Lorren called him ser as he tied the bandage.
Tomas had heard it half a dozen times since morning. It still made him want to look past the healer and see which knight had entered the room.
"Tell me if the light troubles you, ser."
"It doesn't."
"And if that changes, send for me. No getting up to see whether you can manage."
Tomas promised. Lorren gathered the soiled linen, set the water where he could reach it and went to the wounded legionary in the other bed. The man was breathing more easily now. He drank what Lorren gave him, lay back and was soon asleep.
When the healer left, Tomas listened to his footsteps until they faded into the castle passage.
The room had a ceiling higher than any at home. A stone beast crouched above the window, its open jaws black against the last of the evening light. Below it his sword stood within reach of the bed. Someone had cleaned the blood from the scabbard and rubbed the leather dry. Lord Jon had done it, Lorren said.
Tomas reached out and touched the pommel.
He remembered a pale sword above him, Arthur's voice, the pressure of a hand upon his shoulder. Some of the faces behind Jon had blurred together. He could recall Hennet shouting, though, and men taking up his name so loudly that Wylla had turned towards the door to hush them and then begun smiling herself.
Ser Tomas.
He whispered it again. He was a knight. Even now, he could scarcely believe it.
His mother had mended his cuff before he swore his first oath. He could still see her biting the thread, holding his wrist while she checked that the patch lay flat. When the choosing was over she had sewn the black badge onto his coat. At his new bed she had folded his cloak and touched his cheek, though the other boys were watching and he had wished she would stop.
He would have given a great deal to feel that hand now.
What would she say? Would she believe the first letter, or carry it to someone else to have it read again? He could write it himself. Once he would have needed another man to tell her even that he was safe.
He had not come to Jon expecting knighthood. A place, regular meals, wages to take home, work that might carry him farther than the same few roads. That had been enough to make him run until his chest hurt on the day Jon chose them. Olyver had lost a shoe; Tomas had taken his sack as well as his own, and by the end both burdens had seemed filled with stones.
Jon had remembered that.
Years later, when Gawen was given command, Tomas had wondered whether Jon remembered anything else. He was ashamed of the thought now. He had stood before the boy he served and asked whether he had given cause for doubt, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice.
Jon had said he had not.
Last night Jon had sat with Tomas's hand in his own, blood dried upon his sleeve, and thanked him. There had been nothing distant or lordly in his face then. Tomas remembered that part very clearly.
The door opened without a knock.
Olyver put his head around it, followed by Alasdair, Gage and Cressen. All four had washed. None had managed to make his boots quiet upon the stone.
"Lorren said a little while," Alasdair told the others.
"You have said that twice," Olyver answered. He stopped at the foot of the bed and bowed with such care that Tomas knew trouble was coming. "Ser."
"Don't."
"Was that too little? I've never had to bow to you before."
"You still don't."
"Good." Olyver sat down on the chest beneath the window. "I wasn't going to keep it up."
Gage grinned. Cressen stood nearest the door until Alasdair drew a stool forward with his foot and made room for him. Tomas wanted to ask about the fight, about who had been hurt and what he had missed after they carried him down from the collector. For once nobody was waiting for his questions or his orders. They had simply come to see him.
"You look dreadful," Gage said.
"Thank you."
"Better than last night," Cressen added quickly.
Olyver leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "He means you looked worse when you were covered in blood. Very cheering company we've brought you."
"I've had worse."
"When?"
"Whenever you complain about your boots."
Alasdair laughed. Olyver pointed at him. "You took those boots off at Runestone. You saw what they'd done to my heels."
"We all saw. You showed everyone."
Tomas was smiling before he could help it. The wound pulled as his face moved, and for a moment he shut his eyes. When he opened them, all four were watching him.
"It only hurts when I laugh."
Olyver nodded solemnly. "Then Alasdair can tell the next jest."
That made it worse. Tomas pressed a hand against his cheek, laughing through his teeth while Gage tried to quiet the others. The legionary beneath the shelves stirred, muttered something and went back to sleep.
After a while Alasdair asked whether Tomas remembered Arthur drawing Dawn.
"That, yes."
"Geth says you tried to get up."
"I thought I had to kneel."
"You'd have fallen on your face," Gage said. "Then Lorren would have had to start again."
Tomas glanced at the sword beside his bed. He had seen great lords stand to receive Arthur Dayne. At Runestone, men had pressed against one another for a glimpse of him fighting. That same man had laid Dawn against Tomas's shoulder and called him worthy.
He tried to explain it. "I thought, when he said it... I thought he meant when I was well. Some other day."
"He wasn't going to wait," Alasdair said.
Tomas nodded, though he still had not quite caught up with it.
Olyver looked around the room. "You'll want your own chamber now. Can't have a knight listening to Gage snore."
"He snores louder than I do," Gage said.
"A better chamber for both of you, then. At the far end of the castle."
Cressen smiled. "Finnan would have wanted the bed nearest the door."
The smile went before he finished saying it.
No one answered. Olyver lowered his eyes. Gage's hand, which had been resting on the bedpost, tightened around it.
"I wish they could have seen it," Cressen said. "Finnan. Keir and Struan too."
Tomas looked down at the coverlet.
He remembered Finnan scraping the burnt crust from the porridge pot, Keir's cup always in the wrong place, Struan drumming his spoon until somebody threatened to take it away. Memories from a hundred suppers came more readily than their faces upon the day they died. He was grateful for that, then ashamed to be grateful.
Cressen rubbed his palms over his knees. "I didn't mean—"
"I know," Tomas said.
He knew exactly what Cressen meant. There should have been three more men trying to squeeze through the door. Struan would have wanted to hear every word Arthur said. Finnan would have found something to mock before anyone grew too solemn.
Tomas had helped mend Struan's whistle. He could still feel the thin linen binding beneath his thumb. It hung beneath a name in the northern barracks now, far from this sea and this castle, and for a moment the distance hurt as much as the memory.
"They would have been proud of you," Alasdair said.
His voice was quiet. He had not been beside them in the wood. Tomas remembered how he had looked when the wounded came home, and how hard he had worked to find something useful to do for every man who returned.
"Finnan would have said you took long enough," Gage murmured.
Cressen let out a breath that almost became a laugh. "He would."
Tomas blinked until he could see them clearly again.
"I wish they were here."
"Aye," Alasdair said.
They let him say it. No one hurried to make the room cheerful again.
A little later there was a knock. Gawen came in with his left arm in its sling and a folded cloak over the other. The men began to rise, but he waved them down.
"Stay where you are. I've come to congratulate him, not inspect his visitors."
Gage brought him the chair. Gawen set the cloak across its back and studied Tomas's bandage before sitting.
"Ser Tomas."
It sounded different from him. Tomas felt his throat tighten.
"Ser."
"Arthur told me what you did. So did Hennet. Hennet's telling was rather longer."
"Was I taller in his?"
"By the end of it I thought you must have carried the captain under one arm and Lord Jon under the other."
Olyver made a pleased noise. "That's how I shall tell it."
"You will tell it properly," Gawen said, though he was smiling. Then he looked back at Tomas. "You did well."
Tomas had heard him say those words after a difficult turn upon a horse, or a passage at arms that had taken weeks to master. He had always wanted to hear them again.
"Thank you, ser."
Gawen glanced down at his sling. The smile faded a little.
"I wish I had been beside you on that ship. I would have liked to knight you myself."
"I wish you had been there too." Tomas hesitated, then looked up. "Though having Ser Arthur do it wasn't so bad."
Gawen laughed, and Tomas laughed with him, more carefully this time. Around them the others began smiling again.
"No," Gawen said. "I suppose the Sword of the Morning will serve."
Tomas remembered the bay he had ridden when Arthur first put him under Gawen's teaching. He had been so determined to do well with the lance that his whole body had stiffened. Gawen had taken it away and made him turn the horse without hauling at its mouth. Tomas had thought he was being sent back to a child's lesson. By the fourth circuit he had understood why.
"You taught me," he said.
"Some of it. Arthur might object if I claimed the rest."
"You know what I mean."
Gawen's good hand closed briefly around his forearm. "I do."
For a moment neither spoke. Then Gawen settled back in the chair.
"Lord Jon means to make you a landed knight," Gawen said. "You are to choose a name for your house, and arms to bear upon your shield."
Olyver opened his mouth. Alasdair put a hand on his knee without looking at him.
"A landed knight?"
"Aye. A holding of your own, in return for your service. He will settle the grant in time."
Tomas stared at him. Knighthood had been enough to leave him bewildered. Now there was to be land as well, and a name his children would carry.
"Here?"
"Elsewhere. He has not named the place." Gawen glanced at the others, then back at Tomas. "For now, think about what you would call your house. There is no need to choose tonight."
The room was very still. Olyver had forgotten whatever jest Alasdair had stopped him making.
Tomas tried to sit higher and stopped when the room tilted. Gawen steadied him until it passed. All at once he was glad to be lying down.
"He said that?"
"He did."
Land. There would be a place he could take his mother and say that she need not ask another man's leave to stay. He could scarcely imagine what such a place would look like.
"All I wanted," he began, and had to clear his throat. "When I went to him, I only wanted something more than the life I could see waiting at home. I thought if he kept me, if I learnt enough..."
Gawen waited. The others did too.
"He gave me all of it. A horse. Good steel. Men who listened when I spoke. I can write to my mother myself." Tomas looked at his companions. "I have you lot. And now this."
Olyver's face had lost its jesting look.
"I don't know what I could ever give him that would be enough."
"He is alive tonight," Gawen said. "Do not make what you did a small thing."
Tomas shook his head carefully. "I wasn't thinking of being rewarded."
"I know you weren't." Gawen leaned forward. "Jon knows it too. He has watched you serve him for years. Last night did not make him notice you for the first time."
The fear Tomas had carried from that conversation about the captaincy returned, smaller now and a little shameful. He had mistaken a change in his duties for the end of Jon's trust. Yet Jon was giving him a future he had never known how to ask for.
"I will not fail him."
Gawen nodded. He did not make Tomas swear it again.
"Then begin by letting that head mend. He will have work for you soon enough."
When Lorren returned, he found five visitors where he had allowed a little quiet company. Gawen accepted the blame and rose. The others followed, each finding something brief and awkward to say at the bed. Cressen gripped Tomas's hand rather than speaking. Tomas held it until Cressen was ready to let go.
At the door Olyver looked back.
"A boot," he said.
"What?"
"For your shield. Since carrying mine won you your first command."
"I carried your sack. Oren carried your boot."
"Then put two sacks on it."
Alasdair pushed him through the doorway before Tomas could answer. Their voices receded along the passage, arguing over whose account of the trial was worse.
Tomas lay looking at the empty chair. Tomorrow he would ask for ink. He would begin with the thing his mother needed to hear first: that he was alive, and being well cared for.
After that, he would tell her what Arthur Dayne had called him.
* * *
Below the hall, Drennan, the sail-mender from Saltcliffe, waited upon a stool in the guardroom, his hands chained. The captured first mate of the collector had named him as the man who warned the pirates of Borren's arrest.
He rose when Jon entered the guardroom. His wrists were raw where he had twisted them against the irons, but his clothes were clean. Pale hair hung about a narrow, weathered face. There was a small red puncture beside his thumbnail, the sort a man acquired working a needle through stiff canvas.
He looked like half the men Jon had passed on the road to Saltcliffe.
"My lord, there has been a mistake."
"Then explain it."
Drennan glanced at Ethan. Arthur closed the door behind them, and a garrison man took his place beside the prisoner.
"I went to see my cousin. I told your men."
"At Hull?" Jon asked.
"Aye."
"You told another man he lived down the coast."
"His boat was there. I meant to find his boat."
Jon stood across the table from him. "What is his name?"
Drennan answered. Ethan already had it. The maester had sent a man to ask after the cousin's household, but Jon did not intend to sit through another account of how a visit to a relative had brought Drennan alongside the collector before dawn.
He nodded to the guard.
The man brought in one of the prisoners caught at the cove. Drennan stared at him, and the other prisoner immediately began speaking.
"That's him. Little boat, brown sail, pale patch beside the mast. Came out with news of the shore."
"He has been told to say that."
"I saw you," the prisoner said angrily. "You asked where our captain was. Said Borren was in the castle and we were fools if we came ashore as before."
Drennan's eyes went from the prisoner to the door.
Jon waited until the guard had taken the witness out again.
"You warned them."
"I wanted them gone." The answer burst out of him. "They were to take their things and leave. Borren had brought them here. I wanted no part in what followed."
"So you rowed past my men to tell armed pirates where those men were waiting."
"I did not know they would fight."
Ethan made a disgusted sound. Drennan turned towards him, seizing upon the older man's attention.
"You know me. I've worked here all my life. I patched the sail on your stores boat last winter. Ask any man at the harbour what I—"
"Look at your lord when he questions you," Ethan said.
Drennan faced Jon again. For a moment the helplessness slipped, and something resentful showed beneath it. Jon knew what the man saw. A boy, hardly broad enough to fill the black coat, with a bandage on his hand and older men standing behind him.
"Why warn them at all?" Jon asked. "Why not bring what you knew here?"
"They owed me money."
There was the beginning of an honest answer.
"For sails?"
"Sails. Rope. Work upon the shore."
"What work?"
He would not answer that. Jon sent for Borren.
The former headman came between two guards, still wearing the coat in which he had been taken. One side of his mouth was swollen. He stopped when he saw Drennan.
"You told them?"
"You should have kept my name out of it."
"I never gave your name."
"They went straight to my shed!"
Jon let them look at one another. Then he asked Borren who had helped make the shore store ready for people.
"We stored cargo."
"You locked people in it. You have already admitted that. Who helped you?"
Borren looked at Drennan again. The sail-mender began shaking his head.
"Don't."
"Who?" Jon repeated.
"He brought the rope. Helped cover the openings so they couldn't be seen from the path."
"You told me it was for wine!"
"The first time." Borren's voice rose. "Tell him what you did when the woman started crying. Tell him why you went round to her door."
Drennan lunged at Borren. The guard caught his shoulder and forced him to his knees. The chain snapped tight.
Jon came around the table.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"You heard her. You went to the door. What did you do?"
Drennan knelt with his hands against the seat of the stool. His mouth worked. Behind him, Borren watched with the ugly relief of a man whose accomplice had finally been caught.
"She wouldn't keep quiet," Drennan said. "I told her she had to. The boats were close. People could hear."
"Did she ask you for help?"
"I couldn't understand her."
"Did she try to get out?"
Silence.
Jon bent until the man could not avoid his eyes.
"Did she?"
"Aye."
"And you shut her in."
Drennan began to cry. Jon felt no satisfaction in it. The tears had come when the danger reached him. There had been none for the woman behind the covered openings.
He remembered Laro trying not to flinch when a hand came near his face. He remembered the narrow space beneath the collector's deck and Tomas lying against the mast with blood running between Jon's fingers. Drennan had seen the prisoners on shore. He had known what those ships served, and when soldiers came to stop them he had rowed out to give warning.
"No one mistook what was happening," Jon said. "You heard a woman begging to leave. You kept her quiet. Then you helped the men who had chained her."
"I have told you."
"Because you were caught."
Jon looked at Borren. "Did Orrick see them brought in?"
"He held the lantern at the door. He could see the ropes as well as I could."
Ethan nodded grimly. "He admitted seeing the woman. Claimed he thought she was a prisoner taken by a lord's ship."
"Then he should have brought word to you," Jon said. "Instead he took his money and turned the search away."
He straightened. Borren began speaking at once.
"My lord, I can still help you. Neresso has other men. I know the carters, where they—"
"You gave Ethan those names."
"There may be others."
"Then you should have remembered them while you could still bargain."
Arthur stood beyond the table, watching Jon rather than the prisoners. Jon made himself unclench his good hand.
He had wanted to seize Drennan and drag him through the castle to see the people left in Lorren's care. That would have made them a spectacle for their tormentor. They had endured enough without being summoned to prove their pain to him.
"The galley," he said. "The broken swan. What work did you do aboard her?"
Drennan raised his head. "Her sail."
"Describe it."
"Pale canvas. The upper corner tore. I had no length wide enough, so I joined two blue pieces across it." He swallowed. "They were to replace it at Hull."
"When did you mend it?"
He placed the visit between two landings Borren had already described. Ethan questioned him until the sequence was clear. Drennan had carried the sail back aboard himself. There had been armed men at the hatch and a woman sitting below the ladder with her wrists tied.
Jon made him continue. The galley put into ports as Fair Wind, a name Ethan took down for the searching captains. Her crew covered the broken swan with a hood of sailcloth when they did not want it recognised. Drennan had sewn that too.
"They need not show us the bird," Arthur said quietly.
"No." Jon turned to Ethan. "Send the false name and sail description to Denys and Driftmark. Tell them when he last saw that canvas; she may no longer carry it. Whoever takes the message is to explain the covered bow as well."
Drennan looked up with desperate hope. "I can show them. Take me on a boat. I'll point her out."
"You will stay here."
Jon went back to his place at the table. Ethan had the earlier accounts before him: Borren's payments, Orrick's altered patrols, the master's treatment of Laro. Each had been questioned separately; their own words had supplied what the others tried to hide. Drennan had filled another gap. There was enough to judge the local men without pretending he had found every hand in the trade.
"At dawn, I will take your head, Borren. Orrick and the master who held Laro will follow."
Borren stared at him. Orrick and the Lysene boat master taken with Laro on the first night still waited in the cells below.
Jon turned to Drennan.
"You remain apart until we have checked what you told us. If your answers prove useful, you live. You will work in irons. Lie to me again, and you join them."
Borren's face emptied.
"My sister—"
"Will answer for what she did. Your sentence is yours."
One of the guards took his arm. Borren planted his feet. He looked at Ethan, then Arthur, searching for someone who might tell the boy to reconsider. Arthur opened the door for the guards.
"Ask him what he took!" Borren shouted as they pulled him past Drennan. "Ask how much they paid him!"
"We shall," Jon said.
They took Drennan down by another passage. For a little while Jon could hear Borren calling from the stair. Then a door closed, and he heard only the wind at the high window.
Ethan remained beside the table. "And the collector's first mate, my lord?"
Jon looked at the purse lying among the prisoner's things. That morning the mate had thought silver might save him. He had spoken of the people beneath the galley's deck as if Jon were asking about a cargo of hides.
"Let him go hungry. No visitors, and no word to the other prisoners. He can sit with what he knows until Neresso is brought here."
"We have no answer from Lord Velaryon yet."
"Send another raven. When he comes, he is to bring Neresso under guard. I will question them both that day." Jon pushed the purse away. "We shall see how much defiance the mate has left by then."
The castellan nodded. He drew the account of the battle prisoners nearer: nineteen fit enough for the work already begun at Cinderwell, three wounded still under Lorren's care, and the first mate held separately. All twenty-three were accounted for.
"Feed the nineteen properly," Jon said. "I need them strong enough for the work still to be done."
Ethan's hand stopped above the page. "Work? You mean to keep them here?"
"In chains, as they intended for the people they carried. Two years upon the works. After that, they go to the Wall."
"Some will run if they can."
"Then their guards had better attend to their duty. Keep them together when they are moved. Otho is to have the labour he can use, with men watching them."
Jon had seen what those ships made of people. He had no intention of feeding their crews through idle months in a dungeon while honest men broke their backs hauling stone. They would help build the island they had chosen to prey upon. The thought left him coldly satisfied.
The other three would remain under guard while Lorren treated them. Hessa and her son were still held with the earlier prisoners; their questioning was unfinished. Jon would not let Borren's death become an answer to every question about his household.
Ethan put the accounts together. "Who takes Saltcliffe now?"
"Send for Hewyn. I want half a century posted there. Fifty men under a steady optio."
"To support the next headman?"
"There will be no next headman."
Ethan went still. Jon could feel his own anger rising again, as sharp as when Drennan had admitted shutting the woman inside.
"A headman, one of the garrison, a sail-mender with a boat. How many more took coin and looked away? Until I know, Saltcliffe answers to the optio. He answers to me."
"And the village's ordinary business?"
"Goes to him. The fishing continues. Gella's work continues. But his men will watch the landings and the coast, and only the helpers she has chosen are to go behind the screen where she refines the white salt. Put guards upon the salt stores and the carts when they go down to the boats."
The white salt could pay for more than the village understood. Jon would not teach Gella a process, build the means to enlarge it and then leave it among men who had already sold far worse secrets for silver. The optio need not know how she made it. He needed to know who was allowed through her door.
"Choose men who were not fighting last night," Jon added. "Hewyn will settle their duties. They are posted there, not available for Otho to borrow by the day."
"I will have him sent up." Ethan gathered Borren's earlier account. "Denys left orders for Qavo to examine both prizes. The captain he put over the watch will take the shipwright aboard in the morning."
"Have Qavo send me what each needs. Hull, rigging, oars, all of it. Begin the repairs he can make with what we have."
The collector and the smaller oared ship would give him two more vessels once they were sound. They needed crews as well as repairs. Jon told Ethan to have Denys's captain keep the prisoners clear of both hulls and put reliable men over the remaining cargo. The report would go to the acting admiral as soon as a boat could find him; the work need not wait for his return.
Arthur had listened without interrupting. Now his gaze fell to Jon's bandaged hand.
"You mean to do it yourself in the morning."
"I passed the sentence."
"I heard you." Arthur held out his hand, and Jon reluctantly let him examine the swollen knuckle. "You must be able to finish what you begin."
Jon closed his fingers. It hurt. He kept them closed.
"I can."
Arthur studied him, then released the hand. "I will have a suitable sword brought down."
Jon looked towards Ethan. "Make certain Saltcliffe hears the charges. I will not have Borren's friends tell them he died for hiding a cask of wine."
The castellan bowed his head. "They will hear them."
* * *
The yard was still in shadow when the prisoners came out.
Rain during the night had left dark patches between the stones. Jon stood bareheaded beside the block, his cloak folded over Arthur's arm. The sword from the armoury had a long hilt and a broad, freshly honed blade. He had tried its weight in private, with his left hand taking the stronger grip and his right bracing below it. Lorren had bound the knuckle again. Even so, a dull ache ran into his wrist whenever he tightened his fingers.
The island garrison brought the condemned men across the yard. Orrick searched the ranks for familiar faces. Some men looked back; others kept their eyes upon the block. His coat still showed the stitches where the badge had been torn away.
Ethan read the charges. The words carried clearly in the quiet: coin taken, patrols diverted, captives concealed, men warned against their lord. The slaver master listened without expression. Borren kept shaking his head.
Jon watched him. He remembered the women and children who had waited outside Saltcliffe's houses when the first arrests were made, unable to learn whether their fathers would come home. This man had been trusted to speak for them. He had used that trust to open a door to slavers.
When Ethan finished, Borren began talking at once.
"My lord, there are things I have not remembered. Give me another day. You need to know who—"
"You had the night."
"I can still name men."
"Then name them."
Borren's mouth remained open. At the edge of the yard, someone shifted upon the wet stone. He tried to give Jon a name already taken down in the cells. Ethan said so. Borren turned towards him with a look of desperate hatred.
The guards brought him to the block. He resisted until one caught his shoulder and made him kneel. Jon waited while they settled him. He could hear the man's breathing.
Eddard's voice returned to him with a clarity that made the cold yard seem briefly familiar.
The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.
Jon had heard those words as a child. He had watched Eddard stand where he stood now, grave and certain, while other men looked on. He had understood the duty long before this morning. Understanding it did nothing to lessen the weight of the sword in his hands.
Borren looked up once.
"My sister's boy. He did what I told him."
"He will answer for his own deeds," Jon said. "I have told you that."
Borren lowered his head. Jon set his feet, lifted the sword and struck.
The shock of it drove pain through his right hand. He held the blade steady while the guards moved forward. Arthur remained beside him, near enough to take the sword if he asked. Jon did not ask.
Orrick came next. Without the badge, he looked like any frightened island man. He glanced at the soldiers who had once stood beside him and began to say that he had never laid hands upon a captive.
"You were paid to keep them safe," Jon told him. "You took more to leave them to those men."
Orrick looked down. He had nothing else to say.
The guards brought him to his knees. Jon waited until they stood clear, then raised the sword and took his head.
The master who had held Laro cursed when his turn came. Jon caught the boy's name among the words and felt his grip tighten despite the pain. The man had cut Mallador while trying to escape the first night's raid. Now he spoke as if losing his freedom were an injustice greater than anything he had done.
Jon let him finish. Then he carried out the third sentence.
When it was over, he stood with the point lowered towards the stones. His breathing sounded too loud. Blood had run along the blade towards his hand; a guard brought water, and Arthur took the sword only after Jon had loosened his fingers from it.
Ethan asked about the bodies. Jon gave the order for burial and remained while the garrison lifted them. There were men watching from the castle doors who had never seen their young lord kill. He was conscious of them, but had no wish to look at their faces.
The first mate waited somewhere beneath their feet. Neresso was across the water. Others still thought themselves beyond his reach.
Jon washed until the water in the basin had to be changed. His knuckle had begun bleeding beneath the wrapping. Arthur helped him bind it, saying little, then left him to change for the ride.
Wylla met him at the stable door with bread and cheese wrapped in linen. She took one look at his face and put the food into his sound hand.
"Eat before you ride."
"I will."
"Here."
He stayed beside the door and ate. She waited until the first piece was gone, then folded the remaining bread into the cloth for him. Beyond her, Alasdair was settling the escort. He had Tomas's duties for the day, with Gawen remaining at the castle.
"How is he?" Jon asked.
"Tired of being told to lie still," Wylla said. "Lorren is pleased with him."
Jon nodded. He could still remember how little pressure it had taken to make blood well through the cloth over Tomas's brow. The captain who had done that was dead. The men who had helped bring him to their shore had begged for their lives that morning.
He had slept badly and his hand hurt. When a groom fumbled a buckle he nearly snapped at him, then saw that the lad was trying not to touch the bandage. Jon finished it with his left hand and thanked him.
Hamish waited by the gate with Otho, mounted upon a sturdy bay. Gerren's elder son had brought his sea chest south to help lay out Jon's fields; during the island survey he had spent more time beside the measuring lines than at the castle. Now dust marked the knees of his breeches and a short measuring rod was tied behind his saddle. He looked young among the weathered men who had come to Dragonstone with their trades, though he had followed a plough long before he had ever seen a ship.
"Have you everything?" Jon asked him.
"Otho has the drawing, my lord. The longer cords went ahead with his men." Hamish hesitated. "Am I to stay there tonight?"
"Yes. I shall introduce you to Dake, then we will walk the ground together."
Hamish settled his foot more firmly in the stirrup. He had wanted this work. Being given charge of it had made him quieter.
Ethan met them as the gates opened. He and the maester would follow later, after the farms' work was done, for the household gathering Jon had promised. Hewyn was choosing the fifty men for Saltcliffe. They would march before noon.
Jon mounted. Beyond the last houses the road rose into open wind, and he was glad of the cold against his face.
* * *
Dake was cutting barley when they found him.
He worked beside his elder son, gathering stalks against the sickle. Behind them two women bound the cut grain. A child collected fallen heads into a basket until his mother called him out of the horses' way.
Dake straightened as Jon dismounted. His eyes went to the fresh wrapping on Jon's hand, then to Arthur. Someone from the village must already have brought news of the executions. He gave his greeting carefully.
"My lord."
"Finish the row. We can speak while you work."
His son pointed out shade for the horses. Jon sent the escort there and walked along the cut edge with Hamish. Otho continued towards the queen's barn, where his labour party waited.
Heat was gathering in the hollow. Chaff clung to Dake's neck, and his hands were dark where the sickle rested. He looked Hamish over, taking in the light beard, the plain coat and the measuring rod.
"Another man to measure us?"
"This is Hamish, Gerren's son. He worked with me at Miller's Run." Jon waited until the headman faced him. "He will oversee the farms here."
Dake lowered the handful of barley he had been about to cut.
"Oversee them."
"Under my direction. You and your neighbours will give him what he needs to learn the ground."
Hamish inclined his head. "I shall need to see where the river leaves its banks, and which fields dry first. Otho showed me the wet hollow."
"Did he?" Dake's glance returned to the young man's face. "And how many harvests have you brought in without your father telling you where to begin?"
Hamish reddened. "I worked beside him. We both followed Lord Jon's plan."
"Then I hope you remember it."
Jon felt the first stir of irritation. Dake's son had stopped cutting to listen; one of the women bent very deliberately over her sheaf.
"He remembers it," Jon said. "He helped put it into practice. That is why I brought him."
Dake looked at him, then resumed work. The sickle moved too quickly through the next handful, leaving stalks that his son cut when he passed.
"Your men have put a cord across the cattle way."
"To mark the new lane," Hamish said. "They lift it when the herd comes through."
"I asked my lord."
Jon's jaw tightened. "And Hamish answered you. The cattle way remains open."
The headman muttered that he was glad to hear it. Jon kept walking. If he answered every sour remark as sharply as he wished, they would spend the morning quarrelling beside an uncut field.
From here he could see the narrow strips spread across the hollow, some ready to reap, others still pale green upon the higher ground. The divisions had given each family a share of good and poor soil. They also sent teams back and forth across the same ground while men waited for their neighbours to finish. He meant to change that as thoroughly as he meant to change the streets of Blackburn.
At the end of the row Dake tucked his sickle through his belt and came with them. His son followed a few paces, until Dake told him to keep working.
"I was going to ask about the teams."
"Ask after the row."
The son went back, visibly displeased. Dake watched him bend to the barley, then turned towards the ruined barn.
"We have teams already."
"Which will still be needed," Jon said. "Your privately owned beasts remain yours. We settled that."
"We settled a good many things at the castle."
Jon stopped. Dake took another step before noticing and turning.
"If you have a question, ask it. I have no patience for being made to drag one out of every answer."
The headman's face darkened, but he bowed his head. "No, my lord."
They went on to the queen's barn.
Three walls still stood, streaked with lichen. A rowan grew where carts had once crossed the threshing floor, and one of the old piers had settled towards the wet ground below. Otho's men were clearing fallen stone from the approach. They had kept clear of the standing crop.
The larger drawing lay upon a board set across two trestles. Jon held it down while Otho fetched stones for the corners. Hamish stood beside the headman, leaving Dake room to see.
"Six hundred and forty acres," Otho said. "The ground we have marked for the first estate."
Dake bent over it. "I reckoned near six hundred."
"We took the farther edges and the fields beyond the rise," Otho answered. "That is the measured ground within this line."
Jon followed it with a finger. "The best arable land around the village. There are other fields beyond it, and meadow and grazing besides. This is where we begin."
The river curved along the lower side of the valley, with the deeper soil upon its gentler slopes. Beyond the selected ground, broken hills divided the farther farms. Jon had no intention of pretending they were useless because they did not fit conveniently upon this sheet. Their time would come. These acres were close enough to work together and good enough to reward what he put into them.
Inside Otho's measured boundary, the old narrow strips remained faint beneath Jon's darker lines. Larger fields followed the slope. A cartway reached the barn without cutting through the houses; the new house ground stood higher, with gardens behind it and a separate way for cattle.
Dake found the wall that divided his father's old ground from a neighbour's.
"That comes down."
"After the harvest."
"And this one."
"Where we have marked it. The new boundaries follow the fields we intend to work, not the shares your grandfathers divided."
Hamish bent closer. "This turn stays wide enough for the oxen. If we leave the wall across it, every team will have to stop and go round."
"We have managed to turn an ox before," Dake said.
"I can see that. I am asking what happens when we work the whole length."
There was nothing insolent in Hamish's tone. Jon heard the effort it cost him to keep it that way. Dake's eyes narrowed at being answered, then shifted to Jon as if expecting him to put the young man in his place.
"The wall comes down where I have marked it," Jon said. "Hamish will see that the turn is kept clear."
He put more force into the name than he had intended. Arthur looked at him from the other end of the trestles. Jon drew a breath and moved his hand to the river.
"Now show him what the water does here."
They left the drawing weighted beneath the stones and walked upstream to the shoulder where Jon meant to take water into the new channels. The river ran clear over pebbles there. Farther down, alder roots gripped the bank and a narrow shelf overlooked the bend.
Dake pointed out a scar upon the opposite bank. Winter floods had cut it. He knew where the water spread and where it stayed swift enough to take a man's footing. Jon listened. This was knowledge he needed, and he would not throw it away because the man giving it had become disagreeable.
Hamish asked whether the highest stain had been left by the last great rain or an earlier flood. Dake answered, then looked annoyed with himself for doing so.
Otho took the height against the marked rod. Jon walked the proposed course with him, keeping it above the fields that would need water. They would bring a channel around the rise, with smaller cuts leading into the flatter ground and gates to close them when enough had passed. The drains would carry away what the soil could not take.
Hamish crouched at a shallow dip, looking back towards the river.
"This bank will need raising."
"Yes," Jon said.
"Or the water will leave us here."
He said it almost to himself. Jon remembered him as a younger boy running ahead of their first channel at Miller's Run, eager to see whether the water could truly reach his mother's garden. The first trickle had found a low place there too. Hamish had helped mend the bank until it held.
"Have it marked," Jon told him. "And bring the men who will tend the gates when we set them. They are to see why each one stands where it does."
Dake rubbed his chin. "And when the river is low?"
"We take less. Otho will keep measuring it. I mean to use this water properly, not promise you a second river."
They followed the bank down to the shelf above the bend. Here Jon showed them the mill site. Water brought along a separate race would turn the wheel, then return below it. Carts could approach from the barn ground without trying to climb the steepest part of the bank.
"Grain brought down from the stores," Hamish said, studying the slope. "Flour back up by that way."
"Once the road is made." Jon turned to Otho. "Set the working height before the foundations. The wheel and the water leaving it must both have room."
Otho had already marked two possible lines. He and Jon compared them while Dake watched the river. It was no broad northern water, and its strength would vary. The gates and channels had to serve both mill and fields. Jon would not have Hamish opening every irrigation cut while the miller wondered why his stones had stopped.
"My father would have liked a mill here," Dake said at last.
For the first time that morning his voice held something besides resentment. Jon looked at him.
"Did he ask for one?"
"He asked a good many things. Men came, looked and went back to the castle."
"Then watch what my men build."
Dake gave no answer. Hamish was looking at the water, perhaps wise enough to leave the moment alone.
They returned by the grazing below the wet hollow. The man who held it stood watching soldiers lift stones from the choked outlet. He met Jon with a question about how much of the upper ground would be drained through his meadow.
"None until this end is clear," Jon told him.
Hamish followed Otho to where the water could leave beyond the obstruction. He came back with mud upon his boots and asked the man to walk it with him. Dake remained beside Jon. His mouth tightened as his neighbour went with the younger man and began pointing out the winter pools.
"He will need you," Jon said quietly. "You know this valley."
"So you have said."
"And he knows the work I intend. You will learn one another's part."
Dake looked after Hamish. "If he can spare the time from telling us ours."
Jon turned fully towards him.
"Enough."
The word brought Dake's eyes back at once. Jon kept his voice low, though he wanted to raise it.
"You have had a remark for every answer he has given you. If he is wrong, show him where. I have heard enough about his age."
Dake's cheeks darkened. "As you say, my lord."
It was obedience of the narrowest sort. Jon let it stand and called Otho back to the barn.
By noon they had marked the mill ground and the first lengths of channel. At the queen's barn, men had cleared a passage wide enough for a cart. The old walls would be tested before anyone built upon them. Beside them lay room for a new covered threshing floor, with stores where clean grain could be kept dry and fodder sheds far enough away to leave carts clear access. The dairy would stand nearer the houses, reached without taking the dung carts through its yard.
Jon left room in the drawing around the threshing floor. Much of what he wanted there depended upon the Blackworks. Bennard was still laying foundations; Noll's men could not turn out every fitting he needed because he was impatient for it. For now, the farmers would see a larger, better arranged place to do their work. In time the work itself would change.
Dake came back from his house carrying the guano sack sent from Saltcliffe. His wife and younger son followed with food. She set bread, cheese and a bowl of beans beneath the surviving wall while the men found places to sit.
Dake loosened the sack several paces from the food. Even there, Arthur grimaced when the smell reached him. Dake almost smiled, then glanced at Hamish and fastened the mouth again.
"We were told to keep this dry."
"Do," Jon said. "At the next sowing, put the same seed in two small plots beside one another. Spread this on one and leave the other without it. I want to see the difference."
Hamish asked where the ordinary manure was kept. Dake pointed with a piece of bread.
"Behind the byre. I suppose that must move too."
"If the new drains would wash through it," Hamish said. "I'd rather see it first."
Dake's wife told him where the path was. He thanked her and sat. The elder son arrived last, hands washed but chaff still caught in his hair. He took a place beside his brother and listened as Jon spread the smaller field drawing upon a flat stone.
"The new divisions will let us keep each course together," Jon told Hamish. "Wheat, then turnips, barley and clover. Different fields in different courses, so we still bring in grain while the others carry fodder."
Hamish nodded. "Some of the upper ground will want longer under clover."
"We will judge it as we go. The deeper ground can begin sooner. Keep the present crops until they are gathered, then we set the next sowing."
Dake leaned over the drawing despite himself.
"You would put all that good ground to turnips?"
"When its turn comes. The beasts must eat as well. More fodder lets us keep more useful stock through the lean months, and the clover helps the ground recover."
"We eat barley."
"And we shall grow it. You can see it there." Jon held his irritation in check. "But scraping grain off the same tired ground every time is not the whole of farming. Hamish has seen what comes back when the crops are changed properly."
"I was there when Lord Stark's steward compared our returns," Hamish said. "He could find no northern barley reckoning better by the acre."
Dake stared at him. "No better?"
"That is what he said. We still bought grain. Less of it."
Dake looked at Jon, who nodded once.
"We shall buy grain here too," Jon said. "These are six hundred and forty good acres, not an island large enough to feed every man I intend to settle upon it. Better yields and proper stores will make us less dependent. They will not make ships unnecessary."
Dake's elder son shifted closer to the plan.
"And the new tools?"
"Will come as the Blackworks is ready to make them."
"Will we have enough teams for all this?"
"That is part of what they will change. Fewer hands will be needed to work more ground. As men can be spared, there is work waiting at the harbour and the forges. I shall need recruits for the legion as well."
Jon glanced towards the field where the uncut barley still stood. His father in his first life had worked more ground with a handful of people than Dake could have managed with every household in this hollow. He could not give them that farm. He could remember enough to begin changing this one, if he could find the iron, the timber and the time.
"The harvest keeps its hands until we know we can spare them," he added. "Hamish will not send men away because a tool looks promising upon my table."
The elder son nodded, then asked Hamish about driving an estate team. Dake interrupted before the young overseer could answer.
"He has driven ours since he was old enough. There is no need to make a trial of him."
"There will be different work to learn," Hamish said. "I should like men who know the beasts."
"Then there are plenty here."
"Good."
The younger son looked down into his bowl to hide a smile. Dake saw it. Jon watched the headman's face close, and set the drawing aside before the meal became another quarrel.
They spoke of the stock instead. Dake's wife knew which cows gave the most milk and which calved without trouble; her sons disagreed about the soundest young bull. Jon listened, asked to see the animals when the day's work allowed, and told Hamish to preserve the good breeding stock when they settled the estate's herd. Better feeding would show sooner. Better breeding would take patience, and he had no intention of selling their best animals while waiting for it.
When the family returned to the fields, Hamish went with Otho to mark the approach to the stores. Dake lingered beneath the wall.
"My son would have had my holding after me."
There was hurt beneath the resentment. Jon heard it and was tired of having to hear it through an insult to someone else.
"Your sons will have work and the chance to rise in it. You have heard what I intend to pay, and this evening we will settle the terms with every household."
"Under him."
"Under the man I appoint."
Dake looked out towards Hamish. The younger man had taken one end of the cord while Otho set the other. Two local carters stood watching; Hamish beckoned them over to ask about the turn at the barn. They went readily enough.
Jon saw Dake's grip tighten upon the sickle handle.
"You would rather they waited for you to answer every question," he said.
"I have lived here all my life."
"Then give him the benefit of it."
The headman bowed stiffly and went down towards the barley. Jon remained beneath the wall until his temper had cooled enough to return to the drawing.
Arthur came to stand beside him.
"He thought you would choose him."
"I know."
"His sons heard the appointment."
Jon looked up sharply. "I shall not ask his leave to make it."
"I did not suggest you should." Arthur's gaze dropped to the hand Jon had braced against the stone. "You are bleeding through."
Jon looked down. A small red stain had spread upon the fresh linen. He took his weight off it, annoyed with the wound and with himself. Arthur fetched Lorren's spare dressing from the saddlebag. While he loosened the old binding, Jon watched Hamish guide a cart through the proposed turn.
The young man stopped the driver, shifted the cord a pace and tried again. He had found a mistake without calling for Jon to settle it. That was what Jon needed from the men he brought south: enough knowledge to act, and the sense to ask when they reached its end.
He would not let Dake drive him out of the work through a day of sneers.
* * *
The households gathered when the last harvest carts had been brought in.
Some came still carrying tools. Children sat beside bundles of cut grain while the maester opened the old rent and service accounts upon a borrowed table. Ethan had the household names from the completed census. Hamish stood beside Otho's plan, his measuring rod laid beneath it.
Before they began, the maester handed Jon a letter from Driftmark.
Monford Velaryon's men had seized Neresso in his rooms above the warehouse by the boatyards at Hull. The rooms were being searched, the merchant held apart from his servants while their stories were examined. Monford would bring the prisoner with him when he came to Dragonstone. His captains also had the description of the broken-swan galley and were watching for her.
Jon read the letter twice. The man who had bought fish, advanced coin and then begun paying for human cargo was alive in a guarded room. He could name men the sailors had never met.
"Tell Lord Velaryon the collector's mate is being kept apart for the same questioning," Jon told the maester. "And send the new sail description and the name Fair Wind, if the earlier message has not reached him."
The maester nodded. Jon put the letter inside his coat and faced the waiting farmers.
Dake stood among them with both sons. His wife had found a place beside the other women. He had brought his neighbours as promised, though he had left Hamish to answer their first questions about the ground.
Jon began with what would happen to the crop they had already grown. It would be gathered under the terms on which they had sown it. The dividing walls marked for removal would remain until that harvest was in. When paid estate work began, the old labour dues and barley rents would end. Gardens, poultry and privately owned beasts remained theirs.
A man near the back interrupted.
"Whose barn does the next crop go into?"
"The estate's."
"And what do we eat?"
"Grain from the stores, as part of your pay, with coin beside it. The grain is settled in measures. A dearer market will not make your portion smaller."
The maester gave the rates prepared from the earlier returns. Jon had him explain them slowly enough for the men at the back to follow, including the additional hire for privately owned oxen. The estate would feed those beasts while it used them. A farmer asked twice whether the old rent truly ended when the whole crop went to Jon, and Jon answered him twice.
Hamish showed them the selected six hundred and forty acres. He pointed out the present cattle way, the barn and the river before explaining the unfamiliar lines. Jon could see men finding their own ground and drawing their neighbours closer. The mill made them look down towards the water. The new boundaries brought them back to the drawing.
"You will have word before a wall comes down," Hamish said. "The marks must be checked against what you have sown. I shall walk them with each household."
"With the headman's leave?" Dake asked.
Hamish looked at him. "Lord Jon has given the order."
"I heard Lord Jon. I asked who will settle it when your cord runs where it shouldn't."
"I will hear you and look at the ground."
"You will hear me." Dake let out a short, unpleasant laugh. "I've sons near your age. Now I am to stand waiting while you decide whether I know my own field."
The talk around the table died away. Jon felt anger rise so quickly that he had to take his hand off the drawing before he crumpled it.
"Dake."
The headman turned. There was still a challenge in his face, strengthened by the neighbours standing at his shoulders.
"My lord, these are men who have worked here all their lives. Set a man over them who has weathered more than his father's displeasure."
Hamish went red to the ears. Jon saw him draw breath and stopped him with a raised hand.
"You have spent the day trying to make him ashamed of an appointment I gave him," Jon said. "You have questioned his age, his experience and every answer that did not come from my mouth. Now you do it before the men he is to lead."
"I am asking who you expect us to trust."
"I expect you to obey him."
Dake glanced towards his sons. The elder was watching Jon; the younger had lowered his eyes. The headman's mouth tightened.
"I will take my orders from you, my lord. I will not have that lad—"
"You will obey."
Jon's voice cracked across the yard. He came around the table, and Dake took half a step back before setting his feet. Arthur straightened beside the maester. Alasdair's hand settled upon his sword belt.
Jon had told him plainly at the castle what would change. He had answered him again beside the fields, at the river and over their food. Still Dake thought he could choose which orders to obey. Jon's hand throbbed, and the memory of the morning's blood lay close beneath every word.
"Hamish speaks with my authority. When you refuse him, you refuse me."
"I have served this village—"
"Then continue to serve it. Help him learn the ground. Bring him what he needs. Stop trying to turn every man here against him because I did not choose you."
Dake's face flushed darkly. Someone behind him drew a breath, but no one spoke.
Jon stepped closer.
"I have already put one headman in chains and found him a traitor. I took his head this morning. Do not imagine I will suffer another man to use the same office to defy me."
"I have sold no one."
"Then obey the order I have given you." Jon held his gaze. "Obstruct Hamish, set men against him, and I will remove you. If it takes irons to make you obey, you will wear them. Have I made myself clear?"
Dake swallowed. His eyes flicked once towards Ethan, but the castellan did not intervene. Jon waited, breathing hard through his nose. He would have liked the man to answer quickly. He forced himself to give him the silence in which to do it.
"Yes, my lord."
"Who oversees these farms?"
The headman's jaw moved before any sound came.
"Hamish. Under you."
"Remember it."
Jon turned away before he said more. He went back to the table and made himself lay the drawing flat. The farmers watched him now with a caution that had not been there at the beginning. Dake remained where he stood, humiliated and angry, but silent.
Hamish's hands were still upon the edge of the board. Jon looked at him.
"Show them the first work."
The young man swallowed, then pointed towards the outlet below the barn. His first words came unevenly. He steadied as he explained where his men would begin and which ground they would leave untouched until the crop was in. He knew this part. Jon let him finish it without taking over.
When Hamish had done, a farmer asked whether the new cartway would block his gate. Hamish asked him to show where it stood. The man leaned over the drawing, and the ordinary questions began again, more cautiously than before.
Jon stayed while the maester compared each household's present obligations with the proposed pay. Dake brought his sons to the table when called. He gave the size of his family and the beasts he owned, listened to the reckoning and took his place again. He did not speak to Hamish.
By the time they finished, the barn's shadow lay well across the yard. There were boundaries still to settle upon the ground and particular services to untangle. Ethan and the maester kept those cases. The first men who wanted work upon the stores were told where to come when their own grain was secure.
Jon called Hamish aside while the table was being carried away.
"You remain here. Otho's foreman knows what can begin now. Keep the men upon the outlet, the barn ground and the approaches. The fields wait until the harvest is in."
"Yes, my lord."
"If there is trouble, send word. Do not let a man delay you for days because he thinks you will be too proud to ask for help."
Hamish looked towards Dake, who was gathering his sons to leave.
"I will need what he knows."
"Then ask for it. He has heard me."
The young man nodded. Jon could see the question he did not quite dare put, and answered it.
"I chose you because you have done this work with me. You know when to act and when to send for me. I shall return for the first ploughing, and we will settle the next sowing together."
Hamish's shoulders eased a little. "My father will want to hear."
"Write to him. And your mother. I promised she would hear from you."
That brought a brief smile. It was gone when he turned back towards the farmers, but he went to them without looking for Jon's leave a second time.
At the horses Arthur waited until they were out of easy hearing.
"He will remember the threat."
Jon looked back. Dake was walking home with his sons, his sickle hanging at his side. The elder tried to speak to him. Dake answered without turning his head, and the boy fell silent.
"He had warnings enough."
"He did."
Jon pulled his glove over the new dressing and stopped when it caught. Arthur held the reins while he worked it free.
Jon could not leave Hamish here with every man believing that appointment lasted only while its lord stood beside him.
"They will see the work continue," he said. "That is what I owe them now."
Arthur handed back the reins.
Beyond the barley, the last stones were being carried clear of the outlet. Hamish had joined Otho's foreman beside the barn, with two farmers following them to look at the proposed cartway. There was little upon the ground yet to show what Jon intended. Tomorrow there would be more.
Jon mounted. Blackburn would need him in the morning. Before the week was done, Monford would bring Neresso through his gates, and the man waiting hungry beneath the castle would have someone else to blame.
He meant to be there to hear it.