Chapter 49: Jon VI
Lady Melisandre did not miss much, it seemed.
"The Onion Knight has returned," she told him, just as the letter arrived on his desk, sealed with the black wax of the Watch.
Jon unfurled the parchment, perused it once, twice. He swallowed. Rickon...
The thought that another member of his old family was alive was one he desperately desired to be true, he could not deny. But it was also a dangerous one. Ser Davos is loyal to Stannis alone. And so what happens should my loyalties be torn? Rickon or Arya? Stannis wouldn't kill a child, surely? Nor would Tommen, Jon was certain, though there was no speaking for Tywin.
The Red Woman eyed him up and down. "What does it say?"
"Ser Davos was delayed, sent down south to the capital on demand of the king. He claims that King Tommen is amenable to a truce. He says the chances of turning Lord Wyman are slim. Yet he insists the best chance lies in the far north, in Skagos."
"With your brother," she added, almost reading his mind.
Jon took a deep breath. "Is he alive? Rickon?"
Melisandre shrugged. "I could not be sure. I would need to look in the flames, search specifically for your littlest brother. Yet if half of what I hear about the isles are true, then flames are likely to be scarce in Skagos."
Jon closed leaden eyes, deep in thought. "And the Iron Throne?" he asked. "What do your flames say of the Boy King's offer? Is it genuine?"
When Jon opened his eyes again, Melisandre's lips were pursed. "The flames... they do not show me the Red Keep. Something dark lurks over the throne, shielding the Boy King from my vision. Only glimpses come through the shadows."
Fire is a fickle thing, Jon remembered Val had said. "And the glimpses?"
"Incomprehensible, for the most part. Too susceptible to misinterpretation to be much of any use."
Jon hummed in understanding, struggling to settle himself comfortably. Something about the Red Woman always seemed to make him uneasy. Her eyes seemed to see too much, to linger in places they shouldn't. Her attention was enough to make his skin crawl. Yet he brushed away the sensation and leaned back in his seat, pretending to relax. On the floor besides him the Old Bear's raven was busy pecking dried corn. Ghost sat in the corner, curled up, gaze lazily following the raven's flappings. The window was open, a cold blast of air rushing in. And not even the Red Woman's flames could withstand that.
In an age of change, only the chill remains.
Jon sighed, suddenly exhausted. "Why are you here, my lady? Why come to speak to me? And why now?"
"You have been avoiding me," she said. Jon did not bother to deny it. They both knew it was true. "You feel you cannot trust me."
Again Jon kept his peace.
"Tell me. What can I do? How might I earn your trust? You know I am on your side. The Lord of Bones has served you well, has he not? Stannis may be the lord's chosen, destined to lead the fight against the dark, but that does not mean you don't have a role to play. We need not be at odds."
"Who said we were at odds?" Jon asked. "I am merely a busy man, my lady. You would have done better to depart with your master, to tend to his fires and tell of his future. Most the work here at the Wall is menial enough, far beneath you. Rattleshirt has been a boon, I'll grant, helping to smooth relations between the Watch and the wildlings. But unless you have other boons to grant, I am afraid there is little for you to do."
She looked him up and down, confident features contemplative a moment. "What boon would suit you best, Lord Commander?"
"You could stop trying to convert my men."
Melisandre smiled. "And what else?"
Jon scratched his beard in thought. "You say that your flames do not let you see into Skagos or the capital. But what of Hardhome? I sent Cotter Pyke north with the Eastwatch fleet to rescue some wildlings gathering there. What will be the fate of that mission, I wonder? And what of the south? What of Stannis? What can you tell me of what has become of my homeland?"
"I would need to look to your man specifically to be sure of anything. Yet I cast my gaze north regularly, and see much every time I look. What may concern your man was a tempest. Frothing seas blown into cresting waves by roaring winds and heavy rains and thunder. And at Hardhome, a thousand red eyes lurking, painted onto faces as white as your weirwoods."
Jon's lips pursed with displeasure. Not good tidings, exactly, but not unexpected either. "And Stannis?"
"When I search for my lord's chosen, the flames only show me snow," Melisandre admitted after a moment's reticence.
Jon scowled. "Is there any place you can look?" The moment the words tumbled out of his mouth he regretted them. "I am sorry, my lady. I-"
"The flames show me a girl," the Red Woman cut in. "A girl in grey atop a dying horse. I have seen it as plain as day. She's coming here. Soon."
Val, was Jon's first thought. A girl atop a dying horse? Who else could it be? With any luck she would have the Giantsbane with her.
Melisandre's eyes drifted from Jon to Ghost. "May I touch your wolf?"
The question startled Jon. He looked at Melisandre, at Ghost, then back at her. "... Best not."
"The wolf will not harm me," she assured him. She leaned down from her seat, met and held Ghost's gaze, and then uttered the wolf's name as though it was a chant.
Ghost uncurled from his seat in the corner, padded warily towards the Red Woman, sniffing the fingers she offered. Jon was certain for a moment that the Red Woman was liable to lose a hand, but Ghost only reached out to lick her fingers.
"He..." Jon frowned in disbelief. "That's strange. Ghost is not usually so..."
"There is more to this beast than you know, Jon Snow. And the Wall is a strange place besides. There is a power here, something ancient. Something you can use, if you so desired. Yet you resist it."
"Dalla - Val's sister - once told me that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. That there was no safe way to use it."
"A wise woman," the Red Woman noted, fingers wandering Ghost's fur. "Yet all life is risk. Danger. And a sword without a hilt is still a sword. A skilled warrior could still make use of such an implement."
"Or a desperate one," Jon added.
"Better to learn whilst you still have the chance, then. I could show you."
"How?"
"The Lord of Light made our species as we are for a reason. Male and female. Two parts of a greater whole. In the joining of these two parts there is power. Power to make life. To make death. This is the fastest way, though there are gentler methods."
All of a sudden, Jon could feel the Red Woman's warmth radiating off her. He could be in no doubt about her power. But something deep in his gut told him that this was not a woman to be indebted to. It may well be safer to owe the Iron Bank, Jon mused.
Melisandre shook her head, rose from her seat, a gust of wind from the open window rippling the folds of her robes as though they were the tongues of a flame. "And yet still you harbour doubts. Very well. But hear me now, Jon Snow. The day will soon come when you are forced to behold the blind and ravaged faces of the dead. Mayhaps even the faces of men you once knew. Men you may have once respected. And when this day comes, I will again offer you my hand." Jon could swear he saw a subtle flame dancing in her fingertips, making her flesh glow. "And if you wish to save your Wall, then you will take my hand, Jon Snow."
And with that the Red Woman was gone.
A week passed without incident as Jon pondered her words. Even as he inspected the progress of the southern recruits in the yard, visited the building sites, watched with an obsessive eye the flow of food from Eastwatch, and ploughed through the pile of letters that seemed to relentlessly grow on his desk, the vision of Melisandre's glowing fingers reaching out to him never seemed to fade from the back of his mind. Even as the Red Woman herself had become scarce, her presence seemed to weigh even heavier on his shoulders.
Still, Jon had plenty of distraction to take up his time. He noticed the man in the yard - one of the new arrivals - swinging his sword with surprising confidence. He had broader shoulders than most, a highborn bearing, and a pair of wandering eyes that always seemed to land on Jon. Davos had mentioned him, in his letter. Always another complication, eh?
Still, the men in the yard were progressing at a fast pace, and the time had come for them to take their vows.
Septon Cellador made most the preparations, of course, as most the new recruits were southerners. From within the bowels of Castle Black he emerged, red-faced from the cold, his copy of the Seven Pointed Star held securely against his breast. Today he would have to take their oaths in the yard - there were simply too many of them to fit into his little sept. Jon rallied the men - about two dozen all told. They gathered slowly, their manner thick with trepidation. They were brigands and urchins and vagrants and thieves, the lot of them. All except one.
The highborn man seemed comfortable enough, if a tad disgusted at the company he was keeping.
"Why are you here?" Jon asked, pulling the man aside, his hand hovering warningly over Longclaw's hilt.
"My lord?" the man asked.
"Are you a spy? Why did His Grace send you here with Davos?"
The man looked away. "I am to be your guard, my lord."
"I don't need a guard."
"His Grace cares to disagree."
Jon grit his teeth. "And your name?"
"Osney, my lord," the man said. "Kettleblack."
Jon nodded. "And your crime?"
The man looked away, silent.
"Your crime," Jon insisted.
"I tried to lie with the king's wife."
Jon blinked once, twice. Then a bark of laughter slipped his lips. Jon shook his head, a genuine smile splitting his face for the first time in what felt like months. The man's face seemed to flush red with embarrassment, and then he looked away, sulking, and begged his pardon. Jon watched him go with a smile on his face. The day would come for the knight to swear his vows, but today was not that day.
"Now repeat after me," he told them once they were all ready, kneeling before him, clad in black hoods and cloaks like wraiths. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins."
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins," they repeated after Jon.
"It shall not end till my death."
"It shall not end till my death," they intoned. "I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post." The severity of their words seemed to be settling in now, the oaths echoing back to aeons past. "I am the sword in the darkness, the watcher on the walls. I am the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men, the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn."
Out of the corner of his eyes, Jon saw Melisandre watching as he led the recruits through their vows.
"I pledge my life and honour to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."
And with that, the southern brigands became sworn brothers.
"Rise now as men of the Watch," Jon said, offering a hand to one. They arose, new men. Some - fast friends - offered each other hugs and congratulations. Others seemed despondent, the oaths doubtless already feeling like nooses wrapped tight around their necks.
And then, all went quiet. "Did you hear that?" Septon Cellador asked.
Jon held up a finger to silence him. Watchers on the Wall. One blast means rangers returning.
A hundred heartbeats seemed to pass. Yet the horn sounded again in the distance, clear as day. Two blasts means wildlings. Val. Jon was tempted to set off for the stables. But it was dark, and a long ride through the snows at this hour was just asking for trouble. So instead he gave his commands to Bowen and retired to his quarters for the night, remembering Tommen's letters as he drifted into darkness, then waking at first light and departing ahorse.
There was no time to wait, after all.
For Tormund Giantsbane had finally arrived, with four thousand wildlings in tow.
Jon saw them arrayed at the foot of the Wall, crowding around tents and tiny flames struggling to burn in the cold. His stomach gathered into knots as he approached the camp, only a small band of black brothers in tow to guard him. But he needn't have worried overmuch. The women and children outnumbered the men almost three to one, and the men themselves looked hollow and gaunt, too starved to pose much threat. Tormund greeted him first, the Giantsbane unwelcoming till they were safely ensconced into his tent, Ghost guarding the flap. And then Jon found his face full of beard, his body wrapped in Tormund's arms.
"You've changed, lad. Gotten ever-so-slightly taller, did you notice?"
Jon allowed himself a slight smile. "You haven't changed at all."
"Glad you think so. But I have. I'm not the same man I was. Seen too much death. My son..."
"... I'm sorry."
Tormund snorted. "What for? Weren't you that killed him. And I got two more left. Strong sons."
"I'm glad."
With the niceties traded, the time had come for the negotiations to begin. Jon spoke softly, having prepared the night before for what was to come. Tormund roared, though, when he heard Jon's terms. All sorts of insults and threats came hurtling Jon's way. Jon never replied, though, and answered only in the same soft tone. The Giantsbane downed his mead, threw his drinking horn more than once at Jon's head. But only lightly. Never fast or hard enough to hurt him.
The shadows grew long on the tent wall before long, the light of the sun diminishing as evening approached.
"All this way for a chance," Tormund spat.
"I have to convince the rest of the Watch of this. They'll not easily consent to letting thousands of wildlings past the Wall. A few hundred more than I have already allowed, mayhaps. But already we have fights and scuffles. I can't force this on them, you know that. The black brothers may be no free folk, but even we kneelers have limits of what we'll accept from our lords. This'll have to be put to a vote."
"But you want me to concede all this? Without so much as a single guarantee? What happens if the crows say no?"
"I need to give my sworn brothers surety that you aren't a threat. With that provided, I can turn a chance into something more like a certainty."
"A hundred hostages, lad! My own son!"
"No harm will befall your boys, I swear it."
Tormund Giantsbane pursed his lips, sighed, cursed, then thrust out his hand to shake. "Fine, and may the gods forgive me. Mance should have killed you when he had the chance." Jon shook the Giantsbane's hand, refusing to wince even in Tormund's bone-crushing grasp. "It's a cruel price you ask of me, lad. The mothers of those hostages will want me dead."
"And a good deal of my own brothers will too, just for talking with you. Yet my ranks are filling out with new blood. And with new blood comes new ideas. Many of my brothers hate the wildlings, I do not doubt. But their numbers are dwindling as more recruits arrive from the south."
"I have a hard time thinking crows of any sort will take a liking to us, recruits or not. I've killed more of you black buggers than I can count. Enough to make anyone wary."
"I wouldn't mention that if I were you."
Tormund laughed. "I won't, lad, don't worry." He slapped Jon on the back. "Time you were headed back, then. A certain someone wants to see you."
"Three days after I have your boys," Jon promised. "I'll send word once it's done."
"I heard you the first time," Tormund grumbled. "You make sure your watchers expect them. I'll make sure it's all nice and orderly like. No fighting."
Jon nodded.
"Now out you go."
Jon ducked through the tent flap to find Ghost missing. But it did not take much to find the wolf. He was following Val through the camp, the pair perfectly matched. Val was pale as a sheet, wrapped in white furs. White, not grey. If Melisandre was fire, Val seemed in that moment like ice.
Or like snow, a traitorous part of Jon's mind chimed in.
"Ghost!" Jon called, and the wolf turned it's head and bounded over to him. Jon leant down to scratch beneath his chin, and Val approached. "How was your journey?"
"Good enough. Quicker than I thought it'd be." Val crouched down beside him. "What now? Am I to be returned to my cell?"
"Regrettably, aye," Jon answered. "You'll have the run of the keep, as before, but I can't quite let you go yet."
"Even after I brought you the Giantsbane and all his men?"
Jon paused. "I mean you no harm, my lady."
Val sighed. "I know that well enough. But I still prefer freedom over safety."
"Of course."
"How did you fare with Tormund?"
Jon shrugged, and rose from petting Ghost. "Well enough. We struck a bargain, but the hard part's yet to come. My sworn brothers will not easily accept it."
"Let me help. What can I do?"
Jon lingered a moment in thought. "Some of the men hear the words 'wildling princess' and think that gives you the power to make promises on behalf of all free folk. Like a southern princess. Your word might hold some sway with them. You'll have to be careful, though. Subtle. Not making any explicit promises. The veterans among the Nights Watch will know better than to believe you."
Val's look soured a moment, but then she nodded. "If this is what you require, then so be it. I'll be your perfect wildling princess."
A warrior princess, Jon thought, observing at her features. Not some fainting, prissy creature who sits up in a tower spending her days pining for a knight. "Come, then," he tore his gaze away, gestured with his hand and began to walk to the edges of the wildling camp.
A small band of black brothers were waiting for them when they emerged from the maze of tents. "If it please m'lord, we were wondering."
"Peace," another black-cloaked figure asked, "or war?"
"Peace," Jon answered after a long moment. "If you want it."
Sorry for the delay. Undergoing some IRL difficulties.
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Hope you guys enjoy!
P.S. May be subject to a rewrite or edits in the future
