Bring him here, here, Robert's voice called strangely thick. Fires blazed in the twin hearths at either end of the bedchamber, filling the room with a sudden red glare.

The heat within was suffocating. Robert lay across the canopy bed.

At the bedside,

grandmaster Picell, while Lord Renley paced restlessly before the shuttered windows.

Servants moved back and forth feeding logs to the fire and boiling wine.

Siercy Lannister sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband.

Her hair was tousled, as if from sleep, but there was nothing sleepy in her eyes.

They followed Ned as Tomord and Kane helped him across the room.

He seemed to move very slowly, as if he were still dreaming.

The King still wore his boots.

Ned could see dried mud and blades of grass clinging to the leather where Robert's feet stuck out beneath the blanket that covered him.

A green doublet lay on the floor, slashed open and discarded, the cloth crusted with red blown stains.

The room smelled of smoke and blood and death.

Death and death.

Oh no, Robert's hurt everyone.

Happy Wednesday, everybody.

Our King, Robert, our good king, is suffering a fatal blow to his pelvic region.

This is the beginning of the end.

Welcome the game of owns.

Man.

It is.

It's all happening now. By dying.

...