Part Three, Chapter Two: Peculiar Coin
"I AM sorry for this," Alys said again as she dabbed at the blood splashed across Jon's face. Her hands were gentle, never mind how wroth she was, and Jon shut his eyes and submitted to the wet rag with little fuss.
"It's no matter," he said again and paused to grit his teeth as the maester dug the needle into the flesh of his arm. "I am well enough," he went on after a moment, when the silence stretched long, broken only by the wet sound of the silk stitching as the maester pulled it through. He opened his eyes again and seeing her face was not eased, added, "T'was just a little cut."
It did not soothe her. "You were attacked," Alys said a little wildly, "on my land! Almost in my home! Mine own cousin, my king, my guest! I cannot, I do not know what I can say to you to make up for this!"
"Unless you hired those men yourself," Jon said back, "there is nothing to forgive. It was only chance, Alys," he lied, "that they came across me. They might not have even known who I was."
He did not think they did, but he could not know, not until Sigorn found out more from the men, read from their camp and their things. But Alys was wroth already; Jon did not want her to worry. Any worrying was bad, he thought, for a lady who ought to be sitting with her feet tucked up on a cushion and only comfortable things at hand.
He paused again, pressed his lips together, and waited for the needle to finish its next pass. He'd denied the milk of the poppy, not wanting to muddle his head. If it was just the ragged men, he would have been happy enough drinking it and putting himself to bed afterwards. But the archer had complicated things.
"I would know who they are," Alys said darkly and tilted up Jon's chin to scrub at the blood that had dripped down his jaw and neck. Her hands did not belie the tension she felt but her look at the open window was sharp and hard as any sword.
If the men had been standing there on the sill, she would have flayed them with a glance. They had been wolves once too.
"We will know soon enough," Jon soothed her, trying to get her hackles to settle again. "Sigorn will find them. I have seen that man track before; he could follow a white hare through a snowstorm."
The hard lines of her face softened a little. "He's a fine hunter," Alys said. "All the Thenns are, and the better of my people for it. And you yourself, so I will admit to surprise that you did not go with him."
"Lord Davos had the right of it not to let me," Jon said. His spirit was high now that things were coming to a head; the knowledge of his new quarry soothed him.
Jon was not a man who suited idleness well. It was not happiness exactly that was rushing through his veins, but it wasn't unhappiness either. No, it was something in between the two, balancing delicately on the thin thread between joy and rage, that sent his blood to rushing and his mouth to smiling and his heart to crash and pound in his chest.
"I found you your first husband," he quipped, "and I can find you another, but you will need try harder to replace a king if he's knocked off in your own yard."
She made an outraged noise at him, stood, and threw the rag at his chest. "You are a knave," she declared as Jon caught the rag up and grinned at her. "I'll put Sigorn on the throne and see how you like it then, Your Grace."
The blood had trickled under his collar while it was still wet and it had pooled to dry at his collar bone. Jon scrubbed at it himself one handed as the air turned it to itching flakes. "Sigorn is welcome to it," he said easily. "I will stay here and lead the Thenns and he may grapple with all the lords cluttering up my keep. It will be a fine break for me and a good challenge for him."
Alys rolled her eyes. The maester murmured, stilling the muscles of Jon's back with a cool touch, "Perhaps less movement, Your Grace."
Jon submitted. He wanted the maester gone and quickly. He would take Alys into his confidences about the archer; he would need to. The arrows that had helped him would not be the last of it, Jon was certain.
He had learned patience during the war, but that did not mean he liked it. The maester put another stitch in and Alys poured herself another cup of honeyed milk.
She drank, then said after a moment, "I am almost more offended then wroth."
"It's no stain on Karhold's honor," Jon assured her again. Now she was sitting on the sill of the window, with the cup in her hand, peering out with narrowed eyes. He would have asked her to move, that he might keep his view to the buildings of the keep, but for the deep lines of irritation gracing her brow.
Jon was not so foolish a man as to butt his will up against hers; they both had their blood up and t'was the bitch wolf, the bitch hound, that was the more dangerous when roused.
Arya had always been hellish when angry, sharp enough to cut to bone when offended, prickly about her pride. Alys was so much like her that Jon could expect nothing else.
"How certain is it," she huffed, her brow furrowed darkly, "that they were the ones I spoke on, who stole the bread and chickens and milk? And I fed them! From my own kitchens I fed them! I put those strangers under my guest-right and they would repay me by bloodying my orchard and killing my king!"
"You need forgive yourself of that eventually," Jon said. "Northron honor." He was careful with the rag now, washing blood off his eyelashes as the maester poured vinegar over the stitching. "Better," he went on at Alys' quick curious look, "for you to feed an enemy by accident than let your own people starve."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "I'd rather Northron justice," she said in a sour tone. Jon had no doubt, if she was not fat with child and skinny in her arms, that she would want to swing the sword herself.
"You have it too," Sigorn said from the doorway. He paused to knock the sand off his boots, then crossed the room and kissed her soundly.
Jon looked away to give them a little privacy. The maester was prodding at his needlework now with bony fingers. "No sword work with this arm, Your Grace," he said mildly. "I would say ten days before I could remove these, if you rest the muscle and sleep not on this side."
"Aye," Jon agreed and let the instruction pass from his mind. T'was only a cut, well-tended now, and not like to pain him.
The maester gave him a long-suffering look. Jon could not blame the man for it; he nursed the Thenns as well, who were some of the most stubborn people Jon had ever met. "Will you take milk of the poppy now?" the maester asked and Jon swallowed his grin as he shook his head no.
"It hurts only a little," he said. "Better to keep the pain else I will move it too much."
Now the old man looked as sour as if he'd bitten into an apple and found a worm. He was quick to wind the linen around the stitches, soaked in more vinegar to keep out any bad air. Jon let him and turned back to Alys and Sigorn.
Sigorn had his hand to the swell of her belly and his other to her waist as he leaned his forehead to hers and spoke softly. She was looking up at him, her face sweet and gentle, and the sunlight from the window cast them both in gold.
There was no sense of otherness in Jon as he watched them, not as there had been when he first came into her bower three days ago. He was not alone; he was not lonely. The archer was out there even now and the knowledge of it sent his blood rushing.
The maester had gathered up the bloody bandages, the basin and flask of vinegar, and his long wicked needle by the time Sigorn and Alys pulled away from each other. "Ten days, Your Grace," he told Jon and bowed to his lord and lady as well before he quit the room.
Jon did not envy him any for leaving; Davos was still lurking in the maester's tower, writing a furious letter to Winterfell demanding what news they had. And he would stay there, impatient and suspicious until he could watch the man send it himself.
It was foolish of him to worry so, as if they were under siege. Jon had dealt with the swordsmen. He would deal with the archer, too.
"One cave," Sigorn said once the door was shut behind the maester. He tipped wine into a cup, brought it to Jon, and stood over him with his arms crossed until Jon sipped at it.
"Which cave?" Jon asked. He could not speak to what his face did in the waiting. He was washed with furious excitement. Ghost was on the rug, snoring with Sigorn's hounds. It was Jon's own mind that put into him the want to bite, to set his teeth into something soft and giving and sweet with blood.
"The men, huh," Sigorn said and pulled up a chair. He held out an arm and Alys went and sat on his knee, tucked up to Sigorn and looking between him and Jon with confusion and concern.
"We think they were sleeping in a cave in the cliffs," Jon explained. The wine was too sweet. He set it aside and shoved a hand through his hair.
"The men who attacked you," Alys said. She turned to her husband and demanded, "You found their things?"
"Found some things," Sigorn said. "Furs, huh. Fire. Bowls."
Jon had no doubt it had been a tidy little camp, well lived-in. They had been there some time, a s'en day at the least and likely longer. Had they come to wait for something? To wait for Jon? Or was it truly chance that brought them? The two men had their arms full, stolen furs and small bundles of food.
Likely the archer was as well-equipped, if not better.
Sigorn leveled a look at Jon. "Six bowls," he said and his jaw was tight.
Jon had not expected that, but he could not make himself pretend to unhappiness. Three left, then. Did the archer know it, too? He stood and went to the window, looking out at the yards and buildings below. "No sign of the others?" he asked.
"Maybe they hear us come," Sigorn said. "Maybe they go. Maybe they get shot."
"Shot," Alys said and Jon turned at the confusion in her voice.
"I did not just meet the men," Jon said and his hand clenched and unclenched at his side. He wanted the wooden wolf back. He wanted to see the archer face to face. He wanted the sudden fierce moment of the fight and he wanted not to be interrupted this time.
"A bowman," Sigorn said to Alys. He took her cup from her and set it aside, saying, "White arrow, black feathers." And then to Jon, "Maybe not here for you. We look for him anyway, but he's smarter. No footprints, no camp, nothing."
Jon did not know how much Sigorn had told Alys of the War for the Dawn. Jon himself did not speak on it unless faced with the pressure of his own men's wants, and even then he was quick to excuse himself at the first opportunity. But Sigorn must have told her something; she turned round eyes to Jon and opened her mouth, but found nothing to say.
"Aye," Jon said. The heavy restlessness of the morning was gone. He wanted to move. The room was too small. Ghost was lifting his head, those wise red eyes peering up at him.
Jon did not know what those eyes said, if anything. He crossed the room and knelt and Ghost dug himself out from under the sleeping hounds and came to him.
"You're sure," Alys burst at last. Her eyes were still large in her face. "They were not just bleached from the sun, those arrows? And some of the free folk—they use black goosefeather! Mayhaps it was one of them."
Ghost looked at Jon and Jon looked at Ghost and the sense of blood in their mouths grew. "You are a poor guard," Jon said and pet the soft fur behind Ghost's ears. "T'was you who could not leave them be during the war, and t'was you who let the archer take my wooden wolf."
Could a wolf smile? Ghost's eyes told him, You know nothing, Jon Snow.
"It was the same," Jon said to Alys. "When Davos comes, I would have words with you both. I have not—"
If there was a time to forgive the madness and selfishness of other men, it was Spring. The scent of the almond blossoms came in from the window, the scent of the sea. If the scent of blood came with it and not just the spill from Jon's wound, only Ghost could tell and he was turning away now, returning to his rug and his sleep.
"I have not exactly been truthful with you both," Jon said finally. "I have not lied, aye, but I have not been plain about it either. T'was a Braavosi archer, my lady, and from the House of Black and White. He shot the man I was fighting and killed another who meant me ill before he even had a chance to raise his sword to me."
"Anyone might use those arrows—" Alys said, then stilled.
Jon could not speak at to what his face did, that he betrayed himself to her and so quickly.
The disbelief dripped off her face like snowmelt dripped off a warm roof, and her expression changed to something else. Her eyes were narrowed at him now and her hand was tight on Sigorn's arm.
She was riled; her teeth were ready and sharp.
"You met him," Alys said sharply. "This archer. You met him on those cliffs, didn't you, Jon Snow?"
"Not as such," Jon said. He rose to his feet and crossed back to the window. Was he out there somewhere, a slim smear of shadow, watching in at them as they spoke? How many people were in Karhold? Too many for Alys would know all their faces? Enough that the Thenns would not notice another kneeler body among them?
"Either you met him or you didn't!" Alys said. She tried to struggle to her feet and knocked away Sigorn's hands when he went to help her. "What did he say? What possible reason did he give you for coming to Karhold, to my keep almost, uninvited? What say he about strewing my land with arrows so close to your own fat head?"
Her eyes blazed at him. "If I'd known how well you'd mind it, I would have tried to stop him," Jon said, a little confused. "And I would have kept the men alive if I could, you know that. But is it so poor a thing, to help me when I needed it? Those men would have been my killers, my lady, and they were thieves aside."
He could not speak to the look she gave him then. "I am not so concerned about that," Alys said firmly. "It would have been nice to bring them to a fairer justice, but they lost their right to live the moment they attacked you! No, I am mostly troubled at you being hunted by such a man, coming to my land under a cover of darkness when he might have come as a friend and shown us his face-"
"They are assassins, and so not in the habit of simply walking in and introducing themselves," Jon reminded her. "The War for the Dawn, I believe, is the first such time they have done so in known history. We named them friend for that, or ally at the least, but I doubt they are used to it."
Another amusing thought crept into his mind. "And they are faceless," Jon went on. "It is in their very name. So I do not understand why you think this man would come to the keep and announce himself, or even had a face to show you."
Sigorn laughed and it only served to make Alys angrier. She stomped a pace away from him, a hand to her belly, and bared her teeth at them both.
"Sigorn has told me of them, Jon!" she snapped. "Their magics. Their enchantments. It is a fine thing they did for us during the war, but they are an ill people, and I will not suffer one walking unknown and unannounced through my halls!"
"They are sorcerous," Jon agreed. She looked at him so fiercely that he did not dare rile her further. "And they are sly and clever in ways we cannot understand. Next I meet him, I will tell him that the lady of the keep does not welcome him here, but I did not get the chance just now. I saw where he was hiding, and I kept the others from discovering him there, but I did not see him face to face."
But he wanted to. Jon remembered to himself the ones that had come during the war, those hooded figures large and small who held themselves apart from all the other soldiers. Had the archer been among them? Had Jon met him there?
His words did not ease her. T'was hard for him to think, to concentrate. The window was open, the world outside peaceful, and his mouth was thick with blood.
"You saw where he was hiding," Alys cried. She scrubbed a palm across her eyes. "You stood there for his shower of arrows—and the gods themselves the only thing to keep them from hitting you—and then you let him get away?"
"He was not shooting at me, my lady," Jon said. The arrows had landed so precisely, so beautifully where they had meant to go. Jon had no doubt that he was not the intended target. "If he was," he said, "I would not be here letting you berate me."
She looked offended at that, groping up her cup and glaring at him over the rim of it as she drank.
Jon huffed a sigh himself. "In fact, I doubt he has business with Karhold and your people. I cannot imagine someone hiring a Faceless Man to avenge the loss of a chicken, four loaves of bread, and three night's worth of milk. His business is not with Karhold. He was not here for that."
The smile crept onto him, unbidden. "Though," Jon said, "I wonder at the price he'd charge for such delicate difficult work."
Alys did not have another rag to throw at him. She made as if to throw her cup and cried, "Take this seriously, damn you! If he was not here for my people, fine! But all that means is that he must be here for you. You are the king, there is no one else it can be!"
For a moment, Jon thought of the other men, three still alive and all their names unknown. But could the archer have not taken them at any time? T'was such a fine shot, that first arrow, that Jon doubted it would have been loosed at all if the man had not raised his sword.
"He was here for me," Jon said easily. The words were good in his mouth, steady and true. He turned to the window again. The archer was small and quick and clever. Sly, to take his arrow, and bold, to take the wolf. If he was watching, he would not reveal himself so easily.
The knowledge did not make Jon want to look less. It made him want to look more, that he might be the one to spot the archer, the only one to see him.
"And this," Alys said, nearly a snarl, "does not concern you?"
"He was here for me," Jon said again. "And that is exactly why I let him go. We are on delicate terms with the Braavosi at this moment."
She gave him a disbelieving stare and turned to press her face to Sigorn's chest. "I will not have it said," she said, irate and muffled, "that you are mad for the rest of your strange ways. But this, aye. This is making me certain you have been knocked about the head a time too many!"
Sigorn pet her back and said to Jon over the crown of her head, "Not so mad, huh. He shoots some men, he hits some men, and you live. Here for you, huh? Not here to kill you."
Alys let out a shriek into Sigorn's neck. Jon laughed. He could not help it. His blood was up still, fast and steady. There was only a single a jagged moment when he went to touch the wooden wolf in his pocket and it was not there. It passed him in the space of a heartbeat; he knew where the wolf was.
He put his hand to Longclaw's pommel instead.
"Davos will come in a moment," he said. He made himself turn from the window. He wanted to keep looking even though he knew he would see nothing there. Just in case there was something to see. The archer was bold. How bold? "I will tell all to you when he does. I must. You will keep thinking me mad otherwise."
"Your beggar's letter," Alys said and turned her head to look at him from one damp wroth eye.
Alys was quick and clever herself. Jon thought absently that he should have sought her counsel in the matter, if the time had not been so short.
He nodded to her. "Not the letter so much," he said. "But what they wrote back. I did not think them so determined as this, but I should have. Everything," and it might have been his own blood he was tasting, not the phantom sense of it, "has a price."
"Do not tell me they expect you to pay with your life," Alys moaned and hid her face away again. Sigorn was giving Jon a concerned look; Jon shook his head. Davos was coming down the hall now, his steps clear, and Jon opened the door to let him in.
"Your Grace," Davos said as he sketched a bow, "my lord, my lady. No news from Winterfell."
"We need no raven," Jon said and paced down the length of the longest wall. The room was too small. He wanted to be outside, running. He wanted to chase. "Anything they could tell us is something we already know. No, our own memories are fine enough. Shall we tell them, Davos? I do not like to do it, but if I have not left the matter behind as I thought, then Alys and Sigorn must know."
He thought a moment about the children digging in the kitchen garden, then about the heavy swell of Alys' belly. "I would not be a traitor in their midst," Jon said, "dragging trouble in under the banner of friendship."
Davos gave him a narrow look and helped himself to a chair. "I would not go so far as to say that, lad," he said and sank down gratefully. "But you're right. They need know."
"Tell us, then!" Alys cried, muffled to Sigorn's chest. "Tell us about this trouble, that we might come to a course of action instead of floundering about in fear of another shower of arrows!"
"Some weeks ago I sent a beggar's letter to Braavos," Jon said. "You know this. You know they wrote to me in response and I found their answer so offensive that I left the Greatjon to sit the throne in my stead, that he might answer them when their envoys came."
Alys, her face still hidden, nodded. "They offered us fine terms," Jon said. "Four percent interest on our debt to the Iron Bank, with half the amount struck clean away at once. The terms on trade were just as generous, too, and they would extend the hand of friendship from their Sealords for ever after."
Slowly she drew her face away and turned to stare at him. She was as astonished as the others had been; she drew Sigorn's arms tighter about herself and said, "I can scarcely believe it."
"You will, when you hear the price," Davos said. He looked grim and made to rub at his short fingers, then tugged at his beard instead. With all the worrying he was doing, Jon thought, the scarred ends were bound to be sore.
"I cannot think of a single thing the North holds that is worth that," Alys said. Sigorn, above her, shook his head.
Sigorn knew more than he let on. Jon had no doubt he was following the conversation perfectly fine. He had no doubt Sigorn had his own ideas on the matter. "They would put shackles on the North," Jon said. He kept the growl from his voice, but his lip curled.
A direwolf was not a hound. It would not stand and let itself be penned; it was too smart to put a paw into a snare unless the snare had been very cleverly laid.
"That is what they want for such terms," Jon said.
"If I might, Your Grace," Davos said and Jon returned himself to the window, sitting on the sill and letting his leg jig with energy. The urge to bite was great. He chewed the inside of his mouth as Davos sighed.
He was glad Davos would tell it. Jon did not think he could state the matter plainly without snarling.
"The price for their gifts is a wedding," Davos said. He gave up at his beard and went to rubbing the ends of his short fingers again. "A wedding of the king to a Braavosi bride, who is even now traveling to Winterfell with the Braavosi envoy, so certain were they that they would not be refused."
A cool quiet silence spread between them. Jon turned his face to the breeze, smelling the distant scents of the keep and the spicy sweetness under that. You're out there somewhere, he thought to the archer. And you will try to force my hand. But no wolf will put his paw in a snare willingly, and I can see your snare from a mile off.
"A bride," Alys said finally, haltingly. "They cannot— Certainly there is no one left who has not heard that Jon will not wed. He turned down the Southron Queen herself, for godsakes!"
"And yet that did not make her give up the suit," Davos said. "And her own hand is still unmatched in hopes that he will change his mind. I have no doubt that the Braavosi heard of this and decided they would try for themselves. The letter was plain. 'She is a woman of great prestige, of a line equal to your own. She is fostered to the eldest House of Braavos and trained therein of all manners of things.' That is what the letter said and I have no doubt that their own greed bade them send it."
"The North is a strong country and with Spring come, it will grow only stronger still. It would be a fine coup to land a woman such as that in the king's bed. The oldest house of Braavos, my lady, is the House of Black and White."
Alys made a small rough noise. A denial.
"Huh," Sigorn said. Jon looked over; he was looking back and raised his brows at Jon.
His look was enough. No wonder the archer had not struck Jon, no wonder he had filled the third swordsman full of arrows. It would be ill tidings if Jon died before he could be trapped into such a marriage.
"They would put a killer, a spy in his home," Alys said.
"Like as not they have those already," Jon said. "We left from Winterfell to here with great haste. How could my archer have followed so quickly, if they were not in Winterfell yet?"
"They would put a killer in his bed," Davos said. "And on the throne beside his. That is what they would do. Even if the king would not wed for other reasons, he could scarcely take this bride."
"Another woman," Davos said slowly, "a different woman—"
Would that he let the matter be! Jon gave Davos a cold look that stopped up his words in his throat. He was not the only one; Alys looked at him very sourly and Sigorn was rolling his eyes.
"Aye, alright," Davos said and showed them his palms, a quick surrender. "I am your adviser. It is advice only."
"Poor advice," Alys said. "And you knowing it would not be taken. Have you none to say about the assassin even now creeping among my keep?"
Jon thought he had to; Davos had a mind that was always turning. He saw things in a way other men could not. If Davos was a hound, he was a bull hound, with a jaw that would not let go of its prey without a fight. "A marriage is but one way to settle a debt," Davos said. "We might pay them in some other manner, but I do not know what price they will ask."
"Has the Iron Bank not sent an invoice?" Alys asked. "They are misers with their coin; they counted the Southron debt down to split coppers. Surely they've done the same with us."
"Yes," Davos said, "but the House of Black and White has not."
It lingered between them. A debt of coins could be payed, even if you need work your fingers to the bone to pay it. But the other debt—who knew what a Faceless priest might list for you as the cost of a single death? Jon had asked Davos, who had asked many others, and the answer was clear; anything. Anything they thought would please their god, any sacrifice they felt would properly balance the cost of the life they snuffed out, quick and quiet as snuffing a candle flame.
"They lent us aid!" Alys cried. "Did they not?" She turned to Sigorn. "Did they not aid us? You said, Valyrian steel swords, dragonglass spear points and arrows, and they sent some men—"
"Four-and-ten men," Jon said. He saw again in his mind's eye the hooded figures. They had come by horseback, not wain or sledge, riding garrons crossed with palfreys. Their mounts had all been beautiful horses with thick hides and long legs and tiny ears, creatures out of a child's fairy story.
So, too, were the numbers they sent, strange figures unlike any men Jon had ever met. They had shown no surprised at the Unsullied, nor peered with awe at the dragons. The breadth and magnitude of the great armies all gathered together had not given them pause.
They had come to Jon, silently, and treated with him alone.
There had been no discussion of price and no talk of payment. Not with those queer blank people who smelled so strongly of blood and who stood still as stones as Ghost prowled among them.
Jon did not know if it was the smell of the blood, or if it was some other deep magic that drew Ghost to them, but every time that the wolf had gone missing, Jon had needed only look among the Faceless numbers to find him again, panting and prancing, following one then suddenly another, always with his tail held high and ticking.
Four-and-ten men, and they had worked deep magic in aid of the living. The cache of Valyrian steel swords, more than any man in living memory had seen in one place, had been passed to willing hands. Aye, but only after a long study of those soldiers, marked while they fought in the yard and then again against a Faceless Man themselves to prove their mettle. But the spear points—
One night the Unsullied had slept, and in the morning every spear for every hand was tipped with dragonglass. The Westerosi spearmen as well, and the free folk. And on the second night, the arrows had appeared, filling a great many a quiver, including Jon's own.
Weirwood and dragonglass and swan feather fletching, black and white and black again. The arrow from the beach had been tipped in plain steel, but the rest was the same.
The weirwood could have been a taunt or a curse or a reminder. It could be to draw his mind to the war or it could simply be the arrows that his archer favored. There was no way to tell.
The Faceless Men had accepted no payment. But everything had a price. The cost of even one death from those skilled hands could beggar a richer man than he. And it was not a single death that they had presented to Jon during the war. It had been a great many more than that.
"I will not pay it," Jon said, almost to himself. Alys was still wide-eyed, Sigorn easy with the knowledge there was nothing he could do. Davos was pinch-faced and grim.
"If they want me to pay them in coin," Jon went on, feeling the thought out, "then I will. Or land, or goods, or raw materials, the same as I offered the Iron Bank. But my hand in marriage is not a price I can pay."
He wanted, badly, the wooden wolf back.
This was not something they could escape. Coming to Karhold had not spared Jon from it, only spread the danger to his only living kin. He could not pretend that it would be worth the fighting to make Alys' choice for her, nor could he pretend that he wanted to leave. Archer or no, the dark of the moon was coming, and Jon wanted badly to spend it among the almond trees.
"I will leave it to you, my lady," he said at last. "It is your keep I've brought this trouble to, and your keep that even now a shadow is walking, and your keep where he need come to treat if he wants his god paid by my hand. If you would have us leave, we will go in the morning at first light."
"You are not," Alys said, "going anywhere! What if they say you must pay with your life?"
"All the better we are not in Karhold," Jon said. He put his hand to Longclaw's pommel. "They wish for that? Then blood will spill. I would not have it paint your walls. T'would be a poor gift from your cousin."
She gave him a look then, cold wind and fierce pity. The Karstarks had been wolves once too, Jon thought. And the way Alys looked then, no one could mistake it.
"Thenns are brave," Sigorn said. He put his arms around his wife and pressed his calloused palms to the swell of her belly. It did not seem to change his mind that Alys was great with child; the workings of the world did not still for one man's wife. Jon could attest to that. He recalled, vaguely, that there had been births among the Thenns even during the deepest part of the war. "We ready, huh. They want you, then they come get you."
"Guards, then," Davos said. His mind was turning now to practicalites, Jon thought. "I will have them put to post outside your door and at the walls outside your chambers. And I will ask the castellan to put the shutters back on your windows."
"No," Jon said. "Not tonight, at least."
In his head, he saw the angle of those arrows. Of the first arrow, so carefully aimed to aid him without giving him harm.
Alys was clever and she knew Jon well. "You don't think you're in danger," she said slowly.
"Not yet," Jon said. "Not yet, my lady."
He did not feel like prey, sent small and cowering to hide behind his stone walls. Never mind the danger of it, standing as he had on the far end of a Faceless Man's bow. No, prey was not what Jon felt like at all, and on his rug, Ghost rose his head up to peer at Jon and agree.
Those wise red eyes said, It does a man good to get his blood up, Your Grace, for that is when a man is most dangerous.
Jon was not afraid. But the archer, who had stolen his wooden wolf, need sleep with his eyes open. Jon was tired of things being taken from him. He was filled with wroth over it, banked down and burning low in his chest, his blood. The memory of wolves was long.
He would, in this, get what he wanted.