[Lannisport, 6th Moon, 299 AC]
By the eighth morning after Lannisport opened its gates, the road east of the city had begun to fill with western banners.
Alaric watched them from a stone balcony overlooking one of the broad squares near the eastern wall, where merchants had already returned to shouting over the price of grain and fish while northern soldiers passed through in small groups under strict orders to keep their hands off anything they had not paid for. The city had not forgotten that it was occupied, but it had begun to understand what kind of occupation it was. The markets were open, the harbor remained busy, the city watch still carried its spears beside Winter Guards at the gates, and the houses along the wealthier streets no longer barred every shutter when a northern cloak appeared below.
Beyond the walls, the western camps were growing by the hour.
The purple unicorn of Brax had arrived first, followed by the peacock of Serrett, the badger of Lydden, the seashells of Westerling and the hooded man of Banefort. Farman men had come up from the coast, Presters from farther south, and several lesser houses had followed because once the great banners began appearing, few men wanted to be remembered as the lord who remained home while everyone else decided what the Westerlands would become.
They came with small escorts, as Alaric had demanded, and none had been stopped at the gates.
Harald stood behind him with one hand resting loosely against the pommel of his sword, while Daven Blackwood leaned against the stone wall nearby. Tempest had stretched himself across a patch of sunlight beside the open door, his pale eyes following every servant who crossed the chamber behind them, while Cinder sat closer to Alaric, watching the square below as though the city belonged to her.
Robb joined them carrying a folded letter.
Alaric noticed because Robb had been carrying the same letter for most of the morning, taking it out, reading a portion, folding it again, and then repeating the entire process when he thought no one was paying attention.
"You have read that often enough that the words are unlikely to change," Alaric said as Robb reached the balcony.
Robb looked down at the parchment, almost embarrassed to have been caught. "I know. Ysilla wrote it three days after the birth, and most of it is about things I cannot picture properly anyway. How much hair he has, how loudly he cries, whether his nose looks more like mine or hers. I keep reading it as though eventually I will be able to picture my son in my mind."
Alaric understood that too well.
"Alys does the same with Torrhen and Sarra. She tells me Sarra makes more noise than her brother and that Torrhen stares at people until they become uncomfortable, which she insists means he takes after me. I know how much they weighed when they were born, how often they wake, which one sleeps more easily, and which wet nurse Sarra dislikes. I know almost everything a raven can tell me." He rested his forearms against the balcony rail and looked toward the western camps instead of Robb. "And yet, I have never held either of them."
Robb moved beside him and remained quiet for a time, his thumb rubbing along the folded edge of Ysilla's letter.
"That is what feels wrong about it," he said eventually. "Everyone keeps congratulating me and calling me father, and I am pleased, gods know I am, but there are moments when it still feels like they are speaking about somebody else. Edderion is my son. I know that. Yet if I walked into the room where he sleeps tomorrow, I would be a stranger to him."
Alaric turned slightly. "You named him for Uncle Ned, Correct?"
Robb nodded, "Aye, we agreed on it before I left. I wanted Father's name in there somewhere, and Ysilla liked Edderion better than simply Eddard. She said a babe ought to have something of his own rather than spend his whole life carrying another man's name exactly." Robb smiled faintly, though it faded quickly. "Father will pretend the honor makes him uncomfortable."
"It will make him uncomfortable." Alaric chuckled, scratching Cinder behind her ears as she wagged her tail absent mindidly in bliss.
"That is half the reason I did it."
Alaric gave another brief laugh, but his attention drifted again toward the road beyond the gates. Another column was approaching in the distance, perhaps no more than thirty riders beneath a banner he could not yet make out.
Robb followed his gaze. "Do you ever worry we will simply keep finding reasons not to go home?"
Alaric did not answer immediately because he had thought about little else since Alys's last letter.
"There will always be reasons," he said after a while. "There will always be another border dispute, another lord demanding judgment, another man convinced his grievance will destroy the kingdom if I do not hear it personally. Now Balon Greyjoy has decided to remind us he still exists, and when that is settled someone else will take his place. If we allow duty to mean that every problem belongs to us before our own children do, we will wake one day and discover they know us from stories better than they know us as men."
Robb looked at him then.
Alaric continued before the thought became harder to say. "I do not want Torrhen and Sarra hearing about battles I fought and castles I took while trying to remember what my voice sounded like. I want them to know me because I was there. I want them to know when I am angry, when I am tired, what I sound like when I laugh, and whether I am any good at putting them to sleep. Alys has already done months of this without me. I have no intention of making years of it."
Robb lowered his eyes toward the letter in his hand. "Aye. I want that too. I would like Edderion to know who I am before someone has to explain it to him."
"He will."
"You sound certain."
Alaric sighed at that, a wry smile upon his face. "I am trying to convince myself just as much as you," he said, patting Robb on the shoulder.
That earned a quiet smile from Robb, and for several moments neither spoke.
Then footsteps sounded behind them.
Jon came through the doorway with Dorren at his side and a raven message in his hand. Whatever ease had been on Jon's face before entering was gone.
"Cousin," he said, approaching directly rather than waiting to be acknowledged. "This came through Seagard. Ser Benjicot sent it after the fighting."
Alaric straightened and took the parchment, reading it over, then once more before looking up.
Robb stepped nearer. "Is it bad news, Alaric?"
"No, good news actually." Alaric handed him the parchment. "Benjicot held the sea, causing Victarion Greyjoy to withdraw, and the invasion has failed for now. We lost more than two hundred men doing it."
Harald had come forward behind them. His expression remained controlled as Robb passed him the report after reading it.
"Benjicot did well, that fleet of yours seemed to have performed splendidly," Harald said, as he paused and studied Alaric for a moment longer. "And you are annoyed you were not there, aren't you?"
Alaric glanced toward him. "I would rather have been there than read about two hundred northern dead from a balcony in Lannisport."
"That is a fine sentiment, but you are needed here nonetheless, Your Grace. Benjicot had ships, captains and orders, and from the sound of it he used all three well. Had you somehow appeared aboard the Winter Wolf, I doubt Victarion would have been alive much longer, but there are still more pressing matters to be had here."
There was little humor in Harald's tone, which made the point harder to dismiss.
Alaric looked again toward the western banners beyond the walls.
"Aye, you're correct, for once, I just dislike hearing of battles without being a part of them," he said. "Benjicot did his duty. Now I mean to finish mine."
The council met that afternoon in a guildhall near the harbor, chosen because it belonged to neither the Lannisters of Lannisport nor the northern army.
Alaric had refused the raised chair offered to him and instead sat at one end of a long oak table, the Crown of Winter on his head but no throne beneath him. Harald stood several paces behind, while Robb, Jon and Daven occupied spots along the northern end. Lucion sat farther down among the westermen beside Roland Crakehall and Ser Tymond Lannister, close enough to Alaric to speak easily but plainly seated among his own countrymen.
That arrangement had been deliberate, and the western lords had noticed, but that hadn't stopped them from getting into a lively discourse, with arguments beginning before everyone had even properly settled.
One of the older westermen, grey-haired and stiff-backed beneath the colors of House Lydden, was the first to state what several others clearly believed.
"Lord Tywin remains alive," he said, his hands folded upon the table. "He has been defeated and taken prisoner, but captivity does not strip a man of his titles. Casterly Rock still stands, Ser Damion holds it in his name, and no word has come from Lord Tywin renouncing his rights. I do not understand why we are speaking as though the lordship of the Westerlands lies vacant."
A lord farther down the table answered before Alaric could. "Because Lord Tywin cannot govern us from a northern cage. And let's not forget the fact that Ser Jaime lies dead, killed at the hands of Alaric Stark. Ser Kevan is dead as well, and so is Stafford, and every army raised to restore the old position has been destroyed. We can spend the next year pretending those facts are temporary if it comforts us, but the dead will remain dead."
That drew several muttered agreements and more than one angry look.
A Brax representative leaned forward. "There is another path which no one seems eager to mention. If Joffrey's claim has brought ruin upon us, Robert had a lawful brother. Stannis Baratheon may yet take King's Landing, and if he does, the Westerlands could bend the knee to him and remain within the realm rather than fracture everything that has existed since Aegon's Conquest."
Roland Crakehall had been silent until then.
"And when Stannis commands us to march north again?" he asked, his voice tired rather than mocking. "What army shall we send him? Stafford's? Tywin's? Perhaps Jaime can lead it."
The Brax man's expression hardened. "You know what I meant."
"I do, my lord, but that doesn't make your idea any better in my mind."
As they bickered and went back and forth, Alaric simply sat there, stroking Tempest and Cinder as the two sat beside him, the trio in silence beside the swish of tails.
That was the part most of the western lords seemed least comfortable with. They had expected him to arrive with a conclusion already prepared and simply force them toward it. Instead, he listened while men argued over Tywin, Stannis, Joffrey, the Iron Throne and the possibility of ruling themselves, until the same points began returning under different words.
Eventually Serrett turned directly toward him.
"You summoned us, Your Grace. We have now spent the better part of two hours telling one another what every man in this room already knows. Perhaps you should tell us what the North actually requires before we decide what remains possible."
Alaric sat back slightly. "That is reasonable," he said. "The North requires recognition of its independence and claim to The Twins, peace along our southern roads, an end to western war against the Riverlands, settlement of prisoners, and reparations sufficient to answer for what this war has cost without crippling the Westerlands for a generation. I have no interest in emptying your mines, stripping your castles or carrying every golden cup in Lannisport north."
Several men exchanged glances.
Alaric continued. "More importantly, I do not intend to rule you. No northern lord will receive western land because he happened to fight well. No Stark governor will remain in Lannisport when this settlement is finished. My garrisons leave once I believe whoever rules the Westerlands can enforce whatever agreement we make."
Lord Banefort frowned. "You speak as though our surrender is already complete." he said, still holding out a stubborn ounce of hope.
"It is." Alaric said simply, as if telling a child the sky was blue.
The room quieted.
Alaric kept his voice level. "I do not mean to insult you, my lords, but the fact remains, the North has totally trounced the Western war effort and you are now at my mercy. Tywin is captive. Stafford is dead. Your field armies are gone. Lannisport opened its gates. Most of your keeps have submitted or agreed to terms. Casterly Rock can remain closed for years if Ser Damion wishes, but a mountain cannot march an army. The war between the North and the Westerlands is finished unless someone here insists upon beginning another one."
No one answered immediately.
"The question before you," Alaric went on, "is not whether you lost. The question is what shall exist after I leave."
Lord Westerling's representative looked down the table. "And who do you expect to rule whatever that is?"
Alaric looked at him.
"Why, you lot, of course."
Confusion moved through the room before the man shook his head. "I asked who rules the Westerlands."
"And I answered you. You will decide it. If I choose your ruler, then every man who dislikes his taxes or loses a judgment five years from now will call him my creature. I will not spend northern blood defeating this country only to create a government that collapses the moment my army goes home."
Another voice came from nearer Lucion.
"With respect, Your Grace, that is difficult to believe when the man you have spent a moon placing before western lords sits among us."
Alaric followed the voice to a Serrett cousin whose meager lands had surrendered days before Lannisport.
The man gestured toward Lucion. "He negotiated for surrendered keeps. He spoke for you outside these walls. Western petitioners are told his word carries yours. We are asked to choose freely after you have spent weeks ensuring a Lannister sat before us to negotiate surrender."
Lucion's expression tightened, but Alaric answered before he could. "Aye, I indeed did exactly that."
The admission seemed to surprise them more than denial would have.
Alaric rested one hand against the table. "I trust Lucion. I trust his judgment, and I know western men would rather bring grievances to a Lannister than to me. I used that because allowing pride to turn every surrender into a sack would have been idiotic. If you want me to apologize for choosing a man I trust to perform work he was suited for, then I will have to disappoint you."
He glanced toward Lucion before continuing.
"That does not mean I intend to place a crown on his head. If you distrust him, choose another man. Choose Lord Serrett. Choose Brax. Choose three men and call them Magisters if you like. It becomes my concern only if whoever you choose intends to renew this war."
The room remained quiet for several heartbeats, then Lord Lydden looked toward Lucion.
"Very well. Let us ask him plainly. Ser Lucion, are you King Alaric's man, or are you a westerman?"
Lucion did not answer immediately.
Alaric saw him glance once toward Roland, then toward Tymond, before returning his attention to the older lord.
"If you require those things to be opposites, my lord, then I cannot give you an answer you will like," Lucion said. "I have fought beside Northerners for quite some time now. Some of them are my friends, and I am not going to insult them or you by pretending otherwise because it would make this conversation easier on me. I raised steel against western men during this war, and I cannot undo that either."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice remaining calm.
"But when western castles surrendered, I argued that their lords keep their lands. When prisoners needed finding, I found them. When Lannisport opened its gates, I gave my word that there would be no sack and then spent days helping ensure that word was kept. My father sits in Casterly Rock because he believes his duty requires it, and I still love him. My mother was Shiera Crakehall, and no matter what else I have become, this country is not foreign to me."
The room listened without interruption now.
"If you want a man who hates the North, choose someone else. If you want a man who can pretend Tywin's rule has not ended because saying otherwise feels disloyal, choose someone else for that too. I have spent the last weeks trying to keep the Westerlands alive after defeat because somebody needed to do it. Judge me by that if you wish. I have nothing cleaner to offer."
Roland Crakehall lowered his gaze for a moment, then pushed his chair back slightly and looked along the table.
"We have already judged him," he said. "We simply have not admitted it."
Several men turned toward him.
Roland's face remained hard, worn by weeks in captivity and grief that had never fully left it.
"My sons are dead. My army is gone. If anyone in this room has cause to resent the men who came through the Golden Tooth, I will not surrender my place in that line easily. Yet when I wanted truth about Lyle and Tybolt, Lucion gave it to me. When surrendered houses feared what came next, they went to him. When this city feared a sack, its men negotiated through him. When your cousins or sons disappeared into northern custody, half of you sent someone to ask Lucion where they were before you ever thought to ask King Alaric."
He looked directly toward the men who had challenged Lucion.
"We have spent a fortnight placing our problems before the same man and then entered this hall pretending we cannot understand why the Stark king has done the same." Roland turned toward Lucion at last. "If the Westerlands requires a man who can speak to the North without kneeling to it, and speak to us without lying about what this war has done, I know one. Whether he wants the burden is another question."
Voices rose again, though now Lucion's name sat openly at the center of every argument. Some objected that his father still held Casterly Rock. Others questioned whether Tywin could simply be set aside while alive. A few began speaking of independence as though the issue were no longer whether it should happen, but when.
Alaric, for his part, simply sat back and listened. For the first time that afternoon, they were no longer arguing with him. They were arguing with one another about their own future. That was when a Lannister household man entered the chamber, crossed to Lucion and whispered into his ear.
Alaric saw Lucion's face change.
"What is it?" Roland asked.
Lucion looked toward Alaric before answering the room. "My father has replied."
The arguments died quickly.
Lucion unfolded the short message the servant had brought. "Ser Damion accepts the safe conduct I offered him. He will leave Casterly Rock with twelve men and come to Lannisport tomorrow. He wishes to speak with me before he speaks before this council."
For the first time since the western armies broke, the man holding the Rock was willing to leave its gates and meet the son whom half the room had just begun discussing as the future of the Westerlands.
Alaric rose. "We have done enough for one day. Speak among yourselves tonight, and when Ser Damion arrives tomorrow, hear what he has to say. I will not force a decision before then."
The council slowly broke apart.
Lucion remained seated until most of the western lords had left.
When only Roland, Harald, and a handful of close men remained, Lucion finally stood and folded his father's message carefully.
"I have spent months thinking about what I would say to Tywin, Cersei, half the western lords in this city, and anyone else likely to hate me," he said quietly. "I have no idea what I am supposed to say to my father."
Alaric regarded him for a moment. "Speak to him simply as your father. He asked for that much in his first letter, whether either of you understood it then or not. The Rock will still be there when you finish."
Lucion breathed out slowly and nodded.
Outside, the harbor bells began sounding the evening hour, and through the open doors Alaric could hear Lannisport continuing around them.
Tomorrow Damion Lannister would come down from the Rock.
After this whole ordeal was dealt with and finished, Alaric intended to be finished with the West.
His children and wife awaited him.