Bronn I

Bronn’s nose wrinkled. The room they’d been waiting in stank of stale horse feed and human piss. It had been a stable once, tucked behind an old acquaintance’s tavern near Fishmonger’s Square, and even if they called it a storeroom now, the rank smell remained ingrained in the wooden floorboards.

Truth was, he’d been too long walking the perfumed halls of lords and kings. Too long fucking around with sweet-smelling ladies behind their husband’s backs. So much so he forgot how it was down here in the grime and muck. And now that he would finally get to be a lord himself, with his own castle and servants to wipe his arse, the little king sent him on a hunt for a fucking sparrow of all things.

He would do it, too. For the gold and the castle, but also because that kid scared the ever-living shit out of him. The way he smiled and talked and just watched you when you spoke, it was all fucking wrong.

It didn’t matter, in the end. He’d do what he had to for his fucking castle. Even working for the little shit.

He was sitting on an old barrel by the corner, passing time flipping a dagger around his fingers, back then forth then back again. The sun had set hours ago outside, the baking heat that had fallen over the city like a blanket earlier in the day had finally lifted, so it wouldn’t be long now...

“When’s that fucker gettin’ here?” Red Lony said again for the tenth time in the past hour, then spat on the hay-covered floor.

Bronn seriously considered throwing his dagger. Lony wouldn’t talk as much with it sticking out of his neck, he was sure of it. He almost regretted calling the skeevy little man up for the group the young king asked him to gather. Lony was more rat than man: short, hairy, and given to biting if you get too close. But he knew few men who could handle themselves in a back alley knife-fight like Red Lony there did.

And that’s the kind of man he’d be needing today.

The others around the room grumbled a bit, but he’d promised coin enough for the other five of them to keep their mouths shut, if only for now. They were an ugly lot, to be sure, dressed in shabby old tunics and soot-stained shirts, but they were killers one and all. Good at it, too.

There was a sudden rap at the door, five in sequence, then young Cleon’s pock-marked face peeked through the opening, still catching his breath. “He’sth leavingth,” he said, lisp and all. If Bronn hadn’t seen him cut down three gold-cloaks who’d beaten his mother up he would’ve thought the kid was a simpleton.

“Right lads.” He hopped off the barrel and made for the exit. “Time to go.”

He kept a hand on his blade and an eye on Red Lony until he was well past the storeroom door. He trusted him enough to finish the job, if only for the coin involved, but you never show a man like Lony your back without thinking it through.

The door opened up to a cramped alley squeezed between three-storey buildings on both sides, where an open wagon with bits of hay and cloth waited for him. There were no lamps near a place like this, and the moonlight barely cut through the clouds enough to illuminate the ground.

One by one his men made it outside, and before they left for the ambush spot, Bronn stopped them. “You fuckers know how this works,” he gruffed. “Keep your heads down ‘till we get there. If you see a gold-cloak patrol, whistle and spread out. Don’t fuck ‘round on the way or on the job, or I’ll make sure you’ll wake up tomorrow with a lead pipe half-way up your arse, eh.” He glared at their ugly faces, and got stared right back. Good. He nodded. “Let’s fucking go then.”

xxx

They made quick time down River Row, pushing the wagon past the stumbling drunks that filled the streets at that time in the night. Shanty taverns, brothels, and wineholes dotted this part of the city like fleas on a stray dog, probably sucking just as much blood as well. Bronn had to dodge three knife-fights and stear his men away from a couple of whores that looked like men too much for comfort.

But in the end, they didn’t run into any men on the city watch. Soon the road sloped up as it moved away from the docks; cobblestone replaced muck, and the air cleared of the smell of rank fish. The houses around them grew taller, some reaching up to five-storeys, built with greystone as foundations and topped by flat roofs, where whole gardens seemed to spill down from the sides.

Cleon called a stop when they reached a small deserted square half-way up Visenya’s Hill. Here, the Great Sept of Balor loomed ever closer, its seven crystal spires reaching for the clouds like fingers. On the opposite end of the square, a wide stone bridge that connected two buildings cast its shadow over the whole street.

The perfect spot for a good bit of killing.

Bronn nodded to the group, and without words, they spread out, surrounding the mouth of the shadowy street. Two of his men pushed the wagon until it stopped in the middle of the street, clogging the exit into the square. Anyone wishing to move past it would have to squeeze through the other side. The two men bent down around one of the wagon’s axles, looking at it as if puzzling over a problem. Then they waited.

xxx

As he did every day at the same hour, The High Sparrow left his nest on the slopes of Visenya’s Hill to proselytize to the poor and the wicked of King’s Landing near the docks. He always had six of his Sparrows with him, men wearing plain brown frocks and carrying heavy maces, marked with the seven-pointed star on their foreheads as a symbol of their devotion.

Only five now, actually, as Bronn shoved a crude iron dagger through the eye of the first Sparrow who walked past the wagon. The rest of his men jumped out of their hiding places, aiming for throats and stomachs and hearts, closing on the five remaining Sparrows on all sides. None of them carried anything larger than daggers and dirks on their hands. They were out to muder, not to do battle.

The Sparrow on the business end of his own blade dropped like a doll with its strings cut, taking the dagger with him. Bronn simply reached behind his back and pulled another one. He never left his room with less than five of them.

Two of the Sparrows managed their surprises better than the others and brought their maces out. They shouted war cries and heaved their arms, but they swung only at shadows. Bronn glimpsed Lony ducking beneath a mace’s swing, only to come up gutting the man holding it. Then Cleon was rushing past him, jumping on the back of a Sparrow who’d gotten the best of one of his own men and stabbing down at his chest.

When it was all done, blood covered the street like fresh-fallen rain. The High Sparrow was the only faithful left standing, his silver hair glinting in the night. He had watched unflinchingly as his men were massacred around him.

One of Bronn’s own men was down, clutching his side from a mace blow. Blood pooled over his hand. “Please,” he gasped. “Help—”

Until Lony shut him up with a dagger to the heart. Bronn gave him a tight nod and turned to the High Sparrow.

The religious man did nothing, only opened his arms in surrender. “The Gods are watching, my friend.”

Bronn snorted. “Aye. They’re watching.” He picked up a mace, hefting it in one hand, and walked up to the High Sparrow. “They’ll keep watching, too.” Then he brought the heavy wooden arm of the mace over the High Sparrow’s head.

xxx

Bronn lazily climbed the steps up to the King’s apartments, whistling the Dornishmen’s wife under his breath. He was back on his best silks now, after washing and scrubbing off the grime of the day before.

The killing bit had been the easiest; it was the dumping and hiding of the corpses that sore’d the muscles. Luckily, he was a lord now, or near enough a’one, until he married the ditzy Stokeworth girl, and he’d simply told his boys what to do while he sat and watched.

Delegating, the nobles liked to call. A remarkable idea, he thought. He had half a mind to do nothing but delegating from now on.

Around him, the castle was alive with activity. Maids and pages rushed about, carrying hot water for baths and platters of food and drinks, while red-cloaked Lannister men patrolled the corridors. Most of the people he met on his way gave him a clear berth, while others nodded his way. Came with killing a Kingsguard, Bronn supposed.

Two more flights of stairs and he stopped at the door with the white-cloaked figure standing guard in front. Ser Boros Blount looked like a jester given a sword, all red-faced and sweaty in his mail and plate. He glared weakly when Bronn approached.

“Here to see the King,” he said easily.

Boros the Belly puffed up like a toad. “You—”

Bronn cut in. “Just knock on the fucking door and tell him, will ya?”

It took him putting a hand on the pommel of his sword to get the jowly man to open the door. Bronn saw him speaking with another Kingsguard through the opening, most likely the Swann knight who was standing guard on the other side.

Another minute passed before he was ushered in. Just to fuck with him, Bronn feinted a rush in his direction as he went by, and Blount almost fell over himself.

He chortled under his breath. No wonder the King wanted most of these fuckers gone.

On the other side, the drawing room was filled with young lords and ladies, heirs and cousins and newly-minted knights talking and laughing as they broke their fast. Ser Balon Swann watched him closely from where he stood by the door, but made no move to stop him. He found the young king on a side table, talking with the Lady Tyrell and a few of her ladies on one side, and some Westerland lordlings on the other.

Walking up to them, Bronn cleared his throat. “Your Grace.” The heads on the table all turned to him, some sneering in distaste. He easily shrugged off the little cun*s. “I have with me the man you wanted to see…”

The King looked at him inquisitively for a moment, then nodded. “Ah, I see,” he said simply. He kissed the Tyrell girl’s hand and rose from his seat. “Forgive me, my lords, my ladies, but I have a… prior engagement with a holy man this morning.”

The men and women around the room stood with the King, curtsying and bowing and doing everything short of licking the kid’s boots as they both moved toward the door.

“Of course,” Margaery Tyrell said, all grace and naivety. She could’ve fooled him. “Be well, my King.”

“Are you going to pray, Your Grace?” one of the ladies on the table asked. She looked unmistakingly similar to some noble’s wife he’d fucked the week before last. A daughter, most likely. Looked just as dumb, too.

The King stopped for a moment on his way out of the room, then turned to her. He had a nice little smile on his face, Bronn saw. Too nice. “Yes, my lady,” he said. “Yes. I do believe I will.”

Then he swiftly left, gesturing Bronn and Ser Balon to follow. A bead of sweat rolled down his neck, and he suppressed a shiver. That little fucker really did scare the shit out of him.

AN: Had some trouble coming up with Bronn's voice. Sometimes it came out too forced, sometimes it seemed it was not enough. Settled for this.