ASOIAF Read Through

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Prince Tommen spoke up. “Do you have news of Bran, Uncle?” “I stopped by the sickroom last night,” Tyrion announced. “There was no change. The maester thought that a hopeful sign.” “I don’t want Brandon to die,” Tommen said timorously. He was a sweet boy. Not like his brother, but then Jaime and Tyrion were somewhat less than peas in a pod themselves.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionlannister #tyrion
#tyrionI

Tyrion turned back to his siblings. Twins, male and female. They looked very much the part this morning. Both had chosen a deep green that matched their eyes. Their blond curls were all a fashionable tumble, and gold ornaments shone at wrists and fingers and throats. Tyrion wondered what it would be like to have a twin, and decided that he would rather not know. Bad enough to face himself in a looking glass every day. Another him was a thought too dreadful to contemplate.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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There was very little that Jaime took seriously. Tyrion knew that about his brother, and forgave it. During all the terrible long years of his childhood, only Jaime had ever shown him the smallest measure of affection or respect, and for that Tyrion was willing to forgive him most anything.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionI

A cold, cheerless meal had been laid out in the morning room of the Guest House. Jaime sat at table with Cersei and the children, talking in low, hushed voices. “Is Robert still abed?” Tyrion asked as he seated himself, uninvited, at the table. His sister peered at him with the same expression of faint distaste she had worn since the day he was born. “The king has not slept at all,” she told him. “He is with Lord Eddard. He has taken their sorrow deeply to heart.” “He has a large heart, our Robert,” Jaime said with a lazy smile.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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“The prince will remember that, little lord,” the Hound warned him. The helm turned his laugh into a hollow rumble. “I pray he does,” Tyrion Lannister replied. “If he forgets, be a good dog and remind him.” He gave Sandor Clegane a perfunctory nod and walked away as briskly as his stunted legs would carry him, whistling. He pitied the first knight to try the Hound today. The man did have a temper.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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A shadow fell across his face. He turned to find Clegane looming overhead like a cliff. His soot-dark armor seemed to blot out the sun. He had lowered the visor on his helm. It was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling black hound, fearsome to behold, but Tyrion had always thought it a great improvement over Clegane’s hideously burned face.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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“One word,” Tyrion said, “and I will hit you again.” “I’m going to tell Mother!” Joffrey exclaimed. Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks flamed. “You tell your mother,” Tyrion told him. “But first you get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall to your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with them. “Do you understand? Do you?” The boy looked as though he was going to cry. Instead, he managed a weak nod. Then he turned and fled headlong from the yard, holding his cheek. Tyrion watched him run.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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Tyrion turned to his nephew. “Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them your comfort.” Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my comfort do them?” “None,” Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been noted.” “The Stark boy is nothing to me,” Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing of women.” Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face. The boy’s cheek began to redden.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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“A voice from nowhere,” Sandor said. He peered through his helm, looking this way and that. “Spirits of the air!” The prince laughed, as he always laughed when his bodyguard did this mummer’s farce. Tyrion was used to it. “Down here.” The tall man peered down at the ground, and pretended to notice him. “The little lord Tyrion,” he said. “My pardons. I did not see you standing there.” “I am in no mood for your insolence today.”

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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Clegane cast a long shadow across the hard-packed earth as his squire lowered the black helm over his head. “I could silence the creature, if it please you,” he said through his open visor. His boy placed a longsword in his hand. He tested the weight of it, slicing at the cold morning air. Behind him, the yard rang to the clangor of steel on steel. The notion seemed to delight the prince. “Send a dog to kill a dog!” he exclaimed. “Winterfell is so infested with wolves, the Starks would never miss one.” Tyrion hopped off the last step onto the yard. “I beg to differ, nephew,” he said. “The Starks can count past six. Unlike some princes I might name.” Joffrey had the grace at least to blush.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionI

The rising sun had not yet cleared the walls of Winterfell, but the men were already hard at it in the yard below. Sandor Clegane’s rasping voice drifted up to him. “The boy is a long time dying. I wish he would be quicker about it.” Tyrion glanced down and saw the Hound standing with young Joffrey as squires swarmed around them. “At least he dies quietly,” the prince replied. “It’s the wolf that makes the noise. I could scarce sleep last night.”

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionI

Outside, Tyrion swallowed a lungful of the cold morning air and began his laborious descent of the steep stone steps that corkscrewed around the exterior of the library tower. It was slow going; the steps were cut high and narrow, while his legs were short and twisted.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionlannister #tyrion
#tyrionI

His legs were stiff and sore as he eased down off the bench. He massaged some life back into them and limped heavily to the table where the septon was snoring softly, his head pillowed on an open book in front of him. Tyrion glanced at the title. A life of the Grand Maester Aethelmure, no wonder. “Chayle,” he said softly. The young man jerked up, blinking, confused, the crystal of his order swinging wildly on its silver chain. “I’m off to break my fast. See that you return the books to the shelves. Be gentle with the Valyrian scrolls, the parchment is very dry. Ayrmidon’s ‘Engines of War’ is quite rare, and yours is the only complete copy I’ve seen.” Chayle gaped at him, still half-asleep. Patiently, Tyrion repeated his instructions, then clapped the septon on the shoulder and left him to his tasks.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionI

When the direwolf howled again, Tyrion shut the heavy leather-bound cover on the book he was reading, a hundred-year-old discourse on the changing of the seasons by a long-dead maester. He covered a yawn with the back of his hand. His reading lamp was flickering, its oil all but gone, as dawn light leaked through the high windows. He had been at it all night, but that was nothing new. Tyrion Lannister was not much a one for sleeping.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionI

Somewhere in the great stone maze of Winterfell, a wolf howled. The sound hung over the castle like a flag of mourning. Tyrion Lannister looked up from his books and shivered, though the library was snug and warm. Something about the howling of a wolf took a man right out of his here and now and left him in a dark forest of the mind, running naked before the pack.

A GAME OF THRONES: TYRION I

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#tyrionlannister #tyrion
#tyrionI

Screaming, Bran went backward out the window into empty air. There was nothing to grab on to. The courtyard rushed up to meet him. Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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He stood Bran up on the sill. “How old are you, boy?” “Seven,” Bran said, shaking with relief. His fingers had dug deep gouges in the man’s forearm. He let go sheepishly. The man looked over at the woman. “The things I do for love,” he said with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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Faces appeared in the window above him. The queen. And now Bran recognized the man beside her. They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror. “He saw us,” the woman said shrilly. “So he did,” the man said. Bran’s fingers started to slip. He grabbed the ledge with his other hand. Fingernails dug into unyielding stone. The man reached down. “Take my hand,” he said. “Before you fall.” Bran seized his arm and held on tight with all his strength. The man yanked him up to the ledge. “What are you doing?” the woman demanded. The man ignored her. He was very strong.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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Everything happened at once then. The woman pushed the man away wildly, shouting and pointing. Bran tried to pull himself up, bending double as he reached for the gargoyle. He was in too much of a hurry. His hand scraped uselessly across smooth stone, and in his panic his legs slipped, and suddenly he was falling. There was an instant of vertigo, a sickening lurch as the window flashed past. He shot out a hand, grabbed for the ledge, lost it, caught it again with his other hand. He swung against the building, hard. The impact took the breath out of him. Bran dangled, one-handed, panting.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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Her hands buried themselves in his hair, his tangled golden hair, and pulled his face down to her breast. Bran saw her face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, moaning. Her golden hair swung from side to side as her head moved back and forth, but still he recognized the queen. He must have made a noise. Suddenly her eyes opened, and she was staring right at him. She screamed.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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Inside the room, a man and a woman were wrestling. They were both naked. Bran could not tell who they were. The man’s back was to him, and his body screened the woman from view as he pushed her up against a wall. There were soft, wet sounds. Bran realized they were kissing. He watched, wide-eyed and frightened, his breath tight in his throat. The man had a hand down between her legs, and he must have been hurting her there, because the woman started to moan, low in her throat. “Stop it,” she said, “stop it, stop it. Oh, please…” But her voice was low and weak, and she did not push him away.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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The man sighed. “You should think less about the future and more about the pleasures at hand.” “Stop that!” the woman said. Bran heard the sudden slap of flesh on flesh, then the man’s laughter. Bran pulled himself up, climbed over the gargoyle, crawled out onto the roof. This was the easy way. He moved across the roof to the next gargoyle, right above the window of the room where they were talking. “All this talk is getting very tiresome, sister,” the man said. “Come here and be quiet.” Bran sat astride the gargoyle, tightened his legs around it, and swung himself around, upside down. He hung by his legs and slowly stretched his head down toward the window. The world looked strange upside down. A courtyard swam dizzily below him, its stones still wet with melted snow. Bran looked in the window.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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Bran was suddenly very frightened. He wanted nothing so much as to go back the way he had come, to find his brothers. Only what would he tell them? He had to get closer, Bran realized. He had to see who was talking. Bran looked down. There was a narrow ledge beneath the window, only a few inches wide. He tried to lower himself toward it. Too far. He would never reach. Bran studied the ledge. He could drop down. It was too narrow to land on, but if he could catch hold as he fell past, pull himself up…except that might make a noise, draw them to the window. He was not sure what he was hearing, but he knew it was not meant for his ears.

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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“My husband grows more restless every day. Having Stark beside him will only make him worse. “He’s still in love with the sister, the insipid little dead sixteen-year-old. How long till he decides to put me aside for some new Lyanna?”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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“You are as blind as Robert,” the woman was saying. “If you mean I see the same thing, yes,” the man said. “I see a man who would sooner die than betray his king.” “He betrayed one already, or have you forgotten?” the woman said. “Oh, I don’t deny he’s loyal to Robert, that’s obvious. What happens when Robert dies and Joff takes the throne? And the sooner that comes to pass, the safer we’ll all be.”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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“Let Lady Arryn grow as bold as she likes. Whatever she knows, whatever she thinks she knows, she has no proof.” He paused a moment. “Or does she?” “Do you think the king will require proof?” the woman said. “I tell you, he loves me not.” “And whose fault is that, sweet sister?”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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“His wife is Lady Arryn’s sister. It’s a wonder Lysa was not here to greet us with her accusations.” “You fret too much. Lysa Arryn is a frightened cow.” “That frightened cow shared Jon Arryn’s bed.” “If she knew anything, she would have gone to Robert before she fled King’s Landing.” “When he had already agreed to foster that weakling son of hers at Casterly Rock? I think not. She knew the boy’s life would be hostage to her silence. She may grow bolder now that he’s safe atop the Eyrie.”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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“Lord Eddard has never taken any interest in anything that happened south of the Neck,” the woman said. “Never. I tell you, he means to move against us. Why else would he leave the seat of his power?” “A hundred reasons. Duty. Honor. He yearns to write his name large across the book of history, to get away from his wife, or both. “Perhaps he just wants to be warm for once in his life.”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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They were talking about Father, Bran realized. He wanted to hear more. A few more feet…but they would see him if he swung out in front of the window. “We will have to watch him carefully,” the woman said. “I would sooner watch you,” the man said. He sounded bored. “Come back here.”

A GAME OF THRONES: BRAN II

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