Old Katu

A knight stepped forward and suggested quietly, "Prince, give the order, and let us ride straight through to scatter the crowd."

Baelon: Charge on horseback through a crowd this dense?!

Could you take your brain out of your heel and actually use it?

Most of the people pressing toward him wore intact clothing and had shoes on their feet.

The men had beards of various styles, but they had clearly been trimmed. The women wore their hair in braids or tied up in headscarves.

More importantly, quite a few people in the crowd were holding young children.

This was not a mob of desperate commoners rioting.

Baelon glanced at the twenty fully armored knights gathered around him, along with the Gold Cloaks who had converged at the commotion.

As such, he had some confidence that the crowded throng could not hurt him.

He chose to put on a political performance.

His acting was not particularly good, but his booming voice and the worldly inexperience of the people of King's Landing made up for it.

"Knights, do not draw your swords!"

"They have come out of love for me. I would rather endure the crowds and delays than let my people suffer for loving me!"

The words were so high-minded that Baelon himself nearly curled his toes hard enough to dig out a Red Keep from sheer embarrassment.

But the crowd seemed to disagree with him. They did not see it that way.

Quite a few people in the crowd grew teary-eyed with emotion.

"Prince Baelon!"

Many reached out both hands toward him.

"Stop the carriage!"

The neighing of the two fine horses pierced the clamor!

The crowd gradually calmed down.

Baelon raised his voice. "Everyone, I am right here!"

"There is no need to hurry or push!"

"Knights, men, mothers, children, turn and look at the people beside you! Look at your fellow people!"

The crowd instinctively turned to look, only then realizing how terribly packed together they were, the people beside them red-faced and sweating.

Once people became aware of their surroundings, they emerged from the world of their own emotions.

"Listen to me, people of King's Landing, and knights of Westeros."

"The Seven teach us to show mercy to the weak!"

"In the name of Baelon Targaryen, I ask you to protect the weak and helpless. Help the elderly and children beside you to their feet!"

His heart in his throat, Baelon reluctantly jumped down from the carriage and approached the front of the crowd under the knights' protection.

He chose an old man.

His wrinkled skin was covered in spots, his beard was grizzled, and the cracks in his palms held dirt and stains that would not wash away.

More importantly, he wore a loose, thin hemp garment, with nowhere on his body to hide a weapon.

Baelon personally set an example, helping the blank-faced old man up from where he had fallen.

The commoners of King's Landing, with enough food to fill their bellies, had not met the requirements for a mega evolution. They had yet to evolve into the King's Landing mob.

They looked at one another.

For a time, they actually became calm and friendly.

Seeing his performance through, Baelon asked the old man gently, "How have you been lately?"

The old man shook his head. "No, no, Prince!"

"I... I have nothing to be unhappy about."

He managed a grin. "You let us cut reeds for money and grow flowers for money. I can cut more than ninety pounds of reeds a day."

That could earn him nine copper pennies!

In King's Landing, one copper penny could now buy a grilled sausage, a horn of ale, and a whole apple!

He was so old his teeth were about to fall out, and he lived alone. Cutting reeds three times a week was enough for him to live comfortably and without a care!

A strong young man in the crowd called out, "Prince, I can cut a hundred and sixty pounds a day!"

These lads, showing off their youth! the old man thought.

How infuriating!

Baelon keenly noticed something amiss. "Unhappy?"

"What happened? Perhaps you could tell me?"

Unhappy?

He was not unhappy!

Some inexplicable force within the old man, Old Katu, drove him to ramble on and on.

Three years earlier, Prince Baelon had built some sort of toilet paper factory outside the city and informed the residents of King's Landing that they could cut reeds along the Blackwater Rush for money.

No one had believed it at the time!

How could that be possible?!

Even the privileges of grazing livestock on a lord's fallow fields and gathering firewood in his woods had to be exchanged for offerings to the lord.

Why would they be allowed to cut reeds as they pleased and even get paid for it?!

Were they trying to trick them into doing extra unpaid labor?!

Not a chance!

They were citizens of King's Landing, unlike those farmers outside the city who were bound to the land and had to perform three days of unpaid labor every week.

But Old Katu had gone at once all the same.

He had no sickle, so he chose a sharp stone to use as a cutting blade.

The straw he slept on had rotted away, and he planned to secretly hide a bundle of reeds and bring it back to spread on the ground.

On his way to the reed beds along the Blackwater Rush, Old Katu met a dozen or so people going the same way.

They were either terribly old or barefoot, half-grown children.

A man in black led him to the reed beds and explained the harvesting requirements.

"No reed flowers. Just the stalks!"

"One copper penny for ten pounds!"

"But you have to carry them to the collection point at the factory entrance yourselves. It isn't far. Walk along this riverbank for half a... yes, half an hour, and you'll be there."

Over the course of the whole day, the quiet Old Katu slowly cut twenty-five pounds of reeds with his stone knife, then hid a few pounds away.

By tacit agreement, he went with the others, dragging a small bundle of reeds to the collection point.

It stood in front of a large building made of stone blocks.

There was another man dressed in black.

He rummaged through Old Katu's bundled reeds, carefully checking that no stones or other odds and ends had been wrapped inside.

Old Katu thought how wonderfully comfortable it would be to sleep on reed stalks with his head resting on reed flowers!

Heh heh, a day's work for a reed bed!

Two copper pennies were held out before him.

Old Katu froze for a moment.

The man in black grumbled impatiently, "What are you staring at?!"

"Only two copper pennies!"

"Your reeds weigh twenty-two pounds, but you haven't cut off all the flowers, and..."

"No, no, no!" Old Katu immediately came to his senses and cupped both hands to receive the copper pennies.

Behind Old Katu, a feeble old man who looked to have one foot in the grave suddenly perked up.

He shoved Old Katu aside and carefully lifted his reeds in both hands, moving forward.

That day, Old Katu returned to King's Landing with two copper pennies in his pocket. He did not go back to Flea Bottom to eat bowls of brown.

He spent one copper penny on the extravagance of a grilled sausage, a horn of ale, and half an apple.

Old Katu could swear on his tongue, which had tasted bowls of brown for years, that the sausage probably contained actual pork!

The next day, more people came to the reed beds. The sturdy young men who idled in the streets came too.

Old Katu could not find the reeds he had hidden.

Someone had stolen them.

But he earned four copper pennies and picked up a little black dog.

The little black dog was not very big, but taking him to the cookshop would still get Old Katu several bowls of brown.

But Old Katu hesitated for a moment.

Instead of taking the dog to the Flea Bottom cookshop, he brought him home.

He was no good at choosing names, so the black dog was always called "No Name."

The black dog began accompanying him to the reed beds every day.

When dusk fell, the man and dog went to the collection point together to sell their reeds, one with a bundle on his back and the other carrying a bundle in his mouth.

Then, in the last glow of sunset, they bought two grilled sausages and two pieces of bread to take home.

Like that, three years gradually passed. Old Katu replaced his stone knife with a sickle and grew increasingly skilled at cutting reeds.

His back grew ever more stooped, and the bundles of reeds he could carry grew smaller and smaller. The little black dog grew into a big black dog, and the bundles on his back grew larger and larger.

The reed beds that had grown along the Blackwater Rush for hundreds and thousands of years stretched on without end.

Even without the black dog, he could keep cutting reeds for a long time yet.