A Good King - A Joffrey Baratheon Insert

Duty-bound

Lord Eddard Stark was concerned. He and around 30,000 men had assembled at Moat Cailin. It was quite a sight to behold, only the broken towers of the once magnificent stronghold ruined the glory of it. The Northern army assembled, it had taken three and a half moons to bring it all together. From every corner of the vast Northern region men had travelled to the keep, which today even with its many ruined towers would be near impossible to take if manned. His concern however was at why he had called his banners and brought them here in the first place. It would seem, that for the third time as Warden of the North, he would be marching his army south. To war.

He had received a letter around four moons ago:

Lord Eddard Stark, Lord Paramount of the North, Warden of the North.

On behalf of His Grace, Joffrey of the House Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, I request, in light of recent events, that you repledge your allegiance to His Grace, Joffrey Baratheon and declare him the one true King.

Signed,

Grand Maester Pycelle.

He wrote back repledging his loyalty, after returning to Winterfell and having to hear Sansa yelling at him for weeks on end about how he had overreacted, he realised he probably had done just that. But when he had learned what Joffrey had done to his daughter, he had seen red. She had cried for days after, at first he had thought it was at what Joffrey had done but when she started screaming at him he realised it was because he had dragged her away from him. It was strange, he thought, he had hurt her and yet she still wanted to be with him. Nevertheless after a while she stopped crying and while their relationship wasn't yet the same, progress had been made. She had also continued everyday life again, though he could tell she wasn't quite over her love for Joffrey.

Another reason he wanted to help Joffrey was because quite frankly he didn't want Renly as king. After spending the time on the Small Council with him he had seen that he truly didn't really care about doing his job. And his honour wouldn't really allow rebellion. Robert's was different; his family had been slaughtered, but Joffrey had done quite a lot of good: King's Landing was the best it had been in centuries, well it was until it blew up, and he hoped that soon this prosperity would move outside the Capital's walls. Eddard bemoaned the raised taxes though, they had hit the North quite hard, damaging their preparations for winter.

After he had sent the letter, a few weeks later another one arrived this one written by the King himself.

Lord Eddard Stark, Lord Paramount of the North, Warden of the North.

I thank you for your loyalty, especially given my own unloyalty towards Sansa, I hope she is well. I ask you to raise your banners and march to the Crag, where we can fight my usurper Uncle together, as Baratheons and Starks should.

Signed,

Joffrey of the House Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.

When he had received the letter he had sent a raven back himself with a message of understanding and had then done as he was asked. He refrained from telling them why he had done so; knowing that if he had some like the Umbers and Karstarks may have refused, considering what Joffrey had done to Sansa. They were angry enough when they had found out, Greatjon himself threatening to march to King's Landing to confront the King, luckily he managed to put a stop to that. Hopefully, he thought, I can bring forth calmer heads when I tell them in person.

And that was what he was about to do, he had called all of the Lords -and Lady in the case of the Mormonts- into his tent, ready to tell them why they were here, and where they were going.

"Lords and Ladies!" He called out, stopping the rather rambustious chatter that had been taking place.

"I thank you for coming here, especially given the lack of explanation." He said. "I will give you one now - a few moons ago I received a raven from King Joffrey asking me to call my banners and head south to join his gathering army, to fight his rebelling uncle, Lord-"

He had not even finished speaking when Lord 'Greatjon' Umber shouted "You have to be fucking kidding me Ned! Why are we fighting for that prick after he disrespected the North and Lady Sansa!"

There was a large shout of 'here here' after Greatjon had finished. So much for calmer heads prevailing.

"Lord Umber." He said sternly, "while it is true that His Grace, was unloyal to my daughter it is quite hypocritical for all of you to be using that against him, many of you have a number of bastards, some of you have had bastards born after your marriage! I myself feel as if I overreacted somewhat, and Lady Sansa herself hounded me over leaving, she has forgiven the King and so should we! May I also remind you that we are honour-bound to come to his aid."

The Greatjon reluctantly nodded after Eddard finished. No one else spoke up.

The Stark Lord sighed, "you may think that it is wrong to do this and see it as helping someone who has wronged the North however my daughter urged me to go, if she is happy to help him then we should be to, he is our king after all, and I think we can all agree he has been much better than what Renly would be."

The Northern lords nodded, Renly's reputation had travelled North also.

"Are there any objections to marching south in aid of our king?" He asked.

There were no objections...

POV Change

I walked into the throne room, told the gathered court -a court that was significantly smaller than usual as many of the men were gathered outside, preparing to ride off- that I was going and that Tyrion would rule while I was gone, and then I walked out.

I breathed heavily as I stood in my chambers, my hands wet with sweat. While I knew I was capable, something I had learnt during my lessons with Ser Barristan was that nothing truly prepared you for war and for a real battle, and quite frankly I was petrified. I was defeated in single combat in the tourney. This is war for Christ sake. I didn't want to die, I still had loads to do.

My musings were broken by a knock at the door; uncle Tyrion entered and bowed. "You asked to see me, Your Grace?" He queried.

"You know you don't have to bother with all that in private uncle." I said for the thousandth time.

"Well I choose to ignore you." He said, a small smile on his face.

"Isn't that akin to treason?" I asked

"Well Cersei would be glad I'm gone, she'd be proud that you did it as well, all her dreams would have become true." He replied. "Now, why did you ask me here?"

"While I'm gone I want you to keep an eye on Lord Varys. I still have trouble believing that he couldn't get into Renly's camp, his spiders can get anywhere."

"Consider it done, I was thinking the same." He said in response.

We remained in silence for a few moments before he spoke up again. "You're going to be ok." He said softly.

I looked at him with a questioning look, a feeble attempt to stop him thinking I was worried.

He chuckled before speaking. "You may have mastered the skill of pulling the strings in this shitty city and making people think what you want them to think but I know you well enough to know you're worried about something, and considering you're about to march off to war I gather that's what you're worried about. I'm no warrior but I know that it'd be foolish not to be scared, fear makes you work harder to save your life, being fearless makes you complacent, and complacency leads to death."

I knelt down and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you uncle." I muttered before standing up.

"You better go," he said. "You've got a war to win.

Well, I thought. Here we go...