The King of Winters

Chapter 49

Andrew

When Andrew got the poisons from Maester Walys and fresh made castle forged spear from Mikken he knew that it was time. His chosen lair was the broken tower. Once it had been a watchtower, the tallest in Winterfell. A long time ago, a hundred years before even his father had been born, a lightning strike had set it afire. The top third of the structure had collapsed inward, and the tower had never been rebuilt. Sometimes his father sent ratters into the base of the tower, to clean out the nests they always found among the jumble of fallen stones and charred and rotten beams. But no one ever got up to the jagged top of the structure now except for the crows stayed there.

He observed two ways to get up there. You could climb straight up the side of the tower itself, but the stones were loose, the mortar that held them together long gone to ash, and Andrew was not ready to put his full weight on them.

The other and the best way was to start from the godswood, shinny up the tall sentinel, and cross over the armory and the guards hall, leaping roof to roof, quietly so the guards wouldn't hear you overhead. That will bring you up to the blind side of the First Keep, the oldest part of the castle, a squat round fortress that was taller than it looked. Only rats and spiders lived there now but the old stones still made for good climbing. You could go straight up to where the gargoyles leaned out blindly over empty space, and swing from gargoyle to gargoyle, hand over hand, around to the north side. From there, if you really stretched, you could reach out and pull yourself over to the broken tower where it leaned close. The last part was the scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, and then the crows would come round to see if you'd brought any corn.

He crossed the godswood, coming at the base of the sentinel tree near the armory wall. Andrew jumped, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself up. He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb. Somewhere behind him an owl hooted blindly in the dark. The godswood was still as a stone and even the trees did not seem to sway. The silence might have scared him once but he almost welcomed it now. 

He climbed to the top and jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.

For an assassin the rooftops were his second home. He spent most of his time following or stalking someone from above and even brought death to people from air. Most of the time they never saw him there anyway. People never looked up. That was another thing he liked about being in the rooftops; it was almost like being invisible. His mother often said to Andrew that he could be whoever he wants to be. Will she be happy to know that he is an assassin? Will his father be happy about it? Will the honourable King Eddard be proud to know that his son is an assassin? Somehow he dreaded the answer. He could only hope that they understand him. That he did not choose this path he was walking but instead this path chose him.

As a boy, Winterfell had always awed him with it's massive walls and towers. The place was so big that Andrew had played the lazy boy with his mother just so she would carry him and he would be spared of walking. His father would urge him to walk all his way when he turned four but even he can be swayed in his decisions and none knew the way to sway the King in the North as good as his wife and young son. Being big had its advantages too. It made a great place for exploring for young children. None knew the castle well and full which had left it with many hidden places amongst the ruins.

He moved from gargoyle to gargoyle with the ease of long practice. When he reached the tower near the First Keep Andrew looked down. There was a narrow ledge beneath the window, only a few inches wide. He tried to lower himself toward it. Too far. He would never reach.

He studied the ledge. He could drop down. It was too narrow to land on, but if he could catch hold as he fell past, pull himself up. That might work or he could fall to his death. Yet it was the only way to get there. Andrew closed his eyes, took a deeb breath and let go of his grip from the gargoyle. He shot out a hand as he fell, grabbed for the ledge, lost it, caught it again with his other hand. He swung against the building, hard. The impact took the breath out of him. Andrew dangled, one-handed, panting.