The next day.
Fishmonger's Square sat right beside the Mud Gate—far enough from the rotten core of Flea Bottom that most people would've thought twice about the walk. Hunger and sickness didn't give a damn about distance, though.
At first light, the shanties and alleys of Flea Bottom started spitting people out. They came in rags, skin sallow, eyes dead. They shuffled toward the square like puppets yanked along by invisible strings.
"Hurry up, Uncle Al Capone!"
A scrawny kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, limped ahead of the crowd. His left leg twisted at a sick angle from the knee down, but he didn't seem to feel it. He hobbled fast, one shoulder higher than the other, glancing back and waving. "If we're late we won't get a good spot—the bread'll be tiny!"
His face was flushed with weird excitement, eyes too bright. Classic long-term hallucinogen look.
Little Tommy. Dockhand's kid. Broke his leg and only got "treated" after five days of the monk's tests.
Corleone gave a small nod and motioned for Iggo to stay close.
They'd both dressed in the same roughspun rags as everyone else, faces smeared with soot. Except for standing a little taller and straighter, they blended right in.
Two or three hundred people snaked through the morning mist like a sick snake crawling home.
Footsteps. Coughs. Low murmurs. The air stank of sour rot and disease—the smell of poverty.
"You're angry, blood of my blood," Iggo said quietly after a long stretch of silence, matching Corleone's stride. "I felt it the second you slammed the table yesterday."
"Why waste so much effort—and so many gold dragons—on one old man? Let me go tonight. I'll bring you his head."
Corleone didn't answer right away.
His eyes moved across the crowd.
A young mother clutching a whimpering baby—milk probably gone, the kid too weak to cry properly.
A one-handed man whose stump was wrapped in black, pus-soaked rags that smelled like death.
Little Tommy limping along with that glassy stare…
Every one of them hollow-eyed, steps shaky, yet all headed the same direction.
Because they believed—or told themselves they believed—hope was waiting.
"Back where I come from," Corleone finally said, "there's one sin people say can't be forgiven."
"What sin?" Iggo asked.
"Making money off other people's pain." Corleone's voice stayed flat. "Steal from a poor man, you're a thief. But feed a starving man poisoned bread and tell him it's a gift from the gods? That's evil."
"Tywin wants power. Littlefinger wants chaos. They play their filthy, bloody games, but at least they're honest about the price tag."
"That phony holy bastard… he's selling false hope."
"And false hope is crueler than real despair."
"He gives the hungry bread laced with lime. Gives the sick poison that keeps them alive just long enough to beg for more. Then calls it divine grace."
"He makes mothers kneel and pray for half a moldy crust. Makes fathers bash their heads bloody to prove they're pious. Makes a kid with a broken leg, burning up for five days, thank the gods for a bowl of hallucinogenic slop!"
He paused, voice dropping colder. "False hope is crueler than real despair."
Iggo stayed quiet a beat.
He didn't catch every word, but he got the idea. Dothraki respected strength and the hard rules of survival, but they hated this kind of twisted sorcery.
"You want to save these people?" Iggo asked. "They're just grass on the plain. Cut 'em down, they grow back."
"They're people," Corleone corrected. Seeing Iggo's blank look, he shook his head and tried again in terms the warrior would understand. "Think of them as my property."
"And while I'm protecting what's mine, I'm giving them a choice."
"Kneel for poison, or stand for clean bread… their call."
"Besides," Corleone added, eyes fixed on the mist ahead where the square's outline was sharpening, "just killing the old fuck would be too easy on him."
"One knife and he becomes a martyr. His followers would swear the demons got him and get even crazier."
"I want… to kill the heart."
"Kill the heart?"
Iggo frowned at first, then nodded hard. "I get it!"
Get it?
Corleone shot him a sideways look. Who the hell knew what the illiterate barbarian actually understood.
By the time they finished talking, Fishmonger's Square lay right in front of them.
A rickety platform of broken planks and old barrels stood in the center, waist-high. Nothing on it but one polished stone.
Hundreds of people already waited.
The inner circle—thirty or forty folks dressed a little cleaner—stood ramrod straight, hands clasped, eyes burning with fanatic light. Corleone spotted the bulges under their sleeves. Clubs or worse. The "protectors."
The middle ring—maybe a hundred—knelt on the ground, palms together or faces pressed to the dirt. The ones who'd already passed the "tests" and tasted "grace."
Little Tommy was right there with them.
The outer ring was the biggest. People stood or squatted, eyes full of hunger, pain, and confusion, staring at the platform like it was the only thing left in the world.
Hundreds packed together, yet the square was dead quiet.
No chatter. No shouting. Just this invisible, iron discipline—stricter than any Lannister army Corleone had ever seen.
He and Iggo slipped into the edge of the outer crowd, picking a spot with a clear view but low profile.
Sunlight finally burned through the mist.
A ripple went through the inner circle.
The protectors dropped to one knee in perfect unison, heads bowed.
Then a figure stepped out of the small chapel on the east side of the square.
Tall. Gaunt. Long gray hair. Faded, patched roughspun robe.
Deep lines carved his face—he was old—but his eyes were sharp and bright, calm on the surface, steel underneath.
"He really does look like a sparrow," Corleone muttered.
Iggo snorted. "I don't like eating sparrows. Too stringy."
The Sparrow walked slow, each step deliberate, like he was measuring the ground.
He never looked at anyone. Eyes down, keeping the holy silence.
At the platform he turned toward the rising sun, bowed deep, then lifted his callused hands, palms up, as if catching heavenly dew.
"What a fucking showman," Corleone said under his breath.
The crowd ate it up. Every eye locked on him, growing more feverish by the second.
The Sparrow stepped onto the platform, pulled a worn leather book from his robe—edges frayed but lovingly kept.
—The Seven-Pointed Star.
Corleone's [Insight Lv. 3] drank in every detail.
He also noticed the Sparrow scanning faces, lingering on the sick ones.
"Brothers. Sisters."
The Sparrow's voice finally broke the silence—calm, simple.
The protectors answered in perfect unison: "We are listening, Sparrow."
He gave a small nod, opened the book with practiced ease.
"Today we read from the Book of Teachings, Chapter Seven."
His tone was gentle, like telling an old story. "The Father says: Blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled."
"The Mother says: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
He looked up, eyes sweeping the crowd. "Are you hungry? Are you mourning?"
"Hungry!" someone shouted.
"Mourning!" more voices cried.
"Then you shall hear the gospel of the Seven!"
The Sparrow closed the book. His voice rose. "For the Seven have seen your suffering!"
"The Father watches. The Mother weeps. The Warrior stands ready to fight for you!"
The crowd stirred.
Some wept. Some dropped to their knees. Some started shaking with pure hysteria.
And Corleone…
Only felt disgust.