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The area outside the Mud Gate was a wasteland.
Where the shanties had once been crammed shoulder to shoulder, only gray-black ash and charred bones remained.
Yet the homeless were already creeping back in, hammering together crooked tents. Vendors pushed barrels and carts along the roadside, hawking fish.
Fish.
Joffrey hadn't touched a single fish lately. Everyone knew exactly what had been floating in the river.
"Are these people idiots?" the Imp complained from the back of the horse his brother had given him. "We just burned the whole place down and they're already rebuilding? The war isn't even over."
Bronn shrugged lazily. "If you let me bring a few dozen men down here…"
"I mean, if His Grace allows it," he added quickly. The sellsword had earned himself a sergeant's spot in the Gold Cloaks for good performance.
"I could clear the whole lot out. Guarantee they won't come back."
"Knock it off," Tyrion rolled his eyes. "I don't need my reputation getting any worse. These days I can't even step outside without an escort."
"Just have your men knock their shacks down. That'll do."
At the word "dog," the Hound's ear twitched. He shot Tyrion a glance, then went back to talking with the man riding beside him.
The knight had a broad chest, solid build, thick brows, and an honest, heavy-jawed face—the very picture of a loyal, brave warrior. Too bad a huge burn scar covered the right side of his face. Riding next to the Hound, the two actually looked like they belonged together.
Ser Balon Swann—the man everyone had thought was dead.
His story wasn't exactly heroic. During the fighting at Duskendale they'd been trapped deep in the woods when fire closed in from every side. Most men tried to charge out and died halfway. He and a dozen survivors found a muddy swamp, dug pits with their swords and bare hands, and buried themselves as deep as they could.
Only a handful crawled out alive. The rest stayed in the graves they'd dug themselves, cooked by the heat and smoke.
The fire burned all day before it finally died. It took him another full day to crawl out of the woods. After he recovered, he ran straight into Robb's army and marched south with them. He fought at the northern gate and struck up a solid friendship with the Hound.
Or at least found someone who understood.
Balon now had a serious fear of fire too.
"Call it a day on the inspection?" Tyrion asked.
Joffrey nodded. "Tomorrow we'll round up the guilds and bring in the masters. Time to start planning the harbor rebuild."
King's Landing's port was second only to Oldtown, and most of its income came from trade. The blockade of Blackwater Bay was over. Merchant ships were being let through again—as long as they paid a toll to the man now calling himself "Governor of Blackwater Bay," Salladhor Saan.
After the battle at the Mud Gate, the lords of the Riverlands and the Vale had responded three or four times faster than before. Even the Freys had sent two thousand spearmen south to help.
With those forces camped outside the city, Stannis no longer had any realistic chance of taking King's Landing.
His fleet was still out there, though, and Joffrey had no good way to storm Dragonstone yet. They still needed time. And money.
Speaking of money, representatives from the Iron Bank of Braavos had visited a few days earlier, supposedly to check on their investment returns. Eddard and Tyrion had politely brushed them off.
Joffrey wondered if it had anything to do with Jaqen being on duty that day.
The Faceless Man had vanished mysteriously for a while, then reappeared in the Red Keep. He'd been dropping hints, asking if Joffrey had any way to get him onto Dragonstone.
Ha. No.
Joffrey was more convinced than ever that the knowledge Jaqen had come looking for in the Red Keep was connected to dragons.
And his trip to the Iron Islands was almost certainly to kill Balon Greyjoy—the real one, not the burned knight chatting with the Hound.
Faceless Men didn't move without a contract, and the number of people rich enough to hire them was tiny. Killing an ordinary merchant cost half the price of hiring an entire mercenary army. The price for a king or a duke was beyond imagination.
But one man definitely had that kind of coin.
"Crow's Eye" Euron Greyjoy—Balon's older brother and captain of the Silence. Every man in his crew had their tongues cut out; that was how the ship got its name.
Sometimes Joffrey thought about ripping out a few tongues himself just for some peace and quiet. These four could make enough noise for four hundred people.
Euron had plenty of prizes: a dragon egg, a dragon horn, and a rare suit of Valyrian steel armor—all dug out of the ruins of Valyria.
He had probably paid Jaqen with that dragon egg to assassinate Balon. Jaqen would then do a little side work looking for dragon lore. The Faceless Men and the Valyrian Freehold had been mortal enemies, after all. He wasn't about to pass up a chance to study one of their greatest weapons.
Varys had also recently reported that a certain Targaryen girl had hatched three dragons.
Dragons.
Three heads of the dragon.
Pirates, Others, and now dragons.
They had just driven off Stannis and three new monster waves immediately popped up?
Next would it be global magic resurgence? The red comet bringing back the winds of magic? A giant whirlpool in Blackwater Bay? A portal opening at the North Pole beyond the Wall with demons pouring out?
Joffrey's head hurt. He asked if there was any word on Melisandre. Surely the red woman hadn't been taken down so easily by a few crossbow bolts. His [Stargaze] was still on cooldown and he didn't want to waste it.
Varys said there was none.
It was a shame Thoros had sailed off with Robert. Otherwise they could have kept a red priest around the palace to gather intelligence on the Lord of Light.
They needed to handle both magic and the military at the same time.
Joffrey had Pycelle send multiple ravens to Castle Black in a saturation campaign, warning them not to sally out on their own.
Robb would be leaving soon.
The poor kid had only stayed in King's Landing a few days before turning around and heading north again. Most of his infantry, however, remained behind to prepare for the decisive battle coming soon.
Tywin had been skirmishing with Randyll Tarly around Goldengrove more than fifty times with no clear winner. Then the old Lion's bad habits kicked in—he started sending his mad dogs out to raid and pillage deep in enemy territory, splitting his forces and turning the locals against him.
Randyll seized the chance to pin down the main army. Renly raced up the Goldroad and cut off Tywin's retreat to the Westerlands.
Tywin ran. Seeing the situation turning sour, he forced a river crossing and withdrew toward Tumbleton.
The Westerlands army had left fifteen or sixteen thousand men dead in the Reach.
Lannisters really were all the same. When it came to sending the biggest gifts, the old man was still the champion.
So right now Joffrey commanded a combined army of more than eighty thousand men: ten thousand from the Crownlands, fifteen thousand from the North, thirty thousand from the Riverlands, twenty-five thousand from the Vale, plus the various sellsword companies.
The enemy had roughly twenty thousand from the Stormlands and forty thousand from the Reach—less than sixty thousand total.
Eddard had advised him to remain in King's Landing.
Joffrey had no intention of listening.
This battle would decide the next five hundred years of history. It would decide the final owner of the Iron Throne.
Life and death, fortune and disaster, glory and shame, the fate of the dynasty and the entire realm—all would be settled here.
Joffrey would lead the army in person.