Tears welled up in Rhaenyra’s eyes before she realized it.
She hurriedly turned her head away and blinked several times.
Looking at her brother’s puzzled face, Rhaenyra nearly blurted out the truth.
Their father possessed the gift of the Dreamer.
Once, he had dreamed of a blurred figure dying in the jaws of a dragon.
But Viserys knew that figure was one of his children.
Ever since then…
Whenever he went more than two days without seeing Baelon, their father would spend the entire night unable to rest.
Rhaenyra swallowed the words that had risen to her throat and, in the end, said nothing.
“Prince, the carriage is ready,” Ser Uther reminded him softly.
Baelon said, “I’m going outside the city.”
He was going to flee by carriage from this suffocating family that refused to listen to reason.
Seven Gods above, he did not truly mean that.
After all, he still had the Iron Throne to inherit!
For the Iron Throne and for dragons, he could even put up with a little Targaryen madness in the blood.
Ser Swann hurriedly threw his clothes back on and followed Baelon.
Halfway there, Baelon suddenly turned to him.
“Ser, tomorrow is your nameday, isn’t it?”
Ser Swann nodded.
“May the Seven bless you with good health, Ser. Take three days off and rest properly.”
Baelon smiled.
“You don’t need to come with me now. Go back to your room and look for the gift I left you.”
A radiant smile returned to Ser Swann’s face, and with it came his confidence and glory once more.
Baelon smiled as well.
He truly was fortunate to have met Ser Swann.
Ser Swann’s confidence and sense of glory rested entirely upon the esteem of others, which made them exceedingly fragile.
Whenever Baelon started getting carried away with himself, all he had to do was look at Ser Swann.
…
Wooden wheels rumbled over the packed dirt road, kicking up a thin haze of dust.
The streets were crowded and lively.
Vendors lined the roadside, calling out their wares, while shabby hedge knights mingled among them.
Ser Uther had changed into a brand-new suit of gleaming silver armor, complete with gorget, neck guard, full helm, and lobster gauntlets.
The helmet itself was plain and rounded, without any decoration.
“Ser Uther, how do you like the new armor?”
Ser Uther chuckled and removed his helmet, revealing a gaunt face.
Three or four teeth were missing from the sharp grin buried within his grizzled beard.
Ser Uther had come from the rat pits of Flea Bottom.
He was a hedge knight, and there had been nothing remarkable about his life.
His looks were ordinary, his skill with weapons was ordinary, and his build was ordinary.
He had never even won a tourney.
The weather was not particularly hot that day, yet sweat covered Ser Uther’s forehead and soaked into his beard.
He clenched a fist and struck his breastplate with a resounding clang.
“Excellent!”
The warhorse beneath him snorted irritably.
The gilded carriage rolled along the Street of Steel, with the River Gate already in sight.
Gold Cloaks stood guard at the River Gate with spears in hand.
Hearing the sudden clatter of hooves, they looked up. Find the original chapter at g.com.
A column of knights rode toward them on tall warhorses, red dragon banners streaming overhead, with a carriage in their midst.
The Gold Cloaks immediately began shouting, ready to drive away the carts and pedestrians blocking the road.
“Ser Uther, tell them there’s no need to hurry.”
Ser Uther dismounted neatly and strode over.
With his head high and chest out, he exchanged a few words with the Gold Cloaks, and the carriage continued forward at an easy pace.
Still holding his head proudly aloft, he walked back a few steps and casually helped an old washerwoman, bent nearly double at the waist, lift her laundry basket onto a cart.
He climbed back onto his horse, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.
“Prince, this will set people wondering whether the man inside that carriage might be Prince Baelon.”
Then he called loudly to the knights riding with them, “Stay sharp, lads!”
“Keep an eye on those hedge knights on either side. Don’t give them a chance to come charging over here with swords in hand!”
The moment he finished speaking, Baelon saw the eyes of several hedge knights light up.
They promptly drew their swords and ran toward the carriage.
Baelon pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Ser Uther, after shouting that, you’ve told the entire street who I am!”
“Prince!”
“Prince Baelon!”
Several knights shouted excitedly.
“Prince Baelon?!”
That single cry was enough to bring the entire street surging toward them.
Women raised their infants high toward the carriage.
Children ran alongside it, and people poured toward Baelon like a rising tide.
Some even climbed onto low rooftops and windowsills.
The knights and Gold Cloaks hurriedly formed a human wall to hold back the excited crowd.
Baelon, once again finding himself trapped in the middle of a street after far too long: …
He could understand the excitement of the hedge knights.
All he could say was this: thank you, lords of Westeros.
Thank you for your arrogance and discourtesy.
For being so arrogant that you could not even remember the names of every knight who had bled and sacrificed for you.
Thank you for standing so far above everyone else.
For your contempt and stinginess toward the hedge knights who once served you.
With such peers making him look good by comparison, winning the loyalty of knights through a little showmanship was absurdly easy for Baelon.
He had not even started borrowing tricks from King Arthur or Richard the Lionheart yet!
All he had done was remember a knight’s name when the man nervously came forward to greet him.
He would ask kindly after the knight’s wounds, generously give him gold dragons, and have a Maester treat him.
Then, after a tourney, he had sought out a hedge knight nearing forty, a man who had always upheld the ideals of knighthood and had never committed a dishonorable act, though his martial skills were mediocre.
After the knight lost, Baelon paid to redeem his warhorse and armor.
A man just like Ser Uther.
Baelon had told him gently, “You needn’t thank me. Quite the opposite. I should be thanking you for what you’ve done for the Seven Kingdoms.”
He had praised him.
“You are a true knight. Your glory lies not in your strength, but in your noble character and soul, Ser.”
Then he invited the man to become one of the heir prince’s personal guards.
He gave him new armor and a new warhorse.
As for the old knight’s three aging horses, worn-out steeds that had accompanied him for many years, Baelon arranged for them to spend the rest of their lives in the royal stables.
Every now and then, when the mood took him, he would personally feed those old horses an apple or a handful of oats.
That was all.
Yet as Ser Uther’s story spread, Baelon somehow seemed to have become an ideal ruler in the hearts of the hedge knights. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Every day, ragged hedge knights loitered outside the Red Keep, hoping for a chance to raise their swords and swear allegiance to him.
When Baelon learned of this from “Clubfoot” Larys, he was utterly astonished.
No, seriously.
He had barely even started!
And the hedge knights had already surrendered themselves to his cause?!
Then who was he supposed to use all those time-honored tricks for winning loyalty on?
Linking arms, sharing a bed, and the rest of the old ruler’s playbook for winning a man’s heart?
Baelon sincerely thanked his peers for making him look so good by comparison.
His life had gone far too smoothly.
He had never even experienced the thrill of living on edge and struggling his way upward through his own efforts!
And he truly could not understand the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms.
Put on a little performance, spend an insignificant amount of wealth, offer the smallest measure of respect and courtesy, and men would swear to die for you.
Why had the nobles never done this before?
Stranger still, after Baelon started doing it, not one of them copied him!
Baelon had even prepared himself for some lord to imitate him and compete for the knights’ loyalty, only to find himself punching at empty air…
Surely the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms could not all be fools.
Their complete lack of reaction left Baelon doubting himself.
He remembered the original Game of Thrones story.
The more someone seemed like a protagonist, and the better things were going for them, the greater the chance they would suddenly die horribly.
Baelon immediately stopped feeling pleased with himself.
He began wondering whether some enormous hidden danger was buried in everything he had done.
He hastily reviewed his actions step by step and sought advice from Lyonel, Lyman, and the others.
Instead, they praised him, saying he was generous, humble, and benevolent, as though the Mother herself had descended into the mortal world.
Baelon: I don’t understand.
He also could not understand why these commoners were so excited.
Baelon’s gaze passed over face after delighted face.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong!
He wasn’t a gold dragon.
How could everyone possibly love him?
Baelon’s already vigilant mind went on high alert.
Could there be an assassin hidden in the crowd, waiting for the chaos to give him a chance to strike?
But Baelon had brought twenty knights with him, along with a squad of Gold Cloaks.
The crowd did not look capable of breaking through and reaching him.
Could the crowd suddenly riot, forcing the knights to draw their swords and kill people, thereby ruining the image he had built up?
Probably not.
After all, nobles killed people for inexplicable reasons often enough.
Baelon rubbed his chin.
So why, exactly, had none of the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms copied him?
Just how short-sighted were these people?!
His eyes swept rapidly across the scene.
More and more people were crowding around the gate, and a woman carrying a child stumbled amid the crush.
This could not continue.
Baelon made his decision at once and flung open the carriage door.
The moment he appeared, the crowd grew even more excited.
He took a deep breath.
“Everyone, listen to me!”