Would've, Could've, Should've // Ned Stark // Hayley Marshall

14. The Dead Were Listening

"I am yours to command, Your Grace. Always." Ned declared. 

"What did he say about 'your grace'?" Hayley mused and Robert smiled softly but Ned knew by Roberts tone that it needed to be said. He almost worried what Robert had to offer but he was excited for the opportunity if it was what he hoped.

 "Those years we spent in the Eyrie ... gods, those were good years. I want you at my side again, Ned. I want you down in King's Landing, not up here at the end of the world where you are no damned use to anybody." Robert looked off into the darkness. "I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one. Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse. And the people ... there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, money or land or justice. The lies they tell ... and my lords and ladies are no better. I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness, Ned. Half of them don't dare tell me the truth, and the other half can't find it. There are nights I wish we had lost at the Trident. Ah, no, not truly, but ..." Robert sighed looking to Hayley. 

 "I understand," Ned said softly. Robert looked back at him. 

"I think you do. If so, you are the only one, my old friend." Robert smiled a true and honest smile. "Lord Eddard Stark, I would name you the Hand of the King." Ned dropped to one knee. The offer did not surprise him, what other reason could Robert have had for coming so far? The Hand of the King was the second-most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. 

He spoke with the king's voice, commanded the king's armies, drafted the king's laws. At times he even sat upon the Iron Throne to dispense king's justice, when the king was absent, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Robert was offering him a responsibility as large as the realm itself. It was the last thing in the world he wanted.

 "Your Grace," he said. "I am not worthy of the honor." Robert groaned with good-humored impatience. 

"If I wanted to honor you, I'd let you retire." Robert corrected. "I am planning to make you run the kingdom and fight the wars while I eat and drink and wench myself into an early grave." He slapped his gut and grinned. "You know the saying, about the king and his Hand?" Ned knew the saying, Hayley didnt she looked between them thinking this was a private moment but she was learning about this world hearing them speak, learning their customs. Roberts friendship with a man who was clearly honorable and handsome. So handsome, why was he so handsome?

"What the king dreams," Ned answered, "the Hand builds." 

"I bedded a fishmaid once who told me the lowborn have a choicer way to put it. The king eats, they say, and the Hand takes the shit." He threw back his head and roared his laughter, Hayley smiled a chuckle on her lips. Roberts laughter echoed through the darkness, and all around them the dead of Winterfell seemed to watch with cold and disapproving eyes. 

"Really makes Ned want to take the job now." Hayley mused.  Ned was still on one knee, his eyes upraised, watching Hayley.

 "Damn it, Ned," Robert complained. "You might at least humor me with a smile like Mum." 

"They say it grows so cold up here in winter that a man's laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death," Ned said evenly. "Perhaps that is why the Starks have so little humor."

"Stick with me, I will get a smile on your face." Hayley declared confidently. " I'll teach you how to laugh again."

"I bet you could." Ned agreed softly. 

 "Come south with me, you helped me win this damnable throne, now help me hold it. We were meant to rule together. If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection." Robert added. "Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done." This offer did surprise Ned.

 "Sansa is only 13." Ned countered. Robert waved an impatient hand. 

"Old enough for betrothal. The marriage can wait a few years." Robert offered. 

"Engaged at 13," Hayley looked horrified. 

"Now stand up and say yes," Robert demanded. 

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Your Grace," Ned answered. He hesitated. "These honors are all so unexpected. May I have some time to consider? I need to tell... my wife ..." Ned offered he didnt know why he hesitated saying wife. Yes he did. He didnt want to be in this crypt with Hayley and remind her that he indeed had a wife and many children. He should not have hesitated. 

 "Yes, yes, of course, tell Catelyn, sleep on it if you must." Robert agreed. "Just don't keep me waiting too long. I am not the most patient of men." 

"He's really not." Hayley agreed. 

"Come on, I'm freezing my ass off." Robert declared pulling Hayley along. 

For a moment Ned was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

"You coming up, Ned?" Hayley questioned glancing back at him. The dread left him when he looked at her and he was excited for the adventure.