Chapter Text
If there was something Jaime was very good at, besides swordsmanship, it was standing in front of doors looking impressive. His skills in that realm had brought him the prestige he deserved, standing outside the most esteemed door in all the realm.
Behind that door, well. Robert was drinking. And whoring. Business as usual.
He found he could not go away inside as he once had. He had lost the knack. When he thought of Cersei, he was reminded all the more that her husband was dishonouring her and yet Jaime stood by. His thoughts inevitably turned to killing Robert and exacting some revenge for his sister. And so he could never quite distance himself as he once had with Aerys.
Kingship was a strange beast, Jaime reflected. It was Jon Arryn and Stannis Baratheon who did the real work of ruling the kingdom, yet it was Robert’s door Jaime and his fellows guarded. Robert, who served the realm when Arryn trotted him out to hold another tourney for the masses, and only then.
These were not good thoughts for a member of the Kingsguard to have. They would only lead back to thoughts of honouring his sister with Robert’s lifeblood. Once you’d killed one king, it seemed, it was only too easy to think of killing another.
After what seemed an age, Robert finally finished and came to the door. “We’ll be going to the feast tonight,” he told Jaime and Greenfield, the other Kingsguard on duty. His personality was as dull as his jousting was. “Jon wants me to drink all the guild leaders under the table.”
It shouldn’t be a challenge for you, your grace, was what Jaime wanted to say. He restrained himself. Robert might take that sort of thing from Jon Arryn, but not from his bodyguards.
When Robert had gone back into his rooms to dress, Greenfield said, “I’ll take the door.”
“As you like,” Jaime replied, though it meant he would be posted at the table during the feast.
Now they trusted him to guard a king again and Jaime almost wished they wouldn’t. He did loathe Robert.
At some point in the last few days, Cersei had found the time to tell Robert she was with child again. Now the king was unbearably self-satisfied. At the feast he would no doubt put his hands all over Jaime’s sister. As if Cersei wanted him to touch her. Robert wasn’t even the father of her children.
The feast was a fairly low-key affair as far as royal feasts went. It wasn’t like there were many high lords here. Jon Arryn had arranged it to help reassure the guilds that they still enjoyed the confidence of the crown.
“Have you ever met the head of the guild of carpenters?” Robert asked Jaime casually as they proceeded towards the great hall.
“I’ve never had the pleasure, your grace.”
“Jon tells me there’s none to be had. The man’s a thoroughgoing prick, he says. Got his arse where his head should be.” Jaime doubted Jon Arryn had used quite those words, but Robert was still speaking. “Jon also tells me that one feast with him will have the man gloating to all and sundry for half a year, if not more. I might have to go and apologise to his wife.” His leer left no doubt about what apologising would consist of.
Jaime kept his hand away from the hilt of his sword. If an assassin had burst out from around the corner, he was not sure he could draw. Or should.
Besides, it was a reaction that Robert wanted. Jaime would not give it to him. He smiled instead. Robert snorted.
They were late to the feast, technically. This sort of event never truly began until the king arrived. The wine was already flowing freely.
The scene would have been unthinkable for Aerys’ court. Back then there had been plenty of men and women who had drunk a goblet of strongwine before meeting with Aerys, just to calm their nerves, but only the most foolish got drunk. You needed your wits about you when dealing with Aerys, and even that didn’t always help.
Robert’s court, it seemed, thought little of getting drunk in the Great Hall. It seemed genuinely cheerful in here, Cersei’s glower aside. Robert had had a guild torn apart and yet the city’s other guildsmen were in here feasting without reservation.
Neither Jon Arryn nor Stannis Baratheon were there, of course, but off to one side was Stannis’ only friend the Onion Knight, looking for all the world like he had stumbled into the feast unawares. There was only the ser Stannis had given him to separate him from the serving men, really. If it wasn’t for the ser part Davos Seaworth wouldn’t have even made it inside the gates, smuggler that he was, not even to be hanged.
In truth Seaworth did not even look like the guildmasters here, all of whom had donned their finest clothing and jewellery. All of their finest clothing and jewellery. The Onion Knight wore wool. Jaime had no doubt it was the very best wool a landed knight could buy - Seaworth still looked like a pebble in a bag of dragons.
“Enjoying yourself, Ser Jaime?” Seaworth asked, when Jaime’s cautious circuit of the room took him past.
“Duties are duties,” Jaime shrugged. “They’re rarely enjoyable. It takes some of the fun out of a feast when you cannot drink with your friends.” Or your family. Cersei was drinking fairly heavily this evening.
“I don’t often attend feasts like these,” the older man confessed. “The harvest feasts back on Cape Wrath are simpler affairs.”
“This is a simpler affair compared to many others. My sister’s wedding, for instance, and even that was rushed.” He smiled. “I fear I’ve become less used to grand events myself.”
“I’m told you’ve been a few years in the north. Is it really so different?”
“More that Lord Stark keeps a different sort of house.” You’d never see so many jewels at a northern feast. It was generally a bad idea to keep so much metal next to one’s bare skin when the weather could turn freezing even at the height of summer. Northerners preferred ribbons, stoles, and scarves.
“If you’ll forgive me for asking, Ser Jaime, might I ask how it was here when Aerys was king?”
“He didn’t have parties like these,” Jaime responded without thinking. Then he did think. “You’re very curious about Aerys, it seems.”
Seaworth shrugged off the question. “I’ve spent most every day for the past several moons hunting down wildfire bought with his coin. For all the madness I have no sense of the man.”
“Madness summarises Aerys well enough. Consider yourself lucky that you did not know him. You ask how he entertained his court of an evening? I saw him burn a man for special entertainment during the sweets, some hedge knight whose face offended him. Dinner and justice at the same time, Aerys said, and everyone in the hall just went along with it.”
It had been the last time Aerys had done that; the king realised too late that the smell of burning flesh quite ruined the taste of the strawberry tart he’d been eating. Wouldn’t the cooks have complained. If they did not wish to be next to roast.
“That would not be a thing I’d wish to see,” Seaworth said carefully. “I hope I’ve not spoiled your appetite bringing up the memory.”
“Kingsguard don’t eat at these feasts anyway,” Jaime said. “Excuse me, ser. I’m still on duty.”
He did not hurry away. It wasn’t worth it. Seaworth was too inquisitive by half for Jaime’s liking, but at the end of the day, what did he hope to prove? Gods knew that if Tyrion did the job Ser Davos was assigned, he’d be asking Jaime all these questions too.
He continued his rounds, past all the places in the hall where he’d seen men burned alive.
---
Her moon blood had not come yet, and Lysa wept. Many times her moon blood had failed to come. It was more than a moon overdue now. First there was hope, and then there was despair. The extremes pulled at her.
Many times before Lysa had been with child, and yet she had no child. The last time she had carried a child the full nine moons, only to lose the boy at the last. She had wept bitter tears at the loss, and even her lord husband had mourned, shutting himself in his solar every night for weeks. Perhaps this time. At last.
She’d imagined it so often. Growing up she’d always loved to imagine the children she’d have one day. More than Cat ever had, and now Cat was the one who had four children. Lysa was so very jealous.
Jon was in their dining room for the evening meal that night, rather than dining with the king or working late, and Lysa knew she must tell him. “My lord,” she said, “My moonblood is late. I believe I am with child.”
He’d heard the words from her often enough that he barely reacted. Maybe he got his hopes up, Lysa didn’t know. Her lord husband didn’t like her much and never confided in her. “May the gods be kind this time,” he said. “I do have other news for you.”
“For me, my lord?” Lysa kept her eyes on the table.
“Yes, my lady. I will be fostering a child with us. I would have you make him welcome.”
No. No, she didn’t want this, she didn’t want some other woman’s son in what passed for her home. Some woman who could just give away her children as if they meant nothing to her. And she didn’t want a child there to remind her every day of what she hadn’t been able to do yet.
It was all her father’s fault. I wouldn’t have drunk it if I knew what it was.
“May I ask the boy’s name, my lord?” Lysa said.
“Maric Seaworth, son of Ser Davos Seaworth, a landed knight of the Stormlands. Ser Davos has done me great service recently. Since he has five sons to provide for, I thought I could best reward him this way.”
Five sons. Five. It wasn’t fair. “I will have a room prepared for him, my lord. When might I expect his arrival?”
“In a moon, perhaps two,” her husband said. “It will take some time for him to travel here.”
That was all the conversation for that evening. Her lord husband had little to say to her in the best of circumstances. She had little to say to him as well.
She invited Petyr to her chambers two days later. Him at least she could talk to. He was interested in her. He always wanted to hear what she had to say. She related the whole sorry story to him over a platter of his favourite blood oranges. She’d ordered them especially for him.
“Seaworth, you say?” Petyr said. He stopped eating and leaned forward. “Now, that’s an interesting name.”
“Jon said he was a landed knight.”
“Oh, Davos Seaworth is a landed knight, to be sure.” Petyr smiled. “But before he was a landed knight, he was a smuggler.”
“A smuggler?” Lysa could not keep the disgust from her voice. She was going to welcome the son of a criminal into her household? “I didn’t know Seaworth was that lowborn.”
“The very lowest of the low,” Petyr agreed. “But don’t underestimate him on that account, my lady. Stannis Baratheon himself pardoned him, as much as Lord Stannis knows how to pardon anyone. It takes a special man to wring such a miracle from our good king’s brother.”
“What happened?” Lysa asked.
Petyr ate another slice of orange. “The smuggler Davos of Flea Bottom evaded the Redwyne cordon during the siege of Storm’s End during the Rebellion,” he told her between mouthfuls. “For his service Stannis knighted him and gave him lands. Because he was a smuggler, Stannis also chopped off his fingers.”
“I thought you said Lord Stannis pardoned him!”
“Oh, he did,” Petyr said. “In his own very special way. He would have hung anyone else. Now you say that the Lord Hand himself is fostering one of Seaworth’s sons. Ser Davos is climbing very high.”
Lysa sniffed. “I don’t want a criminal’s son in my home, no matter how high he’s risen.”
Petyr just smiled. “My own grandfather was a mercenary and my mother was a merchant’s daughter,” he said. “I’d never have met you if your lord father hadn’t agreed to foster me.”
Lysa blushed and looked down. “Forgive me. I did not mean to insult you, Petyr, I truly didn’t.”
“It’s no matter. But I would not recommend mentioning such thoughts to the boy, for his own sake. Boys that age can take insults like that so personally. He will hear plenty about his lowborn father in the years to come.”
A thought struck Lysa. “Did you ever feel that way in Riverrun?”
“I was never allowed to forget it.”
He said it so calmly, like it was just a part of his life, and Lysa felt all the more shamed for it. “Oh, Petyr! I’m sorry. We never meant to make you feel unwelcome.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Petyr said. “Nor Cat, nor Edmure.”
“Father did that to you?”
“He took me on as a favour, much like this Maric Seaworth is coming as a favour between your husband and Ser Davos. It was Lord Hoster’s generosity that brought me to Riverrun, and that alone.” He smiled again. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate all that your family has done for me. But I was never your equal.”
Lysa did not know what to say to that. He wasn’t her equal, not in birth. He never had been. “You’ve risen high,” she said uncertainly. “I always told Father that you would. It’s not like –“
“Like I was the near-penniless son of a hedge lord? That’s what I was. There’s no shame in it, not for me.”
“Oh, Petyr! You know I don’t care how you were born.”
“That is why you are so very important to me,” he said.
Lysa flushed at the praise. “Perhaps you could visit young Maric when he arrives,” she suggested. “If you know of how it is for someone of your – your – “
“Status,” he suggested.
“- status,” she continued, “Then perhaps you can introduce him to the city better than I. I know my husband trusts you so. He could not possibly object.”
Petyr helped himself to another orange. “I will likely be busy, but I’m sure I could find the time.”
He was always so helpful, her Petyr. He was right, of course, the Red Keep was very grand. Lysa had been intimidated herself when she came here, not so much by the wealth but by the sheer number of people around. Of course the Seaworth boy would be overawed, and who better to help him adjust than Petyr. After talking to him, she even felt better about taking in the boy.
And her moon blood had not come. Perhaps this time, a child of her own. At last, at last!
---
The master of ravens at the Red Keep had been very kind in helping Davos send word back to his home. Grand Maester Pycelle had not been so courteous.
Davos could not write it himself, of course, nor read the message he’d dictated to be sure it said what he had. Marya could not read either, nor Dale nor Allard nor Matthos (though Matthos was learning). Maric had learned, as he had told the Hand. Devan would learn, yes, when it was time.
It was not the way Davos would have chosen for his son to learn of his departure and fosterage. There was nothing to be done for it. Marya would set them all straight, and send Maric to him here in King’s Landing. She would know as well as he what an opportunity it was.
Davos would be here to greet his son, and show him to where he would be spending the next few years of his life. Then he himself would return home. It was time. He had been too long away.
“Very well,” Lord Stannis had said when Davos broached the topic. “You’ve done good work for me. The investigation will continue without you.”
“Should you have need of me I will return,” Davos said. He simply wished for a few moons with Marya, to see Dale wed, and to see Allard and Matthos captaining their own ships.
Stannis had glowered at him. Stannis did not pine for his wife as Davos did for Marya. “You’ve done your duty, and more besides,” Stannis said. It sounded like the words pained him.
So here Davos was, standing before more ravens than he had ever seen before in his life. It was something of a sight, in its own way. More bright black eyes than he could count stared back at him from the shadows.
“It’s quite a strange thing, to keep so many birds indoors,” a voice behind him said.
Davos turned to find Varys, the Master of Whisperers, had somehow snuck up on him. The man must move like a cat. Now that Davos saw him, he wondered how he could have missed the scent of the man’s perfume.
“Almost sad,” Varys continued. “Birds like these need to fly.”
“And roost as well,” Davos replied. “It might as well be here.”
“Ah, you are wise. I’m told you mean to leave us for your own roost soon, Ser Davos.”
“I do,” Davos said cautiously. He did not want to tell this man anything of his family. That struck him as wisdom, more than anything about birds.
Varys sighed melodramatically. “So soon, so soon, and you have brought us all such entertainment.”
“If you’ll pardon me for saying, my lord, I was not brought here for entertainment.”
A flutter of soft hands brushed the words aside. “Of course not, ser. It was Lord Stannis who brought you here, after all, and we all know how he despises entertainment. It is a pity. His heart could use lightening.”
Davos made a noncommittal noise. He did not want to converse with this man an instant longer than he had to.
Truth be told, Varys the Spider was Davos’ next-best suspect for the murder of Aerys. Logic told him that any such assassination was likely to be Varys’ work, though it was doubtful his hands had held the knife. What stopped Davos was the knowledge that Aerys had been doomed as soon as Tywin Lannister started to sack the city – and Varys would have known that, and wanted to survive it. What better way than giving the new king his predecessor?
That, and the way Ser Jaime hated Aerys. Aerys would have burned the Kingswood. I saw him burn a man for special entertainment once. Fire and loathing. It rang true. It put a chill down Davos’ spine.
Ser Jaime would only have had to wait for the opportunity.
“But of course,” Varys continued, “You’ve occasioned some interest all the same, ser. It seems you have been keeping a close watch on the brother of our most gracious queen.”
“There are few enough who were in King’s Landing when Aerys was king, and fewer still willing to talk to me about it.”
“True, true. They were trying times, Ser Davos, and painful memories. I myself sometimes rue how many of my old friends and colleagues fled or died in those last few weeks.”
The pyromancers. “I’ve been told that there was many a murder on the day of the Sack,” Davos said, taking the opportunity presented.
“Oh, indeed. The Grand Maester and I have often commented on those sad occurrences. The previous king, sad to say, was often rather careless with the lives of those around him.”
A fine way to put it! warred with could he possibly have misunderstood my meaning? Davos doubted it. Does he wish me to suspect Pycelle? Davos doubted that too. Surely not every mention of another was an insinuation of guilt.
He had been too long in King’s Landing.
Varys solved his dilemma for him. “While I speak of old colleagues I would commend you on your service in helping disband the guild of alchemists. I know not who murdered so many of their elders during the Sack, but they did the city a service.”
Davos kept his face blank. He knows. Then, what, exactly, does he know? That someone had targeted the pyromancers? Who had killed them? Who had killed Aerys? What? “So I am told,” Davos said.
“By Ser Jaime himself, no doubt. He seems to have something of a liking for you.”
For a moment there was no sound but the fluttering and croaking of ravens.
So it was him. Or, at least, Varys believes it was him. Or Varys wants me to believe that it was Ser Jaime. He tired of the dance. “Do you wish to tell me something? What is it you know, my lord?”
That made Varys laugh. It even sounded genuine. “Know, ser? I know nothing that I can prove, and so in effect, I know nothing at all. You may find it best to know the same.”
“I have a duty,” Davos said.
“A duty,” Varys replied. “A duty to what? To whom? You don’t seem a fool to me, Davos Seaworth. Accuse the queen’s brother of murder, even the murder of such men as those pyromancers, and there will be consequences. Accuse him of breaking the highest vows a knight can swear, and there may even be war.”
He wasn’t sure about that, but he was sure that if he, a lowly smugger-turned-knight, accused Tywin Lannister’s son of so much as tripping him at a feast, he was like to find himself shorter by a head almost as soon as the words made it past his lips.
What he ought to do was to tell Lord Stannis of all this, but if those words passed his lips he was like to find himself with a knife in his heart. It was not a notably better scenario.
“A duty to the realm,” Davos said firmly. He was reasonably sure it was what the other man wanted to hear. “One war is enough for me, my lord.”
Varys tittered. “To be sure. The last one was terrible enough for anyone. It would be a shame to see the Lord Hand’s hard work all come to naught.”
The mention of Jon Arryn struck fresh fear into Davos’ heart. When he left, Maric would stay here, right under the eyes of this man. A hostage, though none would see it that way, unknown to all save Davos and Varys. I’m sorry, Maric. Marya. I didn’t mean for this to happen. How quickly prestige could turn to peril.
More galling even than the danger he would now send his son into unawares, was the knowledge that Varys was right. He could prove nothing.
But then, nor could Varys, by his own admission. If Davos believed that admission. He was inclined to; he himself had found no solid proof of anything. “You would have me hold my tongue until proof is found, then?” he asked.
“I would,” Varys said. “You said it yourself, ser, we have a duty to the realm. War now would accomplish so very little.”
“Except injustice,” Davos replied sharply. “If Ser Jaime has done…anything wrong…he ought be tried, and his guilt or innocence decided in the sight of the gods, not two men talking in a garret room full of birds.” If Ser Jaime had believed that by murdering Aerys he would save the city, that might be a very different matter in Robert’s eyes. But then, if Ser Jaime had known of the wildfire, he had done nothing about it afterwards.
Varys smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “How very like your lord you are, Ser Davos Seaworth. How very like. He would speak to me of justice as well.”
What else should he speak to you of? Davos wondered.
“And in return I would speak of peace, and for what a low price years of such can be bought. Peace, ser. Peace and the strength of the realm is all. Next to that, what you call justice hardly matters.”
He could not agree. He could not bring the words to his tongue, no matter what they might do for Maric.
And in the end, apparently assured of his silence, Varys allowed Davos to leave. The walk back to the city had never felt so long, the looming height of the Red Keep behind him so oppressive.
What was he to do?
---
Once again there was something wrong with her brother. He was acting strangely, even more strangely than he had when he first returned to her. Nothing and nobody acted as they should these days.
Cersei could admit to herself that she was out of sorts in part because she was with child. She hated every instant of the process. Even when it was over and she had a new son she looked back on it all with disgust and discomfort. She never felt quite herself when she was carrying a child.
All too soon, the babe would be kicking at her ribs from inside. She hated that most of all. They were her innards the child would be kicking at, and Cersei hated to share.
None of that, however, had the slightest thing to do with how Jaime was behaving.
He’d come back from the North a changed man. Anyone could see it, and she hated it. Outside, he was still golden as the sun, the man she’d always dreamed of. Inside, she could not shake the feeling that Jaime was missing his previous charge, when before he’d never thought of a woman but her.
Rhaenys Targaryen was hardly a woman, either. It was humiliating. Her brother, a lion of the Rock, moping because he was separated from a skinny Dornish bitch.
Then there was that henchman of Stannis Baratheon’s. Cersei had seen him skulking about again too.
“I thought you’d answered all Stannis’ questions,” Cersei said as Jaime escorted her through the Red Keep’s godswood. “What does his man even want with you now?”
Jaime shrugged. “Perhaps the pleasure of my company, dear sister of mine.”
That was another thing that had changed. He lied to her now. It was the most important thing.
“He’s Stannis Baratheon’s man,” Cersei said. “I doubt he has the slightest idea of what pleasure is.”
“I worked with him during the Greyjoy Rebellion,” Jaime told her, seemingly unconcerned. “Ser Davos knows ships and coastlines and smuggling. He’s hardly a threat.”
Liar. Not about the Greyjoy Rebellion, but about the threat. That man had been tasked with finding wildfire. “Jaime. You wouldn’t lie to me about this, would you? I could have been in danger. Joff and Tommen could have been in danger.”
She gave him a chance. A chance was more than she ever gave anyone else.
But her words only made him frown, brow creasing in stupid feigned perplexity like it had the first time she asked him. “It seems everyone wants to know about the wildfire,” he said. “There’s nothing to tell. Aerys liked it. That’s all I know. You’ve asked me before.”
Cersei whirled and slapped him full across the face – or she tried to. Sudden as her movement had been, he still caught her arm. It put a smile back on his face as she wrenched her wrist from his grip. She wanted to kiss him then too, slap his face to leave a mark and then kiss it better, but they weren’t alone.
And he was still lying. She had seen the first lie almost as soon as he spoke it. At the time it had been more important to see the alchemists destroyed, and then she had thought he would come to his senses.
But he had not.
It was a shock. Cersei was surprised. Again. Twice he had surprised her, truly surprised her, in the past few moons. Once when he gave a flower crown to the Targaryen girl, and now when he lied. “You’re lying to me,” she said. “You.”
He wasn’t supposed to lie to her. Her twin, her other self, he was not supposed to lie to her!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaime said. He leaned in slightly. He wanted to kiss her too.
Cersei pushed him away. “Go,” she hissed. “Don’t come back. Not until you’re ready to tell me the truth. Or I’ll find out.”
“There’s nothing to find out.”
“Liar!”
“Cersei-“
“It’s all over your face,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something, I can see it. Go. Or tell me.” She bared her teeth at him. “It’s your choice.”
If he would see his own sons burn before telling her the truth, she did not know if she could stand to keep him here. She would decide when he confessed.
And to her surprise, he stepped away from her. He didn’t turn and leave – he was fulfilling his precious duties, after all – but he stepped away. “My queen.”
Cersei turned her back on him in reply. What else was she supposed to do? It burned that she could not force the information out of him, not here, not now, where people could see them. A few hours alone, she was sure, and she would have him willing to tell her anything once again. He never denied her when she put her mind to it.
All of a sudden even the sound of his footsteps behind her was hateful. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he. The godswood around her felt far too full of watching eyes, and the halls inside far too empty.
She did not run. She was a lioness of Casterly Rock, and no true lioness ever ran from anything. She proceeded out of the godswood and towards her chambers with all the dignity of the queen she was. And when she reached her chambers she did not slam the door on Jaime, but closed it firmly, with him on the other side.
Then and only then did she pick up the nearest object to hand – a goblet standing ready for wine – and hurl it against the wall.
It hit with a loud clang, but it was metal, and did not break. She kicked over the table, which was wooden, and did break. She followed it up by tearing down a wall hanging, and that done, she called for a servant to bring her wine. The servant, when he came, cast a few nervous glances towards the broken table and the wall hanging. Let him be nervous. “Take that away,” she commanded him. “It’s no good to anyone now.” The servant practically fled from her presence, but outside her door, she heard him exchange a few words with Jaime.
Her brother laughed at something the man said. How dare he! How dare he laugh when she was angry with him!
He’d known about the wildfire all along. Cersei was certain of it. She should have confronted him sooner. Why hadn’t he told her? She didn’t care what Aerys did about green muck in the cellars. Once it was gone it wouldn’t matter to her at all.
So why would he lie to her? There was nothing between them that she didn’t think he needed not to know. Why would Jaime lie to her of all people? Why?
---
When Catelyn arrived at the table for the evening meal, Jon Snow was not in his usual place. He was sat higher than he usually was, just a few places closer to his uncle. The boy was smiling, thrilled with the honour. No matter how much Ned loved his bastard son, the boy was never seated above Robb, and only rarely above Sansa.
It was his sister – the boy’s true sister – who was the culprit in this change of seating arrangements. Catelyn caught the defiant flash in Rhaenys’ eyes.
Jon Snow caught sight of Catelyn, and his smile instantly died. Catelyn did not relish that she was the cause of such a reaction in a young boy, but she hardened her heart. It was more important to her now than ever that she persuade Ned to send him away, whatever the boy’s plight when he was born. He needed to be sent far away from Winterfell, where nobody would ever find him and from whence he could never have a basis to threaten her children.
Perhaps, in time, he could go to the Wall. Surely Benjen would take him. The Watch always wanted men. But from now until Jon Snow was safely sworn, Catelyn would not relent. She would not. She could not. No matter how it hurt.
And something had to be done about Rhaenys.
Rhaenys Targaryen had been particularly dedicated in her efforts to get Jon Snow to spend time with Catelyn’s daughters of late. Between Septa Mordane and Sansa’s own excited recounting, Catelyn knew all about it. Sansa was so excited to play knights and princesses with the boy she thought was her brother. She thought nothing of telling Catelyn all about it later.
Sansa was getting old enough to wonder why her mother did not approve of her supposed bastard brother, old enough to see there was a difference between how Robb was treated and how Jon Snow was. Catelyn would explain, though most of her explanation would be a lie.
Dinner was awkward. It always was, now. She sat in her accustomed place beside Ned but hardly spoke a word to him. He spoke to Jory Cassel, whilst she conversed with Maester Luwin. The children conversed amongst themselves. The occasional uncertain glances to where Ned and Catelyn were not speaking had almost stopped entirely. It had become normal for them all.
The next morning she summoned Rhaenys to her rooms. Where once Catelyn might have heard her approach as her chatter with Jaime Lannister preceded her down the hall, now Catelyn had to listen for the heavy tread of Arys Oakheart. Even Catelyn had to admit that Oakheart had about half the personality his sworn brother did. She had seen the knight in the yards, and whilst he was somewhat more than competent, he lacked Ser Jaime’s brilliance there as well.
“Is this about dinner last night?” Rhaenys pre-empted Catelyn’s words, once she was standing contritely before her. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Lady Catelyn.”
“I was not offended,” Catelyn said, a half-truth at best. One truth had filled her life with lies. “But you must stop.”
She saw Rhaenys’ expression start to crumple. Going on was difficult, but Catelyn made herself do it. All these lies hurt so many people. If Catelyn had not promised her husband she would not tell, she would end this part of the deception right here and now. “You understand that Jon is a bastard, yes? You cannot treat him as if he is not. It gives the wrong impression. I know you would not mean to do anything that would reflect poorly on Lord Stark.”
Rhaenys shook her head.
“Then you understand when I say you should not encourage Jon Snow to sit any higher than the place he usually sits. Even that is unusual enough.”
“Lord Eddard had no objections,” Rhaenys said.
“Lord Stark would have no wish to reprimand you in public,” Catelyn replied. “Nor to shame any of his sons so.”
The girl seemed to accept that. Catelyn went on. “I would also like you to stop sneaking Sansa and Arya out to see him. Especially Sansa, who has lessons of her own.”
That made her head jerk up. “But he’s lonely!” she protested. “They’re his sisters!”
“His half-sisters,” Catelyn lied, to Jon Snow’s half-sister. “Trueborn, where he is a bastard. It is not appropriate.”
“But –“ she began, and then composed herself for a better argument. “I just wanted to help him feel more at home.”
“It is not appropriate,” Catelyn repeated. “Listen to me, my sweet. Jon Snow should have been fostered out long since. Bastards are not raised with their trueborn siblings. Winterfell is not truly his home.” Nor were they kept in the same house as a lord’s lady wife. Even knowing the truth, Catelyn resented the lie still.
“Sansa and Arya like it too,” Rhaenys said. There was a rare spark of mutiny in her eyes.
Rhaenys could not know it, but the words struck fear into Catelyn. She kept her composure. It might be a distant threat, but she would never, ever let her children risk themselves for Jon Snow and Ned’s lies. “They will learn what is and is not appropriate as well,” she said. “So will Jon Snow. It is best for everyone this way.”
Her husband’s ward tried once again to protest, but Catelyn forestalled her. “I do not want to hear any arguments on this, Rhaenys. You know the difference yourself."
After a tense moment, Rhaenys bowed her head. “Yes, Lady Catelyn,” she said.
If Catelyn knew anything about children, she hadn’t heard the last of this. When she had been a girl, she had well known how to meekly say yes, Father and then do as she had planned all along.
What she hoped was the last of it came in the form of a knock at her door near the end of the day. Ned. He always knocked just so, three firm taps to draw her attention without being so loud as to wake her if she were sleeping. The walls of Winterfell would crumble to dust before that man forgot his courtesies.
Catelyn put a robe on and opened the door. It had been a long time since he visited her in her own rooms.
“May I come in, my lady?” he asked.
“Of course.” Catelyn stood aside for him to enter. “What brings you here?”
“What have you been telling Rhaenys Targaryen?”
Catelyn sighed, deeply irritated. “Nothing that she should not have heard earlier. Did she go straight to you?”
“No,” Ned said, “It was Jon. Jon, asking me who his mother was.”
“And what has this to do with Rhaenys Targaryen – oh. It was her idea for him to ask you, was it not?”
“Indeed,” Ned said, tone grim. “Apparently Jon has some idea that he is not welcome or wanted here, and the girl thinks knowledge of his mother might ease that burden.”
Catelyn lifted her chin. “I’m sure I’ve made no secret of how I feel.”
“He is my nephew, Catelyn. He has nobody in the world but me and his cousins, and a host of people who would kill him or use him if they knew who he was.”
“And if you did the sensible thing and sent him to foster with a house who would be honoured to take your bastard son, separating him from my children, I would feel all the more kindly towards him. If I did not have to lie to my children –“
“Do you think it’s any easier for me?” Ned asked quietly. “I love our children as much as you do, and Jon Snow as well.”
“You risk all on this and yet you could fix the worst of it in a heartbeat. Send him to Howland Reed, who knows the risk he would take.” The words burst forth, the truth that had been brewing a while now: “Ned, I cannot do this much longer, I can’t accept the boy, and Robb starts to resent me for it, Rhaenys as well. I will have to tell Sansa soon what bastardy means and I relish that thought not. Then Arya will be after her, and Bran after her. It was difficult enough to lie to Rhaenys Targaryen.”
“I have thought the same many times,” Ned said. “And each time I decided to keep lying.”
“That’s on your head, my lord,” Catelyn said. “I do not like the person these lies make me, and I do not like being forced to be the villain in this drama. I cannot keep doing this.”
There was a very long silence after that. They both knew why.
Catelyn was the one to break it. “Ned,” she said, “I know we are not – close, now – but believe me when I say that I keep this secret for the love we shared and might share again. Will you show me the same consideration, my lord?”
“I will think on it,” Ned said quietly. “I have never wished to cause you pain. But I fear there is little I will be able to do for you. Or for any of us.”
---
“My lord,” Davos said, “I have my suspicions about who killed Aerys Targaryen.”
The answer to his dilemma had not come easy to Davos. He was not sure it had truly come at all. Whatever he had told Varys, he owed Stannis more loyalty than a flat lie.
I know nothing I can prove. But if nobody would speak to Davos Seaworth, the one-time smuggler, he would take the matter to someone who could find out.
Hopefully, it would not draw Varys’ ire to Maric. Davos would make no allegations. Stannis wouldn’t either, not with the information Davos had. They would know nothing they could prove, and they’d know it together.
“Suspicions,” Stannis said, and scowled at his stack of papers. “About a murder years ago, that his grace will have no interest in seeing solved. This sounds like gossip. I have never taken you for a man who deals in gossip.”
“I have found gossip to be quite useful, my lord,” Davos said, “But no, I have suspicions only, not proof, and I have no means to get proof.”
“So you’re bringing the matter to me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
It was a mark of respect, Davos thought, that Lord Stannis pushed the parchment he’d been reading aside. “Out with it. Why should any of us care who killed Aerys the Mad?”
This was it. Davos had decided to speak, and it was too late to back out now. “Because,” he said, voice fainter than he would like, “I think Ser Jaime Lannister murdered him.”
He saw the import of the statement roll over Stannis’ face like a thundercloud. “You think,” Stannis said. He stood and walked to the window. “You think this. Why?”
“He had reason-“
“Everyone had reason. When Jon Arryn and Ned Stark first questioned people after the murder, that was all that they found. Reason.”
“But not everyone had the opportunities Ser Jaime had,” Davos countered. “Nobody would question why he would carry a sword near Aerys. Nobody else was so close to the man so often. As far as I can tell, Ser Jaime was the only one Aerys was ever truly alone with in the last days.”
“Jaime Lannister claimed he was sent away to protect Prince Aegon and his mother.”
“And who would question him? Who lives to bear witness against him?”
“While his own father sacked the city, Ser Jaime slew the king he swore to serve.” Stannis was pacing now, back and forth across his solar. “That is quite the accusation.”
“I have no proof,” Davos reminded him. “My lord, I’ve spoken to Ser Jaime several times about the wildfire. He hated Aerys and hated all his pyromancers. He knew about the pyromancers. If he knew about the wildfire-”
Stannis turned to face him. “Then he did nothing afterwards. If he had confessed, there might have been a pardon in the offing. No, Ser Davos, if your suspicions are correct, we can rule out altruism as a motive. Spite, perhaps. I remember our discussion with Ser Jaime as well as you do.”
“As you say, my lord.”
Three lengths of pacing the room later, Stannis spoke again. “You should not change your plans. If Tywin Lannister learns we are gathering evidence against his son there will be trouble.”
Perhaps even a war. “Yes, my lord. It will be nice to return home for a time.”
“Ser Jaime and his treachery will keep,” he continued. “It has kept this long, after all. I thank you for telling me this. If this is true, I will not have such a man guarding my brother and profaning the honour of his order. If he is guilty, he will be punished. I will send for you again, no doubt.”
I expected no less. “And in the meantime?” Davos asked.
Stannis’ face was as grim as a northern winter as he said, “Watch. And wait.”