In Westeros, Maesters were shaped by the Citadel: years of study, the forging of a chain, and then service in some lordly household. Qyburn had once been on that path—then thrown off it. His research into "live dissection" offended the Faith and the Citadel alike; the chain was taken, and he was expelled. A Maester without a chain had few legal markets to ply his trade. Qyburn found the one that suited him: a mercenary company, steady work treating wounds, and an unpleasant access to material that fed his obsessions.
Now Qyburn squinted at the banners approaching through the dusk. One in the center was the crimson Flayed Man of the Dreadfort; the others were dark flags, one bearing a smiling sun, the other the white direwolf on black. On that direwolf banner, something large and pale hung impaled — the Mountain's head, ragged and ashen. Qyburn felt a small, academic regret. If the Mountain still lived, there would be a living anatomy to study.
Then the young general rode into view. Jon Snow on a gray mare, the great white direwolf at his shoulder — a striking figure: dark hair bound back, the long Stark face, bright grey eyes, a gray cloak and silvered armor that marked a quick, well-proportioned build. Qyburn's pulse quickened. Rumors had been true: Jon had slain the Mountain. If that were the case, this young man might be even more valuable to study than the dead brute.
Vargo Hoat, the Brave Companions' commander, rode up and signaled Qyburn to fall in. Vargo had the goat-faced look of a man who'd hardened himself to a life on a blade's edge: low stature, a goatee down his chest, a chin that could have been carved from granite and stubbornness. The Companions had accepted Bolton's gold; doing so promised title, land, or at least survival. They would bribe fate when necessary and keep their distance from a bastard-king's ambitions.
Vargo and Qyburn dismounted and bowed to Roose Bolton. "Harrenhal is now for King Robb," Vargo said with the practiced grin of a man who'd changed sides at the right moment. Qyburn studied Jon again and felt the strangled sensation of being looked through. Jon's gaze carried the same clinical curiosity he reserved for dissected things; Qyburn did not like it.
Polite smoke and small talk led the company into Harrenhal — a castle that wore its ruin like a cloak. Harrion grumbled at the sight: "Damn this place. Why didn't the dragons burn it more thoroughly?" The five somber towers rose like tombstones in a thin, clinging mist; the ruin breathed chill, not the false warmth a well-kept keep produces. Men who entered felt, briefly, as if the stone looked back.
Qyburn, obligingly instructive, began his lecture. Harrenhal was cursed in Westerosi legend: granted in turn by dragons to three families whose lines all ended childless; Prince Daemon had left carvings in its Tower of Dread that bled in the rains. Harrion's eyes shone. Old York, advantaged by his own dragon-fancier habits learned on Jon's travels, chimed in with the Daemon story and the battle above the God's Eye. Knights and lords listened, some with appetite for fable, others with the polite skepticism of men who'd seen worse.
Qyburn watched Jon while he spoke, and still felt the prickling attention. Why did the bastard watch him like that? He returned Jon's glance with a brittle smile and turned away. Those little exchanges were the measures of character and worth in this place: who bowed to whom, who watched whom, who claimed the center of the hall.
Vargo led the group to the Tower of the Wailing — the tallest of Harrenhal's five pillars — its spiral stair wide enough for seven or eight men to pass shoulder to shoulder. The stairs contained hidden holes and arrow slits designed to turn a staircase into a deadly gauntlet. Harren the Blackheart had spared nothing in the castle's construction, imagining a fortress to outlast the ages.
They arrived at the Hall of a Hundred Hearths. Once, a Great Council had filled that space; now three dozen glowing hearths were dwarfed by the theater's scale. Qyburn played tour guide: Jaehaerys's Great Council had convened there; Tywin had sat in the main seat; the hall's emptiness itself seemed to speak power. Roose Bolton accepted Qyburn's flattery — the gesture suited his appetite for image — and took his place beneath the empty throne with a thin smile.
The hall filled with northern lords, Dreadfort soldiers, and the new men from the Companions. Jon sat in the front row: Old York at one side, Martin at the other; Harrion and Meiqi Saiwen not far off. Qyburn saw how the men who mattered lay their eyes on Jon and felt the small tremor of shifting balance. Vargo Hoat watched, too; he measured Jon and Roose like a man weighing coin.
As the murmurs rose, Bolton prepared to speak; his Dreadfort guards bristled about the hall, a hundred-small shields for his peace of mind. He had hoped Catelyn's intervention would wrest the bastard's influence from him — it had not. He had hoped to reclaim control. Now he settled back to speak in front of men whose loyalties had begun to splinter.
Jon stood abruptly. "Quiet, everyone. Lord Roose Bolton has something to say." The command cut through the room like a blade; chairs scraped and conversation fell away. The lords' faces were no longer deferential so much as curious: Roose was onstage, and they were the audience.
Roose retrieved a letter from Riverrun and announced it: King Robb had reached out to the Iron Islands — Balon Greyjoy would join the alliance. Soon, His Majesty would march into the Westerlands. The hall roared its approval: "Good! Excellent! Long live King Robb! Long live the North!" Roose's retainers shot vindicated glances at Jon, as if saying, See? The king still trusts us.
Vargo Hoat's wavering steadied at the sound; the mercenary captain preferred his deals settled by a recognized hand. Jon, low and patient as ever, worried that Robb might sulk and sleep with his nurse, oblivious, while the wheels of war kept turning. He had to move; the world would not wait for men who napped between triumphs.
Roose continued: Renly was dead; Stannis might soon take Storm's End; for months there should be no great campaigns. Rest the men, he advised. Guard Harrenhal's towers. The lords breathed easier. They wanted the end of the road, a return to hearth and hall.
But Bolton did not see the tide coming. Stannis had already taken Storm's End. Blackwater would arrive within a month. Jon needed the army on the march — and fast. The men, however, preferred rest. Old ambitions wilted in the face of comfort.
Orders were given: Harrion Karstark took the Tower of the Wailing; Meiqisaiwen and House Frey were assigned the Tower of Dread; the Manderlys the Widow's Tower. Then Roose called Jon. Jon rose.
"Jon Snow," Roose said, "your army is the largest, so you will guard the Tower of Dread alone."
Jon had already mapped the five towers in his head. The Tower of Dread lay in a key position; Roose intended to keep the central Tower of the Wailing for himself where he could watch and mediate the other lords. Jon accepted the assignment with a single, cool phrase: "As you command, Lord Bolton."
Roose leaned back, tasting the control of the moment. He glanced at Vargo and the Companions with a mixing of triumph and calculation. If Bolton could bind the mercenaries with favors, if he could sway their captain, he might blunt the rising force of Jon's prestige. He felt for the first time the old, bitter thrill of power.
A whisper came at his ear from a Dreadfort runner. Roose turned pale a shade and spoke the name as if it tasted like something foul: "What? The Brotherhood Without Banners?"
The hall's echoes carried the name: a band of outlaws and a rumor of strange talents. Roose's mouth tightened. The war had not yet ended; new threads were still being woven into its fabric, and every rumor could become a blade in a man's back.
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