On a hill overlooking the kingsroad, a long trestle table of rough-hewn pine had been erectedbeneath an elm tree and covered with a golden cloth. There, beside his pavilion, Lord Tywin took hisevening meal with his chief knights and lords bannermen, his great crimson-and-gold standardwaving overhead from a lofty pike.

Tyrion arrived late, saddlesore, and sour, all too vividly aware of how amusing he must look as hewaddled up the slope to his father. The day’s march had been long and tiring. He thought he might getquite drunk tonight. It was twilight, and the air was alive with drifting fireflies.

The cooks were serving the meat course: five suckling pigs, skin seared and crackling, a differentfruit in every mouth. The smell made his mouth water. “My pardons,” he began, taking his place onthe bench beside his uncle.

“Perhaps I’d best charge you with burying our dead, Tyrion,” Lord Tywin said. “If you are as lateto battle as you are to table, the fighting will all be done by the time you arrive.”

“Oh, surely you can save me a peasant or two, Father,” Tyrion replied. “Not too many, I wouldn’twant to be greedy.” He filled his wine cup and watched a serving man carve into the pig. The crispskin crackled under his knife, and hot juice ran from the meat. It was the loveliest sight Tyrion hadseen in ages.

“Ser Addam’s outriders say the Stark host has moved south from the Twins,” his father reportedas his trencher was filled with slices of pork. “Lord Frey’s levies have joined them. They are likely nomore than a day’s march north of us.”

“Please, Father,” Tyrion said. “I’m about to eat.”

“Does the thought of facing the Stark boy unman you, Tyrion? Your brother Jaime would beeager to come to grips with him.”

“I’d sooner come to grips with that pig. Robb Stark is not half so tender, and he never smelled asgood.”

Lord Lefford, the sour bird who had charge of their stores and supplies, leaned forward. “I hopeyour savages do not share your reluctance, else we’ve wasted our good steel on them.”

“My savages will put your steel to excellent use, my lord,” Tyrion replied. When he had toldLefford he needed arms and armor to equip the three hundred men Ulf had fetched down out of thefoothills, you would have thought he’d asked the man to turn his virgin daughters over to theirpleasure.

Lord Lefford frowned. “I saw that great hairy one today, the one who insisted that he must havetwo battle-axes, the heavy black steel ones with twin crescent blades.”

“Shagga likes to kill with either hand,” Tyrion said as a trencher of steaming pork was laid infront of him.

“He still had that wood-axe of his strapped to his back.”

“Shagga is of the opinion that three axes are even better than two.” Tyrion reached a thumb andforefinger into the salt dish, and sprinkled a healthy pinch over his meat.

Ser Kevan leaned forward. “We had a thought to put you and your wildlings in the vanguard whenwe come to battle.”

Ser Kevan seldom “had a thought” that Lord Tywin had not had first. Tyrion had skewered a chunkof meat on the point of his dagger and brought it to his mouth. Now he lowered it. “The vanguard?”

he repeated dubiously. Either his lord father had a new respect for Tyrion’s abilities, or he’ddecided to rid himself of his embarrassing get for good. Tyrion had the gloomy feeling he knewwhich.

ddecided to rid himself of his embarrassing get for good. Tyrion had the gloomy feeling he knewwhich.

“They seem ferocious enough,” Ser Kevan said.

“Ferocious?” Tyrion realized he was echoing his uncle like a trained bird. His father watched,judging him, weighing every word. “Let me tell you how ferocious they are. Last night, a MoonBrother stabbed a Stone Crow over a sausage. So today as we made camp three Stone Crows seizedthe man and opened his throat for him. Perhaps they were hoping to get the sausage back, I couldn’tsay. Bronn managed to keep Shagga from chopping off the dead man’s cock, which was fortunate, buteven so Ulf is demanding blood money, which Conn and Shagga refuse to pay.”

“When soldiers lack discipline, the fault lies with their lord commander,” his father said.

His brother Jaime had always been able to make men follow him eagerly, and die for him if needbe. Tyrion lacked that gift. He bought loyalty with gold, and compelled obedience with his name. “Abigger man would be able to put the fear in them, is that what you’re saying, my lord?”

Lord Tywin Lannister turned to his brother. “If my son’s men will not obey his commands, perhapsthe vanguard is not the place for him. No doubt he would be more comfortable in the rear, guardingour baggage train.”

“Do me no kindnesses, Father,” he said angrily. “If you have no other command to offer me, I’lllead your van.”

Lord Tywin studied his dwarf son. “I said nothing about command. You will serve under SerGregor.”

Tyrion took one bite of pork, chewed a moment, and spit it out angrily. “I find I am not hungryafter all,” he said, climbing awkwardly off the bench. “Pray excuse me, my lords.”

Lord Tywin inclined his head, dismissing him. Tyrion turned and walked away. He was consciousof their eyes on his back as he waddled down the hill. A great gust of laughter went up from behindhim, but he did not look back. He hoped they all choked on their suckling pigs.

Dusk had settled, turning all the banners black. The Lannister camp sprawled for miles between theriver and the kingsroad. In amongst the men and the horses and the trees, it was easy to get lost, andTyrion did. He passed a dozen great pavilions and a hundred cookfires. Fireflies drifted amongst thetents like wandering stars. He caught the scent of garlic sausage, spiced and savory, so tempting itmade his empty stomach growl. Away in the distance, he heard voices raised in some bawdy song. Agiggling woman raced past him, naked beneath a dark cloak, her drunken pursuer stumbling over treeroots. Farther on, two spearmen faced each other across a little trickle of a stream, practicing theirthrust-and-parry in the fading light, their chests bare and slick with sweat.

No one looked at him. No one spoke to him. No one paid him any mind. He was surrounded bymen sworn to House Lannister, a vast host twenty thousand strong, and yet he was alone.

When he heard the deep rumble of Shagga’s laughter booming through the dark, he followed it tothe Stone Crows in their small corner of the night. Conn son of Coratt waved a tankard of ale. “TyrionHalf man! Come, sit by our fire, share meat with the Stone Crows. We have an ox.”

“I can see that, Conn son of Coratt.” The huge red carcass was suspended over a roaring fire,skewered on a spit the size of a small tree. No doubt it was a small tree. Blood and grease drippeddown into the flames as two Stone Crows turned the meat. “I thank you. Send for me when the ox iscooked.” From the look of it, that might even be before the battle. He walked on.

Each clan had its own cookfire; Black Ears did not eat with Stone Crows, Stone Crows did not eatwith Moon Brothers, and no one ate with Burned Men. The modest tent he had coaxed out of LordLefford’s stores had been erected in the center of the four fires. Tyrion found Bronn sharing a skin ofwine 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 waswith them; slim, dark-haired, no more than eighteen by the look of her. Tyrion studied her face for amoment, 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 bellyrumbling.

His squire, a boy with the unfortunate name of Podrick Payne, swallowed whatever he had beenabout 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 hesuspected had been inflicted on him as a cruel jape. Tyrion turned his attention back to the girl. “Isthis 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 liftedthe 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 arecertain to have camp followers. At the end of the day’s march, Tyrion had sent Bronn back to findhim a likely whore. “I would prefer one who is reasonably young, with as pretty a face as you canfind,” he had said. “If she has washed sometime this year, I shall be glad. If she hasn’t, wash her. Becertain that you tell her who I am, and warn her of what I am.” Jyck had not always troubled to dothat. There was a look the girls got in their eyes sometimes when they first beheld the lordling they’dbeen 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 Itake 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, andyou’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 mylegs after each day’s ride … and whether I keep you a day or a year, for so long as we are togetheryou 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 herhead in one smooth motion, tossing it aside. There was nothing underneath but Shae. “If he don’t putdown 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 kisshim. Her mouth tasted of honey and cloves, and her fingers were deft and practiced as they found thefastenings of his clothes.

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

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

He could feel the softness of her breasts pressed against his arm as she lay beside him. That was agood 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 walkedaround behind his tent to make water.

Bronn was seated cross-legged under a chestnut tree, near where they’d tied the horses. He washoning 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 atoothless drab.”

Tyrion limped closer to where he sat. “My lord father would call that insolence, and send you to themines 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 thename 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 youin the battle, dwarf.”

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

Bronn tossed the longsword from his right hand to his left, and tried a cut. “Who’d want to kill thelikes 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 andm’lord was gone.”

“M’lord is back now.” He slid in beside her.

Her hand went between his stunted legs, and found him hard. “Yes he is,” she whispered, strokinghim.

He asked her about the man Bronn had taken her from, and she named the minor retainer of aninsignificant lordling. “You need not fear his like, m’lord,” the girl said, her fingers busy at his cock.

“He is a small man.”

“And what am I, pray?” Tyrion asked her. “A giant?”

“Oh, yes,” she purred, “my giant of Lannister.” She mounted him then, and for a time, she almostmade him believe it. Tyrion went to sleep smiling ……and woke in darkness to the blare of trumpets. Shae was shaking him by the shoulder. “M’lord,”

she whispered. “Wake up, m’lord. I’m frightened.”

Groggy, he sat up and threw back the blanket. The horns called through the night, wild and urgent,a cry that said hurry hurry hurry. He heard shouts, the clatter of spears, the whicker of horses, thoughnothing yet that spoke to him of fighting. “My lord father’s trumpets,” he said. “Battle assembly. Ithought Stark was yet a day’s march away.”

Shae shook her head, lost. Her eyes were wide and white.

Groaning, Tyrion lurched to his feet and pushed his way outside, shouting for his squire. Wisps ofpale fog drifted through the night, long white fingers off the river. Men and horses blundered throughthe predawn chill; saddles were being cinched, wagons loaded, fires extinguished. The trumpets blewagain: hurry hurry hurry. Knights vaulted onto snorting coursers while men-at-arms buckled theirsword belts as they ran. When he found Pod, the boy was snoring softly. Tyrion gave him a sharppoke in the ribs with his toe. “My armor,” he said, “and be quick about it.” Bronn came trotting out ofthe mists, already armored and ahorse, wearing his battered halfhelm. “Do you know what’shappened?” Tyrion asked him.

“The Stark boy stole a march on us,” Bronn said. “He crept down the kingsroad in the night, andnow his host is less than a mile north of here, forming up in battle array.”

Hurry, the trumpets called, hurry hurry hurry.

“See that the clansmen are ready to ride.” Tyrion ducked back inside his tent. “Where are myclothes?” he barked at Shae. “There. No, the leather, damn it. Yes. Bring me my boots.”

By the time he was dressed, his squire had laid out his armor, such that it was. Tyrion owned a finesuit of heavy plate, expertly crafted to fit his misshapen body. Alas, it was safe at Casterly Rock, andhe was not. He had to make do with oddments assembled from Lord Lefford’s wagons: mailhauberk and coif, a dead knight’s gorget, lobstered greaves and gauntlets and pointed steel boots.

Some of it was ornate, some plain; not a bit of it matched, or fit as it should. His breastplate wasmeant for a bigger man; for his oversize head, they found a huge bucket-shaped greathelm toppedwith a foot-long triangular spike.

d’s wagons: mailhauberk and coif, a dead knight’s gorget, lobstered greaves and gauntlets and pointed steel boots.

Some of it was ornate, some plain; not a bit of it matched, or fit as it should. His breastplate wasmeant for a bigger man; for his oversize head, they found a huge bucket-shaped greathelm toppedwith a foot-long triangular spike.

Shae helped Pod with the buckles and clasps. “If I die, weep for me,” Tyrion told the whore.

“How will you know? You’ll be dead.”

“I’ll know.”

“I believe you would.” Shae lowered the greathelm down over his head, and Pod fastened it to hisgorget. Tyrion buckled on his belt, heavy with the weight of shortsword and dirk. By then his groomhad brought up his mount, a formidable brown courser armored as heavily as he was. He needed helpto mount; he felt as though he weighed a thousand stone. Pod handed him up his shield, a massiveslab of heavy ironwood banded with steel. Lastly they gave him his battle-axe. Shae stepped back andlooked him over. “M’lord looks fearsome.”

“M’lord looks a dwarf in mismatched armor,” Tyrion answered sourly, “but I thank you for thekindness. Podrick, should the battle go against us, see the lady safely home.” He saluted her with hisaxe, wheeled his horse about, and trotted off. His stomach was a hard knot, so tight it pained him.

Behind, his servants hurriedly began to strike his tent. Pale crimson fingers fanned out to the east asthe first rays of the sun broke over the horizon. The western sky was a deep purple, speckled withstars. Tyrion wondered whether this was the last sunrise he would ever see … and whether wonderingwas a mark of cowardice. Did his brother Jaime ever contemplate death before a battle?

A warhorn sounded in the far distance, a deep mournful note that chilled the soul. The clansmenclimbed onto their scrawny mountain horses, shouting curses and rude jokes. Several appeared to bedrunk. The rising sun was burning off the drifting tendrils of fog as Tyrion led them off. What grassthe horses had left was heavy with dew, as if some passing god had scattered a bag of diamonds overthe earth. The mountain men fell in behind him, each clan arrayed behind its own leaders.

In the dawn light, the army of Lord Tywin Lannister unfolded like an iron rose, thorns gleaming.

His uncle would lead the center. Ser Kevan had raised his standards above the kingsroad. Quivershanging from their belts, the foot archers arrayed themselves into three long lines, to east and west ofthe road, and stood calmly stringing their bows. Between them, pikemen formed squares; behind wererank on rank of men-at-arms with spear and sword and axe. Three hundred heavy h............