"Seeds need soil to grow. Grace needs piety to take root."
The Sparrow swept his gaze across the crowd, gave a satisfied nod, then pointed to a one-armed protector in the inner circle. "Look at Brother Joseph."
"Three months ago he lost his hand for stealing. The wound festered. Fever hit. Maggots were laying eggs in the rotting meat—dogs wouldn't even go near him. He was supposed to die in a Flea Bottom alley."
"But he crawled two whole streets to reach the gods. He prayed with true devotion, accepted every trial the Seven set before him, drank the holy broth, and rubbed on the sacred salve."
"Now he's only missing an arm… but he has gained something far more precious."
"—The gospel of the Seven, and a soul clean and at peace!"
The man called Joseph straightened, thrust his stump toward the sky, and smiled so hard it looked painful—pure, twisted bliss.
"Bullshit," Corleone muttered under his breath. "Even I couldn't save a guy with a wound that infected and fevered unless he was Jaime fucking Lannister."
But the Sparrow was already pointing to an old woman kneeling in the middle ring. "Sister Martha."
"She lay in bed coughing blood for half a year. The maesters called it consumption—incurable."
"Yet she never gave up. Every day she listened to the holy words, prayed through the rain, baked under the sun until her skin peeled. She never left."
"Finally the Seven saw her devotion, forgave her sins, and granted her the gift of healing!"
The old woman slammed her forehead against the stone in rapture the moment her name was spoken, again and again.
Someone helped her up. Tears streamed down her wrinkled face while she mumbled incoherent thanks.
The crowd erupted in ecstatic shouts. Dozens dropped to their knees and began praying at the top of their lungs.
Corleone's eyes narrowed.
The old woman's breathing was steady, only a little short—nothing like the ragged ruin you'd expect from someone who'd survived consumption. Her cheeks had an unnatural flush. Her fingers trembled faintly.
Classic drug reaction.
A plant. Of course.
Still, Corleone had to admit the name was a nice touch. In some other universe with capes and underwear on the outside, just saying "Martha" might stop the world from ending.
"So… brothers, sisters," the Sparrow said, arms spread wide now that he had their full, hungry attention, "why were you born poor, sick, and trampled underfoot?"
"Ask yourselves: are you truly devout? Is your heart as pure as the glass candles burning before the Seven?"
"Suffering is the forge. Piety is the hammer. Only a soul tempered a thousand times can become a vessel worthy of grace!"
"Tell me—can your faith withstand the test?!"
"YES!" the crowd roared.
Under his coaxing the cries grew louder—sobs, shouts, prayers blending into one fevered wave. Collective hysteria spread like plague, infecting everyone.
"This prick should have his head chopped off, eyes gouged out, ears stabbed deaf, and tongue cut out," Iggo growled beside him.
Dothraki hated this kind of sorcery. If you left a wicked sorcerer with his head and all five senses intact, his soul could still curse you from the afterlife. But slice off the head, scoop the eyes, spike the ears, and rip out the tongue? Soul comes out broken—harmless forever.
Corleone kept watching in cold silence. He didn't bother correcting the warrior's brutal logic.
As the frenzy peaked, the Sparrow gave a tiny nod to one of the protectors.
The man turned, wheeled a small wooden cart onto the platform. Two big barrels sat on it, mouths covered with cloth.
Nobody could see what was inside, but every eye in the square locked on those barrels like they could burn holes through the wood.
"Now," the Sparrow called, voice ringing with command, "prove your devotion with action, brothers and sisters."
"Repeat after me—"
He lifted the worn Seven-Pointed Star and began to chant.
"Born in sin, the world our cage.
Suffering tempers, purifies the soul.
Piety redeems, washes away the filth.
Doubt betrays, condemns to endless flame.
The Seven watch, their mercy falls like rain.
Kneel and receive—only then are you freed."
The crowd joined in. At first the words were ragged, then they smoothed out, growing louder, wilder, more fervent with every line.
Corleone watched the mass hypnosis with zero emotion. He almost wanted to laugh.
He wasn't sure if the Sparrow wrote this crap himself, but the message was clear: everyone's born sinful, life's suffering is a test, the pious get rewarded, doubters burn forever.
Still… goddamn, it was clunky. Not even close to smooth.
"Real fucking awkward," he muttered. "At least the old 'I pity the people, their suffering is great' line had some poetry to it."
After about fifteen minutes the Sparrow raised his hand. The chanting cut off instantly.
"The Seven have heard you," he said, and for the first time a faint smile touched his lips—gentle, full of fake compassion, yet somehow creepy as hell. "Now let us share their blessing together."
The cloths were yanked off the barrels.
One was full of black bread cut into uneven chunks. The other held a steaming dark-brown liquid. No guessing what that was.
Under hundreds of burning stares, the distribution began.
Protectors kept order while people lined up.
Each person had to bow to the Sparrow, say "Thank you for the Seven's grace," then wait while an assistant asked the protectors how devout they'd been before deciding how big a "blessing" they got.
Everyone received bread—no matter what.
But how hard they'd prayed and chanted decided whether it was a decent piece or a pitiful scrap.
Anyone who glanced too long at the medicine barrel got shouted at and shoved aside. Only the "truly penitent" earned the holy broth.
The first to receive it was old Martha. She practically snatched the wooden bowl and gulped the brown sludge down in one go.
Seconds later the anxious lines on her face smoothed out. A vacant, empty smile curved her lips.
She staggered back into the crowd, eyes glassy, like she'd already left this miserable world and found true redemption.
Then, one by one, the rest followed.
Corleone counted, analyzed, calculated.
Far fewer people were getting the medicine than Rorge had reported. Either they were low on ingredients… or they were running out of coin.
The line kept moving.
Then a woman stepped forward.
Around thirty, worn-out but still strikingly beautiful. She carried a five- or six-year-old girl whose face was deathly pale—clearly very sick.
Unlike the others, the woman didn't reach for bread. She dropped to her knees in front of the Sparrow, clutching the child.
"Please, holy brother, save my daughter! She's had a fever for three days. Several maesters said there's nothing they can do. I heard the Seven's servant here can—"
"I am no lord, sister," the Sparrow interrupted gently, opening his half-closed eyes.
He didn't treat the girl. Instead he studied the mother, then let his gaze linger on her clothes.
"That dress is fine cloth."
"Poor sisters of Flea Bottom cannot afford such things."
The woman froze. She looked up at him helplessly, but the Sparrow continued in the same mild tone: "You are a whore, are you not?"
Not a question. A calm statement of fact.
Every eye in the square swung toward her. Several women glared with open disgust, though a few hid envious glances at the dress. Men stared openly, not at the fabric but at what lay beneath it.
Sympathy? Almost none.
Under all those stares the woman trembled, finally lowered her head, and bit her lip. "Yes… I am."
"Shame!" the assistant beside the Sparrow bellowed without warning. "Trading your body for gold dragons, using the organs the gods gave you for profane acts!"
"Every transaction piles sin upon sin!"
"Shame!"
"Whore!"
"Get out of here!"
At his lead the crowd exploded into chaotic condemnation.
They finally had someone to blame for their own misery. They poured every ounce of rage onto the unclean prostitute.
"I… I needed the money!" the woman cried, desperate. "My husband is dead. My daughter needs food!"
"So you feed her on sin?" the assistant's voice rose sharply. He jabbed a finger at the little girl. "Look at her!"
"This is divine justice. The Seven will never bless a child raised on filthy coin!"
His words sounded reasonable. The crowd's accusations grew even fiercer.
They'd found the perfect explanation for the girl's sickness—her mother's "sin."
Only Corleone quietly studied the child's symptoms: rapid breathing, sunken spaces between the ribs—classic severe respiratory infection, probably already pneumonia. In a world without antibiotics the death rate was over sixty percent.
But no one here was thinking rationally. They were certain the whore-mother's wickedness had brought the gods' punishment down on her daughter.
"Get out!"
"This place doesn't shelter whores!"
"Your sin has poisoned her soul!"
They screamed, eyes bloodshot, faces twisted with ecstatic fury.
The woman began to cry, shoulders shaking violently.
She didn't argue. She only clutched her daughter tighter—the one pure thing she still had left, now declared "corrupted" because of her.
"The Seven… are merciful!"
Just as the mob reached its furious peak, the Sparrow's voice cut through the noise.
Instant silence. Everyone shut up, waiting to hear how the living embodiment of the gods would judge her.
He stepped down slowly, stopped in front of the woman, and laid a hand on her head with an expression of pure, otherworldly piety.
"Sickness is only the surface. The true disease festers in your fall from grace and flows through the tainted blood in her veins."
"But… if you repent with a sincere heart and accept purification, grace may still descend."
The woman's head snapped up, eyes shining with sudden desperate hope. "I repent!" she cried. "I'll do anything—just make my little Lisa well again…"
At those words the assistant's mouth twitched upward in the tiniest smirk—almost invisible.
Almost.
Corleone saw it perfectly.
"Then prove your devotion," the Sparrow said, patting her head. "Confess your sins before the Seven and all your brothers and sisters."
"Completely… without holding anything back."