The grant that the king had presented him for signature was on the table beneath a silver
drinking cup that had once been Donal Noye's. The one-armed smith had left few personal effects: the
cup, six pennies and a copper star, a niello brooch with a broken clasp, a musty brocade doublet that
bore the stag of Storm's End. His treasures were his tools, and the swords and knives he made.
His life
was at the forge. Jon moved the cup aside and read the parchment once again. If I put my seal to this, I
will forever be remembered as the lord commander who gave away the Wall, he thought, but if I should
refuse …
Stannis Baratheon was proving to be a prickly guest, and a restless one. He had ridden down the
kingsroad almost as far as Queenscrown, prowled through the empty hovels of Mole's Town, inspected
the ruined forts at Queensgate and Oakenshield. Each night he walked atop the Wall with Lady
Melisandre, and during the days he visited the stockades, picking captives out for the red woman to
question. He does not like to be balked. This would not be a pleasant morning, Jon feared.
From the armory came a clatter of shields and swords, as the latest lot of boys and raw recruits
armed themselves. He could hear the voice of Iron Emmett telling them to be quick about it. Cotter Pyke
had not been pleased to lose him, but the young ranger had a gift for training men. He loves to fight, and
he'll teach his boys to love it too. Or so he hoped.
Jon's cloak hung on a peg by the door, his sword belt on another. He donned them both and
made his way to the armory. The rug where Ghost slept was empty, he saw. Two guardsmen stood
inside the doors, clad in black cloaks and iron halfhelms, spears in their hands. "Will m'lord be wanting a
tail?" asked Garse.
"I think I can find the King's Tower by myself." Jon hated having guards trailing after him
everywhere he went. It made him feel like a mother duck leading a procession of ducklings.
Iron Emmett's lads were well at it in the yard, blunted swords slamming into shields and ringing
against one another. Jon stopped to watch a moment as Horse pressed Hop-Robin back toward the well.
Horse had the makings of a good fighter, he decided. He was strong and getting stronger, and his
instincts were sound. Hop-Robin was another tale. His clubfoot was bad enough, but he was afraid of
getting hit as well. Perhaps we can make a steward of him. The fight ended abruptly, with Hop-Robin on
the ground.
"Well fought," Jon said to Horse, "but you drop your shield too low when pressing an attack. You
will want to correct that, or it is like to get you killed."
"Yes, m'lord. I'll keep it higher next time." Horse pulled Hop-Robin to his feet, and the smaller
boy made a clumsy bow.
A few of Stannis's knights were sparring on the far side of the yard. King's men in one corner and
queen's men in another, Jon did not fail to note, but only a few. It's too cold for most of them. As he
strode past them, a booming voice called after him. "BOY! YOU THERE! BOY!"
Boy was not the worst of the things that Jon Snow had been called since being chosen lord
commander. He ignored it.
"Snow," the voice insisted, "Lord Commander."
This time he stopped. "Ser?"
The knight overtopped him by six inches. "A man who bears Valyrian steel should use it for more
than scratching his arse."
Jon had seen this one about the castle—a knight of great renown, to hear him tell it. During the
battle beneath the Wall, Ser Godry Farring had slain a fleeing giant, pounding after him on horseback
and driving a lance through his back, then dismounting to hack off the creature's pitiful small head. The
queen's men had taken to calling him Godry the Giantslayer.
Jon remembered Ygritte, crying. I am the last of the giants. "I use Longclaw when I must, ser."
"How well, though?" Ser Godry drew his own blade. "Show us. I promise not to hurt you, lad."
How kind of you. "Some other time, ser. I fear that I have other duties just now."
"You fear. I see that." Ser Godry grinned at his friends. "He fears," he repeated, for the slow
ones.
"You will excuse me." Jon showed them his back.
Castle Black seemed a bleak and forlorn place in the pale dawn light. My command, Jon Snow
reflected ruefully, as much a ruin as it is a strong-hold. The Lord Commander's Tower was a shell, the
Common Hall a pile of blackened timbers, and Hardin's Tower looked as if the next gust of wind would
knock it over … though it had looked that way for years. Behind them rose the Wall: immense,
forbidding, frigid, acrawl with builders pushing up a new switchback stair to join the remnants of the old.
They worked from dawn to dusk. Without the stair, there was no way to reach the top of the Wall save
by winch. That would not serve if the wildlings should attack again.
Above the King's Tower the great golden battle standard of House Baratheon cracked like a whip
from the roof where Jon Snow had prowled with bow in hand not long ago, slaying Thenns and free folk
beside Satin and Deaf Dick Follard. Two queen's men stood shivering on the steps, their hands tucked up
into their armpits and their spears leaning against the door. "Those cloth gloves will never serve," Jon
told them. "See Bowen Marsh on the morrow, and he'll give you each a pair of leather gloves lined with
fur."
"We will, m'lord, and thank you," said the older guard.
"That's if our bloody hands aren't froze off," the younger added, his breath a pale mist. "I used
to think that it got cold up in the Dornish Marches. What did I know?"
Nothing, thought Jon Snow, the same as me.
Halfway up the winding steps, he came upon Samwell Tarly, headed down.
"Are you coming
from the king?" Jon asked him.
"Maester Aemon sent me with a letter."
"I see." Some lords trusted their maesters to read their letters and convey the contents, but
Stannis insisted on breaking the seals himself. "How did Stannis take it?"
"Not happily, by his face." Sam dropped his voice to a whisper. "I am not supposed to speak of
it."
"Then don't." Jon wondered which of his father's bannermen had refused King Stannis homage
this time. He was quick enough to spread the word when Karhold declared for him. "How are you and
your longbow getting on?"
"I found a good book about archery." Sam frowned. "Doing it is harder than reading about it,
though. I get blisters."
"Keep at it. We may need your bow on the Wall if the Others turn up some dark night."
"Oh, I hope not."
More guards stood outside the king's solar. "No arms are allowed in His Grace's presence, my lord," their serjeant said. "I'll need that sword. Your knives as well." It would do no good to protest, Jon
knew. He handed them his weaponry.
Within the solar the air was warm. Lady Melisandre was seated near the fire, her ruby
glimmering against the pale skin of her throat. Ygritte had been kissed by fire; the red priestess was fire,
and her hair was blood and flame.
Stannis stood behind the rough-hewn table where the Old Bear had
once been wont to sit and take his meals. Covering the table was a large map of the north, painted on a
ragged piece of hide. A tallow candle weighed down one end of it, a steel gauntlet the other.
The king wore lambswool breeches and a quilted doublet, yet somehow he looked as stiff and
uncomfortable as if he had been clad in plate and mail. His skin was pale leather, his beard cropped so
short that it might have been painted on. A fringe about his temples was all that remained of his black
hair. In his hand was a parchment with a broken seal of dark green wax.
Jon took a knee. The king frowned at him, and rattled the parchment angrily. "Rise. Tell me, who
is Lyanna Mormont?"
"One of Lady Maege's daughters, Sire. The youngest. She was named for my lord father's sister."
"To curry your lord father's favor, I don't doubt. I know how that game is played. How old is this
wretched girl child?"
Jon had to think a moment. "Ten. Or near enough to make no matter. Might I know how she has
offended Your Grace?"
Stannis read from the letter. "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name
is STARK. A girl of ten, you say, and she presumes to scold her lawful king." His close-cropped beard lay like a shadow over his hollow cheeks. "See that you keep these tidings to yourself, Lord Snow. Karhold is
with me, that is all the men need know. I will not have your brothers trading tales of how this child spat
on me."
"As you command, Sire." Maege Mormont had ridden south with Robb, Jon knew. Her eldest
daughter had joined the Young Wolf's host as well. Even if both of them had died, however, Lady Maege
had other daughters, some with children of their own. Had they gone with Robb as well? Surely Lady
Maege would have left at least one of the older girls behind as castellan.
He did not understand why
Lyanna should be writing Stannis, and could not help but wonder if the girl's answer might have been
different if the letter had been sealed with a direwolf instead of a crowned stag, and signed by Jon Stark,
Lord of Winterfell. It is too late for such misgivings. You made your choice.
"Two score ravens were sent out," the king complained, "yet we get no response but silence and
defiance. Homage is the duty every leal subject owes his king. Yet your father's bannermen all turn their
back on me, save the Karstarks. Is Arnolf Karstark the only man of honor in the north?"
Arnolf Karstark was the late Lord Rickard's uncle. He had been made the castellan of Karhold
when his nephew and his sons went south with Robb, and he had been the first to respond to King
Stannis's call for homage, with a raven declaring his allegiance. The Karstarks have no other choice, Jon
might have said. Rickard Karstark had betrayed the direwolf and spilled the blood of lions. The stag was
Karhold's only hope. "In times as confused as these, even men of honor must wonder where their duty
lies. Your Grace is not the only king in the realm demanding homage."
Lady Melisandre stirred. "Tell me, Lord Snow … where were these other kings when the wild
people stormed your Wall?"
"A thousand leagues away and deaf to our need," Jon replied. "I have not forgotten that, my
lady. Nor will I. But my father's bannermen have wives and children to protect, and smallfolk who will
die should they choose wrongly. His Grace asks much of them. Give them time, and you will have your
answers."
"Answers such as this?" Stannis crushed Lyanna's letter in his fist.