After Eddard Stark arrived in King's Landing as the new Hand of the King, the first court meeting was quickly convened.
The Small Council of King Robert consisted of four prominent figures.
First was Lord Varys, serving as the Master of Whisperers, essentially the spymaster. He collected secrets through the intelligence network woven by his little birds.
Before rising to prominence, Varys had a decent relationship with Illyrio Mopatis— Magister of the Pentos who invested in Viserys and Daenerys.
After becoming a renowned information broker in the Free Cities, he was summoned to the court by King Aerys II and appointed as the Master of Whisperers. Later, after Robert overthrew Aerys II, he began serving King Robert.
However, he seemed to maintain some loyalty to House Targaryen, as he had a stake in Illyrio's plan to support Viserys.
After Illyrio's death and Daenerys's establishment of rule in Pentos, with the hint from Varys, Daenerys contacted the spymaster and began cooperating with him. From this perspective, he was still worthy of some trust.
But he was completely unaware of the arrival of Alaric.
Second was the Lord Renly, who was Robert's brother and bore an exceptional resemblance to the young King Robert.
He was tall and handsome, with jet-black hair cascading to his shoulders, always immaculately groomed.
He understood the importance of his own charm well, and his taste and dedication in dressing were enough to put any dignitary of the realm to shame.
Third was the King's Master of Coin, Petyr Baelish, also known as Littlefinger.
He was originally a minor noble from the Fingers in the Vale, taken in as a ward by Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun.
He was childhood friends with Catelyn Tully, Lord Hoster's daughter and Eddard Stark's wife, and had harbored affection for her.
However, Catelyn ultimately married Eddard. Additionally, Catelyn's sister, Lysa Tully, was infatuated with him and had an affair with him, resulting in pregnancy.
Lord Hoster intervened and separated them, marrying the now non-virgin Lysa off to Jon Arryn, an elderly lord with no heirs, who was also the former Hand of the King and foster father of Robert and Eddard.
Fourth was Grand Maester Pycelle. His balding head was dotted with liver spots, and a few sparse white hairs hung on either side of his forehead.
His maester's chain was made of twenty-four different metals, hanging heavily from his neck down to his chest, with a long, snowy white beard flowing to his chest.
In this era, Maesters bore various responsibilities, including but not limited to apothecaries, sorcerers, diviners, astronomers, military and political advisors, and even acting as midwives and babysitters.
However, Pycelle was not a maester who diligently adhered to the oath of neutrality.
He would occasionally, according to his own needs, engage in some irregular activities, such as influencing political events in a biased manner. He held a special admiration for Lord Tywin.
Just a small council meeting was so factionalized, which showed how negligent and unpopular Robert's rule was—surrounded by either fools, conspirators, or sycophants, but everyone had their own little schemes.
After Eddard's arrival, Robert's first task was to hold a grand martial arts competition to celebrate the new Hand of the King.
King Robert announced that the winner would be rewarded forty thousand gold dragons, the runner-up twenty thousand gold dragons.
The winners of the group melee would also receive twenty thousand, and ten thousand for archery.
Just the prize money alone amounted to ninety thousand gold dragons. Including hosting the grand feast, organizing the tournament, and so on, it would require a large sum of money.
It's worth noting that one gold dragon was equivalent to a year's pay for a soldier, and a set of good armor would cost four or five gold dragons.
This matter troubled Eddard greatly. Besides this, he also had to investigate the cause of his foster father Jon Arryn's death and deal with his estate. He believed Jon's death involved a major conspiracy.
Furthermore, he had to deal with the conflicts between his two daughters.
He brought two of his five children, Sansa and Arya, to King's Landing. The eldest daughter, Sansa, was betrothed to Prince Joffrey, Robert's son.
This trip was for their wedding, while the younger daughter came along just for the fun.
Sansa had received a refined lady's education since childhood.
She possessed traditional feminine charm befitting her noble birth and had a strong interest in music, poetry, singing, dancing, and other feminine leisure activities such as embroidery.
In her youth, she harbored naive romantic fantasies about handsome princes, noble knights, and love stories depicted in tales and songs.
In contrast, Arya was a lively, spirited girl who enjoyed fighting and adventuring.
This was in stark contrast to her well-behaved sister Sansa Stark, causing considerable conflict between the two sisters.
Once, during a hunting trip, Eddard unexpectedly came across a litter of five small direwolf pups.
Since the direwolf was the sigil of House Stark, he let each of his five children adopt one.
On their way from Winterfell to King's Landing, Arya's direwolf injured Prince Joffrey, prompting it to flee.
In a malicious move, Queen Cersei demanded Sansa's direwolf be held accountable for the incident. Losing her pet, Sansa blamed Arya entirely for the death of her direwolf.
During subsequent investigations, Eddard discovered that his suddenly deceased foster father had been studying a book titled "The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children."
And had secretly met with Robert's younger brother, Stannis Baratheon.
He had even planned to send his own son to Stannis's seat, Dragonstone, to be fostered.
As far as Eddard knew, there was no deep friendship between Jon and Stannis, so these seemingly unusual actions piqued his curiosity.
Moreover, Jon and Stannis had investigated the king's bastards before. Even so, Eddard still couldn't understand why Jon's desire to meet the king's bastard would lead to his demise.
It was in this situation that the tournament was still held, forcing the treasury to borrow a large sum of gold dragons from the Free Trade Bank.
The emerging major bank that currently had the most capability to lend to the king and demanded the lowest interest rates.
Consequently, knights from all over the country came to King's Landing one after another, plunging the entire city into unprecedented congestion and chaos.
It was precisely at such a time that Alaric arrived in King's Landing.
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