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Before dawn.
The air in the Black Cells was heavier than the day before. Every particle of dust was soaked in the bloodshed to come.
Everyone drank the spoiled gruel. Everyone except Jaqen.
Soon, the prisoners were shoved roughly out of their cells.
To keep them quiet, stones were stuffed into their mouths and bound with black cloth. Then they were packed into a massive, iron-reinforced prison wagon like livestock headed for slaughter.
Calling it a wagon was generous. It was a moving iron cage.
Garth stood outside it, his face carrying that particular Northman's sternness. No expression. Just cold eyes watching the twisted faces pressed against the bars.
"Good luck to you."
He waved his hand.
The wheels ground over the cobblestones, creaking and groaning, rolling toward the docks outside King's Landing.
Inside the cage, dead silence.
Every prisoner was coiled tight, eyes locked on the men around them, hunting for the first opening.
The scarred man — big, broad, the kind of bulk that filled a room , had decided he was the strongest one here. He rose slowly, letting his frame do the talking. Letting the others feel it.
Jaqen stayed huddled in the most forgettable corner of the cage.
Eyes closed. Utterly still. Indifferent to everything.
Just as Scarface moved toward the frail prisoner nearest to him, the world tilted.
The cage began to spin. His body stopped listening.
THUD!
Scarface hit the floor hard. His body seized, white foam spilling from his mouth.
His fall was a signal.
One by one, the others went down the same way. Like wheat before a scythe. Each man writhed in silence on the floor, not a sound escaping them , their bodies convulsing, their eyes wide with terror and confusion.
None of them knew how they'd been hit.
Soon, only one man was still standing.
Jaqen H'ghar.
He opened his eyes slowly and looked over the hellscape with perfect calm. He didn't spare a second glance at the men rolling at his feet.
He hadn't touched the gruel this morning.
That hadn't stopped him from adding a little something to the pot.
Colorless. Odorless. Mixed into the spoiled broth without a trace. Once the body started moving, it hit the blood fast , paralyzed the nerves, shut everything down.
As for himself? He'd taken the antidote well before dawn.
Garth had been walking alongside the wagon the whole time. When he saw what was inside, something flickered through those grey eyes , a flash of shock, quickly buried.
He stopped the wagon. Walked to the cage and pulled it open.
The stench hit him like a fist.
He looked at the bodies convulsing across the floor. Then at the one man standing, completely untouched.
"How did you do this?"
"A man has his ways."
Jaqen's voice didn't change at all.
"Now. A man is ready to meet his employer."
Garth held his silence for a moment. Then nodded.
His men dragged the still-twitching prisoners out of the cage like dead dogs and dumped them into a filthy ditch by the roadside. Garth was about to signal the gold cloaks to finish it when Jaqen stopped him.
"They will not die. But this poison will destroy them completely."
"For the rest of their lives, they will be drooling, incontinent idiots."
Garth hesitated. Then decided to deal with them anyway.
He couldn't leave even the smallest possible trouble for Lord Lynn.
Once it was handled, he led Jaqen in a different direction.
The Tower of the Hand.
When Jaqen was brought into the study , that quiet room smelling of ink and parchment , something finally shifted on his face. Barely visible. But there.
He had imagined countless possibilities on the way here.
His employer might be an ambitious lord. A scheming eunuch. Even a prince hungry for a throne.
But this he had never imagined.
That the mind behind a plot to assassinate the king would belong to two young girls.
Sansa Stark.
Myrcella Baratheon.
One the Hand's daughter, now Master of Coin. The other the king's daughter, now wife to that upstart dragon-riding lord.
Standing side by side.
This was far more interesting than anything he'd pictured.
Jaqen's gaze moved across their faces. This game was more layered than he'd expected. But what mattered most was simple: both of these women were bound, in ways too numerous to count, to his true target.
Lynn.
"You're the one who survived?"
Sansa spoke first.
Jaqen gave a slight bow.
"A man is ready to serve you both."
"Good."
Myrcella picked up a bundle from beside her and dropped it on the floor. It fell open. Inside: a Baratheon household guard's uniform, the crowned stag stitched across the chest.
"We want you to put that on and kill Robert Baratheon."
Myrcella's voice had a Lannister edge to it. Cold. Certain.
"We'll get you into the king's hunting party."
"After you act, you don't need to run."
Sansa picked up the thread.
"You'll be caught on the spot. Then you'll tell everyone you were sent by Stannis Baratheon."
"You've seen what we control in the Black Cells. We say jump, they jump."
"As long as you make it back to the Black Cells alive, we'll find a man of similar build to take your place. He dies for you."
"In return, you and your family receive enough gold dragons to last several lifetimes. You'll never have to be a pathetic thief again."
An assassin. A scapegoat.
The plan was blunt and brutal.
And riddled with holes.
But for two girls half-blinded by hatred, it was probably the best they could come up with.
Jaqen looked at the uniform on the floor. Then at the two naive employers standing before him.
He slowly shook his head.
"What does that mean?"
Killing intent flashed through Myrcella's eyes. One word from her and the gold cloaks outside would come through that door and cut him apart.
"A man does not kill a dying man."
Jaqen's voice was quiet.
"What did you say?"
Sansa stared at him. "What do you mean, dying?"
"His Grace the King."
Jaqen's gaze seemed to pass straight through the wall, finding the man lying hungover in his bed somewhere beyond it.
"He does not have long."
"He is a man who has been given a slow poison."
"A man has seen many such cases in Valyria."
"Tears of Lys, mixed into wine. Day after day, little by little."
"It eats through the organs. Makes it look like the man drank himself to death."
The study went silent.
Sansa and Myrcella looked at each other.
In each other's eyes: shock. Deep and unguarded.
Robert had already been poisoned?
By whom?
Cersei? Varys? Lynn?
Or someone else, hidden in the dark?
"So your plan," Jaqen continued, "is unnecessary."
"Sending an assassin to kill a dying man is like sending a warship to crush an ant."
"Foolish. And it leaves too many tracks."
"An assassin in the uniform of Stannis's household guard?" He let that sit for a moment. "That is not a clue. That is a confession. It tells everyone there is a conspiracy, before anyone even starts looking."
"It will only make Lord Renly, Grand Maester Pycelle , even the Spider — start asking questions about how Robert really died."
Jaqen knew exactly why Robert was going to die, of course.
Because it was Tywin who had hired the Faceless Men to do it.
His words put out the fire.
The two girls had been burning with it , revenge, certainty, the clean violence of a plan , and now they weren't. Only then did they see how childish it all was.
Sansa's eyes went cold.
"You haven't even seen Robert. How can you possibly know?"
Jaqen smiled.
"A man cannot say. Believe it or not, as you wish."
Sansa looked at this strange, unremarkable man and felt the first pull of real alarm. She should find Lynn. Now. Tell him everything.
This had already slipped past what she and Myrcella could handle.
"Then what do we do?"
Myrcella's voice had gone flat with frustration.
"Wait."
One word. Then a pause.
"Wait for him to die on his own."
"Wait for Grand Maester Pycelle to announce the king died of overexertion in the bedchamber. Or that he drank until his belly burst."
"No one will question it."
"Because that is exactly the kind of man he is."
"But can we still pin it on Stannis?"
Sansa asked.
As long as Lynn wanted to climb, Stannis would be an obstacle. That was simply the nature of their positions , nothing could change it. Getting ahead of that, undermining Stannis before the board was set, would only help Lynn.
"The king's death is a fact," Jaqen said.
"But who bears the blame for it — that is a story."
A slow, knowing smile crossed his face.
"And a man is very good at telling stories."
"We do not need a clumsy assassin."
"We only need a little... evidence."
"For example: a letter from Dragonstone that 'accidentally' finds its way into Lord Varys's hands. In it, Stannis expresses his 'concern' for his brother's health and makes certain points about the 'legitimacy' of the succession."
"Or: a sailor from Dragonstone, drunk in a brothel, who 'lets slip' to his whore that Stannis has known for some time the king was not long for this world. That he is already preparing to sail back to King's Landing. Because he put a little... special 'spice' from Dragonstone into the king's wine."
With each sentence, Sansa and Myrcella's eyes grew brighter.
This man's plan was a hundred times sharper than theirs. A hundred times safer.
No blades. No blood.
Just a few lies. A few forged scraps of parchment. And Stannis Baratheon would be trapped inside a story he never wrote, with no way out.
That was the real assassination.
Killing without a trace.
"Who are you?"
Sansa looked at this plain, unremarkable man and felt a genuine chill move through her for the first time.
"A man has no name."
Jaqen gave a slight bow.
They didn't press further.
"Very well."
Myrcella watched him, excitement bright in those green eyes.
"What do you want as payment?"
"A man has no need for gold dragons."
Jaqen raised his head.
His gaze moved past both of them.
"When the work is done, a man needs passage to the North."
"And to travel there with the Starks. With Lord Lynn."
Neither of them had expected that.
Sansa and Myrcella looked at each other. The same flicker of wariness in both their eyes.
His goal wasn't money.
It was Lynn.
Why did he want to get close to Lynn?
"Agreed."
Sansa nodded.
"But you'll need Lord Lynn's permission. We can't make that decision for him."
"Now — go. Complete your task."
Whatever this man wanted, whatever he was, they needed him right now.
"A pleasure doing business."
That slow, knowing smile returned to Jaqen's face.
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