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Lord Eddard Stark had received seven letters from Lords and Landed Knights willing to foster Jon. In all honesty, a great deal more than he’d expected. The first was marked with a sigil, an eagles head between crossed tridents, red on white; House Condon, landed knights of the North. Ned remembered Ser Kyle Condon, he’d been a squire during the Greyjoy Rebellion.
A fierce fighter, clever, Ned put his letter to one side.
The next was a white starburst on black, Ned knew the sigil well for it was the cadet branch of his own, the Karstarks. Though, sitting in his soler, he couldn’t help but think this had more to do with Rickard’s daughter and Robb, then making a place for Jon. The head of House Karstark had long wished to renew the blood between their two houses.
And make his daughter the next lady of Winterfell.
Ned put this letter on the opposite side of his desk.
The third was the merman of House Manderly. Quickly reading the missive, Ned found it to be the most promising so far. Jon would squire for the commander of New Castle’s garrison, Lord Wyman’s own cousin Ser Marlon. And sifting through the flowery wording a possible marriage between Jon and Wyman’s youngest daughter, Wylla. That is, if Jon were to be given lands and lordship. Wyman even went so far as to hazard the possibility of Moat Cailin or Sea Dragon Point.
Ned was forced to place this letter in the Karstark pile.
No lord liked giving one bannerman too much power, and both seats would make House Manderly nearly as strong as House Stark, and they were already far richer.
A golden horn of plenty, spilling apples, carrots, plums, onions, leeks, turnips, and fruits of many colors on a white field bordered in gold was the next. And Ned had to fetch one of Maester Luwin’s books of prominent Houses to look it up. House Merryweather of Longtable, a house from The Reach. The Northern Lord couldn’t imagine why they’d answered his call.
Vaguely, Ned recalled that House Merryweather’s head, Lord Orton, had found himself on the wrong side of both The Mad King Aerys & Robert. Reading through the missive, he was no closer to discerning the reasoning behind the answering of his request to foster Jon.
In all truthfulness, he couldn’t recall ever having spoken to Orton. So, to the Karstark pile he went.
Robert’s letter was fifth. A crowned stag, black on gold.
For all the love he held for his friend, Ned would no sooner send Jon to that viper pit then he’d send him to Skagos. Unbidden, the face of his father came to mind, strangled while watching his son burned alive in the Red Keep’s throne room. No. Without reading through to see what promises or requests Robert would make, the letter joined the ever growing no pile.
Like the horn of plenty, a sigil with a spotted leopard holding a golden axe over a per bend sinister blue & white, sent Ned to Luwin’s book again.
House Santagar of Spottswood, landed knights from Dorne.
Ser Symon’s letter was intriguing if nothing else. Fostering in Dorne, squiring for Ser Symon himself, but even more than that. The hand in marriage to his only daughter, Sylva. But like House Manderly, many a request was to be made for their generosity. Jon to be given rich lands in the North, a lordship, but the real draw for Ser Symon was that Jon should be legitimized and given the name Santagar.
A cadet branch. Ned could hardly fault the Dornishman’s ambition.
Ned hesitated, holding the letter above the Karstark pile, before changing his mind and putting it with Condon. Sea Dragon Point was rich, vast lands, and it would serve the North well to have it managed under a new lord. And if not, the Rills were a long stretch of the western coast. Maybe Jon could rebuild the North’s navy, lost centuries before to Brandon the Burners grief.
But all of this deliberation was made moot by the final letter. Just the sight of it caused an ache deep in Ned’s chest.
A white sword and falling star crossed on lilac.
The confusion of Lord Edric’s words took him aback. Demanding Jon be returned to Starfall, demanding Jon be legitimized as a Dayne, the promise that he would squire for Edric’s cousin Ser Gerold, the head of House Dayne of High Hermitage, House Dayne’s cadet branch of landed knights.
Lord Eddard was nothing if not lost. The memory of smiling purple eyes, of a dance with the most beautiful woman in all the realm took the forefront of his memories, but soon came the fight with Ser Arthur and the clear notion that he’d die facing the King’s Guards. If not for Holland’s quick actions, Ned would have just been one more corpse to be fed to the sands of Dorne.
It wasn’t until he’d reached nearly the bottom of the letter that things became clear. Lord Edric had come across Lady Ashara’s diary after the deaths of his parents. And without their knowledge of the true goings on after the Rebellion, or the promise he’d extracted from Edric’s grandmother, the young Dornishman must have come to believe that Ashara’s lost child was Jon.
That he’d murdered Ser Arthur and stolen the baby from Ashara.
The threat that he’d go to House Martell if his demands weren’t met made everything even worse. How could he explain that Ashara wasn’t Jon’s mother without the boy asking who then was she? And if not Edric, then the Martells. He couldn’t let them start asking questions, why was Ned in Dorne? Why kill Arthur but then turn around and return his famous sword? What did Lyanna die from? When was Jon born? Who was his mother? Who was his father?
Eddard could think of no answers that would satisfy, nor any that would be believed.
He could write back, say that Jon would be fostered with House Condon. But what was that? Calling the boys bluff? What if he wasn’t bluffing? Dornishmen were known for their tempters and letting their passions take the reins. Sending him to Ser Symon would be the same as sending him to Starfall. Lord Edric could simply demand Jon from his fellow Dornishman. And young boy or not, Ned hardly needed to read Luwin’s book on prominent houses to know the Dayne’s could field a much larger force than a house of landed knights.
If a battle was to break out between two Dornish Houses over a bastard boy from the North, the Martell’s would surely find themselves in the middle. But now with the added anger of unrest in their lands, unrest prompted by House Stark.
There was no easy way out. No answer he could give to change Lord Edric’s mind.
With the unrest after the war, and the plague that took so many lives that followed, there was at least little chance that anyone in Starfall would know the truth of who Jon was.
Could be let him believe Lady Ashara was his mother? And what of the rest of those demands? Jon Dayne?
“I’m sorry Lyanna. I tried. I tried.”