The mare was blown, but Jon could not let up on her. He had to
reach the Wall before the Magnar. He would have slept in the saddle
if he’d had one; lacking that, it was hard enough to stay
ahorse while awake. His wounded leg grew ever more painful. He dare
not rest long enough to let it heal. Instead he ripped it open anew
each time he mounted up.
When he crested a rise and saw the brown rutted kingsroad before
him wending its way north through hill and plain, he patted the
mare’s neck and said, “Now all we need do is follow the
road, girl. Soon the Wall.” His leg had gone as stiff as wood
by then, and fever had made him so light-headed that twice he found
himself riding in the wrong direction. Soon the Wall. He pictured his friends drinking mulled wine in
the common hall. Hobb would be with his kettles, Donal Noye at his
forge, Maester Aemon in his rooms beneath the rookery. And the Old
Bear? Sam, Grenn, Dolorous Edd, Dywen with his wooden
teeth . . . Jon could only pray that some had
escaped the Fist.
Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the
smell of her hair, the warmth of her
body . . . and the look on her face as she slit
the old man’s throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice
whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted.
He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when
he’d left Jon’s mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He
was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night’s
Watch.
He almost rode through Mole’s Town, so feverish that he
did not know where he was. Most of the village was hidden
underground, only a handful of small hovels to be seen by the light
of the waning moon. The brothel was a shed no bigger than a privy,
its red lantern creaking in the wind, a bloodshot eye peering
through the blackness. Jon dismounted at the adjoining stable,
half-stumbling from the mare’s back as he shouted two boys
awake. “I need a fresh mount, with saddle and bridle,”
he told them, in a tone that brooked no argument. They brought him
that; a skin of wine as well, and half a loaf of brown bread.
“Wake the village,” he told them. “Warn them.
There are wildlings south of the Wall. Gather your goods and make
for Castle Black.” He pulled himself onto the black gelding
they’d given him, gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg,
and rode hard for the north.
As the stars began to fade in the eastern sky, the Wall appeared
before him, rising above the trees and the morning mists. Moonlight
glimmered pale against the ice. He urged the gelding on, following
the muddy slick road until he saw the stone towers and timbered
halls of Castle Black huddled like broken toys beneath the great
cliff of ice. By then the Wall glowed pink and purple with the
first light of dawn.
No sentries challenged him as he rode past the outbuildings. No
one came forth to bar his way. Castle Black seemed as much a ruin
as Greyguard. Brown brittle weeds grew between cracks in the stones
of the courtyards. Old snow covered the roof of the Flint Barracks
and lay in drifts against the north side of Hardin’s Tower,
where Jon used to sleep before being made the Old Bear’s
steward. Fingers of soot streaked the Lord Commander’s Tower
where the smoke had boiled from the windows. Mormont had moved to
the King’s Tower after the fire, but Jon saw no lights there
either. From the ground he could not tell if there were sentries
walking the Wall seven hundred feet above, but he saw no one on the
huge switchback stair that climbed the south face of the ice like
some great wooden thunderbolt.
There was smoke rising from the chimney of the armory, though;
only a wisp, almost invisible against the grey northern sky, but it
was enough. Jon dismounted and limped toward it. Warmth poured out
the open door like the hot breath of summer. Within, one-armed
Donal Noye was working his bellows at the fire. He looked up at the
noise. “Jon Snow?”
“None else.” Despite fever, exhaustion, his leg, the
Magnar, the old man, Ygritte, Mance, despite it all, Jon smiled. It
was good to be back, good to see Noye with his big belly and
pinned-up sleeve, his jaw bristling with black stubble.
The smith released his grip on the bellows. “Your
face . . .
He had almost forgotten about his face. “A skinchanger
tried to rip out my eye.”
Noye frowned. “Scarred or smooth, it’s a face I
thought I’d seen the last of. We heard you’d gone over
to Mance Rayder.”
Jon grasped the door to stay upright. “Who told you
that?”
“Jarman Buckwell. He returned a fortnight past. His scouts
claim they saw you with their own eyes, riding along beside the
wildling column and wearing a sheepskin cloak.” Noye eyed
him. “I see the last part’s true.”
“It’s all true,” Jon confessed. “As far
as it goes.”
“Should I be pulling down a sword to gut you,
then?”
“No. I was acting on orders. Qhorin Halfhand’s last
command. Noye, where is the garrison?”
“Defending the Wall against your wildling
friends.”
“Yes, but where?”
“Everywhere. Harma Dogshead was seen at
Woodswatch-by-the-Pool, Rattleshirt at Long Barrow, the Weeper near
Icemark. All along the Wall . . . they’re
here, they’re there, they’re climbing near Queensgate,
they’re hacking at the gates of Greyguard, they’re
massing against Eastwatch . . . but one glimpse
of a black cloak and they’re gone. Next day they’re
somewhere else.”
Jon swallowed a groan. “Feints. Mance wants us to spread
ourselves thin, don’t you see?” And Bowen Marsh has
obliged him. “The gate is here. The attack is
here.”
Noye crossed the room. “Your leg is drenched in
blood.”
Jon looked down dully. It was true. His wound had opened again.
“An arrow wound . . . ”
“A wildling arrow.” It was not a question. Noye had
only one arm, but that was thick with muscle. He slid it under
Jon’s to help support him. “You’re white as milk,
and burning hot besides. I’m taking you to Aemon.”
“There’s no time. There are wildlings south of the
Wall, coming up from Queenscrown to open the gate.”
“How many?” Noye half-carried Jon out the door.
“A hundred and twenty, and well armed for wildlings.
Bronze armor, some bits of steel. How many men are left
here?”
“Forty odd,” said Donal Noye. “The crippled
and infirm, and some green boys still in training.”
“If Marsh is gone, who did he name as
castellan?”
The armorer laughed. “Ser Wynton, gods preserve him. Last
knight in the castle and all. The thing is, Stout seems to have
forgotten and no one’s been rushing to remind him. I suppose
I’m as much a commander as we have now. The meanest of the
cripples.”
That was for the good, at least. The one-armed armorer was hard
headed, tough, and well seasoned in war. Ser Wynton Stout, on the
other hand . . . well, he had been a good man
once, everyone agreed, but he had been eighty years a ranger, and
both strength and wits were gone. Once he’d fallen asleep at
supper and almost drowned in a bowl of pea soup.
“Where’s your wolf?” Noye asked as they
crossed the yard.
“Ghost. I had to leave him when I climbed the Wall.
I’d hoped he’d make his way back here.”
“I’m sorry, lad. There’s been no sign of
him.” They limped up to the maester’s door, in the long
wooden keep beneath the rookery. The armorer gave it a kick.
“Clydas!”
After a moment a stooped, round-shouldered little man in black
peered out. His small pink eyes widened at the sight of Jon.
“Lay the lad down, I’ll fetch the maester.”
A fire was burning in the hearth, and the room was almost
stuffy. The warmth made Jon sleepy. As soon as Noye eased him down
onto his back, he closed his eyes to stop the world from spinning.
He could hear the ravens quorking and complaining in the rookery
above. “Snow,” one bird was saying. “Snow, snow,
snow.” That was Sam’s doing, Jon remembered. Had
Samwell Tarly made it home safely, he wondered, or only the
birds?
Maester Aemon was not long in coming. He moved slowly, one
spotted hand on Clydas’s arm as he shuffled forward with
small careful steps. Around his thin neck his chain hung heavy,
gold and silver links glinting amongst iron, lead, tin, and other
base metals. “Jon Snow,” he said, “you must tell
me all you’ve seen and done when you are stronger. Donal, put
a kettle of wine on the fire, and my irons as well. I will want
them red-hot. Clydas, I shall need that good sharp knife of
yours.” The maester was more than a hundred years old;
shrunken, frail, hairless, and quite blind. But if his milky eyes
saw nothing, his wits were still as sharp as they had ever
been.
“There are wildlings coming,” Jon told him, as
Clydas ran a blade up the leg of his breeches, slicing the heavy
black cloth, crusty with old blood and sodden with new. “From
the south. We climbed the
Wall . . . ”
Maester Aemon gave Jon’s crude bandage a sniff when Clydas
cut it away. “We?”
“I was with them. Qhorin Halfhand commanded me to join
them.” Jon winced as the maester’s finger explored his
wound, poking and prodding. “The Magnar of Thenn—aaaaah,
that hurts.” He clenched his teeth. “Where is the Old
Bear?”
“Jon . . . it grieves me to say, but
Lord Commander Mormont was murdered at Craster’s Keep, at the
hands of his Sworn Brothers.”
“Bro . . . our own men?”
Aemon’s words hurt a hundred times worse than his fingers.
Jon remembered the Old Bear as last he’d seen him, standing
before his tent with his raven on his arm croaking for corn.
Mormont gone? He had feared it ever since he’d seen the
aftermath of battle on the Fist, yet it was no less a blow.
“Who was it? Who turned on him?”
“Garth of Oldtown, Ollo Lophand,
Dirk . . . thieves, cowards and killers, the
lot of them. We should have seen it coming. The Watch is not what
it was. Too few honest men to keep the rogues in line.” Donal
Noye turned the maester’s blades in the fire. “A dozen
true men made it back. Dolorous Edd, Giant, your friend the
Aurochs. We had the tale from them.” Only a dozen? Two hundred men had left Castle Black with Lord
Commander Mormont, two hundred of the Watch’s best.
“Does this mean Marsh is Lord Commander, then?” The Old
Pomegranate was amiable, and a diligent First Steward, but he was
woefully ill-suited to face a wildling host.
“For the nonce, until we can hold a choosing,” said
Maester Aemon. “Clydas, bring me the flask.” A choosing. With Qhorin Halfhand and Ser Jaremy Rykker both dead
and Ben Stark still missing, who was there? Not Bowen Marsh or Ser
Wynton Stout, that was certain. Had Thoren Smallwood survived the
Fist, or Ser Ottyn Wythers? No, it will be Cotter Pyke or Ser Denys
Mallister. Which, though? The commanders at the Shadow Tower and
Eastwatch were good men, but very different; Ser Denys courtly and
cautious, as chivalrous as he was elderly, Pyke younger,
bastard-born, rough-tongued, and bold to a fault. Worse, the two
men despised each other. The Old Bear had always kept them far
apart, at opposite ends of the Wall. The Mallisters had a bone-deep
mistrust of the ironborn, Jon knew.
A stab of pain reminded him of his own woes. The maester
squeezed his hand. “Clydas is bringing milk of the
poppy.”
Jon tried to rise. “I don’t need—”
“You do,” Aemon said firmly. “This will
hurt.”
Donal Noye crossed the room and shoved Jon back onto his back.
“Be still, or I’ll tie you down.” Even with only
one arm, the smith handled him as if he were a child. Clydas
returned with a green flask and a rounded stone cup. Maester Aemon
poured it full. “Drink this.”
Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood
mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not
to retch it back up.
Clydas brought a basin of warm water, and Maester Aemon washed
the pus and blood from his wound. Gentle as he was, even the
lightest touch made Jon want to scream. “The Magnar’s
men are disciplined, and they have bronze armor,” he told
them. Talking helped keep his mind off his leg.
“The Magnar’s a lord on Skagos,” Noye said.
“There were Skagossons at Eastwatch when I first came to the
Wall, I remember hearing them talk of him.”
“Jon was using the word in its older sense, I
think,” Maester Aemon said, “not as a family name but
as a title. It derives from the Old Tongue.”
“It means lord,” Jon agreed. “Styr is the
Magnar of some place called Thenn, in the far north of the
Frostfangs. He has a hundred of his own men, and a score of raiders
who know the Gift almost as well as we do. Mance never found the
horn, though, that’s something. The Horn of Winter,
that’s what he was digging for up along the
Milkwater.”
Maester Aemon paused, washcloth in hand. “The Horn of
Winter is an ancient legend. Does the King-beyond-the-Wall truly
believe that such a thing exists?”
“They all do,” said Jon. “Ygritte said they
opened a hundred graves . . . graves of kings
and heroes, all over the valley of the Milkwater, but they
never . . . ”
“Who is Ygritte?” Donal Noye asked pointedly.
“A woman of the free folk.” How could he explain
Ygritte to them? She’s warm and smart and funny and she can
kiss a man or slit his throat. “She’s with Styr, but
she’s not . . . she’s young, only a
girl, in truth, wild, but she . . . ” She
killed an old man for building a fire. His tongue felt thick and
clumsy. The milk of the poppy was clouding his wits. “I broke
my vows with her. I never meant to,
but . . . ” It was wrong. Wrong to love
her, wrong to leave her . . . “I
wasn’t strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with
them, watch, I must not balk, I . . . ” His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool.
Maester Aemon sniffed Jon’s wound again. Then he put the
bloody cloth back in the basin and said, “Donal, the hot
knife, if you please. I shall need you to hold him
still.” I will not scream, Jon told himself when he saw the blade
glowing red hot. But he broke that vow as well. Donal Noye held him
down, while Clydas helped guide the maester’s hand. Jon did
not move, except to pound his fist against the table, again and
again and again. The pain was so huge he felt small and weak and
helpless inside it, a child whimpering in the dark. Ygritte, he
thought, when the stench of burning flesh was in his nose and his
own shriek echoing in her ears. Ygritte, I had to. For half a
heartbeat the agony started to ebb. But then the iron touched him
once again, and he fainted.
When his eyelids fluttered open, he was wrapped in thick wool
and floating. He could not seem to move, but that did not matter.
For a time he dreamed that Ygritte was with him, tending him with
gentle hands. Finally he closed his eyes and slept.
The next waking was not so gentle. The room was dark, but under
the blankets the pain was back, a throbbing in his leg that turned
into a hot knife at the least motion. Jon learned that the hard way
when he tried to see if he still had a leg. Gasping, he swallowed a
scream and made another fist.
“Jon?” A candle appeared, and a well-remembered face
was looking down on him, big ears and all. “You
shouldn’t move.”
“Pyp?” Jon reached up, and the other boy clasped his
hand and gave it a squeeze. “I thought you’d
gone . . . ”
“ . . . with the Old Pomegranate? No,
he thinks I’m too small and green. Grenn’s here
too.”
“I’m here too.” Grenn stepped to the other
side of the bed. “I fell asleep.”
Jon’s throat was dry. “Water,” he gasped.
Grenn brought it, and held it to his lips. “I saw the
Fist,” he said, after a long swallow. “The blood, and
the dead horses . . . Noye said a dozen made it
back . . . who?”
“Dywen did. Giant, Dolorous Edd, Sweet Donnel Hill, Ulmer,
Left Hand Lew, Garth Greyfeather. Four or five more. Me.”
“Sam?”
Grenn looked away. “He killed one of the Others, Jon. I
saw it. He stabbed him with that dragonglass knife you made him,
and we started calling him Sam the Slayer. He hated
that.” Sam the Slayer. Jon could hardly imagine a less likely warrior
than Sam Tarly. “What happened to him?”
“We left him.” Grenn sounded miserable. “I
shook him and screamed at him, even slapped his face. Giant tried
to drag him to his feet, but he was too heavy. Remember in training
how he’d curl up on the ground and lie there whimpering? At
Craster’s he wouldn’t even whimper. Dirk and Ollo were
tearing up the walls looking for food, Garth and Garth were
fighting, some of the others were raping Craster’s wives.
Dolorous Edd figured Dirk’s bunch would kill all the loyal
men to keep us from telling what they’d done, and they had us
two to one. We left Sam with the Old Bear. He wouldn’t move,
Jon.” You were his brother, he almost said. How could you leave him
amongst wildlings and murderers?
“He might still be alive,” said Pyp. “He might
surprise us all and come riding up tomorrow.”
“With Mance Rayder’s head, aye.” Grenn was
trying to sound cheerful, Jon could tell. “Sam the
Slayer!”
Jon tried to sit again. It was as much a mistake as the first
time. He cried out, cursing.
“Grenn, go wake Maester Aemon,” said Pyp.
“Tell him Jon needs more milk of the poppy.” Yes, Jon thought. “No,” he said. “The
Magnar . . . ”
“We know,” said Pyp. “The sentries on the Wall
have been told to keep one eye on the south, and Donal Noye
dispatched some men to Weatherback Ridge to watch the kingsroad. Maester Aemon’s
sent birds to Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower too.”
Maester Aemon shuffled to the bedside, one hand on Grenn’s
shoulder. “Jon, be gentle with yourself. It is good that you
have woken, but you must give yourself time to heal. We drowned the
wound with boiling wine, and closed you up with a poultice of
nettle, mustard seed and moldy bread, but unless you
rest . . . ”
“I can’t.” Jon fought through the pain to sit.
“Mance will be here soon . . . thousands
of men, giants, mammoths . . . has word been
sent to Winterfell? To the king?” Sweat dripped off his brow.
He closed his eyes a moment.
Grenn gave Pyp a strange look. “He doesn’t
know.”
“Jon,” said Maester Aemon, “much and more
happened while you were away, and little of it good. Balon Greyjoy
has crowned himself again and sent his longships against the north.
Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to
all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for
their swords, and we are far off and forgotten. And
Winterfell . . . Jon, be
strong . . . Winterfell is no
more . . . ”
“No more?” Jon stared at Aemon’s white eyes
and wrinkled face. “My brothers are at Winterfell. Bran and
Rickon . . . ”
The maester touched his brow. “I am so very sorry, Jon.
Your brothers died at the command of Theon Greyjoy, after he took
Winterfell in his father’s name. When your father’s
bannermen threatened to retake it, he put the castle to the
torch.”
“Your brothers were avenged,” Grenn said.
“Bolton’s son killed all the ironmen, and it’s
said he’s flaying Theon Greyjoy inch by inch for what he
did.”
“I’m sorry, Jon.” Pyp squeezed his shoulder.
“We are all.”
Jon had never liked Theon Greyjoy, but he had been their
father’s ward. Another spasm of pain twisted up his leg, and
the next he knew he was flat on his back again.
“There’s some mistake,” he insisted. “At
Queenscrown I saw a direwolf, a grey
direwolf . . . grey . . . it
knew me.” If Bran was dead, could some part of him live on in
his wolf, as Orell lived within his eagle?
“Drink this.” Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon
drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his
brothers’ laughter. The faces above him began to blur and
fade. They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And
Winterfell . . . grey granite, oak and iron,
crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in
the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their
thrones . . . how could Winterfell be gone?
When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more,
splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had
his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him,
shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to
kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He
was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I
will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not.
“You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin
dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her
bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled
thick and red.
The mare was blown, but Jon could not let up on her. He had to
reach the Wall before the Magnar. He would have slept in the saddle
if he’d had one; lacking that, it was hard enough to stay
ahorse while awake. His wounded leg grew ever more painful. He dare
not rest long enough to let it heal. Instead he ripped it open anew
each time he mounted up.
When he crested a rise and saw the brown rutted kingsroad before
him wending its way north through hill and plain, he patted the
mare’s neck and said, “Now all we need do is follow the
road, girl. Soon the Wall.” His leg had gone as stiff as wood
by then, and fever had made him so light-headed that twice he found
himself riding in the wrong direction. Soon the Wall. He pictured his friends drinking mulled wine in
the common hall. Hobb would be with his kettles, Donal Noye at his
forge, Maester Aemon in his rooms beneath the rookery. And the Old
Bear? Sam, Grenn, Dolorous Edd, Dywen with his wooden
teeth . . . Jon could only pray that some had
escaped the Fist.
Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the
smell of her hair, the warmth of her
body . . . and the look on her face as she slit
the old man’s throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice
whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted.
He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when
he’d left Jon’s mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He
was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night’s
Watch.
He almost rode through Mole’s Town, so feverish that he
did not know where he was. Most of the village was hidden
underground, only a handful of small hovels to be seen by the light
of the waning moon. The brothel was a shed no bigger than a privy,
its red lantern creaking in the wind, a bloodshot eye peering
through the blackness. Jon dismounted at the adjoining stable,
half-stumbling from the mare’s back as he shouted two boys
awake. “I need a fresh mount, with saddle and bridle,”
he told them, in a tone that brooked no argument. They brought him
that; a skin of wine as well, and half a loaf of brown bread.
“Wake the village,” he told them. “Warn them.
There are wildlings south of the Wall. Gather your goods and make
for Castle Black.” He pulled himself onto the black gelding
they’d given him, gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg,
and rode hard for the north.
As the stars began to fade in the eastern sky, the Wall appeared
before him, rising above the trees and the morning mists. Moonlight
glimmered pale against the ice. He urged the gelding on, following
the muddy slick road until he saw the stone towers and timbered
halls of Castle Black huddled like broken toys beneath the great
cliff of ice. By then the Wall glowed pink and purple with the
first light of dawn.
No sentries challenged him as he rode past the outbuildings. No
one came forth to bar his way. Castle Black seemed as much a ruin
as Greyguard. Brown brittle weeds grew between cracks in the stones
of the courtyards. Old snow covered the roof of the Flint Barracks
and lay in drifts against the north side of Hardin’s Tower,
where Jon used to sleep before being made the Old Bear’s
steward. Fingers of soot streaked the Lord Commander’s Tower
where the smoke had boiled from the windows. Mormont had moved to
the King’s Tower after the fire, but Jon saw no lights there
either. From the ground he could not tell if there were sentries
walking the Wall seven hundred feet above, but he saw no one on the
huge switchback stair that climbed the south face of the ice like
some great wooden thunderbolt.
There was smoke rising from the chimney of the armory, though;
only a wisp, almost invisible against the grey northern sky, but it
was enough. Jon dismounted and limped toward it. Warmth poured out
the open door like the hot breath of summer. Within, one-armed
Donal Noye was working his bellows at the fire. He looked up at the
noise. “Jon Snow?”
“None else.” Despite fever, exhaustion, his leg, the
Magnar, the old man, Ygritte, Mance, despite it all, Jon smiled. It
was good to be back, good to see Noye with his big belly and
pinned-up sleeve, his jaw bristling with black stubble.
The smith released his grip on the bellows. “Your
face . . .
He had almost forgotten about his face. “A skinchanger
tried to rip out my eye.”
Noye frowned. “Scarred or smooth, it’s a face I
thought I’d seen the last of. We heard you’d gone over
to Mance Rayder.”
Jon grasped the door to stay upright. “Who told you
that?”
“Jarman Buckwell. He returned a fortnight past. His scouts
claim they saw you with their own eyes, riding along beside the
wildling column and wearing a sheepskin cloak.” Noye eyed
him. “I see the last part’s true.”
“It’s all true,” Jon confessed. “As far
as it goes.”
“Should I be pulling down a sword to gut you,
then?”
“No. I was acting on orders. Qhorin Halfhand’s last
command. Noye, where is the garrison?”
“Defending the Wall against your wildling
friends.”
“Yes, but where?”
“Everywhere. Harma Dogshead was seen at
Woodswatch-by-the-Pool, Rattleshirt at Long Barrow, the Weeper near
Icemark. All along the Wall . . . they’re
here, they’re there, they’re climbing near Queensgate,
they’re hacking at the gates of Greyguard, they’re
massing against Eastwatch . . . but one glimpse
of a black cloak and they’re gone. Next day they’re
somewhere else.”
Jon swallowed a groan. “Feints. Mance wants us to spread
ourselves thin, don’t you see?” And Bowen Marsh has
obliged him. “The gate is here. The attack is
here.”
Noye crossed the room. “Your leg is drenched in
blood.”
Jon looked down dully. It was true. His wound had opened again.
“An arrow wound . . . ”
“A wildling arrow.” It was not a question. Noye had
only one arm, but that was thick with muscle. He slid it under
Jon’s to help support him. “You’re white as milk,
and burning hot besides. I’m taking you to Aemon.”
“There’s no time. There are wildlings south of the
Wall, coming up from Queenscrown to open the gate.”
“How many?” Noye half-carried Jon out the door.
“A hundred and twenty, and well armed for wildlings.
Bronze armor, some bits of steel. How many men are left
here?”
“Forty odd,” said Donal Noye. “The crippled
and infirm, and some green boys still in training.”
“If Marsh is gone, who did he name as
castellan?”
The armorer laughed. “Ser Wynton, gods preserve him. Last
knight in the castle and all. The thing is, Stout seems to have
forgotten and no one’s been rushing to remind him. I suppose
I’m as much a commander as we have now. The meanest of the
cripples.”
That was for the good, at least. The one-armed armorer was hard
headed, tough, and well seasoned in war. Ser Wynton Stout, on the
other hand . . . well, he had been a good man
once, everyone agreed, but he had been eighty years a ranger, and
both strength and wits were gone. Once he’d fallen asleep at
supper and almost drowned in a bowl of pea soup.
“Where’s your wolf?” Noye asked as they
crossed the yard.
“Ghost. I had to leave him when I climbed the Wall.
I’d hoped he’d make his way back here.”
“I’m sorry, lad. There’s been no sign of
him.” They limped up to the maester’s door, in the long
wooden keep beneath the rookery. The armorer gave it a kick.
“Clydas!”
After a moment a stooped, round-shouldered little man in black
peered out. His small pink eyes widened at the sight of Jon.
“Lay the lad down, I’ll fetch the maester.”
A fire was burning in the hearth, and the room was almost
stuffy. The warmth made Jon sleepy. As soon as Noye eased him down
onto his back, he closed his eyes to stop the world from spinning.
He could hear the ravens quorking and complaining in the rookery
above. “Snow,” one bird was saying. “Snow, snow,
snow.” That was Sam’s doing, Jon remembered. Had
Samwell Tarly made it home safely, he wondered, or only the
birds?
Maester Aemon was not long in coming. He moved slowly, one
spotted hand on Clydas’s arm as he shuffled forward with
small careful steps. Around his thin neck his chain hung heavy,
gold and silver links glinting amongst iron, lead, tin, and other
base metals. “Jon Snow,” he said, “you must tell
me all you’ve seen and done when you are stronger. Donal, put
a kettle of wine on the fire, and my irons as well. I will want
them red-hot. Clydas, I shall need that good sharp knife of
yours.” The maester was more than a hundred years old;
shrunken, frail, hairless, and quite blind. But if his milky eyes
saw nothing, his wits were still as sharp as they had ever
been.
“There are wildlings coming,” Jon told him, as
Clydas ran a blade up the leg of his breeches, slicing the heavy
black cloth, crusty with old blood and sodden with new. “From
the south. We climbed the
Wall . . . ”
Maester Aemon gave Jon’s crude bandage a sniff when Clydas
cut it away. “We?”
“I was with them. Qhorin Halfhand commanded me to join
them.” Jon winced as the maester’s finger explored his
wound, poking and prodding. “The Magnar of Thenn—aaaaah,
that hurts.” He clenched his teeth. “Where is the Old
Bear?”
“Jon . . . it grieves me to say, but
Lord Commander Mormont was murdered at Craster’s Keep, at the
hands of his Sworn Brothers.”
“Bro . . . our own men?”
Aemon’s words hurt a hundred times worse than his fingers.
Jon remembered the Old Bear as last he’d seen him, standing
before his tent with his raven on his arm croaking for corn.
Mormont gone? He had feared it ever since he’d seen the
aftermath of battle on the Fist, yet it was no less a blow.
“Who was it? Who turned on him?”
“Garth of Oldtown, Ollo Lophand,
Dirk . . . thieves, cowards and killers, the
lot of them. We should have seen it coming. The Watch is not what
it was. Too few honest men to keep the rogues in line.” Donal
Noye turned the maester’s blades in the fire. “A dozen
true men made it back. Dolorous Edd, Giant, your friend the
Aurochs. We had the tale from them.” Only a dozen? Two hundred men had left Castle Black with Lord
Commander Mormont, two hundred of the Watch’s best.
“Does this mean Marsh is Lord Commander, then?” The Old
Pomegranate was amiable, and a diligent First Steward, but he was
woefully ill-suited to face a wildling host.
“For the nonce, until we can hold a choosing,” said
Maester Aemon. “Clydas, bring me the flask.” A choosing. With Qhorin Halfhand and Ser Jaremy Rykker both dead
and Ben Stark still missing, who was there? Not Bowen Marsh or Ser
Wynton Stout, that was certain. Had Thoren Smallwood survived the
Fist, or Ser Ottyn Wythers? No, it will be Cotter Pyke or Ser Denys
Mallister. Which, though? The commanders at the Shadow Tower and
Eastwatch were good men, but very different; Ser Denys courtly and
cautious, as chivalrous as he was elderly, Pyke younger,
bastard-born, rough-tongued, and bold to a fault. Worse, the two
men despised each other. The Old Bear had always kept them far
apart, at opposite ends of the Wall. The Mallisters had a bone-deep
mistrust of the ironborn, Jon knew.
A stab of pain reminded him of his own woes. The maester
squeezed his hand. “Clydas is bringing milk of the
poppy.”
Jon tried to rise. “I don’t need—”
“You do,” Aemon said firmly. “This will
hurt.”
Donal Noye crossed the room and shoved Jon back onto his back.
“Be still, or I’ll tie you down.” Even with only
one arm, the smith handled him as if he were a child. Clydas
returned with a green flask and a rounded stone cup. Maester Aemon
poured it full. “Drink this.”
Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood
mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not
to retch it back up.
Clydas brought a basin of warm water, and Maester Aemon washed
the pus and blood from his wound. Gentle as he was, even the
lightest touch made Jon want to scream. “The Magnar’s
men are disciplined, and they have bronze armor,” he told
them. Talking helped keep his mind off his leg.
“The Magnar’s a lord on Skagos,” Noye said.
“There were Skagossons at Eastwatch when I first came to the
Wall, I remember hearing them talk of him.”
“Jon was using the word in its older sense, I
think,” Maester Aemon said, “not as a family name but
as a title. It derives from the Old Tongue.”
“It means lord,” Jon agreed. “Styr is the
Magnar of some place called Thenn, in the far north of the
Frostfangs. He has a hundred of his own men, and a score of raiders
who know the Gift almost as well as we do. Mance never found the
horn, though, that’s something. The Horn of Winter,
that’s what he was digging for up along the
Milkwater.”
Maester Aemon paused, washcloth in hand. “The Horn of
Winter is an ancient legend. Does the King-beyond-the-Wall truly
believe that such a thing exists?”
“They all do,” said Jon. “Ygritte said they
opened a hundred graves . . . graves of kings
and heroes, all over the valley of the Milkwater, but they
never . . . ”
“Who is Ygritte?” Donal Noye asked pointedly.
“A woman of the free folk.” How could he explain
Ygritte to them? She’s warm and smart and funny and she can
kiss a man or slit his throat. “She’s with Styr, but
she’s not . . . she’s young, only a
girl, in truth, wild, but she . . . ” She
killed an old man for building a fire. His tongue felt thick and
clumsy. The milk of the poppy was clouding his wits. “I broke
my vows with her. I never meant to,
but . . . ” It was wrong. Wrong to love
her, wrong to leave her . . . “I
wasn’t strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with
them, watch, I must not balk, I . . . ” His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool.
Maester Aemon sniffed Jon’s wound again. Then he put the
bloody cloth back in the basin and said, “Donal, the hot
knife, if you please. I shall need you to hold him
still.” I will not scream, Jon told himself when he saw the blade
glowing red hot. But he broke that vow as well. Donal Noye held him
down, while Clydas helped guide the maester’s hand. Jon did
not move, except to pound his fist against the table, again and
again and again. The pain was so huge he felt small and weak and
helpless inside it, a child whimpering in the dark. Ygritte, he
thought, when the stench of burning flesh was in his nose and his
own shriek echoing in her ears. Ygritte, I had to. For half a
heartbeat the agony started to ebb. But then the iron touched him
once again, and he fainted.
When his eyelids fluttered open, he was wrapped in thick wool
and floating. He could not seem to move, but that did not matter.
For a time he dreamed that Ygritte was with him, tending him with
gentle hands. Finally he closed his eyes and slept.
The next waking was not so gentle. The room was dark, but under
the blankets the pain was back, a throbbing in his leg that turned
into a hot knife at the least motion. Jon learned that the hard way
when he tried to see if he still had a leg. Gasping, he swallowed a
scream and made another fist.
“Jon?” A candle appeared, and a well-remembered face
was looking down on him, big ears and all. “You
shouldn’t move.”
“Pyp?” Jon reached up, and the other boy clasped his
hand and gave it a squeeze. “I thought you’d
gone . . . ”
“ . . . with the Old Pomegranate? No,
he thinks I’m too small and green. Grenn’s here
too.”
“I’m here too.” Grenn stepped to the other
side of the bed. “I fell asleep.”
Jon’s throat was dry. “Water,” he gasped.
Grenn brought it, and held it to his lips. “I saw the
Fist,” he said, after a long swallow. “The blood, and
the dead horses . . . Noye said a dozen made it
back . . . who?”
“Dywen did. Giant, Dolorous Edd, Sweet Donnel Hill, Ulmer,
Left Hand Lew, Garth Greyfeather. Four or five more. Me.”
“Sam?”
Grenn looked away. “He killed one of the Others, Jon. I
saw it. He stabbed him with that dragonglass knife you made him,
and we started calling him Sam the Slayer. He hated
that.” Sam the Slayer. Jon could hardly imagine a less likely warrior
than Sam Tarly. “What happened to him?”
“We left him.” Grenn sounded miserable. “I
shook him and screamed at him, even slapped his face. Giant tried
to drag him to his feet, but he was too heavy. Remember in training
how he’d curl up on the ground and lie there whimpering? At
Craster’s he wouldn’t even whimper. Dirk and Ollo were
tearing up the walls looking for food, Garth and Garth were
fighting, some of the others were raping Craster’s wives.
Dolorous Edd figured Dirk’s bunch would kill all the loyal
men to keep us from telling what they’d done, and they had us
two to one. We left Sam with the Old Bear. He wouldn’t move,
Jon.” You were his brother, he almost said. How could you leave him
amongst wildlings and murderers?
“He might still be alive,” said Pyp. “He might
surprise us all and come riding up tomorrow.”
“With Mance Rayder’s head, aye.” Grenn was
trying to sound cheerful, Jon could tell. “Sam the
Slayer!”
Jon tried to sit again. It was as much a mistake as the first
time. He cried out, cursing.
“Grenn, go wake Maester Aemon,” said Pyp.
“Tell him Jon needs more milk of the poppy.” Yes, Jon thought. “No,” he said. “The
Magnar . . . ”
“We know,” said Pyp. “The sentries on the Wall
have been told to keep one eye on the south, and Donal Noye
dispatched some men to Weatherback Ridge to watch the kingsroad. Maester Aemon’s
sent birds to Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower too.”
Maester Aemon shuffled to the bedside, one hand on Grenn’s
shoulder. “Jon, be gentle with yourself. It is good that you
have woken, but you must give yourself time to heal. We drowned the
wound with boiling wine, and closed you up with a poultice of
nettle, mustard seed and moldy bread, but unless you
rest . . . ”
“I can’t.” Jon fought through the pain to sit.
“Mance will be here soon . . . thousands
of men, giants, mammoths . . . has word been
sent to Winterfell? To the king?” Sweat dripped off his brow.
He closed his eyes a moment.
Grenn gave Pyp a strange look. “He doesn’t
know.”
“Jon,” said Maester Aemon, “much and more
happened while you were away, and little of it good. Balon Greyjoy
has crowned himself again and sent his longships against the north.
Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to
all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for
their swords, and we are far off and forgotten. And
Winterfell . . . Jon, be
strong . . . Winterfell is no
more . . . ”
“No more?” Jon stared at Aemon’s white eyes
and wrinkled face. “My brothers are at Winterfell. Bran and
Rickon . . . ”
The maester touched his brow. “I am so very sorry, Jon.
Your brothers died at the command of Theon Greyjoy, after he took
Winterfell in his father’s name. When your father’s
bannermen threatened to retake it, he put the castle to the
torch.”
“Your brothers were avenged,” Grenn said.
“Bolton’s son killed all the ironmen, and it’s
said he’s flaying Theon Greyjoy inch by inch for what he
did.”
“I’m sorry, Jon.” Pyp squeezed his shoulder.
“We are all.”
Jon had never liked Theon Greyjoy, but he had been their
father’s ward. Another spasm of pain twisted up his leg, and
the next he knew he was flat on his back again.
“There’s some mistake,” he insisted. “At
Queenscrown I saw a direwolf, a grey
direwolf . . . grey . . . it
knew me.” If Bran was dead, could some part of him live on in
his wolf, as Orell lived within his eagle?
“Drink this.” Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon
drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his
brothers’ laughter. The faces above him began to blur and
fade. They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And
Winterfell . . . grey granite, oak and iron,
crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in
the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their
thrones . . . how could Winterfell be gone?
When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more,
splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had
his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him,
shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to
kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He
was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I
will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not.
“You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin
dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her
bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled
thick and red.