The news sailed on black wings to the Eyrie, its impenetrable defences unable to protect it from the myriad cruelties of the great wide world. Ned had been in the yard, having just stripped himself of his arms, though he had yet to have washed the sweat that bound quilt and leather to his skin. The sun shone bright upon the mountains as Robert, who had yet to tire, was beating young Gilwood Hunter into the dirt. Fighting in the thin mountain air had transformed Robert in recent years, the last vestiges of baby-fat had been trimmed away from the meaty young boy Ned had first met into a tireless bullock, well over six feet and strong as a giant from one of Old Nan's tales. He was fast too, as poor Hunter had learned when he failed to interpose his shield in time to meet a ferocious swing of Robert's sword. Ned could not help but wince at the crunch where blade met helm with scarcely a ring. Robert laughed loud enough to shake the eagles from their nests when Gilwood toppled like a dropped puppet. Nonetheless his friend had himself carried the bruised challenger to the maester to join the long list of boys whose heads still span at the memory of sparring with Lord Robert Baratheon.
Ned smiled at him as he returned from his labour, which Robert returned with handsome ease.
"You needn't have hit him so hard Robert," said Eddard only half-seriously, "I could have sworn I could see his brains slip from his visor."
"Bah!", Robert snorted, clapping Ned thunderously on the back, "At least now he'll know where the wretched things are. The boy is as dull as the Dornish, and nigh as ugly as well, I probably helped the twat by slapping his head into place with that little tap."
"That 'boy' is two years your elder Rob, and besides, pray tell, in what better place have you rearranged him?"
"Well Ned," Robert had started, with the cunning air of a mason explaining to a simple lord why the price of his privy had doubled, "you see the boy had something of a mouth, which will no longer be able to call better men 'slow as a pregnant stag'. Or else it shall now be speaking such nonsense from across half his face. As for the best place for him, it is now well-established that his head belongs firmly up my arse."
Robert had given another booming laugh at that, and Ned could not help but give a small smile. Robert looked at him crossly.
"You laugh as well as Hunter fights Ned, give it a try else I'll soon feel cursed by another Stannis."
Eddard Stark inclined his head gravely, "I shall endeavour to do as my lord wishes."
"Fuck you Ned".
They both had laughed at that, though neither knew it, it was indeed Ned's last laugh for a long time.
At that very moment, Lord Jon Arryn appeared. The Warden of the East looked tired, though still hale as he gazed upon their merriment for a long moment as though deep in thought.
"Accompany me boys, we must needs speak."
Something in his tone wiped the smile from even Robert's face as Lord Arryn turned toward the castle without a backwards glance.
Eddard wondered what possibly could have brought this summons on, surely Robert gleefully stuffing goat shit into Ser Martyn Fremont's boots did not necessitate the intervention of the Lord of the Vale. Though to be fair to him any number of the boys might have done so – and had since the act had spurred countless imitations.
He and Robert walked silently side by side behind Lord Arryn through the castle, past the great hall and up the tower steps into privacy of the solar. Lord Arryn all but plonked himself into an armchair facing the unlit fireplace, half his face visible to the two standing at the entrance, pausing only to retrieve an unsealed letter from the table beside him which he grasped with a drowning man's grip. Through the window, Ned could hear the sound of shouts and laughter, the clash of steel and the bellowing of Ser Martyn as he discovered the contents of his helm. The room however, was quiet as the crypt.
Naturally it was Robert who broke the peace. "My lord? What news has come?", he glanced quickly at Ned who simply gazed at the man by the fire. "Is it news from Winterfell? Has something befallen the Lady Lyanna?"
Lord Arryn remained silent as while longer, as if formulating a proper answer, or his mind could but slowly digested every word of Robert's. Finally he spoke.
"A raven arrived from King's Landing last night. The Hand of the King, Lord Owen Merryweather has written to me of treachery in the capital."
Here he stopped as if that meagre effort had been too much for him. Still without looking at them, Lord Arryn jerked his head like a horse chafing at the bit.
"Lord Merryweather writes that the Lady Lyanna Stark was on her way to Riverrun for her brother's wedding after a visit to Lord Whent at Harrenhal. On her journey, Lord Owen claims that she crossed paths with Prince Rhaegar, and thence eloped with him while out of the sight of her guards."
A pall fell upon the room. Without hesitating to let the silence settle, Robert moved swiftly across the room to Lord Arryn's desk, bringing his fists down upon the smooth oak with such force the timber buckled. Eddard simply stared unseeing at Lord Arryn and wondered.
"A lie", Robert said with terrible calm turning to face them, white with rage. "A fucking lie and all the realm knows it. Rhaegar was waiting there for her; he's wanted her ever since I was promised her. She must have fought him, that's why she was taken." Robert spat these words as if there were none present as he spoke to the empty air. "He couldn't have her there and then, so he took her. He took my parents as his last bride price and now has taken mine own betrothed, damn his blood."
"It seems Brandon Stark thought much the same. It is written that he bypassed Riverrun to ride for King's Landing in all haste, swearing to slay the Prince in single combat."
"Did that snake leave the nest or did he hide behind the white skirts of better men?"
Lord Arryn shook his head ponderously. "It appears that Prince Rhaegar was not present. Where he and Lady Lyanna are is unknown. Instead His Grace ordered the arrest of Brandon and his companions, including mine own nephew Elbert, and held him as Eddard's father followed with all haste from Riverrun to seek his son's release. The Hand writes that the King ordered a trial be held…"
Eddard Stark did not need to be told. Ned did not want to be told. He felt as though his heart was cold and dead enough to swallow Robert's fire.
"My brother is dead." Jon nodded. "And my father also." Another ponderous confirmation.
Robert looked at him in horror, yet Ned let nothing show upon his face. Within, the tundra stirred as he remembered the wild brother and sister that he loved. Their red faces as wooden swords clacked in the godswood. The shape of Lyanna's wry smile at Brandon's crude jests, and how she had cried when Prince Rhaegar had played his silver-stringed high harp in the great hall of Harrenhal. The way his brother grinned whenever he fought, and how he would sing whenever he had drunk too much. With a pang, Ned realised he could barely recall what his father looked like so long had they been parted. My heart has turned to stone. A man should remember his father. A man should weep for his brother. Yet no weight could settle on the dark abyss in Eddard's Stark's chest.
"I assume there is more." His voice was flat and dead to his own ears. Am I a corpse as well?
"Yes". For the first time Jon Arryn's strong voice cracked, and he finally turned his pale blue eyes to meet Eddard's unflinching gaze. "The King commands that your house be forever attainted and expunged. Winterfell and the overlordship of the North is to revert to the crown until a loyal house be granted its lands and rights. Furthermore I am to send the King your head as proof of house Arryn's loyalty, or else deliver you to the Red Keep alive if I should find myself unable to do the deed. The Lord Hand recommended the former course. If I should fail, Ser Elbert will burn, and my house shall fall alongside your own."
Doubt stung Ned as he looked at the man he had known these last ten years. Lord Jon Arryn, who had raised him longer than his own father, and who had done his best to impart lessons honour and duty to boys he loved like the sons his wives had never given him. Would a man's honour save him now, or must he bend his neck to one he admired above all others in the name of a lord's oath to his king? Ned recalled the Arryn words: As High as Honour indeed. And leave poor Benjen to weather the Mad King's rage.
"Ned does not stand alone", declared Robert with scarcely a moment's hesitation, and Ned loved him for that, though he knew neither he nor Lord Arryn could ever allow such a thing. "Let them squawk their ravens and flap their gums, Merryweather is no Tywin Lannister; the man has the wit and force of his bloody bowl of fruit. I say Lord Arryn plays for time while I hunt down Rhaegar, he cannot have gone far. Once I give that pretty face of his a proper beating and bring Lyanna to safety, we can exchange him for Elbert and the rest of Brandon's friends." Robert looked around expectantly as if for applause. "All agreed? Good."
"No Robert." Ned walked up to the dear bear of a man, so similar he realised to the brother now gone. "Owen Merryweather could be perhaps gamed thusly, but the King is as mad as his Hand is weak." Ned reached up to one broad shoulder and met Robert's deep blue eyes with an uncompromising grey stare. "His Grace has neglected to mention you and it must remain that way. Should you chase after Prince Rhaegar I will lose another brother, and that must not happen. I shall take ship for King's Landing from Gulltown on the morrow; mayhaps this will draw the King's ire away from the Eyrie – and may yet spare my brother Benjen in Winterfell, as well as Lyanna, wherever she may be. Thus both the Arryn and Stark might live on."
Robert opened his mouth, no doubt to loudly curse him for a fool, but Lord Arryn spoke first.
"The King has by no means forgotten Robert, nor of his betrothal to your sister Eddard. The letter demands Lord Robert's head alongside your own, to 'root out the treacherous weeds who connived in house Stark's betrayal'."
Ned looked at his friend, who looked simply flummoxed, for once at a loss for words. This could not be borne, Ned knew. He could not go to his death knowing that Robert must burn beside him needlessly. Ned's hands closed into fists at his sides, though he scarcely knew it. Already his mind whirred, all acceptance of honourable death dropped like so much dunnage as he wondered how White Harbour might be reached by the quickest route.
There remained only one issue to be settled. Ned was sick of Lord Arryn gazing into an empty fire, he was tired of waiting to know whether he lived or died at the King's command. He strode forward, noting Lord Arryn's flinch, but when Eddard reached the chair he did nought but kneel at Arryn's right hand. He laid the choice clear at his lord's lap, knowing that words were not needed.
Robert of course did not.
"Well my lord, what is it to be? Are you to wash your hands of Ned and me, or do we have your leave to depart?" Robert strode around the chair to look the subject of his ire in the eye. "I do warn you, whatsoever choice you may make the King is not like to release Ser Elbert. Further I must say that by all the gods I will not go to my death quietly, whether at King's Landing or the Eyrie!"
"If I do not act my nephew will die." Lord Arryn said quietly.
"Aye," replied Robert almost flippantly, "as all men must. Let him die knowing he did so while we rode to his aid, horns blowing and swearing bloody vengeance over the corpses of the fallen. Let him die knowing that the King will shit his breeches at our coming as we wreak bloody havoc upon the Iron Throne. Let Elbert be avenged, so he may curse Aerys Targaryen with his last breath. Let his shade smile through crimson lips to see us break the dragon-king, rather than justly haunt us in our shame. That's how a man should die: not in endless lingering at a madman's whim, dishonoured and alone."
Ned raised his eyes to look at Robert, seeing him as he had never seen him before. His strong jaw framed with coal black stubble, offset by the deep blue eyes of a sea newly settled after the storm were set in a bright face alive with life. The titanic strength of his body when drawn to its full height and the confidence in his voice trumpeted the future with more conviction than any oracle. His presence even seemed to inexorably draw in the daylight that shone through the open windows, plating him in gold. Next to the Lord of the Vale, still hidden in shadow, no contrast could be more stark. I was right to want to die for this man. I would follow him to the bitter grave and through whatever hell should come after. Ned wondered whether Lord Arryn saw as he did.
"My lord," Ned began, still kneeling, his voice barely audible, "you know what Lord Robert and I must do. We have a duty to our people and must be at liberty to protect them. Let us part ways with love intact and know that we bear no grudge against you. If you remain removed from any conflict it may be that Ser Elbert's safety will be assured as a hostage. You well know we will endeavour to free him at any cost, for we owe you at debt, and no king can blot it. All we ask is that the arms of the Vale not be sent to thwart our effort, I beg you in the name of the affection we share. There is no dishonour in that."
"No Lord Stark." Ned almost shivered at the title which was newly laid upon him as Jon Arryn rose to his feet and turned his back to the fireplace. "Lord Robert has the right of it. The King had no right to impugn the honour of my house, to demand the lives of wards I swore to protect and to withhold my heir from me against all that is just. To sit back and send you to war while I hid behind the mountains would be dishonour beyond what I could bear, that I should submit to dotage while sons of mine fight for life and honour. What is the name of Arryn if its words mean nothing? Better a doomed house than one diminished by an old man's folly."
Jon Arryn held his head high and looked at the two men squarely in the eye. The years seemed to fall from his shoulders as Ned beheld a vision of the lord in his prime, straight-backed and proud, ready to defy the world in the name of his honour. Ned knew then what he must do.
He turned to Jon's splintered desk, and from behind he retrieved the lord's longsword. He knew it well, many an hour had he whetted it, oiled it and carried it as a squire of the Lord of the Eyrie. It was simple in decoration, the pommel and hilt an unassuming black. Only the grip betrayed any allusion to the birth of the wielder: it was bound in the blue of the early morning sky in the mountains. Ned proffered his lordship the blade, which he drew in one purposeful movement. Castle forged steel sang when it tasted the fresh air, as if it sensed the great deeds to come and was eager to fulfil the purpose for which it had been forged in hammer and flame.
"Come my lords, we shall ride forth from the Eyrie with the dawn. Our heralds shall go on black wings in black ink, to mine own bannermen, to Winterfell and Storm's End, to Tully and Mallister and all those who would dare to defy this Mad King. You have my sword, I swear it." Ned beheld the gleam of the steel glinting in the sun as if it were aflame, and though there were pieces that had been chiselled from his heart which could never be repaired, he was for a moment glad.
Jon took his scabbard from Eddard without another word and marched from the room with a new terrible purpose leaving his wards, boys no longer, alone in this last peaceful moment before the lightning struck.
Ned turned to Robert, that superhuman image he had seen in him had vanished, leaving only the sight young man off to his first, and perhaps last war.
"I cannot wait till tomorrow, Rob. My people are slow to gather, even if Jon sends warning by raven. I must depart for White Harbour tonight and pray they answer the call."
"They will," Robert answered plainly, "they must. I do not doubt that every man in the North will burn to avenge your father and brother, and to rescue Lyanna. I daresay I shall hear their howling from Storm's End. I admit I worry more for the loyalties of the storm lords than those of your own people."
Ned had not considered this. Storm's End was far closer to King's Landing than Winterfell, and the Crown had friends amongst its vassals. Bold Jon Connington was known to be a close companion of Prince Rhaegar, as was Ser Richard Lonmouth. Though a friend to Robert, he had once been Rhaegar's squire, and might put his house in the hands of the man who had knighted him. Ned knew these anxieties, though pertinent, were scarcely helpful for Robert to hear. The peers of the realm may as well all share the words of house Lonmouth the moment those ravens flew. The Choice is Yours.
"No Robert, you have been their master for more than a decade-" Ned spoke over him as Robert made to interrupt "- and you are all they could ask for as an heir of Orys Baratheon. If it is to be loyalty to you or a mad king, I know which they shall choose."
Robert looked at him sullenly for a moment, but immediately broke into a laugh. "I'm sure you're right Ned. If men can't put their faith in us over a house of despoilers and murderers, then we may as well damn the Seven Kingdoms alongside us. Besides I see no better way of flushing Rhaegar out of hiding than to begin burning down whatever den he cowers in." And my sister with him.
Robert pulled him into a rib-cracking hug that lifted the smaller man inches from the ground. Once he had released Ned he almost looked solemn. "Farewell, Lord Stark, and hurry south. Elsewise I'll soon have won without you, and wouldn't it be a bother to have to do all that marching for nothing?"
As Eddard smiled and turned to leave, he knew he had just one promise to keep before he went.
"You will look in on Mya and her mother before you go, will you not?"
There was a sulky gleam in Robert Baratheon's eye as he gave a grudging nod. Eddard could only pray Robert kept his word as he left the curiously lonely figure of his friend in the tower.
Yes Ned prayed. He prayed for the those he had lost. He prayed most of all for the sister he missed dearly, and hoped her gods had eyes to watch over her wherever she might be, though he knew his gods were blind on the great spire of rock that had been his home for nearly ten years. He was returning to them though, with the hope that the North remembered.