Chapter 91 — Killing the Body, Breaking the Heart
The next day.
Fishmonger's Square lay close to Mud Gate, some distance from the heart of Flea Bottom—but hunger and sickness cared little for distance.
Before dawn had fully broken, people began spilling out of the shacks and narrow alleys of Flea Bottom.
They were dressed in rags, faces sallow and waxy, eyes dull and hollow. Step by dragging step, they moved toward Fishmonger's Square like marionettes pulled by invisible strings.
"Hurry up, Uncle!"
A boy of twelve or thirteen trotted ahead, leading the way.
His left leg was grotesquely twisted, hanging uselessly from the joint—yet he seemed not to feel pain at all. His shoulders rose and fell unevenly as he walked, but his pace was quick. He kept turning back, waving impatiently at those behind him.
"If we're late, we won't get a spot near the front! The bread will be smaller!"
There was an unnatural excitement on the boy's face. His eyes were far too bright—classic signs of prolonged exposure to hallucinogens.
This was Little Tommy, the dockworker's son. After breaking his leg, he had endured five days of "tests" before the priest finally granted him "treatment."
Odin nodded quietly and motioned for Iggo to stay close.
They wore the same rough cloth as the others, soot smeared across their faces. Apart from their slightly straighter posture, they blended seamlessly into the crowd.
Two to three hundred people moved together through the morning mist, winding forward like a sickened serpent crawling back toward its lair.
Footsteps. Coughing. Low murmurs.
All of it mixed into a foul stench that hung thick in the air.
The smell of sickness.
The smell of rot.
The smell called poverty.
"You're angry, blood of my blood."
Iggo walked close behind Odin. After a long silence, he finally spoke in a low voice.
"I felt it yesterday—when you smashed the table."
He frowned, genuinely puzzled.
"Why spend so much effort? So many gold dragons? All for one old man?"
"If you'd let me handle it, I could bring you his head tonight."
Odin didn't answer immediately.
He kept walking, eyes fixed ahead, following the slow, limping procession as it crept toward Fishmonger's Square—toward faith, poison, and false salvation.
Because some enemies weren't meant to be killed quickly.
Some had to be undone, piece by piece—until even their beliefs turned against them.
Faced with Iggo's question, Odin did not answer at once.
His gaze swept across the people moving beside them.
A young mother clutched a crying infant. Perhaps her milk had dried up— the baby's cries were weak, hoarse, barely carrying.
A man with a severed arm stumbled forward. The filthy rag wrapped around the stump had turned black, oozing pus and reeking of rot.
And there was little Tommy again—his twisted leg dragging, yet still pushing himself onward.
These people's eyes were empty, their steps unsteady, yet every one of them moved in the same direction.
Because they believed—or forced themselves to believe—that hope waited there.
After a moment, he spoke.
"In the place I come from,"
Odin finally said,
"there is a kind of sin considered the most unforgivable of all."
"What kind of sin?" Iggo asked.
"Profiting from the suffering of others," Odin replied calmly.
"Steal a poor man's coin, and you're a thief."
"But give poison bread to someone who's starving, then tell him it's 'the gods' blessing'—that is a crime against existence itself."
"Tywin wants power. Petyr wants chaos. They're both playing games—dirty, bloody ones—but at least their prices are clear."
"But that fraud playing at holiness…"
Odin's voice hardened.
"What he sells is false hope."
"And false hope is crueler than honest despair."
"He gives lime-mixed bread to the hungry. Life-prolonging poison to the sick. Then tells them it's 'divine grace.'"
"He makes mothers kneel for half a moldy loaf. Fathers smash their foreheads bloody to 'prove devotion' so their children might live."
"He lets a boy with a broken leg burn with fever for five days—then makes him weep with gratitude when he's finally handed a bowl of hallucinogenic broth."
He paused, then repeated coldly:
"False hope is crueler than real despair."
Iggo fell silent.
He didn't fully understand—but he understood enough.
The Dothraki revered strength and accepted brutal survival. But they despised tricks like this—this kind of rotting magic.
"You want to save them?" Iggo asked.
"They're just weeds on the plains. Cut them down and they'll grow back."
"They are people," Odin corrected.
Seeing the confusion still lingering in Iggo's eyes, he sighed and put it differently:
"Fine. Then think of it this way—they're my property."
"And when I protect what's mine, I give it a choice."
"Kneel and eat poison… or stand and eat clean bread."
"The choice is theirs."
He looked ahead. Through the thinning mist, the square was coming into view.
"And besides," he added softly,
"killing that old bastard outright would be letting him off too easily."
"One clean strike and he becomes a martyr. His followers would swear he was slain by devils—and their madness would only deepen."
"What I want…"
His eyes darkened.
"…is to kill the body and destroy the heart."
"Kill the body and destroy the heart?" Iggo frowned—then nodded hard.
"I understand!"
Do you?
Odin glanced at him, unsure what this illiterate warrior truly grasped.
By now, Fishmonger's Square lay before them.
At its center stood a crude platform—planks and old barrels lashed together, waist-high. Upon it lay nothing but a smooth, polished stone.
Three to four hundred people had already gathered.
The innermost ring—thirty or forty men and women—stood closest to the platform. Their clothes were cleaner, their expressions solemn, their posture rigid. Their eyes burned with zeal.
Odin noticed the bulges beneath their sleeves.
Clubs. Batons. Weapons.
Enforcers of the faith.
The middle ring—over a hundred people—knelt.
Hands clasped. Foreheads pressed to the ground. Reverent, submissive.
They had passed the first "trials." They had tasted "divine grace."
Little Tommy was among them.
The outer ring—the largest—stood or squatted uneasily.
Their eyes held confusion, hunger, and pain. They waited only for food and medicine.
Hundreds of people packed together—yet the square was eerily silent.
No chatter. No shouting.
An invisible discipline weighed down the air—stricter than even the famously ironclad Lannister ranks.
Odin and Iggo slipped into the edge of the outer ring, choosing a spot with a clear view and little attention.
Sunlight pierced the mist.
Soon, a ripple ran through the inner circle.
The enforcers dropped to one knee in perfect unison, heads bowed.
A figure emerged slowly from a squat chapel on the eastern edge of the square.
Tall. Gaunt. Gray-haired.
He wore a coarse robe, washed nearly white with age and patched countless times.
His face was deeply lined—clearly an old man—but his eyes were sharp, alert, unsettlingly alive.
"He really does look like a sparrow," Odin muttered.
Iggo smacked his lips.
"I don't like sparrows. Tough meat."
The High Sparrow walked slowly, each step measured, deliberate.
He looked at no one.
Reaching the platform, he turned toward the rising sun and bowed deeply.
Then he raised his calloused hands, palms up, in a gesture of receiving divine dew.
"Gods, he really commits to the act," Odin muttered.
But the crowd ate it up.
Every gaze locked onto him. The fervor thickened.
Stepping onto the platform, the High Sparrow drew out a battered, carefully preserved book.
Odin's Insight Lv.3 caught it instantly.
—The Seven-Pointed Star.
He also noticed how the Sparrow's gaze lingered, again and again, on specific people in the crowd.
All of them sick.
"Brothers and sisters."
At last, the Sparrow spoke.
The enforcers answered at once:
"We are listening, High Sparrow."
He nodded and opened the holy book.
"Today, we read from the Book of Teachings, Chapter Seven."
His voice was calm, storytelling.
"The Father says: Blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled."
"The Mother says: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
He lifted his gaze.
"Are you hungry?"
"Are you mourning?"
"Hungry!" someone cried.
"Mourning!" more voices followed.
"Then you shall hear the gospel of the Seven!"
He snapped the book shut, his voice rising.
"For the Seven have seen your suffering!"
"The Father watches! The Mother weeps! The Warrior prepares to fight for you!"
The crowd stirred.
Some wept.
Some collapsed to their knees.
Some screamed in ecstasy.
And Odin—
Felt nothing but disgust.