A Dance With Dragons: Tyrion I (Chapter Summary)

Tyrion is aboard a ship crossing the narrow sea.  He is confined to his cabin and not allowed to venture above deck.  During the voyage he drinks heavily – red and sour wine.  His thoughts are consumed by the memory of killing his father.  He regrets shooting him in the belly instead of the cock.  His father’s last words, “wherever whores go”, repeat in his mind.  A cabin boy visits him daily to bring meals and clean vomit off the floor.  Tyrion tries to speak to him, but he does not reply: he tells him that the Dornish wine reminds him of Oberyn Martell; he asks him if the pleasure houses of Lys are where the whores go; he inquires about the ship’s destination.  Tyrion recalls Jamie mentioning the Free Cities during his escape from King’s Landing; nevertheless, he hopes the ship is travelling to either Dorne or the Wall.  In Dorne he wants to queen Myrcella and pit her against Tommen; the Wall is a safe refuge if Mormont is still alive and Janos Slynt not in command.  Tyrion remembers that each of the Nine Free Cities speak a different dialect of High Valyrian, on their way to becoming separate languages – as a child, Tyrion’s maester taught him to read High Valyrian.  

Tyrion has trouble recalling the details of his escape following Tywin Lannister’s death.  He remembers descending two hundred and thirty rungs into a room warmed by a fire burning within the mouth of an iron dragon; Varys dressed as a begging brother in a moth-eaten robe of brown roughspun; being escorted through tunnels and emerging beside the Blackwater.  Before boarding the ship Tyrion tells Varys  he murdered Tywin and Shae. 

A storm rocks the ship and Tyrion falls to the ground and retches.  The ship comes to port and a huge bald sailor carries Tyrion from his cabin and shoves him upside-down into an empty wine cask.  The cask is delivered to Illyrio Mopatis’s cellar.  Illyrio is a grotesque fat man with a forked yellow beard, and he speaks the Common Tongue.  He releases Tyrion from the cask and offers him a bath, food, and a soft bed.  Tyrion takes the bath and promptly falls asleep.  Later, he awakens nude atop a goose-down feather bed.  He urinates into a chamber pot, climbs up on to the window seat, and opens the shutters.  Beneath his window are six cherry trees surrounding a marble pool.  In the center of the pool is a painted marble statue of a naked boy with straight blond hair, poised to duel with a bravo’s blade in hand.  The house is surrounded by a twelve foot high brick wall with iron spikes along its top.  Beyond the wall Tyrion sees tiled rooftops, square brick towers, a great red temple, a distant manse upon a hill, and the sea.  He concludes he is not in Braavos or Tyrosh, nor in Lys or Myr because of the cold weather; he believes he is in Pentos. 

Illyrio enters the bed chamber and confirms Tyrion’s suspicion that he has been taken to Pentos.  Illyrio, as magister, must leave to answer the Prince of Pentos’s summons.  Tyrion is told he may explore the manse and grounds, but to not leave the property because of the risk of being discovered.  He may also bed any of the serving women, notwithstanding that slavery is forbidden in Pentos, pursuant to the terms of a treaty imposed by Braavos.  Illyrio promises to return in the evening for supper and to discuss their plans.  Tyrion dresses in clean clothes found within a cedar chest – children’s clothing made for a small boy that don’t fit well.  He first explores the kitchen, where two fat women and a potboy watch him warily.  He helps himself to cheese, bread, and figs and asks the kitchen staff where the whores go, but none of them reply.  The younger of the two cooks shrugs.  Next, he visits the cellar where he had been the night before.  The cellar contains wine from the Reach, Dorne, Pentos, Myr, the Arbor, Qarth, Yi Ti, and Asshai by the Shadow.  Tyrion removes a cask of strongwine marked as the private stock of Lord Runceford Redwyne, Lord Paxter Redwyne’s grandfather.  He takes the wine to the gardens behind the manse to drink.  Walking alongside the wall surrounding the property, he pictures his sister’s and brother’s heads impaled upon the wall’s spikes.  He locates three gates: a main entrance with a gatehouse, a postern entrance by the kennels, and a garden gate hidden behind a tangle of ivy.  The garden gate is chained and the main and postern gates are guarded by plump eunuchs in spiked bronze caps.  He surmises that with a rope and a grapnel he could scale the wall, and resolves to find a rope the next day.

Subsequently, he wanders into a tiled courtyard where a woman is washing clothing at a well.  She is of an age with Tyrion, with dull red hair and a broad face dotted by freckles.  Tyrion offers her wine, but she does not reply.  Instead, he sits down on a nearby stone bench and speaks to himself aloud: he reveals he is reluctant to cooperate with Illyrio and asks the washing woman whether he should travel to Dorne to help Myrcella claim the Iron Throne or to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch.  The washer woman lifts her basket and leaves the courtyard.  An empty flagon slips from Tyrion’s hands and he chases it across the yard.  He stops and sees pale white speckled mushrooms growing up from a cracked paving tile.  He picks seven and wraps them in a glove stolen from the clothes line and stuffs them into his pocket.  Afterwards, he crawls back on to the bench and falls asleep.

A blond woman shakes Tyrion awake.  He is back in his bedchamber atop the feather bed.  The woman is trained in the art of love, as taught in Lys, and speaks the Common Tongue.  She was bought to please Viserys Targaryen and Illyrio has commanded her to scrub Tyrion’s back and warm his bed.  Tyrion asks the blond woman where whores go, but she does not have an answer.  Tyrion bathes while the woman washes his feet, scrubs his back, and brushes his hair.  Afterwards she covers him in ointments and helps him dress.  Before departing for dinner, Tyrion tells the woman to wait for him abed naked; he tries to scare her by telling her how he strangled his last whore. 

Tyrion finds Illyrio reclining on a padded couch, eating hot peppers and pearl onions from a wooden bowl.  The two dine together.  Tyrion inquires about the prince’s summons and Illyrio tells him there are troubles in the east: the Ghiscari slave cities Astapor and Meereen have fallen.  Tyrion listens to Illyrio describe the Merchant Prince of Pentos: he presides at balls and feasts and rides about the city in a palanquin; he is accompanied by three heralds, the golden scales of trade, the iron sword of war, and the silver scourge of justice; on the first day of each new year he must deflower the maid of the fields and the maid of the seas; if a crop fails or a war is lost, the prince’s throat is cut and a new prince is selected amongst the forty families.  Illyrio claps his hands and a dish of mushrooms cooked in garlic and butter is placed before Tyrion.  Tyrion suspects the mushrooms are poisonous and refuses to eat them.  Illyrio claims that it is obvious that Tyrion wants to end his life.  After staring at the plate of mushrooms, contemplating his mortality, Tyrion yells loudly that he has no wish to die.  At the same time, he is uncertain what he has to live for.  Illyrio informs Tyrion that Cersei has offered a lordship to the man who brings her Tyrion’s head; he also tells him that Stannis is at the Wall.  Illyrio tells Tyrion that a savior beyond the sea will return to Westeros to heal its wounds and help Tyrion to become Lord of Casterly Rock: a dragon with three heads.