Oldtown was falling astern when Osric took his eldest son's letter from inside his coat.
The Hightower still rose above the roofs, pale in the morning haze. Somewhere high upon it, the clock he had brought south was counting out another hour. Its keeper had signed the final report. The money had been sent north, the smaller clocks delivered, and nine men waited aboard on the strength of promises Osric had made in Jon's name. For the moment, there was nothing he could do about any of them.
He unfolded the letter against his knee.
Lachlan had written that they were all well. Finlay had torn his good breeches climbing onto the byre roof to fetch Ailsa's ball, and seemed to think retrieving it excused the tear. Their little sister wanted to know whether her father would be home for her nameday. Osric counted the days again. If the crossing went well, he should have time enough.
Farther down, Lachlan wondered whether Lord Jon would be taking more men. His last letter had asked whether the soldiers were paid while they learned. Osric had answered that question, then filled the rest of his reply with news of Oldtown. He had carried this letter for a fortnight without answering it at all.
He had meant to take Lachlan with him on the next wool buying journey. The boy had a good head for figures, and Osric had already spoken of him to a merchant in White Harbor. They would have to talk when he got home. He wanted to hear his son ask for himself, and know what had drawn him to soldiering beyond the black coat and a wage of his own.
Finlay had added a crooked line at the foot of the page, asking for something from the ships. That, at least, Osric could manage. A little painted cog lay in his chest, wrapped against the rubbing of his boots.
Under it lay soft blue wool for Ailsa, bought in an Oldtown market. She had wanted a blue gown when he left. He hoped she still did; he had spent long enough feeling cloth between his fingers while the draper brought out dearer bolts. Wrapped inside was a small silver necklace with a bead of blue glass. Ailsa liked to fasten his cloak clasp beneath her chin and parade about in it. Now she would have something of her own to show her brothers.
A few years ago, a good price for Winterfell's wool had meant bringing home honey cakes, if there was enough left after the journey. He had paid for the necklace without borrowing from his next cargo. There was money set aside for all three children now, and their winter clothes were bought. Lachlan had mentioned that Finlay's sleeves were already too short. Osric had thought the new coat would last him longer.
Osric had once waited outside counting rooms while richer men finished their business. Lord Leyton's steward now answered his letters. At the king's feast a knight who had scarcely acknowledged him had shifted along the bench to make room. Osric could still remember trying to eat his beef while three great houses asked him for things he had no authority to promise.
Jon had since offered him a regular wage, his road expenses and the hire of whatever men he needed. Osric had accepted before his lord could think better of it. He was buying for House Black as well as carrying its goods now. There would be work for him when Jon went to Dragonstone; more than enough to keep him away from home for half the year unless he made some arrangement for the children. He would need to see the island, and ask the children what they thought of living beside the sea.
He folded the letter along its worn creases. Near the hatch, Lucan was trying to persuade Cadan to eat. Mallin had secured a place out of the wind and was telling a sailor where to put his chest. Henly and Emrick were examining the fastening of the ship's boat.
Osric had gone south with clock cases. He was going home responsible for nine young men.
Finding men had taken longer than settling the clocks.
Jon had wanted tradesmen's sons, young men who might learn his ways of working without a family quarrel whenever they dirtied their hands. Crofters' sons would do. So would bastards with an education and nowhere to use it. Osric had kept the younger applicants longest at his table in the Scribe's Hearth. A knight's nephew had arrived with two letters and asked which servants would attend him. Osric had sent him away with both letters. Others withdrew when they heard of Dragonstone, or wanted a lord's wages while they finished a chain and prepared to leave him.
He had gone back to their masters, their employers and, in Henly's case, the forge where he had learned his first trade. Luwin's recommendation had opened doors at the Citadel. It had not told Osric whether a man would turn up when promised.
By their third morning at sea, the men had begun bringing their questions to him as soon as he appeared on deck.
"Master Osric?"
Otho had come to stand beside him at the rail. The mason's son was little more than twenty, with broad hands scarred by work done long before this voyage. A narrow yellow-gold link hung from the cord at his throat: mathematics, the study that had taken him from his father's building sites into geometry and the measurement of watercourses. His drawings travelled inside a worn leather roll. He had wedged it above his berth, away from the spray that sometimes reached the hatch.
"The clock in the Hightower. You said a weight drives it."
"It does."
"Then what prevents the weight from running down at once?"
Osric shifted to give him room. "Something checks the wheels. A tooth at a time. Callum could tell you more, if his lordship permits it."
"And that governs all four faces?"
"They show the same hour. I stood in the square and checked."
"I saw them. I wanted to know how." Otho glanced towards the hatch. "And the northern wheelhouse—does he devise its machinery too? The drawing you sent me showed the building and its channel. Nothing of the drive."
"Because that was what he wanted you to work upon."
Mallin joined them, his cloak falling clear of boots that had cost more than Osric's whole riding kit. The third son of a wealthy Oldtown wine merchant, he had earned yellow gold too. His former master praised his sums; his father's clerk confirmed that he had kept the warehouse books. Osric had brought him for those reasons, though he wished the young man would sometimes let another finish asking a question.
"Does Lord Jon truly devise these things himself?" Mallin asked. "My father sells wine under his own name. He does not tread the grapes."
"Have you been told otherwise?"
"I have been told he is eight."
"He is."
Mallin waited. A sailor came between them with a coil of rope, and Osric moved aside to let him pass.
"After the king's clock was delivered, I told him a packing wedge had shifted at sea. He drew me a different block while I was still explaining it. The next cases went out with that block fitted. Woods could tell you who drew the clocks. So could Ewan, who made the ironwork."
"His father is Lord Stark," Abel said from behind them. "How does that make him lord of an island?"
Abel's own gold link had slipped beneath the mended collar of his coat. A Duskendale wool factor's son, he had helped Osric untangle a charge for fodder. They had spent half an evening over the receipts; Abel had wanted to see the tally kept by the man who fed the horses.
"The king granted it to him after the war," Osric said. "Lord Stark has men holding it until he is ready to go."
"And these works belong to the boy?" Mallin asked.
"House Black pays me. You will hear the terms from its lord."
Otho was still looking towards the hatch, where Callum had stowed his tools. "Would he let us study the mechanism?"
"Ask him."
"You say that often."
"You keep asking what he will do."
Abel laughed. Otho smiled reluctantly and went to Henly, already describing the question about the falling weight.
Henly listened with his head bent. Smallest of the party, he had a burn across one thumb and split skin beside his nails. His dull iron link marked warcraft, learned at the Citadel through bridges and siege engines; the forge work had come from four years in his father's shop. Beside him Emrick wore the same metal openly against a robe too tight across his shoulders. The Gulltown armourer's son had a flattened ear and a habit of asking how anything was fastened. He had helped repair scorpions upon his city's walls. Henly knew the Oldtown engines. They had spent the previous evening comparing them.
Osric could not promise either man a place. That troubled him more now than it had across a tavern table.
Nyles waited until the others were occupied before approaching. He was the youngest, with a black iron link small enough to disappear when he closed his fingers round it.
"You said he might need someone for his ravens."
"He may."
"I have only the one." Nyles opened his hand. "Lorren has two. Half the others have gold."
The black iron meant ravenry. His keeper had spoken well of his care of the birds; Nyles himself seemed to think Osric had brought him by mistake.
"Gold would be little use if the bird flew to the wrong castle. Tell him what you have done."
Nyles looked out across the water. "Would there be a place in the North? When the others went south?"
"I told you at Oldtown. He means to take his household with him."
"I remember."
Osric would have to make certain he remembered when the time came to swear. He watched the young man go to sit beside Lorren upon a spare spar lashed to the deck. Lorren Flowers had two pale silver links for healing, earned through further study and work with patients. Osric had spoken to the physicians named in his letters. His knightly father had given him little beyond the bastard's name; his crofter mother had found the means to send him to Oldtown. When Cadan had rubbed his heel raw aboard ship, Lorren had dressed it and made him stop wearing the offending shoe.
Cadan was still limping. Lucan moved to let him sit beside them and rescued the bread he had been about to put down in a wet patch. Copper showed at Lucan's collar, reddish beside the gold of Cadan's single link. History for one, numbers for the other; both had kept themselves by copying the Citadel's accounts. Osric had seen the smallness of their bundles when they left their lodgings.
"Five places," Lucan said, watching Mallin return to his sheltered seat. "Nine of us."
"You knew the number."
"It seems a smaller number now we have sailed."
"There was no one offering you a place at home," Cadan said. "Nor me. We might as well be cold where someone is willing to look at our work."
Osric had promised their passage back, and a month's wage for coming. He reminded them of both. Lucan thanked him without much warmth. He wanted employment, not another journey.
They talked of the work throughout the voyage. Otho filled spare scraps with questions. Nyles was ill whenever the sea rose, and Mallin discovered that no payment would buy him a berth which did not move. At White Harbor, Garrick arranged wagons for the empty Hightower cradles and mounts for the men. Osric sent word ahead, then took the road he had travelled with wool for years.
Six days later his knee was aching and the traffic had begun to thicken. A cartload of hides held them at a narrow turning; beyond it he could hear the Black Yard's hammer. He sent Garrick on with the cradles. A guard at the fork told him that Lord Jon was at the Old Watch, and the nine followed him up the rise.
Emrick reined in first.
The timber fence enclosed a long rectangle with rounded corners. At its centre stood the old stone fort, its crooked walls at odds with the straight roads Jon had laid out around it. Osric could see through the open gate to the crossing beside the old curtain wall. Low barracks stood in rows along the approach, their fresh shingles yellow beside roofs already weathered by rain. Beyond them, cords marked the ground for more buildings. Masons were still at work upon the old tower.
"Is this an army camp?" Henly asked.
"His men live here," Osric said.
Henly looked along the bank. "There is room to form inside the fence. And get to the gate without passing between the sleeping quarters."
"The roads cross square," Otho said. "He has left the same space for the next buildings."
Emrick watched a file of men carry spades through the gateway. Their shields were stacked under a shelter beside the lane. "Are those his soldiers doing the digging?"
"They were when I left." Osric scarcely recognised the place himself. Jon was only in the sixth moon of his lease. The circuit had been a line upon the ground then. The upper walk still lacked boards, and carpenters were working upon one gate tower, but it could now be closed at night.
Mallin had stopped smoothing his cloak. A command carried across the enclosure; beyond the barracks, spearheads rose together and settled. Lucan stood in his stirrups to see.
"How many men?"
"Ask the man with the roll when we get inside. I have been in Oldtown."
They waited at the gate for a stone cart from Lord Cerwyn's quarry. Osric recognised the driver, who had carried his wool when there was little other work to be had. The man raised a hand to him and turned towards Ormund's heaps.
Jon came from the tower with Arthur beside him. His black coat was brushed, though lime marked his boots, and a white lock lay loose across his forehead. Osric had carried his handwriting half the length of the realm. Seen again beside Arthur, he was painfully small.
Osric dismounted carefully. Jon noticed the leg and sent a boy for a stool before asking for the recommendations.
"Nine worth bringing before you, my lord. Their letters are in the chest."
"And the bell chambers?"
"Measured. I checked them myself."
Jon greeted the men by name as Osric introduced them. Emrick's bow came a moment late. Mallin looked from the child to Arthur, who had taken the reins and was listening like any other man awaiting instructions.
When Otho came forward, Jon asked for the watercourse section.
"You brought the outfall farther down the run than I marked."
"The fall was better there, my lord." Otho fumbled with the wrapper. "I explained in the letter—"
"I read it. We will walk it tomorrow. Harlon knows how high the water comes."
Otho had freed the roll but did not open it. "You read the working as well?"
"I have questions about it. After you have eaten."
A crow landed upon the fence behind Jon and began picking at the wood. Three white feathers showed in its folded wing. Nyles watched it while Osric found Callum's report.
Jon gave them three days' work to begin with. Each would work beside the people whose duties he hoped to share; afterwards Jon would hear from both. There were rooms waiting at the Black Yard. Osric was to eat before they opened the clock accounts.
He had intended to insist upon that himself. He let the boy help him up from the stool.
At the late meal in the Black Yard, Osric sat by the window with Jon and Arthur. Henly's washed hair was wet round his ears. Abel waited for Jon to take bread, while Mallin examined the cloth laid beneath the serving dishes. Osric asked whether the cookshop by the Citadel gate had truly changed hands.
"The daughter has it now," Henly said.
"And waters the broth," Lucan added.
"You always went when she was scraping the pot," Lorren said. "I ate well enough."
That started an argument about what one could expect for a copper. They had lived in the same streets for years without knowing one another, and soon found half a dozen people in common. Osric ate while they talked. Later he gave Jon Ethan's letter: Qavo had reached Dragonstone with his family and apprentices. They were lodged near the shipyard, and the receipts for their release were enclosed with Pello's account.
Ewan's hammer sounded outside. Henly paused with bread halfway to his mouth, listening to the change in its beat.
"Would you rather see the forge?" Jon asked.
"If it pleases your lordship."
"Finish eating. I will take you round afterwards."
Before dusk Jon took them through the hall and packing yard. William was closing the cases; Jon asked him to show Emrick the hinges while Otho unrolled his drawings upon a clear bench. Osric left them there. His knee had stiffened again, and the stool beside the kitchen hearth was empty.
* * *
Otho spent his first morning with Jon at the wheelhouse's open foundations. Before showing him the drawing, Jon took him down the proposed lower race to its return into Miller's Run.
Harlon the miller came down with them. "That hollow fills when the run is high." He pointed to a silt line above the alder roots.
Otho took the height against Jon's cord, bracing a knee upon the slope to write. He examined the gravel beyond the bend and paced back along the proposed channel.
"Carry it out there," Jon said, pointing to the gravel. "We have more room to discharge. Keep the wheel where it is."
"More cutting," Otho said. He put the figure beside the first. "Less stonework."
Jon spread the drawing on a stump. "Show me the section."
Otho drew the bed and sides, making the deep part distinct from the ground above. Jon added the clearance beneath the wheel. They worked with their heads close to the paper while Harlon walked the length again. When the miller returned, he asked for steps on the near side, where a man could reach the channel to clear it without climbing past the shaft.
"Here," Jon said, leaving space on the plan. "And the bank must let him bring a barrow down."
By noon Otho had drawn the section and falls and counted the cutting. His sums held, and the steps left the channel's width intact. Harlon took the section to Woods; Jon kept the plan of the holding.
"Put the heights on this as well."
Otho entered his heights. Jon joined two equal ones with a charcoal curve, then took him back up the muddy bank to find more with the level. The curve passed through each. As Jon began another below it, Otho reached for his dividers, then stopped. He bent closer to the drawing.
"The ground falls sharply here," he said, indicating where the curves drew close. "But this shelf is nearly level."
"Aye. Keep the same fall between each line. We shall carry them across the holding."
Otho followed the wider-spaced curves down from the fort's bank towards the run. "I have spent days drawing sections across ground like this." He looked up at Jon. "And I had the heights all along."
"Harlon's hollow comes back almost to the bank." Otho laid two fingers beside the watercourse. "We could show where the flood reaches."
"If we measure the marks it left," Jon said. "Find Harlon tomorrow. He can show you what the run does in winter." Jon rubbed his cold fingers together. "When we survey Dragonstone, we shall make plans like this. The builders will need them when I am elsewhere."
Otho turned the paper to study the slope from the other side. "May I keep this one, my lord? I should like to try it on the ground beyond the bank."
"Of course. Finish it. Bring the places you are uncertain of, and we shall measure them together."
At Harlon's call, Jon left Otho with the rolled plan and went to show Woods where the steps would enter.
* * *
On the second morning Jon brought Henly and Emrick to the old drainage cut above Miller's Run. Hewyn had lent them men from the six centuries. Woods's short bridge frames lay upon sledges beside the bank.
The acolytes spread their drawings. Henly had carried his proposed abutments back beyond the scoured earth; Emrick's diagonals brought the weight into sound timber at the joints. Both had studied bridges at the Citadel. Jon went through their sums before showing them his own sheet.
"Keep your seats there," he told Henly. "We shall use the longer frames. Emrick, these crosspieces come out when we move it."
Emrick examined the iron shoes. "Each loose joint will work when a wagon crosses."
"Fit this one." Jon handed him a wedge. When it was seated, he had the men lift and turn the frame. The joint held. "Now take it apart."
Henly watched the pieces return to the sledge. "We would usually fit and mark each timber for its own place."
Jon took a crosspiece from the other heap. "Try this."
It fitted. Emrick tried another, then compared both with Woods's gauge. A broken crosspiece could be replaced without cutting its neighbours loose.
"Keep the gauges with you," Jon said. "I want another crew able to put this together after you have taught them."
They drew the assembled span across on rollers. When one corner led, Henly halted the pull and corrected the ropes. By afternoon both ends rested upon their prepared seats.
Emrick reached for the empty cart. Jon stopped him and had weighted sledges drawn onto the deck by rope. They watched the joints against a stretched cord, checking after each unloading how much movement remained.
One shoe had begun to fret against its timber. He made them unload the span and open it. Emrick found the poor bearing before Jon spoke and asked Woods for a broader seat. They tried it again next morning.
When the bridge had carried the proof loads, Jon crossed with Henly, who kept looking beneath the deck.
"Strip it after dinner. Hewyn's next party will build it from the same load. Watch where they need your help."
* * *
While Otho measured the race, Abel began on three clock accounts Perkin had left unreconciled amongst wages and stores. He wedged a stool's short leg with a scrap and spread the accompanying letters.
Near noon he brought two pages to Perkin. "The lion's earnest appears twice. This entry is the promised sum from the letter. This one is the coin you actually received."
Perkin looked at the dates, then reached for the receipt. "The copy should have been struck through."
"The felt may have been charged twice as well. I shall ask William what he packed."
By dusk the duplicate was cancelled and the felt traced to a second delivery. Abel had separated promised payments from coin received; Perkin was copying outstanding orders beside the costs still owed, with carriage letters tied to each.
Jon asked how long the copying would take and put two young scribes at Abel's disposal.
"My father could not abide a clerk who remembered a thing but could not find it," he said.
"He would get on with Poole." Jon explained who Winterfell's steward was, then put the household roll, grain account and barrack estimates beside the clocks. "Tell me what I can spend upon those roofs. The men must still be paid and fed."
Mallin brought his reckoning while Abel was out with the storekeeper. His columns were straight, his additions correct. He had put the unpaid balances against the cost of the next barrack range and allowed for timber Jon had not yet bought.
"You could begin both roofs, my lord. The merchants will give time against debts of that quality."
"How much time?"
"My father commonly settles at the end of a moon."
Jon drew the nearest clock order towards him. "This balance is due after delivery and seven days' running. It is still on William's bench. What will you promise the timber merchant if a wheel cracks during the trial?"
Mallin looked at the order. "A short extension."
"At what price?"
"That would have to be agreed."
"Then find the price before you tell me I can afford it. I will hear an offer of credit. I will not spend it while we are still guessing its terms."
Mallin glanced at Perkin, who had stopped copying. Jon waited until the acolyte looked back at him.
"Abel has gone to check the stores. Go with him tomorrow. Some of the sound timber is already promised to the bridge work."
"Surely the storekeeper can send his tally. My father employs men for that."
"So do I. You would be responsible for what you advise me to spend." Jon returned the reckoning. "Learn what is there."
Abel returned with the storekeeper's tally checked against the timber itself. He had set aside what Woods needed for repairs and separated the wages due from the coin available for building. They could buy the first roof timber now; the next range must wait for balances still owed upon clocks. Jon heard him through and approved the timber.
Mallin accepted the sheet with both hands. He asked Osric that evening whether there was another post, one concerned with buyers and correspondence. Jon had Osric for that work. By morning Mallin had decided to take the promised passage home. He made his farewells courteously, though he sought out Arthur to deliver them. Osric went with him to settle the travelling arrangements.
Lucan and Cadan kept their figures neatly, but neither had Abel's experience of buying and selling wool. Jon told them he had chosen Abel for the accounts. Lucan asked when a ship might take them south. Cadan began folding the spare sheets, smoothing each with the side of his hand.
Perkin's evening pupils arrived while they were there. Cadan sat beside Murch, breaking an unfamiliar word into sounds. Lucan caught a spearman reciting from memory and changed the order of the words. Jon brought fresh lines the next evening. This time both pupils could read without their teachers speaking first.
"Could you do this regularly?" Jon asked when the men had gone. "Perkin has begun the officers. I want the soldiers taught as well."
Lucan looked at the slate Murch had left. "I thought you meant a few men chosen for command. You want schoolmasters for the whole company, my lord?"
"For all six, as we can make room. Letters, and enough reckoning to read an order for grain without fetching Perkin."
Cadan put down the sheets he had folded. Lucan was still looking at Jon. "I have copied muster rolls for captains. They kept clerks for that. I have never heard of a lord teaching all his soldiers."
"I mean to promote the men who prove themselves," Jon said. "But they must be able to read and write before I give them command. I won't have a good man passed over because he was never given the chance to learn."
Cadan nudged Lucan's arm. "We might as well hear him."
"I am hearing him."
"What else have we? We crossed half the realm to get here. I've no work waiting in Oldtown."
Lucan rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Neither have I. But I had hoped—" He stopped, conscious of Jon watching them.
"For the accounts," Jon said. "Abel has them. Your passage home is still paid for if you want it."
Cadan turned the slate over. On its back Murch had written his own name, pressing hard enough to chip the chalk. "He asked whether he could write to his father when he'd learned enough." He put it down beside the folded sheets. "How many would we be teaching at once?"
"Tell me what you can manage."
"Ten beginners apiece," Lucan said. "To start with. More than that and I'll spend the whole lesson finding who has lost his place."
"Those who can read a little should sit together," Cadan added. "They need different work."
Jon agreed. He offered a year's wages, meals and quarters, with time outside the lessons for their own studies. They could renew the arrangement each year. If they remained when he left the North, their work would go with him to Dragonstone.
"And books?" Cadan asked.
"Show me what you need. Perkin has primers. I can lend you histories."
Lucan looked towards the door through which the soldiers had gone. "If they are sent out, are we paid while we wait for them?"
"You are paid for the year. There will be work to prepare, and boys in the household who need teaching."
"That is better than being paid by the sheet," Cadan said to Lucan. "And warmer than the room I left."
Lucan studied Murch's slate a moment longer. "A year, then." He faced Jon. "I will do it, my lord."
Cadan agreed before Jon could ask him. Perkin brought the wage book and sat with them over the duty groups. Lucan began separating the men who knew their letters from those who had only learned to write a name. Cadan went looking for the primers.
Hollan brought the household boys' work next day and stayed while William read. He showed Cadan where the boy now corrected himself, then let William finish without help. Perkin paid what Hollan was owed. He left the primers and returned to letter-writing in Winter Town; his pupils kept their midday lessons, apart from the soldiers' evening groups.
* * *
Branoc's chisel gave Lorren work before the trial was over.
The carpenter came into the infirmary with a rag twisted around his hand and blood running to his elbow. Lorren sat him down, his broad face composed as he loosened the rag and pressed a clean cloth over the wound. Wylla brought water and held the basin while he washed. He asked Branoc to move each finger, testing what the cut had damaged before reaching for his needle.
"Look at me," Wylla told Branoc when he began to sway. "Not at that." She kept him talking about his little girl while Lorren worked.
When the bleeding had stopped, Lorren dressed the hand and settled Branoc by the hearth. He stayed until the carpenter could drink without spilling.
When Jon entered, Branoc tried to rise. Jon kept a hand upon his unhurt shoulder.
"Show his lordship," Lorren said.
Branoc moved each finger. His mouth tightened with the effort. Jon waited for Lorren's examination before asking what work he could safely do.
"Nothing that pulls upon the hand, my lord. Let it rest first. I shall look again tomorrow."
Jon sent word to Woods. Branoc looked towards the door as the message went.
"Your wages continue," Jon told him. "Let Master Lorren tend it."
Wylla brought Branoc broth and showed Lorren the linen. He held a clean fold to the light and asked who washed it; she answered while separating the bloodied rags.
Nyles came to Jon on the third evening, turning his black iron link upon its cord. He asked again whether there might be a place for him in the North.
"I need a keeper who will go to Dragonstone," Jon said.
"Master Osric told me. I thought there might be birds to tend here as well."
"There will be. But I am choosing the men I shall take with me."
Nyles let the link fall against his robe. "Then I should not swear, my lord."
Jon agreed and sent him to Osric for his trial pay and the promised passage. At the door Nyles stopped to ask whether he could have a letter saying he had left freely. Jon wrote it himself.
* * *
The five chosen for the specialist posts stood in the repaired lower room of the Old Watch on the fourth morning. Their links remained upon leather. Lucan and Cadan had agreed their separate teaching terms with Perkin; they would draw household wages without entering the companies.
Lorren would tend the works and companies, consulting Luwin on difficult cases; Wylla kept charge of linen, meals and washing. Otho would lead the fabri in building the bridges, engines and works he designed with Jon; his own lessons would begin with watercourses and foundations. Henly and Emrick would command and train the engine crews in use, maintenance and field repair. Jon would choose able lads passed over at the next muster. Abel took House Black's wages, provisions, rents and building money into one account with the island's returns. Perkin retained the clock books and reported their earnings and costs to him.
Jon stood beside the table in a fresh black wool doublet, the little square badge sewn flat over his heart. He named the posts, wages, quarters, and limits before any man knelt.
"Seven years, unless I release you sooner," Jon said. "You will keep the guarded work of my house, account honestly for what I put in your hands, and teach the apprentices assigned to you. If you cannot settle a disagreement about the work, bring it to me."
Before they swore, Abel declared a small debt to an Oldtown bookseller. Osric had already recorded it; Jon had the sum advanced against Abel's wages so the claim could be settled. The others owed nothing.
He gave them time to read the terms, including the provision for injury in his service. Then he called Lorren forward.
Lorren swore by the Seven. Otho followed by the old gods, and Henly, Emrick and Abel took their oaths in turn. Jon heard each man, then bade them rise.
Osric paid their promised wages. Henly tucked his link away and followed Perkin to find Hewyn: the bridge frames needed moving for Otho's afternoon work. Emrick asked to send for tools left with his father in Gulltown.
"Give Osric the list," Jon said. "And a letter to go with it."
Lorren asked Wylla to show him the barrack beds. Jon called Abel back beside Perkin's old household book.
"This goes to Abel, with the two young scribes. Keep the clock book, Perkin. William needs someone who knows what each buyer ordered."
Perkin drew the thick book out from beneath a tied packet. A bent quill had been trapped between its leaves. "And who remembers when he changes his mind."
"You have the letters for that."
"Three from the same man this moon. He began with pine and now wants oak, for the price of pine." Perkin handed the book to Abel. "The tenants' rents are towards the back. Gerren brings his own tally. Ask for it before you set down what the miller says."
Abel opened to the place and kept a finger there. "When will you bring me the clock money?"
"At the week's end, with the receipts."
"And the wages and materials paid out," Jon added. "Make sure Abel has the earnings before I promise them elsewhere. Bring any new undertaking to me before you agree to it."
Abel offered to go through the unpaid bills that afternoon. Perkin handed him the sheaf, then snatched back a small square of paper.
"That one belongs with the clocks. Two keeper's keys and a new cord."
Abel shifted his stool for Perkin. Otho was sorting his measured sections from the sketches made beside the run.
"Bring your roof drawing after breakfast," Jon told Otho. "Keep the working beside it. We shall choose with Woods before he begins."
Arthur walked with Jon down to the run. Otho had stopped at Woods's timber pile; Emrick was looking back at the bridge frames. Below the bank, hammering covered their voices.
"Your father would have wanted to speak to Otho," Arthur said.
"About the bridge?"
"About what he had read, and why he had left it for this." Arthur stopped beside the alder. "He liked men who could answer his questions."
"Did he like their answers when they disagreed with him?"
Arthur looked at him. "He listened to Aemon. I thought he listened to me." He was quiet for a moment. "I cannot tell you how much of my counsel he took."
Jon looked north beyond the new roofs. Aemon's counsel had interested him even when he knew the man only from the books. Here he could ask his own questions. The thought of speaking with someone whose years exceeded his own held a private appeal too, though the maester could never be told why.
"I want to hear what Aemon says of him," Jon said. "I still mean to make that journey."
"Then write to Benjen when we have the time." Arthur looked towards the new men crossing the yard. "Tell Aemon something of what you are doing here. He will have questions of his own."
Ewan had hired two northmen while Osric travelled inland: Noll, an armour fitter from White Harbor, and Bennard, who brought his Cerwyn bloomery's furnace book wrapped against rain. Jon examined their work before accepting them. Noll took the armourers; Bennard worked under Ewan at the furnaces and heavy hammer.
A shout rose from below. The grinding wheel had begun to turn. Jon went down with Arthur while Bennard opened the sluice farther.
Inside the shelter Ewan held a rough blade against the wet stone. The changed sound drew Noll from his bench. Jon watched the bearing under pressure, then signalled Ewan to ease the blade away. The stone ran freely.
"Bring the tools from the wall men first," Jon told Bennard. "They will need them before morning."
Noll took Ewan's place with a chipped chisel. Sparks scattered over the wet boards. "My father would have put me at the handle. Half a day, when his tools had got ahead of him."
By the last chisel, Noll's sleeves were soaked and three carpenters waited outside. He asked about driving more stones. Jon uncovered the larger wheel's drawing for him; Ewan stood grinning beside the empty basket.
After supper Otho brought his roof drawing to Jon's workroom. Henly and Emrick followed with thin ash strips and two trestles. Jon moved one clear of Wylla's sewing and examined the longest beam upon the plan.
"Why this depth?"
"My father used it over a hall of that width. His carried slate; yours carries less."
"And if the merchant cannot give us that section?"
"We can deepen it and narrow the face. Within reason—a narrow beam needs keeping upright."
Jon chose a straight strip twice as broad as it was thick. Henly weighed equal amounts of sand into four small bags while Emrick set the trestles. With its broad face uppermost, the ash bent visibly under a bag hung from the middle. Otho measured from a taut thread. They took the bag off and watched the wood return, then turned the same strip upon its edge and hung the weight again. This time the bend was much smaller.
"How much for the same bend?" Jon asked.
Otho examined the end. "Twice, I should say. Perhaps a little more."
"Three," Emrick said.
Henly wanted to measure again. Jon waited, then had each man write his guess. He set his own beneath them and pushed the sheet to Otho.
"Four?" Otho asked.
"Four bags in all. Try it."
Emrick added the weights. At the fourth, the strip had bent almost as far as it had under one when laid flat. Otho held the rule while Henly checked the line of the thread. They unloaded it and tried once more. The difference was small enough to lose beneath the edge of Otho's thumbnail.
Emrick stared at the four written upon the paper. "You had that before we touched it."
"The measurements give it to us."
"I know a beam stands better upon its edge," Otho said. "I have never been taught how to reckon the difference. Is there a book?"
There had been books enough on the shelf beside his old desk. Jon could recall the diagrams readily; the name on the spine would not come. For a moment he wanted to put the volume into Otho's hands and let him argue with that.
"I can write the working for you."
Jon drew the two ends. "Use the same measure for both. Multiply the breadth by the depth, then by the depth again, then once more."
Otho set down the figures. With the strip on edge, its breadth was halved and its depth doubled. He went through the multiplication twice, then divided one result by the other.
"Four." He drew the figures closer to the lamp. "That is all?"
"For comparing these two, with the same wood and the same distance between the supports. Change the distance and we must account for that too." Teaching without the notation Jon had used for decades took care. He had to let them finish one calculation without filling the margin with three more.
Otho rested a hand upon the roof drawing. "My father keeps the sizes he has used for years. When a hall is wider, he goes to see one of that width. He would not believe this from a letter."
"He could test it for himself."
Henly gave a short laugh. "Mine would fetch his own timber and try to prove it wrong."
"Let him." Jon put a fresh sheet beside Otho. "Now keep the breadth. Double only the depth."
Emrick drew his stool closer. Otho worked more quickly, stopped at the answer and looked back at the first calculation.
"Eight times as much weight?"
"For the same small bend, using the same kind of sound timber. The length must stay the same, and the deeper beam must be kept upright."
"With twice the wood." Otho laid his palm beside the section upon his roof plan. "Could I bring you another drawing?"
"Bring three, with the timber each would take. Woods must be able to buy what we choose."
Henly had picked up a second strip, where a dark knot broke the grain. "This could break before it bent so far."
"It could. Keep that piece apart." Jon laid it beside the clear ash. "We have measured how far one strip bends under a weight. We have not found what will break it. Nor can it tell us every fault in a great beam."
Emrick turned the knotted piece over. "A wagonload will never be all of one quality."
"Then we allow for poorer timber than the best we tried. We choose it carefully, and we test what we build." Jon moved the roof drawing between them. "Begin with the least we will accept."
Henly asked about a longer span. They shifted the trestles along the same strip and marked the new distance, keeping the weight in the middle. Emrick had stopped guessing aloud; he wanted the working first. When Jon showed how doubling the clear span could give eight times the bend under the same weight, Otho took another sheet.
They were still measuring when the lamp began to gutter. Henly reached for the oil. Emrick had his coat off and a smudge of charcoal across one cheek; he had forgotten to call Jon "my lord" for the last three questions.
"After breakfast," Jon said when Otho asked about bringing the roof sections. "We will choose with Woods."
"May we keep the apparatus tonight?" Emrick asked.
Jon let them take it downstairs. Otho lingered to copy the last calculation, crossing out a sum when his haste led him wrong.
"Will you let me study the wheel's machinery as well?" he asked. "I have been trying to understand the drive from what Callum told me."
"You will be working upon it. Bring your questions when we have chosen the roof."
Otho gathered his sheets, then came back for the ruler he had left beneath the drawing. Emrick was calling from the stair. He went down to join him, still reading.
* * *
The next morning Jon brought Woods to the pegged ground beside the barracks, well inside the new bank and timber fence. He stretched a cord across the grass and waited while Woods counted the paces.
"A schoolroom," Jon said. "Large enough for sixty at the benches. Perkin needs his workroom back."
Woods looked towards the exercise hall. "I could divide one end."
"Leave that for the weights. This stands apart from it and the sleeping rooms." Jon moved the corner peg to clear the barrack path. "Windows along both sides. A hearth here, and room for benches with tables before them."
Woods shortened one side of the cord. Longer beams would mean another timber purchase; two rows of posts could carry the roof with what he had. Jon walked between the proposed rows, then brought Cadan and Lucan to judge the light. They asked for a cupboard that would keep the books dry and a lectern at each end. Jon had Abel pay for both, with slates, chalk and lamp oil.
Five weeks passed before the schoolroom was ready. Jon saw the posts raised between journeys to the Black Yard and helped hang a shutter. Woods widened benches too narrow for a man working at a slate. Rain delayed the roof; the teachers kept taking turns at Perkin's table.
The first pupils came after supper. Hewyn had arranged reliefs for two lessons a week per group, with two other groups due next evening. Officers sat among common soldiers according to what they could read. Murch and Hennet took the window bench; across the room Lucan lit a lamp for the men still learning their letters.
Cadan changed a grain order from the west gate to the well. Murch began with the remembered words, stopped and bent nearer the slate. Hennet waited for his turn. When the lesson ended, Murch asked to keep the slate; Cadan gave him fresh lines to practise. Jon went out to Hewyn while Lucan brought three latecomers to the other bench.
"Keep an evening for me as well," Jon told Hewyn. "Every fortnight. You and the other centurions, with Malcolm when you can spare him."
"Here, my lord?"
"After the last reading group. Henly and Emrick will come. We have spent long enough teaching men how to stand together. Their officers must learn where to take them."
Jon left Hewyn to arrange the reliefs. Heward asked to attend; he had taught these men their drill and wanted to hear what Jon expected of them as commanders.
Rennick arrived with the last of his supper wrapped in a cloth. Brus made room for him beside the hearth, where Arthur was drying one damp sleeve. Henly had cleared the long table. Upon it Jon set six pale counters, then four red ones.
"Each stands for a thousand men. You command the pale army."
Rennick stopped chewing. Hewyn looked at the counters again.
"Six thousand?"
"Someday you may have that many. Tonight they will fit upon the table."
Jon placed four pale counters abreast and two behind them. Opposite stood the red army, its centre pushed forward, its wings farther back. He had borrowed the shape from Cannae, leaving out the cavalry and much else. There was enough here for a first evening. In his former service he had sat through exercises ruined by an instructor determined to include every difficulty he could remember.
"You have met upon open ground. No woods, no river. Your men are pressing their centre, and it begins to give way." He drew the middle red counters back a little. "Their wings are still where you first saw them. Gerralt?"
"Go after them. Break them while they are wavering."
"With whom?"
"The men fighting them. Bring the others in from the sides." Gerralt leaned over to show him. "We have more. They cannot stand against all of us."
Rennick nodded. "Send the fresh men through as well. No use leaving them to watch."
Hewyn studied the narrowing space. "Keep them together. No man runs ahead for plunder. Once you are through, turn upon the rest."
He spoke with more care than the others, but Jon had heard the same answer. Hewyn was arranging a few dozen men in his mind, men he could reach with his voice. The others had spent their fighting lives watching the shoulders ahead of them. Choosing where an army fought had belonged to a lord upon a horse.
Jon moved the pale counters as they had asked. The outer bodies bent inward to join the advance; the two from the rear followed into the same space. He let the red centre yield farther. Then he turned its waiting wings against the exposed sides of the pale army.
Rennick put his supper down.
"I would turn those men outwards." Gerralt touched the crowded counters.
"Which men hear you?" Arthur asked.
"The ones upon the side."
"And the men behind them are still trying to get at the enemy in front." Arthur set his hand across the pale counters. "I have been pressed so close I could scarcely draw my sword arm back. A man behind you shoves because he cannot see what has stopped you. Tell that man to turn, and he may understand you well enough. He still needs somewhere to put his feet."
Hewyn drew the two rear counters away.
"You sent those in too," Jon reminded him.
"Aye." Hewyn left them where they had been. "I did."
"The men in their centre may truly be beaten," Jon said. "Their wings are not. You have brought your whole army after the part that was already giving ground."
He restored the lines. This time he left the outer pale counters facing the red wings. The middle pair advanced only far enough to remain level with them; two thousand stayed behind, with room to move towards either side.
"Here. The centre keeps its men together. These go against the wings instead of crowding in after it. If either wing turns inward, it gives these men its side." He moved one red counter to show them, then put it back. "Your fresh men can still reach whichever part needs them."
"They could get away," Gerralt said, looking at the red centre.
"They could. You might have to let them. You have an army to command while they are running."
Hewyn rubbed at his jaw. "Stopping our middle will be the hard part. They will think they have won."
"Give their captains a limit," Arthur said. "Keep abreast of the men beside them. They must know you mean it, even with an enemy's back in front of them."
"And leave someone able to see whether they obey," Jon said. "You cannot spend the whole battle fighting beside the foremost man."
He pushed the counters towards Hewyn. They went through it again. Gerralt still wanted to pursue, but this time asked where the enemy's wings stood. Rennick kept his two thousand back. When Brus suggested sending them against the left, Hewyn asked what was happening on the right and waited for an answer.
By then the fire had sunk below Arthur's boots. Henly reached for the counters, but Jon stopped him.
"Leave them."
He waited until the men looked up from the table.
"No noble's son is coming to take your place. When we have more men, I intend you to lead them. I chose you knowing what you had done. I also know how much you still have to learn."
His gaze went from Rennick to Gerralt, then rested upon Hewyn.
"There are no better men being kept somewhere to do this for you. You will have to become better at it. I will teach what I can, and Arthur will help me. Every fortnight, you will sit here and make mistakes where we can mend them." He touched the pale counters. "Out there, men will die for some of those mistakes. Men you have eaten with. Men who trust you enough to follow when you tell them to advance."
Rennick had folded the cloth over his uneaten bread. None of them was looking towards the door now.
"I expect you to study. Ask when you do not understand. If you think I am wrong, tell me why. What you are willing to learn here will matter to every man we put under your command. Will you do it?"
"Aye, my lord," Gerralt said.
The others answered with him. Hewyn remained looking at the table a moment longer, his mouth set. Then he bowed his head.
"We will not fail you, my lord."
"I will see you in a fortnight," Jon said. "Talk this over among yourselves. If you think of something we have missed, bring it to the next lesson."
"Yes, my lord."
Jon left them around the table. Arthur followed him into the passage, drawing the door closed behind them.
"You have laid a great deal upon those men," he said. "A lord's son has years with a master-at-arms, a maester, his father's captains. Most of these men were taught to do as they were told and keep out of the way."
Jon slowed beside the stair. "I know. And if I keep making every decision for them, that is all they will ever know."
"An oath will not give them those years."
"No. I shall have to give them time. Hewyn must have hours for study, as well as drill and duty. So must the others." Jon looked back at the closed door. "I mean to trust them with more than this. I owe them the chance to learn it."
* * *
At Winterfell two days later, Jon waited in Luwin's chamber with the Valyrian chronicle open upon his knees. The maester was finishing a letter for Eddard. When he had sealed it and set it aside, he looked towards the book.
"Pikīptā?" Luwin asked.
"Pikīptan. The harbour has two names. I have marked both."
"Leave the slips in. I will find you an older copy."
When the lesson was over, Jon asked about keeping ravens at the Old Watch. Woods had mended the loft shutters and moved the wool baskets out, leaving a room large enough for cages.
"I want birds for Winterfell and Dragonstone," Jon said. "And birds of our own that can bring their answers back."
"Who will tend them?"
"I mean to hire a keeper. Could you recommend someone?"
"Clem helps me with the birds here. He has been asking for paid work." Luwin drew the chronicle towards him. "He will need more teaching. That must be here, where I can show him as we work."
"I will pay him while he learns," Jon said. "If he is willing to go south when I leave, I would like to speak to him."
"I will tell him."
Clem arrived at the Old Watch with a patched leather glove tucked through his belt. He was a pigeon keeper's son, broad across the shoulders, and read the line Jon gave him slowly but without stumbling. He listened to the terms, asked whether his lodging came with the wages, and agreed to go south with the household when the time came.
In the weeks that followed Clem divided his days between Luwin's rookery and the Old Watch. Jon found him scraping a sill while young ravens complained. Winterfell's birds could already fly home; those raised here would take longer to trust with letters.
"Do not hurry it," Jon told him. "I want the letters to arrive."
Clem lifted his scraped hand. "So does the maester, my lord. He made me bring the first one up the stair myself when I tied it badly."
Jon examined the message tube. At Woods's call for a shutter hinge below, Jon returned the tube and went to help before the light failed.
* * *
Gawen slipped Bracken's leading rope free on a clear morning after the acolytes had settled into their work.
Aries did not notice for six strides. He was watching the space between the gelding's ears, with his heels quiet and the reins gathered as he had been shown. At the corner he turned, found the knight standing at the mounting block, and gripped too hard.
"Ease your hand," Gawen called. "He has not changed because I stopped walking."
Bracken tossed his head. Aries eased the rein and brought him round at a walk, Jon watching from the rail. He halted late, corrected with a touch instead of a pull, and grinned down at them.
"Again?"
"After you dismount," Gawen said.
The knight steadied the saddle while he came down. Aries landed upon the block and took Bracken's rein before reaching the ground. He ran a hand down the damp neck, talking too softly for Jon to hear.
"You may keep him," Jon said.
Aries turned. "Keep him where?"
"In my stable for now. Beside my horses when we travel."
The boy stared at the rein in his hand. "Mine?"
"Bracken and the saddle you have been using. Gawen says you can be trusted to look after him, with help where you need it."
"He is old," Aries said, as if someone ought to find the fault before the gift could be taken back.
"He is sound. You have ridden him often enough to know whether you like him."
"I do." The answer came loudly. Bracken turned his head at it and began searching the boy's sleeve.
"You have more to learn before you ride beyond the town," Gawen said. "Owning him will not spare you the lessons."
Aries nodded, stroking the same patch of neck. After a moment Jon had him walk Bracken before unsaddling.
Wylla appeared at the gate carrying his new cloak. Mairi had cut it to fit the black page's coat, with a plain fastening the child could manage himself. Wylla put it about his shoulders and reached beneath his hair to settle the collar.
"Stand still."
"He's mine."
"I heard."
"And the saddle."
"Then you had better eat before you spend the whole morning polishing it. Elspeth has your bowl."
Aries looked towards the horse. Gawen took the rein and promised to remain there. Only then would the boy go indoors.
At breakfast Aries asked whether Bracken would sail to Dragonstone too.
"Aye," Jon said. "What will he need?"
"Hay. Oats. His brushes." Aries considered the spoon in his hand. "Water."
"Enough for the crossing. No grazing when his hay runs out. The captain must leave room for all of it."
"And me."
Jon pushed the bread within his reach. "You already have a place."
"Beside him?"
"We shall see where the horses go first. You can help Gawen decide what must come."
Aries began with the saddlecloth. He wanted to know whether it must be kept over the saddle at sea, and whether Gawen had ever taken a horse aboard. Before Jon had answered, he was asking whether a gelding might grow too old in four years.
"Eat," Wylla said when his porridge began to set.
He swallowed three hurried spoonfuls and reached for his cloak. She took hold of its corner without looking up from her sewing. He sat down and finished the bowl.
That evening Wylla found him with the saddle on his knees and Bracken nosing his bright hair. Gawen had checked the girth and put the brushes away. Still the boy stayed.
"Bed, love."
Aries put a hand against the gelding's muzzle. "In a moment."
Wylla gave him one. When he followed her out, he took her free hand without seeming to notice that he had done it.