It is easy to understand why the two kings of a unified Westeros to be dubbed 'the Conqueror' should be so frequently compared by students of history. Both were drawn into their conquests by coincidence and by the folly of their enemies, and both ultimately prevailed over their foes either to unify or reunify the continent.

THE LOYAL SERVANT

The weary Maester felt his hands shake as he read the missive from King's Landing, bearing the royal seal of House Baratheon. He read it again, and then once more.

The King was dead. Long live the King.

If only that were all of it. His good lord Eddard was imprisoned for treason, accused of attempting to usurp the throne from the late King Robert's rightful son and heir.

Madness. He didn't believe it for a moment. Even if it was made out in young Sansa's hand, these were Lannister words. His heart ached to contemplate that such a sweet lady should be forced to espouse such vile lies against her own father, or to think upon the fate of his just and honourable master.

He made his way across the castle to young Robb, the current Stark in Winterfell, as quick as his sense of propriety and his aging physique would permit.

"I know what it says, Maester. Dark wings, and the darkest of words." The young Stark lordling looked straight at him as entered the solar, appearing not the slightest bit surprised at his unannounced presence.

"My lord?" He replied, frowning in puzzlement. He could not fathom what that meant.

"The message, Maester. The one in your hand. From King's Landing. The fat King's corpse is barely cold, but my father is in chains. Now I am summoned there to swear fealty to the same boy that has chained him. A royal command I can scarcely refuse."

"You intend to accede to the summons then, my lord?" The prospect was so alarming he could barely pause to contemplate his liege's unexplained foreknowledge.

"Oh yes, I would not dream of refusing." He smiled wryly, with a look somewhere between patronising and fond. "But not alone. I'll go off with no less than 20,000 men at my back, the whole fighting force of the North. Call the banners, Maester. And yes, all of them."

"At once, my lord." Whatever his misgivings, he was an ever dutiful servant of Winterfell and its rightful lord. Nodding once, and hoping that the unease he felt was not outwardly visible, he hastened to obey.

Making his way back across the castle, the old Maester couldn't help but think that never in his long and mostly unremarkable life had he felt the weight of his linked chains as heavily as he did at this moment. Not since he was a young, unproven acolyte arriving for the first time at the Citadel had his hands shook as they did now to transcribe each of the messages summoning the full fighting strength of the Stark bannermen.

The Glovers of Deepwood Motte, the giant Umbers of Last Hearth at the edge of the civilised world, the kinsmen Karstarks of the Karhold, the far and sundry Flints, the dubiously loyal Boltons of the Dreadfort. On and on it went. He'd been in the North for so many years he knew them all intimately.

The cacophony of chirping and flapping wings as they all at once took flight sent a shiver straight down his spine. He felt a superstitious sense of foreboding much unworthy of his education.

He couldn't help but ponder his young liege. Today, as of late, he'd behaved strangely. So unlike the boy he'd watched grow, the boy he'd helped bring into the world. Much of it he could attribute to the stresses of power, assumed as it was on the cusp of adulthood. The young lord had the fate of Westeros on his shoulders, or at least the fate of a good part of it.

It wasn't just that, though. Some three weeks before he'd first remarked on it, when the young lord had scarcely been seen for three days. He'd overheard one of the maids saying there'd been a great commotion the morning beforehand.

The boy that had emerged from this self-imposed seclusion had since been an inexhaustible source of energy. He'd taken to drilling the Winterfell garrison in some strange fashion, and for what purpose no one knew. Even the young men of nearby Wintertown had been made to participate.

Then there were the letters. An endless stream of them, seemingly to all the four corners of the land and with no pattern or scheme which he could discern. This week alone he'd been commanded to send ravens more than a dozen times. One had been to Lord Reed down in the Neck, another to Lord Royce of Runestone, and then to his liege's lord grandfather at Riverrun and to even more bizarre and scarcely explicable destinations.

The Harlaws of Ten Towers in the Iron Islands, slightly less grasping than their foolish Greyjoy cousins. No sooner had the irascible, snappish and thoroughly disagreeable Walder Frey responded to an initial missive than was a lengthy reply sent back to the Twins.

Each time he had been strictly commanded never to look upon the messages, nor at their replies, except as was necessary to do his duty and see them promptly sent. It was not his place to go against his rightful lord, nor to question his lawful commands. Yet he couldn't help but wonder.

He'd felt many times of late almost pre-empted, like the young lord knew what he was going to say before he had even said it. An absurd and unworthy notion, but then again how had he known what the missive said before it had even been delivered? He'd been so filled with unease at the command to call all of the banners as to wrap his head around the sheer strangeness of that.

As the Maester of Winterfell, all of the castle's ravenry went through him. He saw all but those messages he was forbidden to see, and it seemed unlikely that the likes of Walder Frey would learn of events in King's Landing quick enough to pass on a message in the time between their happening and the dictation of young Sansa's letter.

None of this boded well. He was the furthest a man could be from superstitious, having eschewed all notions of magic or premonitions since the foolish dabbles of his youth. Still, he could feel it in his tired old bones. This long summer was near it end, and he'd served the Starks long enough to know the truth of their house words.

Winter was coming, and nothing but that was certain. But with it, it appeared, came a new and frightening spectre of war. Only the Gods could know what terrible happenings that would now bring forth.