Robert, I beg of you,” Ned pleaded,
“hear what you are saying. You are talking of murdering a
child.”
“The whore is pregnant!” The king’s fist
slammed down on the council table loud as a thunderclap. “I
warned you this would happen, Ned. Back in the barrowlands, I
warned you, but you did not care to hear it. Well, you’ll
hear it now. I want them dead, mother and child both, and that fool
Viserys as well. Is that plain enough for you? I want them
dead.”
The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that
they were somewhere else. No doubt they were wiser than he was.
Eddard Stark had seldom felt quite so alone. “You will
dishonor yourself forever if you do this.”
“Then let it be on my head, so long as it is done. I am
not so blind that I cannot see the shadow of the axe when it is
hanging over my own neck.”
“There is no axe,” Ned told his king. “Only
the shadow of a shadow, twenty years removed . . . if it exists at
all.”
“If?” Varys asked softly, wringing powdered hands
together. “My lord, you wrong me. Would I bring ties to king
and council?”
Ned looked at the eunuch coldly. “You would bring us the
whisperings of a traitor half a world away, my lord. Perhaps
Mormont is wrong. Perhaps he is lying.”
“Ser Jorah would not dare deceive me,” Varys said
with a sly smile. “Rely on it, my lord. The princess is with
child.”
“So you say. If you are wrong, we need not fear. If the
girl miscarries, we need not fear. If she births a daughter in
place of a son, we need not fear. If the babe dies in infancy, we
need not fear.”
“But if it is a boy?” Robert insisted. “If he
lives?”
“The narrow sea would still lie between us. I shall fear
the Dothraki the day they teach their horses to run on
water.”
The king took a swallow of wine and glowered at Ned across the
council table. “So you would counsel me to do nothing until
the dragonspawn has landed his army on my shores, is that
it?”
“This ‘dragonspawn’ is in his mother’s
belly,” Ned said. “Even Aegon did no conquering until
after he was weaned.”
“Gods! You are stubborn as an aurochs, Stark.” The
king looked around the council table. “Have the rest of you
mislaid your tongues? Will no one talk sense to this frozen-faced
fool?”
Varys gave the king an unctuous smile and laid a soft hand on
Ned’s sleeve. “I understand your qualms, Lord Eddard,
truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this grievous news to
council. It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing. Yet
we who presume to rule must do vile things for the good of the
realm, howevermuch it pains us.”
Lord Renly shrugged. “The matter seems simple enough to
me. We ought to have had Viserys and his sister killed years ago,
but His Grace my brother made the mistake of listening to Jon
Arryn.”
“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied.
“On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cut down a dozen good
men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us,
grievously wounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his
throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not kill a man for
loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to
tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.” He gave the king a long
cool look. “Would that man were here today.”
Robert had shame enough to blush. “It was not the
same,” he complained. “Ser Barristan was a knight of
the Kingsguard.”
“Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ned
knew he was pushing this well past the point of wisdom, yet he
could not keep silent. “Robert, I ask you, what did we rise
against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of
children?”
“To put an end to Targaryens!” the king growled.
“Your Grace, I never knew you to fear Rhaegar.” Ned
fought to keep the scorn out of his voice, and failed. “Have
the years so unmanned you that you tremble at the shadow of an
unborn child?”
Robert purpled. “No more, Ned,” he warned, pointing.
“Not another word. Have you forgotten who is king
here?”
“No, Your Grace,” Ned replied. “Have
you?”
“Enough!” the king bellowed. “I am sick of
talk. I’ll be done with this, or be damned. What say you
all?”
“She must be killed,” Lord Renly declared.
“We have no choice,” murmured Varys. “Sadly,
sadly . . . ”
Ser Barristan Selmy raised his pale blue eyes from the table and
said, “Your Grace, there is honor in facing an enemy on the
battlefield, but none in killing him in his mother’s womb.
Forgive me, but I must stand with Lord Eddard.”
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed
to take some minutes. “My order serves the realm, not the
ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King
Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask
you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How
many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their
mothers to perish on the end of a spear?” He stroked his
luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. “Is
it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now
so that tens of thousands might live?”
“Kinder,” Varys said. “Oh, well and truly
spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their
caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must
bleed.”
Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr
stifled a yawn. “When you find yourself in bed with an ugly
woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with
it,” he declared. “Waiting won’t make the maid
any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it.”
“Kiss her?” Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.
“A steel kiss,” said Littlefinger.
Robert turned to face his Hand. “Well, there it is, Ned.
You and Selmy stand alone on this matter. The only question that
remains is, who can we find to kill her?”
“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renly reminded
them.
“Desperately,” Varys said, “yet he craves life
even more. By now, the princess nears Vaes Dothrak, where it is
death to draw a blade. If I told you what the Dothraki would do to
the poor man who used one on a khaleesi, none of you would sleep
tonight.” He stroked a powdered cheek. “Now, poison . . . the tears of Lys, let us say. Khal Drogo need never know it was
not a natural death.”
Grand Maester Pycelle’s sleepy eyes flicked open. He
squinted suspiciously at the eunuch.
“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” the king
complained.
Ned had heard enough. “You send hired knives to kill a
fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?” He
pushed back his chair and stood. “Do it yourself, Robert. The
man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the
eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You
owe her that much at least.”
“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of
him as if he could barely contain his fury. “You mean it,
damn you.” He reached for the flagon of wine at his elbow,
found it empty, and flung it away to shatter against the wall.
“I am out of wine and out of patience. Enough of this. Just
have it done.”
“I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but
do not ask me to fix my seal to it.”
For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was
saying. Defiance was not a dish he tasted often. Slowly his face
changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept
up his neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at
Ned. “You are the King’s Hand, Lord Stark. You will do
as I command you, or I’ll find me a Hand who will.”
“I wish him every success.” Ned unfastened the heavy
clasp that clutched at the folds of his cloak, the ornate silver
hand that was his badge of office. He laid it on the table in front
of the king, saddened by the memory of the man who had pinned it on
him, the friend he had loved. “I thought you a better man
than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”
Robert’s face was purple. “Out,” he croaked,
choking on his rage. “Out, damn you, I’m done with you.
What are you waiting for? Go, run back to Winterfell. And make
certain I never look on your face again, or I swear, I’ll
have your head on a spike!”
Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could
feel Robert’s eyes on his back. As he strode from the council
chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. “On
Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men,” Grand
Maester Pycelle offered.
“Do you have any idea how costly they are?”
Littlefinger complained. “You could hire an army of common
sellswords for half the price, and that’s for a merchant. I
don’t dare think what they might ask for a
princess.”
The closing of the door behind him silenced the voices. Ser
Boros Blount was stationed outside the chamber, wearing the long
white cloak and armor of the Kingsguard. He gave Ned a quick,
curious glance from the corner of his eye, but asked no
questions.
The day felt heavy and oppressive as he crossed the bailey back
to the Tower of the Hand. He could feel the threat of rain in the
air. Ned would have welcomed it. It might have made him feel a
trifle less unclean. When he reached his solar, he summoned Vayon
Poole. The steward came at once. “You sent for me, my lord
Hand?”
“Hand no longer,” Ned told him. “The king and
I have quarreled. We shall be returning to Winterfell.”
“I shall begin making arrangements at once, my lord. We
will need a fortnight to ready everything for the
journey.”
“We may not have a fortnight. We may not have a day. The
king mentioned something about seeing my head on a spike.”
Ned frowned. He did not truly believe the king would harm him, not
Robert. He was angry now, but once Ned was safely out of sight, his
rage would cool as it always did. Always? Suddenly, uncomfortably, he found himself recalling
Rhaegar Targaryen. Fifteen years dead, yet Robert hates him as much
as ever. It was a disturbing notion . . . and there was the other
matter, the business with Catelyn and the dwarf that Yoren had
warned him of last night. That would come to light soon, as sure as
sunrise, and with the king in such a black fury . . . Robert might
not care a fig for Tyrion Lannister, but it would touch on his
pride, and there was no telling what the queen might do.
“It might be safest if I went on ahead,” he told
Poole. “I will take my daughters and a few guardsmen. The
rest of you can follow when you are ready. Inform Jory, but tell no
one else, and do nothing until the girls and I have gone. The
castle is full of eyes and ears, and I would rather my plans were
not known.”
“As you command, my lord.”
When he had gone, Eddard Stark went to the window and sat
brooding. Robert had left him no choice that he could see. He ought
to thank him. It would be good to return to Winterfell. He ought
never have left. His sons were waiting there. Perhaps he and
Catelyn would make a new son together when he returned, they were
not so old yet. And of late he had often found himself dreaming of
snow, of the deep quiet of the wolfswood at night.
And yet, the thought of leaving angered him as well. So much was
still undone. Robert and his council of cravens and flatterers
would beggar the realm if left unchecked . . . or, worse, sell it
to the Lannisters in payment of their loans. And the truth of Jon
Arryn’s death still eluded him. Oh, he had found a few
pieces, enough to convince him that Jon had indeed been murdered,
but that was no more than the spoor of an animal on the forest
floor. He had not sighted the beast itself yet, though he sensed it
was there, lurking, hidden, treacherous.
It struck him suddenly that he might return to Winterfell by
sea. Ned was no sailor, and ordinarily would have preferred the
kingsroad, but if he took ship he could stop at Dragonstone and
speak with Stannis Baratheon. Pycelle had sent a raven off across
the water, with a polite letter from Ned requesting Lord Stannis to
return to his seat on the small council. As yet, there had been no
reply, but the silence only deepened his suspicions. Lord Stannis
shared the secret Jon Arryn had died for, he was certain of it. The
truth he sought might very well be waiting for him on the ancient
island fortress of House Targaryen. And when you have it, what then? Some secrets are safer kept
hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those
you love and trust. Ned slid the dagger that Catelyn had brought
him out of the sheath on his belt. The Imp’s knife. Why would
the dwarf want Bran dead? To silence him, surely. Another secret,
or only a different strand of the same web?
Could Robert be part of it? He would not have thought so, but
once he would not have thought Robert could command the murder of
women and children either. Catelyn had tried to warn him. You knew
the man, she had said. The king is a stranger to you. The sooner he
was quit of King’s Landing, the better. If there was a ship
sailing north on the morrow, it would be well to be on it.
He summoned Vayon Poole again and sent him to the docks to make
inquiries, quietly but quickly. “Find me a fast ship with a
skilled captain,” he told the steward. “I care nothing
for the size of its cabins or the quality of its appointments, so
long as it is swift and safe. I wish to leave at once.”
Poole had no sooner taken his leave than Tomard announced a
visitor. “Lord Baelish to see you, m’lord.”
Ned was half-tempted to turn him away, but thought better of it.
He was not free yet; until he was, he must play their games.
“Show him in, Tom.”
Lord Petyr sauntered into the solar as if nothing had gone amiss
that morning. He wore a slashed velvet doublet in cream-and-silver,
a grey silk cloak trimmed with black fox, and his customary mocking
smile.
Ned greeted him coldly. “Might I ask the reason for this
visit, Lord Baelish?”
“I won’t detain you long, I’m on my way to
dine with Lady Tanda. Lamprey pie and roast suckling pig. She has
some thought to wed me to her younger daughter, so her table is
always astonishing. If truth be told, I’d sooner marry the
pig, but don’t tell her. I do love lamprey pie.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your eels, my
lord,” Ned said with icy disdain. “At the moment, I
cannot think of anyone whose company I desire less than
yours.”
“Oh, I’m certain if you put your mind to it, you
could come up with a few names. Varys, say. Cersei. Or Robert. His
Grace is most wroth with you. He went on about you at some length
after you took your leave of us this morning. The words insolence
and ingratitude came into it frequently, I seem to
recall.”
Ned did not honor that with a reply. Nor did he offer his guest
a seat, but Littlefinger took one anyway. “After you stormed
out, it was left to me to convince them not to hire the Faceless
Men,” he continued blithely. “Instead Varys will
quietly let it be known that we’ll make a lord of whoever
does in the Targaryen girl.”
Ned was disgusted. “So now we grant titles to
assassins.”
Littlefinger shrugged. “Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men
are expensive. If truth be told, I did the Targaryen girl more good
than you with all your talk of honor. Let some sellsword drunk on
visions of lordship try to kill her. Likely he’ll make a
botch of it, and afterward the Dothraki will be on their guard. If
we’d sent a Faceless Man after her, she’d be as good as
buried.”
Ned frowned. “You sit in council and talk of ugly women
and steel kisses, and now you expect me to believe that you tried
to protect the girl? How big a fool do you take me for?”
“Well, quite an enormous one, actually,” said
Littlefinger, laughing.
“Do you always find murder so amusing, Lord
Baelish?”
“It’s not murder I find amusing, Lord Stark,
it’s you. You rule like a man dancing on rotten ice. I
daresay you will make a noble splash. I believe I heard the first
crack this morning.”
“The first and last,” said Ned. “I’ve
had my fill.”
“When do you mean to return to Winterfell, my
lord?”
“As soon as I can. What concern is that of
yours?”
“None . . . but if perchance you’re still here come
evenfall, I’d be pleased to take you to this brothel your man
Jory has been searching for so ineffectually.” Littlefinger
smiled. “And I won’t even tell the Lady
Catelyn.”
Robert, I beg of you,” Ned pleaded,
“hear what you are saying. You are talking of murdering a
child.”
“The whore is pregnant!” The king’s fist
slammed down on the council table loud as a thunderclap. “I
warned you this would happen, Ned. Back in the barrowlands, I
warned you, but you did not care to hear it. Well, you’ll
hear it now. I want them dead, mother and child both, and that fool
Viserys as well. Is that plain enough for you? I want them
dead.”
The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that
they were somewhere else. No doubt they were wiser than he was.
Eddard Stark had seldom felt quite so alone. “You will
dishonor yourself forever if you do this.”
“Then let it be on my head, so long as it is done. I am
not so blind that I cannot see the shadow of the axe when it is
hanging over my own neck.”
“There is no axe,” Ned told his king. “Only
the shadow of a shadow, twenty years removed . . . if it exists at
all.”
“If?” Varys asked softly, wringing powdered hands
together. “My lord, you wrong me. Would I bring ties to king
and council?”
Ned looked at the eunuch coldly. “You would bring us the
whisperings of a traitor half a world away, my lord. Perhaps
Mormont is wrong. Perhaps he is lying.”
“Ser Jorah would not dare deceive me,” Varys said
with a sly smile. “Rely on it, my lord. The princess is with
child.”
“So you say. If you are wrong, we need not fear. If the
girl miscarries, we need not fear. If she births a daughter in
place of a son, we need not fear. If the babe dies in infancy, we
need not fear.”
“But if it is a boy?” Robert insisted. “If he
lives?”
“The narrow sea would still lie between us. I shall fear
the Dothraki the day they teach their horses to run on
water.”
The king took a swallow of wine and glowered at Ned across the
council table. “So you would counsel me to do nothing until
the dragonspawn has landed his army on my shores, is that
it?”
“This ‘dragonspawn’ is in his mother’s
belly,” Ned said. “Even Aegon did no conquering until
after he was weaned.”
“Gods! You are stubborn as an aurochs, Stark.” The
king looked around the council table. “Have the rest of you
mislaid your tongues? Will no one talk sense to this frozen-faced
fool?”
Varys gave the king an unctuous smile and laid a soft hand on
Ned’s sleeve. “I understand your qualms, Lord Eddard,
truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this grievous news to
council. It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing. Yet
we who presume to rule must do vile things for the good of the
realm, howevermuch it pains us.”
Lord Renly shrugged. “The matter seems simple enough to
me. We ought to have had Viserys and his sister killed years ago,
but His Grace my brother made the mistake of listening to Jon
Arryn.”
“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied.
“On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cut down a dozen good
men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us,
grievously wounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his
throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not kill a man for
loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to
tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.” He gave the king a long
cool look. “Would that man were here today.”
Robert had shame enough to blush. “It was not the
same,” he complained. “Ser Barristan was a knight of
the Kingsguard.”
“Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ned
knew he was pushing this well past the point of wisdom, yet he
could not keep silent. “Robert, I ask you, what did we rise
against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of
children?”
“To put an end to Targaryens!” the king growled.
“Your Grace, I never knew you to fear Rhaegar.” Ned
fought to keep the scorn out of his voice, and failed. “Have
the years so unmanned you that you tremble at the shadow of an
unborn child?”
Robert purpled. “No more, Ned,” he warned, pointing.
“Not another word. Have you forgotten who is king
here?”
“No, Your Grace,” Ned replied. “Have
you?”
“Enough!” the king bellowed. “I am sick of
talk. I’ll be done with this, or be damned. What say you
all?”
“She must be killed,” Lord Renly declared.
“We have no choice,” murmured Varys. “Sadly,
sadly . . . ”
Ser Barristan Selmy raised his pale blue eyes from the table and
said, “Your Grace, there is honor in facing an enemy on the
battlefield, but none in killing him in his mother’s womb.
Forgive me, but I must stand with Lord Eddard.”
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed
to take some minutes. “My order serves the realm, not the
ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King
Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask
you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How
many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their
mothers to perish on the end of a spear?” He stroked his
luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. “Is
it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now
so that tens of thousands might live?”
“Kinder,” Varys said. “Oh, well and truly
spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their
caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must
bleed.”
Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr
stifled a yawn. “When you find yourself in bed with an ugly
woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with
it,” he declared. “Waiting won’t make the maid
any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it.”
“Kiss her?” Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.
“A steel kiss,” said Littlefinger.
Robert turned to face his Hand. “Well, there it is, Ned.
You and Selmy stand alone on this matter. The only question that
remains is, who can we find to kill her?”
“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renly reminded
them.
“Desperately,” Varys said, “yet he craves life
even more. By now, the princess nears Vaes Dothrak, where it is
death to draw a blade. If I told you what the Dothraki would do to
the poor man who used one on a khaleesi, none of you would sleep
tonight.” He stroked a powdered cheek. “Now, poison . . . the tears of Lys, let us say. Khal Drogo need never know it was
not a natural death.”
Grand Maester Pycelle’s sleepy eyes flicked open. He
squinted suspiciously at the eunuch.
“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” the king
complained.
Ned had heard enough. “You send hired knives to kill a
fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?” He
pushed back his chair and stood. “Do it yourself, Robert. The
man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the
eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You
owe her that much at least.”
“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of
him as if he could barely contain his fury. “You mean it,
damn you.” He reached for the flagon of wine at his elbow,
found it empty, and flung it away to shatter against the wall.
“I am out of wine and out of patience. Enough of this. Just
have it done.”
“I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but
do not ask me to fix my seal to it.”
For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was
saying. Defiance was not a dish he tasted often. Slowly his face
changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept
up his neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at
Ned. “You are the King’s Hand, Lord Stark. You will do
as I command you, or I’ll find me a Hand who will.”
“I wish him every success.” Ned unfastened the heavy
clasp that clutched at the folds of his cloak, the ornate silver
hand that was his badge of office. He laid it on the table in front
of the king, saddened by the memory of the man who had pinned it on
him, the friend he had loved. “I thought you a better man
than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”
Robert’s face was purple. “Out,” he croaked,
choking on his rage. “Out, damn you, I’m done with you.
What are you waiting for? Go, run back to Winterfell. And make
certain I never look on your face again, or I swear, I’ll
have your head on a spike!”
Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could
feel Robert’s eyes on his back. As he strode from the council
chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. “On
Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men,” Grand
Maester Pycelle offered.
“Do you have any idea how costly they are?”
Littlefinger complained. “You could hire an army of common
sellswords for half the price, and that’s for a merchant. I
don’t dare think what they might ask for a
princess.”
The closing of the door behind him silenced the voices. Ser
Boros Blount was stationed outside the chamber, wearing the long
white cloak and armor of the Kingsguard. He gave Ned a quick,
curious glance from the corner of his eye, but asked no
questions.
The day felt heavy and oppressive as he crossed the bailey back
to the Tower of the Hand. He could feel the threat of rain in the
air. Ned would have welcomed it. It might have made him feel a
trifle less unclean. When he reached his solar, he summoned Vayon
Poole. The steward came at once. “You sent for me, my lord
Hand?”
“Hand no longer,” Ned told him. “The king and
I have quarreled. We shall be returning to Winterfell.”
“I shall begin making arrangements at once, my lord. We
will need a fortnight to ready everything for the
journey.”
“We may not have a fortnight. We may not have a day. The
king mentioned something about seeing my head on a spike.”
Ned frowned. He did not truly believe the king would harm him, not
Robert. He was angry now, but once Ned was safely out of sight, his
rage would cool as it always did. Always? Suddenly, uncomfortably, he found himself recalling
Rhaegar Targaryen. Fifteen years dead, yet Robert hates him as much
as ever. It was a disturbing notion . . . and there was the other
matter, the business with Catelyn and the dwarf that Yoren had
warned him of last night. That would come to light soon, as sure as
sunrise, and with the king in such a black fury . . . Robert might
not care a fig for Tyrion Lannister, but it would touch on his
pride, and there was no telling what the queen might do.
“It might be safest if I went on ahead,” he told
Poole. “I will take my daughters and a few guardsmen. The
rest of you can follow when you are ready. Inform Jory, but tell no
one else, and do nothing until the girls and I have gone. The
castle is full of eyes and ears, and I would rather my plans were
not known.”
“As you command, my lord.”
When he had gone, Eddard Stark went to the window and sat
brooding. Robert had left him no choice that he could see. He ought
to thank him. It would be good to return to Winterfell. He ought
never have left. His sons were waiting there. Perhaps he and
Catelyn would make a new son together when he returned, they were
not so old yet. And of late he had often found himself dreaming of
snow, of the deep quiet of the wolfswood at night.
And yet, the thought of leaving angered him as well. So much was
still undone. Robert and his council of cravens and flatterers
would beggar the realm if left unchecked . . . or, worse, sell it
to the Lannisters in payment of their loans. And the truth of Jon
Arryn’s death still eluded him. Oh, he had found a few
pieces, enough to convince him that Jon had indeed been murdered,
but that was no more than the spoor of an animal on the forest
floor. He had not sighted the beast itself yet, though he sensed it
was there, lurking, hidden, treacherous.
It struck him suddenly that he might return to Winterfell by
sea. Ned was no sailor, and ordinarily would have preferred the
kingsroad, but if he took ship he could stop at Dragonstone and
speak with Stannis Baratheon. Pycelle had sent a raven off across
the water, with a polite letter from Ned requesting Lord Stannis to
return to his seat on the small council. As yet, there had been no
reply, but the silence only deepened his suspicions. Lord Stannis
shared the secret Jon Arryn had died for, he was certain of it. The
truth he sought might very well be waiting for him on the ancient
island fortress of House Targaryen. And when you have it, what then? Some secrets are safer kept
hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those
you love and trust. Ned slid the dagger that Catelyn had brought
him out of the sheath on his belt. The Imp’s knife. Why would
the dwarf want Bran dead? To silence him, surely. Another secret,
or only a different strand of the same web?
Could Robert be part of it? He would not have thought so, but
once he would not have thought Robert could command the murder of
women and children either. Catelyn had tried to warn him. You knew
the man, she had said. The king is a stranger to you. The sooner he
was quit of King’s Landing, the better. If there was a ship
sailing north on the morrow, it would be well to be on it.
He summoned Vayon Poole again and sent him to the docks to make
inquiries, quietly but quickly. “Find me a fast ship with a
skilled captain,” he told the steward. “I care nothing
for the size of its cabins or the quality of its appointments, so
long as it is swift and safe. I wish to leave at once.”
Poole had no sooner taken his leave than Tomard announced a
visitor. “Lord Baelish to see you, m’lord.”
Ned was half-tempted to turn him away, but thought better of it.
He was not free yet; until he was, he must play their games.
“Show him in, Tom.”
Lord Petyr sauntered into the solar as if nothing had gone amiss
that morning. He wore a slashed velvet doublet in cream-and-silver,
a grey silk cloak trimmed with black fox, and his customary mocking
smile.
Ned greeted him coldly. “Might I ask the reason for this
visit, Lord Baelish?”
“I won’t detain you long, I’m on my way to
dine with Lady Tanda. Lamprey pie and roast suckling pig. She has
some thought to wed me to her younger daughter, so her table is
always astonishing. If truth be told, I’d sooner marry the
pig, but don’t tell her. I do love lamprey pie.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your eels, my
lord,” Ned said with icy disdain. “At the moment, I
cannot think of anyone whose company I desire less than
yours.”
“Oh, I’m certain if you put your mind to it, you
could come up with a few names. Varys, say. Cersei. Or Robert. His
Grace is most wroth with you. He went on about you at some length
after you took your leave of us this morning. The words insolence
and ingratitude came into it frequently, I seem to
recall.”
Ned did not honor that with a reply. Nor did he offer his guest
a seat, but Littlefinger took one anyway. “After you stormed
out, it was left to me to convince them not to hire the Faceless
Men,” he continued blithely. “Instead Varys will
quietly let it be known that we’ll make a lord of whoever
does in the Targaryen girl.”
Ned was disgusted. “So now we grant titles to
assassins.”
Littlefinger shrugged. “Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men
are expensive. If truth be told, I did the Targaryen girl more good
than you with all your talk of honor. Let some sellsword drunk on
visions of lordship try to kill her. Likely he’ll make a
botch of it, and afterward the Dothraki will be on their guard. If
we’d sent a Faceless Man after her, she’d be as good as
buried.”
Ned frowned. “You sit in council and talk of ugly women
and steel kisses, and now you expect me to believe that you tried
to protect the girl? How big a fool do you take me for?”
“Well, quite an enormous one, actually,” said
Littlefinger, laughing.
“Do you always find murder so amusing, Lord
Baelish?”
“It’s not murder I find amusing, Lord Stark,
it’s you. You rule like a man dancing on rotten ice. I
daresay you will make a noble splash. I believe I heard the first
crack this morning.”
“The first and last,” said Ned. “I’ve
had my fill.”
“When do you mean to return to Winterfell, my
lord?”
“As soon as I can. What concern is that of
yours?”
“None . . . but if perchance you’re still here come
evenfall, I’d be pleased to take you to this brothel your man
Jory has been searching for so ineffectually.” Littlefinger
smiled. “And I won’t even tell the Lady
Catelyn.”