After a while, Kal pinched his brow. "Sorry, I always thought you all had ulterior motives—"
"After all, you behaved far too strangely."
"And you said you wanted to match me with Dorne's Princess, but some time ago, according to Varys's report at the Small Council, your Princess had no time at all, spending every day in the manor entertaining those great nobles."
With this long talk from Oberyn once they sat down, Kal only now realized he had been imposing his assumptions first.
After all, he had from the very beginning expected Dorne to harbor other intentions, so from start to finish he had always maintained vigilance toward them.
Which led to the misunderstanding becoming deeper and deeper now.
"That is because my brother Doran does not agree to have his daughter, Dorne's noble Princess, marry a bastard knight who perhaps has no future. So he has been continuously sending letters to those great lords of the Seven Kingdoms gathered in King's Landing, and having them meet with Arianne."
"Although Arianne, after seeing you, already loved you to the point of madness."
"Arianne has been constantly complaining to me. If she truly had any time, and if Quentyn Martell were not always watching her, I suspect she would climb into your bed at night—"
Hearing these words, the two once again looked at each other without speaking.
"Ahem, apologies, Prince Oberyn Martell. I apologize to you for my misunderstanding of you, and in the name of Iron Throne I will compensate you for your losses—so let us return to the question from just now, all right?"
Kal did not want to continue on this embarrassing topic, and could only stiffly shift the subject.
Things had reached this point, and being under another's roof, what else could Oberyn say?
He could only let out a cold snort like venting his displeasure.
Fortunately, as the two of them now cleared up the earlier misunderstanding, the faint vigilance and the tense atmosphere between them also gradually eased.
And facing the present situation, Prince Oberyn Martell could only let out a helpless sigh.
Seeing Kal before him, who now held no hostility or killing intent, Oberyn casually put his spear to one side, then turned back, and his expression became much more serious.
Then, in his slightly magnetic voice, deep and solemn, he said, "Have you heard of the Faceless Men?"
Just as he spoke to the crucial point, a sudden sound cut off their conversation. Kal and Oberyn both halted at the same time and instinctively turned their heads.
They saw a girl with a face full of fear, holding a tray and cowering at the doorway.
"Scarlett? What is it?" As the owner of Red Serpent Brothel, Oberyn naturally knew these prostitutes under his hand.
"The grown-up outside told me to bring some wine to you, Your Highness the Prince, and to Yo—Your Majesty—"
Scarlett did not dare look at the corpses piled in the room, her voice trembling, and the wine cups and bottles she held shook and rang.
"Bring it over." Kal glanced at Oberyn and nodded.
Hearing this, Scarlett felt as if relieved of a great burden. She hurriedly carried the tray, carefully avoiding the corpses on the ground as she approached the two men.
She first took a wine cup and placed it before Kal, then quickly lifted the wine jug to pour.
However, because she was too nervous, her hand jerked and tilted, spilling quite a bit onto the table.
"Relax. The King doesn't eat people."
Seeing the girl before him—who, because of a single sentence, had suffered disaster out of nowhere and been frightened half to death—Kal could not help offering a helpless reassurance.
But whether it was Kal's tone or simply the tense atmosphere, the girl nearly burst into tears, and only with trembling hands did she manage to fill Kal's cup.
In the process, some of the wine even spilled onto her hand and then dripped into Kal's cup.
"Let me do it—" Oberyn, unable to keep watching, reached out and took the wine jug, then poured a cup for himself and for Ellaria.
Kal shook his head. With a flick of his fingers, a gold dragon appeared between them, and he handed it to Scarlett.
"Sorry for frightening you. This is compensation for you. You may leave now. But you need to tell the one outside that once we finish our talk, I'll come out on my own. They are not to send anyone else in."
Holding the unexpected windfall, Scarlett froze for a moment, then a smile spread across her face. She nodded quickly, and without even bothering to gather the tray, she hurriedly stepped around the corpses on the floor and slipped out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
With the maid who had interrupted their talk now gone, the urgency in Kal's heart eased somewhat.
He took a deep breath and turned toward Oberyn.
But before he could speak, Oberyn, tasting the freshly delivered Dornish summer red and smiling faintly, said, "You are generous."
"In this world, aside from the upper folk, life for those below is harsh. These burdens shouldn't fall on them." Facing Oberyn's teasing tone, Kal spoke lightly, his expression unconcerned.
His words made Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand exchange a brief look, and Oberyn soon shook his head.
"Back to our earlier topic—how much do you know about the Faceless Men?"
Kal's brows tightened as he nodded. "Of course. I spent five years adventuring in the Free Cities. I naturally went to Braavos and stayed there for a while. But I never entered the House of Black and White, nor have I ever dealt with the Faceless Men."
Kal did not mention that he had always held a certain fear toward these people.
Hearing this, Oberyn only smiled. "Perhaps you have dealt with them—only you didn't realize it."
After saying that, he put down his wine cup, and his expression grew much more serious.
"The Faceless Men are a religious assassins' order. They worship the Many-Faced God, the God of Death. In the Seven Kingdoms, people more often call him the Stranger."
"The followers of the Many-Faced God believe that death is a merciful release. So long as the price is paid, they will agree to take a life from this world."
"Because they see it as an offering to their god."
At this point, Oberyn let out a disdainful snort, though it was unclear what exactly he had thought of.
But he did not elaborate. Instead, he continued, "However, the price is usually extremely high, and the amount changes based on the target's importance and level of protection. But for their followers, the meaning behind it is far more important."
"The elites among these followers are called the Faceless Men. They are trained by the House of Black and White to carry out these assassinations."
"Within the Faceless Men there is no distinction of male or female, but it is said they rarely recruit children."
"And the most important trait—and the source of their name—comes from a strange ability they possess, which allows them to change their appearance at will."
"As part of their training, they must abandon their true identity and see themselves as 'no one.'"
"And the Faceless Men use many methods to kill their targets. Among them is one poison known as the 'Strangler.'"
Listening to Oberyn Martell's words, Kal's fingers tapped lightly on the armrest without his noticing.
Regarding the "Faceless Men" that the Red Viper mentioned, he of course knew about them — but when it came to things like the Strangler and the other poisons those Faceless Men were accustomed to using, Kal truly was not familiar.
Whether in the original books or the show, there were never many detailed descriptions of these things; at most, they were only brushed over in passing.
But for Kal, who truly lived in this world, and for Oberyn as well, these were all tangible, real things — lines of information and scattered clues.
And asking Oberyn Martell, a man who played with such things, about these details was naturally the fastest and most convenient method.
As he listened to Oberyn's explanation, Kal nodded from time to time, gradually expanding the clues he had regarding the wine-server who had been poisoned to death.
And he also gained, in certain ways, a more three-dimensional understanding of the group known as the Faceless Men.
Originally, he had thought that Robert's sudden death this time had something to do with Oberyn, the Red Viper.
But after arriving here, he realized it was not the case at all — and furthermore, that this matter was very likely not Oberyn Martell's doing.
Because Kal suddenly understood that if Oberyn had truly been involved in this, then poisoning the wine-server would not have held any meaning.
And the most important point was that he had no need to carry out such a circuitous method of killing. Would that not be making things unnecessarily complicated?
If he truly wanted Robert dead and had such an opportunity, poisoning the wine directly would have been enough — why insist on having the boar finish him off?
And it was not merely a matter of avoiding suspicion.
After all, if Oberyn — or rather, House Martell — had truly made such a decision, they would absolutely have made the whole realm know it: letting all of Westeros know that Robert had been killed by House Martell.
Assassination was simply something neither he nor House Martell would do — nor was it something they would ever need to do.
Therefore, if this matter was not an accident, then it most likely had something inseparable to do with the Faceless Men.
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