Capítulo 190: Jon Arryn 1 295 AC
"How are you ya old man?" Robert laughed, pulling Jon into an enormous hug. "You've taken good care of the city for me?" The king was sweaty but looked youthful as ever coming back from the hunt. It had taken some getting used to when he had returned from Essos, seemingly reborn back into his youth once more, seemingly interested in managing his kingdom for the first time in his life.
"As good as can be expected, I should think." He sighed. "There's been a bit of an uptick in crime since you announced we'd be hosting the marriage here, probably in anticipation of the crowds who'll come to see the accompanying tourney."
"Bah, just squelch it out with the Gold-Cloaks then, I shan't let some scabby small folk ruin the fun."
"If it only it were that easy." Jon sighed. "Are you planning to attend the small council meeting this afternoon?"
Robert's lips formed a thin line. His eyebrows creased. "I probably should, at that. Fine. I'll hold off on the drinking until after that's done with." He reached down towards his side, where the wound he had been given by the demon in Essos still festered. "I can handle putting up with this thing until evening."
"Good. I'm sure you will find it worth your time. I already have the schedule we would like to address."
Robert grabbed the paper before he could pick it up off of the table, reading over it quickly, before placing it back down. "The Alchemists want to put on a show? Are they insane? Who would let those Pyromaniacs near anything?"
"I had intended to shoot it down, but Petyr-"
"Baelish can stick his thumb up his ass if he thinks I'll let those fools put on any sort of show at an event I don't intend to ignite. We'll have enough to deal with without their antics."
'Ah well, Lysa will have to be disappointed then…' his wife so rarely expressed interest in anything, it was a shame.
"And the other matters?"
"I'll deal with them at the meeting, for now, I had intended to go visit Tommen if there was nothing else so obviously pressing."
"Not particularly." Jon smiled. "I am glad to see you taking an interest in your children nowadays, I had thought young Joffrey could use more of your attention."
"Yes, well, by the time I realized that I think it was too late for him, his mother had already sunk her hooks in, hooks which I might add this whole wedding nonsense was started over an attempt to get back, I think anyway, she hasn't been exactly forthcoming about the reason she asked me to host it."
"Yes well, I won't speak ill of the Queen," Jon said, and indeed he wouldn't. Not everyone was in Robert's position after all.
"Hah, well, sufficed to say, she deserves every word of it, even if my children have turned out to be less shite than I thought." Robert smiled good-naturedly. "I'll be off to see that they remain that way."
Jon smiled as his King went, an odd circumstance indeed to see Robert being a father, especially after nearly a decade of him avoiding it at every turn.
Still, if one were to ask his personal opinion this entire wedding was a bad idea, no matter how one looked at it. It looked like a reward for Prince Arthur's imperialism in Essos, and it was giving a royal treatment to someone not in the direct line of succession.
There was, of course, nothing that he could do to stop it. The Lannisters and Robert both thought it a good idea, and the queen would not be dissuaded from her attempt to recover her son, regardless of how much the event as a whole might swing the balance of power in the realm southward.
'I'll have to make sure Ned has a poison-tester for himself and his party.'
He sighed again as he turned towards the window, rolling his shoulders as he looked out over the city. There was simply too much to do, and he was getting too old to do it, but he had to hold on at least a while longer, had to keep the balance between the realms in check for a few more years before Joffrey was strong enough to rule on his own in spite of his cousin.
'Even that might not be enough the way things are going.'
Robert simply refused to reign his nephew in, and as a result, Hoster and the Old Lion both were clearly getting worried, moving pieces around and the like. Things were starting to devolve into competing power blocks again.
And for all of it, Prince Arthur just wouldn't stop growing, eating up the disputed lands and the Basilisk Isles, with his father in the Stormlands and Isles and Navies to block the Blackwater Bay entirely.
He was sure others could see it to, the knife that the rogue prince already had pressed against the throat of the realm. Well, rogue might be too strong a word for Prince Arthur, but still, his power and territory only seemed to be accelerating in their growth, and now this wedding to give him a chance to demonstrate that to the realm..?
Jon Arryn truly had not wanted to see another civil war in his lifetime.
But, he very well might not have the power to stop it.
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