Chapter 114: Shae's Disappearance
There was no time to seek out the Queen Regent for amusement—Podrick had matters to attend to.
After sending someone to inquire, he learned of Tyrion Lannister's whereabouts from the steward.
"Lord Payne," the man reported, "before dawn, the Hand of the King led his wildlings toward Flea Bottom."
"Flea Bottom?" Podrick frowned, puzzled. He turned his gaze back to the steward. "Did Lord Tyrion rest in the Hand's Tower last night?"
The steward knew little about the Hand's private affairs, but this much he remembered clearly.
It had been him, after all, who personally ordered the gates opened the night before, letting the Hand and his mercenary captain into the castle. Not long after, he had watched that same group—wildlings holding torches and shouting as they went—follow the Hand of the King, his shadowcat cloak rippling behind him, back out again.
Even from the Red Keep's battlements, one could see the bright line of fire like a crawling dragon, stretching toward Flea Bottom before vanishing into it.
The answer only deepened Podrick's confusion.
What kind of trouble required Tyrion to act without notifying him—or worse, deliberately keeping him in the dark—and to personally lead men to deal with it?
Podrick clicked his tongue, brows drawn together, then turned and issued an order.
"Have a horse saddled. I'm going to take a look."
Before long, Podrick was astride a chestnut warhorse, a plain bastard sword hanging at his waist. He rode down Aegon's High Hill at a steady pace, heading toward Flea Bottom—
—or, more precisely, toward Shae's house.
The chestnut horse carried Podrick—clad in close-fitting, liver-red leather—through narrow alleys and between tightly packed buildings.
From the saddle, he showed no sign of urgency. If anything, he looked like a man out for a casual ride.
His pace was unhurried. He turned left, then right, as if uncertain of the way—almost like someone lost.
But beneath that calm exterior, his thoughts were racing.
At present, Podrick could think of only one person capable of threatening Tyrion so quietly, so precisely, that the Hand would feel compelled to act—and to do so alone.
Only one man had both the ability and subtlety to pull it off.
Varys.
Littlefinger, at best, could disgust or irritate Tyrion. Threatening him? Forcing his hand?
A fantasy.
Especially now—when the former Master of Coin was rotting in a lightless cell, watched constantly to ensure nothing happened to him.
As for the elderly Grand Maester, he was likewise confined, with nothing to do but curse his fate in boredom.
"Tch… if it really was Varys," Podrick muttered, "what does he gain from this?"
"If he's truly as clever as people say, he should be as far from this mess as possible by now. Back to Pentos, perhaps—or stirring trouble elsewhere in Westeros. Anything would be better than staying in King's Landing."
The more Podrick thought, the less sense it made. Every line of reasoning seemed to vanish into fog, obscuring whatever truth lay ahead.
"But no matter what," he concluded, "this has to involve Shae."
"And if it involves Shae, then the eunuch's schemes are never far behind."
Since that incident, Shae's very existence had forced Tyrion to acknowledge an unpleasant truth: she could easily become a weapon in his enemies' hands.
The dwarf went to great lengths to keep Shae hidden and safe—even though Varys had discovered her presence not long after Tyrion's arrival in King's Landing.
After that, the eunuch had repeatedly and quite deliberately helped facilitate their trysts.
With Varys's assistance, Tyrion would pretend to visit Alayaya at Chataya's brothel, only to slip away through a hidden tunnel beneath the Hill of Rhaenys, quietly making his way to the house where Shae was concealed.
And so, just as in the original course of events, Shae ended up living in a residence near the Iron Gate.
Tyrion installed her there with servants, silks, gold, and jewels.
This time, having learned his lesson, he avoided the mistake of stationing his mountain clansmen openly as guards.
Instead, he chose a group of ugly, unremarkable sellswords: a slack-eyed Braavosi assassin with a harelip, a eunuch killer, and two foul-smelling Ibbenese.
Podrick knew the location, of course. Tyrion had never tried to hide it from him.
Back on the Green Fork, when Bronn first brought Shae to Tyrion, Podrick—sleeping in the same quarters as both servant and attendant—had been rudely awakened by the sounds of their lovemaking.
After that came a long chain of messy, damned complications.
Podrick had never involved himself in their relationship, nor had he offered advice.
There was no point.
You can't teach a person through words—only through consequences.
But Podrick also knew that knowledge of Shae's residence wasn't limited to Tyrion's inner circle.
Varys knew as well.
That spider knew exactly where the dwarf's weakness lay.
After wandering for over an hour through twisting streets, Podrick finally arrived.
The residence—usually modest but lived-in—now radiated the desolation of abandonment.
Podrick's expression shifted into one of quiet confirmation.
He dismounted, leading his horse into the courtyard.
The moment he stepped inside, he noticed the signs.
The courtyard was a mess. A stone pedestal lay snapped in two, lamp oil spilled everywhere. Flowers were trampled, uprooted, or broken, pressed into the mud underfoot.
He tied his horse to the fallen column and entered the house.
Inside, the damage continued.
Decorative ceramic vases lay shattered across the floor. Tables and chairs were overturned—one table reduced to two remaining legs, stools smashed into splinters.
Paintings had been ripped from the walls, frames snapped clean in half. One oil painting was torn open, part of it missing, the canvas backing exposed.
Farther in, the chaos lessened—but the rugs were stained with darkened, oxidized blood.
Most telling of all was the bedchamber.
The curtains of the central canopied bed had been ripped apart, half hanging limply, half tangled on the floor. The silk sheets were gone. Feather pillows had burst open, white and brown down drifting everywhere.
And cutting through the scattered feathers was a clear trail—leading out of the room.
From the moment he entered, Podrick had also noticed something else.
Valuables were missing.
"It looks like a burglary," he murmured.
"If I didn't know that Tyrion personally selected those guards—and that Bronn vetted them himself…"
There was blood, but no bodies.
That meant the attackers hadn't come to kill Shae.
They'd taken her.
Which raised the question: how had they done it, why, and to what end?
And where had they taken her?
The courtyard had clearly seen the heaviest fighting—suggesting the largest number of attackers there.
Inside, however, everything felt… deliberate.
The traces were easy to read.
Too easy.
Almost as if they'd been left on purpose.
Left for someone.
There were no signs of prolonged struggle indoors, no indication of a botched execution.
The attackers had overwhelming superiority.
So again—the same question.
What was the purpose?
Threats?
Negotiation?
Or had Shae simply been unlucky, targeted by desperate rioters?
That last option didn't hold up.
Food mattered more than coin to the starving masses—and yet plates of fresh fruit still sat untouched on the bedroom table.
Was beauty more tempting than bread?
…Not impossible.
But Shae was hardly the kind of woman who sparked wars.
That distinction belonged, in recent decades, to only one woman—Lyanna Stark—and not even because of beauty alone.
Podrick clicked his tongue.
"This is getting interesting."
"If Varys orchestrated this… why?"
"To throw the city into deeper chaos?"
"To burn it all down—using nothing but a dwarf's favorite whore?"
"Or is he merely a catalyst? A coincidence?"
"Or does he actually think this will clear his name—buying his way back through negotiation with Tyrion?"
Podrick glanced once more at the untouched fruit, then rubbed his chin, intrigued.
He turned back toward the courtyard—
And paused.
The kitchen was in even worse shape.
The doorframe had been torn out entirely.
And from inside… came movement.
"Rats? Or a cat?"
Letting go of the horse, Podrick rested a hand on the steel pommel of his sword and moved quietly toward the kitchen.
What he found was neither rat nor cat.
It was a child.
A filthy child with tangled black hair like dead weeds, rummaging through the wreckage.
The child's clothes were in tatters. One foot was bare. Bruises mottled dirty arms. Gender was impossible to tell.
They crouched among shattered bowls, scraping bits of cheese from broken plates with a stick.
They didn't hear him.
"Looking for food?"
The sudden voice startled the child.
They screamed and lunged forward—
Straight toward a pile of razor-sharp shards.
Before the fall could happen, Podrick seized the child midair, lifting them effortlessly and setting them down in a safer spot.
The stick was still clutched tightly in the child's hand, smeared with cheese and saliva.
So that answered the question.
The child had found almost nothing.
Realizing who stood before them—a well-dressed noble with blade and dagger—the child went pale.
"Milord—I—I wasn't stealing! I—"
Then began to sob.
"Please… please spare me. I didn't steal anything. My mother and sister are waiting—I have to go back. She's sick…"
The words struck Podrick harder than expected.
The fear in the child's face twisted something inside him.
For a fleeting moment—
He saw a woman hanging from a wooden frame, like dried meat.
Her lips gone, pecked away by crows.
Her teeth exposed, red and raw.
The innkeeper's wife.
And the moment passed.