BENJEN IV

"He read the letter in his hand, over and over again, trying his best to take it all in.

The handwriting of old Maester Aemon up at Castle Black was small and precise, but the words, and their meaning, were unfathomable in their magnitude, and in the starkness of the message.


'...the bodies of the men were and had been dead for days, and as cold as ice, but later arose on their own in the night, attacking the Lord Commander in his private chambers before being fought off bravely by him and our newest recruit from your own castle, Jon Snow, as well as his wolf.

The Lord Commander as well as his steward are both thankfully in health, if somewhat shaken by the ordeal. The Lord Commander's Tower was damaged by fire in the event, however, and is unfit for habitaiton until further. Lord Commander Mormont has issued a Great Ranging beyond the Wall to go to the bottom of these ill events and their source. Ser Jaime and many others will go north on the expedition, and are not like to return back for many moons.

To you, my lord Stark, and all those who may doubt these words, here come some further ones, old and of wisdom: Many things of dark and illdom are oft forgotten, when the eyes of men are turned elsewhere. But the North remembers, and must surely so now more than ever before. We need more men to guard us, as ever, and more supplies as well. Any amount of help will be taken gratefully, as always. I trust in your judgement. Gods help us all if we are not ready before the coming of winter.

Signed / Maester Aemon at Castle Black, in the year of 298 after King Aegon's Conquest.'


"These are true words. They must be.", he told her, as he stared wide-eyed and yet focused at the same time, holding up the letter before her. Cersei had read it as well, at least twice.

"True words", she said, emphasizing. "That does not mean that what has happened there is true."

She was wearing her grey and yellows, the thick wolf pelt which was one of her favorites, along with a part that was made out of southron grassland stag, though fashioned in the shape of a lioness, a faux brush-like tail and all. There were not enough lions left in the Westerlands even for the daughter of Lord Tywin himself to have a pelt made out of one.

He looked back at her, as she encircled him like some alluring snake, or perhaps a lioness indeed, trying to make him doubt the words of Maester Aemon at the Wall. She had never had much faith in the old things, he thought with annoyance, but this was almost beyond reckless of her.

"You Northerners have always been a superstitious bunch", she said, in an airily condescending tone. "I see you have not changed because of me and my small enlightened presence here for all these years. I should have brought more books with me from my father's library."

"Then perhaps you will have changed for me?" He said, staring back at her, his dark grey eyes against her cool green ones, unable to understand how she could possibly be so dismissive about it.

"This is the maester's own words. He if anyone would know the dangers of spouting false rumours or superstition. He has not written anything like this before, not ever. Why should he do so now, if it is not true?"

"Just try and consider what truly went on", she said, as he put a slitheringly persuasive arm on him. "Two rangers were found dead, or at the very least thought to be, yes, that much is clear. They were from the south, all the way from down in the Reach, if Flowers is still what they name their bastards there. It was so long since I was there, I find that I struggle to remember."

Here she went again, guilting him about not being able to visit down south more often, Ben thought to himself. This was important. They had time to argue about that some other day. Any other day. Why did she not believe in the letter?

"They would have been ill used to the cold", she continued, as her argument. "Perhaps they simply had fallen into a deep sleep or a shiver because of it."

"They were dead", he said staunchly. "Their skin was grey, bordering on blue before they arose."

He stared at her, wondering how it was possible for someone who was supposed to be his own wife could so mistrust him, mistrust anyone, in this matter.

But, he reminded himself, she was still a Lannister of Casterly Rock somewhere deep inside. And Lannisters did not concern themselves with grumpkins and snarks, the words echoed mockingly inside him, something she'd said in jest to him, in a warm tone as they discussed the mind of her brother many years ago.

That warmth between them seemed as good as gone now. In its place... Suspicion. Anger.

Her suspicion against the Watch, even though her much beloved brother still served there, and would do, until his death. Cersei had always been difficult, in many matters, but... He still truly could not understand. Jaime himself knew better. He would tell her, make her understand, surely, the next time he came back. If he came back at all...

"You do not trust in the word of Castle Black's Maester, then?"

"If you are asking me if I trust in the word of old, wrinkled Aemon Targaryen, great uncle to the Mad King, then I would say a decided no to that question. Don't you think there could be a reason as to why he was allowed to waste his life up here, when he could have been Grand Maester at your brother's small council by now? Madness runs in his blood. I do not know if the Lord Commander issued this letter as well, but...-"

"He did."

Benjen held up the letter and showed it to her. The Old Bear's signature was at the bottom, just beneath that of Maester Aemon, some blank pieces of parchment and smeared-away raven droppings down.

Cersei had a quick look, and got her confirmation.

She looked annoyed with the piece of paper, as if she almost considered ripping it in half for a second, to let it scatter before the wind, but she relented in her stance after a small while.

"Very well. So perhaps two old men have thought that they saw something late in the night, perhaps after they had a drink or too. The men of the Nigth's Watch do like their drink. Jaime has told me."

"They would have", he agreed, "if they had the coin for it. Whatever drinks they have are only to keep them warm. Red wine, mulled or no, and ale. That is all they have. Strongwine, no."

"Mushrooms, then", she said. "I don't know what sort of queer traditions they keep to fight themselves off boredom without any women up there."

He was truly getting annoyed with her now, and he let himself show it. He practically shouted at her now.

"Jon saw it as well! He bloody fought them, Cersei! Two dead men! Their skin blue and as cold as ice! What more proof can you possibly need other than that?"

"The Others are ancient legends", she said, coldly, decisively. "Legends told by southron and nothern wetnurses alike, to make young girls wary of marrying into House Stark."

It was another jape, one of her many dry and cruel ones. He did not smile.

"I will send up more men for this. I do not care what you think about it. Jaime will tell you, as well. When he returns. Perhaps he will make you see. Unless you truly think he is wasting his life up here as well, the same as old Maester Aemon."

"He is a blind one-hundred-year-old man sitting in a library of old books that he cannot read. Of course he will make up stories, or embellish them, or misinterpret what he has been told... or to believe them to be true himself", she said, impossibly staunch in her dismissal of the entire thing. "Perhaps some of the young recruits were even pulling a prank on the old man."

"He is far more clever than that. He grew up in King's Landing", Benjen said.

"As did I. ... And you did not", she finished for him."

"His letters are what drove Prince Rhaegar mad with dreams of prophecy, and... All else."

She stopped herself, before coming to the sore point that still lay between them, the ghost of sorrow from what had begun the war, after all these years.

"I thought that they would not have the same effect on you, but it seems I must reevalute."

She sighed.

"My brother is not wasting his life. He would have had a better one if not for the Mad King, or your brother, but... There are true dangers out there. Far more important than old stories. The wildlings. That is the foreign force my brother is fighting against. And he will continue to do so. He would not have agreed to go north on this Great Ranging if he is to fight ghosts. He has more sense in him than that."

Benjen could not believe what he was hearing.

"Very well then. Have it your way. I will send up reinforcements, whatever you say."

"Do it", she urged, shrugging her shoulders so lightly that he could barely see it from underneath the heavy and soft pelts, and her golden shining hair tumbling about her bare swan-like neck. "You are the Lord of Winterfell. Your house has ruled over the North for eight thousand years. You don't need my agreement."

"No", he agreed. "I do not."

She made a little turn around the room again, moving away from him, as she picked up a glass of water, sipping on it, feeling its taste with her lissome red lips.

"How many men will you be sending?"

"Twenty or thirty seasoned men from the Wintertown, at the very least", he said, in a decided tone. "That will be a start."

"There are other places we ought to send more men to as well", she suggested. "Eastwards, perhaps... To avoid a possible war with the crown..." She sipped on the water again, meaningfully.

"I will not be afraid for the judgement of my own brother", Benjen said. "He will know what to make of Cat's words, even if she is afraid and confused. Just like her sister, the Lady Lysa."

"She will make him believe anything once she arrives back at the capital. And She will believe it too. Spending more than four days in the forest on the run, a woman loses her mind. It is not safe of us to leave her go. Neither for her, nor for the young princes, nor for us."

"She has already gone, my love", he said. "There is not more we can do. I have written to Lord Wyman. If he gets ahold of her, he will do as I have commanded. Until then, we cannot worry."

There had been a moon since the Queen – and[ ] his sister-in-law – had fled the castle. If they were fast, they would have made it perhaps a third of the way towards White Harbour.

It had taken Ned and all of them perhaps a month, speaking roughly, to travel all the way from King's Landing, Ben thought, and that was with a huge and slow wagon, but the road would be slower going for the Queen and her young boys nonetheless when they all had to be travelling through the thick of the Northern woods, and make shelter and warm themselves every night. They would have to find food, and build fires, as well as to rest their horses properly, for they only had the three of them.

They would not have the luxury of servants to help them cook or anything else either, apart from Catelyn's single handmaiden Senelle. He was certain that they would be far away from the coast still. In the meantime he would continue writing to his brother, telling him what little he could to make sure he got ahead of any rumours or frightened talk from Cat once she got hold of a raven.

We will never be as close friends again, though, he thought sadly. And the children... Tommen and Bran might have still become close as brothers, and Myrcella with Bran or Rickon as well, in time. But all that would have to wait for another time, far into the future perhaps. He was sure that the break between Catelyn and Cersei would be especially hard to fix. The Queen distrusted her with her children, apparently, after what had happened, and he found that he could not blame her. What women could be prepared to do in order protect their precious babes from one another was beyond the thoughts of most.

"Father", Willam's voice said suddenly, coming from somewhere behind him. "I thought to ask if Theon and I could go for a ride."

"What, now? It is late in the day", he said, turning around. "I'm not certain you will have time for much foraging in the woods before you need to be heading back."

Willam looked tired, but did not argue. Perhaps he had only half-heartedly went along with his friend's idea. It was usually Theon who would get strange impulses like this. He was a restless lad, and young and adventurous, even now at nineteen. But the company of Willam and Jon had kept him thus, of course. If he had been brought up with others his own age, he might have been more mature at this point. He might even have been married by now, Benjen reflected.

"Very well. Nevermind.", his son said, as he shut his eyes in an annoyed manner, just like his mother would, and then returned out the room and up the flight of stairs somewhere outside, to go back up to his chamber, presumably.

Or perhaps he would go speak with Luwen, Ben supposed. He often did, of late, as his curiosity for the matters of the world and the realm had only grown with the arrival of the king and his cousins.

...


The next day, the sky was a cloudy and numb grey, the leaves beginning to yellow around them, as they were practicing in the courtyard. Theon was doing his archery with Ser Rodrik overseeing him, so Ben had his son to himself for the once.

Father and son's sword clanked and came together in throes, left and then right, a left and then a right again, before Benjen took up the blunted blade and rammed it into the side of Willam's helmet.

CLONK!

Willam grunted slightly, as he staggered back, hurt. Benjen looked on, with an icy stillness.

"What have I told you?" He asked, as he helped to steady his son up.

"Keep my shield up...", Willam replied, in a sardonic voice. He'd heard the advice a hundred times before.

"-...Or I'll ring your head like a bell", Benjen finished, with a smile to his son, as he ruffled his hair.

Willam took up his shield again, holding it higher this time, his slender arms and legs doing most of the work.

"Stance", Benjen told him. "Remember: If a man stands as safely as a mountain, noone can make him fall over."

His son corrected his steps, and tried his best to hold the strength in his legs and lower body. Benjen came in with a half-powered attack, making an attempt at trying to push him. Willam stood his ground, though he struggled hard to do it.

They wrestled some more, for a good while, before Benjen gave way and let the lad rest some.

"It's bloody impossible!" Willam complained, his youthful breath trying to catch up.

"The strength will come in time, more and more, as you grow", he assured him. "The technique, however, must be true from the beginning."

He looked over to Ser Rodrik, who held a lookout over Theon as he shot arrow after arrow at the old practice target board.

"I told you that I wanted to have a word with you, on your own", he said to his son.

"Aye?"

Willam looked up to him, his mouth still slightly agape from the huffing effort, his icy grey-green eyes looking up with a blank expression to them. Tiny strands of dark peach fuzz were growing on his face, signalling that he was well on his way to manhood. His voice had begun to darken as well.

"It's about Jon", he said, as he removed his own helmet and put it to the side.

Willam took a few more breaths, calming himself down, before replying.

"What is it? Has something happened to him?"

"He's fine", Ben was quick to say. "But yes", he admitted, "something has happened to him. Or rather... He has been in the wrong place, at a queer time."

"What?" His son looked none the wiser.

"Sit down", he said, motioning for Willam to take place beside him on the small bench at the back of the practice yard.

So he did, and they sat there in silence for a little while, father and son, with only the sounds heard being of a light autumn wind sweeping over the old Winterfell courtyard, as well as Theon in the background loosing his arrows, cockiness in one moment, cursing in the next.

"The raven said that Jon had been in a fight... with two dead men."

Willam seemed to think on that, before replying.

"He killed them? Two of them? All on his own?"

Now it came. The moment of truth.

"No", Benjen said. "They were already dead. They had died on a ranging and been found and brought back. Their skin was as cold as ice. They had been dead for days. But they arose in the night, at the Lord Commander's tower, while Jon was there."

"Arose in the night? So they were not dead after all?"

Benjen harkled himself, trying to think of how to best put it. There was naught easy to tell it. And so... He simply said it out loud.

"They were... Maester Aemon writes that they were... Wights."

There was silence, an icy type of silence between them, for what seemed close to a day and a night.

Then, a sudden laugh came from his son, the same odious sound as that of his lady mother, or perhaps what her brother the Lion clad-in-Black must have sounded like in his youth, before he himself took the oath all those years ago.

His son thought that he must have had surely misheard his father at first, but the Lord of Winterfell did not waver in his words nor his gaze as he looked into Willam's eyes, confirming the starkness of the claim.

The boy looked up then, suddenly earnest in his appeal.

"But... The Others are gone, thousands of years ago. How can it be so?"

"I do not know. I have no better knowledge than you. But... They claim what they claim."

His son stared down at the ground, with a look that was the blend of a forlorn deep thought and skepticism on the visage of his young face.

"Did the Lord Commander himself write this to you?" He asked.

"Maester Aemon did."

"Maester Aemon... … Isn't he over ninety years old? "

"Close to a hundred", Benjen agreed. "Though I would not count his age as a thing against him. Old men are oft wise for their years. He has lived for many years, and seen more than either you or I put together. He has served for far longer than the Old Bear as well.

He's been the Maester at Castle Black ever since the days that his brother King Aegon the Fifth sat the throne, and loyally served all the lord commanders there ever since."

Willam thought on that for a while, as [ ].

"Isn't he blind, though, as well?"

Benjen had to laugh, although he did not want to. A quick, frusting chortle courtesy of the question.

"Your Mother said the exact same thing."

"Well... Is she wrong? He is blind, isn't he? How can he write letters if he cannot even read himself?"

"I believe he most like has someone to help him with his letters", Benjen explained.

Willam thought on that, trying of course to find any explanation besides the absurd and grim one.

"Well... Maybe he's written it wrong. Maybe he's gotten it confused or something."

"He has never written anything faulty, or out of the ordinary as this, before. I trust him", Benjen said staunchly.

His son stood still, as he gave it a thought and mulled over the possiblity of it being true.

Before he could say anything else about it, however, Ben spoke up.

"We shall have to go and speak to Jon about it", he declared. "That is the only way we will be sure of what has truly happened."

Willam shone up a little bit, at the sound of his foster brother's name.

"Aye... I suppose we will."

"We will get ready, I'll tell Hullen to make preparations, and we can be on our way on the morrow if you want. Or perhaps the day after that. If we are spared any snow, and if the Kingsroad still is as I remember it last time I saw it, we can arrive at Castle Black in perhaps five or six days."

Willam nodded, absentmindedly.

"Yes... I... I want to see him", he confirmed again. "We were still going to see him eventually, were we not? We said so."

"We were", Benjen confirmed. "Though I would have waited longer, if not for this. Jon will have barely sworn his vows yet. I do not wish to keep him from it, by showing ourselves up there too soon, and reminind him of the home he has just left. It is a hard enough thing to do as it is."

"He will take them", Willam assured. "He will swear the vows. He's thought about it the whole year. Couldn't shut up about it, especially not after he saw Uncle-..."

He stopped himself, rephrasing.

"...-Since he saw Ser Jaime, briefly, when the King and Robb and all of them came here."

Ben was still, for a moment, giving a tightening of his mouth and a nod, his gaze turned down.

"He wanted to speak to him..., did he not?" He asked to his son.

"He had wanted to at first", Willam admitted, "but Mother told us both that he would be tired from the ride south, and did not want to be disturbed by us. I only greeted him at the feast, oh, and once before, when he came. Jon was with Tommen in the stables then."

"So he was", Benjen said, thinking for a hundredth time on the stunning, indescribable allure that his lady wife's absent brother, the infamous Ser Jaime Lannister, had on the two young boys, soon to be men, ever since they had been little.

A figure only seen once in six or ten years, when the weather permitted, and the hearts of men thawed... A brave shadow on the Wall, forever keeping watch over the realm and those that dwelt within it... All those who knew his name well... 'The Black Lion'...

Would that I had been the one they both raced to meet, the one they exalted and built up to insurpassable hero in their dreams, made legends of, and playfighted, shouting his name along with Joramun, Aemon the Dragonknight and Bran the Builder in the courtyard, Benjen thought to himself . Instead, I am still here, at that which should have been my brother's keep, taking care of it all so that he can take care of the realm. All so that the Targaryens are stayed away from return...

Lya's words came back to haunt him then, as suddenly as an autumn chill, reminding him of past dreams and sins and promises. Stay. Promise me, Ben... Promise me.

He shook himself from it, as Ser Rodrik came up to bow before him.

"Twelve hits, three straight misses, and three that were in between, m'lord."

The old knight smiled, as he put the bow and arrow into order, his long white whiskers gleaming against the brown grey of the courtyard around them. Theon came back to them as well, a few paces behind.

"Theon Greyjoy. The iron sharp-shooter of Pyke!" He declared, laughing excitedly, as he always did, his teeth showing wide.

"Winterfell... is still the place you reside", Willam reminded him.

"And where would you like to reside...? White Harbour?" Theon gave another raucous laugh.

"Shut up", Willam soured.

Benjen sighed to himself, wondering if he should invite Theon along to visit Jon as well. The three were as close as brothers, all of them, even though Theon and Jon were constantly at odds with one another. He figured it best to include his ward in the travel, even though he held his dark suspicions about the boy since finding out about the poisoning of the prince. The kitchenmaids... A son for a son...

He saw Theon's wide mouth again, the little gap between his teeth, the dark stubble growing on his pale neck, thinking whether he would have what was needed to take his head some day.

He should have so. If he had been prepared for it when he was only a boy of ten, then surely he should be more so now, that he was a man grown.

If any man deserved to get an upholding of justice in this world, it was his lord father, Lord Balon Greyjoy of Pyke, the foolish old ball-sack of a kraken who had burnt Lord Tywin's fleet at Lannisport a mere couple of years after Cersei had moved away from the Rock, and then savaged Seaguard until wreck and ruin came at last for his own accursed line instead. Maron and Rodrik, they had been named. He had never seen them, but imagined their faces a hundred times in dreams.

And now he wants poor Ned's kids to pay the iron price... He deserves nothing more. 'What is dead may never die', they say. So be it, if it must come to that.

But perhaps it did not need to come to that. He had still not gotten the proof of what he suspected. And if he wished to keep the boy out of trouble, he would be wise to not leave him with Cersei at the castle for a good ten days or more. She was practicing him for blood-thirst the same way Farlen practiced his hounds, he thought.

No. He needs to come with us. Perhaps he and Jon can even try and see to eye to eye on this now. Or perhaps Theon himself might go and join him in time...

That would surely be best of all. As much as he considered Theon a part of the family, he was also a burden that he had longed to be rid of ever since the day his brother first put him onto his charge.

It had been a hard thing, seeing as Jon had been a mere six at the time, and Willam had been younger still, but somehow he and Cersei had grown to the task.

She had hated him at first, more than he ever could, for the crimes of his father and uncles against hers. But as the months and years went on, even she, in her golden bitterness, could finally see that he was not his father, only a rowdy little pimply boy unfortunate enough to be born and grown from those harsh barren stone islands, and they had taken it upon themselves to care for him, together as well as seperately, to raise him up to be better than his father.

To raise him up among themselves, just like they had with Jon. To make him forgo, if not forget, his father's stone-headed old ways.

He could only pray, and hope against the proof that he saw in his heart, that they had succeeded... "