A Feast for Dragons

her
face into her mother’s furs, and the boldest of the queen’s knights moved
forward, steel in hand. Jon raised an arm to block his path. “You do
not
want to anger him. Sheathe your steel, ser. Leathers, take Wun Wun back to
Hardin’s.”
    “Eat now, Wun Wun?” asked the giant.
    “Eat now,” Jon agreed. To Leathers he said, “I’ll send out a
bushel of vegetables for him and meat for you. Start a fire.”
    Leathers grinned. “I will, m’lord, but Hardin’s is bone
cold. Perhaps m’lord could send out some wine to warm us?”
    “For you. Not him.” Wun Wun had never tasted wine until he came
to Castle Black, but once he had, he had taken a gigantic liking to it.
Too
much a liking
. Jon had enough to contend with just now without adding
a drunken giant to the mix. He turned back to the queen’s knights. “My lord
father used to say a man should never draw his sword unless he means to use
it.”
    “Using it was my intent.” The knight was clean-shaved and
windburnt; beneath a cloak of white fur he wore a cloth-of-silver surcoat
emblazoned with a blue five-pointed star. “I had been given to understand that
the Night’s Watch defended the realm against such monsters. No one mentioned
keeping them as pets.”
    Another bloody southron fool
. “You are …?”
    “Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain, if it please my lord.”
    “I do not know how you observe guest right on your mountain,
ser. In the north we hold it sacred. Wun Wun is a guest here.”
    Ser Patrek smiled. “Tell me, Lord Commander, should the
Others turn up, do you plan to offer hospitality to them as well?” The knight
turned to his queen. “Your Grace, that is the King’s Tower there, if I am not
mistaken. If I may have the honor?”
    “As you wish.” The queen took his arm and swept past the men
of the Night’s Watch with never a second glance.
    Those flames on her crown are the warmest thing about
her
. “Lord Tycho,” Jon called. “A moment, please.”
    The Braavosi halted. “No lord I. Only a simple servant of
the Iron Bank of Braavos.”
    “Cotter Pyke informs me that you came to Eastwatch with
three ships. A galleas, a galley, and a cog.”
    “Just so, my lord. The crossing can be perilous in this
season. One ship alone may founder, where three together may aid one another.
The Iron Bank is always prudent in such matters.”
    “Perhaps before you leave we might have a quiet word?”
    “I am at your service, Lord Commander. And in Braavos we say
there is no time like the present. Will that suit?”
    “As good as any. Shall we repair to my solar, or would you
like to see the top of the Wall?”
    The banker glanced up, to where the ice loomed vast and pale
against the sky. “I fear it will be bitter cold up top.”
    “That, and windy. You learn to walk well away from the edge.
Men have been blown off. Still. The Wall is like nothing else on earth. You may
never have another chance to see it.”
    “No doubt I shall rue my caution upon my deathbed, but after
a long day in the saddle, a warm room sounds preferable to me.”
    “My solar, then. Satin, some mulled wine, if you would.”
    Jon’s rooms behind the armory were quiet enough, if not
especially warm. His fire had gone out some time ago; Satin was not as diligent
in feeding it as Dolorous Edd had been. Mormont’s raven greeted them with a
shriek of
“Corn!”
Jon hung up his cloak. “You come seeking
Stannis, is that correct?”
    “It is, my lord. Queen Selyse has suggested that we might
send word to Deepwood Motte by raven, to inform His Grace that I await his
pleasure at the Nightfort. The matter that I mean to put to him is too delicate
to entrust to letters.”
    “A debt.”
What else could it be?
“His own
debt? Or his brother’s?”
    The banker pressed his fingers together. “It would not be
proper for me to discuss Lord Stannis’s indebtedness or lack of same. As to
King Robert … it was indeed our pleasure to assist His Grace in his
need. For so long as Robert lived, all was well. Now, however, the Iron Throne
has ceased all repayment.”
    Could the Lannisters truly be so foolish?
“You cannot mean to hold Stannis responsible for his brother’s debts.”
    “The debts belong to the Iron Throne,” Tycho declared, “and
whosoever sits on that chair must pay them. Since young King Tommen and his
counsellors have become so obdurate, we mean to broach the subject with King
Stannis. Should he prove himself more worthy of our trust, it