Prologue
Part VI: Suicide
Joffrey was dead. His mother and father would soon be dead as well. The thought brought Robb no peace: he was alone now, one man standing before the Iron Throne like an ant before a mountain.
There was nothing he could do but the honorable thing, his heart would never let him do otherwise. But what was the honorable thing to do in his position? Not to take it for himself: he had no claim, no right to it. To take the Iron Throne would be to show that birth was irrelevant to him, that all should be ruled by the man with the greatest army.
There was no honor in that.
He could invite Stannis up north, to the capital, give him a crown and pretend to make peace. But the man had no more armies and neither did the Crownlands. Indeed, Tywin or Mace would crush him, whatever happened. If Stannis wanted to rule, he’d have to beg them for peace, and then he’d have to rescue Tywin’s heirs and swiftly, to appease the man. The war would continue.
‘So many things to handle, so many things to do...’ Robb muttered.
He knew what the most viable alternative was. To leave. To let King’s Landing be, to let the claimants and Lords Paramount fight and die amongst themselves, and truly that was what seemed the most sensible to him. The South had spent its armies. It was no longer a threat to itself. One way or another, there would be peace.
It was time to leave. It was time to go home.
“Home…”
For two years, he had been away. How were his little brothers doing? How was old Luwing holding together? And Theon? No word had come after he’d sent him back to his home. Robb wasn’t happy. The deaths he had caused as king, the misery he had witnessed in these years… it weighed heavy on his mind and soul and made gaunt his face, dark his mood. Father, Sansa, Arya… dead. But justice had been served, the North had been freed and his family avenged. Ice would soon be on his hip again and Grey Wind at his side.
Home. It was time to go home.
*
Some days after the army arrived at Riverrun, Myrcella’s stupor started to slip into depression. During the march north, she and Tommen had been shunned, looked down on, yet treated like royals all the same; only the nice old man, the ‘Blackfish’, had told her that almost as soon as they’d left King’s Landing, royal armies had marched into the city unopposed and declared themselves in support of Tommen, as of yet still the ‘rightful’ king, bastard or no. Uncle Stannis had been defeated, imprisoned, executed.
“Robb feels guilty about the two of you,’ the Blackfish had told them, ‘So you’ll be treated like royal guests. Just don’t make any mistakes about it: you are not viewed as king and princess, but as two bastards. It would be wise of you to realize that, it will help the hurt disappear.”
She liked the man. He was old and grumpy, which reminded her of grandfather Tywin, but really nice as well… he didn’t pity her and Tommen, nor shun them, instead listening to them when they felt lonely and then keeping them company. When she’d asked him why, he’d laughed and said: “When the king’s mother and uncle were young, I was the one they came to when they felt troubled. It’s an old habit, hard to get rid of, and I like you both. It’s not fair, nor right what happened to you. Damn those that say otherwise: you are not your mother, and you are not your father!”
But still, after they arrived at Riverrun and she was again hit with the sight of a castle, of bright towers and the flowing of water, she was struck with a desperate longing for home, for when everything had been simple and all she had to think about was whom she would be engaged to. She’d come out of her stupor, only to feel broken, and lonely. Her little brother had started to keep to himself, muttering strange things and wandering around the camp even before they’d arrived: the sight of Riverrun was devastating to his mind. He started to speak incoherently and screamed for mother randomly and by the the minute, but she was condemned, and could not be seen. All those with a heart found it being broken as they viewed the fallen brother and sister, once so high, now struck so low. Those without a heart grinned and muttered that the madness of incest was claiming what was its due by right among each other.
As the festivities started and the beer and spirits reached waiting gullets, as the northerners danced, fucked and were merry, Myrcella felt the old feelings of abandonment grow even more intense. If only there was someone, someone, to talk to, someone to comfort her… but there was no one. The Blackfish was gone now, on ‘important business’, and so she wandered, going a little mad, like Tommen. There was no consoling him anymore… how to talk to someone that will not listen?
Perhaps… she should jump of a the highest tower here. There had been stories, of desperate princesses, so so enamored with dead former lovers, that they had ended their own live. Her situation was worse: no one would ever love her again, for she was less than nothing now, a waste of space that most thought should be dead. She was not stupid. She could read it in their faces, in their hateful eyes and judgemental stares and it broke her, killed her inside.
Yes, a tower! The Seven frowned on suicide, the Grand Septon had often preached on that, but it didn’t matter. They’d left her all alone… she stood straighter, and walked past the revelries, her mouth set and her gaze determined. This was her faith. She was strong, strong!
She muttered encouragement to herself as she walked up any stairs she could find, higher, higher, promising herself that she would not cry, never that, never cry!
As she arrived at the top of a rather small, rather low tower, her now tangled curls swept up by in a soft, not even that cold, northern wind, she thought to herself that this was not that bad a place to die for someone like her.
She allowed herself a smile as she walked over the tower’s parapet, climbed on top of it, and shut her eyes. Perhaps, in the end, there would be freedom.
She fell.
*
Robb grabbed the girl by her waist as she dropped from the tower, pulling her back towards him, both falling to the stones below. He stood and yelled: “What were you thinking?!”
She started to cry in big, heaving sobs, her little body shaking with the power of it, snot flowing down her face. He’d recognized her by her beautiful hair: Myrcella Lannister. A girl who had now tried to kill herself.
Overcome by guilt, he pulled her up from the ground and tried to look her in the eyes, to tell he was sorry, but she put her head down and tried to rip herself free.
“Let me go-ho-ho!” She screamed, “LET ME GO!”
He’d been such a harsh fool… so busy trying to prepare for meeting uncle, for arranging the meetings and festivities, apologizing to Riverlords for the Sack of the Septry, that he’d forgotten two persons in the army that he should have felt the most guilt towards, the children whose lives he’d ruined.
“I’m not going to let you kill yourself!” He said, “I won’t have it!
She didn’t answer. Exasperation came up: she was just a child! Like his sisters, and he had let this happen…
“This was my fault,” Robb said as she powerlessly tore at his grip, “All my fault, I… I should never have bothered with my accusations, it wouldn’t have mattered and now I’ve done it for both of you… Hosten was right…”
His hands trembled. As a king, he’d succeeded. As a man, he had failed. And this was his problem: he did not feel himself to be a king. He felt himself a boy, a failure of a boy, who had ruined countless lives, only to avenge a few. He remembered her happy face now, from all those years ago in Winterfell… it seemed an eternity. When his family had been together and father had ruled in those cold plains, Jon had trained with him and the Baratheons had visited. When he and Theon laughed at Joffrey’s girlishness, when Arya and Sansa had been fighting and pouting, then making up again. When this little girl had danced with him, giggling and utterly infatuated. Vaguely, he remembered that he’d felt she could be a proper match for him one day, someone bright, someone exotic… how it all had turned to ash in his mouth and dust in his eyes, his future and his hopes.
Then, Myrcella stopped her struggling and fell into his arms, crying into his furs, letting out so much terror, it seemed to him she’d been building it up all this time.
“He to-hook me…” she cried, “He took me!”
A hand of ice gripped his heart.
“W-what?!” He stammered.
“Brother…” Was what she mumbled into his clothes.
It was enough. He understood, then, and he could stomach it no more.
“No more. I have hurt you enough, already. Come with me.”
He held her close to him, a bit awkwardly, but he could find the courage to push her away. This was how he walked down, through the halls filled with the merry, to Riverrun’s great feasting chamber where the nobles were drinking and celebrating that it was they who still lived. As they came in, many looked up and started to shout: “THE KING IN THE-” Only to see an abomination of incest clinging on to him and to freeze mid-sentence. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Robb could almost hear them think. Gently, he shoved Myrcella away a little, just enough for him to be taken seriously.
“Riverlords, Northmen! We’ve fought long for this victory, and we’ve earned it! We can drink all we want now, safe in the knowledge that we are no longer threatened by anyone!”
“Aye!” It was shouted.
“But we have also failed. We have failed to create peace in the South, and the South has solved its own problems. Our prisoner has been declared king. His own subjects have declared his ancestry irrelevant: while he’s known now as a Lannister, the High Septon has declared him legitimate. Whether under force of arms or not, we’ll never know. But the fact is that we’re dealing with a king! The child Tommen is a king!”
“Kill him then, Your Grace!” Someone shouted, and people ‘ayed’ their assent, “Kill him and be rid of the bastard.”
Robb shook his head.
“No. I will forgive you this transgression, whoever you are, but I will not sully my honor any more. The Lannister children are king and princess, and I will personally take them under my wing. I carry the duty and honor of generations upon my back, and I won’t see it soiled by delivering a bad ruler to the south. I declare myself guardian of Tommen and Myrcella… Lannister. They are now royalty again. They will be treated as such.”
His subjects stared at him as if he had lost his mind. They could stare. He’d done the right thing, whether they knew it or not. The south had chosen its king: it was Tommen. And so he would keep Tommen safe and raise him as best he could, and care for his sister as best he could.
“Thank you, Your Grace!” She whispered.
He took her hand and brought her outside, walked with her to the river. Together, they stood in front of the water in silence, guarded by none for a while. He said: “I’ve got many stories to tell you, and you’ve got many stories to tell me. I hope that, one day, you can forgive me for what I’ve done to you, my lady.”
He stared at the water as it flowed past, listening to Myrcella as she said: “It.. it’s not your fault, your Grace.”
“It is. It is my responsibility, all of it. Life… life is nothing to me anymore. It has lost it’s luster, as the wise men might say. But you are a princess. Not by birth anymore, but still by bearing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and one day you will return south and be a princess again. The Targaryens practised incest, and we all shut up and let them do it. We should not hiss at your birth. You are a fine woman, your brother is a fine man. You have reason to be proud.”
He felt no more joy. He had failed as a man, as a brother, as a son, as a protector. Whatever he might make up to Myrcella paled in comparison.
But he had a kingdom to rule. And as he stared into the river’s flow, envying its unthinking acceptance of the labor it had born for untold without complaint, waiting for his guard to erupt from the castle to plague him with their concern and help, he realized that he could not die, did not consider it, because he had a duty. Towards his people. To steer them through the times ahead and help them survive. Winter was coming, and he could fail no more.
. Right now, it mostly sounds like an excuse for Martin's writing, like the one he made when people called him out on the fact that some people got so old in medieval times. His answer (I believe) was that 'genetics works differently in Westeros'.
