The Summer before the War
In the cold of the long night there was a solitude that came with the frozen air that whiffed and swirled in the quiet of the dark chambers. Papers, wood carvings, book spines with golden lettering, and steel glinted in the candle light that tossed shadows over the chambers of the Hand of the King. There, in the gloom of the witching hour, there was a silence that could not be penetrated. Not even by the comings and goings of all Seven Kingdoms that dined in the yards below. What a tournament, what a fight, what a show, they all say. It would be a day long remembered by those who were there, and those who will claim to have been there. But there was no celebration tonight within the tallest tower of the red fortress, there was no exclamations of a tourney well fought, or the excitement of the trial to come. There was only silence and the crushing notice of all that was missing.
In the quiet of the night, Eddard Stark sat alone at his desk and watched the shadows. When he closed his eyes he could still hear the roar of the crowd and the clamor of steel. But they all faded in time when he opened his eyes and saw nothing but an empty room and felt an empty heart. There was nothing left of her, no mark, forgotten trinket, or bead from a silk dress that lay in the crevasses of the tile. Nothing remained but the foreign whiff of a perfume, and the shadowed memories of a golden goddess watching him from the corner of the room with a challis in hand. In the chair was the phantom eyes of crystal that ran deep like the river she was raised on. Always could she be found stitching a shirt or pants ripped by the play of small children. That mischievous smirk of hers was starting to show lines when the last time he saw her, but he never minded. As for the other, just to see her smile, to see her emerald jewels light even a fraction had filled him with an immeasurable joy that was all its own. Not the pride he had for his sons, the curious wonder for his daughters, and not the enduring love for a wife. To see the white toothy grin was simply the ghost of the better of himself and a girl he had loved once, remerging after all the long years of mistakes.
But now both were gone and he was alone.
One was buried somewhere along the King's Road. The other had been released, set free by a vengeful father to face her fate with those of her kind. The rage rose and subsided like the ocean tides with every passing moment. Regret carved him in the hollow halls of duty's making here in the capital, and the anger filled him each time Pycelle had wandered into the chambers at every second chime of the hourly bell. But for now his anger had passed and the sorrow and lonesome tomes of a broken heart were his only companions. They were heralded as the night grew darker and the world retired before the frigid grey dawn broke over the dark waters beyond the Hand's balcony. His face grew longer, lines more pronounced, and his grim grey eyes grew heavier in their sorrow. The brooding figure sat in the dark, worried, tired, disgusted, and utterly without answers.
In the many and short fights he had with Catelyn over the years, his departure and Jon being chief amongst them, Catelyn Tully had often scoffed at his excuse of a higher duty as a crutch to shield him from the ambitions and wants of other men. She said he was afraid of his own ambitions and of the happiness they could've had if he'd only stay. He'd ignore her, he'd walk away, and she would cry and break something. They'd never speak of it when he returned. But he'd never call her a liar.
Sitting hundreds of leagues from home, watching dozens of maesters coming and going, while groans of pain echoed from his bed chamber, Catelyn had never been more right in her life. Eddard had never taken anything for himself, held back when he should've gone all in, and frowned when he should've smiled. Never had good things happened when Eddard Stark had chosen happiness over practicality. Duty was easier than ambition when what you wanted only hurt others. A kiss in the Godswood that doomed two marriages before they ever began, a night of weakness and desperate love that produced a boy that was taken from one mother to shame another, and many years later that boy lying in a cold sweat, poisoned by the blade of a Dornish prince that sought retribution for a crime that had long festered in the boy's father's heart. Duty brought pain, but want had only brought tragedy for any Stark that had went south to take it.
But when duty and want, a forked road for Eddard Stark, ended up in the same place, he wasn't sure what to do. He had always shouldered the consequences of his actions. He had lived with the pain, the heart ache of each mistake, and every sorrow they had caused. But when he saw his son bloodied, lying in the mud, fallen from his steed like every knight Ice had cut down. He knew that everything he feared, that alienated his wife in her times of need, had come true. For so many years he had tried to hide from the consequences, shut them away, and give his children lives away from the mistakes. But it only festered till all of them grew endangered by the wound he had inflicted on himself.
He had given a hard look at what he had been doing all these months. A part of him knew what he did was right, protecting a woman from Robert's wrath, preventing the slaughter of children. Trying to make up of for all the sins that he had let happen when he was young. But now all he saw was the repeating of the same mistakes as before. And more people he loved had gotten hurt. When he rode from the Eyrie as a boy, it was at Robert's side to win a war. He gave his life, his men's lives, and his very honor to a man who had all but used these sacrifices and the idea of Ned's better world to exact his vengeance upon those who had no part to play in the abduction of Lyanna. Years later Eddard Stark had given his life, his men's lives, and his very honor to Cersei Lannister in order to make up for a King's sins when he was but a Rebel. And she had used these sacrifices to exact her revenge by using another innocent that had nothing to do with the abuses of a King. He had lost his sister the first time, a wife the second, and his son had been on the edge of a knife for many days. And all for the sake of trying to do only what honor required of him.
So here he sat, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and Hand of the King … destined to be used by the ones he loved, so that he may lose his family. He was the pawn of the game, the could-be king, jester of duty, and never-was hero to the slaughtered innocent.
At his lowest, The Lord of Winterfell stood with a creek of his chair. Boots slid with clacks over tile as he paced away from the mocking shadows of an empty chamber and heart. It was a short walk to the heavy door that was cracked just a sliver. It didn't make any noise as he quietly opened the door to the room thick with body heat. There he found comfort and refuge in the only purpose he now knew.
Lying in bed was a young man with grown out curls of jet black. He was muscular and covered in scars from glorious fights and sad losses experienced many miles from home. Bandages wrapped his neck, shoulder, and forehead. He was sweating and was whispering a name of a girl with fiery red hair, pale body, and a love that had only known his name. Sweat covered a tear in a fevered mind. Sleepily, unconsciously, a slender hand reached out and touched his wet cheek. Lying next to him was a girl with auburn hair, and a silken nightgown. She was the kind of beautiful of the likes that was so rare, even with the capital invaded by such exotic flowers from abroad and the south. She lay next to the young man, curled up to his uninjured side like a kitten. The touch, the comfort of the sleeping girl's warmth steadied the young man as he reached down and laid a hand on her hip. Covering that young man's hand was the hand of another. Curls of auburn that matched their sister, and bearded and scarred like their brother, the oldest of the three lay on the other side of the girl, his strong arm tossed around her, pulling her tightly to him. All three asleep, nestled closely as they fought all the sorrows, horrors, and trauma of youthful lives cut short. All of them in search of comfort, of something familiar, when home seemed so far away both physically and within themselves.
Eddard couldn't remember the last time the three had done this. It must have been when they were small. He could remember so vividly how tiny they were when Jon had contracted a fever. For months and months reports came of children dying of the sickness that plagued the land. Each like the battering ram to Ned's heart and soul watching his son fight when every lad from Winters Town to Gray Waters Watch had failed. He slept in the chair in Robb and Jon's room for weeks, knowing not the warmth of his bed or the touch of Catelyn. It was on a night as bleak and lonesome as this that he had awoken to find Robb out of bed and tiny foreign snores. When he had sat up he had found both Robb and Sansa had stolen from their beds and had slip in with Jon. Their arms were thrown around their brother, as they snuggled to him. They had grown scared of the lark and another day of not knowing. With the faith of a child and Old Nan's stories filling their imaginations, the two little children believed that their love would help when so many of Luwin's remedies, and their mother's idols above the headboard had failed. Somewhere in his dreary mind of dark thoughts and fear there came an overwhelming sense of peace and hope that only the innocence of a child could provide. And when the lark sounded and the long night passed, it was Jon who woke first.
It had been so many years later since that night. Wars had been fought, tragedies had befallen, Loves lost, and the innocence of a child's love taken away by a bitter mother who upheld the societal standards between the base born and proper ladies in her own home. And yet for all the things done and said since the night of the fever, the war hero, the lady, and the Black Knight had not forgotten who and what they are to each other. When accusations of murder, desertion, and betrayal should hang over them like a dark cloud. They all somehow had found their way back to one another. The last shred of innocence placed in a child's prayer of hope that there was just enough magic and love to work one last time before the world they lived in stole it completely.
Even now, lying in his bed as Lord, Lady, and former Commander of the Night's Watch, Eddard Stark could still see the tiny faces that had once ran through the halls of a fortress that should've been desolate. But each scream, chortle, and mischief in the peaceful years had transformed the cold bleakness of his family holdings into a home. And it was true that seeing all of his eldest children together again in the safety of his agency had filled Eddard Stark with a quiet satisfaction that was unrivaled in his moment of doubt. Seeing them together for the last time for maybe years and maybe forever had made him feel that he might have at least done one thing right in his life.
There was a rattle at the chamber door that perked up the ears of the unnoticed large masses of white and grey fur that lay sentry at the foot of the bed and the open balcony. Large animal eyes that seemed to glow in the dimness of the dark became visible as they lifted their heads in alert. The outlines of fangs being bared silently under the soft illumination of red primal eyes brought wariness within the Lord Hand. Quietly he slipped out of the room as the wolves started to get to their feet, rattling tables with their size.
When he shut the door, he watched a large figure standing behind his desk. Dressed in a shaggy fur cloak that matched his frizzed hair, for a moment the Hand was sure that a bear had wondered away from a Mummer's troop and found refuge on his balcony.
"Don't worry, Ned, I won't touch her …"
Robert Baratheon would never know how much he looked like someone else who had stood on that balcony and heard the bay call their name. That night and everything that had happened still haunted Eddard's dreams both night and day. But the sight of Cersei standing naked on the railing would never leave when all else would someday be taken from him by old age.
"She's not here, Your Grace." He reported limping toward the chair in front of his desk.
To this the King turned back toward his friend. He thought he might find the fiery eyes of a man with the stink of humiliation still on him. See the rage that drove men into doing cruel things to justify their helplessness. But there was something sorrowful and sentimental in the blue eyes of the King tonight. He was not boisterous, aggressive, or authoritative. Robert seemed soft spoken, gentle, and most of all weary. It could be said of both men, that above all other things, they were both tired and drained of life that once burned so brightly in two young men out to serve justice for all the people taken from them.
Robert sat with a creak in Eddard's chair and the Hand did the same across from him. "Where is she?" He asked. His voice was more curious than demanding. Ned paused for only a moment. Guilt ate at him in every millisecond it took to answer the question. He knew the kind of man Robert was in moments like these. There would be no point sending a bold man with a knife after Cersei now.
"I released her, sent her back to her brother, The Imp." After all the anger he still couldn't hide the sorrow in his voice. Even with the betrayal of his trust and the danger she had put their son in. Letting Cersei go had left an emptiness that no rage, hate, or grief could fill.
The King nodded. "Sorry, Ned." He said gruffly.
There were faces that each man of power wore in public and in the presence of other members of state. But in the quiet of the Hand's office, there were only men that were as close and critical of one another as brothers. Choices of love, loyalties, and the dead of the recent past were forgotten or unimportant on nights like these. They were just two men that had slipped into old habits rather than opponents on different sides of a hell of their own making.
"Hmph" Eddard snorted and shook his head. "Seemed like the right thing to do." He said quietly leaning back in his chair with a creek.
"Could always count on you to do at least that." The King replied with a tired smile, blue eyes shining with the flicker and piss of a man twenty years younger.
"Never successfully …" his friend looked to his boots.
Robert didn't argue. "We've all made mistakes, Ned. All of us …" He nodded. "You did right by her, more than I ever did or could've done." He shook his head with eyes focused on the Valyrian Knife that cut Catelyn Stark's hands rather than her son's throat.
The King's voice took on more regret than hate on the subject of his own wife. Confronted in the quiet by the notion of the monster his bitter and drunken antics had created, Robert felt the weight of responsibility that his Hand always wore. It was in these moments that he could see eye to eye with a friend that he often took for granted.
Grey eyes looked sullen with thoughts of the wrongs and ill done to a frightened girl he found in the Godswood one night long ago. "I wish that were true." He rubbed his beard, his voice mournful of all the yesterdays that could not be taken back. Starting with the night he first hurt her.
"How is he?"
Robert watched his friend turn toward the chamber door in memory of a girl's screams as a baby cried. Eddard could question how Robert knew that Jon was just a door away or how he knew who the Black Knight was. But in this city, there was always someone who knew something and a bald man who knew all of them.
"He'll live … could've lost an arm if I were any later in getting him to the Red Keep." Eddard recalled the chaos that erupted immediately after the climax of the tourney.
The entire contest had been one long blur to him, but he remembered when Loras Tyrell had tried to blind side the Black Knight. It was in the instant, when the rider had thrown a leg over his saddle and hid behind the horse, that Eddard Stark knew that his bastard son was the Black Knight. How many times he had watched both Jon and Robb try to replicate the cavalier feat that Benjen had shown them. Both had learned how to do it, but only one had mastered it enough to use in action. He could remember nothing else but the fear of knowing what victory would mean for Jon. And only when he had won did true terror seep in. Watching the Black Knight ride to the track, come to challenge him. He thought himself faced with the impossible choice. To fight the son and save his mother, or spare the boy and let them execute the only woman Eddard had ever truly wanted.
What happened was much worse. Jon had offered his sword to the Queen, volunteered to stand for her. It was a dishonorable cause that should've been Eddard's alone. Watching him bait Robert, and the King rage into damn near madness had only brought flashes of Brandon and their father. He could see Jon being roasted alive in his black plate, chest caved in like Joffery. All because of the people, the family that Eddard had hated from the moment he saw a mother and her two children dead at Robert's feet. Quick tempers and slow minds was an old saying for Starks. But in his fear of past crimes revisited in a moment of insolence of one more wolf blooded pup in the site of a King had caused all of the things the Hand of the King didn't want to think about to come flashing to him. A raven to the Wall, the murder of his wife, the death of Stannis Baratheon on the Black Water, it only occurred to him then that the Lannisters had not only used him, but worst of all. They had used Jon. To Tywin Lannister the boy was just a bastard to be discarded once his use was done, a pockmark, a stain on the honor of House Lannister with every breath, taken care of indefinitely.
Before he could even think of it, he had attacked Tyrion Lannister. Somewhere in his mind, alive with the howling of his wolf blood, he knew that the Imp had something to do with all of this. He could've killed the dwarf had not his men and Robb restrained him. The last time he had been that taken with the Stark madness was seeing Princess Elia and her children. But this time the Lannisters had not murdered a stranger, this time they had all but laid his own son at his feet with Robert to smirk at the body wrapped in Lannister colors.
He remembered someone shouting Jon's name, his squire, Cersei's youngest boy. Then Dacey Mormont screamed. When he turned back his boy was face down in the mud. It was the sight he remembered the best. His son, his boy was lying in the mud, bleeding, his armor stricken like every great knight Eddard had ever cut down. Like every poor lad he stepped over at sunset on the closing moments of every horrible nightmarish battlefield … his son.
His wounded leg, barely mended, was forgotten as he pushed and shoved his way to the railing. Leaping over the side as his bannermen gathered round. When he got to the track, Tommen and Gendry had pulled him out of the mud. Pushing them aside he could smell the Viper's poison whiffing through the armor and glossing the open wounds that his "Blunted" blade had landed on Jon's shoulders, neck, and above his brow. He should've taken precaution when he immediately pulled the frightening helmet from his son's head. He was already sheltering the Queen, what was one more Outlaw under his roof? Luckily, Jon had thought ahead where his father hadn't. A tied black sash covered the boy's head. It was pulled down to his nose, slits cut for his eyes.
The stink of the Prince's poison was only getting worse the longer they stayed. Worse, more dangerous in immediate threat was that in the boy's fevered hallucinations he began calling a name. It was a name of a girl, a girl whose name was taboo. She was a girl who Eddard had tried to save some year ago, and gave him sleepless nights in the shame of actions taken against her. It was the name of a princess that seemed impossible for Jon to know and puzzled both his companions as to who he was calling for in absence of their master ever meeting or even hearing of a girl named Daenery's Targaryen. The name however could kill a man in this city faster than Dornish poison, if heard uttered.
He had ordered riders to go ahead and alert the Maesters in the Red Keep, while Gendry removed Jon's breastplate. The Hand could see black veins appearing on his son's skin around his wounds as he began seizing. Amongst shouts of retribution against the Dornish for their foul tricks from those who recognized Jon Snow past his head scarf, Eddard couldn't wait any longer for stretcher bearers.
Somewhere between the worst kind of fear a father only dreamed of, the black hatred of the situation that no parent ever wanted to be in, and the grief that swallowed his stomach with each flash of the worst case scenarios in his head. Eddard saw the shimmer of gold and silver. He watched as Cersei stormed toward the crowd from the bleacher tunnel. Her eyes were wide and fearful seeing her eldest child lying in the mud in his father's arms. He felt a pyre lit aflame in his heart and mind as she paced onto the frozen field. He wanted to comfort her, to kill her, to beat her to death, and make it better for her. All the things a man in love felt when betrayed by everything he'd fought and lost.
Feeling the crowd grow around him as Jon only increased his fearful calling for a deposed Princess. Eddard carried him to his own black steed. He heard Cersei calling for him, trying to reach them and it only filled him with rage. In his heated moment of hatred he would not have the golden beauty touch his son, especially when she was why he was stinking of viper and death. Mounting the steed of the Black Knight, holding his boy to his chest as he had when he was so small, he galloped away as the Queen gave chase screaming after them with only a horrific Helmet in hand for comfort.
Through the cold shadows a horse as black as midnight stormed down the night road that lit their way by the glimmer of moonlight on frost. Eddard's mind had been racing with images of a little boy, of a young man teaching his brother how to work a bow in the yard. The first night with a baby boy with his eyes in some side road inn on his way home to a wife he didn't know. He saw flashes of a boy's smiles, his tears, and short temper and insolent wit of a mother lioness's blood. By the time they had reached the Red Keep, Jon had grown silent, and his horse was nearly dead.
Leg throbbing, chest on fire from the cold, phlegm building in his chest, Eddard carried a half armored Jon up the long steps of the Tower of the Hand. Like when he first arrived in Winterfell with him all those long years ago, he laid his son on his bed. Removing leather duster, and shirt all he could do was sit and wait as the maesters and guards finally caught up and assembled. Eddard had resigned himself to his desk chair as the roar of pain and the bubble of boiling wine filled his chambers. The father only watching the sky as men in robes and jangling chains fluttered, joined eventually by Robb who rushed into the room upon hearing who was inside.
Eddard wasn't sure what he was to do, what his role was. He would let the healers work, and yet he was unsure what a father's place was in watching his son die when there was no wife to consul him, no mother to do all the things that women did when their child was hurt. Robb had told him what was going on inside the room. Hot knifes, boiling wine, cauterization. It was so much fire and heat for a boy with winter in his blood. Eventually his eldest assailed him with wanting to know what was going on, why Jon was there. And all Eddard could do to quiet him was ask the same questions back.
Feeling half-dead for most of the ordeal, he had only came alive when Cersei Lannister entered the apartments accompanied by Sansa. The Queen lifted the silk skirts of her regal gown and paced to their bed chamber quickly. But she was stone walled by Eddard who vengefully met her at the doorway.
"Let me pass!"
"…"
"He's my boy, let me pass!"
"…"
"Get … get out of my way! No, LET GO!"
The Lord of Winterfell wasn't interested in the woman's excuses, in her entitlement, or her anger. In that moment she was a stranger, a villain who had no rights to a boy her selfishness had cost the life of. All he could see was a golden haired beauty sitting on the Iron Throne, her father mounted behind her as they watched Jon roasted alive as Robb strangled himself trying to save him.
With a firm hand that could choke the life out of a war horse, Eddard Stark grabbed the Queen by her supple pale neck and dragged her out of the apartment. Once they were outside, he threw her to the floor as the guards watched. Fabric ripped as she struggled to her feet, silver and sapphire tiara obscured on her golden head. Teeth bared like an animal, the Queen lunged at Eddard. She'd fight, scratch, and claw to get back to her eldest child. And to the Hand's credit, he never struck the woman. But he wrestled with her till she was his, powerless in his arms. She would scream, kick, and shriek as he dragged her down the staircase step by step. In the quiet the Lord Hand could still hear her, as clear as the last time he'd taken her child from her.
"HE'S MY BOY!"
"HE'S MY FIRST BOY! LET ME GO!"
"NED, LET ME SEE HIM! I'M HIS MOTHER! DON'T TAKE HIM FROM ME!"
Tears ran freely down her cheeks as she wrestled against a vice grip fueled with pain and hatred. She screamed and struggled fruitlessly the entire way down, begging, threatening, and pleading for a reprieve. But the Lord Hand would have none of it. There was madness on him. The darkest rage reserved to jilted and betrayed lovers whose momentary blackened heart knew only cruelty. A mother's pleas ignored and unpenetrating for a child she did not know.
When they reached the entrance to the tower he was surprised to find the Imp, his sell-sword, and the squire Podrick standing at the doorway surrounded by a Lannister guard of five men. Their way was blocked by more than a dozen Winterfell men-at-arms. They all stepped aside as Eddard dragged a battling and red faced queen out the heavy ironwood double doors. Tyrion Lannister had the decency took look guilt ridden of his involvement when he saw Eddard Stark. More sounds of sinfully smooth material ripping echoed into the night as the Hand threw the golden beauty to her younger brother's feet. But when the Dwarf tried to help her, the Queen pushed him off her and on his ass. Cersei's face was red, her golden curls shading her eyes.
"Cersei Lannister, I hereby release you from captivity as my prisoner back to House Lannister. May you find a means to live or die in whatever manner suits you … for I care not."
As Eddard turned away the Queen rushed at him with a vicious cry of grief and rage. Stark men rushed forward and bared the golden beauty from contact as she struggled. "Coward!" She screeched at him raking her nails against a bearded man's face. "Craven, face me!" She screamed. Her teeth barred like fangs.
Eddard Stark did not. He simply walked through the doors. "Release her." Eddard called to the men ready to strike the feral beauty. She was thrown roughly back toward her father's guardsmen who caught her. She struggled for them to unhand her, and when they did, she struck the captain with a loud ring of hand against metal. Hand broken, cut, and bleeding, she seemed not to feel it her eyes alight with a madness of her own as they began closing the doors.
"I'll have your head, Lord Stark, Lord Fool! A Lannister always pays their debts, and they'll sing a new song of a Lannister's vengeance that'll frighten the children of the North for a thousand generations when I'm done with you!"
Cersei screamed and raged like the hurricane of wildfire in her heart, convinced her voice could shake down the foundation of the Hand's tower. Meanwhile, the Stark men retreated back inside with their lord, the door shutting with a heavy clank. Harwin stood next to Eddard as he slowly mounted the first steps, the queen's rage echoing off the hollow walls behind the door.
"What if she does not leave, my Lord?" The Captain asked.
Eddard continued up the stairs. "Then let her break the other hand on the door." He replied solemnly as he sank into the darkness.
It was some nights later since he had parted with Cersei, and eventually tired, hoarse, and finally broken the queen had left their door. Eddard had not sought where she had gone. He had not forgotten her words or threats and a part of him wondered if she was just in them. Twice now he had kept a mother from her son when he needed her, and twice had an act of love turned to hatred. Here he had been worrying that Robert would send an assassin's blade for Cersei when he was the one who should be worrying about a Flea Bottom cut throat paid by a Queen to ambush him on his way to the privy.
"Good …" Robert responded to Eddard's report of Jon's health. "He's a hell of a fighter, Ned. Hell of a Sword …" He growled in reverie of the tourney. "Before the whole business with Cersei, it was like nothing else since the Targaryen battles … Gods what a fight, Ned. The Black Knight and the Prince they're calling it down there, every minstrel singing their own account of it in every tavern and brothel." The king sighed with a lack to satisfaction. "Gods, to be that young again." He shook his head before lowering it in thought of all the years before when there was a crown to win, before there were girls to marry.
There was a long pause in the quiet of the office. "Gods what I'd give to crack skulls the way your Black Knight did. To bleed those rich cunts, just ring their mother fucking, simpering heads like we used to back in our days. You remember?" He asked quietly.
Eddard smirked tiredly. "I didn't fight in tournaments … you were the Melee fighter." He responded.
"Damn your northern honor, you grim faced fuck." He smiled in reverence. "You never knew what it was like to crown a Queen of Love and Beauty, and fuck her before you got sore from all the tourney blows." He laughed.
"Aye? How would you know about crowning love and beauties? You never won any tourneys … you always got disqualified for getting too rough." He chastised with a chuckle.
The king was caught off guard for a moment, forgetting what it was like to be held accountable for his past. But quickly he found a jolly laugh, it's base softly bouncing off the hollow walls. "All those Riverland and Reach cunts, their cold snobby mothers dress'em up in fancy armor, their fathers brag, but they're all shocked when they find out what it's like get hit! And Gods did they get hit, didn't they?!" The King bragged. He gave a long sigh. "I might not have crowned any of their smug, skinny high born ladies, but I put a bastard in a few of their bellies before they married them." He laughed.
There was a coy grin on the Lord of Winterfell's face as he rubbed his stubble. "I'd believe that." He replied looking off into the night.
This was Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark at their purest. One of them was cautious and grim, keeping in check the mass of muscle, fury, and seed. The other one was bold, loud, and obnoxious, always mining a weary smile or enduring chuckle from the melancholy wolf when he was at the peak of sorrow. A friendship that knew no limits or odds that could break the comradely of a lifetimes worth of adventure, fun, and sorrow that connected them forever.
The King sighed again, this time there was a sadness to it. "When was the last time we went to a tourney together?" He asked. Grey eyes returned to the man. He must have known the answer, remembered, but working toward something.
"Harrenhal" Eddard reminded him.
"Harrenhal …" Robert nodded. "That was a proper tourney wasn't it?" He asked with a growl of nostalgia. "Catelyn's Grandmother, trying to outshine Tywin Lannister that day." He laughed.
There was a defiant grin. "I hope he remembers it." The Hand thought of the look on Tywin Lannister's face when every grand tourney he put on in Lannisport was compared too and always fell short of the grandeur of his wife's grandmother's at the melted halls that was home to House Whent.
Hearing the fight in his friend's voice the king laughed in enjoyment. "Oh trust me he does …" the king trailed off. "All the gold in the world can't buy back those memories." He got quiet all of the sudden.
After a long moment he spoke. "You, ah, you remember the day before the Tourney? Lady Whent postponed the beginning … she, uh, she … why?" Robert seemed to be concentrating on something else. He was in a different time and different place, like a fishermen holding on a reel trying not to lose the fish.
"The Mad King was coming, and he was taking his bloody time getting out of the Capital." He provided.
Robert nodded waving him off. "Right, right, right …" His eyes glazed over. Suddenly a slow smile began to form on his face. The sadness in his eyes in the shadows showed how old his friend had become as the light of youth was shown in a smile trapped in time.
"The day we went to go meet Lyanna and Brandon when they came down from Riverrun?" Eddard asked quietly. His eyes becoming glassy at the very thought of that day that had long been locked away in his mind. Like Robert it played so vividly, haunting him again after being dormant for so many years.
There were no words from Robert as he looked away. His eyes glazed with wonder and an overwhelming sadness that would hurt another had it not been shared by the man he was sitting with. "You remember that day?" Robert asked.
Eddard quietly nodded. "I do." He replied softly.
"Gods what a day … that sun, that sky … the country." The King spoke to himself as if he were still there.
As what had seemed like the entirety of seven kingdoms waited for the King to arrive. Robert, Lyanna, and Eddard had taken a day to go exploring the Whent's country side. They had gotten special permission from Lady Whent to go hunting in their woods, strings pulled by Brandon who was betrothed to her eldest granddaughter.
Robert had wanted a bore, but what he got was enslavement to Lyanna's whims. And on a day like that one, there had never been two happier slaves in the entire world. Years in the derriere halls of Winterfell and the grim lonesome of the Eyre, had given a kind of magic to the countryside. Till this day Eddard had never seen greens greener, the wheat more golden, the sun brighter, the water cooler, Robert happier, and a more beautiful sister than Lyanna Stark.
He remembered the taste of the summer air as they rode full gallop down the narrow farm roads, chasing afternoon shadows. They explored coves and shaded places, racing king stags that sprang from them. Watching silently while Lyanna placed a wild cat in Robert's saddle bag and both laughing into breathing fits watching the big, handsome boy wrestle it off his face when they had stopped to eat. Eddard getting pushed into a creek and Lyanna jumping in after him before she could be pushed herself. Both of the Starks lay out on the sand, drying off together on the bank, watching the blue sky overhead. It was a day, an hour, a moment to have some fun when they were all still young before duty, honor, and truth would separate them.
"Remember the way the sun was in her hair, the water glistening on her skin on the banks of that stream? Her smile whenever she spoke to you?" A single tear fell from Robert Baratheon's eyes. "Gods, what a day." He scoffed through an emotional choke, wiping his eyes filled with an old love long lost to time.
Eddard didn't say anything merely nodded, both men reliving that same day with the third part of a friendship that would never be reattached. Eddard watched Robert for a long moment and was eaten with guilt seeing the love in his eyes.
He had remembered later that night as Robert slept. Eddard had sat on the stream bank, by their campfire. Thinking of tomorrow and all the things unspoken of what was to come. He remembered watching the sun go down on that glorious day. With all his soul he could feel the end of an age, an era, of youth. And tomorrow everything would change and the world would be different. That was when Lyanna had come to join him, sated in the open of freedom and free country.
Wet from one last evening swim, the wet droplets sparkling on her skin, his sister had sauntered over and took the spot next to him. Like when they were children, she had placed her head on his shoulder, always comforting the middle Stark child prone to moods of sorrow since the death of their mother. He had placed his head on hers. They didn't speak for a long time before he asked her about Robert and their engagement. She didn't answer him then. He remembered her long glossy hair, her dark golden eyes and just a touch of sorrow in her smile.
"Everybody needs a friend like Robert Baratheon …" She replied. The hesitation in her soft voice was answer enough. And it had been enough to break his heart, knowing what the trip had truly been, the last time that all three of them would be together as friends.
"I'll talk to father." He promised. Bowing his head sadly, knowing what the fallout would cost him. Suddenly, a hand had cupped his chin and lifted it so that their eyes would meet. She looked grateful, guilty, and empathetic to all that was to come.
"Everybody might need a friend like Robert Baratheon. But all I need is a brother like Eddard Stark." He remembered the smile on her beautiful face and the peck on his cheek. Afterward she had crawled into his lap like she used to when they were small and fell asleep in his arms as they watched the stars. Never dreaming it would be the last night they'd ever spend together.
One rebellion, thousands of lives, the murder of a mother and her children, a dead sister, and many years later and Eddard still hadn't the heart to tell Robert Baratheon the truth. With Cersei and Catelyn's angry words echoing in his mind, it left Eddard Stark pondering, wondering if the truth would have spared lives or if it would've made it all the worse.
Robert sniffled hard and cleared his throat as Eddard looked into his lap. "I was, ugh, thinking about your boy today, Ned." He cleared his throat as he wiped his eyes with his palms. "Never escaped my notice … how much he looks like her, you know?" He asked.
The Hand merely nodded. Whenever his patients was thin, or he questioned taking the boy with him after a fight with Catelyn or a nightmare of a sobbing beautiful young queen, Eddard somehow always remembered that night, that look in his sister's eye and it reassured him in those dark, guilty, moments of doubt.
"I woke up this morning and thought for a moment that I'd sit this one out." Robert sniffed. The King was trying hard to collect himself. "Not fight him, not put you through that, not see her eyes when I've got the blood up …" He took a long sigh and matched eyes with his oldest friend. After a long moment there was a commiserating smirk.
"No …" The King shook his head. "I … I couldn't do that could I?" Robert asked rhetorically.
While nothing would please Eddard more, he knew the reality, and above all he respected the traditions of the trial by combat. It would be unfair and unwise to run or let a second take your place in a duel. So when faced with the question all the man did was shake his head emotionlessly.
"It wouldn't be right." The bushy man reconfirmed.
Eddard nodded quietly.
Drained of emotions after a long fortnight of sleeplessness and memories, both men had ran out of things to say. The silence hanging off of everything unspoken between the two lifelong friends that knew as they had that one perfect summer day long ago that everything was about to change again. The King stood up from the Hand's seat and wandered to where his friend sat silently still trapped long away. When his hand fell on Eddard's shoulder it startled him back to the present.
"Thank you, Ned. I needed to remember that … remember her, tonight." There was a personal sincerity in the large man's voice that was very seldom heard.
The Hand cleared his throat and looked down. "Yep" he said shortly. Emotion still captured within his throat. Robert nodded and lumbered a few more steps when he stopped and turned. It caught Eddard's eye. "I'll give him however long it takes to get his strength back. However long it takes." He promised with a vow from one warrior to another.
There was a deeply emotional sense of gratitude from a man who had lost his wife and watched his wounded son nearly slain at the hands of a rogue. It was in every line on his face and every crack in his heart that night when he gave a curt nod.
"Thank you, Robert." He said quietly.
The King chortled. "I'm not doing it for you. Look at this gut, Ned. It might take a whole fucking year to get rid of!" He slapped his stomach and laughed loudly. His candor and charm never failed to make Eddard smile as he looked to the floor one last time.
As Robert gripped the door handle he stopped and noticed the great sword Ice sitting on a table. A wet-stone and rag lay next to the spell forged blade. The table set and smelt like one who was tuning a sword for battle very recently. Rather than feel threatened or suspicious of the sight, there was only a familiar knowing smirk of affection on his jowly face.
"Till we meet again, Stark." He announced.
When Eddard looked up he noticed that the King was eyeing his sword. He didn't hide his intentions from a man who knew him better than himself most days. Then, two men that changed the course of history shared one last look.
"Till we meet again, Baratheon." He gave a nod.
"Where ever it may be."
"Whenever it may be."
"Till that time."
Eddard bowed. "Till that time, Your Grace." The sad smirk never left the King's face even as he left glancing at the Valyrian sword on the table.
When Robert was gone the emptiness began to gather again in the shadows around him. The memories of Lyanna had stirred only sorrow in his heart and doubt in his soul. His eyes fixed on his ancestral sword. Leaving his chair, he picked up the magic blade and looked it over. What had been a question in his mind for many months was now a certainty.
He had tried to fill his heart with all the anger and hatred it could carry. To cut out what had been taken and perverted by another. But no matter how hard he tried, his torment remained. When he slept, he dreamt of a maiden with golden hair that shimmers in the morning light. Her emerald eyes closed as she accepted the breeze off the sea, the salty air throbbing at her temples, the toothy grin of midnight's bliss and a love seldom felt on her mind. When he awoke on those mornings and found her gone, the memory of all the joyful moments crowd around him and he knew he was a liar. All the wrongs and betrayals should keep him away and yet his love for this woman wrapped around him like a mighty chain that dragged him enviably to the field of battle. His blade and heart cutting all the cables that latched him to this earth, willing to float away, to give all he had to protect one who loathed him now.
All her hate, misery, and anger burned ever so brightly and yet he was willing to forgive all her transgressions for a morning, a second, a heart's beat for that one moment many years ago he had opened his eyes and saw a young maiden in love. If he could not fight for a queen who had nothing but hate in her heart for the Hand of the King, than he'd fight for that girl buried somewhere in his own mind. And if death would find him, than it would be her name, and her name alone he'd call as his last breath leaves him on some cold afternoon.
But for all his greater nobility and sorrow in the destruction of a lifetime's worth of brotherhood grappling with his opponent, Eddard Stark lamented the love for his child, of a queen, and the sacrifice willing to be made for both of them. Sitting in the dark, brooding, with a great sword in his lap, and direwolf at his feet, the only place left for him, it had all come to naught …
For the duel he had been so sure he was destined to fight had been taken from him and placed in the hands of another.
Acknowledgments
"The Summer before the War – Connie Dover"