Once Woods had finished the upper chambers, they carried the beds out of the guardroom. Jon and Arthur had adjoining rooms, with Wylla's below them and a narrow sleeping place for Aries beside hers. The boy brought his blanket up himself. Wylla took the trailing end before it caught on a splinter, but left him to carry the rest.
Jon set his books beside the new window. From the guardroom he had looked out upon boots and the legs of passing horses. Here he could see over the nearest barrack to the enclosing bank, where carpenters were fitting planks to the wallwalk. Beyond it the fields sloped towards Miller's Run. Smoke rose from the cottages on the farther rise, thinning in the damp air.
He stood there while Arthur brought the last of his things upstairs. Below, a soldier had stopped carrying a pail of mortar to watch a pair of men struggling with a shutter. Ormund called him back to work. Jon leaned out far enough to see the mason take hold of the pail himself and carry it beneath the barrack roof.
"He has been waiting for that stone all sennight," Jon said.
"It came while you were at Winterfell." Arthur set the book chest down. "Woods wants the men for the walk as well."
"I gave him two tens. He will have to finish with them. Ormund has half Second sleeping round his props."
Arthur came to the window. For a while they watched the pails passing into the hall. Fresh stone showed beneath its weathered roof; farther along, planks still closed the walls. A man emerged from the doorway carrying his bedding, shook white dust from it and looked indignantly towards the mason. Ormund pointed him out of the way of the next pail.
"Have them move their beds to the finished end while he works," Jon said. "I will speak to Rennick."
The conversation with Arthur had left him thinking of armies large enough to break the power of the great houses. Now he watched a man find somewhere to put his blanket. Three hundred and sixty infantry, every one of them needing a dry bed, good bread and his pay. He knew what their mouths cost him each moon. Raising another cohort would mean finding the same money again, and officers he could trust with it.
The thought scarcely diminished his pleasure in the view. He had ordered the first cord stretched across a slope full of bracken. There were men living along that line now.
After dinner he left Aries at his letters and returned upstairs. He had promised Ewan the late afternoon and left his work coat ready upon the chest. Hugin stood upon the sill, turning his head between Jon and the bread in his hand.
Jon gave him the last piece and drew his chair towards the window.
"Will you stay?" he asked Arthur. "I want to take him over the holding."
"As far as the river?"
"And round the bank. I have been looking at the place a wall at a time for a year." Jon glanced towards the long roof cutting off his view of the lower yard. "I should like to see the whole of it."
Arthur shut the door and brought his own chair within reach. Jon settled his feet upon the floor and rested his hands upon his knees. Hugin swallowed, wiped his beak against the sill and stepped out towards the light.
For a moment Jon felt the wood beneath his claws and the chair beneath his thighs together. The room fell away. He sprang from the sill, spread black wings and dropped past the tower wall. Air caught beneath him. A few hard beats took him above the stable, then higher, until the nearest roof no longer hid the street beyond it.
He turned over the bank.
The Old Watch lay below him, its long enclosure bending round at the corners. The ditch showed dark outside the turf, broken at the ways in. Within stood the crooked remains of the older fort, hemmed by the straight roads he had laid out around it. Barracks faced one another across the main approach. The crossing beside the old curtain lay open, with the store doors turned towards it and the smaller paths leading away between the buildings.
Jon banked again, unwilling to pass over it so quickly.
He knew those proportions. He had studied plans of Roman forts long before he had ever held a sword, following their streets with a finger, imagining what it would have been to arrive with a marching column and find a familiar place waiting for each part of it. Here the slope had forced him to alter a corner. The old curtain robbed him of ground he would have preferred to leave clear, and the tower stood where no Roman surveyor would have chosen to put it. Yet the arrangement he had worked towards was there beneath his wings. He could follow a century's road from the entrance to its hall without losing it behind another building.
He had spent so long with a cord in his hand, arguing over the width of a passage or moving a doorway on a drawing, that seeing it joined together caught him unprepared. He made another circuit. The dark rectangle turned slowly beneath him, smoke trailing across one corner, a wagon creeping along the road towards its gate.
His fort.
He wanted Arthur to see it from here. Looking from the window would give the knight only another piece of it, and Jon knew how little a drawing conveyed of the pleasure of finding his own plans occupied by men.
A gust lifted his left wing. He corrected too sharply, dropped and recovered with the tower sliding sideways past him. Hugin's alarm drove the thought of Arthur out of his head. Jon steadied the wings and took a lower course along the bank, attending to the air against his feathers until the bird settled.
The western bank had rooted well. Above it, Woods knelt upon the unfinished wallwalk, shaving the edge of a board. A younger hand held out a cap full of pegs and tipped it too far. Woods caught the cap against his chest, laughing as the lad scrambled after the fallen pegs.
Jon settled upon the gatepost. The carpenter had not sounded like that when they first opened the tower and found its floors fallen in.
Below him, a wagon came through loaded with stone. It stopped beside Second's hall, opposite a stack of old wall planks. Jon had left room for two carts to pass there. Between the timber and the growing stone heap, this one filled the road.
From the field outside came Hewyn's command.
First's flag moved towards the gate, with Second following. Hewyn saw the wagon and raised his arm. The halt passed back through First; Rennick stopped Second clear of the entrance.
"Leave it standing," Hewyn called to the driver, who was gathering his reins. "We will come round you."
He sent the men past by tens. Beyond the wheels, Malcolm straightened one crooked file while the next ten came through. Rennick waited for Hewyn's signal, then followed. The carter kept his horse still until the last shields passed.
Jon watched with pleasure. A year ago one man stopping to pull at his boot had been enough to bring the others into his back. They had needed no help from him here. He would have the timber moved and allow Ormund only one load beside the hall at a time.
Beyond the bank, Jon perched above Martyn's sword centuries. A man from Sixth had fallen under the press of Fifth's shields. Brus halted them while Martyn showed his neighbours how to cover the lad's head and give him room to rise.
On the next attempt he came up safely. Someone from Fifth asked whether he meant to spend the afternoon down there; Brus silenced him. Farther uphill Heward shifted upon his garron to ease his bad knee. His whistle stopped the next advance when the rear rank crowded forward.
From above, Jon had seen the shove pass along the line until a man at the far end lost his place. On the ground he would have been watching the shield before his own face. He stayed for Heward's correction, meaning to ask Martyn at the officers' lesson what he had seen from beside the ranks.
The garron cropped the grass when Heward let his reins fall. Hugin saw something move beneath its hoof. Jon had to turn him away from it, and the bird complained in his throat before lifting from the branch.
He followed the road towards the water. At the ford a woman waited with two baskets while cattle crossed. A boy pushed the last beast's nose from her washing. Jon had kept that old path open when he laid out the holding; beyond it, the new cottages stood above gardens and the fields reached farther into the cleared ground.
He came down upon Gerren's gate and recognised the farmer's heavy jaw beneath his scant beard. Gerren scarcely glanced at the crow before returning to a broken hurdle. For a little while Jon watched his hands. Once he could have worked beside him until supper. Now he still reached for tools expecting that strength and found a child's narrow wrists instead.
Gerren tested the mended weave with his knee and lifted the hurdle. His little daughter followed with a strip of willow he had dropped. When he put it down she offered him the willow; he tucked it into his belt and took her hand.
They would still be here when Jon sailed south. He wanted to leave good farms behind him. Men considering service with Lord Black could come and ask these families what his promises were worth.
Hugin stirred, impatient with the hurdle and the people. Jon let him drop into the grass and swallow what he found there, then followed the run past the wheelhouse. Its little wheel turned the grinding stone beneath the unfinished roof. He would hear Ewan's complaints about the shaft when he came down that afternoon. For now the tower window was open, and Arthur waited within it.
Jon meant to return to the sill. Hugin turned towards the stable instead.
There was a scrap caught near the gutter. The sight of it brought a sharp, familiar desire, and Jon let the bird have his way. He spread his wings, caught the ridge with both feet and settled, feeling the rough timber beneath his claws. Below lay dark thatch, a strip of wet paving and the white linen Wylla had hung upon a line. He worked the scrap free, swallowed it and shook rainwater from his beak.
The stable's half-door moved. Jon turned his head towards it.
Something moved in the shadow below. For a moment Jon thought it a folded stocking dragged by the wind. Then it raised a blunt little muzzle. A puppy, brown along the back, with a pale patch at the throat and paws too broad for its thin body, stood upon a rolled saddlecloth.
Aries came through the door with a bowl hidden beneath his coat.
Instead of finishing his lines, Aries knelt behind the half-door. The puppy scrambled over his knees; he caught its belly, lowered it to the hidden bowl and steadied the rim while it ate.
Hugin clicked his beak. The boy looked up sharply. He pointed at the crow, whispered a fierce warning and drew the edge of the saddlecloth farther round the little nest. The puppy licked his thumb.
Jon returned to the chamber with the scrape of claws still in his hearing. Arthur's hand rested against the chair back until his eyes had settled upon the window. He flexed his fingers, feeling them close against the wool upon his knees.
Arthur offered him water. While he drank, Hugin called from the stable roof.
"Well?" Arthur asked.
"The men managed without me. And Aries has found himself a dog."
Arthur followed his glance towards the stable. "Has he told Wylla?"
"Not if he can help it."
On the way down Jon told Woods to move the timber stack. He stopped Rennick outside Second's hall to arrange the beds, then went to the stable with Arthur.
Aries met them outside the stable with his hands behind his back. The bowl had disappeared. Milk shone on one black cuff.
"Where are the lines I gave you?" Jon asked.
"Upstairs."
"Finished?"
"Nearly."
Jon looked past him towards the half-door. "Bring it out."
The boy's lips parted. He backed against the half-door, putting himself between Jon and the opening.
"I haven't got nothing."
A squeak came from behind him. Arthur looked at Jon, who waited.
Aries crouched at last and lifted the puppy. He held it high against his chest, one small hand cupping its hindquarters. Mud had dried along his own sleeve where it had slept.
"Where did you find it?"
"Behind the dyer's. In the nettles."
"Does it belong to him?"
"No. There were two. The other was dead."
"How long has this one been here?"
Aries looked towards the beam. "Three nights."
The puppy thrust its nose beneath his chin. His arms loosened just enough to let it turn. Jon had seen him wrench away from men who meant to help him; here he waited patiently while sharp little claws found a place upon his coat.
"Where have you put it when you go to bed?"
"With me."
"Wylla's clean bedding?"
"It was cold."
Jon knelt and held out two fingers. The puppy sniffed them, then buried its face against Aries again. A fresh scratch marked its ear. Its ribs could be felt without pressing.
"Have Gawen look at the place you found it. We will ask the dyer and the nearest houses whether someone lost a pup."
"You'll give it away."
"If it belongs to someone, we must find that out. If it does not, you may keep it."
Aries had begun shaking his head before Jon finished. He stopped. "Here?"
"Here. Not under the clean linen, and not on stolen milk. Elspeth will tell you what scraps you may have. Farlen will look at the ear and show you how to feed it."
"I know how."
"Then listen when he tells you what else it needs."
Aries lowered the squirming puppy. It circled his boots and followed him to the half-door, where he fetched the bowl and a cloth stained red from the dyer's shed.
Wylla arrived while they were clearing the nest. She took in the dog, the milk and the corner of her missing blanket without asking which child had done it.
"That is why you would not let Mairi make your bed."
Aries's chin came up. "He is staying."
"Then he can stay clean. And so can you." She pointed towards the pump. "His cloths first. Afterwards you will help me change the pallet."
"He needs me."
"He will have you after the washing. Jon can hold him that long."
Aries looked at his lord before surrendering the puppy. It wriggled against Jon's hands, whining after the red head. Jon moved it to the crook of his elbow, where it quieted, though it kept its nose towards the pump.
Farlen came that afternoon. No one at the dyer's claimed the litter. He brought a little strap and spoke to Aries about warm shelter, clean water and keeping the pup clear of cart wheels. The boy listened to every word. When a larger yard dog thrust its head through the door, Aries put himself between it and the puppy, spoke once, and waited. The dog backed away without showing its teeth.
"He has always been good with the strays," Gawen said quietly. "They come nearer him than they do me."
Jon watched Aries fit the strap with Farlen's help. The boy had noticed it catching the scratched ear and turned the fastening before the kennelman reached to do the same. There was nothing in that which could not be learned by watching dogs closely. Jon kept watching nevertheless.
"What will you call him?" he asked.
"Patch." Aries put one finger beneath the pale mark at the puppy's throat. The small mouth caught it and began to suck. He let the dog have it a moment before gently working it free.
By evening Patch had a dry box outside the hot kitchen and a bed beside Aries's pallet. Wylla made the boy finish his lines. He spoiled the last letter when the puppy chewed his bootlace, then asked to try again. Jon heard the correction before going to Ewan, who had kept the piece for him. Rain was running from the forge roof when they finished.
Back at the tower, Hugin landed upon the sill with something dead in his beak and shook rain over Jon's supper.
Wylla looked from the crow to the bowl. "That one is yours now," she told Hugin.
She took the bowl. Hugin hopped after it, the three white feathers showing in his left wing. Wylla shut the inner shutter in his face.
From outside came a hoarse, aggrieved "Hold."
Arthur laughed.
Wylla brought fresh broth and barley bread. Outside, the works men splashed towards their halls; Elspeth was arguing about a missing pot. New timber, wet wool and onions scented the tower. Jon's roof had held through two storms. He had returned the basin to the kitchen moons ago.
"There were three waiting when you came home," Arthur said.
"The young cock from the river."
"He follows the others farther now."
Jon tore the bread. "He sat on my hand yesterday."
The young bird had arrived earlier that second year, thin and noisy, begging from Hugin until he was chased off. Munin tolerated him at a distance. With food left on the sill he slowly lost his fear of Jon. Anyone might see that. What happened with Arthur watching was harder to explain.
After supper Wylla took away the dishes and warned them against letting the fire die. Jon waited until her footsteps reached the room below. Arthur moved his chair beside the bed.
Outside, the young crow had taken shelter beneath a stone lip. Water dripped past his head. Jon could feel his irritation as faintly as a prickle beneath his own hair. He leaned back against the bolster and closed his eyes.
The cold came first. Then stone beneath his feet, rough enough for claws to grip; his belly settled over them, keeping them warm. The rain seemed louder here, each drop on the sill a sharp, separate sound. Hugin perched farther along beneath the eaves, his head tucked backwards into his feathers. At the lower window Munin worried something pale between her toes.
The young crow's head turned. Jon recognised a bucket carrier's coat below, but scarcely saw the face beneath his hood. Rain gleamed between the barracks and upon the gate's planked platform. Beyond the bank, three lanterns moved through the alders. He had left Ewan and Bennard there; from here he could not tell which lights were theirs.
A familiar voice spoke in the room behind him. Jon withdrew. The stone vanished from beneath his feet; his heels pressed into the mattress. He opened his eyes to Arthur watching him over the guttering candle.
"I heard you."
"I only said your name."
"That was enough." Jon rubbed his warm fingers. Months of practice let him keep some feeling in his own hands, even at the window. He still entered one bird at a time, returning before trying another.
Arthur pushed the cup into his hand. "Will you try the hen?"
"Tomorrow. She has found something worth keeping."
He drank, then went to the shutter. Munin flew up from the lower window with the pale end of a bone spoon. Jon held out his hand; she dodged it and flew towards the kitchen roof.
"Elspeth will blame me," he said.
"She will be right."
Jon shut the shutter and drew the curtain. Arthur went to his own chamber only after the fire had caught again. Jon lay listening to the rain until the sound became the hiss of arrows passing through leaves.
* * *
The archers wore grey.
White bows rose above the grass, facing straw butts dark at the centre. Cloaks lay folded behind the archers, spare strings wrapped against damp. One man inspected a feather; another rubbed knuckles thickened by years at the string. A boy gathered spent shafts and ran clear at the master's call.
Jon knew the pale wood. A crow moved along the bank, picking between the spent shafts. He followed it towards the elm.
Bloodraven waited beneath the elm, white hair lying against the bow at his shoulder. His one red eye followed Jon as he approached. When Jon looked back at the bank, the crow was gone.
"Have you forgotten archery?" he asked.
Jon looked back at the butts. "I have been occupied."
"So you have told me." Bloodraven held the bow where Jon could see the string. "How often do you take one of these in your hands?"
"Less often than I should."
"My Raven's Teeth would have welcomed an enemy who made the same choice."
At an order the bows bent. Strings sounded together, then arrows struck. The captain walked behind the reloading men, touching an elbow, speaking quietly. Their next flight landed closer.
"I remember what your archers did at Redgrass," Jon said.
"You remember the killing. This occupied more of their lives."
Bloodraven held out the bow. Jon took it. The grip fitted a larger hand than his, and he could not draw it to his cheek. He stopped before the effort spoiled his stance.
"Too strong."
"At present."
Jon handed it back. "How long could they keep that pace?"
"Watch."
An archer lowered his bow and shook his shoulder. At his captain's word he went to the rear; another stepped into the gap with an arrow ready and loosed with the next flight.
"And you?" Bloodraven asked.
"I said I had neglected it. I will remedy that."
"Yet you count the turns of every wheel you make."
"Is that what you brought me here to tell me?"
The archers blurred. Sunlight narrowed to a strip between red walls, and the elm's shade became a gatehouse. Gold cloaks closed around a silver-haired man. He had a paper in his hand. One guard struck it aside; another caught him above the elbow. Jon heard him demand the Lord Hand. His accent was strange, but the name was plain.
Aenys Blackfyre.
Jon turned. Bloodraven stood beside him in a dark cloak, older now, his mouth a thin line. The captive's boots scraped the cobbles as the guards took him away.
"You gave him safe conduct."
"I did."
"He came to put his claim before the council. You had his head instead."
"Another Blackfyre king would have meant another war."
"You could have opposed him before the lords. You chose to promise his safety because that brought him within reach."
"And Aegon sent me to the Wall for it."
The gate vanished. Snow blew between black pines. Jon could smell horses, old leather and men sleeping too many nights in wet clothes. A column passed beneath the trees. Pale bows stood above rolled bedding; grey cloaks had been exchanged for black. Some of the archers were old enough to remember the practice field. They had followed their lord into banishment.
For a moment Jon saw his own men on that road: Tomas beside the packhorses, Hewyn counting those who passed.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
Bloodraven watched the black-cloaked men. "There was no Blackfyre king." His mouth scarcely moved.
"That is not what I asked."
The wind drove snow into Jon's face. He lifted an arm and found a branch there, white beneath his sleeve. Roots had begun to press through the frozen ground.
"You know these men too readily," Bloodraven said. "Whose histories have taught you to question mine?"
"You brought me here and showed me these men." Jon pulled his arm free of the white branch. "Shall we finish with your archers?"
Jon met his gaze. He knelt with Eddard before the heart tree for his father and his people. In another life he had settled quarrels without trusting gods; a sorcerer whose trees answered him would not command that trust.
"You learn to see through three birds," Bloodraven said. "You might learn more."
"Then teach me." Jon pulled the last root from his sleeve. "Speak plainly for once."
The old man looked towards the men disappearing among the pines. "Attend to the one you enter. You bring the others with you in your thoughts." Above the road a young crow beat towards an alder. Jon knew the crooked perch beneath it; he had sought Munin's roof while looking through that bird before falling asleep. "That one knows its own roost."
Jon watched the bird settle. Its hunger and the feel of rain upon its back came with it, faint but familiar. Bloodraven had followed his gaze to the alder. Jon could not tell how much else the old man had seen.
"How often are you there?"
"When there is an eye to look through." Bloodraven turned from the alder. "I have need of you in the North. The dead are stirring. You would spend the realm upon another throne."
"The Others," Jon said. Snow filled the road behind the last black cloak. Something moved between the trees, too far away for a face.
"You know the name."
"Old Nan knows it. So does every northman who has sat through one of her winter tales."
"Her tales will not hold them. Nor will a crown."
"Men will. Men with food, weapons and somewhere to stand." Jon faced him. "I mean to rule, and to have those things ready."
"A war between Robert and Rhaegar's son would give the dead another army. Your claim can wait."
Bloodraven spoke as if Robert's peace would last without Jon. Varys had a claimant; Littlefinger prospered by turning lords against each other. Ned had trusted him, once, in the story Jon knew. Cersei had put Jaime's children into Robert's succession. Arthur lived, other events had changed, yet Robert's death would still expose it. Quietly keeping Dragonstone would leave the realm to men already preparing to tear it apart.
"The realm has fought two wars within my lifetime," he said. "I did not begin either. Leave Robert his throne and you still have lords who will take their chances when he dies."
"And you would take yours."
"Yes. I will not put my family back into his hands. Nor will I leave the Watch to beg at one lord's table after another. I mean to have a Crown strong enough to send what it needs."
"The lords will fight you for that strength."
"Some will. I shall need to win." Jon looked down the empty road. "You want me to fight the Others. I intend to. My family will have a future in the realm we save."
Bloodraven's face seemed to recede into the pale wood. "Will you set the crown aside if I ask it?"
"No."
The silence lasted until Jon could hear rain striking the shutter beside his bed. He waited, resisting the pull towards waking. At last the old man said, "We will speak of this again."
"I expect we shall." Jon felt his own fingers close upon the blanket. The pines faded, and he opened his eyes to the dark rafters of his chamber.
* * *
Arthur sat beside the window while Jon dressed. The door was shut; below them, Heward's whistle called the household from their beds. Jon spoke of the archers he had watched in the night.
"Bloodraven again?" Arthur asked.
"Aye. One of them lowered his bow and shook out his shoulder. The captain sent him to the rear and brought another through before the next flight. Their line never broke."
"What did you make of that?"
"I want officers who notice when their best men have had enough, and men trained to take their places."
"And what else were you shown?"
Jon shook his head. "I am still thinking about it." Arthur did not press him.
"And the bows?"
"I shall ask Harwin to look at my shooting." Jon drew his belt through the buckle. "And I shall need a body of archers of my own. Men who train together, with officers who know how to use them."
"You mean to raise them now?" Arthur asked.
"Not yet. The men already sworn to me come first."
Arthur lifted Jon's cloak from the chair and handed it to him.
Hugin followed them down by stair window, wall and roof. The young cock stayed at the tower. Munin came for breakfast and stole a strip of skin from Arthur's bacon.
After the run and sword lesson, Jon rode to Winterfell and sent for his bow. He had outgrown its draw. Harwin found a stronger one in the bow room and watched him try it before they went to the butts. Jon loosed six shafts while the castle's pages finished their riding turns. Five struck the straw. The sixth cut low into the turf.
"You are holding too long," Harwin said. "By the last, your arm had begun to shake."
Jon lowered the bow. "Show me."
Harwin took his place and drew in one smooth movement. The string touched his cheek; he loosed. Jon watched the hand afterwards as closely as he watched the shaft. When Harwin returned the bow, he drew again and let the arrow go before his shoulder tightened. It struck the lower painted ring.
Theon arrived with Robb as they were fetching the shafts. He looked at Jon's butt and chose the one farther away.
"How charitable of you," Robb said.
"He has had the nearer one all afternoon."
Theon's first arrow struck near the centre. His second came so close beside it that Jon heard wood scrape wood. Theon looked back with a grin.
Jon held out his last shaft. "Your bow, then."
Theon let him try it. The heavier draw brought him up short. He gave it back without loosing and took his own from Harwin.
"In time," he said.
Robb divided the gathered arrows, six each. They shot until the riders had left and the painted rings dimmed. Before going inside, Jon asked Harwin for another hour later in the sennight.
Hugin rode home on Bucephalus's saddle behind Jon, his claws hooked into the rolled cloak. The stallion turned an ear towards the scratching, then settled. Munin flew ahead from tree to tree. When they reached the tower she was already upon the sill, waiting for supper.