Chapter 8: A Letter from House Tully Containing a Hidden Threat

The letter arrived on a Tuesday.

She knew it was a Tuesday because Mira had mentioned, in the particular offhand way she mentioned things she considered worth remembering, that the household steward distributed correspondence on Tuesdays and Fridays, and that letters from outside King's Landing came on Tuesdays only, and that any letter arriving on any other day of the week had been held deliberately and required separate consideration entirely. Elizabeth had filed this under practical geography of the Keep's information flows, alongside the fact that the south-facing windows in the lesser hall admitted enough afternoon light to read by and that the guards changed on the half-hour rather than the hour, which left a fifteen-minute window of relaxed attention that she had not yet found a use for but expected to.

The letter was on her writing table when she returned from the morning gardens.