Page 19 (1/2)

Jon

The courtyard rang to the song of swords

Under black wool, boiled leather, and mail, sweat trickled icily down Jon’s chest as he pressed the attack Grenn stu himself clumsily When he raised his sword, Jon went underneath it with a sweeping blow that crunched against the back of the other boy’s leg and sent hi Grenn’s downcut was answered by an overhand that dented his hel, Jon swept aside his blade and sla and sat down hard in the snow Jon knocked his sword froht a cry of pain

"Enough!" Ser Alliser Thorne had a voice with an edge like Valyrian steel

Grenn cradled his hand "The bastard brokeyou, opened your empty skull, and cut off your hand Or would have, if these blades had an edge It’s fortunate for you that the Watch needs stableboys as well as rangers" Ser Alliser gestured at Jeren and Toad "Get the Aurochs on his feet, he has funeral arrangements to make"

Jon took off his hel Grenn to his feet The frosty ood on his face He leaned on his sword, drew a deep breath, and allowed himself a sword, not an old s hurting, Lord Snow?"

Jon hated that na on him the first day he came to practice The boys had picked it up, and now he heard it everywhere He slid the longsword back into its scabbard "No," he replied

Thorne strode toward hi faintly as he moved He was a corey in his black hair and eyes like chips of onyx "The truth now," he commanded

"I’ht of the longsword, and he was starting to feel his bruises now that the fight was done

"What you are is weak"

"I won"

"No The Aurochs lost"

One of the other boys sniggered Jon knew better than to reply He had beaten everyone that Ser Alliser had sent against hi The master-at-arms served up only derision Thorne hated him, Jon had decided; of course, he hated the other boys even worse

"That will be all," Thorne told them "I can only stomach so much ineptitude in any one day If the Others ever come for us, I pray they have archers, because you lot are fit for nothing more than arrow fodder"

Jon followed the rest back to the ar alone He often walked alone here There were alroup he trained with, yet not one he could call a friend Most were two or three years his senior, yet not one was half the fighter Robb had been at fourteen Dareon was quick but afraid of being hit Pyp used his sword like a dagger, Jeren eak as a girl, Grenn slow and cluht into your attacks The more time he spent with the sword and scabbard fro the others around hian to strip off his mail, leather, and sweat-soaked woolens Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long roo The chill was alith hiet what it felt like to be warm

The weariness cahspun blacks that were their everyday wear He sat on a bench, his fingers fuht, re the warh the walls like blood through a man’s body There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder

No one had told hiht’s Watch would be like this; no one except Tyrion Lannister The dwarf had given him the truth on the road north, but by then it had been too late Jon wondered if his father had knohat the Wall would be like He ht; that only made it hurt the worse

Even his uncle had abandoned hienial Benjen Stark he had known becaer, and he spent his days and nights with Lord Coh officers, while Jon was given over to the less than tender charge of Ser Alliser Thorne

Three days after their arrival, Jon had heard that Benjen Stark was to lead a half-dozen ht out his uncle in the great tio with him Benjen refused him curtly "This is not Winterfell," he told hier "On the Wall, a er, Jon, only a green boy with the sued "I’ll be fifteen on rown"

Benjen Stark frowned "A boy you are, and a boy you’ll reht’s Watch If you thought your Stark blood would win you easy favors, you rong We put aside our old families ear our vows Your father will always have a place in estured with his dagger at the men around them, all the hard cold men in black

Jon rose at dawn the next day to watch his uncle leave One of his rangers, a big ugly arron, his breath stea air Ben Stark smiled at that, but he had no smile for his nephew "How often must I tell you no, Jon? We’ll speak when I return"

As he watched his uncle lead his horse into the tunnel, Jon had resroad, and in hisdead, his blood red on the snow The thought ?

Afterward he sought out Ghost in the loneliness of his cell, and buried his face in his thick white fur

If he must be alone, he would odswood, only a small sept and a drunken septon, but Jon could not find it in hiht, they were as cruel and implacable as winter

Heas he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant co to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing He irls too, even Sansa, who never called hih to understand what bastard meant And Aryahethat she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he hadyet she could alwaysto be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him

"You broke my wrist, bastard boy"

Jon lifted his eyes at the sullen voice Grenn loomed over him, thick of neck and red of face, with three of his friends behind hily boy with an unpleasant voice The recruits all called hiht north with theers He’d forgotten their names He hardly ever spoke to them, if he could help it They were brutes and bullies, without a thimble of honor between them

Jon stood up "I’ll break the other one for you if you ask nicely" Grenn was sixteen and a head taller than Jon All four of theer than he was, but they did not scare him He’d beaten every one of them in the yard

"Maybe we’ll break you," one of the rapers said

"Try" Jon reached back for his sword, but one of therabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back

"You make us look bad," complained Toad

"You looked bad before I ever met you," Jon told him The boy who had his arh him, but Jon would not cry out

Toad stepped close "The little lordling has aeyes, small and shiny "Is that your mommy’s mouth, bastard? What was she, some whore? Tell us her nahed

Jon twisted like an eel and sla him There was a sudden cry of pain, and he was free He flew at Toad, knocked him backward over a bench, and landed on his chest with both hands on his throat, slaainst the packed earth

The two froround Grenn began to kick at hi voice cut through the gloom of the armory "STOP THIS! NOW!"

Jon pulled hi at the," the armorer said "Keep your quarrels out of my armory, or I’ll make them my quarrels You won’t like that"

Toad sat on the floor, gingerly feeling the back of his head His fingers came away bloody "He tried to kill me"

" ’S true I saw it," one of the rapers put in

"He brokeit out to Noye for inspection

The arlances "A bruise Perhaps a sprain Maester Aeive you a salve Go with hi after The rest of you, return to your cells Not you, Snow You stay"

Jon sat heavily on the long wooden bench as the others left, oblivious to the looks they gave him, the silent pro

"The Watch has need of every et," Donal Noye said when they were alone "Evenhier flared "He said my mother was--"

"--a whore I heard him What of it?"

"Lord Eddard Stark was not a man to sleep hores," Jon said icily "His honor--"

"--did not prevent hi a bastard Did it?"

Jon was cold with rage "Can I go?"

"You go when I tell you to go"

Jon stared sullenly at the s froers twisting his head around "Look atto you, boy"

Jon looked The arut to match His nose was flat and broad, and he always seemed in need of a shave The left sleeve of his black wool tunic was fastened at the shoulder with a silver pin in the shape of a longsword "Words won’tToad says can change that You knoe have men on the Wall whose ht stubbornly He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could alhborn, and her eyes were kind

"You think you had it hard, being a high lord’s bastard?" the aret, and Cotter Pyke is the baseborn son of a tavern wench Now he commands Eastwatch by the Sea"

"I don’t care," Jon said "I don’t care about them and I don’t care about you or Thorne or Benjen Stark or any of it I hate it here It’s tooit’s cold"

"Yes Cold and hard and mean, that’s the Wall, and the men alk it Not like the stories your wet nurse told you Well, piss on the stories and piss on your wet nurse This is the way it is, and you’re here for life, same as the rest of us"

"Life," Jon repeated bitterly The armorer could talk about life He’d had one He’d only taken the black after he’d lost an are of Storm’s End Before that he’d s’s brother He’d seen the Seven Kingdoms froht in a hundred battles They said it was Donal Noye who’d forged King Robert’s warhaaryen on the Trident He’d done all the things that Jon would never do, and then when he was old, well past thirty, he’d taken a glancing blow from an axe and the wound had festered until the whole arm had to come off Only then, crippled, had Donal Noye come to the Wall, when his life was all but over

"Yes, life," Noye said "A long life or a short one, it’s up to you, Snow The road you’re walking, one of your brothers will slit your throat for you one night"

"They’re not my brothers," Jon snapped "They hate me because I’m better than they are"

"No They hate you because you act like you’re better than they are They look at you and see a castle-bred bastard who thinks he’s a lordling" The ar Remember that You’re a Snow, not a Stark You’re a bastard and a bully"