After a night spent at Winterfell, Wylla caught Jon halfway down the bedchamber stair and put two fingers through the gap between his glove and his sleeve.
Arthur and Robb were already in the covered yard below; Jon could hear ash striking limewood and Robb's laughter. Dawn had scarcely coloured the windows. He stopped on the cold stair while Wylla pulled his glove back.
Hugin croaked from the yard rail. He had begun following Jon between Winterfell and the Black Yard, sometimes riding the last stretch on his saddle roll. Munin preferred the roofs. She usually reached the kitchens first.
"That sleeve was long enough a moon ago."
"It catches across my back as well." Jon raised his arm, and the seam pulled tight.
"Then it is finished with you. Come." She took him back to the chamber, where Mairi brought a measuring cord and the basket of black thread. The coat had been a good one at midsummer: close black wool, horn buttons and grey linen at the neck. Wylla had let the cuffs down twice. Now his wrists showed, and the shoulders bound whenever he lifted a shield.
Growing still surprised him. He remembered letting out his belt in his first life, grey appearing at his temples, knees that ached after a climb. Here it was sleeves and stirrups that needed changing. His hands were larger than they had been a few moons before, though the forearms beneath the wool were still a boy's.
Wylla held the old coat open while Mairi fetched the other one. "Sometimes I stand outside your workroom and wait to be called."
"You need never wait."
"I know that." She drew the sleeve carefully over his hand. "Then I hear you with those men and forget. You sound so much older."
Jon looked up at her. She was studying him with the coat gathered against her breast. He touched her wrist.
"I still want you there."
"Aye, and you shall have me." She smoothed the white lock back from his brow before turning to Mairi. "Iain can wear this. Take off the badge and mend that elbow."
Jon pulled on his older practice coat. By the time he reached the yard, Robb had sweated a dark line down the back of his grey tunic. His red-brown hair curled at the nape, and his blue eyes brightened when he saw Jon fastening the last button.
"Did she shorten you enough to fit the coat again?" Robb asked, circling with his practice shield raised.
"She plans to, if I outgrow the next coat."
Arthur tossed Jon a round shield, then touched his padded sword to the boy's throat when Jon stepped too far. On the next pass Jon kept his step short. Robb came upon his open side; he caught the blow, but turned towards Arthur's low attack too soon and took Robb's edge beneath the ribs.
"You were watching him." Robb grinned. Jon caught his ankle with the shield edge, and both boys went down in the mud.
Arthur set aside his practice sword and planted a staff beside them. "Up."
"He is heavier than he looks," Robb complained.
Jon rolled off him. Above the yard Bran was making his way between the gallery pillars, his nurse close behind. Arya ran round the corner, saw the adults watching and slowed.
"I was walking."
"Walk beside Bran," Jon called.
She went back and took her brother's hand. For two pillars she kept his pace; at the third she hurried and pulled him off balance. The nurse steadied him. Arthur went up the stair and crouched beside the children.
"Do not pull him, Arya. Let him set the pace," he said.
Bran gripped Arthur's hand and reached the next pillar. Arya waited properly this time. When the knight returned, Jon kept his eyes on both opponents. Arthur caught him again, but had to change his attack to do it.
"Better."
Pate and two kitchen men waited at the arch for the passage to clear. The bellman lifted an approving fist; Arthur tapped Jon's boot, and Pate lowered it with a grin as Jon corrected his stance.
The bouts ended with both boys muddy and Robb complaining that Arthur had more arms than other men. Jon helped move the rack for the kitchen men.
"You nearly had him that time, my lord," Pate said.
"Tell him that. He keeps finding places I have left open."
One of the men asked when they would practise again. Arthur gave him the hour before he could stop himself. Eddard was waiting at the head of the stair.
"You have supplied him an audience," he said quietly when Jon went to fetch his cloak.
"They see him do something well and wish to see it again."
"I remember when you wanted them kept away from his lessons."
Arthur watched Pate help shift the last rack. "They looked at him differently then."
"Some of them still do. Now they carry better stories."
"Would you have him do badly for their peace of mind?"
"I would have him free to do badly without the whole castle asking what has gone wrong." Eddard looked towards the changing room. "Praise the work. Give him room to leave it."
Arthur rubbed mud from the staff with his thumb. When Jon returned, he took the boy's shield himself and sent him to wash before riding out.
Later Jon and Robb rode down to the Black Yard. Bucephalus moved sideways at the smell of wet ash from Ewan's forge, and Robb's bay tossed its copper-red mane. Tomas had the household drawn up beside the rail. Iain held two spare reins in Jon's old coat. The sleeves ended at his wrists, and tiny needle holes showed where Mairi had removed the badge.
"It fits you better," Jon said. Iain began to bow.
"Thank you, my lord." Iain dipped his head and took Bucephalus's reins.
Robb fell in beside Rylas for the run. Afterward they washed and went in to porridge, sage mutton and hot brown loaves. Perkin found Jon at breakfast, rain beading on his hair.
"A factor from Oldtown is here, my lord. He bears Lord Leyton's silver tower."
"Give him breakfast and a place by the fire. I will receive him when we have eaten."
While Tomas told Jon which horses Gawen meant to take out, Robb tried to persuade Gage to race his grey against the bay after lessons. Arthur's presence made him careful to avoid calling it a wager.
"On the firm ground," Jon said. "The lower bend is still wet."
"We rode through it."
"That is why I am telling you."
Robb grinned and went on settling the race as Jon left to receive his visitor.
The factor was Master Ronnel, a narrow man in smoke-grey wool with a small silver tower pinned to his breast. Road mud remained in the seams of his boots. A locked chest stood beside his stool, and an oiled leather tube lay across the table. He bowed when Jon and Arthur entered. Woods and Ewan followed to examine the drawings. Perkin took a stool beside Jon with his writing board.
Ronnel had finished his breakfast and folded the cloth beside the bowl. In the warmth his neatly trimmed beard had dried into little points. He looked from the working clock above the door to Jon, then down at the leather tube, as though putting an account he had heard beside the thing itself.
"Lord Leyton sends his greetings, my lord. He was much taken with the account of the clock at White Harbor."
"Has he seen it?"
"No. One of his captains has, and brought him a drawing. Since then he has sent three letters asking whether I had reached Winterfell."
Jon took the chair at the head of the table. "Then we had better give him an answer." He put his cup clear of the leather tube and beckoned Ronnel to open it. The factor slid out the sheets, which sprang back into a roll until Woods fetched weights for their corners.
Four sheets showed the crown of the Hightower, a great painted hand on each face. Two bells stood above them: one to tell the common hour and another to call the faithful to prayer. Lord Leyton's masons would open the stone and raise the scaffolding. House Black would supply the movement, weights, shafts, bells and dials, then send men south to install them.
"Nine hundred golden dragons," Ronnel said. "Half when you accept, half when Oldtown hears the first bell."
Woods laid a cord across the stair on the drawing. "This turn will not take the main frame. How far may the masons open it?"
"As far as need requires. Oldtown's masons know the tower better than any northern drawing can."
Ewan set his try-square beside the bearing seats. One wall leaned a hand's width in the mason's notes, though the drawing showed it straight.
"Then they can supply what is missing," Jon said. "I need a mason who has worked inside it. These shafts must run true through all four walls."
"A Myrish master has offered two faces for less," Ronnel said.
"Then you have his price for two faces," Jon answered. "Your drawings ask for four, and two bells larger than any we have yet cast."
"Lord Leyton asked for your work because the New Castle clock has not lost a quarter-hour since it was set."
"And he will have work as good. But these shafts must carry the motion through four old walls. The nine hundred will not cover what you want."
Ronnel drew the western sheet nearer. "What price would you require, my lord?"
"Two thousand one hundred dragons," Jon said.
Ronnel looked down at the sheets. Jon waited while the factor traced the route of a shaft with one finger.
"If a hand lags, the whole city will see it. Lord Leyton will expect you to answer for that."
"I will," Jon said. "Send your mason north to work with Woods on the full timber pattern. We shall settle the openings before cutting the great wheels. Mallon will oversee the bells."
Ronnel nodded slowly. "Fifteen hundred."
"Two thousand, with your mason travelling north before the first great wheel is cut."
"Six hundred now. Six hundred when the wooden pattern is accepted. Six hundred when all four hands have agreed for a moon. Eighteen hundred, and Oldtown gives your men bread, beds, timber, and scaffold." Jon looked to Woods.
"The mason must come before we cut the frame, my lord," Woods said.
Ewan indicated the bearing seats. "I shall need sound bar for these. White Harbor can supply it."
"Eighteen hundred," Jon agreed. "Your mason comes north before the first great wheel is cut. The first six hundred pays his journey, the timber proof and the casting bed. No finished wheel or bell begins until the pattern and our working ground are fit." Green wax closed the bargain. Ronnel opened the iron chest and counted six hundred dragons into three low piles. His hand rested upon the last coin.
Perkin counted after him. For once no one spoke over the clerk. Ewan stood with his broad hands spread upon the edge of the drawing; Woods went to the window and called for William to fetch the long rule. By the time the last of the gold was locked away, the carpenter had begun laying out the space the wooden pattern would occupy.
Ronnel fastened the empty chest. "There will be no quiet hour in Oldtown when it first rings."
"Bring back the mason's measures," Jon said. "Then I can tell you when that hour will be." He gave Perkin the signed sheet, keeping his own copy beside the working drawings.
A hub scraped the gatepost. Jon went out with Ronnel and found a timber wagon caught at the entrance, Garrick holding the leaders while apprentices shifted case boards. A mermaid, falcon, rose and lion showed among the cases beside measuring frames and Hightower timber. More orders lay unopened on Perkin's sill. At the only clear bench William covered his finished brass pins against the dust.
"You have run out of room," Arthur said.
Jon had the boards moved under the awning and Garrick lead the horses round by hand. When the wagon came free, he stayed to watch its turn. Beyond the eastern palisade three goats cropped the pasture beside the old ditch.
"The foundry goes there. And the heavy smithing. Woods keeps this hall."
"Poole has the grazing roll," Arthur said.
"Have him bring it. I will speak to Father this afternoon."
* * *
Eddard agreed to consider the grant upon the boundary itself. They rode out after the midday meal in thinning rain: Jon on a shaggy grey because Bucephalus disliked measuring pace, Eddard ahead on his chestnut, with Arthur, Perkin, Jory and the Stark riders following. Three crofters and Donella waited beside the lower ditch. From the gate the pasture had looked broad; here hooves had worn tracks between the hummocks, rushes filled the low strip, and water hidden beneath the grass rose shining round the horses' fetlocks.
Eddard halted beside the crofters. One wore a sheepskin patched with red cloth; another held a little girl before him on a dun pony. Donella had her old green shawl wrapped tightly round her head.
"Read their rights, Poole," Eddard said.
Poole read the grazing rights. Three crofters used the upper strip for goats and milk cows; Donella cut rushes below the ditch.
Donella waited until Poole had finished. "Will I still have the rush ground, my lord?"
"It lies below the boundary I want," Jon said. "You keep it." He turned his horse towards the drain. "Show me where the water stood after the last rain."
Donella led them to the culvert. The repaired bank held, but silt had gathered at its narrow lip; only one loaded cart could cross at a time. Jon crouched to sight along the standing water.
"I shall widen this before the foundry roof goes up. Cley will need the outfall opened farther down. Who keeps the millrace?"
"Harlon the miller, my lord. He clears it every spring."
"Send him tomorrow. We need more fall here, and room for a cart to turn without breaking the edge."
Mud caught Jon's boot as he stood. Eddard took his arm while he worked his heel free.
They returned to the higher strip. Perkin sheltered his writing board beneath his cloak while Poole asked six dragons a year. Jon offered four, with the stone road and culvert improvements paid from his own purse.
"The wagons have worn that turn badly," Poole said.
"And a paved turn will serve Winterfell as well as me. Five dragons, with room for the road and the right to carry water across the pasture."
Eddard considered the distance to the gate. "Five. House Black lays a stone road from the market turn and mends the culvert before the foundry rises. No building beyond the second alder without my leave. The goats move west; Donella keeps the rush ground below the ditch."
The crofter with the red patch said, "West grass is poorer."
"For the first year, take one cart of House Black's hay before winter," Jon said. "If the west field proves as poor as you fear, bring Poole and show us."
"Bring it before winter if there is trouble," Eddard said. "Poole will see that the grazing is fit." He and Jon clasped hands. Perkin sheltered his notes beneath Arthur's cloak; he would draw up the lease when they were dry.
Poole rolled the parchment and held out his hand for Perkin's ink horn.
"You have borrowed my clerk for three moons, Lord Jon."
"Four," Jon said. "I should like to keep him. There are too many accounts now for him to keep them in his spare hours."
"The harvest books still need him." Poole looked unconvinced.
"He can teach Edmyn before he leaves you. I have sealed work from White Harbor, the Vale, Barrowton and Oldtown, and inquiries from the Rock, Highgarden, Gulltown and Lannisport. I need someone to keep the commissions, payments and costs together."
"Winterfell has two hundred mouths more whenever the harvest guests arrive. I need the same man."
Jon turned to Perkin. "Keep my books and sail when I do. You will have a room of your own and two silver stags a moon above Winterfell's wage. I need the cost of each commission, what has been paid, and what is owed. When the copying outruns you, hire another hand and teach him."
"Three," Perkin said before fear caught him. He went pale. Poole looked almost pleased. Arthur inspected the grey sky.
"Two, and Wylla gives you a new suit each year," Jon said.
Perkin looked down at his ink-stained sleeve. "Might I ask for two suits in the first year, my lord? Mine are nearly worn through."
Jon followed his glance. The cuff had been turned back to hide a tear. "Two in the first year."
Perkin bowed. "I will serve you gladly, my lord." Poole surrendered the ink horn with a sigh.
"You will show Edmyn the harvest books until the next moon," he said. "If he ruins my figures after that, I shall send both of you downhill."
"I will show him," Perkin promised.
On the climb to Winterfell Perkin rode beside Poole, learning which harvest accounts Edmyn needed first. Eddard glanced back. "He has served us well."
"He will have enough to do," Jon said. "I will give him a copying hand before the next orders arrive."
Three days later Garrick tested the staked boundary with his broadest loaded wagon. Woods moved the proposed corner back before the masons began. Black wool strips showed Ewan where to set the foundry chimney downwind of the fine benches; covered walks would join the timber hall and brass room. Jon placed the privy below the well and checked the outfall with Cley.
Harlon and Cley widened the culvert, supported the turning bank with rubble and marked the dangerous water height with three pale stones. At the next heavy rain Donella sent word that the mouth was clear.
The following morning she brought Jon a rush mat, green-gold and still smelling of wet hay.
"For your floor, my lord," she said. "The new mouth carried all that rain. The children slept through it."
Jon unrolled the mat. It was closely woven, with a darker border. "Wylla will be pleased to have something for my muddy boots."
Donella smiled. "It will take those well enough."
* * *
Hammers woke the lower town before the bakers lit their ovens. Stone carts came along the new road, and saws worked beneath Woods's long southern windows. Mallon arrived from White Harbor with his wife, two sons and three boxes of moulding tools. He tested the casting pit's draught with a taper, then knelt to feel the clay.
"A few more days under the roof, my lord. Longer if rain gets in."
"See to the moulds while it dries." Jon took him to the small stone cottage beside the pit, where his wife had already opened the shutters and begun examining the hearth.
"Is this ours?" she asked.
"For as long as your husband serves here."
Mallon looked round the room. It was small, but sound and close to the work. "My elder boy can tend a furnace. The younger has helped with moulds since he was small."
"Ewan will find work for both. Settle their wages with Perkin."
His wife turned from the hearth. "We shall need an iron crane and a shelf for the pans, my lord."
Mallon sighed. "We have barely arrived."
"And I would like to cook before night." Jon sent for Ewan, leaving them to unpack.
Within a moon their chimney smoke had joined the rest over the yard. The baker lit his oven earlier because labourers queued for rye loaves at dawn. Wylla hired six women to cut black wool under an old seamstress with one cloudy eye. A collier sold his sacks before reaching the market well. Two alewives raised their bed prices on wagon nights. At Jon's counter Gage's elder sister brought a dozen rain covers. Perkin counted them and found one seam open.
"I missed that," she said, taking it back.
"Bring it before supper and Perkin can pay for all twelve," Jon told her. She tucked the cover beneath her arm and moved aside for a smith who had been waiting with a wrapped hinge.
The smith took off his cap. "Might I ask for work, my lord? Ewan sends to White Harbor for iron while my forge has stood cold these three days."
Jon picked up the hinge. One leaf was thick, the other thin; the pin turned smoothly despite the rust. "He buys bar stock for the Hightower wheels. Do you make your own?"
"I buy what the merchants bring. Hinges, shoes, gate irons—I can make those as well as any man here."
"Can you make two hundred of these, with both leaves matched?"
"Two hundred, my lord?" The smith looked at the hinge again. "I could not give you the whole lot at once. I still shoe the brewers' teams."
"How many could you bring each sennight?"
"Let me reckon it before I promise. Those men have brought me work when there was little else. I would not put them off now." He turned the hinge over in his hands. "If you can take them as I finish them, I can keep a lad at the bellows."
"We can take them in batches. Bring Ewan a sound pair and give Perkin your price, with the number you can finish each sennight."
The smith returned next day with two sound hinges and his price. Perkin bargained, Ewan inspected, and Jon placed the order. Other men found work less easily. A carpenter who had refused Woods's first wage watched his cousin accept it. Rooms near the gate grew dearer; Elspeth paid more for smaller onions. Wylla brought the women's complaints to Jon. He sent Perkin to learn which trades lacked work and went with Ewan next morning to the cold forge. There were doors to fit and tools to mend beyond Ewan's own work.
William spent those weeks between the bench and his slate. Jon taught him beside the small workroom fire after supper, using the measures from pieces they had made that day. The boy still wrote slowly, with his head bent so low that his hair brushed the slate. Jon drew it towards the lamp before taking up a pair of wheels. He knew the temptation to finish the sum for the pupil. He had done it with his son's homework and discovered, the following evening, that only one of them had learned anything. He kept his own chalk still while William worked.
William marked the teeth with chalk as he counted and watched Jon turn the unequal wheels together. Jon set their counts upon the slate and worked the division beside them. William fetched another pair and set the small wheel against the larger. "This one will turn farther," he said, touching the smaller rim.
"How much farther?" Jon asked.
William began counting the teeth.
* * *
The Hightower mason arrived while the great wooden pattern filled half of Woods's new hall. Master Lorcas was red-cheeked, with lime worked deep into the skin of his fingertips. He climbed the frame with Woods and compared it against the measures he had brought from Oldtown. By evening Perkin had corrections for every old opening. On the second day Lorcas asked for a copy of the wheel train.
Jon showed him the drawings of the supports and the clearances round each moving part. "These go with you. The drawing of the train stays here."
"My masons must know what they are supporting."
"They have the weight, the bearings and the timber pattern. You can examine the assembled movement before you leave. They do not need its making copied into every Oldtown workshop."
Lorcas looked at the supplied sheets again. The clearances were there, with room to reach the bearings for oiling. He took the support drawing back to Woods and spent the rest of the day laying out the corrected openings. When he accepted the pattern, Lord Leyton sent the second six hundred dragons.
Before that moon turned, two earlier offers returned under altered seals. Highgarden yielded the moving petals it had demanded; a rose carved in oak would serve. Casterly Rock yielded the western smith it had meant to set beside Jon's guarded bench; one keeper might learn to wind and mend, never to copy the making. Perkin entered both deposits.
Woods began the cases from the proved measures while Ewan made common blanks. The fine trains waited for their promised benches. Perkin wrote the completion season at the head of each account and sent copies to the buyers.
Before the new gold was spent, William began his first work for a buyer. Cleaning a brass pin, he found a bright scrape and brought Jon the plate. The weight cord pulled the frame's upper corner sideways; when Jon lifted the load onto a stool, William could turn the pin freely.
"A brace will keep it there," Jon said. He chose seasoned oak and cut one end of a diagonal stay clear of the wheels. William fitted the other while Olyver held the frame. Together they bored and pegged it; under the weight the pin now turned freely.
"Replace that scored pin before you fit the arm." William stayed on his knees, looking from the stay to the loaded cord, before reaching for his tools.
His first fitted arm belonged to a plain hall clock for a White Harbor salt merchant. Ewan forged the blank. Olyver watched William file the shoulder, stop short of the line, and finish it slowly. Woods cased the movement in dark pine. On the morning of the proof, William scrubbed his hands until they were red.
The merchant arrived with white salt dust along his boots. He listened to the bell once, frowned, and listened again.
"Who fitted the arm?" he asked.
"I did, master," William answered. "Under Olyver's eye."
The merchant wound the weight and watched it turn. "Rendall has put his where every man entering his hall must pass it," he told Jon. "He had me to supper twice before I understood that I was meant to ask about the clock."
"Where will yours stand?"
"Above my counting-room door. My clerks can see it from their stools." He glanced at the pine case. "And my guests can hear it from the hall."
Jon showed the merchant where to oil the movement and had him wind it again. His wife called from the door about a chest they had bought in the market. Promising to see whether the carter had room, he followed Perkin to pay the remaining half of the clock's two hundred and forty dragons. He checked a worn coin before adding it to the stacks.
"Rendall paid more," he said.
"Rendall wanted oak and carved salt barrels," Perkin replied.
The merchant looked back at the plain case, pleased with his thrift. His wife called again. He took his receipt and hurried out. Garrick would carry word if the clock needed attention.
William waited until he had gone before grinning. Jon put another drawing on the bench, holding its corners with four brass weights.
"You will fit this one as well."
William touched the paper as carefully as he had touched the finished arm. "The whole arm, my lord?"
"Under Olyver's eye."
William bent over the drawing, still smiling. Olyver moved the finished pieces out of his way and fetched a fresh blank.
* * *
Ralf and Gawen spent part of the cleared clock profit on horses. Over two moons of markets they bought bays, browns, duns, a flea-bitten grey, three chestnuts and a black mare with a broad white nose. Some were older than the boys who would ride them, but all were sound and accustomed to work.
Robb watched the string being led past. "Lord Manderly's guards all ride greys."
"He pays dearly to match them," Ralf said. "I would rather have these."
Gawen held up his bandaged hand. "You missed the six bays outside Torrhen's Square. One tried to take a finger."
"The farmer still has them," Ralf said.
Each household boy cleaned and fitted his tack before receiving a mount. Tomas exchanged Edden's leather jack when it cut beneath his arm. Iain took the old girths to Ralf, saving sound buckles for new leather.
Gawen brought the household onto the lower field. Heward waited at its far end with six Winterfell guards carrying padded staves. Between them, three white posts marked the way back to the gate.
"Lord Jon comes down the field," Gawen told Tomas. "Heward cuts him off. Get him through those posts."
Tomas put four riders ahead of Jon and four behind. The rest waited under Gage beyond the centre post.
Heward let the front riders pass, then sent his men across behind them. Jon checked Bucephalus before the first staff reached him. His rear pair crowded forward; for a moment he had no room to turn.
Gawen called the halt.
Tomas looked at the men in front of Jon. "I sent too many ahead."
"You sent them too far. Walk it again."
This time Tomas kept two riders within reach of Jon's bridle. Gage waited beside the centre post with his reserve turned towards them. When Heward's men moved across the field, Tomas lifted his sword and the two nearest shields came up together.
Jon heard the dull knock of a padded staff against wood. His horse wanted to follow the riders going ahead; he shortened the reins and kept him beside the shield on his left. Beyond its rim he saw Gage bring the reserve across, a chestnut's pale mane flying above the others. Heward turned to meet them. The guard nearest the post had to give ground, and daylight opened between the horses.
"With me, my lord," Gage called.
Jon put Bucephalus into the gap. For three strides there was nothing ahead but wet grass and the white posts. Then Tomas came abreast on his right, another rider on his left, and Heward's staff fell behind his shoulder. They slowed only when they had passed the last post. Jon turned in the saddle to see the rear pair drawing clear in good order.
He could have turned Bucephalus into the nearer guard while they were hemmed in. Waiting for his own men to open the way had been harder.
Robb whooped from the rail, and Gawen sent him round to take Heward's place. By the last pass Robb had found a gap along the wet edge, and Tomas had learned to keep a pair facing it.
Jon's thighs ached as he rubbed Bucephalus down. Robb leaned over the next partition to praise Gage's speed. "He has been practising with Tomas," Jon said, taking a cloth from Iain. Tomorrow he meant to exchange places with Gage, so the file leader could judge the escort from the protected rider's place.
As the first harvest wagons came down to Winter Town, Perkin counted out the last silver owed for Gawen's first term.
"Will you stay another year?" Jon asked.
Gawen looked through the door at Tomas checking a girth beside Ralf. "Gladly, my lord."
"The same terms?"
"Aye. And I mean to have Cressen holding his place before the next hunt."
Jon smiled and pushed the silver towards him. Gawen counted it into his purse. Three stags would go to Kennet with a letter. He had postponed writing too long already.
* * *
The next packet from Dragonstone reached the Black Yard before noon, smelling of tar and salt. Oilskin had kept the pages dry, but white crystals crusted the knots. Jon took it up to Winterfell with Arthur and Perkin before breaking Ethan's seal. Eddard was in his solar, finishing a letter beside a bowl of cold broth. He set down his quill when Jon laid the packet upon his desk. "From Ethan?"
"And Tobin." Jon waited until Arthur had closed the door, then cut the cord and passed the papers to Perkin. Beneath the harbour sounding lay Denys's report. Eight warships were back in service. Stone Drum's new planking was fastened, but her caulking had not passed the captain's inspection. Salt Wraith still needed her replacement mast stepped. Stannis had released the prize after the captors and the dead men's families received their shares; the torn galley was Jon's now, with the expense of making her useful.
"Send Ethan the money Denys asks for," Jon said. "From the clocks already paid for. I want both ships under sail before the year turns." He drew the harbour sounding nearer. "And timber for the repair berth. He should not have to borrow a merchant's crane every time a spar comes out."
Eddard studied the two estimates. "You will keep all ten?"
"We lost Black Gull because the men kept their place. I will not leave the ships they saved rotting against a quay." Jon put Denys's report beside the sounding. "When the repairs are finished, he can put them on the coastal patrols in turn. The crews need their sea time."
Beneath the sounding lay the eastern letters. Qavo Ryndoon would not cross the narrow sea without his wife Anara, their grown children Moro and Naella, little Tala and the three apprentices who had kept his furnaces through lean years. A Myrish creditor held two apprentices and their tools against old debts. Another claimed Qavo's moulds. Vaegon would not leave Pentos while his brother's family lacked passage.
"Pello can redeem the debts," Perkin said. "The creditor asks less than the Hightower gave for its wooden pattern."
"Have him settle them and bring away the releases," Jon replied. "They come as free men, with their families and tools. If any chooses to leave our service later, pay his passage home."
Perkin noted the order and asked about their lodgings.
"Ethan is to find a sound house for all eight, close enough to the work. Send him the list of their tools as well." Jon signed the letters to Ethan, Pello in Myr and the Pentoshi factor speaking for Vaegon. Perkin sanded them and went to Luwin's raven room.
Jon stayed at his father's desk with Arthur after Perkin had gone. Other men would have to judge the quay and houses he had never seen. Ethan had his trust; now he had enough money to do the work. He turned the harbour drawing so Eddard could see the sound berth.
Arthur set one hand upon Ethan's harbour map. "He will still have to go there."
"When the island can receive him."
"It is his seat, Eddard."
"And Winterfell is his home."
Arthur's face became careful. "You speak as though the two must contend."
"You have spoken so since Ethan went south."
"Because you call every delay prudence. Ethan has governed the island for years, while Jon has yet to set foot there. How much longer must he wait?"
Eddard's voice went low. "He is learning men, harvest, justice and command beside those who love him. Those lessons will serve him on Dragonstone too."
"But he knows every turn of the road to Winter Town and must learn the faces of his own people from letters."
"Here I know who is asking things of him. On Dragonstone I would hear of it in a letter, when it was already done."
"Then tell him when he may go. Do not leave him asking whether he is wanted there."
"He is wanted here," Eddard said. "I will not send him south merely because men who have never held him begin to ask after him."
"Ethan has held the island in his name all these years. He has a right to ask when his lord is coming."
Eddard's hand closed upon the table edge. "And I ask when you will cease treating every ordinary year with his brothers as something I must answer for." His knuckles whitened. Arthur's shoulders went still.
"I am here," Jon said. Both men looked at him.
"You argue as if I have already sailed."
Eddard's hand eased upon the table. "You are right. What would you have us do?"
"I mean to go," Jon said. "But I want to know what you are waiting for. The ships and houses can be made ready. If there is more I must learn first, tell me."
Arthur drew his stool back. "Forgive me. I should have asked you."
"We will set it out together," Eddard said. "What the island needs, and what I would still have you learn here. The three of us."
Jon nodded. Wylla opened the door carrying hot onion broth, three heels of buttered bread, and no patience for an argument that had kept Jon from dinner.
"A pair of fools, the two of you. He still needs feeding." She set the tray over the harbour sounding. "Move those papers, my lord. The broth will spill."
Eddard said, "You heard all of that?"
"I heard the last of it from the door. You have argued the rest often enough."
Arthur cleared the papers from beneath the tray and passed Jon a bowl.
The broth was sweet with onions browned in butter, peppered enough to warm his nose, and thickened with torn bread. Eddard sat beside him rather than at the head of the table. Arthur took the stool opposite. For a time they ate with Ethan's harbour drawing between them.
"Ride with me at dawn," Eddard said. "North along the wolfswood road."
Jon looked up from his bowl. "Robb will want to come."
"Then we shall take him."
Arthur broke another piece of bread. "He will be ready before either of you."
At the family supper that evening, Bran struck his cup with a spoon whenever Robb tried to speak. Arya joined him with the handle of her knife. Catelyn took the spoon; Sansa took the knife. Jeyne Poole sat beside Sansa, trying to hide her laughter. They ate cold capon, barley with mushrooms, sharp cheese and apples baked until their red skins split. Robb speared the last mushroom before Jon reached it.
"Father says I may come," he said.
"Then leave me something to eat."
Robb split the mushroom and pushed half towards Jon. Eddard cut an apple while Sansa reached for the bread.
Sansa leaned around Jeyne. "She has never heard the song from the sea."
Jeyne's cheeks coloured. "You need not sing, my lord."
"He will not," Robb said. "He becomes stubborn when asked."
"I was stubborn before you asked."
"Then I have proved nothing." Bran found another spoon and struck the cup once.
Jon began before the accompaniment grew. The tune belonged to the life no one at the table could know. His wife had sung it without words while mending by rainlight; years later their daughter had hummed it over a feverish child while Jon walked the floor with his first grandson against his shoulder. He no longer knew which woman had changed the third note. Both voices lived there now.
He gave the melody northern words. A sailor followed one lamp through black water until war drew him beyond its light. He came home with white in his beard and found the woman who had tended the flame beneath a stone above the shore. Their daughter had kept the lamp burning in her mother's place. Arya liked the storm and demanded another broken mast. Sansa's fingers went still upon Jeyne's sleeve when the old sailor reached the grave. Robb stopped tapping before the final verse.
"Home?" Bran asked when the sailor reached his daughter.
"For a little while," Jon said. "Then he goes to sea again."
Arya scowled. "Why? He only just got there."
"It is a sad song," Sansa told her.
"He could stay." Arya folded her arms. Robb smiled, but Sansa looked thoughtful.
"I should want him to stay," she said.
Bran pushed his spoon towards Jon. For an instant Jon thought of his own daughter, grown old in a world he could no longer reach. He wondered who had sat with her after his death, whether she still hummed the tune to her children. Here Robb was watching him across the dish of apples, and Eddard had promised to ride with him in the morning.
"You are right," Jon said. "He stays until spring. Then they sail together."
Robb pointed his knife. "You changed the song."
"It needed another verse."
Bran struck the cup again, and Catelyn took back her spoon. Eddard gave Jon the other half of the baked apple. Below the hill the last hammers fell silent in the Black Yard. Jon stayed at the table while Robb told him where he wanted to ride.