Chapter 70: Packing Bags
Eddard went directly to his steward when he returned to the Tower of the Hand, his daughters summoned before he'd finished removing his riding gloves.
"My lord." The steward bowed. "Your orders?"
"I am no longer the Hand." Eddard said it the way he said most difficult things — plainly, without softening it. "I've had a falling out with the King. Begin packing. We leave within two days, back to Winterfell."
The reactions were immediate and simultaneous.
"What about Joffrey?" Sansa's voice had gone sharp with something that was partly anger and partly the particular distress of someone whose carefully imagined future has just been threatened.
"Is the King going to send men after us?" Arya asked, with the tone of someone who finds this possibility more interesting than alarming.
Eddard pressed two fingers to his temple. "No. He is not."
Robert had said several things in the heat of the moment that Eddard was choosing not to repeat to his daughters. He knew Robert. The fury was real and the words were real, but the intent behind them was not.
"Father, please." Sansa stepped forward. "Joffrey needs me here. He'll — I can't just leave him. You can't ask me to leave him."
"Jon said he was going to introduce me to a proper sword instructor," Arya added. "A real one, not Septa Mordane."
"I cannot leave the two of you in King's Landing without a place to stay," Eddard said. "We have no household here now. We go home."
"Can Jon come with us?" Arya asked. "We can't just leave him here by himself."
Sansa made a sound.
"Sansa." Eddard's voice was quiet but had an edge that stopped whatever she'd been about to say. He turned to Arya. "Jon has his own path. I'll speak with him tomorrow and see what he wants to do."
"I'm not leaving," Sansa said. Her voice had gone from sharp to something more controlled and more determined, which was in some ways worse. "I'm going to marry Joffrey. I love him. I'm going to be his queen. I'm going to — "
"Seven hells," Arya said, with the sincere disgust of a younger sister.
Eddard sat down. He reached out and took Sansa's hand and held it for a moment. "When you come of age, I will send an escort to bring you back to King's Landing for the wedding. You have my word." He looked at her steadily. "Whatever passed between Robert and me today, it was not about the betrothal, and it will not affect it."
Sansa searched his face, and some of the tension went out of her.
"And me?" Arya asked. "Do I still have to marry the Tyrell — Willas?"
Eddard looked at her. "Are you willing?"
Arya considered this with the focused seriousness she brought to most things when she was being honest about them. "Henry said he'd let me ride and hunt and tell me the real histories — not the cleaned-up versions. Margaery said something similar." She shrugged, with the deliberateness of someone making a significant concession while trying not to look like they are. "If I have to marry someone, he seems tolerable."
Eddard put his hand on her head. "I'll speak with Lord Mace tomorrow."
He sat with that for a moment — with both his daughters in the room, with the silver hand badge no longer on his chest, with the particular weight of a decision that couldn't be taken back — and was grateful, in the quiet way of a man who doesn't often let himself be grateful, that the two of them were still here and still themselves.
Henry returned to City Watch headquarters with his cloak over his arm.
The officers were waiting — they'd heard something had happened at the Small Council, the way people always heard things in the Red Keep before the door had finished closing. He gathered them in the main hall and handed over command formally, in front of everyone, to Ser Jestyn Polver — the Iron Fist, as the men called him, a name he'd earned through eleven years of keeping the Watch running on a budget that was never quite sufficient and a mandate that was never quite clear enough.
"My lord." Jestyn waited until the others had filed out before speaking. He was a compact, grey-haired man with the steady eyes of someone who has seen enough administrations change to have developed opinions about it. "His Grace spoke in anger. Everyone in this city has seen what you've built here. Stay a while longer — give him time to come around."
"He's my king," Henry said. "I follow his orders." He put a hand briefly on Jestyn's shoulder and lowered his voice. "The Master of Whisperers is arranging something. I don't know the full shape of it yet, but his little birds are part of it. Set the men to finding them — quietly, without making a production of it."
Jestyn's expression didn't change, which was one of the things Henry valued about him. "And when we find them?"
"Anyone of age goes to the Wall. Send word to Castle Black that volunteers are coming. I imagine Commander Mormont will find uses for them." Henry paused. "I suspect Lord Varys has been using the Wall's remoteness as a feature rather than a flaw — things that disappear beyond the Wall tend to stay disappeared. Let's return the favor."
"Understood, my lord."
"One more thing. Find Jon Snow, Dominic Rykker, and Syrio Forel and bring them here. Separately — don't make it look like a summons."
Jestyn left.
The door opened before Henry had finished his thought.
Corlen Sasman came through it with the expression of a man who has heard something he objects to and has come to say so in person.
"You weren't going to tell me," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I was about to send for you."
"After you'd already decided." Corlen dropped into the chair across the desk with the ease of a man who has stopped asking permission for things. "Are you leaving me behind in King's Landing with a four-hundred-oar warship I can't actually steer?"
Henry looked at him. "The King Robert's Hammer is the flagship of the Blackwater Bay Fleet. That's not a small command, Corlen."
"It's an enormous command and I hate it." Corlen spread his hands. "I could handle the Nightwalker with twelve men and a fair wind. The Hammer requires a crew of four hundred and a degree in naval architecture just to turn around. I was born to run a fast ship with a small crew, not to command a floating fortress." He paused. "I want my old job back."
"Your old job was sailing contraband for Salladhor Saan."
"My second-oldest job, then."
Henry almost smiled. "Margaery is already directing the packing at the keep. You don't need to manage the household."
Corlen put a hand over his heart with theatrical injury. "She's doing my job before she's even married you. Poor old Corlen, made redundant before the wedding." He stood. "Tell me you at least need my sword."
"That's exactly why I sent for you."
"Then Corlen Sasman is yours." He unclipped his gold cloak and laid it on the desk with a certain satisfaction. "Give that back to His Grace with my compliments." He moved toward the door, then stopped. "You should have married her before leaving, my lord. A wedding at Iron Fist Keep is fine, but—"
"Goodnight, Corlen."
"—the flowers will be better in King's Landing this time of year."
He went out.
Syrio Forel arrived ten minutes later, moving with the quiet economy of a man who is never entirely off his guard, two young men from the training yard at his heels. He bowed with the slight, precise inclination of the head that was his version of ceremony.
"Lord Henry. You wished to see me."
"I'm releasing you from your post with the City Watch," Henry said.
Syrio's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes made a quick calculation. "Syrio Forel's price is negotiable, my lord. If the budget—"
"It's not the budget." Henry leaned forward. "You were First Sword to the Sealord of Braavos. That means you spent more time keeping one important man alive than you did in any tournament. I'm asking you — as a friend, not as your employer — to go and protect Prince Joffrey."
Syrio considered this. "The Prince practiced with Syrio Forel for some weeks. He has quick hands. A good student when he chooses to be."
"He's going to need more than quick hands," Henry said. "There are people in this city who wish him ill, and some of them are very close to him. I need someone near him I trust."
"A friend asks." Syrio spread his hands. "Then Syrio Forel accepts." He tilted his head slightly. "What is the nature of the threat?"
"I'm not certain of its exact shape yet. Watch for anyone showing unusual interest in his movements. Watch for the Master of Whisperers' people — his little birds are young, often street children, and they're everywhere. If you see the same face twice in the wrong place, trust that instinct." Henry met his eyes. "Don't let anyone near him that you can't account for."
Syrio nodded once, with the finality of a man who has been given a task and has already begun doing it in his head.
Henry turned to Dominic Rykker.
He had known Dominic since the boy was thirteen — a second son of a Crownlands family, steady and serious in the way of people who have grown up knowing they have to earn everything the firstborn gets simply by existing. He'd come up through Joffrey's household, trained with him, grown up alongside him, and been named Captain of the Crown Prince's Guard with the natural ease of someone who had been doing the job informally for years.
"Dom." Henry kept his voice quiet. "Someone needs to be with Joffrey at all times. Not near him — with him. Syrio can take the close work. Your job is the larger picture — who has access, who has been asking questions, what the patterns look like." He paused. "Varys is involved in something. I don't yet know how directly or how soon. Keep that in mind when you're assessing what you see."
"I'll keep him safe, my lord," Dominic said. The simplicity of it was the point — no elaboration, no qualification.
"I know you will." Henry put a hand briefly on the young man's shoulder. "You've been a good captain. Keep being one."
Dominic nodded and stepped back.
Henry turned to Jon last.
Jon had been standing near the window through all of this, Ghost at his feet, with the particular stillness he had when he was waiting to hear something that mattered to him and was trying not to let it show that it mattered.
"Jon—"
"I'm coming with you," Jon said. He said it the way he said most things — quietly, as if the decision had already been made and this was simply the announcement of it. "King's Landing has enough people. One more or less won't be noticed. But you only have me as your squire, and a lord without a squire is just a man carrying his own sword."
Henry looked at him for a moment. Ghost looked up at Henry with the pale, steady gaze of an animal that has already reached its own conclusion about where it intends to be.
"Pack light," Henry said. "We ride at first light."
[500 Power Stones → +1 Bonus Chapter]
[10 Reviews → +1 Bonus Chapter]
Enjoyed the chapter? A review helps a lot.
P1treon: Soulforger (20+advance chapters)