AN: Many thanks for the reviews.
In the bathhouse of Harrenhal the part for nobles and the part for common men were separated. The part for the common men was full, not so much the other one. Oft a lording or a squire would finds his way there, but today Jon was alone, or as alone as he could be with two guards at the door. A raven had come announcing that Sansa Stark and her retinue had crossed the Trident two days past. Traveling only during daylight they were to arrive on the morrow. The other attendant, prince Trystane was yet to pass the border of Riverlands. The sooner the better, North won't last alone forever.
Thinking of North brought back memories of his unusual encourager with Arya Stark. She was much on his mind ever since. Just by her connection to her wolf she touched a part of himself he thought forbidden to others. A part he never fully shared even with Val. In a way she and Nymeria were one, just as he and Ghost. Yet Jon could not remember the girl herself any more than anything else from before. The only answers he had were colorless facts. Arya Stark was the second daughter of Eddard Stark, born while her lord father was away battling Greyjoys. He recalled even the day exact from maester Malleon's book. She had passed her fifteenth nameday one moon past. The girl had gone with her father and older sister to Kings Landing and disappeared during Eddard Stark's arrest. No one heard about her since. The maiden Lannisters later married to Ramsay Bolton had been a fraud. Then there was the fact that he had broken his own oath for her. Not for the first time Jon would have liked to have a talk with his older self.
Noises outside interrupted his musings. Jon counted three voices. He could tell apart Hagga and Neil in their usual banter. The two had become fast friends despite one being Skaggosi and the other a son of a merchant from the Arbor. Maybe it had to do with their youth, they were both only seven and ten, by far the youngest of Jon's personal guards. The third voice belonged to a woman. It sounded familiar too but Jon couldn't recognize her until she entered. She was one of princess Myrcella's maids, but not the one he heard screaming the day before, that had been girl this was a woman past twenty, uncommonly high, but not unhomely in face. She blushed when she saw Jon in a bath. "M'lord I brought a message."
"Bring it here." Jon reached for the parchment, intentionally touching her hand in the process. She blushed even more though she seemed startled by the burns on his hand.
The message was sealed but only by an uncolored wax and there was no signature. 'Meet me at the rookery in the hour of the wolf', it read. Jon wondered who could have send it. Somehow he felt that a woman would be more likely to use another woman as a messenger. Not Myrcella, though, he decided in an instant. She was not the one to play this game, besides the girl would be clever enough not to use her own maid. I will find out soon enough. All in all Jon was not happy about the message. He did not mean to bring guards with him but he could not bring Ghost to the rookery either.
"Who sent it?" Jon asked the woman, though he was not much hopeful for the answer.
"I cannot tell," the maid said gazing down.
Jon let it be, most likely the true sender used more than one messenger. He dismissed the woman and was let alone once again and with one more worry to chew upon.
That day was one of those when Jon supped in the Great Hall. Only two northern lords, a maester and chief of Harrenhal guards decided to join him. Half of the Great Hall took the tables were the soldiers and men of craft ate. In the other many of them slept in hastily built constructions of three even four stories. Most of the men had to go for the food themselves; only three tables for the officers of the highest ranks were served. Jon sat behind one of them.
He spoke little, listening to grim talk about winter and much more cheerful talk about swords and horses. A few times someone gathered courage and came to him with a request or question. The meal was almost done when his attention was caught at once by thin a girl with pale skin and hair like straw. At first glance there seemed to be nothing extraordinary about her. She was a plain one about thirteen years old. Not even her movements should have called to attention. She went around tables seemingly like any new serving girl would, trying to avoid greedy hands of men and quick hands of hungry children, whom even guards could not keep entirely away. Only on a very close look there appeared to be something coldly calculated about every coincidence that happened to her. But not even Jon would have noticed if not for the same magic tainting their blood and revealing her true nature to him.
"Who is the fair-haired serving girl?" Jon asked Tutty, a stout woman who observed all food that went to the Great Hall when she came personally pour them wine.
"My lord has a sharp eye, she is new. I can't even remember her name. Jully or Alayne, I am not sure. She came yesterday with bunch of villagers and sellswords. Quiet, but quick to learn and quick to work and she has no kin or man to sneak food to. I'll call her here, or to your chamber, just don't make her think too much of herself."
I don't mean to bed her, Jon wanted to object, but then he decided it would suit him better to let Tutty think what she would. "Bring her here, I would like to speak to her."
He couldn't hear their voice but even in smoked hall he could see how the girl looked directly at him when Tutty approached her. Something odd flashed in the maid's eyes before shyness replaced it. She came to their table timidly. Jon's companions watched it all puzzled. He often spoke to smallfolk, but he hadn't dismissed Tutty when she suggested he wanted to bed the girl.
Once the serving maid approached their table Jon saw that he guessed her wrong. She must have been at least fifteen or even as old as seventeen. Her brow was too wide, her hair brittle and her skin so thin and pale that you could see blue veins under it. There was something little odd about her this close up. Something almost unfocused. Glamor, he knew suddenly.
Damien not even put off by Jon's presence smiled lecherously at her. Jon's captain of guards was implacable in his work but also bold to a point of disrespect, and when it came to women fond of boasting that he had never bedded a girl who hadn't been a maiden.
"M'lord," the maid spoke quietly to her old boots.
"How they call you, girl?" Jon done his best not to let his musings be heard in his voice.
"Jeyne, m'lord, Strawy Jeyne sometimes." Her mummery was flawless, but Jon saw right through her lie.
"Will you walk with me, Jeyne?" Jon asked her openly ignoring the looks of men around.
"Now m'lord? I must serve." She put fear in her answer, but there was no one to take the side of a peasant girl.
"Don't be rude to the Lord," Tutty reproached her sternly, "Frina would do your work."
There was nothing Jeyne could object to that. Jon stood and led her from the hall. They neared many men but no one dared to touch her when she was with him. Jon put hand of the small of her back and watched an impressive blush appear on her neck and cheeks.
"Ghost will guard me," he dismissed his men at the entrance of the hall.
His words seemed to unnerve his companion, she must have known that direwolf would see right trough her. "I won't hurt my lord, I swear on Seven. Please don't call the beast. I would be scared," she shuddered.
"Don't worry, he will wait in front of my chamber."
"Your chamber, my lord..." she repeated nervously, if she had been a true serving maid, she would surely know her fate by now.
They passed by more of Jon's guards. Marw looked surprised and confused, Lugs unaffected as always but neither said a word.
She would have him soon, Jon knew, but damn him, he wouldn't be the one to lose this charade as he lost their last fight. He was tired of being played by his sisters. Without warming he took her by both hands and kissed her. It was meant only to be a brief peck on lips, just another move in this play, but it went out of control more quickly than a jar of wildfire thrown into flame. In no time he had her against a wall their bodies so close that she must have felt his hardening manhood trough their clothes. He would not be able to tell how long it lasted but she was the one to put him away. Quick as a snake she slipped from under him and backed few steps. Only then did he wake from the trance.
"Please m'lord, don't I am scared." Jon have to admire her skill in mummery. Or is her fear and surprise real?
He made a step closer and she started to run. She was very quick, he was not even sure he would able to stop her and if he wouldn't she could disappear forever. "Arya, wait," he whispered. It worked like a spell, she stilled in an instant.
"Arya Stark is dead," her voice was barely louder than her breath.
"Please come with me, I never meant to truly bed you, I just…" He just wanted to know how far she was willing to take this charade, or so he assured himself. But he couldn't find the right words to tell her, still baffled at his lack of control. "I am sorry, I won't act improperly with you again, I swear."
Among all her distress he sensed a slight flicker of amusement. "You should, otherwise men will wonder."
"Will you come to my chambers?" he repeated quietly and she nodded.
He put a hand on the small of her back afraid she would run and she shivered but didn't pull away. Ghost joined them at the yard. The guards at tower threw his way bewildered looks, as had did the men in the hall. Jon was never before seen to show much interest in women, he knew that some of his own men whispered that the attack at the Wall left him incapable, and sometimes more quietly even that him walking among them was no proof that he hadn't died. Today he must have been a sight, flushed and disheveled, leading a girl to his chambers in the middle of a day and telling his men to leave him alone.
Arya seemed sharing his thoughts. "At least you were convincing," she told him in a perfectly calm voice once they entered his chambers. He still found it hard to comprehend about what happened moments before, much less to answer to that.
"How did you knew it was me?" she asked. Concentrating on her question helped him to regain some of his balance. He knew the reason well though he had never talked about it with anyone save wildlingds, but there was no reason to keep it from her. If he was a beast she was of the same kind.
"One warg can always tell another."
"Warg," she repeated as she was testing the word, "I suppose it makes sense." Then she frowned, "How many wargs are there?"
"Here only you and I, at least twenty more among the wildlings in the North."
"Every one is danger to me," she mused.
"Much less than you are to them, they are my people." He could fathom where her thoughts were heading.
"Your pack," she half-smiled. "Will all people of the kingdom be your pack if you become the king?"
"No." Jon's burnt hand wandered to the side of her face and he took a strand of the strawy hair between his fingers. He had learned enough about glamor from Lady Melisandre to know this girl was not showing him her real face, but he could not see through the spell. Was what he was feeling even real? She did not even seem to notice. "They already are. All living people are my pack and always will be. I was a man of the Night's Watch once, even a Lord Commander, do you know what ours words tell?"
"Yes." She nodded solemnly.
"The night truly gathers," he told her, "the winter has come."
"I know," She answered. She would have to, he mused, Nymeria would feel it in the air.
He did not even know why it mean so much to him. Maybe it was that he finally didn't feel so alone in his fight. By some half-forgotten instinct he carefully took her in his arms, terrified that he could lose control again. In the end the effect of their closeness was different. All he could feel now was calmness he did not know since Val. He could not help but compare them. Arya was a head shorter and smelled of wolf and blood instead of winter morning. The smell was not familiar, yet right all the same.
"Don't run away from me," he asked of her.
"I wouldn't, we have a bargain to settle."
