walk in darkness here. There are things you would not wish to see.”
Tyrion hung back a moment. Varys had already betrayed him once. Who knew what game the eunuch was playing? And what better place to murder a man than down in the darkness, in a place that no one knew existed? His body might never be found.
On the other hand, what choice did he have? To go back up the steps and walk out the main gate? No, that would not serve.
A light appeared ahead of them, too dim to be daylight, and grew as they hurried toward it. After a while he could see it was an arched doorway, closed off by another iron gate. Varys produced a key. They stepped through into a small round chamber. Five other doors opened off the room, each barred in iron. There was an opening in the ceiling as well, and a series of rungs set in the wall below, leading upward. An ornate brazier stood to one side, fashioned in the shape of a dragon’s head. The coals in the beast’s yawning mouth had burnt down to embers, but they still glowed with a sullen orange light. Dim as it was, the light was welcome after the blackness of the tunnel.
The juncture was otherwise empty, but on the floor was a mosaic of a three-headed dragon wrought in red and black tiles. Something niggled at Tyrion for a moment. Then it came to him.
“Yes.” Frozen hinges screamed in protest as Varys pulled open a long-closed door. Flakes of rust drifted to the floor. “This will take us out to the river.”
Tyrion walked slowly to the ladder, ran his hand across the lowest rung. “This will take me up to my bedchamber.”
“Your lord father’s bedchamber now.”
He looked up the shaft. “How far must I climb?”
“My lord, you are too weak for such follies, and there is besides no time. We must go.”
“I have business above. How far?”
“Two hundred and thirty rungs, but whatever you intend—”
“Two hundred and thirty rungs, and then?”
“The tunnel to the left, but hear me—”
“How far along to the bedchamber?” Tyrion lifted a foot to the lowest rung of the ladder.
“No more than sixty feet. Keep one hand on the wall as you go. You will feel the doors. The bedchamber is the third.” He sighed. “This is folly, my lord. Your brother has given you your life back. Would you cast it away, and mine with it?”
“Varys, the only thing I value less than my life just now is yours. Wait for me here.” He turned his back on the eunuch and began to climb, counting silently as he went.
Rung by rung, he ascended into darkness. At first he could see the dim outline of each rung as he grasped it, and the rough grey texture of the stone behind, but as he climbed the black grew thicker.
At two hundred and thirty, the shaft was black as pitch, but he could
For the space of a few feet, Tyrion could hear every word of their haggling, but when he moved on, the voices faded quickly.
He came to the third door and fumbled about for a long time before his fingers brushed a small iron hook set between two stones. When he pulled down on it, there was a soft rumble that sounded loud as an avalanche in the stillness, and a square of dull orange light opened a foot to his left.
“M’lord?” a woman’s voice called.
“Were you expecting someone taller, sweetling?”
Big wet tears filled her eyes. “I never meant those things I said, the queen made me.
“My lady Shae,” Tyrion said softly. “All the time I sat in the black cell waiting to die, I kept remembering how beautiful you were. In silk or roughspun or nothing at all…”
“M’lord will be back soon. You should go, or… did you come to take me away?”
“Did you ever like it?” He cupped her cheek, remembering all the times he had done this before. All the times he’d slid his hands around her waist, squeezed her small firm breasts, stroked her short dark hair, touched her lips, her cheeks, her ears. All the times he had opened her with a finger to probe her secret sweetness and make her moan. “Did you ever like my touch?”
“More than anything,” she said, “my giant of Lannister.”
Tyrion slid a hand under his father’s chain, and twisted. The links tightened, digging into her neck. “For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman’s hands are warm,” he said. He gave cold hands another twist as the warm ones beat away his tears.
Afterward he found Lord Tywin’s dagger on the bedside table and shoved it through his belt. A lion-headed mace, a poleaxe, and a crossbow had been hung on the walls. The poleaxe would be clumsy to wield inside a castle, and the mace was too high to reach, but a large wood-and-iron chest had been placed against the wall directly under the crossbow. He climbed up, pulled down the bow and a leather quiver packed with quarrels, jammed a foot into the stirrup, and pushed down until the bowstring cocked. Then he slipped a bolt into the notch.
Jaime had lectured him more than once on the drawbacks of crossbows. If Lum and Lester emerged from wherever they were talking, he’d never have time to reload, but at least he’d take one down to hell with him. Lum,