Captain Valerius of the City Watch did not like mud. He hated it. He considered it the symbol of everything he had fled: the filth of his childhood in the slums, the clinging mentality of those who wallowed in it, and the oozing corruption that prevented King's Landing from becoming the great city it could be. Every morning, he spent an hour polishing his boots until he could see the reflection of his well-groomed face, a ritual to remind himself of the distance he had put between the orphan he was and the commander he had become.
That distance had just been brutally shortened. He stood at the entrance to Weaver's Alley, his impeccable boots just inches from a dark and viscous puddle that was not merely mud. The smell of dried blood and death still hung in the air, tenacious despite the previous day's rain. Before him lay the scene of a massacre. His men, ashen-faced Gold Cloaks, maintained a loose security cordon, more to keep the scavengers away than to conduct a real investigation. To them, it was just another settling of scores between the animals of Flea Bottom. Fewer Black Hounds meant fewer problems.
But Valerius did not see a simple settling of scores. He saw an anomaly.
He entered the alley, his steel-grey eyes sweeping the scene with clinical precision. He was not noble. He had not climbed the ranks through favors or a name. He had done it through cunning, through calculated brutality, and above all, through his ability to read chaos. And the chaos here had a signature.
"Report," he snapped without looking at his sergeant, a portly man named Hake.
"Twenty-three bodies, Commander. All Groleau's men. Including him. Looks like a gang war, maybe the Skeletons or the Rivermen trying to expand..."
"No," Valerius cut in, his calm voice silencing Hake instantly.
He crouched beside one of the corpses, ignoring the smell. He examined the wound. A small, clean hole in the leather gambeson, just above the heart. Not a sword slash, not a gaping axe wound. He moved to another body. Same thing. Another, hit in the throat. He stood up and looked at the walls of the surrounding hovels, then at the roofs.
"This was a military execution, Hake, not a street brawl. Look." His gloved finger pointed to the extinguished and shattered torches scattered on the ground. "They took out the light first. They fired from the roofs. They created a death trap, a snare. They slaughtered them in the dark."
Hake squinted, beginning to understand. "Archers?"
"No," Valerius continued. He took out a small knife and, with the tip, pried a projectile from a wooden doorframe. It wasn't an arrow. It was a short, heavy bolt, with a steel head that seemed of a much higher quality than what was usually found in the slums. "The penetrating power is phenomenal. To pierce leather and bone at this distance, you need war bows or siege crossbows. And no one heard a ballista. This was quiet. It was fast. This is the work of a professional weapon."
He straightened up, his mind working at high speed. This was no longer a matter of justice or keeping the peace. It was a matter of business. Groleau was a scoundrel, but he was a predictable scoundrel. He ran his territory with stupid brutality, and he paid Valerius a twenty percent tax on his profits for the Gold Cloaks to look the other way. This massacre was not just a challenge to the street's order; it was a direct challenge to the structure of corruption Valerius had spent years building. The unknown party who had done this had just cut off a substantial source of his income.
"I want to know everything," he told Hake. "Who's had problems with Groleau recently? Who suddenly has money? Who has changed? Question the innkeepers, the pawnbrokers, the whores. I want names."
For two days, Valerius assembled the pieces of the puzzle. The information trickled in, whispered by terrified informants. No one had seen anything. But everyone had heard the rumors that preceded the massacre. The silent terror, the "ghosts" that hunted the Black Hounds. And then, one name kept coming up, an unlikely leitmotif: "The Gnats."
That gang of kids, once a joke, the bottom of the food chain. It was said they had suddenly gotten rich selling shockingly effective rat traps. It was said that Groleau, just before his death, had become obsessed with them, accusing them of stealing his "hunting grounds." And at the center of it all, a name was whispered with a mixture of fear and disbelief: Tony. The "genius." The child who had changed everything.
Valerius connected the dots. The ingenuity of the traps. The military efficiency of the ambush. The crossbows. It was no coincidence. The same intelligence was at work. He wasn't dealing with a new gang. He was dealing with a single mind, a mind that had just proven it was capable of dismantling the most powerful criminal organization in Flea Bottom in a matter of weeks.
Valerius's anger over his financial loss morphed into an intense, almost admiring curiosity. He no longer saw a problem. He saw an opportunity. An opportunity far greater than Groleau had ever represented.
On the third day, he decided to pay a visit to the architect of this chaos. He didn't take a squad of Gold Cloaks for a heavy-handed raid. That would have been Groleau's approach, a brute's approach; he was too refined for that. He took only six of his most trusted men, an honor guard, a demonstration of controlled power. This was a business visit.
When they arrived before The Gnats' den, the place was bustling with activity. Men were repairing and building up walls, children were cleaning the ground. It was a base under construction. Valerius felt dozens of pairs of eyes following him from the shadows, the roofs, the broken windows. The territory was under surveillance.
"Interesting," he thought to himself.
He left his men outside and entered alone. The interior was a well-organized workshop. A large, muscular boy (Jem) and a girl with piercing green eyes (Lira) stopped their work and turned to him, their hands instinctively moving toward concealed weapons. They formed a close guard, lieutenants. Valerius ignored them. His gaze swept the room and settled on the only person who did not look impressed. A small, thin boy with chalk-dusted fingers, who was drawing a diagram on a slate.
Valerius advanced slowly, the sound of his polished boots on the uneven floor the only sound. He stopped in front of Tony.
"Impressive," he said, his voice calm. "I inspected Weaver's Alley. It was clean. Efficient. Professional."
Tony looked up from his slate, his gaze devoid of any childish fear. It was the gaze of an equal.
"Groleau was a scoundrel," Valerius began without further preamble, "but he was a predictable scoundrel. And a profitable one. He paid me a twenty percent tax on his profits. In exchange, my men looked the other way. His incompetence, in the end, cost me money. Your efficiency, on the other hand, impresses me."
He took another step, his shadow covering the boy. "You've cleaned up the district. You've taken control. Very well. Keep it, it's a cesspool. Run your businesses, whatever they may be. I don't want to know. But the tax remains the same. As of today, you are my official collector for this sector. Twenty percent of everything you earn comes to me."
He leaned in, a predatory smile stretching his thin lips. "In exchange, I become your best customer and your insurer. You'll have priority access to certain goods my men 'confiscate' at the docks. And most importantly, no other Gold Cloak will set foot in your territory without my express permission. I don't just see a gang leader, kid. I see a boy who will go far. And I've always liked investing in the future, especially when it can make me very, very rich."
The deal was on the table. It was not a threat. It was a business proposal, a recognition of power. Valerius was not seeking to subjugate him, but to partner with him, to become a silent shareholder in his nascent enterprise.
Tony remained silent for a moment, sizing up the man before him. He saw the ambition in his eyes, the same cold hunger that lived in him. This was no Groleau. This was a player, a strategist. More dangerous, but also potentially more useful.
"Twenty percent is a lot for a simple toll," Tony finally said, his voice testing the limits.
Valerius laughed, a dry, joyless sound. "It's not a toll. It's the price of legitimacy. You remain the king of this shit heap. But I make sure the dragons from the Red Keep never come to see what's happening in your little anthill. Think of it as an investment in discretion."
Tony nodded slowly. He had won his war, only to discover he was a pawn on a much larger board, and the player across from him had just offered him a seat at his side. He had freed himself from one tyrant only to ally with another, one more powerful, more intelligent, and infinitely more ambitious.
"Deal... Captain," Tony said.
Valerius smiled. "Excellent. My sergeant will stop by once a week. Don't disappoint him. I imagine to protect your territory, you must be armed. That doesn't bother me. However, the weapons you used for your war, I want a model of one."
"Why?" Tony asked warily.
"Just out of curiosity, and in case they start showing up outside your inner circle," he said, casting a glance around them. "Then we'll have a problem. And that wouldn't be good for business. Make sure they don't leave your territory. My sergeant will pick it up next time."
Certain that Tony had understood the message, he turned and left the den, his boots making almost no sound. Outside, he breathed in the foul air of Flea Bottom, but for the first time, he did not smell the stench of misery. He smelled gold. He had just invested in the most promising asset in the entire city; his intuition screamed it at him. A child who reeked of the slums, of genius, and of money.