The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

Harridan

Ross entered her brother's solar without knocking, first thing after breakfast that morning. She never would have dreamed of doing the same thing when the room belonged to their father - she would have gotten a switched hand for her lack of manners - but held no such reservations with her brother. Ned was stood at his desk, alone, sifting through some papers.

"Robert asked you to be Hand of the King?" She did not waste time with pleasantries, closing the door behind her.

He nodded tersely. "How did you find out?"

"It was hardly a surprise. He spoke of little else to me on the journey north," A pause. "Are you going to take the offer?"

"Catelyn wants me to,"

His own disagreement went unspoken but Ross caught it anyway.

"If you don't want to go, then don't," She said, approaching the desk. "You know better than I do that although Robert will rant and rage all he wants, it'll all be forgotten in a moon's turn, most likely before he returns south,"

Ned's silence was acknowledgment enough that he knew she was right.

"He's my oldest friend," Her brother sighed instead. "It's my duty to stand with him, especially after Lord Jon's death," He paused. "That's the other issue. Luwin found this in his tower late last night,"

He nodded to a carved wooden box on the desk. Ross eyed it for a moment before reaching to pick it up, casting a questioning look at Ned.

"Left in his tower?" She raised an eyebrow. "No courier? No note?"

"Nothing. No one even reported seeing a rider," He said. "It must've been someone from the royal party. Luwin brought it to me as soon as he found it, knowing no more than we do. See what you think,"

Ross carefully lifted the lid, frowning at the contents, a single Myrish lens. Removing the lens and placing it on the desk, for those were valuable, she upturned the box, tapping on the other side. A hollow sound.

"There's a false bottom,"

"There was a note concealed inside," Ned's expression was grim. "Bearing the Arryn seal. It was from the Lady Lysa, Cat's sister," Ross knew Lysa Arryn all too well, but listened in silence, and he continued. "Written in a secret language they'd made up as children. It said that Jon Arryn was murdered,"

"That's... not impossible," Ross said slowly. His sudden descent from perfect health - for a man his age, anyway - to dead had happened rather quickly, and a Hand of the King was never without enemies. "Did it say who?"

"The Lannisters," Her brother's voice was cold. "The Queen,"

A pause.

"I knew Lady Arryn in King's Landing," Ross said eventually. "She's impulsive, weak-willed, easily impressionable and foolish,"

"Don't say that in front of Cat," Ned gave the ghost of a smile.

Ross pulled a face. "It's true. Her son is six, yet she barely lets him out of her sight - she still suckles the boy," Her expression bespoke her distaste. "And he is the most vile, spoilt child I have ever laid eyes on, save perhaps the Crown Prince. In all honesty, if you pushed me to say who I'd suspect the most, it would be Lysa, given how she fled in the night after his death without a word to anyone,"

"Careful, with accusations like that," Ned warned. "Perhaps she is mad with grief?"

"She had no love at all for her husband, she wouldn't care if he lived or died. But then that raises the question as to why she'd bother writing to Catelyn at all,"