A low fog hugged the ground and distorted the sunrise, making the fields look as if they were covered in a haze of blood as they rode out for the hunt. Ned Dayne shivered, and reminded himself that he did not believe in omens, yet as he looked up at Prince Joffrey's back the Crown Prince seemed to be bathed in a halo of blood. Neddy shivered again and brought his horse closer to Ser Beric's.
"Easy lad," The young knight cautioned. "You feel it too, don't you?" Neddy nodded and swallowed hard. "This is no day for a hunt, but the King will not hear it, so don't waste your breath. Keep your wits about you, this is good weather for an ambush. Your eyes won't serve you, use your ears."
Neddy nodded and studied the features of the man that would one day marry his aunt. "Death is coming." He said quietly.
Beric nodded. "The Stranger always enjoys a good hunt, I just wonder who the prey is?"
"Superstitious nonsense." A female voice interrupted them.
Neddy turned his head and found himself looking into the eyes of the Black Bear, Jorelle Mormont. She wasn't pretty, but she was proud and fierce. He gave her a gentle smile and nodded. "I hope so, my Lady, I hope so." He replied courteously.
Jorelle gave him a confident smile. "It is no more than fredri, the sound of a horses hooves on dirt, and to talk of it is fredrik." She said with confidence.
"Fredrik?" Beric asked with curious amusement. "Is that a Dothraki insult?"
"It is whatever you take it to be, Ser Beric." Jorelle replied and then turned her stead back towards her lady, making the fredri of her horse as loud as possible as she did so.
"Lady Stark's black bear is an interesting one." Beric muttered quietly, "As is her golden stag, I do not know what to make of the Lady Karstark yet though, do you?"
Neddy frowned, he looked towards Lady Alys, intent on studying her, but his attention was drawn by the rose shaped moonstone on Lady Arya's sword. His thoughts strayed to his aunt, Allyria, or more importantly to the rose shaped moonstone pendant that she always wore. It seemed a strange coincidence, mayhap there was a deeper meaning?
They spent the next while discussing Lady Arya's maidens and the differences of the North. This was one of the things that Neddy loved about being Beric's squire, he was always being pushed to question his perspective. The ways of the Stormlands and the Kingslands were different to the ways of Dorne, and the ways of the North were different again, it was a good lesson for a man that would one day be a Lord, and a good distraction from his sense of foreboding.
An hour later the fog had lifted but Neddy's sense of ill ease had not, two hours later a fine table had been set for all to break their fast, yet Neddy found he could not stomach any of it, three hours later a rider came riding their horse so hard that the fredri of its hooves was deafening, and Neddy thought the poor beast's heart might explode. He watched as Lord Stark read the note, as he paled and his hand clenched into a fist… Neddy watched as the King snatched the note away and read it himself. Where Lord Stark's face had gone pale, the King's went red with rage.
"I'll kill every damn Targaryen I can get my hands on!" King Robert roared.
Moments later Lord Robb was at his father's side, the dutiful son was permitted to read the note. He looked to his father, then the King. "This is best discussed in private." He said quietly and handed the note back to his father. Lord Stark nodded and turned his back on the raging king.
Until that moment Neddy hadn't though Lord Robb to be so much like Lord Eddard Stark. Jon Snow was, dark hair, dark eyes… Jon's eyes were darker than Lord Stark's though, they were a deep blackish grey, much akin to Allyria's eyes. Neddy chased the thought aside, even if Jon Snow was his cousin it would never be acknowledged, he returned to studying Lord Stark and Lord Robb. Father and son moved almost as one towards their horses, matching wide shoulders held proud and angry, matching grim, yet guarded, expressions. Neither stopped to ask the King's permission, neither looked back to see if he was coming. The direwolf, Grey Wind, moved with them. Lady Arya, having seen the commotion, brought her two direwolves, and three maidens ('Shield-maidens' Ser Barristan called them) around and wordlessly fell in with the rest of her pack.
Prince Joffrey quickly made his way towards his father. "What's going on?! How dare they leave without permission?!" He demanded.
"The hunt is over." The King replied coldly.
"Why?" The young prince demanded.
"Because I said so!" King Robert declared and turned his back on the lad.
Neddy couldn't help but feel some compassion for the young prince, he had spoken so boldly the night before about the hunt to come, he had been so proud to finally be invited on one, even if women had been invited as well. Prince Joffrey had been determined that he would make some great kill that would make his father proud, but now that chance was being snatched away from him. Clearly something was very wrong, but the young prince couldn't see that, he could only see how the situation impacted him. Prince Joffrey came towards him and he attempted to think of something kind to say, but the opportunity never came.
"Why are you just standing there?!" The Prince snarled at him. "You heard the King, the hunt is over, get my damn horse."
"Yes, my Prince." Neddy agreed, he bowed, then turned to retrieve the animal.
Servants were left behind to clear everything away whilst the main party rode back to Winterfell at speed, the Stark's ahead of the Royal party, and the sense of ill-omen that Neddy had been feeling only grew.
~~/~~
The courtyard at Winterfell seemed almost peaceful as the Stark's dismounted and horses were passed into the hands of grooms, Lord Stark gave orders to a couple of guards, and one of them took off at a run, then King Robert was dismounting and striding towards Lord Stark.
"I'll give you ten thousand men, just bring me back the heads of those two damned Targaryen's." King Robert declared.
"No." Ned replied. "Only a fool meets the Dothraki on an open field, even a hundred thousand wouldn't be enough."
Suddenly Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy were rushing towards them, their direwolves at their sides. Jon's haunting dark eyes seeming almost to go black with concern. "What's going on?" Jon asked.
"Sansa." Lord Stark replied, he then passed the note to Jon.
Neddy watched as Jon read the note, then re-read it, he then passed the note to Theon. "The wording is awfully familiar." He advised Lord Stark.
"Familiar to what?!" The King demanded.
Jon froze, then turned slowly, almost as if he had forgotten that King Robert was standing there. He took a deep breath, then straitened his shoulders, drawing himself up to his full height. He was still over a foot shorter than the King. Jon had to tilt his head upwards to look Robert in the eye, yet look him in the eye he did. This brave bastard… there had to be some Dayne in him. "To the wording of the note that Uncle Brandon received many years ago, your grace. The note was intact and recovered amongst Uncle Brandon's things, along with his body, after the sack of King's Landing, Maester Luwin still has it." He turned his attention back to Lord Stark without waiting for Robert's response. "I would be interested to see if the handwriting matches."
"What are you sug-" The King started to ask, but suddenly he was cut off by a boy's scream, then the sound of something soft crashing into something hard with great force. A moment later a direwolf let out a mournful howl and ravens rose up into the air screeching and circling a narrow tower near the centre of Winterfell, one of them almost seemed to be crying "Corn.".
Man, woman, and direwolf alike burst into a run to see what the commotion was. They found the twisted body of Lord Bran at the base of the tower and for an instant Neddy thought the boy was dead, then he saw his chest rise and fall. Lord Stark was on his knees beside his youngest son in an instant, soon the Maester was there, and others. Neddy started to look at the expressions of the people around him, all were looking down at the heap of a boy on the ground, all but Lady Arya, who was looking upwards.
Neddy couldn't say if Lady Arya moved first, or if one of the direwolves did, but suddenly the three were moving towards the tower, when had she drawn her blade? The wolves quickly outpaced her and rushed ahead up the stairs, one of the Dothraki women, the scary one that was good with a whip, was following her, and then Ser Barristan, suddenly the King himself was in on the chase! Neddy would have followed, but his duty was to Prince Joffrey.
The minutes seemed to pass like hours, then suddenly there was yelling and growling, a woman screaming and the sound of metal on metal. Two half naked figures, a man and a women, were eventually dragged from the tower, the King was dragging the women by the hair and the man had a red ribbon of blood slowly flowing across his chest, a shallow cut, but a cut all the same. Ser Barristan suddenly had an extra sword on his hip, golden with a lion's head for a pommel. The king dropped the woman on the ground, golden curls spilling into the dirt, and guards quickly surrounded her. It took Neddy a minute or more to reconcile that the two naked people were Queen Cersei and her twin brother, Ser Jamie. By then words like treason and incest were being thrown around, and the King was questioning if any of Cersei's children were actually his. Ser Jamie was begging for Queen Cersei and her children's safety and offering to take the black, he was seeming quite contrite… and then he'd found another's sword, and his feet, and was heading for the King. Ser Barristan cut him down with his own blade, a fatal blow this time.
Then Cersei was screaming and hurling insults at the King, telling him how inadequate he was and how much she hated him, telling him that all her children were Jamie's… that the King had gotten her with child but once, and Jamie had found a woman to 'cleanse' her.
"No." Joffrey started to scream. "No, take it back… I am not Uncle Jamie's… my father is not the Kingslayer, he is the King! Take it back!"
But the King looked at him with cold eyes and shook his head. "I should have known you were not my son. How could I have produced a son like you."
Others were trying to talk and calm things down, Lord Stark was still on his knees on the ground, beside his broken boy. Direwolves were howling and Cersei was shrieking and screaming, half the Keep was out watching the show by now. Neddy watched in stunned silence as Joffrey unsheathed his sword and rushed the King, then suddenly a blade was sticking out of Joffrey's back at an odd angle and blood was blossoming out around it, the point of the sword was aimed skywards. The blade was withdrawn and a haze of blood surrounded Joffrey like a halo, then he slumped to the ground, leaving a stunned little girl standing between him and the King.
Lady Arya looked at the dead body seemingly as shocked that she had killed him as anybody else was. Her stance was sideface, left foot forward. Because she had aimed the sword upwards blood had dripped down the blade, over the guard, and onto her arm. The spray of blood as she had withdrawn the blade had splattered her from head to toe, anointing her in blood. She seemed suddenly pale as she looked at what she had done.
"Arya." The word was a breath of grief out of her father's mouth, a gust of wind, loud against the sudden silence of the courtyard. The crows had even stopped streaking, the direwolves had become still.
Somehow Cersei was suddenly free of her guards and launching herself at Arya, screeching like a banshee…
A raven screeched. "Corn!"
A whip cracked, extended like a black serpent, and coiled around her slender throat. The hand that held the whip jerked backwards with a sudden motion, causing a sickening cracking sound. The snap of her neck could be seen even from where Neddy was standing. Her eyes bulged for a moment, her hands gripping at the coils of braided leather before slumping to her sides. The arm moved again, seemingly on instanced, and the whip flicked free. Long fingers wrapping the whip back up with a practiced, almost unconscious motion. One the whip was returned to the hip the welder became suddenly still, the black whip sitting neatly on a belt hook, against a black coat of plates. The black coat of plates covered a black gambeson, an unadorned gorget rested at the neck, a black wolf pelt on the shoulders. Tight black curls adorned the fur, Jon Snow. Jon and Arya were almost mirrors of each other, dark hair, grey eyes, long faces, fine cheekbones, slim narrow frames. Both looked equally shocked at their own actions.
Arya turned to face the King. "I…"
"You did good." King Robert asured. "Would that I could make you a Kingsguard."
Arya nodded. "I just stuck him with the pointy end." She said quietly, it was clear that she was going into shock.
King Robert nodded and turned his attention to Jon. "I could make you one, I appear to have a position available." Jon froze at the offer, even seeming to forget to breathe.
"No." Lord Stark pushed himself to his feet and quickly moved himself between Jon and the King. "Jon will have Moat Cailin, when he is ready for it. He will marry, and have heirs of his own."
King Robert nodded and seemed to accept Lord Stark's answer. "Would you have me name him Jon Cailin now?" The offer seemed genuine.
Lord Stark shook his head. "When he is ready for it," He replied. "Winter is coming, he may very well prove worthy of another name before winter's end."
The king nodded. "Some bastards do." He agreed. "But he doesn't need to be a bastard, Ned, if you want it I could name him Stark."
Jon seemed to re-find himself at that, he stepped out from behind Lord Stark's shadow. "I am not a Stark, your grace. If you will excuse me, Lady Arya's sword needs cleaning, it is our way to do such things at the foot of the Weirwood. It is her first… her first. I would like to ensure that this undertaking is done correctly. He placed a hand on Arya's back and gently led her towards the Godswood, three direwolves trailing behind.
"Robb, go with them." Lord Stark instructed.
"But Bran…" Robb started to protest.
"I'll stay with Bran, Jon and Arya need you right now." Lord Stark replied.
Robb seemed conflicted but nodded. "Grey Wind, stay with Father." Robb commanded, stroking the direwolf's fur. The direwolf seemed to understand and took a place on one side of Bran's body, Bran's direwolf was on the other. Kraken, Theon's direwolf, seemed to give Theon a questioning look then curled up at Bran's feet.
As Neddy scanned the wider crowd he realised with horror that sweet Myrcella and gentle Tommen had seen it all. Seven have mercy, what would happen to them? He shared a look with Ser Beric and they moved as one towards the two children, taking up a silent guard on either side. Eventually Lord Bran was moved, with great care, and the bodies were taken out of the courtyard. The King finally seemed to see Myrcella and Tommen and started walking towards them.
King Robert looked at them carefully then shook his head, he turned his attention to Ser Beric. "I want them out of my sight." He instructed.
Ser Beric nodded. "Your grace, what will happen to them?"
King Robert looked at him with unseeing eyes. "Take them to an orphanage or something, they are not mine, they are bastards, and orphans now. May the gods have mercy on them."
Ser Beric nodded. "Neddy, get our things and pack our horses, we'll take them somewhere further south, they don't belong in the North." The King nodded and walked away. "Six horses, two with food and blankets." Beric said quietly. "It's a long trip to Blackhaven."
"And further still to Starfall." Neddy agreed. "I think Myrcella would like Dorne."
Ser Beric nodded. "Safer if we split them up."
So, that was the plan then, Beric would find a home for Tommen and Neddy would find a home for Myrcella, they could work out the finer details as they travelled. Allyria would know what to do, she always did. Neddy placed a reassuring hand on Myrcella's arm then went to prepare for their journey as Ser Beric led them out of sight of the King.
~~/~~