Tags at the beginning of the story, and on AO3.
Edited: 20.01.2019
II.
Saying farewell to Ned the next morning was the only calm moment Robert had for the next few days. There were so many things that needed to be watched, that needed to be done. He wrote letter after letter, sometimes he had to confirm some numbers or a ledger, and he had to talk to the High Septon and others about his rise to the throne.
Then his spies found enough evidence to convict Pycelle and not just for opening the gates to the Lannister soldiers. Which meant luring him into a trap, waiting until he was right there and trying to free Tywin and then arrest him too. And now Robert needed to write to the Citadel that they needed a new Grand Maester, they would surely like that very much (not).
And every day Robert waited for some important messages from his brothers, from Ned, from Dragonstone or from Dorne.
He heard from Dragonstone first, they needed proof of his claims to not hurt them before they would ever consider his offer to return to the Red Keep.
Then from his brothers, who were coming to him – to King's Landing – after the siege was lifted, thank all the gods. His brothers were alive and were coming. But the Reach would need to pay for the suffering of his closest family. Another thing to plan and to organise.
Then from Doran who gave world that they would send an emissary to King's Landing. Robert hoped that Doran would not allow Oberyn to come. Or mayhaps... It would be good to have as many representatives of other lord paramounts and lord protectors as possible at court, for Robert's coronation and for Tywin's trial before that. Better to have them swear their oaths as soon as possible, if they decided to drag the whole process out... Oh, by the gods, that meant Robert had to write some more letters, fun.
After Robert had heard back from most of the great lords of the realm and message had been sent than Cersei and Tyrion Lannister were only a week or so away from King's Landing a letter came from Ned. Robert read it as fast as possible.
To King Robert,
Lyanna was at the Tower of Joy near the dornish border, we arrived only hours before she birthed a healthy son. Jaehaerys Targaryen, legitimate heir to Rhaegar Targaryen as Rhaegar set aside Elia and married Lyanna. The present members of the King's Guard (Dayne, Hightower, Whent) can swear to this. Lyanna did not survive the birthing bed, the Maester was able to give her a few more days with us, but she is dead since today. We will ride first to Starfall to acquire a nursemaid, then to King's Landing.
Your friend,
Ned
In smaller letters the sentence 'Hightower and some of your men ride directly to King's Landing.' was added to a corner of the letter.
Well fuck. Robert sat down, he would need some time to stomach that. He had hoped that the Maester would be able to save Lyanna. On the other hand, baby Jon – Jaehaerys – was alive and truly the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and the three King's Guard members were all alive. Robert had managed to save at least some people, which was something good, he supposed. And now he needed to write even more letters to announce the birth of Jaehaerys to the world.
Robert wondered how Jaehaerys would look like here, in a world where the family magic knew that Jaehaerys would be known to all as a member of the Targaryen family. Still more Stark than Targaryen? Unlikely, every trueborn Targaryen bore their Valyrian looks - Robert had consulted the book fairly early in this life, interested to know what was the same as canon, and what was different. And one key difference seemed to be that the family magic was stronger than in canon (if it existed there at all). No born member of a family would not look like their ancestors did (Cersei cuckolding her husband would never work - everybody would know).
He looked up as he had heard someone knock. "Come in." He called out. And saw that the Guards (not one of the King's Guard, not yet) stationed in his solar shifted, good! The realm may be more or less at peace, but danger was still there. Would always be there!
It was Jon Arryn. Hopefully this would go better than their last interactions…
"Jon, be welcome."
"Good day, Robert. Do you have time for me?"
Jon sounded… Normal, like he did in the Eyrie when he had to talk to him or Eddard about governing and managing a Holdfast and the surrounding land. Robert had had much more of them that Ned, as he was the heir to a Lord Paramountcy. Which reminded him, he would need to talk to Ned when he came back, in canon he had managed to rule to the North, but Robert still wanted to offer his help. Maybe they could develop a habit of writing letters to each other regularly? Ned was a dear and true friend, Robert would hate if they were to drift apart.
"Of course. What do you wish to discuss?"
"The coronation and the small council. I wanted to ask if you know already who will sit on it."
That was almost a neutral theme to speak about, good. And the papers were sitting on the top of that pile of papers…
"Well, I thought to hold the coronation on the first day of the new year. A new year, a new King. It should be enough time for every major lord to come and swear fealty too."
Jon seemed surprised by Robert's statement. Why was that a surprise to Jon? Robert felt out of his depth here, he had thought he got Jon. But now? Robert couldn't place Jon. Which was a dangerous thing… He grew up here, with that man… Was it that Robert was now in a place of power? The struggle of a father figure to accept that his son was an adult and capable of his own decisions?
"That sounds like a good idea. Two and a half moonturns to prepare for a coronation."
Jon became silent, obviously waiting for Robert to name the new hand and new members of the council. What he had planned there was more difficult to explain.
"I thought about making more than one council." Robert looked down (he had made bullet points!), if he wanted to explain his idea in detail he would need the help.
"Robert? You can't do that!"
"Jon?" Robert jerked his head up to look at Jon in surprise. But Jon was not looking at him, he was shaking his head with his brows furrowed.
"What next? Do you want to build a better smelling city out of marble? Or water Dorne through underground canals?"
What? Had he felt out of his depth before? Not in comparison to now! Robert knew that there was something huge he was missing, but what?
"Do you want my honest thoughts on that Jon?"
"Yes!" The fuck? Could Jon sound even more condescending and exasperated?
"That the rebellion even happened means that there need to be changes to the ruling system, and I will make those!" Robert began, speaking angrily and fast. He would not get interrupted by a mere Lord Paramount again, father figure or not!
"Your first suggestion is not worth anything. A good way to get rid of the stink in this city would be to repair the old canalisation. Some other measures will surely help too. And yes! I have plans for that, thanks to the Lannisters the city needs to be rebuilt in places. That is an opportunity I will take."
Seeing his guards having their hand on their swords – in preparation for what? – allowed Robert to calm down a bit and try to wrangle the anger in him back to a normal level.
"But I have never thought about your second suggestion… Is that even possible? Hmm… It would need to be the Torrentine, but why underground canals? Above ground is as good… Well, if that's important to you, Jon, I will send some Maesters to cartograph the region…"
Making Dorne (especially northern Dorne) a more productive region could have benefits. But if the crown was financing something like that all the other regions would need similar investments…
"All in all, that would be a project to be done in several years. Not now!"
"And I guess you won't be letting Tywin Lannister go?"
The fuck? Speaking with Jon was like speaking with a madman!
"I have said everything about that I needed or wanted to say. All Lannisters in King's Landing killed members of the royal family or sacked the capital illegally, for that they will die!"
Luckily for Robert's temper, that ended their talk.
This night Robert had a dream he was actually able to remember, a rarity in his life.
After the Dance we knew we must change, we had become too much like the Westerosi. Our family tearing itself apart, our dragons gone…
This is how one of the stories his mother and grandmother told him began. And there was another, he had dreamed of it too, which was only told to him by his mother, a more personal one, not one about Valyrian customs and culture 101 (as he had called those lessons and stories in his youth).
And then, after the Blackfires, we knew there must be a rule to deal with bastards of the family. That was when they remembered fully that there were other Valyrian houses in Westeros…
But why would he dream of those time now? What was he doing that his subconscious needed to churn through by giving him dreams?
Was he steering away from the course his ancestors set after those incidents? That couldn't be it… He was always conscious to remember the rules and plans of the family. But what then?
The arrival of Tyrion and Cersei Lannister was a relatively calm affair. They were both visibly shaken, and fearful of him, but they accepted Guest Right with no complain or plea to let their family go.
Robert had arranged for him to have some time to talk to them. Telling them that he would ensure that Cersei would not end up in a marriage to a man below her in rank. That Tyrion would become a ward of the crown until he was old enough to become Lord of Casterly Rock and Lord Paramount of the West, and that Robert would ensure that Tyrion have a marriage befitting of his rank too. And that they would lose a huge part of their family.
It was a long, difficult and exhausting talk. But it was a necessary one.
The next arrival was a much livelier affair. Robert's brother had finally come, together with Hightower and half the retinue Robert had sent to Dorne and 5'000 men of the army Robert had sent south as soon as he had been able to do so, to ensure that the Siege was lifted. Going to King's Landing with only a quarter of his army (and sending less men south than the Reach had amassed) had been a gamble on Robert's part, to tell the truth…
The Reachers were not coming, not yet, which was their luck, had they come… Robert did not know what he would have done to them, his brothers had not been touched by battle, but they were so thin… His little brothers looking so frail…
The feast Robert threw in their name calmed him down a little, seeing them eat even more.
The Reach would suffer none the less, how could he spin it? What would be too harsh? At the end they had surrendered, very late, but to an army smaller than theirs…
But today was not a day to think about that, this evening Robert would bask in the presence of his little brothers.
Later in the night, after the feast, when Robert was about to go into his sleeping chambers to finally going to sleep, a guard just had to give him a message that Hightower awaited Robert in his solar.
Robert sent the guard to Hightower to say he would come shortly. But first he would need to freshen up some, he had not drunken much, but he felt sweaty and his head was hot. And the talk with Hightower could go on for a long time.
"Lord Commander." Robert greeted Hightower not even half an hour later.
"Am I still the Lord Commander, Lord Robert?"
Lord Robert? Huh… Yes, this talk would take a long time, hopefully nobody would be dead in the end, neither from force nor from tiredness.
"Yes, you are. I have given you Guest Right and not taken your white cloak, nor your command. And I don't plan on doing that."
"Well, then Lord Robert, …" Hightower was enjoying that, wasn't he? "Let's talk."
Now all humour – a mask? – disappeared from Hightower's face.
"Do you swear that the letters in the chest you sent with Eddard Stark to us are not forgeries?"
"This I swear on the old gods and the new gods."
"Then it is true." Hightower looked crushed and Robert had the strangest urge to give him a hug.
"Aye, I asked Rhaegar even on the battlefield to declare against Aerys. Swore that I would follow him as my King, that I wouldn't let Lyanna get between us…"
"He was…" Hightower stopped talking.
"Yes."
Rhaegar as a person was very difficult to describe, on one hand he had made some really stupid decisions, such as stationing his best three men with Lyanna Stark when they were sorely needed elsewhere, but on the other hand… Magic was real in Westeros, Valyrian blood was magical blood, and Rhaegar had gotten the strongest dose of that in a long time. It had been… difficult to think of Rhaegar as anything other than a perfect candidate to sit on the Iron Throne, and not only because Rhaegar possessed some good qualities that could make a good King. Even now after his death the magic lingered. If you read between the lines, it became clear that Daemon Blackfire had possessed some of that magic too, and to know what that could do to someone even after source of the magic died, one only needed to look at Bittersteel. And Rhaegar had managed to dazzle many, if not most of the people he ever met…
Yeah, Robert would really have to become an official Targaryen if he wanted to rule Westeros. Even then some would want to rally for little Jaehaerys, but not as many as if he became King Robert of House Baratheon instead of House Targaryen.
"And now he's dead." Was Hightower going to cry?
Aw, fuck. Robert knew only one way to deal with grief – hugging, cuddling and crying in the arms of family and friends, however, that was not Westeros-approved. He grabbed for the pitcher filled with a hard liquor of a good quality (good for headaches after long days).
"Here." He pressed a full glass (elegant Myrish ware) into Hightower's hand. "To Rhaegar." Robert then said, lifting his own glass up.
"To Rhaegar!"
They sat quietly together for some time.
"He would have made a good King." Hightower finally said.
Maybe, maybe not. Robert thought to himself. Who knew what would have happened with Rhaegar on the throne. But he had been family and a young man robbed of his future though the dumb war his father started.
"A man I could proudly call cousin."
"You did." Hightower even managed to give half a smile to Robert. "Often and loudly if I remember correctly."
Robert huffed in fake indignation. So what? He had been young, and the magic had hit him hard… Robert smiled back.
"Those were better times, mother, father and Rhaegar still alive..." Until Aerys killed them all, more or less directly. His parents in Volantis – stabbed by assassins – and Rhaegar on the battlefield, through Robert's own hand…
He took a large sip of the alcohol, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on the burn in his mouth and throat, not in his eyes.
"I heard that Tywin Lannister is a prisoner now…" Thank the gods for Gerold Hightower.
"He had the gall to send his men to kill Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon, and then to present me their corpses as if they were fine gifts."
"He will die for that." Hightower was very angry, but not a hot-headed anger, good!
"Yes, there will be a trial for all of them." Should he? Could he?
"I will wait until all of the King's Guard is in fighting shape and only then hold the trials. All Lannister men are in complete isolation now, and each will have a trial of their own." Robert paused. "I hope you and your brothers will agree to fight them if it should come to a trial of combat…"
"It will be our greatest pleasure." Hightower agreed on the spot.
"Good. My plan is that shortly before their trial an informant will come to them. He will tell them that every one of the old King's Guard is dead and that there are rumours that I am unfit to fight. This impression won't be invalidated during the trial, I'm sure they will all want a trial by combat."
"Are they allowed to take the Black?"
"Tywin and Jaime aren't. The others may, their crimes are lesser, and did not involve the royal family directly."
They talked for a long time, as predicted, and Robert was glad. There weren't many who grieved for Rhaegar, for the person, who had not been perfect, but who had been his family.
