Once Woods had finished the upper chambers, they carried the beds out of the guardroom. Jon and Arthur had adjoining rooms, with Wylla's below them and a narrow sleeping place for Aries beside hers. The boy brought his blanket up himself. Wylla took the trailing end before it caught on a splinter, but left him to carry the rest.
Jon set his books beside the new window. From the guardroom he had looked out upon boots and the legs of passing horses. Here he could see over the nearest barrack to the enclosing bank, where carpenters were fitting planks to the wallwalk. Beyond it the fields sloped towards Miller's Run. Smoke rose from the cottages on the farther rise, thinning in the damp air.
He stood there while Arthur brought the last of his things upstairs. Below, a soldier had stopped carrying a pail of mortar to watch a pair of men struggling with a shutter. Ormund called him back to work. Jon leaned out far enough to see the mason take hold of the pail himself and carry it beneath the barrack roof.
"He has been waiting for that stone all sennight," Jon said.
"It came while you were at Winterfell." Arthur set the book chest down. "Woods wants the men for the walk as well."
"I gave him two tens. He will have to finish with them. Ormund has half Second sleeping round his props."
Arthur came to the window. For a while they watched the pails passing into the hall. Fresh stone showed beneath its weathered roof; farther along, planks still closed the walls. A man emerged from the doorway carrying his bedding, shook white dust from it and looked indignantly towards the mason. Ormund pointed him out of the way of the next pail.
"Have them move their beds to the finished end while he works," Jon said. "I will speak to Rennick."
The conversation with Arthur had left him thinking of armies large enough to break the power of the great houses. Now he watched a man find somewhere to put his blanket. Three hundred and sixty infantry, every one of them needing a dry bed, good bread and his pay. He knew what their mouths cost him each moon. Raising another cohort would mean finding the same money again, and officers he could trust with it.
The thought scarcely diminished his pleasure in the view. He had ordered the first cord stretched across a slope full of bracken. There were men living along that line now.
After dinner he left Aries at his letters and returned upstairs. He had promised Ewan the late afternoon and left his work coat ready upon the chest. Hugin stood upon the sill, turning his head between Jon and the bread in his hand.
Jon gave him the last piece and drew his chair towards the window.
"Will you stay?" he asked Arthur. "I want to take him over the holding."
"As far as the river?"
"And round the bank. I have been looking at the place a wall at a time for a year." Jon glanced towards the long roof cutting off his view of the lower yard. "I should like to see the whole of it."
Arthur shut the door and brought his own chair within reach. Jon settled his feet upon the floor and rested his hands upon his knees. Hugin swallowed, wiped his beak against the sill and stepped out towards the light.
For a moment Jon felt the wood beneath his claws and the chair beneath his thighs together. The room fell away. He sprang from the sill, spread black wings and dropped past the tower wall. Air caught beneath him. A few hard beats took him above the stable, then higher, until the nearest roof no longer hid the street beyond it.
He turned over the bank.
The Old Watch lay below him, its long enclosure bending round at the corners. The ditch showed dark outside the turf, broken at the ways in. Within stood the crooked remains of the older fort, hemmed by the straight roads he had laid out around it. Barracks faced one another across the main approach. The crossing beside the old curtain lay open, with the store doors turned towards it and the smaller paths leading away between the buildings.
Jon banked again, unwilling to pass over it so quickly.
He knew those proportions. He had studied plans of Roman forts long before he had ever held a sword, following their streets with a finger, imagining what it would have been to arrive with a marching column and find a familiar place waiting for each part of it. Here the slope had forced him to alter a corner. The old curtain robbed him of ground he would have preferred to leave clear, and the tower stood where no Roman surveyor would have chosen to put it. Yet the arrangement he had worked towards was there beneath his wings. He could follow a century's road from the entrance to its hall without losing it behind another building.
He had spent so long with a cord in his hand, arguing over the width of a passage or moving a doorway on a drawing, that seeing it joined together caught him unprepared. He made another circuit. The dark rectangle turned slowly beneath him, smoke trailing across one corner, a wagon creeping along the road towards its gate.
His fort.
He wanted Arthur to see it from here. Looking from the window would give the knight only another piece of it, and Jon knew how little a drawing conveyed of the pleasure of finding his own plans occupied by men.
A gust lifted his left wing. He corrected too sharply, dropped and recovered with the tower sliding sideways past him. Hugin's alarm drove the thought of Arthur out of his head. Jon steadied the wings and took a lower course along the bank, attending to the air against his feathers until the bird settled.
The western turf had rooted well. Grass covered the slope where he remembered carrying sods with his arms shaking from the digging. The fence rose above it, with stretches of new walk showing pale along its inner face. Beyond the carpenters, bare joists waited for their boards. Woods had laid a stout pole across the last finished stretch to keep men from stepping out onto the unfinished work.
Jon settled upon a fence post near the gate. From here he could see the pegs in the new flooring above the entrance. His palm had blistered driving some of them. One carpenter knelt with a board across his thighs while another held its far end; they shifted it, tested the fit and lifted it away again. Woods shaved a little from the edge. This time it settled into place, and he reached for the pegs a younger hand was carrying in his cap. The lad tipped the cap too far. Woods caught it against his chest, laughing as the boy scrambled after the pegs that had escaped.
Jon recognised the laugh. The carpenter had not sounded like that when they first opened the tower and saw the fallen floors.
Below the gate platform, the wagon came in loaded with stone. Its wheels sank a little where the road had been churned beside the entrance, then found the firm centre. The driver brought it almost to Second's hall before a mason waved him towards a new heap beside the street. Two soldiers began lifting stones from the back.
Jon watched the pile grow. The earlier load had been set against the hall; this one spread beyond it. A stack of the old wall planks stood opposite. There had been room for two carts to pass along that stretch when he and Woods measured it. Now the wagon took up most of what remained.
From the field outside came Hewyn's command.
First's flag moved towards the gate. The men behind it came at a steady walk, shields upon their arms and practice spears upright. Second followed, with Rennick walking along the flank. Jon hopped to the end of the post and watched the head of the column pass beneath him.
They had been ragged enough upon this road once. Men stopped to pull at a boot or turned when somebody called from a window; the ranks behind found the delay by walking into them. Now the First came through with room between the files, the men keeping their pace even where a carter's horse tossed its head towards the moving spears. A decanus checked one new lad with a hand against his elbow. The lad corrected his place without bringing his neighbours to a halt.
Hewyn saw the wagon. His arm went up. The halt passed back along the First, then Rennick stopped Second clear of the entrance. Men near the middle turned their heads to see what had delayed them. Their decani put them straight again.
"Leave it standing," Hewyn called to the driver, who had begun gathering his reins. "We will come round you."
He sent the First through by tens. Each turned past the wagon and formed again beyond it, where Malcolm waited. One file came out crooked; Malcolm shifted it while the next ten cleared the wheels. Rennick held his men until Hewyn beckoned.
Jon remained on the post, pleased to have nothing to do with any of it. Hewyn spoke to the carter, Rennick brought his men through, and the men who had been unloading kept their hands upon the stone until the last shields passed. When the road was clear, they went back to work.
The two centuries formed across the yard. Hewyn had them turn, then move off towards the lower field again. Jon watched Second cross the open space beside the curtain without a man wandering towards his own hall. Their newer coats were easy to pick out among the faded wool. He was pleased by how quickly those wearing them found their places.
He would have the timber stack moved. Ormund could keep stone beside the wall he was raising; the rest must wait in the stores yard. The broad road was doing the work Jon had intended for it, and he wanted its whole width back.
He took wing as the men passed out. Beyond them, the sword centuries were working under Martyn. Jon heard a burst of shouting and turned towards it, settling in a tree above the practice rail.
A man from Sixth had slipped. Two companions stood over him with their shields forward while Fifth pressed close, their wooden swords striking the rims. Brus called the halt. Martyn made the fallen man stay where he was. The lad was trying to pull his elbow clear of a boot.
"Mind his head." Martyn tapped the upper edge of the nearest shield with his practice blade. "Get that over him. You too. Now give him room to get up."
They tried it again. This time the fallen man came to his feet behind the shields, red-faced and grinning when somebody from Fifth called to ask whether he meant to spend the afternoon down there. Brus silenced them and brought the lines together once more.
Heward watched from his garron a little farther uphill. He shifted in the saddle to ease his bad knee, then rode along the flank as Martyn started the next exchange. His whistle cut through the shouting when the rear rank crowded too close. Men in the rear were pushing shields into their companions' backs. At the front they had scarcely room to draw back their swords.
He stayed through the correction. From the ground he would have been watching a shield, a pair of feet, the man immediately before him. Here the whole line narrowed and widened beneath his gaze. He saw how an eager man pushed his companion aside, and how the shove travelled until somebody on the far end lost his place. Heward stopped them, made them step back and began again more slowly. The next advance held together.
There would be much to talk over at the officers' next evening lesson. Jon wanted to hear what Heward and Martyn had seen from their places beside the ranks. He would come back to this perch after working beside them and see whether the same faults appeared.
The garron cropped the grass when Heward let his reins fall. Hugin saw something move beneath its hoof. Jon had to turn him away from it, and the bird complained in his throat before lifting from the branch.
Beyond the training ground, the holding opened towards the water. Jon followed the road downhill. Its ditches carried the morning's rain away from the fields; at the ford a woman waited with two baskets while a pair of cattle crossed. A small boy stood in the path to keep them from turning into a garden. The last beast stopped to nose the woman's basket. The boy came to help her, pushing its muzzle away with both hands.
That path had been there when Jon first rode the bounds with Eddard's woodward. Men from the neighbouring holdings still brought their beasts down it. Jon had marked its turns for Woods before the first building went up. The woman could still get her baskets through without carrying them into the cattle's hooves.
From above he could see the worked land reaching farther from the old crofts than it had the previous summer. Uneven strips of cleared earth remained along the edges, with roots heaped where the men had dragged them out. The new cottages stood on dry ground above their gardens. One woman shook bedding from an open door; near another, children were carrying stones to an older girl building a ring round the hearth outside.
He came lower over Gerren's fields. The clover moved beneath him, dark and thick after the rain. Near the byre a man was mending the end of a hurdle while another held it upright. Jon recognised Gerren only when he landed upon the gate and the farmer turned his face towards the sound. Gerren scarcely glanced at him before bending to the broken weave again.
For a little while Jon watched his hands. There had been a time when he could have put his own beside them and worked until supper. He still expected that strength when he took up a tool, then found the short reach and narrow wrists of this body waiting for him. The two men lifted the hurdle. Gerren tested the mended part with his knee, nodded, and carried his end towards the byre.
Jon had asked these people to bring their families here. Looking down from the tower, he thought first of the fields he meant to reclaim and the harvests he would need. At the gate he found himself watching a child trail after her father, carrying the strip of willow he had dropped. She offered it to him as soon as he put the hurdle down. Gerren tucked it into his belt and let her take his free hand.
When Jon sailed south, they would still be here. He had told the new tenants so himself. He wanted to leave Eddard good farms, with cattle enough and roofs that held; men applying for his next cohort ought to be able to come here and ask what service to Lord Black had brought their neighbours.
Hugin stirred. The bird had been patient through a great many things of no interest to him. Jon let him drop into the grass, peck twice, and swallow what he found there. The hunger eased a little. He rose again and followed the run towards the fall.
Water flashed between the alders. The timber race led towards the unfinished wheelhouse, where the little wheel turned the grinding stone while the heavier work waited. Two men stood beneath the open side of the roof. One bent over the stone; the other held a piece of iron towards the light. Jon knew better than to try to judge its edge from a moving bird, but he watched the wheel complete another turn before passing on.
He would be down there with Ewan later, close enough to hear where the shaft complained. For now he followed the bank uphill, passing the drain's clear outfall and the men coming in from the fields with tools over their shoulders. The tower rose ahead. Its new window stood open, Arthur's figure dark within it.
Jon meant to return to the sill. Hugin turned towards the stable instead.
There was a scrap caught near the gutter. The sight of it brought a sharp, familiar desire, and Jon let the bird have his way. He spread his wings, caught the ridge with both feet and settled, feeling the rough timber beneath his claws. Below lay dark thatch, a strip of wet paving and the white linen Wylla had hung upon a line. He worked the scrap free, swallowed it and shook rainwater from his beak.
The stable's half-door moved. Jon turned his head towards it.
Something moved in the shadow below. For a moment Jon thought it a folded stocking dragged by the wind. Then it raised a blunt little muzzle. A puppy, brown along the back, with a pale patch at the throat and paws too broad for its thin body, stood upon a rolled saddlecloth.
Aries came through the door with a bowl hidden beneath his coat.
Instead of finishing his lines, Aries knelt behind the half-door. The puppy scrambled over his knees; he caught its belly, lowered it to the hidden bowl and steadied the rim while it ate.
Hugin clicked his beak. The boy looked up sharply. He pointed at the crow, whispered a fierce warning and drew the edge of the saddlecloth farther round the little nest. The puppy licked his thumb.
Jon returned to the chamber with the scrape of claws still in his hearing. Arthur's hand rested against the chair back until his eyes had settled upon the window. He flexed his fingers, feeling them close against the wool upon his knees.
"The old planks opposite Second need moving," he said. "They are narrowing the road. I will speak to Woods when I go down. Ormund can have one load of stone beside the hall at a time."
"Did the wagon get through?"
"The wagon did. Hewyn had to bring two centuries round it by tens." Jon accepted the water Arthur offered. "They managed well. I watched the swords too."
Arthur waited while he drank. Below the window Hugin called once from the stable roof. Jon glanced towards it, and Arthur followed his gaze.
"Something wrong?"
"I have found another mouth in my stable."
"A cat?"
"A dog. Aries has hidden it behind the loose half-door."
Jon set the cup down and rose. On the way through the yard he stopped Woods and told him where to put the timber. Rennick was outside Second's hall; Jon spoke to him about moving the beds, then went towards the stable with Arthur.
Aries met them outside the stable with his hands behind his back. The bowl had disappeared. Milk shone on one black cuff.
"Where are the lines I gave you?" Jon asked.
"Upstairs."
"Finished?"
"Nearly."
Jon looked past him towards the half-door. "Bring it out."
The boy's face changed. He put himself between Jon and the opening.
"I haven't got nothing."
A squeak came from behind him. Arthur looked at Jon, who waited.
Aries crouched at last and lifted the puppy. He held it high against his chest, one small hand cupping its hindquarters. Mud had dried along his own sleeve where it had slept.
"Where did you find it?"
"Behind the dyer's. In the nettles."
"Does it belong to him?"
"No. There were two. The other was dead."
"How long has this one been here?"
Aries looked towards the beam. "Three nights."
The puppy thrust its nose beneath his chin. His arms loosened just enough to let it turn. Jon had seen him wrench away from men who meant to help him; here he waited patiently while sharp little claws found a place upon his coat.
"Where have you put it when you go to bed?"
"With me."
"Wylla's clean bedding?"
"It was cold."
Jon knelt and held out two fingers. The puppy sniffed them, then buried its face against Aries again. A fresh scratch marked its ear. Its ribs could be felt without pressing.
"Have Gawen look at the place you found it. We will ask the dyer and the nearest houses whether someone lost a pup."
"You'll give it away."
"If it belongs to someone, we must find that out. If it does not, you may keep it."
Aries had begun shaking his head before Jon finished. He stopped. "Here?"
"Here. Not under the clean linen, and not on stolen milk. Elspeth will tell you what scraps you may have. Farlen will look at the ear and show you how to feed it."
"I know how."
"Then listen when he tells you what else it needs."
Aries lowered the squirming puppy. It circled his boots and followed him to the half-door, where he fetched the bowl and a cloth stained red from the dyer's shed.
Wylla arrived while they were clearing the nest. She took in the dog, the milk and the corner of her missing blanket without asking which child had done it.
"That is why you would not let Mairi make your bed."
Aries's chin came up. "He is staying."
"Then he can stay clean. And so can you." She pointed towards the pump. "His cloths first. Afterwards you will help me change the pallet."
"He needs me."
"He will have you after the washing. Jon can hold him that long."
Aries looked at his lord before surrendering the puppy. It wriggled against Jon's hands, whining after the red head. Jon moved it to the crook of his elbow, where it quieted, though it kept its nose towards the pump.
Farlen came that afternoon. No one at the dyer's claimed the litter. He brought a little strap and spoke to Aries about warm shelter, clean water and keeping the pup clear of cart wheels. The boy listened to every word. When a larger yard dog thrust its head through the door, Aries put himself between it and the puppy, spoke once, and waited. The dog backed away without showing its teeth.
"He has always been good with the strays," Gawen said quietly. "They come nearer him than they do me."
Jon watched Aries fit the strap with Farlen's help. The boy had noticed it catching the scratched ear and turned the fastening before the kennelman reached to do the same. There was nothing in that which could not be learned by watching dogs closely. Jon kept watching nevertheless.
"What will you call him?" he asked.
"Patch." Aries put one finger beneath the pale mark at the puppy's throat. The small mouth caught it and began to suck. He let the dog have it a moment before gently working it free.
By evening Patch had a dry box outside the hot kitchen and a bed beside Aries's pallet. Wylla made the boy finish his lines. He spoiled the last letter when the puppy chewed his bootlace, then asked to try again. Jon heard the correction before going to Ewan, who had kept the piece for him. Rain was running from the forge roof when they finished.
Back at the tower, Hugin landed upon the sill with something dead in his beak and shook rain over Jon's supper.
Wylla looked from the crow to the bowl. "That one is yours now," she told Hugin.
She took the bowl. Hugin hopped after it, the three white feathers showing in his left wing. Wylla shut the inner shutter in his face.
From outside came a hoarse, aggrieved "Hold."
Arthur laughed.
Wylla brought fresh broth and barley bread. Outside, the works men splashed towards their halls; Elspeth was arguing about a missing pot. New timber, wet wool and onions scented the tower. Jon's roof had held through two storms. He had returned the basin to the kitchen moons ago.
"There were three waiting when you came home," Arthur said.
"The young cock from the river."
"He follows the others farther now."
Jon tore the bread. "He sat on my hand yesterday."
The young bird had arrived earlier that second year, thin and noisy, begging from Hugin until he was chased off. Munin tolerated him at a distance. With food left on the sill he slowly lost his fear of Jon. Anyone might see that. What happened with Arthur watching was harder to explain.
After supper Wylla took away the dishes and warned them against letting the fire die. Jon waited until her footsteps reached the room below. Arthur moved his chair beside the bed.
Outside, the young crow had taken shelter beneath a stone lip. Water dripped past his head. Jon could feel his irritation as faintly as a prickle beneath his own hair. He leaned back against the bolster and closed his eyes.
The cold came first. Then stone beneath his feet, rough enough for claws to grip; his belly settled over them, keeping them warm. The rain seemed louder here, each drop on the sill a sharp, separate sound. Hugin perched farther along beneath the eaves, his head tucked backwards into his feathers. At the lower window Munin worried something pale between her toes.
The young crow's head turned. Jon recognised a bucket carrier's coat below, but scarcely saw the face beneath his hood. Rain gleamed between the barracks and upon the gate's planked platform. Beyond the bank, three lanterns moved through the alders. He had left Ewan and Bennard there; from here he could not tell which lights were theirs.
A familiar voice spoke in the room behind him. Jon withdrew. The stone vanished from beneath his feet; his heels pressed into the mattress. He opened his eyes to Arthur watching him over the guttering candle.
"I heard you."
"I only said your name."
"That was enough." Jon rubbed his warm fingers. Months of practice let him keep some feeling in his own hands, even at the window. He still entered one bird at a time, returning before trying another.
Arthur pushed the cup into his hand. "Will you try the hen?"
"Tomorrow. She has found something worth keeping."
He drank, then went to the shutter. Munin flew up from the lower window with the pale end of a bone spoon. Jon held out his hand; she dodged it and flew towards the kitchen roof.
"Elspeth will blame me," he said.
"She will be right."
Jon shut the shutter and drew the curtain. Arthur went to his own chamber only after the fire had caught again. Jon lay listening to the rain until the sound became the hiss of arrows passing through leaves.
* * *
The archers wore grey.
White bows rose above the grass, facing straw butts dark at the centre. Cloaks lay folded behind the archers, spare strings wrapped against damp. One man inspected a feather; another rubbed knuckles thickened by years at the string. A boy gathered spent shafts and ran clear at the master's call.
Jon knew the pale wood. A crow moved along the bank, picking between the spent shafts. He followed it towards the elm.
Bloodraven waited beneath the elm. His white hair lay against the weirwood bow at his shoulder; his one red eye followed Jon. When Jon looked back at the bank, the crow was gone.
"Have you forgotten archery?" he asked.
Jon looked back at the butts. "I have been occupied."
"So you have told me." Bloodraven held the bow where Jon could see the string. "How often do you take one of these in your hands?"
"Less often than I should."
"My Raven's Teeth would have welcomed an enemy who made the same choice."
At an order the bows bent. Strings sounded together, then arrows struck. The captain walked behind the reloading men, touching an elbow, speaking quietly. Their next flight landed closer.
"I remember what your archers did at Redgrass," Jon said.
"You remember the killing. This occupied more of their lives."
Bloodraven held out the bow. Jon took it. The grip fitted a larger hand than his, and he could not draw it to his cheek. He stopped before the effort spoiled his stance.
"Too strong."
"At present."
Jon handed it back. "How long could they keep that pace?"
"Watch."
An archer lowered his bow and shook his shoulder. At his captain's word he went to the rear; another stepped into the gap with an arrow ready and loosed with the next flight.
"And you?" Bloodraven asked.
"I said I had neglected it. I will remedy that."
"Yet you count the turns of every wheel you make."
"Is that what you brought me here to tell me?"
The archers blurred. Sunlight narrowed to a strip between red walls, and the elm's shade became a gatehouse. Gold cloaks closed around a silver-haired man. He had a paper in his hand. One guard struck it aside; another caught him above the elbow. Jon heard him demand the Lord Hand. His accent was strange, but the name was plain.
Aenys Blackfyre.
Jon turned. Bloodraven stood beside him in a dark cloak, older now, his mouth a thin line. The captive's boots scraped the cobbles as the guards took him away.
"You gave him safe conduct."
"I did."
"He came to put his claim before the council. You had his head instead."
"Another Blackfyre king would have meant another war."
"You could have opposed him before the lords. You chose to promise his safety because that brought him within reach."
"And Aegon sent me to the Wall for it."
The gate vanished. Snow blew between black pines. Jon could smell horses, old leather and men sleeping too many nights in wet clothes. A column passed beneath the trees. Pale bows stood above rolled bedding; grey cloaks had been exchanged for black. Some of the archers were old enough to remember the practice field. They had followed their lord into banishment.
For a moment Jon saw his own men on that road: Tomas beside the packhorses, Hewyn counting those who passed.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
Bloodraven watched the black-cloaked men. "There was no Blackfyre king."
"That is not what I asked."
The wind drove snow into Jon's face. He lifted an arm and found a branch there, white beneath his sleeve. Roots had begun to press through the frozen ground.
"You know these men too readily," Bloodraven said. "Whose histories have taught you to question mine?"
"You brought me here and showed me these men." Jon pulled his arm free of the white branch. "Shall we finish with your archers?"
Jon met his gaze. He knelt with Eddard before the heart tree for his father and his people. In another life he had settled quarrels without trusting gods; a sorcerer whose trees answered him would not command that trust.
"You learn to see through three birds," Bloodraven said. "You might learn more."
"Then teach me. Speak plainly for once."
The old man looked towards the men disappearing among the pines. "Attend to the one you enter. You bring the others with you in your thoughts." Above the road a young crow beat towards an alder. Jon knew the crooked perch beneath it; he had sought Munin's roof while looking through that bird before falling asleep. "That one knows its own roost."
Jon watched the bird settle. Its hunger and the feel of rain upon its back came with it, faint but familiar. Bloodraven had followed his gaze to the alder. Jon could not tell how much else the old man had seen.
"How often are you there?"
"When there is an eye to look through." Bloodraven turned from the alder. "I have need of you in the North. The dead are stirring. You would spend the realm upon another throne."
"The Others," Jon said. Snow filled the road behind the last black cloak. Something moved between the trees, too far away for a face.
"You know the name."
"Old Nan knows it. So does every northman who has sat through one of her winter tales."
"Her tales will not hold them. Nor will a crown."
"Men will. Men with food, weapons and somewhere to stand." Jon faced him. "I mean to rule, and to have those things ready."
"A war between Robert and Rhaegar's son would give the dead another army. Your claim can wait."
Bloodraven spoke as if Robert's peace would last without Jon. Varys had a claimant; Littlefinger prospered by turning lords against each other. Ned had trusted him, once, in the story Jon knew. Cersei had put Jaime's children into Robert's succession. Arthur lived, other events had changed, yet Robert's death would still expose it. Quietly keeping Dragonstone would leave the realm to men already preparing to tear it apart.
"The realm has fought two wars within my lifetime," he said. "I did not begin either. Leave Robert his throne and you still have lords who will take their chances when he dies."
"And you would take yours."
"Yes. I will not put my family back into his hands. Nor will I leave the Watch to beg at one lord's table after another. I mean to have a Crown strong enough to send what it needs."
"The lords will fight you for that strength."
"Some will. I shall need to win." Jon looked down the empty road. "You want me to fight the Others. I intend to. My family will have a future in the realm we save."
Bloodraven's face seemed to recede into the pale wood. "Will you set the crown aside if I ask it?"
"No."
The silence lasted until Jon could hear rain striking the shutter beside his bed. He waited, resisting the pull towards waking. At last the old man said, "We will speak of this again."
"I expect we shall." Jon felt his own fingers close upon the blanket. The pines faded, and he opened his eyes to the dark rafters of his chamber.
* * *
Arthur sat beside the window while Jon dressed. The door was shut; below them, Heward's whistle called the household from their beds. Jon spoke of the archers he had watched in the night.
"Bloodraven again?" Arthur asked.
"Aye. One of them lowered his bow and shook out his shoulder. The captain sent him to the rear and brought another through before the next flight. Their line never broke."
"What did you make of that?"
"I want officers who notice when their best men have had enough, and men trained to take their places."
"And what else were you shown?"
Jon shook his head. "I am still thinking about it." Arthur did not press him.
"And the bows?"
"I shall ask Harwin to look at my shooting." Jon drew his belt through the buckle. "And I shall need a body of archers of my own. Men who train together, with officers who know how to use them."
"You mean to raise them now?" Arthur asked.
"Not yet. The men already sworn to me come first."
Arthur lifted Jon's cloak from the chair and handed it to him.
Hugin followed them down by stair window, wall and roof. The young cock stayed at the tower. Munin came for breakfast and stole a strip of skin from Arthur's bacon.
After the run and sword lesson, Jon rode to Winterfell and sent for his bow. He had outgrown its draw. Harwin found a stronger one in the bow room and watched him try it before they went to the butts. Jon loosed six shafts while the castle's pages finished their riding turns. Five struck the straw. The sixth cut low into the turf.
"You are holding too long," Harwin said. "By the last, your arm had begun to shake."
Jon lowered the bow. "Show me."
Harwin took his place and drew in one smooth movement. The string touched his cheek; he loosed. Jon watched the hand afterwards as closely as he watched the shaft. When Harwin returned the bow, he drew again and let the arrow go before his shoulder tightened. It struck the lower painted ring.
Theon arrived with Robb as they were fetching the shafts. He looked at Jon's butt and chose the one farther away.
"How charitable of you," Robb said.
"He has had the nearer one all afternoon."
Theon's first arrow struck near the centre. His second came so close beside it that Jon heard wood scrape wood. Theon looked back with a grin.
Jon held out his last shaft. "Your bow, then."
Theon let him try it. The heavier draw brought him up short. He gave it back without loosing and took his own from Harwin.
"In time," he said.
Robb divided the gathered arrows, six each. They shot until the riders had left and the painted rings dimmed. Before going inside, Jon asked Harwin for another hour later in the sennight.
Hugin rode home on Bucephalus's saddle behind Jon, his claws hooked into the rolled cloak. The stallion turned an ear towards the scratching, then settled. Munin flew ahead from tree to tree. When they reached the tower she was already upon the sill, waiting for supper.