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2.1.3. King’s Landing and its Environs
  • If the wind's are good, a person might sail from White Harbor to King's Landing and arrive well ahead of a party that have had two or more weeks on horseback from Winterfell (I: 115)
  • Three hundred years before, the site of King's Landing was hills and forests, with only a handful of fisherfolk living north of the Blackwater Rush (I: 141)
  • King's Landing is where Aegon the Conqueror first landed, and on the highest hill the first fortress of wood and earth was made (I: 141)
  • King's Landing sprawls across the shore with arbors, granaries, manses, storehouses, inns, graveyards, brothels, taverns, merchant stalls, etc. A person at sea would see that the city would cover the shore as far as the eye can see (I: 141)
  • King's Landing has a fish market (I: 141)
  • Visenya's Hill is crowned by the marble-walled Great Sept of Baelor and its seven crystal towers (I: 141. II: 549)
  • Rhaenys's Hill is peaked by the collapsed ruins of the Dragonpit dome, its bronze doors shut for a century (I: 141)
  • The Street of the Sisters runs straight as an arrow between the hills of Visenya and Rhaenys (I: 141)
  • A hundred quays line the waterfront (I: 141)
  • Ferrymen pole back and forth across the Blackwater (I: 141)
  • Trading galleys from the Free Cities come to trade at King's Landing (I: 141)
  • Whalers from the Port of Ibben might trade at King's Landing (I: 142)
  • Halfway up Visenya's Hill is Eel Alley, where an inn may be found (I: 143)
  • The City Watch wear golden cloaks and black armor (I: 143)
  • The City Watch is led by its Commander (I: 229)
  • The Great Sept of Baelor has a rainbow pool (I: 229)
  • The Street of Steel is where most smiths have their forges. It begins on the market square besides the River Gate and climbs up Visenya's hill. The higher up one goes, the more expensive the shops (I: 234)
  • The River Gate is better known as the Mud Gate (I: 234)
  • Large tournaments are held outside of the city, beside the Blackwater (I: 246)
  • The King's Gate leads tourney goers back into the city (I: 255)
  • A network of tunnels under the city are part of the Targaryen secrets. One can reach the Blackwater Rush through one that exits into a sewer pipe (I: 290)
  • The spears of the City Watch are topped by black iron heads (I: 440)
  • Some members of the City Watch wear mail and plate (I: 448)
  • The Street of Flour is named so for holding numerous bakeries (I: 599)
  • The cloaks of the City Watch are wool dyed a golden hue (I: 600)
  • The seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor each have bells. All of them ringing for a day and a night mark the death of a king (I: 600)
  • The other gates of King's Landing are the Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate, the Old Gate, the Gate of the Gods, and the Iron Gate (I: 601)
  • The Blackwater Rush is wide and deep, its currents treacherous (I: 601)
  • In Flea Bottom there are pot-shops along the alleys where huge tubs hold simple stews. For half a pigeon one can get a heel of yesterday's bread and a bowl of the stew (I: 601)
  • It is said that the pot-shops will pay a fistful of coppers for a litter of puppies (I: 602)
  • Below the Street of Flour, as one makes one way down Rhaenys's Hill, the maze of twisting alleys and crossing streets that make up Flea Bottom are encountered (I: 602)
  • The buildings of Flea Bottom lean in so closely over the narrow alleys that they nearly touch (I: 602)
  • The River Gate leads to the docks (I: 602)
  • Flea Bottom's streets are narrow, crooked, and unpaved (I: 603)
  • Flea Bottom stinks of pigsties, stables, tanneries, and winesinks (I: 603)
  • When the king dies, all the bells in the city are rung (I: 604)
  • One tower tolling from Baelor's Sept is a summoning for the city (I: 604)
  • No one is taken to the Great Sept of Baelor to be executed (I: 605)
  • A white marble plaza atop Visenya's Hill is before the Great Sept (I: 605)
  • At the head of the plaza beneath the steps of Baelor's Step is a painted marble plinth with a statue of Baelor the Blessed, the septon king, at its peak (I: 605, 606)
  • Around the doors of the Great Sept is a raised marble pulpit (I: 606)
  • The gatehouse of the Gate of the Gods is carved exquisitely with figures, their eyes done so that they might seem to follow those who pass through (II: 49)
  • An officer of the City Watch wears a black enamelled breastplate ornamented with four golden disks (II: 65)
  • Officers of the City Watch captain the gates of the city (II: 91)
  • There are stone-and-timber manses in King's Landing with their own wells, stables, and gardens (II: 96)
  • Shadowblack Lane leads to the foot of Aegon's High Hill (II: 173, 330)
  • From the Red Keep to a place behind the hill of Rhaenys, a litter can take an hour to be carried the distance should the streets be busy (II: 174)
  • Behind the hill of Rhaenys, the Street of Silk is lined with brothels of various expense (II: 174. III: 437)
  • Rosby and Stokeworth are near the city, not far north from it (II: 193)
  • A claim that there are a hundred whore houses in the city of the cheapest sort, where a clipped copper is enough to buy as much sex as one could want (II: 194)
  • The entrance to the Guildhall is atop broad curving steps that front the Street of the Sisters, not far from the foot of Visenya's hill (II: 229)
  • The gatehouse of the Gate of the Gods has a windowless guard room (II: 230)
  • A postern gate in the north wall of the Red Keep leads to Shadowblack Lane (II: 330)
  • From the foot of Aegon's High Hill one can take Pigrun Alley past rows of tall timber-and-stone buildings whose upper stories leaned out so far over the streets that they nearly touch those of the buildings across from them (II: 330)
  • A manse in the city would be fenced, its gates having some way for someone within to look out such as an ornate eye that opens (II: 332)
  • The City Watch has men who can act as mounted lancers (II: 433)
  • From the Mud Gate, one crosses Fishmonger's Square to reach the Muddy Way before turning onto the narrow, curving Hook which leads up Aegon's High Hill (II: 433-434)
  • Flea Bottom is relatively near to the Guildhall of the Alchemists (II: 438)
  • A bell is rung in the city to mark evenfall (II: 438)
  • The wealthier neighborhoods of King's Landing might be found near the Old Gate (II: 439)
  • There is a street named Sowbelly Row (II: 439)
  • Pisswater Bend is probably in the area of Flea Bottom (II: 439-440)
  • Coppersmith's Wynd is another street (II: 466)
  • Fishwives sell their catches about the quays, in stalls or with just a barrel or two to mark their place (II: 518)
  • Behind the quays outside of the walls, there tend to be ramshackle buildings which extend to the walls. The buildings are bait shacks, pot shops, warehouses, merchant's stalls, alehouses, and the cribs where the cheaper sort of whores do their business (II: 519)
  • The Dragonpit has been abandoned for a century and a half (II: 523)
  • Along the riverfront there are brothels, homes, and warehouses (II: 548)
  • There is room for thousands of people inside of the Great Sept of Baelor (II: 595)
  • Merling Rock is apparently an island in Blackwater Bay (II: 601)
  • There's a sally port at the King's Gate (II: 616)
  • The Iron Gate exits to the north (II: 633)
  • Barren spires, sea monts, jut out of the water of Blackwater Bay, some standing as much as a hundred feet above the sea. Sailors know them as the spears of the merling king. For every one that breaks the surface, a dozen more are just beneath the surface to rend a ships hull, and ships stay far away from them (III: 55, 56)
  • Some spears of the merling king are barren of anything but lichen, with even seabirds shunning them, but larger ones provide safe nesting places for the birds (III: 55)
  • While honest sailors stay away from the spears of the merling king, smugglers have made use of them the better to stay unseen (III: 57, 58)
  • The Targaryens raised an immense domed castle, the Dragonpit, to keep the royal dragons. It was a cavernous dwelling, with doors of iron so wide that thirty knights could ride through them abreast (III: 89)
  • The Gullet is a stretch of water beyond Blackwater Bay, between Massey's Hook and Driftmark (III: 109)
  • The Sharp Point watch tower, belonging to the Bar Emmons, has a great fire kept lit atop it. Sharp Point is at the end of Massey's Hook (III: 108)
  • Water fowl teem in the marshes across the Blackwater Rush from the city (III: 183)
  • Someone may reach King's Landing from Maidenpool by taking the Duskendale road southwards (III: 236)
  • There are various guilds in King's Landing who are consulted with concerning matters in the city, such as rebuilding after some catastrophe (III: 352)
  • King's Landing is the realms principle harbor, rivaled only by Oldtown (III: 353)
  • A maze of small streets cluster about the foot of Visenya's High Hill (III: 355)
  • Duskendale has a port, lying as it does on the narrow sea (III: 356, 397)
  • The Kingswood Brotherhood was almost legendary as an outlaw band. Its members included Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, Oswyn Longneck the Thrice-Hanged, the young and comely Wenda the White Fawn, Fletcher Dick (who some say was the finest archer that ever lived), Big Belly Ben, and others (III: 369. IV: 452)
  • Simon Toyne was infamous, the chief of the Kingswood Brotherhood. He once took part in a tourney as a mystery knight. He was killed by Ser Barristan Selmy (III: 485, 752. SSM: 1)
  • The Great Sept of Baelor has two towering gilded statues of the Father and the Mother, between which a royal bride and groom place themselves for their wedding vows (III: 660, 667)
  • King's Landing is many times larger than White Harbor (III: 694)
  • Brindlewood may is a village or town along the kingsroad (III: 695)
  • From the Gate of the Gods one can take the Street of Seeds to get to the Red Keep, passing brothels, bakers, and alleys, and going through Cobbler's Square (III: 696, 697)
  • There are so many hiding places in the deep of the kingswood that outlaws often evaded capture for decades (III: 739)
  • Kings are laid to rest in tombs in the Great Sept of Baelor (III: 751)
  • Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
  • Ser Barristan rescued Lady Jeyne Swann and her septa from the Kingswood Brotherhood, defeating Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, and slaying the former (III: 752)
  • Big Belly Ben of the Kingswood Brotherhood nearly killed Lord Sumner Crakehall, but his squire Jaime Lannister defended him and sent him fleeing (III: 753)
  • The Smiling Knight was a madman, chivalry and cruelty all jumbled together, but he did not know the meaning of fear. When Ser Arthur Dayne broke the Kingswood Brotherhood, he fought against the squire Jaime Lannister and then against the Sword of the Morning with Dawn in his hands. The outlaw's sword had so many notches by the end that Ser Arthur had stopped to let him fetch a new one. When the robber knight told Dayne that it was Dawn that he wanted when the fight resumed, Ser Arthur responded that he would have it and made an end of it, killing him (III: 753)
  • Kingslanders have a certain way of speaking that can make them distinctive (TSS: 120)
  • Fires to destroy the remains of the dead during the Great Spring Sickness changed King's Landing. A quarter of the homes were gone, and another quarter stood empty (TSS: 121)
  • By 211, drought had left the kingswood so dry that fires raged through it by day and night (TSS: 121)
  • The sort of "teasing" that can go on between the children of Flea Bottom could include the cutting off of a toe (TSS: 124)
  • King's Landing roads are unpaved and muddy, with many of its buildings are of daub-and-wattle or of wood with thatched roofs, in contrast to Oldtown's cobbled streets and primarily-stone construction (IV: 12)
  • The shortest road from Kings Landing to Duskendale passes through Rosby and moves in a northeastern direction. (IV: 56, 57)
  • Perhaps a day's ride past Rosby one can come to the Old Stone Bridge, a tall, timbered inn sitting astride a stone bridge over a river junction (IV: 67)
  • On entering the Great Sept of Baelor, one passes beneath colored globes of leaded glass in the Hall of Lamps (IV: 101)
  • Past the inner doors of the Great Sept is its cavernous center, with seven broad aisles which meet beneath the dome (IV: 101)
  • The Great Sept's dome is lofty and made of glass, gold, and crystal (IV: 101)
  • The Great Sept has high windows (IV: 116)
  • The altars of the Seven in the Great Sept feature towering likenesses set in transpets, and are surrounded by lit candles. The floors are of marble and the transepts alone are larger than many septs (IV: 116, 124)
  • The Great Sept can be accessed via the Father’s Door, the Mother’s Door, the Stranger’s Steps, and other entryways (IV: 124)
  • Weasel Alley (IV: 125)
  • Crackclaw Point is a dismal land of bogs, wild hills, and pine barrens (IV: 141, 213)
  • The Whispers is a castle in Crackclaw Point, ruined for a thousand years, which was once associated with the Crabbs. It was once a smuggler's cove, but has been abandoned for thirty years or more (IV: 213-214)
  • The Gate of the Gods is grander and more magnificent than the Lion Gate (IV: 226)
  • East of Maidenpool, the hills are wilder and covered with pine (IV: 280)
  • The coast road east from Maidenpool is the shortest, easiest way towards the Whispers. It is seldom out of sight of the bay. There are towns and villages along it, growing progressively less populace the further one travels into Crackclaw Point (IV: 280)
  • The coast road that starts east of Maidenpool eventually gives out in the northern reaches of Crackclaw Point (IV: 280)
  • The people of Crackclaw Point know their bogs and forests like no other, and when hard-pressed will disappear into the caves that can be found throughout the hills (IV: 282)
  • Limestone hills rise beyond the Dyre Den, the castle of Lord Brune in Crackclaw Point (IV: 286-287)
  • The Whispers are roughly three days' ride from the Dyre Den (IV: 288-289)
  • The Whispers is an ancient ruined castle at the edge of a cliff above the narrow sea. Built of unmortared stones, its name comes from the whispering sound the sea makes as it rumbles through caves and tunnels the water has worn through the cliff. The castle is triangular in shape, with ruined square towers, but the keep and bailey have been swallowed up by growth; the gate has rotted, but a rusted portcullis remains behind it and there is a postern in the north wall. The castle is overgrown, its godswood engulfing its stones. There was once a beacon tower, and steps down to the ocean, but when these collapsed with the cliff they were on some decades past, smugglers no longer made use of the cove as they once had (IV: 289-291)
  • The hilltop castle of the Hayfords is a day's ride north from King's Landing. A stream runs along the foot of the hill (IV: 396-397)
  • Travelling north from Hayford castle over the next five days, riders might come across a stable, an inn, an old stone barn, a small wooded island in a stream, and an open field in succession at each night's rest (IV: 399)
  • Sow's Horn, a towerhouse held by knights of House Hogg, is at least 5 days north of Hayford (IV: 400)
  • The boundary between the lands sworn to King's Landing and those sworn to Riverrun, marked by a stream, is only a day north of Sow's Horn (IV: 400)
  • The Great Sept of Baelor has large gardens, capable of holding hundreds (IV: 414)
  • There are cells for pentinents in the Great Sept of Baelor (IV: 418)
  • The vaults of the Great Sept hold costly vestments, rings, crystal crowns, and other treasures of the Faith (IV: 419)
  • The sept-proper of the Great Sept is reached through double-doors in the Hall of Lamps. The floors are of marble, light enters through great windows of leaded, colored glass, and the seven altars are set about with candles (IV: 419)
  • In autumn, the leaves of trees in the kingswood turn their color, and autumn flowers and chestnuts can be found in plenty (IV: 425)
  • The Kingswood Brotherhood's downfall was Ser Arthur Dayne's winning the love of the smallfolk of the kingswood, expanding their grazing lands, winning them the right to fell more trees, and so on. Once they saw Ser Arthur and the king protected them better than the outlaws did, the Brotherhood was lost (IV: 453)
  • A comet was seen above King's Landing on the day that Rhaegar's son Aegon was conceived (IV: 520)
  • There are small cells atop the slender towers of Baelor's Sept, eight feet by six feet, with a single window barely wider than an arrow slit (IV: 649)
  • There are rooms and cells beneath Baelor's Sept, dug into the heart of Visenya's Hill. Among them is a seven-sided audience chamber of the High Septon. The room is plain, with bare walls, but the faces of the Seven have been carved into. Though they are crude, there is power to them, and their eyes are of malachite, onyx, and yellow moonstone (IV: 651)
  • The only fleets comparable to the Greyjoy fleet in the Seven Kingdoms are the royal fleet and the Redwyne fleet based at the Arbor (SSM: 1)
  • King's Landing is a much bigger city than Lannisport (SSM: 1)
  • The City Watch were likely known as gold cloaks even before Robert's ascension, and seem to have used gold and black before his reign (SSM: 1)
Last revised November 30, 2009
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