The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

A Thousand Eyes And One

Lady Stark appeared in the hall an hour or so after her arrival. Loreon noticed the rather strained look on her face; they had told her, then. 

The whole truth was very jarring, and had shaken him up a lot more than he had outwardly shown when he was told for the first time, by a grim-faced Jon Snow backed up by both brothers of the Night's Watch and the Wildlings they had captured. 

He believed them not just because these two groups who hated each other so much would never agree on anything unless it truly was dire, but also because of his own experience. Their journey from Eastwatch had been north of the Wall in order to pin the Wildling army between them and the Night's Watch, and though at the time he had brushed the feeling off as uneasiness at being in such an unfamiliar environment, it had definitely felt like there was a dark presence there in the woods, watching them, always there but never making themselves known. 

Loreon wondered why they had never chosen to attack, given that the Wildings had been hounded their entire way to the Wall. That in itself was unnerving, that they weren't just mindless beasts looking to kill every man that crossed their path, but intelligent, calculating creatures with a strategy in mind.

Seeing Lady Rosennis walk into the hall was unnerving in itself, having been convinced she was dead for months; having seen what he thought to have been her dead body be taken through the courtyard at Harrenhal. He had known she was alive since she had taken back Winterfell, but part of him needed to see her to believe it.

She didn't look like a woman who had narrowly survived being stabbed in the heart. Despite the rather shellshocked look behind her eyes - which any reasonable person would have after being told ice monsters from an old children's tale were marching on them with an army of dead men - she looked just the same as ever, dressed in thick furs for the Northern winter with her long hair in a braid down her back. 

He wondered what choice she had made with regard to the Wildlings. The moment Jon Snow had even suggested letting them through the Wall after becoming Lord Commander, there had been uproar from the Northern lords, and many from the south too. Even a good number of Black Brothers had vehemently objected, though there were more still who did not. Loreon had done his usual going round and talking with the men and found that there were many of them who had seen the Others and wights first hand; for all most of them cared, the Wildlings could rot, but not if it meant they would rise again to attack them.

From these talks with the men of the Night's Watch Loreon also gathered a lot more about Jon Snow. Many had believed him to be a deserter for a long time; Lord Mormont had sent him away on a scouting mission with Qhorin Halfhand, and it had seemed as though he had killed Qhorin and joined the Wildlings, but it turned out the Halfhand himself had told the boy to do just that in order to get close to Mance Rayder. Jon had scaled the Wall with a party of raiders, but once he learned they were to attack Castle Black he had fled back and warned his brothers. 

With all other authority figures dead, the one-armed blacksmith Donnel Noye had been in charge of defending the Wall from the Wildlings, in that first awful night before Loreon's army arrived, but when he had died he had handed command of the Wall over to Jon. And Jon had performed admirably. Were it not for his actions, Loreon would have found Castle Black overrun, the Night's Watch defeated.

And then when it came to electing a new Lord Commander, Jon had not put own his name forward; his friend, Samwell Tarly, had persuaded the most influential men of the Watch to vote for him.

Now, Snow appeared as stern and solemn as his father Lord Eddard had been, though Loreon recognised the calculating look in his eye, and had heard the young man make many rather cold but intelligent decisions. A good leader, was his conclusion, but one who needed to improve his communications with his men. Jon was too closed off, and didn't explain his decisions very well.