"So you'll just let bread be stolen from their children's mouths at the point of a sword?" Ned asked, incredulity written across his face. "And for what? So you can drink and whore yourself into an early grave?"
"Don't you start counting coppers with me, Ned!" Robert fired back, his face growing red from something besides alcohol. "I get enough of that from old Hoster and the shits Jon has been putting on the Council!"
"Then perhaps you should pay more attention to them! It's clear you're not attending to your duties as King!"
"Dammit, Ned, you're my friend!" Robert stood up and shouted. "I don't need to hear this from you, too!"
"You emptied the treasury, then reached your hand into my coin purse so you could throw more feasts and tourneys, and buy more wine and whores?" Ned replied, his entire demeanor going cold. "If this is what you call friendship, then I want nothing to do with it."
"Get out," Robert growled.
"As you wish," Ned sneered, his voice colder than the winds of winter. "Your Grace."
As Ned was in his guest quarters, ordering his men to pack their things, Jon Arryn knocked at the door.
"Lord Hand," Ned curtly greeted his mentor.
"Eddard," Jon replied. "The King is in a rage. What did you do?"
"I asked him to reconsider the unjust and capricious tariffs that have been levied against the North," Ned told him. "The King would hear none of it, and demanded I take my leave. As such, I will be returning to the North."
"Robert will be angry."
"He's already angry," Ned retorted.
"He's your friend, Ned," Jon said, nearly pleading.
"He steals much-needed coin from the North and dares to call himself my friend?" Ned scowled. "He won't even listen to my concerns. No, the King is no friend of mine and no friend of the North."
"You can't mean that, Ned," Jon said, shaking his head.
"For the first time in living memory, the North is finally doing well enough that we aren't expecting death and starvation when the next winter comes," Ned growled, his voice low and dangerous. "That prosperity was won through the sale of cloth. Sales that are now impossible due to this ruinous tariff! The King proposes that the North starves and dies merely so he can throw another tourney or buy another whore! I won't have it, Jon!"
"What are you planning, Ned?" Jon asked, looking suddenly wary.
"As my House's words say, Winter is Coming, and I need to prepare," Ned replied. "If you'll excuse me, Lord Hand, I have to return home."
When Ned returned to Winterfell, I could tell he was in a foul mood.
"How did it go?" I asked once Ned and I had a moment of privacy. Given his dour expression, I suspected it didn't go well.
"Terribly," he replied. "I failed to get the tariffs removed. Hells, I failed to even get the King to consider it! And… I think I may have lost his friendship in the attempt."
"I'm sorry, Ned," I murmured, pulling him into a hug. "So… what now?"
"I don't know," he replied with total honesty. "I don't want another war, but I also can't just roll over and accept it."
"So, we hit back by not engaging," I replied, gently rubbing his back.
He pulled back and looked me in the eye. "What do you mean?"
"We established the East Winds for a reason," I replied. "So, since the South refuses to accommodate us, we stop trading with them. Instead, we either sell directly to the Free Cities, or we sell to the East Wind. Let the South beg for our iron and steel; they won't get a single ingot until they see reason."
"The King won't like that," Ned warned.
"The King would beggar the North to pay for his women and wine," I reminded him. "Let him be angry, so long as we get what we want."
Ned was silent for a long time. "Fine. We'll do it your way."
Ned spent two weeks brooding after he got back from King's Landing. No matter what he was doing, he seemed preoccupied, and yet he wouldn't speak to me about it. I did my best to give him space, but both Robb and Jon were terribly confused. They were at the age where they were starting to understand what was happening around them, and they quickly noticed how Ned was doing.
"Mama?" Robb asked me at breakfast. Ned had, once more, decided not to eat breakfast with the rest of his family. "Is dada sick?"
"He's sad," I told him, keeping my voice gentle. "He had a fight with his friend, like when you and Jon fight over who gets to be Torrhen and who gets to be Aegon, only much, much worse."
"Oh." The child looked down at his hand, then held up four fingers on one hand and two on the other. "Like this much worse?"
"Worse than that, I'm afraid," I told him. "He thinks he might be fighting with his friend forever, and it's making him very, very sad."
"Sad enough to cry?" Jon asked, looking at the edge of crying himself.
"I think so," I told him.
"Then…" Jon said, his lip quivering a bit. "Then when I see him, I'm gonna hug him until he feels all better!"
"Me too!" Robb added.
"Me too!" Sansa echoed, though I didn't think she actually knew what was going on; she just wanted to be part of the group.
"Then why don't we go find him?" I said with a quavering smile. "Then we can all hug him until he's happy again."
"Ok!" The three little darlings chorused.
Then, holding Sansa's hand in my right and Jon's hand in my left, and Robb in the lead, we set forth to find their errant father and hug him until he stopped brooding.
It had taken the better part of two months for Ned to return to something approaching normalcy. He was still somewhat on the dour side, but at least he was regularly spending time with the family again.
"Oh!" Ned said with a look of surprise on his face. "Well, I wasn't expecting that."
"Expecting what?" I asked as I picked at my breakfast.
I'd been preoccupied as of late; given the break between Ned and the King, I feared that the anger and resentment could erupt into war. With the way we'd stopped directly trading with all of the South except the Riverlands, we were effectively in a sort of cold war with the Iron Throne. We still gathered the tolls, tariffs, and duties expected of us as Wardens of the North, but we actively went out of our way to avoid them wherever legally possible. With how much the South needed iron, I could have made a huge profit by selling cast iron and steel ingots, but I'd instead taken to selling to the Free Cities instead. I knew that some of those goods were resold in the South at an incredible markup, but I didn't mind; the East Winds would carry some of that coin to my pocket.
With the increased financial hit, both my and Ned's finances were strained. I'd even had to lay off a couple of my road-building work crews to make sure I wasn't overspending. We weren't desperate yet, and with how budget-conscious we both were, I doubted we'd go into debt. Still, things weren't exactly… comfortable. My mind kept pouring over the strategic situation; logistics, equipment, weaponry, and a million other things. As much as I wanted to turn my steelworks towards making weapons of war, I thought that would be an escalation that we couldn't afford given the current situation. So, I brooded on it instead.
Fortunately, Artos had become an astute manager; there was very little that needed my personal attention. All of my ventures, even the new construction of the bathhouses, were continuing apace; he was certainly earning every halfpenny of his salary. Even Jonelle had become an excellent steward, managing the day-to-day operations of Winterfell with precision and foresight. So I found myself with a ton of free time and little to spend it on.
"It seems that Benjen and Dacey Mormont have announced their betrothal," Ned replied with a satisfied smile, dragging me out of my introspection. "They're planning on having the wedding in a few moons in Queenscrown."
"That's wonderful!" I replied with a smile, my angst washing away at the news. "Are we going to attend?"
Ned considered the thought for a moment before shaking his head. "I will attend, of course, but there must always be a Stark in Winterfell," he replied. "The children are too young to fill that role, so… I'm afraid you would have to stay here."