A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

by George R.R. Martin

A whiff of something rank made him turn his head. Shae stood in the door behind him, dressed in the silvery robe he’d given her. I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair. Behind her stood one of the begging brothers, a portly man in filthy patched robes, his bare feet crusty with dirt, a bowl hung about his neck on a leather thong where a septon would have worn a crystal. The smell of him would have gagged a rat. “Lord Varys has come to see you,” Shae announced. The begging brother blinked at her, astonished. Tyrion laughed. “To be sure. How is it you knew him when I did not?” She shrugged. “It’s still him. Only dressed different.” “A different look, a different smell, a different way of walking,” said Tyrion. “Most men would be deceived.” “And most women, maybe. But not whores. A whore learns to see the man, not his garb, or she turns up dead in an alley.”