Stepping over the rotting wooden threshold, Yoriichi's senses immediately went to work, dissecting every detail of the hovel.
The interior was starkly different from what the crumbling mud-brick exterior suggested. While it was undeniably impoverished—the walls were bare, and a draft leaked through the thatched roof—it was surprisingly clean.
There was no scattered refuse, no empty ale skins, and none of the sour, unwashed stench that clung to the rest of Flea Bottom. The hard-packed dirt floor had been swept smooth, and a single, sputtering tallow candle provided a meager, flickering warmth in the center of the small room.
In the far corner, lying on a woven straw mat and covered by a patched but clean woolen blanket, were two children. A boy and a girl, likely no older than eleven or twelve years of age.
Yoriichi's deep burgundy eyes swept over them, observing them quietly in the flickering dim light. He noted the soot smudged on their pale cheeks, the frailness of their small limbs, and the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of their chests beneath the thin blanket. Their breathing was deep and even, the heavy, undeniable slumber of normal children thoroughly exhausted by the day's labor.
They were undeniably human.
"Please, my lord, sit," the man whispered, his raspy voice trembling slightly with a mixture of awe and fear. He gestured nervously to the only piece of furniture in the room—a rickety, splintered wooden chair near a small stone hearth that held the dying embers of a fire. "It is not fit for a man of your standing, but it is all I have."
Yoriichi looked at the fragile chair, and then at the man. He gently shook his head.
"The floor is fine," Yoriichi replied smoothly.
Moving with a silent, flowing grace that made the peasant blink in confusion, Yoriichi bypassed the chair entirely. He lowered himself onto the swept dirt floor, folding his legs into a perfect, grounded meditative posture. He rested his hands lightly on his knees, his Valyrian steel katana resting securely at his left hip.
The man swallowed hard, clearly unnerved by the strange, imposing youth wrapped in black fabric, but he mirrored the action, sitting awkwardly on a small wooden crate opposite the hearth.
Yoriichi closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, drawing in a slow, calculated breath through his nose. Haaah...
The scent was still here. It was incredibly thick, clinging to the very air of the room like an invisible, suffocating fog. The raw, metallic tang of copper mixed with that sweet, sickening rot of ancient blood.
Yet, as Yoriichi focused his sharp senses, his brow furrowed beneath his mask. He could not pinpoint the exact source. Normally, his nose could track a drop of blood to a specific blade, or a waft of perfume to a specific lady in the Red Keep's gardens. But this predatory scent was entirely ambient. It lacked a physical epicenter.
Is the creature hiding beneath the floorboards? Yoriichi pondered silently, his mind racing through tactical possibilities. Or did it pass through this room earlier, leaving its foul stench behind before slipping away into the night?
He opened his eyes, fixing his intense, unblinking gaze on the nervous man sitting across from him.
"Mister," Yoriichi began, his tone polite but carrying an edge of undeniable authority. "Did someone visit this house recently? Have you witnessed anything strange in these alleys tonight?"
The man blinked, looking genuinely perplexed. He rubbed his calloused hands together nervously over his knees.
"No, sir," the man answered, his voice a hushed whisper so as not to wake the sleeping children. "It is just me and my kids here. We do not get visitors, especially not after dark. Honest folk in Flea Bottom lock their doors when the sun goes down."
Yoriichi tilted his head slightly. "And the mother of the children?"
A profound, heavy sadness passed over the man's face. His shoulders slumped, and he looked down at the dirt floor. "My wife... she passed to the Stranger five years ago. The Winter Fever took her. We didn't have the coin for a Maester, and the begging brothers' prayers did nothing. It has just been the three of us ever since."
Yoriichi analyzed the man's demeanor, his micro-expressions, the nervous wringing of his hands. The sorrow seemed entirely genuine. It was the crushing, mundane tragedy of the smallfolk that played out a thousand times a day in the shadows of the capital.
"I run a small fruit and vegetable stall near the Street of Flour," the man continued, offering a weak, self-deprecating smile. "The kids help me haul the carts and sort the bruised apples from the good ones. We keep our heads down, pay our coppers to the gang bosses so they leave us be, and try to survive. That is all I can tell you, my lord. Are you... are you looking for someone dangerous?"
Yoriichi did not answer the question immediately. He focused on the air again.
"Do you not smell it?" Yoriichi pressed gently. "Something strange. Like raw metal, or old copper. Exclude the scent of the nearby smithies."
The man frowned deeply. He lifted his head, taking several loud, exaggerated sniffs of the stagnant air in the hovel. He looked around the room, clearly trying to be helpful to the wealthy, terrifying stranger who had just handed him a silver stag.
After a few moments, the man shook his head apologetically.
"I smell nothing out of the ordinary, sir," the man replied. "Just the damp mud, the smoke from the hearth, and the usual stink of the alleys. I am sorry I cannot be of more help."
The man hesitated for a moment, his eyes darting to the heavy, clean fabric of Yoriichi's cloak and the crimson-wrapped hilt of the sword resting at his hip. The sheer quality of the materials was astronomical compared to anything in the slums.
"If I may be so bold, sir..." the man asked tentatively, leaning forward a fraction of an inch. "From your fine clothes and your perfect, straight posture... do you work for the nobles up on Aegon's High Hill? Perhaps a shadow guard for a great lord? I bet it is a real blessing to eat warm food every night and sleep behind high stone walls."
Yoriichi maintained his stoic expression. He had no intention of revealing he was the second prince of the realm to a random commoner in the dead of night.
"Hm... you can tell that," Yoriichi replied vaguely, offering neither confirmation nor denial.
A tense, heavy silence fell over the small room. The only sounds were the crackling of the dying embers, the soft breathing of the children, and the distant, muffled shouts of drunkards wandering the main thoroughfares of Flea Bottom.