The Song Of Ice and Fire (711 page)

Outside the armory, Mully and the Flea stood shivering at guard. “Shouldn’t you be inside, out of this wind?” Jon asked.

“That’d be sweet, m’lord,” said Fulk the Flea, “but your wolf’s in no mood for company today.”

Mully agreed. “He tried to take a bite o’ me, he did.”

“Ghost?”
Jon was shocked.

“Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never seen him like this, m’lord. All wild-like, I mean.”

He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he slipped inside the doors. The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again. “Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost.
Down.
” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth.
It’s that bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink
.

Mormont’s raven seemed agitated too.
“Snow,”
the bird kept screaming.
“Snow, snow, snow.”
Jon shooed him off, had Satin start a fire, then sent him out after Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck. “Bring a flagon of mulled wine as well.”

“Three cups, m’lord?”

“Six. Mully and the Flea look in need of something warm. So will you.”

When Satin left, Jon seated himself and had another look at the maps
of the lands north of the Wall. The fastest way to Hardhome was along the coast … from Eastwatch. The woods were thinner near the sea, the terrain mostly flatlands, rolling hills, and salt marshes. And when the autumn storms came howling, the coast got sleet and hail and freezing rain rather than snow.
The giants are at Eastwatch, and Leathers says that some will help
. From Castle Black the way was more difficult, right through the heart of the haunted forest.
If the snow is this deep at the Wall, how much worse up there?

Marsh entered snuffling, Yarwyck dour. “Another storm,” the First Builder announced. “How are we to work in this? I need more builders.”

“Use the free folk,” Jon said.

Yarwyck shook his head. “More trouble than they’re worth, that lot. Sloppy, careless, lazy … some good woodworkers here and there, I’ll not deny it, but hardly a mason amongst them, and nary a smith. Strong backs, might be, but they won’t do as they are told. And us with all these ruins to turn back into forts. Can’t be done, my lord. I tell you true. It can’t be done.”

“It will be done,” said Jon, “or they will live in ruins.”

A lord needed men about him he could rely upon for honest counsel. Marsh and Yarwyck were no lickspittles, and that was to the good … but they were seldom any
help
either. More and more, he found he knew what they would say before he asked them.

Especially when it concerned the free folk, where their disapproval went bone deep. When Jon settled Stonedoor on Soren Shieldbreaker, Yarwyck complained that it was too isolated. How could they know what mischief Soren might get up to, off in those hills? When he conferred Oakenshield on Tormund Giantsbane and Queensgate on Morna White Mask, Marsh pointed out that Castle Black would now have foes on either side who could easily cut them off from the rest of the Wall. As for Borroq, Othell Yarwyck claimed the woods north of Stonedoor were full of wild boars. Who was to say the skinchanger would not make his own pig army?

Hoarfrost Hill and Rimegate still lacked garrisons, so Jon had asked their views on which of the remaining wildling chiefs and war lords might be best suited to hold them. “We have Brogg, Gavin the Trader, the Great Walrus … Howd Wanderer walks alone, Tormund says, but there’s still Harle the Huntsman, Harle the Handsome, Blind Doss … Ygon Oldfather commands a following, but most are his owns sons and grandsons. He has eighteen wives, half of them stolen on raids. Which of these …”

“None,” Bowen Marsh had said. “I know all these men by their deeds. We should be fitting them for nooses, not giving them our castles.”

“Aye,” Othell Yarwyck had agreed. “Bad and worse and worst makes a beggar’s choice. My lord had as well present us with a pack of wolves and ask which we’d like to tear our throats out.”

It was the same again with Hardhome. Satin poured whilst Jon told them of his audience with the queen. Marsh listened attentively, ignoring the mulled wine, whilst Yarwyck drank one cup and then another. But no sooner had Jon finished than the Lord Steward said, “Her Grace is wise. Let them die.”

Jon sat back. “Is that the only counsel you can offer, my lord? Tormund is bringing eighty men. How many should we send? Shall we call upon the giants? The spearwives at Long Barrow? If we have women with us, it may put Mother Mole’s people at ease.”

“Send women, then. Send giants. Send suckling babes. Is that what my lord wishes to hear?” Bowen Marsh rubbed at the scar he had won at the Bridge of Skulls. “Send them all. The more we lose, the fewer mouths we’ll have to feed.”

Yarwyck was no more helpful. “If the wildlings at Hardhome need saving, let the wildlings here go save them. Tormund knows the way to Hardhome. To hear him talk, he can save them all himself with his huge member.”

This was pointless
, Jon thought.
Pointless, fruitless, hopeless
. “Thank you for your counsel, my lords.”

Satin helped them back into their cloaks. As they walked through the armory, Ghost sniffed at them, his tail upraised and bristling.
My brothers
. The Night’s Watch needed leaders with the wisdom of Maester Aemon, the learning of Samwell Tarly, the courage of Qhorin Halfhand, the stubborn strength of the Old Bear, the compassion of Donal Noye. What it had instead was them.

The snow was falling heavily outside. “Wind’s from the south,” Yarwyck observed. “It’s blowing the snow right up against the Wall. See?”

He was right. The switchback stair was buried almost to the first landing, Jon saw, and the wooden doors of the ice cells and storerooms had vanished behind a wall of white. “How many men do we have in ice cells?” he asked Bowen Marsh.

“Four living men. Two dead ones.”

The corpses
. Jon had almost forgotten them. He had hoped to learn something from the bodies they’d brought back from the weirwood grove, but the dead men had stubbornly remained dead. “We need to dig those cells out.”

“Ten stewards and ten spades should do it,” said Marsh.

“Use Wun Wun too.”

“As you command.”

Ten stewards and one giant made short work of the drifts, but even when the doors were clear again, Jon was not satisfied. “Those cells will be buried again by morning. We’d best move the prisoners before they smother.”

“Karstark too, m’lord?” asked Fulk the Flea. “Can’t we just leave that one shivering till spring?”

“Would that we could.” Cregan Karstark had taken to howling in the night of late, and throwing frozen feces at whoever came to feed him. That had not made him beloved of his guards. “Take him to the Lord Commander’s Tower. The undervault should hold him.” Though partly collapsed, the Old Bear’s former seat would be warmer than the ice cells. Its subcellars were largely intact.

Cregan kicked at the guards when they came through the door, twisted and shoved when they grabbed him, even tried to bite them. But the cold had weakened him, and Jon’s men were bigger, younger, and stronger. They hauled him out, still struggling, and dragged him through thigh-high snow to his new home.

“What would the lord commander like us to do with his corpses?” asked Marsh when the living men had been moved.

“Leave them.” If the storm entombed them, well and good. He would need to burn them eventually, no doubt, but for the nonce they were bound with iron chains inside their cells. That, and being dead, should suffice to hold them harmless.

Tormund Giantsbane timed his arrival perfectly, thundering up with his warriors when all the shoveling was done. Only fifty seemed to have turned up, not the eighty Toregg promised Leathers, but Tormund was not called Tall-Talker for naught. The wildling arrived red-faced, shouting for a horn of ale and something hot to eat. He had ice in his beard and more crusting his mustache.

Someone had already told the Thunderfist about Gerrick Kingsblood and his new style. “King o’ the Wildlings?” Tormund roared. “Har! King o’ My Hairy Butt Crack, more like.”

“He has a regal look to him,” Jon said.

“He has a little red cock to go with all that red hair, that’s what he has. Raymund Redbeard and his sons died at Long Lake, thanks to your bloody Starks and the Drunken Giant. Not the little brother. Ever wonder why they called him the Red Raven?” Tormund’s mouth split in a gap-toothed grin. “First to fly the battle, he was. ’Twas a song about it, after. The singer
had to find a rhyme for
craven
, so …” He wiped his nose. “If your queen’s knights want those girls o’ his, they’re welcome to them.”

“Girls,”
squawked Mormont’s raven.
“Girls, girls.”

That set Tormund to laughing all over again. “Now there’s a bird with sense. How much do you want for him, Snow? I gave you a son, the least you could do is give me the bloody bird.”

“I would,” said Jon, “but like as not you’d eat him.”

Tormund roared at that as well.
“Eat,”
the raven said darkly, flapping its black wings.
“Corn? Corn? Corn?”

“We need to talk about the ranging,” said Jon. “I want us to be of one mind at the Shieldhall, we must—” He broke off when Mully poked his nose inside the door, grim-faced, to announce that Clydas had brought a letter.

“Tell him to leave it with you. I will read it later.”

“As you say, m’lord, only … Clydas don’t look his proper self … he’s more white than pink, if you get my meaning … and he’s shaking.”

“Dark wings, dark words,” muttered Tormund. “Isn’t that what you kneelers say?”

“We say,
Bleed a cold but feast a fever
too,” Jon told him. “We say,
Never drink with Dornishmen when the moon is full
. We say a lot of things.”

Mully added his two groats. “My old grandmother always used to say,
Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever
.”

“I think that’s sufficient wisdom for the moment,” said Jon Snow. “Show Clydas in if you would be so good.”

Mully had not been wrong; the old steward
was
trembling, his face as pale as the snows outside. “I am being foolish, Lord Commander, but … this letter frightens me. See here?”

Bastard
, was the only word written outside the scroll. No
Lord Snow
or
Jon Snow
or
Lord Commander
. Simply
Bastard
. And the letter was sealed with a smear of hard pink wax. “You were right to come at once,” Jon said.
You were right to be afraid
. He cracked the seal, flattened the parchment, and read.

Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore
.

Your false king’s friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and
so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me
.

I will have my bride back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell
.

I want my bride back. I want the false king’s queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want his wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard’s heart and eat it
.

It was signed,

Ramsay Bolton
,
Trueborn Lord of Winterfell
.

“Snow?” said Tormund Giantsbane. “You look like your father’s bloody head just rolled out o’ that paper.”

Jon Snow did not answer at once. “Mully, help Clydas back to his chambers. The night is dark, and the paths will be slippery with snow. Satin, go with them.” He handed Tormund Giantsbane the letter. “Here, see for yourself.”

The wildling gave the letter a dubious look and handed it right back. “Feels nasty … but Tormund Thunderfist had better things to do than learn to make papers talk at him. They never have any good to say, now do they?”

“Not often,” Jon Snow admitted.
Dark wings, dark words
. Perhaps there was more truth to those wise old sayings than he’d known. “It was sent by Ramsay Snow. I’ll read you what he wrote.”

When he was done, Tormund whistled. “Har. That’s buggered, and no mistake. What was that about Mance? Has him in a cage, does he? How, when hundreds saw your red witch burn the man?”

That was Rattleshirt
, Jon almost said.
That was sorcery. A glamor, she called it
. “Melisandre … 
look to the skies
, she said.” He set the letter
down. “A raven in a storm. She saw this coming.”
When you have your answers, send to me
.

“Might be all a skin o’ lies.” Tormund scratched under his beard. “If I had me a nice goose quill and a pot o’ maester’s ink, I could write down that me member was long and thick as me arm, wouldn’t make it so.”

“He has Lightbringer. He talks of heads upon the walls of Winterfell. He knows about the spearwives and their number.”
He knows about Mance Rayder
. “No. There is truth in there.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong. What do you mean to do, crow?”

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand.
The Night’s Watch takes no part
. He closed his fist and opened it again.
What you propose is nothing less than treason
. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair.
Kill the boy and let the man be born
. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon’s breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself.
You know nothing, Jon Snow
. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest.
I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …