I. THE RIVER RUNS COLD

A/N: Both titles reference "Over the Garden Wall" and are taken from "Wirt's theme"

The woman held the swaddled babe in her arms for Lyanna's inspection. Cloudy blue eyes peered up at her and the coal-black fuzz on the child's head, curling softly, reminded the lady of the house of her own husband's hair. There was little doubt about it, indeed. The child was Robert's. "And how long ago have you been delivered of the babe?"

"Tis not been a couple of full turns." That fit the timeline rather well. Lyanna offered a shallow nod. "Begging pardon, I've nothing to feed her with and the lord promised help."

Tall and straight as a spear, the woman watched Lyanna with her dark eyes. Her tightly bound hair fell upon one shoulder in one single golden coil. The colour was most common to House Lannister. Lyanna ought to have known her husband's stint into the Westerlands would only mean the begetting of yet another bastard.

She sighed softly. "Indeed, he would." Lyanna stood up from her seat and walked closer to the woman. She bent over the creature cradled in her arms and cooed at the child. "What a pretty girl." This was perhaps the fourth or fifth bastard Lyanna made the acquaintance of in her three years of marriage to Robert Baratheon.

Her own performance was not quite as stellar in that respect. Lyanna had given her husband one single child and even that one a disappointment to his father. "May I hold her?" she asked, her eyes still upon the babe.

The mother offered a nod and Lyanna took the girl into her own arms, rocking the infant gently. Ymme Lannister, member of a lower branch of House Lannister, had had the ill fate of attracting Robert's eye when he stood a guest to Tywin Lannister. Being that she'd been widowed recently and had returned to her Lannister kin, she had taken to keeping company with Cersei Lannister. It was that way that Robert came upon her.

For whatever reason, Ymme had not had the fortitude to see through Robert's sweet words to the despicable character beneath. And she had fallen to his seduction. In simpler words, Ymme had been beguiled by her lord husband, shortly after discovering that he'd left her with more than just a memory for the cold winter nights. And so she was delivered of a healthy babe not much later. The story was very similar to that of all of Robert's lovers. And the gods knew that they were many.

"My lady, Lord Robert's vow was that I could remain here for as long as it is needful." It was a test of sorts. A few of her husband's paramours had attempted it before. They tried to see how secure she was in her position.

Lyanna looked up from the child and offered the other woman a brittle smile. "I cannot go over my husband's word. It is for you to decide if you will or will not remain in my home."

Robert's romantic liaisons were regularly of short duration, as Lyanna had come to learn. Whatever lover he brought would remain for weeks or a few moon's turns within Storm's End, after which they were dismissed with a handful of silver. It usually fell to Lyanna to dispense the sums, as Robert simply left it to Maester Cressen to do, utterly uninterested in the fact that it was Lyanna who controlled the string purses.

Left to Robert, the keep would fall apart around their ears. The man hadn't a lick of sense when it came to coin and business. He spent more than he had, he was wild and reckless in the worst of ways, and he was utterly unconscious of it all.

"Then I take it my presence shan't be a burden upon you, good lady," Ymme continued. She held her hands out for the child and Lyanna relinquished her hold on the babe.

"Not at all." In fact, she would be only too pleased to have her here. It simply meant that Robert would keep away from her bedchamber. "I will have rooms prepared for you and your daughter then. You may leave."

Ymme curtsied, turned around and left, a smile upon her lips, certain that she had won.

In the back of her mind, however, Lyanna was quite amused at the whole matter. The higher the climb, the greater the fall, as it were. She had become some sort of matron, to be sure. And her family had had such hoped for her. Oddly fitting, their disappointment was one of Lyanna's balms.

Daughter of the most powerful Northerner lord, Lyanna had been born to Rickard Stark and his lady wife Lyarra. She'd grown up in Winterfell surrounded by servants and had kept company with her youngest brother for most of her life as before she could truly get to know them her oldest brother had been sent to foster away from home. It was natural that she preferred the company y of Benjen to that of Brandon or Ned, as it was simply that she knew Ben better. That was not to say that she wasn't close with her other brothers. Blood bound them all quite tightly.

Brothers aside, her status had afforded her many advantages in the face of existence. She'd had the best that education could offer, she'd always been treated courteously and she had never suffered any deprivation. There was only one thing she was asked in return and that was to further the standing of House Stark. Thus it was that she was given in marriage to a friend of her brother's by the name of Robert Baratheon.

Lyanna had never loved her husband. She had, at first, been charmed by his good looks, like so many others. Robert could be engaging when he tried to be. He was jovial and affectionate, the very best of hunters and quite strong. But what he lacked, in Lyanna's opinion at least, was a quality that involved character. Not pride, mind, but true character. Robert was concerned with himself first and foremost and what he wanted. Everything and everyone else came second. His wife too was included in this second category.

She would not have minded, of course, if he'd been sincere about the matter. But Robert was a hypocrite. He claimed to love her when he most certainly didn't. It was true that he'd been fascinated with her, and that she blamed on Ned's stories of her. It was also true that the man had thought himself enamoured in the first year of their marriage, due to the erroneous belief that he might mould her into a creature of his own making.

But Lyanna had never been particularly malleable. Adaptable was another matter altogether. Robert had been certain he was wedding a simpering enamoured girl. What he discovered was that winter roses had thorns of steel. He might not have made this discovery, however, had it not been for their son.

It could not be said that Lyanna had neglected her duty. She had birthed her husband an heir. Of course, there was the small matter of her not having carried fully to term and their son being daft, as Robert said whenever the discussion was kindled between them. At the beginning g of their marriage Robert had been content, thrilled even when she'd announced she was pregnant. He had been ecstatic when she gave birth to a boy and promptly had him named Jon, for Lord Arryn whom he had a strong bond with.

Trouble had not been far behind though. As Jon had grown, it was noticed that the child could not speak. Maester Cressen had tried all tricks of his trade to get the child to form even the easiest of words when it was time for him to speak. But nothing worked. Robert had been so much angered that he'd taken Jon up in his arms and shook him so hard the poor child has started weeping silently and it took Lyanna screaming like a wild creature for him to release the bawling toddler.

Maester Cressen had concluded that Jon was simple and could not be taught words. That had created quite a rift between spouses. Whereas Robert had been pleased with her before and exercised some discretion in his seeing other women, ever since he flaunted his companions before Lyanna rather shamelessly. Even more, he'd insisted that she give him another child. Her failure to do so only aggravated him further.

What would happen, she could not tell. Of late Robert had taken to his hunting trips with much fervour. That left Lyanna mostly alone, much to her delight. She could look after Jon and spend her days with little Renly, playing games. Those two were her second means of comfort.

Renly, though Robert's brother, was as different from her husband as the moon was from the sun. A child still, the youngest of the three Baratheon brothers was a companion to Jon and did not shun the child despite whatever ailed him. Lyanna could only be grateful to such a person. That was, mayhap, why she'd grown so attached to her good-brother.

No longer in the mood to entertain such thoughts, Lyanna left the small solar behind and walked down the stone halls to the nursery. There she was greeted by the sight of Renly struggling with his reading as Jon sat on the ground and peered at the older boy with an engrossed look upon his features. Renly floundered over one of the words and stuttered out the sounds a few times before he could make out the proper pronunciation.

As if sensing her eyes, the boys looked at her. Renly jumped to his feet and pulled Jon along. "I was reading to him about the Targaryen conquest." Lyanna smiled and nodded her head. "I think he liked it." He gazed down at Jon. "You do like it, do you not?" Jon's head bobbed slightly in response. "See?"

"I see." Lyanna entered fully into the room and sat down upon a chair, dismissing the septa that was sitting in a corner with her needlework. "May I listen to you reading as well, or shall you read only for Jon?"

"Of course you can," countered Renly. He pushed Jon towards her slightly and that encouragement seemed enough for her son to trot over to her and begin climbing upon her lap. Lyanna hoisted him up and Renly dragged his own chair closer to them. "So, Aegon had just left Dragonstone."

Robert's brother continued reading as Lyanna watched the two of them. Jon leaned back against her, grey eyes blinking every now and again. He truly seemed to like the story. If only he could speak. If only he could tell her that he truly did like the story.

Lyanna wondered, not for the first time, if this was some sort of punishment from the gods. It would be unfair of them, and she truly could not believe them so cruel as to punish a child for something he had no fault in. Thus convinced, her attention was returned to the exploits of Aegon and his two sisters.

Mayhap one day Jon would speak. Until then she would be patient, and she would try her best to encourage him. Whatever the maesters said, her son was not stupid. He could not be; not when a spark of intelligence shone brightly in his eyes.

"Did Harrenhal really burn down?" Renly interrupted himself. He looked intently at Lyanna. "You've been there before, have you not, good-sister?"

"Indeed, Harrenhal burned. A ruin it is. Grand, magnificent even, but a ruin." She took a moment to brush Jon's hair back from his face. "You might be able to convince your brother to take you there one day."

Harrenhal was quite a distance away. If good fortune was on her side, Robert might remain there for a few turns. One never knew, of course, when the gods would smile down upon them.

"Truly? Might Jon come along as well?"

A/N:*Ymme is actually a variant of Emma, as encountered in Old English.

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