The mare whickered softly as Jon Snow tightened
the cinch. “Easy, sweet lady,” he said in a soft voice,
quieting her with a touch. Wind whispered through the stable, a
cold dead breath on his face, but Jon paid it no mind. He strapped
his roll to the saddle, his scarred fingers stiff and clumsy.
“Ghost,” he called softly, “to me.” And the
wolf was there, eyes like embers.
“Jon, please. You must not do this.”
He mounted, the reins in his hand, and wheeled the horse around
to face the night. Samwell Tarly stood in the stable door, a full
moon peering over his shoulder. He threw a giant’s shadow,
immense and black. “Get out of my way, Sam.”
“Jon, you can’t,” Sam said. “I
won’t let you.”
“I would sooner not hurt you,” Jon told him.
“Move aside, Sam, or I’ll ride you down.”
“You won’t. You have to listen to me. Please . . . ”
Jon put his spurs to horseflesh, and the mare bolted for the
door. For an instant Sam stood his ground, his face as round and
pale as the moon behind him, his mouth a widening O of surprise. At
the last moment, when they were almost on him, he jumped aside as
Jon had known he would, stumbled, and fell. The mare leapt over
him, out into the night.
Jon raised the hood of his heavy cloak and gave the horse her
head. Castle Black was silent and still as he rode out, with Ghost
racing at his side. Men watched from the Wall behind him, he knew,
but their eyes were turned north, not south. No one would see him
go, no one but Sam Tarly, struggling back to his feet in the dust
of the old stables. He hoped Sam hadn’t hurt himself, falling
like that. He was so heavy and so ungainly, it would be just like
him to break a wrist or twist his ankle getting out of the way.
“I warned him,” Jon said aloud. “It was nothing
to do with him, anyway.” He flexed his burned hand as he
rode, opening and closing the scarred fingers. They still pained
him, but it felt good to have the wrappings off.
Moonlight silvered the hills as he followed the twisting ribbon
of the kingsroad. He needed to get as far from the Wall as he could
before they realized he was gone. On the morrow he would leave the
road and strike out overland through field and bush and stream to
throw off pursuit, but for the moment speed was more important than
deception. It was not as though they would not guess where he was
going.
The Old Bear was accustomed to rise at first light, so Jon had
until dawn to put as many leagues as he could between him and the
Wall . . . if Sam Tarly did not betray him. The fat boy was dutiful
and easily frightened, but he loved Jon like a brother. If
questioned, Sam would doubtless tell them the truth, but Jon could
not imagine him braving the guards in front of the King’s
Tower to wake Mormont from sleep.
When Jon did not appear to fetch the Old Bear’s breakfast
from the kitchen, they’d look in his cell and find Longclaw
on the bed. It had been hard to abandon it, but Jon was not so lost
to honor as to take it with him. Even Jorah Mormont had not done
that, when he fled in disgrace. Doubtless Lord Mormont would find
someone more worthy of the blade. Jon felt bad when he thought of
the old man. He knew his desertion would be salt in the still-raw
wound of his son’s disgrace. That seemed a poor way to repay
him for his trust, but it couldn’t be helped. No matter what
he did, Jon felt as though he were betraying someone.
Even now, he did not know if he was doing the honorable thing.
The southron had it easier. They had their septons to talk to,
someone to tell them the gods’ will and help sort out right
from wrong. But the Starks worshiped the old gods, the nameless
gods, and if the heart trees heard, they did not speak.
When the last lights of Castle Black vanished behind him, Jon
slowed his mare to a walk. He had a long journey ahead and only the
one horse to see him through. There were holdfasts and farming
villages along the road south where he might be able to trade the
mare for a fresh mount when he needed one, but not if she were
injured or blown.
He would need to find new clothes soon; most like, he’d
need to steal them. He was clad in black from head to heel; high
leather riding boots, roughspun breeches and tunic, sleeveless
leather jerkin, and heavy wool cloak. His longsword and dagger were
sheathed in black moleskin, and the hauberk and coif in his
saddlebag were black ringmail. Any bit of it could mean his death
if he were taken. A stranger wearing black was viewed with cold
suspicion in every village and holdfast north of the Neck, and men
would soon be watching for him. Once Maester Aemon’s ravens
took flight, Jon knew he would find no safe haven. Not even at
Winterfell. Bran might want to let him in, but Maester Luwin had
better sense. He would bar the gates and send Jon away, as he
should. Better not to call there at all.
Yet he saw the castle clear in his mind’s eye, as if he
had left it only yesterday; the towering granite walls, the Great
Hall with its smells of smoke and dog and roasting meat, his
father’s solar, the turret room where he had slept. Part of
him wanted nothing so much as to hear Bran laugh again, to sup on
one of Gage’s beef-and-bacon pies, to listen to Old Nan tell
her tales of the children of the forest and Florian the Fool.
But he had not left the Wall for that; he had left because he
was after all his father’s son, and Robb’s brother. The
gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him
a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. Three times the old man had
chosen, and three times he had chosen honor, but that was him. Even
now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he
was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true. Yet he
understood what the old man had meant, about the pain of choosing;
he understood that all too well.
Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a
hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who
he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless,
and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he
would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in
the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go
throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest
every man’s hand be raised against him. But it made no
matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his
brother’s side and help avenge his father.
He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard
with snow melting in his auburn hair. Jon would have to come to him
in secret, disguised. He tried to imagine the look on Robb’s
face when he revealed himself. His brother would shake his head and
smile, and he’d say . . . he’d say . . .
He could not see the smile. Hard as he tried, he could not see
it. He found himself thinking of the deserter his father had
beheaded the day they’d found the direwolves. “You said
the words,” Lord Eddard had told him. “You took a vow,
before your brothers, before the old gods and the new.”
Desmond and Fat Tom had dragged the man to the stump. Bran’s
eyes had been wide as saucers, and Jon had to remind him to keep
his pony in hand. He remembered the look on Father’s face
when Theon Greyjoy brought forth Ice, the spray of blood on the
snow, the way Theon had kicked the head when it came rolling at his
feet.
He wondered what Lord Eddard might have done if the deserter had
been his brother Benjen instead of that ragged stranger. Would it
have been any different? It must, surely, surely . . . and Robb
would welcome him, for a certainty. He had to, or else . . .
It did not bear thinking about. Pain throbbed, deep in his
fingers, as he clutched the reins. Jon put his heels into his horse
and broke into a gallop, racing down the kingsroad, as if to outrun
his doubts. Jon was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die
like that, trussed and bound and beheaded like a common brigand. If
he must perish, let it be with a sword in his hand, fighting his
father’s killers. He was no true Stark, had never been one . . . but he could die like one. Let them say that Eddard Stark had
fathered four sons, not three.
Ghost kept pace with them for almost half a mile, red tongue
lolling from his mouth. Man and horse alike lowered their heads as
he asked the mare for more speed. The wolf slowed, stopped,
watching, his eyes glowing red in the moonlight. He vanished
behind, but Jon knew he would follow, at his own pace.
Scattered lights flickered through the trees ahead of him, on
both sides of the road: Mole’s Town. A dog barked as he rode
through, and he heard a mule’s raucous haw from the stable,
but otherwise the village was still. Here and there the glow of
hearth fires shone through shuttered windows, leaking between
wooden slats, but only a few.
Mole’s Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters
of it was under the ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a
maze of tunnels. Even the whorehouse was down there, nothing on the
surface but a wooden shack no bigger than a privy, with a red
lantern hung over the door. On the Wall, he’d heard men call
the whores “buried treasures.” He wondered whether any
of his brothers in black were down there tonight, mining. That was
oathbreaking too, yet no one seemed to care.
Not until he was well beyond the village did Jon slow again. By
then both he and the mare were damp with sweat. He dismounted,
shivering, his burned hand aching. A bank of melting snow lay under
the trees, bright in the moonlight, water trickling off to form
small shallow pools. Jon squatted and brought his hands together,
cupping the runoff between his fingers. The snowmelt was icy cold.
He drank, and splashed some on his face, until his cheeks tingled.
His fingers were throbbing worse than they had in days, and his
head was pounding too. I am doing the right thing, he told himself,
so why do I feel so bad?
The horse was well lathered, so Jon took the lead and walked her
for a while. The road was scarcely wide enough for two riders to
pass abreast, its surface cut by tiny streams and littered with
stone. That run had been truly stupid, an invitation to a broken
neck. Jon wondered what had gotten into him. Was he in such a great
rush to die?
Off in the trees, the distant scream of some frightened animal
made him look up. His mare whinnied nervously. Had his wolf found
some prey? He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Ghost!” he shouted. “Ghost, to me.” The
only answer was a rush of wings behind him as an owl took
flight.
Frowning, Jon continued on his way. He led the mare for half an
hour, until she was dry. Ghost did not appear. Jon wanted to mount
up and ride again, but he was concerned about his missing wolf.
“Ghost,” he called again. “Where are you? To me!
Ghost!” Nothing in these woods could trouble a direwolf, even
a half-grown direwolf, unless . . . no, Ghost was too smart to
attack a bear, and if there was a wolf pack anywhere close Jon
would have surely heard them howling.
He should eat, he decided. Food would settle his stomach and
give Ghost the chance to catch up. There was no danger yet; Castle
Black still slept. In his saddlebag, he found a biscuit, a piece of
cheese, and a small withered brown apple. He’d brought salt
beef as well, and a rasher of bacon he’d filched from the
kitchens, but he would save the meat for the morrow. After it was
gone he’d need to hunt, and that would slow him.
Jon sat under the trees and ate his biscuit and cheese while his
mare grazed along the kingsroad. He kept the apple for last. It had
gone a little soft, but the flesh was still tart and juicy. He was
down to the core when he heard the sounds: horses, and from the
north. Quickly Jon leapt up and strode to his mare. Could he outrun
them? No, they were too close, they’d hear him for a
certainty, and if they were from Castle Black . . .
He led the mare off the road, behind a thick stand of grey-green
sentinels. “Ouiet now,” he said in a hushed voice,
crouching down to peer through the branches. If the gods were kind,
the riders would pass by. Likely as not, they were only smallfolk
from Mole’s Town, farmers on their way to their fields,
although what they were doing out in the middle of the night . . .
He listened to the sound of hooves growing steadily louder as
they trotted briskly down the kingsroad. From the sound, there were
five or six of them at the least. Their voices drifted through the
trees.
“ . . . certain he came this way?”
“We can’t be certain.”
“He could have ridden east, for all you know. Or left the
road to cut through the woods. That’s what I’d
do.”
“In the dark? Stupid. If you didn’t fall off your
horse and break your neck, you’d get lost and wind up back at
the Wall when the sun came up.”
“I would not.” Grenn sounded peeved.
“I’d just ride south, you can tell south by the
stars.”
“What if the sky was cloudy?” Pyp asked.
“Then I wouldn’t go.”
Another voice broke in. “You know where I’d be if it was
me? I’d be in Mole’s Town, digging for buried
treasure.” Toad’s shrill laughter boomed through the
trees. Jon’s mare snorted.
“Keep quiet, all of you,” Haider said. “I
thought I heard something.”
“Where? I didn’t hear anything.” The horses
stopped.
“You can’t hear yourself fart.”
“I can too,” Grenn insisted.
“Quiet!”
They all fell silent, listening. Jon found himself holding his
breath. Sam, he thought. He hadn’t gone to the Old Bear, but
he hadn’t gone to bed either, he’d woken the other
boys. Damn them all. Come dawn, if they were not in their beds,
they’d be named deserters too. What did they think they were
doing?
The hushed silence seemed to stretch on and on. From where Jon
crouched, he could see the legs of their horses through the
branches. Finally Pyp spoke up. “What did you
hear?”
“I don’t know,” Haider admitted. “A
sound, I thought it might have been a horse but . . . ”
“There’s nothing here.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jon glimpsed a pale shape moving
through the trees. Leaves rustled, and Ghost came bounding out of
the shadows, so suddenly that Jon’s mare started and gave a
whinny. “There!” Halder shouted.
“I heard it too!”
“Traitor,” Jon told the direwolf as he swung up into
the saddle. He turned the mare’s head to slide off through
the trees, but they were on him before he had gone ten feet.
“Jon!” Pyp shouted after him.
“Pull up,” Grenn said. “You can’t outrun
us all.”
Jon wheeled around to face them, drawing his sword. “Get
back. I don’t wish to hurt you, but I will if I have
to.”
“One against seven?” Halder gave a signal. The boys
spread out, surrounding him.
“What do you want with me?” Jon demanded.
“We want to take you back where you belong,” Pyp
said.
“I belong with my brother.”
“We’re your brothers now,” Grenn said.
“They’ll cut off your head if they catch you, you
know,” Toad put in with a nervous laugh. “This is so
stupid, it’s like something the Aurochs would do.”
“I would not,” Grenn said. “I’m no
oathbreaker. I said the words and I meant them.”
“So did I,” Jon told them. “Don’t you
understand? They murdered my father. It’s war, my brother
Robb is fighting in the riverlands—”
“We know,” said Pyp solemnly. “Sam told us
everything.”
“We’re sorry about your father,” Grenn said,
“but it doesn’t matter. Once you say the words, you
can’t leave, no matter what.”
“I have to,” Jon said fervently.
“You said the words,” Pyp reminded him. “Now
my watch begins, you said it. It shall not end until my death.”
“I shall live and die at my post,” Grenn added,
nodding.
“You don’t have to tell me the words, I know them as
well as you do.” He was angry now. Why couldn’t they
let him go in peace? They were only making it harder.
“I am the sword in the darkness,” Halder
intoned.
“The watcher on the walls,” piped Toad.
Jon cursed them all to their faces. They took no notice. Pyp
spurred his horse closer, reciting, “I am the fire that burns
against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that
wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.”
“Stay back,” Jon warned him, brandishing his sword.
“I mean it, Pyp.” They weren’t even wearing
armor, he could cut them to pieces if he had to.
Matthar had circled behind him. He joined the chorus.
“I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch.”
Jon kicked his mare, spinning her in a circle. The boys were all
around him now, closing from every side.
“For this night . . . ” Halder trotted in from the left.
“ . . . and all the nights to come,” finished Pyp. He
reached over for Jon’s reins. “So here are your
choices. Kill me, or come back with me.”
Jon lifted his sword . . . and lowered it, helpless. “Damn
you,” he said. “Damn you all.”
“Do we have to bind your hands, or will you give us your
word you’ll ride back peaceful?” asked Halder.
“I won’t run, if that’s what you mean.”
Ghost moved out from under the trees and Jon glared at him.
“Small help you were,” he said. The deep red eyes
looked at him knowingly.
“We had best hurry,” Pyp said. “If we’re
not back before first light, the Old Bear will have all our
heads.”
Of the ride back, Jon Snow remembered little. It seemed shorter
than the journey south, perhaps because his mind was elsewhere. Pyp
set the pace, galloping, walking, trotting, and then breaking into
another gallop. Mole’s Town came and went, the red lantern
over the brothel long extinguished. They made good time. Dawn was
still an hour off when Jon glimpsed the towers of Castle Black
ahead of them, dark against the pale immensity of the Wall. It did
not seem like home this time.
They could take him back, Jon told himself, but they could not
make him stay. The war would not end on the morrow, or the day
after, and his friends could not watch him day and night. He would
bide his time, make them think he was content to remain here . . . and then, when they had grown lax, he would be off again. Next time
he would avoid the kingsroad. He could follow the Wall east,
perhaps all the way to the sea, a longer route but a safer one. Or
even west, to the mountains, and then south over the high passes.
That was the wildling’s way, hard and perilous, but at least
no one wouid follow him. He wouldn’t stray within a hundred
leagues of Winterfell or the kingsroad.
Samwell Tarly awaited them in the old stables, slumped on the
ground against a bale of hay, too anxious to sleep. He rose and
brushed himself off. “I . . . I’m glad they found you,
Jon.”
“I’m not,” Jon said, dismounting.
Pyp hopped off his horse and looked at the lightening sky with
disgust. “Give us a hand bedding down the horses, Sam,”
the small boy said. “We have a long day before us, and no
sleep to face it on, thanks to Lord Snow.”
When day broke, Jon walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn.
Three-Finger Hobb said nothing as he gave him the Old Bear’s
breakfast. Today it was three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried
bread and ham steak and a bowl of wrinkled plums. Jon carried the
food back to the King’s Tower. He found Mormont at the window
seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth across his
shoulders, muttering, “Corn, corn, corn.” The bird
shrieked when Jon entered. “Put the food on the table,”
the Old Bear said, glancing up. “I’ll have some
beer.”
Jon opened a shuttered window, took the flagon of beer off the
outside ledge, and filled a horn. Hobb had given him a lemon, still
cold from the Wall. Jon crushed it in his fist. The juice trickled
through his fingers. Mormont drank lemon in his beer every day, and
claimed that was why he still had his own teeth.
“Doubtless you loved your father,” Mormont said when
Jon brought him his horn. “The things we love destroy us
every time, lad. Remember when I told you that?”
“I remember,” Jon said sullenly. He did not care to
talk of his father’s death, not even to Mormont.
“See that you never forget it. The hard truths are the
ones to hold tight. Fetch me my plate. Is it ham again? So be it.
You look weary. Was your moonlight ride so tiring?”
Jon’s throat was dry. “You know?”
“Know,” the raven echoed from Mormont’s
shoulder. “Know.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Do you think they chose me Lord
Commander of the Night’s Watch because I’m dumb as a
stump, Snow? Aemon told me you’d go. I told him you’d
be back. I know my men . . . and my boys too. Honor set you on the
kingsroad . . . and honor brought you back.”
“My friends brought me back,” Jon said.
“Did I say it was your honor?” Mormont inspected his
plate.
“They killed my father. Did you expect me to do
nothing?”
“If truth be told, we expected you to do just as you
did.” Mormont tried a plum, spit out the pit. “I
ordered a watch kept over you., You were seen leaving. If your
brothers had not fetched you back, you would have been taken along
the way, and not by friends. Unless you have a horse with wings
like a raven. Do you?”
“No.” Jon felt like a fool.
“Pity, we could use a horse like that.”
Jon stood tall. He told himself that he would die well; that
much he could do, at the least. “I know the penalty for
desertion, my lord. I’m not afraid to die.”
“Die!” the raven cried.
“Nor live, I hope,” Mormont said, cutting his ham
with a dagger and feeding a bite to the bird. “You have not
deserted—yet. Here you stand. If we beheaded every boy who rode to
Mole’s Town in the night, only ghosts would guard the Wall.
Yet maybe you mean to flee again on the morrow, or a fortnight from
now. Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?”
Jon kept silent.
“I thought so.” Mormont peeled the shell off a
boiled egg. “Your father is dead, lad. Do you think you can
bring him back?”
“No,” he answered, sullen.
“Good,” Mormont said. “We’ve seen the
dead come back, you and me, and it’s not something I care to
see again.” He ate the egg in two bites and flicked a bit of
shell out from between his teeth. “Your brother is in the
field with all the power of the north behind him. Any one of his
lords bannermen commands more swords than you’ll find in all
the Night’s Watch. Why do you imagine that they need your
help? Are you such a mighty warrior, or do you carry a grumkin in
your pocket to magic up your sword?”
Jon had no answer for him. The raven was pecking at an egg,
breaking the shell. Pushing his beak through the hole, he pulled
out morsels of white and yoke.
The Old Bear sighed. “You are not the only one touched by
this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in your
brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in
men’s mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn,
short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to
be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for
her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters.”
Frowning, Mormont took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist
until the shell crunched. “Or perhaps it does. Be that as it
may, I’d still grieve if she were slain, yet you don’t
see me running off. I said the words, just as you did. My place is
here . . . where is yours, boy?” I have no place, Jon wanted to say, I’m a bastard, I have
no rights, no name, no mother, and now not even a father. The words
would not come. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” said Lord Commander Mormont. “The cold
winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen.
Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east
toward the sea, and mammoths as well. He says one of his men
discovered huge, misshapen footprints not three leagues from
Eastwatch. Rangers from the Shadow Tower have found whole villages abandoned, and at night
Ser Denys says they see fires in the mountains, huge blazes that
burn from dusk till dawn. Quorin Halfhand took a captive in the
depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that Mance Rayder is
massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he’s
found, to what end the gods only know. Do you think your uncle
Benjen was the only ranger we’ve lost this past
year?”
“Ben Jen,” the raven squawked, bobbing its head,
bits of egg dribbling from its beak. “Ben Jen. Ben Jen.”
“No,” Jon said. There had been others. Too many.
“Do you think your brother’s war is more important
than ours?” the old man barked.
Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him.
“War, war, war, war,” it sang.
“It’s not,” Mormont told him. “Gods save
us, boy, you’re not blind and you’re not stupid. When
dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who
sits the Iron Throne?”
“No.” Jon had not thought of it that way.
“Your lord father sent you to us, Jon. Why, who can
say?”
“Why? Why? Why?” the raven called.
“All I know is that the blood of the First Men flows in
the veins of the Starks. The First Men built the Wall, and
it’s said they remember things otherwise forgotten. And that
beast of yours . . . he led us to the wights, warned you of the
dead man on the steps. Ser Jaremy would doubtless call that
happenstance, yet Ser Jaremy is dead and I’m not.” Lord
Mormont stabbed a chunk of ham with the point of his dagger.
“I think you were meant to be here, and I want you and that
wolf of yours with us when we go beyond the Wall.”
His words sent a chill of excitement down Jon’s back.
“Beyond the Wall?”
“You heard me. I mean to find Ben Stark, alive or
dead.” He chewed and swallowed. “I will not sit here
meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what
is happening. This time the Night’s Watch will ride in force,
against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else
that may be out there. I mean to command them myself.” He
pointed his dagger at Jon’s chest. “By custom, the Lord
Commander’s steward is his squire as well . . . but I do not
care to wake every dawn wondering if you’ve run off again. So
I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now.
Are you a brother of the Night’s Watch . . . or only a
bastard boy who wants to play at war?”
Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath.
Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran . . . forgive me, I cannot help
you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. “I am . . . yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run
again.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your
sword.”
The mare whickered softly as Jon Snow tightened
the cinch. “Easy, sweet lady,” he said in a soft voice,
quieting her with a touch. Wind whispered through the stable, a
cold dead breath on his face, but Jon paid it no mind. He strapped
his roll to the saddle, his scarred fingers stiff and clumsy.
“Ghost,” he called softly, “to me.” And the
wolf was there, eyes like embers.
“Jon, please. You must not do this.”
He mounted, the reins in his hand, and wheeled the horse around
to face the night. Samwell Tarly stood in the stable door, a full
moon peering over his shoulder. He threw a giant’s shadow,
immense and black. “Get out of my way, Sam.”
“Jon, you can’t,” Sam said. “I
won’t let you.”
“I would sooner not hurt you,” Jon told him.
“Move aside, Sam, or I’ll ride you down.”
“You won’t. You have to listen to me. Please . . . ”
Jon put his spurs to horseflesh, and the mare bolted for the
door. For an instant Sam stood his ground, his face as round and
pale as the moon behind him, his mouth a widening O of surprise. At
the last moment, when they were almost on him, he jumped aside as
Jon had known he would, stumbled, and fell. The mare leapt over
him, out into the night.
Jon raised the hood of his heavy cloak and gave the horse her
head. Castle Black was silent and still as he rode out, with Ghost
racing at his side. Men watched from the Wall behind him, he knew,
but their eyes were turned north, not south. No one would see him
go, no one but Sam Tarly, struggling back to his feet in the dust
of the old stables. He hoped Sam hadn’t hurt himself, falling
like that. He was so heavy and so ungainly, it would be just like
him to break a wrist or twist his ankle getting out of the way.
“I warned him,” Jon said aloud. “It was nothing
to do with him, anyway.” He flexed his burned hand as he
rode, opening and closing the scarred fingers. They still pained
him, but it felt good to have the wrappings off.
Moonlight silvered the hills as he followed the twisting ribbon
of the kingsroad. He needed to get as far from the Wall as he could
before they realized he was gone. On the morrow he would leave the
road and strike out overland through field and bush and stream to
throw off pursuit, but for the moment speed was more important than
deception. It was not as though they would not guess where he was
going.
The Old Bear was accustomed to rise at first light, so Jon had
until dawn to put as many leagues as he could between him and the
Wall . . . if Sam Tarly did not betray him. The fat boy was dutiful
and easily frightened, but he loved Jon like a brother. If
questioned, Sam would doubtless tell them the truth, but Jon could
not imagine him braving the guards in front of the King’s
Tower to wake Mormont from sleep.
When Jon did not appear to fetch the Old Bear’s breakfast
from the kitchen, they’d look in his cell and find Longclaw
on the bed. It had been hard to abandon it, but Jon was not so lost
to honor as to take it with him. Even Jorah Mormont had not done
that, when he fled in disgrace. Doubtless Lord Mormont would find
someone more worthy of the blade. Jon felt bad when he thought of
the old man. He knew his desertion would be salt in the still-raw
wound of his son’s disgrace. That seemed a poor way to repay
him for his trust, but it couldn’t be helped. No matter what
he did, Jon felt as though he were betraying someone.
Even now, he did not know if he was doing the honorable thing.
The southron had it easier. They had their septons to talk to,
someone to tell them the gods’ will and help sort out right
from wrong. But the Starks worshiped the old gods, the nameless
gods, and if the heart trees heard, they did not speak.
When the last lights of Castle Black vanished behind him, Jon
slowed his mare to a walk. He had a long journey ahead and only the
one horse to see him through. There were holdfasts and farming
villages along the road south where he might be able to trade the
mare for a fresh mount when he needed one, but not if she were
injured or blown.
He would need to find new clothes soon; most like, he’d
need to steal them. He was clad in black from head to heel; high
leather riding boots, roughspun breeches and tunic, sleeveless
leather jerkin, and heavy wool cloak. His longsword and dagger were
sheathed in black moleskin, and the hauberk and coif in his
saddlebag were black ringmail. Any bit of it could mean his death
if he were taken. A stranger wearing black was viewed with cold
suspicion in every village and holdfast north of the Neck, and men
would soon be watching for him. Once Maester Aemon’s ravens
took flight, Jon knew he would find no safe haven. Not even at
Winterfell. Bran might want to let him in, but Maester Luwin had
better sense. He would bar the gates and send Jon away, as he
should. Better not to call there at all.
Yet he saw the castle clear in his mind’s eye, as if he
had left it only yesterday; the towering granite walls, the Great
Hall with its smells of smoke and dog and roasting meat, his
father’s solar, the turret room where he had slept. Part of
him wanted nothing so much as to hear Bran laugh again, to sup on
one of Gage’s beef-and-bacon pies, to listen to Old Nan tell
her tales of the children of the forest and Florian the Fool.
But he had not left the Wall for that; he had left because he
was after all his father’s son, and Robb’s brother. The
gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him
a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. Three times the old man had
chosen, and three times he had chosen honor, but that was him. Even
now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he
was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true. Yet he
understood what the old man had meant, about the pain of choosing;
he understood that all too well.
Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a
hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who
he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless,
and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he
would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in
the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go
throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest
every man’s hand be raised against him. But it made no
matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his
brother’s side and help avenge his father.
He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard
with snow melting in his auburn hair. Jon would have to come to him
in secret, disguised. He tried to imagine the look on Robb’s
face when he revealed himself. His brother would shake his head and
smile, and he’d say . . . he’d say . . .
He could not see the smile. Hard as he tried, he could not see
it. He found himself thinking of the deserter his father had
beheaded the day they’d found the direwolves. “You said
the words,” Lord Eddard had told him. “You took a vow,
before your brothers, before the old gods and the new.”
Desmond and Fat Tom had dragged the man to the stump. Bran’s
eyes had been wide as saucers, and Jon had to remind him to keep
his pony in hand. He remembered the look on Father’s face
when Theon Greyjoy brought forth Ice, the spray of blood on the
snow, the way Theon had kicked the head when it came rolling at his
feet.
He wondered what Lord Eddard might have done if the deserter had
been his brother Benjen instead of that ragged stranger. Would it
have been any different? It must, surely, surely . . . and Robb
would welcome him, for a certainty. He had to, or else . . .
It did not bear thinking about. Pain throbbed, deep in his
fingers, as he clutched the reins. Jon put his heels into his horse
and broke into a gallop, racing down the kingsroad, as if to outrun
his doubts. Jon was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die
like that, trussed and bound and beheaded like a common brigand. If
he must perish, let it be with a sword in his hand, fighting his
father’s killers. He was no true Stark, had never been one . . . but he could die like one. Let them say that Eddard Stark had
fathered four sons, not three.
Ghost kept pace with them for almost half a mile, red tongue
lolling from his mouth. Man and horse alike lowered their heads as
he asked the mare for more speed. The wolf slowed, stopped,
watching, his eyes glowing red in the moonlight. He vanished
behind, but Jon knew he would follow, at his own pace.
Scattered lights flickered through the trees ahead of him, on
both sides of the road: Mole’s Town. A dog barked as he rode
through, and he heard a mule’s raucous haw from the stable,
but otherwise the village was still. Here and there the glow of
hearth fires shone through shuttered windows, leaking between
wooden slats, but only a few.
Mole’s Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters
of it was under the ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a
maze of tunnels. Even the whorehouse was down there, nothing on the
surface but a wooden shack no bigger than a privy, with a red
lantern hung over the door. On the Wall, he’d heard men call
the whores “buried treasures.” He wondered whether any
of his brothers in black were down there tonight, mining. That was
oathbreaking too, yet no one seemed to care.
Not until he was well beyond the village did Jon slow again. By
then both he and the mare were damp with sweat. He dismounted,
shivering, his burned hand aching. A bank of melting snow lay under
the trees, bright in the moonlight, water trickling off to form
small shallow pools. Jon squatted and brought his hands together,
cupping the runoff between his fingers. The snowmelt was icy cold.
He drank, and splashed some on his face, until his cheeks tingled.
His fingers were throbbing worse than they had in days, and his
head was pounding too. I am doing the right thing, he told himself,
so why do I feel so bad?
The horse was well lathered, so Jon took the lead and walked her
for a while. The road was scarcely wide enough for two riders to
pass abreast, its surface cut by tiny streams and littered with
stone. That run had been truly stupid, an invitation to a broken
neck. Jon wondered what had gotten into him. Was he in such a great
rush to die?
Off in the trees, the distant scream of some frightened animal
made him look up. His mare whinnied nervously. Had his wolf found
some prey? He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Ghost!” he shouted. “Ghost, to me.” The
only answer was a rush of wings behind him as an owl took
flight.
Frowning, Jon continued on his way. He led the mare for half an
hour, until she was dry. Ghost did not appear. Jon wanted to mount
up and ride again, but he was concerned about his missing wolf.
“Ghost,” he called again. “Where are you? To me!
Ghost!” Nothing in these woods could trouble a direwolf, even
a half-grown direwolf, unless . . . no, Ghost was too smart to
attack a bear, and if there was a wolf pack anywhere close Jon
would have surely heard them howling.
He should eat, he decided. Food would settle his stomach and
give Ghost the chance to catch up. There was no danger yet; Castle
Black still slept. In his saddlebag, he found a biscuit, a piece of
cheese, and a small withered brown apple. He’d brought salt
beef as well, and a rasher of bacon he’d filched from the
kitchens, but he would save the meat for the morrow. After it was
gone he’d need to hunt, and that would slow him.
Jon sat under the trees and ate his biscuit and cheese while his
mare grazed along the kingsroad. He kept the apple for last. It had
gone a little soft, but the flesh was still tart and juicy. He was
down to the core when he heard the sounds: horses, and from the
north. Quickly Jon leapt up and strode to his mare. Could he outrun
them? No, they were too close, they’d hear him for a
certainty, and if they were from Castle Black . . .
He led the mare off the road, behind a thick stand of grey-green
sentinels. “Ouiet now,” he said in a hushed voice,
crouching down to peer through the branches. If the gods were kind,
the riders would pass by. Likely as not, they were only smallfolk
from Mole’s Town, farmers on their way to their fields,
although what they were doing out in the middle of the night . . .
He listened to the sound of hooves growing steadily louder as
they trotted briskly down the kingsroad. From the sound, there were
five or six of them at the least. Their voices drifted through the
trees.
“ . . . certain he came this way?”
“We can’t be certain.”
“He could have ridden east, for all you know. Or left the
road to cut through the woods. That’s what I’d
do.”
“In the dark? Stupid. If you didn’t fall off your
horse and break your neck, you’d get lost and wind up back at
the Wall when the sun came up.”
“I would not.” Grenn sounded peeved.
“I’d just ride south, you can tell south by the
stars.”
“What if the sky was cloudy?” Pyp asked.
“Then I wouldn’t go.”
Another voice broke in. “You know where I’d be if it was
me? I’d be in Mole’s Town, digging for buried
treasure.” Toad’s shrill laughter boomed through the
trees. Jon’s mare snorted.
“Keep quiet, all of you,” Haider said. “I
thought I heard something.”
“Where? I didn’t hear anything.” The horses
stopped.
“You can’t hear yourself fart.”
“I can too,” Grenn insisted.
“Quiet!”
They all fell silent, listening. Jon found himself holding his
breath. Sam, he thought. He hadn’t gone to the Old Bear, but
he hadn’t gone to bed either, he’d woken the other
boys. Damn them all. Come dawn, if they were not in their beds,
they’d be named deserters too. What did they think they were
doing?
The hushed silence seemed to stretch on and on. From where Jon
crouched, he could see the legs of their horses through the
branches. Finally Pyp spoke up. “What did you
hear?”
“I don’t know,” Haider admitted. “A
sound, I thought it might have been a horse but . . . ”
“There’s nothing here.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jon glimpsed a pale shape moving
through the trees. Leaves rustled, and Ghost came bounding out of
the shadows, so suddenly that Jon’s mare started and gave a
whinny. “There!” Halder shouted.
“I heard it too!”
“Traitor,” Jon told the direwolf as he swung up into
the saddle. He turned the mare’s head to slide off through
the trees, but they were on him before he had gone ten feet.
“Jon!” Pyp shouted after him.
“Pull up,” Grenn said. “You can’t outrun
us all.”
Jon wheeled around to face them, drawing his sword. “Get
back. I don’t wish to hurt you, but I will if I have
to.”
“One against seven?” Halder gave a signal. The boys
spread out, surrounding him.
“What do you want with me?” Jon demanded.
“We want to take you back where you belong,” Pyp
said.
“I belong with my brother.”
“We’re your brothers now,” Grenn said.
“They’ll cut off your head if they catch you, you
know,” Toad put in with a nervous laugh. “This is so
stupid, it’s like something the Aurochs would do.”
“I would not,” Grenn said. “I’m no
oathbreaker. I said the words and I meant them.”
“So did I,” Jon told them. “Don’t you
understand? They murdered my father. It’s war, my brother
Robb is fighting in the riverlands—”
“We know,” said Pyp solemnly. “Sam told us
everything.”
“We’re sorry about your father,” Grenn said,
“but it doesn’t matter. Once you say the words, you
can’t leave, no matter what.”
“I have to,” Jon said fervently.
“You said the words,” Pyp reminded him. “Now
my watch begins, you said it. It shall not end until my death.”
“I shall live and die at my post,” Grenn added,
nodding.
“You don’t have to tell me the words, I know them as
well as you do.” He was angry now. Why couldn’t they
let him go in peace? They were only making it harder.
“I am the sword in the darkness,” Halder
intoned.
“The watcher on the walls,” piped Toad.
Jon cursed them all to their faces. They took no notice. Pyp
spurred his horse closer, reciting, “I am the fire that burns
against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that
wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.”
“Stay back,” Jon warned him, brandishing his sword.
“I mean it, Pyp.” They weren’t even wearing
armor, he could cut them to pieces if he had to.
Matthar had circled behind him. He joined the chorus.
“I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch.”
Jon kicked his mare, spinning her in a circle. The boys were all
around him now, closing from every side.
“For this night . . . ” Halder trotted in from the left.
“ . . . and all the nights to come,” finished Pyp. He
reached over for Jon’s reins. “So here are your
choices. Kill me, or come back with me.”
Jon lifted his sword . . . and lowered it, helpless. “Damn
you,” he said. “Damn you all.”
“Do we have to bind your hands, or will you give us your
word you’ll ride back peaceful?” asked Halder.
“I won’t run, if that’s what you mean.”
Ghost moved out from under the trees and Jon glared at him.
“Small help you were,” he said. The deep red eyes
looked at him knowingly.
“We had best hurry,” Pyp said. “If we’re
not back before first light, the Old Bear will have all our
heads.”
Of the ride back, Jon Snow remembered little. It seemed shorter
than the journey south, perhaps because his mind was elsewhere. Pyp
set the pace, galloping, walking, trotting, and then breaking into
another gallop. Mole’s Town came and went, the red lantern
over the brothel long extinguished. They made good time. Dawn was
still an hour off when Jon glimpsed the towers of Castle Black
ahead of them, dark against the pale immensity of the Wall. It did
not seem like home this time.
They could take him back, Jon told himself, but they could not
make him stay. The war would not end on the morrow, or the day
after, and his friends could not watch him day and night. He would
bide his time, make them think he was content to remain here . . . and then, when they had grown lax, he would be off again. Next time
he would avoid the kingsroad. He could follow the Wall east,
perhaps all the way to the sea, a longer route but a safer one. Or
even west, to the mountains, and then south over the high passes.
That was the wildling’s way, hard and perilous, but at least
no one wouid follow him. He wouldn’t stray within a hundred
leagues of Winterfell or the kingsroad.
Samwell Tarly awaited them in the old stables, slumped on the
ground against a bale of hay, too anxious to sleep. He rose and
brushed himself off. “I . . . I’m glad they found you,
Jon.”
“I’m not,” Jon said, dismounting.
Pyp hopped off his horse and looked at the lightening sky with
disgust. “Give us a hand bedding down the horses, Sam,”
the small boy said. “We have a long day before us, and no
sleep to face it on, thanks to Lord Snow.”
When day broke, Jon walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn.
Three-Finger Hobb said nothing as he gave him the Old Bear’s
breakfast. Today it was three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried
bread and ham steak and a bowl of wrinkled plums. Jon carried the
food back to the King’s Tower. He found Mormont at the window
seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth across his
shoulders, muttering, “Corn, corn, corn.” The bird
shrieked when Jon entered. “Put the food on the table,”
the Old Bear said, glancing up. “I’ll have some
beer.”
Jon opened a shuttered window, took the flagon of beer off the
outside ledge, and filled a horn. Hobb had given him a lemon, still
cold from the Wall. Jon crushed it in his fist. The juice trickled
through his fingers. Mormont drank lemon in his beer every day, and
claimed that was why he still had his own teeth.
“Doubtless you loved your father,” Mormont said when
Jon brought him his horn. “The things we love destroy us
every time, lad. Remember when I told you that?”
“I remember,” Jon said sullenly. He did not care to
talk of his father’s death, not even to Mormont.
“See that you never forget it. The hard truths are the
ones to hold tight. Fetch me my plate. Is it ham again? So be it.
You look weary. Was your moonlight ride so tiring?”
Jon’s throat was dry. “You know?”
“Know,” the raven echoed from Mormont’s
shoulder. “Know.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Do you think they chose me Lord
Commander of the Night’s Watch because I’m dumb as a
stump, Snow? Aemon told me you’d go. I told him you’d
be back. I know my men . . . and my boys too. Honor set you on the
kingsroad . . . and honor brought you back.”
“My friends brought me back,” Jon said.
“Did I say it was your honor?” Mormont inspected his
plate.
“They killed my father. Did you expect me to do
nothing?”
“If truth be told, we expected you to do just as you
did.” Mormont tried a plum, spit out the pit. “I
ordered a watch kept over you., You were seen leaving. If your
brothers had not fetched you back, you would have been taken along
the way, and not by friends. Unless you have a horse with wings
like a raven. Do you?”
“No.” Jon felt like a fool.
“Pity, we could use a horse like that.”
Jon stood tall. He told himself that he would die well; that
much he could do, at the least. “I know the penalty for
desertion, my lord. I’m not afraid to die.”
“Die!” the raven cried.
“Nor live, I hope,” Mormont said, cutting his ham
with a dagger and feeding a bite to the bird. “You have not
deserted—yet. Here you stand. If we beheaded every boy who rode to
Mole’s Town in the night, only ghosts would guard the Wall.
Yet maybe you mean to flee again on the morrow, or a fortnight from
now. Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?”
Jon kept silent.
“I thought so.” Mormont peeled the shell off a
boiled egg. “Your father is dead, lad. Do you think you can
bring him back?”
“No,” he answered, sullen.
“Good,” Mormont said. “We’ve seen the
dead come back, you and me, and it’s not something I care to
see again.” He ate the egg in two bites and flicked a bit of
shell out from between his teeth. “Your brother is in the
field with all the power of the north behind him. Any one of his
lords bannermen commands more swords than you’ll find in all
the Night’s Watch. Why do you imagine that they need your
help? Are you such a mighty warrior, or do you carry a grumkin in
your pocket to magic up your sword?”
Jon had no answer for him. The raven was pecking at an egg,
breaking the shell. Pushing his beak through the hole, he pulled
out morsels of white and yoke.
The Old Bear sighed. “You are not the only one touched by
this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in your
brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in
men’s mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn,
short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to
be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for
her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters.”
Frowning, Mormont took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist
until the shell crunched. “Or perhaps it does. Be that as it
may, I’d still grieve if she were slain, yet you don’t
see me running off. I said the words, just as you did. My place is
here . . . where is yours, boy?” I have no place, Jon wanted to say, I’m a bastard, I have
no rights, no name, no mother, and now not even a father. The words
would not come. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” said Lord Commander Mormont. “The cold
winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen.
Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east
toward the sea, and mammoths as well. He says one of his men
discovered huge, misshapen footprints not three leagues from
Eastwatch. Rangers from the Shadow Tower have found whole villages abandoned, and at night
Ser Denys says they see fires in the mountains, huge blazes that
burn from dusk till dawn. Quorin Halfhand took a captive in the
depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that Mance Rayder is
massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he’s
found, to what end the gods only know. Do you think your uncle
Benjen was the only ranger we’ve lost this past
year?”
“Ben Jen,” the raven squawked, bobbing its head,
bits of egg dribbling from its beak. “Ben Jen. Ben Jen.”
“No,” Jon said. There had been others. Too many.
“Do you think your brother’s war is more important
than ours?” the old man barked.
Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him.
“War, war, war, war,” it sang.
“It’s not,” Mormont told him. “Gods save
us, boy, you’re not blind and you’re not stupid. When
dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who
sits the Iron Throne?”
“No.” Jon had not thought of it that way.
“Your lord father sent you to us, Jon. Why, who can
say?”
“Why? Why? Why?” the raven called.
“All I know is that the blood of the First Men flows in
the veins of the Starks. The First Men built the Wall, and
it’s said they remember things otherwise forgotten. And that
beast of yours . . . he led us to the wights, warned you of the
dead man on the steps. Ser Jaremy would doubtless call that
happenstance, yet Ser Jaremy is dead and I’m not.” Lord
Mormont stabbed a chunk of ham with the point of his dagger.
“I think you were meant to be here, and I want you and that
wolf of yours with us when we go beyond the Wall.”
His words sent a chill of excitement down Jon’s back.
“Beyond the Wall?”
“You heard me. I mean to find Ben Stark, alive or
dead.” He chewed and swallowed. “I will not sit here
meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what
is happening. This time the Night’s Watch will ride in force,
against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else
that may be out there. I mean to command them myself.” He
pointed his dagger at Jon’s chest. “By custom, the Lord
Commander’s steward is his squire as well . . . but I do not
care to wake every dawn wondering if you’ve run off again. So
I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now.
Are you a brother of the Night’s Watch . . . or only a
bastard boy who wants to play at war?”
Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath.
Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran . . . forgive me, I cannot help
you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. “I am . . . yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run
again.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your
sword.”