Even as a bastard, he'd had a better life than many legitimate children, simply by being a bastard of the Starks. He'd stood to inherit no more than any of those whose families had nothing for them to inherit, but he'd had the benefit of being literate and educated, and in having weapons training.

The real irony is that he had been higher born than any of them, and the one person who had known that hadn't even told him before he died.

Should he be telling her this? There's no danger in it this far from Westeros. The names mean nothing to her, and it doesn't matter to her who sits on the Iron Throne.

"I didn't know it at the time, I didn't know it until shortly before I came here, and the only other ones who know are my sisters and my brother and friend who discovered the information. It turns out, I'm not a bastard. The man I thought was my father was my uncle. The woman I thought was my aunt was my mother. A man who had only been a name to me in the story of the war was my father."

It's a long story, and he'll probably have to tell all of it now that he's started.

"When I was born, my mother asked her brother to keep me safe. He did so by giving me a new name and claiming me as his son."