A small barracks squatted before the Tower of the Wailing. More than twenty Dreadfort soldiers stood guard outside, ironclad and broad-shouldered, their plate catching the sun in cold flashes. Two officers wore dark red–glazed harness that, from certain angles, looked freshly bled.
One stepped forward. "Lord Jon, Lady Arya may enter. Your guards may not."
Jon's escort — men of the Heavy Armor Camp — loomed like iron towers. He had brought them to read the Tower's defenses and to take the measure of Roose Bolton's nerves. The nerves, it seemed, were frayed to threads.
"It seems Tywin's heavy horse left quite an impression on our Lord Bolton," Jon said lightly. Then, to his men: "Stay."
He led Arya inside. Three to five hundred men garrisoned the antechambers. Conversation died. Sparring ceased. Eyes turned toward Jon.
Arya felt the tension and let her hand drift to her hilt.
"Easy," Jon murmured, patting her shoulder. They climbed. By Jon's count, nearly a hundred armed men were stationed within the tower alone. Bolton trusted no one but his own.
Those who plot harm learn to live with paranoia.
They climbed hundreds of steps. Arya's breathing quickened, but her stride never faltered — a fact Jon quietly noted.
At the Hundred Hearths Hall, more guards flanked the massive oak doors — seven or eight men would be needed just to swing one shut. Inside were twenty more.
With his current skill Jon might cut down ten men at once, but any uprising would be crushed between the door guard and the reinforcements outside. Not today.
Polin stood beside Roose Bolton, and the tilt of his mouth told Jon everything: they thought they had him cornered.
Bolton lounged on Harren the Blackheart's throne, every inch the earl receiving supplicants. The moment he saw Arya, he needed no proof; she and Jon were too plainly kin.
"Excellent. Lady Arya — thank the gods you are safe."
Arya answered with precise courtesy; Bolton bestowed a rare smile, then turned to Jon.
"Jon, King Robb bids you take men to reinforce Ser Edmure. You may escort Lady Arya to Riverrun."
Ah. So that was Polin's smirk.
Jon accepted the letter without a ripple. He glanced at Arya and smiled. "Once I've settled the army, we'll go together. You'll see Lady Catelyn soon."
"Truly?" Arya's eyes brightened. Vengeance burned hot, but she missed her mother more.
Bolton was faintly surprised by Jon's easy compliance. The bastard who denied Robb's crown, ignored by his king, and yet obedient to an order that brought him no advantage — what did he gain, to play so meek?
"When you depart, Polin will escort you," Bolton added. "I will oversee matters here."
"My thanks, Lord Bolton," Jon said, smiling still.
Outside, he kept the same light air with Arya, offering no scent of blood to the sharks circling in Bolton's camp.
Once, Robb had named Jon heir only when desperation nipped his heels; now the balance looked very different. Talk of Ironborn alliance, Jon's eastern victories — power had a way of blinding men to cliffs ahead.
"All the better," Jon thought. "If I overstep next, Bolton may not look up in time."
He took Arya visiting. Harrion, Meiqisaiwen, and others greeted her warmly. Jon was counting hearts as much as faces.
If enough lords would follow him to King's Landing, he could march without a mutiny — just walk away with their banners. The answers were… mixed.
Karstark numbers in the Eastern Army sat near two thousand, more with the new militia. Jon plied Harrion with wine first, then asked.
"Stark, Karstark — one blood," Harrion said, pleasantly drunk. "Lord Eddard was my kin. My kin was murdered; I'll have revenge. Jon, I'm waiting on you to lead me into King's Landing."
That promise steadied the ground beneath Jon's feet: five thousand of his own and Harrion's two thousand-plus could fight a city. But "could fight" was not "enough."
Meiqisaiwen proved… conditional. "Best to take King's Landing and plunder it clean — as Tywin did," he mused. "But it's far, and there are Crownlands keeps between. The price would be dear. Kill Tywin and call it vengeance for Lord Eddard — that's my counsel. Of course, if King Robb commands King's Landing, I obey."
The old lord would ride when the wind was fair, not into a gale.
Blackwood and Manderly answered with weariness. Autumn's first bounty was in, winter's teeth not yet bared — they wanted stores laid in. Northern prudence, plain and sensible. Still, each said the same: if Robb commanded, they would march.
Robb's command — not Jon's. Prestige on the field wasn't a king's writ. Jon's five thousand were, in truth, temporary soldiers who would vanish home when the drums went silent — unless he carved a holding of his own.
Seven or eight days slid past.
He could not wait longer.
"Seven thousand, then!" Dondarrion urged. "Seven thousand is better than rotting here."
"Seven thousand is tight," Jon said. "The Imp has doubled the city's defenses — ten thousand, by what I know. And it's not just the garrison. The Tyrells will move; they won't sit out this feast. Stannis and we must not only take the city; we must hold it."
The Red Keep was a fortress apart — a second siege inside the first, with the chance of being besieged ourselves while trying to storm it. Seven thousand was a wager against long odds.
"Roose Bolton barely leaves the Tower of the Wailing," Thoros fretted. "And when he does, he swims in guards. To seize power, you must seize the man."
"If he won't come out," Jon said, "we go in."
"You'd need twenty men at least — armed," Dondarrion warned. "He won't admit so many."
"Jon, this is mutiny," Thoros pressed. "Are you truly unafraid?"
"It's only a mutiny if it fails," Jon said, eyes narrowing to a blade's edge. "If it succeeds, it's the act that sets a broken realm straight."
The room fell very quiet. The young man's gaze shook them both to the bone.
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