章 183: Joffrey 3 294 AC
The first thing Joffrey noticed about the North was, rather expectedly, the cold.
It didn't manifest itself in exactly the ways he had thought mind. It wasn't as if the land was buried under snow, it was still summer, so Lord Eddard said any that they got tended to melt off quickly.
No, where he noticed the cold was in the blankets worn by the trees, thick coats of leaves that didn't leave their trunks exposed, except perhaps for their very base. He noticed it in the gray-water, murkier even than the Blackwater bay, and he noticed it in the air, brisk and cool compared to the sweltering environments he had grown used to in Essos.
He also noticed its effects on the men, even Lord Eddard. Those from the north, mostly the infantry, for you could tell by their colors, they relaxed with the cooler air, and they stopped sweating as much. Normally they seemed to sweat so much more than the royal-fleet men.
He had been watching a lot these days, always a little bit scared, though he wouldn't admit it.
He had been at the camp at the battle of the Red Fields. Climbed up a watchtower even, he had been eager to see it all at a safe distance. He wanted to see his father charge, he remembered. There were no elephants to block his view this time, he had thought. Surely there would be nothing to scare him.
And then the dragon prince had come and Killed Lord Renly, his uncle, that boisterous man who looked like his father and always wandered about the halls of King's landing, far more cheerful than he had any right to be.
And the Dragon Prince had killed him, just like that, and filled the air with that terrible smell of burning flesh while he was at it.
And then the corpses in the infirmary below had started to rise, and Joffrey had thought it was the end of the world, that he would be like the man in the painting on the hall in the red room in the Queen's tower, clinging to the mast of a ship, or in his case, a watchtower, as the whole world sank into fire.
Then his father had arrived, and all that fear had been blown away, as in just a few blows he had shattered the pretender, his magic failing to even slow him down by much. It was wonderful, glorious even, everything Joffrey thought a king ought to be, like a hero from the stories he'd been told all his life. Men called his father the warrior incarnate and in those moments he could see it.
That wasn't the end of it though. Oh no, it was the beginning of his nightmares.
He could still remember that leering skull, that burning devil, he could have sworn it had looked right at him, or maybe just towards the camp.
Either way, it still crept onto him during his nightmares, taunting him, jeering at him, calling him a coward. It told him how even his father couldn't defeat it alone, and he was the king, the Warrior incarnate.
And he was just a boy, hardly even worthy of being called a prince. He had been in two battles, and both times soiled himself without even drawing a blade.
It didn't matter how many times Lord Eddard told him he was only eleven, the demon told him that he would come for eleven-year-olds too.
So he took to watching all the time, watching for it coming, watching for assassins, or something else, he didn't know, he just felt like he needed to watch.
He tended to notice things when he watched after all. He noticed how one of the Ravens which the Maesters had brought with them on the campaign had followed them North, nesting in the fleet, and how it always seemed to follow Lord Eddard around.
He noticed how the sailors and the army didn't like each other too much, a sort of rivalry existed, sometimes inflamed by the Northerner's being Heathens, though he was too polite to mention it to Lord Eddard since he liked him even though he was a heathen.
He noticed how White Harbor's sea-wall was not very well kept, seeming to be falling apart in places.
He even noticed how the stablemasters had ensured he got the best of the horses in the party after Lord Eddard told him too, as befit his status as Prince.
That was why when they stopped to rest for the night, and the camp had been set, he stayed awake, hoping that it would let him avoid the demon that came after him in his dreams.
That was why, when he tripped and stumbled down the hill, and climbed to his feet, he could still see his way in the moonlight, trying to make his way back to camp.
That was why he spotted the clearing, and the lone tree in it's middle, which all the others stood far away from, as if in reverence.
That was why he noticed the face carved into its side, eyes, and mouth hanging open in a wide smile, a Weirwood, he knew, they had one in the Red Keep, there to appease the Old God's worshippers.
He saw the blood-red lines of sap, running down from its wood-carved eyes like bloody tears.
He felt something twitch and stir in the breeze.
He heard a voice like a hundred sonorous angels sing out in his head in a language he didn't understand.
He understood the voice of a hundred sonorous angels in his head.
"Child of Lions, we know what chases you."
And that was all Joffrey Baratheon, Crown Prince and heir to the Seven Kingdom's could remember before he fell into a deep, and more importantly, dreamless, sleep.
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