The grass brushed Jon's boots as Bucephalus climbed the last rise. From Winter Town the tower had looked scarcely more than a broken tooth above the alders. Here he could see the empty windows, the bush growing from the parapet and the long crack beneath it. A jackdaw came out of a slit with a harsh cry. Others answered from somewhere within.
Arthur drew alongside him. Neither spoke for a little while.
Hugin settled on the broken gate. Munin went straight to the nettles below it, where the horses had disturbed something worth eating. Jon smiled at the pair before looking up at the tower again.
The old road ended at a gate without doors. One iron hinge remained, red with rust. A fallen length of wall narrowed the entrance so much that Jon had to turn his knee inward as he rode through. Beyond it lay nettles, docks and a little yellow grass where sheep had cropped what they could reach. Someone had built a hearth against the curtain. Rainwater filled the ring of blackened stones.
"A good deal smaller than Winterfell," Arthur said.
"I should hope so. I mean to finish some of it."
Jon dismounted beside the hearth. Bucephalus stretched his neck towards the grass, found a thistle and snorted. Ralf took his reins. Behind them came Woods with an axe hung from his saddle and a short, thickset man who had been waiting at the lane. Lord Eddard's woodward knew the bounds. He wore a patched green cloak and kept his cap in his hand after coming through the gate.
"Show us the holding after we have seen inside," Jon told him. "Have you a key?"
"Nothing here that locks, my lord. The shepherds used the west room until part of the stair came down."
The tower door lay on its face among the nettles. Jon could see where somebody had hacked out the iron straps. Woods cleared the growth from the threshold with his axe, and Arthur struck a light. They went in with the lantern held high.
Cold air touched Jon's cheeks. The lower chamber smelled of wet stone and old ashes. Daylight fell from far above, finding a heap of shingles, broken beams and pale bird droppings in the middle of the floor. A strip of blue sky showed through the ruin. On the eastern side the stair had broken away from its landing; the remaining steps climbed into ivy and stopped beneath a great block tilted out of the wall.
Jon stayed near the doorway while Arthur carried the lantern along the west wall. Here the roof was stone. It covered a low room reached through a narrow arch, with a slit at one end and an old hearth at the other. Water had stained the outside wall, but the flagstones beneath the vault were dry.
Jon knelt to examine the mortar between the stones. A little grit came away beneath his thumb, but he could see no cracks across the arched ceiling.
"This side first," he said. "We can use it while the rest is being made sound."
Woods set the head of his axe against the old door jamb. "A new door and a shutter, my lord. I can bring men to clear it tomorrow."
"Clear the entrance and the room. Leave the fallen beams in the middle until we have the loose stone down." Jon stood, brushing his knee. A rotten stool stood beneath the slit, its seat full of sticks. He left that too. "I will want a mason here."
"There is one working at the north store," Woods said. "Master Ormund. He set the new lintel last summer."
"Ask Poole to send him when he has finished there."
A narrow western stair rose within the thickness of the wall. Arthur went first. Jon followed with one hand against the cold stone, turning sideways where fallen plaster crowded a step. Six paces brought them to a small landing and an empty doorway. Beyond lay the space where an upper floor had been. The beams were gone. Across the gap, beneath a window, a stone seat still held its place.
Arthur held the lantern out. Its light found a hearth with a plain carved border, smoke-black above the opening. A rusted hook remained in the wall beside it. Jon could picture a cloak hanging there, boots warming near the fire. Someone had lived in this room and looked down at the same river before the roofs failed.
He could hear it now, beyond the window: water over rock, louder than it had been in the yard.
"We shall put a floor back here," he said.
"And finish the stair." Arthur glanced at the dark void beyond their feet.
"The western one. The other comes down before anyone works beneath it."
They descended. Jon paused once more in the vaulted room, judging its breadth against the beds he knew. His, Arthur's, a curtain across the recess for Wylla until the chamber above could be restored. It would be close. At Winterfell she had a window which opened upon the yard. He would have to tell her about the slit before she saw it.
Outside, the sun had reached the tower wall. The woodward was speaking to Ralf about an old walnut tree. Woods pulled a burr from his sleeve.
Jon took his horse's reins. "Let us see what comes with it."
They rode out by the breach in the southern curtain. From there the holding opened in a broad slope to Miller's Run. Alders followed the water. Beyond them stood abandoned crofts with grey thatch sunk between the rafters; one had lost its roof altogether. A strip of meadow remained bright between the rushes and the brown seed heads of the higher ground. Farther off, through the trees, smoke rose from the Black Yard.
The woodward led them along the boundary ditch to two forked oaks. With woodland hiding the lower ford and the far pasture still beyond the rise, Jon began to feel how much work the three hundred acres would need. He had Woods mark the cattle path. Walking a boundary had settled more arguments on his family's farm than pointing at a map.
Below the tower's cracked east corner lay a level shelf broad enough for the first barracks. Jon pointed it out to Woods.
"Bring cord and stakes tomorrow. We shall set the buildings clear of the unsafe wall, with a road between them and turning room beside the stores."
Arthur studied the slope. "The men can form outside the gate as well as inside it."
"And march out without passing through the kitchens."
"That will disappoint them."
They left the horses on the bank and went down through the alders. Jon caught the hem of his black coat out of the mud. The run was narrow here, clear over brown stones, then suddenly white where it dropped between two shelves of rock. Below the fall lay a deeper pool with foam caught against its edge. A broken length of old masonry stood upon the nearer bank.
"Was there a mill?" he asked.
"My grandfather called this the mill path," the woodward said. "I never saw one, my lord."
Jon crossed the exposed stones to examine the masonry. Roots had forced their way between its courses; it would need rebuilding. But there was room beside it for a forge, and a channel from above the falls could feed a waterwheel.
He crouched with a stick and drew in a patch of silt. The little channel he made filled almost at once. Woods came nearer; Arthur held back a branch so both could see.
"The wheelhouse here," Jon said, drawing a line through the silt. "This channel would bring the water to it. Leave the alders until we have measured the slope."
"What will you drive with it?" Arthur asked.
"A grindstone first. Later a hammer and bellows." Jon stood and cleaned the stick against his boot. "Ewan could put the men who work them now to better use."
Arthur looked from the water to the tower. "You have been wanting this for a while."
"Since the first clock paid for its iron."
They ate upon the bank, with the woodward and Woods sitting a little way down beneath an alder. Ralf had brought a loaf, cheese wrapped in linen and cold beef from the kitchens. Jon cut bread upon his knee. A fly settled on the meat and he waved it away with his crust.
Arthur called down to the woodward. "Will you send word to Venn and Rusk before you return to Winterfell? Ask them to bring the men who drive their cattle through here. We should walk the crossing with them before the builders come."
"Tomorrow morning," Jon said. "I shall be here with Woods." The woodward nodded and went back to his bread.
Jon cut another slice of beef. "You think they will object to the barracks?"
"They may. I would rather hear it here than after they have been talking about us for a moon." Arthur brushed a crumb from his knee. "When we went into the kingswood, men who could find a stray ewe in the dark swore they had never seen the outlaws. They had no wish to help us."
"Yet they did in the end."
"After we paid for what we took, and I carried their grievances to the king. Grazing, timber, the right to hunt. Things that mattered to the people feeding our horses." Arthur reached for the cheese. "The brotherhood had been their only protection against demands from the castle. We had to give them cause to come to us instead."
"And Aerys heard you?" Jon asked quietly.
Arthur paused with his knife against the rind. "He granted enough. I would not have found the Smiling Knight without those people." He cut the cheese and passed it across. Jon took it, glancing towards the cattle path they had marked. He would have Perkin bring the ale when their neighbours came.
"I shall need builders on Dragonstone who can work without me over their shoulders," Jon told Arthur. "Woods can teach them here."
Arthur took the loaf. "You will take all of them south?"
"Some must stay to keep William's workshops running. I shall take those we can spare, if they are willing."
"And the soldiers?"
"They come with me. They will have built this place by then." He tore another piece of bread. "I want them to have dug a camp, drained it, lived in it and cursed the places where they put their beds."
Arthur laughed softly. "They will certainly do the last."
Jon finished his beef and reached for the reins. There were clocks waiting downhill, and he wanted Ewan here before the light failed. As they rode back along the boundary, he looked again at the empty shelf beneath the tower. In the morning it would have stakes upon it. For today he had the place clear in his mind.
* * *
Woods brought stakes in a handcart next morning; Arthur and four household boys carried cord, a measuring rod and an A-shaped level. At the boundary stone the woodward waited with Ormund the mason, a lean man with lime in the creases of his hands. Jon asked him to inspect the tower while they laid out the barrack.
Venn and Rusk arrived with their herdsmen before the cord was unrolled. Arthur walked the crossing with them and marked the cattle path with two stakes, so the builders could see how much ground the cattle needed. On the shelf Jon moved the first barrack uphill when his rod sank into wet ground, then widened the store's turning space.
Jory brought Robb and Theon up before the morning was out. Robb came through the grass, red-brown hair damp beneath his cap, and stopped at the cord.
"This is a house?"
"The first barrack." Jon showed him the empty strip leading towards the gate. "The road stays clear. I want the men to come out together."
Robb turned slowly, trying to see walls where there were only cords. At Winterfell a stair or doorway generally led somewhere already built. Here Jon was choosing where everything would be.
"Your tower is crooked to the rest."
"It can stay crooked. I am not pulling it down."
Theon lifted a boot over the line and followed Robb along the empty road. On the way back Robb spread his arms to judge its width, then stood beside Jon watching Woods measure the next span.
"I want the first fifty under a roof before we call the others in to swear," Jon told Woods. "Hire more sawyers. Pine for the frames, oak for the lower sills where we need it."
Ormund found them by the last stake. The west vault needed a joint packed; the tilted block above the eastern stair would need shoring and a platform before anyone cleared the fallen beams below it.
"Set it out with Woods and bring me the plan tonight," Jon told him.
Ralf arrived with two hired men and a low sledge to clear the entrance. Woods chose the sound dressed blocks as they worked. By noon a cart could pass through without a man climbing onto the wall to guide its wheel.
* * *
The next morning the bell sounded in Winter Town's market while the fishmonger was still laying out his trout. Jon waited in the saddle beside Arthur, cleanly dressed but with dust beneath one thumbnail. Hewyn, Martyn and Hallis stood by the well; Stark guards kept a way open for carts as men came out from beneath the awnings.
The bellman mounted the well's rim and waited for a mule to stop braying before he read.
"Hear the word of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. By his leave, Lord Jon Black raises two hundred men for the spear and one hundred for sword and shield. Lads of sixteen and seventeen are wanted, and proven soldiers to help teach them."
The bellman read the wage and its payment days. A cooper asked his neighbour to repeat the amount; two older soldiers near the cookshop exchanged a glance.
"Those chosen will receive food, clothes, arms and a place to sleep. They will train, march, dig and build as commanded, and fight when called. In four years they sail with Lord Black to Dragonstone. Their oath lasts until he releases them."
A drover folded his arms. Beside him a woman lifted her basket so two lads could stand nearer.
"A man already sworn must bring his lord's release. Present yourselves at the Old Watch before the moon is out. Captain Hewyn receives the spears; Ser Martyn the swordsmen. No man has a place until Lord Black accepts him."
Questions rose from the crowd. Hewyn answered while the bellman drank, then raised the second page: paid work for masons, carpenters, smiths, carters and labourers; purchases of timber, lime, stone, iron and charcoal. Women who could cut or sew heavy cloth were to apply to Mistress Mairi at the Black Yard. Craftsmen should bring their tools and work to show.
"What of the empty crofts?" a woman called.
Jon brought Bucephalus a few paces nearer. Caps came off. The woman who had spoken drew back against the stall, but he had heard her.
"They will be settled after the harvest," he said. "I will hear families who need land when there is shelter for them. Leave your name with Perkin. Do not bring your children to an empty house."
She bobbed her head. "Thank you, my lord."
Jon looked across the crowd. "The work begins this week. Woods is at the Old Watch today. Hewyn begins hearing men tomorrow."
Jon left the officers to the questions and rode towards the works. At the last awning two broad young men whose faces were much alike watched him; their muttering stopped when Arthur looked round.
A wool cart waited outside the Black Yard. Its driver's daughter had sewn sailcloth at White Harbor, and he wanted to know whether Mairi was paying women to make tents. Jon dismounted to direct him to her and handed his reins to a groom.
The leather shifted against Jon's hip. He looked down and saw a small hand in his purse.
Jon caught the small wrist and turned. The child twisted towards the space beneath a wool cart, but Arthur was already there. The boy stopped so suddenly that one bare heel skidded in the mud. Red hair stuck through three holes in his cap. Beneath the dirt, his face was narrow enough that the grey eyes seemed too large for it.
"Open your hand," Jon said.
"I never took nothing."
"Then you can open it."
A silver stag fell between their boots. The boy tried to tread upon it. Arthur put his own foot there first.
The woman selling oatcakes beside the cart set down her knife. "Red. Gods help us, not him."
"He caught my sleeve."
"He caught you stealing." She came round the board, wiping both palms on her apron. "Forgive him, my lord. He has no sense."
"I have more than you." The boy bared his teeth when she reached towards his cap. Jon moved him clear of the cart before its driver could back the team.
"How old is he?" Jon asked her. "Who keeps him?"
"Six. I helped his mother when she had him. She died last summer, and no father came. Half the town has tried. My sister washed him and found a bed; he was gone before the blanket dried. Wyl the basket-maker gave him reeds to split, and he cut the bindings from finished baskets instead."
"They were old."
"They were ordered. We feed him when he comes, my lord. He will carry nothing, stay nowhere, and tells you to get buggered if you ask where he sleeps."
"Mayhap you should stop asking."
A waiting man moved towards the boy's ear. Arthur put an arm between them. "Leave him."
The boy jerked against Jon's hand at the movement. His other arm came up over his head; he lowered it at once, furious that they had seen. Jon eased his hold without releasing him.
"Is the stag all of it?"
"Aye."
Jon waited. The boy's gaze shifted towards the cart, then the opening between Arthur and the woman. At last he pulled a second coin from the turned edge of his cap. Arthur held out his hand for it.
"There. Let me go."
"Your name first."
"Red. She told you."
"Another name?"
The boy frowned. "Red."
The woman shook her head. "That is all his mother called him, my lord."
Jon crouched, keeping the purse above the mud. He could see where hunger had tightened the skin at the child's jaw. Red stood with his free hand balled, ready to strike as soon as he thought he could escape. His cap was better cloth than the rest of him and plainly belonged to someone else.
"Whose cap?"
"Mine."
"Before yours?"
The woman sighed. "The basket-maker's son. We have been looking for that."
Red snatched the cap off and flung it onto her board. "He can bloody have it."
"You will hand it back," Jon said.
The boy did not move. Arthur lifted the cap from the oatcakes and gave it to him. After a long moment Red held it towards the woman, looking at neither her nor Jon.
Jon stood. "I have work for a boy who can carry a message and remember what he is told. You would have clothes, meals and somewhere to sleep. You would also have to do the work."
"You want me sweeping shite."
"You would begin by attending me. Fetching what I ask for, putting it away afterwards and learning your letters. Gawen will show you the stable work when he judges you ready."
"I don't read."
"I said you would learn." Jon released his wrist. "You are coming to the Black Yard now. We shall ask after any kin with a claim to your keeping. Until then you remain with Mistress Wylla."
Red rubbed the place Jon had held. A clean band showed through the grime. "You cannot make me swear. I heard the other boys."
"You are not being made a soldier."
That seemed to unsettle him more than the threat he had expected. He looked at Arthur's sword, then towards the open street. The woman wrapped two oatcakes and held them out. He took them before she could change her mind, cramming one into his mouth.
"Slowly," she said.
He ate faster. Arthur walked beside him to the yard, leaving no unguarded turn towards the alleys. Jon sent the woman's account to Poole. At the gate Red hid the second cake beneath his shirt.
Wylla found them by the pump. She had a bundle of sheets against her hip and a loose thread caught in her brown braid.
"Whose boy?"
"No one's," Red said before Jon could answer.
Jon told her what had happened. She put the sheets on a dry bench and sent Mairi for a basin. Red backed away when she drew near.
"I washed."
"Then you have fallen in something since." She tested the water Mairi brought and sat upon the bench instead of reaching after him. "Come and show me your hands."
He kept them beneath his arms. Wylla waited. Men passed carrying a door between them, and Red watched the gap they left at the gate until Arthur quietly took the place beside it. Red went to the basin at last, splashing more water onto the bench than into his hands.
The dirt came away slowly. So did the hard brown crust behind one ear. Wylla stopped when he flinched and wet it again before trying. He bore the rest with his jaw thrust out, watching her face whenever her hand moved towards him.
"There are scratches beneath that shirt," she said.
"Brambles."
She did not argue. Mairi found a clean shirt from the small mending, and Wylla held her cloak between the boy and the yard while he changed. He refused to surrender the old one until she promised to leave it where he could see it.
Wet, his hair shone a deep copper-red. The colour put an old name into Jon's mind.
"Aries," he said.
The boy turned. "What?"
"A name for you. Better than being called after your hair."
He worked it soundlessly with his mouth before risking it aloud. "Aries."
Jon nodded. Wylla drew the clean shirt down over the thin shoulders.
"Will you answer to that?" she asked.
"Depends who's calling."
"You will answer when I call you to supper." She handed him the dry cloth. "Finish your face."
That evening Jon set a cup beside his own and had Aries bring it to the other end of the table. The boy took it one-handed, spilled a little and glanced towards the door before anyone spoke.
"Both hands until you are used to it," Jon told him. "Wipe the table, then try again."
The second journey went better. Jon showed him the shelf upon which it belonged, the peg for his cloak and the place where he kept the gloves he was forever mislaying. Aries remembered all three, though he pretended to have forgotten the gloves until Jon waited beside the wrong peg.
Elspeth called them to eat. Wylla had found a little pallet for Aries in the room beside hers, close enough to hear him in the night. He asked twice whether she meant to bar the door.
"No," she told him. "We shall leave it ajar."
He slept in the clean shirt with his old one folded beneath his head. Before Wylla extinguished the lamp, she found the second oatcake hidden inside it. She put it on the stool beside him rather than carry it away. In the morning half remained.
* * *
The call had travelled farther while Jon dealt with the market. Five ravens carried it from Winterfell; copies went with the carters, wrapped against rain. By the next market the offer would be read on Cerwyn land. Beyond that Jon would have to wait for roads, weather and men's decisions.
The neighbours came first.
A carpenter brought two sons and a broad saw wrapped in sacking. Four brothers came with axes; only three wanted work, the fourth having promised his wife to mend their byre. Mairi inspected a widow's sample coat and set her to quilting beside an older woman.
By the third morning fires burned beneath the tower. A carter's wife cooked beside his stone wagon, keeping her smallest child out of the ashes with one foot. When Jon showed her where Elspeth meant to put the common shelter, she asked whether she must move before the next cart.
"After you have fed him. Woods will show you the place."
The barrack still consisted of stakes, trenches and timber beside the gate. Beyond it, two sawyers worked a long blade through a pine trunk. Labourers carried rubbish from the tower in baskets.
Jon left his horse with Ralf, took off his coat and joined Woods in the foundation trench. The upper end rested on gravel; the lower needed digging deeper to reach the same bed. He showed the men the depth, then took a spade to widen the side so the mason could work without earth falling into his mortar.
One of the men paused with a full basket in his hands. He was watching Jon's white forelock, now plastered to his brow.
"That goes to the road," Jon told him, pointing to the gravel. "Keep the topsoil in the other heap."
"Aye, my lord."
When the trench was broad enough Jon climbed out to watch the new carpenter fitting a diagonal brace. The man's elder son worked slowly, looking to his father before each cut. Jon gave the lad shorter pieces to practise on.
"Keep him with you for the first frame," he told Woods. "When he has that, put another lad beside him."
Near dinner more applicants came up the road, most with bundles, one carrying an old mail shirt. They stared at the trenches and barefoot labourers while Hallis and two Stark guards received them and Hewyn came down to speak. There were more than Jon had expected so early.
"Tents in the west meadow," he told Hallis. "Keep the entrance free." A guard led them through the breach.
Elspeth brought two kettles on a cart. The men washed and sat along the fallen curtain; Jon ate with Arthur and Woods beside the boards, cutting a stubborn piece of beef while the carpenter reckoned the thatch still needed. William's messenger found him there: the new movement was ready to try.
Jon rode down with Arthur and spent the afternoon testing the new clock's bell with William. Other apprentices worked nearby while Perkin read a merchant's request to Osric. When Jon returned, the first barrack foundations had begun to rise, and Hallis had doubled the guard at the fork for the arriving men.
At Winterfell he was too tired to say much over supper. Robb made up for him, wanting to know whether there would be room to race round the new barracks. Theon thought the broken tower would make a fine place to hide wine. Catelyn asked who would be sleeping there. Jon answered her, then found Wylla watching him across the table.
"I shall show you the room tomorrow," he told her.
"Does it have a window?"
"A small one."
"How small?"
Arthur put down his cup. "We shall make her a better one, Jon."
Robb laughed. Jon tore the bread on his plate into the gravy and reached for another slice.
* * *
The following evening Jon reached the Black Yard as meals went into the workrooms. Through the open doors he saw the Hightower frames in their travelling cradles. Callum, who had fitted the ironwork, fastened the last lid with Woods's carpenter while William held the lamp.
Osric waited at Perkin's cleared table, his travelling cloak over a stool and leather case beside it. Arthur called for bowls while Jon laid out the drawings.
"Callum and Woods's man will fit Lord Leyton's clock," Jon told him. "They have Lorcas's measures and the drawings. Hire whatever labour they need in Oldtown. If it does not fit, write before altering the stone."
Perkin set the agreement beside the drawings. Twelve hundred dragons had been paid in two portions; the last six hundred fell due after the trial in the tower, with the keeper able to tend the clock unaided.
"You will be there a moon at least," Jon said. "Before we settle the rest of your work, I want you in my regular service."
"As your factor, my lord?" Osric asked.
"For buying as well as deliveries." Jon nodded to Perkin.
Perkin passed him a sealed sheet setting out his wage, road expenses and the hire of delivery men. Osric would represent House Black before its customers and seek out the goods and craftsmen Jon needed.
Osric read to the bottom before putting it down.
"I will serve you, my lord."
Jon gave him his hand. By the time Master Ronnel arrived, Osric had moved his bowl away from the papers and begun a fresh page in his road book.
Ronnel brought a letter for Lord Leyton's steward and added the fitters' names to it. Two smaller clocks would travel with the great one; their buyers' balances would meet part of the journey's cost. Jon set Luwin's recommendation before Osric. "While Callum fits the clock, look for men at the Citadel. Five places: a healer, two who have studied warcraft, a builder and a man for the accounts."
Osric glanced from the recommendation to the clock agreement. "I can ask, my lord. I cannot promise five worth bringing."
"Bring those you judge worth trying. The healer must have earned his silver link and tended patients. Ask whom he served under. For the two with iron links, look for craftsmen's sons who can build a bridge or a siege engine, and teach other men to do it."
"Henly," Ronnel put in. "An ironmonger's son. He delivered to my warehouse before he went to the Citadel, and still helps at his father's forge. There is a mason's son too, Otho. He drew a stair for me when we rebuilt a loft."
"Find them. Have Otho bring his drawings." Jon tapped the recommendation. "They would work with me here and follow me to Dragonstone."
"And send me a man who has kept real accounts," Perkin added, rescuing three unanswered letters from beside the supper bowls. "Luwin has plenty of boys who can copy a sum."
Ronnel recommended the Scribe's Hearth, where acolytes seeking copying work drank. Osric wrote the name in his road book.
"Ask why they wish to leave," Jon continued. "Some will have learning and no prospect of using it. Those are men I can employ."
"Some may be close to their vows." Osric held his quill above the page. "The Citadel may object."
"Take the offer to the Seneschal. He can tell them what they would be giving up. Only men free to take service may come."
They settled the terms: passage north, keep and a month's wage during the trial; passage home for those Jon did not retain. Those chosen for the five places would swear seven years to House Black unless released sooner. Their work would include teaching and would follow Jon to Dragonstone.
Jon allowed Osric to bring more than five for trial, and had Perkin add their passage money to the purse.
Ronnel folded his letter. Perkin counted the travelling purse with Osric and entered the expense apart from the money spent making the clocks. When Jon finished his last letter, the workrooms had fallen quiet.
Two mornings later the great clock stood packed beside the smaller cases, its bells and weights secured on a separate wagon. Garrick checked the loads with Woods, while Callum's mother added a final bundle to her son's food basket.
William brought out the keeper's roll. Jon stopped him beside Callum and had him explain the order of the first fitting. William hesitated over one step, went back to his drawing and corrected himself. Callum waited until he had finished before taking it.
"Keep your copy here," Jon told William. "You will read the reports with me when they come."
Osric packed Luwin's recommendation beside Ronnel's letter, clear of the clock drawings. Jon handed him the request that had arrived overnight from an Oldtown wool merchant.
"Take his measures while you are there. Send them with the offers."
Arthur raised a hand as the wagons moved. Clocks, fitters and factor took the White Harbor road; Jon and Arthur turned uphill to the Old Watch.
* * *
Aries lasted six nights beneath a sound roof before trying to leave it.
He waited until the laundry cart crossed the Black Yard entrance, crawled beneath its loose rear cloth and dropped off at the market turn. He had taken his old shirt, two pieces of bread and the small bone comb Wylla had used upon his hair. The black coat she was fitting for him remained on the bench with pins in one sleeve.
Heward found him behind the pig pens. A herdsman had seen the red head vanish beneath the hurdles and sent to the yard. The boy crouched beside a sow with the bread wrapped against his chest; he threatened to set her upon anyone who came nearer.
"She belongs to the man at the gate," Heward said. "I doubt she means to change masters."
Aries kicked mud at him. The old soldier caught his ankle before the second kick and kept him where he was until the herdsman opened the pen. He brought Aries home on foot, one hand round the boy's wrist and the bundle in the other.
Jon had been called back from the Old Watch and waited beneath the eaves. "Were you hurt?" he asked Aries.
Aries shook his head. Heward confirmed that the boy had only a scratched shin, and Jon told him to let the boy go.
The boy kept his chin high. He had seen Wylla at the stair and turned his face from her. One of her sleeves was wet nearly to the shoulder.
"She went down to the run looking for you," Jon said. "You might have told her you were leaving."
"You would have stopped me."
"Yes."
Aries glared at his own feet. Jon took the bundle from Heward and opened it upon the bench. Bread, shirt, comb. A wooden cup tumbled out last.
"That is Elspeth's."
"It was broken."
"It still holds water. Give it back. The comb goes to Wylla."
"She gave it to me."
"To use," Wylla said.
"I was using it." He snatched the comb from the bundle and thrust it against her palm, hard enough that one tooth caught her skin. She closed her hand around it without answering the little provocation.
"Why did you run, Aries?" Jon asked.
Aries looked at the unfinished coat.
"You said they were taking boys south." His voice thinned. "I heard."
"The men who swear to me will go to Dragonstone in four years. Not today. Those wagons carry Lord Leyton's clock to Oldtown. You stay here with Wylla."
The boy had stopped scowling. He stared at the open bundle as though it had betrayed him.
"You will stay beside Gawen for the next two days," Jon continued. "When he sends you anywhere, you come back to him. You do not hide beneath carts. Have you understood?"
"Aye."
Aries took the cup back to Elspeth. At the kitchen door he stopped, muttered, then tried again. She pointed out its place in the stack and offered no cake.
Heward met him outside. "Show me where you lay beneath that cloth."
"The cart has gone."
"It has come back. It is beside the laundry." Heward pointed across the yard. "We can bring the empty baskets in."
There it stood. Heward heard how he had slipped beneath the covering, then fetched the guard who had spent an hour searching the road. Jon heard the apology from the bench. Only when Aries had spoken it clearly did Heward take him to Gawen.
At supper Wylla put his bowl in the usual place.
"I get that?" he asked.
"You have been on your feet since morning. Sit down." She pulled out his stool. "And next time you frighten me like that, you will answer to me before anyone else."
He ate without looking at her. Later, when she sat down with his coat, he came and stood between her knees to let her finish the fitting. She turned him gently towards the light, leaving room for his shoulders to grow. He held still even when she had to unpick the same seam twice.
* * *
At Barrowton's next market, Rafe stopped beneath the elms with a brace of rabbits knocking against his knee. The town crier had mounted a barrel outside the inn with the painted wheat sheaf. Beside him stood one of Lord Willam's men and a muddy rider whose horse was drinking from the trough.
The rider counted copper into the crier's palm.
"Here, the east gate, and the horse market. Again tomorrow."
The crier pocketed his fee and took the parchment. Above the wooden roofs, Barrow Hall stood upon its great hill. Rafe had been up there once with a load of firewood; he knew the crossed longaxes upon the guard's breast.
Rafe listened while the crier read Lord Black's offer. Sixteen and seventeen; wages, an oath, and Dragonstone in four years. He was sixteen. His brother had their father's bow and the little croft; Rafe slept beside the woodpile when his sister's children came to stay.
Rafe sold both rabbits to the butcher. He usually kept a little back for ale. This time he crossed to the cobbler's stall and asked what it would cost to mend his soles.
* * *
In White Harbor, the crier nearly lost the last word to a gull.
He began again from the fountain in Fishfoot Yard, bawling above the fish carts. Nella paused with her knife inside a herring. Beside him stood a guard in Manderly colours and the clerk carrying Lord Stark's sealed letter.
"Lord Manderly grants leave for the call," the crier shouted. "Lord Jon Black offers service at Winter Town. Three hundred places for his foot!"
Her son came out from behind the stall.
"Keep hold of that basket, Will."
He caught it before the crabs could climb out. At seventeen he stood a head above her and still forgot whatever was in his hands when something interested him.
Nella listened through the wage. She had heard Lord Black's clock strike in New Castle; half the market had gone quiet, waiting to learn whether it would ring again.
Will watched them go. Nella gutted the herring and passed it to him.
"Finish these. Then fetch your uncle. He knows the road to Winterfell."
He took the knife so quickly that she had to move her hand.