Lord Arryn declined on attending the tourney but gave permission for Elbert to attend, Elbert is sandy blond haired, blue eyed youth, with broad shoulders and equal height with Robert,but as he is a year older than Robert, Robert will probably grow taller than him. Elbert is jovial man with laughing eyes, he is good friend to Ned.
Three days after receiving the invitation for the tourney, Robert, Elbert and Ned set out from Eeyrie with an additional escort of twenty household guards of Lord Arryn. They were soon joined by other young lords of Vale who wanted to participate in the tourney and ladies who wanted to witness the event and catch the eye of the Crown Prince. By time they reached the Riverlands their party swelled to the size of five hundred and their pace halved.
As always Ned was amazed to see the amount of land that is being cultivated in the rest of Seven Kingdoms, there doesn't a day go by without sighting a village or
a town, where North is sparsely populated, the South is packed full of people. Ned tried to imagine North full of people, but he couldn't, The Norths untamed forests, snow covered fields and perilous mountains, they have a wild beauty of their own and Ned wouldn't give that up for anything.
After three weeks of journeying through the Riverlands, the flat plains and flowing streams of Riverlands are replaced by rolling hills of Westerlands, after stopping for a night at the Golden Tooth they followed the Gold Road to Lannisport.
Lannisport is a bustling port city and colorfully decorated in preparation for the tourney, it is twice as large as White Harbor, patrolled by the city watch, the city was clean, well organized and smelled of freshly tilled earth and woodsmoke. Ned was amazed at the sheer size of it, when he shared with this Robert he replied laughingly that Kings Landing is twice the size of Lannisport but stinked of shit and piss.
The party from Vale were given quarters in a mansion owned by Lannisters of Lannisport, it was extravagantly decorated with gold workings everywhere and Ned rooms were spacious, twice as large as his own chambers at Eeyrie.
In another the the King's party will arrive and in two days the tourney will begin, Robert and Elbert are eager to join in squires tourney but Ned declined, he was here to present the gifts to the King, beg for a private audience and make some connections. While having Robert with him will make it easy to make connections at the tourney, Ned has to prepare himself for meeting the King.