The Sellsword Knight

Tears welled up in Rhaenyra's eyes before she knew it. She quickly turned away and blinked several times.

Looking at her brother's puzzled face, Rhaenyra almost blurted it out.

Their father had the gift of a dreamwalker.

He had once dreamed of a blurry figure dying in a dragon's jaws.

But Viserys knew that it was his child.

Ever since then.

Whenever he went more than two days without seeing Baelon, their father could not rest all night.

Rhaenyra swallowed the words rising in her throat and ultimately said nothing.

"Prince, the carriage is ready," Ser Uther reminded him softly.

Baelon said, "I'm going outside the city."

He was going to take a carriage and escape this suffocating family that could not understand plain speech.

The Seven be his witnesses, he did not mean that.

After all, he still had the Iron Throne to inherit!

For the Iron Throne, for dragons, he could even put up with getting some of that mad Targaryen blood!

Ser Swan fumbled his clothes on and hurried after Baelon.

Halfway there, Baelon suddenly said to Ser Swan, "Ser, is tomorrow your Name Day?"

Ser Swan nodded.

"Ser, may the Seven bless you with good health. Take three days to rest properly."

Baelon smiled. "Now, you don't need to follow me. Go back to your room and look for the gift I gave you."

A radiant smile returned to Ser Swan's face, and confidence and glory came back to him once more.

Baelon smiled too.

He really was lucky to have met Ser Swan.

Ser Swan's honor and confidence were built entirely on the esteem of others, and were extremely fragile.

Whenever he got too full of himself, he only had to look at Ser Swan.

The wooden wheels rumbled over the hard-packed earth, stirring up fine dust.

The streets bustled with people.

Many vendors hawked their wares along the roadside, with quite a few shabbily dressed Hedge Knights among them.

Ser Uther had changed into a brand-new suit of gleaming silver armor, complete with throat guard, neck guard, full helm, and lobster gauntlets.

His helmet, however, was round and plain, without much decoration.

"Ser Uther, how is your new armor?"

Ser Uther chuckled and took off his helmet, revealing a gaunt face, his pointed teeth, three or four of them missing, framed by his gray-flecked beard.

Ser Uther came from the rat pits of Flea Bottom. He was a sellsword knight whose life had been utterly unremarkable.

His looks were ordinary, his fighting skills were ordinary, and his build was ordinary. He had never even won a tournament.

The weather was not hot that day, yet Ser Uther's forehead was covered in sweat, which soaked his beard.

He pounded his chest with his fist, making it ring. "Wonderful!"

The warhorse beneath him snorted in displeasure.

The gilded carriage traveled along the Street of Steel, with the Mud Gate just ahead.

The Gold Cloaks stood guard at the Mud Gate with spears in hand. At the clatter of hooves, they looked up.

A column of knights rode imposing steeds in splendid array, red dragon banners fluttering, with a carriage in their midst.

The Gold Cloaks shouted hurriedly, about to clear away the carts and pedestrians blocking the road.

"Ser Uther, tell them there's no hurry."

Ser Uther dismounted smartly and went forward, chest out and head high, to exchange a few words with the Gold Cloaks. The carriage moved slowly onward.

Holding his head high, he walked a few steps back and casually helped an old washerwoman, whose body was bent almost at a right angle, lift her laundry basket onto a cart.

He climbed onto his horse, unable to suppress the smile in his voice. "Prince, this will make people suspect that the person in the carriage might be Prince Baelon."

He loudly reminded the knights accompanying them, "Stay sharp, lads!"

"Keep an eye on those Hedge Knights on either side. Don't give them a chance to charge up with swords in hand!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Baelon saw several Hedge Knights' eyes light up.

They swiftly drew their blades and ran toward Baelon.

Baelon helplessly pressed a hand to his forehead. "Ser Uther, now that you've shouted that, everyone on this street knows it's me!"

"Prince!"

"Prince Baelon!"

Several knights roared excitedly.

"Prince Baelon?!"

At that shout, everyone along the street crowded over.

Women held their babies high toward the carriage, children ran after it, and people surged toward it like a tide.

Some even climbed onto low rooftops and windowsills.

The knights and Gold Cloaks hurriedly formed a human wall to hold back the excited crowd.

Baelon, who found himself stuck in the street again for the first time in a long while: ...

He could understand the Hedge Knights' excitement.

All he could say was, thank the lords of Westeros.

Thank them for their arrogance and discourtesy.

They were so arrogant that they could not remember the names of every knight who had bled and died for them.

Thank them for their lofty airs.

For their contempt and stinginess toward the Hedge Knights who had served them.

With these peers making him look good by comparison.

The show Baelon put on to win the knights' loyalty was ridiculously easy.

He had not even started borrowing from King Arthur, the Lionheart, and the like to put in some real effort yet!

All he did was correctly name a knight when the man stammered out a greeting to him.

Gently ask about his injuries, generously give him gold dragons, and have a maester treat him.

Then, after a tournament, he would seek out a sellsword knight approaching forty, one who observed the code of chivalry and had never done anything dishonorable, but was not particularly skilled at arms, and ransom his horse and armor for him after his defeat.

Someone like Ser Uther.

He would say gently, "There's no need to thank me. Quite the opposite, I should thank you for your contribution to the Seven Kingdoms."

He would praise him. "You are a true knight. Your honor lies not in your martial prowess, but in your noble character and soul, ser."

Invite him to become the crown prince's personal guard.

Get him new armor and a new warhorse.

Then let the old knight's three aged horses, warhorses and draft horses that had accompanied him for years, retire in the royal stables.

Occasionally, when the mood struck, he could personally feed the knight's old horses an apple or a handful of oats.

It was that simple.

As Ser Uther's story spread, it seemed the Hedge Knights had idealized him into their perfect monarch.

Every day, raggedly dressed Hedge Knights loitered outside the Red Keep, trying to find a chance to raise their swords and pledge their loyalty to him.

When Baelon learned of this from Larys "Bentfoot," he was utterly stunned.

Wait, I really haven't even started trying yet!

You Hedge Knights are throwing in with me this quickly?!

Then who am I supposed to use all those classic charm techniques from that Liu fellow, that devilish charmer, on-strolling arm in arm, sleeping foot to foot, and all the rest stored in my head?!

Baelon sincerely thanked his peers for making him look good.

His life really was going far too smoothly.

He could not experience the thrill of struggling for himself in fear and trepidation at all!

Besides, he truly could not understand the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms.

Put on a simple performance, part with a negligible amount of wealth, and offer a little respect and courtesy, and people would swear loyalty unto death. Why had the nobles not done this before?

Stranger still, even after he did it, nobody followed his example?!

Baelon had already prepared for nobles to copy him and compete with him, only to find his punch landing on cotton...

The nobles of the Seven Kingdoms could not all be idiots and fools.

Their cold indifference had shaken Baelon's confidence.

He recalled the original Game of Thrones: the more someone resembled a protagonist, and the better things were going, the more likely they were to die suddenly. Baelon immediately stopped feeling full of himself.

He wondered whether his actions had planted the seeds of some great danger.

He hurriedly reviewed his actions step by step and sought advice from Lyonel, Lyman, and the others.

But they praised him, calling him generous, humble, kind, and benevolent, like the Mother descended to earth...

Baelon: I don't understand.

He also did not understand whether these commoners were getting far too excited.

Baelon looked over the excited, jubilant faces.

Something's wrong.

Something's very wrong!

I'm not a gold dragon. How could everyone love me?

Baelon's already wary heart grew more alert.

Could an assassin be hiding in the crowd, waiting to stab me in the chaos?

But I brought twenty knights, and there's a squad of Gold Cloaks. The crowd doesn't look capable of breaking through and getting close to me.

Could it be that the crowd will riot, and once the knights draw their swords and kill people, it will destroy the image I've built?!

Surely that's not very likely. Nobles kill people for no apparent reason all the time.

He rubbed his chin. So why aren't the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms copying me?

Just how far ahead can these people see?!

His gaze swiftly swept the scene. More and more people crowded around the gate, and a woman holding a child stumbled.

This can't go on.

Baelon made a snap decision and flung open the carriage door.

At the sight of Baelon emerging, the crowd grew even more excited.

He took a deep breath. "Everyone, listen to me!"