Jon stopped on the other side of the table. There was nowhere to put his hands that did not make him conscious of the blood upon them.
He had washed at the sept. A dark line remained beside his thumbnail. When he curled his fingers out of sight, the stiff cuff scraped his wrist; when he laid them flat, they looked like something he had brought for Arryn to examine. He left them at his sides. Behind the Hand, dawn whitened the narrow windows, though the candles still burnt upon the table. Wax had cooled over the edge of a letter.
"The man who had kept Benn was seen entering another house," Jon said. "I wanted to know whether there were children inside."
"You had my orders, Lord Black." Arryn touched the folded letter beneath his hand. "You sent word that you were already going."
"Yes."
"And took your brother with you."
Robb stepped forward. "I asked to come, my lord."
He held himself straight beneath the Hand's inspection, but the colour rose from his collar to his ears. There was dirt below one of them, where Will had slept against his shoulder. Jon wanted to point to it, to tell Arryn to look properly before he spoke of boys being led astray. The old man was looking already.
"I believe you did," he told Robb. "You will give your father your own account."
"I will."
"Both of you. I shall send mine with it." Arryn drew a second sheet from beneath the first. "Ser Androw sent this from the brewery. A man dead, others wounded, children taken to the sept. He tells me you remained until a maester came. How many men did you take?"
Jon named them. He had been composing a letter to Ned since the climb from the sept. With his own hurried message spread before him, he kept hearing how it would sound when read aloud at Winterfell. Robb had volunteered. Arthur had come. Jon had decided for all of them.
At Arthur's name, Arryn looked past him.
"You knew the order I had given."
"I did." Arthur stood with his hands loose at his sides. A pale thread of straw clung to the dark wool at his knee. "I advised Jon to bring the matter to you. When he meant to go himself, I went with him. At the house I heard enough to believe there were children below. Then they began loading the cart, and I helped take it."
"I am glad you were there when it came to fighting." Arryn laid the sheet down beside Jon's letter. "I should have preferred you here before it did."
A chair scraped in the adjoining room. Robb shifted, leather creaking at his waist, and someone beyond the door lowered his voice to speak to Hugh. Jon had stood through enough questions. There had been children behind those bars, and one of them might still die.
"If we had waited when they opened the gate, those children would have gone."
"I have not questioned your decision at the gate."
Jon's answer caught. Of course Arryn would keep him to the earlier decision, when Hal had only brought a man's name and a guarded door. Jon had wanted to look at the place. He still would, knowing this conversation waited at the end.
"I thought I could learn more by going there."
"So did my men. One spent yesterday finding the carter who supplied two of the houses we closed. Another is still trying to persuade a woman to identify a man she has seen beat her neighbour." Arryn leaned forward, the loose skin beneath his jaw settling against his collar. "They do not all return with children in their arms, Lord Black. Their work is necessary all the same."
"I know that."
"Then allow for it when you decide what is yours to do."
Jon pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth. A shout would have been easier to answer. Arryn spoke as though they had all the morning, while Jon could still feel the cart's rough wood beneath his hand and see the children waiting to be put into it. The old man's inquiries had not reached that yard in time. Jon's had. He would not apologise for the children being alive.
His shoulder throbbed beneath the mail. He eased its weight without quite lifting his arm, and Arryn turned the sheet towards the window.
"What did the watchmen do?"
"You have heard?"
"Androw arrived to find them there. He did not see what passed before."
Jon described the two men: where they had stopped, the one edging towards the gate, the other putting a hand upon his weapon. Arthur supplied what he had heard from the yard. When Robb said they had been counting the men with them, Arryn raised a finger.
"Did either say that?"
"No, my lord. He looked from Jon to Ser Arthur, then past me to Martyn. He looked at our swords."
"Tell Androw that. Let him hear exactly what you saw."
"They were ready to make trouble until they knew who we were," Jon insisted. "Your knight came, and suddenly they could not be helpful enough." He remembered the change in their voices with fresh disgust. They had counted his men before offering help. Whatever troubled them about the brewery, the cages had scarcely earned a glance.
"Their captain has orders to produce them. They will be questioned separately."
"By your men?"
"By mine." Arryn waited until Jon nodded. "The boy who guided you. Who knows where he lives?"
Jon told him about Hal and Rilla, the men who had taken money at her door, and the guards left at the cookshop. Rilla had to open her door again this morning. The men collecting money knew where to find it.
Arryn called for Hugh. The squire entered with a fresh candle and shears for the wicks, both of which he put down before the Hand had finished speaking.
"Find Ser Androw's man. The guard at the woman's shop is to remain until properly relieved. Her name and her nephew's are not to be given to the watchmen. Send someone to the sept as well, before the morning is out. The maester is to send word of the child with the head wound."
Hugh repeated the instructions. He stumbled over the last, cleared his throat and went out. Jon watched him shut the door carefully, so that the latch made scarcely a sound.
"There were people at the windows," he said. "They saw us take the children away."
"Which is why I shall not promise you that no one knows who helped you." Arryn rubbed the side of his nose. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, and Jon wondered how long he had been at this table before they came. "Your guard may remain at the shop. Your other men will attend your household and the tournament. They will not return to those streets to make inquiries."
"One man escaped. The slight fellow in the brown coat. He paid the keeper before they brought the children out."
"Androw has sent his description to the gates."
"He may not be leaving the city."
"He may not. We have prisoners who may help us find him." Arryn put the sheet down and looked directly at Jon. "If you learn where he is, send word. Do not send me another letter explaining what you have already decided to do."
Jon felt Arthur's attention settle upon him. "I understand."
"You understood yesterday."
Robb's boot moved upon the rushes. Jon kept his eyes on the Hand.
"I have no raid planned, my lord."
"Keep it so. If you disobey me again, I shall have to consider whether your household can remain in the city. I will not have rival bodies of armed men deciding for themselves which doors may be broken."
Robb drew breath to answer. Jon touched his sleeve, and his brother looked down at the hand before closing his mouth. Jon had earned the Hand's displeasure for himself.
He could imagine a lord before his own throne, blood still upon his coat, explaining why the king's order had been inconvenient. He would want obedience from that man. He would have it, too. But a king must answer for what happened while men waited upon his word. Jon had reached nine children whom Arryn's inquiries had not yet found. He could regret exposing Hal and Rilla, and see how badly they had known the streets, without wishing he had stayed in his chamber. Given the same night, he would go. He kept his mouth shut; another argument might cost him the men he needed.
"The children are not to be questioned again merely to satisfy a visitor's curiosity," Arryn continued. "They have told us what they can. Some have told us what they think we wish to hear. Let the septa have them for a day."
"I promised Will I would return after the lists," Robb said.
Arryn took his hand from Jon's letter. "Which is Will?"
"The boy who was hiding. He thought we would shut him up again." Robb looked towards Jon, then back at the Hand. "He would not come out while we stood over him. I sat down. After a while he let me carry him."
The old man's eyes rested upon the dirt below Robb's ear. When he answered, he addressed Robb alone.
"Go, if the septa says he may see you. Take Ser Martyn, and go by daylight. You need not ask him anything."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good." Arryn gathered the loose sheets, then looked up at Jon and sighed. "Your father used to stand before me with that same look. When he thought his honour was at stake, there was little talking him out of anything."
His voice had softened. "I am glad you brought those children out, Jon."
"But their rescue does not put this inquiry in your hands. The king has entrusted it to me. You will bring me what you learn and leave my men to act."
"Yes, my lord."
Hugh stood aside in the passage with a basin. Robb went past him, rolling one shoulder beneath his mail, while Arthur waited for Jon. Behind them, Arryn called for the next man. The candles would have burnt out before the Hand had finished, Jon thought. Robert might still be asleep.
***
A door opened as they reached the turning below the Hand's chambers. Varys came through it with a folded paper and very nearly stepped into Jon.
"My lord. Forgive me."
Yellow silk brushed against the doorframe as he drew back. His eyes passed over Jon's cuff, his dirty boots and the sword at his hip; then he looked into Jon's face with a concern so readily assumed that Jon distrusted it at once.
"You have had a busy night."
Robb stopped behind him. Martyn waited farther down the passage, beside a narrow window, and Varys inclined his head to Arthur before turning his courtesy upon Robb.
"And you, Lord Robb. I hear you carried one of the poor children yourself."
"He could not walk."
"How fortunate that you were there." Varys moved clear of the doorway. "A word, Lord Black, if I may. There is something about last night which you ought to hear."
Jon sent Robb ahead with Martyn. Arthur went as far as the window and stayed there, close enough to return at a call. A woman carrying folded linen passed between them; Varys waited for her to go, then moved towards an empty recess. He had chosen his place well. From the stair it would look as though Jon had detained him on his way to the Hand.
"Six swords, plain cloaks and a boy to guide you," he began. "You were seen leaving. Then at a cookshop, and later near the lime sheds. By the time the shouting began at the brewery, several people had taken an interest."
"Your people."
"Some of them."
The paper lay loosely in his hand, unsealed.
"Then you know what we found."
"I know what was carried out. I have not seen the cellar."
"But someone was watching while we were in it."
Varys stepped a little nearer. "Someone saw the man who ran away."
Jon forgot the paper. "The brown coat?"
"A slight man. He left before the watchmen arrived and went down towards the river, taking a great many turns along the way. He stopped at the house of an undercollector of the king's wine duties. They admitted him through the kitchen entrance." Varys's pale fingers rested upon his folded paper. "An unusual hour to settle a tax."
"Where?"
Behind the weighhouse near the river gate: a narrow house with two outside stairs and a red door upon the upper landing. Jon repeated the directions. He could already imagine the man in brown stepping inside, somebody shutting out the noise of the street behind him. Perhaps he had been given a cup, a chair near a hearth. The keeper had reached after his money while the children waited beside the cart. The man who had paid him might be sitting in a royal officer's kitchen.
"Who followed him?"
"Someone employed by a woman who keeps several houses of pleasure. The knight's men have lately begun asking money at her doors. She has guards of her own, and little wish to pay for his."
"She wants him gone."
"She wants her customers left alone. Men are being stopped outside her houses and made to pay before they can enter. Some decide they have spent enough already." Varys smoothed the edge of the paper beneath his thumb. "She was quite eager to hear what had happened at the brewery."
Jon recalled the shutters closing when he asked which way the fugitive had gone. Someone else had followed him through the dark for a woman whose customers were being robbed. Fear did not prevent people from resenting the men who frightened them, or from looking for a chance to hurt them in return.
"Is he even a knight?"
"He has a horse, good armour and men who call him ser. Beyond that, the accounts differ."
"You have not found anyone who knighted him."
"No." Varys glanced towards the sword at Jon's hip. "But tell a frightened man he is dealing with a knight, and he may hope there is a lord he can appeal to. Even that little hope makes a sword easier to endure."
"Is there?"
"His rivals have been asking that for some time. He had coin for followers before he had much to collect from these lanes. They would dearly like to know where it came from."
"And you?"
"There are several stories, my lord. I would sooner trouble Lord Arryn with a door his men can knock upon."
Jon studied the folded paper. The eunuch had told him where a fugitive had gone readily enough.
"How much of Flea Bottom does this man hold?"
"Less than he would have you believe. The woman's men still keep him out of several lanes. Near the slaughteryards, the butchers collect their own pennies from every barrow that passes. His men tried asking for a share last winter. Two of them were carried home."
Varys lowered his voice as footsteps sounded beyond the turning. A boy came past with a basket of rushes, watching Jon's sword until he nearly struck the doorpost.
"There are others," the eunuch continued when he had gone. "They quarrel over a yard, a stair, which door a carter uses. The knight has taken a good deal from them these past few years. Several people were pleased to hear that someone had broken into his brewery."
"Pleased enough to help find the children?"
"The woman helped find your fugitive. She may help again. I would hear what she asks in return before promising her anything."
Jon looked down the passage towards Arthur. His uncle had turned from the window and was watching them. Last night he had wanted someone to open a door and tell him where the children had gone. The woman's men might know. So might the butchers, and neither would need to care whether a child lived so long as the answer hurt their rival.
"Was the man still at the collector's house when your word came?"
"He was. I cannot promise you he has remained."
"And what has a wine collector to do with children in cages?"
"That is a question I hope the Hand will have answered. For now, I can give you the house."
There was a faint scent of perfume beneath the stale wool and sweat of Jon's own clothes. Varys stood within arm's reach, round-faced and solicitous, offering the first useful direction anyone had given him since the man escaped. It was infuriating how much Jon wanted to thank him.
He remembered Tyrion and the gold cloaks: Varys helping him remove Slynt, making himself indispensable while leaving Cersei's part for Tyrion to discover. Ned had been given warnings, too. Jon had read those conversations with the advantage of seeing what followed them. Here there was no next page to turn, only a man who knew something Jon needed and had chosen exactly when to offer it.
"Have you told the Hand?"
Varys lifted the folded paper. "I am going to him now. His men must find out whether your fugitive is still there. But you saw him at the brewery. Did he speak as a buyer, my lord, or did he give the keeper orders?"
The purse, the withheld coin, the keeper's fingers reaching for it: Jon had seen that exchange through Hugin's eyes. He kept his gaze upon Varys and gave him only what he could safely have learned in the yard.
"He wanted the children brought out. The keeper says the money was for the cart."
"And you believe him?"
"He was trying to give the least dangerous answer."
"Quite likely." Varys studied him for a moment. "Would you know the other man again?"
"Yes. I told Ser Androw so."
"Then you may be of help without another expedition into the streets."
Jon's jaw tightened. "You have spoken to the Hand already."
"I have spoken to people who saw two young lords return to the castle after a night of fighting. I should have been surprised if Lord Arryn welcomed you with nothing but thanks."
From the stair came a scuff and a man's laboured breath. Jon looked past Varys. A servant was carrying charcoal up towards the Hand's rooms, the basket wedged against one hip, and Arthur had moved from the window to let him pass. His uncle's gaze came back to Jon at once.
"Why bring this to me separately?" Jon asked.
"You were there, my lord. I wished to hear what you had seen before the story had been told over a dozen cups of wine." His eyes returned briefly to Jon's cuff. "And you are rather more likely to be approached by people with grievances against this knight. The woman might hesitate to come to the Hand."
"But she came to you."
"Her man did." Varys folded the paper once more. "If another comes to you, I should be glad to hear what he brings."
The request was modest enough after what he had offered. Jon could use the information without carrying every whisper back.
There was Illyrio behind the powdered face, and the boy being prepared across the sea. A Blackfyre purpose, perhaps. Jon remembered the arguments about Aegon, about Illyrio's wife and the eunuch's loyalties. They had been theories, argued by people who could shut the book when they were tired of them. He could not afford to turn a theory into certainty. Nor could he afford to forget that Varys might already be working towards a throne for someone else.
"If the man is found, send word through the Hand. I will identify him."
"I shall."
"And if he has gone, I would still like to hear it."
"Of course, my lord." Varys bowed. "You should wash before breakfast. His Grace will want the tale, and there are ladies who will find the state of that sleeve more distressing than anything you tell them."
He turned towards the stair, gathering his silk clear of the charcoal bearer's basket and letting the man squeeze past. Jon watched them go. Varys seemed to have time for everyone. Jon had spent the morning fighting an urge to hurry every man who answered him.
Arthur came back from the window. "What did he give you?"
"The house where the man in brown went. And something of the men who rule those lanes."
"Does he have proof?"
"Someone saw the fugitive enter. That is what Varys says."
Arthur glanced towards the stair. "And what does he want from you?"
"To hear who comes to me next." Jon started towards his chambers, and his uncle fell into step beside him. "I will send Androw the directions. Then we shall see how much his help is worth."
The ache returned to his shoulder as they walked. He had forgotten it while Varys was talking.
***
By the time Wylla had the mail off him, Jon was shaking.
The weight left his shoulders, and cold found the wet linen beneath it. He had crossed the castle without feeling the draughts; now the little current beneath his chamber door made him hunch in the chair. Wylla laid a blanket across his knees and drew a stool nearer for the basin. Its water was already pink. He watched a thread of blood come loose from his cuff and spread until he could no longer follow it.
"That sleeve is finished," she said.
"It can be mended."
She held it where he could see the torn seam beneath the arm and the blackened cuff. "I'll leave it for you, then. You can hear what the laundry women say. Lift your elbow a little."
He tried. She stopped him before he could lift it far, eased the cloth free herself and laid it over the stool. Jon let his head rest against the chair. On the window perch, Munin worked at the cord securing a little dish, tugging with an industriousness Jon resented. Hugin slept with his head turned back. At least one of them had the sense to be tired.
Arthur had brought a maester. The man pressed around the bruise below Jon's left shoulder, following the collarbone with careful fingers before asking him to raise his arm. Jon watched his own hand rise. A little higher, he thought; it ought to go a little higher than that.
"Again," the maester said. "More slowly."
The second attempt was worse. Jon lowered it before his hand reached the height it had managed the first time. The man felt along the joint while Jon held the chair with his right hand and kept his teeth together. Nothing was broken that the maester could find, but he made no cheerful promise upon the strength of it.
"You have made a bad bruise worse. Another blow may leave you unable to use the arm for a while. You should rest it."
"There is a melee this morning."
"So I was told." The maester looked towards Arthur. "I cannot make it sounder by giving him something which prevents him feeling it."
"No milk of the poppy."
"I had not offered it."
Wylla lowered her face over the basin. Jon caught the small crease beside her mouth before she turned away, and would have smiled if the maester's thumb had not chosen that moment to press beneath his collarbone.
When the man had gone, Arthur crouched beside the chair. Jon disliked having to look down to meet his eyes. It made this feel more like being put to bed after a childhood fall than a question about entering a tournament.
"Are you certain you mean to fight?"
"Yes."
"Then show me you can use a shield before you enter. If you cannot protect that side, you withdraw. You have no sleep in you, and this will not be three passes in the yard."
Jon looked at the spreading purple upon his skin. Beyond the window the castle was waking; he could hear hooves on stone, a shouted name, someone laughing. There would be boys dressing for the melee who had slept after the feast and dreamed of winning it. He envied them their uncomplicated morning. He wanted the victory just as badly, with the cellar still beneath his nails and a maester somewhere down the hill watching a child whose head had been broken.
"I will show you."
Arthur rose and brought him the bread. "First eat."
There was soft cheese upon the table and a pot of honey. The first mouthful stuck in Jon's dry mouth. He drank, took another, and discovered he was ravenous. By the time Aries appeared he had eaten half the loaf.
The boy had dressed in haste. One fastening at his collar was in the wrong hole, pulling the cloth crooked beneath his chin. Wylla reached to set it right as he came past her.
"They said you brought more children back."
"Nine."
"To Benn's sept?"
Jon nodded. Aries sat on the edge of the bed without asking and stared at the shirt draped over the stool.
"Is that yours?"
"The shirt is. Most of the blood is not."
Aries kept looking at it. Jon regretted the answer; he had meant to spare the boy worry about him, and had merely supplied someone else to worry about.
"Did you see Benn?"
"He was awake. Hal asked after his writing."
"He said he was going to learn my name. Before, I mean. In the letter." Aries found a loose thread upon the coverlet and drew it through his fingers. "Robb is going after the lists. I met him on the stairs. He told me about the other boy."
"We can ask the septa when it would suit her to have you."
"I could take the writing board I don't use. The edge is chipped, but it still works."
"Ask what they need before you empty your room." Jon put down his bread. He had asked after Benn's injured hand, but forgotten the boy's promise to learn Aries's name. "You may go with Robb if Ser Martyn agrees. The septa must say they may have visitors, though. Some are very ill."
Aries let go of the thread. "I'll ask."
Jon sent for Perrin while Wylla found fresh clothes. She brought fine black wool, buttons covered in the same cloth and a collar that would leave his neck clear. When she turned back a cuff, black silk caught the window light with a wet gleam. He could have worn that doublet to a feast. This morning he was grateful chiefly that it had no heavy embroidery to catch beneath his armour.
"Left arm first."
He let her guide it into the sleeve. The sound arm followed easily enough; then she worked the cloth over his shoulders. It was galling to need such care over something he usually accomplished while thinking of half a dozen other things.
Perrin arrived with a wax tablet. His greeting faltered when he saw the basin, and he drew the tablet against his chest.
"The men are bringing the chests up now, my lord. Shall I have them wait?"
"Have them taken back under guard. We will hold the showing on the first morning after the tournament."
"The whole showing?"
"Yes. I have had no sleep, half the household has been in the city, and I need my men rested. Tell the buyers there was trouble in the night and we helped bring children out of it. I will speak to anyone who has arranged to sail before then."
Perrin turned the tablet over. "Lord Baelish was expecting—"
"Tell him as well. And make certain we can still have the room."
"There are men waiting to be measured for armour after the contests."
"Keep those appointments. They need the armourer, not me standing over him."
Perrin scratched a note. "I'll put someone at the room, then, as well as sending round. There'll be men who arrive without hearing, or leave word with the wrong servant."
"Thank you. Tomas promised fresh guards for the cookshop. Has he sent them?"
"He was speaking to the men when I came up. I'll see that they've gone."
After Perrin left, Jon stood before the polished metal mirror while Wylla combed his hair. His face looked pinched, the white forelock too bright above the shadows under his eyes. Wylla dampened it and tried to lay it flat. There was comfort in standing still while someone else knew what to do.
"You'll be asleep in your dish before the king has finished eating," she said.
"I will try to stay awake."
"Try lying down when you get the chance. That would please me better." She smoothed his collar, though it needed no smoothing. "I'd have you in that bed now if anyone listened to me."
He caught her hand before she could draw it away. Her fingers were cold from the basin. For a moment she stood with them in his, her comb forgotten in the other hand, and he could think of nothing to promise her that he would keep. She squeezed his fingers and went to fetch his belt.
***
Theon was waiting with Robb beneath the gallery, dressed for a morning worth being seen in. His dark green doublet fitted closely at the waist, the gold cord at its throat newly tied; a kraken held his short cloak upon one shoulder. Beside him, Robb looked as though someone had poured him into clean clothes and sent him out before he was ready. Water still darkened the grey wool below his collar. He kept his hands behind his back, stretching the fingers which had cramped beneath Will's weight.
"I hear you found something better than sleep." Theon looked from Robb to Jon. He had not put on his gloves.
"Hal brought word after you had gone," Jon said.
"I was not in Pyke. I was down a passage."
Robb glanced towards a pair of servants crossing the gallery. "We didn't know what it would become."
"You knew enough to buckle on a sword."
Theon bent the fingers of one glove into his palm. Jon had expected a jest about missing the fight, something they could answer before going in to eat. He had no wish to explain himself again, with Arryn's questions still sour in his mouth, but Theon stood squarely in their way and waited.
Jon gave him the account: Hal's message, the watch upon the brewery, the cart coming into the yard. At the cages he faltered. He could describe the doors and the men defending them readily enough; he disliked bringing the cellar up here, where someone was beating dust from a hanging farther along the gallery and the smell of breakfast had begun to reach them. Robb took over. He told Theon about the boy who had hidden and the septa who had received the children.
The glove slowly opened in Theon's hand.
"And you didn't think I could help?"
"That was not it," Robb said.
"Then what was it?"
Jon could have answered for him. Haste, fewer men, the folly of taking every young noble in their company into an unknown street. He had made room for Robb all the same. Theon had been close enough to fetch, and neither of them had thought to do it.
"I should have told you."
Theon lifted his eyes from the gloves. For once he had nothing ready on his tongue. Then he thrust them into his belt, harder than necessary.
"I can keep quiet. Whatever else you think of me."
"I know."
"And I don't need Robb to hold my hand when someone draws a knife."
"I was holding a boy," Robb said. "He would probably have bitten you."
Theon's mouth twitched. "Sensible child."
He made way for them and fell into his usual place beside Robb. He would not answer the next attempt at a joke, but before they reached the hall he asked whether the children had families in the city. Jon told him what little they knew.
The room had lost its evening splendour in pieces. Half the candles were gone, the musicians' gallery stood empty, and a servant on her knees was picking crushed flowers from beneath the royal table. Daylight found the seams in the banners and a pale scrape where a bench had been dragged over the floor. Jon remembered looking up at those same hangings while the hall shone beneath them. This morning he wanted a place where he might sit without anyone asking him to account for the night.
The breakfast had spread well beyond the places laid for it. Knights ate standing beside their seated wives; boys in padded jacks reached between their elders for bread while squires tried to keep grease from the cloth. Genna Lannister caught Emmon by the sleeve and made him sit down again before he had finished his plate. Myranda Lefford leaned past her to call after a servant. Farther along the western table, a Marbrand youth had tucked a napkin beneath his collar, to the poorly concealed delight of the girl beside him. Through the propped doors came grooms, folded surcoats, a man carrying a helm under either arm. A small dog had found a sausage skin and was refusing to surrender it to an indignant page.
Jon might have enjoyed the disorder on another morning. He was still watching the dog when a man near the door recognised them and spoke to his neighbour. Heads turned ahead of their progress. Petyr Baelish broke off his conversation with a clerk; his eyes touched Jon's clean sleeve, then Robb's face. Jon wished Wylla had found time to wash the dirt from his brother's sword belt as well.
Their places remained beside Monford and the Manderlys. Wendel was cutting cold beef, Wylis had laid his cloak over his chair, and Wynafryd sat holding her cup in both hands. She watched Jon approach until he was near enough to hear her.
"You said you were tired last night."
"I was."
"You have found a poor remedy."
He had liked making her smile last night. Now she looked at him as though he had made a fool of her concern. Before he could find an answer, someone called Robb from the Vale end of the table. Harry rose to make room for Mychel, saw Jon behind him and stopped with his hand upon the bench.
Jon had barely drawn out his chair when Robert's voice reached them from the dais.
"There they are. Come here, you two. I have been hearing a damned good tale, and I mean to hear it properly."
A cup struck a plate behind him. The quiet travelled slowly through the room: a conversation stopped, a man turned to see why, another asked his neighbour what the king had said. Robb's ears reddened.
"Who told him?" he breathed.
Jon could have named several people who might have obliged the king. He could see one of them sitting at Robert's right, in fresh clothes and with the same weary eyes that had watched him across a table at dawn.
Robert had loosened his belt a hole. His black hair was still damp, and he held a piece of bread in a hand big enough to hide it. Eggs and little onions steamed upon his plate. Beside him Cersei, in crimson silk worked with gold at the neck, was finishing something she had been telling Myrcella. She made the boys wait for the end of it before turning her head.
"Flea Bottom," Robert announced. "At night, with the tournament in the morning. Ned will tear his hair out when he hears. How many were there?"
Jon stopped below the dais. "Nine children, Your Grace."
"The men, boy. How many men?"
Of course. Jon gave him the number at the brewery, and said that one had escaped. Arryn set his cup down.
"And you had Arthur with you." Robert found him near the doors. "That was better sense than some boys show on their first night's mischief. Come closer, Robb. You look as though you've swallowed a nail."
A few men laughed. Robb came forward with his chin raised, staring at a point beyond the king's shoulder. Jon knew that look from their childhood: his brother would endure almost anything rather than let people see him blush, and the effort always made it worse.
"Tell it from the beginning," Robert said. "What took you down there?"
Hal's name almost escaped him. Jon swallowed it. He had counted armed men in the brewery; he could not begin to count the listeners here, or guess which of them would repeat a helpful boy's name over supper.
"Someone recognised a man who had kept children in one of the houses the Hand closed. He went into an old brewery, deep in Flea Bottom. There was a guard outside. We went to find out what he was guarding."
"Another pit?" Renly asked.
"A place to keep them between fights, my lord. There was no fighting ground."
Renly turned towards Arryn. At the far end of the royal table, Stannis laid his knife beside the bread he had been cutting. Jon could see the hard line of his jaw above his collar.
"We watched the doors. Later a man came with money, and they brought a cart into the yard. They were loading the children when we went in."
"And the keeper drew on you?" Robert asked.
"He had a club. The driver drew a knife. There were armed men in the house as well."
"Did they know who you were?"
"Not at first."
Robert leaned towards him. "Go on."
A servant waited at the king's elbow with honeyed apples. The glaze gleamed upon their cut sides, and Jon caught the smell of cinnamon above the onions. He suddenly hated the broad polished table between them. He could still feel the low cellar over his head; here there was room for a man to stretch his legs beneath silver dishes while deciding which part of the rescue would make the best story. Robert wanted a fight. He would hear what the fighting had been for.
"We took the yard. When we had the house, we found cages below it."
Robert's bread stopped halfway towards his mouth.
"Cages?"
"Two in the cellar. Another in the washhouse. Some of the children could not stand, Your Grace. We had to carry them." Jon looked along the royal table. "They had been kept there to be brought out and made to fight again."
A knife fell against a dish at the neighbouring table. No one reached at once to retrieve it. Robert lowered the bread and asked how old the children were.
"I do not know all their ages. Younger than us. One girl might be ten."
Tommen was leaning forward to see between the adults. Cersei put a hand upon Myrcella's wrist and spoke to the septa behind them. The woman bent to Tommen, but he shook his head and kept watching Jon until his sister rose and offered her hand.
"You wished to see the horses," the queen reminded him. "Go with your sister."
Tommen obeyed, looking back once. Cersei followed the children with her eyes until they had passed the nearest table. When she looked at Jon again her lips were pressed together. He took the look as a rebuke for bringing the cellar into her children's morning. Let her be displeased. He had been summoned to tell it.
"Where are the bastards who did it?" Robert demanded.
"In custody," Arryn answered. "My men brought the prisoners up before dawn. They are being held apart."
"Then hang them."
"They must first tell us where the children came from, and where the cart was going."
Robert pushed his bread onto the edge of the plate. "Hear them, then. But I want them dealt with, Jon. I will not have this going on beneath my own walls."
Arryn inclined his head. Jon remembered the letters upon the Hand's table, the orders already sent while Robert slept. It must be a weary business, keeping a king's peace and allowing him to discover it anew over breakfast.
"Where was the Watch?" Stannis asked.
Jon described the two watchmen's arrival. He would gladly have repeated what he thought of them, but Arryn had been right about the distinction between what he had seen and what he believed. He gave the hall their questions, their hands moving towards their weapons, their sudden helpfulness when the Hand's knight appeared.
Stannis turned to Arryn before Jon had quite finished.
"They were sent for before you came down," the Hand told him. "Ser Androw is hearing the witnesses."
"Then let their captain account for his patrols as well. A house does not fill with prisoners in one night."
"Did the keeper own the brewery, Lord Black?"
Petyr's question came from beside the dishes, mild and businesslike. Jon had been following Stannis's anger; it took him a moment to turn towards the smaller man.
"I do not know."
"The old brewing yards are often let in pieces. The tax collectors may know who takes the rent." Baelish glanced towards Arryn. "I can have them bring what records they possess."
"Send them to me."
"Of course. Did you find any books there, Lord Black? Accounts, names of those who paid?"
"I was bringing children out. Your lordship will have to ask the men who searched it afterwards."
"Quite right. They were your first concern."
Petyr took a drink, letting the commendation settle upon Jon as though it had cost him something to bestow. An obliging little man, finding rent rolls while greater lords called for heads. Jon distrusted the ease of it. Petyr now knew that he had not read the keeper's accounts, and had arranged to supply the Hand with records of his own.
Jon wondered whether a clerk sent to the quays would reach the records before word of the inquiry reached the men who kept them.
"And how many did you kill?" Joffrey asked.
The prince had been turning a knife beside his plate. He laid it down now, his green eyes intent upon Jon in a way the cages had failed to make them.
"One man died fighting Ser Arthur. The others were taken."
"Only one?"
Robert swung towards his son. "Dead men tell us bugger-all. We need the rest to talk."
"I meant—"
"The prince asked how much resistance they offered," Cersei said. She spoke evenly, with her eyes upon Jon. "He has not had your account before this morning."
"Enough. One of my men was cut. We were fortunate it was not worse."
Joffrey looked down at his knife. Sandor's gaze remained upon the prince, the unburned side of his mouth dragging into a sneer. Jon found himself in agreement with the Hound. A little steel at breakfast, a little blood in a story, and Joffrey could imagine himself among the men who had earned the telling.
"Is the wounded man attended?" Barristan asked.
The old knight had not moved from his place beside the dais. Jon turned towards him with relief. "Yes, ser. A cut above the brow. The maester is more concerned for one of the children."
Pycelle stirred, his heavy chain slipping against the edge of the table. "A blow to the head can be treacherous. A child may seem to improve, and then—"
"There is a maester with him." Jon heard how sharply he had cut across the old man. He had no patience left for a list of the ways the boy might die; yet Pycelle could send help, and offending him would put none in the sickroom. "I would be grateful if you sent to learn what he needs."
"Certainly, certainly. A poor child."
Robert pushed his plate aside. "And you, Robb? What did you do while your brother was breaking heads?"
"I helped with the children, Your Grace."
"Come now. You need not be shy of telling me."
Robb reddened to the roots of his hair. He clasped his hands behind his back again, as he had in the gallery. Across the hall, Harry leaned forward; Jon spoke before anyone could turn his brother's discomfort into another jest.
"There was a boy who would not come out. He hid from the swords. Robb sat on the floor and took his off. When the boy finally came to him, he carried him all the way to the sept."
"How far?" Robert asked Robb.
"I don't know, Your Grace."
"Long enough that Ser Martyn offered to take him," Jon said. "The boy would not let go."
Robb looked at him then, pleading for an end to it. Jon stopped. He had wanted the hall to understand what his brother had done, and had succeeded chiefly in making Robb wish himself elsewhere.
The king beckoned him up the step. When Robb came within reach, Robert put that great hand upon his shoulder.
"Your father will be proud of that."
He said it quietly. Robb lifted his head, and the stiffness went out of him. His mouth opened before he found the words.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Jon stood below the dais and watched his brother smile. Last night Robb had listened to the men of the rebellion; now Robert had given him a place in a story of his own. He would write to Ned about it. He would try to make the words sound casual, then repeat the king's praise exactly, and Ned would hear his pleasure through every line.
It hurt to know that so well. Jon wanted Robb beside him when he claimed his own crown. He had imagined what he would tell his brother, what truths and promises might persuade him; he had given less thought to having to ask him to turn against a man who could make him look like this. Robert had scarcely needed to try. A hand upon a shoulder, a few words about their father, and Robb would carry the morning home with him.
Jon could not even wish it taken away. His brother had sat on a filthy floor and coaxed a frightened child out of hiding. He deserved to stand before a king and hear that he had done well. For a moment Jon hated the future he wanted for requiring him to think beyond that.
"They disobeyed a clear instruction to go there," Arryn said.
Robert's hand remained upon Robb's shoulder. "Did they?"
"They did. I have spoken to them."
The king looked at his old foster father. A grin tugged at his beard, and Jon glimpsed the younger man who must once have stood before Arryn with an excellent account of why a forbidden thing had needed doing.
"You had cause to speak to me often enough."
"I remember."
Yohn Royce laughed, with several men near him. Arryn waited until they had finished. Robert released Robb with a final squeeze.
"Well, let us have no more night fighting before my tournament. Get some food into you both. I mean to see what Ned has taught his sons."
Jon bowed. At the side of the dais Lysa caught Robb's sleeve before he could descend. Her eyes went to the dirt in his sword belt, and she drew him nearer to speak. Jon could not hear the words. His brother bent his head through them with the patient misery of a boy who has just escaped one adult only to be caught by another. When she let him go, he hurried down the step.
Tyrion Lannister raised his cup as they passed. "To Lord Black. A useful night's work. I can seldom say as much for mine." A few cups rose with his. Jon inclined his head and followed Robb towards their seats, past the servant setting down the honeyed apples.
***
Margaery had meant to give Jon the book before he sat down.
Elinor had it beneath her shawl, a corner of blue leather showing against the cream wool. Margaery had marked a passage before dressing, certain she would make him laugh. Now she could scarcely remember what she had meant to say.
Jon reached his chair and lowered himself carefully beside Robb. His black sleeves were clean now. Margaery remembered the hand he had offered her for their dance, and tried to picture it holding a sword in that dark yard. A knife, Jon had said. A club. Men who had not known his name.
She had gone to bed pleased with the evening. He had gone into Flea Bottom. She knew its name from the warnings given to their servants; even the grooms were told to go there in company. Jon was not yet fourteen. He had taken his brother and a handful of men into those streets, and nine children were sleeping in the sept because he had.
When Robert had asked how many men, Jon had answered with the number of children. Then he had made them listen to what Robb had done. Margaery felt her cheeks warming. She wanted to tell him what she thought of him, and was suddenly afraid that she would sound foolish.
At the royal table, Garlan was asking whether the Hand meant to seek the children's families. Robert referred him to Arryn, then turned the talk to Garlan's horse. Father leaned forward to supply its breeding. Across the room, Jon held a cup without drinking while Robb spoke close to his ear.
Grandmother broke a roll beside her.
"You are watching the wrong table."
Margaery turned reluctantly. "Those children might have been gone by morning."
Olenna's fingers stilled upon the roll. "He did well. I have known men twice his age who would have left it to someone else." She glanced towards the dais. "Your father has scarcely stopped talking to the king. You might spare a little attention for the prince."
"I have not forgotten him."
"Then watch him. His father has been praising another boy, and he does not care for it."
Joffrey sat with a loose thread wound about one finger, drawing it tighter until the tip whitened. There were eggs untouched before him. When Robert laughed at something Garlan said, the prince pulled another thread from his napkin.
"He only wanted to know how many they had killed," Margaery murmured.
"I heard him. I want you to hear what he says when his father is not beside him."
Grandmother was watching her now. Margaery nodded; there would be questions later. She made herself look towards the prince, though her hand had strayed towards the book beneath Elinor's shawl.
Renly caught Father's eye over Garlan's shoulder.
"You should have him come and choose one himself, Mace. My brother has heard enough about your stables to think you keep dragons in them."
"If he has one fit to carry me, I'll ride it," Robert declared.
Father's chair scraped backwards. He checked himself halfway to his feet and settled with both hands upon the table. "Highgarden would be honoured, Your Grace. By you and all your family. We have room enough for the court, and my wife would see to everything."
Mother lifted her eyes from her cup. Margaery waited for some sign that the invitation surprised her, but Alerie only turned a little towards the queen.
"There is good hunting along the Mander," Father continued. "We have scarcely disturbed those woods this season. Garlan could show you—"
"I know what grows fat in the Reach." Robert pointed his bread at Renly. "You never come back thinner."
"They take very good care of me."
"Nor would Your Grace find our cellars wanting," Father put in. "Whatever wine you favour, we shall have it laid down."
He was smiling now, pleased by the laughter and the king's interest, and Margaery could picture the preparations beginning before anyone had agreed to come. The guest rooms opened, hangings shaken out, men sent hurrying to the stables. Mother would have to decide where everyone slept while Father told them how welcome they were.
Cersei waited for the laughter to finish. Sunlight caught the gold net over her hair; beside the king's loosened belt and damp collar, she looked as carefully dressed as she had at the feast. Margaery straightened without meaning to.
"A generous invitation, Lord Tyrell. I am sure Lady Alerie would receive us splendidly."
"It would be my pleasure, Your Grace."
The queen inclined her head to Mother, accepting the assurance. Margaery watched the two women across Father's broad shoulder. Alerie had scarcely spoken, yet the queen addressed her now, and Father had to wait until they had finished.
"We shall speak of it when the tournament is done," Robert said. "I have promised these lords a hunt here first. Royce will accuse me of fleeing south to find an easier boar."
"Only if Your Grace leaves me behind," Yohn called.
Father sat back laughing with the others. Renly stayed beside him to discuss the road, and already Father was describing where the royal party might break its journey. Margaery glanced at Mother, whose mouth had curved above the rim of her cup. Highgarden would certainly receive a letter.
"Are we still to ride this morning?" she asked when Alerie put it down.
"The princess is being readied. Her septa will accompany us, as the queen required. We shall have an escort and reach the lists before the boys begin."
Olenna held out her hand for her stick. "Then do not keep a princess waiting while you hunt for a book."
Elinor lifted the shawl. Margaery took the little volume and tucked the ribbon safely between its pages. Grandmother followed the movement with a glance.
"I know where it is," Margaery said.
"So I see."
She kept the book in her hand as she rose. Jon had scarcely touched his breakfast. There would be time to give it to him before she left, and perhaps to make him laugh over something foolish for a moment.
***
Oberyn had watched Arthur while the king questioned the boys.
His friend stood near the door in a cloak with dried mud along its hem. In the hard morning light every splash showed. He had found time to clean his sword, Oberyn would wager, and none to look at the rest of himself. When Jon spoke of the cages, Arthur lowered his eyes. Through all Robert's questions he offered no account of his own fighting.
Beside Oberyn, Obara pushed away her dish.
"I would have killed the keeper," she said.
"And the men who paid him?"
"I would have them too."
She looked towards the king as he laughed. It was not the first time Oberyn had heard her offer to settle a wrong with a spear. This morning he found little fault with the wish.
"We shall see whom he names."
Obara folded her arms and kept watching the dais.
Arthur approached as the dishes were being cleared.
Oberyn moved his cup to make room upon the table and beckoned him to sit.
"I must see Jon to the yard."
"Your nephew is eating. You may do the same."
Arthur glanced back before taking the end of the bench. Obara set a plate before him, leaving him to find an excuse for refusing it. He broke off a piece of bread. His first mouthful was so large that Oberyn put off his questions and pushed the cheese within reach as well.
Arthur ate. They had known one another too long for him to believe Oberyn had called him over merely for breakfast. Some questions from yesterday would have to wait; servants were still passing close behind him.
"Did he ask their names?"
Arthur looked up.
"The children."
"Those who could give them. Why?"
"Robert has had the fighting. I wondered what your nephew did afterwards."
Arthur swallowed and set down the bread. "He went below. I wished I had gone first."
Oberyn waited while a servant gathered the empty dishes. When the man had passed, he leaned nearer.
"A boy flinched when he tried to help him with his coat," Arthur continued. "Later, the keeper started shouting while Robb was trying to bring the little one out. Jon put him against the wall with a hand at his throat. I stopped him."
Across the room Robert laughed. Oberyn's jaw tightened at the sound. He looked towards Jon, who was listening to someone beside him, the blood washed away and his black sleeves clean.
"Did he fight you?"
"He let go when I took his arm. Then he helped with the children. Stayed until the maester came. There was no persuading him to leave."
Oberyn could picture the keeper clawing at Jon's wrists. He might have needed Arthur's hand upon his own arm, had he stood in that cellar.
Arthur looked towards Jon and smiled, the weariness easing from his face. Oberyn watched him. He had seen that pride after the boy's bouts; this was warmer, almost unguarded.
"Has the keeper named the men who buy the children?"
"Not to me. The Hand's men have him."
"There is no judgement in this city for men who hurt children."
Oberyn looked towards Robert. No one had needed a prisoner's confession to name Elia's murderers, yet the years had passed with those men alive. He set his cup down untouched.
"We look after our children in Dorne," he said. "Doran sets guards over the Water Gardens, for the grooms' children as well as ours. Here they are kept in cages for men to wager upon."
"Ask, when you see the Hand's men," Oberyn added. "I would like to know whom that keeper has been serving."
Arthur nodded.
Oberyn would tell Doran about the cellar. And Rhaenys—what would she make of the boy who had gone into it, and the care Arthur took of him? Oberyn glanced at his friend again. Whatever he thought of Jon's bargain with Vhalar, his niece ought to hear this too.
"When you have slept, come and see me," he said. "Without everyone waiting in a yard for you."
Arthur held his gaze. "I will."
Arthur glanced towards the doors. "I sent word to Lord Mooton. We have kept him waiting long enough."
"He means to recover the time from us. A longer visit, and your story about Myles."
"He shall have both."
Obara spoke before he could rise. "Tell your nephew he still owes me a bout. Winning this will not get him out of it."
"Tell him yourself," Arthur said, rising. "He has heard enough from me this morning."
She snorted. But when Arthur went back towards Jon, her eyes followed him, and Oberyn saw her measuring the boy's movements once more.
***
Wendel reached past Jon to clap Robb on the back. "Well done, both of you." Wylis asked after Jon's shoulder, looking him over as if he expected to find another wound beneath the clean doublet. Jon had managed three mouthfuls of eggs when Lady Tanda found him. He wished she would let him finish before asking whatever she had come to ask.
Both daughters were with her. Falyse carried her gloves; Lollys wound the cord of a small cloth bag about her wrist. Rosby's cough interrupted Tanda as he stopped beside them to speak to Wylis.
"Those poor children," Tanda began again. "To think what might have happened if you had not gone." She urged Lollys forward with a hand at her back. "Such a gallant young lord. Don't you think so, Lollys?"
Lollys's round face coloured. She glanced at Jon and down at her bag. "Y-yes. Very g-gallant, my lord."
"Thank you, my lady." Jon put down his spoon.
Lollys ventured another glance at him. "Can they have my blue coverlet?"
"Of course, my dear," Tanda said. "The linen can go to the sept as well. I shall tell Lord Sunglass we need not send it over the water."
Lollys edged nearer. Her yellow gown pulled tight across her middle; the cord had left a red line upon her plump wrist. She loosened it when Falyse touched her hand.
"The ones in the cages can have it?"
"Yes. We will send it with the linen."
"Will had nothing but his shirt," Robb said. "We wrapped him in a cloak."
Betha Blackwood had paused behind him to let Rosby pass. Her dark hair was braided back, a red ribbon worked through it and disappearing beneath her cloak. At the sound of Robb's voice she turned from Roslin Frey.
"Was that the boy you carried?"
Robb twisted round, then began to rise. She put a hand upon the bench before he could crowd Lady Tanda against the table.
"You need not get up."
He sat. "Yes. He fell asleep against me. I didn't want to wake him when one of our guards offered to take him."
"Then he shall have it," Lollys decided.
Tanda smiled at her daughter and began telling Wylis how the bundles had been packed. Jon watched her, ashamed of his impatience. She had come to give him something.
Aurane tried to tear his bread one-handed. Monford broke it for him without interrupting Celtigar. Aurane scarcely noticed. "You might have sent for me."
"With that hand?" Jon asked.
"I could have helped carry them." Aurane's face had lost its usual amusement.
Harry came round the bench with Mychel. "You could have found half the Vale awake. Waymar is still complaining that we heard it from the king."
"We went to look at a house," Jon said. "I did not know there would be a cart until it came."
Robb made room beside him, but Harry glanced at Betha and went round to the other side. Mychel followed, catching a loose shield strap against a stool. Theon caught the stool before it fell.
"I would have come," Mychel said, freeing the strap. He looked from Jon to Robb, waiting for an answer.
"We know," Robb told him.
Harry glanced at the girls, then back at Jon. "Only don't blame last night when I beat you. I won't have everyone saying you were too tired to fight."
"You still have to manage it." Jon smiled. Harry grinned back and reached for bread. Soon they were arguing about shields and where the smaller boys should stand when the larger companies met. Betha sat in the space Robb had cleared, gathering her cloak beneath her.
"Jon made rather more of it than he needed to," Robb told her, low enough that Jon could pretend not to hear.
"I am glad he told us. Will you let me know how the boy fares?"
"After I visit him."
"Thank you." She looked towards Roslin, who had joined Falyse in examining the stitching of a glove. "And Lord Tytos says I may ride out for the hunt, if there is a proper party of ladies going."
"Then I shall see you there."
Theon stopped arguing with Mychel. "So you do mean to speak to someone besides us today."
Betha's mouth curved. Robb kicked beneath the table; Theon pulled his boot clear and nearly struck Mychel instead. Jon caught his brother's eye across the commotion and smiled. Robb tried to look offended, but his mouth betrayed him.
Margaery arrived while Theon was protesting his innocence. She and Elinor wore riding cloaks, and beyond them Alerie stood near the doors with the princess's septa. A groom waited at her shoulder, trying to keep an armful of gloves and short riding whips from slipping to the floor.
"What you did last night was very brave," she said quietly.
Jon looked up. She held his gaze instead of looking towards the others.
"Thank you." He found himself smiling. She smiled back, then brought the book from beneath her cloak.
"Have you heard how the injured boy fares?"
"Not yet."
Her smile faded. "I hope they send good news."
"I brought you the book." Margaery set it beside his plate, safely beyond the butter.
He wiped his fingers before taking it. The blue leather had worn soft at the corners, and a ribbon lay between the pages. A faint crease ran down the spine. He turned it carefully in his hand.
"Has your knight found the right road yet?"
"You may discover that yourself. Elinor and I still disagree about what the lady ought to do."
"She ought to have a horse," Elinor said.
Margaery turned towards her. "You told me she should wait."
"I have thought about it."
Betha laughed. Robb looked down at the book, plainly wishing he knew enough to join them. Jon would have lent it to him then and there, had Margaery not rested one gloved finger upon the cover.
"I marked the passage. You may tell me I am wrong, but you must give me a better reason than Elinor's."
"I shall read it," he promised.
Perrin had reached them through the crowd. Jon held up a hand before he could begin and turned back to Margaery. She had come to speak to him; he could spare her more than the time before his next piece of business.
"Will you be watching us?"
"After our ride. Try to leave something for us to see." Myrcella called from the doorway. Margaery answered, then drew her hand from the book. "Keep the ribbon where it is. I shall know if you pretend to have read it."
Jon was still smiling as she left. Beyond her, Cersei inspected the escort assembled for her daughter. The queen spoke to Alerie, gave the septa a last instruction, and bent to kiss Myrcella's forehead. The little princess endured the arrangements with restless feet; only when her mother straightened did she turn eagerly towards the open doors.
"Lady Stokeworth has linen for the sept," Jon told Perrin. Tanda turned at her name, ready with the whereabouts of the bundles. He waited while Perrin heard her, then drew the man closer.
The room was confirmed, the buyers had been told, and the armourer would keep his appointments. Fresh guards had gone to the cookshop to relieve the men there.
"A lad has come back from the sept as well. The maester is staying with the injured boy. He asked for more clean linen; I've sent it."
Jon waited. Perrin had finished.
No improvement, then. He closed the book carefully. "Thank you. Have word brought to me if they send again."
Robb had heard. Betha's hand rested on the bench beside his, and neither was speaking now. Jon took the book with him when he left the table.
***
From his window the city looked almost manageable.
Sunlight lay over the roofs, catching a glazed tile here, a strip of lead there, and smoke rose thinly through it from a thousand hearths. Beyond the houses the river flashed between passing sails. The height spared him the blocked lanes and most of the stench. He could have stood here drawing orderly streets all morning and never come near the place he had walked through last night.
A bell sounded down the hill. Another answered from farther off. Jon set Margaery's book upon the bed and drew a clean sheet across the table.
Arthur was speaking to the men outside. He had allowed a little time before they went down to arm, provided Jon spent it sitting. Jon pulled his chair to the window and planted both feet upon the floor. Munin hopped onto his wrist, claws pricking through the sleeve, and pecked at a button.
"You have had the better night."
The crow tilted her head. Jon had held five birds before the hawk frightened Hugin and threw him back into his own body with blood in his mouth. This morning he had fumbled his belt twice. One bird would do.
He let Munin step onto the sill.
Light broke cold and sharp about him. The crow dropped, the roof rushed up, and Jon's stomach lurched in the chair. He kept hold of the pressure beneath his heels and the hard back against his spine while wings opened into the wind. Then Munin was rising over the lower roofs of the castle, and the kitchen wagon below had dwindled to a patch of sacks beside a wall.
The streets narrowed as he flew down the hill. Roofs crowded over them, one storey thrust beyond another until there was scarcely a thread of daylight between the eaves. From a horse Jon might have thought a lane ended at a wall. From above he could see the crooked continuation, but not always the passage that joined it. He began with the wider street and its raised gutter, found the sheds, then lost the covered drain beneath a run of patched roofing. Twice he chose the wrong turn and had to bring Munin round again.
At the brewery, men stood near the front entrance and a cart waited by the gate. A woman with a pail was pointing down the lane while one of the guards listened. The crow's view gave Jon her lifted arm and the impatience of her stance. Her words were lost at that distance.
He wanted to put a question to her. The urge was absurdly strong. Instead he took Munin higher and looked over the rear yard, smaller and meaner in daylight than it had seemed beneath their lamps. Tiles were missing along the washhouse roof. Behind it, two close walls enclosed a passage leading into a court he had not seen before. Shirts and a patched sheet stirred across the opening. A man carrying a basket on his back bent beneath the washing and vanished into the gap.
Jon followed the line of it until an overhanging roof concealed the passage. It ran behind the place where they had waited with the children. He needed to find its other end. Anyone who knew it might have passed behind their watch upon the gate.
When he returned to his own eyes, his chamber seemed dim and heavy. His left hand had closed upon the chair. He prised the fingers loose. Outside, Arthur called for a groom; they would soon be leaving. Jon rubbed his eyes, judging how much time remained. Another flight around the brewery might give him the passage's end. At the collector's house, the man in brown could be walking out of the door.
The roofs would still be there after the melee. He sent Munin towards the river.
Near the river the crowd spread out upon the quays, carts and people pressing towards the gates. He found the weighhouse readily enough; the houses behind it were more troublesome. Three had outside stairs. One upper door was red, while an awning hid another. Munin settled on a roof above them. Jon watched a man carry a bundle up the steps, waited for the door to open, and saw only the man's back before it closed again.
He stayed. A servant shook a rug over the lower rail; a woman carried a basket out beneath the awning. Neither was the man he wanted. His shoulder ached in the distant chair. When a knock reached him he dragged his attention home and called for another moment. The brewery passage would have to remain unfinished.
The pen felt clumsy between his fingers. He drew the brewery first, fixing the turns before memory straightened them to his liking. The rear passage stopped where the roof had hidden it. Beside that broken line he marked the place where his men had stood, angry at how little ground he had understood while standing in the middle of it.
Rilla's account put one boundary near the old well and another at the lime sheds. Between them, men collected money in the knight's name. Jon marked the well and wrote beside it: who takes the money? Farther down he added the place where they had found the stallholder being robbed. Hal had not known those collectors. Another pair of bullies, another master, perhaps the same one. He left room for a name rather than pretending he had it.
This was the part a drawing could not give him. Rilla knew which men entered a shop without paying, which neighbour would shut a door, who might speak once the guards had gone. Walls alone would not tell him which doors were dangerous. The woman who kept the pleasure houses would gladly see the knight lose his grip upon her customers. Jon doubted she would welcome another lord putting his hand where the knight's had been.
Below the first drawing he began a second around the weighhouse. The collector's house belonged there when he had established which one it was. Until then he had Varys's directions and a red door. Enough to begin with; too little to trust with his men.
He glanced towards Margaery's book. Beside it lay the paper he had meant to use after the feast, still blank. He had intended to sit quietly and set down the dangerous things he remembered, separating what could still happen from what his own presence had changed. Instead he had spent the night running after a man with a club.
Arryn had stood alive before him at dawn. Hugh had brought candles. Lysa had caught Robb's sleeve at breakfast, and Petyr had offered to find a landlord. They were becoming familiar people, occupied with ordinary business. That frightened Jon more than Varys's little warning. He knew what had followed Arryn's death. He could not allow a few mornings of seeing the old man over his papers to make him forget it.
His own preparations had scarcely begun. The realm could not be permitted to tear itself apart while he was still gathering the means to hold it. Nor could he assume the old sequence would repeat itself exactly and wait for a remembered sign. He drew the unused sheets nearer, setting them beside the map where he would have to look at them when he returned.
Another knock came. Jon covered the plan before answering.
Arthur entered with his gloves. He took in the open window and the pen between Jon's fingers. "How far?"
"The brewery. There is a passage behind it we did not see." Jon uncovered the drawing and turned it towards him.
His uncle bent over it. "Send a copy to Androw."
"I will. I have the line of the roofs, but I have not found where the passage comes out."
"Then tell him that." Arthur followed the broken line with a finger, stopping short of the wet ink.
Jon watched him reach the marked position of their men. "They knew every turning last night. We had one boy to guide us. Before I go anywhere again, I mean to know where I am."
Arthur straightened. "That was not what the Hand asked you to learn."
"I heard him."
"I know you did."
The map lay between them. Jon would send it to Androw, but it was his own ignorance that had brought him back to the window. He would keep his copy. After a moment Arthur held out the gloves.
"Come. We shall see what that shoulder can do."
***
They were held up at the city gate behind carts of bread and ale. One driver had worked a wheel into the rut beside another cart and could move neither forward nor back; he was blaming the other man loudly, while a woman with a basket upon her head slipped between the stationary wheels. Jon envied her freedom to pass. Every jolt of his horse carried up through the reins, and he had begun to resent the weight of his own left arm.
Arthur kept the boys together while the guards cleared a way. Once beyond the walls, the wind came off the Blackwater and cooled the sweat beneath Jon's collar. Pavilions stretched upriver, their ropes pegged into grass already churned to mud at the entrances. Smoke from cooking fires blew low across the road. Above it the royal standards moved over a yellow pavilion near the lists, and people beneath the gallery awnings stood to see who was arriving.
The grooms took their horses. Within the enclosure for the young competitors, every opening between the tents seemed to belong to someone carrying something too large to fit through it. Two squires with a chest shouted for room while a groom backed a restless horse across their path. A boy in a yellow padded jack stood with his arms spread as a woman sewed beneath one of them. He kept trying to see what she was doing and receiving a sharp tug at the cloth for his trouble.
Beyond him, a Bracken youth demanded to know who had moved his helm. A Blackwood boy lifted it from a bench and held it out in silence. The Bracken snatched it, red-faced, and began explaining why it had no business being there. Jon passed before he could discover whether the explanation would become a challenge.
The noise of the galleries rose beyond the tents: boots upon timber, vendors calling over one another, a hammer driving a peg home. Fried onions scented the breeze. His stomach, which had wanted another breakfast a short while ago, had tightened beneath his belt. He had fought men who meant to kill him. Apparently that did not prevent him being nervous about a field full of boys.
Ser Aron Santagar stood beneath an awning, checking the weapons as they passed. He took a sword from one youth and ran a thumb carefully along the blunt edge. A rough place caught at his skin. He pointed it out and sent the boy back to have it dressed down; the name of the armourer, indignantly supplied, made no difference.
Jaime Lannister listened at the far side of the yard while a young westerman described a bout with both hands. Jaime's eyes followed the flourishes. Jon suspected the boy would regret demonstrating so much if he was asked to repeat it with a sword. Beside Santagar, Barristan pressed upon the damaged rim of a shield. The split opened under his hand. He shook his head, and the shield was carried away.
Gawen found them at a bench. He had washed and changed since leaving the cookshop, but the rims of his eyes were red. He put down Jon's quilted jack and waited until a pair of boys carrying spears had passed.
"The relief was there before I left, my lord. The Hand's man stayed to speak with them. Rilla was making them eat." He moved nearer. "A butcher sent a cart round, too. Bones and a bit of meat for the pot. Wouldn't take a penny."
"From the slaughter lanes?" Varys had mentioned the men who took pennies from the barrows there.
"Aye. His lads wanted to know how long your men would be staying at the brewery."
"The Hand has men there."
"I told them. They offered to leave two at her door, to help ours. Very civil about it, they were." Gawen rubbed one eye with his knuckle. "Kept asking whether the knight had been taken."
Jon set his gloves down. "And Rilla?"
"Sent them away with their meat. Her usual lad had already turned back. They wanted another penny to let his barrow through." Gawen's mouth twisted. "She's boiling peas today. Says she'll not thank them for bones when they've kept her order from her."
Jon had been thinking of what the butchers Varys mentioned might know. Rilla had lost her delivery already. He imagined their men settling at her door, learning her customers, waiting for gratitude because they had brought her meat after stopping her from buying her own.
"Tell Perrin what they asked, and see that the Hand's man hears it. Our guards are not to accept other men to help keep the post."
"They haven't, my lord."
"Good." Jon took up his gloves again. "And Hal?"
"Wanted to come up and watch. His aunt told him to finish his bowl before he went begging for another favour."
"You should sleep."
"When you're armed." Gawen opened the jack and held it for him. "Left arm first."
Wylla had said the same thing. He obeyed more readily now, letting Gawen guide the sleeve up while he kept the arm low. The padding was warm almost at once. Arthur checked the straps as Gawen fastened them, and together they settled the armour into place.
Sunlight slid over the black dragonglass finish. In shadow it concealed the curves of the steel; where a ridge caught the sun, a hard bright line followed the movement of his body. Near the lower edge of the breastplate, the gloss dulled in a patch no larger than his thumbnail. He had seen it in the workshop and could find it now without looking. From the other side of the yard, nobody was studying that patch. A boy had stopped with his chin strap hanging loose to stare.
Horas Redwyne said something to Hobber behind him, then turned away. Let him. Jon had more interest in where the armour pressed beneath his shoulder than in whatever opinion Horas thought worth sharing.
Arthur passed him a light wooden shield. Jon slid his forearm through the straps, took the grip and raised it. Pain caught before the rim reached his chin. He lowered it, drew his elbow closer to his ribs and tried again.
"Keep it there," Arthur said. "Move your feet. Do not reach after the sword."
He took a practice blade from the bench. The first tap came from Jon's right, and Jon turned behind the shield. The second went low towards his knee; he stepped back and let it pass the rim. Arthur waited until he had settled, then struck firmly at the upper edge.
The jar ran up his arm into the bruise. Jon's teeth met. He kept the grip, but his uncle was watching his face.
"Again."
This time Jon kept the shield close and turned his hips with the blow. The pain was sharp, familiar now, and it eased when Arthur drew back. His hand still obeyed him. He flexed it once without releasing the grip and waited for the next stroke.
Arthur lowered the sword. "You can hold it. You cannot spend the morning catching blows on that side."
"I will keep moving."
"See that you do. A boy who finds that weakness will come back to it."
Robb had joined them beside the bench. His grey surcoat lay smooth over his armour, the direwolf clear upon his breast. He glanced at the shield and then at Jon.
"I'll be on your left."
"You need not—"
"That is where I was going to be."
Jon shut his mouth. They had agreed it before the night had given him anything to be defensive about. Robb was already turning to look for Harry. Jon let him go, grateful, and annoyed that gratitude should be so difficult to accept without an argument.
Arthur handed the practice sword to Gawen. "If the arm goes numb, or you can no longer keep that shield up, yield. I mean it."
"I heard you." Jon checked the strap himself before taking his blunted sword. He wanted to win badly enough that he did not trust himself to promise anything more.
Harry's Vale boys waited near the gate. Waymar pushed his hair back, then looked down at the helm under his arm as if remembering what was about to cover it. Artys Elesham knelt to tighten a fastening at Mychel's knee. Harry watched the companies crossing the yard, moving a little aside whenever someone came between him and the field.
Robb went to him. Domeric followed, speaking quietly with Aurane. Theon had claimed a place against the enclosure wall where nobody could jostle his sword arm. He pushed away from it as Jon approached.
"All here this time?"
Jon met his eyes. "All here."
Theon nodded and fell in beside him. Harry pointed with his helm towards the Reach company gathering beyond the awning.
"They have more than we do. Let them come to us. If they spread out to surround us, we move before they close it."
"And don't chase a boy because he falls back," Domeric added. "He may have friends behind him."
Aurane adjusted his shield. "Which side do you want?"
"Stay near me. Robb takes my left." Jon looked at Theon. "Keep an eye behind us."
"I was going to admire the ladies."
"You can do that facing the right way," Robb told him.
Theon grinned. His fingers were working at a fastening already pulled tight. Jon felt his own impatience answer it. Once they were moving, there would be less time to imagine the first blow.
Harry drew the other three Vale boys nearer. "When the larger companies are broken, we tell you before we part. As we agreed."
"We remember," Robb said.
"I want them to remember." Harry looked at Waymar, who rolled his eyes but nodded.
They put on their helms. Faces he knew disappeared behind steel, and the voices grew muffled. Jon heard his own breathing close about his ears. He flexed his left hand upon the grip, feeling the pull beneath his shoulder, and looked past Robb towards the opening.
Beyond it, the lists were bright with colour. Women leaned forward beneath the awnings, and men stood to let late arrivals pass. Somewhere in the stands Robert laughed. Jon recognised the sound before he could see the king.
Santagar called for them to make room for the herald. The nine boys moved together. At the gate Jon waited with his brother on his left and the weight of the shield held close against him. The herald unrolled his parchment.