The air down in the dungeons was damp and chilly. The windowless cell was illuminated only by a single torch by the small opening that served as its door. In the middle of the cell, firmly tied to a rack, lay a man in his late fifties, head cleanly shaven, his stern face framed by long thick golden whiskers with a slight hint of gray. He was completely naked, his body stretched so tightly across the rack that he could not have moved a muscle. But he knew nothing of his predicament: he slept that deep, unconscious sleep that could only be achieved with the help of the most potent concoction in a maester's cabinet.

The woman sat away from the dim light, on a ledge protruding from the wall, patiently waiting until the potion she had had slipped in his food had worn off. She was almost a decade the man's junior, but her face and body bore the unmistakable marks of a life of poverty and deprivation. Men and women alike had once considered her a beauty, but the bitterness she had suffered had given her features an undeniable harshness and turned her hair a lackluster shade of gray.

She had lost track how long she had waited – down in the dungeons, it was impossible to tell the time – but finally, the man began to stir and opened his eyes. He was disoriented at first, she could tell, and too drowsy to understand. The look in his eyes when he realized he was unable to move was puzzlement rather than anger or fear. The dose was too strong, she thought.

"I've been wounded," he concluded after a brief moment of reflection. It was not a question.

The woman stepped out of the shadow. "That's one way of looking at it, m'lord," she said.

The man acknowledged her response with a curt nod. "Fetch me another blanket," he commanded, "and call for a maester."

"No," she said. "There are no blankets down here, and I will not call a maester," she briefly paused before curtsying mockingly, "m'lord." She sat down on the rack beside him. It was then that he snapped to attention and seemed to realize, he was not, in fact, wounded, but in bonds.

For a very brief moment, she saw alarm in his eyes, but he smoothed over it almost effortlessly. "You will do as you're told," he said. "And tell your lord master this is no way to treat a hostage. He would do well to remember his manners."

"Perhaps it is the way to treat people who break guest right." The woman said. "Or who smash babe's heads against the wall."

"I have done no such thing."

"No, you have not," she agreed. "But what you did was no better."

"Enough. I will not be lectured by a servant. I will speak to your lord, and I should prefer to do so unshackled and fully clothed."

She snickered. "You will have no more need of your clothes. I have no lord. You're deep down in the belly of the Red Keep. And at least as I see it, you seem to be in no position to be making demands."

At first, he was too taken aback to speak. Then bafflement turned to anger. "Whatever this folly is, release me," he said, "at once."

She laughed softly. "And why would I do that?"

Her insolence made him speechless again.

"There is nothing you can offer me in return for releasing you," she continued, "now, is there? The penalty for what I have done is death. Whether I release you or not, it won't change a thing. You know that and I know that and you know that I know, so you tell me, why should I?"

She could see he was seething with anger, still unable to wrap his mind around the fact that anyone, much less someone like her, would dare to hold him captive. But as he turned his gaze to lock his eyes on hers, rage was replaced with cold calculation. "Your death will be painless," he said without a trace of emotion, "and if you act promptly, I might be moved to spare your family."

This time, she laughed out loud. "There is no kin of mine you can have flogged and paraded through the streets. No children to roast on a spit. You saw to that yourself, m'lord. Is just me."

He ignored her remark. "Release me now. I will not ask again."

He still seemed to expect her to shrink away in fear and obey, as any other person probably would have done. But her smile just widened. "You don't remember me, do you?" She casually placed a hand on his stomach. His muscles tensed immediately. "No, you don't remember me..." Her voice trailed off as she began to probe his belly and traced small circles with her fingertips. Her touch made him visibly uncomfortable. He tried to twist away, but with his body stretched taut, he had nowhere to go. She began to scribble her fingers over his flanks.

"Enough! Stop this folly!" There was a subtle strain in his voice that hadn't been there before. "I will not abide this madness!"

She pulled her hand away and looked at him with thinly veiled amusement. "Ever the lion, aren't you m'lord? Captured and bound and still all high and mighty trying to cow me with your roars. But know this, m'lord, 'tis the trapped lion that roars the loudest."

"Ah. I see you think yourself witty," the man said wryly. "A common street rat trying to be smart."

That almost made her angry. "Let me explain," she said, "because your highborn brain seems to have trouble grasping the situation. Nobody in this cell cares that I am lowborn, and the fact that you are highborn counts for shit. The only thing that should concern you is the fact that you are tied down and that I am free to do with you however I please. I can do this-" she slapped him across the face, hard enough to make his lip bleed, "I can do this-" she punched him in the stomach, making him gasp for air, "or I can cut off your manhood and feed it to you if that so happens to please me. So here's my advice to you: adjust, m'lord, adjust to your new reality, and adjust quickly, or your last few hours in this world shall be rather miserable."

"Aren't you charming," her captive said icily before pressing his lips together again.

"Suit yourself," the woman shrugged. With that, she returned her attention to his upper body, slowly dragging her fingers over his flat belly. He winced at the touch. "That's better," she said, "who knew that all I'd have to do to shut you up were a few light touches?" Indeed, he was too busy trying to maintain his composure to respond. She picked up the pace, running her fingers all over his bare skin, watching with amusement as he tried in vain to squirm away and struggled to suppress a whimper. She had to admit she enjoyed discomfiting him, perhaps more than she should have. When she suddenly dug her fingers into his sides again, he let out a rather undignified yelp.

"Ah, what a lovely sound," she said, now teasing the area just beneath his hip bones. "Let's see if we can get more of that. I sense a sweet spot."

He had all but stopped breathing and was clenching his jaw, his head turned a deeper shade of red from anger and the strain of trying to conceal his growing distress. Small beads of sweat were forming on his head.

"You know what they say about you?" She had returned to dragging her fingers along his sides. It was visibly wearing him down. "Of course you do. His lordship never smiles, they say; his lordship never laughs. I think I have a mind to prove them wrong." With that, she dug her fingers into his ribs, deftly running them up and down from his lower ribs to his armpits and back.

The surprise attack did the job. He let out an uncharacteristically high-pitched shriek and yanked at his bonds, putting up a brief struggle to regain his bearings before dissolving into helpless laughter. It was an odd sight to behold, to see a man who never so much as smiled laughing uncontrollably, but it was strangely titillating to her. Once his self-restraint had broken down, things were easy. She alternated between tickling his waist, his belly, his ribs and under his arms until he was gasping for air.

She paused. As soon as he had recovered his breath, the look of anger and distaste returned to his face, along with something else. Embarrassment, she thought, he's utterly mortified. This was working much better than expected.

"What do you want, woman?" He snapped. She had waited for this question. "Quite simple. I want to humiliate the man who humiliated me."

He glared at her. "I do not know you," he said testily. "And this is folly. If I have wronged you, state your case, and be done with it, but stop this madness. It will get you nowhere."

"Ah. So you still do not remember me." She remarked, resuming her efforts by scribbling her fingertips around his navel. "Not to worry, you will." He was not amused. "I'll have you sent to the Dreadfort." He said. His voice was cold, but his face was suspiciously strained.

She stopped, and for a brief moment, there was a sense of triumph in his eyes, thinking the prospect of being flayed had finally scared her into submission. But the sudden smirk on her face indicated otherwise, and then she pulled out a small vial from under her robe. "Sweetsleep," she said. "I may not make it out of these walls alive, but if I am captured, my death will be a quick and painless one." She turned the vial in her hands, closely studying it from all sides. "There is enough in here for the both of us. If you beg me prettily, I might be persuaded to give you some."

"And how might you have come into the possession of Sweetsleep?"

She smiled sheepishly, as if caught in a lie. "Ah, yes, how could an insignificant street rat such as myself come by this precious poison? Even if I had faithfully saved up all my coppers over the years, how would I have known where to buy it without being cheated?" She gave the bottle another look. "Surely, any self-respecting trader of poisons would have recognized me for what I am and sold me nothing but cheap, sweetened water... After all, how would the lowborn daughter of a candlemaker be able to tell the difference? I do wonder though... how did this little mouse catch herself a mighty lion with nothing but sugar and water? That bears pondering, does it not?" She opened the vial. "Of course, you are free to try a few drops to put the mad theory to rest that a woman like me could possess any kind of potion other than moon tea... come to think of it, I do have several others on me..." She put the stopper back in the flask and pulled out another small bottle. "This one was sold to me as the Strangler. What kind of name is that, I wonder? I have no idea what it does. It's probably just mud from the Blackwater, but do try some to be sure. Us smallfolk are humble people of humble means, but we share with others whatever we can give."

He looked at her the way an ordinary man might look at an insect he was about to swat, but before he could respond, there was a sudden clanking noise coming from outside the door, then footsteps, faint, but unmistakable. Her captive did not take any chances. "Guards!" He yelled. "Over here!"