The following year, Bran Stark announced himself to Winterfell with a cry strong enough to reach the covered gallery.
Robb had waited outside the birthing room since dawn. Sansa sat with her sewing in Septa Mordane's lap and asked every half-hour whether babies always required so much time. Theon crossed the passage twice, claimed both times that Luwin had sent him, and lingered until Ser Rodrik came looking. The old knight took one look at the closed door and let him stay. Jon sat with his heels three fingers above the floor and listened to Catelyn labour behind oak.
The sounds brought back the hospital where his daughter had been born: hard light, his wife's fingers crushing his hand, a nurse telling him to breathe as if he were the one doing the work. He had been frightened then too.
Here he was seven years old and could do nothing but wait. When Robb paced past again, Jon caught his sleeve and made room on the bench. Robb sat for a moment, then got up to listen at the door beside Theon.
Arthur sat beside him, drawing a whetstone along a belt knife whose edge was already keen. Jon glanced at the blade. "That will vanish if you sharpen it much more."
"Then I shall have done something while we wait," Arthur said, moving the knife again.
"You could count Sansa's questions," Robb suggested. "She has asked how long babies take eleven times."
Sansa looked up. "Seven. Two were different questions." Robb began counting them on his fingers.
Jon gathered the loose thread before Robb caught it with his heel. Sansa held out her hand for it, but her attention had already returned to the door. A woman spoke within; the words were too low to hear. Sansa moved along the bench until her sleeve touched Jon's.
"Mother said I could hold the baby."
"When Wylla brings us in."
She nodded and began winding the thread. Robb stopped counting. For a little while they sat without speaking, listening to footsteps pass beyond the door. Arthur put the knife away and reached down for the cup of water which no one had touched.
The first infant cry cut through them. Robb sprang up and kicked Sansa's thread box. Bone buttons rolled under the benches. Sansa stooped for one, remembered the child and left the rest to Septa Mordane. Wylla opened the door, sweat darkening her temples. "A son. Your mother is well. Quietly now."
Robb was through before she finished. Sansa followed at a walk that became a run after the threshold. Theon remained outside until Robb came back, seized his sleeve and pulled. "You waited with us."
"I was passing on my way to the stairs," Theon said. "No one called me in."
Arthur smiled and stood aside to let him pass. Jon lingered on the bench until Eddard saw him through the open door and beckoned. He went in with Arthur behind him.
Catelyn lay pale among white bolsters, her copper hair damp and unbraided. Eddard sat at her side with one hand around hers. The midwife washed a small red body before the fire. The child objected to water, linen and the whole cold world. "He is very loud," Sansa said.
"Arya was louder," Robb answered.
The midwife's helper brought Arya from the adjoining room, and Wylla lifted her upon one hip. The little girl beat both fists against the air. Dark wisps clung to her long little face; she had their father's grey-eyed frown when Wylla caught one fist and kept it from the basin.
Theon allowed Robb to draw him closer. "Were all of you that small?"
"You were too," Robb said.
"Mother says he will grow," Sansa declared. Theon moved the basin before Arya could reach it again.
Theon withdrew to the doorway when the midwife needed room. Wylla sat with Arya, and Eddard settled Jon in the chair beside her. The midwife placed Bran in his arms. Mordane moved a pace nearer. Catelyn watched him settle the little head against his shoulder, then lay back against the bolsters. Only the septa kept watching. Milk-warm breath touched Jon's neck.
Memory supplied high stone and a small body falling. Jon drew the blanket closer about Bran's feet. Arthur lived. Black ships had changed a war. He could keep this child off a tower.
Wylla slipped a folded cloth under his elbow. "Support his head, love."
He settled Bran more comfortably. A little auburn down showed above the wrappings. Eddard watched from beside the bed. "Brandon."
Robb tried the name aloud. Sansa chose Bran because it was easier to say. Arya caught at the blanket until Wylla moved her hand away.
"When can he ride?" Robb asked.
Catelyn closed her eyes. "Let him have his milk first."
"I can teach him when he is ready," Robb said, more quietly. Sansa offered to teach him letters. Eddard looked at Arya beating upon Wylla's shoulder and said Bran would learn to shout without anyone's help.
Jon looked down at the small, sleeping face. "I will teach him where not to climb."
Arthur looked at him. Jon kept his eyes on Bran.
Wylla took Bran before Jon's young arms tired enough to betray him. "First I teach all of you to leave the room. Your mother needs sleep."
When Catelyn began coming down to supper again, Bran slept in a cradle beside Catelyn's chair while brown butter ran over carrots and a capon lay ready for carving upon the board. Jon moved the cradle clear of the servants' path and chose the seat from which he could see the child's face. When Bran stirred, Jon touched the rim once, saw the small chest rise and returned to his bread.
The capon tasted of sage and smoke. He had almost finished it when Bran woke and began to cry.
* * *
Most mornings Jon began in the yard with the household, and Winterfell had learned their sounds. Heward's staff struck stone before the kitchens sent up their first steam; twenty-five pairs of boots answered him along the eastern wall. Jon led the stretches before the run. Heward stalked the line, knocking a heel wider or a back straighter with the end of his staff. Arthur's sharper corrections followed once the practice swords came out.
The older boys could still outrun Jon, but now their files returned together. After the run came shields, wrestling or lifting. Heward chose the weights for each boy; Jon used the lighter set. The old soldier had stopped mocking them after Tomas learned to carry his shield through a whole drill without letting it sag.
One morning the red-bearded guard who had fetched his picture book came out of the armoury as Arthur called the last halt. Jon's left arm shook when he lowered his shield. He laid it in the rack, drank, and waited until his breath came easily before turning to the man.
"Maester Luwin has the book you asked for, my lord."
"About the ships?"
"I could not tell you. Green leather, if that helps."
"The harbour customs." Jon wiped his mouth. "Thank you. I shall come up after breakfast."
"See that you do eat first. You will be there until dinner once you open it."
"Wylla has been speaking to you."
"She has been speaking to half the castle." The guard smiled and moved aside as Jon took his cloak from the peg. He had seen the boy carried from these lessons before his legs could bear him through half so much. Now he stayed to watch Tomas count the practice swords back into their rack.
By breakfast Jon's shirt clung damply between his shoulders, and Wylla had a second bowl ready. Across the table Gage counted his file before taking water for himself. Jon watched the boys settle, pleased by how much they could now do without him.
He ate, saved a little meat in linen and went to the eastern wall before his lesson.
Hugin and Munin came for meat, not friendship. The cock was larger, with three white feathers in his left wing. The hen bore a notch near the end of her upper beak and stole anything that shone. Jon set scraps on one flat stone and stood back. Arthur remained within reach the first morning, two fingers resting against the boy's shoulder. "I am feeding them," Jon said.
"Aye," Arthur said, watching the nearer bird.
Since Bucephalus's terror had dragged Jon halfway into a horse's mind, he had felt other animals at odd moments: a swallow's hunger, a dog's sudden fright. He had learned to draw back. Even so, he was glad Arthur stayed close while the crows fed.
Robb brought honeyed crumbs and was affronted when Munin took the mutton instead. Sansa turned her back as Arthur advised; the crow dropped behind Jon's shoulder at once. "You must stop staring at her," she told Robb.
Hugin learned one word from Arthur. The knight used hold at the horse line, in the sword yard and whenever a dog nosed towards the feeding stone. Within a fortnight the cock could rasp enough of the sound to turn heads. "Hold," he croaked while Arya crawled towards a puddle.
Wylla caught the back of the child's green gown. "Thank you," she told the bird, and lifted Arya clear of the water.
Theon tried to teach him kraken. Hugin answered hold until Theon threw a crust at the wall. Munin stole it before the cock moved. "That was for him, you thief," Theon called.
Robb laughed. "She has stolen your breakfast twice, and you are giving her more."
Theon threw another crust. Munin took that one too.
At first the crows stayed wary. Rain kept them beneath roofs. The butcher's heap beyond the wall could steal them for days. Munin took a brass button from Robb's coat, two red threads from Sansa and a lump of wool grease from Hullen. The button returned in a gutter. The threads appeared woven through a nest above the brew-house. Hullen's grease vanished entirely. "Stop feeding the thief," Hullen told Jon.
Theon stood beside him. "Which one?"
Hullen looked from the crows to the boys. "A fair question."
When Olyver carved eight little black feathers for Robb's searching game, he covered the pieces whenever Munin watched from a roof. On the last afternoon, he forgot. The hen dived upon the open box and escaped with one piece crosswise in her beak. "That took an hour!" Olyver shouted.
Munin landed above the rain gutter and tasted the oiled beech. "Corn," she croaked, in a fair imitation of the poultry boy.
Theon shaded his eyes. "You should have carved something less appetising."
Olyver found a pebble. Ser Rodrik took it from him before he could throw.
The Norrey boys had been watching from the steps while their uncle Torren argued high pasture with the Flint men in Eddard's solar. When Robb began laying out the game, the younger came down to look. He was long-nosed and lost inside a goat-wool tunic cut for an elder brother.
"Can we play?" he asked.
Robb glanced at Ser Rodrik, who nodded. "What are your names?"
"Beren. That is Benfred, my brother." He pointed to the boy following him.
"I can speak for myself," Benfred said. He was thirteen, two years older than Beren, with the same long nose. He stopped beside his brother and looked towards the birds. "Are they tame?"
Jon gave the feeding whistle. Munin looked down with the stolen feather still in her beak.
Beren grinned. "Call her."
Jon whistled again. Munin tipped her head, then flew to the brew-house with the feather still in her beak. Robb laughed.
"She only comes when he has meat."
Cley came from the wash trough, rubbing his hands on his breeches. His father, the ditchmaster, had kept him helping at a blocked drain; he hurried over when Robb called his name. Ser Rodrik closed Olyver's box upon the seven remaining feathers. "The crow may keep her prize. We have enough to lose without climbing after it."
"No climbing," Catelyn called from the covered walk. Bran slept against her shoulder beneath a blue wool hood. Her gaze passed from the crow to Jon and sharpened. "No roofs, either."
"The game stays between the white stones," Robb said. "No hiding beneath carts, inside stables, or beyond the mint bed."
"Stay where Ser Rodrik can see you," Catelyn said.
Robb hid the remaining feathers while Ser Rodrik kept the players turned away. Jon went with Cley, Theon with Olyver, and the Norrey boys kept together. Arthur shut the stable gate. When Robb returned to the mounting block with the sandglass, he was pleased to be judging his own game.
"Bring the feathers here," he said.
Ser Rodrik gave each pair a reed whistle. "If you need help, blow it. Come back when I ring the bell."
Robb turned the glass. Cley watched mud instead of walls. Robb's left boot had a patched heel that showed in three prints beside the channel. Jon followed his glance.
"Robb carried them," Cley said.
They found the first beneath an overturned feed measure. At the rain barrel, water had washed away the prints, but a black shaving lodged in the grate. Jon reached into the cold drainage channel and recovered the second feather. They carried both back to Robb, where Theon and Olyver were arguing over which of them had touched their prize first.
Five pieces had been found when Jon looked beneath the mounting stone. Robb planted one boot across the opening before Jon could reach inside. "This is the gathering place."
"The stone lies within the boundary," Jon protested. "You cannot move the line after I reach it."
Theon came to watch. "He has put his foot on it. That makes it Stark land."
"It was Stark land already," Robb said, keeping his boot firmly planted.
While they disputed it, Cley reached around the other side and untied the feather from beneath the block. "That is ours," he said.
Robb stared, lifted his boot and laughed. "Yours, then."
A whistle shrilled beyond the eastern stones. Rodrik rang his bell, and the boys came running. Benfred was alone.
"Where is Beren?" Robb asked.
"The crow dropped the feather. He went after it." Benfred pointed beyond the mint bed. "I could hear him, but I could not find him."
Arthur hurried towards the brew-house with Ser Rodrik. Jon sent Cley after them; he knew the drains and the spaces between the buildings. Theon and Olyver ran for Jory. Robb stayed by the mounting block, calling Beren's name.
Upon the broken bell arch above the brew-house sat a wild crow, heavier than Munin, with no white in its wings and one sore foot held against its breast. From there it could see roofs, alleys and the eastern wall. Jon's tongue dried. The bird's pain touched his own foot, sharp and foreign, before he had reached for anything.
Jon reached for the mounting block as the ache sharpened. "Robb." He caught his brother's hand. "Call Arthur. Stay with me."
Robb shouted for the knight. Jon sat against the stone, fighting to keep the boy's red hair in sight.
The crow raised its head. Jon shut his eyes and tried to withdraw. The black wingbeat came through his closed lids and took him.
Grit pressed beneath hooked claws. The sore foot burned against breast feathers. Hunger turned the yard into beetles beneath bark, kitchen refuse and a dead mouse beside the drain. Human shapes moved below without names. Wind touched every feather separately. Jon's own body sank far away. He drove the crow from the arch.
A northern gust rolled it. Tail and wing corrected with a grace no human memory could supply. Jon wanted east; the bird understood only the force upon its right shoulder. Warm air drew it towards the malt roof. A hawk's shadow crossed the clouds, and terror pulled the wings close.
Grey wool moved beside the wall. Boy, sack or cloth in someone's arms—the height made no distinction. Three whistle notes sounded from inside stone. Jon sought his own hands, but pain opened in the crow's injured foot and the bird folded one wing. He pressed the other wing down to clear the roof, meaning to buy one breath in open air before he broke away.
For a heartbeat the bird answered. The roof swept across its eye. Wind struck uneven feathers. A carved stone lip filled the world. The crow fought his hand upon the wing. Jon released it too late. Feather struck stone. Sky broke into black and pale cloud. The body fell beside the wall, one wing beating and one ruined.
Jon searched for his own hands. There was only stone rising to meet him. Then there was nothing. Arthur's voice reached him from beneath deep water. "Jon. Open your eyes."
There were too many eyes. One stared along the ground from an angle no human neck could bear. Two found wet grass, Arthur's pale face and Robb kneeling beside him, still gripping his hand. Jon's heels hammered stone. He tasted blood where he had bitten his cheek, and his belly clenched. Arthur rolled him before he knew he was going to be sick. "Hear me," the knight said. He eased Robb aside and caught Jon beneath the jaw. "Whose hand is on you?"
"Arthur," Jon gasped. The name felt far away from the black grass filling his sight.
"Where are you?"
"Winterfell." Jon gripped his sleeve. The last sideways glimpse of grass would not leave him. "Make it stop."
Arthur held his face between both hands. "Look at me."
The borrowed sight went dark. Jon shook so hard that his teeth struck. He tried to tell Arthur about the roof, but could not make the words come.
A door banged open beyond the malt room. Cley shouted that he had found Beren. Jon heard the boy answer.
"They have him," he whispered. Arthur drew him closer and called for Luwin.
Ser Rodrik brought Beren back with Cley at his side. Benfred held the back of his brother's tunic in one fist. Theon and Olyver stopped when Rodrik spread his arm.
"Is he hurt?" Theon asked.
"A fit," Arthur said. "He is awake. Give him air."
Robb stood over them, staring at his empty hands. Arthur looked up at him. "Find Wylla. Tell her he is awake."
Beren began talking as soon as he saw Robb. The feather had rolled beneath the malt-room bench. He had followed it, and the door had swung shut.
Benfred struck his shoulder once and kept hold of his sleeve. "You left me."
"I thought you were coming." Beren wiped his face with a muddy hand.
Luwin checked Jon's pulse. Arthur had caught him before his head struck. Robb returned with Wylla and Catelyn, who counted the children before asking anything. At the sight of Jon shaking, she drew Bran closer against her shoulder.
"Take him upstairs. I will come after the Norrey boys are seen."
Wylla wiped Jon's mouth before Arthur lifted him. "Mind his head. He is still sick." Jon caught the knight's sleeve and let himself be carried.
Jory had fetched Torren from the keep. Beneath the brew-house arch Torren caught Beren by both arms, looked him over and pulled him against his chest. Benfred crowded close enough to be caught too.
"He went after the feather," Benfred said into his uncle's coat.
Torren looked over them at Rodrik. "That door was meant to be shut."
Rodrik showed him the broken catch. It had fallen beneath the door and wedged it shut; they had needed to lift the door to free Beren. "Beren, you were told where the game ended."
Beren held up his split whistle. "I blew."
"We heard." Robb's voice caught. "You did not come back."
Benfred tucked the whistle beneath his brother's collar. Torren abandoned the evening ride when Beren would not release his coat. Catelyn ordered dry clothes and a room for them while Rodrik gathered the other whistles and sent for the carpenter.
* * *
Wylla washed the blood from Jon's mouth while Luwin examined him. Even after the sickness passed, he could not hold the cup she brought.
"My mind is clear."
"Then take another swallow." She held it to his lips.
Eddard arrived with Catelyn as Luwin tested Jon's fingers. Arthur remained beside the shutter.
"Tell me how it began." Eddard sat on the bed.
"My foot hurt, then the yard turned. I called Arthur and held on to Robb."
"I was across the yard," Arthur explained. "Robb called me at once."
"No horses until you are steady again." Eddard put a hand on Jon's head. "No stairs alone."
"Is Bran well?" Jon asked Catelyn.
"Asleep. Robb thinks he let you go too soon. Tell him otherwise when you are able." She went to find him, and Eddard followed Luwin out when the examination was finished.
Jon asked Arthur about the crow. A groom had found it dead beneath the brew-house wall. Jon turned his face away; the sideways glimpse of grass remained as clear as anything in the room. Wylla held his hand until the trembling eased, then drew the curtains and went for broth. Jon waited until her footsteps had passed the stair.
"I could feel it after it died," he whispered.
Arthur drew his chair nearer. "Can you feel it now?"
"No. I remember it. The grass was beside my eye, and I could not turn my head." Jon swallowed. "I tried to come back before it fell. I could not find my hands."
Arthur looked down at the small fingers resting on the coverlet. "You said you would not try without me."
"I did not try. Its foot hurt, and then I was in it." Jon stopped, unwilling to make that an excuse for what followed. "Once I was there, I forced it to fly. I thought I could get clear of the roof and let go."
"Could you hear Robb?"
"Not then. I heard you afterwards. That helped."
"It took more than one call," Arthur said. "What if I had been farther away?"
Jon had no answer he could bear to give him. Arthur waited.
"We stay clear of the birds."
"For now," Jon said. "But it has happened with other creatures. I need to learn to keep them out."
"Rest first. We will speak of it when you can sit up without help." Arthur brought the cup to Jon's lips and waited while he drank. "Sleep. I am staying here."
He slept through the afternoon and woke after dusk with one cheek wet. His fingers had feeling again but little strength. Robb came in while Arthur helped him dress.
"You held on until Arthur had me," Jon told him. "You did what I asked."
Arthur nodded when Robb looked to him. Robb squeezed Jon's hand carefully.
Jon asked Arthur to help him bury the crow. The knight collected a spade and the wrapped bird. Wylla met them at the stair with a lamp and sent Robb on to supper. "Keep him out of the wind," she told Arthur, who took Jon beyond the rookery wall.
While Arthur dug, Jon stood over the wrapped body. "I could feel it trying to turn. I kept forcing the other wing."
"You could not have known how to fly," Arthur said. He laid the spade aside. Jon knelt, lowered the bird and covered it with a handful of earth. The knight helped him stand. By the time they returned, Wylla had warmed a stone for his feet.
The dream came that night. Jon stood beneath a red-leafed tree. Robb knelt among its roots, reaching for someone Jon could not see. His dead crow perched above them, its neck straight and both wings whole. It looked down at him. A third eye opened between the other two, and the voice that came from its beak was thin and old. "You called your guard and still put your will upon the wing." Beyond it, a man's pale face lay half hidden in the bark.
Below them, the search unfolded: Cley kneeling to look under the malt-room door, Benfred following crushed mint, Arthur coming from the wall passage. They were closing upon Beren while Jon still sat against the mounting block. "You saw this?" Jon asked.
"You have brought this much into your sleep." The face in the tree turned towards the moving figures. "You were frightened, yet you tried to command the creature as you command the men below. Even its wings. Where did you learn that certainty?" Jon waited until the last word had died among the branches, then pointed to the crow.
"Did you press the crow into me?"
The crow shifted along the branch. "You had the gift before you heard my voice."
"I asked about this crow," Jon said. "The gift is in my blood. Did you force the joining, or do I have to expect this whenever a bird takes fright?"
"A crow has wings. You keep trying to give it hands."
"Then I shall leave the flying to it." Jon stepped across the roots. "But the watching is mine. You saw men looking for Beren. Tell me where he was."
The crow looked beyond Robb towards the walls. The shapes there dissolved before its gaze.
"You do not know," Jon said.
The crow closed its third eye. Grey wool became sack, boy, shadow, then nothing at all. A bell began to hammer in the earth. Jon reached for Robb, but his brother's hands crumbled into pale rootlets. He called Arthur's name. A hand shook his shoulder, and the bed returned around him: lamplight, rumpled wool, his own weak fingers. "Bloodraven came," he said.
"What did he want?"
"He would not tell me whether he forced the joining." Jon swallowed. "He told me to leave the flying to the crow. When I asked where Beren was, he gave me nothing. I think he could not."
"He may have wanted you to think that," Arthur said.
Jon flexed his stiff fingers beneath the blanket. Arthur brought a scrap of parchment from the desk and sat beside him while he wrote what he could remember. Twice Jon stopped, trying to recover a word that had sounded plain in the dream. He left those places empty. Arthur folded the sheet and put it away before Wylla came with breakfast.
* * *
Luwin kept Jon from the workshop for two mornings. Jon sent orders for Woods to finish the frame but leave the gears alone. Below his window, Heward's staff cracked against stone; the household were drilling without him.
Olyver brought the drawing book after the run. Wylla made them eat before opening it. When the tray was cleared, the apprentice showed Jon how he meant to lift the bell hammer. It would rise too far and strike the frame. They corrected the drawing together while Wylla mended a sleeve at the foot of the bed.
"How often is it to strike?" she asked.
"Once an hour."
"Then I shall know when you have been at it too long." She bit through the thread. Olyver covered a grin with his charcoal-stained hand.
Luwin came after Olyver had gone and asked to see the earliest drawing of the bell mechanism. Jon found it beneath the newer sheets. The maester studied it beside the bed.
"And what did you begin with? A description, perhaps? I should like to read it."
"I have no drawing to show you older than that one."
Luwin looked up. "Where did you read about it, Jon?"
Jon held out the next sheet. "I cannot send you to another book. Tell me which part you want explained."
"All of it." Luwin drew a chair beside the bed. "Begin with the first wheel." He stayed long after he had finished examining Jon.
On the third morning Luwin permitted the stairs. Woods had set Jon's stool beyond the rail, clear of the winding handle. Olyver opened the hammer drawing there; he had left the gears untouched as ordered.
Lamp oil, charcoal and old quenching water greeted him. Failed applewood wheels hung grey or stained along the wall; Jon remembered most of their faults without taking them down. Behind the rail built after Theon's trespass waited the lifting pins, hammer and cracked practice bell Pate had brought from the gatehouse.
Arthur sat close behind him. The stone that drove the clock rested on the floor. They would test the bell mechanism with a lighter weight, hanging above a shallow box of sand; the heavy stone meant for it lay unused on a sledge. Woods closed the last protective screen.
Olyver worked the bellows, his brown hair damp with sweat. Pate came after the dawn ringing and struck the bell with a knuckle; it answered like a spoon dropped beneath a pot.
Pate lifted the hammer and let it fall. The cracked bell clanked, and the hammer rested against its lip.
"It must come away after the stroke," Jon said. He pointed to the curved return spring. "Mikken, give this a little more bend."
The smith adjusted it twice while Pate listened. At the third blow the hammer sprang clear, leaving the thin note to fade. They would set the gap again when the larger bell arrived.
Before the test, Woods slid an iron pin through the wooden supports that held the upper plate. Its point should have emerged at the back, but it stopped short. "Hold," Jon said.
Hugin answered from a roof outside. Olyver grinned, then crouched with the lamp. The pin had caught in an old hole in the front support, with only a thin strip of wood beside it.
"Replace that support," Jon said. "There is too little wood left to bear the strain."
Woods cut a fresh support from ash. This time the pin passed cleanly through it.
Wylla stopped at the rail with Bran. Luwin came behind her and felt Jon's pulse.
"One run, then upstairs," the maester said.
Jon nodded. "Use the light stone. Raise it only a handspan."
With everyone outside the rail, Woods began winding up the light stone. Olyver stood beside Jon; Pate watched his bell from the passage.
The stone rose one handspan. Oak creaked. A wooden support at the back of the frame gave a dry click. "Lower," Jon said.
Woods began to lower the stone. The rear support split, tilting the upper plate and trapping the winding shaft. The handle jerked in his hands. The stone dropped into the sand box. Its rope lashed through the opening for the handle, knocked a jar of pins from the trestle and struck the screen. "Back!" Jon caught Olyver's sleeve.
Arthur caught Jon by the wrist and drew him back, pushing Olyver clear of the trestle with his free hand. Pain shot up Jon's arm. The falling stone set the bell hammer rattling.
The cracked bell gave half a dozen ragged blows before the fallen weight left the rope slack. Mikken steadied the tilted plate and drove an oak wedge beneath it.
The noise carried into the yard. Dogs barked, a horse stamped against its stall and Bran began wailing in Wylla's arms. Pate held up a hand to his apprentice at the stair. "Leave the alarm. No fire."
Two guards came to the door. Pate sent one to keep the passage clear while Woods checked the frame.
"Olyver?"
"Whole." The apprentice held up his scraped palm. "I struck the wall."
Jon cradled his wrist against his chest. Arthur drew him into the outer room, where Luwin washed the grit from Olyver's palm and dressed the scrape. Woods stood behind his son. Only when the boy moved every finger did the carpenter rest a hand on his shoulder.
Arthur touched the reddening marks his fingers had left on Jon's wrist. "I pulled too hard."
"I was reaching for Olyver." Jon opened his hand for Luwin. "I can move it."
Woods brought in the broken support at Jon's request. A split ran through its heart beneath sound wood, hidden until the timber failed.
"Keep both pieces," Jon told him as Luwin bound his wrist. "We must enclose the rope too. Leave it until tomorrow. I shall draw it upstairs." The heavy stone would stay on its sledge until the rope was enclosed.
Woods and Mikken worked while Jon drew upstairs. Pella sent bread and stew when they worked through their meal; Olyver brought Jon's portion before returning to the bench. Two days later Luwin let Jon return and came down with him. Pate waited with the hammer spring, and Mikken turned the split timber towards the window.
Jon spread his new drawing beside it. Tall oak casings would enclose the weights and their ropes, with pits below to catch a fall.
Woods studied the drawing. "We shall need more oak."
"You shall have it." Jon pointed to the doors in the casings. "No one must be able to open these while another man is winding up a weight."
Olyver leaned closer. "Could the winding handle pass through the door bar, my lord?"
Jon gave him the charcoal. With his sound hand Olyver drew the handle through the bar that held the door shut. The bar could not lift until the handle was removed. Jon nodded.
"Make a wooden one first. We can try it before Mikken forges the catches."
Master Branch, Winterfell's ditchmaster, came to check whether the floor could safely be opened for the pits.
Pate had been turning the hammer spring in his hands. "The new bell must come before I can set this properly."
"Then send for your bellfounder," Jon said.
"Mallon of White Harbor cast this cracked pot," Pate said. "Three grey clumps of beard and no patience. He may come if you pay his road."
Mikken grunted. "Let him insult my iron to my face."
Luwin wrote the name. Branch found the old drain farther west than the drawing showed, and Jon moved the casings clear of it.
Poole fetched Eddard, who released two beams meant for the east-store roof after Woods agreed to patch it until new timber came.
"Order replacements now," Jon told Poole. "Put them in my account."
Olyver leaned over the corrected drawing. His bandage left one forefinger free; he put it beside the door bar. "I can mark that out with my left hand."
"Mark it, then," Woods said. "I shall do the cutting."
Jon passed him the charcoal. Pate went off to write Mallon, and Mikken began counting the iron fittings. Eddard watched them a moment, then picked up the broken support and carried it to the shelf of failures himself.
Wylla came for them when the dinner bell rang. Olyver gathered the drawings while Jon searched beneath the table for the charcoal he had dropped.
While Branch's men lifted the first flagstones, Jon and Olyver ate thick beef-and-barley stew and bread in the outer room. Robb and Theon watched the digging from the doorway and argued over whether the cracked bell had sounded more like pigs or spoons. Wylla took the children upstairs when the men began carrying rubble through the passage.