GOT : All Left Behind

"Clean their wounds, replace their bandages, and behold their loyalty." ​

Officially, the place was called The Charitable House of the Mother and the Maiden at the Fleabottom Market Square. To everyone who was not one of the septons or septas running the place, it was the potshop between the Rising Drake and Dirty Dick's.

Karl was of the latter group.

Now, both the Rising Drake and Dirty Dick's served food as well as drink. But the Drake didn't make it a priority. And while the nice drink was good and all, and the prices were something he could afford once a week if work was good, the food wasn't worth it.

And Dirty Dick's had earned its name. In more ways than one.

No, the potshop was the best place to get a bowl of something filling after an honest day's work. There were other potshops around the city. They were nearly everywhere, to be entirely honest. The one on the corner of Flea Alley and Hill Street. The one on the western side of the Fleabottom market. A half dozen others each catering to the poorest in the city.

But as Karl walked into this potshop after a long day of helping the mason's guild haul stone for the latest of the queer towers rising into the skies from Fleabottom, he got something he got nowhere else in the city.

After a short wait to receive a bowl of stew, a chunk of bread, and a cup of wine watered down so heavily to be more accurately called wined water, the septas gave him the reminder of why he bothered with this place instead of any of the others:

A smile.

An honest to the Seven smile.

No hidden malice, no enjoyment of some sick kind of power, no pity at his misfortune, just a smile.

Karl did not know the names of the Septa. He did not know what they thought, what they liked, what they got from serving a bowl of brown to all who came. All he knew was that these ones did so with a smile. It was not about him, not for anything he did. Karl had done nothing to earn the smile.

This septa just liked to smile.

And so Karl liked to come.

"The lover joins us once again," Ben the Beggar announced to the table as Karl took his customary seat. The man was dressed in his usual rags, as filthy as the rest of him. Calling him Brown Ben would have been just as accurate, but some might mistake the brown for the mark of the sun after long days of work.

Ben was not that kind of man.

No, he was a beggar at heart.

A generous beggar, but that was why he remained a beggar.

"The honest man, you mean," Karl answered as he settled into his seat. "Fresh from work."

"Fresh is not what I could call you," Will commented from beside him making an act of scooting away from him. The dyer's apprentice was everything Ben was not. Colorful from his work where the beggar was drab. Young where the beggar was old. Wise with his coin where the beggar would buy a round for complete strangers. "I could smell you as soon as you walked in."

"Not all of us have the luxury of working indoors," Karl mentioned, stirring his stew with a wooden spoon. It seemed thicker than usual. Mayhaps some fat had found its way into the big pot for a change. That would be something, fatty rat meat. "You should consider it. The Prince's projects always need workers."

If the rumors he had heard at the scaffolding had been true, there might yet be a fourth tower putting up scaffolding above Flea Bottom before the year was out. They were nice places to live, those towers. Better than the slums. At least the towers were less likely to collapse around your head after a strong wind.

"Some of us like our work to not reduce us to clouds of stench," Will said in turn, giving his usual answer but without his usual spirit. Instead, it was the stew that had his attention.

Karl looked to Ben, who shrugged.

"Bit too old to haul stone and timber," the man gave his usual answer, stirring his stew. Not devouring as was his wont, not even eating, just stirring.

Something was afoot.

The boy brought a suspiciously small spoonful of the stew to his mouth. Only broth, Karl noted. "Try the stew, Karl. You'll see." The tanner's apprentice must have noticed his gaze.

"What is it today?" he asked, fishing a small chunk of meat out from in-between the vegetables. It was bigger than usual, too big to be from rat or cat. Mayhaps even too big to be from dog, too. Was it a rare horse day?

"Try it," Will insisted.

"Try it," Ben echoed the boy.

With a mental shrug, Karl brought the spoon to his mouth and bit down.

And felt the meat yield.

None of the toughness of horse.

None of the blandness of rat or pigeon.

None of the dryness of salt pork.

This was juicy, this was flavorful, this was…

"… beef," Karl said, not believing his mind. He had not had beef since… he could not remember when. Since the last public feast at least, when His Grace the King celebrated… something more than ten years ago. Even if he could not remember what was celebrated, he remembered the taste and feel of beef. "This is beef. How?"

His eyes wide, Karl turned to the Smiling Septa that had served him. She paid no mind to him, of course. She just stood there, with that gentle smile plastered on her face.

"If I could have your attention, please!" the bright voice of the Smiling Septa was just barely audible. None could hear her outside of the closest rows, outside of where Karl and his fellows were eating.

They shared a glance, all three men coming to a silent agreement, and downed their drinks. It would have been a shame to waste them, after all.

Once their cups were empty, they brought them down on the table. And again. And again. All around them, the tables joined in until the chorus of cups upon wooden tables drowned out the conversation and forced it to subside.

"Thank you," the Smiling Septa sent a smile more beaming than usual to their table. Even as he knew he would regret having quaffed the drink like it had been ale, he could not find it in himself to care right then. "Some of you may have noticed we have been able to provide some better meat than usual. You see, Prince Vaegon Targaryen and Princess Maegelle Targaryen were kind enough to donate a substantial sum to the Motherhouses and Septs of King's Landing. From now until seven days after the wedding of Princess Saera and Ser Braxton Beesbury, you can expect us to serve food of similar quality."

Seven bless those two.

And the betrothed.

Bless that whole family, in fact.

"I may need to start visiting the sept more often," Karl declared, eating only a tiny spoonful of his meal. Gods, it even seemed to taste better than before! "To give proper thanks."

"Why bother with the sept?" Will asked. "The Targaryens paid for it, not the Seven."

"Well, I can hardly thank them in person, now, can I?" Karl asked in turn. By the second spoonful, with the heat of the stew dancing across his tongue, he was beginning to lament having emptied his cup so quickly. Mayhaps the watered wine would have tasted better, too.

Before their conversation could meander too much, the doors to the pot shop swung open once more. Only instead of a familiar pack of sweat-soaked laborers fresh from work or emaciated beggars fresh from the streets, it was a group of strangers.

Their faces were sun-beaten, their clothes light, suggesting that they too were people who did honest work. But unlike the others in the potshop, they moved with less confidence. Like they were new, like they were not yet sure of themselves.

Strangers, Karl realized. Men from out of town. Half a score of them.

It was with hesitance that they moved, grabbing their cups and bowls from the Smiling Septa, reaching for coin purses as though they were expecting to pay. The septa said something, and the men looked between one another in confusion. Yes, these were foreign men indeed.

They shuffled off as one large group. But the tables were too small to host them all. Besides, none of the tables were empty. By some freak coincidence, the largest group, three of them, settled for Karl's table.

"Hail, friends," Karl greeted the new arrivals as they sat down. They shared a look, one Karl could not read, before one of their number spoke.

"Hail, friend." The man, with his sun-beaten skin and dark hair, spoke with an accent Karl had never heard before. Simultaneously lilting and rough, it absolutely solidified the man's identity as a man not from King's Landing.

No doubt he was just an Essosi looking for a bite to eat who got lost wandering the city.

No doubt.

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