In the year 293 AC, on the continent of Westeros, in King's Landing, capital of the Baratheon dynasty.
Two figures, one tall, one small, turned into Steel Street and followed its winding rise. The climb up Visenya's Hill felt long, the road lined with blacksmiths laboring beside blazing forges, hedge knights haggling over armor, and gray-haired ironmongers hawking chipped, timeworn blades from carts. The street was loud and crowded, everyone jostling for profit and reputation.
King's Landing is a web, the hooded man leading the way thought smugly. Only spiders know how to move through it.
Across the Narrow Sea, he and his allies held one of the last scions of the dragonlords. And here in Westeros, who would ever imagine that he also held the stag's bastard? Once that secret, that great secret buried deep within the Red Keep, was exposed, the rewards would be immeasurable.
The tall boy following behind watched the hooded man closely. There was curiosity in his gaze, and resignation as well. His face was still young, but his eyes were far too calm, far too mature, for his age.
The hooded man thought nothing of it. A boy abandoned by his father and orphaned young would naturally grow bitter and prematurely hardened. He never imagined the child carried the soul of an adult.
Along the way, Gendry even spotted several Lannister knights, clad in crimson cloaks and half-helms shaped like lions. House Lannister's influence in King's Landing truly reached everywhere.
They climbed higher. The buildings grew taller, grander, the more renowned the smith, the larger the house. At the top of the hill stood a towering structure.
Tobho Mott's smithy dwarfed every other shop on Steel Street. Built of timber and pale stone, its height allowed it to overlook the entire road below. Twin doors of ebony and ironwood bore a carved hunting scene. On either side stood stone knights in red armor, posed like sentinels, one shaped as a griffin, the other a unicorn.
"Quick, pour wine for my lord!" A sharp-eyed, slight serving girl immediately recognized the finery of the leading man's clothes and hurried inside to alert the shop's master, the finest armorer in King's Landing.
The man was broad and powerfully built, with wide shoulders. His cloak was heavy purple velvet, trimmed in silver, clearly costly, but his hood obscured his face, revealing only a brown beard streaked with red.
Tobho Mott emerged wearing a black velvet coat, silver thread embroidered into hammer motifs along the sleeves. A thick silver chain hung around his neck, bearing a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg.
"My lord, if it's armor you seek, you've come to the right place," Tobho said proudly. "I guarantee my craft is unmatched in King's Landing. Others make armor, I make art. I serve many great lords. Lord Renly, among them."
This was no idle boast. Tobho had once apprenticed in Qohor.
"Master Tobho," the man beneath the hood replied in a low, heavy voice, rich and greedy, with a hint of Tyroshi accent. "I do not desire armor or a helm."
He pushed forward a small pile of gold. These were not common gold dragons, but coins minted across the Narrow Sea. Gold was gold all the same.
"I wish to place this boy with you as an apprentice."
Tobho's eyes shifted to the child. The boy was tall for his age, with coal-black hair and striking blue eyes.
Tobho forced himself to suppress the sudden chill in his gut. He had seen Renly, Robert, and Stannis with his own eyes. This boy resembled Renly too closely, yet Renly could not possibly have a bastard this old. Stannis even less so.
That left only one answer.
"My lord," Tobho said carefully, "I do not wish to invite trouble."
The hooded man laid down a second measure of gold.
"Say nothing, Tobho."
After a long moment, Tobho nodded. "Very well. The boy is my apprentice now. Whoever he was before he came here, that is none of my concern."
"Excellent." The hooded man sounded pleased. "I trust you will keep this secret."
He turned to leave.
"Thank you, my lord," Gendry said.
"I hope you enjoy this life," the man replied without looking back. "It's better than running errands in a wine sink."
And with that, he was gone.
I know who you are, Gendry thought. The Spider.
Varys truly lived up to his name, his disguises were peerless. A soul from another world, from Blue Star, reborn into A Song of Ice and Fire… as a blacksmith's apprentice.
At least Gendry's body was strong and well-made. The fat king and his royal patrons had once been heirs to the storm, after all, House Baratheon was famed for producing clean-cut, broad-shouldered men with bright eyes and irresistible charm. In Robert, the Laughing Storm seemed reborn.
Gendry accepted his fate. Born in a tavern, living quietly as a runner, it had been the safest path available to him.
House Lannister's power in King's Landing was immense. He had no wish to end up like his other siblings, quietly murdered. The king was no man for families or children, once the bed was left behind, so were promises and oaths. Bastards least of all mattered.
Until the ever-watchful Spider noticed him… and delivered him to a forge.
"Boy, what's your name?" Tobho asked.
"Gendry. I have no surname."
"No one cares about that. King's Landing is full of nameless souls scraping by," Tobho said gruffly. "Follow me, this is your lucky day. I'll show you where you'll be working."
He led Gendry through the back door, across a narrow courtyard, and into a vast stone-built workshop where the true labor of the smithy took place.
The moment Tobho opened the doors, a wave of heat surged out, making Gendry feel as though he were stepping into a dragon's maw. Forges roared in every corner, the air thick with smoke, saltpeter, and sulfur. The foreman glanced up, wiped sweat from his brow, and returned to hammering. Bare-chested apprentices worked the bellows with all their strength.
Gendry took it all in, new, fascinating, and brutally physical. Still, it beat hauling plates in a tavern.
"Blacksmithing is hard labor," Tobho said, "but it's skilled labor too. Master this craft, and knights and lords alike will beg you to forge their armor and helms. There's never enough supply."
Yet even as he boasted, Tobho knew this boy's identity made a quiet life at the anvil far from guaranteed.
He called the foreman aside. "This is my new apprentice. You'll take charge of him. Don't burden him with the heaviest work just yet."
And so, Gendry's life as an apprentice began.