Chapter 13: The Birth Records of King's Crossing

The Royal Archive of King's Crossing occupied the eastern portion of Redkeep's oldest tower, in rooms that had been accumulating documents since before the current dynasty had a dynasty to accumulate them about. It smelled of old vellum and the particular variety of institutional dust that settles only on things that no one has disturbed in some time and that no one, by long-established custom, is expected to disturb now.

Edwyn arrived at half past nine on a Wednesday morning with a letter of authorisation signed in his own capacity as First Counsellor, a list of seven document categories he required for what he had titled, in his own neat hand, a Comprehensive Review of the Royal Household's Historical Administrative Records, and the untroubled expression of a man who has found a task well suited to his temperament and intends to pursue it thoroughly.

The archivist, a small dry man named Ser Orvyn Mast, received him with the expression of someone who has been presented with a document he cannot technically refuse and is searching, with visible effort, for a reason he legitimately could.