Bonus Chapter
…..
The Red Keep.
The Throne Room.
Today was the day of full court.
Every lord and official currently in King’s Landing had gathered in the hall, and along the galleries above stood no shortage of noble ladies besides, come to see the spectacle for themselves.
Word had spread fast.
A lord’s son from some distant eastern kingdom had arrived in the city, wealthy and free with his coin, and today the King would receive him.
None of them had ever heard of this Holy Empire he came from, which only sharpened their curiosity to see the man himself.
Robert entered before long, took his seat upon the Iron Throne, and the hall settled into silence around him.
The Queen and the Hand sat in the high seats to either side of him, the rest of the small council standing beyond them.
Robert glanced at Jon.
Jon nodded, and signaled to a Kingsguard standing near the doors.
“By the King’s word!
Let the envoy of the Holy Empire, son to a Great Lord of House Augustus, Ser Erwin Augustus Prestor, come forward!”
At the call, Erwin walked into the Throne Room in full armor.
Through the bronze-bound oak doors, down the stone steps beyond, flanked by lords of the crownlands and further houses besides, every eye in the hall took his measure as he came.
The lion worked into his armor drew more than a few whispers, glances cutting back toward the throne, where the King’s own Kingsguard stood at the foot of the steps.
Jaime Lannister among them.
Erwin would have been lying to himself if he’d claimed he wasn’t nervous.
He steadied himself fast enough, though, telling himself this was no different from pitching a room full of executives back at his old job.
Head up, eyes forward, he crossed the floor to the Iron Throne and stopped some ten feet short of the steps, bowing at the waist.
“From the Holy Empire, east of Asshai.
Second son to a Great Lord of House Augustus.
Erwin Augustus Prestor, greeting His Grace Robert of House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”
“Rise,” Robert said, with a nod.
Erwin straightened and looked up at the throne properly for the first time.
Robert sat there crowned in antlers, a thick beard covering half his face, his frame carrying more weight than it once must have.
Close enough to the man from the show, by Erwin’s reckoning.
Beside him sat a man past fifty, hawk-nosed, dressed in black, the Hand’s pin fixed to his chest.
This had to be Jon Arryn, the Hand who’d never once appeared on screen in the show Erwin had watched.
Lower down the steps stood the rest of the small council.
Littlefinger, whom Erwin had already met.
Beside him, the Master of Laws, Robert’s youngest brother, a handsome young man named Renly.
The Master of Whisperers, bald as an egg, called the Spider, Varys.
And the Grand Maester, a man who looked barely able to stand upright yet somehow kept going, known well enough for his taste in brothels, Pycelle.
All three matched their counterparts from the show closely enough to place at a glance.
Of Robert’s other brother, Stannis, Master of Ships, there was no sign at all.
At the foot of the steps stood five men in white cloaks and plate, the famous Kingsguard.
Seven strong in total, sworn to serve and die for the crown alone, forbidden wives, forbidden children, loyal to nothing else in this world.
Standing at their center was the Lord Commander himself, a knight out of House Selmy known as Barristan the Bold.
Of the remaining four, Erwin placed one immediately.
The Kingslayer.
Jaime Lannister.
Eldest son of Lord Tywin of the Westerlands, twin brother to the Queen herself.
Golden-haired, tall, green-eyed, carrying the kind of handsome face that made lesser men jealous on sight, with a faint smile that never quite left his mouth.
Look closer, and that smile carried something colder underneath it.
Pure inborn arrogance, worn easy as a second skin.
In the silence that followed, Erwin studied the men above him, and every one of them studied him right back, along with the rest of the hall besides.
It left him with a strange, unmoored feeling, the watcher and the watched changing places without either one quite noticing when.
“Ser Erwin?”
Robert broke the silence first.
Erwin caught himself and offered an apologetic smile.
“Forgive me, Your Grace.
I heard no shortage of tales about this court on my way here, and seeing the men behind them in the flesh, my mind wandered for a moment.”
Robert’s brow lifted.
“Such as?”
“The Trident, for one.
Your Grace’s own part in it left quite an impression on me, even from half a world away.”
Robert let out a booming laugh at that, before something darker crossed his face and the laugh died in his throat.
“Old business.
Not worth the breath.”
He pressed on before the silence could settle again.
“I’ve heard a few things about you as well.
An adventurer, caught in a storm at sea, cut off from your own men.
Set on by bandits in the kingswood after, who killed your servants and took what you carried.”
“And that you hired yourself a company and a bit of cunning, and won it all back besides.
That the shape of it?”
Erwin caught himself glancing toward the bald man standing with his hands tucked into his sleeves, then let a small smile answer for him.
“That’s the shape of it exactly.”
“So what brings you before me?”
Erwin steadied his breathing.
This was the whole reason he’d come.
“Your Grace, I’ve heard Prince Joffrey’s name day falls in two months’ time, and that you mean to mark it with a tourney.
I’d ask leave to take part myself.
And I’ve brought gifts, for both Your Grace and the prince.”
“Oh?” Robert’s interest sharpened at that.
“What sort of gifts?”
“Waiting outside the hall, Your Grace.
If I might have my men bring them in.”
At Robert’s nod, Erwin clapped once.
Willem entered first, carrying a long box before him with both hands, careful as a man handling something sacred.
Behind him came another man with a shorter box, and behind them, two more struggling together under the weight of a wooden chest.
By the time they reached Erwin’s side, sweat had beaded across Willem’s forehead from nerves alone, and he held the box level at chest height, waiting.
Erwin lifted the lid.
Inside sat a sword, its hilt set with emeralds, catching the light of the hall.
More than one pair of eyes in that room narrowed at the sight of it.
…
Full refund, no questions asked.