A Game Of Thrones [ASOIAF #1]

Chapter 70: JON [IX]

The mare whickered softly as Jon Snow tightened the cinch. “Easy, sweet lady,”
he said in a soft voice, quieting her with a touch. Wind whispered through the
stable, a cold dead breath on his face, but Jon paid it no mind. He strapped his
roll to the saddle, his scarred fingers stiff and clumsy. “Ghost,” he called softly,
“to me.” And the wolf was there, eyes like embers.
“Jon, please. You must not do this.”
He mounted, the reins in his hand, and wheeled the horse around to face the
night. Samwell Tarly stood in the stable door, a full moon peering over his
shoulder. He threw a giant’s shadow, immense and black. “Get out of my way,
Sam.”
“Jon, you can’t,” Sam said. “I won’t let you.”
“I would sooner not hurt you,” Jon told him. “Move aside, Sam, or I’ll ride
you down.”
“You won’t. You have to listen to me. Please …”
Jon put his spurs to horseflesh, and the mare bolted for the door. For an instant
Sam stood his ground, his face as round and pale as the moon behind him, his
mouth a widening O of surprise. At the last moment, when they were almost on
him, he jumped aside as Jon had known he would, stumbled, and fell. The mare
leapt over him, out into the night.
Jon raised the hood of his heavy cloak and gave the horse her head. Castle
Black was silent and still as he rode out, with Ghost racing at his side. Men
watched from the Wall behind him, he knew, but their eyes were turned north,
not south. No one would see him go, no one but Sam Tarly, struggling back to
his feet in the dust of the old stables. He hoped Sam hadn’t hurt himself, falling
like that. He was so heavy and so ungainly, it would be just like him to break a
wrist or twist his ankle getting out of the way. “I warned him,” Jon said aloud.
“It was nothing to do with him, anyway.” He flexed his burned hand as he rode,
opening and closing the scarred fingers. They still pained him, but it felt good to
have the wrappings off.
Moonlight silvered the hills as he followed the twisting ribbon of the
kingsroad. He needed to get as far from the Wall as he could before they realized
he was gone. On the morrow he would leave the road and strike out overland
through field and bush and stream to throw off pursuit, but for the moment speed
was more important than deception. It was not as though they would not guess
where he was going.
The Old Bear was accustomed to rise at first light, so Jon had until dawn to
put as many leagues as he could between him and the Wall … if Sam Tarly did
not betray him. The fat boy was dutiful and easily frightened, but he loved Jon
like a brother. If questioned, Sam would doubtless tell them the truth, but Jon
could not imagine him braving the guards in front of the King’s Tower to wake
Mormont from sleep.
When Jon did not appear to fetch the Old Bear’s breakfast from the kitchen,
they’d look in his cell and find Longclaw on the bed. It had been hard to
abandon it, but Jon was not so lost to honor as to take it with him. Even Jorah
Mormont had not done that, when he fled in disgrace. Doubtless Lord Mormont
would find someone more worthy of the blade. Jon felt bad when he thought of
the old man. He knew his desertion would be salt in the still-raw wound of his
son’s disgrace. That seemed a poor way to repay him for his trust, but it couldn’t
be helped. No matter what he did, Jon felt as though he were betraying someone.
Even now, he did not know if he was doing the honorable thing. The southron
had it easier. They had their septons to talk to, someone to tell them the gods’
will and help sort out right from wrong. But the Starks worshiped the old gods,
the nameless gods, and if the heart trees heard, they did not speak.
When the last lights of Castle Black vanished behind him, Jon slowed his
mare to a walk. He had a long journey ahead and only the one horse to see him
through. There were holdfasts and farming villages along the road south where
he might be able to trade the mare for a fresh mount when he needed one, but not
if she were injured or blown.
He would need to find new clothes soon; most like, he’d need to steal them.
He was clad in black from head to heel; high leather riding boots, roughspun
breeches and tunic, sleeveless leather jerkin, and heavy wool cloak. His
longsword and dagger were sheathed in black moleskin, and the hauberk and
coif in his saddlebag were black ringmail. Any bit of it could mean his death if
he were taken. A stranger wearing black was viewed with cold suspicion in
every village and holdfast north of the Neck, and men would soon be watching
for him. Once Maester Aemon’s ravens took flight, Jon knew he would find no
safe haven. Not even at Winterfell. Bran might want to let him in, but Maester
Luwin had better sense. He would bar the gates and send Jon away, as he should.
Better not to call there at all.
Yet he saw the castle clear in his mind’s eye, as if he had left it only
yesterday; the towering granite walls, the Great Hall with its smells of smoke
and dog and roasting meat, his father’s solar, the turret room where he had slept.
Part of him wanted nothing so much as to hear Bran laugh again, to sup on one
of Gage’s beef-and-bacon pies, to listen to Old Nan tell her tales of the children
of the forest and Florian the Fool.
But he had not left the Wall for that; he had left because he was after all his
father’s son, and Robb’s brother. The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as
Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. Three
times the old man had chosen, and three times he had chosen honor, but that was
him. Even now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he
was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true. Yet he understood
what the old man had meant, about the pain of choosing; he understood that all
too well.
Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth
than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow,
bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his
life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider,
the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name.
Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a
lie, lest every man’s hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long
as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother’s side and help avenge
his father.
He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard with snow
melting in his auburn hair. Jon would have to come to him in secret, disguised.
He tried to imagine the look on Robb’s face when he revealed himself. His
brother would shake his head and smile, and he’d say … he’d say …
He could not see the smile. Hard as he tried, he could not see it. He found
himself thinking of the deserter his father had beheaded the day they’d found the
direwolves. “You said the words,” Lord Eddard had told him. “You took a vow,
before your brothers, before the old gods and the new.” Desmond and Fat Tom
had dragged the man to the stump. Bran’s eyes had been wide as saucers, and
Jon had to remind him to keep his pony in hand. He remembered the look on
Father’s face when Theon Greyjoy brought forth Ice, the spray of blood on the
snow, the way Theon had kicked the head when it came rolling at his feet.
He wondered what Lord Eddard might have done if the deserter had been his
brother Benjen instead of that ragged stranger. Would it have been any different?
It must, surely, surely … and Robb would welcome him, for a certainty. He had
to, or else …
It did not bear thinking about. Pain throbbed, deep in his fingers, as he
clutched the reins. Jon put his heels into his horse and broke into a gallop, racing
down the kingsroad, as if to outrun his doubts. Jon was not afraid of death, but
he did not want to die like that, trussed and bound and beheaded like a common
brigand. If he must perish, let it be with a sword in his hand, fighting his father’s
killers. He was no true Stark, had never been one … but he could die like one.
Let them say that Eddard Stark had fathered four sons, not three.
Ghost kept pace with them for almost half a mile, red tongue lolling from his
mouth. Man and horse alike lowered their heads as he asked the mare for more
speed. The wolf slowed, stopped, watching, his eyes glowing red in the
moonlight. He vanished behind, but Jon knew he would follow, at his own pace.
Scattered lights flickered through the trees ahead of him, on both sides of the
road: Mole’s Town. A dog barked as he rode through, and he heard a mule’s
raucous haw from the stable, but otherwise the village was still. Here and there
the glow of hearth fires shone through shuttered windows, leaking between
wooden slats, but only a few.
Mole’s Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters of it was under the
ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a maze of tunnels. Even the
whorehouse was down there, nothing on the surface but a wooden shack no
bigger than a privy, with a red lantern hung over the door. On the Wall, he’d
heard men call the whores “buried treasures.” He wondered whether any of his
brothers in black were down there tonight, mining. That was oathbreaking too,
yet no one seemed to care.
Not until he was well beyond the village did Jon slow again. By then both he
and the mare were damp with sweat. He dismounted, shivering, his burned hand
aching. A bank of melting snow lay under the trees, bright in the moonlight,
water trickling off to form small shallow pools. Jon squatted and brought his
hands together, cupping the runoff between his fingers. The snowmelt was icy
cold. He drank, and splashed some on his face, until his cheeks tingled. His
fingers were throbbing worse than they had in days, and his head was pounding
too. I am doing the right thing, he told himself, so why do I feel so bad?
The horse was well lathered, so Jon took the lead and walked her for a while.
The road was scarcely wide enough for two riders to pass abreast, its surface cut
by tiny streams and littered with stone. That run had been truly stupid, an
invitation to a broken neck. Jon wondered what had gotten into him. Was he in
such a great rush to die?
Off in the trees, the distant scream of some frightened animal made him look
up. His mare whinnied nervously. Had his wolf found some prey? He cupped his
hands around his mouth. “Ghost!” he shouted. “Ghost, to me.” The only answer
was a rush of wings behind him as an owl took flight.
Frowning, Jon continued on his way. He led the mare for half an hour, until
she was dry. Ghost did not appear. Jon wanted to mount up and ride again, but
he was concerned about his missing wolf. “Ghost,” he called again. “Where are
you? To me! Ghost!” Nothing in these woods could trouble a direwolf, even a
half-grown direwolf, unless … no, Ghost was too smart to attack a bear, and if
there was a wolf pack anywhere close Jon would have surely heard them
howling.
He should eat, he decided. Food would settle his stomach and give Ghost the
chance to catch up. There was no danger yet; Castle Black still slept. In his
saddlebag, he found a biscuit, a piece of cheese, and a small withered brown
apple. He’d brought salt beef as well, and a rasher of bacon he’d filched from the
kitchens, but he would save the meat for the morrow. After it was gone he’d
need to hunt, and that would slow him.
Jon sat under the trees and ate his biscuit and cheese while his mare grazed
along the kingsroad. He kept the apple for last. It had gone a little soft, but the
flesh was still tart and juicy. He was down to the core when he heard the sounds:
horses, and from the north. Quickly Jon leapt up and strode to his mare. Could
he outrun them? No, they were too close, they’d hear him for a certainty, and if
they were from Castle Black …
He led the mare off the road, behind a thick stand of grey-green sentinels.
“Quiet now,” he said in a hushed voice, crouching down to peer through the
branches. If the gods were kind, the riders would pass by. Likely as not, they
were only smallfolk from Mole’s Town, farmers on their way to their fields,
although what they were doing out in the middle of the night …
He listened to the sound of hooves growing steadily louder as they trotted
briskly down the kingsroad. From the sound, there were five or six of them at the
least. Their voices drifted through the trees.
“… certain he came this way?”
“We can’t be certain.”
“He could have ridden east, for all you know. Or left the road to cut through
the woods. That’s what I’d do.”
“In the dark? Stupid. If you didn’t fall off your horse and break your neck,
you’d get lost and wind up back at the Wall when the sun came up.”
“I would not.” Grenn sounded peeved. “I’d just ride south, you can tell south
by the stars.”
“What if the sky was cloudy?” Pyp asked.
“Then I wouldn’t go.”
Another voice broke in. “You know where I’d be if it was me? I’d be in
Mole’s Town, digging for buried treasure.” Toad’s shrill laughter boomed
through the trees. Jon’s mare snorted.
“Keep quiet, all of you,” Halder said. “I thought I heard something.”
“Where? I didn’t hear anything.” The horses stopped.
“You can’t hear yourself fart.”
“I can too,” Grenn insisted.
“Quiet!”
They all fell silent, listening. Jon found himself holding his breath. Sam, he
thought. He hadn’t gone to the Old Bear, but he hadn’t gone to bed either, he’d
woken the other boys. Damn them all. Come dawn, if they were not in their
beds, they’d be named deserters too. What did they think they were doing?
The hushed silence seemed to stretch on and on. From where Jon crouched, he
could see the legs of their horses through the branches. Finally Pyp spoke up.
“What did you hear?”
“I don’t know,” Halder admitted. “A sound, I thought it might have been a
horse but …”
“There’s nothing here.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jon glimpsed a pale shape moving through the
trees. Leaves rustled, and Ghost came bounding out of the shadows, so suddenly
that Jon’s mare started and gave a whinny. “There!” Halder shouted.
“I heard it too!”
“Traitor,” Jon told the direwolf as he swung up into the saddle. He turned the
mare’s head to slide off through the trees, but they were on him before he had
gone ten feet.
“Jon!” Pyp shouted after him.
“Pull up,” Grenn said. “You can’t outrun us all.”
Jon wheeled around to face them, drawing his sword. “Get back. I don’t wish
to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”
“One against seven?” Halder gave a signal. The boys spread out, surrounding
him.
“What do you want with me?” Jon demanded.
“We want to take you back where you belong,” Pyp said.
“I belong with my brother.”
“We’re your brothers now,” Grenn said.
“They’ll cut off your head if they catch you, you know,” Toad put in with a
nervous laugh. “This is so stupid, it’s like something the Aurochs would do.”
“I would not,” Grenn said. “I’m no oathbreaker. I said the words and I meant
them.”
“So did I,” Jon told them. “Don’t you understand? They murdered my father.
It’s war, my brother Robb is fighting in the riverlands—”
“We know,” said Pyp solemnly. “Sam told us everything.”
“We’re sorry about your father,” Grenn said, “but it doesn’t matter. Once you
say the words, you can’t leave, no matter what.”
“I have to,” Jon said fervently.
“You said the words,” Pyp reminded him. “Now my watch begins, you said it.
It shall not end until my death.”
“I shall live and die at my post,” Grenn added, nodding.
“You don’t have to tell me the words, I know them as well as you do.” He was
angry now. Why couldn’t they let him go in peace? They were only making it
harder.
“I am the sword in the darkness,” Halder intoned.
“The watcher on the walls,” piped Toad.
Jon cursed them all to their faces. They took no notice. Pyp spurred his horse
closer, reciting, “I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings
the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of
men.”
“Stay back,” Jon warned him, brandishing his sword. “I mean it, Pyp.” They
weren’t even wearing armor, he could cut them to pieces if he had to.
Matthar had circled behind him. He joined the chorus. “I pledge my life and
honor to the Night’s Watch.”
Jon kicked his mare, spinning her in a circle. The boys were all around him
now, closing from every side.
“For this night …,” Halder trotted in from the left.
“… and all the nights to come,” finished Pyp. He reached over for Jon’s reins.
“So here are your choices. Kill me, or come back with me.”
Jon lifted his sword … and lowered it, helpless. “Damn you,” he said. “Damn
you all.”
“Do we have to bind your hands, or will you give us your word you’ll ride
back peaceful?” asked Halder.
“I won’t run, if that’s what you mean.” Ghost moved out from under the trees
and Jon glared at him. “Small help you were,” he said. The deep red eyes looked
at him knowingly.
“We had best hurry,” Pyp said. “If we’re not back before first light, the Old
Bear will have all our heads.”
Of the ride back, Jon Snow remembered little. It seemed shorter than the
journey south, perhaps because his mind was elsewhere. Pyp set the pace,
galloping, walking, trotting, and then breaking into another gallop. Mole’s Town
came and went, the red lantern over the brothel long extinguished. They made
good time. Dawn was still an hour off when Jon glimpsed the towers of Castle
Black ahead of them, dark against the pale immensity of the Wall. It did not
seem like home this time.
They could take him back, Jon told himself, but they could not make him stay.
The war would not end on the morrow, or the day after, and his friends could not
watch him day and night. He would bide his time, make them think he was
content to remain here … and then, when they had grown lax, he would be off
again. Next time he would avoid the kingsroad. He could follow the Wall east,
perhaps all the way to the 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. He wouldn’t stray
within a hundred leagues of Winterfell or the kingsroad.
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, Jon.”
“I’m not,” Jon said, dismounting.
Pyp hopped off his horse and looked at the lightening sky with disgust. “Give
us a hand bedding down the horses, Sam,” the small boy said. “We have a long
day before us, and no sleep to face it on, thanks to Lord Snow.”
When day broke, Jon walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn. Three-
Finger Hobb said nothing as he gave him the Old Bear’s breakfast. Today it was
three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried bread and ham steak and a bowl of
wrinkled plums. Jon carried the food back to the King’s Tower. He found
Mormont at the window seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth
across his shoulders, muttering, “Corn, corn, corn.” The bird shrieked when Jon
entered. “Put the food on the table,” the Old Bear said, glancing up. “I’ll have
some beer.”
Jon opened a shuttered window, took the flagon of beer off the outside ledge,
and 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 beer 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. “The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember when I told you
that?”
“I remember,” Jon said sullenly. He did not care to talk of his father’s death,
not even to Mormont.
“See that you never forget it. The hard truths are the ones to hold tight. Fetch
me my plate. Is it ham again? So be it. You look weary. Was your moonlight
ride so tiring?”
Jon’s throat was dry. “You know?”
“Know,” the raven echoed from Mormont’s shoulder. “Know.”
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. I
told him you’d be back. I know my men … and my boys too. Honor set you on
the kingsroad … and honor brought you back.”
“My friends brought me back,” Jon said.
“Did I say it was your honor?” Mormont inspected his plate.
“They killed my father. Did you expect me to do nothing?”
“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. You were seen leaving.
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?”
“No.” Jon felt like a fool.
“Pity, we could use a horse like that.”
Jon stood tall. He told himself that he would die well; that much he could do,
at the least. “I know the penalty for desertion, my lord. I’m not afraid to die.”
“Die!” the raven cried.
“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 guard the
Wall. Yet maybe you mean to flee again on the morrow, or a fortnight from now.
Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?”
Jon kept silent.
“I thought so.” Mormont peeled the shell off a boiled egg. “Your father is
dead, lad. Do you think you can bring him back?”
“No,” he answered, sullen.
“Good,” Mormont said. “We’ve seen the dead come back, you and me, 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
yoke.
The Old Bear sighed. “You are not the only one touched by this war. Like as
not, my sister is marching in your brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers,
dressed in men’s mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered,
and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman,
but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your
half sisters.” Frowning, Mormont took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist
until the shell crunched. “Or perhaps it does. Be that as it may, I’d still grieve if
she were slain, yet you don’t see me running off. I said the words, just as you
did. My place is here … where is yours, boy?”
I have no place, Jon wanted to say, I’m a bastard, I have no rights, no name,
no mother, and now not even a father. The words would not come. “I don’t
know.”
“I do,” said Lord Commander Mormont. “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. Quorin Halfhand took a captive in the
depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that 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 past
year?”
“Ben Jen,” the raven squawked, bobbing its head, bits of egg dribbling from
its beak. “Ben Jen. Ben Jen.”
“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. “War, war, war,
war,” it sang.
“It’s not,” Mormont told him. “Gods save us, boy, you’re not blind and you’re
not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters
who sits the Iron Throne?”
“No.” Jon had not thought of it that way.
“Your lord father sent you to us, Jon. Why, who can say?”
“Why? Why? Why?” the raven called.
“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 us 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 you were meant to be here, and I want you and
that wolf of yours with us when we go beyond the Wall.”
His words sent a chill of excitement down Jon’s back. “Beyond the Wall?”
“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. “By custom, the Lord Commander’s steward is his squire as well … but 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. Forgive me,
Father. Robb, Arya, Bran … forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it.
This is my place. “I am … yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run
again.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your sword.”