A Dance with Dragons

but they were sober at this hour of the morning. Queen’s men, at least in name, both had a healthy fear of her, and Merrel could be formidable when he was not drunk. She would have no need of them today, but Melisandre made it a point to keep a pair of guards about her everywhere she went. It sent a certain message. The trappings of power.

By the time the three of them emerged north of the Wall the snow was falling steadily. A ragged blanket of white covered the torn and tortured earth that stretched from the Wall to the edge of the haunted forest. Jon Snow and his black brothers were gathered around three spears, some twenty yards away.

The spears were eight feet long and made of ash. The one on the left had a slight crook, but the other two were smooth and straight. At the top of each was impaled a severed head. Their beards were full of ice, and the falling snow had given them white hoods. Where their eyes had been, only empty sockets remained, black and bloody holes that stared down in silent accusation.

“Who were they?” Melisandre asked the crows.

“Black Jack Bulwer, Hairy Hal, and Garth Greyfeather,” Bowen Marsh said solemnly. “The ground is half- frozen. It must have taken the wildlings half the night to drive the spears so deep. They could still be close. Watching us.” The Lord Steward squinted at the line of trees.

“Could be a hundred of them out there,” said the black brother with the dour face. “Could be a thousand.”

“No,” said Jon Snow. “They left their gifts in the black of night, then ran.” His huge white direwolf prowled around the shafts, sniffing, then lifted his leg and pissed on the spear that held the head of Black Jack Bulwer. “Ghost would have their scent if they were still out there.”

“I hope the Weeper burned the bodies,” said the dour man, the one called Dolorous Edd. “Elsewise they might come looking for their heads.”

Jon Snow grasped the spear that bore Garth Greyfeather’s head and wrenched it violently from the ground. “Pull down the other two,” he commanded, and four of the crows hurried to obey.

Bowen Marsh’s cheeks were red with cold. “We should never have sent out rangers.”

“This is not the time and place to pick at that wound. Not here, my lord. Not now.” To the men struggling with the spears Snow said, “Take the heads and burn them. Leave nothing but bare bone.” Only then did he seem to notice Melisandre. “My lady. Walk with me, if you would.”

At last. “If it please the lord commander.”

As they walked beneath the Wall, she slipped her arm through his. Morgan and Merrel went before them, Ghost came prowling at their heels. The priestess did not speak, but she slowed her pace deliberately, and where she walked the ice began to drip. He will not fail to notice that.

Beneath the iron grating of a murder hole Snow broke the silence, as she had known he would. “What of the other six?”

“I have not seen them,” Melisandre said.

“Will you look?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“We’ve had a raven from Ser Denys Mallister at the Shadow Tower,” Jon Snow told her. “His men have seen fires in the mountains on the far side of the Gorge. Wildlings massing, Ser Denys believes. He thinks they are going to try to force the Bridge of Skulls again.”

“Some may.” Could the skulls in her vision have signified this bridge? Somehow Melisandre did not think so. “If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall.”

“Eastwatch?”

Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with King Stannis. That was where His Grace left Queen Selyse and their daughter Shireen when he assembled his knights for the march to Castle Black. The towers in her fire had been different, but that was oft the way with visions. “Yes. Eastwatch, my lord.”

“When?”

She spread her hands. “On the morrow. In a moon’s turn. In a year. And it may be that if you act, you may avert what I have seen entirely.” Else what would be the point of visions?

“Good,” said Snow.

The crowd of crows beyond the gate had swollen to two score by the time they emerged from beneath the Wall. The men pressed close about them. Melisandre knew a few by name: the cook Three-Finger Hobb, Mully with his greasy orange hair, the dim-witted boy called Owen the Oaf, the drunkard Septon Cellador.

“Is it true, m’lord?” said Three-Finger Hobb.

“Who is it?” asked Owen the Oaf. “Not Dywen, is it?”

“Nor Garth,” said the queen’s man she knew as Alf of Runnymudd, one of the first to exchange his seven false gods for the truth of R’hllor. “Garth’s too clever for them wildlings.”

“How many?” Mully asked.

“Three,” Jon told them. “Black Jack, Hairy Hal, and Garth.”

Alf of Runnymudd let out a howl loud enough to wake sleepers in the Shadow Tower. “Put him to bed and get some mulled wine into him,” Jon told Three-Finger Hobb.

“Lord Snow,” Melisandre said quietly. “Will you come with me to the King’s Tower? I have more to share with you.”

He looked at her face for a long moment with those cold grey eyes of his. His right hand closed, opened, closed again. “As you wish. Edd, take Ghost back to my chambers.”

Melisandre took that as a sign and dismissed her own guard as well. They crossed the yard together, just the two of them. The snow fell all around them. She walked as close to Jon Snow as she dared, close enough to feel the mistrust pouring off him like a black fog. He does not love me, will never love me, but he will make use of me. Well and good. Melisandre had danced the same dance with Stannis Baratheon, back in the beginning. In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit. Stannis had been a younger son living in the shadow of his elder brother, just as Jon Snow, bastard-born, had always been eclipsed by his trueborn sibling, the fallen hero men had called the Young Wolf. Both men were unbelievers by nature, mistrustful, suspicious. The only gods they truly worshiped were honor and duty.

“You have not asked about your sister,” Melisandre said, as they climbed the spiral steps of the King’s Tower.

“I told you. I have no sister. We put aside our kin when we say our words. I cannot help Arya, much as I —”

He broke off as they stepped inside her chambers. The wildling was within, seated at her board, spreading butter on a ragged chunk of warm brown bread with his dagger. He had donned the bone armor, she was pleased to see. The broken giant’s skull that was his helm rested on the window seat behind him.

Jon Snow tensed. “You.”

“Lord Snow.” The wildling grinned at them through a mouth of brown and broken teeth. The ruby on his wrist glimmered in the morning light like a dim red star.

“What are you doing here?”

“Breaking my fast. You’re welcome to share.”

“I’ll not break bread with you.”

“Your loss. The loaf’s still warm. Hobb can do that much, at least.” The wildling ripped off a bite. “I could visit you as easily, my lord. Those guards at your door are a bad jape. A man who has climbed the Wall half a hundred times can climb in a window easy enough. But what good would come of killing you? The crows would only choose someone worse.” He chewed, swallowed. “I heard about your rangers. You should have sent me with them.”

“So you could betray them to the Weeper?”

“Are we talking about betrayals? What was the name of that wildling wife of yours, Snow? Ygritte, wasn’t it?” The wildling turned to Melisandre. “I will need horses. Half a dozen good ones. And this is nothing I can do alone. Some of the spearwives penned up at Mole’s Town should serve. Women would be best for this. The girl’s more like to trust them, and they will help me carry off a certain ploy I have in mind.”

“What is he talking about?” Lord Snow asked her.