On the morning after the oaths, Bucephalus carried Jon up the last slope blowing through his nose, his black neck damp beneath the mane. Jon shortened the reins before the broken gate. Wind lifted the silver hair at his left temple; the rest was tied back, clear of his plain black collar. Water had washed gravel into the wheel ruts during the night; the horse chose the firmer strip between them and stopped with one forefoot raised above a loose stone.
Arthur rode up beside him. Wylla followed on a brown palfrey, holding her skirts clear of the wet flank. A little cart behind her carried their chests, three rolled mattresses and blankets bound in sailcloth. She had packed the cups between Jon's spare shirts and made Ralf find room for the pot she wanted.
A timber cart was climbing towards the turn, its outside wheel close to the soft edge. Jon rode the bend wide enough to judge where the load would swing.
"Cut this bank back. The wagons can turn here and wait clear of the gate."
Arthur rode farther along and looked towards the thorn below the wall. "That hides the lower road."
"It comes out today. Leave the two oaks." Beneath the cart's rumble Jon could hear Miller's Run spilling over the rocks.
The six centuries waited across the slope, Hewyn's First outside the new barrack, Rennick's Second beside the timber sledges, Third and Fourth coming from their tents and Martyn's swords below. Jon handed Bucephalus to a groom and struck the cracked ploughshare beneath its ash frame.
"Leave the shields. Coats open. Centurions, bring them down to the trial field." He gave Arthur his cloak.
Four of Hallis's guards joined them; the others kept the road and stores. They would exchange places after dinner, giving Hewyn experienced hands for each lesson.
Heward brought the centurions and their leading decani forward while Jon took off his sword belt. The rest waited in their companies. A man near the back tried to see between two shoulders until Heward moved the officers farther apart.
"Another pace apart," he said. "The men at the back cannot see between you."
Jon took the officers through the movements while Heward watched. Rymond hurried into the next turn before his men had finished the first.
"Look behind you," Heward said. "What are they copying now?"
Half the rank had turned; the rest still faced him. Jon demonstrated again, and this time Rymond waited. Malcolm needed reminding to show one movement before naming the next. Heward then sent the officers back to their companies and walked among the ranks with Jon.
"Brus! Face your men when you show them! They cannot copy the part you have turned away."
The centurion returned to the front. His men stopped smiling when he made them hold the movement while he checked their feet.
Heward set the order of the run. Jon took the First towards the stream; the other centuries followed at intervals. The campidoctor mounted a quiet garron and rode beside the lower bend, where he could watch the front and rear of each company without asking his damaged knee to keep pace with either.
At the bend Jon shortened his stride. His legs were warm now, his breath coming harder. One circuit would serve him today. He brought the First back at a walk and stood beside Arthur while the other centuries came in.
The Third had strung out. Norren reached the field well before his last pair. Heward rode up beside him and pointed down the road.
"Take them in together."
Norren went back. He returned at a walk with both red-faced men beside him, one pressing his side. Jon waited until they had caught their breath, then heard the centurion's account.
"I let the front go too quickly, my lord."
"Keep the shorter course tomorrow," Jon said. "Heward will watch your pace. We lengthen it when they can all finish."
Norren bowed and took his men towards the washing trough. Heward remained at the bend until the last of Sixth had passed him.
Only when Brus's last man was through the gate did Jon send the centuries to breakfast. Hallis's guards kept order at the two cook shelters while the tool carts arrived beside the timber sledges. Jon washed and ate the bread Wylla had kept for him.
"Tools by tens," he told the decani. "Return broken iron as well as sound. We can replace a handle."
Some men hefted the picks as if they had hoped never to touch one again. Jon took Hewyn's nearest ten towards the tower. The others brought the carts in, while Rennick cleared turning room down the lane.
The frost crack still ran down the tower's corner. The exposed stone was wet blue-grey, streaked iron-red beneath the old hinge clamps. Ivy hid the other joints; more stone would loosen when the roots came out. The curtain had opened in two places, one to winter and one to men carrying away dressed stone. Jon turned towards the low guardroom at the western foot, well clear of the cracked corner. Woods had cleared its doorway during the first barrack work; a new door stood fitted.
Inside, the vault held and the floor was dry away from the threshold, though stale rushes soured the cold air. A narrow slit admitted a grey line of morning above the stone shelf. Jon set Arthur's lantern in the old hollow cut for a lamp. He dragged a broken stool from the wall, uncovering a bird's nest with two white feathers, and carried it out with the rotten wood before returning for the rushes.
"Your chest?" Arthur asked from the doorway.
"Here. I want the bed along that wall, clear of the draught." Jon pushed at the lowest stone with his boot. It did not move. "We can board the slit until there is a shutter."
Arthur set down his own bedroll against the opposite wall. Wylla came in carrying the wrapped cups and looked into the rear recess.
"My bed will fit there. A curtain across the beam, and I shall manage."
Jon took the cups from her. "The room above will be yours when the stair is sound."
"Then see that it is sound before you send me up it." She pushed her sleeves back and went out for the broom. Jon left the door open to the morning air and went to join Malcolm at the run. Behind him, Arthur called two men to bring in their chests.
Jon began with water. He walked the whole rise carrying one end of a knotted cord while Murch held the other. Coll carried the level, and Malcolm wrote down the falls as Jon called them. Jon drove short stakes wherever the slope changed. At the southern hollow, last night's rain stood dark beneath coarse grass. His old surveying gear would have given him these heights before breakfast. With cord and plumb line, a small error carried forward could send the drain towards the barracks. He checked the last reading again before they moved the stakes. He called Malcolm closer so the man could see both the reading and the ground it described.
Above the survey party, the spearmen cutting thorn exposed an old doorway. Daylight showed through it for the first time since Jon had come here. He chose the southern hollow for a settling pool; the western barrack stood clear of it, and his drain ran below the proposed granary with its outfall away from the foundations.
Woods proposed moving the second roof two paces west to avoid breaking the rock shelf. Jon tested its edge, moved the stake and checked that the main lane kept its width. They spread the drawing between them.
At the end of the barrack range Jon marked an exercise room opening onto the yard, large enough for two tens. Stones, sacks, ropes and bars could stay dry there; the weights needed paving and timber pads, the climbing ropes sound posts. High windows would light the work.
"I can carry that span with the barrack timbers," Woods said.
"Finish their beds first. We can fit this out afterwards." Woods called his apprentice to measure the remaining length.
Near the gate, steam escaped through the sand over Ormund's slaking lime. He kept the new hands hauling sand until the last hard lumps had broken down; only then could they add water and work the mortar. At the tower, Jon set two men to clearing roots and old mortar. The joints were brushed and dampened, gaps filled with stone pinnings, and finished lengths sheltered beneath reed mats. He had the corner stones kept in their courses for reuse. Hewyn cleared the stone heaps from the space where his company must turn.
Jon carried the sighting board to the outfall. From here he could see the long lane between the new sheds, the cooking ground beside it and the higher strip he had kept for stores. Men would pass through those spaces every day. A badly placed wall would send them round it with every sack of meal; a low doorway would catch every long load brought under cover.
He had drawn Roman camps often enough in another life, their streets and divisions familiar from plans that survived long after the armies. He had enjoyed reconstructing them upon paper. Here men disputed a doorway within earshot of the work, and he could correct it before they had to live with it. Jon brought the granary entrance round towards the road and left the broad space at the crossing clear. He had spent a pleasant morning and wanted to see the walls rise.
Beyond the sleeping halls Jon walked Woods round the planned bank, keeping its rounded corners within the leased bounds. There would be a raised timber walk, corner towers and a pair flanking the gate, with empty ground inside for later intakes. He meant to enclose it while the men learned to build.
The six centuries divided among drains, road, masonry, timber and unloading, their decani beside the craftsmen and skilled soldiers helping the rest. After dinner Martyn would take the swords and Hewyn the spears, leaving the hands the craftsmen could not spare.
At the noon bell William rode up on Iain's shaggy pony with a brass plate wrapped beneath his coat. A bearing hole had opened into a black crescent under the heavier proving weight. Jon washed and took a fresh grey back to the Black Yard with him, Arthur following.
Ewan wanted the plate reheated and flattened. At the bench William showed Jon the flaw he had traced beyond the punched circle.
"The hole did not make this," William said. "It was in the plate before we bored."
"Cut through the flaw so Ewan can see how far it runs," Jon said. "The clock needs a new plate." He held the brass towards the window once more, then laid it beside the saw. William fetched a fresh piece while the smith went to see which of his men could bore it before the afternoon's forging.
Four smaller movements had filled the space left by the Hightower frame. Apprentices fitted barrels and pins while two joiners hung case doors. A finished pine clock stood ready for a White Harbor rope and sailcloth merchant; its keeper's slate showed scarcely any change in the error since yesterday.
"He wound it himself this morning," Olyver said, nodding towards the merchant. "And fitted the spare cord."
Jon warned the buyer against keeping it in his damp store.
"My wife has cleared a place in the hall. I doubt she means to let the ropewalk have it." He followed Perkin to pay the remaining hundred and twenty dragons while the joiners brought the cradle.
Jon went back to William, who had laid the new plate upon the old one. He made the boy separate them and find the centres from the drawing. The flaw had pulled the first hole awry; copying it would put the fault into sound brass. William turned the drawing towards the light and began again.
Perkin waited until the first centre had been pricked before bringing a Gulltown factor to the bench. Perkin carried two letters; the factor wanted the fitters promised to Barrow Hall. His master would pay twice Lord Dustin's price to have them before his guests arrived.
"Barrow Hall keeps its place," Jon said.
"For twice the gold, my lord?"
"The men have their road. When did your master first ask for his clock?"
The factor looked at Perkin's letters. His own was the later of the two. From the wall came four different little beats, with the file rasping through them. He watched the pine clock being lowered into its cradle.
"Could he have one of those sooner?"
"If he accepts the smaller movement. Perkin will tell you the price and which bench can take it." Jon turned to the clerk. "Ask him for the room's height before you promise the case."
Perkin took the factor towards the finished clocks. Beneath his table stood the wage coffer; beside it lay the smith's paid bill for brass and iron. At the door, the rope merchant paused beside Jon's grey.
"Captain Denys has ordered more of my best cordage. He paid for the last before the cart was empty—and sent back two coils. I told my men to open the next lot before he does."
Jon had read Denys's letter that morning. Stone Drum had spent twelve days at sea with only ordinary pumping; Salt Wraith had weathered a squall under her new mast. All ten warships were working again, and Denys was sending pairs along the trading coast. Jon asked for the soundest rope before the merchant climbed up beside his clock.
Arthur had an onion pie waiting beside the grey. Jon ate it on the slow ride through the market, catching the drips in its linen wrapper. Beyond the last carts he urged the horse uphill and asked whether the long poles had come from Winterfell.
The eastern drain had advanced twenty paces, but rose before the outfall. Jon marked the high reach for Mallador's men to lower. At the relief, fresh men took the tools while Hewyn gave the tired ten water before their throwing lesson.
The well stayed covered while hired diggers cleared it; drinking water still came from Winterfell in casks. Jon placed washing troughs and horse water below the sleeping sheds, the privies farther downhill, clear of the well and the run above its intake.
One spearman measured the walk with a mournful eye. "In snow, my lord?"
"In snow too." Jon pointed out the path to the next decanus and moved on.
Below the fall, Ewan stood ankle-deep beside the proposed wheel race, his trousers rolled above his calves. Jon unfolded the plans upon a flat stone. The smith recognised the mill gearing at once; he had repaired enough broken gudgeons to know what water could do to a badly seated shaft. He followed the drawing into the forge and stopped at the hammer.
"These raised pieces turn with it?"
Jon laid a stick between two stones and turned it beneath another. "They lift the tail. The head falls when it clears." He showed him the separate shafts upon the page. "This connection comes free when you pull the lever. The wheel can keep the bellows working while the hammer rests."
Ewan took the stick and turned it himself. He held it still with the little hammer raised, then let it fall. Water ran round his bare ankles while he looked from the sticks to the drawing.
"I have never seen a forge worked that way." He tried the movement again. "It will shake this bank to pieces if you put that weight upon a boarded floor."
"The anvil gets its own bed beneath the floor." Jon turned to the section and drew its footing larger. "We open the ground before Woods sets the frame. Keep the hearth back here, and leave this side clear for the long bars."
Ewan shifted his tongs to the place a billet would occupy. "A striker sees when I turn the work. That head will come down whether I am ready or not."
"You will try the release with the shaft turned by hand. Then with the water, before there is hot iron under it." Jon drew the lever nearer the smith's place. "Keep it within reach here. Tell me if you need it moved."
The smith examined the bellows next. "And if I want less blast? There is iron I could spoil with all the wind those will give."
"We choose the gearing for the hearth. The bellows work in turn, with less pause between them. You still judge the heat." Jon tapped the hammer shaft. "We try this under load as well. I want to know what it takes from the wheel before we settle the blast."
Ewan climbed onto the bank to get both hands free. Jon unrolled the plan of the later buildings. There were furnaces beyond the first hearth, another hammer space, and rows of armourers' benches. Farther along, Jon had reserved a shed for a rolling frame and the powered turning and boring bench needed to make its fittings. Ewan spread his palm over them as though checking the size against the small forge he knew.
"All of this for arms?"
"For my men first. Six hundred foot when the companies are full, and the household besides. Good steel for their helms and plates. More than one armourer can shape and fit them."
Ewan stared at him while Jon weighted the curling edge with a stone.
"My lord, men keep steel good enough for that locked in chests. You have drawn room for cartloads."
"We shall begin with small charges and test what comes out. The hammers will help us work it without spending all its heat under tired strikers. Good pieces must be made again before I promise hundreds."
Ewan looked back at the plan. "Who taught you this?"
"I am keeping that to myself, Ewan."
Ewan held his gaze. "I will need more than a drawing when we try the steel, my lord. I want to see those first charges." He pulled the hammer drawing nearer. "May I take this to Woods? I want him beside me when we choose the shaft."
"Take it. Bring your questions to the yard tomorrow. You will be there when we try the steel." Jon held the paper while Ewan dried his hands to take it.
Back at the practice ground, Jon found that Martyn had laid six narrow lanes between paired stakes. The first two admitted a spear line. The next narrowed to the width of a gate, the fifth turned like a tower stair, and the last ended at a plank deck smeared with wet clay.
"My shield companies train there," he said. "Close enough that every wide sword cut punishes a friend."
Arthur pointed to the high field. "Gawen and I shall take the household up there. Tomas can bring them up after dinner tomorrow."
Hewyn planted his staff beside Jon's throwing lane. "My veterans will see to the grip and the step. Shall I bring you the first ten when they can cast without striking their neighbours?"
"Bring them to me," Jon said. "We will have them cast together, then fall back through opened intervals while the second ten closes. One weighted cast, and no pursuit after the horn. We test it with wood before Ewan gives us iron."
By the last bell carts could turn without a man at every wheel. Mallador's ten helped two tired spearmen free a buried lintel before supper; rubble still covered much of the yard.
Supper was barley thickened with peas, onions and scraps of salt pork. Jon sat upon a sawn block with the bowl between his knees. One thumb still smelled of lime after washing. He found a strip of pork at the bottom, ate it before it could slip away again, and listened while Woods described the loose stone above the eastern stair.
"Take it down from outside," Jon said. "No one climbs those steps to reach it. We shall rig the ropes from the sound wall."
Woods spread his hands towards the fire. "I shall need the long poles."
"The straight ones beside the gate. Come round with me before the men start." Jon scraped the barley from the side of his bowl. The well-diggers needed another pair of hands; after the loose wallhead and surviving upper timbers were made safe, they could return more men to the barracks and granary.
"May I keep Coll's ten for the whole afternoon tomorrow, my lord?" Hewyn asked. "Two of them know a spear already. I want them helping the rest."
Jon agreed. The masons could spare them once the morning's stone had been brought up. He called the other centurions over before they went back to their shelters.
"Bring the cohort out after supper. Shields and practice weapons. Each century on its own ground. We begin the night drill."
Hewyn glanced towards the men finishing their bowls. "They have had a long day, my lord."
"A short lesson, then. Finding their places and moving together."
By the time the decani brought them out, the light had gone from the upper windows. Two lanterns hung beneath the barrack eaves. Beyond them the yard lay dark, with a pale strip of cloud over the broken wall. Rennick took the Second to the cleared road; Norren and Rymond had the ground below it. From the lower field came Martyn's voice and the answering calls of the sword centuries. Jon buckled his belt and joined Hewyn beside the First.
The first ten found Malcolm; the next crowded them. Murch was fetching strays from the wrong decanus when Jon halted the company.
"Each decanus calls his own men. When you have found him, stand fast."
Jon waited for the tens to form, then led Malcolm's men across the yard. The rear pair overran the halt. They tried more slowly, keeping their distance by the dim shapes ahead and listening for the command.
Tomas brought a household file down from the high field. They crossed the open ground and wheeled at his quiet order, their shields scarcely touching. Some of Hewyn's lads turned to watch. Jon let them see the file come back before calling Malcolm forward again.
Below them, Brus called the Sixth back for another attempt. Heward stood between the two sword companies with Martyn. Fifth wheeled at Gerralt's word; Sixth began moving before Brus had finished giving his. The two front pairs nearly met.
Heward raised his staff. "Stand fast. Gerralt, give the order. Brus, listen to all of it."
He made the two centurions use the same words before bringing their men forward again. This time the companies waited for the word to move. Jon watched them pass clear of each other, then left Heward with the next pairs and climbed back towards the barrack.
Murch no longer needed to fetch his strays. The First's ranks still wavered, but they stopped without piling into one another. Jon dismissed them and sent word down the slope for the others to finish. Men rubbed their eyes beneath the barrack lanterns and went in talking more quietly than they had come out.
Hewyn waited until the last spear had passed the doorway. "Again tomorrow?"
"After supper. Heward has the common drill. Let him see each century halt and turn before you take them into the meadow." Jon looked downhill, where the old man had seated himself upon a timber while Brus brought the last pair back. "I have letters to answer. He need not wait for me."
Jon unfastened his belt a hole and handed the practice shield back to Malcolm. His shoulders ached from the spade, and he wanted his bed.
Jon inspected the sentries with Tomas. He stopped at the horse line on his way back and rubbed the dried sweat beneath Bucephalus's mane. The stallion nosed his coat for an apple. Jon found only the hard corner of his folded drawing. He brought a handful of hay instead and stood there while the horse took it, warm breath moving over his fingers.
Wylla had lit the lamp in the guardroom. The new mattresses lay on low planks supported by short trestles, above the chill of the stone floor. Her bed stood behind a woollen curtain in the recess. Jon's chest was beneath the slit, his spare boots beside it. She was shaking the last shreds of packing straw from his blanket when he came in.
Jon sat to pull off his work boots.
Once both boots were off, he spread the drawing across the lid of his chest and held its curling edge with the lamp. Arthur knelt beside him. They went over the approach they had ridden that morning, then the gap beside the barrack through which the household could bring its horses into the high field. Jon shifted the proposed stable back enough to leave it clear. He wanted to walk the distance with Tomas before any footing was opened there.
Arthur brushed a fleck of dried mud from the drawing. "Tomorrow, while Hewyn has the spears."
"After the wallhead." Jon bent closer to the little lane. The lamp blurred. He rubbed his eyes and found grit beneath one lid.
Arthur lifted the lamp off the parchment. "You can see it better in the morning."
Jon wanted to finish the stable. Instead he rolled the drawing, put it inside the chest and eased himself under the blankets. Straw crackled inside the mattress. The bed was narrower than his one at Winterfell, and when he turned, his knee found the cold wall.
Through the open door he heard Hewyn speaking to a man at the fire, the scrape of a pot, and someone coughing in the barrack. Wylla laid his clean shirt on the chest, felt his forehead with the back of her hand and drew the blanket higher. Arthur shut the door and laid a folded cloak against the draught beneath it before lying down. Behind her curtain Wylla unfastened her shoes. The last light went out.
At first light Jon ran with First, had Wylla's bread and warm small beer, and joined Arthur and Woods with the long poles. Cut ivy hung over the wallhead's empty joints. Jon had the paired poles set on the sound side, well stayed, and climbed the lower platform beside Arthur.
Mallador's ten took the slack. Jon halted them until Woods freed the block's lower edge with a bar. It settled onto the tackle and descended past the empty stair; while the spearmen freed the sling, Woods prepared the next block.
They took the unsafe courses down through the morning. Jon moved between the platform and the ground, keeping the dressed stones in order for rebuilding and sending sound fallen timber to the carpenters. As the broken edge grew lower, a room opened to the sky beyond it: an old hearth, a window seat, the dark ends of floor beams that had rotted in their sockets. He stopped beside the hearth long enough to clear loose mortar from its carved lintel with his glove.
"Wylla will have more light up here," Arthur said.
Jon could already see where the bed would stand, away from the window. "She will want the hearth made good first."
Arthur looked down into the yard, where Wylla was taking bowls from a cart and directing a man twice her size towards the cookfires. "She will tell you."
By dinner the condemned wallhead lay in ordered rows beside the tower. The men ate against stones buried beneath nettles yesterday. Jon and Woods chose beams to reuse above the guardroom; then Hewyn's call brought Jon down to the throwing field.
* * *
At the Black Yard, bread began disappearing from other men's places a few weeks after Aries's own meals became certain.
Elspeth found two small loaves inside his clean shirt basket. Gage lost the heel he had left beside his cup. Aries claimed the kitchen cat had taken it, though he had flour down the front of his coat and the cat was sitting in the yard eating a mouse.
Jon caught him at the low wall with a third loaf beneath his arm. A bare hand appeared between the stones on the other side. It vanished as Jon came nearer.
"Come round to the gate," Jon called.
Feet ran away through the nettles. Aries stood very still.
"Who was that?"
"No one."
"He can use the gate." Jon opened it and looked along the wall. The lane was empty. He closed it again without sending men into the town.
Back in the hall, he put Aries upon the bench opposite him. Elspeth reclaimed the loaf, cut the dirty edge away and waited beside the hearth.
"How many?" Jon asked.
Aries rubbed a crumb between finger and thumb.
"How many boys are you feeding?"
"Sometimes they find their own."
"That is not what I asked."
"Six." He said it so quietly that Jon had to lean closer. "Not all at once. Geth finds things. Nibs can't always."
"Did you sleep with them before you came here?"
Aries nodded. His jaw began to work. "They won't come if your men take them."
"Are they orphans too?"
"Timm's aunt went with a wagon. He waited for her. The others have no one."
Jon sent for Wylla and asked her to sit while Aries told them what he would. They slept in a roofless house beyond the dyer's shed when it was dry, beneath a cooper's awning when it rained, and in places the boy would not name. Geth was the eldest. Wrenn had a cough. Nibs had lost the better of his two shoes and wrapped a strip of sacking about that foot.
"You might have told me," Jon said.
"You had one already."
"One what?"
"Me."
Wylla drew the boy's crumb-dusted sleeve out of his mouth. He had been chewing it without knowing.
"Bring them here," Jon said. "Tell the gate guards I sent you. Elspeth will find them something to eat, and Perkin can enquire after their kin, as he did for you."
"You'll keep all of them?"
"I mean to give them somewhere to stay. There is room above the lower hall while we make better beds."
Aries looked towards the kitchen. "They don't all work."
"Neither did you."
"I do now."
"Yes. Tell them what that means. No stealing from the men, no slipping out without leave. They will have work they can do and someone to teach them." Jon glanced towards Heward, who had come in during the account and waited by the door. "There are six centurions whose messages are forever carried by the nearest soldier. Let them teach pages instead."
Heward considered the small red head at the table. "The youngest will need a man to go with him until he knows the camp."
"Then give him one. Reading, figures and light work first. They are not recruits for the fighting rolls."
"And this one?"
"Remains with me."
Aries slid off the bench. "I can find them now."
"After supper, with Gawen," Jon said. "You will not vanish on me a second time."
The knight came back at dusk with five boys and a sixth trailing well behind. Aries kept turning to call him closer. All stopped when they saw the open door and the waiting bowls.
Elspeth had set the food inside, where no passing man could reach over their shoulders. She moved out of the doorway herself. Geth entered first, eleven and already trying to look older. Timm followed with Nibs clinging to the back of his coat. The others gave their names as Tob, Wrenn and Hake. Wrenn coughed hard enough to lose his first mouthful.
Wylla took him to the bench nearest the hearth. Nibs tried to go after him with a bowl too hot to hold. Aries wrapped a cloth about it and carried it for him, complaining that he was spilling the best part.
"Sit," Jon told him. "There is another bowl for you."
"I ate."
"Then help Nibs with his bread."
The six had scarcely spoken beyond their names. Geth asked what work began in the morning. Jon told him he would first be shown his bed, his washing place and the man who would teach him. Heward named the six centurions and said that the pages would change places at the turn of each moon.
"They must have their lessons together," Jon told Heward. "Whatever work you give them."
Geth looked towards Aries. "Does he learn with us?"
"Yes. His errands will be different, but he has letters to learn too." Jon waited until Aries had put down Nibs's bowl. "Show him the slate."
The red-haired boy fetched it reluctantly. Timm peered at the letters and asked which was the mark for Red.
"Aries," the boy told him, too quickly. Then, when his friend drew back, he turned the slate and began explaining the first letter.
Wylla stayed until all six had eaten. She found a place for their bundles without emptying them in front of the men. Nibs slept before she finished his feet; Geth waited by the door until he saw the little boy tucked beneath a blanket. When Jon passed later, Aries lay beside his friends on the borrowed floor pallet, though his own bed waited upstairs. He had left his new coat folded over Nibs.