JORY II

"The Red Keep was bright red as its name in the sunshine at mid-day. Jory let his eyes wander only for a moment along its walls to see where it had happened. Bran had been climbing on the walls of the Red Keep again. That was not a good sign, not at all. One wild royal child was more than enough to take care of. Bran being about as adventurous as his sister Arya did not particularly help with keeping the peace of the castle. Now he was down on the ground, however, and only telling Jory of his actions in the past tense.

"And then I got all the way up over to the beamers right there over the north gate!" the prince was saying.

"You would do best not to tell your lord father or lady mother that", Jory said, taking the boy by the arm and leading him inside the keep. "Have you any notion of how dangerous it is, my prince?"

"But it's such a good place to climb! What's the point of living in a castle if I can't even climb it?" the young prince was saying.

"Protection, my prince", Jory said. He thought for a while. "An inspiring sight for the smallfolk perhaps."

"Surely it is an even better sight when they see me climbing, then!" Bran said again, clearly not understanding the seriousness of the situation.

At nine and seven, Bran and Arya both were constantly having to be kept an eye on, Jory thought. Robb had always been the responsible one, being the eldest. But such was the way of siblings, he knew. He did not think that he and his little brother Matthys shared many similarities either, apart from possibly a vague resemblance in appearance.

Matthys had shorter hair, like Robb, only brushing at the back of his neck and peeking down slightly across his eyebrows, enough to keep away the sweat in a fight, whereas Jory had kept his long northern style hair, just as the king. He had come down to King's Landing when he was around ten, several years after Jory, to be fostered alongside Robb and under the protection of the king. Had he not been so invited, he might have died in some hunting accident in the Wolfswood, same as the others had. Fate was strange in that way.

"And what if you were to fall down, my prince?"

"I never fall", said Bran, responding with ease in his answer at the hard tone of the question.

Jory said nothing, but reminded himself to take not and tell the king of it later on. Just as it happened, however, there were if possible more grave things to be considered. That of Jon Arryn. The king was to tell Robb first, he had decided, and Jory was instructed to gather up Bran, wherever he had been hiding, and bring him to the entrance hall. They swung their heads under the crenellated doorway of the northern entryway door, and were soon inside the swallor of the castle.

They made their way all across without speaking much more, going all the long way down to the entrance by the steps leading up to the throne room above. A few servants and kitchen maids passed them by, bowing quickly and murmuring "Ser Jory. My prince." before hurrying away to their next destination somewhere behind. Jory looked down through the tall windows of the gallery bridge and saw Ser Aron Santagar, Gerion Buckwell and Quentyn Martell practicing at swordplay in the middle courtyard down below, but Robb did not seem to be with them. Bran tried hopping up to the window himself to get a better look, but Jory pulled him back down on the floor again and told him, as kindly as he could, to not dawdle while his father was waiting for them. He felt much like a septa in armour at that moment, and reflected that this was not the reason why he had wanted to become a Kingsguard in his youth. He wondered whether the great Ser Arthur Dayne had ever been forced to do the same with Prince Viserys in his time, but found that he had a hard time imagining the sight.

When they arrived, Jory saw that the king and queen were both there, along with all the other children already. Arya was more or less crying, as well. So he has told them, then. Bran walked in to stand beside the others, barely being noticed in the general scuffle of things as the queen did indeed ask why Princess Arya was sad.

The king told them all, as they stood gathered there, Jory, Erryk and Bran furthest back, Rickon in front of them, tugging at his mother's skirts, and beside him were Septa Mordane, Princess Sansa and the queen herself. Standing in front of them, with their backs toward the entrance, his hand resting on a side pillar wall, the King stood confronting them with the news, and next to him Ser Barristan, Prince Robb and Ser Arys, with the crying Arya under his arm.

The queen was shocked, and asked whether the king had been with the Hand when he died. He replied that he had. Jory had too. And then the talk went on while the queen and the king discussed, the children wailed and argued, and Jory stood watching, saying nothing, seeing and hearing all.

After the hearing of the grave news, the king told Jory and Ser Barristan to follow him and Robb, as Ser Arys and Erryk stayed behind with the others. Ser Arys went away taking Arya to her chambers while Erryk went with the Queen, Sansa, Bran and Rickon as well as Septa Mordane.

"I had hoped to first speak with you alone, Robb", the king said as they walked. "I am sure you have many many questions about Lord Jon."

"I suppose so", said Robb, though it was clear that he did not. He walked with his head held straight up, but the king was darker in his visage, keeping quiet. Jory and Ser Barristan followed them with dutiful steps, their boots stomping against the stone floor of the corridors.

When they reached the king's solar he continued.

"I know that you may feel sad over Lord Jon. That is only natural. But being king means that one cannot always show one's true feelings, be they anger or sadness, even if one may wish so. One must always see to the needs of the realm, and show sadness when sadness is due, and strength when strength is needed. There is a time for tears, and a time for strength. I only pray that I will know that and hold to it myself."

The prince listened intently, his blue eyes looking up towards the face of his father. The king, however, barely turned back to let him see his own sadness.

They all stopped their walk when they had finally arrived outside the door of the king's solar.

"Do you understand?" the king said, turning to look at Robb. Robb nodded with dutiful resolve. The king looked proud, laying a hand on his son's shoulder.

"Good. This was the lesson Lord Jon taught me when I was around your age. It is what is needed to become a man fit to rule over his people. The people will always look to you, even when you may not feel like you have the power in you to help them. And you must be there for them all."

With that, the king patted Robb on the shoulder again and made his way into the solar. Robb stood still left for a moment, thinking about what his father had said, then continued on to his own chambers, with Ser Barristan following to his right side. Jory walked in to Ned's solar.

The king sat down at his chair, pouring a glass of wine for himself. A southron king would possibly have had a cupbearer inside his chambers, Jory knew, but the king had no need for such things. He drank fast, and then went and looked out the window to gather his thoughts.

"What am I to do, Jory?" The king's voice was pained with grief.

"I don't know, Your Grace. What do you mean?"

"All of it. Jon... And Lysa, and Sweetrobin, he... He is only a young sickly boy of seven years. And his father is gone."

"Aye, it is no easy thing to bear. But... perhaps it is easier as well when one is little", Jory tried. "The boy is seven, but he is more akin to Rickon than Bran in behaviour. And he spends most of his time with his mother...-"

"That is no consolation", the king burst out, interrupting him. He was clearly sad, and now angry at Jory's trying to make light of the situation. He put down his head slightly in regret, though the king did not see it with his back turned to Jory.

"No, Your Grace. Certainly not."

The king stood still where he stood, look out at the window and over towards the tree crowns of the godswood. The sun had just begun moving down from its peak in the sky, and the leaves of the oak tree and alders were shining bright in green and yellow.

"If he had only had a few more years... Only two or three, perhaps..." the king mumbled. And then he was silent.

"Lysa will not be glad", Jory suggested. He knew that Ned needed him there to say such things, unprompted, to help him think. Otherwise the king would stay for hours on end just staring at the window, and then go to bed in a solemn mood.

"No, she will not", the king agreed. "I dare say this will put even more strain on Lysa."

Lord Jon had planned to have Sweetrobin fostered with Stannis and Prince Viserys at Dragonstone, Jory knew. It would certainly have been good for the boy, but now... She would hardly be able to bear the pain of separating from both her husband and her son. He hoped the queen could soothe her sister's sorrows. Lady Lysa had never been the most stable of women.

The king sighed, then stretched himself up again and turned back to Jory.

"I will go to the godswood and pray."

"Yes, Your Grace."

Jory followed after him, as he reached for his sword and whetstone, along with the swatch of cloth that he used to clean his sword in his moments of contemplation.

The walkway down to the godswood was a long and twisty one, as they encountered washerwomen and kitchen wenches, Ser Gylbert and two silent sisters. They all bowed to the king in the narrow passage, and carried on their way up past them.

Finally they reached the floor leading out to the godswood, as Jory nodded to the two sentries that stood guard. Ned went out across the gravel and pebbles of the adjoining path with swift steps to reach the grass and sedges of the glade. This was the king's safe haven, Jory knew. In the lack of a weirwood, like at Winterfell, he would go up to the giant oak tree which served as the heart tree and kneel before it to say his prayers in quiet. There was noone here at the moment, thankfully, for he did not wish to be disturbed.

King Eddard Stark went forth between the elms, aspens, sentinels, granes and popple trees to reach the oak tree, which stood where it alway stood, its white bark shining in the slowly greying afternoon.

Jory stood at a distance to keep guard. He watched the trees around him, listening for any sound apart from the calling of birds and hazelmice and other creatures scurrying about the leaves.

The sun was shining high above, but a couple of white clouds slowly graded themselves in from the sides, shielding his gaze from the brightness of the light. He was wearing his helmet, and all that it meant. He had barely given much thought to the heat today, with all that had happened, but now he felt it pressing on. The castle had a certain cooling effect with its stone sucking the warmth out of the halls, something which would no doubt be felt to the shivering when winter came. The trees of the godswood had a similar effect, though, and he was sure that it must be some part swaller here than out in the open courtyard, unprotected by the slight shading of the trees.

Jory kept his stance immaculate, his hand upon his hilt and his gaze scanning the surroundings closes to the king and the heart tree as well as possible threats further off. He noticed that the godswood was still bearing fruit, though it was not designed for it in truth. Gooseberries and chestnuts adorned the bushes and ground alike, making it hard to walk two or more paces in lighter footwear without crunching them. Jory's tall boots were hard and impervious, though, made of boiled leather, and no match for the shells of the chestnuts which littered the ground like small greenish brown hedgehog creatures, half closed domes and half split open. Elsewhere the ground was strewn with pine needles, oak leaves and thousands of acorns. Jory had never seen such an abundance of them as a young boy in the north, but here, he thought, a twoge of swine and wild boars could eat their fill and grow fat with the food of the undergrowth.

The minutes went by, and turned to quarters, and more. After a while Jory thought he heard a cat howling with its strange meowl from the castle, but he was not sure. The trees all around muffled the sounds coming from outside, making it quiet here but for the sounds of the wood itself.

It was not particularly large, the godswood, at least not compared to the godswood of Winterfell. There, in a place perhaps three or four times larger, a man could live quite comfortably for a whole summer, if only he had had a shelter and enough food. The godswood of King's Landing was large enough for solace, but more of a moderately large place where a child could run around and play hide and seek for hours on end without getting caught by seven others looking for him. The trees were tall, though, covering the sky at their places. It was a miracle that Bran had not yet tried climbing up here, but he sensed that the boy nonetheless had inherited his father's sense of reverence for the place. The old gods held sway here, if anywhere in the capital at all, and so were not to be disturbed. The other trees of the city, however, outside the godswood, had not the same sacred appeal to the young prince, as Jory reflected.

The minutes went on, and the quarters turned to an hour, and then more. Jory heard noone approaching.

He thought of Lord Jon, trying his best to make his impression of the man. He had been sick, his blue eyes rolling around from side to side as he spoke of old memories with the king and lord Robert, his relations, old sorrows and riddles and much more. Jory tried his best to remember it all, but felt as if it had already been made to shambles inside his mind. The king would surely remember all of it, though, he thought. He sat still kneeling before the heart tree, [ ] his sword with the swatch of clothing in silence as the sounds of the forest rustled and the birds chirped around him in the distance of the treetops.

When the sun was two or three stops lower on the sky, beginning to close down towards the canopy of the great oak, the king arose slowly and put his sword into its hilt once again. They went out of the godswood and into the castle again, the king keeping as silent as before.

On their way up the king saw a young servant boy changing the torches in the stairway and told him to fetch for Grand Master Pycelle to come up to the rookery. The boy stopped in his work and did as told. The Grand Maester was still likely tending to Lord Jon in the Tower of the Hand, cleaning his body and preparing it with the help of the silent sisters, Jory guessed. He had never been part of a Hand to the King dying before.

After half an hour, Jory, the king and the Grand Maester had made it to the rookery.

"Your Grace", Grand Maester Pycelle inclined, bowing his weary head down in morose respect. "I have begun work preparing the Hand with the help of the silent sisters. Do you have any special requests regarding the handling of his body?"

The king looked troubled, yet told Pycelle that he trusted him to make all the right choices, to which the grand maester bowed again.

"I need to send a raven", said the king.

"Of course, Your Grace."

Grand Maester Pycelle beckoned for them to follow, as he made his way to the ravens's cages beyond two great wooden beams. The room was crowded with the squawking and quorking of the black birds, and their white droppings and cobwebs covered parts of the floor.

"Please forgive me for the unkemptness", the grand maester was saying with his back turned. "I had hoped to find help from the usual boy who does the cleaning in here, but I fear I have not seen him all day", he muttered with a tone of dissatisfaction.

"It is of no concern", the King said.

"No, no... Yes, of course..." Grand Maester Pycelle mumbled as he made his way further in amongst the cages, bars of steel fluttering with black feathers and hoarse shrill screeches and quorking from the ravens all around. Jory almost had to stop himself from falling backwards when he stepped over an old empty cage, and felt a bird pecking at the fabric of his side from another.

"To which keep, Your Grace?" Grand Maester Pycelle asked.

The ravens all had different keeps that they flew to. Some of the birds were clever enough to memorize several routs, Jory had heard, but for the most part they held themselves to a single line of travel. Jory looked for the raven that flew to Lord Benjen at Winterfell, and soon found it, with the name of the castle written out in Pycelle's long snirkly handwriting on the sign of its cage. He thought that he could tell the difference of the bird itself as well, as it looked curiously at him with black open eyes spotting a sense of familiarity, but he might be imagining himself.

"Dragonstone", said the King. Pycelle opened the cage to the Dragonstone raven, holding the bird's one foot in his hand as it struggled to flap about, but then became calm at reaching the wooden desk. Pycelle brought forth the quill and ink, and the King sat down to write the letter. Then he named the next keep, and the next. Jory stood peering at the door, hands on his hilt, waiting for someone to enter. The cleaning boy, perhaps, but they were alone, the three of them. He would have taken off his helmet in the crampness of the rookery's confines, but the ravens flocking on the top shelves above him threatened to shower him with a splattering of white if he did, so he let it be.

Grand Maester Pycelle took the first raven up to the window, opened it and let the bird fly. The raven's black wings flapped hard at the wind in a fluttering motion as it thrust itself towards the evening sky towards its destination. He saw it turn in the air, arising higher and up, turning to the northeast, already on its course.

Then came the next bird, and the next. Jory stood vigil while the king watched the birds fly off with a look of stone in his face.

"Regarding Lord Jon..." the king said.

"Yes, Your Grace?" Pycelle replied.

"I will need a list the current keeps of all his closest relations, and the highest lords and ladies of the Vale", the king said, turning to leave the rookery as Jory followed after.

"Certainly, Your Grace. Will we hold the funeral here at the Red Keep?"

The king seemed to think on the question for a while, as if he had not considered that there were other options. Then he replied.

"Lord Jon will be buried and laid to rest at his home in the Vale, but the funeral shall be here, preferrably in a fortnight."

"A wise choice, Your Grace."

"Thankyou, Grand Maester", the King inclined, bowing slightly and making his way out of the rookery at last.

The king turned to Jory in the corridor, a forlorn look lingering in his eyes.

"Aye. It is no easy thing", he said.

"What is, Your Grace?"

"Growing old."

They stood for a while in the corridor, as the servant boy from earlier was continuing to light the torches, seemingly having found his way up to the [fifth?] floor by now.

"Lasten", the king said, clearly knowing the boy's name, though Jory had no idea of it.

"Your Grace", the boy said, bowing before him.

"Go in and clean the grand maester's rookery. It could do with some water and soap."

And with that, the King turned to go all the way back to his solar, as Jory followed after in silence. The sky outside was grey for real now, Jory thought, and the evening late. In the distance was still the quorking of the ravens, signalling the beginning of a long and solemn night."