Night deepened by slow degrees. Eddard could still hear the laughter and noise from the feast, but he had little taste for it.
He quickly left the camp with Jon. The tent they had visited was remote, which had made it easier to come and go unnoticed.
Jon followed Eddard in silence until they reached Eddard's study in the Red Keep. Ghost paced restlessly around the room, alert for anyone who might be listening at the door.
"Do you remember the moment the knight of the Vale died?" Eddard asked.
Jon nodded. "I'm certain the Mountain did it on purpose. He could have won without harming that boy, but he chose the cruelest way possible."
"King's Landing is even more dangerous than we thought," Eddard said quietly.
"I watched the lists carefully. The Mountain, the Hound, and the Kingslayer are all formidable fighters. And there are several white knights whose loyalties are still unclear," Jon said in a low voice. He too had received formal knightly training in the North, but he was not so optimistic as to imagine he could defeat men of that caliber.
Eddard knew the difference between individuals was indeed stark, but for the moment they had no choice except to press on.
"How did your talk with Ser Andar of the Vale go?" Jon asked.
"Poorly. It concerns Lysa." Eddard had no choice but to speak plainly. At first he had thought Lysa might still support him and help uncover the truth for Lord Arryn. Now it seemed she had only brought trouble upon them all. Perhaps she had never loved Lord Arryn at all.
"My lord, if I may speak bluntly, love can turn a woman into a monster. Everyone knows that."
"Yes," Eddard admitted painfully. He knew the old history well enough. Perhaps time had not erased Lysa's feelings at all. She might still hate Lord Arryn, and still love Petyr deeply. Her marriage itself had been nothing more than an arranged match built on advantage.
Back then, after Petyr had been wounded by Brandon in a duel, Lysa had volunteered to care for him, and had given him her maidenhead besides. But when they lay together, Petyr had called her Catelyn. Not long after, Lysa discovered she was carrying Petyr's child. Her father, Great Lord Hoster, flew into a rage, forced her to get rid of the child, and sent Petyr away. Petyr's house was too small, too insignificant to be worth a marriage alliance.
Since she was no longer a maiden, it became difficult for Lysa to find a husband of equal rank, but Great Lord Hoster had still found a solution. He arranged to marry her to the aged Great Lord of the Vale, who lacked an heir. For one thing, Lysa had already proven she could bear children. For another, during the Usurper's War, Lord Arryn had needed the support of the Riverlands, so he accepted the match. Lysa and her sister Catelyn were wed in the same sept on the same day, though by then Catelyn's bridegroom had become Eddard Stark.
"As things stand, we'll have a hard time finding support or help in King's Landing. Only the King seems inclined toward you. But the King is still the King," Jon said calmly. Northerners had never found it easy to prosper in King's Landing. The city's people disliked them for their customs and their faith. And in money and manpower, the North held no advantage now.
"Damn them, they've made a mess of my life," Eddard muttered with a sigh. He did not know whom he ought to curse. Robert, Lysa, Stannis, or the hidden plotters behind it all.
If Robert had not let matters drift so badly, King's Landing would never have become such a tangle.
Eddard could no longer ignore the sense of danger hanging over him. It weighed heavily on his heart. Another urgent matter was writing a letter to Catelyn. Lysa could not be trusted either, but that was not something he could dare put into a letter.
"I'll need to attend the tournament tomorrow as well," Eddard said. He needed to see for himself how matters stood.
"Take my fiancée back to the city. Make sure she doesn't get hurt."
On the other side of King's Landing, the royal feast came to an awkward end, and the Prince ordered the Hound to escort Sansa away.
The Hound had shed his armor and changed into a red wool tunic, with a leather dog's head sewn onto the chest. In the torchlight, the burned half of his face looked redder than ever.
Sansa found the walk unbearable. She was truly afraid of the Hound, nothing like the gallant knights of the songs.
He seemed to have drunk too much, and as they spoke, he called her a pretty little bird that could talk.
The Hound did not only say that Gregor was no true knight, he also spoke plainly about how the Vale knight had died.
"You saw that boy today, didn't you? That little fool was asking for it. No money, no squire, no one to help him strap on his armor. His gorget wasn't even fastened properly. Do you really think Ser Gregor didn't notice?"
Then he showed her something even more terrifying.
He forced Sansa to look at his face.
The right side of his face was lean, with sharp cheekbones, thick brows, and grey eyes. He had a hooked nose, and his hair was dark and fine. He wore it long and combed to one side, because the other side of his head had no hair at all.
The left side of his face was a ruin. His ear had been burned away entirely, leaving only a hole. His eye still functioned, but the skin around it was twisted with heavy scars. The blackened flesh was hard as leather, pitted and uneven, split by cracks that showed raw red beneath when they stretched. Part of his chin had been burned so badly that bone could be glimpsed underneath.
One horror followed another as he told her how his face had been burned.
By the time Sansa returned to the Red Keep, she was still shaken. The Hound seized her hand and leaned close.
"What I told you tonight," his voice was rougher than ever, "if you dare tell Joffrey, or your sister, your father, your brother… if you tell anyone."
"I won't," Sansa said softly. "I promise."
But that was not enough for him.
"If you say a word to anyone, I'll kill you."
...
The next morning, in the pale light of dawn, Eddard went first to find Ser Barristan, who was still keeping vigil over the unfortunate knight. Only the old knight had been willing to spend the entire night watching over a stranger.
After a few words of greeting, Eddard and Ser Barristan set off together to find the King.
Eddard respected and trusted the old knight deeply for his integrity. Yet for that same reason, he knew Barristan's loyalty belonged solely to the King. No one else could sway him.
The morning light had stirred the camp awake. The first to rise were the young squires and the cooks. The squires hurried to attend their masters, while the cooks prepared food for the day. Plump sausages sizzled over the fire, fat dripping and crackling, filling the air with the rich scent of garlic and pepper.
Eddard passed rows of tents. Shields hung outside each one, bearing the sigils of the noble houses within: the Reach, the Riverlands, the Stormlands. The North was rarely seen here. Northerners had little taste for such gatherings.
"The King intends to take part in the melee today," Ser Barristan said as they passed the tent of Ser Meryn. It was one of the white knights' tents, not far from the King's. Ser Meryn had been defeated the day before by the Knight of Flowers, and his shield still bore a deep gouge where the paint had been scraped away.
"Yes," Eddard said. He already knew. The thought of it weighed heavily on him. A melee was brutal and chaotic. Death and crippling injuries were common.
He remembered a great melee held one hundred and seventy years after the Conquest, hosted by House Umber at Last Hearth. At least eighteen men had died, and no fewer than twenty-seven had been maimed.
As they spoke, they reached the King's tent.
Set near the water, it was the largest and most lavish of all, its fabric woven with threads of gold. The King's warhammer and a massive iron shield bearing the crowned stag stood outside the entrance.
When they arrived, the King was already awake, though he was still drinking from a polished horn cup, shouting at the two squires struggling to fit him into his armor.
The boys fumbled nervously. The King's girth made the task difficult. One of them grew so flustered that the King's gorget slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground once more.
"Seven hells. Useless idiots, pick that up!" the King bellowed. "Lancel, get it, now!"
Only when he noticed the new arrivals did he turn his complaints toward them.
"Eddard, look at these fools. My wife insisted I take them on as squires, but they're worse than useless. They can't even help a man into his armor. What kind of squires are these? They're pigs in clothes."
Eddard answered plainly, "It's not their fault, Robert. You've grown too fat. That's why it won't fit."
The King took a long swig of beer, tossed the empty horn onto his fur bed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said darkly, "Too fat? Too fat, is it? Is that how you speak to your King?"
Then, just as suddenly, he burst out laughing like a storm breaking.
"Ah, to hell with it, Eddard. Why is it you're always right?"
...
Far away in Myr, in the map chamber high within the Wolf's Den.
Qyburn spoke in a low voice, relaying the latest intelligence from King's Landing.
"The Spider says Daenerys is pregnant?" Gendry asked.
The report sounded convincing enough, but it was false.
"That is what he claims. Only the Spider holds firsthand information on both our movements and Princess Daenerys. Whether true or false, that is exactly what allows him to weave his web in King's Landing," Qyburn said.
"So Varys is stirring things again. Once this reaches the Small Council, it will set them all on edge," Gendry said.
Daenerys was still young, and far too slight. She should have been stronger, healthier.
Years of exile and constant danger had left her frail and worn, though she had only just begun to recover. Childbirth was a battlefield of its own. Gendry had no patience for shortsightedness or carelessness with lives. And beyond her beauty, Daenerys held immense value. If dragons were to rise again, there would be heirs, and power to match.
"Shall we deal with Varys?" Qyburn asked. Even in distant King's Landing, they had their own eyes.
"No need. Do Illyrio and Varys truly think themselves untouchable? They will learn soon enough. I always settle my debts." Gendry paused. "Increase security."
He had every intention of removing both the Illyrio and Varys. Both were double-dealers.
"Have the leader of the Windblown Company, the Beggar King, reveal more about Pentos. Among all those Magisters, someone will remember him."
"Yes, my lord."
"But Varys spreading rumors like this to muddy the waters… it means King's Landing is already a powder keg," Gendry said, studying the city marked on the map. With Lord Arryn dead, the Vale's influence had withdrawn swiftly. Now, with the King neglecting his duties, the city had become a contest between wolves and lions.
"The situation has worsened significantly. Stannis remains shut away on Dragonstone, Lady Lysa has retreated to the Eyrie. If Eddard makes even a small mistake, King's Landing will fall into chaos," Qyburn said. "We must decide. Do we delay the war, or hasten it?"
There was more behind his words. They held a powerful secret as well, the Lannister scandal, enough to ignite everything.
"For now, we wait. War will come soon enough."
Gendry knew how terrible that coming storm would be.
"If Lord Arryn were still alive, things might be steadier. He would have balanced the factions and kept the realm at peace," Qyburn said, recalling the late Hand. Those had truly been better days.
"Tolerance. Compromise. Those very words are what doomed the Iron Throne," Gendry said.
Arryn had been farsighted, but the Baratheon rule was built not on unity, but on alliances, marriages, and concessions. It was a fragile balance between great lords, not overwhelming power. That constant compromise, combined with the ambitions of houses like Lannister and Baratheon, made unrest inevitable.
"My path will not follow Arryn's. The old order must be swept away. Only then can there be a true king."
"You are right, my lord. A king should be like the sun, shining over all. The one true sun beneath the heavens."
"Let them play their games. Keep watching King's Landing."
"Yes."
"Poor Lord Eddard. Why doesn't he leave this game?" Qyburn said.
"You think Stark will lose?"
"Yes, Prince. And badly. First, his experience. He is a soldier and a northern lord, not a player of court politics. Second, his preparation. He brought only a hundred men south. Can that control anything? Third, the people. The customs and beliefs of the south differ too much from the North. If trouble comes, few will stand with those northern barbarians."
His reasoning was sound.
"If Stark abandons everything and sails back to White Harbor, he might yet survive."
"But if he does, he would no longer be Eddard," Qyburn added.
"Master Qyburn, I will rely on you for intelligence from the surrounding regions," Gendry said. To prepare for the coming war, they needed plans, information, and knowledge of every nearby power.
Pentos, Lys, Volantis, even the Golden Company, the Windblown Company, and Dorne.
"It is my duty. You must also take care of your health, Prince," Qyburn said. Commanding armies was never as simple as it seemed on paper. It required precision and careful planning.
"I will."
Gendry nodded. Commanding a great war demanded both strength and endurance. Throughout history, those who reached the peak had always possessed both.
...
Catelyn rode out of the inn in the pouring rain, heading not for Winterfell, but for the Eyrie.
With the attempt to capture the Imp having failed, if the situation were to worsen ahead of time, the Vale would be a force she had no choice but to win over. Besides, her sister was there.
"Please, do not spread word of what just happened," Ser Rodrik said to the group, his face drawn with worry. He had no clever solution; his lady's actions had been far too reckless.
But he knew full well that such a request was unlikely to hold. With so many people in the inn, someone was bound to let something slip. And the Freys' men would certainly report back to their lord. As for what Old Frey might do, no one could say. Though House Frey was sworn to Riverrun, they had always sided with whoever held the advantage. That was the way of that wily old man.
Still, Catelyn managed to secure the group's loyalty with generous rewards and promises, and they set off in haste toward Winterfell.
The road grew ever narrower, winding through steep and treacherous hills. In the distance, jagged, snow-capped peaks cut across the horizon. This was the eastern road, a perilous route threading through dangerous terrain.
...
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