Jaehaerys

The courtyard rang to the song of swords.

Under black wool, boiled leather, and mail, sweat trickled icily down Jaehaerys's chest as he pressed the attack. Quid stumbled backward, defending himself clumsily. When he raised his sword, Jaehaerys went underneath it with a sweeping blow that crunched against the back of the other boy's leg and sent him staggering. Buck's downcut was answered by an overhand that dented his helm. When Orten tried a sideswing from his left, Jaehaerys swept aside his blade and slammed a mailed forearm into his chest. Orten lost his footing and fell down hard in the snow. From the other side Quid rushed for him. Jaehaerys knocked his sword from his fingers and smashed his head right at the bigger boy's nose.

"Enough!" Ser Alliser Thorne had a voice with an edge like Valyrian steel.

Quid rubbed his nose gingerly. His fingers came away bloody. "He broke my nose."

"He hamstrung you, split your skull, and cut off your hand. Or would have, if these blades had an edge. It's fortunate for you that the Watch needs stableboys as well as rangers." Ser Alliser gestured at Geron and Lio. "Get the Otter on his feet, he has funeral arrangements to make."

Jaehaerys took off his helm as the other boys were pulling Orten to his feet. The frosty morning air felt good on his face. He leaned on his sword, drew a deep breath, and allowed himself a moment to savor the victory.

"That is a longsword, not an old man's cane," Ser Alliser said sharply. "Are your legs hurting, your grace? Shall I sent for a royal crew to take care of you?"

Jaehaerys hated his tone. A mockery tone that Ser Alliser had chosen for him the first day he came to practice. The man was sent to the Wall by his father to join the Night's Watch for siding with his grandfather Aerys in their struggle for King's Landing. By mocking him to the ground and belittling him at every turn Ser Alliser somehow thought that he was getting back at the king for the disgrace his father had placed upon him. Had he been in Andrew's place in having his vengeance against his father, his head would've been travelling to his father right now. Jaehaerys had no doubt of it. "No," he said, calmly.

Thorne 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. "The truth now," he commanded.

"I'm tired," Jaehaerys admitted. His arm burned from the weight of the longsword, and he was starting to feel his bruises now that the fight was done.

"What you are is weak."

"I won."

"No. They lost."

One of the other boys sniggered. Jaehaerys knew better than to reply. He had beaten everyone that Ser Alliser had sent against him, yet it gained him nothing. He would gain nothing from the master-at-arms. Thorne hated him, Jaehaerys had decided; of course, he hated the other boys even worse. Atleast the man had the eyes to see skill.

"That will be all," Thorne told them. "I can only stomach so much ineptitude in any one day. If the Others ever come for us, I pray they have archers, because you lot are fit for nothing more than arrow fodder."

Jaehaerys followed the rest back to the armory, walking with Gwayne. Both of them often walked together here, just the two of them together. There were almost twenty in the group he trained with, yet not one he could call a friend. Most were two or three years his senior, yet not one was half the fighter he had been at ten. Orten was quick but afraid of being hit. Kurt used his sword like a dagger, Geren was weak as a girl, Quid slow and clumsy. Harrion's blows were brutally hard but he ran right into your attacks. He'd tried to speak with them, tried to make some friends but the more time he spent with them in the yard, the more they despised him because he was better than them.

Inside, Jaehaerys hung sword and scabbard from a hook in the stone wall, ignoring the others around him. Methodically, he began to strip off his mail, leather, and sweat-soaked woolens. Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, but Jaehaerys found himself shivering. The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm. He missed Viserion, never once stopped missing him but he missed him now more than ever. The Wall was cold, so bloody cold.

The weariness came on him suddenly, as he donned the roughspun blacks that were their everyday wear. He sat on a bench, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings on his cloak. So cold, he thought, remembering the warm halls of Winterfell, where the hot waters ran through the walls like blood through a man's body. There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder.

No one had told him the Night's Watch would be like this. All he had heard of them in the south was that they protected the realm from the greater threats. None sung songs of the cold or the men that walked here.

He had thought to get familiar with his family at least. But even they had abandoned him in this cold place at the end of the world. Benjen Stark he had not acted as if Jaehaerys was his nephew. The only thing he had cared was the reason to why he was here. Even that the First Ranger hadn't come to ask him face to face, he had sent Samwell Tarly to do his bidding.

The very day of their arrival, Jaehaerys had seen people look at him as if he was a ghost. The very sight of the silver hair and purple eyes had given start to the rumors of direwolves and dark hair and grey eyes. Benjen Stark had left three days ago to see his nephew without having a single talk with him in all the time he was here. The night the First Ranger left for Winterfell Jaehaerys had tried to sought out his Targaryen kin in the great timbered common hall. Even Maester Aemon had nothing for his great-great-grandnephew despite of their shared family name. He sat on the high table along with Lord Commander Mormont and the other officers of Castle Black and had his supper as if he did not even exist. He had thought the old man was tired and will come to talk with him the next day.

He rose at dawn the next day only to go under the harshness of Ser Alliser. Aemon Targaryen had nothing to say to him that day or the days that followed it.

Afterward he had given up the hope of having brothers in the Night's Watch. If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor. He had Gwayne and he is content to have only him by his side.

He missed his true brother: Aegon, his rival and best friend and constant companion. He wondered what he was doing now. Had he already heard of my fate? Was he coming north on his dragon by now? He knew that Aegon would not stay quiet once he knew about him, no more than their father would be. There was no hope for peace anymore. Should I run away from here to help my true brother and my true family? He had not sworn his vows yet. He could do that and lose the last bit of honor he had left.

"Blasted mail," Gwayne said as he hung the mail and sat. "Can't get enough of it."

Jaehaerys chuckled. "Get used to it, Gwayne," he said. "We're still a bit away from passing."

"Aye," Gwayne agreed. "But that doesn't mean that I like it all around."

"Why do they have to keep testing us?" he asked. "We are the best swords they have, very much better than this lot in everything." He looked around at all his future brothers, brutes and bullies, eyes brimming with malice and hostility whenever they met him.

"It's the way of the Watch, my prince," Gwayne replied. "If they said that we are not ready, we should respect that."

Respect. The word turned to acid in his mouth. They never showed me any respect. No respect to their prince. For a moment he thought that if he had made a mistake by coming here. He should have fought to death like his father would have. That would have made him proud. Instead he had gone down meekly to his cousin's words and shamed his father. 'No Dragon would bow before the Wolf,' he could hear his father's voice somewhere in him.

"Ready for the watch atop the Wall, my prince?" Gwayne asked.

He was tired but Jaehaerys was not ready to show it to everyone there. "Aye," he said.

By the time they left the armory, it was almost midday. The sun had broken through the clouds. Jaehaerys turned his back on it and lifted his eyes to the Wall, blazing blue and crystalline in the sunlight. Even after all these weeks, the sight of it still gave him the shivers. Centuries of windblown dirt had pocked and scoured it, covering it like a film, and it often seemed a pale grey, the color of an overcast sky . . . but when the sun caught it fair on a bright day, it shone, alive with light, a colossal blue-white cliff that filled up half the sky.

The largest structure ever built by the hands of man, remembered his lessons when they had first caught sight of the Wall in the distance. You could see it from miles off, a pale blue line across the northern horizon, stretching away to the east and west and vanishing in the far distance, immense and unbroken. This is the end of the world, it seemed to say.

When they finally spied Castle Black, its timbered keeps and stone towers looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice. The ancient stronghold of the black brothers was no Winterfell, no true castle at all. Lacking walls, it could not be defended, not from the south, or east, or west; but it was only the north that concerned the Night's Watch, and to the north loomed the Wall. Almost seven hundred feet high it stood, three times the height of the tallest tower in the stronghold it sheltered. Samwell Tarly had said the top was wide enough for a dozen armored knights to ride abreast. The gaunt outlines of huge catapults and monstrous wooden cranes stood sentry up there, like the skeletons of great birds, and among them walked men in black as small as ants.

As he stood outside the armory looking up, Jaehaerys felt almost as overwhelmed as he had that day on the kingsroad, when he'd seen it for the first time. The Wall was like that. Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forgot about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world. It was older than the Seven Kingdoms, and when he stood beneath it and looked up, it made him dizzy. He could feel the great weight of all that ice pressing down on him, as if it were about to topple, and somehow Jaehaerys knew that if it fell, the world fell with it.

They were raised up by the winch used to get people up the Wall. Above the men were already waiting for someone to come and relieve them of their duties. Jaehaerys and Gwayne got the pikes, twice as tall as they were and took their post for the watch.

Jaehaerys looked into the pale wildreness of the haunted forest and the lands of snow and ice lay beyond. The only lands which he will for the rest of his life.

"Makes you wonder what lies beyond," Gwayne said.

Jaehaerys looked around. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Gwayne gestured up at the plain white vastness beyond the Wall with a his gloved hand. "Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side? You do want to know what's on the other side, don't you my prince? The things we'll be protecting the realm from?"

"It's nothing special," Jaehaerys said. "The rangers say it's just woods and mountains and frozen lakes, with lots of snow and ice. Maybe a few wildlings here and there."

"And the grumkins and the snarks," Gwayne said. "Let us not forget them, or else what's this big thing for?"

Jaehaerys laughed.

Their watch went on and on and on that Jaehaerys grew tired of it soon enough. He was tired and hungry and there was nothing to do up here but to watch the never ending north. He sat at the base of a catapult for a while, throwing some chinks of ice down to find how long it took for it to reach the bottom, but if it ever reached he never heard it. By the time the men came to relieve him of the watch, frost had settled on the fur lining of his cuffs and neck.

"I'm hungry," Jaehaerys told Gwayne. In all his life he did not remember a time being hungry, really hungry. Life as a prince had excluded him of that, but he was not a prince now.

"Me too," Gwayne replied. "Come now, my prince. They'll be serving some vile stew in the common hall by now, and I could do with a bowl of something hot."

Jaehaerys fell in beside him and walked with him to the common hall. The wind was rising, and they could hear the old wooden buildings creaking around them, and in the distance a heavy shutter banging, over and over, forgotten.

Inside, the hall was filled with men, men of the Night's Watch. There were crow nests in the timbers of its lofty ceiling like the ones in the broken tower of Winterfell. Jaehaerys heard their cries overhead as he accepted a bowl of stew and a heel of black bread from the day's cooks. Quid and Orten and some of the others were seated at the bench near the hearth, laughing and cursing each other in rough voices. Jaehaerys thought to go sit with them for a moment. Then he chose a spot at the far end of the hall, well away from the other diners.

Gwayne sat across from him, sniffing at the stew suspiciously. "Barley, onion, carrot," he muttered. "Someone should tell the cooks that turnip isn't a meat."

"Anything that'll fill my stomach is enough for me." Jaehaerys pulled off his gloves and warmed his hands in the steam rising from the bowl. The smell made his mouth water.

"Jae." A shaking sound came from behind him. Jaehaerys knew Samwell Tarly's shaking voice. When he turned around to see the fat boy, he bowed his head at once. "Apologies... My... my prince," he stammered.

"It is not necessary, Sam," Jaehaerys said. "You can call me by my name." That much he can allow the boy. Samwell Tarly was a newly made black brother just moons before Jaehaerys arrived here. The boy was an year older than him but was much afraid and uncomfortable in his presence. Despite being raised as a lord's son, Sam was not so brave even to look at a prince. They'll soon be brothers now and the title would no longer mean anything. Jaehaerys liked the boy and was happy to have him around as the only friend here.

"Umm, okay," he said. "Maester Aemon wants to see you."

For a moment Jaehaerys was surprised. Why would he want to see him now? "Shall I finish my meal first?" he asked. "I'm hungry."

"Sure," Sam smiled.

He found Maester Aemon up in the rookery, feeding the ravens. Clydas was with him, carrying a bucket of chopped meat as they shuffled from cage to cage. "You wanted to see me, maester?"

The maester nodded. "I did indeed. Clydas, give Jaehaerys the bucket. Perhaps he will be kind enough to assist me." The hunched, pink-eyed brother handed Jaehaerys the bucket and scurried down the ladder. "Toss the meat into the cages," Aemon instructed him. "The birds will do the rest. "

Jaehaerys took the bucket in his right hand and thrust his left down into the bloody bits. The ravens began to scream noisily and fly at the bars, beating at the metal with night-black wings. The meat had been chopped into pieces no larger than a finger joint. He filled his fist and tossed the raw red morsels into the cage, and the squawking and squabbling grew hotter. Feathers flew as two of the larger birds fought over a choice piece. Quickly he grabbed a second handful and threw it in after the first.

"Curious, aren't they," the maester said. "Most ravens will eat grain, but they prefer flesh. It makes them strong, and I fear they relish the taste of blood good. In that they are like men . . . and like men, not all ravens are alike."

Jaehaerys had nothing to say to that. He threw meat, wondering why he'd been summoned. No doubt the old man would tell him, in his own good time. Maester Aemon was not a man to be hurried. He had wanted to see him only weeks after his arrival.

"Doves and pigeons can also be trained to carry messages," the maester went on, "though the raven is a stronger flyer, larger, bolder, far more clever, better able to defend itself against hawks . . . yet ravens are black, and they eat the dead, so some godly men abhor them. Baelor the Blessed tried to replace all the ravens with doves, did you know?" The maester turned his white eyes on Jaehaerys, smiling. "The Night's Watch prefers ravens."

Jae's fingers were in the bucket, blood up to the wrist. "Dywen says the wildlings call us crows," he said uncertainty.

"The crow is the raven's poor cousin. They are both beggars in black, hated and misunderstood."

Jae wished he understood what they were talking about, and why. What did he care about ravens and doves? If he had something to say to him, why couldn't he just say it?

"They tell me you show great promise with a sword?"

"Is that why you called me here?" Jae asked him. "To ask me about my swordsmanship?"

The old man smiled softly. "No, I called you here to ask about you. How you were and how-"

"I don't care," Jae cut him off. "I don't care about them and I don't care about you or this place or any of it. I hate it here. It's too . . . it's cold."

"Yes. Cold and hard and mean, that's the Wall, and the men who walk it. Not like the stories your wet nurse told you. It is your life now as It is mine and the others'."

"Life," Jae said bitterly.

"Yes, life," Noye said. "A long life or a short one, it's up to you. The road you're walking, one of your brothers will slit your throat for you one night."

"They're not my brothers," Jae snapped. "They hate me because I'm better than they are."

"No. They hate you because you act like you're better than they are. They look at you and see a prince who thinks he owns the place. Let me say this to you, your Targaryen name will win you no favors in the Watch." Maester Aemon leaned close. "If you are any better than them, why are here in this place where the are and not in some castle? Didn't someone sent you here the same way someone else sent them?"

Jae had no answer for that.

"That's right," the old man said. "You're as same as they are."

"You think you had it worse because he sent you here?" Maester Aemon asked.

Jae shrugged. You did feel it though, a dark part of him whispered.

The old man seemed to sense his guilt. "Your father killed his father under the cover of peace," the old man said, "Any other man in his place wouldn't have been so generous as that. Whatever reason your father had for doing it, will not make it right. My brother once sent our own blood to the Wall for slaying his foe under the peace banner, a foe who would've fought him for the throne. Yet he sent the man to the Wall because it was wrong."

The old man laid a withered, spotted hand on his shoulder. "It hurts, boy," he said softly. "Oh, yes. Choosing . . . it has always hurt. And always will. I know."

"I watched my family rip itself apart, I watched my brother's family fight with my mother's kin and the Gods have seen fit to test my vows more times than that. Had I not been a man of the Night's Watch, they still made it hard for me to choose. He is as much as my kin as you are. So I do know about choosing. But now you must make that choice yourself, and live with it all the rest of your days. As I have." His voice fell to a whisper. "As I have . . . "