A Feast for Dragons

said Brienne, Maid of Tarth.
    “Where is she?”
    “A day’s ride. I can take you to her, ser … but
you will need to come alone. Elsewise, the Hound will kill her.”
    ----

    JON
    R’hllor,” sang Melisandre, her arms upraised against the
falling snow, “you are the light in our eyes, the fire in our hearts, the heat
in our loins. Yours is the sun that warms our days, yours the stars that guard
us in the dark of night.”
    “All praise R’hllor, the Lord of Light,”
the
wedding guests answered in ragged chorus before a gust of ice-cold wind blew
their words away. Jon Snow raised the hood of his cloak.
    The snowfall was light today, a thin scattering of flakes
dancing in the air, but the wind was blowing from the east along the Wall, cold
as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan used to tell. Even
Melisandre’s fire was shivering; the flames huddled down in the ditch,
crackling softly as the red priestess sang. Only Ghost seemed not to feel the
chill.
    Alys Karstark leaned close to Jon. “Snow during a wedding
means a cold marriage. My lady mother always said so.”
    He glanced at Queen Selyse.
There must have been a
blizzard the day she and Stannis wed
. Huddled beneath her ermine
mantle and surrounded by her ladies, serving girls, and knights, the southron
queen seemed a frail, pale, shrunken thing. A strained smile was frozen into
place on her thin lips, but her eyes brimmed with reverence.
She hates
the cold but loves the flames
. He had only to look at her to see that.
A word from Melisandre, and she would walk into the fire willingly,
embrace it like a lover
.
    Not all her queen’s men seemed to share her fervor. Ser Brus
appeared half-drunk, Ser Malegorn’s gloved hand was cupped round the arse of
the lady beside him, Ser Narbert was yawning, and Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain
looked angry. Jon Snow had begun to understand why Stannis had left them with
his queen.
    “The night is dark and filled with terrors,” Melisandre
sang. “Alone we are born and alone we die, but as we walk through this black
vale we draw strength from one another, and from you, our lord.” Her scarlet
silks and satins swirled with every gust of wind. “Two come forth today to join
their lives, so they may face this world’s darkness together. Fill their hearts
with fire, my lord, so they may walk your shining path hand in hand forever.”
    “Lord of Light, protect us,”
cried Queen
Selyse. Other voices echoed the response. Melisandre’s faithful: pallid ladies,
shivering serving girls, Ser Axell and Ser Narbert and Ser Lambert, men-at-arms
in iron mail and Thenns in bronze, even a few of Jon’s black brothers.
“Lord
of Light, bless your children.”
    Melisandre’s back was to the Wall, on one side of the deep
ditch where her fire burned. The couple to be joined faced her across the
ditch. Behind them stood the queen, with her daughter and her tattooed fool.
Princess Shireen was wrapped in so many furs that she looked round, breathing
in white puffs through the scarf that covered most of her face. Ser Axell
Florent and his queen’s men surrounded the royal party.
    Though only a few men of the Night’s Watch had gathered
about the ditchfire, more looked down from rooftops and windows and the steps
of the great switchback stair. Jon took careful note of who was there and who
was not. Some men had the duty; many just off watch were fast asleep. But
others had chosen to absent themselves to show their disapproval. Othell
Yarwyck and Bowen Marsh were amongst the missing. Septon Chayle had emerged
briefly from the sept, fingering the seven-sided crystal on the thong about his
neck, only to retreat inside again once the prayers began.
    Melisandre raised her hands, and the ditchfire leapt upward
toward her fingers, like a great red dog springing for a treat. A swirl of
sparks rose to meet the snowflakes coming down. “Oh, Lord of Light, we thank
you,” she sang to the hungry flames. “We thank you for brave Stannis, by your
grace our king. Guide him and defend him, R’hllor. Protect him from the
treacheries of evil men and grant him strength to smite the servants of the
dark.”
    “Grant him strength,”
answered Queen Selyse
and her knights and ladies.
“Grant him courage. Grant him wisdom.”
    Alys Karstark slipped her arm through Jon’s. “How much
longer, Lord Snow? If I’m to be buried beneath this snow, I’d like to die a
woman wed.”
    “Soon, my lady,” Jon assured her.