Two years after his return from the war, Eddard found Benjen below the earth before dawn. One lamp burned at Lyanna's feet. The masons had not yet carved her face. Eddard had sent the last clay study back and kept putting off the summons to inspect its replacement. Here there was only the plain lid, the iron sword and the grey dust beginning to gather in its letters. Benjen sat beside it with a black cloak over one knee. He was trying to drive a silver wolf clasp through wool too thick for the pin. Each hard shove bent it farther.
"You are bending it," Eddard said.
"It has yet to survive this cloak," Benjen replied. "Perhaps black brothers have no use for silver wolves after all."
Benjen's hands stopped. "Have you come to ask me to stay again?"
"I came to ask you to wait. A moon, at least."
"And then another."
Eddard sat upon the step beside him. Benjen moved the cloak clear of the damp stone, but would not look at him.
"You have scarcely left her tomb these past three days," Eddard said. "Do you think I cannot see why you are going?"
The lamp flame bent in a draught. Benjen watched it until Eddard reached to turn the wick down.
"I helped her," Benjen said. "She asked me to bring her mare, and I did. I could have refused. I could have told someone."
Eddard's hand stopped upon the lamp.
"She trusted me to keep quiet. I was pleased that she had asked me instead of Brandon." Benjen looked at the uncarved stone. "I thought I was helping her."
Eddard had suspected. "You knew she meant to meet Rhaegar?"
"I knew she meant to meet him." Benjen looked up sharply. "Do not give me more knowledge than I had. I thought she would be back by sunrise. Brandon left Winterfell whenever the mood took him. Father cursed, Mother wept, and Brandon always came back laughing. Why should Lyanna not?"
"Aerys was hunting the Knight of the Laughing Tree," Eddard said. "Did you know that?"
"No. Nor what had happened to her escort. She told me none of that." Benjen drew a breath. "Did she curse me?"
"No."
"Did she speak of me?"
Eddard could not give him the answer he wanted. "She was dying, Ben. She asked me to take her home."
Benjen lowered his head. Eddard put a hand upon his shoulder and left it there.
Benjen looked at the black wool. "You still want me to stay."
"I want you at Winterfell. Robb knows your step. Jon speaks your name whenever the gate opens. I have lost a father, a brother and a sister. I would keep the brother left to me."
"I asked your leave before witnesses."
"And you have not sworn at the Wall. Stay."
Benjen looked up. For a moment Eddard thought he might agree. Then he shook his head. "If I stay now, we shall have this quarrel every winter."
"There are lands I could give you. A household. You need not remain the youngest son in my hall."
"I do not want a hall."
The refusal hurt more for being quiet. Eddard kept his hand upon his brother's shoulder until Benjen bent to take up the cloak.
"The Wall will not mend what happened."
"I know." Benjen fastened the wolf clasp. It hung crooked on his shoulder. "But they need men."
Eddard straightened the clasp for him. Neither spoke while he did it.
Benjen took one last look at the uncarved tomb and walked out beneath the stone gaze of their dead.
* * *
Benjen's spare boots hung with the soles outward behind a grey gelding's saddle. A black roll of blankets crossed the cantle. One packhorse carried oats, an oiled cloak and a wicker raven cage that smelled of wet feathers and old droppings. Jon watched the preparations from the nursery window. He had packed for enough departures to recognise which things a man kept within reach and which he hoped not to need. He could find no quarrel with Hullen's work. It was Benjen's reason for going that he could not accept.
Rain silvered the yard. Wylla carried Jon down beneath her green wool mantle, holding the edge closed with her teeth while he worked one arm into his coat. The coat was black because black dye hid mud until it dried; the left cuff had already faded brown. His thumb missed the horn toggle twice. Cold made the cord stiff and his hand stiffer. He held both still for Wylla rather than waste a third attempt.
"There," she said, fastening him in three quick movements and pulling up the hood. "Keep those hands inside until we reach the gallery."
Robb stood beneath the gallery with one mitten in Catelyn's hand and one boot planted proudly in a puddle. Mud marked his cheek. Every horse led past received the same claim.
"Mine," Robb declared, pointing at Benjen's gelding.
Catelyn followed his finger. "That is Benjen's horse, Robb."
"My horse. Benjen can have a turn." Benjen came beneath the gallery and swept him up.
"A generous offer," Benjen said.
"Mind his head," Catelyn said as Benjen swung him round.
Benjen tucked Robb securely against his shoulder. "I have him, my lady."
Benjen kissed Robb's muddy cheek and mittened hand, then gave him back. Jon waited until his uncle crouched before him. The black cloak smelled of horse sweat, hearth smoke and the pine soap used in Winterfell's lower yard. Jon knew Castle Black lay far north along a road that turned to mud in rain and hard ridges when dry. He knew the order would dwindle. He knew what cold waited beyond the Wall, though altered years had loosened dates and names from their places. The packs before him offered facts memory could not.
"You will write?" Jon asked.
"When I reach Castle Black."
"Before that. From the Gift."
Benjen crouched lower, bringing the silver clasp level with Jon's eyes. "From the Gift as well."
Jon touched the bent silver wolf. He had shortened his arguments to what his mouth could reliably say. Eddard had already offered Benjen land and a household; repeating that offer would gain nothing. He would ask for letters, and make the promise specific enough that his uncle might keep it.
"You could stay."
"Your father asked me."
"I am asking."
Benjen drew off his glove. His bare hand enclosed Jon's cold fingers. "I know."
Jon stared at their joined hands. He would not ask again before the whole yard.
"Tell me before you go beyond the Wall."
"If I can send a raven, I will. They must teach me the woods first. I doubt the Lord Commander means to lose me on my first day."
"And if you are hurt, someone else must write."
The faint smile left Benjen's face. "Aye. I will tell them."
Jon had sent men away with promises to write to their families. At sea, a letter might wait weeks for a port, and by the time it reached home the worry had already done its work. He remembered his wife keeping the last one beside the telephone. Benjen had ravens. Jon meant him to use them.
"Remember the ravens," Jon said.
"I will." Benjen squeezed his hand before rising. Arthur gripped his forearm.
"Come back when they can spare you," Arthur said. "The boys will want to show you what they have learnt."
"Keep swords from both boys until I am too far north to hear the noise," Benjen replied.
The riders mounted. Leather creaked. Benjen gathered his reins, tested the near stirrup and settled the black wool clear of the saddle skirts. Rain had darkened the gelding's neck, and vapour rose from its nostrils. The horse mouthed the bit and shifted from the puddle beneath him, iron shoes scraping once across wet stone. Benjen leaned down to check the girth himself. Hullen checked the packhorse one final time.
Hullen gave the gelding's shoulder a last slap. "Change to the spare if he favours that foot again."
"I heard you the first two times," Benjen said. "You sound like my nephew."
Eddard put one hand upon his brother's boot. "Write. For me as well as the boys."
The gate opened. Three black brothers passed under the arch. Benjen followed and looked back once. Then stone swallowed him.
Jon's body leaned after the vanished horse. Every muscle urged pursuit although the road, four mounted men and his own short legs made pursuit useless. He planted both boots in the mud and kept them there. Breath came wrong. He counted it until the next one came more cleanly.
Robb pulled free of Catelyn and started towards the gate. Jon caught his mitten.
"He is gone," Jon said.
"Benjen back," Robb insisted.
"Not today." The words broke on the last sound. Jon hated that, but repeated them. "Not today."
Arthur knelt in the mud and held out his arms. "Come here, both of you."
Jon's face was wet before he reached him. He kept Robb's mitten in his hand while Jory ordered the gate closed.
At supper the empty chair was worse than the road. Benjen had always come late, smelling of wet leather, to steal crisp skin from the capon and teach Robb to beat a spoon upon the board. That night a servant removed his unused cup. Steam rose from beef broth thick with leeks and barley. Brown loaves were broken, hot enough to sting the fingers. Every opening of the hall door turned Jon's head once. Each time he made himself return to the bowl.
Eddard moved Jon's stool nearer his own chair. "Eat a little."
Jon swallowed, though his throat hurt. "You could have made him stay."
"I could."
"Why did you not?"
Eddard watched the empty place. "Because he asked me to let him go."
Jon disliked the answer. In another life he had given orders men hated and expected them obeyed. Benjen might have hated Eddard for a season; at least he would have been here. He took another spoonful rather than say it.
Under the table Robb pressed his mitten against Jon's knee. He still wore it on the hand Benjen had kissed. Jon held it until the bowl was empty.
That night he woke listening for boots that would not cross the passage. He lay still until certainty and expectation had quarrelled themselves empty, then called Arthur's name. The knight appeared with Dawn in one hand and his belt unlaced.
"Take me to Benjen's chamber," Jon said.
"He is not there."
"I know." Jon pushed the blanket away. "Take me."
Arthur set Dawn aside, wrapped the trailing blanket around him and carried him down one passage. Fresh rushes showed a pale square where Benjen's sea chest had stood. His bed had been stripped, and the hearth was cold. Jon looked from one to the other.
"Will Poole give his room to someone else?"
"When there are guests to house, perhaps."
"There are other rooms."
Arthur settled him higher against his shoulder. "Benjen will not find himself turned away from the gate."
"He should not have to ask."
Eddard came with a lamp and a wolfskin robe flung over his nightshirt. He stopped in the doorway. "There will be a room for him whenever he comes home."
Jon looked up at him. "When?"
"I do not know." Eddard set the lamp down and lifted him. "We shall hear from him."
Against his shoulder Jon caught the smell of sleep, lamp smoke and cold air. He remembered his grown daughter embracing him in a hallway, her grey braid brushing his arm while she complained that he was getting thin. He had been the older one then. Accepting care from Eddard took more getting used to than giving it had, but he held him all the same.
"I have you," Eddard murmured.
Jon held him until the lamplight blurred. Eddard did not ask whether he was crying.
Wylla waited at the nursery door. She took him from Eddard, settled his face against the familiar hollow beneath her throat, and rubbed his back while the men stood uncertainly in the passage.
"Go to bed," she told them softly. "I have him."
She lay beside Jon until his breathing slowed. Her loosened brown braid lay across the coverlet, close enough for him to catch its end. When he woke once more, her hand was still beneath his cheek, the rough seam at the base of her thumb as familiar as the pillow.
* * *
A hurried line from a holdfast in the Gift reached them first, as Benjen had promised. His longer letter came from Castle Black before Poole cleared the chamber. The bird arrived drenched and furious. It bit the rookery boy through his glove, scattered three cups from Luwin's table and refused to yield its message until bribed with a strip of mutton. Eddard brought the letter to the solar, where Catelyn made room for both boys at the table. Robb wanted the wet feather stuck to the wax. Jon wanted the road accounted for.
Jon leaned over the table as Eddard broke the wax. "Read it."
Arthur turned from the window to listen. Eddard glanced at Luwin, who glanced at Jon. "Benjen reached Castle Black. His gelding went lame near the Gift, so a crofter's son now owns an excellent horse with a doubtful leg."
Robb frowned. "My grey horse? Bring him back."
"Benjen assures you the grey was never yours."
"Mine," Robb insisted.
"He writes that the Wall is greater than songs make it and colder than stone has any right to be in summer. His brothers laughed at the silver clasp, so he traded it for a plain black toggle and two pairs of wool hose."
Eddard went quiet over the next lines. His thumb covered part of a sentence. Jon watched it, but did not ask.
"For Robb," Eddard read at last. "Your horses remain safe, though I make no pledge concerning bears. For Jon: I have not forgotten your face. Do not learn too many words before I return, or I shall have to begin our acquaintance again."
"He wrote that?" Jon asked.
Eddard turned the page so he could see the cramped lines, though he could not yet read them. Jon touched the place his father showed him.
Robb succeeded in stealing the feather. He sniffed it, made a face and offered it to Jon. Two barbs had split in the rain. Jon closed his fist around the black shaft anyway.
After Wylla took the boys, Catelyn asked, "What did Benjen write for you?"
Arthur remained by the window. Eddard folded the page. "He asks whether I am angry with him."
"Are you?" Catelyn asked.
"A little."
"Then tell him that. He will know if you pretend otherwise."
Eddard found a clean sheet. For a while the quill hovered above it. "He should be here."
Catelyn took the sealing wax from beneath his elbow and laid it where he would not knock it to the floor. "Write, Ned."
He wrote that the boys asked for Benjen every day and that Hullen wanted the horse brought back if its leg mended. He went on to ask about the men who had taken his brother north, the food at Castle Black and whether the new boots had held against the cold. At the bottom, before he could find another question to ask, he wrote that he missed him.
* * *
Later that year the nursery cups caused more talk than the boxes had. Wylla counted them into a basket each morning before the children went down: one for Robb, one for Jon, one for herself. When a kitchen girl brought back only two, Jon pointed at the empty place beside the handle.
"One gone."
"Mistress Wylla's is below," the girl said.
He nodded and went back to fitting a wooden wheel onto its peg. The girl remained beside the basket.
"How did he know?" she asked Nan.
"There were three yesterday."
"My brother is four and still takes what he is given."
Jon heard her. He could have explained the missing cup in fewer words than she had spent wondering at it, but his tongue had trouble with longer sentences when he was tired. He pushed the wheel against the peg. It caught crookedly. A small hand was a maddening tool for a man who remembered repairing a pump in failing light.
Robb wanted the cart. Jon held it away from him until he had turned the wheel straight, then let him drag it across the floor. Robb made the noise of a horse. Jon watched the wheel wobble and wished for a washer.
"He hardly plays," the kitchen girl murmured.
"He is mending what your young lord will break," Nan said.
A second servant came for the linen. She bent towards the first, watching Jon through the corner of her eye. "My aunt says those pale hairs—"
"Your aunt has never washed his hair," Wylla said from the door. "I have. It tangles like any other boy's."
Both women straightened. Arthur had come in behind her. He looked from one to the other, and the girl with the linen pulled the bundle close against her breast.
"You have work elsewhere," he said.
The first girl curtsied to him. Neither looked at Jon as they left.
Arthur took a breath through his nose. "They might remember whose room they are in."
"They will remember what they are meant to be doing in it," Wylla answered. She knelt beside Jon and took the peg from his reddened fingers. "Let me see."
The pressure eased when he opened his hand. She rubbed the sore place with her thumb, then set the cart upon the table where Robb could not run it into his shin.
Jon had heard adults discussing clever children before. Usually they forgot the child could hear them. He had disliked it then, standing at the other end of the room with a daughter who wanted to go home. He disliked it more from the floor.
"Want water," he said.
Wylla kissed his temple and fetched it. She did not ask him to count the cups again for Arthur. The knight crouched to examine the wheel instead, turning it slowly while Robb explained where the horse ought to go.
* * *
Arthur began with feet. He drew a charcoal line across unused boards in the covered yard and made Jon walk heel to toe. Jon managed five steps, hurried the sixth, and sat down hard.
"Again," Arthur said. "This time shorten the fifth step before your ankle turns beneath you."
Robb, waiting beside the line, flung himself onto a pile of straw and announced, "Better."
"You were not falling until you threw yourself into the straw," Arthur told Robb.
"It did not hurt," Robb said, patting the straw.
Jon smiled and went back to the line. "Can I have a sword now?" Robb asked.
"When you can stop because I call, turn without tangling your own feet and fall without breaking a wrist."
"Tomorrow?" Robb asked.
"Show me that you can stop today," Arthur said.
The first pony came sooner. Hullen led out a shaggy brown gelding called Moth, old enough to distrust every new contrivance and short enough for Catelyn to tolerate. Jon smelled warm hide, hay and the sharp leather oil upon the saddle. He had been looking forward to this since waking. He put two fingers beneath the girth, followed the leather until he found no twist, and looked into Moth's mouth while Hullen showed him the mild iron bit.
"What makes him shy?" Jon asked.
"Blue cloth in wind, pigs beneath a fence and boys who kick," Hullen said.
Jon looked for blue cloth before Arthur lifted him. His knees scarcely reached beneath the saddle flaps. Moth waited while Hullen shortened the leathers, then tried to bite the end of the lead.
Eddard came into the yard. "Already?"
"He has asked every morning for a fortnight," Arthur said. "Hullen has the lead."
Eddard ran a hand over the old pony's neck. "A walk, then."
Jon tried to settle his hips to Moth's rolling gait. His mind knew the motion; his legs gripped against it. Hullen reached up and loosened one knee with two fingers.
"Let him carry you."
Moth stopped to bite at a post. Hullen pulled his head away. "Not the timber."
Wylla, crossing the yard with warm milk, laughed. "Perhaps he is still hungry."
"He is always hungry," Hullen said. "Like the other one." Robb looked up from the apple he had been saving for Moth and took a guilty bite.
By the second circuit Jon's thighs burned. He asked Hullen to stop and found his knees trembling when the groom lifted him down.
"Here," he said, touching the rubbed place beside his knee.
Hullen checked the saddle leather, then the boy's leg. "Tomorrow we see how you walk."
Wylla put warm milk into Jon's hands and tucked her cloak around him. Honey clung to the rim. Eddard sat on the mounting block beside him while Robb begged for his turn.
That afternoon he slept through dinner.
* * *
The raven came during a rainstorm near the end of Jon's third year. Water kept the boys from the yard, so after dinner—oat porridge with apples cooked soft in butter—Arthur drew his charcoal line across the nursery boards. Jon crossed it ten times before his right foot began to drag.
"Rest," Arthur said.
Robb examined Jon's knees, then shook both his own until he toppled sideways laughing. "I shake more."
"You fall more," Jon said, and went to sit by the shutter.
Arthur stepped into the passage to fetch a dry cloth for the water creeping beneath the shutter. The raven landed upon the outer sill. It was an ordinary rookery bird, black feathers oily in the wet and one tail quill broken short. It cocked one bright eye at the boys.
"Crow," Robb whispered.
Raven, Jon thought, but did not spend breath upon the correction. A bread crust lay beneath the settle. Hunger struck him. It was not his mild wish for more apple. It narrowed the world to grease soaked into hard bread. Near. Food. Take. The room dropped away. Four black toes opened. Wings caught air. The sill fell beneath him and Winterfell's roofs spread grey and shining under rain. Chimney smoke bent east. In the yard below, a horse became warmth moving under hide; a man became a pale face tipped towards the weather. The broken tail dragged. The bird's body corrected without asking him how. He tried to spread the wings farther and felt the pull along their narrow bones. Air lifted him above the ridge of a roof. He wanted to climb higher.
A bell clanged. The raven banked. For one wild moment Jon forgot the room, the small legs and the brother shouting below him. Then hunger turned the bird back. It squeezed through the shutter gap, dropped beneath the settle and took the crust. Robb held still, delighted by the broken rule. A gust struck the shutter. The gap narrowed. The raven flung itself towards light and met oak. One wing hit first. Pain tore through Jon's shoulder though nothing in the nursery had touched him. He reached for his own body. There was no road. Warm blood ran over his lip. His heel slipped from the settle. The little wooden horse fell from his hand. Through the bird he saw a dark-haired boy strike the floor; through the boy he felt claws scraping stone. Porridge flooded his mouth. Robb screamed. Two terrors existed at once, neither wholly his and both impossible to leave.
Then Arthur called, "Jon!"
* * *
Uncle Arthur reached him before the wooden horse stopped rocking. Boots crossed rushes. A scabbard struck the doorpost. Arthur's first order cut through Robb's crying.
"Do not touch him."
The raven hit stone again. Arthur dropped beside Jon. The boy lay slack, eyes closed, with blood trickling from one nostril. Two fingers found the pulse beneath his jaw. Arthur cleared the sour milk from his mouth and turned him so he could breathe. He called his name twice without an answer.
"Jon. Look at me." This time Jon's eyelids fluttered. He tried to focus, but the knight's pale eyes doubled. Behind him the raven dragged one wing across the oak settle.
"Bird," Jon croaked.
Arthur followed his gaze. Wylla ran in with a basin. She saw Jon on the floor and let it fall. Water spread through vomit and carried oat husks into the rushes.
"Seven save us."
"Fetch Luwin."
"What happened?"
"Now, Wylla." She ran. Arthur threw a blanket over the raven. At the first muffled wingbeat, Jon's arms jerked against the floor. Arthur froze.
Robb had backed against the wall, bare feet in dirty water. "Crow hurt Jon."
"Did the bird strike him before he fell, or did Jon touch it?" Arthur asked Robb.
"Both fell," Robb said, pressing his back harder to the wall. "He did not touch it."
Arthur gathered the blanket carefully. His hands knew how to hold a struggling creature without crushing it. For one instant Jon saw through the raven's black eye: the knight bent over wool, the red-haired child pressed to stone, his own small body twisted among the rushes. Then the blanket closed and tore the sights apart. Jon vomited again. Arthur put the bundled bird into the wicker linen basket, tied the slatted lid and returned before the spasm ended. He lifted Jon against his chest, head low. Mail rings pressed cold through the child's tunic.
"Stay with me, Jon. Take my hand. Can you hear me?" Arthur said.
Jon gripped Arthur's fingers. "Trying. Bird still hurts."
Luwin arrived with Wylla, Catelyn and Jory. The maester knelt without gathering up his grey wool, his chain swinging forward as he examined Jon's skull. He had Wylla hold a clean cloth beneath the bleeding nose, then prised open the boy's eyelids and brought a lamp near enough to sting. "What did he eat, drink, or put in his mouth since breaking fast?" he asked without looking away from Jon's pupils.
"Porridge, apple and milk," Wylla said. "The same as Robb."
"Any sweetroot, berries, lamp oil, or physic from a chest he should not reach?" the maester pressed.
"Nothing unless he has learned to unlock my cupboard."
Catelyn knelt in the wet rushes and drew Robb to her. "Tell me. Slowly."
"It ate the bread," Robb said. "Then it hit the wall. Jon fell too."
"Where did the bread come from?" Catelyn asked gently.
Robb pointed at himself. "I put it there." Shame crumpled his face.
Catelyn kissed his hair. "A crust did not make your brother fall. You did not do this."
Arthur heard her. His hold on Jon tightened as the boy tried to sit up and sagged against him. "Bed," Luwin said. He looked at the cloth; the bleeding had stopped. "He struck his temple and may have swooned before the fall. I will stay with him."
"His shoulder hurt him when I lifted him," Arthur said. "Will you look at it as well?"
Luwin moved Jon's arm carefully, then felt along the collarbone. "I can find no break."
Arthur watched Jon's face while the maester examined him. He had seen the little arms jerk with the hidden bird's wings. There would be time to ask what that meant when Jon could answer without being sick. For now he kept a hand beneath the boy's head and asked Luwin to tell him when it was safe to move him.
Catelyn looked towards the passage, where servants had begun to gather. "Jory," she said, "close the door. No one makes an omen of a sick child."
The door shut. Eddard arrived after dark, cold air following him into the chamber. He had been hearing a miller's plea in the winter town when the runner found him, and Stark guards had ridden back at his heels. Jon woke to his hand on his forehead.
"Father," Jon said, reaching from beneath the cover until Eddard caught his hand.
"I am here." Eddard squeezed his hand. "Luwin says you gave everyone a fright."
"My head hurts where I struck the floor," Jon said, touching the swelling and regretting it at once.
"Leave the swelling alone." Eddard eased his fingers away.
"It hurt before I fell," Jon whispered.
"I know." Eddard felt the swelling with the lightest touch. Robb demonstrated the fall twice with a carved horse until Catelyn stopped a third. Luwin described the brief swoon, the bleeding and the blow at Jon's temple.
"Will it happen again?" Catelyn asked.
"I cannot say yet."
She drew Robb closer. "Then the boys are not left alone near that window."
Arthur stood at the bed's foot. "I had gone for a cloth."
"Send a servant next time." She said it without heat, which made it harder to answer. Eddard looked at Arthur, then at the loose shutter.
"Have the catch mended. Luwin, stay until he sleeps."
Catelyn took Robb upstairs. She lifted the carved horse from the pillow to make room for Jon's head, but he reached after it. Wylla set it beside his hand once the coverlet was straight.
"There," she whispered. "No need to sit up."
Jon curled his fingers around it.
Mikken mended the iron catch while two servants shifted the settle away from the window. Jon heard the scrape of its feet before the men took their tools into the passage. Uncle Arthur remained beside his bed. Dawn leaned within reach of the chair. Luwin checked Jon's eyes once more and wiped the dried blood from his lip. He stayed until the boy slept, then left Arthur with a fresh cloth and instructions to call if the bleeding began again. When Jon woke thirsty, the knight held the cup while he drank.
"Shut the door," Jon said.
Arthur set down the cup and did so. Jon waited until he returned to the chair.
"I saw through the raven."
Arthur glanced towards the covered basket. "When it came through the window?"
"Before. I could see the roofs. Then the bread. It wanted the bread so badly I could hardly think of anything else." Jon pressed his palm against the blanket. Skinchanging. He knew the gift from the books of his old life. None had taught him how to bear a bird's terror while his own body struck the floor.
"Were you asleep?"
"No. I could feel myself on the settle, and the wings as well. When it hit the shutter, my shoulder hurt."
Arthur touched the shoulder lightly. "Luwin found nothing broken. Does it hurt now?"
"Not now. How long before I answered you?"
"Your eyes were shut when I reached you. Then you opened them, but you did not answer for perhaps four breaths."
"Was I breathing?"
"Aye. I turned you when you were sick." Arthur rested his hand upon the coverlet. "I thought the fit had frightened the bird. Then I saw your arms jerk each time it beat its wings under the blanket."
"You were stopping me seeing."
The knight looked at the basket again. "I did not know."
"That is why I am telling you. If it happens again, I need you beside me."
"Do you mean to try?"
"I did not mean to this time." His throat ached. He held out a hand for the cup, and Arthur helped him drink. "I tried to come back. I could see myself on the floor, but I could not make that body move."
Arthur drew his chair against the bed. "Then you tell me when you feel it beginning. Sit down before your legs give way. I will keep you from falling."
"Call my name. I heard you."
"I will. What else?"
"I do not know yet." Jon laid his hand in the knight's. "You will have to tell me what happens here. I cannot watch both."
Arthur closed his fingers around it. "We shall begin with that."
A step sounded outside. Jon stopped speaking. Arthur looked towards the door, then back at him.
"Not yet," Jon whispered.
The latch lifted before the knight could answer. Eddard came in with Luwin behind him and Wylla carrying another blanket. Jon drew the wooden horse onto his lap.
"Awake again?" Eddard sat beside the bed and touched his forehead.
"My throat hurts."
Luwin felt beneath his jaw and asked him to swallow. The maester examined the swelling at his temple, then held out two fingers for Jon to follow with his eyes. Jon obeyed. He answered the questions about his sickness and the pain in his head. He said nothing about seeing the room from beneath the blanket.
"Will he sleep?" Wylla asked.
"Let him, if he can. I will look in again." Luwin put away his lamp. "No yard tomorrow."
Jon began to object, but a yawn opened his mouth instead. Eddard drew the blanket over his feet.
Arthur carried the covered basket to the adjoining room. Jon heard him set it down with care. Wylla brought barley mashed in broth, tested its warmth against her lip, and held the spoon while Jon ate. Eddard sat until the bowl was empty.
"You will be here when I wake?" Jon asked.
His father drew the chair nearer. "Yes."
* * *
The roots beneath Winterfell were white. They pierced old stone and older bones without bending. Some were thin as hair. Others rose like towers into a dark that held no earth. Jon stood barefoot among them, though far away he could feel wool over his legs and Uncle Arthur's callused finger inside his fist. The wounded raven worried at the bark above. Beyond the roots, a pale man watched. White hair fell around a face too still for life. One eye burned red; shadow filled the other. Jon stepped back. A root curled around his ankle.
"Let go."
"You reached first," the pale man said.
"I was looking at the bird."
"And the bird was hungry."
The raven beat its injured wing. Jon saw Winterfell from above, wet roofs and smoking chimneys, then saw himself in the bed with Arthur beside him. He kept his attention upon that small figure beneath the blanket. Other helpless hours came to mind while the bird struggled, recollections he had no intention of sharing. The red eye moved from the raven to him, measuring.
"Who taught you to keep hold of yourself?" The pale man watched him pull against the root. "I can follow the threads of men you have never met. When I seek yours, the weave of what may come changes beneath my eye. Why?"
Jon pointed towards the bed instead.
"That is where I belong."
"Most children would still be crying."
"Would crying bring me back?" Jon asked. The root tightened.
"No." The pale man tilted his head. "You consider your answers carefully, Jon Snow." Jon let the silence stand.
Jon bent, dug both hands beneath the white coil and pulled. The bark tore his palms. Far away, a warm hand enclosed his own. Arthur was beside the bed. Jon held to that warmth and pulled again.
The raven screamed. White wood split. Black wings filled the dark, and the red eye vanished. Jon woke gripping Uncle Arthur's finger hard enough to whiten his knuckles. The brazier painted the room dull red. His temple throbbed.
"Jon?" Arthur leaned over him.
White hair, one red eye: Brynden Rivers, if the old stories had given him anything useful. Bloodraven. Jon knew the name; he had no idea what the man wanted with him.
"I am here," Jon said. Eddard rose from the chair by the hearth and came to feel his brow. Jon waited until his father had gone to fetch Luwin before tugging Arthur close. "There was a man. In the dream. He held my leg with a root."
Arthur drew the blanket clear of his ankle. There was no mark upon it.
"White hair," Jon said. "One red eye. He asked about the bird, and why he could not see what would happen to me."
"Did he give you his name?"
"No." Jon caught his hand again. "I could feel you here while he spoke."
"Then I shall stay."
This time, when sleep returned, Jon held to Arthur's hand.
* * *
By Jon's fourth nameday Luwin had begun giving him letters beside the counting beans. At first he used names the boy heard every day. Jon learned the shapes upon his own strip of parchment while Robb pressed beans into a row and gave each the name of a horse.
The maester covered the strip with his hand. "Again tomorrow."
"You can turn it round," Jon said.
Luwin looked at him. "Why?"
"You want to know whether I remember where it was."
The maester drew a clean scrap towards him. He wrote the same letters in another order and asked Jon to sound them. Jon did so slowly. He knew what the lesson was for, but the Common Tongue's spelling was not the spelling he had learned as a child. The unfamiliar arrangement cost him one sound. He asked for it, repeated it, and read the little word again.
Luwin put his quill down. "Has someone been teaching you when you leave me?"
"I ask when I see a word."
"Whom do you ask?"
"Whoever can read it." Jon pushed the scrap back. "That one is new."
It was an answer Luwin could test, and a true one. Jon had no wish to sit pretending that each lesson took a week, nor to explain why he already knew how learning worked.
Robb leaned across the beans. "Write horse."
Luwin wrote it. Jon left the sound for Robb to find. When his brother lost patience at the middle, he uncovered that part with one finger and waited until Robb tried again.
Catelyn had come to fetch them with Sansa in her arms. She watched from the doorway while Luwin changed the word once more. Robb began building a wall with the beans. Jon read the new arrangement, then asked why two different shapes could make the same sound.
"A question for many maesters," Luwin said.
"Do they agree?"
"Seldom." He was smiling now, though he had pulled a separate sheet close to record what Jon had read.
"Robb," Catelyn called. "Come and wash."
Robb began gathering the beans. "Jon has finished already."
"You are to finish your own work, not race through it after him." She waited while her son tied the sack. To Luwin she said, "I do not want him hurried because another child answers first."
"I will give them what each needs, my lady."
Jon held out the scrap Robb had asked for. Catelyn took her son's hand, leaving Jon to place it upon the stool. She thanked the maester and went. Arthur, waiting beyond the door, stepped back so her skirts could pass.
Jon watched the scrap. He knew why she disliked him. It did not make every small exclusion painless, but he had no intention of spending his childhood petitioning her to change her mind. He took another piece of parchment and asked Luwin for the names of the tools in the smithy.
Outside, a servant carrying lamp oil paused beside the guard. "Is it true the little black-haired one reads the maester's books?"
"Words," Arthur said. The servant turned so abruptly that the oil moved in the jug. "He is learning words. Let him learn them without a gallery."
The servant bowed and went on. Arthur returned to the door. Luwin had given Jon the new list; the child was bending over it, his feet still well short of the floor.
* * *
That evening Eddard found the separate sheet beside Luwin's lamp. The maester had written down the words Jon recognised, the ones he had puzzled out, and three questions he had asked afterward.
"Is there cause to worry?" Eddard asked.
"He learns quickly, my lord. More quickly than any child I have taught." Luwin turned the sheet so he could read it. "He also understands why I alter the lesson. I should like to know how far that understanding goes."
Arthur stood by the hearth. "Then give him something worth understanding."
"He is four," Eddard said.
"I know his age."
"The servants are beginning to make a wonder of him. I do not want every visitor brought here to hear him count."
"Neither do I." Luwin gathered the loose scraps. "My lessons are not for visitors. I can keep a record without putting him on display."
Eddard nodded. "Do that. And stop when he is tired, even if he asks for more."
The maester took his papers to the adjoining chamber. Arthur waited until the door had closed before speaking again.
"One of your servants spoke about him as though he were a mummer's trained bird."
"Which servant?"
"I did not ask his name. He was carrying lamp oil past Luwin's door." Arthur's hand opened against the mantel. "I sent him back to work. I would rather not have to keep doing it."
"Then bring it to Poole. No one has leave to mock a child in my house."
"Your servants remember their manners with Robb."
Eddard set the lamp farther from the papers. "Some are thoughtless. Some repeat what they have heard. You cannot answer every foolish look with Dawn."
"I have answered none with Dawn." Arthur lowered his voice, though the door remained shut. "I cannot even tell them whose son they are staring at."
"You agreed to that silence."
"For his life. I did not agree that he should grow up expecting less respect than every trueborn child who visits Winterfell."
"He has a lordship, your sword, and a maester who can scarcely find lessons fast enough for him. What more do you want at four?"
"For you to consider what he will need at fourteen. You prepare Robb to be heard when he speaks. Jon will need that too."
Eddard looked towards the nursery passage. A little earlier Jon had fallen asleep with one hand still curled about a piece of charcoal. Wylla had carried him upstairs before he could finish asking after the questions on Luwin's page.
"I want him to reach fourteen," he said. "Without believing he must astonish us every morning to keep his place here."
Arthur was quiet. When he spoke again, the anger had lost some of its force. "Give him harder work because he can do it. He knows when you are holding him back."
"And you will let him leave it unfinished when he needs sleep."
Wylla opened the door with Jon's charcoal-stained shirt over one arm. "He has fallen asleep. You can ask him about his lessons tomorrow."
Eddard took the shirt. The little cuff was black almost to the elbow.
"Luwin may teach him at his own pace," he said. "He still eats with us. He still goes out with Robb. If there is talk among the servants, Poole will answer for stopping it."
"And I may bring him to hear a petition worth hearing?" Arthur asked.
"When I judge it fit for him."
Arthur inclined his head. Wylla took back the shirt and went to find warm water. On the following morning Luwin put a new page beside Jon's bowl. Arthur waited until he had eaten before opening it.