King's Landing. The Small Council Chamber. 292 AC.
Lord Petyr Baelish, Master of Coin.
When I was young and foolish, I believed that only the most worthy found their way onto the Small Council. I grew up, grew wiser, and ca to understand that everything we cling to in childhood crumbles like ash on the wind. We believe in friendship, in love, in honor, but all of it is a lie. These are fictions we feed one another, over and over, until we lose ourselves in the comfortable warmth of self-deception.
Blood, kinship, friendship, oaths, vows, honor, duty... Our entire world is built upon lies. In this world, only the Ladder matters. The very circumstance of our birth determines where we stand upon it. One man is born the son of a minor lord, another the child of a peasant, another a king. No matter who a man is, he will always strive to climb. The peasant strives to beco a knight, the knight a lord, the lord a great lord, the great lord a king. And yet, sohow, the smallfolk never think to reach for lordship, and knights never allow themselves to dream of rising higher still. Fools, all of them.
Robert Baratheon's rebellion showed that only in chaos can a man truly rise. Baratheon beca king, Arryn beca the second most powerful man in the realm, dozens of lords were showered with honors, hundreds of knights were raised to lordship, and thousands of common soldiers beca knights. But before all that... how many tis had great lords raised rebellions and lost? How many houses had reached for glory and been cast down? How many thousands had to die so that a handful of n might call themselves knights?
The truth is that the Ladder is Chaos. Many have tried to climb and lost their footing, and the fall broke them. Others had the chance to reach the summit but refused, clinging instead to things that did not matter. Everything in this world is an illusion. Only the Ladder is real.
And so here I sit, the son of a minor lord from the Fingers, in the chambers of the Small Council, shaping the fate of the entire realm. A great distinction, to be sure, though to my considerable dismay, every session resembles a farce.
"Spider, why do you keep interrupting from matters of importance!?" demanded our glorious king Robert.
"Your Grace, you yourself asked to keep you inford of Ser Axel Arryn's activities." At Varys's words, the room ca alive.
The king leaned forward with interest, eager for more. The Hand looked troubled. Stannis ground his teeth, gnawed by jealousy, since the king showed far more interest in this Arryn than in his own younger brothers. Pycelle stopped pretending to sleep. Even Barristan perked up. Renly alone remained utterly indifferent.
"Stop dancing around it. Tell what's happened with Axel," the king said, impatience cutting through his voice.
"Of course. As Your Grace is already aware, the Falcon's eye joined the Golden Company two years ago and has, in that ti, achieved rather remarkable results. He has beco the company's most effective ranger, fought with distinction against the Unsullied, Dothraki, and various other sellsword companies, and earned a reputation for his... unconventional tactics." The word "unconventional" was perhaps too gentle. Brutal was more accurate. "Most recently, he led his detachnt in routing a khalasar and slew Khal Pumba in single combat. For this, he has been promoted to a lieutenant of the company."
With every word the eunuch spoke, the king's smile grew wider, while the Hand aged visibly before our eyes. Whatever tension strained their relationship, the Old Falcon loved his son, and news that the boy fought dangerous enemies every single day did nothing to ease his mind.
"AHAHA, that's my Axel!" the king roared with delight.
"Varys, and what of the Royce brothers?"
An interesting matter in its own right. Arryn had sent an envoy with a single proposal. The Hand had offered an enormous sum to convince the sellswords to hand over his son, only to be t, to everyone's considerable shock, with a flat refusal. Pressure was then applied to Axel himself, but he either dismissed them curtly or refused to et them at all. Since the Greyjoy Rebellion, the Falcon's eye had stopped listening to anyone outside a very small circle. That circle included the king himself and Lord Royce. No one else commanded his respect.
Since neither the king nor Lord Royce could be sent as envoys, they settled on dispatching Arryn's closest kinsn. Andar and Robar Royce were sent, cousins and friends to Axel Arryn. Jon Arryn had placed great hopes in these young n, and the fact that their younger brother Waymar was already at Axel's side gave them additional reason to see the task done. He had hoped they would talk so sense into their friend and put an end to his boyish rebellion as the Hand perceived it.
"I regret to disappoint you, my lord, but only Andar sailed back to Westeros. Ser Robar Royce chose to remain with Ser Axel and has joined the Golden Company." Varys delivered the news with his customary serenity.
"AHAHAHA!!!" The king was the first to recover, dissolving into laughter, tears streaming down his face. "Jon, they used your own plan against you!!! AHAHA!!" Axel had always been his favorite, and the boy's triumphs delighted him as though they were his own.
The whole affair, these high lords entangled in the Arryn family's private troubles, remained puzzling to . But when the first and second most powerful n in the realm both took a personal interest in one man's wellbeing, one learned to endure.
The subject of the runaway Arryn did not co up at every session, perhaps once every two or three weeks. Yet with each new report, the young Arryn proved himself a capable fighter. Many highborn lords looked down their noses at fighters seasoned in Essos, but I knew the true worth of that experience. To beat those n, strength alone was never enough. It demanded wit and cunning. Which made the young Arryn's reckless flight to Essos all the more baffling. Theories abounded: so said he wanted freedom, others called him proud, claiming he'd refused to apologize for so slight against the Lannisters, though what exactly that slight was remained unclear. Others spoke of a thirst for violence. My own suspicion settled on sothing simpler: an ordinary hunger for adventure, laced with just a touch of politics.
"Enough of this..." The Hand's patience with his son's willfulness had plainly run out. "Let's leave this matter and move on."
"If that's all the news, I'll leave you to count your copper coins." The mont the king grasped that there was nothing more to hear about his old friend, he was gone, off to bed his boars and hunt his whores, or perhaps the other way around. It hardly mattered.
"Lord Baelish, on what terms did you negotiate with Pentos regarding the matter of..."
And so the absolutely ordinary, thoroughly useless session of the Small Council continued.
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