Sansa II
She'd been told that the Sept at Winterfell was small and simple by the standards of the southern kingdoms. Father had ordered it built for mother and while it met all particulars required by the Faith of the Seven it was built in the northern style, with stones that had once been part of a tower on the same site, not marble or sandstone but plain granite.
With her mother gone, it served only a handful of visitors... but now there was to be a wedding here. A prince had found his princess (although Obara Martell, it seemed, was not precisely a princess) and they would be wed here at Winterfell. At her home and for the first time in the sept rather that in the godswood.
Aunt Lyanna had charged her with looking after her cousin Joanna and Princess Cassana. Sansa had thought this would be a chance to sit together and work on lady-like pursuits but all of the needles and thread were being reserved for preparing wedding finery and decorations.
"Father will be exercising at your armoury," Cassana suggested. "Is there somewhere we can watch?"
Sansa thought. "There's a bridge between the Great Hall and the armoury. If they're using the east yard, we can look down from it."
"Wonderful!" Cassana clapped her hands and the two of them each took one of Joanna's hands in theirs.
The bridge was covered but there were no shutters or glass on the window. Outside of the Great Hall's shelter the wind was cold against Sansa's face and she was glad of her warm woollen dress. Cassana used her free hand to pull her cloak closer around her shoulders.
"What are you doing here?" asked Robb, who was perched on the windowsill, legs dangling out the window.
"We're here to watch the King exercising."
Rick, who was leant out of the window next to Robb turned his head. "Why would you want to do that? Your girls."
"He's my father," Cassana said simply.
"There's plenty of room for us all." Sansa put her hands on her hips the way mother might. "And don't sit there, you know father told you not to."
"It's perfectly safe."
"If you fall..."
"I'm not going to fall!" he exclaimed. Which was, of course, exactly when he slipped.
Sansa screamed. Cassana ran for the window. Rick leant over to try to grab Robb and barely managed to not to follow him.
There was a crunching noise and Robb shrieked.
Cassana yanked Rick back away from the window and looked out. "Daddy!"
Sansa lowered her hands from where she was covering her mouth - when had she done that? - and joined the princess at the window. She could see men dropping training weapons and rushing towards the bridge. Robb was still shrieking. The king. a head taller than most of the men, bulled forwards. "I've got it, Cassana. Who's up there?" He grabbed the nearest man. "You. Get Maester Luwin."
"Aye, your grace." Jory dashed under the bridge out of sight.
"Sansa, Joanna and Rickon."
She felt a tug on her skirts and looked down to see a teary eyed Joanna. Not knowing what else to do, she pulled out her handkerchief and wiped the little girl's face. Then she wiped her own tears.
"It's alright lad, be brave," she heard the king say. Then there was a tearing sounds.
She looked out and saw he was holding a hunting knife. Then she saw that he'd cut through the seams of Robb's trouser leg.
"Ser Rodrik," King Robert said calmly, as Robb's voice trailed off into sobbing. "I don't think he's bleeding seriously so we should be alright until Maester Luwin gets here. What do you have handy to hold his leg steady and carry him to his bed."
"It's broken then?"
"Looks like it to me. Good job he didn't land head first."
"Feet are heavier than the head, on account of them not being empty like the young lord's head." Rodrik looked up at them. "Lord Rickard, if your uncle has told you and Robb once not to sit on that windowsill he has told you a hundred times."
"Indeed," agreed a new voice and Maester Luwin stepped out into view. "Neither your father or mother would be happy, Prince Robb, if I wrote back and told them that they have two sons, not three."
"Three?" asked the boy, sniffing back tears.
Luwin handed him a folded letter. "Read that while I check your leg."
Robb studied the letter carefully and then tilted his head back to look up at the window. "Sansa! Sansa!"
"Yes Robb?"
"We have another little brother! His name's Howlen."
Cassana giggled at the expression on the boy's face. Sansa sniffed, this time derisively. She'd been hoping for a sister.
"Ah, named no doubt for Ser Howlen the Mad."
"Who?" asked Ser Rodrik.
The king made a discreet gesture towards Robb. "Ser Howlen the Mad and his flying machines. Surely you've heard of him, Robb? No? Well the first thing to remember about him is that he was mad, so his family - that was the Murdocks - kept him locked away. Whenever his friends needed to win him away, first they would always send Ser Templeton Peck to distract his family..."
Soon Robb was so distracted by the story that he barely noticed Luwin probing his broken leg.
Varys VIII
Varys hadn't expected this visitor. In fact, according to his sources, the man was still in Oldtown. He admired the accomplishment of misleading his sources but it was professionally embarrassing. "Prince Oberyn, what a delight to meet after so long."
The Dornishman, hair grown long to mask the loss of an ear, gestured dismissively. "I always meant to come and congratulate you on your recovery from the Baratheon's dismissal. Events merely conspired to make it difficult until now."
"Events that are no longer a concern?"
Oberyn shot him a dark look. "You've heard of my daughter's marriage?"
"Indeed, I took the liberty of sending my congratulations to the happy couple. An unexpected match, but one that surely indicates Dorne isn't far from King Robert's regard despite certain unfortunate events."
"I set her the task of getting close to the Baratheons. This is closer than I envisaged."
"The concern with becoming close to someone is that they may become close to you. We like to think we are rational but really, it's surprising how often I've seen men and women come up with reasoning to support decisions clearly driven by their feelings." Varys smiled slightly. "Your brother was not concerned?"
"My brother is very concerned. Less by the marriage than by a certain confidence that Robert Baratheon chose to share with Obara."
The eunuch tilted his head in invitation to continue.
Oberyn took two steps closer, fast steps. Half-dance, half-charge. "He knows about the boy."
He gave the man a bland look. "The boy?"
"You know who I mean."
"Ah. I rather hoped you might mean some other boy. You're sure your daughter didn't reveal his existence."
"Obara had no need to know. She was quite baffled when Robert counted her as being fifth in succession to Dorne."
Varys frowned. "I don't wish to indulge in wishful thinking, however you are sure this wasn't a slip of the tongue?"
"She queried him and he told her to ask Doran about a supposed cousin in Essos."
That wasn't something that could be mistaken. Doran was notably faithful to his estranged wife and while she was from Essos, all of their children had remained with him in Dorne. A supposed cousin of Obara in Essos could only mean Jon Connington's ward, their future Aegon Targaryen.
Oberyn stepped closer and Varys recognised his intent. To threaten, to menace, and possibly – given his disposition – to murder. "How did he learn of him, old friend?"
"A good question." He kept his tone mild, treating it as a merely intellectual matter while devoting a small portion of his thoughts to how he might avoid a close encounter with... a dagger seemed most likely. Poisoned, almost certainly. "I don't know the boy's whereabouts myself, since it would be entirely too easy for Robert to lay hands on me. Still, if he gave no indication of location then he..."
His mind went back to the last time he saw Robert Baratheon and he couldn't help the slight flicker of shock as he added up the facts.
"Share your thoughts," Oberyn said silkily.
Varys very carefully walked to the nearest chair. "Ten years. He's known about the boy all this time."
"Impossible. He'd have killed him by now."
He uncapped a flagon and poured himself a gobletful. "I feel the need for a medicinal. Join me."
Oberyn took the flagon, sniffed and then poured himself a goblet. He didn't drink though.
"When I left King's Landing, the king gave me a reward for my loyal service to King Aerys and later to himself. The egg of a dragon."
"A princely reward, but what of it?"
"The boy shares a name with several Targaryen kings. Most recently with Robert's own great-grandfather."
"Aegon the Unlikely, yes. Your point?"
"When Aegon Targaryen was a boy he was far from the line of succession." Varys sipped again and then put down his goblet. "He somewhat infamously squired to a mere hedgeknight and was known, I am told, by a more humble sobriquet. Egg."
"Egg. Then the egg was..."
"A hint. A joke at my expense. Very possibly a threat. Or a promise."
Oberyn looked at his own goblet and then looked up. "Connington is the one with the boy. If he's betrayed us..."
"I would have said that Jon Connington would be the last man to ever betray Rhaegar's son to the man who killed the prince."
"And yet his House's fortunes are on the rise. One of the usurper's daughters to sit in Griffin's Roost as its lady. If that was his price..."
"A price for what?" Varys considered and then grimaced. "It's possible, of course, that the boy is no longer in Essos. That he is in Baratheon hands. It's suddenly inconvenient that I have no easy way to know that."
Oberyn sat back in the chair, stared at the wall behind Varys for a moment and then began to laugh.
"You seem to have recovered your humour, my friend."
"I would like to say that I'm not laughing at you, but the most I truthfully say is that I understand your chagrin. I felt much the same when I realised I was cheated out of all my chances at revenge. Aerys, Rhaegar, Tywin, Gregor and Lorch, all dead and I had no hand in it."
Varys nodded. Tywin was the last of the five to have died. Aerys had been killed by Jaime Lannister, Rhaegar by Robert Baratheon, Gregor shot by Bolton's city watch and Amory Lorch had 'slipped' off the Wall a few years ago. Varys had the name of the brother who had accepted some gold to see to that, in case he ever needed it. "I have heard some rumours that certain comments were made to Tywin's brother and sons."
The prince made a dismissive gesture. "There'd be no satisfaction to it. Perhaps if Tywin was alive, to repay him like that. Besides, I had my chance at Jaime Lannister." He touched where he'd once had an ear. "It would be ill-done to slay him when he showed more gallantry than his father ever did."
"That's surprisingly forgiving of you."
"What should I forgive him for? We don't choose our fathers and if he hadn't killed Aerys then the madman would have burned himself to death. I still wanted to kill Aerys myself though but keeping the young Lannister nervous is revenge enough there." He drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair. "Taking the boy and using him against us would be just like Baratheon. Could Dayne find him?"
"Lord Connington didn't take Ser Arthur into his confidence." Varys frowned. Arthur Dayne was now head of his own small company of sellswords... although since the company had yet to leave the limits of Pentos, having been hired to provide guards for the city the name of sellsword fit poorly on them. Pentos was forbidden by treaty with Braavos from maintaining an army. But then, they were similarly forbidden from practising slavery. "And Dayne may have drifted a little away from our group in any case."
Oberyn shook his head. "Well if it wasn't difficult, I wouldn't be needed. I'll find him and if he has betrayed us then at least I get to kill someone."
He had a disturbing smile, Varys decided. "Well please keep an eye out for Prince Viserys on your travels. He seems to be doing well, he may be ready for more of a part in Westeros' future than I expected."