Chapter 27: The Sobering and the Sermon of Silence
The weeping of a god is a terrible thing. It is not the cathartic release of a mortal man; it is the breaking of a dam that holds back an ocean of cosmic sorrow. In the aftermath of Ned Stark's visit, Thor did not find peace. He found only the vast, echoing emptiness of his own grief, now raw and exposed to the air of this foreign world. The alcohol, his trusted shield and companion for years, had been rendered useless. It no longer numbed the pain; it only seemed to sharpen its edges, to mock him with the memory of a blissful ignorance he could no longer attain.
For three days and three nights, he did not move from his corner in The Grinning Pig. He did not eat. He did not sleep. And, for the first time in five years, he did not drink. The flagons of ale and goblets of wine brought to him by a confused and terrified Olyvar sat untouched, gathering dust on the table that served as his altar. His followers, the "Cult of the Storm," were thrown into theological chaos. Their god had entered a new phase, a 'Great Silence,' and Leo the Storm-Crier struggled to interpret its meaning, his sermons growing more frantic and contradictory. Some believed the god was fasting in preparation for a final, world-ending judgment. Others whispered that he was dying.
They were both wrong. He was sobering up.
It was a slow, agonizing process. The physical dependence was a trifle, his Asgardian metabolism burning through the toxins with contemptuous ease. The psychological withdrawal was another matter entirely. Without the dulling haze of alcohol, the world came rushing back in with a brutal, unforgiving clarity. The sounds of the city were sharper, the smells more potent. The constant, low-level thrum of human hope and misery, a sound he had long ago learned to tune out, was now a deafening roar in his mind.
But it was the memories that were the true torment. They were no longer hazy ghosts. They were vivid, high-definition recordings playing on a loop inside his skull. He saw Loki's neck snap, heard the sickening crack of it over and over. He saw the dust of Sif's hand on his own, felt the phantom sensation of her dissolving into nothing. He saw his father's final, weary smile and heard his mother's voice, a sweet, painful melody from a life he could never reclaim.
He had drunk to forget them. But in doing so, he had dishonoured them. He had allowed his grief to curdle into a pathetic, self-destructive apathy. He had avenged the Starks, two men he had never met, out of a flicker of reflexive anger. But he had never truly mourned his own family, his own people. He had simply run from the pain.
On the morning of the fourth day, he stood up. The movement was slow, deliberate, the creak of his chair loud in the hushed, expectant silence of the tavern. His eyes, for the first time in years, were clear. The bloodshot haze was gone, revealing a blue so deep and so ancient it seemed to hold the light of distant galaxies. The sorrow was still there, a vast and permanent ocean, but the surface was no longer a maelstrom of self-pity. It was calm, cold, and possessed of a terrible clarity.
He looked at the untouched goblets on his table, at the pathetic, adoring faces of the pilgrims who were watching his every move. He felt a surge of disgust, not at them, but at himself. At the creature he had allowed himself to become.
Without a word, he turned and walked to the door of the tavern. He pushed it open and stepped out into the morning light of Flea Bottom. The ever-present crowd of supplicants fell to their knees, their chants dying in their throats. Thor ignored them. He was not looking at them as a mass anymore. He was truly seeing for the first time.
He saw the filth in the streets, the damp, crumbling walls of the tenements. He saw the pinched, hungry faces of the children, the weary resignation of their mothers. He saw the swaggering cruelty of the few remaining slum lords who dared to operate in the fringes of his unofficial territory. He had lived here for over six years, a sullen ghost in a bottle. He had never truly seen the place before.
He began to walk. It was not the aimless, plodding shuffle of the drunk. It was the slow, measured pace of a king surveying his domain. And Flea Bottom, however unwillingly, had become his domain. His presence had created a power vacuum that had been filled by his own myth. He had created this strange, protected, and utterly lawless fiefdom, and he had never bothered to look at the state of it.
His walk took him towards the market area near the Mud Gate, a chaotic jumble of stalls where merchants sold bruised fruit, questionable meat, and watered-down wine to the poorest of the city's poor. He saw Anya, the old woman, haggling with a fishwife, her face a mask of weary concentration as she tried to trade a few copper pennies for a single, salted herring. He saw a group of orphans, their faces smudged with dirt, working together to distract a baker while one of them tried to snatch a loaf of bread.
He was about to turn away, to retreat back to his tavern before the sheer, grinding misery of it all overwhelmed him, when he saw Finn.
The lame boy was huddled near a fruit stall, his eyes fixed on a pile of bright red apples. The merchant, a fat, greasy man with a cruel mouth, was busy haggling with another customer. Finn, his movements quick and furtive, darted forward, his small hand snatching one of the apples.
It was a clumsy attempt. The merchant spun around, his eyes blazing with fury. "Thieving little gutter rat!" he bellowed, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his neck. He slapped the apple from Finn's hand, sending it rolling into the muck of the street.
"I was hungry," Finn whimpered, tears welling in his eyes.
The merchant was not in a merciful mood. "Hungry, are you? I'll give you something to chew on!" He raised a thick, meaty hand to backhand the boy. Standing beside the merchant was a hired guard, a large, brutish man with a cudgel in his hand and a bored, sadistic look on his face. He chuckled, clearly anticipating the show.
The crowd in the market fell silent, turning away. This was a common sight. The strong preying on the weak. It was the law of the slums.
But the law had a new warden.
The merchant's hand never landed. It was stopped in mid-air, caught in a grip of impossible strength. The merchant stared in disbelief at the huge, calloused hand that had clamped around his wrist, and then his gaze traveled up the massive arm to the face of the being who had appeared, seemingly from nowhere, standing silently behind him.
Thor had not made a sound. He had moved with a speed and silence that was utterly terrifying. He now stood over the merchant, his shadow engulfing the man. His face was calm, his expression unreadable, but his clear blue eyes held a coldness that was more frightening than any rage.
"He said," Thor's voice was a low, quiet rumble, "that he was hungry."
The merchant's face went white with terror. He tried to pull his wrist free, but it was like trying to pull a sapling from the heart of a mountain. He opened his mouth, but only a strangled, pathetic squeak came out.
The hired guard, seeing his employer in trouble, puffed out his chest and hefted his cudgel. "Here now," he blustered, trying to sound brave. "This ain't your business, giant. This is a private matter."
Thor did not even look at the guard. He simply continued to hold the merchant's wrist, his gaze fixed on the man's terrified eyes. "You have a stall full of fruit," Thor stated, his voice still quiet, yet carrying to every corner of the silent market. "The boy is hungry. He took one apple." He tilted his head slightly. "This seems to me to be a reasonable transaction."
The guard, emboldened by the god's seeming lack of overt aggression, took a step forward. "He's a thief! He needs to be taught a lesson!" He raised his cudgel.
With a sigh of profound weariness, Thor finally turned his head and looked at the guard. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't summon a storm. He simply looked at the man, and in his eyes, the guard saw a glimpse of the being who had unmade an army. He saw a power so vast and so ancient that his own life, his own pathetic existence, was less than nothing. The guard's bravado evaporated, replaced by a primal, animalistic fear. The cudgel slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the cobblestones.
Thor turned his attention back to the merchant, whose wrist was now beginning to turn a pale shade of purple. "I believe," Thor said, his voice dropping to an almost gentle whisper, "that you owe the boy an apology. And an apple."
He squeezed. Just a fraction. A minuscule increase in pressure. The merchant let out a high-pitched, agonized scream as he felt the bones in his wrist begin to grind together. "Alright! Alright!" he shrieked, tears of pain and terror streaming down his face. "I'm sorry! He can have the apple! He can have all the apples!"
Thor released him. The merchant cradled his wrist, whimpering. Thor then looked down at Finn, who was staring up at him, his face a mask of pure, undiluted awe. Thor bent down, picked the mud-stained apple from the street, and with a corner of his own worn tunic, he wiped it clean. He handed it to the boy.
Finn took the apple, his small hand trembling. "Thank you, my lord," he whispered.
Thor didn't reply. He simply placed a heavy hand on the boy's head for a brief moment, a gesture that was both a blessing and a dismissal. He then turned his cold gaze back to the merchant and his terrified guard.
"This district is under my protection," he said, his voice now carrying a quiet, unmistakable authority that silenced the entire market. "The people in it are my people. If you wish to do business here, you will do so fairly. You will not cheat them. You will not beat them. You will not prey upon their weakness." He took a step towards them, and the two men scrambled backwards in terror. "Because if you do, you will not have to answer to the King's justice. You will have to answer to me."
He let the threat hang in the air for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turned and began to walk back towards his tavern. The crowd parted for him, but this time, it was not just with reverence. It was with a new, more profound understanding. Their god was not just a silent, brooding figure of power. He was a protector. He was a judge. He was a king.
The news of the incident at the Mud Gate market spread through the city like a fever. In the Red Keep, Varys listened to the report from his little bird, his face a placid mask that concealed a mind in turmoil.
He brought the news to the King, who was in the training yard, venting his frustrations by beating a straw dummy with a blunted sword. Robert listened, his breathing heavy, his face red with exertion and anger.
"He what?" Robert roared, slamming his sword into the dummy with enough force to sever its head. "He's holding court in the streets now? Passing judgment on apple thieves? Who in the Seven Hells does he think he is?"
"He thinks he is the god of this city, Your Grace," Varys replied softly. "And it would seem the people are inclined to agree with him."
"This is treason!" Robert bellowed. "He is undermining my authority! My laws!"
"He is enforcing a law that has long been absent in Flea Bottom, Your Grace," Varys pointed out. "A law of basic decency. The smallfolk see it as a blessing."
"And I see it as a threat!" Robert spat. "What's next? He decides he doesn't like my tax policies? He takes issue with a lord's right to his own property? We can't allow this. We have to do something!"
"And what would you have us do, Your Grace?" Varys asked, his voice still a silken whisper. "Send the Gold Cloaks to arrest him? I do not believe they would go. And if they did, I do not believe they would return." He let the silence hang for a moment. "A drunk god was a manageable problem. We knew what he wanted. We knew his limits. A sober god, a god who is now taking an active interest in the affairs of his 'people'… that is a far more dangerous and unpredictable creature."
Robert stared at the headless dummy, his chest heaving. He was the King. And yet, he was powerless. The god in the gutter held more true authority over half his city than he did. He could not fight him. He could not command him. He could not even reason with him. He could only watch, and wait, and pray that the god's interest remained confined to the slums.
Varys watched the king's frustration with a cold, analytical eye. The game had changed again. The god was no longer a passive force of nature. He was an active player. He was not playing their game of thrones, with its armies and alliances. He was playing an older, simpler game. The game of the protector. The game of the king. And Varys knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that it was a game that could very easily spill out of the confines of Flea Bottom and wash over the entire kingdom. The peace was over. The Sermon of Silence had been delivered. And the reign of King Robert Baratheon had just become infinitely more complicated. The question was no longer if the god would intervene again, but when, and where. And no one, not even the Spider, had the answer.