A Song of Ice and Glamour [ASOIAF/C:TL-nWoD]

[The Laurent]

So, this is going to be a rather different thing, because I'm not starting with a post. No, the first post of this will come out on Saturday, and every Saturday on schedule forever until the Wall falls and Westeros is overrun.

Or something.

This is a fusion/crossover with Changeling: The Lost, primarily, but with elements of a lot of the different nWoD properties. It will start, I admit, somewhat as if it's following canon, but hopefully things will properly derail before too long. In the interest of not letting this die, I have a buffer already made of eight chapters counting the prologue, and I shall strive to always have a seven or more chapter buffer.

It will begin as Game of Thrones might, and some of the early chapters do involve me basically rewriting parts of the book, but there are changes afoot, and I hope this will be a wild ride for all of us.

In the interest of drumming up interest and also giving a sneak peak into the future, here is the index, which I'll be using in addition to the Threadmarks. It will always show five chapters ahead, hopefully, to keep the beacon forward lit, unless it'd be a major spoiler to do so.

A Song of Ice and Glamour, Book 1: Clever Title Here

Prologue: Ser Waymar Royce
Chapter 1: Eddard 1
Chapter 2: Catelyn 1
Chapter 3: Jeanette 1
Chapter 4: Dany 1
Chapter 5: Eddard 2
Chapter 6: Jon 1
Chapter 7: Illyrio 1
Chapter 8: Catelyn 2
Chapter 9: Sansa 1
Chapter 10: Arya 1

*****

So feel free to speculate, because in just four days I'll be posting the Prologue. Saturday, and every Saturday after that, as I said. Hope you enjoy!

 

[The Laurent]

Prologue: Waymar Royce

The woods grew dark and seemed to close in on all sides. This far north was strange, that Waymar had to admit. But it was no stranger than the Mountain Men, or any threat in the Vale, and all this time, the other two had been jumpy. Afraid of shadows, afraid of nothing at all.

"We should turn back. The wildlings are dead," Gared whispered, voice hoarse, his strange iron talismans jangling slightly as he leaned towards him. We should? Waymar thought. As if he were in charge.

"Do the dead frighten you?" Ser Waymar Royce asked. There was something in that old man's look that almost said 'yes', and this superstition brought a smile to his face. The Maesters said well that there was no magic in the world, nothing to fear of the dead. Spirits were nothing more than a fable, and the dead had no power. And so did the Septons in their own ways. Waymar wasn't a man of vast piety, but he had his own faith, one far less superstitious than that of the North, one that acknowledged a Seven-in-One, not vast, endless and strange Northern gods.

"Dead's dead. They're gone, the wildings are and that's it," Gared shot back.

"Are we so sure? And there are things to learn even from bodies," Waymar said, quietly, scanning the dark forest.

"I saw it," the young peasant boy, Will, said, "They're dead, and my mam said that dead men sing no--"

"You should not," Waymar Royce interrupted, cutting short the superstitious inanities, "Trust everything you learn at a woman's tit. My wet nurse thought quite the same." It was a peasant's failing, their lack of reason. Even Gared, the old man with experience if no breeding at all, showed the same flaws.

Still, it was cold, and he'd much rather be back at the wall. The other two were looking around, nervously, and belatedly he realized he'd raised his voice. Damn, well no matter.

"It's nine days back to the wall, and getting dark."

"It does so every night. Darkness is nothing, and the faster we search," Waymar argued, trying for reason, "Or are you afraid of the dark?"

Waymar turned away, smiled at his jest. Behind him he heard scuffling, but he paid it no mind, looking closer out into the dark, hand drifting by instinct to the sword at his belt. He hadn't dressed warmly enough, he'd underestimated just how cold it would be, and it seemed to be getting colder still. And his companions? Well, Gared had experience, even if the old man was well past his prime, but he was down far too many bits and pieces to be entirely unreliable, and Will was nothing more than a superstitious peasant boy. Still, if the ranging was a success, it would be a step forward.

What was there at home? Politics and unfulfilled ambitions, or even more dangerous and less successful sorties against the Mountain Men, who were rather more frightening than any Wilding. He was a young man in his prime, and there was time yet for him to rise in the Watch. He reached down again, and this time patted his horse's head. He was getting restless, ol' Midnight. A good horse, but too skittish, all his breeding making him perhaps a bit too spirited. Like a young Lord on holiday in town, Waymar thought, aware of the irony.

Gared, it seemed, had more to say. "Lord Mormont told us to track them. We did, they're dead, and there's a hard ride ahead of us. If it snows, we could be out here a fortnight, and if it's an ice-storm, we'll not have the supplies to get along. Stormlord knows…"

Yet more superstition. The insane gods of the North. The fears of Northerners. It was all an old story to him, and Waymar took a moment to compose himself. He admitted, reluctantly, that a storm would be a problem, yet their luck had held so far, by the Seven. That's the way things go: you press your luck, with women, at the gaming table, and in politics. He thought he had an idea of the situation, a clear lordly grasp of its particulars, but he asked again, "What did you see, Will? Don't leave anything out." His eyes strained against the twilight, trying to picture it.

"The camp is two and a half miles farther in, over the ridge, hard besides a stream." A good place for a camp, his training in warfare told him. At least, the books would think so. "Eight people, men and women both, in a lean-to by a rock. It's covered in snow by now, and I didn't see anything. No fire in the pit, and nobody moving. Not even like as they were sleeping."

That...that was something. It could be a trap.

"No blood?" he asked.

"No blood," Will said, "A few weapons. None of them was moving, not even the far-eyes, some of them laying down."

"It was the cold, my lord," Gared supplied, "Surely you've felt it. It gets in your bones. Everyone talks about the forty-feet snows of winter in the North, but it's the cold that does it. The cold burns you, it has its own fire, its own cut. It slices you away, bit by bit, and at first you're irritated, at first you stamp and growl and drink more, but then it gets in your bones. Then you can feel it there and you start to get sleepy, you start to drift off, and then it's easier to just sink down into it, like the Ironborn's ocean, just a sea of numb--"

"Enough!" Waymar said, rather too loudly. His arms ached now, and he felt the burning, but he wasn't about to be spooked by some old man. He shook his head, "It can't be that. I swear the Wall was weeping at least a few days in the last week, and the weather can't turn that fast. Use some logic for a change."

"The weather can turn fast out here," Will whispered, "Sir."

"I've seen it sometimes. It's not even freezing, the Wall's weeping, and then it comes on you, a vast chill and suddenly all of that weeping wall is frozen solid, and suddenly you're running inside for the fire. The land beyond the wall doesn't follow the--" Gared began, voice low, a growl, a howl against the wind. It sent a shiver down his spine.

"We shall," Ser Royce said, trying to sound decisive, "Check out the camp, and then we will turn back."

"But--" Will began.

"Those are my orders," Ser Royce, said, trying to sound more sure than he was. They went along from there, Will first, Gared bringing up the rear like a coward. But Will's garron nor Will were particularly fast, and certainly the boy's horsemanship could have used a little work. The cold kept on nibbling at him, and each breath out left a raw feeling in his throat and let out a cloud, but it seemed to grow still darker.

Where was the moon? It should be up by now. Waymar looked around, and blinked. The trees seemed to curve inwards, almost making a path, and the bushes around here seemed larger than before, thorny and only half-covered in snow. What sort of plants survived in a place like this?

The underbrush seemed only to get thicker, and when he got too close to a bramble patch, Midnight whinnied nervously, stamping his feet.

"We should dismount, my lord, in order to go the rest of the way more quietly," Will said.

"What?" Royce said distractedly.

Just then a wolf howled. It sounded far off but also close, way too close. Ser Royce reached for his sword, then paused. The wind howled through the trees.

"This isn't natural," Gared whispered.

"A wolf? The wind? Is that all it takes you to lose your manhood like some peasant woman?" Ser Royce said, then paused. The bite of the cold was being replaced with a sort of numbness, a rawness that meant his voice cracked when he raised it.

"We should turn...back." Will's voice suddenly dropped into a whisper, and with a panicked whine he said, "My lord…"

"What is it?" Ser Royce asked, and turned around to see darkness and brambles. A wall of thorns where once there had been a clear, if treacherous, path. Waymar Royce froze, and then drew his sword, dismounting in a single easy motion, and then striding over to the brambles and slicing at them with his sword. The jewel glinted in the dark, but it got tangled, and when he reached to pull it out, his dark gloves were scratched, almost all the way through. He pulled it out.

"What is it?" Ser Royce repeated.

"I've seen this before. We need, we need to retrace our steps, Ser," Gared said, his voice low, like a panicked moan, "And look for, for a hint of...something. If we keep on going, we'll just get lost."

"I-I've only heard about a place like this. I thought it was just…" Will muttered.

"Quiet, stop your foolishness," Waymar said, looking around. There were several paths forward, but none back, and trees and brambles made all of the paths narrow and confused. He glanced over to Midnight. And that's when the wolf howl came again, loud and as if it was right in their midst. Midnight bolted, straight forward, and Waymar cried out, "Wait!" and charged forward, trying to grab the reins before the horse got too far, but his hand slipped by, and the horse kept on going until it was swallowed by the darkness.

The other two horses looked no steadier. Neither did the men.

"Help me get through this Seven-cursed thicket, then, and we'll get back or whatever nonsense you're babbling about, old man," Ser Royce called.

"We have to just push through. We'll lose something, that's what my friend said, and that's what Maester Aemon said. But you just push through," Gared muttered, and then he leapt off his horse, drawing his dark clothes tight, and then he ran through the brambles. They sliced at him, and Ser Royce watched in shock as Gared pushed through, leaving huge patches of blood behind, bleeding from a dozen places, silent as the night as he slipped into the darkness just in time for the third wolf howl. And then he screamed.

Will spurred his horse onward, forward, and all Ser Royce could do is yell, "Get back here, boy, you won't get far!"

And then he too was gone.

*****
The lordling couldn't feel any part of his body. He'd been wandering for what had to be hours, and he'd seen little, little except strange faces in the darkness, and momentary flashes of something more. Half his outfit had been torn away by the thorns that he had to brush past on some of the narrower paths, but he was sure he was going somewhere. He felt like he was going up on the ridge, and indeed as he rounded a corner, he saw a stream. The waters were odd.

Golden-white, a color that wasn't natural, wasn't sane. Waymar wondered whether he was dead and in one of the seven hells, but he followed it, not so much a fool as to stop and drink from it.

But what he saw when he reached camp, that's what finally broke his resolve. There was the lean-to, and there was the rock. And there were the eight wildlings. Standing there, eyes cold and blue, shambling towards him, breath coming off in waves of cold. Then one of them charged, clumsily, waving her axe.

Ser Royce barely kept from running, knew it would do no good, and moved forward, meeting axe with sword. The jewel made it too heavy, and too late he regretted not asking for one of his father's Mountain Man killing swords. A second axe-blow landed against his side, and if he'd not had his chainmail, he'd be down. He stepped forward, all the lessons of a lifetime coming to hand, and chopped at the woman's head. But, though the blade sank deep, she didn't stop, and he barely avoided another axe-blow, this one rather better aimed.

His breathing went faster as he dodged one of the men, coming at him with nothing more than a knife, and then slashed down, all but severing the woman's arm. But there was no blood, just cold, dark-blue fluid that didn't drip so much as ooze from the wound.

Then another came at him with a sword, and his world became a desperate battle for survival. There were too many, and time and again he saw blows rain down. If one hit his head, he was down and done with, but for his part, all of the old forms came to him, and soon enough he'd downed three of them.

And more than that, dismembered them. Even their bits and pieces still twitched and moved when they were cut off, and that's what it took, hacking them into bloodless, miserable pieces. Anything less and they still tried to fight.

So his limbs were already shaking with exhaustion as he backed up, waving his sword. Another leapt forward, and he sliced off its head--it, not his, it wasn't a person--and then stomach churning, took off another limb. Half down, but his arms seemed out of strength, and the strange beings, like something out of an old story, seemed to be backing up.

Afraid of him?

He laughed, a miserable, cold, sad little laugh.

Damn right they should be. He was of the noble and ancient house of Royce. He was a knight, not a fool to run off and die. Still laughing, he sank to his knees as soon as he saw they were gone. He'd found it. He'd found it. He'd found it.

It kept on repeating in his head. Surely Lord Mormont would like the news when he got back. He felt so cold, so cold that he yawned. It was like sleep, like dreaming. Like how the Ironborn abandoned their children in warm water, part of some...some...his thoughts trailed off and stopped and started suddenly.

Sometime in the last hour, the hour spent shivering on the ground, he reached the point where he accepted he was going to die.

And that is when he saw the lady walk around the corner, stepping around the stream and the brambles as if it were nothing. Where she walked, flowers bloomed and the snow melted, and as she drew closer, his body suddenly feeling all of that pain that the cold had numbed. He almost resented it, but he was too busy staring at her.

She was beautiful, perhaps a few years older than him, in a gown of green and gold, as modest as any charming lady of the south, her hair rich and flowing, golden like he'd only heard of, her eyes bright blue, staring into him. Her breasts bound up high, and he felt things stirring to life that had all but died. When he looked into her face, he saw life. He saw desire.

She reached out and touched his cheek. It burnt like the sun. "Oh, oh you poor dear. You poor, beautiful dear. Such a pretty young man. Such a darling." Her voice was distant, and strange, older than he expected, but rich, caressing him as she caressed his cheek. "Come with me, darling knight, my Ser Rex Valiant."

She held out her hand.

His hand was shaking as he took it, rising slowly to his feet.

"M-my name is Ser Waymar Royce," he muttered.

She looked into his eyes, and he felt his world fall away, his doubts, his...his everything. "Not anymore it isn't. You can call me Lady, or Mistress, Ser. Is that understood, Rex?"

He yearned and ached like he never had before, his whole body burning up, and his head ached. What was she asking? His thoughts seemed muted. Something about his name? It didn't make sense. He was Rex. Right? He nodded, only half sure what he was agreeing to, as he was led away.

*****

A/N: Through a cracked mirror, darkly.

So it begins. One difficulty of this fusion is that there will be sections that are similar or somewhat repeated from the books, that I have to include because they aren't the same, and help show differences. I hope this was enjoyable, all!

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 1: Eddard 1

Eddard Stark prayed at the godswood often. The sway of the Wyrdwood, the beauty of the place, it always struck him. He had even been blessed before, however rarely, with the sight. His line was sometimes so blessed, though never for long. A month once at the most, but it was more than most gained. And today, of all days, he needed it. For a deserter had been found, far beyond the wall. The third that year, but unlike the others, he was strange. Ragged and desperate, yes, that was common.

But he spoke in some foreign tongue, one that nobody even began to recognize, and when Eddard had gone to see him, unannounced, the half-dead, quiet and terrified man had gotten frantic in his babbling. Yet none of his words made any sense.

There were languages, languages of the old gods and the old ways, that no man could speak now except through their blessing. Things no man could see. The Old Gods' blessed rarely enough, almost not at all, and never to those who doubted their gifts. So he sat there, staring at the wyrdwood, meditating on it.

At some point, something changed. It was hard to place exactly what, but the darkness of early morning seemed a little less powerful, and he rose, stretching.

A deserter taken at a nearby holdfast, this far south. It seemed suddenly a portent, but of what? What, really, did portents mean?

He shook his head, pulling his furs closer to him, and turned.

When he walked through the halls, the torches seemed to be dancing in place, and he knew that he'd been given something. Given something wondrous as he had before.

*****

They rode out on horseback. Eddard Stark glanced around at the others, even Bran, who Catelyn had wanted to spare until 'the next one, Ned, please.' He liked her kindness, and the care she felt for Bran warmed him, but he needed to learn. Eddard glanced over at Bran.

He favored his mother, that much was clear, and his light blue eyes glanced back at his father curiously.

The boy was eight, which was not so young as it seemed. If his ambitions of being a knight, ambitions that put him at some variance with the northern customs, were to go anywhere, he'd have to begin training in earnest soon. Even were he not to be, he'd still need training in arms, and Eddard allowed himself a moment to consider this. Robb had already received the best training he could, ongoing, but Bran had been deemed too young for much. The Master-at-arms was right to take things slow, but he knew that Bran would soon reach the age where the world opened up.

The time of childhood was passing, Eddard thought. He smiled softly and swept his eyes over the others.

Robb, auburn hair thick, build stocky and strong, sure to grow up in the next few years to be a great warrior and heir.

Theon Greyjoy, their ward, who was as quick on his feet as he was with his brain. A strange boy, but he'd grown up there, and Ned had tried all he could to raise the boy as if he were his own. Certainly, Theon had grown up strong and dark and clever, and had received training in every art the Maester could place before him. Eddard had done his duty, and far more than that. But there were sometimes moments when he looked at Theon and wondered whether even duty was enough. There was something wild, something bizarre, about the Iron Islands.

He should laugh at himself, he thought, since he knew people said the same about the North.

And then there was Jon, sitting confidently on his horse. Eddard had never seen a youth take so easily to horsemanship, and to half a dozen other things. Quick with a sword, he did rather well at his lessons, and in so many ways that Eddard could name, there were reasons to be proud of Jon Snow. And yet, just as with Theon, it felt like there was a barrier to understanding, some last…

It was not something he could allow himself to think on. It would come to no good end, and Eddard was nothing if not practical, shoving the thoughts from his head. His honor demanded little else. On the horses came, until at last, the prisoner was brought out.

Eddard had seen them once before, but this time they dismounted, staring closer at the old man, fingers and toes frostbit off. And...he looked different.

Twisted and gnarled, bonier than before, his face half-masked in shadows despite the light of the sun beating down. It was cold as ever in the North, but though the man shivered, Eddard had long since stopped noticing it. And so had the man. This, this was fear, fear so great it seemed to fill him until there was nothing.

But when the man saw him, he began to babble. It didn't make much sense, but it made some. With a single commanding gesture, Eddard said, "Bring him closer." He dismounted, waiting as the snarling, spitting man was guided closer.

"Gift. Naarrr. Uuhhh. Gift. You," the man muttered, "Strength. Baieadhfuad. Hahhhttee. Hot place. Present. Omen. Dire. Your...Stark." He tried to leap at Eddard, but before Eddard could even draw his blade, he'd been pulled back.

"That is enough," Eddard said, thinking of the words. Gift for him? A gift of strength? It seemed like nonsense, but that seemed like all he was going to get out of him, and the very fact that he hadn't been intelligible meant that something had changed.

He glanced over at Jory and then at Theon. Theon started, moving forward, delicately holding his sword in his hand. Ice, always at the ready. A blade of Valyria, a place still seeped in its own mysteries, mysteries quite different from the North's. The blade, though, was familiar, as he peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, a loyal and good man.

As this brother of the Night Watch should have been. Taking a breath, he drew Ice and waited until the deserter in black was placed on the stump. The words flowed as smoothly as they had the previous two times, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm," and here Eddard was careful to not say Robert's newest title, for fear of offense, "By the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die."

It was a single, smooth motion. He'd done it far too often lately, and the head bounced, as horses reared and blood spilled. It landed at Theon's feet, but against expectations the boy leapt back, and then started laughing. "Gods blood, I thought it grinned at me," Theon said, laughing rather more lightly than the seriousness of the situation required. A few men turned to glare at him, Robb included, but Eddard let it pass, his mind already moving past the death. He wished he could talk to the Maester about it, but signs and omens and the old faith were not topics liable to end well.

And Ned knew it was folly, had to be, at least a little.

*****

They rode back, and Eddard thought back to Bran. His second son had seen his first real death, the first person he'd seen to die. When Jon and Robb raced back, Jon quickly taking the lead, he noticed that his second youngest son didn't follow. It was strange, for though his pony couldn't keep up, on another day Bran would have tried. Eddard took a breath and rode forward, wondering if Catelyn had been right. She was, often enough. A smart woman, another thing he appreciated about his wife. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked carefully. The boy was adventuresome, and he didn't want to discourage that, but the realities of the world had to press in. One couldn't live in hearth stories forever.

Whether one wanted it or not.

"Yes father. Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid, and I heard things. Like, looking at him," Bran said, trying to sound calm, "It felt like he was different. Wrong somehow, and when he was babbling...it felt as if I could almost understand it if only I could listen."

Eddard thought for a moment, staring at his son, "Perhaps you should try praying at the Godswood, and see what you find. As well, I think in life you'll find that the only time you can be brave is when you're afraid. I hope," he said, "You can understand why I had to do it."

"He was a wildling. They carry off women to sell to the Others, and they have strange powers and do evil things," Bran said.

"Old Nan has been telling you stories," Eddard said, smiling, "Perhaps some of them have a little truth, but more importantly is the fact that the man is an pledgebreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous, for he knows his life is forfeit, and that there are none who will shelter him. He will not flinch from any crime, no matter what. But what I asked is why I was the one to execute him. King Robert may have a headsmen, and so too did the Targaryens before them, but ours is the blood of the First Men, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would kill a man, you owe it to him to look him in the eyes, record his last words."

He thought about those last words. Who would wish to record those? They meant something, unless they didn't. He took a breath, "If you are unwilling to do that, perhaps the man should not die."

"But what if there are too many people," Bran said, "Is that why Robert uses a headsman?" Bran asked.

"That may be it," Eddard said, smiling. Was it? He doubted it, "But that does not change our ways, and when the time comes, you will be Robb's bannerman, you will hold a keep for your brother and the King. When that time comes, you must not hesitate even one moment to bring justice, and yet you should take no pleasure in it. You cannot forget what death is, not without crippling yourself as a ruler." He thought of the old tales, of people brought into the Godswood, to places strange and and mystic. The Godswood was a gift, albeit one Catelyn disapproved of. "Perhaps you should go to the Godswood with me and pray, after all of this is done."

Bran nodded, eyes wide, though Eddard gave it good odds he'd forget. It was at that exact moment that Jon popped up at the crest of the hill. "Father, Bran, see what Robb has found!"

Eddard felt and dismissed a slight moment of hesitation. He didn't understand where it had come from, but he couldn't trust his instincts, not outside of battle. Not these instincts.

"Trouble my lord?" Jory asked.

"Perhaps. Come, let us see what mischief my sons have rooted out now," Eddard said, spurring his horse along. Everyone followed in his wake as he leaned forward, though soon Jory and Jon outpaced them. The horses were skittish, and Jory was a skilled rider, while Jon was a natural.

Robb was on the riverbank north of the bridge, kneeling in the snow, hood pulled back, cradling something. The boys babbled excitedly, and Ned's mind briefly seemed to jump, like someone who has heard the hearth story before and knows the end. His grip tightened on the reins, and next to him Theon seemed to share his opinion. "Gods!" he exclaimed, and reached for his sword.

But Jory had already drawn, "Robb, get away from it!"

Present. Dire.

Robb grinned, his whole face lightening with the emotion, teasing, "She can't hurt you, she's dead, Jory."

Eddard dismounted, and with a gesture the others did as well. He trudged slowly towards the form.

"What in the Seven Hells is that?" Theon asked.

"A wolf," Eddard said to himself, at the same time as Robb said the same, but louder. It felt as if the world had come undone at the edges, and Eddard knew that this must be how the high priests had felt, the people who, if there were secrets in this world, knew them all. The Old Faith had power, and he could almost feel, in some odd way, Theon's next words.

"A freak. Look at the size of that thing!"

It was larger even than they said direwolfs gotten, and it was majestic, even in death, something vast and ancient and profane.

No.

Ned shook his head. It was a wolf, nothing more, yet a wolf that had not been seen south of the wall in two hundred years. In death, it was slumped, ice clinging to it, and he could smell the death, the decay. It was pungent in the air, as with the deserter. Blood, blood on ice. Its eyes crawling with maggots, its mouth lolling open and--

Eddard stared for a moment, baffled and suddenly feeling a terror out of some old hearth story. In the wolf's mouth was a human hand, half-curled, the smallest of the fingers bit off. But when he blinked, the hand was gone. He saw things like that, sometimes, when he'd prayed at the godswood. Things that were there and then weren't. The beast was huge, larger than a pony. No man could have ridden it, even if it had consented, but a boy could. He pictured Bran on its back, he pictured the hand.

There were so many things it could mean, but he remembered his brother. Always superstitious, his brother had believed in omens, but most of all himself. His boldness, his wolf blood. "The blood of the wolf and the ice isn't so easily thwarted," he'd written, "We shall bring the Targaryen to heel. The omens are good." And then he'd died, horribly, miserably. Father murdered before his eyes, strangling himself to death.

That, to omens.

And yet.

He'd missed a little of what they had been saying, but he saw what they were looking at. Direwolf pups. Small blind balls of fur, but when one of them whined, it sounded like a human infant. His face was composed, but inside he was thinking faster than he had in some time.

The boys were hugging the puts, stroking them. Accepting them.

"Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years," Hullen said, ever cautious. "I like it not."

"It is a sign," Jory said.

Eddard paused. Now someone had said what he hadn't wanted to even think, but he shook his head, "It is nothing more than a dead animal. Do we know what killed it? Her?"

Robb leaned forward over the dead beast and pointed to the throat, "There's something in the throat, there, just under the jaw."

Ned stepped forward, wondering just what he would find. He yanked the throat up, and a foot of broken antler, covered in blood and gore, was revealed. He reached out, picking it up, and for a moment he thought to keep it. But it was nothing more than superstition, and he tossed the bloody bit of antler aside. "Surprised she lived long enough to whelp." He tried to sound casual, but Jory dispelled it with his own dire words.

"Maybe she didn't. I've heard tales...maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came."

"Born with the dead, worse luck," one of the huntsmen said, "We should kill the beasts in the godswood, to appease any bad signs. Least, that's what I'd do, my lord."

"We should be faster at it than that," Theon said, drawing his sword, "We shouldn't treat them with any superstition, just kill them."

Bran hugged a direwolf pup close, "No, it's mine!"

"We shall raise them," Robb said, glancing over at Eddard. But he didn't allow either disapproval or approval to show on his face. It was potentially, if omens and signs were to be believed, a 'gift.' But who accepted gifts as cursed as these? Yet, if there was something to it, no. No.

"You cannot do that, boy," Hullen's son Harwin said.

"Killing them would be a mercy," Hullen added.

"Hullen...he may speak true. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation," Eddard concluded. There was no wisdom in heeding vague intuitions, yet the Old Faith was strong in his blood.

"Ser Rodrik's red bitch whelped again last week. It was a small litter, only two live pups--" Robb began.

"And she will rip them apart when they try to nurse," Eddard said.

Strangely, it was Jon who saw something that Eddard had not even thought of, who spoke with a sort of authority. Who knew how the stories went. Jon was a young man who knew symbols, and yet would that he have not spoken. "There are five pups. Three male, two female, and you have five trueborn children. Three sons and two daughters, and the direwolf is your house's sigil. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord." There was a sound in the distance, hard to define, like the first hard blow of winter, and Eddard glanced away from Jon.

"That count, is only right if--" Eddard began, though he felt deep in his bones that he would fail.

"The count is right," Jon said.

"You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" Eddard asked, carefully. He'd raised Jon just as much as he'd raised his trueborn sons. He even thought for a moment to bring up Theon, who as a ward--but no, what would that solve.

"The direwolf, it graces the banner of the starks. Yet I am no stark, father," Jon said.

Eddard looked at the boy for a long moment hearing the almost-human whine of the pups. Far more like infants than any pup he'd ever heard. "I will nurse him myself father. I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that."

"Me too!" Bran chimed afterwards.

Eddard held up a hand, looking around.

"My lord, I still think this bodes ill," Jory said.

I do too, Eddard didn't say. But if it was a gift, if he was going to believe in omens, then these were for his sons. Not anyone else. And more importantly, if this was folly, it should stay a Stark folly. "I won't have you wasting the servants time. You will feed them and care for them, and you will train them yourself. Not the kennelmaster, who will have nothing to do with those monsters. You must have them able to not savage anyone around. And the old gods help you if you brutalize them or neglect them. A direwolf will rip a man's arm off as easily as a dog might take down a rat. They will grow to be large, and the beasts will not be easily bound. For all that, if you are willing to do it, I consent."

"I am willing, father," Robb said.

"Me too," Bran said.

Eddard called together the group, and they began to make their way back. He was troubled, and he needed to go to the godswood. It had been many years since his faith had shaken him so.

Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up, and Eddard felt as if he were again some mummer in a play. "What is it Jon?"

"Can't you hear it?" Jon asked, and he couldn't.

But Jon moved with a sort of unerring certainty towards the direwolf, back in that direction, and it was not long before he returned with an albino pup in his arms. The sixth stark.

"He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said.

Eddard felt the cold enter his bones even further. He needed a warm fire, but he also needed to go to the godswood. "Or been driven away," he said. He peered closer at the beast. It had red eyes, blood red, wide open, and the vague intelligence behind it. It was looking back at him and seeing something. Judging.

No, that was nonsense.

"An albino," Theon said with a chuckle, "It will die even faster than the others."

"No," Jon said, and Eddard muttered his words under his breath, in time with the boy. "I think not, Greyjoy. This one belongs to me."

*****

A/N: And so we face the stations of the canon...sorta. But with some definite changes. Parts of this are all but lifted (or basically copied) from what happened in canon, which makes me feel uneasy, but I have to show both similarities and differences, and as one might guess, things have already started to turn off their path. Next update is Catelyn, which is similar in some ways, again, to the original, but with a slightly different flavor. Then Jeanette, where things hopefully begin a slow turn.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 2: Catelyn

Catelyn knew where to find Ned. Before and after all momentous decisions, he always went to the Godswood. She'd never liked this Godswood, though this wasn't surprising. She was a Tully of Riverrun, and the godswoods she had known were tall with beautiful tamed trees, and birds singing in the sky, and flowers filling the air with their scent. The godswoods of the south were pleasure parks.

They didn't smell of damp earth, and weren't vast and twisted things, as primal and old as the Starks, and sometimes older. The godswoods of the south didn't feel alive, and she had to admit, standing deep in them, she could see how the First Men had come to their Old Faith. Deep silence and deeper shadows, twisted branches and a sort of pulse, a sort of thrum of half-sleeping life, those were what the godswoods of Winterfell offered.

Her old Septon, when she was a girl, would say that her wary, fearful respect was only a step from heresy. That the Old Faith consisted of demon-worshippers at best, and deluded fears at worst. She had been anointed in the seven oils, and her gods were the familiar Seven, and more than that, the Seven of the rich and powerful. Gods who didn't ask much, who didn't appear in a flight of ravens or the dark symbols of birth and death, but who brooded, black and subtle, over the world. The Seven-in-One who were beyond petty superstitions, and whose theology was as tangled and complex as the godswoods.

He'd built a Sept for her, but for him, the heart of worship was the wyrdwood, ancient and unending, which died only by the hand of man. All through the south, they had been chopped down, with a very few exceptions, and those Catelyn had heard some grumble about. That some southerners grew wyrdwood like a harvest, chopping it down to make furniture, was apparently a great and ongoing outrage.

Yet when she looked upon the face carved in the wood, which some said could change expression if you stared at it long enough, if you looked at the dark red sap that made the darkest red that could be used for clothing and ink, but she didn't do this.

She found her husband beneath the wyrdwood, washing Ice, sitting on a moss covered stone. She had heard what had happened, and as she stepped forward over the dark, fertile soil, in boots of all things, she got close enough to see that his expression was disturbed.

"Catelyn," he said, though there was no way he could have heard her coming, was there? "Where are the children?"

His concern touched her, and she moved forward towards him. She wanted to hug him tight, but she knew after an execution, he was wary of such tenderness. "In the kitchen, arguing about the names of wolf pups." She spread her cloak down and sat beside him, but facing away from the wyrdwood, ignoring its face as best she could. "Arya is in love, and Sansa is charmed and gracious, I think she was saying that hers should be Lady, and Rickon, well--"

"Is he afraid?" Ned asked.

"Yes. He is only three," Catelyn said.

"He will not be three forever, and he should face his fears--"

"And whatever these direwolves mean?" Catelyn asked. Her sister was given to believing in distant omens and superstitions, and from her she had picked up a keen understanding of the sort of messages that could be gotten from a few words, from a single image. It was strange, that for all of her reasonable, moderate faith in the Seven--never stretching too far or being too onerous, she was the one who fell back on fears.

An antler in the throat of a direwolf.

"They are animals, they mean nothing," Ned said, but she was sure that he was saying it to himself as much as her, "And winter is coming."

"As you Starks always say," Catelyn said, almost fond of the grim sort of determination that the house motto meant. Northerners were strange, yet they felt familiar too.

"The man...the man died strangely, but at the end, at the end he died well. You would have been proud of Bran," Ned said.

She knew that if she pressed on what he meant by 'strangely' she wouldn't get anywhere, and so as she stared at the Valyrian Steel, she said, "I am always proud of Bran, Ned." Old Valyria, which was said to have had the greatest weapons, the greatest horses, to command dragons and the skies and the world itself. If one put everything attributed to Valyria together, it made a picture that seemed impossible. And yet Doom had come even to them. Just as Winter came always, no matter how hot the summer. It was an excellent blade, certainly, though she hoped it wouldn't ever have to be used in battle again.

"He was the third this year, and many others have disappeared. Ben says the Night Watch's strength has slipped under a thousand," Eddard said.

"Are you sure it is just Wildings?" Catelyn asked.

"What else could it be?" Eddard asked.

"Direwolves, giants...there are things beyond that wall, you know it," Catelyn said. He knew more than she did about the strange rituals and faith of the north, and yet he always tried to let logic guide him. As if he were a Maester.

"There is only Mance Rayder, and he is but a man. The time may come when we will have to put paid to his ambitions as King-Beyond-the-Wall, before he tries to storm south."

"But north of the Wall is--" Catelyn said.

"Nothing. The Others have been dead for thousands of years. Maester Luwin would tell you they never existed at all," Eddard said, firmly, "No living man has seen them."

"That is hardly comforting," Catelyn said, "Since they are said to bring death with them. But more than that, has anyone seen a direwolf alive this far south until now?"

"I should never argue with a Tully," Ned said, fondly. He appreciated her cunning, her knowledge of the forms of diplomacy. For the North needed the South, even if many would not admit it. Ned had been working to sew the North tighter together, but all of his work, all of the politics and road-building would come to nothing if they weren't ready for winter. She was sure that people thought that she and her husband were moldering here, never journeying south, but messages came and left.

Dark messages, sometimes.

"But I know," Ned said, "That you did not come here to tell crib tales, not when you mislike this place so." He slid his blade into its scabbard. "What is it, my lady?"

The words warmed her heart, and she reached out to hold his hand, watching his face. "There was grevious news today, but I didn't want to trouble you until you had felt cleansed. Jon Arryn is dead, my love."

Once, when she was young, she had gone to jousts. It was a southern fashion, the north had too much broken ground for a charge to be reasonable, or so she'd been told, and she'd watched the knights go back and forth. Ser this and Ser that, and she'd been told by one Ser that what made a great jouster was their ability at the moment of impact to not flinch away, to keep their composure and push on. To take the blow and weather it.

If that was so, then perhaps he would have been a great jouster, and that surely was Catelyn's only shot at being crowned Queen of Love and Beauty. For, as she looked in his eyes, she saw the dismay and grief chase themselves away, lock themselves behind self control. Lord Arryn had been like a father to him, had protected him from King Aerys II, and been the Hand to Robert, but all of that only briefly cracked the mask of the lord, the acceptance of the world that she thought characterized the north.

Yet beneath it, there was so much pain. Second father, and brother as well, married to her sister, religious, careful, sweet, superstitious Lysa. Lysa who had to be going through so much pain right now.

"The news is certain?" Eddard asked, and yet there was something about his voice that told him he didn't doubt it.

"In the King's seal and Robert's own hand. Lord Arryn was taken quickly, and there was nothing even Maester Pycelle could do. He brought the milk of the poppy, though, and Lord Arryn at least did not linger in pain," Catelyn reassured him.

"That's some small mercy, I suppose," Ned said, and then immediately thought of her, "But what of your sister, and her boy? What word of them?"

"All the message said was that they were well, and had returned to the Eeyrie. I wish they had gone to Riverrun instead. The Eeyrie is high and lonely and haunted by those...mountain men, and it was her husband's place, and every stone will be haunted by his memories. I know my sister, she needs family and friends around her," Catelyn said, her voice growing softer, quieter towards the end.

"There is your Uncle, right? Byrnden, Knight of the Gate, Jon named him. But--"

"He will be some comfort, but he's but one man, and--"

"Then," Ned said, with that impulsive, sudden kindness that had made her love him, "Go to her, take the children as well. Fill her halls with noise and shouts and laughter, I'll provide all the escorts you need. That boy of hers needs other children around her, and Lysa needs companions in her grief."

Catelyn let out a breath, leaning against him, "Would that I could. The letter had other tidings. The King is riding to Winterfell to seek you out."

Here, Edd couldn't hide the joy that lit in his eyes, nor could he hide a moment of consternation, "Robert is coming here?" He was grinning now, his face made handsomer to her eyes by it. But she saw it, that moment as he thought on it.

Antler stuck in a direwolf. He should put faith in signs, she'd seen the way he could see something, and yet reject it. The way he could have his instincts screaming at him and yet ignore it. Somehow, though the southerners thought themselves more 'reasonable' it was she who would admit to seeing symbols, and he who wouldn't. "I know," Catelyn said after a long moment, "That it would please you. We should send word to your brother on the Wall."

"Yes, of course," he agreed, standing up and pulling her to her feet, as if he meant to dance right then and there. "Ben will want to be here. I shall tell Maester Lunwin to send his swiftest bird. Damnation, how many years has it been? Yet he gives no more notice than this letter. How many in his party?"

Already, he was starting to run through the logistics. Wives and skilled generals both knew the value of this, and so Catelyn was already thinking through the same details. "I should think a hundred knights, and all of their retainers, and half again as many freeriders. Cersei and the children will travel with them."

She saw him calculating distance, time. "Robert will keep an easy pace for their sakes. Just as well, that will give us more time to prepare."

"The queen's brothers will also be in the party," she told him, ready for the grimace. There was no lost love, between Lannisters who joined the winning side late and the Starks, who had bled and died against Aerys.

"Very well, if that is the price for Robert's presence, I can bear an infestation of Lannisters. He's bringing half his court here, though."

"Where the King goes, the realm follows," Catelyn said, remembering the old stories from when Kings travelled constantly from castle to castle, across their realms.

"It will be good to see the children. The youngest was still suckling at the Lannister woman's teat the last time I saw him. He must be, what, five by now?"

"Prince Tommen is seven, as old as Bran. Please, Ned, be careful of your words. The Lannister woman is our queen, and her pride grows with every passing year. She is not an enemy we should make if we can help it," Catelyn urged.

"I can try," Eddard conceded, "There must be a feast, of course, with singers. And Robert will want to hunt. I will send Jory south with an honor guard to meet them on the kingsroad and escort them back. Gods, how are we going to feed them all? It'll eat into our stores. On his way already? Damn the man. Damn his royal hide."

And though she knew it might be the wrong set of words, she felt the need to amend it, "And damn his royal antlers?"

Eddard winced, but perhaps he would be mindful now of what Catelyn was sure was a bad sign.

A/N: A necessary chapter, but too similar to the original for my tastes, but I needed it. Anyways, hope there were still nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned anyways!

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 3: Jeanette 1

Missing cow or no, the washing still had to be done like always, and Jeanette got to the task as best she could as her older brothers and her father and mother argued. They argued a lot, though it was never particularly unfriendly, and certainly there weren't much to argue about lately. Things had been going well, and summer was still in full bloom, for at least another year.

Jeanette had known summer a majority of her life, but a bare majority. She'd seen nineteen years, and wore them hard on her skin. You got callouses and bruises, that was part of working on a farm, but she could have had it far worse.

For one, her father Stephas, who took the last name Wainwright after his father's profession, was hardly a serf. He stood, tall and stout, with a thick beard and soft, dark green eyes, half-bald and yet still possessing the the strength and surety he had as a young man, a soldier who'd been lucky enough to sally forth against the Kingswood Brotherhood. He'd told it, time and time again, how Ser Arthur Dayne himself had complimented his spear arm and given him the gold that had bought the merchant supplies that had won him the money to come back to his old home, triumphant, to his wife who had thought she'd be a soldier's widow, and buy up a whole damn mess of land, and live the life of a rich farmer.

He still swaggered where he walked, and yet when his wife, thin and pale, a woman whittled down by almost ten children and two miscarriages, only four of them living yet, looked at him he seemed to melt, and the man was agreeable enough.

Mam was canny, Jeanette had known, and she'd always looked up to the woman.

She had some of her looks, and some of her father's. Her hair was a darker brown than Ashlyn's, but she had her mother's lean form, a nose that her father swore was her uncle's, and dark green eyes.

And, at the moment, she was wearing out her hands in harsh soap listening to yet another argument, wondering about many things.

Love, of course, that was something to wonder about. But she was only nineteen, and smallfolk weren't daft like nobles, getting married off before they even had budded breasts or money to establish their old farm, not if they couldn't help it. And she'd not been with a man. She liked to call it prudence, though if she didn't find one in three or four years, her father would no doubt start looking for her. Certainly Mam would help, since he never did anything without her approval. People in town called him henpecked, but he was the one swaggering with the lovely barn and the nice house with his own room for he and his wife to enjoy themselves, and plenty enough stored away for winter and winter crops, hiring out local boys to act as farmhands.

It was jealousy, plain and simple.

But rather more pressing is that right now, Jeanette would rather be wandering about. She liked going to the town, seeing what it had to offer, but growing up among two older boys and one younger, she'd learned to like exploring about, into the nearby woods or over the rolling, blue-sky beauty that was the northern Reach.

She'd heard there were more lovely places in the world, but she wasn't born a fool, and she wouldn't think so until she saw it.

"If we didn't have that barn, they'd be in here," Ashlyn said, leaning over the cooking pot and stirring it, "And there'd no be a missing cow."

"Maybe," Stephas said to his wife, and then sighed.

"But ma, then we'd have to smell cow shit all the time," the second youngest son said, grinning. He was always grinning, Blane was. At twenty he'd been born of those fast days of gain and dealing with the local petty nobles, House Artelle, and he'd inherited some of that ambition. He wouldn't get anything when father died, so he wanted, so far as Jeanette could tell, to be a pirate-soldier-knight-merchant-mummer-Lord. In no particular order. And while at least he didn't get sulky when people pointed out he was ridiculous, his ambitions were rather too grand for him.

He had only a little head for numbers, he was a good actor but too open, and while he was fit and tall and strong, any training Stephas did was just polishing a glass with a dirty rag.

Jeanette didn't train none neither, since she was a girl, but she'd seen her father, even after twenty years out of practice, and then seen Blane, supposedly in the prime of his life and skills, and known he'd make one of those men who holds a spear on the front line and hopes an arrow didn't pierce his thick skull.

'Sides, unless he went across the narrow sea, what war was there for him?

"Well, you seemed happy enough to be throwing around dung balls with other local lads earlier, like you were as young as Donnel," Mam said.

"Yeah, brother, what were you thinking?" Arthas asked, smiling faintly. As if he hadn't instigated it. About as tall as his brother, and two years older, he was supposed to be the steadier, more responsible one. But while he was smart as a lick, and it was him who taught Jeanette to read and count, even if she wasn't no fair scholar at neither, he seemed more controlled than responsible. Someone who knew how to drink himself under the table and yet not wind up in the muck. Maybe more like his father than some thought, and while he hadn't stated any ambitions, his father was angling for a match with some local merchants, the next rung up.

It went serfs, small peasants, medium peasants and town peasants, people like her da, and then merchants and moneylenders, advocates and the like. And above that? Well, Jeanette supposed there were richer merchants and over 'cross the narrow sea, some merchants set themselves up as Lords, but that was about as high as you could go unless you was knighted, and that wasn't going to happen.

Maybe she'd marry a merchant, and live in a big posh house with a nice garden. It wouldn't be nice as the forest, but it was something to think about.

"As if you weren't part of it," Mam said, but she less harsh on Arthas than Blane.

"Either way, there's not much we can do now," Stephas said, "Though the loss of a cow that still gave good milk means we'll have to get another, and in a hurry if we want to mate her with a bull. I think the family down, they have a bull they stud out, right?"

"Shouldn't you know? Once you'd had the best head for business I'd ever seen," Ashlyn said, affectionately.

"I can't remember whether the bull died last winter-summer," Stephas said.

"Nah, it's still alive. They'll ask for the moon, they will though. Like bulls they are, and as ugly," Blane said, "Did you know, their daughter, what's her name, made cow eyes at me the other week?"

"You've told that story three times," Arthas said, "Makes me think you want her to make cow eyes at you."

"Do not!" Blane.

"But remember," Arthas said, "It's like the Septons say. If you want the milk, you have to buy the cow."

"Septons! Pah!" Blane, who liked to pretend he weren't as pious as anyone else, said.

"Blane," Mam Ashlyn chided, reaching down to stroke the iron pendant that was the sign of the seven. She'd even forged it herself, cause there was some passage in a book that said that made it better.

Jeanette stood up, finished with the washing except for the hanging-up, and said, "Why don't we go down and see how they got in?"

Everyone blinked, as if she'd just showed up.

"An' then we can look for the cow. If it wandered off, it's in the woods. If it was stolen, the bandit has to be in there, cookin' up his cow or that cow mooin," she said, grinning at the picture of some hapless bandit holding a cow on a leash and trying to keep it from moo while people hunted for him. And if it was a mass of bandits, they'd have had words.

"Yeah…" Stephas said, "But if you go off, you'd better take some weapons."

"Your sword," Blane insisted.

"I think...that'd be stupid," Jeanette said. She strode on the wooden floor, glancing about the room as if looking for her brother's sense. A huge hall, with kitchen and table and everything else, and no sense in sight. "If you come at some guy with a sword, he'll think you're a Lord's man, and kill you sure as anything. But if you're armed with, say, that club--" she gestured to the very club Stephas used when he was out, plowing the fields, "He'll probably just beat you to the seven hells--"

"Language!" Ashlyn corrected.

"Sorry mam. He'll beat you up, leave you to live, and run away."

"That makes sense, so we all go with clubs?" Arthas asked.

"I'm coming too," Jeanette said, taking a breath, preparing for the long argument.

"No you are not," Stephas said, "It's too dangerous."

"And you still have the washing to do," Ashlyn said.

She opened her mouth, cause if nothin' else she was a talker.

*****

Jeanette smiled, smoothing her skirt as she looked at the noisy, smelly barn. "You sure you left the gate locked?"

"Iron lock and everything," Blane says, "I ain't stupid."

"You aren't?" Arthas asked, sounding amused.

Father, though, was staring up at the window in the barn, there cause the stink got even worse if there was no breeze at all.

The structure had two stories, a hay-loft, all the shit that a stable might have, though Jeanette didn't know or trust any horses other than the work horses they sometimes used. And up there was an open window.

"Who could have gotten up there, anyways," Blane said, frowning, hands on his hips.

"I've seen you do it, once, on a dare," Arthas said.

"If you did, son, then you're lucky you didn't fall and break your back," Stephas said, "Then what would become of you being a merchant travelling off to the far reaches of the world?"

"Merchant? Dad, I last said I want to be a knight," Blane protested with a grin, well aware that his father could never keep track of his latest ambition.

"Same difference," Jeanette said, "So someone got a rope and climbed right up, but then...the door's locked, and he didn't have a key."

"A cow could fit through there," Blane said, then paused, "Though it'd moo so loud it'd scream."

The barn wasn't all that far from the house, they weren't stupid.
"And you'd be carrying a large, fat cow through a window and we'd not have a missing cow, would we?" Arthas said, "We'd have an easily-found cow patty right there on the ground, dead. Splat." He smirked.

"So, what?" Stephas said, "We just miscounted cows?"

"Or," Jeanette said, thinking fast, "Someone stole the key. Or had a key made that fits that lock."

"Well, I'm not missing mine, and there's no others missing, and how would anyone in the town know?" Blane asked.

"Maybe you showed it off to someone," Arthas suggested.

Blane snorted, and Jeanette saw the argument building up steam.

"Why don't we just search for the cow, and leave the how for later."

"Why, dear sister," Blane said, as sweet as sap, "I believe you have a career ahead of you as a poetess."

Jeanette blinked, then realized what he meant and chuckled.

Her? As if.

They searched for quite a while in the woods, though Jeanette had to admit that she wasn't searching as diligently as the others. In the center of the pack, protected from harm since she didn't have any more weapon than a pig-sticker knife her father was practical enough to give her, she just enjoyed the hike, stepping over logs and passing a small stream. The birds were not scared off, were used to people, and even the animals were a little less cautious.

Yet when they reached the clearing, all of that changed.

The sound of animals died away, and she knew from the look on her father's face that she wouldn't like what she found.

Laying at the edge of the clearing was the cow. There wasn't but a single mark on her, but the brown and white mottled creature looked shriveled up, and as they approached she looked at its dead eyes, and the flies that were buzzing around.

Stephas kneeled down beside it and cut open its side, but there was almost no blood flowing out.

Jeanette stared, confused, at this impossible sight. A cow drained for blood like someone was making a pudding, but barely a mark on them?

"What does this mean?" Blane asked, in a small voice, younger than his twenty years.

"I don't rightly know, son," Stephas admitted, standing up, "But it's quite beyond us."

Of course, Jeanette knew the petty lords Artelle wouldn't act, not till there was more than this. But, well, at least they'd finally found that darned cow.

A/N: Dun, Dun, Dun.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 4: Daenerys

"This is beautiful," her brother said, "Yet." He paused, frowning over the pale, silken fabric. "I am sure Illyrio purchased it too dear. He'll hold it over me. Some Master of the Coin he'll be. Careful with his money, but sometimes--"

He trailed off, looking annoyed. Dany stared at him, remembering his hand stinging against her face, and flinched.

Viserys looked baffled for a moment, and said, "What is it, sister?"

She wanted to ask how he couldn't know what it was. Two years, two years since he'd changed. Not that he was kind before, not entirely, but for two years he had beat her and let her live her whole life and fear, from hovel to hovel, until at last a merchant, Illyrio, set them up in a house. And when she'd finally fled, after he revealed he was going to marry her off, "Dragons don't rut with beasts, but you're hardly a dragon, and your maidenhead will purchase us a return Home, dear sister" she had somehow found her back there.

But, but the house looked different, in subtle ways she couldn't figure out, and all of the books Viserys had sold off were still in his room, under lock and key. The whole thing puzzled her.

"Why are you afraid of me?" he asked, looking at her. She could almost imagine there was the slightest flicker of concern in his eyes.

"I am not, Viserys," Dany lied.

He looked at her for a long, disbelieving moment, and then said, "This cloth, it will bring out your violet eyes. And there are other things Illyrio can provide, gold and jewels. You must look the part of a Princess, as I will a Prince."

They'd called him the beggar prince, but also other things. Dany looked at him and nodded. Deep inside her, there was a sort of cold acceptance. This was a trick, his concern, he'd played tricks on her like that before. Things didn't make sense, but nothing ever did, not for years.

"Why does he give us so much? Why not...why are we living separately from him," Dany asked. Viserys had told her, a few months ago, that it was because he wanted to fuck her, stupid cow, fat merchant that he was, but this time Viserys didn't give that answer. "Is it so hard to believe that blood, the blood of dragons, of old Valyria, has worth? Yet, it is also written that blood cannot be sullied, it cannot be brought down or bought. Illyrio can content himself with providing the largest part of the income for our manor."

"But how do you afford it?" Dany asked, and waited for the blow to come.

And, truly speaking, it was the closest he'd come to acting like he normally did. There was a brief moment of fury and madness before he let out a breath, "It is no matter to a girl, where the money comes from. Illyrio is generous, and I am well-liked among many. Who would not, when before too long I will be on the throne. And you shall be there as well, when the time comes."

Liar, Dany didn't say. Dirty liar. He meant to sell her, to take her away, when once she had loved him, had even expected in some naive way--the way of a girl who didn't know the world--to marry him, and that it'd be like having a big brother, no different. He'd sell her off, and think nothing of it.

Viserys was no different than Illyrio. The man sold and bought everything, including friendships. He'd made friends everywhere, though he apparently prized them for nothing. The two were made for each other.

Viserys reached out a hand, and this time when she flinched he darted forward, surprisingly agile, to hold her shoulder. And here it comes, Dany thought, and it was sick, the way she almost hoped for the punch, because at least then he'd stop pretending to be the brother she could like.

"Something's wrong. If there's something, you can tell me," Viserys said, his lilac eyes seeming almost to flash. Guant, pale, he looked always on the verge of sickness, yet she'd never seen him ill a day in his life.

Of course she couldn't tell him, because of course he already knew. So she shook her head and said, "It's nothing, brother."

"I suppose it isn't," Viserys says, "Illyrio tells me women sometimes get jitters before the wedding." Viserys snorted, shaking his head perhaps at the folly of women, "Just think of Westeros, think of the land we'll reclaim before too long." He left, and as soon as he was gone, Dany walked over to the window and tried to picture that realm of green hills and deep rivers, of great stone fortresses and high mountains and long summers and long winters. A land of knights and jousts and feasts that he spoke of often with longing. Everyone had a name for it: Rhaesh Andali, the Sunset Kingdoms, or her brother's favorite, 'Our Home.'

Even if he was temporarily acting differently, that same urge was there, and it's how she knew he was the same. "It is, you know," he'd lectured once, lectured a thousand times really, though even more once he'd changed, "Our birthright, our land by conquest and by the blood of Valyria and dragons. And you don't stint the dragons. Dragons remember."

For her part, she knew none of it. Wouldn't have been able to tell Casterly Rock from Highgarden, but Viserys was old eight, eight, for young memories.

She pictured the midnight flight to Dragonstone, the battles between Rhaegar, the greatest prince mankind had ever crafted, as Viserys had once said, and the Usurper, the daftest monster that had ever called himself a lord. He'd died though, and Baratheon and Lannister and Stark had pulled apart the corpse, killed Father and murdered Rhaegar's heir, ripped him from his mother's bosom.

She remembered the storm at her birth, which had smashed half the fleet, and led to half of the rest deserting. Yet they'd fled, their small force, and if half of that went mercenary or was sold off, no doubt refitted as pirates, it was a start. In those early days, Viserys said, everyone had opened their doors and their pocketbooks, and Ser William Darry had raised them in that house. The one with the red door and the lemon tree, that she could still smell all those years later. Her brother had fled the house with the red door with a few servants, a few books, and enough coins and supplies to make do.

But they were always moving, fleeing from the Usurpur's knives that Viserys always insisted was close. And yet despite this fear, he had gathered books, had taken himself to reading and not telling Dany what he was reading. And sometimes when they were running short of money, Viserys would disappear for a day, leaving her in the care of a servant, and then reappear sheepishly with a bag full of silver coins.

"I'm a cunning dragon," Viserys always answered, and then he'd smiled and laugh and remind her, wryly, of when she'd been so young he'd blown raspberries, his 'fire breath' across her stomach as she giggled.

He'd been strange, smart, mysterious. She'd always wanted to know what secrets were in those books, and how they opened doors. Opened doors that his status no longer would, for she heard how they called him "Begger King" behind is back and cowered to his front, she knew how he met with learned scholars and charlatans and nobles and walked in and out without a guard and with clothes that were not fitting of a Prince, even if they were of a lord.

She didn't know how they still had mother's crown, how they still had the Targaryan treasures. She hadn't known where the money had come from, and he'd refused to answer, instead talking always about the future or the past, never the present.

And then he'd changed and the books had disappeared, she'd run away, and when she returned the books were back and he pretended like he'd not beat her and threatened to kill her, had not muttered about, "awakening the dragon" all the time, though it was a phrase that before he'd gone mad, she had heard before. Always a little wry, a little uncertain.

Until it became a certainty.

There was a knock, surely Illyrio's servants. Viserys had deigned to accept them, slaves even though Pentos had outlawed slavery a century ago at Braavos behest. "Come," she said, and in came the old mousey slave woman, and the young, blue-eyed woman, who chatted continually.

They filled her bath with hot water, with oils and helped her into the tub. She liked the warmth, scalding though it was, and she turned to ask, "What's your name?" to the girl who had not yet stopped talking.

"Me? I'm Maeralla, and I'm so jealous of you. You're lucky, to marry someone as rich as Drogo."

Dany had heard this and other words before, and merely said, quietly, wondering if she were a spy, "I don't...I guess so."

"I know you're well-born, but trust me, there are worse matches than a young warrior-King. Or Khal, whatever you want to call him. He's so rich his slaves wear golden collars, and he has a hundred-thousand warriors and he's handsome and I'm sure he can give pleasure in bed, and--"

The girl paused, "Why are you frowning so? It's not good for your complexion."

Dany looked over at Maeralla, and thought about it. The girl surely was a slave, and if one was, then would not being the wife of a Khal be better than that lot, as beautiful as she was? She knew that for some men, that would only be inducement towards more abuse. She was younger than the girl, and perhaps--

"I suppose it is not," Dany said. She could see why Maeralla thought as she did, but that didn't mean she had to be glad of this.

And they certainly did their work well, stroking her hair until it looked like molten silver, while the old woman dabbed spiceflower perfume, a rare bit of beauty from the Dothraki, on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last between her legs. They dressed her in a deep plum silk gown, slid sandals onto her feet, and her mother's crown in her hair, golden bracelets encrusted with amethysts around her wrist. And last of all the heavy golden torc, the collar emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

She looked at herself as Maeralla cooed, and for a moment she could almost believe she looked like a princess. Yet she remembered bruises and scars, even if when her fingers traced her skin she couldn't find them. She didn't know how much it cost Viserys to make her look like this, but she shivered when she thought of how even Khal Drogo's slaves wore gold.

There were no slaves in Pentos, that's how the lie went. But there were plenty of bondsmen and women, and plenty enough of wives.

Down in the small but regal reception hall, her brother was waiting with Illyrio, who must have arrived not long after Viserys had left her. He was a huge man in scarlet silk, fat jiggling with his every motion, gemstones on his fingers, and a forked, oiled blond beard. It was, Dany had been told, a fashionable look, yet this only confirmed Viserys' story once of how ridiculous Free City clothing was.

"And you know, they tripped over their own feet as they were leading me out," Viserys had said, and then grinned teasingly, fondly "Though the women, some of their finery was nice. When we're back home, you can have all of the gowns you like." He'd told that to a nine year old girl, and she'd believed him, liar that she now knew he was.

"You look lovely, dear sister. Regal. Young, so young for marriage," Viserys said, frowning, "Are you sure, Illyrio, that Khal Drogo will not think her too young? You yourself said that a year's ripening could change opportunities."

"Nonsense," Ilyrio said, "She looks a vision of delicacy and grace. And it's rather too far in for that, my friend."

Viserys smirked, his gaunt features made worse by the brooch which pulled back his hair.

"Think on it. She has had her blood, and she has purple eyes and silver-gold hair, all of the--"

"Beauty of old Valyria," Viserys said, exactly in time with Illyrio's words.

Illyrio started, and said, "Kings are, it seems, so wise that they know what I would say."

"It is a talent," Viserys said, and Dany could hear the barest, subtlest hint of menace in his voice, before he turned to her and said, "Come closer. Here's a mirror," he reached down to pick a mirror off a counter that he must have been using to examine himself, and back at herself stared Daenerys Targaryen.

"Do you think, yours is the face that might have stood at the topless towers of Valyria? Shall you launch a thousand ships filled with horse barbarians and their slaves, to reclaim our home?" Viserys asked, sounding almost curious.

"I, I will try to do my duty, brother. I do not w-want to disappoint you," Dany said, honestly. To disappoint Viserys Targaryen was to be hurt.

Viserys paused and said, "I hope it is enough. We're late, though, we'd better get to moving on."

*****

It was dark as they wound through the streets of Pentos in an elaborate palanquin, two servants lighting the way with blue-glass oil lamps, and a dozen strong slaves carrying them along. It was warm, and she could smell her brother's perfume, and the stench of Illyrio's flesh beneath his perfume.

"Would you say, we won't need the whole Khalasar? Just ten thousand Dothraki screamers? Ten thousand, to sweep the whole Seven Kingdoms. That the realm will rise for its rightful king, the peasants of Dorne take up arms all at once? That the Tyrells and Greyjoys, and many other houses will flock to my glorious banner, and that the smallfolk all cry out for their true King?" Viserys asked, his voice by the end thunderous, as if pronouncing judgement.

"Yes, of course," Illyrio said, amicably, "In holdfasts all across the realm, men lift secret toasts to your name and hide dragon banners. My spies say they are ready when you call."

There was a look of hope on Viserys' face as Illyrio spoke, and then he laughed, long and bitter, "And if I asked you whether the moon was made of gold, you'd have said 'why of course, my King'? You'll make a courtier yet, and the Book of Kingly Wisdom says that Kings are oft told of what they wish to hear. No, ten thousand won't be enough, not unless we bolster it with mercenaries. Cavalry cannot win battles on their own, even with good bows. We'll need to sew up companies, and we'll need agents that are willing to do more than just sew banners and drink toasts."

He half stood up and said, "You wish to be the Master of Coins, do you not?"

"I would be honored to hold any position you wish of me," Illyrio said smoothly, though there was a startled look on his face. Like a fat calf struck with a club, though she only knew that comparison out of a book.

"Well, then start thinking logistics. The Dothraki can't take cities or castles, and Stark and Lannister and the Stormlands and King's Landing are the Usurpers. Ask your agents to look into Dorne. Yet if we get Dorne...I remember, the histories said that the Reach hated Dorne. So if we get one, do we get the other? We need mercenaries, we need supplies, we need logistics, we need to call an army about ourselves, not leave them waiting and drinking over us. We can promise the Ironborn everything, for a promise to such scum, traders and raiders, means very little. There are Ironborn islets on the narrow sea, yes?"

He had a way of blitzing through problems that she'd admired when she was younger, when he'd showed his intelligence and wit and grace, though now there was a hard, frustrated edge to it.

"Yes," Ilyrio said, "We could contact them, and promise...what?"

"Whatever it takes to get them to tie up the Starks. And the Arryns, perhaps their Mountain Men...and then Dorne against the Reach. It's good land, plenty of forraging, yes, so if we had a way to win sieges, once we had Dorne and the Reach, it'd be about the time to rally those who regret their treachery, and I'd even let the Lannisters turn coat yet once more...and then kill them as soon as it is convenient to me. I will enjoy ending them for what they did to my Father." Viserys held out his hand, "But we can't stay in a world of dreams. Men need food, men need money, and the Dothraki are men, their horses eat like horses. What do you think, Daenerys?"

"I think that you are wise, brother," Dany said, carefully.

"Not yet. I am on my way there. It is said that you should never awaken the dragon," Viserys said with a laugh, and Dany shrank back in her seat, and paid little more attention as he interrogated Illyrio on matters of money, logistics, and the Great Houses of Westeros.

The huge, nine-towered Manse of the Khal Drogo was right by the bay. It had been given to the Khal by the magisters, and he made a crack about the Lord of Light and the faith of priests and the lack of fear that Pentos had for barbarians.

At the gate, they were stopped by an Unsullied, and Dany could see Viserys tense, annoyed. "I suppose it is just security, and I understand he must protect his guests, right? You have said this already, yesterday, that we would be stopped."

Despite the warning, he looked annoyed, "I accept it only because the Usurpers knives are close, and the man would give anything to see me dead. He should not rest a single night thinking himself safe until I am dead."

"Quite so," Illyrio said, like a teacher whose pupil has given the right answer. Viserys tensed at the tone, but no more than that.

A slave helped them inside, once they'd been set down. Dany noted that her collar was bronze, and glanced over as two men were required to heave as hard as they could to get Illyrio to his feet.

The manse was richly furnished, smelling of spices, pinchfire, lemon like the Red Door House, and cinnamon. Dany stared down at the Doom of Valyria. The earth itself had cracked, fire erupting, burning all, and it was said that haunted laughts were heard across the world. And many Valyrians overseas went mad or died in that instant, protected not by distance. Many Valyrians, but not the Targaryens or their allies. Something had protected them, and protected the scant few that had come with swords and other goods of old Valyria, where magic was said to have been done openly, where towers split the very sky. She could not linger long, and as she darted forward, a eunuch sang of their coming in a high, sweet voice. "Viserys of the House Targaryen, the Third of his Name," he called in a high, sweet voice, "King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. His sister, Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone. His honorable host, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos."

Inside the courtyard, covered in pale ivy, the guests drifted. Horselords predominated, huge men with reddish-brown skin, forms dark and almost like their horses, with drooping mustaches bound in metal rings, black hair oiled, braided, and hung with bells. They looked like fools in motley, but territfying fools indeed, and among them slipped bravos and sellswords from across the Free Cities, and a hugely fat red priest who waved, oddly enough, to Viserys, and people from as far afield as the Summer Isles, their skin as black as midnight. And she was the only woman.

Viserys said, "Who are they?" He was gesturing most of all to the Dothraki.

"Drogo's bloodriders, and there is Khal Moron with his son Rhogoro, and the man in the Green beard is the Archon of Tyroish--"

"Perhaps I should talk to him. He is a ruler, if only of a city," Viserys said, and before Illyrio could say anything, he slipped off. Illyrio frowned and said, "And I wasn't done making introductions. The last, especially, I hoped would whet his appetite."

She wondered what Illyrio knew of his sick appetites, the things Viserys had done to her, the way he pretended now that they didn't happen. She felt fear creeping up on her. "Who?"

"Ser Jorah Mormont, a knight himself, and an enemy to the Usurper."

A knight. A knight could be something, it could be rescue from Viserys, though she knew not to trust the chance. She took a breath, "Why an enemy?"

"Good to ask why, for it means quite a bit," Illyrio said, appraising her. Even though he was conspiring with Viserys to sell her off, no doubt he was grooming her as well. If Viserys was to suddenly die, perhaps by the Usurpers hand--and it was sick the way that vision was almost welcome--she would be the only Targaryen in his grasp. "The Usurper wanted his head over nothing, nothing at all. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night's Watch."

It sounded like an offense which deserved some punishment, but death?

"It seems...harsh. Death over something like that."

"A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel," Illyrio said, and Dany withdrew inwards, glancing at the knight. He was past forty and balding, but he had a strong arm, and he was dressed in wool of leather, with a dark green tunic bearing the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs. She tried to remember Viserys lessons on some of the major Houses, but they didn't match any of them.

"Can we trust him, if the offense is so small?" Viserys asked, and Dany turned in a whirl, and even Ilyrio seemed surprised.

"Weren't you?" Illyrio asked.

"Yes. A charming man, though greedy like all of his kind. Tyroshi. Still, I think I made a...good first impression on him," Viserys said, gesturing over to the man. "We might need even uncertain friends like that in times to come. I shall talk to this Ser Jorah Mormont, see just what is being reported. I should like to talk to the Red Priest as well. But later. Where is the Khal?"

Illyrio pointed at a man, a head taller than anyone else, light on his feet, graceful as a panther which Illyrio had entertained her with once, her and Viserys. It could dance. He was no old man, and was perhaps thirty, with skin the color of copper, and a huge mustachio bound with gold and bronze rings. And then, strangely, a few rings of common iron.

"I shall make my submissions, and bring him to you."

Viserys grinned, "One approaches a King, a King doesn't approach one. Look at his brain, please, sister," he said, taking her by the arm, eyes alight, "Look at its length, look at the ringing bells, look at its length. In any other culture, this would be girlish."

Indeed, Dany had never heard of any Westeros woman whose dark hair pushed almost down to her feet, as he did. It was bizarre, and she imagined him looming over her.

"You see how long it is?" Viserys asked. "When Dothraki are defeated in combat, I've heard, they cut off their braids in disgrace, so the world will know their shame, and yet Khal Drogo has never lost a fight. He is a great warrior, though nothing against the Targaryen bloodline, and you shall be his queen. And we shall regain Westeros."

Now there was a fire she recognized, mad and ambitious, and yet here, of all places, she found her tongue. If he slapped her here, if he tried to murder her, surely Ser Jorah woudl interfere, or the Khal would grow angry at his prize being damaged.

She felt small and petty and bitter and afraid, her knees shaking, terror clinging to her every word. Yet besides a tactic, a desperate ploy, it was the truth. Khal Drogo looked like a cruel, ahrd man, almost as scary as her brother. Almost, yet she might have rather had him than Viserys. "I don't want to be his queen," she said, "Please, please Viserys, I don't want to, I want to go home."

"Home?" Viserys asked, and he raised his hand, palm out, as if he were going to slap her.

"But you won't take me home. You'll leave me here to be bedded by some horse...some horsebedder," Dany said, repeating slurs she'd heard Viserys use not more than two months ago. Well, close. Her eyes filled with tears as she said, "You will."

Viserys stepped forward, and his hard hand grasped her shoulder, whispering, "I won't. I've told you this before, and what has gotten into you? Must I repeat it all twice, a thousand times? Have you lost leave of your wits, Dany, like some simple maid? You shall not be his queen forever. You are of the dragon's blood. Once I have used them, I will steal you away, and any sons or daughters too. You shall live in Westeros with me, and my reign will be great and grand, and I will pick out a suitor there for your tastes, whomever you may like, since my own marriage will be forced as yours will. I must marry someone of Westerosi stock, as distasteful as it is, to cement alliances if I am to rule."

There was fury in his eyes, "And you shall live as a Queen, a Princess, whose children will strengthen the branch of our family line. So don't you dare ever accuse me of not caring for you, my sweet sister. I do not know what is wrong with you, but if you imply such a thing of me again, I shall slap you as one might a child."

He sighed, "And to think, I thought the night was going well."

Dany looked at him baffled, trembling, "What?" she asked. He'd said no such thing, two months ago or ever. She would have remembered if he had.

"What madness is--nevermind. Smile, stand straight. Try to look as if you don't hate him and don't, for some reason, hate me," Viserys said, voice hard and cruel, but also tired, annoyed.

Dany tried as hard as she could.

*****
A/N: So, uh, first huge twist and change based on the new source material!

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 5: Ned 2

It had worried at Ned ever since. Catelyn had planted the seed well, and what grew in its place was wyrd. Strange. Fareful. When he stared at the golden banners of the visitor, with the crowned stag upon them, when he saw the bannermen, knights, and other warriors, he wondered for a moment whether Robert would be the death of him. Not intentionally, that seemed absurd, yet dying at his side in some foolish endeavor, now that was Robert. It was a death Ned had risked before. He looked at the riders, at golden-haired Ser Jaime Lannister, older and harder, but if anything more handsome, at Sandor Clegane, his face horribly burned, and the tall boy with dark hair besides him could only be the crown prince. And there was Imp, Tyrion Lannister, and yet strangest of all was Robert. A huge man, Ned stared at a moment at him.

Robert had always sworn he wouldn't grow old and fat, wouldn't let weakness show in him, and for all his drinking and whoring he'd been clean-shaven, clear-eyed, muscled, six and a half feet tall, with a giant's strength and a huge warhammer. Yet, now he'd become just that. He was as fat as he was tall, perfume hanging about him. A thick beard covered a doubled chin, and there was something odd about him. Strange. And not just the dark circles under his eyes.

And yet, there was youth in him, perhaps, as he vaulted off the back of his warhorse, roaring, and swept Ned into a hug, "Ned! It is good to see that frozen face of yours, unchanged. You are a welcome sight!" He spoke in the same strange combination of the Stormlander and Vale accents he had before, so familiar to Ned. One picked up some of where they'd been, and to Ned, it was the most familiar thing of all about his old friend.

Eddard had many things he wished to say, and yet Robert was Ned's King now, not just a friend, and so he said, "Your Grace. Winterfell is yours."

Behind him trooped priests, surprising for a man who had put little stock in any of the faiths, and then Cersei Lannister, on foot with her younger children. Ned stared at her for a long moment, taking in her icy beauty, and thinking himself so very lucky to have Catelyn. He knelt in the snow to kiss the Queen's ring, a strange scarlet ring which seemed almost to gleam, and Robert and Catelyn embraced.

Once the formal introductions between the children were done, Robert had said, quietly, gravely, "Take me down to your crypt, Lord Stark. Eddard. I would pay my respects."

He saw the look on Cersei's face, and wondered if perhaps not making an enemy of her was impossible.

Ned loved Robert like a brother, for the fact that his first thought was Ned's sister.

"It's dark, and late," Cersei said quietly, carefully, "Everyone is tired. The dead can wait--"

Robert glared at Cersei, and she flinched. Looked almost fearful, as her twin, Jaime, had taken her by the arm and led her away.

So down they went to the crypt, an enemy perhaps already made, Ned first with the lantern.

"Yours is a large kingdom. I didn't think I would ever reach this place, by the Seven. It's huge, and barren. Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck."

"It has its beauty, Robert," Ned said, unsmiling, but his tone carrying just the slightest hint of their old teasing.

"So does any girl, if you love her," Robert said, almost grinning, "Where were your people? I met nobody."

"Perhaps they were too shy. Kings are a rare sight in the north," Ned jested, and despite the grim tidings and the grim journey into the crypt, suddenly this man across from him felt familiar.

"Or perhaps they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned," he said, putting a hand on the wall to steady himself as they descended down and down into the crypt.

"It is a mild late summer snow," Ned said, and the very blank look on his face no doubt told his friend how he thought he'd talk it.

"Mild? The Others take them. The Smith would freeze solid if he tried to craft out here--"

"The Seven?" Ned asked, taking a breath, "I've heard you have taken a new title."

"And why not? Protector and Champion of the Faith. It suits most of my subjects," Robert said with a laugh, "And my Small Council, they say I can't afford any more than gestures. They say that, but--"

Ned didn't know how to say what he should have. That two of the seven kingdoms he ruled would not take kindly to such a title, and that he'd already had bannermen complaining about it, that if it meant anything it'd be more conversions up north, more Phantom Septons and more corruption, rather than any true protection of the Faith of the Seven. In this, he was guided by the fact that Catelyn, someone who was the very target of this, misliked it.

But perhaps the smallfolk were taken in. "Very well. I perhaps don't understand your southern politics."

"Ah, do not play the bumpkin, Ned. It doesn't suit a man as clever as you," Robert said, "Cleverer than you think you are. I've heard the contacts you've made in the Riverlands, the allies and shipments of grain down from the Reach. The Master of Coins spoke of it with...approval. You should come south, taste the summer before it's gone. See the melons, peaches, fireplums, I've even brought any. You need to see the south, the towns and flowers, the markets bursting with food, the summerwines so cheap and so good that you can get drunk by just breathing the air! You need to see that, and then perhaps you can find your way to importing some of that North along with everything else." Robert gestured around, "I'm sure your lady wife would love a few more touches from home. The south is where everyone is fat and drunk and rich!" He slapped his stomach, "And the girls, the girls lose all modesty. They swim naked in the river, right beneath the castle, or walk in the streets in short silken gowns. The south is paradise, Ned, everything out of the Seven Heavens themselves, or whatever place you people of Old Faith have."

Ned looked at Robert, looked at how the 'paradise' of the south was taking a toll on the king, who hadn't even made it down the crypt stairs before he started breathing heavily. "Your grace," he said, maintaining his deadpan, "Have you practiced that for long?"

"Practiced it for...why, Ned, I am hurt. That was all off the top of my--"

He paused as Ned swept the lantern across the way. Two by two the granite pillars marched, and between each set of pillars, the dead sat on stone thrones, backs against the sepulchres that contained their remains.

Robert's expression grew grim, "Where is she?"

"Down at the end, with Father and Brandon," Eddard said, passing by each Lord, the engravings of their animals, their goods, their strange pasts and great deeds. Direwolves curled at their feet, and bits and pieces of iron at the closes of the stone coffins. Tradition. And an iron longsword laid across the lap of each Lord of Winterfell, to keep, it was said, the Others away. Some were rusted, those of the oldest Lords, the Kings of the North, yet others still gleamed as if new. Finally, passing the holes for him and his children, they reached the tombs. Lord Rickard Stark, stern faced, with quiet dignity. And then bold Brandon, his features graceful and keen, yet they hadn't' captured his eyes, the way he could look at one and make the impossible seem possible. Born to rule, he would have married Catelyn if he had not been killed on Mad King Aerys' orders.

And Lyanna had only been sixteen, and the stonemason had tried his best to capture her, but.

"She was more beautiful than that," his gaze lingering on her.

But Robert was right.

"Why did she have to end up in a place like this? She'd have been a far better Queen than Cersei."

Ned stared for a moment. He wouldn't say anything against Cersei, not now. "She was a Stark of Winterfell, this was her place."

"She should be under a hill, under a fruit tree, some--" Robert began, and trailed off, "I am no poet, yet even the thought of her makes me feel ten years younger."

"She wanted to come home, though, besides Brandon and Father," Eddard said. Promise me, Ned. Swear it. A Pledge, like in the old North. And when he'd given her his word, she'd smiled and clutched at his hand, at once satisfied. And then she'd died, and only Howland Reed there with him. "I...bring her flowers when I can. She was fond of flowers."

The king touched her cheek, as he might have a living woman's, and said, "I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her. And I did, but only once. It wasn't enough. Every day since then, every day. And every night, I kill him in my dreams, a thousand times or more since then, and it's not enough."

Ned thought of the ford at the Trident, Robert and the Targeryen prince battling hand to hand, the waters of the Trident running red. Robert felled briefly, and there had been a cry, but he'd popped up, stood, and Rhaegar had given a shout of frustration, of anger and dismay, and Robert, barely alive by then, had killed him.

Soldiers being soldiers, the Targeryen's rich armor, clad in rubies and darkness, had been looted as soon as possible.

"Perhaps nothing will be enough, your grace. Grief is hard and frozen," Ned said.

"You sure are a grim one, Ned. And enough with 'your Grace.'"

"What...can you tell me what happened to Jon?" Ned asked, staring out into the blackness, "We should head back up."

"He sickened so quickly. We gave a tourney on my son's name day, and he looked so alive. Less than a fortnight later he was dead. The sickness, the Maesters said, was like a fire in his gut, and it burned right through him. The Septons, pah, they say that all deaths have a reason. But, but his? I loved that old man more than I knew."

"Catleyn," Ned said, "She's afraid for her sister. How is Lysa bearing her grief?"

Robert snorted like a boar, "She's gone mad with grief. She's defied my orders and taken the boy back to the Eyrie, when I had hoped to foster him with Tywin at Casterly Rock. Was I supposed to leave him to be raised by women? And we need something more to bind the Lannisters to the other Kingdoms, I have been told."

By whom, Ned did not ask. The Small Council. He wouldn't trust a child to Lord Tywin if it were the child of his most hated enemy, "She lost her husband, perhaps she feared to lose her son. The boy is young."

"Six and sicky, and Lord of the Eyrie, the seven have mercy. It was a great honor, for Tywin had never taken a word before, but she refused to even hear of it, and then left in the dead of night. Cersei was furious, and she is annoying when roused. But," and here he sighed, "So am I. The boy is my namesake. Robert Arryn. I am sworn to protect him, yet his mother steals him away. Yet if I ordered her to go back, what king would I look like, I'm told? Gods, it's all so complicated. And I see no way out."

"I could take him as ward, if you wish," Ned said, "Catelyn is Lysa's sister, and so the offer would seem natural, no? And she and her son would be welcome here."

"That...I wish it could work, but Lord Tywin has already given his consent, and fostering the boy elsewhere would be a grievous affront to him."

"I have more concern for my nephew's welfare than I do for Lannister pride," Ned declared.

"You don't sleep with a Lannister. But perhaps it might be considered," Robert said, laughing, his smile a flash of white amidst black, "Yes. I will think about it. But Ned, you are too serious! We come so closely to the topic at hand, and yet I'd wanted to wait a few days for this."

"For what?" Ned asked.

"Surely you wondered why I came to the north after so long?" Robert asked.

"I thought it was for my company," Ned said, his expression not changing.

Robert burst out laughing, and inside Ned smiled, "That is worth the visit, yes, but there is more to it than that."

"Ah," Ned said, expressing his second hope, but not his suspicions, "There is the Wall. You need to see it, Your Grace. The Night's Watch is a shadow of what it once was and needs repair. Benjen says--"

"No doubt I will hear from him soon enough, but the Wall has stood for eight thousand years, it can keep. I need good men about me, like Jon Arryn, but he is dead now, and who else can I trust? Warden of the East, Hand of the King."

Oh no, Ned thought. "Surely his son will be Warden of the East?" he asked. It was traditional, after all, centuries old now.

"Perhaps when he comes of age, the honor can be restored to him. I have time to think of it, for a six-year-old boy is no war leader."

"In peace the title is only an honor--"

"In peace," Robert said.

Ned looked at him. What war could he fear? The Ironborn were broken, and any other internal enemies were more likely to weave courtier's schemes than anything else. "Surely you owe Jon, let the boy keep it for his father's sake."

"Jon's service was the duty he owed his liege lord. I am King, Ned," he slipped his arm off of Ned's shoulders, distancing himself, "I am not an ungrateful boor, Ned. I hope you do not think that of me. But the son is not the father. A boy cannot hold the east. But enough of this," he said, sweeping his hand, "There is a more important title to distribute. I have need of you, Ned."

"I am yours to command, Your Grace. Always," Ned said, and though he hadn't prayed at the godswood, perhaps Robert was predictable. For Ned again feared that he knew what would be said.

"I want you at my side again, Ned, as you were at the Eyrie. I want you down in King's Landing, where you can do as much good for the North, and also good for the whole of the realm. You are a better ruler of the North than I am the SEven Kingdoms, by the gods. Laws are tedious, counting coppers is worse, and there's no end to the people. I sit on that damned iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, and lie to me all the time. My lords and ladies are no better, I am surrounded by flatterers, fools. Half don't' dare tell me the truth, and the other half can't find it. By the Seven, I need you."

"I will help however I can," Ned said.

"You know what they say about the Hand. It is a great office, the second most powerful in the realm, and it is yours. I shall offer it to you."

It was the last thing he wanted, "Your Grace, I am not worthy of the honor," he said, as he dropped to one knee.

"Honor?! Pah! I am planning on making you run the kingdom and do all of the hard work while I eat and drink and wench myself into an early grave. It's a hard task I give you, but you're a hard man and a good friend. The King eats, and the Hand takes a shit."

He laughed at that, long and hard, and Ned kept to his knee, thinking. Could he do the job well? Perhaps not. Probably not, because he knew too little. He needed Catelyn, and yet she would be needed back here. But his friend needed him, it was clear that the realm can't have been running smoothly, if Robert was coming to ask him. Perhaps he could do some good, but what he really thought was that this was it.

Perhaps it was an omen. Perhaps this job will kill me.

"Damn it Ned, humor me with a smile," Robert said, "If only because I am your King."

"They say it grows so cold up here in winter that a man's laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death," Ned said evenly, hiding his doubts. "Perhaps that is why the Starks have so little humor."

"Come south with me, and I'll teach you how to laugh again," the king promised. "You helped me win this damnable throne, now help me hold it. We were meant to rule together. If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done."

Ned stared at him, shock on his face. "But, Sansa is only eleven." He knew nothing of Joffrey, not really, but.

Robert waved an impatient hand. "Old enough for betrothal. The marriage can wait a few years." The king smiled. "Now stand up and say yes, curse you."

"These honors," Ned answered, "They are so unexpected. May I have some time to consider? I need to consult my wife."

"Tell her, surely?" Robert asked.

Ned meant what he had said, and didn't elaborate. They were a team, like two warriors side by side, he liked to think. Him and Catelyn. He loved her, though he knew her faults. She knew his faults, and that was how they covered for each other, made sure the shield did not drop, made sure the weak guard didn't get exploited.

"Tell her, consult her, sleep on it if you must." The king reached down and hauled Ned up, "But don't keep me waiting too long. I am not the most patient of men."

Yet, the hard times would come. They'd come once and would come again. Fifteen years they'd spent, and ten in summer. North was his place, these stone figures seemed to tell him. He could feel the eyes of the dead. But he could also feel the tug of the living, of their needs.

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, let out a breath, frosty down in the tombs, and said, "I will not keep you waiting long, your majesty."

*****
A/N: And so it continues!

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 6: Jon

There were a few advantages, if not many, to being a bastard, Jon Snow thought, trying to strain his bitterness out of that thought. He was certainly happier now than he'd been a few weeks ago, before the direwolves, but at the same time.

He filled his wine cup again from a passing flagon. By now he was truly and thoroughly drunk. It was easy to forget how quickly one could get drunk on summerwine, because it tasted almost like juice, something sweet and harmless.

Jon turned and laughed at a dirty story he only half understood. Here among the common squires, people tried to make themselves understood and pass on jokes and advice and who knows what else. The accents everyone had were so strange, and Dornishman struggled to understand Reachman, who asked the young boy from the Vale to repeat the joke because he hadn't been talking clearly.
Jon coughed, glancing around the Great Hall, and smiling drunkenly. White, gold, and crimson banners gave the stone walls some welcome life: Stark, Baratheon, the lion of Lannister. He felt unbalanced, but in a way that made him understand why people got drunk. Up there, up with his brothers and sisters. No, his half-brothers and half-sisters, he'd have only a single glass of wine and have to talk to all the lords and ladies. Instead, he got to look around and hear stories and jokes and people trying to pass traditions back and forth.

Like a flyting contest was being attempted at the same time as a Riverlander tried to introduce the cumulative story, and jokes and llittle snippets of songs erupted from the table at points. Certainly, the singer on the hard couldn't be heard, though Jon glanced at him for a moment. He seemed odd, and Jon knew to trust his instincts, but today he had more important matters at hand.

Four hours into the welcoming feast, and he had made so many friends. Battles, bedding, the hunt, they all blended together, talking rapidly, getting sometimes only one word in three with how drunk some of them were.

It seemed to Jon the greatest entertainment man had ever devised. Certainly, it was better company than the visitors. The Queen was as beautiful as rumored, yet it seemed to him a cold beauty, though quite a rich one. And then the King, who was nothing out of the stories. Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, had gone soft like Kings always did in those stories, the ones that ended in disaster and discord. Jon knew that there was something odd, in the way his mind sometimes jumped towards the patterns of a story, but what more could he do, when he stared at a fat, red-faced man who had once been the strongest man in the Seven Kingdoms, and already close to as drunk as Jon had been four hours later.

Then there were the children. Rickon first, such a sweet child. It was hard to add 'half' to anything he was, especially when Rickon had stopped to visit with his older brother, and had to be ushered along. Then there was Robb, and Princess Mycrella was on his arm. A wisp of a girl with a cascade of golden curls, she passed him shy, insipid looks and timid smiles at Robb. And Robb didn't even have the sense not to grin back at her. His half-sisters came with the royal princes. Arya, his favorite sister, with plump Tommen, with long white-blond hair.

Sansa, older by two years than Arya, no doubt thought she had all the luck. There was a girl that had believed in the stories and dreams more than anyone else, including Bran. But not the stories of the North, no, but most of all the stories of the south.

And to his dismay, Jon had to admit that Prince Joffrey looked like someone out of a story. Twelve and yet taller than Jon or Robb, he had the dark Baratheon hair, but his mother's deep green eyes. His hair was thick and dripped down past a golden choker, and he was dressed in finery which made Jon wonder, aware that there was some jealousy there, how he'd manage if he had to walk in the snow. So too did he note, bitterly, the bored look on Joffrey's face, the disdain that he seemed to aim at the Great Hall.

Far more interesting, and far stranger to his eyes, were the Queen's brothers. When he looked upon each of them, he felt a strange familiarity, a kinship he couldn't even define. They looked like normal men, but there was something glittering about the Lion, tall and golden, flashing green eyes and a hard, cutting smile. There were a few signs of wear, of battle and tear, but he looked the very picture of a monarch in crimson silk, high black boots, and a black satin cloak. The Kingslayer himself.

And the Imp had a sort of menace about him, that less drunk, Jon would have chalked up to the fact that he was an ugly, twisted dwarf, half his brother's height, with a head too large for his body, and a brute's squashed-in face, a shelf of a brown. Yet his eyes seemed to pierce straight through Jon when their gazes briefly met, one green and one black, beneath hair so blond it seemed white.

Jon shivered as he passed, unsure why.

Then came Benjen, smiling, and Theon, scowling, ignoring him, lost in thought, discussing something involving logistics with Benjen Stark.

Ghost kept beneath the table, where nobody could see him. He was white and oddly quiet, yet sometimes he swore, as with the moment Jon had dropped an entire chicken between his legs for Ghost, that there was intelligence in those red eyes, staring back at him, judging. Learning perhaps. Certainly, Ghost seemed to terrify the other dogs, glaring silently at any that tried to take what was his.

Perhaps he was growing up fast, a bastard just like Jon. He never made more than the smallest of sounds, yet sometimes Jon could swear it was like he was talking to the boy. Jon wondered whether there was something more there, and yet it wasn't a thought he could entertain, and before he could drunkenly pursue it to any end at all, his thoughts were interrupted, "Penny for your thoughts?" his uncle Ben asked, ruffling his hair and after a moment being given space to sit down. He straddled the bench and said, "So, this is Ghost?"

He glanced down between his legs at Ghost, who was staring up at him thoughtfully.

"Yes, yes it is," Jon said, and then blinked as Ben took the cup from his hand and sipped it.

"Ah, summerwine. How much have you had?"

Jon smiled, "Enough, Uncle Ben."

Ben Stark laughed, and ate a little, before saying, "Well, I was younger than you when I got drunk, so I can hardly blame you. Is it the Lannisters and company?"

Jon blushed, looking at his uncle. Gaunt and sharp, his uncle had laughter in his blue-grey eyes, and several rather interesting scars across his face. He was dressed in a rich black velvet, with high leather bloods, and a belt with a silver buckle. A heavy silver chain was looped round his neck, but in addition to that, he had an iron-chain as well. It was, Jon knew, a tradition among many in the north to keep iron well at hand.

Benjen said, "I take that as a yes? The beast is very quiet."

"Quiet," Jon said, "But watchful."

"Almost like he's reading me. We get direwolves beyond the wall. I've even seen a few up close, though not for long. There's a trick that sometimes works to get them close, but even then. Not for long. I doubt it'd work on a pup as canny as Ghost, though," Ben said, thoughtfully. "Can I guess that the Lady Stark has--"

He trailed off, and Jon replied, tone carefully flat and neutral, "She thought it might insult the royal family to seat a bastard with them."

"Certainly my brother doesn't seem to be too festive," Ben said, gesturing over towards the high table. Ned was frowning over something, and Jaime was talking animatedly, trying to engage with his sister, who looked angry. And the King was drinking heavily. A bastard had to notice these things, to read the truths and the ways that the world turned. To see deeper than other men. And where was Tyrion? Jon admitted, he trusted an Imp he couldn't see even less than one he could.

"The queen might be angry because Father took the king down to the crypts. Though it seems there is more than that," Jon said.

"You don't miss much. We could use someone like you on the Wall," Ben said.

Jon smiled softly. There were times for modesty, but now he swelled with pride as he said, "Robb is stronger with a lance than I am, but I'm the better sword, and Hullen says I'm better than any rider except him, and liable to get better still." Jon loved horses, it felt as if he had a connection to them, so easy was it to control them, to work with them to push them as far as they could safely go.

It was a talent that, were he commonborn, rather than a bastard, might make him any lord's trusted Master of the Horse.

"Notable achievements, but what of your learning?" Ben asked.

"Is there such a call for that, beyond the Wall?" Jon asked, more curious than anything else.

"It takes a keen eye and a quick mind to survive ranging after ranging. Battle isn't the only threat out there, and a mind that takes well to facts and details can be its own advantage."

"Maester Lunwin says I take to his lessons well. He mentioned, well. He offered that I could be sent south, to the Citadel."

"A Maesters vows and station are honorable as well," Ben said.

"But I said I didn't want to. That I'd rather go to the Wall than become a Maester," Jon said.

"Though, boy, one can do both," We certainly need good Maesters on the Wall, though one wouldn't Range if that were so."

"I can save any of that for later. Please, when you go back, take me with me. I wish to join the Night's Watch," Jon said, saying what he'd been thinking about for more than a little time.

"The Wall is a hard place for a boy of fourteen, Jon."

"I am almost a man grown," Jon said, having guessed at this, "I will turn fifteen before too long, and everyone knows bastards grow up faster than other children. And besides," Jon said, using an argument he was sure would work. He'd even studied the books to make sure he was right. "Besides, Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne, so it is not as if youth is such a limit."

"The conquest lasted only a summer, and your Boy King, your Young Dragon, lost ten thousand men taking the place, and another fifty trying to hold it. War isn't a game," Ben said, "And we study his example to see just how bad logistics and overreach can turn a dozen battles won into a lost war. And," Ben said, reaching out for some wine, "Daeren Targaryen was only nineteen when he died."

"I know that," Jon said, sitting as straight as he could, "Yet I want to serve the Night's Watch, Uncle."

Everyone else would have something for them, but what could a bastard hope for? He wasn't that religious, to be an old priest, and he didn't follow the Faith of the Seven, for that was the faith of a stepmother who had never loved him, and if he didn't want to be a Maester, all that was left was the Wall.

"You can't know what you're asking, Jon, because we keep our rituals secret. We are a sworn brotherhood, pledged upon the wall itself to always be loyal, and we can have no wives or families. We shall not father sons. Our wife is duty, our mistress is honor."

"A bastard can have honor too. I am ready to swear any pledge you would have of me," Jon said.

"You are a boy of fourteen. Until you have known a woman, you cannot know what you would be giving up. Until you have known a world of towns and cities, of pleasure and life, you cannot know just what this pledge will cost, how binding it shall be. Deserters are the most cursed of me."

"I would never desert," Jon said, and only later did he realize he'd raised his voice, that people were turning to listen.

"That you would not, son."

"You are not my father," Jon said, voice hard and raising ever still

"But I would not be an Uncle to you if I did not give you good advice. Wait, think, see the world. I have reason to suspect," Ben said quieter, "That the King intends Ned to go south. Go south with them, despite the prejudice, and see what the world has to offer. Come back to me after that, after you've known a few women and fathered a few bastards--"

"I will never father a bastard. Never!" Jon spat. He looked. The whole table, and even some people beyond, had been listening. He even saw the people from the high table, his brothers and sisters peering at him.

He was drunk. Too drunk. He'd seen too much and felt too much and said too much, and he said, "I must be excused." There were tears in his eyes as he lurched towards the door, tripping on his feet and knocking a serving girl on the way out, sending a flagon crashing to the bloor. People laughed, and Jon could hear Robert, all the way across the hall, roaring with laughter, voice booming like the thunder of the Stormlands,"That boy of yours likes his drink, eh! You should introduce us!"

Jon pictured himself decades older, fat and drunk like Robert. Was he on his way to being a lout, a drunkard idiot? His eyes hot with tears, he evaded all hands and, Ghost at his heels, he ran for the door, exiting into the night.

The yard was quiet and empty, with only a lone sentry, bored and miserable, at watch. Jon would have traded places with him in an instant, as he looked around the dark and deserted castle. Of course, there wasn't much a chance of danger attacking now, and yet Jon would have set a few more guards on the wall, two or three, to keep themselves company. He wiped away his tears, furious that he'd done something so unmanly as cry, something so immature as get that drunk.

"Boy. Jon," a voice called out to him, in the accent of the Westerlands. Jon turned to see Tyrion Lannister sitting on the ledge above the door to the Great Hall, like a gargoyle grinning down at him. "That's no wolf. I don't know what it is."

"A direwolf," Jon said, "His name is Ghost." He felt curioisty instead of disappointment, staring at this man whose eyes seemed to stare right into him. "What are you doing up there?"

"Looking down at you," Tyrion says, "If that's a Direwolf. If that's a direwolf, then the whole of the land across the Wall would be empty of people, and we would soon be facing a direwolf invasion of Westeros. And no doubt soon my father would send me North to negotiate with the direwolf lords who had conquered all of the North, in the hopes that they'd gobble me up. So, since I'm not currently practicing my howling, that's no Direwolf."

Jon stared at Tyrion, "But, he is."

"Have you tried asking him?" Tyrion said with an ironical grin, "Never matter."

"Why aren't you at the feast?" Jon asked.

"Why aren't you?" Tyrion asked, "For me it's the heat, the noise, and I've drunk rather too much wine. Long ago I learned it is considered rude to vomit on your brother."

"I drank too much, said a few stupid things," Jon admitted.

"Ah, how they grow up so fast," Tyrion said, "May I have a closer look at that thing you call a Direwolf?"

Jon took a moment to decide, but nodded. Yet, he couldn't resist a jab, "Can you climb down, or shall I bring a ladder?"

"Oh, sot that," Tyrion said, and then did what afterwards Jon would swear was impossible. He pushed himself off the ledge into empty air as Jon gasped, then spun in a tight ball, landing on his hands, and then he vaulted backwards on his feet, then back to his hands, drawing closer to wolf, then back to his feet and back to his hands until there he was, standing in front of Jon, grinning.

Jon wanted to clap and throw money, and he opened his mouth, speechless. Ghost, meanwhile, backed away and even made little noises of worry.

The dwarf dusted himself off and said, "I must be drunk. Usually I could do five in a row. But I think I've frightened him. I am sorry." Then he leaned down, and stared right at Ghost and said, "My apologies." As if Ghost could understand him.

Jon bristled, "He's not scared. Ghost, come here. Come on."

The wolf pup moved over to Jon and nuzzled his face, but kept his intelligent, wary red eyes on Tyrion's own eyes. When Tyrion reached for him, Ghost drew back and bared his fangs. "You're shy, aren't you?" Lannister asked.

"Sit, Ghost," Jon commanded, and for a long moment Ghost looked at him as if asking him if he were sure. "Yes. That's it. Keep still. You can touch him now, I've been training him."

Tyrion chuckled, "Or him training you."

"Yet if I wasn't here, he'd tear out your throat," Jon said, though it wasn't true yet. It would be true before long.

"I believe you, and thus you'd' better stay close." He cocked his huge head to one side and looked over Jon again, this time seeming to look even deeper, "I am Tyrion Lannister."

"I know," Jon said, rising to his full height, feeling a little dizzy with drink. He loomed over the dwarf, and yet he didn't feel that much taller.

"So, you're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?"

Jon pressed his lips together, almost wanting to shiver.

"Did I offend you?" Lannister asked. "If so, I am sorry. Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of fools in motley means I get to be a fool as well. A learned fool, but those are all the worse, aren't they?"

"I remember, I saw Maester Lunwin talking to you," Jon said, trying to unbend some, not be stiff around this strange guest.

"Finding books to fill my time. I wish to study some of lore of the North. There is more in this world than many think. Such as that Ghost of yours," Tyrion said. "But you are the bastard, though, am I right?"

"Lord Eddard Stark is my father," Jon admitted.

"Yes, I can see it. You have far more of the north in you than your brothers." Tyrion's face looked strange, and Jon peered closer at it, even then he was pleased by Tyrion's comment, "Half brothers," he corrected, almost absently.

"Allow me to give you counsel. As the older and more foolish voice," Tyrion said grinning playfully, drunkenly, "Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it into your strength, turn your scars into hard armor, and they will never be a weakness. Keep the world out, and learn to use your weaknesses and those of others."

Jon frowned, "And what do you know about being a bastard?"

"All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes."

"You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister."

"Am I? Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me," Tyrion said, sarcastically, spreading his arms out as if to say 'look at me', "And remember what I said before. If he had a chance, he'd send me to negotiate with these direwolf overlords stark naked except for steak tied around me, and then sigh and smile when they gobbled me up." He stroked Ghost's fur once more, almost fondly.

Then, then Tyrion's appearance changed. It seemed darker, more covered in scars, and if anything uglier, but his eyes, which had been the center of him, now seemed both darker and more glowing. They didn't give off light, only seemed to, and his whole skin seemed similarly dark, yet giving off a certain sheen. Jon felt his hands shaking, awe and fear creeping up from the back of his brain. Tyron's fingers seemed longer than expected, and suddenly he was an inch taller, perhaps, his whole form transformed in a thousand subtle ways.

It was impossible, it was horrifying, but most of all it filled him with the sort of awe he associated, in stories, with something religious.

Tyrion looked back at him, puzzled. Eyes wide, as if trying to figure something out. And then he laughed, a single sharp note, and said, "Those eyes of yours, they can see pretty far, can't they? And pretty deep. Keep them sharp, for while all dwarfs may be bastards, not all bastards need be dwarves. Perhaps you would like to talk again sometime," Tyrion offered, as he turned towards the feast, whistling a tune, all puzzlement seemingly replaced by nonchalance.

It sounded so familiar, and yet so different. Jon stared at the Imp's tail, at his crooked back, at the dark streaks in his blond hair. Yet more than that, when the light threw his shadow, he looked as tall as a King.

"Yes," Jon called out, "I would."

And figure out just what you were, Jon didn't say.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 7: Illyrio

Illyrio Mopatis knew he could be a creature of habit, though he hoped it did not make him predictable. He loved his pleasures, his little comforts, he loved wine and music and song, and he ended each day the same way when he could. A hot bath, a good drink as singers or musicians played to him in the bath, scrubbed down with oils and perfumes, and then work at his desk for an hour or two before being carried into his vast bed.

Sometimes he thought of weeping for what he'd become, but as he turned in the huge bath, splashing an attendant with hastily-dyed black hair, he knew it was nothing more than folly. He had always had his appetites, always his desires for power, and now he'd achieved all of it. He wanted more, of course. But Illyrio didn't think that was a special thing, any more than having an appetite is.

He lusted for power and he hungered for food, and once there had been men to call him all sorts of things to his face. Once.

And what of his youth? What worth did it have? He wept and remembered the glorious battles, the desperate charges, but then he remembered sleeping in rat-infested shitholes, retreating from one lost battle after another. He'd run straight into Varys grasp, in fact, and the two had learned from each other.

They'd taught each other the ways of power, the ways to talk to people, to smile at them and steal their valuables behind their back. Varys was a man Illyrio admired, an old friend, and if it was said there was no friend that Illyrio would not sell out for the right price--and, as he heard the singing of a bard in the distance, sweet music to bath to, he admitted this was entirely true--it had to also be said that the price and worth of Varys was vast.

And Illyrio knew never to sell below the worth of the thing sold, not unless there was a trick, or gain to be had. He patted his belly, thinking on Varys.

He often did, trying to understand the man, because understanding Varys, and learning how best to use the eunuch, as the eunuch no doubt used him, was the secret to his fortune to begin with.

Of course, he'd doubled it, and doubled it again, and then once more since Varys had left, he'd pursued true love and found the drink as sweet as wine, and lost it too. He'd seen many things since he'd last seen Varys in person, and sometimes he wondered whether his friend liked it in Westeros.

The people were arrogant, they thought themselves the only in the world, and were hypocrites. They babbled on endlessly about the decadence of the Free Cities, its slavery and its open mores, at least in some of the Free Cities. They painted with a broad brush, and ignored that from what Varys had written, they were just as wasteful, they kept serfs in conditions even a slave would not envy, and practiced all sorts of acts while smiling piously and quoting inanities about the Seven.

Of course, hypocrisy didn't bother Illyrio at all, and as the slaves rubbed his body down with oils, he accepted in the way he accepted he was fat, that he might die earlier from his indulgence, that he too was a hypocrite.

Still, Westeros was a place he wasn't entirely looking forward to seeing, whether as Viserys' Master of Coin or not.

As he was dressed by his attendants and shuffled off into his vast bedroom, to laze on a chair encrusted with rubies and covered in thick silken pillows, and write a few things, read a few orders, begin to compose a letter, he wondered what Varys game was.

No, he wondered what Varys games were.

A servant brought him the paper. He paused, glancing at the servant, who looked familiar. Purple eyes looked back at him. Purple? Illyrio paused, shifting his bulk to get a closer look, but no, it was nothing. It was just a servant. "Slave?"

"Yes m'lord?" the servant asked, and the accent, it was just the accent one would expect a slave to have. And, well, the Targaryen's were arrogant, calling themselves dragons, yet in Lys there were plenty who looked as they did. Still, the moment of unease only slowly settled down.

Illyrio shook his head and began thinking. Varys knew that there wasn't just one game, there wasn't just one plan. So even as he pursued Viserys, he had asked Illyrio to keep his eye on Dany, and had carefully snared Jorah Mormont in his web. A spider had more than a single strand to their web, and if the time came, Jorah could perhaps be used.

It seemed a waste, if all of this work was ended for the sake of Varys appearing loyal to the throne. What else was there? Well, the Blackfyres, of course. The color of the dragon mattered little, and he was sure Varys had a few secrets of his own, a few carefully hidden pawns that he'd tell Illyrio about in time.

Or not. Illyrio admitted to himself this was possible. Varys could be playing him. Certainly, he'd gotten more than he bargained for in both the Beggar King and Daenerys. Viserys was far more cunning and unnerving than he'd expected, and he'd come with raised expectations since he'd heard from other merchants at the cunning way Viserys had managed to build a very small fortune without ever quite actually stooping to directly buying and selling things. For that, Illyrio had been told by Varys, would be beneath a Prince. So he'd begged and cheated and had people buy and sell and traded information and secrets, had hustled on the street.

Perhaps even, as a boy, stolen coins like a beggar, and no doubt told himself that he was only taking what he deserved. The boy, in other words, should have reminded him of some strange dark mirror of himself and Varys at that age.

Of course, Illyrio would no doubt dislike him if that was the case, but it'd be a clean, understandable dislike. One often dislikes the sort of man one was, and if he was placed face to face with his old self, he'd trust him not at all, and wouldn't be surprised when his young self tried to sell his current self down the river.

Yet from other sources, he'd gotten a picture of a scholar, almost. But a dark one, one who looked into the sorts of sources and areas that Varys hated. A learned young man who befriended Red Priests just to have access to their libraries, who went to dinner parties just to skip dinner and steal into their archives, and perhaps even steal something from the archives while he was at it. Who'd smile at a man and wring him dry of what he knew and then abandon them. A person with a mind twisted and cunning, searching for just the right knowledge to grant him what he wanted.

And what he wanted, and here was the one thing Illyrio knew everyone had said true, was Westeros. Everyone he'd asked, every spy, had communicated that same basic hunger, that same basic drive, as the center of Viserys Targaryen.

Despite that, part of him expected some foolish young lordling, hung up on his power and prestige and his blood.

Illyrio Mopatis had gotten all of that and more. He'd gotten, if Viserys became King, a 'Master' who could read five languages fluently and curse in them fluently as well, a man who was at once brilliant and erratic, the genius of the Targaryen line, yet erratic genius seemed not that far removed from madness to Illyrio. A young man who planned and schemed the same way he breathed. Not as skilled as him or Varys, not yet, and certainly not as experienced, but with a similar mindset. But with a driving focus on his one singular goal in life.

Viserys was more learned than most anyone his age Illyrio had ever seen, yet he used his learning the way he might a sword--for all that he was, at best, passing-fair with a sword, having trained himself into the bland and acceptable mediocrity that most young lords stopped at--as a tool, rather than the end itself.

He was no fool, and he knew people that Illyrio hadn't introduced him, guessed bits and pieces of the plans, and if he clearly had no experience in war, he had a ready mind, and he'd at least read all of the books there were. More importantly for Illyrio's purposes, he thought of the right things. Politics and not swordcraft. Tactics and not tales. Logistics and not glory. Strategy and sieges, not battles and vengeance.

Or rather, he held dark desires for vengeance that he seemed to understand that he'd have time to indulge once he was King. He didn't allow it to stop him from plotting to offer general amnesty, and then have Varys carefully aim at those whose amnesty he didn't accept once he was King.

Viserys was dangerous. He'd met with Jorah Mormont and wrung him dry of information while telling him a thousand lies about just what his plans were for Westeros, all about his vague ambitions, always cloaking it in the stupid folly of a boy too intelligent for his own good. Jorah's reports would be worse than useless. Did that mean Viserys suspected them? Yet he hadn't acted if so.

Viserys was also naive. He had schemes of his own, and some of them were no doubt ill-considered. While at times he pretended to be an idiot, a young lordling to snare Illyrio in soothing his ego with platitudes and lies, he also sometimes was surprisingly naive. He hadn't thought of alcohol rations for an army, didn't think of camp followers and how one would find or draw whores for the men, sometimes made assumptions about Westeros that clearly came out of books, and while it showed intelligence that he'd asked--Illyrio knew a stupider man would have just assumed--he'd had to have it explained twice to him that the Dothraki would consider Dany a gift, not a deal. They made deals in their own time and own way, but they exchanged gifts.

That Viserys would have to wait.

The boy had seemed almost stunned, eyes hot with anger, and yet he'd been convinced in the end.

And that, all of that and more, is what he told Varys. Wrote in a secret code to pass on to someone to pass on to someone, to carefully make its way by secret channels to Varys.

But what of Daenerys Targaryen? The stories spoke of a naive, trusting girl who loved her brother and was at least in some matters his closest confidante. Someone so sweet it tempted Illyrio, the way a pastry might. Someone who was smart, and was learning from Viserys' books all sorts of statecraft.

For while Viserys had the biases of many men against women learning, was in many cases quite typical, even though in others he was surprising, he seemed to have assumed a hand in teaching his sister refinement, for when they were back in Westeros.

Yet, that made no sense with what Viserys plans were.

And so, Illyrio had met this girl, and the girl had been exactly as he thought. Lovely, charming, a little strange. Maybe even clearly in love with her brother: incest was another strange custom of the Targaryen. Intelligent, yet clearly untested.

And then one night, a bitter, careful, cynical girl had seemed almost to replace her. A Dany who glanced at Viserys in fear instead of love, who flinched when Viserys raised his voice, yet whose words, when finally teased out, were cold and cruel and careful, the words of a woman who--

Illyrio massaged his chest. He found cynicism a lovely trait in a woman. Perhaps many men did, perhaps that was why whores were so popular. Her fear, her trapped look, the way she suddenly seemed to have huge gaps in her knowledge, and yet know things that she would have never thought about.

How could he write any of it?

And so he didn't. Dany was odd, Dany was different, and yet the reports *he* sent, the updates, spoke of her as if she were the woman he'd spoken of just a few weeks prior.

Each of them in different ways might yet be Queen material, yet the way she was acting now, it struck him as so bizarre. Even Viserys was baffled, and the one amusement Illyrio had had was watching Viserys act like a man his own age.

Like a young man who had somehow offended his lover and now was desperate to win back her trust and faith. Viserys had assured him that nothing had happened to have sullied Dany, though if he had admitted to it, Illyrio knew at least a dozen ways to cover it up. Pidgeon blood and other devices, certain combinations that women knew. And that Illyrio had had said women tell him, when he'd heard of the closeness of the two siblings.

It was amusing, yet also a little sad.

Illyrio groaned, blinking. He felt as if he'd almost gone to sleep, so warm were his clothes and the fire, and he picked up the letter, encoded, and then turned to the nearest slave. It was the dark haired, purple-eyed one.

Illyrio peered at his hair, and chided "Now, I like the look. Black and purple is quite lovely, but you should use a permanent dye." He could see the hints of blond peeking through. The boy's face was gaunt, but Illyrio thought that his servants had been clever in picking up such a slave. For there was a certain beauty and grace to him, the sort that drew male eyes, and female ones as well, and the dark hair created a lovely contrast from what one expected.

Ah, there was a scheme he should suggest to Varys. If all else failed, if all of the Targaryens died, just get a pretender from Lys to claim he had the blood, and was--what, a secret third cousin, or something.

Westerosi wouldn't know the difference.

"It's, it's not permanent, m'lord Mopatis?" the boy asked with dismay.

"No, not at all. It will wash out in no time at all."

"But I was told--" the boy responded, and he sounded so truly shocked that the dye was one-time.

"Lied to," Illyrio said, amused, "Now get. You know where to take it."

Later, later he'd wondered if he'd seen a smirk on that face as it turned to go. Much later he'd ask about a Lysian slave, having forgotten all about it, and get some rather confusing answers.

For now, though, he clapped his hands and other slaves entered, to usher him to his bed.

****
A/N: Aight.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 8: Catelyn

Catelyn Stark stared at the table. It was a ritual of theirs, as much as anything else, this consultation, this table. The papers on it didn't matter today, nor did the books. What mattered more than anything was the ritual. Ned treated her as a partner. Not an equal, for what madness would that be, but he respected her, on everything except the matter of the bastard. He consulted her, he included her, and that was as warm, as heartening as the lovemaking.

Five children and no miscarriages, no babies dead at her breast, and even births whose pains seemed to ease into joy. Was it any wonder that she clung to her children more than any bastard, for all that the Seven-Pointed Star urged kindness unto bastards, the mad, and other unfortunates, cursed by the Seven that they were.

The room was like a womb, small and warm, and near their beds. Part of her wished Ned could unsay the words, return the world to one in which she could simply say, 'Why don't we just go to bed?'

But no, he consulted her, and they talked, sometimes deep in the night. Certainly, five children later, it could hardly be said that she did not do her duties in that respect either, and as her nursemaid had once said of cleaning, when you enjoyed a duty, it hardly felt like a duty at all.

Still, five could be six, and another son would yet strengthen the family. The rule of the North was to store for the coming winter. Three Stark sons, and one Stark daughter who had lived to adulthood, and half dead, the last up at the wall.

A thin branch upon which rested a great family.

She spoke before Ned could add his own conclusion, knowing she had to act, "You cannot refuse him. And, as much as I would not like it, the deal is all or nothing. If you refuse one part of it, let alone all of it, he will ask himself why. He will consider," Catelyn said, "Your reasons. He would be a fool not to."

"Robert is not like that. He'd bluster, and rage, but I know him, and in a week he'd be slapping my back and friends with me again," Ned said, stoically, though perhaps beneath it Catelyn, so honed for his every mood, detected doubt.

"That is the man he once was, but he is a King now--" Catelyn said.

"I think...I think that his management of the realm could be better, perhaps he does not think like one," Ned said, weakly.

"Then others will for him. They will say 'Ned Stark doesn't wish to marry into your family because he doesn't believe in you.' They will say," Catelyn said, voice catching, "That you saw Robert as he was and decided his dynasty, his rule, was nothing. And you don't wish to go South? Why?"

"The place is a dangerous snakepit. You yourself warned me of--well, I do not believe in signs. My brother did," Ned admitted, "Brandon. Would that he was here, and I could be a lord, assisting him. He was made for this, raised for this. If it wasn't for you, dear Catelyn, I'd be lost." Ned reached out a hand and stroked her hair.

Catelyn stared at him, compassion welling up. She wanted to kiss him, but she had words yet to say. "So you must accept. He has changed, he is a stranger, and down in that snakepit, poison will be whispered in his ear. It is a great honor, at least in theory. Though Joffrey--"

"What of him?" Ned asked.

Catelyn didn't want to say it, because she was sure it was cruel, cruel when Sansa had been talking about the prince all of these days before he'd come, was possibly head over heals with him before even having met him.

What should Catelyn worry about her daughter becoming a Queen? And yet she did.
"A maid went into the room of the wife of Ser Halden Norrey, you know, that pious knight from the Riverlands--"

Ned frowned, "He brought his wife because he loved her so and because she was from the southern part of the North and wished to visit family?" He'd met a great many people between talking to Robert and talking to Catelyn, she knew, and most of them were one flavor of outwardly pious or another.

"Yes. And she went in and began to clean it. She swears she didn't see anyone, but when she turned her head halfway through, she saw Joffrey standing there, plain as day, in a corner. Looking at her. Staring at her. When she asked what he wanted, as politely as she could," Catelyn said, "He told her to carry on, and that he merely wished to talk to Ser Norrey's lady wife, learn about the north. Then he asked if she needed help cleaning, and approached her and she excused herself, said she'd go get the wife, but when she got back, not three minutes later, he was gone."

Ned looked at her, "I have to refuse. That boy isn't right. Even his mother sees it, she seemed cold and distant at the feast. Kept on starting conversations with him only to stop and try to address Tommen."

"I was there," Catelyn said, "I don't know what to say. The boy's been skulking about, exploring every nook and cranny of the place as if he planned to besiege it."

"For her sake I have to. She's only eleven, and I won't marry my daughter to anyone I would not respect to treat her as he should," Ned said.

"He is a Prince. Mind your words. Yet refusing would be worse. A betrothal can be broken, and even a moment of play matters. Robert did not fully reject the idea that his namesake might be fostered here. We should make him," Catelyn urged, "Do more than not reject it, if he is to put us in this bind. Once Lysa and her son are here, we can get the truth out of them, find any danger there is. I can send word to you if needed. Urge his love of Lord Arryn. Talk about how just as the Baratheons and Starks would fuse, so too by being fostered, and Lysa will of course come as well, for a time at least," Catelyn was talking as fast as she could think, attempting to craft something.

She knew it was pretty cynical, to be imagining alliances. The Riverlands, the Vale, and the North together were the closest thing to a natural trio as imaginable. Neighbors of course meant they had disagreements in the past, yet still. And as a faction, as a block of Lord Protectors who would have to be heeded, they could make even King Robert, or, Seven forbid, King Joffrey pause.

The Ironborn, of course, were nobody's friends, at least as a group, though when she was a girl, Ironborn traders had plied the Riverlands as happy to sail on rivers trading goods as their fellows had been to sail the seas raiding innocents.

The Reach? Well, there were no ties between the nobles, but Ned had sent letters that far south before, discussing the nature farming politics. And Maester Lunwin had traded packets of seeds that far south, trying to improve the Glass Garden for the coming of winter. There were ties, however thin.

The Lannisters were enemies, the Stormlands loyal to Robert, which at the moment was a good thing. And Dorne? Who knew with those strange people.

"You're plotting, dear," Ned said with a smile, reaching down to tug at her frown as if that would turn it too into a smile.

"Maybe. But you have to accept, and then--once Lysa is here, we could," Catelyn began, which was when there was a knock on the door.

"Please come in," Ned said politely, and Maester Lunwin stepped in.

"I am sorry to interrupt any discussion, but I have been left a message," he said. The Maester was a tiny grey man with quick grey eyes, robes grey and white and trimmed with fur. He was the third of what Catelyn sometimes called the family council. Perhaps when he was older Robb would be part of that circle as well. Certainly, Lunwin was close with all the Starks, toys and games and books tumbling out of his long sleeves, out of hidden pockets, a twinkle in his eye. He knew something of secrecy, and something of craft.

He'd spoken to Catelyn about the progress of all the children before, many times, always adding Jon last to the list, and she'd nodded once when he'd said, not that long ago, that he might discuss becoming a Maester with Jon. That, that was fitting, since a Maester had no family name, could not marry, would not be a challenge. Yet he had not risen to the bait, and Catelyn knew that to do more than kindly offer the options would not yet get Ned's approval, so much did he love Jon, so much he must have loved his mother.

Unwilling and unable to share that of himself, when she would have given everything, shared everything, just for that one piece of him he kept back.

"Been left? By whom? I was told of no rider," Ned asked, temper briefly flaring over his calm.

"No rider, my lord," Lunwin said, "There was only a carved wooden box. It had been left on a table in my observatory while I was napping. Tyrion had dropped by earlier, but I doubt it was him, and my servants saw no one come but him. It must have been brought by someone in the king's party."

"And what was in the box?" Catelyn asked. She didn't trust Tyrion, any more than she did any of the Lannisters. Was this some plot of his? He was called the Imp, and perhaps he took dark fancies to unnerve people.

"There was a fine new lens for the observatory. Myrish, and so the best imaginable. For a moment I even thought it might have been Tyrion. They say Tyrion Lannister is an intelligent man who values learning. But then I thought: what do lenses mean?"

"What?" Ned asked, who had no head for puzzles.

"A lens helps one see the truth, what is really there," Catelyn said nervously, as Lunwin fingered his chain, no doubt thinking of all the truths he had seen by his standing in his order. All the links he'd forged.

"And what was there was beneath a false bottom when I dismantled the box that the lens had come in," Maester Lunwin said, drawing out a tightly rolled paper.

"Let me have it, then," Ned said.

"Pardon, my lord. But the message is not for you either. It is marked for the eyes of Lady Catelyn, and her alone," Maester Lunwin said.

Certainly, woman though she was, she was a noble, with all of the full rights. Even were Ned a boor, and he wasn't, he'd respect that there were some things for her and not him. She took it and opened it, glancing at the bit of blue wax, scanning it slowly, and then faster once she figured out just what it was. Her sister's message, under a code, under their childhood language.

It changed everything. Her hands were trembling by the end and she said, "It is from Lysa, and the contents. Darker than the words of any raven. An ill omen, Ned."

Ned looked at her, face grave, concern written on his face.

"It is written in our private language, and the words--we shall need all the counsel we have, and I must burn this." Catelyn stood, but her every step was heavy, as she slid the letter into the fire and watched it disappear. "Perhaps it would have been better to keep it, but the proof, when you find it, will be worth more than the accusation."

"When I find what?" Ned asked, standing and moving over to her, looming over her. "What was in the message?"

"A warning. Lysa says Jon Arryn was murdered," Catelyn said, feeling his grip tigthen, "By the Lannisters, the Queen."

Ned stared, "Gods, your sister is sick with grief, she cannot know--"

"She knows full well. She is impulsive, but she has planned this too much, risked her life and the life of Robert," Catelyn said, her own voice raising, "Do you think the Lannisters incapable, when they've raised such a boy as Joffrey, when they've done all that they have done? Do you think Cersei Lannister would not do so, if it appeased her vast ego, if she thought some gain for it. I would believe anything of that woman, and you would too--"

"I…" Ned nodded, "She was not the best match Robert could have had."

"You must go south, you must be his Hand, you must make sure that Lysa's son Robert never falls into Lannister hands. It is a risk, but it is one I can share with you, Ned," Catelyn urged.

"There is power in the Hand, my Lord," Lunwin said, plucking at his collar, "Power to find the truth, power to bring killers to justice, power to sway Robert away from his path, away from trust of the Lannisters if they are so guilty. Great power."

"In a nest of vipers, in a court I do not know," Ned said.

"It is a court you can come to know," Catelyn said, "I can help you with the ways of the south, we can help Robert, see that he is not steered towards evil, care for him as one might a brother--"

"The Others take both of you," Ned muttered, as Ned looked around the room, looked beyond it. Looked to all of the North, to all that he had struggled for. Now resting in the balance of his performance south. Catelyn wanted to hug him close, and never let go.

"This could end horribly," Ned said.

"All things could," Catelyn said, unable to resist saying, "Winter is coming. It always is."

"But Catelyn, you must stay in Winterfell," Ned said.

Catelyn stared for a moment, uncomprehending, "How will you, how will you navigate how…"

"You are needed here, to run Winterfell in my stead. Certainly, you have the skills, and Robb needs what support he can. Teach him, instruct him, show him by example what it is a Lord does, the things far more important than wielding a sword or writing a poem," Ned replied. "There must be a Stark of Winterfell, and he will have to rule should I die, should anything befall me."

"The Seven forbid that they should," Catelyn said, heart swelling as she knew that tonight she would not be in bed with him. Perhaps the night after, perhaps later, but for now she wished to pray, to pray with all she had to the Seven, that they might grant him safety.

"Maester Lunwin, I trust you as I would my very own blood. Yourself and my wife are to be his closest counsel. Teach him all he must know, no matter what," Ned said.
Catelyn didn't want to ask, didn't want to tear her heart out over what she knew what was coming, but she had to ask. "What of the other children?"

"Rickon," Ned said, and reached up to hug her close, "is very young. He can stay with you and Robb and Jon. The others I would take with me."

"I could not bear it, seeing Bran and the others gone, and I will not stand it," Catelyn said.

She wished by the Seven she could bear the kindness towards Jon, and at least a modicum of love, if only reflected by Ned's love. But she didn't, and now was not the time to mince words. "I will not stand having Jon here, he must go with you. I would not have Bran go with you, but if Bran must go, then so must Jon."

Ned stared at her for a long moment, then sighed, "Yet Robb and Jon were so close, and Jon could yet be his right arm, if anything should happen."

Catelyn did not think Jon was disloyal, or a monster, and yet her stomach clenched at the idea that if Ned died, that Jon would be at Robb's side, right there. The second oldest son of Eddard Stark. Bastards could be made legitimate, though it was a sin, and ambition could sprout like a weed even in seemingly barren soil.

"Sansa and Ayra going south, Bran and--Jon, Jon should go as well," Catelyn said, "Perhaps he can broaden his horizons, or he could continue going south, to become a Maester if the South appealed to him."

Arya, well, the girl certainly could learn some refinement in the south. And Sansa was needed, and perhaps Bran needed to learn, but. "But he's so young."

"I was not much older when I was sent to foster at the Eyrie," Ned said, "But I still do not think it is wise to send Jon South, you know how much harder on bastards they are."

Catelyn looked at him, long and steady. Men fathered bastards, it was what they did, and it was a woman's duty to accept it. But men didn't have to call them "son" weren't even supposed to, certainly weren't supposed to never mention who the mother was. The one time he'd gotten truly furious at her, it was over her asking about a rumor she'd heard as to the identity of the mother. She'd stared then, tears in her eyes, and known, in some deep down crevice, that as much as he might love her, it seemed clear he'd never love her as he loved that unknown woman.

Never love her with the passion she loved him, for all he respected her, for all he loved her. Catelyn could not accept Jon, would not. It was a step too far, too much to ask of her, too much to demand of her love.

"I do know," Catelyn said, and she knew she sounded cold, sounded cruel.

"He will be shunned, he will find no happiness," Ned said.

"Yet it is no kindness to keep him here, either for me, Ned, or for him," Catelyn aid.

Ned stared back at her, but his silent words did not reach her ears.

Maester Lunwin rattled his chains, quietly, and he spoke. Just in time, because Catelyn could see the beginning of the anger. Each time they talked on this, it always came back to it. That she was cruel to take out her feelings on him. And of course, she couldn't say, didn't say, that it was cruel of him to have brought Jon Snow here, to have kept him these fourteen years like this when truly what solution was there?

"Another solution presents itself, Lord Stark. Your brother Benjen came to me about Jon a few days ago. It seems the boy aspires to take the black."

Catelyn barely managed not to sigh with relief as the solution presented itself.

"He asked to join the Night's Watch?"

"It is an honorable service, pledging oneself to the Wall, my lord," Maester Lunwin said.

And a Sworn Brother would have no sons to contest Catelyn's line. And Benjen Stark was close to Jon, so it would even be better for him, happier for him. "And there is a chance to rise high in the Night's Watch, no matter your station," Catelyn urged. Here, at last, here after fourteen years, they came to kindness. Here at last, the ache in her heart could be soothed, and Jon Snow would get what he wanted, would serve the realm against whatever dark things lurked beyond the Wall. All would benefit.

"Yet Jon is a boy of fourteen," Ned said, troubled.

"And Sansa is only eleven. Bran is only seven. These are hard times," Catelyn said.

Ned turned, to glare at her, but Lunwin concurred, "It is no harder a path than that which you have to face, my lord, or anyone else. It is a hard life, and a hard sacrifice for a hard time."

Ned sighed, "I know when I am beaten, and I suppose it is for the best. I will speak to Ben."

The maester looked at Ned for a very long moment, then asked, "When shall we tell Jon?"

Ned sighed, and his eyes looked distant. Tonight would not be a night for lovemaking, even if there was no Sept to pray at. There was anger in that sigh, frustration at the world as it was, not as it should be. There were long ago memories of his own childhood. "I will tell him when I must, because we must prepare. It will be a fortnight, and perhaps more, before we are ready to depart. And I would sooner let Jon enjoy these last few days, for summer will end soon enough, as will childhood. When the time comes, I will tell him myself."

*****
A/N: Still technically Saturday.