The carriage that Margaery took to the Great Sept was comfortable and safe, lined with cushions and surrounded by Tyrell guardsmen. "I hope you gave your betrothed a goodbye kiss Elinor," Megga said.

"Three, and a lock of my hair, Alyn says he'll bring it back to me once Storm's End has fallen. He means to be the first over the walls." Alla sighed at the chivalry of it all.

Alyn was the heir to House Ambrose and utterly besotted with Elinor. Margaery would be sad to lose her cousin, but the surety of House Ambrose's loyalty would be worth it. He would be departing from King's Landing shortly. The pleas to return home had become too many for even Cersei to ignore, and so she had permitted those cleared of implication in Joffrey's murder to make their way south and join the armies there. Almost all were reachmen. Loren was keeping his western knights to serve as his guard of honour when he returned to the war front.

"We'll pray for him today, that the warrior might bless his sword arm." Margaery assured her.

"If the carriage moves quicker," Alla added.

"Better slow and safe," Elinor chastised Alla. Margaery's escort would be checking every side street in their path to make sure no one was waiting for her the way they ad before. When Margaery had announced she was going to the Great Sept, Cersei had offered to have Rennifer and the goldcloaks clear the way for her.

The offer had surprised Margaery, but she declined nonetheless. She did not know this Rennifer Blacke, and what she had learned troubled her. He was a goldcloak of no worth before the war began, but when Cersei trippled their number, he became an officer. During the battle of Blackwater, he had prevented his troop from breaking by hurling a dissenter from the walls in front of the rest. He had then been in charge of hunting down those from other troops that had deserted in the battle and punishing them.

It seemed the sparrows had all landed on Visenya's hill. They gathered around cookfires, sending smoke and stench twisting into the air. They were better dressed than Margaery would have expected. She thought she would see threadbare shirts and torn smocks, shoeless feet and hatless heads. But many were dressed in woollen clothing, plain white and grey, not a foot was bare and she saw several shivering with fever around a fire. They had been bundled up with scarves and coats. A septa in white was dishing out bowls of watery soup, with chunks of bread in it. So weak and helpless. They imprisoned me, kidnapped lord and lady Gaunt. But they knew hunger a way Margaery never would. Had she been wrong to judge them so harshly? Had she lost them to this new High Septon? A year ago it would have been Tyrell men handing out food and clothing.

The news had come days before, Varys informing the Council and her father informing her in turn. After several quick visits to the Great Sept and the homes of the Most Devout, they had reconfirmed their support for Septon Luceon, but as the final vote was being cast, the sparrows had burst in to the voting chamber, their leader on their shoulders and axes in their hands and forced them to name him the new High Septon. "As long as he comes to bless Tommen, let it be done," the Hand of the King had said.

But he did not come. They waited and sent their summons and received no reply and so Margaery decided that if the High Septon would not come to them, then she would go to him herself and get the measure of him. So she had gathered her cousins and her guards and departed.

Apart from Cersei, the council had not wanted her to go, after what had happened to the Gaunts and the word Varys' birds brought from the streets. Words of teason in the winesinks, the inns, the taverns the warehouses and the brothels. Words of dissent in every form, from drunken declarations of rebellion quickly hushed, to mummers making farces out of the royal court. Apparently one man had made so much money with his entertaining tales he was in the process of buying the inn in which he had spread them.

Bur Margaery had insisted. "We cannot allow this to settle, the sparrows on their hill and us on ours or we could have war in the streets of King's Landing. I am not of the council and have no position here, let me go and get the measure of him." Finally they had agreed.

They set down at the foot of Visenya's Hill and made the rest of the journey afoot. This was not a time to overawe, now was a time to be humble and pious. The path leading to the doors was mostly clear, but some of the crowd had even made their rest on them and in the doors of the great sept itself. And there was the statue. She hadn't believed lady Alysanne, but she was right, Baelor was buried to his waist on bones. Crows nested on the pile and plucked what flesh remained.

Before the sept stood a pair of knights in grimy dark plate, one held a halberd, the other a notched warblade. With them stood more sparrows clutching rudimentary weapons. The sparrows were no concern, but the knights worried Margaery. Had this new High Septon rallied knights to his side. The faith was forbidden from bearing arms, but Margaery didn't know whether a knight was forbidden to offer his arms to the Seven in his own capacity.

She approached the door and the knight with the halberd moved to bar the way. "Hold." The sparrows closed in and Margaery forced her feet to stay still. Her chest tightened. Please stay back. She wanted to scream, to tell them to stay away. I must speak with the High Septon, there can be no fear.

"What is your purpose here?" The other knight asked. He was the more kindly spoken one, so Margaery directed her reply to him.

"We have come to pray in the Great Sept. May we pass."

"No," said halberd.

"Not even to pray? I simply wish to pay my respects to the gods and their new voice on earth."

Halberd made to speak again, but the swordsman put his hand out. "You may enter, but your guards must remain outside, their weapons too. Enough blood has profaned this holy place, by order of the High Septon.

She swallowed, imagining shadows wih sackcloth faces and bloodied cudgels. "As you say," she said, smiling.

"Ser knights!" They turned, a woman was climbing the steps two at a time, a bundle in her arms.

"What is it?" Halberd asked.

"My… my child," her face was red and hair matted with sweat. Had she just given birth? "He is born, but… his breathing is so weak, and he is so cold."

"Here." Margaery said, unfastening her cloak. "That cloth he is wrapped in is bloody, use this." She helped bundle the child up and the woman thanked her. She didn't seem to note who Margaery was.

"Open the doors!" Swordsman commanded and two of the sparrows led the woman inside quickly. "You may enter as well," he said. Halberd didn't seem to agree with the swordsman, in in the end he grunted and stepped aside, allowing Margary and her ladies to enter.

Even the hall of lamps had been given over to the sparrows. Beds had been found and made and placed across the rooms. There were hundreds of them and septons and septas were checking on them. There were beds for the weary and separately beds for the sick. One row was being tended to by the sisters of silence. The woman with the child had been led into the sept proper and Margaery made her way down the narrow pass between the beds. Whenever they stopped by a bed of the particularly sick, her ladies followed her examples and surrendered their cloaks for the warmth. She would replace them later.

In the sept proper, it was as quiet and solemn as she had ever seen it. Few septons were there and most were in prayer. Children in rags were sitting in pews before the altars of the smith and the maiden where septas read from the Seven Pointed Star for them. And Margaery could not help but notice the dress. Gone were the robes of silk and cloth of gold and soft felt shoes. Instead woolen robes hung on their bodies and their feet were sandalled. As she watched two of the septons carried a huge cart of freshly baked bread out of the kitchens and towards the door.

She could see no one who looked to be the High Septon, and so Margaery approached the altar of the warrior, where a single figure in roughspun brown cloak knelt in prayer. "Good ser, where might I find the High Septon?"

He didn't answer, his eyes were closed and his lips were moving silently. "Ser? Can you hear me?"

"I am in prayer," he said simply. He didn't look up. His face was hardened and plain and his eyes were not just closed, they were squeezed shut. Margaery noted that his hands were not clasped, in fact the sleeves of his clothes were so long that they covered his hands completely, and he simply pressed them together beneath the cloth.

"I only ask a moment of your time."

He sighed and turned to look up at her, and Margaery saw something in his eyes. The man couldn't be thirty years old, to look at his body, but to look in his eyes he seemed to be older than this sept. "Why do you disturb my prayers?"

"She disturbs you because she cannot find me." they turned. The man approaching from the direction of the font had a salt and pepper beard, cropped close to his chin. His hair was pulled back into a tight knot. The sleeves of his woolen robe were short, showing hands hardened by physical work and feet knotted and rough.

"You are his High Holiness?"

"I bear that burden."

Margaery knelt before him. "It is a great honour to meet you at last."

"I have been here. If men wish to meet me, I am not hard to find. I set aside three hours of every day to meet with anyone who wishes to see me."

"What of the king? He is most anxious to see you."

"If he wishes to come in those hours, he is welcome."

"Holiness." The kneeling man said simply.

"Of course. Would you accompany me, your grace. Let us leave this man to his prayers."

"Who is that man to pray alone?" Margaery asked, out of earshot.

"All are welcome to pray as they wish. He has many prayers to offer and disturbs none who do not disturb him. Only yesterday he knelt in prayer while five knights asked the Warrior to bless their swords."

"Who is he?"

"His name is his to give if he wishes. He was once a leader of men, who stormed castles, defended villages and defied heathens. Now he offers prayers for every warrior who died under his banner. He will pray every day until he has offered seventy seven for every one."

Margaery glanced back. Such a warrior, but she had knew him now. A liar, like as not, looking to become close with the High Septon. The High Septon led them to the altar of the Mother and knelt before it. Margaery joined him and he led them in prayer.

"The crone lights your way, your grace," the High Septon told her when he was finished. "The babe is swaddled in your cloak."

"Will the boy live?"

"Robert, he is named and oiled. I have seen many babes as weak in my life. Many go to the Seven, but some live. And if he does, your cloak will no doubt keep him warm in the days to come."

"I will offer my own prayers for him."

She waited for the High Septon to speak, but he said nothing, so she continued. "Lord and lady Gaunt wish to come and pray at the great sept."

"They are as welcome as you are."

"But they do not feel it, holiness," Margaery said. "There are many men and women calling themselves sparrows here, and the last time the Gaunts met them, they were kidnapped and dragged into the Dragonpit in shame."

"And the perpetrators of that crime are now rotted on carriage wheels. We have seen the bodies. The family of Gaunt are in no danger."

"I fear no words of mine will persuade them as such."

"What do you feel would make them feel welcome."

"That the sparrows leave."

"Leave where, your grace?"

"They cannot mean to live here?" The sept might serve as a refuge, but it was hardly a home.

"They cannot live in their homes that no longer exist. Before I came to this city I administered thirty different villages too small for a sept of their own. I walked from village to village, absolving sins, performing marriages and naming newborns."

"Like Robert."

"A name from a better time." Margaery was glad that Cersei had not been here to hear that, she might have slapped the High Septon in full view of the congregation. "A time when villages were not burned, when septas, silent sisters and maidens of twelver were not raped by knights in full plate. When septs were not burned to be striped of all their worldly worth. Those thiry villages I tended are gone, your grace. The fields that should have been sown with barley and wheat are now sown with bones, weeds and thorns grow in gardens that smelled sweet as roses, and travellers on the roads are as like to murder you as break bread with you.

"Near three hundred years ago, King Jahaerys swore that the crown would defend the faith. But walk amongst these sparrows and they will tell you that lions burned their villages just as readily as wolves."

"The king is of house Baratheon, your holiness."

"And yet House Baratheon does not agree." He reached into his robes and pulled out a piece of paper. One of the letters of Shireen Baratheon.

"Is this why you refuse to bless King Tommen's reign." For three hundred years it had been custom that a new High Septon would come to the Red Keep and bless the king, just as a new king would seek the blessing of the High Septon.

"Your grace is mistaken. I have refused nothing."

"His grace is the king. Will you not bless him?"

"The blessing is not mine to give. It is the gods' and they have not yet told me that I should deliver it to Tommen Baratheon."

"What signs do you wait for, your holiness?" Margaery asked. "When King Stannis attacked King's Landing he was driven away. When he invaded the reach, committing the atrocities you describe, he was met in battle and killed. When his son landed to the north of this city he was killed."

"When Joffrey of the House Baratheon ascended the throne, he prafaned this sept with the blood of his Hand of the King. The queen-regent has assured me of Joffrey's faith, and yet when he waged war against a heathen king who worships trees and demons, the Seven granted the heathen victory in war. When Lyonel Baratheon invaded the northern crownlands he protected septs and septries and respected the justice of the Seven, now he is dead, the land burns with brigandage, with few knights to protect it. And Shireen Baratheon, known for her piety has not surrendered, despite the reverses you speak of. So you see your grace, the signs are not yet clear as to whom I must bless."

"And what of me, your holiness. The realm needs stability, and that would be best brought about by my wedding to the King." This was not a man who should be disseminated to. He was the avatar of the gods, and they were in the holiest house. She should not lie to him.

The High Septon nodded. "I am not insensitive to that plight. The gods could grant dispensation for you to wed your good-brother. They have yet to command me thus."

"The realm-" Margaery began.

"The realm is for the crown to safeguard the souls of the faithful are mine. I will not risk your soul or the king's descending into the Seven Hells by performing an incestuous marriage. I must be certain."

"I thank you for your concern, your holiness," Margaery said. "But I am prepared for that duty, were the gods to sanction it."

His look to her was not unkind. "Marriage is meant to be more than duty. If you were to be forced into this marriage against your will, I would not perform or sanction the union."

Does he think I am one of the peasant girls from his thirty villages? They may have such luxury. But for the good of her house she had wedded her brother's bedmate, for the realm she wedded the tyrant and for them both she would wed the boy.

"Would you have me pass a message to his grace when I see him next?" Margaery asked.

The High Septon got to his feet and said. "Look to his faith." One of the other septons approached and whispered something in his ear. "You may pray as long as you wish, your grace. And please inform lord and lady Gaunt, and whomever else worries for their safety, that I guarantee their protection here at the sept. If they are of true faith, then they have nothing to fear here." With that the High Septon hurried away, to where a ragged knight was waiting, and the two walked towards the confession chambers.

When Margaery returned to her carriage, her ladies began whispering amongst themselves. Megga called the High Septon stubborn, Alla named him cunning and Elinor declared him dangerous. "He is all of that and worse. That man is a true believer."