When the knock came on Eddard Stark's door, he knew who it was at once. The height could only be one of his children; while the knock would only come from one of them. He stood and opened the door for his eldest son.
A sturdy, handsome boy, Robb Stark's mop of auburn hair covered his mother's eyes. His jaw and his nose, though, where unquestionably Stark. Today he looked it, too – distant, concerned, and ever so serious. The boy was almost eight.
Ned smiled. "What is it?"
"It's-" Robb's hands twisted over each other and he fidgeted. "I'm sorry for interrupting. But I had a question…"
"You're not interrupting anything," Ned told him, almost amused, but worried, too. This level of uneasiness was unusual in his eldest, who already had the self-assured gait and bearing that would serve him when he was older. "Sit down, what's your question?"
"I thought you would know," Robb said in a rush. "If maybe – Theon said that if someone killed someone they'd be killed. As punishment."
Ned almost winced. Theon Greyjoy was only a few years older than Robb, but seemed to have already grown into the notorious heritage of his house. He hoped Robb could eventually be a better influence on the boy, but thus far it had mostly been this way – Theon telling the younger Robb stories, at least partly, Ned suspected, to horrify him. (The vividly told one about a kraken that crawled onto land and devoured wolf pups in their beds had given Robb nightmares for a week.)
"That is – a crude way of putting it, but true," he said, gently.
Robb frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Why not?" Ned asked, patiently, knowing very well why not, as he had asked the same question, once, and received what he had no doubt was nearly the same answer. He was not surprised.
"If they killed someone and you're killing them, doesn't that mean you killed someone and have to be killed, too?"
"No," said Ned, gently. "Because when someone has murdered, and they're brought to justice, it's not killing, it's an execution. It's different."
Robb frowned, struggling with that. "They're still dead," he concluded, eventually.
"Think of it this way," Ned told him, patiently. "If someone killed one person, they might go and kill another one, right? And maybe others, too? So when the law executes them, they're stopping the potential deaths of other people by cutting it off at the source. And it's fair. The person took another's life; so they have their life taken from them."
Robb struggled with that concept even more, his small face screwed up in concentration. "So it's like – stopping a rot from becoming worse by killing part of the plant?"
"Not exactly," Ned said, with a wince. "We're talking people. Not plants. And it's not just a matter of stopping a problem. It also has a lot to do with justice."
Robb's eyes widened as though his father had said some magic word. "Justice. What's that mean?"
"Fairness," Ned said, carefully. "Rightness. Judgment that is cast with consideration and reason – and, yes, mercy."
"Theon says mercy is for the weak," Robb said, uncertainly. Ned grimaced.
"Not everything Theon says is right. He was raised in a very different place than this." He paused. "Do you understand, though, Robb?"
He frowned, thinking again. "Yes," he said slowly, eventually. "I think so. It's not just – it's not just killing people. It has to be fair. Justice."
Eddard Starl relaxed. "Yes. Justice."