Samwell
The courtyard rang to the song of swords. If there was one song that Samwell Tarly hated more than anything is that the song of swords and the clang of swords and steel. It frightened him and shook him to the core.
Under the fur-trimmed surcoat, sweat trickled icily down Sam's chest even though he had not even entered the spar. They had not even given the time for him to rest or to even change his clothes and Sam walked clumsily to the yard in his finest clothes, A fur-trimmed surcoat of green velvet with the striding huntsman of House Tarly worked in scarlet thread upon the breast. Two of the old recruits were hacking at each other. Looking at them alone made Sam tremble from head to heel. Yet he still walked forth to join them in the yard where Castle Black's knight master was training the other recruits who had arrived here before him.
Sam himself was the last one to reach Castle Black but for him, the long journey from Horn Hill to the Wall was a quick one. His father's men wasted no time as they brought him to Castle Black. Once they brought him in they left him in the new place all on his own and spurred their horses back eager to return home. And here he was in his new home, a place he never knew, a place where he knows no one and that frightened him even more.
The recruits were hacking and slashing at each other in the yard as he neared them. Will they ask me to do that as well? Sam thought. He will definitely put down his sword and cry the next moment they put him against someone. The recruits broke off as the one facing him saw him approaching them. He opened his visor and turned to the one he was sparring against. "Would you look at that, Edd?"
The other one turned to look at him and the other recruits fell in beside them. Sam brought himself in front of them afraid of what they might say about him. His breath was heavy in his chest, result of the quick walk to the yard. "I am Samwell Tarly of Horn Hill," he managed to say. "I've come to take the black."
"Come to take the black pudding," one of the recruits said. The other recruits laughed at that.
"Enough!" The master at arms had a voice with an edge like Valyrian steel. He strode toward him, crisp black leathers whispering faintly as he moved. He was a compact man of fifty years, spare and hard, with grey in his black hair and eyes like chips of onyx. He looked him up and down and said, "It would seem they have run short of poachers and thieves down south. Now they send us pigs to man the Wall. Is fur and velvet your notion of armor, my Lord of Ham?"
"I have brought my own armor," Sam replied, voice shaking.
"Go dress in your armor then, Ser Piggy," the master-at-arms of Castle Black said. "That would keep off the swords from slicing off your meat."
Breathless Sam hurried back to the room where he had kept his clothes and other things. He took his armor to the Master-at-arms; a padded doublet, boiled leather, mail and plate and helm. Sam took his shield as well, a great wood-and-leather shield blazoned with the striding huntsman.
When the knight saw his colored clothing he chuckled. "The Wall is no place for your colored finery, Ser Piggy. You shall have all of it dyed black. For now get to the armory and get a new set of armor."
Afraid of the man Sam hurried away to the armory, half walking and half running.
The armorer inspected at his armor when he showed it to him. "That is a fine armor you've got there," the armorer said. "But the colors should have to go out. Leave it here, you shall have it once I dye it black."
Sam placed his armor on the table. He had no problem in leaving the armor and shield. He would've gladly given them away since it was of no use to him or rather he was of no use to an armor as his father had liked to tell him.
The armorer gave the briefest of glances to him and turned over to look at his tables and the stone wall behind him from where a dozen set of armors and swords hung from hooks. "Looks like we've got nothing to match you, boy."
Sam felt a sudden relief at that. No armor meant that he did not have to fight. He sat heavily on the long wooden bench and allowed himself a moment to savor the relief. But it didn't last long though as the armorer collected some different pieces of different armors and put them on the table to work on it.
"It'll take sometime boy," the armorer said as he cut some leather straps. "Thorne can go to hell."
It took half the morning for the armorer to fix a set of armor for him. His girth required the armorer to take apart a mail hauberk and refit it with leather panels at the sides. To get a helm over his head the armorer had to detach the visor. His leathers bound so tightly around his legs and under his arms that he could scarcely move.
"Let us hope you are not as inept as you look," the master-at-arms said when he saw him dressed in the armor. "Rast, see what Ser Piggy can do."
Next thing he knew, Sam found himself facing a short and stout boy who was dressed up in a black armor as well.
Afraid, Sam raised his blunted sword against the other recruit. The recruit named Rast knocked his sword away from his hand with a savage blow, the shock of impact running up his arm as the swords crashed together. Another blow to his covered belly had him on the hard-packed ground of the yard.
"I yield," he shrilled. "No more, I yield, don't hit me."
Even then, the master-at-arms would not call an end. "On your feet, Ser Piggy," he called. "Pick up your sword." When he continued to cling to the ground, the master-at-arms sounded again. "Hit him with the flat of your blade until he finds his feet." Rast delivered a tentative smack to his back. "You can hit harder than that," the master-at-arms said to his foe again. The boy Rast brought his sword down so hard the blow split leather, even on the flat and found his flesh. Sam screeched in pain. His whole body shook as blood leaked through his shattered helm and between his fingers.
"On your feet," the master-at-arms repeated. Sam struggled to rise. His palms and fingers were so sweaty that he slipped, and fell heavily again. "Ser Piggy is starting to grasp the notion," the master-at-arms observed. "Again."
Sam was waiting for another blow to fall when he heard the sound. "That's, enough."
Sam looked for the voice. Three of the recruits had backed him up.
"I remind you that I am the master-at-arms here, Tollet." The master-at-arms said in that sharp, cold voice of his.
"He yielded," the one named Tollet urged, ignoring the master-at-arms as best he could. "There's no honor in beating a fallen foe." He knelt beside him and helped to his feet.
Rast lowered his sword. "He yielded," he echoed.
The master-at-arms' onyx eyes were fixed on him. If he was not angry before he was now. Sam could see it clearly. The master-at-arms smiled. "Dolorous Edd wishes to defend his lady love, so we shall make an exercise of it. Stone Head, Pimple, help our Rat here." Two of the other recruits moved to join his foe. And another two joined to help Tollet.
Sam saw the fight from the side opposite to the master-at-arms. The recruits on the side of his foe were big men but the recruits who had helped him stood their ground. One by one the recruits who had helped him knocked the other recruits' swords away.
The master-at-arms surveyed the scene with disgust. "The mummer's farce has gone on long enough for today." He walked away. Sam knew the session was at an end.
When he was gone, Sam moved over to the recruits who helped him. "Let me," he told. Sam unfastened helm from gorget and lifted it off gently. "Did he hurt you?"
"I've been bruised before." Tollet touched his shoulder and winced. The yard was emptying around them.
Blood matted Sam's hair where Rast had split his helm asunder. "My name is Samwell Tarly. I . . . if you want, you can call me Sam. My mother calls me Sam."
"You can call him Dolorous Edd," Pyp said as he came up to join them. "You don't want to know what his mother calls him."
"These two are Grenn and Pypar," Edd said. He was a thin boy, sour and grey haired.
"Grenn's the ugly one," Pyp said.
Grenn scowled. "You're uglier than me. At least I don't have ears like a bat."
"My thanks to all of you," Sam told them.
"Why didn't you get up and fight?" Grenn demanded. "I wanted to, truly. I just . . . I couldn't. I didn't want him to hit me anymore." He looked at the ground. "I . . . I fear I'm a coward. My lord father always said so."
The recruits looked thunderstruck. No one had a word to say. Sam knew this would happen. No one likes to be with a coward. "I . . . I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to . . . to be like I am." He walked heavily toward the armory.
He took off the armor and hanged it on the hook. He was so tired. Sam sat on the bench for some time. Tears filled his eyes as he sat there. He left for his room afraid that someone would see him cry. He stayed in his room and sobbed in the solitude of his room until it was nightfall.
When the tears finally stopped, Sam was hungry. He walked to the common hall where they will be serving the night's food. The wind was rising, and he could hear the old wooden buildings creaking around him, and in the distance a heavy shutter banging, over and over, forgotten. Once there was a muffled thump as a blanket of snow slid from a roof and landed near him.
It took some good time before he finally reached it. He walked past half other cells and reached the great timbered common hall. Inside, the hall was immense and drafty, even with a fire roaring in its great hearth. Crows nested in the timbers of its lofty ceiling. Sam heard their cries overhead as he accepted a bowl of stew and a pork pie from the day's cooks. Edd, Pyp, Grenn and some of the other recruits were seated at the bench nearest the warmth, laughing and cursing each other in rough voices. Sam eyed them thoughtfully for a moment. Then he chose a spot at the far end of the hall, well away from the other diners.
Sam sat in the bench, alone. He pulled off his gloves and warmed his hands in the steam rising from the bowl. The smell made his mouth water. The stew was hot with barley, onion, carrot and turnip floating in it.
A group of the black brothers were dicing over mulled wine near the fire. The high officers of the Night's Watch sat together on the raised dais. Sam's bench was far from the others and he knew that he would be forever alone in this bench. He was finishing the last of the pork pie they had served for supper when a voice called out to him.
"So you're the new boy," a black brother said as he seated himself across from him with a tankard in his hand. "Thorne had something to say about you."
Sam widened his eyes and saw the man. He was a gaunt and strong man with blue-grey eyes, dressed all in black. "Th... Thorne?"
"Ser Alliser Thorne," the man said. "The master-at-arms."
Yes, Sam remembered now. How could he ever forget that man. "Wha... What did he say?"
The black brother must've realized his fears. He gave a quick look at him and then to Ser Alliser on the bench on the other end of the hall. "As usual as you could ever expect from him."
Sam was so frightened to even look at Ser Alliser so he kept his eyes down at the stew.
"You're Samwell Tarly, no?" the black brother asked.
Sam wondered how the man came to know about him. Someone must've told him of how he had cried in the yard. By now everyone would've known about him, of Sam the Craven. He nodded lightly.
"I'm Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch."
Sam looked up from the stew to look at the man. Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch. He had been a brother of both a king and a queen, though both ruled different kingdoms. He had no reason to sit with Sam the Craven.
Benjen Stark must have known what he was thinking about. "How do you like the Wall, Sam?" he asked.
Sam looked at him still surprised to speak. "I... I... It's too cold."
"Yes. Cold and hard and mean, that's the Wall, and the men who walk it," Ben Stark said. "But they will be your brothers soon and you'll do no good by being alone."
"I don't want to be alone," Sam admitted. He looked to the bench where the other recruits were sitting, enjoying their time together. He wanted to join them but something inside stopped him from doing so. He looked back to Benjen Stark. "But they won't want me there."
"You don't know that until you try it."
"Is that how it was for you?" Sam asked hesitantly. "So... So easy?"
"Easy?" Ben Stark snorted. "I had a brother once. You must've known about him."
Sam knew him of course. Benjen Stark was the brother of Eddard Stark, the King in the North.
"I loved him as much as a man could love his brother," Ben Stark continued. "Even now he has a place in my heart and he will have it for the rest of my days. I loved my goodsister too, as much as I loved my brother. And their little son... I loved him as if he was my own son. They were my family once and when I learnt about their death all I wanted was to go south and squeeze the lives out of all the people who had played a part in their death. But I understood it better than that. We put aside our old families when we swear our vows. My brother and his wife and son will always have a special place in my heart, but these are my brothers now." He gestured with his forefinger at the men around them, all the hard cold men in black.
"They are my family now. So tell me Samwell Tarly, do you want a family or do you want to be alone?"
Sam looked at all the men in the hall. Horn Hill was never a home for him maybe he could change Castle Black as his home. He could make them as his family. "I'd love to have a family."
"Good," said the First Ranger. "So next time I won't see you alone Samwell Tarly." With that the First Ranger of Castle Black left him to join with his brothers.
That night Sam stayed awake on his bed for a long time thinking about what Benjen Stark had said. As the First Ranger had said in the next few days Sam found himself comfortable with the place. Edd had some good talks with him. He encouraged him to join the others at the bench and Sam was hesitant about it at first. A few nights later, at Edd's urging, he joined them for the evening meal, taking a place on the bench beside Halder. It was another fortnight before he found the nerve to join their talk, but in time he was laughing at Pyp's faces and teasing Grenn with the best of them.
As he stayed in bed that day, his heart so much lighter than it had been in years Samwell Tarly thought how true Benjen Stark had been in his talk with him.
A/N: So Benjen's first appearance in the story. Did you like it? Since Jon is in KL in this story, Sam got some other people and friends to help him. Leave a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts.