MELISANDRE
At nightfall she walked along the battlements of Castle Black, lighting torches and offering prayers. Most of the men who accepted them did not believe in the Red God, but they were glad for the warmth that a little belief, of any kind, brought to their hearts. And though there was nothing she could offer in the way of magic or true ceremony, she cast her powders into the braziers that lined the wallwalk, and the flames rose bright and red and heroic. She hoped it might be not just a divine motivation to their men, but a fearsome ward to their attackers, encamped to the south. But their attackers were not men, even if they once had been, and fear did not eat at them in that way.
With her part done, she retired to her own chambers a while, where she and Beren ate a plain repast, usually little more than bread and cheese washed down with beer. Melisandre did not need the food especially, but she spent half of most nights as Melony, and for that she did.
Samwell Tarly came to see her in her chambers just as the drummers were starting to play on the walls. "Any signs yet?" he asked. Some nights she knew instinctively which parts of the castle were most vulnerable to assault, or where the enemy would be concentrated thickest. But tonight there was nothing. She told the Lord Commander as much. "Well," he said. "That's a pity." They talked some more, about nothing much in particular, and then he went, declaring that he had his own part to play on the walls. He was afraid, she could see, but he did not need to be. Melisandre did not think Samwell Tarly would fall tonight.
But others would.
The enemy was first sighted come the hour of the crow, appropriately. Three horn blasts sounded, a sound that had once been the thing of legend, but was now familiar. There were no white walkers with them, but wights merited the same heralding, three deep, echoing blasts that even now, after several nights of siege, still shook Castle Black to its ancient foundations.
And so the wights came. They ran up the kingsroad and from the flanks, at the three main gates of the castle bounded by the new curtain wall. In the tall gatehouse towers, wildling archers notched their bows, and fired heavy bodkin points that smashed through solid grey bone as if it were cloth and tore flesh to shreds. Some of the other arrows were wrapped in cloth, dipped in tar, and then lit aflame, and when they struck in the night, the wights in question went up like small bright bonfires, writhing and screaming as they fell into the melted snow. And when the wights got closer, the archers would loose their flaming arrows into the traps of kindling and pitch that ran beneath the towers, and great walls of smoky flame would rise up, and the leading wights would be caught in them and would burn. Those that came behind would jump back in horror, standing idle while arrows rained down on them. By now the wights were in the range of the wall catapults and scorpions too, so heavy stones and blazing great bolts would slice through their ranks.
But inevitably the fire would burn down, and the wights would reach the wall. There, Northmen poured boiling pitch down on their heads, which caught light when arrows met it, and after that boiling water, and after that rocks, barrels, sandbags, anything they had to hand. The wights would swarm the wall, climbing over one another, rising in a hellish human pyramid of grey flesh. When they reached the top, the Northmen were ready with their pikes, sticking straight out, and they plunged them through the chests of the dead men. Yet one of them would reach too far, and he too would be pulled over the battlements, and almost before he hit the ground, they would be upon him, tearing at flesh and bone. And that would be the first death of the night.
It was impossible to stop them from getting up onto the walls, even if they repulsed the first few waves unopposed. And then the Northmen retreated, and the wildlings took charge, better skilled with short swords, long knives, and their bare fists. Steel and dragonglass alike, punching in and out, and the wights fighting back, red blood and black blood spraying everywhere.
Melisandre watched it all through the fire in her chambers. She had spent the first couple of nights out on the Wall, multiplying the fires to double their sizes, but eventually they had decided that she would serve them better as a scout of sorts, watching in her chambers to see if any covert attacks were being carried out. And when she saw wights swarming over an undefended part of wall, or a new wave setting out, she would tell Beren to go and run the message to Lord Commander Tarly or Dolorous Edd or Tormund Giantsbane. The boy ran back and forth two dozen times each night; by the end he was always red and sweaty. But he was less likely to die that way, and Melisandre did have to admit she had a certain fondness for the squire.
She had other duties, too, though. Her chambers were behind the infirmary. Occasionally the women would knock on her door, always seeming somewhat afraid, and tell her that a man had come in with his arm torn off and bleeding at the shoulder, or his face horribly burned. "There is nothing we can do," they would say, "but you might, my lady."
So she told them to bring these men in, and, with one eye on the fire all the time, she would work with her potions and poultices. Sometimes there was nothing that could be done, and the only remedy she could offer then was mercy. But sometimes she could reduce their suffering, or heal their temporary ailments, or lend them the strength that was needed for an amputation or the like. It sapped her power greatly, to give her life-force in that way. But it had to be done.
And then it would be over, as suddenly as that. The wights would cease their assault. For whatever reason, they only ever came at night, though during the day they would have found the Night's Watch woefully unprepared. But it was so, a cycle, taking more and more away from them every night until there would be nothing left.
Every morning the goodwives cooked a hearty meal, some broth with meat and beans, and grainy bread. Melisandre did not partake, but she still knew how important it was. All across the world, they claimed an army marched on its stomach. There must be some truth in that.
Every morning, the leaders held a council to assess the previous night's losses, and to determine what must be done the next night. Melisandre attended such meetings, though she rarely spoke at them, for the Northmen took a dim view of her foreign interference.
This morning was more of the usual; damaged defences whose repair would be the day's greatest priority; broken men who had fled in the night – though these were few and far between, for most understood that to leave Castle Black was to give yourself up to death; the loss of particular fighters or their brothers or their sons; today, it was one of the Greatjon's nephews who was the noble loss, and also they lamented for one of the wildling heroes, a woman who had saved ten men from death two nights ago, and yet, it seemed, had not been spared the fate of all heroes. Melisandre made sure to take their names; she would say a prayer for them later; it was all she could do.
After the council was over she had a private audience with Lord Commander Tarly. There was, though, as ever, not enough to be said to sustain their time. They spent long minutes looking out of the windows, as men worked to clear the yard of the fresh snowfall. "There will be a night," Master Tarly said, "when they all come at once. Won't there?"
Was he asking her because he thought she knew, or because he wanted reassurance? "I do not know," she said. "The Lord has His limitations. As we have both learned. All I can be sure of is that this is His will." And even that claim was tenuous.
"If it is will that we all die here, then why doesn't He just tell us about it?" He spoke with unusual sarcasm, and he realised it. "My apologies. I still have some of the Citadel's bitter philosophies in me, it would seem."
Melisandre shrugged. "It is a fair question, though. One I have myself often puzzled over. I think… if the gods were not mystified, then they would no longer be gods. All one has to do to defeat a thing is prove its mortality. That is half the battle."
"Would that we could fight against the Others on those grounds," said Master Tarly. Then Tormund Giantsbane came in to speak with him about the niter traps they were preparing for the enemy. Melisandre snuck out unnoticed.
Until dusk, she worked in her chambers, while the men worked out in the yard. She had Beren and a couple of apprentices in and out, bringing what alchemicals Castle Black possessed, so that she might mix powders and potions and other such things that would keep them in the night ahead. There were things here, too, that she was saving for the last night: for the Long Night. When the siege ended, and the storming of Castle Black began, she would be ready.
That was the strangest thing. For the first time in her life, Melisandre of Asshai felt ready to die. It might, too, have been the first time she was sure of something worth dying for. She thought, oddly, of Stannis's Onion Knight. Davos Seaworth, with five sons lost to forces beyond his control, had a greater understanding of mortality than almost any man she had ever met. And having lived most of his life on the narrow line between law and lawlessness, she was certain that Davos Seaworth did not err when it came to causes worth dying for; if he had ever doubted Stannis, he could have smuggled himself and his family out of Dragonstone with ease, and they would never have heard from him again. Oh, she might have tracked him down eventually, but in this present state of hers, that was not the sort of thing she would do. If a man wants to run, let him run. But she trusted that most of them would not.
She realised, in a peculiar, somewhat undefinable way, that she wanted Ser Davos Seaworth here with her. And Princess Shireen, too. She had never been able to pinpoint why she had spared Shireen; yes, there had been the reminders of herself, of Melony, Lot Seven; coupled with the realisation of the sacrifice's unnecessity; Stannis was not Azor Ahai. She had, early on, attributed it to some sort of moral balance; so she told Thoros of Myr, at least. "I thought in saving her, I might be doing some good." And yet that did not explain all of it.
Here it was: this strange realisation again. I have felt more at home here, in these months in Castle Black, than anywhere else in the world. Was this was ordinary people lived and died for? Had she ever felt like this before, in the time before the Temple, perhaps?
She supped with Beren – or rather, he ate while she watched. The boy was fifteen now, the same age Devan Seaworth had been before he rode to his death. I wish I had never brought you, she thought. You should have stayed with Lord Glover's baggage train; you might have been home by now, instead of here with me. The boy was showing signs of promise, yes, but she knew that his inevitable sacrifice would not be worth it.
After supper she commenced the evening's final task: she left Beren in her chambers, and walked through the wormways back to Castle Black's meat larder. No one was following, good. She took a torch from the wall – she was sure she would not need it, but it was best to be certain, opened the door, bolted it shut behind her, and descended into the chilly shadows.
An hour later she emerged, neither surprised nor disappointed at the lack of a change. So be it. No use beating a dead horse, to use the Westerosi expression. And—
"What have you got down there?"
She turned to look into the shivering face of Theon Greyjoy. "Have you been waiting for me?"
A wordless nod. Again, the set, slightly shivering jaw: "What's down there?"
Melisandre gestured. "Take a look, if you wish." He would see nothing she did not want him to see. More than that, though, she doubted he would go.
She was right. Instead he stood there shivering for a few more moments until haltingly he broke out with, "I have a question for you."
"What makes you think I will be able to answer it?"
"You're a sorceress. They told me you were. They told me…" He broke off.
Melisandre gestured. "Then ask, Lord Greyjoy."
"My uncle said… Euron said he had found a way to live forever. Is that… is that possible?"
"No," she said simply.
"No?"
"Let me put it this way, Lord Greyjoy. Look at the Others. We think of them as immortal, undying… when I truth, I suspect their lives are as mortal as ours. They just happen to live much longer lifespans. And when death comes to them… why, I imagine that in all the annals of their history, there are those for whom death comes not as a foe. Rather they realise their time is up. Or, perhaps, they have loved as men do, and lost as men do, and they have nothing left to live for, and so death, even to the Others, may be mercy. There may be ways to live forever, but nothing ever will. Because no man is an island, and though a man may have infinity, he cannot live for it alone."
Something about the encounter left her curious. Rather than return to the ramparts to start her cycle again, she climbed the stairs back to her chambers. Beren was gone, doubtless out on the walls already, perhaps to die. And—
The glass candle was lit.
Not the whole candle, of course; that had shattered over Lord Snow's body, but the fragments of it that were left she had rearranged in a dish on the table. And now, unmistakeably, the fragments were burning, red-hot, threatening to scorch through the pottery. Melisandre quickly gathered them up and waved her hand over them, blinking, trying to get a glimpse and see what was within it. The smoke eddied about her face; in it she saw malformed shapes, incomplete patterns, uncertain colours. Eyes – sometimes blue, green, brown – whose eyes? Wood, blue-veined, pale wood. And then: a voice. It seemed to come from a thousand places at once, places as far as Asshai and Oldtown, in a thousand dialects and language, all converging like rivers to form the word Melony.
One word alone, and yet it terrified her. One word, and yet she knew she was speaking to something of unimaginable power, something that would not just make a red priestess of R'hllor shake, but would shake her God Himself. She had never felt such violent cold in her life. Her hands shook; her mouth could barely form words; it was hard to think. "Who are you?" she whispered. Her breath misted in the air.
And all it once it stopped; the cold burned away, and the candle flame was hot again. But Melisandre was not. The voice was one she could never forget. She knew that voice.
