A Maester in King's Landing

It was a hot Morning in King's Landing in the year 274 AC and for a man born and raised in the North it was a stifling weather. Longingly he thought back to Oldtown. There, at least, was the Citadel build for good temperature inside to protect the Books and Scrolls and the Breeze from the Sea brought always a fresh smell of Ocean and Salt and Seaweed and fish and fruits and Wine from the markets. Here in the City of the King, no breeze coming from the Backwater ever managed to get rid of the everything overlapping stink of shit and piss and sweat and overold fish and blood and Fear.

He had learned the Stink of Fear here, in King's Landing it was ever increasing but in the last couple of days it multiplied.
King Aerys, the second of his name, had the Wet Nurse of his son Jaehaerys beheaded after the boy died, not even a year old. The King that had seemed to get better and less mad when that boy was born, fell straight back into madness when the babe died. The Wet Nurse was only the first casualty of the ever growing madness of the violent and erratic King. Now it was whispered in the Streets of King's Landing that the Aerys suspected his latest mistress of being the one that was at fault for the young Prince's death and had her and her family brought into the Black Cells to be "questioned".

The Maester snorted and brought his thoughts back to the Patient he was just treating. This man of the City's Goldcloaks had deep scratches through his face after he and other Goldcloaks followed the Kings command and dragged the family of this mistress from their homes and brought them to the King's Keep. The Goldcloak liked to talk, telling of the torture of the unlucky mistress and her family and even of the Grandmaester Pycelle. The Maester stopped treating the deep scratch near the eye of the talkative Goldcloak.

"Are you just saying that the Grandmaester Pycelle is also in the Black Cells? Whatever for?"the Maester asked curiously.

The Goldcloak smirked with the unscratched side of his mouth and told that the mistress had admitted under torture that she and her family had killed the young Prince but that the poison was given to them by the Grandmaester Pycelle.

Maester Hother seriously doubted that the unlucky mistress or her family ever even planned anything like that, he remembered hearing in the Streets that the poor young woman had been really unhappy and afraid when the King had chosen her as latest mistress many months ago. He also doubted that Pycelle had anything to do with the death of little Jaehaerys. It was for a reason that the Old Gods and the New ones both had forbidden of brothers marrying sisters. Only few Targayens had ever understood that.

The Maester resumed his treatment of the Goldcloak silently while the man bragged away about being one of the men that made the Grandmaester scream and beg and that Pycelle tried to make them stop their torture of him by swearing that they all would be given loads of Gold by Lord Lannister. The Goldcloak chuckled while telling that. Maester Hother finished his work of cleaning all the scratches and sewing up the deeper ones and bid the still rambling Goldcloak to stand up from the Chair on which he was seated for the Goldcloak was still smiling and chuckling as he was even through the whole cleaning and sewing up. The Maester narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, he was seldom as generous with his milk-of-the-poppy as he was with this Goldcloak but it paid off with all the new information.

The Goldcloak happily paid the few Copper Coins that Maester Hother charged and promised to follow the instructions of not laughing too much as to not tear open the stitching and to clean his face with clear and boiled water and to smear the scratches with the salve he received from the Maester.

Maester Hother shut the door behind the Goldcloak and then barricaded it. He stepped to the Stairs and went up to the upper floor of his little house. There was a single room, the same modest size of the room below and in it were ten big cages, each with a single Raven. He ignored them and went to the wall opposite of the stairs. A gentle push to the left corner of the tiny window there and the wooden panel on the Wall near the window gave away. Behind it was a narrow ladder which he climbed up to the hidden room above. The Maester had to stay bent in this room, it was barely more than half his height. He looked to the Ravens in this Room, free from Cages as they were. This night he would send news of the erratic behavior of Aerys with these Ravens, clear words to his home to be careful of the Madness of the South.
He smirked, remembering how his last letter to the home of his family was the reason that their Lord Warden got rid of his flowery and false spying Maester and now had a dependable friend of his as new Maester and new plans for his Children. He often thought of how his life would be different if he stayed in the Citadel for a life of learning after his own House and his Lord Warden managed to save him from punishment for his behavior with the Whore.

But his Lord Warden gave him only two options, to either come back to his home and stay there unfinished with his studies as he was or to finish and to become a Maester for real,but after making his Chain then to leave the Citadel and to go to the Capital and be the eyes and ears in the South.

That was what he since then decided to do.
He sent back home all rumors that had even a little bit truth in it, sent back to his Overlord all prices and trade news, the talks of the Nobles that he knew from treating their servants and was generally careful to never be suspected by anyone of doing so.
It was now easier, the flowery spy was gone and he did not have to send the more important rumors and truths first to his family for them to get behind the flowery back to their Overlord.

Now, with the new Maester in Winterfell, he could send everything directly to his Lord, without fear that people that should not knew about some things might get the informations.

He looked again to the free wandering Ravens. The ten below were for Oldtown and Lannisport, for Highgarden and the Eyrie, for Sunspear and Gulltown, for White Harbour and Seagard and for Storm's End and the Arbor. All places where the merchants send to and received news from about trade and more. The payment for the use of his Ravens was part of how he officially made his living. The Ravens here in this hidden Room though, they were for his own Correspondence with White Harbour and Castle Black, with the Mountain Clans and the Mormonts, with Winterfell and with his own familyhome. With the Last Hearth.

Tonight three of these six Ravens would fly, one to Castle Black and the other two to Winterfell and to his Brother.