The following year, Bran Stark announced himself to Winterfell with a cry strong enough to reach the covered gallery.
Robb had waited outside the birthing room since dawn. Sansa sat with her sewing in Septa Mordane's lap and asked every half-hour whether babies always required so much time. Theon crossed the passage twice, claimed both times that Luwin had sent him, and lingered until Ser Rodrik came looking. The old knight took one look at the closed door and let him stay. Jon sat with his heels three fingers above the floor and listened to Catelyn labour behind oak.
The sounds brought back the hospital where his daughter had been born: hard light, his wife's fingers crushing his hand, a nurse telling him to breathe as if he were the one doing the work. He had been frightened then too. He looked along the bench at the children waiting with him and made room where the smallest could sit.
Here he was seven years old and could do nothing but wait. When Robb paced past again, Jon caught his sleeve and made room on the bench. Robb sat for a moment, then got up to listen at the door beside Theon.
Arthur sat beside him, drawing a whetstone along a belt knife whose edge was already keen. Jon glanced at the blade. "That will vanish if you sharpen it much more."
"Then I shall have done something while we wait," Arthur said, moving the knife again.
"You could count Sansa's questions," Robb suggested. "She has asked how long babies take eleven times."
Sansa looked up. "Seven. Two were different questions." Robb began counting them on his fingers.
Jon gathered the loose thread before Robb caught it with his heel. Sansa held out her hand for it, but her attention had already returned to the door. A woman spoke within; the words were too low to hear. Sansa moved along the bench until her sleeve touched Jon's.
"Mother said I could hold the baby."
"When Wylla brings us in."
She nodded and began winding the thread. Robb stopped counting. For a little while they sat without speaking, listening to footsteps pass beyond the door. Arthur put the knife away and reached down for the cup of water which no one had touched.
The first infant cry cut through them. Robb sprang up and kicked Sansa's thread box. Bone buttons rolled under the benches. Sansa stooped for one, remembered the child and left the rest to Septa Mordane. Wylla opened the door, sweat darkening her temples. "A son. Your mother is well. Quietly now."
Robb was through before she finished. Sansa followed at a walk that became a run after the threshold. Theon remained outside until Robb came back, seized his sleeve and pulled. "You waited with us."
"I was passing on my way to the stairs," Theon said. "No one called me in."
Arthur smiled and stood aside to let him pass. Jon lingered on the bench until Eddard saw him through the open door and beckoned. He went in with Arthur behind him.
Catelyn lay pale among white bolsters, her copper hair damp and unbraided. Eddard sat at her side with one hand around hers. The midwife washed a small red body before the fire. The child objected to water, linen and the whole cold world. "He is very loud," Sansa said.
"Arya was louder," Robb answered.
The midwife's helper brought Arya from the adjoining room, and Wylla lifted her upon one hip. The little girl beat both fists against the air. Dark wisps clung to her long little face; she had their father's grey-eyed frown when Wylla caught one fist and kept it from the basin.
Theon allowed Robb to draw him closer. "Were all of you that small?"
"You were too," Robb said.
"Mother says he will grow," Sansa declared. Theon moved the basin before Arya could reach it again.
Theon withdrew to the doorway when the midwife needed room. Wylla sat with Arya, and Eddard settled Jon in the chair beside her. The midwife placed Bran in his arms. His head fitted beneath Jon's chin; milk-warm breath touched his neck.
Memory supplied high stone and a small body falling. Jon drew the blanket closer about Bran's feet. Arthur lived. Black ships had changed a war. He could keep this child off a tower.
Wylla slipped a folded cloth under his elbow. "Support his head, love."
He settled Bran more comfortably. A little auburn down showed above the wrappings. Eddard watched from beside the bed. "Brandon."
Robb tried the name aloud. Sansa chose Bran because it was easier to say. Arya caught at the blanket until Wylla moved her hand away.
"When can he ride?" Robb asked.
Catelyn closed her eyes. "Let him have his milk first."
"I can teach him when he is ready," Robb said, more quietly. Sansa offered to teach him letters. Eddard looked at Arya beating upon Wylla's shoulder and said Bran would learn to shout without anyone's help.
Jon looked down at the small, sleeping face. "I will teach him where not to climb."
Arthur looked at him. Jon kept his eyes on Bran.
Wylla took Bran before Jon's young arms tired enough to betray him. "First I teach all of you to leave the room. Your mother needs sleep."
When Catelyn began coming down to supper again, Bran slept in a cradle beside Catelyn's chair while brown butter ran over carrots and a capon lay ready for carving upon the board. Jon moved the cradle clear of the servants' path and chose the seat from which he could see the child's face. When Bran stirred, Jon touched the rim once, saw the small chest rise and returned to his bread.
The capon tasted of sage and smoke. He had almost finished it when Bran woke and began to cry.
* * *
Most mornings Jon began in the yard with the household, and by then Winterfell had learned their sounds. Heward's staff struck stone before the kitchens sent up their first steam; twenty-five pairs of boots answered him along the eastern wall; Arthur's sharper corrections followed once the practice swords came out. Before Heward set the files in motion, Jon led the movements that had first earned him suspicious looks: shoulders turned through their full reach, knees bent and straightened under control, calves and hips stretched before the run. Heward no longer called it southern foolishness. He merely stalked the line and knocked a heel wider or a back straighter with the end of his staff.
The older boys could still outrun Jon, but the difference no longer embarrassed the younger ones. On the first mornings several had finished bent double, one had been sick behind the armoury, and Oren had hidden a blister until Heward found blood in his shoe. Now the files came back together more often than not. After the run came shields, wrestling or the strange strength work Jon had introduced. Woods had made squat wooden bars whose ends could take drilled stones; Mikken supplied short iron handles for smaller work. Heward had mocked the first set until Tomas, after weeks of measured lifting, carried a shield through an entire drill without letting its rim sag. Thereafter the old soldier mocked only boys who tried to add another stone before he permitted it. Jon trained beside them with lighter weights suited to his body. By breakfast his shirt often clung damply between his shoulders and his appetite exceeded the portion Wylla had first put before him. She learned to send a second bowl without asking. Afterwards he saved a little meat in a scrap of linen and went to the eastern wall. There were mornings when the sight of them pleased him more than it should have: Tomas correcting a sagging shield without being asked, Olyver finishing a run he once would have stumbled through, Gage counting his file before taking water for himself. Then Jon would remember why he had begun so early. He did not know whether the wars he remembered would come on the same days, or in the same order, or at all. He only knew peace was borrowed time, and he meant to spend it making them harder to kill.
Hugin and Munin came for meat, not friendship. The cock was larger, with three white feathers in his left wing. The hen bore a notch near the end of her upper beak and stole anything that shone. Jon set scraps on one flat stone and stood back. Arthur remained within reach the first morning, two fingers resting against the boy's shoulder. "I am feeding them," Jon said.
"Aye," Arthur said, watching the nearer bird.
Since Bucephalus's terror had dragged Jon halfway into a horse's mind, he had felt other animals at odd moments: a swallow's hunger, a dog's sudden fright. He had learned to draw back. Even so, he was glad Arthur stayed close while the crows fed.
Robb brought honeyed crumbs. The crows ignored them while he stared. "They do not like sweet things," Sansa said.
"They dislike being watched," Arthur replied.
Sansa turned her back with grave care. Munin dropped behind Jon's shoulder, took a piece of mutton and left every crumb. "She waited until I looked away," Robb said.
"Look away again," Sansa told him.
Hugin learned one word from Arthur. The knight used hold at the horse line, in the sword yard and whenever a dog nosed towards the feeding stone. Within a fortnight the cock could rasp enough of the sound to turn heads. "Hold," he croaked while Arya crawled towards a puddle.
Wylla caught the back of the child's green gown. "Thank you," she told the bird, and lifted Arya clear of the water.
Theon tried to teach him kraken. Hugin answered hold until Theon threw a crust at the wall. Munin stole it before the cock moved. "She speaks Greyjoy better," Theon said.
"She steals Greyjoy better," Robb answered. "Munin has taken Theon's breakfast twice."
Theon threw another crust. Munin took that one too.
At first the crows stayed wary. Rain kept them beneath roofs. The butcher's heap beyond the wall could steal them for days. Munin took a brass button from Robb's coat, two red threads from Sansa and a lump of wool grease from Hullen. The button returned in a gutter. The threads appeared woven through a nest above the brew-house. Hullen's grease vanished entirely. "Stop feeding the thief," Hullen told Jon.
Theon stood beside him. "Which one?"
Hullen looked from the crows to the boys. "A fair question."
When Olyver carved eight little black feathers for Robb's searching game, he covered the pieces whenever Munin watched from a roof. On the last afternoon, he forgot. The hen dived upon the open box and escaped with one piece crosswise in her beak. "That took an hour!" Olyver shouted.
Munin landed above the rain gutter and tasted the oiled beech. "Corn," she croaked, in a fair imitation of the poultry boy.
Theon shaded his eyes. "You should have carved something less appetising."
Olyver found a pebble. Ser Rodrik took it from him before he could throw.
The Norrey boys had been watching from the steps while their uncle Torren argued high pasture with the Flint men in Eddard's solar. When Robb began laying out the game, the younger came down to look. He was long-nosed and lost inside a goat-wool tunic cut for an elder brother.
"Can we play?" he asked.
Robb glanced at Ser Rodrik, who nodded. "What are your names?"
"Beren. That is Benfred, my brother." He pointed to the boy following him.
"I can speak for myself," Benfred said. He was thirteen, two years older than Beren, with the same long nose. He stopped beside his brother and looked towards the birds. "Are they tame?"
Jon gave the feeding whistle. Munin looked down with the stolen feather still in her beak.
Beren grinned. "Call her."
Jon whistled again. Munin tipped her head, then flew to the brew-house with the feather still in her beak. Robb laughed.
"She only comes when he has meat."
Cley came from the wash trough, rubbing his hands on his breeches. Branch had kept him helping at a blocked drain; he hurried over when Robb called his name. Ser Rodrik closed Olyver's box upon the seven remaining feathers. "The crow may keep her prize. We have enough to lose without climbing after it."
"No climbing," Catelyn called from the covered walk. Bran slept against her shoulder beneath a blue wool hood. Her gaze passed from the crow to Jon and sharpened. "No roofs, either."
"The game stays between the white stones," Robb said. "No hiding beneath carts, inside stables, or beyond the mint bed."
"Stay where Ser Rodrik can see you," Catelyn said.
Arthur shut the stable gate while Ser Rodrik gathered the players. Jon went with Cley, Theon with Olyver, and the Norrey boys kept together. Robb stood by the mounting block with the sandglass, pleased to be judging his own game.
"Stay inside the white stones," he said. "Bring the feathers here."
Ser Rodrik gave each pair a reed whistle. "If you need help, blow it. Come back when I ring the bell."
Robb turned the glass. Cley watched mud instead of walls. Robb's left boot had a patched heel that showed in three prints beside the channel. Jon followed his glance.
"Robb carried them," Cley said.
They found the first beneath an overturned feed measure. At the rain barrel, water had washed away the prints, but a black shaving lodged in the grate. Jon reached into the cold runnel and recovered the second feather. They carried both back to Robb, where Theon and Olyver were arguing over which of them had touched their prize first.
Five pieces had been found when Jon looked beneath the mounting stone. Robb planted one boot across the opening before Jon could reach inside. "This is the gathering place."
"The stone lies within the boundary," Jon protested. "You cannot move the line after I reach it."
Theon came to watch. "He has put his foot on it. That makes it Stark land."
"It was Stark land already," Robb said, keeping his boot firmly planted.
While they disputed it, Cley reached around the other side and untied the feather from beneath the block. "Pair's point," he said.
Robb stared, lifted his boot and laughed. "Pair's point."
A whistle shrilled beyond the eastern stones. Rodrik rang his bell, and the boys came running. Benfred was alone.
"Where is Beren?" Robb asked.
"The crow dropped the feather. He went after it." Benfred pointed beyond the mint bed. "I could hear him, but I could not find him."
Arthur hurried towards the brew-house with Ser Rodrik. Jon sent Cley after them; he knew the drains and the spaces between the buildings. Theon and Olyver ran for Jory. Robb stayed by the mounting block, calling Beren's name.
Upon the broken bell arch above the brew-house sat a wild crow, heavier than Munin, with no white in its wings and one sore foot held against its breast. From there it could see roofs, alleys and the eastern wall. Jon's tongue dried. The bird's pain touched his own foot, sharp and foreign, before he had reached for anything.
Jon reached for the mounting block as the ache sharpened. "Robb." He caught his brother's hand. "Call Arthur. Stay with me."
Robb shouted for the knight. Jon sat against the stone, fighting to keep the boy's red hair in sight.
The crow raised its head. Jon shut his eyes and tried to withdraw. The black wingbeat came through his closed lids and took him.
Grit pressed beneath hooked claws. The sore foot burned against breast feathers. Hunger turned the yard into beetles beneath bark, kitchen refuse and a dead mouse beside the drain. Human shapes moved below without names. Wind touched every feather separately. Jon's own body sank far away. He drove the crow from the arch.
A northern gust rolled it. Tail and wing corrected with a grace no human memory could supply. Jon wanted east; the bird understood only the force upon its right shoulder. Warm air drew it towards the malt roof. A hawk's shadow crossed the clouds, and terror pulled the wings close.
Grey wool moved beside the wall. Boy, sack or cloth in someone's arms—the height made no distinction. Three whistle notes sounded from inside stone. Jon sought his own hands, but pain opened in the crow's injured foot and the bird folded one wing. He pressed the other wing down to clear the roof, meaning to buy one breath in open air before he broke away.
For a heartbeat the bird answered. The roof swept across its eye. Wind struck uneven feathers. A carved stone lip filled the world. The crow fought his hand upon the wing. Jon released it too late. Feather struck stone. Sky broke into black and pale cloud. The body fell beside the wall, one wing beating and one ruined.
Jon searched for his own hands. There was only stone rising to meet him. Then there was nothing. Arthur's voice reached him from beneath deep water. "Jon. Open your eyes."
There were too many eyes. One stared along the ground from an angle no human neck could bear. Two found wet grass, Arthur's pale face and Robb kneeling beside him, still gripping his hand. Jon's heels hammered stone. He tasted blood where he had bitten his cheek, and his belly clenched. Arthur rolled him before he knew he was going to be sick. "Hear me," the knight said. He eased Robb aside and caught Jon beneath the jaw. "Whose hand is on you?"
"Arthur," Jon gasped. The name felt far away from the black grass filling his sight.
"Where are you?"
"Winterfell." Jon gripped his sleeve. The last sideways glimpse of grass would not leave him. "Make it stop."
Arthur held his face between both hands. "Look at me."
The borrowed sight went dark. Jon shook so hard that his teeth struck. He tried to tell Arthur about the roof, but could not make the words come.
A door banged open beyond the malt room. Cley shouted that he had found Beren. Jon heard the boy answer.
"They have him," he whispered. Arthur drew him closer and called for Luwin.
Ser Rodrik brought Beren back with Cley at his side. Benfred held the back of his brother's tunic in one fist. Theon and Olyver stopped when Rodrik spread his arm.
"Is he hurt?" Theon asked.
"A fit," Arthur said. "He is awake. Give him air."
Robb stood over them, staring at his empty hands. Arthur looked up at him. "Find Wylla. Tell her he is awake."
Beren began talking as soon as he saw Robb. The feather had rolled beneath the malt-room bench. He had followed it, and the door had swung shut.
Benfred struck his shoulder once and kept hold of his sleeve. "You left me."
"I thought you were coming." Beren wiped his face with a muddy hand.
Luwin knelt beside Jon and felt his pulse. "Did he strike his head?" Arthur shook his head. "I had him before he fell."
Robb brought Wylla back, with Catelyn following and Bran against her shoulder. She counted the children before asking anything. When she saw Jon shaking in Arthur's arms, she drew Bran closer. "Take Jon upstairs," she told Wylla. "I will come after the Norrey boys are seen."
Arthur bent to lift him. Wylla wiped Jon's mouth and turned his face clear of the knight's cloak. "Mind his head. He is still sick."
Jon caught Arthur's sleeve and let the knight carry him. Jory had fetched Torren Norrey from the keep. Beneath the brew-house arch the clansman caught Beren by both arms, looked him over, then pulled him against his chest. Benfred stood close enough that Torren caught his shoulder too.
"He went after the feather," Benfred said into his uncle's coat.
"I know." Torren looked over their heads at Ser Rodrik. "That door was meant to be shut."
Rodrik opened the door and showed him the fallen iron catch. It had jammed beneath the swollen lower edge. "We had to lift the door clear of it. It will be mended. Beren, you were told where the game ended."
Beren showed his split whistle. "I blew."
"We heard you," Robb said. His voice caught. "You did not come back."
Beren lowered the whistle. Benfred took it from his shaking hand and tucked it beneath his collar.
Catelyn sent for dry clothes and had a room made ready for the Norreys. Torren began to object that they meant to ride that evening, but stopped when Beren would not let go of his coat. Ser Rodrik gathered the other whistles and sent a carpenter to the malt room.
* * *
Wylla put Jon to bed and sent the onlookers back while Luwin examined him. She stripped his damp clothes and washed the blood from his mouth. Once he could swallow without coughing, she brought warm water with honey and a little salt. His hands would not stop trembling around the cup, so she held it. "My mind is clear," he said.
Wylla steadied the cup. "Then take another swallow."
Jon drank. The warmth hurt his throat, but it stayed down.
Arthur stood at the shutter when Eddard entered. Catelyn followed after settling Bran with the midwife; Luwin knelt at the bed and tested Jon's fingers.
"Tell me how it began," Eddard said.
"My foot hurt, then the yard turned." Jon looked at the linen. "I called Arthur and held on to Robb."
"You knew you were going to fall?"
"I thought I might."
Luwin asked him to squeeze two fingers. Jon could scarcely feel them. Wylla set the cup aside and pulled the blanket higher.
"I was across the yard," Arthur said. "Robb called me as soon as he saw him sit down."
Eddard rubbed a hand over his face. "No stairs alone until you are steady again. And no horses. Call someone the moment you feel ill."
"I did call."
"I know." His father's hand settled on the back of Jon's head. "You did."
Catelyn remained by the foot of the bed. Jon looked past Eddard towards her. "Is Bran well?"
"Asleep." She drew a loose thread from her cuff. "Robb thinks he let you go too soon. I would be obliged if you told him otherwise when you are able."
Jon nodded. Catelyn left to find Robb. Arthur turned towards the door, but Wylla caught his sleeve and pointed to the chair beside the bed. He sat.
Eddard went out with Luwin when the examination was finished. Jon waited until the door closed before asking after the crow. Arthur had sent a groom to the brew-house wall. The bird had struck the stones and died there. The last glimpse of grass still lay sideways in Jon's memory. He turned his face away.
Wylla sat on the edge of the bed. She loosened the collar against his throat as she had when he was too small to speak. "Look here, love." Her thumb stroked the damp hair above his ear. "You are in your bed. Arthur's beside you. Give me that hand."
He put it in hers. She held it until the trembling eased. After broth she drew the curtains, then went to find fresh linen for the morning. Jon waited until her footsteps had passed the stair.
"I could feel it after it died," he whispered.
Arthur drew his chair nearer. "Can you feel it now?"
"No. I remember it. The grass was beside my eye, and I could not turn my head." Jon swallowed. "I tried to come back before it fell. I could not find my hands."
Arthur looked down at the small fingers resting on the coverlet. "You said you would not try without me."
"I did not try. Its foot hurt, and then I was in it." Jon stopped, unwilling to make that an excuse for what followed. "Once I was there, I forced it to fly. I thought I could get clear of the roof and let go."
"Could you hear Robb?"
"Not then. I heard you afterwards. That helped."
"It took more than one call." Arthur's hand closed upon the bedpost. "What if I had been farther away?"
Jon had no answer he could bear to give him. Arthur waited, then loosened his grip.
"We stay clear of the birds."
"For now," Jon said. "But it has happened with other creatures. I need to learn to keep them out."
"Rest first. We will speak of it when you can sit up without help." Arthur brought the cup to Jon's lips and waited while he drank. "Sleep. I am staying here."
He slept through the afternoon and woke after dusk with one cheek wet. His fingers had feeling again but little strength. Arthur helped him dress, collected a spade and the wrapped crow, and took Jon beyond the rookery wall. Wylla met them at the stair with a lamp. "Keep him out of the wind," she told Arthur.
While Arthur dug, Jon stood over the wrapped body. "I could feel it trying to turn. I kept forcing the other wing."
"You could not have known how to fly," Arthur said. He laid the spade aside. Jon knelt, lowered the bird and covered it with a handful of earth. The knight helped him stand. By the time they returned, Wylla had warmed a stone for his feet.
The dream came that night. Jon stood beneath a red-leafed tree. Robb knelt among its roots, reaching for someone Jon could not see. His dead crow perched above them, its neck straight and both wings whole. It looked down at him. A third eye opened between the other two, and the voice that came from its beak was thin and old. "You called your guard and still put your will upon the wing." Beyond it, a man's pale face lay half hidden in the bark.
Below them, the search unfolded: Cley kneeling at the malt-room scrape, Benfred following crushed mint, Arthur coming from the wall passage. They were closing upon Beren while Jon still sat against the mounting block. "You saw this?" Jon asked.
"You have brought this much into your sleep." The face in the tree turned towards the moving figures. "You were frightened, yet you tried to command the creature as you command the men below. Even its wings. Where did you learn that certainty?" Jon waited until the last word had died among the branches, then pointed to the crow.
"Did you press the crow into me?"
The crow shifted along the branch. "You had the gift before you heard my voice."
"You came to me after the raven," Jon said. "Now they enter my mind. If you did not cause it, tell me how to stop it."
"A crow has wings. You keep trying to give it hands."
"Then I shall leave the flying to it." Jon stepped across the roots. "But the watching is mine. You saw men looking for Beren. Tell me where he was."
The crow looked beyond Robb towards the walls. The shapes there dissolved before its gaze.
"You do not know," Jon said.
The crow closed its third eye. Grey wool became sack, boy, shadow, then nothing at all. A bell began to hammer in the earth. Jon reached for Robb, but his brother's hands crumbled into pale rootlets. He called Arthur's name. A hand shook his shoulder, and the bed returned around him: lamplight, rumpled wool, his own weak fingers. "Bloodraven came," he said.
"What did he want?"
"He says the gift was mine before he came. That does not tell me whether he forced the joining." Jon swallowed. "He told me to leave the flying to the crow. When I asked where Beren was, he gave me nothing. I think he could not."
"He may have wanted you to think that," Arthur said.
Jon flexed his stiff fingers beneath the blanket. Arthur brought a scrap of parchment from the desk and sat beside him while he wrote what he could remember. Twice Jon stopped, trying to recover a word that had sounded plain in the dream. He left those places empty. Arthur folded the sheet and put it away before Wylla came with breakfast.
* * *
Luwin kept Jon from the workshop for three mornings. Before the first, Jon sent Woods orders to finish the frame and leave the movement for his return. Olyver was to bring the drawing book in the morning.
He woke before the hand bell to Woods's saw and Mikken's fitting hammer. A little later Heward's staff cracked against stone below the window and the household answered in ragged unison. Jon could tell from the old soldier's second shout that someone had missed the turn at the wall. Olyver came early with the drawing book beneath his arm and a question about the striking train, still flushed from the run and with his black badge darkened by sweat. Arthur drew a table to the bed while Jon found the right page.
"Woods can finish the timber," Jon said. "We will settle this before they mount the hammer."
Wylla entered with oat porridge, dried cherries and a clean shirt. "Breakfast first. You can keep the drawing beside you."
Jon looked at the tremor in his spoon hand, braced the bowl against his knees and began with the warm centre. "Leave the book here, Olyver. I will finish the drawing after breakfast."
Wylla put the clean shirt beside him and drew the tray nearer.
When the tray was cleared, Jon had Olyver draw the hammer's path on a clean scrap. The apprentice knew where it ought to strike; he hesitated over how far it must lift. Jon turned the sheet and showed him the short travel the pin allowed. They worked with the drawing between them until Olyver could sketch the motion himself.
Wylla sat at the foot of the bed with a sleeve across her lap. She listened to iron pins and bell rims for a while. "How often is it to strike?"
"Once an hour," Jon told her.
"Then I shall know when you have been at it too long." She bit through her thread and laid the mended shirt over the chair. Jon smiled down at the drawing. He could hear Olyver's charcoal clearly in the quiet room; below the window, the household were beginning their drill without him.
Luwin came after Olyver had gone and asked to see the first drawing of the striking work. Jon found it beneath the newer sheets. The maester studied it beside the bed.
"And what did you begin with? A description, perhaps? I should like to read it."
"I have no drawing to show you older than that one."
Luwin looked up. Jon sat against the pillows in the clean shirt Wylla had brought, its collar still loose about his thin neck.
The maester waited, his thumb still holding the first sheet. Jon offered him the next. "This shows it more clearly."
Luwin accepted it, but stayed long after he had finished examining Jon.
On the third morning Luwin permitted the stairs. Woods had set a stool and side table for Jon beyond the rail. "I have left the movement as you ordered, my lord."
Jon sat. "Set the book here, Olyver. I want the drawing of the hammer."
Olyver carried the clasped drawing book inside with both hands and set it where Jon had named.
The workshop smelled of lamp oil, charcoal and old quenching water. Failed wheels hung along the wall, their applewood teeth grey or stained. The movement stood behind the new rail built after Theon's trespass. Beside it waited the bellwork: lifting pins, a hammer and the cracked practice bell Pate had brought from the gatehouse.
The going weight was grounded behind three slatted boards; the heavier striking stone lay unused upon a sledge. A shallow sand-filled box stood beneath the little weight chosen for the trial. Arthur took the chair behind Jon, close enough to hear him without his raising his voice. Jon set his stool clear of Olyver's winding arm.
Woods fitted the last screen while Mikken adjusted its hinges. Jon checked that its inward swing stopped short of the wheels, then had Olyver shut it and try the latch.
Mikken took one hinge to the forge for a final adjustment. Olyver worked the bellows, his brown hair lifting each time the leather breathed. Pate came after the dawn ringing and struck the little bell with one knuckle. It answered like a spoon dropped beneath a pot.
Pate lifted the hammer and let it fall. The cracked bell clanked, and the hammer rested against its lip.
"It must come away after the stroke," Jon said. He pointed to the curved return spring. "Mikken, give this a little more bend."
The smith adjusted it twice while Pate listened. At the third blow the hammer sprang clear, leaving the thin note to fade. They would set the gap again when the larger bell arrived.
Before any weight rose, Woods fitted the long upper pin. It should have crossed front lug, side plate and rear lug, leaving a bright point beyond the timber. The head met the front face. Nothing appeared behind. "Hold," Jon said.
Hugin answered from a roof outside. Olyver grinned, then crouched behind the frame with the lamp. The pin had entered an old shallow boring beside the hole meant for it. Only a thin strip of wood separated them.
"Take that lug out," Jon said. "A plug will not bear the strain here."
Woods cut a replacement from pale ash, planed it and bored the passage. This time the point emerged cleanly at the rear. He turned the pin while Jon watched the fibres around it.
Wylla stopped at the rail with Bran. Luwin came behind her and felt Jon's pulse.
"One run, then upstairs," the maester said.
Jon nodded. "Use the light stone. A handspan will tell us whether the frame bears it."
They fitted every screen. The light striking stone went upon its hook. Slack rope lay coiled away from feet. Olyver came outside the rail and stood beside Jon. Pate waited in the passage, watching his bell. "Lift and hold," Jon said.
Woods wound. The stone rose one handspan. Oak creaked. The long pin held. The rear lug gave a dry click. "Lower," Jon said.
Woods began to lower the stone. The rear lug split along its grain and the upper plate tilted, pinching the winding arbor. The handle jerked in his hands. Then the little stone dropped its handspan into the sand box. A loose end of rope lashed through the open winding slot, knocked a jar of pins from the trestle and struck the screen. "Back!" Jon caught Olyver's sleeve.
Arthur caught Jon by the wrist and drew him back, pushing Olyver clear of the trestle with his free hand. Pain shot up Jon's arm. As the plate shifted, the released striking wheel spun against the hammer.
The cracked bell gave half a dozen ragged blows before the fallen weight left the rope slack. Mikken steadied the tilted plate and drove an oak wedge beneath it.
The noise carried into the yard. Dogs barked, a horse stamped against its stall and Bran began wailing in Wylla's arms. Pate held up a hand to his apprentice at the stair. "Leave the alarm. No fire."
Two guards came to the workshop door. Pate sent one to keep the passage clear while Woods checked that both weights were down. "Olyver?"
"Whole," Olyver said, staring at his scraped palm. "I struck the wall."
"Jon?" Arthur called, one arm still braced across his chest.
"I am here." Jon cradled his wrist against his chest.
"Stay there," Arthur said. "Woods, are the weights down? Luwin, look at his wrist."
Catelyn came from the family room fastening a dark gown. Robb and Theon crowded behind Ser Rodrik, who kept them at the door.
"Olyver's hand as well," Jon said. Then he saw Woods reach for the broken lug. "Keep both pieces. I want to see where it opened."
The carpenter nodded. The weights were down and the loose plate supported. Bran still cried in Wylla's arms.
Jon stood, but his legs began to shake. Arthur steadied him and took him to the chair in the outer room.
Wylla brought Olyver out after him. His scraped palm had begun to swell, and he kept opening and closing the fingers while Luwin fetched water.
Eddard came while Luwin was washing the grit from the scrape. "Woods says the room is safe." He looked from Olyver's hand to Jon's wrist. "What struck you?"
Arthur touched the reddening marks his fingers had left, then withdrew his hand.
"I pulled too hard."
"I was reaching for Olyver when you pulled me back," Jon said. "I can move it." He opened his hand for Luwin.
Olyver hissed as Luwin cleaned his palm. Woods stood behind his son with both hands hanging uselessly at his sides. "The split was inside the ash," he said. "It showed on neither end."
Jon watched Luwin turn Olyver's hand. "How badly is he hurt?"
"He will have a sore palm for a few days. He can still move every finger." Luwin laid it gently upon the cloth. "Keep it clean and let it mend."
Woods let out a breath and rested one hand on his son's shoulder.
"Leave the work until tomorrow," Jon told him. "Keep the split pieces. I need to see how we can enclose the rope as well as the stone."
"I will see to the room," Woods said. He looked at his son. "Tomorrow."
From the passage Theon called, "Is the bell meant to announce every mistake? It will never stop."
Olyver laughed and winced. Wylla opened the door, took Theon by the sleeve and handed him the empty basin. "Since you are here."
Eddard drew a chair beside Jon. Arthur remained on the other side while Luwin finished the dressings. Woods laid the two halves of the lug upon the table and showed them where the split ran beneath the sound surface.
The heavy trial was put off. Woods and Mikken worked with both weights grounded, while Jon drew the enclosures upstairs. Mistress Pella sent bread and stew when the men worked through their meal; Olyver carried Jon's portion up before returning to the bench.
Two days later Luwin let Jon return to the workroom and went down with him to check Olyver's dressing. Pate was already at the bench with the bell's hammer spring laid before him. Woods had opened the lug along the hidden shake. A dark line ran through its heart and stopped before the surfaces they had examined. Mikken turned the halves in the window light. "I saw nothing from outside."
Jon spread a new drawing over the table. Each weight would descend inside its own oak trunk, ending in a pit beneath the floor. If a cord or timber failed, the stone and flying rope would remain enclosed. The sand box had caught the little stone. The enclosure would also contain the rope and the longer fall of the working weight.
Woods studied the trunks. "We shall need more oak."
"You shall have it. These doors need bars, above and below." Jon drew in the catches. "The winding handle must come away before either opens."
Olyver leaned closer. "Could it pass through the door bar, my lord?"
Jon gave him the charcoal. With his sound hand Olyver drew the handle through a pair of keepers. Woods moved one keeper so the bar could not lift while the handle was in place. Jon traced the order with his finger, then nodded.
"Make a wooden one first. We can try it before Mikken forges the catches."
Master Branch came in to examine the floor beneath the proposed pits. He sounded the flags with his hammer and asked for the old drain drawing. There had to be sound masonry between the two drops.
Pate had been turning the hammer spring in his hands. "The new bell must come before I can set this properly."
"Then send for your bellfounder," Jon said.
"Mallon of White Harbor cast this cracked pot," Pate said. "Three grey clumps of beard and no patience. He may come if you pay his road."
Mikken grunted. "Let him insult my iron to my face."
Luwin wrote the name. Branch sounded the floor before anyone lifted a flag. Warm air breathed through a joint beside the old foundation; the drain lay west of its place on the drawing. Jon moved both trunks clear of it and lengthened the shafts to suit.
Poole brought Woods the timber list, but most of Winterfell's seasoned oak was already set aside for repairs. He went to fetch Eddard, who came down to examine the drawing and released two beams from the east-store stack after Woods promised to patch that roof until replacement beams arrived.
"Order replacements now," Jon told Poole. "Put them in my account."
Olyver leaned over the corrected drawing. His bandage left one forefinger free; he put it beside the handle he had devised. "I can make that keeper with the left."
"You can mark it," Woods said. "I shall bore it."
Jon passed him the charcoal. Pate went off to write Mallon, and Mikken began counting the iron eyes and straps. Eddard watched them a moment, then picked up the broken lug and carried it to the shelf of failures himself.
Wylla came for them when the dinner bell rang. Olyver gathered the drawings while Jon searched beneath the table for the charcoal he had dropped.
After the dinner bell, Branch's men lifted the first flagstones while Jon and Olyver ate thick beef-and-barley stew and bread. Robb and Theon watched from the doorway and argued over whether the cracked bell had sounded more like pigs or spoons. Wylla took the children upstairs when the men began carrying rubble through the passage.