Late July, 301 AC
Jon leaned back in his chair, the first dull throb of a headache lurking in the back of his skull. Would that Maester Aemon were here. He needed the old man's counsel now more than ever. But the old maester was two weeks dead, his shrunken frame burned upon a funeral pyre. Only Jon knew that the flames were more than a precaution against the dead man rising. Only Jon knew that Aemon Targaryen might once have been a king.
"Bad news?" Asked Dolorous Edd Tollett, who had brought the letter from the ravenry.
"Ser Alliser Thorne is dead."
So said Lord Godric Borrell of Sweetsister, whose fishermen had found a half dozen corpses on their shores dressed all in black. It must have been months since the autumn storms shattered the ship against the rocks of the Bite, the hulk trapped in a hidden crevice before time and the tides finally set her loose. No longer would Jon have to fret over what had become of the Blackbird and her precious cargo, whether Ser Alliser was begging the Iron Throne to send them men or whether he was begging the Iron Throne to help him overthrow his hated Lord Commander. It should be a relief, to know that Thorne would not return to drive a knife into his back, yet Jon could take no joy from word of his death.
"Well, my old wet nurse said deaths always came in threes," said Dolorous Edd. "First the maester, now Thorne... if the gods were good it would be my turn next, but they always did like to watch old Edd suffer." The squire sighed deeply, as though annoyed that death would not save him from his burdens. "Mayhaps they'll take Mance Rayder and stop His Grace's bellyaching. Or maybe they'll take His Grace; the man looks half a corpse."
The lord commander refused to permit himself a smile. "Best not think about it, Edd."
"Yes, m'lord. Anything else, m'lord?"
Jon Snow rubbed at his eyes, as though that would make the haphazard pile of scrolls and ledgers and account books somehow shrink. He could barely see the dark wood of his desk beneath the clutter; his quill and ink jar seemed to have vanished entirely.
"Flint and steel?" Jon muttered, his ill temper momentarily getting the best of him.
Dolorous Edd shrugged. "If m'lord likes, but there'll be more papers and parchments before this lot finish turning to ashes. Might be more effective to set the Lord Steward afire, but there's no telling whether he'd burn, what with pomegranates being so full of juice. Be like trying to set fire to a bucket of water."
Jon sighed, pulling the closest parchment to him. "Never mind, Edd."
"At least Her Grace is gone," Edd offered.
Jon bit back a laugh. Queen Selyse had taken leave of their hospitality three months ago, and not a moment too soon. He would not miss her looming over him, her lips pursed at whatever inconvenience currently displeased her. Gods be good, the woman did nothing but complain, complain and worship the red god she loved so well. Well, that and fuss over her daughter, Princess Shireen. Three-Finger Hobb's kitchen boys still missed the princess's company.
"Thsnk you, Edd, that's all for now."
"Is m'lord sure?" Dolorous Edd eyed him like a hen brooding over a sickly chick. "A cup of willowbark might be some help. Maester Turquin—"
"Is no doubt busy enough already."
Though it was a few moons since Castle Black's new maester arrived, time had done little to improve his sulking. Maester Turquin had been one of the Citadel's most able scholars, his chain a heavy collar with dozens of links made of different metals. There were half a dozen links of silver for healing, three links of yellow gold for money and accounts, bronze for astronomy and copper for history, brass for metalcraft and pewter for law, platinum for philosophy and black iron for ravenry... Jon had expected a maester with a single paltry chain, perhaps a drunkard or a wastrel. Only after carefully interrogating the two acolytes who accompanied Maester Turquin did he discover the cause of the Watch's good fortune.
Maester Turquin was a cordwainer's son. A cordwainer's son who made no secret of his wish to someday become an archmaester, perhaps even Grand Maester to the king.
"Maester Gormon thought Turquin too ambitious," Armen said, one hand idly touching the leather thong he wore strung about his neck. A stolid, serious youth of twenty fond of looking down his long thin nose, Armen had already forged seven links, one each of pewter, tin, lead, copper, black iron, silver, and brass. "When Turquin disproved one of Gormon's theories on the causes of ulcers..." Rather than finish his thought Armen gave the lord commander a significant look, as though the Citadel might be listening.
The other acolyte, Roone, was little more help. A chunky, friendly boy of fifteen, he seemed entirely oblivious to the politics of the Citadel. All he knew was that the day after he earned his first link in nickel for learning the basics of the Summer Tongue, the only one to succeed amongst a group that included such worthies as a Royce and a Tyrell, he'd been summoned by Archmaester Vaellyn and informed that he would be continuing his studies at the Wall.
"I wanted to forge a link of Valyrian steel next," the boy informed Jon plaintively. "But Turquin can't teach me because he doesn't have one."
Jon ran a hand through his hair, as though that would help the headache already forming. Mulling the mysteries of the Citadel would get him nowhere; he had more urgent matters to attend to, like the parchment he had pulled from the pile at random. Squinting at the Lord Steward's small handwriting, Jon read:
Estimate of Taxes Owed by the Wildling Women of Queenscrown
Jon groaned. Taxes were a yearly matter; why had Bowen Marsh laid this before him now, in the middle of seventh month? The women had barely had time to begin growing their crops, let alone harvesting them.
His decision to let the haggard band of wildling women through the Wall had faced little opposition. Even Bowen Marsh had to concede that Craster's wives posed little threat in and of themselves. The Lord Steward was more concerned about the potential difficulties posed by having a group of women within easy reach, especially with the Mole's Town brothel still abandoned.
It was nigh on a year and a half since Mance Rayder's attack on the Wall had sent the moles fleeing down the kingsroad, and not a single one had come back. The black brothers were not accustomed to abstinence; some had visited the brothel with more frequency than the bathhouse, and they watched the wives with hungry eyes from almost the moment they arrived. With half the sworn brothers desperate to dig for buried treasure, the month betwixt the arrival of Craster's wives at the Wall and their departure to Queenscrown had crawled by slower than a snail.
Pretty Nyra and prettier Buttercup had taken the brunt of the drooling and staring, so much so that their older, plainer sisters Nella and Birra took to accompanying them on the rare occasions that they left the timber hall he'd set aside for Craster's wives and daughters. Freltha went where she pleased, glowering at any brother desperate enough to make moon eyes at a woman past forty and built like a brick wall. The rapers who eyed Nyra and Buttercup gave her a wide berth, doubtless noting the heavy wooden mallet always in her hand.
Gods be praised, none bothered the little triplets. Nor did they bother Dyah, twelve years old and mad for horses, with the exception of an incident shortly after the wildlings arrived. One of the stewards, Rudge, had made a foul remark at her, only to find himself promptly brained by a passing builder.
"Served 'im right," said Kegs when he was brought before the lord commander, unabashed and unrepentant. His name was well earned; the man was as stout as a keg, and as slow. Usually. Apparently the old man had nearly flown across the stables in his haste to snatch up a pitchfork and smash it over Rudge's head. A gallant gesture, and one that might have pleased Jon, if not for Kegs' habit of making even bawdier comments at Freltha whenever he happened upon her in the yard. Not that pointing this out to Kegs did any good.
"That's a fine hale woman," Kegs protested. "Not a wee babe barely begun t' bleed. If'n she didn't like it, why don't she raise that hammer o' hers?"
Because she's not fool enough to try a carpenter's hammer against a dozen brothers armed with steel. "Nevertheless," Jon said evenly. "You will keep your tongue to yourself."
That night Jon Snow addressed the men before the evening meal. The laws of the Night's Watch forbade raping a fellow sworn brother on penalty of death, a law enforced only rarely. There was no law at all regarding the rape of wildling women.
"Henceforth," Jon Snow announced, pitching his voice so it carried across the hall. "Any man who rapes or attempts to rape a woman, wildling or otherwise, will be gelded." He would have preferred death, truth be told, but their numbers were so few... when he informed Bowen Marsh of his decision, the lord steward had brusquely reminded him that unlike a dead man, a gelded man could still draw a bow or muck stables. And rape a woman with his hands, or with the handle of a pitchfork like Rudge suggested he might do.
Jon would have gelded Rudge for that, if not for the fact that the steward could remember neither shouting at Dyah nor the past several weeks. Rudge also could not speak properly; his words were so slurred that listening to him was like trying to read a letter after knocking over the ink bottle. He had nodded when Jon told him the penalty for rape or attempted rape, but Jon could not be sure whether he had quite understood. Thankfully, he did not trouble any of the wildling women again.
Five moons had come and gone since he'd watched Craster's wives set out for Queenscrown, two of them laboring in the traces of a wooden oxcart, the rest carrying heavy burdens upon their backs. Freltha, a muscled woman in her forties, had made the crude oxcart herself, and the rest had filled it with the humble goods they had made while guests of the Night's Watch. In the shelter of the timbered hall they'd spun thread, mended their furs, cobbled scraps of leather into shoes, even woven thin branches of wood into mats of latticed wattle. They would need them, to make a few of Queenscrown's daub-and-wattle huts habitable. At Jon's command Bowen Marsh begrudgingly provided the women with seed and a few simple tools, but only after Jon reminded him that women who could adequately feed themselves were more likely to honor their promise to give up a tenth of their harvest to the Watch.
Jon yawned as he stared at the parchment again, at the long columns of numbers and estimates of how much the women's harvest might yield and how the tax they paid would add to the Watch's supplies. Clearing a space to his left, Jon set the parchment aside, selecting a scroll sealed with a fiery heart, the stag within so tiny as to be almost invisible.
Writ by Maester Harrold on behalf of His Grace, Stannis Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm
On this the twelfth day of the seventh month, in the three hundred and first year since Aegon's Conquest, at the Nightfort
Lord Commander,
Your impertinent demand that I return your builders with all haste is denied. As regards Stonedoor and Sable Hall...
The news was no better or worse than Jon Snow expected, but his temples throbbed nonetheless, as they almost always did when he had to deal with the southron king. Thank the gods Stannis rarely left his gloomy seat, not unless he was in such a temper that mere ink could not convey his outrage. Jon's ears still rang from their last meeting a month past, when he at last received a letter from Robb.
"A dragon?" Stannis roared, near shaking with rage as he flung the parchment in Jon's face. Thank the gods that they were alone in the lord commander's chambers. "Did that arrow pierce his cheek or his skull? The nerve, the sheer impudence—read it, Lord Snow, and tell me what in the Seven Hells your brother is playing at."
Jon smoothed out the crumpled, torn parchment, ignoring the king's pacing and scowling as he began to read. At first he could not see why Stannis was in such ill humor. Robb Stark, King in the North, King of the Trident, King of Mountain and Vale, acknowledged Stannis Baratheon's claim to the Iron Throne by right of inheritance from Robert Baratheon. He agreed as to Cersei Lannister's adultery and the bastardy of her children, he agreed as to the need to overthrow the Lannisters' illegitimate court as soon as winter ended...
His brow furrowed. After winter ends. Much as Stannis declared it was his destiny to fight the Others, he grew impatient after long months waiting for the enemy to show his face. His knights he kept occupied chasing after Mance Rayder, growing ever angrier the longer the wildling king eluded them, their numbers dwindling as knights perished from cold or disappeared into the forest. The King required more men, and Robb refused to give him any. Northern troops would march north to reinforce the Wall, but they would pay no homage to Stannis. Nor would they obey his commands, answering only to their own lords and to the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. The Wall is his, the letter said, and it is for the Lord Commander to defend as he sees fit.
Things did not improve from there. While King Robb could not speak for lords beyond his kingdoms, the northern lords, riverlords, and lords of the Vale had chosen him as their king, not Stannis. A heavy burden, Robb wrote, and one not easily put aside. Jon wondered if Stannis saw the message there, the implication that Robb might be willing to set aside his crown. My lords have long memories, and say it was the King in the North who drove the Lannisters from the Riverlands, not Stannis Baratheon. That was true enough; Tywin Lannister's reavers had raped and burned across the Riverlands for long months while Stannis brooded on Dragonstone. He had not even declared himself king until a sixmonth after Robert's death, and then he'd marched on Storm's End to take it from his younger brother Renly.
As matters stand, your following is less than five thousand men. A generous count; perhaps that was how many Stannis had before losing a few hundred in battle driving the wildlings from the Wall and several hundred more since then to the cold. Jon would have put Stannis's host at no more than four thousand; Lord Manderly of White Harbor could raise more men than that by himself, if Jon recalled aright. Lords do not change allegiance unless they see good reason to do so; a wise king would court them, not command them. Your ancestor Aegon the Conqueror may have taken Seven Kingdoms with numbers just as small, but unless Your Grace has a dragon hidden within the Nightfort, you cannot hope to follow Aegon's example.
"—mockery, the insolent pup. He dares—"
"His lords have acclaimed him king, Your Grace," Jon Snow said carefully. "Perhaps he might have been more courteous, but he offers wise counsel—"
"Wise counsel, from a boy of fifteen?"
"Seventeen," Jon corrected, unable to help himself. Robb was a few weeks his elder, both of them born near the end of the year. "And I seem to recall Your Grace judged a boy of sixteen ripe to serve as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch."
Stannis's nostrils flared. "An error, I see now. It was I, not Robb Stark, who drove Mance Rayder from your gates, yet I am met with disdain and disloyalty."
"Do not think us ungrateful, Your Grace." Though you yourself admitted you should have come to our aid long before. "This matter betwixt you and the King in the North is not our affair. The Night's Watch takes no side."
The Night's Watch takes no side. So Jon had sworn, as had every one of his brothers, ranger, builder, and steward alike. If not for that... Robb's brother might sometimes yearn to drive Stannis out into the snows, but the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch knew better.
It was thanks to Stannis that a ship bearing crates of dragonglass had slipped past the blockade of Dragonstone, escaping mere days before the castle fell to a desperate assault led by Lord Paxter Redwyne's twin sons. Both had survived, though one had received a disfiguring injury, the other a blow upside the head that left him drooling. That had made Samwell Tarly sad; he'd known the Redwyne twins when he was a boy, though he stammered and turned red with shame when Jon tried asking about them.
"Duty commands them, as it commands me," Stannis muttered to himself, still pacing. "If Melisandre speaks truly... the sacrifice..." he fell silent, his face as hard as if it were graven from stone.
Perhaps Edd was right about the willowbark tea, Jon thought as he rolled the scroll back up, his head pounding, some foreboding hanging upon him as heavy as a cloak made of lead. The ominous feeling did not improve as he turned to the next parchment.
For the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, A Summary of the Food Laid By for Winter in the Vaults of Castle Black, Eastwatch, and the Shadow Tower
Writ by Lord Steward Bowen Marsh, on this the fifteenth day of the seventh month, in the three hundred and first year since Aegon's Conquest, at Castle Black
The count was grim. Before Stannis's arrival the Night's Watch had enough set aside to survive three years of winter, four if they were willing to lose the oldest and weakest of their sworn brothers. Jon had thought the regular shipments of meat and grain from the King in the North would remedy that problem, but the food was leaving their larders almost as soon as it arrived. Not only were they feeding Stannis and his men, who at least hunted for their own meat and so only required grain and vegetables. No, they must also feed nearly two hundred new recruits who had suddenly arrived from Dorne, and another four hundred who arrived not two months later from the Reach. To his horror and amazement there was even a ship from Lannisport, filled with criminals and ironborn captured while reaving.
Apparently the southron lords were as nervous about winter as Jon was. In the Westerlands the lords were guarding their forests with ruthless jealousy; almost all the Westermen were poachers, caught taking deer or pheasants or what have you. One unfortunate boy, only fourteen, had been sent to the Wall for catching a brace of rabbits in a snare. Oddly, there were no thieves or murders amongst the Westermen; with so many men dead in the fighting, those criminals had been sentenced to a life of serfdom, harvesting as much as could be grown before winter. Those from the Reach were a mixture of poachers, murderers, rapers, and men who had deserted from the Tyrell levies; those from Dorne were mostly murderers, with a few thieves thrown in for seasoning. To his shock there were even a few hedge knights and lordlings, younger sons and landless nephews.
At first Jon considered placing the Dornishmen at the Shadow Tower, the Reachermen at Castle Black and Eastwatch, and the Westermen and ironborn amongst all three. He was forced to rethink that notion when Ser Denys Mallister vociferously protested being inundated with uncouth barbarians who might not even speak the Common Tongue properly. Thus balked, Jon divided the Dornish lordlings amongst all three keeps, with the largest share to the Shadow Tower. The rest of the Dornishmen he divided into fourths, with a fourth each to the Shadow Tower and Eastwatch, and two-fourths for Castle Black. The Reachermen and Westermen he divided evenly; the ironborn he kept at Castle Black, lest being near the sea give them ideas about escaping.
The sudden arrival of reinforcements should have been cause for rejoicing. Instead he found himself dealing with constant fighting amongst the new recruits, mostly between Reachermen from the marches and Dornishmen from the western side of the Red Mountains that bordered the Reach. Iron Emmett, the new training master, had lungs of steel, but even he was hardpressed to maintain order in the yard. Forcing quarrelsome recruits to do endless press ups and run laps around Castle Black could only do so much to dull their tempers. Sooner or later someone was going to get knifed, and the lord commander would have to try, sentence, and behead whatever fool had done the knifing.
At least beheading was cleaner than gelding. Jon Snow had thought he'd have to order a few men gelded for trying to rape Craster's wives before they left for Queenscrown. To his surprise it was not until after the women left that he was forced to try a man for rape. A pair of new recruits, one from Dorne, one from the Reach, had cornered Satin in a storage vault and tried to bugger him. No doubt the recruits had noticed that Satin was the prettiest man in the Watch, a former whore with a sweet voice and dark curled ringlets that would make a maiden weep.
The recruits did not know that Satin was also fearless in a fight, and friends with almost all his fellow stewards. No sooner had the recruits attempted to subdue Satin than a pair of stewards passing by heard the shouting and joined in the fray. By the time the attackers were dragged before Jon one was missing an ear and the other a finger, thanks to Satin's knife.
"I'd be happy to geld them myself," Satin offered when Jon passed the sentence for attempted rape. Jon would have allowed it, had he not remembered Lord Eddard's words. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. It was not a sword that Jon used but a sharp knife, the sworn brothers stripped to the waist and bound to a table in the maester's chambers. Roone, who was supposed to be assisting, fainted dead away, so it fell to Armen to wash the wounds with vinegar as the gelded men screamed into their gags.
After that some of the men took to calling him the Woodcutter, never mind that Jon taken their stones, not their manhood. He prayed to the gods that the absurd epithet would deter future rapers. In the meantime, he did his best to keep the men busy. Recruits near dead from exhaustion were recruits too tired to cause trouble, and the sooner they finished training, the sooner he could divide them amongst rangers, stewards, and builders. There was so much work to be done, repairing their crumbling halls and tending their black sheep and carving dragonglass into weapons so that they might have even the smallest chance of surviving the Others...
His throat felt oddly tight, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The smoke from the fire made his eyes sting; the air was too close, he could not breathe. Jon barely heard his chair hit the floor as he leapt to his feet, striding out the door and down the steps of the King's Tower. Men turned and looked as the lord commander stalked across the yard to the winch cage, yanking at the rope until he felt the cage began to rise.
Atop the Wall the air was cold as death, but Jon Snow gulped it down all the same, his lungs aching even as his panic eased. The world looked so small below him, so remote. The haunted forest stretched out before them, league after league of trees draped in snow and ice. Not a cloud hung in the sky; if he squinted Jon could almost glimpse the Frostfangs, their cruel peaks a dim dark blur against the horizon.
"Where are you, Bran?" The wind snatched the words away as soon as they left his lips. He had not wanted to believe the raven from Robb, the raven that said Sam and Gilly had met Bran and his companions beneath the Wall. It was Bran's wolf who had saved Jon at Queenscrown the night he refused to slit an old man's throat, the night he fled with Ygritte's arrow in his thigh.
"I swore not to tell," Samwell confessed miserably when Jon confronted him that evening. "Three times they made me swear, by the old gods and the new."
"If you had only told me—" Jon choked back the words. If he had, what then? I was half dead for months, useless to anyone. Would I have broken my vows to go after Bran? Jon did not know, but he knew that Sam had not given him that choice. Even now he was trapped by his vows; he could not send out a ranging just to find a lost boy. The Night's Watch takes no sides.
All Jon could do was send out Mormont's old raven, after teaching it Bran's face as he had once taught it Sansa's. For months the raven had combed the haunted forest, searching high and low for any sign of travelers, poking his beak into abandoned huts and lean-tos and even caves. The old raven didn't like searching caves; they were dark and damp and filled with queer smells. One cave he outright refused to explore, his feathers shaking at the memory of a thousand red eyes. A colony of bats, most likely. Maester Luwin had once said that dark places bred strange creatures, monsters blind and deaf to everything but survival.
"A cold day to stand atop the Wall."
"Lord Hand." Jon inclined his head at the knight.
"Lord Commander," Ser Davos Seaworthy answered. The wind snatched at his cloak with fingers cold as ice, setting the man's teeth to chattering.
The cold was bearable for Jon, compared to the bone-deep chill of the Frostfangs, but Davos Seaworthy was a man from the south. Fur after fur he'd added to his garb as autumn grew colder, draping them over his slight frame until he reminded Jon of nothing so much as Old Nan's tale about the fox who hid in a bearskin. If Stannis had to set someone to spy on him, at least it was Davos Seaworthy. The onion knight was honest, dutiful, good-hearted, even if he was devoutly loyal to his proud, rigid king.
Jon could not say the same for the others who had chosen to risk life and lands following their king and his red god. Ser Davos might once have been a smuggler, but he had risen from smuggler to knight to lord and King's Hand. The men who looked down their noses as his humble birth were themselves lesser men of lesser houses, younger sons and petty lords. Who else would follow a king who spurned the gods of their ancestors for a foreign demon? Who else would follow a king who held naught but a single besieged keep thousands of leagues to the south? By the laws of the Seven Kingdoms Stannis Baratheon was his brother Robert's rightful heir, but what man in his right mind would abandon his gods for a cause already lost?
Only those for whom ambition exceeds all else. Lord Eddard had once told Jon and his brother Robb that a lord might be judged by the character of his closest bannermen. If that were true, it boded very ill for King Stannis. Ser Axell Florent, good-uncle to the king and so-called hand of the queen, was as cruel as he was discourteous. Vain, glib Ser Justin Massey was much too fond of himself, while Ser Richard Horpe was fond of killing and little else. Ser Godry Farrington was a brute and a bully; his crony, Ser Clayton Suggs, was even worse. Ser Clayton happened to be at Castle Black the day he sentenced the two rapers to be gelded, and he offered his assistance with a zeal that turned Jon's stomach.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Davos shift and stamp his feet; the lord commander had been silent for too long.
"Is there fresh word from King Stannis?" Jon asked.
Riders came from the Nightfort with unwelcome frequency, bearing letters for the king's hand and for the lord commander. Ravens would have been easier, but for the fact that none of them were trained to fly to the Nightfort, with it having been abandoned for so long. It was a journey of two to three days, depending on the roads and the weather.
"No, no rider, m'lord," Davos said, stamping his feet to keep warm. "The Lord Steward meant to send a man up, and I offered to come in his stead." From his pocket he withdrew a parchment; it took but a moment for Jon to determine that the matter was not urgent. He slipped the inventory within his furs, tucking it carefully so it would not be lost to the wind.
"A man can think more clearly atop the Wall than in its shadow," Ser Davos said abruptly.
"I suppose," said Jon.
Down below in the haunted forest sentinels and soldier pines creaked in the rising wind. Masses of thick wet snow coated their needles, as dangerous as an avalanche when they fell the hundred feet to the ground below. Dywen swore he'd seen an elk crushed beneath a falling snowdrift as though it were a boulder.
Ghost knew better. The direwolf kept his ears pricked as he slipped through the wood, following the scent of men that floated on the wind. The odor was thick and heady, mixed with the familiar smell of damp furs, the earthy smell of leather, and the tangy smell of bronze.
"King Stannis mislikes this plan of yours," Ser Davos reminded him.
"Everyone mislikes it," Jon said bluntly. Bowen Marsh and his supporters did not want to let the wildlings through at all; Stannis did not want to let any wildlings cross the Wall until they gave up Mance Rayder; Robb did not want to let any wildlings cross the Wall unless they agreed to a long list of terms, none of which were negotiable.
The best that could be said for Robb's terms was that they were kinder than those offered by Stannis. The wildlings would not have to kneel, nor offer weirwood branches to Melisandre's red god. Queen Selyse had been very insistent on that point; her devotion to the Lord of Light was as intense as her husband's devotion to the pursuit of his crown. As for the rest of the terms... Jon prayed the third death was not Tormund; if any man could persuade the wildlings to accept such terms, it would be the Giantsbane.
Jon's stomach lurched as Ghost broke into a sprint, charging at the mass of men emerging from the trees. A group of riders led the ragged host, peace banner flapping in the wind. One of the women smelled familiar, but Ghost made straight for the runty garron who was first among them. A massive snowwhite beard might hide his face, but there was no mistaking Tormund, though he seemed shrunken since Jon had last seen him.
"Har!" Tormund boomed, keeping his seat despite his garron shying away from the direwolf. "Look," he said, turning to the other riders. "Lord Crow himself to lead us in. Who says them crows don't know their manners?" Somehow Jon doubted he would still be smiling after they spoke.
They met in the timbered hall that had once housed Craster's wives and daughters, the free folk leaders filling the long benches of a trestle table while Jon sat in a chair at the head. Tormund had named each of the chiefs as they emerged blinking on the southern side of the Wall, telling him which were former raiders chosen by their folk as war chiefs and which were clan chiefs chosen for their skill in keeping their folk alive.
To Jon's surprise there were more clan chiefs than war chiefs. There was Devyn Sealskinner from the Bay of Seals, the Great Walrus of the Frozen Shore, Gavin the Trader and Blind Doss the Farmer, Willow Witch-eye and Adga the All-seeing, a wisewoman revered by the people of the Milkwater. She stared at Jon unblinking, her dark eyes kind despite the unsettling way that half of her face was frozen, the result of the same blow to the head which had supposedly given her visions.
The war chiefs he liked less. Halleck was a big bald slab of a man, brother to Harma Dogshead, who had nearly killed Jon with her whip. Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn, glared at Jon like a butcher eyeing a fresh kill, doubtless remembering Jon's role in the death of the previous magnar, Sigorn's father. The warrior witch Morna White Mask was known for her swift, deadly raids; Ygon Oldfather was known for the many women he'd stolen; Soren Shieldbreaker refused to give up his axe at the door until Tormund himself intervened.
More than once Jon wished he'd been able to force Robb to present his own damn terms, but the King in the North was busy riding across his kingdom, ensuring that the lords would not unite to fling the wildlings out. The wildlings did not seem to know or care that Jon had pushed for gentler terms; no, he was the devil trying to steal their children, the miser refusing to feed them, the jailer confining them to lands not fit for herds, let alone the plow.
"The lands of the Gift itself are warmer than those closest to the Wall," he told them for the hundredth time. "And the New Gift is warmer still. There is time to plant crops; Maester Turquin believes we have another year before winter comes, perhaps three if we are lucky. There are orchards already planted, huts already built."
"Aye, shacks a beggar wouldn't be caught dead in," Soren Shieldbreaker bellowed, slamming a hand on the table, startling Adga the All-seeing, who had fallen half asleep.
"Better than open air," the Great Walrus boomed back in heavily accented Common, his enormous mustache bristling. "Fixing easier than building."
"How are we supposed to feed ourselves?" Blind Doss the Farmer demanded. "We've no plows, no spades, no seed."
"The Night's Watch and the King in the North will provide seed and tools enough for each clan to plant and reap," Jon said evenly. Thank the gods there were a few smiths and carpenters among the new recruits. "You will also be given enough grain to survive until your first harvest, though you must hunt your own meat."
"Aye, and be hanged for it if we follow a deer onto some lordling's land?" Morna asked sharply, weirwood mask gleaming. For a moment he was reminded of Selyse, how the firelight danced over her sallow face as she gazed into the nightfires.
Jon let the words wash over him like waves against the shore, listening more than he spoke. On and on the chiefs bickered, the day passing in a blur of shouting, threatening, and cursing. The terms were not negotiable; it was up to the wildlings whether passing the Wall was worth paying the King in the North's price.
In the end only Ygon Oldfather stood apart from the rest, his craggy face implacable. All but one, Jon thought, nearly dizzy with relief as he sent for the sheepskin so each chief could make his mark. One by one the clan chiefs and war chiefs signed the covenant which already bore the King in the North's bold signature.
Each chief agreed to yield hostages, sons of their own and others drawn by lot from among their people. A few, like Tormund's son Toregg, would go to Winterfell, a few to the Night's Watch, and the rest to the Umbers and the lords of the mountain clans. Each chief agreed to pay a tenth of his clan's harvest to the Night's Watch; each chief agreed to answer the Lord Commander's summons to defend the Wall at need. Each chief agreed to keep his people on the lands set aside for their use; to trespass on another clan's lands might be punished at the discretion of the offended clan chief, but a wildling caught outside the boundaries of the Gift without permission would be sentenced to death.
"That includes stealing women," Jon reminded them as Soren Shieldbreaker marked the sheepskin with a clumsy rune. "Doesn't matter if you're caught outside the Gift, if you steal a woman from northern lands, the penalty is death."
"We are not all raiders, Lord Crow," Adga All-seeing said, taking the quill from Soren with a wrinkled hand. The rune she draw was as graceful as a swan in flight. "Them that are will keep their men in line, unless they want their folk thrown to the white shadows." She bared teeth still sharp despite her years, and passed the quill to Sigorn.
The Others. Even thinking of them sent a cold chill up Jon's spine. Craster's wives had not wanted to speak of the cold gods Craster worshipped. He tried Freltha first, as she was the least timid, but no sooner had the question passed his lips than she fled, shaking and trembling like a leaf caught in a storm. Birra hugged herself, rocking back and forth in utter silence; Nyra burst into tears.
"I don't understand," Jon snapped after trying Freltha a second time without success. "Gilly told Maester Aemon all she knew." Sam had written down all the maester could remember, but his mind grew confused as the end neared. They needed to know more about the enemy they faced.
"Brave girl," Freltha rasped. "But Gilly only saw them once or twice."
"What difference does that make?"
Freltha shuddered, and would speak no more of it. None of them would; they had gone to Queenscrown without speaking a single word about the Others.
At last the chiefs finished, Dolorous Edd carefully rolling the sheepskin and placing it within an oilcloth. One by one the chiefs filed out of the timber hall, grumbling and growling under their breath. Jon watched them return to their mounts, his eye lighting on the dark-haired woman who had kept watch over the garrons.
"Dorsten!"
The wildling woman limped over to him. Her nose was as crooked as he remembered, her eyes as steadfast.
"Lord Crow," she said, revealing the gap where two teeth were missing.
"The rest are safe, as I promised you," Jon said. "At Queenscrown, nine days west of here by garron."
"So far?" Dorsten asked, her brow furrowed. She looked about her, eyeing the brothers in black. "Oh. Thank you, Lord Crow."
"You can join them, once you've filled your saddlebag."
Dorsten stared at him a moment, head tilted. "A full saddlebag would be welcome, but I've a feeling it will not come cheap. Was finding Giantsbane not enough to earn my keep?"
"I need to know about the Others," Jon told her, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. "Gilly would speak of them, but the other wives..."
Dorsten stood still as a statue, her eyes wide and white. "No," she said through trembling lips. "No, they wouldn't. The white shadows..." She shuddered. "Each time is worse, you see. The years pass, seed to sprout to sapling to kindling, yet the shadows stay the same. They..." She drew a rattling breath. "They are beautiful, Lord Crow. So beautiful it steals the breath from your lungs and the pulse from your veins. Smiling, always smiling, tall and fair and terrible." Dorsten choked back a sob. "Craster would make us offer ourselves to them, if we displeased him. They watched, and waited, laughing as we begged for their touch. That was the worst of it, even in our terror, against our own will, we wanted it."
"You don't need to go on," Jon told her, his skin crawling. Dorsten stared at him a moment, then tilted her chin up, pointing at a dark smudge beneath the corner of her jaw. A mottled brown scar dimpled her flesh, as if a finger had pressed there...
"It looks like a burn."
"They never had us, Lord Crow." Dorsten rubbed the scar as though it pained her. "Just laid the tip of one finger against a cheek, a jaw, an ear perhaps, and held it there until we screamed."
That night Jon slept with Ghost curled up against him, a fire burning in the hearth, furs piled on the bed, yet nothing seemed able to drive the chill from his bones. His dreams that night were dark and deep, haunted by mocking voices that commanded him to kneel, to serve, to obey. The Old Bear, Qhorin Halfhand, Ygritte, even Lord Eddard, one by one they came to him, their hands black as pitch, their skin white as milk, their eyes so bright and blue. He was so cold, so weary. The numbness began at his fingers, slid up his arms, wrapped tight around his heart—
A burst of heat lapped at his face, garnets glowing in the dark.
"Ghost?"
The direwolf nuzzled at Jon's beard, his warm tongue bathing it with kisses. Jon buried his face in the direwolf's soft fur, tears stinging at his eyes. "Good boy," Jon rasped, his voice as hoarse as if he'd screamed. "Good boy, Ghost."
The wildlings who came through the Wall the next morning looked as haggard as Jon felt. There was no laughing or singing; there was barely any talk at all, as if they were too weary for speech. One by one they trudged through the tunnel, eyes sunk deep in hollow cheeks, furs wrapped around bodies shrunken from hunger. There were few elders, so very few, and not a single child under three, save one. A sharp wind blew from the west, snapping and snarling at the pitiful host.
"Dalla?" The mother pulled her white furs closer, hiding the child in her arms as well as her face. Beside her was another woman garbed in white, and an old woman whose whiskers resembled those of her goats.
"Her name is Munda," the goat woman growled, giving a quick glance to the silent direwolf at Jon's side. "Isn't it, Lord Crow?"
"My mistake," Jon said. If Mance Rayder wished to send his wife and child to safety, it was none of his concern. He wondered if Mance had delivered them to the host himself, whether they had followed Giantsbane for long leagues or caught him as he neared the Wall. Mance must have been desperate to get them south of the Wall, if he was willing to risk drawing near the Nightfort and its king.
On and on the wildlings came, Jon brooding all the while. Why was Stannis so set on taking Mance Rayder? The king's power was broken, his following splintered. Wildlings followed the strong, the cunning, not the defeated. Any affection that lingered for Mance Rayder would only be of use if Mance were allowed to live, to go among them as a sort of envoy. Burning him for the crime of deserting the Watch served no purpose, save perhaps entertaining the likes of Clayton Suggs who savored the sound of screams and smell of sizzling flesh.
Jon frowned. He could smell smoke in the distance, an acrid scent that stung at his nostrils. The wind keened as it whipped at his black cloak, a faint high wail that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. No ordinary wind ever made such a sound, nor carried the fragrance of anise and cloves along with the coppery tang of blood.
Melisandre is burning someone. A third death, just as Dolorous Edd predicted. Jon hoped the fire had blazed hot and fast. Better Mance Rayder die a quick death than suffer the slow agony of roasting over the flames.
The wind wailed louder, higher. Jon frowned. Somehow it sounded like a woman's voice. How could that be? There were no women at the Nightfort, none but the red priestess and—
"A willing sacrifice," Stannis muttered angrily.
"We wanted it," Dorsten whispered, ashamed.
Again he saw the flames dancing across Selyse's face, the look of ecstasy in her eyes. He did not want to believe it, but he knew whose anguished cry he heard.
Hahaha what the fuck, I decided the Others had to be creepier and I regret everything. Can't wait to hear what y'all think!
NOTES
1) Let's just pretend that it's plausible for the Blackbird to be wrecked in November but the corpses don't wash up until late June/early July. They, uh. Got stuck. In a cave? And the super cold water preserved them? Don't Google corpses in Lake Superior if you want to sleep tonight. Side note: Remember how Robb was worried about Arya sailing south due to autumn storms in the Narrow Sea? Yeahhhhh no wight to King's Landing.
2) How the fuck is Mole's Town a "little village" of probably 1,000 people pre-abandonment, yet it was big enough that Sam could buy garnets there for Longclaw?
3) Stannis swearing by the Seven Hells is funny because he doesn't believe in anything but force of habit leads to him using oaths from the Faith, which he was raised in. Once again I am deeply irritated by how GRRM wrote a bunch of atheists into a medieval setting despite it making no goddamn sense.
4) To be clear, Robb was trying to basically tell Stannis that look, you're the legitimate king, but given you have almost zero popular support and you've done jackshit to help any of my people, there is no fucking way I can kneel to you right now unless I wanted my lords to immediately turn on me. Given that I already got a fucking arrow to the face the last time I pissed off a lord, I'm not risking my skin for your ass. The bit about the dragon was sarcasm; Robb was trying to make the point that Stannis needs to put in the hard work to build his coalition, not just go around ordering people to kneel because he said so. Yes, that's a deliberate echo of Jon telling Stannis to go to the mountain clans in ADWD.
Stannis here is closer to his ACOK and ASOS characterization than ADWD. He didn't get stomped quite as hard on the Blackwater without Littlefinger alive to suggest the Renly's ghost gambit; personally I think seeing his own men immediately turn their cloaks because they saw Renly's ghost is a large part of why canon Stannis was so seriously considering sacrificing Edric Storm in canon. Also, here Mel didn't pull her "three leeches of blood = three kings die" act because Joffrey was already long dead, Robb's fate was unclear, and she didn't think offering up Balon Greyjoy's death solo would prove very convincing. Hence, there was no confrontation over sacrificing Edric Storm, though Davos still convinced Stannis to come north.
5) The Redwyne twins, Horas and Hobber, are nicknamed Horror and Slobber by Sansa and Jeyne (I like to think Jeyne made up the nickname, as she's the one who came up with Arya Horseface. Eleven year olds are mean). The nickname appears five times in canon: first Sansa uses it, then Arya, who says Sansa and Jeyne call them that, then in ACOK Petyr Baelish of all people calls them that. How the fuck did he pick that up? Sansa uses it once more in ACOK, and the last use is by Cersei in AFFC (guess she got it from Baelish).
The Redwyne twins were colossal assholes to poor Sam Tarly in canon, and since Paxter Redwyne is desperate to defend the Reach (especially his own lands) from reavers, his sons get to take Loras Tyrell's role and volunteer to go storm Dragonstone so they can deploy more of their fleet, not just the couple ships Cersei allowed them to pull off Dragonstone (...which is why the shipment of dragonglass slipped through the blockade). Loras probably wanted to go too but got talked out of it before he could volunteer publicly.
6) The Night's Watch, uh. Should have a lot more rape in canon. It's a prison camp. In the middle of nowhere. And most of the population is rapists and murderers. Let's... let's just pretend that Jon gelding a few examples is enough to keep the men in line. Cause in reality rape should be a massive problem that is almost never reported to the commanding officers.
7) In canon, the Others are described as follows:
A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved ...
…
The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.
In an interview, GRRM said the Others "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous."