But she passed them, passed the ruins of the Episcopal Palace, and went up the hill past the burned stone shells of a dozen rich houses that now protruded like rotten, crumbling teeth in a fresh corpse’s mouth. She climbed the mound that led to the oldest part of the castle, almost directly above the temple, and there were a dozen inns nestled under, and in some cases, resting against the walls of the great fortress; the Inns of Court, where young men and a few women went to learn the law and the ways of courts, the rules of courtesy and knighthood and government, at least in better times. Since the troubles and the plague, the inns were all but deserted, which Lessa knew was bad for her little mission. She looked terribly out of place in her stinking muddy overgown.

But her bad fortune was balanced by good; the old soldier at the door of the Queen’s Arms Tavern knew that he had an empty tap room behind him and he wasn’t going to turn away a customer, even if it was some drabble tail puke from Cheapside. He reached out to give her a casual squeeze and only withheld his hand at the smell of her muddy gown.

Lessa promised herself that when the Day came, he’d be dead. Then she slipped past him into the common room, where fewer than a dozen men sat at the ancient tables, drinking the inn’s excellent beer.

And her good fortune continued, for there, at the farthest table, was a man in a green hat with a yellow feather. She swayed her hips and arched her back and moved across to him with a confidence that she didn’t feel; that she almost never felt, in fact, except when she had a bow in her hand.

He was older than she had expected; forty or fifty, with grey in his beard and hair. He looked as hard as iron; as hard as Tyler. For all that, his nails were clean and his sword was good.

“Do you like to hunt the deer, then?” she said as she went up to him.

“Only in the season of the year,” he answered. Correctly.

Her knees were weak with relief. She vowed inwardly that she would never do this again.

“Christ, you stink,” he said.

She stood frozen. She didn’t know what whores did; did she sit down?

He glanced up. “Don’t sit. We’re not friends.” He gave her a very small smile, as if to soften the words. “Beer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I was attacked,” she said softly.

He shrugged, as if people were attacked every day, which might have been his notion of the world. He waggled a finger and a tall, heavyset man appeared with the bushiest eyebrows Lessa had ever seen.

“A pint of bitter for the whore,” her mission said. “And someplace I can get my business done.”