JAIME
King's Landing, Crownlands, 284 AC.
The sound, the scratch of chalk on a blackboard, the rustle of cheap paper being turned, and the low hum of children concentrating, filled Jaime Lannister's ears like a symphony from a nearly forgotten past life.
To Jaime, these sounds were a time machine. A sight he hadn't seen since he left his modern world. But here, in the heart of the capital of Westeros, he had managed to recreate it.
A classroom.
He stood silently near an open window at the back of the room. Warm morning sunlight entered, illuminating chalk dust dancing in the air. The room was simple, a former grain warehouse near Rhaenys's Hill converted and renovated by King Rhaegar's order. The walls were painted lime white to reflect light, and new windows had been installed for air circulation.
In front of him sat about thirty boys and girls. Their average age was ten namedays. They wore simple clothes, rough wool tunics and linen, marking their status as common children. Children of artisans, small merchants, or dock workers.
They stared at the large blackboard at the front of the class with peaceful silence, their eyes wide absorbing information. Occasionally they shifted in their hard wooden chairs, adjusting their sitting positions for comfort, but no one dared to make a ruckus.
On the board, words were written in neat white chalk. They were learning about the kingdom's history. Not history about wars and dragon slaying alone, but the history of construction.
"...and that was how Baelor the Blessed began his vision," the teacher's voice sounded clear but slightly trembling.
William Hill, the teacher, was a thin young man in his early twenties. He was one of the first graduates of the experimental education program in Lannisport sent to the capital. He stood in front of the class with a pointer in hand, explaining how the Great Sept of Baelor was built.
"Not with magic," said William, pointing to the dome drawing he sketched on the board. "But with marble, glass, and the sweat of thousands of workers. It took planning, mathematics, and hard work to create something that lasts."
Standing near the classroom window, Jaime could feel the nervousness radiating from the young teacher. William explained fluently, his knowledge was solid, but sometimes his gaze darted towards Jaime. Quick, fearful glances, as if he worried the heir to Casterly Rock would suddenly draw a sword and behead him if he got a year wrong.
Jaime found it amusing. He held back a smile so as not to look mocking.
Relax, thought Jaime. I am not Tywin Lannister. I will not fire you because your handwriting is slanted.
Not that he would do anything terrible. He was just here to see how this lesson was going. King Rhaegar, with his spirit of reform, wanted a direct report on the progress of the new schools in King's Landing. And Rhaegar felt Jaime, as the originator of the original idea, was the best and most objective person for the task.
William cleared his throat, trying to ignore Jaime's presence and focus on his students.
"Now," said William, looking at the class. "Who can tell me, why did King Baelor choose the location atop Visenya's Hill, and not elsewhere?"
Silence for a moment. Some children looked down, afraid to be picked.
Then, in the middle row, a small hand raised. Hesitant at first, then becoming straight and sure.
It was a little girl with neatly braided brown hair and intelligent eyes. Clara. Jaime remembered the name from William mentioning it earlier.
"Yes, Clara?" pointed William, looking relieved someone responded.
Clara stood up. She crumpled her skirt slightly, but her voice was clear.
"Because it is a high hill, Teacher William," answered Clara. "So the Sept can be seen from the whole city, even from the sea. It... it is like a lighthouse for people to find their way home to the Gods."
William smiled broadly, a sincere smile erasing his nervousness for a moment.
"A very good answer, Clara. Exactly right. A symbol of hope that everyone can see."
Clara smiled proudly, her cheeks turning red as she sat back down. The friend beside her nudged her gently as congratulations.
Jaime watched that interaction with a warm feeling in his chest. This was real. Knowledge was being transferred. That child learned about architectural meaning and symbolism. This was the seed of something far greater than any war or conquest. This was the future he was trying to build.
Shaking his head gently, Jaime chuckled soundlessly. He had seen enough. This school was running well, perhaps even better than he expected.
He straightened his body from leaning on the wall, giving a brief nod to William when the teacher's eyes glanced at him again. The nod was approval.
Jaime turned and walked out of the class with slow steps. His footsteps echoed steadily in the stone corridor of the school he had just inspected. He walked with the upright posture of a young man who had found his place in the world, followed by two Lannister guards a few steps behind.
As he walked past rows of other closed classroom doors, hearing faintly the voices of teachers teaching basic arithmetic, Jaime couldn't help a feeling crossing his mind.
He was currently eighteen years old.
In his old life as Steven, eighteen was a transition period to college, a time full of teenage uncertainty. But here, in Westeros, eighteen was the age of a mature adult man. And by the Gods, he felt he had lived ten lives in the past few years.
Life passed quickly as if it were only yesterday he arrived in this world as a boy just recovering from his mother's death at Casterly Rock. Now? He was a husband, a knight, and an uncle to a prince.
He stared at the ring on his finger. He had married Catelyn Tully two years ago, shortly after the grand wedding feast of Cersei and Rhaegar that shook the capital. His married life... surprisingly good. Catelyn was not just a dutiful woman; she was smart, sharp, and possessed a warmth that balanced the cynical Lannister side. Hoster Tully, his father-in-law, was also quite easy to work with. Very easy even. The Lord of Riverrun seemed capable of agreeing to everything Jaime wanted, especially regarding agricultural and school projects, perhaps because he saw the golden profit behind it, or perhaps because he feared Tywin. Whatever it was, Jaime didn't think too much about it. As long as the Riverlands supplied raw materials for paper and food, he was satisfied.
Jaime also remembered the event a year ago, they eradicated bandits in the Kingswood, he finally knelt and received knighthood from his own uncle, Tygett Lannister. It was a satisfying moment. He was Ser Jaime Lannister now, and it was because of his own ability.
And Cersei...
His mind shifted to his sister who was now Queen. Cersei had given birth to her first child. A son. The baby had silver Valyrian hair like Rhaegar's, and pale purple eyes.
Aegon.
Rhaegar named him Aegon.
Jaime almost laughed bitterly when he heard it the first time. Yes, another Aegon, he thought cynically. Who knew how many more Aegons would be born in the future of the Targaryen family. But at least, that birth strengthened Cersei's position and eased political tension. Tywin was very happy; his grandson would be King.
Jaime stepped out of the school building, inhaling the outside air which was... less fresh.
A carriage with a golden lion logo was already waiting. A servant opened the door, and Jaime entered, sitting on the soft velvet seat.
"Return to the Red Keep," he ordered.
The carriage began to move, its wooden wheels rumbling over the cobblestone streets of King's Landing. Jaime leaned his head back, looking out the window.
The view outside his carriage glass window was a mixture of progress and chaos.
Schools had spread, gradually. Not only here, but especially in the Westerlands and Riverlands. That was a victory. But other problems arose with growth.
Jaime saw a group of workers digging a ditch on the side of the road, supervised by a foreman holding a scroll. They were checking the sewers.
That was one of Rhaegar's future projects. King's Landing already smelled. The smell was legendary. And with the exploding population, the smell was getting worse. The city's waste disposal system was a disaster waiting to happen. An epidemic could explode anytime if they didn't fix the actual sewers. Jaime wanted to build a sanitation system, find new water sources, covered culverts, and maybe aqueducts, although this one would require decades if it was to be realized.
This city was also too crowded since three years ago. Migration from villages to the city increased due to agricultural efficiency, a paradox of progress Jaime knew would happen. It didn't happen instantly, but gradually. People filled the slum alleys in Flea Bottom, looking for work everywhere.
The carriage turned into a narrower market street to cut the path. Here, the crowd of humans was so dense it almost spilled onto the carriage track. The smell of rotten fish, sweat, and spices mixed into one.
Suddenly, the carriage stopped abruptly. Jaime was pushed forward slightly.
Angry shouting was heard from outside. The crowd became boisterous.
"What is it?" Jaime asked from the window, his voice containing a little irritation. He wanted to go home quickly, bathe, and eat.
One of his mounted guards, Bryen, approached the window.
"I will check it, My Lord," said the guard. He spurred his horse forward, then returned moments later with a sour face.
"There is a thief, My Lord," he reported. "A thin man. He stole fruits from a merchant's cart. Caught red-handed. The people are angry. They are beating him."
Jaime frowned. He looked ahead. In the middle of the crowd, he could glimpse a man curling up on the ground, kicked by several irate merchants. Shouts of "Cut off his hand!" were clearly heard.
Vigilante justice. Street justice. Jaime hated it. It was barbaric, disorderly, and often disproportionate. Killing or cutting off someone's hand just for a handful of apples or pears? It was madness. But that was the law prevailing in these streets.
"Stop them," ordered Jaime firmly. He opened the carriage door.
"My Lord?" his guard looked hesitant. "It is just a market thief."
"Then bring him immediately and separate him from the mob," said Jaime coldly, his eyes staring sharply towards the crowd. "I do not want anyone taking the law into their own hands and then killing that person just because of a handful of fruit in front of my carriage. It ruins my appetite."
He used a haughty reason à la Lannister so his guards would move fast, but his heart felt sick. He had often heard of incidents like this here. Poverty amidst palace luxury.
"Yes, My Lord."
The Lannister guards moved. With spears and loud barks, they split the crowd.
"Make way! In the name of Ser Jaime Lannister! Make way!"
The angry mob immediately retreated upon seeing the red and gold uniforms and the lion sigil. Fear defeated anger.
Jaime saw his guards drag the man to stand. The man was skinny, his face bloody, clothes tattered. In his trembling hand, he still clutched a bruised green apple.
The man's eyes met Jaime's eyes for a moment. There was fear there, but also desperate hunger.
"Drive," ordered Jaime to his coachman as the guards took the man aside. "And bring him later to a cell in the Red Keep, not the city prison. I will try to speak with him later."
"Speak with him, Ser?" asked Bryen confused.
"Yes," answered Jaime while closing the carriage window, not explaining further.
The carriage moved again, leaving the crowd muttering in disappointment for losing their spectacle of blood. Jaime leaned back, but his mind was no longer calm.
...
After cleaning the street dust from his body with hot water and enjoying a lunch of delicious roast goose, Jaime did not rest immediately. Instead, his footsteps took him back into the belly of the Red Keep.
He went towards the temporary holding cell block on the higher level, not the damp and dark underground dungeon where traitors rotted. The air in this stone hallway was a bit hot due to the scorching afternoon sun penetrating high ventilation slits in the wall, but at least it wasn't stuffy. Sunlight created lines of dust floating in the air, giving an illusion of calm in a place usually filled with despair.
Jaime nodded to the jailer on duty, who immediately jumped up and opened the heavy iron cell door with a loud clang.
Jaime stepped in.
Inside, sitting on a rough wooden cot, was the thin man he had saved from the mob earlier.
The man looked much better than before, though that was a low standard. His face had been cleaned of blood, revealing pale and sunken skin under purple bruises that started to form. His thin body was wrapped in a simple prison tunic. Upon seeing Jaime enter, the man gasped in fear, his body trembling slightly like a dry leaf blown by the wind. He hurriedly stood up and bowed his head deeply.
Jaime held back from sighing heavily. He knew that look. The look of a rabbit seeing a wolf. This would be a long day, at least in his own mind.
"Sit," ordered Jaime with a tone he tried to make as gentle as possible.
He himself took a chair in the room, a simple wooden chair. Jaime's guard, Bryen, remained standing near the door, his hand alert on his sword hilt. He wouldn't risk letting his master be in danger, even though Jaime was sure he could defeat this thin man with one hand tied behind his back.
"Have you eaten?" asked Jaime. He had ordered the guards to provide food as soon as this man was put in the cell. There was no point talking to a person whose brain was jammed from hunger and pain.
The man nodded slowly, his eyes not daring to meet Jaime's face. "Yes... yes, M'lord. Bread and bean soup. Thank you..." He added it at the end with a hoarse voice, as if the word was foreign on his tongue.
"Good," Jaime smiled thinly. "Sorry to make you speak while you are hurt and probably want to sleep, but I do not have much time, and you also look like you want to get out of this situation as soon as possible."
The man nodded again, his split lip pressed tight.
Jaime leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on knees. "What is your name?"
"Hamlin," he whispered.
"Now, Hamlin," said Jaime, looking into the man's eyes, trying to find honesty there. "Why did you steal?"
It was a rhetorical stupid question, of course because he had no money, but this would open the topic about the man's condition and past without Jaime having to interrogate him like a war criminal.
"I... I..." Hamlin stammered. His dirty and rough hands played with the hem of his tunic nervously. He winced softly when the movement pressed one of the wounds on his ribs, then stopped.
"I had no other choice, M'lord," he said finally, his voice cracking from spilled despair. "I only drank water and ate scraps in the market trash for the last three days. My stomach... it felt like there were rats tearing from the inside. It was torturous. And I knew that I would die if things kept going like this. So I saw that apple... and my hand moved on its own."
Hamlin looked down, his shoulders slumping. "I know that it is a bad thing. But circumstances forced..."
Jaime nodded in silence. His expression didn't change, remaining calm and dignified, but inside, his heart felt tight.
He knew. He knew exactly what was happening.
Over the past few years, harvests in the Westerlands and Riverlands increased thanks to his new farming methods. Granaries were full. However, the price of wheat bread in the King's Landing market had not yet decreased significantly.
Many Lords, still prioritized themselves. They preferred to hoard that abundant harvest in their warehouses, stockpiling for winter, or selling it to Essos for much gold, rather than flooding the local market and lowering prices. Classic feudal greed.
According to Jaime and Tywin's estimate, this wouldn't last long. In the Westerlands, prices had started to stabilize and decrease because Tywin forced the market by flooding the supply. His father had moved to kill speculators. And that wave of cheap wheat wouldn't be long before reaching here, forcing capital merchants to lower prices or let their goods rot. Lord Tully was also doing the same.
But still, that didn't change much for people like Hamlin. Even cheap wheat still had to be bought with coin. And these people had no income.
"Where are you from, Hamlin?" asked Jaime gently. "Your hands are calloused, but not the calluses of a soldier or blacksmith. What did you do before all this happened to earn a living?"
"I..." The man frowned, his eyes gazing into a distant past. "I was a shepherd from Hardstone, M'lord. It was a small village on Lord Kenley's land in the Riverlands."
Hamlin's face brightened slightly telling his past. "Every day I tended the landlord's livestock. Taking them to pasture, shearing sheep wool in spring, helping calf births. And doing the same thing again the next day. I did that for twenty years. The pay was low, but enough. Enough to eat, enough for a roof over my head, and a mug of ale on weekends."
Then, the light on his face extinguished. His jaw hardened.
"But...." Hamlin held himself back from grinding his teeth. "He dismissed me. Lord Kenley. He dismissed me and many others, planters, reapers, shepherds, after that harvest. Suddenly. He said he didn't need many hands anymore."
Jaime's heart beat slower, heavier. He had suspected this, but hearing it directly from a victim made his stomach churn.
"Do you know why he did that?" asked Jaime. He wanted to hear it. He needed to hear it.
Hamlin flinched slightly. He looked into Jaime's eyes with doubt, fear reappearing. His fingers played nervously again. He knew who sat in front of him. Jaime Lannister.
"Th-that..." Hamlin swallowed. "That was because of your tools, Lord Lannister."
Those words hung in the hot air. An unspoken accusation.
Jaime nodded. He did not defend himself. He did not explain about anything. That would not fill Hamlin's stomach.
This was the dark side of progress. Peasants driven from their lands due to efficiency. Jaime had brought it to Westeros faster, and people like Hamlin were the price to be paid.
But Jaime, could not leave them just like that. He had a moral responsibility.
"Listen, Hamlin," said Jaime, breaking the awkward silence. "You see that we are doing big projects in this city, right? People digging ditches, cleaning sewers?"
"Yes, M'lord. I see them."
"That is my project. King's Landing Sanitation," said Jaime. "We are short of people willing to work hard and not afraid of getting dirty."
Jaime stared at Hamlin sharply.
"If you want, you can help. There will be weekly pay, enough for you to eat three times a day and rent a decent room. You will also be provided temporary accommodation in the workers' barracks with the others if you don't have a place yet. The work is heavy, smelly, and dirty. But it is honest work."
Hamlin gaped. His mouth opened slightly. He stared at Jaime as if he were a new person.
"I will not make you work now, of course, considering your current state," added Jaime quickly. "But if you want, the position is yours. While you think about it, and while your wounds heal, I will let you get a room, get food until you improve... What do you think?"
"Yes! Yes!" said Hamlin, his voice almost shouting, tears welling in the corners of his swollen eyes. He almost fell from his seat to kneel, but held back due to pain. "I want to, M'lord! By the Seven, I want to! I will even work now if needed! These wounds are nothing! I am strong, I am used to hard work!"
"Good spirit," Jaime smiled, a slightly sad smile. "But no. You may work when you have improved. I do not want you dying on the first day due to infection or exhaustion... that would make me look like a bad employer. No offense."
Hamlin laughed. A weary, broken laugh, mixed with sobs of relief. Tears flowed freely down his dirty cheeks. "Yes, M'lord. I... I will recover first. Thank you. Thank you."
"That is good."
Jaime stood up. He stepped closer, patting the thin man's shoulder. He could feel the shoulder bone protruding under his thin tunic.
"Bryen will take you to a more decent resting place, not this stone cell. And he will also explain further details later to the project foreman. Your name will enter the payroll starting today."
"Thank you, Ser Jaime. Gods bless you," sobbed Hamlin.
"See you, Hamlin. Do not steal apples again. Buy apple pie later," joked Jaime.
Jaime turned and walked out of the cell. The iron door was not locked back behind him for Hamlin, but opened wide to let the man out towards his new life.
But as Jaime walked down the corridor, his heart had not improved. The tight feeling was still there.
He fixed one problem, yes. He saved one person.
But he knew, out there, in the alleys of Flea Bottom and on the dusty roads of Westeros, there were still tens of thousands of humans suffering the same fate as Hamlin. Victims of the efficiency Jaime created. And he couldn't hire them all to clean sewers.
He had to think bigger. He had to create more jobs. Factories. Industries. Whatever it was.
People had to eat, and they had to live, because that was indeed his goal in planning this after all.
...
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Thanks for reading!