"You cannot possibly mean to call him that," Uncle Benjen said, sitting down with his own ironically named son, Torrhen, on his lap. Torrhen was Northern through and through for all that he had been born on Dragonstone, all black hair and grey eyes and pale skin, small but strong for his nearly two name days.
Jon shifted Aemon in his arms, could not help but smile when his son let out a soft gurgle. The babe shifted, as though to mold himself even more closely to the shape of Jon's chest, and Jon could not help but melt at the feel of it. He knew that the smallfolk were talking, that people were speaking of how absolutely scandalous it was that the babe was hardly ever in the nursery. If Aemon was not with Margaery, he was with Jon, and when even that was not possible, he was with Lady Olenna or even Daenerys, who, for all her small size and wide eyes, looked fierce as a dragon when the little one was entrusted to her. "Why?" Jon asked.
He knew, logically, that Aemon's name could still be changed. It would be another moon or so before they feasted the bannermen and officially presented the babe. Jon, however, did not want to.
"It is dangerous, first of all," Uncle Benjen told him. "Your boy already has his looks against him--"
"He looks like the Daynes of old," Jon snapped. "Blood of the First Men, for all that their looks are different. And that is what you will tell anyone who tries to question it." He had considered dying the babe's hair to make that story more believable. While both pale hair and violet eyes were common enough in the Daynes, it was rare for both traits to show up all at once, but it was still feasible enough that they did not have to seriously consider putting herbs in their babe's hair. He had to be grateful to his Lord Fa-- To Uncle Ned and Uncle Arthur for creating a ruse that would cover him so well.
Uncle Benjen nodded. "Ser Arthur has invited his nephew here to be his new squire," he said. "He is very pale of hair, I hear. Even though his eyes are blue, his presence next to Ser Arthur should help keep the boy safe. But a Targaryen name, Jon?"
Jon swallowed. When he had first named his son, even with Margaery's instructions strong in his ear, he had not realised it would be so big a thing. Naming a babe should be something private and intimate, something that mattered only to the immediate family. Margaery and Lady Olenna had been the ones to remind him, even before the birth, that it was a political move as well, that whatever he named his son might signify his allegiances and sway whole kingdoms to or from his cause, if his cause ever became a thing to pursue. "No Targaryen King ever bore the name," he said. "The most notable man of that name was Aemon the Dragonknight, who was good and honourable and died for his king when it came down to it. The name signifies unrelenting loyalty. No one can question that."
"Your bannermen, doubtless, would like the name," Uncle Benjen said. "But for all the loyalty it exemplifies, Robert - or his Small Council, at least - will remember that the loyalty was to a Targaryen king. They will wonder why you did not give your son a Northern name. As will the Lords of the North."
Jon swallowed, looked down at his son for long moments. Perhaps Uncle Benjen did have a point. Aemon's appearance already lent itself to their Targaryen lineage. Adding the name on top of that might be overly risky. "And what name would that be, then?" he asked. "What name would make a solid compromise, Uncle? Even if I wanted him to go through the confusion of sharing a name with the cousin he will spend years growing up besides, no one outside the North has any respect for Torrhen Stark. Even many Northerners do not. They do not see his love for his people; only how he bent the knee without ever fighting for his rights. Cregan? They do not see the service he did as Hand of the King, or the honour with which he carried it out, only that he abandoned the office prematurely. Theon, for the Hungry Wolf?
Aside from the fact that I loathe Theon Greyjoy, most people forget the fact that he was defending the North and only remember that he sailed to their beloved Andalos with the guts of his enemies on the prows of his ships and mounted their heads on our coasts. Harlon or Karlon? Both did the North a great favour, but all anyone would remember is how they killed off an entire cadet branch of their own House. Brandon? Brandon the Builder is renowned throughout the realm, but Brandon the Breaker allied with the Wildlings to slay the Night's Watch nearly to a man, including his own brother. And that's without even mentioning Brandon the Bad." Jon paused, swallowed. "I am proud of who I am, Uncle. I am proud to be a Stark. But the Seven Kingdoms at large do not understand the North, and if I were to give
my son a Northern name to honour him, there would be a dozen lords calling us savages. They would remember the Rape of the Sisters, the countless wars the North fought amongst itself before the Winter Kings ruled all, the rituals of the followers of the Old Gods in the Age of Heroes, and the fact that we still worship Gods different from theirs. They would only remember how different from them we truly are. I am not doing us a favour by keeping to the Old Gods. I know that. But I do not know that I could give them up. I can give up giving my son a Stark name, if it means peace with the South."