A Feast for Dragons

Grace. You could make good
use of Mance.”
    “I mean to. I’ll
burn
him, and the north
will see how I deal with turncloaks and traitors. I have other men to lead the
wildlings. And I have Rayder’s son, do not forget. Once the father dies, his
whelp will be the King-Beyond-the-Wall.”
    “Your Grace is mistaken.”
You know nothing, Jon Snow
,
Ygritte used to say, but he had learned. “The babe is no more a prince than Val
is a princess. You do not become King-Beyond-the-Wall because your father was.”
    “Good,” said Stannis, “for I will suffer no other kings in
Westeros. Have you signed the grant?”
    “No, Your Grace.”
And now it comes
. Jon
closed his burned fingers and opened them again. “You ask too much.”
    “
Ask?
I
asked
you to be Lord
of Winterfell and Warden of the North. I
require
these castles.”
    “We have ceded you the Nightfort.”
    “Rats and ruins. It is a niggard’s gift that costs the giver
nothing. Your own man Yarwyck says it will be half a year before the castle can
be made fit for habitation.”
    “The other forts are no better.”
    “I know that. It makes no matter. They are all we have.
There are nineteen forts along the Wall, and you have men in only three of
them. I mean to have every one of them garrisoned again before the year is
out.”
    “I have no quarrel with that, Sire, but it is being said that
you also mean to grant these castles to your knights and lords, to hold as
their own seats as vassals to Your Grace.”
    “Kings are expected to be open-handed to their followers.
Did Lord Eddard teach his bastard nothing? Many of my knights and lords abandoned
rich lands and stout castles in the south. Should their loyalty go unrewarded?”
    “If Your Grace wishes to lose all of my lord father’s
bannermen, there is no more certain way than by giving northern halls to
southron lords.”
    “How can I lose men I do not have? I had hoped to bestow
Winterfell on a northman, you may recall. A son of Eddard Stark. He threw my
offer in my face.” Stannis Baratheon with a grievance was like a mastiff with a
bone; he gnawed it down to splinters.
    “By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”
    “Lady Lannister, you mean? Are you so eager to see the Imp
perched on your father’s seat? I promise you, that will not happen whilst I
live, Lord Snow.”
    Jon knew better than to press the point. “Sire, some claim
that you mean to grant lands and castles to Rattleshirt and the Magnar of
Thenn.”
    “Who told you that?”
    The talk was all over Castle Black. “If you must know, I had
the tale from Gilly.”
    “Who is
Gilly?
”
    “The wet nurse,” said Lady Melisandre. “Your Grace gave her
freedom of the castle.”
    “Not for running tales. She’s wanted for her teats, not for
her tongue. I’ll have more milk from her, and fewer
messages.”
    “Castle Black needs no useless mouths,” Jon agreed. “I am
sending Gilly south on the next ship out of Eastwatch.”
    Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck. “Gilly is giving
suck to Dalla’s son as well as her own. It seems cruel of you to part our
little prince from his milk brother, my lord.”
    Careful now, careful
. “Mother’s milk is all
they share. Gilly’s son is larger and more robust. He kicks the prince and
pinches him, and shoves him from the breast. Craster was his father, a cruel
man and greedy, and blood tells.”
    The king was confused. “I thought the wet nurse was this man
Craster’s
daughter?”
    “Wife and daughter both, Your Grace. Craster married all his
daughters. Gilly’s boy was the fruit of their union.”
    “Her own
father
got this child on her?”
Stannis sounded shocked. “We are well rid of her, then. I will not suffer such
abominations here. This is not King’s Landing.”
    “I can find another wet nurse. If there’s none amongst the
wildlings, I will send to the mountain clans. Until such time, goat’s milk
should suffice for the boy, if it please Your Grace.”
    “Poor fare for a prince … but better than whore’s
milk, aye.” Stannis drummed his fingers on the map. “If we may return to the
matter of these forts …”
    “Your Grace,” said Jon, with chilly courtesy, “I have housed
your men and fed them, at dire cost to our winter stores. I have clothed them
so they would not freeze.”
    Stannis was not appeased. “Aye, you’ve shared your salt pork
and porridge, and you’ve thrown us some black rags to keep us warm. Rags the
wildlings would have