An Honourable Man
Ned Stark looked out of the window, down onto the square outside. Kings Landing was busy now, people coming and going, selling their wares, gossiping in groups. He had been in the capital for two months and already he was missing Winterfell. The northern lands maybe colder in climate than Kings Landing, but there was a natural warmth there, that seemed absent in the world he had recently entered.
Someone had described Kings Landing as a nest of vipers; and as he tried to work out whom he could trust, never had an observation felt more accurate. It seemed as if he had walked into a place of endless speculation, secrets and half-truths spewed on every wall. What was true? Whom could he rely on? After a couple of days he had felt totally lost, and even two months on it was no clearer.
He came from a place where a man, called a spade, a spade, where truth was paramount. He lived his life serving people, and doing his duty. Winterfell was a reflection of himself. Life there was hard but straight forward and true. He had brought his children up to respect everyone, no matter where they came from. Now he had brought Arya and Sansa to King's Landing, and already he was wondering if he had made a terrible mistake.
He had said yes to his friend the King out of loyalty. He had never really wanted to leave the north, and he had never wanted to become the King's Hand. But once asked despite Catelyn's protest, saying no was never an option. It was his duty and a man lived and died by his duty. If he was a man of true worth, then making sacrifices was what made you, what you were. Yet deep inside his mind was an unanswered question, and one he was being forced to ponder more than he wanted too.
As he thought about the people who dominated the royal court would it be possible to live by his convictions, in this cesspool of deceit and lies? He had always sworn that he would never comprise his principals, but suddenly it felt as if the world he now inhabited was becoming less and less clear, the rules more and more stretched. He had always sworn that he would stay true to his upbringing, but now the lines were becoming ever more blurred. In this palace of smoke and mirrors he no longer truly understood what he was seeing, and more important what he could do. If only Catelyn was by his side, how he missed her honesty and straight forward opinions.
There was a lack of honesty in the capital. It seemed that so many people hid behind smoke-screens, never quite saying what they meant. Varys, Bailesh for two, Ned could never quite work out what either of them was about. Both had come to him the last couple of days whispering things in his ears, sharing information yet neither could supply the answers that Ned was after. Couldn't or wouldn't? Ned maybe a blunt northerner but he knew when people were not being fully honest with him.
Yet in a way they were both playing their roles, as given to them by their paymasters. But what concerned Ned more was his old friend and comrade Robert Baratheon. The years as King had changed him, Ned could no longer deny it to himself. To begin with he had dismissed such thoughts, and merely put it down to the ways of the court. But as he had got down to business, checked the books, Ned knew there was something stinking at the heart of King's Landing. He also realized his friend now cared less about duty and more about taking advantage of what was available. He had grown fat on the excess of his position.
His pride had been crushed, he was surrounded by spies and plotters. He was stuck in an unhappy marriage with a wife Cersei whom he had never loved. He had allowed the once proud capital to become a place of intrigue, and let its coffers run dry. It felt as if he no longer cared enough, to even be bothered, beyond the next tournament or drinking session that he took part in. It truly saddened Ned, to see his old friend so truly beaten down, the life completely drained from him. But worse was the indifference to how people saw him. As he shouted and whored his way from one day to the next, Ned could only reflect on the young man he had once been. He had been a man so full of life, and while he had always lived on the edge, it was Robert who had led the rebellion and taken on the Mad King.
But now he was a shadow of what he had once been. He had grown bored and spoilt and allowed the Kingdom to become corrupted. For Ned he struggled to reconcile just how he fitted into this surly place. All of a sudden he was forced to think the unthinkable to go against the very principles that he had always held so dear. The more he stayed in Kings Landing the more he realized he was now stuck in a maze, from which there was no obvious way out. He was suddenly being forced to comprise on his own moral code, as he struggled to keep the Kingdom upright and operating. Being forced to work with people whose aims and ambitions he had no clear idea about.
In doing so he could feel himself merging into the deceit that surrounded him. As he watched the people come and go outside, he reflected on a time of more simplicity. In a time when a man's word was his honour and you did the right thing, for the right reason. But now he struggled to see through people's whispers, they would tell him one thing, then another, and somehow he had to cut through what was the truth and what were the lies. It was enough to make him want to pack his bags, and take his girls back northwards.
Yet that did not take into account the one quality he possessed deep inside himself, and that was his stubbornness. He would not let the lies get the better of him. For as long as he remained in the capital he would stay determined to get to the bottom of what the whisperers were telling him, whatever the cost to himself. For he realized the one thing he had through everything, was his honour and integrity. He was determined to stay true to it, otherwise he knew he was no better than the rest of them.
