AEMON THE DRAGONWOLF
Part 1 - A Rose and A Mockingbird
Jon III
His sister, Ser Davos, and the Hound stood around Sansa's bed, watching Jon carefully.
"Jon!" Sansa cried, throwing herself into his arms. "What happened to you?"
"I was fighting Lyn Corbray," Jon explained, his throat dry. "I killed Grafton and ripped off Littlefinger's arm, but Corbray stabbed me, and then I couldn't chase him any further."
Sansa pulled away, blinking in confusion. She was too polite to say what she was thinking, at least in front of his Lord Hand and a near stranger, but Jon saw skepticism in her face.
"What are you nattering about, boy? You haven't left this castle," the Hound said for her.
"No, I don't mean in this body," Jon said impatiently. "I meant as Ghost."
Ser Davos' jaw dropped. "So the wildling rumors are true? You really are a skinchanger, your grace?"
"Aye," Jon replied, falling back onto Sansa's bed. "I dream I'm Ghost when I sleep, sometimes, but I've never been able to enter Ghost's mind at will before. But I was so angry, and Ghost remembered Littlefinger's scent from this morning. He tracked him all the way down the Kingsroad."
"You scared me," Sansa chastised. She looked terrible. She still wore her Tully-blue gown and her winter rose circlet, but her eyes were bloodshot and her face was puffy from crying. Her auburn hair was messier than Jon had ever seen it.
"I'm sorry," the King in the North apologized. "Did you never dream you were Lady, Sansa?"
Sansa looked down at her hands. "Only once, now that you mention it," she said slowly, "but I didn't realize what it meant. And she died so long ago, I'd almost forgotten," she finished mournfully.
"Ghost can sense Nymeria to the south," Jon told her, grinning at the memory. "She formed a new pack with ordinary wolves, and they've been terrorizing our enemies in the Riverlands. If Ghost can't catch up to Baelish, Nymeria might."
The Hound had listened to this explanation in a fascinated silence. Now he spoke up.
"Your wolf ripped off Littlefinger's arm, you said?"
"Aye, just to the elbow. He staunched the bleeding with his cloak, but he lost quite a bit of blood."
"Well," the Hound said cheerfully. "It may not be the clean death you planned for him, but it's death all the same. He has no maester, no protectors, and no friends north of the Twins, and it's fucking cold up here. Even if your men can't catch him, he's a dead man."
"I won't believe it until I see his head on a spike," Sansa told them angrily.
"I agree," Jon said. "We'll see if any of the riders catch up to him; I passed Tormund's men and Hardying's on my way," he told them.
Whatever doubts Jon's sister and Hand might have felt vanished when Ghost turned up the next evening, bloodied and limping and carrying a half-frozen piece of human arm. The frostbitten ring finger bore a signet with a mockingbird. The hand was free of knightly calluses from weapons training, such as Corbray or Grafton might have had. It was Littlefinger's.
"Skinchanging, eh?" the Hound murmured to Sansa. "Wish I could skinchange into my sigil. It would be intersting to know what those dogs are thinking, though they'd probably beg for food more often if they knew we were listening."
Jon blinked, looking at Clegane in shock. He had never heard the man jape before. From Sansa's bemused expression, neither had she.
The king and the new Winterfell master of horse tended to the injured direwolf themselves. Though Jon might have taken Ghost to the kennelmaster as a pup, the wolf was larger than a pony these days. It took all of Jon's growing skinchanging skill to keep the animal still as his wounds were cleaned, stitched, and dressed, so he had little concentration to spare for anything else. Through Ghost's weary eyes, he watched as Hardying's Vale knights rode back to Winterfell, carrying two covered corpses on a makeshift sled.
"Your wolf made short work of these two traitors, your grace," Harry the Heir told Jon, once the king had left his direwolf to sleep and recover. "I'd heard tales of your brother riding into battle with his direwolf, but only now do I believe them. And we recovered this beauty," he added with relish, brandishing a sword. Jon remembered it well; it was the Valyrian steel blade that had injured Ghost.
"Lady Forlorn," Ser Harrold said, admiring his prize. "I suppose this belongs to Lyonel Corbray now, but only if he had no part in his brother's treachery, or Littlefinger's plots against our little liege lord."
"Is he much like his brother?" Jon asked neutrally.
"No, not at all," the Vale man replied. "But unless I miss my guess, the whole family is in Littlefinger's pocket. Lyonel just married a merchant girl from the Fingers," he confided, "and really, who else would have brokered that match? The Corbrays are an old, respectable house, and this wench's only redeeming feature was her enormous dowry—or so says Aunt Anya, anyway."
He returned Lady Forlorn to its scabbard. "I think I'll keep this for now. We'll need the Valyrian steel to fight your White Walkers," he decided.
Jon could not disagree with that, even if he disliked Hardying's tone. He knew the Knights of the Vale were skeptical, but he could only brush off their remarks until he had a wight to show them.
They'd see the truth soon enough. "We certainly do, Ser Harrold."
There was nothing else he could do for now. The Brotherhood men who'd gone in search of Baelish returned within the fortnight, having found no one between Winterfell and Barrowton matching Petyr Baelish's description. To Jon's surprise, Lady Mormont had revealed an unexpected, but ladylike, talent for drawing; this very moment, ravens were spreading an uncanny charcoal likeness of Littlefinger to every keep in the North. Villages from the Neck to the Wall would have pictures of Petyr Baelish posted under a black sword and the crowned Stark direwolf, telling even the most illiterate peasants that Baelish was to be killed on sight, by order of the King in the North.
He hoped it would be enough.
The men of the Brotherhood were the last to return. Jon was in the training yard, sparring against three of the Vale knights, when Thoros of Myr approached him. The priest watched Jon train, occasionally suggesting improvements, and clapped when the bout had finished. The three knights lay on the ground while Jon stood, catching his breath. Then, the man made his move.
"You have a natural talent for the sword, your grace," the Red Priest told him eagerly.
"Perhaps," Jon replied, "but I didn't have sparring partners at the Wall that could better my skill, save one. I'm out of practice."
His humiliating defeat to Mance Rayder—disguised as Rattleshirt—was not something he liked to think about, but it was better than thinking of Mance's death, or his babe, long gone south with Sam and Maester Aemon.
"I believe you," Thoros was saying. "Tell me, King Jon, have you ever heard of Azor Ahai?"
"No," Jon answered with a shrug.
The priest raised an eyebrow. "I thought you might have heard the legend from the Lady Melisandre."
Immediately, Jon's face turned as dark as the night. "Don't speak to me of that woman."
"She used to think Stannis Baratheon was Azor Ahai reborn," the Red Priest insisted, following Jon when he turned away in disgust. "But she was wrong, your grace. Stannis Baratheon had the blood of dragons, yes, but he was never reborn amidst salt and smoke—you were. You are the Prince That Was Promised."
Jon took the priest by the neck and slammed him against the stable wall. "Horseshit. And even if I am, what then? Am I to find a wife, just so I can stab her in the breast to forge a sword of fire? I am not anyone's Prince That Was Promised, priest, and I want nothing to do with a god that feeds children to the flames for good weather! Leave. Me. Be!"
The man winced, but did not fight. He only watched Jon with eyes full of pity.
"You will learn," he said, irritating Jon with his certainty. "Ignore it if you will, but your destiny will follow you, your grace. The night is dark and full of terrors; you cannot escape your fate now."
He didn't speak to Jon directly for the rest of the Brotherhood's stay in Winterfell. Jon did not seek him out, preferring to stay far away from the Red God and his fanatics. He spent many evenings in his bedchamber, flat on his bed, trying to see through Ghost's eyes. It was becoming easier now, and he heard and saw many things he had not expected.
Sansa loved to visit Ghost and bring him treats, petting his fur absently and talking about the goings on inside the castle. Ghost saw her as part of his pack, there was no question about it. Even with his stitched-up wounds, he hovered protectively if strange men came near her. But others had come to visit as well.
The Hound had come once, and shared some roasted chicken with the injured direwolf. Jon had been so surprised that he'd fallen back into his own skin. Harry the Heir had also come, and he'd been brave enough to pet the wolf. Jon had been forced to stop Ghost from giving the green knight a playful nip. Ser Davos and Tormund were more frequent—and less shocking—visitors.
One morning, while Jon bathed in the hot springs after training with the Free Folk, he'd met Beric Dondarrion and his squire. That had led—quite naturally—to a comparison of murder scars, each accompanied by a grisly story on the older man's side. The Lightning Lord's squire, a Dornishman named Edric Dayne, looked on, fascinated. The idea of coming back over and over, and losing parts of his soul bit by bit, terrified Jon more than any death. He didn't know how Dondarrion could stand it.
"I have no choice," the Lightning Lord told him when asked. "I've work yet to do before I earn my rest, so I must do it."
As his master scrubbed thoughtfully at his beard, the squire approached Jon timidly.
"Your grace," he said carefully, "do you know aught of your mother?"
Jon blinked. He had not been prepared for such a question, especially not from a Dornish lordling.
"Nothing at all," answered the King in the North. "What of it?"
The squire's ears went red. "Well—I thought you might wish to know—we're milk brothers, you and I."
Jon's mouth fell open. "What?"
"My lady mother had no milk when I was born," he explained, "so she hired a wet-nurse from Starfall. Her name is Wylla, and she was one of the kindest women I've ever known."
"Go on," Jon said, eager to hear more.
"She told me she had a little boy in the North, whom she'd left behind with Lord Stark. She knew you'd be cared for, but she missed you, all the same."
"So my mother was your wet-nurse?" the king clarified, hardly believing that the mystery was solved at long last.
"Well," Edric said slowly, "no, I don't think she was. I thought so, when I was younger, but Wylla was a very respectable lady, or Mother would not have hired her. It's more likely that she was your wet-nurse, too. Lord Stark came to Starfall to return my uncle Arthur's sword, and Mother said he brought a babe with him, now that I think on it. But Wylla was always vague when your lord father was mentioned, almost like she was protecting your mother."
Jon cursed under his breath.
"Sorry, your grace," the younger man told him sheepishly. "I wish I knew more, truly."
"Never mind, Lord Dayne," the king told him with a sigh. "You've told me more about my mother than my own father ever did."
"Ned," the squire said suddenly, his ears red again. "My friends call me Ned."
The boy's shyness reminded Jon painfully of Bran. They looked to be about the same age, his half-brother and his milk brother.
"Well," he offered kindly, "if we're milk brothers, that should make us friends, don't you think? I'll call you Ned if you'll call me Jon."
Ned grinned broadly, his blue-purple eyes shining. "The King in the North and the next Sword of the Morning, friends for life," he agreed. "Wylla will be proud of us both."
They began sparring together in the mornings. Edric was a natural swordsman, and slightly taller and broader than Jon, but he was not quite ready to claim Dawn, his family's ancestral blade. Jon learned very quickly that this was Ned's dream, and had been for a long time. The Daynes insisted that he must be knighted before becoming Sword of the Morning, if he ever proved worthy.
"I never imagined I'd be squiring for a captain of outlaws," he admitted to Jon once, when they were washing up after a strenuous workout. "But Lord Beric really does care about the smallfolk in a way most lords don't. I don't know what I'd do if he died again, and Thoros didn't bring him back."
"What more do you need to do, to become a knight?" Jon asked curiously.
"Lord Beric or the king need to decide I'm worthy, and then I can stand vigil, be anointed in front of the Seven, and take my vows," Ned replied, shrugging. Then he remembered who he was talking to, and grinned. "How about it, Jon?"
This drew a startled laugh from the King in the North. "Do I look like a king anointed in the sight of the Seven?"
"You could make me a knight in the sight of the old gods," the squire suggested. "I'll stand vigil in the godswood, and swear to be brave and defend the young and innocent in the name of the old gods instead of the new."
"And what would your family say? I'm sure the Dornish care very deeply about the King in the North's opinion and the gods of the First Men," Jon answered, brutally honest.
"The Daynes have First Men blood too, Jon," Edric argued. "They're more likely to appreciate your judgment than the judgment of little Tommen Baratheon, really."
Jon grinned and shook his head. "Well, I'm glad they value my opinion on martial matters more than a little boy's. But Lord Beric lives yet, Ned, and he has the right to knight you for now. I would not usurp his place."
Ned's pout would have put Arya's to shame.
After a few days in his company, Jon was sorry to see his milk brother go. He didn't mind seeing the back of Anguy, the Red Priest, or even Lord Beric, who made Jon uncomfortable, but Ned Dayne was a good egg—far too good for the company he kept. Sansa was even sorrier to see the Hound leave, though she'd given him a parting gift. Sandor Clegane wore a new cloak, thick and warm with black fur trim at the neck, and an embroidered sigil of three black dogs on a yellow field. The exquisite needlework could only be Sansa's.
"Don't look so severe, Jon," she chided, coming to stand beside him as the Brotherhood rode away. "He earned it several times over—not only with Baelish, but in King's Landing, when no one else would stand up for me."
"I didn't say anything! I think it's a fine gift," Jon shrugged.
"You could smile a bit more, then," Sansa told him, smirking at him from beneath her winter rose crown.
Jon wore his own bronze circlet, though the strange weight on his head took some getting used to. He had to bow lower than usual to fit through the smaller doorways around the castle, and he'd knocked his crown to the floor several times already, though luckily not in front of his men.
"If I smiled more, they wouldn't know it was me," Jon japed.
His sister laughed. "Yes, you're right; a King of Winter must always be stern and solemn, and only smile in his private quarters. We Starks have a reputation to maintain."
The outer gates closed, blocking the Brotherhood Without Banners from view.
"Did you know my milk brother rides with them?" he told Sansa.
"Your what?"
"Milk brother. Apparently I shared a wet-nurse with the current Lord of Starfall," Jon explained to her. "He's not quite legendary yet, but someday he'll claim Dawn, the famous sword of House Dayne, and become Sword of the Morning. He doesn't know who my mother was, though," he added, before Sansa could ask about her.
"Well," Sansa said, raising her eyebrows, "as long as this Dayne wields his sword to help a Stark, and not to kill one, I'm all for it. Now come," she ordered, taking his gloved hand in hers. "We need to head to the kitchens. We have a celebration to plan."
"Celebration of what?" Jon asked cautiously. "We haven't caught Littlefinger yet, and he's not worth a feast. Maybe we could have one for Ghost, when he recovers."
Sansa made an impatient tsk. "Others take Littlefinger! I meant a celebration for you, silly! It's not every day the king turns two-and-twenty!"
And ignoring his protests, the Crown Princess led Jon inside the castle.
Willam - an Interlude
They'd been preparing their traps when the bloodied horse rode in, carrying a slumped figure on its back. The beast's sudden stop knocked the poor soul off the saddle, and the dead man fell to the snow.
"Willam!" cried Mother, rushing to the fallen man. "Beron, come here!"
Willam and his brother obeyed, following their mother. Edwylla, Beron's wife, took charge of the spooked horse, soothing him as only she could.
They turned the man over, and Mother clucked in sympathy at him. His left arm was a stump, hastily bandaged with bits of black cloak. The man was a stranger, and clearly wealthy, by his dress.
"He's alive!" breathed Mother, feeling the man's breath against her hand. "Barely, but he lives! Help me carry him!"
Their home wasn't far; Willam's family lived in a tiny hunter's village on the banks of the White Knife, far from the great castles of the North. They kept to their own in the summers, and when the winters roared, the entire village would pack up and head for the winter town outside Winterfell. Had the dying man arrived a fortnight later, he and his horse would have died alone in an empty village.
Beron and Willam placed the man on the nearest empty bed—Grandfather's. Immediately, Mother knelt beside him and got to work, calling for bandages, for hot water, for her tools. Edwylla returned, carrying the man's belongings in a saddlebag.
"He's got letters here," she said, holding one up, "but no one can read them. Got this, as well," she added, showing them a blue banner with a bird and a moon on it.
"At least he ain't a Bolton," Beron said, wincing in sympathy as Mother cleaned the terrible bite.
"It's infected," she murmured. "Edwylla, bring that candle here." As her good-daughter obeyed, the older woman peered closer with her sharp gray eyes. "He's fevered and the skin here is already rotting. If there's any hope for this poor man, I must take the rest of the arm."
"It's a death all the same, Mother," Beron objected.
"Pish!" Mother replied impatiently. "Use your eyes, boy! This man never worked with his hands," she observed. "And he ain't no knight, neither. This here is some southron lordling, prob'ly riding to Winterfell to talk to them lords. He can do that with one arm."
"Shall I get Alyna?" Willam offered. The lass was Mother's apprentice, and steady with the knife.
"Aye, do," she replied. "Tell her to bring her herbs and things."
Alyna was already gathering her things when Willam knocked.
"Don't be daft, Wil!" she teased. "I knew your ma would call for me as soon as that poor man rode in."
They ran back to Willam's home. As the village healer's son, Wil had plenty of practice holding down screaming men as his mother tended to their hurts, but it never got easier. The southron stranger, who had not woken at all, finally woke when Mother and Alyna sawed his upper arm clean off. Wil knew that the maesters in the big castles had something to dull the pain, called milk of the poppy, but his ma had none of that. The man's screams were terrible, and he called for strange people and places in his delirium.
"CAT!" he howled, when Alyna applied the heated metal to his shortened stump. The sizzle of cooking meat filled the small cabin.
"Poor man," clucked Mother. "Whoever his Cat is, I hope she misses him as much as he misses her! He's had his share of pain already," she added, showing Alyna the old scar running down the stranger's torso.
"That's quite old," the apprentice replied, inspecting the old wound carefully. "I wonder if he fought in the Rebellion."
"He don't have the muscles for it," Mother told her. "I doubt he was ever a soldier. Now, Alyna, we must fight the foulness in his blood. Do you remember what to use for the tea and poultice?"
"Aye," Alyna answered, going to the table where she'd left her pack. She removed small wooden boxes and metal tins, each full of some herb or mold. Willam watched her, fascinated by her graceful movements. She wasn't quite pretty, Alyna, but she was remarkable all the same.
She finished her mixing and returned to the bedside, carrying a paste that Mother spread over some bandages and wrapped around the stump, and a mug of tea that smelled horrible. Together, they helped the unconscious man drink it all.
As Mother undressed the unfortunate man to help him sleep, she rolled down his stockings and cursed. Two of his toes were frostbitten on the left foot, and as she uncovered the right foot, she saw another blackened toe.
"The gods have it in for this man," she murmured. "I'll have to take the toes before they rot."
A week later, the stranger finally woke.
"Hello there, milord," Mother said cheerfully. "You've slept a long time. Do you know where you are?"
He shook his head, blinking up at them with gray-green eyes.
"Aye, I didn't think you did," she told him. "You rode in on your last legs, bleeding all over that fancy horse of yours. Our village don't have a name, rightly, but it's home. We're on the White Knife River. What's your name, milord?"
Frantic eyes darted around the tiny hut, to Mother, to Willam, and back.
"Lyn," he said at last. "Lyn Corbray, from the Vale of Arryn."
"Fancy that!" Mother cried. "We ain't never met a southron before. Were you heading to Winterfell, when you was attacked?"
Lyn looked at his left arm, his eyes wide with horror. The sight of the bandaged stump brought him little comfort.
"No," he said. "I was riding south, home to the Vale. I have urgent business there."
"Well, milord, you'll have to wait, I'm afraid. You've only just beaten the infection."
"Is there a maester here?" he asked.
Mother laughed. "Summer child, we ain't got no maesters! They only care for the lords in their castles! All we got in town is me, Old Beth, and my poultices. But winter is here, so we'll head to the winter town soon. We would have gone earlier, but we stayed to tend your wounds, milord. Surely you can see the maester and send messages from Winterfell. We hear the Starks took their home a few months back," she added approvingly. "Beron heard it from White Harbor."
Willam expected relief from this mysterious Lyn Corbray, perhaps joy that he'd be with the King in the North instead of a hunter's family and an old healer, but there was nothing. He looked frozen.
It should have surprised Wil, when he returned home the next day, a brace of winter hares over his shoulder, and found the house empty, but it did not. Lyn Corbray was gone, and so was his fancy horse. The blackguard had stolen food from several of their neighbors, as well as their own supply, and fled.
"We should have let him die!" Beron cried angrily, holding a tearful Edwylla. They'd have to double their efforts hunting and fishing, if they wished to survive the journey to Winterfell.
"Aye, we should," Willam replied slowly. He'd always heard that southrons were not to be trusted, and this only proved it. "But Mother would never have allowed it. It is her way. And the gods have their own punishments in store for such men."
It was cold comfort, especially when Edwylla revealed that she was with child, but Willam only worked harder, setting his traps and trying to spear-fish as the game became scarcer. He'd never been the best at it, but he had a family to feed and keep safe. With the gods' help, he would do just that.
He had to.