Chapter 57 - Dragonstone

Black Tern carried Jon downriver that afternoon, with the broad-bellied roundship Broad Oak following her into Blackwater Bay. By evening the city was gone. Tern climbed a dark swell, hung for a moment with her bow raised and dropped. Jon braced his feet and caught a rope. His stomach rebelled. He vomited over the side while Arthur held his sword belt.

Captain Voss found them at the change of watch. Jon had watched the helmsman haul at the steering oar, correcting too late and then too far.

"He waits until she has turned," Jon said. Voss watched, then took the oar himself, easing it as the stern began to fall away.

"Aye, my lord." Voss glanced at him with fresh interest. "Have you handled a tiller before?"

"I have been watching the man at this one."

Voss looked from Jon to the wake. "Watching alone does not usually teach a man to judge her like that."

"Then credit me with a good eye." Jon rinsed his mouth and handed Arthur the cup. "Show him what you changed."

Voss called the helmsman back and made him feel the first pull beneath both palms.

Rain hid the shore and stars. In his old navy there would have been a compass by the helm. Jon wondered where on Dragonstone he might find lodestone.

Morning found Broad Oak within easy hail. Gage leaned over her rail with a face the colour of candle fat. Beside him, Gawen's injured arm was still bound.

Most horses travelled aboard the roundship; Bucephalus, Bracken and a few household mounts were below Tern's deck. When Bucephalus began striking the stall wall, Jon stayed beside him until the groom adjusted the breast rope and the sweating horse quieted beneath his hand.

By noon Tern had reduced sail to keep the laden Broad Oak close. Cloud darkened the southeast. Voss spread his chart.

"We could reach this cove before it strikes," Hobb, the ship's carpenter, said. "Tern could. Broad Oak might not."

Jon traced the northern shore. "If the wind comes from those clouds, it will drive us towards the rocks. The slower ship may not get clear."

Voss studied the cloud. "We stay out. Reef now, while the men can still see their hands."

The crews hauled in and secured part of each sail, leaving less canvas for the wind to catch. They lost ground, but kept open water around them as the storm struck.

Rain hid Broad Oak; only her bell reached them. Water washed across Tern's deck and drained through openings along the sides. Hobb checked the repaired seam below and returned with dry hands. The horses began hammering wood.

Jon and Arthur found Aries beside Bracken, gripping the rail and speaking close to the gelding's ear. The lamp was hooded and secured beyond the stalls.

"He keeps trying to turn."

"Stand here, out of reach of his forefeet." Jon moved him towards the end post. "Let him hear you. The groom will see to the sling."

Aries began again. Jon found Bucephalus's wet muzzle and spoke until a line cracked overhead. For an instant he was beneath the pines again, dropping his shoulder against a blow. Arthur steadied him. He kept one hand on the horse until he could hear the sea.

By dusk the storm had passed north. A stall pin had broken; Voss had a rope burn, Jon a split knuckle. Both ships and everyone aboard survived. Jon ate fried salt cod and onions against a rolled sail while the household sang the road song Heward hated. Wind stole every third line.

Arthur sat beside him as Olyver added an obscene verse from Broad Oak. Tomas called across to mind his tongue. The men sang it louder.

"Wylla would hear that from Dragonstone," Arthur said.

"She would know which one sang it," Jon said. Broad Oak's lamp rose and fell beyond the rail.

Aries sat beneath the awning with Patch's nose near his bowl. When Jon joined him, the boy looked back towards King's Landing.

"Will Lord Arryn know where to send word? About the boy Rilla told us about?"

"He knows where we are going." Jon sat beside him. "I shall write when we arrive."

Later Jon found him asleep with his fingers caught in Patch's lead. He eased them free and secured the leather clear of the ladder. Beneath the same awning the five crows slept in covered cages.

* * *

The water casks knocked against their lashings through the night. In sleep the sound deepened into bronze bells.

Jon stood on a quay beneath towers joined by bridges so high that people crossing them appeared no larger than insects. Evening burned in their windows. A mountain rose beyond them against a red sky.

A girl waited beside a gangway, a sheet of writing crushed in her fist. When she spoke to the older man counting water jars, he sent a porter back for more. Brightly dressed people watched from a terrace. One raised his cup towards the ships; his companions laughed.

Five dragons passed overhead.

Jon felt the beat of their wings in his chest. A horse reared against its harness, and someone dropped a basket of fruit. The girl looked up. Silver shone in her hair.

Daenys, he thought.

He tried to reach her, but a mother with two children crossed his path. Sailors were arguing over her cedar chest. There was room for the family; the chest would have to stay. The smaller child reached for it until one sandal slipped from her foot. Her mother caught her up and carried her aboard, leaving the little shoe beside the discarded chest.

The ships drew away. Jon remained upon the quay, watching the last sail diminish.

Then the light changed.

Other hulls occupied the berths. A warehouse stood where the cedar chest had been. Twelve years, if the history he remembered was right. Twelve years of mornings in which these people had looked at the mountains and gone about their business.

The bells began again, too many of them, badly out of time.

Beneath his boots, stone moved.

A crack ran across the quay. Water leapt through it. Jon saw a woman seize a sailor by the sleeve while a child clung to her skirt. Boats were pulling away behind them, their gunwales almost level with the water.

"How many places?" the woman asked.

The sailor looked past her towards the mountain.

Light opened in its side. For a moment Jon could see the towers through their own walls, every bridge and chamber stark against the brightness. He reached for the child.

He woke holding Arthur's sleeve.

Arthur held his wrist. Tern creaked in darkness, the sea slapping the hull. Jon tasted blood. The knight passed him a cloth and waited while he pressed it beneath his nose.

"The Doom," Jon whispered, when the timbers groaned loudly enough to cover him. "I think I saw Daenys leaving. Then the people who stayed."

Arthur's gaze went to the closed cabin door.

"Was he there?"

"I saw no sign of him." Jon loosened his grip on the cloth. "I don't know where it came from."

Arthur stayed until the bleeding stopped. Beyond the bulkhead a groom murmured to one of the horses. Jon listened until he could lie down again.

* * *

Dawn of their third day found the ships crossing long blue-grey swells. On Broad Oak, a sailor hung wet shirts from the rigging.

Jon joined Voss at the stern. He had washed the blood from his face; the child's reaching hand had followed him out of sleep.

Hobb hauled in the sounding line. Mud clung to the tallow beneath its lead weight, a sample of the bottom. Jon rubbed it between finger and thumb, then looked at Voss's chart.

"Mud. You expected shell."

"The outgoing tide carries silt off that bank. We are closer in than I would like."

Voss ordered a turn towards deeper water and had the course signalled to Broad Oak. Hobb went forward to lower the weighted line again. Then the lookout shouted.

"Land!"

Jon saw only cloud at first. The horizon had darkened in one place, an uneven stain beneath the brighter eastern sky. Then Tern climbed a swell, and the stain held its shape while the clouds moved above it.

Dragonmont.

The mountain rose broadly from the water, one scarred shoulder descending towards the shore, the other lost in vapour. A pale plume rose from the half-hidden cone and bent across the sky.

Jon gripped the rail. All those years of letters, measurements copied beside a guttering lamp, salt-stained accounts. He had drawn the shipyard again and again in Winterfell, argued over a basin he could not see. Now the island filled the horizon.

Black cliffs emerged along its foot. Surf burst against them, filled the fissures with white, and drained away in shining threads. Higher ground carried a rough green covering, broken by stone wherever the slope steepened. A line of trees crouched in a fold sheltered from the sea. Farther up, the green failed and the mountain showed its ribs.

For several breaths Jon could find no castle at all.

Then a patch of cloud brightened behind a ridge, and a wing appeared against it.

The wing belonged to a tower. Its outer edge curved down into the wall, immense fingers of stone spread beneath a membrane thick enough to house rooms. Below it, a narrow head thrust towards the sea. What Jon had mistaken for broken rock was a jaw; what he had taken for a ledge was a foreleg folded against the tower's breast.

Farther inland a neck arched towards the mountain. Between the towers rose the great round bulk of the Stone Drum, with walls crossing the slope beneath it. Some towers stood upright; others seemed to coil back into the masonry.

The castle stood beneath Dragonmont's vast shoulder. Its makers had followed the rock, found purchase upon it, and made the fortress seem rooted there. The highest tower remained far below the smoking summit. Even so, the wings, jaws and horns cut into the morning sky with a boldness that made the ordinary battlements Jon knew look almost timid.

He had expected black stone. He had not expected so many kinds of black. Wet walls reflected the pale sky in streaks of silver. Recesses beneath the wings held a darkness the morning could not reach. Along a sunlit curve, the stone shone with the deep, glassy lustre of a bottle held against a flame; farther round it dulled to charcoal. Water ran from a dragon's chin in a white line that broke apart before it reached the ground.

Aries arrived at the rail with Patch gathered under one arm. The dog's ears had flattened in the wind.

"Is that smoke?" the boy asked.

"From Dragonmont." Jon watched the plume rise from its fixed place while cloud crossed the mountain.

Aries looked down at the shore, then back at the smoke. "And people live under it?"

"They have for a very long time."

The answer did not settle him. Jon could still see the impossible brightness of the dream. Yet a fishing sail moved beneath the quiet plume, and Aries put Patch down without releasing his lead.

Tomas joined them, hollow-cheeked from the crossing. He looked from the smoking summit to the castle, then called to the men below. Boots hurried up the ladder. Someone came without his coat; another had only one sleeve on and forgot the other while he stared.

"That wall," Jorren said, pointing.

The youngest guard beside him began to answer, saw the greater wall above it, and closed his mouth.

The ship creaked beneath them, her crew hauling and easing lines while the northerners stood crowded at the rail.

Arthur came last, salt dried along his cloak. He rested his hand beside Jon's.

"Which is the Sea Dragon?" Jon asked.

Arthur pointed to the tower whose long head faced the water. "There. The Windwyrm is behind it. You will see more of the neck when we turn."

His voice had changed. Arthur was following a wall above the harbour, finding something there that the rest of them could not see.

"You remember it well."

"Well enough to know the drawings never put the towers close enough together." Arthur's thumb moved along a split in the rail. "Wait until you stand beneath them."

A mineral smell caught beneath the salt and tar, sharp enough to sting Jon's throat.

Aries wrinkled his nose. "The mountain?"

"Aye," Arthur said.

One of the men behind them muttered that the king's city had followed them out to sea. Tomas told him the city had never looked half so well. That drew a few tired smiles, and the men began to talk again.

The smell strengthened as they drew nearer, then vanished when the breeze shifted. In its place came woodsmoke. Jon could distinguish houses now, crowded upon the lower slope beneath the curtain walls. This was Blackburn, the village gathered about the main harbour. Its slate roofs shone after the rain; turf roofs made dark green patches between them. Smoke rose from narrow chimneys and was pulled sideways almost at once. Nets hung from poles. A strip of red cloth fluttered above a door, startlingly bright against all that wet stone.

Two men hauled a net into a fishing boat. Beyond them a woman in a patched blue headcloth shouted towards the quay; her words reached Tern after her mouth moved.

Barrels stood among heaps of cordage. A cart waited with one wheel propped on a stone while men argued over its load. Through a gap between roofs Jon saw a garden no wider than a sailcloth, beans tied against the wind.

From farther out, the castle had seemed capable of swallowing every human thing below it. Here was a man carrying a fish basket directly beneath a dragon's outstretched claws, stopping to shift the weight on his shoulder. A child ran past him with an empty pot. Neither looked up.

Jon had come to live here. The thought struck him with a pleasure so sudden that he loosened his grip on the rail and flexed his aching fingers. He wanted to climb every stair he could see, look through the narrow windows beneath the stone wings, feel the ground of the island under his boots. For once he let the accounts and measurements wait.

A galley, Stone Drum, was leaving the harbour beneath black sails, her oars dipping together. Salt Wraith lay farther out beside another galley. Voss named them as a cheer crossed the water. Tomas raised his hand; Hobb shooed three guards away from a rope the crew needed.

The mole curved out from shore to shelter the harbour, its broken outer stones awash. Inside it, men hauled a barge clear of the only sound unloading berth.

Broad Oak waited outside while Tern approached under reduced sail. A narrow boat brought a harbour pilot, who climbed aboard and bowed without taking his eyes from the water.

"Your leave, my lord. The outer beacon has shifted."

Voss looked towards a red-painted post among the rocks. "It stood true on our last visit."

"The storm moved the stone beneath it. Steer wide of the broken end." The pilot pointed past the mole. "That jagged rock marks the shallows. Keep clear of it."

Tern crept inward under his quiet directions. Brown water covered submerged stone beyond the rail. A cormorant stood upon a ruined block, wings spread, close enough for Jon to see the pale hook of its beak.

Under the harbour wall the wind failed. Voss ordered out the sweeps, and sailors bent to the long oars to bring Tern alongside. Men upon the barge shouted that the tide would not wait for northern lords.

"Then pull harder!" someone called from the quay.

Black-coated soldiers took their places to catch the mooring ropes and kept a path clear through the carts. Faces watched from the harbour tower; higher still, spears showed against the castle wall.

Hobb cast a mooring rope towards a new iron ring in the quay.

"The post!" a man shouted. "That mortar hasn't set!"

The waiting men looped the rope around the timber post instead. It tightened, drawing Tern against the bundles of rope hung over her side to cushion the hull.

After two nights of movement, Jon's knees prepared for a roll that never came.

Voss touched Jon's elbow. "Tobin, your harbour master. He has been keeping the landing clear."

Arthur nodded towards a man waiting beyond the rope handlers, his cloak fastened with a small mailed fist. "Ethan Glover."

Sailors laid and secured the gangplank. Jon crossed first, Arthur following.

Grey threaded the castellan's hair; wind had deepened the lines about his eyes. Two fingers lay crooked against his palm where Aerys's gaolers had broken them. Jon had read his letters for years. Until now, he had never seen the hand that wrote them.

Ethan went down on one knee upon the quay. The waiting guards followed, then Tobin and the craftsmen gathered behind him. Only the men holding the ship's ropes remained at their work.

"Lord Jon. Dragonstone welcomes its lord." Ethan bowed his head. "I am glad to see you safely here."

For a moment Jon heard only the creak of ropes and water beneath the hull. He let them see him before he spoke.

"Rise. You have my thanks for keeping it." He offered Ethan his hand. "I have waited a long time to come."

Ethan rose and clasped his forearm. His eyes travelled over Jon's white forelock and split knuckle before he turned to Arthur.

"Ser Arthur. You have brought him farther than Eddard wished."

"The sea brought him the last part, and complained throughout."

Ethan gripped Arthur's forearm with his sound hand and held it a moment.

"And congratulations on Runestone, my lord," Ethan said to Jon. "A captain brought word of your victory. Your father must be proud, with both his sons in the final."

"Thank you. Robb made me work for it."

"I would expect nothing less of him." Ethan smiled.

Ethan led Jon clear of the gangplank. The quay seemed to tilt beneath Jon; he stopped to let his body discover its mistake.

From here the castle seemed to stand almost over him. The Sea Dragon's head projected beyond its tower, its lower jaw dark against a pale reach of sky. He could make out the ridges above its eyes. Rainwater still dripped from one tooth. The cliff beneath it was seamed with narrow plants whose roots had found holds where Jon could see none.

"Mind your foot, my lord," Tobin said.

Jon stepped over a loop of rope as the barge's crew hauled it taut. A woman with a basket of gutted fish shook her head at the lord looking at towers in the middle of her quay.

A guard captain stepped forward from beside the harbour tower. Pale gold hair lay cropped close to his head; his surcoat had faded almost brown, and his mail was patched. When he raised his head, Jon saw pale violet eyes.

"Marros, my lord," Ethan said. "Captain of the island guards. Born here in Blackburn. His father kept the sea gate."

These were the men who had kept the castle before the northern coats appeared. Some would remember a queen upon the island. Others had grown up under the consequences of her death and her children's flight. They watched the son of Eddard Stark come ashore with a household at his back, and Jon could see them measuring how much their lives were about to change.

Robert's voice returned to him, blunt with wine and old hatred. He had wanted the dragonspawn's former vassals held firmly in hand. Ned's sons could be trusted to do it.

Jon looked at their worn harness. He would judge their service himself.

"The wall watch?" he asked Marros.

"At their posts, my lord. I brought twelve for your escort. Six more hold the harbour tower."

"Good. Ser Gawen commands my household; he is aboard Broad Oak. Tomas is his lieutenant. Show him the carts and where you want the landing kept clear."

Marros took Tomas to see the storehouses, making room for a cart that had finally found its driver.

Hewyn came from the berth with mud to his knees. Jon's field commander knelt, then rose at his word.

"How are the men?" Jon asked.

"Wet, my lord. Two shelters flooded; we moved them before dawn. The rest held." Hewyn glanced at the soldiers handling ropes. "They would all have come to meet you. I brought enough to help unload."

"See they are relieved when they need it. I shall come out tomorrow."

Hewyn's face eased. "They will be glad of that, my lord."

Tobin covered the new mooring ring with a plank. Jon crouched beside it. Fresh mortar filled a shallow socket in crumbling stone. "Have it cut into sound stone. Keep using the post until it will hold." Tobin beckoned a mason.

"There is Harbert," Ethan said, indicating an old sailor teaching a boy to use a sounding line. A crutch hung upon his chair. The sailor tried to stand as they approached.

"Stay seated," Jon said.

The man settled, his stiff left leg turned at an angle that made Jon's own knee ache.

"I had word of your wounds," Jon said. "Are you teaching the harbour boys?"

"Aye, my lord. I have them on their marks. Some can count well enough with both feet dry. Put them in a boat and they lose half their numbers."

A boy beside him looked indignantly at the coil in his hands.

The mast had fallen across Harbert during the fighting against the ironborn. Jon had ordered his wages continued. Now he watched the man lift his bad leg with both hands to make room for someone passing.

"And your wife? Is Mira managing?"

"There is a man from the harbour to help her with me. They take turns, as your letter said." Harbert smoothed the line across his knees. "I can get myself to the door now. She says that gives her half the house back."

"Then I shall try not to fill the other half with pupils. Keep teaching them. We will need men who know these waters."

Harbert's hand closed around a knotted length of cord. "Bring yours here," he told the boy. "Let my lord hear whether you have remembered."

The boy gave the marks in a rush, faltered, and began again while Harbert waited without helping him. Jon listened before following Ethan along the mole.

Storms had taken the outer berth a little at a time. A former royal castellan had used its stone to shore up a failing tower; Ethan had kept the inner berth working. He showed Jon where the repaired basin met older work. That section had held, as his letter promised. Farther out, a wave burst through a gap and sprayed their boots.

Stannis's warning about the royal fleet had been sensible. Patrol ships would need depths, turning room, stores and sound berths. Voss had only one place to unload the horses.

"Tern will anchor outside when she is empty," Ethan said. "Then Broad Oak takes the berth. Ralf has bedding laid in the lower sheds for the horses."

They returned to the berth as a boat brought Gawen across from Broad Oak. He climbed ashore with his arm secured beneath his cloak. Ethan glanced at the sling.

"Runestone?"

"Robar Royce." Gawen looked up at the castle. "He sends his regards."

"I hope you left him something to remember you by."

"Ask Jon."

Bucephalus struck the wide unloading ramp laid from Tern's deck before Jon could answer. He came down with wide nostrils and planted all four feet on the quay. Ralf, Jon's horse master, waited until he lowered his head, blew at the stone and moved.

Jon had taken a step towards him when Wylla reached him.

She put both hands on his face. Her thumbs rested briefly beneath his eyes, and he could feel her taking account of the crossing, the fading bruises and everything his last letter had failed to tell her. Then she drew him into her arms.

Boiled mint, woodsmoke, rosemary soap. After the king and a storm at sea, that familiar smell brought Winterfell back more sharply than any thought of its walls.

Jon held her tightly.

"You have salt in your hair," she said against his temple.

"Most of the bay tried to come aboard."

Aries came down the plank behind them with Patch pulling at his lead. At sight of Wylla, the boy stopped. The dog recognised her skirt and scrambled towards it, claws slipping on the wet stone.

"Come here, love."

Aries passed the lead to Gawen's waiting man and went straight into her arms. He held her so tightly that she had to steady herself against the mooring post. She kissed the side of his head, felt beneath his collar and drew back just far enough to see his face.

"I had your letter."

"Did it read right?"

"Every word. I kept it." She drew the folded paper and his little bone comb from her pocket. "Gawen can tell me the rest himself."

"He said you would blame him."

"I mean to."

Gawen waited a pace behind Aries, a travel pack hanging from his sound shoulder. Wylla's gaze dropped to the sling.

"Aries said you could still complain."

"He was kind about it."

"Kinder than I shall be if you try lifting that."

He started to take off the pack. She lifted its strap clear before it could catch his injured arm; a corner of faded blue wool came with it. Her fingers rested upon the mended lining.

"You kept it."

"Did you think I would throw it away?"

"You have a better one now."

"You mended this one."

She looked up at him. Gawen's hand was still upon the strap, beside hers, though she had taken the weight. For once he seemed to have nothing more to say.

"I have missed you," she said.

"And I you."

Wylla tucked the blue fold beneath the flap. Over Aries's head she caught Jon's eye. He smiled and went to help Ralf move the horses clear.

Bracken came ashore more quietly. Two men followed with the covered bird cages, a furious croak rising beneath the cloth. All five crows had survived with more appetite than their master. Jon lifted one corner. Munin turned a bright eye towards the light and seized the bar with her beak. Her opinion of the voyage was plain.

"Soon," Jon told her, and lowered the cloth before the noise unsettled the horses.

An old woman waited beyond the carts, holding an earthen jug against her stomach. When Hewyn kept her clear of Bucephalus, she raised it towards Jon.

"Will my lord taste Blackburn's water?"

Brown liquid rocked beneath the rim. Black grit had settled against the clay.

Jon passed the stallion's reins to Ralf and went to her. "Where did you draw it?"

"The lower row. Same place as always." Her fingers tightened upon the handle. "It was running clear before."

"Mella's grandson has the flux," Wylla said. "Lorren has been seeing him and five others. Two are young enough to be carried."

Ethan looked at the jug. "The lower channel was clear yesterday. Stewart opened an old outlet above the village this morning."

"Maester Stewart," Ethan said as a man in a mud-streaked robe approached through the water carts. The maester bowed over his chain, then looked ruefully at Mella's jug.

"The silt bed collapsed, my lord. I was trying to draw the backed water off. The old plan shows a drain beneath the smokehouses, but we have not found its mouth."

Above them, a gutter carried fish scales and straw down between the houses. Years of repairs had diverted water beyond anything that old drawing could show.

"Stop the digging," Jon said. "We will find where the water goes before anyone opens another part."

"Could we have castle water for the little ones?" she asked.

"Yes. Hewyn, send the full drinking-water casks from Tern to the lower row. Mella will show your men which houses. Have the water boiled."

He sent Marros for clean vessels and Aries to find Lorren, guided by a castle page named Geth. Wylla would separate cups and bedding. Lorren must report that evening, sooner if a child could no longer keep water down. They could use the castle well until the village supply was safe.

"Ship water for the horses too," Jon told Ralf. Mella lowered the jug. "I can show your men the back way. The cart won't fit, but two men can carry a cask."

"Go with them." Jon turned to Tobin. "Has this backed up before?"

Tobin and Mella disputed which smokehouse had flooded first. Ethan fetched the plan; Jon marked the places he would inspect with Stewart at first light.

Marros posted a guard at the digging. Hewyn's men rolled the first cask off the quay while Jon ate bread Elspeth had sent down from the castle.

When the water party had gone, Ethan brought forward a broad man in a leather apron. "Qavo Ryndoon, your master shipwright. His son Moro works with him."

Qavo bowed; Moro held a wooden square against his apron. Jon returned the greeting, studying the faces behind years of hull sketches and timber requests.

A young woman stepped beside them, a book under her arm. "I am Naella, his daughter. I keep my father's accounts and write his letters. May I speak for him, my lord?"

"I am glad to meet you at last, Master Qavo," Jon said in High Valyrian.

Qavo's eyebrows rose. "And I you, my lord," he answered in the same tongue. "Master Ethan told me of the ships you mentioned in your letters. He says you have something rather different in mind. Have you brought drawings?"

"I have. Once I have seen the island, we shall look through them together. I have great plans for the two of us."

Qavo glanced towards the unloading ship, then inclined his head. "I am ready to be of service, my lord."

Ethan introduced Anara, Qavo's wife, as she caught a little girl before she could run between two carts. "Tala," Anara warned. The child submitted to having her hand held and continued staring at Jon's horse.

Ethan folded the channel plan. "Shall I show you your castle?"

Sunlight shone along the Sea Dragon's teeth.

"Yes."

They went up on foot, leaving Ralf with the horses. Bucephalus would have forced everyone against the walls.

The road climbed between houses built wherever the slope allowed a foothold. Some leaned against older stone; others had been extended over narrow passages so that people walked beneath rooms to reach their doors. Most were dark with weather, but a few carried patches of limewash, pale as milk where the rain had not worn it away. A yellow shutter stood open above a woman scaling fish. From another window came the smell of onions frying in fat.

Men stepped aside. Women looked up from nets and washing, some dipping curtsies with their hands still full. Ethan named them as they passed. Jon lost half the names, but remembered a man with one white eyebrow and an old woman sorting hooks while she inspected him from boots to forelock.

Silver-gold hair shone among the darker heads. A girl carrying a basket of fish had tucked her pale braid through her belt to keep it clear; two boys arguing over a net float both had violet eyes. Jon found himself looking from one face to the next.

"He is little," someone said behind a shutter.

"You were expecting his father?" another voice answered.

A woman caught sight of his face and fell quiet. Her eyes were a darker violet than Marros's. She looked at Jon's white forelock, then at the black cloth above his escort, and lowered her head before he could read more of her expression.

Valyrian blood ran strong here. He had crossed the sea to the castle of his forefathers and found their people in the street beneath it. In Winterfell his eyes had always marked him out. Here a fish seller's daughter could look back at him with the same colour in hers. Some of the families he meant to bring across the Narrow Sea might find distant kin among these islanders. He wanted them to have a reason to stay long after their ships had sailed.

The man with the white eyebrow called a welcome. Two neighbours joined him; a third watched Ethan. Children followed, whispering about the huge black horse left below and the sword on Arthur's back. Jon heard his name passing ahead, sometimes with lord before it, sometimes with Stark's boy after. He returned their greetings without hurrying.

At a doorway, two boys stared at Arthur's sword until their mother pulled them behind her.

The knight touched two fingers to his brow. One boy peered around her skirt and returned the gesture.

Above the fish racks the road narrowed. Rainwater ran down a gutter cut into the rock, carrying a leaf through tiny waterfalls. The smells changed with each door: salt fish, smoke, damp wool, a sour breath from refuse awaiting a cart. Higher up came the mountain's sharper tang.

A cooper's mallet sounded behind one door. Across the lane, an old sailmaker held each seam close to his eyes before passing the needle through. Two women spun beside him, their baskets pushed beneath the sailcloth.

"Who helps you with the sails?" Jon asked.

"My son, when the boats cannot go out." The man lowered his needle. "He earns more aboard them, my lord. I cannot blame him."

Ethan said he was Blackburn's only sailmaker. Jon watched the man bend over the seam again. New hulls would need more than timber; even keeping the fishing boats afloat depended upon these tired eyes.

Behind some houses were cramped yards, water butts beneath the eaves and stairs steep enough to make a child climb with both hands. A woman lowered a basket from an upper room. Beneath it, a laden handcart had jammed between a buttress and a fish rack. Its driver swore while two neighbours lifted one wheel clear.

Jon stopped to watch. His harbour would need broad approaches, storeyards and a road to the arsenal. The city he meant to raise could not grow around every crooked wall already standing. Whole rows would have to come down. He began to mark a route in his mind, from the quay to higher ground, cutting through the crowded sheds.

Families would lose houses they had known all their lives. Shops would lose their trade while streets were opened; neighbours would be separated. He knew what that would cost them. He would not let it stop him. They could hate him while the work went on. In time they would have clean water, sound homes and work beyond what this cramped fishing village could offer.

He needed the harbour and arsenal working when the realm began to break apart. The legion could cut roads and move stone as well as drill; he had engineers, surveyors and tools brought south for that purpose. He would put them to work as soon as the ground was measured.

At the next turn the roofs fell away from the road, and the harbour opened below them.

Black Tern looked suddenly small, her men passing chests down the gangplank. Broad Oak waited beyond the mole. The broken stones which had troubled them at water level lay in a lace of foam. Farther out, sunlight travelled across the bay, turning the sea to beaten silver.

Jon stopped.

Wind pressed Jon's damp coat against his legs. The mainland was an uncertainty beneath the haze. King's Landing had vanished: its crowded halls, Cersei's watchful eyes, the demands concealed in Robert's good humour.

Here, his orders would reach the men carrying those chests before a raven could have found Winterfell.

Tomorrow he could walk down and see whether the water had reached the houses that needed it. He could learn a man's name without waiting weeks for a letter.

Ethan had gone ahead to speak to Marros at the bend. Arthur remained beside Jon.

"Rhaegar spent hours at the Painted Table," Arthur said quietly. His eyes had gone to the Stone Drum. "I would sometimes find him there with a single lamp burning, staring at the kingdoms. He scarcely looked up when I entered."

"Thinking of the realm?"

"Of his forefathers, often. He wondered what Aegon had thought as he stood there, or what Jaehaerys might have wished to do differently." Arthur rested his hands upon the parapet. "He knew the histories. He wanted to ask the men themselves why they had chosen as they did."

Jon looked towards the tower. "There are things I would have asked him."

Arthur was silent for a moment. "I wish you could have."

Ethan glanced back from the bend. Jon rested his hand briefly upon the worn parapet, then followed.

The first curtain wall rose beyond the last houses. What he had taken from the ship for an irregular fringe of battlements resolved into stone creatures standing above the parapet. A hound with a long, lean body crouched beside something winged and eyeless. Farther along, a dragon's tail curled around a tower so closely that the stair slit opened between its coils. Water had darkened the grooves of its scales.

Here the two dragons he had seen from below met breast to breast, their wings spreading over the entrance. Distance had made the arch seem finely drawn. Under it, Jon had to tilt his head back to follow the nearest wing to its outer edge. Each rib was thick as a great timber. Between them the black stone curved smoothly into a surface dimly gleaming with moisture.

Jon stepped towards the nearer flank. The scales were larger than his hand. They changed size around the joint of the foreleg, fitting the curve so naturally that he found himself expecting a fold to give beneath his palm.

The stone was cold.

He ran his thumb between two scales. There was no chisel chatter, no roughness left by dressing the surface. Along the shoulder, the form flowed into the arch without a seam he could find.

In his old life he had admired the ingenuity of builders. Here was a method he could not explain. He wanted lamps, ladders, time to discover where the makers had begun.

"Has anyone had to repair this arch?" he asked.

Ethan looked at the flank beneath his hand. "Not in my time. We replace steps, lintels in the later buildings, ordinary stone. Marros has never known anyone mend this."

Jon thought of the Dragonpit's broken dome. Here the stone dragons remained whole, their eyes fixed upon the road their living kin had once darkened. The contrast tightened something beneath his ribs. He let his hand rest against the scales for another moment, then took it away.

Marros's guards stood within the gatehouse. Beyond them, Ethan's Northmen had gathered beneath a stores arch. Plain black cloth hung above both groups. A ten of Hewyn's spears was coming out with drinking water; Jon stepped aside.

The island men wore patched mail and battered steel caps. The Blackworks harness moved closely with the northerners' bodies as they lifted the casks. A gate guard touched a spearman's vambrace and asked what it weighed. The man raised his arm to let him feel, smiling, until someone called for help at the cart.

Marros watched the exchange. Jon saw his shoulders ease a little when the spearman answered without mockery.

Within the court the harbour wind diminished. Jon heard a bucket set down, a shutter scraping overhead, a horse calling from an unseen yard. The castle's heights enclosed the sky in an unfamiliar shape.

Arthur had been right about the drawings. From within, the towers overlapped. A wing cut across the Stone Drum's round face; a long neck rose behind a roof and vanished before Jon could trace it to its body. Stairs climbed the inside of a wall, turned beneath an arch and emerged where he would never have expected them. There were doors beneath claws, windows set between ribs, covered walks whose supports seemed to brace the bellies of sleeping beasts.

The castle had been his in law for most of his life. Now he could smell its kitchens, feel its paving beneath his boots. He had wanted to come for so long that he had grown used to wanting it. He took another look before speaking.

Ethan waited.

Before the Stone Drum, Ethan drew out a ring of keys: one long and rusted, two smaller and plain, the fourth spreading into a black wing above its shaft. He held them out to Jon.

The conversations around the yard faded.

"I have held Dragonstone under your seal since King Robert granted it," Ethan said. "The castle and the whole island are yours, my lord."

Jon looked at the crooked fingers holding the ring. For years those hands and a few loyal men had been almost all he could reach across the water with. He took the keys.

"You remain my castellan."

Ethan inclined his head. Jon separated the wing-shaped key from the ring and returned the others.

"Keep these."

"That one opens the lord's chambers," Ethan said softly. "And the chamber of the Painted Table."

One edge had worn smooth with use. Jon closed his fingers around it and slipped it inside his coat.

Ethan turned towards the yard. "Lord Jon of House Black has taken possession of his seat."

Marros's men struck their spear butts upon the paving; the northerners answered. Jon stood where both groups could see him. A kitchen girl stopped in a doorway with flour upon her sleeve. Above her, someone opened a shutter wider.

"I thank you for the service you have given Ethan," Jon said. "He has kept this castle for me through lean years. Those who hold their places under him hold them under me."

An older guard near the gate touched his neighbour's elbow. Both looked towards Marros, who had straightened as Jon spoke.

"I shall hear every village in its turn. Extra bread and fish will go to the barracks and camp tonight. Men at their posts will be relieved so that they can eat."

The spear butts sounded again. Men called his name; Jon let them finish. Some faces looked pleased, some relieved; others waited to see whether his words would survive a difficult week.

Aries came down beside the stores arch. Lorren had gone to the lower row, he reported. Geth had shown him a stair through the wall, but he had found his own way back by the stone beast with the broken horn.

"That one?" Jon asked, pointing above the arch.

"No. A different one." Aries looked up and frowned. "There are two."

"There are considerably more than two," Ethan said.

Wylla found the boy before he could count them. She touched Jon's wet sleeve and sent Aries for a dry cloak.

The great hall lay within a dragon of its own.

Jon had seen parts of it from the court without understanding the shape. As he approached, the long roof became a back, the stone at either side gathered into folded limbs, and the entrance opened between the jaws of a resting head. Red doors stood within its mouth. The colour had darkened with age but still glowed where lamplight reached it, rich against the black stone.

Warm air came through the jaws, carrying woodsmoke, bread and fish broth. Jon paused beneath the upper teeth, then passed between the red doors.

They ate bread while servants laid the supper tables. Ethan would have taken him straight to his chamber.

"The rest will keep until you have slept. I have had the bed aired." He was already turning towards the inner door. "Aries, bring his cloak."

"The cloak, yes," Jon said. "Then the walls. I have spent enough of today looking up at them."

Ethan glanced at Arthur. The knight took bread for the walk. After a moment Ethan smiled, opened the other door and led them out.

Beyond the hall, a covered passage followed a great stone tail. Strips of sunshine fell between its coils. A man with a sack of onions flattened himself against the wall, staring at the boy beside Ethan. His sack began slipping down his shoulder.

Ethan called his name and told him to mind his back.

He knew where every passage led. At a fork beneath a dragon's outstretched wing he took the darker stair without hesitation, touched a latch hidden in the curve of its neck and brought them out above the outer court. Wind swept Jon's hair across his eyes. Below them, the gate through which they had entered looked almost modest. From here he could see how the wings over it joined the curtain wall, carrying their weight back into the greater mass of the castle.

Aries leaned carefully over the parapet. "Was Aegon the one who built it?"

"The Conqueror found a castle here," Ethan said. "So did his forefathers. The Valyrians held this island before the Targaryens made it their home. An outpost at the edge of their world." He looked along the black wall towards the smoking mountain. "A considerable outpost."

"Why did they come here, then?"

"Aenar Targaryen brought his household from Valyria. His daughter had dreamed of its destruction." Ethan rested his crooked hand upon the parapet. "A man with more lands than he could count sold them because he believed his daughter. Men called him a coward for leaving."

Jon remembered the abandoned cedar chest and the silver-haired girl beside the gangway. Twelve years before the Doom.

"And he was right," Aries said.

"To listen to her," Jon answered. "Yes."

Arthur watched him. Jon looked towards the sea. His forefathers had come seeking refuge, long before they sailed from here to conquer.

Ethan pointed out the harbour watch's signals and a covered way to the lower gate. Marros showed Jon a hollow in the paving, hidden when rain filled it. Jon marked it in the black book from his travelling satchel.

He kept the book open at the castle plans, away from the pages about kings and children not yet born. Ethan's eyes followed the unfamiliar English. Jon held the leaves against the wind while comparing his sketch with the wall.

The passage he had drawn through this section would have cut through the dragon's foreleg.

He crossed it out.

"Your drawing was wrong?" Aries asked.

"My idea of what the drawing showed was wrong." Jon turned the book so the boy could see the two lines without offering it to him. "I put these yards beside one another. One is above the other."

Ethan bent to look at the shape. "There is a stair through here, though. Marros can show you."

The captain took them down the stair into a vaulted room where spear shafts stood beneath the ribs of the ceiling. A pale-haired knight held a mail shirt flat while a black-haired boy worked at its sleeve. The boy saw Arthur and rose, nearly dragging the shirt off the trestle.

The knight caught it. "The pliers, Aleyx."

The boy put them down, flushing. His eyes were dark purple.

The knight set down the mail and knelt. "Ser Vaelor Scales, my lord. This is my squire, Aleyx Waters." The boy dropped to one knee beside him.

Scales was lean, with thickened knuckles and a coat neatly patched where embroidered scales had once covered the breast. "He commands the lower watch for me," Marros said.

"Rise, both of you. Are these all for repair?" Jon asked.

"Two shirts. This one caught beneath a shield rim." Scales lifted the sleeve. "My squire has nearly finished it."

Arthur bent to examine the join. Aleyx held the mail towards the light without being asked.

"How old are you?" Arthur asked him.

"Sixteen, ser."

"Nearly ready for his spurs," Scales said. "He has been asking whether he might watch you in the yard."

"He may." Arthur released the sleeve. Aleyx looked to his knight, who nodded.

"Scales," Jon said. "An old house, is it not?"

"Old Valyrian blood, my lord. Ser Elyas Scales was master-at-arms here and helped train the young King Jaehaerys."

House Scales had served his blood for generations. Jon would honour that loyalty through Vaelor, and give him a chance to restore his family's standing.

"Do you still ride with a lance, Ser Vaelor?" Jon asked.

"I do, my lord." Scales straightened. "My horse is sound."

"Then bring him to Hewyn's camp tomorrow. I am building heavy horse for the legion. I intend to bring in other knights, and I want island men among them. You and Aleyx will join the field force."

Scales glanced at his squire. "The boy remains with me?"

"Until you judge him ready for his spurs. Arthur will see you both ride. Marros, arrange the lower watch's relief before they leave."

"I have a man for it," the captain said.

"I shall report in the morning." Scales bowed again, his hand resting upon Aleyx's shoulder. The boy was trying hard to stand as still as his knight.

Marros showed Jon the salt damp upon the outer rack. Every fresh load must come uphill from the harbour; Jon noted that beside his sketch.

At the door, he asked Ethan quietly about the squire's family.

"An acknowledged bastard of the island Qoherys line. Quenton left a natural son here when he took Harrenhal; Aleyx's father descended from him."

Outside, Marros paused beside Ethan. "The families have been asking about the rooms over the lower gate."

"The new men will have to sleep somewhere," Ethan said.

"They think the household will want them."

Jon shut the book over his finger. "Are families living there now?"

"Four. Two widows among them." Marros met his eyes this time. "Their men served here."

"Then we shall find somewhere else for ours. Show Gawen the empty rooms first."

The captain bowed, answering Jon without first looking at Ethan.

They passed women plucking fowl, then the greater kitchen, cold and shut. Ethan raised his lamp to black rafters and pale droppings. Something moved above the light. Jon closed the door before Aries could investigate.

Through a barred opening Jon saw skins and books beneath linen. Ethan told him that Perkin had put the most fragile in inner cupboards. Jon asked for building accounts and water records. The castellan warned that old kings had kept better lists of guests than of men who mended their drains.

"Then we begin with what they left us." Jon marked the library in his book.

Ethan led them up to the clock rooms above the store court. The plaster was dry, the benches fixed beneath the windows. William, the clockmaker Jon had sent ahead, put down the files he was unwrapping and came to greet him.

"We got the long bench through," he said. "Had to take its legs off at the turn."

Jon tested the bench. It did not shift. Shallow drawers waited for small parts; daylight reached the whole worktop.

Below, carts crowded the store court. Every delivery must cross that yard and climb the narrow stair; there was no room to expand. These rooms would serve William and his apprentices well enough. A full manufactory would need its own ground, where workshops could grow without swallowing the castle's stores.

The shadows of the castle's horns stretched across the court when they reached the Stone Drum. Jon could now find the hall and lower stores.

Ethan stopped outside a door worked with scales. "The upper stair brings us to the Painted Table. Your rooms are below it, but the hangings still need a beating. Wylla has made you comfortable elsewhere."

Jon took out the wing-shaped key.

"The table first."

The Chamber of the Painted Table was wider than the tower ought to contain. Four windows faced four winds. Old wax sweetened the cold air; dust greyed the window seats. Carved legs crowded beneath a wooden Westeros shaped to every bay and headland. Jon walked slowly beside it. Faded mountains rose above blue rivers, towns and ports pricked the land in dim gold. No painted line divided the kingdoms. These were the coasts he had studied on flat sheets by candlelight.

Dragonstone stood apart on a small black pedestal. "Aegon looked at this before he crossed," Ethan said. "So the tale goes."

"He could not have seen every stream."

"No. Nor could the man who carved them." Arthur moved south, following the red rise of Dorne. He found the Torrentine without searching for its name. His thumb came to rest beside a gold star worked into the wood.

Jon walked north. Winterfell was a grey mark among painted trees. Roads, rain, Runestone and two sea crossings fitted beneath one arm. He touched the little wolf, thinking of his brothers and sisters behind those walls.

He had spread maps across his own dining table and watched a granddaughter colour the sea on the spare sheet beside him. This table would have delighted her. He touched the carved Wolfswood, remembering her insistence that the rivers needed fish. Arthur watched him from Starfall. "Jon?"

"I was thinking how much this leaves out." Jon drew his hand back from Winterfell. "Show me Dragonstone."

Ethan brought an island chart and spread it beside the carved coast. Blackburn and four smaller villages lay about the mountain. Here Jon could put names beside the places he intended to see.

Jon opened his black book at the island sketch. The harbour and city drawings lay farther back, beneath pages he kept closed.

"What occupies the ground beyond Blackburn?" Jon asked.

Ethan traced the road with a crooked finger. "Gardens first. Then grazing and the tenants' strips. These were Scales lands, before Stannis took them for the Crown."

"The tenants pay the castle now?"

"All of them. Every estate and farm on the island went into the king's grant to you. Scales kept his name and his spurs." Ethan's finger rested upon a faded boundary. "We still use the old names. People know the ground by them."

Jon followed the line across the hills. The division survived upon parchment, but the ground on either side was his. He could join fields, alter the drainage and put his roads where they needed to go. He wanted the extent of each tenancy in writing before work began.

"Bring me the letting rolls with the chart."

Hewyn arrived with Gawen and Tomas while Ethan was finding Eastcove. Marros brought stools. The field commander sat with his boots well clear of the carved coastline.

"Where have you put the six hundred?" Jon asked.

Hewyn leaned forward to point. "Here. Two miles out from Blackburn. Water close by, and room to get the centuries clear of one another. Heward has them drilling there."

Jon found the camp upon the chart. His future streets reached beyond it; the legion would have to move. He studied the higher ground to the south-west. He would inspect it before bringing his design before the officers.

For now he sketched the camp's position beside the shore and wrote his observations in English.

"Have them go about their work when I come tomorrow."

"We can go after the channel," Ethan said. "Then take the coast road to Eastcove. Cinderwell is another ride."

Jon nodded. "Come with us, Hewyn."

"I will meet you at the camp."

Ethan rolled the chart as the watch bell rang. Below the tower, men were going towards the hall.

When they returned to the hall for supper, the lamps had been lit. Broad Oak had taken Tern's berth, and the last of the household were coming up from the quay.

Wet wool and fish broth scented the hall. Warmth rose from the stone beneath Jon's feet. Dragons climbed the pillars towards a roof darkened by generations of smoke; at its far end stood a throne carved into heads and folded wings. Jon sat beneath them, rested his hands upon his own table and let himself enjoy the sight.

Ethan had kept supper to Jon's household guard and captains, Arthur, Wylla and the acolytes. He introduced Torven, captain of the northern garrison, and seated him beside Marros. Hewyn and his centurions filled the other end. Otho had Henly and Emrick beside him. Abel made room when Lorren came in from Blackburn.

"How are the children?" Jon asked.

"All six have kept something down. Mella's grandson asked for bread." Lorren accepted a bowl of stew. "I shall go back after supper."

"Eat first," Wylla said, passing him the loaf.

Jon waited until Otho had filled his bowl. "What do you think of William's new rooms?"

"Good light. Sound benches. He made me admire every drawer." Otho smiled, then glanced towards the store court. "But anything larger than a clock will be a misery to carry up that stair."

"I thought the same. They will serve him for now." Jon drew his chair closer. "Ride with me tomorrow. I want your eye on the ground."

"Where are we starting?"

"The fouled channel below Blackburn, then the camp and Eastcove. The other villages after that. Bring men who can take levels and make a drawing I can trust."

Otho put down his spoon. "Are we measuring for repairs, or for the work in your book?"

"Both." Jon rested a hand upon the black book. "We'll alter the drawings as needed. You will oversee the building and choose the foremen."

"Then I need to know which work comes first. We will soon run short of good masons if every village has a roof to mend."

"We'll settle which work comes first when we have seen the villages. For now, use the legion. They have been trained for this. Put them to work under the builders and masons already here and those we brought from the North. I shall send for more craftsmen for the larger works."

Hewyn set down his cup. "I'll arrange the work parties. Tell me how many men you need, Otho. I'll change them over so the centuries keep up their drill."

"The northern craftsmen and their families are still in our camp," Hewyn added.

"Once I have seen the island, I'll place them where their trades are needed," Jon said. "They'll have homes of their own soon enough."

Abel leaned past the jug. "And send me the reckoning, Otho. Timber, wages, cartage. I cannot tell my lord what he can afford if half the building is missing from my books."

"You will have it," Otho said. "Hewyn, which of your men worked stone before they took the spear?"

Hewyn looked along the table. Gerralt named a mason in Fifth; Norren knew two men who had laid field walls.

"Give Otho their names," Jon said. "He can judge their work. Henly, Emrick, go through the tools with him and tell me what the smiths must supply."

Emrick swallowed his bread. "We shall need apprentices too, my lord."

"Find willing lads. Otho can try them at the work."

Wylla had taken the seat beside Gawen. He moved his cup to give her room and bent to hear her question about Runestone. She laughed at his answer; he was still smiling at her when Tomas drew him into a discussion of the walls.

Jon ate while his officers talked. He would have liked Robb beside him, interrupting with questions, and Arya slipping down the bench to pester Arthur. He reached for more bread. Across the table, Otho was already asking Gerralt about his mason.

* * *

After supper, Ethan led him to a narrow chamber warmed by the wall behind it. Letters filled the second chair. Jon recognised his own seals among the broken wax upon the desk.

"You keep them all?"

"Some need reading more than once. Especially the drawings." Ethan cleared the chair and poured ale, turning his crooked hand until he could grip the jug. "I was thinking what to put in my next letter while you spoke to Mella. Then I remembered you had heard her yourself."

"You may give your hand a rest."

"For tonight, perhaps." Ethan set down the jug. "You remembered Harbert's wife."

"Both their names were in my book. I had not understood how badly his leg had healed." Jon took the cup. "There are others I ought to see."

"I will take you to them."

"I want supplies put aside for the Night's Watch."

"Has Benjen sent word?"

"Not since I left the North. I will ask for a fresh account. Count our stores and commitments. Keep what the island and our men need, then see what we can buy. Food first; woollen cloth and leather when the merchants come. Bring quantities and prices before ordering."

Ethan considered. "There may be fish to spare. Grain will be harder. How large a shipment?"

"That depends on the cost. Find a dry place for it now, even if we must begin with a modest cargo."

Ethan drew a sheet towards him. Jon took the spare quill and wrote the instructions.

"Come when I open the stores," Ethan said. "You will see more than a reckoning can tell you."

"Once we have dealt with the channel."

Ethan placed the sheet beside his keys.

"And I should like to hear more about your years here," Jon said. "When we have time to talk."

"I would like that." Ethan drained his ale, then took up the lamp to lead him upstairs.

* * *

Wylla had chosen a dry guest chamber; the lord's rooms could wait for a proper inspection. Jon's chests stood beside bedding that smelled of lavender. Arthur tested the outer door of the adjoining room and left the inner one ajar.

Jon laid the wing-shaped key beside the lamp and went to the window. Beyond a stone dragon's neck, Blackburn's lights shone down the hillside. A lantern vanished beneath a roof and emerged farther on, moving towards the harbour. Out upon the black water, Tern's riding light swayed.

Sooner or later, the great lords and the men about the king would begin making their moves. Some would want a share of what he was building; others would want it checked. He knew enough of their ambitions to expect both. The more of his plans he completed before then, the stronger his position would be.

He opened the black book. Beside the shipyard plan he noted that the inner berth must stay open during the mole's repair. He left the depths blank until Voss could take soundings and recorded his instructions about the Watch.

Dark cloth marked the older pages concerning the Wall. Some details returned as he read; others remained unfamiliar, though he had once known them well enough to write them without hesitation. Beside Waymar's name he added the invitation and Yohn's warning.

On a clean page he recorded the dream: five dragons, the girl by the gangway, the cedar chest abandoned upon the quay. He kept what he had seen apart from what he thought it meant. Arthur appeared in the doorway as he finished. Jon let the ink dry, locked the book away and washed his hands.

Perkin brought a packet from Winterfell, addressed to Dragonstone to await Jon's arrival. His account of the Runestone tourney had reached them. Aries laid out the writing things while he broke the seal.

Sansa wanted to know whether the stitching on her direwolf favour had survived the mud. He had told her who won, she complained, but scarcely anything about the ladies' gowns. Arya was delighted that he had beaten Robb and wished she could have seen it. She wanted him to describe the last fight properly. Beneath her uneven lines she had asked whether he was at Dragonstone yet, and when he would write again.

Bran had dictated questions about Waymar's rescue and the real sword Alester had been given at thirteen. Could Jon draw Dragonstone as he had drawn Runestone's gate? Eddard had added his own request for word of their safe arrival.

Jon began his reply with that. They had reached the island that morning; everyone was safe, though he had been thoroughly sick upon the way. He told Arya that Robb had made him earn the victory, then described the gallery for Sansa. Aries helped him remember the colours.

"May I tell Bran about the castle?"

Jon gave him the quill. The boy wrote carefully, stopping once to ask how to spell gargoyle. On another leaf Jon drew the dragon outside the window, with its long neck and the water streaming from its jaws. Bran would want to come the moment he saw it. Jon wished he could.

He wrote to Waymar about the baffling stairs, the water casks and the drain he would seek tomorrow. He asked after his friend's lip and admitted that his own ribs still objected when he laughed.

He wrote last to Lord Arryn about the boy at Rilla's neighbour's house and the cellar children: whether they had been rescued, where they were being cared for, and where to send the promised money.

"Will he have an answer?" Aries asked.

"He may. We will make certain he remembers we are waiting for one."

Aries handed Perkin the sealed letter himself. Outside, the six pages were waiting to show him their quarters. Geth promised a shorter route to the lower yard; Nibs claimed a much better dragon above their window.

Patch stopped at Wylla's chair beyond Jon's door. Aries found him asleep upon her hem and stayed to tell her about his letter to Bran. Jon heard her laugh while he undressed, then closed the shutter and went to bed.

* * *

Ethan was waiting in the court before sunrise, with Stewart. Otho arrived carrying a level, two of his men behind him with rods and measuring cord. Ethan had brought bread wrapped in linen. Jon had brought the black book.

"You will want both hands," Ethan said, seeing it.

"Aries has a satchel." Jon gave the boy the book while he fastened his cloak. "Keep it wrapped until I ask for it."

Arthur joined them at the gate. Ethan led them past Blackburn's upper water supply to the lower channel. A girl scrubbed scales from a board; two dogs nosed at a bucket until its owner chased them away. Someone recognised Jon's white forelock, and heads began to turn.

"That early?" a man said from a doorway.

Ethan greeted him by name. His wife came to look, drying her hands on her apron.

Mella waited beside the channel with her skirt tucked above her ankles and a crooked hazel stick in hand. Stewart unwrapped the old plan for Otho; Tobin's men brought baskets and two worn shovels.

"Show me where it reached," Jon said.

She put the stick against a smokehouse wall. A brown stain ran through the mortar above the threshold. "There. My daughter was lifting fish while her boy was still emptying himself."

Jon followed the water downhill with Ethan, Arthur and Otho. At the shore, Tobin's men had exposed the buried outlet. Roots and broken reeds packed the channel; water trembled behind them.

Otho crouched beside the mouth. "That cover is split, my lord. We must prop it before anyone reaches beneath." Jon bent to examine it, then nodded. Otho sent one of his men for timber.

The outlet lay west of its position on Stewart's plan. Ethan held a rod while Otho took the levels; the maester wrote down the readings. They worked uphill between the smokehouses, Jon comparing the measurements with his drainage scheme. Behind a low bank of newer earth, water stood against the foundations.

From the shore the fall had looked sufficient. Uphill, Jon's boots sank and the water scarcely moved. Otho checked again and showed him the reading. The smokehouse stood lower than the earth thrown up to protect it.

"Who put this here?"

"Before my time at the quay," Tobin said. "After a winter tide."

"My husband helped," Mella said. "The sea came through our door. He was not the only one."

Jon marked the bank in his book. The winter water marks would guide its replacement. For now he and Otho marked a shallow channel from the old outlet across bare gravel beyond the houses. Otho checked the slope, then set Tobin's men to digging and showed them where to line the bend with stone.

A woman came out carrying damp kindling. "Will they have to lift our floor, my lord?"

"Bring it to me this afternoon," Ethan said. "Lord Jon has had enough of this water for one morning. I will settle what work you need."

She began to turn.

"Has water come through the boards?" Jon asked.

"Through? No, my lord. It comes under the door."

"Then show Stewart the sill. We may not need to touch the floor." While she took the maester to it, Jon drew Ethan beyond the baskets. Arthur joined them, out of the workers' hearing.

"Do not decide when I have finished."

Ethan glanced towards the doorway. "I have dealt with her husband before. He will ask us to replace the whole floor."

"Then tell me that. I want your advice." Jon rested his muddy hands on the low wall. "Yesterday you decided I was going to bed. Today you decided I had finished here. You have been leading a long time. I understand the habit."

Colour rose beneath Ethan's weathered cheeks. "You had scarcely slept aboard the ship."

"I slept last night. I did not come all this way to be shown my castle and kept out of its business. I mean to rule it, Ethan. If something is unwise, tell me why. Do not decide that I need looking after instead."

Ethan's hand closed upon the bread cloth. Jon thought he might speak of Eddard. He waited; he would not leave this unspoken.

Arthur leaned beside the wall. "You have seen the decisions he sent from Winterfell. Now you can give him your advice to his face."

"I have never doubted his judgement in the work."

"Then give him room to use it."

Ethan looked back at Jon. "I have had years to grow used to a letter coming. I shall have to grow used to you being here."

"Begin with Eastcove. Show it to me when we have opened this outlet."

"I would take you to the camp first and come back by the coast."

"That will suit."

By late morning Otho had the split cover propped and the new channel ready. He walked Jon along it to the shore, showing him the fall. Jon told Tobin to clear the old outlet.

Tobin pulled reeds out in a black clump, followed by rotten timber that lodged across the drain's mouth. Jon passed down a hooked pole; the men rolled it clear. Brown water surged from the old drain into the new channel, struck the stones at the bend and raced across the shingle into the surf.

Mella ran to the smokehouse and returned more slowly, wiping her hands on her skirt. "It is out."

"Keep someone here through the returning tide," Jon told Tobin. "Send to the castle if it backs up. We can mend the damaged upper course once this has drained." Mella's family would keep using the drinking casks until the channel was cleaned and flushed.

"My daughter's boy kept his broth this morning," she said.

"I am glad of it." Jon looked towards the child standing in the doorway with a cup in both hands.

They ate on a dry stone as the last reeds swept towards the surf. Ethan shared his bread with a fisherman. Otho checked the corrected plan with Jon while Stewart entered their final measurements.

* * *

Ralf met them with the horses above the quay. Ethan took the road inland, past gardens and little walled fields. Two miles from Blackburn, they came upon Hewyn's camp. Brown canvas spread across the slope in straight rows; smoke rose from the kitchens, flattening whenever the wind caught it.

Men had draped wet blankets over racks between the tents. A cook glared into his kettle while someone split kindling behind him. Boiled grain, damp leather and woodsmoke filled the air. Beyond the horse lines, a century turned at Heward's call, shields flashing as the men faced the sun.

Scales stood by the horse lines with two saddled mounts. Aleyx was tightening a girth while Heward spoke to his knight. They had reported as ordered. Arthur stayed to watch them ride.

Hewyn came to meet them. Jon dismounted beside a cart whose wheel had sunk into the turf.

"Show me the shelters you had to move," Jon said.

Hewyn led him down the slope. "Two seams gave. We have patched them, but the lower ditch needs carrying farther." He pointed towards men lifting sods onto a barrow. "Water came through Third's cookfire."

The ditch ended against an old bank. Heward held a rod while Otho measured the hollow and stretched a cord to the bank. Jon asked where the water went beyond it.

"Through the pasture," Ethan said. "Then the shore. No houses below this part."

Hewyn sent a man to follow it before they opened the bank. Jon entered the measurements in his book.

Jon asked about water, carts and grain. Hewyn showed him the stores, where a decanus made two men lift a sack clear of the earth. Outside, Heward showed him where stones caught the rear rank during a turn. Arthur joined them there. Scales rode well, he reported; Aleyx needed more work.

"Where does the grazing end?" Jon asked Ethan when they returned to the horses.

"I can show you."

Hewyn went back to the ditch. Ethan led Jon towards the higher south-west ground, with Arthur, Otho and Aries following. The tents dropped behind a fold of land. Dark rock broke through broad reaches of grass; an old bank curved above a shallow gully. Wind tugged at Jon's coat, then fell away as he stepped behind it.

"Castle grazing to that wall," Ethan said. "Crofts beyond."

Jon stood upon the bank. There was room for formations here, and more ground beyond them as the legion grew. He pictured barracks on the rise, workshops apart from sleeping quarters, horse lines clear of the wells. He opened the black book and drew the slope. Above it he wrote a name in English: the Black Fields.

At the gully, a thread of water moved beneath the weeds.

"Does it run all summer?"

"Some years the herders take their beasts farther up," Ethan said.

Jon marked that beside the line. Six hundred men could not live upon a wet-season trickle. Wells, stored rainwater, a channel from higher ground: each needed proving before he brought them here.

Otho held the cord while Jon measured the approach around a bank of gorse. A loaded wagon would need more room. Behind the gorse they found an older track, stony and broad enough. They followed it downhill, Otho noting where the surface would need levelling.

A woman came from the croft beyond the wall, her daughter trotting after her.

"That bounds our grazing."

Ethan greeted her. "Bessa. No one has crossed it."

"Men start with a cord." She noticed Jon and curtsied. "My lord. We graze this side by leave. Since my father's time."

"Where do you bring them in winter?"

She showed him the sheltered corner, pointing out hoofprints beneath the bank. Her croft paid rent to the castle; the grazing was his to reassign. He would find another place for her stock when the work began. Bessa's goats would not decide where his army lived.

"Who remembers the extent of the leave?"

"My uncle. Old Wat as well, though he'll tell you different."

"Make a note of both," Jon told Ethan.

Jon put the book away. Water and the cart approach needed work. He would give the legion its home here, beyond the city's growth.

They returned to the horses. Ethan led them towards Eastcove, with Arthur behind Jon and the household men following.

* * *

The coast road wound between walls so low that the barley seemed to spill over them. Someone had coaxed onions and beans into pockets of deeper soil. A boy on a wall scrambled down when he recognised Ethan, then stared at Jon while one of his sheep put its head into the beans.

The sea appeared and disappeared as they rode. At one turn it filled the world, dark blue beneath a white seam of cloud; at the next there was only gorse, warm stone and grass scraping Jon's boot. Ethan pointed out the inland road to Cinderwell. They kept to the nearer route until hearth smoke rose above a hollow and roofs showed below it.

Eastcove's fishing boats lay above the tide on worn timbers. Nets hung between poles. A woman with a silver-blond braid worked a net needle so quickly that Jon first mistook it for a spindle. She stopped when they passed. Her little daughter looked up from the float in her lap, pale hair tied back with a strip of red wool.

They left the horses with a guard. A man came from beside a stack of tile, rubbing clay from his palms. "Ormond, our headman," Ethan told Jon. Ormond knelt, then rose at Jon's word, looking towards Ethan.

"We had word he was coming. I thought tomorrow."

"My lord wanted to see Eastcove today."

"Then you are welcome, my lord. I would have had the men gathered."

"I can see where they are." Jon looked towards two men who had stopped caulking to watch. "Will you show me what they are doing?"

Word went ahead of them. An old man came out with a knife and half-peeled turnip still in his hands. A child asked whether this was the lord who had won the tourney at Runestone. His mother gripped his shoulder, but Jon had heard.

"Where did you hear that?"

The boy looked at his mother. She looked at Ormond.

"A boat came from the city," the headman said. "There have been three versions of it."

"Only three?" Arthur asked.

The mother laughed before she could stop herself. Jon told the child he had won the squires' melee, then asked whether the boat beside his door belonged to his family. The boy led him over to show him his father's patch, then remembered whom he was leading and retreated behind his mother again.

Jon knelt to look at the repair. When he rose, the caulkers were still watching, their tools idle in their hands. One returned his nod and bent to his work. The other looked at the mud drying on Jon's boots before doing the same.

Ormond showed them his tiles. Jon turned one over, rubbing a thumb across its rough underside. "Where is the clay dug?"

The headman took them behind the ridge. An old stream curved through the workings towards the eastern inlet; cart wheels had streaked the track red and grey. A potter was scraping clay from his spade with a broken sherd.

"Does it all fire alike?" Jon asked.

"No, my lord. I fire a piece before I take a cartload." The potter pointed with the sherd. "My father dug there. His father before him. We still find bad pockets."

Otho asked the potter for fired samples from the different workings. Farther off, smoke escaped from a crude pit where shells were being burned for lime. Jon looked back along the clay-smeared track. Here was material for his drains and walls, but carts would need a better road and the clay would need testing before he counted it in thousands of bricks. He marked both in his book.

They returned by Ormond's kiln shed, whose beams had begun to fail. Otho inspected the timbers with him, took the roof's measurements and noted what needed replacing.

Ormond looked up the lane. "If you are bringing workmen here, my lord, there are houses I would have them see. I have been asking for their roofs to be mended these three years."

"Show Otho the worst of them," Jon said. "I want to know what they need." Otho added the houses to his notes.

Farther down, Ethan stopped at a house with a blue scrap tied above its door. A widow brought out a bench for Jon, though there was scarcely room between the wall and a drying net. He thanked her and remained standing. Two neighbouring children watched Aries's sword belt with envy; a baby slept in a basket behind her feet.

"How many people live here?" Jon asked Ormond.

The headman checked his rent roll. It named the widow. Her married daughter and the baby lived with her too, she explained, while her son-in-law was at sea.

"They need feeding as well," Jon said.

"The daughter pays no rent, my lord. She has no house of her own."

"Then we need a separate count of the people. Everyone, including the children."

Ethan nodded. "We have last winter's count. Some headmen have sent corrections."

"Bring me the latest figures tomorrow. Then we count again, house by house. I want everyone's name, age and skills. Children too, and anyone away at sea."

Jon turned to Otho. "Bram and Torr can help Stewart's two clerks write the lists. Each headman will take them through his village and the farms around it."

"I'll send the lads to the maester," Otho said.

The widow looked between them. "Is this for a new tax, my lord?"

"No. I need to know how much food the island needs and how many people can work." Jon turned to Ethan. "Have the names read back to each family. They can tell us if someone has been missed."

Ethan agreed. Ormond offered to start with the houses nearest the kiln, then take the men out to the farms.

The count would take weeks. There were farms and scattered cottages beyond the villages, as well as Jon's new arrivals. He opened his book and copied a short example for Ormond. The widow gave him the baby's name, and he added it beneath her daughter's.

* * *

They reached Blackburn as the light warmed the western faces of the houses. Tobin met them above the quay. The outlet had held through the returning tide; two men would watch it that night. Mella's daughter was hanging wet cloths above the smokehouse door. Jon dismounted to look, then asked Tobin to have every measurement and alteration copied onto one plan.

Before supper, Jon spread the day's measurements beside the island chart. The village road, temporary camp and Black Fields now had shapes he could trust. Farther inland, too much of his drawing still depended upon letters and guesses.

Ethan brought the letting rolls. Old Wat remembered Bessa's grazing leave differently; her uncle was away with sheep. Jon marked both accounts, then asked about the roads to Cinderwell, Wyrm's Rest and Saltcliffe. He meant to walk their working places and hear what each could supply before he gathered everyone to announce the work.

"Tomorrow we settle the urgent requests," he said. "At the week's end I want the village heads here again, with the garrison captains and my field officers. Tell them to allow the morning."

Ethan glanced at the closed book beside Jon's elbow. "I shall have them warned."

At dinner, Aries fell asleep before the fish was brought, his chin sinking towards the bread in his hand. Wylla took it and let his head rest against her arm.

"He will sleep through the bells," Ethan said, watching Aries. He looked tired himself. "Ormond will raise the houses again tomorrow."

"He asked me about them today."

"It has been his chief complaint for three years. If men and timber are coming to Eastcove, he will want them used on his people's homes."

"I will hear him. Otho can tell us whether repairs are worth making." Jon broke his bread.

Arthur set down his cup. "Your lords will have things to ask as well."

Jon knew the ships those houses held; Ethan's reports had followed their sailings for years. Driftmark's fleet would be essential to what he intended. Robert wanted the old Targaryen vassals kept in hand, but Jon would not make the king's resentment his policy, or wait months for those houses to decide how much notice they owed him.

"They will come here. In two weeks."

Ethan nodded slowly. "Velaryon can cross readily enough. The others will have time to arrange their households."

"I want them at dinner. Before we sit, they renew their oaths."

Ethan glanced towards the empty end of the high table, measuring places almost despite himself. "They swore when the grant was made."

"To an infant they had never met. They will meet me now." Jon put down his knife. "I will hear their concerns and confirm what is owed on both sides. But they come as my vassals. The letter should leave no doubt about that."

After they had eaten, Jon sent for Maester Stewart to write the summons to Velaryon, Celtigar, Sunglass and Bar Emmon.

Servants cleared the bowls while Stewart laid out parchment. Arthur drew his chair nearer the hearth. The maester dipped his quill and waited for Jon to begin.

Jon dictated. Having come to Dragonstone to govern in person, he required each lord's attendance on the fourteenth day from the date of the letter, to renew the homage and fealty due to House Black. Afterwards, he would receive them at his table and hear matters concerning their lands and service. They were to send acceptance and the number accompanying them, so quarters could be prepared.

Stewart read the first letter aloud, then passed it to Jon to sign. By the fourth his split knuckle ached, but the name was steady. Stewart warmed the wax; Jon pressed his seal into each dark pool.

"Tonight?" Ethan asked.

There was still light above the sea.

"Now."

Jon went with the letters to the rookery. Stewart checked the birds by their home roosts. Below the window, men were bringing the last carts through the gate. Beyond the roofs, the bay stretched towards shores Jon had only seen upon maps.

The first raven beat its wings against Stewart's hand. Jon watched him fasten the summons. Four messages, four seals, a fortnight for the men across the water to prepare their answers.

At his word, Stewart opened his hands and the first raven flew. The others followed, carrying Jon's summons out across the bay.