There was also the matter of finding out who had wanted to disguise my murder as a kidnapping. Who had I offended so deeply that they wanted dead? A great many lords of the Vale. Who might want to punish Father through my death? Half of Westeros. Difficult to say. Everyone was convinced it had been a genuine kidnapping. My insistence that it was a murder dressed up as an abduction was put down to fear and paranoia. That was galling, but expected. From their perspective, I was extraordinary, but still a child. In my own view, the only people with the most to gain from my death were the increasingly brazen Tullys. That old fish had compelled my father to take her disgraced daughter Lysa as his wife. If I died, his blood would beco Lord Paramount of the Vale.
The wedding itself displeased greatly. Handing Father a dishonored girl who was already with child was a slap in our faces, a clear statent of how the Tullys regarded us. What irritated more was that Father had agreed to it. Had he taken so other worthy woman as his wife, I would have been glad for him. Instead he had bound himself to this.
Disgusting. I should rember to thank and reward the informant. This Baelish had impressed .
Well, that was sothing to think about another ti. I was already being t at the Red Keep.
...
Robert was in the throne room, so I went straight to him, since where the king was, his Hand would be as well. A herald announced my arrival, after which two doors of wood and bronze swung open and the throne room revealed itself to . I liked its architecture, which reminded sowhat of Núnórean work. Directly opposite the entrance stood an enormous, black, misshapen throne at the top of a steep iron stair. Its seat was set so high that the king looked down on everyone below. The floor was marble in many colors. Massive columns held up the ceiling. On the right side ran a gallery leading into other parts of the castle, and on the left were several windows in the shape of a seven-pointed star, the faith of the Seven.
And now on that monster sat King Robert, First of His Na, of House Baratheon. King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First n, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. All those eyes fixed on caused no discomfort whatsoever. There was no sense in being nervous about a crowd. I walked to the Iron Throne with my head up and took a knee.
"Your Grace, I have co at your command," I said, steady and loud.
Robert rose and descended from the throne, walking up to and stopping one step away. Court etiquette forbade from raising my eyes without permission. He gave the verbal command to rise. He studied with a serious face. I did the sa in return. The courtiers did not understand what was happening and held their tongues, not wanting to draw the new king's anger. Then his voice rolled through the hall like a clap of thunder:
"You've grown," Robert said gravely.
"I have, your grace" I replied, and then found myself staring at his beard.
At that we both laughed, and Robert caught in a bear embrace that made my bones creak. How I had missed him. It felt as though a whole lifeti had passed. It was not long ago that I was putting horse dung in his bed and he was chasing around the yard until I was ready to collapse, and then we would walk off together and compete in so piece of foolishness, like who could eat or drink more. Robert was now the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms, but he had not changed, and that was a fine thing.
"Right then, co on, let's talk! I heard you managed to put down your kidnapper yourself. You have to tell everything," only then did Robert rember they were not alone. "Everyone out! The king will be spending today with his little brother!"
Without paying any attention to the scrambling of courtiers, we walked out of the throne room and began trading stories of our respective adventures. When we reached his chambers, I decided to ask him about his battles, since people had described them in every possible way. There were versions involving resurrected dragons, divine intervention from the Seven, and even one in which Robert personally slaughtered a thousand n on the back of a stag.
Robert began his account with the assault on Gulltown. After that he had ridden for Storm's End to call his banners, but Lords Cafferen, Fell, and Grandison had kept faith with the mad king, raised their forces, and planned to combine at Sumrhall. Robert gathered his knights and rode hard to cut them off. Outside Sumrhall he broke them one by one.
Rob told the story of the rebellion in a way that gripped you from the first word. He clearly loved telling it, and I loved watching him as he did. When Robert talked about sothing that mattered to him, he beca an entirely different person. His eyes lit up, he poured sothing of himself into every sentence, and though he had never been known for his way with words, he described things in such detail that you could not help but see it all playing out in front of you. We might have talked until nightfall, but at a certain point, perhaps from too much feeling at once, he began coughing up blood. Grand Maester Pycelle ca running and diagnosed an internal bleed from the wound he had taken at the Trident. I was sent to my chambers with the words: "His Royal Majesty requires rest."
Despite Robert's bravado about a trifling scratch, I managed to get his promise that he would do everything needed to recover. Robert was many things, but he was not a liar, and he kept his word. So I let a servant show out with a clear conscience. As the son of the Hand, I had been given the chambers beside my father's in the Tower of the Hand. Our people were already settled in, and I wanted to look in on those I knew, so I put my head through every door. It took two hours. I felt glad and equally grieved that many of those I had known all my life had survived the rebellion, but even more had not. Of the hundred household guards my father had taken from the Eyrie two years earlier, forty-three had co back.
It was sothing to be thankful for, at least, because as Robert had told it, my father had decided in his later years to play the hero. He led his guards as a battering ram straight into the Dornish lines. It did not turn the battle, but it bought the ti needed to regroup and counterattack. A young squire, Lyn Corbray, had managed to lead the charge against the Dornishn threatening the left flank of Robert's army and broken them. During the fighting Lyn had t Prince Lewyn Martell in single combat and killed him. Though the guards had confided in private that the Prince had been badly wounded well before that encounter, and they asked not to ntion it to Corbray, as it would drive him to fury. I understood: knightly honor and vows were serious matters, and there was little glory in defeating a man who was half dead on his feet, however famous. But it had been a battle, where the only purpose was to survive and kill your enemy. Everything else was beside the point.
From the account I gathered a picture of where things stood across the continent. The Reach had yielded and bent the knee and lifted the siege of Storm's End. Ned was riding to rescue his sister Lyanna. The Targaryens were shut up on Dragonstone. Dorne was silent, and that silence was making everyone uneasy. When I found out where my father had gone, I was stunned. He had ridden to Dorne. To bloody Dorne, where poisoning your neighbor was considered a polite death . What was Father thinking when he decided to go there carrying the bodies of Prince Lewyn, Princess Elia, and Prince Aegon? Did he think the Dornishn would beco friendlier for it? Well, Father had always had his own way of doing things.
But the unpleasantness was not finished. Lysa Tully was traveling to King's Landing. The news made wince. My plan had been to stay as far from that stale fish as possible: she would be in King's Landing with Father, I would be in the Vale. Everyone content, no one irritating anyone else.
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