"We can't defend the north from the Walkers and the south from the Boltons," Jon said.

He straightened up from the map that was spread out on the table in front of him and looked in turn at Edd, Tormund, and Ser Davos, who were sitting on the opposite side.

"If we want to survive, we need Winterfell, and to take Winterfell, we need more men."

His face set, he turned to Charleen, who was seated beside him.

"How many men did you say the Boltons have in their army?"

"Five thousand," Charleen replied, repeating the information that she had given him over supper the day before. "I heard them say so when they were talking about Stannis' attack."

"Five thousand, aye," Jon continued. "And you, Tormund, how many people do you have that can fight?"

Tormund lowered his gaze.

"Two thousand," he said. "The rest are children and old people."

"Two thousand," Jon repeated. He exhaled heavily, but before he could say another word, Ser Davos spoke up.

"Aside from the Starks and the Boltons," he said, "the most powerful houses in the North are the Umbers, the Karstarks, and the Manderlys. The Karstarks have already declared for the Boltons, but the Umbers and the Manderlys –"

There was a loud knock at the door, and Ser Davos paused, looking at Jon.

"Come in!", Jon called.

The door opened and one of the Black Brothers stepped into the room, holding a scroll of parchment in his hand.

"A letter for you, Lord Commander," he said.

"I'm not Lord Commander any more," Jon told him, but he held out his hand and took the letter all the same. As he did so, Charleen caught a glimpse of a bright red seal with a cross-shaped figure stamped in the middle – the flayed man of House Bolton. She took a deep breath, and Jon briefly caught her gaze before he tore open the seal and unfurled the letter.

"To the traitor and bastard Jon Snow," he read. "You allowed thousands of Wildlings past the Wall. You have betrayed your own kind. You have betrayed the North. Winterfell is mine, bastard, come and see. Your brother Rickon is in my dungeon –"

His voice faltered, and he looked up at Charleen, who stared back at him in horror. There was a moment's absolute silence, then, Jon turned back to the letter and continued to read.

His direwolf's skin is on my floor. Surrender the Night's Watch and all your wildling friends, and I will not trouble you. Refuse, and I will ride north and slaughter every wildling man, woman and babe living under your protection. You will watch as I skin them living. I –"

He paused again, staring at the letter with clenched jaws.

"Go on," Charleen urged, but Jon let the parchment slip from his hands, and it furled up on the table in front of him.

"It's just more of the same."

"Please," Charleen insisted. Whatever else Ramsay might have in store, she felt, it was better to hear it all at once.

Jon looked at her uncertainly for a moment, then, he took a deep breath and picked the letter up again.

"I will find your little medic friend," he read, "and you will watch as my soldiers take turns raping her. You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother. Then I will spoon your eyes from their sockets and let my dogs do the rest. Come and see. Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."

There was a long silence.

"Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North," Jon finally repeated. "His father's dead?"

He looked to Charleen for an answer, but she shrugged her shoulders.

"Roose Bolton was alive and well when I left Winterfell," she said. "I don't know what happened to him, but whatever it was, I'm sure Ramsay had a hand in it."

Jon nodded slowly and then glanced back at the letter.

"There's no mention of Sansa," he remarked.

Charleen bit her lip. "Perhaps because she's too valuable," she suggested. "She's a Stark, and she can give him an heir. If he threatened her and had to make good on his threat, it would harm him more than you."

Jon nodded again. "Aye," he said, "you're right. He needs Sansa. Rickon, on the other hand –"

He left his sentence unfinished, but Charleen knew exactly what he meant. Sansa might be more useful to Ramsay alive than dead, but Rickon, Ned Stark's last surviving son, was a danger to him and would therefore not live long.

Her gaze met Jon's, and for a moment, she saw her own pain reflected in his eyes. Then, he took a deep breath, set aside the letter, and straightened up in his chair.

"Rickon was supposed to seek refuge with House Umber," he said with a glance at Ser Davos. "Now Ramsay has him, which probably means that the Umbers have declared for House Bolton. But there are more than three other houses in the North aside from the Starks and the Boltons. Glover, Mormont, Cerwyn, Mazin, Hornwood – two dozen more. Together they equal all the others. We can start small and build."

He looked around at the others, who nodded in approval.

"You are the son of the last true Warden of the North," Charleen pointed out. "The North remembers. Northern families are loyal; they'll fight for you if they ask."

"They may well be loyal," Ser Davos cautioned, "but how many rose up against the Boltons when they betrayed the Starks? I may not know the North, but I know men, and even the bravest of them don't want to see their wives and children skinned for a lost cause. If Jon's going to convince them to fight alongside him, they need to believe it's a fight they can win."

There was a brief silence; then, Charleen spoke up again.

"What about House Arryn?" she asked. "They're not Northern, but Lord Robin emis/em Sansa's and Rickon's cousin – he might send the Knights of the Vale to help us."

Jon lowered his gaze to the map once again.

"Aye, it's worth a try," he said slowly. "I'm going to send a messenger to the Vale as soon as we have gained some allies in the North."

"Stark, Arryn, a few Northern Houses," Ser Davos listed, "that's good. Almost starts to look like a winning side."

"And the free folk," Jon added, turning to look at Tormund. "Are you sure they'll come?"

"We're not clever like you Southerners," Tormund answered, a roguish smile stealing across his face. "When we say we'll do something, we do it."

The corners of Jon's mouth twitched upwards in turn. "Aye," he said, "you do."

He looked around at the others, and his face became serious again.

"We ride south in two days," he announced. "Our first destination is Bear Island, the seat of House Mormont. Lady Lyanna Mormont is the niece of our late Lord Commander Mormont, and she's loyal to the Starks. When King Stannis asked the Northern lords to commit their houses to his cause, her response was that Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. Stannis showed me her letter. Now, I may not have the Stark name, but I do have Stark blood, and Bear Island therefore seems like a good place to start."

He looked in turn at Tormund, Ser Davos, and Charleen, and they signalled their agreement in silence.

"All right," Jon concluded. He took a deep breath and looked up at Edd, who met his gaze and held it.

"Before I go," Jon said, "there's one thing I still need to do.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

The courtyard of Castle Black was full of people. Black Brothers and free folk alike had gathered there, their eyes all turned towards the wooden platform at the base of the Wall from which the winch cage was operated. On the platform, four men were standing on a board balanced upon two large barrels, which were in turn connected to the counterweight of the winch by two heavy iron chains. Holding up the counterweight was a thick rope that ran across the pulley and down to the floor of the platform, where it was tied to a heavy iron ring.

From her position at the front of the crowd, Charleen watched as two Black Brothers bound the hands of the four men behind their backs and fastened heavy coils of rope around their necks. They slung the ends of the ropes across a wooden beam above the prisoners' heads and then descended from the platform to resume their places among the spectators.

A moment later, the door at the foot of the King's Tower opened and a hush fell over the crowd as Jon emerged with Edd following behind him. All eyes were upon them as they made their way to the platform and up the steps towards the prisoners. Jon walked slowly, his black cloak seeming to weigh heavy upon his shoulders. He went to stand in front of the four men and looked at them in silence.

"If you have any last words," he said finally, "now's the time."

"You shouldn't be alive," the man on the left blurted out. "It's not right!"

Jon raised his head to look at him, but his response was too quiet to make out. After a moment, he moved towards the next man, an elderly fellow with thinning hair and a weather-beaten face, whose voice when he spoke sounded choked, as though the noose around his neck were already too tight.

The third man was Ser Alliser Thorne. He fixed his cold, grey eyes on Jon, but his voice was loud enough at least for those at the front of the crowd to hear.

"I had a choice, Lord Commander," he proclaimed. "Betray you, or betray the Night's Watch. You brought an army of wildlings into our lands." He looked up, his eyes sweeping across the crowd. "An army of murderers and raiders. If I had to do it all over, knowing where I'd end up, I pray I'd make the right choice again."

He paused and looked down at Jon once again. "I fought," he said, "I lost. Now I rest. But you, Lord Snow, you'll be fighting their battles forever."

With that, he raised his head, his gaze wandering out into the distance beyond the courtyard, and for a brief moment, Charleen could not help but admire him. A sworn brother of the Night's Watch, Thorne had remained true to the principles of his order as he understood them, had betrayed his Lord Commander to defend them, and was now prepared to pay the price.

With bated breath, she watched as Jon turned away from Thorne and moved to stand in front of the fourth prisoner – his steward, Olly. The boy's childlike features were contorted into an expression of hatred, which did not soften even as Jon looked up at him. He did not speak, and after a long moment, Jon finally turned away. To his left, the rope that held the counterweight ran down from the pulley to the floor, and Jon moved to stand before it, drawing his sword as he went. For a moment, he hesitated, and Charleen saw his shoulders moving with each heavy breath. Then, a spasm of emotion crossed his face, and in one swift motion, he raised his sword above his head and brought it down, severing the rope.

The counterweight came down with a crash, pulling the barrels out from under the board, and as the prisoners fell, the nooses tightened around their necks. From the corner of her eyes, Charleen saw some of the Black Brothers turning away, but she kept her gaze fixed upon the four men as they gasped and choked, their bodies convulsing grotesquely as their life's breath left them.

When they finally hung still, Jon sheathed his sword and walked across the platform to where Edd was standing. He unfastened his black cloak, slipped it from his shoulders, and put it in Edd's outstretched hands.

"You have Castle Black," he said. "My watch is ended."

The other bowed his head.

"Good luck."

The two men embraced; then, Jon turned away and slowly came down the steps. Without his cloak, he appeared smaller somehow, more vulnerable, but he also seemed to be moving with greater ease, as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He passed along the front of the crowd and stopped in front of Charleen. Their eyes met, and Jon wordlessly held out his hand. Without a moment's hesitation, Charleen grasped it in hers, and so they passed through the crowd, who moved aside silently to let them pass. Only Ser Davos, Tormund, and Melisandre stepped forward to follow them, and together, they went out through the gate to where their horses stood waiting.