Chapter 96: What Fifty Thousand Marks?
"He's a freak."
Bronn didn't bother to sugarcoat it. There was even a faint trace of lingering dread in his expression.
Just months ago, that kid had still been a boy who could barely hold a sword properly. Then after only a few days of training, he'd marched onto a battlefield with steel in hand and killed men.
Not only did he kill—he won.
And after that, Bronn had realized with growing despair that he himself was becoming less and less capable of matching that monster.
If that wasn't a freak, then what was?
Tyrion found himself agreeing wholeheartedly.
"On that point," he said dryly, "I've never agreed with you more."
As they spoke, the two of them entered the shadowed enclosed passageway between the towers.
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Petitions:
"Anyone else?"
"One," Bronn said, his face turning a little more serious. "A moneylender from Braavos. He's got a stack of very official-looking IOUs and insists on meeting the king to discuss repayment."
The thought of someone traveling all that way—now, of all times—to demand payment nearly made Tyrion laugh.
"Poor bastard. Joffrey can barely count past twenty. The man must've heard Robert died and panicked so hard he decided risking his neck in King's Landing was worth it."
Tyrion waved it off.
"Send him to Littlefinger. He'll find a way to stall him. Next?"
"A lord from the Riverlands," Bronn said. "Says your father's men burned his keep, raped his wife, and slaughtered his peasants."
Tyrion let out a silent sigh.
"All of it muddled. All of it a headache. And all of it from a poor fool."
He already knew the likely culprits.
"Ninety percent chance it was Gregor Clegane's 'fine work.' If not him, then Ser Amory Lorch—or one of Father's hounds."
Tyrion limped forward, not bothering to look back.
"But we're at war," he muttered. "What exactly does he expect Joffrey to do about it?"
Bronn answered plainly, word by word:
"He wants new peasants. He walked all the way here to declare loyalty to the crown and demand compensation."
Tyrion's mouth twisted.
"And what is that supposed to be?"
Father commits atrocities, and the son gets the privilege of wiping the mess.
For a moment Tyrion felt bone-deep tired.
Still… the Riverlands were burning, and a compliant lord was useful—whether his loyalty came from genuine devotion or absolute desperation.
"I'll see him tomorrow," Tyrion decided.
Then he added, already thinking like a statesman even while resenting every breath of it:
"Give him a decent room. Hot food. And have someone bring him a new pair of boots—good ones. Tell him it's a gift from King Joffrey."
Generosity was rarely a mistake.
Not when a man had lost everything, and still crossed half the realm on bleeding feet to pledge himself to Joffrey Baratheon—one king among four.
Seeing how seriously the dwarf was taking it, Bronn gave a brief nod and filed it away.
Then he went on, "The rest of them are a whole mob of bakers, butchers, and vegetable sellers. They want to see the king too."
Tyrion halted mid-step and turned with a frown.
"Didn't I give them supplies yesterday? Most of the 'gifts' Pod dragged back from his little expedition ended up in their pockets. What more do they want now?!"
Before Podrick's "triumphant return," the amount of food entering King's Landing had been pitiful—what little came in had to be reserved for the Red Keep and the barracks. There simply hadn't been anything spare for the common markets.
Back then Tyrion had only had one weapon to offer them: his mouth. A few staged speeches, a few carefully chosen jokes, and half a lie wrapped in a performance.
But markets didn't care about clever words.
Vegetables, root crops, flour, fruit—prices had rocketed straight into madness. Tyrion didn't even want to imagine what kind of "meat" was being ladled into the soup pots of Flea Bottom.
Fish, he hoped. At least fish. The rivers and the sea were still in their hands, and the fishing boats still went out day and night.
At least… until Stannis Baratheon sailed.
And that was exactly why Pod's grand celebration yesterday—his banners, his wagons, his "victory," and the loads of captured provisions—had done more than feed bellies. It had revived hope.
Which was why Tyrion couldn't understand why these people were still coming.
"Then what are they asking for this time?" he demanded. "More food again?"
Bronn shook his head.
"No. This time they want protection."
Tyrion's brows pulled tighter.
"Protection?"
"Because last night someone roasted a baker alive in his own oven," Bronn said casually, as if discussing the weather. "His crime was selling bread too expensive. That's what the mob says, anyway."
The sudden burst of violence made Tyrion's stomach knot—yet the mention of expensive bread triggered a different, darker thought. Lately Pod had been tossing out strange examples from whatever bizarre stories he read, and he'd warned Tyrion to keep a closer watch on taverns too—said he was worried about drunks giving speeches and sparking trouble.
"Really?" Tyrion muttered. "How expensive can bread be—five hundred thousand marks a loaf?"
He didn't even know what a mark was, or what ridiculous tale Pod had pulled it from.
But he knew what this kind of incident meant whenever it surfaced.
He glanced at Bronn. "What in the Seven Hells is a mark?"
Bronn looked blank.
He was a man with the nose of a bloodhound for coin—and he'd never heard of a mark in his life.
Still, he shrugged as if it didn't matter.
"Whether it's true or not, the baker can't exactly deny it now."
Tyrion's mind followed the gruesome logic without needing to be led.
"Then… they didn't eat him, did they?"
Bronn paused to think, then shook his head.
"Haven't heard that."
Tyrion let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
But as soon as the relief came, it curdled.
They weren't asking for food. They were asking for protection.
His mood sank like a stone.
"Next time they might," Tyrion said quietly. "Thanks to Podrick winning that 'great victory,' perhaps this will scare some of them into behaving."
He clenched his jaw.
"I've already given them every scrap of protection I can. These days the City Watch barracks are livelier than the Red Keep."
Bronn's tone stayed flat.
"They claim the violence is coming from goldcloaks hiding inside the mob. That's why they're demanding an audience with His Grace."
"What?!"
This time Tyrion's shock was genuine.
He knew exactly what had happened to the goldcloaks since they'd fallen under Pod's control. He knew the reforms. He knew the purges. He knew the forced recruitment and downsizing. They barely had enough hands to stand a proper watch—where would they find the manpower to infiltrate mobs and start riots?
His first instinct was immediate.
"Someone's stirring the pot from behind the curtain."
He didn't doubt Pod's grip on the barracks for a second—so if goldcloaks truly were involved, it reeked of another hand moving them like puppets.
Bronn, hearing the question, recalled Podrick's reaction earlier that morning—when the sky had still been black.
"Podrick climbed out of your sister's bed before dawn," he said. "He went to deal with it himself. Want me to ask him what he found?"
Hearing that Pod had personally taken charge, Tyrion's rising panic eased slightly.
These days he felt like an ant balanced above a flame. Every step required care.
And at present he had only two foundations keeping him alive inside this whirlpool of knives: his "local men" and the goldcloaks.
Both were untouchable.
Especially now—after Pod had ridden out, kicked the realm in the teeth, returned dragging a cartload of trouble behind him…
…and discovered that while he'd been away, the house itself had started burning.