The Weight of Honor
First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
The answer from Storm's End had not been long in coming. Somehow, Eddard had still been surprised to hear it. The Dragon King spoke true, Stannis had pledged to him. Stannis had known about the queen's treason and said nothing. A part of him wanted to hate the dour lord of the Stormlands, so unlike Robert, for having done and said nothing against the Lannisters.
Would the king have even listened, accepted that he had suffered such foul treachery? And if he did, what was he then to do, declare war upon the House that had increasingly borne the weight of his rule? The thoughts were cold and bitter, but then cold was the world outside his window. It was snowing slow and relentless beyond his window. These snows would pass, but would the next?
He turned from the window and faced his lady wife, sorrowful but unbent, garbed in black broken only by a silver wolfshead pendant he had given to her as a wedding gift all those years ago in Riverrun. "You were right, months ago when you counseled to keep out of any renewed pledges to the Iron Throne lest they all be caught up in the ruin of Tywin Lannister. You were right when you argued that we should send Sansa to Runestone for fostering. Yet through it all, you had to mince words and couch meanings around me... I was a fool."
She looked at him with growing worry. "You were and are an honorable man, Ned, in such times that are not kind to honorable men. Blame the queen, and Tywin Lannister and his pet witch for abetting her madness if you must, but do not blame yourself for all the ills that were piled on the realm."
Eddard shook his head and looked away. "If Jon Arryn had not died when he did, if Robert had come North, I would not have been able to maintain any distance. I would have pledged whatever he had asked. Mayhap, I would have given up Sansa or Arya to be wed to Cersei's bastards and then where would we be for my honor when the war began in earnest?"
"About where we are save for the brief distasteful business of breaking an engagement to a boy that never existed," Cat replied in a no nonsense tone. "Joffrey and Tommen Baratheon clearly never existed and therefore no daughter of ours could be engaged to them."
"Word games," Eddard snorted.
"Many of the workings of court and realm are word games when the king allows, and it is clear King Viserys is of a mind to allow House Stark to come out of the reconquest with its head held high, if likely not with its lands intact."
The word from Stannis was that he would not be commanding all of the Stormlands, but only the greater portion of it. That had not made for pleasant hearing, not for what it heralded for the North, but it had troubled Eddard less than he thought it would, perhaps less than it should. He could not keep his thoughts away from what had happened this evening, but he would not burden his lady wife with those 'might have beens'.
***
There was no pomp and ceremony to the hour, no crowds watching and no dragons flying above as Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, stood before Viserys Targaryen, only the eyes of his wife, those most trusted servants of House Stark, and of the Gods who had favored the boy king so deeply for the honor he showed them and the tithes of blood he paid.
To ward against a foe that had already come too far and too close, the last thought felt heavier in the mind than it aught to, almost like a memory he could not place.
As he took the knee, Eddard considered the young man in front of him again. He did not have the look of Rhaegar really, that distant dreaming eye that seemed to look more through you than at you, except when it fell into too-sharp focus, and to Aerys he was as night and day. "Here I swear to be your leal vassal, to offer aid in war and counsel in peace, to keep your laws and serve your realm. Winterfell and all the North is yours, Your Grace."
Had Eddard been a prouder man, perhaps he would have thought the man before him Aegon come again and him a second Torrhen, wise in knowing when to kneel. No, King Viserys was something else, something older, the likes of which the world had not seen in an age. Eddard himself was not wise, for if he had been wise perhaps he would have knelt sooner, perhaps Robb would have still been alive.
"So too do I swear to give succor in war and fair rule in times of peace unto the betterment and prosperity of all the realm," the king replied. "Arise, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell."
OOC: Next up will be the discussion of the garrison from Viserys' PoV. Writing Eddard's internal reactions to 'these are devils and it's OK' and 'Old Gods sanctioned necromantic molds piloting corpses that were never alive' would take two thousand words easy. Not yet edited.
