He was at the door when Ned called, “Varys.” The eunuch turned back. “How did Jon Arryn die?”
“I wondered when you would get around to that.”
“Tell me.”
“The tears of Lys, they call it. A rare and costly thing, clear and sweet as water, and it leaves no trace. I begged Lord Arryn to use a taster, in this very room I begged him, but he would not hear of it. Only one who was less than a man would even think of such a thing, he told me.”
Ned had to know the rest. “Who gave him the poison?”
“Some dear sweet friend who often shared meat and mead with him, no doubt. Oh, but which one? There were many such. Lord Arryn was a kindly, trusting man.” The eunuch sighed. “There was one boy. All he was, he owed Jon Arryn, but when the widow fled to the Eyrie with her household, he stayed in King’s Landing and prospered. It always gladdens my heart to see the young rise in the world.” The whip was in his voice again, every word a stroke. “He must have cut a gallant figure in the tourney, him in his bright new armor, with those crescent moons on his cloak. A pity he died so untimely, before you could talk to him …”
Ned felt half poisoned himself. “The squire,” he said. “Ser Hugh.” Wheels within wheels within wheels. Ned’s head was pounding. “Why? Why now? Jon Arryn had been Hand for fourteen years. What was he doing that they had to kill him?”
“Asking questions,” Varys said, slipping out the door.
TYRION
As he stood in the predawn chill watching Chiggen butcher his horse, Tyrion Lannister chalked up one more debt owed the Starks. Steam rose from inside the carcass when the squat sellsword opened the belly with his skinning knife. His hands moved deftly, with never a wasted cut; the work had to be done quickly, before the stink of blood brought shadowcats down from the heights.
“None of us will go hungry tonight,” Bronn said. He was near a shadow himself; bone thin and bone hard, with black eyes and black hair and a stubble of beard.
“Some of us may,” Tyrion told him. “I am not fond of eating horse. Particularly my horse.”
“Meat is meat,” Bronn said with a shrug. “The Dothraki like horse more than beef or pork.”
“Do you take me for a Dothraki?” Tyrion asked sourly. The Dothraki ate horse, in truth; they also left deformed children out for the feral dogs who ran behind their khalasars. Dothraki customs had scant appeal for him.
Chiggen sliced a thin strip of bloody meat off the carcass and held it up for inspection. “Want a taste, dwarf?”
“My brother Jaime gave me that mare for my twenty-third name day,” Tyrion said in a flat voice.
“Thank him for us, then. If you ever see him again.” Chiggen grinned, showing yellow teeth, and swallowed the raw meat in two bites. “Tastes well bred.”
“Better if you fry it up with onions,” Bronn put in.
Wordlessly, Tyrion limped away. The cold had settled deep in his bones, and his legs were so sore he could scarcely walk. Perhaps his dead mare was the lucky one. He had hours more riding ahead of him, followed by a few mouthfuls of food and a short, cold sleep on hard ground, and then another night of the same, and another, and another, and the gods only knew how it would end. “Damn her,” he muttered as he struggled up the road to rejoin his captors, remembering, “damn her and all the Starks.”
The memory was still bitter. One moment he’d been ordering supper, and an eye blink later he was facing a room of armed men, with Jyck reaching for a sword and the fat innkeep shrieking, “No swords, not here, please, m’lords.”
Tyrion wrenched down Jyck’s arm hurriedly, before he got them both hacked to pieces. “Where are your courtesies, Jyck? Our good hostess said no swords. Do as she asks.” He forced a smile that must have looked as queasy as it felt. “You’re making a sad mistake, Lady Stark. I had no part in any attack on your son. On my honor—”
“Lannister honor,” was all she said. She held up her hands for all the room to see. “His dagger left these scars. The blade he sent to open my son’s throat.”
Tyrion felt the anger all around him, thick and smoky, fed by the deep cuts in the Stark woman’s hands. “Kill him,” hissed some drunken slattern from the back, and other voices took up the call, faster than he would have believed. Strangers all, friendly enough only a moment ago, and yet now they cried for his blood like hounds on a trail.
Tyrion spoke up loudly, trying to keep the quaver from his voice. “If Lady Stark believes I have some crime to answer for, I will go with her and answer for it.”
It was the only possible course. Trying to cut their way out of this was a sure invitation to an early grave. A good dozen swords had responded to the Stark woman’s plea for help: the Harrenhal man, the three Brackens, a pair of unsavory sellswords who looked as though they’d kill him as soon as spit, and some fool field hands who doubtless had no idea what they were doing. Against that, what did Tyrion have? A dagger at his belt, and two men. Jyck swung a fair enough sword, but Morrec scarcely counted; he was part groom, part cook, part body servant, and no soldier. As for Yoren, whatever his feelings might have been, the black brothers were sworn to take no part in the quarrels of the realm. Yoren would do nothing.
And indeed, the black brother stepped aside silently when the old knight by Catelyn Stark’s side said, “Take their weapons,” and the sellsword Bronn stepped forward to pull the sword from Jyck’s fingers and relieve them all of their daggers. “Good,” the old man said as the tension in the common room ebbed palpably, “excellent.” Tyrion recognized the gruff voice; Winterfell’s master-at-arms, shorn of his whiskers.
Scarlet-tinged spittle flew from the fat innkeep’s mouth as she begged of Catelyn Stark, “Don’t kill him here!”
“Don’t kill him anywhere,” Tyrion urged.
“Take him somewheres else, no blood here, m’lady, I wants no high lordlin’s quarrels.”
“We are taking him back to Winterfell,” she said, and Tyrion thought, Well, perhaps … By then he’d had a moment to glance over the room and get a better idea of the situation. He was not altogether displeased by what he saw. Oh, the Stark woman had been clever, no doubt of it. Force them to make a public affirmation of the oaths sworn her father by the lords they served, and then call on them for succor, and her a woman, yes, that was sweet. Yet her success was not as complete as she might have liked. There were close to fifty in the common room by his rough count. Catelyn Stark’s plea had roused a bare dozen; the others looked confused, or frightened, or sullen. Only two of the Freys had stirred, Tyrion noted, and they’d sat back down quick enough when their captain failed to move. He might have smiled if he’d dared.
“Winterfell it is, then,” he said instead. That was a long ride, as he could well attest, having just ridden it the other way. So many things could happen along the way. “My father will wonder what has become of me,” he added, catching the eye of the swordsman who’d offered to yield up his room. “He’ll pay a handsome reward to any man who brings him word of what happened here today.” Lord Tywin would do no such thing, of course, but Tyrion would make up for it if he won free.
Ser Rodrik glanced at his lady, his look worried, as well it might be. “His men come with him,” the old knight announced. “And we’ll thank the rest of you to stay quiet about what you’ve seen here.”
It was all Tyrion could do not to laugh. Quiet? The old fool. Unless he took the whole inn, the word would begin to spread the instant they were gone. The freerider with the gold coin in his pocket would fly to Casterly Rock like an arrow. If not him, then someone else. Yoren would carry the story south. That fool singer might make a lay of it. The Freys would