𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴇɪɢʜᴛᴇᴇɴ

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They could take him back, but Torsten knew they could not make him stay. The war would not end on the morrow, or the day after.
Torsten knew him and his friends could not watch him day and night. Torsten often found himself wondering what trail Jon would take next time. Perhaps he would avoid kingsroad. He could follow the Wall east, all the way to sea, a longer route but a safer one. Or even west, to the mountains, and then south over the high passes. That was the Wildling's way, hard and perilous, but at least no one would follow him. Either way, Torsten was willing to bring him back every single time. No matter what it took.
Samwell Tarly awaited them in the old stables, slumped on the ground against a bale of hay, too anxious to sleep. He rose and brushed himself off. "I... I'm glad they found you."

"I'm not." Jon said, dismounting. Torsten hopped off his horse and looked at the lightening sky, Pypar stood beside him with a look of disgust on his pale cold face.

"Give us a hand bedding down the horses, Sam." Pypar said. "We have a long day before us, and no sleep to face it on, thanks to Lord Snow."

When day broke, Torsten walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn. Three-Finger Hobb said nothing as Jon joined him. The old man gave the two the Old Bear's breakfast in silence. Today, it was three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried bread and ham steak and a bowl of wrinkled plums. Torsten carried the food back to the King's Tower, while Jon carried a flagon of ale.
They found Mormont at the window seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth across his shoulders, muttering. The bird shrieked when Torsten and Jon entered. "Put the food on the table." The Old Bear said, glancing up. "I'll have some ale." Jon opened a shuttered window, then filled a horn. Hobb had given him a lemon, still cold from the Wall. Jon crushed it in his fist. The juice trickled through his fingers. Mormont drank lemon in his ale every day, and claimed that was why he still had his own teeth. "Doubtless you loved your father." Mormont said when Jon brought him his horn. Torsten finished setting the Old Bear's table with cutlery and cloth. "The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember when I told you that?" He asked and Jon nodded.

"I remember." Jon said sullenly. He did not care to talk of his father's death, not even to Torsten and not to Mormont.

"See that you never forget it. The hard truths are the ones to hold tight. You boys look weary. Was your moonlight ride so tiring?" Mormont asked and Torsten smiled.

"You know?" Jon's throat went dry and Mormont's raven echoed his words. The Old Bear snorted.

"Do you think they chose me Lord Commander of the Night's Watch because I'm dumb as a stump, Snow? Aemon told me you'd go and Torsten said he'd bring you back. Honour set you on the kingsroad... and honour brought you back." The Old Bear said.

"Torsten brought me back... my friends brought me back." Jon said.

"Did I say it was your honour?" Mormont inspected his plate.

"They killed my father. Did you expect me to do nothing?" Jon asked.

"If truth be told, we expected you to do just as you did." Mormont tried a plum, spit out the pit. "I ordered a watch kept over you but Torsten convinced me otherwise. If your brothers had not fetched you back, you would have been taken along the way, and not by friends. Unless you have a horse with wings like a raven. Do you?" Mormont asked and Torsten snorted.

"No." Jon felt like a fool.

"Pity, we could use a horse like that." Jon stood tall. He knew the penalty for desertion.

"I know the penalty for desertion, my lord. I'm not afraid to die." Jon spoke with confidence. But Torsten knew he was afraid.

"Nor live, I hope." Mormont said, cutting his ham with a dagger and feeding a bite to the bird. "You have not deserted... yet. Here you stand. If we beheaded every boy who rode to Mole's Town in the night, only ghosts would man the Wall. Yet maybe you mean to flee again on the morrow, or a fortnight from now. As Torsten suspects. Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?" Jon kept silent, eyes twitching to look towards Torsten who stood with his head held high.

"I thought so." Torsten said. "Your father is dead, Jon. Do you think you can bring him back?" Torsten asked gently. Jon shook his head. Mormont peeled the shell off a boiled egg.

"No." He answered, sullen.

"Good." Mormont said. "We've seen the dead come back, and it's not something I care to see again." He ate the egg in two bites and flicked a bit of shell out from between his teeth. "Your brother is in the field with all the power of the north behind him. Any one of his lords bannermen commands more swords than you'll find in all the Night's Watch. Why do you imagine that they need your help? Are you such a mighty warrior, or do you carry a grumkin in your pocket to magic up your sword?" Jon had no answer for him. The raven was pecking at an egg, breaking the shell. Pushing his beak through the hole, he pulled out morsels of white and yolk. The Old Bear sighed, he took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist until the shell crunched. "The cold winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen. Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east toward the sea, and mammoths as well. He says one of his men discovered huge, misshapen footprints not three leagues from Eastwatch. Rangers from the Shadow Tower have found whole villages abandoned, and at night Ser Denys says they see fires in the mountains, huge blazes that burn from dusk till dawn. Qhorin Halfhand took a captive in the depths of the Gorge, and the man swears Mance Rayder is massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he's found, to what end the Gods only know. Do you think your uncle Benjen was the only ranger we've lost this part year?" The raven squawked, bobbing its head, bits of egg dribbling from its beak.  

"No." Jon said. There had been others. Too many.

"Do you think your brother's war is more important than ours?" The old man barked. Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him and screeched. "It's not." Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid." The Old Bear sighed.

"When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?" Torsten asked.

"No." Jon had not thought of it that way.

"Your lord father sent you to us, Jon. Why, who can say?" The raven echoed the Old Bears words as he spoke. "All I know is that the blood of the First Men flows in the veins of the Starks. The First Men built the Wall, and it's said they remember things otherwise forgotten. And that beast of yours... he led the two of you to the Wights, warned you of the dead man on the steps. Ser Jaremy would doubtless call that happenstance, yet Ser Jaremy is dead and I'm not." Lord Mormont stabbed a chunk of ham with the point of his dagger. "I think the two of you were meant to be here, and I want you boys, and that wolf of yours, with us when we go beyond the Wall." His words sent a chill of excitement down Torsten's back.

"Beyond the Wall?" Torsten echoed.

"You heard me. I mean to find Ben Stark, alive or dead." He chewed and swallowed. "I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what is happening. This time the Night's Watch will ride in force, against the King beyond the Wall, the others, and anything else that may be out there. I mean to command them myself." He pointed his dagger at Jon's chest, Torsten's breath caught in his throat as he silently watched the Old Bear carefully. "By custom, the Lord Commander's steward is his squire as well... but I have two of you... and I only need one. I do not care to wake every dawn wondering if you've run off again. So I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night's Watch... or only a bastard boy who wants to play at war?" Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath.

"I am... yours, my Lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again." The Old Bear snorted at the young bastard boys words.

"Good. Now go put on your sword." He smiled.

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