"Hu...hu...hu..."
The sound echoed up the narrow stone stairwell, growing louder with every laborious step.
It was more than a minute later that the owner of the voice finally emerged onto the rooftop, leaning heavily against the wall, bent almost double as he fought to catch his breath. One hand clutched the rough stone for support while the other pressed against the stitch in his side.
He glared murderously at the boy already waiting for him.
"Was..." Another breath. "This..." Another. "...the best place you could find?"
"The climb couldn't have been that bad, could it?" Jon asked while scratching his cheek, "It only took me a couple of minutes."
Tyrion straightened as much as his aching back would allow.
"Twenty years younger, six inches taller, and your legs weren't assembled by a drunk carpenter. Of course you didn't struggle."
"My apologies." Jon sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.
Tyrion snorted as he concentrated on drawing one deep breath after another. Only once the burning in his lungs had subsided did he finally bother to inspect their surroundings.
They were in the King's Spear Tower at the moment, one of the tallest towers in the whole of Red Keep.
Built during Aegon's reign as a military lookout, its summit was reserved for watchmen and royal observers during times of war; at the moment, however, the tower was completely empty except for the two of them and a few men standing guard at the bottom.
Tyrion stepped toward the battlements. Even after years spent in King's Landing, this view from up here stole his breath.
Almost the whole city was visible beneath them—the Great Sept gleaming atop Visenya's Hill, the ruined Dragonpit crowning Rhaenys's, and the Blackwater shimmering beyond a forest of masts in the harbour.
It was breathtaking.
At least, until his eyes drifted downward and noticed the slums.
Flea Bottom sprawled directly beneath the tower.
From this height, its maze of crooked streets looked almost orderly. Thin smoke drifted lazily from thousands of chimneys, while laundry fluttered between leaning houses packed so tightly together that they seemed ready to collapse into one another.
"A perfect place for an accidental death," Tyrion murmured as he stared down into the dizzying depths, before grimacing and taking a few steps away from the edge. "If this was your best plan to try and kill me... then I must say that I am disappointed; poisoning would have taken you much less effort."
Jon, in the midst of taking something from his front pocket, paused as he looked at the dwarf with an amused expression on his face. "Why would I try to kill you?" The boy didn't remember ever openly showing hostilities for the Lannisters.
"How would I know?" Tyrion shrugged uncaringly as he stared curiously at the small leather notebook in the boy's hand. "For some reason, most people who seemed to detest me at first sight, and want to hurt me," he grinned, making his crooked features even uglier. "Who knows why?"
"It is a wonder indeed," Jon nodded solemnly.
Tyrion rolled his eyes at the silent sarcasm. "So? What did you call me here for, boy?"
He looked around for a place to sit, but sadly found none except for the floor that must not have been cleaned since the time of the dragons. "And it better not be for the view, or else I will curse you to have many, many descendants like me?" he warned, trying to look menacing, "And you do not want that, trust me."
"The view is part of it," Jon nodded with a quirk of his lips, trying hard not to seem too amused by the dwarf, "But mainly I wanted you for this," he held out the notebook with its first page open.
Tyrion accepted it with mild curiosity.
The leather cover was plain, worn smooth around the edges from constant handling. There was no title, no flourish, only pages packed with cramped handwriting.
The first page read simply:
-Why was King's Landing so dirty and smelly?
-Initial Survey
One of Tyrion's eyebrows rose
"I was expecting a forbidden love story."
"...Sorry for disappointing you."
"Eh," The dwarf shrugged as he continued to read.
Causes, and Sources:
• Narrow, crowded streets
• Open drains
• Garbage thrown wherever convenient
• Animal waste from horses, pigs, dogs, etc.
• Human waste accumulating in poorer districts
• Contaminated water sources
2. What did people do with their shit?
Commoners:
Option 1: Chamber pots
People used pots or buckets inside their homes. In the morning, they might empty them into:
• Streets
• Gutters
• Rivers
• Waste pits
Option 2: Privies
Some houses had simple toilets over pits. Wealthier buildings had better arrangements.
Option 3: Public areas
Poorer people, especially in places like Flea Bottom, defecated out in the open every single day, just rotating to new places every few weeks when the old place became too deadly.
'Interesting...' Tyrion's expression shifted ever so slightly as he turned the page.
3. Was there no sewage system?
There was.
During the reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, many improvements had been made: Drains and sewers were constructed, streets were improved, fresh water systems were developed.
Most famously, one Septon Barth zealously pushed for better sanitation in the city amongst the poor because he believed that dirty water and waste caused disease.
But centuries later, the system was badly maintained.
And a sewer system only works if clogged pipes are immediately cleaned, drains are regularly repaired, and waste disposal is properly organised; otherwise, they become part of the problem.
The next page contained a rough sketch of Flea Bottom.
Buildings had been reduced to simple rectangles, Alleys were carefully lined, and existing drains were marked in faded blue ink.
Unknown red circles covered the whole district.
Tyrion turned the page.
The Solutions:
1. Immediately halt the practise of open defecation
2. Start cleaning up the filth already in place
3. Create small public toilets in densely populated areas with a target of one per 50 people.
4. Create a sanitation department tasked with hiring cleaners, night soil collectors and plumbers.
5. Separate drinking water from waste channels and...
..
.
The list went on for quite a bit, and in the corner, it was finally mentioned that the red circles were the location for the new toilet. While the blue dots were the locations of the old sewage system.
One would need to read a lot of the old maps from the Targaryen era to have created something detailed such as this: 'When did he even find the time to do this?' Tyrion absentmindedly wondered as he turned the pages.
Collection routes.
Another Page.
Best locations to build toilets.
Another.
Labour estimates.
Another.
The location of wells.
...
And that was how it went, with each page containing detailed information about all the streets in King's Landing, how many people were estimated to live there, which street had the largest moving population during the day, such as workers, Merchants, customers, and travellers, and which streets were mostly residential.
There was even a section which specified the areas with the greatest number of inns, butchers, stables, and other sorts of establishments that accounted for the highest amount of animal manure.
It was almost ten minutes later, when his leg had almost become numb due to standing still, that Tyrion finally extricated himself from the fascinating small book.
And what interested him even more than the information in it was the clean way in which it had all been explained using maps, graphs, and annotations.
He had never seen such dry details presented in such an intriguing form, and if he was given the choice, he would have wanted nothing more than to spend a whole day examining it slowly. 'Alas, now is not the time for that.'
///