Chapter 33 — "The Road North"
The morning after was exactly what mornings after celebrations tended to be.
The camp slow to wake. Men moving with the specific care of people whose heads had opinions about sudden movement. The fires rebuilt with less enthusiasm than usual. Somewhere near the supply wagon someone was being sick quietly and with dignity.
Alaric sat outside his tent with ale — and his thoughts.
He had only a thought in his mind.
He had been thinking about it since before the camp woke up.
His Grace is Moving north.
These words that had been sitting in his chest since last night.
Harys appeared.
He sat down beside Alaric without being invited which was how Harys sat everywhere and looked at Alaric's face with the expression of a man who had already done most of the relevant thinking and was ready to have the conversation.
"How bad is your head," he said.
"Bad enough, It fucking hurts, eh Spinning my thoughts up. Can't even think straight" Alaric said.
"Mine too." He poured himself ale from the jug between them. "You've been up for a while."
"Aye, couldn't sleep much."
"Think about that. His Grace decision of going North."
"Aye,"
Harys drank. Set his cup down. Looked at the camp waking up slowly around them.
"So," he said. "His grace's going north.To Winterfell at his most trusted ally and friend after his Hank dies. It is to most probably ask Lord Stark to be Hand."
Alaric said nothing.
"Which means Lord Stark goes south," Harys said. "To King's Landing. To sit in the chair Jon Arryn sat in." He paused. "And We all know what King's Landing really is. We have experienced his cruelty itself. If how corrupt it is."
"Jon Arryn was capable," Harys said. "Experienced. Had allies everywhere. Knew every player in that city and how they moved and what they wanted. He is one of the most political apt in the realm" He looked at Alaric. "And he still ended up dead in his chair."
Alaric was quiet.
"Aye, and my uncle is an honest man," Alacric said. Not unkindly. Just stating a fact the way he stated facts — plainly, without decoration. "Honest men in King's Landing are— you know what honest men in King's Landing are," Alaric said.
"Right." Harys drank again. "So we're going north."
"I haven't said that. I could write only a letter to warn him. I am not sure, I haven't decided."
Harys looked at him.
"Commander," he said.
"I haven't decided," Alaric said.
Harys was quiet for a moment.
Then he said the thing that Alaric had known since last night that Harys would eventually say if given enough time and enough ale and enough of the comfortable silence they had developed over years of road.
"You've been avoiding the north for four years," Harys said.
Alaric looked at him and glares at him.
"Not avoiding," Harys said. "That's the wrong word. You've been — not going. There's a difference. Avoiding means you're scared of something. Not going means you made a choice and kept making it."
Alaric said nothing.
"You never went back," Harys said. "Not once. Four years. Tourneys and contracts and the Vale and the Reach and every direction except the one that started all of this." He looked at his cup. "Even though we had a huge opportunity. Regardless, it's your camp commander whatever decision we take , we will follow you as every good soldiers do." He said it and left the place
Alaric looked at the camp.
At the company. At the men he had built around him over years of deliberate movement in every direction except home.
He had been sent away at thirteen from his only Home that he had known.
He had told himself — had kept telling himself, through the Vale and the campaign and the road and every tourney and every contract — that the distance was his choice. That he had taken the sending away and turned it into something. That he was not a boy sitting in exile but a man building something worth building.
Both things were true.
Neither thing was the whole truth.
The whole truth was simpler and less comfortable and sitting in his chest right now with the morning ale and the Hangover.
He missed them.
That was it. That was the whole truth underneath all the other truths. He missed Ned's quiet and Robb's noise and Jon's careful honesty and Arya's chaos and Winterfell's cold and the godswood and the training yard and the sound of the castle in the morning.
He had been missing them for four years and moving fast enough that the missing couldn't quite catch him.
"We leave in three days," he said. "Give the men time to recover. Sort the supplies."
Harys nodded.
"All of us?" he said.
"All of us. Is it gonna be problem in the camp?"
Harys stood. Picked up his cup.
"For what it's worth," he said. "The official reason is good enough on its own. And Men wouldn't want to anger you, Commander over this."
Alacric snorted.
Harys walked back toward the camp.
Alaric sat alone with the morning with the specific feeling of a decision that had been made long before it was spoken.
Three days.
The three days passed the way preparation days passed — full of the specific work that moving a company of two-fifty required when the move was real rather than theoretical. Supplies assessed. Pack horses loaded. The contracts in the Reach sent formal notice of cancellation with payment of the penalty clause which Alaric paid without complaint because the penalty clause existed for exactly this kind of situation and he had negotiated it himself. It wasn't a whole lot but still a headache
Damon handled the cancellations.
There are some murmurs in the camp about the sudden decision but it looked okay. They accepted the decision but also a bit confused but also understanding it why atleast somewhat.
Edwyn Flowers packed his gear the morning of departure with the quiet readiness of a man who had been following Alaric since the ridge and had never once questioned a direction.
Ser Tomas Crane checked his horse with the economical thoroughness of a man who had been on the road his whole life.
The company assembled at dawn on the third day.
Two-fifty men. Road-ready. Facing north.
Alaric rode to the front.
Looked at the road ahead.
Please Please join the Patreon. Please give your support.
---
Drop some Power Stones . Comment your thoughts.
If you want to read ahead
Join the patreon to support .
www.patreon.com/NateStark.
Please join my Patreon to support and read extra chapters ahead