Chapter 2: Robert

Winterfell, a place Robert had heard so much about over the years. A place he had dreamed of seeing. He'd imagined what it would be like, and how he would feel to be here, and now that he was finally here, he felt…. he was not sure what he felt. It was a mixture of both happiness to finally be here, to see where Ned had grown up, and bitterness, bitterness that he was here without Lya.

Lya, the woman he had wanted to marry from the time they were both children. Lya, the woman he'd fought a war for. Lya, taken from him by bloody Rhaegar Targaryen. When Robert thought of Lya, he thought of everything that could have been. Of their children, two boys and two girls, boys who'd be as strong as him, as handsome as he had once been, girls who'd be as ferocious as Lya had been. They would be a happy family.

It would have been completely different to what his actual marriage and family were like. Cersei was not a bad woman, that he knew, somewhere deep down. But she had her ways, ways that he did not like. And the children? Out of all the children, Myrcella was his favourite. She had some of the Baratheon fight in her. Unlike his two sons. Tommen, the youngest was soft. Far too soft, he would never make it as an adult. Whilst Joffrey, the less said about Joffrey the better.

This was his life now. He had fought a war for Lyanna, and he'd lost her. He'd won the war, but she'd died. Died before he'd ever had a chance to free her. Ned had gone and freed her, after they'd argued bitterly about Rhaegar's children. But that was past them now. He was in Winterfell with Ned, and Ned had agreed to be his hand.

"What was Jon Arryn like, Robert?" Ned asked suddenly, they were at the head of the party, hunting in the Wolfswood.

"What do you mean, Ned?" Robert asked.

"What was he like before he died?" Ned said. "Was there any change in him?"

Robert wanted to laugh. Jon Arryn change? The man didn't know the meaning of the word. "No. He was the same as he'd always been. Working too long, and not taking care of himself." There was a part of Robert that felt very guilty about that. After all, it was because of him that Jon had had to work so long and so hard.

"So, there wasn't any change in how he acted, how he held himself?" Ned asked.

Robert turned to look at his friend then and frowned. "What are you getting at, Ned?" This truly was a strange line of questioning.

"Nothing, Your Grace, I'm merely trying to learn what our foster-father was like in his final days." Ned replied, all formality.

That irritated Robert. "You would have known had you come south more often." That was one of the reasons why Robert had come all this way north. Ned had promised at the start of the rebellion that they would work together, no matter what happened. And then, the rebellion had ended, and suddenly Ned refused to leave the north. Indeed, the only time Robert had seen Ned since the war had been for another war.

Ned flinched, and Robert felt a pang of guilt for his outburst. Ned had lost a lot. The Starks had lost a lot the last time any of them had come south. "I apologise, Your Grace. But there was a lot that kept me busy here."

"Enough with the damned Your Grace business, Ned!" Robert growled. "We've known one another our entire lives. I am Robert to you!"

His friend grimaced then sighed. "Of course, Robert."

Robert nodded, satisfied. "So, what was it in the North that kept you so busy? Your family has ruled here for thousands of years, surely it couldn't have been that difficult to keep your lords in line?" At least that was how Robert understood it. He'd never been good at understanding politics. Not in the way Jon had wanted him to be. He understood war, how to fight and how to lead, but politics, that eluded him completely.

Ned sighed again. "Well, I'd spent most of my life in the Vale, so, I was very much a stranger to the lords of the North. Yes, we'd fought together during the war, but that was war. People are not the same in peace as they are in war. And there was a clear objective there. In peace time, there isn't, and to prevent them thinking I was naïve I had to show them who I was. So, for the first two years after the war, I invited a lot of them to Winterfell. Bolton, Karstark, Umber, Manderly, Glover, Hornwood, Cerwyn, Ryswell, Tallhart, all of them came here. I feasted them listened to them as they spoke, sympathised with them when something went wrong for them, and then I brought them around to my view. And of course, I travelled. I spent a lot of time in those first few years travelling."

"Is that why there's such a gap between your eldest son and your eldest daughter?" Robert asked softly, he knew Ned, he knew his friend didn't have ice in his veins, despite what he liked to portray himself as. Catelyn was beautiful.

"Yes." Ned said, though Robert suspected the bastard who was a spitting image of Ned had had something to do with that as well.

"And now?" Robert asked. "Are they loyal?"

He expected some sort of self-effacing answer from Ned, and so was thoroughly surprised when the man said. "Yes, they know who is in charge and who protects them from the dark."

His friend broke the solemnity of what he'd just said by smiling and asking. "Why do you ask, Robert?"

Robert looked away from his friend for a moment, he'd just glimpsed what he thought was a stag in the trees in the distance, perhaps he could get there before the stag realised he'd been seen? He pushed that thought out of his head. He needed to tell Ned what he wanted. "Because I need your help, Ned."

"Sire?" Ned asked.

Robert took a breath, the time had come for him to explain what he wanted, properly. No more beating around and trying to hide it, even from himself. "Jon's death has made me realise things aren't as they should be. The Lords Paramount wield far too much power and influence. The writ of the throne does not extend as far as it should. Especially in Dorne. I intend to rectify that."

"How, Sire?" Ned asked.

"With your help, I intend to instigate a series of reforms that will bring Westeros closer together. Better roads, better communication, easier travel, better trade laws, better protections for the peasantry. Everything that Jon and I set out to do but never got around to doing. It's time we fulfilled what we promised we'd do when we started the damned war." Robert said.

He looked at Ned then, fully expecting his friend to laugh at him, instead, Ned was looking at him with such intensity that he felt he should blush. "What?" He demanded.

Ned smiled, he actually smiled, and answered. "Nothing, Sire, I am simply happy to hear that you trust me enough to help you with this."

"Of course I trust you, Ned!" Robert growled. "You're the only person in this damned world I trust. Especially now that Jon is dead."

Ned frowned then. "What about Stannis and Renly?"

Robert snorted at the mention of his two brothers. "Stannis is an idiot. A man with no sense. And Renly? Renly is too busy eating daisies with Loras Tyrell." He didn't understand what his youngest brother found so attractive about Tyrell. The Tyrell boy was exactly that, a boy. He was also an idiot.

"King Aegon tried to introduce similar reforms, Your Grace." Ned said then. "Will you be using him as a model for what you wish to achieve?"

Robert wanted to shout, and say that no, he would not be allowing dragonspawn to influence his decision making. But that would be lying to himself, and after Jon's death he had decided that he would not do that. Not anymore. "Yes." He admitted. "Something like that."

Ned nodded. "Then when we get to King's Landing, I shall need to have a look at the rolls from his reign, to make sure I know what to do and what not to do."

"Of course. Everything will be at your disposal." Robert agreed. He faced forward then and saw the stag staring at him. "Lancel!" He barked. His squire, one of those damned Lannisters, hurried forward.

"Your Grace?" the boy asked.

"Give me my spear." Robert commanded.

"Yes, Your Grace." There was a little bit of commotion and then the spear was in his hands. The stag hadn't moved at all. It stood there staring at him.

Robert raised his arm, took aim, it wasn't too far to the stag, he counted to three, as his father had taught him, then he hurled the spear. He watched with baited breath as the spear soared in the air before landing with a thud into stag. The beast remained standing for a moment before crumbling to the ground. Robert cheered before calling for his hammer. He'd knock the stag dead if the beast was still alive.

He turned to Ned and said. "I've just given us our dinner for tonight."