There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon
Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more
from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of
them.
He settled back in his place on the bench among the younger
squires and drank. The sweet, fruity taste of summerwine filled
his mouth and brought a smile to his lips.
The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with
the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone
walls were draped with banners. White, gold, crimson: the direwolf
of Stark, Baratheon’s crowned stag, the lion of Lannister. A
singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at
this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the
roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the
low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations.
It was the fourth hour of the welcoming feast laid for the king.
Jon’s brothers and sisters had been seated with the royal
children, beneath the raised platform where Lord and Lady Stark
hosted the king and queen. In honor of the occasion, his lord
father would doubtless permit each child a glass of wine, but no
more than that. Down here on the benches, there was no one to stop
Jon drinking as much as he had a thirst for.
And he was finding that he had a man’s thirst, to the
raucous delight of the youths around him, who urged him on every
time he drained a glass. They were fine company, and Jon relished
the stories they were telling, tales of battle and bedding and the
hunt. He was certain that his companions were more entertaining
than the king’s offspring. He had sated his curiosity about
the visitors when they made their entrance. The procession had
passed not a foot from the place he had been given on the bench,
and Jon had gotten a good long look at them all.
His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as
beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long
golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her
eyes. His father helped her up the steps to the dais and led her to
her seat, but the queen never so much as looked at him. Even at
fourteen, Jon could see through her smile.
Next had come King Robert himself, with Lady Stark on his arm.
The king was a great disappointment to Jon. His father had talked
of him often: the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident,
the fiercest warrior of the realm, a giant among princes. Jon saw
only a fat man, red-faced under his beard, sweating through his
silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.
After them came the children. Little Rickon first, managing the
long walk with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jon
had to urge him on when he stopped to visit. Close behind came
Robb, in grey wool trimmed with white, the Stark colors. He had the
Princess Myrcella on his arm. She was a wisp of a girl, not quite
eight, her hair a cascade of golden curls under a jeweled net. Jon
noticed the shy looks she gave Robb as they passed between the
tables and the timid way she smiled at him. He decided she was
insipid. Robb didn’t even have the sense to realize how
stupid she was; he was grinning like a fool.
His half sisters escorted the royal princes. Arya was paired
with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than
hers. Sansa, two years older, drew the crown prince, Joffrey
Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than
either, to Jon’s vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his
sister’s hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick
tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high
velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but
Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored,
disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.
He was more interested in the pair that came behind him: the
queen’s brothers, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. The Lion
and the Imp; there was no mistaking which was which. Ser Jaime
Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing
green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk,
high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic,
the lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its
defiance. They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and
whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back.
Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king
should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed.
Then he saw the other one, waddling along half-hidden by his
brother’s side. Tyrion Lannister, the youngest of Lord
Tywin’s brood and by far the ugliest. All that the gods had
given to Cersei and Jaime, they had denied Tyrion. He was a dwarf,
half his brother’s height, struggling to keep pace on stunted
legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute’s
squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow. One green eye and
one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it
seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination.
The last of the high lords to enter were his uncle, Benjen Stark
of the Night’s Watch, and his father’s ward, young
Theon Greyjoy. Benjen gave Jon a warm smile as he went by. Theon
ignored him utterly, but there was nothing new in that. After all
had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and returned,
and then the feasting began.
Jon had started drinking then, and he had not stopped.
Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red
eyes staring up at him. “Hungry again?” he asked. There
was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon
reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed
the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his
legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. His brothers and
sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the
banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end
of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told
himself he was fortunate in that too.
His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.
He swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour
the chicken.
Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls.
One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a
scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get
a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in
her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the
dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge.
She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not
move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his
fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this
fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to
save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal.
Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy
white fur. The direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his
hand, then went back to eating.
“Is this one of the direwolves I’ve heard so much
of?” a familiar voice asked close at hand.
Jon looked up happily as his uncle Ben put a hand on his head
and ruffled his hair much as Jon had ruffled the wolf’s.
“Yes,” he said. “His name is Ghost.”
One of the squires interrupted the bawdy story he’d been
telling to make room at the table for their lord’s brother.
Benjen Stark straddled the bench with long legs and took the wine
cup out of Jon’s hand. “Summerwine,” he said
after a taste. “Nothing so sweet. How many cups have you had,
Jon?”
Jon smiled.
Ben Stark laughed. “As I feared. Ah, well. I believe I was
younger than you the first time I got truly and sincerely
drunk.” He snagged a roasted onion, dripping brown with
gravy, from a nearby trencher and bit into it. It crunched.
His uncle was sharp-featured and gaunt as a mountain crag, but
there was always a hint of laughter in his blue-grey eyes. He
dressed in black, as befitted a man of the Night’s Watch.
Tonight it was rich black velvet, with high leather boots and a
wide belt with a silver buckle. A heavy silver chain was looped
round his neck. Benjen watched Ghost with amusement as he ate his
onion. “A very quiet wolf,” he observed.
“He’s not like the others,” Jon said.
“He never makes a sound. That’s why I named him Ghost.
That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey
or black.”
“There are still direwolves beyond the Wall. We hear them
on our rangings.” Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look.
“Don’t you usually eat at table with your
brothers?”
“Most times,” Jon answered in a flat voice.
“But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the
royal family to seat a bastard among them.”
“I see.” His uncle glanced over his shoulder at the
raised table at the far end of the hall. “My brother does not
seem very festive tonight.”
Jon had noticed that too. A bastard had to learn to notice
things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes. His
father was observing all the courtesies, but there was tightness
in him that Jon had seldom seen before. He said little, looking out
over the hall with hooded eyes, seeing nothing. Two seats away, the
king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was
flushed behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed
loudly at every jest, and attacked each dish like a starving man,
but beside him the queen seemed as cold as an ice sculpture.
“The queen is angry too,” Jon told his uncle in a low,
quiet voice. “Father took the king down to the crypts this
afternoon. The queen didn’t want him to go.”
Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. “You
don’t miss much, do you, Jon? We could use a man like you on
the Wall.”
Jon swelled with pride. “Robb is a stronger lance than I
am, but I’m the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse
as well as anyone in the castle.”
“Notable achievements.”
“Take me with you when you go back to the Wall,” Jon
said in a sudden rush. “Father will give me leave to go if
you ask him, I know he will.”
Uncle Benjen studied his face carefully. “The Wall is a
hard place for a boy, Jon.”
“I am almost a man grown,” Jon protested. “I
will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says
bastards grow up faster than other children.”
“That’s true enough,” Benjen said with a
downward twist of his mouth. He took Jon’s cup from the
table, filled it fresh from a nearby pitcher, and drank down a long
swallow.
“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered
Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.
“A conquest that lasted a summer,” his uncle pointed
out. “Your Boy King lost ten thousand men taking the place,
and another fifty trying to hold it. Someone should have told him
that war isn’t a game.” He took another sip of wine.
“Also,” he said, wiping his mouth, “Daeren
Targaryen was only eighteen when he died. Or have you forgotten
that part?”
“I forget nothing,” Jon boasted. The wine was making
him bold. He tried to sit very straight, to make himself seem
taller. “I want to serve in the Night’s Watch,
Uncle.”
He had thought on it long and hard, lying abed at night while
his brothers slept around him. Robb would someday inherit
Winterfell, would command great armies as the Warden of the North.
Bran and Rickon would be Robb’s bannermen and rule holdfasts
in his name. His sisters Arya and Sansa would marry the heirs of
other great houses and go south as mistress of castles of their
own. But what place could a bastard hope to earn?
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Jon. The
Night’s Watch is a sworn brotherhood. We have no families.
None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is
honor.”
“A bastard can have honor too,” Jon said. “I
am ready to swear your oath.”
“You are a boy of fourteen,” Benjen said. “Not
a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand
what you would be giving up.”
“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said.
“If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less
eager to pay the price, son.”
Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your
son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He
put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Come back to me after
you’ve fathered a few bastards of your own, and we’ll
see how you feel.”
Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he
said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom.
Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they
were all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his
eyes. He pushed himself to his feet.
“I must be excused,” he said with the last of his
dignity. He whirled and bolted before they could see him cry. He
must have drunk more wine than he had realized. His feet got
tangled under him as he tried to leave, and he lurched sideways
into a serving girl and sent a flagon of spiced wine crashing to
the floor. Laughter boomed all around him, and Jon felt hot tears
on his cheeks. Someone tried to steady him. He wrenched free of
their grip and ran, half-blind, for the door. Ghost followed close
at his heels, out into the night.
The yard was quiet and empty. A lone sentry stood high on the
battlements of the inner wall, his cloak pulled tight around him
against the cold. He looked bored and miserable as he huddled there
alone, but Jon would have traded places with him in an instant.
Otherwise the castle was dark and deserted. Jon had seen an
abandoned holdfast once, a drear place where nothing moved but the
wind and the stones kept silent about whatever people had lived
there. Winterfell reminded him of that tonight.
The sounds of music and song spilled through the open windows
behind him. They were the last things Jon wanted to hear. He wiped
away his tears on the sleeve of his shirt, furious that he had let
them fall, and turned to go.
“Boy,” a voice called out to him. Jon turned.
Tyrion Lannister was sitting on the ledge above the door to the
Great Hall, looking for all the world like a gargoyle. The dwarf
grinned down at him. “Is that animal a wolf?”
“A direwolf,” Jon said. “His name is
Ghost.” He stared up at the little man, his disappointment
suddenly forgotten. “What are you doing up there? Why
aren’t you at the feast?”
“Too hot, too noisy, and I’d drunk too much
wine,” the dwarf told him. “I learned long ago that it
is considered rude to vomit on your brother. Might I have a closer
look at your wolf?”
Jon hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Can you climb down, or
shall I bring a ladder?”
“Oh, bleed that,” the little man said. He pushed
himself off the ledge into empty air. Jon gasped, then watched with
awe as Tyrion Lannister spun around in a tight ball, landed lightly
on his hands, then vaulted backward onto his legs.
Ghost backed away from him uncertainly.
The dwarf dusted himself off and laughed. “I believe
I’ve frightened your wolf. My apologies.”
“He’s not scared,” Jon said. He knelt and
called out. “Ghost, come here. Come on. That’s
it.”
The wolf pup padded closer and nuzzled at Jon’s face, but
he kept a wary eye on Tyrion Lannister, and when the dwarf reached
out to pet him, he drew back and bared his fangs in a silent snarl.
“Shy, isn’t he?” Lannister observed.
“Sit, Ghost,” Jon commanded. “That’s it.
Keep still.” He looked up at the dwarf. “You can touch
him now. He won’t move until I tell him to. I’ve been
training him.”
“I see,” Lannister said. He ruffled the snow-white
fur between Ghost’s ears and said, “Nice
wolf.”
“If I wasn’t here, he’d tear out your
throat,” Jon said. It wasn’t actually true yet, but it
would be.
“In that case, you had best stay close,” the dwarf
said. He cocked his oversized head to one side and looked Jon over
with his mismatched eyes. “I am Tyrion Lannister.”
“I know,” Jon said. He rose. Standing, he was taller
than the dwarf. It made him feel strange.
“You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t
you?”
Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips
together and said nothing.
“Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry.
Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering
fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any
damn thing that comes into my head.” He grinned. “You
are the bastard, though.”
“Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted
stiffly.
Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I
can see it. You have more of the north in you than your
brothers.”
“Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by
the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show.
“Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister
said. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will
not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness.
Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt
you.”
Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do
you know about being a bastard?”
“All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s
eyes.”
“You are your mother’s trueborn son of
Lannister.”
“Am I?” the dwarf replied, sardonic. “Do tell
my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he’s never
been sure.”
“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon
said.
“Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.” He favored
Jon with a rueful grin. “Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may
be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.” And with
that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune.
When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow
clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood
tall as a king.
There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon
Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more
from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of
them.
He settled back in his place on the bench among the younger
squires and drank. The sweet, fruity taste of summerwine filled
his mouth and brought a smile to his lips.
The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with
the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone
walls were draped with banners. White, gold, crimson: the direwolf
of Stark, Baratheon’s crowned stag, the lion of Lannister. A
singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at
this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the
roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the
low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations.
It was the fourth hour of the welcoming feast laid for the king.
Jon’s brothers and sisters had been seated with the royal
children, beneath the raised platform where Lord and Lady Stark
hosted the king and queen. In honor of the occasion, his lord
father would doubtless permit each child a glass of wine, but no
more than that. Down here on the benches, there was no one to stop
Jon drinking as much as he had a thirst for.
And he was finding that he had a man’s thirst, to the
raucous delight of the youths around him, who urged him on every
time he drained a glass. They were fine company, and Jon relished
the stories they were telling, tales of battle and bedding and the
hunt. He was certain that his companions were more entertaining
than the king’s offspring. He had sated his curiosity about
the visitors when they made their entrance. The procession had
passed not a foot from the place he had been given on the bench,
and Jon had gotten a good long look at them all.
His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as
beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long
golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her
eyes. His father helped her up the steps to the dais and led her to
her seat, but the queen never so much as looked at him. Even at
fourteen, Jon could see through her smile.
Next had come King Robert himself, with Lady Stark on his arm.
The king was a great disappointment to Jon. His father had talked
of him often: the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident,
the fiercest warrior of the realm, a giant among princes. Jon saw
only a fat man, red-faced under his beard, sweating through his
silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.
After them came the children. Little Rickon first, managing the
long walk with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jon
had to urge him on when he stopped to visit. Close behind came
Robb, in grey wool trimmed with white, the Stark colors. He had the
Princess Myrcella on his arm. She was a wisp of a girl, not quite
eight, her hair a cascade of golden curls under a jeweled net. Jon
noticed the shy looks she gave Robb as they passed between the
tables and the timid way she smiled at him. He decided she was
insipid. Robb didn’t even have the sense to realize how
stupid she was; he was grinning like a fool.
His half sisters escorted the royal princes. Arya was paired
with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than
hers. Sansa, two years older, drew the crown prince, Joffrey
Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than
either, to Jon’s vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his
sister’s hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick
tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high
velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but
Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored,
disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.
He was more interested in the pair that came behind him: the
queen’s brothers, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. The Lion
and the Imp; there was no mistaking which was which. Ser Jaime
Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing
green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk,
high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic,
the lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its
defiance. They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and
whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back.
Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king
should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed.
Then he saw the other one, waddling along half-hidden by his
brother’s side. Tyrion Lannister, the youngest of Lord
Tywin’s brood and by far the ugliest. All that the gods had
given to Cersei and Jaime, they had denied Tyrion. He was a dwarf,
half his brother’s height, struggling to keep pace on stunted
legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute’s
squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow. One green eye and
one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it
seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination.
The last of the high lords to enter were his uncle, Benjen Stark
of the Night’s Watch, and his father’s ward, young
Theon Greyjoy. Benjen gave Jon a warm smile as he went by. Theon
ignored him utterly, but there was nothing new in that. After all
had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and returned,
and then the feasting began.
Jon had started drinking then, and he had not stopped.
Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red
eyes staring up at him. “Hungry again?” he asked. There
was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon
reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed
the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his
legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. His brothers and
sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the
banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end
of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told
himself he was fortunate in that too.
His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.
He swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour
the chicken.
Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls.
One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a
scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get
a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in
her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the
dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge.
She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not
move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his
fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this
fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to
save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal.
Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy
white fur. The direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his
hand, then went back to eating.
“Is this one of the direwolves I’ve heard so much
of?” a familiar voice asked close at hand.
Jon looked up happily as his uncle Ben put a hand on his head
and ruffled his hair much as Jon had ruffled the wolf’s.
“Yes,” he said. “His name is Ghost.”
One of the squires interrupted the bawdy story he’d been
telling to make room at the table for their lord’s brother.
Benjen Stark straddled the bench with long legs and took the wine
cup out of Jon’s hand. “Summerwine,” he said
after a taste. “Nothing so sweet. How many cups have you had,
Jon?”
Jon smiled.
Ben Stark laughed. “As I feared. Ah, well. I believe I was
younger than you the first time I got truly and sincerely
drunk.” He snagged a roasted onion, dripping brown with
gravy, from a nearby trencher and bit into it. It crunched.
His uncle was sharp-featured and gaunt as a mountain crag, but
there was always a hint of laughter in his blue-grey eyes. He
dressed in black, as befitted a man of the Night’s Watch.
Tonight it was rich black velvet, with high leather boots and a
wide belt with a silver buckle. A heavy silver chain was looped
round his neck. Benjen watched Ghost with amusement as he ate his
onion. “A very quiet wolf,” he observed.
“He’s not like the others,” Jon said.
“He never makes a sound. That’s why I named him Ghost.
That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey
or black.”
“There are still direwolves beyond the Wall. We hear them
on our rangings.” Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look.
“Don’t you usually eat at table with your
brothers?”
“Most times,” Jon answered in a flat voice.
“But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the
royal family to seat a bastard among them.”
“I see.” His uncle glanced over his shoulder at the
raised table at the far end of the hall. “My brother does not
seem very festive tonight.”
Jon had noticed that too. A bastard had to learn to notice
things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes. His
father was observing all the courtesies, but there was tightness
in him that Jon had seldom seen before. He said little, looking out
over the hall with hooded eyes, seeing nothing. Two seats away, the
king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was
flushed behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed
loudly at every jest, and attacked each dish like a starving man,
but beside him the queen seemed as cold as an ice sculpture.
“The queen is angry too,” Jon told his uncle in a low,
quiet voice. “Father took the king down to the crypts this
afternoon. The queen didn’t want him to go.”
Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. “You
don’t miss much, do you, Jon? We could use a man like you on
the Wall.”
Jon swelled with pride. “Robb is a stronger lance than I
am, but I’m the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse
as well as anyone in the castle.”
“Notable achievements.”
“Take me with you when you go back to the Wall,” Jon
said in a sudden rush. “Father will give me leave to go if
you ask him, I know he will.”
Uncle Benjen studied his face carefully. “The Wall is a
hard place for a boy, Jon.”
“I am almost a man grown,” Jon protested. “I
will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says
bastards grow up faster than other children.”
“That’s true enough,” Benjen said with a
downward twist of his mouth. He took Jon’s cup from the
table, filled it fresh from a nearby pitcher, and drank down a long
swallow.
“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered
Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.
“A conquest that lasted a summer,” his uncle pointed
out. “Your Boy King lost ten thousand men taking the place,
and another fifty trying to hold it. Someone should have told him
that war isn’t a game.” He took another sip of wine.
“Also,” he said, wiping his mouth, “Daeren
Targaryen was only eighteen when he died. Or have you forgotten
that part?”
“I forget nothing,” Jon boasted. The wine was making
him bold. He tried to sit very straight, to make himself seem
taller. “I want to serve in the Night’s Watch,
Uncle.”
He had thought on it long and hard, lying abed at night while
his brothers slept around him. Robb would someday inherit
Winterfell, would command great armies as the Warden of the North.
Bran and Rickon would be Robb’s bannermen and rule holdfasts
in his name. His sisters Arya and Sansa would marry the heirs of
other great houses and go south as mistress of castles of their
own. But what place could a bastard hope to earn?
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Jon. The
Night’s Watch is a sworn brotherhood. We have no families.
None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is
honor.”
“A bastard can have honor too,” Jon said. “I
am ready to swear your oath.”
“You are a boy of fourteen,” Benjen said. “Not
a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand
what you would be giving up.”
“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said.
“If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less
eager to pay the price, son.”
Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your
son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He
put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Come back to me after
you’ve fathered a few bastards of your own, and we’ll
see how you feel.”
Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he
said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom.
Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they
were all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his
eyes. He pushed himself to his feet.
“I must be excused,” he said with the last of his
dignity. He whirled and bolted before they could see him cry. He
must have drunk more wine than he had realized. His feet got
tangled under him as he tried to leave, and he lurched sideways
into a serving girl and sent a flagon of spiced wine crashing to
the floor. Laughter boomed all around him, and Jon felt hot tears
on his cheeks. Someone tried to steady him. He wrenched free of
their grip and ran, half-blind, for the door. Ghost followed close
at his heels, out into the night.
The yard was quiet and empty. A lone sentry stood high on the
battlements of the inner wall, his cloak pulled tight around him
against the cold. He looked bored and miserable as he huddled there
alone, but Jon would have traded places with him in an instant.
Otherwise the castle was dark and deserted. Jon had seen an
abandoned holdfast once, a drear place where nothing moved but the
wind and the stones kept silent about whatever people had lived
there. Winterfell reminded him of that tonight.
The sounds of music and song spilled through the open windows
behind him. They were the last things Jon wanted to hear. He wiped
away his tears on the sleeve of his shirt, furious that he had let
them fall, and turned to go.
“Boy,” a voice called out to him. Jon turned.
Tyrion Lannister was sitting on the ledge above the door to the
Great Hall, looking for all the world like a gargoyle. The dwarf
grinned down at him. “Is that animal a wolf?”
“A direwolf,” Jon said. “His name is
Ghost.” He stared up at the little man, his disappointment
suddenly forgotten. “What are you doing up there? Why
aren’t you at the feast?”
“Too hot, too noisy, and I’d drunk too much
wine,” the dwarf told him. “I learned long ago that it
is considered rude to vomit on your brother. Might I have a closer
look at your wolf?”
Jon hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Can you climb down, or
shall I bring a ladder?”
“Oh, bleed that,” the little man said. He pushed
himself off the ledge into empty air. Jon gasped, then watched with
awe as Tyrion Lannister spun around in a tight ball, landed lightly
on his hands, then vaulted backward onto his legs.
Ghost backed away from him uncertainly.
The dwarf dusted himself off and laughed. “I believe
I’ve frightened your wolf. My apologies.”
“He’s not scared,” Jon said. He knelt and
called out. “Ghost, come here. Come on. That’s
it.”
The wolf pup padded closer and nuzzled at Jon’s face, but
he kept a wary eye on Tyrion Lannister, and when the dwarf reached
out to pet him, he drew back and bared his fangs in a silent snarl.
“Shy, isn’t he?” Lannister observed.
“Sit, Ghost,” Jon commanded. “That’s it.
Keep still.” He looked up at the dwarf. “You can touch
him now. He won’t move until I tell him to. I’ve been
training him.”
“I see,” Lannister said. He ruffled the snow-white
fur between Ghost’s ears and said, “Nice
wolf.”
“If I wasn’t here, he’d tear out your
throat,” Jon said. It wasn’t actually true yet, but it
would be.
“In that case, you had best stay close,” the dwarf
said. He cocked his oversized head to one side and looked Jon over
with his mismatched eyes. “I am Tyrion Lannister.”
“I know,” Jon said. He rose. Standing, he was taller
than the dwarf. It made him feel strange.
“You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t
you?”
Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips
together and said nothing.
“Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry.
Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering
fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any
damn thing that comes into my head.” He grinned. “You
are the bastard, though.”
“Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted
stiffly.
Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I
can see it. You have more of the north in you than your
brothers.”
“Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by
the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show.
“Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister
said. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will
not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness.
Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt
you.”
Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do
you know about being a bastard?”
“All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s
eyes.”
“You are your mother’s trueborn son of
Lannister.”
“Am I?” the dwarf replied, sardonic. “Do tell
my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he’s never
been sure.”
“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon
said.
“Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.” He favored
Jon with a rueful grin. “Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may
be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.” And with
that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune.
When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow
clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood
tall as a king.