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Arthur's time in King's Landing had been short, but the gains were enormous.
First, the loot: from the royal armory he had walked away with a dragonbone-hilted Valyrian steel dagger and a pair of Valyrian steel gauntlets.
Second, the team: his "Dark Knight" company had expanded to seven members, and the quality was outstanding.
The roster now stood as follows:
- Instructor: Ser Lucas Dayne
- Squires: Wylis Wode and Lucas Roote (heir to Lord Harroway's Town)
- Newly recruited hedge knights: Lothor Brune the Apple-Eater, Clarence Crabb the Flying-Pig Knight, and young Tristimont
He had also visited Tobho Mott, the finest armorer in the city, and even shared a drink with the newly arrived "Hound," one of the realm's future monsters.
With everything settled, Arthur decided it was time to leave King's Landing and ride south for Starfall.
"The Spider's webs are everywhere in the water," he thought.
What truly put him on guard was the fact that, even after all this time in the capital, he had still not crossed paths with Varys. Yet he knew without doubt that every move his little group made had been watched.
King's Landing was riddled with holes. The safest place was still his own lands.
"Robert, Jon Arryn, Tywin… their hands-off attitude toward the Master of Whisperers and the Master of Coin will one day breed a tiger that devours them all," Arthur mused.
One critical position, one perfectly disguised spymaster.
The essence of power is balance. A wise ruler rotates people and plants sand in the gears.
But when a king plays the absentee landlord and keeps refilling the same cup forever, he invites usurpation and collapse.
Varys had sat in that chair for twenty years under two different dynasties. The trouble he would cause was far worse than anything Littlefinger could dream up.
"We leave through the Mud Gate," Arthur told Ser Lucas and the others. They settled their bill at the Steel Inn and turned their horses toward the river gate.
Arthur wore a studded black jerkin with his longsword and Valyrian dagger belted at his waist—an image of a handsome, martial young lord.
"As you command!" His newly recruited hedge knights answered with high spirits.
They now wore fresh black-lacquered armor and yellow cloaks bearing the bat of House Whent, looking every inch the proper retainers.
Behind them rode Harrenhal servants leading spare horses and pack animals loaded with campaign tents, water, wine, rations, spare weapons, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
Arthur quietly assessed his fighting company. It was already a first-rate team.
He himself was super-first-rate.
Ser Lucas and the three hedge knights were all veteran first-rate warriors, with Ser Lucas a cut above the rest.
Even the two young squires, Wylis and Lucas, had a real chance of reaching first-rate level under his intense training.
A seven-man party this strong was no joke.
"There are plenty of first-rate fighters," Arthur thought. "Super-first-rate ones are almost impossible to recruit."
Finding talent was part luck, part timing.
Super-first-rate knights were genetic outliers; they rarely drifted on the open market.
Still, first-rate men were already valuable.
Super-first-rate were like mutations—Robert Baratheon, Arthur Dayne, the Hound, the Mountain, Strongboar.
The Lannisters had struck gold. Before the Kingslayer, the Westerlands had been famous mostly for clever tongues and dirty tricks. For three hundred years their battlefield record had been laughable—until Jaime appeared like a lion among sheep.
By contrast, House Stark produced monsters on a regular basis: the Old Man of the North Cregan, Black Sword, Artos the Implacable. Only Eddard himself fought at a merely competent level.
Arthur had chosen the safest route south.
From King's Landing they would follow the Kingsroad through Tumblestone and Bitterbridge, pass Highgarden and Oldtown, then take ship from the Arbor to Starfall.
The Mud Gate—also called the River Gate—was far better known by its muddy nickname.
Clop-clop-clop!
Hooves rang out as Arthur's party reached the Mud Gate. Along the riverside stretched more than a hundred docks, bustling with activity.
The Red Keep loomed like a great beast at the eastern mouth of the Blackwater, its crowned-stag banners snapping proudly.
Countless ships crowded the harbor: deep-sea fishing boats, river ferries, royal pleasure barges, Ibbenese whalers, and trading cogs from across the Narrow Sea.
At the docks, longshoremen unloaded cargo while ship captains hawked goods right on the pier.
"Fresh pomfret! Fresh pomfret!"
"Best Myrish fire!"
"Fine Myrish tapestries!"
"Dragon eggs! Real dragon eggs!" someone even shouted from a shady corner.
Most of it was fake, of course. The real high-value goods never saw the open market—they went straight to noble warehouses and private manors.
Arthur glanced at the so-called dragon eggs. Just painted stones to fool foreigners.
They found a mid-sized passenger ferry at the crossing dock. The boatman rowed them swiftly across the Blackwater.
" Heard the news? They say the drunk king and the queen had another screaming row. Something about the king bedding a woman in his brother's marriage bed on Dragonstone."
"So shameless? A wedding is sacred before the gods—how could he defile his own brother's bed?"
"Drunkard. Whoremonger."
Even at the dockside, Arthur caught snippets of gossip about Robert.
In every era, bedroom scandals traveled faster than anything else.
Robert's behavior had already earned him two charming nicknames: the Drunk King and the Whoremonger King.
The ferry was fast and steady, carrying them to the southern bank.
"Such a great river and not a single proper bridge. Strange," Wylis muttered.
There were temporary pontoon bridges, but they were narrow and couldn't handle heavy traffic. Ferries remained the main way across.
"They're probably used to it," Clarence laughed.
They mounted up on the south bank and set off along the Kingsroad toward the Reach.
Now that they had left the city, they were finally beyond the Spider's web of eyes.
"That Hound really was built like a beast," Ser Lucas said, still impressed.
Super-first-rate knights were like basketball players—tall, thick with muscle.
"I heard his brother is even more monstrous. They say he's nearly eight feet tall," Lothor added. The Mountain was rumored to stand close to two and a half meters.
The Clegane brothers were a matched pair of gatekeepers to the top tier.
According to the Kingslayer's private power ranking, the Hound was one of the true monsters.
Among the dead, the White Bull Gerold Hightower and Ser Arthur Dayne had been stronger than Jaime in their prime.
Among the living, only Robert was stronger.
Then there were the Greatjon Umber in the North, Strongboar of Crakehall in the West, the Clegane brothers (especially the Mountain, whose raw strength seemed almost inhuman), and now the rising Arthur Whent.
If you included the Narrow Sea, add Khal Drogo and the pit fighters of Meereen.
"Lord Tywin's luck really is something else," Wylis breathed.
A full All-Star roster, completely reversing the Westerlands' previous reputation for battlefield comedy.
The Mountain's name stank, but infamy was still fame.
Top-tier knights like these boosted morale enormously whether they led charges or simply stood at the front.
During the Dance of the Dragons, Lord Jason Lannister had died trying to cross the Red Fork—gone in his very first scene.
In the First Blackfyre Rebellion, "Fireball" had killed Lord Lefford outside Lannisport and sent Damon Lannister (the Grey Lion) running back to Casterly Rock in shame.
Now the wheel had turned. Not only was Tywin formidable, his luck had turned golden too.
"Right now the Riverlands can only look to Arthur in the tourneys," Lucas Roote said. It was the same thought running through most Riverlands knights these days.
"I believe in him," Ser Lucas declared confidently. "He can become the next Sword of the Morning."
"Still a long way to go," Arthur laughed, his voice bright as the sun.
He would need to claim many more championships before the doubters shut their mouths.