The tower stood upon an island, its twin reflected on the still
blue waters. When the wind blew, ripples moved across the surface
of the lake, chasing one another like boys at play. Oak trees grew
thick along the lakeshore, a dense stand of them with a litter of
fallen acorns on the ground beneath. Beyond them was the village,
or what remained of it.
It was the first village they had seen since leaving the
foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one
lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple
trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer
and sent them bounding away through the brush. Summer saw the flash
of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf
lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his
skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead.
Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into
the village. Jojen walked with them.
The ground from here to the Wall was grasslands, Bran knew;
fallow fields and low rolling hills, high meadows and lowland bogs.
It would be much easier going than the mountains behind, but so
much open space made Meera uneasy. “I feel naked,” she
confessed. “There’s no place to hide.”
“Who holds this land?” Jojen asked Bran.
“The Night’s Watch,” he answered. “This
is the Gift. The New Gift, and north of that Brandon’s
Gift.” Maester Luwin had taught him the history.
“Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to
the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues. For
their . . . for their sustenance and
support.” He was proud that he still remembered that part.
“Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the
Builder, but it’s still Brandon’s Gift. Thousands of
years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon
Silverwing, and she thought the Night’s Watch was so brave
that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty
leagues. So that was the New Gift.” He waved a hand.
“Here. All this.”
No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see.
All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been
much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a
stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple
trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of
wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was
thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was
almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog
spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were
all too brown and wormy.
It was a peaceful spot, still and tranquil and lovely to behold,
but Bran thought there was something sad about an empty inn, and
Hodor seemed to feel it too. “Hodor?” he said in a
confused sort of way. “Hodor? Hodor?”
“This is good land.” Jojen picked up a handful of
dirt, rubbing it between his fingers. “A village, an inn, a
stout holdfast in the lake, all these apple
trees . . . but where are the people, Bran? Why
would they leave such a place?”
“They were afraid of the wildlings,” said Bran.
“Wildlings come over the Wall or through the mountains, to
raid and steal and carry off women. If they catch you, they make
your skull into a cup to drink blood, Old Nan used to say. The
Night’s Watch isn’t so strong as it was in
Brandon’s day or Queen Alysanne’s, so more get through.
The places nearest the Wall got raided so much the smallfolk moved
south, into the mountains or onto the Umber lands east of the
kingsroad. The Greatjon’s people get raided too, but not so
much as the people who used to live in the Gift.”
Jojen Reed turned his head slowly, listening to music only he
could hear. “We need to shelter here. There’s a storm
coming. A bad one.”
Bran looked up at the sky. It had been a beautiful crisp clear
autumn day, sunny and almost warm, but there were dark clouds off
to the west now, that was true, and the wind seemed to be picking
up. “There’s no roof on the inn and only the two
walls,” he pointed out. “We should go out to the
holdfast.”
“Hodor,” said Hodor. Maybe he agreed.
“We have no boat, Bran.” Meera poked through the
leaves idly with her frog spear.
“There’s a causeway. A stone causeway, hidden under
the water. We could walk out.” They could, anyway; he would
have to ride on Hodor’s back, but at least he’d stay
dry that way.
The Reeds exchanged a look. “How do you know that?”
asked Jojen. “Have you been here before, my
prince?”
“No. Old Nan told me. The holdfast has a golden crown,
see?” He pointed across the lake. You could see patches of
flaking gold paint up around the crenellations. “Queen
Alysanne slept there, so they painted the merlons gold in her
honor.”
“A causeway?” Joien studied the lake. “You are
certain?”
“Certain,” said Bran.
Meera found the foot of it easily enough, once she knew to look;
a stone pathway three feet wide, leading right out into the lake.
She took them out step by careful step, probing ahead with her frog
spear. They could see where the path emerged again, climbing from
the water onto the island and turning into a short flight of stone
steps that led to the holdfast door.
Path, steps, and door were in a straight line, which made you
think the causeway ran straight, but that wasn’t so. Under
the lake it zigged and zagged, going a third of a way around the
island before jagging back. The turns were treacherous, and the
long path meant that anyone approaching would be exposed to arrow
fire from the tower for a long time. The hidden stones were slimy
and slippery too; twice Hodor almost lost his footing and shouted
“HODOR!” in alarm before regaining his balance. The
second time scared Bran badly. If Hodor fell into the lake with him
in his basket, he could well drown, especially if the huge
stableboy panicked and forgot that Bran was there, the way he did
sometimes. Maybe we should have stayed at the inn, under the apple
tree, he thought, but by then it was too late.
Thankfully there was no third time, and the water never got up
past Hodor’s waist, though the Reeds were in it up to their
chests. And before long they were on the island, climbing the steps
to the holdfast. The door was still stout, though its heavy oak
planks had warped over the years and it could no longer be closed
completely. Meera shoved it open all the way, the rusted iron
hinges screaming. The lintel was low. “Duck down,
Hodor,” Bran said, and he did, but not enough to keep Bran
from hitting his head. “That hurt,” he complained.
“Hodor,” said Hodor, straightening.
They found themselves in a gloomy strongroom, barely large
enough to hold the four of them. Steps built into the inner wall of
the tower curved away upward to their left, downward to their
right, behind iron grates. Bran looked up and saw another grate
just above his head. A murder hole. He was glad there was no one up
there now to pour boiling oil down on them.
The grates were locked, but the iron bars were red with rust.
Hodor grabbed hold of the lefthand door and gave it a pull,
grunting with effort. Nothing happened. He tried pushing with no
more success. He shook the bars, kicked, shoved against them and
rattled them and punched the hinges with a huge hand until the air
was filled with flakes of rust, but the iron door would not budge.
The one down to the undervault was no more accommodating. “No
way in,” said Meera, shrugging.
The murder hole was just above Bran’s head, as he sat in
his basket on Hodor’s back. He reached up and grabbed the
bars to give them a try. When he pulled down the grating came out
of the ceiling in a cascade of rust and crumbling stone.
“HODOR!” Hodor shouted. The heavy iron grate gave Bran
another bang in the head, and crashed down near Jojen’s feet
when he shoved it off of him. Meera laughed. “Look at that,
my prince,” she said, “you’re stronger than
Hodor.” Bran blushed.
With the grate gone, Hodor was able to boost Meera and Jojen up
through the gaping murder hole. The crannogmen took Bran by the
arms and drew him up after them. Getting Hodor inside was the hard
part. He was too heavy for the Reeds to lift the way they’d
lifted Bran. Finally Bran told him to go look for some big rocks.
The island had no lack of those, and Hodor was able to pile them
high enough to grab the crumbling edges of the hole and climb
through. “Hodor,” he panted happily, grinning at all
of them.
They found themselves in a maze of small cells, dark and empty,
but Meera explored until she found the way back to the steps. The
higher they climbed, the better the light; on the third story the
thick outer wall was pierced by arrow slits, the fourth had actual
windows, and the fifth and highest was one big round chamber with
arched doors on three sides opening onto small stone balconies. On
the fourth side was a privy chamber perched above a sewer chute
that dropped straight down into the lake.
By the time they reached the roof the sky was completely
overcast, and the clouds to the west were black. The wind was
blowing so strong it lifted up Bran’s cloak and made it flap
and snap. “Hodor,” Hodor said at the noise.
Meera spun in a circle. “I feel almost a giant, standing
high above the world.”
“There are trees in the Neck that stand twice as tall as
this,” her brother reminded her.
“Aye, but they have other trees around them just as
high,” said Meera. “The world presses close in the
Neck, and the sky is so much smaller.
Here . . . feel that wind, Brother? And look
how large the world has grown.”
It was true, you could see a long ways from up here. To the
south the foothills rose, with the mountains grey and green beyond
them. The rolling plains of the New Gift stretched away to all the
other directions, as far as the eye could see. “I was hoping
we could see the Wall from here,” said Bran, disappointed.
“That was stupid, we must still be fifty leagues away.”
just speaking of it made him feel tired, and cold as well.
“Jojen, what will we do when we reach the Wall? My uncle
always said how big it was. Seven hundred feet high, and so thick
at the base that the gates are more like tunnels through the ice.
How are we going to get past to find the three-eyed
crow?”
“There are abandoned castles along the Wall, I’ve
heard,” Jojen answered. “Fortresses built by the
Night’s Watch but now left empty. One of them may give us our
way through.” The ghost castles, Old Nan had called them. Maester Luwin had
once made Bran learn the names of every one of the forts along the
Wall. That had been hard; there were nineteen of them all told,
though no more than seventeen had ever been manned at any one time.
At the feast in honor of King Robert’s visit to Winterfell,
Bran had recited the names for his uncle Benjen, east to west and
then west to east. Benjen Stark had laughed and said, “You
know them better than I do, Bran. Perhaps you should be First
Ranger. I’ll stay here in your place.” That was before
Bran fell, though. Before he was broken. By the time he’d
woken crippled from his sleep, his uncle had gone back to Castle
Black.
“My uncle said the gates were sealed with ice and stone
whenever a castle had to be abandoned,” said Bran.
“Then we’ll have to open them again,” said
Meera.
That made him uneasy. “We shouldn’t do that. Bad
things might come through from the other side. We should just go to
Castle Black and tell the Lord Commander to let us pass.”
“Your Grace,” said Jojen, “we must avoid
Castle Black, just as we avoided the kingsroad. There are hundreds
of men there.”
“Men of the Night’s Watch,” said Bran.
“They say vows, to take no part in wars and stuff.”
“Aye,” said Jojen, “but one man willing to
forswear himself would be enough to sell your secret to the ironmen
or the Bastard of Bolton. And we cannot be certain that the Watch
would agree to let us pass. They might decide to hold us or send us
back.”
“But my father was a friend of the Night’s Watch,
and my uncle is First Ranger. He might know where the three-eyed
crow lives. And Jon’s at Castle Black too.” Bran had
been hoping to see Jon again, and their uncle too. The last black
brothers to visit Winterfell said that Benjen Stark had vanished on
a ranging, but surely he would have made his way back by now.
“I bet the Watch would even give us horses,” he went
on.
“Quiet.” Jojen shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed
off toward the setting sun. “Look. There’s
something . . . a rider, I think. Do you see
him?”
Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He
saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he
thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too
far away to see much else.
“Hodor?” Hodor had put a hand over his eyes as well,
only he was looking the wrong way. “Hodor?”
“He is in no haste,” said Meera, “but
he’s making for this village, it seems to me.”
“We had best go inside, before we’re seen,”
said Jojen.
“Summer’s near the village,” Bran
objected.
“Summer will be fine,” Meera promised.
“It’s only one man on a tired horse.”
A few fat wet drops began to patter against the stone as they
retreated to the floor below. That was well timed; the rain began
to fall in earnest a short time later. Even through the thick walls
they could hear it lashing against the surface of the lake. They
sat on the floor in the round empty room, amidst gathering gloom.
The north-facing balcony looked out toward the abandoned village.
Meera crept out on her belly to peer across the lake and see what
had become of the horseman. “He’s taken shelter in the
ruins of the inn,” she told them when she came back.
“it looks as though he’s making a fire in the
hearth.”
“I wish we could have a fire,” Bran said.
“I’m cold. There’s broken furniture down the
stairs, I saw it. We could have Hodor chop it up and get
warm.”
Hodor liked that idea. “Hodor,” he said
hopefully.
Jojen shook his head. “Fire means smoke. Smoke from this
tower could be seen a long way off.”
“If there were anyone to see,” his sister
argued.
“There’s a man in the village.”
“One man.”
“One man would be enough to betray Bran to his enemies, if
he’s the wrong man. We still have half a duck from yesterday.
We should eat and rest. Come morning the man will go on his way,
and we will do the same.”
Jojen had his way; he always did. Meera divided the duck between
the four of them. She’d caught it in her net the day before,
as it tried to rise from the marsh where she’d surprised it.
It wasn’t as tasty cold as it had been hot and crisp from the
spit, but at least they did not go hungry. Bran and Meera shared
the breast while Jojen ate the thigh. Hodor devoured the wing and
leg, muttering “Hodor” and licking the grease off his
fingers after every bite. It was Bran’s turn to tell a story,
so he told them about another Brandon Stark, the one called Brandon
the Shipwright, who had sailed off beyond the Sunset Sea.
Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the
rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and
whether he had caught one of the deer.
Grey gloom filled the tower, and slowly changed to darkness.
Hodor grew restless and walked awhile, striding round and round the
walls and stopping to peer into the privy on every circuit, as if
he had forgotten what was in there. Jojen stood by the north
balcony, hidden by the shadows, looking out at the night and the
rain. Somewhere to the north a lightning bolt crackled across the
sky, brightening the inside of the tower for an instant. Hodor
jumped and made a frightened noise. Bran counted to eight, waiting
for the thunder. When it came, Hodor shouted,
“Hodor!” I hope Summer isn’t scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in
Winterfell’s kennels had always been spooked by
thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm
him . . .
The lightning flashed again, and this time the thunder came at
six. “Hodor!” Hodor yelled again. “HODOR!
HODOR!” He snatched up his sword, as if to fight the
storm.
Jojen said, “Be quiet, Hodor. Bran, tell him not to shout.
Can you get the sword away from him, Meera?”
“I can try.”
“Hodor, hush,” said Bran. “Be quiet now. No
more stupid hodoring. Sit down.”
“Hodor?” He gave the longsword to Meera meekly
enough, but his face was a mask of confusion.
Jojen turned back to the darkness, and they all heard him suck
in his breath. “What is it?” Meera asked.
“Men in the village.”
“The man we saw before?”
“Other men. Armed. I saw an axe, and spears as
well.” Joien had never sounded so much like the boy he was.
“I saw them when the lightning flashed, moving under the
trees.”
“How many?”
“Many and more. Too many to count.”
“Mounted?
“No.”
“Hodor.” Hodor sounded frightened. “Hodor.
Hodor.”
Bran felt a little scared himself, though he didn’t want
to say so in front of Meera. “What if they come out
here?”
“They won’t.” She sat down beside him.
“Why should they?”
“For shelter.” Jojen’s voice was grim.
“Unless the storm lets up. Meera, could you go down and bar
the door?”
“I couldn’t even close it. The wood’s too
warped. They won’t get past those iron gates,
though.”
“They might. They could break the lock, or the hinges. Or
climb up through the murder hole as we did.”
Lightning slashed the sky, and Hodor whimpered. Then a clap of
thunder rolled across the lake. “HODOR!” he roared,
clapping his hands over his ears and stumbling in a circle through
the darkness. “HODOR! HODOR! HODOR!”
“NO!” Bran shouted back. “NO
HODORING!”
It did no good. “HOOOODOR!” moaned Hodor. Meera
tried to catch him and calm him, but he was too strong. He flung
her aside with no more than a shrug.
“HOOOOOODOOOOOOOR!” the stableboy screamed as lightning
filled the sky again, and even Jojen was shouting now, shouting at
Bran and Meera to shut him up.
“Be quiet!” Bran said in a shrill scared voice,
reaching up uselessly for Hodor’s leg as he crashed past,
reaching, reaching.
Hodor staggered, and closed his mouth. He shook his head slowly
from side to side, sank back to the floor, and sat crosslegged.
When the thunder boomed, he scarcely seemed to hear it. The four of
them sat in the dark tower, scarce daring to breathe.
“Bran, what did you do?” Meera whispered.
“Nothing.” Bran shook his head. “I don’t
know.” But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for
Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him.
“Something is happening across the lake,” said
Jojen. “I thought I saw a man pointing at the
tower.” I won’t be afraid. He was the Prince of Winterfell, Eddard
Stark’s son, almost a man grown and a warg too, not some
little baby boy like Rickon. Summer would not be afraid.
“Most like they’re just some Umbers,” he said.
“Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from
the mountains, or even brothers from the Night’s Watch. Were
they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?”
“By night all cloaks are black, Your Grace. And the flash
came and went too fast for me to tell what they were
wearing.”
Meera was wary. “If they were black brothers, they’d
be mounted, wouldn’t they?”
Bran had thought of something else. “It doesn’t
matter,” he said confidently. “They couldn’t get
out to us even if they wanted. Not unless they had a boat, or knew
about the causeway.”
“The causeway!” Meera mussed Bran’s hair and
kissed him on the forehead. “Our sweet prince! He’s
right, Jojen, they won’t know about the causeway. Even if
they did they could never find the way across at night in the
rain.”
“The night will end, though. If they stay till
morning . . . ” Jojen left the rest
unsaid. After a few moments he said, “They are feeding the
fire the first man started.” Lightning crashed through the
sky, and light filled the tower and etched them all in shadow.
Hodor rocked back and forth, humming.
Bran could feel Summer’s fear in that bright instant. He
closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy’s skin
slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower
behind . . .
. . . and found himself out in the rain,
his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and
boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost
drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and
slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a
stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him
blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping
thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could
hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves
and horse came the sharp red stench of
fear . . .
The tower stood upon an island, its twin reflected on the still
blue waters. When the wind blew, ripples moved across the surface
of the lake, chasing one another like boys at play. Oak trees grew
thick along the lakeshore, a dense stand of them with a litter of
fallen acorns on the ground beneath. Beyond them was the village,
or what remained of it.
It was the first village they had seen since leaving the
foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one
lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple
trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer
and sent them bounding away through the brush. Summer saw the flash
of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf
lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his
skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead.
Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into
the village. Jojen walked with them.
The ground from here to the Wall was grasslands, Bran knew;
fallow fields and low rolling hills, high meadows and lowland bogs.
It would be much easier going than the mountains behind, but so
much open space made Meera uneasy. “I feel naked,” she
confessed. “There’s no place to hide.”
“Who holds this land?” Jojen asked Bran.
“The Night’s Watch,” he answered. “This
is the Gift. The New Gift, and north of that Brandon’s
Gift.” Maester Luwin had taught him the history.
“Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to
the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues. For
their . . . for their sustenance and
support.” He was proud that he still remembered that part.
“Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the
Builder, but it’s still Brandon’s Gift. Thousands of
years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon
Silverwing, and she thought the Night’s Watch was so brave
that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty
leagues. So that was the New Gift.” He waved a hand.
“Here. All this.”
No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see.
All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been
much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a
stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple
trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of
wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was
thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was
almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog
spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were
all too brown and wormy.
It was a peaceful spot, still and tranquil and lovely to behold,
but Bran thought there was something sad about an empty inn, and
Hodor seemed to feel it too. “Hodor?” he said in a
confused sort of way. “Hodor? Hodor?”
“This is good land.” Jojen picked up a handful of
dirt, rubbing it between his fingers. “A village, an inn, a
stout holdfast in the lake, all these apple
trees . . . but where are the people, Bran? Why
would they leave such a place?”
“They were afraid of the wildlings,” said Bran.
“Wildlings come over the Wall or through the mountains, to
raid and steal and carry off women. If they catch you, they make
your skull into a cup to drink blood, Old Nan used to say. The
Night’s Watch isn’t so strong as it was in
Brandon’s day or Queen Alysanne’s, so more get through.
The places nearest the Wall got raided so much the smallfolk moved
south, into the mountains or onto the Umber lands east of the
kingsroad. The Greatjon’s people get raided too, but not so
much as the people who used to live in the Gift.”
Jojen Reed turned his head slowly, listening to music only he
could hear. “We need to shelter here. There’s a storm
coming. A bad one.”
Bran looked up at the sky. It had been a beautiful crisp clear
autumn day, sunny and almost warm, but there were dark clouds off
to the west now, that was true, and the wind seemed to be picking
up. “There’s no roof on the inn and only the two
walls,” he pointed out. “We should go out to the
holdfast.”
“Hodor,” said Hodor. Maybe he agreed.
“We have no boat, Bran.” Meera poked through the
leaves idly with her frog spear.
“There’s a causeway. A stone causeway, hidden under
the water. We could walk out.” They could, anyway; he would
have to ride on Hodor’s back, but at least he’d stay
dry that way.
The Reeds exchanged a look. “How do you know that?”
asked Jojen. “Have you been here before, my
prince?”
“No. Old Nan told me. The holdfast has a golden crown,
see?” He pointed across the lake. You could see patches of
flaking gold paint up around the crenellations. “Queen
Alysanne slept there, so they painted the merlons gold in her
honor.”
“A causeway?” Joien studied the lake. “You are
certain?”
“Certain,” said Bran.
Meera found the foot of it easily enough, once she knew to look;
a stone pathway three feet wide, leading right out into the lake.
She took them out step by careful step, probing ahead with her frog
spear. They could see where the path emerged again, climbing from
the water onto the island and turning into a short flight of stone
steps that led to the holdfast door.
Path, steps, and door were in a straight line, which made you
think the causeway ran straight, but that wasn’t so. Under
the lake it zigged and zagged, going a third of a way around the
island before jagging back. The turns were treacherous, and the
long path meant that anyone approaching would be exposed to arrow
fire from the tower for a long time. The hidden stones were slimy
and slippery too; twice Hodor almost lost his footing and shouted
“HODOR!” in alarm before regaining his balance. The
second time scared Bran badly. If Hodor fell into the lake with him
in his basket, he could well drown, especially if the huge
stableboy panicked and forgot that Bran was there, the way he did
sometimes. Maybe we should have stayed at the inn, under the apple
tree, he thought, but by then it was too late.
Thankfully there was no third time, and the water never got up
past Hodor’s waist, though the Reeds were in it up to their
chests. And before long they were on the island, climbing the steps
to the holdfast. The door was still stout, though its heavy oak
planks had warped over the years and it could no longer be closed
completely. Meera shoved it open all the way, the rusted iron
hinges screaming. The lintel was low. “Duck down,
Hodor,” Bran said, and he did, but not enough to keep Bran
from hitting his head. “That hurt,” he complained.
“Hodor,” said Hodor, straightening.
They found themselves in a gloomy strongroom, barely large
enough to hold the four of them. Steps built into the inner wall of
the tower curved away upward to their left, downward to their
right, behind iron grates. Bran looked up and saw another grate
just above his head. A murder hole. He was glad there was no one up
there now to pour boiling oil down on them.
The grates were locked, but the iron bars were red with rust.
Hodor grabbed hold of the lefthand door and gave it a pull,
grunting with effort. Nothing happened. He tried pushing with no
more success. He shook the bars, kicked, shoved against them and
rattled them and punched the hinges with a huge hand until the air
was filled with flakes of rust, but the iron door would not budge.
The one down to the undervault was no more accommodating. “No
way in,” said Meera, shrugging.
The murder hole was just above Bran’s head, as he sat in
his basket on Hodor’s back. He reached up and grabbed the
bars to give them a try. When he pulled down the grating came out
of the ceiling in a cascade of rust and crumbling stone.
“HODOR!” Hodor shouted. The heavy iron grate gave Bran
another bang in the head, and crashed down near Jojen’s feet
when he shoved it off of him. Meera laughed. “Look at that,
my prince,” she said, “you’re stronger than
Hodor.” Bran blushed.
With the grate gone, Hodor was able to boost Meera and Jojen up
through the gaping murder hole. The crannogmen took Bran by the
arms and drew him up after them. Getting Hodor inside was the hard
part. He was too heavy for the Reeds to lift the way they’d
lifted Bran. Finally Bran told him to go look for some big rocks.
The island had no lack of those, and Hodor was able to pile them
high enough to grab the crumbling edges of the hole and climb
through. “Hodor,” he panted happily, grinning at all
of them.
They found themselves in a maze of small cells, dark and empty,
but Meera explored until she found the way back to the steps. The
higher they climbed, the better the light; on the third story the
thick outer wall was pierced by arrow slits, the fourth had actual
windows, and the fifth and highest was one big round chamber with
arched doors on three sides opening onto small stone balconies. On
the fourth side was a privy chamber perched above a sewer chute
that dropped straight down into the lake.
By the time they reached the roof the sky was completely
overcast, and the clouds to the west were black. The wind was
blowing so strong it lifted up Bran’s cloak and made it flap
and snap. “Hodor,” Hodor said at the noise.
Meera spun in a circle. “I feel almost a giant, standing
high above the world.”
“There are trees in the Neck that stand twice as tall as
this,” her brother reminded her.
“Aye, but they have other trees around them just as
high,” said Meera. “The world presses close in the
Neck, and the sky is so much smaller.
Here . . . feel that wind, Brother? And look
how large the world has grown.”
It was true, you could see a long ways from up here. To the
south the foothills rose, with the mountains grey and green beyond
them. The rolling plains of the New Gift stretched away to all the
other directions, as far as the eye could see. “I was hoping
we could see the Wall from here,” said Bran, disappointed.
“That was stupid, we must still be fifty leagues away.”
just speaking of it made him feel tired, and cold as well.
“Jojen, what will we do when we reach the Wall? My uncle
always said how big it was. Seven hundred feet high, and so thick
at the base that the gates are more like tunnels through the ice.
How are we going to get past to find the three-eyed
crow?”
“There are abandoned castles along the Wall, I’ve
heard,” Jojen answered. “Fortresses built by the
Night’s Watch but now left empty. One of them may give us our
way through.” The ghost castles, Old Nan had called them. Maester Luwin had
once made Bran learn the names of every one of the forts along the
Wall. That had been hard; there were nineteen of them all told,
though no more than seventeen had ever been manned at any one time.
At the feast in honor of King Robert’s visit to Winterfell,
Bran had recited the names for his uncle Benjen, east to west and
then west to east. Benjen Stark had laughed and said, “You
know them better than I do, Bran. Perhaps you should be First
Ranger. I’ll stay here in your place.” That was before
Bran fell, though. Before he was broken. By the time he’d
woken crippled from his sleep, his uncle had gone back to Castle
Black.
“My uncle said the gates were sealed with ice and stone
whenever a castle had to be abandoned,” said Bran.
“Then we’ll have to open them again,” said
Meera.
That made him uneasy. “We shouldn’t do that. Bad
things might come through from the other side. We should just go to
Castle Black and tell the Lord Commander to let us pass.”
“Your Grace,” said Jojen, “we must avoid
Castle Black, just as we avoided the kingsroad. There are hundreds
of men there.”
“Men of the Night’s Watch,” said Bran.
“They say vows, to take no part in wars and stuff.”
“Aye,” said Jojen, “but one man willing to
forswear himself would be enough to sell your secret to the ironmen
or the Bastard of Bolton. And we cannot be certain that the Watch
would agree to let us pass. They might decide to hold us or send us
back.”
“But my father was a friend of the Night’s Watch,
and my uncle is First Ranger. He might know where the three-eyed
crow lives. And Jon’s at Castle Black too.” Bran had
been hoping to see Jon again, and their uncle too. The last black
brothers to visit Winterfell said that Benjen Stark had vanished on
a ranging, but surely he would have made his way back by now.
“I bet the Watch would even give us horses,” he went
on.
“Quiet.” Jojen shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed
off toward the setting sun. “Look. There’s
something . . . a rider, I think. Do you see
him?”
Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He
saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he
thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too
far away to see much else.
“Hodor?” Hodor had put a hand over his eyes as well,
only he was looking the wrong way. “Hodor?”
“He is in no haste,” said Meera, “but
he’s making for this village, it seems to me.”
“We had best go inside, before we’re seen,”
said Jojen.
“Summer’s near the village,” Bran
objected.
“Summer will be fine,” Meera promised.
“It’s only one man on a tired horse.”
A few fat wet drops began to patter against the stone as they
retreated to the floor below. That was well timed; the rain began
to fall in earnest a short time later. Even through the thick walls
they could hear it lashing against the surface of the lake. They
sat on the floor in the round empty room, amidst gathering gloom.
The north-facing balcony looked out toward the abandoned village.
Meera crept out on her belly to peer across the lake and see what
had become of the horseman. “He’s taken shelter in the
ruins of the inn,” she told them when she came back.
“it looks as though he’s making a fire in the
hearth.”
“I wish we could have a fire,” Bran said.
“I’m cold. There’s broken furniture down the
stairs, I saw it. We could have Hodor chop it up and get
warm.”
Hodor liked that idea. “Hodor,” he said
hopefully.
Jojen shook his head. “Fire means smoke. Smoke from this
tower could be seen a long way off.”
“If there were anyone to see,” his sister
argued.
“There’s a man in the village.”
“One man.”
“One man would be enough to betray Bran to his enemies, if
he’s the wrong man. We still have half a duck from yesterday.
We should eat and rest. Come morning the man will go on his way,
and we will do the same.”
Jojen had his way; he always did. Meera divided the duck between
the four of them. She’d caught it in her net the day before,
as it tried to rise from the marsh where she’d surprised it.
It wasn’t as tasty cold as it had been hot and crisp from the
spit, but at least they did not go hungry. Bran and Meera shared
the breast while Jojen ate the thigh. Hodor devoured the wing and
leg, muttering “Hodor” and licking the grease off his
fingers after every bite. It was Bran’s turn to tell a story,
so he told them about another Brandon Stark, the one called Brandon
the Shipwright, who had sailed off beyond the Sunset Sea.
Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the
rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and
whether he had caught one of the deer.
Grey gloom filled the tower, and slowly changed to darkness.
Hodor grew restless and walked awhile, striding round and round the
walls and stopping to peer into the privy on every circuit, as if
he had forgotten what was in there. Jojen stood by the north
balcony, hidden by the shadows, looking out at the night and the
rain. Somewhere to the north a lightning bolt crackled across the
sky, brightening the inside of the tower for an instant. Hodor
jumped and made a frightened noise. Bran counted to eight, waiting
for the thunder. When it came, Hodor shouted,
“Hodor!” I hope Summer isn’t scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in
Winterfell’s kennels had always been spooked by
thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm
him . . .
The lightning flashed again, and this time the thunder came at
six. “Hodor!” Hodor yelled again. “HODOR!
HODOR!” He snatched up his sword, as if to fight the
storm.
Jojen said, “Be quiet, Hodor. Bran, tell him not to shout.
Can you get the sword away from him, Meera?”
“I can try.”
“Hodor, hush,” said Bran. “Be quiet now. No
more stupid hodoring. Sit down.”
“Hodor?” He gave the longsword to Meera meekly
enough, but his face was a mask of confusion.
Jojen turned back to the darkness, and they all heard him suck
in his breath. “What is it?” Meera asked.
“Men in the village.”
“The man we saw before?”
“Other men. Armed. I saw an axe, and spears as
well.” Joien had never sounded so much like the boy he was.
“I saw them when the lightning flashed, moving under the
trees.”
“How many?”
“Many and more. Too many to count.”
“Mounted?
“No.”
“Hodor.” Hodor sounded frightened. “Hodor.
Hodor.”
Bran felt a little scared himself, though he didn’t want
to say so in front of Meera. “What if they come out
here?”
“They won’t.” She sat down beside him.
“Why should they?”
“For shelter.” Jojen’s voice was grim.
“Unless the storm lets up. Meera, could you go down and bar
the door?”
“I couldn’t even close it. The wood’s too
warped. They won’t get past those iron gates,
though.”
“They might. They could break the lock, or the hinges. Or
climb up through the murder hole as we did.”
Lightning slashed the sky, and Hodor whimpered. Then a clap of
thunder rolled across the lake. “HODOR!” he roared,
clapping his hands over his ears and stumbling in a circle through
the darkness. “HODOR! HODOR! HODOR!”
“NO!” Bran shouted back. “NO
HODORING!”
It did no good. “HOOOODOR!” moaned Hodor. Meera
tried to catch him and calm him, but he was too strong. He flung
her aside with no more than a shrug.
“HOOOOOODOOOOOOOR!” the stableboy screamed as lightning
filled the sky again, and even Jojen was shouting now, shouting at
Bran and Meera to shut him up.
“Be quiet!” Bran said in a shrill scared voice,
reaching up uselessly for Hodor’s leg as he crashed past,
reaching, reaching.
Hodor staggered, and closed his mouth. He shook his head slowly
from side to side, sank back to the floor, and sat crosslegged.
When the thunder boomed, he scarcely seemed to hear it. The four of
them sat in the dark tower, scarce daring to breathe.
“Bran, what did you do?” Meera whispered.
“Nothing.” Bran shook his head. “I don’t
know.” But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for
Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him.
“Something is happening across the lake,” said
Jojen. “I thought I saw a man pointing at the
tower.” I won’t be afraid. He was the Prince of Winterfell, Eddard
Stark’s son, almost a man grown and a warg too, not some
little baby boy like Rickon. Summer would not be afraid.
“Most like they’re just some Umbers,” he said.
“Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from
the mountains, or even brothers from the Night’s Watch. Were
they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?”
“By night all cloaks are black, Your Grace. And the flash
came and went too fast for me to tell what they were
wearing.”
Meera was wary. “If they were black brothers, they’d
be mounted, wouldn’t they?”
Bran had thought of something else. “It doesn’t
matter,” he said confidently. “They couldn’t get
out to us even if they wanted. Not unless they had a boat, or knew
about the causeway.”
“The causeway!” Meera mussed Bran’s hair and
kissed him on the forehead. “Our sweet prince! He’s
right, Jojen, they won’t know about the causeway. Even if
they did they could never find the way across at night in the
rain.”
“The night will end, though. If they stay till
morning . . . ” Jojen left the rest
unsaid. After a few moments he said, “They are feeding the
fire the first man started.” Lightning crashed through the
sky, and light filled the tower and etched them all in shadow.
Hodor rocked back and forth, humming.
Bran could feel Summer’s fear in that bright instant. He
closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy’s skin
slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower
behind . . .
. . . and found himself out in the rain,
his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and
boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost
drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and
slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a
stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him
blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping
thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could
hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves
and horse came the sharp red stench of
fear . . .