JOSMYN POV

Reaching the crest of Aegon's Hill and entering High Square, Josmyn did not let up on his spurs. His poor abused mount of the morning and the two men-at-arms of Renly's ever accompanying him drove past the ever present line of smallfolks and merchants waiting for entrance by the side of the gatehouse, under the portcullis and murder holes, and into the Outer Yard.

He barely noticed the gold cloaks on watch waving him through and pushing the smallfolk out of his way.

"Fuck," he snarled, eyes confirming what he already knew to be true; no Stag in sight. He was late. Again.

Starting weeks before his elevation to the Small Council, the King had taken to rising far earlier than had been his previous custom in order to spar at warhammers with the princes. And now, with his keen interest in the planning of the Queen's Funerary Tournament, after beating young Joff sufficiently black and blue for the day, Robert would stroll the fifty yards from the training grounds over to the Small Council Hall to attend each day's regularly scheduled meeting.

The lordling with a modest walled holdfast and five villages pledged directly to Storm's End threw himself out of the saddle and partially stumbled his way inside the building. It had been a punishing ride up from the docks; and, he had already been in the saddle since the day's dawn delivery of fresh fish to the keep's acatery from Fishmonger Square had brought him the dispatch from a previously unknown source of Varys'. Damn the eunuch for leaving so few clues behind as to who in SevenHells his so called little birds were.

At the sight of the intimidating Mandon Moore guarding the interior door, he paused to draw himself up and regain his breath. The dead eyed White Cloak said nothing; merely stepping silently aside when Josmyn's composure allowed him to proceed once more forward to face the uncertain royal wrath.

He entered to the Old Lion discussing the sides for the somewhat blasphemous idea of a seven on seven trial like melee for the coming tourney.

"Ah, our Master of Whisperers has chosen to join us after all," Renly purposefully japed to interrupt the speech of his Lannister nemesis.

Josmyn stopped half way between the door and the council table to give a quick, short, respectful bob of the head; eyes aimed straight at the King. "Your Grace, Lord Hand, Lord Lannister, my apologies." He cleared his throat nervously, then announced gravely, "There is news."

"There is always news, young Lord Dunscombe," the Grand Maester patronized.

From the corner of his eye he saw Lord Errold smirk. Both Josmyn and the former Keeper of the Privy Purse, as brand new members to the Council, were frequent recipients of Pycelle's nuggets of excruciating wisdom culled from decades of dodderage inducing service to the Iron Throne.

"What rumors do your mummers and singers and stage crofters have for me?" the King grumbled, just this side of annoyed at the sudden halt in talk of this melee.

His Grace did enjoy spectacles; however, that was not the reason his Master of Revels had been promoted to Master of Whisperers. While keeping a steady gaze at the King, his voice wobbled a bit, "An … informer off a boat from Pentos came to my attention."

"A sailor? Just as shady that lot," Robert Baratheon derisively quipped.

"I often think of Stannis the same way," Renly happily shared his snide view of the unloved and still absent Master of Ships.

That provoked a belly rumble of mirth from the eldest of the three brothers. The last laugh Josmyn suspected to hear for a good long while.

"What news," Lord Stark asked coolly to bring the chamber back to order.

"Daenerys Targaryen is pregnant with a Dothraki Khal's child," Josmyn blurted out.

All eyes not previously aimed at the King instantly swiveled that way.

Of the royal eyes themselves, they widened and grew from mildly agitated to outright stormy. Both powerful hands rose up off the council table and clenched to become living embodiments of his weapon of choice. And any piece of flesh not covered by clothe or thick beard began turning a crimson hue.

"Dragonspawn," the King spat with unrequited hate. "I warned you she'd breed, Ned!" He shouted. "I WARNED YOU!" The shout increased to a veritable roar followed by fists crashing down in rage on the goldenheart wood like a tidal wave.

All suddenly found elsewhere to look than at their liege. Josmyn remained trapped out in the open of the chamber; his feet fixed to the tiled floor.

All except for the Hand, who tried to placate the rampaging Stag. "Calmly, your Grace. No child has been born yet. There is no threat to you here."

"Be damned your calm! She's a dragon spawning more of her evil kind!"

Next, Lord Stark turned to him. "Lord Josmyn, how true is this news? Does it come from Jorah Mormont?"

He did not recognize the name, but by the ill hid disdain laid upon it, Lord Stark did. "Alas, for … aaa … secrecy, should the scroll have fallen into evil hands, no name or names of the source with the Dothraki were … uhm … given."

"I want her and the brat in her wicked belly dead, do you hear me!"

"I remember Mormont winning the joust in my tourney after the Greyjoy Rebellion. A Northerner. Gained a Hightower wife with a Targaryen look to her," Lord Lannister spoke evenly, as if their cursing monarch were not even in the room.

"He turned slaver but fled before I could mete justice," Lord Stark replied just as unflappably.

"Lord Varys arranged to attach him to Viserys and Daenerys party when she wed Khal Drogo. A royal pardon was offered in exchange for his services," The Grand Maester offered softly to complete Josmyn's education on his unknown spy.

"Who fucking cares! Mormont's with her now," the King snarled. "Is this sailor of yours still here!?"

"He is, your Grace." And the seedy man he met in run down tackle repair shop over a second rate fish monger shop was in fact a sailor; attached to a ship owned by some moderately successful Pentoshi cheesemonger named Grachi Horvathus.

"Send Mormont a message, the Targaryen bitch's death now for my pardon or he never gets one," the Demon of the Trident hissed.

"I am not sure how to …" Josmyn began to stutter. He wished he could sit down at the table and duck is head like most of the others.

"Robert, please. A child," the Hand near begged. "Do not dishonor yourself."

"The she-dragon's pregnant! She's no child. How many creatures would you let her whelp, Ned? I warned you, I did. And now I want her and the half breed get in her belly dead. Dead, you hear!"

"And what of Viserys?" the Old Lion asked, the only other in the Small Council chamber unbowed by the Stag unleashing House Baratheon's words.

"Kill that white haired dragon bastard too! Your King commands it!" he thundered.

"They should have been killed years ago, but Jon Arryn forbade it," Renly finally joined in to agree and assuage or stoke his brother's temper. Josmyn could not figure out which.

"Because that is not the type of knight that Jon fostered Robert and me in the Eyrie to be. Is it, your Grace?" The Hand asked bitterly.

"Damn you, Ned. Don't you dare throw Jon at me. Don't," the King demanded huskily.

"Why did the Blackfyres never take in our wayward Targaryens?"

"What?" issued from several mouths to echo around the chamber.

"They have been wandering about Essos for fourteen years. House Baratheon now holds the Iron Throne. Does the proverb the enemy of my enemy is my friend no longer hold true?" Lord Lannister continued querying in a conversational voice that was not at all in tune with the tense atmosphere in the room.

"The Blackfyres died out on the Stepstones, Lord Tywin," Ser Barristan, who slew Maelys the Monstrous, declared.

A small, arrogant smirk. "Do not be naïve, Ser Barristan. There are always survivors. I dare say I would find the odd Reyne or Tarbeck if I scoured the Westerlands long and hard enough. Where are Bittersteel's descendants? And what of the Golden Company?"

"What the devil are you getting at, Tywin?" his Grace snapped at his goodfather.

"The Beggar King would make an excellent figurehead for another rebellion. What has Varys through Jorah Mormont and his other disgusting little birds been telling the Small Council all these years of the boy's character? Tell me, Pycelle?"

The Grand Maester cleared his creaky throat. "He is impetuous, arrogant, and prone to cruelty. He would not make the most … reliable of allies."

"Like Aerys?"

"Hhhmmmn, such a conclusion would not be … unreasonable, Lord Tywin," the old blowhard vacillated.

"All the more reason to kill him," the King announced fiercely.

A statement which startled the room because it caused the Old Lion to purr with audible amusement.

"What's so blasted funny, Lannister?" Renly demanded.

"May we assume that Viserys whored his sister to the savage Dothraki for the promise of an army to win him the Iron Throne?"

"That is what Varys informed us," Ser Barristan agreed.

"What then becomes of that promise when the Dothraki themselves kill Viserys?"

"What madness are you getting at, Tywin?" the King rumbled threateningly; his irascible temper clearly resting on a blade's edge.

"Madness, exactly, your Grace." Another superior smile. "A wager on your royal coffers, within a year the barbarians will have grown so weary and disgusted with Viserys' inbred Targaryen insanity that they slit his fool throat for it."

"A vile notion, Lord Tywin," Ser Barristan chastised; though without much vigor.

A hammer slowly unclenched into a hand that began stroking the thick, jowl covering beard in some interest at the idea. "What of the girl and her sprog?"

"Robert," the Hand complained; still shocked at the death sentence placed on the young … whatever she was.

"What of her?" Lord Lannister cut off Lord Stark with disregard. "Fourteen year olds die in childbirth with frequency. Her Khal could be toppled by a rival. No city would dare allow Dothraki to enter in order to board ships. And with Viserys gone, who is to remind her of the Seven Kingdoms that she never knew? And the more the horseriders breed her like a mare in the muck the more she will become one of them. In a year's time, if she lives, she will speak like a barbarian, she will think like a barbarian. She will be a barbarian."

"Robert," the Hand tried again.

"Enough, Ned." A fist smacked the council table loudly, but no thunder clap this time. "I know where you and Tywin bloody well stand. What about the rest of you?" he asked unhappily, but sanely; the fury now either starting to bank or perhaps blow out.

"Kill her. Kill him. Make Mormont earn his keep," Renly eagerly called out first.

"There is no honor in murdering a girl with child, your Grace. Keep your vows to the Warrior, the Father, and the Mother," Ser Barristan preached.

"Pycelle?" the King prompted.

"War would be horrible were it to reach the Seven Kingdoms. The lives of thousands must weigh more than that of a single pregnant girl, though I bear her no ill will," the Grand Maester began bloviating until Josmyn noted the Old Lion tilting his head to bring those piercing gold flecked grey eyes to bare. "However … However, the Dothraki have a certain barbarian pride of their own. Were she to die in a suspicious fashion; that might drive them against us more than any promise to Viserys … that is, should he live."

"Is that a yes or a no, damnit?"

"Safest, I think, to let dragons expire in their slumber, your Grace," Pycelle concluded uneasily.

"Errold?" he next asked the Riverlander promoted from Keeper of the Privy Purse to Master of Coin.

"Ahh, is there an actual wager between yourself and Lord Lannister over Viserys, your Grace?"

"What does that matter whether the dragonspawn should live or die," the King pressed ominously.

"As I have been saying, there are discrepancies in Lord Baelish's records. I fear the throne's coffers hold more paper than gold and silver," Lord Blanetree hedged.

"A hundred gold dragons that Viserys' wormy flesh is naught but worm food or ash a year from now, your Grace," the Old Lion volunteered.

"By Dothraki or other means?" his Grace countered; with every one knowing what "other means" meant.

Lord Lannister dipped his head in acknowledgement.

"Done!" the crown enthused and slapped the table. "Now, what say you?"

"I fear for the good of the realm that they must die."

All eyes now turned expectantly towards Josmyn the deciding vote; his legs trying not to tremble under the pressure. Though it had been Lord Stark's decision to make him Master of Whisperers over his Grace's cousin Lomas Estermont, the Master of the Horse, and Janos Slynt, the Lord Commander of the Gold Cloaks; he was a loyal Stormlander and a near boon companion the last few years of Renly's. "What of Lord Stannis' vote?" he asked, a delaying evasion of his own.

"Bugger him, Stannis would say no just to be contrary to Renly and me."

And while the idea of murdering the girl bothered his Seven granted conscious, it did not make him squirm much. Foreseeing something like this moment once he broke the seal on the message handed him be the sailor, Josmyn had rode about the docks to check on the ship the informant had claimed to come in on and to visit what few sources with ears across the Narrow Sea that he had so far been able to uncover from Varys' too well hidden labyrinth.

"Josmyn," the King growled.

"Hold to honor, your Grace," he chose; and chose simply because he had no confidence a secret message of assassination could be delivered safely to this Mormont, or whomever, out in the middle of nowhere on the forsaken Great Grass Sea. He dared not blunder on his first significant opportunity as Master of Whisperers, no matter it would be months before any learned of success or failure.

"Your Council advises mercy, your Grace," The Hand quickly declared; though with sadness and not triumph. "And mercy is never a mistake, Jon taught us that."

"Shut your frozen face, Stark. I commanded you not to speak of him." The King looked about the chamber at all of them, loathing writ plan across his face. "Damn you all for not seeing what must be done. To put an end to Targaryens," he cried passionately.

"Robert, did we not throw down Aerys to put an end to murdering children?!" The Hand challenged and echoed right back, refusing to stay silent. "I will not be a party to this if you truly command it!"

Dangerous hues began rising in the King's face again at his friend's open defiance. The mouth started unhinging to unleash another gathering tempest.

And then that calm, yet unyielding voice broke through the rising tension once more. "'And so he spoke, and so he spoke; that lord of Castamere. But now the rains weep o'er his hall; with no one there to hear.' Alas, your Grace, much as many a dead Westerlander might disagree, my methods do not succeed in every situation."

"Nor the Dornish," the Stag muttered darkly in obvious reference to Princess Elia and her children.

"True. And if they seek their revenge once I am dead, who will have the honor of leading House Lannister's defense? A miserable dwarf. Be thankful your heir is far superior to mine. Prince Joffery is certainly already taller and handsomer."

That earned a snort, if not an actual chuckle. "He is. What of it?"

"Think not of mercy as failure to act, but as an opportunity for action?"

"You wish to take war to the Dothraki?" Lord Stark asked incredulously.

"Tell me more, Tywin," The crowned Stag commanded with evident curiousity.

"Ser Barristan and I first truly proved ourselves as knights and men against the Ninepenny Kings. You and Lord Stark did so in the thick of battle against Aerys' and Rhaegar's armies. I watch you each dawn training with Prince Joffery. Yet why do you bother when you intend to deny him the chance of ever truly showing his Baratheon mettle?"

"I do no such thing!" The King protested; a different kind of anger beginning to suffuse his visage. "Joff will become a knight, as Cersei said," he insisted.

"Jousts and melees are not the same, your Grace; challenging as they are. If the Seven let these Targaryens live, leave them for our sons and grandsons to crush should they raise their wormy heads against the Iron Throne. We cannot take all the glory and leave none for Joffery to strive for; lest we render your heir a dwarf by deed instead of by nature."

The speech left Robert Baratheon temporarily flummoxed.

"Robert," Renly weaseled.

"Oh shut up," the King snapped.

A silence of near a minute confronted the Small Council

"May we return to planning the Funerary Games?" the Old Lion asked with a serenity that gave no hint of the daring it took to first confront the storm just passed.

"Josmyn."

"Yes, your Grace," he tried not to squeak.

"I'll want to know if she births a boy."

"Of course," he agreed.

"And sit down already. I am sick of looking at you standing there looking like a fish sucking air." With that, Robert Baratheon turned his attention to a half drained flagon before speaking again. He drank deep as Josmyn scurried to an open seat. "I liked the suggestion of the senior lords of the non-Westerlands kingdoms joining me as Cersei's champions. Have to choose a Valeman to represent young Robert."

His tone was far from jolly, but it sounded as if it were settling. A sense of relief began flowing.

"I am more concerned about the likelihood of our sharing the field with Oberyn Martell," The Hand objected. Even if gout ridden Prince Doran sailed to King's Landing, there was no question he was unfit to participate in a melee.

"He is a notorious poisoner," The Grand Maester agreed hastily in warning.

"Bah, he'll be more interested with who the seventh is with Jaime's champions. You thinking of taking the last spot with the six Kingsguards, Tywin?"

A hint of a smile. "I was … until now, your Grace." A low chuckle went about. "Perhaps a younger knight and not a Lannister would be less provocative to Dornish sensibilities. Addam Marbrand or Lyle Crakehall?"

"Smashing," the King concurred. Thoughts of Targaryens for the moment put behind him, he reached for a goblet; Small Council meetings were thirsty work.