Corleone returned to the Hall of Order as the sun reached its peak.
He walked at an unhurried pace from the Red Keep through Flea Bottom. The morning's Small Council meeting had felt like a long, careful dance of probing and testing limits. Now that it was over, he finally allowed his mind to go quiet, if only for a little while.
The streets were lively.
Vendors called out fresh bread. Hammers rang from the smithies. Children laughed as they chased a stray dog down an alley. Someone had set up a big pot on the side of the road, and the smell of simmering stew drifted through the air, rich and savory.
It smelled good.
The meager breakfast he'd eaten back at the Hall was long gone. From the moment the council meeting started until now, he had only managed a few sips of tea while Tywin and Olenna traded barbs. That thin brew had done nothing to fill him. Now the scent of meat and broth made his stomach growl.
He was halfway down the lane when Rolje appeared beside him, offering a paper-wrapped bundle. "Fresh from the oven, my lord. Still warm."
Corleone took it, tore off a piece, and bit in.
The crust cracked under his teeth with a satisfying sound. Steam rose from the soft white interior, carrying the clean, toasted scent of good wheat. In Flea Bottom these days, people could actually eat bread like this—soft, proper bread instead of the hard, gritty loaves that used to pass for food.
He tore the loaf in half and handed one piece to Rolje without a word.
They walked on in companionable silence until they reached the Hall. Corleone climbed the stairs to the third floor, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and pushed open the door to the infirmary.
Then he stopped.
Balman Byrch lay on the bed, shirtless, his broad, hairy chest wrapped in fresh bandages. Sitting right beside him was Prince Oberyn Martell.
Oberyn was also shirtless from the waist up, his own torso wrapped in linen from chest to waist. One hand rested on Balman's chest. The other had slid lower, fingers tracing the edge of the bandage around the older knight's lower back. The Dornishman's expression was one of pure, almost reverent fascination.
Balman stared straight up at the ceiling like a man praying for death.
Corleone stood in the doorway with half a mouthful of bread still unswallowed.
He had known Oberyn was... adventurous. But this?
Balman Byrch? The man was nearly fifty, weighed at least a hundred and fifty pounds, and currently looked like a beached whale with chest hair thick enough to house a family of sparrows.
And Oberyn was touching him like that?
Had the Red Viper gone so stir-crazy from being locked up that he was now desperate enough to go after this?
"I should probably leave," Corleone said, taking a careful step backward.
The room went dead silent.
Oberyn's hand froze. His dreamy expression shattered into pure panic. He yanked his hand back so fast he nearly fell off the stool.
"No—no, wait!" he yelped, voice cracking an octave higher than usual. "It's not what it looks like! I was just— I was appreciating the stitching! Your stitching! The needlework is exquisite!"
Balman made a low, strangled sound and tried to sink deeper into the mattress.
Oberyn, in a burst of desperate strength that should have been impossible for a man with his injuries, grabbed Balman by the shoulders and hauled the much heavier knight upright.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing at the wound on Balman's lower back. "Look at these stitches! The spacing! The tension! This isn't sewing, this is art!"
Balman groaned in pain.
Corleone stared.
"You have the same stitches on your own body," he pointed out dryly.
"That's different!" Oberyn insisted, still holding Balman up like a prize fish. "I was unconscious or half-dead when you worked on me. I didn't get to appreciate it properly. This is the first time I've been able to really study your technique!"
He finally let Balman drop back onto the bed. Both men winced.
Corleone shook his head and walked over to the bedside. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and without preamble tugged the thin blanket lower to check the bandages. A small fresh bloodstain had appeared near the lower back.
Oberyn's enthusiastic "appreciation" had clearly reopened the wound.
Corleone sighed, poured distilled alcohol onto a clean cloth, and pressed it to the injury without warning.
Balman's entire body went rigid. His fingers clenched the sheets until the knuckles turned white, but he didn't make a sound. He just turned his face into the pillow and breathed through it.
"I'm not asking about your wound," Corleone said calmly while he worked. "I'm asking how you are."
Balman didn't answer right away.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. "I killed my wife. I burned down the only home I've ever known. My mother-in-law is dead. My sister-in-law is an idiot who survived by sheer dumb luck because she went outside to shit in the middle of the night. And now I'm a murderer with no lands, no title, and no future."
He let out a short, bitter laugh that turned into a cough.
"Other than that? I'm fantastic."
Oberyn, now leaning against the windowsill with a cup of wine he definitely wasn't supposed to have, raised his cup in a mock toast.
"This is why I never marry," he said cheerfully. "You give a woman too much and she betrays you. You give her too little and she hates you. Either way, you lose."
He took a sip, ignoring the look Corleone gave him.
"I had a friend back in Dorne," Oberyn continued. "Married a beautiful woman. Built her a garden when she asked for one. Rode three days to buy her a pure white horse when she wanted that. Then she ran off with his captain of the guard and took half a year's taxes with her."
He spread his hands.
"Marriage. Never again. I'll take the children. Keep the wives out of it."
Balman closed his eyes.
Corleone finished rebandaging the wound in silence. When he was done, he leaned back in the chair and studied the two men.
One looked like he had already accepted that his life was over.
The other looked like he was trying very hard not to care about anything anymore.
"The good news," Corleone said at last, "is that I bought you some time."
Balman opened his eyes.
"You're getting a trial by combat," Corleone continued. "And you'll have to fight it yourself. But the good news is… we can delay it. For as long as I want."
Oberyn nearly choked on his wine.
"How the hell did you manage that?" he demanded.
Corleone didn't answer right away. He walked to the window and looked out over Flea Bottom. People were lining up at the bakeries. Gray-uniformed wardens kept order without raising their voices. The streets were clean. Children played.
He took a slow breath of the warm midday air.
Then he turned back to them, swirling the last of the wine in his cup.
"Because," he said, "I made Tywin Lannister an offer he couldn't refuse."