Chapter Text
A young septon greeted Lord Stark at the city gates and that alone would have been enough to tell him how dire the situation was in King’s Landing. Mouths covered with a thick woolen cloth, Ned and his guardsman followed him through the streets, where the dead and dying rotted in the gutter, flesh pocked by disease and the work of rats. Flies and the low hanging smoke from burning incense, peat and dung clouded the streets, though it was the smell of death and pestilence that was thick enough to choke on.
It was, however, the silence that unnerved Ned the most. He had thought the city would be filled with the sounds of mourners, of people pleading for aid, the wracking coughs and pained moans that he knew only too well came with the pox. With no sign of the living, the dead ruled.
“A fortnight ago you would have been right m’lord,” the septon confirmed, when Ned voiced his shock. The young man led them in a winding path through the streets, avoiding the worst throughways and nimbly stepping around puddles of filth and slush. “You would have cried to hear how the people wailed when they were locked in the city to contain the sickness. Kept that up for days, near pounded the city gates down.”
“Why did they stop?” With the way the wool distorted voices, Ned couldn’t say which of his guards had spoken, but he could hear the horror in his tone clear enough.
“Got sick. Died,” The septon made another turn, and Ned could just make out where the path that had been before them clogged with bodies and shattered debris of what once must have been a street market. “They say that every one of the men and women who ventured out and tried to flee got the pox. That the gods punished their cowardice. Now everyone just stays in their homes and prays. As they should, I s’pose.”
It was not bravery that would save the people, but space and isolation for the diseased, Ned knew. “How long have you been with the Faith?”
“Seven days. The new High Septon thought that might be a blessing for me to guide you to the Sept,” he said with a careless and near faithless shrug. “Don’t know that gods have much to do with it though. I’m a gutter rat of Flea Bottom, y’know. Wouldn’t have lived this long if I couldn’t handle the sick.”
Behind him, Ned heard another guard whisper, “What kind of life is this? The way the Southroners boast you’d think this was high living, but give me a mud hut and a field with sheep and a summer snow.”
Ned was inclined to agree. He had hoped to never go back to King’s Landing. “Her Grace is at the Sept of Baelor then?”
“Yes m’lord,” Another seemingly random turn, but their guide was true and the dome of the Sept loomed ever closer.
“And the Hand of the King?”
“No m’lord. No Hand of the King. Heard he and his wife are still up in the Keep, holding the city together. Don’t know that there’s much point with the King dead,” The septon didn’t seem to notice when Ned faltered, the words still jarring. “Wouldn’t go up there m’lord. The sick is fresher that way.”
“Your Grace,” Lord Eddard Stark’s dour Northern brogue reminded her yet again. “We need to leave.”
Cersei Lannister, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, ignored him. What would he understand about mourning a child, about honoring her son properly in the Faith of the Seven? The man worshipped trees.
She could still remember Joffrey on the dais - his form so small, his face too sharp and his limbs too skinny. He had fought the illness, her strong little lion prince, but he had been barely a boy and the pox had cut down grown men. She had stayed by his side for the week that he fought it, and stayed by his body until death began to bloat his form and the septon insisted on internment.
Now she prayed before the stone that marked his resting place and tried not to think of the way death would have corrupted away her little boy’s beautiful face, of the rigor and the rot and the worms and the maggots and flies.
“Your Grace,” Lord Eddard tried again, the fool. “The kingdom knows of your devotion to your son, to your gods. My Queen you have been an inspiration to us all in these trying times, but we must now think of the future. We must leave here, for your sake. For the sake of the child that you carry.”
It had always annoyed Cersei that her ability to breed had been the measure of her worth as queen, and she was no less annoyed by the reminder now. Indeed, she wanted to rage at Stark, and Lord Arryn, and the High Septon and the very gods that what did she care that she lived, that the babe in her belly lived, while her precious baby boy was gone and all her dreams gone with him to rot in this miserable place.
‘And now Lord Stark has come to hide me away in the North,’ Cersei lit another candle, murmured the Mother’s prayer, unthinking. ‘I, who should be Queen in my own right now that Robert is dead. I would take court to Casterly Rock and rule from a true seat of splendor.’
The report from the Westerlands of Robert’s death had been a boon in the worst days of Joffrey’s illness. She did not like to think of the other news that had come with it.
Even by her son’s sickbed there had been no avoiding it. She had heard the whispers that Lannisport and Casterly Rock had fallen under the weight of the pox. That the tourney her father had thrown in honor of Robert’s victory over the Greyjoys had bred a cesspool of disease that destroyed the strength of the West, that her father Lord Tywin was taken ill, her brother and many of her cousins. She did not like to think of how the High Septon encouraged her to pray for them, as if they were dead.
She did not like to remember that when she had been little she had suffered a pox, and that Jaime had not, and that this one thing that they had not shared may have damned her now.
“Why are you here Lord Stark?” She did not give him the satisfaction of turning to face him, nor of rising from her place of mourning though her back ached.
The uncomfortable pause was a gift. “I had thought that Lord Arryn discussed the strategy with you, Your Grace.”
“Remind me, if you would.” She did not know if he was frustrated or merely uncomfortable at being asked to explain himself. She did not care enough to learn, though she had scarcely been able to escape talk of his honor and virtues during her marriage. At least the man’s nature could be used against him.
“King Robert is dead. Prince Joffrey is dead,” The pain that went through her was white hot, made fresh her desire to rage at him. “Until your babe is born the kingdoms have no one to lead them.
Ned Stark, bolder than she had thought him to be, approached to meet her gaze. “Your Grace, we must keep you and your babe safe. Already there is talk of making Stannis king, or Renly. While Dragonstone and the Stormlands each took some pox, they have the strength to fight. King’s Landing is a graveyard and cannot be trusted for your defense. There is no safe harbor for you in Dorne. Until we have more news from the Westerlands, we can not say what force they can muster for your cause. The Reach, the Crownlands and the Riverlands have new outbreaks each day. The Vale —“
“The Vale, Lord Stark?” Suffer as I have, Lord Stark.
“Lord Arryn has no direct heirs and is isolated from his men in one of the centers of disease. He believes, we both believe that the honor of the Vale would be strong enough to keep you safe regardless, but would like to spare Your Grace if he should take ill and cause unrest in the Vale.”
“And if the pox comes North, Lord Stark? What am I and my unborn prince to do then?”
The long Stark face was hard to read, but perhaps pain shapes it now. “It has come and gone already Your Grace.”
She had heard of each port of the pox’s progress. Had heard of Gullstown and Oldtown and had lit the candles and said the words so that the septons would say she had. She had not been called on to pray for the North. “You can be sure of this?”
His eyes are closed, head bowed. Grief, perhaps. “Yes, Your Grace. Most Northerners returned home directly after the rebellion, and our communities are smaller and further apart than those of the south. When there were outbreaks, it was easier to isolate and contain.”
“How many did you loose?” How unfair of the gods to spare the tree worshippers.
“The final tally from the rebellion and the pox was still being counted when I came south, Your Grace,” His eyes were distant. Pain and grief indeed. “More to the fighting than the pox. Mainly the elderly and the very young to the disease. In Winterfell, we lost near twenty included Theon Greyjoy, who was to be my ward, and my wife.”
Lord Stark had married a Tully, hadn’t he? And for all his stodgy manners, he wasn’t an old man and his wife not an old woman. She knew the words to say. “I will pray for Lady Stark, my lord.”
“She kept the Seven,” Lord Stark’s words seemed forced from him, the weight of his grief perhaps. How odd that he should think she would want his confidences. “I fear that I have failed her that I could be here and not honor her memory.”
“As these are not your gods, the High Septon will add her to his prayers,” How horrible that he would need prompting to understand even that. “And, in your letters to her family, be sure to request that the septon there pray for her in your stead as well.”
She did not think that Lord Eddard fully appreciated her kindness in guiding him during her own mourning - his face stayed conflicted in that strange way of his - but then he was a dull savage.
“Thank you Your Grace,” His bow was as rough as his courtesies. “I will do so at once, but then we must be on our way.”
Cersei, rage and grief fighting within her, closed her eyes and turned away from Lord Stark even as he crossed the sept for the High Septon. Here she had been Queen and mother to a Crown Prince, and now all she had ever cared for was gone. In the North, she would be a guest, a hostage for the child in her womb.
Yet, Lord Stark was obviously less a political man than Lord Arryn was, a younger man who would have the full strength of his kingdom when the pox finally cleared. If she was to have a chance at a future, perhaps she could take it from the North. And, if nothing else, at least she would not be hemmed in by the diseased and dead masses that clogged the streets here with their unwashed bodies and stench.
Lord Arryn had arranged with her household to have trunks packed for her journey and a litter to carry her from the Sept to the city gates. Lord Stark and his guard had arranged a carriage, though of inferior quality, to carry her a short distance down the road to a beach that they were using as a staging area. Anchored off shore was the one of Manderly’s galleys flying the Stark banner, with two smaller vessels likely intended for defense.
It was then that she learned of the humiliation that the Northerners had planned for her. That they would all suffer it the same made no matter.
To ensure that the pox did not follow them out to sea or up North, every man and woman who had been in the city was forced to bathe in the sea and change clothes. That a partition and warm water was provided for Cersei and the one lady’s maid she had bothered to bring was little enough courtesy in the face of such indignity. That the trunks of clothes that she brought with her were to be packed away and wrapped in oil cloth until they could be properly aired was further insult.
If ever Cersei had felt kindly towards Lord Stark, it was gone by the time she boarded the galley in a borrowed woolen dress, no matter how fine the quality of wool nor how warm the furs it was hemmed with.
For the insults and her grief, she spent the time at sea in isolation in her cabin, stewing over their barbaric ways and missing her son.
However, free from the distraction of her life in King’s Landing, Cersei found a measure of peace in the kicking and tumbling of her babe. Though it was impossible yet to say whether the child belonged to Robert or Jaime, she resolved to love him fiercely. He would be king from the moment he drew breath on Winterfell, and the singers would write songs of his birth. Conceived on the brink of war, he would usher in a new age of peace and health, and she would stand at his side to rule as his queen.
That Lord Stark himself would have to put her and her child back on throne felt like justice, though she would not welcome him to court afterwards and would happily let him freeze to death in the North.
Ned had seen for himself the coming of spring on the long ride from White Harbor, a boon in a year that lacked them. Still, the walls of Winterfell were a welcome sight. With war and plague, he had been away for longer than he cared to think on.
‘And for duty I abandoned my children to grieve the loss of their mother alone,’ Ned reminded himself, the pain and the guilt as strong as when he had received the raven from Jon Arryn. ‘What kind of father does it make me that I did so? That I was happy to escape my own grief and confusion?’
It had not been an easy thing that Lord Arryn had asked him to do.
He had gone to war for Robert, had taken a ward for Robert. Had lost his wife for having done so when the boy brought the pox with him to Winterfell. To go to King’s Landing and retrieve Cersei Lannister for Robert’s legacy had pushed him to his limits.
It had not helped that the journey there and back had been rife with pockets of plague, that he could die and make his children orphans. Or that the rumors of Robert’s last days were filled with repugnant details, like revelries in whore houses and pawing at maidens during feasts. It did not help that the queen herself was proud and determined to be miserable and make others more so.
If she had been a hidden displeased presence on the boat North, she had been a storm of displeasure once they landed. Her outrage over what was called spring had delayed them a week in White Harbor, where she insisted on a better sleigh to transport her and better clothes to be seen in. She had added three trunks of furs and new gowns in a Northern style that she clearly felt was lacking. Had added more weight to the supplies by requiring the transport of still more fabrics for additional dresses in Winterfell. She had complained loudly every evening that was not spent in an inn, and over the quality of the inns when they did. And the delicacy of her condition had slowed their pace by several days more than he had hoped.
That Ned did not know when her residency at Winterfell may end was now an additional source of frustration and grief, for the news he had received in White Harbor had not been good.
Tywin Lannister was dead. Jaime Lannister was dead. House Lannister, once numerous, was reduced by at least half in all it’s branches. Tyrion Lannister now tentatively held the Westerlands, but he was a young man and undermined by the memory of his father’s scorn.
In King’s Landing, the sickness seemed to be abating, as it had been in evidence when he arrived, but recovery would take years. The Hand of the King was in good health, but Lysa Arryn had miscarried again. Hoster Tully, though he had recovered from the illness, had sent for his brother, and the Blackfish had resigned his post serving House Arryn, weakening the appearance of support between their houses.
Lady Whent was rumored to be flying a Targaryen banner at Harrenhall, and loyalists were reappearing across Westeros. Dorne had closed it’s doors more firmly and was rumored to be operating independent of the throne. The illness in the Reach and the Stormlands had increased. Both Stannis and Renly were eager to take their proper places at court.
That the maesters were now certain that the pox had come from the Iron Islands, and that they had suffered the worst of it, was no comfort at all.
The very uncertainty that had motivated Ned to heed Jon Arryn’s call now seemed to shackle him to Queen Cersei. There seemed no path forward for a strong regency and, while the situation at Casterly Rock would hopefully stabilize, she would be at Winterfell for years not moons and seemed to not care to acknowledge the fact at all.
‘She has lost a child, a husband, a brother and a father,’ Ned reminded himself. ‘Perhaps this is not her nature, but her pain.’
Riding through the gates, it occurred to him that he would not be the only one who would be obligated by the burden of her presence. The smiling and welcoming faces all around him would be confronted by an unhappy queen and, he suspected, be the worse for it.
‘I will not borrow trouble,’ Ned decided, spotting his children as he dismounted. ‘As she disrupts the household, I will find the solutions to keep the peace.’
Robb and Jon both managed to hold their positions in the receiving line that had formed somewhat haphazardly. Though Robb maintained his height advantage, both boys seemed to be several inches taller. That Jon was pressed tightly to Robb’s side was entirely new - Catelyn would never allow Jon to stand with Robb, nor would Robb’s eyes have held that mix of fear and sadness that belied his brother’s need to support him.
He pulled them both into a tight hug, “We’ll talk after you greet the Queen.”
Sansa was more of a girl than a babe now, and shy. Though she came to him sweetly when he held out his arms, and nestled her head on his shoulder as he held her, he wondered if she truly even remembered him. He had been gone for too much of her short life. ‘Something that I must correct now.”
It was Old Nan who held baby Arya and he pressed a kiss to her face, gently to not wake her up. Even knowing that Catelyn would not be here to greet him, the reality of it was sharp.
Behind him, he heard the clatter of Cersei’s retinue stopping and, reminded again of his duty, he set Sansa by her brothers and went to hand the Queen out of her sleigh so that she too could be welcomed into Winterfell.
Her face was a refined mask, pride over distaste, but he could see something in her expression freeze as she noted the children.
“Your Grace may I introduce the household?” And though she said all the right words, all the right courtesies, there was no heart in her for it.
It was no wonder that Lord Stark was so dull when Winterfell has so little to recommend it. There was no society and very little for noble amusement if one did not hunt or ride. That her pregnancy had progressed so far that she loathed walking made the poor layout of the castle even more frustrating, as was the slow realization that the Starks had insensibly neither flattened the land for their Keep nor made an effort to show where the natural contours were being accommodated. The glass gardens and the surprising warmth of the castle were all that she had found pleasure in, and that was a decidedly common sort of joy.
Even the castle gossip was dull. The most persistent rumor was that Lord Stark had brought her back to Winterfell to marry after a period of mourning, and that was so absurd a thought that she made a point of it to seek out every variation of the rumor she could find. It was a point of triumph that she made sure the mess of Stark children heard it, for they avoided her afterwards without fail and that was a relief.
The identity of the Stark bastard’s mother was a minor interest. That the servants seemed to think that Lord Stark must have fallen in love with a great beauty was further proof of the absurd reputation he maintained in the North. If she cared to speculate at all, the woman had likely been a tavern wench, and something for him to have in common with Robert.
In the face of this, the small sept that had been built for Catelyn Stark became her refuge. No one else kept the Seven, so she was both unbothered there and twisting the rumors about her in an interesting way with her religious fervor and her apparent similarity with the former Lady of Winterfell. With a little gold, she was able to convince a maid to bring her as many messages from the capitol as Ned Stark received, and quickly - though as Queen this should have been her right, and this became yet another grievance to hold against the man - and, in the silence, she began to plot.
Her son would be strong, and golden, and healthy. In his name, she would rule.
Jon Arryn she owed a debt for exile and that would be happily paid by remaking the power of the Vale. She would make Stannis Hand and keep him occupied with the unimportant details of the realm while she gathered true power. When he was no longer useful, she would have him stripped of his lands and rank for even thinking of usurping her son. Renly she would isolate, make sure that his champions found themselves suffering until he was far out of favor he would count himself lucky to have any holdings. And, when the name Lannister was synonymous with the crown, she would raze the festering pit of King’s Landing to the ground and install her son’s court at Casterly Rock.
She would consider no other options and, in the privacy of the sept, she dared the gods themselves to defy her. ‘Hear me roar.’