“Robert, I beg of you,” Ned pleaded, “hear what you are saying. You are talking of murdering achild.”

“The whore is pregnant!” The king’s fist slammed down on the council table loud as athunderclap. “I warned you this would happen, Ned. Back in the barrowlands, I warned you, but youdid not care to hear it. Well, you’ll hear it now. I want them dead, mother and child both, and that foolViserys as well. Is that plain enough for you? I want them dead.”

The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that they were somewhere else. No doubtthey were wiser than he was. Eddard Stark had seldom felt quite so alone. “You will dishonoryourself forever if you do this.”

“Then let it be on my head, so long as it is done. I am not so blind that I cannot see the shadow ofthe axe when it is hanging over my own neck.”

“There is no axe,” Ned told his king. “Only the shadow of a shadow, twenty years removed … ifit exists at all.”

“If?” Varys asked softly, wringing powdered hands together. “My lord, you wrong me. Would Ibring lies to king and council?”

Ned looked at the eunuch coldly. “You would bring us the whisperings of a traitor half a worldaway, my lord. Perhaps Mormont is wrong. Perhaps he is lying.”

“Ser Jorah would not dare deceive me,” Varys said with a sly smile. “Rely on it, my lord. Theprincess is with child.”

“So you say. If you are wrong, we need not fear. If the girl miscarries, we need not fear. If shebirths a daughter in place of a son, we need not fear. If the babe dies in infancy, we need not fear.”

“But if it is a boy?” Robert insisted. “If he lives?”

“The narrow sea would still lie between us. I shall fear the Dothraki the day they teach theirhorses to run on water.”

The king took a swallow of wine and glowered at Ned across the council table. “So you wouldcounsel me to do nothing until the dragonspawn has landed his army on my shores, is that it?”

“This ‘dragonspawn’ is in his mother’s belly,” Ned said. “Even Aegon did no conquering untilafter he was weaned.”

“Gods! You are stubborn as an aurochs, Stark.” The king looked around the council table. “Havethe rest of you mislaid your tongues? Will no one talk sense to this frozen-faced fool?”

Varys gave the king an unctuous smile and laid a soft hand on Ned’s sleeve. “I understand yourqualms, Lord Eddard, truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this grievous news to council. It is aterrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing. Yet we who presume to rule must do vile things for thegood of the realm, howevermuch it pains us.”

Lord Renly shrugged. “The matter seems simple enough to me. We ought to have had Viserys andhis sister killed years ago, but His Grace my brother made the mistake of listening to Jon Arryn.”

“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied. “On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cutdown a dozen good men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us, grievouslywounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not killa man for loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.”

He gave the king a long cool look. “Would that man were here today.”

Robert had shame enough to blush. “It was not the same,” he complained. “Ser Barristan was aknight of the Kingsguard.”

“Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ned knew he was pushing this well past the pointof wisdom, yet he could not keep silent. “Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryenfor, if not to put an end to the murder of children?”

“To put an end to Targaryens!” the king growled.

“Your Grace, I never knew you to fear Rhaegar.” Ned fought to keep the scorn out of his voice,and failed. “Have the years so unmanned you that you tremble at the shadow of an unborn child?”

Robert purpled. “No more, Ned,” he warned, pointing. “Not another word. Have you forgotten whois king here?”

“No, Your Grace,” Ned replied. “Have you?”

“Enough!” the king bellowed. “I am sick of talk. I’ll be done with this, or be damned. What sayyou all?”

“She must be killed,” Lord Renly declared.

“We have no choice,” murmured Varys. “Sadly, sadly …”

Ser Barristan Selmy raised his pale blue eyes from the table and said, “Your Grace, there is honorin facing an enemy on the battlefield, but none in killing him in his mother’s womb. Forgive me, but Imust stand with Lord Eddard.”

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. “My orderserves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now,so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how manysoldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothersto perish on the end of a spear?” He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary.

“Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousandsmight live?”

“Kinder,” Varys said. “Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods intheir caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed.”

Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. “When you find yourselfin bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it,” he declared.

“Waiting won’t make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it.”

“Kiss her?” Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.

“A steel kiss,” said Littlefinger.

Robert turned to face his Hand. “Well, there it is, Ned. You and Selmy stand alone on this matter.

The only question that remains is, who can we find to kill her?”

“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renly reminded them.

“Desperately,” Varys said, “yet he craves life even more. By now, the princess nears VaesDothrak, where it is death to draw a blade. If I told you what the Dothraki would do to the poor manwho used one on a khaleesi, none of you would sleep tonight.” He stroked a powdered cheek. “Now,poison … the tears of Lys, let us say. Khal Drogo need never know it was not a natural death.”

Grand Maester Pycelle’s sleepy eyes flicked open. He squinted suspiciously at the eunuch.

“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” the king complained.

Ned had heard enough. “You send hired knives to kill a fourteen-year-old girl and still quibbleabout honor?” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Do it yourself, Robert. The man who passes thesentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her lastwords. You owe her that much at least.”

“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of him as if he could barely contain his fury.

“You mean it, damn you.” He reached for the flagon of wine at his elbow, found it empty, and flungit away to shatter against the wall. “I am out of wine and out of patience. Enough of this. Just have itdone.”

“I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but do not ask me to fix my seal to it.”

For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was saying. Defiance was not a dish hetasted often. Slowly his face changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept uphis neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at Ned. “You are the King’s Hand, LordStark. You will do as I command you, or I’ll find me a Hand who will.”

“I wish him every success.” Ned unfastened the heavy clasp that clutched at the folds of his cloak,the ornate silver hand that was his badge of office. He laid it on the table in front of the king,saddened by the memory of the man who had pinned it on him, the friend he had loved. “I thoughtyou a better man than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”

tyou a better man than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”

Robert’s face was purple. “Out,” he croaked, chokin............