Archive of Our Own

“Not to speak? Not to speak? But have you not heard? –

the hero always has to have the final…

have the final… have the…”

– Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac

freely adapted from the play by Edmond Rostand

I.

Grenn was trembling like a leaf.

You’d think he was about to ride to battle. Well– to be fair, perhaps it was a certain type of battle. At least it was for Grenn.

“She isn’t going to bite your ear off.” Pyp was draped dramatically across his small bed in his small quarters, a small room in the old Flint Barracks that had a small window and shared a wall with Grenn’s. Grenn was stood in the corner, fiddling with the buttons on his doublet in front of Pyp’s looking glass. The window looked out onto the grounds of Castle Black, abustle even this late at night with stewards preparing all sorts of things for the great ranging that was to leave the next morning. Pyp’s task, however, was somewhat more gruelling.

“It’s not my ear I’m worried about.”

“She’s not going to bite off anything, stupid.”

“Will you stop it with the biting.” Grenn turned, and Pyp almost laughed at how distraught he looked, but refrained, if only to be polite. “It’s normal to be nervous.” He paused to tremble again. “It’s normal.”

Pyp rolled himself off the bed and stood, stretching a little. “What’ve you got to be so nervous for, anyway?” Grenn was a big rugged man, scruffy, well over six foot tall, with hands big as hams and a jolly, pleasant smile. And not a bad face, neither. Objectively speaking. Sure, he was a bit ungainly, and slow to find his words, but he was kind and fierce, and he had a big heart. Yes, Pyp, that's what whores like. A big heart.

Grenn pouted. “I just… I only hope she likes me, is all.”

“She’s a whore,” Pyp snorted, knocking Grenn’s arm with a bony elbow. “She doesn’t have to like you, only your coin.” He paused. Grenn looked flushed with shame, so he softened. “Ah, Grenn, you’re thick as a castle wall, you are. She’ll like you anyway. You know, I was always surprised that you haven’t…”

Grenn glared at him, but a smile threatened at the corners of his mouth. “Aye, I haven’t.”

Pyp clicked his tongue. “Sad world we’re in where I have, and you haven’t.” His first had been one of the girls in his troupe, Marra, more of a sister to him than anything, but it had been pleasant enough. Nothing much to crow about, but Grenn didn’t need to hear that. “A sad world indeed. A world that needs fixing.”

Grenn screwed up his mouth and flushed even harder. “Aye,” was all he said.

“So?” Pyp challenged, opening the door and ushering him out. “You want to die a maid?”

Outside, the wind was biting. The moon was halfway up the sky, close enough to kiss the bleeding red of the comet. Mormont’s Torch, they called it, for how it lit the way north. Mormont’s Cock, Pyp had named it when he heard that, for how it rose red and bulbous in the night. They’d all laughed at that, even Jon. Half the stewards were running about, fetching this thing or the other, and half the rangers were already in Mole’s Town, digging.

Across the yard, Conwy was shepherding his group of bedraggled recruits to their new quarters. All of them looked unpromising, but then, Pyp reckoned, so had he. One was wearing stained silks of a garish bruised purple, and looked as if he was like to faint from fear at any moment. His dark hair fell unbound in loose curls around his shoulders.

“Bet you a groat that one’s part Dornish,” he said to Grenn, pointing. “He might be prettier than your whore.”

“How’d you know he’s Dornish?”

“Well he looks it, don’t he?” Pyp had a gift for telling where someone was from before they ever met. He supposed it came naturally from all the mummers’ travels, but he preferred to name it magic.

“And what’s a Dornishman look like?”

“Well, that.”

“You make me feel so stupid,” Grenn threatened, but he followed Pyp to the armoury all the same, the Dornishman and his silk forgotten. There, Todder and Halder were leaning against the door, waiting.

“The aurochs has come to join us,” Toad noticed. Toad was always noticing things. “So he’s no wet craven after all.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Halder. He had a sweeter tone than Toad, and an openness to him that made him well-liked among all the brothers of the Watch. He gripped Grenn’s upper arm in a gloved hand and grinned. “We’ve cause to celebrate. Won’t have you cold and lonely the night before your first ranging. And what a ranging it’ll be!”

Aye, what a ranging. There was a lump in Pyp’s throat. What had he been named to the rangers for, if not to range? Even Jon was going. Even Sam, the sweet fat fool. He wouldn’t be so wroth about being stuck at the castle with the sorry likes of Todder and Rast if Grenn was staying too. But he isn’t, is he, Pypar. And what’ll you do if he doesn’t return? “Is Matthar not coming?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Har. He’s praying.”

“He’s always praying,” Pyp said sourly. “Nobody here’s any fun at all.”

“You’d be right about that,” Halder muttered, just as Jon and Sam exited the maester’s quarters and began to walk toward them, smiling pleasantly enough. Pyp had no faith they’d join their little outing, but he supposed he must try all the same, if only to see what Samwell Tarly would do when presented with a whore. Jon was a different matter entirely.

Jon Snow had warm, sharp eyes the colour of flint, but his brows tended to curve up towards a look of pity more often than not when he spoke to you, as if he wished that every peasant boy in the Seven Kingdoms had been born in a great stone castle as he had, with swaddling clothes of fox fur and painted silks. For Jon Snow was a fool– a sweet fool with a heavy heart, but a fool nonetheless, trusting in oaths and courts and structures and duty and words. Words aren’t wind, boy, Pyp remembered one of the older mummers telling him once when he’d been in his cups, they’re shadow puppets on a white wall, words and lords and kings, and all puppets dance on someone else’s string. Jon danced on honour’s spun silver string, and did not know what it meant to starve, so he pitied all those that did and considered it a kindness.

Pyp, however, pitied Jon.

“What’s all this, then?” Jon asked with a sad sort of smile. All his smiles were sad. “Cold, to just be standing around at this hour.” Indeed, Sam was shivering. Pyp felt warm enough in his black leather and furs, though many said his blood ran hotter than most.

Grenn smiled sheepishly. “We’re–” he started, then trailed off when he remembered what they were doing was technically oathbreaking. “Well, we’re going to celebrate. You know. The ranging.” When Grenn blushed his whole face went red and ruddy. Even his ears.

“He’s not going to tell on us, you lunk, he’s our friend,” Pyp complained. He turned to Jon. Dare you to tell on us, Snow. “We’re buying Grenn his first woman. He deserves it, a man grown now and all. You’re welcome to join, if you’ve got a few coppers to spare.” He waggled his ears.

“The men of the Night’s Watch have no need of coin,” Jon said carefully.

Pyp smirked. “To you, the men of the Night’s Watch have no need of whores.”

Now Sam was blushing too, his mouth opening and closing like he was some great white fish. “I must needs return. To the vaults. Maester Aemon sent me. For maps.” Almost as abruptly as he arrived, he turned away and promptly left. Jon stared after him, a mix of pity, amazement and bewilderment in his gaze.

“And you, Snow?” Halder prompted. “It’ll be your first ranging too. Come with us, there’ll be ale. And girls, of course. Can’t forget that.”

Jon laughed solemnly. How he even managed to laugh solemnly Pyp would never understand. “I think not, I’m afraid.”

“The bastard’s afraid of begetting more bastards,” Toad said matter-of-factly. So perceptive of you, Todder, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the observation. “Aye, but they all quaff moon tea like it’s water, you’re safe there.”

“Do what you want,” Jon said with a bite to his tone that invited no argument. “I took a vow.” He turned just as quickly as Sam had, back towards his quarters, without even wishing them farewell.

Jon was someone who made for a good friend, but a vicious enemy, and Toad’s mockery was discomforting to Pyp. For all his pitying looks and sullen way of speaking, Jon had a righteous kindness to him, and was fiercely devoted to his principles and to his friends. Toad was only devoted to wine and insults. But Toad knew his way around the brothel in Mole’s Town, and that made him useful, for this night at least.

Grenn frowned. “That wasn’t honourable,” he told Toad, “what you said to Jon. About bastards and all.”

Toad simply shrugged. “He wasn’t going to come along anyway. Is the little lord even interested in girls, d’you think?” He shook his head, sighed, and started to lead them to the stables. Pyp swallowed a retort and followed him.

Mole’s Town was bustling as well by the time they got there, busy with black brothers. Some were drinking in small groups outside the little ale house. Others dawdled outside the shack that denoted the entrance to the brothel. Most had their hoods up, their thick scarves pulled up over their noses, hiding their faces as if they worried they’d get thrown out of the Watch at any moment. Pyp had an eye for faces, though, and recognized several senior officers under their black cloth. I won’t tell if you won’t.

Grenn was shaking again as they tied up their horses and made their way towards the brothel, the red lantern painting everyone’s faces the scarlet of shame. They headed to the ale house first and sat down at a table towards the back. Halder was counting out coins. “You should be on your knees thanking us, Aurochs,” he said plaintively. “All this, everyone’s last savings thrown together, all for a few tankards of ale and one bloody woman.”

Somehow Grenn looked even more nervous at that. “And I’ll have to go in alone, you said?”

“What, d’you want us to hold your hand and show you where to put it?” Pyp snorted. Toad snatched up some of the coins and went to buy them all a tankard each. “You do know where to put it, I assume? Gods, though, you’re so clumsy you might muck it up anyway.”

Halder laughed (though Grenn did not). “Ah, Grenn, don’t you worry about that. The girl you choose’ll help you through it, they’re all sweet enough, when it suits them.” He grinned. “Trust me.”

Toad returned with the ale. Grenn drank his down quick as anything, panting for breath when he’d drained the tankard. “Someone’s thirsty,” Pyp deadpanned with a raised eyebrow. “Sure you’re ready to do this?”

“I don’t know,” Grenn said hollowly, looking lost. “You’re the one told me so sweetly not to die a maid.”

“Did I say that?” Pyp grimaced. “Ah, don’t look so glum, you great big lunk. It’s our coin you’re spending, you ought to be grateful.” Why should Grenn be nervous around a girl? Perhaps he was worried he’d be stuck with an ugly one. That was fair.

“I am grateful.” Grenn was quiet. “I am.” He got up and gave them a curt nod, taking the pouch of coins. “I suppose I’ll go now.”

Pyp was finished his ale by then. Toad and Halder were still drinking theirs, giving the two of them strange looks. “I’ll walk you there. Make sure this one doesn’t run off in the night. Might be I’ll have a go myself.” He had no such plan to do so, but he had an image to maintain. He patted Grenn on the back and shoved him out the door and into the cold.

As soon as they were out of earshot Grenn turned to him with a blanched face. “Pyp, come with me. Just down the tunnel. Please.”

“What, do you really need me to show you where to put it?”

“Pyp.” It brokered no argument. “If you don’t make me, I won’t be able to make myself go in.”

The lantern shone red as a hot coal. Behind them, the comet was its twin flame, edging ever north. “Alright, alright, just don’t ask me to join you.”

Toad had briefed them on the brothel’s general layout. At the shack, the woman would check you had the coin to pay. You’d go down into the tunnel to the labyrinth of rooms; all the open doors had women in them free for choosing. You could go ‘round to the open rooms, say hello, and pick a girl to spend the hour with by giving her your purse. Perhaps he just wants me to pick one for him. Maybe he just doesn’t know what he likes yet. It was oddly touching.

They rattled their purse at the woman in the shack to prove they were no brigands and descended down the steps and into the tunnel. It was dimly lit with torches, and the long hallway had rooms to either side. At the end, it turned into another hallway. Nearly all the doors were closed in the first stretch, but that didn’t cushion the noise. Pyp had an ear for voices, but it was a curse rather than a blessing here; he could place every moan to the throat that owned it. Luke of Longtown squealed like a pig. Alan of Rosby was telling his girl to call him “Ser”. And from the sound of it, Brown Bernarr was receiving rather than giving.

Grenn’s face was so still he could’ve been a statue. Pyp prodded him along. Just then, a door to their right opened and Lark the Sisterman stumbled out, a big grin across his face. A lusty-looking blonde with pillowy tits lounged on the bed inside, looking glum.

“Hark,” he laughed, “an aurochs and a monkey! Now there’s a sight to see!” He paused. “First time for the big one?”

“Aye,” Grenn managed.

Lark snorted and swaggered past them without another word. Pyp nudged Grenn towards the open door. “What about this one, then? She’s very…” Matronly, was the word that came to mind. With big hands for kneading bread and holding babes. “Mature,” he came to, finally. Grenn shook his head, and so they moved on.

The next hallway had more open doors. Inside them: a dark-haired waif that looked to be under five feet tall, a scarred ginger woman that was freckled all over, a porcelain beauty with an impressive bust and a chipped tooth, and a tall lanky girl about their age with the longest legs Pyp had ever seen on a woman. Grenn made no comment on any of them.

The tall girl came to the doorframe to greet them, dressed in wisps of grey. “This one’s built like a tree,” she teased, looking Pyp in the eye but gesturing at Grenn. “I must be the only woman in the whole North tall enough for him.”

Pyp gave him a glance. “She may be right.” The girl was pretty, in a very northern way, with a flat, chiseled face and hard flinty eyes. “Go on, Ser Cedar, a tree for a tree.” She was just right for him, he judged, a good size, and athletic, young enough so as not to embarrass him with experience, though her chest was near as flat as a boy’s. Maybe Grenn preferred his bosoms billowing. It’s important not to peak at your first.

Grenn, however, was peering down the hall. “I think–” His voice caught in his throat. “Actually, I quite like this one.” It was two doors down from the tree girl’s. Grenn took Pyp by the arm, gave the girl an apologetic smile, and pulled him roughly into the room.

“What was that for?” Pyp complained, until he saw. The room was empty.

Grenn was sweating. He looked like to fall apart. “Pyp.” He sighed, and sat down on the bed in the corner. It was draped in crimson silks; he looked out of place, there, firelit in his faded blacks. “I can’t do it. I just… I can’t. Not tonight, anyway. I don’t know…” His voice trailed off.

Pyp clicked his tongue. He was a sorry sight. Sometimes there was no cure for this particular sort of fear– why it affected Grenn of all people was still a mystery to him. We shouldn’t have hounded him so. “I won’t ask why,” he said plainly, sitting down right next to Grenn. “Though I do so desperately want to know.” Grenn smiled at that, but did not offer a reply.

They sat in silence for a bit, breathing in the taste of the incense that lay smoking on the bedside table. Grenn’s fear seemed to be fading now, his breaths slowly becoming more regular. Pyp studied him for a while, wondering.

“When we return, and the others learn you were too craven to bed a woman, the whole Watch will know soon enough. Toad will make mock about it when he’s in his cups and you’re not there to beat it out of him,” Pyp finally said, because it was true. “And they don’t sing any songs of man-maids.”

“Toad doesn’t have to know.” Grenn pulled out the pouch of coins, and placed it in Pyp’s palm.

A sweet fool. His fingers curled around it. “I’ll warn you, I’m no back-alley whore.” They both laughed, then. Some unspoken agreement passed between them. “But I’ll keep your secret just as well, Ser Cedar.”

They talked for the rest of the hour– silly things, mostly, tales from Pyp’s travels and mocking jokes about the rangers Grenn would have to serve under starting tomorrow. Surprisingly, Grenn still seemed all a lather to leave, and now that he had calmed he talked at length about what he thought they might find beyond the wall. Rocks, ice, and empty bellies, Pyp thought sourly, though he wanted to go on the ranging more even than Grenn did. Conversation was easy, between them, moving from one subject to another with no effort at all, and time moved quickly. Once Grenn even talked of his childhood home, a little log cabin near the Cape of Eagles where his father had worked as a forester. He talked of white cliffs by a grey sea, and the gulls that nested on their roof. And his little sister. And the smell of salt. He didn’t like to speak of home much; his voice always got soft and sweet when he did. His log cabin had burned, though, with the rest of the forest, and so he was here, in a brothel in Mole’s Town, hiding out in a whore’s cell with the likes of Pypar. Perhaps it was a good thing that’s where he was. He didn’t have many friends back in his forest, did he.

The tall girl’s name was Lyanne, they learned from her when they felt the time had come to leave. Lyanne, Grenn repeated, tasting the word, and again when Halder asked whom he’d spent his hour with. A tall girl, but not too tall for him. When Toad asked Pyp the same thing, he grinned. “Oh, I’ll never tell.”

The next morning, dawn coming clear and bright, Grenn said goodbye from up on his shaggy grey garron.

“Don’t die,” Pyp said. Unspoken: Don’t die a maiden.

“I won’t,” said Grenn. Unspoken: I’ll do all I can.

“Ah, you’re too stupid to die on a ranging anyway. Not some hero’s death, anyhow.” The wind had caught them, so he had to shout the words. “If the gods are just you’ll break your back digging a latrine pit.”

“If the gods are just I’ll come back and haunt you.”

“Aye, you would.”

Dywen called out to him from the gate, so Grenn turned his horse, smiling like summer, sun lighting him up from all sides. And that was all Pyp saw before he trotted beneath the wall and the gate clattered shut behind him.

The coins lay heavy in his pocket.

II.

Matthar always dreamt the same dream.

Not only that, though, Matthar always saw fit to bother Pyp about it, him and anyone else shovelling down breakfast in the common hall that ever made the mistake of sitting at their table. It was a dismal day– all days were dismal now– and Hobb hadn’t thought to sweeten their porridge. Pyp spooned it up glumly as he listened.

“It was different this time,” Matthar insisted, just as he always did. “There was fire in this one, when there’s always only ice.”

“Last time you noted snow instead of hail,” said Pyp listlessly, looking out the door. “But otherwise it was the same?”

Matthar had been a helper boy at a septry that had too many helper boys and too little coin, so they’d trundled him off to the Wall rather than keep feeding him. Matthar could recite every word of The Seven-Pointed Star, and was eager to help Septon Cellador lead the prayers on holy days, and he wasn’t half bad with a spear either, but his head was full of stained glass and scented candlesmoke, and he had queer notions about his dreams. It was best to just humour him.

He nodded, all solemn. “Similar, anyhow. I was in the septry again, with all the statues, the big wooden ones with pearls for eyes and sweetgrass hair. It was night, and all the candles were out. And you know how it is in my dreams. The statues started to move. And the faces…”

Pyp remembered how it went. “The Mother. She turned into your mother again, like always.”

“I thought you never knew your mother, Matt.” Halder seemed half-asleep, but he had the sort of mind that remembered little details about every man’s life.

“It was her all the same.”

Pyp’s mother had been a mummer with a fiery temper and a good humour about her. She loved to play and tease and tell him tales, and died when he was nine. But he never dreamed about her. He hardly ever dreamed at all. “Sorry, what was different, then?” he mumbled, distracted by one of the new recruits leaving the hall in a huff, the Dornish-looking one. He’d traded his satins for blacks over the past month or so, but no one could forget what he’d worn that night, as he wore Satin for a name too. Nor could anyone stop talking about what he was rumoured to have been.

Matthar chewed at his lip. “It’s usually only the Mother who walks. My mother. And a cold wind comes through the doors, and snow or sleet starts falling in the sept. That’s when I always wake up. But this time…” He shivered. “This time all the statues wore new faces. Some I knew, some I didn’t. Some shifted from face to face. The Maid held a sword, and the Crone was young and red. The Warrior was just a little girl.” He sounded confused. “They surrounded me. I thought they were like to kill me. And… gods, the Stranger…”

“Are you done yet?” Halder complained. “Marsh has me on duty soon, and we’ve all finished but you.”

“The Stranger was Jon Snow.” Matthar’s voice was hushed. “When the Maid had her sword at my breast, everything caught alight, and all the faces blackened right to ash. The sky was burning.” He looked up to the rafters, but Pyp knew he was seeing past the wood. He pointed upwards. “The Torch. It’s not a torch at all, nor a sword neither. It’s dragonfire, and so it was in my dream.”

Pyp studied him for a moment, then forced a laugh. “Har, dragonfire. Perhaps Ser Alliser was right to name you Ser Loon. Dreams are dreams,” he said, uncertainly, getting out of his seat and making to leave. He thought of a great black beast with hard flinty eyes that breathed shadow fire, death come awake in an animal that wore the face of Jon Snow. “And there are no dragons.”

He walked out of the hall and into the blistering cold. He supposed he should find out what his duties were for the day, but dreaded it. There was not much to do at Castle Black now that the ranging had left them, especially for rangers like him and Matt and Toad. For now they’d become glorified stewards, helping in all manner of mindless tasks, except when they were sent on patrol. But patrolling wasn’t really ranging, either, just a load of endless walking in the cold until your feet got numb, watching for nothing, and hoping your partner had a sense of humour about him, or some stories to share. Bowen Marsh had charge of the Wall now, and he didn’t know the rangers well enough to assign friends to the same watches, so often as not Pyp got stuck leading a mule halfway to Eastwatch with some feeble greybeard or another. Or worse, Toad.

But truly, more than he was bored, he was lonely. Halder was a good friend to talk with, and the others had their values, but more and more Pyp found himself cursing Lord Commander Mormont for not allowing him to tag along on the ranging. He missed Jon’s sweet sad laughter, and Sam’s shy jokes, and gods, he certainly missed Dolorous Edd’s dour monologuing. And he missed Grenn, of course. He missed Grenn most of all.

But before he could get across the yard to ask around for Marsh, the boy Satin approached him. Well, he wasn’t truly a boy– he must have been a year or two older than Pyp– but he was apparently greener than grass besides, and the rumours about him hadn’t helped his fearful demeanour. Pyp had gotten the story from one of the twins who’d come up the kingsroad from Gulltown with him, and the tales had spread quickly. Satin had been a boy whore in Oldtown. What he’d been doing all the way up in Gulltown was still a mystery, but the men of the Watch were nothing if not creative when it came to speculation. He had no friends– no one seemed to want to talk to him– so no one truly knew what about his story was fact and what was fiction.

“Need something?” Pyp offered.

Satin bit his lip. “You’re Pyp?” When he nodded, Satin’s anxiety seemed to fade a little, but he was still cringing, as if he expected to be slapped just for speaking. “Bowen Marsh says we’re to patrol together in the forest today, when the west watch returns.”

Ah. Satin had only been at the castle a month, and Pyp had it from Rory that he had been quite useless on his first few patrols. He wasn’t looking forward to teaching him how to saddle a horse. You were just as bad in the beginning, he chided himself. And you had Jon to shame you into learning. He supposed there was no getting around it.

“The west watch should be coming back soon,” Pyp assured him. “Best get prepared. Can you handle a sword?”

Satin looked glum. “Ser Endrew says I’m useless with one.”

“Wear one anyway.” He softened. “We were all useless once. Go fetch a dagger, too, you might feel more comfortable with it. Though I can’t imagine you’ll need to use it.”

And ho, there came the west watch down from the Wall. They left on their garrons not long after. Patrolling in the forest was a bit more involved than walking the ice, and usually took up the whole afternoon, though they weren’t supposed to go far. It was mostly just to check that no ragged bands had made camp close enough to threaten an attack, and that hardly ever happened. But at least you get to experience the beauty of wild nature, Pyp thought glumly as they crossed the plain of well-trodden snow that stretched before the tree line began. Like elk droppings, or frozen bloody pinecones.

Satin did not speak. He was struggling a bit with his horse, but then he had been born and raised in a city, so Pyp made no comment as he shifted in the saddle. The silence had grown too much for him to stand, though, so he eyed the dark-eyed boy, trotted up beside him, and loudly cleared his throat.

“Don’t,” Satin warned, without even looking his way.

This one’s got claws beneath his silk. “I didn’t say anything.”

“But you will.” His gaze was shadowed. He’d pinned up his long black hair, and it was streaming behind him in the wind. “And I know exactly what it’ll be. They all ask it eventually.”

“Ask what?”

“If it’s true.”

“If what’s true?”

“Of course it’s true.” His voice was edged with bitterness, and he stubbornly looked ahead into the dark of the trees. “Don’t play the fool.”

“Ah, but the fool is the sweetest part to play.” He grinned. “You shouldn’t be so presumptuous. I was only going to ask if you were Dornish.”

Satin tilted his head to look at Pyp. He was quiet for a moment. “My mother… on one side. I’ve never known about my father, though I suppose… How did you…?”

“A mummer’s trick. Olive skin, and hair dark as the Rhoyne. Oldtown’s southron, it’s hardly implausible.”

He was smiling a bit now. “What do you care if I’m Dornish?”

“Why does anyone care about anything?” He threw up his hands. “It’s boring at the Wall. I like to guess at things. Besides, now I know it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“That you’re Dornish.”

They were well past the tree line now and deep into the first swathes of forest, all old pine and moss going to orange. The comet, fading now, put faint red streaks in Satin’s hair. “You were a mummer, then. In a caravan or a riverboat–”

“Both–”

“–Moving from town to town. No home of your own. I’ll make a guess, too, then– born in Lannisport?”

“You’re good.” Pyp chafed at it, though. He didn’t know how Satin could’ve known that; his accent had marbled over the years from all the travel, or so he thought, and he could imitate just about anyone. But perhaps old habits of the tongue died hard. He’d only spent a year in Lannisport, but his mother had been born there, too, and she taught him to speak.

The boy was pleased. “All sorts come to brothels, especially in Oldtown. You learn to have an ear for it.”

“Clearly.” There truly is nothing of interest in this gods-damned forest, is there? Not even a fox had chanced their way. Pyp didn’t mind, though; the conversation was better than Toad’s would’ve been. Toad wouldn’t have guessed he was from Lannisport, anyway.

“So how was mummery?” Satin asked politely. He seemed to get more talkative once he got past the subject of his previous occupation. Pyp appreciated that. “We all saw shows whenever they came to the city. Once there was a Braavosi troupe that weaved a glorious tale, like it was out of some book; it went on for hours and hours. But they had great fat singers to sing it all.”

“We only had monkeys.” One of the old mummers had gifted Pyp a tattered copy of a Braavosi play once: The Lord of the Woeful Countenance by the players of the Blue Lantern, translated clumsily to the common tongue. It was how he’d learned to read. He kept it still, in the chest beneath his bed. It was his most treasured possession. He knew almost every word by heart.

“Ah. So it was mostly farces then?”

“Mostly. Oh, and the old tales, heroes and princes and fools, nothing long or complicated. Tales most everyone already knows. Jonquil and Symeon Star-Eyes and the Dragonknight and all that. Most men don’t like complicated.”

“I’d be inclined to agree,” Satin said, and Pyp laughed out loud. Point taken. “What sort of parts did you play, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, all sorts,” he replied, “This and that. When I was small I suppose I didn’t play any parts, just collected coins from the crowd. I was only fifteen when I left, so I could never play anyone big or strong or lordly. Once I was the Young Dragon. But mostly my roles were small.” To be honest, he was rather relishing this opportunity to talk about himself. Everyone else had heard all his stories before.

“Did you ever want bigger roles? For when you were older?”

“Me?” Pyp snorted. An odd question. “No, the small parts were for me. The pages and the messengers, peasant boys and fools. The kings and dragonriders make speeches of life and death and love, but the small roles get to make the best mockery, and are loved the best at the end. Ho, a small part often makes more impact than a large one, to any audience worth having.”

“I take your meaning, I think.” They stopped to let their horses drink from a stream. “Did you ever perform for any high lords at big castles, or was it just river towns?”

Pyp had a fair few stories to share, but picked the most outrageous. “We went most everywhere, from Sunspear to Fairmarket. Once, when I was small, no more than eight, we did a show at the Red Keep for King Robert. We put on a farce where the Rebellion was waged by children. Us mummers’ boys and girls played all the roles, except King Aerys, who was old. And I got to be Jaime Lannister with my yellow woollen hair, the little lion pup come to stab the Mad King through the armpit with a gilded wooden sword. Ned Stark rode in on a grey dog and said every word through tears. And Robert was played by a dullard boy who kept forgetting all his lines. All he knew to say was “Die.”” The memory disquieted him. His mother had spent hours carving him the sword, and painting it gold.

Satin looked more concerned than amused. Most people were amused at that story. Dareon had snorted wine out his nose when he’d heard it. “I can’t imagine that went over well with the king.”

“Him?” Pyp chuckled. “King Robert laughed the hardest of anyone. Most high lords are fat fools, really. The queen was wroth, though. Once we’d been paid we made our leave quickly enough.” The woods were silent but for the swell of the stream. I’m the new king, he remembered saying so proudly, atop a throne of candlesticks. But then little Robert had thundered in and told him, Die.

“Being a whore is a bit like being a mummer, I reckon,” Satin said after a while. “For an audience of one.”

He said it so sadly that Pyp didn’t want to press him further. So on they went. A while later, they reached the big weirwood grove, the usual stopping point for forest patrols, so they turned back without having seen a soul. The days were shortening; the sun was already beginning to go down, painting the Wall the colour of blood and blushes.

“So why’d you leave?”

The sudden question caught Pyp off guard. “Sorry?”

“The mummer’s troupe. Why come here?”

Pyp felt the colour leach from his face. Careful now. “A pox,” he lied. “It ravaged our caravan. It came for the best actors first; there was no troupe, in the end. There was nowhere else for me to go.” He forced a smile, voice calm and flat. “And I don’t mind it, truly. I’ve learned the sword and bow, and I’ve got Grenn and Jon and…” He stopped. “Well, I’ve got fair friends.” Fair and far away now. “Why,” he muttered, the words tumbling out his mouth before he even knew what he was asking, “why’d you come here? Got tired of being a whore?”

Satin’s eyes narrowed. He concentrated on his reins. It was a long time before he answered. “I was never ‘shamed of it, you know. Not once.”

He didn’t come here by choice, then, that’s certain. Though to be fair, few did. He frowned, wondering. “I didn’t mean to make offence.”

“It was much like any job, I suppose,” Satin said, with a smile that didn’t look as forced as it could have. “There were good days and bad days. That’s only natural. A stonemason must have certain days he’d rather not chisel, but he chisels all the same.”

And just like that, they’d come all the way back to the Wall. The boy hopped off his horse and took his reins in hand, ready to walk through the tunnel.

Pyp was beginning to like the fellow.

III.

Another month gone to the dogs. Another month of sitting and drinking bitter ale and chopping onions and watching empty fields and waiting for the others to come home. The Old Pomegranate had told him it’d likely last months and months, this ranging, and all of it dangerous work besides, with no guarantee they’d all be coming back. They’d gotten word from Sam Tarly of deserted villages, empty forests, a dangerous quiet. The lands beyond the Wall stretched farther than anyone knew, and who could tell what Mance Rayder had in store for those who’d followed his tracks? You’re too stupid to die on a ranging, he remembered telling Grenn. That had been a lie, of course. No one was too stupid to die.

He did not speak to Satin overmuch, not since their last patrol. There were still a fair few rangers left at Castle Black, so they had not been paired away since. He seemed to be getting marginally better at fighting, though whenever Pyp saw him in the training yard he noticed the same mistake he’d made, a year ago: holding his sword like it was a dagger, like it was for stabbing, not slicing. He was apparently adept at many other things, though, a born steward from the sound of it. He mended tears and polished brass and even sewed new cloaks for anyone with need of one, shortened and tapered in the fashion of the Reach. But Fulk the Flea had pulled a dirk on him once when he walked too close; but Rast had jumped him in the yard one night and left him bloody and bruised; but Bowen Marsh had laughed at him in the common hall when he asked to come along on a hunt. But, but, but; but Toad mocked him at the table under his breath, and Halder laughed along, and Matthar misliked him on apparent religious grounds. Pyp did not want to raise the issue with them, not when they were really the only good friends he had. Satin, of course, had nearly no friends at all, though old Donal Noye was known to sit with him at supper sometimes; only the gods knew why.

He wished Jon were here. They’d all laughed at Sam when he arrived, every one of them, but that had only made Jon wroth and righteous in that way he got, and he shamed them all for being so cruel. He would have done the same for poor Satin. He was strong and fierce and did not back down, and he loved without boundary. Perhaps that had been taught to him at his stone castle; perhaps that’s what it meant to be noble. All Pyp learned from the mummers was to never stay in any one place too long. Jon would shout Toad down, would bring his great white wolf to snarl in his face; he’d challenge Halder to not judge someone so quickly, and he’d probably say something passing clever to Matthar too. But Jon wasn’t here, and Pyp was half a craven, and not a king’s brother, so there: he did not raise the issue.

So there: he was drinking in the common hall with Halder. It was otherwise empty apart from a couple of older men in the back playing at tiles, and it was night; Hobb was on hand to pour ale for anyone without duties. It was worse quality than what you could get at Mole’s Town, but it was free. And free-flowing. He was drunk in the common hall, and staring at Halder, and wishing he was Grenn.

It didn’t take much to get Pyp drunk, for he was quite small, which is why he did not often drink past a cup. Some of the time, it enhanced his capacity for lying. Most of the time it impaired it. “I wish you were Grenn,” he told Halder. Impaired, then.

Halder judged him with a stone face. “I wish you were quiet.”

“Oh, but we can never get the things we want, can we.” He smiled wanly. Drunkenly. There was an awkward pause.

“What happened to you?” Halder asked. “Everything you say is cruel. Aye, we all miss the others. But they’re not here, are they. And here I was thinking you were funny.”

Pyp grumbled wordlessly, sinking down further into the bench. It had been growing harder and harder for him to make jokes, these days. “D’you think we should ask the whore to sit with us at table?” he blurted out into the silence.

Halder tilted his head. “Now why should we do that? Is this one of your japes?” His voice had no real malice in it, but Pyp took it as malicious all the same.

All his sudden courage melted away like mist in the morning. “I only meant, he seems all alone, is all. He’s– well, he’s our brother, isn’t he?”

“Not yet,” Halder said delicately.

That made Pyp angrier. “If Jon were here he’d give us all clouts about the head and curse us all for cravens, too afraid to make a friend.”

“Make a friend? Of that one?” Halder snorted. “He’d have us weave flowers in our hair. He’d paint our lips with red dye. And everyone would mock us, the boys of the night with our soft words and empty purses.” You have but a single joke about the man.

“His words aren’t soft.” His hands are, though. “You’ve never once even spoken to him. You’re scared of, what, the threats of rapers and greybeards and stupid high lords looking for an excuse to look down on us anyways?” He knew the argument had ended before it began, though. “I was just… trying to be kind.”

The stonemason’s son stared at him with narrow eyes. “What’s all this fascination with the whore?” His lips pursed around the last word; it cut like a knife. They looked at each other, baldfaced, waiting, daring each other to say what they meant.

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?” Pyp asked softly.

“What do you think it means?”

It was too much to bear. Pyp didn’t want to bear it, it was a stupid thing to imply, so he parried. “You hated Sam just as much, at the beginning,” he said, all casual. For similar reasons. Soft words, aye, and soft hands, too.

Halder looked down, mouth tight with anger. Or maybe shame. Was it too much to hope for a little shame? “Sam’s still a fat craven, though. Toad still calls him–”

“I don’t care what Toad calls him,” Pyp snapped. “If Jon were here–”

“The bastard’s gone, Pyp!” Halder’s voice had finally found its malice. “It’s been months. And on and on you go about Grenn and the others as if you can fly down off the Wall and coax them back away from the Old Bear yourself. Aye, you miss them. We all miss them. I just don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

“I’m only complaining.” His mood had turned black and foul. “What sort of mad world do we live in, where a man can no longer complain to his ale?” His voice went to a mumble. He thought of the tall girl again, all in grey. “A world where I have, and Grenn hasn’t…”

“Grenn hasn’t what?”

“None of your business, is it, fool?” Halder gave him a deeply unsympathetic look. He was practiced with that. “Oh, leave off and let me sulk. Don’t you have a… plinth to carve, or something?” One of his weaker japes, but he was quite drunk.

Halder took him by the arm, then, and dragged him out of the hall and into the freezing air as he feebly grunted in resistance. “Methinks you need to go to bed, monkey.”

“Methinks you need to…” He struggled to remember what he’d been so angry about. Befriending the boy whore? That was a laugh, now. “…Be… nicer.” Halder promptly dropped his arm and left in a huff. What, Jon can shame you, but I can’t?

He made his own way back to his quarters, pausing in the corridor when he found he could not tell which door was Grenn’s and which was his own. He picked one at random, dizzy. It was Grenn’s room, evidently. I’ve never been in here. It was a strange realization; they spent a lot of time together, but only ever in his own quarters. His curiosity died when he found that it was entirely clean and nearly empty, but for a bed that had not been slept in for months. There was dust on the window frame. He went back into his own room and shut the door and found that his heart was thudding.

He was heaving for breath, as well. That was strange. We can never get the things we want. His head was swimming. He could barely string a single thought together, to tell it true, and he did not care to think about Halder’s low mockery and feeble insinuations any longer. So he thought of Grenn, which was somewhat more of a mistake. Grenn was sure to be huddled in the same cold, under the same pale moon, on some crag or another covered in soft snow. He was likely sharing a jape at the fire with Edd or Jon, staring at stars, sharpening his sword. Perhaps he was killing a wildling, or maybe he was watching for bodies come shuffling in the night. Perhaps he was dead, or dying, or about to begin dying. Perhaps he’s digging a latrine pit. Was he dreaming of the Wall? Was he dreaming of the Cape of Eagles? Did he ever think of Pyp?

Pyp liked to think, if he received a raven that said Grenn was dying of some wound out there somewhere, he would cut through the Wall with an axe and run to him across the hills and valleys on winged feet. But that was a farce, of course. He was no Jon Snow, with a hero’s stormy gaze. He was no Young Dragon. And besides, by the time the raven reached the Wall, Grenn would’ve died already. And what would he do even if he did get there in time? Nurse him back to health with a joke and an easy smile? He pictured Grenn bleeding pink into the snow. He pictured blue eyes and black rot, and decided he was done with thinking for the night, and turned over to sleep.

He dreamed many things, none of them good. The Wall was weeping. No, the Wall was grey stone in heavy circles.

The farce swept on in the courtyard. Lords and ladies clapped and cheered with empty white eyes, and it was a mercy, that they did not put his head upon the block, it was mercy when they laughed. They let him make his mock, and they let him run, too, when it was done. He wore cloth of scarlet and gold. All the fields of Westeros pinched beneath the hooves of his horse. The comet caught him when the sun would not rise, and bathed him in red light. The fields were red, too, but with blood and fire instead. Giants played at war in the distance, obscured by smoke, and sent rubble flying towards him, and he looked at the giants, and galloped ever closer, but they did not grow.

The Wall was weeping. No, the Wall was sand crumbling under windswept waves.

The forest crept and crept. There were white cliffs in the distance, and eagles in the air. Pyp was in the forest wearing purple satin. And Grenn was in the forest, smiling and green and crowded by flowers like one of those old tales of the kings of the Reach– John the Oak and Garth Greenhair and the rest. He wore a crown of driftwood, and Pyp a crown of wool. A star fell above. Light painted blocky shapes across his cheeks. Pyp felt a spider crawl up his back. Grenn was holding a body.

The Wall was weeping. No, the Wall was melting.

Melting– inside: a creature slept, black and hulking, trapped in the ice beside seventy-nine sentinels with the faces of his friends. Inside: everything ending, swirling towards the edge of night, and raven wings, and dragonglass; inside the Wall the Stranger slept, woke, screamed, looked at Pyp with eyes like flint, no, ruby, no, the pits of some hell. More animal than person, more shadow than solid– stirring, stirring. The Stranger clawed his way to the open air wearing the face of Jon Snow.

And there it was, everywhere, the song of dragons’ cries, their feral screams ringing out, but when he stumbled towards the sound he found that they were not truly the cries of dragons, but his cries, and he was crying, he was a child, he was stammering, I’m the new king, with yellow wool for hair. His mother braided sweetgrass and wove it around a statue in a septry that wore no face at all. She gave him a sword of wood and a sword of gold and a sword of fire. And told him to choose.

When he woke, he found that he was sobbing. After a moment, the dream left him, and he forgot. It was still night. And he forgot, and he sighed, and he curled up in his sheets and thought, I am a lonely and starved thing, turned wretched and bitter. I should’ve stayed a fool for sorry kings.

His head ached. He missed Grenn. He slept badly.

And he did not dream again. And if he did dream, it did not mean anything.

IV.

What was the Night’s Watch? Protection from nothing. The shadow of a wall. A cell in the open air for men with problems.

What was the Night’s Watch? A home for orphans and cutthroats and sad old men. An imaginary line in the sand, in the soil, in the sea. Towers made of rust. A set of words, named oaths, that singed your skin. A gaol, or maybe a noose. Likely both.

The sun was shining. Kings were being crowned in the south; it was autumn, and swords were singing. They’d gotten letters from the ranging, letters from Sam, saying that they’d settled on the Fist of the First Men, and waited on the men of the Shadow Tower to join them. Pyp had his orders for the day: find something to busy your hands with, and don’t bother anyone. He went to the yard, and watched the recruits train.

He envied their relative peace. Ser Endrew was tough and tall, but was no cruel sot like Ser Alliser had been, and he was patient and encouraging with the boys. The days were quiet, and oddly warm. No dead men were rising in the night. Him and Halder had chosen to forget their argument, and so the weeks passed, and became normal once again. Pyp learned to live with the hole in his chest and kept himself busy. He no longer woke crying in the night, but then again, he no longer drank too much ale.

Satin was sparring with one of the twins from Fair Isle– Arron, the one with shaggy hair. Emrick kept his own hair close-cropped, so as to mark their difference. He was fighting Hop-Robin, the one with the clubfoot. Satin still had not fixed his grip, though he had a natural fighter’s stance, and appeared to be holding his own. Arron was fast, but had no weight to his charges, and moved far too much. Emrick was stockier and strong, but seemed fearful of hitting too hard, as if it was all just some game; Hop-Robin had the obvious disadvantage, what with his foot, yet darted around quick as a snake, delivering a savage blow to Emrick’s stomach. He spent his energy too rapidly, though, all in one burst, and let down his sword to pant and heave.

Ser Endrew seemed satisfied enough; it was nearly midday. “That’s all for today. We’ll keep at it. Get some food in you before your next duties are assigned.” He started to bring the others to the armoury, but Satin lingered, shifting the blunted sword in a gloved hand.

Pyp emerged from the steps then, whistling. He picked up one of the discarded swords and twirled it in one hand; he figured he needed the practice anyway. And there was really nothing else to do. “Ho,” he called out. “Need a partner to spar with?”

Satin turned and smiled faintly. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Sometimes Marsh forgets me.” He and Satin sized each other up across the dirt. Satin was tall, perhaps taller than Jon, with a graceful posture. Pyp was small, but that didn’t matter so much. “I reckon I can teach you better than Ser Endrew.” The knight was strong and dutiful, but did not seem to pay close attention to detail, and swordplay was all about details.

“Want to bet?”

Pyp edged closer to him, watching his hand. “Your grip’s wrong. Your grip’s been wrong since you came here, and no one told you different.” The boy gave him an inquisitive look, so he came up behind Satin’s back and reached around to grab the gloved knuckles of his sword hand, delicately maneuvering each finger around the leathern hilt, spacing them farther apart, adjusting the lean of his shoulders with his other hand. Satin was warm. He smelled of scented oil. “Like this. You’re holding it like a dagger, clenched in your fist. It’s a sword, it’s part of your arm, it needs to be able to twist. There, that’s it. Like a claw.” Jon had told him that, once.

“I see,” Satin murmured, leaning back against Pyp, “I just worry–”

“It’ll slip out of your hands?” Pyp had asked the same question. Once. “The hilt is wrapped in furrowed leather, it’s made to chafe. If your grip is firm, it won’t fall.” He slipped past Satin to stand in front of him, settling into his own stance. “Now try.”

He came at him wildly. Pyp parried easily, and Satin tried again, and so the dance began. Pyp was admittedly going easy on him, but the grip really did seem to be helping, and Satin’s long legs were a boon he had not anticipated. He was outpaced; he had to be staunch and strong-footed. They did not wear shields, so it was a game of dodging blows. Left, right, centre, spin. Shoulder, heart, calf, forearm. Swivel, lunge, cut, pause. It truly was a dance more than it was a swordfight, only Pyp did not know the moves, and Satin was leading.

Parry, dodge, whack to the left leg. “I can tell you how to beat the others,” Pyp asserted over the ringing of metal, breathing heavily.

“Can you, now?” Leftward lean, forward hack, backward stumble. Satin’s black eyes were full of determination. In the corner of his gaze he saw that people had started to come watch them fight, from up on the walkways and across the grounds. “Do share.”

Lunge, shove, grin. He lowered his voice. “Arron moves too hastily, so stand your ground. Force him to come to you and don’t let him dodge out of your way, he loves to dodge.” Slash, left turn, duck; the squelch of wet mud. “Emrick’s big, so make him move more. Lead him on a merry chase across the yard and dance out of reach. Hop-Robin too; he’ll spend so much of his energy following you that he won’t be able to lift his shield.” He heard it all first in Jon’s calm voice, in his head. He could feel that northern lilt slipping into his own speech, even. “They’re both stronger than you, but Emrick thinks the swords are wood, made for light tapping, or mummers’ tourneys; they’re not, they’re blunted but they’re still–” Parry, block, swerve. “Metal, and–” Left leg right leg helmet. Their dance grew faster. “You can still crack bones–” And faster still. Cut, block, cut, retreat, turn, parry, duck, rise, lunge, elbow, founder, cold–

Satin’s sword was at Pyp’s naked throat.

“Very good,” he breathed, pinched, leaning back. He was hot under his leathers. Someone watching from the walkway let out a muffled cheer. “You learn fast.”

“Ser Endrew doesn’t–” Satin panted, “ever tell me anything personally. He’s never cruel, but he doesn’t pay attention.” He lowered the sword with a sly and satisfied smile and stepped closer. “So why do you? What do you care if I beat the others?”

Being a mummer is a bit like being a whore. “Just passing on a lesson from a friend,” he said mildly, and dropped his sword in the dirt.

What was the Night’s Watch? Protection from nothing. A gaol, or maybe a noose. But Satin beat all the other recruits into the dirt the next day, and Ser Endrew clapped him on the back and noted his superior grip. A small crowd had watched the sparring, Pyp included, and he heard whispers of praise for the boy whore who would not let himself be beaten. And that was progress, and he was grateful. He had learned certain things from the mummers concerning stories, one of which being that everyone learned to love the underdog only after trodding over him. Only after he bit back. Satin did not eat alone in the hall anymore, spending his time with Hop-Robin and Arron and still others who had become curious of his true story. He never told his true story, of course. When Todder stopped Satin in the yard one day to compliment him, he smiled with his teeth.

But perhaps it was only the fair weather.

INTERLUDE.

Grenn was digging a latrine pit atop the Fist. He chuckled under his breath, thinking of Pyp’s stupid jape. The stars were out, and the wind bit at him through heavy cloak and dyed wool. The snow was soft as silk beneath his boots. As silly as it was, he was glad he was out here, digging. It was silent, away from the fires. He could think here.

He supposed he was no good at thinking, thick as he was. It was bitter cold. He chose to remember instead. That was easy; it required no extra work from you. Somehow the wind atop the Fist reminded him of the white cliffs near where he was born, where the gales whipped at you and bent the trees backwards towards the grass. Where the sea churned below, thick as molasses. On hot days sometimes he and his sister would jump off the cliffs and into the icy water, a hundred feet down.

Pyp never told me where he was born. The thought came to him unbidden. He supposed it didn’t much matter, not to him. Pyp had travelled all over, and called no place home. He could’ve suckled at the queen’s teat for all Grenn cared. Thinking of Pyp made him think of the night before he left, and he felt hot shame all over again. Lyanne, she was called. Tall, but not too tall for me. That’s what he said, when anyone asked about it. He did not regret his choice, though, only the lie; he’d much preferred spending the night trading stories with Pyp. He never knew how to explain himself proper, was the thing; his feelings often got jumbled in ways he didn’t know how to put to words. All he knew was that the closer they’d got to Mole’s Town, the more his heart swelled with terror. He still did not know why. What a great fool I am.

He hoped that Pyp was cheerful at the Wall. At least they don’t have saddle sores, nor have to eat salt beef every night. Grenn tried to keep a good humour about him, as did they all, but it was getting harder and harder the further they went. Everyone had heard all of everyone else’s stories by now, and he had never been good at coming up with new japes. And since the comet had appeared, he’d been having such terrible dreams.

In the black sky, he saw a star fall over the mountains to the west. He kept digging. It was all he knew to do.

V.

Locked in the cedar chest under Pyp’s bed: the Braavosi play. A silken tunic dyed a rich red and embroidered with cloth-of-gold. A trick dagger that retracted when you pushed it in. A Cyvasse board he had gotten in Planky Town and never learned to use. A thousand memories he’d since painted over with sweet words and gilded embellishments for the retelling, some so thickly overdecorated he believed them himself.  A wooden doll carved in the shape of Florian the Fool, with bells on his helm. A pouch of coins that could not be spent.

Locked in the cedar chest under Grenn’s bed: a white shell that carried the sound of waves. Otherwise empty air.

One bitter cold day, sick of Eastwatch’s shipments of salt cod, Bowen Marsh sent Pyp, Toad, Halder, Arron and Emrick to hunt in Brandon’s Gift. Pyp politely asked to take Satin with them, and the Pomegranate uncomfortably obliged. Hunting parties often ranged for several days at a time, so they packed black canvas tents onto their horses’ backs and headed south into the wind.

Satin had become quite chatty in the presence of anyone who wasn’t in the Watch’s upper ranks. As they rode, he regaled them all with tales from Oldtown, of strange ships in from Essos bearing stranger gifts, of the jaunty escapades of acolytes at the Citadel, of mummers’ shows and fishwives’ tales and jokes overheard in sweltering taverns. He did not talk about his brothel, but from time to time he shared bits of gossip about this southron lord or that, gossip that Pyp could only presume had come directly from clientele.

They made good time, and had fair luck; Toad had a gift for tracking, and the new recruits learned fast. Satin in particular had grown fond of the crossbow, and with his help they were able to take down two massive elk before the sun went down. They stopped in a clearing surrounded by white birch, where Toad showed Arron and Emrick how to skin the animals while Satin helped Pyp build the fire.

As they sliced off a haunch of one of the elk and turned it on a spit, of course they got to talking, the way boys did, and somehow the conversation turned to first loves; lost loves, all of them, obviously.

“I had a lady,” Emrick said, chewing on gristle, “on Fair Isle.” The twins had grown up in the shadow of Faircastle, where their father had kept Lord Farman’s horses. Until their father had died suddenly, and they became inconvenient to have around.

“A lady,” Arron mocked. “A bastard girl,” he explained, “of Lord Sebaston’s. And she wasn’t just yours, neither.”

Emrick shoved him, and he shoved back, and they both laughed. “Ah, but she was something. Elenna Hill, with white hair like the wind. She made me crowns of daisies, and we rode off to play in little coves along the shore near every day.” His face fell. “She was odd, and quiet, but I’m quiet, too. It’s good to be quiet sometimes.”

He said it so sadly that Pyp could not think of a jape to fill the silence for the life of him. Arron saved the day: “Ah, Elenna was fair and sweet, brother, but never was a girl so sweet as one I met in Kayce. Alys was her name; at a market she sold me a charm for my belt carved of green jade. She gave me more than that, though.” And they all chuckled. “But she’s long gone, she is. I’ll always remember what she said to me: Sail away, m’lord, with me on my merchants’ ship, down to Dorne and back again.” He grimaced. “She thought I was some lord’s son.”

Toad’s stories were always more ribald; his father’s winesink had seen a lot of traffic. “We had a new barmaid in from Harroway town. Aye, she let me hold her some nights. She could’ve been a mummer, she had so many voices, always a joke on her lips.” He had a soft look on his face that Pyp had never seen before. “Nessa, she was. We drank barrels dry near every night, ’til Gueren came knocking.” The story went that the wandering crow had chanced upon the winesink while in the midsts of his wandering, and Toad’s father had given him his son before he’d finished his first drink. He had no use for a fumbling boy anymore. Our fates are just the products of our fathers, Pyp thought. He had never known his father, but that was surely from where he’d gotten his overlarge ears. And his dark hair, most like; his mother’s hair had been the colour of spun gold.

Halder told the story of the girl he had once, truly, loved. Pyp was surprised he could tell it at all. “Her name was Felia; she was fair of hair, with freckles. Her father worked in the quarry with mine own, and we’d grown up together, exploring all the hidden caves and tunnels. I carved her bits of rock to look like knights and animals. We played jokes on her little brother, creeping into the tunnels and letting the echo warp our voices ’til we sounded like terrible old ghosts. We were young. We fooled around some.” He shrugged, as if it was a nice memory. He was leaving out the end of the story; he had told it to Pyp only once, when he had been very, very drunk. There had been a rockslide, in the quarry. Felia had died there, crushed and bruised by the stone that paid them all, and her father had blamed Halder for where she’d been standing. The products of our fathers, and others’ fathers too.

Their talk disquieted him. He wondered about it glumly as he ate. Was that love, truly? Holding a soft body close to yours, or sharing sly jokes? Was love the gift of the carved jade, or the gift of the body? Was it the time spent together in the tide pools of Fair Isle? Was it holding a silent moment in your palm? He did not know. Or perhaps he did.

The circle had fallen silent. Halder poked him with the toe of his boot. “Monkey. You’ve been to every port in Westeros, surely you had a girl in one of them.” He grinned. “Or two, or three. Go on, we’ve all shared.” Satin had not shared. He was sitting crosslegged all in shadow. Pyp supposed they had simply forgotten he was there.

He looked up. His mouth was suddenly dry. “What?”

“Tell us a story,” Toad taunted. “That’s your job, isn’t it? Telling stories?”

He had nothing to give them. His mind had gone blank. “Aye, I’ve been to a lot of towns. I’ve seen a lot of girls, what of it?” He forced a smile, and made it look easy. “I never stayed anywhere long enough to know any of them, though. Not truly.”

Halder frowned. “Not even one of the mummers?”

He thought of Della’s girl Marra, who had a year on him and had shown him how to love. But that had not truly been love, only the mechanisms of the body. Skin was skin, muscle was muscle, and Marra had a gentle heart. Perhaps he could speak of her, with her starry eyes and girlish dreams of one day being queen. But it had not truly been like that, and he was not in the mood to embellish that night. “The mummer girls were like sisters to me,” he explained tightly.

“I can hardly believe that,” said Emrick. “The monkey is surely holding out on us. With all the stories you have, and none about a single girl?”

“No one who made your heart swell?” Arron sighed, pretending to faint into his brother’s lap. “No great love that tore you half to pieces?” His voice was mocking and light, but Pyp found that his heart was hammering in his chest all the same. He couldn’t place why. “No one you dream of, lonely in your bed at night?”

Dream of? He did not dream. And if he did dream, he did not remember what he dreamt about. Satin was staring at him. He was beginning to sweat.

“Oh, but he could never love anyone, could he?” Halder laughed, though Pyp did not know why he was laughing. “He would only mock them. An ear for every accent, but none for the letters of love. No, there never was a Jonquil for our poor Florian.” Why were they all laughing? Was he meant to smile, too?

They’d spoken of trading japes with their lost loves, of thinking of them still, after years apart. Of dreaming of them, their girls, and of the gifts they had given them. A pouch of coins, and a nickname. One wore a crown of driftwood, and one a crown of wool.

It did not come to him slowly. It was all at once, rapid, the punch of cold. It was not a gentle or fellow feeling. It was not quiet; it did not creep. It was a sword to the belly. A sheer cliff that fell for a hundred feet. It was violent and it was true and it was terrible. It was not easy. And he did not want it.

We can never get the things we want.

And what he wanted, he could never say out loud. The fire crackled and popped. He lifted his head and said, thickly, “Her name was Marra. She was a sweet thing, with green eyes and round pink nipples, are you happy? She played mostly princesses, in the farces, and her hair was pale orange. She died of a pox.” The words came out rough and angry. “It was years ago.”

The conversation died. It was late. There were only three tents between them, so Pyp slept in furs curled beside Halder. They did not need the tents, truly; it was not raining. They slept in them anyway.

Pyp couldn’t sleep, though. The other body was too warm, too close, and he was hot with fear. There were knives in his heart. The enormity of it exhausted him.

How was he only just now realizing? The knives had always been there. He handed me the pouch of coin, and I compared myself to a back-alley whore. And he laughed. Grenn was tall, and he had a common face, with a smile that was so easy. He was kind. He was always kind, to everyone. He never minded when Pyp called him aurochs, or lunk, or thick-as-a-castle-wall. He had a light and gentle heart, and when they talked it was more natural than falling asleep. A sweet fool. The others had talked about their girls, back home, their small adventures and quiet days and tender smiles. Who, in this wide world, made him feel that same way? Only Grenn.

Daeron Targaryen died in battle by the side of Jeremy Norridge, smiles on their lips while their blood ran into the sea. The second Daemon Blackfyre died in chains, alone. Laenor Velaryon fell on his lover’s sword in Spicetown for a sack of coin. Elissa Farman fell off the edge of the world, laughing. Back and back it went. Pyp knew the stories; he knew so many stories, and they all ended the same way.

Say Grenn was dying. Say Grenn was not dying. It made no difference; the knives remained, as did the Wall that sat between them. This was no farce. This was not Dorne. This was not a storybook, and he was no young prince that could even die beautifully. He wanted; he felt that want was pure. It did not matter; he could not speak of it, could barely think about it. Were his heavy breaths betraying him? Could Halder have read it in his eyes? When would he trip over the lie? I am only a mummer’s boy, I can only play at victory. What was the Night’s Watch? A gaol, or maybe a noose. In Braavosi plays, they all died at the end, and they died unhappy. When he found his way to a feverish sleep, he dreamed of the sea.

They did not speak again of lady loves come morning.

VI.

Everything slowed; Pyp grew withdrawn and quiet. He spent a lot of time alone, and tried not to think about Grenn. There was little enough word coming in from the ranging; he supposed that, camped out on the Fist, not much was happening. They had sent parties into the Frostfangs. They had sent Jon.

But it seemed there were always more ravens, from faraway. Letters from northern lords: Stannis Baratheon had faced the fire of King’s Landing and licked his wounds on Dragonstone. There were battles raging in the riverlands. Ironborn were swarming above the Neck. The young Stark princes had been killed by the son of Balon Greyjoy. Weeks later, Winterfell was burning.

It was snowing at the Wall. He was in his room, sitting on his bed, and he had taken out the Braavosi play. Only, he couldn’t turn the page, he was just reading the inscription on the first page over and over: Valar morghulis. Valar morghulis. Valar morghulis. He did not know, for the life of him, what it meant. He’d just worked up the energy to start reading when there was a knock on the door.

He put down the book. “Yes?”

The door opened; it was Satin, his black and shiny hair loose around his shoulders. “Bowen Marsh sent me to tell you to help Maester Aemon when you get the chance. Ravens, I think.” He stepped inside, uninvited, and closed the door behind him. “That’s… not really why I’m here, though.”

“Well, why are you here, then?” Pyp asked politely– though, of course, he had an inkling.

“How are you... doing, Pypar?”

“How am I doing?” He furrowed his brow. “Just fine,” he lied.

Satin huffed and sighed and sat down beside him on the bed. “This is– sorry, it’s quite a difficult thing to ask.”

“It must be, since you haven’t yet asked it.” They were speaking in circles already. The snow falling outside made a soft clumping noise. Faintly, he could hear men having a snowball fight in the yard. His heart was like a bird, wings beating frantic against his ribs. Neither of them spoke for a long while. “So.”

“So what.”

He was tired of this game. He was tired of feeling afraid. “So ask me.”

“You lie well,” Satin said simply, slowly, “but not so well, not all the time. At the fire, when you were talking of your lover…” He seemed to be implying something.

Pyp shrugged. “It was no lie. Her name was Marra, and she was a sweet girl.” You hide, and you imply, and you obfuscate. Was that not the job of a fool, though?

“But she was no love of yours.” It was pointed, and true. Satin took a deep breath. He looked fearful. “Now, I am going to ask you this, because we are to be brothers. And,” his voice softened, “and I do not believe you would hurt me.” And then, “And you do not need to answer.” They locked eyes. “You know me, and you know… what I am. Don’t be afraid of what you might say; I'm quite a good secret-keeper.”

They were dancing around it; it was the swordfight all over again. They both knew the moves this time, but Satin was still leading. “So ask me.” His voice was a husk. Leftward lean, forward hack, backward stumble.

“You and I are much the same.” There it was. No easy way to speak of it, no convenient word. “Are we not? In a certain light. To certain people.”

“You are only implying,” Pyp challenged. “That's not a question.” Then–

“So who is the man?” The question hung in the air. Physical; silk and leather. “The one your thoughts went to, at the fire.” Satin clicked his tongue, disturbingly casual, though he tapped his foot anxiously. “I hope, of course, that I am not overstepping my bounds.”

Pyp was made from stone. Pyp was carved from wood. He could not lie, not here. “He left on the ranging.” Once the words left him, he felt light as air. And there: it was so simple.

“The king’s brother?” Satin guessed. “The bastard?”

Pyp nearly laughed; that would, of course, be absurd. “No. No, it's... Grenn. You would not know him, most like. He’s very…” He struggled to find the words. “Tall.”

Satin’s eyes were kind. He was quiet for a moment before asking, “Does he know?”

“No.” Pyp had not known it himself before this month, though he supposed that to know and to know were perhaps different things.

“Ah.”

Pyp touched the space beneath his eye; he found a hot tear there. How to explain Grenn? How to explain any of it? “I don’t want any of this to leave this room.” Toad would point, and Halder would laugh. Matt’s eyes would narrow, and he would tell him to pray. He said, “I’m afraid.”

“You're brave.”

“Am I?” He felt as light as the breeze, and faintly dizzy. “Surely you are the braver, to never deny it.” You hide, and you imply, and you obfuscate.

Satin smiled. “What is the difference between a mummer and a whore?” Pyp didn’t answer. He pouted. “You’re supposed to ask me what.”

“What?” he obliged.

“It’s easier to lie to one man than a hundred.”

“I feel the opposite is true.”

“So we are well-suited,” Satin said, “to our professions. But, the difference: a voice can lie. A body can’t.”

His meaning: once the feeling takes you, there is no going back. His meaning: there is no running away from this. Pyp went white; he could feel the blood rushing in his ears. He was shaking. Why in seven hells was he shaking?

Quick as a snake, Satin took Pyp’s cheek in one hand, eyes heavy-lidded and dark. His fingers were very warm, and soft, but callousing now. Their foreheads were almost touching. “Listen to me,” he whispered. His lips were very close. “It is only natural.”

Pyp swallowed. His throat was dry as leather. Calm, now. Slowly, gently, he took Satin’s hand off the side of his face and let it drop. “Say what you mean.” His voice was barely audible. This was no stage, and he did not have to project.

“Oh, don’t play the fool,” Satin murmured, and leaned in as if to kiss him. As if to…

It almost did not register. “Ah,” Pyp said quickly, panicking, before. The room was still, and he inched away, cheeks flushing. Out of reach. The smell of scented oils was overpowering; Satin must have brushed them through his hair. “No, it isn’t…” This isn’t what I imagined. This isn’t right, you have the wrong face, he thought. Wryly: I wish you were Grenn. “This isn’t…”

Satin’s eyes went wide, then creased with regret. “Of course,” he said, turning his head away. “I’m sorry. I only thought…”

Pyp felt a rush of pity, which was perhaps the worst thing to feel. “Don’t feel sorry,” he managed.

Satin fidgeted, looking at his lap. He chuckled, then. “Pray excuse me, I only meant, I only wanted, to… to show you. As I was shown. I do not truly… I don’t see you that way.” There was another pause. “Just passing on a lesson from a friend, so to speak.”

“Of course.” It had been a sweet gesture, but not the one he needed. “Is there freedom?” he found himself asking suddenly. “From all the fear?”

Satin bit his lip, and studied the ground. “I was not allowed fear, not ever. But perhaps that made it easier, to just be hated from the start. They all know, and I know they know.” The snow had stopped falling, outside. “Arron wants me,” he said with a hint of a smile, “and Matthar does too, though he doesn’t know it. Half the high officers, as well.”

Pyp couldn’t hide his shock. “Really?”

“The body cannot lie.” He shrugged. “Most are cruel, and craven. Their eyes are hungry. They fear what they don’t understand, and it hurts them ever so much. I don’t know if that’s helpful, for me to say.” He ponders for a moment. “Do you know, Donal Noye told me that a fair few men find love at the Wall. It isn’t so uncommon.”

The word love rang in the air like a hammer on an anvil. It that what this is? “Is it not?”

Satin gave him a pointed glance. “When you forbid men from bedding women, what do you suppose might happen?” They laughed, quietly, in secret. “It is not without its dangers, of course. But it’s not so strange, at least, for this to happen.” He got up. “I have duties. As do you. I… I will pray for your Grenn, that he returns.”

And then he left, in a swirl of perfume, smiling to himself.

When Pyp got to Maester Aemon’s, apologizing for his lateness, he was tasked with cleaning birdshit.

“Fool,” cawed a raven from the cage, as he scrubbed. “Fool, fool.”

“Seven hells,” muttered Pyp, “does this one ever shut up?”

Maester Aemon raised an eyebrow from his chair across the room. “That one? No. He often says words I have not taught him. He seems entirely unable to lie.”

VII.

Dark wings, dark words. That’s how the saying went, and it was always true.

Bowen Marsh had gathered them– their paltry force– in the common hall, all together, at mid-morning. From the sound of it, it was important. It was loud, in the hall, and the sky was dark with clouds outside. Pyp sat beside Halder and Toad, and felt the anxieties of the room grow and grow and grow until it was nearly unbearable.

Hobb banged on his soup pot until they all fell silent. And Marsh stood up from his seat on the high table and coughed into his fist. “We have received word from the great ranging,” he began carefully. But it could not be good news, else why would he gather them all here? He took out a piece of parchment from inside his cloak, rolled small. He read it: “‘We are facing an attack on the Fist of the First Men. Word has been sent to the Shadow Tower as well.’” He grimaced. “That’s all there is. That is all we know. There is no word on who attacked them, or what the losses were, or even if they won. All the other ravens returned, set free from their cages, and all without messages.”

There was no breath in Pyp’s lungs. The hall seemed to swell with one shared inhale.

“For now,” Marsh continued, “we should not presume the worst, nor the best. For now, I would advise that you get back to your duties. Presuming there are wildlings as close as the Fist, it should be prudent for us to double our patrols. I will discuss this with the other officers and come to you again with our revised plan.” He swallowed, red as his nickname. “Do not let this lead you to panic, but be on your guard. We can only hope that those who survived this attack will return to the Wall soon. You are dismissed.”

Pyp barely heard him. He felt as if he was in a daze, even when Halder clapped him on the shoulder. Even when Halder was asking him to leave, to stand up, to move, fool, are you deaf, you cannot just sit there and stare.

He sat there, and he stared.

He had known, on some abstract level, that rangings of this size were dangerous. They would stay out there in the haunted forest until they came across something significant, and anything significant would necessarily mean a fight. He had known that when he and Grenn had sworn their oaths, together: this would end in battle, in blood and fire. What was the Night’s Watch? A gaol, or maybe a noose. A broken body, bleeding black. Red snowmelt. Funeral pyres. Pyp knew the stories; he knew so many stories, and they all ended the same way. But he had not known what this would feel like, not at all.

That night he dreamed of red hot death and screaming shadow fire. The Stranger’s eyes were burning blue, and his cloak was striped with crimson silk.

From then on, Pyp volunteered for every patrol he could. He watched the horizon, hawk-like and exhausted, and spent all his spare time standing atop the Wall in the buffeting wind anyway, squinting, daring to hope. They were out there, the rangers, they were returning, they had to be returning. One hand was kept on his horn. Everyone thought he was half-mad, and maybe he was. He saw nothing. No one ever saw anything.

He was alone on the Wall one day, crusted with snow and watching the vast empty whiteness, when he heard a grunt behind him. Donal Noye had come to join him.

“From what I hear,” Noye started, “the Fist of the First Men is weeks away by foot, perhaps more in these snows. You’ll serve no one staring at nothing, boy.”

“I have to blow the horn,” Pyp said numbly. “I have to be here, when they come, and then I’ll blow the horn.”

Noye said, “You’ll do no such thing.” He put his hand on Pyp’s shoulder. “Halder sent me to make sure you hadn’t fallen off the edge.” He frowned. “You’re shaking. When was the last time you had a full night’s rest?”

“I have to be here,” Pyp repeated, teeth chattering. It was all he could think to say.

“Aye, but if you topple off the Wall and break your back you’ll never see them return.” He sounded sad, almost. “We are the watchers on the walls, boy. Watchers, not just one. All your friends are worrying about you; you barely eat, barely sleep. Come down, now. I’ll get Maester Aemon to send you some dreamwine, and maybe Hobb can fix you up something nice.”

“Will you,” Pyp said quietly, “stand with me? And watch? Just for a while?”

Donal Noye eyed him, then nodded, turning his gaze to the forest, heavy and dark under the snow. And so they stood there, watching for nothing. After a while, he began to talk again; idle things that Pyp did not respond to. And then, “When you first came here, green as grass, Yoren told me he’d found you ragged in Lannisport, claiming all your troupe died in some pox, holding all your worldly belongings in a sack.” He snorted. “But what kind of boy, I wondered, would join the Watch for such a thing? Wouldn’t he take up a trade, or join a city watch, or become a cutpurse, even? Surely this one’s running from something.”

Pyp swallowed. A sword of wood and a sword of gold and a sword of fire. “I only wanted steady food.” You hide, and you imply, and you obfuscate.

“Perhaps you heard a story from your wet nurse that said the Night’s Watch was an honourable, noble order fit for knights and kingsblood.” He laughed. “No, you’re no Jon Snow. To sign your life away takes great courage… or it takes great fear. I won’t ask which one you felt.” He sighed. “I thought you weren’t to be trusted at first, do you know that? When you came here, sporting all the accents of the world and making up stories wherever you went, I wanted nothing to do with you. I even told Mormont to send you to the Shadow Tower, once. I’ve always feared liars, and here you were, telling tall tales and mocking every man my age.” He chuckled, a great big rasping belly laugh. “Be glad you never mocked me.”

Pyp found himself laughing as well, despite himself. “You’re a bit hard to mock, Noye.”

“Aye, and I’m proud of that.” Noye smiled. “But look at me, mistrusting a green boy for making japes. You’re not japing now.”

“A voice can lie,” Pyp said simply. Unspoken: a body can’t.

Donal nodded, a pondering look on his face, then turned to go. “Do as you like, boy. Stare at that forest ’til your eyes fall out your head. But acting as if watching will make them return all the faster is just as much a lie as anything else.” His voice softened. “Come down for meals. Come down to sleep. You’ll hear the horn as clear as anyone, even in your dreams.” And with that, he tottered down the switchback stair and out of sight.

Pyp stayed for a little while, then followed him down.

That night, after talking and eating a little with his friends in the common hall, feeling slightly less shaky, he opened the chest under his bed and took out the Braavosi play. He thumbed through it, every line familiar, every page dog-eared and browned, but this time the motions of the story filled him with a terrible dread that he could not place.

The Lord of the Woeful Countenance told the story of a magister of Braavos named Cyrillio who had a terribly ugly face. To make up for it, he sharpened his wit and his ability for poetry, and used his sharp tongue against everyone who would oppose or insult him. He fell in love with a woman (as so many do), and so began his downfall. To woo her he donned a mask of porcelain, took the name of another wealthy lord and pretended to be him. When that lord found out, the two men brokered a deal and agreed to share the woman, taking turns at her side, with Cyrillio writing her beautiful poems and the handsome but foolish lord bearing a beautiful face. She loved this doubled man, and the men loved her cooperatively. But Cyrillio wanted her for his own, and one day slyly asked whether she loved him for his beauty or his prose better. When she answered prose, he removed his mask.

She promptly had both men killed for their deception and threw herself into the sea. So it goes.

VIII.

Pyp was abed when they blew the horn.

Rangers returning. He had slept in his undershirt and breeches, so he pulled on his jerkin and boots and sped out of his room without even picking up his cloak, most of his laces still untied. He could barely string a thought together, only Grenn, it has to be Grenn, he has always been too stupid to die. By the time he skidded into the yard the gate was already opening, and five men rode in, their horses lathered and ragged.

Five men. None were Grenn. He felt faint, dizzy, unable to process his fear. Others had begun to crowd around, murmuring, only five? How could there only be five?

Then Pyp understood– when stout Jarman Buckwell stepped off his horse, looking haggard and afraid. “MARSH!” he shouted, voice cracking. “Someone get me Bowen Marsh!” Pyp remembered from one of Sam’s letters that Buckwell had commanded the scouting party that had climbed the Giant’s Stair. But why is he not with the men that had been at the Fist?

After that, everything became chaotic. The men of the Watch flooded the yard, terrified of what the scouts would tell them, terrified to hear any news but desperate all the same. Stewards were tending to the five men, leading their horses back to the stables. Finally, Bowen Marsh on hand, all higher officers accounted for and at the ready, Buckwell shouted above the din and began to speak, halting and angry and haunted.

“We were a party of five sent to climb the Giant’s Stair,” he began. “We saw the wildling camps, and the reams of them lined all the way up the Milkwater. There were tens of thousands, up to fifty thousand, maybe more that hid beyond the horizon. How we got away without being seen, I…” He stared at his feet. “We tracked their host for a while. If they come, all at once, I don’t know… They could know every detail of our defences; Otto’s a fareyes, and he saw–” He stopped himself. “He swears he saw Jon Snow walking amongst them.”

The frenzied roar of the crowd was harsh against Pyp’s ears. He could not believe it himself– Jon, who shamed them all for being cruel to a craven fat boy? Jon the king’s brother, Jon of the stone castle and sad eyes? A wildling and a turncloak? It couldn’t be. It must be some plot, he must have been captured, he would not turn his cloak, not on us.

Bowen Marsh stepped forward, red in the face. “And the attack on the Fist?”

Buckwell looked at a loss for words. “The Fist,” he started. Then stopped. Then paused to breathe, heavy with horror. “The Fist was the scene of a massacre.” The yard was silent. “It was butchery. This was not the work of wildlings, no. It was Others, it had to be. Hundreds dead. All the horses, too, everything ravaged. Signs of fire, arrows everywhere; they must have battled fiercely. We cannot be sure– we did not want to remain there for long– we didn’t see the Old Bear’s body. There’s a chance some escaped; perhaps they found shelter at Craster’s, we could not spare the time to search. But Thoren Smallwood, Blane of the Shadow Tower, Mallador Locke, Ottyn Wythers… So many…” He shook his head, unable to speak.

Hundreds dead. Hundreds. Butchered, ravaged, dead. Who would miss one tall ranger built like an aurochs, with green eyes and a sweet smile, his body turning to black, buried in the snow? Pyp felt sick to his stomach. And the wildlings coming down the river, and Jon Snow leading the vanguard with his bastard sword and his great white wolf. It grew too much to bear, he could not think of it, but how could he not? How could he not face it? Tears were running down his face. How they’d gotten there, he did not know.

Then Halder was at his side, taking him by the shoulder, steering him away from the crowd as Bowen Marsh frantically searched for words, for something to follow it all up with, some direction. “Come now, monkey, back to the Barracks with you, we’ll wipe away those tears.” Madly, Pyp couldn’t help but feel surprised by the tenderness of it. He let himself be led back to his room, where Halder sat him down and they both got very quiet.

Pyp tried to catch his breath. He will come back to haunt me, just as he told me. If the gods are just, he said. He will come back, and twist my head off in his hands, and make me look upon his face. The Wall will fall, and Jon Snow will ride over my corpse with the Old Bear’s head on a spike.

“Pypar,” Halder said under his breath, after a moment. “We will get through this.”

A lie. A cold lie, and of no comfort to me. Gods, but he had not even thought about Sam. Sweet fat foolish Sam Tarly, with his head full of parchments, Sam who had written the letter that offered no detail, who had set all the ravens free. He could not have survived. They had protected him from Ser Alliser for nothing. He had run from every fight, but he could not possibly have run from this. The wildlings were marching down the Milkwater, and the dead walked too.

“Will we?” His words rang in the cold room. Halder, to his credit, did not answer.

IX.

Left, right, centre, spin. Shoulder, heart, calf, forearm. Swivel, lunge, cut, pause.

The dance was on. Pyp and Satin had taken up sword fighting whenever they had the time to spare; Satin needed the extra practice, and it helped Pyp expel his feelings. He kept himself busy, as it was all he knew to do. He could not think of blue eyes and black corpses. He could not think of– well, it did not matter. He had to train.

The officers of command were locked in their chambers day and night, discussing plans. It had been a week since Buckwell’s party had returned. There had been wildlings sighted at Greyguard and Icemark, and Marsh was planning to send most of the garrison east and west to watch for more. The first days had been hard and slow and dark. Taking up a sword was the best decision he’d made in a long while; he could ignore his pain when blades were clashing. Whenever Satin wasn’t practicing at his crossbow, they sparred. They were well-matched, nowadays. Satin was tall and skillful, but had no strength in his arms. Pyp took more hits, but they did not hurt so bad as the ones he landed.

With a brutal charge he hacked at Satin’s feet, causing the boy to stumble and fall, but he parried from the ground and leapt back up quick as a snake. He blocked and swung and delivered a cut to Pyp’s shoulder that bounced off his boiled leather. Pyp struck back, and off they went again, driving each other in tight circles. They were both smiling, feeling their muscles burn, hearing the blood in their ears.

And then they heard more than just rushing blood.

The warhorn was sounding. Why was the warhorn sounding? Wildlings, Pyp thought immediately, dropping his blunted sword and looking around, with terror a rearing stallion thundering in his heart. They’ve come to take the Wall, and here we are playing at war and cowering in our stone halls, they’ve come for us, they’ve come. But he was empty, totally empty, constantly feverish with grief and bitter longing and fear, and he could no longer stand it. He dreamed nowadays without colour, of towers in a sea of blood, of dead things rising in the night. He could no longer be surprised or beaten down or put through pain, and he did not back away, did not run. I will die with a scream on my lips and blood on my sword, he thought, gritting his teeth. A sword of fire, aye, and not gilded at all. I joined the watch for fear; I will not die afraid.

Satin was saying something to him. He could not hear, the horn blast was still ringing in his ears. But there had only been one blast, how could that be? Did an arrow take the blower before he could finish? Were they that close to the gates? No, I need to find my real sword, where is my sword?

“Pyp!” Satin shouted at him, and his eyes cleared and suddenly his heart was thrumming. “Pyp, it’s rangers returning. Rangers.”

He was dazed. It was like his ears were stuffed with cotton, his heart was blown from glass. He took in the silence after the blast, not daring to breathe, afraid that it was some trick, that the sound would begin again, that there had been some mistake. Or was he afraid that the rangers truly were returning, but without Grenn, having left him dismembered in the snow? Which was worse? His fingers were tingling inside his gloves.

The gate began to open, crack by crack, letting the light in. Shadows flitted behind, waiting– the shapes of people, maybe. The Wall was bitter grey and heavy today. Satin stood behind him, a comforting hand on his shoulder, smelling sweet. “I can’t bear it,” Pyp said, bearing it. “I can’t look.” He looked, and kept looking, standing there with Satin in the drifts of snow. People had crept out to join them, all similarly silent, waiting for the lost men to step into the light.

There was Dywen. And there was Giant, and with him stooped Dolorous Edd, his dour face breaking into a mystified smile. And old Ulmer of the Kingswood Brotherhood, proud and scarred. And there, Garth Greyfeather and Left Hand Lew. Others, perhaps five or six more. All in all, only a dozen had made it back from the Fist; the Old Bear was not among them. Neither was Sam. He squinted, scanning every face, the sun hitting his eyes, praying to no one in particular. And suddenly there he was. Tall and broad and familiar, with sagging shoulders, looking lost. His hair had grown long and shaggy. The sunlight caught in it looked almost like a crown.

Satin’s hand squeezed his shoulder, hard. “Is that…” Pyp could only nod, a lump in his throat, and then he was running across the yard with winged feet, shouting Grenn’s name.

He looked up, red-faced and fearful, but his face softened when he saw Pyp, and then all of a sudden there they stood, not two feet apart, still as statues. “Gods.”

Pyp could not find words. Only, “I knew you were too stupid to die.”

“I’m not too stupid to die,” Grenn declared hotly, before realizing. “Oh. Oh, you’re so– you are such an arse, you know that?” He was laughing as if he was surprised he could still laugh. But then his face fell apart. “It all… they all…” He looked as if he was about to cry. “Everyone. The Lord Commander.” And then, “Sam.”

Pyp did not know what to say. He hugged him, then, and they clutched each other tightly for a long moment. The yard was coming to life around them, and there was Bowen Marsh, shouting, asking Ulmer to explain what had happened, and they broke apart, watching each other, looking one another in the eye as if to say, we will talk later, and once the tale had been told, haltingly, about the Fist and about Craster and about the damned mutiny, the survivors were taken to Maester Aemon to heal their wounds and soothe their shock, and everyone dispersed, to grieve all the brothers they had lost. And Pyp just stood in the yard, drinking in the silence.

In Pyp’s room, late that night, after the feast and the speeches and the eulogy for the Old Bear and Marsh’s new-forged plan to send everyone off across the Wall, they told each other every story they knew.

They were side-by-side sitting on Pyp’s bed, leaning their backs against the wall. Pyp went first; his side was easier. It all almost felt too silly to talk about, but he tried to make it entertaining anyway. Befriending Satin; Matthar’s stupid dreams; all the things they did to kill their boredom; the way he watched and waited from atop the Wall; Jon allegedly turning his cloak, and how Pyp did not believe it for a moment. And the letters they’d gotten, of course, about Stannis, and the poor Stark boys, the Greyjoys and the sack of Winterfell and all of it. Grenn listened patiently, posing quiet questions. He smiled, hearing about Satin.

Grenn had a harder time of it, and Pyp allowed him the time he needed. Haltingly, he talked of their journey, the long months, the biting cold. He talked of Craster’s Keep, of the women kept there. And then of the Fist, and of when Jon left, and then, sparingly, of the attack. He left a lot out, only reiterating that forty of them had managed somehow to escape. Then he talked of how they faced the Other, how Sam had stuck him with dragonglass and it had shattered into pieces. “Sam the Slayer, we called him then,” Grenn said with a tiny smile. “How he hated that.” Then he talked of the mutiny, and how the Old Bear had gone down, and how Dolorous Edd had pulled him away from the bodies and led the stragglers all the way home. He talked in a way that was distinctly tired, and Pyp asked him repeatedly if he wanted to rest, and he said, “No. I want to keep talking.” Unspoken: I don’t want to have to dream of their faces, rotten and blue-eyed. Pyp obliged him.

And then, as they spoke more of small things and politics, Pyp became increasingly aware of his secrets. Not only his secrets, but his lies. They sat, fat and invisible, between them, and he had to step carefully around them whenever he spoke. The smell of Satin’s perfumed oils still hung faintly in the air. The body cannot lie, he thought, and I do not think my words will hold much longer. The chest was still under his bed, under their feet, holding so many unspeakable things. The statues of Matthar’s septry were surrounding him, holding their blades to his chest, swords of wood and swords of gold and swords of hot black dragonfire.

“I don’t want to leave,” Grenn mumbled into the silence after Pyp had been thinking for a while. “I don’t want to sleep. Not yet. Tell me a story, Pyp, please. I missed your stories, off beyond.”

Pyp raised an eyebrow and smiled thinly. “I missed having someone around that had to listen to my bloody stories.” Grenn hummed upwardly, and so he began, resigning himself to the truth, looking at his hands. “Once, a long long time ago, there lived a little peasant boy with a sharp tongue and big flapping ears.” Grenn shot him a look, but didn’t say anything. “He worked in a troupe of mummers, who taught him to lie and change his voice and paint wooden swords gold. They taught him little else, but his mother was a mummer, and thus so was he. She died when he was young, but he could not leave the troupe, as he knew nothing else.” He swallowed his fear. He was Cyrillio, casting off his porcelain mask. If he must be struck dead, let it be for the truth, and nothing else. “He grew older, and came to hate his place in the world. He wished he had grown up in some great castle with stone walls and sixteen hearths, and not a rickety caravan stuffed and brimming with clothes he could not wear and swords that were not real. But that could not be, and so he could not leave the troupe. One day he was talking with a girl of about his age, another mummer, who dreamed of the same things. She wanted to be queen, and he wanted to wear fine rich things and talk as equals with every lord and lady. But somehow they came to talking of his mother, and she repeated words she had heard from her own parents– that the boy’s mother had been a wanton slag, and a bastard besides.” The memory was still bitter. Marra had only said what she thought she knew; it had been no fault of her own.

“So what did the boy do?” Grenn asked quietly, with an understanding tone.

“The boy, filled with wrath, stole the troupe’s chest of gold,” he said simply, though he had to force the words out. “Every piece, all they had saved, what they needed to get themselves from town to town. Everything of value he could find. Dragons and stags and stars, and one of the horses, too. He rode to the nearest city, Lannisport, abandoning the troupe. Leaving them to starve, I suppose.” His voice was toneless. “The first thing he bought was a crimson tunic, patterned in gold, fit for a lord. He thought to buy a sword, and perhaps armour, and perhaps other things. He thought to perhaps become a merchant, or a merchant’s apprentice, or wheedle his way into a lord’s court, as a squire or some other position of note. The boy was fifteen, he had no plan.” His voice grew quieter. It was not the stealing that shamed him; it was the things he had wanted. “Before he could buy anything else, a man pummelled him bloody in the street and took the chest for himself. And then he had nothing, and he had doomed his troupe as well, for that nothing. For a tunic, and a horse. A black brother was in the square, hoping for ready recruits. None wished to join him, except the peasant boy, for he was–” His voice caught. “Afraid, and alone, and ashamed, and did not want to face what he had done. And so the boy went north, and was never heard from again.”

Grenn was stunned to silence. He took Pyp’s wrist in his hand and squeezed it. “You were only a boy.”

“We were all boys.” He was shaking, a little. “Did I not tell you the worst part of the story? When the boy went north he said his troupe had died of a pox. He didn’t know what had happened to them, truly. He still doesn't know.”

Grenn’s face was unreadable. “When you join the Watch your crimes are washed clean.”

“Aye, but not the soul. As Matthar would say.” He laughed, madly, lungs scraping for air now as he fought tears. “The boy lied and lied until his stomach was full of lies, and his face changed, and he said nothing of use, nothing of note.” He could not bear it anymore, could not bear Grenn’s stone face, could not bear that he seemed to be alright with all of this. “I am so sick to death of lying,” he heaved. “I am sick of making up stories to sound– like– like I am guiltless, or something, like I'm just some skinny fool who smiles and dances for everyone’s pleasure with not a thought in his head, I’m sick of it. I just,” he breathed, his chest was tight and refusing to expand, he could not stop, it hurt to breathe now, his eyes were blurry, his tongue moved on its own, he was tired of fear and loathing, he was so tired. Then: “Could you love a guilty man?”

It was silent. Dust floated in the cool air, by the lamp in the corner. The mistake flooded Pyp at once: You fool, you fool, you have destroyed it all in one question. How could you say that? How could you slip, and why now, why does everything always have to happen all at once? He could not look at Grenn. He could not make himself look; he felt a hot tear drip off his nose. His face flushed red. He looked at his hands and clenched them, and feared. If he did not look at Grenn, he did not have to face it, but he couldn’t just stare at the ground until death came for them both. It was all ruined, now, wasn’t it? Grenn knew, now, and he would blanch and get up and leave and never speak to Pyp again, the fool, the great tall fool you love. As if you could get what you wanted.

Grenn said, “We are all guilty men.”

Pyp turned, swivelled, his breath catching and making him wheeze as he struggled to put air into his lungs. “What?” Grenn’s only crime had been surviving a forest fire. And then he thought, he did not answer the question.

“When we– when I left Sam Tarly.” Grenn’s eyes were glassy. “I could’ve stayed. Maybe I could’ve dragged him out, found him a spot to hide, I could’ve–” He choked. “But I wanted to leave, I wanted to get home, I was only thinking of myself. And… and you, I was thinking of you.” The gravity of it chilled them both. They each knew exactly what the other was thinking, in that moment, that terrible long moment. Softly, again, “I was thinking of you.”

After a stunned silence: “I thought of you every day,” Pyp blurted out, bold as brass, “I wished that you would return, would come back. And then I thought– with the letter– I thought you were dead, Grenn, for weeks I thought you’d died and were coming to haunt me.”

“I might still,” Grenn said.

They looked at each other, eyes raw, throats raw, and then they gripped each other’s hands, and were seen. They did not need to speak. They breathed sharp stabbing breaths, and smiled, and even laughed, then, and Pyp whispered, “You sweet fool,” and kissed him. And kissed him again.

X.

It was sunrise, and they sat with their legs dangling off the wall.

Somewhere, out there, Jon Snow was sharpening his bastard sword, his wolf at his heels, his eyes dark and sad. Somewhere, dead or alive, Sam Tarly was stumbling through the snows. Somewhere, Bowen Marsh was leading his garrisons east and west to meet the Weeper and the Dogshead before they could break through crumbling gates. Somewhere, Mance Rayder was preparing for battle with all his brave free heroes gathered below him as he sang them songs of daring adventure, while kings in the south died bloody savage deaths. Somewhere, Pyp’s troupe was scattered to the wind, and Marra was selling carved jade in Kayce, and Grenn’s forest by the sea was beginning to grow back, green shoots peeking up from wet black soil.

Grenn fumbled for Pyp’s hand. Castle Black was near-abandoned, with no one in command, so they kept their own watch on the forest when they could. They no longer felt fear, only a resolute steadfastness, their oaths singing in their heads. Night gathered, and then fell away. They watched from the walls for the dangers of the dark and the dawn.

They watched together, as morning crept up, and in their scabbards were swords of steel. And so they waited, for the sounds of battle, for hunting horns and riders and blood and fire, for that was their duty. They would wait for a long time, hand in hand, faces washed pink by the brimming sky. Somewhere, out there, cold death awaited them in the shadows, but they would not die afraid.

Somewhere, far away, life was crawling out from the brimstone, seeking the light.