Chapter 33 – Hell and a Joke
"Does this include me, Pod?"
Bronn asked from where he lounged idly atop a stack of crates, watching Podrick run around issuing orders.
He looked genuinely surprised.
Pod didn't even turn his head as he directed a pair of servants carrying a trunk.
"Not you, Bronn.
If I recall, Lord Tyrion already told you—
whatever price someone offers you to betray him, he'll pay double."
"He did say that," Bronn agreed with a shrug.
Podrick finally allowed himself a small smile.
"And you're worth it, Bronn.
Come on—let's look at where we'll be sleeping."
He started toward the tower.
"Remember the night before the war?" he said lightly.
"I told you then that peaceful sleep would be a rare thing for us from now on."
Bronn dropped from a window ledge and followed.
"If memory serves," Bronn said, "that's not what you said."
"The meaning's the same," Pod answered without looking back.
Bronn snorted.
"Truth be told, Pod—Tyrion's right.
You're frightening sometimes.
You foresaw the war, foresaw what came after, and you're still doing it now.
Lucky for me we're not enemies."
He flashed a grin.
"But I can't afford double your price.
And I'd rather not test what you're like as an enemy."
"We're friends, Bronn," Podrick said quietly.
"I've always thought so."
"Sellswords don't have friends."
"Then stop being a sellsword."
Pod glanced at him.
"Ever heard the saying: Chaos is a ladder?
Consider it my gift to you."
Bronn barked out a dry laugh.
"Whoever said that must've been a bastard."
"He was," Pod said simply.
---
Inside the Tower
The Tower of the Hand's lower hall stood in stark contrast to the Red Keep's cavernous throne room.
Beyond the great wooden doors stretched a long, narrow chamber beneath a domed ceiling, furnished with trestle tables and benches enough for two hundred men.
Podrick and Bronn crossed the hall without pause, heading deeper into the tower.
Room after room spiraled upward—
a dizzying maze of stone steps, small chambers, storage closets, and half-forgotten passageways.
Eventually they reached the private audience chamber:
a cozy room draped with Myrish carpets, odd Valyrian-style hangings, and a round golden window that washed the walls in warm light.
From the high windows of the Hand's Tower, the entire Red Keep courtyard lay visible—
ordered, bustling, and deceptively peaceful.
The Hand's bedchamber, by contrast, was almost austere:
a canopy bed, a pair of wall sconces, rushes on the floor.
Spartan but serviceable.
And—thank the gods—
a separate study
and an actual privy.
Podrick stepped into the privy, closed the door, and spent a moment inside.
When he emerged, he pulled up his trousers and nodded in satisfaction.
"This is a wonderful place," he declared.
Bronn eyed him warily.
"What part of this is wonderful?"
Pod thumbed back toward the privy.
"That room.
Perfect place to kill a man."
Bronn stared, incredulous.
"Tyrion would regret ever letting you pick his quarters if he heard you say that.
You know the last few Hands all died horribly."
"No," Pod said with a small, secretive smile.
"He won't.
He isn't the Hand.
He's just a dwarf."
Bronn blinked.
Pod said nothing else.
Instead, he descended one flight and chose an empty chamber beneath Tyrion's as his own.
As Tyrion's squire, he had every right to share a room with him—
but Podrick Payne disliked the idea immensely.
He preferred distance, shadows, and a door he could bar from the inside.
After all…
he wasn't here to sleep.
The privy really was excellent—Podrick had to admit that much.
Busy hours passed in a blur. It wasn't until the sun had dipped below the walls and silver stars hung over the city that Tyrion finally returned to the Tower of the Hand with his escort.
The small hall was already packed.
The mountain clansmen—those same savages who had fought beside Tyrion at the Green Fork—filled the benches, eating loudly, boasting louder.
As for the sellswords and freeriders gathered along the march, Podrick had arranged for them to lodge outside the Red Keep, along the slope beneath Aegon's High Hill.
Tyrion entered to cheers and greetings from the clansmen and made his way straight to Pod.
He hadn't even sat down before blurting:
"I hear you sent part of our men out of the castle?"
Then, turning toward a passing kitchen girl:
"Roast squab and bread—crispy, both—hurry, I'm starving."
Podrick's own plate held two pan-fried river fish, skin crisped golden and dusted with coarse salt, with the scent of parsley and black pepper rising from them. He swallowed a mouthful, chased it with a spoonful of mushroom broth, wiped his lips, and only then answered Tyrion.
"Bronn might accept double your price," Pod said, "but those men certainly won't."
"And I'd rather not come wake you one morning only to find your bed cold and your body colder."
He jabbed a thumb toward the clansmen.
"As for these bastards, I doubt the thought has ever crossed their minds."
The small hall roared with laughter—Bronn snorted into his cup, several clansmen pounded the table.
"Half-man! The boy speaks true!"
"Those dogs can't be trusted. I could cleave two with one swing!"
"A drink for the little crow!"
"Come, lad! Down this one!"
Tyrion blinked, then shook his head with a rueful grin just as the cook set his food before him.
"You're always so cautious," Tyrion said, clapping Pod on the shoulder.
Pod only shrugged, adding a slab of roast pork ribs to his plate and dusting them generously with red pepper.
"I'd like to live long enough to grow up, my lord.
At least long enough to see you fulfill your promise to me.
After that, I can die with my eyes closed."
He tore into the ribs with a delighted grunt.
"Oh—what did you see out in the city today?"
Tyrion, biting through pigeon bone with audible crunches, no longer smiled.
"I'd rather you didn't say such things while I eat," he muttered.
"But you're right, Pod."
"King's Landing's streets are usually crowded—horses, wagons, shouting—but now they feel… dangerous. Wrong."
"You know, I hadn't even left the Red Keep before I saw a naked corpse lying half-submerged in a gutter on Weavers' Row. A pack of dogs was tearing at him, and no one cared."
"Pairs of gold cloaks everywhere—black-ringed mail, iron cudgels in hand—patrolling every alley."
"In the markets: ragged folk selling whatever they own to survive. And almost no farmers selling meat or grain. The few who do are charging triple last year's price. I even saw a hawker shouting about fresh roasted rats on a spit."
'Fresh rats! Fresh rats!' he was yelling. And the damned things still looked better than most of the butchered meat."
"When I reached the Street of Flour, every bakery had hired guards out front. And the price of hiring a swordsman is now cheaper than a loaf of bread."
Podrick froze mid-bite, his ribs dripping with grease.
A faint, involuntary sigh escaped him before he masked it and turned back to Tyrion.
"Did you… check the taverns?"
He paused, eyes narrowing with dry humor.
"Please tell me there weren't any unemployed painters giving speeches?"