“That it may…We can dye the hair if it turns to be Rhaegars hair color but luckily we know that babes of that linage don’t always have the father’s traits, Rhaegars daughter looked more Dornish than Targaryen. The babe has the eyes of a Stark and the darkness in the few wisps, I doubt they’d turn a silver blonde anytime soon.” Though he knew Cat was more than correct on her knowledge of babes but surely he also had to be right?
“Well…I mean…both our families have fertile seed. I don’t see why not. It would seem a bit odd but what am I to do? Give him to Ned and say it had been Ashara Daynes? Ruin a dead womans reputation as my sisters has been tarnished, saying she had beenrapedby Rhaegar when she looked only of love?” He turned sour in his tone, anger coming back towards the end. “He would try and fail. Cat I don’t know what to do. Either way someone ends up hurt. I’m just trying to find the best solution and that’s why I came to you, why Itrustedyou with this because unlike me you don’t rush into things headfirst. You don’t make stupid decisions that almost end in your death!”
The more he spoke the angrier he got and the louder he became, waking the boy in his arms and he immediately went to hush and calm it down and he glanced at the white tree. “Gods help me..”
“Would the Honorable Eddard Stark tell you if she had been with my child? “ He asked her wondering if she truly believed that he would have not lied to protect something. Rhaegar thought on her words for a moment longer and he had a wild look in his eyes and he spoke with urgency. “Lady Stark…When exactly did Eddard come with his bastard from the Tower? Five months yes but…Lyannna was-My wife was close to birthing before I left for the trident, any moment she could have had the child.” His thoughts jumbled together for a moment as he thought too many impossible thoughts at once and none of them seemed to make sense. No, Robert and Tywin had seen to his lines death. There was no way Lyanna and his child was alive.
“And my mother bore only three alive for more than a year and died giving birth to the tenth, Viserys had been sickly as a babe, ten children and no thanks to my father, my mother was never in the best physical health. Elia couldn’t handle a third, it would have killed her. Sometimes more than three or four is too many for the body. Can you honestly tell me you think you would carry a sixth or a seventh child to term and in good health, either of you if you were to fall with child again?” He asked “Hypothetically of course.”
He gave a small chuckle as she spoke of Robbs engagement. “And how long will that last? Lyanna was to marry Robert and I fancied her and she fancied me. Robb will honor this marriage? He will have her bare his children and not this Jeyne? Beauty sometimes will take over a mans mind more than honor and an engagement. How many bastards have been born outside a marriage? Robb is a man like any other. A great warrior and a strong tactiion but I prey he doesn’t fall into the trap so many of us men fall to. “
A low growl emanated from his throat as she spoke about lies and he had not had a baby in his arms she would know his true wild nature. He knew she would think ill of him and think this a child of another woman, how crazy it would sound for this to be his sisters babe. “I’m not lying Catelyn. This is my sisters babe. Hafl wolf and half dragon. When she spoke of the child, of Rhaegar love was clear on her face. I don’t believe this may have been a true bastard. It was clear Rhaegar wanted a third child, to fufil that vision of his…Elia couldn’t have another, it was spread like wild-” He stopped short before he could finish, having flashbacks to the Mad King and knowing from Jaime Lannister what he had wanted to do to Kings Landing…
“What was it called again? Prince that was promised? I know one of the lines calls for a song of ice and fire…Rhaegar was noble enough to not have a bastard unlike his father and ancestors. Nobler than Robert. But I’m still having trouble knowing for certain if this child if indeed a bastard or not.” Brandon shook his head as the babe fell asleep finally in his arms and he still stayed looking at Cat. “You don’t think Eddard would lie if he was in my position? Least I am telling you. Eddard is too noble to even do that if he was married and in my position. He’d take the blame and call it his bastard to your face. Bejen, I don’t know what he would even do…” Brandon was grateful that it was he that had found Lyanna and found the babe and he cared not for Robert. “You know I do not care what Robert thinks or believes. This child will be Stark if I have any say. Least a Snow…But he will be cared for and loved and treated as any trueborn son.”
“Yes. Lyanna was. I don’t know what happened to the babe, from what I hear your husband was the last one to see her alive…Did he tell you anything?” He frowned as he realized if she was asking than she didn’t know anything at all, no more than he did. “Sorry, I just…I never got to know if she had a son or a daughter. She was close to giving birth when I had to leave for the trident.” Rhaegar sighed “Five seems like a lot. Than again Waldar Frey has an immense population all by himself.” The Targaryen gave a laugh, feeling more at ease around her.
“Jeyne, is she from a good house at least? Though politically there are better options…Waldar Frey would not be one of them. He’s been trying to weasel his way into any and all Great Houses, no doubt he’s still at it now.” Rhaegar cautioned. His father hadn’t trusted Waldar Frey and he himself didn’t trust Waldar not one bit.
“Forgive me Lady Catelyn, I shouldn’t be giving you counsel on these matters. Or to persuade you at all over your son in his dealings.”
Still he’d survived it all and the Tullys had come North for the wedding; instead of the ceremony being in her Riverrun’s sept it would be in Winterfell Godswood. “Brandon!” Benjen had said both his brothers would be home soon but she’d not expected it just a matter of days after she’d arrived. “Benjen sent word to Father you’d be here soon, we only just arrived ourselves.”
They’d finally be married after putting it off yet another year. Most maids married by seven and ten and she was uncomfortably closer to twenty than nine and ten.
“You’re ho-” A baby? “What is that?”
“I’m glad you are here.” Brandon said warmly as she neared her and his dark eyes drifted towards the babe and back to Cat. “It’s a baby. It’s not mine, or Eddards…I think we should speak in private.” He gave a nod to Eddard who grimly nodded back and greeted Benjen and they walked off to leave the two of them alone. “Can we talk in the Godswood?” He asked as he held on to the babe protectively, unsure of what Cat would do or say about this. He could oly imagine she thought he had slept with another woman and this was his bastard. He couldn’t blame her for anything ill she thought of him or the babe.
Once they sat at the Godswood, he stared at the face of the white tree and looked at the babe as he gently rocked him to hush his cries. “His name is Jon.” He started “He’s my nephew, Eddard and Bejen’s as well. He is Rhaegars son Cat.” He still was in shock from the very ordeal itself, not being able to save his sister. “He’s Lyannas son.” Tears welled up in his eyes as he thought of his sweet young sister. His only sister, barely hanging on as she made him promise to take care of the babe. “Robert can never know the truth. He’d kill the babe as the Mountain killed his half siblings.” He now looked at Cat “We are to marry soon…I know this is not what you had imagined, me being gone for as long as I had nor my nephew in tow. But can you accept this?”
The men on Robb’s council were furious… so was she really but Robb had seen the Targaryen prince back from the dead as an ally who could never be turned to the Lannisters. Catelyn was sure- she wanted to be sure- he didn’t like the idea of allying himself with the son of the man who’d killed his grandfather but he’d little choice in the matter. The North needed southern allies.
“You said you were why my husband brought home his bastard. What did you have to do with Lady Dayne’s affair with Ned?” she asked from the doorway. In the camps Rhaegar’s identity had been well hidden- from the Northern bannermen who weren’t included as part of Robb’s council more than anyone- but when they’d come back to Riverrun he’d been given chambers of his own.
The truth would come out in the morning.
Tonight she’d have answers.
“Well If I hadn’t taken Lyanna as my wife than his father and brother would have no need to venture far from home and Eddard no need to come and fight, nor go to Dorne to rescue Lyanna.” He told Cat briefly shrugging it off like it was the obvious answer. “Just who is Eddards mistress? I’ve heard Ashara Dayne to some wench in a bar. You’re his wife surely he must have confided in you” His thoughts wondered back to his own children and he wondered what would have happened if Lyanna hadn’t died. If their child had survived.
Rhaegar had been glad to hear that Robb Stark had allowed him to stay as he had predicted the young wolf was in deed in need of allies and he would take what he could get and having sent letters out to those he knew he could trust in hopes of gaining more supporters to the cause of the Starks and now it was a matter of a waiting game. “Least you and Eddard have many children together, even if there is one bastard to add to all of that. Wish I could have seen all three of my own, alive and well.” Rhaegar poured them both a goblet of wine and offered her one to take. “Robb seems smitten with that girl, what was her name again? Jane?”
“I understand that very much, Lady Stark. Had I been able to at the time I would have taken vengeance for what was done to my own family as you and your son are doing now. With Robert and Eddard no. But Robert would have started some sort of war within his own family had he believed the truth of it all” Rhaegar stated before Cat spoke of Tywin trying to marry Cersei off to him. “Yes, that’s true and had Viserys or one of my dead siblings been born and lived to be a girl i’m sure Tywin would throw either of his sons at her.”
“I did yes.” He ignored the contempt in her voice, the way she spoke of Lyanna and her brothers. “Am I also the reason your husband came back from war with a bastard?” He asked tilting his head “Lyanna and I wed and I placed her at the Tower of joy in Dorne yes, but because it was safe, i had intended for Elia and our children to follow as well but the war came to quickly and the Ravens didn’t fly and before I knew it I was fighting Robert at the Trident and dying.”
Rhaegar took a quick deep breath trying to remain as calm as he could while talking to her of the past. “I would be shocked if he did trust me if I’ll be honest. But I swear on my life that I mean when I say that I will amend my actions in the past and strive towards a better future.” He argued for himself and for what was left of any allies he and his house might have. “Viserys knows of the Seven Kingdoms, he knows it’s home. He and Daenerys should know that they have a place here, free of fear and starvation from being on the run all of the time.” He had he been revived sooner he would have stopped this, he would have gone to them and brought them back to Westeros with open arms but now they were lost in the Dothraki sea and no clear whereabouts.
“I intend to bring them home, Lady Stark and if I should not see the throne in my hands after Joffery and his mother are far from the throne, than I would like to help see it to better hands and one that would support your son as King in the North. Please, talk to your son and I shall await his word.”
“You and your father started that
war, it was nothing Brandon and Robert did.”
Aryes who’d overreacted. Aryes who’d called for Jon Arryan to give
him Ned and Robert. “You’d have saved all of us heartache
and death if you’d done away with him instead of letting it come to a
head when your wife was slaughtered by Lannister’s Dog.”
Stuff and nonsense. The whole of the
Seven Kingdoms knew how that whole disaster came about. “She
loved you enough to betray everything she had did she?”
She not have blamed the girl for running from a match with Robert
Baratheon but all the same it had cost so many men their lives.
“Brandon went tearing down to King’s
Landing weeks before we were to marry because you
kidnapped his sister, and Rikard went after him.”
Only afterward had Aryes called for Ned’s head and Robert’s too.
That
whole bloody war could be link to Lyanna disappearing.
“I
don’t rule my son’s council’s, he’s a man grown who makes his own
decisions.”
He listened to her- more than most men listened to their mothers but
he was still so much a child. He was younger than Ned had been when
they married… a boy who’d grown a beard in a desperate attempt to
seem a man. “Your
sister married a Dothraki Horse Lord,”
Cat said when he spoke of his family- the two other remaining
dragons. She still wasn’t quite sure how Ned knew all that but he
had.
Knowing
Robert he had spies watching the two.
His hands curled tight, fingers against his palms as Cat spoke of the past and his eyes glared at her. There were many things that he wished he could have done in hindsight but now…it was pointless. “And had you and your late husband done a many things differently there’d be no war against the throne and your dear husband still alive.” Rhaegar fired back.
“Yes. She was going to write to her family but I got called away soon after Brandon and Rikard came to Kings Landing and I have no idea if the letter had even sent before than. It’s clear no word was spread…” The alleged kidnapping tale of Lyanna spread and while he knew the truth was easily twisted to lies by the victor of any battle but for nearly the whole realm to believe that he would just take a woman like some Ironborn dog…
“And a grown man would still listen to the advice and counsel of the older generation.” Rhaegar shrugged, before his whole demenur shifted as she brought up his sister. A Dothraki?! What in the Seven Hells was Viserys thinking? His sister, marrying a savage…a barbarian. “Gods. The poor child.” He wanted to go to Essos now and drag both his siblings home no matter the cost. “When I get my hands on Viserys…” Anger filled his words though he knew his younger brother was most likely desperate and reaching for some semblance of power and an army. It wasn’t a bad idea but he had hoped Viserys had been smart enough to do everything correctly.
“You can’t come back from the dead. That’s not possible.” her face went white. Every child knew that. Death was one of the few certain in life. “Not even a heretic priest could manage that.”
She’d have given anything to have Ned back.
All these years alive with a Baratheon on the thrzne. “You wait until my husband was murdered by the Lannisters and Robert dead until yourself again.” Until the whole of the Seven Kindoms… six now was a warring mess. “You forget what your family cost the Starks,” Two sons and a daughter and Rickard himself. “my son’s bannermen won’t take kindly to an ex-Dragon prince in their camp.
Even the bannermen who sided with your father until the end have taken up arms for a Baratheon this time.” Dorne alone seemed to avoid this mess of a war.
“And yet here I stand” His arms spread up and his palms faced the sky for a moment before his arms fell to his side “I didn’t think anything of the red preists either, I didn’t think it to be true and yet it is.”
Her words stung and he couldn’t find any way for himself to justify the waiting he did, the wondering if any moment was ever going to be the right one. Had she forgotten what his father had cost his own family? “We’ve all lost family due to actions taken by our own or the others” He hissed, his eyes glaring at the Lady. “What was I supposed to do when I was revived? March against Robert who had won the war, taken the throne from my brother while still recovering? There may be Targagyren supporters but few will admit to it. I don’t have an army and I wouldn’t outright kill the King. If I was that person my father would have been dead a long time ago.”
“I loved Eddard’s sister and she I. We married even. I didn’t cause Brandon and his father’s death. That was my father. Not I. Yes my actions sent everything into motion but everyone reacted to actions.” Rhaegar fidgeted with his sword hilt as he spoke, his gaze never wavering from Catelyn. “Cersei’s children have no right to the throne. Robert had some and there had been peace, a kind of peace my father hadn’t allowed for some time. It’s clear with Joffery there has been an upset to that peace.”
Rhaegar sighed and he found himself taking a seat realizing just how tired he was after a long day of travel. “Lady Stark, if you allow me to help, to raise whatever support I can with my name if those will follow me…Robb will be King In The North, the Stark’s will be granted everything accordingly to a royal house. Your family will be compensated in any way you require, the deaths of all those involved in Eddards death and Roberts will be put to death. Sansa and Arya will be returned to you and perhaps my own family, what’s left of it can be returned to my side…” His thoughts drifted to Viserys and Daenerys. His little sister that he had never seen before, he hoped Viserys was okay.
Robb needed all the men he could get. The army shrank withe very battle despite the fact he kept winning.
He couldn’t be… It wasn’t possible. “Get out.” Catelyn dismissed the guards when he man moved aside his cloak. The Northern lords had lost enough to that family without this revelation. The Starks had lost the most- Rickard and Brandon- but there wasn’t a family who’d not lost someone in Robert’s Rebellion.
“Rhaegar.” the word fell from her lips unwillingly.
No other man in the Seven Kingdom’s had a breast plate like that. “You’re dead. Robert killed you on the Trident.”
“I thought so too. But after a red priest brought me back…Giving me what they call the ‘last kiss’” He told Catelyn honestly as soon as the guards left them alone.
“I was dead and now i’m alive and the world has moved on and I haven’t…” Rhaegar knew he must have sounded mad and he was still surprised that she believed him to be honest. He stayed his place, un moving as to not make the Lady angry or anything. “Lady Stark. Shall we sit?” He didn’t want her to faint or anything that was for certain. “I know this is a lot to take in. I didn’t believe I was alive for the first few months.”
Goldnwulf 