A Feast for Dragons

could not quite cover up the
deeper stinks of piss and sour wine and rotting meat. The space was much larger
than it had seemed from without, stretching off to right and left into the
adjoining hovels. What had appeared to be a dozen structures from the street
turned into one long hall inside.
    At this hour the house was less than half full. A few of the
patrons favored the Dornishmen with looks bored or hostile or curious. The rest
were crowded around the pit at the far end of the room, where a pair of naked
men were slashing at each other with knives whilst the watchers cheered them
on.
    Quentyn saw no sign of the men they had come to meet. Then a
door he had not seen before swung open, and an old woman emerged, a shriveled
thing in a dark red
tokar
fringed with tiny golden skulls. Her
skin was white as mare’s milk, her hair so thin that he could see the scalp
beneath. “Dorne,” she said, “I be Zahrina. Purple Lotus. Go down here, you find
them.” She held the door and gestured them through.
    Beyond was a flight of wooden steps, steep and twisting.
This time the big man led the way and Gerris was the rear guard, with the
prince between them.
An undercellar
. It was a long way down,
and so dark that Quentyn had to feel his way to keep from slipping. Near the
bottom Ser Archibald pulled his dagger.
    They emerged in a brick vault thrice the size of the
winesink above. Huge wooden vats lined the walls as far as the prince could
see. A red lantern hung on a hook just inside the door, and a greasy black
candle flickered on an overturned barrel serving as a table. That was the only
light.
    Caggo Corpsekiller was pacing by the wine vats, his black
arakh
hanging at his hip. Pretty Meris stood cradling a crossbow, her eyes as cold
and dead as two grey stones. Denzo D’han barred the door once the Dornishmen
were inside, then took up a position in front of it, arms crossed against his
chest.
    One too many
, Quentyn thought.
    The Tattered Prince himself was seated at the table, nursing
a cup of wine. In the yellow candlelight his silver-grey hair seemed almost
golden, though the pouches underneath his eyes were etched as large as
saddlebags. He wore a brown wool traveler’s cloak, with silvery chain mail
glimmering underneath. Did that betoken treachery or simple prudence?
An
old sellsword is a cautious sellsword
. Quentyn approached his table.
“My lord. You look different without your cloak.”
    “My ragged raiment?” The Pentoshi gave a shrug. “A poor
thing … yet those tatters fill my foes with fear, and on the
battlefield the sight of my rags blowing in the wind emboldens my men more than
any banner. And if I want to move unseen, I need only slip it off to become
plain and unremarkable.” He gestured at the bench across from him. “Sit. I
understand you are a prince. Would that I had known. Will you drink? Zahrina
offers food as well. Her bread is stale and her stew is unspeakable. Grease and
salt, with a morsel or two of meat. Dog, she says, but I think rat is more
likely. It will not kill you, though. I have found that it is only when the
food is tempting that one must beware. Poisoners invariably choose the choicest
dishes.”
    “You brought three men,” Ser Gerris pointed out, with an
edge in his voice. “We agreed on two apiece.”
    “Meris is no man. Meris, sweet, undo your shirt, show him.”
    “That will not be necessary,” said Quentyn. If the talk he
had heard was true, beneath that shirt Pretty Meris had only the scars left by
the men who’d cut her breasts off. “Meris is a woman, I agree. You’ve still
twisted the terms.”
    “Tattered and twisty, what a rogue I am. Three to two is not
much of an advantage, it must be admitted, but it counts for something. In this
world, a man must learn to seize whatever gifts the gods chose to send him.
That was a lesson I learned at some cost. I offer it to you as a sign of my
good faith.” He gestured at the chair again. “Sit, and say what you came to
say. I promise not to have you killed until I have heard you out. That is the
least I can do for a fellow prince. Quentyn, is it?”
    “Quentyn of House Martell.”
    “Frog suits you better. It is not my custom to drink with
liars and deserters, but you’ve made me curious.”
    Quentyn sat.
One wrong word, and this could turn to blood
in half a
heartbeat
. “I ask your pardon for our
deception. The only ships sailing for Slaver’s Bay were those that had been
hired to bring you to the