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GOT Chapter 67: Twist of Fate
🕑 Added 2025-08-10 23:52:00 +0000 UTCThe king’s order to wage war against House Lannister spread across the Seven Kingdoms with unprecedented speed, carried by raven.
When this sudden, earth-shaking message reached them, the first reaction of nobles great and small throughout the realm was to wonder if they had woken up properly.
After all, the current Baratheon dynasty relied heavily on the Lannisters’ generous support.
Even the queen herself was the Lannisters’ eldest daughter.
Not to mention the countless gold dragons House Lannister had lent Robert to maintain the court’s expenses—sums so vast they could hardly be reckoned.
And yet this family, so vital to Robert Baratheon, was now the very one the king had declared war upon?
What else could this be but the raving of a drunken man not yet sober?
After all, who in their right mind would idly pick up a spade and start digging away at their own home’s foundation?
But surely Robert hadn’t just gone up to the North to visit his old friend, found himself a new patron, and suddenly thought he could do as he pleased?
Did he really believe that now his wings had grown strong, he could simply kick the Lannisters aside and send them packing?
And then happily spend his days in the company of the far-off Starks?
If that were so, why hadn’t he felt this bold when Jon Arryn was still alive?
Was the Vale not stronger than the North, richer than the North, better supplied with soldiers than the North?
So, upon receiving such absurd news, every noble lord in the realm wore the same stunned, disbelieving expression.
Many wondered if it was some audacious prank.
But by the time they reached the end of the letter, they understood why Robert Baratheon had flown into such a fury and declared war on the Lannisters of the Westerlands without leaving any room for compromise.
Such an insult—bestowed upon any king—was cause for unending enmity. Even if it had been inflicted on a lesser lord, it would still demand blood.
One could even say Robert’s reaction could have been far harsher, and it would still not be excessive. If this had been in the days of House Targaryen, when dragons still lived, the offending family might have been met by every dragon in the realm, their lands reduced to ash in blood and fire before the stain of such dishonor was cleansed.
For the queen was accused of an illicit relationship with her own brother, and of presenting children born from that union as the king’s rightful heirs.
What greater insult to a king could there be? How was such conduct any different from treason?
Worse still, the letter claimed that the death of former Hand of the King Jon Arryn had not been due to sudden illness at all, but rather because the old Hand had uncovered certain traces of the truth—only to be murdered by Queen Cersei herself.
To murder the Hand of the King—such madness—merely to silence him and keep this secret hidden.
Thus, after reading these accusations, the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms could only sit in stunned silence, unable to fully grasp the whirlwind of Robert’s sudden fury and declaration of war.
Because they truly could not imagine what kind of mind—how utterly stupid and utterly mad—could bring itself to do such a thing.
In fact, compared to the latter two matters, the Queen’s scandalous involvement with her brother, a member of the Kingsguard, seemed almost trivial.
Everyone had lived through such things; who among them hadn’t taken another man’s wife as a mistress?
What else, after all, were all those grand feasts for?
So, in their eyes, the real unforgivable sins were the issue of the heirs and, stemming from that, the murder of the Hand of the King.
And in the nobles’ view, were it not for this, Robert might never have gone mad enough to simply kill his own queen, Cersei, and her brother Jaime Lannister outright.
After all, the loss of two children so vital to the Old Lion—especially the Kingslayer among them—was enough to make anyone wonder what Tywin might do in response.
As the lords mulled over this juicy piece of gossip, Robert Baratheon I’s fiery proclamation was followed almost immediately by another letter—this one from Dragonstone.
Its appearance made the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms pause again.
The letter was written in precise, well-reasoned, and formal language, solemnly setting out the accusations of Cersei Lannister’s improper conduct with Jaime Lannister.
But the most important part was not that—it was the ironclad proof it contained that the Queen’s three children, including Joffrey, carried no Baratheon blood. And bound up in this, dragged again into the light, was the truth behind the death of the Warden of the East, Robert’s former Hand of the King, Jon Arryn—long thought settled more than a month ago.
Robert’s letter had been merely a declaration.
But this one—this was proof.
With the two letters now standing together and corroborating each other, the Lannisters’ disloyalty and treasonous intent were nailed beyond dispute.
Everyone understood then.
War was now inevitable.
Worse still, events were racing toward some unpredictable end, for by now both sides saw this as an absolute blood feud.
On one side: boundless humiliation and hatred.
On the other: the Old Lion’s finest child, gone without a sound in the bitter cold of the North.
Westeros was about to change. The current order would be upended, and every noble was quietly considering what part they might play in it.
...
The Reach, Horn Hill—
Today was Samwell Tarly’s fifteenth name day. After today, by Westerosi custom, he would be considered a man grown.
It was barely dawn when he was rudely shaken awake.
Still groggy, he dressed under a stream of impatient urging, then stepped outside to find a horse already saddled and waiting for him.
Three guards said nothing, simply escorting him to a forest not far from Horn Hill.
The moment he arrived, Samwell saw his father.
Lord Randyll Tarly was bent over, focused intently on skinning a still-warm elk.
Hearing footsteps behind him, he didn’t even lift his head before speaking.
“You’re nearly a man grown, and you’re my heir—”
“But you’ve given me no excuse I can use to disinherit you, and I won’t hand you the lands and titles that should pass to Dickon.”
Randyll Tarly spoke calmly as he worked the hunting knife through flesh, peeling it back to reveal bone, his words aimed at the eldest son standing behind him with his head bowed.
His face was expressionless, his voice without the slightest ripple, as though he were speaking of something utterly trivial.
“Only the strong are fit to bear Heartsbane—and you’re not even fit to touch its hilt.”
“So here’s my decision: today you will announce your wish to take the black, renouncing all rights of inheritance… and you will leave for the Wall before nightfall.”
At this, Lord Randyll paused for the briefest moment, then briskly set to work from another angle, his hands never idle, his voice never halting.
“If you refuse, then tomorrow we’ll go hunting. Your horse will fall somewhere in the woods, and you’ll be thrown from the saddle and killed—or so I’ll tell your mother.”
“Her heart’s too soft; she even dotes on the likes of you. I don’t want to cause her pain.”
“But don’t fool yourself into thinking your death would be swift, or that you could escape me. Trust me—I’d gladly hunt you down, and then kill this fat pig myself.”
With that, Lord Randyll tore the last of the hide from the carcass and tossed aside the hunting knife.
Samwell flinched at the metallic clang as it struck the table. Looking over, he saw his father’s arms stained crimson to the elbows, as if the skinned prey on the table were not an elk, but himself.
“So, now you have two choices.”
Samwell watched as his father thrust a hand into the elk’s body and wrenched out its heart.
Blood, still warm, coated it, dripping from his palm in thick streams down his arm before falling to the ground.
Hunching his shoulders and lowering his head again in fear, Samwell heard his father’s voice—cold and utterly without feeling.
“The Night’s Watch—”
“Or this.”
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