LITMIR.BIZ

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whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

      Eddard Stark jerked upright, his heart racing, the blankets tangled around him. The room was black as pitch, and someone was hammering on the door. “Lord Eddard,” a voice called loudly.

      “A moment.” Groggy and naked, he stumbled his way across the darkened chamber. When he opened the door, he found Tomard with an upraised fist, and Cayn with a taper in hand. Between them stood the king’s own steward.

      The man’s face might have been carved of stone, so little did it show. “My lord Hand,” he intoned. “His Grace the King commands your presence. At once.”

      So Robert had returned from his hunt. It was long past time. “I shall need a few moments to dress.” Ned left the man waiting without. Cayn helped him with his clothes; white linen tunic and grey cloak, trousers cut open down his plaster-sheathed leg, his badge of office, and last of all a belt of heavy silver links. He sheathed the Valyrian dagger at his waist.

      The Red Keep was dark and still as Cayn and Tomard escorted him across the inner bailey. The moon hung low over the walls, ripening toward full. On the ramparts, a guardsman in a gold cloak walked his rounds.

      The royal apartments were in Maegor’s Holdfast, a massive square fortress that nestled in the heart of the Red Keep behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes, a castle-within-a-castle. Ser Boros Blount guarded the far end of the bridge, white steel armor ghostly in the moonlight. Within, Ned passed two other knights of the Kingsguard; Ser Preston Greenfield stood at the bottom of the steps, and Ser Barristan Selmy waited at the door of the king’s bedchamber. Three men in white cloaks, he thought, remembering, and a strange chill went through him. Ser Barristan’s face was as pale as his armor. Ned had only to look at him to know that something was dreadfully wrong. The royal steward opened the door. “Lord Eddard Stark, the Hand of the King,” he announced.

      “Bring him here,” Robert’s voice called, strangely thick.

      Fires blazed in the twin hearths at either end of the bedchamber, filling the room with a sullen red glare. The heat within was suffocating. Robert lay across the canopied bed. At the bedside hovered Grand Maester Pycelle, while Lord Renly paced restlessly before the shuttered windows. Servants moved back and forth, feeding logs to the fire and boiling wine. Cersei Lannister sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband. Her hair was tousled, as if from sleep, but there was nothing sleepy in her eyes. They followed Ned as Tomard and Cayn helped him cross the room. He seemed to move very slowly, as if he were still dreaming.

      The king still wore his boots. Ned could see dried mud and blades of grass clinging to the leather where Robert’s feet stuck out beneath the blanket that covered him. A green doublet lay on the floor, slashed open and discarded, the cloth crusted with red-brown stains. The room smelled of smoke and blood and death.

      “Ned,” the king whispered when he saw him. His face was pale as milk. “Come … closer.”

      His men brought him close. Ned steadied himself with a hand on the bedpost. He had only to look down at Robert to know how bad it was. “What …?” he began, his throat clenched.

      “A boar.” Lord Renly was still in his hunting greens, his cloak spattered with blood.

      “A devil,” the king husked. “My own fault. Too much wine, damn me to hell. Missed my thrust.”

      “And where were the rest of you?” Ned demanded of Lord Renly. “Where was Ser Barristan and the Kingsguard?”

      Renly’s mouth twitched. “My brother commanded us to stand aside and let him take the boar alone.”

      Eddard Stark lifted the blanket.

      They had done what they could to close him up, but it was nowhere near enough. The boar must have been a fearsome thing. It had ripped the king from groin to nipple with its tusks. The wine-soaked bandages that Grand Maester Pycelle had applied were already black with blood, and the smell off the wound was hideous. Ned’s stomach turned. He let the blanket fall.

      “Stinks,” Robert said. “The stink of death, don’t think I can’t smell it. Bastard did me good, eh? But I … I paid him back in kind, Ned.” The king’s smile was as terrible as his wound, his teeth red. “Drove a knife right through his eye. Ask them if I didn’t. Ask them.”

      “Truly,” Lord Renly murmured. “We brought the carcass back with us, at my brother’s command.”

      “For the feast,” Robert whispered. “Now leave us. The lot of you. I need to speak with Ned.”

      “Robert, my sweet lord …” Cersei began.

      “I said leave,” Robert insisted with a hint of his old fierceness. “What part of that don’t you understand, woman?”

      Cersei gathered up her skirts and her dignity and led the way to the door. Lord Renly and the others followed. Grand Maester Pycelle lingered, his hands shaking as he offered the king a cup of thick white liquid. “The milk of the poppy, Your Grace,” he said. “Drink. For your pain.”

      Robert knocked the cup away with the back of his hand. “Away with you. I’ll sleep soon enough, old fool. Get out.”

      Grand Maester Pycelle gave Ned a stricken look as he shuffled from the room.

      “Damn you, Robert,” Ned said when they were alone. His leg was throbbing so badly he was almost blind with pain. Or perhaps it was grief that fogged his eyes. He lowered himself to the bed, beside his friend. “Why do you always have to be so headstrong?”

      “Ah, fuck you, Ned,” the king said hoarsely. “I killed the bastard, didn’t I?” A lock of matted black hair fell across his eyes as he glared up at Ned. “Ought to do the same for you. Can’t leave a man to hunt in peace. Ser Robar found me. Gregor’s head. Ugly thought. Never told the Hound. Let Cersei surprise him.” His laugh turned into a grunt as a spasm of pain hit him. “Gods have mercy,” he muttered, swallowing his agony. “The girl. Daenerys. Only a child, you were right … that’s why, the girl … the gods sent the boar … sent to punish me …” The king coughed, bringing up blood. “Wrong, it was wrong, I … only a girl … Varys, Littlefinger, even my brother … worthless … no one to tell me no but you, Ned … only you …” He lifted his hand, the gesture pained and feeble. “Paper and ink. There, on the table. Write what I tell you.”

      Ned smoothed the paper out across his knee and took up the quill. “At your command, Your Grace.”

      “This is the will and word of Robert of House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and all the rest—put in the damn titles, you know how it goes. I do hereby command Eddard of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King, to serve as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm upon my … upon my death … to rule in my … in my stead, until my son Joffrey does come of age …”

      “Robert …” Joffrey is not your son, he wanted to say, but the words would not come. The agony was written too plainly across Robert’s face; he could not hurt him more. So Ned bent his head and wrote, but where the king had said “my son Joffrey,” he scrawled “my heir” instead. The deceit made him feel soiled. The lies we tell for love, he thought. May the gods forgive me. “What else would you have me say?”

      “Say … whatever you need to. Protect and defend, gods old and new, you have the words. Write. I’ll sign it. You give it to the council when I’m dead.”

      “Robert,” Ned said in a voice thick with grief, “you must not do this. Don’t die on me. The realm needs you.”

      Robert took his hand, fingers squeezing hard. “You are … such a bad liar, Ned Stark,” he said through his pain. “The realm … the realm knows … what a wretched king I’ve been. Bad as Aerys, the gods spare me.”

      “No,” Ned told his dying friend, “not so bad as Aerys, Your Grace. Not near so bad as Aerys.”

      Robert

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