A game of thrones

Pyp let fly a whoop and thrust his sword into the air. Ser Alliser fixed him with a reptile stare. “They will call you men of Night’s Watch now, but you are bigger fools than the Mummer’s Monkey here if you believe that. You are boys still, green and stinking of summer, and when the winter comes you will die like flies.” And with that, Ser Alliser Thorne took his leave of them.

The other boys gathered round the eight who had been named, laughing and cursing and offering congratulations. Halder smacked Toad on the butt with the flat of his sword and shouted, “Toad, of the Night’s Watch!” Yelling that a black brother needed a horse, Pyp leapt onto Grenn’s shoulders, and they tumbled to the ground, rolling and punching and hooting. Dareon dashed inside the armory and returned with a skin of sour red. As they passed the wine from hand to hand, grinning like fools, Jon noticed Samwell Tarly standing by himself beneath a bare dead tree in the corner of the yard. Jon offered him the skin. “A swallow of wine?”

Sam shook his head. “No thank you, Jon.”

“Are you well?”

“Very well, truly,” the fat boy lied. “I am so happy for you all.” His round face quivered as he forced a smile. “You will be First Ranger someday, just as your uncle was.”

“Is,” Jon corrected. He would not accept that Benjen Stark was dead. Before he could say more, Haider cried, “Here, you planning to drink that all yourself?” Pyp snatched the skin from his hand and danced away, laughing. While Grenn seized his arm, Pyp gave the skin a squeeze, and a thin stream of red squirted Jon in the face. Haider howled in protest at the waste of good wine. Jon sputtered and struggled. Matthar and Jeren climbed the wall and began pelting them all with snowballs.

By the time he wrenched free, with snow in his hair and wine stains on his surcoat, Samwell Tarly had gone.

That night, Three-Finger Hobb cooked the boys a special meal to mark the occasion. When Jon arrived at the common hall, the Lord Steward himself led him to the bench near the fire. The older men clapped him on the arm in passing. The eight soon-to-be brothers feasted on rack of lamb baked in a crust of garlic and herbs, garnished with sprigs of mint, and surrounded by mashed yellow turnips swimming in butter. “From the Lord Commander’s own table,” Bowen Marsh told them. There were salads of spinach and chickpeas and turnip greens, and afterward bowls of iced blueberries and sweet cream.

“Do you think they’ll keep us together?” Pyp wondered as they gorged themselves happily.

Toad made a face. “I hope not. I’m sick of looking at those ears of yours.”

“Ho,” said Pyp. “Listen to the crow call the raven black. You’re certain to be a ranger, Toad. They’ll want you as far from the castle as they can. If Mance Rayder attacks, lift your visor and show your face, and he’ll run off screaming.”

Everyone laughed but Grenn. “I hope I’m a ranger.”

“You and everyone else,” said Matthar. Every man who wore the black walked the Wall, and every man was expected to take up steel in its defense, but the rangers were the true fighting heart of the Night’s Watch. It was they who dared ride beyond the Wall, sweeping through the haunted forest and the icy mountain heights west of the Shadow Tower, fighting wildlings and giants and monstrous snow bears.

“Not everyone,” said Halder. “It’s the builders for me. What use would rangers be if the Wall fell down?”

The order of builders provided the masons and carpenters to repair keeps and towers, the miners to dig tunnels and crush stone for roads and footpaths, the woodsmen to clear away new growth wherever the forest pressed too close to the Wall. Once, it was said, they had quarried immense blocks of ice from frozen lakes deep in the haunted forest, dragging them south on sledges so the Wall might be raised ever higher. Those days were centuries gone, however; now, it was all they could do to ride the Wall from Eastwatch to the Shadow Tower, watching for cracks or signs of melt and making what repairs they could.

“The Old Bear’s no fool,” Dareon observed. “You’re certain to be a builder, and Jon’s certain to be a ranger. He’s the best sword and the best rider among us, and his uncle was the First before he . . . ” His voice trailed off awkwardly as he realized what he had almost said.

“Benjen Stark is still First Ranger,” Jon Snow told him, toying with his bowl of blueberries. The rest might have given up all hope of his uncle’s safe return, but not him. He pushed away the berries, scarcely touched, and rose from the bench.

“Aren’t you going to eat those?” Toad asked.

“They’re yours.” Jon had hardly tasted Hobb’s great feast. “I could not eat another bite.” He took his cloak from its hook near the door and shouldered his way out.

Pyp followed him. “Jon, what is it?”

“Sam,” he admitted. “He was not at table tonight.”

“It’s not like him to miss a meal,” Pyp said thoughtfully. “Do you suppose he’s taken ill?”