Moving was about the last thing Catelyn was about to do. She listened to the skirling of the wind and the scuffling sound of leather on stone. Then Mya was there, taking her gently by the arm. “Keep your eyes closed if you like. Let go of the rope now, Whitey will take care of himself. Very good, my lady. I’ll lead you over, it’s easy, you’ll see. Give me a step now. That’s it, move your foot, just slide it forward. See. Now another. Easy. You could run across. Another one, go on. Yes.” And so, foot by foot, step by step, the bastard girl led Catelyn across, blind and trembling, while the white mule followed placidly behind them.
The waycastle called Sky was no more than a high, crescent-shaped wall of unmortared stone raised against the side of the mountain, but even the topless towers of Valyria could not have looked more beautiful to Catelyn Stark. Here at last the snow crown began; Sky’s weathered stones were rimed with frost, and long spears of ice hung from the slopes above.
Dawn was breaking in the east as Mya Stone hallooed for the guards, and the gates opened before them. Inside the walls there was only a series of ramps and a great tumble of boulders and stones of all sizes. No doubt it would be the easiest thing in the world to begin an avalanche from here. A mouth yawned in the rock face in front of them. “The stables and barracks are in there,” Mya said. “The last part is inside the mountain. It can be a little dark, but at least you’re out of the wind. This is as far as the mules can go. Past here, well, it’s a sort of chimney, more like a stone ladder than proper steps, but it’s not too bad. Another hour and we’ll be there.”
Catelyn looked up. Directly overhead, pale in the dawn light, she could see the foundations of the Eyrie. It could not be more than six hundred feet above them. From below it looked like a small white honeycomb. She remembered what her uncle had said of baskets and winches. “The Lannisters may have their pride,” she told Mya, “but the Tullys are born with better sense. I have ridden all day and the best part of a night. Tell them to lower a basket. I shall ride with the turnips.”
The sun was well above the mountains by the time Catelyn Stark finally reached the Eyrie. A stocky, silver-haired man in a sky-blue cloak and hammered moon-and-falcon breastplate helped her from the basket; Ser Vardis Egen, captain of Jon Arryn’s household guard. Beside him stood Maester Colemon, thin and nervous, with too little hair and too much neck. “Lady Stark,” Ser Vardis said, “the pleasure is as great as it is unanticipated.” Maester Colemon bobbed his head in agreement. “Indeed it is, my lady, indeed it is. I have sent word to your sister. She left orders to be awakened the instant you arrived.”
“I hope she had a good night’s rest,” Catelyn said with a certain bite in her tone that seemed to go unnoticed.
The men escorted her from the winch room up a spiral stair. The Eyrie was a small castle by the standards of the great houses; seven slender white towers bunched as tightly as arrows in a quiver on a shoulder of the great mountain. It had no need of stables nor smithys nor kennels, but Ned said its granary was as large as Winterfell’s, and its towers could house five hundred men. Yet it seemed strangely deserted to Catelyn as she passed through it, its pale stone halls echoing and empty.
Lysa was waiting alone in her solar, still clad in her bed robes. Her long auburn hair tumbled unbound across bare white shoulders and down her back. A maid stood behind her, brushing out the night’s tangles, but when Catelyn entered, her sister rose to her feet, smiling. “Cat,” she said. “Oh, Cat, how good it is to see you. My sweet sister.” She ran across the chamber and wrapped her sister in her arms. “How long it has been,” Lysa murmured against her. “Oh, how very very long.”
It had been five years, in truth; five cruel years, for Lysa. They had taken their toll. Her sister was two years the younger, yet she looked older now. Shorter than Catelyn, Lysa had grown thick of body, pale and puffy of face. She had the blue eyes of the Tullys, but hers were pale and watery, never still. Her small mouth had turned petulant. As Catelyn held her, she remembered the slender, high-breasted girl who’d waited beside her that day in the sept at Riverrun. How lovely and full of hope she had been. All that remained of her sister’s beauty was the great fall of thick auburn hair that cascaded to her waist.
“You look well,” Catelyn lied, “but…tired.”
Her sister broke the embrace. “Tired. Yes. Oh, yes.” She seemed to notice the others then; her maid, Maester Colemon, Ser Vardis. “Leave us,” she told them. “I wish to speak to my sister alone.” She held Catelyn’s hand as they withdrew…
…and dropped it the instant the door closed. Catelyn saw her face change. It was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” Lysa snapped at her. “To bring him here, without a word of permission, without so much as a warning, to drag us into your quarrels with the Lannisters…”
“My quarrels?” Catelyn could scarce believe what she was hearing. A great fire burned in the hearth, but there was no trace of warmth in Lysa’s voice. “They were your quarrels first, sister. It was you who sent me that cursed letter, you who wrote that the Lannisters had murdered your husband.”
“To warn you, so you could stay away from them! I never meant to fight them! Gods, Cat, do you know what you’ve done?”
“Mother?” a small voice said. Lysa whirled, her heavy robe swirling around her. Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, stood in the doorway, clutching a ragged cloth doll and looking at them with large eyes. He was a painfully thin child, small for his age and sickly all his days, and from time to time he trembled. The shaking sickness, the maesters called it. “I heard voices.”
Small wonder, Catelyn thought; Lysa had almost been shouting. Still, her sister looked daggers at her. “This is your aunt Catelyn, baby. My sister, Lady Stark. Do you remember?”
The boy glanced at her blankly. “I think so,” he said, blinking, though he had been less than a year old the last time Catelyn had seen him.
Lysa seated herself near the fire and said, “Come to Mother, my sweet one.” She straightened his bedclothes and fussed with his fine brown hair. “Isn’t he beautiful? And strong too, don’t you believe the things you hear. Jon knew. The seed is strong, he told me. His last words. He kept saying Robert’s name, and he grabbed my arm so hard he left marks. Tell them, the seed is strong. His seed. He wanted everyone to know what a good strong boy my baby was going to be.”
“Lysa,” Catelyn said, “if you’re right about the Lannisters, all the more reason we must act quickly. We—”
“Not in front of the baby,” Lysa said. “He has a delicate temper, don’t you, sweet one?”
“The boy is Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale,” Catelyn reminded her, “and these are not times for delicacy. Ned thinks it may come to war.”
“Quiet!” Lysa snapped at her. “You’re scaring the boy.” Little Robert took a quick peek over his shoulder at Catelyn and began to tremble. His doll fell to the rushes, and he pressed himself against his mother. “Don’t be afraid, my sweet baby,” Lysa whispered. “Mother’s here, nothing will hurt you.” She opened her robe and drew out a pale, heavy breast, tipped with red. The boy grabbed for it eagerly, buried his face against her chest, and began to suck. Lysa stroked his hair.
Catelyn was at a loss for words, Jon Arryn’s son, she thought incredulously. She remembered her own baby, three-year-old Rickon, half the age of this boy and five times as fierce. Small wonder the lords of the Vale were restive. For the first time she understood why the king had tried to take the child away from his mother to foster with the Lannisters…
“We’re safe here,” Lysa was saying. Whether to her or to the boy, Catelyn was not sure.
“Don’t be a fool,” Catelyn said, the anger rising in her. “No one is safe. If you think hiding here will make the Lannisters forget you, you are sadly mistaken.”
Lysa covered her boy’s ear with her hand. “Even if they could bring an army through the mountains and past the Bloody Gate, the Eyrie is impregnable. You saw for yourself. No en
emy could ever reach us up here.”
Catelyn wanted to slap her. Uncle Brynden had tried to warn her, she realized. “No castle is impregnable.”
“This one is,” Lysa insisted. “Everyone says so. The only thing is, what am I to do with this Imp you have brought me?”
“Is he a bad man?” the Lord of the Eyrie asked, his mother’s breast popping from his mouth, the nipple wet and red.
“A very bad man,” Lysa told him as she covered herself, “but Mother won’t let him harm my little baby.”
“Make him fly,” Robert said eagerly.
Lysa stroked her son’s hair. “Perhaps we will,” she murmured. “Perhaps that is just what we will do.”
EDDARD
He found Littlefinger in the brothel’s common room, chatting amiably with a tall, elegant woman who wore a feathered gown over skin as black as ink. By the hearth, Heward and a buxom wench were playing at forfeits. From the look of it, he’d lost his belt, his cloak, his mail shirt, and his right boot so far, while the girl had been forced to unbutton her shift to the waist. Jory Cassel stood beside a rain-streaked window with a wry smile on his face, watching Heward turn over tiles and enjoying the view.
Ned paused at the foot of the stair and pulled on his gloves. “It’s time we took our leave. My business here is done.”
Heward lurched to his feet, hurriedly gathering up his things. “As you will, my lord,” Jory said. “I’ll help Wyl bring round the horses.” He strode to the door.
Littlefinger took his time saying his farewells. He kissed the black woman’s hand, whispered some joke that made her laugh aloud, and sauntered over to Ned. “Your business,” he said lightly, “or Robert’s? They say the Hand dreams the king’s dreams, speaks with the king’s voice, and rules with the king’s sword. Does that also mean you fuck with the king’s—”
“Lord Baelish,” Ned interrupted, “you presume too much. I am not ungrateful for your help. It might have taken us years to find this brothel without you. That does not mean I intend to endure your mockery. And I am no longer the King’s Hand.”
“The direwolf must be a prickly beast,” said Littlefinger with a sharp twist of his mouth.
A warm rain was pelting down from a starless black sky as they walked to the stables. Ned drew up the hood of his cloak. Jory brought out his horse. Young Wyl came right behind him, leading Littlefinger’s mare with one hand while the other fumbled with his belt and the lacings of his trousers. A barefoot whore leaned out of the stable door, giggling at him.
“Will we be going back to the castle now, my lord?” Jory asked. Ned nodded and swung into the saddle. Littlefinger mounted up beside him. Jory and the others followed.
“Chataya runs a choice establishment,” Littlefinger said as they rode. “I’ve half a mind to buy it. Brothels are a much sounder investment than ships, I’ve found. Whores seldom sink, and when they are boarded by pirates, why, the pirates pay good coin like everyone else.” Lord Petyr chuckled at his own wit.
Ned let him prattle on. After a time, he quieted and they rode in silence. The streets of King’s Landing were dark and deserted. The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned’s head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face.
“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”
The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. “I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair…”
“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.
“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it…as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”
“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.
“And tell him I’ve not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he’d come back. So you’ll tell him I’m waiting, won’t you? I don’t want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly.”
Good to you, Ned thought hollowly. “I will tell him, child, and I promise you, Barra shall not go wanting.”
She had smiled then, a smile so tremulous and sweet that it cut the heart out of him. Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow’s face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts? “Lord Baelish, what do you know of Robert’s bastards?”
“Well, he has more than you, for a start.”
“How many?”
Littlefinger shrugged. Rivulets of moisture twisted down the back of his cloak. “Does it matter? If you bed enough women, some will give you presents, and His Grace has never been shy on that count. I know he’s acknowledged that boy at Storm’s End, the one he fathered the night Lord Stannis wed. He could hardly do otherwise. The mother was a Florent, niece to the Lady Selyse, one of her bedmaids. Renly says that Robert carried the girl upstairs during the feast, and broke in the wedding bed while Stannis and his bride were still dancing. Lord Stannis seemed to think that was a blot on the honor of his wife’s House, so when the boy was born, he shipped him off to Renly.” He gave Ned a sideways glance. “I’ve also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin’s tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much an affront to Lannister pride, that close to home.”
Ned Stark grimaced. Ugly tales like that were told of every great lord in the realm. He could believe it of Cersei Lannister readily enough…but would the king stand by and let it happen? The Robert he had known would not have, but the Robert he had known had never been so practiced at shutting his eyes to things he did not wish to see. “Why would Jon Arryn take a sudden interest in the king’s baseborn children?”
The short man gave a sodden shrug. “He was the King’s Hand. Doubtless Robert asked him to see that they were provided for.”
Ned was soaked through to the bone, and his soul had grown cold. “It had to be more than that, or why kill him?”
Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. “Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he’s like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east.”
There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.
The rain was falling harder now, stinging the eyes and drumming against the ground. Rivers of black water were running down the hill when Jory called out, “My lord,” his voice hoarse with alarm. And in an instant, the street was full of soldiers.
Ned glimpsed ringmail over leather, gauntlets and grea
ves, steel helms with golden lions on the crests. Their cloaks clung to their backs, sodden with rain. He had no time to count, but there were ten at least, a line of them, on foot, blocking the street, with longswords and iron-tipped spears. “Behind!” he heard Wyl cry, and when he turned his horse, there were more in back of them, cutting off their retreat. Jory’s sword came singing from its scabbard. “Make way or die!”
“The wolves are howling,” their leader said. Ned could see rain running down his face. “Such a small pack, though.”
Littlefinger walked his horse forward, step by careful step. “What is the meaning of this? This is the Hand of the King.”
“He was the Hand of the King.” The mud muffled the hooves of the blood bay stallion. The line parted before him. On a golden breastplate, the lion of Lannister roared its defiance. “Now, if truth be told, I’m not sure what he is.”
“Lannister, this is madness,” Littlefinger said. “Let us pass. We are expected back at the castle. What do you think you’re doing?”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Ned said calmly.
Jaime Lannister smiled. “Quite true. I’m looking for my brother. You remember my brother, don’t you, Lord Stark? He was with us at Winterfell. Fair-haired, mismatched eyes, sharp of tongue. A short man.”
“I remember him well,” Ned replied.
“It would seem he has met some trouble on the road. My lord father is quite vexed. You would not perchance have any notion of who might have wished my brother ill, would you?”
“Your brother has been taken at my command, to answer for his crimes,” Ned Stark said.
Littlefinger groaned in dismay. “My lords—”
Ser Jaime ripped his longsword from its sheath and urged his stallion forward. “Show me your steel, Lord Eddard. I’ll butcher you like Aerys if I must, but I’d sooner you died with a blade in your hand.” He gave Littlefinger a cool, contemptuous glance. “Lord Baelish, I’d leave here in some haste if I did not care to get bloodstains on my costly clothing.”
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