Eddard?

  How had it come to this so quickly, he wanted to ask, but he knew not to who. It had not even been a moon since that bedamned letter had found him, and not even a fortnight since they had sailed from White Harbor.

  What met them in King's Landing could only be described as a madhouse.

  Jon Arryn had passed quietly in his sleep three nights ago, and that very night Cat's sister had taken her son and fled King's Landing for the Vale. Finally, Stannis Baratheon had sailed to Dragonstone without a word said to anyone.

  With Renly Baratheon at Highgarden, that left only four seats on the small council. Of those four, the only occupant he could say he trusted was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and the position was only an advisory one.

  Not even for all the love he still held for Robert had he wanted to deal with this headache, but he had pleaded with him to at least stay in King's Landing for a time and consider it.

  Ned had wanted to refuse him in spite of the request, but in the end it was his debt to Jon Arryn that he agreed. Now, looking back, he should have trusted his gut and never left Winterfell.

  He took a breath, gripping Ice tightly as he listened to the sounds of birds.

  Even the godswood here was wrong, for there was not a weirwood at its heart, but instead an oak with no face. Was there any surer sign that a Stark was not welcome here? If there was, he did not know it.

  "I had thought to find you here."

  Turning at the sound of a voice, he gentled when he saw it was Ser Brynden. His Tully hair had gone grey since he had last seen him, and he had more lines and creases than he remembered. His deep blue eyes like a river set and knightly poise were all that remained the same.

  "Ser Brynden. I hear you arrived in the city some days before us."

  The older man sighed as he joined Ned on the bench. "In time to see my niece off, as it were."

  He seemed to be struggling to find the right words, and Ned waited patiently as a courtesy.

  He also took the time to calm his own thoughts.

  "Lysa did not think King's Landing safe anymore. Claimed it hadn't been a chill that had taken the Hand, but poison."

  His blood ran as cold as winter at the words. This was not the type of man to make such a jest, and more was that it swiftly answered a number of questions he had.

  "By whose hand?" he whispered hoarsely.

  "The queen's, though she also claimed that she was not acting alone." There Ser Brynden made a grimace, his features muddled with doubt as well as age now.

  "I will hear it no matter how unlikely." He owed it to Jon to discover all who had a hand in his murder.

  "Lysa's changed in the years she has lived within this festering rot of a city, Lord Stark. I worry the Hand's death has shaken what good sense she had left, but yes, she has named others." The knight scratched at his grey stubble a moment. "A stranger had come two moons back by name of Solomon the Magnificent, she had said, a sorcerer that whispers in the queen's ear. Together, she believes, they conspired to poison her husband."

  He stared at Ser Brynden at the end, trying to make some sense of it. Even if he were to believe that, why poison the Hand?

  "I would take Lysa's words as what they are," Ser Brynden continued, "the words of a woman bereaved."

  "Has she offered any evidence? Even a thought as to why?"

  The knight looked away. "She believes that it is because Lord Arryn was known as a pious man, and so was a threat to the sorcerer's dark intentions. That was all she told me before she gathered all the men sworn to House Arryn in the city and left for the Vale."

  Was he supposed to believe that King's Landing had become a haunt of murderous queens and sorcerers or that Lysa Arryn was not a woman well? Ned had never cared for that Andal obsession with naming everything strange sorcery, but such a story might still have some truth to it.

  "Where are they now, the queen and this so-called sorcerer?"

  "The queen has returned from Storm's End with His Grace, and as for this sorcerer, what little I have heard of him, is that he has traveled to Highgarden with Renly Baratheon."

  This tale only gets stranger with every word he hears. Ned placed a hand on Ser Brynen's shoulder.

  "I apologize for getting you involved in this sordid affair. If I had known, I would have been hard-pressed to stir myself from Winterfell."

  The older man returned a smile. "We cannot say we do not live in interesting times. I have not changed my mind on my nephew either. It is the least I can do for Cat."

  The words had given him an idea. "If you will have Bran as your squire, I ask that you leave this city as soon as you are able," Ned whispered. "Return to the Vale or the Riverlands, but far from here." He met the knight's deep blue eyes again. "Can I trust you to keep him safe, Ser Brynden?"

  There was a short pause between them. "You are staying?"

  "It would be a disservice to Jon Arryn's memory if I did not even try to discover the truth." He saw his father's blackened bones again before he shook his head. "But not as Hand. Let Robert name another with my blessings."

  Ser Brynden stared a moment. "I fear any he finds will only find themselves swallowed up by this city, but you are still a braver man than I, Lord Stark."

  This wasn't bravery, he wanted to say. This was a fool's duty.

  "Then I shall speak with my nephew, get his measure. It has been some time since I last had a squire."

  Ned nodded, removing his signet ring and placing it into the knight's hand. "Show it to the captain of my guard. Though I must warn you, Bran is a spirited boy. Watch him like a hawk for you might blink and find him elsewhere."

  Ser Brynden smiled like a rogue. "It is those boys that make the finest knights, my lord, though Hoster would disagree. It was on his suggestion that I took a black fish as my sigil, though he would disagree with that as well."

  Ned nodded. "I shall go speak with the Grand Maester in the meantime. It is my hope that he will shed some light on Lord Arryn's passing."

  Ser Brynden touched a hand to his shoulder. "I would ask the Crone to light your path, but I do not think you would trust her."

  He took the jest in the spirit it was given. "I thank you for the thought still, Ser Blackfish."

  They separated not long after, and he made for the rookery.

  The heat was almost unbearable today, but he had already abandoned his furs, so there was nothing to do but bear it in silence. It reminded him of his time in Dorne so many years ago.

  With so few clouds to darken the sun, it only made the bricks of the Red Keep seem all the more red. They say Maegor the Cruel's deprivations had left a curse upon it, and perhaps that was true. Ned certainly held no fondness for a place that saw his father burned and brother strangled.

  He had been about to climb the tower stairs when a voice like polished brass interrupted him. "I fear our venerable Grand Maester will not give you the answers you seek, Stark."

  He turned his eyes to the source. "Lord Baelish," he bit out coldly. The whoremonger was the last person he wanted to speak with right now.

  "The very same. Has Cat told you of me? We were fast friends at Riverrun."

  He was a short man, and just as slight, with false green eyes as mocking as his smile; little wonder it was then that most had called him Littlefinger. "Brandon told me of you."

  "Truly? Ah, I feel honored that Brandon Stark spoke even a word about me. I hadn't put up much of a fight, you see." There was a pitying expression that seemed exaggerated. "Not that you would find me ungrateful for having my life spared. More fool the boy who challenges the starving wolf for his prey than the wolf, wouldn't you agree?"

  Annoyed with his jests, Ned had taken another step when he heard the whoremonger's words again.

  "The Grand Maester is Cersei's creature through and through. You will get no more from him than you would her beloved brother."

  The words had Ned remembering the sight of Jaime Lannister smirking as he sat the throne with a golden sword over his knees, the Mad King's corpse on the steps beneath him with a throat red with ruin.

  It was madness for Robert to have placed him on his own Kingsguard, but that as he had seen had been the least of it.

  Littlefinger's words knocked him from his trance then. "You want to know if Lysa Arryn's fevered words held any truth to them? Would you care to hear my thoughts?"

  He turned again to stare. "You would have me trust you?"

  The man laughed, the sun brushing against his colorful velvet tunic. "No, Stark, not trusting me is the least you should do. Why, I daresay you should not trust a soul in this city, be they a beggar or even an old friend. Do so, and you may yet thrive."

  "Then what need have I of your thoughts?"

  "You needn't trust a man to listen to his words." Littlefinger shrugged his shoulders haplessly. "Jon Arryn's newly widowed lady wife may be a woman prone to panic and fancy, but I think most would find it suspect how as soon as the Hand had moved to investigate a certain prickly matter, a sickness takes him."

  Ned stirred, remembering the contents of the letter he had fed to the fire. "A certain prickly matter?" he repeated.

  There was that smile again. "It was by the Hand's will that I was made master of coin, Stark. I am not shy to say that I owe him the position, and through the past few years I have worked to repay him for his trust in me. If you wish to hear the fruits of those efforts, then we must venture outside the Red Keep, for its walls ever have unwanted listeners."

  He hesitated. That Jon Arryn had some measure of trust in him did not yet mean he did, and he was too new to the city to tell a trap from a quiet conversation.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Littlefinger must have noticed something in his eyes or in his posture. "It needn't be now. By all means, exhaust all the means you have available to you. Our master of whispers will have plenty whispers for your ear, ever loyal servant of the realm that he is. And how couldn't he be, when he holds no lands and has fathered no sons?"

  Departing after a deep yet equally mocking bow, he left Ned to his thoughts, thoughts that grew more gnarled and twisted with each passing moment. And as he ascended to speak to the Grand Maester, he quickly learned that Littlefinger had the truth of it. The ancient man told him nothing he didn't already know.

  Why, Robert? Why have you allowed all this? But there was no answer for him in his thoughts, and he dared not ask Robert himself, who would just wield it as a cudgel to get him to accept the position.

  Yet for a moment he wondered if he should. Lord Cregan Stark too had come to King's Landing and found a city mired in its own rot at the end of a bloody civil war, and he had set it to rights. The Hour of the Wolf the maesters called it.

  He shook his head after another moment. It was a brutal action for a brutal time, when the wolf blood ran thick in House Stark. Nor did he have an army at his back to carry out his will as Cregan Stark did.

  Perhaps he should write to Cat and get her true thoughts on Littlefinger. At least then he might approach knowing more than what a few jests from Brandon told him.

  Though with the thought of her also came a longing, one he tried to swallow. He still needed to speak with Ser Wendel, for right now his was the only source of information he trusted.

  He would also be asking House Manderly's aid in ferrying more men from Winterfell, for even with his household guard and Ser Wendel's men, he did not think it was enough. He needed only a glance to see how corrupt the gold cloaks were, and the gods only knew when the master of laws would return from Highgarden…

  Margaery?

  "Then it is true?" she asked her grandmother.

  "It is. He was older than me by a few years, though you wouldn't know it. Healthy as an ox, that one."

  Margaery tugged at her thick brown locks. "You believe there was foul play?"

  "It's King's Landing, sweetling. If a turnip had killed a man, I would suspect the turnip and the man." Willas chuckled softly as he broke some bread off from the loaf. "Though it is queer thing, I admit. The old falcon had always taken great care not to step on anyone's toes."

  "I am more curious as to who will succeed him," her brother commented. "Eddard Stark had somehow found himself in King's Landing, and yet unless something had changed, is still only Lord Stark. I might have guessed Stannis Baratheon if not for his flight to Dragonstone."

  "And we should count our lucky stars for that. Stannis has little love for us after my son had spent the better part of the war feasting outside Storm's End, and his Florent wife only worsens the pot."

  "Tywin Lannister would not be much better. Already the capital is swamped with Lannister toadies."

  "And Hoster Tully is too sick," Grandmother concluded. "If Stark continues to delay, my son might think he has a chance and will run off to King's Landing to plead his case."

  "Mayhaps if Renly argued for the same," Willas said, though he didn't seem convinced. "In any case, I think we would all agree that Lord Stark would otherwise be the best option for us. He is not a man prone to grudges."

  Grandmother harrumphed but didn't argue. Instead a sly smile appeared on her lips. "He has a daughter, already a beauty like her mother. Your sister has a husband now, Willas, yet I cannot help but notice that you still spurn a wife."

  He made an uncomfortable face. "She is a girl not even flowered yet, and I am a cripple."

  "And the North is the least of the kingdoms."

  "I believe that would be the Iron Islands," her brother commented.

  "I said kingdoms, not barren rocks."

  Margaery laid a hand upon his. "You are heir to Highgarden, Willas. A match with Sansa Stark would be a good one."

  "And you needn't bed her for a few years yet. Though speaking of beddings…" Margaery watched her grandmother's thorny smile turn on her. "Has Renly yet deigned to put an heir in your belly?"

  She gave a soft sigh. "He says there is no rush as he sings my praises in the same breath."

  "Perhaps he thinks his seed will take on my grandson," she threw back irreverently. "I might have to have a few words with him myself, as clearly none have explained to him how it works yet."

  "Grandmother," Willas admonished.

  "A fool my husband might have been, but at least he knew where to put it," she continued, and Margaery shared a look with her brother. "Now, have we learned anything more of the mummer we have played the gracious hosts to for the better part of a moon? Apart from Renly and Brienne the Beauty, you have spent the most time with him, Willas."

  Willas pulled at the sleeves of his dark green doublet. "I feel as if I have learned everything there is to know about him, and yet nothing at all."

  Margaery looked away, her thoughts finding their way back to the gift Solomon had given her. A rose for a rose, he had said. She also wondered what gift he had given the groom, but Renly never said.

  "In any event, he has already left for Oldtown."

  Grandmother snorted. "While it would be a pleasant thought to never think of him again, the influence he has over our prancing stag is almost perverse."

  Margaery had only seen Grandmother speak to him once, and she had ever been sour since.

  "What council he has given has not been unkind to Highgarden," Willas muttered.

  "Oh, not unkind. But for what reason? Have you asked?"

  "He has shown us nothing but courtesy," Margaery argued softly. "And not only us. Where others have thrown the most hurtful words at Lady Brienne's back, he has been kind in her presence and out of it." Was it any wonder then that she had fallen for him so? "I hear he has even asked a few if they would knight her."

  "To a man as that kindness is but another weapon."

  Her brother sighed. "It is safe to say he has some agenda, but until we know what it is, I think this pointless."

  Grandmother gave him a fonder smile. "You have the right of it. Now, what say we put together a letter for the proud Eddard Stark. We should see how much of a twit a fish raised by wolves will be before we decide."

  He returned her smile with a heavy helping of exasperation, and Margaery bid them both well wishes before returning to her apartments. Her cousins were elsewhere today, but that served her well, for there she made to look upon her gift again.

  It was a rose with petals like molten gold, like that oft found on the banners of her House, though in a certain light she thought them a purer shade of yellow sometimes.

  He had told her that if she pricked a finger on it at least once every few moons, that it would never wilt. She hadn't dared to believe him, and yet it had remained the same without even a drop of water to drink.

  Her eyes found the thorns, and with a bravery that surprised her, she pressed her thumb against one until she bled, a gasp escaping her. Her red blood ran down the stem, and she thought it would fall until it somehow stopped. She watched the rose drink of her blood like a glutton, a pleasant aroma filling the room.

  With a smile on her lips, she raised the petals to her nose, that sweet smell filling her lungs. There had never been a scent so fair, she thought.

  Margaery almost dropped it when she heard a knock on the door. "If we could speak, my lady." Renly?

  Quickly, she hid the rose again, and after another moment she opened the door. To her surprise it was only him, her brother not shadowing him as he oft would.

  "Have you been well? I admit I have been preoccupied since we were wed."

  Renly graced her with a smile as he walked inside with a grace belying his stature, and there he paused, breathing in deeply of the same scent.

  "Highgarden has always been kind to me," she answered.

  He turned around with unfocused eyes. "I fear the Red Keep will not be quite as kind, but it does still hold a beauty to it when you forget all the wickedness it has seen."

  "My lord?"

  "I have been gone from King's Landing too long, and look at what has happened." He gave a put upon sigh. "It will need to be put to rights, and your lord father has agreed to lend his aid."

  She was not surprised. "I understand."

  "The choice is yours, of course, but it would be strange if my lady wife did not accompany me."

  Margaery smiled at him. "While I will always hold a special love for Highgarden, my lord, I have also wanted to see the world. I will want to see Storm's End when it pleases you as well."

  His smile brightened, and he kissed her hand. For a moment she thought he might finally bed her, but his mercurial eyes flashed again and he left her to her thoughts, thoughts that soon returned to the heady aroma still lingering in the air.

  What was she to make of it? At first she had thought Solomon was not unlike Renly, but he had since endeavored to show her otherwise, and now he had given her a rose that her septa would see burned if she knew.

  But she would not know unless Margaery told her and she would not. It was much too beautiful for her to part with, for a gift as fine as it could have traveled here from Yi-Ti, or further still.

  Retrieving it again, the petals seemed even brighter now, and she almost pricked her finger again. He had said she only had to once every few moons, so there wasn't a need.

  Margaery laid it down to rest upon her pillow instead, where she watched it until the sun set, and later still.