“So what shall we do now? Perchance you have some suggestion?” “Yes,” she said. “If my lord will open the wardrobe, he will find what he seeks.” Tyrion kissed her hand, and climbed inside the empty wardrobe. Alayaya closed it after him. He groped for the back panel, felt it slide under his fingers, and pushed it all the way aside. The hollow space behind the walls was pitch-black, but he fumbled until he felt metal. His hand closed around the rung of a ladder. He found a lower rung with his foot, and started down. Well below street level, the shaft opened onto a slanting earthen tunnel, where he found Varys waiting with candle in hand. Varys did not look at all like himself. A scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his spiked steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, dirk and shortsword at his belt. “Was Chataya’s to your satisfaction, my lord?” “Almost too much so,” admitted Tyrion. “You’re certain this woman can be relied on?” “I am certain of nothing in this fickle and treacherous world, my lord. Chataya has no cause to love the queen, though, and she knows that she has you to thank for ridding her of Allar Deem. Shall we go?” He started down the tunnel. Even his walk is different, Tyrion observed. The scent of sour wine and garlic clung to Varys instead of lavender. “I like this new garb of yours,” he offered as they went. “The work I do does not permit me to travel the streets amid a column of knights. So when I leave the castle, I adopt more suitable guises, and thus live to serve you longer.” “Leather becomes you. You ought to come like this to our next council session.” “Your sister would not approve, my lord.” “My sister would soil her smallclothes.” He smiled in the dark. “I saw no signs of any of her spies skulking after me.” “I am pleased to hear it, my lord. Some of your sister’s hirelings are mine as well, unbeknownst to her. I should hate to think they had grown so sloppy as to be seen.” “-well, I’d hate to think I was climbing through wardrobes and suffering the pangs of frustrated lust all for naught.” “Scarcely for naught,” Varys assured him. “They know you are here. Whether any will be bold enough to enter Chataya’s in the guise of patrons I cannot say, but I find it best to err on the side of caution.” “How is it a brothel happens to have a secret entrance?” “The tunnel was dug for another King’s Hand, whose honor would not allow him to enter such a house openly. Chataya has closely guarded the knowledge of its existence.” “And yet you knew of it.” “Little birds fly through many a dark tunnel. Careful, the steps are steep.” They emerged through a trap at the back of a stable, having come perhaps a distance of three blocks under Rhaenys’s Hill. A horse whickered in his stall when Tyrion let the door slam shut. Varys blew out the candle and set it on a beam and Tyrion gazed about. A mule and three horses occupied the stalls. He waddled over to the piebald gelding and took a look at his teeth. “Old,” he said, “and I have my doubts about his wind.” “He is not a mount to carry you into battle, true,” Varys replied, “but he will serve, and attract no notice. As will the others. And the stableboys see and hear only the animals.” The eunuch took a cloak from a peg. It was roughspun, sun-faded, and threadbare, but very ample in its cut. “If you will permit me.” When he swept it over Tyrion’s shoulders it enveloped him head to heel, with a cowl that could be pulled forward to drown his face in shadows. “Men see what they expect to see,” Varys said as he fussed and pulled. “Dwarfs are not so common a sight as children, so a child is what they will see. A boy in an old cloak on his father’s horse, going about his father’s business. Though it would be best if you came most often by night.” “I plan to... after today. At the moment, though, Shae awaits me.” He had put her up in a walled manse at the far northeast corner of King’s Landing, not far from the sea, but he had not dared visit her there for fear of being followed. “Which horse will you have?” Tyrion shrugged. “This one will do well enough.” “I shall saddle him for you.” Varys took tack and saddle down from a peg. Tyrion adjusted the heavy cloak and paced restlessly. “You missed a lively council. Stannis has crowned himself, it seems.” “I know.” “He accuses my brother and sister of incest. I wonder how he came by that suspicion.” “Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a bastard’s hair, as Ned Stark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in his ear.” The eunuch’s laugh was not his usual giggle, but deeper and more throaty. “Someone like you, perchance?” “Am I suspected? It was not me.” “If it had been, would you admit it?” “No. But why should I betray a secret I have kept so long? It is one thing to deceive a king, and quite another to hide from the cricket in the rushes and the little bird in the chimney. Besides, the bastards were there for all to see.” “Robert’s bastards? What of them?” “He fathered eight, to the best of my knowing,” Varys said as he wrestled with the saddle. “Their mothers were copper and honey, chestnut and butter, yet the babes were all black as ravens... and as ill-omened, it would seem. So when Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen slid out between your sister’s thighs, each as golden as the sun, the truth was not hard to glimpse.” Tyrion shook his head. If she had borne only one child for her husband, it would have been enough to disarm suspicion... but then she would not have been Cersei. “If you were not this whisperer, who was?” “Some traitor, doubtless.” Varys tightened the cinch. “Littlefinger?” “I named no name.” Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. “Lord Varys,” he said from the saddle, “sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King’s Landing, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy.” “How odd. I think quite the same of you.”