JORY III

"It had been more than eight days, and Prince Bran was not waking up. The whole castle was in some strange sense of mourning, though many also had quickened from it and gone back to their own activities and doings. Princess Sansa with her dancing, Robb and Willam and all the other boys at their sword practice, and each and every one of the royal Stark children with their wolves, who followed in their every step and howled in grief and longing for Prince Bran in the night.

The King and Queen were the most distraught, however, as King Eddard went one final time to the prince's bedchamber to say his final farewells to his lady wife and young sleeping son before having to take his leave of them and the homey castle of Winterfell, against the wishes of his heart, and slowly, gradually begin the start of their long journey all the way back south. It was not an easy thing to do, for any man, to have to leave his wife and son behind, before even seeing that he had woken up from his fall, but there were not many other options, in truth.

They had already stayed at Winterfell for longer than imagined, lingering here for the past couple of days while the children grew more northern and accustomed to the place for every single day. Important connections had been knitted, but also many connections and tasks were awaiting for the King down south at King's Landing. And so they had to finally take their leave of Lord Benjen, Lady Cersei, Willam, Jon, Theon Greyjoy, Myrcella and Tommen, and go.

The whole castle stood up to take their farewells as they gathered up in the long column all over again.

The King and Lord Stark embraced, and Benjen promised Ned that he and Maester Luwin would do everything in his power to see that Bran woke up, preferrably as soon as possible. The King thanked him, with a stiff nod, as Prince Robb, Arya and Sansa as well as Rickon took their leave of all of their friends, Robb to Willam, Jon and Theon, Arya to the guardsmen who had gotten much glee and fret from chasing her around the courtyard the past week, calling her "Princess Arya Underfoot" and "Arya Wolf", Rickon to Tommen and Ardon, the chicken boy, Sansa to Septa Arbane and Myrcella, and the Lannisters to Lady Cersei as well… and then they were off.

The naves of the wheels of the great wheelhouse once again started spinning, taking their deep standoff/[ ] heave-off from the coarse, black dirt of Winterfell's outer courtyard, and then the entire column was slowly, slowly set in motion again, as Jory rode back up to the side of the King, riding first of all.

They had brought some couple of new servants and others with them from the castle, a good twoge or more of men, women and children who wanted to go with the King to the capital and serve him down south, and Jory knew that Ned was much glad over it, filling up his court with some "fresh northern blood", as Benjen had said. It was necessary, he supposed, if the court were to remain a true court of the Starks, albeit House Stark of King's Landing of course.

…

He had somehow almost half expected some extra servants or possibly even the Queen herself running after the great equipage, suddenly shouting that she had changed her mind and that she and Bran wanted to come with on the ride, as it took so long for them - almost half an hour - just to make it out of the castle gates and down the start of the Kingsroad, but no such thing happened.

The King, the Queen, Maester Luwin and Maester Frenken had all agreed. The road was not a good place for a young boy of seven in a deep sleep of the mind and body who was needing his rest. The Queen more so than anyone agreed. There would be others, though, he was sure, servants, hunters, archers, outriders, camp followers, whores, artisans, woodcrafters and singers, who would all want to join with the great three hundred strong party of good King Ned, and such was at least somewhat needed, as they had lost four of their best scouting men to the lumbering sickness of the mists at the Neck, and for some reason Jory suspected that the ride back would not be easier. The narrow causeway certainly would have its due, he thought grimly.

…

As he looked down on his bag when about to put it on the packaging with the rest, he saw suddenly to his surprise a tiny small greyish brown form taking shape from the fabric of the backpack. Was it growing? No, it was... growing and moving... He realized. It became long, and wayed its way forth and back, left to right, growing strangely in a slightly distasteful, rubbery sort of way... A tiny little worm, or caterpillar perhaps, had slingered its way into the bag somehow. Jory almost became frougth down with depression for a moment, as he considered the shame he would no doubt feel from his fellow brothers in arms and their inescapeable idiotic bloody fuss at the notion of the discovery. 'Ser Jory was so dirty and unwashed that he had maggots crawling from his rations in his backpack'... Bloody fools.

Was it from the bread? Or the potatoes, perhaps? The Dornish spices? The cloves and cinnamon? He was sure that some of the food must be having gone to old and stale by now, as he was always putting foodstuffs in there for later, saving it for himself, but then was too afraid to eat it and waste it before its time, and then instead forgetting entirely that it was there, focusing on his guard duties for days on end, until the food was so old that it was moldy and brown by the time he found it the next time, an eternity later.

Such was the price of being a Kingsguard, and a northern one at that, who knew the value of saving up, and not wasting one's food before it had had its time enough to rot, he considered.

The worm was a perfectly normal one, but strange one still the same. A long body and a small little plump head with a darker colour. He thought it a mealworm at first, but then he realized that he had no meal in his backpack. Or flour, as it was called at courts and down south all across the realm. His northern tongue had almost been reawakened by close to a fortnight at Winterfell. At any rate... What could it be? Was it truly a mealworm? He thought so. It was the same tiny size and shape for it.

But mealworms were just the slightly ever so more colour lighter, a yellow-beige type of shade, whereas this little worm was perhaps more brownish red, as he saw now... Yes... Almost a sort of strange pink brown red color... He suddenly realized that it looked much like a tiny, or newly hatched, he supposed, youngling version of the great pink worms he had seen growing up in Winterfell as a boy. The great pink, fat, blubbery summer worms which grubbled their way forward along the pathways of the gravelways, edging along the sides of its wooden poles sunk down in the ground, following the path with digusting but fascinating movements, and sounding, sounding all the while it walked, sounding absurdly much like a smithy or bellows being blown and churning, as it made its way forward, as long as a man's finger or more.

This little one was tiny, though. Just a small strip. Though it struggled forward with the confidence of a creature much larger across the line of the fabric, threatening to creep back inside it from whence it had seemingly come.

He tried to measure his hand against it, and saw that he would not be able to pick it up without fearing to squash it. His gloved hand was clumsy, and his bare one was rough as well, his hands hard and strong, coarse with hair on their backs and his finger stumps thick. He might have asked Bran to take a look at it, but Bran was asleep for all the waken world, lying in his bedchamber, and Princess Sansa was terrified of small creeps, Arya he might have asked, but they were both inside the wheelhouse and not likely to come out, with the only other option being Rickon, but he was also inside, and besides too young to handle it with finess as well. He considered the tiny worm, and its chances of making it alive through their long journey.

Grand Maester Pycelle had once told the children how animals often died when they left their places of origin. The smaller the beast, he said, the smaller its range of comfort. Men might travel across continents, and survive, but always feel a slight dissatisfaction, or often be ill and with disease, just like he thought that the King sometimes felt in the eternal heat of summer down in King's Landing, and how the Dornish Prince Quentyn had looked sick and shivering up here. Horses were much the same. Smaller creatures, such as rabbits or birds might move from place to place, but still were different in colour and manners in each of the Seven Kingdoms. A smooth-furred, floppy-eared, fat and brown burrowing rabbit in the Reach, its belly white and round, was not much the same as a grey, nargled deep-droving rabbit in the North.

The worm was tiny, barely even large enough to be considered a small creep, but it might some day come to grow to those pink worms that he had seen as a boy, and also at times on the grass close to the godswood in King's Landing, as he thought that he remembered.

He took of his glove on his right hand and made a small attempt at putting his pinky finger close to the worm, but it would not bite, shying away from his finger and dangling out its entire hind body in a grotesque fashion, wigggling it with its behind, which seemed to have three tiny black spreats on it and a mind and will of its own.

All right then. Fine. Stay there if you think it fun, Jory thought to himself.

One more slithering worm on the way to the court in King's Landing... he chuckled inside his head. Though he would much have preferred this little pink creature to the worm called Littlefinger, as he thought sourly.

"Have you had any weevils or else in your bags?" Jory asked Ser Arys, though he regretted it soon.

"Forgotten to wash again, have you?" Ser Arys laughed.

Flowery fool, Jory thought. He liked Ser Arys, in truth, and they were friends, but he was always looking down on Jory's unkemptness, while he himself washed himself with rosewater, green mintwater and all else possible every single day. A true reachman, in short.

...

After three or four days on the road they reached the green and brownish grey heart of the Barrowlands. The King told them that they would be stopping by at the inn of the Red Horse.

The outriders rode out and down the hills of the barrows, cresting a large grey ridge down towards the southwest, where the inn lay by a small sideroad. It was a grey house with a brownish black roof, and the great wooden sign which had a large, strong red horse painted on it.

They mounted off, the four of them, and made to prepare the innkeeper of the King's arrival. They had been at the Red Horse inn on their journey up as well, and now they were back. Jory had liked the place well enough. It was surely among the greatest and most fertile parts of the Barrowlands, and green enough with grass, although already beginning to grey somewhat before the coming winter. Here in the North, the weather was encompassing the Stark words.

They made it down and presented themselves, as the King, Jory and Ser Arys rode first, greeting the innkeeper and the guests as ceremoniously as required, but no more. Then they dismounted and their horses were eagerly taken to the stables, as they walked in to the inn. The rest of the enormous party, besides the royal family and court, set up camp behind them, by the east side of the inn, between it and the Kingsroad, as they had last time.

The young Lord Joffrey and Lord Tyrion approached after the Stark children, eager to have a warm meal and to get off their horses, as Jory watched them. They seemed courteous enough, he supposed, for all that he had heard of Lannister arrogance in the past. Perhaps they were not so bad as all that, but he still held his wait in pursuit of it.

Jory came to think of the whorehouse which lay close by, once again. The infamously whoremongering little Lord Tyrion had visited the place the last time, and with Joffrey also coming along for a short while, as he remembered, and it was much the same this time around. As soon as they had gotten a nice warm hearty dinner of barrowland stew, with carrots, onions, leeks, chicken breast and much else, they decided to check the place out.

Jory had found it hard for himself to resist the temptation to go there last time, but this time around it was somehow made easier. He had already seen the whores several times, and they were fine enough girls, the red-haired Roz, the beautiful lanky blonde Fallana, the greyish brown-haired Hanna with the beautiful smile, kind eyes and the big breasts, the pock-marked and somewhat homely Hylma, the old matron Buxom Bagilda, with her deep chin lines, potato nose, grey brown constantly awatching eyes, massive stomach, breasts, and many more. He was feeling a strange hungry urge after her, but he tried the best to ignore it. She was old, near fifty, he was sure, and perhaps not even working anymore. He could not be certain. Some matrons still upheld their own work, and some did not. Regardless, he knew that the King most like would not appreciate it, and mayhaps Bagilda herself would, mayhaps she would not. He dared not ask her, who was fifteen years his elder, and look a fool in shining armour just like the southerners. His uncle Ser Rodrik would have known, he was sure, living at Winterfell close by, although he rarely had frequented such places from what Jory knew of him, still mourning his lady wife and caring deeply for the memory of her in his young daughter Beth.

...

He stayed with the King for dinner and supper as Lord Tyrion and Joffrey wandered off, only perhaps somewhat discreetly, to the whorehouse. The children would not know what they were doing, though, save for possibly Robb, and even he seemed to not take an interest in it, taking after his Father in honour and holding himself too good for it, seemingly preferring only fighting with his friends, at times flirting on with some ladies closer to his own status as well as the promise of a noble lady wife some day further on.

They sat gathered eating at the big wooden table further in in the innkeep, the air thick with smoke and the warmth of the place, something sorely needed after their journey, even now in summer. King Eddard sat at the back of the table, keeping watch over its long expanse with his brew of dark musty ale in one hand and the thick warmy musty stew on the table in front of him. The innkeep stood passing up on him by the King's left side, his northern side, as Jory thought, and Jory himself stood on his right, the southern side, along with Arys and Ser Marlon, keeping guard.

Ser Mandon and Ser Erryk had stayed behind at Winterfell with the Queen and Bran, and since his favourite Ser Erryk, Bran and his Mother had stayed there, little Rickon had done so as well. That was for the best, surely, as the King and Queen had both agreed.

Lady Tanda and Lady Lollys, however, had professed their great sorrow at the prince's ill-fated accident, but had not gotten much in the way of talking with the Queen, as she only admitted visitors once in a short while each day, and elsewise never left the prince's bedchamber. That, along with their southron composures, and having already been ill once at the Neck and freezing all the way since, meant that they went back with the King, hitching their presence tenuously at the periphery of Princess Sansa and praying steadfastly and most earnestly every day, afternoon and night for Prince Bran, Prince Rickon and the Queen's return.

The backer wheelhouse which they stayed in had broken its axle five times on the journey up north, perhaps owing to Lollys's enormous frame, as it was almost always – well, four out of five times –on the right side of the wagon that the wheel had seemed to snap. The thought made him hard, as hard as iron in his long member, tightening to inside his breeches, although he still barely understood why, and tried stopping himself at the thought.

The snapping of the axles had been a problem, though, which had slowed their march by at least two or three hours for every time that it had happened. Every time they had tried their best to fix it with their travelling blacksmith, Jernys, who had traveled with them as a valuable asset all the way from the Street of Steel, but it was a great trouble to them all the same. The castle blacksmith at Winterfell, however, Mikken, along with some northern carpenters, had seemed to fix up the entire wheelhouse with a sturdier frame during their prolongue stay there, and so far it had not cracked at all. Everyone was glad for that much, at least.

All in all, their ride back seemed to be a great one, and the spirits in the hall were high, as the King sat with all of his rowdy children, Prince Robb, Princess Sansa and Arya, chatting away happily, along with Gerion Buckwell, an adventurous boy who was enjoying the journey as ever, the poor freezing dornish Prince Quentyn, who nursed his warm spiced clove and honey ale like it was his mother's milk, the lady Jeyne, Wynafryda, Marla Piper and her mother Lady Selna, little Haelda, her mother and all the rest. The children's direwolves were padding around the table, all three of them, Robb's slender Grey Wind, Sansa's dainty and sweet Lady and Arya's feisty and frucking Nymeria, who napped and nipped after her owner and begged for another piece of meat from her stew.

The King and they all had grown accustomed to the wolves by now, as Ned had first thought to always leave them on the outside when they passed by an inn. But Sansa had prayed and begged father to let her have at least the calm and ladylike Lady by her side that one time, and protested that they had been allowed to do so back at Winterfell, and the King had sighingly relented to his sweet little daughter, as ever. Then Arya had wanted to bring her wolf as well, but the king had said straight out that Nymeria was nowhere near as well trained. Somehow, however, she had still managed to get the wolf in, as it sneaked past the inn's guards, who were too afraid of the fast growing beast to do anything about it, Nymeria now being as tall as almost reaching up to halfway between a man's knee and waist, as large as a medium sized hound, and growing larger for each day. And so that had been that. They seemed, all in all, to be content, and the nervousness of the innkeep settled down somewhat for each moment as the young direwolves simply followed around the children, keeping them company and barking lightly at times when they wanted some more food. The King seemed happy enough to let it be as it was as well.

After their supper, the King stood outside the inn with Jory and Arys each by his side, as Ser Balon and Ser Marlon watched the children inside.

"What do you think? A nice and pleasant journey back?" Jory asked the king.

"I should hope so", the king said, staring out across the distance with a longing look.

He is thinking of Bran again, Jory realized.

"He will wake soon, Your Grace. I am sure of it.", Jory tried his best to reassure the King.

Ned looked back to him, suddenly surprised by the words, but considering them with a still face, his great jaw stopped up in thought, half open by the side.

"Aye... Aye, I reckon so."

Then he looked back at the horizon again. Their sight to the east was that of the grey ridge, the Kingsroad spanning from north to south all the way in the distance, where they would return in the morning, or perhaps otherwise in the day after that, if they chose to stay here for two nights, which seemed quite possible, and then Winterfell to the North, and King's Landing somewhere to the south, beyond the endless stretch of land which was the Barrowlands, the Rills and the green, heinous wasteland of the Neck, carensed to the north by the ancient fortress of Moat Cailin. When they reached Moat Cailin, in perhaps three or four days' time, it would only be ten days through the Neck this time around, Jory hoped, and then another five through the Riverlands, if they were lucky, and then finally one or two through the Crowlands all the way to the safety of the Red Keep.

"If we stay here for two nights, perhaps the Prince will wake in time so that they can join us before we reach Moat Cailin.", he suggested.

The King looked skeptical.

"Perhaps...", he allowed, but seemed not to believe in the idea. Still, Jory suspected he would try his best and delay the ride for at least one or two days, not wanting to part from the North while his son was still in the lingering hold somewhere between the Crone's and the Stranger's sleep.

"Had the Queen considered a ship?" Ser Arys inclined, putting out his neck somewhat to ask.

The King looked at him, even more surprised in his visage now, though he allowed it, besighting Ser Arys with a [iakttagande] sight with his grey eyes, and then giving his reply.

"Aye, she had. But I do not know whether it would be the wisest course of action. Though neither would I wish for him to stay here until autumn or winter comes. … The North is a hard land, especially for a young boy, and he would do better down south, I suppose. Still... I shall consider with Lord Manderly, and ask if he can spare an honour guard of ships for the journey. That way it will be less frought if a storm should pass by."

Ser Arys and Jory both nodded.

"A wise suggestion indeed, Your Grace", Ser Arys said.

"Wise..." The king chuckled grimly.

"A wiser decision would have been to not bring the children here at all, it seems. There is something hindering me from this place, it would seem. The old gods are wroth with me, and yet I do not yet understand it. I have searched, and thought... My Father rode south once... And my brother did as well... Perhaps we Starks should have stayed up North, where lies our home..."

"You are needed in the south, Your Grace", Jory reminded him. "If not you, then who would rule over it all? The Prince Viserys?"

The King stood still, clearly thinking on it hard and long.

"I know not. … Fate has many a plan for each man who treads through its halls. And I do not believe it is the fate for Prince Viserys to bear the crown of his father. The dragons are all gone. But neither can I see who else would be fit to rule over the vastness of the realm. … It seems that I must stay on for some time more, until a better option presents itself... "

He harkled himself, looking back from the sight of the ridge and at their faces again, grateful, trying his best to tuck away at some strange thought nagging at the back of his head, and turning back down to walk down towards the inn of the Red Horse again, where the children no doubt waited for his return, screaming and scrawling with their direwolves to the chagrin of Ser Marlon and Ser Balon all the while.

He looked at Jory and Ser Arys one last time before heading down the hill again.

"Winter will come, and things may change some time, when seeds are grown, and many things are steadied out and well enough again, but not as of yet, I think. … And so... If you'll pardon me..."

He said, as he treaded through them, holding a little on the side of Jory's cloak and hilt to steady himself in his steps down the steep slope heading back towards the inn, his thick black boots caking in the mud and peat of the moorland's beige late summer grass.

"...Here is my reign, my good sers, and that of all of us. For a time more... The reign of the wolves."