King's Landing, capital of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, was laid out in a great square that sprawled for leagues and was ringed about by high walls.
There were seven principal gates into the city: the commemorative Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate, the Mud Gate, the Old Gate, the Gods Gate, the King's Gate, and the Iron Gate.
Within the walls stood a scatter of houses and trees, granaries, timber inns, trading halls and pleasure dens, wine sinks, graveyards, fish markets, and more besides.
The harbor held hundreds of piers. Between rows of buildings ran broad avenues lined with trees, streets, and branching alleys—testament enough to the city's teeming life.
The city occupied the north bank of the Blackwater Rush and climbed three hills named for Aegon and his sisters: Aegon's High Hill, Visenya's Hill, and Rhaenys's Hill.
Atop Aegon's High Hill stood the Red Keep, the royal castle in the city's southeast. From its balconies one could look out over the river mouth. The marble-walled Great Sept of Baelor, with its seven crystal towers, crowned the summit of Visenya's Hill.
Rhaenys's Hill was mantled by the domed ruins of the Dragonpit. Its bronze doors had been shut for a century and a half, ever since the last dragon died.
King's Landing was densely peopled yet, compared to other cities, filthy and lawless. Its population hovered around half a million, a figure that swung wildly in winter or in war.
For the grandeur of the Red Keep and the Great Sept was a mask. The truth of the realm's capital was places like Flea Bottom.
Flea Bottom was the city's slum, its narrow streets and alleys a maze crammed with beggars and the poorest of the poor.
Sometimes the folk there lived on "brown soup," a mystery stew rumored to contain meat from rats—or from murder victims—and other unspeakable things.
On the shit-slick lanes of Rattle Row, household refuse and the leavings of beasts lay everywhere, steeping the air in a reek of sty and stable, tanners' sheds, wine fumes, and penny shows.
Flea Bottom was infamous, a lawless place rife with riots.
A mummer girl named Penny and her brother Oppo went along the muddy lanes with shields on their backs, a motley lance in one hand, and in the other the leads of their performing partners: Crunch, a long-legged, big-mouthed gray dog toting their bundles, and Pretty Pig, a great spotted sow with a ring through her snout like a bull. They could feel ill intent on them from every side. Unlike the usual loathing they drew, these were hungry eyes.
Penny was afraid—afraid the starving would eat the dog and pig that kept her alive, and more afraid they would eat her.
It was a fearful place, yet they had to come, for only here were dwarfs not chased away.
"Penny," Oppo murmured, "take out the wedding invitation—the one with the gold rose and the joined arms of the golden lion and black stag—and hold it high."
She always obeyed their one sure protection. Her brother would never harm her; she knew that. She lifted the invitation high.
"Long live Queen Margaery!"
"Long live King Joffrey!"
The commons hated Joffrey Baratheon upon the Iron Throne—they had near torn him to pieces in Flea Bottom once.
But Margaery Tyrell, beloved daughter of the Lord of Highgarden, loved the smallfolk as her own. She had done kindness after kindness for Flea Bottom and won their praises.
Now the two were to be wed. By slow degrees, the smallfolk, scars forgotten as soon as bellies were filled, began to sing Joffrey's name as well. They would cheer for any who fed them.
When the poor folk learned that Penny and Oppo would perform at the royal wedding in the Great Sept of Baelor, they found the two a disused court where, for only ten copper stars, they might lodge a month.
The "lodging" was an abandoned stable, but Penny and her brother had no complaint. They had come from Tyrosh half a world away and spent near all they had. A roof against the wind and rain was the gods' own mercy.
Most saw dwarfs as half-made people—creatures for scorn and jests. Dwarfs without power, coin, or kin fared worst of all. There would be no royal favor for the likes of them; they were not fit to enter the Red Keep.
One dwarf was the exception—and the one the siblings envied most. The Imp, Tyrion Lannister, was the second son of Lord Tywin Lannister, now Hand of the King, and brother to the Queen Regent Cersei. The Red Keep the siblings longed to glimpse was his playhouse.
"Lord Tyrion must be the happiest dwarf in all the world," Penny would sigh.
Whenever she mourned the world's unfairness, Oppo would smooth a hand through her brown hair and say with a smile, "The Imp may be the happiest dwarf—but we are the luckiest."
Penny loved to hear him say it, and answered with tears of sudden joy.
Their mother had died when they were small. Their father, who had taught them their trade, passed soon after. With no home, they drifted from Free City to Free City, earning scant coin with ridiculous turns to win laughter.
Her proudest moment thus far was the day they played for the Sealord, making the Archon of Braavos laugh aloud.
It was there the King's Landing fool had found them and offered them a chance to perform at King Joffrey's wedding—fodder for the great lords' mirth.
They were but in their early twenties, yet already weathered, and they knew what such a chance might mean.
If their wedding show pleased the mighty, more work would follow, their names would spread, coin would flow, and they might at last quit risking their lives on vile streets for scraps that would not keep a body warm.
Given such a chance to change their fates, Penny and Oppo meant to stay shut in their little yard each day, training hard to meet their hopes.
One does not play before a king as one plays in the gutter. Before they trained, they set themselves to devise a tight and witty script—one that would not cost them their heads.
They were not clever, but the great events of late offered themes that might rouse the highborn and set them laughing.
"To make a show that is grand and foolish both," Oppo began, "we must play to the great lords' taste."
"Brother," said Penny, "let's begin with the War of the Five Kings."
"Good."
Her suggestion pleased Oppo well. He set himself to ordering the five kings' strife in his head and fell to talking it through with her.
For fear of eavesdroppers through thin walls, they spoke very softly.
"When King Robert Baratheon died," Oppo murmured, "Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell was made a sacrifice to the game of thrones and beheaded at King Joffrey's command. The Lannisters took King's Landing in hand. The Baratheon realm split four ways. The great rose up, styling themselves kings. Robb Stark, the elder son of Lord Eddard, named himself King in the North to avenge his father, and faced the Lannisters' power. In the south, the Young Wolf won every battle he fought. Penny, I would play such a hero."
The invincible Young Wolf was Penny's dream—her secret darling. At the name of Robb, she all but bounced, small fists clenched, rosy bubbles seeming to dance in her eyes like a child who had not grown.
Oppo nodded, then shook his head. "But when the Ironborn of Balon Greyjoy—new-styled King of the Isles—invaded the North and Winterfell fell to ruin, the Young Wolf, brave as he was, began to lose ground. His mortal wound was not strategy but the Red Wedding, when House Frey betrayed him. In the end he was butchered. He is a hero, yes—but he is the Lannisters' foe. We may play him, but only to shame him for King Joffrey's delight."
Penny's face fell. "Then… let's think of something else first."
Oppo agreed and went on: "After King Robert's death, his son Joffrey, his brother Stannis of Dragonstone, and his younger brother Renly of Storm's End, each claimed to be the rightful heir. Before Renly could march on King's Landing, he died strangely, and Storm's End fell to Stannis. Stannis cast off the Seven and followed the Lord of Light, and with the Lysene pirate king advanced on King's Landing—only to be shattered by wildfire on the Blackwater. The city then sent forth a false Renly in disguise to hearten the new-come levies, and Stannis's host was routed. Here we may play Lord Renly—or King Joffrey. Though neither truly won the war alone, that is the tale the great lords like to hear."
Penny chewed that over, then jutted her lip stubbornly. "I still want to play the Young Wolf."
"Penny," Oppo warned gravely, "you must not be willful, or we may lose our heads."
"I know," she said. "But we can plan it well—devise a script that lets us keep the Young Wolf's honor and makes King Joffrey laugh."
Oppo spread his hands. "Too hard—perhaps impossible."
Fancy yields to fact. Penny gave way with a sigh. "All right. Whatever you choose, I will play. You think; I'll go feed Pretty Pig and Crunch their acorns."
Life's cruelty had not washed her innocence away. Oppo felt an ache in his nose and tugged her back as she rose. "Penny, I promise—you'll soon be able to play the Young Wolf across all the wide lands of Westeros, and with no fear for your life."
Her brow unknotted. She bounced. "Truly, brother?"
He looked up at the cloud-choked sky, hope in his voice. "Truly. The savior is about to ride a dragon into Westeros. The realm's balance will soon be overturned. Those who forbid us to play as we wish may not be with us much longer. Then you can proclaim the Young Wolf's valor to your heart's content."
"Brother, you mean—mmph!"
"Hush."
Before she could say the forbidden name—taboo in King's Landing—Oppo clapped a hand over her mouth.
When he was sure she would say no more, he let his hand fall.
All at once, childlike, Penny pointed at the sky with wide eyes. "Brother, look! That rolling black cloud in the east—doesn't it look like a dragon from the tales?"
At that very moment, three forks of lightning ripped the sky in turn.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Oppo stared toward the eastern heavens and thought, They say when Robert Baratheon died, the bells tolled thrice. Could that dragon-shaped cloud, and these three bolts that split the sky above Westeros, be the gods' sign—that the true dragon dynasty, whose banner bears three-headed red, returns?
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