A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues Books 1-4: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

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СКАЧАТЬ ate with Burned Men. The modest tent he had coaxed out of Lord Lefford’s stores had been erected in the center of the four fires. Tyrion found Bronn sharing a skin of wine with the new servants. Lord Tywin had sent him a groom and a body servant to see to his needs, and even insisted he take a squire. They were seated around the embers of a small cookfire. A girl was with them; slim, dark-haired, no more than eighteen by the look of her. Tyrion studied her face for a moment, before he spied fishbones in the ashes. “What did you eat?”

      “Trout, m’lord,” said his groom. “Bronn caught them.”

      Trout, he thought. Suckling pig. Damn my father. He stared mournfully at the bones, his belly rumbling.

      His squire, a boy with the unfortunate name of Podrick Payne, swallowed whatever he had been about to say. The lad was a distant cousin to Ser Ilyn Payne, the king’s headsman … and almost as quiet, although not for want of a tongue. Tyrion had made him stick it out once, just to be certain. “Definitely a tongue,” he had said. “Someday you must learn to use it.”

      At the moment, he did not have the patience to try and coax a thought out of the lad, whom he suspected had been inflicted on him as a cruel jape. Tyrion turned his attention back to the girl. “Is this her?” he asked Bronn.

      She rose gracefully and looked down at him from the lofty height of five feet or more. “It is, m’lord, and she can speak for herself, if it please you.”

      He cocked his head to one side. “I am Tyrion, of House Lannister. Men call me the Imp.”

      “My mother named me Shae. Men call me … often.”

      Bronn laughed, and Tyrion had to smile. “Into the tent, Shae, if you would be so kind.” He lifted the flap and held it for her. Inside, he knelt to light a candle.

      The life of a soldier was not without certain compensations. Wherever you have a camp, you are certain to have camp followers. At the end of the day’s march, Tyrion had sent Bronn back to find him a likely whore. “I would prefer one who is reasonably young, with as pretty a face as you can find,” he had said. “If she has washed sometime this year, I shall be glad. If she hasn’t, wash her. Be certain that you tell her who I am, and warn her of what I am.” Jyck had not always troubled to do that. There was a look the girls got in their eyes sometimes when they first beheld the lordling they’d been hired to pleasure … a look that Tyrion Lannister did not ever care to see again.

      He lifted the candle and looked her over. Bronn had done well enough; she was doe-eyed and slim, with small firm breasts and a smile that was by turns shy, insolent, and wicked. He liked that. “Shall I take my gown off, m’lord?” she asked.

      “In good time. Are you a maiden, Shae?”

      “If it please you, m’lord,” she said demurely.

      “What would please me would be the truth of you, girl.”

      “Aye, but that will cost you double.”

      Tyrion decided they would get along splendidly. “I am a Lannister. Gold I have in plenty, and you’ll find me generous … but I’ll want more from you than what you’ve got between your legs, though I’ll want that too. You’ll share my tent, pour my wine, laugh at my jests, rub the ache from my legs after each day’s ride … and whether I keep you a day or a year, for so long as we are together you will take no other men into your bed.”

      “Fair enough.” She reached down to the hem of her thin roughspun gown and pulled it up over her head in one smooth motion, tossing it aside. There was nothing underneath but Shae. “If he don’t put down that candle, m’lord will burn his fingers.”

      Tyrion put down the candle, took her hand in his, and pulled her gently to him. She bent to kiss him. Her mouth tasted of honey and cloves, and her fingers were deft and practiced as they found the fastenings of his clothes.

      When he entered her, she welcomed him with whispered endearments and small, shuddering gasps of pleasure. Tyrion suspected her delight was feigned, but she did it so well that it did not matter. That much truth he did not crave.

      He had needed her, Tyrion realized afterward, as she lay quietly in his arms. Her or someone like her. It had been nigh on a year since he’d lain with a woman, since before he had set out for Winterfell in company with his brother and King Robert. He could well die on the morrow or the day after, and if he did, he would sooner go to his grave thinking of Shae than of his lord father, Lysa Arryn, or the Lady Catelyn Stark.

      He could feel the softness of her breasts pressed against his arm as she lay beside him. That was a good feeling. A song filled his head. Softly, quietly, he began to whistle.

      “What’s that, m’lord?” Shae murmured against him.

      “Nothing,” he told her. “A song I learned as a boy, that’s all. Go to sleep, sweetling.”

      When her eyes were closed and her breathing deep and steady, Tyrion slid out from beneath her, gently, so as not to disturb her sleep. Naked, he crawled outside, stepped over his squire, and walked around behind his tent to make water.

      Bronn was seated cross-legged under a chestnut tree, near where they’d tied the horses. He was honing the edge of his sword, wide awake; the sellsword did not seem to sleep like other men. “Where did you find her?” Tyrion asked him as he pissed.

      “I took her from a knight. The man was loath to give her up, but your name changed his thinking somewhat … that, and my dirk at his throat.”

      “Splendid,” Tyrion said dryly, shaking off the last drops. “I seem to recall saying find me a whore, not make me an enemy.”

      “The pretty ones were all claimed,” Bronn said. “I’ll be pleased to take her back if you’d prefer a toothless drab.”

      Tyrion limped closer to where he sat. “My lord father would call that insolence, and send you to the mines for impertinence.”

      “Good for me you’re not your father,” Bronn replied. “I saw one with boils all over her nose. Would you like her?”

      “What, and break your heart?” Tyrion shot back. “I shall keep Shae. Did you perchance note the name of this knight you took her from? I’d rather not have him beside me in the battle.”

      Bronn rose, cat-quick and cat-graceful, turning his sword in his hand. “You’ll have me beside you in the battle, dwarf.”

      Tyrion nodded. The night air was warm on his bare skin. “See that I survive this battle, and you can name your reward.”

      Bronn tossed the longsword from his right hand to his left, and tried a cut. “Who’d want to kill the likes of you?”

      “My lord father, for one. He’s put me in the van.”

      “I’d do the same. A small man with a big shield. You’ll give the archers fits.”

      “I find you oddly cheering,” Tyrion said. “I must be mad.”

      Bronn sheathed his sword. “Beyond a doubt.”

      When Tyrion returned to his tent, Shae rolled onto her elbow and murmured sleepily, “I woke and m’lord was gone.”

      “M’lord СКАЧАТЬ