Othor,” announced Ser Jaremy Rykker,
“beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers.” He
turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face
stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes. “They
were Ben Stark’s men, both of them.” My uncle’s men, Jon thought numbly. He remembered how
he’d pleaded to ride with them. Gods, I was such a green boy.
If he had taken me, it might be me lying here . . .
Jafer’s right wrist ended in the ruin of torn flesh and
splintered bone left by Ghost’s jaws. His right hand was
floating in a jar of vinegar back in Maester Aemon’s tower.
His left hand, still at the end of his arm, was as black as his
cloak.
“Gods have mercy,” the Old Bear muttered. He swung
down from his garron, handing his reins to Jon. The morning was
unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander’s
broad forehead like dew on a melon. His horse was nervous, rolling
her eyes, backing away from the dead men as far as her lead would
allow. Jon led her off a few paces, fighting to keep her from
bolting. The horses did not like the feel of this place. For that
matter, neither did Jon.
The dogs liked it least of all. Ghost had led the party here;
the pack of hounds had been useless. When Bass the kennelmaster had
tried to get them to take the scent from the severed hand, they had
gone wild, yowling and barking, fighting to get away. Even now they
were snarling and whimpering by turns, pulling at their leashes
while Chett cursed them for curs. It is only a wood, Jon told himself, and they’re only dead
men. He had seen dead men before . . .
Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was
wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending
into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than
before. In the dark he’d heard the scrape of stone on stone.
When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the
other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black
graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when
Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake
his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he
had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light
of the dawn off to the cast. It was only a dream. I am a brother of
the Night’s Watch now, not a frightened boy.
Samwell Tarly huddled beneath the trees, half-hidden behind the
horses. His round fat face was the color of curdled milk. So far he
had not lurched off to the woods to retch, but he had not so much
as glanced at the dead men either. “I can’t
look,” he whispered miserably.
“You have to look,” Jon told him, keeping his voice
low so the others would not hear. “Maester Aemon sent you to
be his eyes, didn’t he? What good are eyes if they’re
shut?”
“Yes, but . . . I’m such a coward, Jon.”
Jon put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We have a dozen
rangers with us, and the dogs, even Ghost. No one will hurt you,
Sam. Go ahead and look. The first look is the hardest.”
Sam gave a tremulous nod, working up his courage with a visible
effort. Slowly he swiveled his head. His eyes widened, but Jon held
his arm so he could not turn away.
“Ser Jaremy,” the Old Bear asked gruffly, “Ben
Stark had six men with him when he rode from the Wall. Where are
the others?”
Ser Jaremy shook his head. “Would that I knew.”
Plainly Mormont was not pleased with that answer. “Two of
our brothers butchered almost within sight of the Wall, yet your
rangers heard nothing, saw nothing. Is this what the Night’s
Watch has fallen to? Do we still sweep these woods?”
“Yes, my lord, but—”
“Do we still mount watches?”
“We do, but—”
“This man wears a hunting horn.” Mormont pointed at
Othor. “Must I suppose that he died without sounding it? Or
have your rangers all gone deaf as well as blind?”
Ser Jaremy bristled, his face taut with anger. “No horn
was blown, my lord, or my rangers would have heard it. I do not
have sufficient men to mount as many patrols as I should like . . . and since Benjen was lost, we have stayed closer to the Wall than
we were wont to do before, by your own command.”
The Old Bear grunted. “Yes. Well. Be that as it
may.” He made an impatient gesture. “Tell me how they
died.”
Squatting beside the dead man he had named Jafer Flowers, Ser
Jaremy grasped his head by the scalp. The hair came out between his
fingers, brittle as straw. The knight cursed and shoved at the face
with the heel of his hand. A great gash in the side of the
corpse’s neck opened like a mouth, crusted with dried blood.
Only a few ropes of pale tendon still attached the head to the
neck. “This was done with an axe.”
“Aye,” muttered Dywen, the old forester.
“Belike the axe that Othor carried, m’lord.”
Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he
pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body.
Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No
axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one
bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days
were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his
hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard
cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a
rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open.
They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
Ser Jaremy stood. “The wildlings have axes too.”
Mormont rounded on him. “So you believe this is Mance
Rayder’s work? This close to the Wall?”
“Who else, my lord?”
Jon could have told him. He knew, they all knew, yet no man of
them would say the words. The Others are only a story, a tale to
make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone
eight thousand years. Even the thought made him feel foolish; he
was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch,
not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran
and Robb and Arya.
Yet Lord Commander Mormont gave a snort. “If Ben Stark had
come under wildling attack a half day’s ride from Castle
Black, he would have returned for more men, chased the killers
through all seven hells and brought me back their heads.”
“Unless he was slain as well,” Ser Jaremy
insisted.
The words hurt, even now. It had been so long, it seemed folly
to cling to the hope that Ben Stark was still alive, but Jon Snow
was nothing if not stubborn.
“It has been close on half a year since Benjen left us, my
lord,” Ser Jaremy went on. “The forest is vast. The
wildlings might have fallen on him anywhere. I’d wager these
two were the last survivors of his party, on their way back to us . . . but the enemy caught them before they could reach the safety of
the Wall. The corpses are still fresh, these men cannot have been
dead more than a day . . . .”
“No,” Samwell Tarly squeaked.
Jon was startled. Sam’s nervous, high-pitched voice was
the last he would have expected to hear. The fat boy was frightened
of the officers, and Ser Jaremy was not known for his patience.
“I did not ask for your views, boy,” Rykker said
coldly.
“Let him speak, ser,” Jon blurted.
Mormont’s eyes flicked from Sam to Jon and back again.
“If the lad has something to say, I’ll hear him out.
Come closer, boy. We can’t see you behind those
horses.”
Sam edged past Jon and the garrons, sweating profusely.
“My lord, it . . . it can’t be a day or . . . look . . . the blood . . . ”
“Yes?” Mormont growled impatiently. “Blood,
what of it?”
“He soils his smallclothes at the sight of it,”
Chett shouted out, and the rangers laughed.
Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. “You . . . you can
see where Ghost . . . Jon’s direwolf . . . you can see where
he tore off that man’s hand, and yet . . . the stump
hasn’t bled, look . . . ” He waved a hand. “My
father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals
sometimes, when . . . after . . . ” Sam shook his head from
side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the
bodies, he could not seem to look away. “A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be
clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . ” He
looked as though he was going to be sick. “This man . . . look at the wrist, it’s all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like
. . . ”
Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in
the dead man’s wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood
was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. “If
they’d been dead much longer than a day, they’d be ripe
by now, boy. They don’t even smell.”
Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could
smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a
whiff. “Well, they’re no pansy flowers, but . . . m’lord has the truth of it. There’s no corpse
stink.”
“They . . . they aren’t rotting.” Sam pointed,
his fat finger shaking only a little. “Look, there’s . . . there’s no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they’ve been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they
haven’t been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they’re . . . they’re . . . ”
“Untouched,” Jon said softly. “And Ghost is
different. The dogs and the horses won’t go near
them.”
The rangers exchanged glances; they could see it was true, every
man of them. Mormont frowned, glancing from the corpses to the
dogs. “Chett, bring the hounds closer.”
Chett tried, cursing, yanking on the leashes, giving one animal
a lick of his boot. Most of the dogs just whimpered and planted
their feet. He tried dragging one. The bitch resisted, growling and
squirming as if to escape her collar. Finally she lunged at him.
Chett dropped the leash and stumbled backward. The dog leapt over
him and bounded off into the trees.
“This . . . this is all wrong,” Sam Tarly said
earnestly. “The blood . . . there’s bloodstains on
their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there’s none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . ” Sam made himself swallow, took a
deep breath. “With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn’t there?”
Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. “Might be they
didn’t die here. Might be someone brought ’em and left
’em for us. A warning, as like.” The old forester
peered down suspiciously. “And might be I’m a fool, but
I don’t know that Othor never had no blue eyes
afore.”
Ser Jaremy looked startled. “Neither did Flowers,”
he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man.
A silence fell over the wood. For a moment all they heard was
Sam’s heavy breathing and the wet sound of Dywen sucking on
his teeth. Jon squatted beside Ghost.
“Burn them,” someone whispered. One of the rangers;
Jon could not have said who. “Yes, burn them,” a second
voice urged.
The Old Bear gave a stubborn shake of his head. “Not yet.
I want Maester Aemon to have a look at them. We’ll bring them
back to the Wall.”
Some commands are more easily given than obeyed. They wrapped
the dead men in cloaks, but when Hake and Dywen tried to tie one
onto a horse, the animal went mad, screaming and rearing, lashing
out with its hooves, even biting at Ketter when he ran to help. The
rangers had no better luck with the other garrons; not even the
most placid wanted any part of these burdens. In the end they were
forced to hack off branches and fashion crude slings to carry the
corpses back on foot. It was well past midday by the time they
started back.
“I will have these woods searched,” Mormont
commanded Ser Jaremy as they set out. “Every tree, every
rock, every bush, and every foot of muddy ground within ten leagues
of here. Use all the men you have, and if you do not have enough,
borrow hunters and foresters from the stewards. If Ben and the
others are out here, dead or alive, I will have them found. And if
there is anyone else in these woods, I will know of it. You are to
track them and take them, alive if possible. Is that
understood?”
“It is, my lord,” Ser Jaremy said. “It will be
done.”
After that, Mormont rode in silence, brooding. Jon followed
close behind him; as the Lord Commander’s steward, that was
his place. The day was grey, damp, overcast, the sort of day that
made you wish for rain. No wind stirred the wood; the air hung
humid and heavy, and Jon’s clothes clung to his skin. It was
warm. Too warm. The Wall was weeping copiously, had been weeping
for days, and sometimes Jon even imagined it was shrinking.
The old men called this weather spirit summer, and said it meant
the season was giving up its ghosts at last. After this the cold
would come, they warned, and a long summer always meant a long
winter. This summer had lasted ten years. Jon had been a babe in
arms when it began.
Ghost ran with them for a time and then vanished among the
trees. Without the direwolf, Jon felt almost naked. He found
himself glancing at every shadow with unease. Unbidden, he thought
back on the tales that Old Nan used to tell them, when he was a boy
at Winterfell. He could almost hear her voice again, and the
click-click-click of her needles. In that darkness, the Others came
riding, she used to say, dropping her voice lower and lower. Cold
and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of
the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins.
Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men all fell before them, as
they moved south on pale dead horses, leading hosts of the slain.
They fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children . . .
When he caught his first glimpse of the Wall looming above the
tops of an ancient gnarled oak, Jon was vastly relieved. Mormont
reined up suddenly and turned in his saddle. “Tarly,”
he barked, “come here.”
Jon saw the start of fright on Sam’s face as he lumbered
up on his mare; doubtless he thought he was in trouble.
“You’re fat but you’re not stupid, boy,”
the Old Bear said gruffly. “You did well back there. And you,
Snow.”
Sam blushed a vivid crimson and tripped over his own tongue as
he tried to stammer out a courtesy. Jon had to smile.
When they emerged from under the trees, Mormont spurred his
tough little garron to a trot. Ghost came streaking out from the
woods to meet them, licking his chops, his muzzle red from prey.
High above, the men on the Wall saw the column approaching. Jon
heard the deep, throaty call of the watchman’s great horn,
calling out across the miles; a single long blast that shuddered
through the trees and echoed off the ice. UUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The sound faded slowly to silence. One blast meant rangers
returning, and Jon thought, I was a ranger for one day, at least.
Whatever may come, they cannot take that away from me.
Bowen Marsh was waiting at the first gate as they led their
garrons through the icy tunnel. The Lord Steward was red-faced and
agitated. “My lord,” he blurted at Mormont as he swung
open the iron bars, “there’s been a bird, you must come
at once.”
“What is it, man?” Mormont said gruffly.
Curiously, Marsh glanced at Jon before he answered.
“Maester Aemon has the letter. He’s waiting in your
solar.”
“Very well. Jon, see to my horse, and tell Ser Jaremy to
put the dead men in a storeroom until the maester is ready for
them.” Mormont strode away grumbling.
As they led their horses back to the stable, Jon was
uncomfortably aware that people were watching him. Ser Alliser
Thorne was drilling his boys in the yard, but he broke off to stare
at Jon, a faint half smile on his lips. One-armed Donal Noye stood
in the door of the armory. “The gods be with you,
Snow,” he called out. Something’s wrong, Jon thought. Something’s very
wrong.
The dead men were carried to one of the storerooms along the
base of the Wall, a dark cold cell chiseled from the ice and used
to keep meat and grain and sometimes even beer. Jon saw that
Mormont’s horse was fed and watered and groomed before he
took care of his own. Afterward he sought out his friends. Grenn
and Toad were on watch, but he found Pyp in the common hall.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
Pyp lowered his voice. “The king’s dead.”
Jon was stunned. Robert Baratheon had looked old and fat when he
visited Winterfell, yet he’d seemed hale enough, and
there’d been no talk of illness. “How can you
know?”
“One of the guards overheard Clydas reading the letter to
Maester Aemon.” Pyp leaned close. “Jon, I’m
sorry. He was your father’s friend, wasn’t
he?”
“They were as close as brothers, once.” Jon wondered
if Joffrey would keep his father as the King’s Hand. It did
not seem likely. That might mean Lord Eddard would return to
Winterfell, and his sisters as well. He might even be allowed to
visit them, with Lord Mormont’s permission. It would be good
to see Arya’s grin again and to talk with his father. I will
ask him about my mother, he resolved. I am a man now, it is past
time he told me. Even if she was a whore, I don’t care, I
want to know.
“I heard Hake say the dead men were your
uncle’s,” Pyp said.
“Yes,” Jon replied. “Two of the six he took
with him. They’d been dead a long time, only . . . the bodies
are queer.”
“Queer?” Pyp was all curiosity. “How
queer?”
“Sam will tell you.” Jon did not want to talk of it.
“I should see if the Old Bear has need of me.”
He walked to the Lord Commander’s Tower alone, with a
curious sense of apprehension. The brothers on guard eyed him
solemnly as he approached. “The Old Bear’s in his
solar,” one of them announced. “He was asking for
you.”
Jon nodded. He should have come straight from the stable. He
climbed the tower steps briskly. He wants wine or a fire in his
hearth, that’s all, he told himself.
When he entered the solar, Mormont’s raven screamed at
him. “Corn!” the bird shrieked. “Corn! Corn!
Corn!”
“Don’t you believe it, I just fed him,” the
Old Bear growled. He was seated by the window, reading a letter.
“Bring me a cup of wine, and pour one for
yourself.”
“For myself, my lord?”
Mormont lifted his eyes from the letter to stare at Jon. There
was pity in that look; he could taste it. “You heard
me.”
Jon poured with exaggerated care, vaguely aware that he was
drawing out the act. When the cups were filled, he would have no
choice but to face whatever was in that letter. Yet all too soon,
they were filled. “Sit, boy,” Mormont commanded him.
“Drink.”
Jon remained standing. “It’s my father, isn’t
it?”
The Old Bear tapped the letter with a finger. “Your father
and the king,” he rumbled. “I won’t lie to you,
it’s grievous news. I never thought to see another king, not
at my age, with Robert half my years and strong as a bull.”
He took a gulp of wine. “They say the king loved to hunt. The
things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that. My son loved that young wife of his. Vain woman. If not for her,
he would never have thought to sell those poachers.”
Jon could scarcely follow what he was saying. “My lord, I
don’t understand. What’s happened to my
father?”
“I told you to sit,” Mormont grumbled. “Sit,” the raven screamed. “And have a drink, damn you.
That’s a command, Snow.”
Jon sat, and took a sip of wine.
“Lord Eddard has been imprisoned. He is charged with
treason. It is said he plotted with Robert’s brothers to deny
the throne to Prince Joffrey.”
“No,” Jon said at once. “That couldn’t
be. My father would never betray the king!”
“Be that as it may,” said Mormont. “It is not
for me to say. Nor for you.”
“But it’s a lie,” Jon insisted. How could they
think his father was a traitor, had they all gone mad? Lord Eddard
Stark would never dishonor himself . . . would he? He fathered a bastard, a small voice whispered inside him. Where
was the honor in that? And your mother, what of her? He will not
even speak her name.
“My lord, what will happen to him? Will they kill
him?”
“As to that, I cannot say, lad. I mean to send a letter. I
knew some of the king’s councillors in my youth. Old Pycelle,
Lord Stannis, Ser Barristan . . . Whatever your father has done, or
hasn’t done, he is a great lord. He must be allowed to take
the black and join us here. Gods knows, we need men of Lord
Eddard’s ability.”
Jon knew that other men accused of treason had been allowed to
redeem their honor on the Wall in days past. Why not Lord Eddard?
His father here. That was a strange thought, and strangely
uncomfortable. It would be a monstrous injustice to strip him of
Winterfell and force him to take the black, and yet if it meant his
life . . .
And would Joffrey allow it? He remembered the prince at
Winterfell, the way he’d mocked Robb and Ser Rodrik in the
yard. Jon himself he had scarcely even noticed; bastards were
beneath even his contempt. “My lord, will the king listen to
you?”
The Old Bear shrugged. “A boy king . . . I imagine
he’ll listen to his mother. A pity the dwarf isn’t with
them. He’s the lad’s uncle, and he saw our need when he
visited us. It was a bad thing, your lady mother taking him
captive—”
“Lady Stark is not my mother,” Jon reminded him
sharply. Tyrion Lannister had been a friend to him. If Lord Eddard
was killed, she would be as much to blame as the queen. “My
lord, what of my sisters? Arya and Sansa, they were with my father,
do you know—”
“Pycelle makes no mention of them, but doubtless
they’ll be treated gently. I will ask about them when I
write.” Mormont shook his head. “This could not have
happened at a worse time. If ever the realm needed a strong king . . . there are dark days and cold nights ahead, I feel it in my
bones . . . ” He gave Jon a long shrewd look. “I hope
you are not thinking of doing anything stupid, boy.” He’s my father, Jon wanted to say, but he knew that Mormont
would not want to hear it. His throat was dry. He made himself take
another sip of wine.
“Your duty is here now,” the Lord Commander reminded
him. “Your old life ended when you took the black.” His
bird made a raucous echo. “Black.” Mormont took no
notice. “Whatever they do in King’s Landing is none of
our concern.” When Jon did not answer, the old man finished
his wine and said, “You’re free to go. I’ll have
no further need of you today. On the morrow you can help me write
that letter.”
Jon did not remember standing or leaving the solar. The next he
knew, he was descending the tower steps, thinking, This is my
father, my sisters, how can it be none of my concern?
Outside, one of the guards looked at him and said, “Be
strong, boy. The gods are cruel.” They know, Jon realized. “My father is no traitor,”
he said hoarsely. Even the words stuck in his throat, as if to
choke him. The wind was rising, and it seemed colder in the yard
than it had when he’d gone in. Spirit summer was drawing to
an end.
The rest of the afternoon passed as if in a dream. Jon could not
have said where he walked, what he did, who he spoke with. Ghost
was with him, he knew that much. The silent presence of the
direwolf gave him comfort. The girls do not even have that much, he
thought. Their wolves might have kept them safe, but Lady is dead
and Nymeria’s lost, they’re all alone.
A north wind had begun to blow by the time the sun went down.
Jon could hear it skirling against the Wall and over the icy
battlements as he went to the common hall for the evening meal.
Hobb had cooked up a venison stew, thick with barley, onions, and
carrots. When he spooned an extra portion onto Jon’s plate
and gave him the crusty heel of the bread, he knew what it meant.
He knows. He looked around the hall, saw heads turn quickly, eyes
politely averted. They all know.
His friends rallied to him. “We asked the septon to light
a candle for your father,” Matthar told him.
“It’s a lie, we all know it’s a lie, even Grenn knows it’s a lie,” Pyp chimed in. Grenn
nodded, and Sam clasped Jon’s hand, “You’re my
brother now, so he’s my father too,” the fat boy said.
“If you want to go out to the weirwoods and pray to the old
gods, I’ll go with you.”
The weirwoods were beyond the Wall, yet he knew Sam meant what
he said. They are my brothers, he thought. As much as Robb and Bran
and Rickon . . .
And then he heard the laughter, sharp and cruel as a whip, and
the voice of Ser Alliser Thorne. “Not only a bastard, but a
traitor’s bastard,” he was telling the men around
him.
In the blink of an eye, Jon had vaulted onto the table, dagger
in his hand. Pyp made a grab for him, but he wrenched his leg away,
and then he was sprinting down the table and kicking the bowl from
Ser Alliser’s hand. Stew went flying everywhere, spattering
the brothers. Thorne recoiled. People were shouting, but Jon Snow
did not hear them. He lunged at Ser Alliser’s face with the
dagger, slashing at those cold onyx eyes, but Sam threw himself
between them and before Jon could get around him, Pyp was on his
back clinging like a monkey, and Grenn was grabbing his arm while
Toad wrenched the knife from his fingers.
Later, much later, after they had marched him back to his
sleeping cell, Mormont came down to see him, raven on his shoulder.
“I told you not to do anything stupid, boy,” the Old
Bear said. “Boy,” the bird chorused. Mormont shook his
head, disgusted. “And to think I had high hopes for
you.”
They took his knife and his sword and told him he was not to
leave his cell until the high officers met to decide what was to be
done with him. And then they placed a guard outside his door to
make certain he obeyed. His friends were not allowed to see him,
but the Old Bear did relent and permit him Ghost, so he was not
utterly alone.
“My father is no traitor,” he told the direwolf when
the rest had gone. Ghost looked at him in silence. Jon slumped
against the wall, hands around his knees, and stared at the candle
on the table beside his narrow bed. The flame flickered and swayed,
the shadows moved around him, the room seemed to grow darker and
colder. I will not sleep tonight, Jon thought.
Yet he must have dozed. When he woke, his legs were stiff and
cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on
his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how
tall he’d grown. “Ghost, what is it?” he called
softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring
his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered.
“It’s me, Ghost,” he murmured, trying not to
sound afraid. Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten
so cold?
Ghost backed away from the door. There were deep gouges where
he’d raked the wood. Jon watched him with mounting disquiet.
“There’s someone out there, isn’t there?”
he whispered. Crouching, the direwolf crept backward, white fur
rising on the back of his neck. The guard, he thought, they left a
man to guard my door, Ghost smells him through the door,
that’s all it is.
Slowly, Jon pushed himself to his feet. He was shivering
uncontrollably, wishing he still had a sword. Three quick steps
brought him to the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled it
inward. The creak of the hinges almost made him jump.
His guard was sprawled bonelessly across the narrow steps,
looking up at him. Looking up at him, even though he was lying on
his stomach. His head had been twisted completely around. It can’t be, Jon told himself. This is the Lord
Commander’s Tower, it’s guarded day and night, this
couldn’t happen, it’s a dream, I’m having a
nightmare.
Ghost slid past him, out the door. The wolf started up the
steps, stopped, looked back at Jon. That was when he heard it; the
soft scrape of a boot on stone, the sound of a latch turning. The
sounds came from above. From the Lord Commander’s
chambers.
A nightmare this might be, yet it was no dream.
The guard’s sword was in its sheath. Jon knelt and worked
it free. The heft of steel in his fist made him bolder. He moved up
the steps, Ghost padding silently before him. Shadows lurked in
every turn of the stair. Jon crept up warily, probing any
suspicious darkness with the point of his sword.
Suddenly he heard the shriek of Mormont’s raven.
“Corn,” the bird was screaming. “Corn, corn,
corn, corn, corn, corn.” Ghost bounded ahead, and Jon came
scrambling after. The door to Mormont’s solar was wide open.
The direwolf plunged through. Jon stopped in the doorway, blade in
hand, giving his eyes a moment to adjust. Heavy drapes had been
pulled across the windows, and the darkness was black as ink.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
Then he saw it, a shadow in the shadows, sliding toward the
inner door that led to Mormont’s sleeping cell, a man-shape
all in black, cloaked and hooded . . . but beneath the hood, its
eyes shone with an icy blue radiance . . .
Ghost leapt. Man and wolf went down together with neither scream
nor snarl, rolling, smashing into a chair, knocking over a table
laden with papers. Mormont’s raven was flapping overhead,
screaming, “Corn, corn, corn, corn.” Jon felt as blind as
Maester Aemon. Keeping the wall to his back, he slid toward the
window and ripped down the curtain. Moonlight flooded the solar. He
glimpsed black hands buried in white fur, swollen dark fingers
tightening around his direwolf’s throat. Ghost was twisting
and snapping, legs flailing in the air, but he could not break
free.
Jon had no time to be afraid. He threw himself forward,
shouting, bringing down the longsword with all his weight behind
it. Steel sheared through sleeve and skin and bone, yet the sound
was wrong somehow. The smell that engulfed him was so queer and
cold he almost gagged. He saw arm and hand on the floor, black
fingers wriggling in a pool of moonlight. Ghost wrenched free of
the other hand and crept away, red tongue lolling from his
mouth.
The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it
without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone,
taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under
those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face.
Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he’s dead, he’s
dead, I saw him dead.
He felt something scrabble at his ankle. Black fingers clawed at
his calf. The arm was crawling up his leg, ripping at wool and
flesh. Shouting with revulsion, Jon pried the fingers off his leg
with the point of his sword and flipped the thing away. It lay
writhing, fingers opening and closing.
The corpse lurched forward. There was no blood. One-armed, face
cut near in half, it seemed to feel nothing. Jon held the longsword
before him. “Stay away!” he commanded, his voice gone
shrill. “Corn,” screamed the raven, “corn, corn.” The severed arm was wriggling out of its torn sleeve, a
pale snake with a black five-fingered head. Ghost pounced and got
it between his teeth. Finger bones crunched. Jon hacked at the
corpse’s neck, felt the steel bite deep and hard.
Dead Othor slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.
Jon’s breath went out of him as the fallen table caught
him between his shoulder blades. The sword, where was the sword?
He’d lost the damned sword! When he opened his mouth to
scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon’s
mouth. Gagging, he tried to shove it off, but the dead man was too
heavy. Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold,
choking him. Its face was against his own, filling the world. Frost
covered its eyes, sparkling blue. Jon raked cold flesh with his
nails and kicked at the thing’s legs. He tried to bite, tried
to punch, tried to breathe . . .
And suddenly the corpse’s weight was gone, its fingers
ripped from his throat. It was all Jon could do to roll over,
retching and shaking.
Ghost had it again. He watched as the direwolf buried his teeth
in the wight’s gut and began to rip and tear. He watched,
only half conscious, for a long moment before he finally remembered
to look for his sword . . .
. . . and saw Lord Mormont, naked and groggy from sleep,
standing in the doorway with an oil lamp in hand. Gnawed and
fingerless, the arm thrashed on the floor, wriggling toward
him.
Jon tried to shout, but his voice was gone. Staggering to his
feet, he kicked the arm away and snatched the lamp from the Old
Bear’s fingers. The flame flickered and almost died.
“Burn!” the raven cawed. “Burn, burn,
burn!”
Spinning, Jon saw the drapes he’d ripped from the window.
He flung the lamp into the puddled cloth with both hands. Metal
crunched, glass shattered, oil spewed, and the hangings went up in
a great whoosh of flame. The heat of it on his face was sweeter
than any kiss Jon had ever known. “Ghost!” he
shouted.
The direwolf wrenched free and came to him as the wight
struggled to rise, dark snakes spilling from the great wound in its
belly. Jon plunged his hand into the flames, grabbed a fistful of
the burning drapes, and whipped them at the dead man. Let it burn,
he prayed as the cloth smothered the corpse, gods, please, please,
let it burn.
Othor,” announced Ser Jaremy Rykker,
“beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers.” He
turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face
stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes. “They
were Ben Stark’s men, both of them.” My uncle’s men, Jon thought numbly. He remembered how
he’d pleaded to ride with them. Gods, I was such a green boy.
If he had taken me, it might be me lying here . . .
Jafer’s right wrist ended in the ruin of torn flesh and
splintered bone left by Ghost’s jaws. His right hand was
floating in a jar of vinegar back in Maester Aemon’s tower.
His left hand, still at the end of his arm, was as black as his
cloak.
“Gods have mercy,” the Old Bear muttered. He swung
down from his garron, handing his reins to Jon. The morning was
unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander’s
broad forehead like dew on a melon. His horse was nervous, rolling
her eyes, backing away from the dead men as far as her lead would
allow. Jon led her off a few paces, fighting to keep her from
bolting. The horses did not like the feel of this place. For that
matter, neither did Jon.
The dogs liked it least of all. Ghost had led the party here;
the pack of hounds had been useless. When Bass the kennelmaster had
tried to get them to take the scent from the severed hand, they had
gone wild, yowling and barking, fighting to get away. Even now they
were snarling and whimpering by turns, pulling at their leashes
while Chett cursed them for curs. It is only a wood, Jon told himself, and they’re only dead
men. He had seen dead men before . . .
Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was
wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending
into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than
before. In the dark he’d heard the scrape of stone on stone.
When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the
other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black
graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when
Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake
his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he
had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light
of the dawn off to the cast. It was only a dream. I am a brother of
the Night’s Watch now, not a frightened boy.
Samwell Tarly huddled beneath the trees, half-hidden behind the
horses. His round fat face was the color of curdled milk. So far he
had not lurched off to the woods to retch, but he had not so much
as glanced at the dead men either. “I can’t
look,” he whispered miserably.
“You have to look,” Jon told him, keeping his voice
low so the others would not hear. “Maester Aemon sent you to
be his eyes, didn’t he? What good are eyes if they’re
shut?”
“Yes, but . . . I’m such a coward, Jon.”
Jon put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We have a dozen
rangers with us, and the dogs, even Ghost. No one will hurt you,
Sam. Go ahead and look. The first look is the hardest.”
Sam gave a tremulous nod, working up his courage with a visible
effort. Slowly he swiveled his head. His eyes widened, but Jon held
his arm so he could not turn away.
“Ser Jaremy,” the Old Bear asked gruffly, “Ben
Stark had six men with him when he rode from the Wall. Where are
the others?”
Ser Jaremy shook his head. “Would that I knew.”
Plainly Mormont was not pleased with that answer. “Two of
our brothers butchered almost within sight of the Wall, yet your
rangers heard nothing, saw nothing. Is this what the Night’s
Watch has fallen to? Do we still sweep these woods?”
“Yes, my lord, but—”
“Do we still mount watches?”
“We do, but—”
“This man wears a hunting horn.” Mormont pointed at
Othor. “Must I suppose that he died without sounding it? Or
have your rangers all gone deaf as well as blind?”
Ser Jaremy bristled, his face taut with anger. “No horn
was blown, my lord, or my rangers would have heard it. I do not
have sufficient men to mount as many patrols as I should like . . . and since Benjen was lost, we have stayed closer to the Wall than
we were wont to do before, by your own command.”
The Old Bear grunted. “Yes. Well. Be that as it
may.” He made an impatient gesture. “Tell me how they
died.”
Squatting beside the dead man he had named Jafer Flowers, Ser
Jaremy grasped his head by the scalp. The hair came out between his
fingers, brittle as straw. The knight cursed and shoved at the face
with the heel of his hand. A great gash in the side of the
corpse’s neck opened like a mouth, crusted with dried blood.
Only a few ropes of pale tendon still attached the head to the
neck. “This was done with an axe.”
“Aye,” muttered Dywen, the old forester.
“Belike the axe that Othor carried, m’lord.”
Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he
pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body.
Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No
axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one
bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days
were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his
hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard
cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a
rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open.
They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
Ser Jaremy stood. “The wildlings have axes too.”
Mormont rounded on him. “So you believe this is Mance
Rayder’s work? This close to the Wall?”
“Who else, my lord?”
Jon could have told him. He knew, they all knew, yet no man of
them would say the words. The Others are only a story, a tale to
make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone
eight thousand years. Even the thought made him feel foolish; he
was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch,
not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran
and Robb and Arya.
Yet Lord Commander Mormont gave a snort. “If Ben Stark had
come under wildling attack a half day’s ride from Castle
Black, he would have returned for more men, chased the killers
through all seven hells and brought me back their heads.”
“Unless he was slain as well,” Ser Jaremy
insisted.
The words hurt, even now. It had been so long, it seemed folly
to cling to the hope that Ben Stark was still alive, but Jon Snow
was nothing if not stubborn.
“It has been close on half a year since Benjen left us, my
lord,” Ser Jaremy went on. “The forest is vast. The
wildlings might have fallen on him anywhere. I’d wager these
two were the last survivors of his party, on their way back to us . . . but the enemy caught them before they could reach the safety of
the Wall. The corpses are still fresh, these men cannot have been
dead more than a day . . . .”
“No,” Samwell Tarly squeaked.
Jon was startled. Sam’s nervous, high-pitched voice was
the last he would have expected to hear. The fat boy was frightened
of the officers, and Ser Jaremy was not known for his patience.
“I did not ask for your views, boy,” Rykker said
coldly.
“Let him speak, ser,” Jon blurted.
Mormont’s eyes flicked from Sam to Jon and back again.
“If the lad has something to say, I’ll hear him out.
Come closer, boy. We can’t see you behind those
horses.”
Sam edged past Jon and the garrons, sweating profusely.
“My lord, it . . . it can’t be a day or . . . look . . . the blood . . . ”
“Yes?” Mormont growled impatiently. “Blood,
what of it?”
“He soils his smallclothes at the sight of it,”
Chett shouted out, and the rangers laughed.
Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. “You . . . you can
see where Ghost . . . Jon’s direwolf . . . you can see where
he tore off that man’s hand, and yet . . . the stump
hasn’t bled, look . . . ” He waved a hand. “My
father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals
sometimes, when . . . after . . . ” Sam shook his head from
side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the
bodies, he could not seem to look away. “A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be
clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . ” He
looked as though he was going to be sick. “This man . . . look at the wrist, it’s all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like
. . . ”
Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in
the dead man’s wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood
was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. “If
they’d been dead much longer than a day, they’d be ripe
by now, boy. They don’t even smell.”
Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could
smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a
whiff. “Well, they’re no pansy flowers, but . . . m’lord has the truth of it. There’s no corpse
stink.”
“They . . . they aren’t rotting.” Sam pointed,
his fat finger shaking only a little. “Look, there’s . . . there’s no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they’ve been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they
haven’t been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they’re . . . they’re . . . ”
“Untouched,” Jon said softly. “And Ghost is
different. The dogs and the horses won’t go near
them.”
The rangers exchanged glances; they could see it was true, every
man of them. Mormont frowned, glancing from the corpses to the
dogs. “Chett, bring the hounds closer.”
Chett tried, cursing, yanking on the leashes, giving one animal
a lick of his boot. Most of the dogs just whimpered and planted
their feet. He tried dragging one. The bitch resisted, growling and
squirming as if to escape her collar. Finally she lunged at him.
Chett dropped the leash and stumbled backward. The dog leapt over
him and bounded off into the trees.
“This . . . this is all wrong,” Sam Tarly said
earnestly. “The blood . . . there’s bloodstains on
their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there’s none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . ” Sam made himself swallow, took a
deep breath. “With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn’t there?”
Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. “Might be they
didn’t die here. Might be someone brought ’em and left
’em for us. A warning, as like.” The old forester
peered down suspiciously. “And might be I’m a fool, but
I don’t know that Othor never had no blue eyes
afore.”
Ser Jaremy looked startled. “Neither did Flowers,”
he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man.
A silence fell over the wood. For a moment all they heard was
Sam’s heavy breathing and the wet sound of Dywen sucking on
his teeth. Jon squatted beside Ghost.
“Burn them,” someone whispered. One of the rangers;
Jon could not have said who. “Yes, burn them,” a second
voice urged.
The Old Bear gave a stubborn shake of his head. “Not yet.
I want Maester Aemon to have a look at them. We’ll bring them
back to the Wall.”
Some commands are more easily given than obeyed. They wrapped
the dead men in cloaks, but when Hake and Dywen tried to tie one
onto a horse, the animal went mad, screaming and rearing, lashing
out with its hooves, even biting at Ketter when he ran to help. The
rangers had no better luck with the other garrons; not even the
most placid wanted any part of these burdens. In the end they were
forced to hack off branches and fashion crude slings to carry the
corpses back on foot. It was well past midday by the time they
started back.
“I will have these woods searched,” Mormont
commanded Ser Jaremy as they set out. “Every tree, every
rock, every bush, and every foot of muddy ground within ten leagues
of here. Use all the men you have, and if you do not have enough,
borrow hunters and foresters from the stewards. If Ben and the
others are out here, dead or alive, I will have them found. And if
there is anyone else in these woods, I will know of it. You are to
track them and take them, alive if possible. Is that
understood?”
“It is, my lord,” Ser Jaremy said. “It will be
done.”
After that, Mormont rode in silence, brooding. Jon followed
close behind him; as the Lord Commander’s steward, that was
his place. The day was grey, damp, overcast, the sort of day that
made you wish for rain. No wind stirred the wood; the air hung
humid and heavy, and Jon’s clothes clung to his skin. It was
warm. Too warm. The Wall was weeping copiously, had been weeping
for days, and sometimes Jon even imagined it was shrinking.
The old men called this weather spirit summer, and said it meant
the season was giving up its ghosts at last. After this the cold
would come, they warned, and a long summer always meant a long
winter. This summer had lasted ten years. Jon had been a babe in
arms when it began.
Ghost ran with them for a time and then vanished among the
trees. Without the direwolf, Jon felt almost naked. He found
himself glancing at every shadow with unease. Unbidden, he thought
back on the tales that Old Nan used to tell them, when he was a boy
at Winterfell. He could almost hear her voice again, and the
click-click-click of her needles. In that darkness, the Others came
riding, she used to say, dropping her voice lower and lower. Cold
and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of
the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins.
Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men all fell before them, as
they moved south on pale dead horses, leading hosts of the slain.
They fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children . . .
When he caught his first glimpse of the Wall looming above the
tops of an ancient gnarled oak, Jon was vastly relieved. Mormont
reined up suddenly and turned in his saddle. “Tarly,”
he barked, “come here.”
Jon saw the start of fright on Sam’s face as he lumbered
up on his mare; doubtless he thought he was in trouble.
“You’re fat but you’re not stupid, boy,”
the Old Bear said gruffly. “You did well back there. And you,
Snow.”
Sam blushed a vivid crimson and tripped over his own tongue as
he tried to stammer out a courtesy. Jon had to smile.
When they emerged from under the trees, Mormont spurred his
tough little garron to a trot. Ghost came streaking out from the
woods to meet them, licking his chops, his muzzle red from prey.
High above, the men on the Wall saw the column approaching. Jon
heard the deep, throaty call of the watchman’s great horn,
calling out across the miles; a single long blast that shuddered
through the trees and echoed off the ice. UUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The sound faded slowly to silence. One blast meant rangers
returning, and Jon thought, I was a ranger for one day, at least.
Whatever may come, they cannot take that away from me.
Bowen Marsh was waiting at the first gate as they led their
garrons through the icy tunnel. The Lord Steward was red-faced and
agitated. “My lord,” he blurted at Mormont as he swung
open the iron bars, “there’s been a bird, you must come
at once.”
“What is it, man?” Mormont said gruffly.
Curiously, Marsh glanced at Jon before he answered.
“Maester Aemon has the letter. He’s waiting in your
solar.”
“Very well. Jon, see to my horse, and tell Ser Jaremy to
put the dead men in a storeroom until the maester is ready for
them.” Mormont strode away grumbling.
As they led their horses back to the stable, Jon was
uncomfortably aware that people were watching him. Ser Alliser
Thorne was drilling his boys in the yard, but he broke off to stare
at Jon, a faint half smile on his lips. One-armed Donal Noye stood
in the door of the armory. “The gods be with you,
Snow,” he called out. Something’s wrong, Jon thought. Something’s very
wrong.
The dead men were carried to one of the storerooms along the
base of the Wall, a dark cold cell chiseled from the ice and used
to keep meat and grain and sometimes even beer. Jon saw that
Mormont’s horse was fed and watered and groomed before he
took care of his own. Afterward he sought out his friends. Grenn
and Toad were on watch, but he found Pyp in the common hall.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
Pyp lowered his voice. “The king’s dead.”
Jon was stunned. Robert Baratheon had looked old and fat when he
visited Winterfell, yet he’d seemed hale enough, and
there’d been no talk of illness. “How can you
know?”
“One of the guards overheard Clydas reading the letter to
Maester Aemon.” Pyp leaned close. “Jon, I’m
sorry. He was your father’s friend, wasn’t
he?”
“They were as close as brothers, once.” Jon wondered
if Joffrey would keep his father as the King’s Hand. It did
not seem likely. That might mean Lord Eddard would return to
Winterfell, and his sisters as well. He might even be allowed to
visit them, with Lord Mormont’s permission. It would be good
to see Arya’s grin again and to talk with his father. I will
ask him about my mother, he resolved. I am a man now, it is past
time he told me. Even if she was a whore, I don’t care, I
want to know.
“I heard Hake say the dead men were your
uncle’s,” Pyp said.
“Yes,” Jon replied. “Two of the six he took
with him. They’d been dead a long time, only . . . the bodies
are queer.”
“Queer?” Pyp was all curiosity. “How
queer?”
“Sam will tell you.” Jon did not want to talk of it.
“I should see if the Old Bear has need of me.”
He walked to the Lord Commander’s Tower alone, with a
curious sense of apprehension. The brothers on guard eyed him
solemnly as he approached. “The Old Bear’s in his
solar,” one of them announced. “He was asking for
you.”
Jon nodded. He should have come straight from the stable. He
climbed the tower steps briskly. He wants wine or a fire in his
hearth, that’s all, he told himself.
When he entered the solar, Mormont’s raven screamed at
him. “Corn!” the bird shrieked. “Corn! Corn!
Corn!”
“Don’t you believe it, I just fed him,” the
Old Bear growled. He was seated by the window, reading a letter.
“Bring me a cup of wine, and pour one for
yourself.”
“For myself, my lord?”
Mormont lifted his eyes from the letter to stare at Jon. There
was pity in that look; he could taste it. “You heard
me.”
Jon poured with exaggerated care, vaguely aware that he was
drawing out the act. When the cups were filled, he would have no
choice but to face whatever was in that letter. Yet all too soon,
they were filled. “Sit, boy,” Mormont commanded him.
“Drink.”
Jon remained standing. “It’s my father, isn’t
it?”
The Old Bear tapped the letter with a finger. “Your father
and the king,” he rumbled. “I won’t lie to you,
it’s grievous news. I never thought to see another king, not
at my age, with Robert half my years and strong as a bull.”
He took a gulp of wine. “They say the king loved to hunt. The
things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that. My son loved that young wife of his. Vain woman. If not for her,
he would never have thought to sell those poachers.”
Jon could scarcely follow what he was saying. “My lord, I
don’t understand. What’s happened to my
father?”
“I told you to sit,” Mormont grumbled. “Sit,” the raven screamed. “And have a drink, damn you.
That’s a command, Snow.”
Jon sat, and took a sip of wine.
“Lord Eddard has been imprisoned. He is charged with
treason. It is said he plotted with Robert’s brothers to deny
the throne to Prince Joffrey.”
“No,” Jon said at once. “That couldn’t
be. My father would never betray the king!”
“Be that as it may,” said Mormont. “It is not
for me to say. Nor for you.”
“But it’s a lie,” Jon insisted. How could they
think his father was a traitor, had they all gone mad? Lord Eddard
Stark would never dishonor himself . . . would he? He fathered a bastard, a small voice whispered inside him. Where
was the honor in that? And your mother, what of her? He will not
even speak her name.
“My lord, what will happen to him? Will they kill
him?”
“As to that, I cannot say, lad. I mean to send a letter. I
knew some of the king’s councillors in my youth. Old Pycelle,
Lord Stannis, Ser Barristan . . . Whatever your father has done, or
hasn’t done, he is a great lord. He must be allowed to take
the black and join us here. Gods knows, we need men of Lord
Eddard’s ability.”
Jon knew that other men accused of treason had been allowed to
redeem their honor on the Wall in days past. Why not Lord Eddard?
His father here. That was a strange thought, and strangely
uncomfortable. It would be a monstrous injustice to strip him of
Winterfell and force him to take the black, and yet if it meant his
life . . .
And would Joffrey allow it? He remembered the prince at
Winterfell, the way he’d mocked Robb and Ser Rodrik in the
yard. Jon himself he had scarcely even noticed; bastards were
beneath even his contempt. “My lord, will the king listen to
you?”
The Old Bear shrugged. “A boy king . . . I imagine
he’ll listen to his mother. A pity the dwarf isn’t with
them. He’s the lad’s uncle, and he saw our need when he
visited us. It was a bad thing, your lady mother taking him
captive—”
“Lady Stark is not my mother,” Jon reminded him
sharply. Tyrion Lannister had been a friend to him. If Lord Eddard
was killed, she would be as much to blame as the queen. “My
lord, what of my sisters? Arya and Sansa, they were with my father,
do you know—”
“Pycelle makes no mention of them, but doubtless
they’ll be treated gently. I will ask about them when I
write.” Mormont shook his head. “This could not have
happened at a worse time. If ever the realm needed a strong king . . . there are dark days and cold nights ahead, I feel it in my
bones . . . ” He gave Jon a long shrewd look. “I hope
you are not thinking of doing anything stupid, boy.” He’s my father, Jon wanted to say, but he knew that Mormont
would not want to hear it. His throat was dry. He made himself take
another sip of wine.
“Your duty is here now,” the Lord Commander reminded
him. “Your old life ended when you took the black.” His
bird made a raucous echo. “Black.” Mormont took no
notice. “Whatever they do in King’s Landing is none of
our concern.” When Jon did not answer, the old man finished
his wine and said, “You’re free to go. I’ll have
no further need of you today. On the morrow you can help me write
that letter.”
Jon did not remember standing or leaving the solar. The next he
knew, he was descending the tower steps, thinking, This is my
father, my sisters, how can it be none of my concern?
Outside, one of the guards looked at him and said, “Be
strong, boy. The gods are cruel.” They know, Jon realized. “My father is no traitor,”
he said hoarsely. Even the words stuck in his throat, as if to
choke him. The wind was rising, and it seemed colder in the yard
than it had when he’d gone in. Spirit summer was drawing to
an end.
The rest of the afternoon passed as if in a dream. Jon could not
have said where he walked, what he did, who he spoke with. Ghost
was with him, he knew that much. The silent presence of the
direwolf gave him comfort. The girls do not even have that much, he
thought. Their wolves might have kept them safe, but Lady is dead
and Nymeria’s lost, they’re all alone.
A north wind had begun to blow by the time the sun went down.
Jon could hear it skirling against the Wall and over the icy
battlements as he went to the common hall for the evening meal.
Hobb had cooked up a venison stew, thick with barley, onions, and
carrots. When he spooned an extra portion onto Jon’s plate
and gave him the crusty heel of the bread, he knew what it meant.
He knows. He looked around the hall, saw heads turn quickly, eyes
politely averted. They all know.
His friends rallied to him. “We asked the septon to light
a candle for your father,” Matthar told him.
“It’s a lie, we all know it’s a lie, even Grenn knows it’s a lie,” Pyp chimed in. Grenn
nodded, and Sam clasped Jon’s hand, “You’re my
brother now, so he’s my father too,” the fat boy said.
“If you want to go out to the weirwoods and pray to the old
gods, I’ll go with you.”
The weirwoods were beyond the Wall, yet he knew Sam meant what
he said. They are my brothers, he thought. As much as Robb and Bran
and Rickon . . .
And then he heard the laughter, sharp and cruel as a whip, and
the voice of Ser Alliser Thorne. “Not only a bastard, but a
traitor’s bastard,” he was telling the men around
him.
In the blink of an eye, Jon had vaulted onto the table, dagger
in his hand. Pyp made a grab for him, but he wrenched his leg away,
and then he was sprinting down the table and kicking the bowl from
Ser Alliser’s hand. Stew went flying everywhere, spattering
the brothers. Thorne recoiled. People were shouting, but Jon Snow
did not hear them. He lunged at Ser Alliser’s face with the
dagger, slashing at those cold onyx eyes, but Sam threw himself
between them and before Jon could get around him, Pyp was on his
back clinging like a monkey, and Grenn was grabbing his arm while
Toad wrenched the knife from his fingers.
Later, much later, after they had marched him back to his
sleeping cell, Mormont came down to see him, raven on his shoulder.
“I told you not to do anything stupid, boy,” the Old
Bear said. “Boy,” the bird chorused. Mormont shook his
head, disgusted. “And to think I had high hopes for
you.”
They took his knife and his sword and told him he was not to
leave his cell until the high officers met to decide what was to be
done with him. And then they placed a guard outside his door to
make certain he obeyed. His friends were not allowed to see him,
but the Old Bear did relent and permit him Ghost, so he was not
utterly alone.
“My father is no traitor,” he told the direwolf when
the rest had gone. Ghost looked at him in silence. Jon slumped
against the wall, hands around his knees, and stared at the candle
on the table beside his narrow bed. The flame flickered and swayed,
the shadows moved around him, the room seemed to grow darker and
colder. I will not sleep tonight, Jon thought.
Yet he must have dozed. When he woke, his legs were stiff and
cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on
his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how
tall he’d grown. “Ghost, what is it?” he called
softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring
his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered.
“It’s me, Ghost,” he murmured, trying not to
sound afraid. Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten
so cold?
Ghost backed away from the door. There were deep gouges where
he’d raked the wood. Jon watched him with mounting disquiet.
“There’s someone out there, isn’t there?”
he whispered. Crouching, the direwolf crept backward, white fur
rising on the back of his neck. The guard, he thought, they left a
man to guard my door, Ghost smells him through the door,
that’s all it is.
Slowly, Jon pushed himself to his feet. He was shivering
uncontrollably, wishing he still had a sword. Three quick steps
brought him to the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled it
inward. The creak of the hinges almost made him jump.
His guard was sprawled bonelessly across the narrow steps,
looking up at him. Looking up at him, even though he was lying on
his stomach. His head had been twisted completely around. It can’t be, Jon told himself. This is the Lord
Commander’s Tower, it’s guarded day and night, this
couldn’t happen, it’s a dream, I’m having a
nightmare.
Ghost slid past him, out the door. The wolf started up the
steps, stopped, looked back at Jon. That was when he heard it; the
soft scrape of a boot on stone, the sound of a latch turning. The
sounds came from above. From the Lord Commander’s
chambers.
A nightmare this might be, yet it was no dream.
The guard’s sword was in its sheath. Jon knelt and worked
it free. The heft of steel in his fist made him bolder. He moved up
the steps, Ghost padding silently before him. Shadows lurked in
every turn of the stair. Jon crept up warily, probing any
suspicious darkness with the point of his sword.
Suddenly he heard the shriek of Mormont’s raven.
“Corn,” the bird was screaming. “Corn, corn,
corn, corn, corn, corn.” Ghost bounded ahead, and Jon came
scrambling after. The door to Mormont’s solar was wide open.
The direwolf plunged through. Jon stopped in the doorway, blade in
hand, giving his eyes a moment to adjust. Heavy drapes had been
pulled across the windows, and the darkness was black as ink.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
Then he saw it, a shadow in the shadows, sliding toward the
inner door that led to Mormont’s sleeping cell, a man-shape
all in black, cloaked and hooded . . . but beneath the hood, its
eyes shone with an icy blue radiance . . .
Ghost leapt. Man and wolf went down together with neither scream
nor snarl, rolling, smashing into a chair, knocking over a table
laden with papers. Mormont’s raven was flapping overhead,
screaming, “Corn, corn, corn, corn.” Jon felt as blind as
Maester Aemon. Keeping the wall to his back, he slid toward the
window and ripped down the curtain. Moonlight flooded the solar. He
glimpsed black hands buried in white fur, swollen dark fingers
tightening around his direwolf’s throat. Ghost was twisting
and snapping, legs flailing in the air, but he could not break
free.
Jon had no time to be afraid. He threw himself forward,
shouting, bringing down the longsword with all his weight behind
it. Steel sheared through sleeve and skin and bone, yet the sound
was wrong somehow. The smell that engulfed him was so queer and
cold he almost gagged. He saw arm and hand on the floor, black
fingers wriggling in a pool of moonlight. Ghost wrenched free of
the other hand and crept away, red tongue lolling from his
mouth.
The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it
without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone,
taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under
those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face.
Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he’s dead, he’s
dead, I saw him dead.
He felt something scrabble at his ankle. Black fingers clawed at
his calf. The arm was crawling up his leg, ripping at wool and
flesh. Shouting with revulsion, Jon pried the fingers off his leg
with the point of his sword and flipped the thing away. It lay
writhing, fingers opening and closing.
The corpse lurched forward. There was no blood. One-armed, face
cut near in half, it seemed to feel nothing. Jon held the longsword
before him. “Stay away!” he commanded, his voice gone
shrill. “Corn,” screamed the raven, “corn, corn.” The severed arm was wriggling out of its torn sleeve, a
pale snake with a black five-fingered head. Ghost pounced and got
it between his teeth. Finger bones crunched. Jon hacked at the
corpse’s neck, felt the steel bite deep and hard.
Dead Othor slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.
Jon’s breath went out of him as the fallen table caught
him between his shoulder blades. The sword, where was the sword?
He’d lost the damned sword! When he opened his mouth to
scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon’s
mouth. Gagging, he tried to shove it off, but the dead man was too
heavy. Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold,
choking him. Its face was against his own, filling the world. Frost
covered its eyes, sparkling blue. Jon raked cold flesh with his
nails and kicked at the thing’s legs. He tried to bite, tried
to punch, tried to breathe . . .
And suddenly the corpse’s weight was gone, its fingers
ripped from his throat. It was all Jon could do to roll over,
retching and shaking.
Ghost had it again. He watched as the direwolf buried his teeth
in the wight’s gut and began to rip and tear. He watched,
only half conscious, for a long moment before he finally remembered
to look for his sword . . .
. . . and saw Lord Mormont, naked and groggy from sleep,
standing in the doorway with an oil lamp in hand. Gnawed and
fingerless, the arm thrashed on the floor, wriggling toward
him.
Jon tried to shout, but his voice was gone. Staggering to his
feet, he kicked the arm away and snatched the lamp from the Old
Bear’s fingers. The flame flickered and almost died.
“Burn!” the raven cawed. “Burn, burn,
burn!”
Spinning, Jon saw the drapes he’d ripped from the window.
He flung the lamp into the puddled cloth with both hands. Metal
crunched, glass shattered, oil spewed, and the hangings went up in
a great whoosh of flame. The heat of it on his face was sweeter
than any kiss Jon had ever known. “Ghost!” he
shouted.
The direwolf wrenched free and came to him as the wight
struggled to rise, dark snakes spilling from the great wound in its
belly. Jon plunged his hand into the flames, grabbed a fistful of
the burning drapes, and whipped them at the dead man. Let it burn,
he prayed as the cloth smothered the corpse, gods, please, please,
let it burn.