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Jon is talking to the new maester at arms of the Red Keep to ask how he’s settling in when a guard comes in saying that His Grace is summoning him with the utmost urgency. He goes at once, hoping that it’s nothing too bad (please not a secession or a war or more dragons, they got this far and went through one Long Night, he thinks he’s earned a simple life without surprises for now, or at least without the surprises that might come with being Hand of the King and for which he’s signed for), and he’s almost out of breath when he walks into the solar – Aegon is sitting behind his desk and is looking at him quite – intently?
“What’s wrong?” He asks. “Has something happened?”
“No,” Aegon says, “but it will.”
“It – will? And what does it concern, if I may ask?”
“Of course you may, since it’s concerning you.”
“… Me?”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing you will not enjoy,” Aegon keeps on, and he sounds calm but also somehow excited.
Jon isn’t too sure about this, especially if he is involved – if Aegon decided he wants someone else to take his place, maybe someone more in touch with Westeros than he is, as he hasn’t been really back for long, he won’t object to it, but still – the fact that he looks excited suggests him it’s about something else.
“Very well. What – what is it?”
“I think,” Aegon proclaims, standing up, “that it’s high time you stop putting others’ needs in front of yours, and since I know you won’t do anything about it yourself, I took the liberty of stepping in.”
“What?” That was not what Jon was expecting and not anything he has a clue about. What does it even mean, anyway?
Aegon shakes his head. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand what I mean. You spent half of your life sacrificing yourself for my lord father, and the other half for me. Don’t assume I don’t know that.” Aegon glances at the empty spaces where the two grayscale infected fingers he had should have been – Jon cut them off before it could spread, figuring that he couldn’t risk it spreading before he had fulfilled his promise. And – fine, it’s not as if he ever spoken about it with Aegon openly, but –
“Your Grace, I can assure you I am fairly happy like this. I mean – I swore to myself that –”
“That you could die happy after seeing me in my rightful place, I know, you told me. Which is all good, and you did it, and I’m plenty grateful, but as you haven’t died, and you most likely won’t for the foreseeable future, and I know you won’t take the matter into your own hands, someone else has to.”
And then he hands Jon a piece of paper.
“I just told the scribes to send various copies around the realm. A couple of months should suffice for people to decide whether they wish to join,” Aegon says, and –
Jon reads the first half of message. Then reads it again.
Then a third time, and at that point he can’t think he hallucinated it as much as it seems the most likely explanation.
“Your Grace, you didn’t just organize a tourney for my hand.”
“I might just have, I’m not afraid to say.”
“I – really, I don’t – I’m quite fine like this. I swear I am. Besides – besides –”
How can he say it’s not just that I’m still in love with your father and always will be, but I also couldn’t ever marry a woman because I never once found one even remotely attractive in my entire life without it sounding as if he’s ungrateful or as if he’s writing the offer off?
But then Aegon laughs, the laugh of someone who knew that objection would be raised, and tells him to please go ahead and read the second part of the message.
And then –
Only male suitors will be allowed to participate, it read, and –
“Your Grace –” He starts, not quite sure of how to go on, and Aegon laughs again.
“I’ve known you for my entire life. All those years, and did you really think I hadn’t realized that women don’t strike your fancy, my lord?”
Jon thinks his face just became as red as his hair used to be when he was younger. “I – yes, they don’t, you aren’t wrong, but – it’s forbidden – technically it’s not possible –”
“From the next few days it won’t be anymore. At least not in the six kingdoms I’m ruling, but I don’t see why my half-brother shouldn’t follow.”
Well, fine, Jon has to concede, he doubts that the current King in the North will find it reproachable, but still – “And you’d do that just so that this… tourney can happen? You’d have a good deal of opposition to implement such a thing just for me, and I don’t really think I’m worth that or you risking approval. Your Grace – Aegon, really, I appreciate the thought, but –”
“Nonsense. First, you have quite literally given all your life to either my father or myself, and I know that as far as he was concerned you might not have done it just out of friendship. Don’t say anything, I get it. And all the same, I think you deserve a lot better than spending your days in my service only. I don’t doubt that you’re content with it, but content doesn’t mean happy, and frankly, you deserve a lot better than that. Which is why I figured the tourney was the best way to go about it – if someone isn’t interested somehow they won’t show up, and you should have a choice of notable people, at least. I mean, of course you won’t have to marry whoever wins if you don’t like them, but at least you would, well, meet people who might be interested. Also, I imagine that there have to be some knights in Westeros who would rather pursue a… lord rather than a lady. And who also obviously never had a chance to. Also, the Hand of the King is a fairly good marriage prospect, so it won’t be the bad idea I can see you assuming it might be.” He stops for a moment. “As for the opposition I would get – I don’t think it would be that strong. The Faith is a skeleton of what Cersei Lannister made it to be and they’ve been stripped of all the power they had gained. So they might complain – who cares. I decide, not them. The same is valid for all the others. Other than that, it’s hardly something criminal. So you fancy men. I imagine that you can’t be the only one in the realm, so what I see is that others who fancy men will be happier for it. As for the people who don’t – commoners won’t care one way or the other, I highly doubt they have time to waste worrying about that, and nobles – again, who is in charge? Not them. And like this they will just will have more chances to marry off their offspring to whichever House they wish in case the offspring is of the same sex, which is probably a good deal right now since a lot of their male offspring died during the Long Night. Overall, I don’t see it causing such an uprising.”
Jon swallows, trying not to stop and think about all the ways in which such a speech makes entirely more sense than anyone could have assumed without thinking the matter through, and goes on reading. And –
“At Harrenhaal?”
“Of course. Nothing better to finally cleanse the place of its bad fame, right?”
“And – you said this is going to be sent –”
“To the entire realm. Well, the Night’s Watch will be a formality, but excluding them would be rude. I’m not sending them to Essos but I suppose –”
“No, no, Westeros only is quite fine, it’s that – I just, I appreciate it, but you don’t have to –”
“I know, and I’m saying that after having to bear my grandfather for however long he made you his Hand, feed people that story about having died exiled in dishonor and having done all of that for my sake and my father’s, you deserve to live out the rest of your life with someone you actually like and not just spending yourself for me.”
“I imagine it’s a taken decision.”
“You imagine well, my lord. Also, until now I’ve just heard that it’s not worth to go through that effort and that you’re content, not that you don’t want it.”
And – thing is, either Aegon knows him that well or he’s too perceptive for his own good or both, but the fact is that he’s not… factually wrong. Jon never lets himself dwell about it – after all, Rhaegar is long gone and he never really thought he would have a chance to be with anyone else especially because it’s technically forbidden, but sometimes – he does think it would have been nice to not wake up alone every day, or to have someone looking your way… well, not the way Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth looked at each other at the Wall back during the Long Night, he figures that’s completely not attainable as far as he’s concerned, but something vaguely similar wouldn’t have been unwelcomed. Maybe it’s that he’s getting older, maybe it’s that he’s never even considered anything like that because he knew he’d never have it in the first place, not when he never fancied women.
“See? You’re already thinking it’s not a bad idea. That’s settled then. I’ll let you know how it goes. You can go back to talking to the maester at arms or whatever it was.”
“Your Grace, are you –”
“I am fairly sure, my lord. I will let you know.”
Jon walks out of the room feeling as if he is absolutely nowhere near sure of anything about this, but he figures he will just – think about it.
--
He thinks about it.
On one side it seems a fairly good idea. After all, even if he had fancied women he wouldn’t have pursued a lady or anything of the kind – he’s too old, and he’s been through too much, and he has no experience whatsoever in pursuing people. Having a number of people who are least technically interested to choose from looks fairly less daunting.
Then again, really, who would go out of their way to marry him out of everyone, though? He’s pushing middle-age and fine, he came out of it fairly better looking than most people who survived the war, but tourneys are for young knights, not people like him, and why would a young man look at him twice? Honestly, maybe the title could be a drawing, but the image is fairly preposterous if he tries to conjure it.
Never mind that there’s the chance it just ends badly for everyone involved. Which as much as Aegon disregards it – it could happen.
Jon spends two days agonizing about this and then decides that he’s going to worry about one problem at a time when they present themselves.
--
Thing is: Aegon wasn’t wrong.
The current High Sparrow puts up a protest when Aegon declares that from this day on same-sex unions are legal and that since he’s the king and it’s his decision no priest can refuse to perform the marriage. He seems fairly serious about it until Aegon interrupts his tirade, tells him that he can do whatever he wants but that if he doesn’t follow the crown’s law he can forget that the crown might still want to pay for the septs’ maintenance or help the Faith out economically in any way whatsoever. When the man sees that Aegon means it entirely, he stops protesting.
No other religious protest happens – some R’hollor worshipper does try it, and when Aegon points out that there’s nowhere in the rules of his own religion that same sex unions are unholy and the man realizes that it’s, in fact, the case – well, everyone else desists.
The commoners, as predicted, give zero shits either way – a week after the proclaim Jon goes to take a walk in the city and sees a few couples made of men only walking around and – and he gets a stab of longing in his chest the moment he sees two young kids kissing in the open. It’s two forgery apprentices, and when the blacksmith sees them and tells them to quit wasting time and get to work already it’s not – reproachful. He’d have used the same tone if one of them had been a girl.
Jon comes back to the Red Keep deciding that even if this tourney business ends up being a complete disaster, he’s glad that his plight at least helped making this happen.
--
Aegon insists that they should go to Harrenhaal at least a few days before the contestants are supposed to arrive – the castle has been renovated, and you wouldn’t know that it was half ruins until only a few years ago. Every sign of Roose Bolton’s presence has been carefully removed, thankfully, and it’s brimming with maids, stable servants and so on, and Jon really wishes this is the one time a tourney held in this blasted place doesn’t end with further bloodshed later.
It’s highly improbable – really, no one would go to war over him, of that he can be sure, and there’s no Elia Martell whose honor anyone could offend. The worst he could do was deciding he did not want, in fact, marry the winner, but if someone he could fancy does… then where’s the harm in it?
And then, the people start flocking.
Every single survived noble household sends some representative, or so it looks, because there are really too many bloody people showing up, and Jon ends up shaking hands with a ridiculous number of noblewomen, too, who say they came because they couldn’t miss what promises to be the most interesting tourney since way before Aerys Targaryen. At least one of them says it, and then Jon willingly chooses to not listen to what everyone else has to say about the matter.
Then Aegon declares the sign-up for the tourney opened on the next day. Jon had expected some twenty, thirty people to show up at most.
When Aegon tells him that in fact, they have two hundred participants, Jon is sure he heard it wrong.
“That can’t be accurate,” he says.
“You’re right,” Aegon says, re-reading the final tally. “It’s two hundred fifteen, to be precise.”
“Two hundred?”
“And fifteen.”
“Seriously?”
Aegon shrugs. “I did tell you it couldn’t have been just you, Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon in the entire kingdom. Also, you’re an excellent prospect.”
“How exactly?”
Aegon stares at him as if he’s completely daft. “You’re Hand of the King, your lands are fairly good and your castle wasn’t destroyed during the Long Night, your family name isn’t disgraced anymore and on top of that you’re hardly a penance to look at. Actually, if I were you I’d start testing the waters – some of them really might be gold diggers.”
He leaves, looking fairly cheerful, and Jon just – really? Really? Hardly a penance to look at?
He takes a look at himself in the mirror and – all right, fine, he might be past forty, but he is fairly fit, his hair isn’t mostly white and it’s all there in the first place, other than the missing fingers he figures he can’t be a displeasure to the eye.
Still – Jon is entirely sure he’s not going to be able to handle this.
--
Thing is – Aegon wasn’t joking when he said he thought Jon should have tested the waters.
“Sorry, what should I do?”
“Go to the informal dinner I organized for this evening. No alcohol will be served since most people in there will have to fight in the tourney tomorrow, but you might get a feeling of who are the actual suitors.”
“Two hundred and fifteen of them?”
Aegon shrugs. “Well, I might have excluded one hundred because I thought they weren’t exactly marriage material.”
It’s – almost touching, really, and so Jon doesn’t protest and says that fine, he’s going to attend. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
--
Apparently, it’s people walking on eggshells. He’s kind of surprised of who shows up, since some people come from fairly noble families and sure as the seven hells he had never assumed that there were survived Umbers who fancied men, but most people are just – they’re all perfectly courteous, but it’s obvious that they don’t want to accidentally anger him.
Which is – well, a reaction he’s been getting fairly often since becoming Hand of the King, but the prospect of sharing his life with someone who doesn’t want to piss him off isn’t exactly exciting. He spends most of the night making small talk before excusing himself and saying that he’ll go outside to breathe some fresh air.
He does, in fact, feel relieved at breathing a lot of that fresh air – the main hall really was stilted. He goes as far as the godswood, taking in a lot of deep breaths and trying to just get himself under control, when –
“Is dinner being that boring?”
He looks at his left to find himself face to face with another knight – he’s wearing a dark cloak hiding the armor and Jon can’t really see him that well in this horrid light, but from what he can discern, he has to be around his age or a bit older. He definitely has a beard, grey, but not dull grey. It’s definitely well-kept. And he certainly does have a pair of nice blue eyes, if light isn’t playing tricks on him. He’s also fairly tall and lean – not much taller than him, but definitely so. And he has a fairly charming voice to say the least – it’s the kind of rough and low that sounds pleasant to the ear.
“Mostly, it’s for too many people,” he chooses to comment.
“Well, from what I heard it was indeed a lot of them that came here. I should hope someone has piqued your interest, my lord. Since it’s your hand that people are fighting for and all.”
“Am I that recognizable? And that said – maybe yes, maybe not. Can I inquire if –”
“Oh, I’m just a hedge knight passing by. I might stop a few days to watch the tourney, but I certainly haven’t enlisted.”
Jon is about to say too bad you didn’t, you’re about the only person I’ve spoken to all evening who actually isn’t talking to me as if they hope to make themselves look likable.
“I should hope you will have fun, then.”
“I might. I hope you have far more than myself, though.”
Jon can’t help it – he laughs just a tiny bit. “I don’t know,” he says. “On paper it was a horrible idea, in reality it seems like it’s working out better than I’d have thought but you know, every single person in there has just spent the entire evening making sure I’ll like them and – I don’t know, but that’d make for a fairly boring marriage now, wouldn’t it?”
The man gives him a nod. “No,” he agrees. “That certainly wouldn’t be a good start if you want things to be even.”
Which is exactly Jon’s problem.
“Still,” the man keeps on, “you can console yourself that even if it doesn’t work out for you, others will be plenty grateful that it’s happened at all.”
“Oh, well, yes. That’s also true. Actually, it feels so – strange. I mean, I’m here discussing my future marriage to a fellow man when a month ago no one would have thought it possible. How times change, right?”
“Indeed.” There’s a pause, and then – “Thing is, I would have been fairly happier for it quite a few years ago.”
“Oh. How so?”
The man shrugs. “You spoke about uneven marriages. I might have had a falling out with my brother because I did not wish to marry at all, if it meant – well, tricking the lady, so to speak.”
“As in, you do not fancy ladies same as I do and you felt it would be unfair to marry any woman?”
“That exactly, my lord. I could hardly put it in those terms, though, not that it would have made much of a difference. Now – well, we’re not young anymore, I suppose, but I should like to think that in a few generations no one will have to be in that same situation.”
“I hear you,” Jon says, with longing. Thinking about it, even if he could have told Rhaegar, if it had been deemed socially acceptable to reserve your affection for a man only, he’s not sure he would have had much of a chance, but at least he could have tried, right? “Well, I could do worse than… settle if it means that me doing it opens the door for everyone else.”
“And I should hope you won’t have to settle after all, my lord. That would be too bad, wouldn’t it?”
Jon shrugs, figuring that there’s no harm in telling the truth – after all, he could never say this to Aegon’s face regardless of how much he knows, and sometimes strangers are maybe the best choice for this kind of confession. Never mind that he couldn’t tell that to anyone at court either, and it’s not as if he knows anyone outside court these days.
“Thing is – the man I used to love. He’s been dead and gone for a long time.”
“My sympathies.”
“Thank you. But – I’ve spent years just – still loving him anyway. And I know no one could be him. I don’t expect that. I know that either way I’d be settling. Still –”
He stops, at a loss for words – he honestly doesn’t know how to put words into a coherent sentence.
“Still, you’d rather be with someone completely different from him, with whom you could be reasonably happy and who wouldn’t kiss your arse at any given time of the day?”
Fine – Jon laughs at that. Quite openly. “Well, yes, that was about what I was hoping for. I don’t think it’s too much, but still, you can’t always get what you want, can you?”
“Indeed,” the man replies. “But sometimes one does. I shall hope it’s your case.”
“Thank you very much. Given that I don’t die of embarrassment before this tourney’s even begun.”
“Oh, I get it. I always hated being the center of attention, myself. Thankfully I never had to be most of the time. Either way, I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly. Anyone who’s survived the Long Night should manage a tourney.”
“You might be right.”
“Best wishes then. I’d best turn in if I want to sit in a nice spot tomorrow,” the man says, nodding his head. Jon does the same and watches him leave, thinking that if only any of the men at the party had behaved like this he’d have felt a lot better about this entire business.
Well, maybe neither of the contestants in the hall will make it, he hopes as he goes back upstairs.
--
The first couple of days are fairly uneventful. After all, with two hundred and fifteen contestants, he doesn’t even try to follow the jousts – he probably shouldn’t even try to look at the names until they’re down to fifty. And they’re in fact, down to fifty on the third day.
The good thing is that everyone seems to be fairly enjoying themselves excluding the losers – food is consumed plenty, Aegon informs him that various marriages have been arranged since there hasn’t been a gathering of nobles such as this one since the war was over, and that he approved of most of the ones that needed his approval. They get a raven from Winterfell saying that the North will likewise adopt the same stance on marriages and that if the king can’t attend at least the last day of the tourney his sister most certainly will be there, which will definitely not harm as far as relations go even if they’re already as amicable as it goes, and nothing otherwise horrid has happened.
(As in, there hasn’t been a Brandon Stark deflowering an Ashara Dayne yet, and Jon would like for things to keep on going that way.)
The bad thing is that when they’re down to fifty, Jon starts assuming he really might have to settle after all if he doesn’t want to end up offending people and making the entire thing look like a complete waste of time. Out of the fifty people left, he doesn’t know half of them. A few are definitely commoners that were knighted during the Long Night, another handful are nobles he can’t recall having talked to yet and the rest he does recall. And he shudders at the thought – it was all fairly dull people at best and outright annoying at worst. Or, as the mysterious knight said, outright trying to kiss his arse. Ah, and then there’s someone who has signed up without leaving a name. He’s under black knight on the list.
Jon goes asking to the servant in charge – the man shrugs and tells him that the man said he wanted to be judged on the basis of his skills only and not because of his family name and he wouldn’t leave at least a pseudonym. He’s also done fairly well until now – it looks like he won all his bouts without much effort.
If the tourney was held anywhere else Jon wouldn’t have even thought about it, but –
Considering where they are holding it, and what happened the last time an unnamed knight signed up in a tourney in this very place, Jon doesn’t like this business at all. Sure, considering that the Knight of the Laughing Tree was most probably Lyanna Stark and that the woman’s long dead, and considering the purposes of this specific tourney, it’s very difficult to imagine the mystery knight is a woman or that the situation bears any resemblance. It still makes him somehow uncomfortable.
Still – Jon sees why someone wouldn’t want to give out his name, and that’s actually a sound justification. But he still can’t shake the feeling that something’s bound to go wrong, considering all the precedents.
Then again, as long as Lyn Corbray doesn’t arrive in between the first ten (he’s pretty sure that his hand has felt dirty since he had to shake it during that first dinner), he figures he will try to handle just about anything.
That evening he goes downstairs to eat and it’s fairly more dreadful than the first time – now everyone in the room knows that they actually do have a higher chance of coming out on top than they had during the last time, so there’s more arse kissing, more agreeing with everything he says without even trying to sprout an original opinion and the evening is so dull he doesn’t know how he doesn’t fall asleep mid-conversation out of boredom more times than not. Still, when Aegon inquires he says everything has gone fairly well – he’s not going to complain about any of this at all. It’d just be petty.
--
Sansa Stark arrives on the next day, just before the bouts start. The mystery knight is actually in the first ten people who should fight it out in the morning. The rest will be in the afternoon, and then it’s going to be down to twelve of them.
“Jon is dreadfully sorry for not being able to attend,” she says courteously as she sits down on Aegon’s other side, “but there have been – possible news about our brother.”
Right. Bran Stark has been missing for years by now, but they still haven’t given up on looking for him.
“So he had to leave for the Wall at short notice. Still, it’s probably better for you all that I came myself. He finds tourneys rather dull.”
“And what about you, my lady?” Aegon asks her.
“Oh, I have been hoping for years to go to one that would only give me nice memories to look back to,” she says, not expanding further. Then she looks at the contestants as the bouts start, and she looks fairly excited until she notices that the mystery black knight is declared winner after barely a minute of the joust he was fighting.
She starts clapping, and then she stares at the knight in question – she doesn’t stop clapping, but she does seem fairly confused.
“Your Grace,” she asks courteously, “may I ask who is that one?”
“We don’t know,” Aegon says. “He said he wanted to be judged out of his skills and not his family name. He’s been winning quite easily, so far.”
“Is that so,” she says. But then she smiles and perks up all of a sudden. “Well, true knights come scarcely these days, Lord Connington. Mayhaps you will be lucky and find yourself one.”
As if – Jon isn’t even sure if he’s even contemplated the concept of true knights in the last twenty years. “Thank you, my lady. I should hope so.”
I should hope, but I don’t really think it’s much use.
--
Two days later, and they’re down to ten contestants. One is the mystery knight. The other nine are all half his age, and at this point Jon could care less for his issues with people not disclosing their identity. All of the people whose face he actually can see while they fight are definitely doing this just because they want to be tied to someone in a high position at court – he could tell that neither of them is even remotely attracted to men and if he has to settle he should like at least someone who’s not faking fancying men rather than women.
A couple of them probably do, but they’re also more skilled in the art of arse kissing than at fighting.
“Do you have a preference, my lord?” Sansa Stark asks him as they settle down to look at two of the younger men battling it out.
“Well. Let’s say that there are nine people out of ten I would hate marrying, and the tenth has the benefit of the doubt.”
She laughs, quite merrily. “Then we shall hope that things go as you wish they would,” she says. Aegon just smirks and watches the joust.
Jon really hopes that he won’t end up in the position of having to refuse the winner.
--
The mystery knight wins his subsequent three jousts.
On the last day, it’s him versus some nephew of the late Randyll Tarly who is way, way too young for Jon’s tastes – the lad can’t be more than ten and seven, gods – and Jon would really, really hate to be in the position of refusing him. At least, if the mystery knight doesn’t strike his fancy, he’d have the excuse that he didn’t know his name or status, even if to be quite honest if the man turned out to be a commoner with great swordfighting skills and he turned out to be decent and not the kind to kiss someone’s arse after a nice private talk, Jon thinks he’d be more than willing to try it out. It’s not as if he needs to marry peers or whatever – he just wants someone he won’t hate after spending three days in their company.
Obviously he can’t say it. He knows that both Aegon and Lady Stark know, too,and he can see every single relative of Lord Tarly’s nephew sitting on the stools hoping for the kid to win and he shudders.
The joust is at least fairly longer than the others – good thing that, you can’t end a tourney in a joust that lasts the span of a few moves.
A while in, though, Jon gets the inkling that the mystery knight is just letting the kid go along when he could have won in seconds, and when after what passes for an acceptable amount of time as far as final jousts in tourneys go… he disarms the kid in a single, swift motion. The kid yelds at once without even trying to get back on his feet and Jon just about stops himself from breathing out in relief.
He also hopes Aegon will deal with the entire mummer’s farce of declaring the winner and asking him to unmask himself and so on, but – no such luck, because –
“Well, I think that at this point, my Hand should make the honors. After all, as much as it might breach protocol, it should be his prerogative, not mine, as my own hand isn’t the prize of this tourney.”
Jon sometimes wonders if Rhaegar ever was that cunning. He certainly is right now.
He stands up, clears his throat and tries not to think at the amount of people watching him.
“Ser,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake, “you fought very valiantly and you won fairly, and I should be pleased to finally know who you are, unless you’d rather do it in private.”
“My lord,” the knight says, and wait but he thinks he knows the voice, “I think it won’t be necessary.”
And then the man does take off his helm.
At which, Jon realizes that yes, it is indeed the man from the night before the tourney started, but before he can actually go past that and try to focus better on his appearance, he stares at the man in the eyes and wait, aren’t they painfully similar to –
“And I hadn’t known that my niece would attend or I would have been more courteous and warned her that I would be here.”
His niece?
And then Sansa lets out a fairly unladylike snicker. Right, they do have the same eyes. The exact same color.
“That would be me,” she says. “I thought I had recognized you, uncle, but it’s still quite a welcomed surprise.”
That is when Jon puts two and two together. “Wait, if she is your niece –”
“You are quite right. I am Brynden of House Tully, my lord, and I don’t think either of us wish to go through the whole queen of love and beauty farce, but if you wish to uphold traditions –”
Jon can’t help it – he laughs a very, very relieved laugh, and he thinks that maybe he did get lucky somewhat.
“No, that’s – that’s quite all right. I would wish for a private talk more, all things considered.”
“Well, we’ll be expecting the both of you for dinner then,” Aegon proclaims while the entire yard is still submersed in silence. “Please, do feel free to leave. The whole queen of love and beauty part would, in fact, have been in very poor taste.”
At that, someone starts clapping, and then everyone else is, whether they’re doing it out of duty or not, and Jon kind of hurries out as much as he can get away with – he does hate being the center of attention, Lord Brynden calmly walking out after him.
He goes as far as the godswood again – most of the towers are still in ruins and he’s not sure he wants to have this conversation in front of them anyway.
After they finally stop, for a very long moment Jon has no bloody clue of what to say. They stare at each other, and then –
“Well,” Jon blurts out, “you weren’t telling exactly the truth a week ago.”
“I merely omitted saying that I was considering watching the tourney from the yard, not the seats. But I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t signed up yet.”
“And may I ask why?”
“Of course you might, that would be the least. When we received your little parchment in Riverrun, first I was relieved, then I was intrigued. After all, if the king was willing to change the law in such a big way for one person’s sake, that person had to be at least a remarkable individual. It’s also true I don’t believe in silly things such as hosting tourneys for someone’s hand especially if they don’t know each other. Now, Edmure isn’t keen on long trips these days, considering that his situation’s still fairly delicate as it is, so he’d have sent me as a House representative anyways. I thought I would come and try to see what kind of man you happened to be.”
“So – was our previous conversation a test?”
“Of sorts. I was just curious at the beginning. Then I decided I could see why your king went to such lengths to accommodate your choices in partners. Now, that disagreement I had with my family that I mentioned to you? After then, I had pretty much thought it would be a closed chapter. It wouldn’t be fair to marry a woman and I could hardly settle with a man out in the open. And I don’t like not doing things out in the open, if you get my meaning.”
“I think I do.”
“And then it turned out that your wishes were pretty much mine. As in, I think I might be past the age of the exciting kind of romance you have when you’re six and ten, and differently from you I never had someone I loved that much, but still, at times I thought it would have been nice to have someone else to share my bed same as you said. I think you understood where this is going, didn’t you?”
“I’m fairly sure I did,” Jon says slowly, painfully aware that his heartbeat might have slightly picked up. “But why the secrecy?”
“I wasn’t in particular hurry for people to start gossiping about it – the fact that I did not marry at all has been fairly talked about back in the day. Now, obviously the choice is yours – since I understood that you don’t like arse kissing, I’ll be straight with you. I might have won, but if you had set your sights on someone else you won’t find me calling for the Riverlands’ secession from the realm.”
Jon smirks. “That’s not what I was wondering. More than that – you entered the tourney because you thought we should have, well, that kind of profitable union?”
“May I still be entirely straight?”
“Please, keep on doing that.”
“Let’s say that the minor son of a fairly important House who is not spoken for goes to a feast or to a tourney or another marriage or what have you. He sees a lady from another house not beneath his own nor too much above it. The lady happens to be unspoken for as well, and maybe she’s also not a firstborn. It would stand to reason that if he likes the lady he should want to at least get to know her, and if his first impression isn’t proved wrong, that he should want to marry her.”
“I see nothing wrong with that.”
“Then, my lord, you should see nothing wrong with me conversing with you, deciding I did in fact like you, and choosing the surer course of action to make sure we might actually have a chance to get to know one another.”
Is it as easy as that?, Jon thinks, but as he nods, he realizes that maybe it really is. And –
Well, it’s not just that it wouldn’t be a scandalous union or anything of the kind, looking at the bare facts and not at the two of them not being women – after all, the Tullys are hardly an unimportant House, in fact if he wasn’t Hand of the King they would be pretty much equals, as far as names go. Edmure Tully is back in his ancestral home and he will have heirs, so there’s no issue on that front. They might have a few years in between them but all things considered it’s hardly relevant, and Lord Brynden was definitely around for both wars Jon fought, which means it wouldn’t be an awkward subject of conversation – especially as far as the Rebellion went. Also, he had thought from the first moment that the man seemed fairly attractive and he hasn’t changed his mind – and he looks nothing like Rhaegar, which is a blessing. If anything because he does nothing to hide his age, and his skin is more tanned and obviously etched with lines. As far as Jon is concerned, it’s all for the better – he wouldn’t have wanted someone half his age with whom he’d have nothing in common at all.
But more than that it’s just the attitude that makes him decide for good – the man really looks as if Jon says no he’ll just take it for what it is and leave it at that, and he hasn’t, well, kissed his arse at all, and thankfully he wants the two of them to actually get to know each other before doing anything.
What had Sansa Stark said, that true knights are a rare currency these days? Just after she most probably realized that the mystery knight was indeed her great-uncle?
Jon smirks openly. Maybe he’s really ready to move on. He’s certainly willing to try.
“And what if I say that I’d like that very much?” He asks tentatively.
“Then I would tell you that maybe even if we are expected for dinner, we might as well go to the next tavern over and start doing it. I’m not so sure I’d fancy sitting in the middle of that mummer’s farce myself and you don’t look like you want to do it a last time.”
“My lord,” Jon says, figuring that the grin that’s broken across his lips won’t leave them for a long time, “I think you just might start leading the way.”
End.