Chapter 41: The New Cloaks

Jon met the first of the boys on the road below the tower.

A man was leading a lame cart horse uphill while his son pushed at the tailboard. A smaller boy followed with two bundles hung from a stick. Jon drew Bucephalus aside and pointed towards the byre.

“Leave the cart there. The road is steeper beyond the turn.”

The man took off his cap. His eyes went from the black horse to Arthur, then back to Jon.

“We have come about the places, my lord. My eldest. And my sister’s boy.”

“Tomas is waiting at the yard. Tell him where you have left your things.”

The boy pushing the cart straightened. Mortar whitened the creases of his hands; he had his father’s broad shoulders and an anxious frown. His cousin was all wrists and ankles. Both watched Jon ride past, then looked towards Arthur as though the knight might confirm that they had spoken to the right lord.

The call for twenty-five household boys, aged twelve to fourteen, had gone out a sennight earlier. Bundles now filled the gate’s shade. A mother was cutting bread for her son, each slice thinner as she neared the end of the loaf. Beyond her, applicants craned to see the black-armoured riders crossing the upper yard.

“Seventy-three,” Tomas told Jon. “More have been coming since breakfast.”

“Have them fed while they wait. We begin with the first group.”

Jon dismounted and went among them. The mason’s son arrived before Arthur had brought the practice swords. Ellard was thirteen; his cousin Tevan was twelve and had spent much of his childhood among the horses at the stable where his mother washed. Andren, a narrow-faced fourteen-year-old with large ears, knew pack ponies and stripping willow bark. He had brought no weapon.

“Arthur will show you where to stand,” Jon told them. “Listen when he corrects you. I want to see whether you can learn.”

Ellard planted himself as though bracing a stone. Gage stepped around him and touched his shoulder three times before the boy moved his feet. On their next passage Ellard turned sooner. He still lost, but Jon called him back for the afternoon.

Tevan needed a smaller shield. Olyver fetched one while a lad at the rail sniggered. Tomas looked towards him, and the laughter stopped. Andren watched Arthur so closely that he missed his partner’s first stroke; his ears reddened, but he kept his shield up when they began again.

Farther along, Bram squeezed his eyes shut whenever a blade approached. He was thirteen, earnest and terrified of the very work he had walked here to seek. Jon watched him endure another bout before asking what his father did.

“Mends carts, my lord.”

“Have you helped him?”

“Aye.” Bram wiped his nose upon his sleeve. “I can try again.”

“Rest first.”

There were boys Jon dismissed without another hearing. One struck his partner across the mouth after Arthur called them apart. Another was caught tormenting a smaller applicant behind the stable. Gawen regretted losing the second, who had good hands and sat a horse well.

“He can learn elsewhere,” Jon said. “I shall have to sleep with these men outside my door.”

Gawen looked back at the boy, then crossed his name from the roll.

The choosing lasted six days. More than a hundred came before them. At the horses, Tevan recovered the confidence he had lost behind the shield. Gawen sent him round upon an old brown mare with one stirrup crossed over the saddle. He found his balance and brought her back grinning.

“You have done that before.”

“The leather broke, ser. At the stable.”

“Often?”

“Twice.”

Ellard held his reins so tightly that his gelding backed towards the gate. Jon rode beside him until his hands eased. On the uphill run Andren passed boys who had outpaced him upon the flat, keeping the same short stride while their breath failed. Afterwards Ellard took three shields from Tevan without being asked. A quicker swordsman sat upon the trough and left his partner to finish carrying.

Jon kept those things beside his notes on their swordwork. He had already lived long enough to distrust a man who became helpless whenever the work ceased to interest him.

On the sixth evening he chose his twenty-five.

They knelt before the tower with the old household standing along the yard. Parents waited beyond the mounting rail. Andren’s little brother had fallen asleep against their mother’s skirt; Ellard’s father held his cap against his chest.

“I swear my sword and my service to Jon of House Black,” Andren said. His voice shook upon the name. “I will keep faith with him, guard his person and obey those he sets over me.”

Jon held his hands until he looked up.

“I take your service. You shall have your place, your keep and the wages promised to you. Rise, Andren.”

The others followed. Tomas brought the roll with twenty-five new names beneath the twenty-five Jon knew. Abel paid each recruit two silver stags for his first sennight, twice the ordinary foot’s pay. Andren closed both hands around the coins before remembering to thank him.

At the meal Mairi measured Ellard’s shoulders twice.

“He will eat enough for two,” Tevan murmured.

“Then let him have your bowl.”

Tevan drew it closer. Mairi laughed and went to the next boy.

Andren ate half his bread and slipped the remainder inside his coat. Olyver saw.

“For tomorrow?”

“My brother.”

“Bring him over. There is more in the kitchen.”

The little boy woke crossly, but a bowl of mutton and barley settled him between the new guards. Their mother stood behind the bench until Wylla found her a seat. Jon watched Andren put the hidden bread beside his brother’s bowl, then turned to answer a father’s question about sailing.

That night the boys carried their bundles to the waiting beds. Tevan sat as though expecting to be moved. Ellard hung his father’s coat upon a peg. When Jon entered, Andren sprang up and the others followed.

“At ease. You will be up early enough.”

At the door he heard Tevan ask Olyver whether they would receive steel swords in the morning.

“You will receive porridge.”

“After that?”

“Ash swords. Steel when Ser Arthur says you are ready.”

* * *

On the morning after the oaths, Bram waited beside his father’s cart while the chosen boys went to drill.

His bundle lay at his feet. He watched Tevan pass in the coat Mairi had pinned for alteration, then looked away. Torr stood with him, a wheelwright’s helper a year older and no happier about the journey home.

Jon called them before their fathers had harnessed the horses. Six other unsuccessful applicants joined them beneath the stores roof. All had worked hard and obeyed; none had shown enough with horse or weapons to earn a household place.

“Master Otho needs help,” Jon told them. “So do Abel and Lorren. I make no promise until they have seen you work.”

Bram’s father put the harness down.

A small timber frame stood loose upon the bench. Jon pushed it sideways and asked Bram to brace it. The boy tried a crossbar first. The frame still leaned. His father stirred, about to speak, but Bram reached for a diagonal offcut and held it across the corners.

“Like the cart,” he said.

“Show me where you would fasten it.”

Otho came nearer as Bram pointed. Beside them Torr turned two pegs over and rejected one whose grain ran across the head. Emrick split it with a light blow, exposing the weakness Torr had seen.

Abel’s test cost less timber. He set thirty copper pennies beside a firewood bill and asked payment for six bundles at four pennies each. Perrin made six heaps, counted the remainder and looked up.

“Six back, my lord.”

Perrin could reckon readily but knew little beyond tally strokes. Halren, twelve, read the bill and copied a cramped line, checking it himself to restore a word he had missed. Abel took both names.

Lorren had a carter waiting for his forearm to be dressed. Denner brought the basin without splashing the man’s boots. He had been too slight to hold his shield against the household, but now he watched the carter’s face rather than the wound.

Willen, a washerwoman’s son with an old burn beside his thumb, kept the clean linen off the bench. When the carter complained that the binding pulled, he stopped and looked to Lorren.

“Hold it there.” Lorren felt beneath the turn and guided his hand. “Less tightly.”

The man flexed his fingers. Willen watched until the healer nodded.

“I can use these two,” Lorren told Jon. “They will need teaching from the beginning.”

“Then begin there. They learn their letters with the others.” Jon looked at the boys. “You ask before touching a wound or giving anyone physic. Master Lorren decides what you are ready to do.”

Both answered. The remaining two had found neither the sums nor the work to their liking. Jon gave them food for the road and their answer before their families lost another day waiting.

Bram and Torr would learn building from Otho, moving parts from Henly and Emrick. Abel took Perrin and Halren; Willen and Denner went with Lorren. That evening the six knelt to swear, hearing their duties, keep and apprentice wages before Abel entered their names apart from the fighting rolls.

“Should he bring his blanket?” Torr’s father asked.

“And his spare shirt,” Jon said.

“I washed both, my lord.”

Torr studied his boots. Bram was still holding the little drawing Otho had made him copy. His father touched the diagonal line.

“Same as the cart.”

“Henly says they use them for bridges too.”

The man looked towards Henly, then back at his son. He folded the drawing carefully rather than stuffing it among the boy’s things.

Mairi arrived with black wool over her arm. Jon asked Otho to put on the short works coat she had brought, then had him reach across the bench to see whether it pulled.

“Black at the collar,” Jon said. “A pair of axes in silver thread upon the sleeve. For all the fabri.”

Bram glanced at Otho.

“Craftsmen,” Otho told him. “Engineers, here. Men building bridges and engines must be easy to find when someone needs them.”

“Henly and Emrick’s crews take the same cut, with a silver bolt,” Jon added. “Libritors. The men who serve the engines.”

Mairi entered the two commanders above the twelve names on their roll. Abel’s apprentices would have clerks’ coats. Lorren wanted something a frightened soldier could recognise through a crowd.

“White linen upon both upper arms,” Jon said. “Broad bands.”

“And loose enough to remove for washing,” Wylla added. “Blood need not ruin the whole coat.”

Lorren agreed. His two would be capsarii, carrying the dressings and learning to tend the injured under their medicus. Jon had Ewan make lighter axes for the engineers’ apprentices and properly sheathed long knives for the medical boys.

Bram had spent six days watching swords pass him. Now he stood patiently while Mairi measured his sleeve.

Next morning Jon found him beside a bridge frame, arguing that the crosspiece was too short. Otho checked the drawing. Bram had fetched the piece for the narrower frame standing next to it.

His pleasure vanished.

“Fetch the other,” Jon said. “You have found the mistake before we fastened it.”

They measured across the corners together, then Torr drove the wedges while Emrick steadied the timber. Bram stepped back to look at what they had assembled.

“I thought I would have to go home, my lord.”

“You have work here. Learn it.”

Jon went along the timbers with Otho. Behind them, Bram asked Henly how to remove a wedge without splitting its head.

* * *

By the end of their first sennight Tomas had divided the household into eight files of six, old guards among the new. He and Alasdair stood apart as captain and deputy. Andren went to Olyver, Tevan to Gage. The four new file leaders came from Jon’s first intake.

It made fifty riders, but a slower escort. Boys followed Jon through a gap and left his other side open. Horses crowded at turns. Rylas complained about repeating work he had mastered years ago; Jon heard him through the stable door.

“He will be beside you when we sail. Teach him now.”

“Aye, my lord.”

Letters cost the new boys more pride than riding. Tevan could settle an uneasy mare, but could not find his own name upon Cadan’s page. Andren broke his chalk pressing too hard. Jon sat beside him with another piece and guided his first letter.

“Must we write as well?”

“You may need to send me a message when you cannot bring it yourself.”

At the far end Tevan whispered each letter under his breath. Ellard moved his primer nearer so they could compare the two. Olyver waited while Andren tried again, resisting the urge to finish the shape for him.

While the new boys learned to wear armour, Jon was drawing his own. Arthur found him at the chamber table after drill, setting the view of a shoulder beside its separate plates. Below the window, Noll’s men were calling the next household file for measurements.

“Noll has seen these?” Arthur asked.

“He helped me change the elbow. This order goes to Tobho Mott.”

“You have armourers here.”

“And I want to see work they have never learned. Mott was trained in Qohor. He can colour steel without painting it.” Jon turned the breastplate towards him. “Black, with the edges bright. I have asked how he would close this gap without hindering the arm.”

Arthur reached across his breast, testing the movement against the drawing. Jon remembered the forge where Ice had become two swords. The Blackworks could equip an army; it could not yet match everything one Qohorik knew. He wanted Mott in his service when he went to Valyria. A commission would let him judge the man’s work first.

“It will be dear.”

“I have asked his price.”

Arthur moved the third sheet nearer. They were still discussing the shoulder when Wylla came for them. She saw Jon hide his ink-stained hand against his sleeve.

“That is the good coat.”

He checked the black velvet. Its silver buttons had escaped. She took his wrist and cleaned it before allowing him near the drawings again.

Next morning the order went through his factor. Ethan received a request to send sound dragonglass from Dragonstone to Mott’s shop. Jon wanted to know whether the armourer could give steel its shifting lustre; he offered to pay for the trials, with no demand that an impossible finish be promised to please him.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Once those drawings were folded, Otho brought a wooden model to the cleared table. Henly had made it from the scorpions he studied at Oldtown. Emrick knew similar engines from Gulltown, where his father’s customers had included the men tending the weapons upon the walls.

Westeros already knew how to throw a heavy bolt. He wanted an engine that could travel with his men and be brought into use without consuming half a day.

Otho bent behind the model. Its middle upright hid much of the window beyond it.

“You cannot see what you are aiming at.”

“That is why I have taken it out of mine.” Jon put another drawing beside it.

“An open frame.” Otho followed the curve with his finger. “Iron across here, then.”

“We can make it now.”

Bram and Torr had been copying tool names at the table’s end. Both had stopped. Jon beckoned them nearer and held the model while Otho traced where the force would pass into the stand.

“A bow is easier to carry,” Torr said.

“Much easier. This needs a wagon, tools and men who know it. It must earn all of them.”

In his former life Jon had drawn Roman engines for pleasure. Here he would have to pay for every failed piece and feed the men hauling it. He wanted a clear view along the bolt, a mounting that could turn without dragging the whole stand round, and fittings his smiths could replace away from home.

Otho looked towards the carriage sketched beneath it.

“You mean to take it south.”

“Two, if the first proves worth taking. We have another year here after this one.” Jon drew a stool beside him. “What will trouble you most upon the road?”

“Getting it off the wagon in mud. Then finding where to put it.”

“Begin there.”

Woods, the carpenter, entered to fetch his apprentices and stopped behind Otho. After a moment he pointed to one joint.

“Which timber have you allowed for that?”

“The seasoned stack.”

“Come and see it before you settle the drawing, my lord. You cannot put the grain wherever the ink goes.”

Jon gathered the papers. Bram and Torr carried the model after them, trying to keep its little arms clear of the door. Below, the household was beginning another mounted turn. Tevan looked towards the model and let his mare drift towards Ellard’s gelding. Gage called him back into place.

Henly laid the model upon a timber between the boys. Bram held it down against the breeze while Torr fetched the measuring cord. The next drawing was made with Woods beside them and the chosen wood beneath Jon’s hand.

* * *

Mairi delivered the coats in the fourth sennight after measuring. By then the first engine lay in pieces across three benches, and Bram left his tools lying there when he saw the clothing basket.

He stood beneath the stores roof fingering the crossed axes upon his sleeve. Torr pretended to examine his own hem, but kept looking at the badge. Around them Otho’s older craftsmen tried the same short black coats, their collars left entirely plain. Henly wanted a shoulder seam let out. Emrick reached for a heavy piece and found he could move comfortably enough to keep his on.

“Hang it up before you go beneath the frame,” Henly told Bram. “You have spent a moon waiting for it.”

The boy took it off reluctantly. His new axe had a lighter head and shorter haft than Otho’s, but it still caught the bench when he turned. Henly showed him where to put it down.

At the infirmary door Wylla fastened broad white bands about Willen’s upper arms. Lorren watched, then sent him inside to fetch a dressing. Denner remained holding his knife sheath against his thigh as though it might wander away.

A spearman approached with one swollen finger held stiffly before him. He saw the white linen and stopped beside Denner.

“Is the healer here?”

“Inside. I’ll take you.”

The boy forgot his knife at once. Jon followed far enough to see him bring a basin when Lorren asked for it. Willen kept the new dressing clear of the table while the old one came away.

Aries watched from the step, an empty clothing basket against his hip.

“Should I have white bands?”

“You are Lord Jon’s page,” Wylla told him. “Those tell an injured man whom to call.”

Aries watched Denner set his basin beside the stool. Then Patch nosed towards a bowl beneath the bench, and he drew the dog away with a hand upon its neck.

“Come on. That isn’t yours.”

Jon left them with Mairi and crossed to the forge. After drill he worked beside Ewan whenever the armour orders permitted it. Woods’s men shaped the engine timbers; Henly bought prepared spring bundles through Osric from a maker of ordinary scorpions. Emrick’s six kept examining the travelling catapult, bringing each worn part to Otho with the man who had found it.

At the powered boring bench, Bram leaned towards the turning tool until Otho caught his coat.

“You can see from here.”

A bright curl of metal fell. Jon stopped the tool, changed the blank in its holding frame and checked the next opening against Otho’s gauge. Bram watched the second fitting take the same place as the first.

Ewan rubbed his beard. “I could use that frame for the mill fittings.”

“With a different face,” Jon said. “Draw it.”

Otho reached for the charcoal. Ewan took it first.

“I know what the mill asks for.”

He sat, his broad fingers nearly hiding the charcoal. Otho bent beside him to put the measurements in order. Jon left them arguing amiably over the drawing and went to see what Woods had changed beneath the engine bed.

A knot lay beside the place where Jon had meant to cut the joint. Woods had lengthened its bearing into sound timber.

“There was enough wood,” the carpenter said. “There wasn’t enough good wood.”

Jon traced the altered joint. It would take the strain without making the frame too heavy for the men. He crawled out, changed his drawing and told Woods to keep the shape for the second engine.

Bram was grinning at him.

“What?”

“Your hair, my lord.”

Woods offered a brush. Jon had collected half the shavings beneath the bench in his white forelock.

When the engine stood assembled, Otho walked around it twice. The dark iron frame left the middle open. From behind it, Jon could see the far doors without leaning sideways. He turned the mounting and beckoned Henly to try.

Henly moved it, crouched at the bearing, then stood again.

“What shall I put in the stores book? They are calling it the open scorpion.”

“Ballista.”

Bram repeated the word as he wrote it, squeezing the last letter into the space left upon his slate.

For the first shooting Jon chose a hollow beyond the practice ground, with an earthen bank behind the targets and no crofts or grazing animals beyond. Household guards held the paths. Henly’s six worked at the engine while Emrick’s crew watched; Bram and Torr laid out the trial book where the wind would not turn its leaves.

Jon checked the ground with Otho before taking his place. The separate assemblies had passed their tests in the shed.

At his command the release cracked through the hollow.

The bolt vanished too quickly to follow. A plank jumped from the distant screen, and something struck the bank behind it. Bram’s slate fell from his knee. He stared towards the target without reaching for it.

Once the engine was safe, Jon walked down with Henly and Otho. The bolt had pierced the rain-dark wood. Fresh pale edges showed around the hole.

Ewan came after them, his forge apron still on. He put his fingers against the split plank, then looked back along the distance they had walked.

Jon returned to the engine for a second shot and gave Henly the third. All three reached the screen, but the holes moved farther apart. Henly frowned at the mounting.

“I have kept the same setting.”

Jon crouched beside the stand. One foot had settled into softer earth.

“Bring the first drawing, Otho.”

They measured what had moved before lifting anything. The ironwork held; the ground beneath it had shifted enough to spoil the aim. Henly stood beside them, rubbing a thumb along his jaw.

“Then the wagon timbers go underneath.”

“Try them.”

The afternoon went into lifting, packing and shooting again. This time the scars grouped closely enough for Ewan to spread one hand beside them.

“Leave that plank whole when you take it down,” he said.

While the crews packed, Otho and Jon knelt over the trial sheet. The supports must travel with the weapon; another wagon merely to carry what kept it steady would be a poor answer. Bram held the paper against the breeze. By the time Arthur brought their cloaks, the boy was pointing to a place upon the carriage where a timber might ride.

* * *

Rain kept them under cover for much of the next sennight. Otho read the trial book with Bram and Torr while Hugin shook water over their slates. Wylla rescued Jon’s dinner from the crow and made them clear an end of the table for their bowls.

“Henly could have the second frame ready next sennight,” Otho said.

“If the armour benches release the iron. We finish what Noll has been promised first.”

Whenever the ground allowed, they returned to the hollow. Henly learned what wet weather changed; Emrick found what a journey loosened. The second engine’s spare fittings went into place without Ewan’s file, though its chest had to be repacked when the most useful pieces proved to be beneath everything else.

Mott’s answer arrived while they were doing that. Seventy dragons for the harness and black-finish trials, with no promise about the dragonglass. Fresh measurements must precede the final fitting; the first set would not serve a growing boy.

Jon took the returned drawings to Noll. Mott had lengthened the shoulder overlap and changed the way the upper arm hung. Noll followed the plates with one finger, slowly bending his own arm.

“Seventy dragons for one suit.” He read the letter again. “I should like to see it when he is done.”

“You shall. Tell me what he has done better.”

Jon accepted the price. Thirty-five dragons would go south in earnest, the rest upon delivery and fitting. He asked for the harness before his departure in the fourth year.

That evening he wrote to Ethan about rooms for William’s clockmakers. The first workshop drawing allowed one room; William now needed several benches, space for cases and somewhere to teach. Jon copied the changes in the Common Tongue, keeping the English notes inside his black book.

Jon turned back to the pages he had set aside for Dragonstone. Printing would need a steady supply of cheap paper; he had sketched a mill beside the first drawings of a press. Farther on were glass furnaces and stills, with gaps where his memory had failed him. Clear panes and good mirrors would find buyers among the wealthy. A spirit worth drinking might bring the same merchants back year after year. He wanted whole trades established on the island, each with men who could teach others as William was learning to do.

He added a request for Ethan to reserve ground for more workshops. Some of the masters he needed would have to be sought in the ports of the narrow sea, and paid enough to bring their families and apprentices. The clock sales would be sufficient at first. Once they were settled on Dragonstone, he could reach buyers in King’s Landing and the eastern ports far more readily than he could from the North. That wider market should pay for the first workshops and give their men time to learn.

Beside his reckoning for a royal household and standing army he wrote Royal monopolies, in English. The works he founded would remain his, run by masters he appointed and could replace. Merchants might buy the right to sell the finished wares; he would keep ownership of the workshops and control of their methods. When he took the throne, he meant to secure those privileges for the Crown. Their profits, after wages, materials and upkeep, would help maintain his fleet and pay men who served throughout the year. He would need far more of both to face what was coming. He had no wish to sell away that income and then find himself asking a great lord or a banker for the money to fight.

Once he would have asked what prevented such a ruler from abusing his power. Believing he would use it well was an uncomfortable answer. He kept that page in the black book.

Time troubled him more. If events followed the books, he would be fourteen when Robert rode north. By then he needed more than workshops beginning to earn their keep. Training soldiers and building ships took years, and both consumed money long before they were of any use. Either he found a way to delay the struggle for the throne, or he would need a fortune well beyond what the clocks could earn in the time left to him.

His thoughts returned to Valyria. Even a small part of the wealth buried in its ruined cities might pay for years of work on Dragonstone. His stomach tightened as he imagined taking a ship full of his people into those waters. The books had given him no safe passage through the Doom; he could lose the ship and every man aboard her. He sat with the quill idle in his hand. He dreaded making that choice, but the voyage might still offer his best chance of being ready.

When he returned to Ethan’s letter, he added a secure room for the clock patterns, then checked that William still had the space he had asked for.

Clem sent the letter from the tower. Months of carrying birds between Dragonstone and the North had finally given them a direct exchange; Jon no longer needed every question passed through Winterfell.

When the rain cleared, the household rode beyond the crofts in eight files. Gage had to remind Tevan of his distance, but all fifty returned through the coppice without leaving Jon’s flank uncovered. Rylas spent the last stretch speaking quietly to the younger man beside him. Jon could not hear the correction, but the boy’s shield moved closer.

Before supper Arthur helped him upon the tower roof with Hugin and Munin. The crows knew the bundle of old wool upon the practice staff, though it held no meat that evening. Jon urged Hugin towards it without leaving his own body. The crow struck; Munin followed, beating her wings against the cloth.

“Both?” Arthur asked.

“Only Hugin. She followed him.”

He called them back, his own hands still upon the parapet. Directing every turn would mean going into the bird. An urge was enough for this. Arthur raised the staff again, and Jon brought Hugin away before his claws touched the wool.

After supper the officers gathered over Henly’s camp drawing. Jon had borrowed the difficulty from his reading of Caesar at the Sabis: a victorious wing pursuing while the other struggled and the camp lay threatened.

Six black counters represented their six centuries of eighty. Two had pursued across a brook on the left; two fought below the camp’s right flank. The last pair waited by its unfinished bank. Malcolm commanded. Hewyn would advise only when asked.

“Rennick, bring the left back across the brook,” Malcolm said.

“They are running. Another push might finish them.”

“Norren needs help.”

Jon moved an enemy counter towards the camp. “Your messenger has not reached Rennick yet.”

Malcolm sent one reserve to the Third Spears and kept the other above them. When Jon delayed Rennick further, he drew Norren’s wing uphill to join the remaining reserve beside the camp’s bank.

“You have given up the slope,” Jon said.

“I cannot hold it and help Rennick. He can find us here.”

Rennick brought his men back by turns, one century covering the other. Malcolm began moving them behind the enemy, then stopped when Jon asked whether they could see across the ridge.

“To the camp first,” he decided. “Rymond can send them where they are needed. He need not wait for me.”

The officers disputed the lost ground long after the counters had met again. Jon let them. Across the table, Henly had begun tracing where he would place the engines to cover a withdrawal.

Eight weeks after their first drawings, Arthur found both ballistae being taken apart for a journey over the ridge. Kester wrapped fittings while Emrick’s six bound the second engine’s timbers. Jon stood among them eating cold bread.

“Your father ought to see them shoot,” Arthur said. “Rodrik too. I have served beside wall scorpions, but never crews who could bring a pair out with the baggage and work them like this.”

“Ask them for tomorrow. Robb and Theon as well.”

Arthur returned from Winterfell that evening with their acceptance and Arya’s demand that she be allowed to come. Eddard had written it beneath his own answer. She had added a black thumbprint beside it.

* * *

Jon rode over the ridge early. In the dew-bright hollow Otho guided the first wagon to its supports. Bram and Torr carried drawings under oilcloth; the libritors pulled their short black coats clear of the wheels to reach the lashings.

Beyond the plank screen stood three straw-filled wicker figures with round shields, one slanting. White cloths marked the backing bank. Household men held the paths and Hewyn sent a pair to the ridge.

Jon bent beside Henly to sight along the nearer engine. Its support held as the crew turned it. Otho examined the ground, nodded and took his pupils to the second.

Jory appeared on the ridge with two Stark guards. Robb followed, eyes fixed on the engines; Eddard had Arya before him, her brown hair blowing into his beard. Rodrik rode beside Theon, who was splendid in a dark green doublet and boots too clean for the hollow. Four more guards followed.

Arthur guided them down. Jon lifted Arya from the saddle before she slid beneath the pommel; Jory left two men with the horses.

“You came early,” Jon told her.

“I was dressed before Sansa.” She looked at his tied hair, then at the nearest ballista. “Is that yours?”

“Aye. Come up here with Father. You will see it better.”

Arya held two of Jon’s fingers up to the rise, where Wylla spread a blanket beside her apples. She sat only when he promised to return. He called Robb and Rodrik back from their questions at the engine.

Kester read Henly the last trial entry. He had needed help with his own terms at the muster; now his finger moved steadily along the line. Emrick raised a hand after his crew answered.

Both engines stood ready.

Jon gave Henly the first shot. The crack was louder than Robb expected; his head jerked round after the bolt had gone. Across the hollow a plank burst backwards from the screen. Splinters scattered against the bank beyond it.

Arya clapped her hands over her ears. “Again!”

Wylla drew her back onto the blanket. Henly’s men were already at work. One reached for the next bolt while Kester entered the shot; the others moved about the engine without calling across one another. Jon went to Emrick.

“The shield upon the left.”

Emrick bent to look, made his correction and straightened. At his command the second ballista struck. The shield kicked sideways. Its iron boss flashed as it turned, then the whole wicker figure sagged against the frame behind it. A bundle of straw slid down its legs.

Theon lowered the apple he had taken from Wylla’s basket.

“Did it go through?” Robb asked.

“We shall look when they have finished,” Jon said.

Rodrik watched Merrit at the engine. “The same lads you took after the muster?” Jon nodded. Merrit glanced round at his name; Emrick called him back before he could bow.

At the farther figures Henly’s first bolt missed. Kester entered it in the book while Jon spoke to the commander beside the sight. The next tore away the wicker shoulders, drawing a shout from Robb.

“Could they turn upon horsemen?” Eddard asked.

“On open ground, with room to see them coming. Hewyn’s spears would keep riders off the crews.” Jon watched Emrick’s men ready their next bolt. “I would put the engines where men must come towards them: a road, a ford, the approach to a gate. I can move them when I move the army.”

“And upon a rough road?” Rodrik asked.

“They have crossed the ridge twice now. Today Otho will take them back by the lower track and examine what the wheels shake loose.”

Rodrik rubbed one white whisker between finger and thumb. “I should like to see that too.”

Emrick’s last shot caught the slanting shield near its rim. It split the edge and glanced into the earth beyond. The shield remained hanging, badly crooked. Theon pointed to it as Jon called the trial to an end.

“That one kept his head.”

“Go and see what else he kept,” Arthur said.

When Henly and Emrick had finished at the engines, Jon led the visitors down to the targets. Damp grass brushed his boots. Robb went ahead with Theon; Eddard took Arya’s hand while Rodrik lingered beside the planked screen.

The first bolt lay buried in the bank beyond the broken boards. At the wicker figures, Robb knelt to look through the hole left in the shield. Theon tried to raise the one that had turned the last shot. It came away from its straps, and he had to catch it against his knee. Two planks hung loose from the boss.

“You may have that one,” Jon told him.

Theon looked at the ruined shield, then towards the long slope back to the horses. He set it down carefully. “I shall admire it here.”

Eddard examined the torn wicker, then looked back to the engines. Henly’s men packed while Merrit showed his crew a loose fastening. Otho checked the support while Bram held the drawing.

As they returned to the engines, Eddard stopped beside Bram.

“You helped build them?”

“Only the work Master Otho gave me, my lord.”

Bram showed him the drawing of the first stand and explained why they had changed it. He stumbled over one word, but Lord Stark waited. When Eddard nodded, the boy’s fingers strayed to the silver axes upon his sleeve.

Arthur turned a shield splinter in his fingers. “I have spent most of my life learning to reach a man before he strikes me. I would want a great deal of ground between myself and those. And men I trusted beside me when I tried.”

“Write down what fails on the road,” Rodrik said. “I want that as well as the shooting.”

“Otho will bring you the book.” Jon turned as Arya began hauling at her father’s hand with both of hers. Wylla had folded the blanket.

* * *

By the time they reached the tower, Arya had decided she wanted a ballista.

“A small one,” she told Jon, holding her hands apart. “For my room.”

“What would you shoot?”

“Peas.”

Theon laughed behind them. “Do not encourage her,” Wylla told him.

“You have a spoon already,” Jon said.

Arya considered that. He regretted saying it before they reached the stair.

Wylla had set cold fowl, bread, peas and Winterfell strawberries in the tower room, both shutters open to the breeze. Jory sat by the door; a platter went down to the guards with the horses. Eddard held Arya’s sleeves while Wylla scrubbed soot from her knuckles.

Jon found a matching handprint on his coat. He laid it over a chest and caught Wylla looking.

“I shall brush it.”

“You shall bring it down.” She brushed dust from his white forelock. “Now eat.”

Arya climbed beside him. He tucked a strand behind her ear; she shook it free. Across the table Rodrik questioned Arthur while Eddard turned his cup. Robb gave Jon the loaf’s end and took the next slice without quarrelling.

Jon felt something touch his knee.

Arya’s spoon held a single pea. She had braced it against the edge of the bench. Her thumb was drawing it back.

He took the pea and ate it.

“Jon!”

“Next one as well.”

She looked at his mouth, appalled by this defence, then hid the spoon beneath her thigh. Robb had watched the whole thing. He bent over his plate with his shoulders shaking.

Wylla carved Jon more fowl. For a little while they only ate, the wagon going to the engine shed rattling beneath their window.

Arya leaned against Jon, then sat up again.

“Sing the maiden.”

“With my mouth full?”

Arya watched his mouth until he swallowed.

“You know it,” he said. “Begin.”

Arya drew breath and stopped. She knew the hounds. She knew the robber, whom she had made much worse since Sansa last told the story. The beginning escaped her entirely.

Jon wiped his fingers and sang it for her. His voice was still clear and high, carrying easily through the open room.

She came upon the black gate,

With frost upon her nose;

She gave the hounds her oatcake,

And warmed her frozen toes.

Arya joined him upon the last word, much too loudly. Eddard’s cup came to rest. Arthur glanced at him; then Arya seized Jon’s sleeve because he had reached the robber before she was ready.

“He takes her cloak,” Robb reminded her.

“She bites him.”

“She needs him to open the gate.”

“On his bottom.”

Theon put down his cup. Jon tried to continue, lost the tune, and laughed with him. Arya laughed because they were laughing, showing the little teeth she meant the maiden to use.

“Sansa will never let you keep that,” Robb said.

“Sansa isn’t here.”

She scrambled onto her knees to sing her part. It contained no tune that Jon recognised, and more biting than was needed to open any gate. Wylla laughed into the cloth she was folding. At the window, Eddard’s stern mouth softened.

Jon caught Arya sliding off the bench and settled her against him. He sang the next verse softly, giving the robber torn breeches and a long run home. Her cheek reached his sleeve before the maiden came back to the gate. She lasted through the hounds; the last oatcake went uneaten.

He shook his head when Wylla rose to take her and shifted his arm beneath the warm weight. Rodrik went on telling Eddard which road would be driest.