ATMAO Ch 4
"I have heard that you have gotten yourself a new squire?" The Queen asked, lounging on her chair.
Meryn had planned to tell the news to the King first. If he got approval from Robert, there was nothing Cersei could do. But Cersei must have found out through some guard who had been in the practice yard. And he was summoned by the Queen before he could find Robert drunk enough to go along with anything he said.
But now that it had come to this, it was better to just own up to it.
"I have, your grace." He replied with a sly smirk that came easily to this face. "The boy is in a very interesting situation."
So Meryn waited for her to ask what the interesting situation was, so he could give her the story he had cooked up.
"Of course," she smirked back. "I have found out all about it."
She had? He blinked. Already? He vowed not to underestimate her.
"As expected of your grace." he complimented, not knowing if he was supposed to be on casual speaking terms with her.
"The honourable Lord Stark fathering a bastard, he is Robert's friend after all! To think that he was hiding this stain on his honour." she chuckled.
Did she.. just find that out?
"Indeed." Meryn chuckled. "On top of that, the bastard was being exiled from Winterfell before I took him as squire. The new Lord Hand seems desperate to hide his shame now that he is being dragged into the public light."
"And that is why you took him on." she said as if coming to a realisation. "To bring him south and expose his father's true nature." The Queen stood up and stalked towards him.
"Tell me, Ser Meryn. You are a loyal man, are you not?"
"Of course, your grace."
"Can you do what needs to be done then, Ser Meryn?"
"Your grace?"
"I can tell that you have no fondness for our new Lord Hand and I have.. my own misgivings."
"Misgivings, your grace?" He prompted.
"He now holds the second strongest seat in the realm and has managed to receive the hand of the crown prince for his-" she paused as if stopping herself from saying an insult, then continued,
"-daughter. The king is willing to allow him to gather power at a rate rarely seen."
"I can see why this will be a dire situation." Meryn considered his words carefully. The best outcome from this conversation would be to cement himself as a confidant. Meryn's political standing was not of much consequence in the long run. But he could use it for the benefit of Jon Snow.
"This is not an issue we can solve by just bringing it to the King's attention if he is too blinded by his childhood friendship." he said, implying that he would keep this a secret.
"I am glad that you understand," she smiled, giving him a beatific smile. "This is where your fortuitous new squire will be useful. Not that I expect it to become necessary, but should Lord Stark's ambitions get the better of his loyalty, can I count on you to use the boy as leverage to keep him in line?"
"A hostage," he muttered.
He was hoping for some arrangement where she would offer Jon Snow some benefits and attempt to recruit the boy to her own side. But he had either overestimated Jon's importance or underestimated her bloodthirstiness. She was straight up asking him to kill the boy if Stark went against her.
These Lannisters don't fuck around. Didn't she know about Jon organising the Winterwatch? He could have uses other than a hostage, dammit!
"If that is what you and the realm require of me, I shall do my duty, your grace."
She smiled, looking pleased and gave him leave to go.
Meryn went to the king's chambers and waited. Soon enough Robert arrived walking with two of his stormlander knights as they laughed drunkenly at something the king had said.
Boros followed behind them, looking quite drunk himself. Meryn couldn't help but frown at the unprofessional behaviour of both Boros and the King. Robert noticed it and called "Trant! What are you looking so grim for?"
"Not much, your grace. Just thinking of my duties." He replied automatically.
Robert grunted in disgust. "When did you become such a hard ass? The only reason that I brought you instead of Selmy or Oakheart is that you don't nag at me like a woman. If I wanted someone to stand there and look at me in disapproval, I would have made Cersei do it. At least she would have looked pretty doing it."
The knights laughed uproariously and Meryn managed a chuckle.
"Haha, you're right, your grace. I'll figure out what to do with my new squire when I see him again."
"A new squire? What happened to the old ones?"
"My own squire, your grace. Not Lancel or Tyrek or one of the boys we left in King's Landing."
Jon had spied on Trant long enough to learn about it. The Kingsguard didn't have personal squires. They were too busy to actually look after a squire and not busy enough to require someone who sees exclusively to clean their armour or horses.
Their horses were taken care of by the stableboys. The armours were cleaned by the numerous servants or the king's own squires at times whose lessons were often delegated to the Kingsguard.
"Who did you pick? I thought we had run out of Lannisters to squire. The five Stormlanders laughed at that.
"A Northerner boy, almost of age. I was sparring with some men in the yard, most went down easy enough. But this kid kept getting back up and challenging me. Kept doing it even the next day, and actually got better at holding out against me. So I decided I might as well teach him personally." He shrugged.
"Ha, that sounds like a boy from the North." The King laughed.
One of the knights was not so sure. "What of lessons in chivalry though? If he is almost of age then it will be harder to teach him about knighthood."
"It should not be difficult with this one." Meryn smiled. "I doubt that Ned Stark would raise a son, even a bastard, who does not know honour."
"Ned's bastard." The King laughed. "Yes, that sounds like how Ned would have done things back in Vale."
"He's named after the late Lord Jon Arryn." Meryn eyed the King speculatively. "Perhaps, your grace would like to cross blades with the boy yourself? To see if he meets the standards of that name."
"Hmm. Once I get bored of the hunts, perhaps."
…
Bird flew over the castle again, flitting from tower to tower as it surreptitiously followed the blonde twins. It watched, hidden on a rooftop, as the Lannisters looked around for observers, before entering the First Keep.
Jon had played with the idea of getting them caught, but that was likely to lead to war, and war lead to death. So Bird just hid and listened as Cersei complained about Eddard Stark becoming the Hand, about Lysa Arryn preparing to accuse them, about Robert possibly setting her aside, and about Jon Arryn poking his nose in other people's business.
Then she complained about Jaime not doing anything to help the situation, unlike her, who has taken Stark's bastard as leverage against him.
Bird almost dozed off by the time the sound of flesh slapping flesh started. Not expecting anymore useful information, Bird went to the improvised, little litter box that Jon had made for it. Bird had moved it to a ledge above a window in the First Keep and had been filling it regularly.
Clutching it carefully, it flew inside the window, dropped the litter on the naked couple, and flew away.
…
In the Godswoods, when Jon began to laugh, Bran, Arya and Sansa looked up from where they were playing with their direwolves. Jon had roped them into a competition of direwolf training. They had been competing on who could teach their direwolf the most tricks and Sansa and Arya were easily beating the boys.
Summer did whatever it wanted, disregarding Bran's commands. While Ghost could tell that Jon was more amused whenever it came and tackled Jon everytime he commanded "Sit!".
The girls laughed along with Jon, perhaps assuming that it was on Bran's or Ghost's behest. But Bran only frowned.
"Stop laughing! I swear he listens to me normally."
"No, no. I'm not laughing at you. It's just.. the things I do for pettiness." He smirked.
"Anything interesting, Snow?" Asked Robb as he came alongside Grey Wolf. The other wolves welcomed their brother with varying levels of physical affection.
"You're late, Stark." Jon greeted him with a smile.
"I was out in town. Theon invited me to drink to celebrate his joining the Watch."
Jon felt something ugly in his chest at the news. Theon was highborn, confident, and grudgingly Jon would admit, not incompetent. He could make a career in the Watch. Unlike Jon who built the Watch from the ground up and deserved it far more than him.
But there was no point in resentment. He will soon be moving to a much bigger city, with a much better established City Watch. True, he might start at the bottom, but out of necessity if nothing else he will find some way to climb up the ranks.
"I hope he does not slack off then." Jon smiled at his brother.
"He will be a poor replacement for your dedication. But I will see that he suffices until you come back home." Robb stated.
"I do not envy the task you have set for yourself."
"Jon. You will always have a place to return here. Even if I do nothing else as a Lord, this I will make sure of."
Jon noticed how similar his words were to Lord Stark's and realised the two might have discussed this. Perhaps even fought over it.
"Thank you, Robb. I believe you." And he did. At least he believed that Robb would try. But by the time he was Lord, he would likely be married. Perhaps to a Manderly or a Karstark or a Mormont. It mattered not.
What mattered was that she would be no more likely to tolerate him gaining power in Winterfell than Lady Stark was. Robb would try to make peace between them, maybe even succeed. But peace would require compromise, some on Jon's part, like limits to how high he could rise in the Stark household to not terrify Robb's wife.
Yet, that wasn't entirely why he had decided to leave Winterfell. It was because he was because when Jon had first been told of his temporary exile, Meryn Trant had not been the first target he had thought of to kill and puppet the body of.
No, the first target in his mind was Catelyn Stark.
She could do so much for Jon. If she asked, Jon could be legitimised. If she wished, she could arrange a marriage for him to some Lord's daughter.
The thought had been as tempting as it was monstrous.
He was new to this power now, and already he had used it on two people, both of whom he had judged to be evil enough. By the time Robb was Lord, if his wife proved as much an obstacle to Jon's successes as his mother was, would Jon find the action as monstrous? Or would he have stewed in decades worth of resentment and be quick to declare her evil?
No, it was better for everyone that he looked for his fortune elsewhere.
They played with their wolves some more, Jon and Robb even tried wrestling once like they did as kids, and Ghost and Grey Wolf joined them.
"Come on, we should go pack our things." Jon told his siblings and they returned to their rooms, but there was someone else whose packing he was more interested in.
…
Bird was working overtime to spy on Joffrey, especially when he packed his things for the journey the next day. Luckily, its efforts proved fruitful and before Joffrey went to sleep, he took out a fancy looking dagger and slashed it around before putting it back inside.
Bird noted the location of its storage and flew away.
…
The King's party, newly increased in numbers, was supposed to leave early the next day. Unfortunately, Jamie Lannister was hungover and Queen Cersei was pissed off and limping. Jon wasn't entirely sure what happened to them, but he had an inkling that it was his fault.
So they started late and the situation didn't improve as they progressed. The entire thing gave Jon an idea about something he was worried about. The King's party took almost 3 months in canon to go from Winterfell to King's Landing. If possible, he wanted to get rid of the Queen and her carriage so they could go a little faster.
So Meryn went and suggested to the king that the party split into two. He put it into more flowery words like "the King and his Hand need to get to the capital and start governing the realm" or "the Queen has a delicate disposition, she will find a naval journey more to her liking" and suggested that the Queen be sent to White Harbour and take a ship to King's Landing.
The King was annoyed enough to take his suggestion and issue the order, while the Queen was angry enough to accept the order. Ned Stark looked perplexed as he got an even earlier glimpse of the clusterfuck that was the royal couple. Still, he made the preparations for the Queen's journey to White Harbour, and a raven was sent to the Manderlys to prepare a ship for their journey to King's Landing.
When Jon talked to his father later, he seemed worried that more houses would now have to host a royal and thus spend more money. Jon consoled him that at least the cost for hosting the king's original party would now be reduced.
Jon's optimism took a sudden hit the next day as the Queen was set to depart. Since she was taking all her children with her, she decided to take all the kingsguard as well. There was some token protest about the king never being without the kingsguard, but she didn't relent and got her way.
So it was that Jon found himself parting ways from his siblings, and joining the Queen and her children on their way to White Harbour. He had originally planned to get closer to the King during the journey, maybe get him to exercise more and drink less. The longer Robert reigned, the more time he would have to gather more power and possibly contain the aftermath of Robert's death. However, his plans were ruined by the Queen's whims.
He hoped that Kobe would have better luck in his ranging.
…
Kobe did not have better luck in his ranging.
Not even living for so long in the North had prepared him for the cold in the True North. On top of that the wall was doing something to his connection to the main body. It was a queer sort of feeling, like this part of his brain was in lag with the rest of the hive-mind. He hoped that it would not cause issues with his objective of testing his abilities.
But not all of his issues stemmed from the supernatural.
Theirs was a party of seven and half of them hated him.
"Stop," Rykker commanded, and they dismounted the horses. Chett and Garth were told to stand watch with the horses and guard the ravens, while the rest went forward to inspect the village before them.
Anywhere south of the wall, eight men entering a hostile village would be suicide, but he doubted that they would be outnumbered in a village of only six ramshackled houses.
The streets, for what they were, were empty. And when they entered the houses, they found those empty too.
Kobe felt relieved at that, though his companions did not share the sentiment.
"Where the hell is everyone?!" Othor demanded from no one in particular.
"Keep your guard up. Garth, Othor, go check on the horses. The rest of you, go in groups of two and look around the village."
So great was his relief that Kobe had to suppress the smile. He had known that the village would be abandoned a year from now when the Great Ranging would arrive here. And he felt that it was already abandoned when Benjen went ranging a month or so from now.
But if it was still inhabited, there would have been a battle that would have ended with one side slaughtering the other. Which Kobe would have felt responsible for as the person who had suggested this ranging.
When nothing was found and they all returned to the horses, he said "We should send a raven now."
"Villages get relocated in these lands often enough. This just means that the maps will need correcting." Rykker replied.
Kobe wanted to tell him that this was nothing normal, but knew it would not be believed.
"Then the maps will not be corrected if we get slaughtered on the morrow. Unless we send the raven telling what we found." He countered.
"If you were so afraid of dying, you should have become a builder." Smallwood mocked.
"I don't fear dying. I fear dying with nothing to show for it."
"There's seven of us, even with one craven, we are more than a match for an empty village."
"An empty village just means that the wildlings are where we can't see them." Kobe turned to Rykker. "Perhaps waiting to ambush us."
"He's right, Thoren. This is not one of the usual rangings where we only send word after a battle." Rykker interjected finally. "We have come here to send reports first, find battle after."
That was the plan Kobe had posed to the Lord Commander. Any rangings far from the Wall had been forbidden since Waymar's party met its mysterious end as Mormont worried that the next party might die mysteriously too.
So he was planning to send Benjen Stark with a larger party of seven, as opposed to the usual three, to find out what happened to Waymar.
But Kobe had suggested to just send a small party with ravens, so they could release one raven everytime they found something pertinent to the Night's Watch. And Mormont had accepted his suggestion.
Since Benjen Stark was still several months away, and the objectives of this ranging were simple enough, Ser Jeremy Rykker was given command. Chett was sent to take care of the ravens, something he blamed Kobe for, and gave him angry glances all through the journey.
Chett was not alone in that. Some other riders seemed displeased by being chosen to be sent out on a ranging this far north too.
So he had made sure to stay closer to Dirk and Garth who were more friendly to him.
Still, once they returned to mount the horses, Chett brought out parchment and quill for Rykker to write his missive, then brought out a raven to send the missive.
They rode on for the next village, and this time Kobe had more confidence that it would be empty. Once more he suggested to Rykker that they send a raven, but this time he was refused. So he suggested they leave markings on the walls, just in case.
Rykker agreed to do it and scribbled "Empty" with the date on the first wall they saw as they entered the village.
It was not until Whitetree that they sent the second raven. By then they were all unnerved by the strange situation and Rykker went to Chett to write the missive without any prompting from him.
Kobe, Thoren, Dirk and Garth looked around the village for things they knew they'd never find. The former inhabitants were nowhere to be seen, and there were no belongings left behind to imply that they were coming back.
"You know what would be smart?" Thoren asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. "If we had brought dogs. The trail is fresh enough that if we had dogs we could have found these wildlings and killed them already."
"You would've brought them dogs, Smallwood. If only you had been given the command." Dirk agreed with a smile, making Kobe smile as well.
Thoren wanted the command in Benjen's absence, and he had made no secret of it. Anytime they were without Rykker he would tell the rest of them how he could've done things better.
"Do you think we should follow what trail we can find? Or head to Crasters?" Kobe asked.
He thought for a while then replied "It's hard to be certain which trail to follow just by sight. But Craster-"
Whatever he wanted to say was cut off by the sound of their horses neighing loudly.
The black brothers look at each other, then hurry towards their mounts.