Chapter 56: The King’s Pleasure

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."