Leaving the stone bridge, Aegon led his guards through a quiet gate and back into King's Landing.
He avoided the shortcut through the heart of Flea Bottom, taking the relatively clean streets instead.
But returning to the Red Keep meant passing the edge of Visenya's Hill.
It was still not far from Flea Bottom.
The sun was nearly overhead.
Its light carried a warmth, but also exposed more of the filth lurking in the corners of the streets.
As they passed through a narrow alley called the Dancing Corridor, the sound of children playing reached him.
Aegon spotted the little girl he had seen earlier in Flea Bottom.
Several children in equally ragged clothes surrounded her now, her face bright with excitement and a little pride.
The pearl hair ornament Margaery had given her gleamed in her dry, yellowed hair.
The children chased her, reaching out to touch it. She dodged nimbly, giggling.
It was a rare moment of childhood joy for her in Flea Bottom.
Aegon's gaze did not linger on that happiness.
He looked toward the shadows of the alley, the corners of the walls, and the half-open doors, where several greedy gazes rested on the pearl.
An old beggar slumped beside the sewage stared fixedly with clouded eyes; a vagrant leaning against a wall wore a leering grin; faces in the darkness watched like vultures.
Margaery Tyrell might have genuinely wanted to show kindness, or perhaps she had been cultivating her image, but she was still a flower raised in Highgarden's most sheltered greenhouse.
She could see poverty on the surface and offer charity, but she might not perceive the naked darkness and bestial cruelty beneath that mire, ready to swallow a person at any moment.
She had placed an ornament worth a fortune in Flea Bottom