Chapter 2: The Lion and The Wolf

He needed to be sure of how to meet with Lord Eddard Stark.

Tywin had considered how best to approach the matter.

Fundamentally, these merchants were after the same as Tywin, for they were concerned about the stability of the Seven Kingdoms. Granted, their reasons were for personal gain, but did not everyone wish to assert their own claims and families?

For them, like the Iron Bank, their concern was that of black ink on a ledger. Somehow, ensuring continuity of the Targaryen bloodline was good for their investments. While he did not enjoy the veiled threat of having one hundred thousand sell-swords at the shores of Westeros, he understood that their methods were effective.

They had not come to him demanding he keep this heir alive. Instead, this was a request, which he could respect much more and could justify himself. Those merchants were correct in the manner that a Targaryen could do well if fostered correctly.

Dragons were a rare breed. While there was some familiarity with madness, that was likely because of the consistent mating within one’s family. One tied with a Stark, who had honor above all else, could be useful to him.

There were heights that could not be reached unless one was of noble birth. Reality worked in this fashion, and Tywin was not a revolutionary. Once he understood this was how the world truly worked, he used that facet of reality to his advantage.

A Stark, a Tully, a Baratheon could all achieve great deeds that few knights and commoners could ever hope to achieve. A Targaryen, unbridled by madness, could soar to heights not seen since Aegon the First.

Duncan the Tall had revealed certain qualities of Aegon the Unlikely, so too could a tried and true Lannister bring out the best in this boy. Jaime could teach him swordplay. Let the Starks handle the honor. Where Tywin would do his best work was in the boy’s mind. A rogue nobility that was bound by logic, wisdom, and reason would be far more useful than a dreamer or an idealist.

Thinking back, Tywin recalled how Eddard Stark did not let the baby out of his sight after the coronation. Why had they all accepted the deception?

As Warden of the West and Lord of Lannister, he should have known better. However, he was keenly aware of why he had accepted the duplicity.

House Stark did not play in the contest of politics despite its necessity. They were bound by truth and honor and the unforgiving truth that no matter what good or ill befell the realm ... Winter was coming, for the frost was always returning, and the season was harsher than any threat of steel.

As he thought how best to deal with Lord Eddard and his famed honor, he realized there was a greater issue.

The King loathed Dragon Spawn. Further he would hate to discover that his beloved Lyanna, whom he put on a pedestal had married a Targaryen purposefully.

Thoughts ran back and forth in the Lion’s mind.

If somehow, this Jon ... Aegon ... could be put into the line of succession, then the arrangement allows for the terms of the agreement with the merchants to be met. More than this, it would keep Joffrey to be sharper, and in time, maybe a marriage pact with a daughter of Robert’s might be possible. This would also explain away any white-blonde Targaryen features that the future offspring might have.

Obstacles were thus: He needed Lord Stark to agree, and Robert needed to be aware to some degree and not slay the child.

Catelyn Tully knew her family’s house words: Family, Duty, Honor.

She had lived by them almost all of her life. As she looked to the babe in its crib, and Maester Luwin informed her that he did all he could for the child, and it was enough, she breathed a sigh of relief.

In that exhalation, the anger at her husband’s affair resurged. No longer was this dark-haired boy, whose features were more Stark than her own son, merely an infant. He was the representation of her husband’s unknown affair during Robert’s Rebellion.

In the eyes of this child, there was a visible reminder of her husband’s betrayal. Men went off to war and fornicated with camp followers, whores, and even ladies of certain houses. What men, especially honorable men like Eddard Stark, did not do was bring the result of their dalliance home.

She knew nothing of the mother, save that she died giving birth to this little being.

The secrecy of her husband, the willingness to bring the child back to Winterfell, and even his wanting to raise him up among his other children told Catelyn that Ned loved this woman.

That was enough to make her loathe this child, but as the fever broke, she knew what she had done. For Family, Duty, and Honor, she had prayed to the gods, both Old and New, to save this boy.

Her anger was at Ned, not the child.

He was an innocent, no matter what he looked like.

She had sworn if the gods spared this tiny being, she would raise him as her own son. Vows such as this were not to be taken likely.

Hoster Tully, her father, had once told her a story that one who breaks a vow to the gods was no better than and oathbreaker to a king, but an oathbreaker to the gods would be punished in subtle ways.

Perhaps, by breaking this vow, she would be a murderer, wretched, evil, and somehow leading to the fall of her own children. The gods were not to be toyed with.