"There are no sheep near their farm."
Arthur had just been about to take John out for another round of persuasion when Jules' words made him stop in his tracks.
Arthur turned back with a raised brow. "You might as well speak plainly."
Jules gave a knowing smirk, eyes gleaming with implication. "I already did, my lord."
The young lord furrowed his brow, then paused—realization dawning. It wasn't the sheep themselves that mattered—it was the implication. Jules had always been a man of half-spoken truths. And in Westeros, especially in the Riverlands, such words could carry weight.
In the Free Cities and among some Westerosi brothels, "chasing sheep" had become crude slang for indulgence in base acts—often illicit, depraved, or humiliating. In stories whispered from taverns in Gulltown to the inns of Duskendale, it was said some men who "chased sheep" were known for their shameful desires. But in this context, Jules wasn't speaking of perversions—he was hinting at submission, humiliation, and blackmail.
Arthur recalled the murmurs outside. Ten grown men, broken in moments—gamblers without loyalty, and cowards who turned on one another before a single lash. John, despite his bruised face, had still held something back—his confidence. Perhaps he believed something, or someone, protected him.
"You're the one who noticed it," Arthur said, eyes narrowing.
Jules gave a short nod. "Saw no sheep, yet plenty of bleating."
Arthur's thoughts clicked into place. If John had used more than words to manipulate the others—intimidation, humiliation, perhaps even blackmail—then finding the weakest link, or John's favorite lackey, might lead him straight to the missing dragons.
He returned to the house, boots thudding against the wooden floor. The air inside was tense, the spinach monks groaning where they lay. Arthur swept his gaze over them all.
"Listen closely," he said, loud enough to echo off the stone walls. "Whoever I point to next is going outside. If I'm in a good mood, he comes back breathing."
Panic broke like a wave across their faces.
"I don't have the money, my lord!" one man cried.
"Don't beat me! It's all John's!"
"I swear on the Seven, I never even saw a golden dragon!"
Arthur watched them closely. Most shouted over one another—but not John. John blinked rapidly, his bruised face twitching. When Arthur pointed to one of the others, he swallowed hard. A nervous tic.
Another test. Arthur pointed to a second man. John blinked again—twice this time.
Arthur leaned down, smirking. "You two—drag them outside. Beat them until they can't walk, but make sure they can still scream."
The two soldiers didn't hesitate.
As the shrieks rang out beyond the farm walls, Arthur moved a chair beside John and sat down casually.
"Where's my gold?" he asked, voice low and calm. "Where's the dragon hoard you scuttled away like a Lannister rat?"
John clenched his jaw, saying nothing.
Then came another wail, louder this time, followed by a choked plea for mercy.
"John…" Arthur sighed. "People are dying for your silence. And I'm starting to think you're not worth saving."
"No—no more!" one of the beaten men cried from outside. "It was him! It was all him!"
Inside, the others began to turn too.
"It was John's idea!"
"He made us lie to you!"
"He said the gold was cursed!"
John's mask cracked, his breathing heavy, pain and panic warping his face. At last, he gave in.
"Stop—stop the beating. I'll tell you where the dragons are."
Arthur nodded to the soldiers. The screaming ceased.
"Talk," Arthur commanded.
"In the cowshed," John rasped. "Behind the house. Loose slab of stone, near the trough. You'll find them under that."
Arthur motioned for Javier and two others to remain behind and keep watch. With two of the guest soldiers—mercenaries from Shili City—he slipped out to the shed.
It didn't take long. Beneath the slab was a cowhide bag, heavy with gold. As they opened it, the glint of golden dragons lit their faces. Alongside the coins were other oddities—black velvet cloaks, silk purses, a leather shoulder guard with gold stitching, a flask that bore the sigil of House Frey.
Arthur frowned. "Count it."
The two soldiers worked quickly. When they finished, one looked up and said, "Six hundred and fifty-five, my lord."
Arthur nodded. "With the thirty or so from the house, that's nearly six hundred and eighty. Which means you lot spent barely twenty dragons in a whole moon cycle."
He gritted his teeth.
One dragon was enough to hire a sellsword for a month or feed a dozen peasants for weeks. He'd offered the farmers chicken and mutton to encourage hard work, and these bastards had taken that goodwill, stolen it, and squandered it on ale and vice.
"Bastards," he muttered. "You could've fed twenty girls for a season."
Fury brimming, Arthur grabbed a handful of coins and tossed one each to the two soldiers.
"Well done."
The mercenaries grinned wide. "Thank you, Lord Arthur."
"You have our blades, my lord."
They were sellswords, yes—but men like that didn't bleed for oaths. They bled for coin. And Arthur knew better than most—loyalty bought cheap never lasted long.
He handed over the remaining bag and loot to the soldiers to carry, then led them back into the house.
Tossing each of the remaining guest soldiers a golden dragon, Arthur spoke evenly. "A reward—for your silence, and your service."
The mercenaries bowed. They'd remember this day, and they'd talk. Arthur needed that.
Then his eyes turned to John.
"Tell me," he said, nodding toward the cloaks and purses, "where did these come from?"
John, still sprawled on the floor, looked up and muttered, "They're not stolen. I swear, I just didn't pay. Yet."
Arthur snorted. "So bold now."
He stood, stepping forward, eyes glinting with cold fury. "You've broken every tenet of loyalty in Westeros. You betrayed your lord, you took coin meant for the smallfolk, you schemed with thieves and liars, and you even set your own father up to fall."
He pointed a finger. "Disloyal. Unkind. Unfilial. Unjust. That's death, any one of them."
John, battered and bloodied, gave a humorless laugh. "You highborns love your words. Just kill me already if you're going to. No need for your Seven-blessed lectures."
Arthur said nothing. But in that silence, he weighed John's fate—and the message his death would send.
But after hearing Arthur's words, so laced with noble self-righteousness, John turned his head and let out a bitter, mocking laugh. There was no respect in his eyes, only scorn.
"What?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You're not convinced? Doesn't what I said make sense?"
John rolled his bloodshot eyes. "Oh, it makes sense all right—your kind of sense. Noble sense. But it ain't common folk's reason."
Arthur scoffed. "Common folk's reason? You're a gutter rat who steals from his lord and lies with gamblers. What kind of reason could you possibly claim to have? If you can talk sense, I might let you greet the Seven with a clean death. Otherwise, I'll see to it you lie in a straw bed, broken and bleeding, seven days before you die."
John spat to the side, ignoring the sting of his split lip. "If I'd had a monk teaching me my letters, a House-trained armsmaster like Ser Amber to drill me, a maester to heal me when I was sick, and half a dozen smallfolk to till my land for me… maybe I'd grow up like you. Rich. Proud. Blind to the rot around you. But all I had was a father who slept in the cellar and worked like a dog for nobles who never knew his name."
Arthur crossed his arms. "And still, he tried to make a man of you. Didn't he scrounge coin to get you tutelage from monks and hedge knights? Didn't he send you to seek a better life? Cyril wanted more for you."
John barked a dry laugh. "More? You mean that monk who taught me to beg with my tongue and that 'warrior' who expected me to fight for crusts and sleep in pig pens? That's the path to 'better'? I couldn't even afford their 'wisdom.'"
He glared at Arthur. "The gambler you spit on—he was the only one who treated me like a man. Not the monks. Not the hedge knights. And certainly not my lord."
Arthur was taken aback. For a moment, he glimpsed the shadow of the boy John once was, growing up in the dust while highborn children like him were groomed in tower keeps.
"But your father… you didn't have to kill him."
John's eyes went cold. "He lived a cursed life. Why should he bind me to the same fate? He fought so hard for scraps, then turned to me and demanded I strive harder. For what? For a lord's table scraps?"
Arthur frowned. There was truth in that. In Westeros, smallfolk rarely rose. In peace, they were taxed to the bone. In war, they were butchered like cattle. No refuge in Essos either—just more slavers, more sellswords, and more chains.
John caught his breath, the ache in his ribs easing just enough to speak. "Before you wag your tongue about honor, take a look at your cradle first. You started with castle walls and gold coins. Me? I started in the mud."
Then his gaze flicked—toward the still figure in the corner.
Cyril.
The man who had burned his hands hauling stone, who had knelt to every passing knight for his son's sake, who now lay motionless. Dead. But in John's eyes, he was still staring—judging.
Arthur's voice echoed in John's skull like a cruel chorus from a father's ghost: You should've been more like him. You should've done better.
And now the noble son of another man, that model child his father compared him to, stood here shaming him with righteous words.
In my next life, John thought, I want to be the father. Let Cyril be the son. Let him see how hard it is to claw your way up from the gutter.
"You'd best kill me now," he rasped, voice low, defiant. "Spare yourself the stench of me. Go on, swing your hammer."
Arthur said nothing. He couldn't argue with what he'd heard—not honestly. The silence weighed heavy. Then, wordlessly, he raised the sledgehammer and brought it down in a single, clean blow.
John's skull cracked like dry bark. He slumped, lifeless.
The other gamblers—spinach monks, they called themselves—fell silent, cowed by death.
Javier, ever practical, stepped forward. "Ser… will you be executing the rest?"
Arthur looked over the beaten, broken men. Most weren't fighters, just cheats and drunkards. "We've not men to waste. Tie them. Take them back. That's nine full-grown laborers. They can shift stone at the Moulin Rouge."
Javier bowed his head. "Your mercy honors the gods."
"Seven bless you," the monks echoed, weakly.
With practiced speed, they gathered the wounded. Those who couldn't walk were laid on the ox cart; the rest stumbled behind, their wrists bound but their lives spared—for now.
The wind stirred around them. This was still Ward land, dangerously close to Blackwood territory. Arthur couldn't linger.
Though most of the stolen gold had been recovered, Arthur felt no peace. The weight of it clinked against his belt, but his mind wasn't on the coin.
He was a man of two worlds—a soul from another life, from another land, forced into this feudal chaos. Nine years of modern schooling echoed in his mind, full of talk about fairness, equality, justice. But here?
Here, the farmer was not a man. He was a tool.
A peasant in Westeros was little more than a breathing tithe.
Arthur knew this conflicted with everything he believed, but what could he do? He was just a lesser noble from a cadet branch of House Bracken, with a half-built fortress and two thousand lives depending on him.
He couldn't rewrite Westerosi law.
He couldn't change the order of the Seven Kingdoms.
But maybe—just maybe—he could be a better lord than most. Protect his folk. Keep their coin safe. Guard them when the storms of war came.
And for now, that would have to be enough.
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