BENJEN
"His wife's hair was a light yellow, as pure and beautiful as ever. He still loved her, in his own way, and although they certainly had their share of problems sometimes, and he'd started to see the small signs of a wrinkled anxiousness creeping in to her features at times, cementing themselves in two hard lines on each side of the mouth, he had always loved looking at her hair. Most people said that the Lannister hair was the colour of gold, but to him it was something far more valuable. It was the colour of sunlight, of summer and joy, the colour of those sweet summer days in the heat, the colour of ale and summer wheat.
He kissed her on her hair, kissed her on her sweet swan-like pale neck, held her pretty long slender fingers in his own strong coarse ones as he humped his way inside her, fucking her, and fucking her again as she moaned, and jerking inside her harder and harder, faster and faster, as she started shaking with the pleasure and he felt as if he were in the fabled seventh heaven of his wife's southron gods, faster and faster, vibrating with the sensation, and then finally he came deep inside her, letting his thick seed flow into her woman parts and filling her up. She moaned deep in gratitude and clutched her sharp fingernails into the back of his hands. He let her have it, scratch marks or no, thinking with a silent laughter somewhere at the back of his mind or shoulder, as he had half a hundred times before, that lionesses should always be careful with their long claws.
He held fast to her some more, kissing her hands in sweetest devotion, and then slowly letting go to pull out of her and stand up. His white seed still dripped from the yellow hair of her cunt. The coverlets had started to fret him to no mind's end some great while back, wherefore he had dragged her up from them and taken her on top of the bed instead. And so she lay there, her long legs parted and her nightgown spread to its sides, almost as naked as he was himself.
He stood up and walked over to the window, pulling apart the curtains slightly and staring out across the grey wasteland which was his home. Winterfell, with its grey stone towers and curtain walls, the godswood with the great weirwood and pine trees, fir trees, great sentinels and maples and much else, the rest of the forest taking over far outside, towards the Kingsroad and the Wolfswood both, as the peaceful singling of summer snows fell slowly from the greying skies above. It was late evening, soon to be night, and Lord Benjen Stark and Lady Cersei Lannister were still enjoying each other's company. He picked up a cup of deep red summer wine from the wooden shelf of the bureau and drank.
His wife soon sat up on the bed behind him, fastening her nightgown again and tying together her laces to make herself presentable. He stayed by the window, naked, feeling the nice cold breeze of the evening wind outside.
"Can I have some of that?" his lady wife asked.
"Help yourself", he replied with a smile, pulling out a second cup of wine from the wooden cupboard and presenting it to her.
She drank with deep thirst and desire. They had been at it for almost an hour, or so he thought, and she was as sweaty and tired as he was, if not even more.
"Shall I get you a cup of water instead?" he laughed, holding out his hand through the window to see the snowflakes gathering and melting on the calloused palm of his warm hand.
"No thankyou", his lady wife replied.
She really did enjoy her wine. It was one of the few things she had up here to remind her of the south, he supposed. Although they had been married for nigh on thirteen years, going nigh on fourteen soon, she had still not entirely gotten used to the life up here, not entirely at least; not in truth. She was always seeming to be schemeing for something else, something more for her to do, a strange female sort of restlessness which he still did not fully understand. But he could live with it. He was glad enough to do so, in fact. Cersei Lannister had been a prize far better than he had ever counted with in his youth, and all the heartbreak and grief which had struck him down in grief in his youthful years had somehow gotten out to something good on the other side.
They had a good family together, three children and possibly a fourth little one on the way, he thought to himself, imagining the small child no doubt growing inside his wife's warm womb before long. It would have to be a fast pregnancy, though, for children were best reared in the summer, a long and plentiful summer just such as this one, and not in winter, where the cold winds roared and the land became dark from evening to early noon, he thought to himself. But whatever horrors came, they would surely be safe. Better up here in the North, behind the safety of Winterfell's walls than somewhere else.
He had been betrothed to Cersei Lannister of Casterly Rock, Lord Tywin's beautiful golden-haired maiden daughter, aye, said to be the most beautiful woman in all the Seven Kingdoms, close to three moons after the war's end, to bring peace between House Stark and Lannister as the realm was steadying itself from Ned's and Robert's rebellion. It had been his duty, and at first he had seen it only as such, just as he was preparing to take the black and forget all about women as he'd bile away with his sorrows with his new black brothers up at the Wall, and instead he was confronted with the match.
A terrible thing, it had been to his youthful heart, though beautiful and glamorous of course, as any clamouring southron lord would claim it to be. A hard and golden, beautiful duty, like a golden casket or coffin that suddenly fell down to land in his lap, and sealed against him with the hard golden chains stretching all the way from Lord Tywin's hands at Casterly Rock, the ever unsmiling puppetmaster of the West. His brother had been given the equally heavy burden of taking the throne, as someone had to do it, and Lord Robert was fairly uninterested once they had gotten rid of the Mad one, or so Ned had said. At times Benjen would think on that, but he could not be jealous of his brother, scarcely at all. His lot in life hadn't been easy either, even less so than Benjen's own, and neither had his wife been his own to choose. He had been married to Catelyn Tully of Riverrun, far from his first choice, as Benjen knew, along with Jon Arryn to her sister Lysa, to secure the support of Lord Hoster and the Riverlands in the war.
And now his older brother sat somewhere down in King's Landing, far from his home here in Winterfell, where he no doubt wanted to return to some day, by the contents of his many letters and their conversations each time, and ruled over the seven-folded mess of it all, eating spiced pigeon pies by day and trout by night, shearing his arse from the blades of the Iron Throne, and trimming his beard with the help of the soft hands of some southron manservant, no doubt. At least he had gotten Jory and Erryk Glover and some others to help him from losing his mind down there, Benjen thought. Still, it was a strange sensation, and one which he wondered if Ned would ever to truly grow to like.
Cersei went up and took another cup of wine, already shivering in the slight cold and plotting to have the windows shut, Benjen knew, though he would bide his time at length on that, resting with his arm on the stone of the windowsill/[ ], and looking out over the castle and the world beyond, taking his time as the lord he was.
He stood watching the snows fall, content but with something gnawing at the forefront of his mind. He thought about what he had been told by Ser Rodrik that Jon had said a day or two before about joining the Watch. Have I grown so old already that now my son of my blood will take the black before I do? He'd given up the thoughts of the Wall long ago, or so he'd told himself, an eternity ago, before the children, before Cersei, before all of it, when Ned had made it clear to him that he would intend to take the Iron Throne, and Benjen would have to take Winterfell, and hold it and watch over it all for as long as he could, and be the Stark in Winterfell. These were thoughts which he shared with few men, not his oldest friends, not Manks or Harwin, not Ser Rodrik, not even Maester Luwin. Only his brother knew the extent of his brooding, and not even he knew all of it.
But what would he tell Jon, then? He could not tell him the truth, surely, nor could he hope to hinder him from going in time, should he truly want to do so. Any man was free to join the Night's Watch, though Jon was not a man yet, still ever only a boy, to his eyes at least, the same little boy with his sister's eyes and hair that he had promised to watch over with his life, the little boy which was all that he had left of his sister, the little boy that he had been given in a grey bundle from Ned's arms to his own beneath the red leaves in the godswood on that fateful day.
At first they had met inside, in the dark grey stone of the bedchambers, to talk about it all, but Ned knew that Lady Catelyn would be back there shortly with her own child, little red-haired Robb, and so they had gone outside instead, with Ned holding the little one as gently as anyone could. He had seemed more of a father to the boy than Benjen could have ever hoped to be, bringing him up all the way from Dorne across the Kingsroad and through the Neck, making their way all the way home to the safety of Winterfell, he thought.
And yet it would have to be he who took the child. It had filled him with a nervousness, of course, particularly as he was not even married himself yet, but Ned had told him about his plans of his engagement as well at the same time, and so Benjen thought that at least this way he would have something from her, from Lyanna, to keep into this new life which he had to lead, and if there was one single child in this world who he could forsake his dreams of running away for, it would be hers. Little Jon. Lyanna's little Jon. Ned had already named him, it seemed, and he thought it a suiting name. When he grew up a little, he'd taken to calling him Little Jon Morning, since he'd rush in and wake him as early as the rooster galled at sunrise, hopping up to his fathom to the dismay of Cersei and the crying baby Willam. He smiled sadly at the thought, remembering how the little Jon always would laugh with joy when he said his name like that. Nowhere in any castle across the Seven Kingdoms was ever a poor bastard boy treated as well, he reflected, but how else could he have done it, when it was Lyanna in a new life? Sometimes he almost began thinking that he was going to give away Winterfell to Jon instead of Willam, but that was folly. It would surely have meant another war, or worse. And so he began calling him Jon Snow, but Jon had always been his name, ever since Ned had said it to him with the revere he had himself for the boy.
And so they had stood there, two brothers caught at the end of the storm of it all, the ones who survived, the silent wolf and the young pup, and they drew up the coming five or ten or twenty years of their lives before them, speaking calmly and with toned-down reserve of what had to be done and carried through, as only two Starks could do, and pledged to follow their paths and do their duty to eachother by the whispering voice of the old gods rustling in the red leaves above. And they had done so. Whether it had helped to soothe the fret of both of their wives or the other houses in the south, he could not say, but he had surely done his part. And now he was looking at his golden-haired prize of a wife approaching the window, thinking to himself with a laugh at the corner of his mouth that he was surely about to make one more sacrifice for the joy of his house.
"That cold already, are you?" He laughed.
"It is summer, lord husband. This is surely cold enough for me, yes", she said, close to shivering by the sound and sudden ghastly look of her. She stretched up, as she was almost taller than him, and gave him another kiss on his mouth. She was so beautiful, so pretty to look at, even when she was cold, he thought to himself.
"It is almost night soon. The sun is beginning to set", she noted.
He was silent for a few moments, stroking the back of her soft golden curls and feeling the shape of her back beneath her nightgown. Then he groaned slightly, nodding in agreement, kissing her on the forehead again and pinching her at the side of her hips. The hips of a lion, a lioness's hips, as he liked to call them, and she would laugh at times, and more often than that simply look back at him, confirming his comments and thoughts, that she was indeed a lioness, a lioness who had been forced to go high up north inside a guilded cage and marry the wolf. But she did not regret it, he could tell. She was sweet enough, though somewhat mad for might and domineering for a woman, he concluded. They would be happy for some time more. Maybe...
"It is", he said. "It's starting to go down earlier..."
"Autumn is soon to be on its way", she finished the train of thought for him.
"Aye."
"I'll go out and ask Gerda to come light the fire."
He nodded in silence, as she went out to the corridor. Gerda soon came in, building a fire and fetching some extra hot water for her lady. Though she seldom talked to her, or any of the other servingwomen either for that matter, his lady wife was ever grateful for their work. Cersei watched over her calmly, a serene light spreading on her face, streaming with contentment as the first flames began alighting in the fireplace. It soon began taking its turn, crackling on with a familiar sound.
Cersei turned to place a hand on his chest. She looked up at him with a smiling but longing face. Gerda was tending the fire behind as Cersei held her beautiful pale hand towards him, undoing his robes slightly again and stroking his thick black chesthair. He wondered what she might say this time, and was not disappointed.
"Night will soon be on its way, my lord husband. But you don't need to have such a long face, for I will keep you warm and safe inside my castle."
"Is that so? And what is the name of your dear own castle, my lady?"
"It is not such a polite name to speak in front of the servants", she whispered to him as Gerda was about to exit the chamber. The door closed behind her as she slid out into the corridor quietly.
He laughed, asking if she might name it now that Gerda was gone out of the room, and she said that he did not need to know its name to get inside it.
He laughed again, wildly as a young man, as he jumped back into the bed, letting her close the windows behind her and climb up on him and then beside him, snuggling into the warm [wool/silk/[ ]] of the thick down coverlets and beneath into a warm sleep soon to follow for them both.
The night soon took its hold over them, engulfing them in a still and dark sleep as the fire and the thicklet kept them warm as always. The world became a large and comforting darkness with the both of them holding each other close, breathing and lying still in a dark, vaguely swale silence.
The morning came at the call of the rooster, as it always did. Old Tecker, or Pecker, whatever he was called. The young boy who tended the hens, Ardon, along with his mother, could never seem to decide. The sun was an orange globe emanating with its strange yet familiar light from over the treetops, arising with the promise of a new day.
It was still cold, but Benjen never minded. He huddled closer to his wife one more time, kissing her and humping his way into her a couple of times, then lay for a time and finally got up to walk on the cold stone floor.
They broke their fast separately, as usual, Cersei sitting with her ladies and the younger children and he going over the [ ] of the day with the steward Hallis Mollen.
"The storm and rainfall hit hard", Mollen was saying. "I will have to tell them to pick up the pace with fixing the northern outpost tower. If we're quick about it, it will be ready within the fortnight."
"Aye, that'll serve", Benjen nodded, chewing on some fish-bread and butter. It would have to, he thought.
Under his rule they had settled a dozen lords with small holdings in the Gift, to serve as a second line of defence, but the wildling incursions had continued of course. They were becoming more and more clever, always travelling by night and through the woods in small numbers so as to make their way all towards Torrhen's Square undetected at times. He had heard of some making it all the way down to the Vale only a year or two back, but there they had met upon their southron brothers of old and been slaughtered by the Mountain Clans. Either that, or they were just some other faction out of the dozen which the noble lords of the Eyrie themselves were not familiar with. In any case, Winterfell and all the other castles in The North had to stand strong before them. Deepwood Motte had been attacked by a group of forty wildlings, cannibals from the [hornfoots/ice river clans/[ ]?], no less, only three or four moons back, with Lord Galbart sending a raven first to Ser Denys Mallister at the Shadowtower, then Lord Genfryd Miller in the Gift and then to Winterfell, asking for protection. Lord Genfryd had obliged, sending a small party of twenty riders to pick them off, though twelve had died before even making it halfway to Sea Dragon Point. Benjen sighed to himself, tugging restlessly at his beard.
"What I would not give to know what has stirred them so much that they feel the need to do this. Or are they better informed on the failings of the Watch than we are?"
"But they do not think, mylord", Mollen said. "They only know raiding and killing. And climbing, I suppose. Otherwise they would have come with some iron of their own for once. But no, they just stole the axes and swords from Deepwood Motte, same as usual."
"Aye", Benjen said again. "Though this King-Beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder... He's got iron..."
"'Call a fallen crow for a king?" asked Hal.
"I'd call any man a king who has such sway over his lands. Oathbreaker or no".
"Lands..." Mollen snorted. "Wasteland, more like."
"It is a large place. With more food and fields than one might think. More than in the Gift, at least. The maps over the lands beyond the Wall... Well... Let's just say they haven't been drawn up again since the time when the Mad King was but a speck inside his mother's womb."
"Sending another score of men up to them, then?"
"I can send as fair many as I want, but it's the Lord Commander who chooses what to do with them", Benjen said, sighing again. "For a man who was afflicted by their raidings himself, he sure takes his good time to do anything about it."
Mollen nodded silently in agreement, then grunted and took another swallow of ale.
Maester Luwin came to him with the latest reports on what he had found in the book. 'Winter Wars: The Struggles and Stories of the Men of the Night's Watch, Being a Chronicle of the Lives of Three Lord Commanders During the Years 68 – 120 A.C.'. It was a fascinating read, though Benjen himself found that he had little time for it. He had never been more than at times the sharpest mind at Maester Walys's knee, and a man would need the mind and time of a maester himself to get through the various dreary chapters on all the new recruits and their deeds and goings-on to find the chapters which truly stood out in importance, the ones about the largest wildling raids, the strategies of the Watch to fight against them, the old maps recounting old game trails long since forgotten, and many more important details. There were also the important first accounts of the establishment of the New Gift, which was what he was the most interested in. The New Gift had been a gift from King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne when they had visited the Wall, as the first and probably last Targaryens to ever do so. For several generations it had worked to its purpose, but during the centuries it had somehow fallen to ruin and despair. They were working to rebuild it in strength now, with the new small holdfasts and farmers being raised to lords so far standing strong and promising. But more work was needed, and more wise advice from the past, Benjen knew. Maester Luwen had been happy to oblige.
The maester sat down in his grey robe, his heavy chain clinking against the table, and soon told him about the peace treaties and talks of land partitioning that the thenwaring Lord Stark had had with among many others Lord Umber, Lord Tallbarr and the Mountain Clans. Norrey, Liddle, Grane, Hare, Wull. He recognised most of the names.
Maester Luwin then slipped out a small parchment from his robe's sleeves; a redrawing of one of the maps which he had made earlier that morning, or else the night before, Benjen guessed. Maester Luwen had a fine hand to write and draw, and would often make the pages nicer than the ones before, but this one was somewhat riddled all the same.
"What are these lines here?" he asked the old maester. "They don't look particularly straight."
"No, indeed, mylord", Maester Luwin agreed. "The lineation following the Scrying Lakes was particularly difficult matter, as the lakes themselves were already divided in no small ancient conflict between Houses Umber and the First Flints. After the meddling of Lord Stark, however, the issue was initially resolved in accordance with this peculiar pattern darting around each lake. Some years later, though, the issue was lifted with the New Gift's southern border being too irregular, and Lord Umber and Flint had to finally agree to have the lands separated in a straighter line east to west. In compensation for the land, they were given an honourable sum of golden dragons from Old King Jaehaerys."
"And how much is an honourable sum?" Benjen smiled at the master.
"I fear it would not matter much to tell you the numbers, my lord, as the value of golden dragons has fluctuated wildly ever since the reign of King Aegon III, but it says that House Umber and House Flint were considered quite wealthy for at least a generation or two forward, before three or four hard winters had finished up most of it by the shipping of large amounts of barley and wheat from the Vale, and the loss of the land was firmly established in the hands of the Watch and the memory of men beyond the point of bickering or pleading to Winterfell. Queenscrown was thriving and held a number of close to seven hundred men, by then, it is said, and many and more that came from all over the Seven Kingdoms. Seldom had so many young sons left their fathers' keeps to man the Wall and become a part of the Northern pride guarding the Realm in the name of Lord Stark and the Old King and Queen. It was often joked, it says, that the south was running out of its best squires for this very reason."
Maester Luwen continued on, adding more and more details of the far-fetching consequences that the New Gift's first and original establishment had had, and Benjen listened with full intent while he chewed on his bread and fish, listening closely and making notes in his mind. Luwen assured that he would go on reading more in the day, as soon as he was finished tending to the ravens.
"Good", Benjen answered. "I have a feeling that I do not know how much gold it would take for the Watch or the Crown to well and truly part with the lands again", he mumbled. Officially, the New Gift was still in service to the Watch, but that could change if a man had the means to do so, he thought... Maester Luwen nodded and put down the scroll of the map into his sleeve again, promising to leave it at his lord's nightstand, and respectfully took his leave.
After breaking his fast, he went out to meet with his lady wife and the children. The boys were practicing archery as usual in the inner ward. Willam and Jon were standing next to Ser Rodrik, to watch over young Tommen as he strung his bow and aimed.
The arrow hit the wall behind them, and Willam and Jon both laughed at the failed shot, same as Theon. The Greyjoy always seemed to laugh loudest, though. Benjen walked down to them, and they quieted a bit, an uncertain smile on Theon's face which in truth made Benjen slightly nauseous to behold. He had tried his best to be as a father to the boy, but it was clear that it hadn't worked. Theon was still uncertain and swaying back and forth in his presence, and always tried laughing it off to hide his fear. But Benjen had no time to dwell on that now, as he made quickly to chastise all of the boys, Greyjoy, Stark and Snow, for their mockery of their little brother.
"And were you all so good with the bow and arrow at the age of eight?" he asked. They all quieted down, their faces becoming somber, and looked up at him in respect.
"Keep practicing, Tommen."
Tommen nodded dutifully up towards his Father's face, and he ruffled the boy's hair back in encouragement. Fine hair, though he cold not feel it through the leather of his glove, the fine hair of a strange yet to him familiar sort of colour which had not yet quite decided which house it wished to belong to, thought Benjen to himself. It was the colour of fen and heath grass during autumn, as he thought that he remembered it to be, but it had been a long time since he saw an autumn. Soon we will see it, though, he thought to himself grimly. By the time that comes, he needs to be full-fledged and ready for all sorts.
Cersei smiled towards Tommen from the benches far to the left, clapping her hands together and hailing him as her brave champion with her embroidered Stark and Lannister handkerchief. She loved all of her children deeply, and he was glad for it. A mother should, of course, but she had never seemed quite the motherly sort of woman until Willam had grown up a bit more and she had found herself comfortable in Winterfell as her home. It was as his father Lord Rickard had once said. A woman needs to breed herself into a family. Once she has gotten safely in and made herself planted with at least one pup, or preferrably two or three, and preferrably boys at that, she can relax and trust in her place. And she certainly did now. Cersei was looking radiant in her golden hair put up in the northern fashion, in her grey and yellow dress, with direwolves and lions dancing paw in paw to meet each other at her youthfully rising breast, swelling with pride for the bowmanship of her sweet little boy, and smiling as warm and enthusiastic of a smile as Benjen had ever seen on a southerner in the North. Tommen was picking up a new arrow, and angling it into what looked like it could be a more successful shot. Benjen himself had not been training at bow until well over eight, being too weak to hold it, and made fun of the more by Brandon, as he recalled. Tommen would no doubt have a better time of it if he kept it up like this.
He was suddenly stopped in his thoughts, however. Ser Rodrik had walked up to him after having gotten a message delivered by mouth by the young guardsboy Dacks. Ser Rodrik harkled his mouth, went forth to Tommen to tell him to put down the arrow, and the boy listened, with a little bit of confusion. Cersei quickly lost her precious smile, her beautiful white teeth disappearing behind a concerned face of a mother and long-suffering golden lady from the Rock again. Ser Rodrik stopping a practice did not bode well for good news. The old knight went up to him, his steps heavy in the black mud of the practice yard of the inner ward, speaking with quiet but clear words.
"My lord. There have been outriders to the north who have spotted a deserter from the Wall."
What is he saying? Benjen was perplexed. He could not believe a deserter could make it that far.
"A deserter? All the way from the Wall? What castle?"
"I don't know, my lord. But he made it south somehow, with a horse, and not much else, it seems."
"All the way down here?" Benjen said again. "How could they not have captured him already in the Gift? Are any of the outriders from Lord Miller's lands? Or Lord Stand or Ryddis?" He asked, half to Ser Rodrik, half to Dacks, the sprinter boy. The boy looked to Ser Rodrik, though he was the one who had come to the knight with the news, seemingly afraid of speaking up to Lord Stark. He was only slightly older than Tommen by the looks of him.
"I could not say", Ser Rodrik. "Stand and Ryddis certainly would be the closest candidates...-"
"Shole?"
"I do not know, my lord."
Benjen looked down at the ground, thought for a while, then looked up again. Cersei already pleaded to him with eyes of worry. I'm sorry, my dear lady wife, but I must do this. It is for the best, thought Benjen.
"Tell the boys to have their horses saddled and ready within the hour and to come with. Tommen too."
"Aye, my lord."
Benjen stood still and thought for a while more. He could already feel the familiar sensation of his horse, Augey, from under him as they would have to make the journey at least half a day's ride up. They would be back at the castle shortly before evenfall, he guessed. And Cersei would not be happy again in true for a good three or four days after that. He sighed to himself. My poor lady of Lannister must suffer such harsh lessons up here. And she seems yet unwilling to take them. But at least the boys would be better prepared for winter for it, and all of the horrors to come. Tommen would not be a boy forever, and winter was on its way.
"Did he have any particular reason for deserting?" Benjen asked Ser Rodrik. "Or did he just want to go south to be free of his vows?"
"I beg your pardon but I do not know, my lord. Best be you had a look at it and made your own judgment over the man."
Ser Rodrik stood silently, face serious yet attentive, waiting for a reply. His grey-white whiskers tugged ever so slightly in the brisk hale of the early noon wind. Cersei had already shut her eyes.
Benjen sighed, strongly, deeply, clenching his fists so that the leather knighed itself hard together in his hands, as he knew already what he must do.
"Well, that's a judgment that's already made for me", he said silently, angling for the boys to come up and join him and Ser Rodrik. He went on. "But I suppose that it is one, like many before, which might serve me and us all later on. Winter is coming, after all. And we will not want any wrongdoers guarding the Realm from the ramparts high up on our dear old Wall."