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  Once he swore his vow, the Wall would be his home until he was old as Maester Aemon. “I have not sworn yet,” he muttered. He was no outlaw, bound to take the black or pay the penalty for his crimes. He had come here freely, and he might leave freely … until he said the words. He need only ride on, and he could leave it all behind. By the time the moon was full again, he would be back in Winterfell with his brothers.

  Your half brothers, a voice inside reminded him. And Lady Stark, who will not welcome you. There was no place for him in Winterfell, no place in King’s Landing either. Even his own mother had not had a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she had looked like, why his father had left her. Because she was a whore or an adulteress, fool. Something dark and dishonorable, or else why was Lord Eddard too ashamed to speak of her?

  Jon Snow turned away from the kingsroad to look behind him. The fires of Castle Black were hidden behind a hill, but the Wall was there, pale beneath the moon, vast and cold, running from horizon to horizon.

  He wheeled his horse around and started for home.

  Ghost returned as he crested a rise and saw the distant glow of lamplight from the Lord Commander’s Tower. The direwolf’s muzzle was red with blood as he trotted beside the horse. Jon found himself thinking of Samwell Tarly again on the ride back. By the time he reached the stables, he knew what he must do.

  Maester Aemon’s apartments were in a stout wooden keep below the rookery. Aged and frail, the maester shared his chambers with two of the younger stewards, who tended to his needs and helped him in his duties. The brothers joked that he had been given the two ugliest men in the Night’s Watch; being blind, he was spared having to look at them. Clydas was short, bald, and chinless, with small pink eyes like a mole. Chett had a wen on his neck the size of a pigeon’s egg, and a face red with boils and pimples. Perhaps that was why he always seemed so angry.

  It was Chett who answered Jon’s knock. “I need to speak to Maester Aemon,” Jon told him.

  “The maester is abed, as you should be. Come back on the morrow and maybe he’ll see you.” He began to shut the door.

  Jon jammed it open with his boot. “I need to speak to him now. The morning will be too late.”

  Chett scowled. “The maester is not accustomed to being woken in the night. Do you know how old he is?”

  “Old enough to treat visitors with more courtesy than you,” Jon said. “Give him my pardons. I would not disturb his rest if it were not important.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Jon had his boot wedged solidly in the door. “I can stand here all night if I must.”

  The black brother made a disgusted noise and opened the door to admit him. “Wait in the library. There’s wood. Start a fire. I won’t have the maester catching a chill on account of you.”

  Jon had the logs crackling merrily by the time Chett led in Maester Aemon. The old man was clad in his bed robe, but around his throat was the chain collar of his order. A maester did not remove it even to sleep. “The chair beside the fire would be pleasant,” he said when he felt the warmth on his face. When he was settled comfortably, Chett covered his legs with a fur and went to stand by the door.

  “I am sorry to have woken you, Maester,” Jon Snow said.

  “You did not wake me,” Maester Aemon replied. “I find I need less sleep as I grow older, and I am grown very old. I often spend half the night with ghosts, remembering times fifty years past as if they were yesterday. The mystery of a midnight visitor is a welcome diversion. So tell me, Jon Snow, why have you come calling at this strange hour?”

  “To ask that Samwell Tarly be taken from training and accepted as a brother of the Night’s Watch.”

  “This is no concern of Maester Aemon,” Chett complained.

  “Our Lord Commander has given the training of recruits into the hands of Ser Alliser Thorne,” the maester said gently. “Only he may say when a boy is ready to swear his vow, as you surely know. Why then come to me?”

  “The Lord Commander listens to you,” Jon told him. “And the wounded and the sick of the Night’s Watch are in your charge.”

  “And is your friend Samwell wounded or sick?”

  “He will be,” Jon promised, “unless you help.”

  He told them all of it, even the part where he’d set Ghost at Rast’s throat. Maester Aemon listened silently, blind eyes fixed on the fire, but Chett’s face darkened with each word. “Without us to keep him safe, Sam will have no chance,” Jon finished. “He’s hopeless with a sword. My sister Arya could tear him apart, and she’s not yet ten. If Ser Alliser makes him fight, it’s only a matter of time before he’s hurt or killed.”

  Chett could stand no more. “I’ve seen this fat boy in the common hall,” he said. “He is a pig, and a hopeless craven as well, if what you say is true.”

  “Maybe it is so,” Maester Aemon said. “Tell me, Chett, what would you have us do with such a boy?”

  “Leave him where he is,” Chett said. “The Wall is no place for the weak. Let him train until he is ready, no matter how many years that takes. Ser Alliser shall make a man of him or kill him, as the gods will.”

  “That’s stupid,” Jon said. He took a deep breath to gather his thoughts. “I remember once I asked Maester Luwin why he wore a chain around his throat.”

  Maester Aemon touched his own collar lightly, his bony, wrinkled finger stroking the heavy metal links. “Go on.”

  “He told me that a maester’s collar is made of chain to remind him that he is sworn to serve,” Jon said, remembering. “I asked why each link was a different metal. A silver chain would look much finer with his grey robes, I said. Maester Luwin laughed. A maester forges his chain with study, he told me. The different metals are each a different kind of learning, gold for the study of money and accounts, silver for healing, iron for warcraft. And he said there were other meanings as well. The collar is supposed to remind a maester of the realm he serves, isn’t that so? Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can’t make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.”

  Maester Aemon smiled. “And so?”

  “The Night’s Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn’t make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won’t either. You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless. Why shouldn’t Sam be a steward?”

  Chett gave an angry scowl. “I’m a steward. You think it’s easy work, fit for cowards? The order of stewards keeps the Watch alive. We hunt and farm, tend the horses, milk the cows, gather firewood, cook the meals. Who do you think makes your clothing? Who brings up supplies from the south? The stewards.”

  Maester Aemon was gentler. “Is your friend a hunter?”

  “He hates hunting,” Jon had to admit.

  “Can he plow a field?” the maester asked. “Can he drive a wagon or sail a ship? Could he butcher a cow?”

  “No.”

  Chett gave a nasty laugh. “I’ve seen what happens to soft lordlings when they’re put to work. Set them to churning butter and their hands blister and bleed. Give them an axe to split logs, and they cut off their own foot.”

  “I know one thing Sam could do better than anyone.”

  “Yes?” Maester Aemon prompted.

  Jon glanced warily at Chett, standing beside the door, his boils red and angry. “He could help you,” he said quickly. “He can do sums, and he knows how to read and write. I know Chett can’t read, and Clydas has weak eyes. Sam read every book in his father’s library. He’d be good with the ravens too. Animals seem to like him. Ghost took to him straight off. There’s a lot he could do, besides fighting. The Night’s Watch needs every man. Why kill one, to no end? Make use of him instead.”

  Maester Aemon close
d his eyes, and for a brief moment Jon was afraid that he had gone to sleep. Finally he said, “Maester Luwin taught you well, Jon Snow. Your mind is as deft as your blade, it would seem.”

  “Does that mean …?”

  “It means I shall think on what you have said,” the maester told him firmly. “And now, I believe I am ready to sleep. Chett, show our young brother to the door.”

  TYRION

  They had taken shelter beneath a copse of aspens just off the high road. Tyrion was gathering dead-wood while their horses took water from a mountain stream. He stooped to pick up a splintered branch and examined it critically. “Will this do? I am not practiced at starting fires. Morrec did that for me.”

  “A fire?” Bronn said, spitting. “Are you so hungry to die, dwarf? Or have you taken leave of your senses? A fire will bring the clansmen down on us from miles around. I mean to survive this journey, Lannister.”

  “And how do you hope to do that?” Tyrion asked. He tucked the branch under his arm and poked around through the sparse undergrowth, looking for more. His back ached from the effort of bending; they had been riding since daybreak, when a stone-faced Ser Lyn Corbray had ushered them through the Bloody Gate and commanded them never to return.

  “We have no chance of fighting our way back,” Bronn said, “but two can cover more ground than ten, and attract less notice. The fewer days we spend in these mountains, the more like we are to reach the riverlands. Ride hard and fast, I say. Travel by night and hole up by day, avoid the road where we can, make no noise and light no fires.”

  Tyrion Lannister sighed. “A splendid plan, Bronn. Try it, as you like … and forgive me if I do not linger to bury you.”

  “You think to outlive me, dwarf?” The sellsword grinned. He had a dark gap in his smile where the edge of Ser Vardis Egen’s shield had cracked a tooth in half.

  Tyrion shrugged. “Riding hard and fast by night is a sure way to tumble down a mountain and crack your skull. I prefer to make my crossing slow and easy. I know you love the taste of horse, Bronn, but if our mounts die under us this time, we’ll be trying to saddle shadowcats … and if truth be told, I think the clans will find us no matter what we do. Their eyes are all around us.” He swept a gloved hand over the high, wind-carved crags that surrounded them.

  Bronn grimaced. “Then we’re dead men, Lannister.”

  “If so, I prefer to die comfortable,” Tyrion replied. “We need a fire. The nights are cold up here, and hot food will warm our bellies and lift our spirits. Do you suppose there’s any game to be had? Lady Lysa has kindly provided us with a veritable feast of salt beef, hard cheese, and stale bread, but I would hate to break a tooth so far from the nearest maester.”

  “I can find meat.” Beneath a fall of black hair, Bronn’s dark eyes regarded Tyrion suspiciously. “I should leave you here with your fool’s fire. If I took your horse, I’d have twice the chance to make it through. What would you do then, dwarf?”

  “Die, most like.” Tyrion stooped to get another stick.

  “You don’t think I’d do it?”

  “You’d do it in an instant, if it meant your life. You were quick enough to silence your friend Chiggen when he caught that arrow in his belly.” Bronn had yanked back the man’s head by the hair and driven the point of his dirk in under the ear, and afterward told Catelyn Stark that the other sellsword had died of his wound.

  “He was good as dead,” Bronn said, “and his moaning was bringing them down on us. Chiggen would have done the same for me … and he was no friend, only a man I rode with. Make no mistake, dwarf. I fought for you, but I do not love you.”

  “It was your blade I needed,” Tyrion said, “not your love.” He dumped his armful of wood on the ground.

  Bronn grinned. “You’re bold as any sellsword, I’ll give you that. How did you know I’d take your part?”

  “Know?” Tyrion squatted awkwardly on his stunted legs to build the fire. “I tossed the dice. Back at the inn, you and Chiggen helped take me captive. Why? The others saw it as their duty, for the honor of the lords they served, but not you two. You had no lord, no duty, and precious little honor, so why trouble to involve yourselves?” He took out his knife and whittled some thin strips of bark off one of the sticks he’d gathered, to serve as kindling. “Well, why do sellswords do anything? For gold. You were thinking Lady Catelyn would reward you for your help, perhaps even take you into her service. Here, that should do, I hope. Do you have a flint?”

  Bronn slid two fingers into the pouch at his belt and tossed down a flint. Tyrion caught it in the air.

  “My thanks,” he said. “The thing is, you did not know the Starks. Lord Eddard is a proud, honorable, and honest man, and his lady wife is worse. Oh, no doubt she would have found a coin or two for you when this was all over, and pressed it in your hand with a polite word and a look of distaste, but that’s the most you could have hoped for. The Starks look for courage and loyalty and honor in the men they choose to serve them, and if truth be told, you and Chiggen were lowborn scum.” Tyrion struck the flint against his dagger, trying for a spark. Nothing.

  Bronn snorted. “You have a bold tongue, little man. One day someone is like to cut it out and make you eat it.”

  “Everyone tells me that.” Tyrion glanced up at the sellsword. “Did I offend you? My pardons … but you are scum, Bronn, make no mistake. Duty, honor, friendship, what’s that to you? No, don’t trouble yourself, we both know the answer. Still, you’re not stupid. Once we reached the Vale, Lady Stark had no more need of you … but I did, and the one thing the Lannisters have never lacked for is gold. When the moment came to toss the dice, I was counting on your being smart enough to know where your best interest lay. Happily for me, you did.” He slammed stone and steel together again, fruitlessly.

  “Here,” said Bronn, squatting, “I’ll do it.” He took the knife and flint from Tyrion’s hands and struck sparks on his first try. A curl of bark began to smolder.

  “Well done,” Tyrion said. “Scum you may be, but you’re undeniably useful, and with a sword in your hand you’re almost as good as my brother Jaime. What do you want, Bronn? Gold? Land? Women? Keep me alive, and you’ll have it.”

  Bronn blew gently on the fire, and the flames leapt up higher. “And if you die?”

  “Why then, I’ll have one mourner whose grief is sincere,” Tyrion said, grinning. “The gold ends when I do.”

  The fire was blazing up nicely. Bronn stood, tucked the flint back into his pouch, and tossed Tyrion his dagger. “Fair enough,” he said. “My sword’s yours, then … but don’t go looking for me to bend the knee and m’lord you every time you take a shit. I’m no man’s toady.”

  “Nor any man’s friend,” Tyrion said. “I’ve no doubt you’d betray me as quick as you did Lady Stark, if you saw a profit in it. If the day ever comes when you’re tempted to sell me out, remember this, Bronn—I’ll match their price, whatever it is. I like living. And now, do you think you could do something about finding us some supper?”

  “Take care of the horses,” Bronn said, unsheathing the long dirk he wore at his hip. He strode into the trees.

  An hour later the horses had been rubbed down and fed, the fire was crackling away merrily, and a haunch of a young goat was turning above the flames, spitting and hissing. “All we lack now is some good wine to wash down our kid,” Tyrion said.

  “That, a woman, and another dozen swords,” Bronn said. He sat cross-legged beside the fire, honing the edge of his longsword with an oilstone. There was something strangely reassuring about the rasping sound it made when he drew it down the steel. “It will be full dark soon,” the sellsword pointed out. “I’ll take first watch … for all the good it will do us. It might be kinder to let them kill us in our sleep.”

  “Oh, I imagine they’ll be here long before it comes to sleep.” The smell of the roasting meat made Tyrion’s mouth water.

  Bronn watched him across the fire. “You have a plan,” he said flatly, with a scrape
of steel on stone.

  “A hope, call it,” Tyrion said. “Another toss of the dice.”

  “With our lives as the stake?”

  Tyrion shrugged. “What choice do we have?” He leaned over the fire and sawed a thin slice of meat from the kid. “Ahhhh,” he sighed happily as he chewed. Grease ran down his chin. “A bit tougher than I’d like, and in want of spicing, but I’ll not complain too loudly. If I were back at the Eyrie, I’d be dancing on a precipice in hopes of a boiled bean.”

  “And yet you gave the turnkey a purse of gold,” Bronn said.

  “A Lannister always pays his debts.”

  Even Mord had scarcely believed it when Tyrion tossed him the leather purse. The gaoler’s eyes had gone big as boiled eggs as he yanked open the drawstring and beheld the glint of gold. “I kept the silver,” Tyrion had told him with a crooked smile, “but you were promised the gold, and there it is.” It was more than a man like Mord could hope to earn in a lifetime of abusing prisoners. “And remember what I said, this is only a taste. If you ever grow tired of Lady Arryn’s service, present yourself at Casterly Rock, and I’ll pay you the rest of what I owe you.” With golden dragons spilling out of both hands, Mord had fallen to his knees and promised that he would do just that.

  Bronn yanked out his dirk and pulled the meat from the fire. He began to carve thick chunks of charred meat off the bone as Tyrion hollowed out two heels of stale bread to serve as trenchers. “If we do reach the river, what will you do then?” the sellsword asked as he cut.

  “Oh, a whore and a featherbed and a flagon of wine, for a start.” Tyrion held out his trencher, and Bronn filled it with meat. “And then to Casterly Rock or King’s Landing, I think. I have some questions that want answering, concerning a certain dagger.”