Robb's Castle (one year later)
Roslin lay with her eyes closed, her white skin without a single cut or scar. She was so smooth, so still in every feature, as if she had simply dozed off. Her long eyelashes fluttered as Master Aemon's dry, calloused palm swept across her face. Robb saw a tormented woman lost in sleep as he looked at his wife's face. Almost all the strength had gone out of her, her forehead was warm, wet like the thawed ice of Long Lake. She was stripped down to the bare skin to see if there were any spots where the childbirth had caused the skin to change colour. Robb knew that Winterfell Court was home to the best healers in the world. His eunuch had mentioned that this jaundiced-eyed stranger, who introduced himself as Aemon, was a healer of some sort, meaning he could be a conduit for childbirth. The Frey woman's young body had always been desirable to the King of the North, but Robb was quicker to notice his newborn child, whom he might show off to Rodrik, his firstborn son. He had been king for a long time, so long that even his large family visited him less and less often. He was a Stark. The son of a people who had resisted Tywin's orders to submit. Strange, but he felt a kind of reverence for Roslin. He married a young and beautiful woman, clever enough to serve a lord well, and in the end she became queen.
- "Boy!" said the master, "without a doubt.
When he cried out, his eyes were round as the full moon. Robb was lost in admiration.
- 'It is for you to decide, my king, what name to give him.
- 'Beron,' said the man.
Now that Roslin was without her crown, her smooth forehead reminded Robb of a river-washed grey stone, polished smooth by the work of the waves. As the vagina wound stitched together, calloused fingers moved slowly between her legs, and her eyes opened again, even the king felt the need to step back. After giving birth, the master would dress her wound in some way. It is not good to look long into the eyes of an exhausted woman, it can cause tension. If Aemon heals his woman not with some secret poison that is absorbed under the skin, but indeed with the mere threads and oils he holds in the palm of his hand, it means that Roslin's womb is a weapon in Robb's hands that he can use against anyone without limit.
- 'I was there when the sword was put in the crypt,' the master repeated, 'and I was there when it was taken from Winterfell.
- What do you say?
Old Master Aemon stared long into Robb's face. He blew on the palm of his hand at the biting cold.
- 'Beware, King Robb,' said the Master, as he held up the sleeves of his robe, which rattled with crow feathers and the bones of tiny birds, and pointed at the King. - There is no weapon that can kill like the Black Iron Sword.
The king glared at himself.
- So what you say is true. It is true that the bearer of it can take life with a mere word, with a mere will.
- 'Beware, King Robb,' the master warned again, 'I have asked the gods to give me sight, and the God of Seven has shown me that there is dragon's blood in Jon Snow's veins. You have chosen for your brother a man who may carry the dark soul of Aerys Targaryen. There is one among us who has been given power over the otherworldly and earthly powers.
- "Perhaps," Robb nodded.
He felt his heart beating faster than it should.
- Why do you think, Master, that Aerys Targaryen's dark soul is upon him. Perhaps it is wolf power.
The old man sniffed the air, as if he could smell the blood that accompanied Aerys Targaryen's dark presence in this world.
- It is not wolf power.
Robb's hand clenched into a fist.
- Well, do we not kill when the power that rules us commands it? For a greater good, for the coming of a truer world!
The master did not answer, he closed his eyes. Robb waited patiently before he spoke again.
- You said earlier that you did not need to resort to the Night King's demons to achieve your goals. You said that you wished to achieve your goals, for the greater good, without calling upon dark powers from the deep and the cold. You said that because you knew I would never do that.
Robb sighed heavily. Perhaps the master speaks this way because he thinks he will back down now when Jon Snow puts a weapon in his hand that perhaps no one else can wield? He waited for a sign from the gods. He waited for the time to be ripe. Was it not a sign from the gods that the bastard had saved his life and offered him his services?
- "Then why do you change your word?" continued the master in a whining, strangely hushed voice. - Are you not the king who betrothed himself to the light and the spirit of the God of Seven, and not to the shadow?
- I am a king! Seven Hells! - Robb was unable to contain his growing anger.
Will he be held accountable by his own master? Him, the king, the blood of Barthogan Stark? He knew it would be a grave offense even for the King to dare speak to the Master in a raised voice. He knew the long arms of the old gods might reach out for him for this, and he would be made to pay a heavy price for foolishly crossing the invisible boundaries sanctified by the blood of the ancestors. Yet he could not bear to be overpowered by the old man.
- 'Do you say, venerable Master Aemon,' he said in a choked voice, 'that there are still Targaryens who walk among us in the guise of dragons? Do not the accounts from the time of the Mad King tell us that the Lord of the Targaryens made a grave error in not recognizing Jaime Lannister in his knightly armor when he appeared in his castle and took his head? Perhaps those are the times we live in...
The master's voice was almost chilling, like the sound of footsteps crunching on the backs of snow-covered fields.
- But I know the story, honourable King Robb.
- Well, then?
Robb could feel the vortex opening up in front of him, but he was unable and perhaps unwilling to step back. He saw himself on the Iron Throne, felt the clans lifting him skyward. The body of the dead Tywin lay on the ground, like the dogs and slaves in the arena of the Free Cities, torn apart by the bear.
- You are king over us all," Master Aemon bowed his head. - I'm just an adviser, who you either give or take no heed to. You are the blood of Barthogan!
Robb gasped and took a few steps towards the old man hunched over his wife. He held out his hand.
- 'Kiss my hand, master,' he said. - Then you may go.
He felt the cold, thin lips pressed against the back of his hand. It was as if they had been dipped in gooey, cold horse milk, or as if the master had kissed a dead man before. Robb shuddered as he pulled his hand away. He felt a cold finger in his heart. But now he spoke the words. Now there could be no turning back without shaming himself before men and gods. Soon, he would be Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.