The fat baker, having embellished his colorful tale for the fussy guard, returned to his shop with the obvious hope of forgetting the incident and getting back to business.
But no sooner had he crossed the threshold than he noticed several more loaves missing from his counter.
His face flushed crimson with rage.
“Oh, the scoundrels!” he bellowed, kicking a stool with such fury that it flew to the wall with a pitiful crack.
Passersby turned at his shout, but the baker only glared angrily at the crowd, looking for the guilty parties.
He immediately thought of the local boys who always hung around nearby.
Usually they begged, asking for stale crusts, but today they had clearly crossed the line.
The loss of his purse and part of his goods weighed on him: the day’s takings could have fed his family for several days, allowed him to buy more flour and oil.
Now he could only hope for a good sale of what remained.
“You’ll pay for this,” he muttered under his breath, trying not to draw more attention.
Picking up the stool, the baker suddenly noticed a leather thong sticking out from under the counter.
He pulled it and, to his surprise, found the missing purse.
A shadow of relief crossed the shopkeeper’s face, quickly replaced by confusion.
“So that boy…”
The thought of the guard, who had grimly warned him about the consequences of false accusations, made the baker pale.
At first, he was relieved and wanted to find that guard to tell him about the discovery…
But the risk of a fine, anger at the damned thieves, and the goods stolen afterward tipped the scales.
“Serves him right!” he thought spitefully, clutching the purse tighter.
Deciding this would be a lesson, the baker dismissed the idea of admitting his mistake.
He no longer intended to think about what kind of “lesson” awaited the boy, nor to tell anyone about his blunder.
“Fresh bread!
Get your fresh bread!” he called out loudly, taking his place behind the counter again, forcing a calm smile as if nothing had happened.
When Arthur woke, the first thing he saw was the enormous dragon skull, its empty eye sockets seeming to stare straight at him.
With a choking sob, he tried to scramble away, but bumped into another giant bone and only then remembered where he was and how he had gotten there.
The vast cavern, littered with dragon bones, no longer seemed mysterious and alluring.
Now the boy felt only dread.
The skulls stared at him with cold, dead stares from empty sockets.
His head throbbed fiercely, and blood trickled from his nose…
“Seven…” he muttered, wiping the fluid with his dirty sleeve.
He scrambled to his feet, determined to get out of there as quickly as possible.
He ducked into the first passage he saw, the largest one, and moved quickly through the dark corridor, trying to find his way back to the path where he had seen people.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out the vague outlines of the underground passages.
But his head pounded with a pulsing pain in his temples.
On the edge of his vision, strange firefly-like lights danced, forming symbols and unfamiliar runes.
The events following his touch had faded from his memory, too vast to retain.
The orphan assumed he’d hit his head on a stone or bone when he fell, preferring not to think about what had actually happened.
He just wanted to escape, having already lost his fear of being discovered.
To his surprise, the corridors were empty.
What’s more, Arthur seemed to have emerged into a more inhabited part of the dungeons.
At least there was less dust here, and he found several staircases leading upward.
Unfortunately, that didn’t help him find an exit.
Too many forks, too many turns, some marked with small signs he didn’t recognize.
At some point, when Arthur caught the tempting smell of food wafting from one of the branches, he decided to follow it.
This time, he made sure to remember the way back.
The scent led him to a small dead end, the way out blocked by a narrow crawl space that an adult certainly couldn’t fit through.
But an orphan boy…
“Again…” Arthur groaned, letting go of the iron grate that refused to yield to his efforts, firmly mortared into the stone walls.
He had already encountered several of these, gradually climbing through the narrow “cat’s passage” upward.
Some of the gaps were bricked up.
None led outside, and Arthur had no choice but to stare helplessly at the paths to freedom, so close yet so unreachable.
Beyond the bars, he could see rooms, studies, and storage spaces.
The grate in the kitchen, where the smell had led him, was blocked by a crate with a small hole chewed through it by rats.
He had seen their gray tails scurrying through the endless narrow maze, each time banging his hands warily against the stone.
But the inhabitants of the Red Keep, unlike their hungry and frightened neighbors from Flea Bottom, showed no aggression and didn’t even seem particularly afraid of the exhausted boy.
And Arthur was indeed exhausted.
He had long since lost his way in these narrow passages, desperately trying to find an exit.
There was none.
The crawl spaces, unlike the tunnels below, weren’t designed for escape or covert movement.
They served another purpose entirely.
“Oh, Jaime…” A sigh full of pleasure came from beyond the grate as he crawled toward it.
The boy froze.
But curiosity, mixed with another kind of interest, drew him forward.
They said bastards grew up fast.
But those who grew up where Arthur did grew up even faster.
He knew about the birds and the bees, and then some.
But to see it firsthand…
Holding his breath, he crawled up to the grate, which was additionally concealed by a tapestry, and pressed his eye to the hole.
He had a stunning view of a richly decorated room, and the bare back of a magnificent golden-haired woman.
She rode the man beneath her like a thoroughbred mare, her breasts covering his face.
Candles cast long shadows, highlighting the flawless white skin.
Arthur held his breath, watching.
The hot air seeping through the tapestry suddenly seemed thicker.
Behind the heavy fabric and the grate separating him from the lavish room, a scene unfolded that he couldn’t have imagined even in his wildest dreams.
The woman, naked to the last line of silk, moved with grace and confidence, like a dancer.
Her golden mane cascaded down her back.
The man beneath her, muscular, with hair just as golden, seemed possessed, his hoarse whispers barely reaching the boy’s ears.
“My…
Queen,” he growled, turning her beneath him with effort.
Arthur noticed a strange similarity in their features.
The thought flashed by quickly, not lingering, because what was happening was so captivating that he couldn’t look away.
“Jaime…” the woman moaned, her fingers digging into the man’s shoulders like the claws of a bird of prey, leaving bloody scratches on his muscular body.
“Cersei…” he answered, not breaking his gaze, which was full of passion and fury.
Their bodies moved in silent harmony, as if nothing else existed no time, no space, only the two of them.
The boy felt his breathing grow heavy and his heart pound in his chest.
But when he realized what he’d heard, the blood rushing to every part of his body suddenly receded.
“Blast…” Arthur whispered, turning pale as ash.
Everything clicked into place in the boy’s head.
Cersei…
Could it be the Cersei?
Arthur knew only one woman with that name, one known even to the poor of Flea Bottom, though they had never met her personally.
Cersei Lannister.
The Queen.
He didn’t know who the second person was he knew little of life above but he knew the King had black hair…
“Royal treason.”
Arthur carefully but quickly crawled back.
He didn’t yet understand what this would mean exactly, but he knew that if anyone found out what he’d seen, losing a hand would seem like the greatest blessing the Seven could bestow.
He had to run, and forget what he had witnessed.
“Sorry…” Arthur mumbled, bumping sideways into a passerby.
He had barely escaped from the Red Keep, exhausted from his nighttime wanderings and strange visions.
His head ached from lack of sleep, the night’s shocks, the endless wandering through the passages, and the strange symbols that had begun to appear over people’s heads toward the end, finally driving him mad.
Finding an exit hidden in a niche behind a statue, he emerged into the castle’s inner courtyard.
He was lucky.
Blending in with the crowd of servants leaving for the city early in the morning, the boy made it back to his humble shelter in Flea Bottom without much trouble.
He only had a few steps to go.
But life, as always, had other plans.
“Watch where you’re going next time, kid,” came a good-natured but firm voice.
Arthur looked up, and his eyes immediately caught strange symbols floating above the man he had bumped into.
Words seemed to burn in the air:
“Name: Humphrey Waters.
Position: Lieutenant of the Watch.
Level: .”
The man’s face seemed familiar.
In an instant, Arthur realized: this was the guard who had chased him.
The man had already spotted him and recognized him.
“You…” the guard began, his face a mix of surprise and disbelief.
The boy didn’t wait for Humphrey to collect himself.
He darted to the side, like a rat cornered against a wall, but a strong hand immediately clamped onto his wrist.
“Let go!” Arthur shouted, struggling desperately, .
He was tall and fast, but there was no way for an orphanage boy to build enough mass to overcome the strength of a grown man.
The guard looked Arthur over carefully, and something like bewilderment flickered in his eyes.
“Sorry, kid,” the guard repeated, squeezing Arthur’s thin arm so tightly that the boy felt his fingers go numb.
“Theft is a crime.
You’ll have to answer for it.”
Humphrey squinted, studying the boy closely.
A shadow of confusion passed through his gaze, as if something about this grimy urchin didn’t fit the usual picture of a petty thief.
“But how did you survive?” he asked slowly, as if speaking to himself.
“That drain leads straight down to the sea!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Arthur shouted, desperately yanking his arm, but the guard’s grip was like iron.
His heart pounded like a hammer in a forge.
A deafening alarm rang in his head: he knows, he knows!
For some reason, the boy thought Humphrey knew about his time in the Red Keep.
“I didn’t do anything!
Nothing!”
“Well, you’re lucky,” the man chuckled, his beard twitching slightly.
“Or maybe not so lucky…” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a near-conspiratorial whisper.
“Confess.
Where did you put the purse?”
“What purse?” Arthur’s eyes widened in desperation.
“I only took the bread!” he cried out, his thoughts racing frantically, trying to figure out how to convince him he was telling the truth.
“I don’t have any purse!”
“The baker says you do,” the guard drawled, raising an eyebrow.
His gaze became sharper, more probing, as if he were trying to break the boy with a single look.
“Listen, I’m feeling generous today.
I’ll give you one chance: give back what you stole, and I’ll let you go.
You were born again yesterday, practically.
If the Seven gave you a second chance, I will too.”
“But I don’t have any purse…” Arthur’s voice cracked into a rasp as he fell to his knees, held up only by the guard’s strong arm.
Tears ran down his dirty cheeks.
“I only took the bread!”
“Eh…
the purse must have sunk, right?” the guard said, shaking his head as if convincing himself of his own conclusion.
There was regret in his voice, as if he would have liked to believe the boy but was bound by duty.
“Well…
unlucky.”
Arthur said nothing, clenching his teeth to keep from sobbing aloud.
He didn’t understand why this was happening to him.
He had only taken a loaf of bread, just once in his life.
What had he done to that baker to deserve such a lie?
This injustice sparked an unexpected wave of anger within him.
“Yes, I took the bread!” Arthur declared, straightening up with surprising firmness.
“Just to eat, because I hadn’t eaten in two days.
And I’m ready to face punishment.
But I didn’t steal any purse!
I’m not a thief!”
He looked straight into the guard’s eyes, and Humphrey was taken aback by the fierce honesty in the boy’s words.
This was nothing like the petty thieves he’d encountered in all his years as a lieutenant of the city watch.
It was this confidence that planted a seed of doubt in Humphrey’s mind.
“But you did steal the bread,” the guard said after a long pause.
“All right.
It’s his word against yours.
If you’re telling the truth, you’ll just get lashes…
For now, you’ll have to sit in a cell.”
“I am telling the truth!” Arthur insisted.
“I heard you,” Humphrey grimaced.
He didn’t like the situation.
Injustice, pangs of conscience, and the other uncomfortable feelings that came with serving in the Gold Cloaks were things he’d grown used to, or learned to ignore.
He wouldn’t have risen so far otherwise.
But the bastard who had clawed his way up from the bottom still clung to some inner convictions he didn’t fully understand.
That was why he promised himself he would get to the bottom of this and speak to the baker again.
Something about this boy made him want to believe him.
“What’s your name, ‘non-thief’?”
He led the barefoot, dirty boy by the arm, loosening his grip slightly though he didn’t let go.
He’d already seen how fast this boy could run.
“Arthur,” the boy sniffled, wiping his tears with his free hand.
“Arthur Snow.”
“Interesting,” Humphrey grunted.
His own surname was Waters.
Another bastard…
“And where are you from, Arthur Snow?
Quite far from the North, isn’t it?
Any family?”
“I’m an orphan.
From the Sept’s orphanage, in Flea Bottom,” Arthur muttered, looking down.
He glanced around, avoiding the bright tags floating over the heads of passersby, then looked back at the guard.
“Where are we going?”
“Strange you don’t know…” The fact that the boy didn’t know the usual places for petty thieves, especially young “dippers,” planted another seed of doubt in Humphrey about the baker’s story.
“The Red Keep.”
“No…” the boy whispered.
“Not there!”
“Sorry, kid,” the man repeated, gripping his arm tighter.
“I’m not going to put you in with the brawlers.
You’ll get fed there.
You said you were hungry, right?”
“Yes, but…” Arthur couldn’t find the words.
He couldn’t tell him that he’d barely escaped from there, breaking countless laws.
Not to mention what he’d seen.
“But I didn’t steal the purse!
Why am I going there?”
“I’ll find out,” Humphrey replied, truly determined to get to the bottom of this.
“If you’re telling the truth, you’ll spend a day in a cell while I talk to the baker.
Nothing will happen to you.
Except maybe a few lashes.
If you’re lying, you’ll have only yourself to blame, boy…”
“I’m telling the truth,” Arthur scowled, then asked, “And they really feed you there?”
A hungry growl rumbled from his stomach.
“Yes.
King Robert ordered it…”