Second Sons

The Second Sons are among the oldest of the free companies that sell their swords across the Disputed Lands and beyond. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound book with iron hinges, large enough to serve as a dinner platter, in which every man who has ever served with them has inscribed his name. The roster includes figures of renown from Westeros: Aegor Rivers, called Bittersteel, who served a year before founding the Golden Company; Aerion Targaryen, the Bright Prince; and Rodrik Stark, the Wandering Wolf. The company’s tradition requires each new member to sign in red ink—once, the ink was the man’s own blood, though blood makes poor ink, as the paymaster Tybero Istarion, known as Inkpots, observes. Tyrion Lannister, after pricking his thumb to add a drop of his own blood to the pot, signed his name in a bold hand just below Jorah Mormont’s far more modest signature, styling himself Tyrion of House Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock.

Structure, Command, and Membership

The Second Sons number five hundred thirteen men at the time Tyrion joins. The company is organized like a family, as Captain Brown Ben Plumm explains: all share, but not alike. The officers—Plumm, his second-in-command Kasporio the Cunning, and Inkpots—receive notes promising far larger sums than the common soldiers. Tyrion signs dozens of parchments, each a promise to pay the bearer one hundred golden dragons for the serjeants and one thousand for the officers, and finally a sheepskin scroll promising Brown Ben Plumm one hundred thousand golden dragons, fifty hides of fertile land, a castle, and a lordship. The company’s armory consists of six wagons heaped with old weaponry and armor, much of it cracked, rusted, or brittle—company steel, the armorer calls it, worn by men who died in it before. The smith, a freakish hulk called Hammer whose left arm is twice as thick as his right, is more often drunk than sober; his apprentice Nail lets the dwarfs clamber through the wagons to pick whatever might fit them.

Service Under Daenerys Targaryen and Betrayal

When Daenerys Targaryen conquered Meereen, the Second Sons were among the sellsword companies in her employ. Brown Ben Plumm, a mongrel with the blood of a dozen peoples flowing through his veins, was fond of the queen’s dragons, and the dragons were fond of him—a fact Tyrion later uses to explain why Plumm’s presence calmed them. Yet when the Yunkish alliance gathered strength and Daenerys refused to unleash her dragons against the besieging armies, Plumm judged the queen’s cause lost. “There are old sellswords and there are bold sellswords, but there are no old bold sellswords,” he tells Tyrion afterward, explaining his decision. The Second Sons went over to the winning side, joining the Yunkish camp outside Meereen. Daario Naharis, enraged by the betrayal, vows to open Plumm from throat to groin and rip out his black heart when next they meet.

Tyrion Lannister Joins the Company

After escaping slavery under the dying Yunkish lord Yezzan zo Qaggaz, Tyrion leads Penny and Jorah Mormont to the Second Sons’ camp, where he negotiates his entry. Brown Ben Plumm recognizes him at once—he had tried to buy the dwarfs at auction and to win them at cyvasse, knowing Tyrion’s true worth. Tyrion signs the company’s book in blood, becoming a Second Son, and is assigned to work with Inkpots, keeping books, counting coin, and writing contracts and letters. He is warned to stay inside the camp, to use a bucket rather than the latrines where too many eyes might see him, and never to go beyond the camp without leave. Kasporio the Cunning sneers that Tyrion is not fit to fight, but Tyrion replies that he once had charge of all the drains in Casterly Rock and offers to supervise the camp followers. Brown Ben warns him to stay away from the whores, who talk.

Role in the Siege of Meereen and the Coming Battle

As the Yunkish siege of Meereen grinds on, Tyrion assesses the Second Sons’ position. He observes that the company is on the losing side: Meereen has Unsullied infantry, the finest in the world, and three dragons once the queen returns, while the Yunkish host consists of two score lordlings each with half-trained slave soldiers. “The Second Sons are on the losing side,” Tyrion tells Jorah Mormont. “They need to turn their cloaks again and do it now.” He grins and says, “Leave that to me.” The company’s camp lies south and east of the trebuchet called Harridan, almost in its shadow, and Tyrion, now a sworn brother of the company, begins to lay the groundwork for yet another change of allegiance—one that will serve his own purposes and, he hopes, bring him closer to Daenerys Targaryen.