"Gods be good! Has the whole of King's Landing woken up before dawn today?" Robert groaned out loud as their small procession crawled through the crowd of smallfolks that were as thick as ants on the road to the city gate, leading out to the Harbour.
"A-Apologies, your grace! They were not so numerous when I left to call you," The Goldcloak replied nervously as he watched the household guards of the Red Keep work hard to maintain a perimeter around their party, wanting nothing more than to just swing his sword at the crowd and be done with these dirty vermin.
"They must be the ones who were forced to rush into the city after they closed the gates, Your Grace," Ser Barristan, sitting on a horse in front of the King, answered with a slight turn of his armoured head, soothing some of the King's irritation.
Their small party that set off from Red Keep consisted of the King, his three Kingsguard, among whom were Ser Barristan, Ser Moore, and Ser Oakheart, and in addition to them, there were about 15 warriors wearing armour of the Royal knights, and of course there was the messanger who had brought the King the unpleasant news first thing in the morning and was now responsible for leading them.
A few seconds later, the King once again lost his patience, and began muttering in vexation, constantly tapping his fingers on his legs, trying to shake off his nervous energy, which was hard to do at that moment as there was no source of alcohol anywhere around him, and he was sadly also without his lazy ass squire, who was at least good enough to always fetch him his wine.
His longing eyes kept on glancing towards his castle, where a warm bed was waiting for him, and his mind could not help but wonder if it would not be faster to just head back to the Red Keep and then wait for the news of the situation instead of staying stuck here on the road.
Unfortunately for him, before the King could act on his impulsiveness, the Gold cloaks on duty atop the City Gate suddenly began climbing down the wall in droves, and began to clear out the way for them, as it seems that someone up had finally caught sight of their boss stuck in the middle of dirty smallfolks.
And while it was still somewhat slow going even with the additional help, at least they were making steady progress now, so the King could not complain too much, and eventually, about half an hour later, they finally managed to reach the base of the wall.
Then, taking only his Kingsguard and a handful of familiar knights from the Stormlands, Robert finally began to climb the stairs to the top of the wall, and it was only after he started that he realised that this was the start of another difficult trial for him.
Not only were the stairs very steep, but they were also deliberately made to be winding and curvy so that the one climbing them would be left dizzy and disoriented, and while it would indeed have served as a good defence against an invading army, it was now working hard trying to kill its own master.
During the time of the Rebellion, Robert had been a huge, muscular beast who was tireless in battle and capable of wearing heavy plate and swinging a warhammer for long periods.
He had not just extreme strength, but also elite warrior stamina, and had repeatedly fought on the front lines and won plenty of duels against hardened knights.
But now years of heavy drinking, along with little to no training, have made him soft and bloated, with his big size now labouring against him, turning him into a weak and slow pig.
They were barely halfway through when the King began panting audibly, but he still kept up the facade for a few more minutes for the sake of appearance, and kept up with his Kingsguard.
But each step began asking more and more out of him, and eventually, at the second last flight of stairs, he forgot all about his ego and just sat right there on the dirty steps breathing loudly, uncaring of his waiting guards.
"Seven hells, who built these cursed stairs?" Robert complained red-faced and sweating, as he finally got his breathing under control after about 5 minutes of rest, and began the last part of the climb, "Whoever it was should be made to climb these aleast a 100 times every single day as punishment just to show him how foolish they are," he swore as he finally saw the light and hurriedly climbed out onto the top.
His guards did not reply, but the cool morning breeze at the height, and the satisfaction of finally having finished the task did a lot to stave off most of Robert's irritation, so he did not mind and just stood there enjoying the silence.
But the pleasant mood of his did not last long, as out of the corner of his eyes he caught sight of the idiot, because of whom his sleep had been interrupted, and his morning had been ruined.
"Well? Tell me then, Slynt? Where is this bloody enemy of yours?" he immediately barked at the sweating fellow, the so-called Commander of the City Watch.
In fact, from the very beginning, Robert had been sure that this was all either a big misunderstanding or a jest by someone, and not a real attack.
After all, no big force would be stupid enough to strike at King's Landing, especially at this time, when it was home to so many big nobles and all their numerous soldiers. Not to mention how alert all the Gold cloaks are at the moment, and besides, he would have been alerted long ago by the sentries stationed at Dragonstone had a large hostile force been heading for the city.
"I-Its them, your grace," Janos Slynt answered while pointing towards the formation of large ships that were still heading towards the city with a nervous look on his face, "They are still coming at us with full force. We should quickly get our defences ready for the attack, and immediately call for men from the other gates..." he went on, looking very unprepared for some reason, but sadly the response he got from his King was completely different from the one he had expected.
"Have you taken a leave of all you sense, you foolish brute?!" The King roared in frustration, as he had only needed a single glance at the horizon to realise that it was a useless trip. "Do you actually believe that someone would be frivolous enough to attack my city with just this handful of ships?"
Robert was right to be this sceptical and angry, as the Royal fleet alone consisted of about 200 ships ready to be deployed at all times for the King's pleasure, and while few ships in the fleet were as big as these 20 in front of him, that was not a concern as everyone knew that size did not matter when it came to naval battles, as much as speed and quantity did.
And not to mention that his men would absolutely outnumber whatever warriors these ships could be carrying, so no, Robert was quite certain that the ships were in fact not coming to attack the Capital.
"I...I..." Janos was left very flustered and bewildered by this beratement that came out of nowhere, and he had no answer to give the king, as he had not even thought that far.
"Fuck! And to think that I left my warm bed for this!" Robert cursed in annoyance as he rubbed his aching head and turned away from the incoherent idiot to once again stare out at the ships, which, now that he looked closely at, did look quite intimidating. "Who are they?" he abruptly asked as he caught sight of the last few who were still standing on the empty harbour.
"That... seems to be Robb Stark, your grace," The sharp-eyed Ser Barristan answered immediately in a deep, muffled voice, as if he had taken note of them long ago, "And the Maiden with him should be Lady Margery Tyrell, Lord Mace Tyrell's daughter,"
"What are they doing out there?" he asked out loud with a frown before he turned to the quivering Commander of the City Watch, "Did you actually close the gates before they could enter?" he asked incredulously, wondering where this ludicrous man got the guts to do something like this to two direct offspring of Lord Paramounts, who could very easily ask for the man's head for this offense, and Robert would be hard pressed to decline, as one of them was his dear friend's son.
"T-They didn't come into the city with the crowd, your grace. They did not move at all from their position until the very end, so I had no choice but to close the gates f-for safety. You have to believe me," Janos replied desperately, unable to explain how much he did not want this mistake to be on his head and how much he regretted his impulsive decision.
He had been drunk asleep in the nearby brothel an hour ago when his subordinate had abruptly arrived bearing the news of an unusually high number of ships heading for the city.
At first, he had been very annoyed with having his sleep interrupted and wanted nothing more than to kick the man out for wasting his time, but then the subordinate had suggested that maybe they could earn a large profit and fleece the stupid captain who dared to come in such a grand formation.
And that had completely hooked the fat commander, who presently dressed himself up, and rushed to the gates, and the moment he had seen the big trade vessels his eyes had lit up and he immediatley ordered the closure of the gates, thinking that any merchant who dared to bring so many ships to the King's Landing must be a loaded one, and that he would definitely fetch a big haul today.
But then, who would have thought that someone would alert the king, and things would spiral so out of control...
If he ever found out the one amongst his men who dared to go to the Red Keep and inform the King without his permission, he would definitely kill that bastard in the most painful way possible.
But sadly for the bald commander, he would never know that it was just a sheer coincidence, and his bad luck, that a rat in hiding happened to be keeping a watch on the situation from afar and decided to take advantage of his greed to cause chaos, just for his own pleasure.
"For Safety? Of whom?" Robert scoffed, not believing for a second that this idiot cared a whit for the smallfolks, "And from what? Those are obviously trade galleys out there, the kind that would not even be able to turn around quickly if something poked them in their asses, and even a simple Port hand could have told you that. Honestly, how in seven hells did a fool like you even become a commander?"
'By using bribes, of course,' arose the obvious answer in the mind of everyone present there as Slynt's face flushed in humiliation.
It was well-known that this slimy Lord would not even stand up from his comfortable seat unless a heavy bag of gold was sent into his hands, and that was without mentioning his habit of taking 'voluntary' tribute out of his subordinate's salary every single month.
In fact, there was even an instance where the old Lord Arryn had complained to Robert about his blatant habit of taking bribes(not that the king remembered it at the moment, being sober and irritated as he was,) only for him to reply that, 'The next one may as well be twice as corrupt, so there was no point in replacing him,'
But perhaps he may contemplate a change of decision now...
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