A Feast for Dragons

by George R. R. Martin

  “And girls?” a girl asked. She looked as young as Arya had, the last time Jon had seen her.

  “Sixteen and older.”

  “You’re taking boys as young as twelve.”

  Down in the Seven Kingdoms boys of twelve were often pages or squires; many had been training at arms for years. Girls of twelve were children. These are wildlings, though. “As you will. Boys and girls as young as twelve. But only those who know how to obey an order. That goes for all of you. I will never ask you to kneel to me, but I will set captains over you, and serjeants who will tell you when to rise and when to sleep, where to eat, when to drink, what to wear, when to draw your swords and loose your arrows. The men of the Night’s Watch serve for life. I will not ask that of you, but so long as you are on the Wall you will be under my command. Disobey an order, and I’ll have your head off. Ask my brothers if I won’t. They’ve seen me do it.”

  “Off,” screamed the Old Bear’s raven. “Off, off, off.”

  “The choice is yours,” Jon Snow told them. “Those who want to help us hold the Wall, return to Castle Black with me and I’ll see you armed and fed. The rest of you, get your turnips and your onions and crawl back inside your holes.”

  The girl was the first to come forward. “I can fight. My mother was a spearwife.” Jon nodded. She may not even be twelve, he thought, as she squirmed between a pair of old men, but he was not about to turn away his only recruit.

  A pair of striplings followed her, boys no older than fourteen. Next a scarred man with a missing eye. “I seen them too, the dead ones. Even crows are better’n that.” A tall spearwife, an old man on crutches, a moonfaced boy with a withered arm, a young man whose red hair reminded Jon of Ygritte.

  And then Halleck. “I don’t like you, crow,” he growled, “but I never liked the Mance neither, no more’n my sister did. Still, we fought for him. Why not fight for you?”

  The dam broke then. Halleck was a man of note. Mance was not wrong. “Free folk don’t follow names, or little cloth animals sewn on a tunic,” the King-Beyond-the-Wall had told him. “They won’t dance for coins, they don’t care how you style yourself or what that chain of office means or who your grandsire was. They follow strength. They follow the man.”

  Halleck’s cousins followed Halleck, then one of Harma’s banner-bearers, then men who’d fought with her, then others who had heard tales of their prowess. Greybeards and green boys, fighting men in their prime, wounded men and cripples, a good score of spearwives, even three Hornfoot men.

  But no Thenns. The Magnar turned and vanished back into the tunnels, and his bronze-clad minions followed hard at his heels.

  By the time the last withered apple had been handed out, the wagons were crowded with wildlings, and they were sixty-three stronger than when the column had set out from Castle Black that morning. “What will you do with them?” Bowen Marsh asked Jon on the ride back up the kingsroad.

  “Train them, arm then, and split them up. Send them where they’re needed. Eastwatch, the Shadow Tower, Icemark, Greyguard. I mean to open three more forts as well.”

  The Lord Steward glanced back. “Women too? Our brothers are not accustomed to having women amongst them, my lord. Their vows … there will be fights, rapes …”

  “These women have knives and know how to use them.”

  “And the first time one of these spearwives slits the throat of one of our brothers, what then?”

  “We will have lost a man,” said Jon, “but we have just gained sixty-three. You’re good at counting, my lord. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my reckoning leaves us sixty-two ahead.”

  Marsh was unconvinced. “You’ve added sixty-three more mouths, my lord … but how many are fighters, and whose side will they fight on? If it’s the Others at the gates, most like they’ll stand with us, I grant you … but if it’s Tormund Giantsbane or the Weeping Man come calling with ten thousand howling killers, what then?”

  “Then we’ll know. So let us hope it never comes to that.”

  * * *

  Jaime

  The brooch that fastened Ser Brynden Tully’s cloak was a black fish, wrought in jet and gold. His ringmail was grim and grey. Over it he wore greaves, gorget, gauntlets, pauldron, and poleyns of blackened steel, none half so dark as the look upon his face as he waited for Jaime Lannister at the end of the drawbridge, alone atop a chestnut courser caparisoned in red and blue.

  He loves me not. Tully had a craggy face, deeply lined and windburnt beneath a shock of stiff grey hair, but Jaime could still see the great knight who had once enthralled a squire with tales of the Ninepenny Kings. Honor’s hooves clattered against the planks of the drawbridge. Jaime had thought long and hard about whether to wear his gold armor or his white to this meeting; in the end, he’d chosen a leather jack and a crimson cloak.

  He drew up a yard from Ser Brynden, and inclined his head to the older man. “Kingslayer,” said Tully.

  That he would make that name the first word from his mouth spoke volumes, but Jaime was resolved to keep his temper. “Blackfish,” he responded. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I assume you have returned to fulfill the oaths you swore my niece,” Ser Brynden said. “As I recall, you promised Catelyn her daughters in return for your freedom.” His mouth tightened. “Yet I do not see the girls. Where are they?”

  Must he make me say it? “I do not have them.”

  “Pity. Do you wish to resume your captivity? Your old cell is still available. We have put fresh rushes on the floor.”

  And a nice new pail for me to shit in, I don’t doubt. “That was thoughtful of you, ser, but I fear I must decline. I prefer the comforts of my pavilion.”

  “Whilst Catelyn enjoys the comforts of her grave.”

  I had no hand in Lady Catelyn’s death, he might have said, and her daughters were gone before I reached King’s Landing. It was on his tongue to speak of Brienne and the sword he’d given her, but the Blackfish was looking at him the way that Eddard Stark had looked at him when he’d found him on the Iron Throne with the Mad King’s blood upon his blade. “I came to speak of the living, not the dead. Of those who need not die, but shall . . .”

  “. . . unless I hand you Riverrun. Is this where you threaten to hang Edmure?” Beneath his bushy brows, Tully’s eyes were stone. “My nephew is marked for death no matter what I do. So hang him and be done with it. I expect that Edmure is as weary of standing on those gallows as I am of seeing him there.”

  Ryman Frey is a bloody fool. His mummer’s show with Edmure and the gallows had only made the Blackfish more obdurate, that was plain. “You hold Lady Sybelle Westerling and three of her children. I’ll return your nephew in exchange for them.”

  “As you returned Lady Catelyn’s daughters?”

  Jaime did not allow himself to be provoked. “An old woman and three children for your liege lord. That’s a better bargain than you could have hoped for.”

  Ser Brynden smiled a hard smile. “You do not lack for gall, Kingslayer. Bargaining with oathbreakers is like building on quicksand, though. Cat should have known better than to trust the likes of you.”

  It was Tyrion she trusted in, Jaime almost said. The Imp deceived her too. “The promises I made to Lady Catelyn were wrung from me at swordpoint.”

  “And the oath you swore to Aerys?”

  He felt his phantom fingers twitching. “Aerys is no part of this. Will you exchange the Westerlings for Edmure?”

  “No. My king entrusted his queen to my keeping, and I swore to keep her safe. I will not hand her over to a Frey noose.”

  “The girl has been pardoned. No harm will come to her. You have my word on that.”

  “Your word of honor?” Ser Brynden raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know what honor is?”

  A horse. “I will swear any oath that you require.”

  “Spare me, Kingslayer.”

  “I want to. Strike your banners and open your gates and I’ll grant your men their lives. Those who wish to re
main at Riverrun in service to Lord Emmon may do so. The rest shall be free to go where they will, though I will require them to surrender their arms and armor.”

  “I wonder, how far will they get, unarmed, before ‘outlaws’ set upon them? You dare not allow them to join Lord Beric, we both know that. And what of me? Will I be paraded through King’s Landing to die like Eddard Stark?”

  “I will permit you to take the black. Ned Stark’s bastard is the Lord Commander on the Wall.”

  The Blackfish narrowed his eyes. “Did your father arrange for that as well? Catelyn never trusted the boy, as I recall, no more than she ever trusted Theon Greyjoy. It would seem she was right about them both. No, ser, I think not. I’ll die warm, if you please, with a sword in hand running red with lion blood.”

  “Tully blood runs just as red,” Jaime reminded him. “If you will not yield the castle, I must storm it. Hundreds will die.”

  “Hundreds of mine. Thousands of yours.”

  “Your garrison will perish to a man.”

  “I know that song. Do you sing it to the tune of ‘The Rains of Castamere’? My men would sooner die upon their feet fighting than on their knees beneath a headsman’s axe.”

  This is not going well. “This defiance serves no purpose, ser. The war is done, and your Young Wolf is dead.”

  “Murdered in breach of all the sacred laws of hospitality.”

  “Frey’s work, not mine.”

  “Call it what you will. It stinks of Tywin Lannister.”

  Jaime could not deny that. “My father is dead as well.”

  “May the Father judge him justly.”

  Now, there’s an awful prospect. “I would have slain Robb Stark in the Whispering Wood, if I could have reached him. Some fools got in my way. Does it matter how the boy perished? He’s no less dead, and his kingdom died when he did.”

  “You must be blind as well as maimed, ser. Lift your eyes, and you will see that the direwolf still flies above our walls.”

  “I’ve seen him. He looks lonely. Harrenhal has fallen. Seagard and Maidenpool. The Brackens have bent the knee, and they’ve got Tytos Blackwood penned up in Raventree. Piper, Vance, Mooton, all your bannermen have yielded. Only Riverrun remains. We have twenty times your numbers.”

  “Twenty times the men require twenty times the food. How well are you provisioned, my lord?”

  “Well enough to sit here till the end of days if need be, whilst you starve inside your walls.” He told the lie as boldly as he could and hoped his face did not betray him.

  The Blackfish was not deceived. “The end of your days, perhaps. Our own supplies are ample, though I fear we did not leave much in the fields for visitors.”

  “We can bring food down from the Twins,” said Jaime, “or over the hills from the west, if it comes to that.”

  “If you say so. Far be it from me to question the word of such an honorable knight.”

  The scorn in his voice made Jaime bristle. “There is a quicker way to decide the matter. A single combat. My champion against yours.”

  “I was wondering when you would get to that.” Ser Brynden laughed. “Who will it be? Strongboar? Addam Marbrand? Black Walder Frey?” He leaned forward. “Why not you and me, ser?”

  That would have been a sweet fight once, Jaime thought, fine fodder for the singers. “When Lady Catelyn freed me, she made me swear not to take arms again against the Starks or Tullys.”

  “A most convenient oath, ser.”

  His face darkened. “Are you calling me a coward?”

  “No. I am calling you a cripple.” The Blackfish nodded at Jaime’s golden hand. “We both know you cannot fight with that.”

  “I had two hands.” Would you throw your life away for pride? a voice inside him whispered. “Some might say a cripple and an old man are well matched. Free me from my vow to Lady Catelyn and I will meet you sword to sword. If I win, Riverrun is ours. If you slay me, we’ll lift the siege.”

  Ser Brynden laughed again. “Much as I would welcome the chance to take that golden sword away from you and cut out your black heart, your promises are worthless. I would gain nothing from your death but the pleasure of killing you, and I will not risk my own life for that . . . as small a risk as that may be.”

  It was a good thing that Jaime wore no sword; elsewise he would have ripped his blade out, and if Ser Brynden did not slay him, the archers on the walls most surely would. “Are there any terms you will accept?” he demanded of the Blackfish.

  “From you?” Ser Brynden shrugged. “No.”

  “Why did you even come to treat with me?”

  “A siege is deadly dull. I wanted to see this stump of yours and hear whatever excuses you cared to offer up for your latest enormities. They were feebler than I’d hoped. You always disappoint, Kingslayer.” The Blackfish wheeled his mare and trotted back toward Riverrun. The portcullis descended with a rush, its iron spikes biting deep into the muddy ground.

  Jaime turned Honor’s head about for the long ride back to the Lannister siege lines. He could feel the eyes on him; the Tully men upon their battlements, the Freys across the river. If they are not blind, they’ll all know he threw my offer in my teeth. He would need to storm the castle. Well, what’s one more broken vow to the Kingslayer? Just more shit in the bucket. Jaime resolved to be the first man on the battlements. And with this golden hand of mine, most like the first to fall.

  Back at camp, Little Lew held his bridle whilst Peck gave him a hand down from the saddle. Do they think I’m such a cripple that I cannot dismount by myself? “How did you fare, my lord?” asked his cousin Ser Daven.

  “No one put an arrow in my horse’s rump. Elsewise, there was little to distinguish me from Ser Ryman.” He grimaced. “So now he must needs turn the Red Fork redder.” Blame yourself for that, Blackfish. You left me little choice. “Assemble a war council. Ser Addam, Strongboar, Forley Prester, those river lords of ours . . . and our friends of Frey. Ser Ryman, Lord Emmon, whoever else they care to bring.”

  They gathered quickly. Lord Piper and both Lords Vance came to speak for the repentant lords of the Trident, whose loyalties would shortly be put to the test. The west was represented by Ser Daven, Strongboar, Addam Marbrand, and Forley Prester. Lord Emmon Frey joined them, with his wife. Lady Genna claimed her stool with a look that dared any man there to question her presence. None did. The Freys sent Ser Walder Rivers, called “Bastard Walder,” and Ser Ryman’s firstborn Edwyn, a pallid, slender man with a pinched nose and lank dark hair. Under a blue lambswool cloak, Edwyn wore a jerkin of finely tooled grey calfskin with ornate scrollwork worked into the leather. “I speak for House Frey,” he announced. “My father is indisposed this morning.”

  Ser Daven gave a snort. “Is he drunk, or just greensick from last night’s wine?”

  Edwyn had the hard mean mouth of a miser. “Lord Jaime,” he said, “must I suffer such discourtesy?”

  “Is it true?” Jaime asked him. “Is your father drunk?”

  Frey pressed his lips together and eyed Ser Ilyn Payne, who was standing beside by the tent flap in his rusted mail, his sword poking up above one bony shoulder. “He . . . my father has a bad belly, my lord. Red wine helps with his digestion.”

  “He must be digesting a bloody mammoth,” said Ser Daven. Strongboar laughed, and Lady Genna chuckled.

  “Enough,” said Jaime. “We have a castle to win.” When his father sat in council, he let his captains speak first. He was resolved to do the same. “How shall we proceed?”

  “Hang Edmure Tully, for a start,” urged Lord Emmon Frey. “That will teach Ser Brynden that we mean what we say. If we send Ser Edmure’s head to his uncle, it may move him to yield.”

  “Brynden Blackfish is not moved so easily.” Karyl Vance, the Lord of Wayfarer’s Rest, had a melancholy look. A winestain birthmark covered half his neck and one side of his face. “His own brother could not move him to a marriage bed.”

  Ser Daven shook his shaggy head. “We have to sto
rm the walls, as I’ve been saying all along. Siege towers, scaling ladders, a ram to break the gate, that’s what’s needed here.”

  “I will lead the assault,” said Strongboar. “Give the fish a taste of steel and fire, that’s what I say.”

  “They are my walls,” protested Lord Emmon, “and that is my gate you would break.” He drew his parchment out of his sleeve again. “King Tommen himself has granted me—”

  “We’ve all seen your paper, nuncle,” snapped Edwyn Frey. “Why don’t you go wave it at the Blackfish for a change?”

  “Storming the walls will be a bloody business,” said Addam Marbrand. “I propose we wait for a moonless night and send a dozen picked men across the river in a boat with muffled oars. They can scale the walls with ropes and grapnels, and open the gates from the inside. I will lead them, if the council wishes.”

  “Folly,” declared the bastard, Walder Rivers. “Ser Brynden is no man to be cozened by such tricks.”

  “The Blackfish is the obstacle,” agreed Edwyn Frey. “His helm bears a black trout on its crest that makes him easy to pick out from afar. I propose that we move our siege towers close, fill them full of bowmen, and feign an attack upon the gates. That will bring Ser Brynden to the battlements, crest and all. Let every archer smear his shafts with night soil, and make that crest his mark. Once Ser Brynden dies, Riverrun is ours.”

  “Mine,” piped Lord Emmon. “Riverrun is mine.”

  Lord Karyl’s birthmark darkened. “Will the night soil be your own contribution, Edwyn? A mortal poison, I don’t doubt.”

  “The Blackfish deserves a nobler death, and I’m the man to give it to him.” Strongboar thumped his fist on the table. “I will challenge him to single combat. Mace or axe or longsword, makes no matter. The old man will be my meat.”