"Carrots and apples," Eddard repeated softly.
It sounded as though the boy could offer even less help than the others. And he was already the last of the four men Littlefinger had mentioned.
Eddard would have to wait for Jon. The other three had been left to Jon to question.
After Jory departed, Jon entered Eddard's chamber again.
"I've spoken with each of them privately. Sometimes I did it myself, sometimes Mycah handled it," Jon said.
Jon's gray eyes were so dark they were almost black, and very little in the world escaped their notice.
"And?" Eddard prompted.
"Ser Hugh has a temper and refused to say much. Now that he's newly knighted, he's already quite proud of himself. According to him, if the Hand of the King wished to speak with him, he would gladly receive him. But a mere bastard has no right to question him. Even if that bastard happens to be ten years older and a hundred times better with a sword."
Jon's expression dimmed slightly. Ser Hugh's words had clearly irritated him.
"It's nothing, child," Eddard said gently. "Knights of the Vale are like that. Proud and stiff-necked."
"But the other two did provide some useful information," Jon continued. "The kitchen maid said Lord Jon had been reading too much lately. She also said he worried constantly over his young son's frail health, and that he treated his wife rather harshly."
"Damn it," Eddard muttered, frowning.
He already knew their marriage was troubled. In her youth, Lysa had been a shy girl with a full figure, but after Hoster forced her to abort a child, followed by several miscarriages and a marriage to a man far older than herself, she had become unstable, almost unhinged.
"My lord, forgive my bluntness," Jon said. "Lady Lysa is not a stable woman. Her marriage to Lord Arryn was never a happy one, and her condition has long been poor. There are knights from the Vale here for the tournament. If you ask them, you might learn more."
Lord Arryn's tolerance had been too great. He had even kept Littlefinger close at hand. Jon could not help wondering if the old man had simply grown muddled with age.
Jon also had a darker suspicion, though he had not voiced it yet.
Many murders and betrayals began with lovers turning against one another. Lord Arryn's marriage had been a political arrangement, and Lady Lysa's behavior around Littlefinger was clearly suspicious. Littlefinger was far too attentive. Jon did not trust it.
Back in Winterfell, Theon often mocked Jon for being gloomy and overly sensitive to every slight, especially jealous of Theon's noble birth and Robb's favor toward him.
But Jon had come to believe that in King's Landing, being wary and sensitive was far better than being easygoing.
"I'll take your words seriously," Eddard said. "Jon, there was another man. Did his information lead anywhere?"
Eddard forced himself to focus again. This was King's Landing. Here he was playing the game of power.
When it came to strength in battle, the Northerners were second to none. But when it came to caution and suspicion, none could match Jon, the bastard. Eddard needed to let doubt take root in his mind. He had to examine everything with the harshest suspicion. If he continued relying too heavily on Littlefinger's path of investigation, it would become very dangerous.
"Yes," Jon said. "The serving boy who now makes a living hauling carts never spoke directly with Lord Arryn."
"But he heard plenty of kitchen gossip."
"They say the lord had been arguing with the king quite often lately. They say he complained about the food. They say he planned to send his son to Dragonstone as a ward. They say he suddenly became interested in hunting dogs."
"And they say he sought out a master armorer to make him a brand new suit of armor. The entire thing plated in silver, with a falcon carved from blue jade and a moon of mother-of-pearl on the breast."
"The boy also said the king's brother accompanied him personally to choose the materials and the design. Not Lord Renly. The other one. Lord Stannis."
"The most important part is Lord Stannis," Jon added. "The boy said Lord Arryn had always been healthy, and that he often rode out with Stannis. Not only to the smithies, but also to the brothels."
"Stannis?"
Eddard's thoughts tangled at once.
In his secret letter, Stannis had accused the Lannister siblings of incest. Yet what exactly had Stannis and Arryn been doing together in King's Landing?
Damn Stannis. Ever since he fled to Dragonstone, he had maintained a troubling silence.
The more Eddard considered it, the stranger it all seemed.
First of all, the Jon Arryn he knew would never have worn jeweled silver armor. Arryn himself had once said that armor was meant to protect a man, not decorate him.
Of course, it was possible he had changed his mind. After more than a decade in the royal court, no one remained exactly the same.
Still, the change felt far too drastic.
Eddard simply could not accept it.
Secondly, Eddard knew that Arryn and Stannis had never been close.
Jon Arryn and Stannis had always been courteous with one another, but there had never been any warmth between them. When Robert traveled north to Winterfell, Stannis withdrew to Dragonstone instead. That made the mention of brothels all the stranger.
Robert's love of women was known throughout the realm. Singers composed endless songs mocking it. Stannis was nothing like him. Though only a year younger than the king, the two could not have been more different. Stannis was stern, humorless, slow to forgive, and so devoted to duty that it bordered on harshness.
"That smithy is unusual," Jon explained. "One of the king's bastards used to apprentice there. The famous one. The bastard who is now across the Narrow Sea opposing the king. His master still lives in King's Landing."
"Gendry, is that it?" Eddard said, suddenly understanding.
This bastard seemed determined to follow the path of Daemon Blackfyre, rising in rebellion against his own father and brothers. If that were true, it would shake the order of the realm even more than the Blackfyre uprising had.
So Arryn and Stannis had been searching everywhere for the king's bastards. But why? By law, those children had no right to inherit.
Eddard remembered the king's first bastard daughter well. She must be eighteen or nineteen by now. Robert had often taken Eddard along to visit Mya, even after he lost interest in the girl's mother. In those days Robert had been strong and broad-shouldered, with thick black hair, and he would toss little Mya into the air while laughing.
"I'm afraid the boy didn't know the name of the brothel," Jon continued. "Three guards accompanied Lord Arryn that day, but those men have likely returned to the Vale by now. Still, I suspect it may also have something to do with the king's bastards."
"You've done well, Jon," Eddard said quietly.
Everything here was a mess. That cursed Lysa. Was she truly mad, or was it all an act? Lady Lysa, Maester Colemon, and Lord Stannis. Every person who might know the truth was thousands of miles away.
Lord Arryn's actions already revealed part of his thinking. While investigating secrets and searching for the king's bastards, he had chosen to work with Stannis rather than trust Renly or the others. Perhaps, like Arryn before him, Eddard had no one he could truly trust.
"Should we summon Lord Stannis back from Dragonstone?" Jon asked.
"Not yet," Eddard replied. "I must first learn more and determine where he truly stands."
The matter troubled him deeply. Why had Stannis left? Could he have played a part in Jon Arryn's death? Was he afraid?
Yet Eddard still believed Stannis was, in his way, a trustworthy man. He understood honor, even if that sense of honor made him rigid and difficult. For years he had obeyed Robert's commands despite the many grievances between them.
"We will visit that smithy at once," Eddard said to Jon.
He chose a gray vest bearing the direwolf of Stark, a clear symbol of his position.
"The king still has another brother in King's Landing," Jon reminded him.
"Never mind him," Eddard said.
Renly was always smiling and friendly, but Eddard could not read the man and therefore could not trust him.
A few days earlier, Renly had drawn Ned aside and shown him a finely worked golden rose pendant. Inside it was a vivid portrait painted in the Myrish style, showing a pretty young girl with doe-like eyes and soft brown hair.
Renly seemed eager to know whether the girl reminded Ned of anyone. When Eddard merely shrugged, unable to answer, Renly looked disappointed.
The girl was Margaery, sister to Loras Tyrell. Renly admitted that some people said she resembled Lyanna.
"She does not," Eddard told him, puzzled.
Renly was clearly planning something, though Eddard could not tell what.
Eddard and Jon rode straight toward the Street of Steel. Countless watchful eyes likely noticed them, but that could not be helped.
Leaving the square, they turned onto the Street of Steel and rode along a winding road up Visenya's Hill. Along the way they passed smiths hammering at their forges, freeriders haggling over armor, and gray-haired ironmongers selling old metal and battered blades from their carts.
The higher they climbed, the taller the buildings became. Most of the city's smiths worked here.
Tobho Mott lived at the top of the hill, one of the most famous and expensive smiths in King's Landing.
His house was enormous, built from timber and plaster, with upper floors that overlooked the narrow alleys below. Two great doors made of ebony and weirwood stood at the entrance, carved with scenes of a hunt. On either side stood stone knights clad in fantastical red steel armor shaped like a griffin and a unicorn.
A quick-eyed young squire immediately recognized the Hand of the King's arrival and hurried inside to summon her master.
Tobho himself came out to greet them.
He wore a black velvet coat with silver-threaded hammer designs embroidered along the sleeves. Around his neck hung a heavy silver chain, set with a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg.
"If you need a new suit of armor for the Hand's tournament, then you've come to the right place."
Eddard had long since stopped bothering to correct people.
Tobho was boasting, certainly, but Eddard thought the man had the skill to back it up. Otherwise he would never have had such a grand establishment in so fine a location.
No armorer in the city but Tobho could produce so deep a green, for in his youth he had apprenticed in Qohor and learned the secret of working color into steel itself. Compared to that, paint and glaze were children's tricks. And if the Hand required a fine sword, Tobho said he had also learned the craft of reforging Valyrian steel in Qohor. Only a man who knew the proper spells could make an old blade shine like new.
Eddard smiled faintly.
"So you forged Lord Arryn's falcon helm as well?"
Tobho Mott fell silent for a long moment. At last, he set down his wine cup.
"The Hand did come to see me, accompanied by His Grace's elder brother, Lord Stannis. Regrettably, I did not have the honor of serving them."
"Well then, master, they must have asked you other questions too," Eddard said, watching him closely.
"I told them everything that was common knowledge," Tobho said, pursing his lips. "I had no idea that boy was the king's get, nor did I notice when he ran off."
"But that boy had already gone by then. All they could ask about was the past."
"What did they ask?" Eddard pressed.
"Oh, plenty. Whose child he was, how he came to me, what he looked like, how he behaved here on ordinary days, why he suddenly ran off." Tobho spread his hands. "I could only answer honestly."
"There are things I do not know. I can only speak of the boy's looks. As for his mother and his birth, I know nothing."
"Be more specific," Eddard said, signaling for him to continue.
"That lad was a good hand, and hardworking too. I liked him well enough. Anyone who saw him would remember him. He had thick, coarse black hair, always a wild tangle, black as ink. And his eyes? Deep blue, warm blue. He was much bigger than most boys his age, with strong arms and a broad, muscled chest."
"Did he resemble the king?" Eddard asked.
"My lord, I never saw the king in his youth, but I'd say likely so. I have seen Lord Renly, after all. Though the temperament was different. Lord Renly would never take up smithing."
"But beyond that, I know little. The boy was my apprentice. I never imagined he would go off and get himself into the kind of trouble that costs a man his head. Back when he was with me, he worked hard, did not whore, did not drink overmuch, and kept to his business."
"Then how did he leave?" Eddard asked.
"Leave? My apprentices all get their days off. Who could have known the boy would go out and never return? He still owed me the rest of his apprenticeship," the smith said thoughtfully. "None of us knew who he really was. Most likely he discovered something himself. King's Landing is not a safe place. Think about his status, my lord. An awkward one, to say the least."
"Dangerous? Explain yourself clearly," Eddard said sharply.
"Come now, my lord, don't play dumb," Tobho said in a low voice. "Outside of tourneys and hunts, does the king see much of anyone? Most days it is the queen who truly rules. You see those red-cloaked men everywhere in King's Landing. If they discovered him, do you think they would let him live? I doubt the people of King's Landing have forgotten the cries from the Red Keep."
Lannister. Again, Lannister.
They were rich enough, but their methods were vicious.
Eddard swore under his breath. Succession. Was everything truly about succession? But by rights, a bastard child...
Unless there was a more terrible possibility.
Unless even the inheritance rights of the trueborn children could not stand.
"Damn it."
The thought flashed through Eddard's mind like lightning.
Now he desperately needed to find the other bastard.