The Vale affair was finally over.
The army split into columns and began marching out of the mountains. The last detachments were still busy hauling away the final loads of spoils.
Watching soldiers stagger past with sacks and crates on their backs, Joffrey was reminded of a single word.
Locusts.
The Eyrie still stood, its seven slender towers piercing the sky with their pale, ghostly light.
But inside, it was completely hollow.
Gold and silver, weapons and armor, fine clothing, grain, cloth, tools, and every other valuable thing the Arryn family had hoarded for a thousand years had been carried down the mountain and loaded onto wagons heading in every direction.
The new Lord of the Eyrie—Harry the Heir, Harold Hardyng—stood in the empty great hall, tears welling in his eyes.
There wasn't even a table left to eat on.
"Gods above…" Harry muttered.
Joffrey glanced at him but felt no pity.
Who would pity the soldiers who had fought this war?
Robert entered the hall at some point, eyes dull as he surveyed the castle he had once lived in for years. He closed his eyes and walked slowly down the long corridors, boots echoing in the emptiness.
He stopped in a bedchamber that no longer had a door.
The bed was gone. The cabinets were gone. Even the chair by the window was gone.
Only faint scratches remained on the floor where furniture had been dragged away, and a few crooked nail holes dotted the walls where tapestries and shields had once hung.
Robert walked to the wall and slowly crouched.
There was a small hole someone had once carved between this room and the next.
He tried to push his hand through.
Perhaps the hole had grown smaller.
Perhaps he had grown fatter.
In the end, his hand wouldn't fit.
So he simply pressed his entire palm against the cold stone, against the place where, years ago, he and his companions had whispered secrets to each other every night.
An expression Joffrey had never seen before crossed the king's face.
It was not sadness. Not nostalgia.
It was pure, overflowing satisfaction—the quiet happiness of a man remembering the best years of his life.
After a long time, Robert turned his head.
"What the fuck are you staring at? Get out!"
Joffrey could only walk away in silence.
He glanced once at the nearly identical room next door and decided not to ask whose it had been.
Eddard's? Or one of the girls'?
Back in the great hall, Harry was still squatting in the same spot, drawing circles on the floor with his finger.
A few Frey soldiers were prying up floorboards and stripping the walls right in front of him.
"That's enough," Joffrey called out.
The soldiers froze.
Some immediately let go. Others were reluctant to stop.
A couple tried to run, but Robert grabbed them, gave each a ringing slap, and left them lying on the ground to be dragged away by their equally red-faced companions.
Finally Robert patted Harry on the shoulder.
"Boy, do your best."
"This castle has stood for a thousand years. I'm sure you'll restore its glory."
Then he looked up at the wall.
The moon-and-falcon banner still hung there.
Robert walked over, gently took it down, and carefully rolled it up.
He tucked it under his arm and left without looking back.
Joffrey stood, gave Harry a small wave of farewell, and spoke a final cryptic line before he turned to go.
"The Eyrie is yours alone to hold now!"
The mountain wind brushed his face.
On the long descent, Joffrey began reviewing the gains of this campaign.
He had taken a few things for himself as well.
Jon Arryn's old armor and sword—commissioned years ago from Tobho Mott—had been quietly collected long before anyone else could think to connect them to anything.
But the real harvest had been in loyalty.
"How are my mother and sisters faring in King's Landing?"
Robb asked him that question at least once every other day.
The poor boy carried the heavy responsibility of leading the rejoicing Northern army home. He had never had the chance to travel south and see his father and sisters.
Lady Catelyn's health had suffered badly from her long imprisonment.
After discussion, Edmure took her back to Riverrun to recuperate and to sit with the ailing Lord Hoster.
At their parting, Catelyn gripped Joffrey's hand tightly.
"Your Grace, please help me clear up the misunderstanding with Her Grace the Queen," her voice was still hoarse. "This whole matter began with my foolishness. I beg her not to hold it against Ned."
"And Lord Tyrion—his wisdom I truly admire."
"When you see him again, please convey my apology on my behalf."
Joffrey agreed at once.
Delivering a few kind words was something the great philanthropist Joffrey excelled at.
As for the Blackfish, he left very early.
The day after the incident he took a small escort and departed the Vale to accept the consequences he had earned.
The Wall.
He had volunteered the sentence himself. Killing a man in front of the king could not be ignored.
The position of Warden of the East ultimately fell to Jaime.
How Tywin persuaded the Lords Declarant led by the Royces, how much gold changed hands, and what agreements were reached—none of that was known to outsiders.
The army continued south.
Along the way Joffrey heard reports on the movements of the various great houses.
The Dornishmen had never arrived.
Prince Doran's thousand soldiers were still loitering somewhere in the Stormlands when the Eyrie fell, then simply turned around and marched home.
The Ironborn ships were nowhere to be seen either.
They had sailed as far as the Stepstones before turning east across the Narrow Sea toward the Disputed Lands, apparently to raid.
By comparison, the Reach had been the most diligent.
Loras and his cavalry had ridden day and night and finally reached the Bloody Gate on the very day the army began its withdrawal.
Only a thousand had made it; the other thousand were still somewhere far behind.
Lord Tyrell's promised ten thousand foot soldiers had also turned back, but the wagons of grain he sent had reached King's Landing in time to drive down the soaring food prices.
The crown had bought heavily before the campaign, and the Reach's contribution had eased the immediate crisis.
Half a month later the army returned to King's Landing.
The city gates stood wide open. Citizens lined the streets, throwing flowers and colored ribbons. Cheers rolled like thunder.
This was the treatment of victors.
As long as you won, you were a hero.
Robert still rode at the front, waving to the crowds.
But there was little joy on his face.
He had not gotten to fight. He had not gotten to judge the rebels himself.
One mother had leapt from the Moon Door with her child in her arms right in front of him. A general had drawn steel and killed a man right in front of him.
The castle he had lived in for years had been stripped bare.
And he could not even stop it—Tywin refused to lend him the money to ransom the place back.
The Vale lords had surrendered too early and had supplied the army's grain; there was no way to loot them either.
So Robert carried a bellyful of rage with nowhere to vent.
Cersei, ever helpful, gave him an outlet.
"Your Grace," the queen greeted him with a gentle smile, "word has come that a white hart has been sighted in the kingswood."
Joffrey's heart skipped a beat.
He remembered the skill he had drawn while the army was camped on the return journey.
His Heaven's Will Points had filled unusually quickly on this campaign—he had simply played himself the entire time.
He had intended to upgrade [Stargaze] to intermediate level, but in the end the itch had won.
So he had drawn this instead.
[Affection and Righteousness]
[I'm Thinking of My Little Crickets: Greatly improves your image in the eyes of animals and allows brief perception and influence over their emotions. The closer the bond, the stronger the control.]
[Role to Play This Period]
[The Righteous and Loyal Statesman]
Joffrey had double-checked the description to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
This lottery was definitely rigged.