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