Located on the northern bank of the Blackwater Rush, King's Landing had exploded into the largest city in Westeros, fueled entirely by the concentrated power of the Iron Throne.
However, from an urban planning perspective, the entire city was basically a massive, haphazardly flattened pancake draped over three hills. Its design was purely chaotic, organic growth.
King's Landing was built mostly of mud, wattle-and-daub, and cheap timber. Endless warrens of rickety, mud-brick hovels jammed together with zero sense of civic design.
Oldtown, by contrast, was a city of ancient stone, possessing the elegant, refined charm of a classical southern metropolis.
As a result, the citizens of Oldtown constantly mocked King's Landing behind its back, calling it an ugly, classless dung heap built by nouveau riche upstarts.
They weren't entirely wrong.
Arthur cynically thought to himself: Well, Oldtown is made of stone. That probably makes it a lot harder to burn down.
King's Landing, on the other hand, would go up like a matchbox if someone introduced wildfire to the equation.
Ultimately, it came down to historical foundation. Oldtown had been wealthy and established for thousands of years. The fact that King's Landing had grown this massive in a mere three centuries was a miracle in itself.
Down on the street, a juggler performed tricks, followed by a screaming, barefoot mob of street urchins.
On the other side of the road, two ragged, six-year-old boys were viciously whacking each other with wooden sticks. The gathered crowd was split, some cheering the violence, others cursing and spitting.
The impromptu duel only ended when an old crone leaned out of a second-story window and dumped a bucket of dirty foot-water directly onto the boys' heads.
Peasants huddled in the shadows of the city walls, standing by their carts and shouting their wares: "Apples! Potatoes! Pumpkins! Bloodmelons!"
---
Riding through the streets of King's Landing, Arthur had already parted ways with "Ironhand" Jacelyn Bywater.
Despite his threadbare uniform, Bywater's muscles were dense and defined, and his eyes possessed a cold, metallic hardness. He was clearly a man who spent his life training for combat.
Unlike the average, lazy Gold Cloak, Bywater possessed the physical capability and discipline of a true knight.
Unfortunately, Bywater's family was broke, so he couldn't afford to buy or earn a knighthood.
Judging a man's martial prowess was actually quite simple. You looked at muscle mass, overall posture, the calluses on their hands, and whether their fingers showed the distinct deformities that came from years of gripping a sword hilt or drawing a heavy bowstring. Bywater checked every box.
"Ironhand" simply suffered from terrible luck. House Bywater wasn't exactly a prominent name to begin with; they were a practically invisible minor house.
Worse, Jacelyn was from a cadet branch of that already minor house. He was essentially the lowest rung of the lowest ladder.
Combine that with the fact that he was a strict, honorable disciplinarian who refused to kiss ass or participate in the City Watch's rampant corruption, and it was a miracle he hadn't been fired.
So, despite possessing formidable martial skills, he was stuck working as a lowly gate guard.
A man like that was the textbook definition of a "lone sword"—a desperate, capable man who could only rise through extreme, suicidal bravery.
In the original timeline, it was out of sheer gratitude for Tyrion Lannister recognizing his worth that Bywater fought to the death defending the city during the Battle of the Blackwater.
Arthur hadn't gone out of his way to aggressively recruit "Ironhand." He just wanted to establish a baseline of polite, respectful interaction.
Relationships built without immediate, transactional demands often yielded the highest long-term returns. Investment required patience.
---
Riding deeper into King's Landing, the crowds grew thicker and the noise became deafening.
The banners of House Whent saved Arthur from a lot of petty harassment.
The Heir to Harrenhal. The legendary curse. The obscene wealth. Everyone knew who the Lords of Harrenhal were; they were undisputed heavyweights.
Yet, riding through the capital, Arthur felt a profound sense of alienation.
The banners flying from the city walls were bright yellow, not pitch black. The skies where three-headed dragons once roared and breathed fire were now dominated by the prancing crowned stag of House Baratheon.
Tywin Lannister's purge of the capital had been brutally thorough, effectively annihilating House Whent's former royalist social network.
Tywin had sacked King's Landing in Robert Baratheon's name, drowning the city in blood.
He unleashed a massacre upon the Targaryens and their loyalists. Commander Manly Stokeworth of the City Watch had been killed defending the Red Keep, and Lannister soldiers used the chaos to pillage, rape, and burn.
The surviving loyalists and minor officials—men like Jaremy Rykker and Alliser Thorne—were given a stark choice: take the black and join the Night's Watch, or face the executioner's block.
With that entire political ecosystem destroyed, Arthur was essentially starting from scratch. He had to build a new network from the ground up.
Arthur spurred his horse forward, taking in the winding, filthy alleys and the broad, paved avenues.
He looked up at the Hill of Rhaenys and saw the blackened, ruined dome of the Dragonpit, a desolate monument to a bygone era.
He looked toward Visenya's Hill and saw the Great Sept of Baelor, its seven white towers gleaming with crystal light.
Historically, King's Landing had three massive, defining structures: the Dragonpit, the Great Sept, and the Red Keep.
The fact that the Dragonpit—the literal embodiment of Targaryen military supremacy—lay in ruins was perfectly symbolic of the dynasty's collapse.
Furthermore, Arthur knew one absolute truth about King's Landing: Nothing escapes the Spider.
It was common knowledge, but Arthur's heavily boosted perception stats allowed him to actually spot the subtle, unnatural attention directed at his procession. An old beggar here, a street urchin there, a gate guard, a passing whore.
Varys's "little birds" were just as famous as Bloodraven's "thousand eyes." The difference was that Bloodraven relied on unimaginable magical power and skinchanging, while Varys relied on vast sums of gold, a network of paid informants, and his army of mutilated child spies.
Arthur didn't care. Let Varys watch.
To Varys, Arthur was just a kid playing lord.
Besides, the eunuch actively encouraged anything that destabilized the Baratheon dynasty; he would simply sit back and watch it happen in silence.
He knew about Cersei and Jaime's incest. He knew about Renly Baratheon's terrifyingly deep "friendship" with House Tyrell.
Varys was sitting on two absolute nuclear bombs, deliberately hiding the detonators until the time was right.
Renly didn't just suddenly decide to rebel the moment Robert died; his ambition grew with every passing year.
Even while Robert was still alive, Renly, serving as Master of Laws, was actively plotting to have Robert set Cersei aside and marry Margaery Tyrell, hoping to pull Eddard Stark into the scheme. That plan was a direct declaration of war against House Lannister, designed to turn the realm upside down.
Varys was pure, calculated malice. He wanted the Seven Kingdoms to drown in blood and chaos to buy time for his "Aegon" to mature.
---
Arthur navigated through the city. His first duty was to formally present his house's gifts to the Royal Steward at the Red Keep.
After that, his time was his own until Renly's investiture ceremony.
Arthur led his retinue and the gift-laden wagons up Aegon's High Hill to the gates of the Red Keep.
The Red Keep was a massive, imposing fortress built entirely of pale red stone. It featured seven massive drum towers, a towering, brutal central keep, domed halls, covered bridges, barracks, dungeons, granaries, and thick, high curtain walls bristling with arrow slits.
"Halt! Who goes there?" shouted a crossbowman from the battlements.
"Arthur Whent, Heir to Harrenhal and Earl of Whitewalls! I bring gifts to celebrate His Grace's investiture of Lord Renly!"
"Good day, Young Master Arthur," the Royal Steward greeted him with polite, practiced indifference, standing before the towering bronze gates of the Red Keep. He instructed Arthur to bring the gifts inside for inventory, after which he would be dismissed.
House Whent's tribute included gold and silver finery, premium cheese, the new enhanced sweet corn, and fine wine.
It was exactly what was expected for a ceremony of this tier—respectable, but not ostentatious.
"You may take your leave now, Young Master Arthur. The gifts will be logged into the treasury. You need only wait for the official ceremony to begin," the Steward said with a tight smile.
Drop the loot and get out.
The fact that he was only greeted by a steward spoke volumes.
House Whent was a massive power—sitting just one tier below the Great Houses like Stark or Tyrell.
But this was the Baratheon era, and the Baratheons had no love for the Whents.
Everyone knew the Lords of Harrenhal had tied themselves to the Dragon Kings tighter than House Tully ever did.
The Red Keep wasn't infinite in size, and given their history as hardcore Royalists, offering a Whent quarters inside the royal fortress was deemed inappropriate.
Arthur wasn't going to get the VIP treatment that House Tyrell enjoyed, like being housed in the Maidenvault.
"My thanks, Lord Steward. The highest honor is serving His Grace," Arthur replied smoothly, showing neither anger nor subservience. He ordered his men to turn around and leave the Red Keep.
He didn't care about saving face. The city was packed for the ceremony anyway.
Technically, a Whent could probably demand to be housed in the Red Keep, but given their political standing, it wasn't worth the friction.
They had brought luxury pavilions with them; they would simply camp comfortably by the riverfront.
---
Not far away, in a high, hidden garret directly overlooking the Red Keep's gates, a bald man with a powdery complexion was observing the entire exchange through a Myrish lens.
Varys wore soft leather slippers, and his presence was masked by a cloying, overpowering perfume.
On his desk lay several fresh reports: sketches of Arthur conversing with Ironhand at the gate, and detailed notes tracking Arthur's exact route through the city.
It wasn't just Arthur. The moment any figure of actual consequence set foot in King's Landing, they pinged Varys's radar.
He was the ultimate early-warning system of the capital.
"Our poor, little bat," Varys giggled softly, watching the Whent procession retreat from the gates. "It's such a pity that our grand hero, King Robert, and our noble falcon, Lord Arryn, are so dreadfully cold to them."
Varys perfectly understood the political dynamics surrounding Harrenhal. He kept close tabs on every major lord.
The Lord of Harrenhal was one of the most powerful lords in close proximity to the capital, and he was currently overflowing with bitter resentment.
"House Whent controls Harrenhal and Whitewalls. Their new sweet corn enterprise is generating capital at an alarming rate. If their financial recovery accelerates, they will inevitably seek to return to the center of power," Varys mused, his mind spinning a dozen different scenarios. "But the bats are foolish. There is no place for them in King's Landing. There is barely enough room for the Lion and the Rose, let alone the Bat. Eventually, they will realize that their only path forward is to follow a new, true King."
"Let them be. House Whent cannot alter the grand design. This world requires a true dragon."
To Varys, all the defeated Royalists were just future supporters of "Aegon" waiting to be activated.
Hardcore loyalists like the Whents might play the part of obedient vassals, but their hearts burned with hatred. They all secretly longed to flip the board.
Varys's grand strategy was entirely built on stalling for time.
On one front, he needed to ensure the political time bombs within the Baratheon court continued to tick until they detonated spectacularly.
Cersei. Renly.
Cersei's child was a bastard born of incest, and giving Renly the Stormlands practically guaranteed a violent secession.
On the other front, he needed time for "Aegon" to mature and build his forces.
He needed total chaos. He needed the Seven Kingdoms to bleed and suffer.
When the smallfolk and the lords finally grew to absolutely despise the Stag and the Lion, that would be the perfect moment for the Dragon to return as their savior.
Outside of that grand design, houses like Whent, Tully, and Stark were largely irrelevant to his immediate plans.
To Varys, House Whent was worth monitoring, but they were a secondary piece on the board.
A little bat. Let it flutter.
Varys's true focus remained locked on King's Landing and the royal court.
The Royalists demanded vengeance, and Varys was going to hand-raise the perfect leader to give it to them. It was a flawless plan.