A Feast for Dragons

wrapped up in a
bearskin cloak so large it might well have fit Sam. Beside her was a garron,
saddled and bridled, a shaggy grey with one white eye. Mully and Dolorous Edd
stood with her, a pair of unlikely guards. Their breath frosted in the cold
black air.
    “You gave her a blind horse?” Jon said, incredulous.
    “He’s only half-blind, m’lord,” offered Mully. “Elsewise
he’s sound enough.” He patted the garron on the neck.
    “The horse may be half-blind, but I am not,” said Val. “I
know where I must go.”
    “My lady, you do not have to do this. The risk—”
    “—is mine, Lord Snow. And I am no southron lady but a woman
of the free folk. I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers.
It holds no ghosts for me.”
    I hope not
. Jon was counting on that,
trusting that Val could succeed where Black Jack Bulwer and his companions had
failed. She need fear no harm from the free folk, he hoped … but both
of them knew too well that wildlings were not the only ones waiting in the
woods. “You have sufficient food?”
    “Hard bread, hard cheese, oat cakes, salt cod, salt beef,
salt mutton, and a skin of sweet wine to rinse all that salt out of my mouth. I
will not die of hunger.”
    “Then it’s time you were away.”
    “You have my word, Lord Snow. I will return, with Tormund or
without him.” Val glanced at the sky. The moon was but half-full. “Look for me
on the first day of the full moon.”
    “I will.”
Do not fail me
, he thought,
or
Stannis will have my head
. “Do I have your word that you will keep our
princess closely?” the king had said, and Jon had promised that he would.
Val
is no princess, though. I told him that half a hundred times
. It was a
feeble sort of evasion, a sad rag wrapped around his wounded word. His father
would never have approved.
I am the sword that guards the realm of men
,
Jon reminded himself,
and in the end, that must be worth more than one
man’s honor
.
    The road beneath the Wall was as dark and cold as the belly
of an ice dragon and as twisty as a serpent. Dolorous Edd led them through with
a torch in hand. Mully had the keys for the three gates, where bars of black
iron as thick as a man’s arm closed off the passage. Spearmen at each gate
knuckled their foreheads at Jon Snow but stared openly at Val and her garron.
    When they emerged north of the Wall, through a thick door
made of freshly hewn green wood, the wildling princess paused for a moment to
gaze out across the snow-covered field where King Stannis had won his battle.
Beyond, the haunted forest waited, dark and silent. The light of the half-moon
turned Val’s honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as
snow. She took a deep breath. “The air tastes sweet.”
    “My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold.”
    “Cold?” Val laughed lightly. “No. When it is cold it will
hurt to breathe. When the Others come …”
    The thought was a disquieting one. Six of the rangers Jon
had sent out were still missing.
It is too soon. They may yet be back
.
But another part of him insisted,
They are dead, every man of them. You
sent them out to die, and you are doing the same to Val
. “Tell Tormund
what I’ve said.”
    “He may not heed your words, but he will hear them.” Val
kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You have my thanks, Lord Snow. For the
half-blind horse, the salt cod, the free air. For hope.”
    Their breath mingled, a white mist in the air. Jon Snow drew
back and said, “The only thanks I want is—”
    “—Tormund Giantsbane. Aye.” Val pulled up the hood of her
bearskin. The brown pelt was well salted with grey. “Before I go, one question.
Did you kill Jarl, my lord?”
    “The Wall killed Jarl.”
    “So I’d heard. But I had to be sure.”
    “You have my word. I did not kill him.”
Though I
might have if things had gone otherwise
.
    “This is farewell, then,” she said, almost playfully.
    Jon Snow was in no mood for it.
It is too cold and
dark to play, and the hour is too late
. “Only for a time. You will
return. For the boy, if for no other reason.”
    “Craster’s son?” Val shrugged. “He is no kin to me.”
    “I have heard you singing to him.”
    “I was singing to myself. Am I to blame if he listens?” A
faint smile brushed her lips. “It makes him laugh. Oh, very well. He is a sweet
little monster.”
    “Monster?”
    “His milk name. I had to call him something. See that he
stays safe and warm.