By the second year of the lease, Mairi could tell where Lord Jon had been by looking at his boots.
Grey grit belonged to Winterfell's inner yard. Yellow chips and brass dust came from the Black Yard. Black peat, crushed fern, and bone-pale lime meant the Old Watch. On fitting days she sometimes found traces of all three. Ralf kept a fresh horse ready after dinner, though the hour Jon arrived varied.
One overcast morning he entered her cutting room with black mud on his heel and brass caught in his cuff. Beneath the hired wool hall's windows, four women cut bolts, three quilted linen over fleece and tow, and five wrestled with half-finished hemp tents. Iron shears clacked; beeswax rasped along linen thread.
None of the cloth was truly the same black.
The best cloth had grown dark upon the sheep. Alder bark deepened a brown bolt; oak galls and iron liquor made another midnight-dark. After three soakings that handsome cloth parted in Mairi's hands. The ruined practice cuff hung nailed above her table.
Jon looked from the failed cuff to the waiting coats. "I asked for one colour."
"The strongest bolts differ, my lord." Mairi brought him the torn cuff. "I can darken them all with this dye, but it weakens the cloth. These others have held through washing."
Cob the tailor snorted from the far table. His white beard rested upon the tape around his neck. "Soldiers should look as one."
"Not if the cloth tears, Master Cob." Mairi laid the ruined cuff beside his bolt.
Cob held his own bolt against the rejected strip. "This dye has not weakened it."
Jon tested the edge where Mairi indicated. It held. "Use it, then. The cut must match; the shade may vary. Put the strongest dark cloth aside for the household, where mail and saddle will wear it."
"We can cut the rest to the same patterns, my lord," Mairi said. At Jon's nod, Cob spread the sound bolt across the table.
Beside the soldiers' patterns lay smaller ones for the pages. Nibs needed his sleeves let down; Geth's shoulders had outgrown his coat. Wylla had marked changes for all seven. Jon wanted sound dark wool and a matching fit, with none of the officers' distinctions.
Cob bent over the coat before him. "The left shoulder wants another finger."
Mairi measured and found he was right. She shifted the pattern, and Cob cut the cloth.
Jon laid his sword belt beside the drawings weighted under Mairi's shears and river stone. His coat had a close waist and riding skirts, with a sleeveless outer garment in long panels and little shoulder caps. Cob had disliked those until he saw them in cloth.
"The collar sits better, my lord," Mairi said as Wylla helped Jon into it. She eased his hair from beneath the standing edge. Midnight-black strands caught upon a basting thread; the pale lock at his left temple fell free across his cheek.
He turned his head each way. "Lower it here." He touched the place beneath his jaw. "I need to look behind me without the whole coat coming round."
Mairi folded the edge and pinned it. The figured black wool upon the breast showed its leaf pattern only when he moved towards the window. Below it the skirts hung plain. He had chosen small square clasps of blackened iron, refusing Cob's silver ones after laying both against the cloth.
Jon settled astride the low bench, reached forward as though gathering reins, then twisted to take his sword belt from the table. One of the shoulder caps lifted from its stitching.
"There, my lord," Cob said. "That is where it pulls."
"Give it room under the arm. Keep the waist." Jon stood and lifted his arms while Wylla tried the sleeves. The right stopped above his wrist; the left covered two knuckles. He showed Mairi the pulling seam and held still for her pins.
"Hold your arm there a moment, my lord, if you please," Mairi said.
"How much longer?"
"Only this sleeve, my lord." She eased it away from his wrist.
Wylla drove a pin through the loose fold. Jon hissed when it found cloth close to skin.
"I shall have Noll make the next one," Jon said.
"Then he may wash it too." Wylla shifted the pin. Outside, a Cerwyn carter went east with rough stone, baskets of wall pinnings and Deepwood oak chained along his cart. White Harbor iron bound its hubs. Jon bought nothing south of the Neck that he could get nearer.
"More coats for Hewyn?" Mairi asked, chalking Jon's elbow.
A year of marches and ditch work had worn through the six centuries' first coats. Some men had patched one elbow twice.
"For Martyn's swordsmen next," he said. "Both centuries. Fit the men on the morning drill first, then those coming off the works. The spears can follow when their next bolts arrive."
"May the men come here to be measured, my lord? I would rather fit each one myself."
"Martyn will send them in tens." Jon kept his arm raised while Mairi finished. "How are the women finding the work?"
"They can keep their looms going, my lord. But the wool grows dear."
"How dear?" Jon asked.
Abel stood beside the door with a wax tablet crowded from edge to edge. "The lower market price rose another copper the ell. Torrhen's Square has three hundred ells of sheep-black cloth if we take the coarse weave. Barrowton offers two hundred finer, dearer by half. The White Harbor factor offers dyed black for less than either."
Mairi held up the torn cuff. "The White Harbor factor offered this."
"Leave that cloth. Ask the Torrhen's Square and Barrowton men for samples before you order. Mairi, put them through the same washing. We shall use whichever lasts."
"And the tents?" Abel asked.
Mairi pointed to the narrow canvas panels. "White Knife flax in the first four. Hornwood hemp in the rest. The hemp is heavier and swells tighter in rain. It also fights the needle like boiled hide."
"Have the men use both. Tell me how they carry and whether either leaks. We shall order the next lot from the better maker."
Wylla bit off her thread. "There. Equal sleeves."
Wylla brushed the brass shaving from his cuff and gave him a scrap from the ledge. Arya had drawn him riding three horses at once.
"She says you cannot be too busy to ride with her if you can manage this."
He looked again at the enormous spurs. "Tell her after lessons tomorrow."
"Tell her yourself. She waited for you last night." Wylla gave him the drawing. He folded it into the pocket of his new coat.
Next afternoon, fetching Winterfell linen, Mairi found Jon and Arthur in the stable court. Arya came through the arch calling that her lessons were finished. Her pony waited; Jon held the drawing.
"You have given me more legs than a horse," he told her.
"You need them for the spurs."
"I do not need those either." He folded the paper before she could take it back. When she was settled, he mounted and brought his horse alongside the pony. "The lower road first. We shall go past the apple trees."
Arya explained which gate would take them round the outer wall as well. Jon heard her out and agreed, Arthur following them through the arch. Downhill later, Mairi glimpsed them through the trees at the pony's pace. Arya pointed beyond the wall; Jon turned to look.
* * *
At the lower well, the bellman was reading Lord Black's call again.
The bellman named the trades wanted at the Black Yard, then the new places: forty spearmen and twenty swordsmen, aged sixteen or seventeen, for Hewyn to try at the Old Watch. Six further farming families could apply to Abel for holdings at Miller's Run, with seed and first provisions supplied.
Mairi waited by an onion barrel while a cart squeezed past. Jon's carters had carried the new calls out after sowing; wool merchants and hinge buyers spread them farther. Within a fortnight strangers came to the well with bedding as well as tools.
A carpenter had his saw wrapped in his spare shirt. Behind him a woman held a hen under one arm and a little boy by the other hand; an older girl carried their cooking pot. Two young men with spears were trying to see over the cart. A grey-haired woman asked Mairi whether the sewing work truly paid at the end of each week.
"Mine does," Mairi said. "What have you sewn?"
The woman opened a bundle and showed her a winter coat, much patched but neatly joined at the shoulder. Her daughter had quilted the lining. They had come from beyond the White Knife after a wool carter told them there was work through the cold months.
"Come with me when this cart has passed."
Jon stopped his horse beside Arthur's to hear the carpenter's account of Cerwyn roofs, then sent him to Woods at the western stair next morning. Mairi had cloth for another sewing table. He told her to fill it and give Abel the names before pay day.
A man beside the onion barrel lowered his cap when Jon turned towards him. His wife stood behind him with a bundle against her hip.
"The land, my lord. Is there still a place?"
"What have you farmed?"
"Rye, mostly. Hay on the lower ground. My wife keeps the cattle."
Jon asked how many beasts they had wintered and heard the woman's answer as well as her husband's. Mairi could see the woman weighing each word before speaking.
"Bring your family to the byre tomorrow," Jon told them. "I shall be there after the morning drill. You will see the fields before I choose."
"We heard your lordship means to sail south."
"You stay on the land. Lord Stark takes my place when I go." Jon waited while a carter backed clear of the narrow turn, then rode on towards the works.
The woman with the hen watched him go. "That was Lord Black?"
"Aye," Mairi said.
"My husband said he would be older."
Her husband was still holding his cap. He put it on and lifted the saw back onto his shoulder.
An alewife called for more bowls; men were eating on the wall beyond her full benches. Mairi found room for the women's bundles and led them to the wool hall. Next door, an owner was dragging hay from a loft he had left empty all summer.
Not every hand found Jon's coin. Two carpenters whom Woods refused drank beside the lower well and explained nightly that a boy lord preferred boys he could command. A tanner lost three apprentices to higher wages and raised the price of every harness strap. The washerwomen complained that black dye fouled their runnel. Within one moon three landlords had raised their rents.
William's aunt found Mairi outside the candle shop and held up four fingers. "Four coppers more for the same roof, and rain still enters above Beth's pallet."
"Mine rose six before I took the room behind Elspeth's stair."
"You receive a room with the wage. My landlord wants more coin and will not even mend the roof." Behind her, little Beth dipped scraps of wick into cooling tallow and counted each beneath her breath.
"William sends silver."
"And my landlord knows it."
A week later Jon walked Mairi's room in the finished coat, his sword belt threaded between its long panels. The shoulder pieces moved cleanly; the black skirts parted above his boots and fell together when he stopped. She had never made this cut before. Cob already wanted a tracing.
Perkin came to fetch him while Mairi pinned Mallador's coat. A year of bread and ditch work had broadened the man's shoulders beyond his old pattern. She asked leave to speak of William's aunt.
"Her landlord has raised the rent, my lord. There are others in the sewing room with the same trouble."
Mallador kept his arms up and looked at the wall.
Jon looked to Perkin. "Whose houses?"
Mairi named them. Perkin knew two without opening a book.
"Two stand upon Winterfell ground," he said. "One belongs to the brewer. The last is held from a Cerwyn steward."
"Poole hears the first two," Jon said. "For my workers, we shall take the six empty lofts beside the south store by the year. Fixed rent for each loft, not by the head put inside it. Woods adds a lodging row to the next timber count."
"There are more families than that, my lord. Could the new rooms be ready before the rain?"
"Have Woods price the lodging row for Abel," Jon said.
Mairi thanked him. Perkin took the women's names for Abel before Jon left for the works.
Mallador lowered his arms too soon and took a pin in the shoulder. He cursed.
"Hold still," Mairi told him. "Lord Jon managed it."
Mallador raised his arms again.
* * *
That afternoon Mairi wrapped the Karstark sunburst in grey felt while Jon rode into a yard crowded with deliveries. Highgarden's rose stood beside Casterly Rock's lion. The empty Hightower frames had already gone for timber.
Plainer clocks awaited an Oldtown cloth merchant, a Barrowton wool factor and two White Harbor brothers sharing one between their warehouses. Woods had chosen clean oak for their visible doors; one buyer paid extra for brass. The merchants expected work worth showing their customers.
Perkin told Mairi which cases must be wrapped first. The southern clocks would leave together; the Karstark one would take the eastern road with Lord Rickard's carrier.
The Glover and Tallhart clocks had gone with the last northern wagons; Hornwood's keeper had sent acceptance. Two cases awaited passage south and upriver. Bracken's steward had ordered after the royal gift, Blackwood's after Bracken—with a bell to carry at least as far. Perkin had charged for the difference. Neither wanted a plain case.
William showed the lion's little paw train before closing its case, then had an apprentice demonstrate where the keeper's hands must stay clear. At the ordinary benches he assigned work and sent faulty pieces back. He scarcely looked up when Jon finished his inspection and went to Ewan.
A merchant came with a wool bill for Abel. While a boy fetched him, the man's wife toured the clocks, keeping her two sons' hands clear of the carvings.
"That one," she said when they reached the smallest pine clock. "You could hear it from the kitchen."
Her husband looked up from the account he had brought. "We came to collect the wool money."
"I know why we came." She bent nearer the dial, examining the little hand. "Master Lewyn's wife says hers keeps the whole house to order."
"Two hundred and forty dragons for the pine case," Perkin told her husband when he came over. "Another twenty if you want oak, with your device above the dial."
The man rubbed his beard. "My device?"
"Send a drawing. Lord Jon must approve the work before I promise it."
His wife glanced at him. "You said the new hall looked bare."
"The roof cost enough." He examined the clock from the side, bent to look beneath it, then straightened when Jon came across from the next bench. "Might I have oak, my lord? A fleece above the face. No beasts moving about."
"Woods will draw it for you. The next place we can promise is three moons hence."
The merchant asked Perkin for the order sheet. Mairi heard his purse loosen as she folded felt around the sunburst. His younger son began counting clocks; the elder told him to count theirs too.
A White Harbor factor found Mairi behind the felt screens and offered half a silver stag if his master's case could leave with the next wagons. Karhold's clock was ready; his own still waited for its final run.
"The clerk can call it a packing fee," he said. "No need to trouble his lordship."
Mairi looked at the coin. It was more than the rise in William's aunt's rent.
"You had better ask him." She pulled back the screen. Jon stood at the next bench with Ewan, close enough to see the open purse.
The factor shut it. "My master would pay for haste, my lord."
"You have his place in writing. It has not changed."
"Other customers have had delays."
"And yours will be among them if the clock is not ready." Jon called Perkin. "Write to his master. Future business comes through another man."
The factor tried to explain his fee. Jon heard him out and had Tomas show him out. Later Perkin brought Mairi the delivery list: Karhold still headed it.
* * *
There was one finished clock which Perkin kept off the sales list.
William had made it in a plain oak case while the great commissions filled the benches. Jon checked the first fitting; William kept it running for the last seven days, recording windings and corrections.
"Castle Black," Jon said when Mairi asked how she should wrap it. "The one I promised Benjen."
William opened the case. There was room for a man's gloved hand at the winding, and the screens lifted clear for cleaning without taking the movement apart. Jon put on his thick riding gloves and tried the handle. Neither cuff caught.
"Callum?"
Callum had spare pins, cord and common bushes packed. Oldtown had left him with a firmer opinion of stairs. Now he and Garrick would take the clock north with Winterfell's grain wagons.
"Seven days under the keeper's hand before you leave," Jon told him. "Have him fit a spare bush as well as wind it. Bring back his questions." William passed over the winding roll.
Perkin brought the cost, with a copy for Abel: oak, movement, carriage and fitters' wages, entered as a gift from House Black.
"Enter it," Jon said. "And tell the grain carters not to put the ironwork beneath wet sacks."
Two mornings later the covered cases left between flour and lamp oil, a black brother riding beside the fitters. Garrick had separated the loads. Callum's mother waited at the gate until he found room for her food beside the tool chest.
Jon sent a letter of his own with the gift, addressed to Maester Aemon. He asked after the old man's health, wrote a little of the men he was teaching and said he still hoped to visit. Arthur read it at Jon's invitation and suggested no alteration.
"Give the letter to Maester Aemon himself," Jon told Callum.
Callum put the letter inside his coat. William handed up the last oil horn and stepped clear as the convoy moved.
* * *
A fortnight later Mairi rode the coat cart to the Old Watch near sunset. The mare knew the road better than she did and objected whenever the wheels left its crowned centre. Side ditches carried brown water towards Miller's Run. At the fork below the byre, two carts had drawn aside to let her pass.
The man from the onion barrel led a cow; his wife carried a churn beside their cart. Behind came the other families Jon had chosen over three mornings in the unlet fields, asking about their work and putting them beside Gerren. Six new families had places. The first six helped unload their tools and bedding.
Mairi checked her mare while a girl ran after a rolling wooden bowl. Above the gardens, the new cottages stood in a row along the dry rise. Their thatch was finished, though one door still lay across the carpenter's trestles. Merra led the woman with the churn towards the nearest hearth.
Jon sat his horse beside the field gate, his black coat dusty at the hem. He called the newcomers together and showed them the ground beyond the drainage ditch.
"Begin there with Gerren tomorrow. Keep the lower meadow for hay and grazing. The cattle need it as much as you need the grain."
One man kept a hand upon his son's shoulder until the boy remembered to bow. Jon sent them to their carts and rode uphill. Mairi followed the dry road round the hollow below the granary, hearing the cow behind her.
The Old Watch had gained straight streets and long roofs. Grass covered most of the enclosing bank. Ormund's masons raised permanent barrack walls beneath the saved roof frames, working there when rain kept them off the tower. As each range was finished, its plank walls went to stores and work sheds. Along the bank, joists projected from new posts, ready for the wallwalk.
Beside the nearest barrack, Ormund levered a newly delivered Cerwyn stone round to inspect its bed. The carter waited. "These will do. Take your tally to Abel," the mason told him. "And tell the quarryman I can use another load."
Below the fall, a timber race reached towards an unfinished wheelhouse. Jon had put the grinding stone on the first shaft while Woods prepared the heavier gear. Hand bellows still served the hearth. A broken paddle hung over the door after the first little wheel had shed it in flood.
Jon was still dismounting inside the gate when he asked Hewyn, "The western drain?"
"Running, my lord. That length of bank is nearly turfed." Hewyn pointed to the men pressing sods into the slope.
Jon glanced over. Two men were still grinning at a decanus whose knees had sunk deep into the bank. Beyond them, the newest recruits had begun arriving from the washing trough with their hair wet and their coats over their arms.
Mairi knew most of them by their measurements. Hewyn had spent four days trying the men who answered the bellman, and Jon had chosen sixty. She had fitted the last coat that morning. Now they stood in six small groups beneath the eaves while their new companions waited across the yard.
Jon took his cloak off and gave it to Mairi. "Bring them forward, Hewyn."
The recruits crossed the yard. One was still working his thumb into his sleeve when the man beside him pulled his hand down. Jon waited until they were still, then called the oath. Their answers came unevenly at first; by its end Mairi could hear the lads beneath the farthest eaves.
"Your centurions will give you your places," Jon told them. "You begin with their men at dawn."
Rennick led his ten beneath Second's sign. Forty spears and twenty swordsmen joined the six centuries, bringing each to sixty. The new bays smelled of pine; Woods had finished them during Hewyn's trials. A merchant's clock delivered the week before had paid the carpenter.
A tall lad stopped before a bed chest and looked back for the companion with whom he had travelled. Symon caught his eye and pointed to the empty place beside his own.
"Here. He is in Third."
The lad put his bundle down. Through the open door Mairi saw Symon show him the shelf for his bowl.
Heward named the men who had fallen behind. They would take Jon's short circuit and begin on lighter stones; Hewyn wanted them at the spear field after breakfast.
Mairi laid Jon's cloak over the nearest railing and went to loosen the first canvas bundle.
Six new tents waited in the inner yard. Mairi showed Mallador how the upper seam shed rain before Hewyn set the men to the ropes. Under the first roof she felt a corner patch pulling upon one row of stitches.
"I shall turn this before they take it out, my lord."
Jon tried it and asked for a broader patch clear of the eyelet. Rain came while the other five were being pitched. Mairi stayed beneath the first to watch for leaks; outside, Mallador pulled his hood over his ears and fetched the last bundle.
The cohort now camped out every third moon. Its newcomers would pitch beside men who remembered the wet pasture. Jon still walked the ground before the baggage came in, but each centurion now brought him a fault: Malcolm had moved a tent uphill; Gerralt kept his men at their posts until relieved. The new canvas gave them more room.
Darkness caught him at the Old Watch. He ate barley, onions, and mutton neck at Hewyn's long table and asked after the two men too ill to work. Then he went to the fresh grey waiting beneath the stable lean-to.
"Winterfell?" Mairi asked.
"The Black Yard first. William has a proof train losing one beat in four hundred. Father has the Cerwyn boundary hearing at dawn."
Arthur brought out Jon's gloves. "William sent word. He found the bent pin. You need not go back tonight."
Jon stopped with one hand in a glove. Beyond the gate, both roads lay dark. "He is certain?"
"He has it running again. He wants to watch it through the night."
"Then Winterfell." Jon mounted. Arthur brought his horse alongside, and they took the road up to the castle.
Their lamps climbed towards Winterfell. Mairi's assistants sewed broader patches over the tents' weak corners, teaching two men from each ten the stitches. The others took the dry bedding in.
* * *
Two mornings later Jon found applicants outside Woods's shed, bundles at their feet. They had failed Hewyn's infantry trial and stayed for the engines. Across the yard, the sixty chosen men carried turf to the bank.
"Have they been told?" Jon asked Henly.
"That there are twelve places, my lord. And that you will choose in three days."
Jon took off his coat. "You will serve under Henly and Emrick. There will be wages and an oath, as there are for the soldiers. The work will include hauling engines, setting them up and keeping them fit to use."
A broad-faced lad raised his hand a little, then lowered it.
"Speak."
"Would we have another trial for the swords afterwards, my lord?"
"You would be learning this trade. If you mean to leave it as soon as Hewyn has an empty place, go to him now."
The lad considered it, looking past Jon towards the bank. "I'd stay, my lord."
"Then put your bundle inside."
At Otho's windlass, the first pair drove their loaded sledge into an uneven plank. One pulled harder; the other looked beneath it. Jon packed the hollow and made them walk the route before trying again. Henly noted their names while Emrick changed the pairs.
One lad knelt to turn the sledge's leading rope clear of a splinter before it caught. Jon stopped him as he rose.
"Your name?"
"Kester, my lord."
"How old?"
"Seventeen."
Kester had dragged timber from wet ground where his father cut wood near Torrhen's Square. He could count a load, but not read. Jon sent him to coil rope with Emrick and called the broad-faced lad.
Merrit was eighteen. He had driven his uncle's cart for three years and been turned away from the swordsmen for his age. He looked at the windlass before answering Jon's questions.
"We back the cart away and lay fresh boards when a wheel sinks, my lord. My uncle has lost a horse trying to pull one out loaded."
"Show Emrick where you would lay them here."
Merrit hesitated over the drawing Otho offered. Jon turned it until the shed lay on the same side as the building beside them. The lad's brow cleared. He pointed to the soft ground at the end of the plank way.
On the second day Merrit found a bad crosspiece Henly had planted in the bridge frame and fetched a rasp. On the third, with partners changed and the model hidden, Kester recovered the arrangement by laying the pieces out. Others waited for instructions. Jon chose twelve, aged sixteen to nineteen; the rest received trial pay and a meal.
He heard their oaths in the tower yard. Abel entered them upon a separate roll and paid their first wages. There were still three hundred and sixty infantry. These twelve went with Henly and Emrick, six under each.
"Libritors," Jon told them when Merrit asked what Abel had written above their names.
Merrit repeated it carefully. Kester tried it under his breath while putting his silver away.
Their first lesson as sworn men began after dinner. Jon spread a drawing of a bolt-thrower upon the worktable. Beside it stood his unfinished model, its arms lying loose beside the frame. The lads leaned closer when he fitted them into place.
"Otho will lead the fabri who build these. You will learn to set them up, shoot them and keep them working. Henly and Emrick will teach you what you can mend yourselves. A broken frame goes back to the builders."
Kester looked from the small frame to the dimensions on the paper. "How big will it be, my lord?"
Jon had him hold one end of a cord and walked the other end along the bench. Merrit moved a stool out of his way. At the full length Kester looked back towards the door, measuring the passage with his eyes.
"We'll need the other doors open to get it through."
"Aye. Fetch the pieces. We shall begin with the carriage."
Letters with Cadan and axe practice would follow: Emrick must teach them to defend themselves and their engines. For now Jon knelt amongst all twelve, set the drawing within sight and put the first timber into Merrit's hands.
A sennight later Jon found Emrick teaching them with wooden axes behind the shed. The blades were stained blue at the edges. Kester had blue upon his sleeve, his neck and the end of his nose. Merrit had only a stripe across one knuckle and was pleased enough with himself to lose the next exchange while glancing at it.
After washing off the blue, they drew a worn windlass part with Otho and Jon, looking for its failure. Merrit glanced towards the sword centuries' shouting, then bent to his page as Henly laid a sound part beside the worn one.
* * *
Ten days later Jon climbed the southern gate tower with a mallet in his belt and pegs knocking against his knee. First and Third passed up floorboards. His left forearm ached from Arthur's sword lesson, after the new men's morning circuit.
Otho and Woods stood upon the first flooring. The paired towers faced east, joined above the gate leaves by a great beam. The gates had closed for moons; now each would have a fighting platform.
Jon and Otho took the planks Malcolm passed up. Woods bored the holes; Jon drove the pegs. Beneath them a shingle cart passed towards Second's hall, where men were stripping the temporary walls from beneath a propped roof.
Otho wanted those men for the wallwalk before the next rains.
"Hewyn can lend two tens," Jon told him. "Ask which. The others are marching with Martyn."
Otho had learned to ask; drill had emptied his work gangs too often.
At the wallwalk junction Jon held a brace while Otho fitted its foot. The stair rose clear between the inner posts.
"Show me how you set this out," Jon said.
Otho flattened his drawing beneath Jon's hand. Stair, supporting frame and their heights shared the sheet; he laid a rule along the bearer.
"The stair ends here, my lord. Two men can pass on the landing."
Jon looked down through the open framing. "Leave the inner rail loose until Woods has laid the last tread. We shall bring men up with shields before we finish it."
"Shall I bring the stair at the far corner into this drawing as well?"
"Make a sheet for each corner. Put the joining lengths of walk beside them, with the beams counted. Tomorrow you can go through the timber heap with Woods."
They pegged the brace and took Malcolm's next plank.
By dinner they could walk from the gate platform onto the first length of wallwalk. Its outer side still awaited the broad breastwork boards; Woods had a temporary rail across the open end. Jon went as far as it and looked back into the enclosure. The lanes met squarely below him. Water ran in a stone gutter beside the granary, beneath a little bridge made from three saved slabs. Beyond the roofs, the old tower rose taller than their work, its repaired corner pale against the weathered stone. Smoke from Ewan's hearth drifted above the alders outside the bank.
Malcolm brought bowls for Jon and Otho, then went for his own. Jon sat upon stacked boards and found bacon beneath the peas. Woods and Otho counted joists; below, the relieved men washed and fetched their shields. Drill began while he was still eating.
"Norren! Bring that last ten through together!"
Third's rear men had cut round stacked timber while the front went through the gate. Norren brought them back and slowed the turn. Heward waited for the last pair, then called the next ten. Jon returned to his broth. He liked hearing faults corrected without everyone looking up for his decision. A ship's captain could not settle every task on deck; his youngest officers needed that habit too.
* * *
When Mairi next brought liners, Robb's horse stood outside and his practice coat hung inside Jon's door, familiar from her last two visits. The brothers ate upon the bench, wet from washing. Jon's black hair clung to his neck, the silver lock damp against his cheek. His sleeve was torn; Robb had a red patch beneath his jaw.
Wylla came out of the guardroom carrying the old bed linen. She stopped beside Jon and took his wrist.
"Let me see."
He turned his arm for her. Beneath the tear, the skin was unbroken.
"Robb caught the seam."
"You caught my chin." Robb moved his jaw experimentally, then took another bite of bread.
Wylla let go. "There is a clean shirt on your bed. Put that one with the washing when you have finished."
Theon appeared from the horse line with a loaf under his arm. He had combed his black hair and fastened his cloak with a gold clasp; the dust on his boots had received less care. He unwrapped the loaf and set it between the brothers.
"There was cheese in the kitchen, too. I could not find anything to carry it in."
"Your mouth," Robb said.
"Some of it." Theon sat beside him and reached for Jon's knife.
Jon passed it hilt first. He shifted his bowl onto his knee to make room while Theon cut the loaf. Robb reached for the largest piece and found Theon's hand resting upon it.
"I carried it up the hill."
"You carried it from the kitchen," Robb said.
"And the kitchen is below us." Theon cut the piece in two and gave Robb the smaller half. Jon took the other before the dispute could grow.
Robb opened the cyvasse box he had brought back from Winterfell and began setting his ground behind the screen. Theon leaned over and had his hand pushed away.
"You play him afterwards," Robb said. Jon smiled and waited while they settled it.
Mairi left the liners beneath the eaves and joined Wylla at the beds. Fresh rushes lay beneath the turned mattresses; Arya's meadow flowers stood in the slit above Jon's chest. Outside, cyvasse pieces clicked and Robb told Theon to keep his advice to himself.
Mairi caught the clean sheet's far end as Robb asked to ride after tomorrow's lessons.
"Come here first," Jon said. "I must finish with Woods."
"I shall bring my bow."
"Bring mine," Theon said. "If Rodrik lets me go."
Wylla tucked the sheet beneath the mattress. "He eats better when they come," she said quietly.
Mairi looked through the doorway. Jon was reaching across Robb for another piece of bread.
* * *
A fortnight later Mairi was pinning a cover on the same bed when Jory brought Bran into the yard and passed him down to Jon. Sansa followed with a basket and a neat auburn braid. Arya was already off her pony, tugging a strap caught under the saddle flap, while a guard helped the nurse dismount.
"Lady Stark asks that they be home before supper," Jory said. "Bran has been telling me where to turn since the market."
"You went past it." Bran pointed towards the road.
"That was the cow lane."
"It came here."
Jon set him down. "You can show me from the stair. Come and see the room first."
"Which bed is yours?" Bran asked inside.
Jon lifted him onto it. Bran bounced once, making the straw crackle.
"Mine is softer."
"You may keep it." Jon pulled the folded blanket beneath his brother's legs so his boots would not touch Mairi's work.
Sansa opened her basket. Six small honey cakes lay beneath a cloth. One had lost a corner.
"Arya dropped it."
"Only that one." Arya took the damaged cake before anyone could assign it elsewhere.
"Did you bring them for Jon or for yourself?" Sansa asked.
Arya held it out to him. He took a bite and gave it back. Bran pushed another into his hand before he had swallowed.
Mairi gathered her pins; the children left little room to work. Wylla brought cups and sent her for the small jug. When Mairi returned, Sansa sat upon the clothes chest, feeling the wall.
"Does it get wet here?"
"It did before Woods mended the roof," Jon said.
"Where will people dance?" Sansa asked.
"In the hall, when the tables are cleared," Jon said. "You will have to tell me how much room you need." Sansa looked through the doorway again, judging it with considerably more interest.
Arya had gone to the doorway. "Where is the other room?"
"Up the stair."
"Show us."
"Finish the cake first." Jon caught Arya's loose crumbs. Mairi took her sewing outside; he followed with Bran and Arya, Sansa bringing the covered basket.
Beneath the eaves she stopped to look at the liner Mairi was sewing. "Is that for a coat?"
"A sleeping blanket, my lady. It goes inside the canvas."
Sansa touched the quilted edge with one finger, careful of the needle. Across the yard Arya had found the dressed timber figure used in the household's drill. She pulled at its black sleeve.
"Why has he got your cloak?"
"It is an old one." Jon came to stand beside her. "The men practise getting him onto a horse."
"He has no feet."
Jon drew the coat aside so she could see the padded wooden body beneath it.
Bran wanted to try lifting him. Jon took the weight from behind while the little boy clasped both arms round the padded middle. The figure rose clear of its resting blocks. Bran looked at Arya over its shoulder, red-faced with effort.
"Put him down gently," Jon said. They lowered it together, and Bran patted the wooden head as though he had rescued a living man.
From her sewing Mairi heard the children climbing with Jon and Jory. A carpenter passed with his mallet and wished the little ladies good day. Bran reached the rail and pointed to the lane.
"There. It does come here."
Jory looked where he meant. "Across the byre. You would have brought us through the cows."
Bran considered that route with evident satisfaction. Sansa had turned towards the window above the guardroom.
"Will you put glass there?"
"A shutter first," Jon answered. "That room is Wylla's."
"It had better be," Wylla called from below. "I have been looking at the same curtain for a year."
Sansa leaned against the rail. "May we see it when she moves in?"
"You may help her choose the curtain."
"I shall choose one she likes," Sansa said, with a glance at Arya, who had already begun suggesting colours.
By the time the light left Mairi's sewing, the horses were ready. Bran protested that he had missed the river; Jon promised to take him when the ground dried. Sansa gave him the last cake at the gate. Arya held his sleeve until he agreed to come to supper.
* * *
Back at the Old Watch after supper at Winterfell, Arthur found Jon beneath the tower window. A small fire burned in the hearth behind him. He had laid a history of Robert's war across the new rooms' account, a strip of black cloth marking his page.
"Who wrote this?" Jon asked.
Arthur read the heading. "A man who survived on the winning side."
"He gives the great lords a page apiece. Darry has three lines."
"Then he has missed a good deal." Arthur frowned at the page before pulling up the stool. Wylla was taking Aries up to bed; they waited until her voice had passed the stair before Arthur closed the door.
"Jonothor Darry was my sworn brother. He died at the Trident. Raymun lost three elder brothers in the war. Afterwards his house lost half its lands and most of what made it powerful."
"And Willem took Viserys and Daenerys away."
"He was master-at-arms in the Red Keep before the war. He could have bent the knee and asked to remain. He chose the children." Arthur smoothed the corner of the page.
Jon moved the cloth to Darry's three lines, his lips pressing together as he read their names again. "And Hoster Tully came out of it with the North and the Vale tied to Riverrun. He sold his daughters for a place beside the men who would rule."
"Catelyn had been promised to Brandon long before the war."
"And when Brandon died, Hoster made certain the new Lord of Winterfell took his place. Then he gave Lysa to a man old enough to be her grandfather. What did it matter what she wanted, so long as he could call the Lord of the Eyrie his son?"
Arthur glanced at him. "Ned needed the riverlords' swords."
"I know he did. Aerys had murdered his father and brother and was demanding his head. Hoster knew how badly he needed them too. That is what disgusts me." Jon pressed the cloth flat between the pages. "House Darry lost three sons keeping faith. Tully made sure his family gained from changing sides."
For a moment he looked towards the door. He had eaten at Catelyn's table that evening, with Hoster's grandchildren arguing over who would sit beside him.
He turned back to Arthur. "Who else stayed loyal?"
"Myles Mooton. He was Rhaegar's squire, a fine young knight. Robert killed him at Stoney Sept. His brother William holds Maidenpool now. Their house stood against its own liege for your father's house."
"Against Hoster Tully."
"Aye. As the Graftons stood against Jon Arryn at Gulltown. Lord Marq died there fighting Robert."
Jon found Gulltown in the book. He knew it through bills, hatch widths and carriage costs; the men who had fought in its streets had seldom entered those reckonings.
"Gerold rules there now."
"So Ethan's letters say. He has a city to hold, and Arryn is still his lord."
"Do you know whether he shares Marq's loyalties?"
"I do not know him well enough to say."
Jon left the book open. "Then I shall learn what happened before I decide who is useful."
Arthur named Velaryon ships, Celtigar wealth, Sharp Point and Sweetport Sound: sea houses long bound to Dragonstone, now under Robert's peace. Some he knew himself, others only through their fathers. He distinguished them carefully.
"They would have reason to prefer a Targaryen on Dragonstone," Jon said.
"They might. They have made their peace with Robert. You would be asking them to stake land, ships and sons upon Aemon Targaryen."
"I intend to give them more reason to do so than a dead prince's name."
Arthur glanced down at the account trapped beneath the history. "These rooms?"
"These rooms first. Then rooms enough on the island, ships that can carry what we make, and soldiers who are not sent home because some lord needs his harvest brought in." Jon freed the account and laid the two documents side by side. "A man who wants his lands back may serve me until I give them back. I need men who will still serve afterwards."
"The lord whose father died for yours may serve for more than land."
"I would rather find out while we are buying timber than while he holds my flank."
Arthur considered him. "That is fair. Do not forget to learn what he fears as well."
Jon turned to the Trident. The paragraph below Lewyn Martell's name gave the size of the Dornish contingent.
"Ten thousand." Jon's finger stopped beneath the number. He looked up at Arthur, a crease deepening between his brows. "Doran had more men than that."
"He did not empty Dorne."
"His sister was in King's Landing with her children. Aerys had them under guard. What was he saving the rest for?"
"Doran was angry with Rhaegar. He had cause."
"Then he could have cursed Rhaegar to his face after we won. Elia was still his sister." Jon pushed the book towards Arthur. "He sent enough men to claim he had done his duty and kept enough to survive losing. Tell me I am wrong."
Arthur left the book where it was. "I was not at his council. And Lewyn died at the Trident with men who had done all that was asked of them."
"I am speaking of Doran. He mourns her now. Where was that love when she needed every spear he could send?"
Arthur looked towards the shutter. Miller's Run sounded through the gap beneath it.
"I have asked myself that."
"And Mace Tyrell." Jon pulled the book back and turned the leaves until he found Storm's End. "Feasting beneath the walls while my father went to the Trident. How much of the Reach did he need to watch Stannis starve?"
"Reachmen fought at Ashford. Some joined Rhaegar."
"While Mace sat with the rest. Robert broke my father's chest with a warhammer, and that fat bastard was still at his table." Jon was leaning across the table now, colour high along his cheekbones. His voice had risen. He saw Arthur glance at the door and lowered it with an effort. "When Ned came, he knelt. All that strength, and he used it to keep himself comfortable until he knew whose boots to lick."
Arthur's mouth tightened. "Your father needed those men."
"Then say so. I am sick of hearing how much cause these men had to do so little."
"I just did."
Jon stopped. Arthur was looking directly at him now.
"You think I have made my peace with it because I can speak of it without shouting?"
"No." Jon glanced down. "No, Uncle."
He found the account of the sack. Tywin's arrival occupied most of the page; the children's deaths took a few lines near the bottom. His hand covered them.
"He waited too. Until he knew Rhaegar was dead. Then he found the courage to march."
Arthur read past Jon's fingers. "Aerys opened the gates to him."
"And he sent Clegane and Lorch to the children." Jon moved his hand. "You would not tell me all of it before."
Arthur's eyes left the page.
"Tell me now."
For a while Arthur said nothing. Then he drew the book away from Jon and shut it.
"Clegane killed Aegon in front of his mother. Smashed his head. Ned said there was scarcely anything left of his face." He swallowed. "Then he raped Elia and killed her. Lorch took Rhaenys. She had been stabbed over and over."
Jon knew. He had read it years before this life, and the worst of it had stayed with him when whole stretches of those books had faded. He had once been able to put the book down and go to bed. Now Arthur sat across from him, struggling to speak about a child he had held.
"How old was she?" Jon asked.
"Three."
Three. Jon had lived years beyond the age his sister would ever reach. He tried to imagine her standing beside Arthur's stool and found Arya there instead, demanding that he keep his promise to come to supper. He looked away, his jaw aching with the effort of keeping silent.
"Lorch kept stabbing her." The words came out thick. "A grown man with a blade, and he kept—"
"I heard you."
Arthur had risen. The stool scraped behind him, catching on a joint in the boards. He left it tilted against the table and went to the window.
Jon watched him grip the sill. He had wanted Arthur to share his anger. Now he wished he had stopped a sentence sooner.
"She used to pull at my cloak," Arthur said. "If I was speaking to someone and she wanted me. Never waited for me to finish."
He rubbed his face with one hand, hard enough to redden the skin beneath his eyes.
"Elia would tell her to leave me be. I told her I did not mind."
Jon could hear the water below them. He waited, but Arthur said no more.
"I am sorry."
Arthur shook his head. "You asked what happened. You ought to be able to ask me."
"Tywin had them wrapped in his own cloaks." Jon could hardly bear the thought of men arranging the bodies for presentation, folding cloth around what had been done. "He carried them into the throne room as if he had brought Robert a wedding gift. And Robert took them. He let those men live."
Arthur turned from the window. "He let them keep their spurs."
There was such loathing in his voice that Jon scarcely recognised it.
"And married Tywin's daughter," Jon said. "A king's marriage for that. Darry loses half his lands, and Tywin Lannister gets his blood upon the throne." He shoved the history away. It struck the account and sent a loose sheet sliding to the floor. "I will not have someone tell me years from now that I must forgive him because I need his gold. Or that Clegane and Lorch were overzealous servants. He chose them. He brought what was left of my brother and sister to Robert, and he took his reward."
Arthur came back to the table. He put the stool upright but remained standing beside it.
"They think House Targaryen is finished," Jon said. "That they can grow old with what they have done. We will give them their due, Uncle. I swear it."
"They should answer for it. And I want to stand beside you when they do." Arthur rested his hands upon the back of the stool. "But you will need allies to reach them. Men who can bring an army, or feed one. Some will have married their daughters into those houses. Others will have prospered under Robert. They may offer you the strength to take your throne and ask you to leave an old grievance buried."
"My brother's smashed head is an old grievance?"
"To them." Arthur held his gaze. "You know what it is to me. I am asking what you will do when punishing a man costs you the lord whose soldiers you need. You may have to compromise, however bitter it tastes."
"That is where you are wrong."
Jon rose. The loose sheet lay beside his boot. He picked it up, smoothed it upon the table and pushed it towards Arthur.
"You see this every day. You have watched me build it. Yet when we speak of a crown, you still look to the great lords for the armies and gold to win it."
"There is a great deal between this yard and a kingdom."
"I know how much work lies ahead. I intend to do it." Jon laid his hand upon the account. "The clocks paid for men I could never have raised from my lands. At Dragonstone I shall have a harbour to send my goods across the narrow sea. Every venture that succeeds will pay for the next. I have plans enough to keep us at work for years."
Arthur looked down at the figures.
"And an army large enough to face them?" he asked.
"Our centuries are a beginning. I will raise legions of my own. Men trained by my officers, paid from my purse, with homes on my lands. When I give an order, they will obey me. Mace Tyrell will have no harvest to call them away to, and no son to put over them."
Jon came around the table. He wanted Arthur to understand this as much as he had wanted him to share his anger.
"I will make alliances. Men who have kept faith with us will find that I can keep faith too. But I will build enough of my own strength to refuse a bargain. If a lord wants a murderer pardoned for the use of his swords, I mean to be able to send him home with them."
"Even if it costs you years?"
"Then it costs me years. They have made me live under another name. They will not decide what sort of king I become as well."
Arthur studied him. Jon could see that he was still troubled, but he no longer looked as though he were waiting for the anger to pass.
"I shall help you build it," he said.
"You already are." Jon's mouth curled into a slow, hard smile. Candlelight shone in his purple eyes beneath the fall of his white forelock. He kept his gaze fixed on Arthur. "But understand what we are building. The old way of Targaryen rule is done."
A log cracked in the hearth behind him.
"I will make the wealth that sustains my crown, and raise the legions that defend it. With my own hands, if I have to."
He drew the account back towards him.