"The seed is strong!"
Inside the Tower of the Hand, Jon Arryn paced his study, the words a rhythmic mantra in his mind. He was an old man, the Lord of the Eyrie and the Hand of the King, but today he felt the weight of every year. A sword hung on the wall—a gift from his wife, Lysa—its blade etched with silver depicting the sky above the mountains, and its hilt shaped like a falcon's head.
"As High as Honor," Jon thought bitterly. He was a falcon trapped in the pits of King's Landing, his wings clipped by the very throne he had helped build.
On his desk lay the heavy tome he had borrowed from Grand Maester Pycelle: The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms. It was a dry, exhaustive record of births, marriages, and deaths, but to Jon, it was a map to a hidden treason.
"I have found the truth," Jon whispered to the empty room.
Every one of King Robert's bastards—Edric Storm in the Stormlands, Mya Stone in the Vale, and Gendry, the "Hammer King" across the sea—possessed a thick head of black hair. It was an immutable law of their blood. Yet Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen were as golden as the Lannister lions. Jon had cross-referenced history back ninety years: every time a Baratheon stag wed a Lannister lion, the black hair won.
"Poor Robert," Jon thought. He realized now that Cersei's children were products of her adultery with the Kingslayer. The Queen had been systematically eliminating Robert's bastards to hide the evidence of her own betrayal. The very marriage Jon had arranged to stabilize the new dynasty was the source of its destruction.
As Jon brooded, the door burst open. Lysa Tully entered, her red-brown hair trailing down her back.
Time had not been kind to her. Once a slender, shy girl, she was now bloated and soft, her pale cheeks caked in thick powder. Five miscarriages and two stillbirths had left her mind as fragile as her body. She clutched her silken robes as if they were a shield against the world.
"My lord, why have you called for me?" she asked, her voice high and brittle.
"I was thinking of our dear Robin," Jon said, trying to soften his tone. "He is six, Lysa. It is time he left the nursery. I intend to send him to Dragonstone to be fostered by Lord Stannis."
"You want to take my sweet Robin away?" Lysa shrieked, her voice spiraling into a familiar hysteria. "Never! Enemies are everywhere! They want to hurt him, to take him from me!"
"Remain calm, wife," Jon said firmly. "He is the heir to the Eyrie, not a babe at the breast. Stannis is a hard man, but he is just. He will teach the boy the steel he needs to survive."
"I know why you do this!" Lysa spat, her eyes wild with resentment. "You never loved me. You only married me for my father's swords! I remember what Hoster said—that I should be grateful an old lord would take a woman who had lost her virtue. I hate him, and I hate you!"
Jon sighed, the exhaustion of their loveless marriage weighing on him. He had married her for political necessity, a union forged in the fires of rebellion, but it had brought them nothing but grief and a sickly heir. He gently escorted his shouting, resentful wife from the room, leaving him alone in the silence.
Jon Arryn knew his time was running out. If he exposed the scandal, Tywin Lannister would set the realm ablaze. He couldn't trust Renly, and Winterfell was too far for a boy of Robin's health. Stannis was the only lord with the iron will to uphold the law.
"Legitimacy must be restored," Jon thought. "If the royal children are bastards, the throne passes to Stannis. He is uncompromising and unloved, but he is the rightful heir until Robert produces a true son."
Jon and Stannis were two men bound by the same unyielding sense of justice. They were the only ones who could purge the rot from the Red Keep.
"I must hold on," Jon whispered, looking out at the city. "I must stay healthy enough to finish this. Not just for Robert, but for my son. Once I explain it all, Lysa will understand."
But deep down, he knew the lies he told himself were the most dangerous of all. The storm was coming, and the falcon's nest was built on sand.