The River Gate stood partially open in the gray light of dawn as farmers and merchants queued to enter King's Landing with their wares. Guards waved through wagons laden with turnips, onions, and cabbages after cursory inspections and the exchange of a few coppers. Lorrick leaned against a weathered stone wall across from the gate, hood pulled low, watching the methodical process through half-lidded eyes.
He'd been waiting nearly an hour, ignoring the occasional suspicious glance from passing Gold Cloaks. Just another street rat looking for work unloading wagons, or so they assumed. In truth, he was waiting for someone far more valuable than any vegetable cart.
The servants' procession appeared right on schedule, a ragged line of kitchen helpers, laundry girls, and scullery maids who lived in the city rather than the castle. They filed through a smaller side entrance, showing tattered identification tokens to bored guards who barely glanced at their faces.
Tansy's copper-red hair made her easy to spot even in the dim light. Lorrick straightened as she passed through the gate, then slouched after her at a careful distance. Only when she turned down an alley leading away from the main road did he quicken his pace to catch up.
"You look terrible," she said by way of greeting, without turning around.
"And a lovely morning to you too," Lorrick replied, falling into step beside her. Her hair was bound tightly beneath a kerchief, her plain brown dress marked with the faded stains of kitchen work. But there was a new tension in her shoulders that hadn't been there before.
"I can't be seen with you," Tansy said, voice low. "They're still asking questions."
"Who's asking?"
"Everyone. The Hand's men, the Queen's, even Lord Varys's little birds are watching the kitchens."
Lorrick pulled her deeper into the alley, finding a recessed doorway where they could speak without being easily observed from the street. "Tell me everything," he said. "From the beginning."
Tansy glanced nervously toward the main street. "I need to be at my post in half an hour."
"Then talk fast."
She sighed but nodded. "It started three days ago. A boy from the stables disappeared."
"Disappeared how?"
"Nobody knows. One day he was mucking out stalls, the next he was gone. His pallet hadn't been slept in, his few belongings untouched." Tansy lowered her voice further. "They say he'd been asking questions about the royal children, saying they looked nothing like the king."
Lorrick's blood ran cold. The same observation had occurred to him weeks ago while watching the royal procession, but he'd been wise enough to keep such dangerous thoughts to himself.
"There's more," Tansy continued. "The Hand has been visiting brothels, the same ones Lord Arryn went to before he died."
"Lord Stark is visiting brothels?" Lorrick couldn't hide his surprise. The grim Northerner hardly seemed the type.
Tansy shook her head. "Not for pleasure. He's looking for something, or someone. The same day the stable boy vanished, Lord Stark went to a brothel on the Street of Silk, the same one where a girl disappeared right after Lord Arryn died."
Pieces were beginning to click together in Lorrick's mind, but the picture they formed was more dangerous than he'd imagined.
"What about the guard?" he asked, changing the subject. "The one who's been troubling you?"
Tansy's face darkened. "Ser Boros. Still strutting around like a peacock, with his wandering hands and sour breath." Her voice took on a bitter edge. "Even had the nerve to corner me in the pantry yesterday, saying a pretty thing like me shouldn't waste time carrying slops when I could earn silver on my back."
Lorrick's jaw tightened. "Did he touch you?"
"Tried. I stuck him with a paring knife, just a prick, but enough to make him yelp." A flash of pride crossed her face before fading into worry. "He'll make me pay for it though. Men like him always do."
"Not this one," Lorrick promised. "I've been asking around about Ser Boros. Seems he has a fondness for Dornish red and the dice games at that tavern near the Hook. Loses more than he wins and pays his debts late, if at all."
Tansy raised an eyebrow. "How does that help me?"
"Because men who gamble badly have enemies, and men with enemies are vulnerable." Lorrick smiled thinly. "By week's end, Ser Boros will have more pressing concerns than harassing kitchen girls."
She studied his face. "You're playing a dangerous game, Lorrick."
"Life's a dangerous game," he countered. "Especially in this city. But back to the matters in the Red Keep. What's the mood like with the king and queen?"
Tansy glanced toward the rising sun, calculating her remaining time. "Tense. The fat king spends his days hunting and his nights drinking, hardly bothers with matters of state. The queen watches Lord Stark like a hawk watches a rabbit. There's no love lost between those two."
"And the children?"
"The crown prince is a cruel little shit," Tansy said bluntly. "The servants draw straws to see who has to attend him. The younger ones seem decent enough, but they're kept close to their mother. Most interesting, though, is how little any of them resemble the king."
"Dangerous words," Lorrick cautioned, though he'd had the same thought himself when glimpsing the royal family. The king's legendary black hair and blue eyes had somehow produced three golden-haired, green-eyed children.
"It's what everyone's whispering," Tansy shrugged. "The king's bastards all have the Baratheon look, every last one of them. Strange that his trueborn children don't, isn't it?"
That was the question Lorrick suspected had gotten Jon Arryn killed, and possibly the stable boy too. Not a mystery he particularly wanted to solve.
"What about the other matter?" he asked. "Anyone still looking for the boy from Flea Bottom who asks too many questions?"
"They've been more subtle about it, but yes. Especially Lord Varys's people." Tansy gave him a worried look. "You've caught the Spider's attention somehow. That's rarely a good thing."
Lorrick thought of his strange encounter with Varys weeks earlier, the unexpected gift of silver. Had that been the beginning of this? A test, perhaps, to see how he might be useful?
"I need to know who's looking for me and why," he said, more to himself than to Tansy. "Knowledge is the only shield I have."
"Knowledge can be a sword as well as a shield," Tansy replied. "And the problem with swords is sometimes you're not the only one holding one."
"Poetic," Lorrick teased, trying to lighten the mood. "Been spending time with those court minstrels, have you?"
She rolled her eyes but smiled briefly before sobering again. "I should go. If I'm late, they'll dock my wages, and I can't afford that."
"Here," Lorrick pressed several copper coins into her hand. "For your trouble."
"I don't want your money," she protested.
"It's not charity," he insisted. "Fair payment for information. And I'll have that problem with Ser Boros resolved soon."
Tansy hesitated before nodding and pocketing the coins. "Be careful, Lorrick. Whatever game is being played in the Red Keep, it's bigger than either of us."
"Most games are," he agreed. "That's why I prefer making my own rules."
She gave him a final worried glance before slipping out of the alley and rejoining the trickle of servants heading toward the castle. Lorrick waited until she was out of sight before making his own way back toward Flea Bottom, mind churning with all he'd learned.
The Hand of the King investigating royal bastards. The queen watching Stark with suspicion. A stable boy vanished after speaking too freely. And someone, perhaps multiple someones, looking for a boy from Flea Bottom who might know something dangerous.
Lorrick wasn't sure how all these pieces fit together, but the shape they were forming looked increasingly like a noose. Not just for him, but for the entire kingdom if his suspicions about the royal children were correct.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of horns announcing a royal procession. Curious despite himself, Lorrick found a spot among the gathering crowd as mounted Gold Cloaks cleared the street.
The king came first, massive on his straining warhorse, his face red with exertion or wine or both. Robert Baratheon had been a legendary warrior once, but the man who passed before them now was bloated and softened by years of excess. Still, there was something of the young stag in his bearing, a hint of the man who'd smashed Rhaegar Targaryen's chest in at the Trident.
Behind him rode the queen, beautiful and cold as winter, her golden hair elaborately styled, her green eyes surveying the smallfolk with thinly veiled contempt. The contrast between the loud, red-faced king and his elegant, icy queen couldn't have been more stark.
And behind them, the children. Prince Joffrey, golden-haired and sneering. The younger ones, Myrcella and Tommen, both fair and green-eyed like their mother, nothing of the Baratheon look about them.
It was there for anyone with eyes to see, Lorrick realized. The truth that had likely killed Jon Arryn and now endangered Ned Stark. The royal children were not the king's children at all.
The knowledge settled in his stomach like a stone. This was bigger than street gossip or merchant secrets. This was the kind of information that started wars, that toppled dynasties.
For the first time, Lorrick wondered if he should leave King's Landing after all. Take the children and flee, perhaps to Essos where the problems of Westeros would be distant concerns. But such journeys required coin, more than he currently possessed, and the children deserved better than to be uprooted on the basis of his fears alone.
Besides, a small, stubborn part of him was curious to see how events would unfold. Not curious enough to actively seek danger, but enough to keep his eyes and ears open a while longer.
As the procession passed and the crowd began to disperse, Lorrick spotted a familiar face across the street, a child of perhaps nine or ten years, watching him with unnaturally still eyes. One of Varys's little birds, no doubt. The child held his gaze for a moment before disappearing into the crowd.
The message was clear enough: he was being watched. The question was, by whom and for what purpose? Was he seen as a potential asset to be recruited, or a loose thread to be snipped before he could unravel larger plans?
Lorrick pulled his hood lower and melted into the crowd, choosing a circuitous route back to Flea Bottom. If he was being followed, he'd at least make them work for it.
It was called the game of thrones for a reason. The deadly, intricate dance of power that consumed the great houses of Westeros. Lorrick had no illusions about his place in such a game. He was no player, merely a pawn at best, entirely disposable if it served the interests of those with real power.
But even pawns could move across the board. Even pawns could, with luck and skill, survive to the end game. Especially pawns that understood their own limitations.
Knowledge, after all, was its own kind of power. And if there was one thing Lorrick Wrennel knew how to do, it was gather knowledge that others would prefer stayed buried.
Let the great lords play their game of thrones. He would play his own game, with his own rules, focused on one simple objective. Keeping himself and his makeshift family alive as the world around them descended into chaos.
It wasn't an ambitious goal, perhaps. But in King's Landing, survival itself was victory enough.