“Whoosh!”
The fine bowstring woven from silk snapped crisply, light yet strong.
An ash-wood arrow shot forward like a streak of white light, burying itself in the soft, muddy ground before the target.
Quite a few arrows already stood crookedly in the mud, looking like a thicket of bare, withered branches.
Baelon lowered his hand, dissatisfied.
“Ser Swann, can I use a bow with a heavier draw weight?”
“Fifteen pounds, perhaps? I think I can draw one.”
The bow he was using had a maximum range of only sixteen paces, and beyond twelve, it had practically no power at all.
Even when he occasionally struck the target, the arrow could not pierce the burlap covering it.
Samwell Swann folded his arms and shook his head.
“Prince, you are only six years old.”
“Every martial skill must be learned step by step.”
Ser Swann hailed from the Marches.
Unlike most Westerosi lords, he had a healthy, wheat-colored complexion, and the woolen cloak he wore was embroidered with the Swann crest.
He seemed determined to put swans on his armor, shield, cloak, and anywhere else that could bear an emblem.
“You’ve already reached a level no worse than the boys of the Marches,” Ser Swann reassured him.
Pride spread across his face.
“You should know, the Marches are famous for their longbowmen. We have the finest archers in all of Westeros!”
Baelon did not argue.
The Marches had spent generations defending against Dornish incursions and produced no shortage of skilled archers.
Ser Samwell Swann himself had won the archery contest at the tourney held for Baelon’s last nameday.
“All right. When it comes to professional matters, listen to the professionals.”
It was a simple enough principle.
Yet the Maesters and Septons teaching him insisted on repeating it in his ears over and over again.
The Septons told him that even a Prince should never pass judgment on matters he did not understand.
The Maesters said that a man’s judgment only carried weight within a field he knew well.
Meddling rashly in matters beyond his understanding would inevitably lead to mistakes.
The senior members of the Small Council told him the same thing.
For matters of war, consult knights seasoned by battle.
For affairs of state, seek counsel from those who understood the matter at hand.
Baelon: ?
Wasn’t that common sense?
Yet everyone treated it like some sacred truth, patiently spoon-feeding it to him again and again.
More than twenty years of education, history, and culture from his previous life had left their mark deep within his soul.
As a result, his way of thinking differed ever so slightly from the mainstream views of Westeros.
Take these endlessly repeated lessons, for example.
The third time he heard the same thing, he accepted it humbly.
By the fifth, he could still smile.
But by the tenth…
Were these people not being far too presumptuous?
Were they not overstepping their bounds?
Did they see him as nothing more than a vessel into which they could pour their own will?
Were they trying to replace his mind with theirs, until his mouth merely repeated whatever they wanted him to say?
The problem was…
No one else in the Red Keep seemed to think that way.
Baelon could only suppress his restless suspicions.
Sigh.
He really would have been better suited to being an emperor ruling supreme in the ancient world of his previous life.
The ideal king in Westeros was expected to be a valiant warrior.
Even a famously wise king had to display his martial prowess and maintain his rule through iron and fire.
A gentleman should not stand beneath a crumbling wall?!
A king refuses to personally lead his army and charge at the head of his men?!
Coward!
Weakling!
A craven king who drinks deep of his soldiers’ blood!
Baelon: …
Alexander the Great really had been born on the wrong continent.
Who could have imagined that after transmigrating, his greatest obstacle would not be the noble lords or feudal powers?
It was his own soul, already molded by his previous life.
He could not understand how Viserys could tolerate the tangled network of secret passages beneath the Red Keep, passages not even the king himself fully controlled.
When Rhaenyra learned from Daemon that a secret passage in her bedchamber led directly outside the Red Keep, and was delighted by the discovery, Baelon immediately ordered his own chambers thoroughly searched.
There was something else he could not understand.
Historically, Maegor’s queen, Alys Harroway, had been so afraid that she asked her father to arrange for someone else to “father a child” for Maegor.
Lucas Harroway, Hand of the King at the time, proceeded to arrange for more than thirty men to enter the royal palace and share the queen’s bed.
Among those thirty-odd men were both old and young, including lords, knights, squires, grooms, smiths, and singers.
The Maesters focused their lessons on Maegor’s cruelty.
Baelon only thought the matter was becoming increasingly interesting.
More than thirty men had been smuggled into the royal palace?!
And apparently, he was the only person who found that alarming.
How…
wonderful!
If security at the royal palace was this lax, would it not be even easier to smuggle people into the castles of other Westerosi nobles?
Especially after he discovered that Westerosi nobles did not employ food tasters, countless methods of assassination began popping uncontrollably into his head.
Baelon felt he might have had real potential as one of the Faceless Men.
When it came to political maneuvering, he was nothing special.
Tsk, tsk.
The Faceless Men had truly suffered a great loss by not having him among their ranks.
For the sake of Westeros’s moral standards, Baelon had made an enormous effort to restrain himself from voicing the thoughts in his head.
He had truly sacrificed far too much.
That was why he preferred practicing martial arts in the training yard to studying Valyrian and various histories in the Tower of Maesters.
Baelon abruptly released his fingers.
The arrow flew.
Ser Swann’s eyebrows shot upward.
“Very good! You nearly hit the target!”
Baelon looked at him in surprise.
He cast Ser Swann a stunned glance.
What was wrong with this troublesome Swann today?
Why was he acting so normal?!
“Prince, would you like to know who the best and most famous archer is?” Ser Swann asked with an expression of utmost solemnity.
“I would not.”
Baelon wiped the sweat from his brow, drew a deep breath, calmed himself, then nocked another arrow and pulled the bowstring taut.
“Hmm… very well. Then there is one more thing of the utmost importance. I swear before the Seven Gods that not a single word I am about to say is false,” Ser Swann said, smoothly changing the subject.
Baelon sighed helplessly.
“Don’t say it. Just don’t.”
“No! I must! This is the most important part!”
“And that is… the finest longbowman in the Marches is standing right before you!” Ser Swann declared with a grin.
He suddenly burst into wild laughter, tore off his clothes, and waved enthusiastically toward the gallery.
“It’s me!”
“Samwell Swann!”
He struck several poses, flexing his body like a champion.
“Ah!”
The gallery was crowded with ladies and maids who had gathered to watch the spectacle.
Ser Swann’s display immediately sent them into a chorus of excited screams.
Baelon even saw one maid clutch her heart and collapse against her companion.
Ser Swann roared with laughter, immensely pleased with himself.
Hungry for even more cheers and screams, he flexed his muscles with renewed enthusiasm, turning this way and that to display his well-built physique.
Baelon could only cover his forehead with one hand.
Sigh.
What had he done?
He had brought this entirely upon himself.
How he missed the Ser Swann from before the tourney.
Back then, he’d been a sweet, well-mannered, painfully shy little Mountain in the making.