The dead came through Winterfell's gate before Eddard Stark did. Four grey horses drew the covered wagon beneath the portcullis. Long travel had roughened their coats and rubbed two shoulders raw beneath the harness. Salt had dried white upon the black leather. Behind them rode two silent sisters with wool veils over their faces, and behind the sisters came Lord Eddard with Howland Reed at his left hand. There should have been five more northmen.
Tales arriving ahead of the travellers had put half Eddard's companions in graves beneath the red mountains. Yet Lord Willam Dustin had turned west at the Fever River, Mark Ryswell towards the Rills, and Theo Wull towards the high valleys. Ethan Glover and Martyn Cassel had taken the east road for White Harbor carrying Eddard's letters. All five had ridden away alive. Lady Catelyn knew because ravens had preceded the wagon, each bearing a different hand and news that contradicted the singers.
No trumpet welcomed those who remained. The gate guard saw the direwolf upon the first rider's cloak and sent a boy running. Stablemen removed their caps. Two kitchen maids stopped in the yard with flour white upon their forearms. Farlen called his hounds away from the covered wagon. Catelyn waited on the inner stair with Robb against her breast, her auburn hair braided carefully beneath a blue veil. One hand supported him while the other smoothed his swaddling each time the wagon jolted nearer. Her son had slept through the first clatter of hooves. Now he woke, red and indignant, and closed one fist upon the silver trout at her throat.
"Gently," she murmured, freeing the chain. "Leave your mother her throat."
Her husband dismounted beside the wagon. The young stranger she had married at Riverrun had worn his dead brother's place uneasily. This man wore half the realm's dust. His beard had grown ragged, lengthening a face already drawn thin by the road. The grey eyes beneath his brown hair looked older than the husband she remembered. Brown mud stained his boots above the ankle, with pale road dust over it. One shoulder sagged beneath his cloak. He looked first at Robb.
"Is he well? Your letter said only that the birth had gone safely," Eddard asked. It was not the greeting Catelyn had imagined through five months of waiting. It was better for being plain.
"He is hungry whenever I am not feeding him, wakeful whenever I wish to sleep, and determined to pull every clasp from every cloak in Winterfell. Maester Luwin calls him very well."
Eddard's mouth moved, though the smile never quite formed. "May I?"
She descended and placed Robb in his arms. Eddard held the child too carefully at first, one broad hand beneath the swaddled body, the other cupped at the neck. Robb studied the dark beard with blue eyes as clear as his mother's, reached, and seized as much of it as both small fists could hold. Eddard bent to kiss him, and soft auburn hair brushed his chin.
"He has a strong grip," Eddard said, trying to free his beard.
"He has been practising upon my hair since his hands learned to close," Catelyn said.
"I see I have come home too late to escape it."
Robb pulled harder. Eddard laughed, briefly and with surprise. Several people in the yard looked up at it. The rear horse shifted. Arthur Dayne rode beside it, travel-stained mail dull beneath a blue-grey cloak. Dawn crossed his back in a pale leather sheath. The songs called him the finest knight in the Seven Kingdoms. He looked less like a song just then than a man who had slept too many nights sitting upright. He carried a second child.
The babe was wrapped in charcoal wool. A little dark hair showed above the fold, with two pale strands fine as spun silver at the left temple. Beside Arthur rode a brown-haired woman upon a placid bay mare, one hand held ready whenever the knight's horse picked its way over a rut. Catelyn had known the babe was coming. Eddard's letter had been short enough to lodge whole in her memory.
I have acknowledged a son born to Lady Ashara Dayne during the war. He is called Jon. He comes north in my keeping. Remember, if you can, that he chose none of this. Robert Baratheon's grant had arrived two days later, fat with yellow wax and royal generosity. Before Catelyn knew whether the boy could keep down milk, she knew that he possessed Dragonstone. A groom helped the woman down from her mare. She was waiting with her arms out when Arthur dismounted with the sleeping child.
"Mind his neck, ser. The road has made you believe every jolt is ordinary," Wylla warned.
"I have him," Arthur answered.
"You are minding your sword, the horse, the wagon, every roofline in the yard and perhaps the clouds. Give him here."
Arthur obeyed. That disturbed Catelyn more than pride would have done. Eddard eased one fist from his beard and nodded towards the woman. "Mistress Wylla, my lady. She nursed Jon at Starfall and upon the road."
Wylla bent one knee as far as the infant allowed. Her riding skirt was spattered brown to the thigh, and wind had reddened both cheeks. "Lady Stark."
The child woke. His eyes opened only a little, blue-dark beneath thick lashes. Ashara Dayne's eyes had been purple, the singers said. In this light the babe's might have been grey, violet, or merely the uncertain colour all infants carried before the world chose for them. Men began lifting Lyanna's coffin from the wagon. The small warmth in Eddard's face went out. He returned Robb to Catelyn and turned towards the bearers.
"Ned," she said. "You can eat and wash the road from yourself before we take her below."
"No. Forgive me, but I have kept Lyanna from home through every mile from Dorne. I cannot put her off another hour," he said.
The first word had been sharper than he intended. He looked back at her, the apology remaining in his face. Catelyn looked at the grey wool stretched over the coffin. Rosemary, pine tar and the sweet rot of the long road mingled beneath the cold stone smell of the yard.
"Then do not," she said. "I will come with you."
* * *
No stone likeness waited for Lyanna in the crypt. Three masons had prepared a low bed of grey granite beside Brandon's tomb. A plain lid leaned against the passage wall, uncarved save for the Stark name cut along its edge. The block meant for her image still stood in the masons' shed above. Eddard had sent measurements, but Benjen had refused to let a stranger guess his sister's face before her body came home.
"You need not stay when we open it, Ben," Eddard said.
Benjen held the torch. He had grown leaner since Catelyn last saw him. Torchlight hollowed the long Stark face; for all his height, the rawness about his blue-grey eyes made him look painfully young. "She is my sister."
Eddard stepped aside to let him come nearer.
Benjen held the torch higher. "Show me."
The silent sisters looked to Eddard. He nodded, and they drew back the outer cloth.
Salt and oil darkened Lyanna's skin. Her brown hair lay braided over one shoulder, and a dried winter rose rested beside her cheek, blue faded nearly to ash. Eddard reached beneath the wrappings and touched two fingers to the end of the braid.
"Who put the flower there?" Benjen asked.
Arthur stood beyond the ring of torchlight, bareheaded and without Dawn. He had surrendered the sword to Rodrik Cassel at the stair. "I did," he said.
Benjen turned. For a moment Catelyn feared he might fling the torch at him. "You put a winter rose beside her after keeping her from us for a year?" Benjen asked.
"It was among her things."
"Her things." Benjen's voice broke upon the second word. "You had her things. You had her."
Arthur did not answer. Any defence of his dead prince would have been tinder in that place. Eddard stepped between them without seeming to. "Help me lay her down, Ben."
The brothers took the head of the inner bier. Howland and Rodrik took the feet. They lowered Lyanna into the waiting stone while the sisters murmured their prayers. Benjen took the faded rose before the masons brought the plain lid down, hiding her before the carver had learned her smile. When the others withdrew, Eddard set an iron sword across the grey stone. Luwin waited beside Catelyn, his head bowed. Benjen remained long enough to lay the faded rose beneath its hilt. He went up without looking at Arthur.
"Maester," Eddard said, "leave us. Ser Arthur, wait beyond the gate."
Catelyn heard the latch fall after them. The torch spat. Along the dark passage, the old kings sat with stone wolves at their feet and iron across their knees, watching a daughter of their line enter the earth without a face.
"You wrote me four lines," Catelyn said. "One gave me a dead woman's name. One asked mercy for her child. I have given the child a bed. Now you will give me more."
Eddard stared at his sister's uncarved lid. "What would you know?"
"Did Ashara Dayne bear him?"
"Aye." Eddard kept his eyes on the stone.
"Did you love her?"
He shut his eyes for one breath. "Ashara is dead. I will not speak of what passed between us."
"You brought her son home to me. You owe me an answer."
"It is the answer I am able to give."
"Then give it whole. Your letter says you acknowledged the boy. It does not say Ashara placed him in your arms."
Eddard looked at Catelyn then. She had been raised among petitions and bargains; Lord Hoster never taught his daughters to miss the empty space in a man's account. "Ashara died before I reached Starfall," he said. "Her household kept the boy with Wylla. Lord Ulrick told me Ashara had spoken of her brother guarding her child if she could not. Arthur claimed the same duty. I acknowledged Jon before Lord Ulrick and brought him north."
"And you are his father?"
"I am."
"Was there any marriage? Any promise she might have called one?"
"No. Jon has no claim before Robb."
"Yet he has a king's castle, and the Sword of the Morning sleeps across from his cradle."
"Robert gave him Dragonstone in anger."
"Anger does not make the island less real. Robb has Winterfell because you say he does. Men have killed lawful sons when a bastard offered them less than a black castle and a famous sword."
"Jon will never take Robb's place."
"You know that. I know what you tell me. What will men upon Dragonstone know when the boys are grown?"
"The grant excludes him from Winterfell. Robert agreed to that before I accepted."
"Send Jon to Starfall. Let his mother's kin rear him."
"No. I will not send a nursing babe away because his presence wounds us," Eddard said. The answer came from father and lord together. It was the first thing Eddard had said without choosing each word.
"Why here, Ned? Starfall could keep him."
"Because I mean to raise him."
"Then you have decided, and all that remains is to tell me what I must endure."
Eddard looked at her at last. The grief in his face did not excuse him. Catelyn waited for an apology; when none came, she took her hand from Lyanna's stone.
"Do not ask me to love him."
"I will not."
"Do not ask Robb to yield because your guilt has made the other boy precious."
Pain crossed his face. "I will ask no such thing."
"What am I to tell Robb when he asks why his brother's mother is not his own?"
"That I wronged you. Not Jon."
It was the first answer that cost him something she could see. Catelyn folded her hands, one over the other, until the trembling stopped.
"I will not strike at a babe because his father injured me. Do not call that forgiveness."
"I would not."
"Come upstairs, then," Catelyn said. "You have scarcely seen Robb."
Beyond the iron gate Arthur stood with his back against the wall, Dawn once more at his side; Rodrik had returned it at the foot of the stair. He looked at Eddard, then at Catelyn. Whatever question he had, he swallowed it when she passed.
* * *
Howland Reed meant to leave at dawn. Eddard found him beneath the heart tree tying an oilskin bundle into a narrow ironwood coffer. Wet red leaves clung to the lid. The crannogman's marsh horse cropped moss near the pool, too small and ill-tempered to interest any thief who valued his fingers. Arthur waited beside the white trunk. The little iron key lay in his palm.
"You could rest another day," Eddard said.
"My wife has waited long enough." Howland pressed the lid down. "I would rather rest at home."
Eddard glanced at the coffer. "Will it stay dry?"
"Greywater has dry places. We do not mark them for visitors."
Inside lay a few sheets of parchment and Lord Ulrick's attested copy of the altered Starfall household entry. What they proved, taken together, could hang three men or crown one child. Howland closed the lock. Arthur kept the key. Eddard kept the names of living witnesses and the promise that bound them.
"Willam sent from Barrowton," Eddard said. "He reached home yesterday. Barbrey has threatened to break his legs if he mounts before the moon turns."
Howland smiled. "She will keep him truer than any oath."
"Mark is in the Rills. Theo's kin met him below the mountain track. Martyn and Ethan reached White Harbor. All five know where the others have gone. None wrote more than that."
"All accounted for," Howland said.
Arthur's fingers closed around the key. He watched the coffer disappear beneath Howland's cloak. "If you have need of me—"
"I know where to find you."
The answer left Arthur with nothing more to say. He turned towards the keep, listening.
An infant had begun to cry. "That one is Jon," Arthur said. "Robb breaks higher when he is hungry."
"That one is hungry," said Wylla behind them. She came down the covered walk with the babe against her shoulder, brown hair escaping its braid. "And I have been looking for you both."
Arthur slipped the key beneath his shirt. "He fed less than an hour ago."
"And now the tyrant demands more because babes keep no maester's hours," Wylla said. She put Jon into Eddard's arms and began unfastening her gown beneath her mantle.
"Walk him while I make ready," Wylla said. She touched the crying cheek with the backs of her fingers before settling beneath the covered walk.
Eddard adjusted the swaddling. Jon rooted blindly against his doublet and protested when it offered no milk. Arthur watched Eddard bounce him once, too sharply, then laid a hand beneath the small head without speaking.
"There," Wylla said, reaching for him. "You have both done your part."
Eddard gave Jon over. The crying ceased as quickly as it had begun. Howland mounted while the babe fed. Eddard checked the girth himself. Arthur shortened the rear strap by one hole, muttering that crannogmen rode saddles fit for sacks of onions.
"Onions complain less," Howland said. "When he is old enough to ask, tell him his mother laughed loudly, rode badly when angry, and wanted him to live. When it is safe to tell him about her, let him know that much."
Eddard rested one hand on the horse's neck. "Ride carefully through the marsh road and send one word when Greywater has you."
"You will hear from me," Howland said.
Howland passed beneath the gate without banner or escort. The coffer looked too mean to carry a dead prince's marriage, a child's birth and words that might begin another war. He vanished among wet pines before the sun climbed over the wall.
Arthur stood at the gate until Howland was gone. Eddard waited beside him. Behind them Wylla hummed to the feeding child, an old Dornish tune neither man knew well enough to join.
* * *
The nursery had room for one cradle beside the warm wall. Robb's was oak, brought from Riverrun with a clean wool mattress and lavender sewn into the ticking. Painted trout swam along its side beneath a blue wash. Jon's pine cradle still smelled of sap. Arthur moved it away from the shutter; Wylla moved it back from the brazier.
"Smoke," she said when he looked at her.
"There is a draught."
"Then have the shutter mended. I cannot mend his lungs." She set a folded piece of leather beneath the short leg and rocked the cradle. It settled without knocking the wall.
Old Nan watched Arthur test the shutter with one hand. "She has had more practice, ser."
Catelyn stood at the door with Robb upon her hip. She watched Arthur press his palm against the loose shutter, then turn back to the cradle.
"Mistress Wylla chose the place," she said. "The cradle remains there."
Arthur bowed. "My lady."
"You disagree."
"I have spent three nights watching that shutter move in its frame."
"I will have Poole send a carpenter. Leave the cradle where Wylla has put it."
Wylla gave Catelyn a brief smile. Later that morning Rodrik Cassel came to find Eddard in the nursery. He had the guard roster folded in one hand. "My lord, am I to put Ser Arthur down for a watch?"
"I keep watch upon my nephew," Arthur said.
Rodrik looked from the knight to Eddard. "There may be times when we need every man in the yard."
Eddard stood beside Robb's painted cradle, easing a strip of linen from his son's determined mouth. "Ser Arthur is Jon's mother's brother and his sworn shield by my leave. Within Winterfell he answers to my law and to your command in the yard."
"Who stays with Jon if I am called away?" Arthur asked.
"I will leave a man here," Rodrik said. "Tell the serjeant where you are going, and he will see to it."
Arthur considered the arrangement, then nodded. Jory, waiting in the doorway, took the roster when Rodrik handed it to him.
Catelyn watched the knight move his sword clear of Old Nan's wash basin. Robb began protesting as he was lowered into the bath. Jon woke and joined him. Soon one child shrieked at cold air while the other kicked water over Wylla's sleeves.
"Brothers in misery," Old Nan said. "That is as firm a kinship as most men manage."
Catelyn felt Arthur look towards her. She did not correct the word. She would not bless it yet either. That evening Eddard came to the nursery smelling of rain and horse. He had heard petitions since noon and eaten nothing but a heel of rye bread. Robb slept already. Jon did not. The boy lay furious in Eddard's bent arm while Wylla stirred goat's milk into oat porridge for herself.
"He has fed," she said. "He is dry. He has burped upon me twice. I have reached the edge of mortal wisdom."
"Perhaps he dislikes my singing before I have even begun," Eddard said, shifting Jon higher against his arm.
"Try it. Nothing else has pleased him," Wylla replied.
Eddard hummed the first line of a northern cradle song. His voice was low and badly used. Jon stopped crying to listen, considered what he heard, and began again. Wylla tasted the porridge. "A clear judgement, my lord."
Arthur entered as Eddard tried the second verse. "What have you done to him?"
"Offended his ear with a northern cradle song. He appears to favour silence," Eddard said.
"Try something Dornish," Arthur said.
"I know none. You will have to sing it."
The easy words surprised both men. For a little while, Arthur warmed his hands at the brazier while Eddard walked Jon between the two cradles. The babe's eyes followed the moving firelight. When he finally slept, one fist remained closed around Eddard's forefinger.
Jory appeared with a wet cloak over one arm. "Wylla, my uncle says this knight has taken his best stool."
"Then your uncle may come and take it back."
Jory looked from Arthur to the sleeping boy. "I shall tell him it is occupied." He hooked the cloak over a peg and crouched beside Robb's cradle. Robb slept with his mouth open and one damp fist against his cheek. Jory tucked the blanket beneath his feet as carefully as any nurse.
"Did the miller keep you long?" he asked Eddard.
"His neighbour kept me longer."
"The pig again?"
"The pig's children."
Jory sighed. "Then we may have petitions for years."
Wylla covered her laugh with her spoon. Arthur drew the disputed stool to the door and sat, leaving Eddard to finish the last quiet circuit with Jon.
Eddard laid Jon in the plain pine cradle. Before leaving, he covered the small fist with his hand until it opened in sleep.
* * *
Later that season Dragonstone surrendered during three days of hard rain. The raven reached Winterfell soaked and vicious. Stannis Baratheon had crossed from the mainland. The gates had opened without sack or fire. Queen Rhaella was dead. Her young son and newborn daughter had escaped the island before the royal fleet arrived. Eddard read the message twice over a supper gone cold. Barley stew filmed in the bowls. Fat from the roast goose had whitened along the platter's edge, and Robb was crushing peas beneath one wooden spoon while Jon watched with grave attention.
"You are relieved that the royal children escaped before Stannis crossed the wall," Catelyn said.
Eddard folded the raven sheet. "That Stannis found no children to kill? Aye."
"Robert would not order babes killed after what the Lannisters laid before him," Catelyn began.
"He accepted Tywin's gift after seeing what lay beneath those cloaks. I no longer say what Robert would not do."
Arthur stopped cutting his goose. He said nothing, which was worse than agreement. Luwin laid another letter beside Eddard's hand. It bore Ethan Glover's mailed fist, sent from White Harbor three days earlier.
"Ethan waited as you ordered," the maester said. "Martyn is already riding back to Winterfell."
"Why send Glover east before the castle fell?" Catelyn asked.
"Because if Rhaella held, he was only a wounded man resting near a port. If she yielded, I needed a man ready to sail before some court favourite claimed Jon's island for himself."
Arthur tore bread in half. "Six northmen cannot hold Dragonstone against its garrison and sworn houses, whatever banners Stannis leaves above them."
"Sixty strangers cannot hold it if the island hates them. Ethan's first task is to learn which local men will keep a gate for Jon," Eddard said.
"Rhaella's garrison served House Targaryen until a Baratheon fleet appeared beyond the harbour," Arthur said.
"You served House Targaryen too. You have agreed to keep Robert's peace and serve Jon. Some of Rhaella's men may be willing to do the same," Eddard answered.
Arthur's knife touched the trencher and stopped. Wylla drew Jon's sleeve out of the gravy while the two men looked at one another.
Catelyn slid a clean board towards Eddard. "What do you require of Ethan?"
"The keys. The store count. The names of men holding the gates and armoury. He is to keep any islander willing to swear Robert's peace and Jon's service. Those who will not may depart with their goods. Theft and murder answer to judgement. Choosing the losing king does not."
Arthur leaned forward. "Tell him to question the gate captains separately. The man who took Stannis's money may try the same bargain again."
"I will," Eddard said. "Then Ethan must judge them. He is there and we are not."
Arthur looked at the map beneath the letter and gave a reluctant nod.
Catelyn dipped bread into the cooling stew. "Send him coin for wages before you ask loyalty from hungry men. Send grain as well."
Arthur glanced at her. "You would spend Winterfell's grain upon Dragonstone?"
"I would sell northern grain where the king's silver can buy it. Jon's island pays a fair price, White Harbor takes its due, and the stores do not rot."
Eddard drew the clean board towards him. "Luwin, put that in the letter." Catelyn took another piece of bread, satisfied to have settled one part of the matter. Robb abandoned the peas and held out a grease-shining hand for goose skin. Jon leaned across Eddard's arm towards the quill.
"Not the point," Eddard said, moving the ink and turning the feather. He laid the clean end across Jon's palm. Jon gripped it and watched Luwin copy the order, his gaze following each journey from inkpot to parchment.
"He wants the quill," Catelyn said.
"He wants whatever the rest of us are using," Eddard replied, though he waited for Jon to release the feather before taking it back.
Ethan sailed four days later. His first full account from Dragonstone came two moons after his departure with a broken chip of black basalt wrapped inside. Eddard had the household eat early so Luwin might read it before the children slept. Hot onions came from the kitchens in brown gravy, followed by smoked trout, soft cheese, black bread and baked apples split with honey. Robb refused the onions until Jon took one from his trencher and held it between them. Thereafter Robb ate his own while watching to see whether Jon did the same.
"Begin with the surrender and the men who yielded the gates," Arthur said before Luwin had opened the first sheet.
"Does he say how he fares?" Wylla asked.
Luwin raised the first page. "He writes that he is well. The roof above his bed leaks, though he says he has found a dry corner for the accounts."
"He would save the accounts first," Eddard said. "Go on."
Stannis had left a royal captain with the keys and most of Rhaella's garrison in place. The queen had been found washed and dressed in black, with her dragon brooch at her throat. Stannis ordered a pyre in the Targaryen manner, sealed the ashes in stone and entered the ruby dragon from her throat among the castle goods. He had taken neither the jewel nor the ships.
Of ten warships on the roll, six remained at the quay. One had lost a mast. One made water faster than the harbour pumps could comfortably master. Four more stood hauled beyond the tide or stripped of oars and cordage. Twenty-three soldiers had asked leave to go, and Ethan granted it once their borrowed arms were returned and their arrears named. He heard the rest by company, questioned captains apart from common men, and matched each name against pay rolls, village complaints, and witnesses who had lived beside them. Thieves and men who would not swear were removed before the count closed. Three hundred remained. They swore to Jon into Ethan's hands under Eddard's sealed authority, to renew the oath before their lord when he came. Eight captains and serjeants swore readily; the companies followed after Ethan paid half their arrears and promised no punishment merely for an old banner.
"Ethan has paid half their arrears," Arthur said. "He must watch whether they keep their oaths once the money is spent."
"Aye," Eddard replied. "What of the stores?"
Three sacks marked barley held mould and mouse nests. A clerk who signed the false count had royal silver hidden beneath his bed. Ethan put him in a dry cell, then gave the clerk's chamber to a widow whose daughter had died when lightning fired the lower stable.
"And the silver?" Catelyn asked.
"Returned to the treasury." Luwin checked the line beneath. "The man is to answer for the false counts when Ethan has heard the witnesses."
Luwin turned the page. The old cook remained after showing Ethan which bins had been counted twice. Tobin, foreman of the quay, remained because he had stopped soldiers burning green roof timber after firewood failed. Ethan described Tobin as a man who mistrusted northmen, stormlanders, Targaryens, Baratheons and the sea whenever it damaged his work.
"Tobin sounds worth keeping," Catelyn said.
"Ethan has put him in charge of the quay," Luwin replied.
At the end came the hard choice. Sea pay and voyage stores for two crews would leave too little coin to buy the villagers' grain. Dismiss the men altogether, and Jon might own ten hulls with no sailors when he reached the island. Tobin wished to cut a mast from the green roof timbers he had saved. The shipmaster, Denys, swore it would twist before the wood cured. Each had added a note disputing the other's reckoning.
"Save the soundest ship and keep enough sailors together that the other hulls do not become firewood by neglect," Arthur said.
"Keep them, but not both crews at sea," Catelyn replied.
"A sound galley protects every fishing boat beneath its oars."
"One galley, then. Leave enough in the chest to buy the grain."
Eddard rubbed his thumb across the rough basalt chip. "What does Ethan advise?"
Luwin read the last lines. "Send what grain and slate you can. Tobin and the shipmaster will show me the mast again tomorrow. I mean to keep the soundest galley in service. I have offered the other crew shore pay and harbour work until we can afford to fit out their ship."
Arthur considered it. "Ask whether Denys agrees about the galley. Ethan knows stores, but a captain should choose the hull."
"Put that in our answer," Eddard said. He pushed the basalt chip towards Luwin's letter. "And find the grain."
Jon leaned over Eddard's arm towards the basalt. Arthur caught the stone first. "Sharp edge. Here, wait."
Jon's gaze followed the stone rather than the carved horse Robb pushed against his knee. When Arthur moved the chip, Jon reached after it again. Arthur wrapped the basalt in two folds of linen and laid its broad face against Jon's palm, keeping the broken edge within his own grip. Jon ceased struggling. His thumb moved over the pitted stone while Luwin finished the letter.
Robb laid the horse across Jon's legs and kept one hand upon it, unwilling to surrender the gift merely because the black stone had won his brother's notice. Eddard looked from his lawful heir to the little lord of the black island, one guarding what he loved and the other intent upon a fragment of the place already given him.
"Robb will want the stone in a moment," Arthur said quietly.
"Let him look," Eddard said.
He put one hand over both small hands, keeping the linen around the sharp edge while Robb leaned closer.
* * *
By the time the boys could cross the nursery holding to the furniture, Jon had learned which floorboard outside the door complained beneath a grown man's weight. Eddard heard it creak one afternoon and saw the small dark head turn before he lifted the latch. Robb kept striking two wooden cups together upon the hearthrug.
Wylla sat near the window mending a stocking. Jon stood beside her stool with one hand upon its rung. Three little boxes lay on the floor, their lids fitted with leather loops. Old Nan had put a wooden horse inside one while he watched.
"Find it," Eddard said, settling beside the rug.
Jon lifted the right lid at once. Robb abandoned the cups and came to inspect the horse. Nan covered it again, changed the places of the boxes, and drew her hands back. Jon followed the box she had moved. When she exchanged the lids instead, he pushed the nearer one aside and reached for the same box.
"Again," he said.
Eddard smiled. Robb took a lid and wore it upon his head.
Nan hid the horse behind her back this time. Jon looked into the empty boxes, then at the fold of wool beside her elbow. He waited. When she spread her empty left hand, he pointed to the other.
"You will have to get up earlier than that," Wylla told Nan.
A maid carrying fresh rushes had stopped in the doorway. "He watches the hands," she said. "My sister's little one only lifts them all."
"Robb prefers the lids," Eddard said. His son had put a second upon the first and was trying to stand.
The maid smiled at Robb. When Jon turned towards her, her smile faltered. She remembered the rushes and carried them to the window. Eddard saw Arthur glance after her from the passage.
Jon pulled himself upright against Eddard's knee. He pointed at the horse Nan had finally brought out, then at Robb, who surrendered the lids to take it. Jon went back to Wylla and held up the foot with the loose stocking.
"He asks before he cries," Nan said. "That will save us some noise."
"When he can make himself understood," Wylla answered. She drew him onto her lap. "Yesterday he shouted himself purple because I brought the wrong cup."
Catelyn entered with a basket of nursery linen. She kissed Robb's hair and took the box lids from beneath his feet. Eddard told her what Jon had done.
"Nan has played that game with them all week," she said.
"And today he followed it when she changed it."
"Then he has learned it." She handed Wylla the linen and lifted Robb. "It is nearly time for their supper."
Eddard reached for Jon. Catelyn stepped aside to let him pass, keeping Robb's dangling foot clear of the other child. Arthur watched the movement, then bent to gather the boxes. He put them upon the shelf before following Eddard out.
At the turn of the passage Eddard heard the rush maid speaking to another woman. She lowered her voice too late.
"He waits for you to finish, as if he knows what comes next."
"He hears you well enough," Wylla said behind her. "Mind what you give him to hear."
The women scattered to their work. Jon had laid his head upon Eddard's shoulder, worn out by the short journey from stool to rug. Eddard felt the damp warmth of his breath through the wool and carried him to supper.