Late February-Early March, 305 AC
Content warning: This chapter mostly takes place in a brothel. There is consensual sexual content, but there are also non-graphic references to past sexual assault, child sexual assault, survival sex work by underage girls, and loss of a sibling.
I also changed the fic rating to M, which tbh I probably should have done a while ago, given that I tend toward the intensity level of the books, though usually with a tad more delicacy and a tad less graphic detail
Hi there readers from AlternateHistory! Thanks for clicking over, I was not willing to put in the effort of doing a redacted version of the chapter.
FYI, this chapter is an absolute unit, but I think that it's some of my finest work, and I hope that y'all will agree
Map of King's Landing
When the bells tolled the sixth hour of the night, Bel was busy refilling the oil lamp. It was a gaudy thing, a globe of leaded red glass wrapped in curls and swirls of iron that swung from a heavy chain beside the door of the brothel.
Bel would never have wasted precious coin on such a fancy lamp. But as it was already hers, Bel meant to keep it in one piece. She could still see a thin little crack in the glass from the one time she'd been foolish enough to let Hubard fill the lamp, the clumsy oaf. Her plump brown fingers were deft and careful, even though the cold wind tried to make her shiver. Not a drop of oil went amiss, nor was the glass allowed to come to harm.
Once the lamp was back in place, Bel stepped back, taking in the sight of her brothel. It was three stories, made of timber and plaster, less ramshackle now that she'd had a carpenter in to make repairs. The timbers were all solid, the rotten wood cut away and replaced with new. Beside the new timbers the old plaster looked shabby, faded and dingy against the bright white of the snow that blanketed the thatched roof. The shutters of the small upstairs windows were shut tight to keep out winter's chill; only the downstairs windows had panes of leaded glass. Their shutters were open, so that passersby could see the warm, welcoming glow of the common room.
Shivering, Bel stepped inside, passing beneath the rough hewn wooden sign of a tolling bell that hung above the door. The sound of laughter greeted her, warm as the fire burning in the hearth. Thank the Mother she'd had all the girls make their weekly visit to the bathhouse early; the common room was already bustling.
With the door pulled shut behind her, Bel paused for a moment, brushing her dark hair away from her face. Her eyes were not what they had once been, now that she was a few years past forty, and she had always been farsighted to begin with. Up close, the world blurred, making her squint and stare. Bel saw better from a distance, where things were sharp and clear. At the moment, what she saw pleased her.
When Bel wanted to know if it would be a profitable evening, she always looked to Morra first. The Dornishwoman sitting next to the hearth was even older than Bel, with black hair, a middling bosom, burly arms, delicate hands, and dim eyes that grew blinder with every passing year. Lord Baelish had refused to add such a woman to one of his brothels, no matter that she was Bel's oldest friend, and desperate now that her eyes were too bad for her to sew.
How sweet it had been, to drive the knife into his gut and twist. Morra and her daughter had moved in the next day. True, Morra never drew as much custom as any of the younger girls, but she did well enough. Some men liked an older woman; others enjoyed bedding a whore who could not see their warts and wens and hideous scars. Tonight, Morra already had an admirer, even though it was yet early. Bel didn't recognize the man, who was young and bald and clearly anxious about it, but no doubt Morra would have sent him off already if his pockets weren't deep enough.
A delighted gasp drew her attention next, from the corner where Nettles Crabb dandled on the lap of a goldcloak captain with a harelip. Her sharp skinny face was screwed up with concentration as she removed a bandage from Ser Woth's bulbous nose to reveal a gruesome scab. She stared at it intently, as if she were a boy of twelve, not a woman of three-and-twenty. Thankfully Ser Woth seemed content to be ignored by Nettles, given that his calloused hands were busy groping her ample bosom.
A table over, Hazel was paying far better attention to Bryen Knotwaters. As she should. Ser Woth merely patrolled Fishmonger's Square, one goldcloak captain amongst many in the city. Master Knotwaters owned the largest manse in Fishmonger's Square, being a master in the rope maker's guild, and one with plenty of coin to spend.
Hazel's long brown hair shone in the firelight as she ducked her head and blushed at some bawdy jape, as if she were the innocent maid she'd been when she came to the city at sixteen. Alas, the lordling from the Riverlands to whose household she belonged had died not a fortnight later. Her pretty face and bright blue eyes had quickly won her a new position serving Grand Maester Pycelle, which she had liked, until she discovered the old man also liked having a girl to warm his bed. Of course, when she fell pregnant, he'd been just as quick to be rid of her.
Bel frowned as she glanced at the pair of sisters huddled on a bench beside the fire, across from Morra. Violet and Daisy were certainly not the girls' true names, but they were well chosen. Violet claimed to be seventeen, Daisy a year younger, and both were as soft and fragile as the first blossoms of spring, with the wide brown eyes of a doe and waves of shining black hair. That Violet was the elder sister was as obvious as the dainty nose on her face, given how she hovered over Daisy, but as to their ages...
Better she be in here than on the street, even if she is fourteen. For neither the first time nor the last, Bel cursed their father. A master jeweler should know better than to run up so many debts and make so enemies within his guild that his orphaned daughters found themselves homeless and penniless within a month of his passing. The Mother knew they would have frozen to death by now, had Prudence not found them in the clutches of a passing squad of goldcloaks. The law forbade girls from selling themselves on the street, just as it forbade the selling of girls who had not yet come of age. Such indecency offended both the patricians and the septons, not that they bothered to see the law was enforced.
The impulsive Prudence had claimed that there was a mistake, that the girls worked at Bel's, just up the way. The goldcloak serjeant had bought Prudence's excuse, though he had not bought Prudence. When he visited Bel's every evening for the next sennight, he paid not a single groat for the pleasure of her company. Softhearted fool that she was, Bel had only taken half the loss out out of Prudence's wages, and she'd let the girls stay.
Unsurprisingly, neither poor Violet nor poor Daisy had been virgins by the time they got to Bel's. Of course, Bel still sold their maidenheads; she ran a brothel, not an almshouse. Everyone must earn their keep, no exceptions. Though men who bought virgins were a queer lot, many of them apt to be cruel, excited to despoil a frightened maid, perhaps even ruin her for other men. Bel had made sure to stop the bidding when the winning bids were from men that her other girls already knew, men who would treat the sisters kindly.
Arthor, a master stone carver, had won the bidding for Violet. That had pleased Bel; he was handsome, even if he did have a clubfoot, a slight stutter, and a tendency to change his mind every other minute. The next morning Violet reported that Arthor had taken her as tenderly as if she were his bride, never suspecting that the blood on the sheets came from the onset of her moonblood, not the breaking of her maidenhead. Daisy had not even flowered yet; she'd had to nick herself with her nails to produce the expected bleeding. Bel had lit a candle to the Mother, and thanked her that Ser Woth had never lain with a virgin before, being too ugly and too lowborn to attract a wife.
Bel was lighting candles to the Mother rather often of late. When Lord Qyburn came to take his pick of her girls, she had locked Violet and Daisy in their little room, and informed the lord confessor that they were not available, being severely afflicted with grippe. The old man was a former maester; she could barely breathe for fear that he would demand to see them himself. But the moment had passed; he had given her back Prudence, though in an awful state, and taken Calla and Frynne.
Now Violet and Daisy played host to Calla and Frynne's usual admirers as well as their own. They were surrounded by a pack of baying hounds, nearly a dozen men from sixteen to sixty, all eager to make the sisters blush and cover their faces with their hands. Such shyness would not serve them much longer, but for a few more months... with how much Bel charged for them, the sisters saw less custom than any other girl, even Morra. Violet was saving every penny, though she would never save enough by the time their novelty wore off, and men expected them to take less coin to perform much lewder acts.
At the sound of a rippling laugh, the hounds turned. Alys limped down the stairs with a wide smile, her blonde hair newly dyed auburn. A few soft coos and bawdy compliments, and a pair of hounds broke away from the pack, having found a fresh rabbit to chase. A girl of nearly twenty, Alys might have a small bosom and crooked teeth, but there was no one better at flattering a man's vanity. One could almost forget that she was deaf in one ear, with a nose that had been broken at least once and a slight limp from a broken ankle that had healed wrong.
Another laugh rippled, low and sultry. Bel resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Seven forbid that anyone should keep Ynys from being the center of attention. For years Ynys had commanded the highest price of any girl at the brothel, until Violet and Daisy came. Alys might have to compensate for her lack of beauty with charm, but Ynys was too beautiful to bother giving flattery when she might receive it instead. Although closer to thirty than to twenty, with her hourglass figure and brilliant violet eyes Ynys was the loveliest girl at Bel's, and smug about it.
Hazel and Morra had hoped Ynys would look awful when she decided to bleach her dark hair and dye it auburn. Alas, to their annoyance, Ynys looked just as lovely as before. Vain creature. Bel had agreed that Ynys might benefit from some humility, though she could not regret the coin that would pour in from men whose blood ran hot after their first glance of the new queen. Ynys was well suited to playing such a role. Few men would guess that she had been a crofter's daughter in a small village outside of Starfall, until she and her cousin ran away with a sea captain.
Garibald, better known as Gari, was currently passing out tankards of ale. Bel noted that the men seated around his cousin received their tankards last; Ynys and Gari must be bickering again.
"How's the store of ale?" Bel asked when she reached him.
"Joss says we've enough for t' night," Gari replied. "If they don't wax too thirsty."
Bel frowned as Joss emerged from his kitchen, with a heavy tray covered in bowls of stew and loaves of bread. There was a hunch to Joss's shoulders she misliked; his short straw-blond hair was mussed, his loose tunic and breeches spattered with fresh stains. Had he even checked the cellar, or was he too busy cooking? Tanselle was a good girl, but Morra's daughter was only fifteen, and apt to shirk her work in the kitchen when she was upset. That wasn't fair to Joss, not with Prudence to take care of already.
"Best not risk it. Run to Quhuru's and get some more."
Gari dashed off for his cloak, grinning. Quhuru ran the Painted Lotus, a tavern just a few blocks up the Street of Silk, and it was one of Gari's favorite places.
"And no drinking, and no dawdling!" she shouted after him.
The men gathered in the common room had braved the cold to be here, a cold so deep that beggars froze to death in the night. Those too slow or too poor to get one of the girls tonight would want ale to warm them instead, and plenty of it, to forget their troubles.
For weeks King's Landing had stood upon a knife's edge. It had started early in second moon, when poor sweet King Tommen suddenly abandoned his habit of riding into the city, and Queen Talla ceased her visits to the almshouses. Soon after, the bitch queen had ordered the destruction of the riverfront. Lord Garlan Tyrell was marching on the city, and before he arrived the Lannister bitch saw to it that every house and hovel between the city walls and the Blackwater was burned or pulled down with firehooks.
There might have been riots, were the smallfolk not so cold and hungry and afraid of the goldcloaks and of Lord Crakehall's army. Seven thousand men were naught to sneeze at, pitiful though they were. The finest men had perished in battle against Stannis and the Young Wolf; most of those who defended the city were the dregs of the westerlands, greybeards and beardless boys and cripples. Some were in the Red Keep, some in the gatehouses, some upon the city walls.
Thankfully, none of the westermen were currently in her brothel. Lords and landed knights favored Chataya's. It stood at the high end of the Street of Silk, looking down its nose at the rest of the brothels and taverns much like Chataya herself was fond of doing. Her brothel was the finest to be found in the city. The first floor was stone, the second timber and plaster, the whitewash kept blinding white where it was not painted with brightly colored birds and flowers. And Chataya's girls were all young beauties, who wore silk robes and jewels as if they were ladies, not whores.
Silk was far too costly for her girls to wear, not that Lord Baelish had agreed. He had forced the girls at her brothel to wear wisps of silk, putting them so far into debt that it was almost impossible for them to set aside any coin for themselves. Bel had stopped that nonsense after he was dead. Her girls wore wool, with a bit of pretty embroidery on their necklines and sleeves. Bel herself only had a single gown of pink silk, to wear when she sang for the nobility.
Tonight, though, she sang for knights and merchants and craftsmen, the sort rich enough to afford her girls. A bawdy song about a sailor and a mermaid soon had the men laughing and pounding their tankards, especially the chorus about how to pry open the mermaid's slippery clam. Bel followed with a romantic ballad; much as they might deny it, even men liked to imagine themselves in love on occasion, and The Fool and the Lady Fair could make anyone sigh. Of course, after that she sang the lusty Six Maids in a Pool, at the end of which Alys took her first man of the night up the stairs to her bed.
Dusk fell as she sang of Jenny and her Prince of Dragonflies. Bel was halfway through the song when she spied Naet come in, stomping his boots to shake off the snow. Her cousin's brown cheeks were rosy from the cold, his gloved hands full of fried dumplings, still hot and crowned with wisps of steam. He must have gotten lucky; Zhi always closed the Fat Dumpling early. The YiTish grandmother had scraped and saved for years to afford her own tavern, rather than a stall by the harbor, and Zhi refused to let drunks make a mess of it at night.
As was his wont, Naet wandered through the common room, greeting the regulars and the few new faces with equal good humor. He listened more than he spoke, content to nod and shrug and take bites of his dumplings as crumbs of fried dough fell to the floor. The dumplings were long gone when Naet found Bel at the bar, drinking a tankard of watered ale to soothe her throat.
"Morra's new man is a journeyman cooper," Naet told her as he got a tankard for himself. Bel frowned; journeyman were not known for being free with their coin. "Rupert, son of Rolland," he continued. "His father is a respected master cooper, and Rupert is almost finished preparing his own masterpiece t' present t' the guild."
"Good." Bel eyed the man in green robes who had come in soon after Naet, and whom Naet had chatted with beside the fire before making a round of the common room. "Who's the pyromancer?"
"Wisdom Munciter." Naet shrugged, smiling amiably. "He said Chataya didn't have any girls left."
"You'll take him his next tankard of ale," Bel ordered. While she might begrudge Tanselle for failing to help Joss in the kitchen, she did not blame her for refusing to serve today, not after how she had been manhandled last night. "Morra heard sommat about the pyromancers mucking about the Gate of the Gods in the middle of the night a few weeks back, and then at the Mud Gate not long after."
The common room was getting rather crowded; the cats had already run off to hide. Naet almost spilled the tankard twice before he reached the wiry pyromancer, who accepted it with with a polite nod. That was good. Naet was so friendly and patient that he could get anyone to talk about themselves for hours, a useful skill both for gathering information and for appeasing customers as they waited for their turn with a girl or for another tankard of ale. That reminded her, where was Gari? He ought to have been back by now—
"Knives, knives!" Ser Woth's nose was bright red with drink. He'd gotten Nettle's bodice half unlaced, her breasts spilling out from her lowcut shift to the delight of every man near her table. Nettles didn't seem to have noticed, more concerned with asking about the nasty boil one of the other men sitting near her had on his chin.
"Knives, knives!" Master Knotwaters chanted, looking up from pressing kisses to Hazel's neck. Hazel had given up on blushing. She now wore the sly smile which so many men appreciated, and which she never wore outside their company.
"Knives, knives!" Morra added, smirking without seeing, one hand resting on Rupert the Cooper's lap.
When Bel drew the throwing knife that hung at her belt, it was to a chorus of drunken whoops. Carefully she backed up, marking the distance betwixt herself and the door, upon whose back was painted a crude yellow bell. Not too close, not too far, just fifteen feet. Wait until the men had cleared the path, make sure no one was about to lurch into the way, get her grip upon the knife just right, and throw!
The knife thudded into the center of the bell's clapper.
Bless them, the men roared as if Bel had just won a tourney after promising to give them all the prize money. Ser Woth was loudest of all; Nettles winced as he staggered up the stairs with her, clinging onto her bare breast like it was a handrail. By the time they vanished, Daisy had managed to escape the hounds long enough to pry the knife from the door. With her help, Bel managed three more sticks out of five throws, a respectable count. Though she wished the men wouldn't laugh quite so hard, nor smile quite so fondly. Throwing knives might be useless against armored men, but they were still knives; she was not a dog doing tricks.
Bel was barely a verse into her next song when one of the hounds decided to make trouble. Short Pate the Mason had stood for near an hour, watching Violet and Daisy blush and stammer on their crowded bench. Calla would have taken him upstairs by now, but with her gone, and Nettles busy (though she'd be back soon; Ser Woth never lasted long) there was no one to distract him from the younger girls, neither of whom he had the coin to buy. When Arthor left his usual seat between the sisters to take a piss, Short Pate shoved through the hounds to take his place.
"C'mere," Short Pate slurred. He grabbed Violet by the hips, yanking her onto his lap as she squeaked with terror. With one meaty hand Short Pate held her fast; the other he shoved down her bodice, which ripped.
In Lord Baelish's time, such behavior was laughed at, even encouraged. Men were men, after all; what better way to drive up a whore's price than to let the customers fight over her like dogs over a bone? If the whore were bruised or frightened, well, the sight of a quivering girl made some men's blood run hot. Guards would only spoil the fun.
Well, sometimes the "fun" needed to be spoiled. Bel paid wages for four guards, and two were always on duty at night. Still singing, Bel watched with satisfaction as Ser Lorent Storm stepped out of the shadow by the wall where he'd been standing with the other guard, Bu. Unlike Bu, who was a mere stripling of seventeen, Ser Lorent was a hedge knight in his prime. It was the work of a moment to lay a gauntleted hand on Short Pate's shoulder and squeeze, hard.
With a yelp Short Pate released Violet. She scrambled off his lap and into Daisy's arms, letting the younger girl hold her as she trembled. The hounds bayed and laughed as Ser Lorent dragged Short Pate toward the exit. Bu flung open the door, and Ser Lorent tossed Short Pate out into the snow.
"That's how it's done," Ser Lorent rumbled, heading back to his post.
Bu followed, with a look of mingled awe and terror. Well, at least he'd opened the door, which was something. Unlike Ser Lorent Storm, who grimly enjoyed cracking skulls, Bu was not made to be a guard. Alas, he was not much use at the Fat Dumpling either. A shame; with his plump golden face and dark eyes that crinkled when he smiled, Bu rather looked like the dumplings his grandmother Zhi was so proud of. And rightly so; Zhi's dumplings were delicious, pillowy balls of steamed dough filled with spiced meat, though some idiots preferred them fried.
Bel's mouth was still watering as she sang a song about the return of summer. Oh, why hadn't she made Hubard fetch her some dumplings before the evening began? Zhi let her pay half price, since she'd agreed to take Bu off her hands before he could ruin any more dumplings. That had been a few months past, and Bel was still not sure if it had been worth it. She had no use for folk who did not earn their keep.
Speaking of which...
"Naet!" She snapped when the song was done.
He startled, as did Hazel. Whilst Master Knotwaters buried his face against her neck, his hands busy beneath her skirts, Hazel had been glancing at Naet out of the corner of her eye.
"Go get Gari back from the Painted Lotus," Bel ordered.
With a shrug, Naet obeyed. Unsurprisingly, Hazel chose that moment to giggle and pull Master Knotwaters upstairs. Not that Naet saw her go; his gaze had wandered over to Ynys, whose irritatingly perfect breasts were half out of her bodice so that the men clustered around her could admire their shape and size and beg for the honor of touching them first. Naet blew her a kiss as he left, a kiss which Ynys pretended to catch with a coy smile. Nettles caught a glimpse of it as she came down the stairs with the sated Ser Woth, and gave Ynys a glare that might have peeled paint.
If Naet were not her cousin's son, Bel would have tossed him out for that. He belonged down by the Blackwater, ice fishing in winter and poling his flat-bottomed ferry in summer. It was a good life, for an orphan of the Greenblood forced to leave the Greenblood due to offending the wrong people too many times. That had been the fault of Naet's elder brother, she suspected; Naet himself never gave offense to anyone but her.
Between his happy nature and his knack of knowing the Blackwater better than anyone else, Naet made plenty of coin, enough to afford lodgings when the bitch queen had the waterfront destroyed. Seven hells, he might have squatted in one of the many houses and hovels left empty by the famine, bloody flux, and grippe which had killed so many folk in the city over the past five years. But no, he must loiter at cousin Bel's, as if he had not already hung around far too much back in eleventh moon. He'd spent a month seeing Hazel so often on her days off that she had begun to cherish hopes he meant to marry her, not just bed her.
Fuming, Bel spat on the floor before beginning one of the bloodiest songs she knew. Damn Naet for his inconstancy, and damn Gari for lingering at the Painted Lotus. She ought to have sent Hubard instead, rather than leaving him to tend the stable. No doubt Gari had forgotten about the casks of ale, and was busy making eyes at Lijja, the pretty serving girl he hoped to wed once he'd saved up enough coin to satisfy her father Quhuru.
Naet and Gari were still not back when the door opened and Master Tobho Mott stepped in, brushing snow off his fur cloak. The moment her song was finished, Bel bustled over with a tankard of ale. Master Mott was very high up in the armorer's guild, and since his wife died of grippe early in first moon, he had been one of her favorite regulars. Not that he seemed to enjoy himself much; though he was polite and tipped well, he never looked any happier when he left.
"Welcome, welcome," Bel purred. "We are glad to see you again, good Master Mott."
"Good evening, Belandra."
He said not another word, not when he took his cloak and hung it on a peg, nor when she apologized that Nettles and Hazel were already busy. So was Morra, who had disappeared upstairs with Rupert the Cooper not ten minutes past. That worried Bel; though Master Mott had tried every girl, save Violet and Daisy, he seemed to favor Morra. Or perhaps it was because Morra was most likely to be free when he arrived.
"I should not think to make a man such as yourself wait for a girl," Bel offered, as Master Mott gloomily sipped at his tankard.
"No, I had rather not wait," he allowed, his eyes distant.
Bel glanced at the throng around Ynys. None of them were dangerous men to offend, but she would rather not upset them either. Alys had finished with her man, but Master Mott liked her least of all the girls. Alys said the one time he'd had her, he had told her she looked unfinished. He had not even bothered to bed Alys, just lain in her arms, taken a nap, and left without even seeing her naked. Prudence was not fit to see anyone; she was still hiding in Joss's kitchen.
The thought of Prudence made anger simmer over her for a moment, but she pushed it aside. Joss would not like it if Bel offered herself, which left only one option. Or two, rather; she had just heard the creak of the back door opening, and the thud of casks being set down.
"Perhaps a boy might do?" Bel asked, keeping her voice low.
Master Mott blinked at her, then shrugged. Bel smiled, pleased that she had guessed right. A mouth was a mouth, after all, and an arse was an arse, as sailors on long voyages and soldiers lacking sufficient camp followers often discovered. Even the proudest men were rarely offended by the notion of being serviced by a boy, even if they declined. A few preferred boys, and even fewer preferred to be the ones doing the servicing, though such men kept their affairs very, very quiet.
"A bowl of something hot first, if you please," Master Mott suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts. "I was so long at the forge I forgot to eat."
"Of course, of course." And with that, Bel bustled off to the kitchen.
As she expected, she found Joss bent over a pile of dirty dishes, scrubbing away. With a sigh Bel stepped up behind Joss, wrapping her arms about his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. Joss allowed it; when she let go, he turned to press a kiss to her cheek before going back to scrubbing. There was no sign of Tanselle, or of Prudence.
"I sent them t' bed," Joss explained as Bel ladled stew into a clean bowl. "Tanselle wouldn't stop asking questions about cookery, and I weren't in the mood for it."
"Fair enough. Could you fetch Gari from the cellar and Hubard from the stables?"
"Aye, if you'll give the cauldron a stir, afore the bottom starts to burn."
Bel smiled to herself as she stirred the massive cauldron which hung over the hearth. Joss might be the cook, but cookery was beyond him. All their bread came from the Street of Flour; when they killed one of their pigs or chickens, they had a butcher prepare the meat. Oh, Joss could make plain fare, the same stews and pottages he'd learned to make long ago, when they were young. Joss had despised laying with men, so much so that he often hid in the kitchen at Mother's brothel and made himself useful there.
Of course, Joss had been Jess then, skinny and scared, a girl of twenty-two, all knees and elbows and small shapely teats in the lowcut dresses the brothel girls had to wear. Though five years the elder, it had taken Bel an embarrassingly long time to realize that her closest friend was pining for her. When she did, it had felt like a punch to the gut; in an instant, her friend was her lover, and they had not been parted since. When Bel left Mother's and bought her brothel, Jess had come with her, and finally cut her hair short to celebrate. When Lord Baelish stole the brothel out from under her, Jess had stayed, even though it amused Lord Baelish to remind customers that any girl in the brothel was for sale, and had they noticed the ripe teats the cook was hiding under her gown, so plump ever since she gave birth?
When Lord Baelish died, Jess had given up all her gowns, and then given up being Jess. The customers had barely noticed; no one bothered to learn the cook's name. The girls didn't much care either, though Ynys asked if it meant that the few roasted chickens they got would be any less dry. For that Bel had made Ynys do her own chores for a week, rather than let her get away with shirking them as she usually did.
The (admittedly dry, Ynys might be a bitch but unfortunately she was not wrong) chicken did not improve, but other things did. Joss was a happier lover than Jess, though much the same otherwise. He was still too skinny, where Bel was good and fat. He still kept a cleaver close at hand; he tried to talk Bel into buying better, costlier cheese and butter for their customers; he still refused to go anywhere near Flea Bottom, where he had grown up until the day he accidentally kicked the ladder out from under his father whilst he was thatching a roof, just as his father had accidentally stumbled into the wrong bed of a night and left bloody sheets behind him.
Bel's nostrils flared as she heard Joss stomp up from the cellar and go outside bellowing for Hubard. No man would ever do such a thing to their Wren. Noble, merchant, or sellsword, Joss would gut them with his cleaver, if Bel didn't get them with her knife first. Joss might have been the one to give birth, but Wren was theirs.
When they presented themselves in the kitchen, neither Gari nor Hubard looked especially pleased to be summoned. Their usual duties were stabling horses, tending the chickens and pigs out back, and running errands. But they were all smiles when she brought them before Master Mott, to let the master armorer take his pick.
"This is Gari," she said, gesturing for him to bow. Gari obliged, his dark curls falling over his face. Though not nearly as pretty as Ynys, he was comely enough, with dimples in his cheeks and a lean and lithe build that belied his twenty-eight years.
"And this is Hubard."
Hubard was almost burly, with dark brown hair and a strong jaw, but men tended to pick him more often than Gari, much to his annoyance. Perhaps it was because he was short, or because his eyes were a rich deep blue, or because he looked closer to fifteen than twenty-two in the flicker of the rushlights.
"It's Bard, actually," Hubard said, lightly.
Bel hid a grimace. He had no right to call himself Bard, not when he constantly hummed with all the tunefulness of a cat being strangled. Except, after a minute or so, the cat would be dead, and Hubard's humming had been plaguing her ears for nigh on five years.
"Gari." Master Mott said, not even pausing for a second look. And with that, he made for the stairs, leaving Gari to follow him up.
"Thank the gods," Hubard muttered. He might tolerate lending a hand when it was busy, but he didn't like it. Gari didn't mind; it meant more coin to put toward marrying Lijja, and Ynys claimed he actually enjoyed bedding men, if not as much as bedding women. Alas for Hubard; she was about to send him back to the stables when one of Ynys's admirers spotted him, lit up like a new year's bonfire, and promptly took him upstairs.
Thus the evening passed away. Girls went up the stairs with their men and returned, the girls rumpled, the men pleased. All but Violet, whom Arthor the stone carver had bought for the whole night, and Daisy, who remained surrounded by admirers eager to sample the goods, even if they were not rich enough to take her upstairs. For them and for the others still waiting their turn, Naet and Joss made rounds of the common room with tankards of ale and bowls of stew, and Bel sang. To keep the crowd happy, Bel let them shout out suggestions for the next song. She even got out her qithara, and played the way she had as a girl, when her fingers danced across the strings and her sister danced across the floor.
When the bells tolled the Hour of the Stranger, a sudden chill came over her. A few quick excuses served to free her from the throng; Bel darted upstairs, all the way to the third floor, to the little room she shared with Joss. A side table stood beside their bed, bare but for a rushlight lantern and a beeswax candle. There were plenty of coals in the hearth; the candle's wick caught fire so fast she almost burned herself before setting the candle back on the side table and kneeling before, and began singing a hymn to the Stranger, soft under her breath.
Lena would have been thirty-seven today.
Girls of fifteen died all the time, but Bel had not thought to lose her own little sister. A city that opened its gates was never sacked, or no city would ever open its gates again. Not that Lord Tywin Lannister had cared. His westermen had swept over King's Landing like demons from the seven hells, looting and raping and killing at will. The district between the Hook and the Muddy Way had born the worst of it, the low-lying streets where Dornishmen and foreigners lived.
Bel's family were from Sunspear, musicians who had followed Princess Elia's train when she came from Dorne to wed Prince Rhaegar. There was good money to be had in King's Landing, where they were some of the only Dornish in the city. Patricians and merchants liked to show off their wealth by providing a novelty at their dinners, and nobles hired them to please Princess Elia during the rare times she left Dragonstone to come to court.
The night of the Sack, they had been practicing songs from the North, the Stormlands, the Vale, and the Riverlands, to welcome whichever army arrived first to overthrow Aerys and crown his grandson Aegon. The rumors they meant to crown Robert Baratheon were ignored; there had not been a king with Dornish blood on the Iron Throne since the last Aegon, Aegon the Unlikely, whose mother had been a Dayne.
"Mother Rhoyne always has her way, in the end," Lena said cheerfully as she spun.
Bel could still recall how her sister's skirts swirled around her, her feet featherlight, her arms graceful as swans as she raised them above her head, the slim copper bracelets on her wrists shining in the light.
"Valena!" their father's voice called. "What have you done with last night's wages? Your mother needs a new string for her oud!"
Lena had tsked and rolled her eyes, and insisted that the copper bracelets had been necessary, they looked so pretty when she danced, surely it was only right that a dancer look her best. Bel had laughed as she agreed, and proposed they make up the difference by spending their evening at a tavern nearby. An evening of music and dancing should get them enough coin to get a string for the oud; perhaps they would even meet handsome young men with deep pockets, the kind who might overlook a girl's meager dowry for the sake of her charm and beauty.
They were in the streets when the Sack began. One moment Lena was behind her; the next she was gone. There were shrieks and screams coming from every direction, too many for Bel to pick out her sister's voice. It was all she could do to stay alive, to escape from the soldiers with her virtue still intact and hide herself away until the carnage ended.
Three days later, she had found Lena in a gutter, in a state so awful that Bel's father had wept for the first time in his life. Bel wept too, not just that day but every day for weeks. She could not eat, she could not sing, she could not play, not with three broken fingers.
By the time her family decided to return to Sunspear, Bel was a shadow, one they were glad to leave behind. She was a fallen woman, after all; when her father assumed Bel had lost her virtue in the Sack, she had not bothered to correct him. It didn't matter, none of it mattered, with Lena gone. Mother's brothel had sold Bel's virtue, and then kept selling the rest of her. It had taken years before she climbed out of the dark pit, before she felt almost herself again, enough to begin saving money for a place of her own.
The candle flickered, and Bel frowned. Beeswax was costly; she ought not to waste it. She said one last prayer to the Stranger, blew out the candle, and left.
The door across the hall was the only one in the brothel with a lock, and only Joss and Bel had keys. Bel drew hers from her pocket, slipping it into the lock with a gentle clink. The door creaked as it swung open, the tiny room pitch dark save for the coals in the hearth.
Lord Baelish had kept papers in here, stacks and stacks of them, ledgers covered in scribbles and account books lined with rows of sums. None of the girls could make heads or tails of them, not even Ynys, who could actually read and write beyond basic sums and a few simple words and her own name. Bel had no use for such mysteries, and no intention of gifting Tyrion Lannister anything else, after the chests of gold she'd dared not keep. The papers had all burned, and Bel had filled the room with far more precious treasure.
Wren laid on her straw pallet, quiet and peaceful in her sleep. She was curled around Kem, Hazel's son, a boy of five. Had he always looked so small, or had Wren grown again? Bel could not believe she was eleven already. It seemed only yesterday she was a squalling babe, swaddled in Bel's arms. The babe had not been her idea. Bel had fought against the notion for months, but in the end, she could not deny her lover a child. Jess had even convinced Naet's elder brother Ferris to bed her, so the babe might have both their blood. Poor man, he had died of a festering splinter soon after Wren's birth. Joss was the only ma or da that Wren had ever known.
Dark eyelashes fluttered; a brown arm stretched.
"Auntie?" Wren yawned.
"Shhh." Bel kissed her brow. God forbid they wake up Kem, or poor Prudence, who slept on a pallet in the corner. "Go back to sleep."
The common room was still lively when Bel returned, though slightly quieter, save for the sound of her qithara. There was no need to sing, not at present. Some of the men were beginning to head home, unwilling to wait for their favorite girl to be free. Those who remained were either less picky or more patient.
Most patient of all was the goldcloak serjeant sitting by the fire. Usually Bel would not let a mere serjeant in her brothel, but Dale had the good fortune to be present at the parley this morning betwixt the bitch queen and King Aegon, and everyone on the Street of Silk knew Bel was always eager for gossip. When he told her everything that had happened, Bel had laughed so hard she feared she might crack a rib, and promised him any girl he wanted for half price, so long as he waited until the end of the night. With giddy delight, he had paid enough coin to take both Alys and Hazel, once they were done with their higher ranking suitors.
Dale was currently telling the tale again to a rapt audience. Even Ynys looked intrigued, having come back downstairs after bedding first Wisdom Munciter, who'd flattered her the most, then Master Morgan of the mercer's guild, who'd given her some gift. Properly she should be leading her next man upstairs, not sitting on his lap naked as her nameday, but Ynys loved to make her men wait, getting them so worked up that they fucked her through the bed. And it drew attention away from Daisy, who grew more and more anxious as the night went on, and the odds of a drunken suitor deciding she was worth the exorbitant price went up.
"I thought the bitch's face was like to catch on fire, she was so red," Dale laughed so hard he almost choked on his beer. "And the Kingslayer, starin' at her like she were a bit o' tasty meat, and him like to gobble her up, and the small council glarin' and wishin' they dared surrender on t' spot, instead of waitin' t' open t' gates at dawn. Aye, they've got the bitch locked in a cell already, you mark my words."
"D'you think she'll get beheaded?" Nettles asked, having come down to get her next man. She had not bothered to lace her bodice back up, though she'd tugged it shut.
"Doubt it," Dale grinned. "King Aegon was like to kill 'em then and there when 'e found out she'd killed all the Dornish lords up at the Red Keep. His dragon reared up, sun shinin' off his white scales, blowin' these golden flames, and the king, he told the bitch to get out o' his sight afore he did sommat he'd regret."
"Maybe he'll burn 'em," ventured Master Tim, upon whose lap Ynys was sitting. "Her and the Kingslayer. Old Aerys loved a burning."
"He wouldn't neither," Nettles said indignantly, ignoring Ser Lucos, who had come up behind her, and was caressing her breasts as he freed them from her bodice. "I bet he'd feed 'em to his dragon, like Queen Rhaena did t' that husband o' hers. Not Maegor, t'other one."
"Who?" Daisy asked, bewildered.
"Don't ask," Ynys warned.
"Why not?" Nettles scowled. "We're good—"
"—dragon men, up Crackclaw way," Ynys finished, rolling her eyes. "And if you let her get started, she'll go on about how Prince Rhaegar was the noblest prince to ever live, and him and Princess Elia meant to wed Lyanna together, and be just like Aegon the Conqueror and his wives." Ynys made a face. "Only without the incest bit."
"Y' can't go carrying off ladies that are betrothed to other men," Master Tim said, giving Ynys a playful swat on the arse.
"Aye, especially not a daughter o' Winterfell," Dale agreed.
"Strongspear did," Nettles said stubbornly. "Our King Aegon—"
She might have said more, but Ser Lucos, tired of waiting, clapped one hand over her mouth and the other over her upper arm and pulled her toward the stairs. Remembering she should be working, not talking, Nettles gave a muffled giggle and let him, pushing past Hubard and the man he had just seen to. When Bel gave the lad a nod, he gratefully returned to the stables.
"You know," Ynys purred, twisting to display herself at a better angle, "I have a bit of dragon blood. My mother slept with a dragon prince, just like her mother before her, and her mother before her."
Master Tim groaned, which thankfully covered the sound of Bel's snort. She hoped Master Tim didn't keep his own account books. If he knew his sums, he'd have realized only Rhaegar or Aerys might have sired Ynys, and neither was in the habit of bedding the villagers around Starfall. The Daynes were, though.
"Tell us about the trial by combat," Master Tim urged, slipping a hand between Ynys' legs, a thick finger petting at her cunt. "All of it, just like you did before, and don't leave anything out."
Oh, Seven spare her. Bel liked the tale, but she did not need to hear it again, let alone while Ynys moaned and gasped between every other word whilst the hounds eagerly watched and stroked their cocks. Really, she should start charging extra whenever Ynys felt like putting on a show. At this rate Ynys would let Master Tim take her in front of them, and poor Daisy did not need to see that.
Instead, after a glance to make sure Ser Lorent and Bu were ready to intervene if necessary, Bel fetched the girl from her bench. Thankfully she did not need to make many apologies; Daisy was forgotten, now that every eye was fixed on Ynys. She was only too glad to follow Bel up the stairs to the third floor, where she locked Daisy into the same room as Prudence, Wren, and Kem. Not that Bel thought any of the men she allowed in her brothel would dare finish with a girl they'd paid for only to go and rape one they couldn't afford, but best not to take chances.
Bel ought to have gone back downstairs, to keep watch over the common room. Instead she lingered in the dark hallway on the second floor, surrounded by grunts and moans from behind closed doors. When Master Mott slipped out of one of them, she barely noticed, nor when Gari followed after him whistling happily. Gods, but she was glad King Aegon had come. Much as she enjoyed playing with the bitch queen as a child might taunt a cat with a bit of string, the swipe of her claws was worse than Bel had feared.
She had been so careful. Every piece of information Bel fed the queen was true, just carefully chosen to play upon her worst fears and cruelest impulses, to encourage her to uplift her foes and slight her friends. Her Grace should know that Lord Aurane Waters favored young, pretty blonde girls when he visited the Street of Silk, that he had been heard to say he was weary of bedding a shrew with sagging teats and lines about her belly and hips from giving birth. What he meant, of course Bel could not guess, she did not know the affairs of the nobility, but did Her Grace think perhaps Lord Aurane had a mistress? Some old crone, no doubt; he must be desperately in love with the queen's beauty, as most men were, and eager to bed the closest thing he could get.
Oh, how Bel had stroked and soothed her vanity, had flattered and kissed that Lannister bitch's arse even when her blood ran hot with hatred. Joss thought she was foolish, that she was juggling wildfire, but Bel had trusted herself to do it. She had given no reason for the bitch queen to mistrust her, not one. And yet one awful day back in first moon, a squad of redcloaks had come with Lord Qyburn and stolen Prudence away. Bel could do nothing to stop it; the queen regent might have burned the entire brothel to the ground on a whim, and no one would have gainsaid her. The last time she'd seen the bitch, at the beginning of second moon, the queen had let Lord Qyburn take Calla and Frynne away as if they were a child's dolls, and given no payment but the return of Prudence.
"Unharmed," the queen had said, with a smile as bright as her golden curls. "Mostly. Why, the men might even like her mouth better now."
Bel shuddered, then spat at the floor. Poor, poor Prudence. She had been a lively girl, with her ginger hair and warm brown eyes. Her lips were always ready with a kind word or a silly jape, her hands were always busy spinning thread, or tossing scraps to Rattail, as if the bald tailed cat didn't have a belly full of mice.
Prudence of Flea Bottom had wanted to become a weaver. At twelve her pretty face and sweet manners had won her a position as a serving girl in a rich merchant's house, which she hoped would allow her to save enough for her apprentice fee. Instead, when she was fifteen she had fallen in love with the merchant's son, a boy of her own age, and he with her. They had plighted their troth before a septon whilst the merchant was away, and shared a glorious four months together before the merchant returned to find his grandchild growing in a serving girl's belly.
A bribe to the septon, and the marriage vanished from his records. Cowed by his father, the merchant's son said nothing when the merchant threw Prudence out, replacing her with a girl whose dowry was the only thing to recommend her. Prudence miscarried within a fortnight; within another fortnight, she found her way to Bel's. The merchant's boy had come too, soon after, but Prudence had cried and sent him away.
Prudence had not wept again after that, not for three long years. She had not wanted to make a living on her back, but she was good at it. Ugly or old, handsome or crippled, it made no matter. It was not weaving, but it was better than anything else, and Prudence happily spent almost every coin she earned on little gifts for herself or for the other girls. Then Lord Qyburn had taken her, and returned Bel's sweet girl with eyes filled with tears and a mouth empty of teeth.
Bel clenched her fists. Damn him, why had the barber not finished the false teeth yet? He had taken a beeswax mold of Prudence's mouth soon after she returned, and that was weeks ago. Bel could not bear Prudence's long silences, the way she lisped and slurred her words when she could not help but speak, covering her mouth with the painted vellum fan which Ynys had given her.
If only the mob had managed to get the bitch queen off her horse. After the parley, they had chased the Lannister bitch up Aegon's Hill, flinging nightsoil and snowballs filled with chunks of ice. At least one had caught her full in the face, or so gossip said.
Bel wished she'd had the chance to fling a few snowballs herself. For so much of her life, she had done nothing, content merely to survive. When Lord Baelish brought her a young northern lady and a maid from the Riverlands, Bel had been grimly resigned to their eventual fates. Oh, she had hidden Jeyne Poole and Merissa of Sherrer in the kitchen with Joss, but she had known that could not last. She might spare them for a few months, as she had once spared Lily, but then Lord Baelish would have put his foot down, and the poor girls would have been trained, nevermind that they were no older then than Wren was now, or Lily was then. Bel dared not risk defiance; protecting Joss and Wren and all her other girls mattered far more than saving a pair of strangers.
Then Arya Stark had followed a band of ragged cats into her brothel, bold as brass, looking like a ragamuffin and sounding like a princess, with the same dark brown hair as Lily, the same grey eyes, and Bel had finally snapped. To hell with the consequences, she would get those girls out, not just for their own sake but for that of the other girls she couldn't spare. It had felt almost like a fit of madness; she might have thought she'd dreamt the bit with the red direwolf, had Joss and Nettles not seen it too, and Naet, when he poled the girls and the wolf up the river to drop them on the northern shore.
And oh, how Mother Rhoyne had smiled upon her. Lord Baelish had believed her when she blamed the girls' disappearance on the eunuch Varys, just as Tyrion Lannister had believed her when she told him the same tale. Better yet, every word Lord Tyrion spoke rang with contempt for Lord Baelish. If the lord hand hated the master of coin, why, no one would inquire too closely if the master of coin should happen to perish in some common brawl.
The septons said The Seven-Pointed Star did not hold with vengeance. Vengeance could not rebuild a ruined village, nor restore a cripple to wholeness, nor revive the dead. Nonsense. That wasn't the point of vengeance. The point of vengeance was killing the bastard so he couldn't do it again, and if Bel enjoyed the killing, well, that was between her and Mother Rhoyne. Nobles would always do what they liked, but she had seen to it that Lord Baelish would never sell another girl, and she would soon see the last proud lions of House Lannister struck down, and be glad she'd played some small part in their ruin. Bel almost wished she could descend into the seven hells, just for a moment, just to see the look on Lord Tywin's face.
Ynys said he'd looked fit to choke, the day of the trial by combat. Bel could not bear to go, to see yet another Dornish boy die at Lannister hands. The Mountain was the fucking Mountain, and Prince Oberyn's bastard was just some squire. Well, the gods had punished her for doubting them. Bel had gotten to see the knighting ceremony on the steps of Baelor's Sept. Alas, Tywin the Faithless was much too far away for her to see his face when Ser Loras Tyrell dubbed Olyvar Sand a knight, nor to see anything of Sansa Stark save a glimpse of shining auburn hair.
Bel flexed the fingers that had once been crooked. There was something queer about that girl. It was not natural, that Queen Sansa had broken and reset three fingers with naught but a bit of song, as if she were some kindly witch out of a tale, not a lady of thirteen. Queen Sansa hadn't even asked before she did it, not that nobles ever asked before doing what they wanted. Bel supposed she ought to be grateful the girl had thanked her at al; both children and nobles were more like to pitch a fit over nothing than give thanks to one who had risked everything.
That day Bel had barely kept her composure long enough to flee the Red Keep, and then only because she'd just come from Naet's the day before and seen something almost as queer. Poleboats weren't supposed to go upriver so easily, as if the current were running backwards and pulling it along, the water lapping at the boat like a dog frolicking at a man's feet. Not that Naet would admit anything was strange. It was just luck that he was the only ferryman who never hit a snag, the only fisherman who barely had to make an effort to cut holes in the ice to fish. No, the river liked Naet, as if it were a proper river like Mother Rhoyne, not a river filled with the city's piss and shit, the ice tinged green from all the wildfire that Lord Tyrion had burned on it.
If Bel could get her hands on wildfire, she'd have a much better use for it than burning ships. She'd like to see how Lord Qyburn liked being tied down, helpless, unable stop the pain from coming. Even calling him a lord chafed, though she could not break the habit. He was nothing more than the youngest son of some minor lord or landed knight, if she did not miss her guess. Oh, the man might look like a kindly grandfather with soft hands and a twinkle in his eyes, but a whore knew how to spot a man that was wrong, the kind who could just as easily pay her for an ordinary night or see to it that she was dead before dawn.
Bel could only pray that her girls were safe, that Lord Qyburn treated them as gently as he had when he decided to sample them before taking them away. Wide-eyed Calla (who never forgot a face, and had the ears of a fox, but was so gullible she'd lost her virtue to a potboy who claimed he was a prince) said he had only used her mouth, and rambled the whole while about the important work he was doing for Her Grace the Queen Regent, his most beloved patroness. As for the skittish Frynne, who burst into tears if shouted at and jumped at sudden noises, she found it odd, the way Lord Qyburn watched her play with herself whilst enjoying Calla's tongue, but none of the orders he gave her were strange or unpleasant. Her own husband had done far, far worse to her, before Frynne ran away.
At least Bel didn't need to worry about any of Lord Qyburn's servants molesting her girls. The nobles might call him lord confessor, but the smallfolk knew better and called him a necromancer. There was no other way to explain why the traitors he tortured in the Old King's Square lasted so long before their agony ended, nor why his personal guards smelt like rot and never spoke. Horrible as that was, she was glad for Calla and Frynne's sake. Dead men did not think for themselves, let alone think about using their cocks.
When Bel heard the sound of Alys opening her door, she realized she'd lingered much too long. She strode briskly down the stairs, down to a common room emptier than it had been before. Ynys was still busy amusing herself; Bel doubted she had to feign any of the noises she was making as Master Tim took her over a bench, the hounds still watching happily. Dale was even happier; he finally had Hazel on his lap, his hand on the slight curve of her belly. Bel misliked that the curve was larger than she recalled; she had not seen Hazel's breasts look so plump since... then Dale saw Alys, almost dumped Hazel on the floor when he jumped up with excitement, and the thought was gone.
"Just be done before the curfew bell," Bel yelled after Dale as he bolted for the stairs, dragging a bemused Hazel along with him. Alys followed, having just barely managed to gently push her previous man out of the way before he got trampled. Thankfully, Master Praed hadn't noticed; he was always drowsy after he spent. Naet and Hubard would need to help him onto his horse, no doubt.
Master Praed wasn't the only one ready to sleep. Even the sight of Ynys being thoroughly fucked could only do so much, though Bel wondered if Master Tim was half a eunuch, to rut so long before he spent his seed. All the hounds finished before he did. One by one they cleaned themselves up, tossed a few extra coins on the table, and went back out into the cold, already yawning. Joss bustled about the common room, carrying dirty tankards and bowls back to the kitchen with Gari's help. Dale was just stumbling back down the stairs with a dazed grin when the bells rang two, commanding the city to bank their fires and go to bed.
Bel was happy to sink into her own bed, to have Joss curl against her in the soft darkness, and kiss her as if they had not seen each other in days, his hands busy between her legs. Alas, Bel was halfway to her peak when Joss rose from the bed, cursing and shaking his head, sending droplets of freezing cold water everywhere.
"I told you there was a leak," Joss snapped, irate. "And it's not the only one. Patching isn't enough, we need the roof thatched new!"
"Fixing the draughts was already costly enough," Bel flung back. Why must Joss start this argument again, instead of loving on her and letting her love on him? "It'll last—"
"We have enough coin put by!"
"No, we don't." Bel flailed for the words to make him understand, even though she could already see him moving dimly in the darkness, pulling back on his tunic and breeches. "Didn't I tell you what the cobbler charged for mending all our shoes? And we'll have the barber to pay for Prudence's teeth, and we've earned nothing from poor Prudence or Calla or Frynne for near a month, and—"
"And there's always some excuse," Joss said bitterly, and went out.
Bel's bed was cold that night, and not from the drip of melting snow. She slept badly, and woke before dawn. Quietly, carefully, Bel dressed herself, retrieved money from the locked box hidden in the cellar, and woke Tanselle and Hubard. Gods knew she couldn't send Gari, who got lost immediately every time he left the Street of Silk.
When Joss came down to the kitchen to start the porridge, Bel was waiting for him.
"You're not making the porridge," she said briskly. "We'll break our fast on bread, if it please you."
Joss gave her a tired look. "It does," he allowed.
With a sigh, he set to cleaning, as if he meant to do it all himself. That wouldn't do. With a grimace, Bel rolled up her sleeves. Soon enough Wren wandered down, clutching the dolls to whom she told bloodthirsty stories, then Hazel and her son Kem, who chattered at her happily as he asked why stairs were called stairs and a dozen other peculiar questions, then Prudence with her fan, then the rest of them, all wanting to be fed.
When Tanselle and Hubard returned, Bel could have fainted, she was that relieved to see Joss smile. Bel had told them to get the good bread, the kind made with dried cherries and walnuts, even though plain was far cheaper. She'd even given Tanselle enough money to get either cheese or honey or butter. An awful expense, but Bel comforted herself with the thought that King Aegon's host would be eager to spend their coin on pretty girls.
"I got cheese," Tanselle told her as Joss set to divvying up the bread. "The cheesemonger said it were good and sharp, nice t' melt." She ducked her head and bit her lip. "I thought, mayhaps I could try to make a few soft eggs, for Prudence, and put t' cheese on top?"
"You may," Bel said, hiding a wince. She'd forgotten Prudence couldn't manage the bread; she'd only been thinking of Joss, who loved cherries.
Although the gates were supposed to be opened at dawn, they took their time with their breakfast, savoring every costly bite. Nobles hated rising early, and besides, they would want to give the crowds time to gather, so King Aegon could enter with the sort of pomp a conquering king deserved.
Alys ate her bread quietly, as always, too exhausted to talk or smile after an evening of charming the men. But she was the only quiet one, other than Prudence. Everyone else was eager to talk, after they'd thanked Bel for the surprise of such a fine breakfast.
"Master Morgan gave me a gift," Ynys said, taking a dainty bite. Her hand went to her pocket, drawing forth a small square of gleaming cloth that could only be silk. It shimmered in the light from the hearth, changing from blue to purple every time she crumpled it in her hand.
"It's called shot silk," she told them, with the casual tone of someone used to such finery. "To match my lovely eyes, he said."
"It's the wrong shade of purple," Hazel said waspishly, handing Kem a piece of cheese much larger than the one she'd kept for herself. Really, she spoiled him far too much of late; she would not have been so indulgent a year ago.
"It is," Gari added gleefully as he took a place by the fire, unbothered by Hubard's awful humming.
"Violet?" Tanselle interrupted, still busying herself with the eggs Kem had collected from the chicken coop. "Did Master Arthor really pay for a whole night?"
Violet shifted uneasily in her seat. "He did," she admitted. "He- he-"
"He said he didn't like the thought of anyone else having her," Daisy finished, with a hesitant smile.
Bel considered lighting another candle to the Seven. Master Arthor was only thirty, not too old at all, and the bloody flux had taken both his parents. If he got it into his head to wed Violet, there was no one to stop him from having her, or from letting her little sister live with them, maybe even giving Daisy a small dowry. Stranger things had happened, though it was best not to let Violet get her hopes up. Even if he did marry her, the other men in his guild would mock him, and their wives would make life very hard for Violet. They wouldn't care that she was so pious she prayed to the Mother, Maiden, and Crone every day, and made Daisy do the same.
"— it go with Master Mott?" Hubard asked.
"Fine," Gari shrugged. "He was sad at the start, though. Well, sadder than usual. He said you reminded him too much of an apprentice he once had, a boy who was almost as good as a son."
"What happened to—"
"—filthy pillow talk, and then he had me from behind," Morra said, quietly, so her daughter would not hear.
If the gods were good, Tanselle would leave as soon as Morra saved enough coin to either marry her off to a cook or to apprentice her to one. Tanselle was still a virgin, and all of them were determined to keep it that way, even Ynys. It helped that she was plain, with coarse features and scars from the pox that had killed her father when she was a girl. Morra still missed her husband. A tailor like her father, Wyl had taught her to sew so Morra might help him with his shop, and never grudged that her work far surpassed his.
"—and then Ser Lucos gagged me with a kerchief, and licked my cunt until I nearly fell off t' bed, it felt so good, and then he fucked me so hard that I actually—"
"I'm glad Ser Lucos didn't bore you to death for once, Nettles, but lower your voice!" Hazel hissed, her hands clapped tight over Kem's ears. "I swear, if he asks me 'why' one more time this morning…"
"Sorry." Nettles brightened. "Oh! Did you see that boil—"
"Well, I peaked thrice, just with Master Tim," Ynys bragged, raising her voice louder. "And at the end, Naet came back—"
"He did not," Bel said, cutting her off before Hazel gave Ynys the slap she was asking for. "He was in the stables, helping Hubard with the horses."
That reminded her, her lout of a cousin hadn't come down with the rest of them. With great pleasure Bel filled a pitcher with ice melt and made for the stairs. Naet woke spluttering and swearing, though not a drop of water sank into his tunic. The tunic remained queerly dry, as she suspected it would, as he gnawed on his bread and passed along all the gossip he'd gathered last night.
Although, Bel wasn't quite sure what to do with the gossip, now that she wouldn't be selling it to the bitch queen. And she was rather confused by what Wisdom Munciter had said before claiming a turn with Ynys. Alchemists made wildfire and put it places, they didn't remove it. And how had there come to be wildfire under the Gate of the Gods and the Mud Gate? If the Lannister bitch was mad enough to try flinging wildfire at a dragon, she ought to have the sense to put it atop the three high hills.
When Bel returned to the kitchen, she found Morra elbow deep in dishwater. Thank the Seven; perhaps because she was almost blind, Morra scrubbed every pot within an inch of its life. One would never know she'd once embroidered so finely that she'd been entrusted with stitching a doublet for Lord Renly Baratheon, and he'd been the best dressed man in the city, before he went off and crowned himself and got himself killed by either a ghost or by Lady Catelyn Stark.
Necromancers and water witches and skinchangers who sang healing songs were one thing, but ghosts were quite another. No, Bel's money was on Lady Stark. She might have looked like a proper lady, but she also looked like the sort who'd knife a man if she had to. She'd slit Lord Frey's throat, after all, and died for it. Little Arya had had the same look, and she'd killed some bastard—
"Pleeeeeaaaase, da, just one more?" Wren's voice was a piercing whine as she looked up at Joss, pouting. "Mine barely had any cherries."
Joss might be able to resist those enormous brown eyes, but Bel almost never could. Bel handed her another piece, and tried not to laugh when Wren held it over her head and did a little dance, her happiness as obvious as the gap in her smile where she'd just lost her last baby tooth.
"Thanks, auntie," Wren said. She plopped down by the hearth, where Wobble was rolling on her back, her white belly exposed, her three black paws in the air.
"She still hasn't finished her mending," Joss scolded under his breath.
"She can finish it later," Bel replied. Today was no ordinary day, after all.
That reminded her; the last of the bread needed to be handed out. Ynys and Alys got the largest portions; with their hair dyed red, they were sure to get fucked bowlegged, even if Bel raised their prices as high as she dared. So was Prudence, if she could bear it; in rushlight, ginger was not so far from auburn. Bel bade Tanselle give her a few more eggs, then sat beside her at the hearth, speaking in the low, soothing tone she'd used when Wren was a babe. Once Bel promised that her mouth would not be for sale, only the rest of her, Prudence lisped agreement from behind her fan.
"I'll have Wat by you all evening," Bel promised. "When a man takes you up, I'll even have him go with you and stand outside the door. You know he won't let no harm come to you."
An old, grizzled sellsword whose only daughter had died in the cradle, Wat was fond of young girls and sharp-tempered with anyone fool enough to harm them. When an angry drunk had mistaken Tanselle for a whore two nights past, and near ripped her gown off, Wat had broken his wrist in one quick twist.
Before Bel could get up from the hearth, Hazel came and found her, having entrusted Kem to Nettles for a moment. As Bel feared, Hazel was with child again, perhaps three moons gone. Kem had been born because old Grand Maester Pycelle could not be bothered to make moon tea for the serving girl he was fucking. Alas, when Hazel got to Bel's and first had moon tea, it made her violently ill, so ill she ought to have died, had Nettles and Joss not nursed her.
Unable to rely on moon tea, Hazel made every man she bedded spill on her belly or wear a bit of sheepgut to catch his seed, and tried to time her few days off so that they fell when she was most like to be fertile. It did not always work. She had miscarried when Kem was two, and born a daughter, Essie, when Kem was three. Unlike Nettles, who'd given up her daughter to the knight's son who'd fathered her when he took Nettles's virtue, Hazel had been determined to keep her daughter, and had wept bitterly when the grippe took Essie four moons past. That had been just before she took up sleeping with Naet...
Unlike Master Tim, Bel could do sums. When Naet came down and started flirting with Ynys, she could have stabbed him, were she not busy counting last night's coins. Once done, she entrusted them to Joss, who took them down to the cellar for safekeeping in the lockbox.
Joss had already offered to stay behind to make sure the brothel was secure, which eased Bel's mind somewhat. Morra had no interest in braving the crowds either; she might know the brothel like the back of her hand, so long as no one moved the benches or tables, but bustling streets were not to her taste, and she wouldn't be able to see the revelry anyway.
Just to be safe, Bel charged Ser Lorent Storm and Qarl with standing guard. She had hired Qarl at the same time as Ser Lorent, after the Blackwater. Both had fought for Stannis, been taken captive in the battle, and ruined by paying steep ransoms. Though Qarl was only a middle-aged squire, with warts and crooked teeth, he fought almost as well as Ser Lorent. Joss thought she was being silly, and she probably was, but Bel did not like the way her skin itched.
The rest of them got ready to leave in the common room. The sky outside the windows was overcast; it would be a cold day without the sun. All the girls wore warm wool gowns, with two shifts, two pairs of stockings, boots, and pattens; Bel insisted. She had not liked spending the money, but girls with wet feet oft took ill and could not work. The girls also wore matching cloaks made from decent, heavy wool, though the pink dye was mottled and uneven, and bleached in spots.
When winter began some two years past, Bel had spent hours arguing with the dyer, haggling down the price of the ruined cloth until it was almost theft. The dyer's apprentice had gotten a beating for mucking up so badly, but as Bel had thanked him quite thoroughly both before and after, she did not much care. Joss had not been pleased when he found out; that was the last time she'd used her mouth and her cunt to save her coin. She had not liked the way his face crumpled, though her lover had said nary a harsh word.
"It ought to be sunny, for the king," Violet fretted, bending down to check that Daisy had tightened the straps of her pattens enough.
"Maybe the Seven will send him rainbows," Daisy said dreamily as she fastened her cloak.
"Fool, it would have to rain first." Ynys rolled her eyes. "No thank you. It's hard enough to get in a good walk, with all this ice and snow."
When they stepped out into the snowy street, Bel took a good long look at the sky. They had to wait for a bit anyway; Bu was fetching his sisters and cousins from the Fat Dumpling to join them. The grey clouds hanging over the city were fat too, with barely a gap between them. There'd be snow within the hour, she judged, if not sooner. As if the city were not wetter than Ynys with an audience already.
Snow and ice clung to every building; from the grim red stones of the Red Keep atop Aegon's Hill; from the seven towers of white marble and crystal of Baelor's Sept atop Visenya's Hill; from the black domed ruin of the Dragonpit that loomed above her at the top of Rhaenys's Hill. Beneath them crouched the manses of the wealthy, their high stone walls set with windows, their timber framed roofs covered in slate tiles that never leaked. Lower down the manses were stone and timber, then timber and plaster, the whitewash painted with colorful designs and murals that spoke of the owner's craft or his family or his deeds.
The Street of Silk ran partway up the Hill of Rhaenys. At the high end of the street, Bel could glimpse the round turret on the corner of Chataya's, its window paned with red and yellow diamonds of stained glass. Oh, how Bel hated her. Whoring was not the worst sort of work; even the septons agreed it was a necessary evil, to keep men's lusts away from honest women and maidens. But it wasn't holy. What sort of woman sold her own daughter? Chataya had the coin to get Alayaya apprenticed, or to give her a fine dowry. She didn't need to sell her, just like she hadn't needed to produce Wynafrei, the girl of thirteen who King Robert had taken as a mistress instead of poor Lily.
Lord Baelish had been so angry. Lily had been prepared for weeks before King Robert appeared at their door one day, half drunk and laughing at Lord Baelish's japes. Then he'd seen Lily and gone quiet. "A pretty girl," he'd said at last, chucking her under the chin. "I might have had such a daughter, if... have you brought me to see her sister?" The king laughed, and for a moment, Bel had loved him. "You promised me a woman flowered, and this one doesn't even have teats yet." But it didn't matter that the king had spared Lily. She was dead before she turned twelve, and not six months after, so were Wynafrei and the babe she'd named Barra.
And that bitch Chataya had been Lord Tywin's creature, or Bel was no Dornishwoman. No one dared say it aloud, but you barely had to squint to see how much her girl Marei resembled Cersei Lannister. Chataya had raised the girl herself, ever since she'd killed her mother in childbirth. Sad and solemn she might be, and fond of reading, of all things, but with her green eyes and pale gold hair, Marei had more custom than there were hours in the day.
Chataya had charged a staggering price for her, until Lord Tarly took her as his mistress. He'd sent her back more sad and solemn than ever, covered in bruises with a fat belly about to burst. She'd given birth not a week later, shortly before word came of Lord Tarly's death in battle. Bel wondered if Lord Tarly's widow was as glad to be rid of him as Marei was, or so the girls at the Blue Pearl claimed.
The Blue Pearl was just down the street from Chataya's, where it had stood for some two hundred years. The owner was near as old, a doddering crone who'd lost most of her wits. Business had been good of late, though, ever since High Septon Raynard had died whilst in the midst of fucking Fair Meg. The canny girl had made herself a novelty by bragging her cunt was so sweet he'd died with a smile on his face, and wouldn't it be something, to say that you'd fucked the girl who'd fucked the High Septon? Granted, half the Street of Silk had fucked Raynard, but it still worked. Fair Meg had retired not six months later, and her only nineteen.
Bel's lips thinned as her gaze fell upon Mother's. Most of the brothel's girls had died when the bloody flux ran rampant through the city a few years past, and then last year the rest of them had caught the grippe. Thank the gods Violet and Daisy hadn't found their way there. Mother's had needed new girls, and they'd gotten them off the street, the younger the better. Younger girls sold for more, and unlike Bel, the owner of Mother's was none too choosy about the men she sold her girls to.
A proper High Septon would have got wind of it, and called down the wrath of the gods and the goldcloaks. But High Septon Luceon refused to leave the safety of Baelor's, lest the mob try to kill him again for the crime of being born a Frey. Joss had thought she was mad for daring to spread such juicy gossip, even though Bel had waited a few weeks to make sure Cersei Lannister had forgotten she'd shared such a potent secret with a mere whore. Oh, it would be sweet to see that bitch finally get what was coming—
"Auntie, you're squeezing too tight," Wren whined.
"Sorry, sweetling." Bel loosened her grip.
She or Joss always held Wren's hand when they left the brothel; the girl was used to it. Not that Wren left the brothel often, and when she did, it was always with someone Bel trusted to keep her close. There was far too much trouble a girl might get up to, especially a girl on her lonesome.
It was starting to snow when Bu returned, without his family in tow. Grandmother Zhi was determined to make more dumplings than they had ever made before, and that meant she needed everyone to stay and help. Except Bu, of course.
Now that Bu was back, everyone was eager to go. Ynys whined even more than Wren when Bel insisted on her usual scolding, the one she always gave if they went out when the feel of the city gave her an itch. No one was to fall behind. No one was to stop unless everyone stopped. If someone must leave the group, they must not do so alone.
Nettles was to keep an close watch on Kem, in case he managed to get away from Hazel. Tanselle and Alys were to keep an eye on Prudence, Ynys was to stay close to Gari and Hubard (and not wander off, again, or Bel would shave her eyebrows, and make her draw on false ones) and Bu, Wat, and Naet were to stay close to Violet and Daisy at all times. Really, Bel wished she had more cousins, or more guards, but it was too chancey to hire on short notice, not knowing if they'd turn on you.
But such grim thoughts soon flew away. As they walked down the Street of Silk, there was a certain sweetness to the air, the sort that came when folk were in a festive mood. Scraps of Targaryen black and red cloth hung from balconies and windows; some even had a bit of blue or orange, for King Aegon's own phoenix on a blue sky.
How Bel loved her city! Much as she had loved Sunspear as a girl, it could not compare to King's Landing. The main roads were the broadest and straightest she'd ever seen, though there weren't that many of them. The Street of the Sisters ran south from the Dragonpit to the Great Sept of Baelor, crossing Old King's Square just before it ended. From Old King's Square, if you turned southwest, you could take the God's Way all the way to Cobbler's Square and past it to the Gate of the Gods which opened onto the kingsroad. If you had turned northeast instead, you'd be on the King's Way. From there, if you turned right you could follow the Muddy Way straight to Fishmonger's Square on the Mud Gate, but if you stayed on King's Way, it led up Aegon's Hill to the Red Keep.
Aegon the Conqueror hadn't bothered to build any other roads. All the other streets and alleys had grown haphazardly, winding and doubling back and ending abruptly when you least expected it. Gari had once gotten lost not five blocks from Bel's. Not Ynys, though. She liked to wander the city on her days off, and had the uncanny ability to find her way home from anywhere, even from the districts furthest from home. It was Ynys who led them through the back alleys and across side streets, lest they get stuck amongst the men and horses that would be crowding the Street of the Sisters.
The Street of Silk was in the midst of the taverner's district, on the northwest side of the Hill of Rhaenys. Oh, there were cheaper, less reputable brothels all over the city, but the best were on the Street of Silk, just as the cheapest were down by the harbor. Although it was sad, to think that no ships had docked there in months; even before the bitch burned down the waterfront, Blackwater Bay had been closed by the same ice which coated the Blackwater Rush.
Even before then, the city was not what it once was. However many folk had lived here before the War of the Five Kings, there were far less of them now. First there had been the famine, then the bloody flux, then the grippe. The famine had not touched them, thanks to the coin Bel had gotten from Lord Tyrion (bless him, but he had been a decent sort; she might have liked him, had he not been a Lannister) but the bloody flux had hit them hard. Almost all of her girls had gotten sick at least once. Joss might have died, had Bel not forced her to drink so much water she could almost float. Becca, who had been Ynys's only friend in the brothel, had been even sicker, and though she recovered, she had died a few weeks later when her heart suddenly failed. As for the grippe, though they'd only lost Essie, others had been less lucky.
When they reached the Street of Looms, they almost lost Prudence. She had paused to look in one of the windows, staring wistfully at a woman who sat weaving striped cloth. Thankfully, Tanselle and Alys had been paying attention, and pulled her away.
Bel tightened her grip on Wren's hand, and pretended to pay attention to the story she was recounting at full speed, some nonsense about an evil necromancer who bathed in blood until a gallant knight challenged him to a duel and ran him through with his lance. Perhaps she shouldn't let Wren spend so much time with Nettles; she lingered far too long on all the gruesome injuries the necromancer suffered.
Ynys, meanwhile, was boasting about some skinny watchtower she'd climbed. Bel only vaguely knew the watchtower she was talking about. It stood atop the steep little hill that someone had named the Hill of Daenys, which lay between the Hill of Rhaenys and cobbler's square. Maesters used to use it for stargazing, until it caught on fire some ten years ago. The green flames had not burned for long, but the tower had been gutted, and no one had bothered to make repairs. They had bothered to look into the fire, though not with any success. The pyromancers claimed someone must have stolen some of their precious wildfire, and that was the end of it.
"Hundreds of steps, there were," Ynys said. "But oh, such a view!"
At present, the only view was of thickening crowds. They'd left the alleys behind, and emerged onto the God's Way, bound for Cobbler's Square. Folk of all ages surrounded them, boys and girls, greybeards and bent old crones, husbands and wives still in their prime, many with toddlers on their hip or a fat belly under their gown. Winter made them breed like rabbits, what with spending so long inside, though many of those born might not live to see spring, unless the granaries were kept full.
The bells were tolling the tenth hour of the morning when Bel caught her first glimpse of the dragon. Viserion swooped over the city, a white shadow that breathed pale golden flames into the air whilst the crowds gasped and cheered and pointed. They cheered even louder when King Aegon and Queen Sansa rode into Cobbler's Square, their train following behind them, the lords and ladies in garb as bright as their banners, the knights in shining plate; even the common soldiers wore cloaks dyed with the colors of the houses they served.
Violet and Daisy cried happy tears as they hugged Bu and Wat; Hubard and Gari whooped, their hands cupped around their mouths; Ynys had two fingers between her lips, her piercing whistles rising over the clamor; Nettles and Tanselle were jumping up and down; even Alys and Prudence were smiling. Hazel had Kem up on her shoulders, the little boy waving with both hands. Bel couldn't lift Wren up like that, not anymore, but her and Naet each grabbed a leg, and boosted Wren so that she could see over the throng. As for Bel, she could have sworn she saw sunlight gleaming off the king and queen's crowns, even though the snow had not stopped.
Bel couldn't see much else. They were too far back; no doubt every shoemaker and cobbler in the district had been waiting since dawn so as to have the best view. She thought she spied Princess Elia of Dorne, she could not think of any other lady who would be riding so near the king, all dressed in scarlet and orange and golden trim. The slim girl in grey and white behind the queen must be little Arya, though oddly the princess was wearing surcoat and mail rather than a gown. And close behind the princess rode a young lady and a lady's maid, both of them vaguely familiar, surely it couldn't be—
Suddenly, a hand grabbed her by the shoulder. Wren yelped as she fell into Naet's arms, and Bel whirled, her left hand grabbing for Wren, her right going for the knife at her belt—
"No no, Bel, Bel, it's us!" Calla's blue-green eyes were wide and panicked, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Queen Cersei, we saw her, she came t' Lord Qyburn's last night—"
On and on she babbled, so fast Bel could barely catch one word in ten. Something about the Kingslayer, and silent sisters, and wildfire, of all things, as if necromancers and pyromancers were the same. And the girl was sweaty and red-faced, even though she wore only a gown and slippers, without a cloak to keep off the cold. Frynne didn't have a cloak either; she was shivering, her heart-shaped face drawn with pain.
"Is she drunk?" Bel demanded when Calla finally paused for breath. All of her girls had gathered round, a small tight circle amongst the mob. "Or did Lord Qyburn realize how gullible she was, and decide to amuse himself?"
"Neither," said Frynne. She winced, and leaned against Wat as if otherwise she would fall.
"Lord Qyburn's, last night," Frynne panted through gritted teeth.
"He was about t' fuck us when there came a knock. He sent us away. Calla overheard, some of it. Wildfire, at the Red Keep, to burn the new king and queen. Pounding on the door. Queen Cersei came and took Calla's robes, slapped her, said she'd have Qyburn take our tongues. She left. I found a knife. Qyburn came back, excited. Nothing about tongues. Said he'd fuck us right, later, and locked us in. Forgot about the window. Broke it, jumped out, started running."
When Frynne paused, whimpering, Bel saw the cuts on her bare hands, the way she favored her left leg, the ankle swelling up like a melon beneath her stocking.
"She slipped on some ice, ten blocks back," Calla explained as Nettles bent to see to Frynne's ankle. "We thought, if we screamed, if everyone screamed, to warn King Aegon—"
"Don't be a fool," Ynys snapped. "We'd all be trampled, and His Grace none the wiser."
"She's right.
" Everything felt queerly sharp; Bel's wits had never moved so fast before. "The crowds will slow them, but not for long. We can't let them get to the Red Keep."
Queen Cersei and the Kingslayer must be long gone, but Qyburn had meant to come back, to enjoy himself after his work was done. When he found Calla and Frynne had vanished, he would flee through the crowds, out of the city, somewhere no one could touch him, where no one could make him pay.
"Bu, Gari, Tanselle. Get Violet, Daisy, Prudence, and Kem home, now."
Hazel didn't like it, but she stayed put as the others left. Everyone knew she was the fastest runner among them, after Hubard.
"Naet, you and Hazel go get Ser Woth." His barracks were all the way in Fishmonger's Square, damn him, but she didn't know any other goldcloak captains who'd listen.
"Ynys, Hubard, Calla. Run to the Hook, and find out if anyone saw where Lord Qyburn went. Wat, Nettles, Alys, see if you can find Master Mott on the Street of Steel, his apprentices all know what Lord Qyburn looks like, he's bought enough queer tools there." The more eyes, the better chance of finding a needle in a haystack.
"What about us and Frynne?" Wren asked. Her dark hair blew out behind her as the wind picked up, a strong west wind that knocked off hats and blew down hoods as it blew toward the sea.
Bel bared her teeth in an awful smile, the only way she could hide her terror. "Why, sweetling, it's up to us to warn the king." She turned to the others, all of them white-faced and wide-eyed. "Meet back at the fountains in Old King's Square, under the statue of Good Queen Alysanne."
I ought to have sent Wren home too, Bel thought madly as they pushed and elbowed their way through the crowd, Wren's little hand clutched tight in hers, Frynne whimpering as she limped as best she could. Everyone else was trying to get to Cobbler's Square, and here they were, going the opposite direction. But there was no way to get close to King Aegon, not here, where she was one face among thousands. Old King's Square was bigger, and if you climbed up the plinth of Good Queen Alysanne's statue, you could been seen and heard from anywhere in the square, if your lungs were strong enough.
Bel had spent much of her life yelling back and forth with Joss across the brothel, and more of it singing for hours almost every day. That part did not worry her; it was much harder to think of what to shout. Bel racked her thoughts as they scrambled through the crowd, and racked them again as she stood atop the plinth, waiting for the king and queen to reach her, whilst Frynne and Wren sat at her feet.
Everyone was shouting for King Aegon and Queen Sansa, even for Princess Arya; calling their names wouldn't do any good. Jeyne Poole, perhaps? But six years was a long time, long enough to forget Bel. A highborn lady like Jeyne Poole would not wish to remember that she'd ever set foot in a brothel, let alone stayed there for weeks scrubbing pots as if she were no better than Meri, a lowly peasant girl.
Then the bells were tolling eleven. Dragon and phoenix banners flapped in the wind and the bardings of the horses shimmered as the head of the column drew near, just about to pass them by. With a desperate prayer, Bel filled her lungs and bellowed, putting all her fear and rage into the scream.
"MERISSA OF SHERRER!"
And one of the horses stopped dead. Merissa of Sherrer gaped at her, bewildered, so long that the lady who could only be Jeyne Poole looked back to see what was wrong. Another moment, and Lady Jeyne was pointing at Bel, and Princess Arya Stark herself was bringing her mount toward the statue of Good Queen Alysanne, the crowd parting before her.
Princess Arya looked up, her brow furrowed. "Bel?"
"It's a trap, princess," Bel explained, praying the princess would believe her. "My girl," she gestured at Frynne, "she overheard Queen Cersei and Lord Qyburn. When King Aegon reaches the Red Keep, they're going to fling wildfire at him. At all of you."
Princess Arya's grey eyes examined her for a moment, just one. "Stay put."
And she was gone, riding back to Queen Sansa. Queen Sansa listened as her sister spoke, just as King Aegon listened to his wife. When he started calling orders to his knights, who went streaming off in all directions, with the largest number making for the Guildhall of the Alchemists, Bel could have wept with relief.
"Auntie, auntie, Princess Arya looked at me," Wren said, bless her.
Bel let her babble while they waited, staying put as Princess Arya had commanded, and as she'd meant to do anyway. No doubt they'd wish to question Frynne, if they remembered they were here. The royal procession had halted in its tracks; Queen Sansa was letting folk bring their children up to greet her, and King Aegon was tossing coppers, albeit with a slightly murderous look on his face, his eyes darting hither and yon, occasionally glancing up at the dragon wheeling overhead through the thickening snow.
That was how Wat, Tanselle, and Alys found them. To Bel's dismay, they had no word of Lord Qyburn. Master Mott had set his apprentices and journeymen to searching, though, and he himself had gone off to rouse some goldcloak captains he knew. There was no sign of the others; they might still be down by the river, or mere blocks away, elbowing through the crowd. Uneasy, Bel sent Tanselle and Alys home with Wat. Then, she forced herself to pause and think, keeping her hands busy tidying Wren's hair into a braid.
Where would Lord Qyburn go? Frynne said he would always take her and Calla together, watching one while he used the other, and Prudence had lisped that he'd tortured her personally, with a smile on his face. That sort of man would want to see the carnage for himself. But how? The necromancer would not want to be burned or trampled, and that meant he must get away from the Red Keep, and off the streets. The gatehouses and the city walls were a good high view, but they were teeming with guards who might arrest him at any moment. Lord Qyburn was not the sort to risk his own skin, only those of his inferiors.
That only leaves the other two high hills, Bel thought as the bells began to toll noon. But Visenya's? Or—
Blinding green lightning flashed atop Baelor's Sept, atop the Dragonpit, atop the Red Keep. Flames, so many flames, the greatest beacon fires ever lit.
"Auntie?" Wren stood, clutching Bel's leg like she had when she was small. "I thought they were going to throw—"
BOOM!
Wren screamed as the thunderclap drove them to their knees, the air turning hot, the earth shaking beneath them. Frynne was shaking too, making an awful, high keening noise as she hugged herself. Baelor's was gone, but for a smoking crater filled with hunks of pale marble and melted glass.
"What—"
BOOM!
A huge bolt of green fire erupted from the Dragonpit, flinging rubble every which way, but most of it flew straight up, then back down, plummeting into hole where there had once been a dome, the black stone walls wreathed in dancing green flames as they shuddered and began to collapse—
BOOM!
A wave of smoke billowed over the city, followed by a dull roar like the thunder of a waterfall. Snow and ice steamed as they melted; the air was so thick that Bel gagged and spluttered when she drew breath. She barely noticed the king shouting orders across the square; the queen on her horse, trying to calm the panic all around her; nothing mattered except Wren, and the awful way she was wheezing, struggling for air.
Somehow, Bel grabbed hold of herself, clinging to reason by her fingernails. She had kerchiefs, she always had kerchiefs, and the snow on the plinth was so wet. She pressed the the first damp kerchief over Wren's nose and mouth, the second over Frynne's, the third over her own. When the dragon swooped down from above, Bel nearly choked on her kerchief; Viserion was already rising again, with King Aegon on his back, by the time she had regained her wits enough to hear part of what Queen Sansa was shouting.
"—keep the fire from spreading! Fetch buckets, and make a line to the fountains; King Aegon and Viserion shall make firebreaks—"
A tall knight in quartered pink and blue shouted something at the queen, though what Bel could not hear. Suddenly Queen Sansa slumped in her saddle; over the Hill of Rhaenys, Viserion screeched, flapping her wings. The she-dragon drew back, just before another pillar of wildfire erupted out of nowhere, perhaps halfway up the hill. At the tops of the three high hills, the rest of the green flames were already beginning to fade, even as they gave birth to flames of red and orange on the roofs of the manses close by.
Down below the plinth, all was chaos, even after Queen Sansa sat bolt upright and resumed shouting across the square, only putting a wet cloth over her face when she was finished. Some folk were running for the city gates, desperate to get out; others ran to shops and houses and returned with buckets and pails and kettles; still others broke away, making for the Guildhall of the Alchemists.
When Naet and Hazel fought their way out of the crowd, Bel had never seen a sight so sweet. Both of them were covered in a thick coat of mud; their hands slipped as they pulled themselves up onto the plinth, away from the crush of folk passing buckets by the fountains.
"The Blackwater's flooding," Hazel gasped once she'd caught her breath. "The ice, it's gone. Steam went up, and come right back down, like someone'd flung a bucket of water. The waterfront, Fishmonger's Square, the Dornish quarter—"
"I didn't do it!" Naet yelped as Bel grabbed him by the tunic. "I don't know what happened!"
"You do," Bel growled, shaking him. "And you're going to go back home, right now, and do whatever it is you did again, and tell Joss- tell him—"
Bel couldn't think, not with so many people shouting for water buckets and screaming for help, not with Hazel babbling something about Lord Qyburn right in her ear. The King's Way? Why would he take the King's Way? King Aegon's men filled Old King's Square, and even if he went around before getting back on the God's Way, all the gates would be swarming with goldcloaks, he'd never be able to get the high view he wanted, not there, and the only other place was—
"The Others take him," Bel swore. She scrambled down from the plinth, Naet following half a second behind.
"Bel, what—"
"The brothel, now!" She shoved Naet toward the Hill of Rhaenys, then looked back up at the plinth, where Hazel and Frynne were gaping at her, and Wren was watching Naet run off with a frown on her little face. "I know where Qyburn is, and I'm going to get him. The rest of you, when the others get back, tell them to make for the watchtower on the Hill of Daenys, but until then, stay here—"
Wren flung herself off the plinth, knocking the wind out of Bel as she caught her by instinct before putting her down.
"Auntie, you can't go alone," Wren insisted, high and frantic. "No one goes alone, you said."
Dammit, why hadn't she sent the girl with Naet? Bel searched the crowd, but he was already gone. Neither Hazel nor Frynne were strong enough to keep hold of Wren if she wanted to break free and follow after Bel. She could stay and argue, but every second wasted gave Lord Qyburn more time to escape.
Cursing and swearing, Bel pressed her kerchief back against her face with one hand, seized Wren's hand with the other, and turned her steps toward the Hill of Daenys.
Below the safety of the plinth, the world was a waking nightmare. Ash and snow fell heavily over the city; she could barely see in front of her, or beyond the next few blocks. The crowd surged and pushed around them, heedless with fear; when an old man fell, he was almost trampled beneath the crush before he managed to stagger to his feet. Now and then she heard the sound of breaking glass over the tumult; she could only pray none of the looters made their way to the Street of Silk.
But she could not think of that, not now. Wren's hand was so small in hers, her little legs barely keeping up when Bel broke into a run the moment she saw a path through the press. They raced against the spreading fires at the tops of the hills, they raced against time, they raced against their own terror. When they reached the foot of the skinny watchtower, Wren collapsed on the ground, clutching a stitch in her side.
Panting through her kerchief, Bel looked up. The four-sided watchtower was scorched black, with a gaping hole where the door should have been. That explained how Ynys had gotten in. The roof was open to the sky, and one wall had crumbled away. But the other three walls still stood, and on one of them, high at the pinnacle, stood Lord Qyburn, his white robes almost glowing against the dark stone balcony.
With grim determination, Bel pulled Wren to her feet and through the doorway. Slowly, carefully, they climbed the many steps, straight up. It was hard to see; the stairs were dark, save for a few scattered torches that hung beside the doors of empty rooms, and everything close to her was blurry as usual. Wren was dead quiet, even though Bel was surely gripping her hand just as hard as she was gripping the hilt of her knife.
Silently, they entered the topmost chamber. Lord Qyburn still stood on the balcony, his back to them. He had a quill in one hand, and a book in the other; a bottle of ink and a metal jar with holes on its lid rested on the ledge of the balcony. His robes were queerly spotless, save for the golden whorls which rippled over them.
"Lord Qyburn."
To her disappointment, there was no yelp of surprise, no flash of dismay. Lord Qyburn turned as casually as if he had expected them, his quill still in his hand. When he saw the knife in Bel's, the necromancer did not even twitch.
"I knew I ought to have brought some of my guards." He sighed. "Alas, they were all needed elsewhere. I take it that I am your captive?"
"You are," Bel said, after a moment. "My lord." Sweet as it would be to kill him, the reward for taking him prisoner would be even sweeter when she handed him over to the king's justice.
"Very well, then. If I may?"
The necromancer reached for the jar, sprinkled dust on the page he had just written, then blew the dust away. That done, he tucked the book into a pocket of his robes, which made a soft clinking sound.
"Now we may proceed."
Using the knife, Bel pointed for him to go first. With a sigh, Lord Qyburn obeyed, though he walked rather slowly. She supposed that made sense; necromancer or not, he was an old man. He paused for a moment when they reached the first torch, and again when they reached the second, each time bending over with one hand pressed to his chest. Even so, Bel kept close behind him, lest he think to start running. His legs were fresh, and hers were not; she was surprised she was still upright. The smoke was making her dizzy, now that she didn't have a hand free to press a kerchief over her face, and everything in arm's reach was even blurrier than usual.
When Lord Qyburn paused for a third time, it was not beside a torch, but by an empty doorway.
"A moment," he gasped. His legs trembled, as if he were about to fall. As Bel had no intention of carrying the necromancer across the city, she let go of Wren, just for an instant, to help the old man stay on his feet.
Instead, he grabbed Wren. With the strength and speed of a much younger man, Lord Qyburn dragged the girl through the doorway and across the chamber, so far away that Bel could almost see him clearly as she stumbled after him with a shriek, her knife still in her hand.
"There now," the necromancer said lightly. "This is much better. Don't come any closer, now, or I'm afraid I'll have to hurt this dear girl."
"You're unarmed," Bel said, praying it was true. Wren was shaking; she could smell the sharp tang of piss, though whether it was hers or Wren's she did not know.
"I am," the necromancer agreed. "But children are such delicate creatures." Lord Qyburn chuckled as he wrapped a wrinkled hand around Wren's neck, the other keeping a tight grip on her shoulder. "The bones in the neck, for example, snap so very easily. And oh, it takes so little pressure to cut off the air. The face turns such a lovely shade of blue."
"Auntie?" Wren asked. Her voice was thin and quavering, as weak as her fruitless attempt to pull away from Lord Qyburn.
"I would back away, if I were you," Lord Qyburn said pleasantly.
"Shh, sweetling," Bel soothed. She backed away, carefully, her eyes fixed on Lord Qyburn, until a clear fifteen feet lay between them. "If we do as the necromancer says, all will be well."
"Necromancy is so imprecise a term," Lord Qyburn tutted as Wren went still. Pleased by her compliance, he let go of Wren's throat, instead holding her with one hand on each shoulder. "I am a scholar, not just of the mysteries of death but those of life, of the world itself. The altar of learning requires sacrifice, the archmaesters could never understand that. I have probed the depths of a woman's womb whilst her heart still beats; I have seen the lungs pulse as a man draws breath; I have—"
You have no armor on, Bel thought. Lord Qyburn was too busy talking to see her hand move, but Wren did. At the same moment the knife stuck in Lord Qyburn's chest, Wren yanked free of his faltering grip, and sprinted across the room to fling herself into Bel's arms, sobbing.
It was perhaps an hour later when Ser Woth and his goldcloaks found them. Wren had fallen into an uneasy sleep, cradled in Bel's arms. Lord Qyburn lay where he had fallen, trussed up like a goose with strips of cloth Bel had cut from her cloak.
Her knife ought to have killed him, but Bel had forgotten to account for necromancy. Even as he lay dying, Lord Qyburn had managed to pull a gleaming vial from his pockets. Part of the elixir had gone down his throat, the rest over his wound before he pulled the knife out. Lord Qyburn's skin looked queerly pale, and he smelled like death, but there was naught else the matter with him, not that she could see. That was a shame. Bel would have liked the satisfaction of killing him; there was no hope of a reward, not when Ser Woth could claim the credit for himself. Ser Woth did, at least, have the decency to bid a pair of goldcloaks see them safely home.
In the end, the flames raged for three days, with occasional bursts of wildfire, before finally surrendering to the combined efforts of men, gods, and a blizzard that dumped half a foot of snow on the city. There was more looting than rape, though Frynne and Nettles had nearly been yanked down from the plinth by a squad of men-at-arms before a very angry knight in pink and blue had intervened. Ynys, Hubard, and Calla had returned just after that, filthy and bruised, but otherwise unharmed. It was them who'd sent Ser Woth, rather than coming themselves.
As for the brothel, it still stood, though it was badly damaged. It would take all of Bel's savings to put things aright, and even that might not be enough. Naet had managed to soak the entire block so well that not a single spark caught on the roofs of either Bel's, the Fat Dumpling, or any of their closest neighbors, but the water had leaked and flooded the brothel several inches deep. Naet had apologized for that; he'd not noticed until it was too late, and by then he'd been so exhausted he could barely drink a glass of water, let alone do anything with it.
"It was Mother Rhoyne down by the Blackwater, not me," he'd muttered, when she finally got him to speak. "Water witch or not, I couldn't do that again, not if I tried."
After that, Bel let him alone. There were plenty of other queer stories flying about. There was the mother on the Hook, who'd lifted a huge chunk of rubble to free her trapped child. There was the guard who'd somehow been flung from atop the Dragonpit and landed in a dung heap, burned but still breathing. There was Queen Talla, who'd taken shelter in the godswood of the Red Keep, and been found beneath the battered heart tree. There had been a shard of rubble in her belly that ought to have killed her, but had been removed by the grace of the Mother. Queerest of all, Ynys and Hazel were sharing a bed now, to the uneasy bafflement of everyone, given that they still insulted each other at every chance.
Bel was too weary to care. Joss had had to fight off a looter with his cleaver; she'd brought Wren home to find bloody fingers scattered across the common room floor. There had been blood all over Joss too, but Bel hadn't cared, not when he was alive. So were all of her girls, and the guards too, although Bu had gotten a black eye.
Their chickens had been less lucky; the smoke had smothered them. Thankfully, Tanselle took charge of cooking all the chickens. It was too costly to salt all the meat, not when the pigs might still die, and when everyone in the city was trying to salt their dead chickens, as well as all the small dogs and stray cats who'd succumbed to the fumes. Wobble was fine, having hid in the cellar, but no one had seen hide nor hair of Rattail. That had made Bel weep for almost an hour, her, who almost never wept.
To her confusion, Bel had wept even more when word came of what had happened at Chataya's. Being so high up the street, a piece of burning rubble from the Dragonpit had struck their roof. When it caught fire, Chataya had gotten all her girls out, and gone back in for Alayaya. With Chataya's help, Alayaya had gotten Marei free of the fallen timber that had pinned her, leaving Chataya behind to get Marei's babe. All of them had emerged from the brothel in one piece, but the babe was already dead, choked by the smoke, and Chataya had died soon after.
Bel could not let go of her hate, but she did light a candle to the Mother for Chataya, just as she'd lit candles to thank the Seven for watching over King Aegon and Queen Sansa. The Seven were with King Aegon, they must be, even if he would never sit the Iron Throne. It was destroyed, along with the rest of the Red Keep. The royal court had removed to the other side of the Blackwater, to the hill where Lord Garlan Tyrell had started building a fort soon after beginning his siege. Yes, with time, King Aegon would put all to rights, Bel knew.
Or so she thought, until the day they reopened the brothel, battered as it was, and a pack of northern lordlings came to sample their wares.
"King Aegon isn't staying," Lord Wull blustered. He took a deep drink of his fourth tankard of strong ale, wiped his mouth, and then returned to contemplating Violet and Calla, unable to pick which he fancied. "You mark my words, he'll be marching north afore long. Good lad. King Robb may need his help to defend the Wall."
"Defend the Wall, my lord?" Bel asked faintly.
"Aye, hadn't you heard?" Lord Wull drank deep. "It cracked, at the solstice, and we've not had a raven since."
He belched.
"Too busy slaughtering the Others and their wights, no doubt. King Robb might have done for them by now, knowing His Grace." He laughed. "The septons say it is the Long Night come again, more fools they. You, lass, with the sweet eyes, come here." And with that, he set the empty tankard down, pulled Calla onto his lap, and set to enjoying himself.
Bel could not. She sang and played for the rest of the evening in a dull stupor, and when the night was over, she got her ragged cloak, a weary Joss, and a sleepy Wren. Hand in hand, she led them down the street and up an alley. The pitiful candle in her room was not enough, not for this. The nearest sept was small and cramped, but there were carved wooden statues of the Seven before the seven altars, and it was there the three of them knelt, and prayed for solace that never came.
I can't WAIT to see what y'all think in the comments
I solemnly swear Bran II will be MUCH shorter, lol. This sort of word count will not be a trend, but Bel and her girls grabbed me by the throat even harder than Edythe did back in her introduction.
Since last chapter, The Weirwood Queen has now passed 5k kudos and 16k comments good god, y'all. Like much of King's Landing, I am blown away (sorry). I was also blown away by the new Hozier album, Unreal Unearth, which I listened to a looooot while writing the prose; y'all should check it out, it fucking rules.
Shout out to CaekDaemon, his EXTENSIVE posts about the wildfire situation over on AlternateHistory and his willingness to let me bombard him with follow up questions about fire and medieval cities was super helpful and gracious of him.
Up Next
161: Bran II
162: Olyvar II
163: Jon II
164: Arya II
NOTES
1) Yes, medieval people considered prostitution a necessary evil, and an acceptable profession for "fallen" women. It was by no means a good situation, but it was a relatively normalized one. So far as I can tell from my research, it could run the gamut from being vaguely shitty (just like any other job can be), to being extremely shitty and dangerous in awful and specific ways due to the societal norms which devalued sex workers.
2) Nettles Crabb is based on Dick Crabb's nameless sister, who is mentioned in canon as having gone to King's Landing to become a whore.
"Had a sister once meself. Skinny girl with knobby knees, but then she grew a pair o' teats and a knight's son got between her legs. Last I saw her she was off for King's Landing t' make a living on her back."
3) Firehooks were a tool used in the medieval era to pull down buildings to prevent the spread of fires.
4) The medieval peasant diet was heavily focused on pottages and stews. Meat was expensive; rural peasants might have lots of dairy, if they had cows. Food preparation was a highly specialized skill; a cook would generally not butcher their own meat, but buy it from a butcher, just like the vast majority of people would get bread from bakers, not make it themselves.
5) Bu is a canon YiTish personal name. There were very few canon YiTish names for women; as Yi Ti is based on medieval China, I looked for Chinese names. Somehow, I landed on Zhi from the Empress Lü Zhi, who was married to Emperor Gaozu, the founder of the Han Dynasty. Of course, the moment I fell in love with the name, I then realized the time period was completely off, as the Han Dynasty lasted from roughly 202 BCE - 220 CE, loooong before the medieval era. Oops.
6) Medieval people did not think of sexuality in terms of identity, but in terms of acts.
7) Curfew bells were an indication for everyone to cover their fires for the night, since unattended fires were a huge fire hazard. Curfew times varied; 2am is quite late, but my excuse is Shakespeare having a 3am curfew in Romeo and Juliet.
7) Shot silk is "silk woven from warp and weft yarns of two or more colours producing an iridescent appearance." It has been around since at least the 600s, and was extremely popular in the 1600s-1700s.
8) Just FYI, moon tea may be mostly effective as birth control in Westeros if you're not allergic like Hazel, but in the real world, there is NO safe dose of moon tea. The ingredients GRRM mentions in canon are toxic and should not be played with.
