Eddard V

The bells in the city were ringing, tolling the death of a king.

Robert, Eddard thought ruefully, you never could resist a good fight.

The subject of the king fighting personally in tourney melees had come up more than once, his friend refusing to hear sense every time. "Why won't you ever let me have any fun, Ned?" he would always ask.

Why, indeed.

It had been a hard-fought contest, or so the raven reported. Prince Joffrey participated as well, which worried Eddard terribly. Big and strong the lad was, but sixteen was too young for that sort of thing. In the end, the victory belonged to the crown prince when Robert could no longer lift his hammer. It would be poetic if tragedy had not struck.

The Hand sighed. Tragedy did strike. Robert, seemingly whole and hale, if bruised and battered, retired early to his bedchamber and never rose again. Joffrey was his king now. King Joffrey would be riding back to King's Landing as soon as may be, and Eddard had been instructed to begin preparations for a coronation.

Much would have to be done, and quickly. He'd sent word to the High Septon and reviewed their food stores, which were ample. Joff would see sense and be content with a modest feast, Eddard had no doubt. This winter may yet prove to be a long one.

Snow flurries could be seen drifting lightly outside his chamber window like frozen teardrops, though Ned doubted they were here to stay. This far south, it would prove to be merely a temporary dusting. Mayhaps the heavens themselves mourned Robert's passing. Mayhaps Eddard was a sentimental fool.

"Anyway, Syrio says I'm ready for a real blade!" Arya chattered happily. They were breaking their fast in his solar in the Tower of the Hand. She'd begged off from the tourney, wishing not to part from her lessons even for a fortnight.

She looked more like Lyanna every day. Sansa, too, to tell it true. As time passed, his daughters grew more beautiful and wild in their own ways. These years in the south had done them good, and Jon, who was a knight high in the king's favor. It was enough to make his heart burst.

Yes, a sentimental fool.

"Is that so?" he asked in interest, though his mind was bent on other tasks. Eddard let his daughter ramble on about thrusts, parries, and footwork while he considered what to do about his other charges.

Lady Lyra Flowers was weeping in the Maidenvault. Her children, young Ned, little Alys, and Joff the babe, kept close. Whether the widowed queen Cersei wept, he preferred not to brood over. Keeping those two apart was chief among his duties with the king away.

Joffrey was a man grown now and would bear his grief manfully, yet Tommen and Myrcella must be devastated. He would have a talk with his daughters about spending time with them to get their minds off their father's passing.

The bells would ring for seven days in mourning. Eddard pushed away from the table to be about his business. First of all, he'd need to convene the Small Council...

"My lord," came the voice of the doorward. "Lord Varys is without and begs audience."

Worse news? Lord Stark supposed Varys would not bestir himself for trivialities. "Send him in, Alyn."

The Spider wore a robe of heavy damask with long daggered sleeves that hung almost to the floor. "My Lord Hand, you must look outside!" he shrieked.

Eddard glanced out his window. "It's snowing, what of it?"

"Towards the south, my lord."

Eddard knew a place with a good view of the river, so he left his chambers with the eunuch in tow. Arya must've thought it sounded interesting, for she followed as well. He didn't have the heart to forbid her.

When they reached the vantage point where Ned liked to watch the ships, he couldn't believe what he saw.

"Gods be good," he whispered. That had to be the whole Iron Fleet!

War galleys and longships, mayhaps hundreds of them, filled the harbor. Hard men in black iron ringmail, brandishing cruel axes, leaped from the decks and waded through the shallows, cutting down anyone they met. The fish market was overrun, and already they were through the mud gate!

If they were here, that meant Dragonstone had likely already fallen, with the Royal Fleet taken by surprise. No ravens came from the Narrow Sea. The silence discomfitted him greatly.

Treason and madness! What possibly could've driven the Iron Islands to rebel after being so favored by a match with the royal house?

Eddard looked at Varys. "How?" he demanded.

"A wedding and a tourney are as good a cover as any, my lord," Varys answered with precise, clipped sentences delivered rapidly. The serious tone was so very unlike the Master of Whisperer's usual manner, almost like the eunuch was a completely different person. "I can only speculate. Likely, they moved the Iron Fleet to the Stepstones, a few ships at a time, to avoid drawing notice. While the king is away at the tourney, they might fall on the city with all their power."

"Do you...Do you suppose they murdered the king?" Eddard almost didn't dare to raise the question out loud.

"I do not believe in coincidences, my lord," was Varys' only answer.

Gods, King Joffrey was in danger! Prince Tommen, Princess Myrcella, his daughters, Jon! They were surrounded by Greyjoy men!

The situation below was developing rapidly. Roving bands of Ironborn reavers were in the city. The River Gate was already theirs, and a portion detached to seize the King's Gate as well. They met hardly any resistance. The cold weather kept folk indoors, and no alarm had been sounded. Likely, the people of the city assumed the bells tolled for the king and not for an attack!

He kept his eyes on the progress of the invasion. "We must..."

There was a sharp twang of a crossbow quarrel and a high-pitched scream.

"EEK!" cried Varys.

Arya clutched a bloody blade in her hand. Wherever had she gotten it?

The eunuch wept piteously as a small crowbow dropped from his bleeding sleeves. "What did you do to Nymeria!" his daughter demanded.

"Merely drugged with sweetsleep, child. Your wolf will wake, never fear." His sleeves were wet and red. "I had thought to account for all, save that bravo's blade in your breeches, it seems."

Arya had her sword pointed at his heart. "Don't move! Why did you try to kill my father?"

Ned looked behind him and found the quarrel meant to take his life sticking out of a garderobe. "You're in league with them!" he accused the spy.

"Not...them...my lord." Varys was rapidly growing pale. He leaned heavily against the wall, breathing with difficulty.

"I only cut his wrists, Father! When he went for the crossbow in his sleeves! Why is he like that?" Arya asked hysterically.

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They never got an answer from Varys, who bled to death before their eyes. Arya began weeping, realizing at last what wielding a blade really meant. Eddard wished to stay and comfort her, but the city was in peril.

"Lock yourself in your chambers," he ordered, "and open the door for no one." She nodded through her tears, listening for once. He wished his daughter had her wolf with her. As a matter of fact, he ought to have known something was amiss when Nymeria wasn't by her side.

Yet another thing I was blind to.

Varys proved a traitor, yet died before he could name the true power he served. He wondered what other ill news would befall them. Were there other traitors?

Enough! Eddard forced himself to focus on the matter at hand. The Greyjoys were bad enough.

The Hand made rapid calculations in his head, deciding how many men to send into the city to fight and how many to hold back to defend the Red Keep. He sent a page running for Lord Stannis while making for the tower where Maester Pycelle kept the ravens.

Dead, all of them! The maester himself lay motionless in a bed of blood with his throat cut, and every raven in the rookery had lost its head! Varys must've been here first, or someone who served him. Briefly, he considered sending what remained of the Kingsguard, only Ser Loras and Ser Balon, to take the queen in hand and ride hard for Rosby, where they might call for help.

No, she'll be safer in Maegor's Holdfast, once we raise the drawbridge. The Red Keep could hold out long, ere the city fell. Lord Rykker of Duskendale and Lady Whent of Harrenhal could command a goodly number of swords and ride to their relief. Rapidly, he took a scrap of parchment in the maester's empty solar and scratched out orders. He'd have it sent with a rider, a trusted man on a fast horse. As a matter of fact, he'd send two, writing out an identical message and rolling it up.

"My lord, the city is under attack!" Stannis reported dutifully. The page led the man straight to him. Perfect.

"Aye. I bid you arm as quick as may be, and take one hundred swords to form a strong point on the Hill of Rhaenys. The streets are wider there, and the Ironborn have yet to touch that side of the city. Rally what loyal men you can and sweep down the Street of Sisters. I shall join you shortly with every man I can raise."

Stannis asked not a single question, only nodding once. Ere he departed, Ned rallied the Hand's personal guard and picked two men for dispatch riders. They took off for the castle stables at a full run. Good.

His squire, a boy named Hal, helped Eddard arm and brought him the Valyrian steel greatsword, Ice. Clad in full plate, he gathered his men in the bailey of the Red Keep. He didn't have to wait long. All the castle was awake and aware by now.

A few hundred only, some still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, but every man was armed and armored. Baratheon men, Stark men, Lannister men. It would have to be enough.

There was no time for speeches. "The rebels are in the city!" he cried. "We must push them into Blackwater Bay! Long Live King Joffrey!"

"Long Live King Joffrey!" they cried in reply.

They shut the portcullis behind them after his force marched out. He left behind a stout garrison to hold the Red Keep if they failed. Stannis' man, Ser Davos, would be castellan until Eddard returned.

On the south side of the city, the streets were too narrow to fight ahorse. Would that Joff had managed to rebuild it all to his specifications. They marched to the sound of screaming and the clash of steel on steel.

Once the Ironborn spotted his knights and men-at-arms, they formed a shield wall, closing off the winding street known as The Hook. Then, madness.

It was no battle, but one hundred battles. They fought street by street. He and his men charged the shield wall at a full run. Eddard lashed out with Ice, cutting a reaver down, then found it hard to raise the weapon again in the press. There was pushing and stabbing and grunting and screaming. They pushed through the lot in The Hook, only to run into a larger band of reavers on the Street of Steel. They quickly ceased breaking into houses and assembled another shield wall.

One got hold of ice, and Eddard lost his weapon. Hal, his squire, handed him a mace, which he began swinging at Ironborn skulls with determination. This time, they could not push through. His men were hundreds, yet the Ironborn were thousands. They fell back, trying to draw the invaders into chokepoints. In every encounter, his force grew fewer. Street by street, the reavers pushed them back. Retaking the Mud Gate was hopeless now.

Eddard tried to break out north and link up with Stannis, but the Iron men hemmed him in and checked his progress, flooding through the streets he couldn't hold.

As they gave ground, Stark realized some reavers had gotten behind them! They were trapped!

Looking about, Eddard tried to recall the name of this street, the street he would surely die in. Ice was gone. His squire Hal was gone, having taken a spear to the leg and unable to follow as they were driven from the Street of Looms. He was shoulder to shoulder with a Lannister man.

"Your name, Ser?" Eddard asked during a lull in the fighting. From the sound of things, the Ironborn were massing to crush this pocket of resistance.

"Lancel, Lord Hand."

Gods, Ned recalled Lancel was of an age with his son Robb. He thought of Robb then, and Cat, Bran, Rickon, and the girls. He thought of Jon.

"Promise me, Ned!"

Then it happened.

The people of King's Landing rose up not in thousands, but in tens of thousands. Every door on every street opened, and they came pouring out, clutching whatever weapon was at hand. Men in greasy leather jerkins climbed up snowy roofs and rained down grey goose shafts on clusters of Ironborn. Smiths rallied their 'prentice boys and set upon the invaders with hammers and axes and tongs. Whores, seamstresses, and maids leapt on foes with daggers and smashed their faces with cooking pots. Innkeeps dragged the wounded into their establishments to be tended to by their daughters.

As more joined the fight, Eddard and Lancel were able to break out and start driving the Ironborn back again. Soon, the rebels had enough and fled for their ships.

The bells tolled for Robert, and for victory.

Victory, aye, but not without loss. They found Stannis Baratheon surrounded by dead reavers, his armor smashed and dented in a dozen places. Much of the city round about the River Gate was ravaged. As they were, there could be no pursuit. Most of the Greyjoy ships got away. If they were based out of Dragonstone, they could do much harm, reaving and raping up and down the coast. He needed to warn the king.