Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. It means a lot, so thank you.

This chapter does contain a little re-cap of events that concluded the prequel to this story, "A Place of Greater Safety". It's very relevant as to why Jon went along with the 'King in the North' business in the last chapter.

Chapter Twelve: Complications

By the time Sam despatched the raven for Winterfell it was after dawn. He turned the latch on Maester Aemon's door, letting himself inside. Muffled sounds could be heard from within the Maester's sleeping chamber, letting him know the old man was already up and about. Allowing him time to get ready Sam called out a cheery greeting and got straight to work on the fire in the solar. It was so cold in there his breath fogged in front of his face and he could feel the bitter draughts through his furs. The turret was scarce fit for a dog, never mind one as aged as Maester Aemon.

Younger recruits, tasked with menial duties, had already laid out a dried firewood and kindling. It was piled beside a small stack of letters with handwriting that looked unfamiliar to him. Curiously, he knelt by the hearth and picked one up. The hand was blocky and bold, with frequent mistakes and crossings out; the message itself brief to the point of being terse:

"Maester, Lady Lyanna's babe quickens more than ever. Time is running out for her and there is still no sign of help coming. I beseech you, send word to Lord Stark again and urge him to hasten south. He's our last hope, the only person she will trust. The Lady is half mad with grief for her beloved husband, Prince Rhaegar, and fear for her unborn child. No more to you now for lack of time, but before I close: this letter is carried by a loyal Targaryen – ever true and faithful. Please see to it that he is taken into the Night's Watch and protect him from the Usurper's assassins. Yours forever, A.D."

Sam's breath caught in his throat as he read the letter through twice. Furtively, he glanced over his shoulder, towards the chamber where the Maester was still shuffling behind closed doors. He was humming to himself now, a tune Sam did not recognise. Once more, he looked at the letter in his hands, wondering whether it was actually meant to be burned after all. He barely noticed, but his hands were shaking just from holding the damn thing.

"Er…." He called out. "Er, Maester, there's a – er…"

His words trailed off pathetically as he put the letter down beside his bent knee. Briefly, he wondered who "A.D" was, but soon gave up on that one. But, so many years on from the rebellion and, with King Robert himself now dead, was the letter that incendiary anymore? With Joffrey on the throne, probably. Luckily for Maester Aemon, literate members of the Night's Watch were now few and far between. Not one of their new recruits – who more than likely laid out the fire materials – would have been able to read a word of it.

"Is something the matter, Sam?"

The elderly Maester had now appeared in his doorway, dressed in his roughspun tunic. His blind eyes were directed the rafters, his face more wizened than ever in the poor light of the morning. It occurred to Sam then, in a whole new way, just how much Aemon had lived through in his long years.

"I don't know, Maester," he replied, slowly getting back to his feet. "But I found this letter and I think you need to be a little more careful with it."

The old man frowned. "Read it out to me, if you could be so kind?"

Sam did so, lowering his voice as though he spoke some great treason. It only took a few seconds, after which he raised his eyes and watched the Maester's reaction. Not that there was any, beyond the faint smile that played at the corners of his lips. If anything, he seemed almost relived.

"That's all right," he said, at length. "I put it there. Glad it's the right one. You see, I could only tell by feeling the bumps in the parchment from that person's awful writing. Circumstances have changed, Master Tarly, and I think it would be best if the letter no longer existed."

Sam's eyes narrowed. If it was that incriminating, why would the Maester have left it there for him to see? Not for the first time, he felt that the Maester was tacitly imparting some vital piece of information to him. Something he would not figure out immediately, but would occur to him at the eleventh hour.

"What changed?" he asked, quietly.

"The infant lived," answered the Maester. "Now, if you could get that fire going I would be forever grateful to you."

With his mind still firmly on the letter, Sam struck the flint and watched the sparks take hold of the wood. Soon, smoke was billowing up the chimney. He thought again of the sword pulled from the lake in the Godswood and of his friend, Jon Stark formerly known as Snow. His arrival at Castle Black had sparked a change in Maester Aemon, with his 'research' into the Targaryens.

"Are you certain that you want this letter burned?" he asked, glancing at Aemon over his shoulder.

Who wrote it? He wanted to ask. Who delivered it? But his voice seemed caught in his chest. The frustrating thing was he was leaving for a ranging beyond the wall that afternoon, bound for Craster's Keep initially. This was his last chance to dig for information. Meanwhile, the Maester looked thoughtful.

"Burn it, Sam," he said. "There's been blood enough in my family without inviting more."

You still wanted me to know though, didn't you? Sam thought to himself. If Lord Randyll had taught him one thing, it was to read between the lines before reading on the line.

"As you wish, Maester," he said, reaching for some paper and feeding it to the flames.

The letter felt like a deadweight in his hands, far heavier than mere parchment alone. While the flames crackled, he folded it up and slipped it into his breast pocket and picked up another scrap of waste paper. As he slipped it into the fire, he looked back up at the Maester.

"There," he declared. "All done."

The original letter was safe in his breast pocket, where it would remain until he worked it all out – if he hadn't already. Maester Aemon looked satisfied.

"I know you, Sam Tarly," he replied, nodding in approval. "I know you better than you think."

The voices of hundreds of men still echoed in Jon's head, all them declaring Robb 'King in the North'. He hadn't expected it; none of them had. But in that small moment when the words of Greatjon Umber had resonated round the Great Hall, it all seemed to make sense to Jon. Before that moment, he had feared that the bannermen would gather, decry the murder of their Liege Lord, then disperse after venting their spleens and leave the southern kings to slug it out among themselves. Quite understandable, since there would be no real force to glue them together into one cohesive battle unit; no real focal point with which to drive their campaign. But, however unwittingly, Robb had been the one to provide them with all they needed. All without having to reveal any risky secrets.

But once more secreted away inside Maester Luwin's chambers, away from everyone else, Robb still paced anxiously. Lady Stark still looked numbed from grief and shock as she behind the Maester's desk. Jon, meanwhile, sat on the window ledge and directed his gaze into the grounds below. Already their amassed forces were gearing up for the march south, battle-ready and hungry for confrontation.

"We should have told them last night," Robb said. "You heard what Greatjon said: we bend the knee to no king in the south. But a northern King in the south would be a different matter. Don't you see that?"

They had already been over this. Jon looked up at his brother again, trying to catch his eye. But still he paced, until his mother pulled out another chair and implored him to sit.

"We can't keep doing this, Robb," she said. "We need to think of a way forward. I say we reinforce Moat Cailin-"

"Mother!" Robb cut her off. "They're fighting for the wrong King."

Lady Stark looked stung by the tone of rebuke in her own son's voice. If there had been one positive outcome to Greatjon's declaration, it was that it had given Lady Stark something to focus on instead of her grief. Jon stepped in decisively.

"Lady Stark is right, Robb," he said, briefly glancing over at Catelyn. "We need to reinforce all defences that border your lands-"

"I said they're fighting for the wrong King," Robb butted in again. "We agreed and I was working on the premise that you would be our King-"

"I agreed to no such thing!" Jon retorted, growing angry. "I agreed that we should march south and join the war, but for either Stannis or Renly. I couldn't very well stand up on the table, right after Greatjon swore to you as King in the North, and say: 'oh, by the way, I'm the new King'. I'm still Ned Stark's bastard to them, or have you forgotten that?"

He slipped down from the window embrasure and positioned himself right in front of Robb as he spoke. The two of them facing each other down as their tempers frayed. It was part waiting for the action to begin and part frustrated grief that was wearing them down. Jon knew that, but it didn't make dealing with it any easier. But before things could escalate further, Lady Stark was on her feet and separating them both – a hand on each of their chests and physically dividing them.

"Will you both boil your heads!" she snapped at them, anger flashing in her eyes. "You're like two shadowcats scratching each other's eyes out."

After a moment, the tension dissipated and Catelyn, adopting her no-nonsense motherly tone, ordered them both to sit at table together. Once settled, she poured them all some wine to lighten their moods. A sweet summer wine that would soon become a scarcity once they were on the road south.

"Now listen, both of you," she said, sitting between them like an arbitrator at an arm wrestling match. "None of us had any idea of what Greatjon had planned and Greatjon had no idea we have a legitimate claimant in our midst. But we must deal with the situation as it stands-"

"But we should have told them about Jon there and then," Robb insisted. "I have called Howland Reed from Greywater Watch, he could have verified Jon's identity."

Catelyn drew a deep breath, as if drawing in patience. "Lord Reed will not leave Greywater. He has sent men, as you asked; he's also sent his two children. But he will not come in person. Now, the consequences of Jon revealing his true identity, and for us who have harboured him, could be severe enough to make the Doom of Valyria look like a frolic through the rose bushes of Highgarden. He was absolutely right not to declare his hand there and then. Just think what the Lannisters would do to Arya and Sansa if he had?"

Jon already knew all this, but he glanced across the table to see how Robb was taking it. Mutinously. But he was no longer interrupting, so Lady Stark continued:

"You remember when we got Jon back from Barbrey Dustin, when your father finally told me the truth of who his real parents were? I agreed to Jon's legitimisation but needed a reason to accept him that would attract no further untoward attention, given how things were between Jon and I..." Catelyn, even now, flushed with shame at the memory of their past bitterness. "So your father and I confirmed that Jon's mother really was Wylla the Wet Nurse. No more rumours; no more speculation and no more whispering behind our backs. That was to be the end of it. So not only does every northern lord here think of Jon as Ned's bastard, they think he's Wylla's bastard, too."

Even Jon had forgotten that small detail and, evidently, so had Robb. He dropped his head in his hands, scrubbing at his face and sighed heavily. When he met Jon's gaze again, he wore a look of utter resignation on his face.

"Last night," Jon said, growing tired of being spoken of as if he wasn't in the room. "If I had stood up after Greatjon's speech and just said: 'oh, by the way I know what we told you but, actually, I'm Rhaegar and Lyanna's son…' it all would have been a little convenient. Don't you think? How are we supposed to prove it?"

He had Dark Sister, Rhaegar's old harp and a locket. A few letters from his father to his great uncle were sitting, unread, in his trunk currently still locked in his chambers. Other than that, it would be their word against everyone else's.

"What little evidence we do have may even be enough for the Northern Lords," said Catelyn. "But we'll need a lot more than that to win over the powerful southern lords."

Robb held up his hands in a gesture of defeat. "All right! All right, I surrender. But I feel as though I am leading my men into battle under a lie. That I cannot allow."

Jon shrugged. "What if it's not a lie?" Both Catelyn and Robb looked sharply at him, so he continued: "What is wrong with Northern independence? You know this place is unique among the seven kingdoms. You know the people here are proud and fiercely independent already. Maybe they have been held in bondage to the Iron Throne too long and it's time for a new regime to take its place? If so, then there is none better than you to do it, Robb. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a new regime to take over in more than just the north."

Jon didn't think he could ever reconcile to being King. That wasn't what he was born for. But he could feel himself taking baby steps towards something far greater than he ever imagined for himself. Whatever that was. But, Lady Stark brought them both back around to the immediate present.

"We can decide this later," she pointed out. "First, we need to win."

That was something both Jon and Robb could agree on.

"Well then, reinforcements for Moat Cailin…" he began, raising a smile.

It was late in the evening when Samwell's letter arrived. Jon had been about to go to bed, when Maester Luwin called at his door. He reached into his dagged sleeve and withdrew a slender, rolled parchment.

"For you, from Castle Black," the Maester explained, handing it to him and leaving.

Thanking him, Jon took it over to the nearest candelabra to read. Benjen had been lost among the chaos of Lord Stark's execution and preparations for war. He had simply slipped off their page, silent and almost unnoticed. It came as a relief to him to know at least the Brothers of the Night's Watched had been paying attention. First stop, Craster's Keep, wherever that was. He smiled as he imagined Sam and his new brothers setting out across the frozen wastes. A part of him, small as it may have been, still wished he were with them.

Sansa looked at her reflection in the looking glass. Her lip was swollen and purple and, away from the looking glass, her legs ached horribly from where she had been kicked. A cut ran down her chin, but it wasn't deep. Just sore and weeping; matching the bruise on her cheek. Carefully, she brought her index finger up and traced over the red line that ran from her bottom lip to her chin. She had stopped crying now, at least. She didn't think she had any tears left to cry even if she wanted to.

She had just begun to compose herself following her father's death; consoling herself with thoughts of home and being free from Joffrey. Looking back now she could see how naïve she had been; thinking the Queen would just let her ride off into the Northern dusk on horseback. Not only was she their prisoner, she was still engaged to Joffrey. The sight of him alone now made her feel violently unwell. She would never be free.

The Queen had hauled her out of her chambers and forced her to write another letter to her brother. Cersei dictated the words, but in her head she was screaming all the way through it. "Disband your host immediately and disperse in peace," she had written at the Queen's command. 'No, get more troops; get more archers and swordsman and horses and march south,' she thought to herself, 'bring me their heads and we'll spike them over Winterfell.'

Sometimes, when she slept, she dreamed she was a wolf. More specifically, she dreamed she was Lady. She recognised the place, too. She was in the Riverlands with Nymeria at her side. In her dreams, she was fierce. No one could harm her; not with her sister there. Together they prowled the land with the taste of blood lingering in their mouths – the residue of their latest kill. Still they hungered for more and every other creature fled before them.

After this brief respite she awoke back in the body of a broken and frightened girl. A foolish, stupid little girl who was so naïve as to believe in dreams. Arya and Nymeria were probably dead; just like everyone else she had known. She cast aside the wolf dreams as readily as she now did the ones of Princes and Courtly Chivalry.

Thanks again for reading. Reviews would be lovely, if you have a moment.