As a boy, Tywin Lannister had served as a royal page at King's Landing. He and Prince Aerys, together with a younger page, the prince's cousin Steffon Baratheon of Storm's End, had become inseparable. (The World of Ice and Fire)

"I remember the first time my father took me to court, Robert had to hold my hand. I could not have been older than four, which would have made him five or six. We agreed afterward that the king had been as noble as the dragons were fearsome." Stannis snorted. "Years later, our father told us that Aerys had cut himself on the throne that morning, so his Hand had taken his place. It was Tywin Lannister who'd so impressed us." (A Storm of Swords)

Yet even as Aerys donned his crown, in that fateful year of 262 AC, a lusty black-haired son named Robert had just been born to his cousin Steffon Baratheon and his lady wife at Storm's End. (The World of Ice and Fire)

The following year, 267 AC, saw the death of Lord Tytos Lannister at the age of six-and-forty. When [Tywin] returned to the west to attend his father's funeral and set the westerlands in order, King Aerys decided to accompany him. Though His Grace left the queen behind in King's Landing (Her Grace was pregnant with the child who proved to be the stillborn Princess Shaena), he took their eight-year-old son Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, and more than half the court. For the better part of the next year, the Seven Kingdoms were ruled from Lannisport and Casterly Rock, where both the king and his Hand were in residence. The court returned to King's Landing in 268 AC, and governance resumed as before … but it was plain to all that the friendship between the king and his Hand was fraying. (The World of Ice and Fire)

A/N: Robert was born in 262 AC, so he would have been six if the visit to court that Stannis mentioned in A Storm of Swords took place in 268 AC, after Aerys and Tywin returned from the westerlands.

268 AC

King's Landing was bustling again, now that the king, his Hand, and most of the court had finally returned from Casterly Rock. Steffon had been here earlier in the year, visiting the queen not long after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter, and the Red Keep had seemed like an eerie, desolate ghost town at the time.

It was the queen who persuaded Steffon that it was time to bring Robert and Stannis to court.

"I would very much like to see them, your sons," Rhaella said, her eyes shining too brightly on a face still looking far too pale. "Do they look much like you?"

"Maester Cressen says that when Robert smiles or laughs, he looks very much like I did at that age," Steffon replied.

"Robert? Is that the elder boy?"

Steffon nodded.

"And the younger one, does he resemble you as well?"

Steffon hesitated. The woman sitting in front of him had just lost a daughter, and before that had suffered numerous miscarriages since the birth of her one and only living child, Prince Rhaegar, who was at the moment with his father in Casterly Rock, leaving Rhaella on her own. For Steffon to speak so lightly or joyfully about his own children seemed unkind, to say the least.

Sensing his discomfort and hesitation, Rhaella said, softly, "I do not envy other people their children, Steffon."

"Of course not. I would never have believed such an unworthy notion about you," Steffon quickly protested. "But might it not - " he paused, struggling to find the right words.

Rhaella found the words for him. "Might it not cause me pain, hearing about your healthy and thriving children? Dearest cousin, your happiness could never cause me any pain," Rhaella said, reaching out for her cousin's hand with her own. Steffon took Rhaella's hand, and kissed it.

"I remember the first time I saw you, when Aunt Rhaelle took you to court for Grandmother's nameday celebration," Rhaella said, smiling a smile that did not quite reach her eyes, but it was still a relief to see that pale and tear-stricken face brightening slightly.

"I was told many things about that visit, though I confess, I do not remember very much about it," Steffon said. He had just turned five at the time. He had been taken to King's Landing only once before, when he was still a babe-in-arms, to be presented to his royal grandfather and grandmother.

Rhaella continued, "Our grandfather sat you in his lap, and you asked him, with your voice as solemn as the High Septon's, "Are you really the king? You do not look like a king."

Steffon reddened at the memory. "What an impertinent boy I was."

His question had been met by gales of laughter, Steffon recalled. That little boy had felt very silly, had felt as if the whole world was laughing at him, had wanted to run to his mother immediately and be swallowed by her embrace. But Grandfather had seemed to take his question seriously, had not laughed with the others.

"What should a king look like, in your opinion?" Grandfather had asked, taking Steffon's question seriously, and not as a matter of amusement.

"The king in my picture book has long, streaming black hair, and he carries a giant sword with crowned stags," Steffon had whispered to his grandfather, softly, not wanting to risk being a laughingstock again.

"Alas, there is not much I can do about my hair," Grandfather said, "but I have a sword of my own that you might find interesting."

Little Steffon had been shown his grandfather's sword, had been allowed to touch the dragon-engraved hilt, and the boy had been duly impressed, both by the sword, and by his royal grandfather. It was not until much later that he found out that the 'king' in the picture book he had mentioned to his Targaryen grandfather was in fact his Baratheon grandfather, who once renounced his allegiance to the Iron Throne and declared himself the Storm King. Ormund Baratheon had looked very alarmed hearing of his son's indiscretion, but Rhaelle Targaryen was strangely amused, saying only, "Well, well."

"Grandfather did not think you were being impertinent, and neither did I," Rhaella said, breaking into Steffon's recollection of the past. "I thought you were a very brave boy." She went on to recount various other incidents from that visit, some of them things that Steffon had no memory of at all.

"More foolish than brave, perhaps," Steffon said, smiling. "You were not much older than I was. Yet you remember so much more."

"Aerys remembered some things, and I remembered others. We talked of nothing else for weeks and weeks after you went home. We were both very curious and fascinated by our black-haired Baratheon cousin." Rhaella paused, and the dark cloud descended on her face again. "It is very strange to think of it now, but Aerys was actually quite fond of me in those days. If we had been allowed to remain brother and sister, perhaps –" Rhaella closed her eyes.

Steffon hesitated, before asking, "Is he unkind to you?"

"I was relieved when Aerys did not return to King's Landing after my Shaena was born already dead. He would have been furious with another pregnancy ending in failure." Then, swiftly changing the subject as if she was already regretting making that confession, Rhaella said, "When Aerys returns from Casterly Rock, I hope you will bring your sons to see us. It would please him too, I know, to see your boys."

"Hold your brother's hand," Steffon told Robert, when they entered the throne room, packed with throngs of lords, knights, and every kind of claimants, justice-seekers, and favor-hunters around. It reminded Steffon of his grandfather's court, where Steffon served as a royal page. Uncle Jaehaerys' court had been quieter, more somber; the tragedy at Summerhall that had robbed the realm of King Aegon V and many of his family still casting its long shadow.

No, that was not entirely true. There had been plenty of shadows cast during his grandfather's reign – the lords who were always complaining that the king cared more about 'the peasants' than about the lords' gods-given rights, the strained relations between the ruling Targaryen with many Great Houses owing to the broken betrothals affected by the king's children, to name just a few - but Steffon was too young at the time to fully understand this. What a great strain his grandfather must have been under, Steffon thought later, but his grandfather was already dead by then.

And Aerys, was he laboring under some great strain himself? Could that account for the many foul rumors and whispers Steffon had been hearing about the king's conduct, about his erratic behavior?

He had not seen his cousin sitting on the Iron Throne since the festivities marking Aerys' coronation. Steffon had not spent much time in court, in fact, even before Aerys ascended to the throne. After Barristan Selmy defeated Maelys the Montrous in single combat and the rest of the Ninepenny Kings scattered to the winds, Steffon returned to Storm's End from the Stepstones with his father's body. He buried his father and took up his duties as Lord of Storm's End – a grave and weighty undertaking for any young man of four-and-ten – but in Steffon's case made more difficult by the fact that since he was seven years old, he had been spending most of his time in King's Landing, first serving as a royal page, then as a squire. There was much he still had to learn about his people, about the Stormlands, about being a lord, and his father was no longer alive to guide him.

There was also his duty to wed and produce an heir, quickly. He was an only child, without any sibling, and Uncle Harbert, his father's only surviving sibling was unmarried and childless himself, and not likely to change that state any time soon, if ever. Maester Cressen and Uncle Harbert had advised Steffon that owing to his slightly distant tie to the Stormlands after the years spent in King's Landing, it would be wise to take as his bride the daughter of one of his own bannermen. (There were malicious whispers that the new Lord of Storm's End was more dragon than stag, more Targaryen than Baratheon, with closer ties to the Crownlands than to the Stormlands.)

Steffon had heeded his maester's and his uncle's counsel, taking the Lady Cassana of House Estermont as his wife. That choice had raised eyebrows in many quarters, for House Estermont of Greenstone had never been counted as being the more prominent Houses in the Stormlands.

"If I had picked a Tarth, say, or a Selmy, it would only cause grievance, resentment and envy on the part of the other prominent Houses not chosen," Steffon had defended his decision. He could not admit, even to himself, until years later, that his choice had been driven more by affection and by sentiments of a private nature, rather than by shrewd political maneuvering. (Cassana was the only one among the hundreds of ladies from the Stormlands presented to him in the great hall of Storm's End that had caught his eyes, and his interest was further inflamed by her boldness and the sharpness of her tongue when they conversed during the feast.)

So Steffon Baratheon lost his father and became Lord of Storm's End at four-and-ten, wed his wife Cassana on the same day he turned five-and-ten, and became a father to a lusty black-haired babe they named Robert at six-and-ten. King's Landing, the court; all that was almost a distant memory. Not surprisingly, Steffon grew apart from Aerys and Tywin, the staunch companions of his childhood. Time, distance, and duty, had all played their parts.

But Aerys and Tywin had remained inseparable, still the closest of companions. Or at least that was what Steffon had always believed, before the rumors about the fraying relationship between the king and his Hand since their return from the westerlands began to reach his ears.

It was Tywin he found sitting on the throne, not Aerys. Was Aerys ill, Steffon wondered? He watched quietly as Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King, dispensed justice and conducted the business of the realm with all the firmness and self-assurance that Steffon recalled he already possessed even as a boy of eleven, when Steffon met him for the first time, on Steffon's first day serving as a royal page.

A gasp from Robert turned Steffon's attention back to his sons. The boys were staring intently at the dragon skulls hanging on the walls of the throne room. "They are dead, you know," Steffon whispered to his sons. "Those dragons cannot come chasing after you."

"I know, Father. I'm not scared," Stannis said, sounding as affronted as a four-year-old could be. He was at that age where he had started to feel very prickly and touchy about being thought of as a scared little boy, or not being as brave as his older brother.

When the noise in the throne room rose louder and louder, Steffon took his sons to see the queen. Rhaella was expecting them in the courtyard with various treats waiting for the boys - peaches, sweetmeats, and spun sugar treats shaped like stag heads complete with antlers. The sight of the antlers caused Robert to clap his hand with glee, and it even elicited a rare smile from Stannis.

Rhaegar was there too, sitting quietly beside his mother, who then suggested that he played a song on his harp to entertain his cousins. Steffon thought the prince played very well, but Robert and Stannis started fidgeting and looking restless not even halfway through the song.

Rhaella noticed. She smiled, telling her son, "Why don't you show your cousins your new longbow?"

The three boys moved away from the table, leaving Steffon and Rhaella free to converse.

"Is Aerys unwell?" Steffon asked. "I saw Tywin Lannister sitting on the throne."

"Aerys cut his hand on the throne this morning. The maester is worried that the wound might fester. Otherwise Aerys would not have suffered Tywin sitting in his place."

"I have heard many rumors, but I –"

Rhaella interrupted. "He should never have gone to Casterly Rock with Tywin at all. He should never have stayed that long, certainly."

"Did it not bring them closer?"

Rhaella shook her head. "Aerys saw Tywin in all his glory, and he discovered that he hated the sight of it. My husband covets, and he envies. Tywin's power, Tywin's glory," she paused, dropping her voice down to a whisper, her eyes dark with pain, "even Tywin's lady wife."

Steffon flinched. "But Aerys is king," he said, "not Tywin."

"All the more reason in Aerys' eyes that he should be furious. All that power, all that glory, they should be his, not Tywin Lannister's."

They were silent for a long while, the two cousins, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Does he wish to see me?" Steffon finally asked, breaking the silence.

Rhaella nodded. Then, her eyes straying to Robert and Stannis, she continued, "Perhaps it is better to leave the boys with me. In the state that Aerys is in at the moment, who knows what he might say, or what he might do."

When Steffon was finally allowed admittance to Aerys' bedchamber, he was surprised to find that Tywin was already there, standing stiffly with an inscrutable look on his face, while Aerys shouted and hurled torrents of abusive words at him. The subject in contention appeared to be related to the Iron Bank of Braavos.

Aerys finally dismissed Tywin from the room with scant ceremony. The anger and the contempt in the king's voice stunned Steffon.

You used to love him, Steffon thought. You admired him, held him in the highest esteem, thought him the only man capable of standing by your side, assisting you in making all your dreams, all your great plans and all your glorious schemes for the realm come to life.

What happened?

How did it all go so wrong, so quickly?

Tywin's expression remained inscrutable, but his stern face broke into a smile when he saw Steffon. "Find me at Tower of the Hand after His Grace has finished his business with you," he told Steffon. "I have not seen you for such a long time."

Steffon nodded, but before he could say anything in reply, Aerys was calling out from his bed, his voice peevish and querulous, "Did you come to see me, or to see my Hand?"

Steffon quickly made his way to the king's side. "What does the great Tywin Lannister want from my cousin?" Aerys asked, after the door closed behind Tywin. "Does he wish to tell you all about my unreasonable deeds, to complain about every slight and every wrong I have done him?"

Steffon flushed. "Of course not," he replied. "We have not seen each other for a long time, Tywin and I. There is much to –"

Aerys interrupted. "Do you know what he has done now, my ever so brilliant Hand? He has taken on the crown's debt to the Iron Bank for himself, paying it with gold from Casterly Rock. And now I am in debt to my own Hand. There is no end to his deviousness, it seems."

"Surely it is better for the crown to be in debt to Casterly Rock, its own loyal subject, than to be indebted to the Iron Bank of Braavos, whose ruthlessness in collecting payments is notorious?" Steffon pointed out.

"I ordered Tywin to make the Titans kneel!" Aerys exploded. "Not to pay the debt with gold from Casterly Rock."

War? Was the king speaking of making war with Braavos? Had there not been enough deaths, enough wars already?

"Your reign has been marked with glorious peace for your subjects these many years, Your Grace. It would be a pity to –"

"I have no wish to be indebted to one of my servants," Aerys declared.

Servant? Is that how you see us now, when the three of us were once closer than brothers?

"I am certain Tywin only has your best interest at heart, Your Grace," Steffon said. He is proving to be one of the best Hands the realm has ever seen, by all accounts, Steffon was about to add, but he changed his mind right before those words left his mouth, mindful of Rhaella's warning about Aerys' deep-seated jealousy of Tywin, and not wishing to make things worse between his two old friends.

Aerys shook his head, the anger leaving his face, to be replaced with a mournful, melancholy look. "You have been away from court far too long, Steffon. You do not know how much Tywin has changed from that boy we used to know. Now he cares naught about me, or about my interest, only for his own."

And have you not changed much yourself, Aerys? My king, my cousin, my childhood companion. Who is this man I see before me? I do not know him, and I fear that he does not know me.

271 AC

The agreement had been duly signed by both lords, the red wax seals of both Houses already affixed on the parchment, and the only thing left was the feast that night to celebrate the pact between House Baratheon and House Arryn - the pact for Lord Baratheon's eldest son and heir to be sent to the Vale to be fostered by Lord Arryn.

Jon Arryn had seemed surprised, at first, that it was Robert, his elder son, that Steffon intended to send to the Vale, not his younger son Stannis.

"Do you not wish to find a position for your elder boy at court, as a royal page, perhaps? You were a royal page yourself, I heard."

Steffon nodded. "Yes, I was. I served in my grandfather's court from the age of seven onwards."

"King Aerys is your own cousin. Surely His Grace would be pleased and more than willing to grant your heir a position at court?" Lord Arryn queried. "Or perhaps it is you, Lord Baratheon, who are not so inclined to send your boys to King's Landing?" He continued prodding.

Steffon cleared his throat, but he said nothing in reply. Noticing Steffon's reticence and obvious discomfort, Lord Arryn said, "Well, young master Robert may still go to court when he is older, to serve as a squire. I hope I have provided him with sufficient training and guidance by then, such that he would make his father proud."

"I am certain you will, Lord Arryn," Steffon replied with a smile.

That conversation with Jon Arryn haunted Steffon all the way back from the Eyrie to Storm's End. It brought to mind the frequent complaining noises made by his good-father Lord Estermont, who found Steffon's reticence on the subject of the king very frustrating.

"You are related to His Grace by blood," Estermont had said, more than once. "And your sons are related to the king as well. Why should you not take advantage of that blood tie to promote your sons' advancement?"

"To promote the advancement of the grandsons of Lord Estermont, don't you mean, Father?" Cassana interjected.

"Is that not the same thing?" Lord Estermont asked, irritated by his daughter's interruption, oblivious to her true meaning. But Steffon understood.

"Other lords plot and scheme and strive, tirelessly, to gain a position for their sons in court, knowing the bounties and advantages that would come their way later in life through these positions. And yet, Lord Baratheon, the king's own cousin, seems so indifferent to all that. Do you not wish for great things for your sons?" Lord Estermont continued pushing, pushing.

I wish only to keep my boys safe, at least until they are old enough to fend for themselves, to fight their own battles, to face the world on their own terms, Steffon thought, but did not say, because saying it out loud would mean making public his fears and his concerns about the king, and he still could not bring himself to do that to Aerys, despite everything.

Aerys who had welcomed him with kind words and open arms to King's Landing. Aerys who had sat on Steffon's bed soothing him with whispers of "there, there, it will be better in the morning," as Steffon cried himself to sleep his first night as a royal page. Aerys who had never told anyone about his cousin's tears or even mentioned it to Steffon himself after that night.

In truth, Steffon had no intention of sending either of his sons to court. He had worked hard to keep the king's gaze away from Robert and Stannis, in fact. He had gone to King's Landing numerous times since that first and only time he brought Robert and Stannis to court, but always on his own, or accompanied only by his wife, never taking his sons with him.

Aerys' conduct had grown worse in the ensuing years. He had grown more capricious, more erratic. His favors and disfavors fell on one lord and then another, his fondness and partiality would turn very swiftly into wrath and displeasure, his mind more changeable than the weather. Steffon was wary, very wary, for his sons' sake. Who knew what notion might suddenly enter Aerys' head on any given day? He could suddenly decide to command Robert and Stannis to be sent to Kings' Landing to serve him - and the Mother forgave him, but Steffon shuddered at the thought of his boys having to serve this king, this man who was once his closest companion, but had now turned into a complete stranger.

It was safer, much safer, to strive to keep his boys away from the king, away from Aerys' prying gaze and his dangerous attention.

"You should speak to your sons about a certain … misunderstanding," Cassana told him, his first night back at Storm's End.

Steffon laughed. "Oh? Did the boys misbehave during my absence? They are usually "our sons" until they have done something to displease you, and then they are merely "your sons."

The smile he had hoped to coax from Cassana did not come, as it usually would when he made this remark. Looking somber and grave, she said, "They found that portrait of you, Lord Tywin and the king, the one painted before the three of you left for the Stepstones."

"And?"

"They were talking about the king, and how they both thought he looked as noble as the dragons were fearsome."

"Well, Aerys in his youth was a sight to behold," Steffon said, trying to recall that particular painting. Aerys had been standing in the middle, he recalled, flanked by Tywin on his right and Steffon on his left. Each of them was brandishing a sword, and Tywin and Steffon had their shields raised as if to guard Aerys from harm.

Cassana shook her head. "They were talking about the king they saw sitting on the throne, that one time you took them to court. And they pointed at Tywin in the picture, not at King Aerys."

Of course. Steffon sighed, deeply. He had tried to keep the king's gaze away from his sons, but in doing so, he had also kept their gaze away from their king, from their father's own cousin, from the man who had once been the brother Steffon never had.

"You must set them straight on the matter," Cassana said. "With the king being the kind of man that he is, who knows what kind of danger and mischief might lurk if it ever comes to his attention that your sons had confused his Hand as the real king."

"Why was that man sitting on the throne, if he is not the king?" Stannis asked, brows furrowed.

"Because the king was ill that day. His Grace had cut himself on the throne that morning, and the maester was treating his wound. Lord Tywin –"

"Is he the one with the golden hair and the lion-carved armor in the picture?" Robert piped up.

"Yes, he is. That is Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, and Hand of the King. When the king is away, or indisposed, the Hand sits on the throne and conducts the business of the realm in the king's name. Do you understand?"

Stannis and Robert both nodded. "Maester Cressen already taught us that, about the duties and responsibilities of a Hand," Stannis said. "Only … only we didn't know that it was not the king we saw on the throne that day."

"So we have never seen the king after all?" Robert asked, sounding disappointed.

"We still saw the dragons, and they are still fearsome and magnificent," Stannis said. The boys went on to pepper their father with questions about dragons and dragon-riders.

278 AC

The summon from Aerys recalling Steffon to court to take up a position in the Small Council vacillated between a stern, high-handed command from a proud king whose will must never be thwarted, and a plea from a frightened, desperate and lonely man.

"Will you go?" Cassana asked.

"I must. The king has commanded, and I must obey."

"I know. But do you wish to go? Would you go, if you have a choice?"

"No. I have no wish to be put in the middle of whatever quarrels exist between Aerys and Tywin, or to be used as a stalking horse by unscrupulous lords eager to see Tywin's downfall."

And yet and yet and yet … the plea of that frightened, lonely and desperate man …

There, there, it will better in the morning. You could not say that to soothe a king in the throes of his obsessions and paranoia.

"Perhaps you could be the one to bring them together again, the king and Lord Tywin. You have been absent from court these many years, and could not be said to be on one side or another," Cassana said, trying to comfort her husband, but by the inflection of her voice, Steffon could tell that she herself was not convinced by that argument.

"Perhaps," Steffon lied, kissing his wife's brow.

Cassana sighed. "Oh let us not deceive ourselves, or lie to each other! We both know that if you do not show yourself to be clearly and absolutely on the king's side, his suspicious nature will immediately declare you as one of his enemies, in spite of all his fond reminiscences and his cries of longings for the close bond the two of you used to share in the 'good old days.'"

"I know," Steffon said, his voice gloomy and despondent.

"At least he has not summoned our sons to court," Cassana finally said. "There is still that to thank the gods for, at least."