Aemon of Dragonstone

[aiwonder]

By the time Arthur opened his shutters, Jon had given up trying to sleep.

Below his window, a kitchen boy carried a basket almost as large as himself across the court, stopping to hitch it higher against his stomach. Jon watched him reach the opposite door, then pulled on his boots. He had been awake long enough to calculate how many days the men on Dragonstone had already waited for him.

Hugin stirred upon the sill. Jon broke a scrap from the cold meat beneath a cloth and held it out. Munin came down from the bedpost at once. The other three crows watched from their baskets.

Aries came in with his practice clothes over one arm and bread in his mouth. "Ser Arthur says we have time for the yard."

"Has he eaten?"

The boy swallowed. "He says he has."

Through the connecting doorway, Jon could see untouched bread beside Arthur's cup. His uncle had passed his sword belt through the wrong loop and stood looking at it, his fingers still upon the buckle.

"Uncle?"

Arthur looked up. The light showed the hollows beneath his eyes and the roughness along his jaw. His gaze settled upon Jon's eyes before he pulled the strap free.

"Did you sleep?" Jon asked.

"A little." His voice was rough. He cleared his throat, but added nothing.

A second cup stood upon the table. Jon sent Aries for the practice gloves and waited until he had gone.

"Who was here?"

"Jaime. Barristan came before dawn."

Wax had pooled beneath a candlestick; a sheet covered in Arthur's handwriting lay beside it. His uncle usually answered questions while finishing whatever task was in his hands. Now the belt hung loose again.

"Did you speak about Aerys?"

Arthur rested his hands upon the table. "Yes. He meant to burn the city. Jaime killed him to stop it."

Jon drew out a chair and sat. Now he remembered Jaime's confession in the books: the hidden wildfire, the alchemists, a king who meant to burn with his capital. He had put the jars among dangers to be dealt with when he came south. Looking towards the window, he felt the shame of how easily he had allowed people he could not see to keep living above them.

"The wildfire," Arthur said. "There may still be stores of it."

"Is that why you sent for Barristan?"

"Jaime brought him. I told Barristan I believed his account. He will lay the matter before the Hand this morning. Jaime is writing down what he remembers." Arthur glanced at the sheet. "They will oversee the opening of the stores as soon as the guild has men ready."

"And until then?"

"Find the places. Question the men who may know. Put a watch on any store they can identify. No one is to disturb the jars without the alchemists."

"Ask Barristan to write to us. I want to know what they find, and whether the people above it are safe."

Arthur nodded. His shoulders had eased while they spoke of something that could be done. Then his gaze returned to the empty chair.

"I ought to have heard him years ago."

Jon waited, but his uncle said no more. He knew Jaime's account from the books; he did not know what the two men had said to each other here.

"You need not tell me everything this morning." He moved the bread towards Arthur. "We have time to sit a little."

From the next room, Aries called that he had found the gloves. Arthur finished fastening the belt, then put his hand upon Jon's shoulder. His thumb moved once over the seam of his coat.

"I would like to give you your lesson." His voice had steadied.

"All right. Eat first."

Arthur looked at the plate. "Am I your ward now?"

"Until you finish your breakfast."

A reluctant smile eased his uncle's face. He picked up the bread. When Aries returned, Arthur listened to his complaint about a strap and held out a hand to examine it.

Jon went to speak to Tomas. Six of the household would accompany them; Gawen would remain with the others. Jon had no intention of leaving his protection entirely to men whose names he did not know. Two guards went ahead when they left, the others following Jon and Aries.

Arthur led them past servants hauling sacks and through a covered walk. They emerged above twisting steps, with sunlight upon the Great Hall's upper windows. One door stood open while a man carried out old rushes.

Jon stopped. "May we look inside?"

"The king will not be there yet."

"I know."

Arthur studied him, then went to the guards. One asked whether the boy was Lord Black; at Jon's answer he moved aside. Tomas left two men at the entrance and followed them in.

Far above the empty floor, the Iron Throne caught a thin bar of light.

Jon lifted his head. Swords rose in a crooked thicket behind the seat, bent and blackened, their weight climbing into the dimness. Narrow iron steps climbed its front, with blades waiting if a man stumbled. At its foot, Jon could make out a crossguard among the weapons melted together. These had once been carried by living men.

"Can the king see everyone from there?" Aries asked.

"Everyone who comes before him," Arthur said.

Jon remembered offices where power wore an ordinary suit and pretended the desk was only furniture. Aegon had dispensed with the pretence. A man approached that chair from a very long way below it.

He wanted to climb the steps. The desire surprised him by how little it had to do with curiosity. He could picture his hand upon the armrest—and Tomas drawing his sword when the guards tried to stop him. Jon stayed where he was.

Arthur had watched him throughout. "They kept the dragons' skulls along the walls."

Jon turned towards the hunting tapestries. "Where are they now?"

"Below. Robert had them taken down."

"I should like to see them."

"I will ask who keeps the keys."

They moved away together. Behind the throne, a guarded door let the king leave without passing his petitioners. There were other ways through these walls. Maegor's passages. Jon remembered Varys in darkness, a child with a candle, voices travelling where their owners believed themselves alone. He could recall scarcely a useful turn of the routes. His engineer's eye could not tell him whether a thick wall contained a stair, a passage, or simply more stone.

He waited until Aries had gone ahead with Arthur, then spoke to Tomas.

"While we practise, look at the room behind mine. And find out what lies above it."

"Something wrong with the chamber?"

"I don't know yet. I would rather know who can reach it."

Tomas nodded. Jon would still keep his papers locked away and his voice low. Six swords outside a door were poor protection against a man already inside the wall.

At the entrance Arthur stopped to ask the guard about the skulls. A soft voice greeted them from the covered walk.

"Lord Black. I had hoped you might sleep longer after your voyage."

The bald man beside the clerk wore loose lavender silk, his cheeks pale with powder. A floral scent overcame the mustiness of the rushes.

"Lord Varys," Arthur said.

"Ser Arthur. How pleasant to see you here again." Varys dismissed the clerk with a paper for the steward. "Runestone seems to have kept you busy. Lord Yohn, your nephew, then Ser Lyn demanding sharp steel. Did no one let you sit down?"

"I found time."

"And still remembered to send men recruiting among the hedge knights."

"My household needs good riders," Jon said.

Varys glanced at the practice gloves beneath Aries's arm. "More swordplay? I ought to warn the kitchens that Ser Arthur may be late for his dinner."

Aries grinned. Jon kept his own smile small. The victories would be common talk; the recruiting had attracted less attention.

"My uncle has promised me a lesson."

"A promise many men would envy." Varys folded his hands. "I trust your household is comfortably lodged? Fifty men can try a steward's patience, however welcome their lord."

"They have enough room. Some remain aboard. We arranged it yesterday."

Tomas had moved level with Jon. Varys acknowledged him courteously. "Your other ships must have been more crowded, with the craftsmen's families aboard."

"They have reached Dragonstone."

"So I hear. Lord Arryn will be pleased. He has had enquiries about so many new households reaching your island."

The departures had been public. A man could learn much by listening on a quay. Jon was less certain why Varys wanted him to know how much had reached his ears.

"I shall see the Hand this morning."

"Of course. Should you require anything while you are here, pray send word."

Jon thanked him. Once they were beyond hearing, he glanced at Arthur. "Was he as helpful to Aerys?"

"He always had some fresh warning. His Grace rarely heard one without finding another man to distrust."

"Were the warnings true?"

"Some." Arthur lowered his voice as a servant passed. "I sometimes wished he had been as diligent in telling the king when his fears were groundless."

Tomas sent Rylas through the godswood door first. Among the trees, the clash of practice swords faded. Jon went to the oak at its heart and laid his hand against the bark. He had wanted quiet, but it made him think of Bloodraven, who had found him in dreams far from any heart tree.

"No face," Aries said. "Do the old gods hear you here?"

Jon looked up at a bird searching beneath the bark. He felt nothing from it. "I don't know."

Arthur stood beside him. Jon meant to keep his promise to tell his uncle what the dreams demanded. There was still much neither understood.

"Rhaegar walked here when he wanted quiet," Arthur said.

"Alone?"

"When he could persuade us to remain by the door."

Tomas waited within sight of it, watching the way they had come. Jon tried to imagine his father beneath this tree, with no harp, no armour, no need to speak until he was ready.

A shout reached them from the yard. Aries turned towards it.

"Come," Jon said. "We are keeping you from the swords."

The boy brightened, and Arthur led them out.

Blunted swords rang across the practice yard. Beside two guards bearing Highgarden's roses, a slender boy with brown curls drove his opponent backwards. A squire in plum wool called for the retreating boy to turn.

In the middle of the yard, a sandy-bearded knight in a spotted-leopard surcoat saw Arthur and stopped. "Ser Arthur."

The silence spread unevenly. Jon had entered yards where men stopped because their lord had arrived. These men looked over his head. The Tyrell squire turned so quickly that his opponent nearly struck him; at a guard's warning he jerked back, still staring at Dawn.

"Ser Aron," Arthur said. "Might we use a little of your ground?"

"As much as you wish." Santagar, the master-at-arms, turned to Jon. "And Lord Black. Welcome."

Arthur chose ground where the sun would fall across them. Tomas placed two guards by the entrance and set the others to take turns at the posts. Rylas remained beside Jon's discarded sword belt. Tomas left him in charge and went to find the steward.

"The rest of you have not finished," Santagar called. "Find your partners."

Arthur examined the practice sword Aries handed him. "The ground is firmer than at Runestone. Try your feet first."

Jon advanced and retreated, feeling where the earth had been scuffed loose, then raised his sword.

Arthur came at him. Jon caught the first cut, slipped the second and sent his point towards the exposed wrist. His uncle's blade returned across it. Steel struck close to Jon's knuckles; he twisted free before Arthur could trap his sword, but the point touched his ribs.

"You turned the point away," Arthur said. "You had not taken the rest of the blade out of my reach."

"I thought I could get to your wrist."

"You almost did. That is why I gave it to you."

They repeated the exchange slowly. Jon's speed might win the first opening, but reaching too soon put his hand within a stronger man's grip. Against Robb he might have pulled clear. Arthur scarcely had to change his stance.

"Make me turn before you come in."

Jon let the offered wrist go, cut high and moved as Arthur's blade rose. His second cut came round low. Arthur brought his elbow close to stop it, but Jon was clear before the reply.

"Again."

His uncle came faster. Jon gave ground, then broke sideways. He felt the pressure ease as their blades met and followed it, turning his wrist instead of driving through. His point caught the leather at Arthur's side.

"Better. You made me move."

The next exchange ended with Arthur's point against his chest. Jon swore, earned a raised eyebrow, and tried again. His uncle kept him at it until he could manage the movement with his breath coming hard.

Aries brought water when they stopped.

"He'll have you at that until supper. I was a year older when I discovered I could ask for a drink." The voice came from behind Jon's shoulder.

Arthur's mouth softened in recognition. Then he glanced at the watching men and drew a slow breath before lowering his sword.

Jaime Lannister came past the racks, helm under one arm, golden hair falling beside a face Jon would have recognised without the white cloak. Rylas moved nearer, saw Arthur lower his blade, and held his place.

"You found us." Arthur offered the water. "Good morning, Jaime."

Jaime looked at his old teacher before taking the cup. When he turned to Jon, his smile came more easily. "So this is the nephew."

"Jon Black, ser."

"So I am told. Jaime Lannister." He set down his helm and chose a practice blade. "Have you time for a few passes?"

Jon tested his grip. "If my uncle permits."

Arthur glanced at the light upon the wall and stepped back. "Keep the lesson in mind."

Jaime raised his sword almost lazily, leaving the same wrist exposed. Jon circled instead of taking it, feinted at his shoulder and cut for the other side. Jaime met him hard. The shock ran through Jon's wrist. He slid clear before the knight could bear his sword down, sending a cut back as he went.

"Better," Arthur said.

"I had hoped you meant me." Jaime attacked again.

Jon turned two blows and ducked the third. The next came as he straightened, leaving him to meet it badly or retreat into reach of the point. Jaime's weight drove his defending blade aside; the tip struck below his collarbone.

"Again," Jon said.

Jaime let him settle, then offered the same opening. Jon began the same retreat. When the knight lengthened his step to follow, Jon went towards him instead, slipping outside the sword's line. His point flashed towards the wrist.

Jaime's hand vanished behind a turn of steel. He stepped back to make room for the parry. Jon followed, struck again and saw his expression sharpen. The reply came before Jon could recover. Jaime crowded him, forcing him to turn. He escaped the first cut; the second stopped against his side.

Arthur called an end. Jon lowered his sword, breathing through his mouth.

Jaime rolled his wrist. "You did say twelve?"

"Twelve."

Santagar looked at the men watching. "You may watch when you can move as quickly. Back to it."

Jaime had beaten him twice, but Jon had made him abandon the second trap. Next time he needed to be clear before the knight could close.

"I was not that quick at his age," Jaime said, returning the sword.

"You were harder to persuade to stop."

Jaime laughed. Arthur's answering smile was brief, but Jon saw it. Near the racks, the boy in plum wool tried Jaime's last turn.

"You are stepping on your own foot, Andren," the Tyrell squire told him.

"I know which foot it is."

Jaime retrieved his helm and spoke quietly to Arthur. His uncle listened and nodded; then Jaime left for the hall.

A young knight with seven stars at his throat approached Jon. "Eustace Sunglass, my lord. Lord Guncer is my cousin."

Sweetport Sound. One of the houses whose oaths Ethan held on his behalf. Jon offered his hand. "I shall hope to see you when I reach Dragonstone."

"I should like that." Eustace glanced towards Arthur. "Would your uncle have time for a few passes?"

Arthur beckoned him over. Eustace's first attack was good, a thrust becoming a cut, but Arthur caught the next blow and touched his shoulder. He tried again, cautiously, and lost his opening.

"You knew what you wanted the first time," Arthur said. "Do not abandon it because I knew too."

The knight in the red-tree surcoat was already tightening his gloves. "Ser Lucan Marbrand," Santagar told Jon. "New to his spurs. Not to a sword."

Marbrand made Arthur turn twice. Then his uncle caught the blade, released it before Lucan could use the pressure, and brought his point beneath the guard. The knight looked down and laughed ruefully.

Beside Jon, someone said, "I have been trying to beat him all week."

The Tyrell boy had come over. Santagar named him: Loras Tyrell, Lord Mace's youngest son, squire to the king's brother.

"Andren Plumm says Marbrand leaves his left side open," Loras continued. "He neglects to say what happens when you try to reach it."

"You could ask my uncle."

"I mean to." Loras looked him over. "You beat Waymar Royce."

"Yes."

"He beat me last time we met." The boy lifted his sword. "Have you another bout in you?"

Arthur looked at Santagar, who pointed to the ground beside the posts. "One. The Hand does not wait upon my yard."

Loras came in while Jon was still judging his reach, blade flicking towards his face before dropping towards his thigh. Jon caught the lower cut and moved away from his free hand. Loras followed, making him turn before he could answer. Andren stopped smiling.

Jon let the next blow drive his sword down. Loras stepped after it. Instead of wrenching free, Jon turned with the pressure, shoulder sliding past shoulder, and brought his point against the padding beneath Loras's arm.

"Touch," Santagar called.

Loras looked at the mark. "I thought I had your sword."

"You did. You brought it round for me."

The boy tested the movement with his empty hand. "Again?"

"When Lord Arryn has finished with him," Santagar said.

Loras offered Jon his hand. "I shall remember that."

"So shall I." Jon could feel the jar of that first cut in his wrist. This was no finished Knight of Flowers, but there had been little wasted in those attacks. He wondered what another two years would make of him.

Jon felt the bruise below his collarbone as they left. He would wash, put on his court clothes and carry Ned's letter to the Hand. Beyond the godswood wall, the oak branches moved in the breeze. The quiet beneath them already seemed a long way from the watching men in the yard.

* * *
​

Tomas caught Jon outside his chamber. The room behind it held spare bedding; above it were two empty guest chambers. The steward had opened all three for him. A narrow stair reached the upper rooms from the passage beyond Arthur's door.

"I cannot tell you what is inside the walls, my lord."

"Then keep a man where he can see that stair as well as our door. Do not hinder the servants." Jon waited while Tomas placed the guard, then went in to wash.

The Hand's servant arrived while Jon was dressing. Lord Arryn would receive him before the audience. He had brought pears from the king's table as well; Jon told Aries to leave some for Gawen and stay with Tomas when they entered the hall.

Arthur stood beside the open chest. He lifted Dawn from where it lay wrapped in cloth, his hand closing round the pale hilt.

"Dawn," he said.

Jon glanced at the pale hilt. "They know you carry it."

"They know I once carried it in another king's service."

"Wear it," Jon said. "Robert pardoned you. Let him see the man he pardoned."

Arthur buckled on the sword. A little of the stiffness went out of his shoulders.

Robert would see Ned's son. Cersei had been his enemy since the king gave him Dragonstone as a babe; yielding to her would not change that. Arryn had kept Robert's kingdom together for years. Jon wanted to know what he expected of him on Dragonstone, and how much business the Hand would still insist on sending north.

He took his father's letter and went with Arthur to the Tower of the Hand.

A guardsman admitted them to a room already at work. A clerk stood before Arryn with two letters open.

"Bracken says the pasture is his, my lord. Blackwood says otherwise."

Arryn rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Send copies to Lord Hoster. Ask where the cattle were taken and whether either house has gathered men. Until he has ruled, neither is to cross the disputed ground under arms. Put that in both replies."

The clerk bowed and went out. Arryn rose, still broad through the shoulders, though age had hollowed his cheeks. There was nothing drowsy in the pale blue eyes he turned upon Arthur.

"Ser Barristan came to me early. The guild will be questioned privately. I have given him the men he asked for. We shall speak of it when there is news." He drew out a chair. "Sit, both of you."

Jon gave him Ned's letter. At the sight of the seal, the severity about Arryn's mouth eased.

"He might have come with you."

"He wanted to see the harvest brought in."

"There is always a harvest, or a bridge, or a bannerman whose sons require separating." Arryn broke the seal and read, moving the paper nearer the window where Ned's writing grew cramped.

"Lord Yohn wrote of Runestone," he said when he had finished. "Both of Ned's sons in the final. Your father will have been pleased to hear it."

"Robb will tell him every blow when he reaches home."

The clerk returned with bread and cold trout. Arryn thanked him and waited until they were alone again before offering the dish to his guests.

"Before I sail, my lord," Jon said, "I would know what you expect of me on Dragonstone. My father still has the keeping of it. Ethan has his orders. But I mean to govern when I arrive."

"I hear you have sent six hundred men ahead of you."

"Six hundred foot. Ethan already has five hundred in the garrison. My household travels with me."

"What service do you intend for them?"

"Defending my lands. Guarding my people and the goods we send by road or sea. Ethan has men enough to hold the castle, but I want a force that can meet trouble beyond its walls."

"Then you must give thought to your bannermen as well. Several of those houses served the Targaryens for generations. A new king's seal does not make a man forget whom his father served."

"Nor where his brothers died," Arthur said.

"No. Some will be pleased to receive you, Ser Arthur. They may be rather less pleased by the lord you serve."

Jon rested his cup upon his knee. "I do not expect my uncle's name to settle every disagreement."

"It may encourage them to conceal one. They can honour him at supper and refuse you the next morning."

"They need not like me to honour their oaths."

"But a reluctant bannerman can delay a ship, dispute a summons or send fewer men, all with a reason he considers sufficient." Arryn looked from Jon to Arthur. "Robert gave you Dragonstone to honour Ned. He also wanted those houses answering to someone raised in the North, taught loyalty by a man he trusted."

"Someone to keep the old king's men obedient."

"Yes. He expected Ned's influence to weigh more heavily upon you than theirs."

"And now I arrive with Ser Arthur Dayne beside me."

"Which will interest them considerably. Some may welcome him because they believe he remembers their loyalties fondly. Others may wonder why he serves the lord Robert chose to curb them."

"They may ask me," Arthur said quietly.

"They will be more careful than that."

Arryn's affection for Ned was genuine. It did not put them on the same side. He expected Ned's son to strengthen the settlement he had helped build; Jon meant to take Robert's throne and overturn it.

"And if one of them refuses you?" Arryn asked.

"He will tell me why. I shall hear him with Ethan beside me. If he has lost a ship or cannot spare the men, we can speak of what he can provide. I want the service he owes."

"You are twelve. His Grace has given you a lordship, and Ned holds it for you until your majority. A quarrel with one of those houses will reach him as well."

"I know the terms. Ethan remains castellan. I shall not pledge the island or bind my father to an agreement without his knowledge." Jon leaned forward. "But I will not have a bannerman refuse to speak to me because I am young, then send his excuses north where I cannot answer them."

"Then give Ned your account too. If a lord disputes what he owes you, let your father hear it before you send men to collect it. You may have every right to the service and still make a costly enemy in obtaining it."

"And he may hope to keep me waiting while my men eat through their stores."

"He may."

"I shall send my father an account of what I do. I will not suspend every order while a reluctant bannerman seeks a different answer from Winterfell." Jon kept his gaze upon the Hand. "My own ships and men will begin the work. The others will give the service they owe."

Arthur nodded. "Ethan knows which men have answered him readily. We shall hear from him before sending for the others."

"And if a dispute reaches the Crown," Arryn said, "I will expect your account as well as theirs."

"I shall give you the cause plainly enough." Jon drew his plate nearer. "I need those lords to trade with me. I have no intention of making enemies of the whole bay."

"Then give them reason to come to your harbour." Arryn pushed the bread within Jon's reach. "Robert has read Ned's account of the wildling attack. He will want yours. And when he asks after your father, answer him as a son. He hears enough of the Warden of the North from me. If he speaks too freely, remember that he is fond of Ned."

There was warning enough in the qualification. Jon finished the bread.

As they rose, Arryn put a hand on his shoulder. "It is a pleasure to meet the boy Ned named for me."

"He speaks of you often."

The answer pleased him. Jon would not pretend he had disliked that kindness. He would remember what Arryn expected in return.

By the time they reached the stair, the Hand was dictating again.

At its foot Jon stopped beside a window overlooking the lower court. Tomas took Aries on towards the hall, then waited at the turn. Jon watched a clerk pass before speaking.

"I have no intention of letting my father or the Crown govern Dragonstone through me," he said quietly. "I mean to rule my lands as I see fit, as the other lords do."

Arthur rested a hand upon the sill. "Have you told Ned that?"

"He knows why I am going there. I mean to enlarge the harbour and build ships. There is land to put under the plough and work waiting for the people I have brought south. I will not leave it all standing idle while a raven takes each decision to Winterfell and another brings back permission."

"And if Ned objects?"

"I will read what he says. He knows a great deal about governing. But I will decide what is done on Dragonstone. A bannerman who dislikes an order will not escape it by writing to my father."

"Arryn will expect you to remember this morning."

"He wants me to keep those houses obedient to Robert. He must let me govern them. I will give the Crown what I owe it, but I have no intention of letting men here hinder my work whenever it displeases them."

Arthur considered him, then nodded. "If Ned asks me to restrain you, I shall bring the matter to you. He will have your answer."

"That is what I ask."

Jon went to join the household. Arthur fell into step beside him, and Tomas led them towards the hall.

* * *
​

The Great Hall was full when they returned. Petitioners raised rolled parchments above the press while boys held their masters' cloaks and purses. Tomas drew Aries clear of an opening door. Jon followed him towards the carpet, Arthur at his shoulder. Somewhere a spur kept striking stone. It stopped when the king spoke.

Robert sat high among the jagged blades, a heavy gold crown upon his black hair. One hand lay open along an armrest which looked capable of cutting it.

Near the doors, a merchant woman clutched a petition soft at the creases. An usher kept her waiting while a party in blue and yellow passed with a warrant no one had yet examined.

"Lefford," Arthur said quietly. "Lord Leo, of the Golden Tooth. One of Lord Tywin's bannermen."

A tall squire of perhaps sixteen walked at Lefford's shoulder, a healed cut dividing one eyebrow. He inspected Jon, then Arthur. The usher greeted him as Gerren and asked after his uncle's rooms. Beside the merchant woman, a lady in russet waited with her steward and his leather case. The usher bowed to her, but kept his staff across the way.

"Lady Meredyth Wendwater," Arthur murmured. "A widow. She holds the lands until her son comes of age."

Arthur named Lady Tanda Stokeworth and her daughters, then Rykker of Duskendale, talking to Lord Ralph Buckler and his cousin, Ser Brus. Beside them, William Mooton started towards Arthur, then stopped when his wife touched his arm.

Myles Mooton, Rhaegar's squire, had been killed by Robert at Stoney Sept. His brother had come to do business beneath the victor's throne.

"Then mend the bloody road." Robert's impatient bark carried to the doors. A clerk beside the throne checked his quill above the parchment.

Someone behind Jon murmured that Ser Harys Harte had been arguing his cousin's cause since the doors opened.

"Your Grace, Lord Harte has repaired his portion," Ser Harys said. "The ditch lies upon Lord Rosby's land. Our carts have been standing there for three days."

Gyles Rosby lowered the cloth from his mouth. Those nearest leaned closer to hear him.

"The ditch carries water from their fields. They have blocked the culvert to spare themselves the cost of clearing it."

Ser Harys drew breath to protest. A white-bearded Stormlander called that Bronzegate's carts were in the same mire.

"Then send Buckler to pull them out, Hugh. He is broad enough."

Lord Hugh Grandison laughed. Ralph joined him, though Brus had begun counting something upon his fingers for Rykker. The Stormlanders were still grinning when Rosby tried again to be heard.

Near the dais, Renly turned at his brother's laughter, broad-shouldered in green velvet. Loras stood behind him with his gloves and nodded to Jon.

Petyr Baelish stood beside Renly in plum velvet and a silver mockingbird clasp. Jon's fingers closed around his cuff. He had thought often of that man with Ned's blood on his hands. Baelish was smiling.

Stannis listened beside a pillar, his hard jaw edged with a short beard. Behind him, a boy with an onion upon his breast held a leather case. A scarred knight wearing three death's-head moths upon his coat stood beside the boy.

Arthur returned Stannis's curt nod. "Ser Richard Horpe beside him."

Lysa Arryn drew her small son closer, ignoring the cup his nurse offered him. Her eyes lifted towards Petyr, then followed her husband to the throne.

Tyrion Lannister laughed up at a taller kinsman beyond Lefford's party. His nose was whole. He looked much younger than the weary man Jon remembered from his reading.

"Ser Tygett," Arthur said. "Lord Tywin's brother."

Tygett's grin faded at the sight of Arthur. They exchanged nods. A small golden-haired boy pressed close to his side.

"His wife, Lady Darlessa Marbrand." She took the folded cloak from her little boy before he could drop it.

Ser Ilyn Payne stood at the next pillar with a greatsword over his shoulder. It was not Ice. Jon's father was in Winterfell, alive. None of what he remembered had happened yet. He released his cuff.

"Jon," Robert called.

Both Jon and the Hand looked up.

The king laughed at that. "The little one. Though he has done his best to spoil the name. Come here, boy."

Ser Harys lowered his petition. Arryn drew him aside with a quiet word as faces turned along the carpet.

"Stark's son?" someone asked.

"The clockmaker," came the reply.

Lefford's young kinsman spoke to Lucan Marbrand, now changed out of his practice coat. The knight's answer made the squire's brows draw together.

The men nearest the carpet made room. Farther back, departing courtiers stopped with their cloaks over their arms.

"The clocks pay for the men," a woman said behind Jon. "That is what I should like to know about."

One man bowed to Arthur and let his greeting to Jon follow late. Rykker asked Buckler whether all fifty riders had come south. Jon stepped onto the carpet.

Rosby remained beside the dais, his mouth pinched. Baelish smiled at Renly without taking his eyes off Jon.

Cersei sat below the throne in green silk heavy with gold. Her face had Jaime's fine bones and an expression of composed interest. A lady waited beside her with a prayer book. "Jocelyn." The queen beckoned her closer and spoke too quietly for Jon to hear.

Ser Meryn Trant opened the way, a golden lion fastening the white cloak at his shoulder.

Joffrey sat straight-backed, one hand upon a richly mounted sword. A sandy-haired squire scarcely older than Jon held his cup. Jaime waited beyond the royal chairs; farther along, Pycelle leaned upon his staff.

Jaime gave his old teacher the smallest nod. Arthur bowed to the king. Beside him, Jon went down upon one knee.

"Your Grace."

"Up. Let me look at you."

Robert bent forward, blue eyes bright beneath thick brows. Gold thread strained across his belly, but his chest and shoulders were enormous. His beard was black and full, his cheeks flushed above it.

Jon rose into that welcome, knowing how quickly it would die if Robert knew whose son stood below him. He had known the danger for years. Hearing the man address him made it immediate.

"Gods, Ned kept you north long enough. I asked for a child, and he has sent me a soldier."

"I hope to be of more use than when you first asked."

"You will have to tell me how you left the Vale boys flat upon their backs. Ned writes as if he were afraid to boast."

"Robb would have supplied the parts he left out."

Robert's laugh brought others after it. Jon found himself smiling. It was a good laugh, full and heedless, and for an instant he understood why men had followed its owner into danger.

"Two sons in the final! Jon, did Ned ever win anything without making us drag the story out of him?"

"He generally preferred you to finish telling it," the Hand said.

"He was ungrateful. I always improved it." Robert studied Jon again. "Not much of Ned in the face. Dayne eyes, though. I remember those."

"My mother's family, Your Grace."

"And her brother's sword." Robert's smile faded as he looked at Arthur. "Ser Arthur."

"Your Grace."

"Ned tells me you have kept the boy well guarded."

"He is my sister's son, Your Grace."

"So you told me when you asked to go north." Robert's eyes dropped to Dawn. "Ned has had no cause to regret it, then."

"None that he has given me." Arthur remained standing with his hands at his sides.

Robert turned back to Jon. "Was Robb close to beating you?"

"He had the strength of me. I kept him turning."

Robert made him describe the finish, interrupting twice to ask where Robb's shield had been. "And the Greyjoy took your archery. What were the Vale boys doing?"

"Robar Royce won the melee," the Hand reminded him.

"You should have been there, Bryce," the king told the young lord with nightingales upon his breast. "Perhaps the south would have won something."

"Corbray took the joust, Your Grace."

"Another Valeman. You are making it worse."

Caron accepted the laughter with a bow. Lord Grandison slapped his arm. Near Lefford, the tall squire's mouth tightened; Ser Lucan said something which made him look away.

"You should have brought your brother," Robert said.

"His ship was bound for White Harbor. Our father expects him home."

"Your father expects everyone home. He ought to have married a woman who disliked children."

Cersei's fingers moved on the arm of her chair.

"Lord Stark is careful of his heir," she said. "That is hardly a fault."

Robert turned sharply. The flush above his beard deepened. "I said nothing of faults."

"Then Lord Black will understand that his brother's place is with his family."

The queen looked directly at Jon, her faint smile almost courteous. He was the son she meant to put outside the family.

"Robb understands his duty," Jon said. "We parted knowing we both had work to do."

"Indeed. You are going to take possession of Dragonstone."

"I am going to govern it, Your Grace."

She glanced towards Arryn. "Lord Stark still holds the castle in his keeping?"

"As His Grace's grant directs," the Hand said.

"Of course." Cersei turned back to Jon. "Who will receive your new soldiers?"

"My castellan and my officers."

"Your father's castellan."

"My castellan, under my father's charge," Jon said. "He has been informed of every ship we sent."

Robert shifted on the throne. A spur scraped iron.

"He is filling an empty castle, Cersei. You have spent twelve years telling me what a poor gift I made him."

"I have said that Dragonstone was the seat of the king's heir."

Rykker's conversation stopped. Caron stopped beckoning a servant; Lefford watched Robert without moving. Joffrey straightened in his chair.

"It was the seat of dragonspawn," Robert growled. His thick fingers curled over the iron armrest. "I put an end to their rule. Ned's son holds it now."

Mooton lowered his eyes. Arthur stood very still. Jon thought of two small bodies laid beneath a cloak, and the man above him finding the family name sufficient answer.

Cersei let the silence stand. "And your son is a prince of your house. Whatever its history, the castle guards the approach to your capital. Joffrey has an interest in its keeping."

"Then he may ask about it," Robert said.

Joffrey looked from his mother to the floor below the throne. "How many ships do you have?"

"Ten warships and six merchantmen, my prince."

"My father has the royal fleet."

"Yes."

"You would have to give him yours if he commanded it."

Jon met the boy's eyes. He could hear Osric describing a small prince who had wanted a bell to obey him, and a hearth boy left trembling beside it. The years had improved Joffrey's clothes.

"My obligations to the Crown are recorded," Jon said. "They will be honoured."

"A lord should know them without being reminded," Cersei said.

"I do, Your Grace."

"And a king should know the strength of the castle he has given into another's hands. Lord Arryn, I trust an account will be furnished when these men are settled."

"Lord Stark can furnish it," Arryn answered. "The account will come through him, as Dragonstone's affairs have done since the grant."

"The grant settled the matter," Stannis said.

He had not raised his voice. Cersei turned towards him nonetheless.

"I ask for an account, my lord. The captains, the warships fit to sail, and the men under arms. Surely the master of ships appreciates knowing who commands at the mouth of the bay."

A muscle shifted beside Stannis's jaw. "I know who commands there. So does Lord Stark." Each word was distinct; he kept his eyes upon the queen.

Robert gave a pleased grunt. Stannis held the queen's gaze. He had scarcely looked at Jon.

The queen turned from Stannis to Robert. "Then let the Hand have their names and their strength after Lord Black reaches his island."

"Have Ethan send it through Ned," Robert told Jon. He motioned to the clerk beside the throne, who bent over his parchment.

Jon kept his eyes upon the queen. "The Hand will have the account through my father, Your Grace. The choice of my captains and the command of my men remain mine."

Meredyth spoke to her steward, who checked the papers in his case. Near the throne, Jocelyn watched the queen.

Robert looked down at Jon. "I did not give you Dragonstone to have those Targaryen loyalists turn your head. I want them kept under control. Their ships come when I call, and no man raises a dragon banner in my bay."

His gaze moved to Arthur for a moment, then returned to Jon. "I trust Ned's sons to keep faith with me. See that your bannermen remember their oaths."

"They will answer to me, Your Grace. I shall see that they give the service they owe."

"Good. You have men enough for it. How old are those soldiers of yours?"

After Jon answered, Robert asked who drilled the spears and whether the household could ride in armour. Jon named Hewyn. The king's attention sharpened as Jon described keeping men in their places after the first rush.

"Most lads can be taught to run at an enemy," he said. "It is getting them to stop that ruins your voice. Have you taught yours that?"

"We punish men who leave the line for a kill."

"Even if they get it?"

"Especially then. The next fool thinks he can do the same."

Robert's hand struck his knee. "There speaks someone who has had to fetch them back."

Jon felt an unwelcome pleasure in the recognition. This man could be careless with a kingdom and still understand what a frightened young soldier might do when he saw an enemy running.

"You would have saved me three horses at Ashford," Lord Grandison said.

"You lost two," Robert called down.

"Two beneath me, Your Grace. The third was being ridden by the fool I went back for."

The Stormlanders laughed. Robert pointed at him, remembering, and for a moment the old lord's beard shook with something more than courtly amusement.

"And then you teach them their letters." Cersei spoke through the laughter. "How generous. Do they all expect to become gentlemen in your service?"

Lefford's squire grinned. His uncle did not, though he made no move to check the boy.

"They can read their orders and tell whether they have been paid correctly, Your Grace." Jon kept his voice level.

Robert turned to ask when Ned meant to visit, but Pycelle came forward before the Hand could answer.

Gold and silver chains lay across red velvet and ermine. After Luwin's plain wool, the Grand Maester looked dressed for a different profession.

"Maester Luwin writes highly of your industry," Pycelle said. "These teachers of yours were once acolytes, I understand?"

"Some of them."

"A pity their studies were left unfinished."

"They are continuing their studies in my service."

"Naturally. Should you require counsel upon suitable books, you need only ask."

Jon remembered who had urged Aerys to admit Tywin's army. He would not mistake the offer for disinterested kindness, but neither would he refuse a useful book merely to deny Pycelle a courtesy.

"I should value any accounts of Dragonstone's harbour and surrounding waters," he said. "Older works as well, if you have them."

"I shall have my attendants inquire," Pycelle said.

"My thanks."

"Find him one about battles, Pycelle. Then I might borrow it." Robert rose, setting the courtiers in motion. "We will hunt after we have eaten. Come with us, Jon. Dayne may attend you. Caron, Buckler—let us see which of you can stay upon a horse."

"Your Grace," Arthur said.

Barristan moved to meet the king as he descended the narrow iron stair. Robert waved him aside with the ease of long habit.

At the bottom he put a hand on Jon's shoulder, heavier than Arryn's had been.

"You have his look when you mean to argue. Ned's, I mean. Your mouth gives you away."

"I shall try to remember that."

"Don't. It would spoil it." He looked to his brother. "Renly, find the boy a decent place at supper. I want to hear what else Ned has been keeping from me."

Renly bowed with a smile that seemed to cost him nothing. "If you will let him reach the table, brother."

"Stannis?" Robert asked.

"The galley captains are waiting."

"They will still be waiting when we return."

"They have been waiting since yesterday." Stannis's mouth barely moved. Behind him the boy holding his papers looked down at the leather case.

Robert's smile thinned. "Then by all means preserve them from another afternoon."

Stannis bowed and left with Horpe and the boy holding his papers. Three Stormland knights hesitated between the brothers before following their lord. Caron stayed, calling for his riding cloak.

Robert made for the doors. Jalabhar Xho bowed in his feathered cape. "Your Grace, concerning the ships—"

"Next year, Xho." Robert clapped him upon the shoulder without stopping. Behind the prince, the merchant woman raised her petition, then lowered it as the king passed.

Lefford's squire approached Cersei with his uncle's folded warrant. Trant let him pass, then closed the way before Ser Harys. The queen handed the warrant to a steward. "Take this to Lord Baelish. I would have Lord Lefford paid today." He bowed and took Gerren with him. Harys was still waiting when Trant returned to the queen's chair.

Cersei beckoned Jocelyn closer. The lady looked towards Jon before inclining her head. He could not know whether the look concerned him or the door behind him.

Rykker caught Arryn's clerk before he could follow Robert. Brus joined them, and Rosby came coughing into his cloth.

Brus watched the queen's steward lead Gerren away. "Lefford has his answer, at least."

"The Crown owes him the money," Lucan Marbrand said as he passed.

"And our carriers want paying while their carts stand idle. Tell him to ask about the road as well." Brus turned back to Arryn's clerk.

Lysa intercepted the Hand, their small son pulling at the chain upon his coat. When Arryn beckoned Jon closer, her smile arrived late.

"How is Catelyn?" she asked, her eyes resting briefly on Arthur.

"Well, my lady. I left her with all the children about her."

"Robert, greet Lord Black." She smoothed her son's hair, though he tried to turn away.

The boy hid his face against her skirt. Arryn thanked Jon for Ned's letter before Lysa could insist. As Jon moved away, he heard her ask whether Petyr would join them at supper.

In the yard, Tommen ran to meet his mother by the bridge to Maegor's Holdfast. He caught a heel in his robe, and his attendant seized him before he fell. Cersei straightened his clothes, listening to something he urgently needed to tell her.

Myrcella waited with their septa, watching Jon. When he bowed, she looked down and smoothed a ribbon which was already straight.

"Did you truly win?" she asked.

"The squires' melee, Princess. Yes."

"Against your brother too?"

"He made me work for it."

She looked up then, studying his face with open interest. "Were you hurt?"

"A few bruises."

"Oh." Her brow creased. "I hope they are better."

"Much better. Thank you."

Her smile came all at once. Joffrey turned, and Myrcella drew herself up as though she had been discussing something of great importance.

"Myrcella," Cersei said.

The girl hurried to her mother, but glanced back before taking the septa's hand. Jon's answering smile sent her eyes to the stones again. He had seen the same solemn concern upon Sansa's face when a handsome knight came home with a bandaged hand.

Cersei's gaze lingered upon him. Then she took Tommen over the bridge, and the guards closed together after them.

Jon raised his eyes from the spikes below to the windows. Behind those walls Elia had tried to protect her children. Men had climbed them and found her. Watching Cersei with Tommen's hand in hers, he could think only of another mother trusting to the same walls.

Arthur touched Jon's elbow. "Come."

He had been looking at the same windows.

* * *
​

They ate bread and cold meat while Aries found Jon's riding gloves. Gawen protested at being left behind until Arthur asked how he meant to control a frightened horse if his injured arm failed. Aries would stay with him; Tomas and Rylas would ride with Jon.

At the stable door the sandy-haired squire from the dais was testing a wineskin's stopper. "Lancel," Tygett called. "The buckle first. You will have that under your feet."

The boy secured the strap. Beside Tygett, his younger son Tyrek held Robert's spare gloves. Kevan's son and Tygett's, serving their royal cousin's husband. Jon remembered stronger wine and a boar. Lancel was still only a boy fastening a strap.

"They give us cups," Tyrek complained. "Gerren is allowed a sword."

"He is seven years older," Tygett said. "Keep those gloves out of the mud before you ask me for a lance."

Lancel smothered a grin. A groom moved Jon's saddlebag to make room for the king's wine. The queen's kin served Robert at table and on horseback; her brother stood behind his chair. These were already the ordinary workings of his household.

Bucephalus stood beneath the arch, his coat brushed to a shine. Arthur was checking his horse's reins. Across the yard Barristan passed in his white cloak, already armoured for the hunt; the two knights exchanged a greeting.

"You needn't ride, if you would rather stay," Jon said.

"I have spent enough of this visit looking backwards." Arthur tightened the fastening beneath his horse's throat. "Show me what the king means to kill."

Robert meant to kill everything. He told them so while a squire searched for his dropped glove. In brown leather, without crown or robes, his shoulders seemed less an encumbrance. A grizzled hound lurched against his knee; he took its head between both hands and shook it affectionately.

"He can smell the meat in your pocket," Renly said.

"And you can smell a free supper halfway across the keep." Robert accepted the glove and mounted.

Caron and Balon Swann rode together. Lord Ralph Buckler brought his cousin Brus and two household knights; Lucan Marbrand and Andren Plumm joined Tygett. Loras waited upon Renly while Tyrell guards brought up the horses.

Lefford's squire drew level with Jon. His hair had been carefully combed above the divided eyebrow. "Gerren Lefford, my lord. Lord Leo's nephew. I hoped to meet you in the yard."

"You were not there this morning."

"My uncle had business. Marbrand says you are fast."

"He saw me beaten twice."

"By Ser Jaime." Gerren glanced towards Arthur. "Some men are given better opponents than others."

Jon looked at him. The squire's smile returned stiffly. "I would welcome a turn. My uncle hopes to find me a place in the prince's household. They will ask Ser Aron about my swordwork."

"I will give you a turn. Ask Ser Aron for ground."

Gerren nodded as the king called for Lancel. Thoros hurried down the steps with his belt loose, claiming prayer had delayed him. Robert bade him pray for a faster horse. The priest laughed, then grinned at Arthur as though the years between them had been an interrupted meal.

Joffrey emerged upon a chestnut palfrey, wearing new gloves. Sandor Clegane rode behind him, his burned face turned towards the company. When a groom approached the prince too closely, he moved his mount between them. Joffrey scarcely noticed. He had drawn level with Robert and was waiting for his father to look at him.

Robert was arguing with the master of hounds about the changed wind. "Deer have legs. So have we." He looked round. "Come, Black. Let us see whether your uncle has taught you anything useful."

Jon urged Bucephalus forward. Beyond the gates, carts drew aside for the procession.

They crossed the river with the horses stamping upon the ferry timbers. Across the water, the Red Keep stood clear above the roofs. From here its walls concealed the poorer streets below them. Jon could see houses pressed tightly along the slope and a strip of washing lifted by the wind. Tomorrow he meant to walk those streets, if the king would leave him the day.

Robert pointed upstream with his riding crop.

"Ned once fell into a river trying to keep his boots dry. Has he told you?"

"No, Your Grace."

"He wouldn't. Put one foot on a stone, decided it would hold him, and went in up to his neck. Jon Arryn laughed so hard he had to sit down."

"Did you cross safely?"

"I was already across. He had a face on him all evening."

Jon thought of his father's face when the younger children clambered upon him, solemnly determined to finish a letter with Bran hanging from one sleeve. That man had once stood dripping in a river while his friends laughed. He would have liked to see it.

"I shall ask him about it," Jon said.

"See that you do." Robert was still grinning. "And tell him I remember. He thinks going north made us forget every foolish thing he ever did."

Robert changed the weight of old boars whenever someone challenged him; Tygett supplied the number of men needed to lift them. Caron claimed the hunts had grown safer since Grandison ceased carrying a bow. Brus laughed so hard his horse shied.

Robert called to Lucan about his horse. The young knight urged it forward, but Caron kept the place beside the king.

"You are crowding the hounds, Marbrand."

"Then give me room to answer him."

"He did call for him, Caron," Tygett said. Caron drew back a length. Lucan thanked him with careful courtesy and passed.

Ser Balon Swann fell into place beside Jon where the track widened. The knight was broad through the chest and arms; an ivory-and-onyx swan clasp held his cloak clear of his bridle hand. He asked whether Jon's horse had been bred in the North, then about the men riding behind him. Unlike the queen, he waited to hear the answers.

They went deeper beneath the trees. The road dwindled to a track beneath oak boughs, and sunlight broke across the riders in shifting patches. Water left by the last rain shook from the hazel when a horse brushed it. Jon breathed damp leaves and warm leather; after the city, he could almost taste the difference in the air.

Bucephalus wanted to pass the gelding in front. Jon kept his hand low upon the reins, feeling the stallion gather himself whenever the path widened. Behind him, Tomas called Rylas closer. The horns and the hounds were drawing men forward, but his escort had work enough without chasing deer.

The first cast failed. A huntsman found a fresh slot in the mud, then lost it beneath hoofprints. Robert dismounted to look. "You've ridden straight over it."

"I followed you, Your Grace."

"Then you should have stopped me." The man held his tongue. Before Robert could say more, the grizzled hound pushed beneath his arm, sniffed the earth and pulled towards thicker cover.

"There. That one remembers his trade." Robert rubbed its neck. "Give him room."

They found the hart among bracken tall enough to hide its body. It stood with one foreleg raised, then fled through the trees. The chase scattered them.

Bucephalus plunged after the king's horse. Jon bent beneath a branch; to his left Balon found a cleaner line. Behind him the prince shouted at Clegane to move aside. The ground fell steeply, and Jon checked the stallion to keep him balanced. Rylas stayed abreast on the outside of the track; Tomas followed.

Robert took the slope without slowing. His gelding slid, recovered and carried him through a narrow gap, Barristan close behind. Brus came up on Jon's left, trying to take the same line.

"Low branch!" Tomas shouted.

Brus bent too late. The bough struck his shoulder and swept him backwards from the saddle. His right boot caught in the stirrup. The horse ran on, dragging him over roots with one arm flung across his face.

Jon hauled Bucephalus aside. "Rylas, the reins!"

Rylas caught the loose bridle near the bit and brought the gelding round against the bank. Brus swung beneath its belly. A hind hoof struck beside his head before Rylas forced the horse to stand.

Jon dismounted, leaving Bucephalus's reins with Tomas, and caught Brus beneath the arms. The knight tried to rise, but the trapped foot twisted him back with a cry. Jon drew his knife, pulled the stirrup leather clear of the leg and cut. Brus fell against him as it parted.

"Keep the horses back," Jon told Tomas.

Renly checked his mount above them, halting the following riders. Jon helped Brus clear of the hooves. Blood ran from his brow. He lay on his side, struggling for breath, until Arthur dismounted and Lord Ralph came calling his cousin's name.

Brus answered with a curse and pushed himself upright, holding his shoulder.

"Stay there," Arthur said. "Let me see your arm."

His fingers closed when Arthur asked; he moved the elbow before pain stopped him. Jon gave Ralph a folded cloth from his saddlebag for the cut. Rylas still held the trembling horse; the severed stirrup lay in the leaves.

"We have him," Arthur told Jon. "Go with Renly. Walk down the rest of that slope."

Jon wiped his knife on the leaves and remounted. Renly waited until Brus stood between Arthur and Ralph. Below them the hounds had begun to bay in one place.

The hart had turned at a stream. Jon reached the bank as Robert dismounted and took a spear from his huntsman. Hounds closed about the animal in the shallow water. The attendants called them back as the king went forward.

Jon had shot deer from a steady rest in another life. Here the antlers could open a man from groin to throat. The hart tossed its head at a dog; Robert moved before the huntsman could pull the leash clear.

He stepped inside the sweep and drove the spear behind the shoulder. The animal struck against him. One boot slid upon the stones; he planted the other, bent his knees and bore down with both hands. The haft bowed. Jon saw the muscles stand out beneath the leather, the jaw clenched behind the beard. Then the hart's forelegs folded and Robert followed it down without letting go.

He waved the huntsmen back until it ceased struggling. When he straightened, one knee was soaked through and his chest heaved. His grin returned before his breath.

"Fine beast. Look at him, Black." He held out the spear. "Here. Feel that."

Jon took the heavy haft, slippery with blood. The Demon of the Trident. He had seen the belly first, the wine and the impatience. Now he imagined that strength behind a warhammer, with a younger man's lungs to sustain it. Rhaegar had faced that blow. Fat had slowed Robert; it had not made him harmless.

Across the stream Balon was telling Caron how close the antlers had come. Both looked towards Robert with a pleasure Jon understood.

"Your boot nearly went from under you," Jon said, returning the spear.

"Aye. Bloody stones." Robert rubbed his knee. "Your spearmen should practise on bad ground. Every lord gives you a level yard, then expects you to fight halfway up a hill." He glanced back. "Where's your uncle?"

"With Ser Brus. A branch took him out of the saddle. His boot caught in the stirrup."

"Is he badly hurt?"

"He was standing when we left. My uncle is seeing to his shoulder."

Robert beckoned a huntsman. "Take two men back. Bring him down carefully. If he cannot ride, send for a cart."

Joffrey arrived while the carcass was being opened. His cheeks were red, his cloak caught with burrs. He looked from the hart to Jon's bloody hands. "You let him kill it?"

"I killed it," Robert said.

"You said I could ride with you."

"Then you should have kept up."

Clegane dismounted. "The ground broke away. His horse couldn't take it."

"Get him a better horse."

"He has a horse he can sit."

Robert looked sharply at him. Sandor held the reins and waited.

"Next time," the king told Joffrey, turning away. "There will be other deer."

The prince kicked at a fern. His eyes passed over Jon and stopped upon the blood on his hands. Jon went to rinse them. Gerren arrived with the later riders and heard Joffrey demand water. He took a cup from Lancel and brought it himself, bowing over it.

Brus came down on a borrowed horse, his arm bound against his chest and a cloth tied above his eye. Ralph kept beside him. Robert heard Arthur's account and ordered a groom to lead the horse home. Brus began to object, then stopped when he tried to dismount.

They ate upon a dry rise while the carcass was made ready for the horses. Robert divided a loaf with his knife, sent a hunk to an elderly huntsman and found him cheese when the man admitted he could no longer manage the crust. Farther down the slope servants unpacked a second hamper for men whose own bread was going untouched in their saddlebags. The king's hunts fed a good many people.

Thoros disputed Robert's account of the last leap. Balon took the king's side, Renly the priest's, and Tygett said they had all chosen a wretched line through the trees. Loras listened with his chin lifted, then quietly told Andren how he would have taken it. The Plumm boy pointed to the leaves caught beneath Loras's collar. Their laughter was lost in the louder argument until the old huntsman shook his head over his cheese. Robert demanded his judgment. When the man said the deer had jumped better than any of them, the king roared and sent him another piece.

Jon smiled. Men who had stiffened at every movement of the queen's hand were talking with their mouths full. He waited for a gap. "Your Grace, I must ask leave to sail."

Robert looked up from his bread. "You have only just arrived."

"My people reached Dragonstone ahead of me. There are decisions waiting upon my arrival."

"You have a castellan. Let him earn his keep."

"He has earned it. I would like to see what I am asking him to do."

Robert wiped foam from his beard. "Stay tomorrow. You have scarcely seen the place." He handed his cup to a squire. "Ask me at supper tomorrow, and I may let you go the morning after."

Jon bowed his head. Fondness for Ned did not prevent Robert keeping Ned's son here for his pleasure.

The light was low upon the river when they returned. Aries had Mott's reply: the armourer could receive Jon in the morning. Jon told him to have the chest ready and sent Tomas to warn the men they would be walking as well as riding. They would have their day in the city after all.

He washed and changed for supper. Arthur went to speak with Barristan; they met again upon the stair, still fastening their cuffs.

* * *
​

Renly found Jon outside the supper hall, looking at the clock he had sent to the king.

The crowned stag above it had acquired gilded antlers. A page was trying to see the works through the pierced wooden side while his companion held him by the belt.

"The door opens," Jon told him.

The boys snatched their hands away, bowed and fled. Renly laughed. Loras stood beside him with his gloves.

"Do you still make them?" the squire asked.

"My foreman makes them. I help when he needs me."

"Then you have time to practise."

"Loras has been accounting for your victory," Renly said. "Your height, your sword, your uncle."

The boy's ears reddened. "I said he was quick."

"Repeatedly. You may ask him for another bout when I have fed him." Renly took his gloves and led them inside.

Heat from the hearths met Jon at the door, carrying the smell of venison and crushed herbs. Cersei stood beside her chair, listening to Lefford. Across the hall Brus Buckler sat with his arm in a sling and a clean dressing above his eye. His cousin cut his meat while Caron bent to hear about the fall.

Robert beckoned Jon with his cup. "Here. You have not met everyone."

Jon went with Renly to the dais, Arthur close behind, and bowed while the king forgot whom he had intended to name.

"Stannis," Robert said at last. "You will have plenty to say to him. Ships and accounts. You can bore each other tomorrow."

Stannis looked at the wine running over the side of Robert's cup, then at Jon. Up close, the hard set of his mouth made the resemblance between the brothers more difficult to see.

"Your captains have reported to the harbourmaster?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Good. I shall speak with you before you sail."

"You see?" Robert said. "He has begun already."

"You introduced us."

Renly turned a laugh into a cough. Stannis ignored him. "Your six hundred foot have gone ahead with the workmen. Have all the transports reached Dragonstone?"

"They have, my lord. Grafton's clerk gave me Ethan's raven at Gulltown. The heavy ironwork took another tide to unload, but no one was hurt."

Stannis nodded. "Good. Bring what your captains know of the harbour when we speak."

"He shall," Robert said, reaching for the bread. The Hand offered Jon a faint smile.

"You have survived the hunt."

"Better than Ser Brus. Has the maester seen him?"

"Bound his shoulder and forbidden him to ride for a few days," Renly said. "He was fortunate you and your man stopped."

"He can have one of my carriages when he goes home," Robert said. "Ralph will never persuade him to stay off a horse otherwise."

"Lord Black's supper is waiting." Cersei's voice was cool. She had finished with Lefford; the western lord bowed to Robert before withdrawing. "Lady Tanda has made him very welcome."

Robert looked towards the place she indicated, then back at Jon. "I asked him to sup with me. Set him here." He tapped the table at his left. "Lady Tanda may have him when I have finished."

The steward bowed and sent a servant for a chair. Renly moved his cup farther along the table. Jon remained beside Arthur. "A place for my uncle as well, Your Grace."

Robert looked at Arthur, then nodded to the steward. Cersei sat without answering. Jon waited until both places were ready before taking the chair beside the king. Across Robert, Joffrey watched the servants lay a fresh trencher before him.

Robert gave Jon a generous helping of hart. He ate while the king disputed the chase with Caron and Renly asked Arthur about Runestone. For a little while he could enjoy his supper.

Robert finished his argument by accusing Caron's horse of choosing a shorter hunt. He tore another piece of bread, wiped it through the juices upon his trencher and looked at Jon.

"Your father ought to be here."

"He remained at Winterfell, Your Grace."

"The North would survive a few weeks without him." Robert shook his head. "I should have liked to hunt with him again."

"Ned would have told me I was too old to go tearing down that slope." Robert glanced along the table. "Wouldn't he, Jon?"

"He would have advised you to take the path," Arryn said.

"And come after me when I didn't." Robert's smile faded. "Gods, I miss him. I hear more of him from ravens than from his own mouth."

Jon could picture Ned listening to the shouting, suffering the king's arm across his shoulders. He would have complained afterwards and remembered every word. "I will tell him you missed him, Your Grace."

"Tell him to come. Bring Robb, bring the girls. There are rooms enough." Robert looked towards his son. "You should know Ned's boys, Joffrey. I was younger than Jon when I went to the Eyrie. Ned and I were together every day."

Joffrey straightened. "Yes, Father."

"And you must come back when you have settled your island," Robert told Jon. "I would have you and Robb as close to my son as Ned has been to me. We did well enough together, whatever the Hand remembers."

"I remember being asked to forgive rather a great deal," Arryn said.

Jon smiled. "We shall have to ask Lord Arryn for the stories."

"You will hear them from me. He always leaves out the good parts." Robert held his cup out to Lancel, then caught sight of the pale line between Jon's thumb and forefinger. "That was from the wildling?"

Jon turned his hand upon the table. "Her sword went through my glove."

"Ned wrote that you killed their leader. He gave me less of the fight than of the wounded afterwards." The king settled back, his attention fixed upon Jon now. "Tell me how it happened. You were camped in a charcoal burner's clearing?"

"An old one, with the pits still there. We had twenty-five of my household. My father and Robb had gone to settle a quarrel between the Hornwoods and Cerwyns. The raiders saw them leave. They wanted our horses, mail and food."

"So you stayed."

"We knew the clearing. We could block the narrow ways in and keep men together. I would not lead the horses and the baggage into trees where we could scarcely see one another."

Robert nodded, chewing a mouthful of bread. "How did they come at you?"

Jon put his cup beside his trencher to show where the horses had stood, then pointed out the spring and western bank. Robert moved a dish aside. Along the table, Renly ceased speaking to Arthur.

"Their bowmen kept us behind the shields. Others came at the barriers. One reached the horses with a torch."

"That would have emptied your camp," Caron said.

"We killed him and put it out. Men were coming through at the spring. My uncle held the approaches with Gared and Desmond."

Robert looked past Jon. "Both ways, Dayne?"

"Yes, Your Grace. Both men with me were wounded. Beyond us were the boys tending Finnan."

"And this woman?"

"Sygga," Jon said. "She stayed where she could see us. Her second had a horn. Whenever we moved men to meet one attack, she sent another against the place they had left."

"She had fought before, then."

"Often, I think. She moved when men left the line to cover Finnan. Then Keir fell at the western end. He had shielded my page from an archer, and a man threw a spear into him." Jon looked towards Aries, standing with Tomas by the door. "I sent three men to close the gap. Sygga reached them before they had settled."

"She thrust for a man's throat. I caught her sword. Tomas was behind me, but the middle still needed him. I sent him back."

"And took her yourself."

"I was there, Your Grace."

The king gave a small nod. "Go on."

Jon had told Ned this while his hand was still bandaged. Here, with clean linen beneath his wrists, he remembered the wet ground more clearly than the pain.

"I tried to crowd her with my shield. She stepped away, caught under the rim and struck me in the mouth with her own. Then she worked me towards the pit."

"Did you see where she was putting you?" Robert asked.

"Yes. I could not get round her. Tomas tried to reach me, but an archer drove him down. She forced me over the edge. That was when she cut my hand."

"My shield caught against the bank. I had to let it go. She came down after me with her point at my face and told me to drop the sword."

Joffrey leaned forward. Robert put down his bread. "She meant to take you alive?"

"She thought I might be worth something."

"You would have been. How did you get past her point?"

"Hugin and Munin came at her."

The king frowned. "Which of your men?"

"My crows." Robert turned towards Arthur, who inclined his head.

"I heard one cry out. I could not see Jon below the edge."

"Munin caught in her hair," Jon said. "Sygga shook her off, but Hugin came at her again. She lifted her shield. I struck her sword aside and thrust beneath her coat. She was still trying to hit me, so I struck again."

"With that hand?"

"It still held the sword."

Robert took Jon's wrist and turned the scar towards the candles. "A little farther and you might not have held anything." He released him. "Did you teach the birds that?"

"They were frightened when she drove me down. They have been with me since they were young."

That much was true. He had given Ned the same account.

"I hope you fed them well," Caron said.

"They seldom let me forget."

Robert laughed, but he was still studying Jon. "And when she fell? Did the others stand?"

"For a little while. We pushed the western shields forward three paces. My uncle killed the men still pressing him. Five ran. We took two alive."

"You let the five go?" Joffrey asked.

Jon looked along the table. "I kept my men in the camp."

"I would have ridden them down."

"The horses were still tied, my prince. The men nearest me were on foot, and several were hurt. We had no way of knowing whether more raiders were waiting in the trees."

"They were running away."

"And could have turned on the first fool who followed them alone," Robert said. He pointed the piece of bread in his hand at his son. "You could learn a thing or two from Jon, Joffrey. He knew when to keep his men together."

The prince's face reddened. Lancel lowered his eyes to the flagon. At the foot of the dais, Gerren stood beside his uncle, listening. He glanced at Joffrey and quickly looked away.

"Ser Aron says I have improved," Joffrey said.

"Then listen when a man tells you something you have yet to learn." Robert turned back to Jon. "Did they try you again?"

"No, Your Grace."

Cersei laid a hand upon her son's arm. "Then you must watch him in the yard." She looked across at Jon. "I should like to see what you have learned, Lord Black. Ser Aron will find you an opponent."

"I have promised Gerren Lefford a few passes, if Ser Aron has ground for us."

Gerren looked at his uncle. Lefford gave a small nod.

"Then we need not keep you from your promise," Cersei said. "After supper, I think."

Jon had raised children in another life. He knew what an easy comparison could do. Joffrey had heard it before his mother, his squires and the men whose praise he wanted. He would remember who had been sitting beside his father.

Robert was already asking after the prisoners. Jon named Torwynd and Fenn, told how they had crossed by the Gorge, and answered what he could about word being sent to the Wall. The king waved the next dish away until he had finished.

"Your men did well," he said at last.

"They did."

"The three who died. What were their names?"

"Struan. Keir. Finnan." Jon could hear Finnan asking if he had done well. "They had been with me for years."

Robert lifted his cup. "To Struan, Keir and Finnan, then."

Arthur raised his cup. The others followed, and Jon drank. Robert called the servant back with the dish and asked after the wounded. Only when Jon had answered did Thoros begin a noisy argument with the musicians.

Lady Tanda came to the dais. "Your Grace, may we borrow your guests? Lord Mooton has scarcely spoken since Ser Arthur went past him."

Arthur looked towards the lower table.

"Go on, then," Robert said. He glanced at Jon. "Write to your father. Tell him I expect better of him next time."

"I will, Your Grace."

Jon rose with Arthur and thanked the king for supper. Robert caught his forearm before he could turn away.

"And come back yourself. Dragonstone is no distance."

"When I can leave it in good order."

"Ned's answer already." Robert let him go with a laugh and called Thoros up to him. Renly rose to accompany them down. Joffrey watched Jon pass the end of the royal table and turned away when Jon inclined his head.

Tanda had places made beside her. Her daughters sat within reach, with Rosby beyond the worst of the draught. Rykker moved his cup for the servants while William Mooton turned eagerly towards Arthur.

"Lord Caron tells me Corbray demanded sharp steel," Tanda said.

"He did."

"And regretted it," Rykker said, lifting his cup.

"He yielded honourably." Arthur's voice was quiet, but Rykker lowered the cup.

Mooton set his own down untouched. "He has always been very certain of himself."

"He had reason to be."

The river lord turned his cup by the stem. His voice dropped.

"Myles was very certain too."

Arthur turned fully towards him. "I remember."

"He wrote of you. When he was with the prince." Mooton glanced towards the dais. Robert was listening to Thoros, laughing with his head thrown back. "We still have the letters."

"I should be glad to read them, if you wished it."

Mooton's wife rested a hand upon his wrist. After a moment he nodded. "I could have copies made."

"Thank you."

Jon reached for the bread, giving Mooton time to turn towards his wife. The man who had killed Myles was paying for their supper.

Tanda introduced Lady Marissa, then Lady Alys Buckler beside her. Lord Buckler leaned across while Jon was making his bow. "Brus has told me what happened. Who was the man who caught his horse?"

"Rylas." Jon beckoned him from the door.

Buckler clasped the young man's forearm. "My thanks to you both. My cousin might have been dragged all the way down that slope." Rylas bowed, plainly at a loss for an answer, until Jon thanked the lord and let him return to his place.

Lady Alys asked her husband whether Brus had eaten. Buckler looked along the table to check. Jon put down his knife as someone asked for a cushion behind him.

"Two," Tyrion said. He had wandered over from a table nearer the hearth. "I should like to see what you are eating before the servants take it away."

"You could stand upon the bench," Tygett replied.

"I tried that once. My father mistook it for an attempt to address the hall."

Tygett laughed and moved a stool. Tyrion accepted the place beside Jon, pulling his cup within reach before thanking Lady Tanda. Darlessa came with her husband; little Tyrek followed until a call from the dais sent him hurrying away with Lancel.

"Lord Black." Tyrion settled upon the cushions. "At one table you were seven feet tall. At another your armour could turn an axe. I thought I had better come here before the third gave you wings."

"His crows would object," Arthur said.

Tyrion grinned, then looked towards the open doors, where the clock's carved stag showed above the passing servants.

"I have wanted to ask you about that. The keeper at the Rock winds up two weights every morning. One turns the hand, I suppose. Does the other lift the hammer?"

"Yes. The bell has its own wheels."

"So striking the hour does not slow the hand." Tyrion looked back at him. "That much I could follow. What keeps the first weight from running straight to the floor?"

"A wheel which is caught and released, one tooth at a time. There is a weighted bar above it that swings back and forth. Each turn of the bar lets the wheel move a little farther."

Tyrion held his cup still while he considered that. "The weight keeps trying to turn the wheels, and the bar keeps stopping them?"

"For a moment at each tooth. Without it, the wheels would race until the weight struck bottom."

"And if the bar swings too quickly, noon comes early." Tyrion put down his cup. "Our keeper compares the clock with the sundial. Is that how he knows?"

"Yes. Move the small weights farther along the bar to slow it, closer to the middle to make it faster. The clock needs tending. Dirt in the bearings or too much oil will affect it."

"Our keeper guards the works as if my father had put the Rock's gold behind them. I asked to try once. He offered to send for my brother."

"He could have shown you without letting you touch it. That is how William begins with the apprentices."

"Perhaps I should have asked him to take me as an apprentice." Tyrion's gaze returned to the doors. "And the bell knows whether to strike three times or four by another wheel?"

"One with notches spaced round it. A lever drops into the next notch and stops the striking. Getting those spaces right took us some work."

"I can imagine the household's gratitude while you were learning."

"My brother made it strike early once. Father sent him to carry the firewood the kitchens had wasted."

Tyrion laughed. Jon found himself laughing with him. He had not thought of Robb's blistered hands for years.

"You should come with us tomorrow," Jon said. "We are riding into the city after breakfast. I am taking my armour to Tobho Mott, then we mean to see something of King's Landing."

"I should like that. Jaime asked me to come from the Rock, but he has spent most of the time on duty." Tyrion glanced towards the white cloaks. "It has been a while since we had much time together."

Tygett heard him and rested a hand briefly upon his shoulder. Tyrion looked up at his uncle, then reached for his cup again.

"My father tried to have one of his men taught in your workshop," Tyrion said. "You refused him."

Rykker stopped attending to his plate.

"We sold him the clock he wanted."

"And kept the means of making more," Rykker said. "I wondered who had advised that."

"I did not need advice to keep my own work."

Rykker smiled slowly. "No. Perhaps you did not."

Tyrion was still smiling. Jon liked him, but he had no intention of letting that liking loosen his tongue about Dragonstone. Anything he told him might reach the rest of the family.

Tanda introduced Lord Harrold Hayford, a square-faced man in green. "Six hundred foot," he said. "Do you train them all yourself, Ser Arthur?"

"They have officers of their own. I teach Lord Black's household. Ser Gawen teaches their riding."

Hayford looked towards Tomas and Rylas in their plain black coats. "I had taken them for guards. Are any of knightly birth?"

"A few," Jon said. "Most came without a sword or horse."

"Then I should like to see them in the yard," Balon Swann said.

"Before breakfast," Arthur told him. "You may judge Gawen's work for yourself."

Meredyth Wendwater glanced towards her son at the squires' table. "I am still looking for a household that will teach my boy well. Ser Balon, would your father consider him?"

"How old?"

"Twelve."

"He will want to see him ride. I can introduce them. I cannot promise the place."

She thanked him. Lady Alys promised to write to her cousin at Stonehelm; she would at least discover whether the boy was eating. Meredyth's cautious smile widened as she turned to Arthur.

"He will accuse me of choosing the wrong household when he hears I sat beside you."

"Bring him to the lesson tomorrow," Arthur said, smiling. "If he will rise early."

"There," Rykker said. "And Dragonstone is rather nearer than Stonehelm."

Jon looked at him. The lord of Duskendale reached for his cup as if he had offered nothing more than a geographical observation.

"My household is already formed," Jon said to Meredyth. "Your son is welcome to the lesson, my lady. I have no place to offer him."

"We shall settle for the lesson, then," Tanda said. She turned to Meredyth. "You may yet hear from Stonehelm."

Lefford stopped beside Arthur on his way from the dais. Gerren waited behind him with Lucan and Andren. "Lady Meredyth, there are very good masters here. I shall put your son's name before Her Grace. Your father was known at the Tooth."

Meredyth thanked him. At her nod the steward drew a fresh sheet from his case. Jon remembered the usher barring her way while Lefford's party passed.

"A royal household offers opportunities which no island can," Lefford added.

Gerren straightened. Tygett glanced towards the dais. "Provided they find time to put a sword in his hand. Lancel has fetched enough wine to float a boat."

Darlessa caught Tyrek's sleeve as he returned. "This is the knight you have been asking about."

The boy bowed so deeply that his curls hid his face. "Ser Arthur."

"Tyrek. Your father says you are beginning with the sword."

"When Ser Aron lets me." He glanced at Jon. "Did you teach Lord Black when he was my age?"

"Before that."

"Will you teach here now?"

"I leave with him."

Tyrek's face fell. "Why aren't you one of the king's knights again?"

Lefford's cup stopped short of his mouth. At the table's end, a man in faded brown turned to listen.

"Because I have promised to serve Lord Black," Arthur said.

"But you could—"

"He has answered you," Tygett said quietly.

Darlessa drew her son nearer. Arthur asked which sword Santagar had given him, and the boy answered eagerly. Jon had heard his uncle's promise in private. Here, the men listening knew what a white cloak had once meant to him.

Lady Alayne Redwyne, who had been listening from Tanda's other side, set her cup before Lefford.

"Can you tell me who selected this?"

Leo looked at the pale wine. "I do not manage the royal cellars."

"My nephew did. Until last moon. I thought you might know his replacement."

"I know his family."

"A cousin of Lord Plumm, I hear." Silver showed in the lady's red hair. She glanced towards the dais before continuing in a lower voice. "Was there any fault in my nephew's work?"

"None that I have heard. Her Grace approved the new keeper. He came recommended."

"So did my nephew."

"He was offered another place, with better wages."

"In the west. My brother sent him to serve the king. He already has a cellar at home."

Buckler put down his knife. "We have boys who would serve Robert. Men whose fathers served his father. We are told there is no room."

"The new keeper has experience," Lefford said. "He was not taken from a nursery."

"Neither was Alayne's nephew. Yet Lord Plumm's cousin needed a place, and one was found."

Lefford's mouth tightened. "Her Grace was satisfied with what she heard of him."

"I should settle for being heard," Hayford said. "My steward has called three times about the fodder supplied to the king's stables. Have you been paid, my lord?"

"At last."

"This morning I was told the accounts must wait."

Jon remembered Gerren carrying Lefford's warrant past the petitioners. A payment hurried through, a place found for Plumm's cousin. Buckler was plainly tired of seeing the queen's connections preferred.

"Harrold, the purveyor's reckoning differs from yours," the Hand said. He had stopped behind Hayford with a clerk beside him, a small bundle of letters beneath the young man's arm. "Bring your steward to mine after breakfast, with his copy of the deliveries. If the sums agree, I shall have payment ordered before he leaves."

"He has taken the copy twice."

"Then he shall put it in my steward's hand." Arryn turned to his clerk. "You will be there. I do not mean to have him sent to another door."

"And my nephew, Lord Hand?" Alayne asked.

"Still in the city?"

"For the present."

"Keep him here. Until the steward brings me a cause for his dismissal, he is to resume his duties, with the wages owed him. The new keeper can assist him in the meantime." His clerk was already writing. "Have that done tomorrow. Bring me the steward's order and the letter recommending the new keeper."

"Her Grace approved that appointment," Lefford said.

"I heard you. I shall speak with her." Arryn rubbed the bridge of his nose. "For tonight, leave it there."

"Of course, my lord."

Hayford turned to the clerk; Alayne thanked the Hand. Neither seemed surprised. Arryn waited for the clerk to finish, his fingers pressed beside one eye. Jon suspected this interruption to his supper was familiar.

"Lady Jocelyn has the letter," Lefford told the clerk. "Tell her the Hand has asked for it."

The man in brown waited until Lefford had finished, then came round the table to Arthur. He had a ploughman stitched upon his breast. Arthur rose before he could speak.

"Ser Raymun."

"Ser Arthur." Darry took his hand and held it. "It has been a long time."

"It has."

Raymun's gaze dropped to Dawn, then returned to Arthur's face. Jon remembered the three Darry brothers who had died at the Trident. For a moment Raymun seemed unable to finish the greeting. Arthur waited until he released his hand.

"My sister Jeyne, and her husband, Ser Cleos Frey." Raymun introduced them to Jon. Cleos had already bowed to Tygett. Genna Lannister's son, Jon remembered.

Darlessa asked Jeyne after her boys. "My elder would have asked Ser Arthur the same question," Jeyne said, smiling at Tyrek.

Raymun let the women speak. When he addressed Arthur again, his voice scarcely carried beyond them. "We heard so little of you in the North."

"Winterfell has been good to us."

"I am glad." Darry seemed about to add something, but Cleos moved aside to let a servant pass and he waited. "And now Dragonstone."

"With Lord Black," Arthur said.

Raymun looked at Jon. "There are families upon the island who have served its lords longer than any of us have lived. Some have kin at Darry. You mean to keep them in service?"

"Ethan has kept men who served before the war. I shall need their knowledge of the place. Those who do their work well have nothing to fear from my arrival."

"Ethan knows the men he has kept," Arthur said. "Lord Stark trusted his judgment."

"That is good to hear." Raymun's attention returned to Arthur. "I wish you well there."

"Thank you, Raymun."

Darry drew a breath before stepping back to his sister. Tanda offered Jeyne a place, and he moved the chair for her, his expression composed again. When Darlessa resumed her question about the boys, Raymun listened with the rest.

Jon finished his meal, thanked Lady Tanda and rose to join Arthur. By the hall doors, Lady Jocelyn fastened Cersei's cloak. Joffrey waited beside her, Gerren holding the prince's practice harness.

A page stopped Arthur outside the doors. Ser Barristan hoped to see him in the yard after supper. Arthur sent word he would come. Jon waited beside him, scarcely three paces from the queen.

"Beat Lord Black tonight, Gerren, and you may attend my son at his practice each morning." Cersei glanced towards Jon, then returned her attention to the squire.

Gerren bowed. "Your Grace." The queen moved on with her son, and the squire watched them go before turning towards Jon.

He caught them before they reached the stair. "Ser Aron has made the west yard ready, my lord. I am to take him this." He shifted the harness beneath his arm. "My uncle has released me."

"Ser Aron judges," Jon said. "Blunted swords and practice rules."

"I shall tell him." Gerren went ahead, Andren Plumm hurrying out of the hall after him.

Jon sent Aries for his padded coat and gloves and told Tomas where they were going. Robert had praised him at Joffrey's expense. Now Cersei had offered Gerren the place he wanted if he could put Jon down before the prince. Jon meant to beat him cleanly, with Joffrey and the queen watching.

* * *
​

The west yard smelled of lamp oil and cooling earth. Lanterns beneath the covered walk lit the practice ground. Jon's men waited near the entrance, Tomas and Rylas closest to the racks. Aries brought the padded coat and gloves; Gawen followed with his injured arm in its sling.

Gerren was tightening his sword belt beside Andren Plumm. The prince's harness lay upon a bench. Loras had come with two Tyrell guards; Lucan was talking to Tygett. Caron and Swann appeared beneath the arch with their squires before Jon had fastened his coat.

Arthur examined Jon's gloves. "You have had a long day."

"So has he."

"Then do not spend the first exchange trying to prove that you have not." His fingers closed over Jon's wrist for a moment. "Watch him. Let him tell you how he means to fight."

Santagar ran his thumb along the rounded edge of Gerren's blade, then handed Jon another of the same length.

"Three clean touches. No blows to the face. You stop when I call." The master-at-arms looked at each of them in turn. "This is practice."

They had taken their places when Cersei entered with Joffrey and Lady Jocelyn. The queen stopped beneath the covered walk. Lord Lefford came behind her and joined Lucan; Caron and Swann moved beside Gawen. Gerren bowed towards the queen before he turned back to Jon.

"No black armour tonight?"

"Not for practice." Jon inclined his head to the queen, then settled his grip again.

"Give him a turn to remember, Black," Caron called. Across the ground, Lefford said something to Lucan without looking away from his nephew. Jon recognised the division from the supper table. He settled his feet and waited for Santagar to step clear.

The first cut struck hard enough to drive Jon's blade against his shoulder. He turned with it and gave ground. Gerren followed in measured steps, his sword recovering neatly after each blow. He was stronger, and he knew how to use the extra reach. Jon let him press until the heels of his boots reached the darker earth beside the walk, then slipped left as Gerren cut towards his ribs.

The squire checked the blow. His point came back at once. Jon had to knock it wide before he could move, and Gerren's boot scraped across the space he had meant to take.

Jon stopped retreating. He met the next cut early, before Gerren could put his shoulder behind it, and drove his own point high enough to make the taller boy lift his guard. Gerren's elbow rose. Jon struck beneath it and was clear before the answering blade swept past.

"One," Santagar said.

Aries let out his breath. "Well taken," Caron said, and Balon nodded. Lucan called to Gerren to keep his elbow in. The squire rubbed his side and raised his sword.

"Again."

He gave Jon no easy opening. Boots scraped; blades rang. The bruise Jaime had left that morning pulled beneath Jon's coat. Gerren caught the hesitation, driving his next two blows to that side. The squire was learning him.

Jon showed him the opening a third time.

Gerren came in behind his sword, hard and certain. Jon stepped towards him instead of away. Their guards struck together. For an instant he was close enough to see the sweat caught in Gerren's divided eyebrow; then he turned his wrist, slid his blade free and tapped the squire's breast before his opponent could bring his point back between them.

"Two. Separate."

Gerren pushed away. Jon let him go. The squire looked towards the covered walk, but Cersei answered Joffrey without glancing towards him.

"You have had a great deal of teaching," Gerren said.

"I have."

"Most of us must earn a knight's time."

Arthur had gone very still beside the racks. Jon let the complaint pass. He kept his eyes upon Gerren's sword.

"Do you want the next pass?" Jon asked.

Colour rose beneath Gerren's sunburn. "I am ready."

He tried to make Jon attack. His blade stayed low, his stance inviting a blow at the head. Jon moved right, then back, making him follow. Gerren resisted the first feint. At the second, his point twitched. Jon touched the opposing blade, withdrew before it could trap him and went low as the squire's guard came up. The blow stopped against Gerren's thigh.

"Three. Enough."

Gerren's sword was already moving. He checked it at Santagar's voice, late enough for Jon to feel the air of its passing, and stood breathing hard with the point beyond Jon's shoulder.

Tomas had taken a step from the racks. Jon lifted his empty hand, keeping his gaze on Gerren. After a moment the squire lowered the blade.

"Well fought," Jon said.

He offered his hand. Gerren looked at it before taking it, his grip stiff through the glove. "My lord."

"You nearly had me against the walk."

"Nearly." Gerren released him. He bowed to Arthur and returned the sword to Santagar with more care than he had shown Jon's hand.

Gerren turned towards the covered walk. Cersei drew her cloak closer about her shoulders. "Ser Aron will find the prince another partner for the mornings. Your uncle may keep you for the present, Gerren."

"Your Grace." Gerren bowed, but she had turned away. Joffrey went with her without looking at Jon. Lady Jocelyn followed.

Caron opened his mouth as Gerren came back past Lucan. Before he could speak, Tygett asked Santagar for a sword. "A good bout. Both of them." He weighed the blade in his hand.

Loras caught Jon by the sleeve as Aries hurried up with water. "That second turn. Show me."

Jon handed the cup back and took Loras's wrist. "Here. I could not pull straight back. He had closed that way." Andren came closer as Jon repeated the turn slowly for both boys.

Tygett called to Arthur. "Will you give me a turn, Dayne? I should like to try you while I can still lift a sword."

Arthur looked at Jon, who had already turned to watch, then went to the rack.

Tygett drove him back with a cut which became a thrust halfway through. Arthur had to turn sharply to clear it. They crossed half the yard before his uncle caught the next blow and touched Tygett beneath the arm. The older Lannister looked down at the point and laughed, breathing hard.

They clasped forearms. Whatever Tygett said made Arthur smile. They returned the swords together while the squires crowded nearer.

Lucan asked about the last exchange. Balon stepped nearer, and Caron held out a hand for a sword so Arthur could show him. Santagar told the squires to leave them room. Gerren made to follow, but Lefford called him away. He took his uncle's cloak from a page and went after him.

Barristan arrived while Arthur was correcting Caron's grip. The white cloak brought a change in his uncle's attention which Jon recognised. Arthur returned the practice sword and asked Gawen to take Jon back to their chambers.

On the way, the household captain asked when they could sail.

"The morning after tomorrow. I shall settle our leave with the king tomorrow."

"Then I shall have Voss ready." Gawen glanced back towards the yard. "Best not give them another day to find you amusement."

Jon had taken off the padded coat when Arthur returned with Barristan and Jaime. Gawen went to the outer door. Arthur waited until it had closed, then set a folded paper upon the table.

"The king has agreed to the search," he said.

Barristan drew out a chair. "The Hand's warrant lets us open the old stores, whoever holds the buildings now. His men will go with us. No landlord can turn them away." He opened the paper to show the seal.

Jaime stood beside the window. "Some of those buildings have been pulled down. Others have people living in them. We may find someone's bed where Rossart put his jars."

Jon thought of the kitchen boy struggling with his basket that morning. "Where will those people sleep if you have to move them?"

"I shall have the Hand's steward find lodgings."

"Before the houses are emptied," Jon said. "And someone to guard what they leave. A man may be slow to go if he thinks he will come back to an empty shop."

Barristan rested his hand beside the seal. "There will be guards at the stores. I can have them watch the goods as well. I shall speak to the steward tonight."

"And if you find danger before we sail?"

"We clear the house at once. Your departure will not delay us." Barristan looked towards Arthur. "The guild is finding men to open the stores safely. I have the men to keep others away. We can begin without you."

Arthur read the paper in silence. Jon could still see him over the unfinished belt that morning, unable to keep his hands upon the work.

"Send me word when you have opened the first," Arthur said at last. "Even if there is nothing in it."

"I will write," Jaime said.

Arthur looked up at him, then folded the paper and held it out. Jaime took it. Neither man had smiled, but when Arthur rose he put a hand briefly upon Jaime's shoulder.

Barristan pushed back his chair. "I had better find the steward while he is still awake." He looked towards Jon. "Stay out of the old cellars."

"Gladly," Jon said.

They left together. Arthur went with them as far as the yard. Jon stayed at the table for a while, listening to their steps recede. The danger was still there, beneath streets full of people who would wake tomorrow knowing nothing of it. At least men who believed Jaime were looking for it now.

Jon brought his writing things to the table. He wrote of Arryn's warning about the Narrow Sea houses and the account Cersei had persuaded Robert to demand: captains, warships fit to sail, men under arms. Ethan would supply the garrison's strength; Jon, the figures for the men and ships he had brought south. Ned would receive both for the Hand. He added Robert's command to keep the old Targaryen bannermen obedient, and the trust placed in Ned's sons. He set out the harbour work he meant to begin on reaching the island, and the men he would put to it.

Then Jon turned the sheet.

He wrote that Arryn looked tired and Robert missed Ned. The king had invited Robb and the girls south; he wanted their sons to know one another as they had at the Eyrie. Jon paused over Joffrey, then added that Robert had praised him at the prince's expense, and Joffrey had taken it badly.

There had been affection in this day. He had liked Robert handing cheese to an old man, Tyrion laughing over Robb's mischief with the clock, Arryn hearing news of the boy he had raised. None of it had made the throne less dangerous.

Caron and Swann had cheered him; Tygett had spared Gerren further humiliation. Jon would remember both. Settling his people on Dragonstone need not make the Stormlanders' quarrel his own.

He wanted the throne. He had wanted it before coming here; seeing the man upon it had given the desire weight. He meant to build the strength to take it, and the realm he would need when the cold came. It would require more than being cleverer than Robert or finding fault with his rule. Today Jon had seen men love him. He had watched the king hold a struggling beast upon his spear and laugh before he had caught his breath. If Jon came for that crown, he might have to fight the man who had killed Rhaegar, and men who remembered why they had followed him.

The clock rang outside the hall. Its sound reached the chamber softened by walls and distance. Jon looked down at the letter. He had written nothing of that ambition. He finished with the hunt, the king's good wishes, and the date he meant to sail.

He sanded the letter. Outside, practice swords rang in a short exchange. One of the men laughed, and this time Jon recognised Arthur. He went to the window and left it open.

 

[aiwonder]

Tyrion Lannister was sitting upon Jon's armour chest when Jon came down to the stables. Aries stood beside him with the key, plainly uncertain whether he ought to ask a queen's brother to move.

"I did promise to come," Tyrion said. "I thought I would begin by getting in your way." He slid down from the chest. "Aries tells me you intend to ask Mott about the black finish."

"And have him look at a buckle." Jon drew on his gloves while Aries opened the lid. "We shall leave the horses there and walk afterwards."

"Then I shall come as far as the armourer. You may have the hills to yourselves."

Arthur took his reins from a groom. "Did you see Jaime before you came down?"

"Briefly. He is on duty until evening."

"I shall find him then."

Tyrion went to see about his pony. Aries held up the separately wrapped shoulder defence, showing Jon where the buckle's tongue caught against the leather.

Tomas had given Jon's letter to a master sailing north; it would go on to Winterfell from White Harbor. Jon asked the ship's name. Ned would have his account of the welcome, and the demands that had come with it.

The groom helping Aries load the packhorse was named Hal, a thick-shouldered man with a healing split at his mouth. Arthur described their route: Mott's, the Sept, then the lanes below the flour sellers and the Dragonpit.

Hal glanced at Jon's boots. "There's easier walking than those lanes, my lord."

"Do you know them?"

"I was raised there. My aunt still has a place below the Street of Flour."

"Then stay with us," Arthur said. "It has been years since I walked them."

Hal looked at the boots again. "You'll want to keep clear of the water in the middle, whatever the men with carts say."

Aries looked down at the leather he had cleaned that morning.

"These will do," Jon said. "They have been wet before."

Arthur led them from the keep, Jon beside him. Tyrion brought two men in Lannister colours, and Tomas followed with six of the household. Aries rode close enough to ask Arthur about the towers. Hal led the packhorse behind them.

The street narrowed beneath projecting balconies. A woman drawing in her washing lifted a wet sheet just in time to save Tyrion from wearing it. He thanked her so gravely that she laughed and nearly dropped it again.

Near Fishmonger's Square the air smelled of crushed scales and sour water. Aries pulled his collar over his nose. "Gods, that's foul," one of Tomas's men muttered. A boy scrubbing a table stopped to stare at Dawn. His master pushed another board towards him without looking up from his knife. Flies gathered upon the first.

Arthur waited for a cart before turning uphill into the Street of Steel. Hammering came through open doors. At one forge a boy worked a treadle while a smith held a knife against the turning stone, sparks falling between his boots.

Farther up, painted shutters replaced bare boards. A boar's head stood over one doorway; behind another hung a breastplate with gilded claws worked into its shoulders.

Above the roofs, the Great Sept's towers caught the sun. Baelor had put his gods where half the city must look up to them. Jon's own forebears had paid for it.

Jon pictured Ned upon those steps, confessing to treason while the headsman waited. His fingers tightened on the reins. Ned was still at Winterfell. Jon made himself look back to the street.

Two stone sentries stood at Mott's door in ornate red-steel armour, one fashioned as a griffin, the other as a unicorn. Aries stared until Tomas told him to dismount. Hal brought the packhorse aside, and two guards lifted down the chest.

The master wore black velvet embroidered with silver hammers and a sapphire large enough to ransom an indifferent knight. He welcomed Jon, recognised Arthur with undisguised pleasure and offered Tyrion wine before leading them into the working yard.

Aries showed him where the shoulder buckle caught. Once Jon wore the harness, Mott had him raise his arm and reach across his chest. The edge pinched through the padding.

"You have grown."

"I sent fresh measures."

"You did. At the time, you were that size." Mott loosened the fastening while Arthur held Jon's wrist. "A longer strap will serve now. When this catches again, send for another piece. I will not leave room for a blade beneath it."

While the leatherworker cut the strap, Jon examined the correction Mott had made to his drawing. He had allowed for a raised arm and a resting one, but too little for the turn between them. Then he asked about the black finish.

"Was it the dragonglass that changed it?"

"In part. The drawings were yours, my lord. The finish was developed here."

"Name a price for teaching it."

"I am not offering to teach it." Nor would Mott send a craftsman to Dragonstone. His men were needed in the city; he would accept orders for finished work.

Jon wanted that skill upon the island, but supplying the glass gave him no claim upon everything the armourer had learned. He agreed to send Noll's drawing and a steel sample for Gyles Grafton's harness. Mott would examine them before quoting a price, and answer what other questions he could by letter.

They tried the new strap with sword and shield. Nothing caught. An apprentice recorded fresh measures while Mott gave Jon a failed strip of the blackened steel to compare with any clouding upon his armour. The fitting cost nothing: Jon had paid for harness he could wear.

At the next bench, Tyrion took off a belt with a bent clasp and asked for a replacement. He wanted a broader tongue, easier to fasten without looking down. Mott went to fetch examples, leaving Arthur examining an unfinished gauntlet and Aries packing the chest.

"You were almost as displeased as my father's man was when you refused his request," Tyrion said.

"He bought a clock. I bought armour."

"Father preferred the clock to your answer." Tyrion drew his feet aside as water from a bucket ran towards a drain. "We had a channel like that at the Rock. The masons built a stair over it and flooded half a passage."

They had narrowed the channel to make room for the foundations. Tyrion described how he had opened the neighbouring wall instead. Jon asked about the fall, and Tyrion put down his cup to draw the turn in spilled water upon the bench. He remembered the measurements and corrected Jon when he placed the stair too near the outlet.

"You had charge of the work?" Jon asked.

"All the drains and cisterns. My father put his youngest son amongst the shit, where he belonged." Tyrion picked up his cup again. "I rather spoiled it by stopping the floods. He had to complain about the stonework instead."

Mott returned with the clasps. Tyrion selected one and left the belt to have it fitted, then settled back upon the bench.

"How are you finding King's Landing?"

"I could spend a moon in these shops," Jon said. "I have had enough of the Red Keep for a while."

"Already? Robert has been almost indecently fond of you."

"He has." Jon watched Mott disappear into the shop. The king's welcome had been warm enough, but he remembered how the pleasure had drained from the faces farther down the table. Men who had fought for Robert were being made to ask why their sons could find no place beside him. The westermen had seemed very comfortable listening. "I had not expected so many of his old friends to seem unwelcome there."

Tyrion gave a little snort. "They helped put him on the throne and have been reminding him of it ever since. You should hear them when a man from the Reach gets something they wanted. My sister is allowed friends of her own. I doubt you left Winterfell without a few."

"Her friends seem to need other men's places."

"And yours would never ask?"

Jon glanced towards the door, where one of his guards stood talking to a Lannister man. "They might. I would expect a better reason for dismissing someone than that his replacement knew me."

Tyrion turned his cup between his palms, watching him over its rim. "You are rather severe on royal favour for a man who received Dragonstone in his cradle. What service had you performed for His Grace?"

Jon had expected the island to enter it. "None. My father had. The king rewarded him, and I have spent years preparing to govern what he gave me."

"And the men you pity would say as much for their sons. My sister is doing what they wish they could." Tyrion drank. "You need not like her. But if you want an easier welcome when you return, give her something to be pleased with. A place for a man she recommends would cost you very little."

Jon remembered the Hand rubbing the bridge of his nose. He wondered how often Arryn had accepted just such a bargain, hoping to be left to his work.

"I shall appoint men I need," he said. "She can send a name if she likes. I make no promise to employ him."

Tyrion smiled. "I wonder how often you have told your father no."

Jon left that alone. He had enjoyed talking with Tyrion about the Rock, but he would keep his plans for Dragonstone to himself. The man might resent his father and quarrel with his sister; Jon knew better than to expect him to side against the Lannisters. He had scarcely suggested that Cersei was overreaching before Tyrion began finding excuses for her.

"Robert gave me the island," Jon said. "He did not give your sister the choice of who commands there."

For a while there was only the hammering. Tyrion finished his wine and reached for the jug, lowering his voice as he leaned towards Jon.

"No. He gave it to Ned Stark's bastard. You had best hope he remains as fond of Ned Stark."

Aries's hands stopped upon the lid of the chest. Jon motioned him to finish. Tyrion had watched for a flinch; now he watched the boy close the lock.

"You need not whisper it," Jon said. "I have heard it before."

"So have I, often enough." Tyrion's mouth twisted. "All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes."

Jon remembered the words. Hearing them offered as a claim upon his sympathy was less pleasant than reading them had been.

"Then why help him make you one?"

Tyrion lowered his cup. "Explain."

"You understood what was wrong with that drain. You put it right. Then you made a jape of yourself for doing it."

"Forgive me. I had not realised I was in the presence of another septon."

"You spoke of it with pleasure until you mentioned him." Jon rested his hand upon the chest. "They call me bastard. They call you dwarf. Wear it like armour, if you must, but stop doing their work for them. You make yourself the jape before anyone else can speak."

"A dwarf who cannot laugh at himself is a tedious creature. I have been assured of that often."

"You can laugh. You can also let a man hear what you know without telling him why your father thinks less of it."

For a moment Tyrion's face was still. Then he smiled, with none of the warmth he had shown over the drain.

"Lord Stark's bastard has discovered the cure for being Tywin Lannister's son. Shall we ask what Lady Stark thinks of your wisdom?"

Jon felt the deliberate reach for a sore place. "She will have her opinion. I shall still govern Dragonstone."

Arthur set down the gauntlet. The small sound carried through a pause in the hammering. Tyrion glanced towards him, then back to Jon.

"And I remain a Lannister, however poorly I amuse my father."

"I have never doubted it."

Tyrion searched his face. Jon let him.

Mott returned to say the belt would be ready by afternoon. Tyrion put down his cup and counted the coins into the armourer's hand.

"Send the fitted belt to the Red Keep. I shall be there." He turned to Jon. "Enjoy your walk, Lord Black. Take care you do not inherit the city's drains as well."

He called his guards, mounted the pony they brought round and rode downhill. Jon watched the red cloaks disappear between the smiths' signs before turning to Aries and the locked chest.

They left the horses and armour chest in Mott's yard. Rylas found a stool beneath the climbing vine while Aries checked the lock and surrendered the key. Jon tucked his gloves through his belt. After the forge, even the dusty air outside felt pleasant.

The hammering followed them uphill. It weakened as the workshops gave way to shops selling candles, ribbons and little figures of the Seven. A woman had hung lengths of blue silk beneath her awning; the wind lifted them against Jon's shoulder, cool and almost weightless. Across the street, a boy was painting a wooden sun above a door. Yellow drops speckled his hair. His master shouted that he was putting more paint upon himself than upon the sign.

Aries kept looking towards the white towers. Tomas caught his coat before he stepped into a basket of rushes. The woman carrying it lowered one end with a grunt. Aries apologised and helped her lift it again; Arthur waited beside Jon, smiling.

At the top of the street, the buildings drew back and the Great Sept stood clear.

The square was bright enough to make Jon narrow his eyes. Sunlight lay upon the marble steps and flashed from the crystal atop the seven towers. The vast dome rose behind them, pale against the summer sky. Along the foot of the steps, people had made a second, less orderly town of baskets, bundles and folded blankets. A father was combing road dust from his daughter's hair. Two women shared a crust beside a pair of worn shoes set carefully heel to heel. Beyond them, a merchant's servants shook out a carpet so their mistress need not kneel upon the stone.

Jon had seen grander buildings in his first life. Yet the Sept filled his sight, its bells settling in his chest. Men without engines had hauled those stones uphill and raised that dome. He wanted to see how.

Tomas came beside him. "My lord, may I go in?"

"Of course. We shall be here a while."

The lieutenant spoke to one of the guards, leaving him in charge, then went up the steps. Aries watched him.

"May I?"

"Come with me."

Arthur glanced at Jon, but said nothing. Jon had no prayer to offer the Seven. That would not prevent him from entering their house respectfully.

They passed Baelor's statue. Flowers lay at its base in damp cloth, their purple petals curling in the heat.

"The king who walked to Dorne," Aries said.

"Aye," Arthur answered. "To make peace, and to bring his cousin home."

"Did he build all this when he came back?"

"He began it. He did not live to see it finished."

Aries looked from the statue to the dome. "How long did it take?"

"I do not know how many years," Jon said. "Think of bringing all that stone through the streets we have just walked." He pointed above the entrance. "They needed timber beneath each arch to hold it until the last stones were fitted."

The Hall of Lamps lay beyond the outer doors, coloured glass globes hanging above their heads. Through the inner doors the seven broad aisles opened towards the space beneath the dome.

There were candles everywhere, small flames wavering before the altars and gathering into a gold haze. Incense lay sweet and thick upon the air. Sunlight from the high windows caught the hanging crystals and scattered colour over the shoulders of a kneeling woman; when she rose, the blue and red passed down her dress and came to rest upon the floor. Above her, the high spaces held the murmur of prayers and the slow tread of people who had lowered their voices without being told.

Aries stopped speaking. He took another step, then looked up so sharply that Jon laid a hand between his shoulders to steady him.

Tomas had gone to one of the altars. Jon could see his dark head among the bowed heads of strangers. He turned away and let him have his prayer.

A septa was guiding a tired old man towards a bench. Arthur moved aside to give them room. The old man's daughter followed with his shoes in her hands; the heel of one stocking was dark with blood. Near the next pillar a well-fed man in a green velvet cap knelt with the same anxious concentration. Jon could not hear what either had come to ask.

Jon's wife had liked old churches. She had read the names cut into worn memorial stones while he examined the roof, and afterwards asked him whether he had noticed anything built lower than his own nose. For a moment he could hear her voice with painful clarity. He looked down at Aries, who was trying to see everything at once, and left the stonework alone.

Arthur leaned close enough to be heard without disturbing the people beside them.

"Rhaegar was married here."

Jon followed his gaze towards the far end of the hall.

"I stood near those doors," Arthur said. "White flowers all the way to the altar. Servants were still carrying them in when the guests arrived."

Jon knew better than to ask about the bride or prince in front of Aries. The questions he wanted answered belonged elsewhere.

They waited near the entrance until Tomas rejoined them. The lieutenant's eyes were a little red. He thanked Jon, then bent to straighten a strap that had worked loose upon his boot. Aries watched him for a moment and quietly moved out of his way.

Outside, the square seemed louder and hotter. Jon looked back. His family had built this place and buried its royal dead here; the people upon the steps had made it part of lives no Targaryen king had known.

Arthur brought them down from the Sept by a street of moneychangers and cloth sellers. The houses here stood upon stone lower storeys, their upper floors plastered cream or pale yellow. A blue door had polished brass upon it. Beside it, a servant was watering a pot of red flowers while watching the people below. The water splashed a man's cap, and his complaint brought a hurried apology from the window.

"We used to buy bread here," Arthur said at the next turn.

He stopped beneath a hanging bunch of wooden grapes.

"They may disappoint you," Jon said.

"The baker was behind the shop." Arthur peered through the passage beside it. "Or he was."

The smell reached them before the baker's wife emerged, wiping her hands upon a floury cloth.

"Is bread still sold here?"

"It is if my husband leaves any for the customers."

A man's voice protested from beside the oven. She ignored it and brought them two round loaves. Arthur paid, and she wrapped them in a scrap of clean cloth before handing them to Hal. The groom broke one while they walked, passing pieces along to the guards. Aries burned his fingers upon the first piece and transferred it from hand to hand until Tomas told him to stop performing and eat it.

They turned east through the city, the Sept's towers disappearing behind roofs. Arthur pointed towards Rhaenys's Hill, but Hal chose the turns towards his aunt's quarter, knowing where carts could pass and a stair could shorten the walk.

Here the stalls held purple onions, cabbages misted from a jug, and plums polished against a seller's apron. Beneath a striped awning, a man weighed pepper, removing grains until his customer objected. A boy passed with hot pies; the browned pastry made Jon hungry again.

Aries had been keeping beside him as ordered. Then a small wooden horse rolled across the boards of a stall and caught his attention.

The toymaker lifted it by its cord. "Runs as well as a courser. Eats rather less."

It was painted red, with a black mane and two pairs of wooden wheels. One wheel wobbled. Aries bent to examine it, his bread forgotten in his hand.

"The hole is too wide."

"It still runs."

"It runs into the other horses."

The man set it upon the board again. It veered towards a row of little knights, knocking one over. Aries looked at him. After a moment the toymaker grinned.

"A copper penny. You may correct its manners yourself."

Aries looked up at Jon, who nodded towards the purse at the boy's belt. "It is your coin."

Aries considered the horse with the solemnity he had given Mott's armour, then bought it. The man wrapped it in cloth. Aries tucked it beneath his coat and finished his bread as they walked.

"A splinter beside the peg would hold it straight," he told Jon.

"Perhaps. Let me see it when we are back."

Dirty water spread across the paving ahead, carrying straw and grease. Three men had lifted a drain cover. One reached into the opening while another held his belt.

The baker whose threshold lay in the water argued with a man at the next house's window, who refused to come down.

Jon stopped short of the slippery stones. "Where does the channel empty?"

The kneeling man withdrew a fistful of rags and pointed farther down the slope.

"Past the next turn, my lord. If they've not built over that too."

"They have not," the baker said. "I went myself."

"Then we'll find what's stopped it." The man threw the rags into a bucket and reached down again.

The channel was good work, deep and stone-lined. Someone had paid to build it.

Jon would want the existing channels opened and their outlets found before buying houses here. The covers should lift easily, and there must be room to reach in and clear the silt.

"Can they mend it?" Aries asked.

"They can clear this much," Jon said. "We cannot see the rest."

The man drew out another sodden lump. Water began to move beneath his arm. The baker stopped arguing long enough to fetch a second bucket, and Jon led his party round the dry side of the lane.

Two streets farther on, they found a fountain. Water fell from a spout into a stone basin, clear enough for Jon to see the worn bottom beneath the ripples. The air beside it felt cooler. Women waited with jars, and a water carrier was fastening full buckets to his yoke. Hal filled the cup hanging at his belt and passed it to Aries.

"Alysanne's fountain," Arthur said.

"The queen?" Aries wiped his mouth.

"The Good Queen. She would not have the poor drinking from the same river into which the city emptied its filth. Barth helped bring clean water into the city."

Jon rested his palm upon the cool rim. Alysanne and Barth's answer still worked. A cracked pot caught a leak, saving the trickle for herbs at the wall's foot.

"Where does it come from?" Aries asked, looking into the basin.

Jon pointed uphill. "From higher ground through conduits. The water falls this way because the source is above us."

"So you would have to lift it to put one upon the hill?"

"Unless you found a source higher still. Or caught rain in cisterns."

Beside the basin, a little girl had helped fill a jar almost as broad as her body and now insisted upon moving it. With both arms round its neck she dragged it an inch across the paving, stopped, and tugged again. Her mother waited with another jar upon her hip, trying to persuade her to let go.

Jon moved aside so they could pass. The child looked at his boots, then at the armed men waiting behind him, and abandoned her struggle long enough to hide against her mother's skirt. Hal offered to carry the jar to the turn. The woman hesitated, then accepted after seeing him speak to a water seller she knew.

Aries followed them with his eyes. "Would she be there every day?"

"More than once, if the household is large," Jon said.

Water near the doors, washing kept clear of the drinking supply: the mother would have time for other work, and children might have time for lessons. Jon began counting the doorways along the lane until Arthur touched his elbow to let a woman pass.

Hal returned, wiping water from his forearms. They continued towards Rhaenys's Hill.

By the Street of Flour the fine shutters had gone. The sacks upon the carts wore the white dust of their contents; flour lay in the seams of the paving and upon the shoulders of men who bent to lift them. A child at an upper window was drawing with one finger in the powder upon the sill. Below him a mule refused the turn, forcing everyone behind it to wait while its driver explained its ancestry.

Hal led them round the obstruction and down into Flea Bottom.

The houses leaned over the lane until the strip of sky narrowed between their roofs. Their lower timbers were black with damp, but people had found colour where they could: a green shutter repaired with unpainted wood, scarlet thread drying upon a rail, a broken blue bowl filled with yellow flowers. Washing hung from poles above the gutter. A woman with a needle between her lips drew her knees out of their way without stopping her work.

Cookfire smoke caught beneath the upper floors. Jon smelled the sour reek of hides before seeing a boy carrying them. Then onions frying in fat reached him, and his stomach answered despite everything else.

"That's worse than the drain," Aries said, pulling his collar over his nose. "What is it?"

"Tanner's yard, beyond that wall," Hal told him.

One of the household coughed and spat into the gutter. "I'd sooner muck every stall at Winterfell."

"Then don't apprentice to a tanner," Tomas said. "Keep moving."

Beyond the wall, hides stretched upon frames and a man scraped one with a curved blade. Jon would need that trade upon the island. He would choose ground with water and cart access before houses grew round it.

The lane narrowed. Tomas sent two men ahead and kept another at the rear. Nobody shouted for room, but swords at their hips were explanation enough. A man lifted his basket clear.

They went down a passage where broken boards bridged the gutter. Through one open door Jon saw bedding rolled against every wall and a woman stirring a pot between two sleeping children. A man worked a cobbler's awl beside her, close enough to the hearth to use its light. There was scarcely room to set down a foot between them.

Farther on, a chest and mattress blocked the passage. A man arguing through a barred door broke off at the sight of the guards and seized a handle. "Leave it," Jon told him. Hal found them room to pass beside the wall. The man's wife sat picking lice from a little girl's hair; a boy held their cooking pot. Behind Jon, the father began asking again for seven days to find the rent.

A younger girl was picking spilled grain from the straw beside a cart. Aries watched her put it into her mouth, then looked at the bread beneath Hal's arm. The groom broke off a piece and gave it to him. Aries carried it over. The girl snatched it and backed against the wheel before eating.

Jon had noticed a barefoot boy watching from a doorway. He wore a brown shirt with one sleeve cut short. When the party moved on, the boy slipped ahead through a gap between two houses. Jon saw him again at the next turning, speaking close to a girl carrying an empty basket. She glanced at Jon, then hurried uphill.

Varys's little birds? A lord with armed men would draw eyes anywhere, but these children kept pace without begging or offering anything for sale. Perhaps word of their walk was already on its way to the keep.

He kept the thought to himself. At the next crossing the brown sleeve showed beside a doorway, then disappeared.

As they climbed towards the edge of the quarter, Jon asked Hal, "Is this where you grew up?"

"A lane back, my lord. We had the room over a harness maker's." Hal ducked beneath a drying sheet.

Just outside Flea Bottom, a narrow woman balanced a basket upon her hip, directing two men with a handcart. She called Hal's name with relief.

"Now you come. Take this."

"I'm working, Aunt."

"So am I."

He caught the basket. Then she noticed Jon, Arthur and the black coats. Her hand rose to the cloth covering her hair.

"My lord. I didn't see."

"Your nephew is showing us the quarter."

"Then he can begin by showing you how he earns his dinner."

Anxiety crossed her face. Hal set down the damp washing and went to help with the great copper vessel upon the cart. Its handles were too broad for her doorway.

"My aunt Rilla, my lord," Hal said as he passed Jon. "She feeds half this lane."

Jon and Aries stepped into a shallow recess to give them room. The men tried the copper sideways. Its rim scraped the frame.

"Lift your end," Hal said.

"I am lifting it."

Hal set his end down and examined the door.

"Off the hinges. There's room if we take it off."

Aries caught a loose cloth before it fell from the latch, then held the basket back while the men lifted the door free. The copper scraped through.

"You'll put it back," she told them.

"Yes, Aunt."

"There's stew, if you've a mind to it. I can bring it out."

"We have been smelling it since the turn," Jon said. "We should like to eat."

The room was scarcely wide enough for a table and the bench along its wall. A shutter had been propped open with a spoon, allowing a shaft of light to fall across a table scrubbed pale from years of use. Behind it hung bunches of dried herbs and a strip of cloth with several needles stuck through it. Jon could see the copper through a rear doorway, beside a hearth whose smoke drew badly. Rilla sold meals here and took in washing when the meals failed to pay.

The men upon the bench stood as Jon entered. One swallowed a mouthful of bread in a hurry and took his bowl against his chest.

"Stay," Jon said. "We can sit at the end."

They looked at Arthur. He moved aside, and Hal sat first, putting the basket beneath the bench. The men made room. One kept his cap in his hands until Rilla warned that he would drop it in the stew.

Tomas arranged the guards along the approaches to the shop. Jon asked Rilla to feed them as well. She looked towards the pot, counted mouths under her breath, then sent Hal for another loaf.

"There is enough?" Jon asked.

"There's enough stew. It's the bowls I'm short of."

"They can eat in turns."

Rilla nodded. The man who had mended the copper still waited for his money. She counted coins into his palm, argued over two of them, and secured a few more days for the balance. Jon let them finish.

Hal came back with the bread and set it on the table. Rilla was rinsing grit from the copper. He steadied it while she poured, and water trickled over his fingers from a hole beside the mended seam.

"It leaks."

"Not where he mended it."

"Then he'll have work next week."

"If you've come to complain about my housekeeping, you can put the door back."

Hal grinned and went to replace the door. Aries left his wrapped horse beneath the table and helped carry the pegs.

The stew was thick with barley and onion, its mutton harder to find. Aries coughed over the pepper. Rilla pushed him a cup and told him to take smaller mouthfuls, forgetting for a moment to be frightened of his company.

At the bench's other end, a carter resumed an argument about a broken axle. His companion claimed he had warned him. The answer made Hal laugh from the doorway.

Aries looked up at the ceiling.

"Will that fall?"

A brown stain spread along a beam into the outer wall. Plaster had swollen beneath it. Someone had driven a wedge beside the timber; a pan waited on the shelf below.

Rilla followed his gaze. "It's been there a while."

That was no answer. Jon set down his spoon.

"Does it move when people walk above?"

"The floor creaks. It's always creaked."

He could see no fresh break, but the timber's end lay hidden in a wet wall. Repairing it meant finding the water and supporting the floor above. The wedge was no assurance.

"Who owns the room above?"

"My landlord. That one and the next two. The back belongs to another man." Rilla lifted the lid from her pot. "They each say it's the other's roof."

"Does someone live there?"

"A woman and her sons. She moved her bed when the wall got wet. Now the water comes down behind it in the other place."

Hal's face had lost its amusement. "Has he still not sent a man?"

"He sends one for the rent."

"Have a carpenter look at that end of the beam," Jon told Hal quietly. "He must see the room above as well. I will pay for the visit."

Rilla had heard. "My lord, I wasn't asking—"

"Your nephew is one of the men looking after our horses. I can pay to have someone look at his aunt's ceiling."

"I know one in the next street," Hal said. "He worked with my uncle."

"Bring me his account, or send it if we have sailed."

Rilla thanked him with an awkward little movement of her hands. Then the pot boiled over and gave her something else to attend to.

Aries waited until she had turned away. "Could you buy it?"

"The house?"

He nodded.

"Yes, if the owner is willing to sell," Jon said. "I'd want to know what the repairs will cost before making an offer."

"Would you live here?"

"I was thinking of making it fit for the people who do."

Aries looked towards Rilla's bed, half hidden by a curtain beside the hearth.

"Where would she cook while you built it?"

Jon smiled at him. "That is a better question than where I should sleep."

Jon could readily picture sound floors, a proper flue, a covered washing yard. Rilla would need a temporary kitchen near her customers. Moving her across the city during repairs could cost her the trade that paid her rent.

Jon would begin with an empty place, if he could find one sound enough. People could move there while the next house was repaired. Shops below, rooms above, privies away from the water. The rents would have to meet the upkeep.

And they would know whose houses they lived in. A dry room, steady work, a keeper answerable for repairs: Jon wished to improve the place and possess it. He saw no reason to pretend otherwise.

Dragonstone must take most of his money first. If Hal's carpenter proved good, Jon could ask whether he knew men willing to bring their families across. Carters and leatherworkers had their uses too; sound houses and steady wages might persuade them.

He would have to choose. The capital could fill every passage he bought before Ethan had roofs or grain for them all. It must not supply the whole island merely because it was nearest.

In the streets Jon imagined, neighbours spoke the old language and children answered their mothers in it. That required families, far more than learned men at his table. Those families lay across the Narrow Sea. Northmen and people from these lanes had a place, but could not be the whole.

Rilla brought bread. Jon asked about the rent collector and remembered the names she gave. She knew which rooms stood empty and which families had left after payments rose. Before any bargain, he would have someone trace the ownership.

"If you ask him about buying," she said, "don't tell him I told you the room at the far end is empty. He'll say it's waiting for someone."

"Is it?"

"Only when the rain stops."

This time she did not look frightened when Jon laughed.

Rilla gathered the uneaten bread into a cloth. "If you've finished, my lord, I keep what's left for the little ones."

"Yours?" Aries asked.

"No children of mine. There are boys who come round when they've had nothing." She folded a corner over the bread. "One used to sweep the hearth for me. Came back last week with his hand swollen so badly he couldn't hold a bowl."

"Who did that to him?" Jon asked.

Rilla glanced towards the men at the other end of the bench. Her voice dropped. "Another boy. There are fighting pits in cellars in Flea Bottom. Men put the little ones against each other and take wagers."

Aries stopped reaching for his cup. "They pay to watch children fight?"

"Aye."

"Where are their mothers?"

"Dead, mostly. Fathers too. Or gone where nobody here can find them. The men give them food and a place to sleep, then tell them what they owe for it."

Aries pushed his bowl away. "They can't make them do that."

Rilla looked at him, and he flushed. "Someone ought to stop them."

Jon's fingers had closed upon the edge of the table. He could see a small hand too swollen to lift a bowl, and men leaning over it with money in their fists. For an instant he wanted one of those men within reach.

"Where is the boy now?"

"With my neighbour. She's kept him these three nights. He thinks they'll come for him."

"Do you know where he fought?"

"He showed me the stair. I went once to fetch him. They said he wasn't there." Her hands had stopped upon the cloth. "My lord, I can't have them hearing who told you."

"I shall take the account to Lord Arryn myself. Your name need not be cried through the streets." Jon looked at Arthur. "We will speak to his men when we return."

Arthur had set down his spoon. "Tell me which stair."

She described an alley back down in Flea Bottom and the cellar entrance behind a shuttered winesink. Hal knew the turning. Jon listened until Arthur could repeat the way without her help.

"Have you told the watch?" Jon asked.

"I told a goldcloak when the boy first came back. He said boys fight in every lane."

"That isn't the same," Aries said fiercely.

"No," Jon said. "It is not." He took two silver stags from his purse and put them beside the folded cloth. "Feed him. Have that hand tended. Hal will leave you word of what the Hand's men are doing."

Rilla covered the coins with her palm. "And the others?"

"I will ask him to find them too." Jon rose. His food lay unfinished. "Keep that bread for them."

At the door Jon drew Tomas aside and sent one of his men ahead to the Hand's chambers. He was to give the account to Arryn's steward and ask for men to come quietly to the cookshop. Jon would bring the full account himself. Hal made certain the messenger could describe the way back.

The remaining guards finished their meals. Aries took his wrapped horse from beneath the table and tucked it into his coat. Hal would call upon the carpenter after returning the horses to the keep. Jon paid for the meals and left him the inspection money. Rilla stood in her doorway watching them go.

Aries waited at the turn, his mouth set. Jon looked back once at Rilla's doorway, then followed him.

They climbed a narrower lane where an old woman beat a mattress in a patch of sun. Dust rose with each blow; a caged green bird shrieked above her. Aries passed without looking up. Hal guided him round a broken edge where the paving had fallen into an old cellar.

Jon saw the black opening beneath the occupied houses and stopped.

Arthur noticed at once. "My lord?"

Wildfire. He pictured green flame breaking through the floorboards, the rooms above already full of smoke. The Hand's men were searching, but this was an occupied street. Had anyone checked beneath these houses?

"Do boys get into the Dragonpit from these streets?" he asked Hal.

"They find ways through the walls, my lord. My aunt says one will break his neck, if he hasn't already."

"Then we shall keep to the outside." Jon looked at Aries. "That includes you."

The boy nodded. Arthur waited until Hal had led them onto a broader stair, then fell into step beside Jon.

"What did you see?"

"A cellar under someone's hearth." Jon kept his voice low. "We will speak when we are back."

As they climbed, the Dragonpit rose above the roofs. Jon had mistaken the surviving curve for the dome; now sky showed through the gap behind it. A sapling grew high in the masonry.

Aries finally looked up. "How did the dragons get through?"

Arthur pointed ahead. "Wait until you see the doors."

The last turn brought them out onto open ground. The wind reached Jon's damp collar and cooled his neck. Grass grew between cracked paving stones, and the low weeds beside the walls were dusty with grit. A man leading a donkey had halted beside a heap of broken stone. The animal's panniers were loaded with pieces small enough to carry away. When he saw the armed party, the man pulled at the rope and hurried down the farther slope.

Jon could hardly blame him for using stone kings had left here for generations. Every cartload made the ruin a little less.

The huge doors were shut. Their weathered bronze held dull green in the hollows and a warmer brown upon the places people could reach. Aries went a few steps towards them, then remembered Jon's order and stopped.

"May I touch them?"

Jon checked above the threshold for loose stone. "At the middle. Stay clear of the wall."

Aries touched the bronze and withdrew his palm from its heat. Arthur stood close enough to catch his coat.

"Thirty riders abreast, they say," the knight said.

"Maegor began this," Jon said. "Jaehaerys finished it. Balerion lived here."

The name made Aries stare again. "The Black Dread?"

"Aye."

"Is his skull the one the guards were talking about? The largest?"

"It is."

"How big?" Aries spread his arms.

"Bigger than that." Arthur smiled. "You should see it when there is a chance."

Beyond the doors lay vaults and passages Jon could not inspect. His forefathers had built for creatures that could destroy a town, then kept them chained while the city crowded round their hill.

"Were they all killed here?" Aries asked.

"Several," Arthur said. "During the war between Rhaenyra and her brother."

"By other dragons?"

"By people," Jon said. "Many people. Some dragons were small, some chained. The people were frightened, and angry enough to come up here together."

"Did they get out again?"

"Some did."

The boy looked towards the fallen roof. The people beneath those stones belonged in the tale too.

Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion. He could almost see them as hatchlings, clinging to Daenerys amid the ashes of the pyre. Would that night still come? They would be so small at first. Behind these doors, chained and surrounded by a hostile city, they would have nowhere to flee.

His jaw tightened. He would never allow dragons to be threatened like this again. He would see them guarded by men he trusted, with room to move and a way out no crowd could close. Whatever else he restored upon this hill, he would remember what had happened beneath its roof.

Arthur drew Aries back from the doors. "Come. You can see the river from here."

The view opened as they walked towards the edge of the hill. The Blackwater spread beyond a jumble of roofs, bright where the sun reached it and dark beneath the crowded masts. Little boats moved between the larger ships. Jon could follow a sail for a few moments before a nearer roof hid it. To his left the Red Keep rose upon its own height, its red walls clear above the haze. Westward stood the pale dome and seven towers of the Sept. They had crossed much of the city between the two hills, and he could now place several of the turns which had bewildered him below.

Aries pointed at the keep. "Was the city always here?"

"There were villages near the river," Jon said. "Fishing boats, farms, crossings. When Aegon landed, he built a fort of earth and wood upon that hill."

"Where the castle is?"

"Yes. The stone castle came later. People needed to sell his men food, mend their gear, build houses for those who followed them. More came when he made this his capital."

"All this because he landed here?"

"Because he stayed." Jon rested his forearms upon a sound stretch of low wall. "A camp can move. A king's court brings people who mean to remain."

Arthur pointed towards the Sept. "Visenya's Hill. This one is Rhaenys's. His sisters' names, and his own upon the hill of the keep."

Once these hills had been names on a printed map. Now Jon stood upon Rhaenys's hill, with his ancestors' city spread below him. He could tell Aries its history, but not what it meant to him.

Arthur showed Aries the walls and the kingsroad beyond the Gate of the Gods. Houses hid other gates. Jon could see the crowded approaches and the carts forced together by steep ground; he could not name every opening.

"And that way takes us back towards the Sept," Arthur said, indicating the Street of the Sisters. "We can collect the horses without going through the lower lanes again."

"What is that house?" Aries asked.

"The Alchemists' Guild is along there." Arthur's glance touched Jon and moved on. "Their work is dangerous. You will not go looking for it."

Aries nodded, looking tired. Jon gave him a piece of the remaining bread.

The boy sat upon a low stone to eat, with Hal beside him. Jon turned back towards the Dragonpit.

Jon meant to rebuild the Dragonpit. He followed the broken curve with his eyes, imagining the fallen walls raised and a roof spanning the space again. His forefathers had commanded that work once. He wanted to restore the great building they had left in ruins, and make it a place the city used.

The land around it would give him room to begin: workshops and yards for the builders, then markets, baths and a hall for players. Below the hill, Flea Bottom needed rebuilding street by street. Water and drains, sound houses over shops, room for a cart to pass. He would start with empty plots so tenants could move into new rooms while their old houses came down. Rilla would still need customers during the work.

The guild must search the pit and make certain it was safe before masons entered. Then he would need a survey of what still stood and the hands to shore it. Looking at the broken height, he could already imagine the timber, lifting gear and years of wages. He wanted the work all the same.

Aries came to stand beside him. He had scarcely touched his bread.

"My lord?"

Jon turned.

"Those boys Rilla told us about. What can we do?"

"Have them found and taken somewhere safe. Make the men who kept them answer for it. The Hand will have word by now. I'll speak to him myself today."

"But there'll be others." Aries looked down towards the lanes. "If they've nowhere else to go."

"Then we give them somewhere." Jon stood beside him at the wall. "A house where they can eat and sleep. People to look after them, and masters who will teach them a trade when they are old enough."

"Here?"

"Here. I mean to rebuild the Dragonpit and the ground around it, and Flea Bottom below us. There will be a place for those children in it."

Aries looked from the ruin to the crowded roofs. "All that?"

"It will take years. I shall have to buy land, find the men and keep paying them. But I will change this, Aries. I promise you."

The boy studied his face. "I believe you, my lord."

Jon laid a hand upon his shoulder. Aries stayed beside him a little longer, watching the streets below. When Hal called, he went to join him with the bread still in his hand.

Arthur waited while the others moved towards the path. Jon turned back to the ruin. He would need the hill and the streets below it held under terms no court favourite could overturn. Robert's liking for Ned's son would not be enough.

"I mean to find out who holds this ground," Jon said quietly. "And what the Crown receives from it."

"You may find the king values the hill more when someone offers to buy it."

"Then I shall learn that before I offer. I want the facts first."

They descended towards the Street of the Sisters. Houses cut off the wind. Two children raced past with a hoop; Aries watched them vanish, then caught up with Jon.

The sound of workshops returned as the afternoon lengthened. Jon's feet ached; dust and the city's smells clung to his coat. He carried away the route to a cellar, the names of men who collected rents, and work enough to occupy him for years.

* * *

They collected the horses at Mott's and returned to the keep. Jon sent Aries ahead with Hal and went with Arthur to the Hand's chambers. Their messenger was waiting outside. He rose as they approached, and Arryn's steward admitted them at once.

"Your man told me about the boy," Arryn said. "I have sent two of my household without their colours. They are to get him somewhere safe before they go near that cellar."

"Rilla fears the men who keep it," Jon said. "A goldcloak dismissed her when she tried to tell him. Have your own men hear her."

"They have those orders." Arryn drew them to his table. Arthur described the cellar stair while the steward wrote. Jon offered to pay for food, care and lodgings for any children they found. Arryn heard him out, then asked his steward which Watch captain had charge of those streets. Jon left his offer in writing.

When Jon returned to their rooms, Aries was asleep on a bench while Hal worked the stains from his boots. The groom nudged him awake and helped him pull them off. Jon sent him to lie down until he was wanted.

Jon remained by the window. Shadows filled the lanes below, but the river still held the light. He watched a vessel easing between two ships at the quays.

Arthur set a folded message beside the washbasin. "Barristan sent this while we were out."

Tomas waited beyond the outer door. Arthur looked in on Aries, then shut the connecting door. Jon drew the shutter partly closed.

"Have they found anything?"

"Nothing confirmed. The Hand's men are checking the places Jaime remembers. The guild is helping them find the men who knew the stores."

"The Dragonpit needs searching. Beneath it too."

"It is among the places they intend to examine."

"The guild goes in first. No masons, no lads climbing through gaps in the walls."

"I will tell Barristan." Arthur poured water into two cups. "You were frightened of that opening in the lane."

"A cellar beneath people's homes. There could have been a hearth on the other side." Jon took his cup. A passage he had read about jars beneath the Dragonpit gave him a place to search. It gave him no route into the vaults, and no witness Arthur could question. "If the search needs men or coin, tell me."

"I shall."

"Will you speak to Jaime before we leave?"

"If his duties allow it."

Jon nodded. Below the window someone called a name, and a more distant voice answered. "We left them a poor inheritance."

"Your family?"

"That fountain still serves people because Alysanne wanted it built. We could have done more than leave each king to decide whether a street interested him."

Arthur's hand tightened around his cup. "Rhaegar meant to change the court."

"I wish he had."

"So do I."

Arthur had stood in the Sept for Rhaegar's wedding. He had known Elia and her children.

"He left you at the tower," Jon said. "His wife and children were here. Whatever else he intended, that happened."

"Yes." Arthur set his cup down. "I have thought about it every day since."

"I am angry with him."

"You may be. You need not persuade me that there is cause."

Jon reached for Arthur's cup and filled it again. "I forget what you have had to live with."

"You have your own thoughts of him. I would rather hear them than have you spare me everything."

They heard the bed creak through the closed door. Jon opened the shutter a little farther. The last light lay upon the river.

"I want a house here. Room for the men and horses, somewhere to receive people without an usher deciding whether they may see me."

"And a workshop."

"If the house will take one." Jon smiled. "William's men should have somewhere better than an inn to unpack a clock."

"The queen may offer you rooms."

"She may keep them. I would rather buy." Jon looked towards the roofs. "And I mean more than a house for myself. I want to rebuild Flea Bottom. The pit and its grounds will be the larger work upon the hill, but the streets below it matter just as much."

"Hal knows the streets."

"I shall ask him who can make the inquiries."

"How much would you put into it?"

"Dragonstone's houses and work are already promised. I will keep those promises. But I shall set money aside for this as the island begins to earn. We can start with one street and keep building."

"And the pit?"

"I want it rebuilt, Arthur. The building itself. I will find out what the Crown requires for the grant, and what the masons need to raise it again."

"The king may give it and expect gratitude for the rest of your life."

"I would offer a price and have the grant written plainly." Jon turned from the window. "I mean to rule in my own name. I need property, ships and men who answer to me before I attempt it. I will not take that throne only to find every useful order waiting upon a lord who wants a marriage or another acre."

Arthur was quiet. He had heard the intention before.

"Tonight I ask Robert for leave. Tomorrow we sail."

"I shall have Tomas see to the baggage."

After Arthur left, Jon opened his private book. In English he noted the land he would need for the pit and its surrounding grounds, then turned a page for Flea Bottom. He put the children's house at the top, above his questions about water and temporary homes. Then he closed the book and called Aries.

The boy appeared with his hair flattened upon one side and the wooden horse in his hand.

"Let us see him, then."

Aries had saved a thin shaving from the kindling basket. Jon eased the loose peg out, fitted the shaving beside it and pressed it home again. The wheel still turned. He set the horse upon the table and drew it towards Aries by the cord. This time it kept straight.

"I said it would work."

"You did. Find somewhere safe for him while we dress."

Aries tucked it into his bundle, then fetched Jon's clean shirt. He kept looking towards the armour chest.

"What is it?"

"If a strap tears, can Noll put another rivet through without cracking the black finish?"

Jon paused with one arm in the sleeve. "I will ask Mott in my letter. We should know before anyone tries it."

* * *

A steward sent Jon towards the queen's chamber; an usher intercepted him to say Robert wanted him beside the garden. Beyond the door, servants were moving a table because the king had decided the smaller room was less draughty. Rosby sat coughing into his linen while Tanda Stokeworth explained that she had said precisely that an hour ago.

"You must say it to me next time," said a small man at Jon's elbow. "I shall arrange the tables before His Grace arrives."

"And take the credit, Lord Baelish?" Tanda asked.

"Only if he approves."

Tanda shook her head and beckoned her daughter out of a servant's path. Baelish moved with her, making room for the hot broth, then offered Jon the place beside the window. Grey showed in his beard; the rest of him seemed younger than Jon expected, narrow and neat beneath his silver mockingbird clasp.

"Lord Black. Did you enjoy the city?"

"We saw Mott's shop, the Sept and the Dragonpit."

"Then you have earned your supper. His Grace is considering a tourney after the harvest, for Prince Tommen's nameday."

Jon glanced towards Robert, who had stopped in the doorway to speak with Renly. "Has he set a date?"

"Not yet. His Grace is still deciding how large an affair he wants."

Baelish offered him a cup from a passing tray. Jon took it. There was no cause to make theatre of refusing wine he did not intend to drink much of.

"I knew your father's lady when we were children," Petyr said. "She would have disapproved of this room. Too many people waiting for one man to decide where to sit."

The mention of Catelyn brought the betrayal sharply to mind: Ned helpless, with Baelish's knife beneath his chin. Jon had read that scene long before hearing this man's voice. Baelish stood within one pace. Jon's hand settled on his sword belt before he checked it. He had no letter, no witness—nothing to give Arryn but an accusation of crimes that had not happened. He let his hand fall.

"She would have placed the table herself."

"And dared him to move it." His smile softened, convincingly enough that Jon wondered how much of it was real. "Is she well?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Give her my regards when you write."

"I shall."

Rosby began coughing harder. Baelish set down his cup, fetched a chair and helped him move out of the draught. He remained until the fit eased, then told the usher that Lord Rosby would dine where he sat. Jon could see why a man might prefer dealing with him to arguing with three stewards.

They were seated at last. Cersei entered in dark red silk, an emerald net about her hair. Joffrey paused beside the chair nearest Robert until an usher indicated another place. Sandor remained by the door.

Jon sat beside Baelish and opposite Balon Swann, with Arthur farther down near Barristan. His place gave him a clear view of the king and little shelter from the queen. A servant offered broth scented with onion and green herbs. The day had left an ache beneath his shoulders, and the warmth of the bowl was welcome. Baelish broke bread while asking Balon about his father's journey home. For a little while nobody wanted anything from Jon.

Then Tanda leaned across Rosby's chair to ask about a clock for a poorly lit chamber. Every one she had seen was cased in dark wood.

"Pale oak would do," Jon said. "Or we can paint the case. Where would it stand?"

She showed him with her hands: the door, the bed, the narrow space between. When she mentioned the door opening against the same wall, he asked which way it swung. They found a place farther along, with room for the weights to descend. She preferred the oak, provided she could read the face from her chair.

A knight wearing a blue cockerel said Lord Tywin's clock could be heard throughout his solar.

"Father has a large solar," Tyrion said, "and a small tolerance for anyone who talks while it strikes."

The knight managed a smile and asked Jon about six smaller clocks for his lord's friends.

"Write to William upon Dragonstone. He has the order book and will tell you what can be undertaken."

"I should prefer to write to you."

"You may. I will put the letter in William's hands."

"Then I shall trouble William." The knight returned to his meat.

"You place a great deal in your servants' hands, Lord Black," Cersei said.

"They know the work, Your Grace."

"Their masters still decide whom they serve."

"I have told him to complete the orders I accepted. If I promise work he cannot manage, I make liars of us both."

"You could keep a craftsman here. The court should not have to send to an island whenever something requires mending."

"A keeper can manage ordinary care. For a damaged part I can send a man."

"I said keep one here."

Robert was occupied with Renly, though Jon could see Arryn listening beyond him.

"I have too few trained men to spare one for occasional repairs. When the orders support a man in the city, I shall consider it."

"Perhaps His Grace's convenience should carry some weight."

"His clock has a keeper, spare parts and a man who knows how to fit them."

"Quite right," Robert said. "Though the damned thing still insists upon striking when I am speaking."

"I was considering Joffrey's household." Cersei watched Jon. "A clock suited to the heir to the throne should deserve your personal attention."

Joffrey straightened. He had been cutting his bread into increasingly small pieces. Cersei had opposed Jon's possession of Dragonstone since he was a babe, and the old grant had survived her renewed objections. Now she offered him the place of a craftsman furnishing the prince who, in her judgement, ought to possess his island.

"I would be pleased to have one made."

"Then you will put his work before those other orders."

"The orders already paid for will be finished first. William will give you a date for the prince's."

Her knife stopped against her plate. "You are very particular about what you owe."

"I gave my word when I took their coin."

"Then keep it to him as carefully. You may remain long enough to take the measurements."

"I can take them tomorrow. The work must be done upon Dragonstone."

"Then return with it," Joffrey said. "I want to see the inside."

"The keeper can open the case for you, my prince."

"I want you to show me."

"You shall see the works," Robert said. "Gods, let the boy finish his supper. Black, see that it is a good one. No need to gild every wheel."

He turned back to Renly. Jon still had neither a description nor an agreed price. He would soon be told what he had promised if he left it there.

Jon turned to Cersei. "Should the case match the furnishings, Your Grace?"

"Of course."

"I shall take a colour sample when I measure. William will send drawings, a price and a likely date. We shall begin when the work and price are agreed."

"The prince should not concern himself with the price."

"He won't," Robert said. "Baelish will. That is why we keep him."

Petyr bowed. "I shall endeavour to survive it, Your Grace."

Jon met his glance across the dishes. He could hardly exclude the master of coin from a royal payment. William would hear the terms from Jon first.

Servants brought river fish with sharp green sauce. Rosby's untouched meat disappeared, replaced by a bowl of the broth he had preferred. Pycelle had been eating slowly beside the Hand. He put down his spoon.

"Lord Buckler tells me you were quick to his cousin's aid yesterday. Luwin has written of the men he teaches for your household."

"My uncle saw to Ser Brus's shoulder. I cut the stirrup."

"Knowing which task to undertake is part of the teaching. Men are less willing to admit what they cannot do when their lord is watching."

Jon looked past the old man's chain. Pycelle might have intended praise for Luwin or a warning about his former acolytes. Either way, the difficulty was familiar.

"Then they must tell me when a task is beyond them," Jon said. "Hiding it to please me could cost a man his life."

"See that they know it. Luwin cannot be at every bedside."

"No. He cannot." Jon had spent enough time beside wounded men to know what the absence cost.

Balon asked about the soldiers' lessons. A page had told him even men who had never served in a castle learned their letters.

"Any who will learn," Jon said. "Those who wish to rise must."

"Not every man can command."

"No. I mean to find the ones who can."

"A costly way to discover it," Baelish said.

"Cheaper than giving a command to a man who cannot manage it."

"You could put a knight over him," Balon said.

"And pass over a man who has spent four years learning the work? The knight must offer something better."

"A knight may have spent longer learning."

"Then let him show it."

Balon's face closed. He had asked about a strange practice; Jon had answered as though he demanded Hewyn's place.

"Gawen had fought and led men before he came to me. I wanted that experience. I would hear another man who could offer it, but I will not turn out a good officer merely to give a knight his place."

"No man wants to serve a lord who would turn him out lightly."

"The appointments are mine. If a man cannot do the work, I shall remove him. I would rather find what he can do while there is time to teach him."

"Your father allows you a free hand."

"He expects an account of how I use it."

Baelish asked about Lord Swann's stable. Renly joined them, and Balon's expression eased. Jon ate his cold fish. He need not have made the knight defend the years spent learning his own work.

* * *

When the sweet course was cleared, Jon asked Robert for leave to sail. The king wanted another day's hunting, then turned to the singer by the door and began the first line before the man had finished tuning.

"Your Grace," Jon said when he stopped, "my ships are ready. Ethan has the men waiting for me."

"There will still be men and rocks tomorrow."

"And another day's work to catch up," Arryn said. "You sent for him on his way to his seat. He has attended you."

Robert sighed. "Ned always had someone ready to speak for him too. Very well. Go and inspect your rocks."

Jon bowed.

"Write to your father. Tell him I asked for him."

"I did, last night."

Robert squeezed his shoulder. "Good. Perhaps I shall come myself. Find me something worth killing."

"I will ask Ethan what game there is."

The king released him and called for the song.

Baelish caught Jon in the passage with a folded leaf bearing the western knight's name and directions to Tanda's steward.

"For your foreman. The steward can supply the chamber's size and see that a drawing reaches her."

"Thank you." The names were legible, the directions precise.

"Send the prince's estimate to me as well as the queen. Someone must find the money."

"The drawings and estimate will go together."

"You have managed your money carefully, I hear. A harbour, workmen, six hundred men under arms—they must eat whether a clock is delivered or not. Speak to me if you need an advance against a royal order."

A useful offer from the wrong man. Money could be across the sea when wages fell due, however rich its owner. Jon put the leaf away.

"My present orders are paid for. I will undertake the prince's when we have agreed the work."

"Then we shall agree it." Baelish moved aside for Stannis. "Enjoy your new seat. I spent years wanting to leave mine."

"Do you ever go back?"

"Less often than my steward would like."

Someone called for his opinion on a wager. Jon watched him return to the room. He had seen how easily Baelish smoothed Rosby's way and found Tanda's steward. A man could grow used to such help, until he no longer knew how to get anything done without him.

Stannis waited until he had gone. "What have you promised him?"

"A price for the prince's clock. In writing, before we begin."

"Keep your own copy." Stannis drew him into a window recess, away from the servants carrying dishes. "You will keep Dragonstone's harbour in good repair. The royal fleet patrols those waters. Its captains must be able to put in for water, provisions and repairs."

"Ethan says the inner quay is sound. The outer one needs work. I will inspect it when I arrive."

"Use the sound quay until the other is ready. But keep my captains informed. I will not have a ship damaged for want of a warning."

"They shall know which berths are safe."

"And if you put ships on patrol, have your captains speak with mine. They must be ready to sail together when there is need."

"I'll have them meet when your ships next call."

Stannis nodded. "Good. Better they know one another before they have to chase the same pirates."

Jon watched him turn towards a waiting servant. He had expected a much stiffer man. But Stannis was Lord of Storm's End, with the Stormlands sworn to him; he had never been passed over for Renly and left to brood upon Dragonstone. Dragonstone had gone to Jon. His very presence had changed both brothers' lives before he could speak. Perhaps receiving his father's seat had spared Stannis years of resentment.

Through the doorway, Renly stood laughing with Balon Swann. Jon studied him for a moment. Renly had no Stormlands to bring to an alliance now, none of its rents or levies. If he still turned towards the Tyrells, he would have greater need of their gold and swords. Highgarden would expect something in return. Without Storm's End behind him, would Renly find himself caught all the more firmly in their thorns?

Varys found him looking for Arthur. The eunuch lifted a fallen spoon onto a servant's tray and waited for the man to pass.

"Ser Arthur is with the Lord Commander. Did the city repay your walk?"

"I saw things I wished to see."

"And some you might rather have missed." Varys moved with him to let two men carry a bench through the passage. "I hear your men would rather clean the stables at Winterfell than walk our lower streets."

Jon thought of the boy in the brown shirt and the girl with the basket. His armed company could hardly pass unseen, but Varys had chosen to mention what the guards said as well as where they went.

"They had not been here before."

"Nor have many of those you sent to Dragonstone. Six hundred is a great many to find work and lodgings for."

"They are soldiers, with officers and wages. The craftsmen have work waiting, and houses were promised to those bringing families."

"Were the houses ready when they sailed?"

"Ethan had the money. I shall know what is finished when I arrive."

"Lord Stark chose a dependable man. A comfort, when old servants remain faithful through a change of masters."

Arthur had been such a servant. So had Jaime, in another fashion. Jon kept his answer upon the man named.

"Ethan has served me for years. I expect his accounts to be in order."

"I still remember him as Lord Stark's man. One grows accustomed to a name."

"Is there something in those accounts the Hand requires?"

"You have discussed that with Lord Arryn."

"Then what would you have me tell you of the island?"

"That it prospers, my lord. We should all be pleased to hear it."

"I hope to send good news."

Arthur appeared with Barristan. Varys asked after an old injury to the Lord Commander's shoulder. While Barristan answered, Jon joined his uncle. He had no intention of giving the eunuch another question to evade.

They crossed the yard beneath a row of lit windows. A servant closed shutters above them, one leaf at a time; the music grew fainter, then stopped when the last met its frame. Jon could still smell the feast upon his clothes.

"You were sharp with Swann," Arthur said.

"I heard a request for an officer's place before he made one. I should have asked whom his father puts over the men when Balon is here. I might have learned something."

"Ask him when you next meet."

"I will. I am not changing the appointments."

"I did not ask you to."

"I would like a day in which I can give an order without explaining it to half a court."

"You will have a ship tomorrow."

"Voss will explain the wind to me."

Arthur smiled. "Listen to him."

Aries slept beside the armour chest with Patch's head upon his boot. Gawen sat at the table trying to cut cheese one-handed. Jon took the knife and cut enough for them both.

"We sail after breakfast. There is a clock to measure first."

"Did you sell it to the king?"

"Joffrey wants one. We haven't settled the price."

Arthur took the offered cheese and sat. Gawen glanced at him. "Then I shall have the men ready before they find another chamber for you to furnish."

Jon pulled up the remaining chair. The three ate for a while, keeping their voices low so Aries could sleep.

* * *

The Dragonpit's dome stood whole against the night.

Jon knew the doors. Aries had touched their bronze that afternoon. Now torches crowded the slope below them, hundreds of flames bending in the wind. Bells rang across the city. Men hammered at a side entrance while others hauled one another through a broken window.

"Kill them!" somebody screamed. The cry passed down the hill.

A dragonkeeper braced his spear across the doorway. The crowd drove him backwards until his legs went out beneath him. Jon tried to reach him, but men passed through his outstretched arms. He stumbled into the pit with their bodies all around him and none against his skin.

Heat struck his face. Chains dragged across stone.

A small dragon snapped at a man carrying an axe. Others pressed behind him with spears, thrusting whenever the creature turned its head. Fire washed over them. Burning men fell against those still climbing through the windows. The screaming changed, but the crowd kept coming.

Jon ran towards the nearest chain. His hands closed upon nothing.

"You cannot loose it."

Brynden Rivers stood beside him, untouched by the crush.

Above the smaller beasts, pale-blue wings opened. Silver flashed through smoke. Dreamfyre pulled against her remaining chains until an iron link parted. Men scattered beneath her first wingbeat. She rose through the vaulted dark, searching for a sky the dome had shut away.

Each time she came down, they swarmed her. A crossbow snapped. The bolt caught her in one eye.

Her scream drove Jon to his knees. Dreamfyre hurled herself upwards. For a moment he thought the dome would open for her.

Stone burst inward. A wing disappeared beneath falling masonry; the other beat once through dust. Jon covered his head as half the dome fell upon dragon and men together.

The bells stopped.

He lowered his arms. A crushed hand protruded from the rubble beside a length of blue hide. Far beneath the stones, something still burned.

"Our princes fought over who should rule," Bloodraven said. "They spent the strength of our house killing one another. And when the people came for what remained, a queen believed fear of dragonfire would send them running."

Jon got to his feet. Dust rasped in his throat.

"Pride made her deaf to warning. Do not let it do the same to you."

"I saw the chains." Jon's voice shook with anger. "And the roof. I will remember both."

"Will you remember when remembering stands between you and a crown?"

Laughter rolled through the ruined vault.

Jon turned. Robert Baratheon sat upon the Iron Throne, a cup raised in his great hand. His crowned shadow climbed the wall behind him. He laughed until wine spilled down his wrist, and the court laughed with him.

The rubble was gone. Jon stood upon the throne room's long floor. Cersei drew Joffrey close beside the steps. Farther back, Baelish bent to hear a lord who kept glancing towards the queen. Varys watched them while a servant whispered in his ear. Robert saw none of it.

"You want his place," Bloodraven said.

"Yes."

"Then look at everyone between you and it. Each has something to keep, something to gain. They need not agree to ruin you. One can cost you ships, another years, another the men you meant to send north. How much will you spend answering them?"

Robert's cup struck the floor. Jon looked towards it, and the room changed.

He was seated above them. Cold iron pressed against his palms. A crown weighed upon his head, and men in black knelt below the steps.

"Or you win," Bloodraven said.

Snow blew through the open doors. Beyond them lay burned fields, then the white face of the Wall. Its gates stood open. Nothing moved upon its summit. Shapes came through the snow beneath it, more than Jon could count.

The nearest kneeling man raised his face. Frost filled his beard. His eyes were blue.

Jon stood so sharply that a blade caught his palm. The crown fell, ringing down the steps. Outside, the dead passed through streets where no living voice answered them.

"You can win every quarrel south of the Neck and leave the world defenceless," Bloodraven said. "Spend its last strength taking that seat, and this is what you may rule."

Jon faced him. "May."

The red eye held his.

"You showed me what happened in the pit. This has not happened."

"It can."

"Then help me prevent it." Jon stepped down among the kneeling dead. "Do you think my pride lies in refusing to learn? I take pride in the choices I make for our blood. Its return. Its survival. Ours, Brynden. You sometimes speak as though you have forgotten that."

Bloodraven's mouth tightened. "I have not forgotten our dead."

"Then think of those who may yet live. I mean to restore our house and leave it a world worth ruling. I can do both."

"And when your plans will no longer serve both?"

"I change them." Jon held up his bleeding hand. "I will not spend lives proving that my first choice was right. If I must delay a war or abandon an alliance, I will. I have plans, Bloodraven. You see the past. The future is not beholden to you."

Wind drove snow between them. Bloodraven's hair lifted from his scarred cheek.

"Nor to you."

"I know. That is why I prepare." Jon looked towards the open doors. "Ethan and I will begin the stores when I reach Dragonstone. The Watch will have supplies before I have a crown. Show me what threatens that work. Tell me where I have misjudged it. But the choices remain mine."

He passed the fallen crown and went towards the doors. Bloodraven neither followed nor called him back. Snow rose around Jon's knees. He pushed on until he could no longer feel his feet, then caught the doorpost to pull himself through.

His hand closed upon a blanket.

He woke gasping, his palm unmarked. Men were calling for the baggage. Arthur appeared with a candle, came inside and shut the connecting door.

"Bloodraven," Jon said, before his uncle could ask.

"What did he show you?"

"The dragons dying in the pit." Jon sat up. "Then a throne I had won, with nothing left alive to rule."

Arthur sat beside him, the candle still in his hand. "He says this will happen?"

"That it could. I mean to prevent it." Jon took the candle and set it on the table. "I will tell you all of it."

He began with the torches climbing the hill.

* * *

Voss found Jon and Arthur finishing breakfast. Rain had passed over the city overnight, but the wind was steady and both ships could make the passage. His men were ready for the last baggage.

"If we load this morning, we can be clear of the river by noon."

"Have Tomas send the chests down. I have one thing to finish here."

From the adjoining room came Denner's voice, asking who had put a saddle upon his rolled bedding.

While the household carried its baggage down, Jon measured Joffrey's chamber with the royal keeper and a servant of the queen watching. The prince was at his lessons. His handsome room was untidy; someone else would restore whatever he displaced. Jon moved a chair for the keeper's rod, uncovering a painted knight with a broken wooden lance.

Cersei had left instructions for gilding the case. Jon noted them without comment. William would have the measurements, her requested details and the terms stated at supper. He was to finish the paid orders as agreed and promise nothing further for the prince until Jon approved the price and date. Jon also wrote to thank Mott for the fitting, asking how to rivet a replacement strap without cracking the finish. He would read the answer with Aries.

He kept William's notes with his papers and a reminder to have Noll send Mott the drawing and steel for Gyles Grafton's harness. Mott's letter went to a messenger; Jon went down to the horses.

Barristan met them beside the mounting block and gave Arthur a folded paper. Jon checked that the household was ready while they spoke, then quietly asked his uncle about the stores.

"The search continues," Arthur said. "Barristan will write as soon as they know more."

"Lord Arryn will send you word of the children," Barristan said as Jon reached for his stirrup. "His men know the boy must be safe before they question anyone at the cellar."

"Have word sent to me of where the children are taken," Jon said. "The offer to pay for their care stands."

"I shall tell him."

Jaime was absent on duty. Arthur looked towards the inner yard before mounting. Jon waited until he had settled the reins, then led them beneath the gate, over stones still dark with rain.

Downhill, a man swept water from his doorstep. A bread seller shouted over an argument at the next stall. Tomas bought loaves while they waited for a cart to turn. Jon's came with cheese tucked inside, its edges softening in the warm bread.

At the river, Broad Oak was taking the last horses aboard. Gawen waited beside her gangplank while Alasdair counted the files. Denner touched each sack of oats as the sailors carried it past. Aries kept Bracken clear of the baggage, Patch beneath one arm.

The boy looked up as Jon dismounted. "Will we come back, my lord?"

"Yes." Jon passed his reins to the waiting man. "And we shall see those skulls when we do."

Aries moved aside for a chest, still watching the streets beyond the quays. There would be questions upon the crossing. Jon was glad of it. His own list lay in his coat: houses, water, the ruined pit, men who could tell him what each would cost. First came the island and the people waiting there.

Arthur joined him as a sailor carried a coil of rope up the gangplank.

"Ready?"

Jon took another bite of his bread and turned towards the ship.

"Ethan has waited long enough."

 

[aiwonder]

Black Tern carried Jon downriver that afternoon, with the broad-bellied roundship Broad Oak following her into Blackwater Bay. By evening the city was gone. Tern climbed a dark swell, hung for a moment with her bow raised and dropped. Jon braced his feet and caught a rope. His stomach rebelled. He vomited over the side while Arthur held his sword belt.

Captain Voss found them at the change of watch. Jon had watched the helmsman haul at the steering oar, correcting too late and then too far.

"He waits until she has turned," Jon said. Voss watched, then took the oar himself, easing it as the stern began to fall away.

"Aye, my lord." Voss glanced at him with fresh interest. "Have you handled a tiller before?"

"I have been watching the man at this one."

Voss looked from Jon to the wake. "Watching alone does not usually teach a man to judge her like that."

"Then credit me with a good eye." Jon rinsed his mouth and handed Arthur the cup. "Show him what you changed."

Voss called the helmsman back and made him feel the first pull beneath both palms.

Rain hid the shore and stars. In his old navy there would have been a compass by the helm. Jon wondered where on Dragonstone he might find lodestone.

Morning found Broad Oak within easy hail. Gage leaned over her rail with a face the colour of candle fat. Beside him, Gawen's injured arm was still bound.

Most horses travelled aboard the roundship; Bucephalus, Bracken and a few household mounts were below Tern's deck. When Bucephalus began striking the stall wall, Jon stayed beside him until the groom adjusted the breast rope and the sweating horse quieted beneath his hand.

By noon Tern had reduced sail to keep the laden Broad Oak close. Cloud darkened the southeast. Voss spread his chart.

"We could reach this cove before it strikes," Hobb, the ship's carpenter, said. "Tern could. Broad Oak might not."

Jon traced the northern shore. "If the wind comes from those clouds, it will drive us towards the rocks. The slower ship may not get clear."

Voss studied the cloud. "We stay out. Reef now, while the men can still see their hands."

The crews hauled in and secured part of each sail, leaving less canvas for the wind to catch. They lost ground, but kept open water around them as the storm struck.

Rain hid Broad Oak; only her bell reached them. Water washed across Tern's deck and drained through openings along the sides. Hobb checked the repaired seam below and returned with dry hands. The horses began hammering wood.

Jon and Arthur found Aries beside Bracken, gripping the rail and speaking close to the gelding's ear. The lamp was hooded and secured beyond the stalls.

"He keeps trying to turn."

"Stand here, out of reach of his forefeet." Jon moved him towards the end post. "Let him hear you. The groom will see to the sling."

Aries began again. Jon found Bucephalus's wet muzzle and spoke until a line cracked overhead. For an instant he was beneath the pines again, dropping his shoulder against a blow. Arthur steadied him. He kept one hand on the horse until he could hear the sea.

By dusk the storm had passed north. A stall pin had broken; Voss had a rope burn, Jon a split knuckle. Both ships and everyone aboard survived. Jon ate fried salt cod and onions against a rolled sail while the household sang the road song Heward hated. Wind stole every third line.

Arthur sat beside him as Olyver added an obscene verse from Broad Oak. Tomas called across to mind his tongue. The men sang it louder.

"Wylla would hear that from Dragonstone," Arthur said.

"She would know which one sang it," Jon said. Broad Oak's lamp rose and fell beyond the rail.

Aries sat beneath the awning with Patch's nose near his bowl. When Jon joined him, the boy looked back towards King's Landing.

"Will Lord Arryn know where to send word? About the boy Rilla told us about?"

"He knows where we are going." Jon sat beside him. "I shall write when we arrive."

Later Jon found him asleep with his fingers caught in Patch's lead. He eased them free and secured the leather clear of the ladder. Beneath the same awning the five crows slept in covered cages.

* * *

The water casks knocked against their lashings through the night. In sleep the sound deepened into bronze bells.

Jon stood on a quay beneath towers joined by bridges so high that people crossing them appeared no larger than insects. Evening burned in their windows. A mountain rose beyond them against a red sky.

A girl waited beside a gangway, a sheet of writing crushed in her fist. When she spoke to the older man counting water jars, he sent a porter back for more. Brightly dressed people watched from a terrace. One raised his cup towards the ships; his companions laughed.

Five dragons passed overhead.

Jon felt the beat of their wings in his chest. A horse reared against its harness, and someone dropped a basket of fruit. The girl looked up. Silver shone in her hair.

Daenys, he thought.

He tried to reach her, but a mother with two children crossed his path. Sailors were arguing over her cedar chest. There was room for the family; the chest would have to stay. The smaller child reached for it until one sandal slipped from her foot. Her mother caught her up and carried her aboard, leaving the little shoe beside the discarded chest.

The ships drew away. Jon remained upon the quay, watching the last sail diminish.

Then the light changed.

Other hulls occupied the berths. A warehouse stood where the cedar chest had been. Twelve years, if the history he remembered was right. Twelve years of mornings in which these people had looked at the mountains and gone about their business.

The bells began again, too many of them, badly out of time.

Beneath his boots, stone moved.

A crack ran across the quay. Water leapt through it. Jon saw a woman seize a sailor by the sleeve while a child clung to her skirt. Boats were pulling away behind them, their gunwales almost level with the water.

"How many places?" the woman asked.

The sailor looked past her towards the mountain.

Light opened in its side. For a moment Jon could see the towers through their own walls, every bridge and chamber stark against the brightness. He reached for the child.

He woke holding Arthur's sleeve.

Arthur held his wrist. Tern creaked in darkness, the sea slapping the hull. Jon tasted blood. The knight passed him a cloth and waited while he pressed it beneath his nose.

"The Doom," Jon whispered, when the timbers groaned loudly enough to cover him. "I think I saw Daenys leaving. Then the people who stayed."

Arthur's gaze went to the closed cabin door.

"Was he there?"

"I saw no sign of him." Jon loosened his grip on the cloth. "I don't know where it came from."

Arthur stayed until the bleeding stopped. Beyond the bulkhead a groom murmured to one of the horses. Jon listened until he could lie down again.

* * *

Dawn of their third day found the ships crossing long blue-grey swells. On Broad Oak, a sailor hung wet shirts from the rigging.

Jon joined Voss at the stern. He had washed the blood from his face; the child's reaching hand had followed him out of sleep.

Hobb hauled in the sounding line. Mud clung to the tallow beneath its lead weight, a sample of the bottom. Jon rubbed it between finger and thumb, then looked at Voss's chart.

"Mud. You expected shell."

"The outgoing tide carries silt off that bank. We are closer in than I would like."

Voss ordered a turn towards deeper water and had the course signalled to Broad Oak. Hobb went forward to lower the weighted line again. Then the lookout shouted.

"Land!"

Jon saw only cloud at first. The horizon had darkened in one place, an uneven stain beneath the brighter eastern sky. Then Tern climbed a swell, and the stain held its shape while the clouds moved above it.

Dragonmont.

The mountain rose broadly from the water, one scarred shoulder descending towards the shore, the other lost in vapour. A pale plume rose from the half-hidden cone and bent across the sky.

Jon gripped the rail. All those years of letters, measurements copied beside a guttering lamp, salt-stained accounts. He had drawn the shipyard again and again in Winterfell, argued over a basin he could not see. Now the island filled the horizon.

Black cliffs emerged along its foot. Surf burst against them, filled the fissures with white, and drained away in shining threads. Higher ground carried a rough green covering, broken by stone wherever the slope steepened. A line of trees crouched in a fold sheltered from the sea. Farther up, the green failed and the mountain showed its ribs.

For several breaths Jon could find no castle at all.

Then a patch of cloud brightened behind a ridge, and a wing appeared against it.

The wing belonged to a tower. Its outer edge curved down into the wall, immense fingers of stone spread beneath a membrane thick enough to house rooms. Below it, a narrow head thrust towards the sea. What Jon had mistaken for broken rock was a jaw; what he had taken for a ledge was a foreleg folded against the tower's breast.

Farther inland a neck arched towards the mountain. Between the towers rose the great round bulk of the Stone Drum, with walls crossing the slope beneath it. Some towers stood upright; others seemed to coil back into the masonry.

The castle stood beneath Dragonmont's vast shoulder. Its makers had followed the rock, found purchase upon it, and made the fortress seem rooted there. The highest tower remained far below the smoking summit. Even so, the wings, jaws and horns cut into the morning sky with a boldness that made the ordinary battlements Jon knew look almost timid.

He had expected black stone. He had not expected so many kinds of black. Wet walls reflected the pale sky in streaks of silver. Recesses beneath the wings held a darkness the morning could not reach. Along a sunlit curve, the stone shone with the deep, glassy lustre of a bottle held against a flame; farther round it dulled to charcoal. Water ran from a dragon's chin in a white line that broke apart before it reached the ground.

Aries arrived at the rail with Patch gathered under one arm. The dog's ears had flattened in the wind.

"Is that smoke?" the boy asked.

"From Dragonmont." Jon watched the plume rise from its fixed place while cloud crossed the mountain.

Aries looked down at the shore, then back at the smoke. "And people live under it?"

"They have for a very long time."

The answer did not settle him. Jon could still see the impossible brightness of the dream. Yet a fishing sail moved beneath the quiet plume, and Aries put Patch down without releasing his lead.

Tomas joined them, hollow-cheeked from the crossing. He looked from the smoking summit to the castle, then called to the men below. Boots hurried up the ladder. Someone came without his coat; another had only one sleeve on and forgot the other while he stared.

"That wall," Jorren said, pointing.

The youngest guard beside him began to answer, saw the greater wall above it, and closed his mouth.

The ship creaked beneath them, her crew hauling and easing lines while the northerners stood crowded at the rail.

Arthur came last, salt dried along his cloak. He rested his hand beside Jon's.

"Which is the Sea Dragon?" Jon asked.

Arthur pointed to the tower whose long head faced the water. "There. The Windwyrm is behind it. You will see more of the neck when we turn."

His voice had changed. Arthur was following a wall above the harbour, finding something there that the rest of them could not see.

"You remember it well."

"Well enough to know the drawings never put the towers close enough together." Arthur's thumb moved along a split in the rail. "Wait until you stand beneath them."

A mineral smell caught beneath the salt and tar, sharp enough to sting Jon's throat.

Aries wrinkled his nose. "The mountain?"

"Aye," Arthur said.

One of the men behind them muttered that the king's city had followed them out to sea. Tomas told him the city had never looked half so well. That drew a few tired smiles, and the men began to talk again.

The smell strengthened as they drew nearer, then vanished when the breeze shifted. In its place came woodsmoke. Jon could distinguish houses now, crowded upon the lower slope beneath the curtain walls. This was Blackburn, the village gathered about the main harbour. Its slate roofs shone after the rain; turf roofs made dark green patches between them. Smoke rose from narrow chimneys and was pulled sideways almost at once. Nets hung from poles. A strip of red cloth fluttered above a door, startlingly bright against all that wet stone.

Two men hauled a net into a fishing boat. Beyond them a woman in a patched blue headcloth shouted towards the quay; her words reached Tern after her mouth moved.

Barrels stood among heaps of cordage. A cart waited with one wheel propped on a stone while men argued over its load. Through a gap between roofs Jon saw a garden no wider than a sailcloth, beans tied against the wind.

From farther out, the castle had seemed capable of swallowing every human thing below it. Here was a man carrying a fish basket directly beneath a dragon's outstretched claws, stopping to shift the weight on his shoulder. A child ran past him with an empty pot. Neither looked up.

Jon had come to live here. The thought struck him with a pleasure so sudden that he loosened his grip on the rail and flexed his aching fingers. He wanted to climb every stair he could see, look through the narrow windows beneath the stone wings, feel the ground of the island under his boots. For once he let the accounts and measurements wait.

A galley, Stone Drum, was leaving the harbour beneath black sails, her oars dipping together. Salt Wraith lay farther out beside another galley. Voss named them as a cheer crossed the water. Tomas raised his hand; Hobb shooed three guards away from a rope the crew needed.

The mole curved out from shore to shelter the harbour, its broken outer stones awash. Inside it, men hauled a barge clear of the only sound unloading berth.

Broad Oak waited outside while Tern approached under reduced sail. A narrow boat brought a harbour pilot, who climbed aboard and bowed without taking his eyes from the water.

"Your leave, my lord. The outer beacon has shifted."

Voss looked towards a red-painted post among the rocks. "It stood true on our last visit."

"The storm moved the stone beneath it. Steer wide of the broken end." The pilot pointed past the mole. "That jagged rock marks the shallows. Keep clear of it."

Tern crept inward under his quiet directions. Brown water covered submerged stone beyond the rail. A cormorant stood upon a ruined block, wings spread, close enough for Jon to see the pale hook of its beak.

Under the harbour wall the wind failed. Voss ordered out the sweeps, and sailors bent to the long oars to bring Tern alongside. Men upon the barge shouted that the tide would not wait for northern lords.

"Then pull harder!" someone called from the quay.

Black-coated soldiers took their places to catch the mooring ropes and kept a path clear through the carts. Faces watched from the harbour tower; higher still, spears showed against the castle wall.

Hobb cast a mooring rope towards a new iron ring in the quay.

"The post!" a man shouted. "That mortar hasn't set!"

The waiting men looped the rope around the timber post instead. It tightened, drawing Tern against the bundles of rope hung over her side to cushion the hull.

After two nights of movement, Jon's knees prepared for a roll that never came.

Voss touched Jon's elbow. "Tobin, your harbour master. He has been keeping the landing clear."

Arthur nodded towards a man waiting beyond the rope handlers, his cloak fastened with a small mailed fist. "Ethan Glover."

Sailors laid and secured the gangplank. Jon crossed first, Arthur following.

Grey threaded the castellan's hair; wind had deepened the lines about his eyes. Two fingers lay crooked against his palm where Aerys's gaolers had broken them. Jon had read his letters for years. Until now, he had never seen the hand that wrote them.

Ethan went down on one knee upon the quay. The waiting guards followed, then Tobin and the craftsmen gathered behind him. Only the men holding the ship's ropes remained at their work.

"Lord Jon. Dragonstone welcomes its lord." Ethan bowed his head. "I am glad to see you safely here."

For a moment Jon heard only the creak of ropes and water beneath the hull. He let them see him before he spoke.

"Rise. You have my thanks for keeping it." He offered Ethan his hand. "I have waited a long time to come."

Ethan rose and clasped his forearm. His eyes travelled over Jon's white forelock and split knuckle before he turned to Arthur.

"Ser Arthur. You have brought him farther than Eddard wished."

"The sea brought him the last part, and complained throughout."

Ethan gripped Arthur's forearm with his sound hand and held it a moment.

"And congratulations on Runestone, my lord," Ethan said to Jon. "A captain brought word of your victory. Your father must be proud, with both his sons in the final."

"Thank you. Robb made me work for it."

"I would expect nothing less of him." Ethan smiled.

Ethan led Jon clear of the gangplank. The quay seemed to tilt beneath Jon; he stopped to let his body discover its mistake.

From here the castle seemed to stand almost over him. The Sea Dragon's head projected beyond its tower, its lower jaw dark against a pale reach of sky. He could make out the ridges above its eyes. Rainwater still dripped from one tooth. The cliff beneath it was seamed with narrow plants whose roots had found holds where Jon could see none.

"Mind your foot, my lord," Tobin said.

Jon stepped over a loop of rope as the barge's crew hauled it taut. A woman with a basket of gutted fish shook her head at the lord looking at towers in the middle of her quay.

A guard captain stepped forward from beside the harbour tower. Pale gold hair lay cropped close to his head; his surcoat had faded almost brown, and his mail was patched. When he raised his head, Jon saw pale violet eyes.

"Marros, my lord," Ethan said. "Captain of the island guards. Born here in Blackburn. His father kept the sea gate."

These were the men who had kept the castle before the northern coats appeared. Some would remember a queen upon the island. Others had grown up under the consequences of her death and her children's flight. They watched the son of Eddard Stark come ashore with a household at his back, and Jon could see them measuring how much their lives were about to change.

Robert's voice returned to him, blunt with wine and old hatred. He had wanted the dragonspawn's former vassals held firmly in hand. Ned's sons could be trusted to do it.

Jon looked at their worn harness. He would judge their service himself.

"The wall watch?" he asked Marros.

"At their posts, my lord. I brought twelve for your escort. Six more hold the harbour tower."

"Good. Ser Gawen commands my household; he is aboard Broad Oak. Tomas is his lieutenant. Show him the carts and where you want the landing kept clear."

Marros took Tomas to see the storehouses, making room for a cart that had finally found its driver.

Hewyn came from the berth with mud to his knees. Jon's field commander knelt, then rose at his word.

"How are the men?" Jon asked.

"Wet, my lord. Two shelters flooded; we moved them before dawn. The rest held." Hewyn glanced at the soldiers handling ropes. "They would all have come to meet you. I brought enough to help unload."

"See they are relieved when they need it. I shall come out tomorrow."

Hewyn's face eased. "They will be glad of that, my lord."

Tobin covered the new mooring ring with a plank. Jon crouched beside it. Fresh mortar filled a shallow socket in crumbling stone. "Have it cut into sound stone. Keep using the post until it will hold." Tobin beckoned a mason.

"There is Harbert," Ethan said, indicating an old sailor teaching a boy to use a sounding line. A crutch hung upon his chair. The sailor tried to stand as they approached.

"Stay seated," Jon said.

The man settled, his stiff left leg turned at an angle that made Jon's own knee ache.

"I had word of your wounds," Jon said. "Are you teaching the harbour boys?"

"Aye, my lord. I have them on their marks. Some can count well enough with both feet dry. Put them in a boat and they lose half their numbers."

A boy beside him looked indignantly at the coil in his hands.

The mast had fallen across Harbert during the fighting against the ironborn. Jon had ordered his wages continued. Now he watched the man lift his bad leg with both hands to make room for someone passing.

"And your wife? Is Mira managing?"

"There is a man from the harbour to help her with me. They take turns, as your letter said." Harbert smoothed the line across his knees. "I can get myself to the door now. She says that gives her half the house back."

"Then I shall try not to fill the other half with pupils. Keep teaching them. We will need men who know these waters."

Harbert's hand closed around a knotted length of cord. "Bring yours here," he told the boy. "Let my lord hear whether you have remembered."

The boy gave the marks in a rush, faltered, and began again while Harbert waited without helping him. Jon listened before following Ethan along the mole.

Storms had taken the outer berth a little at a time. A former royal castellan had used its stone to shore up a failing tower; Ethan had kept the inner berth working. He showed Jon where the repaired basin met older work. That section had held, as his letter promised. Farther out, a wave burst through a gap and sprayed their boots.

Stannis's warning about the royal fleet had been sensible. Patrol ships would need depths, turning room, stores and sound berths. Voss had only one place to unload the horses.

"Tern will anchor outside when she is empty," Ethan said. "Then Broad Oak takes the berth. Ralf has bedding laid in the lower sheds for the horses."

They returned to the berth as a boat brought Gawen across from Broad Oak. He climbed ashore with his arm secured beneath his cloak. Ethan glanced at the sling.

"Runestone?"

"Robar Royce." Gawen looked up at the castle. "He sends his regards."

"I hope you left him something to remember you by."

"Ask Jon."

Bucephalus struck the wide unloading ramp laid from Tern's deck before Jon could answer. He came down with wide nostrils and planted all four feet on the quay. Ralf, Jon's horse master, waited until he lowered his head, blew at the stone and moved.

Jon had taken a step towards him when Wylla reached him.

She put both hands on his face. Her thumbs rested briefly beneath his eyes, and he could feel her taking account of the crossing, the fading bruises and everything his last letter had failed to tell her. Then she drew him into her arms.

Boiled mint, woodsmoke, rosemary soap. After the king and a storm at sea, that familiar smell brought Winterfell back more sharply than any thought of its walls.

Jon held her tightly.

"You have salt in your hair," she said against his temple.

"Most of the bay tried to come aboard."

Aries came down the plank behind them with Patch pulling at his lead. At sight of Wylla, the boy stopped. The dog recognised her skirt and scrambled towards it, claws slipping on the wet stone.

"Come here, love."

Aries passed the lead to Gawen's waiting man and went straight into her arms. He held her so tightly that she had to steady herself against the mooring post. She kissed the side of his head, felt beneath his collar and drew back just far enough to see his face.

"I had your letter."

"Did it read right?"

"Every word. I kept it." She drew the folded paper and his little bone comb from her pocket. "Gawen can tell me the rest himself."

"He said you would blame him."

"I mean to."

Gawen waited a pace behind Aries, a travel pack hanging from his sound shoulder. Wylla's gaze dropped to the sling.

"Aries said you could still complain."

"He was kind about it."

"Kinder than I shall be if you try lifting that."

He started to take off the pack. She lifted its strap clear before it could catch his injured arm; a corner of faded blue wool came with it. Her fingers rested upon the mended lining.

"You kept it."

"Did you think I would throw it away?"

"You have a better one now."

"You mended this one."

She looked up at him. Gawen's hand was still upon the strap, beside hers, though she had taken the weight. For once he seemed to have nothing more to say.

"I have missed you," she said.

"And I you."

Wylla tucked the blue fold beneath the flap. Over Aries's head she caught Jon's eye. He smiled and went to help Ralf move the horses clear.

Bracken came ashore more quietly. Two men followed with the covered bird cages, a furious croak rising beneath the cloth. All five crows had survived with more appetite than their master. Jon lifted one corner. Munin turned a bright eye towards the light and seized the bar with her beak. Her opinion of the voyage was plain.

"Soon," Jon told her, and lowered the cloth before the noise unsettled the horses.

An old woman waited beyond the carts, holding an earthen jug against her stomach. When Hewyn kept her clear of Bucephalus, she raised it towards Jon.

"Will my lord taste Blackburn's water?"

Brown liquid rocked beneath the rim. Black grit had settled against the clay.

Jon passed the stallion's reins to Ralf and went to her. "Where did you draw it?"

"The lower row. Same place as always." Her fingers tightened upon the handle. "It was running clear before."

"Mella's grandson has the flux," Wylla said. "Lorren has been seeing him and five others. Two are young enough to be carried."

Ethan looked at the jug. "The lower channel was clear yesterday. Stewart opened an old outlet above the village this morning."

"Maester Stewart," Ethan said as a man in a mud-streaked robe approached through the water carts. The maester bowed over his chain, then looked ruefully at Mella's jug.

"The silt bed collapsed, my lord. I was trying to draw the backed water off. The old plan shows a drain beneath the smokehouses, but we have not found its mouth."

Above them, a gutter carried fish scales and straw down between the houses. Years of repairs had diverted water beyond anything that old drawing could show.

"Stop the digging," Jon said. "We will find where the water goes before anyone opens another part."

"Could we have castle water for the little ones?" she asked.

"Yes. Hewyn, send the full drinking-water casks from Tern to the lower row. Mella will show your men which houses. Have the water boiled."

He sent Marros for clean vessels and Aries to find Lorren, guided by a castle page named Geth. Wylla would separate cups and bedding. Lorren must report that evening, sooner if a child could no longer keep water down. They could use the castle well until the village supply was safe.

"Ship water for the horses too," Jon told Ralf. Mella lowered the jug. "I can show your men the back way. The cart won't fit, but two men can carry a cask."

"Go with them." Jon turned to Tobin. "Has this backed up before?"

Tobin and Mella disputed which smokehouse had flooded first. Ethan fetched the plan; Jon marked the places he would inspect with Stewart at first light.

Marros posted a guard at the digging. Hewyn's men rolled the first cask off the quay while Jon ate bread Elspeth had sent down from the castle.

When the water party had gone, Ethan brought forward a broad man in a leather apron. "Qavo Ryndoon, your master shipwright. His son Moro works with him."

Qavo bowed; Moro held a wooden square against his apron. Jon returned the greeting, studying the faces behind years of hull sketches and timber requests.

A young woman stepped beside them, a book under her arm. "I am Naella, his daughter. I keep my father's accounts and write his letters. May I speak for him, my lord?"

"I am glad to meet you at last, Master Qavo," Jon said in High Valyrian.

Qavo's eyebrows rose. "And I you, my lord," he answered in the same tongue. "Master Ethan told me of the ships you mentioned in your letters. He says you have something rather different in mind. Have you brought drawings?"

"I have. Once I have seen the island, we shall look through them together. I have great plans for the two of us."

Qavo glanced towards the unloading ship, then inclined his head. "I am ready to be of service, my lord."

Ethan introduced Anara, Qavo's wife, as she caught a little girl before she could run between two carts. "Tala," Anara warned. The child submitted to having her hand held and continued staring at Jon's horse.

Ethan folded the channel plan. "Shall I show you your castle?"

Sunlight shone along the Sea Dragon's teeth.

"Yes."

They went up on foot, leaving Ralf with the horses. Bucephalus would have forced everyone against the walls.

The road climbed between houses built wherever the slope allowed a foothold. Some leaned against older stone; others had been extended over narrow passages so that people walked beneath rooms to reach their doors. Most were dark with weather, but a few carried patches of limewash, pale as milk where the rain had not worn it away. A yellow shutter stood open above a woman scaling fish. From another window came the smell of onions frying in fat.

Men stepped aside. Women looked up from nets and washing, some dipping curtsies with their hands still full. Ethan named them as they passed. Jon lost half the names, but remembered a man with one white eyebrow and an old woman sorting hooks while she inspected him from boots to forelock.

Silver-gold hair shone among the darker heads. A girl carrying a basket of fish had tucked her pale braid through her belt to keep it clear; two boys arguing over a net float both had violet eyes. Jon found himself looking from one face to the next.

"He is little," someone said behind a shutter.

"You were expecting his father?" another voice answered.

A woman caught sight of his face and fell quiet. Her eyes were a darker violet than Marros's. She looked at Jon's white forelock, then at the black cloth above his escort, and lowered her head before he could read more of her expression.

Valyrian blood ran strong here. He had crossed the sea to the castle of his forefathers and found their people in the street beneath it. In Winterfell his eyes had always marked him out. Here a fish seller's daughter could look back at him with the same colour in hers. Some of the families he meant to bring across the Narrow Sea might find distant kin among these islanders. He wanted them to have a reason to stay long after their ships had sailed.

The man with the white eyebrow called a welcome. Two neighbours joined him; a third watched Ethan. Children followed, whispering about the huge black horse left below and the sword on Arthur's back. Jon heard his name passing ahead, sometimes with lord before it, sometimes with Stark's boy after. He returned their greetings without hurrying.

At a doorway, two boys stared at Arthur's sword until their mother pulled them behind her.

The knight touched two fingers to his brow. One boy peered around her skirt and returned the gesture.

Above the fish racks the road narrowed. Rainwater ran down a gutter cut into the rock, carrying a leaf through tiny waterfalls. The smells changed with each door: salt fish, smoke, damp wool, a sour breath from refuse awaiting a cart. Higher up came the mountain's sharper tang.

A cooper's mallet sounded behind one door. Across the lane, an old sailmaker held each seam close to his eyes before passing the needle through. Two women spun beside him, their baskets pushed beneath the sailcloth.

"Who helps you with the sails?" Jon asked.

"My son, when the boats cannot go out." The man lowered his needle. "He earns more aboard them, my lord. I cannot blame him."

Ethan said he was Blackburn's only sailmaker. Jon watched the man bend over the seam again. New hulls would need more than timber; even keeping the fishing boats afloat depended upon these tired eyes.

Behind some houses were cramped yards, water butts beneath the eaves and stairs steep enough to make a child climb with both hands. A woman lowered a basket from an upper room. Beneath it, a laden handcart had jammed between a buttress and a fish rack. Its driver swore while two neighbours lifted one wheel clear.

Jon stopped to watch. His harbour would need broad approaches, storeyards and a road to the arsenal. The city he meant to raise could not grow around every crooked wall already standing. Whole rows would have to come down. He began to mark a route in his mind, from the quay to higher ground, cutting through the crowded sheds.

Families would lose houses they had known all their lives. Shops would lose their trade while streets were opened; neighbours would be separated. He knew what that would cost them. He would not let it stop him. They could hate him while the work went on. In time they would have clean water, sound homes and work beyond what this cramped fishing village could offer.

He needed the harbour and arsenal working when the realm began to break apart. The legion could cut roads and move stone as well as drill; he had engineers, surveyors and tools brought south for that purpose. He would put them to work as soon as the ground was measured.

At the next turn the roofs fell away from the road, and the harbour opened below them.

Black Tern looked suddenly small, her men passing chests down the gangplank. Broad Oak waited beyond the mole. The broken stones which had troubled them at water level lay in a lace of foam. Farther out, sunlight travelled across the bay, turning the sea to beaten silver.

Jon stopped.

Wind pressed Jon's damp coat against his legs. The mainland was an uncertainty beneath the haze. King's Landing had vanished: its crowded halls, Cersei's watchful eyes, the demands concealed in Robert's good humour.

Here, his orders would reach the men carrying those chests before a raven could have found Winterfell.

Tomorrow he could walk down and see whether the water had reached the houses that needed it. He could learn a man's name without waiting weeks for a letter.

Ethan had gone ahead to speak to Marros at the bend. Arthur remained beside Jon.

"Rhaegar spent hours at the Painted Table," Arthur said quietly. His eyes had gone to the Stone Drum. "I would sometimes find him there with a single lamp burning, staring at the kingdoms. He scarcely looked up when I entered."

"Thinking of the realm?"

"Of his forefathers, often. He wondered what Aegon had thought as he stood there, or what Jaehaerys might have wished to do differently." Arthur rested his hands upon the parapet. "He knew the histories. He wanted to ask the men themselves why they had chosen as they did."

Jon looked towards the tower. "There are things I would have asked him."

Arthur was silent for a moment. "I wish you could have."

Ethan glanced back from the bend. Jon rested his hand briefly upon the worn parapet, then followed.

The first curtain wall rose beyond the last houses. What he had taken from the ship for an irregular fringe of battlements resolved into stone creatures standing above the parapet. A hound with a long, lean body crouched beside something winged and eyeless. Farther along, a dragon's tail curled around a tower so closely that the stair slit opened between its coils. Water had darkened the grooves of its scales.

Here the two dragons he had seen from below met breast to breast, their wings spreading over the entrance. Distance had made the arch seem finely drawn. Under it, Jon had to tilt his head back to follow the nearest wing to its outer edge. Each rib was thick as a great timber. Between them the black stone curved smoothly into a surface dimly gleaming with moisture.

Jon stepped towards the nearer flank. The scales were larger than his hand. They changed size around the joint of the foreleg, fitting the curve so naturally that he found himself expecting a fold to give beneath his palm.

The stone was cold.

He ran his thumb between two scales. There was no chisel chatter, no roughness left by dressing the surface. Along the shoulder, the form flowed into the arch without a seam he could find.

In his old life he had admired the ingenuity of builders. Here was a method he could not explain. He wanted lamps, ladders, time to discover where the makers had begun.

"Has anyone had to repair this arch?" he asked.

Ethan looked at the flank beneath his hand. "Not in my time. We replace steps, lintels in the later buildings, ordinary stone. Marros has never known anyone mend this."

Jon thought of the Dragonpit's broken dome. Here the stone dragons remained whole, their eyes fixed upon the road their living kin had once darkened. The contrast tightened something beneath his ribs. He let his hand rest against the scales for another moment, then took it away.

Marros's guards stood within the gatehouse. Beyond them, Ethan's Northmen had gathered beneath a stores arch. Plain black cloth hung above both groups. A ten of Hewyn's spears was coming out with drinking water; Jon stepped aside.

The island men wore patched mail and battered steel caps. The Blackworks harness moved closely with the northerners' bodies as they lifted the casks. A gate guard touched a spearman's vambrace and asked what it weighed. The man raised his arm to let him feel, smiling, until someone called for help at the cart.

Marros watched the exchange. Jon saw his shoulders ease a little when the spearman answered without mockery.

Within the court the harbour wind diminished. Jon heard a bucket set down, a shutter scraping overhead, a horse calling from an unseen yard. The castle's heights enclosed the sky in an unfamiliar shape.

Arthur had been right about the drawings. From within, the towers overlapped. A wing cut across the Stone Drum's round face; a long neck rose behind a roof and vanished before Jon could trace it to its body. Stairs climbed the inside of a wall, turned beneath an arch and emerged where he would never have expected them. There were doors beneath claws, windows set between ribs, covered walks whose supports seemed to brace the bellies of sleeping beasts.

The castle had been his in law for most of his life. Now he could smell its kitchens, feel its paving beneath his boots. He had wanted to come for so long that he had grown used to wanting it. He took another look before speaking.

Ethan waited.

Before the Stone Drum, Ethan drew out a ring of keys: one long and rusted, two smaller and plain, the fourth spreading into a black wing above its shaft. He held them out to Jon.

The conversations around the yard faded.

"I have held Dragonstone under your seal since King Robert granted it," Ethan said. "The castle and the whole island are yours, my lord."

Jon looked at the crooked fingers holding the ring. For years those hands and a few loyal men had been almost all he could reach across the water with. He took the keys.

"You remain my castellan."

Ethan inclined his head. Jon separated the wing-shaped key from the ring and returned the others.

"Keep these."

"That one opens the lord's chambers," Ethan said softly. "And the chamber of the Painted Table."

One edge had worn smooth with use. Jon closed his fingers around it and slipped it inside his coat.

Ethan turned towards the yard. "Lord Jon of House Black has taken possession of his seat."

Marros's men struck their spear butts upon the paving; the northerners answered. Jon stood where both groups could see him. A kitchen girl stopped in a doorway with flour upon her sleeve. Above her, someone opened a shutter wider.

"I thank you for the service you have given Ethan," Jon said. "He has kept this castle for me through lean years. Those who hold their places under him hold them under me."

An older guard near the gate touched his neighbour's elbow. Both looked towards Marros, who had straightened as Jon spoke.

"I shall hear every village in its turn. Extra bread and fish will go to the barracks and camp tonight. Men at their posts will be relieved so that they can eat."

The spear butts sounded again. Men called his name; Jon let them finish. Some faces looked pleased, some relieved; others waited to see whether his words would survive a difficult week.

Aries came down beside the stores arch. Lorren had gone to the lower row, he reported. Geth had shown him a stair through the wall, but he had found his own way back by the stone beast with the broken horn.

"That one?" Jon asked, pointing above the arch.

"No. A different one." Aries looked up and frowned. "There are two."

"There are considerably more than two," Ethan said.

Wylla found the boy before he could count them. She touched Jon's wet sleeve and sent Aries for a dry cloak.

The great hall lay within a dragon of its own.

Jon had seen parts of it from the court without understanding the shape. As he approached, the long roof became a back, the stone at either side gathered into folded limbs, and the entrance opened between the jaws of a resting head. Red doors stood within its mouth. The colour had darkened with age but still glowed where lamplight reached it, rich against the black stone.

Warm air came through the jaws, carrying woodsmoke, bread and fish broth. Jon paused beneath the upper teeth, then passed between the red doors.

They ate bread while servants laid the supper tables. Ethan would have taken him straight to his chamber.

"The rest will keep until you have slept. I have had the bed aired." He was already turning towards the inner door. "Aries, bring his cloak."

"The cloak, yes," Jon said. "Then the walls. I have spent enough of today looking up at them."

Ethan glanced at Arthur. The knight took bread for the walk. After a moment Ethan smiled, opened the other door and led them out.

Beyond the hall, a covered passage followed a great stone tail. Strips of sunshine fell between its coils. A man with a sack of onions flattened himself against the wall, staring at the boy beside Ethan. His sack began slipping down his shoulder.

Ethan called his name and told him to mind his back.

He knew where every passage led. At a fork beneath a dragon's outstretched wing he took the darker stair without hesitation, touched a latch hidden in the curve of its neck and brought them out above the outer court. Wind swept Jon's hair across his eyes. Below them, the gate through which they had entered looked almost modest. From here he could see how the wings over it joined the curtain wall, carrying their weight back into the greater mass of the castle.

Aries leaned carefully over the parapet. "Was Aegon the one who built it?"

"The Conqueror found a castle here," Ethan said. "So did his forefathers. The Valyrians held this island before the Targaryens made it their home. An outpost at the edge of their world." He looked along the black wall towards the smoking mountain. "A considerable outpost."

"Why did they come here, then?"

"Aenar Targaryen brought his household from Valyria. His daughter had dreamed of its destruction." Ethan rested his crooked hand upon the parapet. "A man with more lands than he could count sold them because he believed his daughter. Men called him a coward for leaving."

Jon remembered the abandoned cedar chest and the silver-haired girl beside the gangway. Twelve years before the Doom.

"And he was right," Aries said.

"To listen to her," Jon answered. "Yes."

Arthur watched him. Jon looked towards the sea. His forefathers had come seeking refuge, long before they sailed from here to conquer.

Ethan pointed out the harbour watch's signals and a covered way to the lower gate. Marros showed Jon a hollow in the paving, hidden when rain filled it. Jon marked it in the black book from his travelling satchel.

He kept the book open at the castle plans, away from the pages about kings and children not yet born. Ethan's eyes followed the unfamiliar English. Jon held the leaves against the wind while comparing his sketch with the wall.

The passage he had drawn through this section would have cut through the dragon's foreleg.

He crossed it out.

"Your drawing was wrong?" Aries asked.

"My idea of what the drawing showed was wrong." Jon turned the book so the boy could see the two lines without offering it to him. "I put these yards beside one another. One is above the other."

Ethan bent to look at the shape. "There is a stair through here, though. Marros can show you."

The captain took them down the stair into a vaulted room where spear shafts stood beneath the ribs of the ceiling. A pale-haired knight held a mail shirt flat while a black-haired boy worked at its sleeve. The boy saw Arthur and rose, nearly dragging the shirt off the trestle.

The knight caught it. "The pliers, Aleyx."

The boy put them down, flushing. His eyes were dark purple.

The knight set down the mail and knelt. "Ser Vaelor Scales, my lord. This is my squire, Aleyx Waters." The boy dropped to one knee beside him.

Scales was lean, with thickened knuckles and a coat neatly patched where embroidered scales had once covered the breast. "He commands the lower watch for me," Marros said.

"Rise, both of you. Are these all for repair?" Jon asked.

"Two shirts. This one caught beneath a shield rim." Scales lifted the sleeve. "My squire has nearly finished it."

Arthur bent to examine the join. Aleyx held the mail towards the light without being asked.

"How old are you?" Arthur asked him.

"Sixteen, ser."

"Nearly ready for his spurs," Scales said. "He has been asking whether he might watch you in the yard."

"He may." Arthur released the sleeve. Aleyx looked to his knight, who nodded.

"Scales," Jon said. "An old house, is it not?"

"Old Valyrian blood, my lord. Ser Elyas Scales was master-at-arms here and helped train the young King Jaehaerys."

House Scales had served his blood for generations. Jon would honour that loyalty through Vaelor, and give him a chance to restore his family's standing.

"Do you still ride with a lance, Ser Vaelor?" Jon asked.

"I do, my lord." Scales straightened. "My horse is sound."

"Then bring him to Hewyn's camp tomorrow. I am building heavy horse for the legion. I intend to bring in other knights, and I want island men among them. You and Aleyx will join the field force."

Scales glanced at his squire. "The boy remains with me?"

"Until you judge him ready for his spurs. Arthur will see you both ride. Marros, arrange the lower watch's relief before they leave."

"I have a man for it," the captain said.

"I shall report in the morning." Scales bowed again, his hand resting upon Aleyx's shoulder. The boy was trying hard to stand as still as his knight.

Marros showed Jon the salt damp upon the outer rack. Every fresh load must come uphill from the harbour; Jon noted that beside his sketch.

At the door, he asked Ethan quietly about the squire's family.

"An acknowledged bastard of the island Qoherys line. Quenton left a natural son here when he took Harrenhal; Aleyx's father descended from him."

Outside, Marros paused beside Ethan. "The families have been asking about the rooms over the lower gate."

"The new men will have to sleep somewhere," Ethan said.

"They think the household will want them."

Jon shut the book over his finger. "Are families living there now?"

"Four. Two widows among them." Marros met his eyes this time. "Their men served here."

"Then we shall find somewhere else for ours. Show Gawen the empty rooms first."

The captain bowed, answering Jon without first looking at Ethan.

They passed women plucking fowl, then the greater kitchen, cold and shut. Ethan raised his lamp to black rafters and pale droppings. Something moved above the light. Jon closed the door before Aries could investigate.

Through a barred opening Jon saw skins and books beneath linen. Ethan told him that Perkin had put the most fragile in inner cupboards. Jon asked for building accounts and water records. The castellan warned that old kings had kept better lists of guests than of men who mended their drains.

"Then we begin with what they left us." Jon marked the library in his book.

Ethan led them up to the clock rooms above the store court. The plaster was dry, the benches fixed beneath the windows. William, the clockmaker Jon had sent ahead, put down the files he was unwrapping and came to greet him.

"We got the long bench through," he said. "Had to take its legs off at the turn."

Jon tested the bench. It did not shift. Shallow drawers waited for small parts; daylight reached the whole worktop.

Below, carts crowded the store court. Every delivery must cross that yard and climb the narrow stair; there was no room to expand. These rooms would serve William and his apprentices well enough. A full manufactory would need its own ground, where workshops could grow without swallowing the castle's stores.

The shadows of the castle's horns stretched across the court when they reached the Stone Drum. Jon could now find the hall and lower stores.

Ethan stopped outside a door worked with scales. "The upper stair brings us to the Painted Table. Your rooms are below it, but the hangings still need a beating. Wylla has made you comfortable elsewhere."

Jon took out the wing-shaped key.

"The table first."

The Chamber of the Painted Table was wider than the tower ought to contain. Four windows faced four winds. Old wax sweetened the cold air; dust greyed the window seats. Carved legs crowded beneath a wooden Westeros shaped to every bay and headland. Jon walked slowly beside it. Faded mountains rose above blue rivers, towns and ports pricked the land in dim gold. No painted line divided the kingdoms. These were the coasts he had studied on flat sheets by candlelight.

Dragonstone stood apart on a small black pedestal. "Aegon looked at this before he crossed," Ethan said. "So the tale goes."

"He could not have seen every stream."

"No. Nor could the man who carved them." Arthur moved south, following the red rise of Dorne. He found the Torrentine without searching for its name. His thumb came to rest beside a gold star worked into the wood.

Jon walked north. Winterfell was a grey mark among painted trees. Roads, rain, Runestone and two sea crossings fitted beneath one arm. He touched the little wolf, thinking of his brothers and sisters behind those walls.

He had spread maps across his own dining table and watched a granddaughter colour the sea on the spare sheet beside him. This table would have delighted her. He touched the carved Wolfswood, remembering her insistence that the rivers needed fish. Arthur watched him from Starfall. "Jon?"

"I was thinking how much this leaves out." Jon drew his hand back from Winterfell. "Show me Dragonstone."

Ethan brought an island chart and spread it beside the carved coast. Blackburn and four smaller villages lay about the mountain. Here Jon could put names beside the places he intended to see.

Jon opened his black book at the island sketch. The harbour and city drawings lay farther back, beneath pages he kept closed.

"What occupies the ground beyond Blackburn?" Jon asked.

Ethan traced the road with a crooked finger. "Gardens first. Then grazing and the tenants' strips. These were Scales lands, before Stannis took them for the Crown."

"The tenants pay the castle now?"

"All of them. Every estate and farm on the island went into the king's grant to you. Scales kept his name and his spurs." Ethan's finger rested upon a faded boundary. "We still use the old names. People know the ground by them."

Jon followed the line across the hills. The division survived upon parchment, but the ground on either side was his. He could join fields, alter the drainage and put his roads where they needed to go. He wanted the extent of each tenancy in writing before work began.

"Bring me the letting rolls with the chart."

Hewyn arrived with Gawen and Tomas while Ethan was finding Eastcove. Marros brought stools. The field commander sat with his boots well clear of the carved coastline.

"Where have you put the six hundred?" Jon asked.

Hewyn leaned forward to point. "Here. Two miles out from Blackburn. Water close by, and room to get the centuries clear of one another. Heward has them drilling there."

Jon found the camp upon the chart. His future streets reached beyond it; the legion would have to move. He studied the higher ground to the south-west. He would inspect it before bringing his design before the officers.

For now he sketched the camp's position beside the shore and wrote his observations in English.

"Have them go about their work when I come tomorrow."

"We can go after the channel," Ethan said. "Then take the coast road to Eastcove. Cinderwell is another ride."

Jon nodded. "Come with us, Hewyn."

"I will meet you at the camp."

Ethan rolled the chart as the watch bell rang. Below the tower, men were going towards the hall.

When they returned to the hall for supper, the lamps had been lit. Broad Oak had taken Tern's berth, and the last of the household were coming up from the quay.

Wet wool and fish broth scented the hall. Warmth rose from the stone beneath Jon's feet. Dragons climbed the pillars towards a roof darkened by generations of smoke; at its far end stood a throne carved into heads and folded wings. Jon sat beneath them, rested his hands upon his own table and let himself enjoy the sight.

Ethan had kept supper to Jon's household guard and captains, Arthur, Wylla and the acolytes. He introduced Torven, captain of the northern garrison, and seated him beside Marros. Hewyn and his centurions filled the other end. Otho had Henly and Emrick beside him. Abel made room when Lorren came in from Blackburn.

"How are the children?" Jon asked.

"All six have kept something down. Mella's grandson asked for bread." Lorren accepted a bowl of stew. "I shall go back after supper."

"Eat first," Wylla said, passing him the loaf.

Jon waited until Otho had filled his bowl. "What do you think of William's new rooms?"

"Good light. Sound benches. He made me admire every drawer." Otho smiled, then glanced towards the store court. "But anything larger than a clock will be a misery to carry up that stair."

"I thought the same. They will serve him for now." Jon drew his chair closer. "Ride with me tomorrow. I want your eye on the ground."

"Where are we starting?"

"The fouled channel below Blackburn, then the camp and Eastcove. The other villages after that. Bring men who can take levels and make a drawing I can trust."

Otho put down his spoon. "Are we measuring for repairs, or for the work in your book?"

"Both." Jon rested a hand upon the black book. "We'll alter the drawings as needed. You will oversee the building and choose the foremen."

"Then I need to know which work comes first. We will soon run short of good masons if every village has a roof to mend."

"We'll settle which work comes first when we have seen the villages. For now, use the legion. They have been trained for this. Put them to work under the builders and masons already here and those we brought from the North. I shall send for more craftsmen for the larger works."

Hewyn set down his cup. "I'll arrange the work parties. Tell me how many men you need, Otho. I'll change them over so the centuries keep up their drill."

"The northern craftsmen and their families are still in our camp," Hewyn added.

"Once I have seen the island, I'll place them where their trades are needed," Jon said. "They'll have homes of their own soon enough."

Abel leaned past the jug. "And send me the reckoning, Otho. Timber, wages, cartage. I cannot tell my lord what he can afford if half the building is missing from my books."

"You will have it," Otho said. "Hewyn, which of your men worked stone before they took the spear?"

Hewyn looked along the table. Gerralt named a mason in Fifth; Norren knew two men who had laid field walls.

"Give Otho their names," Jon said. "He can judge their work. Henly, Emrick, go through the tools with him and tell me what the smiths must supply."

Emrick swallowed his bread. "We shall need apprentices too, my lord."

"Find willing lads. Otho can try them at the work."

Wylla had taken the seat beside Gawen. He moved his cup to give her room and bent to hear her question about Runestone. She laughed at his answer; he was still smiling at her when Tomas drew him into a discussion of the walls.

Jon ate while his officers talked. He would have liked Robb beside him, interrupting with questions, and Arya slipping down the bench to pester Arthur. He reached for more bread. Across the table, Otho was already asking Gerralt about his mason.

* * *

After supper, Ethan led him to a narrow chamber warmed by the wall behind it. Letters filled the second chair. Jon recognised his own seals among the broken wax upon the desk.

"You keep them all?"

"Some need reading more than once. Especially the drawings." Ethan cleared the chair and poured ale, turning his crooked hand until he could grip the jug. "I was thinking what to put in my next letter while you spoke to Mella. Then I remembered you had heard her yourself."

"You may give your hand a rest."

"For tonight, perhaps." Ethan set down the jug. "You remembered Harbert's wife."

"Both their names were in my book. I had not understood how badly his leg had healed." Jon took the cup. "There are others I ought to see."

"I will take you to them."

"I want supplies put aside for the Night's Watch."

"Has Benjen sent word?"

"Not since I left the North. I will ask for a fresh account. Count our stores and commitments. Keep what the island and our men need, then see what we can buy. Food first; woollen cloth and leather when the merchants come. Bring quantities and prices before ordering."

Ethan considered. "There may be fish to spare. Grain will be harder. How large a shipment?"

"That depends on the cost. Find a dry place for it now, even if we must begin with a modest cargo."

Ethan drew a sheet towards him. Jon took the spare quill and wrote the instructions.

"Come when I open the stores," Ethan said. "You will see more than a reckoning can tell you."

"Once we have dealt with the channel."

Ethan placed the sheet beside his keys.

"And I should like to hear more about your years here," Jon said. "When we have time to talk."

"I would like that." Ethan drained his ale, then took up the lamp to lead him upstairs.

* * *

Wylla had chosen a dry guest chamber; the lord's rooms could wait for a proper inspection. Jon's chests stood beside bedding that smelled of lavender. Arthur tested the outer door of the adjoining room and left the inner one ajar.

Jon laid the wing-shaped key beside the lamp and went to the window. Beyond a stone dragon's neck, Blackburn's lights shone down the hillside. A lantern vanished beneath a roof and emerged farther on, moving towards the harbour. Out upon the black water, Tern's riding light swayed.

Sooner or later, the great lords and the men about the king would begin making their moves. Some would want a share of what he was building; others would want it checked. He knew enough of their ambitions to expect both. The more of his plans he completed before then, the stronger his position would be.

He opened the black book. Beside the shipyard plan he noted that the inner berth must stay open during the mole's repair. He left the depths blank until Voss could take soundings and recorded his instructions about the Watch.

Dark cloth marked the older pages concerning the Wall. Some details returned as he read; others remained unfamiliar, though he had once known them well enough to write them without hesitation. Beside Waymar's name he added the invitation and Yohn's warning.

On a clean page he recorded the dream: five dragons, the girl by the gangway, the cedar chest abandoned upon the quay. He kept what he had seen apart from what he thought it meant. Arthur appeared in the doorway as he finished. Jon let the ink dry, locked the book away and washed his hands.

Perkin brought a packet from Winterfell, addressed to Dragonstone to await Jon's arrival. His account of the Runestone tourney had reached them. Aries laid out the writing things while he broke the seal.

Sansa wanted to know whether the stitching on her direwolf favour had survived the mud. He had told her who won, she complained, but scarcely anything about the ladies' gowns. Arya was delighted that he had beaten Robb and wished she could have seen it. She wanted him to describe the last fight properly. Beneath her uneven lines she had asked whether he was at Dragonstone yet, and when he would write again.

Bran had dictated questions about Waymar's rescue and the real sword Alester had been given at thirteen. Could Jon draw Dragonstone as he had drawn Runestone's gate? Eddard had added his own request for word of their safe arrival.

Jon began his reply with that. They had reached the island that morning; everyone was safe, though he had been thoroughly sick upon the way. He told Arya that Robb had made him earn the victory, then described the gallery for Sansa. Aries helped him remember the colours.

"May I tell Bran about the castle?"

Jon gave him the quill. The boy wrote carefully, stopping once to ask how to spell gargoyle. On another leaf Jon drew the dragon outside the window, with its long neck and the water streaming from its jaws. Bran would want to come the moment he saw it. Jon wished he could.

He wrote to Waymar about the baffling stairs, the water casks and the drain he would seek tomorrow. He asked after his friend's lip and admitted that his own ribs still objected when he laughed.

He wrote last to Lord Arryn about the boy at Rilla's neighbour's house and the cellar children: whether they had been rescued, where they were being cared for, and where to send the promised money.

"Will he have an answer?" Aries asked.

"He may. We will make certain he remembers we are waiting for one."

Aries handed Perkin the sealed letter himself. Outside, the six pages were waiting to show him their quarters. Geth promised a shorter route to the lower yard; Nibs claimed a much better dragon above their window.

Patch stopped at Wylla's chair beyond Jon's door. Aries found him asleep upon her hem and stayed to tell her about his letter to Bran. Jon heard her laugh while he undressed, then closed the shutter and went to bed.

* * *

Ethan was waiting in the court before sunrise, with Stewart. Otho arrived carrying a level, two of his men behind him with rods and measuring cord. Ethan had brought bread wrapped in linen. Jon had brought the black book.

"You will want both hands," Ethan said, seeing it.

"Aries has a satchel." Jon gave the boy the book while he fastened his cloak. "Keep it wrapped until I ask for it."

Arthur joined them at the gate. Ethan led them past Blackburn's upper water supply to the lower channel. A girl scrubbed scales from a board; two dogs nosed at a bucket until its owner chased them away. Someone recognised Jon's white forelock, and heads began to turn.

"That early?" a man said from a doorway.

Ethan greeted him by name. His wife came to look, drying her hands on her apron.

Mella waited beside the channel with her skirt tucked above her ankles and a crooked hazel stick in hand. Stewart unwrapped the old plan for Otho; Tobin's men brought baskets and two worn shovels.

"Show me where it reached," Jon said.

She put the stick against a smokehouse wall. A brown stain ran through the mortar above the threshold. "There. My daughter was lifting fish while her boy was still emptying himself."

Jon followed the water downhill with Ethan, Arthur and Otho. At the shore, Tobin's men had exposed the buried outlet. Roots and broken reeds packed the channel; water trembled behind them.

Otho crouched beside the mouth. "That cover is split, my lord. We must prop it before anyone reaches beneath." Jon bent to examine it, then nodded. Otho sent one of his men for timber.

The outlet lay west of its position on Stewart's plan. Ethan held a rod while Otho took the levels; the maester wrote down the readings. They worked uphill between the smokehouses, Jon comparing the measurements with his drainage scheme. Behind a low bank of newer earth, water stood against the foundations.

From the shore the fall had looked sufficient. Uphill, Jon's boots sank and the water scarcely moved. Otho checked again and showed him the reading. The smokehouse stood lower than the earth thrown up to protect it.

"Who put this here?"

"Before my time at the quay," Tobin said. "After a winter tide."

"My husband helped," Mella said. "The sea came through our door. He was not the only one."

Jon marked the bank in his book. The winter water marks would guide its replacement. For now he and Otho marked a shallow channel from the old outlet across bare gravel beyond the houses. Otho checked the slope, then set Tobin's men to digging and showed them where to line the bend with stone.

A woman came out carrying damp kindling. "Will they have to lift our floor, my lord?"

"Bring it to me this afternoon," Ethan said. "Lord Jon has had enough of this water for one morning. I will settle what work you need."

She began to turn.

"Has water come through the boards?" Jon asked.

"Through? No, my lord. It comes under the door."

"Then show Stewart the sill. We may not need to touch the floor." While she took the maester to it, Jon drew Ethan beyond the baskets. Arthur joined them, out of the workers' hearing.

"Do not decide when I have finished."

Ethan glanced towards the doorway. "I have dealt with her husband before. He will ask us to replace the whole floor."

"Then tell me that. I want your advice." Jon rested his muddy hands on the low wall. "Yesterday you decided I was going to bed. Today you decided I had finished here. You have been leading a long time. I understand the habit."

Colour rose beneath Ethan's weathered cheeks. "You had scarcely slept aboard the ship."

"I slept last night. I did not come all this way to be shown my castle and kept out of its business. I mean to rule it, Ethan. If something is unwise, tell me why. Do not decide that I need looking after instead."

Ethan's hand closed upon the bread cloth. Jon thought he might speak of Eddard. He waited; he would not leave this unspoken.

Arthur leaned beside the wall. "You have seen the decisions he sent from Winterfell. Now you can give him your advice to his face."

"I have never doubted his judgement in the work."

"Then give him room to use it."

Ethan looked back at Jon. "I have had years to grow used to a letter coming. I shall have to grow used to you being here."

"Begin with Eastcove. Show it to me when we have opened this outlet."

"I would take you to the camp first and come back by the coast."

"That will suit."

By late morning Otho had the split cover propped and the new channel ready. He walked Jon along it to the shore, showing him the fall. Jon told Tobin to clear the old outlet.

Tobin pulled reeds out in a black clump, followed by rotten timber that lodged across the drain's mouth. Jon passed down a hooked pole; the men rolled it clear. Brown water surged from the old drain into the new channel, struck the stones at the bend and raced across the shingle into the surf.

Mella ran to the smokehouse and returned more slowly, wiping her hands on her skirt. "It is out."

"Keep someone here through the returning tide," Jon told Tobin. "Send to the castle if it backs up. We can mend the damaged upper course once this has drained." Mella's family would keep using the drinking casks until the channel was cleaned and flushed.

"My daughter's boy kept his broth this morning," she said.

"I am glad of it." Jon looked towards the child standing in the doorway with a cup in both hands.

They ate on a dry stone as the last reeds swept towards the surf. Ethan shared his bread with a fisherman. Otho checked the corrected plan with Jon while Stewart entered their final measurements.

* * *

Ralf met them with the horses above the quay. Ethan took the road inland, past gardens and little walled fields. Two miles from Blackburn, they came upon Hewyn's camp. Brown canvas spread across the slope in straight rows; smoke rose from the kitchens, flattening whenever the wind caught it.

Men had draped wet blankets over racks between the tents. A cook glared into his kettle while someone split kindling behind him. Boiled grain, damp leather and woodsmoke filled the air. Beyond the horse lines, a century turned at Heward's call, shields flashing as the men faced the sun.

Scales stood by the horse lines with two saddled mounts. Aleyx was tightening a girth while Heward spoke to his knight. They had reported as ordered. Arthur stayed to watch them ride.

Hewyn came to meet them. Jon dismounted beside a cart whose wheel had sunk into the turf.

"Show me the shelters you had to move," Jon said.

Hewyn led him down the slope. "Two seams gave. We have patched them, but the lower ditch needs carrying farther." He pointed towards men lifting sods onto a barrow. "Water came through Third's cookfire."

The ditch ended against an old bank. Heward held a rod while Otho measured the hollow and stretched a cord to the bank. Jon asked where the water went beyond it.

"Through the pasture," Ethan said. "Then the shore. No houses below this part."

Hewyn sent a man to follow it before they opened the bank. Jon entered the measurements in his book.

Jon asked about water, carts and grain. Hewyn showed him the stores, where a decanus made two men lift a sack clear of the earth. Outside, Heward showed him where stones caught the rear rank during a turn. Arthur joined them there. Scales rode well, he reported; Aleyx needed more work.

"Where does the grazing end?" Jon asked Ethan when they returned to the horses.

"I can show you."

Hewyn went back to the ditch. Ethan led Jon towards the higher south-west ground, with Arthur, Otho and Aries following. The tents dropped behind a fold of land. Dark rock broke through broad reaches of grass; an old bank curved above a shallow gully. Wind tugged at Jon's coat, then fell away as he stepped behind it.

"Castle grazing to that wall," Ethan said. "Crofts beyond."

Jon stood upon the bank. There was room for formations here, and more ground beyond them as the legion grew. He pictured barracks on the rise, workshops apart from sleeping quarters, horse lines clear of the wells. He opened the black book and drew the slope. Above it he wrote a name in English: the Black Fields.

At the gully, a thread of water moved beneath the weeds.

"Does it run all summer?"

"Some years the herders take their beasts farther up," Ethan said.

Jon marked that beside the line. Six hundred men could not live upon a wet-season trickle. Wells, stored rainwater, a channel from higher ground: each needed proving before he brought them here.

Otho held the cord while Jon measured the approach around a bank of gorse. A loaded wagon would need more room. Behind the gorse they found an older track, stony and broad enough. They followed it downhill, Otho noting where the surface would need levelling.

A woman came from the croft beyond the wall, her daughter trotting after her.

"That bounds our grazing."

Ethan greeted her. "Bessa. No one has crossed it."

"Men start with a cord." She noticed Jon and curtsied. "My lord. We graze this side by leave. Since my father's time."

"Where do you bring them in winter?"

She showed him the sheltered corner, pointing out hoofprints beneath the bank. Her croft paid rent to the castle; the grazing was his to reassign. He would find another place for her stock when the work began. Bessa's goats would not decide where his army lived.

"Who remembers the extent of the leave?"

"My uncle. Old Wat as well, though he'll tell you different."

"Make a note of both," Jon told Ethan.

Jon put the book away. Water and the cart approach needed work. He would give the legion its home here, beyond the city's growth.

They returned to the horses. Ethan led them towards Eastcove, with Arthur behind Jon and the household men following.

* * *

The coast road wound between walls so low that the barley seemed to spill over them. Someone had coaxed onions and beans into pockets of deeper soil. A boy on a wall scrambled down when he recognised Ethan, then stared at Jon while one of his sheep put its head into the beans.

The sea appeared and disappeared as they rode. At one turn it filled the world, dark blue beneath a white seam of cloud; at the next there was only gorse, warm stone and grass scraping Jon's boot. Ethan pointed out the inland road to Cinderwell. They kept to the nearer route until hearth smoke rose above a hollow and roofs showed below it.

Eastcove's fishing boats lay above the tide on worn timbers. Nets hung between poles. A woman with a silver-blond braid worked a net needle so quickly that Jon first mistook it for a spindle. She stopped when they passed. Her little daughter looked up from the float in her lap, pale hair tied back with a strip of red wool.

They left the horses with a guard. A man came from beside a stack of tile, rubbing clay from his palms. "Ormond, our headman," Ethan told Jon. Ormond knelt, then rose at Jon's word, looking towards Ethan.

"We had word he was coming. I thought tomorrow."

"My lord wanted to see Eastcove today."

"Then you are welcome, my lord. I would have had the men gathered."

"I can see where they are." Jon looked towards two men who had stopped caulking to watch. "Will you show me what they are doing?"

Word went ahead of them. An old man came out with a knife and half-peeled turnip still in his hands. A child asked whether this was the lord who had won the tourney at Runestone. His mother gripped his shoulder, but Jon had heard.

"Where did you hear that?"

The boy looked at his mother. She looked at Ormond.

"A boat came from the city," the headman said. "There have been three versions of it."

"Only three?" Arthur asked.

The mother laughed before she could stop herself. Jon told the child he had won the squires' melee, then asked whether the boat beside his door belonged to his family. The boy led him over to show him his father's patch, then remembered whom he was leading and retreated behind his mother again.

Jon knelt to look at the repair. When he rose, the caulkers were still watching, their tools idle in their hands. One returned his nod and bent to his work. The other looked at the mud drying on Jon's boots before doing the same.

Ormond showed them his tiles. Jon turned one over, rubbing a thumb across its rough underside. "Where is the clay dug?"

The headman took them behind the ridge. An old stream curved through the workings towards the eastern inlet; cart wheels had streaked the track red and grey. A potter was scraping clay from his spade with a broken sherd.

"Does it all fire alike?" Jon asked.

"No, my lord. I fire a piece before I take a cartload." The potter pointed with the sherd. "My father dug there. His father before him. We still find bad pockets."

Otho asked the potter for fired samples from the different workings. Farther off, smoke escaped from a crude pit where shells were being burned for lime. Jon looked back along the clay-smeared track. Here was material for his drains and walls, but carts would need a better road and the clay would need testing before he counted it in thousands of bricks. He marked both in his book.

They returned by Ormond's kiln shed, whose beams had begun to fail. Otho inspected the timbers with him, took the roof's measurements and noted what needed replacing.

Ormond looked up the lane. "If you are bringing workmen here, my lord, there are houses I would have them see. I have been asking for their roofs to be mended these three years."

"Show Otho the worst of them," Jon said. "I want to know what they need." Otho added the houses to his notes.

Farther down, Ethan stopped at a house with a blue scrap tied above its door. A widow brought out a bench for Jon, though there was scarcely room between the wall and a drying net. He thanked her and remained standing. Two neighbouring children watched Aries's sword belt with envy; a baby slept in a basket behind her feet.

"How many people live here?" Jon asked Ormond.

The headman checked his rent roll. It named the widow. Her married daughter and the baby lived with her too, she explained, while her son-in-law was at sea.

"They need feeding as well," Jon said.

"The daughter pays no rent, my lord. She has no house of her own."

"Then we need a separate count of the people. Everyone, including the children."

Ethan nodded. "We have last winter's count. Some headmen have sent corrections."

"Bring me the latest figures tomorrow. Then we count again, house by house. I want everyone's name, age and skills. Children too, and anyone away at sea."

Jon turned to Otho. "Bram and Torr can help Stewart's two clerks write the lists. Each headman will take them through his village and the farms around it."

"I'll send the lads to the maester," Otho said.

The widow looked between them. "Is this for a new tax, my lord?"

"No. I need to know how much food the island needs and how many people can work." Jon turned to Ethan. "Have the names read back to each family. They can tell us if someone has been missed."

Ethan agreed. Ormond offered to start with the houses nearest the kiln, then take the men out to the farms.

The count would take weeks. There were farms and scattered cottages beyond the villages, as well as Jon's new arrivals. He opened his book and copied a short example for Ormond. The widow gave him the baby's name, and he added it beneath her daughter's.

* * *

They reached Blackburn as the light warmed the western faces of the houses. Tobin met them above the quay. The outlet had held through the returning tide; two men would watch it that night. Mella's daughter was hanging wet cloths above the smokehouse door. Jon dismounted to look, then asked Tobin to have every measurement and alteration copied onto one plan.

Before supper, Jon spread the day's measurements beside the island chart. The village road, temporary camp and Black Fields now had shapes he could trust. Farther inland, too much of his drawing still depended upon letters and guesses.

Ethan brought the letting rolls. Old Wat remembered Bessa's grazing leave differently; her uncle was away with sheep. Jon marked both accounts, then asked about the roads to Cinderwell, Wyrm's Rest and Saltcliffe. He meant to walk their working places and hear what each could supply before he gathered everyone to announce the work.

"Tomorrow we settle the urgent requests," he said. "At the week's end I want the village heads here again, with the garrison captains and my field officers. Tell them to allow the morning."

Ethan glanced at the closed book beside Jon's elbow. "I shall have them warned."

At dinner, Aries fell asleep before the fish was brought, his chin sinking towards the bread in his hand. Wylla took it and let his head rest against her arm.

"He will sleep through the bells," Ethan said, watching Aries. He looked tired himself. "Ormond will raise the houses again tomorrow."

"He asked me about them today."

"It has been his chief complaint for three years. If men and timber are coming to Eastcove, he will want them used on his people's homes."

"I will hear him. Otho can tell us whether repairs are worth making." Jon broke his bread.

Arthur set down his cup. "Your lords will have things to ask as well."

Jon knew the ships those houses held; Ethan's reports had followed their sailings for years. Driftmark's fleet would be essential to what he intended. Robert wanted the old Targaryen vassals kept in hand, but Jon would not make the king's resentment his policy, or wait months for those houses to decide how much notice they owed him.

"They will come here. In two weeks."

Ethan nodded slowly. "Velaryon can cross readily enough. The others will have time to arrange their households."

"I want them at dinner. Before we sit, they renew their oaths."

Ethan glanced towards the empty end of the high table, measuring places almost despite himself. "They swore when the grant was made."

"To an infant they had never met. They will meet me now." Jon put down his knife. "I will hear their concerns and confirm what is owed on both sides. But they come as my vassals. The letter should leave no doubt about that."

After they had eaten, Jon sent for Maester Stewart to write the summons to Velaryon, Celtigar, Sunglass and Bar Emmon.

Servants cleared the bowls while Stewart laid out parchment. Arthur drew his chair nearer the hearth. The maester dipped his quill and waited for Jon to begin.

Jon dictated. Having come to Dragonstone to govern in person, he required each lord's attendance on the fourteenth day from the date of the letter, to renew the homage and fealty due to House Black. Afterwards, he would receive them at his table and hear matters concerning their lands and service. They were to send acceptance and the number accompanying them, so quarters could be prepared.

Stewart read the first letter aloud, then passed it to Jon to sign. By the fourth his split knuckle ached, but the name was steady. Stewart warmed the wax; Jon pressed his seal into each dark pool.

"Tonight?" Ethan asked.

There was still light above the sea.

"Now."

Jon went with the letters to the rookery. Stewart checked the birds by their home roosts. Below the window, men were bringing the last carts through the gate. Beyond the roofs, the bay stretched towards shores Jon had only seen upon maps.

The first raven beat its wings against Stewart's hand. Jon watched him fasten the summons. Four messages, four seals, a fortnight for the men across the water to prepare their answers.

At his word, Stewart opened his hands and the first raven flew. The others followed, carrying Jon's summons out across the bay.