GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 396 - Slightly Awkward

Lynn's body went rigid. His mind went completely blank.

He could hear Ned pouring wine across the room.

He shot Sansa a frantic look, letting out a series of meaningless dry coughs.

Sansa didn't catch any of it. Her head was full of that bold, reckless idea, and she'd decided her king was simply flustered by her surprise. A little shy. A little at a loss.

Which only made her more excited.

Her smile deepened, her sapphire eyes gone soft and liquid.

"My king," she murmured, "are you feeling shy?"

She traced her slender fingers across his chest, slowly, deliberately, then let them drift downward until they rested on the leather belt at his waist.

"It's alright. Let me help you..."

"Ahem."

A heavy, deliberate cough cut through the room.

Not from Lynn's mouth.

Sansa knew that cough. She had known it her entire life.

Her body locked up like a statue flash-frozen in ice. She could feel her fingers on Lynn's belt trembling , shaking in a way she had absolutely no control over.

Ned Stark, wine cup in hand, turned around slowly.

He had been about to ask Lynn about Stannis's next move. That was all. A simple question.

But when his eyes found the scene in front of him, every word he'd meant to say jammed in his throat.

His daughter. Sansa Stark. The daughter who had spent her entire life holding herself up as a model of propriety and grace.

She was crouched before the King in the North, wearing a maid's outfit so skintight it crossed well past the boundary of decent. And her hand , her hand was resting somewhere no proper lady should ever let it rest.

The color in Ned's face shifted. Visibly. In real time. His normal complexion drained away and was replaced by something dark , red deepening toward purple, like a bruise spreading under his skin.

The wine cup slipped from his hand.

It hit the floor with a clatter.

Time stopped.

The room was so silent you could hear heartbeats.

Sansa's face had gone beyond pale , there was no word for what it was now. She turned her head with the stiff, mechanical movement of someone who already knew exactly what they were going to see.

Her father. A man who had been honorable every day of his life. Looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before and could not begin to describe.

The bottom dropped out of her world.

Everything was over.

"I , I was only —"

She tried to speak. The words wouldn't come. Not a single one.

AH,, !

What came out instead was a scream , ragged, despairing, barely human.

She shoved herself to her feet, slammed both hands over her face, and ran. Straight out of the room, not looking at anyone, not stopping.

The door swung shut behind her.

Lynn and Ned were left alone.

They stared at each other.

The silence was a physical thing.

After a very long moment, Ned bent down. Slowly. He picked up the wine jug from the floor with the unhurried movements of a man contemplating the deeper questions of existence.

Lynn decided he needed to say something. Anything. He could not survive this silence.

"Lord Ned, actually —"

"Don't."

Ned stood. He looked at Lynn. The expression on his face was worse than grief , something beyond sadness, beyond anger, something that had no name.

"Young man." He put a hand on Lynn's shoulder and patted it once, slowly, like a man delivering a eulogy. "I understand."

A beat.

"Just... mind the occasion next time."

Another beat.

"These old bones of mine can only take so much."

He didn't wait for a response. He turned, walked to the door, reached for the handle , then stopped.

He looked back. His expression was complicated in ways that would take a philosopher to untangle.

"Uh..."

"You haven't married Sansa yet. I'd ask that you both... exercise some restraint in the meantime. Something a little less..." He searched briefly for the word. "...wild."

He pulled the door open and left at a pace that was just barely not a run.

Lynn stood in the empty room, listening to those retreating footsteps, and felt his temples pulse.

Socially dead. Genuinely, completely socially dead.

...

Meanwhile, in another courtyard of Winterfell.

Joffrey Baratheon , the nominal King of the Seven Kingdoms , stood with his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on a distant corridor, burning with venom.

Lynn's women were gathered there, chatting and laughing.

His betrothed, Margaery Tyrell, had her head together with that wild northern girl, Arya Stark, the two of them giggling over something Joffrey couldn't hear. His own sister, Myrcella , the one he'd always thought was the quiet, obedient one , stood right beside them, just as cheerful.

He watched them, and beneath the hatred was something he didn't want to examine too closely.

Envy.

Every word between them. Every laugh. All of it circled back to the same man.

Lynn.

Why?! Why did every woman in this castle have to orbit around him?! Joffrey was the king. He was the rightful heir of House Baratheon, successor to the Targaryen dynasty, the most noble-born man in all of Westeros.

And here, in this frozen, godforsaken wasteland, he was a ghost. An afterthought. A joke no one bothered to laugh at.

And Lynn could control his body.

What was that? What did that even mean?

Rage and humiliation churned in his chest, hot and directionless, with nowhere left to go. He couldn't touch Lynn. He couldn't confront those women. He wasn't stupid enough for that.

So when a servant happened to walk past, Joffrey's boot connected with the man's knee and sent him sprawling across the cobblestones.

"What are you staring at?!"

Joffrey stood over the fallen man, his voice cracking into a shriek. "I am the king! You lowly wretch — why didn't you kneel?! Why didn't you kneel when you saw me?!"

He kicked and struck the servant on the ground, roaring like something cornered and wounded.

"It's your fault! All you northern peasants , it's your fault! I'll kill you! I'll slaughter every last one of you!"

"My, my." A voice drifted from behind him, lazy and faintly amused. "His Grace seems to be having a difficult day."

Joffrey spun around.

Tyrion Lannister stood a few feet away, wine cup in hand, watching with the relaxed interest of a man at the theatre.

"You!" Joffrey's face twisted. "You damned dwarf!"

He lunged forward and jammed a finger toward Tyrion's face. "You dare mock me?! I am the king! Say one more word and I'll have your head on a spike!"

Tyrion slapped him.

The crack rang across the courtyard.

Joffrey stumbled back, hand flying to his cheek, staring at his uncle with pure, disbelieving shock.

He , he actually ,

"You —"

Tyrion slapped him again. Harder.

The second one spun Joffrey's head sideways. Tyrion calmly straightened his sleeve and wiped his palm.

"It seems your mother never managed to teach you manners."

He stepped closer. His mismatched eyes were cold and utterly without warmth.

"The king." He let the word sit there for a moment. "Don't flatter yourself, nephew. In this place, you are nothing."

He leaned in until his mouth was at Joffrey's ear.

"Keep screaming like this," he said quietly, "and you'll upset someone whose patience runs considerably shorter than mine." A pause. "Tomorrow morning, your head will be on the walls of Winterfell. Believe me or don't."

Joffrey went white. Every drop of color left his face in an instant. He stared at that smug, close-up face, and felt his eyes burn, and couldn't stop it.

WAH,, !

The King of the Seven Kingdoms burst into tears like a three-year-old.

"Mother! Mother! The dwarf hit me! He said he'll kill me!"

He turned and bolted for Cersei's chambers at a dead run.

Because here, he was nothing.

His mother was the only one who would listen. And Cersei had always despised Tyrion.

Tyrion watched him go, the blubbering and the flailing arms and the very dignified royal retreat. He shook his head, raised his cup, and drained it.

Deeply satisfying.

It didn't take long.

Joffrey came back dragging Cersei behind him, her expression visibly pained by the entire situation.

"Mother! He hit me! That dwarf hit me, right in front of everyone!"

He pointed at Tyrion, his voice still wobbling, his face still wet.

Cersei looked at Tyrion. Then she looked at her son , sniveling, red-cheeked, tear-streaked, both hands pressed to his face.

She breathed in slowly through her nose.

Then, with Joffrey watching her with desperate, expectant eyes, she raised her hand.

The slap was louder than either of the ones Tyrion had landed.

It connected with the other cheek.

Joffrey's wailing stopped as though someone had cut a rope.

He stood there, both cheeks swollen, both hands hovering uselessly near his face, his mouth open and completely silent.

Why... why had Mother...

"Enough." Cersei looked at her son with something close to revulsion. "Stop embarrassing yourself. Stop embarrassing me."

"Go back to your room. Don't leave it until I tell you to."

She turned without looking at him again and walked away, her steps as measured and elegant as if nothing had happened at all.

Joffrey was left standing alone in the middle of the courtyard.

The whole world had turned against him.

...

At that same hour, along the banks of the Trident, the banners were moving.

One column after another , the sigils of the great northern houses, rippling in the cold wind , assembled and formed up along the river. The lords of the North had set their affairs in order and appointed their men. Now they turned south and west, back toward Winterfell.

Their new king was waiting.

➤ Next: The Legitimacy of the King in the North