The Price of Help

Only then did Tyrion Lannister realize what sort of man sat across from him.

Ronan had the look of a sellsword who had risen higher than sellswords usually did. That made Tyrion think of Bronn, the drifting blade who had carried him out of the Eyrie alive because coin made loyalty convenient.

Men like that shared a simple habit. They put their own lives first. Tyrion understood the shape of the question at last. "What do you want?"

The answer earned him amusement rather than respect.

"Lord Hand," Ronan said, "can you afford the price?"

"Coin, power, women." Tyrion named them easily. When a man wanted something, generosity was one of the few virtues a Lannister could afford to perform.

Ronan was not most men.

"What I want," he said, "is not something you can give so casually."

"I cannot?"

Tyrion almost laughed, then saw that Ronan was not joking. Anything beyond coin, office, or flesh had to be dangerous. His first thoughts were title and land.

A title might be negotiable if his father saw profit in it. Land was another matter.

For a sellsword to offend him and still aim for a piece of Westeros meant the man was already thinking beyond employment. Combine that with Ronan's behavior since arriving in King's Landing, and the pattern became difficult to ignore.

Cersei had been used. His sister, for all her beauty and venom, was not clever enough to see the trap closing around her.

Tyrion's return must have disturbed some plan Ronan had already been making.

For now, suspicion remained suspicion. Tyrion could not promise what Ronan wanted, and Ronan did not seem desperate to receive it. The result was unpleasantly simple: King's Landing's problems remained Tyrion's to solve.

He took part of Ronan's advice and inspected every gate himself. The walls, hinges, murder holes, towers, and crews were worse than he had expected. Bronn followed him through the circuit and complained before the tour was half finished.

"Protecting you is hard work," the sellsword said. "Out on the road, I understood it. In your own city, must it still be this much trouble?"

Tyrion sighed. "If I had useful help, it would not be. As it happens, I have myself."

"Think Lord Tywin can stop the King in the North?"

Bronn had meant the question idly, but it dropped Tyrion into thought.

Being in King's Landing was already a kind of fortune. Whenever he remembered Catelyn Stark's hatred, the Vale's sky cells, and that charming little trial by combat, he felt a small chill.

Now Eddard Stark was dead, and the Lannisters had become the perfect target for every northern grievance.

Those men would not let the matter rest.

Tywin would not save King's Landing for him. Beyond the walls, Tyrion had little he could truly use: Ronan's gold cloaks, the Kingsguard, and whatever fragments of the royal household still obeyed orders.

Four or five thousand men, perhaps.

The city held many more bodies than that, but desperate citizens with knives were not soldiers. Tyrion had no intention of trusting the capital's survival to mobs, prayers, or the sudden courage of men who sold information for copper.

His father had not honored him with the office of Hand. Tywin had given him the capital because the capital had become a filthy problem that needed someone small enough to throw at it.

"Where now?" Bronn asked. "A drink would improve this day."

Tyrion waved him off. "Go, then. If I die, I shall be sure to do it at an inconvenient hour."

For once, Bronn looked almost concerned. "You sure you do not need me?"

"Do you want that drink or not?"

"Fine. Your decision. If someone cuts your throat, do not say Bronn lacks professional feeling."

Tyrion ignored the performance and went toward Cobbler's Square. He still wanted to see Ronan.

The closer he came to the City Watch barracks, the more disciplined the patrols became. This quarter felt different from the rest of King's Landing, and Tyrion disliked how impressive the difference was.

Two hard-faced gold cloaks stopped him. Tyrion pointed at the badge on his chest. "Do you know what this means?"

"Barracks are closed to outsiders."

"I am the Hand of the King."

"Then you can wait like an important outsider, my lord."

The men recognized him. Their refusal was not ignorance. It was discipline, and discipline made the insult more interesting.

Before Tyrion decided whether to be offended, Rovyn Meeks appeared and smoothed the matter away. The gold cloak looked genuinely unsurprised, which annoyed Tyrion more than the gate guards had.

"The commander said you would come, Lord Hand."

"Did he?"

Rovyn bowed just enough to be polite. "This way."

Tyrion followed, and what he saw inside the western barracks changed his mood from irritation to calculation. These were not the rot-eaten gold cloaks King Robert had tolerated. Their armor was maintained. Their lines were clean.

Men moved when officers spoke, and the movement did not look like fear alone. They obeyed one man.

A quick look was enough to show Tyrion what Ronan had done. When they entered, he saw a familiar figure before he saw the commander.

"Sansa."

The girl looked up. Something cold crossed her face before she lowered her eyes again. Tyrion understood it. To her, Lannister was now a word with blood on it.

What he did not understand was why the eldest Stark daughter stood near Ronan like a quiet attendant. Meals, towels, small errands, careful attention.

She seemed less like a prisoner than someone clinging to the one person in King's Landing who had not thrown her to Joffrey. No one explained it to him.

Ronan watched the Hand notice too much. "You came to find me." Tyrion's smile turned dry. There was no graceful way to deny it.

"I want to know your price."

"Curious?"

"Suspicious."

"Of what?"

"Of why Captain Ronan truly came to King's Landing."

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