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o, I do,” the king said. “What do you say, Ned? Just you and me, two vagabond knights on
the kingsroad, our swords at our sides and the gods know what in front of us, and maybe a farmer’s
daughter or a tavern wench to warm our beds tonight.”
“Would that we could,” Ned said, “but we have duties now, my liege . . . to the realm, to our
children, I to my lady wife and you to your queen. We are not the boys we were.”
“You were never the boy you were,” Robert grumbled. “More’s the pity. And yet there was that
one time . . . what was her name, that common girl of yours? Becca? No, she was one of mine, gods love
her, black hair and these sweet big eyes, you could drown in them. Yours was . . . Aleena? No. You told
me once. Was it Merryl? You know the one I mean, your bastard’s mother?”
“Her name was Wylla,” Ned replied with cool courtesy, “and I would sooner not speak of her.”
“Wylla. Yes.” The king grinned. “She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord
Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like . . .”
Ned’s mouth tightened in anger. “Nor will I. Leave it be, Robert, for the love you say you bear
me. I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sight of gods and men.”
“Gods have mercy, you scarcely knew Catelyn.”
“I had taken her to wife. She was carrying my child.”
“You are too hard on yourself, Ned. You always were. Damn it, no woman wants Baelor the
Blessed in her bed.” He slapped a hand on his knee. “Well, I’ll not press you if you feel so strong about
it, though I swear, at times you’re so prickly you ought to take the hedgehog as your sigil.”
The rising sun sent fingers of light through the pale white mists of dawn. A wide plain spread out
beneath them, bare and brown, its flatness here and there relieved by long, low hummocks. Ned pointed
them out to his king. “The barrows of the First Men.”
Robert frowned. “Have we ridden onto a graveyard?”
“There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace,” Ned told him. “This land is old.”
“And cold,” Rober
