In the quiet of the late night, after midnight, the round moon hung high in the sky.
Near the edge of Flea Bottom, a drunkard in a dark blue robe, his face smeared with grime, staggered down the street.
The stench of alcohol clinging to him could be smelled from far away. The Gold Cloaks who occasionally patrolled past frowned and kept well clear of him.
Two Flea Bottom paupers hiding in the dark saw the drunken sheep wander out of the Gold Cloaks' sight. They hurried over, grabbed him from either side, and dragged him into a shadowy alley.
After all, to Flea Bottom's poor, everything he had was worth something—even the body they could turn into brown stew.
The surprising thing was that a few minutes later, the drunkard staggered back onto the street. Perhaps the two "kindhearted" paupers had accidentally fallen asleep!
When the drunkard staggered up to a small house whose door bore a coat of arms depicting "a golden coin on a checkered field," he immediately sprang into action, darting nimbly around to the back of the house.
The drunkard was Robb, who had learned disguise from Varys. This dilapidated, two-story house belonged to the royal executioner, Ilyn Payne.
The house had doors and windows at both the front and the back. Once Robb reached the rear, he tried the door and the windows. As expected, they were firmly shut.
That made sense. On the edge of Flea Bottom, if you didn't lock up properly at night, you might not be around by morning.
He took a short dagger from inside his robe and began prying at the dilapidated window frame.
Click!
With a soft crack, Robb pried off a strip of wood from the battered frame. He steadied the loosened window and listened for