Eddard 2
The king did not come out to greet Father and his party. This was just as well. In fact, when Ned saw the bald head and round figure of Lord Owen Merryweather, the Hand of the King, advancing towards them at the head of a small group of guards and attendants, he sighed with great relief. They were conducted inside the Keep, into the throne hall, and the guests were offered bread and salt. Right now there was no sense of immediate danger.
Lord Merryweather offered to host them in the Tower of the Hand, as they were only a small party, and there was plenty of room there. When he made a motion to include Ned and Lyanna among those who were to come with him, Rhaegar stepped up to the man and effectively cut them off from the Stark party, making it clear they remained his own guests.
"And how shall we get them all together for council?" – asked Lya when they were back in Prince Rhaegar's snug music room. The prince had fitted an inner windowless closet with carpets and thick padding on the walls, so he could play and sing without being heard by chance people. So naturally they frequented this room when they wanted to talk about matters such as this.
Lamps and candles were filling the room with pleasant though a little ghostly golden sheen (after all, the time outside was approaching midday). The strain and hurt of meeting their father this morning seemed to have stayed somewhere out there, in the courtyards, on the wharf… Ned sat back and marveled at the ease and purposefulness of his sister, who looked as if she was never assaulted with their kinsmen's accusing glances. But perhaps that was no wonder, since she was being absolved of those scathing glances by the light of Prince Rhaegar's rapt shining eyes that were taking in her every movement.
"This is exactly the question," the prince rejoined.
They sat in silence for a while. Then Ned asked:
"Robert and Lord Arryn are due to arrive any day, are they?"
"True," said the prince.
"I have just thought of something. When I ate breakfast at Wymund's inn, the old Wymund placed me at the most shady table in the corner and advised me to keep my hood down over my face – so I was in the best position to look around. And I noted that the inn is frequented by smugglers: it's not as if they wore smuggler badges, but from the way some of the customers greeted each other and kept together and exchanged bits of gibberish as smugglers do, I collected as much."
Lya perked up her ears and urged him on with impatient nods that plainly said – so? What of that?
"I thought now: what if we engage a smuggler ship to intercept Lord Arryn? If we pay them enough, I believe they can also conduct him and the rest of us to a place that smugglers use – some place outside the city, where we can keep council away from the Spider's nets."
Both of his friends took this proposal to heart and their faces lit up with seeing a way out of the difficulty.
"This might very well work," said Prince Rhaegar, "especially since I have known Wymund for a long time, he trusts me, and the smugglers trust him."
This plan, once accepted, had to be immediately acted upon. But then, Ned wondered aloud, how would they arrange speaking to Wymund without anyone catching the wind of it?
The prince said, with the satisfied air of someone who has a solution up his sleeve:
"Don't be dismayed, Ser Eddard, I am a Targaryen, born and bred in the Red Keep. There is a veritable labyrinth of secret corridors and underground tunnels. Some of them lead to quite unbelievable locations in the city and outside of it."
Lya seemed a little taken aback.
"Will we need to go underground?"
The prince turned to her, full of concern:
"Do tunnels make you uncomfortable, love?"
She blushed and admitted that underground hollows were not a place she would choose for a pleasure walk.
Ned confirmed:
"Yes, my prince, Lya has detested the vaults and tunnels at Winterfell ever since she was a child."
"Let's see what we can do," said Rhaegar. "But what a lovely pet name it is, Lya. Can I call you that too, wife?" – he giggled.
Lyanna snorted haughtily:
"As it please Your Grace." Then, after a pause, she giggled too – "No, of course I won't mind. Just that I will feel you are like a brother to me, and that might be confusing."
They packed some necessities, a supply of torches, and started on their way at once – having notified only Lord Commander Gerold, who was, as always, not far away and easy to find.
After they entered a side door in one of the underground dungeon passages, they passed a vault with nondescript forgotten tombs, at the end of which there was another door – or should it be called a hole, overhung with beard-like mops of tree roots. How could live roots have gotten down here, Ned wondered, aren't we deep in the stone bowels of the Red Keep? As if having heard his thought in this dark, damp silence, Prince Rhaegar whispered:
"We have struck out south from under the citadel, this burrow leads to the far end of the hill slope."
Ned felt a momentary dizziness, having to completely readjust his sense of where they were and where they were heading. His sense of direction had definitely deserted him a while ago without taking leave. He held Lyanna's left hand, and her right hand was enclosed in the prince's palm. She was quiet and breathed evenly, but Ned could feel the blankness of fear blotting out her mind, making it as still as the silence surrounding them. In this oppressive hush, Prince Rhaegar's words that turned him around and set him right again on the map felt like a firm, confident touch of a warm hand.
The prince parted the dirty curtain of roots and felt for something that must have been a lock – or perhaps merely a handle.
"Do we need a key, my prince?" – Ned asked.
The other man only frowned and pressed his forefinger to his lips. Then he closed his eyes, evidently in a strenuous effort to recall something – and then let go of Lya's hand, gave his torch to her to hold, and buried himself completely in the mess of roots – face, shoulders and all, applying both his open palms to the door in front of his chest. Then he started chanting something in the ancient tongue of Valyria. An immeasurably strange, unearthly (or rather, deeply earthly), hoarse, strangely heating tune. The damp air started growing perceptibly warmer. The prince's song was now redoubled with groaning, rumbling and creaking of stone. It was impossible, but the door started glowing with grim dark red light, as if it was turning into lava. Ned looked at his sister from the corner of his eye – was she about to faint? But she no longer looked oppressed with fear. What her husband turned out capable of doing excited her liveliest curiosity and wonder.
They would never understand how, but the door seemed to have melted behind the roots, and then the roots themselves disappeared into darkness.
They passed through the opening, all three holding hands again. There was nothing remarkable beyond the threshold. Just a rough narrow tunnel cut in the rock. Ned was dying of curiosity – what door was that? Would it be restored to its place behind them, or did it disappear forever? What sorcery did the prince use, and who taught him that? But his lips were like a stone door themselves, none of such questions could possible pass them while he was following Prince Rhaegar through the darkness.
Very soon, Ned lost count of time. He tried counting his steps, but his mind kept drifting off, and he had to start over again. His sister seemed to be walking in a kind of reverie, he wasn't even sure she had her eyes open. There would be little need of that, in any case – the floor of the tunnel was quite smooth, and she was conducted safely between the two of her companions.
At some point they arrived at a fork, and something in his mind, some barely present point of alertness, would question Prince Rhaegar's total lack of any hesitation or pause before he took the left turn. But it was so sweet to watch the glow of the torch fire in the prince's hand. Something ineffably different there was in its color and shape, like living rubies, not like the smudgy, smoky orange of tar fire.
Maybe they walked an hour, maybe a whole day and night. But eventually the prince stopped: there was another stone door, just like the first, in front of them. Only this time nothing concealed it – its vertical stone panes were in plain view. It was hard to tell if their pattern of rough stone facets was natural or the work of human hands. The prince seemed confident, putting his right hand into the barely visible depression in the stone at the level where, if another person stood in front of him, their heart would have been. The door seemed to tremble with joy and recognition, and its panes parted with relief.
Brilliant blue light assaulted their eyes like a cavalry attack.
They stepped out into a spacious white limestone cave that opened onto the sea. It was still midday – but now Ned felt a grievous uncertainty sucking at his heart, whether it was the same day or the next.
When their eyes got over the first shock of light, he asked:
"What is this wonderful place, my prince?"
Rhaegar was slow to answer.
"Something has happened to me, friend. Something that I could never imagine or think possible before I lived through it."
Both Ned and Lyanna were now looking at him speechless. He motioned for them to sit down.
"It seems that Maegor's spells have recognized me – although I cannot say that I quite recognize them. I did read about the dragon magic woven into the foundations of the Keep. But I never imagined anyone knew the actual spells any more. Least of all me."
Lyanna said, uplifted with enthusiasm:
"So are you the first of the new Targaryen magicians now?"
Rhaegar chuckled doubtfully:
"I don't feel anything of the sort. Although I cannot but admit that the old fiery earth has taken us just to where I wanted to go, bypassing the mediation of old Wymund."
"Are we in a smugglers' haunt?" – Ned asked, overflowing with wonder. – "But how do you – how do we know?"
The prince smiled:
"I know first of all because I feel that we have been led to where we need to arrive. But also – look there, on the wall above your head."
Ned jumped up and peered at the cave's chalky wall. At first he saw nothing.
"Feel it with your fingers just there, at the level of your navel," – Rhaegar suggested. Ned looked down, felt the wall's surface for anything unusual – and lo and behold, a relief of a nice full head of garlic was cut out in the limestone. The color and the texture were quite believable, as if the person who cut it wanted to say something beyond making a secret signal to fellow smugglers. Perhaps a joke?
"How on earth do they expect each other to notice these signs?" – he grumbled.
"Oh, I suppose, if you know what to look for, and where…" – the prince laughed. Lyanna laughed too, got up and crouched by Ned's side to appreciate the unnamed smuggler's artwork – now she was finally unfreezing from her underground stupor, and looked and sounded quite herself again.
And as her proper regular self, she was more alert than both of the men together: she motioned to them to shut up and fell to listening intently to something they soon heard too: a faint splash of oars.
Voicelessly, just moving her lips, she whispered:
"They heard us."
Rhaegar nodded, pointing at the opening of the cave and the flatness of waters with his open palm, as if to say – all noises from here spread over the water like from the mouth of a trumpet. Then he did something Ned expected least: walked to the mouth of the cave, took off his scarlet-and-black doublet and started waving it in the direction of the approaching boat.
Half an hour later they were sitting around a smokeless fire, lit in a sort of an open stove, with a pot of fish stew mounted on top of it. The stuff that burned in the stove Ned had never heard about nor seen before: Roro Uhoris, the cheerful purple-bearded Tyroshi captain, procured it from the deserted islands just off the edge of the cursed Smoking Sea of Valyria. The fuel was solid but soft, you could scratch it with your fingernail like soap, although it was lighter in weight and not at all sleek; its color was somewhat like butter gone greasy, only whiter. The smuggler captain gave Ned a piece to hold and marvel at, but promptly took it back, saying that this was his secret white coal.
The prince knew Roro from the times he worked in the King's custom house, and Roro owed him a favor or two. (Although how Rhaegar knew that it was his acquaintance and not any odd smuggler or spy steering his ship towards the secret cave – Ned still didn't understand, and probably never would).
The plan they hatched was simple and obvious. Roro would station his ship to the north-east of a little rocky island visible from the cave, to see from afar when Lord Arryn's ship entered Blackwater Bay. (Their cave was situated in the cliffs of the northwestern bank of the bay, a few miles short of Rosby yet out of view of Dragonstone). Ned knew that Lord Arryn always traveled by Seagull, a swift tradesman's galley, whose owner coordinated supplies to the Eyrie in the port of Gulltown. So chances were it would be Seagull this time as well. Luckily, it was painted blue and white, so it would be easy for the smugglers to recognize.
However, it was also of necessity that the rest of the lords come for the council were notified and conveyed to assemble here in the cave.
If they had time to wait till nightfall, then Roro could send one of his men to the city. Yet if they waited, they might not manage to convey everyone here by dawn – so somebody had to take a boat and row to King's Landing, there to pass the message for the lords through the smugglers' secret net of whispers. (Not only Varys the Spider had such a net, it turned out). Ned said impulsively:
"Of course I will go."
But Roro squinted at him and said:
"How well do they know your face in the city?"
Rhaegar assented:
"Surely, Ser Eddard, a lot of people can recognize you."
Lyanna said:
"Of course it's me who should go. I will disguise myself as a fisherwoman – who will suspect any harm from me?"
This was of course dangerous – but what other options did they have?
The Tyroshi captain made a bow with his head to Lyanna (this was all he could do in the way of a bow, sitting cross-legged on the white dust of the cave's floor):
"Princess, you do have some sense – and some courage. That's what I'm thinking too: you are the only one among us here who can get this done. We have some rags and fishing nets on Swallow that will suit you fine for this purpose, and you will have our emergency boat."
This project made Ned extremely anxious for his little sister.
"But Lya, have you ever rowed a boat? Especially at sea? How will you find your way to King's Landing, if you never traveled along these shores?"
Lyanna laughed:
"Do you take me for a halfwit, brother? The good captain will explain me the way – will you, ser?" (Roro nodded emphatically). "And don't you remember me and Benjen went rowing when we visited in Oldtown?"
"Well, there you beat me" – Ned joined in her banter uneasily.
"Don't you worry, ser," – Roro reassured him, - "I will also tell her exactly who to ask for, and what to say to him. She need not even enter the city – it is enough to talk to one of our people in the shoreline tenements."
When the splashes of Lyanna's paddles could no longer be heard, the prince put his hand on Ned's shoulder.
"Do you think we are ready for the passage back into the Keep?"
Ned looked at him, unsure of what he heard:
"But why would we need to go back there?"
"You see, Ser Eddard, the smugglers' secret network, praiseworthy as it is, does not extend into the King's residence, to the best of my knowledge."
Ned was overwhelmed with embarrassment. He felt a hot rush of blood to his face, and looked away for a few moments.
"Forgive me, my prince. I don't know what I was thinking of. Of course we must go back and notify my father and whoever else might have arrived in the meantime. What could be more obvious."
Now that Lyanna was not with them, it was he, all of a sudden, who feared dark tunnels and needed to be held by the hand.
Rhaegar looked into his eyes, patiently and intently, touching his arm above the elbow:
"There is no shame in not liking sorcery for an underground guide," – he smiled. – "Especially sorcery that surprises the sorcerer himself. But I do feel the ground is talking to me still. I don't know how long this will last, but at least I hope it can take us back to the Keep. My dear Ned – can I call you that? We are family now, after all. I would gladly leave you to wait here in peace until we all assembled. But I'm afraid I will not be able to bring your kin here, if I talk to them all on my own."
"Yes, my prince. Of course. And you may call me as your heart is disposed to."
Rhaegar's face beamed with great happiness, and he embraced Ned so cordially that it felt like coming home after long months of wandering abroad.
The passage back felt easier for Ned – both because he knew what to expect, and because his feelings towards the man he followed were so much clearer and warmer than they were just a few hours ago. Clearer – but not like anything he had known before. This was not how he felt towards his brothers – nor his friends. Not even Robert. Remembering Robert was an unwelcome intrusion, and he wanted to chase it away. No, with Robert he never felt this welcome. How could he put it into words… All the unmeasurable, stretching, pulsating time of their passage through the earth's most secret inner places, his eyes fed off the living rubies of the prince's torch, and his mind spun garlands of words that enchanted and transfixed him more than the fiery spells.
It was not only that Prince Rhaegar was so fascinating to contemplate, like a city built on all sides of a hill. Not only that he was full of surprises, and yet Ned was sure these surprises would never be malicious. The most binding and captivating thing about the prince was that he was interested in Ned for his own sake.
It's not as if Ned wasn't familiar with the feeling of being loved or cared about. His parents loved him, and his siblings (some of them, in any case!), and his friends. Yet his father, let's say – he loved him as a son he could be proud of, most of the time. So his love shaped Ned in a certain direction. Or Lyanna: she assumed she knew him completely, and relied on him pretty much without reserve – which was wonderful and gave him a sense of having a place in the world – but it was a place in a very specific and unchanging capacity. And with Robert… No, at least his new experience now allowed him to see that he didn't lose all that much by not being Robert's closest friend any more. With Robert, Ned was only allowed to be his best friend because he was always ready to listen and admire, and follow, and accommodate, and console. It was in this and no other capacity that he was dear to Robert.
With Rhaegar, he was at first not sure what the man expected of him. Even at their first memorable meeting at Harrenhal – Ned now remembered – there was this feeling of intense, deeply penetrating personal interest on Rhaegar's part, which he didn't know then how to place and therefore shoved it out of sight, into the back of his mind. And now, during the time they had to spend closely together, Rhaegar had asked him so many questions that nothing obliged him to ask – about Ned's past and present opinions, thoughts, feelings and dreams – that Ned was beginning to understand himself much better than before. His life was beginning to cohere into a story that made some sort of sense a whole.
Rhaegar was a friend of his mind. And if other loves and attachments were more like hunger that would be occasionally satisfied and then renewed, this one was more like coming to know an overflowing, subtle, new degree of satisfaction in one's mind, in one's eyes, in one's heart. And he didn't understand how he could live all his life not having such a friend.
They emerged from a side door into the familiar corridor leading out into the court where the Tower of the Hand faced the prince's quarters with its main entrance. It was dark by now, the night just began; about eight hours altogether had passed since they had left the Keep with Lyanna. Once they stepped into the court, Ned's uncle Gerold met them outside the door, silent, but with his face lit up with eagerness to know where they have been, how successful it was, and what next. The three of them hurried back to the music room, where Rhaegar briefed them on the disposition and further plan like a seasoned field commander.
The king is still waiting for the lords Arryn and Baratheon to arrive, and will not act on whatever plan he is hatching until then. So they need to gather everyone in a secret place they have secured, up the coast of Blackwater Bay, and arrive at an urgent decision by tomorrow's night. Princess Lyanna is taking care of informing the lords Lannister and Tully, lodged in the city. The Lord Commander Hightower will speak to Lord Tyrell, who is staying close to the king's quarters – both because his appearance there will arouse no suspicion, and because of his informal acquaintance with Mace Tyrell. He is to be brought to the prince's quarters. Ser Eddard and himself will go and speak with Lord Stark.
"We must act right now – do I get it right, Your Grace?" – asked Uncle Hightower.
"Yes, Lord Commander, time is of essence."
Uncle Hightower bowed and left.
In spite of the late hour, they were admitted into Ned's father's improvised reception room immediately. Well, on second thought Ned was surprised that it surprised him – after all, had they been at Winterfell, he would have taken it completely for granted that he can talk to his father when he needed to. But of course things were different now, and how they stood lately now came back to weigh upon his with its full oppressiveness, like the memory of a recent loss upon waking up from sleep.
Father stalked out with a heavy gait, looking bone tired, as if he had been roused when just starting to fall asleep. He looked at the two of them with pain and confusion in his eyes. After a few moments of uneasy silence he bid them good evening.
Prince Rhaegar was the first to respond, mercifully – but also appropriately, as this was right for him to do.
"Lord Stark, we beg your pardon for such an untimely intrusion. I am truly sorry to disturb your rest."
"I trust it must be an important matter that brings you here, Your Grace," – Ned's father grumbled.
"Unfortunately, it is, Lord Rickard. I believe you and all of our guests in mortal danger."
And Rhaegar explained, briefly yet compellingly, why they must all urgently gather for an assembly outside the walls of the Red Keep.
"Of course, Your Grace. I will come. How many attendants can I bring with me?"
Rhaegar paused for a moment.
"You are right to ask, Lord Stark. The matters to be discussed in the assembly are of such sensitive nature that it is best to keep them completely secret. But on second thought, we may station your and other high lords' attendants as guards outside the place. Not only that it will be acceptable, it will be also safer so."
Father motioned assent with his head and eyes. Then he looked up at Ned, and repeated the same nod of silent assent and approval.
9
