padfoot923: I had first wanted to call him Richard, but I thought Rickard was better being the GOT equivalent and no one else as far as I can tell had used it before, and I'm quite sick of seeing people call their Steffon or Lyonel or some other Baratheon-esque name. As far as the story is concerned, there is he's named after no one in particular as far as Rickard goes.
Kevan
His Great Nephew is back again, at his request, and expecting to be fed. It's not oft that you are allowed to take breakfast with a Prince, but this one he has known since his eighth year, and dinned with often. Dressed in his best, or rather what his cousin Tyrek has advised is best to wear when breaking one's fast with their Great Uncle. Besides that, he looks terrible, like a rope chewed by a dog, or the leavings from a plate of King Robert's. Bright eyes drooping with heavy bags beneath and the hairs of his brows knocked out of line where he's been rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Now, he looks around the table: at the other places set out for his other guests. The inquiry is simple and to the point, as you would expect from such a Prince of the blood. Kevan Lannister smiles, and says, "Your siblings, and uncles. Never fear."
"My Mother?"
Rickard Baratheon fears no one alive, except his Father and Grandfather, either of whom could strip away his Princedom, and throw him out on the street on his Princely nose. Yet, the urgency in his voice, and the jump in his cheek gives his Great Uncle cause to pause and question the fact.
"No," he answers, simply, "she is breaking her fast with your sister, and their ladies." There is a drop in the Prince's face. Perhaps he thought siblings meant both brothers and his sister. Maybe it is something else, because Gods alone know what a Baratheon may be thinking, however great a nephew he might be.
When he returned to the capital, two years ago, at the age of four and ten, the Prince thought this would be the beginning of the life he had been brought up to live, that it would be the making of him. However, it has only been the beginning of his troubles. Because he does have his trouble; the second in line to the Iron Throne, one of the premier nobles in Westeros, the greatest swordsman to come out of the Westerlands in twenty years has his rivals and ill-wishers, his defamers, and an older brother with which to compete. His life has not turned out as he would hope, and so he is disaffected with everything. King's Landing hasn't brought him the honours and acclaim he had in Casterly Rock, or Storm's End, or Highgarden. His Mother, the Queen, has taken them for herself and other kin, leaving the Prince supported by an allowance from the treasury, which is always being cut, so must write to his Grandfather, who subsidises him, for more money, and it cuts at his pride to be so destitute.
Add to this he thinks that the realm should not be guided, as it is presently, by Jon Arryn, who lets the King roam and whore and allows the Queen to wheedle away the King's influence for her own. As if it had been Cersei Lannister that sat the Iron Throne, not her husband: a woman cannot head anything, least of all the Realm, as every man in the Realm knows and lives in ignorance of. So, Rickard has been grumbling for the past year, that Westeros is failing: not mentioning his family in anything, but of the councillors and Jon Arryn. Of meagre harvests and the ruinous things he saw on his travels of Westeros with his Uncle Renly Baratheon.
But now that one of his relatives from Casterly Rock, that are not cut from lesser stock, are here, Rickard is vibrant and unusually affable to the ills which plague him, flanked by his smirking retainers and better cousins, chief among which, "Tyrek? Where is he?"
A pause. "Oh, Ty is still abed." Still in the brothel, he means, but its good of Rickard to keep the subject away from breakfast.
The Prince shoots a glance to the door. His brother has entered the room. Joffrey Baratheon, who for sake of simplicity and flattery, people call the Golden Prince, on account of his hair. Seven and ten, with curly hair, handsome, like his brother, yet that is where the similarities end, much like their uncles, the dwarf and the Kingsguard trailing in after the Golden Prince.
From Gold to Black: "Gods' teeth, Dick, you look ill." With relish and a sharp smile, "you look as if your skin will melt on to your platter. Out drinking last night, again? Myself, too! And all the worse for wear. Look at this!" Then he's pulling up a sleeve, and showing the whole room.
You'd think that it was humiliation that reduces Rickard Baratheon to the skin and bones existence his brother thinks he leads, and not drink. While they are eating, Joffery talks over his brother and interrupts him. He laughs at the holy medals and relics the Black Prince wears. At one point, he leans across the table toward him and says, "Come along now, Rickard. Eat your sausage. You're melting again."
"I am," Rick says, bored and gritting his teeth, "I don't know how you do it, Joff. Everything fleshed up in your clothes. A giant would eat you, for certain."
Leaning back, smirking, Joffery says, "Ah, a risk of life, you know."
Rickard rolls his eyes, and turns to his smallest uncle. "What's the gossip off the streets then, Uncle?"
Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf. His legs are short, stubby creatures – bent and misshapen. Besides this, he is ugly: forehead jutting out and sloping downward, each eye mismatched between black and Lannister green, and dirty blonde hair with a black lank running through it. More to that he lives a dog's life. Either drinking and whoring or reading and writing, Tyrion is an enigma to his Uncle Kevan, who could well surpass his father one day, yet does nothing to help his own case.
Now, uncle turns to nephew and says, "You, for one, Rick."
"Oh?"
"Yes. You're the talk of all the street taverns and brothels. Even the court whispers about you to one another. Asking one another about you. Interrogating everyone who is a supposed authority on you. I, for one, have never been so popular."
The Black Prince is grinning, "Really? Well, you're welcome." They are always laughing, these two. Closer to one another than either of their Fathers. After all, it was Tyrion who brought Rickard to the Rock, when he was but six, shorter than the dwarf and more timid than Kevan had ever known Tyrion to be at any age. "What do the people ask of me then, uncle?"
"They want to know what becomes of the women in your life."
Rickard's brow furrows. "What women? There are no women in my life." He cocks his head and shrugs. "Much to my own dismay."
Tyrion drains his glass. "The line of destitute women you leave. Have left, in fact, all across Westeros, nephew. Did you not know? That you have a procession of aggrieved young women."
A shrug. "This is news to me."
Another trouble with being Rickard Baratheon is that the crimes of others are yours also. This procession of aggrieved women is true of the boy's father, yet really who is to know the difference between one Baratheon and another, they're all the same. Not to mention this is the curse all sons must live with, being the shadow of their Father. To share the same crimes and sins. And it's even more dangerous for the son of a King.
House Baratheon lives on thin ice. Its few living members are always forced to reposition themselves. Every mishap and mistake on the part of King Robert and his council force them to, and the prospect of losing the Throne surely keeps them awake at night. Each error puts a glint in the eye of there every enemies. Each error may be their last. Each error may force the realm into revolt, may even topple House Baratheon forever. It's Robert Baratheon's own success that allows them to imagine so vividly.
Joffery leaves breakfast once his plate is cleared away. So too does Tommen, his escort and maester coming to take him away for his lessons in the maester's tower. Ser Jaime too excuses himself, it's his shift to guard the drawbridge to Maegor's Holdfast. There numbers dwindled down to three: Kevan, Rickard and Tyrion.
Even though he was silent for much of breakfast, Tyrion has been grinning until he is fit to burst, practically seething with questions, muscles in his and fingers cheeks jumping and buzzing around his eyes. "About last night, Rick? You had a word with the Princess, I hear?"
The Prince purses his lips, raises his eye brows, and leans back in his chair to slouch. He says, "I would've liked to go fishing today."
He, Kevan, turns to his nephew, "Princess, Tyrion?"
Grinning, the dwarf's mismatched eyes are full of mirth when they flick toward his uncle. "The Lady Arianne. Our Ambassador from Dorne." Kevan has seen her at court. Dornish to the core: cunning and sly and unnerving. There's far more to her than he thinks anyone realises, and if he had been King Robert, he would have sent the girl back home when she offered herself dignitary on behalf of her father.
Tyrion turns back to his own nephew, "You were seen in the Sept together, alone."
Rickard, amiable, ignoring the conversation: "Pity Harry asked to spar…"
"'What did you talk of', I wonder to myself."
"And I am to meet the Council, when it is session…"
"And then of course that argument with your mother."
The Prince freezes, petrified in time and place. It's not just that he's shocked, it's an inability to respond. Shutdown, locked in place, the only piece of Rickard Baratheon that moves is a slight shake in his right hand. A look on Tyrion's face, and even he has frozen, before he'd been teasing, amusing, and looking just as relaxed as his nephew. But now he realises he's pushed open some door behind which is his worse fear.
Slowly, Rickard re-joins them back at the table, reassembling his person one piece at a time. A dark look goes toward his little uncle, and he says, softly, absent of all ill feeling and drenched in politeness, "Mind your words, uncle." It's the indifference of his tone that cuts Tyrion hardest, calls him to pull back and bow his head. Then the Prince turns to his Great Uncle and begs his pardon.
"Harry will be expecting me. And I suspect Tyrek will have woken by now."
Once he goes, yet again, uncle turns to nephew to speak. He says, "You'd better tell me everything." And Tyrion looks as though he may just start praying again.
The Small Council is in session. Today is an audience day. Where once the King and his Hand would together hold meetings and petitions from the Smallfolk and those nobles who are visiting the Court with their most pressing issues, now the Hand of the King is alone, and his lack of strength and precedent dictates that he must also be guided by the unanimity of the Small Council. Jon Arryn would have had all these men underfoot once, but no longer. Strong as he is, the Lord of the Vale is failing. Broad shouldered still, but his back is hunching over, he's bald on top of his but for a few wisps of hair on his crown, and all but a few of his teeth have fallen out. And he leans to the left, where a double-edged longsword hangs from his belt, dragging him down like a ship's anchor.
He sits on the Iron Throne in King Robert's stead, and below him, at a long table sits the Small Council. It's an improvement on some of the Councils King Robert's predecessor had, however that is saying little.
Grand Maester Pycelle sits on the left of the Hand, eternal and never shifting; he has been seated on the Small Council for forty years, since the reign of Aegon the Fifth. He has seen the fall of House Targaryen, and the rise of Houses Lannister and Baratheon. He served the Small Council with King Robert's grandsire, Ormund Baratheon, who was Hand of the King to Jaehaerys the Second, and later with both of Rickard's grandfathers Tywin Lannister and Steffon Baratheon. Old as he is though, he still looks as though he will outlast the current Hand by a good many years.
On Jon Arryn's right sits the Master of Coin: Petyr Baelish, who men call Littlefinger, on account of his having lordship over the smallest piece of Lord Arryn's domain. Yet he has risen high up above his lowly birth to achieve much. First as the most preeminent money lender in the Vale, before climbing to the Small Council and King's Landing. Besides his money, he is powerless, and he's friendly enough, and eager to be easy and helpful and giving. But still, no man so talented has risen so high so quick without being poisonous, perhaps this is why Rickard wants him out the Council and packed off to the Vale in a box.
Renly Baratheon sits as Master of Laws, and beside Pycelle, and is one to look at and behold. For those who knew Robert before the Rebellion, it must be like looking into a window of the past, before life took its tole on the King. The young Lord of Storm's End is the perfect diplomat. He'd win as many battles with words as Robert would with his hammer. He's done well from his older brother's favour, being made Lord of Storm's End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, before being made Master of Laws and, up until his coming of age, being given guardianship over Prince Rickard, upon his leaving his grandfather's care. With his favour, he has done much and nothing. Storm's End remains the dominant power in the South, trumping both Dorne and the Reach in terms of arms and influence, though the latter may be far richer and prosperous and the former remains the venerable fortress of nature that only the North and the Stormlands can rival.
Beside his younger brother, Stannis Baratheon: tall, balding, hook-nosed and hawk-eyed. His face has a tightness to it like cured leather, and he has hollow cheeks, and thin, pale lips. He's suffered much, the middle of the Baratheon brothers: passed over for position in the Small Council and lordship of the Stormlands in favour of his brother, Renly, who is not as quick to criticise the King, or too difficult to be on the right side of. Stannis is a good drill master, and dutiful, but beyond that he is limited by honour and pride. Slights come easy to Lord Stannis, which he either brings on himself, imagines, or takes far too personally. Kevan remembers how after the Rebellion, Tywin counted his blessings that he was dealing with Jon Arryn and Robert, rather than Stannis.
Finally, the Spider is here, himself and un-noteworthy, as we should hope he'll be, yet never is.
Each one of them is timid in their dealings with the petitioners and troublemakers today, or at least less invigorated with their usual charisma. For they are all aware what is awaiting to meet and entreat with them. Six foot of strong armed and embittered Princeling is waiting outside the Throne Room's sealed bronze door, prowling, and pacing the antechamber, with a trail of eager younglings and lords in support, ready to kick in the doors and deal them new misery.
Yet, aside from the Small Council, most the rest of the Court are here to witness the new piece of theatre Prince Rickard will perform for them. Quavering, old Gyles Rosby is here; tall and red haired Robar Royce too; the foreign exile Jalabhar Xho, complete in bright extravagant feathers of his home land adorning his attire; Lady Tanda Stokeworth has her daughters in tow, including the half-witted Lollys; and Robert Baratheon's Stormlords, crowd together whispering, occasionally glancing at him and the Westerlords. For these have long been the two factions of Robert's court: the Stormlanders, who are always fighting to keep their influence and esteem in the realm from crumbling further than King Robert allowed before he gave Renly his old fiefdom, and then there are the Westerlanders, who remain here by right as guests of Cersei, as her agents, or as proclaimers of securing the rights of Lord Tywin are secured in the realm. He, Kevan, knows that Rickard has the support of many in these groups, but do they know that? And he wonders, if it will it survive today?
The procession of today's business goes on, but everyone is waiting for the blast of trumpet, and the announcement of Prince Rickard, and which whoever in his retinue have been called out to lay their demands before the Council. Each time the Throne Room doors open all eyes vanish from the Small Council or the petitioner before them and go toward it to see if it is the Prince. Alas, it is only ever another flock of Smallfolk or petty lord. Except one time, when the Dornish ambassador enters.
Princess Arianne Nymeros Martell, heir to the throne of Sunspear and her father's envoy to King Robert's court, though she is an eternal enigma to everyone. Kevan well knows the story of her arrival, of how she turned up out of the blue one day, with any talk of her being here on the business of Prince Doran, only that she had been travelling from Dorne through the Reach. She had planned to leave the city, but was beaten by her Father's letter proclaiming her the champion of Dornish interests in the capital, which she was no doubt flattered by. Yet the mysteriousness of the circumstances has won her no trust or friends of Dorne, least of all because she is Dornish in a Kingdom dominated by Lannisters and Stormlanders.
She keeps apart from most everyone, yet manages to draw several of their eyes, notably young Robar Royce. Perhaps by chance, she stands next to Kevan Lannister of all people, and remarkably strikes him in conversation. "The Prince is outside. And he is eager."
He catches sight of the door opening again. "And another Prince is inside. He too is eager."
Sure enough, Joffery has entered, smirking like a cat. He looks pleased with himself, or at least satisfied. And everyone is incredulous as he walks in. They had expected the other Prince to come before the Council, not the Crown Prince. But he does not go before the Council, he peels off, his dog, the Hound, Sandor Clegane following him, and settles himself beside his grand uncle to watch the spectacle soon to unfold.
Everyone around them curtsies as Joffery come toward him, and, "My Prince," he says, "Come to see the work of good government?"
His nephew snorts, "Ha! Come to Dick laughed out of here, more as like. I saw him outside, by the gods. No different than our nursery days. Playing King, still. Ha! Want that Father were here, he would break him. Smash him and his fantasies like glass. Or better yet Mother be here! I well remember how she would put him down. She'd drop him from her knee, tower above him and say, 'Now, now Rickard Baratheon, behave yourself, else I call for Nursey to put you to bed!' And he would ball and cry and pull on her skirts and go to bed whimpering. Would I remind him of it, to see his face?"
As delicately as he can, he suggests, "Were you to do it, Joffery, you'd as like regret it. He is not the boy he was."
Not since he came to the Rock. As a squire, all the boys under the roof of Casterly Rock yielded to Rickard Jason Tytos Ormund Baratheon, and none dared call him Dick, or Little Dick as he had been to the other squires and wards when he first arrived.
"Still," Joffery goes on, "If I were King…" But then he's cut off, for the heralds are opening the doors and announcing the main attraction.
"Rickard, of House Baratheon, Prince of the Iron Throne and of Westeros, Lord of the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Stormlands!" is striding through the bronze doors into the Throne Room in an attire designed for maximum impact. A cloth of gold cloak, upon which is emblazoned the Crowned Stag of his Father, blows behind him in his strides, as his knee high heeled boots click and clack on the marble floor. He's brought a sword too, which he rests his left hand on as he walks, as if he were to draw it at any moment. His tunic is black, with golden threads, trimmings and cuffs, however over that he has a breast plate with a Baratheon stag and Lannister lion married to each other in gold, silver and black steel imprinted on his chest.
He's flanked by three retainers: Tyrek Lannister, in scarlet and gold, breast plate as well, but no sweeping cloak behind him, carrying a long, rolled up piece of parchment in one hand and another still by his side, and pulling on his cuff, sword being on the wrong side of him; Lord Beric Dondarrrion wears a black satin cloak decorated with stars, but is without breastplate or sword, because he dare risk being seen as too rebellious by his own liege lord, Renly; and, finally, "Harry!"
The Lord Hand has risen to his feet with surprising speed, starring awe struck at Harrold Hardyng, the Young Falcon, stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with the Prince Rickard. Lord Arryn had clearly not expected that the second in line to the Vale should happen to walk through the doors beside the disgruntled Prince. But anyone can see why: In his youth, Hardyng had been the agreed upon heir of the Vale, and raised as such, yet once Lysa Arryn delivered Lord Jon a son, the sickly child Robin Arryn, he has been disinherited, and so now Harrold Arryn is just Harry Hardyng, and he's eager to be anything but.
"My lord," the Young Falcon says, nodding curtly but doing no further curtsy. He's dressed as the Prince, with sword, cloak, and breast plate. Yet he uses sky-blue falcon soaring against a white moon, on a sky-blue field, instead of the black stag and golden field of Rickard.
The four men stand before the Throne, ardent and defiant, an outsider wouldn't be mistaken for thinking they were aiming to conduct a coup d'état. Lord Baelish starts clapping, "My word, what a show! To what do we owe such theatrics, dear prince?"
"Now, now, Baelish," Renly Baratheon pipes up, scolding. "We owe it them to show respect, as we would any other petitioner."
Lord Stannis scoffs, "Gods forbid Lord Baelsih should show any other petitioner respect. Or even his fellow council members, for that matter."
Petyr Baelish laughs, "My lord, respect is an attitude men adopt to people they pretend to like."
Stannis goes to rise again, but Lord Arryn speaks out first. "My Lords, enough. We have business." He shifts in his seat, straightens up, and addresses Rickard. "My Prince, you and…" his old, tired, blue eyes linger on him, and then flick to linger again on Hardyng, before flicking back to the Prince, "your retinue have come here to petition the Iron Throne, for what?"
Rickard speaks to the whole hall. He's never been on for making great speeches or grand displays, though he always enjoys watching one. He talks of our stunted realm, of its failing to go forward. How the laws are decaying across the King's peace, of squalor and immorality in all the realm's four corners. Rebellion and strife in the Dornish Marches. The dissolution of Septs and holy buildings, the largest debt in the history of the realm, which 'By the Gods,' he says, is still increasing, moment by moment.
When he starts talking about the poor, the richer lords in the room look as though Rickard's just knocked their castles' down. Some courtier tries to boom the Prince, but Hardyng peels away from Rickard to address the lordling in question: he remains silent. Still though, it's too much for the Small Council to swallow, from the looks on their face, when Rickard tell them rich men have a duty to the poor; that if you get fat, as the lords of Westeros do, on the labour of the Smallfolk, then you have a responsibility to the men forced off their land, the labourers without labour, ploughers without a field. Westeros has need of roads, forts and strongholds, harbours, bridges; Smallfolk have need of work. It's a stain on King Robert's name, that his people should have to beg for bread, when their honest labour could keep the Seven Kingdoms stronger. Is it possible, this simple thing?
Jon Arryn says: "No." And between them the Council argue that the responsibility is not theirs to create jobs and work. Are not these matters in the Gods' hands, and is poverty not part of the eternal design, Grand Maester Pycelle says. If rain falls for a year, and destroys all crops, there is reason for it; for the Gods know their business. Renly Baratheon says there is a time for everything, a time to starve, a time to thrive. Petyr Baelish tells Rickard that there are jobs enough already, and that it will cause rebellion, should the lords and rich men of the realm have to pay in order for them to put bread in the mouths of the workshy. And when the Prince says poverty provokes criminality, Stannis says: we have hangmen enough.
Harrold Hardyng is enraged. "You would all whip the beggars, sooner than provide for them. Gods damn you all! I never thought to see another King and Council, both turn their backs on the realm."
"Do not try and enrage the King, Harry." Warns Lord Arryn, "If he recalled the strength he once had, he'd find the poor work as gravediggers, for they'd never be workshy then."
"What consolation you give us, Goddamned hypocrites," Rickard growls, "Never has the realm been plagued by such self-seeking, empty headed bastards." A sound goes through everyone, like a half gasp half moan, everyone freezes. "You people never think higher than your own pockets, fortunately the rest of the realm is not so belligerent."
He motions to Tyrek, who steps forward and hands over to Rickard the role of parchment he'd been holding, who marches forward and places on the table before the Hand of the King. He then steps backward, turns on his heels and speaks to the courtiers, "We call for the dismissal of the Small Council! And the summoning of a Great Council of the whole realm, to ensure that the Seven Kingdoms are restored to good government." Many of his words are drowned out, the whole room is enraged. Rickard points at the parchment he laid before Jon Arryn, "Those are the names of all the Lord of Westeros who are with us!"
Over it all someone shouts, "Traitors!"
And Harry Hardyng comes bulling forward, "TRAITORS ARE PAID! We are making a sacrifice!" It's the lasting thing said before chaos breaks out.
In the end, concessions are attempted by Lord Arryn but Rickard refuses and insists on his Great Council. The meeting breaks down from there, and the amount of support Rickard's parchment offers forces Jon Arryn and the Council to consider them.
"Consider," he warns Rickard, when he pulls him away afterward for a small word, "not agreed to."
"I know, but if I think I was pushing my luck enough." He is beaming, shedding sun light. "They'll agree, I know it. I've outflanked them."
"I suppose, but be wary." He grabs his great nephew's arm and squeezes, "In the meantime, I must go back to Casterly Rock."
Rickard's face falls. "What? Why? Stay here, fight this cause." He urges, and Kevan pulls away from him.
"That is beyond my power and remit." But then reaches back out to Rickard. "You're doing well here, and I will go back to the Rock and fight your cause there."
His great nephew goes timid, suddenly. "Will he back me? Do you think? He's been urging me to stand on my own two feet, fight for a position deserving my talents, push myself. But I know this will hardly be what he thought I was doing."
Kevan smiles. "In the end, he'll back you because you're his kin, even if he disagrees with your method, message and means."
Rickard nods. "Give him my best, and everyone else."
"When Daven hears of this, he'll never stop making toasts to you. Gods go with you, Rickard."
"And Seven Blessings on you, Kevan."