Summary: Lord Tywin Lannister finds himself in a bind when two women from his past pay him a visit in the black cells underneath the Red Keep. They are hells-bent on humiliating the man who once humiliated them. Or are they?
Chapter 1
The air down in the dungeons was damp and chilly. The windowless cell was illuminated only by a single torch by the small opening that served as its door. In the middle of the cell, firmly tied to a rack, lay a man in his late fifties, head cleanly shaven, his stern face framed by long thick golden whiskers with a slight hint of gray. He was completely naked, his body stretched so tightly across the rack that he could not have moved a muscle. But he knew nothing of his predicament: he slept that deep, unconscious sleep that could only be achieved with the help of the most potent concoction in a maester's cabinet.
The woman sat away from the dim light, on a ledge protruding from the wall, patiently waiting until the potion she had had slipped in his food had worn off. She was almost a decade the man's junior, but her face and body bore the unmistakable marks of a life of poverty and deprivation. Men and women alike had once considered her a beauty, but the bitterness she had suffered had given her features an undeniable harshness and turned her hair a lackluster shade of gray.
She had lost track how long she had waited – down in the dungeons, it was impossible to tell the time – but finally, the man began to stir and opened his eyes. He was disoriented at first, she could tell, and too drowsy to understand. The look in his eyes when he realized he was unable to move was puzzlement rather than anger or fear. The dose was too strong, she thought.
“I've been wounded,” he concluded after a brief moment of reflection. It was not a question.
The woman stepped out of the shadow. “That's one way of looking at it, m'lord,” she said.
The man acknowledged her response with a curt nod. “Fetch me another blanket,” he commanded, “and call for a maester.”
“No,” she said. “There are no blankets down here, and I will not call a maester,” she briefly paused before curtsying mockingly, “m'lord.” She sat down on the rack beside him. It was then that he snapped to attention and seemed to realize, he was not, in fact, wounded, but in bonds.
For a very brief moment, she saw alarm in his eyes, but he smoothed over it almost effortlessly. “You will do as you're told,” he said. “And tell your lord master this is no way to treat a hostage. He would do well to remember his manners.”
“Perhaps it is the way to treat people who break guest right.” The woman said. “Or who smash babe's heads against the wall.”
“I have done no such thing.”
“No, you have not,” she agreed. “But what you did was no better.”
“Enough. I will not be lectured by a servant. I will speak to your lord, and I should prefer to do so unshackled and fully clothed.”
She snickered. “You will have no more need of your clothes. I have no lord. You're deep down in the belly of the Red Keep. And at least as I see it, you seem to be in no position to be making demands.”
At first, he was too taken aback to speak. Then bafflement turned to anger. “Whatever this folly is, release me,” he said, “at once.”
She laughed softly. “And why would I do that?”
Her insolence made him speechless again.
“There is nothing you can offer me in return for releasing you,” she continued, “now, is there? The penalty for what I have done is death. Whether I release you or not, it won't change a thing. You know that and I know that and you know that I know, so you tell me, why should I?”
She could see he was seething with anger, still unable to wrap his mind around the fact that anyone, much less someone like her, would dare to hold him captive. But as he turned his gaze to lock his eyes on hers, rage was replaced with cold calculation. “Your death will be painless,” he said without a trace of emotion, “and if you act promptly, I might be moved to spare your family.”
This time, she laughed out loud. “There is no kin of mine you can have flogged and paraded through the streets. No children to roast on a spit. You saw to that yourself, m'lord. Is just me.”
He ignored her remark. “Release me now. I will not ask again.”
He still seemed to expect her to shrink away in fear and obey, as any other person probably would have done. But her smile just widened. “You don't remember me, do you?” She casually placed a hand on his stomach. His muscles tensed immediately. “No, you don't remember me...” Her voice trailed off as she began to probe his belly and traced small circles with her fingertips. Her touch made him visibly uncomfortable. He tried to twist away, but with his body stretched taut, he had nowhere to go. She began to scribble her fingers over his flanks.
“Enough! Stop this folly!” There was a subtle strain in his voice that hadn't been there before. “I will not abide this madness!”
She pulled her hand away and looked at him with thinly veiled amusement. “Ever the lion, aren't you m'lord? Captured and bound and still all high and mighty trying to cow me with your roars. But know this, m'lord, 'tis the trapped lion that roars the loudest.”
“Ah. I see you think yourself witty,” the man said wryly. “A common street rat trying to be smart.”
That almost made her angry. “Let me explain,” she said, “because your highborn brain seems to have trouble grasping the situation. Nobody in this cell cares that I am lowborn, and the fact that you are highborn counts for shit. The only thing that should concern you is the fact that you are tied down and that I am free to do with you however I please. I can do this-” she slapped him across the face, hard enough to make his lip bleed, “I can do this-” she punched him in the stomach, making him gasp for air, “or I can cut off your manhood and feed it to you if that so happens to please me. So here's my advice to you: adjust, m'lord, adjust to your new reality, and adjust quickly, or your last few hours in this world shall be rather miserable.”
“Aren't you charming,” her captive said icily before pressing his lips together again.
“Suit yourself,” the woman shrugged. With that, she returned her attention to his upper body, slowly dragging her fingers over his flat belly. He winced at the touch. “That's better,” she said, “who knew that all I'd have to do to shut you up were a few light touches?” Indeed, he was too busy trying to maintain his composure to respond. She picked up the pace, running her fingers all over his bare skin, watching with amusement as he tried in vain to squirm away and struggled to suppress a whimper. She had to admit she enjoyed discomfiting him, perhaps more than she should have. When she suddenly dug her fingers into his sides again, he let out a rather undignified yelp.
“Ah, what a lovely sound,” she said, now teasing the area just beneath his hip bones. “Let's see if we can get more of that. I sense a sweet spot.”
He had all but stopped breathing and was clenching his jaw, his head turned a deeper shade of red from anger and the strain of trying to conceal his growing distress. Small beads of sweat were forming on his head.
“You know what they say about you?” She had returned to dragging her fingers along his sides. It was visibly wearing him down. “Of course you do. His lordship never smiles, they say; his lordship never laughs. I think I have a mind to prove them wrong.” With that, she dug her fingers into his ribs, deftly running them up and down from his lower ribs to his armpits and back.
The surprise attack did the job. He let out an uncharacteristically high-pitched shriek and yanked at his bonds, putting up a brief struggle to regain his bearings before dissolving into helpless laughter. It was an odd sight to behold, to see a man who never so much as smiled laughing uncontrollably, but it was strangely titillating to her. Once his self-restraint had broken down, things were easy. She alternated between tickling his waist, his belly, his ribs and under his arms until he was gasping for air. She paused.
As soon as he had recovered his breath, the look of anger and distaste returned to his face, along with something else. Embarrassment, she thought, he's utterly mortified. This was working much better than expected.
“What do you want, woman?” He snapped.
She had waited for this question. “Quite simple. I want to humiliate the man who humiliated me.”
He glared at her. “I do not know you,” he said testily. “And this is folly. If I have wronged you, state your case, and be done with it, but stop this madness. It will get you nowhere.”
“Ah. So you still do not remember me.” She remarked, resuming her efforts by scribbling her fingertips around his navel. “Not to worry, you will.”
He was not amused. “I'll have you sent to the Dreadfort.” He said. His voice was cold, but his face was suspiciously strained.
She stopped, and for a brief moment, there was a sense of triumph in his eyes, thinking the prospect of being flayed had finally scared her into submission. But the sudden smirk on her face indicated otherwise, and then she pulled out a small vial from under her robe. “Sweetsleep,” she said. “I may not make it out of these walls alive, but if I am captured, my death will be a quick and painless one.” She turned the vial in her hands, closely studying it from all sides. “There is enough in here for the both of us. If you beg me prettily, I might be persuaded to give you some.”
“And how might you have come into the possession of Sweetsleep?”
She smiled sheepishly, as if caught in a lie. “Ah, yes, how could an insignificant street rat such as myself come by this precious poison? Even if I had faithfully saved up all my coppers over the years, how would I have known where to buy it without being cheated?” She gave the bottle another look. “Surely, any self-respecting trader of poisons would have recognized me for what I am and sold me nothing but cheap, sweetened water... After all, how would the lowborn daughter of a candlemaker be able to tell the difference? I do wonder though... how did this little mouse catch herself a mighty lion with nothing but sugar and water? That bears pondering, does it not?” She opened the vial. “Of course, you are free to try a few drops to put the mad theory to rest that a woman like me could possess any kind of potion other than moon tea... come to think of it, I do have several others on me...” She put the stopper back in the flask and pulled out another small bottle. “This one was sold to me as the Strangler. What kind of name is that, I wonder? I have no idea what it does. It's probably just mud from the Blackwater, but do try some to be sure. Us smallfolk are humble people of humble means, but we share with others whatever we can give.”
He looked at her the way an ordinary man might look at an insect he was about to swat, but before he could respond, there was a sudden clanking noise coming from outside the door, then footsteps, faint, but unmistakable. Her captive did not take any chances. “Guards!” He yelled. “Over here!”
Chapter 2
A young woman stepped through the door. She was of slender build, her pale delicate face framed by dark brown hair. She looked no older than 18, although the other woman knew she was well into her twenties. “Ah. Welcome, dear child,” she purred. “Lord Lion and I have been waiting for you.”
'Lord Lion' looked mighty uncomfortable. His face had turned sour the second he realized the young woman was no guard at all and on top of that seemed to be on friendly terms with his captor. He tried nonetheless. “This woman is holding me against my will. Help get me out of here and you will not regret it.”
The younger woman smiled. “Yes, yes, yes, a Lannister always pays his debt, I know, I know.” The thinly veiled mockery in her voice belied her innocent, childlike appearance. This one, the older woman mused, is a formidable beast of prey hiding inside the skin of a maiden.
The young one knelt next to the rack, inspecting it. “You're lying on an ancient thing, m'lord,” she noted. “It's quite the beauty. Maegor the Cruel used it to torment his enemies, both real and imagined, mind you, he was paranoid like that.”
“Spare me the history lesson,” the man said coolly.
She paid him no mind. “It's a complex device, this one; it has all these parts and blocks that can be realigned, I've heard. I've always wondered what you can do with it. Dislocate a few joints, I'd wager, pull off a limb even. Ah, yes, here-” she took a closer look at one of the cranks attached to the woodwork near his feet, “- not to worry, m'lord,” she reassured him, “we won't try that on you. Well, I might have a mind to, but I'm sure your goodmother will talk me out of it, so rest assured.” She turned her attention to a larger crank right in the middle of the device. As she turned it, the rack effortlessly and without so much as a screech split into three solid pieces, the middle piece rising while the head and foot piece were simultaneously lowered, arching the man's body like a longbow until his head was almost upside-down and his back looked as if it was about to snap in two.
A most uncomfortable position, the older woman thought. He made no sound, however, nothing to betray the considerable amount of pain he was doubtlessly in. She could not help but be impressed by his stoic defiance. This kind of contortion put a substantial strain on even the youngest, most flexible of bodies. For a man going on sixty, it had to be excruciating. The forced backbend had heightened his sense of vulnerability though: for the first time, the anger in his eyes was replaced with something else entirely, something that looked suspiciously like fear.
The young woman chuckled. “Ah, dear old Maegor, always knew what he was doing. Get a man in this position, he'll bend over backwards to tell you all his secrets.” She snickered at her own jest. He said nothing, only clenching his fists. “How would you like it if I tormented you like she did?” She poised her fingers, “lighten the mood and put a smile on that serious face of yours?” That would put a quick end to the stoicism, the other woman thought.
She lightly scratched the area just above his groin, and the look of terror on his face at the prospect of being tickled while arched over backward was priceless. But then the maiden-beast changed her mind. The older woman couldn't even tell where the knife came from, but suddenly, it was there, in her younger companion's hand. “Time to trim this cat's whiskers,” she said. She bent down, grabbed a tuft of bushy golden hair, and before he knew how it happened, she had sliced it off. His eyes widened in shock as she scattered the hair over his face triumphantly and proceeded to seize another strand. He began to shake his head violently to escape the assault, but she just pinned it between her knees and continued to cut away at his facial hair until his once formidable mane was in a rather sorry state. Any attempt to twist free from her clasp was futile; the maiden-beast proved to be both uncharacteristically strong for her size and skilled with the knife.
Eventually, their captive stopped struggling and endured the humiliation stock-still, but when the older woman accidentally met his gaze, it sent a cold shiver down her spine. She instinctively grasped for the flask of Sweetsleep, nervously twisting it in her hands until she almost dropped it. It suddenly seemed as if she could hear steps in the distance, but it was just her scared brain playing tricks on her, she decided. With a sigh, she got up to inspect the damage.
“Sweetling,” she said teasingly after taking a closer look. “See what a mess you've made. That was not kind of you. Even it out, will you?”
The young woman gave her a sweet smile and curtsied, suddenly seeming more child than beast again. With nothing but a knife at hand, the girl showed a surprising aptitude at trimming the remaining hair into a reasonably even, close-cropped cut. It loosened the knot in the older woman's stomach a little bit. “And enough with Maegor's trickery,” she added with a mock-scold, “or I fear our guest here might leave our party early.” The girl giggled, but she obliged and turned the crank back until he was in his original position, even loosening his shackles a bit, giving him some wiggle room.
“You will release me now!” The man commanded. The woman was almost certain he had spotted her momentary fear. Say what you will, he has a gift for smelling weakness. “You won't leave this place alive, you had the right of that, but if you do as you are told, I will allow you to take a sip of the poison and die in peace.”
The woman straightened her shoulders. “You do not understand. The taste of revenge is sweeter to me than a peaceful death could ever be. You see, I was but a child when the Lord of Casterly Rock met me by happenstance and asked my father to send me with him to keep him company. My father obliged. He wasn't one to refuse his lord, much as it pained him. I was scared out of my wits, but Lord Tytos turned out to be a kind man. He never laid a hand on me until long after I was flowered. He saw something in me that gave him joy, and I learned to love him in time. We had some good years together, Lord Tytos and I.”
The man snorted and twisted his mouth in distaste.
“Of course I had heard of his grim son,” the woman continued calmly, “even seen him a few times. He wasn't around much, always out and about collecting debts in the Westerlands, restoring honor to his House, extinguishing entire families, raining hell on defiant children and drowning insolent babes at their mothers' breasts, much honor in that! Of course, he resented that his father chose the company of a lowborn girl, so I steered clear of him when he was at his father's court. I never understood how a gentle man such as Tytos could have sired a man as brutal and cold as his son, but I never paid him any mind. He was off to King's Landing soon enough, ruling King Aerys's kingdom, and when he was at Casterly Rock, I kept my distance. It was all well. That was until Lord Tytos put a babe in my belly.” She stared the man squarely in the eyes. “You could not have that, could you? I cannot prove it, but I know in my heart you had your father killed because you couldn't take it any longer. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't.”
The man exhaled forcefully. The accusation of kinslaying was too much. His anger was getting the better of him. “How dare you!” He could manage little more than a low growl. “You who killed my father with your ****! How dare you accuse me!”
She broke the gaze. Perhaps not then, she thought, not without surprise. Interesting. The Spider seemed so certain.
“Deny it all you want,” she continued, “I know what you did to him, and I know what you did to me. I was well beyond the time that moon tea would have been an option, of course, so you had a maester cut the child out of my belly with cruel steel. Nearly bled me out, it did. As soon as I had recovered enough I could stand on my two legs, you had me stripped and whipped and dragged through the streets naked for days on end. All for the crime of embracing my fate when I had little to no other choice and for daring to wear the wrong necklace!” Gods be good, is that a smile?
He set out to respond, but she cut him off, disgusted. “It was a despicable act, even for someone like you. But the tables have turned now. I may be a pitiful sight to behold, poor and starved and barren and with whip marks on my back, but here, I have stated my case. Lord Tywin of House Lannister, I will force you to your knees and have you beg my forgiveness before this day is over, if it's the last thing I do.”
The maiden-beast had remained silent, huddling in the shadow, but now she stepped forward. For once, the sly smile on her face had disappeared. “You had your men rape me, one by one, hour after hour. Whatever little joy or happiness I had in my life, I lost all of it on that day, and for what, I ask you?” It's not an act; this one is consumed by her bitterness, the older woman realized. It has left her an empty shell.
“For nothing but your sick pride in your family name. You destroyed a life for no good reason just because your vanity dictated it.”
Recognition flashed across the man's face. “I did what I had to protect my family from the likes of you. I had every good reason.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” the young woman said sharply. “But know this, Lord Lannister, you and your lies are nothing here. I will break you and your silly pride. I will have you beg me for mercy. You will learn your place, this I swear by the Seven.”
Chapter 3
The older woman sat down next to him, carefully appraising him from head to toe. He was not unattractive, tall with broad shoulders and a slender but muscular frame. His stern face was lean with high cheekbones and a well-defined jawline. Even now, he exuded an air of authority, though he seemed a lot more uncomfortable under her scrutiny than he cared to let slip. He's nervous, she noted not without a certain satisfaction, trying to hide it, but he's nervous all the same. She placed her hand on his belly again and watched with amusement as he reflexively tensed his muscles and shifted uneasily. “You're strong,” she said, “you can withstand a lot of pain. That's admirable.” She laughed. “But I think you and I both know that won't help you here.”
The maiden-beast snickered. “Oh, I am going to enjoy this so, so much!” She had been kneeling next to the rack. The cold, hard floor did not seem to bother her in the least. She's drunk on the prospect of revenge. And something else, something darker. She got up and straddled his thighs. Then she began dragging her fingertips along the side of his body, from his hips all the way into his armpits and back, occasionally lingering on a spot for a brief moment, circling it with precision. At first, he snorted with disdain, but soon, he began to grimace and squirm uncomfortably. “Ah,” she said, “smile for me, m'lord!” She deftly ran her fingers over his sides. The element of surprise worked just as reliably as before. A squeal escaped his lips and he struggled to regain composure as the young woman continued to focus on his sides and hips, tickling him relentlessly. The effort paid off, and suppressed whimpers turned to giggles and finally, after a little more prodding and probing, into loud, melodic laughter.
“Ah, sweet music to my ears!” The young woman smiled. “A rare enough sound if word can be believed. They say you loathe being laughed at, yet here you are, laughing along with us laughing at you. I must say, it's quite an honor.”
He harrumphed in protest.
This truly is the ultimate humiliation, the other woman realized. “Beg pardon, m'lord,” she said, “did you say something? Could you repeat that, if it pleases m'lord?” She dug her fingers into his ribs and was rewarded with cascades of laughter. “Hear me roar, indeed,” she smirked before adding with a snicker, “Bad pun, m'lord, beg pardon!”
“He should beg your pardon,” the girl said, without letting up for a second. She was tackling his waist and watching with dark, hungry eyes as he bucked and arched his back and struggled against his bonds in a desperate attempt to escape their four-handed assault. His head was red, both from laughter and from the indignity of being reduced to a giggling mess. “It's easy,” the maiden-beast told him, “just say 'I'm sorry!'” He made a point of it to press his lips tightly together to show what he thought of that suggestion, at least for a brief moment before he erupted in laughter again.
“Stop... this... madness!”
“How about this,” the older woman suggested. “You're not used to begging pardon, I understand, but you could try 'Stop, if it please you'. That would please me plenty for the time to give you a little rest. One step at a time. We can practice our apologies later.”
He did not have the breath to respond. His cries of laughter were becoming increasingly distraught. The maiden-beast had found several sensitive spots and was making good use of them. “St-st-stop!” The older woman leaned back to watch the spectacle. She hated to admit it to herself, but it was disturbingly enjoyable to see his lean naked body writhe and convulse under the maiden-beast's merciless touches, unable to do a thing to stop them. Finally, after what seemed like half an eternity of frenzied thrashing and tortured laughter, he conceded defeat. “Please!” He was panting for air, “There! I... said it! Stop! Please!”
“Ah,” the maiden-beast smiled, prodding his waist. “I begged your men to stop. Well. Did they?” He was violently bucking his hips trying to fend off her hands, all to no avail. “You... said... you... said...” He seemed genuinely shocked when he realized she had no intention of stopping.
“I said I would stop, and I did,” the older woman said, waving both her hands in the air to make her point. “Tysha made no such promise.” She got up and started turning one of the smaller cranks, pulling the rack further apart until his body was stretched so taut that she feared any further turning might truly begin to rip him apart. She had not thought that he could laugh any harder at this point, but the sudden inability to move combined with the heightened sensitivity of skin stretched to its limit sent him over the edge. For a moment, the shrieks and howls the maiden-beast forced from him sounded barely human.
Then, it was as if a wall inside of him had broken, and his pleas for mercy just kept on coming. “Please stop!... Oh... Gods be good... please... this is torture! I can't... please no!” He looked as if he was about to lose his mind. Tears of laughter were streaming down his face.
“Ahhh... The proud Lord Tywin reduced to begging and pleading,” the young woman said with a satisfied smirk. “Tell me, how does it feel to be so helpless?”
“I... I... pl-please... Mother have mercy!”
“I never took you for a religious man,” the young woman said. “Or are you talking to her?” She pointed at the older woman. “I never took you for a man who would accept his father's mistress as his mother, either.”
His only response was laughter and more incoherent pleading, and finally: “I'm... I'm sorry!”
“That does not sound like a proper apology.”
“I... I... gods... I... can't... think... ”
He wants to end it, she realized. Could he truly have forgotten the words? That was unlike him. I never thought this would be so effective.
She recited the words for him to repeat. It is a rather long sentence, she thought. Whoever came up with this...
She had to repeat parts of it again, and it took him half an eternity until he had finished the sentence. The younger woman looked disappointed, but she stopped. For that, the older woman was glad.
“Ready for your Sweetsleep, m'lord?” She asked.
He nodded, too weak to speak.
She took out the vial, placed a small droplet on her finger and offered it to him. He sucked it off, and she repeated the procedure.
It did not take long until he was fast asleep.
She untied his bonds, folded his hands over his chest, and quickly assessed the damage. His wrists and ankles were chafed, and he was drenched in sweat, but other than that, he appeared fine. And the whiskers. She sighed. Damn that girl, I'll never hear the end of this. If I'm lucky enough not to end up in the Blackwater with a dagger in my back.
“Fetch me the blanket, girl” she gestured at the corner. The younger woman obliged.
She wrapped him in the blanket, making sure he was fully covered.
“And now?” The young woman asked.
“Now we go home.”
Chapter 4
The woman was tired. They were walking faster than usual. It felt good to finally get out of the dungeons. Up and up they went, another flight of stairs and then through an inconspicuous door guarded by two goldcloaks. One of them handed her a plump leather pouch, coins clinking inside. She quickly counted them, and sure enough, the amount was correct. The maiden-beast turned her head. She likes the sound of that well enough.
The sun was about to set when they finally emerged above ground in Flea Bottom. After the long, timeless darkness below the castle, she would have preferred dawn over dusk. The woman took out three coins from the leather pouch and handed them to her younger companion. “One for your service, two for your silence.”
She stared at them in disbelief. “Are they real?”
The woman nodded curtly. It was always the same reaction she got when she took a new girl to the job. “Never seen a dragon before, have you?”
The younger woman shook her head. “So that was the actual Lord Hand?” She blurted out, incredulously.
“Yes.”
That made her giggle. She was her innocent, maiden-like self again. “I thought he was some knight or minor lord like to make whores call him Lord Lion for the kicks. Never imagined the Hand of the King to frequent the likes of us. Everybody knows he hates whores.”
The woman looked at her sternly. “Yes, precisely. If you value your life, you'll see that it stays that way. If any of this becomes known, if the Lord Hand just so much as suspects he is becoming the talk of town, he will have us both shortened by a head, or worse.” She paused, unsure whether to address this delicate issue or to just let it go and quietly find replacement for the young woman. “You should have told me about what you were planning with the beard,” she finally said. “That was folly. I feared for our lives then and there.”
The girl seemed genuinely taken aback. “We get to do all these things to him, but take a little hair, and that will cost us our heads?”
The older woman wasn't sure why that was, either, or why she had known with such certainty that they had overstepped their boundaries. All she remembered was the sudden sense of dread plucking at her innards. “The Lord Hand has a great appetite for many things, but he has no taste for having his facial hair mutilated, it seems. Best not to bring a knife without telling anyone, either. An overzealous guard might misread your intentions, and that would be the end of you.”
“Why does he like it?” The young woman asked, after a long pause of silence. “The other stuff, I mean.”
The woman shrugged. “Some men like to take a woman from the front, some like to take her from behind, some men have no appetite for women at all. Some pay a woman so they can humiliate her, others like the taste of humiliation. It's all the same to me, as long as they pay with good coin. That he does.”
The young woman nodded. “Just another job then.” They kept walking in silence. “Who is this Tysha I'm playing?” She asked after a while.
“Some girl he wronged,” the woman said. “You already know most all you need to know about her. He gave her to his men to teach his son the demon dwarf a lesson. You look a lot like her, or so I am told. It's why we picked you, but don't think we can't replace you. There's a lot of girls look like Tysha in this town, I assure you.”
There had been three or four others before her, but they had proven inept or unreliable. One she even had to have killed for fear the girl wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut.
“Was that real poison you used?”
“Real enough,” the woman confirmed. Too many questions.
The young woman laughed. “If my father knew I had the chance to poison the Hand and didn't do it, he'd beat me bloody.”
That's the trouble with girls from Flea Bottom, the woman thought. Not one among them don't know a dozen people hold a grudge over the Sack. She pointed at the gold dragons the young woman clasped tightly in her hands. “Never kill a man who shits gold right into your pockets. Before I became a part of this... arrangement, I had to spread my legs for ten, fifteen men a night, drunk brutes most all of them, and I could hardly put enough food on the table to survive. Now, I visit the cellars of the Red Keep once a fortnight and live comfortably. I've even had a taste of suckling pig. You best remember that when you next have the urge to avenge the Sack. Besides, one drop too many in his lordship's mouth, and you'd have all them maesters come rushing forward with their antidotes. They are never far. He would live, and you'd be drawn and quartered and fed to the crows.” You and I both, she thought uneasily. These girls, no matter how carefully chosen, were always a risk.
“I was but a babe at my mother's breast,” her young companion quickly reassured her. “I have no mind to avenge the Sack.”
The ease with which she lied about her age unnerved the older woman. I'll have to speak to the Spider about this one, she thought. And then we'll have to find a new girl. Again.
Chapter 1
The air down in the dungeons was damp and chilly. The windowless cell was illuminated only by a single torch by the small opening that served as its door. In the middle of the cell, firmly tied to a rack, lay a man in his late fifties, head cleanly shaven, his stern face framed by long thick golden whiskers with a slight hint of gray. He was completely naked, his body stretched so tightly across the rack that he could not have moved a muscle. But he knew nothing of his predicament: he slept that deep, unconscious sleep that could only be achieved with the help of the most potent concoction in a maester's cabinet.
The woman sat away from the dim light, on a ledge protruding from the wall, patiently waiting until the potion she had had slipped in his food had worn off. She was almost a decade the man's junior, but her face and body bore the unmistakable marks of a life of poverty and deprivation. Men and women alike had once considered her a beauty, but the bitterness she had suffered had given her features an undeniable harshness and turned her hair a lackluster shade of gray.
She had lost track how long she had waited – down in the dungeons, it was impossible to tell the time – but finally, the man began to stir and opened his eyes. He was disoriented at first, she could tell, and too drowsy to understand. The look in his eyes when he realized he was unable to move was puzzlement rather than anger or fear. The dose was too strong, she thought.
“I've been wounded,” he concluded after a brief moment of reflection. It was not a question.
The woman stepped out of the shadow. “That's one way of looking at it, m'lord,” she said.
The man acknowledged her response with a curt nod. “Fetch me another blanket,” he commanded, “and call for a maester.”
“No,” she said. “There are no blankets down here, and I will not call a maester,” she briefly paused before curtsying mockingly, “m'lord.” She sat down on the rack beside him. It was then that he snapped to attention and seemed to realize, he was not, in fact, wounded, but in bonds.
For a very brief moment, she saw alarm in his eyes, but he smoothed over it almost effortlessly. “You will do as you're told,” he said. “And tell your lord master this is no way to treat a hostage. He would do well to remember his manners.”
“Perhaps it is the way to treat people who break guest right.” The woman said. “Or who smash babe's heads against the wall.”
“I have done no such thing.”
“No, you have not,” she agreed. “But what you did was no better.”
“Enough. I will not be lectured by a servant. I will speak to your lord, and I should prefer to do so unshackled and fully clothed.”
She snickered. “You will have no more need of your clothes. I have no lord. You're deep down in the belly of the Red Keep. And at least as I see it, you seem to be in no position to be making demands.”
At first, he was too taken aback to speak. Then bafflement turned to anger. “Whatever this folly is, release me,” he said, “at once.”
She laughed softly. “And why would I do that?”
Her insolence made him speechless again.
“There is nothing you can offer me in return for releasing you,” she continued, “now, is there? The penalty for what I have done is death. Whether I release you or not, it won't change a thing. You know that and I know that and you know that I know, so you tell me, why should I?”
She could see he was seething with anger, still unable to wrap his mind around the fact that anyone, much less someone like her, would dare to hold him captive. But as he turned his gaze to lock his eyes on hers, rage was replaced with cold calculation. “Your death will be painless,” he said without a trace of emotion, “and if you act promptly, I might be moved to spare your family.”
This time, she laughed out loud. “There is no kin of mine you can have flogged and paraded through the streets. No children to roast on a spit. You saw to that yourself, m'lord. Is just me.”
He ignored her remark. “Release me now. I will not ask again.”
He still seemed to expect her to shrink away in fear and obey, as any other person probably would have done. But her smile just widened. “You don't remember me, do you?” She casually placed a hand on his stomach. His muscles tensed immediately. “No, you don't remember me...” Her voice trailed off as she began to probe his belly and traced small circles with her fingertips. Her touch made him visibly uncomfortable. He tried to twist away, but with his body stretched taut, he had nowhere to go. She began to scribble her fingers over his flanks.
“Enough! Stop this folly!” There was a subtle strain in his voice that hadn't been there before. “I will not abide this madness!”
She pulled her hand away and looked at him with thinly veiled amusement. “Ever the lion, aren't you m'lord? Captured and bound and still all high and mighty trying to cow me with your roars. But know this, m'lord, 'tis the trapped lion that roars the loudest.”
“Ah. I see you think yourself witty,” the man said wryly. “A common street rat trying to be smart.”
That almost made her angry. “Let me explain,” she said, “because your highborn brain seems to have trouble grasping the situation. Nobody in this cell cares that I am lowborn, and the fact that you are highborn counts for shit. The only thing that should concern you is the fact that you are tied down and that I am free to do with you however I please. I can do this-” she slapped him across the face, hard enough to make his lip bleed, “I can do this-” she punched him in the stomach, making him gasp for air, “or I can cut off your manhood and feed it to you if that so happens to please me. So here's my advice to you: adjust, m'lord, adjust to your new reality, and adjust quickly, or your last few hours in this world shall be rather miserable.”
“Aren't you charming,” her captive said icily before pressing his lips together again.
“Suit yourself,” the woman shrugged. With that, she returned her attention to his upper body, slowly dragging her fingers over his flat belly. He winced at the touch. “That's better,” she said, “who knew that all I'd have to do to shut you up were a few light touches?” Indeed, he was too busy trying to maintain his composure to respond. She picked up the pace, running her fingers all over his bare skin, watching with amusement as he tried in vain to squirm away and struggled to suppress a whimper. She had to admit she enjoyed discomfiting him, perhaps more than she should have. When she suddenly dug her fingers into his sides again, he let out a rather undignified yelp.
“Ah, what a lovely sound,” she said, now teasing the area just beneath his hip bones. “Let's see if we can get more of that. I sense a sweet spot.”
He had all but stopped breathing and was clenching his jaw, his head turned a deeper shade of red from anger and the strain of trying to conceal his growing distress. Small beads of sweat were forming on his head.
“You know what they say about you?” She had returned to dragging her fingers along his sides. It was visibly wearing him down. “Of course you do. His lordship never smiles, they say; his lordship never laughs. I think I have a mind to prove them wrong.” With that, she dug her fingers into his ribs, deftly running them up and down from his lower ribs to his armpits and back.
The surprise attack did the job. He let out an uncharacteristically high-pitched shriek and yanked at his bonds, putting up a brief struggle to regain his bearings before dissolving into helpless laughter. It was an odd sight to behold, to see a man who never so much as smiled laughing uncontrollably, but it was strangely titillating to her. Once his self-restraint had broken down, things were easy. She alternated between tickling his waist, his belly, his ribs and under his arms until he was gasping for air. She paused.
As soon as he had recovered his breath, the look of anger and distaste returned to his face, along with something else. Embarrassment, she thought, he's utterly mortified. This was working much better than expected.
“What do you want, woman?” He snapped.
She had waited for this question. “Quite simple. I want to humiliate the man who humiliated me.”
He glared at her. “I do not know you,” he said testily. “And this is folly. If I have wronged you, state your case, and be done with it, but stop this madness. It will get you nowhere.”
“Ah. So you still do not remember me.” She remarked, resuming her efforts by scribbling her fingertips around his navel. “Not to worry, you will.”
He was not amused. “I'll have you sent to the Dreadfort.” He said. His voice was cold, but his face was suspiciously strained.
She stopped, and for a brief moment, there was a sense of triumph in his eyes, thinking the prospect of being flayed had finally scared her into submission. But the sudden smirk on her face indicated otherwise, and then she pulled out a small vial from under her robe. “Sweetsleep,” she said. “I may not make it out of these walls alive, but if I am captured, my death will be a quick and painless one.” She turned the vial in her hands, closely studying it from all sides. “There is enough in here for the both of us. If you beg me prettily, I might be persuaded to give you some.”
“And how might you have come into the possession of Sweetsleep?”
She smiled sheepishly, as if caught in a lie. “Ah, yes, how could an insignificant street rat such as myself come by this precious poison? Even if I had faithfully saved up all my coppers over the years, how would I have known where to buy it without being cheated?” She gave the bottle another look. “Surely, any self-respecting trader of poisons would have recognized me for what I am and sold me nothing but cheap, sweetened water... After all, how would the lowborn daughter of a candlemaker be able to tell the difference? I do wonder though... how did this little mouse catch herself a mighty lion with nothing but sugar and water? That bears pondering, does it not?” She opened the vial. “Of course, you are free to try a few drops to put the mad theory to rest that a woman like me could possess any kind of potion other than moon tea... come to think of it, I do have several others on me...” She put the stopper back in the flask and pulled out another small bottle. “This one was sold to me as the Strangler. What kind of name is that, I wonder? I have no idea what it does. It's probably just mud from the Blackwater, but do try some to be sure. Us smallfolk are humble people of humble means, but we share with others whatever we can give.”
He looked at her the way an ordinary man might look at an insect he was about to swat, but before he could respond, there was a sudden clanking noise coming from outside the door, then footsteps, faint, but unmistakable. Her captive did not take any chances. “Guards!” He yelled. “Over here!”
Chapter 2
A young woman stepped through the door. She was of slender build, her pale delicate face framed by dark brown hair. She looked no older than 18, although the other woman knew she was well into her twenties. “Ah. Welcome, dear child,” she purred. “Lord Lion and I have been waiting for you.”
'Lord Lion' looked mighty uncomfortable. His face had turned sour the second he realized the young woman was no guard at all and on top of that seemed to be on friendly terms with his captor. He tried nonetheless. “This woman is holding me against my will. Help get me out of here and you will not regret it.”
The younger woman smiled. “Yes, yes, yes, a Lannister always pays his debt, I know, I know.” The thinly veiled mockery in her voice belied her innocent, childlike appearance. This one, the older woman mused, is a formidable beast of prey hiding inside the skin of a maiden.
The young one knelt next to the rack, inspecting it. “You're lying on an ancient thing, m'lord,” she noted. “It's quite the beauty. Maegor the Cruel used it to torment his enemies, both real and imagined, mind you, he was paranoid like that.”
“Spare me the history lesson,” the man said coolly.
She paid him no mind. “It's a complex device, this one; it has all these parts and blocks that can be realigned, I've heard. I've always wondered what you can do with it. Dislocate a few joints, I'd wager, pull off a limb even. Ah, yes, here-” she took a closer look at one of the cranks attached to the woodwork near his feet, “- not to worry, m'lord,” she reassured him, “we won't try that on you. Well, I might have a mind to, but I'm sure your goodmother will talk me out of it, so rest assured.” She turned her attention to a larger crank right in the middle of the device. As she turned it, the rack effortlessly and without so much as a screech split into three solid pieces, the middle piece rising while the head and foot piece were simultaneously lowered, arching the man's body like a longbow until his head was almost upside-down and his back looked as if it was about to snap in two.
A most uncomfortable position, the older woman thought. He made no sound, however, nothing to betray the considerable amount of pain he was doubtlessly in. She could not help but be impressed by his stoic defiance. This kind of contortion put a substantial strain on even the youngest, most flexible of bodies. For a man going on sixty, it had to be excruciating. The forced backbend had heightened his sense of vulnerability though: for the first time, the anger in his eyes was replaced with something else entirely, something that looked suspiciously like fear.
The young woman chuckled. “Ah, dear old Maegor, always knew what he was doing. Get a man in this position, he'll bend over backwards to tell you all his secrets.” She snickered at her own jest. He said nothing, only clenching his fists. “How would you like it if I tormented you like she did?” She poised her fingers, “lighten the mood and put a smile on that serious face of yours?” That would put a quick end to the stoicism, the other woman thought.
She lightly scratched the area just above his groin, and the look of terror on his face at the prospect of being tickled while arched over backward was priceless. But then the maiden-beast changed her mind. The older woman couldn't even tell where the knife came from, but suddenly, it was there, in her younger companion's hand. “Time to trim this cat's whiskers,” she said. She bent down, grabbed a tuft of bushy golden hair, and before he knew how it happened, she had sliced it off. His eyes widened in shock as she scattered the hair over his face triumphantly and proceeded to seize another strand. He began to shake his head violently to escape the assault, but she just pinned it between her knees and continued to cut away at his facial hair until his once formidable mane was in a rather sorry state. Any attempt to twist free from her clasp was futile; the maiden-beast proved to be both uncharacteristically strong for her size and skilled with the knife.
Eventually, their captive stopped struggling and endured the humiliation stock-still, but when the older woman accidentally met his gaze, it sent a cold shiver down her spine. She instinctively grasped for the flask of Sweetsleep, nervously twisting it in her hands until she almost dropped it. It suddenly seemed as if she could hear steps in the distance, but it was just her scared brain playing tricks on her, she decided. With a sigh, she got up to inspect the damage.
“Sweetling,” she said teasingly after taking a closer look. “See what a mess you've made. That was not kind of you. Even it out, will you?”
The young woman gave her a sweet smile and curtsied, suddenly seeming more child than beast again. With nothing but a knife at hand, the girl showed a surprising aptitude at trimming the remaining hair into a reasonably even, close-cropped cut. It loosened the knot in the older woman's stomach a little bit. “And enough with Maegor's trickery,” she added with a mock-scold, “or I fear our guest here might leave our party early.” The girl giggled, but she obliged and turned the crank back until he was in his original position, even loosening his shackles a bit, giving him some wiggle room.
“You will release me now!” The man commanded. The woman was almost certain he had spotted her momentary fear. Say what you will, he has a gift for smelling weakness. “You won't leave this place alive, you had the right of that, but if you do as you are told, I will allow you to take a sip of the poison and die in peace.”
The woman straightened her shoulders. “You do not understand. The taste of revenge is sweeter to me than a peaceful death could ever be. You see, I was but a child when the Lord of Casterly Rock met me by happenstance and asked my father to send me with him to keep him company. My father obliged. He wasn't one to refuse his lord, much as it pained him. I was scared out of my wits, but Lord Tytos turned out to be a kind man. He never laid a hand on me until long after I was flowered. He saw something in me that gave him joy, and I learned to love him in time. We had some good years together, Lord Tytos and I.”
The man snorted and twisted his mouth in distaste.
“Of course I had heard of his grim son,” the woman continued calmly, “even seen him a few times. He wasn't around much, always out and about collecting debts in the Westerlands, restoring honor to his House, extinguishing entire families, raining hell on defiant children and drowning insolent babes at their mothers' breasts, much honor in that! Of course, he resented that his father chose the company of a lowborn girl, so I steered clear of him when he was at his father's court. I never understood how a gentle man such as Tytos could have sired a man as brutal and cold as his son, but I never paid him any mind. He was off to King's Landing soon enough, ruling King Aerys's kingdom, and when he was at Casterly Rock, I kept my distance. It was all well. That was until Lord Tytos put a babe in my belly.” She stared the man squarely in the eyes. “You could not have that, could you? I cannot prove it, but I know in my heart you had your father killed because you couldn't take it any longer. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't.”
The man exhaled forcefully. The accusation of kinslaying was too much. His anger was getting the better of him. “How dare you!” He could manage little more than a low growl. “You who killed my father with your ****! How dare you accuse me!”
She broke the gaze. Perhaps not then, she thought, not without surprise. Interesting. The Spider seemed so certain.
“Deny it all you want,” she continued, “I know what you did to him, and I know what you did to me. I was well beyond the time that moon tea would have been an option, of course, so you had a maester cut the child out of my belly with cruel steel. Nearly bled me out, it did. As soon as I had recovered enough I could stand on my two legs, you had me stripped and whipped and dragged through the streets naked for days on end. All for the crime of embracing my fate when I had little to no other choice and for daring to wear the wrong necklace!” Gods be good, is that a smile?
He set out to respond, but she cut him off, disgusted. “It was a despicable act, even for someone like you. But the tables have turned now. I may be a pitiful sight to behold, poor and starved and barren and with whip marks on my back, but here, I have stated my case. Lord Tywin of House Lannister, I will force you to your knees and have you beg my forgiveness before this day is over, if it's the last thing I do.”
The maiden-beast had remained silent, huddling in the shadow, but now she stepped forward. For once, the sly smile on her face had disappeared. “You had your men rape me, one by one, hour after hour. Whatever little joy or happiness I had in my life, I lost all of it on that day, and for what, I ask you?” It's not an act; this one is consumed by her bitterness, the older woman realized. It has left her an empty shell.
“For nothing but your sick pride in your family name. You destroyed a life for no good reason just because your vanity dictated it.”
Recognition flashed across the man's face. “I did what I had to protect my family from the likes of you. I had every good reason.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” the young woman said sharply. “But know this, Lord Lannister, you and your lies are nothing here. I will break you and your silly pride. I will have you beg me for mercy. You will learn your place, this I swear by the Seven.”
Chapter 3
The older woman sat down next to him, carefully appraising him from head to toe. He was not unattractive, tall with broad shoulders and a slender but muscular frame. His stern face was lean with high cheekbones and a well-defined jawline. Even now, he exuded an air of authority, though he seemed a lot more uncomfortable under her scrutiny than he cared to let slip. He's nervous, she noted not without a certain satisfaction, trying to hide it, but he's nervous all the same. She placed her hand on his belly again and watched with amusement as he reflexively tensed his muscles and shifted uneasily. “You're strong,” she said, “you can withstand a lot of pain. That's admirable.” She laughed. “But I think you and I both know that won't help you here.”
The maiden-beast snickered. “Oh, I am going to enjoy this so, so much!” She had been kneeling next to the rack. The cold, hard floor did not seem to bother her in the least. She's drunk on the prospect of revenge. And something else, something darker. She got up and straddled his thighs. Then she began dragging her fingertips along the side of his body, from his hips all the way into his armpits and back, occasionally lingering on a spot for a brief moment, circling it with precision. At first, he snorted with disdain, but soon, he began to grimace and squirm uncomfortably. “Ah,” she said, “smile for me, m'lord!” She deftly ran her fingers over his sides. The element of surprise worked just as reliably as before. A squeal escaped his lips and he struggled to regain composure as the young woman continued to focus on his sides and hips, tickling him relentlessly. The effort paid off, and suppressed whimpers turned to giggles and finally, after a little more prodding and probing, into loud, melodic laughter.
“Ah, sweet music to my ears!” The young woman smiled. “A rare enough sound if word can be believed. They say you loathe being laughed at, yet here you are, laughing along with us laughing at you. I must say, it's quite an honor.”
He harrumphed in protest.
This truly is the ultimate humiliation, the other woman realized. “Beg pardon, m'lord,” she said, “did you say something? Could you repeat that, if it pleases m'lord?” She dug her fingers into his ribs and was rewarded with cascades of laughter. “Hear me roar, indeed,” she smirked before adding with a snicker, “Bad pun, m'lord, beg pardon!”
“He should beg your pardon,” the girl said, without letting up for a second. She was tackling his waist and watching with dark, hungry eyes as he bucked and arched his back and struggled against his bonds in a desperate attempt to escape their four-handed assault. His head was red, both from laughter and from the indignity of being reduced to a giggling mess. “It's easy,” the maiden-beast told him, “just say 'I'm sorry!'” He made a point of it to press his lips tightly together to show what he thought of that suggestion, at least for a brief moment before he erupted in laughter again.
“Stop... this... madness!”
“How about this,” the older woman suggested. “You're not used to begging pardon, I understand, but you could try 'Stop, if it please you'. That would please me plenty for the time to give you a little rest. One step at a time. We can practice our apologies later.”
He did not have the breath to respond. His cries of laughter were becoming increasingly distraught. The maiden-beast had found several sensitive spots and was making good use of them. “St-st-stop!” The older woman leaned back to watch the spectacle. She hated to admit it to herself, but it was disturbingly enjoyable to see his lean naked body writhe and convulse under the maiden-beast's merciless touches, unable to do a thing to stop them. Finally, after what seemed like half an eternity of frenzied thrashing and tortured laughter, he conceded defeat. “Please!” He was panting for air, “There! I... said it! Stop! Please!”
“Ah,” the maiden-beast smiled, prodding his waist. “I begged your men to stop. Well. Did they?” He was violently bucking his hips trying to fend off her hands, all to no avail. “You... said... you... said...” He seemed genuinely shocked when he realized she had no intention of stopping.
“I said I would stop, and I did,” the older woman said, waving both her hands in the air to make her point. “Tysha made no such promise.” She got up and started turning one of the smaller cranks, pulling the rack further apart until his body was stretched so taut that she feared any further turning might truly begin to rip him apart. She had not thought that he could laugh any harder at this point, but the sudden inability to move combined with the heightened sensitivity of skin stretched to its limit sent him over the edge. For a moment, the shrieks and howls the maiden-beast forced from him sounded barely human.
Then, it was as if a wall inside of him had broken, and his pleas for mercy just kept on coming. “Please stop!... Oh... Gods be good... please... this is torture! I can't... please no!” He looked as if he was about to lose his mind. Tears of laughter were streaming down his face.
“Ahhh... The proud Lord Tywin reduced to begging and pleading,” the young woman said with a satisfied smirk. “Tell me, how does it feel to be so helpless?”
“I... I... pl-please... Mother have mercy!”
“I never took you for a religious man,” the young woman said. “Or are you talking to her?” She pointed at the older woman. “I never took you for a man who would accept his father's mistress as his mother, either.”
His only response was laughter and more incoherent pleading, and finally: “I'm... I'm sorry!”
“That does not sound like a proper apology.”
“I... I... gods... I... can't... think... ”
He wants to end it, she realized. Could he truly have forgotten the words? That was unlike him. I never thought this would be so effective.
She recited the words for him to repeat. It is a rather long sentence, she thought. Whoever came up with this...
She had to repeat parts of it again, and it took him half an eternity until he had finished the sentence. The younger woman looked disappointed, but she stopped. For that, the older woman was glad.
“Ready for your Sweetsleep, m'lord?” She asked.
He nodded, too weak to speak.
She took out the vial, placed a small droplet on her finger and offered it to him. He sucked it off, and she repeated the procedure.
It did not take long until he was fast asleep.
She untied his bonds, folded his hands over his chest, and quickly assessed the damage. His wrists and ankles were chafed, and he was drenched in sweat, but other than that, he appeared fine. And the whiskers. She sighed. Damn that girl, I'll never hear the end of this. If I'm lucky enough not to end up in the Blackwater with a dagger in my back.
“Fetch me the blanket, girl” she gestured at the corner. The younger woman obliged.
She wrapped him in the blanket, making sure he was fully covered.
“And now?” The young woman asked.
“Now we go home.”
Chapter 4
The woman was tired. They were walking faster than usual. It felt good to finally get out of the dungeons. Up and up they went, another flight of stairs and then through an inconspicuous door guarded by two goldcloaks. One of them handed her a plump leather pouch, coins clinking inside. She quickly counted them, and sure enough, the amount was correct. The maiden-beast turned her head. She likes the sound of that well enough.
The sun was about to set when they finally emerged above ground in Flea Bottom. After the long, timeless darkness below the castle, she would have preferred dawn over dusk. The woman took out three coins from the leather pouch and handed them to her younger companion. “One for your service, two for your silence.”
She stared at them in disbelief. “Are they real?”
The woman nodded curtly. It was always the same reaction she got when she took a new girl to the job. “Never seen a dragon before, have you?”
The younger woman shook her head. “So that was the actual Lord Hand?” She blurted out, incredulously.
“Yes.”
That made her giggle. She was her innocent, maiden-like self again. “I thought he was some knight or minor lord like to make whores call him Lord Lion for the kicks. Never imagined the Hand of the King to frequent the likes of us. Everybody knows he hates whores.”
The woman looked at her sternly. “Yes, precisely. If you value your life, you'll see that it stays that way. If any of this becomes known, if the Lord Hand just so much as suspects he is becoming the talk of town, he will have us both shortened by a head, or worse.” She paused, unsure whether to address this delicate issue or to just let it go and quietly find replacement for the young woman. “You should have told me about what you were planning with the beard,” she finally said. “That was folly. I feared for our lives then and there.”
The girl seemed genuinely taken aback. “We get to do all these things to him, but take a little hair, and that will cost us our heads?”
The older woman wasn't sure why that was, either, or why she had known with such certainty that they had overstepped their boundaries. All she remembered was the sudden sense of dread plucking at her innards. “The Lord Hand has a great appetite for many things, but he has no taste for having his facial hair mutilated, it seems. Best not to bring a knife without telling anyone, either. An overzealous guard might misread your intentions, and that would be the end of you.”
“Why does he like it?” The young woman asked, after a long pause of silence. “The other stuff, I mean.”
The woman shrugged. “Some men like to take a woman from the front, some like to take her from behind, some men have no appetite for women at all. Some pay a woman so they can humiliate her, others like the taste of humiliation. It's all the same to me, as long as they pay with good coin. That he does.”
The young woman nodded. “Just another job then.” They kept walking in silence. “Who is this Tysha I'm playing?” She asked after a while.
“Some girl he wronged,” the woman said. “You already know most all you need to know about her. He gave her to his men to teach his son the demon dwarf a lesson. You look a lot like her, or so I am told. It's why we picked you, but don't think we can't replace you. There's a lot of girls look like Tysha in this town, I assure you.”
There had been three or four others before her, but they had proven inept or unreliable. One she even had to have killed for fear the girl wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut.
“Was that real poison you used?”
“Real enough,” the woman confirmed. Too many questions.
The young woman laughed. “If my father knew I had the chance to poison the Hand and didn't do it, he'd beat me bloody.”
That's the trouble with girls from Flea Bottom, the woman thought. Not one among them don't know a dozen people hold a grudge over the Sack. She pointed at the gold dragons the young woman clasped tightly in her hands. “Never kill a man who shits gold right into your pockets. Before I became a part of this... arrangement, I had to spread my legs for ten, fifteen men a night, drunk brutes most all of them, and I could hardly put enough food on the table to survive. Now, I visit the cellars of the Red Keep once a fortnight and live comfortably. I've even had a taste of suckling pig. You best remember that when you next have the urge to avenge the Sack. Besides, one drop too many in his lordship's mouth, and you'd have all them maesters come rushing forward with their antidotes. They are never far. He would live, and you'd be drawn and quartered and fed to the crows.” You and I both, she thought uneasily. These girls, no matter how carefully chosen, were always a risk.
“I was but a babe at my mother's breast,” her young companion quickly reassured her. “I have no mind to avenge the Sack.”
The ease with which she lied about her age unnerved the older woman. I'll have to speak to the Spider about this one, she thought. And then we'll have to find a new girl. Again.
