Interlude II
There was a candle in the dark. It twisted and turned and painted the chamber in flickering shades, flickering beasts, flickering faces, flickering pictures. He fancied he could see such things, hereabouts. Mayhaps that was only the wine.
A knock. Polite, firm. "May I come in?"
"Come on in," he mumbled, pressing his face into a pillow.
The door opened. A rectangle of white light shone through into his bedchamber: cold, bright, unwelcome. Urghhhh. His head was still being trampled by horses' hooves hammering. He saw the stooped thin figure at the door, robed in blue and white. A face approached and peered down on him with concern. He saw the liver-spots, the prominent nose. He knew that face.
"Jon," he said, reaching out with one hand, as warmly as he would to anyone. Certainly more than to his wife.
"Robert," his foster father said, clasping his hand, not tightly; Jon's grip was ever so frail. "A difficult night?"
"A little," said Robert, sitting up. He did not wish to dwell on it. "Why now?"
Jon's face tightened, just a little, but enough for him to see. It saddened him. Robert did not like to disappoint his foster father, but it happened so often he wondered how he could stop. He loved that old man and was vexed by him in equal measure.
"You did not come to our meeting yesterday, Your Grace," his Hand reminded him. "I specifically asked you to find time to come."
"Oh, another of those," said Robert. He did not know why Jon kept bothering. He had told the old man enough times, it surely ought to be obvious by now. He thought to turn over on the bed and press his head against the furs, to calm the stamping in there, but he could not find it in himself to do so. It felt too awkward when Jon was there, watching him.
"Yes, another of those," said Jon. "One more important than most. Your councillors await your attention as we speak."
"In the council chamber?"
"No. Outside the door."
Robert groaned and sat up. "Why can't you decide for yourselves?"
Jon stepped gingerly between half-empty wineskins on the floor, took Robert's hand and moved to pull him up to his feet. In truth it was Robert who did most of the pulling. It would have been elsewise, once, but Jon no longer had the strength for much, and Robert could not bear making him feel weak out of pettiness. Like any man, his foster father had his pride.
"The power of all your councillors and courtiers is what you give them," Jon said, with the air of a man who had said the same thing many times before. "All right and law in their decisions flow from you. Underneath all of it, all the ceremony, all the silks and smells and castles and pretensions, court is where the king is. The king is power; to be close to the king is to be close to power. If you are not at court, court will come to you."
"I never wanted it," said Robert.
"Do you want a Targaryen to have it?"
Robert was up at once, his voice a snarl. "Never say that."
"Then it is yours." Jon shrugged. "Who else's could it be?"
The servants were called in. They helped Robert out of his wine-stained garments, washed him, trimmed his beard and put him in new clothes. By the end of it he was draped as splendidly as a king should be. A crown shone forth atop the pale, glistening, sweaty skin of Robert's head, and fine walls of black and golden silk concealed the bulging rolls of fat that had been arrayed before Jon this morning.
Jon strode briskly to the council chamber, flanked by the rest of the small council and three sworn brothers of the Kingsguard. Several times he caught himself going ahead and slowed down for the king. They strode through bright-lit corridors, with the king blinking bleary-eyed; curious onlookers rushed close to call and jostle for royal attention, but were warded off by the white shadows. The torches were scented like honey, trees and flowers, sweet, sometimes sickly sweet. Those smells contested against the fumes of refuse, raw fish and stinking unwashed sweat that wafted ever up from the markets, dungheaps and brewhouses below them. Usually, the perfumes could prevail over the urban desolation underneath.
When at last they reached the council chamber, he began at once, not wishing yet further delay. From that walk the king was already sweating. "As you will be aware," Jon said as he sat down at the table, "we have received word from the war in the west."
"More of the ironmen?" said Robert, leaning in. A thick-backed chair next to Jon groaned and shuddered as he sat. "I would know more of the battle."
"As would I," said Jon.
There must have been a battle. That much was clear. But all that they knew about the great sea-battle that they must have lost were some terrified peasants, reporting a great din and the sound of screaming and a swarm of crows afterwards, and the words of some madmen Lord Tywin's men had found washed up on the Westerlands' shore. My best men have interrogated them at length, Lord Lannister wrote, and no expense has been spared, I assure you. Yet ever they refuse to say aught at all, save for endless rambling about blood.
Jon found much to fault in some of his fellow councillors, but they were old and seasoned enough to know that peasants' and soldiers' tall tales would always make whatever they had seen seem more fearsome. Ofttimes a frightened villager's imagination would turn a foraging party into a company or a company into an army ten-thousand strong. Noise? Screams? Crows? Green young troops sickened and unmanned when the truth of bloodshed did not match their boyish dreams, becoming broken men? These were features of every battle ever fought. It was exceedingly vexing to have spent so much of the treasury upon the king's latest fleet, lose it, and barely know anything about how it had been lost.
He went on, "Yet that is not what we hear." He hesitated. "It is a different sort of word. Grand Maester?"
"A raven has come from Pyke," quavered Pycelle, under the king's intent gaze. "House Greyjoy has sent to Your Grace for peace."
Of everything Robert might have expected, it had not been that. His jaw dropped. "Now?"
"Now," confirmed Jon.
"Lord Balon has just won his greatest victory yet," said Ser Harys Swyft of Cornfield. "Why would he be reaching out to His Grace?"
"It is not Lord Balon who asks. The letter is sent in the name of Lord—they say 'King', of course—Dagon Greyjoy."
The wispy-bearded master of laws blinked. "Dagon Greyjoy has not lived for many years."
"Not the Dagon our fathers knew, Ser Harys," the Lord of the Eyrie said irritably. Doddering old fool. There were not many men of whom he would or could say that; Harys Swyft was among them. "It is another Dagon, named for that one. The son of Maron Greyjoy, I am given to understand, and heir to the Seastone Chair in the days of Lord Balon."
"So Balon's dead," said the king, taking this in. He laughed all of a sudden. "Thought I'd outlive that squid-faced old bastard."
"Yet Dagon son of Maron would not be reaching out to us," remarked Lord Varys. "In five moons and a week it will be his twelfth nameday."
Jon refused to let himself be daunted by Varys's seemingly boundless memory for such things. Did he know about the letter already, or does he remember all things so well?
"That is so," Jon said, dipping his head. "It is sent on Lord Dagon's behalf, not by him. The sender who claims to speak for him is Euron Greyjoy."
There was a heavy pause. It was broken by the king's uncle Ser Eldon Estermont, a green-clad knight sitting down at the other end of the table, near where Jaime Lannister stood. The man had grey hair and well over sixty namedays, but Jon supposed he must seem the very picture of youthful vigour next to the master of laws, the Grand Maester and Jon himself. "The dangerous one among the Greyjoys—the one who sank Mallister's fleet and Manderly's, likely Grafton's too—is now regent of Pyke."
"Yes." Ser Eldon had every right to be wary, the Lord of the Eyrie considered. He had lately risen back to his old post of master of ships, thanks in part to the queen's influence and in part to the fact that… well, who else was there for it? If things went awry, he would be the next high captain to lead an expensive fleet out to be slaughtered on the Sunset Sea.
"Well then? Out with it," Robert demanded. "What does Greyjoy want?"
Grand Maester Pycelle began to read in his ponderous, creaky voice. "In light of the unfortunate conflict that has prevailed between the royal House Greyjoy and the royal House Baratheon, which in the eyes of the heavens must truly be accounted a curse, and in their mutual pursuit of a just and lasting peace that shall resolve all issues presently outstanding, His Lordship—"
Mother spare me. "They'll stop their raiding of our shores," Jon interrupted. "Lord Euron promises to enforce that himself. The ironmen to keep the islands they have taken, for we have failed to retake them. A small tribute of twelve-thousand dragons per year. And Your Grace's recognition of the Iron Islands as a sovereign kingdom unto themselves, as they were of old."
"Never," said Robert.
Jon took in a deep breath. Here comes the danger. He prepared to speak—
—until someone else did. "I would advise Your Grace to accept it."
"Accept it?" Robert erupted.
"Do you lack faith in His Grace and in victory?" cried Harys Swyft.
Jon was just as shocked. He had been about to give the same counsel, but he had not foreseen support from any on the small council save for his own bannerman. He had not expected a lackey of Queen Cersei's to be responsible enough to give Robert sound, unpopular advice.
"In my judgement as Your Grace's master of ships," Eldon Estermont said, "Your Grace's realm is not ready for another attempt against the ironmen. Command me to go forth to the ironmen in another paltry handful of years and I will do as you bid me, Your Grace; but I must warn you that I do not expect it to bring you victory. If we do the same thing that cost us the past two of three sea-battles, we'll lose."
"What if I don't trust that judgement?" snarled Robert.
Jon flinched. That would be reopening an old wound.
"You should," Ser Eldon told his nephew. "I won the Battle of Dragonstone for Your Grace; I defeated the Targaryen fleet, the greater threat, when all the inadequate replacements you found for me have failed to crush the ironmen as I would have. If any man in your realm knows how sea-battles are won and lost, I do. And I tell you, building a fourth fleet to do the same as the first three will not be enough. Each fleet will be worse than the last."
"Why?" said Robert. He made an impatient gesture. "Let the lumberjacks have at the whole kingswood if that's what it takes. There's enough godsdamned trees in there anyway; I don't need them all."
"Oh, we have timber," said Estermont, "and we've no lack of flax for rope and sailcloth, thanks to the marshes of the Neck. What Your Grace cannot grow so easily are decent sailors. Aerys levied thousands of men from the port cities for his royal fleet, then you for yours—the first one, that I led—then twice more, for the fleets you gave to Lords Manderly and Grafton. Is it any wonder Greyjoy beat them? I could have led the fleet that fool Jason Mallister dropped at the bottom of the Whispering Sound and with them I may have defeated the Greyjoys. Lord Grafton's fleet may have had more ships, but I would not so fancy my chances.
"A fleet is like an army, Your Grace. It is made of men, not just of wood and sail. The best, most seasoned sailors in the realm have already been sent to die—fleet after fleet of them. Oh, we can build more ships, not a doubt, more ships than the ironmen ever can. 'Tis the men who are the trouble." Ser Eldon drew a deep breath. "Your Grace, if Rhaegar had plucked up a thousand confused green peasant boys from across the Riverlands, handed them pikes and sent them running at your host, would that have won him the Trident?"
Robert snorted. "Not a chance. We'd have put them to rout."
"Just so. Your Grace sees clearly," Eldon Estermont said with an ingratiating bow. "Well I tell you, as a captain of fleets—it is the same folly as to send out seasick landlubbers to fight the Greyjoy fleet. And levying some poor hapless crewmen from merchants' cogs would fare little better."
The comparison seemingly struck spark in Robert. The king was still angry, but he was listening.
"I hear what you say," Robert said, "but the ironmen must be crushed." He had beaten Rhaegar. The very idea of letting Balon Greyjoy beat him made his blood boil. "If we can't levy the sailors for our fighting ships, we'll hire them."
"We have hired sellsails against the Iron Islands already. Half of Lord Manderly's fleet was of those," Robert's uncle reminded him. "They went down anyway, when Euron Greyjoy confronted them off the coast of Dorne, and most of them fled the battle when it turned sour. The blood of Lord Manderly, Lord Blackwood, Lord Crakehall, Lord Meadows, half a hundred knights and lordlings and thousands of smallfolk of your realm is on their hands—them and their cowardice. What makes you think they'd do better this time?"
"There is a company of sellsails and sellswords that was not hired, back then," observed Harys Swyft. "A company that does not flee; has never fled before."
The world came to a halt. Cressen's voice, trembling, hesitant. "I hate to tell you, but I must"… "I've reason to believe a terrible deed has been done"… Sacrifice is never easy, maester. Or it is no true sacrifice. A knife covered in blood. A voice chanting spells. A child screaming. It was like a nightmare, but he was awake—he was awake—
"No," Varys broke in. "Absolutely not."
"Never," Robert swore.
"Why not?" asked Ser Harys. "There is no other free company like the Swords of the Storm. No sellsail yet, nor any other captain has defeated the Greyjoys at sea, yet let us not say it cannot be done. Their record is replete with impossible victories. Was not the pride of the Archon of Tyrosh trapped and caught and burnt at anchor? Were not ten-thousand screaming horselords, the horde of Drogo, broken on an open field? Was not Braavos, Queen of Cities, sacked and dethroned?"
"Your Grace must not. The peril is too great," urged Varys. "The Sealord of Braavos was dethroned indeed, and might not be alone. Hire the Swords of the Storm to kill the ironmen and perhaps, perhaps they would prevail. If they do, how long would Your Grace wear a crown afterward?"
"Stannis Baratheon would never steal your crown," Petyr Baelish dismissed. The copper-counter's boyish face had too much certainty. "He hasn't the heart for it. He's never stayed in one place long enough for that. From Pentos to Volantis, from Yi-Ti to Ghiscar, from Ibben to Sothoryos… he rarely stays in the same kingdom for more than half a year, let alone the same city. A man like that, settling down to be king?" His voice was one of open disbelief. "Not a chance. He's a sellsword through and through."
"You do not know Stannis like I do," Robert said darkly, scorning Baelish's earnestness. "You don't know what he's done." He spoke it like a chant, some superstitious screed to ward off shadows. "You don't know. You can't know."
Nonetheless, black memories rose in his head, both imagined and real. That godsforsaken day echoed oft in his thoughts; Robert supposed it would never leave him, for the rest of his life. His brother striding into his royal hall, tall and proud and haunted, skin tight to his bones, so gaunt he looked more like a skeleton than a man. Robert had not wanted to believe what Maester Cressen had told him. The first efforts, playing at decency as a mummer's farce, as if nothing was wrong… trying to hide it, but not quite having the will…
Poor child.
My heart grieves for him. I wish he'd chosen otherwise.
Stannis had sought to hide his sin, and Robert had hoped that Cressen was wrong, somehow, though the old maester was not one to lie to him. But Stannis's glee at his hideous accomplishment had shone through too bright to conceal.
We've no fleet. The ships of Gulltown and White Harbour aren't nearly enough. Until we build one, Balon Greyjoy and the dragonspawn are untouchable.
That smile. That smile. Barely a smile at all, yet Robert would never forget that cold little twist of lips. Doubtless Paxter Redwyne thought himself so.
Was that smile the last thing Renly had seen? His poor, poor brother, barely more than a babe, a sweet little boy who had tickled and giggled in Robert's arms whenever he visited. The thought of anyone wanting to do him harm was unimaginable. Had it been quick? Had he screamed?
The final moments. Robert, enraged, upright. Stannis, thin as bones, half-dead and utterly unrepentant for the monstrous sin he had committed. His last appeal. Everything that I have done, I've done for you.
Robert shuddered, drenched in disgust deeper than anything. "No. No."
His small council were exchanging glances. "Yes, Your Grace," said Ser Eldon, cloyingly, bowing his head. "It will not be done. You will be obeyed."
Slowly, Robert came to breathe more shallowly. "It's bad, I understand," he said. "But not Stannis, in all the gods' names. Never him."
A placating murmur: "Yes, Your Grace."
"I know it's bleak," King Robert thundered. "Sellswords are the answer. If we don't have the men to face down the Greyjoys, we'll get more. We can afford more ships and men than they can."
"Your Grace must pardon the question," Jon said, treading on eggshells. "I must say, or at least somebody must: Suppose that you send out another fleet. How do you pay for it?"
His foster son looked straight at him, overcome by shock. "You aren't going to say we give those ironmen cocksuckers what they want because of stags and coppers?"
Carefully, Jon said, "With respect, Your Grace, that does not answer the question."
Robert waved a hand with impatience. "Borrow some. We'll pay it back when I've a drinking cup of Euron Greyjoy's skull."
Petyr Baelish said, bluntly, "From whom?"
"Same as always," said Robert. "Lord Tywin, the High Septon, Lord Mace, the…" He trailed off.
"The Iron Bank of Braavos," Lord Baelish completed his liege's thought. "Precisely."
"My brother," the king breathed. "My fucking gods-damned brother. Not again."
"Pardon me, my lord, but your hopelessness seems unwarranted," interjected Grand Maester Pycelle. "Lord Tywin, as His Grace's leal and generous subject, would doubtless be willing to offer some assistance to his goodson in this time of hardship."
"Unless he can shit out a whole treasury, Lord Tywin doesn't have the coin for it," retorted Baelish. "Not on his own, nor with the High Septon, nor with Lord Mace. I have already borrowed much from all three of them, before and especially after the Iron Bank's fall."
"He need not be on his own," said Pycelle. "The Iron Bank still stands. At least, Sealord Aro insists it does and all its vaults are now in his possession. Would he not be willing to extend us a sum, to win the gratitude of the Seven Kingdoms?"
"Accepting the Sealord's will would be a calamity for the realm," Baelish snapped. "Your Grace owed five and a half million gold dragons to the Iron Bank before the Titanfall. All of that, we wrote off when Braavos fell. If not for that, His Grace's debt would be more than double what it is today." His voice turned pleading. "Your Grace, Aro Isattis has said he'll only offer loans to those who recognise the Iron Bank today, under him, as the same Iron Bank they owed coin to. If you take a million-dragon loan from the Braavosi, you will have to pay six dragons for every dragon you get from them."
"Six dragons in the future," said Ser Harys. "Versus one dragon we need now."
Jon did not say a word. He just looked at him, witheringly, with undisguised contempt. No wonder your House grew so poor you had to give up your daughter as a hostage in place of the coin you owed to House Lannister.
That Kevan Lannister had ended up marrying the aforesaid daughter, thus perchance uplifting Ser Harys to prominence and inflicting him on the rest of the world, was, if nothing else, proof that the Seven had a sense of humour.
The king had moved on. "What of the other Free Cities? Will they give us a loan?"
"No," admitted Baelish. "Pentos won much land and gold in the Great Northern War but she has lost a lot of it to horde after horde of horselords. She is richer than ever, these days," he added, for the king's sake, "and less defensible than the other Free Cities, you see, so they go there for tribute more than anywhere else. Volantis is by miles the richest and mightiest of them all, but since the Tigers came to power, she is too intent on asserting her grasp up the Rhoyne to have the coin to spare for us. Tyrosh, Lys and Myr are slaughtering each other, as always. And the rest have not the coin for it."
He wished he did not have to say it. The rest of the small council knew all of this backwards. As a boy, Jon had loved Robert's joy and liveliness—it was a virtue in a child—but he had hoped that, as his foster son grew, he would grow more responsible. Instead, it felt sometimes as if the fostering had never truly ended.
"Then I will have to raise a tax," said Robert, with some trepidation.
"More?" asked Jon, appalled. There was no law against it, but it was perilous for a liegelord, be he lord or king, to levy a tax without the consent of his bannermen. That had ever been so. "That would warrant a council, and I doubt the lords of the realm would agree. Father Above knows it scares me how much they are grumbling already, and that is just for the tax we levied two moons after you came to the throne, to suppress the ironmen. That tax has lasted a dozen times longer than they thought when they accepted it. Demand more, for what has been a manifestly unsuccessful war? You'd face revolt."
"If you want to continue the war," Lord Baelish said, "I see no other way, Your Grace."
"Then it must be done," said Robert, grimly, "for all the risk of it. I won't suffer Balon bloody Greyjoy to beat me."
Lord Petyr, who had been driving at the opposite answer, manfully struggled not to scream.
"Why so?" said Ser Eldon. "Peace would not be victory, but need not be defeat."
Robert blinked at him. "Don't be absurd, Uncle. How wouldn't it be?"
"The first thing Your Grace must recall is that the ironmen are not winning this war," Ser Eldon said. "They are not losing, true, but they are not winning. Their first raid on Oldtown was a failure and their second raid failed more embarrassingly than the last. Lord Balon's right arm, severed at Ser Garth Hightower's feet, is testament to that. When they tried to surprise us by striking elsewhere, Maron Greyjoy's march on Highgarden two years ago was a calamity from start to finish. At sea the ironmen are kings. On land they are an annoyance."
"Yes, yes," interrupted the king. "You say nothing I don't already know. How does that serve us when we cannot get to them?"
"Will Your Grace hear me?"
"Get to the point," said Robert.
"Most of the ironmen's victories in this war have been raids or skirmishes, or sacks of defenceless villages and minor castles, or surprise attacks at the war's very beginning when they seized the Arbour from Your Grace's rightful rule," Ser Eldon said. Not that we have ever ruled the Arbour, Jon thought. The last king in King's Landing who had was Aerys. "None of those are beyond understanding. All their real victories, the great battles that cannot be explained, were led by one man—the same man who writes to us now. By this Lord Euron Greyjoy."
"And?"
"The Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros has many strengths in this war," Eldon Estermont argued. "More timber, more flax, more gold, more steel, more swords, more men to hold them. To match that, the ironmen have… one superb commander. Grand Maester, how many namedays has Euron Greyjoy seen?"
"Ser, if the records Pyke's maester sent to the Citadel speak true," Pycelle said, "eight-and-fifty."
"And there we have it," Ser Eldon said with satisfaction. "Let us take time, for the passing of time is on our side. Our weaknesses are the lack of ships and war-sailors, and time will heal those. The ironmen's weaknesses cannot be healed. Every year of peace tilts the balance further in our favour. And when it has tilted enough… then, then there will be a reckoning."
Light dawned in Robert's eyes. "You don't mean me to keep my word to the ironmen?"
Jon blinked, genuinely taken aback. "Good Heavens, no, of course not. Why on earth would you do that?"
"I beg your pardon, Your Grace," Eldon Estermont said, "I understand your objections better now."
"No, I never meant to keep the peace with the ironmen. Such a peace would only be an armistice for the next war," said Jon. "Let them have peace now. Let them keep Fair Isle, the Shield Islands, the Arbour; Warrior knows it is not as if we have the power to retake them, in any case. Let them have their tribute."
"It may sound like much," Petyr reassured the king, "but it's a great deal less than we've been spending to pay the army, and to build beacons and fortifications up and down the coast."
"Thank you, Lord Baelish," Jon said with a respectful nod. The clever, earnest young Valeman owed Jon everything he had. Honest Petyr was the only one on the small council whom Jon could trust. "Let them have this peace where we lose nothing, except acknowledging what we've already lost. And then, in ten years or thereabouts, we come back, rested, strong, and set their dirty little kingdom to the torch."
Jon's heart had risen. It might work. We might truly persuade him.
"In ten years," repeated Robert.
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Ten years of disgrace. Ten years of defeat. Ten years when they'll laugh at me," said Robert, purpling. "Ten years when those fucking godsdamned smallfolk keep calling me Robert the Weak."
That isn't what they call you anymore, Jon thought. It hasn't been for years. Jon was old, but his ears were sharper than the servants and the cityfolk sometimes guessed, when his wheelhouse took him about the city on business. Ofttimes he overheard things he guessed they thought he would not. Nowadays it was 'Robert the Fat' that was said by smiths and merchants and educated folk, and 'Fatarse Bob' by the rest. Even 'Craven Bob' he had heard more than a few times.
Judiciously, he did not say so.
"Ten years to recover," Jon told his foster son. "Ten years to make your kingdom strong again."
"Defeat is what it is." Robert spat. "No, Lord Arryn. I will not have it. Levy a tax. Reach out to Lord Tywin, Lord Mace and the Sealord. We'll hire the next fleet with their gold."
"Pardon me, Your Grace; that is folly," Jon said firmly.
"My mind is made," said Robert. "I am still your king, gods damn you. Do it."
"Every courtier will tell a king what he wishes. A king needs men whom he can trust to tell him what he does not want to hear," Jon said. "Are you a king or a singer, to have your pride be coddled so?"
His foster son flinched, like he would when he had been a child. The question was stinging. But then, unlike the child he had been, Robert drew himself up in defiance of Lord Arryn. "Don't you dare," he snarled, flabby jowls quivering. "Don't talk back to me like that."
Jon stood. "I tell you, Robert, this will ruin you." He used his sternest, lordliest voice. "Do not sacrifice your kingdom on the altar of your impatience."
"Do it."
"Very well," said Jon.
Robert paused, surprised to feel resistance vanish. "You…? Good."
"I have served you many years, foster son," Jon said quietly. "I have acclaimed you as king. I have fought wars for you. I have toiled to keep your realm from bankruptcy, against your own best efforts. I have filled the offices of your court. I have persuaded foreign dignitaries that you will pay your debts. I have negotiated with your lords to keep them quiescent under you. I have put the entire ancient legacy of House Arryn on the line to protect you from Mad Aerys. At peril of the neglect of my own dominion, I have governed your crown's fiefs, the Stormlands and the Seven Kingdoms, all at once, as you will not do it yourself.
"All this I have done, for the love I bear you." His voice was one of mounting rage. "If, in spite of all that service, you insist on this absurdity—if you wish to bring mutiny and ruin to the realm out of spite—then you can find yourself another Hand. For I will have no part of it."
Jon took the golden chain of office from around his neck, drew it up and flung it on the floor. He turned his back on the king and started walking out of the council chamber.
"Come back," called Robert. His voice rose. "Come back, Jon, I command you!"
"Nor I." Young Lord Petyr was first, quick to rise to Jon's side, as ever the fiercest champion of Lord Arryn on the council.
"Nor I." Then Ser Eldon Estermont, whose reappointment he had long struggled against, whom he would never have thought of as an ally, but who had become one in this.
"Nor I." Varys the eunuch rose to his feet to pad beside Jon. "I beg Your Grace to reconsider."
Belatedly, upon seeing everyone else was doing so, Grand Maester Pycelle stood up. "Your Grace," he stuttered, "I truly do not think this is the wisest course…"
"Oh, shut up, maester." Robert sank back into his chair.
Jon stopped walking. He turned.
"I'll do it." Robert rubbed his face. His eyes were red and tired. "Just stop, godsdamn you."
"I am glad that Your Grace has seen sense," Jon said. "You are making the right decision."
"I am?" Robert said, softly. "Yes. Right."
"This is not defeat," Jon said. "We are not a conquered people. The ironmen have failed miserably in their every attempt to make us that. This is a pause that will buy us the time to bring us victory."
As Jon and the others filed out of the chamber, leaving him alone with silent white shadows like Selmy, Robert sank back into the comfort of the chair. The thick wood groaned under the pressure. He had always been a big man, but chairs did not always do that, he remembered.
This is not defeat, Jon had said. Robert wished he had Jon's sharp, clear certainty. Even now he had not lost the sense of awe he had as a child, that his foster father seemed so strong, so sure, so proud. To him it all seemed murkier. They had fought a war to halt the ironmen's bid to be a sovereign kingdom once again, and now the ironmen were sovereign. Mayhaps it was not defeat, but how could it not be? That did not feel to Robert like victory.
Would this be how they remembered him? He wondered it. A fat man sitting on a chair, cowering before his own councillors, helpless to prevent the ironmen from wreaking havoc on his realm. Would they blame it on him? It was not fair; he was no captain of ships, to fight the ironmen on the seas; but would they? Would they be saying, everything would be fine, if only Rhaegar Targaryen were king?
He mumbled, "Craven Bob."
He was not as dumb and deaf as they thought him. Robert knew what the servants and the cityfolk called him; he had overheard it more than once, when he entered and left King's Landing's brothels and winesinks. It was one thing to be feared, thought of as cruel. A cruel king, at least, was strong. But this…? Craven Bob. The shame of it was like a spear to the gut. He had never thought men would call him a craven.
Gods, how had he ended up like this? Even he did not know.
"Tell a servant. More wine," Robert growled. Ser Meryn Trant, grumbling something about indignity, went away from Robert's side to find one. They waited a minute, then a serving girl entered with a bottle, a pale slip of a girl, mayhaps five-and-ten. She was hesitant, trembling as if afraid he would be in one of his dark moods.
"Come over here," Robert ordered impatiently. She came close enough to hand him the wine-bottle. He took a great big guzzle from it. As she began to walk away, he thrust a meaty hand down her bodice.
The serving girl squealed, a sound that delighted Robert. His enjoyment of it was marred by Jaime Lannister scowling over him.
He had no taste for the Kingslayer's silent condemnation. "Fuck off," he growled; Ser Jaime stormed out in a fury. More tactfully, Ser Barristan stood up and walked to stand outside the council chamber.
Robert went on with his business. He wanted to feel like a man again.
Thus the king and his council drew their conclusions, from the best of what they knew.
Was it a bad plan, as Robert Baratheon believed? A good plan, as Jon Arryn would have said? Perhaps. That is all that can be said: 'perhaps'. One cannot know.
For they did not have ten years. They did not even have one.
In nine turns of the moon Jon Arryn would be dead. Shortly later Robert Baratheon would join him. Things fall apart; the gods mock the certainty of men, and the best-laid plans of beggars and kings alike are torn up by the game of thrones.