Chapter 50: Small Council
Eddard had not slept. He had changed his clothes, which was something, and he had eaten half of what a servant brought him before the steward arrived to remind him of the council meeting, which was less than something but more than nothing. He walked through the Red Keep's corridors with the particular awareness of a man in an unfamiliar place who is filing its details away as he moves through it — the guards, the angles, the distances between things.
The Throne Room doors were open.
He walked through them and the Iron Throne was there.
He had not seen it since the war. It was the same as he remembered, which was not a compliment. A thousand swords, taken from surrendered enemies, melted and hammered into a seat of power that looked like the idea of power distilled into something nobody would actually want to sit in. Spikes.
Twisted metal. Edges that had drawn blood from kings who forgot to be careful. Aegon the Conqueror had reportedly said that a king should never be comfortable, and the throne was the physical argument for that position.
Eddard thought of Robert's knees and his back and his expanding frame and felt something adjacent to sympathy.
A figure in white was sitting on the steps below the throne.
Jaime Lannister stood when he heard Eddard's footsteps, with the fluid ease of a man whose body did everything well and knew it. His armor was immaculate — not ceremonially cleaned for today but genuinely unmarked, the gold gilding catching the hall's light without a scratch to interrupt it.
"Eddard Stark." He smiled the smile that Eddard had seen on him since they were young men, the smile that suggested Jaime found the world vaguely amusing and himself somewhat more so. "You've finally arrived."
"Jaime Lannister." Eddard let his gaze move over the armor with the deliberateness of a man making a point. "Not a mark on it."
"No," Jaime agreed pleasantly. "Plenty of men have tried to put one there over the years. None have managed it."
"You choose your opponents carefully."
The smile held but something behind it shifted. "I do." He tilted his head at the hall around them. "Stepping in here after all this time. You must feel it."
Eddard said nothing.
"I was standing in this room," Jaime said, "when your brother Brandon came to denounce Rhaegar. When your father came to answer for him." He paused. "They both deserved better ends. There was nothing just about what was done to them."
"No," Eddard said. "There wasn't."
"I was in the room," Jaime said. "Along with five hundred knights and lords and men of quality from every corner of the realm." He met Eddard's eyes. "How many of them spoke? How many lifted a hand?"
"You were Kingsguard," Eddard said. "You had taken oaths."
"So I had." The smile was completely gone now. "And when I finally broke one of them — when I put my sword through Aerys before he could burn the city — what did I get for it? Not thanks. Not understanding. I got you, walking into this throne room and finding me sitting on the steps with his blood drying on my blade, looking at me the way you're looking at me right now." He kept his voice level. "If the blade had gone through his chest instead of his back, would that have changed your opinion?"
Eddard looked at him for a long moment.
"What you did," he said finally, "saved the city. I've never disputed that." He held Jaime's gaze. "What I've never been certain of is whether saving the city was the reason you did it."
He walked past him without waiting for an answer, through the far door and into the Chamber of the Small Council.
The room was furnished well beyond its function. Myrish carpet on the floor, Lysene tapestries on the walls, carved wooden screens from the Summer Isles. It had the look of a room that had been decorated by someone who understood that the business conducted inside it was unglamorous and had compensated accordingly. A long table ran the center, with chairs for seven, and four of those chairs were currently occupied.
Varys rose first, which he always did. He was round and soft in his customary robes, and he smelled of lilac powder, and his smile had the quality of something that had been placed on his face with care.
"Lord Stark." He came forward and took Eddard's hand in both of his. "I was so grieved to hear about your son. I have prayed at the sept every day since the news reached us. Every day."
"Thank you, Lord Varys." Eddard retrieved his hand at the first reasonable opportunity.
Renly Baratheon was at the table with the ease of a young man who has been making himself comfortable in powerful rooms for long enough that the comfort is genuine. He had Robert's coloring — the black hair, the strong build — but none of Robert's roughness, and all of the charm without the wildness that had always made Robert's charm alarming. He embraced Eddard with the warmth of a man who genuinely liked him, which Eddard believed, and the calculation of a man who had thought about what Eddard's arrival meant for his own position, which Eddard also believed.
"Ned. Finally." He stepped back and looked him over. "The road was long."
"It was," Eddard said.
Across the table, Petyr Baelish had not stood. He sat with his hands folded on the tabletop and his mockingbird pin at his collar and a smile that was attentive without being warm, the smile of a man who is always listening and never entirely at rest.
"Lord Stark." The smile widened slightly. "I've been looking forward to this. Lady Catelyn must have spoken of me."
"She has," Eddard said, taking his seat at the right hand of the empty chair at the head of the table. "My brother Lysa mentioned you as well. Though not — in either case — with great warmth."
Renly made a sound beside him.
Baelish's smile did not waver. "Your brother left his marks on me. Literally, as it happens. I bear them still." A brief pause. "Though I'll say this for Lysa Tully — she was a woman worth fighting over. I trust you've found her of equal quality."
"Where did you hear she was in King's Landing?" Eddard said.
Baelish tilted his head. "I hear most things, Lord Stark. It's the nature of my position."
"Lord Littlefinger's information tends to arrive by routes that don't bear close examination," Renly said, pleasantly.
"My lord," Baelish returned, equally pleasant, "a man with modest origins makes friends where he can find them. I can't be expected to match the quality of your particular social circle."
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat.
He was the oldest man in the room by a significant margin, his face a map of decades spent in the service of one king or another, his maester's chain heavy with additions that went well beyond the standard metal links — gemstones, settings, the accumulated distinctions of a career spent close to power. He rose with the deliberate care of a man whose joints required advance notice of such activities.
"Lord Stark. It has been a long time." He produced the Hand's brooch from his sleeve with the air of someone presenting a meaningful artifact. "This belongs to you now."
Eddard took it and pinned it to his chest.
"Since all are present," Pycelle said, settling back into his chair, "perhaps we should begin."
"The king is not present," Eddard said. "And by the count I have, the council has only five members seated."
"Lord Stannis is at Dragonstone and has not yet returned," Pycelle said. "Ser Barristan is attending His Majesty." He paused with the care of a man navigating ice. "As for His Majesty himself—"
"My brother would consider a Small Council meeting a form of punishment," Renly said. "He hasn't attended one voluntarily in two years."
Varys coughed softly. "His Majesty is occupied with numerous demands on his attention and has trusted us to handle the details of governance."
"He calls it 'small council business,'" Renly said. "Which is to say, anything involving numbers, law, or consequence."
Eddard looked at the faces around the table — the eunuch, the schemer, the ambitious younger brother, the ancient maester. This was the body that had been running the Seven Kingdoms.
Renly slid a parchment scroll across the table.
Eddard unrolled it. Robert's handwriting — a large, impatient scrawl that suggested he had been thinking about something else while writing and had considered the writing itself a formality.
He read. He read again. His jaw tightened.
He set the parchment down carefully, because what he wanted to do with it was not put it down carefully.
"A tournament," he said.
"A grand tournament," Renly confirmed, with the tone of a man who has already processed his own feelings about this and has arrived at dark amusement. "In honor of the new Hand's appointment. That being you."
"Forty thousand gold dragons to the winner of the joust," Eddard said, reading from the parchment. "Twenty to the runner-up. Twenty for the melee. Ten for the archery."
Baelish was already making calculations with his fingers on the tabletop. "Ninety thousand in prizes. Add tents, feast costs, servants, accommodation for the competing lords and their retinues, the victory feast his Grace will certainly hold afterward—" He made a sound that was not quite a sigh. "Call it one hundred and thirty thousand, conservatively."
"Can we afford it?" Eddard said.
Baelish looked at him with the expression of a man receiving a question he has been asked before and finds somewhat wearing. "Lord Stark. The crown's debt currently stands at six million gold dragons."
Eddard stared at him.
"Of which slightly over three million is owed to House Lannister," Baelish continued. "The balance is distributed between House Tyrell, the Iron Bank of Braavos, and a consortium of Tyroshi trading concerns. I have also, in the past year, found it necessary to open negotiations with the Faith, whose treasurer drives a harder bargain than anyone at this table, and I say that with considerable respect for everyone at this table."
"Six million," Eddard said.
"Six million, four hundred thousand, and some amount that changes daily depending on interest calculations I will not burden you with at this hour."
"Aerys left a full treasury."
"Aerys did," Baelish agreed. "What happened to it between his death and this morning is a longer conversation. The short version is that money flows outward more easily than inward, and certain parties who entered King's Landing in the aftermath of the war departed with quantities that were not formally recorded as expenses." He held Eddard's gaze without blinking. "The Master of Coin accounts for what is spent. He cannot always account for what was taken before his tenure began."
Eddard knew what he was referring to. The Lannister army had sacked the city. Tywin Lannister had always operated on the principle that support had a price, and that price was collected in advance.
"Jon Arryn managed the crown's finances for fifteen years," Eddard said. "He was not a profligate man."
"Jon Arryn was an exceptional Hand," Pycelle said. "But His Majesty does not always follow counsel, however wise."
"I'll speak to Robert tomorrow," Eddard said. "About the tournament. The expense is indefensible given the crown's position."
"Of course," Baelish said. "Though we should have a contingency plan prepared in the event that His Majesty's enthusiasm for the tournament survives the conversation."
"There will be no contingency plan until I've spoken to the king." Eddard heard the sharpness in his own voice and made an effort. "Forgive me. The road was long."
"You are the Hand," Varys said, smoothly. "We are here to serve your direction."
Eddard rose. "Then unless there's urgent business—"
"One more matter," Renly said.
He slid a second scroll across the table. Eddard took it and read.
It was Henry's expansion proposal. Ten thousand Gold Cloaks. Detailed staffing plans, training schedules, equipment requisitions, billet modifications for both barracks. The kind of document produced by someone who had already decided on a course of action and was providing paperwork as a courtesy rather than a request.
"The treasury cannot fund this," Eddard said.
"It doesn't need to," Baelish said. "Lord Reyne has been self-funding the Watch since he took the command. The arrangement approved by Lord Arryn — Bay of Crabs tax revenue flows directly to Watch operations rather than through the treasury. His Majesty formalized it two years ago." He paused. "The practical effect is that the Gold Cloaks are paid by Henry Reyne."
"Which means," Varys said softly, his hands folded in his sleeves, "that their loyalty flows accordingly. A city watch paid by a lord is a lord's private army with gold cloaks."
The table was quiet for a moment.
"Lord Reyne's loyalty to the crown has never been in question," Baelish said, in a tone that was diplomatic without being definitive. "And the arrangement has Arryn's approval and the king's seal. The question is whether the new Hand wishes to revisit it."
"The City Watch falls under the jurisdiction of the master of laws by tradition," Renly said, leaning forward with the care of someone making a point that has been considered in advance. "If you find the current arrangement irregular, I am prepared to take it in hand."
Eddard looked at Renly. At Varys. At Baelish, who was watching the exchange with the professional attentiveness of a man cataloguing who said what.
"I'll speak to Ser Henry directly," Eddard said. "Before any further decisions are made." He tucked the scroll into his coat. "I'd like to understand the situation from him before I act on anyone else's account of it."
He stood. Around the table, chairs scraped as the council rose.
"Lord Stark," Pycelle said, with the benediction of a very old man who has watched many Hands take office and has formed views about how long they tend to last. "Welcome to King's Landing."
Eddard nodded and walked out.
Behind him, the chamber was briefly quiet. Varys moved toward the door. Baelish remained in his chair, his fingers still on the table, looking at the space Eddard had occupied.
The smile that appeared on his face was small and private and not intended for any audience.
He sat with it for a moment.
Then he folded his papers and left.
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