They had left the noise of Weasel Alley behind them and walked north. They traveled through streets which thinned into crooked alleys, where the gutters stank and the houses leaned on their backs. The moon rode high above the haze, pale and watchful, as the night had turned still. Marie judged it near the hour of the eel, honest men were abed by now and liars like her couldn't stand still.
Their journey ended of course at Flea Bottom's weed-choked ground. Beyond, she could glimpse the dark outlines of richer manses near the Iron Gate, their towers standing aloof from the rot below, as if wealth itself might keep the smell away.
Kettleblack did not slow. "Come along, boy," he said over his shoulder, his voice once more thick with the slur of a drunk. Yet his steps never faltered.
They reached a small graveyard, more mud than grass, its stones crooked and sinking. Two figures waited beside a half-dug pit, shovels planted upright in the earth like spears.
"Oi, Mick," Kettleblack barked, "ya bastard, got what I asked for?"
One of the gravediggers straightened. He was long of limb and narrow of face, with yellowed teeth and nails black with soil. "Show me the coins firs', ya yellow dog."
Kettleblack spat into the mud. "Yer mother was a whore did ya know that, like you she swallowed coin better than she swallowed cock." He flicked a handful of silver toward them.
The men fell upon the coins at once, wiping grime with their sleeves before biting each piece. Marie looked away as one man licked the mud from a coin's edge before testing it with his teeth.
"Fuck off, ya bastard, took a long time findin' these two," the lanky one muttered when satisfied. He bent and drew back a stained cloth. "Ya should be thanking me."
Beneath lay bones wrapped in rusted mail and leather long since rotted through. Yet the breastplates endured. Golden disks still clung to the corroded metal, dull but unmistakable, rank preserved where flesh had failed. Four disks upon one meant a captain of the gate. Three upon the other meant a serjeant.
"Next time I visit yer mother I'll be thanking her for birthing a mangy bastard like ya," Kettleblack replied to the gravedigger, "Now beat it."
They needed no second bidding. Coins vanished into pockets and the men shuffled off into the dark, leaving only the two of them with the long dead proof.
Kettleblack wiped dirt from his hands upon his cloak and turned toward her, the moonlight showing the hidden person behind his bleary act.
"Janos is no clever man," he said. "He set common cutthroats to the work. Had them along on a raid in Flea Bottom, said it was to shake loose smugglers. When the fighting was starting the guards vanished. Of course they were bought and paid for by him. Left the captain and the serjeant alone with the knives."
His voice lost its drunken lilt for a moment. "They were butchered like hogs. The killers didn't even trouble to bury 'em. Mick here found what the dogs hadn't and told me. I had them put in the ground proper. Two gold cloak officers ought not end in a bowl-o-brown."
Marie kept her gaze on the breastplates. Even corroded, the disks marked their rank. "How am I to know these are the men you claim?"
Kettleblack crouched and tapped a knuckle against the armor. "Names are scratched beneath the plates. Every officer's got one. Pay me and you'll have the armor to read for yourself."
"You will have your coin," Marie said calmly. From her sleeve she drew a narrow parchment, sealed in dark wax. "Collect it from Tom. Then deliver the armor, and whatever more proof you hold against Slynt, to this warehouse by the harbor." She pressed the parchment into his hand. "Bring it there and the rest will follow."
Kettleblack rolled the seal between his fingers and grinned, "Pleasure doing business with you, lad." His eyes lingered on her a heartbeat longer. "And if it's the Mockingbird you're hunting… you know where to find me."
He jerked his head toward the road. "Now off with you, little rat. Graves ain't kind to those who don't belong 'ere."
Marie gave the bones one last look before turning away. She did not wish to linger any longer. The smell of old rot clung to her, and the sight of bone beneath rusted steel sat heavy in her belly. She left the graveyard at a quick walk, her boots finding the stones by memory more than sight. The hour had grown deeper now.
Twice she glanced back and twice she caught movement where shadows ought to have been still. Two men, keeping their distance, careless enough to be noticed but patient enough to wait.
Marie felt the prickle at the nape of her neck, the weight of their eyes. She couldn't tell how long they had been following her by now. Was it Kettleblack who set them on? She thought, It had to be or mayhaps they could be simple muggers.
She'dhavetolosetheirtrailsoon, Marie thought. Not here, but soon.
Marie turned north, deeper into Flea Bottom, toward the safe house that waited beyond the warrens. There she could change her face again, find a horse, put the night behind her, and bring her tidings to Chataya. But the sense of danger only grew, pressing at her ribs with each step. If they were bold enough to follow her from the graves, they would not balk at spilling blood in an alley.
Running outright would be folly. Flea Bottom swallowed the unwary, but it could just as easily choke them. She needed to create noise. A distraction. When Marie reached a narrow square where moonlight spilled onto broken cobbles, she slowed, reached into her purse, and flung the coins high. Silver flashed as it arced through the moonlit sky, ringing as it struck stone.
"They have more," Marie shouted and ran. Cries went up at once. Men lunged, women screamed, children dove into the dirt. Fists flew for pennies and coppers.
In the scramble, Marie slipped away, darting between bodies and overturned crates, her breath burning in her chest. She ran through the ways of the crooked lanes, the sudden stairs, the alleys that narrowed to cracks and opened again like secrets.
Once, long ago, a mute girl had taken her hand and shown her what lay beneath the city, forgotten doors, broken grates, and hidden tunnels. Marie hadn't forgotten the paths nor did she forget her. She had named her 'Moon" for the moonshaped scar she had.
After a while, Marie found the entrance half-hidden behind a tanner's shed. She dropped into the dark tunnel without pause. The air below was cool and damp, tasting of salt and old stone. She slowed to a careful trot, counting turns, keeping to the wall where the stone was worn smooth.
Marie had the path set on her mind. She would follow through the tunnel's path which would carry her toward the sea. There she could surface unseen and circle back through the gates and find safety. Yet deep in the tunnels their voices reached her, muffled, echoing, from ahead. Then from behind. They had found her again.
Marie cursed her luck but did not hesitate. She turned down a narrower passage, one that sloped away from the sea and deeper into the unknown, her boots slipping on slick stone. The air grew colder there, and the dark thicker, pressing close as a cloak about her shoulders. She ran until her lungs burned and her steps faltered, then forced herself onward a dozen more turns before she dared slow.
At last the voices faded. Only her breath remained, harsh and loud in her ears. She slowed, pressed a hand to the wall, and listened. The tunnel lay silent, for now.
Shewouldwaittilldawn, Marie thought. She would not risk the streets again before light. She was being hunted and she was alone. A prey she had become, and like a prey she would have to hide now.
Marie moved more carefully now, feeling her way along unfamiliar stones until the passage widened and opened into a cavernous hall. A faint grey seeped from high slits far above. Her eyes adjusted by slow degrees. Shapes emerged, vast, crouching shadows that resolved into jaws and ribs and curling horns.
The Targaryen Dragons, long gone yet still terrible to behold. She was in the cellars of the Red Keep, Marie realized. She had seen them many times before with Moon.
The skulls loomed in ranks. Teeth like daggers lined some maws, while others bore fangs longer than a man's forearm. The bones were black as polished onyx, smooth beneath her fingertips yet cold as winter iron. Time had not gentled them. Even a century and more after the last had died, they held a presence that pressed the breath from her chest.
Marie walked among them in silence. She had told Arthur once that she would ride a dragon one day, a blue one, swift as the wind. She told him that it often came to her dreams. He had laughed softly, and said there was a blue dragon once, who belonged to queens and princesses.
Marie didn't say anything afterwards, her dream of the dragon was shattered that day. For she was no princess nor she was a queen and there were no dragons that gave belonged to bastards and whoresons.
A few days later Arthur had brought her a painted scrap, a pale blue beast traced in silver. Dreamfyre, he had called it, and said it was the only dragon who deserved her. Marie had tried to say no, fearing it was even wrong for her to dream such a thing. But Arthur just placed it in her hand and said, dragons belong only to those who have the heart to dream of them.
And so she did. Marie dreamed of Dreamfyre the blue queen of the sky as often as she could. And now she searched for her among the skulls, but knew she could not find her for there were no name written upon their bones.
Two immense shapes dominated the chamber, their jaws wide enough to swallow a horse whole. Balerion and Vhagar, she guessed, though she could not say which was which. Somehow they seemed less like remains of great beasts than gates of the seven hells. At least, it's what Marie imagined the gates would look like.
Further along she found a skull broad enough that she might crawl within its hollow maw. Marie laid a hand upon its teeth and gave a faint smile. "You can be my Dreamfyre for tonight," she murmured, as if naming made it so.
Marie slipped inside the cavern of bone, settling against the cold curve of the jaw where shadow hid her well. Here she would wait for morning, wrapped in darkness and the ghosts of fire made stone.
In the hush beneath the hill, with only cold bone and older darkness for company, memory crept where caution could not bar it. A pale-haired boy with a smile soft as moonlight rose unbidden before her. Marie wondered, not for the first time, whether the gods had ever shaped a fairer face.
She could almost breathe him, pine and cold steel warmed by skin, and for a fleeting moment the chill of the vault seemed to fade. His warm hand at her waist. His voice low so none but she might hear. Marie shut her eyes, and the emptiness of the dragon's skull felt less hollow.
Bootsteps, faint, carrying along the stone like ripples in a still pool. Her eyes snapped open, Marie couldn't tell when she had fallen asleep.
Marie stilled herself at once, drawing her dagger from its sheath with care enough that the leather made no whisper. There were few exits from this cavern. If they came from both passages she would have no road but death, and she welcomed that more readily than capture. The city watch could be bribed, but the men who hunted in darkness seldom were.
As the footsteps grew louder so did the voices.
"Sindri, are you sure you saw the bastard come down 'ere?"
"Yes, Brok, for the hundredth time, I saw the rat slip inside here."
"Good, keep yer eyes open,"
They carried a shuttered lantern; thin lines of yellow crept along the stone and licked across the teeth of the skull that hid her. Marie pressed back against the bone, scarcely daring to breathe. Her fingers tightened on the dagger's grip until her knuckles ached.
"Do we need to be here? We could wait for him outside."
"Shut yer trap, we lost the brat once, we can't lose em again,"
The light bobbed closer.
"Gods, look at the size o' that one," Sindri asked, voice low despite himself. "They say these beasts burned Harrenhal and ate Aurochs whole. Brok, you ever been?"
"No. Nor do I wanna. That hall is burned black an' those who did em, were dead and black now too," Brok answered roughly. "Same as the boy will be when we find'em here."
Marie shifted her stance within the hollow jaw, finding the angle where she might spring should one lean too far inside. Better a single stroke true than a hundred pleas unheard. It would allow her to buy some time at least.
"It's just… that… I heard this place is cursed."
"I'm sure it is, Sindri," Brok replied, whispering. "Now keep yer trap shut. We don't want the castle guards wanderin' down on us."
"I don' like this," Sindri replied, fearfully, "Don't like these at all. I heard these skulls wake at night, why we down here risking our necks for a street rat anyway?"
"Because you're getting paid, ya bastard," Brok said flatly. "And if you say another word or even utter a sound one more time, I'll shove this lantern so far up your bunghole that you will be shining through yer head."
The lantern light wavered along the cavern walls, crawling over black teeth and hollow sockets. It made the dragons seem to breathe. Marie pressed deeper within the curve of bone. The air smelled of dust and death, dry enough to scrape her throat raw. Her heart beat loud as a drum in her ears, so loud she feared they must hear it.
Arthur would know what to do, he could save her, Marie thought before she could stop herself. The thought stung, she cursed herself for even thinking it. He could not know that she was here. Even if he did, what road would lead him to the belly of the Red Keep in the black of night?
Marie pictured his anger if she died here tonight, if she did not return. His vain searches for her, perhaps through Donnel or someone else. She could see the worry he would hide poorly from everyone. The pain his heart would bear, would be the same as that ached her heart now.
Fool, she named herself. Fool to walk alone, fool to trust a sellsword's bargain, fool to think she might play at shadows against men like Baelish and not be swallowed whole by the darkness.
She thought of Arthur again. He would sail again soon, The sea always took him back, yet this time it will take him to war. To death and destruction.
And she couldn't even see him again, she couldn't see his smile, nor take his scent. She could not feel his warmth ever again. Marie cursed herself, you foolishgirland your foolishpride.
Marie would die here, beneath the bones of a long dead dragon, as nameless as she had once been. Mayhaps this was what she deserved.
The steps drew nearer, iron scraping stone. Suddenly somewhere deeper in the vaults, a hollow sound echoed, metal striking stone, distant yet sharp enough to carry. Both men halted.
"What was that, Brok?" Sindri whispered. "You think he's over there?"
Brok hesitated. The lantern shifted, its glow turning away from her hiding place.
"Don't know," he said at last. "Come on. We'll see."
Their footfalls moved past the skull that sheltered her, the light retreating with them into another passage. She dared a breath but did not move, not yet. Marie thought, if she moved now, slow and careful, she might slip back into the tunnels and lose them in the dark. For she could not wait for them here.
She shifted her weight as more sounds started coming, softer than the first. Quick wet scrapes, followed by a man's strangled breaths cut short. No shout, no curse. Only the small dying noise a throat makes when steel finds it clean. Leather scuffed. Cloth brushed bone. A brief struggle, then silence deeper than before.
Marie knew that sound. She had heard it before. Someone was killing them.
She tried to rise, but her limbs would not answer. The fear had seeped into her muscles and turned them heavy as lead. Her hand tightened on the dagger, yet even that felt distant, as if her hands were bound.
A palm settled lightly upon her shoulder. Her heart lurched into her throat. Before she could cry out, another hand covered her mouth firmly.
"Stay silent if you wish to live," a voice breathed against her ear.
Marie stilled and gave a small nod.
"I will loose you now, do not make a sound," the voice said. "You will follow me and my commands. No questions. Do you understand?"
She nodded again. The hand lifted. Cold air rushed against her lips as she turned.
A figure stood behind her where only blank stone had been moments before, cloaked, hood drawn low so the face lay in shadow. A narrow door yawned in the wall, black as a well, hinges hidden so cleverly she would have sworn the stones unbroken. The figure beckoned once and slipped within.
Marie hesitated only a heartbeat. Whoever this was had passed unseen behind her and felled armed men without a cry. If death were intended for her, it would already have come. So, she had no choice but to follow him.
She slipped through the narrow door, and the stone closed softly at her back. Marie found herself walking blind behind him, one hand trailing along damp stone lest she lose her footing. The passage twisted and dipped, then rose again by shallow steps worn hollow by long use. No torch burned, yet the hooded man never faltered, as if he had walked these ways since boyhood.
At last a seam of pale light appeared ahead. They emerged into a small chamber of bare masonry, windowless and stale, somewhere deep within the Red Keep. A single candle guttered upon a shelf, its flame thin and steady.
"I think we are safe here now, girl," the figure said mildly. "It was most unwise of you to wander so carelessly, child."
Marie stiffened. Another who knew too much. "Who are you," she asked, voice level.
The figure drew back his hood. The candlelight fell across a smooth round face, pale as milk, with powdered cheeks and round shoulders. He wore a pair of pointed soft slippers that made no sound when he walked.
Marie didn't recognize him at first, for he saw the figure only once before, inside Chataya's chambers when she was only a girl. He was the Spider of the realm. Master of Whispers and The Lord of Shadows.
"Lord Varys, why did you save my life?" she asked with fear. "Who sent you to rescue me?"
"Questions are such eager little things," Varys replied gently. "They rush ahead before sense can catch them. Let us keep them leashed for a moment longer, my dear, you must calm yourself first."
His eyes moved over her borrowed clothes, the soot upon her hands, the damp hair clinging at her brow.
"For now," Varys continued softly, "you need only remember that I have spared you a rather unpleasant end. In return, you will deliver those armors to me."
Marie asked suspiciously, "Only that?"
The eunuch smiled, faintly amused. "You wound me, my dear. I am not as greedy and vile as one would imagine. Still, a spider has no use of charity,"
He drifted a step closer, "You seem like a clever girl. I hope you are clever enough to know that I did not risk my own neck for iron plates and scratched names. Which I could have gained on my own."
Marie said nothing trying to keep her calm. Both Chataya and Arthur had always warned her to stay away from Varys. They both believed that the eunuch was the most dangerous man in the realm.
"Yet I shall not demand," Varys went on, "But only ask for a kindness from you. A meeting." He folded his hands within his sleeves. "I ask you to take me to your beloved silver prince of the sea and help me persuade him that I am not his foe. We row toward the same shore and across the same ocean, though perhaps by different tides. Help him understand, that he must work with me for the betterment of the realm."
He giggled and added, "And if the gods are good, in time mayhaps you and I can become good friends."
Marie's expression did not change, yet her fingers curled slightly at her side. He knew of her and Arthur. She became a weakness for him, something she swore she would never be. "You presume too much," she said, coldly. "It can become a curse for you one day."
"No, my dear, that has never been my curse," Varys murmured sadly, eyes glowing darkly in the candlelight, "It was always knowing too much."
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