Late Hour's Counsel
Thirteenth Day of the Third Month 294 AC
It was late, or perhaps early, as Lord Yohn Royce stared into the dying flame of the lamp upon his desk. The parchment had long since been rolled up, the last letters written and sent, but still he could not bring himself to rise from his seat and seek his lady wife's bed. The hour was almost at hand, the Vale was restless under the hand of a Tully girl and her changeling son, the Stag in King's landing had his head down hoping to bring his antlers to bear, but instead only exposing the back of his neck to the Dragon above...
A soft chuckle escaped his lips at the thought.
Perhaps you missed your calling Yohn, you should have been a poet, he thought amused. Better to think of practical things. Soon the lantern would be a mage-light and the parchment would be Yi Tish paper, and maybe he would even be walking around with one of those writing boards Ysilla came up with. Bards sang great ballads about wars, but people mostly lived their lives in the days of peace and it was the King's Peace that would reshape the Seven Kingdoms. Trade ships from across the world and beyond it, bridges over the straights, healers and teachers spread across the land. It all sounded very appealing. He had laid it all down in letters and talked it all through clandestine meetings away from the eyes of the Lannisters and the kings.
Yet unlike his fellow loyalists, unlike all but a handful of lords and ladies in Westeros, the Lord of Runestone understood the price of all these offerings. A realm united in prosperity was also a realm where the king's word held more sway than it had ever done, even in the days of the Conqueror. A realm watched by the inquisition was a realm where lords would not dare gather against the king and thus where their displeasure would weigh less in the balance of his counsel.
For his part, Yohn counted it a bargain well worth making for a lord's true work was the peace and plenty of his subjects, not his own power, though he was honest enough to admit to himself that his heart might have been more troubled had Waymar not found himself in the closest counsels of King Viserys.
Just as he was about to seek his bed, a creak slipped through the quiet of the night, then a soft knock on his door. Briefly, the lord of Runestone reached for the dagger at his belt before he dismissed the thought. Any Lannister assassins would not be so polite as to knock. "Come in."
Much to his surprise, the Stark girl stood there, red hair bright against a white nightdress, her face almost as pale. She seemed almost a ghost by dying light. "A-apologies my lord, I saw the door ajar and light within, so I thought..."
So she had been curious and peeked in, Yohn finished. He hadn't raised two boys and one girl of his own without knowing how children were with mysteries, though that did beg the question of what she was doing awake at this hour. "Trouble sleeping, young lady?"
"No, I..." She cut herself off, then seemed to be gathering her courage to ask something. Her next words certainly warranted it. "Will there be war, with the Dragon in the East?
"There already has been war, more than a year past and the Royal Fleet came out the worst of it," Yohn answered carefully. "There were never any treaties signed, no peace agreed after that, so you could say there is war right now. It is just not convenient for either side to fight it. As to when that might happen, I am no seer and in any case I suspect even they would struggle to answer the question."
"And what's... going to happen if we lose. I mean...." The poor girl was looking around guiltily, as though she expected Robert Baratheon to bounce from behind the opened door.
"There, too, I would make a poor oracle." Yohn paused a long moment before adding. "As a general principle, I would counsel judging men more by their deeds than by hearsay and rumor."
"I understand, my lord," the young Stark girl nodded solemnly in a way that reminded him of Ysilla, though without the brashness that so often shone in his daughter's gaze.
"Excellent," the old lord nodded. "And with that I bid you good night, my lady."
For tomorrow is a new day and we had all best be well rested to face it, he thought but did not say.
OOC: There was a chance Sansa would have gotten into the solar after Yohn left (if he had failed the Wisdom save and left it unlocked because of how tired and worried he is). That would have been a more exciting and less introspective chapter. Hopefully this one works too. Not yet edited.
