Chapter 193

When the feast ended the company dispersed. Domeric and Melisandre, who had been the evening’s chief spectacle, withdrew to a small chamber in the Tower of the Hand. A serving-girl set out tea and left at once.

It was meant to be a private negotiation. That, at least, had been Domeric’s thought. He had not expected Melisandre to show herself so openly at the feast and to deal the Faith of the Seven so public a slap. Now every man in the Seven Kingdoms would know that Stannis’s envoy, the red priestess, had come to King’s Landing. Might that not have been her true purpose all along?

Domeric gave no sign of the thought. He lifted the cup and sipped. The black tea of the Reach was the surest cure for wine.