"Whoosh-"
The fine bowstring woven from silk was light and strong, giving a crisp twang.
The ash arrow shot out like a streak of white light, falling into the rich, muddy ground before the target.
Quite a few arrows stuck out of the mud at crooked angles, like a clump of dead branches without flowers or leaves.
Baelon lowered his hand, not entirely satisfied. "Ser Swann, could I switch to a bow with a heavier draw weight?"
"Say, fifteen pounds? I think I could draw it."
The bow in his hand had a maximum range of only sixteen paces, and beyond twelve paces, it lost all killing power.
Even when he occasionally hit the target, the arrow could not pierce the burlap covering it!
Samwell Swann folded his arms and shook his head. "Prince, you're only six."
"Every martial skill must be learned one step at a time."
Ser Swann came from the Dornish Marches. Unlike most lords of Westeros, he had healthy, wheat-colored skin, and his woolen outer robe was embroidered with a Swan sigil.
He always liked to put embroidered swans on his armor, shield, cloak, and anywhere else that could bear an identifying mark.
"You're already doing no worse than the boys in our Marches," Ser Swann reassured him.
Pride appeared on his face. "You should know, the Marches are famous for their longbowmen. We have the best archers in all of Westeros!"
Baelon did not press the matter.
The Dornish Marches had resisted Dornish incursions for years and produced many archers. Ser Samwell Swann had even won the archery contest at the tourney for Baelon's last Name Day.
"All right. I'll listen to the experts on matters within their expertise."
It was a very simple principle.
Yet the maesters and septons who taught him kept repeating it in his ear, over and over.
The septons told him that even a prince must not presume to pass judgment on matters he did not understand.
The maesters said that a person's judgment carried weight only within a field he knew, and that rashly interfering in matters beyond his understanding would inevitably lead to mistakes.
The high-ranking members of the Small Council told him this.
On matters of war, he should consult battle-hardened knights; when handling affairs of state, he should seek advice from those well versed in them.
Baelon: ?
Wasn't this common sense that everyone knew?
Everyone treated it as the highest truth, tirelessly feeding it to him one spoonful at a time.
More than twenty years of education in his previous life, along with the subtle influence of its history and culture, had left an enduring mark on his soul.
It made him just a little different from the prevailing mindset in Westeros.
Take the things everyone repeatedly taught him, for instance.
The third time they said the same thing, he accepted it humbly. The fifth time, he could still smile.
But by the tenth time...
His soul could no longer restrain itself and kept needling his nerves.
Weren't these people being far too presumptuous, overstepping far too much?
Were they treating him as a vessel into which they could pour their will?
Were they trying to replace his mind with theirs and make his mouth repeat what they wanted him to say?
But the trouble was...
Apart from him, no one in the Red Keep seemed to think so.
Baelon could only suppress his restless suspicions.
Ah.
He really was better suited to being an emperor who recognized no authority but his own in the ancient world of his previous life.
The ideal king Westeros expected was a valiant warrior.
Even a widely renowned, wise king had to demonstrate his martial prowess and maintain his rule with iron and fire.
A wise man did not stand beneath a crumbling wall?!
A king did not lead his army in person and charge into battle at the head of his soldiers?!
Coward!
Weakling!
A cowardly king who drank deep of his soldiers' blood!
Baelon: ...
Hegemon-King of Western Chu, you really were born on the wrong continent.
Who would have thought that after crossing into another world, his greatest obstacle would not be the nobles and feudal lords?
It was that his soul had already taken the shape of his previous life.
He did not understand why Viserys could tolerate the tangled network of secret passages beneath the Red Keep, which not even the king had under his control!
When Rhaenyra learned from Daemon that a secret passage in her bedroom led straight outside the Red Keep and was delighted by it...
Baelon hurriedly conducted an emergency inspection of his own bedroom.
Nor did he understand this.
In history, Maegor's queen, Alys Harroway, had been afraid and asked her father to arrange for men to "father a child" for Maegor.
The Hand of the King at the time, Lucas Harroway, had arranged for more than thirty men to enter the royal palace, one after another, and bed the queen.
Among those thirty-odd men were old and young, lords and knights, as well as attendants, grooms, smiths, and singers.
The maester's lesson focused on Maegor's cruelty.
Baelon only felt that things had become interesting.
More than thirty people had been smuggled into the royal palace?!
No one but him had cared about that.
This was... wonderful!
If even the royal palace was so lax, wouldn't smuggling people into the castles of other Westerosi nobles be even easier?
Especially when he learned that the nobles of Westeros had no food tasters, all sorts of assassination methods sprang uncontrollably into his mind.
Baelon thought he might make a promising recruit for the Faceless Men.
He was no good at political maneuvering, but when it came to underhanded methods with no limits, Westeros seemed to have no one who could last a single exchange against him.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Missing out on him really was a great loss for the Faceless Men.
For the sake of Westeros's moral standards, Baelon made a tremendous effort to restrain himself from voicing the ideas in his head.
He truly had given far too much.
So, compared with studying Valyrian and all sorts of history in the Maester's Tower, he preferred practicing martial skills in the training yard.
Baelon abruptly released his fingers and loosed an arrow.
Ser Swann's eyebrows rose high. "Very good! You almost hit the target!"
Baelon was rather surprised to hear that.
He shot Ser Swann a startled glance.
How was this swan-obsessed man acting so normal today?!
"Prince, would you like to know who the best, most famous archer is?" Ser Swann's face was solemn and grave.
"I don't."
Baelon wiped away his sweat and took a deep breath. Once he had calmed himself, he nocked another arrow and pulled hard on the bowstring.
"Hmm... all right. Then there's one other matter of the utmost importance. I must swear by the Seven that not a word of what I'm about to say is false." Ser Swann changed the subject.
Baelon sighed helplessly. "Don't say it. Don't."
"No! I must! This is the most important thing!"
"And that is... the best longbowman in the Marches is already standing before you!" Ser Swann added with a grin.
He suddenly tore off his clothes with a wild laugh and waved enthusiastically toward the covered walkway.
"That would be me!"
"Samwell Swann!"
He struck several bodybuilding poses.
"Ah!"
The walkway was packed with ladies and maids who had come to watch the fun, and Ser Swann's actions instantly set off a wave of excited screams!
Baelon even saw one maid clutch her heart in excitement and collapse against her companion.
Ser Swann laughed loudly, immensely pleased with himself.
To win cheers and screams, he flexed his muscles with even greater vigor, showing off his well-built physique from front and back.
Baelon could not help pressing a hand to his forehead.
Ah.
What a sin.
And it was all his own doing.
He sorely missed the Ser Swann from before the tourney.
He really had been a gentle, refined, shy little Mountain.
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