Chapter Text
Ned had never known what to expect from death. His father had taught him that his spirit would join the old gods and he would become part of the North and rejoin his ancestors. A small part of him feared the Seven and the punishment the Stranger might inflict because he had never believed in the Southron gods, even if he had been fostered in a home that revered them over the old gods. The conflict in his heart meant he had tried hard to avoid thoughts of his death.
But kneeling in front of the Sept of Baelor and feeling the edge of his own blade slide through his neck, he found the truth was both more pedestrian and more disturbing. He lingered near his body, studying the unnatural angle of his limbs and the tangled and dirty hair hiding most of his face, leaving the bleeding stump of his neck more visible.
He had expected to die in battle. He’d lived with honor and he’d thought fate would offer him an honorable death. Instead the gathered crowd threw rotten fruit at his body. He’d called himself a liar–he’d denied that the new king was an incestuous bastard–and they had reneged on their offer to exile him to the wall where he could have died fighting to protect the realm. What if they didn’t honor their promise to protect his children? As if the thought made time begin to sluggishly move, Sansa screamed, her face twisted with fear as she stared at her father’s fallen body.
Ned hated himself. His choices had led his girl here. He had confessed to committing crimes he had not done, knowing that Cercei and Joffrey might still kill him, but his sins had started before that. He never should have brought his daughters south in the first place. He had failed his little girl who lacked the wolf spirit of Arya or the strength of Robb. He had left Sansa at the mercy of these people in King’s Landing–these honorless oafs. But Varys had promised he would see the girls safely to the North if Ned gave up the last vestiges of his honor.
Not that his honor was as unstained as others believed.
“That is mercy.” He heard the boy-king’s petulant voice. He had no right to the throne. He was a bastard, and Ned suspected his mother had killed the king to put her incestuous spawn on that cursed throne. Joffrey studied Sansa with unvarnished glee while she wept. The bastard-born enjoyed her pain. Ned tried to rush to Sansa’s side. He wanted to protect his child, but he was no longer alive. The world blurred and dimmed until he existed only in darkness.
“Leave her face. I like her pretty.” Joffrey’s words came as though from underwater, but then the darkness lessened and Ned watched Ser Boros punch Sansa. His blow was one that a man might use on another man, and Sansa collapsed under the force. She was a girl–a child. What honor was there in using a knight’s strength against a defenseless maiden? Ned cried out, but the universe stole his voice. What power did a dead man hold?
Boros drew his sword, and Ned rushed forward, his movement slow like he was wading through icy slush that pulled at his limbs. But instead of taking Sansa’s head, Boros hit her with the flat of his sword, striking her thighs. Sansa screamed, and Ned cried out for his child… his little girl. The babe he had once held in his arms.
It was Sandor Clegane who spoke up. He had a reputation for being a brute who cared nothing for honor, but he said loudly, “Enough.” Boros looked at him. Few men would challenge the Hound, and Ned had never thought he would feel such a deep well of gratitude for a Clegane.
But his relief was short-lived. “No it isn’t. Boros, make her naked,” the bastard boy said. Joffrey. How could Ned have failed to see the truth earlier? Robert Baratheon had reveled in violence–in the joust or the heat of battle. But Robert had never carried the sort of malicious glee Joffrey showed. Ned should have known he was not a true-born prince, but Ned had failed. He hadn’t seen the truth in time.
Worse, he had warned Cercei to take her bastard spawn from the city, allowing her time to outmaneuver him, and his death had clearly failed to save his girls. This wasn’t justice. This wasn’t fair. The failure was bitter on his tongue. As Boros ripped the silk from Sansa’s body, the darkness closed in around him.
“Isn’t it time for Eddard to join us?”
“No.” Rickard Stark’s voice was unmistakable, even after all these years. Maybe Ned had finally found the old gods. Maybe he was going to be reunited with his late father and the rest of his family. He reached for his father’s voice, struggling against the ice that seemed to hold him prisoner.
The darkness faded and he saw his father standing in his solar next to the detailed map of the North that had still hung on the wall when Ned had been lord.
“The boy ought to understand this. He’ll be Brandon’s heir until he and the Tully girl have children of their own.” Ned recognized Cley Stark. He hadn’t thought of his uncle for years. Cley and his whole family had died of coughing illness the winter before Brandon and their father had died. No. Not died. Before they had been tortured and murdered by a mad king. In Ned’s grief for his immediate family, his cousins and uncle had faded from his mind. Then again, Ned had been in the Vale since he was eight, so he had few memories of Uncle Cley–a few visits at most.
“I’ll have heirs soon enough, uncle.” Brandon sounded far more arrogant than Ned remembered, but the smile was familiar enough. Now that Ned was older, he recognized the entitled smirk. Brandon couldn’t be older than eight or nine, and he already had a cockiness that Ned had only seen on Theon Greyjoy. He never would have allowed Robb to show such conceit.
Rickard smiled at Brandon. “You will, but not for years yet.”
“Then let Ned sit in,” Cley said.
His father shook his head. “Ned is too shy. The North would never follow him, heir or not. I’ll not spend time trying to force the boy into a role that is ill-suited to him. He’ll be our connection to the south, and this is a conversation for Northmen.”
Ned had no stomach, yet he could feel the nausea. His own father had not thought of him as a Northman? The shame burned.
Cley continued. “The boy has a good heart. He’ll rise to the occasion should he need to.”
“Enough. He’ll never need to, and circumstances are unlikely to give him the chance,” Rickard said sharply. Cley bowed his head toward his brother, yielding to his lord before refocusing on the map. “Lew sent word that the portents are growing stronger.”
Lew Stark, the youngest of the three brothers of Rickard Stark’s generation, and the one who had died at the wall. The Stark family had once had many males. Rickard and his three sons, Cley with a half dozen children, including four boys, and Lew and elderly Joseth Stark at the wall. Yet a handful of years later when Ned had gone to war, he had understood that if he died, the whole line of Starks risked extinction with only young Benjen left to carry the name.
“Portents?” Brandon wrinkled his nose.
Rickard’s expression was implacable. “Lew reports that the brothers at the wall have the same ignorant attitude as you do, son. He says Master Aemon has abandoned any attempts to convince them, but every winter is longer and the North has fewer people each time the seasons turn. The portents are there, and if the North does not change, you will be the last generation of Starks, or perhaps your children or grandchildren will be. That is not a legacy I am willing to leave you, and you must fight against it yourself.” His voice was harsh enough that Brandon ducked his head in silent apology.
Cley rested his hand on Brandon’s shoulder in confort. “Is that not more reason to bring Ned into these discussions? He’s of an age to understand.”
Rickard shook his head. “I have arranged for him to foster at the Vale. The Baratheon heir will be there at the same time, and we need relationships with both. The Vale and the Stormlands are our natural trading partners until we can arrange a port on our western coast. We cannot have him inadvertently reveal our weakness, and he cannot reveal what he does not know.”
“I've spoken to the mountain clans, and while they are not fond of allowing others into their territory, they will do as their liege lord orders.” Cley chuckled. “I do believe the thought of having money enough for glass houses and keeps and ships to challenge the Ironborn all influenced that decision.”
“Father? What does uncle mean?” Brandon looked up from Cley Stark’s face to their father’s.
Rickard put a hand on Brandon's shoulder and grew quiet. “What your uncle and I are showing you is the great plan your grandfather began when he first noticed the portents that spoke of dark times coming. He began searching for the North for sources of wealth.”
Brandon scoffed. “What need do we have of wealth, father? We have our keeps and our woods and our land.”
“And what good is our land with no people to work it?” His father demanded sharply. Brandon's face drew tight in shock because Rickard Stark rarely raised his voice.
Their father continued. “Every generation we have fewer workers and the winter grows colder and deeper. Soon, villages will begin to vanish and we shall lose more farmland in summer, leaving us with even less food for winter. A good Lord does not plan for the years when all goes well. He plans for dark times, and hopes they do not come. But as surely as you stand here, I do believe dark times are coming for Winterfell.”
Uncle Cley's tone was softer. “With coin, we can bring Southrons north to work the farms in summer. We can build holds that are more fortified where people are more likely to survive the harsh winters and more glasshouses so that there is some food available in the deepest cold. We do not seek coin for the sake of coin because we are Northerners. But we are also not great fools to ignore the value of a resource,” his uncle said.
Brandon blinked at him, his expression bewildered. Ned was so used to thinking of his brother as the impetuous man who had rushed to King's Landing to challenge the Mad King, but here he was a child struggling with adult ideas.
“What is the most important resource if we wish to expand the North,” Rickard asked his son. “People, gold, or materials?”
Brandon looked from uncle to father, clearly afraid of providing another wrong answer. “People?” Brandon guessed.
“We cannot support people if we do not have food. We want a North that is rich with people, not rich with emaciated bodies,” his father said.
Brandon nodded. “Then materials. We need food.”
“And where would this food come from?” Rickard asked.
Brandon frowned so that wrinkles appeared on his round, childish face. “We could plant more crops.”
“That would require seed and possibly irrigation. Where do we get that?”
Brandon stood straighter. “Seed is the most profitable of all resources,” he said, parroting their father's teachings. “A bag of seed you can buy for a coin can turn into a field of crops that can feed a village.”
“True,” his father said. “However, one needs hands to work the fields.”
“Then it is people who are most important,” Brandon said.
“But if I call for people to work the fields, they will be dead before the plants blossom, and once again I am left with a North full of emaciated corpses.”
“Then is it gold?” Brandon finally asked, his voice unsure. Ned had heard their father speak many times about the greed in the South and how the love of frivolities and gold led many a man to dishonor himself and break faith with the gods, so Ned was as confused as young Brandon.
“Gold is the beginning of all things,” his father said. “We must not value it for itself, but see it as a way to solve problems. We must build gold up slowly and carefully until we are able to find the great profits that would shield us from the worst of winter.”
“How can profits shield us from winter? Gold does not burn hot or provide sustenance,” Brandon protested.
Rickard turned away and pointed to the map, specifically north of Bear Island. “There are great whales that swim these seas. One whale has enough meat to feed three villages, and the whales come with great layers of fat. As much a danger as starvation is, rabbit starvation is nearly as big of a threat.”
“What is rabbit starvation?” Brandon asked.
Ned thought of the family he had found shortly after returning from the war. They had frozen meat hung from the rafters and smoked meat in the larder and the family’s stomach’s were full, yet they had all starved. The cabin was silent and the children dead because rabbits did not have enough fat to sustain a human being through winter and the family had nothing else. Ned had always wondered if the parents had misjudged the danger or if they had been too proud to ask their liege lord for assistance. He just remembered feeling like he had failed his people.
“When people have nought to eat but rabbit, they will slowly starve even if their bellies are full,” Rickard explained. “Those whales would provide the fat necessary to get our people through winter. So why do we not send hunters out for these whales?”
“Because we don't have ships.”
“And why do we not have ships?”
“Because Brandon the Burner destroyed them all,” Brandon said with confidence.
Rickard nodded. “Then why do we not build more ships?”
That question seemed to have stumped his brother, which was no surprise given that he was likely no older than eight name days.
Rickard thumped his finger on the map in the sea just south of Bear Island. “The Ironborn control this territory. Any ship that sails here runs the grave risk of being taken by those followers of a cursed god. Before we can send hunters out, we must have ships that can guard us. Great warships. And that will require gold. Gold and people. We can hire mercenaries to teach us how to fight on ships, but we must have enough men that the towns can spare enough second and third sons to man the ships and defend the coast.” Rickard's finger traced the Western coastline of the North. “But we have neither gold nor people, so we must start one step at a time.” He thumped his finger down on the Wolfswood.
Brandon leaned closer to the map and squinted, but their father's finger was in the middle of wilderness. Brandon looked up at their father in confusion.
“We have grand trees, larger than anything seen in Essos. Those easterners will pay good money for such a rare commodity.”
“So we cut down the Wolfswood?” Brandon asked in horror. Horror that Ned echoed. The old gods lived in woods, and the idea of offending them created such a visceral horror that Ned could feel it in his bones, even when he did not have bones.
“No,” Rickard said. “We do a great thinning. We take one tree out of thirty, the largest of them. Then we strip them of their branches and take them to the coast to let them dry until they are ready for traders from Essos to come for them.”
“So we take them south to White Harbor and sell them?” Brandon asked.
His father and uncle Cley exchanged amused looks before chuckling. “And what would we tell people is our reason for selling so much wood?” Rickard asked.
“We are the Starks. We don't have to tell them anything,” Brandon said with confidence.
Rickard sat on the bench underneath the map and gripped Brandon's arm. “Being Lord of the North means very little if people begin to doubt my decisions. It is why Ned will not be Lord of Winterfell and why you must get an heir quickly. He is too shy, too reserved to act without challenge. To be lord means to be bold. But it also means to never be seen acting in a way that others cannot explain through their assumption of your goodwill.”
Brandon frowned. “Are we trying to trick them?”
“No,” Rickard said sharply. “Never trade your honor for a profit, Brandon, but in equal measure, do not give people information that they do not need. If we speak of portents and the need to strengthen the North before another possible great winter, what will people say of the Starks?”
The look of horror on Brandon's face said everything, and their father nodded. “Exactly. So we act in a way that prepares us for the future without giving others the arrows of doubt that could be shot at us. We will take the lumber east along the borders between house Bolton and houses Hardwood and Flint. It will require the construction of a rough road, but we have the men for that.”
“Won't our bannermen question what we're doing?” Brandon asked.
“The road is easy enough to explain as establishing a border so that those three houses can cease to argue over a few feet of territory and lose men in the process. When we reach the coast, we will establish a temporary trading post on Bolton land, and there we will dry the logs and build a temporary dock so that traders from Essos can come and purchase them.”
Brandon frowned. “But then house Bolton would certainly know that we are gathering gold, far more than is normal. And how much wood can we sell before we would take too much and offend the gods?”
“The Boltons are the only house that have been lords as long as the Starks. I am sure they have already read the signs and they understand what's coming. Young Roose Bolton is, no doubt, attempting to build his own relationships with the South.”
“So we will sell enough wood to build a fleet, and then will we sail the fleet to Bear Island?” Brandon asked. It was a child's question, one that misunderstood the nature of Western Westeros. If Ned wanted ships around Bear Island, he would build them on that side of the North. Sailing them around the entire South was an invitation to piracy and storms and other disasters.
“No. The second step is here.” His father turned again to the map and touched Moat Cailin. “Some of our most valuable resources come from Lord Reed.”
Cley spoke up. “Has the Prince taken the powder to the Citadel?”
His father nodded. “He has. The Masters are shocked at how well the dried moss fights infection and keeps the edges of the wound clean. They are still studying the wounds in the long term to make sure that there is no unseen poison, but House Reed insists that they have been using the moss for centuries with no ill effects.”
“The Prince?” Brandon asked in a childlike voice.
“Aye,” his father said. “Prince Rhaegar is the first Targaryen in three hundred years to pay attention to the North, and he sees the portents the same as we do. He believes that a strong North will make a strong wall, and only a strong wall may save us.”
Ned was shocked to his core. His father had counted Prince Rhaegar as an ally–someone to help House Stark. Had Ned known as much, he might have questioned Lyanna’s disappearance. He would have questioned why the prince would kidnap a Stark daughter when he was allies with Lord Stark. Could he have stopped the war?
But no. Mad King Aerys had caused the war. The seven kingdoms were ready to rise against him long before Lyanna had vanished–long before Brandon and Rickard had been tortured to death. As an adult, Ned could see that his sister’s decision to run off with a married prince had only sped matters toward their inevitable end. The seven kingdoms would have never gone to war over a woman—they only used her name as a battle cry for their own ambitions.
“Save us from what?” Brandon asked, and that was an answer Ned would like as well. His father had never told him any of this, and the shame of knowing that his father had felt him too inferior to know the secrets of his house was galling.
“Lord Reed fears that Southrons will raid the swamp and destroy the source of the moss if given the chance, so we will not reveal ourselves to be the source of this new medicine until Moat Cailin is not only rebuilt but it can muster troops to defend the swamp if required. I believe Lord Reed would even prefer a new castle south of his territory, but that would leave us in conflict with the Riverlands.”
“The Riverlands? Is that why you made a betrothal for me to the lady Tully?”
“Indeed,” Rickard said. “I hope that in time we can gain permission to build a castle on the south side of the swamp. Lord knows the Freys are no credit to their liege lord. If they dishonor Holster Tully enough, the North may even inherit the Twins. But the crannogmen’s medicine will bring in enough money for us to develop Ice Bay,” his father said. “If we have a good fleet of battleships and whalers, we can bring in food for the long winter and there are mines we can build for both iron and gold in these mountains. Right now, it is unprofitable to dig because the deposits we have found are on the west side of the mountains and we would be required to haul heavy ore through the mountains or sacrifice it to the Ironborn when our ships were attacked, but if we can have strong forts on our Western side or get permission from the crown to drive the Ironborn from their islands and send all of them to their drowned God, then we can develop those mines.”
Rickard sat on the bench again and took Brandon's face in his two large hands. “My grandfather began searching for the resources needed to survive the coming long darkness. I have created this plan to allow us to build quietly as long as possible. In fact, while your brother will speak for us in the South, perhaps even marrying some daughter of a sonless Lord and claiming his own keep in the South to tie us together in bonds of blood, we will tell everyone that we are developing Moat Cailin for your little brother. Benjen is wild enough that the crannogmen of House Reed will love him.”
Ned felt the guilt and horror of realizing that three generations of Starks had built a plan that he had destroyed. He had seen money in their accounts when he had come home to raise banners at the beginning of Robert’s Rebellion. He had told his men to forgo looting and prove to the south that they were no barbarians. The great treasures of the Targaryens had gone to the Lannisters and Baratheons, leaving the North to rely on House Stark’s coffers to recover.
He had not changed a single southron mind, but it had meant that when his men marched home after the rebellion, more than half the money his father had saved had gone to supporting his bannerman.
He had believed, and he had told his people, that his father had foreseen war. He’d believed it because he could conceive of no other reason why his father had hoarded such wealth. He had taken all of the gold his father had carefully gathered and scattered it to dozens of houses because he had put honor above all. And while that had been one more step in the process of him becoming a beloved Lord of House Stark, he had betrayed his family because his family had never trusted him with their plans.
Why had his father never spoken to him? Why had his brother given him no hints of this grand plan three generations of Starks had worked for?
“I didn't know,” Ned whispered to himself, an unheard apology to his father, to his brother. “I didn't know.” At the beginning of the last winter, how many men had walked into the snow and never returned so they could preserve the food stores for their younger kin? He'd known winter was growing deadlier, but he had done nothing. Just like he had done nothing when he discovered Cercei Lanister’s betrayal, nothing except warn her and give her time to plan her own attack. Never before had Ned felt like less of a lord. He had betrayed his family, all without ever understanding his betrayal. The darkness gathered, and this time Ned did not fight to remain with his loved ones.