons of My Love.' Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I've never been able to put it out of my head." Tyrion gazed up at the sky. It was a clear cold night and the stars shone down upon the mountains as bright and merciless as truth. "I met her on a night like this," he heard himself saying. "Jaime and I were riding back from Lannisport when we heard a scream, and she came running out into the road with two men dogging her heels, shouting threats. My brother unsheathed his sword and went after them, while I dismounted to protect the girl. She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your heart. It certainly broke mine. Lowborn, half-starved, unwashed . . . yet lovely. They'd torn the rags she was wearing half off her back, so I wrapped her in my cloak while Jaime chased the men into the woods. By the time he came trotting back, I'd gotten a name out of her, and a story. She was a crofter's child, orphaned when her father died of fever, on her way to . . . well, nowhere, really.
"Jaime was all in a lather to hunt down the men. It was not often outlaws dared prey on travelers so near to Casterly Rock, and he took it as an insult. The girl was too frightened to send off by herself, though, so I offered to take her to the closest inn and feed her while my brother rode back to the Rock for help.
"She was hungrier than I would have believed. We finished two whole chickens and part of a third, and drank a flagon of wine, talking. I was only thirteen, and the wine went to my head, I fear. The next thing I knew, I was sharing her bed. If she was shy, I was shyer. I'll never know where I found the courage. When I broke her maidenhead, she wept, but afterward she kissed me and sang her little song, and by morning I was in love."
"You?" Bronn's voice was amused.
"Absurd, isn't it?" Tyrion began to whistle the song again. "I married her," he finally admitted.
"A Lannister of Casterly Rock wed to a crofter's daughter," Bronn said. "How did you manage that?"
"Oh, you'd be astonished at what a boy can make of a few lies, fifty pieces of silver, and a drunken septon. I dared not bring my bride home to Casterly Rock, so I set her up in a cottage of her own, and for a fortnight we played at being man and wife. And then the septon sobered and confessed all to my lord father." Tyrion was surprised at how desolate it made him feel to say it, even after all these years. Perhaps he was just tired. "That was the end of my marriage." He sat up and stared at the dying fire, blinking at the light.
"He sent the girl away?"
"He did better than that," Tyrion said. "First he made my brother tell me the truth. The girl was a whore, you see. Jaime arranged the whole affair, the road, the outlaws, all of it. He thought it was time I had a woman. He paid double for a maiden, knowing it would be my first time.
"After Jaime had made his confession, to drive home the lesson, Lord Tywin brought my wife in and gave her to his guards. They paid her fair enough. A silver for each man, how many whores command that high a price? He sat me down in the corner of the barracks and made me watch, and at the end she had so many silvers the coins were slipping through her fingers and rolling on the floor, she . . . " The smoke was stinging his eyes. Tyrion cleared his throat and turned away from the fire, to gaze out into darkness. "Lord Tywin had me go last," he said in a quiet voice. "And he gave me a gold coin to pay her, because I was a Lannister, and worth more."
After a time he heard the noise again, the rasp of steel on stone as Bronn sharpened his sword. "Thirteen or thirty or three, I would have killed the man who did that to me."
Tyrion swung around to face him. "You may get that chance one day. Remember what I told you. A Lannister always pays his debts." He yawned. "I think I will try and sleep. Wake me if we're about to die."
He rolled himself up in the bearskin and shut his eyes. The ground was stony and cold, but after a time Tyrion Lannister did sleep. As he slept he dreamed of a better place, a snug little cottage by the sunset sea.