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He was fat.
That was Aven’s first thought.
Not ordinary middle-age spread, this was a fatness bloated by food and wine, carrying the residue of strength.
His neck was nearly as thick as his head.
His arms were like two sleeves stuffed with cotton.
But you could tell there was something underneath all that flesh, something that had once been muscle, corroded by years and indulgence yet not entirely gone.
His face held the wreckage of youthful handsomeness: blue eyes, a broad forehead, a jaw with rough-hewn lines.
All of it surrounded by a red, veined drinker’s nose and two drooping jowls, like a statue on the verge of collapse, swallowed by vines.
Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm.
Aven looked at him, and a picture surfaced in his mind.
Young Robert, standing in the shallows of the Trident, spinning his warhammer once in his hand and driving it into Rhaegar Targaryen’s chest, shattering that ruby-studded dragon armor to pieces.
That was how many years ago now.
Long enough to turn a hero into a potbellied drunkard.
Long enough to turn a conqueror into a middle-aged man who could barely sit steady in a saddle.
But those blue eyes had not changed.
Sharp.
Bright.
Carrying that brute certainty that said: what I want, I will take.
Behind the king sat an enormous wheelhouse.
Gold, its lacquered surface gleaming in the morning light, its wheels taller than a grown man, drawn by four white horses.
The curtains were drawn.
You couldn’t see inside.
But Aven knew who sat in there, Cersei Lannister.
The Queen.
And her child, Joffrey.
A genuine little monster.
Arya’s voice drifted over from beside him, pitched low, but low enough for Aven to catch.
“What about the Kingslayer?”
Jaime Lannister.
The Kingslayer.
Kingsguard.
The queen’s twin brother.
He appeared just then from behind the wheelhouse.
Aven didn’t answer.
He tilted his head slightly and cut Arya a look that said: shut up.
Arya pursed her lips but said nothing more.
Robert swung down from his horse.
The movement was crisper than Aven had expected.
The belly was huge, the legs thick, but the dismount still carried a warrior’s old habit: left hand pressing the saddle, right leg swinging over, boot hitting the flagstones with a dull, weighty thud.
He swayed slightly when he landed.
Then steadied.
Everyone dropped to one knee.
The sound of knees striking stone merged into a single wave, like a brief, low roll of thunder.
Aven’s knee touched the ground, his right hand braced on his knee, his head dipped slightly.
He fixed his gaze on the flagstones and watched his own breath condense in the cold air, a small white cloud that gathered and slowly dissolved.
Robert waved a hand.
“Rise.
All of you, rise.”
His voice was enormous, carrying that booming resonance that could fill an entire yard without needing to try.
Everyone stood.
Robert looked at no one else.
He walked straight toward Eddard.
The distance between them closed slowly.
Robert stopped, blue eyes meeting Eddard’s grey.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Maybe longer.
No one dared make a sound.
The training yard went as silent as an empty city, the wind itself stilling.
Somewhere in the distance, a horse snorted.
Robert spoke.
“You’ve grown fat, Eddard.”
His voice wasn’t loud.
But in that silence, every single person heard it.
The atmosphere came alive in an instant.
Not the kind of alive where the king makes a joke and everyone scrambles to laugh.
The other kind, like a string pulled too tight that suddenly goes slack, a low hum in the air, and every person in the yard exhales in the same breath.
Eddard raised an eyebrow.
Just barely.
The brow lifted, the corners of his mouth stayed still, and somewhere in his eyes there was resignation, and amusement, and a quiet acceptance that said: you never change.
Robert laughed.
Huge.
Rough.
Like sandpaper dragged across stone.
He stepped forward, opened his arms, and pulled Eddard in.
Eddard laughed too.
Not the way Robert laughed, not that kind.
His was quiet, the corners of his mouth curving slightly, fine lines creasing at the corners of his eyes.
He reached up and clapped Robert on the back.
They held each other for a long time.
Longer than Aven had expected.
Robert released him and gave Eddard a hard, deliberate wink.
Then he turned to Catelyn.
“Catelyn.”
His voice was lower now.
Softer.
He stepped forward and embraced her the same way he had embraced Eddard, but not the same.
For Eddard it had been claps on the back; for Catelyn it was a light hand on the shoulder, far gentler, carrying a measure of respect.
Robert let her go and walked back to stand before Eddard.
“9 years, Eddard.” The mirth was still in his voice.
“Why haven’t you come to see me?”
Eddard’s smile didn’t falter.
Grey eyes on blue.
“I had to guard your North, Your Grace.”
Robert paused.
Then he laughed again, louder this time, full and satisfied.
He raised his hand and clapped Eddard on the shoulder twice.
“The North.” He shook his head.
“Your North.
My North.
It belongs to both of us.”
He didn’t linger on it.
His gaze moved past Eddard and settled on the younger faces.
Robb stood at the front.
Robert walked up to him and looked him over.
He extended his hand.
“You must be Robb.”
Robb clasped it.
His hand was a size smaller than the king’s, but the grip was solid, his palm rough with the calluses of years on a sword hilt.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
He said nothing else and let go.
One step forward.
He stood before Sansa.
Sansa wore a silver-grey silk gown, the hem embroidered with a direwolf pattern worked in darker thread.
Her auburn hair was braided into an intricate plait resting over one shoulder, the tail tied with a sky-blue ribbon.
Her face was very pretty.
Her blue eyes — the Tully blue — caught the pale morning light like polished stones.
She curtsied, chin dipping, the arc of her spreading skirt as precise as if drawn with a compass.
Robert looked at her, and for just a moment his expression held the unguarded surprise of a man who has suddenly come across something beautiful.
“You are very beautiful,” he said.
Not a compliment.
A statement.
The way you might say the wind is strong today, flat, plain, and all the more genuine for it.
Sansa’s face flushed faintly.
Her curtsy deepened by another inch.
Robert didn’t linger.
He took a step and stood before Arya.
Arya was a full head shorter than Sansa, her hair still a mess.
Aven had helped her remove the steel helmet, but he hadn’t helped her smooth out the tangles.
Those flyaway tufts swayed in the wind like a patch of trampled grass.
Her grey eyes, the exact same grey as Eddard’s, looked straight at Robert.
No trained poise like Sansa.
No childlike nerves like Bran.
Just looked, straight on, the way you look at a living, breathing person standing in front of you.
Robert bent down.
His belly blocked his line of sight, and he had to lean sideways to see Arya’s face.
“What’s your name?” His voice was lower than it had been with Sansa, and rougher.
With children, especially a girl, the king moved with a clumsy kind of tenderness.
“Arya.”
Robert nodded.
He said nothing more, straightened up, and continued forward.
Bran stood beside Aven.
He was even shorter than Arya, his hair neatly combed by Catelyn, but a small tuft at his forehead refused to cooperate, forever falling forward over his brow.
Every so often he’d puff a breath upward to blow it back.
Robert crouched down before him.
Now their faces were level.
Bran’s grey eyes met Robert’s blue.
A few seconds of that, neither of them looking away.
Bran didn’t flinch.
Didn’t drop his gaze.
Just looked.
“Oho —” Robert reached out and squeezed Bran’s shoulder, then his arm, the way you might check the frame of a young colt.
“Let’s see those muscles, lad.”
Bran blinked.
Then he pulled both hands out from behind his back and struck a bicep-flexing pose for the king.
His arms were thin as two sticks of kindling, but his fists were clenched tight, his cheeks puffed out, his expression as grave and determined as if this were a duel to the death.
Robert laughed.
His laughter rang out across the training yard and startled a clutch of ravens from the battlements.
“When he grows up,” Robert said, turning back to Eddard, the grin still carved into his face, “he’ll be a man just like you.”
➤ Next: Admiration — Into the Unknown
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