Ned
It was the first time he had the dream in years, the dream about the Tower of Joy. And before that he had relived the moment of Robb's death. That was something he'd had nightmares about before. But added to the memory of the moment that Lyanna had died in his arms…
Well, now he had a problem. He was sitting in bed, shaking like a leaf and with a seriously worried wife next to him. Cat had heard him cry out Lyanna's name. Had seen his sweaty, horrified face in the wake of the dream. And what else had she heard?
"Ned, what's wrong? What did you dream about?"
He opened his mouth to tell her that it was nothing, but then he caught of her face. It was set in concerned but also implacable lines. He knew her too well to hope that she would give way in her need to find out what was wrong. Well. Perhaps it was time she found out.
"Cat, what I have to tell you is the truth. I will swear any oath you like on that. You will think it is madness, but Luwin and Robb will tell you otherwise. Robb, because this is his story. Luwin because he found me half-carrying Robb back from the Godswood, where I found him praying."
"Half-carrying?" Cat asked in alarm.
"Cat – the Old Gods spoke to us both, there in the Godswood. They… showed me flashes of a future. A future that Robb remembers, right up until the moment of his death. The Old Gods said that things had gone wrong, that warnings had not been listened to, that… that The Others have returned. And because of that Robb was sent back to us, sent back in time. That morning when he burst in and looked so strange to us all – that was the day that he returned."
She stared at him, her eyes intently studying his face as uncertainty roiled her own. "Sent… back?"
"Sent back with warnings. Warnings about my death. About the capture of Winterfell. About the death of Robert and the war that breaks out because of that."
"Your death?" Her hands went to her mouth. "Ned, this is madness!"
"I said that you would see it as such. But I swear that it is all true." And then he quietly explained everything that Robb had told him about that terrible future that he come from, going from the murder of Jon Arryn to the final moments at the weeding at The Twins. By the time he finished she was pale and trembling, her hands pressed to her stomach as she obviously tried to control her breathing and not panic.
"Walder Frey?" She almost spat the words. "Given…. Given how much grief he has given the Tullys over the years, over the most trivial of reasons, I should not be surprised that he would be willing to plot against our son." She wiped the tears from her cheeks and then her eyes. "I have much to think on, Ned. Much to think on."
"Cat, this future will not happen. We have already started to change it. Domeric Bolton, according to Robb, was supposed to be dead by now, slain by a stomach ailment. And yet he lives. We have changed things."
This startled her and she looked at him for a long moment, before smiling slightly. "That is good. You are right – Sansa is greatly taken by him."
He nodded absently, his mind on the other decision that he had to make. "There is something else, Cat. I dreamt about my sister, Lyanna. There is something that you deserve to know about that. A secret that I have kept, which I should have shared with you. The truth about what happened the last time I saw Lyanna."
She looked at him and then took a deep breath of air. "Very well Ned."
He sat next to her, his mind reaching back through the years. "Seven of us were there. Howland Reed, Willam Dustin, Ethan Glover, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, and Mark Ryswell. And we were facing the last of the Mad King's guards. Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. We'd tracked them down, we knew that they were in the area and that they were obeying Rhaegar's orders, that they were linked to Lyanna's disappearance. We found them at the Tower of Joy, a strange name for a broken old watch tower in the Northern hills of Dorne. We found them and we called on them to yield, that their king was dead, their price was dead and that the Realm had a new king."
He shook his head as the memories crowded through his head, thick and fast. The smell of the hot earth. The bright sun that had made him squint. The dirt on those damn white cloaks of theirs. And the look in their eyes, that mixture of desperation, grief and worse yet dull acceptance. They knew that they were going to die – and yet they still fought.
"Those three died hard. They were good, Cat, they were very, very good." The grunt of men parrying blows, the hisses and cries of pain as steel found flesh, the iron smell of blood, the way that the red drops spattered into the dust that lay thick over the old flagstones in the yard outside the entrance. "They struck down five of us before Howland and I killed the last of them. Ser Arthur Dayne. His sword Dawn gave me this-" Ned indicated at a pale scar at the top of his shoulder. "If I hadn't dodged back at the last moment I would have lost my arm and then probably my life. But Howland got him in the leg and as he staggered I got him in the neck with Ice."
He ran his hand over his chin. And now the memories that hurt and which would always hurt people around him. "Howland stayed to tender to the wounded – I hoped that Martyn would not die, but he bled to death. And I entered the Tower. The upper floors were too weak to stand on but I found Lyanna in a bed on the second floor. She was dying of fever. She thought that I was a shade from her dreams. First she thought that I was Father and then she thought that I was Brandon. When she realised that I was real she wept. Apologised. She was so thin, Cat, burning with fever. And they'd left her there, those three noble fools from the Kingsguard. Fools who'd soiled their cloaks. Soiled their honour."
Ned took a deep breathe of air. "They hadn't thought to employ a midwife, otherwise she might have not gotten the birthing fever."
His Lady wife stared at him, her eyes very wide. "Midwife? She had been pregnant?"
He nodded, suddenly so very tired. "Aye. He was sleeping in a cradle to one side. Not much of a cradle. More like a box lined with old sheets. She gestured at him. 'My beautiful boy' she called him. And then she seemed to come alive. She clawed at my arm, she begged me to give my word to protect him, to get him to the North, to Winterfell, where he'd be safe. She begged me to promise to keep her son safe." He paused, his voice thick with grief. "I did. I swore an oath on the Godswood here in Winterfell that I'd keep him safe. And then she smiled and she fell back on the bed – quite dead. I cried over her, I prayed to the Old Gods to see her spirit safely back here and then I kissed her forehead and I picked up her son – and I have protected him ever since."
A silence fell, a deep and heavy one. It was finally broken by Cat. "Jon is the son of Lyanna?"
"Yes."
"He is your nephew, not your son?"
"Yes, he is my nephew."
She flushed with anger. "Then why my lord have you dishonoured me all these long years by pretending to have a bastard son? Why did you let me hate him so much for fear that he would one day usurp Robb? And why would you hide his-" She stopped suddenly and he waited for her to work through the chain of thought. "By the Seven – his father… his father must then have been Rhaegar Targaryen!" She hissed the words as if they hurt her mouth.
"Yes," he said gently. "And given how Robert had greeted the bodies of the murdered Targaryen children with a smile, you can see why I did not want to tell anyone about Jon's lineage. He may be the son of Lyanna, but he is also the son of Rhaegar, and that last fact might doom him. Might still doom him. The only other person who knows is Howland Reed, who saw the whole thing from the doorway after Martyn Cassel died. And now you."
He looked her straight in the eye. "I'm sorry for not telling you. At the start of our marriage I knew you not. I did not know of your strength, nor did I know that our love would strengthen to the point that I could trust you with anything. I held to a promise that I made to my sister that blinded me when it came to trusting anyone – and for that, Cat, I am so sorry. Please forgive me."
Cat sat there on the bed, her eyes on his face but searching for something within it. Finally she smiled slightly. "I wish that you had told me long ago Ned. So much of my… dislike for young Jon might have been avoided." She looked at the bed. "I did not know. I thought that Jon might be a threat to Robb and above all I hated the woman I thought had stolen your heart before we were reunited after the War."
She looked back up at him and then smiled bitterly. "He looks so much like you, Ned. There is nothing of the Targaryens in his looks."
"That was a blessing," he replied. "It helped to hide him. And there is nothing of his grandfather in him. His father was odd but brilliant. Aerys on the other hand was a monster. There is nothing of that within him." He sighed. "I must tell him. It will break his heart, but I must tell him. And then – we must decide what to do with him. He has mentioned joining the Night's Watch, and Robb said that that was he eventually decided to do in that dark future. He also said that in the last days of his life Robb heard that the Night's Watch was making desperate appeals for help – which I think confirms that The Others have returned."
"No Ned," Cat said quietly. She had drawn her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees in the way that she did when she was thinking very deeply. "Lyanna's son must not go to the Wall. If there is one thing that your tale of woe from this future tells me, it is that we need more Starks here, to protect Winterfell." She closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. "You must make him a Stark."