Tyrek

They bundle the Prince away into his room, once the Maesters finished patching him up the best they could, wrapped him in silk and cotton and velvet on his bed, where he now sleeps. On either side of him, his siblings, Tommen and Myrcella, have him boxed in, asleep themselves and eyes red from crying. They're so young and innocent: The King's attempted murder of his own son is harder on both of them than it is on Rickard. But then nothing fazes Rick, at least not when there are people around.

In a few days, when the evening rolls in Rickard will drink himself stupid until the grief will come pouring out like a torrent. And he, Tyrek Lannister, will be there to hold his hand and stroke his hair until passes out again, and then that will be the end of sorrow. But that is half a week away, for now he sleeps, reassures everyone else, and complains about his treatments.

Each wound he took from the King, Rickard has taken before, aside from his missing finger, and he's shrugged them off each time. But to have been bombarded with them all at once, and by his own Father? It's all the more terrible. Just ask the maesters who pieced him back together. His piss boils thinking how anyone allowed it to happen, even the Kingsguard, who are sworn to protect the Royal family, not just the King. He would have kicked in the door and throttled the King, or willed Rickard to defend himself. But instead he arrived late, to hear the screaming and see Rickard bruised and bleeding opposite Jon Arryn's death chamber.

Tyrek keeps vigil, over the Prince and his siblings, as has been his charge since he and Rickard were children. Some visitors come by to Rick, see how he fares. Mainly it's his supporters, who turns away, almost at the point of a dagger, but there are others. His ill-wishers come to gloat, or those who were his supporters and have come to renounces it after hearing of King Robert's displeasure. Only one comes by whom he has no right to turn away.

The Queen comes alone, except Ser Jaime, who stays outside at his instance. He tells them, "I'll not suffer one of the Kingsguard. Not while they stood aside and let it happen." The twins are indignant, but he more so. And the Queen is too tired to fight anymore. She says nothing except when she asks him to leave. He stares her down, says, "It's my duty to him to stay here." She ignores him instead.

She looks a state, even more traumatised than the Princeling and Princess. After the Queen ordered her son to the Maester's, dragged there by him, her brother, Lord Beric and Ser Barristan, she flew off like a harpy in search of her husband. With whom she presumably quarrelled with for hours before he left. Now she rests beside her son, kisses his brow and strokes his cheek. It must be her weight on the mattress that wakes up Myrcella, who breaks into fresh tears, sobbing into her mother's hair.

During this, Harrold Hardyng steps threw the door. He's already dressed for mourning Jon Arryn, all in black. But once he steps in he steps back out, half dragged by Ser Jaime, keeping vigil on the other side of the bedchamber door.

"Wait," He says to Arryn, and grabs him by an arm. "Come back in the morning, but promise me one thing in the meantime." Arryn gives a sad nod. "That this bastard King will stand."

"For definite." Swears Hardyng, before the Kingslayer escorts him out.

Harry returns in the morning, still in black, an hour after Queen returns to collect Tommen and Myrcella, waking Rickard, who is wide awake in bed, propped up on cushions and pillows. The Young Falcon takes one look at Rickard and turns away, as if out of shame. "You're not well." He says, "I can come back later."

Rickard throws a pillow at him. "Change your face. The only thing making me unwell is that look on your mug." He calls back, rubbing at his ribs where they've cracked. "Sit down. Seven save us, I'm fine. Wish people would stop treating me like broken glass."

The Young Falcon smiles at his Prince, for what must be the first time since yesterday. He takes up the chair beside the bed, while he, Tyrek, sits on the window ledge. Rickard turns his manner from abrasive to consoling. "How are you, Harry?"

"Well enough. Yourself?"

"Never better." A pause. "About Jon Arryn-"

Harry cuts him off. "I don't blame you. If I were, I'd be as much to blame. He was an old man. Old men die."

"Thanks." Rick seems to relax into himself a bit, squares back into the pillows. "How's Lady Lysa?"

Harry's face blackens. "I wouldn't know." It's all he seems willing to say.

Tyrek walks into the breach. "She's gone, Rick."

"Gone?"

"Gone. Abandoned the city just after dawn. Took most of Jon's knights and men-at-arms with her too."

"Why?"

"Gods know," Harry snarls, "But she took Robyn with her." Agitated, Harry rises to pace the room. For with custody of Robyn Arryn, Lady Lysa need only ride to the Eyrie enthrone Robyn as Lord Paramount of the Vale and everyone shall forget about any talk of Our Harry being Lord Harrold Arryn. Or if Harry had custody of the little lord, he'd at least be able to name himself as Lord Protector, until Lord Robyn comes into his own.

Rickard bows his head, nodding, stroking his battered chest to sooth the aching. "It was bound to happen. Though I couldn't have imagined it so soon. Still, all might not be lost." Harry looks at him, at though a temple might burst through him blonde hair. "There is still the Wardship of the East. It's not hereditary. And my Father's not like to appoint a child, or a woman who runs off like a thief in the night. How is the King?" He says it as an afterthought, but it's not. Not the way that he pulls on the bandages wrapped around his left hand.

They look at each other, Tyrek and Harry, before looking back at Rickard, his eyes looking up at them darkly, warning: tell me the truth or don't tell me at all. It's him who answers his cousin. "He left yesterday. To the Kingswood. Whether he's hunting or grieving or any other thing, we don't know."

"He'll be back though." Harry adds. "Chances are, he'll want to stand vigil over Lord Jon for his funeral, the night before and such."

Rickard grins. "And to appoint a Hand, I imagine."

He smiles. "Well then, hadn't you better write to him? Our new Hand?"

But instead of smiling, Rickard cocks an eyebrow. "What?"

"The Old Lion?" He says, pulling his legs up on the window sill. "You should write and tell him. Warn him to expect Robert at Casterly Rock to name him."

Then Rickard does laugh, loud, but it turns to coughing and wincing and clutching at his side. "Oh Gods, Ty, don't make laugh. It's agony." He eases himself back, smiling and groaning. "He won't appoint grandfather. That would be too good. To me, my mother, anyone. He won't name him just to spite us."

"Who then?" Rickard admits he doesn't know, so they go through it, who might be the next Hand.

"Stannis?" Offers Hardyng

"Doubtful." Rickard dismisses his oldest uncle. "They loath one another. Stannis is as likely to be Hand as I am."

He offers Renly, the Kings other brother. "He's Master-of-Laws. Most powerful councillor underneath the Hand."

"Maybe. He prefers Renly to Stannis, certainly. They often hunt together."

"And he's Lord of Storm's End," Harry adds. "True Lord Baratheon, and all that."

"Yes…" Rick says, before adding. "But I'm not sure he trusts him. He's not a complete idiot, he wouldn't trust the kingdom to someone he wasn't sure of."

"What about Selmy?" He suggests

"The Kingsguard?" Rickard asks.

"Aye, the Lord Commander." Harry says, excited. "It's not unknown for a Lord Commander to be Hand. And the King always keeps him about, and he was meant to be a Storm Lord, before he took up the white cloak. Yes, that's who he'll give it to."

He shoots down Harry. "Selmy also fought for the Mad King, on the Trident no less. Besides Rhaegar."

Rick says ponderously, "What about Lord Stark?"

Harry cocks a brow and asks, "Who?"

"Eddard Stark," the Prince repeats. "Lord of the North."

"Why him?"

He chips in. "They won't have seen each other since, what? The Rebellion? If that?"

The Prince nods. "Exactly, they fought the Rebellion together. And knew Jon Arryn from when they were squires. He'll hold him in as much steam as Arryn, if not more."

Harry protests. "But he won't have been to King's Landing since the coronation."

"And when was Jon Arryn in the capital before the King named him Hand?"

He shakes his head. "I can't see it myself. I'd put my money on Renly."

Rickard grins at him. "Bet?"

He should know better, especially when his cousin grins at him thus. But he can't resist any bet out of sheer competition. "A dragon?" And then they shake hands. "What about it, Harry? Still confident about Ser Barristan?" The Young Falcon gnaws on his lip a while, before the will not to be out done forces him to accept.

"Either way," Rickard says, "better get Dondarrion up here. We'll have to see how we can work this to serve the Cause." They go quiet, Harry and himself. Rickard sighs. "Now what?"

"Lord Beric spoke to me, Rick," Hardyng says, "He wonders given the light of things yesterday, if we shouldn't give up on the Charter, or at least postpone our lobbying of it."

Rickard goes red in the face. "My father was grief ridden," he replies, waving it over, "Had it been any other day, he wouldn't have…" The words escape the Prince, so it falls to his cousin to supply him.

"Wouldn't have tried to kill you." But that looks to just anger Rickard. "Or at least just mutilate you. What, Rick? You cannot shake this off. This is not an invalid want, to hold off the Cause till your safety is assured. And by the blood of Baelor, don't look at me like that!" He's on his feet now, and shouting. "He took off a finger this time, what about next time? A hand? An arm? Maybe he'll take you part bit by bit, work his way up to your head."

"You're being dramatic, it won't come to that."

"Damned if I am, I'm talking sense. I-" He stops, holds back what he wants to say. "We can't afford to lose our prince."

But Rickard holds his ground. "I will not be cowed by anyone so meekly. Not by you, not my father, not anyone. If it comes to it, I'll defend myself. And I tell you now, gods nor men shall compel me to yield without a fight. So, Ty, are you with me?"

What can you do, when a prince swears to face down all opposition so valiantly, what is there to do, but follow him. Harry swears to follow his Prince too, and before the days is out, all the members who favour his withdrawal shall follow him too. But that is hours away, and right now someone is knocking on the door. It comes an hour or so after the argument, and to mellow their tempers the three of them are smoking dried sourleaf, passing each other's pipe between them. And the knocking sets them reeling, that they might get a wigging for their ugly, peasants habit.

He bolts to throw open the window and waft fresh air into the room and guide the smoky air out, while Harry is lighting scented candles and a fire in the hearth. Rickard sits in his bed, hiding the smoking leaf burners beneath his sheets. What a story it will be, if the bed catches fire with the Prince still sat in it?

Eventually, once they're sat around looking whimsical and nonchalant again, a wash bowl in Rickard lap and him sharpening the Prince's razor, Harry opens the door revealing: "Princess!" It's Rickard who shouts it, bolting forward in his bed, but his crippled bones pull him back and water goes splishing and splashing around the bowl onto his legs.

Sure enough, Arianne Martell comes swathing in, black silk blowing in the draft behind her. Even in black, she's a beauty, even he can see it. And what must be a Dornish thing, she wears a vail as part of her mourning dress. She holds up a hand to Rickard – as though it weren't a Prince of the Realm she was gesturing to – so she can dismiss his attempts to pay her proper curtsy. Even though, Rickard starts turning pink, because he looks as though he's pissed himself.

"Please, my prince," she says, inkling her head to his bed, "no need to bow unto me. I hate to think I'd caused you effort. We need not trouble each other over these trivial things. Especially when it's an informal visit."

"Of course, and who is he to warrant respect."

"TY!" Rick shouts at him, and makes him jump, the razor sliding between his fingers. He hadn't thought he said it aloud, but apparently, he did, and his cousin is looking bullishly at him. "Out," he says, "and come back when you can mind your manners."

"What? You're not serious?" Rickard is a stout believer that, despite the life he leads behind closed, with himself and Harry and a few others, that rudeness in public is forbidden (unless it's to make a point), especially in front of women. But his reaction is extreme. If he were Joffrey or Tommen or an uncle of his, he could understand it, but to act so harshly to him, his favourite cousin, his acting right arm?

Still, he goes without much argument, even bows an apology to Princess Arianne, no point aggravating Rickard. It must be his injuries, he thinks, they can put him in a foul temper and shorten his fuse. Hardyng comes after him, either willing or sent out after him, or as well. The Young Falcon and he stand in Rickard's sitting room, talking.

Harry asks him, "What was that about?"

He shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe he's trying to be nice to her, given she's supposedly nailing her skirt to our mast. He has great faith that Dorne will join us."

Rolling his eyes, Squire Harry wonders, "What makes him put so much faith in Dorne? Why does he value it so? There are better people, better kingdoms we could do with? That would join us easier, or offer us more."

It's a valid point he argues. One that Harry and others have always argued with Rickard over. It was always: "But my Prince, the Vale is more prestigious, the Riverland's more affluent, the North greater in its strength of arms." And so on for the other Kingdoms. But Rickard would say: "No." When they first brought it up, in the start of the Cause he would say, "Dorne has quarrelled with so and so and such and such, so it will join us." Then he started saying, "They are with us for such and such." But these past few weeks he started saying, "She will join us because…" And whichever excuse he had that day.

He says to the Young Falcon, "I don't think its Dorne he's interested in, more its Princess."

An eyebrow goes up, and Hardyng turns to look at the bedroom door, uneasy, thinking it should have been better if he stayed. "You don't think that he… they?"

"Nah. She's got four years on him, doubt she cares for him that much. Dornish are crafty people, but not stupid."

Harry shifts on his feet, awkwardly. "Still, you know what they say about Dornish women, though."

He doesn't, but can imagine the kind of thing that are circling through Harry's head. "I doubt Rickard has it in him, not without telling someone. Or he'd spend too long in a sept afterward for me at least to know."

The lordling goes quiet, unsettled by it, and they sit quietly for a few minutes, until Tyrion Lannister comes strolling in. "Morning, cousin!" He says smiling brightly. "How is he? Still licking his wounds?"

"No. But everyone that sees him needs to know have sorry for himself he feels. So that they might know the lesson in humility that's been dealt to him."

"Good, I'll be sure to spread the room." Then the dwarf peels off, makes for Rick's room, but then he calls after him.

"You can't go in."

Curious: "Why not?"

"He's in with someone else."

"Oh? Who?"

He looks out the window, that leads onto the balcony. Harry looks at his feet. "Tyrek," the Imp prompt him, frowning just by his reaction, "who's he in with?"

"The Princess of Dorne."

A queer look goes across the little man's ugly face, looks around a moment, and then looks as though he's just realised something, found an answer to some long-pondered question written on the walls. Then he turns, and marches for the door. He and Harry go after him try to stop him, but those short, stunted legs are quicker than you expect, and then Tyrion is banging twice on the door and throwing it open.

"Rickard!"

"Uncle!"

The dwarf stands in the doorway, hands on his hips, as they both peer in the door afterwards. It makes him bite his lip to stop from grinning, he does it better than Harry, who pulls away sniggering. Rickard sits on the bed, smoking away merrily, his face smothered in shaving cream, while Princess Martell sits with her back to the door, sat on the bed, drawing a razor across his face.

"Having fun?"

A shrug. "Not really. You know how I hate shaving."

"I can see that." The Imp starts tapping his foot and crosses his arms. And as the Princess finishes her job, he asks for a word with his nephew. She goes out smirking, and Tyrion kicks the door shut after her, locking them all out. Last glimpse they get is Rick's face going pink. Then they hear something like a slap. He turns to Harry: "This doesn't leave this room."

"Count on me. Just worry about her." He says, watching after this Princess's footsteps.

When the King returns two days later, he summons a meeting of the entire court. Everyone goes, all the Baratheons go, and the Lannisters too. Already the Small Council are sat in their seats before the Iron Throne, but the Masters of Law and Ships. On his way in, Stannis Baratheon, looking ragged, unnerved, stops Rickard; grabs him by the shoulder, asks, "All right, lad?"

When was the last time one Baratheon acted this way to another? Rickard himself is caught off guard, but takes in stride. "Fine, uncle. Thank you."

"He does this, you know. Waits until you find your footing, then knocks away the ground from under you." His nephew stands, nodding, smiling. "Should have seen him when our parents died? You'll think you got off lightly. I think I still have a scar, mind others got it worse than I? Still you can bare it. You're cut from better stone."

A pause. Rickard starts to roll on his feet.

"You're right, of course. In part. About this Charter you made. And even with that beating, Robert went too far. So, I'm resigning my council seat. It'll show Robert that he can't get have everything, and it'll help you, I think."

When they finish talking, Rick says to Harry, "Well I'm not sure what he hoped to accomplish by that. I imagine my father will be glad to be rid of him."

"Dozy old fool."

He, Tyrek, says to them, "Mayhap he knows something we don't."

"Yeah," Harry sniggers, "maybe if the King names you Hand, Rick, he'll expect a promotion."

Rick chuckles. "Well then you can have his old job, Harry."

Pretending to pout, he says, "And what job will you give me?"

"Oh, that's easy. You can do mine for me."

The three of them laughing seems out of place to most courtiers, who stare at them with vain and cruel expression. But it drags them even more unwanted attention. Petyr Baelish comes strolling forward: sleeker than a cat, basking in the sunlight and pruning his whiskers.

"How pleasing to see you at last, my prince," he greets, smirking. "Good to see you laughing again." And not bleeding all over the floor, is the unwritten message carved into his smile. "Of course, I hadn't thought that you'd be smiling so soon, given your newly found humility. A result of your father's… check on your ambitions, no doubt."

If it weren't for the crowd swelling around them, and Harry's hand on his arm, Rickard would have made a puddle of Baelish by now.

"No doubt, my lord." Rickard answers, gritting his teeth.

"And you are healing well. Your hand is fine?"

He moves forward, or tries to, in order to get another body in between the two. But Rick shifts a foot and steps on his toe. "Fine, Baelsih," he says, stepping closer, raising the offending hand, peeling of the bandages, to show off his ring finger. "You see, he only took half of it off, really. If you like," By now his other hand was grabbing the Master of Coin by his collar, "You can outside with Harry here for ten minutes, see how you yourself can stand up."

"Five would be enough," Harry says, pulling out his dagger. But then a door opens, and King Robert walk into the room, Rick letting Littlefinger go.

As Robert ascends to his Throne, everyone bows their heads. Everyone but Rickard, who folds his arms, watching the King sits on his Throne like a great sulky baby, before he sees Rick stood staring right at him, and then rising again, comes charging down the steps at him. It almost as if His Grace thought that the rush alone would knock Rickard into a bow, but instead they come face to face. King towers over Prince. Rick isn't even six foot tall, and for the first time looks his size.

He shrugs at his father. "Can't. Maesters told me 'not to make any unnecessary movement.' Sorry."

But the King just stands there going more red. And Rickard goes. "Oh, very well." He runs a hand through his hair, goes to one knee, both hands on it, and looks up as though he were prepared to be knighted. The standoff goes on for at least five minutes, before the King turns on his son and retakes his seat on the throne. Everyone finally lets out their breath, relieved. All but Rickard, who takes one, tries to push himself up, but his bones won't have it. He slaps them in the gut, Harry and himself, to get their attention, so they take him underneath each arm and pull him back onto his feet.

Harry whispers, "Mother have mercy, give us warning before you do a damn stupid thing like that again."

"Had to be done, Harry. Couldn't have him thinking he'd changed anything. Besides, if was going to hit me first again, I wanted a better target than his face." They should laugh, but all the eyes still on them forbids it.

The King speaks slowly, through misty eyes. He gives testimony to Lord Arryn, now lying in rest beneath the Great Sept of Baelor, and his speech about him goes on for almost five minutes. It surprises everyone, to hear the King speak this way. Still no one is especially interested, they all want to hear the same thing, what they've placed five dragons each on: who is the next Hand of the King.

"It's my intention," Robert booms eventually, "to travel north, to Winterfell, where I shall name Eddard Stark to succeed Jon Arryn." Murmuring breaks out between courtiers.

"Well, lads, pay up." Rick says, opening his hand behind his back.

Harry just curses. "Balls."

"So, it's to Winterfell then." He says, reaching for his pocket "So are we riding, or sailing."