Had this been a battlefield, Tygett would already have been dead. He sat frozen in his saddle for two seconds, managing not to fall.
Prince Rhaegar had spared his dignity, using only enough force to make contact, not enough to unhorse him.
Sometimes, not falling was crueler than falling.
The entire field was as silent as a tomb.
Tygett slowly lowered his lance, nodded to Rhaegar, then rode from the field without looking back.
His back remained straight, but Leon saw that his uncle's right hand was trembling.
Poor Uncle... I wonder if this was what made him fall ill and die in despair. Leon remembered how Tygett had died of smallpox.
Then Ser Gerion Lannister entered the lists.
Gerion was Tywin's youngest brother, twenty-one that year, known throughout the Westerlands for his wit and adventurous spirit.
He was nothing like Tygett.
Even as he mounted, he was blowing kisses to the serving girls in the stands. His armor sat crookedly, and a smiling lion he had drawn himself was carved into his lance shaft.
"Ser Gerion."
He turned. Rhaegar Targaryen had ridden up beside him at some point.
The dragon prince's silver hair flowed like quicksilver in the afternoon sunlight, his face as calm as a windless lake.
"Your Highness."
Gerion forced a smile. "Go easy on me out there. I still need this face to charm girls in taverns."
Rhaegar did not smile.
He looked at Gerion in silence for several seconds. "Ser Tygett is a true knight," he said.
Gerion paused, then lowered his head and rubbed the tip of his nose hard. "Yes." His voice was a little muffled. "He always has been."
He did not even take his position properly, riding toward Rhaegar as casually as if he were heading to market.
The two riders crossed.
Gerion's lance tip tapped Rhaegar's shield without any force, like a knock at a door.
Rhaegar's lance tip lightly touched the center of Gerion's breastplate-
Perfectly centered, ceremonial, without even scratching the paint.
Gerion let himself slide from his horse and lay in the dust, laughing up at the clear blue sky.
"Fine lance work, Your Highness!" He removed his helmet and waved it at Rhaegar. "Drinks are on me tonight. No refusing!"
Rhaegar looked down at him, and the faintest smile finally appeared on his habitually tranquil face.
"I never refuse good wine," he said.
It was the first time anyone had seen Rhaegar smile.
Not a polite, distant, masklike smile, but a genuine one that spread from his eyes.
In that instant, he was no longer the dragon prince, the prince of prophecy, the perfect phantom in the songs of bards.
He was simply a seventeen-year-old who had met an amusing opponent and could not help wanting to make a friend.
"You mustn't go, young master."
Thea's tone was gentle but firm. "Have you forgotten His Lordship's orders?"
Leon did not watch the rest of the tourney.
He leaned over the railing, his face pressed into a narrow gap in the crowd, watching the gulls circling above the distant field.
"I only want to have a look..."
"No... and a tavern, of all places?!" Thea pushed back at the people crowding against her.
He had never seen a dragon, but those gulls reminded him of the Valyrian dragons illustrated in books.
Just as free, and just as little his.
"Young master... we should go back... young master! Oh... don't run..." Thea squeezed through the crowd, struggling to chase after Leon.
At dusk, the harbor lights began to come on one after another.
Snatches of tavern songs drifted from afar, along with the unrestrained laughter of knights who had shed their armor.
Leon did not know where the tavern was, but he knew Uncle Gerion had invited Rhaegar Targaryen for a drink.
He followed the flow of people. His child's body slipped between clusters of legs and feet more easily than an adult's could.
No one noticed a small child wrapped in a dirty cloak, his face covered in dust.
They would take him for a dockworker's child.
Meanwhile, Tyrion was running too.
After seeing Leon earlier, he had copied him and sneaked out as well.
His route was simpler...
Over a low wall in the east wing's side courtyard, through the servants' quarters, then south along the wheel ruts left by the wine carts.
Grey, the old serving woman, thought he was asleep, and the patrolling guards could not be bothered to inspect a forgotten side courtyard.
Earlier, he had heard the old serving woman and Leon say that Uncle Gerion would be going somewhere called a "tourney," and Uncle Gerion was the only Lannister who smiled at him.
He ran until he was panting, his knees scraped raw, but he did not stop.
The Saltwater Cod's sign swayed in the twilight, a grinning fish painted on its wooden board, most of its scales peeled away.
Leon stood at the entrance when someone suddenly lifted him from behind.
"Seven Hells..."
Gerion Lannister's face was inches from his own.
He wore ordinary clothes without any family insignia and still held a small, unopened cask of wine in his arms.
"What are you doing here? Where's Thea? Did you come out alone?"
Gerion's questions flew like bolts from a repeating crossbow, his lowered voice full of alarm. "If Tywin finds out..."
Leon looked at him without speaking.
The three-year-old's eyes were far too calm for his age.
Gerion met those pale violet eyes for three seconds, then let out a long sigh.
"All right." He set Leon down, crouched, and hurriedly unfastened his own cloak to wrap around him. "Stay with me. No talking, no taking off your hood, and no telling anyone you saw me tonight... especially your father."
Leon nodded.
Gerion tugged the hood lower, covering Leon's far too conspicuous eyes.
He picked Leon up like a sack of unruly luggage and pushed open the tavern's wooden door.
Smoke filled the Saltwater Cod, the sour fragrance of ale mingling with the briny smell of sea fish.
An old one-eyed musician played an out-of-tune Lysene love song in the corner, while the sharp clatter of dice against wooden bowls sounded all around.
A man sat by the window at the far end.
A gray-brown traveling cloak, its hood half fallen back, revealed a lock of silver-white hair.
He held a cup of golden wine from the Arbor, his gaze resting on the dark sea outside. There was no sword on the table, no guard beside him.
Gerion strode over and thumped the cask onto the table. "Your Highness, the reason I'm late is..."
Just then, the wooden door opened again.
Another, even smaller figure squeezed inside, his golden hair a bird's nest, unwiped sweat still clinging to his face.
Tyrion's eyes lit up when he saw Gerion. Then he saw Leon.
The two three-year-olds stared at each other across the smoky tavern, one standing by the table, the other peering out of a cloak.
Gerion covered his face and let out a low, dying groan. "Seven Hells..."
"Oh, Your Highness. I've just snatched a cask of thirty-year-old wine from the lion's jaws at Casterly Rock. A minute later and Tywin would have used it to water the garden."
When Rhaegar Targaryen turned, this was the sight that greeted him:
Gerion Lannister stood like a stone statue beside the table, an unopened cask of wine in front of him.
In the shadows at the table's corner, two children sat side by side, wrapped in matching oversized gray cloaks, their hoods hiding most of their faces and leaving only four eyes visible.
Two pairs of eyes.
One mismatched, one green and one black.
The other pale violet, cold as polar glaciers.
Rhaegar's gaze paused. He did not ask what was going on, show surprise, or even look at Gerion.
Seeing this, Gerion hurriedly sat down like an ordinary tavern patron late to a rendezvous.
"Ser Gerion."
His voice was calm. "Haven't you brought... rather a lot of drinking companions?"
Gerion opened his mouth and found he could not make a sound.
In the corner, Tyrion suddenly slid off the bench. He toddled over to the table and tilted his face up to look at this legendary figure.
Silver-white hair, purple eyes, a gentle yet distant air.
"Are you... Prince Rhaegar?" Tyrion asked.
His voice was clear, with a slight whistle through the gap of a missing front tooth.
Rhaegar looked down, his gaze lingering briefly on those mismatched eyes. "I am," he said. "And you are?"
"Tyrion Lannister." The three-year-old straightened his back. The gesture looked a little comical on him, but he made it in earnest. "Lord Tywin's second son."
Rhaegar did not answer immediately. His gaze passed over Tyrion to the gray figure in the corner who had remained silent throughout.
"And this one?" he asked.
Leon slid off the bench. He walked slowly, his bare feet treading the rough wooden floor, and stopped beside Tyrion. "Leon."
Just one word, without title or embellishment.
"Lady Joanna's two children," Rhaegar said with a nod.
Gerion sat on pins and needles beside them. Several times he tried to interrupt, only to be stopped by a calm glance from Rhaegar.
"Sit," Rhaegar said. "Standing is tiring."
The two children exchanged a glance and climbed onto the same bench.
Rhaegar pushed the untouched cup of wine on the table toward Leon, merely bringing it closer, not offering him a drink.
Then he poured a fresh cup from the cask and set it beside his own hand.
"Arbor gold, vintage 259."
He spoke as though to himself. "The summer that year was longer than this one, and the grapes sweeter. My father found three casks in the ruins of Summerhall. One went to the maesters for study, one was sealed away, and one was brought back to King's Landing."
He paused.
"The maesters said the wine from the ruins tasted of smoke and was unfit to drink. But I don't dislike the taste of smoke."
Tyrion tilted his head. "Why do you like the taste of smoke?"
Rhaegar did not answer. He stared absently at the golden liquid swaying in his cup. After a long while, he said, "Because it reminds me of things I've never seen."
The tavern's clamor suddenly seemed far away.
The one-eyed musician's lute sobbed in the corner, its off-key melody like a lost bird.
Leon spoke softly, his three-year-old voice tender and unusually clear. "Do you like the taste of smoke because it reminds you of flames you've never experienced?"
Rhaegar lifted his eyes.
Leon did not avoid his gaze.
He sat on the edge of the bench, bare feet dangling, his face beneath the hood no larger than a palm, yet bearing a calm beyond his years.
"And... you didn't come to the tourney to win," he said. "You just didn't want to stay in King's Landing."
Silence.
"How old are you?" Rhaegar asked in surprise.
"Three."
Rhaegar nodded and did not pursue the subject.
His voice returned to its usual gentle distance, as though that momentary stillness had never occurred.
But his orb of light held intense gray and white, confusion and loss...
But Tyrion noticed that the knuckles of Prince Rhaegar's hand on the table had turned slightly white.
He also noticed Leon quietly draw the untouched cup of wine an inch closer to himself. There seemed to be a gold coin beneath it that Leon had hidden away.
As though he were protecting something.
Rhaegar turned to Gerion and began talking about the joust, about horses, about some unfortunate knight's comical fall.
The moment Tywin Lannister pushed open the door, Tyrion thought he had been having a long nightmare.
The lord's boots stepped onto the threshold, their leather making no sound.
He wore an all-black traveling coat without any family insignia and had not even brought attendants. He was alone.
But the lion of Casterly Rock needed no attendants to proclaim his authority.
Gerion slowly stood. He offered no explanation, begged no mercy, and did not even put down his cup.
He merely shielded his two nephews behind him, like a young lion that knew it would lose yet still stood to fight.
"Brother," he said.
Tywin did not look at him.
His gaze passed over Gerion, over Rhaegar Targaryen's faintly frowning face, and settled on the two small figures sitting side by side on the bench.
"Get down," he said.
Tyrion's legs would not obey him. He slid off the bench and stood beside Leon.
Leon got down too, his bare feet touching the cold, rough wooden floor. The gray cloak slipped from his shoulders, revealing his rare platinum-blond hair and his rarer pale violet eyes.
Everyone in the tavern stopped moving.
The one-eyed musician's strings hung suspended in the air, and the dice player's palm rested on his wooden bowl.
They did not recognize the man in black, but they recognized that oppressive silence.
Rhaegar stood.
"Lord Tywin." His voice was steady. "Tonight was merely a private drink. Ser Gerion was a generous host, and the two young gentlemen happened to be passing..."
"Your Highness." Tywin interrupted him, his voice like the first crack across a sheet of ice. "This is a Lannister family matter."
Rhaegar was silent for a moment. He looked down at Leon, whose pale violet eyes briefly met his deep purple ones.
Then he inclined his head slightly.
"Farewell." He walked out of the tavern, his gray cloak rising and falling in the night wind.
Only then did Tywin truly turn his gaze upon his two sons. "Take them away," he said.
Kevan appeared from somewhere and stepped forward, picking up a child in each arm. His movements were not rough, but neither were they gentle.
Tyrion felt his uncle's arm clamp around his waist like an iron band. Leon was in front of him, tucked under Kevan's other arm, his bare feet dangling in the air, swaying gently.
As they passed Tywin, Leon suddenly spoke. "Father."
Tywin did not answer. He did not even look at him.
Leon said nothing more.
Only in the moment before he was carried out of the tavern did he quietly turn back and glance at the untouched golden wine. He held the gold dragon Rhaegar had left in his hand.
At the gateway where people came and went in Lannisport, the most prosperous port in the Seven Kingdoms, a rotting wooden frame leaned beside the gate, fitted with iron hooks for hanging game.
Tonight, beneath the iron hooks, there were two tightly woven pig cages.
Tyrion was stuffed into the cage on the left. The coarse willow twigs scraped his cheek, and tiny beads of blood seeped out.
Leon was stuffed into the cage on the right.
He curled up at the bottom, hugging his knees, his pale purple eyes peering through the gaps between the willow twigs as he watched Tywin approach, step by step.
Tywin stood between the two pig cages.
Moonlight slanted through a high window onto his face. When he spoke, he sounded like a judge pronouncing sentence:
"My order was that you were not to be brought before anyone."
He paused.
"Tonight, you both appeared before Rhaegar Targaryen. You made the Lannister name... a sideshow before the dragon prince."
Tyrion opened his mouth, wanting to defend himself, but he saw Leon shake his head gently in the next cage. He swallowed every word.
Tywin continued:
"Since you are so eager to put yourselves on display, you can stay here on display for everyone."
He gestured to Kevan.
Kevan hesitated for a moment, then hung the two pig cages from the iron hooks, suspending them outside the gate.
Beside the gate was a narrow passage connecting the market's northern wing to the servants' quarters.
It was late at night, with only the occasional servant coming and going to deliver water or firewood.
There were also travelers and knights passing through one after another, talking among themselves.
When they saw the two pig cages hanging in the middle of the passage, and the two small blond children inside, their steps faltered and their gazes shifted away. They did not dare linger.
For the first time, Tyrion learned what it meant to be an "exhibit."
This humiliating display was meant to teach them that defying the lord's will meant being stripped of their last shred of dignity and hung where everyone passed, like two deformed beasts.
The moonlight was as cold as ice.
Tyrion heard someone ask in a hushed voice, "Who are they?" Someone answered, "Keep your voice down, they're his lordship's..." Then the voices vanished around the corner.
He buried his face in his knees.
In the next cage, Leon kept his face raised. He gazed at the moonlight, at the high window beside him, and at the tightly shut iron door at the end of the passage.
He did not avoid any passing gaze, nor did he lower his head. He simply sat quietly in his cage.
He did not know how much time had passed. Perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps an hour.
Suddenly, the rapid clatter of hooves rang out.