A Game of Thrones (91 page)

“Ser Endrew Tarth, a good man. He’s on his way from the Shadow Tower to assume the duties of master-at-arms. Ser Alliser Thorne left yestermorn for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.”

Jon lowered the sword. “Why?” he said, stupidly.

Mormont snorted. “Because I
sent
him, why do you think? He’s bringing the hand your Ghost tore off the end of Jafer Flowers’s wrist. I have commanded him to take ship to King’s Landing and lay it before this boy king.
That
should get young Joffrey’s attention, I’d think… and Ser Alliser’s a knight, highborn, anointed, with old friends at court, altogether harder to ignore than a glorified crow.”

“
Crow
.” Jon thought the raven sounded faintly indignant.

“As well,” the Lord Commander continued, ignoring the bird’s protest, “it puts a thousand leagues twixt him and you without it seeming a rebuke.” He jabbed a finger up at Jon’s face. “And don’t think this means I approve of that nonsense in the common hall. Valor makes up for a fair amount of folly, but you’re not a boy anymore, however many years you’ve seen. That’s a man’s sword you have there, and it will take a man to wield her. I’ll expect you to act the part, henceforth.”

“Yes, my lord.” Jon slid the sword back into the silver-banded scabbard. If not the blade he would have chosen, it was nonetheless a noble gift, and freeing him from Alliser Thorne’s malignance was nobler still.

The Old Bear scratched at his chin. “I had forgotten how much a new beard itches,” he said. “Well, no help for that. Is that hand of yours healed enough to resume your duties?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. The night will be cold, I’ll want hot spice wine. Find me a flagon of red, not too sour, and don’t skimp on the spices. And tell Hobb that if he sends me boiled mutton again I’m like to boil
him
. That last haunch was grey. Even the bird wouldn’t touch it.” He stroked the raven’s head with his thumb, and the bird made a contented
quork
ing sound. “Away with you. I’ve work to do.”

The guards smiled at him from their niches as he wound his way down the turret stair, carrying the sword in his good hand. “Sweet steel,” one man said. “You earned that, Snow,” another told him. Jon made himself smile back at them, but his heart was not in it. He knew he should be pleased, yet he did not feel it. His hand ached, and the taste of anger was in his mouth, though he could not have said who he was angry with or why.

A half dozen of his friends were lurking outside when he left the King’s Tower, where Lord Commander Mormont now made his residence. They’d hung a target on the granary doors, so they could seem to be honing their skills as archers, but he knew lurkers when he saw them. No sooner did he emerge than Pyp called out, “Well, come about, let’s have a look.”

“At what?” Jon said.

Toad sidled close. “Your rosy butt cheeks, what else?”

“The sword,” Grenn stated. “We want to see the sword.”

Jon raked them with an accusing look. “You knew.”

Pyp grinned. “We’re not all as dumb as Grenn.”

“You are so,” insisted Grenn. “You’re dumber.”

Halder gave an apologetic shrug. “I helped Pate carve the stone for the pommel,” the builder said, “and your friend Sam bought the garnets in Mole’s Town.”

“We knew even before that, though,” Grenn said. “Rudge has been helping Donal Noye in the forge. He was there when the Old Bear brought him the burnt blade.”

“The
sword
!” Matt insisted. The others took up the chant. “The
sword
, the
sword
, the
sword
.”

Jon unsheathed Longclaw and showed it to them, turning it this way and that so they could admire it. The bastard blade glittered in the pale sunlight, dark and deadly. “Valyrian steel,” he declared solemnly, trying to sound as pleased and proud as he ought to have felt.

“I heard of a man who had a razor made of Valyrian steel,” declared Toad. “He cut his head off trying to shave.”

Pyp grinned. “The Night’s Watch is thousands of years old,” he said, “but I’ll wager Lord Snow’s the first brother ever honored for burning down the Lord Commander’s Tower.”

The others laughed, and even Jon had to smile. The fire he’d started had not, in truth, burned down that formidable stone tower, but it had done a fair job of gutting the interior of the top two floors, where the Old Bear had his chambers. No one seemed to mind that very much, since it had also destroyed Othor’s murderous corpse.

The other wight, the one-handed thing that had once been a ranger named Jafer Flowers, had also been destroyed, cut near to pieces by a dozen swords… but not before it had slain Ser Jaremy Rykker and four other men. Ser Jaremy had finished the job of hacking its head off, yet had died all the same when the headless corpse pulled his own dagger from its sheath and buried it in his bowels. Strength and courage did not avail much against foemen who would not fall because they were already dead; even arms and armor offered small protection.

That grim thought soured Jon’s fragile mood. “I need to see Hobb about the Old Bear’s supper,” he announced brusquely, sliding Longclaw back into its scabbard. His friends meant well, but they did not understand. It was not their fault, truly; they had not had to face Othor, they had not seen the pale glow of those dead blue eyes, had not felt the cold of those dead black fingers. Nor did they know of the fighting in the riverlands. How could they hope to comprehend? He turned away from them abruptly and strode off, sullen. Pyp called after him, but Jon paid him no mind.

They had moved him back to his old cell in tumbledown Hardin’s Tower after the fire, and it was there he returned. Ghost was curled up asleep beside the door, but he lifted his head at the sound of Jon’s boots. The direwolf’s red eyes were darker than garnets and wiser than men. Jon knelt, scratched his ear, and showed him the pommel of the sword. “Look. It’s you.”

Ghost sniffed at his carved stone likeness and tried a lick. Jon smiled. “You’re the one deserves an honor,” he told the wolf… and suddenly he found himself remembering how he’d found him, that day in the late summer snow. They had been riding off with the other pups, but Jon had heard a noise and turned back, and there he was, white fur almost invisible against the drifts.
He was all alone
, he thought,
apart from the others in the litter. He was different, so they drove him out
.

“Jon?” He looked up. Samwell Tarly stood rocking nervously on his heels. His cheeks were red, and he was wrapped in a heavy fur cloak that made him look ready for hibernation.

“Sam.” Jon stood. “What is it? Do you want to see the sword?” If the others had known, no doubt Sam did too.

The fat boy shook his head. “I was heir to my father’s blade once,” he said mournfully. “Heartsbane. Lord Randyll let me hold it a few times, but it always scared me. It was Valyrian steel, beautiful but so sharp I was afraid I’d hurt one of my sisters. Dickon will have it now.” He wiped sweaty hands on his cloak. “I ah… Maester Aemon wants to see you.”

It was not time for his bandages to be changed. Jon frowned suspiciously. “Why?” he demanded. Sam looked miserable. That was answer enough. “You told him, didn’t you?” Jon said angrily. “You told him that you told me.”

“I… he… Jon, I didn’t want to… he asked… I mean I think he
knew
, he sees things no one else sees…”

“He’s
blind
,” Jon pointed out forcefully, disgusted. “I can find the way myself.” He left Sam standing there, openmouthed and quivering.

He found Maester Aemon up in the rookery, feeding the ravens. Clydas was with him, carrying a bucket of chopped meat as they shuffled from cage to cage. “Sam said you wanted me?”

The maester nodded. “I did indeed. Clydas, give Jon the bucket. Perhaps he will be kind enough to assist me.” The hunched, pink-eyed brother handed Jon the bucket and scurried down the ladder. “Toss the meat into the cages,” Aemon instructed him. “The birds will do the rest. “

Jon shifted the bucket to his right hand and thrust his left down into the bloody bits. The ravens began to scream noisily and fly at the bars, beating at the metal with night-black wings. The meat had been chopped into pieces no larger than a finger joint. He filled his fist and tossed the raw red morsels into the cage, and the squawking and squabbling grew hotter. Feathers flew as two of the larger birds fought over a choice piece. Quickly Jon grabbed a second handful and threw it in after the first. “Lord Mormont’s raven likes fruit and corn.”

“He is a rare bird,” the maester said. “Most ravens will eat grain, but they prefer flesh. It makes them strong, and I fear they relish the taste of blood. In that they are like men… and like men, not all ravens are alike.”

Jon had nothing to say to that. He threw meat, wondering why he’d been summoned. No doubt the old man would tell him, in his own good time. Maester Aemon was not a man to be hurried.

“Doves and pigeons can also be trained to carry messages,” the maester went on, “though the raven is a stronger flyer, larger, bolder, far more clever, better able to defend itself against hawks… yet ravens are black, and they eat the dead, so some godly men abhor them. Baelor the Blessed tried to replace all the ravens with doves, did you know?” The maester turned his white eyes on Jon, smiling. “The Night’s Watch prefers ravens.”

Jon’s fingers were in the bucket, blood up to the wrist. “Dywen says the wildlings call us crows,” he said uncertainty.

“The crow is the raven’s poor cousin. They are both beggars in black, hated and misunderstood.”

Jon wished he understood what they were talking about, and why. What did he care about ravens and doves? If the old man had something to say to him, why couldn’t he just say it?

“Jon, did you ever wonder
why
the men of the Night’s Watch take no wives and father no children?” Maester Aemon asked.

Jon shrugged. “No.” He scattered more meat. The fingers of his left hand were slimy with blood, and his right throbbed from the weight of the bucket.

“So they will not love,” the old man answered, “for love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.”

That did not sound right to Jon, yet he said nothing. The maester was a hundred years old, and a high officer of the Night’s Watch; it was not his place to contradict him.

The old man seemed to sense his doubts. “Tell me, Jon, if the day should ever come when your lord father must needs choose between honor on the one hand and those he loves on the other, what would he do?”

Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered,
He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name
. “He would do whatever was right,” he said… ringingly, to make up for his hesitation. “No matter what.”

“Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

“The men who formed the Night’s Watch knew that only their courage shielded the realm from the darkness to the north. They knew they must have no divided loyalties to weaken their resolve. So they vowed they would have no wives nor children.

“Yet brothers they had, and sisters. Mothers who gave them birth, fathers who gave them names. They came from a hundred quarrelsome kingdoms, and they knew times may change, but men do not. So they pledged as well that the Night’s Watch would take no part in the battles of the realms it guarded.

“They kept their pledge. When Aegon slew Black Harren and claimed his kingdom, Harren’s brother was Lord Commander on the Wall, with ten thousand swords to hand. He did not march. In the days when the Seven Kingdoms
were
seven kingdoms, not a generation passed that three or four of them were not at war. The Watch took no part. When the Andals crossed the narrow sea and swept away the kingdoms of the First Men, the sons of the fallen kings held true to their vows and remained at their posts. So it has always been, for years beyond counting. Such is the price of honor.

“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is
not
easy, a day when he must choose.”

Some of the ravens were still eating, long stringy bits of meat dangling from their beaks. The rest seemed to be watching him. Jon could feel the weight of all those tiny black eyes. “And this is my day… is that what you’re saying?”

Maester Aemon turned his head and
looked
at him with those dead white eyes. It was as if he were seeing right into his heart. Jon felt naked and exposed. He took the bucket in both hands and flung the rest of the slops through the bars. Strings of meat and blood flew everywhere, scattering the ravens. They took to the air, shrieking wildly. The quicker birds snatched morsels on the wing and gulped them down greedily. Jon let the empty bucket clang to the floor.

The old man laid a withered, spotted hand on his shoulder. “It hurts, boy,” he said softly. “Oh, yes. Choosing… it has always hurt. And always will. I know.”

“You
don’t
know,” Jon said bitterly. “No one knows. Even if I am his bastard, he’s still my
father
…”

Maester Aemon sighed. “Have you heard nothing I’ve told you, Jon? Do you think you are the first?” He shook his ancient head, a gesture weary beyond words. “Three times the gods saw fit to test my vows. Once when I was a boy, once in the fullness of my manhood, and once when I had grown old. By then my strength was fled, my eyes grown dim, yet that last choice was as cruel as the first. My ravens would bring the news from the south, words darker than their wings, the ruin of my House, the death of my kin, disgrace and desolation. What could I have done, old, blind, frail? I was helpless as a suckling babe, yet still it grieved me to sit forgotten as they cut down my brother’s poor grandson, and
his
son, and even the little children…”