Chapter 48: Stark Reunion
The Tower of the Hand had a courtyard that caught the afternoon light in a particular way — the sun coming over the Red Keep's eastern walls at an angle that made the shadows long and the stonework warm-looking even when the air was cold.
It was the kind of detail Eddard Stark noticed and then set aside, because he had been on the road for weeks and was tired in the way that accumulated rather than arrived, and noticing things like afternoon light was a luxury that would have to wait.
He had separated from the main column at the castle gate, peeling off with his household guard while Robert continued toward the royal apartments with the noise and ceremony that accompanied Robert everywhere.
The Tower of the Hand was his domain now, or would be once he had changed his clothes and slept for eight hours and attended whatever meeting was apparently already being called for him.
He rode into the courtyard.
And stopped.
Catelyn was standing in the shadow of the porch.
She looked like herself and also like a woman who had been traveling hard and sleeping poorly and holding something together through an act of sustained will.
She stepped forward when she saw him, and he was off the horse before the groom reached him, crossing the courtyard in a few strides, and then her arms were around him and his face was in her hair and for a moment neither of them said anything because there was too much to say and the wrong place to start.
"Ned."
"Cat."
The litter had stopped behind him. He heard it before he turned — the sound of his daughters not waiting for anyone's assistance, the thump of feet on stone, and then Sansa and Arya were there, and Catelyn was holding both of them, and Lady and Nymeria were circling the group with the energy of animals reunited with someone they had missed, and the courtyard had become briefly, completely, a family.
Arya pulled back first, which was always how it went. "How's Bran? Is he awake?"
Catelyn's expression adjusted, just slightly. "Not yet. But Maester Luwin says his pulse is steadying. It won't be long."
Sansa was smoothing her skirts in the way she did when she was recovering composure. "Has Prince Joffrey returned from the Wall?"
"He has. He's gone to see his father." Catelyn cupped her daughter's face for a moment, then looked at Eddard over Sansa's head.
He saw it then — the thing she was carrying that had nothing to do with the road.
"Girls," he said, in the tone that meant the conversation had reached its end for them. "Go inside with the women. Get warm."
They went, trailing wolves and mild protest. The courtyard emptied of everyone except Eddard and Catelyn and the horse standing untended at the gate, which a groom eventually remembered and led away.
"Tell me," Eddard said.
She told him. All of it, from the beginning — the leaf, Tyrion, Cersei's visit to the sickroom, Luwin's diagnosis, the decision to come south. The ship from White Harbor. Henry and Joffrey at the gangplank in the White Harbor harbor.
Eddard listened without interrupting, which was something he had always been able to do and which had always cost him more than it appeared to.
When she finished he stood with his hand over his mouth and looked at the middle distance for a long moment.
"Cat." His voice was careful. "You understand what you're saying."
"I understand exactly what I'm saying."
"You're accusing Cersei. Tyrion. Possibly Jaime." He said the names slowly, as though the weight of them needed to be felt. "The queen, the heir to Casterly Rock, and the Lord Commander's brother. All three. Simultaneously. Based on a leaf."
"Based on a poisoned leaf. Applied by someone who knew exactly how to apply it, who knew the northern custom well enough to use it as cover, and who had access to Bran's room." She held his gaze. "And based on Lysa's letter. And based on the fact that Bran was thrown from that tower, Ned. He didn't fall."
Eddard closed his eyes briefly. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and held them there.
"I know," he said. "I know."
"Then—"
"I believe you." He opened his eyes. "I believe you, and I believe the evidence is what it appears to be. What I'm telling you is that I cannot act on it yet. Not with what we have." He reached out and took her arms, gently. "A leaf is not enough to arrest the queen's brother. A leaf is not enough to arrest the queen. If I move on this without proof that can survive Lannister lawyers and Lannister gold and Lannister influence on every bench in King's Landing, I will have started a war and lost it in the same morning."
Catelyn was quiet.
"I need to find out what Jon Arryn knew," Eddard said. "That's the thread. Whatever he was looking for in the weeks before he died, wherever that thread leads — that's what gives us the whole picture. The leaf is a piece of it. I need the rest."
She nodded, slowly. The frustration was there but she was managing it, which was what Catelyn Tully Stark did with frustration.
"You shouldn't be here," he said then. Not harshly — just the fact of it. "When the Lannisters find out you've come south — and they will find out, they have eyes in every corridor of this castle — they'll know Bran didn't die. They'll know we know something."
"I needed to tell you in person. A raven into the Red Keep goes through the rookery."
"I know." He pulled her close. "But you need to go back. As soon as possible. Take Theon and Rodrik and go back the way you came."
She was quiet against his chest for a moment. "I wanted more time with the girls."
"So did I." He held her for another moment. "When you get back to Winterfell, send word to Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover. I want a hundred archers each, stationed at Moat Cailin. Quietly — no announcement, just repositioning of garrison forces."
Catelyn pulled back to look at him.
"Ask Manderly to accelerate the White Harbor repairs and resupply the garrison. And watch Theon." His voice dropped slightly on that last instruction. "Don't let him move freely. If this breaks into open conflict, we'll need Greyjoy ships or we'll need to know they're not available to anyone else."
"You're preparing for war."
"I'm preparing for the possibility of war," he said. "And praying it doesn't come to it." He looked past her at the shadow of the Red Keep's walls on the courtyard stone. "There's a difference."
A silence. Then: "Henry."
Eddard looked at her.
"He brought me here," Catelyn said. "He didn't have to do that — he could have let us find our own passage south. He brought me directly to the Tower of the Hand and told me to wait." She held his gaze. "Joffrey promised he would seek justice through his father. And Henry—" She paused. "If there is anyone in King's Landing who wants to see the Lannisters answer for something, it's Henry Reyne."
"He's kept a careful peace with them for years," Eddard said. "Robert's presence. Neither side wants to force the king to choose while Robert's alive and capable of choosing." He thought about it. "I'll find an opportunity to speak with him. Feel him out."
"But don't count too much on Joffrey," he added. "He gave you his word and I believe he meant it when he said it. But Cersei is his mother. Whatever he knows or suspects, when it comes to choosing between evidence and his mother's house—" He stopped. "Blood is a powerful argument."
"He might surprise you," Catelyn said.
"He might," Eddard agreed. He did not sound convinced.
The sound of footsteps at the courtyard gate. The Tower's steward, a thin man with the permanent expression of someone managing more than was comfortable.
"Lord Hand." A bow. "Grand Maester Pycelle has called an emergency session of the Small Council. He asks that you attend when you're able."
Eddard looked at Catelyn.
"At least change your clothes," she said.
"Tell the Grand Maester I'll be there within the half hour," Eddard said to the steward. The man bowed again and went.
Eddard looked at his wife — at the road in her face, the worry behind the composure, the woman who had ridden from Winterfell to White Harbor to King's Landing because she needed to tell him something in person and could not trust a raven to do it.
He kissed her forehead.
"Go home, Cat," he said quietly. "Take care of Robb. Take care of Bran. Take care of Rickon." A pause. "I'll handle what's here."
"Be careful, Ned."
"I'm always careful."
She gave him the look that this statement deserved, which was the look of a woman who has been married to him for fifteen years and has opinions about the accuracy of that claim.
He almost smiled. Then he went inside to change his clothes and attend the council meeting he hadn't slept enough to be ready for, in the castle that had already started trying to swallow him whole.
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