Martin, George R. R. - Song of Ice and Fire 01 - A Game of Thrones

by Game of Thrones (lit)

  Ned tried a swallow. "Dregs." He felt as though he were about to bring the wine back up.

  "All men must swallow the sour with the sweet. High lords and eunuchs alike. Your hour has come, my lord."

  "My daughters . . ."

  "The younger girl escaped Ser Meryn and fled," Varys told him. "I have not been able to find her. Nor have the Lannisters. A kindness, there. Our new king loves her not. Your older girl is still betrothed to Joffrey. Cersei keeps her close. She came to court a few days ago to plead that you be spared. A pity you couldn't have been there, you would have been touched." He leaned forward intently. "I trust you realize that you are a dead man, Lord Eddard?"

  "The queen will not kill me," Ned said. His head swam; the wine was strong, and it had been too long since he'd eaten. "Cat . . . Cat holds her brother . . ."

  "The wrong brother," Varys sighed. "And lost to her, in any case. She let the Imp slip through her fingers. I expect he is dead by now, somewhere in the Mountains of the Moon."

  "If that is true, slit my throat and have done with it." He was dizzy from the wine, tired and heartsick.

  "Your blood is the last thing I desire."

  Ned frowned. "When they slaughtered my guard, you stood beside the queen and watched, and said not a word."

  "And would again. I seem to recall that I was unarmed, unarmored, and surrounded by Lannister swords." The eunuch looked at him curiously, tilting his head. "When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I traveled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities. They taught me that each man has a role to play, in life as well as mummery. So it is at court. The King's Justice must be fearsome, the master of coin must be frugal, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard must be valiant . . . and the master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple. A courageous informer would be as useless as a cowardly knight." He took the wineskin back and drank.

  Ned studied the eunuch's face, searching for truth beneath the

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  mummer's scars and false stubble. He tried some more wine. This time it went down easier. "Can you free me from this pit?"

  "I could . . . but will I? No. Questions would be asked, and the answers would lead back to me."

  Ned had expected no more. "You are blunt."

  "A eunuch has no honor, and a spider does not enjoy the luxury of scruples, my lord."

  "Would you at least consent to carry a message out for me?"

  "That would depend on the message. I will gladly provide you with paper and ink, if you like. And when you have written what you will, I will take the letter and read it, and deliver it or not, as best serves my own ends."

  "Your own ends. What ends are those, Lord Varys?"

  "Peace," Varys replied without hesitation. "If there was one soul in King's Landing who was truly desperate to keep Robert Baratheon alive, it was me." He sighed. "For fifteen years I protected him from his enemies, but I could not protect him from his friends. What strange fit of madness led you to tell the queen that you had learned the truth of Joffrey's birth?"

  "The madness of mercy," Ned admitted.

  "Ah," said Varys. "To be sure. You are an honest and honorable man, Lord Eddard. Ofttimes I forget that. I have met so few of them in my life." He glanced around the cell. "When I see what honesty and honor have won you, I understand why."

  Ned Stark laid his head back against the damp stone wall and closed his eyes. His leg was throbbing. "The king's wine . . . did you question Lancel?"

  "Oh, indeed. Cersei gave him the wineskins, and told him it was Robert's favorite vintage." The eunuch shrugged. "A hunter lives a perilous life. If the boar had not done for Robert, it would have been a fall from a horse, the bite of a wood adder, an arrow gone astray . . . the forest is the abbatoir of the gods. It was not wine that killed the king. It was your mercy."

  Ned had feared as much. "Gods forgive me."

  "If there are gods," Varys said, "I expect they will. The queen would not have waited long in any case. Robert was becoming unruly, and she needed to be rid of him to free her hands to deal with his brothers. They are quite a pair, Stannis and Renly. The iron gauntlet and the silk glove." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You have been foolish, my lord. You ought to have heeded Littlefinger when he urged you to support Joffrey's succession."

  "How . . . how could you know of that?"

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  Varys smiled. "I know, that's all that need concern you. I also know that on the morrow the queen will pay you a visit."

  Slowly Ned raised his eyes. "Why?"

  "Cersei is frightened of you, my lord . . . but she has other enemies she fears even more. Her beloved Jaime is fighting the river lords even now. Lysa Arryn sits in the Eyrie, ringed in stone and steel, and there is no love lost between her and the queen. In Dorne, the Martells still brood on the murder of Princess Elia and her babes. And now your son marches down the Neck with a northern host at his back."

  "Robb is only a boy," Ned said, aghast.

  "A boy with an army," Varys said. "Yet only a boy, as you say. The king's brothers are the ones giving Cersei sleepless nights . . . Lord Stannis in particular. His claim is the true one, he is known for his prowess as a battle commander, and he is utterly without mercy. There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man. No one knows what Stannis has been doing on Dragonstone, but I will wager you that he's gathered more swords than seashells. So here is Cersei's nightmare: while her father and brother spend their power battling Starks and Tullys, Lord Stannis will land, proclaim himself king, and lop off her son's curly blond head . . . and her own in the bargain, though I truly believe she cares more about the boy."

  "Stannis Baratheon is Robert's true heir," Ned said. "The throne is his by rights. I would welcome his ascent."

  Varys tsked. "Cersei will not want to hear that, I promise you. Stannis may win the throne, but only your rotting head will remain to cheer unless you guard that tongue of yours. Sansa begged so sweetly, it would be a shame if you threw it all away. You are being given your life back, if you'll take it. Cersei is no fool. She knows a tame wolf is of more use than a dead one."

  "You want me to serve the woman who murdered my king, butchered my men, and crippled my son?" Ned's voice was thick with disbelief.

  "I want you to serve the realm," Varys said. "Tell the queen that you will confess your vile treason, command your son to lay down his sword, and proclaim Joffrey as the true heir. Offer to denounce Stannis and Renly as faithless usurpers. Our green-eyed lioness knows you are a man of honor. If you will give her the peace she needs and the time to deal with Stannis, and pledge to carry her secret to your grave, I believe she will allow you to take the black and live out the rest of your days on the Wall, with your brother and that baseborn son of yours."

  The thought of Jon filled Ned with a sense of shame, and a sorrow

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  too deep for words. If only he could see the boy again, sit and talk with him . . . pain shot through his broken leg, beneath the filthy grey plaster of his cast. He winced, his fingers opening and closing helplessly. "Is this your own scheme," he gasped out at Varys, "or are you in league with Littlefinger?"

  That seemed to amuse the eunuch. "I would sooner wed the Black Goat of Qohor. Littlefinger is the second most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms. Oh, I feed him choice whispers, sufficient so that he thinks I am his . . . just as I allow Cersei to believe I am hers."

  "And just as you let me believe that you were mine. Tell me, Lord Varys, who do you truly serve?"

  Varys smiled thinly. "Why, the realm, my good lord, how ever could you doubt that? I swear it by my lost manhood. I serve the realm, and the realm needs peace." He finished the last swallow of wine, and tossed the empty skin aside. "So what is your answer, Lord Eddard? Give me your word that you'll tell the queen what she wants to hear when she comes calling."

  "If I did, my word would be as hollow as an empty suit of armo
r. My life is not so precious to me as that."

  "Pity." The eunuch stood. "And your daughter's life, my lord? How precious is that?"

  A chill pierced Ned's heart. "My daughter

  "Surely you did not think I'd forgotten about your sweet innocent, my lord? The queen most certainly has not."

  "No, " Ned pleaded, his voice cracking. "Varys, gods have mercy, do as you like with me, but leave my daughter out of your schemes. Sansa's no more than a child."

  "Rhaenys was a child too. Prince Rhaegar's daughter. A precious little thing, younger than your girls. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys liked to pretend he was the true Balerion, the Black Dread of old, but I imagine the Lannisters taught her the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door." Varys gave a long weary sigh, the sigh of a man who carried all the sadness of the world in a sack upon his shoulders. "The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me . . . why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones? Ponder it, if you would, while you wait upon the queen. And spare a thought for this as well: The next visitor who calls on you could bring you bread and cheese and the milk of the poppy for your pain . . . or he could bring you Sansa's head.

  "The choice, my dear lord Hand, is entirely yours."

  CATELYN

  As the host trooped down the causeway through the black bogs of the Neck and spilled out into the riverlands beyond, Catelyn's apprehensions grew. She masked her fears behind a face kept still and stern, yet they were there all the same, growing with every league they crossed. Her days were anxious, her nights restless, and every raven that flew overhead made her clench her teeth.

  She feared for her lord father, and wondered at his ominous silence. She feared for her brother Edmure, and prayed that the gods would watch over him if he must face the Kingslayer in battle. She feared for Ned and her girls, and for the sweet sons she had left behind at Winterfell. And yet there was nothing she could do for any of them, and so she made herself put all thought of them aside. You must save your strength for Robb, she told herself. He is the only one you can help. You must be as fierce and hard as the north, Catelyn Tully. You must be a Stark for true now, like your son.

  Robb rode at the front of the column, beneath the flapping white banner of Winterfell. Each day he would ask one of his lords to join him, so they might confer as they marched; he honored every man in turn, showing no favorites, listening as his lord father had listened, weighing the words of one against the other. He has learned so much from Ned, she thought as she watched him, but has he learned enough?

  The Blackfish had taken a hundred picked men and a hundred swift

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  horses and raced ahead to screen their movements and scout the way. The reports Ser Brynden's riders brought back did little to reassure her. Lord Tywin's host was still many days to the south . . . but Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing, had assembled a force of near four thousand men at his castles on the Green Fork.

  "Late again," Catelyn murmured when she heard. It was the Trident all over, damn the man. Her brother Edmure had called the banners; by rights, Lord Frey should have gone to join the Tully host at Riverrun, yet here he sat.

  "Four thousand men," Robb repeated, more perplexed than angry. "Lord Frey cannot hope to fight the Lannisters by himself. Surely he means to join his power to ours."

  "Does he?" Catelyn asked. She had ridden forward to join Robb and Robett Glover, his companion of the day. The vanguard spread out behind them, a slow-moving forest of lances and banners and spears. "I wonder. Expect nothing of Walder Frey, and you will never be surprised."

  "He's your father's bannerman."

  "Some men take their oaths more seriously than others, Robb. And Lord Walder was always friendlier with Casterly Rock than my father would have liked. One of his sons is wed to Tywin Lannister's sister. That means little of itself, to be sure. Lord Walder has sired a great many children over the years, and they must needs marry someone. Still . . ."

  "Do you think he means to betray us to the Lannisters, my lady?" Robett Glover asked gravely.

  Catelyn sighed. "If truth be told, I doubt even Lord Frey knows what Lord Frey intends to do. He has an old man's caution and a young man's ambition, and has never lacked for cunning."

  "We must have the Twins, Mother," Robb said heatedly. "There is no other way across the river. You know that."

  "Yes. And so does Walder Frey, you can be sure of that."

  That night they made camp on the southern edge of the bogs, halfway between the kingsroad and the river. It was there Theon Greyjoy brought them further word from her uncle. "Ser Brynden says to tell you he's crossed swords with the Lannisters. There are a dozen scouts who won't be reporting back to Lord Tywin anytime soon. Or ever." He grinned. "Ser Addam Marbrand commands their outriders, and he's pulling back south, burning as he goes. He knows where we are, more or less, but the Blackfish vows he will not know when we split."

  "Unless Lord Frey tells him," Catelyn said sharply. "Theon, when

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  you return to my uncle, tell him he is to place his best bowmen around the Twins, day and night, with orders to bring down any raven they see leaving the battlements. I want no birds bringing word of my son's movements to Lord Tywin."

  "Ser Brynden has seen to it already, my lady," Theon replied with a cocky smile. "A few more blackbirds, and we should have enough to bake a pie. I'll save you their feathers for a hat."

  She ought to have known that Brynden Blackfish would be well ahead of her. "What have the Freys been doing while the Lannisters; burn their fields and plunder their holdfasts?"

  "There's been some fighting between Ser Addam's men and Lord Walder's," Theon answered. "Not a day's ride from here, we found two Lannister scouts feeding the crows where the Freys had strung them up. Most of Lord Walder's strength remains massed at the Twins, though."

  That bore Walder Frey's seal beyond a doubt, Catelyn thought bitterly; hold back, wait, watch, take no risk unless forced to it.

  "If he's been fighting the Lannisters, perhaps he does mean to hold to his vows," Robb said.

  Catelyn was less encouraged. "Defending his own lands is one thing, open battle against Lord Tywin quite another."

  Robb turned back to Theon Greyjoy. "Has the Blackfish found any other way across the Green Fork?"

  Theon shook his head. "The river's running high and fast. Ser Brynden says it can't be forded, not this far north."

  "I must have that crossing!" Robb declared, fuming. "Oh, our horses might be able to swim the river, I suppose, but not with armored men on their backs. We'd need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don't have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north He balled his hand into a fist.

  "Lord Frey would be a fool to try and bar our way," Theon Greyjoy said with his customary easy confidence. "We have five times his numbers. You can take the Twins if you need to, Robb."

  "Not easily," Catelyn warned them, "and not in time. While you were mounting your siege, Tywin Lannister would bring up his host and assault you from the rear."

  Robb glanced from her to Greyjoy, searching for an answer and finding none. For a moment he looked even younger than his fifteen years, despite his mail and sword and the stubble on his cheeks. "What would my lord father do?" he asked her.

  "Find a way across," she told him. "Whatever it took."

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  The next morning it was Ser Brynden Tully himself who rode back to them. He had put aside the heavy plate and helm he'd worn as the Knight of the Gate for the lighter leather-and-mail of an outrider, but his obsidian fish still fastened his cloak.

  Her uncle's face was grave as he swung down off his horse. "There has been a battle under the walls of Riverrun," he said, his m
outh grim. "We had it from a Lannister outrider we took captive. The Kingslayer has destroyed Edmure's host and sent the lords of the Trident reeling in flight."

  A cold hand clutched at Catelyn's heart. "And my brother?"

  "Wounded and taken prisoner," Ser Brynden said. "Lord Blackwood and the other survivors are under siege inside Riverrun, surrounded by Jaime's host."

  Robb looked fretful. "We must get across this accursed river if we're to have any hope of relieving them in time."

  "That will not be easily done," her uncle cautioned. "Lord Frey has pulled his whole strength back inside his castles, and his gates are closed and barred."

  "Damn the man," Robb swore. "If the old fool does not relent and let me cross, he'll leave me no choice but to storm his walls. I'll pull the Twins down around his ears if I have to, we'll see how well he likes that!"

  "You sound like a sulky boy, Robb," Catelyn said sharply. "A child sees an obstacle, and his first thought is to run around it or knock it down. A lord must learn that sometimes words can accomplish what swords cannot."

  Robb's neck reddened at the rebuke. "Tell me what you mean, Mother," he said meekly.

  "The Freys have held the crossing for six hundred years, and for six hundred years they have never failed to exact their toll."

  "What toll? What does he want?"

  She smiled. "That is what we must discover."

  "And what if I do not choose to pay this toll?"

  "Then you had best retreat back to Moat Cailin, deploy to meet Lord Tywin in battle . . . or grow wings. I see no other choices." Catelyn put her heels to her horse and rode off, leaving her son to ponder her words. It would not do to make him feel as if his mother were usurping his place. Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor, Ned? she wondered. Didyou teach him how to kneel? The graveyards of the Seven Kingdoms were full of brave men who had never learned that lesson.

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  It was near midday when their vanguard came in sight of the Twins, where the Lords of the Crossing had their seat.

  The Green Fork ran swift and deep here, but the Freys had spanned it many centuries past and grown rich off the coin men paid them to cross. Their bridge was a massive arch of smooth grey rock, wide enough for two wagons to pass abreast; the Water Tower rose from the center of the span, commanding both road and river with its arrow slits, murder holes, and portcullises. It had taken the Freys three generations to complete their bridge; when they were done they'd thrown up stout timber keeps on either bank, so no one might cross without their leave.