Word in the North was spreading all over now. Many of the Northerner civilians started to gather inside Winterfell to await the arrival of King Robert I Baratheon of House Baratheon, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. Inside a chamber, Jeren Hill, Domeric Snow, Jon Snow, Robb Stark, and Theon Greyjoy were all getting dressed and ready to the king's arrival.
"So what year were you born?" Theon asked Jeren.
"I was born the same year as Robb Stark and Jon Snow," Jeren answered his question. "Although, I look a little younger and you lot look a little older than me."
"Good one," Jon remarked with a bit of laughter.
"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make a joke out of that," Jeren apologized. "So please forgive me."
"None taken, Jeren," Robb said.
"So where's your son now, Robb?" Jeren asked.
"Getting ready upstairs," Robb answered. "His mother Jeyne will come by in a few days to take him on a trip to the Riverlands."
"What happened between you and your wife?" Domeric asked.
"Domeric!" Jeren raised his voice a bit, not pleased by that question.
"Its alright Jeren, he deserves to know," Robb said. "Jeyne and I married without my father and Lord Gawen's consent. Our marriage only lasted for almost a year when Lord Gawen learned of this and was furious. Before we were separated, she was pregnant and gave birth to a son. At my father's command, I had to send her back, but we kept the child. When she returned, she was punished, but her father would grant permission that she would only visit Edward and take him on adventures only. We were warned that she and I would never see each other. If she stayed here for too long, then the Westerlings would marshall an army and a war would erupt."
"And that's why he named his son Edward, closely resembling his grandfather's name," Jeren added and gave Robb a nod. "He will be the next ruling heir of Winterfell and Warden of the North."
"Aye, he will be," Jon chuckled.
"You should be proud of your nephew Jon," Jeren smiled.
"Don't say that he's my nephew Jeren cause I'm not a Stark," Jon corrected.
"But your father is Ned Stark and that really does make you an uncle," Jeren corrected. "C'mon Jon, get your head together and think of yourself as a member of the family. You may be a natural son and one day, I would like to see you with the Stark name. You should earn it, my friend."
"Has your father ever had you legitimized?" Theon teased. "Why are you still a Hill then?"
"It takes time, Theon, so I would suggest you watch it," Jeren warned him with a glare. "Besides how would it feel if you were born as a natural son and how others would treat ya?"
"Jeren's right, you shouldn't be teasing someone who is baseborn," Jon agreed. "Espically Domeric, here."
"Aye," Domeric nodded.
"Domeric's a good lad, its why I'm teaching him," Jeren smiled as he puts his shirt on. "Like I said seconds ago, it takes time for an illegitimate child to be legitimized by either their mothers or fathers."
"You so eager to earn the Lannister surname?" Robb asked.
"I'm patient Robb, and I can wait even longer," Jeren answered with a chuckle.
"Your a good lad, Jeren," Robb admired him. "Gonna miss you."
"Aye, I will," Jeren sighed. "But my father is coming, so I should give him a good greeting before I go home."
"I hear that your father is quite short as a child," Theon joked.
"Theon, that is twice that I'm warning you!" Jeren exclaimed. "If you continue to make fun of my father..."
"Enough!" Robb raised his voice, trying to stop a fight between them. "Both of you!"
"Jeren, can I ask you something?" Domeric asked.
"Say it if its not an insult or a compliment," Jeren insisted.
"Is it true that Prince Joffrey is trouble?" Domeric asked him that.
"He's a savage little fella," Jeren described him and deeply sighed. "And its not someone I prefer to see as a king."
From the stronghold's gates, the King's Road wends its way to the horizon - where tiny specks of red and gold appear, barely visible. Very slowly, they grow larger. The king's party was approaching.
Brandon Stark sees them from his perch high atop a castle wall and clambers nimbly down to tell everyone. Bran climbs down the side of the tower, his hands and feet finding purchase on its jutting stones with a monkey's unthinking agility. Climbing is as natural to him as studying is onerous. He smiles as he makes his way toward the ground in record time, very pleased with himself. That was when his mother yanks him off the stones, lowers him to the ground, and sternly waits for an explanation.
"Mother, I was," Bran tried to explain.
"You were bored with your lesson so you decided to climb the castle walls, even though I've forbidden it two hundred times," Catelyn reminded him.
"I saw the king," Bran reported. "He's got hundreds of people!"
"Brandon, I want you to promise me: No more climbing... promise," Catelyn said.
Bran looks at his feet before gazing up at her solemnly. "I promise."
Catelyn leans over to look her son dead in the eye. "You know what?"
"What?" Bran gulped.
"You always look at your feet before you lie," Catelyn grinned.
Despite Bran's best efforts, his mouth stretches into a smile, and a chuffing laugh escapes from behind it. Catelyn smiles, unable to help herself. She sees that his hands, clothes and bare feet are filthy from the climb down.
"Go on, clean yourself up," Catelyn ordered. "The king will be here soon." Then she turns to Rickon. "Rickon, run and find your father. Tell him the king is close."
The king's party pours through the gates of Winterfell in a river of gold, silver and steel, one hundred strong. Over their heads, a dozen golden banners whip in the wind, emblazoned with the crowned stag of House Baratheon.
At the far end of the yard, Ned's face betrays nothing as he watches the King's party approach with his family beside him. As he waited, he was joined by his wife Catelyn Tully, including their trueborn children Robb, Sansa, Bran, Arya, and Rickon Stark. Jon Snow, Domeric Snow, Jeren Hill, all three who were baseborn children, stood closely together near the Starks. As they wait silently for the king to arrive, Jaime Lannister rides through the gate and into the courtyard.
"Is that the king?" Domeric whispered to Jeren.
"No, that's my uncle, Jaime Lannister," Jeren quietly answered.
"You mean the Kingslayer?" Domeric gasped in surprise.
"Yep, the one who assassinated the Mad King," Jeren nodded.
Domeric couldn't take his eyes off the man, for he heard a lot of stories about the Mad King and how Robert I Baratheon forged that rebellion to remove him out of power. As for Arya Stark, she had just stolen a helm and cloak that belonged to a guard and had been pushing her way into a tall wagon to get a better look of the scene. That was when her eyes settle on Prince Joffrey Baratheon and his honorable bodyguard Sandor Clegane of House Clegane. Unlike his father Robert, Joffrey had the Lannister look and was quite tall for a young boy his age, with blond curly hair. Known to be handsome, he has deep green eyes and pouty lips.
As for Sandor, he was a huge and heavily-muscled man. He has grey eyes, his nose is large and hooked, and his long hair is dark and thin. ne side of Sandor's face is gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and a heavy brow, while the other side is a burned ruin of scars. Slick black flesh is pocked with craters and deep cracks that ooze red and wet, his ear is only a hole with a stump, and a hint of bone shows on his jaw. The scars extend down to his throat, in which there were twisted mass of scars around his eye, which is still good, not harmed by the fire, but he has no lips on that side. Sandor brushes his hair so that it covers his burned side, since no hair grows there.
"Where's Arya?" Catelyn asked, looking around and turns to his daughter Sansa. Sansa, where's your sister?"
As more riders with banners enter the courtyard, Arya scoots past her parents to get in the receiving line, much to Ned and Catelyn's relief.
"What are you doing with that on?" Ned asked as he removes the helm off Arya.
As Joffrey rides up and turns to notice Sansa smiling at him, Jeren, who was his cousin, gave him a very dirty glare. However, Jeren wasn't the only one who glared at the prince, Robb Stark himself did the same thing. That was when Jeren noticed his father, who was riding behind Jaime, studying the castle and its occupants, missing nothing. Lastly, a large coach, which was carrying Queen Cersei Lannister, lumbers in, followed by a huge man approaches, flanked by knights in snow-white cloaks. A dark-brown beard covers his double chin, but nothing can hide the belly that threatens to burst his doublet's buttons. This was King Robert I Baratheon.
Upon seeing the king, everyone began to bend their knees as a show of great respect for their visitor. Robert quickly heaves himself off his horse. Ned looks a bit shocked at the sight of his old friend, now fat and red-faced. ROBERT signals for all to rise and gives Ned an imperious once-over.
"Your grace," Ned responded in respect.
"You've gotten fat," Robert responded.
Ned tries to maintain his stony decorum, but it's hopeless. For the first time, we see him laugh - and it becomes clear that Ned and the King were actually old friends. Robert joins in, engulfing him in a bone-crunching hug. He finally releases Ned, who takes a moment to catch his breath.
"Nine years!" Robert laughed. "Why haven't I seen you? Where the hell have you been?"
"Guarding the north for you, your grace," Ned told him of his actual job as Warden of the North. "Winterfell is yours."
As the king's party dismounts, an ornate wheelhouse pulls into their midst. Queen Cersei Lannister emerges with her younger children Tommen and Myrcella. Ned kneels to kiss Cersei's ring in respect and looks to see how her smile is pure formality. Robert, on the other hand, embraces Catelyn like a long lost sister. As the children on both sides are brought forward and introduced, Robert steps back to Ned.
"Take me down to your crypt," Robert insisted. "I want to pay my respects."
"We've been riding since dawn, my love," Cersei said. "Surely, the dead will wait."
Robert gives her a hard look. Cersei stares back at him, uncowed. Finally Robert turns and walks away. After an awkward glance at the Queen, Ned leads Robert toward one of Winterfell's old towers.
Ned Stark holds a lantern as he leads King Robert I Baratheon down the narrow, winding stone steps of the family crypts underneath the keep.
"I thought we'd never get here," Robert said in disbelief. "All the talk about my Seven Kingdoms... a man forgets your part is as big as the other six combined."
As they descend, their breath becomes more and more visible from the cold, and Robert's becomes more and more labored.
"How will you stand it, man, when winter finally comes?" Robert asked. "Your balls frozen right up into your guts for the next twenty, thirty years?"
"The Starks will endure," Ned said. "We always have."
"You need to come south, get a real taste of summer before it's gone," Robert suggested. "Everyone is fat, drunk and rich. And the girls, Ned! Women lose all modesty in the heat. They swim naked in the river, right beneath the castle."
The king laughs happily, but his laughter trails off as the staircase ends. Ned sweeps the lantern in a semicircle; shadows lurch along a procession of granite pillars that recede into the dark.
"She's down at the end, your Grace," Ned pointed directly at the direction.
Side by side they proceed, their footsteps ringing off the stones as they walk among the dead of House Stark. Between the pillars on either side: granite sculptures of the deceased sitting on thrones, their backs against their own sepulchres. Great stone direwolves curl around their feet. Ned stops at the last tomb and lifts the lantern. The crypt continues on into the darkness ahead of them, but beyond this point the tombs are empty, waiting for him and his children. In front of him, illuminated by the lantern, a beautiful young woman stares out at them with blind, granite eyes: Lyanna Stark, Ned's sister.
"She was more beautiful than that," Robert replied in remark as he silently kneels and bows his head. Ned joins him. Robert's voice is hoarse with remembered grief. "Did you have to bury her in a place like this? She should be on a hill somewhere, with the sun and the clouds above her."
"She was a Stark," Ned softly answered. "This is her place."
The king rises to touch her cheek, his fingers brushing the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. "In my dreams, I kill him every night."
"It's done," Ned said. "The Targaryens are gone."
The warrior Robert used to be surfaces in his face, pitiless. "Not all of them."
"We should return, your Grace," Ned suggested. "Your wife will be waiting."
"To hell with my wife," Robert spat as he starts back the way they came with his friend followhing him. "And if I hear "your Grace" one more time, I'll have your head placed on a spike. We're more to each other than that."
"I haven't forgotten," Ned sighed. "Tell me about old Jon."
"One moment he was fine, and... it burned right through him, whatever it was," Robert described of what happened to Jon Arryn. "I loved that man."
"We both did," Ned added.
"He never had to teach you much," Robert said. "But me? You remember me at sixteen? All I wanted to do was crack skulls and dance with girls. Old Jon showed me what was what."
Ned gives the king a sidelong, skeptical look, barely suppressing a smile.
"Don't look at me like that," Robert smiled. "It's not his fault I didn't listen." He puts a massive arm around Ned's shoulder and walks on. "You must wonder why I've finally come north, after all these years."
"Your inspection of the Wall is long overdue," Ned reminded him.
"The Wall's stood for eight thousand years," Robert reminded him "It can keep a while longer." He then stops walking and turns to face Ned. "These are dangerous times. I need good men around me, men like Jon Arryn. Men like you. I want you down in King's Landing, not up here where you're no damn use to anybody. Lord Eddard Stark, I would name you Hand of the King."
Ned drops to one knee, not at all surprised. "I'm not worthy of the honor."
"I'm not trying to honor you," Robert said. "I'm trying to get you to run my kingdom while I eat, drink and whore my way to an early grave. You know the saying."
"That I do, my old friend," Ned smiled.
"C'mon Ned, stand up," Robert ordered his friend to be on his full height. "You helped me win the Iron Throne and this is your reward now. We were meant to rule together. If your sister had lived, we'd have been bound by blood. Well, it's not too late. I have a son, you have a daughter... my Joff and your Sansa will join our houses."
This does surprise Ned. After a moment he shakes his head and smiles. "How long have you been planning this?"
"How old is your daughter?" Robert asked.
Before Ned could answer his question, both men started to laugh happily like they've always done before in the past since the rebellion.
Robert's face grows serious. "I never loved my brothers. A sad thing for a man to admit, but it's true. You were the brother I chose. We were meant to be family."
"I don't know what to say," Ned said since he was moved by his words.
"Then say 'yes'," Robert said.
"If I could have some time to consider these honors," Ned said.
"Yes, of course, talk it over with Catelyn, sleep on it if you must," Robert truly insisted for his friend to take some time to think of the offer, and then he claps his hands roughly on Ned's shoulders. "Just don't keep me waiting too long. I'm not the most patient man."
Ned smiles, but his glance drifts over Robert's shoulder to the dead of Winterfell, who watch with disapproving eyes.
Elsewhere, on top of the eastern side of the wall within Winterfell, Tyrion had been staring at the view of the lands below. That was when his natural son Jeren Hill came over to join him.
"I thought you've forgotten me," Jeren smiled.
"I was this close, but I know you are a young lad always destined for adventures," Tyrion widely smiled at his son. "You're just like your sister. She said the same things just before a sickness took her away from us."
"She was a kind one, always had my back," Jeren sighed with his eyes closed briefly. "She was a Lannister, and I'm a Hill."
"I don't believe you'll remain a Hill for long," Tyrion said. "Once you prove worthy to our family, and the King and Queen, you will be recognized as a Lannister, not a Hill. You are a natural son to me."
"I'm pleased to hear that a lot of you refer us as 'natural children'," Jeren smiled until it dropped. "Though there are some who call us bastards instead of 'baseborn'."
"Oh no, I would never say that to my own son," Tyrion said. "But if someone would be a fool to call you a 'bastard', give them a demonstration of your water dance and maybe they'll their lesson. Although, I prefer an educational lesson."
"Is that something your advising, father?" Jeren asked with a smile. "Cause I like it, but I disregard it?"
"Suit yourself," Tyrion chuckled. "Don't say I offered it, but its for the best. Speaking of which, have you ever stuck your eyes on someone who attracts you. A woman who draws her beauty to you."
"There is," Jeren answered.
"Oh, and who would that be?" Tyrion asked, intrigued.
"Sansa Stark," Jeren answered the two words which surprised.
"Its a pity that Sansa is a trueborn," Tyrion deeply sighed. "Although, I've learned from one the books that if a natural son and daughter from two different regions marry, they will most likely take their father's surname as a reward."
"It'll prove to be difficult, father," Jeren said.
"Yes, yes, it will be, but I should advise you to be patient," Tyrion suggested.
"Oh I'm patient," Jeren told him that before.
"Jeren, perhaps one day when we return to King's Landing, I promise I will tell you about your mother," Tyrion said. "You have my word."
"Take as much time to think of when to say it when we're home," Jeren sighed, still hoping to get a specific answer about his mother whom he never met before since he was born.
