A Game Of Thrones [ASOIAF #1]

Chapter 5: JON [I]

There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon Snow was glad he was a
bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more from a passing flagon, it struck him
that this might be one of them.
He settled back in his place on the bench among the younger squires and
drank. The sweet, fruity taste of summerwine filled his mouth and brought a
smile to his lips.
The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell
of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone walls were draped with
banners. White, gold, crimson: the direwolf of Stark, Baratheon’s crowned stag,
the lion of Lannister. A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad,
but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar
of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a
hundred drunken conversations.
It was the fourth hour of the welcoming feast laid for the king. Jon’s brothers
and sisters had been seated with the royal children, beneath the raised platform
where Lord and Lady Stark hosted the king and queen. In honor of the occasion,
his lord father would doubtless permit each child a glass of wine, but no more
than that. Down here on the benches, there was no one to stop Jon drinking as
much as he had a thirst for.
And he was finding that he had a man’s thirst, to the raucous delight of the
youths around him, who urged him on every time he drained a glass. They were
fine company, and Jon relished the stories they were telling, tales of battle and
bedding and the hunt. He was certain that his companions were more
entertaining than the king’s offspring. He had sated his curiosity about the
visitors when they made their entrance. The procession had passed not a foot
from the place he had been given on the bench, and Jon had gotten a good long
look at them all.
His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as beautiful as
men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a
perfect match for the green of her eyes. His father helped her up the steps to the
dais and led her to her seat, but the queen never so much as looked at him. Even
at fourteen, Jon could see through her smile.
Next had come King Robert himself, with Lady Stark on his arm. The king
was a great disappointment to Jon. His father had talked of him often: the
peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, the fiercest warrior of the
realm, a giant among princes. Jon saw only a fat man, red-faced under his beard,
sweating through his silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.
After them came the children. Little Rickon first, managing the long walk
with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jon had to urge him on when
he stopped to visit. Close behind came Robb, in grey wool trimmed with white,
the Stark colors. He had the Princess Myrcella on his arm. She was a wisp of a
girl, not quite eight, her hair a cascade of golden curls under a jeweled net. Jon
noticed the shy looks she gave Robb as they passed between the tables and the
timid way she smiled at him. He decided she was insipid. Robb didn’t even have
the sense to realize how stupid she was; he was grinning like a fool.
His half sisters escorted the royal princes. Arya was paired with plump young
Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers. Sansa, two years older,
drew the crown prince, Joffrey Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or
Robb, but taller than either, to Jon’s vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his sister’s
hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped
down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she
walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored,
disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.
He was more interested in the pair that came behind him: the queen’s brothers,
the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. The Lion and the Imp; there was no mistaking
which was which. Ser Jaime Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and
golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore
crimson silk, high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic, the
lion of his House was embroidered in gold thread, roaring its defiance. They
called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered “Kingslayer” behind
his back.
Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king should look like,
he thought to himself as the man passed.
Then he saw the other one, waddling along half-hidden by his brother’s side.
Tyrion Lannister, the youngest of Lord Tywin’s brood and by far the ugliest. All
that the gods had given to Cersei and Jaime, they had denied Tyrion. He was a
dwarf, half his brother’s height, struggling to keep pace on stunted legs. His head
was too large for his body, with a brute’s squashed-in face beneath a swollen
shelf of brow. One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank
fall of hair so blond it seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination.
The last of the high lords to enter were his uncle, Benjen Stark of the Night’s
Watch, and his father’s ward, young Theon Greyjoy. Benjen gave Jon a warm
smile as he went by. Theon ignored him utterly, but there was nothing new in
that. After all had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and
returned, and then the feasting began.
Jon had started drinking then, and he had not stopped.
Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red eyes staring
up at him. “Hungry again?” he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in
the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea.
He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs.
Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. His brothers and sisters had not been
permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon
could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He
told himself he was fortunate in that too.
His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke. He
swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour the chicken.
Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls. One of them, a
black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a scent of the chicken. She
stopped and edged under the bench to get a share. Jon watched the confrontation.
The bitch growled low in her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent,
and fixed the dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge.
She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not move. He stood
over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his fangs. The bitch tensed, barked
again, then thought better of this fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last
defiant snap to save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal.
Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy white fur. The
direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his hand, then went back to eating.
“Is this one of the direwolves I’ve heard so much of?” a familiar voice asked
close at hand.
Jon looked up happily as his uncle Ben put a hand on his head and ruffled his
hair much as Jon had ruffled the wolf’s. “Yes,” he said. “His name is Ghost.”
One of the squires interrupted the bawdy story he’d been telling to make room
at the table for their lord’s brother. Benjen Stark straddled the bench with long
legs and took the wine cup out of Jon’s hand. “Summerwine,” he said after a
taste. “Nothing so sweet. How many cups have you had, Jon?”
Jon smiled.
Ben Stark laughed. “As I feared. Ah, well. I believe I was younger than you
the first time I got truly and sincerely drunk.” He snagged a roasted onion,
dripping brown with gravy, from a nearby trencher and bit into it. It crunched.
His uncle was sharp-featured and gaunt as a mountain crag, but there was
always a hint of laughter in his blue-grey eyes. He dressed in black, as befitted a
man of the Night’s Watch. Tonight it was rich black velvet, with high leather
boots and a wide belt with a silver buckle. A heavy silver chain was looped
round his neck. Benjen watched Ghost with amusement as he ate his onion. “A
very quiet wolf,” he observed.
“He’s not like the others,” Jon said. “He never makes a sound. That’s why I
named him Ghost. That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey or
black.”
“There are still direwolves beyond the Wall. We hear them on our rangings.”
Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. “Don’t you usually eat at table with your
brothers?”
“Most times,” Jon answered in a flat voice. “But tonight Lady Stark thought it
might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them.”
“I see.” His uncle glanced over his shoulder at the raised table at the far end of
the hall. “My brother does not seem very festive tonight.”
Jon had noticed that too. A bastard had to learn to notice things, to read the
truth that people hid behind their eyes. His father was observing all the
courtesies, but there was tightness in him that Jon had seldom seen before. He
said little, looking out over the hall with hooded eyes, seeing nothing. Two seats
away, the king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was flushed
behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed loudly at every jest,
and attacked each dish like a starving man, but beside him the queen seemed as
cold as an ice sculpture. “The queen is angry too,” Jon told his uncle in a low,
quiet voice. “Father took the king down to the crypts this afternoon. The queen
didn’t want him to go.”
Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. “You don’t miss much, do you,
Jon? We could use a man like you on the Wall.”
Jon swelled with pride. “Robb is a stronger lance than I am, but I’m the better
sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse as well as anyone in the castle.”
“Notable achievements.”
“Take me with you when you go back to the Wall,” Jon said in a sudden rush.
“Father will give me leave to go if you ask him, I know he will.”
Uncle Benjen studied his face carefully. “The Wall is a hard place for a boy,
Jon.”
“I am almost a man grown,” Jon protested. “I will turn fifteen on my next
name day, and Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children.”
“That’s true enough,” Benjen said with a downward twist of his mouth. He
took Jon’s cup from the table, filled it fresh from a nearby pitcher, and drank
down a long swallow.
“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,” Jon said.
The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.
“A conquest that lasted a summer,” his uncle pointed out. “Your Boy King
lost ten thousand men taking the place, and another fifty trying to hold it.
Someone should have told him that war isn’t a game.” He took another sip of
wine. “Also,” he said, wiping his mouth, “Daeren Targaryen was only eighteen
when he died. Or have you forgotten that part?”
“I forget nothing,” Jon boasted. The wine was making him bold. He tried to sit
very straight, to make himself seem taller. “I want to serve in the Night’s Watch,
Uncle.”
He had thought on it long and hard, lying abed at night while his brothers slept
around him. Robb would someday inherit Winterfell, would command great
armies as the Warden of the North. Bran and Rickon would be Robb’s
bannermen and rule holdfasts in his name. His sisters Arya and Sansa would
marry the heirs of other great houses and go south as mistress of castles of their
own. But what place could a bastard hope to earn?
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Jon. The Night’s Watch is a sworn
brotherhood. We have no families. None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is
duty. Our mistress is honor.”
“A bastard can have honor too,” Jon said. “I am ready to swear your oath.”
“You are a boy of fourteen,” Benjen said. “Not a man, not yet. Until you have
known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up.”
“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the
oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”
Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He put a hand on Jon’s shoulder.
“Come back to me after you’ve fathered a few bastards of your own, and we’ll
see how you feel.”
Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully. “Never!” He
spat it out like venom.
Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they were all looking
at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his eyes. He pushed himself to his
feet.
“I must be excused,” he said with the last of his dignity. He whirled and
bolted before they could see him cry. He must have drunk more wine than he
had realized. His feet got tangled under him as he tried to leave, and he lurched
sideways into a serving girl and sent a flagon of spiced wine crashing to the
floor. Laughter boomed all around him, and Jon felt hot tears on his cheeks.
Someone tried to steady him. He wrenched free of their grip and ran, half-blind,
for the door. Ghost followed close at his heels, out into the night.
The yard was quiet and empty. A lone sentry stood high on the battlements of
the inner wall, his cloak pulled tight around him against the cold. He looked
bored and miserable as he huddled there alone, but Jon would have traded places
with him in an instant. Otherwise the castle was dark and deserted. Jon had seen
an abandoned holdfast once, a drear place where nothing moved but the wind
and the stones kept silent about whatever people had lived there. Winterfell
reminded him of that tonight.
The sounds of music and song spilled through the open windows behind him.
They were the last things Jon wanted to hear. He wiped away his tears on the
sleeve of his shirt, furious that he had let them fall, and turned to go.
“Boy,” a voice called out to him. Jon turned.
Tyrion Lannister was sitting on the ledge above the door to the Great Hall,
looking for all the world like a gargoyle. The dwarf grinned down at him. “Is
that animal a wolf?”
“A direwolf,” Jon said. “His name is Ghost.” He stared up at the little man, his
disappointment suddenly forgotten. “What are you doing up there? Why aren’t
you at the feast?”
“Too hot, too noisy, and I’d drunk too much wine,” the dwarf told him. “I
learned long ago that it is considered rude to vomit on your brother. Might I have
a closer look at your wolf?”
Jon hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Can you climb down, or shall I bring a
ladder?”
“Oh, bleed that,” the little man said. He pushed himself off the ledge into
empty air. Jon gasped, then watched with awe as Tyrion Lannister spun around
in a tight ball, landed lightly on his hands, then vaulted backward onto his legs.
Ghost backed away from him uncertainly.
The dwarf dusted himself off and laughed. “I believe I’ve frightened your
wolf. My apologies.”
“He’s not scared,” Jon said. He knelt and called out. “Ghost, come here. Come
on. That’s it.”
The wolf pup padded closer and nuzzled at Jon’s face, but he kept a wary eye
on Tyrion Lannister, and when the dwarf reached out to pet him, he drew back
and bared his fangs in a silent snarl. “Shy, isn’t he?” Lannister observed.
“Sit, Ghost,” Jon commanded. “That’s it. Keep still.” He looked up at the
dwarf. “You can touch him now. He won’t move until I tell him to. I’ve been
training him.”
“I see,” Lannister said. He ruffled the snow-white fur between Ghost’s ears
and said, “Nice wolf.”
“If I wasn’t here, he’d tear out your throat,” Jon said. It wasn’t actually true
yet, but it would be.
“In that case, you had best stay close,” the dwarf said. He cocked his
oversized head to one side and looked Jon over with his mismatched eyes. “I am
Tyrion Lannister.”
“I know,” Jon said. He rose. Standing, he was taller than the dwarf. It made
him feel strange.
“You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t you?”
Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and
said nothing.
“Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry. Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful.
Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly
and say any damn thing that comes into my head.” He grinned. “You are the
bastard, though.”
“Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted stiffly.
Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the
north in you than your brothers.”
“Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf’s comment, but
he tried not to let it show.
“Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister said. “Never forget what
you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never
be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do you know about being a
bastard?”
“All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes.”
“You are your mother’s trueborn son of Lannister.”
“Am I?” the dwarf replied, sardonic. “Do tell my lord father. My mother died
birthing me, and he’s never been sure.”
“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon said.
“Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.” He favored Jon with a rueful
grin. “Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need
be dwarfs.” And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling
a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear
across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.