ROSEMARY
She hadn't the slightest idea where to go; nor had she the slightest idea which region of the north she was in. The ground beneath her feet which sullied the pale blue hem of her dress was looked to for an answer, but it failed to provide. Rosemary was not well-versed in the art of tracking; she could not sniff the bitter breeze and determine what was the nearest city, but she could discern that she was quite far north by the cruelty of the wind on her swanlike, pearled neck and the aridity of the black soil beneath her nimble, heeled feet.
Perhaps I should not had not run from Ser Crout and Ser Owin… I cannot be on my own in a climate such as this… Rosemary thought to herself shortly before clearing the thoughts from her head and replacing them. I am a Tully; I will not surrender easily.
With a foot as determined as her mindset, Rosemary began walking along the worn path through the wood. Evergreens lent gusts of winter mint to the air, who in turn shook to life the pine trees' rigid needles. Rosemary tightened the fur around her shoulders when a particularly harsh wind loosened several tufts of caramel hair from the braided diadem atop her head. She knew she was not too far north as the city of White Harbor was many lengths south of Winterfell, yet never had she experienced such biting weather. Have I really spent so little time in the North? She thought, shaking her head. She suddenly regretted her lack of travel.
In spite of the adversity posed by the weather, Rosemary persevered—as she always did. Her sense of personal honor could withstand the coldest of snows.
Rosemary continued walking along the path through the wood for several hours. By the time the wood cleared and the smoke of a manmade fire could be seen crawling for the clouds, the tips of her fingers were numb with the chill and her teeth were chattering violently. However, the energy she had lost by the end of her walk felt suddenly reinvigorated by the scent of charred wood tickling the tip of her small nose.
Between the last scattering of trees, Rosemary caught sight of a wider road with the wheels of a carriage imprinted in long brushstrokes through the mud. Beside the road was a lackluster establishment made from the logs of the trees she'd spent several hours walking through. One chimney sat at the right end of the structure's triangular roof and puffed out silver breaths.
Rosemary figured the place could be abandoned, or housing drunken vagrants and villains, or housing an indigent family who would happily return her to Riverrun for a pretty penny; however, she had no choice but to enter as she would freeze to death if she continued through the wood.
The door to the cabin was left diminutively ajar by the last visitors or current occupants, and a minute degree of calamity sounded from the inside. Rosemary heard the laugh of a woman and she sighed quietly in relief. She silently hoped not to walk in upon a family supper as her small foot slipped in between the door and the doorframe.
"An' then she tries to tell me tha' I fell asleep!" The robust voice wrapped around Rosemary's ears as she looked inside the cabin. To her surprise she discovered her dread had been hastily planted—the cabin was a quiet tavern. Only a few guests were inside, dressed in mail and grime, and a handful of barmaids skipped around with rosy cheeks and rosy bosoms.
The man who spoke the loudest was surprisingly small for the deep timbre of his voice. His hair was the color of corn and was tossed about his head messily.
"So I said—maybe if y'didn't just lay there like a damned stiff, I wouldn't'a!"
"Aren't you a bit young to be someplace like this on your own, darling?" A syrupy voice dripped down Rosemary's back. She spun around and met a middle-aged barmaid with two mugs of ale in her hands. Her greying hair was pulled back and loops of braids beside her ears seemed to compliment the undulating lines of age around her eyes and mouth.
"I'm not that young," Rosemary instinctively exaggerated.
"Y'aren't, but y'are for a girl to be out wanderin' on her own. What brought y'ere?"
Rosemary eluded her question: "I was wondering—what is the nearest city from here?"
The woman looked at the ceiling, as though the answer were painted there. "Moat Cailin is not far, but I don't think ya'd have much t'do there. Greywater Watch is some bit down south. Then there's White Harbor—that's just east'a Moat Cailin—"
"Not White Harbor," Rosemary instilled.
The woman looked at her with a furrowed brow. "Fine then… Which direction are you looking t'go?"
Rosemary thought for several moments whilst chewing on the plushy inside of her bottom lips. "North, I suppose."
"Then take the Kingsroad to Winterfell, why don't you!" The woman exclaimed, causing Rosemary to grimace internally.
"How would I get there?"
"Y'got a horse?"
"No."
"Friends with horses?"
"No."
The woman pouted her lips, then shrugged. "Then I've not a clue," she said and walked away to the table of men. She slid their mugs of ale across the uneven table and they cheered. The barmaid seemed happy to do them service, chuckling as they held her right hand and planted wet kisses on her knuckles.
Decisively, Rosemary began taking off her furs. She was about to hang them up on the crooked row of hooks beside the tavern's door that was already adorned with several bloodied capes, but then a voice in her head reminded her that those furs were as expensive as a plot of land in the Reach, and she decided against it. She bundled her furs in her arms and walked toward the open table farthest from that occupied by the soldiers.
As soon as Rosemary sat herself uncomfortably on the lopsided bench, a woman dressed in the same attire as that of the first barmaid came over to her. "Can I help y'with something, missus?" The woman asked. A slight lisp tainted her words; Rosemary assumed it was a result of the coin-sized gap between her two front teeth.
"Just water, if you do not mind."
"O'course!" And she was off.
Rosemary drank her water slowly, sipping tentatively and taking note of every detail of the tavern's interior; she had nothing better to do aside from listening in on the soldiers' bawdy tales. They only acknowledged her when she pulled the hood away from her face. They taunted her momentarily from across the room, asking her to come squeeze between them on the bench they crowded until the middle-aged barmaid told them to leave Rosemary alone.
After at least two hours in the tavern, Rosemary wandered out of the tavern to see if there was anywhere else around. The situation was looking dire until Rosemary heard the neighing of a horse from the backside of the tavern. She scaled the side of the tavern stealthily, making not a sound, until she saw two steeds held at the reins by a young page.
A shred of vengeful wrath simmered in Rosemary's heart when she recalled the catcalls of the soldiers in the tavern, and unsurprisingly Rosemary allowed the coals to set fire to her mind.
The page boy was young, perhaps ten-and-four, and therefore younger than Rosemary. Not only was he young, but also short. Rosemary measured he was several inches shorter than her. His face was round, a bit heavy and ruddy in the cheeks, and curls of flaxen hair around his ears gave him a cherubic countenance.
Dauntingly, Rosemary walked up to him and stared him straight in the eyes—which went wide and baby blue immediately. Rosemary tested the ease of the situation, reaching for the reins of one of the horses he held. The boy immediately began fumbling with the blade in his belt, so Rosemary tightened her fist and swung it in the direction of the boy's plump chin.
What a poor page, Rosemary thought as the boy flew to the ground.
She grasped the reins of one of the horses and quietly led it around to the front of the tavern. However, her plans were thwarted when the same middle-aged barmaid who had first approached her walked out of the tavern's front door with an empty barrel of ale in her hands.
"And what d'you s'pose you're doing?"
Before Rosemary could throw herself atop the horse and slide her feet into the leather stirrups, the barmaid had Rosemary's small wrist between her sinewy fingers.
"Madam, I've just ran from my cruel husband and I've got nowhere to go," Rosemary pleaded. Rarely did she lie, and when she did she did a poor job, but at that moment she was not taking the chance of revealing her true identity to a struggling barmaid. Rosemary only hoped a woman who'd seen so much of a common life would have empathy for a runaway housewife. "They're just soldiers! They have plenty of horses—"
"Soldiers like'm are the reason places like my tavern ha'n't been burned to the ground yet," she spoke strictly. Perhaps I've gone about this incorrectly, Rosemary thought. "And stealing one'f their horses won't do you no good. Those men'r knights—their horses only take their masters."
"Madam—"
"That being said—the woman of a cruel man's a woman I know," her eyes softened to pale green. "I'll get y'a ride up north, girl, but you've g'to earn it. Do y'know how t'wait a table?"
…
JON
Grenn sliced through the air wildly, his sword heading in no particular direction aside from Jon's head. It was unnecessary for Jon to do anything but step a few inches to the side with every swing, but he figured he might as well swing back in order to teach the man something.
When Grenn swung upwards and leftwards, Jon sliced in the opposite direction, meeting Grenn's dull blade with a satisfying clang of metal on metal. Jon stepped forward quickly, causing the junction of the swords to break and allowing Jon to cut downwards; he pulled the sword out of Grenn's inept grip on the sword.
"Watch my feet—you can see where I'll move," Jon withdrew his sword from its daring position near Grenn's neck. "And tighten your grip," Jon continued as the man swung to the side again and nearly lost the sword as the hilt was so loosely held in his hand.
When Jon leapt backward, he noticed Grenn's glance toward Jon's feet and smiled to himself. Jon had already moved by the time Grenn looked, but the use of Jon's council inspired a sense of success in him. "Good," Jon said as he swung his heavy sword down onto Grenn, who helplessly threw up his wooden shield to block Jon's swing. The man didn't use the safety of his shield to prepare another blow. "Don't waste your time."
Jon noticed Grenn's auburn eyes focused on something behind Jon's head. Jon opened his mouth to command him to stay focused, but his opponent beat him to it: "What in the Seven Hells is that?"
Jon turned around, seeing Alliser Thorne heading into the sparring circle with a rotund and struggling brother behind him. The young man's cheeks shook when he stepped and his mouse-brown hair was stuck to his dewy forehead.
"We're going'a need an eighth hell to fit him in!" Grenn shouted.
Alliser and the brother approached Jon and the other recruits. The man's lips parted as they gasped for air—each breath sent his second chin billowing beneath his first.
"Tell them your name," Alliser commanded.
"Samwell Tarly," the young man spoke between heavy breaths. "Of Horn Hill. Well, I was from Horn Hill, but… I've come to take the black."
"Come to take the black pudding?!" Another brother, Rast, jested, causing several of his brothers to chuckle.
"Well you couldn't be any worse than you look," Alliser commented, looking at Samwell with a look of disgust.
Jon knew Samwell probably wasn't very good with a sword—as Alliser seemed to predict—but he had sympathy for the man. Jon had never struggled with weight himself, in fact as a boy he was taunted by Robb and Theon for his prepubescent scrawniness, but he was acquainted with the struggles of obesity.
In Winterfell, a nobleman's daughter had developed a crush on Jon directly after he'd sprouted above six feet. The girl was named Etta, though Theon called her Eat-a for her weight. At the ball thrown for Robb's seventeenth birthday, Etta had approached Jon hoping he'd dance with her. Immediately after her proposal, Theon laughed aloud and warned Jon not to, for if she stepped on his toes she'd surely crush them. Upon seeing the hopeless veil of insecurity mask the attractive features between Etta's round cheeks, Jon scolded Theon and danced with the girl for most of the night.
"Rast," Alliser recaptured the attention of the taunting brother. "See what he can do."
As Rast pulled his sword from its sheath and positioned himself at one edge of the sparring circle, Samwell steadied himself. If it were not from the sweaty and nervous squeezing of Samwell's blade's hilt, Jon would have seen him as daunting. Samwell lowered his chin and his brow bone cast a black shadow over his dark eyes.
As expected, when Rast slammed his sword—with little etiquette, Jon might add—down onto Samwell's large armor, the round man shouted and immediately fell in a heaving pile onto the ground.
"I yield!" Samwell cried with his hand in the air. "Please, have mercy! No more!"
"On your feet!" Alliser ordered. "Pick up your sword."
Unfortunately for Samwell, he took too long to begin rolling to his bottom so he could stand up for Alliser's liking, and so he received Alliser's punishment for such a terrible crime: "Hit him until he gets up."
Rast continually slapped Samwell's armor with his sword, causing Samwell to shout effeminately. Though Jon knew it was up to Samwell to clean himself up and get into shape, he grew angry with Alliser's unnecessarily harsh treatment. When Jon looked into Samwell's twisted, portly face, he could see that Samwell had not been forced to the Wall. The man escaped to the Wall, just as Jon had, because he was wanted no place else.
The volume of Samwell's exclamations climbed, and the man's every cry sounded like an echo of Jon's own struggles in his head. Jon stepped forward, ready to defend Samwell, but a brother held him back. However, Jon escaped the second time he leapt forward.
"Enough!" Jon shouted, causing Rast to halt his slaps with the sword and causing Samwell to halt his cries from the sword. "He yielded."
Jon gripped Samwell's meaty arm and helped him up. "Looks like the bastard's in love!" Alliser stated with a smile. A superficial annoyance with Samwell's cowardly whimpers made Jon shove Samwell harshly in line. "Alright then, Lord Snow, you wish to defend your lady love? Let's make it an exercise."
Jon nearly rolled his eyes at Alliser's persistent torment of whatever he could get his hands on.
"You two," Alliser gestured to two brothers standing several feet from him and Rast. "Three of you ought to be sufficient to make Lady Piggy squeal—all you've got to do is get past the bastard," Alliser emphasized Jon's status, as though he were not yet aware.
"You sure you want to do this?" Jon asked Grenn and Pyp.
"No," Grenn immediately answered, and Pyp agreed. In spite of their reluctance to complete the exercise, Rast came flying forward with a sloppy slice.
Within little time, the three brothers were on the ground. When Grenn stood, Jon took a quick step toward him before the brother shouted: "Yield, yield, yield."
"We're done for today," Alliser decided. "Go clean the armory—that's all you're good for anyway," he said as he walked away.
When Rast strode by Jon, he looked at him sourly.
"Did he hurt you?" Samwell asked with a timid face.
"I've had worse," Jon shrugged.
With guilt, Samwell looked down at Jon's chunky armory. "You can call me Sam, if you want… My mother called me Sam—" He added uselessly.
"It isn't going to get any easier, you know. You're going to have to defend yourself."
"Why didn't you get up and fight?" Grenn demanded.
"I—I wanted to," Sam muttered. "But I just couldn't."
"Why not?" Grenn asked.
Sam looked toward the ground, looking for some place else to go so he could escape from the truth: "I'm a coward," he admitted. "My father always says so, too—that I'm a coward."
"The Wall's no place for cowards—" Jon reasoned.
"You're right, I know that," Sam rushed. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to thank you."
With that, Sam hobbled off with his sword in hand. Jon looked after him as he went. Grenn whined about others thinking them as cowardly as Sam because they were seen talking to Sam; Pyp taunted him. Over the fighting heads of Pyp and Grenn, Jon wondered if life for Sam at Horn Hill was so hard that even someone like him could only find sanctuary at the Wall.