Eddard said no more, moving directly to the next matter. He took out a wax-sealed envelope and handed it to Lynd, saying, "I found this in my bedchamber in the Prime Ministers Tower. It should be a letter written by Jon before his death. It just didn't reach your hands, and I don't know if he didn't have time, or if he wrote it but didn't intend to send it. This letter was hidden in the crack of a book, very secretly."
Lynd looked at the letter being handed to him and couldn't help but be stunned, because his relationship with Jon Arryn was not good at all. Let alone correspondence, even some of the decrees sent from King's Landing usually weren't written by Jon himself, but copied by others and then stamped.
Now, a hidden letter suddenly appeared and was discovered by Eddard, which made Lynd think of Jaqen from earlier. He somewhat suspected that Jaqen had used some scheme.
Although his mind was filled with doubts, Lynd's hands were not slow. After taking the letter, he directly broke the wax seal in front of the two men, opened the letter, and pulled out the letter paper inside to read it.
After reading it, Lynd frowned, a look of confusion on his face.
"What does it say?" Eddard Stark asked with great curiosity.
Lynd did not answer, but instead directly handed the letter in his hand to Eddard.
Eddard took it, quickly read it, and a similar expression of confusion appeared on his face.
The content of the letter was simple: Jon Arryn hoped that Lynd would take some people to settle in the Summerhall territory, and at the end of the letter, he attached the names and addresses of those people to make it easier for Lynd to find them. Roughly counting, there were about dozens of people.
From the names and addresses on this list, they should not be from the same family, and most of them lived in brothels, which did not seem to indicate any special identity.
"These wouldn't be Prime Minister Jon's bastards, would they?" Jory Cassel, who was beside them, also read the letter and couldn't help but murmur.
Eddard glared fiercely at Jory Cassel after hearing this, but in his heart, he didn't completely dismiss the guess. He had investigated and found that Jon Arryn had visited brothels several times before his death, and they were different brothels. Now, the addresses of these brothels were all on the paper, which made one have to suspect the identities represented by the names behind these addresses.
"Prince Linde, what do you plan to do?" Eddard asked Lynd.
Lynd thought for a moment and said, "Although I don't understand why Prime Minister Jon would write such a letter, since it is his dying wish, I don't mind helping him fulfill it. I will have people bring everyone on the list to Summerhall for settlement."
"Thank you," Eddard said his thanks, then asked again, "May I copy the list? I want to investigate their relationship with Jon."
"Of course," Lynd nodded and said, "But your investigation needs to be quick. I will return to Summerhall after the martial arts tournament, and by then, these people should be returning with me."
"I understand." Eddard nodded, picked up a pen and paper from the table, quickly noted down the names and addresses, and then left Lynd's official residence with Jory Cassel.
They did not immediately return to the Red Keep but instead visited the addresses on the list that very night, meeting the people corresponding to those names.
These people were all young, the oldest only in their teens, and the youngest only a few months old. He also realized that these people were not Jon Arryn's bastards, but Robert's bastards. Regardless of gender, each of them had thick black hair and blue eyes, which were characteristics of the Baratheon family, and some of the boys looked exactly like Robert when he was young.
After understanding the situation, Eddard returned to the Red Keep. What he didn't know, however, was that his every move was being watched by interested parties. When he visited those locations and met those people, the entire process was compiled into intelligence and sent one by one to the Queen's chambers in the Red Keep.
"Damn it, he found out, he already found out!" Seeing the content of the intelligence, Cersei couldn't help but panic, cursing repeatedly.
However, Jaime, who was beside her, held Cersei in his arms, gently stroking her body, and said, "No, he hasn't found out. If he had, he would come directly to us, instead of pretending nothing happened and returning to his Prime Ministers Tower to continue handling official documents. Eddard Stark is not the kind of person who can hide things."
Under Jaime's soothing, Cersei calmed down and said, "Right, right! If he found out, he would definitely go to Robert first! Yes, he hasn't found out!" Saying this, she asked again, "What do we do now?"
"No need to rush; things haven't reached their worst point yet." Jaime shook his head, picked up a piece of intelligence, looked at it, then frowned and said, "Before going to those places, he first went to Lynd's official residence."
"He's colluding with Linde Terra?" Cersei asked again.
"No!" Jaime shook his head and said, "Lynd won't interfere in political matters. Moreover, his son is to marry Myrcella, so he is our natural ally. However, he should know why Eddard Stark went to those places."
Saying this, he stood up, put on his clothes, and said, "I'll go to Lynd's residence to see if I can gather some information. Don't act rashly, and especially don't go to Eddard Stark for confirmation."
"Okay." Cersei nodded, watching her twin brother leave the room.
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