On the way to the archery field, Joffrey walked beside the Hound and asked thoughtfully, "Have you decided how to spend the twenty thousand gold dragons you won?"
The Hound had changed into a red wool shirt embroidered with a leather hound's head.
He still seemed slightly distracted, as if the award ceremony had left him with a strange lingering feeling.
Hearing the question, the eye beneath his scar glanced cautiously at Joffrey.
"What?" the Hound muttered. "You lot already have more money than you can spend."
"And now you're eyeing other people's coin too?"
"I'm just helping you do the math," Joffrey said, throwing an arm around his shoulder. "That money is enough to buy a proper estate. Maybe even a small castle."
"Don't tell me you're planning to spend it all on drink."
The Hound snorted and turned his head away. From the look of it, that might actually be his plan.
After a moment he turned back again.
"Don't worry. I'm not leaving."
"...Until Gregor dies, I'm not done."
Sansa and Arya walked nearby, listening with interest to their conversation.
After the match, Eddard had urgent matters to deal with and had no time to escort his daughters back.
After looking around for help, he had ultimately entrusted them to Joffrey and asked him to take them to watch the rest of the competition.
During the walk, Sansa seemed to have many things she wanted to say.
But every time she looked at the Hound's face, she hesitated.
"If you want to ask something, just say it," Joffrey encouraged. "The dog won't bite you."
Sansa carefully chose her words and began with a compliment. "Ser Sandor, you were very brave today. You were just like the knights in the stories."
The Hound spat loudly onto the ground.
Then he started repeating the words he had said countless times before.
"Little girl, you people... stop calling—"
"Stop calling him 'ser'!" Arya interrupted with a grin.
Sansa looked confused again.
"The Hound's brother is an actual knight," Joffrey explained. "But you saw how the Mountain behaved today."
"He wasn't competing. He was trying to kill people."
"And he was personally knighted by Prince Rhaegar, back when the Targaryens still ruled." Joffrey's tone carried a hint of mockery.
"As for the terrible things he's done, no one has probably told you. Every man in Dorne would like to twist his head off."
Joffrey left out the more unpleasant details in front of the girls.
He glanced at the Hound. "But my grandfather always protects the Mountain."
"You saw it earlier, didn't you? Even after disrespecting the king like that, he was still allowed to walk away."
"Although I suspect my father will use this as an excuse to squeeze a few hundred thousand gold dragons out of Lord Tywin."
Joffrey laughed.
The Hound did not.
Instead he stared at the two girls watching him.
Then he glanced around before suddenly lifting the hair covering the left side of his face.
He revealed the entire burned half of it.
"Go on," he said roughly. "Take a good look."
"You two have been sneaking glances the whole way."
The skin on that side of his face was hard like leather, covered with pits and scars. Thin red cracks appeared whenever the skin moved.
His left ear had been burned away completely, leaving only a dark hole. The eye itself still worked, but the flesh around it was twisted and scarred.
Parts of his jaw had been burned so badly that bone could almost be seen beneath the skin.
"Oh!" Sansa quickly looked away.
But she immediately realized that might be even more rude, so she forced herself to look back again.
Arya, on the other hand, stared openly.
She had been curious for a long time.
"How did that happen?" she asked bluntly.
Sansa quickly covered her mouth.
"Arya! That's very rude."
"Ser Sandor... my sister didn't mean it," Sansa said apologetically.
The Hound said nothing.
"He didn't even tell me," Joffrey said casually. "Why would he tell you two?"
"But I actually know the reason."
The Hound turned toward him in surprise.
Joffrey spoke with a perfectly serious expression. "A dragon breathed fire on him."
"My uncle told me. The short one. The little demon."
The girls burst into laughter.
The Hound snorted. "You believe that? That little creature is an arrogant fool."
But he still did not reveal the real story. After all, he wasn't drunk, and there were too many people around.
Admitting that his own brother had shoved his head into a brazier when he was a child was not the sort of thing he liked to discuss.
After escorting the girls to the archery field, the Hound turned to leave.
"You're not going to watch the competition?" Joffrey asked.
"I'm not interested in this soft nonsense," he replied without turning back.
The archery field was set on an open stretch of grass beside the Blackwater. Targets were placed at thirty, fifty, and seventy paces.
Although there were many participants, only a few knights had any real experience with archery.
Most of the others were smallfolk from King's Landing, people who had joined simply to try their luck.
Halfway through the competition, Joffrey spotted Eddard.
He was not sitting in the reserved seats. Instead, he had called Littlefinger aside to the edge of the field.
The two men spoke quietly.
From the outside their posture looked calm. But Eddard's stiff shoulders contrasted sharply with Littlefinger's relaxed smile.
Unfortunately, there were too many people around.
Joffrey could not overhear their conversation.
In the end, the archery champion was once again a young man named Anguy.
In the final round, the target stood more than a hundred paces away. Joffrey could barely see it. Yet all seven of Anguy's arrows struck the center.
The boy was overwhelmed by the prize and immediately refused every offer of employment.
Joffrey did not press the matter.
With a reward of five thousand gold dragons, the boy would likely stay in King's Landing until every coin was spent.
And most of it would probably end up in Littlefinger's hands.
The team melee that followed was as bloody as ever.
Severed limbs and crushed fingers littered the field, yet many hedge knights and newly knighted squires still pounded their chests in frustration for not being allowed to join.
In the end, Thoros of Myr stood victorious again. Even without the flaming sword, his skill was impressive.
Still, Joffrey found himself curious.
In tomorrow's seven-on-seven battle, how exactly would the Hound and Thoros fight together?
Since Robert had finally been persuaded not to participate personally, he had stopped insisting on joining the fight.
But perhaps out of stubbornness, the king had ordered every member of the Kingsguard to participate.
They would form one side of the battle against a group of selected knights.
That decision made the available slots extremely limited.
However, because one of the tournament's final four had been injured and another had withdrawn, two positions were suddenly open.
As a result, a large number of knights stayed an extra day, eagerly preparing for the selection match the next morning.
During the evening feast, Eddard was absent once again.
Yet the queen seemed unusually pleased. She even stopped glaring at Robert for once.
Strange.
Very strange.
Earlier, Joffrey had used his Stargazing ability to observe Eddard's movements. So after dinner, he made his way to the Maester's Tower.
"Someone came to deliver you a message this afternoon, didn't they?" Joffrey asked calmly.
Pycelle stared at him in shock.
For a moment, Joffrey almost worried that if he kept startling the old man like this, the Grand Maester might retire early from fright.
But the question still needed to be answered.
"The message sent to Winterfell."
Joffrey looked directly at him.
"Was it... or wasn't it?"
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