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When the order came, Ned sent two men to seize and bind Theon Greyjoy and another to prepare the block. He briefly considered having the boy sent to the dungeons while he wrote Robert to see if he couldn’t have him take the black, but dismissed the idea. It would be unspeakably cruel to make him live with such a fool’s hope. There would be no reprieve, not for either of them.
He had told Luwin to fetch Catelyn after he delivered the letter. She joined him now, firmly closing the door to the solar behind her.
“Is it true?” she asked.
He wordlessly handed her the letter. It was in Jon Arryn’s hand with Robert’s signature at the bottom. There could be no doubting the order, nor that it was his duty to carry it out.
“I'm sorry, Ned, but we knew this might happen when you first brought him,” Catelyn said, her voice gentle, but her eyes hard.
Ned turned away. “I didn’t.” He would do anything for his children, anything. “What father could do this to his son?”
“The gods will know Balon Greyjoy for a kinslayer.”
Yes, Ned nodded. It was Balon Greyjoy who had slain the boy, even if it fell to Ned to swing the sword. The blood would be on Greyjoy’s head, Greyjoy’s hands. And Robert’s, his as well. To kill a child was vile, unspeakable, and yet they spoke of it upon the king’s command. Upon the king’s command, Ned would carry it out.
He swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “You do not need to watch,” he told her. “Keep the girls away from the courtyard until it is done.” He did not know if he could keep his lord’s face if he saw them watching.
Ned took up his greatsword from its rack along the wall. There was no need to test its sharpness. As his squire, Theon saw to its sharpening every week and nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel. Someone else would sharpen it again after this.
“Will there be war then? Must you go?” Catelyn asked, wringing her hands, worry clear in her voice.
“Yes.” Ned would go to war and he would see Balon dead for making him do this by the end of it, whether Robert willed it or not. He at least owed the boy that measure of justice, but the king’s justice must come first. “There is nothing to fear, my lady. We crushed them before and will do so again. Keep the girls from the windows until—Do not let them watch.”
He left her then, his sword cradled in his arms. As his squire, Theon normally would carry it to these things for him. He was four-and-ten now, plenty old enough to fight beside his master in combat. If Ned met him across the battlefield, he would not hesitate to cut him down. This was no different except, of course, that in combat Theon would be armed and trying to kill him, not bound, on his knees, and crying. Gods be good, he hoped the boy would not cry. That would unman them both.
Theon was not crying by the time Ned reached the courtyard, but his usual smile was long gone. He stood white faced and trembling before the block, held in place by Jory and Fat Tom. The fear in his eyes was plain to see as he took deep breaths like someone trying to keep from being sick.
“Father, what’s happening? What has Theon done?” Robb asked from where he and Jon stood with Ser Rodrik. They both wore their training leathers, their hair dark with drying sweat. Theon was similarly dressed, his hair similarly darkened. The three of them would have been together when Theon was taken, but the boys knew their duty too well to stop it.
Half the keep stood in the yard, it seemed, milling about and whispering the same question. The North had never taken to Theon Greyjoy, but there was no malice here. No one would relish seeing the boy’s head upon the wall, least of all him, but they would understand why it needed to be done.
“Balon Greyjoy has rebelled again against the crown, despite knowing full well what it would cost his son,” Ned announced in a ringing voice before the assembled crowd.
There were gasps of shock all around, but none from Theon. He merely closed his eyes and accepted the blow of his father’s betrayal.
“In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Theon Greyjoy has been sentenced to die for his father’s crimes against the realm.”
At his nod, the guards forced Theon to his knees.
“Do you have any final words?”
“Give my body to the sea and—“ his voice broke “—tell my mother I love her.”
He swallowed hard and laid his head down on the block. There were tears gathering in his eyes now. Ned gave them both the mercy of pretending there weren’t any. If he did this fast enough, they would never fall.
Years ago, the Mad King had called for Ned’s head in payment for his father’s and brother’s crimes. Jon Arryn had known it for injustice and refused. Ned looked now at his sons. They would not be here if not for that refusal. In the fading afternoon sunlight Jon’s normally steel grey eyes had a purplish hue. Promise me, Ned, his sister had pled. He would not break that promise now.
Ned looked back down at the boy with his neck bared before him. His whole life, Ned had known himself to be a good man, brave, true, and honorable, but he was no Jon Arryn to risk it all to do right by a stranger’s son. He could not afford to be.
It was Balon Greyjoy who had condemned this boy to die and Robert Baratheon who had signed his death warrant, but it was Ned Stark who raised the sword and lowered it again. Theon’s blood stained the blade and the snow and Ned’s soul. He knew it would never come out.