Ned is flying high on “milk of the poppy.” We all know what it means when a character is injured, unconscious, and medicated: it’s dream-sequence flashback time!
(The role of a dreamscape’s shimmery border is here played by italics.)
Ned is accompanied by six people, but the only name we need to bother remembering is Howland Reed. He’s facing three enemies, knights of Aerys’s Kingsguard, and we don’t really need to care about any of them except maybe Arthur Dayne. Even in his dreams, Ned is on top of his favourite high horse — honour and duty! — and questioning the knights about their absence from the Battle of the Trident, the slaying of Aerys in King’s Landing, the Siege of Storm’s End, and Ser Willem Darry’s flight to Dragonstone with the pregnant queen and little Viserys. The knights are fairly certain that Ned’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries. Ned apparently took offense, because a skirmish ensued, and at some point before, during or after, Lyanna was wailing her brother’s name and Ned was promising her something.
On one hand, Ned obviously won that battle, so take that, snooty Targaryen-era Kingsguard. On the other, it was seven against three and only two survived. Young Ned needed a better posse.
Lyanna’s dreamscape wailing transitions into his steward, Vayon Poole, calling his name and offering him water. It’s been a week since the rumble of the streets of King’s Landing, and as far as Robert’s concerned, a week off work is plenty, so he’s on his way, having been notified the moment Ned opened is eyes, per his instructions. Since Robert is fat and a drunk, he takes a while to get to Ned’s rooms, so there’s time for Ned’s new captain of the guard (bye bye, Jory, we hardly knew you) to give him a sitrep.
Jaime: ran away like the punk he currently is.
Sansa: spent the week dutifully praying.
Arya: spent the week dutifully plotting revenge.
Jory and the other dead people who didn’t merit names: shipped back to Winterfell for burial.
It may be getting cold up north, but it’s still summer down south, they will be rank by the journey’s end.
Robert shows up and he’s not alone. His true mate — a cup full of delicious alcohol — is with him. Oh, and the queen has tagged along. Dammit, woman, can’t you see this was meant to be the one true threesome: two men and their drink.
Robert is trying to be friendly in that gruff way that children and alcoholics have: by sharing his precious. Because that’s what a man who just spent a week in a coma on an opium diet needs, a good, stiff drink. The pleasantries don’t take long, in Cersei’s case no time at all, and they all delve directly into the pressing problem of Catelyn kidnapping Tyrion. Or performing a citizen’s arrest. Lannisters say po-tay-to, Starks say po-tah-to. Robert says it’s bullshit, because he’s got his in-laws on his ass about it. He’s ordering Ned to cease and desist this civil unrest, brawling in the streets in front of a brothel! Ned points out that said brothel houses a very near relation of Robert’s, watching Cersei for a reaction. Considering the rumours that Cersei had a pair of Robert’s twins killed, maybe Ned shouldn’t be painting targets on anyone’s backs. Robert must be thinking the same thing, because his tact will extend to feebly protesting that maybe his queen doesn’t need to be here for this conversation. Ned points out that the real problem Cersei’s about to have is with his intentions to pursue Jaime as a fugitive from justice.
The queen tries to needle and prod Robert into action. Cersei, does your husband look like a man who has pride and self-respect? Cersei makes a comment about Robert’s masculinity, as complimentary as you would imagine, and he hits her hard enough to send her sprawling. Hey, Ned, how much would you have loved this guy as a husband for your sister? Cersei’s sneering response is probably the one thing she does in the entire series that I can respect. Robert has a guard escort her to her own rooms, and then complains to Ned how much is sucks being married to a woman who makes him hit her. Just in case we didn’t hate him enough at this point, I guess. Yes, Cersei is an asshole and, honestly, the things she’s done — she had Lady killed! — she deserves horrible things to happen to her. Her deserving it doesn’t change my disgust with Robert.
A philosophical side note: it’s funny how in a fantasy setting like this, some horrible things can be rationalized as belonging to a fictional culture and so ultimately nothing to get worked up about, even though they do happen in real life, while others, like spousal abuse, are so commonplace that they get a realistic response of revulsion and anger.
While I pontificate, Robert chews up the scenery, drunkenly complaining that stupid dead Rhaegar gets to have equally dead Lyanna while Robert gets to have Cersei and dozens of mistresses, prostitutes, and one-night stands. According to Robert, that means Rhaegar wins. Is Robert imagining Rhaegar and Lyanna getting it on in the afterlife? I don’t know, he must be so drunk right now. I’m starting to wish I was, too.
Ned seems to be under the impression that Cersei’s absence means he and Robert can have a proper discussion now, but Robert nips that naiveté in the bud: today he’s drunk and tomorrow he’s going hunting. Oh, and Ned can have the pleasure of being the King’s Hand back, because what kind of idiot would expect a king to mean it when he throws someone out of his court? With the pin of his office pinned on once more, Ned has some sort of mental save-point reset and starts the conversation about assassinating, or rather not assassinating, Dany once again. Robert shuts that down as well. Ned’s pretty exasperated at this point, asking what exactly it is that he is allowed to do. He’s allowed to shut up, say “yes sir,” and handle all the bits of ruling a kingdom that Robert doesn’t care about, which is everything other than Targaryens and booze. If Ned doesn’t, Robert threatens, he’ll pick Jaime to be the Hand instead.
The fact that this is still any sort of effective threat for Ned just further proves that Ned is not all that bright. Look, he’s honest and noble, can be a decent enough dad, father of the year in comparison to everyone else around him really, and doesn’t hit his wife. Ned Stark is all those very nice things, but a shrewd man, Ned Stark isn’t. If he thinks that his being the Hand is somehow better for the realm than Jaime being one, he should remember that his beloved Jon Arryn has been one for fifteen years and what good did that do anyone except the Bank of Lannister.
If you were a smart man, Ned, you would give Jaime the pin yourself and haul ass out of this viper’s nest. Alas that you are not.