The knight gave a sharp, downward jerk, wrenching the intruder out of the shadow of the wooden post.
I looked down, expecting a drunken sellsword, only to realize the culprit was a scruffy, mud-splattered child, maybe around thirteen or fifteen, it was always hard to tell with the malnourished ones.
In his filthy left hand, the boy held my leather pouch, its velvet drawstring dangling between his fingers while the heavy coins inside jiggled with a muffled metallic chime.
The kid scowled fiercely, his teeth bared like a cornered street dog, twisting and kicking his feet in mid-air as he tried to break the Kingsguard knight’s iron grip.
It was an entirely pathetic, futile effort.
Ser Humfrey barely registered the boy’s thrashing, reaching over with his free hand to pluck the stolen coin pouch from the kid’s dirty fingers.
“What should be done with him, my prince?” Ser Humfrey asked, his voice flat and unbothered beneath his brown wool hood.
‘Cut off his hands!
Chop off his fingers!
Throw him into the Blackwater!’ Now, the future Maegor the Gentle inside my brain would have probably demanded the child’s hands be served to him on a silver platter before breakfast.
But while I thoroughly enjoyed larping as an unhinged, terrifying dark lord for my own personal entertainment, I was not a mindless, cartoonishly evil monster.
Cutting off the hand of a kid over a pouch of coins in the middle of a muddy street was sloppy, unproductive, and completely devoid of vision.
I folded my arms across my chest, leaning down to inspect the tiny thief with a severe frown.
The boy’s defiant scowl rapidly dissolved under my icy purple stare.
His bravado shattered into terror as he took in my dark velvet doublet, the white knight standing over him, and the realization that he had just tried to rob royal blood.
“What is your name, boy?” I demanded, my voice sharp and clear.
The child swallowed hard, his dirty throat working as he weighed the option of lying versus surviving the next five minutes.
“P-Pate, milord,” he stammered, his thick Flea Bottom peasant accent slurred with desperate fear.
“Just Pate.
Please, sweet young lord, don’t kill me!
I only done it ’cause me belly is flappin’ against me spine, it is!
Ain’t had a proper bite of bread in two days, I swear it by the Seven!
Me is just an orphan, milord, living in the alleys under the hill!” I stared at Pate for a long, silent beat, tapping my chin thoughtfully with my index finger.
My initial instinct was to simply tell Ser Humfrey to cuff the kid on the ear, toss him back into the mud, and let us get on with our morning stroll.
The kid meant nothing to me, after all.
But just as I opened my mouth to dismiss him, a brilliant, electrifying spark of inspiration detonated inside my brain like a keg of wildfire.
A eureka moment, if you will.
I snapped my fingers loudly, a slow, scheming grin spreading across my face as I raised a silver-gold eyebrow at the trembling orphan.
“Tell me, Pate,” I asked, tilting my head.
“What would you say if I offered you regular, honest work that paid real, shiny coin?” Pate’s dirty brow furrowed in immediate, deep-seated peasant distrust.
His eyes flickered nervously between my expensive clothes and Ser Humfrey’s ominous, hooded form.
He had lived on the streets long enough to know that highborn lords rarely offered dirty street rats anything other than a horsewhip or a hanging rope.
To shatter his skepticism and drive my point home, I reached into my inner coat pocket, pulled out a heavy, gleaming gold dragon, and held it up between my thumb and forefinger.
The bright afternoon sunlight caught the polished yellow metal, causing the three-headed dragon stamped on its face to flash like a miniature sun.
Pate literally trembled where he stood.
His jaw dropped so low I thought it might detach from his skull, his filthy brown eyes locked onto the gold coin with a terrifying, hypnotic intensity.
Now, I was well aware that Georgie’s understanding of medieval monetary economics was wildly inconsistent in his books, but in the practical reality of seventeenth-year-after-the-Conquest Westeros, a single gold dragon was a life-changing fortune for a Flea Bottom street rat.
That single coin could buy enough stale bread, salted pork, and cheap ale to feed an entire alleyway of beggars for half a year.
Pate had likely never seen real gold in his entire miserable existence.
He swallowed a lump of dry spit, his eyes bulging as he stared at the gold.
“F-Fine…
sweet lord…
but what sort of work would a highborn want from a muddy cur like me?” Now, even you can easily guess where my brain was heading with this little experiment.
In the far-off future, a cunning spymaster named Varys would build a legendary, terrifying intelligence network across the Seven Kingdoms using mute, literate orphans he affectionately called his ‘Little Birds’.
Varys understood a fundamental truth of human society: nobody pays the slightest bit of attention to street children.
Highborn lords, drunk knights, corrupt merchants, and plotting handmaidens constantly blabbed their darkest secrets in open taverns, private solars, and dark alleyways, completely ignoring the scruffy orphan boy sweeping the hearth or begging for crusts nearby.
Granted, my primitive prototype ring would not have the luxury of secret passages beneath the Red Keep, but starting early was a massive strategic advantage.
If Pate proved useless or ran off with my money, I lost virtually nothing.
If it worked, I gained an eyes-and-ears network in the lower city before I even reached my sixth name day.
“I need you to listen to people for me,” I said softly, stepping closer so my voice did not carry down the street.
“I want you to keep your ears open in the taverns, the docks, and the markets.
Listen to what the highborn knights, foreign merchants, and loud captains talk about when they think no one is paying attention.
Bring me anything interesting.
Gossip, royal complaints, rumors of rebellion, cheating merchants, or secret meetings.
The more damaging it is to their reputation, the better.” I tossed the golden dragon an inch into the air and caught it cleanly in my palm, Pate’s wide eyes following the arc of the yellow metal like a starved cat watching a sparrow.
“The better the information you bring me, the more gold you and your friends will earn,” I continued smoothly.
“Does that sound fair to you, boy?” Pate nodded frantically, his dirty head bobbing up and down like a wooden buoy in a storm, his eyes completely mesmerized by my hand.
I paused for a moment, my dark eyes narrowing as I reconsidered my options.
Handing a gold dragon to an eight-year-old street thief right now was a monumentally stupid idea.
The moment Ser Humfrey let go of his arm, the kid would bolt down the nearest alleyway, buy twenty meat pies, and give me the finger.
“I am going to give you one week,” I said, slipping the golden dragon back into my tunic pocket and reaching into my coin pouch instead.
I pulled out a heavy, gleaming silver stag and flipped it through the air.
Pate caught the silver coin with cat-like reflexes, clutching it tightly to his chest as though it were his own newborn child.
“That silver stag is a token of my trust,” I warned him, my voice dropping into a low, icy tone that sent a visible shiver down his spine.
“Take as many trustworthy orphan boys as you need.
Gather real, useful information, and meet me beside the stone fountain near the docks seven days from today.
If you bring me good gossip, you will all get gold.
But if you try to lie to me, make up fake stories, or take my silver and run away…” I stepped in close, staring directly into his soul with my purple eyes.
“…remember this, Pate: I am a prince.
I have a very long memory, and I never, ever forgive a grievance.” Now, was terrifying a kid fun?
I would say yes, usually.
But when the child was a random street urchin rather than some pompous lordling, it wasn’t as fun.
The sharp threat hit its mark perfectly.
Pate turned pale beneath his layer of street soot, nodding with intense, terrified determination.
“Y-Yes, milord!
I swear it on me mother’s grave!
Me and the boys will listen to every blabbering mouth from here to the river!
You’ll get your secrets, sweet prince!” I gave Ser Humfrey a curt nod.
The Kingsguard knight released the boy’s wrist.
Pate did not waste a single millisecond.
He turned on his heel, tucked the silver stag deep into his rags, offered me a hilarious, clumsy little bow, and scampered off down the muddy alleyway, disappearing into the dense crowd like a shadow.
Ser Humfrey stared at the empty space where the boy had been standing, letting out a soft, skeptical grunt beneath his hood.
“He is never going to return, my prince.
You just traded a fine silver stag for a street rat’s empty promise.” I shrugged my broad shoulders, completely unfazed as I adjusted my wool mantle.
“At the end of the day, ser, it matters very little to me.
It was one silver stag.
If he runs off, I have not lost much.
If he actually returns with useful intelligence, I have purchased my very first spy ring for pennies on the dragon.
Low risk, high reward.” Ser Humfrey shook his armored head in disbelief, but fell into step behind my shoulder as I turned back toward the lower thoroughfares.
“Where to now, Prince Maegor?” he asked.
“I want to inspect the docks down along the Blackwater,” I declared cheerfully.
Ser Humfrey paused in his tracks, casting a dark look toward the western horizon.
The sun was already beginning its slow descent, painting the clouds over the distant Reach in brilliant streaks of orange, violet, and dark crimson.
“The sun will be setting soon, my prince,” the white knight warned sternly.
“The docklands become a lawless hive of drunks, cutthroats, and press-gangs once twilight falls.
Making haste back to the safety of the fort is the need of the hour.” I turned my head slightly, throwing him a smirk as I slipped deftly through a narrow gap between two fat merchants carrying wool sacks.
“What is the matter, Ser Humfrey?
Do you doubt your own ability to protect a five-year-old boy?” Ser Humfrey choked on his own spit, letting out a sharp, raspy cough into his leather gauntlet.
He opened his mouth to deliver a stern royal lecture, but realized I was already ten paces ahead of him, weaving through the crowded street with purpose.
Suppressing a heavy sigh, the Kingsguard knight tightened his tattered brown coat over his armor and hurried after me.
When was the last time I had enjoyed myself this much?
It was hard to recall.
While beating up snobbish, arrogant kids in the training yard was fun in its own right, verbally annoying a deadly, stone-faced Kingsguard knight was infinitely more rewarding.
As we descended the final sloping ridge of the hill, the muddy track gave way to the bustling, timber-planked avenues of the Blackwater docklands.
The sheer, overwhelming scale of maritime commerce was a staggering sight to behold.
The riverfront was a chaotic, sprawling labyrinth of rickety wooden piers, heavy timber wharves, crane winches, and stone warehouses stretching for a mile along the dark water.
The ambient air here was a potent, thick cocktail of smells: salt spray, wet oak, rotting fish, burning pine tar, sea-coal smoke, and cheap Essosi rum.
Hundreds of ships of every conceivable shape and size were moored along the riverbank or anchored out in the deep channel.
I spotted massive, belly-timbered trading cogs from the Free Cities of Pentos, Tyrosh, and Myr, their tall pine masts bristling against the twilight sky like a wooden forest.
Beside them sat sleek, long-hulled trading galleys from the Vale, flat-bottomed grain barges down from the Reach, and salt-crusted fishing smacks from the Crownlands.
One vessel in particular caught my keen eye: a magnificent, long-hulled war galley riding high near the central stone pier, flying a brilliant pale-green banner emblazoned with a silver seahorse.
House Velaryon of Driftmark.
The sight of Lord Velaryon’s flagship reminded me of the maritime power of Old Valyria but I couldn’t help but wonder what the ship was doing here.
The Velaryons had ruled the tides long before my ancestors had set a foot on Westeros, controlling the trade routes across the Blackwater Bay with their fleet.
The noise along the wharves was deafening.
Muscle-bound dock porters, stripped to the waist and dripping with sweat, carried heavy wooden crates of Tyroshi dyes, Pentoshi silks, and Myrish glass off the ships, grunting in unison as they hauled their loads up the timber ramps.
Foreign merchants shouted prices in colorful, musical dialects of High Valyrian and Bastard Valyrian, while local Westerosi fishwives screamed at the top of their lungs, hawking fresh oysters, salt cod, and eels from wooden buckets.
I strolled down the timber pier, taking in the grand spectacle with interest.
Seeing so many different people was definitely interesting.
As the last rays of golden sunlight dipped behind the horizon, casting deep purple shadows across the bay, my stomach let out a loud, thunderous rumble that echoed even above the noise of the docks.
All that walking, sword practice, and spy recruiting had burned through my morning breakfast entirely.
Spotting a small stone hearth set up near the edge of the pier, where an old, bent fishmonger woman was frying fresh river fish and spiced sausage links over glowing coals in a heavy iron skillet, my eyes lit up.
The sizzling lard smelled absolutely divine, perfumed with wild garlic, crushed black pepper, and sea salt.
I marched over to the hearth, pulled two shiny silver stags from my pouch, and slapped them onto the wooden counter.
“Two of your finest sausage rolls, goodwoman!
Extra garlic, and make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked through!” The old woman blinked in surprise at the sight of shiny silver, quickly wrapping two fat, sizzling pork sausages inside thick, toasted barley flatbreads with a pair of wooden tongs.
She handed them over with a toothless, beaming smile.
I took a massive, blistering bite out of my sausage roll, it was incredibly delicious and I almost groaned at the good taste.
Man, I sure hope it wasn’t made out of rat meat, or worse, human meat.
If it was…
then there was a first time for everything right?
Turning around, I thrust the second sausage roll directly into Ser Humfrey’s leather-gloved hand.
The Kingsguard knight looked down at the piping-hot street food as though I had handed him a live venomous viper.
“My prince…
I am on duty.
I cannot eat street rations while guarding royal blood.” “Eat the sausage, Ser Humfrey,” I ordered with a shrug, taking another bite.
If I was eating human meat, then he would do it as well with me.
“That is a royal command.
You have been staring at stone walls and tracking me, the least you can do is enjoy a hot meal before we climb that godforsaken hill again.” Ser Humfrey hesitated, glancing down at the sizzling flatbread, before lifting his brown wool hood slightly and taking a cautious bite.
His dark eyes widened in subtle appreciation as he chewed the savory pork.
“It is…
palatable, Prince Maegor,” he admitted softly.
“See?
Life is far too short to eat boring castle broth every night,” I chuckled, wiping a speck of grease from my chin with the back of my sleeve.
With the stars beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky above, we turned away from the noisy, lantern-lit docks and began our slow, peaceful trek back up the grassy slopes of Aegon’s Hill.
The cold sea wind whipped through my dark wool mantle, but the hot sausage in my belly and the heavy velvet doublet kept me thoroughly warm.
As we approached the towering pine gates of the Aegonfort, where the torch flames flickered against the twilight, I looked back one last time at the sprawling, lantern-lit settlement below.
It had been an interesting morning out in the world and I felt like I had done a decent amount of good work.
The road to becoming a legendary dictator was going to be long, violent, and chaotic.
But as I stepped through the castle gates and heard the heavy iron bolts slide into place behind me, I knew one thing with absolute, unshakeable certainty.
I was going to enjoy every single second of it.
First things first, I was going to have a beautiful time sleeping on my soft bed.
Remember kids, you don’t become a dictator by skipping your important sleep.
Hmm, was dictator even the correct term?
Well, it didn’t matter anyways.
…
Word Count: 2851.