7-I
Kings Landing is a marvel. Half a million people in a jumbling, bustling, glorious mess. Open markets are seemingly on every street, tall buildings made of wood and stone behind them. Vendors selling exotic fruits and spices and fabric and trinkets are everywhere, shouting over one another, calling for her to purchase their wares, some offering to give their baubles to her if she would only just mention the seller's name to the Queen or the Princess. She offers them a smile and nothing more, so overwhelmed is she by the magnitude of the city. The Dragonpit looms large, the Sept even larger, but the Red Keep, high on Aegon's hill is what dominates the skyline and takes her focus from the din of clopping horses and clanging steel and shouting merchants. It is not large as castles go. Indeed, Winterfell dwarfs it, but as it sits overlooking such a massive city, it appears powerful and intimidating and every inch the seat of dragonlords.
Or Stormlords, she thinks, as she glances at Joffrey, riding ahead of her with his father, and a small stab of fear courses through her.
"Your friend was...unfailingly sweet. Even at the last, I'm sure," the Crown Prince had said to her when she had broken her fast with him as thanks for delivering justice to Jeyne's killers.
Sansa was not certain whether it was what he said or the way he said it that convinced her that he had killed Jeyne. Or raped her, at the very least, and had Boros and Meryn kill her...and Falmer when he thought to stand in their way. That last bit had been provided by Arya after Sansa confessed her theory the next evening in their tent.
"Boros was injured in the joint above his right elbow. That's where Falmer's sword bit him." Arya said, standing and pacing ever since Sansa had gotten to the crux of her theory. "That bit has been bothering me ever since I saw it."
"How do you know it wasn't from the fight with the hedge knight and his sons?" Sansa asked, silently cursing herself for not noticing the Kingsguard's injury.
"It was long dry and crusting off his armor. But the blood from the heads was still fresh. It got on my riding boots when the Hound upended the sack."
Sansa nodded. "Half a day old, would you say?"
"Easily," Arya replied, her face as grim as Sansa had ever seen.
"The hedge knight and his sons were innocent."
"They deserve justice along with Jeyne and Falmer."
"Arya, we cannot go to father with this."
"He would believe us, Sansa."
"He would, but there is no proof. If father only breaks the betrothal without sufficient cause, the Queen will take it as a slight."
"Piss on the Queen. Robert is King, and he's father's oldest friend."
"He was our father's oldest friend. As you've noticed, he doesn't exactly match the stories father told us of him. Who knows how else he's changed in seventeen years? Even if he doesn't take it as a slight, he'll regard it with suspicion if no valid reason is given. We must hide this from him."
Quick as a cat, Arya grabbed Sansa's arm and yanked the sleeve up, revealing a fading bruise where Joffrey had laid hands on her roughly. "As you hide these from me?" Sansa jerked away and pulled the sleeve back down. "You aren't as clever as you believe, sister."
"It must be born, Arya," Sansa replied softly.
"It cannot be," Arya offered back, hand on Needle's grip now.
She stood up and grasped her sister's hands, pulling her left away from the thin blade. "You must trust me on this. We are not in Winterfell. Father calls the South a nest of vipers, and we must speak and act accordingly. One false step, and we are dead."
Her sister's eyes were narrowed in anger, but after a beat, they softened, she sighed, and sat down on the cot. "Fine. We'll do it your way, but if he draws blood, then so will I."
"If he draws blood, Lady will tear his arm off."
"She'd better," Arya responded before asking, "So what is your plan?"
"We will be patient," Sansa said. "He is volatile and stupid and will make a mistake." Arya, of course, misliked it immediately and could not be convinced until Sansa named her the North's spymaster. "You must gather the majority of our knowledge, for it would appear at odds with my perceived character to associate with the smallfolk, whereas…"
"Whereas it is almost expected of me," Arya finished with a wide, toothy grin.
"Exactly."
For the rest of their trip, Arya made it a point to befriend even more of the King's retinue than she already had. From the butcher's son to the baker's wife, there were few who Arya did not know by name by the time they reached King's Landing. And as it always happened with Arya Underfoot, they soon forgot that they were in the presence of nobility, the daughter of the Hand of the King. Instead, they saw a pretty girl in dirty breeches who deigned to cavort with their children and their tongues loosened whenever she asked about life in the castle. More often than not, they would pull her to the side and warn her away from the Crown Prince. "Not saying he's a bad sort, of course, Lady Arya, he's just…" the stories would all start, so when they were finally installed in Tower of the Hand, they had nearly a score of tales about dead cats and dogs and disappeared servant girls.
There was even one concerning a minor lordling from the Stormlands, whose family seemingly disappeared overnight after an "incident" between Joffrey and the man's daughter. Sansa had heard the story from some of Myrcella's ladies-in-waiting. "Threw herself at the Crown Prince," they said. "Barely more than a hedge knight's get trying to improve her fortunes by offering herself to Joffrey," one of Myrcella's more obnoxious Lannister cousins added. The cook's daughter told a different tale. "My mum said the poor girl was shaking and crying and bloody," she looked down between her legs for emphasis. "Mum told me that's why she don't want me working anywhere near the castle."
"What happened to the family?" Arya asked.
"Gone in the night," the girl replied, but others told bloodier tales.
Sansa's time with Joffrey had actually gotten easier over the course of the trip, as her father insisted that Walder Giantsblood shadow her until they reached the city. Not to be outdone, Cersei had the king add Ser Barristan to Joffrey's Kingsguard detail. In front of such men, the Crown Prince had no choice but to err on the side of propriety. Sansa lit another candle for Jeyne every night - her death inadvertently eased Joffrey's subtle abuse, another reason to mourn her friend. Another reason to find justice for her. Constantly rebuffed, it took only three days before he stopped asking her to walk with him at all. Arya discovered that he mostly stayed in his tent with camp followers procured by Boros or Meryn when he wasn't hunting or practicing his swordplay with his Uncle. She did not complain.
Nor does she now as she rides her mare beside her father and Arya instead of the Prince as her station as his betrothed would usually warrant. Her father must be thinking the same thing as he leans over and says, "You should be riding next to the Prince at the head of the procession with the royal family."
Sansa gave her father a warm smile. "If Joffrey wishes it of me, he will ask me. I'm more than happy to take in the capital next to you and Arya," she replies, hoping that he will see it as nothing more than a minor dispute between children and not a slight against her or House Stark. He gives her a searching look, but lets the matter be and instead addresses both of them. "The direwolves are getting bigger. Not even half a year yet nearly as large as regular wolves."
"I know!" Arya exclaims. "They'll be as big as our mares by the time they reach maturity!"
"And they won't belong in a city," Ned counters.
"Father, you can't send them back," Arya says, anticipating his pronunciation.
He holds up a hand. "I'm not. Not now, at least. But you must keep them in your control. I'll admit that there is something...perhaps special about these wolves - that you are connected to them somehow. If that is true then you must show me the truth of it every day. You must keep them in hand. No accidents, no incidents. The South is a dangerous place for Starks, and your wolves are no exception. They can remain in your rooms and the kennels, but they go nowhere else without you and one of my guards. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Sansa says at once, inwardly cursing herself for not considering the danger the city posed for Lady and Nymeria. One ill snap at the wrong person, and the King could decide to decorate the throne room with direwolf pelts.
"Agreed," Arya replies with a smile. "She doesn't go anywhere without me, anyway."
"Good," Ned says and gives a look at the two wolves. Sansa gives them a glance, as well, though she knows it is unnecessary. She just always seems to know when Lady is near and when she is not. She looks at Arya and wonders if her bond with Nymeria is the same. She supposes that it is, but reminds herself to ask her sister about it later.
Blaring trumpets break her reverie as their party reaches the gates of Maegor's. As they pass through into the holdfast, Sansa takes a deep breath and hopes that she is good enough to play the game she and her family are now in.
7-II
The smell of the city is awful. It hits Jon almost as soon as they enter the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, and he sees that Lady Catelyn smells it as well by the way she sniffs and wrinkles her nose. "It's the smell of civilization, Jon. Never forget this lesson," she says with a smile and a pat on his arm. He smiles back, thinking of the times when such a touch would have meant the world to him. It still does, but there is so much history between them now that it will never be easy.
The boat is sliding up to the dock when she whispers, "Tell me we are not fools, Jon. Tell me that we were careful."
"We were careful, Lady Stark," he replies, and he means it. They had been. They had kept to themselves on the road, avoided towns and villages, and made straight for the docks in White Harbor, taking passage on the first ship bound for King's Landing. Ghost, of course, stayed behind, but they had to lock him in the kennels. Jon swore he could still hear his howling leagues away from the castle.
They dressed plainly, Jon's armor was sturdy and functional, but unadorned. At Val's suggestion, Lady Catelyn wore breeches, a tunic, and a cloak, along with daggers at her hip. Also on the wildling woman's recommendation, Catelyn had her hair cut short before they left, just below the shoulder, and then dyed black along with her eyebrows for good measure. The trip had been a week, but you still couldn't see the auburn coming through at the roots. Still, she took no chances, and dyed it again in their cabin two nights before. For his part, he had shorn his own locks to a thumb length and had begun growing out his beard again. At this point, they looked like any other young sellsword and his woman.
They disembark and quickly mingle with the passengers, porters, sailors, quartermasters, and factors seeing to the day's business. The flow of people pushes them towards King's Landing and eventually through the Mud Gate.
"Now to contact Petyr," she says, and Jon purses his lips but nods anyway. This is the part of the plan that he mislikes. He could have worried out a way to get into contact with Arya. They would have to take the wolves for a run sooner or later, and that is when he could slip her a note.
"That could be a week or more, Jon," Lady Catelyn had said. "Petyr is my oldest friend. I trust him as I trust my own brother. And I happen to know the name of one of his businesses courtesy of Lysa's letters over the years."
So it happens that later that day, Jon slips two gold dragons and a note written in Lady Stark's own hand to the factor at Titan Shipping Services and promises the man two more if he delivers the parchment to his master.
The next morning he finds a small, thin bearded man waiting for them at the breakfast tables in their modest inn. Lady Catelyn smiles widely at the sight of him, but a sharp shake of his head forestalls her from an embrace or even from further acknowledgment. He smiles at the serving girl, presses a coin in her hand, and then rises and leaves the inn. They take his table quickly and find a small piece of paper under the candlestick. The only thing written is the name of a brothel.
They make their way to the brothel that night so as not to appear too eager. The madam welcomes them warmly and provides them with two rooms. Whores make their way to both of them, seeing to their needs for the next two days. For Lady Catelyn, it was baths and fires and meals. For Jon it was the same except for the constant propositions. Not that he is against whores in general. One of the first things he had done after learning of his true parentage was to make his way to Wintertown and indulge himself in drink and women. He, however, was no longer that sullen, angry boy. He is a man with a duty, and he must be on his guard in this city, and engaging in the pleasures of a brothel would detract from that.
Two days after they move into the brothel, Lord Baelish comes to see them. Lady Catelyn embraces him as a brother, but Jon sees through the little man's mask as his nostrils flare slightly at the scent of her hair and his hands linger a bit too long on his aunt's hip. He wants nothing more than to bloody the man for his insult, but tamps the thought down. Now is no time for such things.
Baelish informs them of Jeyne and Falmer, and Jon is distraught to learn of their deaths. He is the one who assigned the boy to Jeyne, he knew of their growing infatuation, but he trusted Falmer and thought it harmless. Now, he cannot help but feel that their deaths would have been avoided if he had assigned an older man to Jeyne. Falmer would be back at Winterfell, and Jeyne would not have been away from Sansa and Arya and the rest of their guards. He says as much to Lady Catelyn, but she cuts him off from that line of reasoning.
"A thousand decisions led to them being where they were when they were, Jon. Not the least of which is the Crown Prince's...unworthy behavior that led to you assigning Falmer to Jeyne in the first place. The fault for their deaths lies only with the dark souls who murdered them."
The next day, Jon stands on the balcony of the brothel with the whores and watches as the King's procession passes. He is curious to see that Sansa is riding into the Keep next to father and Arya instead of her betrothed. Jeyne was Sansa's best friend, so it does make sense that she would seek comfort in her family, but still, others could easily interpret it as a slight. Lady Catelyn comes to the same conclusion. "I worry that Ned does not think of these things," she says. "Curse this place that he needs to think of them."
Later that day, Baelish brings Lord Stark to them. His face is carved of granite as the lady recounts the assassination attempt on Bran. At the end, he takes her in his arms and holds her long enough for both Jon and Baelish to look away awkwardly.
"Gods, that girl. Not in our lives even half a year, and we already owe her more than we could ever repay."
"She is a rare woman," his aunt says, "and a remarkable fit for our son."
Lord Stark breaks away and walks to Baelish's table where the dagger rests. "I know this is unfair, Lord Baelish, but is there anything you can tell us about this weapon?"
Lord Stark's and Lady Catelyn's surprise must mirror Jon's own when Baelish smiles that weaselly smile of his and answers, "Yes."
The little man takes the dagger, gives it a heft, then spins it in his palm. "It's mine."
"Yours?" Asks Lady Stark.
"Mine," he replies, smirking still. "I acquired it as repayment on a loan from a merchant in Braavos."
Eddard, ever impatient, asks in a rather clipped tone, "Do you know how it came to be at Winterfell? In the hands of a man who meant to kill my wife and son?"
"I lost it," he says, walking around his desk, still spinning the dagger. "Along with a...not insignificant sum of gold. It was the stakes on the final tilt of Prince Joffrey's Nameday tourney." He gives a mocking sigh and finishes, "Would that I had put my faith in the Knight of Flowers instead."
"With whom did you place the wager?" Jon asks.
The small man stops spinning the dagger and gives it a flick, burying it in the doorpost across the room. "The Imp. Tyrion Lannister."
Jon, unimpressed by the little man's theatrics, fights the urge to roll his eyes. Walking to the post, he pulls the dagger free. "Tyrion Lannister did not strike me as a stupid man. Quite the opposite, actually. Why would he arm a footpad with his own weapon, let alone one as remarkable as this?"
"Why, indeed?" Littlefinger answers. "He is an exceedingly clever man."
Jon looks to his aunt and uncle. "Someone is framing him. The queen hates him, as does her eldest."
"We cannot come to a conclusion before we begin to investigate, Jon," Lady Catelyn puts forth. "All possibilities must remain."
"True, my lady," his uncle says. "Lord Tyrion was to be at the Wall for a moon's turn, I believe. If you can get back to Winterfell before he passes through, perhaps you can question him."
"A ship is the only chance we have to return home in time," Jon says, " and the galley we took here has already left."
"As it happens," Lord Baelish chimes in, "I know a captain whose ship is set to sail two days hence."
"How much?" Lady Catelyn asks.
"Nothing. The man owes me a debt. We will call it square once he delivers you to White Harbor."
"Do you trust him?" Lord Eddard asks.
"I trust that he wants his debt erased. That will keep him from asking questions."
His uncle does not look pleased, but he nods. "Very well."
Lady Catelyn agrees. "Petyr, can you keep us hidden for another day?"
"The Queen and her spies will never know you were here," he replies.
"What of Varys?" Jon asks.
"Varys?" Littlefinger gives him a mocking smile. "My dear boy, Varys has known of your presence from the minute you stepped foot onto the wharf."
"What?" Catelyn says. Ned's stare echoes her question.
"The Spider is the Spider, my lady. Nearly all knowledge in this city belongs to him and his little birds. The best I could do is keep this conversation a secret."
"Will he not tell the Queen?" Ned asks.
"Varys plays the Game. As do I. As does the Queen. As do you, Lord Stark. And in the game, you play your hand only when you know you can win. He does not know what this meeting entails. Until he does, he will keep the secret."
His uncle's face is grim, but he nods after a moment. "Thank you, Lord Baelish. I am in your debt for your assistance in this manner. If you would, I need a moment with my wife and son."
"Of course, Lord Hand," Baelish says, and makes for the door, but is stopped by his aunt.
"Many years have passed since I saw you last, Petyr. I hoped to find my friend here in Kings Landing." She kisses him lightly on the cheek. "I daresay that I did. Thank you."
He gives her a small smile, the first one that touches his eyes, Jon thinks, and bows. When he rises, the look is gone. "Anything for you, dear Cat." With that, he nods at his uncle and leaves the room.
"If Varys knows, he knows," Ned says after a moment before looking at Catelyn and then Jon. "We will have to trust Lord Baelish's reasoning concerning him. You have exercised great caution in your travel here, but we must double that cautious reserve until you are in White Harbor."
"I will dye my hair and brows again before we depart."
"What of Arya and Sansa?" Jon asks.
"What of them?" his uncle responds.
"Will you tell them?"
Ned pauses for a moment to share a look with his lady wife. "No."
"Father, you underestimate them. They can be valuable to you in this."
"They can be, but this game, damned as it is, is mine to play. The less they know, the safer they are if things go wrong for us here."
He makes to continue the argument, but Lady Catelyn forestalls him. "Let them be children still, Jon. The vipers here would come after them if they believed them to be threats."
Jon nods and stands down though he believes that it is a mistake. Sansa and Arya are valuable precisely because they are not perceived as threats. And they know that. Leaving them out puts them in more danger. Briefly, he thinks of a way to get them a message detailing what has transpired here, but then a tinge of shame hits him, and he puts the thought away. He will not defy his father.