GOT Chapters Chapter 10, a game of thrones fanfic

CHAPTER THREE

TYRION

In the chilly white raiment of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon Moore looked like a corpse in

a shroud. "Her Grace left orders, the council in session is not to be disturbed."

"I would be only a small disturbance, ser." Tyrion slid the parchment from his sleeve. "I

bear a letter from my father, Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King. There is his seal."

"Her Grace does not wish to be disturbed," Ser Mandon repeated slowly, as if Tyrion

were a dullard who had not heard him the first time.

Jaime had once told him that Moore was the most dangerous of the Kingsguard—

excepting himself, always—because his face gave no hint as what he might do next. Tyrion

would have welcomed a hint. Bronn and Timett could likely kill the knight if it came to

swords, but it would scarcely bode well if he began by slaying one of Joffrey's protectors. Yet

if he let the man turn him away, where was his authority? He made himself smile. "Ser

Mandon, you have not met my companions. This is Timett son of Timett, a red hand of the

Burned Men. And this is Bronn. Perchance you recall Ser Vardis Egen, who was captain of

Lord Arryn's household guard?"

"I know the man." Ser Mandon's eyes were pale grey, oddly flat and lifeless.

"Knew," Bronn corrected with a thin smile.

Ser Mandon did not deign to show that he had heard that.

"Be that as it may," Tyrion said lightly, "I truly must see my sister and present my letter,

ser. If you would be so kind as to open the door for us?"

The white knight did not respond. Tyrion was almost at the point of trying to force his

way past when Ser Mandon abruptly stood aside. "You may enter. They may not."

A small victory, he thought, but sweet. He had passed his first test. Tyrion Lannister

shouldered through the door, feeling almost tall. Five members of the king's small council

broke off their discussion suddenly. "You," his sister Cersei said in a tone that was equal parts

disbelief and distaste.

"I can see where Joffrey learned his courtesies." Tyrion paused to admire the pair of

Valyrian sphinxes that guarded the door, affecting an air of casual confidence. Cersei could

smell weakness the way a dog smells fear.

"What are you doing here?" His sister's lovely green eyes studied him without the least

hint of affection.

"Delivering a letter from our lord father." He sauntered to the table and placed the tightly

rolled parchment between them.

The eunuch Varys took the letter and turned it in his delicate powdered hands. "How

kind of Lord Tywin. And his sealing wax is such a lovely shade of gold." Varys gave the seal

a close inspection. "It gives every appearance of being genuine."

"Of course it's genuine." Cersei snatched it out of his hands. She broke the wax and

unrolled the parchment.

Tyrion watched her read. His sister had taken the king's seat for herself—he gathered

Joffrey did not often trouble to attend council meetings, no more than Robert had—so Tyrion

climbed up into the Hand's chair. it seemed only appropriate.

"This is absurd," the queen said at last. "My lord father has sent my brother to sit in his

place in this council. He bids us accept Tyrion as the Hand of the King, until such time as he

himself can join us."

Grand Maester Pycelle stroked his flowing white beard and nodded ponderously. "It

would seem that a welcome is in order."

"Indeed." Jowly, balding Janos Slynt looked rather like a frog, a smug frog who had

gotten rather above himself. "We have sore need of you, my lord. Rebellion everywhere, this

grim omen in the sky, rioting in the city streets . . ."

"And whose fault is that, Lord Janos?" Cersei lashed out. "Your gold cloaks are charged

with keeping order. As to you, Tyrion, you could better serve us on the field of battle."

He laughed. "No, I'm done with fields of battle, thank you. I sit a chair better than a

horse, and I'd sooner hold a wine goblet than a battle-axe. All that about the thunder of the

drums, sunlight flashing on armor, magnificent destriers snorting and prancing? Well, the

drums gave me headaches, the sunlight flashing on my armor cooked me up like a harvest-day

goose, and those magnificent destriers shit everywhere. Not that I am complaining. Compared

to the hospitality I enjoyed in the Vale of Arryn, drums, horseshit, and fly bites are my

favorite things."

Littlefinger laughed. "Well said, Lannister. A man after my own heart."

Tyrion smiled at him, remembering a certain dagger with a dragonbone hilt and a

Valyrian steel blade. We must have a talk about that, and soon. He wondered if Lord Petyr

would find that subject amusing as well. "Please," he told them, "do let me be of service, in

whatever small way I can."

Cersei read the letter again. "How many men have you brought with you?"

"A few hundred. My own men, chiefly. Father was loath to part with any of his. He is

fighting a war, after all."

"What use will your few hundred men be if Renly marches on the city, or Stannis sails

from Dragonstone? I ask for an army and my father sends me a dwarf. The king names the

Hand, with the consent of council. Joffrey named our lord father."

"And our lord father named me."

"He cannot do that. Not without Joff's consent."

"Lord Tywin is at Harrenhal with his host, if you'd care to take it up with him," Tyrion

said politely. "My lords, perchance you would permit me a private word with my sister?"

Varys slithered to his feet, smiling in that unctuous way he had. "How you must have

yearned for the sound of your sweet sister's voice. My lords, please, let us give them a few

moments together. The woes of our troubled realm shall keep."

Janos Slynt rose hesitantly and Grand Maester Pycelle ponderously, yet they rose.

Littlefinger was the last. "Shall I tell the steward to prepare chambers in Maegor's Holdfast?"

"My thanks, Lord Petyr, but I will be taking Lord Stark's former quarters in the Tower of

the Hand."

Littlefinger laughed. "You're a braver man than me, Lannister. You do know the fate of

our last two Hands?"

"Two? If you mean to frighten me, why not say four?"

"Four?" Littlefinger raised an eyebrow. "Did the Hands before Lord Arryn meet some

dire end in the Tower? I'm afraid I was too young to pay them much mind."

"Aerys Targaryen's last Hand was killed during the Sack of King's Landing, though I

doubt he'd had time to settle into the Tower. He was only Hand for a fortnight. The one

before him was burned to death. And before them came two others who died landless and

penniless in exile, and counted themselves lucky. I believe my lord father was the last Hand to

depart King's Landing with his name, properties, and parts all intact."

"Fascinating," said Littlefinger. "And all the more reason I'd sooner bed down in the

dungeon."

Perhaps you'll get that wish, Tyrion thought, but he said, "Courage and folly are cousins,

or so I've heard. Whatever curse may linger over the Tower of the Hand, I pray I'm small

enough to escape its notice."

Janos Slynt laughed, Littlefinger smiled, and Grand Maester Pycelle followed them both

out, bowing gravely.

"I hope Father did not send you all this way to plague us with history lessons," his sister

said when they were alone.

"How I have yearned for the sound of your sweet voice," Tyrion sighed to her.

"How I have yearned to have that eunuch's tongue pulled out with hot pincers," Cersei

replied. "Has father lost his senses? Or did you forge this letter?" She read it once more, with

mounting annoyance. "Why would he inflict you on me? I wanted him to come himself." She

crushed Lord Tywin's letter in her fingers. "I am Joffrey's regent, and I sent him a royal

command!"

"And he ignored you," Tyrion pointed out. "He has quite a large army, he can do that.

Nor is he the first. Is he?"

Cersei's mouth tightened. He could see her color rising. "If I name this letter a forgery

and tell them to throw you in a dungeon, no one will ignore that, I promise you."

He was walking on rotten ice now, Tyrion knew. One false step and he would plunge

through. "No one," he agreed amiably, "least of all our father. The one with the army. But

why should you want to throw me into a dungeon, sweet sister, when I've come all this long

way to help you?"

"I do not require your help. It was our father's presence that I commanded."

"Yes," he said quietly, "but it's Jaime you want."

His sister fancied herself subtle, but he had grown up with her. He could read her face

like one of his favorite books, and what he read now was rage, and fear, and despair.

"Jaime—"

"—is my brother no less than yours," Tyrion interrupted. "Give me your support and I

promise you, we will have Jaime freed and returned to us unharmed."

"How?" Cersei demanded. "The Stark boy and his mother are not like to forget that we

beheaded Lord Eddard."

"True," Tyrion agreed, "yet you still hold his daughters, don't you? I saw the older girl

out in the yard with Joffrey."

"Sansa," the queen said. "I've given it out that I have the younger brat as well, but it's a

lie. I sent Meryn Trant to take her in hand when Robert died, but her wretched dancing master

interfered and the girl fled. No one has seen her since. Likely she's dead. A great many people

died that day."

Tyrion had hoped for both Stark girls, but he supposed one would have to do. "Tell me

about our friends on the council."

His sister glanced at the door. "What of them?"

"Father seems to have taken a dislike to them. When I left him, he was wondering how

their heads might look on the wall beside Lord Stark's." He leaned forward across the table.

"Are you certain of their loyalty? Do you trust them?"

"I trust no one," Cersei snapped. "I need them. Does Father believe they are playing us

false?"

"Suspects, rather."

"Why? What does he know?"

Tyrion shrugged. "He knows that your son's short reign has been a long parade of follies

and disasters. That suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad counsel."

Cersei gave him a searching look. "Joff has had no lack of good counsel. He's always

been strong-willed. Now that he's king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as he's

bid."

"Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them," Tyrion agreed. "This business with

Eddard Stark . . . Joffrey's work?"

The queen grimaced. "He was instructed to pardon Stark, to allow him to take the black.

The man would have been out of our way forever, and we might have made peace with that

son of his, but Joff took it upon himself to give the mob a better show. What was I to do? He

called for Lord Eddard's head in front of half the city. And Janos Slynt and Ser Ilyn went

ahead blithely and shortened the man without a word from me!" Her hand tightened into a

fist. "The High Septon claims we profaned Baelor's Sept with blood, after lying to him about

our intent."

"It would seem he has a point," said Tyrion. "So this Lord Slynt, he was part of it, was

he? Tell me, whose fine notion was it to grant him Harrenhal and name him to the council?"

"Littlefinger made the arrangements. We needed Slynt's gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was

plotting with Renly and he'd written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We might have

lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn't come to me and told me all her father's

plans . . ."

Tyrion was surprised. "Truly? His own daughter?" Sansa had always seemed such a

sweet child, tender and courteous.

"The girl was wet with love. She would have done anything for Joffrey, until he cut off

her father's head and called it mercy. That put an end to that."

"His Grace has a unique way of winning the hearts of his subjects," Tyrion said with a

crooked smile. "Was it Joffrey's wish to dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy from his Kingsguard

too?"

Cersei sighed. "Joff wanted someone to blame for Robert's death. Varys suggested Ser

Barristan. Why not? It gave Jaime command of the Kingsguard and a seat on the small

council, and allowed Joff to throw a bone to his dog. He is very fond of Sandor Clegane. We

were prepared to offer Selmy some land and a towerhouse, more than the useless old fool

deserved."

"I hear that useless old fool slew two of Slynt's gold cloaks when they tried to seize him

at the Mud Gate."

His sister looked very unhappy. "Janos should have sent more men. He is not as

competent as might be wished."

"Ser Barristan was the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard," Tyrion

reminded her pointedly. "He and Jaime are the only survivors of Aerys Targaryen's seven.

The smallfolk talk of him in the same way they talk of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield and

Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. What do you imagine they'll think when they see Barristan

the Bold riding beside Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon?"

Cersei glanced away. "I had not considered that."

"Father did," said Tyrion. "That is why he sent me. To put an end to these follies and

bring your son to heel."

"Joff will be no more tractable for you than for me."

"He might."

"Why should he?"

"He knows you would never hurt him."

Cersei's eyes narrowed. "If you believe I'd ever allow you to harm my son, you're sick

with fever."

Tyrion sighed. She'd missed the point, as she did so often. "Joffrey is as safe with me as

he is with you," he assured her, "but so long as the boy feels threatened, he'll be more inclined

to listen." He took her hand. "I am your brother, you know. You need me, whether you care to

admit it or no. Your son needs me, if he's to have a hope of retaining that ugly iron chair."

His sister seemed shocked that he would touch her. "You have always been cunning."

"In my own small way." He grinned.

"It may be worth the trying . . . but make no mistake, Tyrion. If I accept you, you shall be

the King's Hand in name, but my Hand in truth. You will share all your plans and intentions

with me before you act, and you will do nothing without my consent. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes."

"Do you agree?"

"Certainly," he lied. "I am yours, sister." For as long as I need to be. "So, now that we

are of one purpose, we ought have no more secrets between us. You say Joffrey had Lord

Eddard killed, Varys dismissed Ser Barristan, and Littlefinger gifted us with Lord Slynt. Who

murdered Jon Arryn?"

Cersei yanked her hand back. "How should I know?"

"The grieving widow in the Eyrie seems to think it was me. Where did she come by that

notion, I wonder?"

"I'm sure I don't know. That fool Eddard Stark accused me of the same thing. He hinted

that Lord Arryn suspected or . . . well, believed . . ."

"That you were fucking our sweet Jaime?"

She slapped him.

"Did you think I was as blind as Father?" Tyrion rubbed his cheek. "Who you lie with is

no matter to me . . . although it doesn't seem quite just that you should open your legs for one

brother and not the other."

She slapped him.

"Be gentle, Cersei, I'm only jesting with you. If truth be told, I'd sooner have a nice

whore. I never understood what Jaime saw in you, apart from his own reflection."

She slapped him.

His cheeks were red and burning, yet he smiled. "If you keep doing that, I may get

angry."

That stayed her hand. "Why should I care if you do?"

"I have some new friends," Tyrion confessed. "You won't like them at all. How did you

kill Robert?"

"He did that himself. All we did was help. When Lancel saw that Robert was going after

boar, he gave him strong wine. His favorite sour red, but fortified, three times as potent as he

was used to. The great stinking fool loved it. He could have stopped swilling it down any time

he cared to, but no, he drained one skin and told Lancel to fetch another. The boar did the rest.

You should have been at the feast, Tyrion. There has never been a boar so delicious. They

cooked it with mushrooms and apples, and it tasted like triumph."

"Truly, sister, you were born to be a widow." Tyrion had rather liked Robert Baratheon,

great blustering oaf that he was . . . doubtless in part because his sister loathed him so. "Now,

if you are done slapping me, I will be off." He twisted his legs around and clambered down

awkwardly from the chair.

Cersei frowned. "I haven't given you leave to depart. I want to know how you intend to

free Jaime."

"I'll tell you when I know. Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening. Right

now, I have a mind to ride through the streets and take the measure of this city." Tyrion rested

his hand on the head of the sphinx beside the door. "One parting request. Kindly make certain

no harm comes to Sansa Stark. It would not do to lose both the daughters."

Outside the council chamber, Tyrion nodded to Ser Mandon and made his way down the

long vaulted hall. Bronn fell in beside him. Of Timett son of Timett there was no sign.

"Where's our red hand?" Tyrion asked.

"He felt an urge to explore. His kind was not made for waiting about in halls."

"I hope he doesn't kill anyone important." The clansmen Tyrion had brought down from

their fastnesses in the Mountains of the Moon were loyal in their own fierce way, but they

were proud and quarrelsome as well, prone to answer insults real or imagined with steel. "Try

to find him. And while you are at it, see that the rest have been quartered and fed. I want them

in the barracks beneath the Tower of the Hand, but don't let the steward put the Stone Crows

near the Moon Brothers, and tell him the Burned Men must have a hall all to themselves."

"Where will you be?"

"I'm riding back to the Broken Anvil."

Bronn grinned insolently. "Need an escort? The talk is, the streets are dangerous."

"I'll call upon the captain of my sister's household guard, and remind him that I am no

less a Lannister than she is. He needs to recall that his oath is to Casterly Rock, not to Cersei

or Joffrey."

An hour later, Tyrion rode from the Red Keep accompanied by a dozen Lannister

guardsmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested half-helms. As they passed beneath the

portcullis, he noted the heads mounted atop the walls. Black with rot and old tar, they had

long since become unrecognizable. "Captain Vylarr," he called, "I want those taken down on

the morrow. Give them to the silent sisters for cleaning." It would be hell to match them with

the bodies, he supposed, yet it must be done. Even in the midst of war certain decencies

needed to be observed.

Vylarr grew hesitant. "His Grace has told us he wishes the traitors' heads to remain on

the walls until he fills those last three empty spikes there on the end."

"Let me hazard a wild stab. One is for Robb Stark, the others for Lords Stannis and

Renly. Would that be right?"

"Yes, my lord."

"My nephew is thirteen years old today, Vylarr. Try and recall that. I'll have the heads

down on the morrow, or one of those empty spikes may have a different lodger. Do you take

my meaning, Captain?"

"I'll see that they're taken down myself, my lord."

"Good." Tyrion put his heels into his horse and trotted away, leaving the red cloaks to

follow as best they could.

He had told Cersei he intended to take the measure of the city. That was not entirely a lie.

Tyrion Lannister was not pleased by much of what he saw. The streets of King's Landing had

always been teeming and raucous and noisy, but now they reeked of danger in a way that he

did not recall from past visits. A naked corpse sprawled in the gutter near the Street of Looms,

being torn at by a pack of feral dogs, yet no one seemed to care. Watchmen were much in

evidence, moving in pairs through the alleys in their gold cloaks and shirts of black ringmail,

iron cudgels never far from their hands. The markets were crowded with ragged men selling

their household goods for any price they could get . . . and conspicuously empty of farmers

selling food. What little produce he did see was three times as costly as it had been a year ago.

One peddler was hawking rats roasted on a skewer. "Fresh rats," he cried loudly, "fresh rats."

Doubtless fresh rats were to be preferred to old stale rotten rats. The frightening thing was, the

rats looked more appetizing than most of what the butchers were selling. On the Street of

Flour, Tyrion saw guards at every other shop door. When times grew lean, even bakers found

sellswords cheaper than bread, he reflected.

"There is no food coming in, is there?" he said to Vylarr.

"Little enough," the captain admitted. "With the war in the riverlands and Lord Renly

raising rebels in Highgarden, the roads are closed to south and west."

"And what has my good sister done about this?"

"She is taking steps to restore the king's peace," Vylarr assured him. "Lord Slynt has

tripled the size of the City Watch, and the queen has put a thousand craftsmen to work on our

defenses. The stonemasons are strengthening the walls, carpenters are building scorpions and

catapults by the hundred, fletchers are making arrows, the smiths are forging blades, and the

Alchemists' Guild has pledged ten thousand jars of wildfire."

Tyrion shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He was pleased that Cersei had not been idle,

but wildfire was treacherous stuff, and ten thousand jars were enough to turn all of King's

Landing into cinders. "Where has my sister found the coin to pay for all of this?" It was no

secret that King Robert had left the crown vastly in debt, and alchemists were seldom

mistaken for altruists.

"Lord Littlefinger always finds a way, my lord. He has imposed a tax on those wishing to

enter the city."

"Yes, that would work," Tyrion said, thinking, Clever. Clever and cruel. Tens of

thousands had fled the fighting for the supposed safety of King's Landing. He had seen them

on the kingsroad, troupes of mothers and children and anxious fathers who had gazed on his

horses and wagons with covetous eyes. Once they reached the city they would doubtless pay

over all they had to put those high comforting walls between them and the war . . . though

they might think twice if they knew about the wildfire.

The inn beneath the sign of the broken anvil stood within sight of those walls, near the

Gate of the Gods where they had entered that morning. As they rode into its courtyard, a boy

ran out to help Tyrion down from his horse. "Take your men back to the castle," he told

Vylarr. "I'll be spending the night here."

The captain looked dubious. "Will you be safe, my lord?"

"Well, as to that, Captain, when I left the inn this morning it was full of Black Ears. One

is never quite safe when Chella daughter of Cheyk is about." Tyrion waddled toward the door,

leaving Vylarr to puzzle at his meaning.

A gust of merriment greeted him as he shoved into the inn's common room. He

recognized Chella's throaty chuckle and the lighter music of Shae's laughter. The girl was

seated by the hearth, sipping wine at a round wooden table with three of the Black Ears he'd

left to guard her and a plump man whose back was to him. The innkeeper, he

assumed . . . until Shae called Tyrion by name and the intruder rose. "My good lord, I am so

pleased to see you," he gushed, a soft eunuch's smile on his powdered face.

Tyrion stumbled. "Lord Varys. I had not thought to see you here." The Others take him,

how did he find them so quickly?

"Forgive me if I intrude," Varys said. "I was taken by a sudden urge to meet your young

lady."

"Young lady," Shae repeated, savoring the words. "You're half right, m'lord. I'm

young."

Eighteen, Tyrion thought. Eighteen, and a whore, but quick of wit, nimble as a cat

between the sheets, with large dark eyes and fine black hair and a sweet, soft, hungry little

mouth . . . and mine! Damn you, eunuch. "I fear I'm the intruder, Lord Varys," he said with

forced courtesy. "When I came in, you were in the midst of some merriment."

"M'lord Varys complimented Chella on her ears and said she must have killed many men

to have such a fine necklace," Shae explained. It grated on him to hear her call Varys m'lord

in that tone; that was what she called him in their pillow play. "And Chella told him only

cowards kill the vanquished."

"Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse his shame by winning back his

ear," explained Chella, a small dark woman whose grisly neckware was hung with no less

than forty-six dried, wrinkled ears. Tyrion had counted them once. "Only so can you prove

you do not fear your enemies."

Shae hooted. "And then m'lord says if he was a Black Ear he'd never sleep, for dreams

of one-eared men."

"A problem I will never need face," Tyrion said. "I'm terrified of my enemies, so I kill

them all."

Varys giggled. "Will you take some wine with us, my lord?"

"I'll take some wine." Tyrion seated himself beside Shae. He understood what was

happening here, if Chella and the girl did not. Varys was delivering a message. When he said,

I was taken by a sudden urge to meet your young lady, what he meant was, You tried to hide

her, but I knew where she was, and who she was, and here I am. He wondered who had

betrayed him. The innkeeper, that boy in the stable, a guard on the gate . . . or one of his own?

"I always like to return to the city through the Gate of the Gods," Varys told Shae as he

filled the wine cups. "The carvings on the gatehouse are exquisite, they make me weep each

time I see them. The eyes . . . so expressive, don't you think? They almost seem to follow you

as you ride beneath the portcullis."

"I never noticed, m'lord," Shae replied. "I'll look again on the morrow, if it please you."

Don't bother, sweetling, Tyrion thought, swirling the wine in the cup. He cares not a

whit about carvings. The eyes he boasts of are his own. What he means is that he was

watching, that he knew we were here the moment we passed through the gates.

"Do be careful, child," Varys urged. "King's Landing is not wholly safe these days. I

know these streets well, and yet I almost feared to come today, alone and unarmed as I was.

Lawless men are everywhere in this dark time, oh, yes. Men with cold steel and colder

hearts." Where I can come alone and unarmed, others can come with swords in their fists, he

was saying.

Shae only laughed. "If they try and bother me, they'll be one ear short when Chella runs

them off."

Varys hooted as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard, but there was no

laughter in his eyes when he turned them on Tyrion. "Your young lady has an amiable way to

her. I should take very good care of her if I were you."

"I intend to. Any man who tries to harm her—well, I'm too small to be a Black Ear, and I

make no claims to courage." See? I speak the same tongue you do, eunuch. Hurt her, and I'll

have your head.

"I will leave you." Varys rose. "I know how weary you must be. I only wished to

welcome you, my lord, and tell you how very pleased I am by your arrival. We have dire need

of you on the council. Have you seen the comet?"

"I'm short, not blind," Tyrion said. Out on the kingsroad, it had seemed to cover half the

sky, outshining the crescent moon.

"In the streets, they call it the Red Messenger," Varys said. "They say it comes as a

herald before a king, to warn of fire and blood to follow." The eunuch rubbed his powdered

hands together. "May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?" He did not wait for an

answer. "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between

them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great

ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it'

says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it' says the rich man, 'and

all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me—who lives and who dies?" Bowing deeply, the

eunuch hurried from the common room on soft slippered feet.

When he was gone, Chella gave a snort and Shae wrinkled up her pretty face. "The rich

man lives. Doesn't he?"

Tyrion sipped at his wine, thoughtful. "Perhaps. Or not. That would depend on the

sellsword, it seems." He set down his cup. "Come, let's go upstairs."

She had to wait for him at the top of the steps, for her legs were slim and supple while his

were short and stunted and full of aches. But she was smiling when he reached her. "Did you

miss me?" she teased as she took his hand.

"Desperately," Tyrion admitted. Shae only stood a shade over five feet, yet still he must

look up to her . . . but in her case he found he did not mind. She was sweet to look up at.

"You'll miss me all the time in your Red Keep," she said as she led him to her room.

"All alone in your cold bed in your Tower of the Hand."

"Too true." Tyrion would gladly have kept her with him, but his lord father had

forbidden it. You will not take the whore to court, Lord Tywin had commanded. Bringing her

to the city was as much defiance as he dared. All his authority derived from his father, the girl

had to understand that. "You won't be far," he promised. "You'll have a house, with guards

and servants, and I'll visit as often as I'm able."

Shae kicked shut the door. Through the cloudy panes of the narrow window, he could

make out the Great Sept of Baelor crowning Visenya's Hill but Tyrion was distracted by a

different sight. Bending, Shae took her gown by the hem, drew it over her head, and tossed it

aside. She did not believe in smallclothes. "You'll never be able to rest," she said as she stood

before him, pink and nude and lovely, one hand braced on her hip. "You'll think of me every

time you go to bed. Then you'll get hard and you'll have no one to help you and you'll never

be able to sleep unless you"—she grinned that wicked grin Tyrion liked so well—"is that why

they call it the Tower of the Hand, m'lord?"

"Be quiet and kiss me," he commanded.

He could taste the wine on her lips, and feel her small firm breasts pressed against him as

her fingers moved to the lacings of his breeches. "My lion," she whispered when he broke off

the kiss to undress. "My sweet lord, my giant of Lannister." Tyrion pushed her toward the

bed. When he entered her, she screamed loud enough to wake Baelor the Blessed in his tomb,

and her nails left gouges in his back. He'd never had a pain he liked half so well.

Fool, he thought to himself afterward, as they lay in the center of the sagging mattress

amidst the rumpled sheets. Will you never learn, dwarf? She's a whore, damn you, it's your

coin she loves, not your cock. Remember Tysha? Yet when his fingers trailed lightly over one

nipple, it stiffened at the touch, and he could see the mark on her breast where he'd bitten her

in his passion.

"So what will you do, m'lord, now that you're the Hand of the King?" Shae asked him as

he cupped that warm sweet flesh.

"Something Cersei will never expect," Tyrion murmured softly against her slender neck.

"I'll do . . . justice."

CHAPTER FOUR

BRAN

Bran preferred the hard stone of the window seat to the comforts of his featherbed and

blankets. Abed, the walls pressed close and the ceiling hung heavy above him; abed, the room

was his cell, and Winterfell his prison. Yet outside his window, the wide world still called.

He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but

he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles

and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to

listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.

Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told

himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not

truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow

forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told

him so. "Though it is stronger in some than in others," she warned.

Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more

savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as

though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where

there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they

calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come

home and be a pack together?

"Who can know the mind of a wolf?" Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why

they howled. Bran's lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and

his duties left him little time for idle questions.

"It's freedom they're calling for," declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no

more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. "They don't like being walled up, and

who's to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle."

"They want to hunt," agreed Gage the cook as he tossed cubes of suet in a great kettle of

stew. "A wolf smells better'n any man. Like as not, they've caught the scent o' prey."

Maester Luwin did not think so. "Wolves often howl at the moon. These are howling at

the comet. See how bright it is, Bran? Perchance they think it is the moon."

When Bran repeated that to Osha, she laughed aloud. "Your wolves have more wit than

your maester," the wildling woman said. "They know truths the grey man has forgotten." The

way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered,

"Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet."

Bran asked Septon Chayle about the comet while they were sorting through some scrolls

snatched from the library fire. "It is the sword that slays the season," he replied, and soon

after the white raven came from Oldtown bringing word of autumn, so doubtless he was right.

Though Old Nan did not think so, and she'd lived longer than any of them. "Dragons,"

she said, lifting her head and sniffing. She was near blind and could not see the comet, yet she

claimed she could smell it. "It be dragons, boy," she insisted. Bran got no princes from Nan,

no more than he ever had.

Hodor said only, "Hodor." That was all he ever said.

And still the direwolves howled. The guards on the walls muttered curses, hounds in the

kennels barked furiously, horses kicked at their stalls, the Walders shivered by their fire, and

even Maester Luwin complained of sleepless nights. Only Bran did not mind. Ser Rodrik had

confined the wolves to the godswood after Shaggydog bit Little Walder, but the stones of

Winterfell played queer tricks with sound, and sometimes it sounded as if they were in the

yard right below Bran's window. Other times he would have sworn they were up on the

curtain walls, loping round like sentries. He wished that he could see them.

He could see the comet hanging above the Guards Hall and the Bell Tower, and farther

back the First Keep, squat and round, its gargoyles black shapes against the bruised purple

dusk. Once Bran had known every stone of those buildings, inside and out; he had climbed

them all, scampering up walls as easily as other boys ran down stairs. Their rooftops had been

his secret places, and the crows atop the broken tower his special friends.

And then he had fallen.

Bran did not remember falling, yet they said he had, so he supposed it must be true. He

had almost died. When he saw the weatherworn gargoyles atop the First Keep where it had

happened, he got a queer tight feeling in his belly. And now he could not climb, nor walk nor

run nor sword-fight, and the dreams he'd dreamed of knighthood had soured in his head.

Summer had howled the day Bran had fallen, and for long after as he lay broken in his

bed; Robb had told him so before he went away to war. Summer had mourned for him, and

Shaggydog and Grey Wind had joined in his grief. And the night the bloody raven had

brought word of their father's death, the wolves had known that too. Bran had been in the

maester's turret with Rickon talking of the children of the forest when Summer and

Shaggydog had drowned out Luwin with their howls.

Who are they mourning now? Had some enemy slain the King in the North, who used to

be his brother Robb? Had his bastard brother Jon Snow fallen from the Wall? Had his mother

died, or one of his sisters? Or was this something else, as maester and septon and Old Nan

seemed to think?

If I were truly a direwolf, I would understand the song, he thought wistfully. In his wolf

dreams, he could race up the sides of mountains, jagged icy mountains taller than any tower,

and stand at the summit beneath the full moon with all the world below him, the way it used

to be.

"Oooo," Bran cried tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lifted his

head to the comet. "Ooooooooooooooooooo, ahooooooooooooooo," he howled. It sounded

stupid, high and hollow and quavering, a little boy's howl, not a wolf's. Yet Summer gave

answer, his deep voice drowning out Bran's thin one, and Shaggydog made it a chorus. Bran

haroooed again. They howled together, last of their pack.

The noise brought a guard to his door, Hayhead with the wen on his nose. He peered in,

saw Bran howling out the window, and said, "What's this, my prince?"

It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb's heir, and

Robb was King in the North now. He turned his head to howl at the guard. "Oooooooo. Oooo-oooooooooooo."

Hayhead screwed up his face. "Now you stop that there."

"Ooo-ooo-Oooooo. Ooo-Ooo-Ooooooooooooooooo."

The guardsman retreated. When he came back, Maester Luwin was with him, all in grey,

his chain tight about his neck. "Bran, those beasts make sufficient noise without your help."

He crossed the room and put his hand on the boy's brow. "The hour grows late, you ought to

be fast asleep."

"I'm talking to the wolves." Bran brushed the hand away.

"Shall I have Hayhead carry you to your bed?"

"I can get to bed myself." Mikken had hammered a row of iron bars into the wall, so

Bran could pull himself about the room with his arms. It was slow and hard and it made his

shoulders ache, but he hated being carried. "Anyway, I don't have to sleep if I don't want to."

"All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes."

"When I sleep I turn into a wolf." Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the

night. "Do wolves dream?"

"All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do."

"Do dead men dream?" Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below

Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father's likeness in granite.

"Some say yes, some no," the maester answered. "The dead themselves are silent on the

matter."

"Do trees dream?"

"Trees? No . . ."

"They do," Bran said with sudden certainty. "They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree

sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are

better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood."

Maester Luwin tugged at his chain where it chafed his neck. "If you would only spend

more time with the other children—"

"I hate the other children," Bran said, meaning the Walders. "I commanded you to send

them away."

Luwin grew stern. "The Freys are your lady mother's wards, sent here to be fostered at

her express command. It is not for you to expel them, nor is it kind. If we turned them out,

where would they go?"

"Home. It's their fault you won't let me have Summer."

"The Frey boy did not ask to be attacked," the maester said, "no more than I did."

"That was Shaggydog." Rickon's big black wolf was so wild he even frightened Bran at

times. "Summer never bit anyone."

"Summer ripped out a man's throat in this very chamber, or have you forgotten? The

truth is, those sweet pups you and your brothers found in the snow have grown into dangerous

beasts. The Frey boys are wise to be wary of them."

"We should put the Walders in the godswood. They could play lord of the crossing all

they want, and Summer could sleep with me again. If I'm the prince, why won't you heed

me? I wanted to ride Dancer, but Alebelly wouldn't let me past the gate."

"And rightly so. The wolfswood is full of danger; your last ride should have taught you

that. Would you want some outlaw to take you captive and sell you to the Lannisters?"

"Summer would save me," Bran insisted stubbornly. "Princes should be allowed to sail

the sea and hunt boar in the wolfswood and joust with lances."

"Bran, child, why do you torment yourself so? One day you may do some of these things,

but now you are only a boy of eight."

"I'd sooner be a wolf. Then I could live in the wood and sleep when I wanted, and I

could find Arya and Sansa. I'd smell where they were and go save them, and when Robb went

to battle I'd fight beside him like Grey Wind. I'd tear out the Kingslayer's throat with my

teeth, rip, and then the war would be over and everyone would come back to Winterfell. If I

was a wolf . . ." He howled. "Ooo-ooo-oooooooooooo."

Luwin raised his voice. "A true prince would welcome—"

"AAHOOOOOOO," Bran howled, louder. "AAHOOOOOOOOOOOO."

The maester surrendered. "As you will, child." With a look that was part grief and part

disgust, he left the bedchamber.

Howling lost its savor once Bran was alone. After a time he quieted. I did welcome them,

he told himself, resentful. I was the lord in Winterfell, a true lord, he can't say I wasn't. When

the Walders had arrived from the Twins, it had been Rickon who wanted them gone. A baby

of four, he had screamed that he wanted Mother and Father and Robb, not these strangers. It

had been up to Bran to soothe him and bid the Freys welcome. He had offered them meat and

mead and a seat by the fire, and even Maester Luwin had said afterward that he'd done well.

Only that was before the game.

The game was played with a log, a staff, a body of water, and a great deal of shouting.

The water was the most important, Walder and Walder assured Bran. You could use a plank

or even a series of stones, and a branch could be your staff. You didn't have to shout. But

without water, there was no game. As Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik were not about to let the

children go wandering off into the wolfswood in search of a stream, they made do with one of

the murky pools in the godswood. Walder and Walder had never seen hot water bubbling

from the ground before, but they both allowed how it would make the game even better.

Both of them were called Walder Frey. Big Walder said there were bunches of Walders

at the Twins, all named after the boys' grandfather, Lord Walder Frey. "We have our own

names at Winterfell," Rickon told them haughtily when he heard that.

The way their game was played, you laid the log across the water, and one player stood

in the middle with the stick. He was the lord of the crossing, and when one of the other

players came up, he had to say, "I am the lord of the crossing, who goes there?" And the other

player had to make up a speech about who they were and why they should be allowed to

cross. The lord could make them swear oaths and answer questions. They didn't have to tell

the truth, but the oaths were binding unless they said "Mayhaps," so the trick was to say

"Mayhaps" so the lord of the crossing didn't notice. Then you could try and knock the lord

into the water and you got to be lord of the crossing, but only if you'd said "Mayhaps."

Otherwise you were out of the game. The lord got to knock anyone in the water any time he

pleased, and he was the only one who got to use a stick.

In practice, the game seemed to come down to mostly shoving, hitting, and falling into

the water, along with a lot of loud arguments about whether or not someone had said

"Mayhaps." Little Walder was lord of the crossing more often than not.

He was Little Walder even though he was tall and stout, with a red face and a big round

belly. Big Walder was sharp-faced and skinny and half a foot shorter. "He's fifty-two days

older than me," Little Walder explained, "so he was bigger at first, but I grew faster."

"We're cousins, not brothers," added Big Walder, the little one. "I'm Walder son of

Jammos. My father was Lord Walder's son by his fourth wife. He's Walder son of Merrett.

His grandmother was Lord Walder's third wife, the Crakehall. He's ahead of me in the line of

succession even though I'm older."

"Only by fifty-two days," Little Walder objected. "And neither of us will ever hold the

Twins, stupid."

"I will," Big Walder declared. "We're not the only Walders either. Ser Stevron has a

grandson, Black Walder, he's fourth in line of succession, and there's Red Walder, Ser

Emmon's son, and Bastard Walder, who isn't in the line at all. He's called Walder Rivers not

Walder Frey. Plus there's girls named Walda."

"And Tyr. You always forget Tyr."

"He's Waltyr, not Walder," Big Walder said airily. "And he's after us, so he doesn't

matter. Anyhow, I never liked him."

Ser Rodrik decreed that they would share Jon Snow's old bedchamber, since Jon was in

the Night's Watch and never coming back. Bran hated that; it made him feel as if the Freys

were trying to steal Jon's place.

He had watched wistfully while the Walders contested with Turnip the cook's boy and

Joseth's girls Bandy and Shyra. The Walders had decreed that Bran should be the judge and

decide whether or not people had said "Mayhaps," but as soon as they started playing they

forgot all about him.

The shouts and splashes soon drew others: Palla the kennel girl, Cayn's boy Calon,

TomToo whose father Fat Tom had died with Bran's father at King's Landing. Before very

long, every one of them was soaked and muddy. Palla was brown from head to heel, with

moss in her hair, breathless from laughter. Bran had not heard so much laughing since the

night the bloody raven came. If I had my legs, I'd knock all of them into the water, he thought

bitterly. No one would ever be lord of the crossing but me.

Finally Rickon came running into the godswood, Shaggydog at his heels. He watched

Turnip and Little Walder struggle for the stick until Turnip lost his footing and went in with a

huge splash, arms waving. Rickon yelled, "Me! Me now! I want to play!" Little Walder

beckoned him on, and Shaggydog started to follow. "No, Shaggy," his brother commanded.

"Wolves can't play. You stay with Bran." And he did . . .

. . . until Little Walder had smacked Rickon with the stick, square across his belly. Before

Bran could blink, the black wolf was flying over the plank, there was blood in the water, the

Walders were shrieking red murder, Rickon sat in the mud laughing, and Hodor came

lumbering in shouting "Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!"

After that, oddly, Rickon decided he liked the Walders. They never played lord of the

crossing again, but they played other games—monsters and maidens, rats and cats, come-intomy-castle, all sorts of things. With Rickon by their side, the Walders plundered the kitchens

for pies and honeycombs, raced round the walls, tossed bones to the pups in the kennels, and

trained with wooden swords under Ser Rodrik's sharp eye. Rickon even showed them the

deep vaults under the earth where the stonemason was carving father's tomb. "You had no

right!" Bran screamed at his brother when he heard. "That was our place, a Stark place!" But

Rickon never cared.

The door to his bedchamber opened. Maester Luwin was carrying a green jar, and this

time Osha and Hayhead came with him. "I've made you a sleeping draught, Bran."

Osha scooped him up in her bony arms. She was very tall for a woman, and wiry strong.

She bore him effortlessly to his bed.

"This will give you dreamless sleep," Maester Luwin said as he pulled the stopper from

the jar. "Sweet, dreamless sleep."

"It will?" Bran said, wanting to believe.

"Yes. Drink."

Bran drank. The potion was thick and chalky, but there was honey in it so it went down

easy.

"Come the morn, you'll feel better." Luwin gave Bran a smile and a pat as he took his

leave.

Osha lingered behind. "Is it the wolf dreams again?"

Bran nodded.

"You should not fight so hard, boy. I see you talking to the heart tree. Might be the gods

are trying to talk back."

"The gods?" he murmured, drowsy already. Osha's face grew blurry and grey. Sweet,

dreamless sleep, Bran thought.

Yet when the darkness closed over him, he found himself in the godswood, moving

silently beneath green-grey sentinels and gnarled oaks as old as time. I am walking, he

thought, exulting. Part of him knew that it was only a dream, but even the dream of walking

was better than the truth of his bedchamber, walls and ceiling and door.

It was dark amongst the trees, but the comet lit his way, and his feet were sure. He was

moving on four good legs, strong and swift, and he could feel the ground underfoot, the soft

crackling of fallen leaves, thick roots and hard stones, the deep layers of humus. It was a good

feeling.

The smells filled his head, alive and intoxicating; the green muddy stink of the hot pools,

the perfume of rich rotting earth beneath his paws, the squirrels in the oaks. The scent of

squirrel made him remember the taste of hot blood and the way the bones would crack

between his teeth. Slaver filled his mouth. He had eaten no more than half a day past, but

there was no joy in dead meat, even deer. He could hear the squirrels chittering and rustling

above him, safe among their leaves, but they knew better than to come down to where his

brother and he were prowling.

He could smell his brother too, a familiar scent, strong and earthy, his scent as black as

his coat. His brother was loping around the walls, full of fury. Round and round he went,

night after day after night, tireless, searching . . . for prey, for a way out, for his mother, his

littermates, his pack . . . searching, searching, and never finding.

Behind the trees the walls rose, piles of dead man-rock that loomed all about this speck

of living wood. Speckled grey they rose, and moss-spotted, yet thick and strong and higher

than any wolf could hope to leap. Cold iron and splintery wood closed off the only holes

through the piled stones that hemmed them in. His brother would stop at every hole and bare

his fangs in rage, but the ways stayed closed.

He had done the same the first night, and learned that it was no good. Snarls would open

no paths here. Circling the walls would not push them back. Lifting a leg and marking the

trees would keep no men away. The world had tightened around them, but beyond the walled

wood still stood the great grey caves of man-rock. Winterfell, he remembered, the sound

coming to him suddenly. Beyond its sky-tall man-cliffs the true world was calling, and he

knew he must answer or die.

CHAPTER FIVE

ARYA

They traveled dawn to dusk, past woods and orchards and neatly tended fields, through

small villages, crowded market towns, and stout holdfasts. Come dark, they would make

camp and eat by the light of the Red Sword. The men took turns standing watch. Arya would

glimpse firelight flickering through the trees from the camps of other travelers. There seemed

to be more camps every night, and more traffic on the kingsroad by day.

Morn, noon, and night they came, old folks and little children, big men and small ones,

barefoot girls and women with babes at their breasts. Some drove farm wagons or bumped

along in the back of ox carts. More rode: draft horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, anything that

would walk or run or roll. One woman led a milk cow with a little girl on its back. Arya saw a

smith pushing a wheelbarrow with his tools inside, hammers and tongs and even an anvil, and

a little while later a different man with a different wheelbarrow, only inside this one were two

babies in a blanket. Most came on foot, with their goods on their shoulders and weary, wary

looks upon their faces. They walked south, toward the city, toward King's Landing, and only

one in a hundred spared so much as a word for Yoren and his charges, traveling north. She

wondered why no one else was going the same way as them.

Many of the travelers were armed; Arya saw daggers and dirks, scythes and axes, and

here and there a sword. Some had made clubs from tree limbs, or carved knobby staffs. They

fingered their weapons and gave lingering looks at the wagons as they rolled by, yet in the

end they let the column pass. Thirty was too many, no matter what they had in those wagons.

Look with your eyes, Syrio had said, listen with your ears.

One day a madwoman began to scream at them from the side of the road. "Fools! They'll

kill you, fools!" She was scarecrow-thin, with hollow eyes and bloody feet.

The next morning, a sleek merchant on a grey mare reined up by Yoren and offered to

buy his wagons and everything in them for a quarter of their worth. "It's war, they'll take

what they want, you'll do better selling to me, my friend." Yoren turned away with a twist of

his crooked shoulders, and spat.

Arya noticed the first grave that same day; a small mound beside the road, dug for a

child. A crystal had been set in the soft earth, and Lommy wanted to take it until the Bull told

him he'd better leave the dead alone. A few leagues farther on, Praed pointed out more

graves, a whole row freshly dug. After that, a day hardly passed without one.

One time Arya woke in the dark, frightened for no reason she could name. Above, the

Red Sword shared the sky with half a thousand stars. The night seemed oddly quiet to her,

though she could hear Yoren's muttered snores, the crackle of the fire, even the muffled

stirrings of the donkeys. Yet somehow it felt as though the world were holding its breath, and

the silence made her shiver. She went back to sleep clutching Needle.

Come morning, when Praed did not awaken, Arya realized that it had been his coughing

she had missed. They dug a grave of their own then, burying the sellsword where he'd slept.

Yoren stripped him of his valuables before they threw the dirt on him. One man claimed his

boots, another his dagger. His mail-shirt and helm were parceled out. His longsword Yoren

handed to the Bull. "Arms like yours, might be you can learn to use this," he told him. A boy

called Tarber tossed a handful of acorns on top of Praed's body, so an oak might grow to

mark his place.

That evening they stopped in a village at an ivy-covered inn. Yoren counted the coins in

his purse and decided they had enough for a hot meal. "We'll sleep outside, same as ever, but

they got a bathhouse here, if any of you feels the need o' hot water and a lick o' soap."

Arya did not dare, even though she smelled as bad as Yoren by now, all sour and stinky.

Some of the creatures living in her clothes had come all the way from Flea Bottom with her; it

didn't seem right to drown them. Tarber and Hot Pie and the Bull joined the line of men

headed for the tubs. Others settled down in front of the bathhouse. The rest crowded into the

common room. Yoren even sent Lommy out with tankards for the three in fetters, who'd been

left chained up in the back of their wagon.

Washed and unwashed alike supped on hot pork pies and baked apples. The innkeeper

gave them a round of beer on the house. "I had a brother took the black, years ago. Serving

boy, clever, but one day he got seen filching pepper from m'lord's table. He liked the taste of

it, is all. Just a pinch o' pepper, but Ser Malcolm was a hard man. You get pepper on the

Wall?" When Yoren shook his head, the man sighed. "Shame. Lync loved that pepper."

Arya sipped at her tankard cautiously, between spoonfuls of pie still warm from the oven.

Her father sometimes let them have a cup of beer, she remembered. Sansa used to make a face

at the taste and say that wine was ever so much finer, but Arya had liked it well enough. It

made her sad to think of Sansa and her father.

The inn was full of people moving south, and the common room erupted in scorn when

Yoren said they were traveling the other way. "You'll be back soon enough," the innkeeper

vowed. "There's no going north. Half the fields are burnt, and what folks are left are walled

up inside their holdfasts. One bunch rides off at dawn and another one shows up by dusk."

"That's nothing to us," Yoren insisted stubbornly. "Tully or Lannister, makes no matter.

The Watch takes no part."

Lord Tully is my grandfather, Arya thought. It mattered to her, but she chewed her lip

and kept quiet, listening.

"It's more than Lannister and Tully," the innkeeper said. "There's wild men down from

the Mountains of the Moon, try telling them you take no part. And the Starks are in it too, the

young lord's come down, the dead Hand's son . . ."

Arya sat up straight, straining to hear. Did he mean Robb?

"I heard the boy rides to battle on a wolf," said a yellow-haired man with a tankard in his

hand.

"Fool's talk." Yoren spat.

"The man I heard it from, he saw it himself. A wolf big as a horse, he swore."

"Swearing don't make it true, Hod," the innkeeper said. "You keep swearing you'll pay

what you owe me, and I've yet to see a copper." The common room erupted in laughter, and

the man with the yellow hair turned red.

"It's been a bad year for wolves," volunteered a sallow man in a travel-stained green

cloak. "Around the Gods Eye, the packs have grown bolder'n anyone can remember. Sheep,

cows, dogs, makes no matter, they kill as they like, and they got no fear of men. It's worth

your life to go into those woods by night."

"Ah, that's more tales, and no more true than the other."

"I heard the same thing from my cousin, and she's not the sort to lie," an old woman said.

"She says there's this great pack, hundreds of them, man-killers. The one that leads them is a

she-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell."

A she-wolf. Arya sloshed her beer, wondering. Was the Gods Eye near the Trident? She

wished she had a map. It had been near the Trident that she'd left Nymeria. She hadn't wanted

to, but Jory said they had no choice, that if the wolf came back with them she'd be killed for

biting Joffrey, even though he'd deserved it. They'd had to shout and scream and throw

stones, and it wasn't until a few of Arya's stones struck home that the direwolf had finally

stopped following them. She probably wouldn't even know me now, Arya thought. Or if she

did, she'd hate me.

The man in the green cloak said, "I heard how this hellbitch walked into a village one

day . . . a market day, people everywhere, and she walks in bold as you please and tears a

baby from his mother's arms. When the tale reached Lord Mooton, him and his sons swore

they'd put an end to her. They tracked her to her lair with a pack of wolfhounds, and barely

escaped with their skins. Not one of those dogs came back, not one."

"That's just a story," Arya blurted out before she could stop herself. "Wolves don't eat

babies."

"And what would you know about it, lad?" asked the man in the green cloak.

Before she could think of an answer, Yoren had her by the arm. "The boy's greensick on

beer, that's all it is."

"No I'm not. They don't eat babies . . ."

"Outside, boy . . . and see that you stay there until you learn to shut your mouth when

men are talking." He gave her a stiff shove, toward the side door that led back to the stables.

"Go on now. See that the stableboy has watered our horses."

Arya went outside, stiff with fury. "They don't," she muttered, kicking at a rock as she

stalked off. It went rolling and fetched up under the wagons.

"Boy," a friendly voice called out. "Lovely boy."

One of the men in irons was talking to her. Warily, Arya approached the wagon, one

hand on Needle's hilt.

The prisoner lifted an empty tankard, his chains rattling. "A man could use another taste

of beer. A man has a thirst, wearing these heavy bracelets." He was the youngest of the three,

slender, fine-featured, always smiling. His hair was red on one side and white on the other, all

matted and filthy from cage and travel. "A man could use a bath too," he said, when he saw

the way Arya was looking at him. "A boy could make a friend."

"I have friends," Arya said.

"None I can see," said the one without a nose. He was squat and thick, with huge hands.

Black hair covered his arms and legs and chest, even his back. He reminded Arya of a

drawing she had once seen in a book, of an ape from the Summer Isles. The hole in his face

made it hard to look at him for long.

The bald one opened his mouth and hissed like some immense white lizard. When Arya

flinched back, startled, he opened his mouth wide and waggled his tongue at her, only it was

more a stump than a tongue. "Stop that," she blurted.

"A man does not choose his companions in the black cells," the handsome one with the

red-and-white hair said. Something about the way he talked reminded her of Syrio; it was the

same, yet different too. "These two, they have no courtesy. A man must ask forgiveness. You

are called Arry, is that not so?"

"Lumpyhead," said the noseless one. "Lumpyhead Lumpyface Stickboy. Have a care,

Lorath, he'll hit you with his stick."

"A man must be ashamed of the company he keeps, Arry," the handsome one said. "This

man has the honor to be Jaqen H'ghar, once of the Free City of Lorath. Would that he were

home. This man's ill-bred companions in captivity are named Rorge"—he waved his tankard

at the noseless man—"and Biter." Biter hissed at her again, displaying a mouthful of yellowed

teeth filed into points. "A man must have some name, is that not so? Biter cannot speak and

Biter cannot write, yet his teeth are very sharp, so a man calls him Biter and he smiles. Are

you charmed?"

Arya backed away from the wagon. "No." They can't hurt me, she told herself, they're

all chained up.

He turned his tankard upside down. "A man must weep."

Rorge, the noseless one, flung his drinking cup at her with a curse. His manacles made

him clumsy, yet even so he would have sent the heavy pewter tankard crashing into her head

if Arya hadn't leapt aside. "You get us some beer, pimple. Now!"

"You shut your mouth!" Arya tried to think what Syrio would have done. She drew her

wooden practice sword.

"Come closer," Rorge said, "and I'll shove that stick up your bunghole and fuck you

bloody."

Fear cuts deeper than swords. Arya made herself approach the wagon. Every step was

harder than the one before. Fierce as a wolverine, calm as still water. The words sang in her

head. Syrio would not have been afraid. She was almost close enough to touch the wheel

when Biter lurched to his feet and grabbed for her, his irons clanking and rattling. The

manacles brought his hands up short, half a foot from her face. He hissed.

She hit him. Hard, right between his little eyes.

Screaming, Biter reeled back, and then threw all his weight against his chains. The links

slithered and turned and grew taut, and Arya heard the creak of old dry wood as the great iron

rings strained against the floorboards of the wagon. Huge pale hands groped for her while

veins bulged along Biter's arms, but the bonds held, and finally the man collapsed backward.

Blood ran from the weeping sores on his cheeks.

"A boy has more courage than sense," the one who had named himself Jaqen H'ghar

observed.

Arya edged backward away from the wagon. When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she

whirled, bringing up her stick sword again, but it was only the Bull. "What are you doing?"

He raised his hands defensively. "Yoren said none of us should go near those three."

"They don't scare me," Arya said.

"Then you're stupid. They scare me." The Bull's hand fell to the hilt of his sword, and

Rorge began to laugh. "Let's get away from them."

Arya scuffed at the ground with her foot, but she let the Bull lead her around to the front

of the inn. Rorge's laughter and Biter's hissing followed them. "Want to fight?" she asked the

Bull. She wanted to hit something.

He blinked at her, startled. Strands of thick black hair, still wet from the bathhouse, fell

across his deep blue eyes. "I'd hurt you."

"You would not."

"You don't know how strong I am."

"You don't know how quick I am."

"You're asking for it, Arry." He drew Praed's longsword. "This is cheap steel, but it's a

real sword."

Arya unsheathed Needle. "This is good steel, so it's realer than yours."

The Bull shook his head. "Promise not to cry if I cut you?"

"I'll promise if you will." She turned sideways, into her water dancer's stance, but the

Bull did not move. He was looking at something behind her. "What's wrong?"

"Gold cloaks." His face closed up tight.

It couldn't be, Arya thought, but when she glanced back, they were riding up the

kingsroad, six in the black ringmail and golden cloaks of the City Watch. One was an officer;

he wore a black enamel breastplate ornamented with four golden disks. They drew up in front

of the inn. Look with your eyes, Syrio's voice seemed to whisper. Her eyes saw white lather

under their saddles; the horses had been ridden long and hard. Calm as still water, she took the

Bull by the arm and drew him back behind a tall flowering hedge.

"What is it?" he asked. "What are you doing? Let go."

"Quiet as a shadow," she whispered, pulling him down.

Some of Yoren's other charges were sitting in front of the bathhouse, waiting their turn at

a tub. "You men," one of the gold cloaks shouted. "You the ones left to take the black?"

"We might be," came the cautious answer.

"We'd rather join you boys," old Reysen said. "We hear it's cold on that Wall."

The gold cloak officer dismounted. "I have a warrant for a certain boy—"

Yoren stepped out of the inn, fingering his tangled black beard. "Who is it wants this

boy?"

The other gold cloaks were dismounting to stand beside their horses. "Why are we

hiding?" the Bull whispered.

"It's me they want," Arya whispered back. His ear smelled of soap. "You be quiet."

"The queen wants him, old man, not that it's your concern," the officer said, drawing a

ribbon from his belt. "Here, Her Grace's seal and warrant."

Behind the hedge, the Bull shook his head doubtfully. "Why would the queen want you,

Arry?"

She punched his shoulder. "Be quiet!"

Yoren fingered the warrant ribbon with its blob of golden wax. "Pretty." He spit. "Thing

is, the boy's in the Night's Watch now. What he done back in the city don't mean piss-all."

"The queen's not interested in your views, old man, and neither am I," the officer said.

"I'll have the boy."

Arya thought about running, but she knew she wouldn't get far on her donkey when the

gold cloaks had horses. And she was so tired of running. She'd run when Ser Meryn came for

her, and again when they killed her father. If she was a real water dancer, she would go out

there with Needle and kill all of them, and never run from anyone ever again.

"You'll have no one," Yoren said stubbornly. "There's laws on such things."

The gold cloak drew a shortsword. "Here's your law."

Yoren looked at the blade. "That's no law, just a sword. Happens I got one too."

The officer smiled. "Old fool. I have five men with me."

Yoren spat. "Happens I got thirty."

The gold cloak laughed. "This lot?" said a big lout with a broken nose. "Who's first?" he

shouted, showing his steel.

Tarber plucked a pitchfork out of a bale of hay. "I am."

"No, I am," called Cutjack, the plump stonemason, pulling his hammer off the leather

apron he always wore.

"Me." Kurz came up off the ground with his skinning knife in hand.

"Me and him." Koss strung his longbow.

"All of us," said Reysen, snatching up the tall hardwood walking staff he carried.

Dobber stepped naked out of the bathhouse with his clothes in a bundle, saw what was

happening, and dropped everything but his dagger. "Is it a fight?" he asked.

"I guess," said Hot Pie, scrambling on all fours for a big rock to throw. Arya could not

believe what she was seeing. She hated Hot Pie! Why would he risk himself for her?

The one with the broken nose still thought it was funny. "You girls put away them rocks

and sticks before you get spanked. None of you knows what end of a sword to hold."

"I do!" Arya wouldn't let them die for her like Syrio. She wouldn't! Shoving through the

hedge with Needle in hand, she slid into a water dancer's stance.

Broken Nose guffawed. The officer looked her up and down. "Put the blade away, little

girl, no one wants to hurt you."

"I'm not a girl!" she yelled, furious. What was wrong with them? They rode all this way

for her and here she was and they were just smiling at her. "I'm the one you want."

"He's the one we want." The officer jabbed his shortsword toward the Bull, who'd come

forward to stand beside her, Praed's cheap steel in his hand.

But it was a mistake to take his eyes off Yoren, even for an instant. Quick as that, the

black brother's sword was pressed to the apple of the officer's throat. "Neither's the one you

get, less you want me to see if your apple's ripe yet. I got me ten, fifteen more brothers in that

inn, if you still need convincing. I was you, I'd let loose of that gutcutter, spread my cheeks

over that fat little horse, and gallop on back to the city." He spat, and poked harder with the

point of his sword. "Now."

The officer's fingers uncurled. His sword fell in the dust.

"We'll just keep that," Yoren said. "Good steel's always needed on the Wall."

"As you say. For now. Men." The gold cloaks sheathed and mounted up. "You'd best

scamper up to that Wall of yours in a hurry, old man. The next time I catch you, I believe I'll

have your head to go with the bastard boy's."

"Better men than you have tried." Yoren slapped the rump of the officer's horse with the

flat of his sword and sent him reeling off down the kingsroad. His men followed.

When they were out of sight, Hot Pie began to whoop, but Yoren looked angrier than

ever. "Fool! You think he's done with us? Next time he won't prance up and hand me no

damn ribbon. Get the rest out o' them baths, we need to be moving. Ride all night, maybe we

can stay ahead o' them for a bit." He scooped up the shortsword the officer had dropped.

"Who wants this?"

"Me!" Hot Pie yelled.

"Don't be using it on Arry." He handed the boy the sword, hilt-first, and walked over to

Arya, but it was the Bull he spoke to. "Queen wants you bad, boy."

Arya was lost. "Why should she want him?"

The Bull scowled at her. "Why should she want you? You're nothing but a little gutter

rat!"

"Well, you're nothing but a bastard boy!" Or maybe he was only pretending to be a

bastard boy. "What's your true name?"

"Gendry," he said, like he wasn't quite sure.

"Don't see why no one wants neither o' you," Yoren said, "but they can't have you

regardless. You ride them two coursers. First sight of a gold cloak, make for the Wall like a

dragon's on your tail. The rest o' us don't mean spit to them."

"Except for you," Arya pointed out. "That man said he'd take your head too."

"Well, as to that," Yoren said, "if he can get it off my shoulders, he's welcome to it."

CHAPTER SIX

JON

"Sam?" Jon called softly.

The air smelled of paper and dust and years. Before him, tall wooden shelves rose up into

dimness, crammed with leather-bound books and bins of ancient scrolls. A faint yellow glow

filtered through the stacks from some hidden lamp. Jon blew out the taper he carried,

preferring not to risk an open flame amidst so much old dry paper. Instead he followed the

light, wending his way down the narrow aisles beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings. All in black,

he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. Black moleskin

gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a

fool wearing only one glove.

Samwell Tarly sat hunched over a table in a niche carved into the stone of the wall. The

glow came from the lamp hung over his head. He looked up at the sound of Jon's steps.

"Have you been here all night?"

"Have I?" Sam looked startled.

"You didn't break your fast with us, and your bed hadn't been slept in." Rast suggested

that maybe Sam had deserted, but Jon never believed it. Desertion required its own sort of

courage, and Sam had little enough of that.

"Is it morning? Down here there's no way to know."

"Sam, you're a sweet fool," Jon said. "You'll miss that bed when we're sleeping on the

cold hard ground, I promise you."

Sam yawned. "Maester Aemon sent me to find maps for the Lord Commander. I never

thought . . . Jon, the books, have you ever seen their like? There are thousands!"

He gazed about him. "The library at Winterfell has more than a hundred. Did you find

the maps?"

"Oh, yes." Sam's hand swept over the table, fingers plump as sausages indicating the

clutter of books and scrolls before him. "A dozen, at the least." He unfolded a square of

parchment. "The paint has faded, but you can see where the mapmaker marked the sites of

wildling villages, and there's another book . . . where is it now? I was reading it a moment

ago." He shoved some scrolls aside to reveal a dusty volume bound in rotted leather. "This,"

he said reverently, "is the account of a journey from the Shadow Tower all the way to Lorn

Point on the Frozen Shore, written by a ranger named Redwyn. It's not dated, but he mentions

a Dorren Stark as King in the North, so it must be from before the Conquest. Jon, they fought

giants! Redwyn even traded with the children of the forest, it's all here." Ever so delicately,

he turned pages with a finger. "He drew maps as well, see . . ."

"Maybe you could write an account of our ranging, Sam."

He'd meant to sound encouraging, but it was the wrong thing to say. The last thing Sam

needed was to be reminded of what faced them on the morrow. He shuffled the scrolls about

aimlessly. "There's more maps. If I had time to search . . . everything's a jumble. I could set it

all to order, though; I know I could, but it would take time . . . well, years, in truth."

"Mormont wanted those maps a little sooner than that." Jon plucked a scroll from a bin,

blew off the worst of the dust. A corner flaked off between his fingers as he unrolled it.

"Look, this one is crumbling," he said, frowning over the faded script.

"Be gentle." Sam came around the table and took the scroll from his hand, holding it as if

it were a wounded animal. "The important books used to be copied over when they needed

them. Some of the oldest have been copied half a hundred times, probably."

"Well, don't bother copying that one. Twenty-three barrels of pickled cod, eighteen jars

of fish oil, a cask of salt . . ."

"An inventory," Sam said, "or perhaps a bill of sale."

"Who cares how much pickled cod they ate six hundred years ago?" Jon wondered.

"I would." Sam carefully replaced the scroll in the bin from which Jon had plucked it.

"You can learn so much from ledgers like that, truly you can. It can tell you how many men

were in the Night's Watch then, how they lived, what they ate . . ."

"They ate food," said Jon, "and they lived as we live."

"You'd be surprised. This vault is a treasure, Jon."

"If you say so." Jon was doubtful. Treasure meant gold, silver, and jewels, not dust,

spiders, and rotting leather.

"I do," the fat boy blurted. He was older than Jon, a man grown by law, but it was hard to

think of him as anything but a boy. "I found drawings of the faces in the trees, and a book

about the tongue of the children of the forest . . . works that even the Citadel doesn't have,

scrolls from old Valyria, counts of the seasons written by maesters dead a thousand years . . ."

"The books will still be here when we return."

"If we return . . ."

"The Old Bear is taking two hundred seasoned men, three-quarters of them rangers.

Qhorin Halfhand will be bringing another hundred brothers from the Shadow Tower. You'll

be as safe as if you were back in your lord father's castle at Horn Hill."

Samwell Tarly managed a sad little smile. "I was never very safe in my father's castle

either."

The gods play cruel jests, Jon thought. Pyp and Toad, all a-lather to be a part of the great

ranging, were to remain at Castle Black. It was Samwell Tarly, the self-proclaimed coward,

grossly fat, timid, and near as bad a rider as he was with a sword, who must face the haunted

forest. The Old Bear was taking two cages of ravens, so they might send back word as they

went. Maester Aemon was blind and far too frail to ride with them, so his steward must go in

his place. "We need you for the ravens, Sam. And someone has to help me keep Grenn

humble."

Sam's chins quivered. "You could care for the ravens, or Grenn could, or anyone," he

said with a thin edge of desperation in his voice. "I could show you how. You know your

letters too, you could write down Lord Mormont's messages as well as I."

"I'm the Old Bear's steward. I'll need to squire for him, tend his horse, set up his tent; I

won't have time to watch over birds as well. Sam, you said the words. You're a brother of the

Night's Watch now."

"A brother of the Night's Watch shouldn't be so scared."

"We're all scared. We'd be fools if we weren't." Too many rangers had been lost the past

two years, even Benjen Stark, Jon's uncle. They had found two of his uncle's men in the

wood, slain, but the corpses had risen in the chill of night. Jon's burnt fingers twitched as he

remembered. He still saw the wight in his dreams, dead Othor with the burning blue eyes and

the cold black hands, but that was the last thing Sam needed to be reminded of. "There's no

shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it. Come, I'll help you gather

up the maps."

Sam nodded unhappily. The shelves were so closely spaced that they had to walk singlefile as they left. The vault opened onto one of the tunnels the brothers called the wormwalks,

winding subterranean passages that linked the keeps and towers of Castle Black under the

earth. In summer the wormwalks were seldom used, save by rats and other vermin, but winter

was a different matter. When the snows drifted forty and fifty feet high and the ice winds

came howling out of the north, the tunnels were all that held Castle Black together.

Soon, Jon thought as they climbed. He'd seen the harbinger that had come to Maester

Aemon with word of summer's end, the great raven of the Citadel, white and silent as Ghost.

He had seen a winter once, when he was very young, but everyone agreed that it had been a

short one, and mild. This one would be different. He could feel it in his bones.

The steep stone steps had Sam puffing like a blacksmith's bellows by the time they

reached the surface. They emerged into a brisk wind that made Jon's cloak swirl and snap.

Ghost was stretched out asleep beneath the wattle-and-daub wall of the granary, but he woke

when Jon appeared, bushy white tail held stiffly upright as he trotted to them.

Sam squinted up at the Wall. It loomed above them, an icy cliff seven hundred feet high.

Sometimes it seemed to Jon almost a living thing, with moods of its own. The color of the ice

was wont to change with every shift of the light. Now it was the deep blue of frozen rivers,

now the dirty white of old snow, and when a cloud passed before the sun it darkened to the

pale grey of pitted stone. The Wall stretched east and west as far as the eye could see, so huge

that it shrunk the timbered keeps and stone towers of the castle to insignificance. It was the

end of the world.

And we are going beyond it.

The morning sky was streaked by thin grey clouds, but the pale red line was there behind

them. The black brothers had dubbed the wanderer Mormont's Torch, saying (only half in

jest) that the gods must have sent it to light the old man's way through the haunted forest.

"The comet's so bright you can see it by day now," Sam said, shading his eyes with a

fistful of books.

"Never mind about comets, it's maps the Old Bear wants."

Ghost loped ahead of them. The grounds seemed deserted this morning, with so many

rangers off at the brothel in Mole's Town, digging for buried treasure and drinking themselves

blind. Grenn had gone with them. Pyp and Halder and Toad had offered to buy him his first

woman to celebrate his first ranging. They'd wanted Jon and Sam to come as well, but Sam

was almost as frightened of whores as he was of the haunted forest, and Jon had wanted no

part of it. "Do what you want," he told Toad, "I took a vow."

As they passed the sept, he heard voices raised in song. Some men want whores on the

eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward. The sept tempted

him no more than the brothel; his own gods kept their temples in the wild places, where the

weirwoods spread their bone-white branches. The Seven have no power beyond the Wall, he

thought, but my gods will be waiting.

Outside the armory, Ser Endrew Tarth was working with some raw recruits. They'd come

in last night with Conwy, one of the wandering crows who roamed the Seven Kingdoms

collecting men for the Wall. This new crop consisted of a greybeard leaning on a staff, two

blond boys with the look of brothers, a foppish youth in soiled satin, a raggy man with a

clubfoot, and some grinning loon who must have fancied himself a warrior. Ser Endrew was

showing him the error of that presumption. He was a gentler master-at-arms than Ser Alliser

Thorne had been, but his lessons would still raise bruises. Sam winced at every blow, but Jon

Snow watched the swordplay closely.

"What do you make of them, Snow?" Donal Noye stood in the door of his armory, barechested under a leather apron, the stump of his left arm uncovered for once. With his big gut

and barrel chest, his flat nose and bristly black jaw, Noye did not make a pretty sight, but he

was a welcome one nonetheless. The armorer had proved himself a good friend.

"They smell of summer," Jon said as Ser Endrew bull-rushed his foe and knocked him

sprawling. "Where did Conwy find them?"

"A lord's dungeon near Gulltown," the smith replied. "A brigand, a barber, a beggar, two

orphans, and a boy whore. With such do we defend the realms of men."

"They'll do." Jon gave Sam a private smile. "We did."

Noye drew him closer. "You've heard these tidings of your brother?"

"Last night." Conwy and his charges had brought the news north with them, and the talk

in the common room had been of little else. Jon was still not certain how he felt about it. Robb

a king? The brother he'd played with, fought with, shared his first cup of wine with? But not

mother's milk, no. So now Robb will sip summerwine from jeweled goblets, while I'm

kneeling beside some stream sucking snowmelt from cupped hands. "Robb will make a good

king," he said loyally.

"Will he now?" The smith eyed him frankly. "I hope that's so, boy, but once I might

have said the same of Robert."

"They say you forged his warhammer," Jon remembered.

"Aye. I was his man, a Baratheon man, smith and armorer at Storm's End until I lost the

arm. I'm old enough to remember Lord Steffon before the sea took him, and I knew those

three sons of his since they got their names. I tell you this—Robert was never the same after

he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they

go to rust."

"And his brothers?" Jon asked.

The armorer considered that a moment. "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron,

black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And

Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at

the end of the day."

And what metal is Robb? Jon did not ask. Noye was a Baratheon man; likely he thought

Joffrey the lawful king and Robb a traitor. Among the brotherhood of the Night's Watch,

there was an unspoken pact never to probe too deeply into such matters. Men came to the

Wall from all of the Seven Kingdoms, and old loves and loyalties were not easily forgotten,

no matter how many oaths a man swore . . . as Jon himself had good reason to know. Even

Sam—his father's House was sworn to Highgarden, whose Lord Tyrell supported King

Renly. Best not to talk of such things. The Night's Watch took no sides. "Lord Mormont

awaits us," Jon said.

"I won't keep you from the Old Bear." Noye clapped him on the shoulder and smiled.

"May the gods go with you on the morrow, Snow. You bring back that uncle of yours, you

hear?"

"We will," Jon promised him.

Lord Commander Mormont had taken up residence in the King's Tower after the fire had

gutted his own. Jon left Ghost with the guards outside the door. "More stairs," said Sam

miserably as they started up. "I hate stairs."

"Well, that's one thing we won't face in the wood."

When they entered the solar, the raven spied them at once. "Snow!" the bird shrieked.

Mormont broke off his conversation. "Took you long enough with those maps." He pushed

the remains of breakfast out of the way to make room on the table. "Put them here. I'll have a

look at them later."

Thoren Smallwood, a sinewy ranger with a weak chin and a weaker mouth hidden under

a thin scraggle of beard, gave Jon and Sam a cool look. He had been one of Alliser Thorne's

henchmen, and had no love for either of them. "The Lord Commander's place is at Castle

Black, lording and commanding," he told Mormont, ignoring the newcomers, "it seems to

me."

The raven flapped big black wings. "Me, me, me."

"If you are ever Lord Commander, you may do as you please," Mormont told the ranger,

"but it seems to me that I have not died yet, nor have the brothers put you in my place."

"I'm First Ranger now, with Ben Stark lost and Ser Jaremy killed," Smallwood said

stubbornly. "The command should be mine."

Mormont would have none of it. "I sent out Ben Stark, and Ser Waymar before him. I do

not mean to send you after them and sit wondering how long I must wait before I give you up

for lost as well." He pointed. "And Stark remains First Ranger until we know for a certainty

that he is dead. Should that day come, it will be me who names his successor, not you. Now

stop wasting my time. We ride at first light, or have you forgotten?"

Smallwood pushed to his feet. "As my lord commands." On the way out, he frowned at

Jon, as if it were somehow his fault.

"First Ranger!" The Old Bear's eyes lighted on Sam. "I'd sooner name you First Ranger.

He has the effrontery to tell me to my face that I'm too old to ride with him. Do I look old to

you, boy?" The hair that had retreated from Mormont's spotted scalp had regrouped beneath

his chin in a shaggy grey beard that covered much of his chest. He thumped it hard. "Do I

look frail?"

Sam opened his mouth, gave a little squeak. The Old Bear terrified him. "No, my lord,"

Jon offered quickly. "You look strong as a . . . a . . ."

"Don't cozen me, Snow, you know I won't have it. Let me have a look at these maps."

Mormont pawed through them brusquely, giving each no more than a glance and a grunt.

"Was this all you could find?"

"I . . . m-m-my lord," Sam stammered, "there . . . there were more, b-b-but . . . the disdisorder . . ."

"These are old," Mormont complained, and his raven echoed him with a sharp cry of

"Old, old."

"The villages may come and go, but the hills and rivers will be in the same places," Jon

pointed out.

"True enough. Have you chosen your ravens yet, Tarly?"

"M-m-maester Aemon m-means to p-pick them come evenfall, after the f-f-feeding."

"I'll have his best. Smart birds, and strong."

"Strong," his own bird said, preening. "Strong, strong."

"If it happens that we're all butchered out there, I mean for my successor to know where

and how we died."

Talk of butchery reduced Samwell Tarly to speechlessness. Mormont leaned forward.

"Tarly, when I was a lad half your age, my lady mother told me that if I stood about with my

mouth open, a weasel was like to mistake it for his lair and run down my throat. If you have

something to say, say it. Otherwise, beware of weasels." He waved a brusque dismissal. "Off

with you, I'm too busy for folly. No doubt the maester has some work you can do."

Sam swallowed, stepped back, and scurried out so quickly he almost tripped over the

rushes.

"Is that boy as big a fool as he seems?" the Lord Commander asked when he'd gone.

"Fool," the raven complained. Mormont did not wait for Jon to answer. "His lord father

stands high in King Renly's councils, and I had half a notion to dispatch him . . . no, best not.

Renly is not like to heed a quaking fat boy. I'll send Ser Arnell. He's a deal steadier, and his

mother was one of the green-apple Fossoways."

"If it please my lord, what would you have of King Renly?"

"The same things I'd have of all of them, lad. Men, horses, swords, armor, grain, cheese,

wine, wool, nails . . . the Night's Watch is not proud, we take what is offered." His fingers

drummed against the roughhewn planks of the table. "If the winds have been kind, Ser Alliser

should reach King's Landing by the turn of the moon, but whether this boy Joffrey will pay

him any heed, I do not know. House Lannister has never been a friend to the Watch."

"Thorne has the wight's hand to show them." A grisly pale thing with black fingers, it

was, that twitched and stirred in its jar as if it were still alive.

"Would that we had another hand to send to Renly."

"Dywen says you can find anything beyond the Wall."

"Aye, Dywen says. And the last time he went ranging, he says he saw a bear fifteen feet

tall." Mormont snorted. "My sister is said to have taken a bear for her lover. I'd believe that

before I'd believe one fifteen feet tall. Though in a world where dead come walking . . . ah,

even so, a man must believe his eyes. I have seen the dead walk. I've not seen any giant

bears." He gave Jon a long, searching look. "But we were speaking of hands. How is yours?"

"Better." Jon peeled off his moleskin glove and showed him. Scars covered his arm

halfway to the elbow, and the mottled pink flesh still felt tight and tender, but it was healing.

"It itches, though. Maester Aemon says that's good. He gave me a salve to take with me when

we ride."

"You can wield Longclaw despite the pain?"

"Well enough." Jon flexed his fingers, opening and closing his fist the way the maester

had shown him. "I'm to work the fingers every day to keep them nimble, as Maester Aemon

said."

"Blind he may be, but Aemon knows what he's about. I pray the gods let us keep him

another twenty years. Do you know that he might have been king?"

Jon was taken by surprise. "He told me his father was king, but not . . . I thought him

perhaps a younger son."

"So he was. His father's father was Daeron Targaryen, the Second of His Name, who

brought Dorne into the realm. Part of the pact was that he wed a Dornish princess. She gave

him four sons. Aemon's father Maekar was the youngest of those, and Aemon was his third

son. Mind you, all this happened long before I was born, ancient as Smallwood would make

me."

"Maester Aemon was named for the Dragonknight."

"So he was. Some say Prince Aemon was King Daeron's true father, not Aegon the

Unworthy. Be that as it may, our Aemon lacked the Dragonknight's martial nature. He likes

to say he had a slow sword but quick wits. Small wonder his grandfather packed him off to

the Citadel. He was nine or ten, I believe . . . and ninth or tenth in the line of succession as

well."

Maester Aemon had counted more than a hundred name days, Jon knew. Frail, shrunken,

wizened, and blind, it was hard to imagine him as a little boy no older than Arya.

Mormont continued. "Aemon was at his books when the eldest of his uncles, the heir

apparent, was slain in a tourney mishap. He left two sons, but they followed him to the grave

not long after, during the Great Spring Sickness. King Daeron was also taken, so the crown

passed to Daeron's second son, Aerys."

"The Mad King?" Jon was confused. Aerys had been king before Robert, that wasn't so

long ago.

"No, this was Aerys the First. The one Robert deposed was the second of that name."

"How long ago was this?"

"Eighty years or close enough," the Old Bear said, "and no, I still hadn't been born,

though Aemon had forged half a dozen links of his maester's chain by then. Aerys wed his

own sister, as the Targaryens were wont to do, and reigned for ten or twelve years. Aemon

took his vows and left the Citadel to serve at some lordling's court . . . until his royal uncle

died without issue. The Iron Throne passed to the last of King Daeron's four sons. That was

Maekar, Aemon's father. The new king summoned all his sons to court and would have made

Aemon part of his councils, but he refused, saying that would usurp the place rightly

belonging to the Grand Maester. Instead he served at the keep of his eldest brother, another

Daeron. Well, that one died too, leaving only a feeble-witted daughter as heir. Some pox he

caught from a whore, I believe. The next brother was Aerion."

"Aerion the Monstrous?" Jon knew that name. "The Prince Who Thought He Was a

Dragon" was one of Old Nan's more gruesome tales. His little brother Bran had loved it.

"The very one, though he named himself Aerion Brightflame. One night, in his cups, he

drank a jar of wildfire, after telling his friends it would transform him into a dragon, but the

gods were kind and it transformed him into a corpse. Not quite a year after, King Maekar died

in battle against an outlaw lord."

Jon was not entirely innocent of the history of the realm; his own maester had seen to

that. "That was the year of the Great Council," he said. "The lords passed over Prince

Aerion's infant son and Prince Daeron's daughter and gave the crown to Aegon."

"Yes and no. First they offered it, quietly, to Aemon. And quietly he refused. The gods

meant for him to serve, not to rule, he told them. He had sworn a vow and would not break it,

though the High Septon himself offered to absolve him. Well, no sane man wanted any blood

of Aerion's on the throne, and Daeron's girl was a lackwit besides being female, so they had

no choice but to turn to Aemon's younger brother—Aegon, the Fifth of His Name. Aegon the

Unlikely, they called him, born the fourth son of a fourth son. Aemon knew, and rightly, that

if he remained at court those who disliked his brother's rule would seek to use him, so he

came to the Wall. And here he has remained, while his brother and his brother's son and his

son each reigned and died in turn, until Jaime Lannister put an end to the line of the

Dragonkings."

"King," croaked the raven. The bird flapped across the solar to land on Mormont's

shoulder. "King," it said again, strutting back and forth.

"He likes that word," Jon said, smiling.

"An easy word to say. An easy word to like."

"King," the bird said again.

"I think he means for you to have a crown, my lord."

"The realm has three kings already, and that's two too many for my liking." Mormont

stroked the raven under the beak with a finger, but all the while his eyes never left Jon Snow.

It made him feel odd. "My lord, why have you told me this, about Maester Aemon?"

"Must I have a reason?" Mormont shifted in his seat, frowning. "Your brother Robb has

been crowned King in the North. You and Aemon have that in common. A king for a

brother."

"And this too," said Jon. "A vow."

The Old Bear gave a loud snort, and the raven took flight, flapping in a circle about the

room, "Give me a man for every vow I've seen broken and the Wall will never lack for

defenders."

"I've always known that Robb would be Lord of Winterfell."

Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. "A lord's

one thing, a king's another." He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. "They

will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while

you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on

her. You'll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb

will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they'll call Your Grace. Singers will

praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of

this troubles you, Jon . . . and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it."

Jon drew himself up, taut as a bowstring. "And if it did trouble me, what might I do,

bastard as I am?"

"What will you do?" Mormont asked. "Bastard as you are?"

"Be troubled," said Jon, "and keep my vows."