[Catelyn POV]
I had just emerged from my husband's solar after informing him that Jon had conquered the Three Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh.
Ned had not said much. He had barely reacted. He had barely allowed any expression to appear on his face, apart from a small smile, or at least, that was what he thought.
He was surely able to hide his emotions from his vassals, his followers, his subordinates, and his servants, but not from me. Not that I ever let him know that I could read him like an open book. I let him believe that he was hiding himself well from me. And I was happy to let him believe this.
And just now, I read him once again. He had not allowed any expression to appear on his face, but his happiness, his thrill, and his excitement when he heard about Jon winning over all three cities were obvious to me. The relief he had felt when he heard that Jon was absolutely fine had been so clear. He did care about his son… his bastard son.
And I did not know what to feel about it.
Jon had won. The bastard had won. All the events that had happened in the past two years had left me torn in two. I was confused. I did not know what I should wish, what I should pray for, or what I should want.
It all started when Jon ran away from Winterfell. At that time, I had been so pleased, so happy. I thought that one of the biggest obstacles in the path of my family's happiness had been removed. No, I was not evil enough to wish him dead, but I wanted him away from my family. I had felt that one burden pressing against my chest was finally gone.
But then came the first news about him since he had escaped Winterfell. It was Lord Wyman Manderly who brought the news. That he was the same Lord Aeos who had captured Astapor.
It had been shocking to everyone. How does one march alone into a city and capture it? It did not make sense. But that had just been the beginning of the deeds he would do.
Over the past couple of years, he has achieved more and more shocking feats, and this victory over the three cities was only the latest on the list.
I did not know what to feel about it. Once, there had been a time when I had feared that he would betray House Stark and could possibly challenge and create problems for Robb in his way of inheriting Winterfell. A bastard was not someone you would want to trust.
But now, here we are. He is a proper king with a proper territory and a massive army to command. Lord Aeos, they call him. They worshipped him, Petyr Baelish had said in his letters. He had said that the smallfolk and the liberated slaves considered him as their God. God. The world was surely going mad.
There was one voice in my mind which wanted to dismiss his achievements as I had always done since the news about him winning Astapor had arrived.
To argue that he was a bastard and what right did he have to call himself a king? But the other part of me knew the truth.
When power speaks, those things do not matter. Probably, a few generations later, his bloodline would be the one which would be deemed the most prestigious in the world. He might be to Essos what Aegon the conqueror was to Westeros.
His territory might not be as big as the one Robb would inherit, but without any doubt, he was far more powerful and influential than the Lord of the North. He had more wealth, more and better trained men, and even the products he sold, his cement and his wine were selling as far north as Winterfell.
And now, with three more cities under his name, his fame and power were only going to grow further. And I did not know how I felt about this.
Do I wish him dead? No. I understood, or at least I tried to, that him being born as Ned's bastard was neither his mistake nor his choice. But the heart always did not understand what the mind thought.
Did I wish that he had lost this battle and been forced into a retreat back toward Slaver's Bay? Yes.
The bastard has achieved more than I could have ever imagined. And no matter how hard I denied it, it was making me jealous.
People here in the North had begun to sing his praises. Bards were making songs about his achievements. Old ladies had begun spinning tales that he had used the power of the Old Starks to control animals and defeat the Dothraki and the Golden Company. They were claiming that he could jump into the body of an animal. That he was a skinchanger. And a lot of people were thrilled about this. The Northerns liked these kinds of tales and they were excited and proud to claim Jon as one of their own.
Every kind of fantasy tale was being made up, and people were jumping to believe them. After all, what Jon himself was doing was no less than a tale of fantasy. A single man had shaken the powers of Essos and had become their king.
And all this was creating a feeling of jealousy, a feeling of insecurity inside my heart.
.
.
.
"Mother," Robb's slightly hesitant voice, as he followed Catelyn from a close distance, snapped her from her thoughts.
She came to a halt and turned to face him.
"What is it, Robb?" She calmed her emotions and asked in a gentle voice.
Robb was everything she could have asked for in a son. Talented. Dutiful. Obedient. Hardworking. He had all the qualities to be a Great Lord.
"What do you think Jon thinks about us?" Robb questioned.
"What do you mean?" She asked with a frown.
"You know," he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. "There was a reason he fled from Winterfell. And I do not need to say that it was not a good reason."
"Do you think he would hate us?" he asked. "Or would he be angry with us?"
The question sent a jolt of surprise through Catelyn. She was not expecting anything like this.
"What reason does he have to hate us?" She asked back, her expression serious and stern.
And she decided to be honest with her son.
"For a moment," she continued, "let us assume that he was not treated well in the Stark household and that this forced him to run."
"But did we really do anything that would make him hate us?" She asked. "He might have suffered a few injustices, but definitely not to the extent that he would hate us. Who does not suffer a few injustices in their life?"
"I might agree that he might be a bit angry with us," She admitted. "But hate is a very strong word."
"And if he hates us, it would show a fault in his mannerisms and behaviour," she added.
Robb wanted to say something, but he kept quiet, perhaps rethinking about his opinion to himself.
"And why does it matter?" She asked. "He has left Winterfell and is now leaving his own life. It does not matter at all."
"You should leave all these thoughts out of your mind and do what you are supposed to do," she concluded.
"Yes, Mother," Robb replied before walking away to resume his training.
And she was left standing, with the question her son had asked, still circulating in her head.
#
#
#
[Add the book to your collection. Send it some power stones. Leave a rating and a review.]
[Access advanced chapter on P@treon. Replace @ with a. One additional advanced chapter each week on P@treon. ]
[email protected]/imaginarywriter