Ned and his family had gathered in the main hall of Winterfell for their dinner. The food had been served and they had barely taken a few morsels of their food when the door of the hall flung open and Maester Luwin stepped inside.
Ned raised his eyebrow with a questioning glance towards the maester. Unless something urgent came up, no one was allowed to disturb them when having food with his family.
"Lord Stark," he greeted with a small tilt of his head. "Lady Stark."
"A parchment has arrived from King's Landing," he informed as he handed the parchment to Catelyn. Maester Luwin gave another nod and departed.
Catelyn's heart pounded realizing that Ned might try to take a look at the parchment but he stayed away. With slight hesitation, nervousness and anticipation, Catelyn unfurled the parchment. Thankfully nothing had been written in the letter that suggested that it was not from Lysa.
Meanwhile, Ned was looking at her with a curious look.
"About Jon?" He questioned and the ears of everyone, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran perked up. Rickon was too small to understand what was happening.
Catelyn nodded, "There is news about what happened at the war between Jon against the sellsword and Dothraki."
She took a deep breath as she began reading the contents of the parchment. The news was that the remaining mercenaries of the Golden Company had finally reunited with their other half, and now the temporary commander of the sellsword company had revealed what had happened on the battlefield.
Well, he was not the only one describing the events. More and more survivors of the other two mercenary groups had started to come forward, and many rumours were circulating. What they did not know was that these were Jon's men, posing as sellswords who had survived the battle. They were spreading the same story that Lagsan had narrated, and it was being done by Jon to reinforce this narrative alone. A lie told countless times prevailed over a truth that was never told. Jon wanted to constantly reinforce his narrative so that no one cast doubt about his story.
As Ned heard Catelyn narrate the events to him, the expression on his face changed with each passing moment. Shock and disbelief were the only emotions visible on his face. He could not believe what he was hearing. And this was the same feeling he had been experiencing ever since news about Jon had started to arrive. Each of Jon's feats was more unprecedented and more shocking than the last. Like him, Catelyn too was shocked. Neither of them knew what to say. She was overwhelmed. A bastard achieving such impossible feats was not something she could believe.
Silence prevailed on the table for a few moments.
"Father?" Robb's voice from his side snapped Ned's attention towards his son. "How did he do it? Jon? How? Using animals in war? Is it even possible?"
Theoretically, whatever they had heard was not impossible. Capturing a lion or a wolf was difficult, but entirely possible. In fact, even in Westeros, nobles were fond of hunting, and capturing wild beasts for a lord to strike the killing blow was quite prevalent.
But then, doing it on the scale Jon had done, it still did not sound impossible. If one was willing enough and determined enough, capturing a few thousand animals, which also included dogs, wolves, and other smaller beasts, could be done.
But to think it through, plan it, and then execute it in the midst of a battle, everything Jon had done sounded fascinating. Unbelievable. Robb's face, like his father's, was filled with pure disbelief. His other siblings might not understand the implications of what Jon was doing, but Robb certainly could. He was being trained in the arts of statecraft, politics, warfare, and strategy by Maester Luwin.
Ned sighed and placed his hand on the table.
"It is surely possible," Ned answered, his voice pensive. "Otherwise, he would not have been able to do it. The real question is, could other people even replicate it?"
"Can we?" Robb asked.
"I do not know," Ned replied. "Hearing about it is one thing, but the effort put behind it would be enormous. One mishap at any step, and it could come back to bite you."
"Jon is so cool," Arya chimed in with a beaming face. "He surely is very intelligent and wonderful. And powerful."
"And cool," Bran too made a remark.
"Yes, cool," Arya giggled.
"Arya!" Catelyn reprimanded her daughter. For what, no one knew. But it was hard for her to see her daughter praising the bastard.
"I am telling the truth," Arya argued back. "Even Father is not sure if he could do what Jon did."
Catelyn was about to reprimand her once again, but Ned raised his palm, silencing his wife.
"She is telling the truth," he sighed. A smile of victory flashed across Arya's face.
"Is he a real king now?" Sansa questioned. Her bastard brother became a real king. It was an unusual thing for Sansa. And definitely not a fantasy tale of knights and warriors she was used to hearing.
"Just by capturing a few cities, one cannot become a king," Catelyn answered. "He has no family name, no royal lineage. He is nothing but a bastard."
"He has no claim to any throne," she added.
Ned cringed at the thought, but he kept quiet. All these points and arguments were useless now. He was ruling over a territory. It was all that mattered.
"But does it matter?" Robb questioned. "He rules over three cities. Everyone accepts him as their king."
"They call him a monarch, and most of the common people want him to capture the city they are living in," Robb continued.
"In fact, now that he has dealt with the threat of the sellswords and the Dothraki, he is surely going to capture the Free Cities next. And the way his army has marched, it is obvious that he is going to target the Free Cities located on the coast of the Narrow Sea. Maybe more than one."
"What does it matter if he has no claim?" he added. "He has the claim of conquest. When the Targaryens arrived from Valyria, they too had no claim. In fact, Westeros did not even have a single unified king."
"But here we are," he concluded. "With that much strength, Jon has the strongest claim. A force of more than sixty thousand men, and we have no idea if he has more animals under his command."
"He has a booming economy. He produces products that sell like anything in the market. He is swimming in gold, and he is pumping it all into strengthening his empire."
Catelyn fell silent, having no argument to offer against Robb's words. Everything he was saying was true. She simply did not want to accept that reality. She could not accept that the bastard was growing so powerful.
"Exactly," Arya grinned. "Jon is already a king. And soon, he is going to rule over a very large territory."
"What do they call him?" she said proudly. "The Monarch Lord Aeos."
Catelyn was about to scold her children when Ned sighed.
"We should complete our dinner," he said. "We can talk about these things much later."
Everyone felt silent and busied themselves in digging up their food.
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