Graycrown, the Capital

The capital of the dynasty. Every roof in the city is laid with the same gray tile and carries the color of no house — in a capital where the Seven Great Houses contend both openly and in secret, neutrality is itself a heavy rule. Graycrown is grayer by day than by night: the sunlight draws the color out of the whole spread of tile, and from a distance the city seems covered by a very thin gray cloth. Most signboards are written in bronze ink, and what they carry is the name of a trading house; not one of them bears a word belonging to a family.

The streets are broad and the people dense. There is charcoal smoke in the air, and spice, and something else besides — a great many smells pressed inside one ring of wall, with nowhere to disperse. Along the streets go the lesser servants in the colors of the several houses; the small carriages of the nobility cross at the street mouths; and now and then a carriage passes that is black all over, with no crest at all upon its door. Someone sits inside a carriage without a crest all the same. That person simply does not wish to be seen.

Seven gates answer to seven houses. The South Gate is held by House Bloodflame, whose guards wear deep red cloaks with a very faint flame pattern worked into the hem. Those entering are sorted into three lines: the merchants holding trade tokens move fastest, the pilgrims next, and the miscellany slowest — and among the miscellany walk people the guards cannot pick out. Besides examining documents, the guards take a small metal rod and tap it lightly against each newcomer's chest, listening for a certain sound. If the rod shivers, the man is drawn aside to wait, and a woman officer in pale red robes comes to examine him again.

The formal warrant of entry is a bronze token, a palm long and half a palm wide, its face polished bright, with the four words Admitted by Royal Decree cut into the front and beneath them a very small composite crest of three houses. Such a token holds for 7 days only; past that, the issuing office takes it back. The waystation in the west of the city is held by House Vowkey, and its comings and goings are registered separately. Further south, outside the city, the dynasty has never set a boundary stone anywhere about Poplar Town, and the carriages of the houses do not turn that way either.

At the center of the city stands a high tower, and set into its summit is the Crimson Ring Crown. The throne, the council, the church, the residences of the seven houses are all crowded into this one city. At every banquet, every betrothal, every deliberation, the courtesies lie on the table and the knives lie under it. And for a man who has been stripped of his surname, every gate in this city will keep him standing a little longer — the documents are examined, and then the guard raises his eyes and looks at him once more.