A Feast for Dragons

who is it who appointed you to speak for them?
“As do I. Othell, how goes the work at the Nightfort? I have had a letter from
Ser Axell Florent, who styles himself the Queen’s Hand. He tells me that Queen
Selyse is not pleased with her quarters at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and wishes to
move into her husband’s new seat at once. Will that be possible?”
    Yarwyck shrugged. “We’ve got most of the keep restored and
put a roof back on the kitchens. She’d need food and furnishings and firewood,
mind you, but it might serve. Not so many comforts as Eastwatch, to be sure.
And a long way from the ships, should Her Grace wish to leave us,
but … aye, she could live there, though it will be years before the
place looks a proper castle. Sooner if I had more builders.”
    “I could offer you a giant.”
    That gave Othell a start. “The monster in the yard?”
    “His name is Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun, Leathers tells me. A lot
to wrap a tongue around, I know. Leathers calls him Wun Wun, and that seems to
serve.” Wun Wun was very little like the giants in Old Nan’s tales, those huge
savage creatures who mixed blood into their morning porridge and devoured whole
bulls, hair and hide and horns. This giant ate no meat at all, though he was a
holy terror when served a basket of roots, crunching onions and turnips and
even raw hard neeps between his big square teeth. “He’s a willing worker,
though getting him to understand what you want is not always easy. He speaks
the Old Tongue after a fashion, but nothing of the Common. Tireless, though,
and his strength is prodigious. He could do the work of a dozen men.”
    “I … my lord, the men would never … giants
eat human flesh, I think … no, my lord, I thank you, but I do not
have the men to watch over such a creature, he …”
    Jon Snow was unsurprised. “As you wish. We will keep the
giant here.” Truth be told, he would have been loath to part with Wun Wun.
You
know nothing, Jon Snow
, Ygritte might say, but Jon spoke with the
giant whenever he could, through Leathers or one of the free folk they had
brought back from the grove, and was learning much and more about his people
and their history. He only wished that Sam were here to write the stories down.
    That was not to say that he was blind to the danger Wun Wun
represented. The giant would lash out violently when threatened, and those huge
hands were strong enough to rip a man apart. He reminded Jon of Hodor.
Hodor
twice as big, twice as strong, and half as clever. There’s a thought to sober
even Septon Cellador. But if Tormund has giants with him, Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun
may help us treat with them
.
    Mormont’s raven muttered his annoyance as the door opened beneath
him, heralding the return of Dolorous Edd with a flagon of wine and a plate of
eggs and sausages. Bowen Marsh waited with obvious impatience as Edd poured,
resuming only when he left again. “Tollett is a good man, and well liked, and
Iron Emmett has been a fine master-at-arms,” he said then. “Yet the talk is
that you mean to send them away.”
    “We need good men at Long Barrow.”
    “Whore’s Hole, the men have started calling it,” said Marsh,
“but be that as it may. Is it true that you mean to replace Emmett with this
savage Leathers as our master-at-arms? That is an office most oft reserved for
knights, or rangers at the least.”
    “Leathers
is
savage,” Jon agreed mildly. “I
can attest to that. I’ve tried him in the practice yard. He’s as dangerous with
a stone axe as most knights are with castle-forged steel. I grant you, he is
not as patient as I’d like, and some of the boys are terrified of
him … but that’s not all for the bad. One day they’ll find themselves
in a real fight, and a certain familiarity with terror will serve them well.”
    “He’s a
wildling.”
    “He was, until he said the words. Now he is our brother. One
who can teach the boys more than swordcraft. It would not hurt them to learn a
few words of the Old Tongue and something of the ways of the free folk.”
    “Free,”
the raven muttered.
“Corn.
King.”
    “The men do not trust him.”
    Which men?
Jon might have asked.
How
many?
But that would lead him down a road he did not mean to ride. “I
am sorry to hear that. Is there more?”
    Septon Cellador spoke up. “This boy Satin. It’s said you
mean to make him your steward and squire, in Tollett’s place. My lord, the
boy’s a whore … a … dare I say … a