Early the next morning, in the Red Keep at King's Landing.
When the first ray of morning sunlight crested the waves of Blackwater Bay, passed through the Red Keep's high windows, and fell upon the bald head of Earl Lyonel Strong, the Hand of the King.
Anxiety had already set his heart ablaze.
He walked so quickly that the attendants behind him had to jog to keep up, their boots striking the flagstones in a rapid rhythm like war drums.
He had not actually needed to come to the Red Keep so early today.
Yesterday, he had finally enjoyed another rare night of rest in the house he had bought in King's Landing, rather than sleeping in the Red Keep. There had been no mountains of paperwork, no endless arguments in the Small Council. For once, he had even slept through the night.
Had his eldest son Harwin not come "battering" at his bedroom door before dawn, he would probably still have been lying in bed, listening to the sparrows chirping outside and enjoying that rare moment of leisure.
But his "fool of a son," Harwin, had come.
And he had stood beside his bed with a sheepish expression Lyonel had never seen on his face before.
It reminded him of the students he had seen during his studies at the Citadel, made to stand as punishment by the maesters after doing something wrong.
It had still been dark then, the light outside the window a grayish blue on the verge of dawn, like old linen washed too many times.
On this rare occasion when he had returned from the Red Keep to rest in his own house in King's Landing, he had intended to sleep until the afternoon his dear friend Viserys had "graciously permitted" him, wiping away all