Chapter 9 - The Black Threshold

Daenerys remembered Braavos by a red door swollen with rain. On the last morning Ser Willem Darry could still sit upright, six loose jewels lay beside Queen Rhaella's crown. His cough spotted the linen in his fist. He made Viserys count what each stone might buy while Daenerys divided one boiled egg between them. "The sapphire?" Willem asked.

"Passage for two," Viserys said. "Food after, if the captain is honest."

"Keep it somewhere dry." Willem closed the boy's fingers around the stone. "And keep your sister with you."

Viserys looked at the other jewels. "Which lord answered your last letters? Dorne, Ser Barristan, or any man who ate at Father's table?"

"No one has offered to take you," Willem said.

"Then write again."

Willem looked at the linen in his hand. "Bring me the ink."

Daenerys pushed her half egg towards him. "You may have this. I am not hungry now."

Viserys pushed it back. "Eat, Dany. You have had nothing since yesterday." He took a small bite of his own.

By nightfall Willem was dead. At dawn the creditor's men changed the lock. A porter broke the clay pot beneath the lemon tree, spilling black earth across the green tiles. Daenerys saved one hard fruit before they carried the tree away. A woman from the kitchens came in a flour-marked gown and knelt before her. "I have a warm bed for you near the Moon Pool," the woman said. "Your brother may fetch you when he has found a room."

Daenerys gripped Viserys's shortened sleeve. "I sleep where he sleeps."

"You are five, sweetling. One night apart is not forever."

"Men say that when they mean longer," Viserys said. He locked his hand around Daenerys's. "We go together."

The woman looked at Willem's empty bed. "I knew your mother's man. I would not hurt her."

"I said she stays with me." Viserys pulled Daenerys closer, and the woman let her hand fall.

One ruby bought half a cabin on a Myrish grain ship. When the red door disappeared between the wet warehouses, Viserys lifted Daenerys so she could see it longer. "When I have my throne, I will give you a thousand doors like that."

She held the green lemon against her breast. "I want that one." Stone swallowed it. The ship carried them south together.

* * *

Theon slept badly after his first supper at Winterfell. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw Jory Cassel's open hand beneath the inner gate. Before the greetings in the yard, the guardsman had taken his gelding's bridle and asked for his knife.

Theon looked past him to Eddard Stark. Since Seagard, the northern lord had ridden at the head of the column beneath a rain-heavy grey direwolf. He had found Theon a dry cloak when the sea wind soaked his own, changed his horse when the first went lame and seated him near the evening fires, close enough that no man could throw Balon's last son among the baggage and call it chance. Eddard had never spoken the word hostage. Every courtesy carried it. "Why does he want my knife?" Theon asked.

"Ser Rodrik keeps the children's blades when they are not in use," Eddard said. "Give Jory yours."

"Then I am a prisoner," Theon said.

"No." Rain ticked upon the lord's black iron gorget. "You are my ward, and the surety King Robert put into my hands."

There it was, spoken without honey. Theon drew the blade. Good steel ran from a bone kraken whose little tentacles his thumb had worn smooth. His brother Rodrik had praised the balance. Rodrik lay below Seagard's wall now, his helm split, while Jason Mallister ate beneath his own roof. "Do your men yield theirs?"

Jory turned enough to show the bundled sword belts carried by a groom. "Those without leave do."

"When do I have it back?"

"In the yard when Ser Rodrik permits," Eddard said. "Beyond the outer gate when you ride with men of my choosing."

Theon laid the knife across Jory's palm, hilt first. The guardsman wrapped blade and bone in oiled leather and carried it away.

He had said nothing more while the Stark children ran to their father. Now he remembered that as readily as the knife: men embraced in the rain, horses led away, Robb talking through his tears. No one had come searching for Theon.

After the morning meal, Eddard had taken him to his chamber. It stood off the family gallery, across from a stair watched by one Stark man. Clean grey blankets covered the bed; a white fur lay folded at its foot. Brown bread, a wedge of yellow cheese and three red apples waited beside a steaming basin. Iron bars crossed the narrow window. Eddard put the knife parcel upon the chest. "It stays wrapped here unless Ser Rodrik gives you leave to carry it." Theon looked past him. "Does that man guard me?"

"He guards the stair and the family rooms," Eddard said. "He will not shadow you through every passage."

"Does he follow me to the privy, or only stand where I must pass him to leave?"

"Use the outer stair if you wish for solitude. Jory will still know whether you are under my roof."

"And if my father rises again? What happens to me then?"

The question had travelled north beneath Theon's tongue. Here, in a warm chamber smelling of aired wool and apples, it sounded eleven years old. Eddard did not spare him by looking away. "King Robert holds your life against Balon's peace. If your father breaks the oath he swore, the king will name what he demands of me."

"My head," Theon said. "That is what every man in the yard heard beneath your courteous words."

Eddard did not answer at once. Theon watched his face.

"Would you do it yourself?"

"I pray your father never puts either of us in that position."

"That is not no."

"It is not," Eddard said quietly.

Theon turned towards the bars. "My father may not care."

Mercy from the man who might one day kill him was worse than hate. Theon wanted to strike something and found only bread, warm water and a lord refusing to lie. "May I write to Pyke?"

"Aye. Luwin keeps the rookery, but the seal will be yours."

"And go home?"

"When the king, your father and I agree the wardship is ended."

"May I keep the Drowned God?"

"No man here will force the heart tree or the Seven upon you."

"There is no sea here."

"No. But you may pray as you please. If a priest comes north, Luwin will tell you." Eddard moved towards the door. "My steward, Vayon Poole, will replace what the road and rain ruined."

"I need nothing."

Eddard glanced at the bread, then at the boy standing stiffly beside it. "As you say."

Eddard's gaze did not follow the knife when he shut the chest. It stayed upon Theon, steady and grave, until the boy looked away first.

After Eddard left, Theon had locked the knife away and tested the key twice. He ate one apple and hid another beneath a shirt before Poole came with clean clothes. That, too, shamed him in the darkness. He was Balon's heir, not some deck rat hoarding peel.

At supper he had sat between Robb and Ser Rodrik. The beef came pink at the middle, with onions blackened in dripping, mustard sharp enough to sting his nose and little oat loaves broken by hand. The place might be honour or watchfulness; Winterfell had a way of making one look like the other.

Robb asked about rope bridges, sea towers, seals, longships, drowned men and whether Victarion could lift a horse. "You may ask the next question after he swallows," Catelyn said.

Robb pushed half his beef onto Theon's trencher. "Then he should eat more quickly."

Theon cut each piece smaller than needed and chewed until Robb squirmed. Across from them, Jon held bread while Wylla settled Arya in the nurse's lap. Fire caught the pale threads at his temple. "Is that all you have to say about Fair Isle?" Theon asked him. "I know?"

Jon set down the bread. "What would you have me say?"

"Your sailors took coin for it. Mine died for honour and were called rebels afterward."

Jon's fingers tightened around his cup. "The men on Black Gull died too. I have their names. I have written to their families."

"You need not know a man to kill him."

"No," Jon said. He set the cup down untouched.

Eddard looked from one boy to the other. "This will not be settled across my supper table."

"He is Lord of Dragonstone," Theon said. "The ships bore his black cloth, whatever captain shouted the orders."

"Enough," Eddard said.

"My brothers did not begin it." Theon's voice rose on the last word.

"No," Eddard said more gently. "They did not."

Theon looked down. His face burned as though every person at the table could see the key against his chest. Robb left his beef untouched. He looked towards his father, then across at Sansa.

"We still have the little ships," he said at last. "Sansa put them in her fort."

"Arya kicked one," Sansa protested.

The infant woke and thrust one blanket-wrapped foot into the air. "There," Robb said. "She confesses."

"We made Salt Wraith fight three wolves and a crab," Sansa said. "The crab lost one claw beneath the settle."

Theon stared. "You made Gelmarr's ship fight a crab?"

"Sansa brought it," Jon said. "Robb wanted more ships."

Theon could have told them what had happened aboard the real ship. Instead he reached for his cup. "He would have killed the crab first." Robb brightened and began explaining where he had put the wolves.

After supper Robb led him to Luwin's curiosity chest and produced the kraken tooth. It was a whale's. Jon and Sansa followed because Robb had announced a judgement, while Theon suspected he wanted witnesses. "You see?" Theon held the yellowed tooth beneath the lamp. His usual sharp smile had widened; for once he looked at the thing in his hand instead of checking who watched him. "A whale's tooth. Krakens have beaks."

Robb frowned. "Which whale left a tooth shaped like that? Luwin never named its kind."

"I have seen one at Lordsport. Its jaw was longer than you."

"Maester Luwin says this came from Ib," Sansa said. She stood on tiptoe to look.

Robb took the tooth back. "Have you ever seen a living kraken, not one sewn upon a sail?"

"Men at Lordsport claim to have."

"But have you?" Jon asked from beside the chest.

"No. But a fisherman saw a tentacle take a man off Great Wyk."

"Was it one of your father's fishermen who saw the tentacle?" Robb asked.

"Lord Goodbrother's man, and half drunk when he reached Lordsport."

"Did anyone find the man it took?" Robb asked.

"No," Theon said. "The sea was rough."

Robb looked down at it. "Father sends men when someone goes missing."

"My father sent me here."

"After the battle," Sansa said softly.

"After my brothers died."

Robb lowered the tooth. Jon took it from him and laid it in the open chest. For a while no one spoke. Theon could hear Luwin moving papers in the next room.

"I do not want to talk of them," he said.

Jon nodded. He brought out a little horn cup from among the shells. "Do your men carve horn like this?"

Theon took it after a moment. A fish had been scratched into the horn. He turned it towards the lamp.

When Theon returned to his chamber, the hidden apple had rolled from beneath the shirt and bruised itself against the chest wall. He ate it in four bites, brown place and all.

* * *

Memory had not given Jon a single Theon Greyjoy.

It gave him a young man smiling too hard at a feast, Winterfell smoking behind him, two small bodies burned past naming, an arrow loosed beneath rain. The images came without all the roads between them. In this life Theon was eleven, hungry enough to hide apples, furious at every kindness and awake whenever ravens crossed the light. Jon could not look at the boy and see only a betrayal that had not happened. He could not forget it either. Jon had raised children through ages when every correction sounded to them like a verdict upon their worth. Theon made the feeling uglier, and had better cause for it than most. Jon could allow for that without handing him the keys to anything.

Ser Rodrik put a padded point through Theon's guard twelve times on his first morning. Each correction came with the same planted boots and patient lift of the drooping moustache; Theon was sweating before the old knight breathed harder. "Dagmer says a man who waits has lost," Theon said after the sixth.

"Dagmer Cleftjaw may come tell me so." Rodrik tapped the open place below Theon's right elbow. "Until then, show me how you keep this rib."

"He split a man from collar to breast," Theon said. "No man rises from that cut."

"A dead man may still put steel through that open side before he falls. Close your shield and strike again."

Robb watched from the rail until Arthur sent him back to his own shield work. Jon came from the stable smelling of horse and lye, his practice sword short enough for his reach. Theon glanced at it and then at Arthur. "Do I fight the babe or his uncle?"

"You will use a lighter blade," Ser Rodrik said, handing him one. "And keep the blows below his shoulders."

Theon's first blow jarred Jon to the shoulder. Jon's hands were smaller, his weight scarcely half the ironborn boy's, and the heavier body closing upon him drew an instant flinch from flesh not yet hardened to blows. He yielded before the second stroke, turned the padded edge past his ribs and touched Theon's open side. Robb shouted from the shield rail. Theon swept Jon's legs upon the third pass, ignoring Rodrik's order to keep to their blades. The ground struck between his shoulders, sharp enough to fill his eyes with water. He rolled before Theon could stand over him. "Enough," Rodrik said.

"He can still fight," Theon answered, but he did not raise his sword.

"I said enough." Ser Rodrik lowered Theon's blade.

Jon got to his feet and wiped mud from his mouth. "You look where you mean to strike. I saw both cuts coming."

"You fall where I put you," Theon said, though he shifted his right arm closer to his side.

Jon spat mud out of his mouth and picked up his sword.

Theon stepped forward. Ser Rodrik laid his blunted point between them without raising his voice. "Tomorrow."

Theon's days took on Winterfell's shape. Sword yard before porridge; Luwin's histories before dinner; horse and household work after. Twice each week Ser Rodrik unwrapped the bone-handled knife and let him drill with it. Theon cleaned the steel himself and carried it back, wrapped, to his chamber under Jory's eye. At the stables, Hullen made Theon saddle, bridle and lift every hoof of a patient grey before allowing him beyond the first yard. "I rode before I could walk."

"Then we shall finish before the porridge cools."

Theon set the saddle too near the withers. Pyke ponies were built differently from the long-bodied grey. Hullen shifted it back without comment. Across the passage, Jon swept dung while Bucephalus watched every loose flap of cloth. "Lord Black," Theon called, "has Robert granted you the stall as well?"

"Hullen said I should know how to care for him." Jon pushed the fork beneath another heap of straw.

"Then the horse had the richer gift. You received a name and he received a lord to sweep his dung."

Harwin laughed. Jon tried not to. Theon saw and looked almost pleased. On the sixth day, three pages about Brandon the Burner persuaded Theon that Luwin would never notice one missing pupil.

The workshop door stood beneath a black lintel, secured by a new iron hasp. Woods had hung the key upon the high peg while he fetched timber from the store. Theon fetched a stool, opened the lock and pushed the door inward. Awls, files and hammers hung above the bench. Boxes of spare parts stood beneath the window. Screens enclosed a tall slatted trunk where weights would one day fall.

Above the bench hung Jon's first applewood wheel. One tooth leaned, another narrowed almost to its root, and grease had darkened the grain. Theon took it down. "So this is the wonder of Winterfell."

Jon stood at the door in a clean black tunic. Harwin waited behind him with a rinse bucket. Jon saw the open hasp, the raised cover and the wheel balanced upon Theon's finger. "Put it back and step away from the train."

"Does this clock tell yesterday as well as tomorrow?" Theon asked, leaning over the exposed wheels.

"It tells the hour when it runs properly. Put it back."

Theon's smile thinned when Jon offered no defence. He hung the wheel upon its peg. "If you want men outside, hide the key."

"The key should not have been left there," Jon said. "You still knew the room was locked. Leave the bench."

"No one told me I needed a craftsman's leave to look at a toy."

"You needed mine. Harwin, stay at the door. Send the first passing man for Ser Rodrik and Master Woods."

"Fetch his nurse," Theon said. "I forgot to knock, and he has called half the castle."

Jon did not cross the room. The movement stood uncovered for work, its upper plate held in place by loose wedges: two iron plates held apart by four pillars, a rough train of wheels between them, a weighted crossbar above and two narrow pallets embracing the escape wheel. Every polished tooth represented a mistake already paid in wood or skin. Theon laid his hand on the bar.

"Take your hand away," Jon said. "That is the last warning. Harwin, if he turns it, remove his hand from the bar and keep him clear of the bench."

The old memories rose in Jon without sequence—Theon taking a castle whose gates had opened to him, Theon smiling before a choice, Theon asking to be seen. None could decide what the living hand would do. Theon turned the bar. The pallets rocked. One tooth escaped with a clean iron click. "It moved."

"Harwin, take him away from it."

Harwin set down the bucket and caught Theon's wrist. Theon wrenched once as though Jory's open palm had found him again at the gate. "One turn cannot break a clock worth all this guarding."

Theon pulled away before Harwin could close both hands. His sleeve caught the weighted end of the bar and dragged it hard against the stop. A wedge sprang loose. Harwin hauled him away from the bench towards the door. As they reached Jon, Theon swung his free fist past Harwin's shoulder and clipped Jon's nose. Blood filled Jon's mouth. He stepped back rather than answer the blow. "Leave it now. Woods must see what moved."

Arthur arrived with Ser Rodrik and Robb behind him. Theon strained once against Harwin, then stopped. "He ordered a stableboy to seize me."

"After I told him twice to leave the clock alone," Jon said, pressing his sleeve beneath his nose.

Ser Rodrik looked to Harwin, who nodded. "Let him go. Theon, stand beside me."

Theon glared at the floor. Arthur looked past him at the fallen wedge and the tilted plate. "Was it meant to sit like that?"

"No." Jon kept his sleeve under his nose. "The plate was level."

Woods hurried in with a bundle of timber still under his arm. He put it down and found the loose plate pinched against one arbor and a crack in the wooden stop. Arthur sent Harwin for Luwin, then drew Jon clear of the doorway. Several wheels would have to come out before the plate could be seated again. Robb stared through the doorway. "How long?"

"I shall know when we have it apart," Jon said.

Colour climbed the ironborn boy's face. "I only caught it with my sleeve."

"After you were told to leave it." Jon's voice sounded thick behind his sleeve.

Theon's fist tightened. Ser Rodrik stepped between them before anger found another blow. Wylla appeared, took one look at the blood, and pressed clean linen beneath Jon's nose. "Lord Stark will hear this after Luwin sees whether the nose is straight."

Eddard heard the account in his solar. Theon and Jon stood on opposite sides of the hearth, one with Harwin's grip darkening his wrist and one holding linen beneath his nose. Arthur remained behind Jon; Ser Rodrik behind Theon. Woods and Mikken had been called to say what work the damage would require. Wylla stood between the boys and the door. "Theon," Eddard said, "you entered a room barred to you, handled the clock after Jon ordered you away, resisted the man he set to stop you and struck Jon. Is any part untrue?"

"The key hung above the door where any boy with a stool could reach it," Theon said.

"That is true and does not answer the question."

Theon looked at the hearth. "No part is untrue."

"Woods keeps the key after this," Jon said.

Mikken set the displaced plate upon Eddard's table beside the broken stop. "The iron is sound, my lord. It will take time to fit it again and prove the train."

Theon looked at the iron, then at Jon's bloodied linen. He said nothing.

"I want him with us when we open it," Jon said. "Six mornings carrying and cleaning for the craftsmen. Woods decides what he may touch."

Eddard looked to Woods and Mikken. Both men nodded. "That is my judgment as well."

Theon opened his mouth, met Eddard's gaze and closed it again. The next morning he carried charcoal to the forge while Jon and Olyver laid the clock's parts upon folded cloths. Woods set him to sawing an upright for the new rail. The cut wandered, and he had to begin again.

Jon removed the affected arbors, rolled each beneath a straightedge and polished the bearing ends while Olyver held the lamp. On the third morning Theon saw the iron plate rock. "Your bench board is high at that corner."

Jon laid the arbor in its box. "Show me."

Theon pointed beside the warm-water wall. One corner of the old oak block had darkened there. "It rocked when Olyver leaned across for the lamp. Pyke doors do the same. The sea side drinks salt and swells."

"There is no salt here, but there is heat and wet stone." Jon held the rule across the block without shifting it. A rise no thicker than a nail shaving showed beneath one end. "Woods, feel the wall and the underside. Mikken, help him lift it when he is ready. Theon, fetch the plumb line."

Woods found the wall sweating behind the support. The grain beneath was damp and raised. Jon hung the plumb line beside the frame. "The timber has moved. We replace it with a dry block, clear of the wall. Do not fit the plate until we have it steady."

Theon helped lift the old block out. They reset the frame upon dry timber and packed its feet until it stood square. The block no longer rocked when Olyver leaned across the bench.

"You saved us a deal of work," Jon said. "Thank you."

Theon brushed sawdust from his sleeves. "Try remembering that when you tell Stark about the clock."

"I shall." Jon gave him the last upright. This time Theon's cut ran straight.

* * *

On the sixth evening Robb brought a candle into an unused linen room and announced that Winterfell possessed one gate Theon had not yet crossed. Jon was still with Luwin, copying Denys's return of the wounded. "The outer gate?" Theon asked. "Your father has explained that one."

"The crypt gate." Robb put flint, chalk and a little leather sack upon the linen press. "We go below, touch the lowest king we can reach and bring one scale of rust from his sword."

Olyver sat against the door with both hands beneath his thighs. Hallan Hornwood, left at Winterfell while his uncle visited the families of men lost in the war, looked at the candle and tried not to show that he feared the dark. "That is grave robbing," Theon said.

"Rust falls off," Robb replied. "We need only one scale from a king's old sword."

Theon looked at Hallan. "Will you keep hold of the candle, Hallan, or drop it when Robb begins crying?"

"I will not drop it," Hallan said too quickly. "You are the one who refuses to come below."

Robb opened the little sack. "I go beyond the black stone. You three keep the gate."

"I keep your gate while one little boy robs the dead?" Theon said. "I am Balon Greyjoy's heir."

"They are Stark dead, and you said the lowest king would frighten us," Robb answered.

"And Lord Black?" Theon asked. "His name is not carved upon any tomb below."

"Jon would stop us and tell Father," Robb said. "That is why no one sent for him."

They used a servants' stair after the supper lamps were lit. Olyver knew which boards complained; Hallan found each one with his heel. At the bottom, an iron gate stood closed between black stones. "A famous venture," Theon whispered. "Defeated by a key."

Olyver drew a strip of applewood from his sleeve and pointed to a gap beside the latch. "You can lift it through there. I saw when Father repaired the hinge."

"Why did he leave it like that?" Robb asked.

"Mikken has not made the new iron yet."

Robb took the strip and pressed the tongue back. Iron scraped. He handed the wood to Olyver and pulled the gate open. Cold air rolled up the steps carrying old dust, stone and the faint sourness of spent lamp oil. Pillars stood beyond, each row guarded by seated kings with rusted swords across their knees. Stone wolves watched at their feet. The candle reached the newest dead; farther in, men had no faces. Theon moved towards the black threshold. Robb caught his sleeve. "Not beyond that."

Theon looked down at Robb's hand on his sleeve. "I can hold it from inside."

"Only Stark blood crosses the iron gate," Robb said. "That is Father's rule."

"Your father calls me family at table when he wants me fed. At the crypt gate I become Greyjoy again."

"He calls you ward." Robb let go but did not retreat from the rule. "The crypt is different."

"It always is when a Stark wants something kept."

Robb flushed and crossed before anger found another answer. Olyver caught the gate as it swung. Theon took the outer bar because someone had to, though being made useful outside the blood-line felt worse than being mocked within it. Robb's candle went between the first pillars and vanished around the bend.

Jon came down the servants' stair with a taper. At the end of his lesson a kitchen boy had told him where Robb and the others had gone. He saw the open gate and the applewood slip in Olyver's hand. "Where is Robb?"

"Looking for the lowest king," Theon said.

"Hallan, fetch Father." Jon took a second taper from the wall bracket and lit it. "Keep the gate open. I will bring him back."

The task was real. That made the exclusion worse and easier to bear. "Bring him back, Lord Black," Theon said.

Jon passed between the first pillars, keeping the wall on his right. The newest tomb stood near the bend. Lyanna Stark sat in pale stone with a winter rose upon her lap. Her sword bore less rust than the kings'. Taperlight moved across a young face worn smooth at one cheek by the mason's hand. Jon's step faltered for one breath. He touched two fingers to the stone petals without leaving the road after Robb. "Your aunt," Theon said through the bars.

"My father's sister," Jon answered. Then Robb called from below.

"I am here," Jon called back. "Wait for me."

The tapers dwindled between the pillars. Olyver leaned against the gate, listening.

"We found one with half a nose!" Robb shouted.

"Did you take the other half?" Theon called.

A laugh came back, then the scrape of feet. Jon had found him.

A cold breath moved up from the lower crypt. Robb's candle vanished. One of Jon's tapers guttered, recovered, then went out as the draught strengthened. The second followed before he could shelter it. Jon's voice came hard and level through the dark. "Halt. Robb, take my belt. No one takes another step. Theon, strike the gate so we can hear you."

Theon snatched a loose stone from the stair and struck it against the iron bar. The blow rang between the pillars. He struck again, slower, and heard Jon answer.

"Keep doing that."

He kept striking until the rough stone bit his palm. Somewhere beyond the light Robb stumbled and swore; Jon hushed him. Their voices were nearer now.

Lantern light spilled down the stair before the next call. Hallan clung to the wall, weeping and breathless. Eddard arrived first, Arthur and Ser Rodrik behind him. Catelyn followed in a dark robe over her nightshift, copper hair unbound and a face far more alarming than any stone king. "They are close now," Theon said. "They are coming towards the sound."

Eddard took the lantern across the black stone. Arthur stayed at the threshold with Theon and Olyver, though his eyes fixed upon the darkness where Jon's voice travelled. The pale light found Jon with one hand on the wall and Robb gripping the back of his belt. Eddard put Jon's hand upon his own belt and Robb's on Jon's shoulder. He brought them out at the pace of Jon's shorter legs.

Only then did Hallan cry without trying to hide it. Arthur took the two dead tapers from Jon. "Whose plan?" Eddard asked.

Robb raised one hand. "I asked Olyver to show me the latch, but I lifted it."

"I showed him where the iron caught," Olyver said. "I knew Ser Rodrik meant it to remain shut."

"I found them after Robb went in," Jon said. "I sent Hallan for help. Then our lights went out." He looked towards Theon. "We heard his iron all the way back."

Eddard took Theon's hand. The skin below two fingers had split. He turned it towards the lantern, and Theon tried to draw it away.

"It is nothing."

"It needs washing." Eddard released him. "Thank you."

"I dared him to bring the rust," Theon said. The admission came out angrily. He had not meant the thanks to make him confess anything.

Catelyn put a hand on Robb's shoulder and another beneath his chin, turning his face to the light. "You might have fallen."

"We found the king." Robb opened the sack. A single red-brown scale lay inside.

She stared at it until he closed the sack again.

"Upstairs," Eddard said. "We will speak of this in the morning. Harwin fetched us when Hallan came running, or we might still be looking for you."

Wylla met them at the upper door with blankets. She wrapped Jon first, rubbed his arms through the wool and slipped a hand inside his collar. "Cold right through."

"The tapers blew out."

"I heard." She drew the blanket over his dusty hair and kept an arm about him as they climbed.

Robb put the rust into Theon's palm. It broke to powder when his fingers closed. Robb and Olyver were given twelve mornings of cleaning and repair for the venture. Theon was given six for helping them open the gate; the hand he had bloodied bringing them home counted for the other six. Jon was not punished for going after Robb, but he asked to join the work. For six mornings he carried a hooded lantern below with Eddard and helped Robb clean the upper tombs. Theon remained outside. He scoured the gate, washed the stair and carried water. Olyver repaired the latch gap beside Woods and lost every free hour until the work was done. "Harwin betrayed us," Olyver said on the second morning.

"He brought Lord Stark," Ser Rodrik said. "Be thankful he did."

Hallan rode home under a Hornwood guard with a letter for his uncle. He begged Eddard not to tell how frightened he had been. Eddard let him read it: his part in opening the gate came first, then how he had run for help. Hallan folded the letter without asking again.

On the fourth morning Eddard brought two lanterns below. He made Robb wring the washing cloth before it touched old stone and showed Jon how soot gathered beneath a carved wolf's jaw. Theon scoured the iron from outside the black threshold. "You could let me clean a king," he said.

"The custom is older than either of us," Eddard said. "Only Stark blood passes the iron without my leave."

"I kept your sons from getting lost."

"You helped Robb open the gate." Eddard wrung out the cloth. "You know why you are here, Theon."

Theon scrubbed a red patch on the iron. Beyond the bars Jon was cleaning the petals of the stone rose.

"He looked as though he knew her."

"Jon has heard of Lyanna all his life." Eddard went back to his work.

Theon scrubbed until the rust reddened his fingers.

Twice during the punishment Ser Rodrik returned Theon's knife in the practice yard. On the second day he let Theon carry the wrapped blade back to his chamber without Jory beside him. Theon's thumb worried the cord around the hilt all the way upstairs.

Luwin brought parchment and plain grey wax on the seventh afternoon. Theon began Father, scraped it away, and wrote My lord father instead. He told Balon of the barred window, the locked knife and the sea too distant to smell. He wrote that Robb treated every answer as the beginning of another question, and that Jon Black worked like an old man until someone knocked him into the mud.

He did not write of apples, hot mustard, the place kept at table or iron ringing through the dark. Praise would look like surrender. Complaint would show how little cruelty Winterfell had given him. At last he wrote: I have not forgotten Pyke. "When will he answer?" Theon asked as Luwin sanded the sheet.

"Allow a moon," Luwin said. He folded the letter. "I will send for you as soon as there is word."

"And if he asks for me?"

"Lord Stark will have to speak to the king." Luwin pressed the seal into the wax. "This will go before dusk, my lord."

No answer came in the first week. On the eighth evening Robb arrived with a copied drawing of Salt Wraith, a pine board and a pot of charcoal wash. Jon followed with brushes. The Stark man at the stair glanced through the open door and returned to his stool. The copied galley possessed a hull, a mast and a tangle of lines intended as oars. Half pointed the wrong way. Theon stared. "It resembles a fish after a cart has crossed it."

"It resembles the ship," Robb said.

"Salt Wraith has a higher prow. The steering oar belongs here, not wherever this tail is meant to be."

Robb handed him charcoal. "Show me."

Theon nearly refused. Boys asking of Pyke usually wanted tales of drowned men. Grown men wanted to learn how Balon had lost. Robb wanted the place of a steering oar. He redrew it. The long black line made the ship lean, so he corrected the stern and then the sweep of the hull. "The banks are uneven," Jon said, holding down a curling edge.

"The benches are even when the ship sits true," Theon said. "If one side is shorter, she will pull before the steersman touches his oar."

"Robb drew twenty-nine upon this side and only twenty-eight opposite," Jon said.

"Then Robb lost one beneath the parchment or inside his head. Salt Wraith carried the same number to port and starboard."

Robb counted, reached twenty-seven, began again and blamed the fold. "Did a raven come today?" he asked without looking up.

Theon's charcoal stopped. "No."

Robb bent closer to the board and counted the oars again. Jon held the curling corner flat for him.

"You have drawn that one twice," Theon said at last. "Give it here."

Jon copied the corrected hull onto the pine while the other two argued over the height of the prow. The wash spread darkly along the grain; there was room for the mast above it, but he had not drawn that yet.

Sansa came to fetch them for supper. She saw the drawing and leaned over it, blue eyes narrowing at the blank prow. Her finger followed the curve Theon had drawn before she decided the captured galley needed eyes. "A kraken," Robb said.

"Salt Wraith carried a horse skull upon her prow," Theon replied. "Gelmarr said it frightened greenlanders."

Sansa recoiled. "A true skull from a living horse?"

"Not living when they took the skull, no."

She took Jon's brush and painted two white eyes upon the pine board. "Ships should see where they go."

"Braavosi ships paint eyes upon their bows," Jon said. "Sansa's are not stranger than those."

"Ironborn ships have captains to see for them. Wood needs no painted eyes."

"Your captain put a skull there," Robb said. "That cannot see either."

Theon flicked wash at him. Jon ducked; black drops struck Robb's sleeve. Robb stared at the stain with delight and reached for the pot. They arrived at supper with black marks upon all three boys and two clean white eyes upon a board that had no mast. Catelyn sent them to wash. Sansa carried the board to table and claimed Salt Wraith as hers because only she had improved it. "No ironborn crew will sail beneath painted eyes," Theon said.

"Then I shall have Braavosi sailors," Sansa said. She held the board closer.

Theon looked to Jon. "Tell her she cannot steal my ship."

"It is my board," Robb said.

"I painted the eyes." Sansa put one hand over them.

Jon tore his oat loaf in half. "You should have finished the drawing before she found it."

Theon sat between them and reached for the onions. Sansa put the ship against her cup, facing him. He moved it a little farther from the gravy.

* * *

Arthur had gathered the practice swords when Jon asked whether he would teach other boys. Robb and Theon had gone ahead to wash, still disputing the last bout, and the knight looked towards the doorway before answering.

"Which boys?"

"Ones I mean to take into my household. Twenty-five, if Father gives me leave."

Arthur kept one hand upon the rack. "You have spoken to him?"

"Not yet. I wanted to speak to you first."

The knight turned fully towards him. "You will need another man in the yard. When I am away with you, their training cannot stop."

"I know. I want you to teach their swordwork. Someone else can keep them at the rest."

"And what is the rest?"

Jon lowered his shield and described the running, riding and work he meant to give them between their weapons lessons. He wanted time for letters as well, and exercises to strengthen them before they learnt to carry heavier arms. Arthur listened without interrupting until Jon began fitting it all between breakfast and supper.

"Leave room for a boy to catch his breath," he said. "And for the man teaching him. Twenty-five will not all learn a turn because you show it once."

"Then they work in smaller groups. The others can be with the drillman while you teach the first."

"That would serve." Arthur knelt to unfasten the shield strap Jon was worrying with his fingers. "Why twenty-five?"

"Four files of six, and a captain. I could know them all."

"Provided you spend time with them outside the yard."

"I mean to."

Arthur drew the stiff end of the strap through its buckle. For years he had been the one fastening such things while Jon talked of what he would do when he was larger. This time he laid the shield beside the others and asked what wages Jon meant to offer.

"I have Poole's prices for boots and cloth. I need the food added."

"Have it added before you speak to Ned. He will ask."

"Will you come with me?"

"Aye. But you make the request." Arthur rose and hung the little sword within Jon's reach. "Tell him what you want from me as well. He should not have to guess."

* * *

That afternoon Robb found Jon ruling a clean page beside Poole's prices. He set a wooden horse upon the unused corner and asked whether this drawing was for the clock too.

"It is an account. I am asking Father for a household of my own."

"Like his guards?"

"Boys to begin with. I want them taught here, so they know me before I take them to Dragonstone. Arthur has agreed to help."

Robb drew his stool beside Jon's to inspect the reckoning when Theon came in. He stopped behind them, reading over their heads.

"Twenty-five boys?"

"If Father agrees," Jon said.

Theon snorted. "Who commands them?"

"I do."

"From a stool?"

Robb laughed before he remembered whose side he was on. "You used one when you wanted the workshop key."

"And reached it, didn't I?" Theon pulled the other chair round and sat astride it. "You may borrow that one, Lord Black. It has proved itself."

Jon smiled despite himself and moved the ink before Theon's sleeve caught it.

"They will have a captain."

"Good. Find a tall one. He can carry you when you inspect them."

"Have you come to help?"

"I thought I was."

Robb leaned across the table. "Olyver might join."

That drew Theon's attention back to the reckoning. "Does his father know?"

"Not yet," Jon said. "There is nothing to offer until Father gives his leave."

"The boy spends half his day at your clock already. When is he meant to learn a sword?"

"His yard work and lessons would come first. Woods would need another pair of hands for the carrying."

Theon studied the figures again, less amused now that he had found something worth questioning. "Another boy to pay, then."

"Yes."

"Lord Stark will enjoy this."

"He will listen," Robb insisted.

"Oh, he always listens." Theon grinned at Jon. "That is how he finds everything you hoped he would miss."

Jon went back to the figures. Robb remained beside him long enough to have three sums explained, then took his horse to the window while Theon asked whether any of the boys would be taught a bow. When Poole came for his prices, Jon had another question for him about a carrying lad's wage.

By the following afternoon the account was ready. Jon washed the ink from his fingers and went to find Arthur before the last petitions were heard.

* * *

Eddard had scarcely dismissed the last petitioner when Jon laid his reckoning upon the table.

His father looked from the folded parchment to Arthur, who had followed Jon through the door. Rain darkened the knight's shoulders. He unfastened his cloak and hung it beside the hearth before drawing nearer.

"Another difficulty with the clock?" Eddard asked.

"No, Father. I want leave to gather a household."

"You have a household."

"Wylla and Arthur. I mean guards of my own."

Eddard opened the parchment. Jon had copied it twice to leave room between the sums, and Poole had supplied the prices for wool, boots and bedding. Even so, his father read slowly, returning to the first line after reaching the bottom.

"Twenty-five boys."

"Aged twelve to fourteen."

"No."

Jon had expected objections. He had not expected his father to finish before hearing him.

"Will you hear why?"

Eddard set the parchment down. "I will hear you. But you are not yet six, Jon. Your clock is unfinished, you have lessons with Luwin, and Arthur tells me he sometimes has to fetch you from the workshop for your supper. Now you propose to take responsibility for twenty-five other boys."

"That is why I brought the reckoning."

"The reckoning tells me what their coats cost."

Jon drew the chair nearer and climbed onto it. From there he could see the figures without having to stretch across the table.

Outside, a cart rattled beneath the window. Someone called for the driver to halt, and the sound of its wheels ceased with a long complaint from the axle.

Eddard waited until it was quiet.

"What has made you ask for this now? Has someone threatened you?"

"No."

"Then what are twenty-five boys to do that Arthur and my guards cannot?"

"They are not to replace Arthur."

"Nor could they."

Jon let that pass. "I want men who will go with me when I leave for Dragonstone. Men I have trained and lived with, not an escort chosen the week before I sail."

"Ethan has men waiting for you already. Two hundred of them went south at my command. The islanders who remained gave their oaths into his hands."

"I know. I am not asking him to send them away."

"Then why do you need another company?"

"Because a garrison is not the same as the men who ride beside me."

Eddard's fingers rested upon the parchment. Jon could see that the distinction had reached him, though it had not persuaded him.

"When you leave Winterfell," Jon continued, "you know who goes with you. You know which man you can send ahead, which one you trust with a message, who will take command if Jory is hurt. Ethan knows the men on Dragonstone. I know the names he writes."

"You will learn them."

"Aye. I would rather not begin learning everything on the same day."

Arthur drew up the other chair.

"He has a point, Ned."

"He has several. They do not make him old enough to keep twenty-five dependants."

"He would not be keeping them alone."

Eddard looked at him. "How much of this was your suggestion?"

"The number and the ages were his. So was bringing you the account."

"And the need for his own guards?"

"I have told him a lord ought to know the men who guard him."

"You might have added that there was no need to gather them before his sixth nameday."

Arthur settled his hands upon his knees. "When would you have him begin?"

"When he is older."

"How much older?"

Eddard's expression hardened. "Do not question me as though I have forgotten what Robert granted him."

"I have not forgotten what you accepted for him either."

The room grew quieter. Arthur had spoken without raising his voice, but Jon knew the look passing between them. He had seen it over letters from Dragonstone and whenever Robert's interest in him was mentioned. His father wanted more years. Arthur wanted those years used.

Jon wanted both, though he had little faith that wanting would obtain them.

"I am asking now because there is time to train them," he said, drawing their attention back to him. "Not because I mean to sail tomorrow."

Eddard sat back.

"Why boys, then? Let Rodrik choose six men who have served well. They can accompany you about Winterfell, and when you are older we can speak of more."

"Six men would guard me. That is not all I want."

"What else?"

"I want them taught together. Sword and shield, riding, their letters. I want them accustomed to taking orders from one another as well as from me. When I need more men, some of these should be fit to teach them."

Arthur glanced at Jon. He had heard the proposed exercises, but not all of what Jon meant to build from them.

"You are choosing your captains before you have soldiers?"

"I am giving myself years to find out which ones might become captains."

That earned him a longer look from Eddard.

Jon rested his forearms upon the table. "I do not need every boy to become an officer. Most will not. But I will know them by then. I will have seen them tired, angry, frightened, pleased with themselves. I would rather choose after that than because a man brings me a fine sword and a letter praising his courage."

"Good men can be found with both," Eddard said.

"And I shall want good men too. I need one now to keep the yard when Arthur cannot."

"Then you do acknowledge that experience has some worth."

"Enough that I want these boys to gain it before I depend upon them."

Arthur's mouth moved at that, but Eddard did not smile.

"They will be older than you," his father said. "Every one of them. Some will be twice your size."

"I have noticed that most people are."

"That is not the objection I am making."

"I know." Jon held his gaze. "They must understand whose service they are entering before they give their word. I will hear counsel from the men teaching them. I will not have my orders treated as suggestions because a boy can lift me."

"And when one does?"

"He answers for it."

"To Arthur?"

"To me. Arthur need not settle every quarrel in my name."

Eddard studied him over the open account. The answer had come readily; Jon could see his father wondering how much of that certainty would remain before an angry boy with broad shoulders and a practice sword.

Arthur leaned forward.

"He gives orders to men older than either of us in the workshop. They question him when the work requires it. He answers, or he has them show him what he has missed. They have not found him difficult to hear."

"Timber does not become resentful."

"Mikken does."

Despite himself, Eddard let out a breath of amusement.

Arthur continued before it vanished. "I would not leave him alone with them, Ned. Nor put steel in their hands because he asks it. But I can teach their weapons, and Rodrik will know a man who can keep order among them. Better we discover what Jon must learn while you are here to see it."

His father looked down again.

"Twelve to fourteen," he murmured. "Old enough to think a sword makes a man of them. Young enough to believe you when you say it does."

"I will not tell them that."

Jon's answer was quieter than the others.

For a moment he remembered his own son at twelve, all knees and elbows in a school shirt, indignant over some quarrel that had seemed likely to end the world until supper arrived. The boys he meant to summon would be no less children because they knew how to split wood or carry a sack of barley. Feeding them well and teaching them to fight would not change what he was asking of them.

He disliked that more than either man could know.

But he remembered another Winterfell, emptied of its strength; boys sent south with Robb and boys left behind when the ironborn came. He remembered what had become of the man sitting across from him. Those events were not a fate he intended to accept. They were warnings, and altering a warning's particulars did not make the danger disappear.

He could spend these years preparing, or discover later that he had mistaken his own reluctance for mercy.

Eddard was still watching him.

"They will begin with practice weapons," Jon said. "They will learn to obey a halt as readily as a command to strike. I want them alive and useful when they are grown. There is no purpose in ruining them to make a fine show now."

Arthur nodded. "I can answer for that part."

"And their letters?" Eddard asked. "You have written a tutor's work here as though Luwin has no other duties."

"He has more than enough. I thought someone who helps him with the copying might teach them the beginning. Luwin could judge whether the man is fit."

"What does a guard need with letters?"

"To read an order without finding someone else to read it for him. To keep a watch roll. To count what he is given and tell me what is missing." Jon touched the edge of the parchment. "You send Ethan letters because he can understand more from them than a rider's memory. I want men I can send away with work and expect an account when they return."

"Some will never have held a quill."

"Neither had I."

Arthur looked towards the window. Eddard's gaze remained upon Jon.

"You are not a useful measure of how quickly other children learn."

"No," Jon conceded. "That is another reason to begin early."

His father lifted the account again.

"Why twenty-five?"

"Four files of six, with one captain over them. Small enough that a man teaching them can see what each boy does. Enough to practise together and divide the work."

"You have already chosen this captain?"

"No. I have not chosen any of them."

"Not Woods's boy?"

"Olyver may ask for a place. His father must agree, and Arthur must judge him as he judges the others."

Arthur gave a slight nod at that.

Eddard moved his finger to the figures beneath the proposed wages.

"All of which returns us here. You have not sold a clock."

"Not yet."

"And you mean to feed them with the money from clocks you have not sold."

"I mean to ask you for an advance until I can."

"How long?"

Jon hesitated, not because he lacked an answer he could give, but because the answer would be worth little. A cracked piece of timber or an ill-fitted tooth could cost another week. He had lived long enough among unfinished works to know how cheaply certainty could be offered.

"I cannot give you an honest day."

Eddard lowered the parchment.

"Then do not give me a dishonest one."

"I have not."

"No." His father rubbed a thumb along the fold. "You have not."

The fire shifted in the grate. Arthur rose to move a fallen length of wood back upon the embers, leaving Jon and Eddard facing one another across the table.

"There will be buyers," Jon said. "Once the clock is proved. Lords spend gold upon Myrish glass and hangings because another lord has them. A bell that rings without a man pulling the rope will not pass unnoticed."

"And when those buyers come?"

"First I repay what I owe you. Then I pay for the work needed to make the next."

"And after that?"

Jon saw no purpose in pretending his ambition ended with twenty-five.

"More, when I can afford them and have men fit to teach them."

Eddard glanced towards Arthur, who had returned the fire iron to its stand.

"This is a beginning to you."

"Yes."

His father was silent for a while. Below the window, the cart began moving again, its axle complaining all the way towards the gate.

"At your age," Eddard said at last, "I wanted a horse my father would not let me ride."

"Did he relent?"

"No. Brandon put me on it when Father was away."

Arthur turned from the hearth. "That explains a good deal."

"I fell into a dung heap." Eddard gave him a level look. "Brandon found it more amusing than I did."

Jon smiled, but his father's expression grew serious again.

"I cannot keep you from wanting more than your years ought to allow. I can require you to understand what you are asking. These boys will come because they are hungry, or because their fathers have no land for them, or because they have heard that Arthur Dayne will teach them a sword. Some will come for reasons they cannot explain. Once you receive their service, you cannot lose interest."

"I will not."

"You cannot send them home hungry because a lord delays paying for his clock."

"Then their food comes before another bench or another tool."

Eddard watched him for another moment before drawing the parchment back towards himself.

"Twenty-five at most. Their families hear plainly that the service may take them to Dragonstone. No boy still bound to another master enters your household without his release. Arthur judges whether they can bear the training, and you will not fill the number merely because you have beds prepared."

Jon straightened in the chair.

"And the trainer?"

"Speak to Rodrik. If he finds a man willing to take your service, bring him to me."

Arthur resumed his seat. "I will go with him."

"I rather thought you would." Eddard looked again at the account. "Poole will help you correct this. Food and clothing, Jon, not merely silver. There are things here you have priced once which will need buying twice before the year is out."

"Will you advance the first pay?"

"The first pay." His father folded the parchment and gave it back. "You will repay it from the clocks you sell. Poole will see to it."

Jon took the account with both hands. "Thank you, Father."

Eddard caught his wrist before he could slide from the chair.

"You still come to supper."

"I came yesterday."

"After Wylla went looking for you."

"The wheel was—"

"I know about the wheel."

Arthur was smiling now. Jon gave up the defence and tucked the parchment beneath his arm.

"I will come."

His father released him, but the hand that had held his wrist passed once over his dark hair before he stepped away.

Outside the solar, Arthur waited while Jon shut the door.

"Rodrik will be in the yard."

"Then we should find him."

"He may want to finish his supper before discussing yours."

Jon looked towards the narrow window. The light had faded while they argued. From below came the smell of onions frying in dripping, and the sound of Robb calling for someone to move along the bench.

He turned towards the hall. Arthur followed without another word.

"Did he agree?" Robb asked as Jon took his place.

"Twenty-five at most. We still have to find them."

Robb turned immediately towards Theon. "I told you."

Theon lowered his cup. "All twenty-five?"

"All twenty-five," Jon said.

For a moment Theon looked genuinely surprised, which pleased Robb more than the approval itself.

"You thought he would say no."

"He did say no," Jon told him.

Robb looked back, confused. Theon's grin returned.

"And you kept talking until he changed his mind? Gods help your captain."

"Would you prefer I had stopped?"

"I would prefer to know how you managed it before I next ask for something."

At the head of the table, Eddard set down his knife.

"You might begin by asking for something reasonable, Theon."

Theon bent over his trencher, though the corner of his mouth still moved. Beside him, Robb was already asking when they could watch the choosing.

"When Rodrik can spare you," Eddard said. "You will not leave your own work because Jon has found more."

Robb waited until his father had turned to Catelyn before leaning closer. "We shall still practise together?"

"Aye. I have not asked Arthur to stop teaching me."

"With them?"

"Some mornings. Other times with you and Rodrik."

That satisfied him. He began proposing boys Jon had met at the harvest gathering until Theon asked whether all their fathers meant to send their heirs to guard Dragonstone. Robb told him he had only named two. Jon listened over his broth, thankful for a conversation in which he did not have to defend the whole undertaking before taking another mouthful.

* * *

Arthur went with Jon to find Rodrik after supper. The following afternoon they met him in the armoury yard, with an old soldier waiting beside him. The man had grey in his beard and carried an ash staff more often than a spear. One knee remained stiff when he walked; half his left ear was gone.

"Heward," Rodrik said. "He served under your grandfather, rode with your father's men before the knee went bad, and has spent the last years making himself useful wherever Winterfell needed an old soldier who could still shout."

Heward looked down at Jon. "Ser Rodrik says you want twenty-five boys made into a household."

"I do."

"Boys of twelve and thirteen."

"Some fourteen."

"That improves matters enormously." The old soldier's face did not change. Rodrik's moustache did.

Jon liked him better for it. "Arthur will teach the sword. Hullen and the men he names will see to the horses. I want you over the yard."

"Doing what?"

"Teaching them to obey together. A good swordsman who leaves his place when he pleases is a danger to the men beside him. I want twenty-five boys who know where to stand, how to move when they are tired, how to keep their shields, clothes and weapons fit, and how to answer the first order."

Heward gave a slow nod. "That I know."

"There will be running. Wrestling. Stretching before hard work."

"Sensible enough."

"And lifting."

The nod stopped. "Lifting what?"

"Weights."

Heward glanced towards Rodrik. "For what work?"

"For no work but becoming stronger."

That earned Jon a longer stare. "Carrying stone makes a man strong."

"It also spends his strength carrying stone. I want the work measured. A weight a boy can lift cleanly today, a heavier one when he has earned it. Legs, back, shoulders, grip. Strength trained deliberately instead of left to chance."

Rodrik folded his arms. "You have seen men trained so?"

"I know what I want the body to learn." Jon kept his answer there. "We begin light. No boy proves courage by ruining a joint."

Heward tapped the end of his staff once against the stone. "And when a boy cannot keep pace?"

"Then we find out why. If he is weak, we strengthen him. If he is hurt, we mend him. If he is lazy, you cure him of it."

Heward's eyes narrowed slightly. "And the one who decides he has had enough?"

Jon met his eyes. "Then he discovers that I have not."

The old soldier's mouth twitched.

"I will feed them well, clothe them, pay them and teach them letters as well as arms," Jon said. "In return I expect obedience and work. If you think one of my ideas is foolish, tell me before the yard hears it."

"And if you still want it done?"

"Then do as I command."

Rodrik looked away, but not before Jon saw the amusement beneath his moustache.

Heward planted both hands upon the head of his staff. "When do you want me?"

"Before the boys arrive. I want the yard ready before they are."

"Then show me these weights of yours, Lord Black. I should like to know what foolishness I have agreed to before dawn finds me shouting it."

They brought Heward before Eddard that evening, as his father had required. Eddard lent him for the choosing; he would grant his release from Winterfell's service once Jon and the old soldier had proved they could work together.

Before the call went out, Poole took Jon and Wylla to the chamber beside the armoury. The steward had its key threaded on a ring of smaller ones; he tried two before the lock yielded. Within, the beds had been pushed together to make room for two chests of spare harness. Jon counted twenty before reaching the far window.

"The other five?"

"In the stores, my lord. Woods must mend two of them."

Jon looked along the inner wall. "There, if we move the chests."

Wylla walked the space he had indicated, then turned towards the hearth. "Leave them a passage. I will not have boys climbing over their fellows whenever they need the privy."

Jon shifted the nearest bed himself. "This far?"

She passed between it and the next, carrying her basket. "That will do."

Poole opened his book. "And the bedding?"

"All of it in my account," Jon said. "Show me what can be used before we buy more."

Some mattresses only needed fresh straw; others had seams Wylla could push two fingers through. She laid those aside for mending while Jon and Poole counted the blankets. They would eat with Winterfell's guards, the cost entered against House Black, and fetch their wash water from the yard pump. Poole showed them the nearest privy and promised pegs for wet cloaks beneath the eaves rather than over the beds.

"Where will Heward sleep?" Wylla asked as they returned to the door.

Poole opened the little room across the passage. "Here. It has a bed of its own."

Jon tried the latch from within. Heward would hear anyone leaving the boys' chamber, and the passage gave him a shorter walk to the yard than his old lodging. Jon had no intention of placing another bed among the twenty-five and pretending the old soldier would be comfortable in it.

Wylla held the door while Poole checked the hearth. "And the boys waiting to be chosen? Some will come farther than a morning's walk."

"The ones who live near enough go home," Jon said. "For the others, what room can we use?"

"The lower hall can be kept free for the choosing. I can have straw and pallets brought in. Those who have kin with them may sleep there as well."

"Do that. They are to hear the terms when they arrive, not after they have spent six days hoping for a place."

Poole added the temporary bedding to the account. He went through the whole reckoning with Jon that evening and entered Eddard's advance, including the drillman's keep and the help Woods would need if Olyver were chosen. There was still no name beside the captain's place.

The teacher came the next day with a bundle of copied pages under his arm. Master Hollan earned his living writing letters and fair copies in Winter Town; Luwin had given him copying often enough to know his hand. Jon found them together in the maester's room, Hollan keeping his elbows clear of a tray of drying herbs.

"How many know their letters?" Hollan asked.

"We have not chosen them yet," Jon said. "Some will. Most may not."

Hollan considered the number upon the page. "Then I must hear them separately before I begin. A boy who can already read a little will learn nothing by listening to the alphabet every evening."

"Divide them according to what they know. Heward can keep one group at its other work while you teach the first."

"I shall need more than one primer."

Luwin turned towards his shelves. "Begin with mine. You may copy what you need, but they are to come back."

Jon drew the reckoning closer. "Put the copying in the price as well."

They agreed a weekly payment for lessons after the midday meal, leaving Hollan his mornings for other work. Reading and common sums would begin together, with harder accounts for those ready for them. He would visit during the choosing to hear the boys, then teach whoever Jon accepted. Luwin asked him to bring their work back after the first fortnight so they could see which needed more help.

"And your own lesson remains here," the maester told Jon. "You may sit with them when you have time. It will not replace the work I set you."

"I know."

Hollan was looking at the figures Jon had written. He asked him to read one line, then studied the boy a moment longer before folding his own account beside it.

"Bring that to Poole," Jon said. "He is keeping the costs with mine."

Luwin went back to the herbs once the hour was settled. Hollan stayed to choose the pages he would copy, moving a stool so Jon could see the primers beside him.

By the next fortnight Jon's sixth nameday had passed, and the lower yard was crowded before he finished breakfast. The call had gone through the winter town and the nearest villages: Lord Black wanted twenty-five boys, twelve to fourteen, for his household. Men repeated it over smiths' anvils and at the mill. Some boys came with a spare shirt tied inside a blanket; others wore their fathers' coats with the sleeves folded back. Poole's clerk explained the wages and the service on Dragonstone before directing those who needed a pallet to the lower hall. Jon had expected curiosity. He had not expected so many families to treat the offer as a road their sons might walk for years.

He did not choose them in an afternoon.

For six days Heward, Arthur and Jon worked through them. Wylla kept the names of parents and kin beside Poole's clerk, because she cared less how straight a boy stood than whether anyone knew where to send if he broke an arm. Arthur watched hands, feet and eyes. Heward wanted to see what remained of obedience after breath and patience were spent. Jon wanted boys who could be taught together rather than twenty-five little champions.

Preventing the wars he remembered would not answer every danger. Beyond the Wall was an enemy a quarrel settled in King's Landing would do nothing to stop. He could not be certain when it would come south, or how much his own choices would alter what preceded it. The years he had asked for were useful only if he used them.

The first morning contained very little swordplay. Heward sent them round the yard in groups of six with sacks upon their shoulders. Rain had softened the ground beneath the gallery; each circuit carried them through churned mud and up the shallow armoury slope. By the fourth, the tallest were breathing through their mouths. One boy's sack began slipping from his shoulder; he tried to catch it without slowing and spilled half its sand before Heward called him back.

They carried water next, then held practice shields until shoulders began to sag. Hullen lent them two quiet garrons and watched while the boys led them between barrels and stacked timber. A lad who had boasted of riding since he could walk jerked the reins when a cart rattled behind him; the garron planted its feet and refused him. Another boy who had never owned a horse put one hand against the animal's neck, waited for it to settle and brought it through cleanly.

Hullen watched the second boy bring the garron through, then glanced at Jon. "That one has never been taught to ride."

"No," Jon said.

"He listens to the horse anyway."

Jon remembered that.

The second day brought ash swords, but Arthur paired the boys by size before any of them could choose an easy victory. Heward called halt without warning. A boy who followed through too late had to show that he could stop before Arthur let him begin again. Robb and Theon arrived when their own lessons were done, and Rodrik kept them behind the rail with the watching families.

Theon had been leaning against the rail until a broad-shouldered applicant began driving his opponent backwards. Now he straightened, following the exchange while Robb called encouragement to the smaller boy.

"That one can fight," Theon said.

Jon watched Arthur move closer to the pair. "He has been taught."

"Aye. Give him a proper shield and he would trouble some of Rodrik's pages."

The larger boy struck again, caught his opponent's blade and forced it down. Before Arthur could separate them, he looked towards the rail to see who had noticed.

Theon snorted.

"What?" Robb asked.

"He had him beaten. Now he wants everyone to admire it."

Arthur sent them apart and gave the larger boy a correction. The boy began explaining what he had intended.

Theon's mouth crooked. "Oh, teach Ser Arthur. He has been waiting years for you."

Jon pressed his lips together. Arthur had heard; the glance he gave the rail was enough to make Robb stand straight and Theon lower his voice.

When the boy tried again, he kept his eyes upon his opponent.

"Better," Theon murmured.

"You could tell him that," Robb said.

"And spoil him?"

Rodrik called them away before the next pair began. Robb left looking back at the yard. Theon went with him, still following the movement of the taller boy's shield until the armoury door hid it.

The third morning was Jon's doing. There were no bouts at all. The applicants cleaned borrowed shields, sorted pegs, carried kindling, brushed horses and helped stack grain sacks beneath Poole's eye. Boys who had been eager when swords were offered became slower when given rags and buckets. One complained that he had come to become a guardsman, not a stableboy.

Heward looked at Jon. "There is one answer found."

The boy heard him and reddened, but stayed to finish the stall. Jon left his name on the roll. A complaint could be trained out of a boy who still did the work.

At noon Jon had them fed whether they remained in consideration or not. Brown bread, onion broth and cold beef went down the tables. When Heward questioned feeding boys already crossed from the roll, Jon tore his bread in half. "They came because I called. They eat before they go home."

The fourth day was longer. Heward paired the boys for runs and made each pair finish together. Arthur returned to shields once their arms were tired. Jon moved among them asking where they came from, who depended upon their wages and what they understood of the service explained when they arrived. Hearing the little lord speak of taking them across the sea made Dragonstone less distant than it had sounded in the clerk's announcement.

One mother took her son home. Jon did not argue. Another father asked how often a boy serving on Dragonstone would be allowed north. "I cannot promise a road I have not travelled yet," Jon told him. "I can promise he will be paid, fed and given leave when service allows it. If that is not enough, decide now, before he gives me his word." The man looked at his son. The boy remained.

Hollan heard them in the lower hall while the next pairs waited for the yard. He wrote each name for its owner to try, setting a different passage before the few who could already read. Robb sat at the end of the table until Jon asked him to stop supplying the sounds. He flushed, then held his tongue while the boy beside him finished without help.

"Better?" Robb asked Jon afterwards.

"Now Master Hollan knows what the boy can do."

Robb looked back at the table, where the scrivener had covered half a word with his thumb. "Luwin does that with me."

Jon smiled and went to hear the next family.

By the fifth day the yard had begun revealing things no single contest could. Some boys blamed a partner whenever a file lost order. Others quietly tightened another lad's shield strap or shared water without being told. Heward changed an instruction halfway through a drill simply to learn who was listening. Arthur noted who needed one correction and who needed five. Wylla found two boys hiding blisters because they feared being sent home and marched both to Luwin before Heward could shout at them.

The yard confirmed something Jon had learned at sea long before he had ever heard the name Winterfell. A man could look excellent for an hour. It was the wet watch, the fouled line and the fourth repetition of an unpleasant job that told you whether you wanted him beside you when matters went wrong. These were boys rather than sailors, so Jon used what he had: mud, boredom, horses, mistakes and one another.

The sixth morning began in rain. Heward sent the remaining boys round the yard with sacks again, not because Jon cared who came first, but because everyone now knew what the circuit felt like. The smallest lost a shoe near the broken tiles by the wall.

"Two of you, help him," Heward called. "The rest keep moving."

Tomas stopped beside him and took his sack, keeping him on the clear ground while Oren went back for the shoe. The others went on. When Heward called them in, Tomas brought up the rear carrying both burdens, one shoulder dark where the coarse sacking had rubbed rain through his coat.

Heward took the extra sack from him. "Is he hurt?"

"No, master. There are broken tiles by the wall." Tomas glanced at Jon and straightened. "My lord."

Jon sent a stable hand for a basket. "Clear those before the next six go round."

Heward turned the waiting boys towards the other end of the yard.

Jon moved along the line with Arthur. Up close they smelled of wet wool and six days of trying to appear harder than they felt. There was a split seam at one shoulder, an old burn across a wrist, a thin boy trying to keep his teeth from chattering. Olyver stood near the end, holding his recovered shoe. He had scraped most of the mud from it with a stick. Beside him, Oren had mud above both knees.

"You went back too," Jon said to Oren.

"Only for the shoe, my lord. Tomas had him."

"Put it on, Olyver." Jon looked to Heward. "Keep the pairs for the longer runs. I want each boy to know who is falling behind."

Heward nodded and called the next six forward.

Arthur bent over the roll on the window ledge. He had crossed out more names than he had left. Jon rested one hand on the wet stone and went through those that remained with him. Twenty-five would give Heward four files of six and a boy to bring them together. Jon chose Tomas for that place. Heward named Jorren, Olyver, Rylas and Gage for the files; Arthur agreed, though he kept his finger beside Olyver's name until Jon had spoken to Woods.

"He still has work at the bench," the carpenter said when he was brought from the workshop. Sawdust clung to the damp front of his apron. "He knows which pieces are ready for the wheelwright. I cannot put any lad in his place."

Jon called Olyver over from the waiting boys. "Your father needs you. Do you still want a place in the household?"

"Aye, my lord." Olyver looked at Woods. "I can do both."

"You have not yet tried," Woods said.

"The yard comes first," Jon told them. "But he can work with you after lessons. I will pay another lad to do the carrying and rough work, so you have his time for what only he knows."

Woods studied his son's hopeful face. "We will see how much strength you have left after Heward has finished with you." He turned to Jon and touched his brow. "Very well, my lord."

Eddard came down with Poole before the boys were called in to eat. He read Arthur's roll beneath the gallery while Jon waited beside him. Rainwater dripped from the eaves onto the flagstones between them.

"Poole has the five spare beds in place," his father said. "The room beside the armoury is ready. They will take their meals with my men, as you agreed, until you have a kitchen of your own."

He lowered the roll. "Heward has my release. He may give you his oath. These boys will answer to him and to Arthur, and both men answer to you. They still obey my castellan while they live within these walls."

"Yes, Father."

Jon took the roll. "I will have practice shields brought from the armoury tonight. Arthur begins with them at dawn."

"I shall tell Rodrik," Eddard said. "There is room at the eastern wall."

When the last names were settled, Heward brought the chosen boys beneath the gallery. Their families crowded closer as Jon took his place before them, with Arthur beside the steps and Eddard remaining by the table. Some of the boys still watched the knight more closely than their prospective lord.

"Your names have been chosen," Jon said. "Before you give me your word, hear what I expect."

The talk beside the steps subsided.

"You will have the food, clothing and silver promised to you. You will learn your weapons, your horses and your letters. Some of you had begun that work before you came here. Others had never held a sword or read a word. I expect all of you to learn."

He looked along the line.

"Tomas will command the household. The men I set over you speak with my authority. You will obey them in the yard, upon the road and when I am not there to hear whether you do."

Tomas straightened beside the others. Jon let him feel the eyes turning towards him before continuing.

"I will train beside you. When you make a mistake, you will be taught to put it right. When you refuse an order, you will answer for it. Do not confuse the two."

One father shifted nearer the gallery, his cap held against his coat.

"This service will not end when you have earned a sword. In time I mean to take my household to Dragonstone. Any of you who cannot accept that must speak before we go to the heart tree."

Jon gave them time. He had no wish to discover later that a boy had mistaken being chosen for having no choice left.

"Those who give me their word will have mine. I will keep what I have promised you. I expect you to keep what you promise me."

No one stepped away. Robb stood beside Theon at the end of the gallery, quiet now; when Heward sent the boys to wash, they moved back to let the new captain lead them past.

By late afternoon the rain had stopped. The boys stood beneath the heart tree with their hair combed and the worst of the mud washed from their faces. Those of their kin who had stayed followed them from the gallery. Woods remained beside the path, turning a shaving between his fingers. Robb and Theon stood together by a root, the older boy with his arms folded. Wylla drew Jon's black collar straight before stepping back. Her thumb brushed the pale lock lying against his left temple.

"Keep your chin up," she murmured. "I stitched it to fit you."

Heward knelt first, awkwardly, upon his sound knee. Jon put his hands around the scarred hands offered to him. The old man pledged his counsel, the order of the yard and what strength remained to him, upon road and sea, until death or release before witnesses. Jon received him into his service and gave the promised protection, board, clothing and silver. Arthur helped Heward rise without making a show of it.

Tomas came next. He knelt on both knees and offered his hands. Up close Jon could see the thread where his mother had mended the cuff. The boy spoke loudly enough for those beside the path to hear.

"I, Tomas, give my service to Lord Jon of House Black. I will keep his peace, obey those he sets above me and stand beside my fellows, on land or sea, until death or lawful release."

"I receive your service," Jon said. "You shall have my protection, your board and clothing, and the silver promised you. Rise, Tomas."

Tomas stepped aside with his face flushed. The next boy had to hear Heward's prompting before he found his voice, but each spoke for himself. Jon answered each in turn. Woods stopped turning the shaving when Olyver knelt. Tomas's mother pressed her lips together and watched her son take his place beneath the tree. By the time Oren offered his hands, Jon's were cold from the boys' damp sleeves.

When the last had risen, Poole read back twenty-five names. Eddard witnessed the roll. Jon watched the ink dry beside his father's seal before he let Poole take it away.

The black cloth waiting in the armoury was plain northern wool. Wylla and two sewing women had cut badges from it while the boys were being tried. Their coats would take longer. Olyver held his collar for Woods to stitch, and Tomas submitted to his mother's needle with the same grave attention he had given the oath. Robb asked if he might learn with them on the morrow.

"You will have to ask Ser Rodrik," Jon said.

"He told me to ask you."

Jon looked across the yard. Rodrik's moustache twitched. "Come before breakfast."

Before bed Jon went to see their room. Heward had lit two candles, and the boys were carrying in the last of the bedding. Twenty-five narrow beds left only the passages Wylla had insisted upon. One blanket was already spread with carved game pieces. A lad at the window was unwrapping a heel of cheese from his spare shirt when Tomas noticed Arthur in the doorway.

They scrambled to their feet. Jon told them to finish settling in. He walked between the beds, looking at the shutters and the hearth, then sent Tomas to fetch another basket of wood from the store. One shutter would not stay closed. He showed Heward the loose fastening and asked for Woods in the morning.

Olyver had put his bed beside Oren's. Woods had sent his son a little chest; most of the others had bundles which fitted beneath a pillow. At the far end, Tomas's mother was folding his cloak. She rose when Jon approached and curtsied awkwardly between the beds. Jon waited while she finished. He had once checked a grown son's bag for things the young man insisted he had packed. Her boy might consider the folded cloak a nuisance; Jon understood why she wanted to do this last thing herself.

"He is placed well here, my lord," she said.

Jon looked at the bed she had made, neater than any of the others. "He has earned the place."

Tomas returned with the wood and found her still there. She touched his cheek before leaving, heedless of the boys trying not to watch. Arthur held the door for her. Behind Jon, someone took the game pieces from the blanket, and the talk slowly began again.

Heward waited across the passage until the last mother had left. His own door stood open, the ash staff leaning within reach of his bed. He told Tomas where to find him if anyone needed help, then sent the boy back to his fellows. Jon could hear them comparing their new places as he and Arthur crossed the yard towards the family rooms.

The next morning, all twenty-five were waiting when Arthur brought Jon down. Heward had arranged their practice shields by size against the wall. Jon took the smallest and stood at the end of Gage's file. Its rim reached too close to his chin; Arthur shifted the grip and made him hold it again while a leatherworker fetched his awl.

The other boys watched. Jon felt the weight pulling at his wrist. He kept the shield up until Arthur told him to lower it, then set it against his knee while the strap was shortened.

"Learn the order," he told Tomas. "You will have them ready before I come down tomorrow."

"Yes, my lord."

Heward began with the distance between one pair of feet and the next. Before the morning ended, Jon's heels were sore and he could hear the old man correcting the same fault three places along the file. The shield fitted better. When he lifted it on the next command, he could see over the rim.

Arthur dismissed them to eat. The boys stacked their shields, more slowly now, and followed Heward towards the hall. Jon stayed with Tomas to call back three whose straps had slipped during the lesson. They tried the shields on their own arms, and Tomas marked the places for the leatherworker.

At breakfast Robb sat opposite Jon, blowing on a spoonful of porridge. He asked when the household would learn to fight with swords.

"Arthur begins with swords tomorrow." Jon reached for the milk. His wrist shook a little with the effort, and he set the jug down before pouring it.

Robb regarded his own reddened palm. "I thought there would be more hitting."

"There will be." Arthur took the bread from the serving boy and passed it between them. "You can tell me afterwards whether you still want more."

Jon ate a second bowl before going to lessons. Beyond the hall door he could hear Heward collecting the twenty-five, learning which names needed to be called twice.

After the midday meal, Hollan arrived with the copied primers and found the shields stacked against the wall outside the boys' chamber. Heward took the first group out to the yard while the others sat with the scrivener. Returning from his own lesson, Jon stopped long enough to hear Olyver finish a passage. Woods would have him back at the bench when Hollan was done; for now the boy kept his finger beneath the words and tried the difficult one again.